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THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS, I 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN GREECE 
 
 FROM 
 
 HOMER TO MENANDER 
 
SOCIAL LIFE IN GREECE 
 
 FROM 
 
 HOMER TO MENANDER 
 
 J. P. MAHAFFY 
 
 FELLOW ETC. OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN; HON. FELLOW OP 
 
 QU£EN*S COLLEGE, OXFORD ; KNIGHT OP THE ORDER OF THE REDEEMER ; 
 
 CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF VIENNA; 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'PROLEGOMENA OF ANCIENT HISTORY*; ' KANT's PHILOSOPHY FOR ENGLISH READERS': 
 
 'creek life and THOUGHT, FROM THE AGE OF ALEXANDER TO THE ROMAN 
 
 conquest'; 'the greek world under ROMAN sway'; 'rambles 
 
 AND STUDIES IN GREECE*; 'a HISTORY OF CLASSICAL GREEK 
 
 literature'; 'the empire of the ptolemies*; 
 £dit0r of the petrie papyri, etc. 
 
 ILflntton 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1902 
 
 rights reserved]. 
 
 
"\%A^- 
 
 First Editiomij^. Second xSjs. TAt'rd lijj. FouriA iSjg. Fi/lk iS 
 Sixth xSSS. Seventh liga. Jie^rinted jSg4, iSgS, igoi. 
 
WILSONO KING 
 
 PIGNUS 
 
 AMICITLE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 1898 EDITION. 
 
 This book had already in the fourth edition as- 
 sumed its final form, nor was it my intention hereafter 
 to enlarge it, but rather to add companion volumes 
 upon the later portions of old Greek life. Indeed, 
 maturer study has led me to reject some chang-es 
 which I had introduced in deference to the censure of 
 professional critics, and I added in the fourth edition 
 some considerations concerning the moral standard of 
 Greek politics in Demosthenes' day, which seem to me 
 of much importance, and which have been generally 
 accepted among later Greek historians, though likely 
 to increase the displeasure with which certain scholars 
 regard my estimate of old Greek civilisation. It 
 is too homely for them ; it detracts too much 
 from the ideal they have framed for themselves ; it 
 asserts the weaker and commoner side of the nation 
 in the face of their unreal speculations. Nor is it 
 true that homely views imply a grudging appreciation 
 of the perfections of Greek literature and art. What 
 they really imply is only this, that the greatest poets 
 and the greatest artists were not the average repre- 
 sentatives of the nation at large, and that the social life 
 of the people was not of that extraordinary perfection 
 which the men of books had imagined. I had long felt 
 that the extremely learned often miss the practical infer- 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 ences which may be drawn from our classics by plain 
 common sense, and itoccured to me to seek the materials 
 for sketching the Social Life of the Greeks, not in pre- 
 vious commentators, but in the Greek books them- 
 selves, which I re-read one by one specially, with par- 
 ticular attention to the social points they contained. 
 This was the method which led me to draw a picture 
 of the Greeks from their ancient books correspond- 
 ing in many points to the Greeks of to-day, nor do I 
 know of any attempt to dispute the accuracy of my 
 statements, except some vague assertions put forward 
 without evidence. On a few details I at first sur- 
 rendered my own opinion too readily ; but these points 
 are not worth discussing here. So far as they turn 
 upon the internal evidence for spuriousness in extant 
 orations and other documents I have said all that is 
 necessary in my History of Greek Classical Litera- 
 ture, a work which treats of the literary aspects of 
 the life portrayed in the following pages, and is there- 
 fore an important supplement for all those who desire 
 to get a general view of Greek civilisation in its 
 various phases. Thus objections have been answered 
 and a want supplied, so that the present volume may 
 maintain the favour with which the general p"ublic 
 has honoured it. And now, when I am saying the 
 last word about it, and in some sense taking leave 
 of it, I may be excused for dwelling on the circum- 
 stances which gave it a peculiar interest, and have 
 obtained for it a longer life and a better name than 
 I could have hoped. 
 The same favour has been extend to my Rambles 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 and Studies in Greece {^td ed. 1887, Macmillan), which 
 give my impressions of modern Hfe among the suc- 
 cessors of the old Hellenes, and in the land which 
 produced so many centuries of splendid civilization. 
 To this study I had appended a chapter on Greek 
 Music and Painting, which was rightly considered to 
 belong to the present volume. I have therefore 
 added it to this edition, to make way for new matter 
 upon mediaeval Greece in future editions of my 
 Rambles. 
 
 I have since been enabled to complete two new 
 volumes, covering part of the huge gap between clas- 
 sical and modern Greece, and have given in my Greek 
 Life and Thought from the death of Alexander to the 
 Roman Conquest, and in The Greek World under 
 Roman Sway, the evidence culled from the Greek 
 authors between Menander and Plutarch, as well as 
 some estimate of that literature. These volumes were 
 therefore strictly a sequel to the present one, worked 
 out in the same way from the texts themselves, and 
 will answer the objection that I had paused in the 
 middle of my great subject. There yet remains the 
 appreciation of Greek Life under the Roman Empire ; 
 from the days when Christianity became a social force. 
 I trust I may yet be able to complete this task. 
 
 Trinity College, Dublin, ' 
 
 May, 1898. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Modern complexion of Greek life, page i. Defects in the current 
 literature on the subject, 3. Plan of the present volume, 4. Political 
 lessons to be drawn from Greek culture, 5. Gradual development of 
 Greek morals and society, 6. Contrasts vifith modern life, 8. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Greeks of the Homeric Age. 
 
 The Homeric controversy not here in question, 9. Exceptional atti- 
 tude of Hesiod, 10. His evidence is truer than Homer's ideal pictures, 
 II. Improbabilities in Homer, 12. Mr. Grote's estimate criticised, 13. 
 Difficulties about Hesiod — chiefly textual, 14. Fragments of pre- 
 Homeric history, 15. Homer describes the close of an epoch, 18. 
 Modern English Homerists criticised, 19. Analysis of the Homeric 
 ideal, 20; as regards — Courage, 21; Truth, 27; Compassion, 29; 
 Loyalty, 36. Causes of these features, 39. Homer's Pallas Athene, as 
 an ideal character, 41. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Greeks of the Homeric Age (continued). 
 
 Homer's society an exclusive caste society, 44 ; which was refined and 
 courteous, 45 — in feasting, 46 ; and conversation, 47 ; but showing slight 
 decay in hospitality, 48. Examples of Menelaus and Alcinous, 51. 
 Treatment of women, 5 2 ; of servants, 56 ; of domestic animals, 62; of 
 those beyond the caste, and its dependents, 65. Evidence of Hesiod, 66. 
 Love of money — universal in Greek life, 70. Hesiod's domestic rude- 
 ness, 71. General results, 74. 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Greeks of the Lyrio Age. 
 
 Contrasts to Homer's idealism; Lyric realism, 77. Assertions of 
 cowardice in the fragments, 78. Thucydidean features of the lyric 
 poets, 82. They sustain the attitude of Hesiod, 82. Unjust estimates 
 of the tyrants by modern critics, 83. Example at Athens ; Solon and 
 Peisistratus, 85. Classification of the lyric poets ; free aristocrats, and 
 court poets, 90 j their religion, 9 2 ; ethics, 94 ; Violent party feelings, 
 97 ; Modem parallel in Ireland, 98. General estimate, 100. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Greeks of the Lyrio Age (continued). 
 
 ■Advance in social refinement, 102. Wine drinking and feasting, 103. 
 Attitude of women in — Simonides- of Ceos, :o8 ; Sappho, 109; and 
 Simonides of Amorgos, no. Strong sentiment of love, 113. Points of 
 direct succession to Homeric Greece, 115. Hatred of old age, 119; 
 causes of this feeling, 1 20. Selfishness, 122. Hospitahty, 124. Points 
 of contrast with Homeric Greece; the feeling of love; the objects of 
 love, 126. Religious progress, 129. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Greeks of the Attic Age. 
 
 Division of subject : authorities, 133. Attic patriotism, 135. Coarse- 
 ness of Attic relaxations, 136. General decay of letters throughout 
 Greece, 137; Causes of the exception at Athens, 138; Estimate of 
 Pericles, 140. Position of women, 142 ; its causes, 145. Examination 
 of our authorities, viz. .lEschylus, his characters, 149; Herodotus, his 
 characters, 155; their meanness, 157; justice, 160; benevolence, 163; 
 sociality, 168; sadness, 171. 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 'STa.e Greeks of the Attic Age (continued). 
 
 Thucydides, 173; cruelty described in his history, 175 1 strictures on 
 his pictures of Greek life, 177; ^^'s mistake rectified on psychological 
 grounds, 179. Sophocles and ^schylus: inferiority of Sophocles, 182. 
 Euripides, his attitude, 185; his contrast to Sophocles, 187; his philo- 
 sophy, 188 ; example in his Electro, 191 ; his great female characters— 
 Alcestis, Macaria, Iphigenia, 198 ; injustice of the critics, 205. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Oreeks of the Attic Age (concluded). 
 
 The Attic comedy, 207. Variance of type in the characters of the 
 Attic drama, 208. Historic value of the comedy, 209. Possible reli- 
 gious cause of Aristophanes' ribaldry, 210. Evidence about Aspasia 
 and the Hetairai, especially of Corinth, 212; the charges against her 
 examined, 214. Conversation at this epoch, 219. Excesses of young 
 aristocrats: Alcibiades, Callias, 220. Contrast of the lower classes, 235. 
 Exceptional cruelties, 226. General estimate of the Periclean Greeks, 
 228. Cruelties in war, 234; at home, and in private life, 237; in the 
 law-courts, 239. Hard treatment of old age, 244; palliation of this 
 harshness, 247 ; examples from the tragedians, 249. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A-ttic Culture. 
 
 Limited size of Athens: its results on Greek culture, 252. Bad cha- 
 racter of the Peirseus, 255. Slaves to perform menial work, 258. General 
 refinement, 260; exemplified in executions, 262 ; disposal of the bodies 
 after the sentence, 266. High character of jailors, 268. Abatement of 
 cruelty in war, 270 ; effect of mercenaries on this question, 271 ; qualifi- 
 cations and exceptions, 272. Social position of women, 274; evidence 
 of Xenophon's (Economics, 275 ; the rights of women coming into 
 notice, 281. The Hetairai, 284. Difficulty of estimating the evidence 
 of tragic poets, 286, Abuse of marriage, 287. 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 Attic Culture. — Certain Trades and Professions. 
 
 Medical practice : its social side, 290 ; state physicians and their 
 salaries, 292; persuasive treatment, 293; Doric prescriptions, 296; 
 quackery — private, 297; public, 298. Cooks — their general character, 
 2Q9 ; Doric bills of fare, 301 ; impertinence, 302 ; grandiloquence, 303 ; 
 slave cooks of later days, 306. The fishmongers, 306 ; their audadty, 
 307- 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Attio Culture. — Entertainments and Conversation. — Tie 
 Education of Boys. — Th.e Streets in Athens. 
 
 Philosophical objections to music in society, 312. General hints on 
 conversation, 314. Drinking of weak mixtures of wine, 317. Plato's 
 Symposium, 319. Xenophon's Symposium, 323. Absence of ladies at 
 Greek feasts, 325. Male beauty, 326. The education of boys, 330. 
 Controversies on education, 332. Defects of Socrates' teaching, 334. 
 Sound objections to athletics, as compared with field sports, 336. 
 Homely features in the streets of Athens, 339. Street brawls, 340. 
 Narrovraess of Attic culture, 342. The Hellenism of Isocrates, 343; 
 of Plato, 346. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Beligious Feeling in the Attio Ago. 
 
 Gradual decay of belief, 348. Immoralities of the Epic theology: the 
 explanation of the comparative mythologers examined, 349 ; the true 
 explanation, 353. The Bible of the Greeks, 353. Supposed moral 
 object of the Epos, 354. Greek theory of inspiration : the Ion of Plato, 
 357. Over-estimate of Greek scepticism : Thucydides, 361. The his- 
 toric dignity of Greek mythology, 363. The waxing and waning of 
 belief, 363. Orthodoxy of the Athenians, 366 ; evidence of the orators, 
 367; of Xenophon, 3O8. Sceptical tendencies of the new comedy, 372. 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Contrasts to modem faith: (o) love of mystery, 374 ; the Greek myste- 
 ries, 376 ; (/3) union of art and religion, 378 ; (7) of pleasure and devo- 
 tion, 379. Religion urged against morals, 383. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII, 
 The Business Habits of the Attio Greeks. 
 
 Importance of trade : commercial wars, 385. Complicated legal 
 system, 387. Stringent laws against vPpis or assault, 390. Division of 
 judicial functions, 391. Delays of Attic law ; trial by jury, 392. De- 
 fects in estimation of evidence, 393. Criticisms of Aristophanes, 398. 
 Sycophancy, 398. Inferiority of Greek to Roman legal oratory, 399. 
 Begging for mercy in court, 400. Shabbiness of Greek commerce, 402. 
 Peculiarity of Greek protective laws, 404. Aristotle's blunders about 
 money, 406. Contrasts to modem trade : stock exchange, 407. Bad 
 methods of taxation : axTiSoais, 409. Hiding of money, 411. Banks 
 and banking, 41a. Position of Pasion, 414. Family quarrels, 415. 
 Case of Calippus, 417. Comparison with othernations, 419. Illustra- 
 tions from politics, 432, Case of Demosthenes' public profits, 423. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Social Aspects of Oreek Art. 
 
 Common notions of the diffusion of, Greelj art, 429. Contrast with 
 their every day life, 430. Art due to the tyrants and the Attic period, 
 430. ^Esthetic sense of the Greeks, 431. Beauty of the country, 432. 
 Absurd stress laid on Adamantius, 433. Real state of the facts, 435. 
 Retarding circumstances, 436. Professional poetry, 437. Contempt of 
 amateurs, 439. , Low social position of artists, 440. The Greek leisure, 
 441. Secular and religious incentives to art, 443. False view of 
 Greek perfection, 444. Genius exceptional, 445. Coldness of Greek 
 art, 447. 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Greek Musio and Fainting. 
 
 Contrast between the objective and subjective arts, 449. Remains of 
 painting and music, 450. Morality iii Greek music, 451 ; in modern, 
 453; Professional, 455. Greek instruments, 456. Extant tunes, 457; 
 scales, 462 ; harmony, 466 ; results, 469. Greek painting, 470. 
 Polygnotns, 472. Agatharchus and perspective, 474. Landscape 
 painting, 476. The picturesque, 477. Theocritus, 479. Personification 
 of landscape, 481. Sculptural landscape, 483. Comparison with 
 Italian republics, 485. With modem states, 4S8. Conclusion, 489. 
 
 Inpex ^91 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Among the nations which stand out in the course 
 of history as having done most to promote human 
 knowledge, human art, and human culture, the Greeks 
 are first in the judgment of all competent observers. 
 The hold which Greek literature retains on our 
 modern education is not the mere result of prece- 
 dent or fashion. Every thinking man who becomes 
 acquainted with the masterpieces of Greek writing, 
 must see plainly that they stand to us in a far closer 
 relation than the other remains of antiquity. They 
 are not mere objects of curiosity to the archaeologist, 
 not mere treasure-houses of roots and forms to be 
 sought out by comparative grammarians. They are 
 the writings of men of like culture with ourselves, 
 who argue with the same logic, who reflect with 
 kindred feelings. They have worked out social and 
 moral problems like ourselves ; they have expressed 
 them in such language as we should desire to use. 
 In a word, they are thoroughly modern, more modern 
 even than the epochs quite proximate to our own. 
 The disjointed sentences of the Egyptian moralist, 
 
1 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the confused metaphors of the Hebrew prophet, show 
 that were they transplanted into our life, and taught 
 our language, they would still be completely at a 
 loss to follow the reasoning of our modern literature. 
 Ptah-hotep or Ezechiel could not move in modern 
 society. Aristotle or Menander, on the other hand, 
 would only need to understand the names invented 
 for our modern discoveries. In all moral and social 
 questions they would at once find their way, and 
 enjoy even our poetry and our fiction. But what is 
 more striking, even the mediaeval baron and the 
 mediaeval saint would feel vastly more out of place 
 among us than the intelligent Greek. The satire and 
 scepticism of our modern society, the decay of fixed 
 belief, the omnipotence of free discussion as shown 
 by press and platform, the rule of private interest 
 over patriotism and self-sacrifice — all these features 
 would be very congenial to the Greek, while they 
 would shock and perplex the Crusader. Commerce 
 and speculation, debate and diplomacy, would delight 
 the clever Athenian. He would recognise the teach- 
 ing of his nation in poetry, architecture, and paint- 
 ing ; and the manifest superiority of the old models 
 would save him from feeling inferior in the face of 
 pur other progress. Let us invert the whole case, 
 and the result would be very analogous. If one of 
 us were transported to Periclean Athens, provided 
 he were a man of high culture, he would find life and 
 manners strangely like our own, strangely modern, as 
 he might term it. The thoughts and feelings' of 
 modern life would be there without the appliances, 
 
I.] INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 and the high standard of general culture would more 
 than counterbalance sundry wants in material com- 
 fort. For these reasons Greek social life must be 
 far more interesting to general readers than any other 
 phase of ancient history. Some of the problems 
 which are still agitating our minds were settled by 
 the Greeks, others, if not settled, were at least dis- 
 cussed with a freedom and an acuteness now unat- 
 tainable. Others, again, were solved in strange 
 violation of our notions of morals and good taste ; 
 and when such a people as the Greeks stand opposed 
 to us, even in vital principles, we cannot reject their 
 verdict without weighing their reasons. 
 
 The social life of the Greeks has often been 
 handled, especially by German and French authors. 
 But the ponderous minuteness and luxury of cita- 
 tion in the works of the former have obscured the 
 general effect, and leave the ordinary reader with 
 no distinct impression on his mind. The crushing 
 weapon of modern criticism has in Germany shivered 
 classical philology into splinters, and each man is 
 intent on gathering up, and claiming as his own a 
 fragment or two, which he analyses with wearying 
 accuracy. The French essays on Greek life are of 
 an opposite description. They usually aim at bril- 
 liancy and esprit alone, and gain these qualities at 
 the frequent sacrifice of accuracy and critical re- 
 search. Their authors are often ready to uphold, for 
 example, a spurious treatise against all critical ob- 
 jections, however sound, provided it affords them a 
 striking trait to complete their social picture. In 
 
SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 fact, a sound knowledge of Greek has not yet been 
 diffused among the French, and so their isolated 
 Hellenists, brilliant as they are, do not write in an 
 atmosphere of correcting friends and carping critics. 
 In spite, therefore, of the abundance of materials at 
 hand, and the abundance of theories based upon 
 them, there is still room for attempts to select 
 salient features, and to bring before the modern 
 public an accurate picture of Greek life,' not in its 
 trivial details, but in its large and enduring features. 
 A more than incidental notice of the peculiarities of 
 food and dress, and of the plan and arrangement of 
 houses, is but weariness and idle labour. We want 
 to know how they reasoned, and felt, and loved ; 
 why they laughed and why they wept; how they 
 taught and what they learned. 
 
 But alas ! to these questions we can only find full 
 answers from one city, and from one brief epoch. 
 Athenian culture under the Athenian democracy 
 may indeed be regarded as the highest type and 
 outcome of the Greek mind. But there, and there 
 only, can we find sufficient materials to discuss the 
 principal social question in separate essays. The 
 earlier ages are only known to us through the 
 scanty remains of epic and lyric poetry, which afford 
 many hints and suggestions, and in the case of the 
 simpler epic age even allow us to draw a general 
 sketch of life and manners ; but in the far more 
 interesting lyric age — the transition from the old to 
 the new life — they fail us utterly, and allow little 
 more than scattered reflections often inconsistent 
 
I.] INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 and scanty inferences always uncertain. The essays 
 therefore on the Greeks of the epic and lyric ages 
 may be regarded as introductory to those in which 
 Athenian life is more amply described. However 
 unsatisfactory, these earlier chapters seem necessary 
 in an historical work, where the later stages cannot 
 be regarded as born in full armour, like the goddess 
 Athene, but as growing insensibly from long sown 
 seed and in long prepared soil. 
 
 In connection, more particularly, with such theories 
 as those of Mr. Froude, which endeavour to get rid of 
 the refinements of philosophers and politicians, and to 
 reduce the motives of society to rude violence and 
 successful force — in relation to such theories I cannot 
 but think that the best possible antidote is to study 
 the various phases through which the society and the 
 morals of such a people as the Greeks passed. It 
 will be seen how they began with rude notions, how 
 in the Homeric days the now fashionable theory that 
 'Might is Right' was practically carried out — of this 
 the present essay will give ample proofs. Even deli- 
 cacy of feeling and chivalry of sentiment will be very 
 inadequate, if the check of sound laws, based upon 
 pure moral feeling diffused throughout a society, be 
 not ever there to repress and to educate. We may 
 then see, in succeeding ages, this social and moral 
 force contending, and in the end contending success- 
 fully, against the disintegrating and barbarising forces 
 opposed to it — the party struggles and social hatreds 
 so prominent in Greece. And so we arrive at the 
 Attic period, in which the free citizen could boast 
 
SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 that the state protected him both from violence and 
 injustice, so that men learned to postpone wounded 
 feelings and outraged honour to the majesty of the 
 law, that forbad all violence, even in the vindication 
 of personal injury. And so the refinement of Greek 
 manners culminated in the gentle Menander, who 
 brings his philosophy to aid the dictates of the law, 
 and warns us that controversy and disputes are dis- 
 agreeable and inconsistent with true comfort, and 
 that a true gentleman would rather lose advantages 
 and even submit to annoyance than ruffle his temper, 
 and agitate himself with either wrangling or retalia- 
 tion ^. Unfortunately these developments within 
 single states were not accompanied by similar im- 
 provements in their external relations. The Greeks 
 never attained the higher condition of subjecting 
 their public disputes to a system of international law 
 or public arbitration. But we may well excuse it in 
 them, seeing that in our nineteenth century this wise 
 and civilised method of avoiding war is but seldom 
 invoked, and only submitted to with discontent and 
 with grumbling. I think it will farther be shown that 
 
 ' See his Vtoiff&&, frag. 3 (ed. Meineke), ' He is the best man, Gorgias, 
 who knows best how to control himself when injured (oittis aSiKaaOu 
 TiKiim' iTriffTor' i-yKpaTois), for this hot temper and extreme bitterness 
 is clear evidence to all of smallness of mind.' This sentiment, so 
 different from those of Euripides, is repeated in other fragments ; see 
 frag, incert. 25, and yviii^ai 47. The latter passage is almost Christian 
 in tone : ' Prefer to be injured rather than to injure, for (in so doing) 
 you will blame others, and you will escape censure.' If he had not 
 promised us the luxury of blaming others, the sentiment would be 
 thoroughly Christian. 
 
I.] INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 the general public of ancient Greece did not approach 
 so nearly to the enlightenment of its intellectual 
 leaders, as our modern public does. We find, for 
 example, in the ordinary life of Athens, cruelties and 
 barbarities so violently in conflict with the humanity 
 of a Socrates, a Euripides, or a Plato, as to astonish 
 us, and make us doubt our estimate of Attic culture. 
 These harsh contrasts would, I think, exist now 
 among us, but for two great differences in our 
 society — one of them the direct result of Christianity. 
 They are the invention of printing, and the abolition 
 of slavery. 
 
 The former has brought the leaders of public 
 opinion into a close contact with the masses, quite 
 unattainable in ancient days. In its modern develop- 
 ment, the newspaper press, with all its faults, certainly 
 brings home to the public mind all cases of cruelty 
 and injustice with a promptness impossible even in 
 busy and gossipping Athens, and so the public 
 conscience is not only made sensitive, but has ob- 
 tained a powerful organ for uttering its immediate 
 censure. 
 
 The latter has weaned the dominant classes from 
 that contempt of human rights and human emotions 
 which, even in our own day, is manifest in those who 
 live as masters or rulers over degraded populations. 
 Nothing, for example, is more frequent in our Co- 
 lonial Official, and still more in his wife, than their 
 impatience of the rights and feelings of the lower 
 classes at home, which they are obliged to respect, 
 after their habit of lording it over inferior races. 
 
8 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 I suppose the planters of the slave states in America 
 would exhibit similar feelings. If these things be 
 true, it will appear that the points of superiority in 
 our condition to that of the Greeks were partly due 
 to an accident in our civilisation — the discovery of 
 a rapid means of multiplying books, but partly to 
 a higher and better religion. This latter is of course 
 the great contrast, and the great advantage which we 
 have gained. But I confess that when I compare the 
 religion of Christ with that of Zeus, Apollo, and 
 Aphrodite, and consider the enormous, the unspeak- 
 able contrasts, I wonder not at the greatness, but 
 at the smallness of the advance in public morality 
 which has been attained. It is accordingly here, 
 where the difference ought to be greatest, that we are 
 led to wonder most at the superiority of Greek 
 genius which, in spite of an immoral and worthless 
 theology, worked out in its higher manifestations a 
 morality approaching in many points the best type 
 of modern Christianity. Socrates and Plato are far 
 superior to the Jewish moralist, they are far superior 
 to the average Christian moralist ; it is only in the 
 matchless teaching of Christ himself that we find them 
 surpassed. So then the social life of the Greeks is 
 more than a matter of antiquarian curiosity, it is of 
 practical value and interest to us all. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 
 
 The great vexed question of the origin and com- 
 position of the Homeric poems Ues happily beyond 
 our present scope'. To those who desire to study 
 the social indications in these great epics, it is a 
 rnatter of small importance to know whether they 
 were composed by one poet, by two, or by many ; 
 whether they grew up gradually in a school of 
 rhapsodists, or whether they sprang complete from 
 a single genius. Even the ultra-sceptical theory, 
 which holds that the Iliad and Odyssey, as we have 
 them, did not acquire their present form till late 
 in the Attic age, — even this theory, supposing it were 
 shown not impossible, would little affect us. Two 
 facts alone we demand, and these will doubtless be 
 conceded by critics of every description ; first, that 
 whenever or wherever the Homeric poems were 
 arranged or produced,' the great result was accom- 
 plished by building with pre-existing materials, by 
 assimilating or embodying older and shorter lays : 
 secondly, that whatever may be the exact age of 
 these older materials, at least this is certain, that 
 they describe a state of society different from and 
 
 ' My views will be found in Macmillan's Magazine for October, 1878, 
 and February, 1879. 
 
lo SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 more primitive than that implied in any other relic 
 of Greek literature. 
 
 A qualified exception, as to antiquity, may perhaps 
 be made in favour of Hesiod, but the social state 
 described by him, if contemporaneous, yet belongs 
 to a different part of Greece and to a different rank 
 in society. So far then as he is contemporaneous, 
 we may call in his assistance as affording a contrast, 
 and possibly as completing the picture left us by 
 Homer. For the social attitude of Hesiod seems 
 to differ curiously from that of all the rest of the 
 earlier Greek poets, except perhaps Hipponax. It 
 has hardly been remarked, how intensely aristocratic 
 was their tone, and how they uniformly addressed 
 themselves to the powers that be, often in pointed 
 exclusion of all inferior classes. The Rhapsodists 
 addressed kings and princes, and sang at courts. 
 The Lyric poets addressed either the gods, the ty- 
 rants, or those close aristocratic circles that swayed the 
 Greek cities on the abolition of monarchies. Even 
 the Gnomic poets were aristocrats, and spoke their 
 wisdom to their compeers only. No Greek poet ad- 
 dressed the Demos till it too became the sovereign 
 Demos, and till the distinction of higher and lower 
 classes became as it were inverted by the radical 
 spirit of the times. Apart, then, from the scanty 
 fragments of popular songs, no voice directly ad- 
 dressed to the lower classes has reached us, save 
 the plain shrewdness of Hesiod, whose ' Works and 
 Days' (unlike the Georgics of his Roman imitator, 
 written in the interests of the rulers) gives us some 
 
n.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. it 
 
 evidence of the poor and shady side of Greek life in 
 early days. It is even possible that he describes the 
 Homeric society from a widely diverse point of view '. 
 And if it be the same society, there can be little 
 doubt that the genuine Hesiod's picture must be in 
 many respects truer than Homer's. It is almost 
 painful to say anything in the least derogatory to 
 the Iliad or Odyssey, especially when they are 
 almost our only authority for the earliest phase of 
 Greek society. But I am convinced that all the 
 critics, even Grote and the sceptical Germans, have 
 overrated the accuracy of the pictures of life given 
 in these poems. They have been persuaded by the 
 intense reality and the natural simplicity which have 
 made these scenes unapproachable in their charm, 
 and they have thought that such qualities could 
 only coexist with a simple and faithful reproduction 
 of the circumstances actually surrounding the poet's 
 life. But surely this argument, irresistible up to a 
 certain point, has been carried too far. A poet of 
 genius may surely be capable of modifying and 
 colouring, even when he is observing and copying 
 nature. Moreover, he must even endeavour to do 
 so, if he sets himself to describe an ideal state of 
 things, or if he desires to please a rich patron, to 
 whom actual surroundings are in many respects 
 unpleasant. Now these were the very conditions 
 under which the epic poets composed. Their poems 
 
 ' Cp. Horn. 8 490. I quote the Books of the Odyssey by small Greek 
 letters, those of the Iliad by capitals, according to a convenient German 
 habit. 
 
13 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 were certainly intended foir recitation at the courts 
 of kings and chiefs. They were intended to honour 
 these chiefs by extolling the deeds and lives of their 
 ancestors. And so an ideal state must be described — 
 a state evidently differing only in degree from the 
 poet's own experience, else the truth and reality of his 
 picture must have suffered — but yet differing from 
 it in the greater interference of the gods, in the 
 larger size and strength of the heroes, and in the 
 greater valour of their deeds. 
 
 These differences are acknowledged by the poets 
 themselves, but are we sure that they confined them- 
 selves to these .'' Are we sure that they did not ac- 
 commodate other matters to the wishes or the regrets 
 of their noble hearers ? Thus, for example, the rank 
 and file of the army are there to be marshalled by 
 the kings, and to raise the shout of battle, but then 
 they disappear from the action, and leave the field 
 perfectly clear for the chiefs to perform their deeds 
 of valour. There is not, I think, an example in all 
 the Iliad of the chief falling, or even being wounded, 
 by an ignoble hand. Such a misfortune was too 
 shocking to the sensibilities of an aristocratic au- 
 dience. Amid the cloud of missiles that were flying 
 on the plains of Troy, amid the crowd of chiefs and 
 kings that were marshalled on either side, we never 
 hear how a ' certain man drew a bow at a venture, 
 and smote a king between the joints of the harness.' 
 Yet this must surely have occurred in any prolonged 
 combats such as those about the walls of Troy. 
 
 Here, then, is a plain departure from truth, and 
 
II.] GREEKS. OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 13 
 
 even from reasonable probability. It is indeed a 
 mere omission which does not offend the reader; but 
 such inaccuracies suggest serious reflections. If the 
 epic poets ignore the importance of the masses on 
 the battlefield, is it not likely that they underrate 
 it in the agora} Is it not possible that here, too, 
 to please their patrons, they describe the glorious 
 ages of the past as the days when the assembled 
 people would not question the superior wisdom of 
 their betters, but merely came together to be taught 
 and to applaud? I cannot, therefore, as Mr. Grote 
 does, accept the political condition of things in the 
 Homeric poems, especially in the Iliad, as a safe 
 guide to the political life of Greece in the poet's 
 own day. The figure of Thersites seems drawn 
 with special spite and venom, as a satire upon the 
 first critics that rose up among the people, and 
 questioned the divine right of kings to do wrong. 
 We may be sure the real Thersites, from whom the 
 poet drew his picture, was a very different and a 
 far more serious power in debate, than the mis- 
 shapen buffoon of the Iliad. But the king who 
 had been thwarted and exposed by him in the day 
 would over his evening cups enjoy the poet's tra- 
 vesty, and long for the good old times, when he 
 could put down all impertinent criticism by the 
 stroke of his knotty sceptre. Indeed the Homeric 
 agora could hardly have existed had it been so idle 
 a form as the poets represent. As the lower classes 
 were carefully marshalled on the battlefield from a 
 full sense of the importance which the poet denies 
 
14 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 them, so they were marshalled in the public assem- 
 bly, where we may be sure their weight told with 
 equal effect, though the poet neglected it for the 
 greater glory of the counselling chiefs. Would that 
 we had fuller sketches from the tamer Hesiod ! He, 
 at least, does not sing in the interest of courts and 
 kings, and he moreover gives us a glimpse into the 
 sorrows and severities which encompassed the lower 
 classes while the courts may have revelled in luxury 
 and splendour. 
 
 Yet even his wisdom, as we have it, is not without 
 suspicion from a very different cause, for his works 
 have suffered more than most Greek poems from in- 
 terpolations and additions. Their moral and didactic 
 tone, as well as their fragmentary character, made 
 them at an early period a favourite handbook of 
 education, especially as the moral advices of later 
 Gnomic poets could be foisted in, and taught under 
 the venerable name of the older Hesiod. Though 
 I am not here concerned with critical questions, it 
 were not right to begin a social sketch based upon 
 such evidence, without at once telling the reader the 
 nature and the imperfections of that evidence. More 
 especially when I intend making considerable use of 
 Grote's remarkable chapter on the ' Manners of the 
 Heroic Age,' it is necessary to warn the reader 
 against the too ready faith here shown by a great 
 writer, sometimes imbued with a very sceptical spirit. 
 Other points of difference will disclose themselves in 
 the sequel. 
 
 But I cannot pass on without supplementing briefly 
 
IL] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE, 15 
 
 a large defect in the attitude of Grote and other 
 English authors on the Homeric age. They lay- 
 aside all inquiry into the previous conditions of 
 Greece as impossible and useless. The very civil- 
 ised life of the Greek and Trojan heroes is assumed 
 as a starting-point, having developed itself, we know 
 not how, from the rude barbarism which Thucydides 
 rightly considers to have been the really primitive 
 state, the v&x\ti}o\& juventus of Hellenism. Yet surely 
 the wonder of Aristotle is justified, when he expreses 
 himself at a loss to explain how a monarchy such 
 as that of Agamemnon could spring from such con- 
 ditions. 
 
 I cannot but think that the consistent voice of the 
 older Greek legends, coupled with what we know of 
 early Phoenician and Egyptian history, wellnigh 
 solves the difficulty. The remains of the stone age 
 found lately under the lava at TherasiaS are too 
 remote and isolated to admit of any safe inferences. 
 But the older Semitic histories, the Egyptian in- 
 scriptions, and the traditions of the Greeks them- 
 
 ' Cp. Revue ArchSologiqiie, vol. xvi. pp. 141-7. The islands of Santorin 
 and Therasia in the Mgean Sea are the sides of a gigantic volcano, of 
 which the crater is now a deep sea basin, surrounded by precipitous 
 cliffs, which slope gradually outward to the open sea. Deep under these 
 lava slopes there have been found buried the remains of what the 
 French call an ante-historic Pompeii. Stone implements, some rude 
 gold ornaments, pottery with ornamental patterns, a rude house, and 
 some skeletons have been disinterred. Our oldest Greek authorities on 
 Thera, such as Pindar, make no allusion to its having been a volcano, 
 so that even the tradition of this great irruption had died away in his- 
 torical Greece. I mention these facts here, as not sufficiently known ; to 
 discuss them would be irrelevant. 
 
1 6 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH, 
 
 selves, agree that the Phoenicians certainly, and 
 perhaps the Egyptians, sailed with powerful fleets 
 through the ^gean, and traded at enormous advan- 
 tage with the rude inhabitants of the coasts and 
 islands, by means of their imposing wealth and cul- 
 ture. They settled also in the Greek waters, partly 
 for commercial and mining purposes, as for example 
 at Thasos, — where Herodotus saw a whole mountain 
 disembowelled by their operations \ — but partly also 
 from the desire of forming new empires. Just as 
 distinguished Athenians, like Miltiades or Iphicrates, 
 became great princes among the ' butter - eating 
 Thracians,' so we may suspect that the legends of 
 Minos, of Cadmus, and of Danaus indicate sovereign- 
 ties set up by these civilised foreigners in prehistoric 
 days among the Greeks. They possessed the requi- 
 sites which Aristotle sought in vain among the chiefs 
 of his own nation, and gained their power by intro- 
 ducing great public benefits to the ruder Greeks, as 
 well as by the splendour of their circumstances, and 
 the superior arms of their followers. The legend of 
 Minos "^ seems to us the echo of the most important 
 of these sovereignties, but the prehistoric ruins at 
 Argos, Mycenae, and Orchomenus, show that Crete 
 was not the only seat of culture. 
 
 Gradually the national spirit was roused against 
 
 * ovpos fiiya avarerpaiJLfiivov kv ry ^TjT-qir^t. vi. 47. 
 
 ' I agree rather with Holm, who considers Minos to represent a 
 purely Phoenician power, than with E. Curtius, who thinks it was an 
 Hellenic, or semi-Hellenic power. All the legends point to Phoenician 
 sources, and to Phoenician mythology, in connection with this king, nor 
 do I see any Greek feature in his rule, so far as we know it. 
 
11.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 17 
 
 these foreigners. As the legends tell us of Theseus 
 conquering the Amazon worshippers of Astarte, and 
 refusing his tribute to the servants of Moloch, so I 
 suppose Greek, perhaps at first semi-Greek, chiefs, 
 the offspring of connections between the invaders 
 and the natives, began gradually to dispossess and 
 supplant the Semitic forerunners of Greek culture. 
 But the splendour of their rule was too attractive to 
 be abolished. The native chiefs seem therefore to 
 have succeeded to the power and wealth already 
 centred at Argos, Mycenae, Crete, Orchomenus, and 
 other such favourable positions. The great Cyclo- 
 pean ruins are found on the very sites indicated in 
 Homer, as the seats of the greatest monarchs. Ac- 
 cordingly, I conceive Agamemnon, Menelaus, Nestor, 
 and other of the richer chiefs, but especially the 
 Atreidae, to have rather inherited a power and wealth 
 established originally by the enlightened despotism 
 of Semitic merchant princes, and not gradually ac- 
 quired by the extension of a local patriarchal sway. 
 The legends are with me, and so is Aristotle, who 
 cannot conceive monarchies arising in Greece gra-i 
 dually, but rather in consequence of some special 
 circumstance, such as some great public benefit 
 conferred by a prominent individual. The splendour 
 of the palaces of Menelaus and of Alcinous, who had 
 their walls covered with a profusion of bright metal, 
 seems to point to a kind of decoration essentially 
 Eastern and not Hellenic. Even in late times, the 
 only old hereditary monarchy in Greece, that of 
 Sparta, retained, in the public mourning for the 
 
 c 
 
i8 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 kings, features so strikingly foreign and Asiatic, that 
 they called for special notice from Herodotus \ If 
 therefore Agamemnon inherited his splendour from 
 such predecessors, it will follow that the earliest form 
 of the monarchy was not patriarchal but despotic, 
 and that the Homeric King of men succeeded to a 
 power with great pretensions, but practically limited 
 in all directions by the rise of petty chieftains, more 
 or less independent. 
 
 The general tone of the Iliad and Odyssey implies 
 then, not a nascent, but a decaying order of things ; 
 subordinate chiefs rebelling against their suzerains; 
 nobles violating the rights of their absent chiefs. 
 The fierce spirit of independence in the Greek 
 already stood opposed to the idea of a monarchy 
 hallowed by precedent and tradition ; and it was 
 even then plain to thinking men (like Hesiod) that 
 this profound antagonism could only be solved by 
 such a change in the order of things as would give 
 the majority an interest in maintaining the govern- 
 ment. This majority, at first, only included the 
 aristocracy, and so, when the Dorian invasion had 
 dislocated Greece, aristocratical types of government 
 resulted. But with the development of commerce, 
 and with the depression of the nobles by the tjTrantf^ 
 
 ^ vi. 58. ' The custom of the Lacedsemonians upon tiie-death of their 
 kings is the same as that of the barbarians in AsiarTbTmost of the bar- 
 barians now practise the same custom when their kings die.' He 
 describes these customs in detail. The public lament over the deceased 
 king, ' affirming that the last king is always the best,' is very like the 
 'Irish cry' still practised in the mountainous regions of Kerry and 
 Connemara. '• 
 
II.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 19 
 
 who rose up among them, the lower classes awoke 
 to a sense of their rights, and so, upon a second dis- 
 location of Greece (the Persian wars) democracies re- 
 sulted as an equally natural development. 
 
 These later stages are beyond my present scope. 
 I wish merely to indicate how the Homeric poems 
 represent to me the close of an epoch — almost a 
 state of decay preceding a newer order of things — 
 and that I, therefore, estimate the society and the 
 morals of the Iliad and Odyssey quite differently 
 from those writers who have compared them with 
 primitive conditions in other nations. Of course 
 primitive features remained, as they do in every na- 
 tion ; but they were combined with vices which betray 
 the decadence of culture, and with virtues rather 
 springing from mature reflection and long experience 
 than from the spontaneous impulse of a generous 
 instinct. 
 
 Mr. Grote, Mr. Gladstone, and others, have made 
 the Homeric age more familiar than any other phase 
 of Greek life to English readers. They have accepted 
 the descriptions of the rhapsodists as a literal account 
 of a real contemporaneous society; they have moreover 
 deduced, with exceeding subtlety, all the inferences 
 which can be extracted from the poems in favour of 
 Homeric honour and purity. Every casual utterance 
 is weighted with the deepest possible meaning ; every 
 ordinary piece of good-nature attributed to profound 
 and self-denying benevolence. We are told that morals 
 in historic Greece had decayed ; that a social state of 
 real refinement and purity had passed away, to make 
 
 c a 
 
20 SOCIAL GREECE. *_ [CH. 
 
 way for cold calculation and selfish aggrandisement. 
 How far this picture is real we shall see in the sequel. 
 But the labours of these ingenious authors have ref. 
 lieved me of the task of minutely describing all thej 
 details of Homeric life. The great masterpieces them- 
 selves are accessible to all in the translations which 
 have of late years poured from the press. I shall, 
 therefore, confine myself to the features in which the 
 Homeric Greek was the parent of the historical Greek, 
 noticing incidentally such contrasts as must naturally 
 suggest themselves in the inquiry. 
 
 The mediaeval knights, with whom it is fashionable 
 to compare the princes of the Iliad and Odyssey, were 
 wont to sum up the moral perfection which they es^ 
 t;eemed under one complex term — a term for which 
 there is no equivalent in Greek — the term HONOUR. 
 It may be easily and sufficiently analysed into four 
 component ideas, those of cotirage, truth, compassion, 
 and loyalty. No man could approach the ideal of 
 chivalry, or rank himself among gentlemen and men 
 of honour, who was not ready to contend, when 
 occasion arose, against any odds, and thus to en- 
 counter death rather than yield one inch from 
 his post. He must feel himself absolutely free from 
 the stain of a single lie, or even of an equivocatien.™ 
 He must be ever ready to help the weak and the 
 distressed, whether they be so by nature, as in the 
 case of women and children, or by circumstances, .as 
 in the case of men overpowered by numbers. He 
 must with his heart, and not with mere eye-servjce, 
 obey God and. the king, or even such other authority 
 
II. J GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 21 
 
 as he voluntarily pledged himself to obey. A knight 
 who violated any of these conditions, even if he es- 
 caped detection at the hands of his fellows, felt 
 liimself degraded, and untrue to the oath taken before 
 God, and the obligation which he had bound himself 
 to fulfil. This, I conceive, was the ideal of knight- 
 hood. 
 
 Let us now turn to the Homeric poems to obtain 
 information on these four points, remembering that, 
 as the real knight may have fallen short of the ideal 
 we have just sketched, so doubtless the real Homeric 
 Greeks were considerably worse than the ideal cha- 
 racters depicted by the rhapsodists. 
 
 I believe I shall run counter to an old-established 
 belief when I say that the courage of the Homeric 
 chiefs — in this types of their historical descendants — 
 was of a second-rate order. It was like the courage of 
 the modern French, dependent upon excitement, and 
 vanishing quickly before depression and delay. No 
 doubt the Greeks were a warlike nation, like the 
 French, fond of glory, and revelling in excitement ; 
 but they did not possess that stubborn valour which 
 was the duty of the medieval knight, and which is the 
 physical characteristic of the English and German 
 soldier. With the exception of Achilles and of Dio- 
 mede, all the chiefs in the Iliad are subject to panics, 
 and fly before the enemy. Of course, the flattering 
 bard ascribes these disgraceful scenes to the special 
 interference of the gods, but as he equally attributes 
 special feats of valour to a like interference, we may 
 discount the marvellous element, and regard these 
 
23 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 men, as we do a French army, to be capable of 
 splendid acts of daring and of courage, but liable to 
 sudden relapse into dismay and craven flight ^. Even 
 Achilles flies in fear from the pursuit of the river 
 Scamander, but this is rather the dread of an ignoble 
 death, as he himself says, than proper, cowardice. 
 Ajax, who approaches nearest of the ordinary men in 
 the poem to our notions of a stubborn soldier — even 
 he is surprised by panic, and makes for the ships. 
 
 There are farther indications of the same thing in 
 the Odyssey. When Ulysses hears from Circe (k 496) 
 what sufferings he has yet to undergo, he tells us 
 himself : ' So she spake, but my spirit was broken 
 within me, and I sat crying on the bed, and I felt 
 no more desire to live and see the light of the sun.' 
 This was natural enough, but very diflferent from the 
 courage, not only of the mediaeval knight, but of the 
 modern gentleman. Still worse, when the hero is 
 telling Achilles among the Shades of the valour of 
 his son Neoptolemus, he says that as the chiefs en- 
 tered the wooden horse, though they were the best 
 of the Greeks, yet 'the other leaders of the Danai 
 wiped tears from their eyes, and the limbs of each 
 trembled beneath him, but Neoptolemus alone neither 
 grew pale nor wept ^.' 
 
 ""^^ 
 ■ The courtly Pindar maintains the Homeric doctrine {Nem. ix. 27) 
 
 when he says : iv -j&p Sat/iovlotai ipS^ois (pevyovn xal ircuSes SeSiv ' in 
 
 panics even sons of the gods run away'— a sentiment which no trouba- 
 dour would have ventured to utter. 
 ' Cp. X 524 sq. 
 
 IvO' &\\oi Aavauv ^y^Topea ^Si /USovTfs 
 ddKpvi t' ii/iSpyvwTo rpiiiOv ff brth fvia ixiaTOV 
 
II.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 33 
 
 These hints in an ideal description, professing to 
 tell of the highest possible heroism, indicate plainly 
 that the Greeks of the heroic age were no extraor- 
 dinary heroes, and that they were not superior in 
 the quality of courage to the Greeks of history. In 
 this respect, then, the Achaean chiefs were indeed 
 but the forerunners of their descendants. The same 
 combination of warlike ardour, but of alternating 
 valour, meets us all through Greek history'. The 
 Athenians, the brave people who first ventured to 
 look the barbarians in the face, whether at Sardis, 
 or at Marathon, as Herodotus says — these brave 
 Athenians are frequently seized with panics and run 
 for their lives. The same may be said of all the 
 Greeks, except the Spartans, who succeeded in curing 
 their national defect by a very strict and complete 
 discipline. ^ But this discipline controlled all their lives, 
 
 Ravov S' ouiroTt ird/iwav iyaiv tSov IxpBaKiioiaiv 
 oiJt' SjxpTicavTa XP^^ H&WifLov ovre •napuSiv 
 SaKfiv d/iopianevov. 
 
 See also « 198 sq., where the weeping of Ulysses and his men is 
 almost ludicrous. I may as well here cite an historical parallel to 
 show the unity of Greek sentiment at every epoch. At the conclusion of 
 the 21st oration in our remains of Lysias (the diroXoyia StopoSoKias) the 
 speaker says, ' whenever I was about to risk my life in the naval battles, I 
 never lamented or wept, or kept talking about my wife and children, and 
 saying how dreadful it would be, if I dying for my country were to leave 
 them orphans and desolate." Thus the speaker takes special credit to 
 himself as an exception to the general rule. 
 
 ' Thus in a curious passage of Plato's Gorgias (Jowett, iii. 94), Cal- 
 licles, in answer to Socrates, tells us that brave men and cowards are 
 equally pained at the approach of the enemy, and equally pleased at their 
 departure. He does not contemplate that bravery which delights in 
 danger, and seeks it out. 
 
24 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and sacrificed all higher objects to that of making 
 them stand firm in their ranks. I conclude this 
 discipline to have been unnatural and strained, from 
 the fact that no other Greek city, much as they all 
 admired Spartan Organisation, ever attempted to 
 imitate it. When we now-a-days see the German 
 armies better disciplined than our own, we forth- 
 with propose to reform ourselves on their model. 
 No such attempt ever occurs in Greek history. This 
 could hardly have been so, but for the reason just 
 assigned. The Spartan training was so oppressive 
 that not even the certainty of victory in battle could 
 induce other Greek politicians to recommend it, or 
 other Greek citizens to adopt it. Thucydides hints 
 at this very plainly, and, in the mouth of Pericles, 
 shows that, even with inferior military training, the 
 real advantages are on the side of wider culture. 
 Aristotle supports the same view in stronger and 
 more explicit terms. I cite these authorities to show 
 how artificial and factitious a thing the Spartan valour 
 was, and how different from the spirit of the Viking, 
 the Baron, and the Yeoman. We know too how even 
 the Spartan valour collapsed as soon as Epaminondas 
 met it with superior tactics, and how little idea there 
 was, either at Leuctra or Sphacteria, of resisting to 
 the death. The Greeks, then, though a very warlike 
 were not a very courageous people, and we may 
 affirm of them, in a lesser degree indeed, what Tacitus 
 says of the Britons : ' In deposcendis periculis eadem 
 audacia, et ubi advenere, in detrectandis eadem 
 formido.' 
 
II.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. a5 
 
 The reasons of this curious combination are obvious 
 enough, and worth a moment's digression. In the first 
 place, the Greeks, from Homer's day downward, were 
 an exceedingly sensitive people. Evidences of this 
 feature crowd upon us in the Iliad and Odyssey. The 
 delicate tact with which unpleasant subjects are 
 avoided in conversation shows how easily men were 
 hurt by them, and how perfectly the speaker could 
 foretell it by his own feelings. In fact, so keenly alive 
 are the Homeric Greeks to this great principle of 
 politeness, that it seriously interferes with their truth- 
 fulness, just as in the present day the Irish peasant, 
 with the same lively imagination and the same sen- 
 sitivenesSj will instinctively avoid disagreeable things, 
 even if true, and ' prophesy smooth things ' when he 
 desires especially to please. He is not less reluctant to 
 be the bearer of bad news than the typical messenger 
 in Greek tragedy, who complains, in regular stock 
 phrases, of the hard and ungrateful duty thrust upon 
 him by untoward circumstances. 
 
 To this mental sensitiveness there was doubtless 
 joined a corresponding bodily sensitiveness. An acute 
 sense of pain and of pleasure, delicate nerves of taste 
 and touch — these gifts were essential for the artistic 
 products in which the Greeks excelled. We know how 
 important a place was held in historical times by 
 cooks, and how keenly the Greeks enjoyed the more 
 refined pleasures of the table. So we may find Plato's 
 contemporaries disputing in music on the difference 
 of notes almost identical, showing that they appre- 
 ciated dissonances which we consider unimportant. 
 
26 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 I cannot parallel these facts in Homer, except by a 
 curious case of sensitiveness in smell. When Menelaus 
 is windbound off the coast of Egypt, and at his wit's 
 end, a goddess (Eidothea) explains to him how to 
 catch and interrogate Proteus, and engages to place 
 him in ambush, which she does by concealing him 
 with three comrades under fresh sealskins (8 440 sqq.). 
 These men were in danger of their lives, and were 
 engaged on the perilous errand of doing violence to 
 a marine god. Yet the point which left its mark 
 most strongly on Menelaus' mind was the bad smell 
 of the sealskins! 'That would have been a most 
 dreadful ambush ; for a most deadly stench of sea- 
 bred seals distressed us sore. For who would lie 
 down beside a sea-monster ? But the goddess saved 
 us, and devised a great boon. She brought and 
 put very sweet-smelling ambrosia under our nostrils, 
 and it destroyed (counteracted) the smell of the 
 seal.' 
 
 If we combine with this great delicacy of sensibility 
 the gloomy and hopeless views which the Homeric 
 Greeks held concerning a future life, we shall see 
 good reason for their dread of death. For although 
 Homer distinctly admits an after life, and even in- 
 troduces us to it in the Odyssey, he represents the 
 greatest kings and heroes in weakness and in misery, 
 without hope or enjoyment, save in hearing the vague 
 and scanty rumours that reached them from the 
 world of mortal men. The blessed islands of the 
 West were indeed even then a home for the dead 
 (6 564 sqq.), but they had not yet been opened to 
 
11 ] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 27 
 
 moral worth, as in the days of Pindar ^ They were 
 reserved for those who, like Menelaus, had the good 
 fortune of being nearly related to the gods by marriage 
 or family connections. From this aristocratic heaven 
 therefore even Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax were 
 excluded, and wandered forlorn in the doleful 
 meadow of asphodel. 
 
 There will be less controversy as to the low sense 
 of truth among Homeric Greeks. At no period did 
 the nation ever attain that high standard which is the 
 great feature in Germanic civilisation. Even the 
 Romans, with all their coarseness, stood higher in 
 this respect. But neither in Iliad nor Odyssey is 
 there, except in phrases, any reprobation of deceit as 
 such. To deceive an enemy is meritorious, to deceive 
 a stranger innocent, to deceive even a friend perfectly 
 unobjectionable, if any object is to be gained. So it 
 is remarked of Menelaus, as it were exceptionally, 
 that he will tell the truth, if you press him, for he 
 is very considerate (Treirvvixivos). This was said to 
 Telemachus, who was expecting melancholy news, 
 and in such a case I have already observed that the 
 Greeks would almost certainly avoid the truth. But 
 the really leading characters (except Achilles) in the 
 Odyssey and Iliad do not hesitate at all manner of 
 lying. Ulysses is perpetually inventing, and so is his 
 patroness, Pallas Athene, and she actually mentions 
 this quality of wily deceit as her special ground of 
 love and affection for him (v 328). Zeus deceives 
 both gods and men, the other gods deceive Zeus ; in 
 
 ' Cp. 01. ii. 57 sqq., and the famous frag, of his Bpijvoi. 
 
28 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 fact the whole Homeric society is full of guile and 
 falsehood. 
 
 There is indeed as yet a check upon men, which is 
 often ignored in later Greek society. There is still 
 a belief in the gods, and an expectation that if they 
 are called to witness a transaction by means of an 
 oath, that they will punish deceit. This belief, ap- 
 parently surviving from an earlier and simpler state of 
 society, must have been rudely shaken in Homeric 
 times, when we consider the morality of Olympus in 
 the epic poetry. The poets clearly held tliat the 
 gods, if they were under no restraint, or fear of 
 punishment from Zeus, were at liberty to deceive as 
 they liked. One safeguard as yet remained, the oath 
 by the Styx, the penalties of violating which are 
 enumerated in Hesiod's Theogony, and consist of nine 
 years' transportation, with solitary confinement and 
 hard labour\ As for other oaths, the Hymn to 
 Hermes shows that in succeeding generations their 
 solemnity was openly ridiculed. Among the Homeric 
 gods, as well as among the heroes, there were indeed 
 old-fashioned characters who adhered to probity. 
 The character of Apollo is unstained by deceit. So 
 is that of Menelaus. But Apollo fails in defendmg 
 his favourite against the reckless party politics of 
 Here and Pallas ; he gives way in battle before 
 Poseidon ; he is like Menelaus among men, an emi- 
 nently respectable, but second-rate personage. The 
 experience of Homeric men was aged enough to 
 know that probity secured no man from the troubles 
 
 1 Cp. his Theog. 793 sqq. 
 
II.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 29 
 
 of life and the reverses of fortune. The gods were 
 often ungrateful and thankless, and so the weight of 
 public opinion inclined decidedly to the belief that 
 honesty was indeed respectable, and of better repute 
 than deceit, but that it was not safe to practise it 
 without the help of superior forced So Achilles 
 was master of the situation, and to him lying was 
 useless to attain ends that might be better attained 
 by force. This subject will naturally recur when we 
 come to compare the Homeric with later Greeks^. 
 
 We pass to the third element in chivalrous honour,, 
 a sense of compassion for the weak, and an obliga- 
 tion to assist the oppressed. Unfortunately this duty 
 appears to have been delegated to Zeus, whose amours 
 and other amusements often prevented him from at- 
 tending to his business. How badly he performed it 
 in this respect is plain from the very pathetic passages 
 
 ' As similar states of society produce similar philosophies, so we find 
 the very same attitude in Machiavelli's Principe, especially in his celebrated 
 i8th chapter, entitled ' In che modo i principi debbiano osservare la fede.' 
 He begins by praising good faith, but observing that history shows great 
 princes to have succeeded by the. opposite principle. In fact the prince 
 must be partly a fox, to detect snares, and partly a lion, to terrify the 
 wolves. ' Non puo pertanto un signer prudente nfe debbe osservar la 
 fede, quando tale osservanzia gli torni contro, e che sono spente le cagioni . 
 che la feciono promettere.' He adds the usual excuse : ' E se gli uomini 
 fossero tutti buoni, questo precetto non saria buono, ma perchfe son tristi, 
 e non 1' osserverebbono a te, tu ancora non 1' hai da osservare a loro.' 
 He goes on to show that the virtues of honour, probity, and good faith 
 must be simulated, or else men will not be deceived, though he observes 
 that men are so silly, or so bound by present necessities, that there is 
 little difficulty in deceiving them. The whole chapter is the most 
 characteristic in a very characteristic treatise. 
 ' Ct. below, p. 115. 
 
30 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 in which the condition of the decrepit father, the for- 
 lorn widow, and the helpless orphan are described. 
 We must not for a moment imagine that the Homeric 
 age was wanting in sympathy for children. On the 
 contrary, Herodotus alone, of later Greek authors, 
 shows this sympathy as strongly as we find it in the 
 Iliad. The Homeric similes— and no similes are more 
 thoroughly realistic and drawn from actual experience 
 — constantly imply it. ' As a mother drives away the 
 fly from her child when it lies in sweet sleep.' ' Why 
 do you weep like an infant girl, who running along by 
 her mother, begs to be carried, and holding on by 
 her dress delays the hurrying woman, but looks up 
 at her with her eyes full of tears in order that she may 
 be taken up and carried.' Apollo destroys the earth- 
 works of the Greeks ' very easily, as a child treats the 
 shingle by the sea-side, who, when he has heaped it up 
 in his childish sport, in his sport again levels it all with 
 his hands and feet ^.' These comparisons are evidently 
 drawn from the same society which suggested the de- 
 lightful picture (in Z) of Andromache with her nurse 
 and darling son, coming to bid farewell to Hector as 
 he was hurrying to the battle. The whole picture — the 
 child ' fair as a star,' his terror at Hector's helmet and 
 nodding crest, the strong love of the parents sorrowing 
 at the very prospect of misfortune for their child ; — this 
 picture, which I dare not abridge, and which is too 
 long for quotation, shows no ordinary feeling for help- 
 less innocence. But all this sympathy in the poet, 
 and doubtless in the society which he described, did 
 
 ' Cf. A 130 ; O 361 ; and n 7. 
 
II.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 51 
 
 not save little children from cruelty and from neglect. 
 There is no passage in the two poems, if we except 
 that on the dog Argus, which will bring more tears 
 into hard modern eyes than the lament of Andro- 
 mache over Hector (X 482 sqq. Lord Derby's transl.), 
 
 ' Now thou beneath the depths of earth art gone, 
 Gone to the viewless shades; and me has left 
 A widow in thy house, in deepest woe, 
 Our child an infant still, thy child and mine. 
 Ill-fated parents both 1 nor thou to him. 
 Hector, shalt be a guard, nor he to thee; 
 For though he 'scape this tearful war with Greece, 
 Yet nought for him remains but ceaseless woe. 
 And strangers on his heritage shall seize. 
 No yoimg companions own the orphan boy. 
 With downcast eyes, and cheeks bedewed with tears. 
 His father's friends approaching, pinched with want, 
 He hangs upon the skirt of one, of one 
 He plucks the cloak ; perchance in pity some 
 May at their tables let him sip the cup. 
 Moisten his lips, but scarce his palate touch : 
 While youths with both surviving parents blest 
 May drive him from their feast with blows and taunts : 
 Begone, thy father sits not at our board! 
 Then weeping to his widowed mother's arms 
 He flies, that orphan boy, Astyanax,' etc. 
 
 It is here the lamentable condition of the orphan 
 that strikes us so forcibly. 'Qui a vu la misere 
 des hommes n'a rien vu, il faut voir la misere des 
 femmes ; qui a vu la misere des femmes, n'a rien vu, 
 il faut voir la misere des enfants.' How different, 
 for example, do we find the Irish peasants, with 
 whom I have already compared the Greeks, where 
 the neighbours divide among them without complaint 
 
33 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the children left destitute by the death or emigration 
 of the parents, and extend their scanty fare and 
 their wretched homestead to the orphan as to their 
 own children. The Homeric gentleman, of whose 
 refinement and delicate politeness we hear so much, 
 was far removed from such generosity. We feel 
 almost painfully the beauty of the simile, by which 
 the poet pictures the joy of Ulysses, when, after two 
 nights and two days in the deep, he sees land from 
 the summit of the great rocking wave (e 394) : 
 
 ' As when a father on the point to die. 
 Who for long time in sore disease hath lain, 
 By the strong fates tormented heavily 
 Till the pulse faileth for exceeding pain. 
 Feels the life stirring in his bones again, 
 While glad at heart his children smile around; 
 He also smiles^the gods have loosed his chain- 
 So vifelcome seemed the land, with forest crowned, 
 And he rejoicing swam, and yearned to feel the ground'.' 
 
 And again {& 533) : ' As when a woman weeps fall- 
 ing upon the body of her dear lord, who has fallen 
 before his city, and commanding his people, in de- 
 fending the town and his children from the pitiless 
 day [of slavery]. She then, seeing him gasping in 
 death, casts her arms about him with shrill cries. 
 But they (the enemy) striking her with spears on the 
 back and shoulders, bring her into slavery, to have 
 sorrow and misery, and her cheeks waste with 
 piteous woe.' 
 
 Little, indeed, need be said about the respect for 
 
 ' Worsley's transl. 
 
II] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 33 
 
 the rights of women. As is well known, when a 
 town was captured, the noblest and fairest ladies, 
 whether married or not, became the property of the 
 victors as their concubines. But a still more signifi- 
 cant fact has not been adequately noted — that such 
 a fate, though felt as a lamentable misfortune, was in 
 no sense a dishonour to the Greek lady, of which she 
 need afterwards be ashamed. In spite of all the 
 courtliness with which ladies are treated in the Ho- 
 meric poems, in spite of the refinement of their 
 characters and the politeness of their ordinary life, 
 the hard fact remains that they were the property of 
 the stronger, and that they submitted to this fate 
 without being compromised in society. Neither 
 Briseis nor Chryseis seem the least disgraced by their 
 residence in the Greek camp ; and still worse, Helen, 
 after living for years with Paris, is then handed over 
 to Deiphobus, and finally taken back by Menelaus 
 without scruple or difficulty. If we weigh carefully 
 her appearance in the Odyssey, we shall see that her 
 regrets are chiefly for the turmoil she has caused, and 
 for the tears and blood wasted upon her recovery; 
 her dignity has suffered no great shock, nor does she 
 avoid (except in words) the eyes of men ^, 
 
 These facts show with great clearness how com- 
 
 ' Xenophon, in a passage which will hereafter be discussed, announces 
 this principle distinctly. ' If such an accident,' he says, ' happen to a 
 woman without her own fault, she is not the less honoured among men' He 
 would not of course agree with the courtly rhapsodist, in admitting an 
 adulteress to this class, even though she alleged compulsion on the part 
 of Aphrodite. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH, 
 
 pletely the law of force prevailed over the weak, and 
 how the Homeric lady was so constrained by its iron 
 necessity, that all delicate feeling, however orna- 
 mental to the surface of society, vanished in stern 
 practice. The case of Penelope corroborates this 
 view. It was hateful to her to marry one of the rude 
 and ungentlemanly suitors, who thrust their attentions 
 upon her in her grief. Yet if Ulysses were surely 
 dead, there was no help, she must pass into their 
 hands, whether she choose it or not. 
 
 Stranger and not less characteristic is the treat- 
 ment of old age. The king or chief, as soon as his 
 bodily vigour passed away, was apparently pushed 
 aside by younger and stronger men. He might either 
 maintain himself by extraordinary usefulness, like 
 Nestor, or be supported by his children, if they 
 chanced to be affectionate and dutiful ; but except 
 in these cases his lot was sad indeed. We hear 
 Achilles (A 492 sq.) lamenting that doubtless in his 
 absence the neighbouring chiefs are ill-treating the 
 aged Peleus, and he longs to dye his spear in their 
 blood. We see Laertes, the father of Ulysses, exiled, 
 apparently by grief and disgust, to a barren farm in 
 the country, and spending the close of his life, not in 
 honour and comfort, but in poverty and hardship. 
 When these princes, who had sons that might return 
 any day to avenge them, were treated in such a way, 
 it is surely no strained inference to say that unpro- 
 tected old age commanded very little veneration or 
 respect among the Homeric Greeks. While therefore 
 we find here, too, much courtliness of manner, and 
 
II.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 35 
 
 respectfulness of address toward the aged from their 
 younger relations, the facts indicate that helpless 
 women and children and .worn-out men received 
 scanty justice and little consideration. Among 
 friends and neighbours, at peace and in good humour, 
 they were treated with delicacy and refinement, but 
 with the first clash of conflicting inter-ests such con- 
 siderations vanished. The age was no longer, as I 
 have said, a believing age ; the interference of the 
 gods to protect the weak was no longer the object of 
 a simple faith, and Greek chivalry rested on no firmer 
 basis. 
 
 I may add, by anticipation, that at no period of 
 Greek history can we find old age commanding that 
 respect and reverence which has been accorded it in 
 modern Europe. We hear, indeed, that at Sparta the 
 strictest regulations were made as to the conduct 
 of young men towards elders, but this seems an ex- 
 ceptional case, like most things at Sparta. There is 
 a hackneyed story of an old man coming into the 
 crowded theatre at Athens, and looking in vain for 
 a seat, till he came near the Spartan embassy, who 
 at once stood up and made room for him. Though 
 the whole theatre applauded this act of courtesy, I am 
 sure they did not habitually imitate it. The lyric and 
 tragic poets, as I shall show by ample quotations in 
 future chapters, were perpetually cursing the miseries 
 of old age, and blessing youth, fair in poverty, fairer 
 still in riches. Probably old Athenian gentlemen 
 were for these reasons like old Frenchmen, who are 
 very prone to prolong their youth by artificial means, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and strive to maintain a place among their fellows 
 which they will lose when they are confessedly of the 
 past generation. And so in Greece, as in France, old 
 age may have come to lack that dignity and that 
 importance which it obtains in the British army, on 
 our Governing Boards, and in Chinese society. The 
 comic features in Euripides' old men, and their 
 ridiculous attempts to dance and to fight ^, show the 
 popular feeling about them to have recognised this 
 weakness. But apart from these peculiarities of race, 
 the feverish and agitated condition of Greek politics, 
 the perpetual wars and civil conflicts must have made 
 prompt action and quick decision all-important, and 
 so the citizens could not brook the slowness and 
 caution of old age, which often mistakes hesitation 
 for deliberation, and brands prompt vigour as rash- 
 ness. 
 
 There yet remains the idea of loyalty — I mean 
 hearty and unflinching allegiance to superior author- 
 ity, or to the obligations taken by oath or promise. 
 The idea is not unknown to Homer's men and 
 women. Achilles and Penelope (more especially the 
 latter) are in the highest sense loyal, the one to his 
 friend Patroclus, the other to her husband Ulysses. 
 But in the Greek camp the chiefs in general are 
 wofully deficient in that chivalrous quality. I will 
 not lay stress on their want of conjugal loyalty, a 
 point in which Menelaus, according to the scholiasts, 
 formed an honourable, but solitary exception. In 
 those days, as in the times of the Mosaic law, 
 
 ' In Euripides' Heradida and Baccha. 
 
II.J GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 37 
 
 absolute fidelity was expected from women, but not 
 from men. In their own homes, indeed, scandals of 
 this kind were avoided as the cause of ill-will and 
 domestic discomfort. It is specially observed (a 433), 
 that Laertes avoided these relations with Euryclea 
 from respect for his wife's feelings, and the misconduct 
 of the suitors in the same direction is specially repro- 
 bated ; but when the chiefs were away at their wars, 
 or travelling, the bard seems to expect no continence 
 whatever. The model Ulysses may serve as an 
 example, instar omnium. 
 
 But it is in their treatment of Agamemnon that 
 tl\e want of loyalty is specially prominent. Achilles 
 is quite ready to insult him, and but for the prompt- 
 ings of Athene (that is, of prudence), who suggests 
 that he may play a more lucrative game by confining 
 himself to sulkiness and bad language, is ready even 
 to kill him. The poet, too, clearly sympathises with 
 Achilles. He paints Agamemnon as a weak and 
 inferior man, succeeding by fortune to a great king- 
 dom, but quite unfit to govern or lead the turbulent 
 princes whose oath had bound them to follow him 
 to Troy. It is in fact Ulysses, Diomede, and Nestor 
 who direct him what to do. It may be said that 
 we might expect such insubordination in the case 
 of an armament collected for a special purpose, and 
 that even the mediaeval knights did not escape this 
 disgrace in the very parallel case of the Crusades. 
 I will not, then, press the point, though Agamemnon's 
 title to supremacy is far different from that of God- 
 frey de Bouillon. Take the case of Peleus, which 
 
38 SOCIAL GREECE. [cii. 
 
 I have already mentioned (p. 32). Take the case 
 of Ithaca in the absence of its king. We are told 
 repeatedly that he treated his people like a father, 
 and yet only a few old servants seem to side with 
 him against the worthless aspirants to the throne. 
 
 The experimentum crucis, however, is the picture 
 of the gods in Olympus. We have here Zeus, a sort 
 of easy-going but all-powerful Agamemnon, ruling 
 over a number of turbulent self-willed lesser gods, 
 who are perpetually trying to evade and thwart his 
 commands. At intervals he wakes up and terrifies 
 them into submission by threats, but it is evident that 
 he can count on no higher principle. Her^, Poseidon, 
 Ares, Aphrodite, Pallas, all are thoroughly insubor- 
 dinate, and loyal to one thing only, that is, their /«r^. 
 Faction, as among the Greeks of Thucydides, had 
 clearly usurped the place of principle, and we are 
 actually presented with the strange picture of a city 
 of gods more immoral, more faithless, and more de- 
 praved, than the world of men. 
 
 This curious feature has much exercised critics, and 
 caused many conjectures as to the real moral attitude 
 of the epic poets. I think the most natural explana- 
 tion is based upon the notorious levity and reck- 
 lessness of the Ionic character, as developed in Asia 
 Minor ^. We know from the lyric poets, we know 
 
 ' We have ample evidence that the more serious of the Greeks re- 
 garded the matter in tlie same light. Xenophanes, for example, was 
 known as a severe critic of Hesiod's Tkeogony, as well as of Homer, 
 and Sextus Empiricns has preserved for us his bitter utterance : 
 vavTo. Qiots dviGijKav "OpiTjpos 6' 'Kaiob6s re 
 Satja Trap' SivOpdbwotffiv dvdSca teal ip6yos iartv 
 
II.J GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 39 
 
 from the course of history, how the pleasure-loving 
 lonians of Asia Minor seem to have lost all the 
 stronger fibre that marked the Greeks of Hellas. 
 Revelling in plenty, associating with Asiatic splen- 
 dour and luxury, they very soon lost those sterner 
 features — love of liberty, self-denying heroism, humble 
 submission to the gods — which still survived in Greece ; 
 and thus I conceive the courts at which the bards 
 sang enjoyed a very free and even profane handling 
 of the gods as a racy and piquant entertainment, 
 so that presently it was extended even to the so- 
 called Homeric hymns, which, of all Greek poetry, 
 treat the gods in the most homely and even sensual 
 way. The Hymn to Aphrodite, detailing her amour 
 with Anchises, and that to Hermes, detailing his theft 
 and perjury, are exact counterparts to the lay of 
 Demodocus, which treats both Ares and Aphrodite 
 in the same way. 
 
 This bold and familiar attitude was narrowly con- 
 nected with another leading feature in the Greeks — ■ 
 their realism in art. There is nothing vague, or ex- 
 aggerated, or incomprehensible, tolerated by their 
 chaste judgment and their correct taste. The figures 
 of dogs or men, cast by Hephaestus, are specially 
 remarked for being life-like throughout the Homeric 
 
 ot ir\er<rT' ipOiy^aUTO OfSiv &9iniana epya 
 K\itTT£iv fiotx^^fiv T€ tcol dW-fiKovs OLTraTSveiV. 
 The discussions upon epic poetry which Plato has left us in his Ion, and 
 in the second book of his Republic, point in a similar direction, and even 
 show how the strange utterances were explained as the result of direct 
 inspiration, and not the natural outcome of the poet's mind. 
 
40 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 poems. They actually walk about, and are animated 
 by his peculiar cunning. This, as Overbeck has well 
 observed, is merely the strong expression of the object 
 proposed to himself by the Greek artist, in contrast 
 to the cold repose and mute deadness of Egyptian 
 sculpture. The Egyptians seldom meant to imitate 
 life in action. The Greeks, from their very first rude 
 essays, set before them this higher goal. Like the 
 statuary, so the poet did not waste his breath in 
 the tiresome and vague adoration of the Egyptian 
 psalmist, but clothed his gods in the fairest and best 
 human form, and endowed them with a human in- 
 tellect and human will. 
 
 Homer's gods are, therefore, too human to em- 
 body an abstract principle, and so this side of their 
 religion the poets relegated to certain personified ab- 
 stractions, which seldom appear, and which seem to 
 stand apart from the life of the Olympic gods. 
 Perhaps Zeus himself, in his Dodonean character, 
 has this impersonal aspect as the Father of light 
 and of good. But Zeus of Olympus is quite a dif- 
 ferent conception. So there is a personified or semi- 
 personified klh(jis, and an 'Ar?;, and Airai, and an 
 'Epivws, which represent stern and lasting moral ideas, 
 and which relieve the Olympic gods from the neces- 
 sity of doing so, except when the poet finds it suit- 
 able to his purpose. But as these moral ideas re- 
 strained and checked men, so the special privilege of 
 the gods seems to be the almost total freedom from 
 such control. The society of Olympus, therefore, is 
 only an ideal Greek society, in the lowest sense 
 
11.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 41 
 
 the ideal of the schoolboy, who thinks all control 
 irksome, and its absence the sumimim bonum, — the 
 ideal of a voluptuous man, who has strong passions, 
 and longs for the power to indulge them without 
 unpleasant consequences. 
 
 It appears to me, therefore, that the Homeric pic- 
 ture of Olympus is very valuable as disclosing to us 
 the poet's notion of a society freed from the restraints 
 of religion. For the rhapsodists were dealing a death- 
 blow (perhaps unconsciously) to their religion by 
 these very pictures of sin and crime among their 
 gods. Their idea is a sort of semi-monarchical aris- 
 tocracy, where a number of persons have the power 
 to help favourites, and thwart the general progress 
 of affairs ; where love of faction overpowers every 
 other consideration, and justifies violence or deceit. 
 It will quite satisfy our present object to select the 
 one typical character which both the poems place 
 in the foreground as the Greek ideal of intelligence 
 and power of the highest order. 
 
 The leading personage in Homer's world of men 
 and gods is undoubtedly Pallas Athene. She em- 
 bodies all the qualities which were most highly es- 
 teemed in those days. She is evidently meant to 
 be the greatest and most admirable of the deities 
 that concern themselves with men. Yet, as Mr. 
 Hayman has truly observed, she is rather infra- 
 human than super-human. There is no touch of any 
 kindly feeling, no affection or respect for either God 
 or man. There is not even a trace of sex, except 
 in her occasional touches of spite, 'Her character 
 
42 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 is without tenderness or tie of any sort; it never 
 owns obligation, it never feels pain or privation, it is 
 pitiless ; with no gross appetites, its activity is busy 
 and restless, its partisanship unscrupulous, its policy 
 astute, and its dissimulation profound. It is keenly 
 satirical, crafty, whispering base motives of the good 
 (indeed she comprehends no others), beating down 
 the strong, mocking the weak, and exulting over 
 them ; heartless— yet staunch to a comrade ; touched 
 by a sense of hking and admiration for its like, [she 
 accounts expressly for her love of Ulysses by his 
 roguery and cunning,] of truth to its party ; ready 
 to prompt and back a friend through every hazard.' 
 Such is Mr. Hayman's picture, verified by citations 
 for each and every statement ^. 
 
 This very disagreeable picture is not, as he would 
 have it, an impersonation of what we call the world. 
 Surely the modern world at least professes some high 
 motives, and is touched by some compassion. But it 
 is the impersonation of the Greek world, as conceived 
 by Thucydides in his famous reflections on the Corcy- 
 rsean massacre. He was mistaken indeed, profoundly 
 mistaken, as we shall often see in the sequel, in con- 
 sidering this hard and selfish type a special outcome 
 of the civil wars No doubt they stimulated and mul- 
 tiplied it. But here, in the Iliad and Odyssey, in the 
 days of Greek chivalry and Greek romance, even here 
 we have the poet creating his ideal type — intellect 
 and energy unshackled by restraints — and we obtain 
 a picture which, but for the total absence of sex, 
 
 ' Cp. Hayman's Odyssey, i. p. 73, Appendix E. 
 
II.] GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC A GE. 43 
 
 might be aptly described as a female Antiphon. 
 The great historian, despite his moral reflections, 
 speaks of Antiphon, the political assassin, the public 
 traitor to his constitution, as apirvi oibivos vcrrepos — ' in 
 general merit second to none ^' The great epic poet 
 silently expresses the same judgment on his own 
 Pallas Athene. Were it not impossible to assign so 
 late a date to the origin of the Iliad and Odyssey, we 
 should be compelled to consider this impersonation 
 of the patron goddess as suggested by the grasping 
 policy and astute intellect of imperial Athens. Had 
 the Athenian envoys who took part in the mythical 
 Melian dialogue^ chosen to assert mythical precedent 
 for their conduct, they might have cited the Athene 
 of Homer as their patroness and forerunner in a 
 heartless and brutal policy. 
 
 ' I ought in fairness to mention that some old grammarian notices in 
 the early orators, from -whom Thucydides learned his style, a peculiar use 
 oiafiTr) for general reputation. Thus Hesiod, 'E/jy. 313, tiXoxitw S dpcT^ 
 xai KvSos oTnjStf, and Theog. 933. This would give the passage an easier 
 sense, for Antiphon was certainly the most prominent man of Athens at 
 that time. I am not sure that the usual rendering should not be amended 
 in this way, but yet, as none of the lexicographers have noticed it, I leave 
 what I had written in the text. 
 
 ' I perfectly agree with Grote that this celebrated dialogue at the 
 close of Thucydides' fifth book is not only imaginary but historically 
 absurd. Most German historians have accepted it as strictly historical. 
 A. Holm, as usual, views it in the light of common sense. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 THE HOMERIC AGE {continued). 
 
 The foregoing general reflections on the Homeric 
 age have necessarily detained us, as being essential 
 to the better understanding of the permanent features 
 in the Greek character. I still owe such readers as 
 are not intimate with Greek literature some details 
 which may help them to picture to themselves the 
 society of those long-past days. 
 
 Homer introduces us to a very exclusive caste 
 society, in which the key to the comprehension of 
 all the details depends upon one leading principle — 
 that consideration is due to the members of the caste, 
 and even to its dependants, but that beyond its pale 
 even the most deserving are of no account save as 
 objects of plunder. So the Homeric chieftain behaves 
 even in battle with some consideration to his fellow 
 chieftain ; in peace and in ordinary society he treats 
 him with the most delicate courtesy and considera- 
 tion. To his wife and to the wives of his friends he 
 behaves with similar politeness, though in a less 
 degree, and with a strong sense of their inferiority. 
 To his own slaves, who are as it were dignified by 
 
THE HOMERIC AGE. 45 
 
 being attached to him, he conducts himself with con- 
 sideration, as he does even to his horses and his dogs 
 for the same reason. But there is evidence enough 
 that the stranger who was not a guest friend, and the 
 free labourer who was unattached to his household — 
 these, as well as all women not belonging directly 
 to the governing classes, were treated with reckless 
 brutality, and in disregard of the laws of justice and 
 mercy. A few illustrations on each of these points 
 will be sufficient to establish the principle, and so 
 give us a clue to gathering up details under its special 
 heads. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans always laid great stress 
 on the habits of the table as indicative of civilisation, 
 and it was specially noted of such mythical human- 
 isers as Orpheus, that they had induced men to im- 
 prove the tone and manners of their feasting. The 
 Greeks .of_ historic times not only contrasted them- 
 selves in this respect with their semi-barbarous 
 neighbours, but even (as we shall see) estimated 
 the comparative culture of th.° Greek cities by this 
 sensitive social test. From t'lis aspect, then, the 
 Greeks of Homer and of H' siod occupy a very 
 definite position. The appoinlrpents of their feasts 
 seem simple, but not unrefined. Each guest gene- 
 rally had a small table to himself (a 106-112) well 
 cleansed with sponges, and a special supply of 
 bread. THfe washing of hands before eating was 
 universal. With the exception of the large cup 
 {xpr^Trip) for mixing, which was often embossed, 
 and the work of a famous artist, we hear of no 
 
46 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 plate, or other valuables to ornament the room. 
 This neat simplicity, however, does not correspond 
 with the extraordinary quantity and rudeness of 
 the food, and the barbarous sameness in the 
 victuals and their preparation. The Achaean he- 
 roes seem always ready to join in a meal of great 
 roast joints, and they hardly ever meet on any im- 
 portant occasion without forthwith proceeding to such 
 a repast. Nor do we see any refinement or variety 
 in either cooking or materials. We hear of no 
 vegetables except among the peculiar Lotos-eaters 
 (oi T avdivov ilbap ihovaiv, i 84), or of fish, except 
 indeed that the latter is mentioned by Menelaus^ 
 as the wretched sustenance of his starving comrades 
 when wind-bound off the coast of Egypt ! Here is 
 indeed a contrast to the Attic banquet, where large 
 joints were thought coarse and Boeotian, while fish 
 was the greatest and most expe nsive of luxuries.^* 
 
 Yet withal the primiti^^^nci primitively cooked 
 materials of the banqu'.et, in themselves no better 
 than the ' mutton and damper' of the wild Austra- 
 lian squatter, were acQ ompanied by evidences of high 
 refinement and cult) re. There was ruddy sweet 
 wine, mellowed by aPe, and esteemed for its bouquet 
 as well as its flavour 2. And yet good as the Greeks 
 thought it, they tempered it with water, for drunken- 
 
 ' Cf. 8 368, and Mr. Hayman's instructive note on the passa<Te. 
 
 « The eating of cheese, and general Milch-speise, as the Germans call 
 it, which we find to be the habit of the Cyclopes in the ninth book of 
 the Odyssey, was evidently the habit of pastoral tribes, or of the lower 
 classes similarly occupied. Still Ulysses and his companions seem to 
 enjoy it thoroughly, though they prefer meat diet. 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 47 
 
 ness was in all ages an offence against Greek taste ; 
 it was even by the immoral suitors considered fit 
 for Centaurs, and by later Greeks for Thracians : 
 mcTLixa -niviiv {<j} 294) was an universal rule of society. 
 There was also presel'it the reciting bard, who aided 
 and was aided by the generous wine in raising the 
 emotions of the guests to a warmer and loftier pitch, 
 for he sang the deeds of men of old renown, the an- 
 cestors and models of the warriors who sat before 
 him at their tables. This was truly the intellectual 
 side of the Homeric banquet, a foretaste of the Sj^m- 
 posium of Plato. But the Homeric Greeks were still 
 far below the stage when intellectual conversation, 
 in which all took part, was considered essential to 
 social enjoyment ; for the most cultivated of the 
 heroes, Ulysses, describes it as his notion of the 
 highest enjoyment (t 7) to sit in a row of silent 
 guests and listen to a bard singing, with ample meat 
 and drink upon the table. There were sometimes 
 ladies present also, as we see in the case of Helen 
 and Arete at their respective courts, and the strong 
 intellect and high qualities of such ladies are plainly 
 seen in the leading part which they take in the 
 conversation. 
 
 The current news of the day seems to have been 
 the chief topic, whenever strangers were present, and 
 we can imagine the eagerness with which men inquired 
 concerning absent friends, when they had no other 
 means of hearing of their welfare. So much was 
 the want of regular communication felt, that wander- 
 ing beggars evidently attained an importance similar to 
 
48 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH, 
 
 that of the beggars and also of the pedlars in Scott's 
 novels, who combine with the trade of selling goods that 
 of carrying news, and were even at times employed as 
 confidential messengers. These vagrants, in Homer's 
 day, either carried or inventecf news, and obtained 
 their living in reward for it. Thus Ulysses, in this 
 disguise, asks his swineherd (f Ii8) what sort of man 
 his lost master was, perhaps he may have met him in 
 his wanderings. And the swineherd replies : — 
 
 ' It were vainljr-sjriven, 
 Old man, with news to cheer his wife and child, 
 Oft needy wandering men, to fraud much given. 
 Have for a lodging many lies compiled : 
 These far too much whileome have my dear queen beguiled. 
 
 Such she treats tenderly, enquiring all, -^ 
 
 And in heart bitterness doth weep and wail 
 As should a wife, whose lord far off doth fall. 
 Thou too, old man, wouldst quickly forge some tale; 
 But as for him, long since his life did fail; 
 Dogs must have torn him, and wild birds of prey ; 
 Or, as the dead form drifted with the gale. 
 Fishes devoured him, and his bones this day. 
 Wrapt in the cold sea-sand, lie mouldering far away'.' 
 
 In so similar a state of society to that of old Scot- 
 land, I fancy- that the Phoenician traders may have 
 corresponded somewhat to the pedlars, as the beggars 
 were so analagous. The Homeric beggars do not, 
 however, seem to have made so much money as those 
 of Scotland and Ireland in the last century. 
 
 The great courtesy and hospitality shown to stran- 
 gers, even of the lowest type, nevertheless appear to 
 me rather the remains of a more primitive state of 
 
 ' Worsley's transl. 
 
]ir.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 49 
 
 things, than the natural outburst of Homeric gene- 
 rosity, for even in the ideal society depicted by the 
 poets, there are many passages where the close 
 shrewdness and calculating generosity of the Greek 
 mind break out naively enough through the curtain 
 of nobler feeling which only disguised them. I lay 
 no stress On the absence of that modern sentiment 
 which values a gift as a keepsake, and will not part 
 with it even for greater value. The Homeric heroes 
 readily gave away the gifts of respected guest friends. 
 But this was probably because the absence of coined 
 money had not made the broad distinction now 
 universally felt between the market value and the 
 sentimental value of a present. The main Homeric 
 personalties consisted of arms, cups, and ornaments. 
 These were obtained by barter, and taken in pay- 
 ment, and so even the gifts of friends were not con- 
 sidered in any different light from a mere money 
 present. 
 
 But in other points hospitality was, I think, de- 
 caying. Though every chief was bound to receive a 
 stranger, and though the more noble of them did so 
 readily, yet there are hints of some compunctions in 
 accepting hospitality, and some merit claimed by the 
 host for granting it. Mentor and Telemachus (y 343) 
 rise up from Nestor's feast, and intend to return to 
 their ship, when the old hero lays hold of them, and 
 exclaims, ' Zeus and the other immortals forbid that 
 you should leave me and go to your ships as if I 
 were a man short of clothing, or poor, who had no 
 wrappers and rugs for himself and his guests to sleep 
 
 E 
 
jO SOCIAL GREECE. [en. 
 
 in comfortably.' And so when Telemachus arrives 
 at Sparta, Menelaus' confidential servant {Qipa-nutv) 
 asks, 'Tell me, shall we take round the horses of 
 these noble strangers, or send them on to some one 
 else, who may befriend them?' But Menelaus 
 answers in great anger : ' You used not to be a 
 fool ; but now you are talking silly nonsense, like 
 a child : as if we ourselves had not before reaching 
 home enjoyed the hospitality of many ! ' Both 
 Nestor and Menelaus were gentlemen of the old 
 school ; so that when the question is raised, they 
 hesitate not in their answer. But another hero 
 speaks out more naively : ' Of course you must re- 
 ceive a stranger, when he comes ; but who would 
 be so foolish as to invite a man of his own accord, 
 except it were a skilled artisan ' — who of course would 
 more than repay his host by his services. 
 
 We hear too that the presents generously bestowed 
 by the kings were recovered by them subsequently 
 from their people, and yet this homely arrangement 
 seems fairer and more satisfactory than the habit of 
 modern times, when people give their kings a large 
 income beforehand, in the vain expectation that they 
 will spend part of it at least in hospitality. The 
 Homeric Greeks were too shrewd and wide-awake 
 a people to sow where they did not reap, and the in- 
 crease of communication, and consequent frequency of 
 visitors, were sure to close quickly the open door, and 
 bar the right of entering unasked. The anxious pre- 
 cautions of Ulysses on entering the house of Alcinous, 
 so similar to the acts of the exile Themistocles at the 
 
III.J THE HOMERIC AGE. 51 
 
 hearth of the Molossian king, show that there was 
 risk, even in peace, for travellers ; and it may be that 
 the generous hospitality of the nobler Homeric chiefs 
 was even then not the general rule, but the mark of a 
 higher and more refined nature. So we find the elder 
 Miltiades, in historical times, sitting at his open door 
 and receiving strangers in contrast to the general 
 selfishness of his neighbours. Homeric politeness 
 seems, then, in this respect also, a forerunner of the later 
 Greek courtesy, that it consisted rather in good taste 
 and in tact than in reckless extravagance or in self- 
 denial for the sake of others. Thus we find Homeric 
 men avoiding to press an unwilling guest — a piece 
 of good taste unknown to many of our middle classes ; 
 and evading all unpleasant subjects — a piece of tact 
 requiring subtlety of mind and quickness of per- 
 ception. The mediaeval baron, or the old Irish squire 
 would readily fight a duel for a friend from mere 
 politeness, they would not have comprehended the 
 points on which the Greeks laid stress. 
 
 Indeed no one can read the account of the games 
 in the Iliad (*), or that of the courts of Alcinous 
 and of Menelaus in the Odyssey, without being 
 greatly struck with the gentleness and grace of the 
 ideal life portrayed by the Homeric poets. The 
 modern betting man will be surprised to see the 
 open and gentlemanly way in which the races and 
 other contests were conducted. Of course there was 
 a little jostling, and some cheating, especially on the 
 part of the gods who befriended each competitor ; 
 but then we find a man's word believed that he 
 
 £ 2 
 
53 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 had no unfair intention — a piece of open dealing 
 which would hardly answer among the habitues of 
 our race-courses. Above all, the conduct of Achilles 
 is marked throughout by the finest and kindliest 
 feeling ; indeed, in no other part of the poem does 
 he appear to nearly such advantage. 
 
 The court of Menelaus is a worthy counterpart to 
 this picture. No doubt this hero is always repre- 
 sented in a very favourable point of view socially, 
 and Helen is acknowledged to have charms not only 
 of person, but of intellect, beyond all other women, 
 so that this court may be regarded as the poet's 
 ideal of refinement and politeness. But admitting 
 this, w£ must also admit that the ideal is very high. 
 There is nothing inferior to the tone of society in 
 our best circles in this .picture. The presence of 
 Helen among the company, her luxurious eiegaiice, 
 her quick tact and ability — all these features show 
 how fully the poets appreciated the influence of 
 female society in softening the rude manners of the 
 pugnacious heroes. So at the court of Alcinous we 
 are especially introduced to Queen Arete (17 66 sqq.) 
 as a lady honoured by her husband above the honour 
 given to other ladies by their husbands, and greeted 
 with kindly words by her people whenever she went 
 out through the city, ' for she was not wanting in 
 good sense and discretion, and acted as a peace- 
 maker, allaying the quarrels of men.' 
 
 We have thus been passing insensibly from the 
 Homeric hero's treatment of his fellows, to his treat- 
 ment of the ladies of his family. The cases I have 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 53 
 
 already cited show how high was the position of 
 married women in the royal houses. The charming 
 portrait of the Princess Nausicaa corresponds with it 
 perfectly — and in all these ladies' habits we find the 
 greatest liberty of demeanour, and all absence of silly 
 jealousy on the part of their relatives. Arete, as we 
 have just seen, was in the habit of going, apparently 
 on foot^ through her city. Nausicaa thinks that if 
 her gossiping townsmen see her passing through the 
 streets with so handsome a stranger as Ulysses, they 
 will at once set him down as her intended husband, 
 and censure her behind backs for despising all her 
 Phaiacian suitors. And when Ulysses has apparently 
 forgotten^her, and she feels somewhat heartsore about 
 him, she does not think it unmaidenly to lie in wait 
 for him where he cannot pass her, and gently cast 
 up to him that though now honoured and courted 
 by all the nation, yet to her he once owed his rescue 
 from want and hunger. These and many other pas- 
 sages show that the Homeric ladies enjoyed a liberty 
 unknown in good society at Athens, though perhaps 
 allowed in other parts of Greece ; and it will be a 
 question for special discussion hereafter, why the 
 Athenians, of all Greeks, retrograded most from the 
 higher attitude of the epic age. More especially, the 
 abduction of Helen and the seduction of Clytemnestra 
 seem to imply a very free intercourse among the 
 sexes, even to admit of such attempts being made. 
 From this point of view .^Eschylus felt with a true 
 instinct the independent and free attitude of a reign- 
 
54 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 ing queen when her husband was from home. So 
 Penelope entertains even wandering strangers, and 
 has long intei-views with them, in the hope of hearing 
 of Ulysses, and there was nothing unseemly in domg 
 so. Sophocles, in his dialogues between Clytemnestra 
 and Electra ^, was misled by the customs of his own 
 day, and did not feel the epic freedom of women suffi- 
 ciently. It is also important to note that this liberty 
 was not the privilege of the higher classes, as might 
 possibly be supposed ; for a remarkable simile^ says, 
 ' Why should we now revile one another, like women 
 who in some angry quarrel go into the middle of the 
 street and abuse each other with reproaches both true 
 and false?' We shall find the same license implied 
 in many of the lyric poets. 
 
 But I do not feel at all sure whether the very mild 
 censure expressed against infidelity is to be regarded 
 as a trustworthy reflex of the morals of the times. 
 No doubt the painful facts which I have noticed 
 above (p. 31) must have blunted the moral sense of 
 men on these delicate relations. Though we now- 
 a-days rate personal purity so highly, that the loss 
 of it by misfortune is hardly less excused by society 
 than its abandonment through passion, yet in the 
 Homeric times, when the compulsory infidelity of a 
 wife as a prisoner of war was openly recognised, and 
 in no way reprehended, this callous attitude may 
 have reflected its influence upon cases of voluntary 
 sin, and so they came to be regarded with much in- 
 
 ' avei/ihri fiiv, uis eoixas, av arplifiei. Soph. Elect, v. 516. 
 ' T 251 : cf. (T 27, in support of it. 
 
Ill-] THE HOMERIC AGE. 55 
 
 dulgence. All this is possible, and may be allowed, 
 I think, some weight. So also the open concubin- 
 age allowed to married men often afforded a plea 
 for retaliation, and a justification in the case of 
 crime. 
 
 But yet, after all these allowances, I think we must 
 still consider the most important reason for the ap- 
 parent leniency with which the adultery of princesses 
 is regarded to be the poet's own social position, and 
 the audience before whom he sang. Doubtless noble 
 ladies were present at his songs ; he owed to their 
 favour many precious gifts, artd perhaps a comfort- 
 able retreat in the precincts of the palace. It was 
 necessary then to treat them, as he does the kings, 
 with peculiar leniency, and to set down their delin- 
 quencies to the special temptations of the gods, 
 rather than to their own wickedness. 
 
 It was, I think, for this part of his audience that 
 the poet inserted the list of celebrated ladies whom 
 Ulysses met in the lower regions. I hardly think the 
 male part of the audience felt sufficient interest in 
 them. If they did, it would be an additional proof of 
 the pi'ominence of noble ladies in their society, and of 
 the celebrity which a lady of exceptional beauty and 
 rank might attain. There can be no doubt that this 
 passage was very similar to the fuller catalogue of 
 female worthies known as the 'Hotat and ascribed 
 to Hesiod. 
 
 Despite all that the advocates of Homeric morals 
 may say, we but seldom find throughout the poems 
 a really strong reprobation of Helen's adultery, even 
 
56 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 in her own mind *. She is never spoken of by others 
 as disgraced in the eyes of men, she is never regarded 
 as a castaway, or unfit to return to her position in 
 Menelaus' palace. If she had not caused bloodshed 
 and misery by the Trojan war, I see little reason to 
 think that her crime would have been regarded much 
 more seriously than that of Aphrodite in the lay of 
 Demodocus. 
 
 The treatment of Clytemnestra is, I think, equally 
 lenient, if we consider her more violent character, and 
 that she added the crime. of murder to her adultery 
 (y 263 sqq.). She is specially said to have been of a 
 good disposition, and to have stood firm as long as 
 the old bard whom Agamemnon had left in charge of 
 her was there to advise her. The shade of Agamem- 
 non of course (in A) speaks more sharply; but the 
 advice put into his mouth shows how strong was 
 the influence and intimate the relation of married 
 women as regards their husbands : ' Take care not 
 to speak your whole mind to your wife, but keep 
 back something ' — an advice which is sometimes given 
 in the present day by people who pretend to be 
 practical men, and who have never heard of Aga- 
 memnon. Noble -ladies then came strictly within the 
 limits of the exclusive caste, they were treated with 
 courtesy, and even too great leniency, and occupied 
 a very important position in aristocratic society. 
 
 The very same remark will hold good of the ser- 
 
 ' Some of my generous critics (in the Academy and Saturday Revieio) 
 pointed out that I had expressed myself too strongly on this point in my 
 former edition. I have accordingly qualified what I there said. 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 57 
 
 vaiits attached to noble houses. They were often, 
 as we are told, children of good birth, brought up with 
 the children of the family, after they had been bought 
 from the vagrant pirates who had kidnapped them. 
 In fact, there appears to have been no traffic such 
 as afterwards existed, which brought slaves of inferior 
 races, usually Thracians and Syrians, into Greek ports. 
 There was, in Homer's day, no feeling of shame at 
 enslaving other Greeks ; nor, indeed, had the Greeks 
 separated themselves in idea from other nations under 
 the title of Hellenes. So the slave was, or at least 
 might be, socially his master's equal ; and I think 
 the bards take pains to tell us that those who dis- 
 tinguished themselves by fidelity to their masters 
 were, after all, of no common origin (like the wretched 
 day-labourers who worked for hire), but were really, 
 though lowered by misfortune, members of the same 
 caste society of which I am now speaking. 
 
 These confidential servants were, perhaps, excep- 
 tions; for we find the faithlessness of the mass of 
 Ulysses' household coupled (p 319) with the general 
 reflection ' that Zeus takes away half a man's virtue 
 in the day that slavery comes upon him.' If we wish, 
 however, to see the good side of the matter, we need 
 only read what is told of Euryclea, and of Eumsus 
 the swineherd, to see how thoroughly they belonged 
 to the family, and felt with it against the lower 
 domestics. Eumaeus tells the disguised Ulysses the 
 history of his life, and of his intimate relations to 
 I^aertes and Anticlea. He speaks with gratitude of 
 the comfortable position which he holds, but nothing 
 
58 SOCIAL GREECE. [cii. 
 
 can compensate for the exile in which his circum- 
 stances have placed him. He longs to see his old 
 patrons, to talk with them, be entertained by them, 
 and to carry back to his country home some token of 
 their affection in the shape of a present ^. Euryclea, 
 who plays a leading part through the poem, is clearly 
 one of the mainstays of the house, and so self-devoted 
 in her conduct that we feel hurt with Ulysses as 
 we do nowhere else in the whole poem, when he 
 threatens her, should she be wanting in discretion 
 (r 487). There is a curious combination of harshness 
 and of high feeling in this passage, which is one of 
 the finest in either poem. The old nurse, recognising 
 him suddenly by his scar, lets everything fall, and the 
 bath pours over the floor. Overcome by a burst of 
 mingled joy and grief, she cries out and looks round 
 to Penelope, whose eyes are darkened, and her mind 
 distracted by Athene that she may not perceive it. 
 Ulysses seizes her by the throat, and whispers ve- 
 hemently: 'Nurse, why will you destroy me — you 
 that nursed me at your breast — now that I am come 
 home a wayworn sufferer after twenty years? But 
 since god has allowed you to recognise me, silence ! 
 and let no one in the house know it, (for if you 
 do) I solemnly declare that I shall not spare you, 
 though you are my nurse, when I am putting to 
 death the other handmaids in my house.' And she 
 answers : ' Child, how could you say such a thing ? 
 you know how staunch is my resolve, and that I shall 
 keep the secret, like some hard stone or mass of iron. 
 
 ' Not a keepsake, as I have already explained. 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC A GE. 59 
 
 But when the day of vengeance comes, I can tell 
 you who are the women that are dishonouring your 
 house.' He answers : ' Nurse, why should you tell of 
 them ? 'tis not your business, I shall find them out for 
 myself. Keep you silent, and leave it to the gods.' 
 Such slaves differed in social standing but little from 
 the free attendants (drpj/pot Oepa-novTes), who held a 
 very honourable position in the retinue of the chiefs, 
 just as well-bred gentlemen and men of respectability 
 are now not ashamed to perform menial duties at the 
 courts of kings and governors. 
 
 As I have touched upon the slave-nurse in the 
 Odyssey, I will for completeness sake, cite another 
 very ideal description of a hired nurse from the hymn 
 to Demeter, more especially since this beautiful poem 
 is almost unknown to, or neglected by, our Greek 
 scholars \ Although the date of this poem may be 
 later than the Odyssey, it breathes the true spirit of 
 the epic age, and reflects epic social life. I must 
 abridge the passage considerably, and therefore pre- 
 mise that the following paraphrase gives a very 
 inadequate notion of the original. But this is so 
 markedly the case with all translations from Greek, 
 with or without abridgment, that the translator's 
 despair almost makes him callous. 
 
 The goddess is described (vv. 93, sqq.) as departing 
 in bitter wrath from the assembly of the gods, because 
 they would not restore her lost Persephone. 'And 
 
 ' If was indeed altogether lost till its discovery in a single MS. at 
 Moscow in the last century. I had the privilege of handling this precious 
 relic at Leyden, where it is now preserved. 
 
6o SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 she came to the cities of men and their rich farms, 
 disguising her form a long time, nor did any mortal 
 recognise her, till she reached the house of the warlike 
 Celeus, who was lord of Eleusis. And she sat by the 
 way, grieved in her inmost heart, at the Parthenian 
 well, whence the citizens drew water, in the shade 
 of an olive that grew above her head ; and her form 
 was like an aged crone, who is past child-bearing 
 and the gifts of wreathed Aphrodite, such as are the 
 nurses of the children of ruling princes, and have 
 charge of their echoing mansions. Her did the 
 daughters of Celeus see as they came for water, that 
 they might bear it in pitchers of brass to the house of 
 their father.' ' And standing near they addressed her : 
 Who art thou, aged woman, and why dost thou keep 
 away from the city, and not go among the houses, 
 where there are many women through the chambers 
 both old, as thou art, and younger, who will friendly 
 ■entreat thee in word and deed?' So the goddess, 
 professing to tell them the strict truth, invents a fable 
 about her own history. 'Thus I came here in my 
 wanderings, nor do I know what land this iS, or who 
 be the men that dwell therein. But may the gods 
 give you youthful husbands, and to bear children, 
 as parents desire, so pity me, that I may come to the 
 house of some man or woman, where I may do for 
 them diligently the work which an aged woman can 
 perform. Well could I carry in my arms a young 
 <;hild, and nurse it, and take charge of a house ; and 
 I could make the bed of my masters in the recess 
 ■of their chamber, and teach their work to the maids." 
 
Ill 1 THE HOMERIC AGE. 61 
 
 The eldest maiden, Callidice, answers her courteously 
 that her mother, or any of her three aunts, would 
 doubtless be very ready to engage her. ' Not one of 
 these would despise thy looks at first sight, and send 
 thee away, but receive thee, for thou art indeed like 
 unto a goddess. But if thou wilt, wait till we go 
 home, and tell all to our mother, Metaneira ; perhaps 
 she will ask thee to come to us, and not seek a 
 place in the houses of others. For she has a late 
 born son in the house, the child of many prayers, and 
 much loved. Wert thou to nurse him through his 
 infancy, and if he attain maturity, well mightest thou 
 l)e the envy of other women, such wages would she 
 give thee.' 
 
 So they fill their pitchers and hurry home, and 
 their mother bids them run and fetch her without 
 limiting wages. 'And they like fawns gambolling 
 through a spring meadow, rushed down the hollow 
 way, holding up the folds of their lovely garments, 
 and their hair waved about their shoulders like 
 saffron-coloured bloom. And they found her by the 
 road, where they had left her, and brought her home,' 
 wrapped up, and covered from head to foot, so that 
 her dark robe clung to her as she walked. She is 
 received by Metaneira, who is nursing her boy, and 
 who is awe-struck by her dignity. But she repeats 
 the promise held out by the maidens, if she will 
 rear the child. To this the goddess consents, adding 
 that she knows means of averting charms and evil 
 eye ; and she proceeds to feed him upon ambrosia, 
 and at night to prepare him for immortality by 
 
6z SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 putting him, like a billet of wood, into the heat of the 
 fire. But Metaneira, who was watching to see how 
 the child was made to thrive so marvellously, sees 
 him in the fire, and cries out in anguish ; ' so Demeter 
 in wrath dropped the dear child whose birth had 
 surprised the house upon the ground,' and bursts out 
 upon Metaneira, declares herself, and changing into 
 her proper majesty, passes through the chamber, and 
 vanishes. The mother sinks speechless to the ground, 
 ' nor did she think of lifting the child of her later years 
 from the ground. But his sisters heard his piteous 
 voice, and started from their beds, and one taking up 
 the child hugged him in her lap, another kindled the 
 fire, the third ran barefooted and raised up her 
 mother. And they bathed and nursed the gasping 
 child, but could not quiet him, for far inferior nurses 
 now tended him.' 
 
 It will be seen from this picture that, in the days of 
 this Hymn, hired nurses were employed, as well as 
 slaves ; and also that the position of such a nurse 
 was closely similar to that of Euryclea in the 
 Odyssey. She had a very different social rank from 
 the out-door hired labourer, and seems quite adopted 
 as one of the intimate dependants of the ruling caste, 
 so enjoying many comforts and privileges. 
 
 Even the animals, such as horses and dogs, which 
 were attached to the Homeric chief, enjoyed their 
 privileges accordingly. The horses of Achilles, with 
 their human sympathies and their human voice, re- 
 mind us of Balaam's ass, and her friendly relations 
 with the prophet. Indeed, throughout the whole 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 6^ 
 
 Iliad, the poets seem to be full of sympathy with 
 the energy and fire of the war-horses. In the 
 Odyssey the dog Argus takes the place of the 
 horses of Achilles. The island was rugged, as Te- 
 lemachus says to Menelaus, when he offered him a 
 chariot and pair as a present, and chariot-driving 
 was consequently not in fashion. But the dogs, 
 chosen for both speed and scent, the faithful com- 
 panions of the young men in hunting, must have been 
 as highly esteemed as they are now, and they must 
 have attained, through constant intercourse with 
 human society, that intelligence which now makes 
 certain breeds so interesting. The wonderful picture 
 of the old broken-down hound recognising his master 
 after twenty years, and dying of joy on the dunghill, 
 where he had lain helpless with age and neglect — this 
 affecting trait could never have been drawn except 
 by men who themselves knew and loved dogs, and 
 appreciated their intelligence. 
 
 I can show even more cogent proof in a phrase 
 not observed by the commentators. When Telema- 
 chus (/3 ii) sets out, in full state, for the public 
 assembly in Ithaca, where he is to appear for the 
 first time, and declare his wrongs, the poet describes 
 him as proceeding ' 7ioi alone, for two sharp-toothed 
 dogs accompanied him.' It is quite true that to us 
 a dog is a real companion, and we hardly feel our- 
 selves alone if the trusty comrade of our sports is 
 with us ; but still even we should hardly say, ' I met 
 such an one walking yesterday. He was not alone, 
 for he had his dog with him.' So the wild beasts 
 
64 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 of Circe are compared (« 216) to 'the dogs that fawn 
 about a chief coming from his dinner [it appears they 
 were not allowed into the house], for he never forgets 
 to bring them morsels that delight them.' Notwith- 
 standing, there is a passage which describes the dogs 
 of the swineherd Eumseus in exactly the terms in 
 which our sporting men describe the fierce dogs of 
 the same coast and country which they meet when 
 shooting. The Epirot shepherds will not call them 
 off; they are very savage, and if strangers kill them 
 all the country rises up in arms. Eumseus, when the 
 dogs rush out at the ragged Ulysses, is obliged to 
 run out and pelt them with stones to drive them off, 
 and observes that had he not been there to do so the 
 stranger would have been roughly treated. This is 
 the lower sidfe of the Homeric dogs. The highest side 
 is the passage where they, by their instinct, recog- 
 nise Athene as present, and cower in fear, while their 
 masters are unconscious of her presence (ir 162), again 
 reminding us strongly of the story of Balaam's ass. 
 
 This sympathy for the lower animals reaches even 
 farther. The monster Polyphemus, who had no dogs, 
 and who neither feared god nor regarded man, shows 
 no trace of friendliness, or of any humane feeling, 
 except in his pathetic address to his ram, who had 
 been detained last by Ulysses, instead of leading out 
 the flock from the cave of the Cyclops as usual. The 
 blinded savage pours out his griefs to the animal, 
 which he thinks affected by his master's misfortune, 
 and longs that the ram had a voice to tell him the 
 hiding-place of the miscreants who had deprived him 
 
in.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 65 
 
 of his sight. We shall meet again this sympathy, 
 with dogs at least, in later Greek history. 
 
 What consideration those received who lived apart 
 from the reigning caste, or made themselves obnox- 
 ious to it, appears painfully enough in the Homeric 
 poems and in Hesiod. If we consider the punish- 
 ment of his rebellious household by Ulysses, or the 
 fate threatened to Irus by the suitors \ if he declines 
 to fight with Ulysses, we see what treatment re- 
 bellion or disobedience met at their hands. The 
 Greeks were always a passionate people, and wreaked 
 fierce vengeance to satisfy their wrath. Thus men 
 did not abstain altogether from mutilation of the 
 living ; thus Achilles keeps insulting the dead body 
 of his foe, and thus even queens desire to eat the raw 
 — flesh of their enemies. 
 
 But the utterance of Achilles in the nether world 
 is still more remarkable on the position of the poor, 
 who were unattached to the houses of the great. 
 ' Talk not to me,' says the hero, ' of honours among 
 the dead ; I would rather be a hired servant on 
 earth, and that to a poor man, than rule as a king 
 among the shades.' In other words, I had rather 
 choose the most wretched existence conceivable on 
 earth than rule beneath^. Accordingly the hired 
 
 ' a 83. They threaten to send him in a ship to king Echetus, the 
 general mutilator of men {fiforav hrfKiDiova iravTCOv), who will cut off 
 his nose and ears and other extremities. This personage is twice again 
 mentioned with the same epithet, and in similar connection. We have 
 no farther information as to his intention, or why this brutality was 
 tolerated. 
 
 ^ 0ovKoijjtr]V tc* kirdpovpos eojv BrjTCvifjLev dWtp 
 F 
 
66 SOCIAL GREECE. [cii- 
 
 servants (^^res) of poor farmers are selected for this 
 distinction. Is not this hint thoroughly borne out 
 by the state of things we meet in Hesiod ? If the 
 poor-farmer class, though personally free, had such 
 a hard life as he describes, how wretched must have 
 been the hired servant, whom the poet recommends 
 his hearers to turn out as soon as the press of farm 
 work was over '. There must, then, have been an 
 abundance of such servants, since they could be 
 again procured at pleasure, and we can conceive 
 how miserable must have been their pay and lodging 
 on Hesiod's farm. 
 
 But the poet Hesiod himself had no enviable days. 
 And of all his griefs, undoubtedly the foremost was 
 a patent fact seldom alluded to by the polite Ho- 
 meric bards ^ — the gross injustice of the chiefs"~in 
 
 di'Spl irap* aiKKi\p(^^ qj fXTj ISioTos nflKils eiTj, 
 ^ irdfftv veKvefffft KaTa(p9L/j.evoi(7ty dvdaaetv. X 489. 
 It is worth while to suggest as a parallel picture the ywr) x^P"'?''!* 
 a\ri6lis of M 433, who, by toiling night and day, earns an deixea luaeov, 
 miserable wages, wherewith to feed her starving orphans. She is de- 
 scribed just as we should describe the most oppressed sempstress, 
 striving to rival with worn-out fingers the machine which she has no 
 means to buy. 
 
 ' I adopt Grote's rendering of the words BfJTa ooikov irouTaSai in 
 preference to that of Gbttling and others. Cf. a similar expression in 
 Sophocles, CEd. Rex, 1029, Im exireia TrKavrjs. 
 
 ' There is only one definite allubion, that in n 384, where the onset 
 of Hector is compared to the dreadful torrents sent in late autumn by 
 Zeus to punish the men who by sheer might decide crookedly in the 
 agora and banish justice, not reverencing the gods. The very phrases 
 used are so thoroughly Hesiodic as to suggest to sceptics the rejection 
 of the passage from the lUad. I can see no reason for doing so, especially 
 as the allusion is perfectly general, and could not be taken by any noble 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 67 
 
 deciding lawsuits, and their readiness to devour bribes. 
 The fable he adduces ("Epy. 184) implies plainly 
 enough that they felt a supreme contempt for the 
 lower classes and their feelings ; they openly pro- 
 claimed the law of might, and ridiculed the lamenta- 
 tions of the ill-used and injured husbandman. The 
 repeated reminder to the people of Ithaca that 
 Ulysses had not thus treated them, but had been 
 considerate to them as a father, almost implies that 
 he was exceptional in his justice. And indeed what 
 could we expect from a society which regarded the 
 Pallas Athene of the Iliad and Odyssey as its ideal 
 of intellect and virtue ? But in Homer we see only 
 the good side (if we except the Ithacan suitors, who 
 are described as quite exceptional) ; in Hesiod we 
 are shown only the bad side. The wretched farmer 
 looked on the whole class of aristocrats as unjust 
 and violent men, that cared not at all about his 
 rights and his interests. 
 
 Perhaps if we strike an average or balance, we 
 shall obtain a fair view of the real state of things in 
 these old days. Possibly the aristocrats who man- 
 aged the states after the abolition of monarchy in 
 Boeotia were worse than the single kings; for we 
 know now-a-days that boards and parliaments have 
 neither conscience nor human feeling, so that they 
 commit injustices almost impossible to individuals, 
 and moreover they are deaf to the appeal that touches 
 
 hearer as a personal reflection. But as heavy autumn rains were an 
 ordinary phenomenon, so I believe the crime which they punished to 
 have been ordinary also. 
 
 F a 
 
68 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 a single heart. But it is surely a certain proof of the 
 antiquity of Hesiod's poems, and perhaps the most 
 hopeless feature in his difficulties, that there seems no 
 redress possible for the injustice of the nobles, except 
 the interferfence of the gods whose duty it is to punish 
 wrong among men\ The poet insists that the gods 
 do see these things, and that they will interfere ; 
 but this very insisting, coupled with the desponding 
 tone of the whole book, lets us see plainly what was 
 the general feeling of the lower classes. For as to 
 obtaining help from public opinion of any sort, even 
 from the xaXenri brjixov iprfnis {$ 239) of Homer, or the 
 grumbling in the ayopa to which Telemachus appeals — 
 there is no trace of it. The earnest and deeply out- 
 raged husbandman never dreams of a revolution, of 
 calling the assembly to declare its anger, or even of 
 enlisting some of the chiefs against the rest. It speaks 
 well for the sterner and sounder qualities of the Boeo- 
 tian farmers that such circumstances did not induce 
 despair, but rather a stern resolve to avoid the wicked 
 judgment-seats of the aristocrats, above all things to 
 keep clear of litigation, and to seek the comforts of 
 
 * So again in Horn. (A 142 aud ir 384 sq.) and Hes. 'Ep7. 260, the 
 people have to suffer en masse for the king's crimes ; this is recognised 
 far more bluntly by the kings in recovering gifts and extravagances from 
 their people (cf. Ameis on f 81). The principle of the people paying 
 for the waste of kings was exemplified even in English history not very 
 long ago ; and as to people suffering for their rulers, it not only appears 
 in later Greek authors, such as Pindar, Pyth. xii. 12, but (of course) in 
 Oriental nations, such as the Jews, where plagues are openly sent on 
 David's people because he chose to number them (2 Sam. 24). This 
 is perhaps the most explicit example to be found in early history. 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 69 
 
 hard-earned bread and of intelligent husbandry. This, 
 then, is the isolated position of the works of Hesiod 
 — the poet of the Helots — of which I have spoken 
 already. 
 
 And yet in the moral parts of his writings the 
 Greeks of later ages found much that was attractive. 
 The ' Works and Days ' became even an ordinary 
 handbook of education. This fact will not surprise 
 us, when we consider that in one broad feature the 
 moral lessons of Hesiod run parallel with the pic 
 tures of Homer, in this the exponent of the most 
 permanent features in Greek character — I mean that 
 combination of religion and shrewdness, that combi- 
 nation of the konestum and the utik^, which, though 
 it often jars upon us, yet saved the Greeks, one and 
 all, from sentimentality, from bombast, and from 
 hypocrisy. The king Ulysses and the farmer Hesiod 
 have the same respect for the gods, and the same 
 ' eye to business,' the same good nature and the same 
 selfishness, the same honour and the same meanness. 
 Perhaps the king was laxer in his notions of truth 
 than the husbandman ; just as the Cavalier thought 
 less of lying than the Roundhead. But perhaps this 
 arose from his greater proximity to the gods of the 
 
 ' I have perhaps spoken too favourably of Hesiod's ethics in the text, 
 seeing that an appeal to pure justice only takes its place in regard of the 
 high-handed violence of the nobles. In all the rest of his book, and 
 especially throughout his ethical maxims, the utile, the irMiaTq x<*pis 
 as he calls it, is the only sanction applied to actions. This cannot be 
 asserted of Homer, or even of Theognis in later days. There are some 
 good remarks on this subject in Steitz' Hesiod. 
 
70 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 epic poets, who had no difficulty at all in practising 
 falsehood. 
 
 In another point, however, the king, owing to his 
 manifold pursuits and interests, escaped a grave 
 danger. No ambition whatever lay open to Hesiod 
 and his fellows, save the making of money, and lay- 
 ing up stores of wealth, as he says (686), x{n\\i.aTa. yap 
 ^vxh Tre'Aerot beCXoicrL ppoToim ^. In those depraved 
 days, when a verdict could be bought under any cir- 
 cumstances from the corrupt chiefs, money was power, 
 even to a greater extent than in more civilised con- 
 ditions. Hence the natural tendency among the 
 lower classes must have been to postpone every- 
 thing to the amassing of wealth — nay, rather, there 
 was no other occupation open to them. So we find 
 that both Tyrteeus and Solon, ^ early poets and poli- 
 tical reformers, set down tpiXoxp-qjxaTirj as the real 
 cause of the disorders in their respective states^. 
 The same tendency is plain enough in king Ulysses, 
 and shows itself even ludicrously in -the midst of 
 the deepest melancholy and the greatest danger ; 
 as, for example, when he finds himself cast upon a 
 desolate shore and abandoned {v 215), and when he 
 
 " When I speak of money I do not prejudge the question whether 
 coined money was in use in Hesiod's day. Probably not; but the 
 precious metals in their rude state, or worked into cups, answered the 
 purpose equally well. Men had got beyond the stage of counting their 
 wealth exclusively by sheep and oxen, and by changes of raiment. 
 
 ' So Theognis bitterly exclaims (v. 699), ' the mass of men know but 
 one virtue — to be rich ' : — 
 
 itKiiBet 8' dv6pi)na>v apirrj jula yii/erai ^'Se 
 
 TtXOVTflV. 
 
III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. 71 
 
 sees Penelope drawing gifts from the suitors : but 
 his lofty and varied sphere of action forces it back 
 into a subordinate place. Yet I would have the 
 reader note this feature carefully, as we shall meet 
 it again in many forms throughout later Greek 
 society. 
 
 There is another point on which Hesiod is vastly 
 inferior in social attitude to Homer; I mean in his 
 estimate of women. But the plain-spoken bard was 
 not singing at courts, where queens sat by and 
 longed to hear of worthies of their own sex ; nor 
 did he contemplate the important duties of the 
 house-mother in the absence of her husband in wars 
 and on the service of his state. Hence it was that 
 .iEschylus, though living in a democracy where 
 women fared badly enough, yet found and felt in 
 the epic poets such characters as his Clytemnestra, 
 a reigning queen, invested with full powers in the 
 king's absence — free to discuss public affairs, to re- 
 ceive embassies, and act as her judgment directed 
 her. All these things were foreign to Hesiod's at- 
 titude ; yet surely it is strange that in describing 
 farm life and farm duties, he should not have 
 thought more of the important duties of the house- 
 wife — duties which throughout all Greek and Roman 
 history raised the position of the country - woman 
 above that of the towns-woman, whose duties were 
 less important, and whom the jealousy of city life 
 compelled to live in fear and darkness^. Yet the 
 first allusion in the 'Works and Days' is rude 
 
 • eWiaiiivov StSotKos Kai aieoTeiviv f^" is Plato's expresi'ion. 
 
72 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 enough: 'You must start with a house, a wife, and 
 an ox to plough, and have your farming implements 
 ready in the housed' There is, I believe, no farther 
 notice of the woman till the short advice concerning 
 marriage ; and here too nothing is stranger than the 
 brevity with which the subject is noticed, and the 
 total silence concerning the all - important duties 
 which even Homer's princesses performed, and which 
 were certainly in the hands of the women of Hesiod's 
 acquaintance. We might almost imagine that some 
 sour Attic editor had expunged the advice which 
 Hesiod owes us on the point, and had justified him- 
 self with the famous apophthegm of Pericles (or 
 rather of Thucydides), that ' that woman is best who 
 is least spoken of among men, either for good or 
 for evil.' Hesiod implies, indeed, that a man may 
 know something of the young women in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and this supposes some freedom of inter- 
 course; yet he seems to consider the worst feature 
 of a bad wife her desire to sit at ineals with her 
 husband, an opinion which in his-age, and his plain 
 and poor society, seems very harsh indeed^. 
 
 However, then, I may be accused of having drawn 
 Homeric society in darker colours than it deserves, 
 though I have given authority for every charge, yet 
 
 ' Of course Aristotle's authority is decisive for the meaning of the 
 verse (375\ oIkov /ilv -npimaTa, •ywcuit& Tf, 0ovv t* opoT^pa, as well as 
 for the spuriousness of the false commentary added in the next line. 
 
 * I am not satisfied with the epithet Seiirvo\6xov (649), or with the 
 rendering of the old Commentators, and think some corruption must 
 have crept into the text, though the MSS. do not vary except in the 
 termination, and the editors seem satisfied. 
 
in.J THE HOMERIC AGE. 73 
 
 on the Hesiodic society all intelligent students of 
 the 'Works and Days' are pretty well agreed. It 
 pictures a hopeless and miserable existence, in which 
 care, and the despair of better things, tended to 
 make men hard and selfish, and to blot out those 
 fairer features which cannot be denied to the courts 
 and palaces of the Iliad and Odyssey. So great, in- 
 deed, is the contrast, that most critics have assumed 
 a change of things between . the states described 
 in Homer and in Hesiod ; they have imagined that 
 the gaiety and splendour of the epic bard could 
 not have coexisted with the sorrows and the mean- 
 ness of the moral teacher. But both tradition and 
 internal evidence should convince us that these poems, 
 if not strictly contemporaneous, are yet proximate 
 enough in date to be considered socially pictures 
 of the same times, differing, as I have explained, 
 in the attitude of the poets, but not in the men 
 and the manners which gave them birth '. If so, 
 Hesiod has told us what the poor man thought 
 
 • The usual theory makes the authors of the Iliad and Odyssey 
 Asiatic Greeks, living among the lonians, though of ^olian extraction. 
 If this were so, the contrasts of Asiatic luxury and Greek poverty might 
 be brought in to explain the striking differences between the two poets. 
 For we know that the Asiatic Greeks attained to wealth and luxury 
 long before their brethren in Greece. Mr. Gladstone, however, in the 
 Contemporary Review for June 1874, contends earnestly that Homer 
 composed his poems in Greece, and both Sengebusch and Professor 
 Geddes assert it of the earliest part of the poems. To any who may 
 adopt this theory, my argument in the text will be even more pointed, 
 and the contrast more remarkable, between the refinement of the noble 
 and the rudeness of the peasant, in immediate contact throughout the 
 same, or adjoining, distiicts. 
 
74 SOCIAL GREECE. [_CH. 
 
 and felt, while the Homeric poet pictured how kings 
 and ladies ought, in his opinion, to have lived and 
 loved. And with all the contrasts, I think we can 
 see conclusively that the fundamental features were 
 the same, and that they were the legitimate seed 
 from which sprang the Greeks of historic times. 
 
 I may add, in conclusion, that this great contrast 
 between the fair exterior and the misery and injustice 
 within, though it has been now put very strongly in 
 the case of the Greeks, was not peculiar to them, but 
 has probably existed in all history where a favoured 
 caste has ruled in its own interest, and to the ex- 
 clusion of the general mass of the people. It was so 
 in ancient Egypt, it was so in ancient India — indeed, 
 in India at all times, — and it was so in mediaeval 
 Europe. 
 
 But in most of these cases the stronger classes 
 write their own history and sing their own praises, 
 while the wrongs and troubles of the poor transpire 
 but rarely and by accident. So, the miseries of the 
 old Egyptian poor are only transmitted to us by the 
 boasts of reckless kings, who so loved their own 
 glory, and to magnify their deeds, that they confessed 
 the ruthless waste of human life with which they 
 completed their eternal monuments. And again, the 
 letter of a scribe has reached us, calling on a friend 
 to embrace a literary life, and contrasting the poverty 
 and the oppression under which the farming class suf- 
 fered, with the comforts of his own calling \ These 
 chance pieces of evidence lay open to us great social 
 
 • Cf. my Prolegom. to Aiu. Hist., p. 327. 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 III.] THE HOMERIC AGE. ']^ 
 
 — . ,i__ 
 
 sores, great sorrows of humanity covered with a s^^j.. 
 face of unjust and heartless splendour. Can we ii^^a- 
 gine that in the Middle Ages, in the days of tro/^]-,^. 
 jiours and tournaments, of moated castles and j-j^-j^ 
 abbeys, when the rude baron and the wily ,'abbot 
 divided the spoil — that the lower strata of Society 
 fared in proportion? and can we imagine ther^j shar- 
 ing the splendour and the refinement told j^ qJj 
 romances and ballads? I need not speak Qf pgj.. 
 secuted races like the Jews, who were so br^j-j^j^j-Q^gj^ 
 treated that injustice towards them lost its^^gj.^ mean- 
 ing to their oppressors, who have vauntej^ their own 
 rapine and murder as the execution of X^j^jj^g com- 
 mands, and as the spreading of the gogngl of mercy 
 through the world. But even in the c^g of the poor 
 and the unprotected, the orphan andy^hg ^j^ow, the 
 sick ancf \^e destitute, it is but too- certain that all 
 the earth w|s full of violence; and/ that hearts were 
 broken and>?nour trampled in th^ j^st with little 
 compassion, wljkn^no law was foun^ ^ punish trans- 
 ression. \ ' 
 
 Feudal times m^ 
 both sen«ment and hT^ ^rchilochu^ron ; to the boor 
 they are days of turmo«r^^.^ ^^ J ^f uncertain and 
 scanty comfort, of certain ^.^/gggj^^ ^^^ ^ 
 What are the social pictures dra-.^ ^f t^ese times in 
 the novels of Sir Walter Scott-^^ooks which contain 
 more and truer history than nv^st of the dry annals 
 professing to be such? Cons^yg^ Ivanhoe, or Queniin 
 Durward, or the Fazr Maid .f p.^^f,, are they not all 
 darkened with the cry of ^.^e poor for justice and 
 
 gression. \ 
 
 "" >plain truth. WfY may produce 
 
76 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 mercy, while the rich and powerful are made by the 
 nov;elist only to suffer the punishments which they 
 esca'^ed in real life ? These things should moderate, 
 our Contempt for the Homeric Greelts, even though I 
 have \sttipped off the husk, and shown the bitterness 
 of th^ fruit within. They were unjust and cruel and 
 coarse I'lelow the surface ; but so were our ancestors, 
 ay, wit&in a century of to-day. After all it is the 
 democratic spirit — vulgar, unsentimental, litigious 
 spirit thaCj it is — which first overthrew this feudalism 
 in the worfid ; and which, in ancient Greece, in Rome, 
 and in the^' Europe of to-day, has redressed social 
 grievances, f^brbidden injustice, and punished violence 
 and wrong, o 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 
 
 When we pass the great gap that separates Ho- 
 tneric from historical Greece we find ourselves in 
 presence of a very different type of literary men. 
 The tooth of time has eaten their works into frag- 
 ments. We can find no continuous picture, no com- 
 plete sketch of life, in these scanty remnants ; but 
 still there is a something in the briefest of them that 
 speaks to us in a different tone from that of the 
 smooth and courtly rhapsodists. The lyric poets had 
 lost interest in old kings and byegone glories ; they 
 wrote about the present, they told about themselves, 
 they spoke out the plain truth. We can see in the 
 earliest of them, such as Archilochusj a clear reaction 
 against the perpetual singing of antique glory, and 
 the false palliation of heroic crimes. 'Had not 
 the poet himself told us,' says an old writer', 'we 
 should never have known that he was the son of a 
 slave, and that he was driven from his country (Paros) 
 by poverty and want, to Thasos, where he became 
 
 • Critias, quoted by ^lian, in Bergk, Fragg. Lyric. Grac. p. 724, from 
 which I quote throughout. 
 
78 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 very unpopular ; nor should we have known that he 
 abused friends and foes alike, nor that he was an 
 adulterer, except from his own words, nor that he 
 was sensual and insolent, nor, worst of all\ that he 
 threw away his shield. Archilochus, therefore, was no 
 good witness concerning himself.' 
 
 And yet this poet was unanimously placed by the 
 Greeks next to Homer in popularity. We are, there- 
 fore, no longer in the presence of Greek Spensers and 
 Miltons, who forgot themselves and their age to sing 
 about gods and heroes, but in the presence of a Greek 
 Byron, who not only applied his transcendent genius to 
 satirise the men and the social laws of his own time, 
 but who flaunted before the world the worst passages 
 of an evil life, and, as a fatifaron de vices, gloried in 
 violating the holiest obligations which restrain ordi- 
 nary men in every civilised community. The same 
 outspokenness, though it did not reach the same 
 extremes, marks the fragments of Alcaeus, of Sappho, 
 of Theognis, and of Solon. They stand totally apart 
 in spirit from the old rhapsodists, and in contact 
 with the moderns. They were strict realists in their 
 art, not approaching the ideal save in the hymns they 
 composed for the public worship of the gods. 
 
 The self-assertion of cowardice in so many of these 
 poets is a feature well worth noticing more particu- 
 larly. Not only have we the evidence just quoted 
 about Archilochus, but Herodotus (v. 95), and after- 
 wards Strabo (xiii. 600), tell us a similar story of 
 Alcaeus, who actually wrote a poem to a friend, and 
 ' Observe this Greek gradation of crimes. 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 79 
 
 published it, detailing how he had thrown away his 
 shield in battle, and how the Athenians, with whom 
 he had fought, had hung it up as a trophy in Sigeum. 
 We are not surprigjgd, when such statements were 
 made by turbulent and warHke poets, to find allusions 
 in the fragments of Anacreon which seem to point to 
 some similar story {frags. 29, 30). I argued above 
 (p. 21) that the Greeks were not a courageous nation, 
 in the sense now accepted, and I think these ad- 
 ditional pieces of evidence, from a later age, cor- 
 roborate what I have said. The attitude of Pindar 
 towards war is quite similar to that of other Greek 
 poets. His style and subject-matter do not admit of 
 confessions like those of Archilochus and Alcsus. 
 He says {frag. 74) that only the inexperienced love 
 war ; a sentiment likely enough to be strongly felt in 
 the days of the disastrous, though glorious, Persian 
 invasion, just as we often heard it expressed by 
 German soldiers and ofScers after the late war in 
 France. But still it is evidence of a feeling in Pindar 
 different from, and more modern than, the valour of 
 the knight-errant and the crusader. 
 
 Plato, in his Laws^, has a very Greek theory to 
 account for the decay of valour in modern times, as 
 compared with the valour of the ideal Homeric hero 
 and the old Spartan citizen. He notices that the 
 Athenians were subject to Minos ^ and obliged to 
 pay him a tribute of human lives, because he pos- 
 
 ' Jowett, vol. iv. p. 227. 
 
 " This is probably the mythical account of the old Phoenician supre- 
 macy in the Greek waters. Cf. above, p. 16. 
 
8o SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 sessed a naval power, and they did not. ' Better for 
 them,' he adds, ' to have lost many times over the 
 seven youths, than that heavy-armed and stationary 
 troops should have been turned into sailors, and ac- 
 customed to leap quickly on shore, and again to hurry 
 back to their ships ' ; or should have fancied that 
 there was no disgrace in not awaiting the attack of 
 an enemy and dying boldly ; and that there were 
 good reasons, and many of them, for a man throwing 
 away his arms, and betaking himself to flight, which 
 is affirmed upon occasion not to be dishonourable. 
 This is the language of naval warfare, and is anything 
 but worthy of extraordinary praise. For we should 
 not teach bad habits, least of all to the best part of 
 the citizens. You may learn the evil of such a prac- 
 tice from Homer, by whom Odysseus is introduced, 
 rebuking Agamemnon, because he desires to draw 
 down the ships to the sea at a time when the Achaeans 
 are hard pressed. ' For,' says he, ' the Achaeans will 
 not maintain the battle, when the shijjs are drawn 
 into the sea, but they will look behind and cease 
 from strife.' You see that be quite knew triremes on 
 the sea, in the neighbourhood of fighting men, to be 
 an evil j lions might be trained in that way to fly 
 from a herd of deer. Moreover, naval powers, which 
 owe their safety to ships, do not honour that sort of 
 warlike excellence which is most deserving of honour. 
 For he who owes his safety to the pilot, and the cap- 
 tain, and the oarsman, and all sorts of rather good- 
 for-nothing persons, cannot rightly give honour to 
 whom honour is due. 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 8i 
 
 Plato has not the smallest notion of real sailor 
 courage, such as .we have inherited from the Norse- 
 men ; he does not know that such courage may be 
 higher than that of any landsman, for he only had 
 before him the wretched coasting and plundering sea 
 warfare of the Greeks, His evidence, however, on 
 the small valour of the Greek marine is most 
 valuable. 
 
 But to return ; there are ample historical reasons 
 to account for the blunt realism of the lyric poets. 
 The main interests of the Hellenic nation, after the 
 wars and adventures occasioned by their colonising 
 epoch had passed away, were centred not on foreign 
 affairs, or external wars, but on the internal conflicts 
 of their cities. The great social struggle between the 
 higher and lower classes had commenced, and so the 
 aristocracy became naturally separated in most of 
 the cities into close factions, with common interests 
 and common principles of action. The early lyric 
 poets, as a class, were members of this society, and 
 spoke as equals to intimate equals, not as paid in- 
 feriors to please their employers, till the epoch of the 
 tyrants came, when a few of the later lyrists fell back 
 socially into a position somewhat analogous to the 
 rhapsodists. Since these things are so, the scanty 
 and dislocated lyric fragments are worth far more, 
 historically, than the more consecutive but more 
 imaginary pictures of the epic poems. They disclose 
 to us a society of men of like passions with the later 
 Greeks, but more reckless and violent, inasmuch as 
 men whose old privileges are for the first time 
 
 G 
 
82 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 attacked are more bitter than those who have become 
 accustomed to this ungrateful reform. 
 
 When Thucydides tells us that the moral depravity 
 so graphically described in his third book came in 
 with the civil war, it is surprising that this assertion 
 has been adopted by historians without large quali- 
 fications. It may possibly be true that democracies, 
 being more thoroughly organised and firmer in their 
 claims, began to develope these vices more mani- 
 festly at this time, but ii is plainly false to say that 
 the Greek aristocrats did not openly act on all the 
 principles indicated by Thucydides long before his day. 
 As I have already shown, even Homer's Gods and 
 Hesiod's Iron Age possess all these disagreeable 
 features. Were we to seek an historical illustration 
 of the same thing, it would rather be found in the 
 poems of Theognis (v. 1182) or Alcaeus than in any 
 other portion of Greek literature. 
 
 But we must look more to Hesiod than to Homer 
 for the antecedents of the moral darkness of lyric 
 Greece. We now see, not the oppressed farmer 
 suffering from injustice and violence, yet still in awe 
 of the divine right of his princes, but these very 
 hcapo(pdyoi ^ao-tATJes quarrelling, as we might expect, 
 over their ill-used privileges, and over the booty ^ey 
 had plundered from their people. Greek history, too, 
 makes it plain that the lower classes did not awake 
 spontaneously to their rights, and put forth one of 
 themselves to vindicate and lead them ; but that 
 the noble who failed in the struggle with his brother 
 aristocrats — this was he who taught the brjuos their 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 83 
 
 rights, and offered to lead them against their former 
 oppressors. The Hesiodic boor was thiis awakened 
 to his claims, and entered into the conflict with the 
 vigour of his race. But of course he was duped by 
 his leader, who only wanted hini as a tool, not as a 
 friend, and who reduced both his former equals and 
 his former supporters to one level, as soon as he was 
 able to, establish his tyranny. 
 
 Thus there arose a certain phase of Greek society, 
 called the age of the Tyrants, which has hardly re- 
 ceived fair treatment at the hands of historians. 
 Politically, indeed, as regards the development of 
 written laws, and the habits of public debate, it must 
 be regarded as an epoch of stagnation, or of retro- 
 gression in Greece ; but socially and aesthetically, nay 
 even morally, in spite of the vices of many Greek 
 despots, I hold it to have been not only an age of 
 progress in Greece, but even a necessary prelude to 
 the higher life which was to follow. For if we regard 
 carefully the attitude of Hesiod, Theognis, Alcaeus, 
 and other such poets, we shall find that in the aris^ 
 tocratic stage, in which the proper history of Greece 
 opens, the degradation of the lower classes and the un- 
 disguised violence of the nobles made all approach to 
 a proper constitution impossible. The Boeotian farmer 
 thought that he must suffer for the sins of his princes, 
 and never thought it possible that he should reject 
 the responsibility. He regarded this Jove-sprung 
 pestilence as a sort of iron necessity that brought 
 him unavoidable suffering. In like manner the aris- 
 tocrats could never endure to see the men who lived 
 
84 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 like wild beasts' in skins, and- were timid as deer', 
 claiming privileges, and discussing rights with their 
 noble selves. ' Between us and you there is a great 
 gulf fixed ' — this was the watchword of their policy. 
 And so the nobles in Athens, in Megara, in Lesbos, 
 and probably in Sparta, quarrelled among themselves 
 with great violence, but never thought for one 
 moment of bettering the condition of the hr]jj.os. 
 
 When the tyrants arose, they forced these widely 
 separated classes into the same subjection. There is 
 ample evidence that they systematically raised the 
 common people, and lowered the nobles. There is 
 equally ample evidence that they enforced order, and 
 in some cases put down with a strong hand open 
 immorality'*, so that cities which had been racked 
 with revolution and violence for generations, first 
 came to feel the blessings of a strong government, 
 and the benefits of a peace to which they had been 
 total strangers. This gave them time to develope 
 commerce and to cultivate art — the latter specially 
 encouraged by the tyrants as a class. I hold, then, 
 that Greece, when the tyrants passed away, was in a 
 condition vastly superior to its aristocratic age— in 
 fact, in a condition fit to develope political life. This 
 
 ' I quote this from Theognis, v. 55. 
 
 ^ This is certain from the evidence we have in the fragments of 
 Theoporapus {cf. frag. 252) about the tyrants of Mitylene. Curtius has 
 an ingenious theory that the tyrants were the evidence of a mercantile 
 Ionic reaction against the aristocratic Doric ascendancy brought about 
 by the greatness of Sparta. This theory, if proved, does not contradict 
 what is said in the text, but concerns the pohtical side of a question, 
 which I am regarding from a social point of view. 
 
IV.J THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 85 
 
 would have been impossible but for the fusion of 
 classes and the development of culture produced by 
 the tyrants. 
 
 One memorable example will suffice by way of 
 illustration. What was the state of Athens when 
 Solon arose ? It had been torn by factions for years. 
 The country was languishing. Men were weary of 
 turmoil and confusion. At last this great genius 
 was entrusted with the regulation of public affairs. 
 He tells us plainly enough in extant poems that he 
 endeavoured to lay down a fair constitution, raising 
 the lower classes gradually, curbing the violence of 
 the nobles, tempering all the extremes into a great 
 whole in which all should have an interest. Here, 
 then, was a fair and just constitution offered to a 
 city in the pre-despotic stage. What was the re- 
 sult ? In spite of all his efforts, in spite of his self- 
 imposed absence, and the oath taken to avoid 
 changes, the aristocrats could not be restrained. 
 They openly ridiculed Solon, as he tells us, for not 
 grasping the tyranny, in fact they could not con- 
 ceive his declining to do so ; even the lower classes 
 seem not to have understood his great benefits, for 
 the noble legislator complains, in language which 
 still touches us across the great gulf of centuries, 
 how he stands alone without friend or support in 
 the state'. 
 
 ' The ridicule of his aristocratic friends appears in quotations from 
 Solon's own poems by Plutarch in chap. xvl. of his precious Life of 
 Solon. ' But his intimates more particularly depreciated him, because 
 he thought ill of monarchy on account of its name, as if it did not forth- 
 
86 SOCIAL GREECE. [cH. 
 
 It is to be observed, farther, that the lessons which 
 he taught, and the ideas which he strove to instil 
 into the Athenian mind, were no obscure metaphy- 
 sics, no lofty flights of fancy, but the plainest home- 
 spun morality, so plain indeed that his practical 
 lessons appear to us mere truisms. His moral atti- 
 tude differs toto ccelo from that of ^schylus, and 
 stands so close to that of Hesiod and Theognis, that 
 they dispute with him the authorship of sundry re- 
 flections. 
 
 This very plain teaching, and this great moral and 
 political pre-eminence of Solon, were nevertheless to 
 all appearance useless. No sooner had he completed 
 his work and left Athens, than the old strife of 
 parties revived. His return made no change in this 
 wretched state of things. His laws were powerless, 
 his lessons were unheeded. He had cast his pearls 
 before swine, and they were ready to turn again 
 and rend him. His solution of the problem was no 
 
 with become a kingship [instead of a tyranny?] by the merit of the 
 holder, and as they had the precedents of Tynnondas in Euboea and 
 PittaciTS in Mitylene. None of these things made Solon to swerve from 
 his policy, but he said to his friends that a tyranny was a fair position 
 with no escape from it. ..." He has thus described the ridicule of those 
 who derided him for avoiding the tyranny : ' Solon is no man of sound 
 sense or counsel, for when God gave him a fine chance he himself would 
 not take it ; but when he had made a miraculous draught, in amazement 
 he did not haul in the great net, through want both of spirit and of sense. 
 'He should have been well content, having got power and abundant 
 wealth, to be tyrant of Athens for a single day, even were he then flayed 
 ^live and his race destroyed.' It is with reference to such friends that 
 Solon speaks of himself (/raj*. 37) as a wolf worried by dogs crowding 
 about him. , . 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 87 
 
 doubt theoretically excellent, but practically it was 
 a decided failure. Peisistratus, a man of inferior 
 genius, but of greater vigour and boldness, saw better 
 how to solve it. Of course Peisistratus had private 
 ends, like Julius Csesar, like Alexander, like Napo- 
 leon. But when a great man's private ends happen 
 to coincide with the good of the state, he ought not 
 to lose all credit because he happens to benefit him- 
 self. There is ample evidence that Peisistratus was 
 not only a wise but a humane and orderly ruler. 
 Despite the violent opposition of the aged Solon, 
 he treated him with respect, and is said to have 
 strictly obseived his laws. This shows his esti- 
 mate of Solon's theory. But if he did approve of 
 Solon's laws, he introduced the new element in which 
 Solon was wanting. After all, the aristocrats who 
 had ridiculed the lawgiver for not turning tyrant, had 
 some wisdom in their taunts. Laws must not only 
 be made, they must be enforced. Peisistratus en- 
 forced Solon's laws \ He was not content with laws 
 punishing neutrality during insurrections. He in- 
 sisted on peace and order in the city. He stopped 
 by main force the perpetual political agitation which 
 is the ruin of any commonwealth. He developed the 
 tastes of the lower classes, giving them intellectual 
 and social pleasures to compensate for the loss of 
 higher but more dangerous excitement. The reading 
 
 • See the remarkable passage in Plato's Laws, iv. 711, in which he 
 shows how rapidly a tyrant was able, even by merely selling the fashion, 
 to alter the laws and customs of a state. He is distinctly of opinion that 
 there is no other means at all so rapid and complete. 
 
88 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 of Homer, the feasts of Dionysus, the newest lyric 
 poems, attracted the attention of the public, and 
 weaned them from the wild fever of conflicting rights 
 and opposing privileges. Of course the great nobles 
 found the change intolerable. They retired, like 
 Miltiades, to their country mansions. Thfey gladly 
 left the country to found colonies, and regain as 
 foreign princes the importance they had lost at home. 
 Athens stood still in political training, but she gained 
 immensely in culture. Let the reader remember that 
 without sound intellectual culture all political train- 
 ing is and must be simply mischievous. A free con- 
 stitution is perfectly absurd, if the opinion of the 
 majority is incompetent. Until men are educated, 
 they want a strong hand over them — a fact which 
 very few in this country will be disposed to dispute. 
 I fear it is almost hopeless to persuade English 
 minds that a despotism may in some cases be better 
 for a nation than a more advanced constitution. And 
 yet no students of history can fail to observe that eveii 
 now very few nations in the world are fit for diffused 
 political privileges. These nations are so manifestly 
 the greatest and best, and consequently the most 
 prosperous^ that inferior races keep imitating their 
 institutions, instead of feeling that these institutions 
 are the result and not the cause of true national 
 greatness. Of course the result reacts upon the cause, 
 and becomes itself a cause in due time, but only 
 Avhere it has grown up naturally, not where it has 
 been superinduced artificially. Thus the attempts 
 at democracy of the Spaniards, of the American 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 89 
 
 negroes, and of all such non-political races, must 
 for generations to come end in failure. The case 
 of the Irish is still more remarkable. The English 
 nation has in vain given them its laws, and even 
 done something to enforce them. The nation will 
 not thrive, because this is the very constitution not 
 fit for it. I believe even a harsh despotism would 
 be more successful, and perhaps in the end more 
 humane. 
 
 When the Greek tyrants had done their work, the 
 day of liberty came, and with it a great struggle, 
 which nerved and braced the people's energies 
 against an outward foe. The literature of free 
 Athens shows us a perfectly new attitude. Of 
 course it were absurd to attribute this memorable 
 national development — the most miraculous the 
 world has ever seen — to any single cause. A con- 
 current number of great causes could alone have 
 produced such an effect. But I claim as one cause 
 the literary culture which Athens received at the 
 hands of Peisistratus and his sons. The hearers of 
 j^schylus were intellectually men widely different 
 from the hearers of Solon, nay even from the early 
 hearers of later lyric poets, like Pindar and Simonides. 
 There is a depth and a condensation of thought in 
 .^schylus which would have made him, perfectly 
 unintelligible to men who appreciated the stupid 
 saws of Hesiod and Solon, even when obscured or 
 polished by Pindar and Simonides. The fact that 
 .^schylus was appreciated proves that Athens had 
 attained the intellectual culture fit for a great demo- 
 
90 SOCIAL GREECE. [CO.. 
 
 cracy. I believe that she owed this culture mainly 
 to her tyrants '. 
 
 But of course the tyrants had their bad effect on 
 literary men, even while they promoted culture. 
 For their position and their policy led them to 
 encourage smoothness and elegance rather than 
 originality and vigour. Archilochus and Aristo- 
 phanes could not have been tolerated among them, 
 and there were certain species of poetry, like the 
 comedy of the latter, which though born, lay dor- 
 mant till their control had passed away. . So then 
 the lyric poets, who have been divided in numerous 
 cross divisions, as regards dialect, metre, country, 
 and subjects, may be divided for our present pur- 
 pose into the poets of free states, and the poets at 
 the courts of tyrants. 
 
 The characteristics of the former and the value 
 of the evidence they afford us are sufficiently ob- 
 vious from the foregoing remarks. I shall only 
 here call attention among the latter to the attitude 
 of Pindar, who appears from his poems to have 
 been more a courtier than an honest man. I take 
 his moral reflections, and those of Simonides, to be 
 far less sincere than those of Solon or Theognis. 
 But unfortunately, the high popularity of the earlier 
 gnomists made it impossible to keep their works 
 
 ' In corroboration nf this view of the literary influence of the tyrants, 
 I may quote the curious case of Magna Grsecia, where the AchEean con- 
 federation.which excluded tyrants.also exhibited no literary genius, though 
 Tarentum and Rhegium and the Sicilian cities bore their full share, often 
 under tyrants. Cf. Mommsen's Ram. Hist. i. 143, Eng. Trans. 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 91 
 
 pure and undefiled. Later moral teachers added 
 to the older reflections various new saws and 
 maxims, and these, especially when they were 
 of high merit \ took refuge under the name of 
 Hesiod, or of Solon, or of Theognis, even where 
 they seem to us in direct contradiction to these 
 authors' opinions. Accordingly there is no more 
 hopeless task than the critical expurgating of such 
 texts. The interpolations are often as old as the 
 circulation of the poems, and usually of equal merit 
 as to thought and diction. These additions are 
 flagrantly obvious in our extant remains of Theognis, 
 and have been there since the fourth century B.C., 
 at all events, for Plato criticises them in his Meno ^ 
 as part of the received text. The curious saltus 
 from subject to subject, the constant and direct in- 
 consistencies, the total absence of continuity in the 
 fragments, tell but too plainly the history of their text. 
 It is beyond the scope of a general sketch to 
 attempt a notice of all the individual peculiarities 
 
 ' This consideration shows the folly of a very common procedure 
 among the German critics, of determining by their own taste (generally 
 a very capricious one) what lines are of inferior merit, and excluding 
 them as unworthy of the genuine poet. The supposed defect in the 
 suspected passage often arises from a want of comprehension on the 
 part of the critic. Choice specimens of this sort of restitution may 
 be seen in Steitz' othem-ise valuable book on Hesiod, and still better 
 in Lucian MuUer's papers on some of Ovid's Heroides in the twenty- 
 third vol. of the Rhein. Mus. In proverbial poetry at all events, neither 
 commonplace nor disconnection are sufficient proof of spuriousness, and 
 again no line is more liktly to be foisted in than a really good and striking 
 line. There is indeed no reason why the interpolated lines should not be 
 superior to the original poem. ' Jowett, vol. i. p. 286. 
 
93 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 scattered through the widely severed fragments of the 
 lyric poets. Where the germ was developed in later 
 Greek society we shall notice it in our more special 
 consideration of the Attic age. But there are a few 
 general features, repeated in many of the fragments, 
 despite of contrasts in time and place, in metre and 
 in dialect. These must here occupy us a brief space. 
 There is, for example, a peculiar uniformity in 
 many of them as to their religious views — I mean 
 their views of Divine Justice and Benevolence, of 
 Providence and of Fate. Solon and Theognis, Ar- 
 chilochus and the earlier Simonides, the later Simon- 
 ides and his contemporary Pindar, all agree in their 
 general theory of life. They were led by bitter ex- 
 perience to assert, what had never been dared by 
 Homer and only hinted by Hesiod, that goodness 
 and justice among men were often without reward, 
 and that the wicked did flourish as a green bay tree ; 
 and yet, for all that, they never advanced even to the 
 most distant hint of atheism, or to a denial that the 
 gods could and did interfere in human affairs. Had 
 such a notion been within their horizon, it must 
 have come into sight when we find such almost 
 comic appeals as this of Theognis : — ' Dear Zeus, I 
 wonder at thee : for thou rulest over all, having in 
 thine own hands honour and great power and of men 
 thou knowest well the heart and mind of each, and 
 thy strength is over all, O king ! How is it then that 
 thy mind can tolerate to hold transgressors and the 
 just in the same lot .■' ' And so the conclusion appears 
 briefly in the succeeding lines, ' there is nothing de- 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 93 
 
 cided for mortals as regards the Deity, nor what 
 path he must tread to please the immortal gods.' 
 This is their common attitude. They feel the pre- 
 sence of the Deity ; they believe that human hap- 
 piness and misery are bestowed by him ; but though 
 their deepest instinct tells them that virtue must 
 be his law, and justice his principle, they cannot 
 reconcile with it the facts of common life. They con- 
 clude, therefore, that the ways of God are inscrutable, 
 and his paths past finding out. Thus Solon, in the 
 most famous of his ■ fragments (No. 13, ed. Bergk), 
 where he tells us the results of his deepest reflections 
 on human life, after asserting in the strongest terms 
 a ruling Providence, which though often tardy, yet 
 never fails to seek out and punish vice, it may be in 
 the sinner himself, it may be by visitations upon the 
 third and fourth generation — after this dogmatic 
 teaching, Solon goes on to show how men are car- 
 ried about, each by his own vanity and his peculiar 
 ambition, and how not one of them can see what 
 dangers and what successes are before him. In the 
 words of another fragment (17) irwrTj 8' hBavLTOiv 
 a^avT]^ voos avOpairoLcriv. 
 
 The lines of Theognis (vv. 133 sq.) are still 
 stronger : — ' No one, Cyrnus, is himself the cause of 
 his misfortune or his gain, but the gods are the 
 givers of them both ; nor does any man work with 
 a sure knowledge whether the result will be good 
 cr evil. For often when he thinks he is producing 
 evil, he produces good, and again thinking to pro- 
 duce good he produces evil. Nor does any man 
 
94 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 attain his expectations, for the Hmits of stern ina- 
 bility restrain him (tuxet yap \a.\i-nr\^ lidpixT a\vi]xav'jr\i). 
 For we men form idle opinions, knowing nothing, 
 but the gods accomplish all according to their mind,' 
 It must be observed that, by way of antidote, the 
 succeeding lines tell that he who deceives a stranger, 
 or a suppliant, never escapes the immortal gods. 
 The gloomy lines of Archilochus {fr. 56), and Si- 
 monides of Amorgos {fr. l), of Simonides of Ceos 
 (/''■ ,5)j ^'^^ of Pindar's twelfth Olympian Ode, 
 repeat the same disappointment and the same de- 
 spair ; nay, their very language is so similar to that 
 of Solon and Theognis, that they seem but evident 
 repetitions of the • common wisdom of the day, 
 couched in the tritest and most homely words ^ 
 
 It is worthy of remark that these poets were far 
 too philosophic to account for their difficulties, as 
 Homer would do, by the conflicting passions of in- 
 dependent deities. This vulgar polytheism had long 
 passed away from educated minds, and the poets 
 speak of the Deity, for the most part, impersonally, 
 or as one almighty Zeus. 
 
 The vague and negative attitude of their religion 
 
 ' I quote the words of Pindar instar omnium : — 
 
 av\i^6Kov 8' ov irij tis emxOoviouv 
 marbv dfi^l irpi^tos iaaoixivas etpev 9e66ev 
 rwv S^ iJLe\K6vT03y Tcn^tf^ouvTcu tppdSal. 
 TToAXcl S' dvOpiinoLS trapci yv^ptav Hireaev, 
 €fina\iv fXiV Teptpios, ol 5' dviapaXs 
 
 &iiriKipaavT(s (/6,\aii iaXbv fiaOi) irqimros iv puKp^ iteSifunlay 
 Xpivtji. 01. xii. 7-12. 
 
 These poets add but little to Hesiod, "Epy. 83 sqq. 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 95 
 
 naturally coloured their practical ethics, and so we 
 here find many conflicting apophthegms, as is wont 
 to be the case in all proverbial philosophy. According 
 to the writer's momentary attitude, according to the 
 subject in hand, the preacher frames his parable, 
 without regard to consistency. This peculiarity is 
 indeed so salient in the extant works of Theognis, 
 that it seems impossible to deny extensive interpo- 
 lations ; and there can be little doubt that here, as 
 in Hesiod, the use of the author as a schoolbook 
 induced men to smuggle in foreign morality under 
 the shelter of a great name. It is of course impos- 
 sible to gather such teaching under general heads, 
 or present it as a connected system. 
 
 But there are some points on which lyric poets as 
 widely apart as Tyrta;us and Pindar agree, and this 
 because they have both inherited them from the Ionic 
 and Boeotian Epos. They both think, for example, 
 that the best way of inculcating heroism is not by 
 sentimental appeals, but by showing the solid ad- 
 vantages to be derived from it. It is far better, says 
 Tyrtseus {fr. lo), to die in battle, than to be driven 
 from one's city and rich fields and have to beg, 
 going about with one's aged father, one's wife and 
 little children. For a man is hateful to those whom 
 he visits in his poverty and dire distress, and dis- 
 graces his race and his own respectability. ' If then,' 
 the poet proceeds, ' there is no regard for a wan- 
 dering man, nor respect, nor consideration, nor pity, 
 let us fight with courage, and not spare our lives.' 
 This picture of the contempt in which a vagrant 
 
96 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 beggar is held, even if sprung from gentle blood, 
 reminds us of the anxious hurrying of Ulysses to 
 the asylum of the hearth, it literally repeats Hesiod's 
 advice to Perses (v. 367), and reminds us of the sad 
 words of Andromache, in describing the lot of her 
 orphan child (above, p. 41). 
 
 Pindar, whose evidence is not quite so valuable, 
 inasmuch as he wrote in the interest of his pro- 
 fession, repeatedly tells us that the satisfaction of 
 doing great things is nothing, if the glory of being 
 publicly praised does not attend it. We saw above 
 that this worship of success was quite Homeric^ 
 being the counterpart of the contempt of failure, and 
 equally prominent in the Greek mind. To the pas- 
 sages already quoted I may add one in Pindar, 
 which shocks us in comparison with the gentleness 
 and sympathy of Achilles towards the vanquished 
 at the games. He says that the Deity has given to 
 the four lads, whom Alcimedon conquered, a most 
 hateful return from the arena, a cowed voice, and a 
 sneaking along unfrequented paths ^. The same idea 
 is found in one of his fragments (150). A very remark- 
 able historical parallel is to be read in Herodotus 
 (vi. 6"]), where the new king of Sparta sends a mes- 
 senger to ask his deposed rival, out of insolence and 
 derison, how he liked being a magistrate after being 
 a king. I think, therefore, that in this respect^ the 
 Greeks of the lyric age were hardly gentlemen in 
 our sense. Another feature may, perhaps, be regarded 
 
 * v6<XT0v IxSiarov «ai aTt/ioTipav y\Si(iaav /cai iit'iKpvipov oT/iov. 
 
 01. viii. 68. 
 
.IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 97 
 
 as at that epoch (if not, indeed, at all epochs) really- 
 national and Hellenic. Their usual teaching, which 
 was in theory sound, and based upon the excellence 
 and the satisfactions of virtue, did not extend to 
 political life, or at least was confessedly to be there 
 overridden by the pressure of circumstances. This 
 inconsistency was the natural outcome of their re- 
 ligion. As they believed in a Providence, and in this 
 Providence rewarding virtue, so they taught that 
 men should follow virtue. As they also held that the 
 reward was often withheld, and that dishonesty and 
 craftiness were constantly successful ; so they did not 
 expect men to be proof against pressure, but advised 
 them to follow the stream of fortune, and, above all, 
 not to miss the satisfactions of love and of revenge ^- 
 They were, like Machiavelli, more outspoken than 
 we are on this side, as many of them were scarcely 
 moral teachers, and were more intent on painting 
 life as it is, and as they found it, than on raising 
 the standard of actions. But I hardly know whether 
 we should not note the same kind of inconsistency 
 in our own professed Christian, who exhorts his 
 neighbour to turn the other cheek to him who has 
 smitten one, and to give his cloak to the man who 
 has taken his coat, and yet this same adviser upbraids 
 and scorns his friend if he brooks an insult without 
 instant satisfaction. 
 
 The party struggles of the Greek cities made the 
 aristocrats, who were in the •end for the most part 
 defeated, far more vindictive than ever Greek nature 
 
 '.Solon, ;^. 13; Archil. ;V. 65. 
 H 
 
98 SOCIAL GREECE. [cH. 
 
 could have been originally, and the poems of Theo- 
 gnis, which were general favourites among the nobles 
 throughout Greece, show a mixture of contempt and 
 hatred against the lower classes that excludes all 
 generous and even honest treatment. It was openly- 
 recommended to fawn upon your enemy, to deceive 
 him till he was in your power, and then wreak ven- 
 geance upon him. It is usual among critics to speak 
 of this as the attitude of Theognis, and of the special 
 aristocracy to which he belonged. They forget that 
 we find the same attitude in the moral Pindar 
 [Pyth. ii. 84). 
 
 ttotI 8' ex6p!)v dr' kxOp6s fitv \iicoio SUav vnoSiiaojUu, 
 d\K' dWoTe iraTeuv oSoTs aKo\iaTs. 
 
 It is expounded by Hesiod {'Efiy. 165, sqq.) as proxi- 
 mate, by Thucydides as universal, at a later epoch. 
 
 I cannot but dwell for a moment on this painful 
 feature, inasmuch as it is so closely paralleled in the 
 Ireland of to-day. Theognis is full of exhortations 
 against making friendships, against trusting in any 
 way the lower classes, who will ever be found false 
 and ungrateful. ' Make none of these townspeople 
 (w. 60 sq.) your friend for the sake of your need ; 
 rather seem to be friendly with them all in words 
 (dTTo yXma-a-ijs), but communicate not at all with them 
 any serious matter whatever, or you will know the 
 minds of these miserable men, how they have no 
 honour (irtoTis) in theif actions, but they love wile 
 and stratagem, and tortuous ways, like men despair- 
 ing of security ' (/liijKe'n o-<ofo'jnej;oi). Many other 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 99 
 
 passages^ repeat this doctrine. It is precisely the 
 feeling entertained towards Roman Catholics by the 
 old-school Orangemen of Ireland. Hundreds of times 
 have I myself been warned not to trust the ' false 
 papists,' whose religion was full of lies, and whose 
 word could not be believed, who had been known to 
 betray their best friends, and to violate the holiest 
 ties ^ Unfortunately, there are real facts sufficient to 
 vamp up such a frightful theory. In the first place, 
 the pure Celt, who is always a Catholic, has less re- 
 gard for truth than the Protestant, with his touch of 
 Saxon breeding. Secondly, the long oppression of 
 the Roman Catholics, and their enforced separation 
 from Protestant society, has created a clan feeling, 
 which, in times of great bitterness and bloodshed, has 
 ■ba^lP'kaewn to,.QuJLw-Gigh. even theLclG5«;jt ties of friend- 
 ship toward the enemies of the clan. In this way, 
 what one side translate as faith towards country and 
 religion, the other call traitorous betrayal of friends 
 
 > vv. 279, 847, 853. 
 
 * This antipathy sometimes assumes a very grotesque form. ' How 
 are you getting on, James ?' said a friend of mine to one of these Orange- 
 men. ' Badly enough, your honour ; sure the country is gone to 
 the divil.' ' Why do you say that ? I see your farm in good order, with 
 plenty of stock on it.' ' What matter about that, doesn't your honour 
 know that if you shot a Papist now you'd be tried for it?' When my 
 friend looked amused, the Orangeman added with much warmth : ' Well, 
 with the blesiiti n' God, I'll have one day's fowlin' among them before I die.' 
 
 Another was known to object vehemently to controversial sermons, 
 whereby the Papists might be converted. 'Till hell with them,' he 
 exclaimed, ' I wouldn't convert them.' Such anecdotes might be 
 multiplied ad libitum. The Roman Catholic party have just as strong 
 \5entiments, but do not express them so boldly, 
 
 II 2 
 
100 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and relations. Thus any thoughtful man who has 
 lived in Ireland comes to understand Greek political 
 hate with peculiar clearness. 
 
 Theognis has various theories to explain the mean- 
 ness and falseness of the lower classes, all of them 
 more or less true, and all of them verified by the 
 modern parallel I have cited. He says (v. 279) that 
 these people have to live from hand to mouth, and 
 therefore are trained to disregard and forget just 
 requital, if future. He says (v. 305) that they are not 
 all bad from the mother's womb, but are brought up 
 in bad society, and so all degenerate to a low level. 
 Crush them under your heel, and drive them with 
 a sharp goad (v. 847), for they are slavish. Finally 
 (vv. 383, 899), he speaks very strongly on the .de- 
 grading effects ^-^-novert v.. which ^drag, even ^«(*S,ne 
 and noble mind into meanness and cowardice ; for 
 strong necessity compels him to look to his daily 
 bread, and not to endanger it by pride and inde- 
 ' pendence. 
 
 If we weigh the evidence on these great problems 
 in the lyric fragments, as compared with the epic 
 poems, we shall say that while on the question of 
 religion men had begun to see and appreciate diffi- 
 culties, and to repudiate low and childish views about 
 the gods,. in morals there was neither much advance 
 nor marked retrogression. The collapse of the popular 
 religion, which was even then in process, ought to 
 have made men more reckless, for many are totally 
 unhinged when old beliefs fall away from them ; 
 they have bound together all their morals with their 
 
IV.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. loi 
 
 dogmas, and cannot sustain the one without the other. 
 But a deeper sense of moral obHgation, and a sounder 
 and stronger conviction of the duties each man owes 
 to society — these counterbalancing forces saved the 
 higher and purer minds, and gave them a surer and 
 better reason for honesty and goodness than the 
 wrath of Athene or Apollo ; and so in some minds, 
 and those the highest, a better and nobler morality 
 took the place of the religion of olden days. This 
 development would doubtless have borne good fruit, 
 and shown us the lyric age far superior to Homer's, 
 had not the almost universal and chronic civil wars 
 in the Greek cities embittered every relation of life, 
 and sown the growing mind of Greece with hate and 
 with revenge. It is to this melancholy social state — 
 a state first checked by the tyrants — that we must 
 ascribe the smallness of the moral progress among 
 the Greeks of this age. I pass to kindred, but 
 lighter topics. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE {continued). 
 
 Social intercourse appears to have stood far apart 
 from the older times, and in close relation to the 
 manners of the later Greeks, as we shall have ample 
 occasion to notice hereafter. In feasting especially, 
 moderate eating and drinking, combined with good 
 conversation, had assumed in the minds of educated 
 Greeks the prominence which they now have in in- 
 tellectual society. Of course all noise and clamour, 
 such as is the fashion among our students, were in- 
 tolerable to Greek refinement^. ' Come, now,' says 
 
 ' Tennyson has well contrasted (7b Mem. Ixxxvi.) 
 
 ' the noise 
 Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys 
 That crashed the glass and beat the floor,' 
 with that higher society which Xenophanes and Plato enjoyed ages 
 before him. 
 
 Even the reckless suitors of Penelope (<r 401) are disgusted with the 
 brawling of Eurymedon, when he hurls the footstool at Ulysses, and hits 
 the attending herald, and exclaim to one another: 'Would that this 
 stranger had perished elsewhere in his wanderings, before he came 
 hither, and so had saved us this disturbance. But now here we are 
 brawling about beggars, nor is there any pleasure in the goodly banquet, 
 since the worse prevails." 
 
THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 103 
 
 Anacreon, 'let us no longer, with this clatter and 
 din of voices (irariiyo) re KoXaKryrS), practise Scythian 
 toping at our wine, but drinking to the sound of 
 sweet hymns' (/r. 64). Yet even this is rather 
 Homeric, and reminds us of Ulysses declaring that 
 the highest delight is to sit at a plentiful table and 
 hear a bard singing a pleasant lay. Other lyric poets 
 are more advanced in their notions. Phocylides re- 
 commends light and good-humoured banter {rfika 
 KayrlWovTo) over the wine-cup. Theognis wishes that 
 he may sit at table beside some wise man, by whose 
 conversation he will profit (v. 563) while in another 
 passage (v. 295 sqq.) he complains of the nuisance 
 of a chatterbox, whom all hate, and whom no one 
 will meet at a feast if he can help it — 
 
 hyBmpovai h\ it&vt€s, avayKaiij 5* hmfii^n 
 
 dvSpOS TOIOVTOV av/XTTOffitfi TiXidtl. 
 
 The locus classicus, however, of this epoch is the 
 great fragment (No. i) of Xenophanes, where he de- 
 scribes the requisites of an elegant and refined feast, 
 and, being a reformer not only in religion but in 
 society, specially inveighs against rhapsodising bards. 
 He wants to hear a man talk from his own resources, 
 either drawing from his experience, or suggesting 
 moral discourse, and ' not one who marshals for you 
 (8t^i7et) the battles of the giants or the Titans, or 
 those of the Centaurs, inventions of the ancients — 
 in such things there is no profit.' This is quite a 
 Platonic or Attic attitude. 
 
 With the sustained lay, it is evident that the 
 
I04 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 groaning board and the unmixed wine departed 
 from society, and there is no subject on which the 
 lyric and gnomic poets have left us more copious 
 advice than on the proper use of wine. They loved 
 pleasure, and understood life too well ever to recom- 
 mend water-drinking. But they understood it also 
 too well to tolerate surfeiting and drunkenness. 
 While they personified wine (Ion, fr. 9) as ' an un- 
 tamed child and daring, young and yet not young, 
 sweetest minister of boisterous loves, wine that ele- 
 vates the mind, the president of men,' yet they know 
 (Euenus, fr. 2), ' that if out of measure he was the 
 cause of grief or madness. In company with three 
 (water) nymphs he is most suitable. But should he 
 blow a full gale, he is hostile to love, and steeps 
 us in sleep the neighbour of death.' So Critias tells 
 us the Lacedaemonians would not allow each guest 
 to pledge his friend in separate cups, for that this 
 drinking of healths was the fertile cause of drunken- 
 ness. As might be expected, of all the lyric rem- 
 nants, the poems attributed to Theognis contain the 
 most numerous reflections on this subject — reflections, 
 I mean, of a gnomic character, as contrasted with the 
 wild license of Alcseus^. 
 
 But in an elegy, of doubtful authorship, addressed 
 
 ' Dicsearchus (Mull. Fragg. Hist. ii. p. 247) says that Alcsus drank 
 watery wine out of small cups ; but the extant fragments tell us that his 
 mixture was one to two, therefore stronger than that of Euenus just 
 quoted, and that he began early, and had one cup following close upon 
 another (A. 5' kjipa rav irifav iciMi HiS-qtu), thus compe;isating for the 
 smaller size. 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 105 
 
 to Simonides^, and apparently the work of no mean 
 poet, the duties of a Greek gentleman as to wine 
 drinking are perhaps most accurately and elegantly 
 expounded. ' Wake not the friend, Simonides, among 
 us whom soft sleep may overcome when he has in- 
 dulged in wine, nor ask the waking man to sleep 
 against his will : everything compulsory is offensive. 
 But to him who will drink let them pour out without 
 stint, it is not every night that we enjoy such luxury. 
 But I — for I am moderate in honey-sweet wine — will 
 court soothing sleep when I have gone home, and 
 will show you how wine is most pleasant for men to 
 drink. For neither am I too sober a man, nor am I 
 very intemperate. But whosoever exceeds a measure 
 in drinking, is no longer master of his tongue or his 
 mind, and talks recklessly of things disgraceful to 
 the sober, and is ashamed of nothing, though modest 
 when he was sober. Now you, perceiving this, drink 
 not to excess, but either retire before you are drunk — 
 let not your lust compel you, like some wretched jour- 
 neyman — or else stay and do not drink. But you 
 are ever babbling that silly word " fill your glass," 
 and so you get drunk. For first comes the health 
 of the guests, and then a second cup is left ready 
 before you, and a third is for the libation to the 
 gods, and another you keep before you, and so you 
 
 ' Bergk thinks to Simonides of Amorgos, and that the author was an 
 early Euenus, not the Sophist alluded to by Aristotle; cf. Fragg. 
 Lyr. p. 515, note. The fragment has reached us in the collection 
 attributed to Theognis. It is corrupt in several places, and the meaning 
 not certain. 
 
io5 SOCIAL GREECE. [CIT. 
 
 know not how to refuse. He is indeed invincible, 
 who can drink many cups and say nothing foolish. 
 But do you promote good conversation sitting round 
 the bowl, restraining one another from contention, 
 addressing individuals so that the company may join 
 in\ and so our feast will not want in refinement.' 
 In other fragments of Theognis, and these genuine, 
 we see the same conflict between good sense and 
 good fellowship. "Tis a shame to be drunk among 
 sober men, 'tis also a shame to stay sober among 
 men that are drunk ' ; and, again, ' O wine, in some 
 things I praise, in others I blame thee ; nor can I 
 ever altogether love thee or hate thee. A good art 
 thou and an ill. Who might blame thee, who might 
 with a fair share of wisdom praise thee ^ ? ' 
 
 In all these quotations we see a moral attitude 
 which is about the same as that of average society 
 in our day. But intellectually the bright and plea- 
 sure-loving Greek would have hated the heavy pomp 
 and stupid sameness of our large dinner parties. 
 Athenseus however observes, on the evidence of 
 
 ' V. 495, is rh [liaov ipaiyfvvTes d/mis hi Kal mviiratrtv. On no point 
 were the Greeks more particular as regards their dinner parties, than 
 that the conversation should be general. As soon as the common 
 listening to a reciting bard became obsolete, it is the serious discourse of 
 a leading guest which is prized, as in this fragment and that of Xena- 
 pharies above quoted. It is the X«7(5/x£i/oi'' Is /liaov at Cleisthenes' 
 banquet in Herodotus ; it is the demand in Plato's Symposium that 
 Socrates shall not whisper — this is in fact the universal feature of the 
 Greek banquet. We stupid moderns seem to be specially providing 
 against it in our large dinner parties, where people are broken up into 
 couples, and so restrained from general talking, 
 
 * Cf. Theog. w. 510, 627, 836, 873. 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 107 
 
 Anacreon, that they still at this period maintained 
 the habit, afterwards only to be found among bar- 
 barians, of crowding their tables all through the feast 
 with dishes. In fact, they had not yet introduced 
 their diner a la Russe^. But that they had already 
 begun to give attention to cooking in the lyric age 
 appears from fragments of Solon {fr. 38) of Simo- 
 nides of Amorgos {fr. 23, 24) and of Hipponax {fr. 
 35). To the Greek, brilliant conversation was not 
 an accident, but a necessity in society, and wine was 
 chiefly prized as promoting this end. He was in- 
 tensely fond of good cheer and of elegant dishes, 
 but the cooks and the vulgar people who made this 
 the end of banquetting were always despised and 
 ridiculed. He compensated, too, for the frequent 
 absence of the female sex from his feasts by that 
 romantic friendship which subsisted between young 
 men in ancient Greece — a friendship which absorbed 
 all the higher affection now felt only towards the 
 opposite sex. On this question the second book of 
 Theognis' elegies gives ample and curious informa- 
 tion, and those who compare it (especially vv. 1260, 
 and 131 3 sqq.) with the allusions in the courtly 
 Pindar^ will be struck with the free and manly tone 
 of the old aristocrat, and how completely faithful 
 friendship comes into the foreground, while the court 
 poet, who was living like Anacreon among tyrants 
 and their minions, pictures the sensuous beauty alone, 
 and so degrades his higher genius to a baser level. 
 
 ' Athensens i. 12 A. 
 
 • 01. i. 40; xi. loj ; Isthm. ii. i ; and/r. 2 of the SKolia. 
 
io8 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 But these considerations lead us on to a more in- 
 teresting question, and one on which modern critics 
 have gone almost uniformly astray, the question of 
 the position of women in the Lyric, as opposed to 
 the Heroic and the Attic ages. It is not true that 
 in this period women had been degraded, and that 
 the Homeric poems afford models and characters 
 superior to those of the Lyric poets. Take the 
 feeling of maternal love, as shown by Andromache 
 and Penelope. The celebrated passage in which the 
 former appears is one of the very best in the great 
 Iliad, and yet I hesitate not to say that an extant 
 fragment of Simonides containing the lament of 
 Danae is not a whit inferior either in sentiment or 
 in diction. In this, the most exquisite of all the 
 lyric fragments, the purest maternal love and the 
 noblest resignation find their most perfect expres- 
 sion, and we may safely assert that the poet, and 
 the age which produced such a poem, cannot have 
 been wanting in the highest type of female dignity 
 and excellence. 
 
 I quote it in Dean Milman's version; but even 
 that excellent poet's version falls vastly short of the 
 great original. 
 
 'When rude around the high-wrought ark 
 The tempests raged, the waters dark 
 Around the mother tossed and swelled; 
 With not unmoistened cheek she held 
 Her Perseus in her arms, and said: 
 "What sorrows bow this hapless head! 
 Thou sleepst the while, thy gentle breast 
 Is heaving in unbroken rest; 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 109 
 
 In this our dark unjoyous home 
 
 Clamped with the rugged brass, the gloom 
 
 Scarce broken by the doubtful light 
 
 That gleams from yon dim fires of night. 
 
 But thou, unwet thy. clustering hair, 
 
 Heed'st not the billows raging wild. 
 
 The moanings of the bitter air, 
 
 Wrapt in thy purple robe, my beauteous child) 
 
 Oh I seemed this peril perilous to thee, 
 How sadly to my words of fear 
 Wouldst thou bend down thy listening ear! 
 
 But now sleep on, my child I sleep thou, wide seal 
 Sleep, my unutterable agony ! 
 
 Oh ! change thy counsels, Jove, our sorrows end! 
 
 And if my rash intemperate zeal offend. 
 
 For my child's sake, his father, pardon me ! " ' 
 
 There are other, though less prominent, indications 
 in the other poets, not less clear and convincing. We 
 are told that Stesichorus composed a poem called 
 Calyce, which was highly popular among the ladies 
 of ancient days. Aristoxenus has preserved to us the 
 mere outline of the plot, which shows it to have been 
 the forerunner of the novels or love stories afterwards 
 fashionable at Miletus. The maiden Calyce, having 
 fallen madly in love with a youth, prays to Aphrodite 
 that she may become his lawful wife, and when he 
 continued to be indifferent to her, she committed 
 suicide. It was specially noticed by ancient critics 
 how the poet had drawn the character of the maiden 
 as exhibiting the greatest purity and modesty under 
 this sore trial, and we are told, or we can at least 
 plainly infer, that this noble feature was the great 
 cause of the popularity of the poem. 
 
 A careful consideration of the fragments of Sappho 
 
MO SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 will, I think, lead to the same conclusion. There 
 appears to have been, in her day and in her city, both 
 great liberty for women to mix in general society, and 
 a bold independent way of asserting their rights and 
 their dignity. She versified, we are told, a dialogue, 
 by some suspected to have taken place between 
 Alcaeus and herself, in which the lover says to his 
 flame, ' I have something to say to thee, but I feel 
 confused and ashamed.' Whereupon the girl in 
 answer to him, says : ' Wert thou a good man, and 
 were the thing thou hast to say to me a good thing, 
 thou hadst not felt this shame and confusion, but 
 hadst said it freely, looking me straight in the face 
 without blushes'.' She went so far as openly to 
 censure in another poem her own brother, who was 
 in the wine trade between Lesbos and Egypt, and 
 having gone to Naucratis, there fell in love with 
 a lady of beauty, but unworthy of him in moral 
 character; and this poem was celebrated and much 
 quoted by the ancients. 
 
 A less remarkable poet, Simonides of Amorgos, has 
 left us a' more complete fragment on this question — 
 the celebrated poem in which the various tempers of 
 women are shown to result from a kinship with various 
 domestic animals. There are so many curious indi- 
 cations of manners in this poem, that I shall here 
 extract the substance of it. I do so the more unre- 
 
 ' Cf. Berglc, pp. 887 and 919. The passage is one of the innu- 
 merable instances in which drjaQis was used in 4 strictly moral sense by 
 the early Greeks ; for the quotation makes it plain that the word 
 occurred in the original text. 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. in 
 
 servedly as the exigencies of our modern universities, 
 with their fixed or traditional courses, are such that 
 even good Greek scholars may not be familiar with it. 
 We are too apt to- go round the ordinary course of 
 well-known Greek authors, and neglect these frag- 
 ments, which surely merit our attention as much as 
 anything in Greek literature. 
 
 The poem begins with the untidy woman, whose 
 mind is said to be akin to that of a pig : and next, 
 the curious and tell-tale woman is compared first to 
 a fox, and then to a dog\ She wishes to hear and to 
 know everything, and goes about looking out for 
 news, and retailing it. ' Nor can her husband make 
 her stop even with threats, though in a rage he should 
 knock her teeth out with a stone, nor though he 
 speak to her gently, even when she is sitting in com- 
 pany with guests.' Next comes the dull woman 
 without sensibility, whose mind is of the earth, earthy, 
 ' who cares not for good or evil ; the only work she 
 does is to eat, and not even when God sends a hard 
 winter, does she draw her chair nearer the fire.' We 
 can hardly conceive a more telling or truthful picture; 
 People without sympathy for others are sure to have 
 no taste for comfort themselves, for comforts are 
 essentially social things, and imply a pleasure in 
 other people's happiness. 
 
 We next come to the fickle woman, who is like the 
 sea.. One day she is laughing and joyous, and the 
 guest seeing her in her house will praise her, and say 
 ' there is not in all the world a better or fairer woman 
 
 ' There appears some inconsistency or confusion in the text here. 
 
112 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 than this.' But next day she is furious and un- 
 approachable, aHke to friends and enemies. There 
 follows an elegant parallel description of the sea, 
 alternately smiling to the sailor'a delight, and again 
 raging with loud-sounding waves'. Then follow the 
 ass-like and ferret-like women, with details showing 
 that these domestic animals were esteemed then ex- 
 actly as they are now. 
 
 Presently we come to the luxurious and extrava- 
 gant woman, whose mind is akin to a horse. She 
 avoids all slavish work and toil, and will not touch 
 the grinding-stone, nor clean up the house, nor sit at 
 the kitchen-fire. Such a woman makes her husband 
 intimate with necessity. She washes herself twice a 
 day or even three times, and uses unguents. She 
 wears her hair always combed and in tresses {^aOelai') 
 shaded with flowers. Such a woman is a fair sight 
 for other people, but to him that owns her an evil, 
 except he be some tyrant or ruler, who delights his 
 mind with such things by way of luxury. Then 
 comes the ugly woman, akin to the ape, who is of 
 course most objectionable to the Greek moralist. 
 'Such a woman goes through the town a regular 
 laughing-stock to all men.' 
 
 But the last has the nature of a bee ; happy the 
 
 ' Cl.fr. 7, V. .^7 sq. :— 
 
 &ffnep O&Kaffffa ttoW^kis fiiv drpe/t^s 
 
 effTijK' iinjiiaii', X'^PA"" vavrrjaiv liiya, 
 
 Oepeos hf wpri' iroWuKis 5e fiaiverat i 
 
 PapvKTiuvoi(7i Kijfiaaiv tpopevfifvrj 
 
 Tairri pL&Kiar* toiKt Totavrrj 'pnrq \ 
 
 dpy^y. 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 113 
 
 man that obtains her, for to her alone no blame 
 attaches. Under her care his living prospers and 
 increases. She grows old, a loving wife to her loving 
 husband, the mother of a fair and praised race. Dis- 
 tinguished is she among women, and divine grace 
 clings to her (5etrj 8' ajxcpibibpoixev xdpis) ; nor does she 
 delight in sitting among women, when they are talk- 
 ing of intrigues {acppoha-Lovs Xoyovs). The poet ends 
 with some general remarks, one of them very modern 
 in tone, the other strange and opposed to our ideas. 
 He says that when there is a lady in the house, ' the 
 guest is not received with the same open welcome,' 
 alluding, I suppose, to the friend of bachelor days ; 
 and then, that it is the habit of every man to praise 
 his own wife, and abuse those of others, not reflecting 
 that all are under a like misfortune. 
 
 I call the reader's attention particularly to the fact 
 that the public appearance in society of married 
 women is so openly recognised throughout this poem. 
 He will also see how heartfelt and earnest is the 
 praise of the virtuous woman, in spite of all the poet's 
 cynicism. It is moreover evident that he does not 
 speak of the higher classes exclusively, but rather 
 of those middle ranks, in which the lady of the house 
 is expected to do such house-work as is now per- 
 formed by the corresponding class in Germany. 
 
 Yet withal the age was not behind the epic age in 
 sentiment. Far from it. These historical Greeks^ for 
 example, fell in love as no Homeric hero ever could. 
 When we read the precious fragments of burning 
 complaint left us by Archilochus, by Sappho, by 
 
 I 
 
114 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Anacreon, and by Ibycus, we feel that we stand close 
 to them, while the epic heroes are afar off and have 
 not yet entered into the real atmosphere of that great 
 emotion. The aged Ibycus dreads another visitation 
 of Eros, as the old racer dreads a new contest, when 
 he feels that his limbs have lost their vigour, and will 
 not carry him as of old to victory. When Sappho sits 
 in presence of her lover, her eyes grow dizzy, and her 
 tongue refuses utterance, her heart flutters, and her 
 ears are full of confused din, her mind wanders, and 
 her cheek becomes pale ^. I need not comment how 
 truthfully these great poets felt the facts of human 
 nature as the young now feel them, and as the old 
 remember to have felt them. And I need not point 
 out to the student of the Odyssey how differently the 
 Homeric Greeks endured the same trial. Only one 
 Aeschylean tragedy (the Myrmidons) equals in its 
 reality these lyric poets ; and till we descend to the 
 pathetic Euripides, no like sympathy with this, the 
 largest of human feelings, rewards our search. 
 
 So also the respect for the holiest of human emotions, 
 the mother's love for her child — which had been so ex- 
 
 ' Fr, 2 (according to Bergk's reading) : — 
 
 us ycLp eijiSov jSpoxews ff€, {piiyas 
 
 Ovdiv ^T* UKU' 
 
 iXXcl Ka/i liiv •yXSiaffa £07^, \4ittov 8" 
 avTitca xp^ ^vp vnaSeSp6fiaK€y, 
 diTTTaTeffai d' ovBlv oprjfij impp6ptr- 
 
 0etffi S' cLKOvai. 
 & Si n' ISpas KaKxifrai, rpSjios Si 
 Traaav wypu, x^wpor^po Se iroias 
 i/iiu, TiBv&Kriv 8' bKiyai ViScv'tjs 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 115 
 
 quisitely painted in the Homeric poems in the per- 
 son of Andromache among nobles, in that of the 
 wretched widow among the poor, who toils at her 
 wool for miserable fare, and wears out her life in 
 support of her helpless children — this great and beau- 
 tiful emotion is brought out in the lament of Danae 
 over the infant Perseus, which I have already quoted. 
 
 But having noticed these points of social and rhoral 
 advance, I desire to recapitulate a few others in which 
 the lyric Greeks were strictly the successors of the 
 Homeric heroes. In the matter of cowardice, our 
 evidence is curiously precise. We are no longer told 
 by a courtly bard that the gods sent fear into the 
 heart of a warrior ; but the poets themselves, men 
 fond of war, and perpetually engaged in it, tell us 
 themselves in express terms, that they ran away and 
 threw away their arms. Archilochus says so, and so 
 does Alcaeus, and so does Anacreon. One of them 
 even jokes about the shield that once belonged to him 
 being hung up as a proud trophy by one of his 
 enemies. Stesichorus and Pindar {01. xi. 15) told 
 how even the great Heracles, when Cycnus was 
 helped by his father Ares, fled in fear'. Pindar 
 makes elsewhere {Nem. ix. 27) similar statements. 
 
 These passages, especially the confessions of the 
 cowards themselves, strike us as very curious. Of 
 course they tend to corroborate what was said above 
 about Homeric valour ; but I hardly think they can 
 simply be explained by a low standard of courage, 
 for all through Greek history the loss of the shield 
 
 • ((jivfi Siiaas, Bergk. p. 9^8, 
 ' I 3 
 
ii6 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 certainly was considered a disgrace. We must, in ad- 
 dition, not fail to keep in mind the intense realism 
 with which these men appear to have led a reaction 
 against the smooth ideal courtliness of the rhapso- 
 dists. They caught the public ear by a new and 
 welcome sound — the sound of plain straightforward 
 reality. Intense it was, and therefore brimful of 
 passion, and of the beauty and interest which passion 
 lends to every product of human art, but homely too 
 and truthful, not shirking poor admissions nor dis- 
 guising vulgar notions. 
 
 We saw above, how the advantages of heroism were 
 put forward as the proper inducements to valour; 
 how on the valiant side of their character the Greeks 
 were not less homely in stating their motives. The 
 very passage of Tyrtseus which suggested these reflec- 
 tions {fr. lo) is equally remarkable for its want of 
 compassion to the poor, as the reader will see by re- 
 ferring back to the passage (p. 95). This attitude is 
 strictly Homeric, there is neither advance nor decay 
 in this side of Greek nature. It is corroborated by 
 numerous reflections of Theognis and Solon, where 
 poverty is reckoned the worst of evils, especially the 
 poverty of exile, so much so that the promises or the 
 friendship of an exile were held of no value when 
 he returned. He would do anything to obtain that 
 result, and felt justified in any deceit to obtain it. 
 
 As to the sympathy with lower animals, on which 
 the epic poetry yielded us a good deal of evidence, 
 hardly a notice has reached us in the lyric fragments. 
 One distich, attributed to either Theognis (v. 1252) 
 
v.j THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 117 
 
 or Solon, speaks of horses and dogs, as well as 
 foreign friends, as essentials to a man's happiness. 
 Nor did the great Simonides scorn to write an epitaph 
 {fr. 130) on a famous hound \ probably belonging 
 to the Thessalian Scopadae, his patrons. I have no 
 doubt his namesake would have compared some class 
 of women to dogs, but that his plan admitted of only- 
 one good kind, as opposed to various bad types ; and 
 perhaps the Homeric epithet kwcSttis influenced him 
 in the same direction. 
 
 If we turn to the more serious feature of avarice, 
 it seems to me that the Greeks of the lyric age 
 were the direct successors of the Hesiodic Greeks 
 certainly ; probably therefore of the Homeric Greeks, 
 did we know more of the poorer classes in that 
 society. It was hardly the love of wealth for its own 
 sake, an artificial vice rare in early times, and still 
 rarer in a people who loved natural enjoyments so 
 keenly as the Greeks. It was rather as a means to 
 power and pleasure that the Greek loved money, and 
 the reflections of Solon and the advices of Theognis 
 only repeat literally what had been said before by the 
 sour and practical Hesiod. To Solon, indeed, the 
 love of money is the root of all evil, the real parent of 
 that selfishness which thwarted and ridiculed his 
 earnest and philosophical reforms ; to Theognis, 
 poverty — hereditary poverty — is the source of the 
 meanness of the lower classes ; its pinching grasp 
 is now laying hold of the nobles in defeat and exile, 
 it is to them the cause of faithlessness, and is 
 * This Simonides indeed often mentions dogs. 
 
Ii8 SOCIAL GREECE. [CII. 
 
 breaking up the old loyalty and the old exclusiveness. 
 With the rise of trade and of shipping, riches have 
 made themselves a place beside ancient lineage, and 
 the bankrupt noble will not blush to ally himself with 
 the base but wealthy merchant. These things are 
 all common now-a-days, and we look upon the 
 grumbling of the Greek aristocratic moralist just as 
 we look upon the pompous absurdity of the en- 
 cumbered Irish squire, who has retained of all his 
 heirlooms nothing but the old contempt for trade, 
 and who still reconciles himself with grief and shame 
 to the marriage of his ignorant and spendthrift son 
 with some respectable shopkeeper's daughter, who 
 will not only, by her fortune, save him from im- 
 mediate ruin, but is also likely to introduce a sober 
 strain into the race, and be the parent of wiser 
 and more reasonable children. 
 
 But I repeat that the Greeks- never -saHlTlES" the 
 stupidity of our day, when wealth is eagerly sought 
 by people who can never enjoy it ; when the addition 
 of thousands does not add one enjoyment to their life, 
 save the barren consciousness of importance. The 
 Greeks loved wealth because it obtained for them all 
 the great enjoyments of this life — success in love, suc- 
 cess in revenge, success in politics ; and, as we can see 
 clearly, money was then more effectual in procuring 
 all these blessings than it has been in almost any 
 other nation at any epoch of its history. This keen 
 love of pleasure was one of the indelible characters in 
 Greek human nature, reappearing at all times and in 
 all ranks of society ; so much so that Aristotle notices 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 119 
 
 the defect even of a term in the language to denote 
 that blunt and stolid nature, which is not strongly- 
 affected by this motive, and feels fully justified in 
 calling such a man a sort of inanimate or non-per- 
 cipient creature — dyaicr^TjTo's ri<s \ 
 
 It is to this same source that we may trace the 
 reappearance of another Homeric feature in the lyric 
 fragments, I mean the horror and hatred of old age. 
 The beautiful lines still left us of Mimnermus have 
 it as their marked characteristic. He tells us to enjoy 
 the delights of love {fr. i), ' but when old age with its 
 pains comes upon us, which mars alike even the fair, 
 ever do wretched cares besiege his mind, nor does he 
 delight in beholding the rays of the sun, but is hateful 
 to boys and despised among women, so sore a burden 
 has God made old age.' He comes back upon this 
 yr\pa.s apyaXiov repeatedly, a gift worse than death, as 
 the wretched Tithonus had found it : — ' When youth 
 has fled, short-lived as a dream (fr. 5), forthwith this 
 burdensome and hideous old age looms over us, hate- 
 ful and dishonoured ; which changes the fashion of 
 a man's countenance, marring his sight and his mind 
 with its mist.' Theognis makes similar complaints 
 (vv. 526, 567) and Pindar, in his first Olympian ode 
 (v. 82), asks why those who must of necessity meet 
 the fate of death, should desire to 'sit in obscurity, 
 vainly brooding through a forgotten old age, without 
 sharing a single blessing.' 
 
 ' Simonides of Amorgos, by the way, describes just such a character 
 in one of his general types of bad women, as I have above remarked 
 (p. 112). 
 
I20 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH, 
 
 These quotations, which might easily be multiplied, 
 show clearly a feeling quite foreign to our own litera- 
 ture, and to that of the Germans^ where, no doubt, the 
 commonplaces about age do occur, but where altered 
 conditions of society, and the late growth of republican 
 ideas, have left both honour and power to old age, and 
 have thus, as it were, compensated socially for its great 
 physical disabilities. Among the Greeks, on the con- 
 trary, in addition to these latter, there were arrayed 
 against old age a rude assertion of superior force, and, 
 with the rapid intellectual development of the nation, 
 a strong consciousness of the greater force and know- 
 ledge of youth. Old men had to contend with the 
 rising generation upon even terms, and without those 
 large allowances conceded to them by modern senti- 
 ment and modern good manners. There were isolated 
 peoples in the classical epochs who felt this sentiment. 
 It was well known throughout Greece that at Sparta 
 the reverence for age, as such, was a strict prescription 
 of Lycurgus, and even the Athenian theatre honoured 
 this feeling as an evidence of refinement. The Ro- 
 mans, ruder and coarser than the Greeks in almost 
 every respect, in this stand closer to us moderns, that 
 they shared with the Spartans the conservative respect 
 for age. 
 
 But the most enlightened Greeks stood nearer, I 
 fear, to the savages of the present day, who regard 
 without respect or affection any human being who has 
 become useless in the race of life, or who even im- 
 pedes the course of human affairs. We know that, at 
 Athens, actions of children to deprive their parents 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 121 
 
 of control of property were legal and commonly oc- 
 curring, nor do we hear that medical evidence of 
 imbecility was required. It was only among a few 
 conservative cities, lilce Sparta, and a few excep- 
 tionally refined men, like Plato, that the nobler and 
 kindlier sentiment prevailed. The philosopher, in- 
 deed, has applied to it his finest metaphor: — 'Some 
 of the gods we see with our eyes, and honour them ; 
 of others, we honour the images, raising statues of 
 them, which we adore ; and, though they be lifeless, 
 yet we imagine that the living gods have a good will 
 and gratitude to us on this account. Now if a man 
 has a father or mother, or their father and mother 
 treasured up in his house stricken in years, let him 
 consider that no statue can be more potent to grant 
 his requests than they are, who are sitting at his 
 hearth ; . . . whom, when a man honours, the heart 
 of the God rejoices, and he is ready to answer their 
 prayers '.' 
 
 The reader however who has not forgotten what 
 was said above (p. 41) concerning Pallas Athene, as 
 a Homeric ideal, will see that the ingrained selfish- 
 ness of Greek character was the active and perpetual 
 opponent of all such sentiment. This selfishness was 
 nourished by the perpetual conflicts and vicissitudes 
 of the Greek cities. Even the closest and most sacred 
 bond of Homeric days, that of party, which had alone 
 been able to sway the hard hearts of Athene, and 
 Here, and Poseidon, — even this bond was being 
 loosened, for Theognis' bitterest lamentations are on 
 
 ' Jowelt, iv. 442. 
 
122 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 this very decay ; how the exile would promise any- 
 thing to return, and then betray his friends ; how the 
 magistrate would endeavour, by any deceit, to overcome 
 his old fellows, and reduce them to a level with the 
 townsmen under his tyranny. 
 
 It is fashionable in certain philosophies, long since 
 exploded, but of late showing signs of new life, to 
 attribute all human action to selfishness, and to 
 translate the plain facts of passion and of principle 
 into involved and subtle deductions from this idea. 
 I am very far from advocating- such an absurdity, but 
 am ready to admit, with Bishop Butler, that except 
 stronger motives supervene, this is ever present and 
 constantly asserting itself. In Greek politics, as in 
 ours, principle did at times, though rarely, suppress it, 
 as we may see from the case of Solon. Passionj too, 
 silenced it, and far oftener than it does now, because 
 society had not settled down into a calm and equable 
 state from its troubled and violent beginnings. Yet 
 these were intermittent agents, and made but a small 
 figure in the fragmentary history of old days beside 
 the constant workings of selfishness, on which we 
 chance to have three very adequate witnesses — 
 Hesiod, Theognis, and Thucydides. 
 
 Selfishness is akin to dishonesty, and thus we are 
 led to the consideration of another disagreeable fea- 
 ture, on which the Homeric age gave us considerable 
 materials. Here again we have a permanent Greek 
 feature, and one recognised, as well in old times as 
 in modern, both by the better Greeks themselves, and 
 by their more respectable neighbours. Herodotus no- 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 123 
 
 tices, in evident contrast to his own nation, the care 
 with which Persian boys were taught to speak the 
 truth. Cyrus is said, in the same spirit-^ to have 
 expressed his open contempt for men who met in a 
 fixed marketplace daily to lie, and cheat one another. 
 Darius caustically calls Scythes the justest of all the 
 Greeks he ever knew, because he kept a single pro- 
 mise. So much for earlier days. Thucydides and 
 Aristophanes are home witnesses for the dishonesty 
 of Greek life at a later epoch. Then we come to 
 days when the somewhat brutal Romans were able 
 to assert their own superiority, in this respect at all 
 events. Grceca fide mercari is a proverb in the older 
 comedy. Cicero, in his oration Pro Cacina, turns 
 aside to apologise for doubting generally the veracity 
 of Greek evidence. He claims to know more of the 
 Greeks than any man of his day ; he confesses his 
 love and admiration for their genius ; he concedes to 
 them all the high qualities they choose to claim, save 
 one — that of truthfulness ^. I need hot descend to 
 the GrcBcia mendax of Juvenal and Persius, when the 
 Greeks in Rome may have been, like the Irish in 
 America, the mere offscourings of home society. 
 
 ■ Herod, i. 153. 
 
 ' ' Veramtamen hoc dice de toto genere Grsecorum ; tribuo illis 
 litteras, do multanim artiuni disciplinam, non adimo sermonis leporem, 
 ingenionim acumen, dicendi copiam ; denique etiam, si sibi alia sumunt, 
 non repugno; testimoniorum religionem et fidem nunquam ista natio 
 coluit ; tdtiusque hujusce rei quae sit vis, qute auctoritas, quod pondus, 
 ignorant.' I think almost the same remarks might be applied to the 
 lower-class Irish, if we substitute a mere capacity of literary excellence 
 for the developed genius justly ascribed to the Greeks. 
 
124 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Apart then from any exaggeration, without denying 
 to many of the philosophers the highest feelings of 
 honour, without denying to the lower classes much of 
 that respect for truth without which constitutional 
 government is impossible, we cannot claim for the 
 Greeks a high place for honesty among civilised 
 nations. In Athens the demos indeed, upon one 
 memorable occasion, adhered to its oaths of amnesty, 
 and allowed murderers and informers under the ty- 
 rants to return unmolested, and dwell among the 
 children of their victims. But such instances are 
 noted as rare. I have no doubt that many, even of 
 the Athenians themselves, regarded this noble self- 
 denial as a Quixotic display of honour, and counted 
 it among those excesses of doing good which Aris- 
 totle afterwards classed among vices, and among 
 which he deliberately ranked excess in speaking the 
 truth. Socially, no doubt, we all agree with Aristotle; 
 society cannot subsist without polite suppressions of 
 truth, but, in a moral treatise, the admission points 
 to a different standard from that of the old Persians 
 and Germans. The main point on -which I here in- 
 sist is, that dishonesty was not an occasional symptom 
 in the worse epochs of Greek history, but a feature 
 congenital in the nation and indelible — ^waxing and 
 waning, no doubt, but always at a tolerably high 
 level. 
 
 Let us pass to a pleasanter topic, and cast a glance 
 at the hospitality of the lyric days, as compared with 
 that of the Homeric epoch. The reader will remem- 
 ber that there were symptoms of the decay of this 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 125 
 
 virtue, which naturally flourishes among primitive 
 societies, when means of communication are difficult, 
 and the providing of food and shelter for travellers 
 has not yet become a matter of commercial specula- 
 tion. It appeared that the Homeric Greeks were at 
 the close of that condition in which men keep open 
 house for strangers, and that they were beginning to 
 estimate the cost and convenience of having to do so. 
 We can hardly fancy Hesiod welcoming a stranger 
 with much cordiality : he objects to spending time in 
 idle talk, and would ill brook the interruption of his 
 field work to amuse vagrants. 
 
 Of course the lyric poets, being aristocrats, have 
 more gentlemanly notions ; but the princely incomes 
 of the old kings and chiefs had gone in the party 
 struggles, the confiscations, and the exiles which dis- 
 tracted the Greek cities. When a single ruler or 
 tyrant attained to wealth and power, there is reason 
 to believe that he was as hospitable as his suspicions 
 would permit, but the average aristocrat was seldom 
 in a position to practise Homeric hospitality. Mil- 
 tiades the elder, indeed, who was a sort of prince or 
 dynast in Attica, is described by Herodotus, at the 
 close of this period, sitting at his door, like Abraham, 
 and ready to bring in every passing stranger. Yet 
 this was in the power of but few, and perhaps in the 
 inclination of but few also. 
 
 We have in Theognis a kindly and interesting 
 passage on the point, which is worth quoting (v. 511 
 sqq.) : ' Thou hast come here, Clearistos, having ac- 
 complished thy voyage through the deep sea, with 
 
126 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 nothing, wretched man, to me who also have nothing ; 
 we will place supports i^vya) under the sides of your 
 ship such as we have and such as the gods give us ; 
 and we will afford you the best of what we have, and 
 if any friend of yours arrives, he shall sit down with 
 us in as friendly a way as yourself. Neither will 
 I reserve any of my goods, nor will I bring from 
 another house any greater display for the sake of 
 my friendship with you. But if any one asks what 
 is my life, you may tell him that for an easy life it is 
 hard, but though hard yet easy enough \ so that I 
 need not abandon a single hereditary guest friend, 
 though unable to afford hospitality to any larger 
 number.' He repeats almost the words of Telema- 
 chus receiving the suppliant seer (o 280), ' Come into 
 the ship, and then you shall be friendly entreated with 
 the best that we can afford.' 
 
 There are certainly two points of great importance 
 already mentioned, — points upon which the lyric age 
 had made a decided advance, if not an improvement, 
 on the Homeric range of feeling and sentiment. The 
 first is the emotion of love, which is described as quite 
 a different passion in its manifestations by the lyric 
 poets, and is frequently excited by different objects. 
 It is difificult to handle such a subject freely, but it is 
 far too important in any social sketch of the Greeks 
 to bear being omitted. I will merely indicate points 
 of view and materials which may guide the student 
 who seeks to comprehend this aspect of Greek life 
 more thoroughly. 
 
 ^ (&s eS /tey x**^*^*^** ^^ ya.\mwt Sc /tdV cS (v. 520). 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 127 
 
 In the first place, as I said above, the lyric poets 
 describe the emotion of love with a depth and an in- 
 tensity quite foreign to the rhapsodists. Even when 
 Agamemnon and Achilles quarrel fiercely about a 
 fair captive, there is hardly one word about their love 
 for her. Nay, the peerless beauty Helen excites 
 mere vulgar passion in her seducer ; nor do we hear 
 of any deeper and nobler feeling in Menelaus, whose 
 private emotions are kept out of view by the poet, 
 to be developed with full richness and beauty by 
 ^schylus and Euripides in a later age. The marital 
 affections of Hector, Ulysses, and their wives, are 
 deep and lasting, but there is nowhere any hint of 
 that sort of all-absorbing influence which we meet in 
 Archilochus and Sappho, just as we meet it in all the 
 great modern poets. It is there in Archilochus, even 
 in the wretched scraps left us by jealous time : ' I lie 
 wretched and lifeless with desire {fr. 14), pierced to 
 the inmost marrow by the potent pang of the gods,' 
 says he ; and there is no doubt what pang he means, 
 if we compare fr. 103, where he speaks of ' the desire 
 of love pouring a mist over his eyes and stealing 
 away his heart.' No Homeric hero would have un- 
 derstood such poignant feelings on the score of a 
 woman. There was, no doubt, desire, but desire such 
 as that of Aphrodite in the song of Demodocus, or 
 of Paris in the third book of the Iliad, of Penelope's 
 suitors, or of the same Aphrodite in the famous 
 Homeric Hymn addressed to her. There was love 
 of home, and with it of wife and children, but no 
 passion other than the lowest, and that treated rather 
 
128 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 as a mere appetite, than as anything high or worthy 
 of poetic glory. 
 
 But in the lyric age we have Archilochus, we 
 have, above all, Sappho, whom I have above quoted 
 (p. 114), we have Ibycus, we have Anacreon, devot- 
 ing all their genius and their art to portray this 
 potent master of human happiness and misery. 
 
 There is yet a greater change in the objects to- 
 wards which it was felt. Here first in Greek litera- 
 ture we meet with that strange feature which reached 
 its climax in later times, and centred upon beautiful 
 boys affections as romantic as those which we natu- 
 rally feel between opposite sexes, and opposite sexes 
 only. The reason of it is obvious enough. It is 
 only when mental refinement is added to physical 
 beauty that the love of lyric poet, and mediaeval 
 knight and troubadour, becomes possible — that love 
 rises from an appetite to a sentiment. If this be so, 
 I am convinced that the deeper and fuller awakening 
 to love in our sense among Greek hearts was closely 
 connected with the custom of strong attachments 
 among men. The change in the object of their love 
 was the cause of the ennoblement of that feeling 
 itself. The generous affection for an intellectual 
 equal displayed in the second part of Theognis' 
 Elegies, the various stories of heroism and self-devo- 
 tion which were familiar to Greek historians — these 
 were not possible in early Greek society, except 
 under the conditions to which I have adverted. We 
 have as yet no Aspasia to advocate the higher edu- 
 cation of women. We have in many cities a ten- 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 129 
 
 dency to seclude women, and prevent them from 
 being companions to their lovers. Thus their natural 
 place was invaded by those fair and stately youths, 
 with their virgin looks, and maiden modesty, who 
 were the delight of Solon and Theognis, and Socrates 
 and Epaminondas — in fact, almost every great Greek 
 in the greatest days of Greece. 
 
 There remains but one more topic to complete our 
 review — the moral and religious progress of the lyric 
 age as compared with the boasted excellence of 
 Homer. Here there was indeed a change of vast 
 importance. Of old, the poet had been the only 
 accredited preacher, expounding the brief and obscure 
 responses of the oracles, describing the lives of the 
 great men of old, then advancing to personal reflec- 
 tions, to gnomic wisdom, and to terse summaries of 
 human experience. In these various functions the 
 poets had been, if I may so say, the established 
 clergy of the older Greeks. But now there sprang up 
 a new class of teachers, the philosophers, who emerged 
 from the wretched polytheism of the Epos, with its 
 shameful immoralities, and taught a larger creed and 
 purer morals. Of course the old poets were at first 
 contemptuous, then disgusted, then abusive. 
 
 This is the old contest between poetry and phi- 
 losophy of which Plato speaks [Rep. p. 607, C) : 'of 
 which there are many proofs, such as the saying [of 
 the poets] of "the yelping hound howling at her 
 lord," or of one " mighty in the vain talk of fools," 
 and " the mob of sages circumventing Zeus" and "the 
 subtle thinkers who are beggars after all " ; and there 
 
 K 
 
130 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 are ten thousand other signs of ancient enmity 
 between them.' ' Such studies,' he says again, in the 
 Laws (p. 967 C), 'gave rise to much atheism and 
 perplexity, and the poets took occasion to be 
 abusive — comparing the philosophers to dogs, utter- 
 ing vain howlings, and saying other nonsense of the 
 same sort. But now, as I said, the case is reversed,' 
 Of course it was reversed gradually, and so Plato 
 is able in the Protagoras'^ to speak of the old poets 
 as really the forerunners of the Sophists, and thus 
 opposed to true and philosophic teaching. 
 
 But the struggle was long, though never doubtful. 
 Xenophanes, writing in verse no doubt, but still 
 decidedly a philosopher, as opposed to the professed 
 poets, decries the singing old theologies about gods 
 and Titans. Pindar, a poet, though affecting to be 
 a philosophic teacher, shows constant traces of the 
 struggle. But he is clearly on the defensive. Though 
 he reviles the philosophers, he is obliged to manipu- 
 late and palliate the myths. He speaks contemp- 
 tuously {Nem. iii. 40) of artificial wisdom, which 
 attempts a thousand virtues and attains none ; 'AreA^ 
 (TO(f)ias Kapiiov hpi-wuv is his expression {fr. 124) for 
 philosophy. Yet he is elsewhere obliged to deny the 
 poets' stories of murder and adultery among the 
 blessed gods. He tries to mediate between faith and 
 rationalism, but of course in vain. He may accom- 
 modate some isolated legends, he may even venture 
 to deny others, but no piecemeal criticism, no sur- 
 rendering of outworks, no attempted truce with the 
 ' Jowett, i. p. 125. 
 
v.] THE GREEKS OF THE LYRIC AGE. 131 
 
 enemy, could save the old Greek religion. Even 
 those poets who professed to find in the myths a 
 solid creed, and who claimed to be the accredited 
 moral teachers of the nation — even they owed their 
 noblest thoughts and their loftiest poetry, not to the 
 Epos, but to the contact with their opponents. Thus 
 in Pindar, of whom we can speak most confidently, 
 we are not attracted by his long mythical narratives, 
 or by his moral lessons drawn from these models, in 
 any sense as we are attracted by those splendid 
 passages where he shows contact with the Orphic 
 mysteries, or whatever theosophy had brought into 
 life the reward of the good and the punishment of 
 sinners in a future state. Here is a doctrine abso- 
 lutely foreign to the gods of Homer, foreign to the 
 gloomy justice of Providence in Hesiod ; and yet in 
 Pindar it makes the poet soar above his ordinary 
 course into a higher and purer air : 
 
 ' To them the sun, in radiant might, 
 
 Lights up the subterranean night. 
 
 In meads empurpled o'er with roses 
 
 They take their calm suburban ease, 
 
 While over them the fragrant shade reposes. 
 
 When golden fruits weigh down the loaded trees. 
 
 Some in the chariot's rapid flight. 
 
 Some with the dice indulge, or in the harp's soft delight. 
 
 And still luxuriant all around 
 
 The universal plenty blooms; 
 
 And over all the holy ground 
 
 Float evermore the incense-fumes, 
 
 When from the altars of the gods arise 
 
 The far-seen fires of constant sacrifice.' 
 
 (Milman's transl.) 
 
 So too we find him compelled to assert the moral 
 K 3 
 
133 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 side of the old religion. He must select those in- 
 stances, exceptional as they are, which show the 
 ruling of Providence over men, which show the pun- 
 ishment of guilt, which show the difficulties and 
 trials of virtue rewarded in the world. It is indeed 
 true that the poet was able to say but little upon 
 morals which was not the tritest commonplace. Di- 
 vest his maxims of their stilted diction, and you will 
 find the saws of Hesiod, of Theognis, and of Solon, 
 neither deepened nor enlarged. It is all mere 
 children's prattle beside the deep speculations of 
 iEschylus, his younger contemporary. But Pindar 
 and .^schylus may be contrasted as Herodotus and 
 Thucydides, the former perhaps more antique and 
 childlike than his age, the latter so advanced as to 
 outrun even his successors, and stand out a monument 
 of genius apart from or beyond the natural develop- 
 ment of things. 
 
 Here then I pause, at the threshold of a new epoch, 
 in which our materials are no longer too scanty, but 
 too full, and where our difficulties do not arise from 
 doubtful inferences and uncertain hints, but rather 
 from the great multiplicity and variety of the materials 
 before us. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 
 
 The epoch of which we are now to treat is that in 
 which Athens took such a lead as to be presently con- 
 sidered the head of Greece^ if not from a military, yet 
 at least from a social and literary point of view. It 
 may indeed be said, that her empire in this latter 
 sense was not accomplished until she had been com- 
 pelled to abandon her claims to rule Greece by her 
 arms as well as by her arts. For though, during her 
 first and most brilliant career as a conquering state, she 
 had produced literary men who were never equalled, 
 and works of art which were never rivalled, yet it 
 seems to me that her real empire over the manners 
 and minds of the other Greeks dates rather from the 
 days of Plato and Menander than from those of 
 Thucydides and Sophocles. Euripides lived, indeed, 
 in the former epoch, but his works had hardly attained 
 their full popularity until its very close, and until, 
 after the disastrous end of the Peloponnesian War, 
 culture, rather than naval and military power, became 
 her pride. I am disposed, therefore, to separate this 
 
134 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Attic epoch for my purpose into three subdivisions : 
 the first, extending from the repulse of the Persians 
 to the end of the great civil war and the capture of 
 Athens (in 403 B.C.) ; the second, from her liberation 
 to the battle of Chseronea (in 338 B.C.); the third, 
 the close of her greatness, comprising the age of the 
 New Comedy, the days of Epicurus and Menander, 
 and extending till the days when Alexandria and 
 Rome supplanted her as the centres of the world's 
 thought. To the first two epochs I shall adhere 
 proximately, claiming however that freedom which 
 is due to a mere social sketch as opposed to strict 
 history. Nor do I think the distinction between the 
 second and third epochs very vital or deeply marked 
 in Greek life. 
 
 But to any one intimate with Attic literature, the 
 general contrasts of these epochs will at once be felt, 
 and perhaps more easily felt than demonstrated by 
 special citations. Thus the remains of the first epoch 
 are the tragedies of .iEschylus, Sophocles, and Eu- 
 ripides, the earlier Comedy down to Aristophanes' 
 old age, the histories of Herodotus and of Thucydides, 
 and the fragments of the earlier orators (Antiphon and 
 Andocides). If we add the fragments of Greek histo- 
 rians, chiefly preserved in the anecdotes of Athenseus, 
 Plutarch, and other such later compilers, we have 
 before us a considerable body of various literature, 
 marked by several distinct features, and by certain 
 contrasts to succeeding ages. It was an age of great 
 hurry and prodigious development, when event after 
 event so came crowding upon the people, that they 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 135 
 
 were under the perpetual excitement of some new 
 acquisition or some unexpected danger. A great 
 public enthusiasm laid such hold of every Athenian, 
 that private life was despised, and private comforts 
 set aside, while every man devoted himself with all 
 his might to advance his city, and to sacrifice private 
 ends to the calls of state service. I need but refer to 
 the remarkable picture attributed to the Corinthians, 
 or to Pericles himself, in Thucydides (i. 70, and ii. 66), 
 and fully borne out by the historical facts of the pre- 
 vious generation. 
 
 It is perhaps a mistake to look upon this apparent 
 self-sacrifice as patriotism in our modern sense — as the 
 same feeling which prompts noble natures to postpone 
 their private comforts to great public ends. If my 
 estimate of Greek character hitherto be just, this will 
 seem highly improbable. I am rather disposed to look 
 upon the undeniable public spirit of the Athenians as 
 that of men who, seeing a great future before their 
 country, rise from a paltry ambition after private 
 wealth and comfort to a higher — though still selfish 
 ■ — ambition after public fame, and the glory of leading 
 the course of public affairs. So they became a city 
 full of public men, if I may so say, engrossed with 
 state service, and with politics, men of little leisure, 
 and of small curiosity in speculating upon the reasons 
 of things, in fact no theorists, but stern men of action, 
 full of earnestness in their lives, and allowing them- 
 selves little relaxation. I am here speaking of the 
 general tone of Periclean society, for I know well that 
 Pericles himself, and some of his familiar friends, such 
 
136 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 as Anaxagoras, formed marked exceptions to this 
 rule'. So also Euripides, who in this as in other re- 
 spects marks a transition to the succeeding age, shows 
 many traces of pure philosophy, of speculative think- 
 ing, as opposed to practical politics. But the timid 
 and fragmentary philosophical teaching of this great 
 poet shows how a man who wrote for the Periclean 
 public was obliged to conceal his speculations, and put 
 on the stage plain practical politics and plain human 
 passion. 
 
 Thus even when their relaxation came we see that 
 it bore the deep impress of their hurry and their pub- 
 lic cares. The Old Comedy was essentially political, 
 and directed to satirising public affairs and public 
 characters, so that the Athenian statesman might well 
 have complained that even in his leisure hours the 
 strife of party and the fever of public life did not de- 
 part from him. In another respect, too, this Comedy 
 was the relaxation of busy men, in the full flavour of 
 its wit and the grossness of its vigorous satire. This 
 is, I think, an universal feature in human nature. Men 
 that live lives of excitement and exceeding fatigue, 
 whether it be professional, or political, or commercial 
 — men that are wild speculators in the market or in 
 public affairs, cannot afford time and attention for 
 
 ' Stesimbrotus tells us, as quoted by Plutarch, that Pericles used to 
 discuss subtleties with Protagoras, and that they disputed for a whole 
 day in the case of a fatal accident at an athletic contest, whether the 
 dart which inflicted the wound, or the thrower, or tlie arrangers of the 
 contest, were truly the cause of the accident. This case is discussed in 
 Antiphon's second tetralogy, and seems therefore to have been a favourite 
 subject for casuistry. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 137 
 
 « 
 
 gentle and soothing recreation, for the so-called Attic 
 salt of mere leisure conversations, for philosophical 
 disquisitions and for long rambles in the country. 
 They will generally plunge from one excitement into 
 another, and will not rest their minds save with such 
 engrossing bodily pleasures as expel all thought of 
 serious things. They too often rest the man by in- 
 dulging the beast within them. No one who has 
 observed our great centres of life and business in the 
 present day can have missed this prominent feature. 
 I think this may be the reason why the Athenians of 
 the first epoch, men of far more seriousness in many 
 respects than their successors, delighted in public ex- 
 hibitions which became coarse and unseemly in the 
 eyes of their gentler but weaker successors. There 
 was no time for Platonic dialogues, no taste for the 
 _ quiet comforts of home life. The ribald scenes in 
 Aristophanes were meant to satisfy far different 
 wants. 
 
 But who would have expected from this picture 
 that, among these busy, hard, realistic politicians, art 
 or literature would have prospered? Do not all the 
 features adduced rather point to a state of things in 
 which the leisure enforced by the tyrants, and their 
 enlightened patronage, must be felt by the artist an 
 irreparable loss? I am convinced this was so, and 
 believe that, throughout Greece generally, the age 
 following the time of the despots, which I call the 
 Periclean age, but which reaches far beyond his death, 
 was in literature decidedly an age of decline. There 
 is no other reason why the lyric poetry, which was 
 
138 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 « 
 
 flourishing at the opening of the period, should have 
 decayed, and almost vanished from Greece. Up to 
 the rise of the Athenian and other democracies, we 
 have art centres for sculpture, poetry, and architecture 
 throughout Greece, at Samos, at Lesbos, at Corinth, 
 in Sicily, — we may say wherever there was a court. 
 And so lyric poetry, like the epic which preceded it, 
 was the general property of all Greece, sung and read 
 everywhere, speaking to the heart of every Greek. 
 All this now vanishes^; the plaintive Mimnermus and 
 the fierce Tyrtaeus, the passionate Sappho, and the 
 turbulent Alcseus, the voluptuous Anacreon, and the 
 bombastic Pindar, — all these have left no successors. 
 But this great and melancholy void is hidden from 
 us by the dazzling splendour of Athens. And the 
 exception is so great that it has obscured the rule 
 and made historians speak of the Attic period as the 
 most brilliant in Greek literature. 
 
 This was due to two special causes : ^fCfst, to the 
 discovery of the drama, by which a poem could be 
 produced before king Demos, as well as king Peisis- 
 tratus, thus giving back to the poets a many-headed 
 and wealthier patron than the friendly despots. 
 Secondly, to the substitution by Pericles of a presi- 
 dency over subject states, for a tyranny over subject 
 citizens. This great man was in many respects the 
 direct successor of the older despots. He had the 
 blood of despots in his veins, and their instincts in his 
 
 ' Thus even Eiipolis, early in the Attic age, speaks of Pindar's poems 
 as TfS?; KaTaffeaiyaaiiivm' inb T^s twi' ir6Wav a(pi?uiicaKlas {A then. i. a). 
 He seems to assert a degradation in taste. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 139 
 
 heart, but he contrived, with extraordinary genius, 
 to combine these instincts with a democratic poHcy. 
 He made all his fellow-citizens into one great despot, 
 subject to his own influence, taxing other states, and 
 applying the proceeds just as Polycrates or Peisis- 
 tratus would have done, to the beautifying of his city 
 and the active patronage of literature. Thucydides 
 was not blind to this curious combination \ He saw 
 that Athens was under Pericles a democracy only 
 in name ; he felt the concealed despot in him ; but 
 it is in Plutarch's life that we find all the details 
 about sculptors, and painters, and architects, and 
 poets, which show how thoroughly the Athenian 
 prime minister had combined the tyrant's patronage 
 of literature with the political life of a free con- 
 stitution. Thus under this man, and owing to his 
 
 ' As Mr. Miiller Striibing observes (Arisloph. u. d. hist. Kritik. p. 82), 
 this idea of Athens as a tyrannis is put forward in express terms in the 
 speech of Pericles (Thuc. ii. 62), and that of Cleon (iii. 37), by Thucy- 
 dides. He might have added Aristoph. Eg. in : — 
 
 Si A^^6, koX-^v 7* ex^ts 
 
 dpx^v ore ir&VTes av- 
 
 Opomoi SeSiatri rr* o^cr- 
 
 mp dvSpa T^pavyov - 
 also that Demosthenes (in Lept. p. 478) alludes to the Lacedaemonian 
 rule in similar terms, yyovvro •yci.p ov fUKpav TvpavviSa Kal tovtov, t^v 
 Aate. apx^v KaraKvffavTa, irenavK4vat, when speaking of Conon, and 
 comparing his merits with those of Harmodius. The administrators of 
 the common fund were Athenian citizens responsible to Athens alone. 
 The tribute was fixed and assessed by the Athenians, who divided 
 their empire into four provinces, comprising about 180 cities. The 
 lists and amounts have now been recovered from inscriptions, and 
 published with a most instructive map, in ICirchoff's collection (vol. i. 
 Berlin, 1873). 
 
14° 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 exceptional genius, Athens enjoyed the advantages 
 of both conditions, and consequently strode ahead 
 of all the rest of Greece. But I repeat that it was 
 at Athens alone, and for these special reasons, that 
 civic democracy was compatible with an advance in 
 literature. We look for it in Samos, in Mytilene, in 
 Syracuse, in vain. Throughout the rest of Greece 
 the fever of politics, and the hardships of war, had 
 acted fatally on literature ^ 
 
 ' Though I freely confess the transcendent genius of Pericles, I see 
 no reason for following the modem German school in the extravagant 
 estimate of his moral character, which they have borrowed from 
 Thucydides' History. There are not wanting evidences, to any one who 
 will read the work, not in blind admiration, but with a critical sense, 
 that it is to a great extent what the Germans call a Tendenz-schrift, 
 intended to magnify Pericles and his policy, while it traduces Cleon and 
 others who succeeded the great statesman. This sort of party-history 
 has been written by Sallust, and detected by modem critics, who hold 
 his two treatises to be political pamphlets, concealed under a garb of 
 severe narrative. Perhaps Thucydides was to Sallust a more exact 
 model than that historian suspected. Pericles (and Thucydides) stood 
 .to Cleon and his party in somewhat of the relation of the old Whigs in 
 English politics to the modem Radicals. The former were great noble- 
 men, who took up the cause of the people, and opposed the Tories, and 
 so far the Radicals are their direct successors, just as Mr. Grote has 
 shown that Cleon succeeded to the policy of Pericles. But nevertheless 
 there are many old Whigs whose rank and traditions lead them to 
 despise and dislike their modem allies, to claim a distinct name, and 
 assert on many points a distinct policy. Thus Thucydides, a follower 
 of Pericles, certainly intends us to believe, and even insinuates strongly, 
 that Cleon's policy was not the continuation of that of Pericles. But it 
 is really strange how the genius of the historian has carried with him all 
 the modems, though he is almost the only contemporary, or nearly con- 
 temporary, authority who estimates Pericles so highly. Thus, for ex- 
 ample, the opinions of the two greatest Greek thinkers, Plato and 
 Aristotle, which are fortunately preserved, are apparently against him. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 141 
 
 But I must not let these political considerations 
 draw me away from my proper subject. I urge them 
 to show that the exaggerated esteem for Pericles and 
 for the Athens of his creation should not blind us 
 to the defects which were very plain to the philo- 
 sophical critics of his own and succeeding generations. 
 I am persuaded that as the age of the tyrants in 
 Greece generally, and of the Peisistratids at Athens, 
 was- an age of political stagnation, but of social and 
 artistic, advance, so on the contrary, the age of 
 Pericles, including the whole period between the 
 battles of Plataea and .iEgospotami, was an age of 
 rapid political development, possibly also at Athens 
 of literary and certainly of artistic development ; but 
 at Athens, and perhaps throughout Greece, one of 
 social and moral stagnation. And as my present 
 
 Though the former was a decided aristocrat, and the latter a Liberal 
 Conservative, and so opposed in principle to Pericles' Radicalism, as 
 they thought it, yet as they judged him long after his death, when all 
 personal bias had long passed away, their opinions are too weighty to 
 be summarily set aside. Plato {Gorgias 515-18) does not indeed insist 
 upon what seems to have been the usual aristocratic judgment, that 
 Pericles had made the people lazy, idle, and grasping, but he does insist 
 that he merely gratified their desires, and was their servant for popu- 
 larity's sake. This view, however, appears to have been modified by 
 Plato in his Phaedrus, where he speaks of him very respectfully. Aris- 
 totle's opinion may be gathered from two passages quoted by Plutarch, 
 the first in his life of Pericles, cap. 9, where Aristotle gives a sketch of 
 his policy very similar to that attributed to Caius Gracchus at Rome. 
 The second is an indirect notice of equal value, in Plutarch's Nicias, 
 where he enumerates from Aristotle the three best public men of Athens 
 — Nicias, Thucydides (6 Me^^riaiov), and Theramenes — and where the 
 omission of Pericles is very striking. The evidence of the Old Comedy, 
 were it of any value, agrees with these judgments. 
 
143 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 object is to regard the Greeks in this latter point 
 of view, the Periclean epoch, so brilliant in other 
 respects, will be that from which we can draw but 
 scanty materials. There was in social life even retro- 
 gression. 
 
 The attitude, for example, of women in imperial - 
 Athens was lower than we have yet found it in 
 Greece. A certain contempt for them seems to have 
 become the fashion. As if in contrast to the old- 
 school Herodotus, in whose delightful pages women 
 occupy a due place, and come before us in very 
 distinct characters, Thucydides is pointedly silent 
 upon them, and makes his silence the more speaking 
 by the aphorism put into the mouth of his ideal 
 hero — 'That woman is best who is least spoken of 
 among men, whether for good or for eviP.' There 
 is no modern reader who will not confess that the 
 practical adoption of this sentiment in his history 
 is one of its main defects, as compared with the truer 
 and more artless picture of the great Herodotus. 
 Posterity owes the dry Athenian a grudge that he has 
 not deigned to break his studied silence on that 
 remarkable woman, who is said to have had no mean 
 influence on the course of public affairs. Had he 
 condescended to vindicate her true position against 
 
 ' I have elsewhere {Prohg. to Ancient History, pp. lo, sqq.) shown 
 additional reasons for Thucydides' silence, as antagonistic to the pro- 
 minence given to Aspasia by the comic writers, and also how this par- 
 ticular point in Pericles' speech specially intends to repress a second 
 outburst of the enthusiasm shown on a previous occasion, which was 
 doubtless disagreeable to his cold and distant dignity. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS Of THE ATTIC AGE. 143 
 
 her comic slanderers, or to endorse it with his sober 
 judgment, we might have well excused him his 
 digressions about Hipparchus and Hippias, valuable 
 as they are to modern historians. In this, as in other 
 respects, my former judgment of his work, as a ' great 
 but defective history,' has been confirmed, not only 
 by farther reflection, but by a valuable ally, Mr. 
 Miiller Striibing, whose Aristophanes und die histo- 
 rische Kriiik shows, with great power, how wretchedly 
 poor and starved are the allusions of Thucydides to 
 the attitude of parties at Athens. We are, in fact, 
 reduced to doubtful inferences from the ribald joking 
 of Aristophanes, and to the scanty evidence of a few 
 recovered inscriptions, for explanations of what he 
 saw, and could have told us in a few of his pregnant 
 clauses, had not his intention been otherwise. His 
 very contemporaries were obliged to write books 
 supplying his omissions ^. 
 
 From this important writer we accordingly gain 
 but scanty light as to social and private life at 
 Athens. There are, however, a few indications of 
 old simpUcity in manners and luxury in dress de- 
 serving of notice, which cast special light on the 
 peculiar and somewhat repulsive features of Athe- 
 nian life, as we find it in this epoch. Thucydides 
 (ii. 15-17) mentions that, up to the outbreak of the 
 Peloponnesian war, many of the citizens had still pre- 
 served the ancient custom of living in the country, 
 
 » Cf. Dionysius Halicar. irefi 0ovkvS. c. i6, who mentions Cratippiis 
 as 6 awaicfidaas air^ jtal tA. TapoKuipSivTa awa-^a-^iiv. (Muller's Frag, 
 Hist. Grcse. ii. p. ^5.) 
 
144 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and only visiting the city on business — a condition 
 of things reminding us of Hesiod, who regards these 
 visits as only compelled by vexatious lawsuits ; and 
 blames his brother for wasting his time, and fre- 
 quenting the town. If we combine this notice of 
 the old country life in Attica with another remark 
 on the elegant dress of the older citizens, who wore 
 from luxury linen tunics, and fastened their hair 
 with a .golden tettix" (i. 6), and then compare the 
 picture in Herodotus of the elder Miltiades sitting 
 before his door, and offering hospitality to passing 
 strangers^, these indications show us a state of society 
 in which the Athenian women held a very different 
 position from that conceded to them under the de- 
 veloped democracy. Nothing was more depressing 
 in ancient times to the freedom of women than city 
 life, for the absence of proper police regulations made 
 it not easy for them to go abroad ; and besides, the 
 duties or responsibilities of a town household are as 
 nothing for a housewife compared with her importance 
 
 ' Herod, vi. 35 : ' When Peisistratus was autocrat at Athens, Mil- 
 tiades, the son of Cypselus, also was a man of great importance 
 (ISwaffTfi/e), being of a house that kept a four-in-hand, and by remote 
 descent a scion of the Ma.ciix of ^gina, but now an Athenian. This 
 Miltiades, sitting in his verandah, and seeing the Doloncian envoys 
 coming by dressed in foreign garb and carrying spears, called out to 
 them, and when they approached offered them lodging and hospitality.' 
 They had previously gone along the sacred road through Boeotia 
 and Phocis, but had met with no such treatment. The hospitality 
 and plenty of ancient days was a favourite topic with the old comic 
 poets, as may be seen from the numerous citations on this point in 
 Athenseus (vi. p. 267 sqq.), especially from Teleclides, Cratinus, and 
 Aristophanes. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 145 
 
 in a country establishment^. Although, therefore, 
 the surly Hesiod complains that one of the griev- 
 ances of having a wife is her insisting on joining 
 her husband at meals, I suppose the nobler Athe- 
 nians (as the lower classes certainly did) acted very 
 differently ; and how sharp this contrast between 
 their town and country life appeared to Athenian 
 women can be proved from the affecting utterance 
 of Xenophon, in a tract which will hereafter occupy 
 us, when he speaks of the moving out to the country 
 as 'delightful to the wife, and longed for by the 
 children.' 
 
 This contrast was very essential in Greek life ; for 
 we see so late a writer as Polybius struck by it, when 
 he comes to describe the Eleians (iv. 73). This people 
 had even then preserved an old-fashioned and luxu- 
 rious country life, very like that of early Attic days. 
 There were rich families, he tells us, who had not 
 visited the city for several generations, and who lived 
 a quiet life free from all politics. This arose partly 
 from the rich soil, partly from a wise policy in the 
 city, but most of all from the sacrosanct character 
 of Elis, on account of the great Olympic festival. 
 
 Had, therefore, *no other concomitant changes 
 occurred at Athens, I hold that this transference 
 of residence from the country into town must have 
 affected private life severely. 
 
 There were added even more important political 
 
 ' The model husband Ischomachus, in Xenophon's CEconomics, 
 advises his wife to 'obtain bodily exercise by folding up and sorting 
 clothes in her various presses! (Xen. (Econ. cap. *. § ii.) 
 
 L 
 
146 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 causes. With the progress of the age, the aristo- 
 cratical tone of Athenian life, lasting, no doubt, far 
 longer socially than it did politically, gave way before 
 the invading democracy, and the political centre of 
 gravity changed from the side of the nobles into the 
 midst of the whole male population. The result of 
 this equality upon the position of women is obvious. 
 I have shown before that, in Homer's day, the wives 
 and daughters of the chiefs were respected and influ- 
 ential because they were attached to the centre of 
 power, because they influenced the king more than 
 free men did, and because they belonged to an ex- 
 clusive caste society which despised all beyond its paTe. 
 The same thing holds good, though perhaps in a lesser 
 degree, in the aristocratic days of historical Greece. 
 As long as the Eupatridae held the swa^,-their noble 
 ladies held a high position in Attig^ociety ; and it 
 is doubtless from such that .(EgcTiylus has drawn his 
 figures of Clytemn,sstf5rand Electra — figures full of 
 grace^and- refinement, and very different from the 
 coarser and harder heroines in the works of Sopho- 
 cles. Accordingly, when the power passed from 
 the special class of the nobles the consideration felt 
 for all their entourage would also pass away. A 
 common man, with an actual vote, would become 
 of more importance than an Alcmseonid lady, who 
 might possibly of old have swayed her ruling hus- 
 band ; and so with the development of political 
 interests, gradually absorbing all the life of every 
 Athenian, there came, in that deeply selfish society, 
 a gradual lowering in the scale of all such elements 
 
VI,] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 147 
 
 as possessed no political power. Old age and weaker 
 sex were pushed' aside to make way for the politi- 
 cian — the man of action — the man who carried arms, 
 and exercised civic rights. 
 
 Yet even these weighty causes seem to me in- 
 adequate to explain the really Asiatic jealousy with 
 which women of the higher classes were locked up 
 in imperial Athens, and the contempt with which 
 they were systematically treated. Of course, these 
 very feelings have hidden from us their full explana- 
 tion, but I think we should not fail to remember a 
 certain reaction of Ionia upon Attica, which must cer- 
 tainly have been produced by the development of 
 the Athenian marine, and by the closer relations of 
 the various members of the Dalian Confederacy. 
 There seems no doubt that even about Solon's time 
 educated Athenians considered a visit to Asia Minor, 
 and to the splendid court of Lydia,just as necessary 
 as our young noblemen once considered a visit to 
 the French court, then the perfection of refinement 
 and elegance. It is also well known that the wealth 
 and the luxury of the Asiatic cities far exceeded 
 those of their Hellenic sisters. It seems, therefore, 
 more than probable that the Asiatic tinge which 
 the Ionic Greeks received both by their contact with 
 Lydia, and by the Persian conquest of Ionia, as it 
 certainly introduced lower notions concerning the 
 social position of women, so it also affected fashion- 
 able life at Athens'. There is nothing so infectious 
 
 ' There is distinct evidence that Polycrates, for example, modelled 
 all his city and its habits after the luxurious Sardis. Clearchus of Soli, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 among imitators as the contempt and the sneers of 
 a fashionable man, and I can well conceive the young 
 Athenian who went to see the world at Miletus and 
 Sardis, coming home with an altered view on the. 
 rights and privileges of women, and thinking that 
 after all the hareems of the Asiatics were the best 
 arrangement for men, inasmuch as it left them full 
 liberty to follow their own pleasures, without hin- 
 drance and without criticism from mothers, and 
 wives, and sisters \ 
 
 I think that some such influence as this should 
 be conceded, and it will help to explain the extra- 
 ordinary phenomenon before us ; I mean, how im- 
 perial Athens, the home of the arts and of literature, 
 the centre perhaps, even then, of social refinement 
 in Greece (though this is doubtful) — how this Athens, 
 which had thoroughly solved the problem of the exten- 
 sion of privileges to all citizens, had retrograded as to 
 
 quoted by Athenaeus (xii. p. f 40, E), describes how the morals of all 
 Greece were corrapted by these imported customs. There was a street 
 at Samos devoted to debauchery of all kinds, called the \aifa. aTtvi\. 
 
 ' The fair and gentle attitude towards women in Herodotus, and the 
 great influence he is disposed to allow them in modifying the greatest 
 historical events, show that mere contact with Asia Minor did not 
 produce this degradation of women, which seems peculiar to Athens, 
 and induced by Asiatic models grafted on Athenian city policy. 
 Eupolis (Meineke's Com. IFrag. ii. p. 529) speaks of Ionian women 
 following their husbands wheir on military service {Sanep \ex^ arpa- 
 TituTis i( 'icdfias), which is inconsistent with strict seclusion, and the 
 girls of Miletus and of Ceos are well-known to the comic writers as 
 temperate, and of refined manners at table. But these things may refer 
 to the lower classes, who were at Athens sufficiently free. The Asiatic 
 character of the Greeks, as compared to the western Aryans, should also 
 not be overlooked. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 149 
 
 women, and if not in practice, yet certainly in theory, 
 denied them that reasonable liberty which all the 
 older Greek literature shows them to have hitherto 
 possessed. Many effects of this injustice are apparent 
 in Athenian literature. 
 
 But it is high time to escape from generalities, and 
 examine in detail our individual authorities. Hitherto 
 almost all bur evidence was in the epic age anony- 
 mous, in the lyric fragmentary, so that the mental 
 bias of the writers could not be ascertained, or if 
 so, criticised with any certainty. The case is now 
 widely different. The personal characters of Hero- 
 dotus, Thucydides or Euripides, are quite essential in 
 considering the information they convey to us, and 
 the neglect of this obvious point has occasioned in- 
 numerable errors. As my conclusions are in many 
 points singular, owing to the weight which I allow 
 to this disturbing element, I must examine each of 
 the Attic authors separately, and in some detail. In 
 following out this plan, the social points will be 
 elicited disconnectedly, but I trust so fully that a 
 short summary at the close (p. 233) will give clearness 
 and consistency to a long and irregular exposition. 
 
 It is to be remarked that for the earlier part of the 
 present epoch we have but little direct evidence. 
 iEschylus and Herodotus can alone be said to throw 
 any light upon the state of Greece immediately after 
 the Persian wars ; and unfortunately for our purpose, 
 the latter, as to facts, is engaged with the previous 
 generation as his special subject, and the former was 
 a man of that peculiar genius which is little coloured 
 
'5° 
 
 SOCfAL GREECE. [CH, 
 
 by the current of every-day life around him, and 
 which centres itself upon those great eternal world- 
 problems, whose features are ever the same, and 
 which are not changed with the changing fashions of 
 men's lives. Thus in the extant tragedies of ^schy- 
 lus, the interests are, if I may so say, too colossal 
 to admit of much delineation of character ; amid the 
 crash of armies, and the mightier ' shocks of doom,' 
 these purely human features fall into the background. 
 I know not that he has left us distinct pictures of any 
 heroes or heroines save those of Agamemnon and 
 Clytemnestra, and that of Electra in his Choephorm. 
 The rest are general types, such as that of a warrior 
 king (Eteocles), of a patient sufferer (Prometheus), of 
 an overbearing herald (Hermes, in the same play), of 
 an anxious suppliant (Orestes and Danaus). It is in 
 respect of the development of personal character that 
 the great trilogy of .^schylus stands far in advance 
 of his earlier plays; and the combination of this feature 
 with the great laws of destiny and the gloomy lower- 
 ing of an ancestral curse over a great regal house — 
 this combination it is which makes the Agamemnon 
 of iEschylus, in my opinion, far the greatest of extant 
 Greek tragedies. 
 
 It is, however, not my intention to give an ^sthetical 
 analysis of this Greek masterpiece, in so many features 
 analogous to Shakespeare's Macbeth, but rather to in- 
 dicate what sort of characters are implied among the 
 actual contemporaries of vEschylus by the features in 
 which he has clothed his characters on the stage. The 
 ■yiwatKos &vbp6^ov\ov i\TTC(ou Keap (v. 1 1) of the queen is 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 151 
 
 far removed from the weak though complimentary- 
 picture of the Homeric bards '. She is a ruling queen, 
 like the Artemisia, whom the poet might have seen 
 commanding her ship in battle ; she sways her hus- 
 band's sceptre, and even when unfaithful to him, is 
 able to suppress the discontent and the murmurs of 
 her subjects. She is a far stronger character than 
 either Agamemnon or ^gisthus, and it is with a deep 
 psychological instinct that the poet has portrayed her 
 as such, and yet wasting her attachment on unworthy 
 and insignificant men — a case so common in our, as in 
 every, society. She shows no inferiority in reason- 
 ing power or in resource to the men around her, and 
 while boldly asserting as a queen her right to take 
 vengeance on her husband, is very anxious to justify 
 it by subtle arguments about blood-guiltiness and 
 about fate. The same equality between the sexes is 
 shown in the second play of the trilogy, where Electra 
 is the more leading character. The feminine side of 
 both these characters in .^schylus will be better dis- 
 cussed in contrast with the very different women of 
 Sophocles. 
 
 The principal result attained for our social sketch 
 from the works of iEschylus is the high conception he 
 forms of the ability and of the importance of women, 
 and how large a part they play in human history. 
 
 * She is there described as a person of excellent disposition, who only 
 yielded to ,a long course of temptation, when her good advisers were 
 removed. I have explained (p. 56) that this estimate may have been 
 partly due to the position of the rhapsodists, who sang for queens, and 
 who wished to magnify the good influence of their own order. 
 
153 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 The pictures he draws, in the mouth of Clytemnestra, 
 of the faithful wife waiting for her husband's return, 
 and of the husband's anguish at the loss of the 
 wife he loved, cannot be passed over as evidences of 
 the social relations of married people. In the first 
 {Agam. 85s sqq.), Clytemnestra, after excusing herself 
 for telling in public of this longing for her husband — 
 a modesty which is effaced by long continuance of 
 her desire — paints how distressing are the many vague 
 reports carried at second-hand into the retirement of 
 the palace, how many times Agamemnon had been 
 killed according to them, and how often she had 
 rushed in despair to commit suicide upon hearing 
 them ; how to this source of anguish was added the 
 danger of revolution, or an outbreak of popular fury, 
 if any grave mischance befel the army. ' For you in- 
 deed the rushing fountains of my tears have run dry, 
 and there is no drop left. But in my eyes, worn with 
 late watching, you may see how I sorrowed for the 
 signals of your victory that ever tarried ; and in my 
 disturbed sleep I started at the faint buzzing of the 
 gnat's wing, for I dreamt of you long tales of woe, 
 crowded into a short moment of repose.' In the 
 second, the chorus, in the same play, is describing the 
 feelings of Menelaus, when Helen had fled 1. The 
 
 ' The long and beautiful recognition scene between Menelaus and 
 Helen, in Egypt, where Euripides brings them together in his Helena 
 (w. 625 sqq.). shows how the later poet fully appreciated this most 
 honourable of human affections. Sophocles was too exclusively 
 Athenian to leave us any similar picture. The translation which fol- 
 lows above is quoted from Dean Milman's version of the Agamemnon. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 153 
 
 tender and uxorious character is well marked in the 
 Homeric poems, and the tragic poet has only added 
 depth and subtlety without modifying the main fea- 
 tures (w. 412 sqq.). 
 
 'Silent there she stood. 
 Too false to honour, too fair to revile ; 
 For her, far off over the o£ean flood, 
 Yet still most lovely in her parting smile, 
 A spectre queens it in that haunted spot. 
 Odious, in living beauty's place, 
 Is the cold statue's fine-wrought grace ; 
 Where speaking eyes are wanting, love is not. 
 And phantasms, from his deep distress unfolding. 
 Are ever present with their idle charms ; 
 And when that beauteous form he seems beholding, 
 It slides away from out his clasping arms : 
 The vision, in an instant it is gone, 
 On light wing down the silent paths of sleep.' 
 
 Quite apart from the refined and delicate relations 
 of the sexes in marriage, which these splendid pas- 
 sages imply, we are struck forcibly throughout all 
 the seven tragedies, as I have elsewhere remarked, 
 with the extraordinary depth, subtlety, and boldness, 
 both of the conceptions and of the . language of 
 .^schylus. When we reflect upon the fact that these 
 poems were brought out upon the stage, and acted 
 in connected series before an audience without printed 
 texts, or previous knowledge of the treatment, we 
 find ourselves in the presence of a society which in 
 intellectual culture must have been vastly superior 
 to the best and most critical modern audience ^- 
 
 * According to Aristophanes {Ran. 760), even the Athenians found 
 
154 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 No doubt the Athenian public was by no means so 
 learned as we moderns are, they were ignorant of 
 many sciences, of much history — in short, of a 
 thousand results of civilisation, which have since ac- 
 crued. But in civilisation itself, in mental power, in 
 quickness of comprehension, in correctness of taste, 
 in accuracy of judgment, no modern nation, however 
 well instructed, has been able to equal by labour- 
 ed acquirements the inborn genius of the Greeks. 
 Let me add that no modem theology has taught 
 higher and purer moral notions than those of .^s- 
 chylus and his school, developed afterwards by So- 
 crates and Plato, but first attained by the genius of 
 ^schylus. Thus he censures high-handedness even 
 in the gods {Prometheus), so laying the foundation 
 for that great doctrine of immutable morality which 
 is the basis of modern ethics. Again, he shows the 
 indelible nature of sin, and how it recoils upon the 
 third and fourth generation, thus anticipating one 
 of the most marked features in Christian theology. 
 Nay, even involuntary transgressions of the moral 
 law are followed by dire consequences. The agree- 
 ment of Sophocles (in his CEdipus) shows that these 
 deep moral ideas were no individual feature in 
 
 ^schylus hard to appreciate, though his many victories are good 
 evidence that they succeeded: 
 
 ofire 7dp ^ABrjvaioiffi ffwl&aiv^ AlffX^Xos, 
 
 \Tjpov Si TaW* ^yeiTO tov yvSivat iripi 
 
 tpifffii iroirjTOJv. 
 Other Greeks were accordingly thought quite incompetent, the Athenians 
 partially so. but this of course applies to a newer generation. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 155 
 
 iEschylus, and that there must have been a sober 
 earnestness at Athens very far apart from the 
 ribaldry of Aristophanes. Such immorality as that 
 of the modern French stage was never tolerated 
 among the Greeks, in spite of all their license. In 
 respect then of deeper ethics, .^schylus, and conse- 
 quently the society in which he lived, rise far above 
 the lyric age, and to us the so-called flights of the 
 inimitable Pindar, which astonished the Latin imi- 
 tators of Greek poetry, are as the efforts of a weak 
 fledgeling leaving his warm nest with fear, compared 
 with the bold eagle that swoops from his unapproach- 
 able 'Kiaaas alyiKfyjr awpoa-heiKTos oi6(j)pa>v Kpefxas yvinas 
 Trhpa. This intellectual power and acuteness, pre- 
 supposed by .(Eschylus in his, audience, was in prose 
 just as fully taxed by Thucydides, of whom I shall 
 speak at greater length presently. 
 
 But we must first pause before the social pictures 
 of Herodotus, the younger contemporary of .^schylus, 
 the personal friend of Sophocles ; yet as .^Eschylus 
 may be considered the old school poet, so he is 
 called the old school prose writer of the period. I 
 think that this common remark has been exaggerated, 
 and that it is rather in the choice of subject than 
 in his handling of it, that Herodotus really repre- 
 sents the 'good old times.' The facts which he re- 
 lates are more properly discussed in our sketch of 
 social Greece in the lyric- age, but the dramatised 
 dialogues, and the vivid pictures which adorn his 
 incomparable history — these must be coloured by 
 his own imagination, and must therefore necessarily 
 
1^6 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH- 
 
 show the complexion of the society in which he lived. 
 Thus, for example, his theory of the Deity as a. jealous 
 God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children 
 
 this theory, though not so deeply or morally worked 
 
 out, decidedly reminds us of the theology of .^s- 
 chylus, and not of the views expressed in any lyric 
 poet, though it might be gathered indirectly from 
 Theognis. It is, like most ideas of deities, the reflex 
 of a leading feature in the people's mind, and no- 
 ticed as such. Thus Herodotus himself introduces 
 Xerxes' brother as advising him, that ' it is on this 
 principle that the Greeks delight to act, they grudge 
 good fortune, and hate superiority \' 
 
 Those who think of the sharp contrast we find in 
 Thucydides, and how modern the latter a^ea^ftt 
 comparison with Herodotus, shoufcfnotiwnsider Hero- 
 dotus, as is usually done, exceptional/y nJiJashioned, 
 but rather Thucydides as excepU'wnHlly advaiTced. *^ 
 He belonged, as I believe, ^^i^^^^^^ ®^* °f hard 
 sceptical politicians who c'-^'^^ffed about Pericles and 
 Anaxag^oras at Athea- *^P %ere not in sympathy 
 with even the Athe/an, far less the Greek public 
 and who have thegove no right to be thought the 
 representativesof ^reek opinion or of Greek social 
 hfe .n those ES^ Some small sections of Greek 
 society, or Greek Society under snm^ ^„ t- 
 may have assumed the reoulXl f . ^ ''"''^'" '^'^'"' 
 cydides describes, but the^e is /"'""■" "^'^^ T^^ 
 whatever that the ordina, 2.^^^ P^i^: 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 157 
 
 age were rather the Greeks of Herodotus, than the 
 Greeks of Thucydides. 
 
 The broadest and deepest reason for this assertion 
 is that the Greeks of Herodotus have all the uni- 
 versal features of the race, stamped upon them in 
 all ages, while Thucydides pretends that in his day 
 the face of society changed to a totally different type. 
 As if the evidence of Aristophanes and Euripides 
 his contemporaries, of Antiphanes and Alexis in the 
 next generation, of the patriots Epaminondas and 
 Demosthenes — as if in fact all the evidence we can 
 get in all Greek history and literature did not 
 contradict him! The Greeks before his day, even 
 in Homeric and Hesiodic days, had been often 
 treacherous and cruel, generally dishonest and selfish, 
 but withal often generous and gentlemanly, always 
 clever and agreeable, and always carried away by a 
 love of beauty more than by a respect for truth \ All 
 these features, the heritage of early days, are found in 
 the men of Solon and Theognis, in the men of Pindar 
 and Simonides. They are also found in the men 
 of Herodotus and of Euripides, whose portraits are 
 far more faithful than those of the dry and surly 
 Thucydides. 
 
 Let me verify my assertions by a few citations 
 from Herodotus on each of these somewhat con- 
 trasted features. As to the meanness and lying of 
 
 ' Thus- the Egestseans of Sicily, even in Herodotus' time, had a shrine 
 at the tomb of the Crotoniate Philip, and offered sacrifices to him as a 
 hero, on account of his extreme beauty (Herod, v. 47). At Athens, even 
 old men were selected for their beauty to take part in public processions. 
 
158 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the Greeks in Herodotus, I may select their relations 
 with the Asiatic monarchs, especially with Darius, 
 as a feature which remained unchanged in the his- 
 torian's own day, and for generations to come. 
 
 There was at Athens a clan of Alcmseonidse, into 
 whose history Herodotus goes at length (vi. lai, 
 sqq.) owing to an allegation that they had attempted 
 to betray their city to the Persians after the battle 
 of Marathon. This story seems to Herodotus in- 
 credible, owing to the high respectability and known 
 anti-tyrannism of the family. ' For,' says he, ' there 
 were no men more highly thought of among the 
 Athenians, or more highly honoured.' He tells us 
 how one of this famous old clan, who had been of 
 service to Crcesus, was invited to Sardis, and promised 
 as much gold as he could carry away on his person. 
 Whereupon this great Athenian nobleman puts on 
 a very wide tunic, with hanging folds, and the very 
 largest top-boots he can procure. Proceeding to the 
 king's treasure-house he at once sets to work upon 
 a heap of gold dust, and having stuffed his boots full, 
 he next puts as much into the folds of his tunic as 
 it will hold, and then having crammed his mouth 
 with more, and having sprinkled it through his hair, 
 emerges so stuffed out as to be hardly like a man. 
 Croesus bursts out into laughter, but like a thorough 
 gentleman, adds as much more to his gift, so that 
 Alcmaeon, out of the proceeds, was able to breed 
 horses, and conquer at Olympia. 
 
 This story, which was told, as I suppose, to He- 
 rodotus by the Alcmaeonidae themselves, shows what 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 159 
 
 notions they had of gentlemanly conduct. But the 
 story is by no means isolated. All through the reign 
 of the Achaemenid dynasty, the Greeks, and Greeks 
 of all cities, were going up to Susa on all manner 
 of pretexts, promising the great king all manner of 
 easy conquests, begging for restoration to their homes, 
 asking for money, and paying him with perpetual 
 ingratitude. Nothing is more striking than the good- 
 natured and gentlemanly contempt of Darius, who 
 never shows vindictive feeling, but always, apparently 
 to Herodotus' surprise, pardons, and even favours, 
 rebels and traitors. Thus the Milesians, who had in- 
 volved him in a bloody and expensive war (vi. 30), 
 the son of Miltiades, his false friend, and bitter enemy 
 (vi. 41), and the people of Eretria, who had burned 
 wantonly his Lydian capital (vi. 119), when brought 
 before him as prisoners, are treated kindly, and 
 setthed in hia country. It is evident that the great 
 king appreciated their talents and activity, though 
 he evidently despised their treachery. I have no 
 doubt the Persian grandees only shared with him this 
 latter feeling', and to this, as much as to the love 
 
 ' To what pitch of meanness the Greek, even of those days, could 
 descend in making money, appears from the disgusting story of 
 Panionius the Chian, told by Herodotus (viii. 105 sqq.). The longing 
 to return to Hellenic life is well described by Andocides (pp. 3, 58, 
 ed. Blass). ' Why,' say his adversaries, ' will you await trial and 
 danger here, when you can go to Cyprus, and there enjoy wealth and 
 tranquillity ; see you not the wretched state of our city ? ' ' But I, 
 gentlemen, am of a far different mind. For I would not choose all the 
 good things of the world, to live away from my country ; and were it 
 even in such a plight as my enemies allege, far rather would I be a 
 citizen of it, than of others, which perhaps seem to me at present very 
 
i6o SOCIAL GREECE. [Cll. 
 
 of Hellenic society, and city politics, do I attribute 
 the fact that no Greeks, however magnificently treated, 
 could ever content themselves at Susa ; they all 
 sought to beg or to embezzle the treasures of the 
 great king, and bring them to Hellenic homes. There 
 was, indeed, a single exception — Scythes, tyrant of 
 Zancle— who asked leave to visit Sicily, and returned 
 to die in Persia. ' Him Darius considered to be the 
 most righteous of all those who had gone up to 
 him from Greece, in that he kept his promise to the 
 great king.' 
 
 What an evidence of Greek dishonesty! We can 
 well fancy the Aryan barons of Darius' court speaking 
 in the tone of the Roman Juvenal. To them, too, 
 the Grceculus esuriens was but too well known — with 
 his fascination, his cleverness, and, withal, his mean 
 and selfish knavery. I need hardly remind the Greek 
 scholar that all through iheJprvLC-s^i^X,!iaA^i\rouga. 
 the Persian war s. th isjJ^i^cherv and this selfishness 
 were the maiiSSiays of the Persians ; in fact, had 
 they depended upon these more completely, the sub- 
 prosperous.' I cannot refrain from adding a parallel piece of evidence 
 from a different and little known source. ' It happened to the people 
 of Posidonia,' says Aristoxenus (Athena^us, xiv. p. 632, A), ' who were 
 sometime Greeks, that they were utterly barbarised, and became Tyr- 
 rhenians or Romans, so that they changed their language and the rest of 
 their customs; but they even now still observe one of the Hellenic 
 feasts, in which, coming together, they call to memory their old names 
 and customs, and having bewailed them to one another and wept their 
 fill of tears, they separate.' How strange and affecting an evidence of 
 the deep hold which Greek culture had taken even on those who were 
 compelled for generations to abandon it 1 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. i6r 
 
 jugation of Greece would have been a mere question 
 of time. The several states were always intent upon 
 their own interests, always ready to betray their 
 neighbours and allies for material advantages ; and 
 had not the satraps, who held them in special dislike 
 because of their personal influence with the King, 
 treated them with severity, doubtless much more 
 could have been effected by combined bribery and 
 pardon. The Ionic cities were, perhaps, injured in 
 political morality by the prevalence of tyrants, who 
 were generally paid, or at least supported, by the 
 Persians : but still among the .^Eginetans and the 
 Argeians, and even among the Athenians and Spar- 
 tans, there are not wanting melancholy instances of 
 the same defects \ 
 
 So far, then, Herodotus agrees with Thucydides' 
 picture, though describing the generation preceding 
 the men of the Peloponnesian war ; so far, too, I am 
 certain that both rightly felt the salient weaknesses 
 of the Greek character. But Herodotus makes these 
 baser motives give way at times to real patriotism 
 and kindly justice. Most men are, with him, selfish 
 and hard ; yet it is not unusual to find a just man. 
 There is, too, a Providence rewarding goodness, and 
 thus higher principles have their weight in Greek 
 
 ' How lax or peculiar must Herodotus' own notions have been, 
 when he tells us (vii. 164) that Cadmus, tyrant of Cos, without pressure 
 or danger, and merely from a love of justice, surrendered his tyranny ; and 
 yet that this same Cadmus went with the Samians to Sicily, where with 
 them he seized and held the city of Z ancle, thenceforth called Messana, one 
 of the most scandalous pieces of injustice and treachery in all GreeK 
 history (vi. 23). 
 
 M 
 
1 62 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 society. Here, then, Herodotus openly asserts what 
 Thucydides denies in spite of facts, and here he is 
 in harmony with the tragic poets, with the higher 
 aspirations of the Old Comedy — in fact, with human 
 nature as opposed to the refinements of the selfish 
 moralists. With most men the oraclesj though 
 Thucydides and his set despised them, commanded 
 veneration and respect, nor did the contempt of the 
 Periclean party overthrow them, seeing that in after 
 days such men as Xenophon condescended to consult 
 them. Now there can be no doubt that as the 
 confessional of the Roman Catholic is mainly a moral 
 engine for good, so the oracles, especially that of 
 Delphi, were the priestly guide to many troubled 
 consciences, and ' led into the way of truth those that 
 had erred, and were deceived,' especially by their 
 own interests. The greatness of this moral force is 
 proved by the fact that even some acknowledged 
 cases of bribing the oracle did not destroy its popu- 
 larity or its use. 
 
 We do not realise what a great moral engine was 
 here at work, for we have but few of the private 
 responses preserved. But here is an example^. It 
 occurs in a speech of the Spartan king to the 
 Athenians, when they refused to surrender some 
 hostages whom they were keeping for the Spartans. 
 There was a certain Glaucus at Sparta, celebrated 
 for justice (like our friend Cadmus, just cited), as 
 well as in other respects, to whom a Milesian, who 
 had heard of his fame, came and entrusted a treasure, 
 ' Herod, vi. 86. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 163 
 
 wishing, as he said, to get the beaefit of his justice, 
 since Ionia was disturbed. Of course, such a tempta- 
 tion was too mucli even for this paragon of Greek 
 honesty. When the heirs of the Milesian came with 
 their tokens, and claimed the treasure, he professed 
 to know nothing of the affair. But when they had 
 gone away baffled, Glaucus, who had a conscience, 
 was afraid to spend the money without asking the 
 oracle whether he could safely do so. Whereupon 
 he received an answer telling him that he might, 
 himself, escape ' the consequences, but that the family 
 of perjurers should suffer vengeance and be exter- 
 minated. This is not all. When Glaucus begged 
 pardon for his indiscreet question, the Pythia declared 
 that making trial of the god, and committing the crime, 
 were of equal guilt, and though he sent for the 
 Milesians, and gave back the treasure, his house, 
 says the king, is now desolate. 
 
 When the great oracle of Greece gave such moral 
 responses, nay more, when they were still quoted with 
 faith, there must still have been much sound moral 
 feeling in Greece. 
 
 Allied to sound morality we may expect to find 
 tender and kindly feeling, and of this there are some 
 remarkable examples in the stories with which He- 
 rodotus adorns his narrative. I know none more 
 striking than the love of children which breathes 
 through many of his dramatic anecdotes, and which 
 I believe, in spirit and in form at all events, to be 
 
 ' The same view is put strongly by Lycurgus in his great speech 
 against Leocrates (cap. 19) in a later generation. 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 his own, or that of his age, even though the naked 
 facts may be the heritage of a previous society. He 
 is here, as in many other points, the direct successor 
 of the epic poets (cf. above, p. 30). 
 
 We have, for example, the story of the birth of 
 Cypselus (v. 93), afterwards tyrant of Corinth. 
 
 The .oligarchs knew by oracles that this child 
 would be dangerous to them, so they watched for its 
 birth, and when this occurred they sent ten men to 
 the deme, or townland, where its father Eetion lived, 
 to slay the child. ' These men coming to the house 
 of Eetion, went into the courtyard, and asked for the 
 child ; so its mother, Labda, knowing nothing of their 
 intentions, and thinking that titey had come to see it 
 out of friendliness to its father, gave it into the arms 
 of one of them. Now they had determined, on the 
 way, that the first of them who got the child into his 
 hands should dash out its brains (Tr/Joo-ovSiffai). But 
 when Labda brought it to him, by God^s providence, 
 the child smiled at him as he took it, and a pang 
 of pity as he perceived this prevented him from 
 slaying it ; and so, with a soft heart, he handed it 
 to the second, and he to the third. Thus the child 
 passed through the hands of all the ten, and none 
 of them would murder it. So giving back the child 
 to its mother, and going out, they stood and began 
 to reproach one another, and especially the first who 
 had taken it, that he had not carried out their re- 
 solution, until, in time, they made up their minds to 
 go back and accomplish the deed.' Meanwhile the 
 mother had hidden it in a chest {Kv>^i\t\), and, after 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 165 
 
 a half-hearted search, they go home to say that their 
 duty has been performed. 
 
 This picture of the mother naturally expecting her 
 husband's friends to walk out into the country, in 
 order to see and admire her new-born baby, shows 
 a pleasant contrast to the darker features we have 
 been discussing, and the pity of the miscreants, and 
 their hesitation, shows how strong a hold the helpless 
 innocence of an infant had upon them, as upon all 
 civilised men. I believe the notion of exposing in- 
 fants, from economical motives, not to have prevailed 
 till later times ; and it is possibly to the same age 
 that we may refer the interesting notice of Aristotle ^ 
 about the Malians, that an oracle having commanded 
 them to love the dearest of the dear ^, they used to 
 carry round their little children naked at their feasts 
 and kiss them. It must have been an usual fashion in 
 later days at Athens to send for them after dinner, 
 for Theophrastus notices, as one of the features of the 
 Flatterer^ that he asks for the children, plays games 
 with them, and lets them sit on him and molest him 
 without grumbling. Thus also we find, going back 
 to Herodotus, that the Peisistratidse, when they 
 were in a good condition to resist and conquer the 
 Athenians in revolt, ' had all their affairs thrown into 
 
 ' MuUer, Frag. Hist. ii. p. 150. 
 
 ' ^i\dv rwv <pi\TaTa)v rh ^iXraTa. To reproduce the alliteration, and 
 to render the double meaning oiifiiXfTv (to love and to kiss), as well as 
 the emphasis of the double superlative, is impossible in English ; nor 
 would it be easy to lind a shorter and more obvious example of the 
 power of the Greek language. 
 
1 66 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 confusion,' and agreed to evacuate the country in 
 five daySj because their children, whom they were 
 sending out secretly to a foreign place of refuge, were 
 captured by the Athenians. A bon mot, pointing in 
 the same direction, is presei'ved in Plutarch's life of 
 Themistocles (c. i8), who used to say 'that his boy', 
 who bullied his mother, was the greatest power in 
 Greece : for the Athenians ruled the rest of Greece, 
 he (Themistocles) ruled the Athenians, his wife ruled 
 him, and the boy ruled her' — a charming piece of 
 humour, but showing a deep feeling for the power of 
 little children in the house. 
 
 I will quote yet another anecdote on this feature, 
 and, for variety, from Sparta. It occurs (vi. 6i, sqq.) 
 in Herodotus' account of the ungentlemanly trick by 
 which the king Aristo obtained from his dearest 
 friend a beautiful wife whom he coveted. He pro- 
 posed that each of them should give the other what- 
 ever that other desired — a proposal which Agetus, 
 who knew that Aristo was already married, and who 
 had no suspicions of his intention, readily accepted. 
 However, the lady (whose name, strange to say, is 
 not mentioned) 'was the fairest woman in Sparta, 
 and this, too, after having been the most hideous 
 child ; and her nurse, seeing her ugliness, and that 
 she was the child of wealthy parents, though so ugly ; 
 and, moreover, that her parents thought her appear- 
 ance a misfortune,' went daily to the temple of the 
 heroine Helen, and prayed that the goddess would 
 
 ' His name was Cleophantus ; he was a famous horseman, but other- 
 wise insignificant. Cp. Plato, Meno, p. 93. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 161 
 
 -— ■'-T T — ■' ■ - ■ 
 
 take away the hideousness of the child '. At length 
 a lady meets her going out of the temple, ' and asks 
 her what she is carrying in her arms ; but she answers, 
 " a child " : and the lady (who is the heroine herself) 
 asks to see it, but she refuses, for she had been ordered 
 by its parents to show it to no one ; however, the lady 
 persists, and, stroking its head, predicts it will yet be 
 the fairest of Spartan women.' So from that day 
 the child's appearance began to amend. 
 
 Such was the interest which Herodotus and his 
 age felt in little children. It was accordingly men- 
 tioned as one of the greatest calamities that befell the 
 
 * The reader who wishes to see the Greek ideal and epical nurse, 
 should consult the exquisite narrative in the Homeric hymn to Demeter 
 (vv. 113, sqq.)> part of which I have quoted (above, p. 59). .ffischylus, 
 on the contrary, lofty tragedian as he is, has given us a picture too 
 realistic to bear translation of the duties and troubles of the ordinary 
 historical nurse, who upon hearing the death of Orestes, weeps over the 
 recollections of all her idle toil. Her avocation is in no respect different 
 from that of our own nurses. 
 
 T^ li\v yap dxka r\7]fji6vajs tJvt\ovv feaK&' 
 
 <l>i\ov S' 'Opiffrrjv, r^s i^jjs tpvxTJs Tpt&fiv, 
 
 &v i^iSpefa lirjTpSBev SeSeyjievr;, 
 
 Kal vvKTLirX&'ytcTiuy dpOioJV KeKevfffJLo/rajv , . , 
 
 Kot 7T0W& KoX fjLOxOrjp* S.VQ«p€\rjT' eixoi 
 
 TXdffri' t5 fJLTj tppovovv ycip iiatrepfi Potov 
 
 Tpi(p(iv dvdyierj^ ttSis ycip ou ; Tp6iTiy (pp€v6s. 
 
 oi) yap Ti fpaivet irdts er' Sjy ev crirapydvots, 
 
 fl \iiios fi Sbji e'l Tis ij \i<fiovp!a 
 
 fX^^f ^^ct Se vrjSi/S avrdpiCTjs t€Kvoiv. 
 
 TOvTOjy irpofiavTts oiitra, ttoWcL 5', otofjtatf 
 
 if/evaOeiffa iraiSbs c-napydvcav (patSpivrpia, 
 
 Kva<pivs Tpo</)eLS re Taiirbv elx^rijv rcAos. 
 
 cyoj Snr\ds 5^ rdaSe \GipQjva^ias 
 
 €;^oi;(r' *Op4ffTT]V c^eSe^a^i;!' Trarpi, 
 
i68 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Chians (vi. 37), how the roof fell in upon 120 children 
 at their lessons in a school, and only one escaped 
 alive. Even the cold Thucydides confesses that in 
 after days the greatest and deepest sympathy excited 
 by any incident in the Peloponnesian war was the 
 massacre of a school-full of little children, at Myca- 
 lessus, by some Thracian savages, who passed through 
 when returning home from mercenary duty. His 
 own feelings are pretty well concealed under the 
 most violent contortions of grammar \ Thus Eu- 
 ripides, who appealed to the emotions of ordinary 
 men, heightens the pathos of his Andromache by 
 putting her child Molossus on the stage — no easy 
 matter in a Greek theatre. The pathetic appearances 
 of Astyanax in the Troades, and of Orestes in the 
 Iphigenia in Aulis, though they are silent, have not 
 escaped the observation of intelligent critics. 
 
 Before leaving Herodotus I must add a word on 
 the sociality and bonhommie which his whole work 
 breathes. However dishonest and selfish, the Greeks 
 were always pleasant and conversational. This ap- 
 pears even in his pictures of the tyrants, a class whom 
 he detested politically, and regarded as one of the 
 greatest of human evils ^. In telling us the story of 
 Polycrates and the ring, he describes the fisherman 
 (iii. 42) bringing the fine fish he had caught to Poly- 
 crates' door, and asking to see him. And when he 
 was admitted, he says : ' O king, when I caught this, 
 
 • vii. 29 : Koi (vn(popcL rfj mKu iraffi) o48e/«as ^aaoir itaWov irifai 
 aSoKrjTos t€ eTT^trcffev avTtj fcal Suvq. 
 » V. 78 ; vi. 104, 134. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 169 
 
 I would not bring it to market, though I live by my 
 trade, but it seemed to me worthy of you and your 
 greatness, I accordingly bring it a present to you.' 
 The tyrant is delighted, and says, 'You have done 
 right well, and I thank you twice, first for your deed, 
 anti next for your (pleasant) words, so join us at 
 supper! This Polycrates, it must be remembered, 
 was the greatest and most powerful Greek sovereign 
 of that age, perhaps excepting the tyrants of Syracuse 
 (Herod, iii. 60, 125) ; and the habit of the Asiatic 
 monarchs was to see no such people, but to receive 
 their messages, as Herodotus well knew (iii. 119). 
 Yet here we have a certain simplicity of life very 
 peculiar for a man who aspired to the sovereignty 
 of the sea. 
 
 The same friendliness, combined with much refine- 
 ment, comes out in the story of the famous marriage 
 of Agariste (vi. 136, sqq.), which I believe Herodotus 
 to have heard at Athens from the Alcmaeonidae, 
 whose family history he knew so well. Its peculiar 
 features are decidedly Athenian. For the tyrant Clei- 
 sthenes of Sicyon entertains for a year in his palace 
 all the great lords of Greece, who are suitors for his 
 daughter's hand. With great tact, if it be not his- 
 torically accurate, Herodotus does not introduce a 
 Spartan among these suitors, as his exclusiveness and 
 boorish manners ', if they did not prevent him from 
 aspiring to the Corinthian tyrant's daughter, would 
 
 ' He gives an account of Spartan boorishness again, when certain 
 envoys were required to prostrate themselves before the king of Persia, 
 and refused (vii. 160). 
 
170 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 certainly have totally unfitted him for the competi- 
 tion which ensued. For they were tested as to 
 disposition and temper and education and manliness, 
 in gymnasia if they were young, but in any case and 
 particularly he tested them by social entertainments '. 
 When the deciding day came, there was a feast 'of 
 a hundred oxen, and after (late) dinner, the suitors 
 endeavoured to outshine one another in matters of 
 music, and in general conversation (ra Xeyof^hm h to 
 lxi(Tov), when of course the two Athenians excel the 
 rest. But Hippocleides takes to dancing and then to 
 standing on his head, and Cleisthenes for some time, 
 though he loathed the idea of having a son-in-law so 
 shameless, refrained from breaking out upon him, but 
 when he saw him standing on his head, and gesticu- 
 lating with his legs, he could not help calling out, 
 ' O son of Tisander, you at all events have danced 
 away your marriage.' And then he selects the other 
 Athenian, Megacles, an Alcmseonid. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the gentlemanly conduct of the 
 tyrant all through this affair, who, by the way, on 
 choosing Megacles, apologises to the suitors for the 
 necessity of choosing one among so many whom he 
 would all gladly favour. In fact throughout his 
 history, Herodotus, with true tact, contrasts the man- 
 ners of the despots with the manners of such free 
 Greeks as the Spartans, whom he evidently respects, 
 but thinks very disagreeable. Thus when the joint 
 
 ' «ai TO ye jikfusiov, ev ry avvtaTtTi S1e7re1pS.ro. Here I think I see the 
 Athenian touch of the story coining out. 
 
VI.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 171 
 
 embassy of the Greeks goes to Gelon of Syracuse 
 to ask for aid, and he offers it, but claims the com- 
 mand on the ground of his superior force, the Spartan 
 envoy (not like Cleisthenes) at once bursts out into 
 invective ; but Gelon answers, ' Spartan stranger, re- 
 proaches are wont to excite anger in him who receives 
 them, but you, though you showed yourself insolent 
 in your speech, will not persuade me to make an 
 unseemly reply ' — a sentiment more like those of 
 Menander than those of the age of Euripides. 
 
 These dialogues, which I quote rather as evidence 
 of Herodotus' own culture than of that of the men 
 whom he introduces as his speakers, show that there 
 was throughout Greece, and especially among the 
 states which had been ruled by tyrants, a great deal 
 of social culture, and a great deal of gentleness and 
 good breeding. The Athenian society in which he 
 mixed was, I think, of this kind, and the many 
 obligations of Sophocles to his immortal history 
 show how much in sympathy he stood with the 
 foremost men of his age. Nay, even in one respect 
 he seems to me clearly in advance of the hard, 
 grasping, and shortsighted selfishness of the Greeks 
 of Thucydides. In the exquisite passage which gave 
 to Sophocles the germ of his finest chorus, Herodotus 
 has attained to that Indian summer in human ex- 
 perience, where the fading leaf and the ripened fruit 
 with all their richness suggest the winter of decay, 
 and remind us that however sweet is life, it has been 
 doled out in scanty measure. Nay, even the end 
 that comes so soon, comes not so soon as we pray for 
 
lya SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 it, and bitter as it is, there are few who have not 
 longed that it might cut short their earthly miseries. 
 From this deeper reflection flow the gentleness and 
 the unworldliness of the man who loved and enjoyed 
 the world so keenly. 
 
 I will cite the famous passage in detail (vii. 46). 
 Xerxes, having ordered a review of all his forces at 
 the Hellespont, and seeing the sea hidden with ships 
 and the coast swarming with men, at first was over- 
 joyed, but presently burst into tears. Whereupon his 
 uncle Artabanus observed to him : ' O king, what a 
 sudden change there is in your conduct ; just now 
 you were congratulating yourself, but now you weep. 
 But he said : it occurred to me, when I thought 
 thereon, to pity human life, how short it is, since of 
 all this multitude not one will survive in one hundred 
 years. But the other answered : There are other 
 things harder in our lot than the mere shortness of 
 life. For in this so brief span there is no mere 
 mortal born throughout all the world so happy, that 
 he does not once and again come to wish for death 
 rather than life. For misfortunes falling upon him 
 and diseases troubling him make this life, short as it 
 is, seem full of weariness. Thus death has become a 
 very chosen refuge to man from so sorry an existence, 
 and the God who has given us a sweet taste of it in 
 our generation, is found grudging in his dole \' 
 
 ' This is the genn of Sophocles' famous chorus, (Edip.Col. 1242, sqq., 
 to which I shall refer hereafter, also anticipated by Mimnermus. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE {continued). 
 
 I NEXT take up Thucydides, the most mislead- 
 ing, and therefore the most misunderstood, of our 
 authorities. 
 
 His general account of the Greek character in his 
 own times (to which he distinctly limits himself, by 
 contrasting the older days of simplicity and honesty) 
 is clear, hard, and unpleasing. He describes the 
 Periclean Greeks as differing from their fathers in 
 possessing a greater political insight, in habitually 
 hearing and using argument, in understanding a far- 
 seeing policy, and estimating the balance of compli- 
 cated and conflicting interests. But most critics 
 have failed to observe that in these features he makes 
 the Corinthians, and Corcyrseans, and Sicilians, not 
 a whit inferior to the Athenians ; and there is here, 
 to my mind, a great want of dramatic power in the 
 author, or else an absence of that finer perception 
 which is so prominent in Herodotus. The speeches 
 in Thucydides are so completely cast in the same 
 mould as to be obviously rhetorical exercises of his 
 own, and not honest attempts to dramatise the 
 
174 
 
 ' SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 critical moments in his history. Yet there is about 
 this dull sameness an element of truth. As the 
 small territories of so many enterprising cities, and 
 their consequent proximity, made isolation wellnigh 
 impossible, so their complicated relations and con- 
 stant wars made politics an all-absorbing pursuit. 
 The notion of an empire of intellect and of taste 
 without political supremacy, had not yet dawned 
 even upon the Athenians. Consequently politics 
 corroded the social life, as well as the literature, of 
 Periclean Greece. 
 
 There resulted, farther, a greater simplicity of dress 
 and life ', and probably some carelessness as to home 
 comforts and material luxury. There followed thirdly 
 a harder view of life and of men ; a more daring 
 assertion of self-interest as opposed to principle, of 
 force as opposed to justice ; and often a habit of 
 casuistic dispute and of subtle equivocation. These 
 painful moral features, which are patent enough 
 through all his history, are saliently brought out not 
 only in his speeches, but in an imaginary dialogue 
 which he has composed between the Athenians, when 
 they proceeded to force the island of Melos into their 
 naval confederacy, and the unfortunate Melians, who 
 plead that they have broken no treaty, violated no 
 obligation, and therefore incurred no lawful hostility. 
 The Athenians are here represented as laying aside 
 all that speciousness which was their known charac- 
 teristic. They brutally assert that Justice is only 
 
 * Cp. above p. 144. 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 175 
 
 invoked by the weaker side, and that superior force 
 asks no justification for asserting itself. 
 
 Another passage, in which Thucydides turns aside 
 to reflect upon similar ideas, but quite generally, is 
 the famous compendium of Greek politics appended 
 to his account of the Corcyraean massacre. 
 
 The substance of what he says is as follows : That 
 according as the war progressed, the general state of 
 society became gradually worse ; men became what 
 the French call effarouclies, and sought out new 
 schemes of overthrowing their enemies, and new 
 cruelties in wreaking their vengeance upon them. 
 Even the very signification of ordinary terms changed. 
 Rash boldness came to be considered loyal friendship, 
 and wise caution specious cowardice. Men were ex- 
 pected to stop at nothing for their party ; and if they 
 did hesitate, they were cast aside as worthless and 
 unfaithful. For party became the paramount bond, 
 and overrode the ties of blood. Its object was not to 
 abide by the law, but to evade and violate it. Oaths 
 and promises were indeed given and taken, but had 
 not a particle of force if interest opposed them. And 
 the one interest which swallowed up every other 
 feeling was the lust of power — of ruling in the state, 
 some as aristocrats, some as leaders of a democracy, 
 but even then only so long as no more complete 
 victory, such as a tyranny over both friends and foes, 
 was in view. Thus every form of villainy became 
 prevalent in the Greek world on account of their 
 internal factions. Simple honesty was laughed out of 
 ' Cp. the whole dialogue at the close of the Fifth Book. 
 
176 SOCIAL GREECE. \ca. 
 
 society, and guarded mistrust took its place. There 
 was no superior power to arbitrate, and men were so 
 trained to forecast unexpected dangers, that they 
 were unable to feel confidence in either oath or 
 promise '. 
 
 I am not the least disposed to question the accuracy 
 of the facts, which suggest to him these reflections. 
 Such cruelties as the Corcyrsean massacres are un- 
 fortunately not uncommon in Greek history. The 
 murder of the Platasan prisoners in cold blood by 
 the Spartans (iii. 68), and the vote passed at Athens 
 against the conquered Mityleneans (iii. ^,6), of whom 
 the ringleadei's were executed, while perhaps 5,000 
 more escaped with much difficulty — these are, within 
 Thucydides' own volume, sad corroborations of his 
 statements. There are not wanting other witnesses. 
 Heracleides Ponticus^ tells us that 'the city of the 
 Milesians met with misfortune through their luxury 
 and their political enmities, since they were not con- 
 tent with what was reasonable, but destroyed their 
 foes utterly. For the rich and the poor (who were 
 called Gergithae) being in conflict, the demos was at 
 first victorious, and having expelled the rich, collected 
 the children of the fugitives into threshing-floors, and 
 bringing in oxen had them trampled to death, de- 
 stroying them with unnatural cruelty. Accordingly 
 the rich having in turn got the upper hand, burnt in 
 pitch all whom they got into their power, along with 
 their children.' These horrible facts exceed any of 
 the cruelties so commonly attributed to individual 
 
 ' Thuc. iii. 82, sqq. ' Athenseus, xii. p. J33. 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 177 
 
 despots, such as Phalaris, or Pheretime ^, and should 
 not be forgotten in our admiration for Greek culture 
 and for Greek refinement. On this subject I shall 
 make farther remarks in the sequel. 
 
 But in his inferences Thucydides is, I think, unfair. 
 He supplies indeed a true, but partial apology, when 
 he says that ' war is a stern schoolmaster, and makes 
 men's tempers as hard as their circumstances.' We 
 have ample evidence in our own day, how nations as 
 civilised as, and far more humane than, the Greeks 
 become cruel not only through revenge, but more 
 inevitably through fear ^- This partial defence should 
 not be forgotten. Yet Thucydides has overlooked or 
 concealed another most important consideration. It 
 is this, that if a nation fall into a policy of faction, if 
 the public men begin to act in cabals, the politics of 
 these factions or cabals will always be far worse than 
 those of the average individuals who compose them '. 
 A glance at the leading politicians of Greece, even as 
 Thucydides himself is obliged to portray them, will 
 prove this fact, however we may explain it. Not to 
 speak of Aristides, we have Cimon, and Archidamus, 
 
 ' Heiacleides, Tkvprqvaimi iro\. (Miillerii.p. 212), and Herodotus lib. v. 
 sub. fin. 
 
 ' There is no more striking ancient example than the treatment of the 
 Athenian senator, who at Salamis or Trcezen proposed submission to 
 the Persians. The exiled people stoned him forthwith, and their women 
 hearing the tumult, and learning its cause, set upon his wife of their 
 own accord, and stoned her and her children. Such conduct was rare 
 among Athenians at any epoch. 
 
 ' It seems a. parallel fact, that Boards consisting partly at least of 
 honest and respectable men, are often guilty of mean and even dishonest 
 acts, 
 
 " N 
 
1/8 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and Nicias, and 3^rasidas, men of honour and probity, 
 and universally respected as such, Nicias indeed dis- 
 astrously so, as Mr. Grote has amply shown in his 
 history of the Athenian defeat in Sicily, 
 
 Our first impression, when we come to weigh these 
 facts, is that Thucydides has been guilty of gross 
 exaggeration in his political reflections above cited-, 
 and no doubt he has exaggerated, though all modern 
 historians quote him with more confidence than they 
 would quote the Gospels; yet he has not necessarily 
 exaggerated so much as we at first surmise. For it is 
 a certain fact, that considerable personal probity may 
 be combined with political rascality, when that ras- 
 cality is the act or policy of a party and not of an 
 individual. We see it in our own day in a milder 
 "form. How many members of the House of Com- 
 mons, vote with their party, and feel themselves 
 obliged to do so, though they disapprove of the 
 action of the party, and even tell their friends that 
 they would gladly see it defeated? It is only with 
 exceptionally bold as well as honest men that con- 
 science at once overrides political ties, and so a 
 scrupulous man, in Thucydides' time, as now, was 
 unfit to join any party ^. 
 
 But I must hasten to add that the Greek parties 
 in his day were very unlike the great constitutional 
 parties of our House of Commons, and should be 
 rather called factions and cabals. They were of 
 small compass, occupied, for the most part, in the 
 struggles of small societies, where all the members 
 
 ' rh irpbs Siiiav aiytTov, iirl irSv dpyov, was the general opinion. 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 179 
 
 were personally known as friends, and all the oppo- 
 nents personally hated as enemies. Thus the bitter- 
 ness, the rancour of faction, was intensified to a degree 
 hardly known among us. The nearest parallels are 
 the Italy of Macchiavelli, and the Court of France in 
 La Rochefoucauld's day. The maxims which these 
 writers drew from their observation are accordingly 
 very similar to those of Thucydides \ 
 
 Such factions are only joined from motives of in- 
 terest, and abandoned when these motives cease, for 
 factions have no other attraction. Thus it may hap- 
 pen, and, indeed, generally does happen, that a number 
 of fairly respectable men join together in a cabal so 
 far as they are actuated by selfish interest ; and, ac- 
 
 ' Manzoni in his Promessi Sposi (ed. Flor. 1845, p. 15) depicts a very 
 similar state of things throughout North Italy even in the i y th- century. 
 ' L'uomo che vuole offendere, o che teme ad ogni istante d'essere offeso, 
 cerca naturalmente alleati e compagni. Quindi era in quel tempi por- 
 tata al massimo punto la tendenza degli individui a tenersi coUegati 
 in classi, a formame di nuove, e a procurare ognuno la maggior 
 potenza di quella a cui apparteneva. . . . Ognuna di queste piccole 
 oligarchie aveva una sua forza speciale e propria ; in ognuna I'individuo 
 trovava il vantaggio d'impiegare per se, a proporzione della sua au- 
 torita, e delle sua detrezza, le forze riunite di molti. I piu onesti si 
 valevano di questo vantaggio alia difesa loro ; gli astuti e i facinorosi ne 
 approfittavano per condurre a termine ribalderie,' &c. The reader will 
 find similar phenomena virithin the limits of a single court admirably 
 sketched by G^ruzez, 'Cours de Litt&ature Fran9aise,' vol. ii. p. 191. 
 Cp. also Plato's Phado (Jovcett i. 438), and Mill's Autobiography, p. 
 104. But I would call particular attention to Demosthenes m Leplinem, 
 p. 499, whose argument proceeds on the very point I have been urging. 
 He protests against the Athenian assembly proposing to do publicly 
 what they would not think of doing individually, and speaks as if such a 
 thing were not possible, but likely. 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 cordingly, the public action of the cabal represents the 
 combined meanness and rapacity of all its component 
 members, without at all representing the good quali- 
 ties they possess. In fact, these good qualities are the 
 strongest disintegrating forces in such a combination, 
 and must be treated in the secret counsels of the 
 faction as indecision and weakness. 
 
 This is the very aspect of things described by 
 Thucydides. His history being strictly political, and 
 his only consideration of men being their political 
 side, he has noticed clearly enough the hard and 
 cruel characteristics of the Greek political factions of 
 his day, but has completely exaggerated his account 
 by making it a general picture of the Greeks, instead 
 of confining it to the Greeks as politicians. When 
 he says that ' frankness, a prominent quality among 
 honourable men, was ridiculed out of society V he 
 says what is true of the politics of faction, but false 
 of the Greeks as a people, of the Greeks as private 
 men and women, and certainly false of all the purer 
 and more honourable men amongst them. It is sur- 
 prising, among all the critical estimates of Thucydides' 
 history which have occupied European scholars, that 
 this very obvious one-sidedness has hitherto escaped 
 notice ^. 
 
 ' Cp. ii. 83 : «oJ tA etiijflcs o5 to •yaniaiav vKuajov |t«T^x" naTait- 
 
 ' I suppose the reason of this omission with many critics is that no 
 man is absolutely sceptical. However he may assail ancient documents, 
 and disbelieve legends, there is some point at which his doubt ends and 
 his faith t)egins. . Even .Sir George I^wis, one of the most consistent 
 and absurd unbelievers the world has, yet seen— even Sir G. Lewis is 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. i8r 
 
 But as private life was reduced to a minimum of 
 importance in this epoch, so the reahstic pictures of 
 private life, and therefore of women, which we meet 
 in earlier literature, and again in Euripides, are well- 
 nigh wanting to us here. We must rely on the ideal 
 pictures of tragedy for the higher side, or the ribald 
 travesties of comedy for the lower side of Greek home 
 life during the early part of this brilliant period. 
 Herodotus is, no doubt, a partial exception, and would 
 have been a striking one had his subject led him to 
 paint, in greater detail, this side of human nature. 
 But the female characters in Herodotus may fairly be 
 classed, as I class them, with the heroic characters 
 of the dramatic poets. For, as his great historical 
 epic brought him into bygone days, and into dis- 
 tant courts of foreign rulers, so the painting of his 
 
 conservative on the origin of the Homeric poems! So it is that 
 most of the Germans, and with them Mr. Grote, having doubted or 
 rejected older evidence, v^hen they come to Thucydides, begin to exer- 
 cise their faith. And this long pent-up virtue then bursts out with 
 a certain strange fervour. As if to compensate for the long and painful 
 exercise of scepticism, these men, like new converts, take up their long- 
 sought idol, their model of historic accuracy, with a vehemence more 
 generous than prudent. Everything that Thucydides says is to be right 
 and accurate ; though all our other authorities differ he is to be placed 
 above them ; not even a mistake in judgment is to be imputed to him. 
 I think this is unsound criticism, and likely to mislead us on the 
 subtler phases of Greek life. The older writers and the later com- 
 pilers are in my mind more tnistworthy than they are commonly 
 thought; Thucydides is less so, not because he was dishonest, but 
 because he was throughout all his work one-sided, and in some 
 places, as I have elsewhere shown, partial. Cp. my Prolegomena to 
 Ancient History, Essay i ; cp. also Mr. Striibing's work on Aristophanes 
 and his age. 
 
1 82 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 women, where we should expect hints as to social life, 
 was rather ideal and artistic, than copied directly from 
 models around him. The pictures he draws of the 
 Persian queens, such as Amestris, are more analogous 
 in gloom and cruelty to the portraits of .iEschylus 
 than to those of his own friend Sophocles, though such 
 a figure as Artemisia might well take its place in any 
 tragedy. But, in Some smaller touches, Herodotus 
 shows, as we should expect, a sympathy with female 
 excellence deeper than that of Attic tragedy before 
 the days of Euripides. Apart from the personal geni- 
 ality of the man, which is in itself sufficient reason, 
 we may attribute the good effect to his colonial origin, 
 where the Athenian seclusion of women was not prac- 
 tised, and to his cosmopolitan education. But as I 
 believe the morals of Herodotus represent far better 
 than those of Thucydides the average condition of 
 Greece in those days, so I have no doubt that the role 
 played by women at the same date, throughout Greece 
 generally, was rather such as is implied by Herodotus 
 than by the surly silence of Thucydides. 
 
 Returning to the tragic poets, I have before hinted 
 that the women of Sophocles are very degenerate and 
 poor as compared with those of the older .^Eschylus. 
 The latter has left us, in his extant plays, only three 
 of any import — Clytemnestra, Cassandra (in the Aga- 
 memnon), and Electra (in the Choephora). Cassandra's 
 magnificent scene is mainly due to her tragic situa- 
 tion — a clear-sighted but despised prophetess, seeing 
 a hideous crime impending, and unable to avert it. 
 Of Clytemnestra I have spoken above. She is one 
 
VII. j THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 183 
 
 of those great figures that stand out in the dramatic 
 literature of the world. I shall only here remind 
 the reader of the feminine features in her character 
 (as compared with the Clytemnestra of Sophocles), 
 a certain tenderness, a want of resolution, which no 
 inferior poet would have conceived as combined with 
 the commission of wild and daring crimes. The 
 poet has here departed widely from the insignificant 
 character presented to us in the Odyssey, Thus, 
 again, the Electra of .^Eschylus, in the midst of all her 
 determination to have vengeance, does not court the 
 sight of blood, and takes no part in the actual 
 scene of retribution, where she does not appear. 
 The Electra of Sophocles, on the other hand, cries 
 out to her brother twice to slay his mother, and would, 
 doubtless, ask to see the slain, like Penelope in the 
 Odyssey. She shows, too, a certain hardness and 
 bitterness in altercation, which the consent of Eu- 
 ripides proves to have been borrowed from actual 
 life^. .^schylus is altogether free from this defect. 
 The altercations are, in his plays, short, and always 
 strictly necessary to the plot. Such are the dia- 
 logue between the Egyptian herald and Pelasgus in 
 the Supplices, that between Antigone and the herald 
 at the close of the Septem, that between Orestes 
 and the Furies in the Eumenides. Far different, and 
 truly Euripidean, are the almost comic scenes in 
 Sophocles' Electra, Ajax, and (Edipus Rex, where 
 
 ' Cp. on these points V. Courdaveaux's inaccurate but clever book 
 on the genius of ^schylus, and his contrasts with Sophocles, pp. 
 209, sqq. 
 
1 84 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the constant sparring between the members of the 
 same family (mother and daughter in Electro) occupy 
 a disproportionate place, and prove to us that such 
 wrangling did not produce on the Periclean Athenians 
 the impression it produced upon Menander, or upon 
 us. When Aristophanes, accordingly, marshals all 
 his strictures on Euripides, in The Frogs, and in other 
 plays, this feature, to us so vulgar, and which ^s- 
 chylus had avoided, is hardly mentioned \ 
 
 As in the case of Sophocles' Electra, so in his 
 Antigone, there are, I think, some disagreeable features. 
 There is something masculine in all her actions, and 
 hard in her words. The way in which she repels the 
 sympathy of the gentle, but common-place, Ismene, 
 is very unpleasing, and shows a heroism vastly in- 
 ferior to that of Euripides' Alcestis, or Iphigenia, 
 where, as we shall presently see, equal courage was 
 not sustained by the excitement of a violent conflict, 
 or by that avQalLa which is anything but feminine. 
 So, again, the coldness of her relations to Hsemon 
 must strike every modern critic — a defect which 
 Euripides very naturally avoided when he wrote his 
 own Antigone^. I am not insensible to the grand side 
 of her character, upon which Mr. Evelyn Abbott has 
 lately insisted with much eloquence ^. But still I can- 
 not see in her any peculiarly feminine greatness. 
 
 The women of Sophocles are not skilfully drawn, 
 and were I to select any favourites, I should certainly 
 
 ' V. 728. 
 
 = Cp. the description of the argument in Dindorf s edition of the 
 Tragments. 
 
 » Journal of Philology, viii. 96, 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 185 
 
 pass by his • first-class heroines, and name Dejanira 
 land Tecmessa, who though subordinate, are truly 
 ' female women,' as Homer would say, gentle and 
 loving, not above jealousy, but, for that reason, a 
 finer and clearer contrast to the heroes than the 
 coarser and more prominent heroines. 
 
 If these criticisms be just, they will show that, in 
 the most perfect and exclusively Athenian society, 
 that is to say among Thucydides' and Sophocles' 
 set, the ideal of female character had degenerated ; 
 that to these men, whose affections were centred on 
 very different objects^, the notion of a true heroine 
 was no longer natural, but was supplanted by a hard 
 and masculine type. The old free noblewoman, 
 whom .iEschylus had, in early days, still known, was 
 banished from their city life to make way for the 
 domestic slave of the Attic household, called, indeed, 
 mistress, but, as such, contrasted with the companions 
 {haCpai.) who gradually supplanted her in Athenian 
 society. To this all-important social subject I shall 
 often return, according as each successive author adds 
 to our evidence. It gives us another strong line in 
 the hard features of Periclean Athens— in that Athens 
 which considered political life as the only life worth 
 having, and despised the age and the sex that were 
 excluded from its privileges. 
 
 But however scanty the social evidences left us 
 by .^schylus, however narrow and Athenian the sym- 
 
 ■ 2o(fo«X5s, says Athenaeus, <l>i\oiiupai fjv, as opposed to Euripides 
 being (piKoymrjs, a statement which I believe on the internal evidence 
 of their works. 
 
1 86 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 pathies of Sophocles, when we come to Euripides, 
 we find ourselves on different ground. This great 
 poet, whose popularity stood the test of Aristo- 
 phanes' travesties — a trial which must have ruined 
 any smaller man — this poet, whom the Athenians, 
 the best judges of poetry and of tragic poetry too, 
 loved and delighted in, whom the philosopher Socrates 
 acknowledged his favourite, and whom Aristotle calls 
 of all poets the most tragic, had been of late years 
 so depreciated by the Germans, that it seemed re- 
 volutionary to say one word in his favour. I prefer 
 however the judgment of the Greeks, to that even 
 of Schlegel and O. Miiller. Our best English poets 
 have of late years done much to rehabilitate this 
 most human of writers, and I trust that the good 
 sense of English scholars may lead them to estimate 
 the jibes of Aristophanes at their true value, and 
 judge Euripides fairly through his own works. 
 
 But I am not here concerned with the reputation 
 of Euripides as a poet, and desire rather to examine 
 how far his plays give us an insight into the social 
 life of his times. This is indeed a most interesting 
 question, for he certainly differs widely from the tone 
 and manner of his rivals, who nevertheless were true 
 and real enough to carry with them public sympathy 
 and approval. Yet a saying attributed to Sophocles 
 indicates the true relation between these poets. 'I 
 have represented,' said he, 'men as they ought to be, 
 Euripides men as they are.' Sophocles therefore did 
 not lay claim to the same realism as his younger rival, 
 though his notion of what men ought to be was rather 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 187 
 
 a narrow Athenian ideal, than one which we, or any 
 other civilised society, could heartily admire. His 
 heroines, if not masculine heroines, with hard features 
 and with no dislike for blood, are insignificant, his 
 heroes are often querulous in misfortune, and almost 
 always given to wrangling ; as to slaves and nurses, 
 if in ^schylus they are vulgar and comic, in Sophocles 
 they play no prominent part at all. This is quite the 
 attitude of Thucydides, in fact of the strictly Peri- 
 clean Athenian, who with much praise of antique 
 days ^, really invented an antiquity in character with 
 the advanced and exclusive democracy in which he 
 lived. The splendour of Agamemnon's court, and 
 the queenly character of Clytemnestra are foreign 
 to him ; even the dependants of the court, which 
 have in ^schylus some significance, are to his de- 
 mocratic mind as nothing. But the wrangling and 
 dicastic habits of his countrymen appear everywhere, 
 and extended in Athens to the women as well as the 
 men, if we may judge from these tragedies. 
 
 I have returned for a moment to the peculiar fea- 
 tures of Sophocles, in order to qualify his statement 
 that he painted men as they ought to be, which per- 
 haps means no more than that he only put upon the 
 .stage such personages, and such events in their lives, 
 as were worthy of the drama. I also desire to 
 show by contrast the altered attitude of Euripides. 
 Painting no ideal situations, no imaginary society of 
 grandees, he rather felt that even the heroes of the 
 old legends were men of like passions as he was, 
 ' Soph./r. 267, quoted by Schol. on Aristoph. VaK, 530. 
 
1 88 SOCIAL GREECE. [ciT. 
 
 and that to make people interest themselves really 
 and deeply in tragedy apart from mere antiquarian 
 curiosity, he must attribute to his characters the 
 passions and faults of ordinary men. Of course 
 heroism in the highest sense was not excluded, for 
 Euripides was too thoroughly and deeply human 
 not to know that the most ordinary civilised society 
 produces grander and truer heroism than any primi- 
 tive conditions. But his heroism is the heroism of 
 civilised life — that of self-sacrifice and of patience 
 rather than that of extraordinary valour. 
 
 If then Euripides drew his tragedies from the 
 Athenian life of his own day, we must materially 
 modify the notions still prevalent among scholars, 
 owing to the exclusive study of Thucydides, of 
 Sophocles, and of Aristophanes. In the first place 
 he agrees with Sophocles as to the wrangling in- 
 stincts, nay even goes so far as to make the chorus 
 a sort of jury or dicastery which listens to the argu- 
 ments on one side, and then demands to hear the 
 other ^. In The Wasps Aristophanes ridicules the 
 same weakness, and shows us that the habit of 
 sitting in judgment, imposed on the whole Athe- 
 nian population by their extended empire, invaded 
 social life, and that the method of Socrates was only . 
 a modification in form of the prevalent practice of 
 arguing and discussing everything which came before 
 them. But in this the women and the slaves are not 
 behind their masters. To the slaves indeed Euripides, 
 in contrast with the older poets, gives important parts, 
 
 ' Hel. 945 sqq.. Elect, loji sqq. 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 189 
 
 and often makes them the vehicles of his deepest 
 reflections : ' All the life of man,' says the nurse in 
 Hippolytus, ' is full of pain, and there is no respite of 
 toil ; but whatever state there may be better than 
 life, shrouding darkness hides it with its clouds. We 
 seem indeed sorely fond of this life, with its glitter 
 upon earth, through want of trial of another life, and 
 of proof of what there is beneath the earth ; but 
 on myths we drift about at random.' (v. 190 sqq.) 
 There are many other passages, such as the fine 
 speech of the slave in Helena ^, of like merit, and we 
 
 ' w. 711 sqq. The old servant has just discovered that his beloved 
 mistress is free from guilt, and that all the long disgrace of years is 
 now wiped away. His speech is full of tender and deep feeling, 
 mixed with philosophical aphorisms, as is usual with Euripides. 
 
 Si Ovyarep, 6 Oe&s us e(pv ri ttoik'iXov 
 
 «ai SvaTfH/iaprov cS St irojs avaarpicpfi 
 
 kK€iae Kaicua' 6va<pipaiv' 6 ftiv iroveit 
 
 6 fi' ov irov^ffas aZOts oWvTai KaKcus, 
 
 ^40(uov ovSiv Tijs del TVX1]S €X^^< 
 
 ffu 7^ irSffis T€ ffhs Tt6vojv fierkaxtTe, 
 
 a^ lihr \6yoi<rij 6 5^ Sopos irpoBv^iq, 
 
 avrdfiara vp&^as Tor^aO' evTVX^ffTara. 
 oiiK dpa yipoVTa iraT^pa Kal AioaxSptu 
 ^ffxvvaSf oiib* fSpaaas ofa H\T^CeTai. 
 vvv dvaveoOttat rdv ffhv vfiivatov iroKtv, 
 Kai \afiiTaSQjv ftf/jiv^iJ.sO\ &9 rerpaSpois 
 tiriTOis rpox^C''^ irapecpfpov ffv 5' ev Si^pats 
 (iiv T(^5t viu/iip7j daifi sKCLtres o\0iov. 
 Kcue6s ydp oaris fiij ffi^ei rcL Seffnoraiy 
 «ai (vyyeytjSe Kal (waBivet Kaxots. 
 iyii filv elrir, Kfi ireipvx' oiuus \aTpis, 
 iv roiai yevvaioiffiv ^piffftTjfi^vos, 
 Sty^\otffif rovvopH ovK ex^Jy ^Ke^Oepov, 
 Tiv wvv Si. 
 
190 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 find no more common assertion both through plays 
 and fragments than that slavery, while affecting the 
 body, leaves the mind untouched {fr. 828, &c.). 
 When he desires to represent a low character of this 
 kind, as in Orestes, he carefully denominates him 
 a Phrygian, so as to leave our impression undis- 
 turbed, that in his mind slaves were unfortunate but 
 not degraded. 
 
 An historical reason for this altered attitude is not 
 far to seek. The great civil war in Greece must have 
 multiplied enormously the number of free and edu- 
 cated Greeks, who were sold as prisoners of war; 
 and as I suppose that for years after the Persian in- 
 vasion the slaves whom ^schylus knew were chiefly 
 barbarians, like the policemen and public menials long 
 afterwards, so in Euripides' day, and especially in his 
 old age, I fear Athens had returned to the condition 
 of the Homeric poems, where piracy and kidnapping, 
 like civil war made free-born or even noble slaves by 
 no means unusual. This sympathy then of Euripides 
 for the slaves around him shows a gentle and humane 
 spirit towards these unfortunate people, who, having 
 been torn from their homes and separated, were sub- 
 ject not only to all the injustice of harsh masters, but 
 even to torture at the hands of the law, if their evi- 
 dence was required. It is a curious circumstance 
 that this upholder and preacher of slave virtue 
 effected results, as regards slaves, beyond his wild- 
 est hopes. We are told that when the Syracusans 
 took prisoners the remnants of the great Athe- 
 nian army in the Sicilian disaster, they freed from 
 
VII.J THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 191 
 
 slavery those who could recite the verses of Euripides. 
 We can well imagine that many of these unfortunate 
 men had of old crowded with delight to join in Aris- 
 tophanes' jeers against the poet, and we can imagine 
 them thinking with remorse how their laughter and 
 their ridicule had saddened the days of their now 
 greatest benefactor. And so Plutarch tells us, at 
 the close of his Nicias, that many of them, when 
 they returned home at last, went to see Euripides, 
 and thanked him, I have no doubt with tears, for 
 having saved them from hopeless misery. 
 
 There can be no doubt that this equality in race, 
 and often in culture, among all the members of the 
 house had no mean influence on Greek life, and that 
 the women in particular, who were so secluded from 
 free male society, must have been anxious to obtain 
 educated and companionable slaves. Some of the 
 characters indeed in our poet' complain that this 
 very intimacy led to evil results, as the inmates of 
 the house were apt to conspire in deceiving their 
 master ; but of course this objection would apply 
 more strongly to ignorant and degraded servants. 
 
 Akin to this sympathy for slaves, and advocacy 
 of their mental equality, we find in Euripides a 
 respect for the poor, and a disregard of the acces- 
 sories of poverty, which seem to have greatly shocked 
 the old-school frequenters of the tragic theatre. I do 
 not merely allude to the constant assertions by his 
 characters that mind and morals, not birth, are man's 
 true nobility (especially /r, 53-6), but to the utterly 
 
 ' Bipp. 645 sqq., and/-. 49. 
 
193 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 novel and bold conception of introducing heroes in the 
 garb and condition of penury upon the stage, and (apart 
 from special misfortunes), to such scenes as that with 
 which he opens his Electra '. This scene, much ridi- 
 culed by the Germans, speaks to me with the deepest 
 feeling and the greatest pathos, but, as I observed, 
 it is a totally new and curious conception in Greek 
 tragedy. 
 
 Electra, whom iEgisfhus, her mother's paramour, 
 had desired to slay, was saved from death by the 
 remaining compunctions of her mother, whom Euri- 
 pides with great psychological acuteness represents 
 as boasting of and justifying her husband's murder, 
 and yet fearing the vengeance of the gods if she ill- 
 treats her children. She therefore fears to murder 
 Electra, but refuses her in marriage to all her noble 
 suitors, and still fearing some clandestine amour with 
 them (a very curious touch), gives her in marriage to 
 a peasant, of good family, but poor. This man, with 
 great nobility of character, will not treat her as his 
 wife, knowing as he does the motives of her mother, 
 and being besides attached to the murdered king and 
 his house. We find Electra and her peasant husband 
 at the opening of the play, living in this unusual re- 
 lation, full of mutual respect and affection, both per- 
 forming their daily labour willingly and honestly, but 
 Electra. with the additional stimulus of raising odium 
 against Clytemnestra by her condition. 
 
 ' Aristophanes, as usual, speaks of this as being a peculiarity of Eu- 
 ripides, and a spepial fault in him,, whereas the Philocleles of Sophpcle| 
 offers us as strong a case as any in Euripides both of a hero in rags, and 
 a hero in villainy (Odysseus-). • 
 
VII.J THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 193 
 
 The peasant begs of her not to work so hard in 
 carrying water and performing other menial duties 
 for his sake, as there is really no necessity, and he 
 has often dissuaded her from it. She answers with 
 great feeling (v. 6^ sqq.), ' I consider you a friend 
 equal to the gods, for in my misfortunes you have 
 not insulted me. A great boon is it to mortals to 
 find a healer like you in their misfortunes. Surely 
 it is my duty to strive unbidden, as far as I can, to 
 lighten your toil. You have enough to do in outdoor 
 work, it is my part to keep the house in good order ; 
 when the labourer returns he is pleased to find his 
 home comfortable.' 'Well then, go if you will,' he 
 says ; ' the well is not far, and I with the break of 
 day must go to plough and sow my seed ; for no 
 idler by talking about Providence will earn a liveli- 
 hood without labour.' On his return, I suppose 
 towards noon^, he finds two young strangers (Orestes 
 and Pylades) talking to his wife, and is surprised, as 
 it was unseemly for a Greek woman (of Athenian 
 habits) to be seen so employed. But she at once 
 sees and removes his suspicions by telling him that 
 they have brought news of her brother (v. 345 sqq.) . 
 ' Then you should long since have thrown your door 
 open. Come in, strangers, and I will give you what 
 hospitality my house can afford in requital for your 
 good news. Make no difficulties, ye come welcome 
 to me from a dear friend, and though I be poor, you 
 will not find me mean.' 
 
 ' Is this,' asks Orestes, ' the husband who has treated 
 
 • Probably for his dpiarov, or late breakfast. 
 O 
 
194 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [ciI. 
 
 you so nobly?' and he turns to the audience in a 
 splendid monologue, which I hold to be Euripides' 
 deepest reflections on the true causes of honour 
 among men. His characters, in fifty places, assert 
 the strange power of an ancient lineage in main- 
 taining under the greatest misfortunes a noble and 
 princely bearing ; in as many more, they assert that 
 the poor and despised, nay even the slaves, have in 
 them these virtues beyond their station ; so true and 
 human and many-sided was he, in contrast, I believe, 
 to most of his contemporaries. 
 
 Here then is the sum and substance of these true, 
 but partially conflicting facts in human nature. 
 ' There is no plummet line to measure excellence, 
 for the varying natures of men confuse our reckoning. 
 Oft have I seen the son of an honourable father 
 nothing worth, and again good children sprung from 
 evil parents ; I have seen leanness in the. soul of the 
 rich, and a large heart in the body of the poor. 
 How then can we surely discriminate the good? Is 
 it by the test of wealth ? Then should we indeed 
 employ an unjust judge. Is it by poverty? But 
 this too has its weakness, and makes men mean by 
 its necessities. Shall I take the test of arms? Who, 
 looking to the array of battle could testify to real 
 worth? It is better to leave these things undeter- 
 mined ; for here is a man, not great among his 
 fellows, nor supported by the pride of family, yet 
 he has been found among the crowd a man of the 
 most sterling worth. Will not ye learn wisdom, that 
 speculate full of vain theories, and will ye not judge 
 
VIT.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 195 
 
 men by personal experience, and the noble by their 
 characters ? ' 
 
 I cannot but translate the sequel (404 sqq.), where 
 the painting is intensely modern and human. ' El. — 
 My dear fellow, when you know the indigence of 
 your house, why have you invited these guests who 
 are beyond your station ? The Peasant. — Why not ? 
 if they are well born, as they seem to be, will they 
 not be as well satisfied with scanty fare?' She then 
 urges him, if he will have it so, to send to an old 
 retainer, who has been dismissed from the palace, 
 and feeds cattle at the boundaries ; he will bring 
 with him some provisions. ' Very well,' he answers, 
 ' but do you go in and make ready. When a woman 
 tries, she can find many little additions to a dinner. 
 But there is surely in the house at least enough to 
 satisfy these men for a day. When I turn to think 
 of these things, I see how valuable money is to enter- 
 tain strangers, or to spend upon yourself when you 
 fall sick ; but for our daily sustenance, it matters 
 little, when each has had enough the rich man and 
 the poor are after all on an equal footing.' Nothing 
 can be more natural than this scene ; how often even 
 now-a-days does the careful wife protest against the 
 husband's reckless hospitality, on the very ground 
 that they have no proper means of entertaining, and 
 does not the husband answer with the same off-hand 
 vagueness, thinking that a hearty welcome and good 
 intentions are a sufficient substitute for scanty fare ? 
 
 The play is not less striking for our purpose when 
 Clytemnestra (v. 998 sqq.) comes to pay the young 
 
 O 2 
 
196 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 people a visit. She orders her Phrygian attendants 
 to get out, and give her a hand while she steps out 
 of her carriage, which Electra spitefully offers to do, 
 being, as she says, just as great a slave as they. 
 This leads to some mutual recriminations between 
 mother and daughter, which Euripides with his Athe- 
 nian notions extends beyond the limits of modern 
 taste. Clytemnestra tries to end it amicably (v. iioo 
 sqq.) by saying that by nature some children are de- 
 voted to their fathers, some to their mothers, and that 
 therefore she cannot blame Electra. She then (v. 
 1 1 35) orders her attendants to bring round her 
 carriage to the stables, and to have it ready when 
 they think her business is completed. When she is 
 entering the house, Electra tells her ' to take care 
 that the smoky cabin does not soil her robes,' an 
 advice which many an Irish lady has received in 
 our day without irony. 
 
 These accessory parts of the tragedy give us, I con- 
 ceivej an excellent sketch of lower-class life in the^ 
 outskirts of Athens in the poet's day, and it is here — 
 in such scenery and in his characters — that we must 
 seek for evidence of social life and habits^ It has 
 been, I know, the habit from the days of Aristo- 
 phanes to the present to quote the utterances of 
 
 ' This is indeed what Aristophanes makes him say {Ran. 912) : aXnaa 
 irpiyiiar fiaayav, ofs xp^l^f^'. of* iweajiev, and the women who accuse 
 him in the Thesmoph. comically amplify this, stating that, owing to his 
 teaching, old men would not marry young wives ; that others had got 
 safe locks with many wards for their store-rooms, and kept the keys ; 
 that others had fierce dogs which kept away clandestine visitors. 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 197 
 
 Euripides' heroes, spoken in character, as the poet's 
 own sentiments. The celebrated line ^ y\S>&a ojuco/xox' 
 r) 8e ^priv avatfjiOTo^ — ' My tongue has sworn, but my 
 mind is free,' which is ridiculed by Aristophanes, is 
 for example, in its place, perfectly just and harmless ; 
 'You have bound my tongue, but my mind, which 
 was deceived as to the circumstances, has not con- 
 sented to the oath.' And these words, harmless as 
 they are, but spoken in a burst of wrath, are retracted 
 by the very speaker a few lines farther on, when he 
 says, that had he not been deceived into taking an 
 oath he would certainly have told what he is now 
 bound to conceal. There is no clearer and better 
 specimen than this of the sort of criticism which 
 suited Aristophanes well enough, and of which he 
 knew the effect, but of which modern critics ought 
 to be ashamed. Thus for example, on the goodness 
 or badness of women, on the value of high birth or 
 its worthlessness, on aristocracy or democracy, on 
 almost any social question, we can put together series 
 of quotations on opposite sides. Of course there are 
 German critics whose inner consciousness tells them 
 exactly when the poet is speaking for himself; but 
 for my part, except in such cases as Orestes' mono- 
 logue above cited, which contains a mediation be- 
 tween two series of contradictory passages of equal 
 weight, I cannot lift the veil which the poet has not 
 chosen to withdraw. In some of his choruses, which 
 he certainly made the vehicle of philosophical reflec- 
 tions often loosely connected with the action of the 
 play, we may perhaps find an index of his thoughts, 
 
198 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 but from his dialogues, which are highly dramatic, 
 we can for this very reason draw no sure conclusions. 
 The characters^ of Euripides, on the contrary, are 
 all-important, as he confessedly drew them from real, 
 and even ordinary life; and they are therefore ne- 
 cessarily fair specimens of what might be found in 
 Athenian society. We even have complaints that 
 he drew his characters meanly and shabbily, nor 
 is there the smallest hint or suspicion that he made 
 bright pictures or took sanguine views of human 
 nature. We may, therefore, perfectly trust his kindly 
 attitude to the slave world, on which something has 
 already been said; but I am doubtful whether we 
 may also trust him in his general estimate of the 
 men of his day, who are in his plays with rare 
 exceptions, such as Achilles and Theseus, not gentle- 
 men in our sense, but litigious, mean, quarrelsome 
 and selfish^. There is in fact no single hero, in all 
 Euripides' plays, who has laid hold of the imagination 
 of the world like the Ajax and CEdipus, or the 
 
 ' It is very curiovis, and has not been, I think, sufficiently obsen-ed, 
 that Greek tragedy differed widely from the modem in not preserving the 
 same type for the same hero throughout different pieces. The Creon of 
 Sophocles' Antigone, is not the same character as the Creon of the 
 (Edipus, and if it be argued that royalty had spoilt him — a very true 
 Greek feature — I can show unmistakeable cases in Euripides. The 
 Menelaus and Helen of Orestes are the very opposite of those of 
 Helena; the Odysseus of the Cyclops is quite at variance with the 
 Odysseus of Hecuba and other plays. I do not know the reason of 
 this indifference to fixed types, fixed too for all time and for every spec- 
 tator, in Homer, when the very nature of Greek tiagedy was unity and 
 fixity of type in a formal sense. 
 
 ' Cp. the chapter on these characters in my Euripides, pp. loi sqq. 
 
vii.J THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 199 
 
 Philoctetes and 'Neoptolemus of Sophocles^. No 
 doubt several second-rate figures, the peasant in 
 Electra, the Achilles in Heaiba, and still more in 
 Iphigenia in Aulis, the Menelaus in Helena, are all 
 respectable and brave men : the dialogue of Achilles 
 with Clytemnestra^ is even very gentlemanly, so far 
 as it goes ; but considering the great number of 
 heroes in his plays, nothing is more surprising than 
 the want of depth or variety in their natures. Ion is 
 perhaps the purest and most loveable among them, 
 yet it is not depth and greatness, but grace and 
 innocence which makes him so pleasant an exception 
 to the Euripidean heroes. It was surely not for want 
 of striking men, nor for want of striking misfortunes 
 in their lives, that they are so insignificant ; we must 
 rather seek the explanation in a peculiarity of the 
 poet himself, who deliberately preferred to make 
 women his chief study, and who, perhaps owing to 
 the neglect of them in the older tragedy, found here 
 a new field for his genius, as well as a new means 
 of advocating an unpopular but righteous cause. 
 Considering the contemptuous attitude of Thucydides, 
 and the scurrility of Aristophanes, his contemporaries, 
 I see in this leading feature of Euripides plain indica- 
 tions of a great social controversy, in which the 
 tragic poet maintained against the aristocrats, that 
 woman was no cipher in society, but able to do 
 and to suffer great things ^, 
 
 ' Even here CEdipus and Philoctetes are rather heroes of situation 
 than oi character. " Iph. Aul. 819 sqq. 
 
 2 It seems possible, from the part played by Aspasia in the dialogues 
 
200 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 If we take all the plays and fragments of Euripides 
 together, and collect from them a general view of 
 his treatment of women, we shall see that while he 
 is perpetually putting into the mouths of his heroes 
 the most virulent abuse of them, yet the majority 
 of his heroines — nay the great majority of them — 
 are the noblest and best of women. There are in 
 fact very few contemptible and frivolous characters 
 among them, such as his Hermione (in Andromache), 
 or purely vindictive, like his Medea. Even his much- 
 abused Phaedra [Hippolytus) is a noble and pure 
 nature, wrestling in vain with a passion directly in- 
 flicted by the spiteful Aphrodite — who is really the 
 lowest character in all his plays. So Creusa (in Ion), 
 though she attempts a great crime, is a much-injured 
 and heart-broken woman, with whom we cannot but 
 feel deep sympathy. 
 
 But what shall we say of his Alcestis ? Where has 
 either Greek or modern literature produced a nobler 
 ideal? She is not, like the Antigone of Sophocles, 
 stimulated by the excitement of altercation with her 
 advisers and opponents, and by the assertion of in- 
 dependence in violating a harsh law. Neither is she, 
 as Sophocles' Antigone almost seems to be, of too 
 strong and masculine a fibre to yield to the influence 
 of love. Devoted to her husband and children, be- 
 loved and happy in her palace, she sacrifices her life 
 
 of the Socratic ^schines, that she was an advocate of the same cause, 
 and brought women to her house, in order to educate them, and 
 teach them their higher duties. (Cp. Becq de Foucquiferes' Aspasie de 
 Milei). 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 201 
 
 calmly and resignedly — a life which is not, like Anti- 
 gone's, encompassed with afflictions, but of all the 
 'worth that life can be, and of all the usefulness which 
 makes it precious to noble natures. The narrative of 
 her farewell is one of the finest in Euripides^ and I 
 am happy to be able to quote it from a version which 
 all my readers can study — a poet's version of a poet, 
 and no poor prose traduction. 
 
 ' For when she felt the crowning day was come, 
 She washed with river-waters her white skin, 
 And taking from the cedar closets forth 
 Vesture and ornament, bedecked herself 
 Nobly, and stood before the hearth and prayed: 
 " Mistress, because I now depart the world. 
 Falling before thee the last time, I ask — 
 Be mother to my orphans ! wed the one 
 To a kind wife, and make the other's mate 
 Some princely person : nor, as I who bore 
 My children perish, suffer that they too 
 Die all untimely, but live, happy pair, 
 Their full glad life out in the fatherland ! " 
 And every altar through Admetus' house 
 She visited and crowned and prayed before, 
 Stripping the myrtle-foliage from the boughs. 
 Without a tear, without a groan — no change 
 At all to that skin's nature, fair to see. 
 Caused by the imminent evil. But this done, — 
 Reaching her chamber, falling on her bed. 
 There, truly, burst she into tears and spoke: 
 " O bride-bed, where I loosened from my life 
 Virginity for that same husband's sake 
 Because of whom I die now — fare thee well ! 
 Since no wise do I hate thee : me alone 
 Hast thou destroyed : for shrinking to betray 
 Thee and my spouse, I die : but thee, O bed, 
 Some other woman shall possess as wife — 
 Truer, No I but of better fortune, say I " 
 
202 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 — So falls on, kisses it till all the couch 
 
 Is moistened with the eyes' sad overflow. 
 
 But when of many tears she had her fill, 
 
 She flings from off the couch, goes headlong forth, 
 
 Yet — forth the chamber, — still keeps turning back 
 
 And casts her on the couch again once more. 
 
 Her children, clinging to their mother's robe. 
 
 Wept meanwhile: but she took them in her arms. 
 
 And, as a dying woman might, embraced 
 
 Now one and now the other: 'neath the roof, 
 
 All of the household servants wept as well. 
 
 Moved to compassion for their mistress ; she 
 
 Extended her right hand to all and each. 
 
 And there was no one of such low degree. 
 
 She spoke not to nor had an answer from'.' 
 
 If, as I have said, it is agreed on all hands that 
 Euripides took his characters from real life, must 
 there not have been, among the despised and se- 
 cluded Greek women, uneducated and ill-treated as 
 they were, great' examples of real heroism, which 
 caught the sympathy of the most tragic of poets? 
 For the Alcestis is no exceptional type, since we 
 have it, under varying circumstances, in the splendid 
 though little known Macaria of the Heracleid(B'\ We 
 have another modification of it in the better known 
 Polyxena {Hecuba), who is indeed doomed to die, but 
 who meets her death with great nobility. We have 
 the type of Polyxena carried out with infinitely more 
 grace and beauty in Iphigenia {in Atilis), the poet's 
 last play, and so far as it is genuine, far his greatest 
 and most dramatic piece. For here the innocent girl 
 
 ' R. Browning, BalaustioiC s Adventure, pp. 36 sqq. Her parting 
 address to Admetus (pp. 48 sqq.) is equally fine, but I have already 
 made too long a quotation. 
 
 " Cp. vv. 474 sqq. especially, and my Euripides, § 65. 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 203 
 
 has been decoyed to Aulis under the pretence of a 
 marriage with Achilles, and only discovers her fatal 
 delusion by an accident. Then follows a great scene, 
 in which the young and happy creature, just blooming 
 into life, begs and entreats for mercy with all that 
 horror of death, which age and troubles can but 
 gradually blunt. 
 
 ' Had I the tongue of Orpheus, O my Sire, 
 To wile away the rocks to follow me, 
 And with my words to charm the rugged will, 
 I had been here. Now all the arts I know 
 Are artless tears — I have no power but this — • 
 And suppliant at thy knees I fondly twine 
 The form which she, my mother, bare to thee. 
 
 blast me not untimely, for the light 
 Is sweet to look on, and compel me not 
 To peer into the darkness underground. 
 
 1 was thy first-born — first I called thee Sire, 
 And sat, thy child, upon thy knees the first; 
 And we exchanged sweet charities of life; 
 
 And this was thy discourse with me — " My child 
 Shall I behold thee happy in the home 
 Of thy liege lord and husband, as befits?" 
 And nestling in the beard, which now I clasp 
 A suppliant, I made answer unto thee ; 
 "I too will welcome thee when grey with years 
 In the sweet shelter of my home, my Sire, 
 And with fond fostering recompense thy love." 
 Such were our words, which I remember well; 
 But thou forgettest, and wouldst take my life. 
 Be not so cruel! By thy father's love 
 I beg of thee, and by my mother's throes, 
 Who in her anguish feels those throes anew. 
 Say, what have I to do with the false vows 
 That Paris pledged to Helen — to my bane? 
 Look on me ! give one parting look — one kiss. 
 That when 1 die I may remember thee. 
 
204 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Though with my words I may not bend thy will. 
 
 My brother, feeble infant as thou art, 
 
 Let thy tears flow with mine! Entreat our Sire, 
 
 If so thy sister may escape her doom. 
 
 The speechless infant hath a sense of ill ; 
 
 See how his very silence is a, prayer — 
 
 Have pity on me, father ! spare my life ! 
 
 'Tis sweet to gaze upon the blessed light : 
 
 The grave is nought ! The fool resigns his breath ; 
 
 The sorriest life is better than the noblest death ' I ' 
 
 Yet even she, when she stands out with majesty from 
 her former self, will not allow her mother to revile the 
 weak and stricken Agamemnon ; she will not allow the 
 gallant Achilles to risk his life for her ; she will not 
 even allow her household to put on mourning, since 
 she has entrusted to her the high mission of dying to 
 save her country. 
 
 These are the women who have so raised the ideal 
 of the sex, that in looking upon them the world has 
 passed from neglect to courtesy, from courtesy to 
 veneration ; these are they, who across many centuries, 
 first of frivolity and sensuality, then of rudeness and 
 barbarism, join hands with the ideals of our religion 
 and our chivalry, the martyred saint.s, the chaste and 
 holy virgins of romance — nay more with the true wives, 
 the devoted mothers of our own day, whose loyalty 
 and self-sacrifice in a cold and selfish generation, 
 sustained through years of commonplace duties and 
 amid careless ingratitude, show with no uncertain 
 sound that they too are heroines of the first order, 
 if society did but require of them more splendid, and 
 therefore easier sacrifices ! 
 
 ' This translation was made for me by Professor Webb. 
 
VII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 205 
 
 When we read the systematic charges of Aristo- 
 phanes against such a poet, that he traduced and 
 blackened the female sex, that he hated women, that 
 he delighted to represent their guilty passions on his 
 stage ; when we read these charges, made by the poet 
 who of all others has spoken most vilely and scur- 
 rilously of the whole sex, and who of all known 
 authors is the most open to the charge himself, — we 
 are led to wonder at his audacious buffoonery, and 
 how a sense of common justice did not set his au- 
 dience against him. But if we can explain this from 
 the great popularity of his brilliant wit — and in no 
 case is injustice more readily condoned — what shall 
 we say of modern critics, who are led by the jeers of 
 Aristophanes, who speak of Euripides as the painter 
 of woman's passion and her crime, and who, in total 
 oblivion of the splendid figures in his greatest tra- 
 gedies, speak with pity and disgust of the immorality 
 of Athenian women, and actually believe that the 
 greatest and most refined civilisation of the world 
 coexisted with the lowest and most brutal demoral- 
 isation of home and family relations^? As if the 
 portraits of Cleon, and of Socrates, were not ample 
 proof how totally Aristophanes disregarded truth for 
 the sake of the theories of his party, and the exi- 
 gencies of his boundless and uncontrolled humour ^ ! 
 
 • E. g. Mr. Symonds, in his Greek Poets, p. 273. 
 
 = I am quite aware that there is a picture of Socrates very different 
 from that of Plato and from that of Xenophon, handed down to us in 
 the fragments of Eupolis (,Frag. Insert. 10, ed. Meineke, vol. li. p. 553) 
 and of the serious and learned Aristoxenus, who says he obtained 
 
2o6 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 One is almost tempted to believe that the ordinary 
 critics of Euripides have studied him in Aristophanes 
 alone, and are ignorant that we have before us ample 
 and clear refutations, not in the praise of partisans, 
 not in the faint echoes of scattered fragments, but in 
 a long series of plays, expressing his views on life and 
 character, and above all establishing what might else 
 have been fairly doubted, that the ideal woman of his 
 day was as noble and as natural as those of the best 
 and most approved epochs of human morals. I have 
 since brought together the evidence more fully, and 
 given what I believe a just estimate of Euripides in 
 a special monograph, to which I refer the reader for 
 a fuller discussion of the poet's genius, and his peculiar 
 position in relation to his age. 
 
 his infonnation from a personal friend of Socrates (Miiller, Frag. Hist. 
 Grcec. ii. p. 280). But even tliis adverse picture is not in the least like 
 the grotesque distortion in Aristophanes. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE {concluded). 
 
 But let us proceed to a closer examination of this 
 Attic comedy. We look throughout it, in vain, for 
 noble qualities, or even for refinement of feeling in 
 the characters. The poet does indeed in some of 
 his splendid parabases, strip' off the veil of buffoonery 
 and of satire to give serious advice to the assembled 
 people, and there are not wanting pathetic touches in 
 his rudest scenes. But, with these exceptions, coarse- 
 ness and vice are perpetually before us. Women, for 
 example, are almost invariably treated by Aristophanes 
 and his fellow-poets with ridicule and contempt. They 
 are derided for immorality and drunkenness, and such 
 a picture is drawn of them as is quite appalling, if we 
 are foolish enough to take it as evidence of Attic 
 home life. The legion of critics who have made this 
 mistakej in drawing inferences from Greek tragedy 
 and Greek comedy, have ignored a remarkable feature 
 in Greek literature, which I must again bring before 
 the reader with fuller illustrations. 
 
 While we, both in strict history and in historical 
 
2o8 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 fiction, think it essential to adhere closely to tradi- 
 tional or well-attested types in describing celebrated 
 characters, the Greeks did not feel themselves so 
 bound, but consulted rather the artistic proprieties 
 and the requirements of the special occasion. Thus 
 the artistic type of a hero, or of a class, was with 
 them often consciously different from the received or 
 real one, without shocking that tame and strict sense 
 of accuracy which, in the English, is a most serious 
 hindrance to all imaginative art. Consider, for ex- 
 ample, in such a history as that of Thucydides, the 
 introduction of speeches which cannot pretend to be 
 real ; which are often in a dialect foreign to the 
 speakers, and which so manifestly represent the 
 theories of the writer and his mere notions of dra- 
 matic propriety, that such biographers as Plutarch 
 totally ignore these harangues placed in the mouths 
 of the men whose lives they are compiling from this 
 very history. Thus of Pericles, who has several long 
 speeches attributed to him in Thucydides, Plutarch 
 says that he left nothing written, and that of his 
 sayings hardly any are preserved \ 
 
 In the dialogues of Plato, the next great prose 
 writer, the same feature has been often noticed, and 
 of late with great force by Mr. Jowett. Though 
 
 ' I am not aware that this remarkable evidence against Thucydides' 
 speeches, as historical, has yet been noticed. It were snperfluous to 
 ciie it, but that the most prominent historians of Greece, Cnrtius, and 
 even the great Grote, still long to accept Pericles' speeches, and evi- 
 dently desire their readers to accept them, as genuine historical docu- 
 ments. 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 209 
 
 celebrated names are introduced — men known to 
 many of his readers — Plato is not at all careful of 
 historical accuracy, nay even violates it so as to show 
 plainly that he did not aim at the mere reproducing 
 of known and ordinary men. The case is more re- 
 markable, as I have shown above, in the tragedians. 
 For here not only do the types vary widely from the 
 well-known originals in the old epic poems, but these 
 types vary in different plays of the same poet. This is, 
 indeed, a feature which must be insisted on, as quite 
 peculiar to Greek tragedy. Thus, in Sophocles, his 
 earlier Creon and Antigone, and those of the CEdipus 
 at Colonus, are not at all the same. Similarly in Euri- 
 pides, if we compare the Menelaus and the Helen of 
 the Helena with those of the Orestes, or with the 
 Menelaus of the Andromache, the contrast is startling. 
 So the Odysseus of the Cyclops and of the Hecuba, the 
 Heracles of the Alcestis, and of the Hercules Furens, 
 as well as many others, make good my statement. 
 
 With these examples before us, we need not be 
 surprised that the comic poets used even greater 
 license, and travestied known characters so as to 
 make them hardly recognisable. The Euripides pre- 
 sented to us on the comic stage, as well as the 
 Socrates of the Clouds, were so unlike the well- 
 known and respected originals, that if the plays of 
 Aristophanes had made the smallest pretensions to 
 accuracy, they must have totally failed in their suc- 
 cess. We may, therefore, confidently assert that in 
 all such matters he is no historical authority what- 
 ever, and that to draw inferences from his statements, 
 
 P 
 
210 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 proved to be false in so patent a case as that of 
 Socrates, is nothing better than estabhshing a fact 
 upon the evidence of a convicted perjurer'. 
 
 It is, however, only a lawyer who will argue that 
 a perjurer is totally unworthy of ci-edit. Ordinary 
 men know that even he must speak the truth generally, 
 and especially when off his guard ; it may, therefore, 
 be argued that, apart from special characters, the 
 general tone and plot of Aristophanes' plays must 
 be good social evidence. Admitting this, there are 
 plays of Aristophanes, such as the Lysistrata and 
 Thesmophoriazusce, of which the plot could not be 
 here even explained, and which represent the body 
 of Athenian women, even mothers of respectable 
 families, in such hideous colours as to be thoroughly 
 disgusting. Pictures so exaggerated are simply in- 
 credible in a generation which produced and handed 
 down untarnished the most refined and brilliant 
 civilisation the world has yet seen. It may be also 
 urged that when Aristophanes' portraits of known 
 and celebrated men were so audaciously false, he ia 
 not to be trusted where his falsehoods could easily 
 escape confutation, and where his sweeping charges 
 fell in with those suspicions common to all men who 
 are themselves prone to immorality. I suspect, how- 
 ever, that his three plays on women might be ex- 
 
 • This point is at last put in its proper light by Mr. Miiller Striib- 
 ing, in his remarkable work, Aristophanes und die historische Kritik 
 (Teubner 1873). I may add that Aristophanes himself confesses great 
 obligations to Euripides, 'Sicrjv. KaTaKaii0.fr. iv. (Meineke, ii. p. 1142). 
 There is even a special compound word pointing to the fact — rf/niri5a- 
 fiaTo^avi^oni. Cp. also Rana, 1334. 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 211 
 
 plained from quite a different cause ; not from a low 
 opinion of women in the poet, not from any desire 
 of scourging a great rampant evil, as we find it done 
 in Juvenal's sixth satire, but rather from the remnant 
 of some old religious customs, where women met 
 apart, as we know they did, and also where mimic 
 choruses, during the feasts of such goddesses as De- 
 meter and Cora, devoted themselves to licentious 
 abuse of women, at times even exclusively. There 
 is not evidence enough to prove the custom at Athens, 
 and to show the filiation of Aristophanes' comedies 
 from these choruses, though choruses were undoubt- 
 edly the origin of all developed drama in Greece. 
 My hypothesis rests on the fact that Aristophanes 
 perpetually rails at Euripides for this very feature, 
 that his other comedies are nearly free from it, and 
 that the custom, which I presuppose at Athens, 
 certainly did exist at Epidaurus, connected with the 
 worship of Damia and Auxesia, which are probably 
 local names for Demeter and Cora. Herodotus tells 
 us (v. 83) Bva-irjaC re acfxa Kal -yopoun yvvaiKr\ioi(Ti. 
 KspToiWKTi iKaa^KOVTO, \opr]y&v aTsoheiKVVfxivav eKareprj t&v 
 baiiJ,6v(i>v Sexa avbp&v, kukcSs 8e ■^yopevov ot X"/'"' "I'S/'o 
 fjiev oibeva, tcls be enixwpias yvvaiKas. Possibly, there- 
 fore, these famous ribaldries about women are not 
 meant to convey any bad impression of them by 
 the poet. But quite apart from any such special 
 reason, the general grounds above adduced, and the 
 evidence we have found in Euripides, show that on 
 this large question the evidence of Aristophanes is 
 hardly of any value. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 SOCIAL GREECE, [CH. 
 
 My general observations, however, which apply to 
 the comic estimates of women, as well as those of 
 men, are of peculiar importance when we come to 
 consider the most prominent woman of the day — 
 Aspasia. This lady, being a Milesian, with whom 
 no Athenian citizen could contract any but a mor- 
 ganatic marriage, was readily and generally identi- 
 fied with a class of people somewhat outside the 
 pale of society, and peculiarly open to gross charges 
 — the hetairai, afterwards so celebrated as the 
 most witty and brilliant talkers at Athens. In 
 the absence of cultivated society at home, Greek 
 gentlemen often betook themselves, in later days, to 
 the houses of such ladies, whose manners are suf- 
 ficiently described in the thirteenth book of Athen- 
 leus. These were the days of Epicurus and Menander. 
 There is no doubt that men like Socrates and Xen- 
 ophon went, in like manner, for the purpose of 
 serious mental improvement, to the house of Aspasia, 
 who even received ladies and appears to have dis- 
 coursed much upon the duties of married life. But 
 there is no evidence of a society of cultivated hetairai 
 at Athens in Pericles' day. I say, advisedly, at 
 Athens, for there is evidence of a large and pro- 
 minent class of this kind at Corinth as early as the 
 Persian wars. We still possess a fragment of an ode 
 specially composed for them by the poet Pindar, 
 whose time and talents were in such demand among 
 tyrants and free cities, that they must have paid him 
 a large fee. These same ladies were celebrated 
 through Greece for their public prayers and votive 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 213 
 
 offerings in behalf of the Greeks during the invasion 
 of Xerxes. This shows public spirit and patriotism 
 among them. But I am not aware that in any poet 
 of the. Old Comedy, save Pherecrates (who is a no- 
 table exception, and rather belongs to the Middle 
 Comedy), a character of this kind is mentioned 
 upon the stage \ if we except Aspasia, who certainly 
 held a peculiar position. Not only is she said to 
 have risen from a disreputable past, but she is openly 
 accused of still pursuing the vilest of professions — 
 that of promoting vice in others — and an action in 
 open court charged her with the impiety of making 
 her house a place of assignation for Athenian ladies 
 of position. 
 
 This charge, were it true, would give us such a 
 picture of Athenian life in the house of Pericles, 
 the greatest of Greeks, that we ought to shut our 
 Greek books, and refuse further intercourse with 
 people whose best society was wofse than the lowest 
 stratum of modern life. Of course the charge was 
 false ; of course the home of Pericles was not a house 
 of this description ; but the meetings of married 
 ladies for discussion, such as that alluded to by 
 Cicero, where Xenophon and his wife (according 
 to the Socratic philosopher ^schines) were present 
 — these meetings naturally gave rise, at Athens, to 
 grave suspicion, and Pericles was not the man to 
 
 • Of course I do not include those open bad characters of the lowest 
 type, who sometimes appear upon the stage of Aristophanes (Achar. and 
 Thesmoph. sub. fin.). These people are ia no sense kratpat, and are 
 never called so by the Greeks. 
 
214 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 trouble himself with refuting them. Possibly As- 
 pasia was a free-thinker, at least on those points 
 where the every-day religion was base and immoral, 
 and hence arose another stone of stumbling. Even 
 if her early life had not been free from blame, there 
 is no absolute proof of her want of dignity and 
 morality ^ ; nor can I conceive Socrates constantly • 
 visiting her, and advising his friends to send their 
 sons to her to be educated, if the charges of Aris- 
 tophanes and .his fellows were in any sense true. 
 No doubt many Athenian citizens were very jealous 
 of the position of this foreigner — a position which 
 one of their own daughters ought, by right, to have 
 held— and the conversations at her house, which 
 brought ladies there from their dull and secluded 
 homes, were to the old-fashioned Athenian dangerojs 
 innovations '. 
 We have some very instructive parallel cases, 
 
 ' I cite with reluctance a modem parallel. There are few men who 
 have been forced into contact with the pariahs of our society by 
 professional duties, such as medical practice, who will not testify that 
 among these outcasts they have found great generosity, self-denial, and 
 even purity of motives. A celebrated French author, Dumas, has. 
 ventured to assert this in his great and affecting novel. La Dame aux 
 CamSlias. Yet even such a suggestion is deemed dangerous by our 
 respectable people, and this remarkable play could not be represented in 
 England without being concealed by an Italian translation, and Verdi's 
 music (La Traviata). 
 
 ' The whole question about Aspasia has been discussed with gi-eat 
 ability by M. Becq de Fouqui^res in his very interesting monograph 
 Aspasie de Milet. If liis enthusiasm leads him too far, he has never- 
 theless brought out the main points, I think rightly. He need not 
 have dogmatised about her life before and after Pericles' union with 
 her. 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 2\% 
 
 which, I think, can be fairly cleared up, and which 
 will show the nature of the comic charges against 
 Aspasia and Pericles. The very same charge of 
 making his house a meeting-place for Pericles and 
 his lady friends, is preferred against the sculptor 
 Phidias, who was, if I may so say, the minister of art 
 under Pericles. We also hear, strangely enough, 
 accusations of Pericles having induced another friend, 
 who possessed peacocks, to make presents of them to 
 these ladies. Peacocks had then been lately intro- 
 duced into Athens, as we know from allusions in 
 Antiphon. One Athenian gentleman, who kept them, 
 had an open day every new moon, on which the 
 public might come to see them freely, but he refused 
 all admission at other times. Their screaming is 
 complained of by the comic poets. The gift of a 
 peacock was therefore a handsome present, as the 
 bird could not be bought for money, owing to its 
 rarity. To those who will not believe that the 
 great Phidias, and the greater Pericles, combined for 
 the lowest and most scandalous purposes, an explana- 
 tion of these suspicions and charges readily presents 
 itself. The Greek sculptors and painters must have 
 required, like our own artists, suitable models. We 
 know of only one hetaira at Athens thus employed ; 
 if there had been many, the comedy would certainly 
 have told us of it. Whoever thinks for a moment of 
 the pure and noble types of female beauty in Greek 
 art, can hardly conceive the models to have been 
 anything but the very highest and best of society. 
 I imagine Pericles and Phidias to have been under 
 
2i6 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 great difficulties in procuring the best models, owing 
 to the seclusion of women at Athens, and I con- 
 jecture that they were induced with difficulty to come 
 to the sculptor's studio, where Pericles no doubt often 
 met them, and that they were rewarded upon some 
 few occasions with the present of a peacock, as money 
 payments would have been unseemly. Thus I con- 
 ceive the suspicion of the Athenian public to have 
 been excited. We know that Phidias copied himself 
 and Pericles on the shield of Pallas. Of course he 
 must have copied some fair woman of Athens for 
 the goddess herself, though he dared not confess it 
 to the public. 
 
 We chance to have from the same epoch a strictly 
 parallel case. Plutarch tells us ^ that the celebrated 
 sister of Cimon, Elpinice, who appears from various 
 anecdotes to have gone about Athens with some 
 liberty, is said to have transgressed with the painter 
 Polygnotus, and that accordingly when painting the 
 Trojan women (in his famous portico called irotKiXij) 
 he made his figure of Laodice a portrait of Elpinice. 
 This Polygnotus was the Phidias of Greek painting. 
 Here, I take it, there can be no doubt, that Elpi- 
 nice was a model to Polygnotus, and we see her 
 charged with the same suspicions as the ladies who 
 went to Phidias' studio. These considerations are, 
 in my mind, quite sufficient to overthrow the bare 
 presumption against Aspasia, raised by the comedians' 
 scurrilous buffoonery. 
 
 I turn with more pleasure to the casual glimpses 
 
 ' Cimon, c. 4, 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. %\'] 
 
 given us into her home Hfe with Pericles. We are 
 indebted to the invaluable Plutarch for having col- 
 lected from numerous anecdotists these slighter 
 touches in the portraits of the great Periclean 
 Athenians. From him we can quote something on 
 the aristocratic side of Athenian life to compare with 
 the homely scenes in the Acharnians and Wasps. 
 Several of the anecdotists, such as Ion of Chios and 
 Stesimbrotus of Thasos, were contemporary with the 
 men they described, and are trustworthy in some 
 details ; while in others Plutarch's notice of their bias 
 enables us to doubt and to criticise. They agreed in 
 making JP-erkles haughty and cold, avoiding society 
 ^It^ether, and hardly to be seen except on the way 
 from his house to the assembly. He had once con- 
 descended to go to a cousin's wedding-feast, but left 
 the moment grace was said, I have no doubt to the 
 great relief of the company. This cold contempt of 
 men appeared plainly enough, we are told, in his 
 speeches, and was, I think, transmitted by him, with- 
 out his dignity and soberness, to his ward Alcibiades. 
 It was clearly this feeling, and not pressure of 
 business, which kept Pericles from going into society. 
 Nicias, on the contrary, a stupid but excellent and 
 high-spirited man, felt himself bound to deny access 
 to his friends, and to avoid society, on account of 
 the pressure of public business, which he per- 
 formed most conscientiously, but, like many con- 
 scientious men, stupidly and slowly \ They both 
 were very careful of their private affairs and of the 
 ' Cp. Hut. Nic. chap. v. 
 
2lt 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [en- 
 
 management of their income, but Pericles had^ the 
 
 sense to find a trusty person to whom he committed 
 
 them, just as he committed routine business in the 
 
 assembly to friends ; whereas Nicias, as Thucydides 
 
 says of him, with deep insight, in the la'st great crisis 
 
 of his life (vii. 69) was ever thinking that things were 
 
 not perfectly ready and complete, or had not been 
 
 sufficiently explained, and so wearied himself in doing 
 
 other people's work as well as his own. But there 
 
 was a gap in Pericles' cares, when he was at home 
 
 with Aspasia, whom he never left in the morning, 
 
 they tell us, without affectionately kissing her, and in 
 
 whose brillT aajt con ve nsaj ifm^ii^-JflMiBAJ^jtpr solace 
 
 and recreation thai|5n men^ wineJpaYtiSTor' 
 
 excesses with which he has been falsely charged. 
 
 Cimon and Alcibiades, on the contrary, though 
 both public men, were essentially men of society, 
 indulging in all the amusements of Athenian life, 
 and not free from stain in their morals. But Cimon 
 was rather a general than a politician ; he was not 
 oppressed, when at Athens, with the burdens of the 
 Home Office and the Exchequer. He was reckless 
 in expenditure, and was often to be met in society, 
 where Ion of Chios, when a youth, had met him, 
 and whose interesting account of him is preserved by 
 Plutarch. Cimon, who was, of course, the great man 
 of the party, was asked to sing, and did it so well 
 and pleasantly, that some of the company politely 
 observed how in this he had beaten Themistocles, 
 who was no doubt an equal politician, but no mu- 
 sician. Cimon then begins to tell of his military 
 
Vlll.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 219 
 
 experiences, apparently to show that he was not de- 
 ficient in cleverness like that of Themistocles. 
 
 The conversation seems to have turned exactly on 
 the line suggested in a pleasant passage in Aristoph- 
 anes' Wasps, when Bdelycleon is teaching his father 
 how to behave in good society (w. 11 74-1 264). The 
 old man is exceedingly rude and boorish, and suggests 
 coarse and vulgar subjects of conversation, whereupon 
 the son objects, and suggests fine talk, ' about your 
 being at a show-embassy along with Androcles and 
 Cleisthenes.' ' But I was never at a show, save once 
 to see Punch and Judy, and that for a fee of two 
 obols.' ' Well then, you should tell how, for example, 
 Ephudion fought a fine pancratium with Ascondas, 
 though already old and gray-haired, but showing 
 great form and muscle. This is the sort of talk 
 usual among refined people. But come to another 
 point. When you go out into society in the evening 
 among strangers {nap' avbpcun ^evoa mvwv), what manly 
 act of your youth can you relate ? ' ' Oh ! that was 
 the bravest of my acts when I stole Ergasion's vine- 
 stakes.' ' Will you kill me with your vine-stakes ? I 
 want you to tell how yqu chased a boar or a hare, 
 or won a torch race by some bold device.' ' I know, 
 then, my greatest act of youthful boldness, when I 
 won a suit for abusive language from the runner 
 Phayllus.' ' Stop, but come and lie down here and 
 let me teach you to be convivial and pleasant over 
 your cups.' ' Show me how to lie down ; — will this 
 do ? ' ' Not at all. Straighten your knees, and throw 
 yourself in a graceful and easy way on the couch. 
 
330 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Then make some observations on the beauty of the 
 appointments, look up at the ceiling, praise the 
 tapestry of the room^' He then proceeds to in- 
 struct the old gentleman how to take his part in 
 the scolia, or catches, in which one guest started a 
 line, and challenged some other to go on in the same 
 metre and construction, giving, of course, the most 
 amusing turn he could to the sensed The old man 
 makes such good political cuts in this game that the 
 son is satisfied, and proposes to bring him out to 
 dinner, where they can have a good carouse. ' Oh, 
 no,' says the old man, 'for from wine-drinking come 
 assault and battery, and then having to pay money 
 next day after your drinking bout.' ' No,' says the 
 son, • at least not if you mix jn good society (^v ^vvfis 
 y' avbpda-i koXoIs re Kayadols), for either they pacify 
 the offended man, or you say something clever to 
 him yourself, some good thing of ^Esop's, or from 
 Sybaris, which you have learned at the feast, and 
 then you turn the affair into a joke, so that he lets 
 you off and goes his way '.' 
 
 This passage, agreeing so well with the anecdote 
 about Cimon, is full of interest. It shows the high- 
 class Athenian not ashamed of showing off consciously 
 before strangers, a feature very strongly marked even 
 
 ^ To do this too eagerly is noted by Theophrastus as one of the 
 features of the Flatterer in his Characters. 
 
 ' Cf. also Nfi^. 649 : wpwTov liiv eTvai K0fitji6v iv (wovaiif liraiovfl' 
 dnotos ian tSiv pviimv, k.t.K., where the amusement is rather a discussion 
 on forms of poetry than actual extemporising. 
 
 ' Demosthenes (ii. p. 163) notices the habit of doing this very thing 
 in court, and so escaping the legal consequences of violence. 
 
VIII,] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 221 
 
 in Alexander the Great, who indeed damaged the 
 conversation at his table by his exceeding self-con- 
 sciousness^. We also see how highly cleverness in 
 conversation was prized. The allusion to the dis- 
 orderly conduct of the guests in the later part of 
 evening reminds us of the appearance of Alcibiades 
 in Plato's Symposium, which is quite a scene of the 
 same kind, except that Plato makes Socrates so in- 
 fluence the conversation as to give it a deep and 
 solid value. But there can be no doubt that such 
 men as Alcibiades and Callias were often guilty of 
 gross violence in their drinking bouts, and that they 
 escaped punishment partly by the means above 
 suggested, partly also by intimidation. The portrait 
 we have of Alcibiades in Plutarch and elsewhere is 
 hardly of any use as a specimen of manners, for we 
 are told that he was in every way exceptional, though 
 in immorality and in home scandal Callias was per- 
 haps his solitary equal. 
 
 But in one respect I do think the excesses of 
 Alcibiades instructive, in showing how far the most 
 aristocratic, handsome, fascinating man at Athens, 
 the idol of the mob, the autocrat of society — how far 
 this man was removed from the modern English gen- 
 tleman. He is accused of having brought women of 
 the lowest character so constantly into his house that 
 his wife, an excellent young lady of high family, fled . 
 from home and took refuge with the Archon, who 
 
 ' Plutarch's Alexander, C. 23 : koJ tSWo ■n&i/rm' ijSicrTos in> 0aai\4av 
 awcTvaf KoX xap"""' oiSe/uas a/wtpaiv, Ton toTs lieyaXavxiais di]Si)a 
 iyiv€TO Kal Kiav aTfaTiariitis, 
 
222 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 was by law the protector of married, women. But 
 when she was obliged to come forward in person to 
 prove her case for a divorce, Alcibiades appeared with 
 a band of friends and carried her off (we are told) by 
 force, nor did the unhappy woman ever again appear 
 against him. This violence is characterised with the 
 strongest epithets by the orator who has left us the 
 speech against Alcibiades among the remains of 
 Andocides. Again, he seized a painter, who refused 
 to decorate his house owing to previous engagements, 
 and kept him a prisoner till he had no longer need 
 of him. Worse than all, after having supported in 
 the assembly the ruthless massacre of the men of 
 Melos, he bought one of the captive women and had 
 a child by her, thus imitating one of the worst and 
 lowest features to be found in the Homeric age ^. 
 
 The case of Callias, told by Andocides (irept Muor. 
 p. 46), is,, if possible, worse. Having married a re- 
 spectable and blameless girl, he within a. year took 
 her mother into his house as a second wife. The 
 poor daughter attempted suicide, but was prevented, 
 
 • Ik Tavrrjs yAp (says the orator Andocides, p. 88, ed. Blass) iraiSoTroi- 
 frroi T^s yuvaiKdt, ^v dvT ekevO^pas BovKrjv /caT^ffTj^ffe, Kal ^s rdv naripa 
 Kol Tobs npoa'fiHOVTas dire/CT«v€, Kal ^s t^v ir6Ktv dvdixraTov ireiroirjKev, I 
 fear such acts were not, as the orator implies, extraordinary. The affect- 
 ing story about Pausanias' murder of a girl at Byzantium implies in the 
 Spartan an equal recklessness and villainy. When there, as generalissimo 
 . of the Greek forces, after the retreat of Xerxes, he demanded from her 
 parents that this young girl should visit him ; they were afraid to refuse, 
 and sent her in the dead of the night. When she came in, Pausanias, 
 ■who vpas asleep, started up, and thinking some assassin was upon him, 
 struck her with his dagger, and killed her. Her ghost was said to have 
 haunted him ever after. Cp. Plutarch, Cimo", cap. vi, 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 223 
 
 and fled from the house, being turned out by her 
 mother. Of course Callias soon got tired of her too, 
 but took her baclc after she had borne him a son. 
 ' being again in love with this most daring old woman' 
 {v<TTfpai ■nakiv XP°^'^ '^^ ypaos roAjuTjpoTdrrjy yvvaiKos 
 avripaadr]). This deed too is spoken of as extraor- 
 dinary ; but is it not an index of the manners 
 of Athenian aristocrats ? 
 
 The anecdote about Alcibiades' dog points in the 
 same direction, and proves the man, to my mind, 
 not to have been a gentleman. The Periclean Greeks, 
 with all their faults, were very fond of dogs. The 
 dog of Eupolis is said to have died of grief on its 
 master's tomb ^. In Plutarch's Themistocles there is 
 a remarkable passage, in which he describes the tame 
 animals, of course chiefly dogs, crowding to the shore 
 and howling when their masters were leaving for Sa- 
 lamis on the approach of the Persians. The dog of 
 Xanthippus, Pericles' father, not able to endure the 
 separation {ovk avaa)(oiJ.evos rrjv av' avrov fxovmcnv), 
 leaped into the water, and swam alongside the ship 
 to Salamis, where <t is said to have died of ex- 
 haustion. These legends show the deep sympathy 
 of tiie Athenians for dogs^. It was an old custom, 
 
 * \iini KoX M/i^ iavrdv eKT-q^as a.iri9ava> (Tti Tip rpocpei xal Seaitdrr) 
 \Ofniv /itar/ffas toi' piov 6 Kvaiv. Aelian x. 41. 
 
 " In the picturesque account of Aratus' attack on Sicyon, dogs play a 
 great part. The chief difficulty in surprising the city are the dogs of a 
 market gardener, ' which were small, but very pugnacious and uncom- 
 promising ' (juKpSiv /iiv, hKT6na>s Si iiaxif>»' ical dnapijiop-^Toir), They 
 accordingly give tongue, and challenge a great sporting dog, kept in the 
 tower on the wall, which had not perceived the noise, ' whether from 
 
224 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 says an Attic antiquary, that no dog should go up 
 into the Acropolis, a prohibition which shows how 
 constantly they accompanied their masters. So, then, 
 this dog of Alcibiades, for which he is said to have 
 paid four minae (reading A for the incredible O (70) 
 was remarkable for size and beauty, and generally 
 admired for its tail, Alcibiades cut the tail off, and 
 when his friends scolded him, and said that every^ 
 body was vexed about the dog and was abusing him, 
 he answered with a laugh, ' That is what I want ; I 
 wish them to talk about this, that they may say 
 nothing worse of me.' 
 
 I fear this set of men, despite of the graceful con- 
 versation attributed to them by Plato, were reckless 
 and unfeeling to all around them, nor do I see that 
 it made much difference to Alcibiades or Callias who 
 or what was ill-treated — dog, wife, or neighbour. But 
 as to the wife, they were the very set against whom 
 I believe Euripides to have written, that society of 
 men who upheld with Thucydides the complete 
 seclusion and insignificance of women, and that ' she 
 was best who was least spokfen of among men, 
 whether for good or for evil 1.' Yet, when these very 
 men got into trouble, the despised women were t^eir 
 comforters, 'When,' says the aristocrat Andocides 
 
 natural sluggishness, or from being fatigued during the day.' It answers 
 with a vague and uncertain sound (inf<peiyyeTo rv<p\ov kcH aa^iiov rd 
 TrpwToy). Plut. Arai. v. viii. Wicked dogs were logged, cp. Xen. Mem. 
 II. iv. § 41. 
 
 ' It is probably for this reason that Thucydides is silent on the 
 outrage committed by Paches at Mitylene, on his accusation by the 
 women, and his death in court. He probably thought it (as Plutarch 
 does) a scandalous ill-treatment of a general, for the sake of such a trifle. 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 225 
 
 (TTcpt MwoT. p. 20) , ' we had all been bound in the 
 same chamber (on the capital charge of impiety), and 
 it was night, and the prison had been closed (ap- 
 parently to visitors or legal advisers), there came to 
 one his mother, to another his sister, to another 
 his wife and children, and there was woe and la- 
 mentation as they wept over their misfortunes.' 
 So then these much-abused and ill-treated women 
 were after all, then, as now, the faithful and self- 
 denying helpers of men '. 
 
 In the lower classes there is evidence, even among 
 city people, of a community of life and interests quite 
 analogous ta the scenes between Electra and her 
 peasant husband, above described. In the Wasps of 
 Aristophanes, the old juryman, whose education we 
 have already been discussing, tells how when he 
 comes home his children run to kiss him, and how 
 his wife sets before him a dainty dish, and sitting 
 down beside him, coaxes him to eat (v. 583). He 
 says it is for the sake of his salary, but this is the 
 comic reason, the facts are probably real and or- 
 dinary. The humorous scenes at the opening of 
 the EcclesiazuscB testify to the same friendly intimacy 
 between men and their wives, and I must add, to 
 very good temper among the men. In ordinary life 
 the men were obliged to get up before dawn, and set 
 out for the assembly, trudging along with a stout 
 stick and humming a tune. The women could stay 
 in bed, and avoid this great hardship (v. 461). On 
 
 ' There is a parallel passage in Lysias (p. 103, ed. Teubner), when the 
 citizens were being imprisoned and put to death by the thirty tyrants. . 
 
 Q 
 
2,26 SOCIAL GREECE. [en. 
 
 this occasion the women plan an early meeting in the 
 assembly to discuss their rights, and set out in their 
 husbands' attire. When the men awake they cannot 
 find their clothes, and yet when the women come in 
 they show excellent temper, and put up with very 
 lame excuses. They allude to their wives going out 
 to breakfast with friends, and one woman says she 
 was called to see a sick friend, and took the first 
 garment she could find, and her husband's shoes. 
 If Aristophanes is not making the men gentler and 
 quieter than they really were for the purpose of 
 comic contrast (and this is quite possible), the whole 
 tone of the play implies far truer and better relations 
 among married people than the facts known to us 
 about the aristocrats. 
 
 There are indeed dark spots here too, not merely 
 in comic writers, but in the orators. The story-told 
 in Antiphon's first oration-^ l-i-^^-SESTTIs "bad enough. 
 The speaker's father had a country friend, Philoneos, 
 a man, he says, who was a perfect gentleman. This 
 Philoneos had the use of an upper chamber in his 
 friend's town house, when he came in from the 
 country, and here he kept a concubine, whom, for 
 no cause assigned, he was about to treat with great 
 harshness and injustice (em Tropveior l/xeWe (caTaffT^o-at). 
 The wretched woman is accordingly induced by the 
 lady of the house, who wants to poison her own 
 husband, to administer a pretended love-potion to her 
 master and his friend, when they went one day to 
 the Peirseus to dine together. But she apparently 
 had no redress from the fearful treatment intended 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 227 
 
 by her master, which is. called indeed (in the oration)' 
 injustice, but seems not in the least otherwise repre- 
 hended. We have also an oration written by Lysias 
 for an Athenian gentleman, who had a quarrel with 
 another concerning the affections of a woman which 
 they had originally agreed to share. The woman 
 preferred the other man, and eloped with him, and 
 so there was a quarrel, which was the occasion of the 
 action. The speaker actually proposes and urges 
 that the woman to whom he had stood in such pecu- 
 liar relations should be torticred to elicit; the real facts 
 of the case, and this in the very same speech in which 
 he relates his intimacy with her. I do not know in all 
 Greek literature a more painful and morally grating 
 passage than this proposal, made in open court by 
 a man whose interest it was to represent himself as 
 a fair and honourable man to the jury '^. 
 
 These, as I have said, are dark spots, which remind 
 us of the old Homeric recklessness and cruelty of the 
 higher classes toward those outside pale or privilege, 
 and might be corroborated by the mise en scene of 
 Plato's Euthyphro, where a wretched tenant farmer, 
 a free dependent of some sort, is cast bound into a 
 ditch, and allowed to die of hunger and exposure. 
 But I am strongly of opinion that these cases are all 
 special, and concern, not the relations of citizens to 
 citizens, but of citizens to inferior and non-privileged 
 classes. I here mention them by way of parenthesis, 
 as they support the main theory of this book — I mean 
 
 ' Cp. Lysias, p. 38, ed. Teubner. 
 Q3 
 
228 SOCIAL GREECE. [cK 
 
 the sameness of Greek character and Greek social 
 ideas through all periods of Greek literature. 
 
 It is therefore unsafe to take Pericles, the highest 
 specimen of Peri clean Athens, or Alcibiades and 
 Callias, morally the lowest, as average examples 
 of manners and morals among men. As I believe 
 that in estimating women at this time, the Alcestis 
 and Macaria of Euripides are too high, and the 
 women of Aristophanes too low; so I think in the 
 case of men, we should choose neither the best nor 
 the worst, but judge the age by an average standard. 
 As it would be very easy, but highly reprehensible, 
 to consult the Newgate Calendar for a few years, and 
 estimate from it English morals — a. course pursued 
 by Mr. Froude in estimating Irish morals in the last 
 century — so it is uncritical to judge an age by its 
 greatest men, since they are always exceptional, and 
 coftie under no general rule. Unfortunately the ex- 
 clusively political or ideal literature of the day, de- 
 voted either to the heroic ages, or to the public life 
 of the present, gives us little light on the average 
 men of that epoch. I suppose the old gentlemen in 
 Aristophanes and Euripides, who are not travesties 
 of some particular public man, are the truest repre- 
 sentatives of what we now wish to find. There is 
 the anxious father in the Clouds, the angry country- 
 man in the Acharnians, the independent Trygaeus in 
 the Peace, the contemptible old dicast in the Wasps, 
 all of whom seem to my mind of a definite and easily, 
 grasped type. I cite them with greater confidence 
 in this work, as ordinary readers can refer to Mr. 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 229 
 
 Frere's and Mr. Rogers' translations of most of these 
 plays — translations which have not been excelled, so 
 far as I know, in any language. 
 
 Any one who will examine with care these cha- 
 racters will find them, I think, not gentlemen in our 
 sense \ or even in Plato's sense. They are old-school 
 men, one of them rich and well bred enough to have 
 married an Alcmasonid noble, and to have sons ad- 
 dicted to horses — a most aristocratic taste in Athens ; 
 they are intelligent too, and shrewd, if not highly 
 educated, but still they seem to me of a coarse fibre, 
 and not gifted with much refinement or delicacy of 
 feeling. In broad comedy, we must confess, there 
 is not much room for these traits of character, so that 
 „ , we cannot expect them to be prominent. Still there 
 is room for them, as we can see in the comedy of 
 other nations, or in the middle and new comedy 
 of the Greeks, in which, as well as in Plato and 
 Xenophon, we shall find ample evidence of good 
 breeding. The contemporaneous tragedies bear out 
 -"'—--this view in one point strongly, inasmuch as they 
 cannot avoid attributing a disagreeable, and in our 
 minds somewhat ungentlemanly practice even to their 
 heroes and heroines — I mean the practice of per- 
 petual wrangling. 
 
 ' Euripides, whose average characters were of the same kind, makes 
 Menelaus, (in Iphigenia in Aulis) take by violence and break open a 
 letter sent by Agamemnon. It is remarkable that the messenger, and 
 Agamemnon when he finds it out, speak of such an act very much as 
 we should. They consider the breaking of a seal, and reading another 
 man's letter a gross breach of manners, and even of commpn honesty. 
 
230 SOCIAL GREECE. [cir. 
 
 There are indeed in Greek tragedy few characters 
 which we can. call especially gentlemanly, perhaps 
 only Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes, and Euripides' 
 Achilles. Both Ajax and Theseus are to Sophocles 
 rather heroes than men of refinement, and I have 
 already commented on the general feebleness of 
 the men of Euripides. The old comedy agrees 
 in these features with the tragedies. The worthy 
 Dicseopolis in the Acharnians, when celebrating his 
 country Dionysia, indulges in language to his daughter 
 as jocose as, and even a little coarser than the 
 humour of Squire Western to his daughter Sophia 
 in Fielding's Tom Jones. But the resemblance is 
 striking enough, especially when we remember that 
 in the Plutus (971, sqq.) there is a young gentleman 
 who makes his livelihood by the very same trade 
 which Fielding attributes to his hero, apparently 
 without censure. This coarseness is testified by the 
 very comedy itself, religious though it may have been 
 in origin, by the Phallic processions, such as that 
 just alluded to in the Acharnians, and by the Hermse ■ 
 that stood in every street. 
 
 We can find many other points, where the Athe- 
 nians showed a- rudeness very striking in the midst 
 of so great artistic and literary refinement. Thus for 
 example, though they had attained to a notion of an 
 absolute umpire (eTrtoraTTjs) in the palaestra, as we can 
 see from Antiphon, they had not in their public 
 assemblies arrived at that remarkable invention in 
 pur public life, the fictitious omnipotence of the 
 speaker or chairman, who by his ruling/commands 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 231 
 
 more absolutely tlian a judge in a court of law. At 
 Athens, if any speaker was troublesome, the itpyTaveis 
 or presidents ordered the police to drag him off the 
 bema. We hear too of impertinence on the part of 
 Cleon to the assembly, which could hardly be re- 
 ceived with laughter among us, as it was by the 
 Athenians ^. It was a very different thing when the 
 handsome and fascinating Alcibiades was passing 
 by, and heard the clamour of the assembly, and on 
 enquiry was told that voluntary contributions were 
 being asked for the state. ' He forthwith,' says Plut- 
 arch '■', ' came forward and contributed, but when the 
 people loudly applauded, he was so pleased that he 
 forgot a (fighting) quail, which he was carrying under 
 his cloak.' When it fluttered out and escaped from 
 him, the Athenians applauded still louder, and a 
 general chase ensued (woAAoiis 8e (rvvOripav civa(7T<ivTai) , 
 the man who caught it for him earning his lasting 
 friendship. 
 
 Here we have a genuine spirit of fun. But as to 
 rudeness of manners, what shall we say of a man of 
 position strewing before his door the feathers of 
 expensive birds used at his feast in order to display 
 his wealth''? They had another habit, now found 
 in lanes and alleys of towns, among the lower classes, 
 of throwing out their dirty water into the street, but 
 crying IffoTco (out of the way!) to warn passengers 
 
 ' Plut. Nic. c. II. " Alcib. u. lo. 
 
 ' Aristoph. Ach. 989, roS Piov S" fff'iSaAAe Seiyfia raSe rh irpo rSiv 
 BvpSiv. There is a somewhat similar mark of ostentation mentioned by 
 Theophrastus. 
 
233 SOCIAL GREECE. [Cll. 
 
 of their danger'. I fear even their town life may- 
 have been, as Aristophanes says of their country- 
 life, eiipmTi&v aKOjOjjros fiKtj KfCixevos. The whole opening 
 of Aristophanes' Clouds shows how strongly this con- 
 trast of town and country was felt, and the contempt 
 of Socrates for the old country gentleman was no 
 doubt the expression of a general feeling^. But 
 nevertheless, in their daily life, and in some of the 
 arrangements which we consider most essential to 
 decency and comfort, the Greeks were, like many 
 otherwise cultivated European nations, very much 
 behind their own leVel, 
 
 I say this, despite of the many evidences of refined 
 tact and politeness which they show in other respects. 
 Take, for example, the ordinary forms of courteous 
 
 ' Aristoph. ^ci. 6i6 and Schol. According to Plutarch's anecdotes, 
 even noble boys played in the streets. Thus Alcibiades was once play- 
 ing at dice (I suppose our pitch and los^ in a lane, with some other boys, 
 and his turn was just come, when a man came up with a cart. 
 Alcibiades called to him to stop till he had done throwing ; ' but the 
 fellow was rude enough not to mind him ' (a curious -View of thitiigs'). 
 Thereupon the other boys gave way, but Alcibiades threw himself on 
 his face before the cart, and dared the man to pass; so that he 
 backed his cart in fear ; and the bystanders were terrified, and rushed 
 up screaming to save him. 
 
 * So Euripides says of ,Hippomedon {Svpp. 88 a, sqq.) 
 
 Trars Siv tT6\ftr](i^ ev6vs ov trphs i^iovSLs 
 
 "SlILoiiaStu 'fpaiti&Gaif teal t& fjoXGuK^v Ptov, 
 
 dypohs S^ vaiojv, a/cktjpci t^ ^afi 5lSo\)s 
 
 ?X«'pc 7rp5s r&vSp€iQV. 
 Cf. also Lysias (p. 157, Teubner). 
 
 6 iiiv yoip fv &ip^ irivtjs tiv 
 
 iirolftavai, i Si narflp iv rf darfi 
 
 lirai5ei;CT0. 
 
Vlil.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 233 
 
 refusal which they used'. 'I praise your remark,' 
 (but don't agree with it). ''Tis well' (but I do not 
 need it), and 'what a busybody I am '! (I beg your par- 
 don) — these are the forms used by Aristophanes and 
 the tragedians. Probably the Spartans, whom Hero- 
 dotus takes care to paint as very rude and coarse 
 in every-day intercourse, would despise these ameni- 
 ties, but at Athens, notwithstanding the hurry and 
 hardness of the times, the features already exist 
 which make the society of Plato and the new comedy 
 so charming. How much conversation was already 
 prized appears both from Herodotus' account of the 
 marriage of Agariste, and from the remark of Plut- 
 arch about Phasax, a leading rival of Alcibiades. He 
 says that he was persuasive and powerful in private, 
 but unsuited to public haranguing, and he quotes a 
 remarkable line of Eupolis about him ^. He was, 
 I conceive, the exact opposite of Demosthenes in 
 talent. 
 
 On the whole, an accurate and calm review of the 
 old comic fragments, and of Aristophanes, of the 
 orators Antiphon and Andocides, of the striking 
 sketches left us by Plutarch of the six prominent 
 Athenians of this epoch — these varied documents, 
 socially considered, may bring us somewhat to lower 
 the estimate usually formed of Periclean Athens, and 
 to consider that both the incomparable literature and 
 the incomparable art then produced were to some ex- 
 tent the work of a select few, who stood apart from 
 
 ' iwpiiaa, KoXSis, and trj* iroXvirfmyiiOtrivriS, 
 ' XaAitv SfiBToa, AZmariiraTos \iyety. Plu 
 
 Plut. Akib. c. 13. 
 
234 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 the crowd, as they have done in other golden periods, 
 and who in many respects owed their success to the 
 patronage, first of the tyrants, and then of the tyrants' 
 successor, Pericles. 
 
 I have spoken before, in connection with Thucy- 
 dides, of the cruelty prevalent through Greece during 
 the Peloponnesian war. It was not merely among 
 CorcyrjEans, or among Thracian mercenaries, but 
 among the leaders of Greece that we find this dis- 
 gusting feature. The Spartans put to death in cold 
 blood two hundred and twenty-five prisoners, whom 
 they took in Plataea after a long and heroic defence — 
 in this very different from the so-called barbarian Per- 
 sians, who years before had done all they could to 
 save alive a brave man, Pytheas, who fought against 
 them 1. But this is a mere trifle, when we hear from 
 Plutarch that Lysander, after the battle of -/Egospot- 
 ami, put to death 3000 prisoners ^ ! Greek historians 
 are too much in the habit of passing carelessly over 
 such scenes as this'. The appearance of Coomassie 
 struck with horror all our troops who entered it, and 
 afforded to the papers a subject which even the 
 Daily Telegraph failed to exaggerate. What can 
 Coomassie have been compared to ^Egospotami, 
 where 3000 men, not savages, not negroes, but Athen- 
 ians, men of education and of culture, were butchered 
 with swords and spears ^ ? What are we to think of 
 
 ' Cf. Thuc. iii. 68 with Herod, vii. i8r. 
 
 " Toni 8' avBpumaiv rptax^^iovs i\&i' (/Hivtos &Tria(j>aiev o \vaavSpos, 
 Alcib. c. 37, cp. the details in his Lysander c. 13. 
 ' We are told, and this was a point which did strike the Greeks 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 335 
 
 the men who ordered this massacre, of those who 
 executed it, of those who looked on ? I do not be- 
 lieve that there is now a sovereign in the world, even 
 the King of Dahomey or King Kofifee, who would 
 execute such a horrible and bloodthirsty deed. If 
 our soldiers found the smell of blood and of decay 
 horrible among the Ashantees, what would they have 
 found it on the shore of Thrace, where Lysander 
 celebrated his victory in rivers of human blood ? 
 And yet I believe this atrocity, seldom paralleled 
 in human history, called forth no cry of horror in 
 Greece. The unfortunate Athenian general, accor- 
 ding to Theophrastus ^, submits v/ith dignified resig- 
 nation to a fate which he confesses would have 
 attended the Lacedaemonians had they been van- 
 quished. 
 
 For the Athenians with their boasted clemency and 
 culture, were very nearly as cruel as their enemies. 
 In the celebrated affair of the Mitylenseans, which 
 Thucydides tells at length in his third book, the first 
 decree of the Athenians was to massacre the whole 
 male population of the captured city. They re- 
 pented of this decree, because Diodotus proved to 
 
 with horror, that on this occasion the bodies were left unburied, so that 
 the resemblance to Coomassie is quite complete. When the habits of 
 the Ashantee people became known, we were all filled with horror, and 
 there were loud appeals ma4e by the public to put down such depraved 
 and abominable barbarism. Good people in Europe seem to think that 
 a nation which is cruel and executes large numbers of people must be 
 savage and degraded. Let me point out the striking example of Greece 
 in its palmiest days in disproof of such hasty generalisations. 
 ' Plut. Lys. 13. 
 
236 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 them, not that it was inhuman, but that it was ia- 
 expedient ^ The historians, and especially Grote, 
 contrast the conduct of the Athenians — full of bloody 
 impulses but quick repentance — with the colder and 
 more heartless cruelty of the Spartans at Plataea, 
 and even speak of the feeling of pain which was felt 
 when they came to reflect on the details of such a 
 scene as the massacre of 6000 unarmed men. I be- 
 lieve this account of the Athenian feelings to be 
 false. They pardoned the population of Mitylene, 
 from no feelings of humanity, but from feelings of 
 expediency, which Diodotus explains, and from feel- 
 ings of justice. For these people, as soon as they had 
 obtained arms, rose against the revolting aristocracy, 
 and gave themselves and their city up to the Athen- 
 ians. But I argue, in opposition to Grote, how could 
 the imagined details of the massacre of 6000 men in 
 Lesbos have been a motive, when the Athenians did 
 at the same time have the ringleaders executed at 
 Athens, and they were more than one thousand men'^ \ 
 Such is Thucydides' cold remark, which the historians 
 pass by without comment, but which again reminds 
 us of Coomassie : we have here, not on the coast of 
 Thrace, not in distant islands, but in Athens, the 
 centre of refinement and of humanity, more than one 
 thousand men executed together by the hands of Athen- 
 ians, not with fire-arms, but with swords and knives. 
 A few years after, the inhabitants of Melos, many 
 
 ' Cp. Mr. Grote's excellent discussion in his History, vi. 343, &c. 
 ' ?jaav Be l>)dy<f irXtlovs x'^'""- Thuc. iii. 50. I now read A (30) in- 
 stead of A, as 1,000 ringleaders seems to me absurd. 
 
VIII^ THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 237 
 
 hundreds in number, were put to the sword, when 
 conquered after a brave resistance \ and here I fear 
 merely for the purpose of making way for a colony 
 of Athenian citizens, who went out to occupy the 
 houses and lands of their victims ! 
 
 Such are the facts, admitted by all, and so far as I 
 know never protested against save in a single passage 
 of Euripides ^. I know that in the Middle Ages re- 
 fined and cultivated men sanctioned great atrocities, 
 and even witnessed voluntarily hideous tortures as well 
 as executions. I know that Roman Popes ordered 
 wholesale massacres. But they did it not through 
 defect in the love of men, but through excess in the 
 love of God, and perhaps of human souls. Theology 
 had expelled ordinary humanity from their hearts, in 
 order to install in its place theological humanity — a 
 love of men's souls at the expense of their bodies and 
 their feelings. These cases are therefore not parallel 
 to the inhumanity of the Greeks. There is no excuse 
 for their barbarity. It is but one evidence out of 
 a thousand that, hitherto in the world's history, no 
 culture, no education, no political training, has been 
 able to rival the mature and ultimate effects of Chris- 
 tianity in humanising society. 
 
 There appears however to have been one limit 
 to these horrqrs. Women and children were never 
 massacred, nor even (I think) treated with outrage or 
 
 > Thuc. V. 116. 
 
 ' HerackidiE, 961 sqq. The poet speaks as if it were against the habit 
 of the Greeks to slay a captive taken alive in battle, and Alcmene, who 
 persists in doing it, is threatened with the vengeance of the Gods. 
 
338 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 insult beyond that of being sold into slavery. On 
 the very occasion of which I have just now spoken, 
 the same Athenians who voted the actual massacre of 
 many prisoners at Athens, are said to have received the 
 complaint of two married women against the Athenian 
 general Paches with such an outburst of indignation, 
 that he committed suicide in open court to avoid 
 their sentence. We have here a strange inconsistency. 
 The honour of two women, who were condemned to 
 be sold as slaves, and who were in any case prisoners 
 of war, stands at Athens on the modern basis, and is 
 even treated there with far more severity than it would 
 be now-a-days, while a wholesale massacre of men 
 excites not one word of pity. We know also that the 
 massacre of a school of children by Thracian savages 
 is really regarded as a horrible atrocity by Thucydides, 
 and, he tells us, by the Greek world. These then were 
 the limits of cruelty in Greek war at this epoch — limits 
 often exceeded in more modern times. 
 
 But it will perhaps be more interesting to examine 
 what evidences there are of this feature in the peaceful 
 and home life of the Greeks. War is no doubt a stern 
 taskmaster, and it may seem unfair to estimate a people 
 from the excesses instigated by the fear and the fury of 
 a protracted civil strife. Are there any parallel cases 
 in the course of ordinary Athenian life ? 
 
 It is well known that at the beginning of the 
 epoch under discussion human sacrifices had hardly 
 disappeared from Greece, Plutarch tells us that 
 Themistocles was forced by the acclamations of the 
 army to sacrifice three Persian prisoners of distinction, 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 239 
 
 brought in just before the battle of Salamis, though 
 he was greatly affected at the terrible nature of the 
 sacrifice', so that it appears to have been then un- 
 usual. But Aristophanes, long after, makes allusions 
 to what he calls cpapixaKoi, as still remembered at 
 Athens, if not still in use ^, and which the scholiasts 
 explain, chiefly from Hipponax, as a sort of human 
 scapegoat, chosen for ugliness or deformity (a very 
 Greek standpoint) and sacrificed for the expiation of 
 the state {Kd6apiJ.a) in days of famine, of pestilence, or 
 of other public disaster. I think that Aristophanes 
 alludes to this custom as by-gone, though the scho- 
 liasts do not think so ', but its very familiarity to his 
 audience shows a disregard of human life strange 
 enough in so advanced a legal system as that of 
 democratic Athens. 
 
 But however this may be, we have full and clear 
 
 * fKTTXayivTos 8€ tov 0. ws fieya t6 jmvTevjM koX diLvov. Plut. 
 Them. 13. 
 
 ^ Ran. 732, (irovrjpol) oTffiv ij ir6\is vph tov 
 
 ovhi (pap/iaKoiffiv eix^ ^abitus t)(pri(TaT' dV. 
 
 " Besides the fragments of Hipponax (fr. 4-9, ed. Bergk), and of 
 Archilochus (113), the Scholiasts seem to rely on the antiquary Ister, 
 who, writing at Alexandria in Callimachns' days, mentioned among 
 his collection of the ancient customs and feasts of Attica, the habit of 
 sacrificing two cl>apnaKoi yearly at the Thargelia (cp. fr. 33, ed. Miiller). 
 But there is no evidence that this lasted into Periclean times, and 
 Plutarch's mention of Themistocles' horror at the proposal of a human 
 sacrifice seems to me inconsistent with it, Curt Wachsmuth, indeed 
 {Stadt. Athen. i. p. 439), thinks the sacrifice at the Thargelia was merely 
 symbolical, but if so, why were the victims carefully selected for vice 
 and ugliness? The once equivalent word KdSapim is known to have 
 been used in later Greek (from Lysias onward) in the general sense of 
 ' miserable wretch,' with an implication of depravity, 
 
240 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 evidence in the common practice of torture in the 
 Athenian law-courts, and possibly even in the assem- 
 bly, which has not been recognised by the panegyrists 
 of Periclean Athens. We find evidence through all 
 the extant orators on this question, but especially 
 Antiphon, in whose speeches on cases of homicide 
 this feature constantly recurs. It is well known that 
 in such cases the accused might offer his own slaves 
 to be tortured, in order to challenge evidence against 
 himself ; and it was thought a weak point in his case, 
 if he refused to do so when challenged. It is also well 
 known that the accusers were bound to make good 
 any permanent injury, such as maiming, done to these 
 slaves. 
 
 But there were both, restrictions and extensions of 
 this practice as yet but little noticed. It was not the 
 custom to torture slaves who gave evidence to a fact, 
 but only if they denied any knowledge, or appeared 
 to suppress it in the interest of their master \ On the 
 other hand, it was common enough to torture female 
 slaves, and also free men. There is a remarkable case 
 in Antiphon's speech about the murder of H erodes^, 
 in which the conduct of a slave and of a free man 
 under the same torture are contrasted. The slave 
 gave in and confessed what his persecutors wanted. 
 The free man held out. No doubt in another place ^ 
 Antiphon contrasts the coercing of free men by oaths 
 and solemn pledges, which are to them thfe Strongest 
 bonds, with that of slaves by torture, ' by which they 
 
 * Antiphon, Tetral. A, 7; also Lycmgus in Leocrat. § 31 sqq. 
 
 " pp. 72, 135, ed. Blass. ' ntpX rot xopewToS, pp. loo-ioi. 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 24J. 
 
 are compelled to speak tlie truth, even though they must 
 die for it afterwards (at the hands of their master), 
 for the present necessity is to each stronger than the 
 future.' He argues in the former passage about the 
 absurdity of the thing, and yet in the latter he adopts 
 it completely, so leaving us a picture of the treatment 
 of slaves almost grotesque in its absurd cruelty. The 
 slave had his choice of death from his master if he 
 confessed anything, of continued torture on the rack 
 if he refused to confess, 
 
 I delay on this as the only case of real stupidity 
 I can bring against the Athenians. Almost all the 
 orators speak of it as an infallible means of ascer- 
 taining the truth. Demosthenes says it has never 
 been known to fail. It is considered one of the wisest 
 institutions of Athens. I know not whether the free 
 man cited in Antiphon's speech was submitted to 
 torture because he belonged to a subject state — I fear 
 this may be the reason. But in Andocides there are 
 distinct parallels to it — in fact whenever any great fear 
 or crisis came upon the Athenians they were always 
 ready to extend the treatment to freemen. We have 
 first a proposal to force masters to give up their slaves 
 for torture ' against the usual practice, and then the 
 presidents (ir/wT-areis) of the assembly take away An- 
 docides' female slaves (p. 25) for the same purpose, 
 But still farther Peisander (p. 18) proposes to suspend 
 the decree of Scamandrius (against torture I suppose) 
 and put on the rack {avafii^a^eiv em tov rpoxov) forty- 
 two free citizens, who had been accused of mutilating 
 
 R 
 
243 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the Hermae, and violating the mysteries ; and we know 
 from Plutarch {Nicias sub. fin.) that the unfortunate 
 barber, who heard the awful news from Syracuse from 
 a stranger in Peiraeus, and ran up to tell it to the 
 magistrates, was tortured for a long time, because he 
 could not give any further evidence for his statement. 
 Aristophanes ^ even characterises business days in the 
 law-courts as opposed to holidays by torturing as an 
 ordinary feature, so that we have here detected in 
 Periclean Athens a point of similarity, not with 
 modern, but medieval times. I must however add 
 in justice to Athens, that the torture was never in- 
 flicted for torture's sake, as among Oriental despots 
 and Roman Catholic Inquisitors, but from a blunder- 
 ing desire to elicit truth in evidence. I can also find 
 no trace of ingenuity or variety of tortures, save in a 
 comic passage of Aristophanes [Ran. 619) : the or- 
 dinary rack is the universal engine of the Attic courts. 
 It appears also froin a passage in Isocrates (p. 361) 
 that torturing was only permitted when inflicted by 
 state-torturers, who were called hr\twKoivoi, For when 
 the defendant Pasion, after many delays and sub- 
 terfuges, had agreed to produce a slave required to 
 give evidence, and when his opponent came with his 
 torturers to the temple of Hephaestus, Pasion objected 
 that they were not state-torturers, and told them 
 merely to question the slave. It appears that these 
 men accordingly would not venture to torture him 
 on their own responsibility, and so the prosecutor's 
 project broke down. 
 
 • Nub. 620: <XTpeP\ovTe «ai Siiea^fTe ; cp. Aeschines, vapairptaP. § I»6. 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE, 343 
 
 Nevertheless the ordinary occurrence of such scenes 
 in the every-day life of the Athenians is sadly in 
 harmony with the hideous execution scenes in the 
 civil wars, and shows us that with all their intellect, 
 and all their subtlety, the Greeks were wanting in 
 heart. Their humanity was spasmodic, not constant. 
 Their kindness was limited to friends and family, and 
 included no chivalry to foes or to helpless slaves. 
 Antiphon, in speaking of the danger of convictions on 
 insufficient evidence, mentions a case of the murder 
 of his master by a slave boy of twelve years old, when 
 the whole household would have been put to death \ had 
 not the victim cried out when struck with the knife, 
 and the little boy discovered himself by running away. 
 Otherwise so young a child could never have been 
 suspected. We have here the same savage law which 
 in the pages of Tacitus and of Dion so deeply affects 
 us with pity and horror, and against which even the 
 Roman populace revolted. It is not easy to despise 
 human rights and human tears in one relation, without 
 running the risk of general hardness of heart, and so 
 the men who murdered their prisoners in war, and sold 
 noble women and children into slavery, were not likely 
 to treat with mercy and consideration those dependent 
 on them at home and in the days of peace ^ 
 
 The strongest case, however, against the Periclean 
 Greeks, and one which marks their parentage most 
 clearly from their Homeric ancestors, is the treatment 
 
 ' &TTiiX.ovT' hv ol ivSov ovm arnvres. 
 
 ' See also the cases quoted above (pp. 226, 227) from Lysias, Anti- 
 phon, and Plato. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 of their old men. For here it is no inferior class, but 
 their own equals, nay even those to whom they di- 
 rectly owed their greatness, whom they cast aside 
 with contempt when their days of usefulness had 
 passed away. The reader will remember the same 
 feature alluded to in a former chapter, and how 
 Achilles assumes that his aged father will be treated 
 with violence and injustice because he has no son 
 at home to help him. In Ulysses' household we see 
 the aged Laertes cast aside, like the old dog Argus, 
 and pining for the return of the son who alone 
 honoured him and recognised his position. The 
 Greek lawgivers were accordingly most explicit in 
 enjoining upon children the nurture and support of 
 aged parents, who could otherwise expect little from 
 the younger generation. The Attic law alone added 
 a qualification, that the children were to be without 
 responsibility if their parents had neglected to edu- 
 cate them. It should also be remarked that in 
 theory the Greeks, like all other civilised nations, 
 respected age, and that in conservative Sparta this 
 theory was strictly enjoined by law, and carried into 
 practice. 
 
 But unfortunately the practice at Athens differed 
 widely from the theory, and both tragedy and 
 comedy agree in painting the contempt in which old 
 men were held, and the consequent misery of their 
 position. Aristophanes, in the Parabasis of the 
 Acharnians, makes a special complaint to the as- 
 sembled people of the treatment of the older men 
 by the newer generation (v. 676 sqq.) : — 
 
VIII,] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 245 
 
 ' We, the veterans of the city, briefly must expostulate 
 At the hard ungrateful usage which we meet with from the state. 
 Suffering men of years and service at your bar to stand indicted. 
 Bullied by your beardless speakers, worried and perplexed and frighted, 
 Aided only by their staff, the staff on which their steps are stayed ; 
 Old and impotent and empty; deaf, decrepit, and decayed. 
 There they stand, and pore, and drivel, with a misty purblind gleam, 
 Scarce discerning the tribunal, in a kind of waking dream. 
 Then the stripling, their accuser, fresh from training, bold and quick, 
 Pleads in person, fencing, sparring, using every turn and trick; 
 Grappling with the feeble culprit, dragging him to dangerous 
 
 ground. 
 Into pitfalls of dilemmas, to perplex him and confound. 
 Then the wretched invalid attempts an answer, and at last 
 After stammering and mumbling, goes away condemned and cast. 
 Moaning to his friends and neighbours, " All the little store I have. 
 All is gone I my purchase money for my coffin and my grave." ' ' 
 
 And then the chorus speaks with much pathos of 
 the days of old, when they could have made short 
 work of such adversaries. There is much similar 
 complaint in the Wasps of the same author, where 
 the old dicast declares that his only chance of respect 
 or even safety is to retain the power of acting as 
 a juryman, so extorting homage from the accused, 
 and supporting himself by his pay without depending 
 on his children. When he comes home with his fee, 
 they are glad to see him, in fact he is able to support 
 a second wife and younger children, as the passage 
 (605 sqq.) plainly implies, whereas otherwise the 
 father must look towards his son and his son's 
 'steward to give him his daily bread, ' uttering impre- 
 cations and mutterings, lest he knead me a deadly 
 
 ' Frere, iii. p. 36, 
 
246 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 cake 1,' a dark insinuation, which opens to us terrible 
 suspicions, and which would hardly have been ven- 
 tured by the poet, were the idea quite foreign to the 
 minds of the audience. 
 
 The indications in the tragedies are not inconsis- 
 tent with these passages. There are often (especially 
 in Euripides' plays) old kings introduced, who in the 
 absence of their sons endeavour to guard the do- 
 minion which has already passed into stronger hands, 
 and almost invariably these old men are represented 
 as acquiescing, though with complaints, in the weak- 
 ness of their position, and submitting to much inso- 
 lence from foes and rivals. There seems no such 
 thing as a patient submission to an aged sovereign, 
 nor did his old experience, or the scars of former 
 battles, secure to him the allegiance of his people, 
 when his vigour had passed away. 
 
 It is easy to see the grounds of this harshness in 
 the Greek mind. Sentimentality was to them almost 
 unknown. In spite therefore of that respect which 
 they could not but feel for age, the violent nature of 
 Periclean politics, as well as the warlike temper of 
 earlier days, made vigour in their leaders an absolute 
 necessity. The nation was a stirring nation, always 
 seeking advance and enlargement in some direction, 
 and therefore not tolerant of the sleepy and effete 
 governments which are often popular, and still more 
 
 ' SXXriv ji^ iioi ra-jcb ni^ri. The habit of old men marrying again 
 after their children were grown up, was not uncommon. As might be 
 expected, they were often guilty of great folly on these occasions, and 
 selected very unsuitable and improper persons. 
 
VIIK] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE. 347 
 
 often tolerated, in modern Europe and among anti- 
 quated orientals. One terse line of Hesiod expresses 
 the Greek attitude in all history^: Work for youth, 
 counsel for maturity, prayers for old age — such are 
 the duties of life as expressed in this untranslateable 
 apophthegm. It was left for other nations, such as 
 the Chinese and ourselves, to tolerate, nay rather to 
 honour governors who are long past their usefulness, 
 to have great offices of trust filled by timid and hesi- 
 tating old men, whose incapacity often ruins great 
 interests, and breaks the hearts of the earnest workers 
 who see their way clearly, but cannot lead or com- 
 mand till the same terrible disease has dimmed their 
 vision, and made them in turn a burden and a drag 
 on the progress of a younger generation. 
 
 But in these safe and quiet times, we can afford 
 without absolute ruin generals and judges and 
 bishops whom five years of life like old Greek life 
 would sweep to the winds. The Periclean Athenians 
 were too acute to be imposed upon by the absurd, 
 but still potent maxim, that quantity of experience 
 in itself increases our wisdom ; they saw that when 
 maturity of age is passed, and the power of decision 
 begins to wane, this very burden of long experience 
 perplexes the mind, and engenders doubt and fear 
 instead of confidence. Euripides often puts forward 
 the ridiculous and feeble aspects of old age, and 
 makes them the comic element in his tragedies. 
 Thus Horace, painting his typical old man, doubtless 
 from Greek models, puts before us, not his venerable 
 
248 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 aspect, and his wise authority, but rather his weak- 
 ness and querulousness : — 
 
 ' Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda, vel quod 
 Quserit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet Uti : 
 Vel quod res omnes timide gelideque ministrat; 
 Dilator, spe longus, iners, avidusque futuri ; 
 Difficilis, querulUs, laudator temporis acti 
 Se puero, censor castigatotque minorum.' 
 
 It is but fair to urge these points in defence of 
 a hard feature in Greek life, which even reached such 
 a pitch, that by a law commonly acted upon, old men 
 could be brought into court by their children \ and if 
 found incapable of managing their property, it was 
 taken from them and transferred to their heirs. Such 
 an attitude of public opinion would go far to explain 
 the strange account given us of the old people in 
 Ceos, who when they came to the age of sixty or 
 upwards, and felt themselves growing useless, drank 
 hemlock, and left the world in which they were 
 becoming a mere incumbrance^- How desirable 
 
 ' Cf. Ar.Nf(^. 845. 
 
 ' Miiller, Frag Hist. ii. p. 214. In more barbarous nations, the same 
 results are attained, despite the want of public spirit in the old people, 
 who put their relations to the trouble of deciding the question of a rude 
 but effective test. Waitz, in his Anthropology (vol. v.) tells us of people 
 in Borneo, who when they think their elders have lived a reasonable 
 time, and show signs of decay, put them up into trees, and then dance 
 round the tree, shaking it violently, and singing in rude refrain ; ' The 
 fruit is ripe, the fruit is ripe, 'tis time for it to fall.' When the fruit does 
 accordingly fall, it is cooked and eaten. We are not informed what 
 happens when it does not. Probably the old man has proved his farther 
 usefulness by his literal and not figurative tenacity of life. The Chinese, 
 with the oldest civilisation in the world, and perhaps the most effete, 
 have gone into the other extreme even beyond ourselves, and honour 
 
VIII.] THE GREEKS OF THE ATTIC AGE, 249 
 
 would such a practice appear in some of our public 
 services and institutions ! 
 
 But though from the practical side it is possible to 
 offer these explanations, from the poetical we cannot 
 be surprised at the extreme horror of old age felt by 
 the Greek poets, how they loaded it with impreca- 
 tions, and reviled it as the most certain and most 
 awful of human miseries. With their keen love of 
 enjoyment, and appreciation of beauty, we can well 
 imagine how bitterly they felt the passing away of 
 youth, and on no subject have they at all times 
 spoken with more heartfelt utterance. I have spoken 
 above (p. 119) of this sentiment among the lyric 
 poets. Everybody knows the great chorus in Sopho- 
 cles' later CEdipus, which has been so often trans- 
 lated, and will ever be tempting other hands to essay 
 the mastery of its Protean beauties. I prefer to con- 
 clude this chapter with an English version of a less 
 known, but not less characteristic chorus, that in 
 Euripides' Hercules Furens on the miseries of old 
 age. I have again to thank my friend Professor 
 Webb for having translated it especially for this 
 place. It speaks the same language which we find 
 in Mimnermus, in Solon, in Theognis — that ingrained 
 horror of a keen sensitive race against the condition 
 of life which destroys beauty and mars enjoyment. 
 It is thus one of those passages in Euripides which 
 are in peculiar relation and in intimate sympathy 
 
 a man in direct proportion to his age. This seems to have been the case 
 in ancient Egypt also, as appears from various documents. (Cp. my 
 Prolegomena to Anc, Hist. p. 280.) 
 
250 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 with the whole nation, and which secured his wide- 
 spread and lasting fame : — 
 
 ' If the high Gods would give me a guerdon. 
 Be it youth ere its forces are fled; 
 For age is a wearisome burden. 
 An Aetna that lies on the head, • 
 A robe of the blackness of darkness, that over the eyelids is spread. 
 Tell me not of the Asian Tyrant, 
 
 Or of palaces plenished with gold ; 
 For such bliss I am not an aspirant. 
 If youth I might only behold — 
 For in weal 'tis a halo of glory, and in woe it is riches untold. 
 But sombre and stained as with slaughters 
 
 Old age is a thing I abhor; 
 Oh ! would it were swept o'er the waters 
 To plague home and city no more: 
 Oh 1 would it were swept through the Ether, and cast on some 
 nameless shore. 
 
 If the high Gods would only assert you 
 
 Their wisdom and goodness, I trow. 
 As the manifest impress of virtue 
 A renewal of youth they 'd bestow. 
 And the path of descent would revert, and restore the blest shades 
 from below. 
 
 And the dead and the living would mingle, 
 
 And bask in the beams of the sun ; 
 But the life of the bad would be single, 
 And the death of the wicked be one; 
 And there would be a symbol for ever, that the good from the evil 
 were known. 
 In the sky, though the cloud-rack may dim it, 
 
 Each star by the sailor is seen. 
 But the high Gods have fixed not a limit 
 The good and the evil between ; 
 And still as the tide of time floweth, wealth all that is noble 
 outgroweth.' 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ATTIC CULTURE. 
 
 I DO not think any strict subdivision into epochs 
 is necessary in a social point of view, when we have 
 once passed through the fever of the Periclean age. 
 To this I have above (p. 134) alluded. The century 
 which followed the collapse of the Athenian empire 
 was no doubt one of great political vicissitudes, seeing 
 that the centre of gravity in politics moved from 
 Sparta to Thebes, then perhaps to Athens, for a 
 moment to Phocis, and lastly to Macedonia. There 
 were doubtless grave changes also in literature and 
 in philosophy, but yet no revolution. The forms and 
 kinds of literary composition, as of the other arts, 
 were fixed for ever. The inventive genius of the 
 Greeks, which had allowed no previous century to 
 pass without new and strange developments, seems 
 now changed into a critical spirit, perfecting and de- 
 veloping the established types. Thus Menander, 
 Epicurus, and Demosthenes are the direct inhe- 
 ritors of the art of Aristophanes and Plato and 
 Pericles— tamed down, no doubt, in some respects, 
 and modified to suit lower politics and higher culture, 
 
252 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 but yet after all the same art, and addressed to almost 
 the same society. With the conquests of Alexander, 
 and the tumultuous epoch of the Diadochi, there 
 arose a really changed society; but this is beyond 
 our present scope, for these turbulent days have left 
 us few traces of their peaceful pursuits, amid the 
 dreary and confused annals of their wars and revo- 
 lutions, 
 
 I desire now to discuss Greek culture in its highest 
 development at Athens, and in the age when men 
 had learned to rate culture above the hard business 
 of politics, when in fact their highest social refine- 
 ment was built upon the ruins of their political 
 greatness. 
 
 The first point I would urge upon all those who 
 desire to form a true notion of Athenian culture in 
 these palmy days, is the limited size of the city, and 
 the fact that from the smallness of its population and 
 its habits of leisure, every man of any mark was 
 known to all the citizens, if not personally, at least 
 by name and character. ' It is impossible,' says 
 Hypereides in a speech written for Lycophron, 'for 
 any man to be either a miscreant or a man of good 
 character in this city, without all of you knowing it \' 
 It was in fact as to size a society far more like that of 
 Dublin or Edinburgh, than that of the vast modern 
 capitals, where even neighbours are perfect strangers, 
 and where a diversity of pursuit severs men more 
 
 ' Cp. Hypereides, pp. 28, 39, ed. Blass: KaBav fcip to ttX^Soi ri 
 bjifTtpov oiiK Hvi oire vovT]p6y tvra oiiSeva twv fv Tp iroKfT ovdi iirtfiinj^ 
 Cp. also Lysias, p. 177. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 253 
 
 effectually than miles of distance. Thus Socrates, 
 coming home from the campaign at Potidaea, is re- 
 presented, at the opening of Plato's Charmides, asking 
 eagerly what new beauties had appeared in the Gym- 
 nasia, just as we should ask what new belles had 
 appeared at the balls of the season in Dublin. He 
 takes it for granted that his friend will be sure to 
 have seen them, for at Athens they did not observe 
 the strict Spartan rule, which ordered that all who 
 came in to see the sports should either 'strip or 
 depart.' The appearance of Charmides is described 
 just as we describe the reigning belle at a flower 
 show — surrounded by a crowd of gentlemen in at- 
 tendance, and causing quite a sensation when she 
 comes in '. 
 
 So again at the opening of the Laches, there is 
 an old man introduced, who had been a friend of 
 Socrates' father Sophroniscus, but who, living in an 
 uneducated set of people, has lost sight of Socrates. 
 He has however constantly heard his sons and their 
 friends talking of him, and is quite surprised that it 
 never struck him that Socrates might be the son of 
 his old neighbour^. 
 
 I think this limited size of Athens — a feature which 
 both Plato and Aristotle seem anxious to retain in 
 
 • See Jowett's Plato, vol. i. pp. 8-10. 
 
 ' Prof. Jowett {Plato, i. p. 74) draws exactly the wrong inference 
 from this passage. He takes it to imply that this old man has never 
 heard of Socrates. This is exactly what the old man (p. 79, Jowett) 
 does not say. He says he has constantly heard of him, but did not 
 before meet him, being in a different set. 
 
354 SOCIAL GREECE:. [CH. 
 
 their ideal commonwealths — had a marked effect in 
 producing a certain unity and harmony in Athenian 
 culture. It was like that uniformity of type, pro- 
 duced in such a society as the old Universities of 
 our own day, where the men are not too many to 
 be in some sort influenced by one another, and all 
 to attain, amid decided differences, a certain same- 
 ness, which though undefinable, strikes every intelli- 
 gent observer. In art we may find something similar 
 in the effect of residence at Rome on a painter or 
 sculptor, perhaps a still closer analogy would be the 
 society of painters and literary men gathered to- 
 gether in Munich by that modem Pericles (as to 
 art) King Ludwig I. In such societies, where master 
 spirits can really reach and influence the whole 
 mass, there arises an uniform standard of criticism, 
 recognised laws of taste, and a form at least in 
 art and literature secured from rudeness and extrava- 
 gance. 
 
 There is no greater contrast between Greek and 
 modern civilisation tjian this, and no plainer cause 
 of the greater perfection of Greek culture in some 
 respects — I mean the severance of cultivated Greeks 
 into separate small cities, like the Bonn, Weimar, 
 and Dresden of former Germany, where intellectual 
 life gathered about independent centres, and where 
 men were not, as they now are in Great Britain and 
 France, looking ever to an overgrown capital, and 
 in vain, for standards of perfection. 
 
 When we read the comedies of Aristophanes, or 
 even the dialogues of Plato, we feel that they were 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 255 
 
 addressed to the whole of Athens, though also to a 
 highly intelligent audience, and so it is that modern 
 historians have come to attribute so extraordinary 
 an average culture to the Athenians. An authority 
 on old Greek history says\ and in my opinion 
 rightly, that the average intelligence of the assembled 
 Athenian citizens was higher than that of our House 
 of Commons. Without doubt each citizen, at all 
 events, lived in an atmosphere far more stimulating 
 than that in which our mercantile members are 
 brought up. He enjoyed the contemplation of the 
 highest art, the performance of the greatest tragedies, 
 the delivery of the most refined orations. He and 
 his fellows were all exercised as jurymen in deciding 
 political and social disputes, nay even in awarding the 
 prizes for tragedies and comedies. Nor do I find any 
 trace of that severance of amusements which is one 
 of the saddest features of modern life, where refined 
 art and high excellence are only exhibited under 
 such restrictions (especially pecuniary) as to exclude 
 the masses, which are now so brutalised that they 
 require a separate literature, as well as a separate 
 art, if art it can be called, to amuse them in their 
 rapidly increasing leisure. We hear of no Liberties, 
 or Seven Dials, at Athens. We hear of no hells, 
 or low music halls, or low dancing saloons. Even 
 such vice as existed was chiefly refined and gentle- 
 manly. 
 
 I fancy that to some extent this was due to a 
 fortunate accident in the situation of Athens. The 
 
 ' Freeman, Hist, of Federal Goruernment, i, p. 37 sqq. 
 
256 SOCIAL GREECE. [CII. 
 
 refinement of the people theniselves was of course 
 the great and primary cause, but nevertheless we 
 should not forget to notice how circumstances co- 
 operated. I allude to the separation of the sea port 
 of Athens, the Peiraeus, by four miles from the city. 
 The character of the sailor mob, the vavriKos oxKos, 
 which dwelt there, is plainly enough indicated in 
 scattered hints throughout the literature of the day. 
 Thus in Plato's Phcedrus ^ the ' haunts of sailors ' are 
 spoken of as a place where good manners are un- 
 known. Even the merchant ship-captains are spoken 
 of in another place {Laws, iv. p. 165) as of low social 
 standing, and on a level with retail shopkeepers. 
 Later on in the same dialogue (p. 226) there is a 
 striking passage on the character of sea towns, which, 
 as I believe Plato had the Peiraeus before his mind, 
 I shall here quote. ' Had you been on the sea, and 
 well provided with harbours, and an importing rather 
 than a producing country, some mighty saviour would 
 have been needed, and lawgivers more than mortal, 
 if you were to have a chance of preserving your state 
 from degeneracy and discordance of manners. . . . 
 The sea is . pleasant enough as a daily companion, 
 but has also a bitter and brackish quality, filling 
 the streets with merchants and shopkeepers, and be- 
 getting in the souls of men uncertain and unfaithful 
 ways — making the state unfriendly and unfaithful 
 both to her own citizens, and also to other nations.' 
 
 To this description may be added the striking 
 passage in the Critias, where the <iin and noise of 
 • Jowett i. p. 577. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 
 
 '•01 
 
 the harbour in his Utopia is evidently borrowed from 
 the sea-port he knew so well. ' The entire area was 
 densely crowded with habitations, and the canal and 
 the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and 
 of merchants coming from all parts, who, from their 
 numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human 
 voices and din of all sorts night and day.' Aris- 
 tophanes describes with great vigour the Peirseus 
 when an expedition was ordered out {Acharn. 54 
 sqq.) :— 
 
 'You would have launched at once three hundred galleys, 
 And filled the city with a noise of troops : 
 And crews of ships, crowding and clamouring 
 About the muster-masters and pay-masters ; 
 With measuring com out at the magazine, 
 And all the porch choked with the multitude; 
 With figures of Minerva newly furbished, 
 Painted and gilt, parading in the streets ; 
 And wineskins, kegs, and firkins, leeks, and onions; 
 With garlic crammed in pouches, nets, and pokes ; 
 With garlands, singing girls, and bloody noses. 
 Our arsenal would have sounded and resounded, 
 With bangs and thwacks of driving bolts and nails, 
 With shaping oar^, and holes to put the oar in ; 
 With hacking, hammering, clattering, and boring. 
 Words of command, whistles, and pipes, and fifes '.' 
 
 1 Frere, iii. p. 27. Among the various characters that thronged the 
 quays, Heracleides Ponticus (Athen. xii. 5, § 2) speaks of a certain 
 Axoneus, ' who was subject to this peculiar madness, that he thought 
 all the ships that came into the Peirjeus were his own, and so he 
 wrote down their names, and sent them out, and directed them, and 
 hailed them when they arrived with all the joy of a man who was 
 possessed of all this wealth. Of those that were lost he took no 
 account, while he delighted in those that came in safe, and so he lived 
 in great contentment But when his brother Crito, having come over 
 
 S 
 
258 SOCIAL GREECE. . [CH. 
 
 I think this accident, as I call it, of Athens being 
 situated some miles from the sea, which is rather the 
 consequence of its being a very ancient site, when 
 men were as yet afraid to venture down from the hill 
 forts to the seaboard, for fear of piracy — this feature 
 was of great importance in keeping the society of 
 Athens pure and refined. No doubt there was con- 
 stant intercourse with the port, there was always 
 business-traffic, there were often shows and pro- 
 cessions which brought crowds from either town to 
 the other, rich men possessed houses in each, nay the 
 road between the long walls was so recognised a 
 promenade for Athenians, that Plato speaks of it' 
 as ' made for conversation.' Yet, notwithstanding, 
 the populations were evidently quite distinct ; there 
 were even distinct boards of magistrates for the 
 Peirseus, as we can see from the fragments of 
 Aristotle's Politeiai ; there was a distinct tone of life, 
 and probably a distinct society. So then a certain 
 aristocratic flavour must have ever dwelt about the 
 Athenian, and led to a general feeling of selectness 
 and refinement. 
 
 Acting in unison with this special feature, was that 
 other general one, which applies to all Greek towns 
 — I mean the existence of a large class of slaves to 
 do all the drudgery of life, and to leave the domi- 
 nant class free for higher pursuits and higher amuse- 
 on a visit from Sicily, brought liim to a physician, and had him cured, 
 he used to say he had never spent a happier time, for he had felt no 
 troubles, but an excess of pleasures.' 
 ' Symposium, Jowett i. 490. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 259 
 
 ments. Thus it is that the Athenian people had such 
 leisure to pursue politics, and when their empire 
 diminished, to pursue art and literature. The 
 characters in Plato's Dialogues always seem to have 
 time at their disposal, they seem to spend but little 
 care upon any professional or private concerns they 
 are in fact wholly devoted to conversation and society. 
 It must not be forgotten that Socrates was specially, 
 and I believe justly, criticised by his contemporaries^ 
 for encouraging among young men these vices of 
 talking and of idleness, Ae'trxT/s repirvov Kamv. as 
 Euripides calls it. Yet he could never have created 
 this peculiarity, and had he attempted his peremptory 
 ' Ancient Mariner ' habits of stopping men in a really 
 busy place, such as our modern Liverpool or Man- 
 chester, he would doubtless have been rudely thrust 
 aside, even by intellectual merchants. 
 
 But one of the leading features of Attic culture 
 
 was thexLontempt ol^irade-Vfr indeed of any occu- 
 
 > — 
 
 ' Cp. Meineke, i. p. 287, and among the mkldle comic poets Amphis 
 (iii. 301), Ephippus (p. 332), Epicrates and Alexis perpetually. In the 
 old comedy cp. Arist. Ran. 1410, and Eupolis ^Mein. ii. 553). 
 
 " This feeling was of course even more strongly developed in the aris- 
 tocratic cities of Greece. It was a law at Thebes, says Aristotle {Pol. 
 vi..4), 'that a man could not hold office for ten years after he had been 
 in trade (direffxvi^'""' ''?' ayopds). The Thessalians went farther, and 
 had an e\ev6€pa dyopcL, a free meeting place, where no mechanic (^d- 
 vavaov) or field labourer {yiapybv) could enter without being specially 
 summoned by the magistrates. In Plato's PAterfrus (Jowett i. 582) there 
 is a scale of professions, which shows his opinion clearly, but seems 
 otherwise untrustworthy as a general index : (i) philosophers, artists, 
 and musicians ; (2) kings and warriors ; (3) politicians, economists, and 
 traders ; (4) gymnasts and physicians ; (5) prophets and hierophants ; 
 
 S 3 
 
26p SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 pation which so absorbed a man as to deprive him 
 of ample leisure. Though architects were men of 
 great position, and obtained large fees, yet in Plato's 
 Gorgias we have even so intellectual a trade as that 
 of an engineer despised, and in Aristotle's Politics 
 (p. 1 340) we find the philosopher with deeper wisdom 
 censuring the habit of aiming at perfection in instru- 
 mental music, as lowering to the mind, and turning 
 the free gentleman into a slavish handicraftsman. 
 Possibly we may have this feeling rather strongly 
 represented by aristocratic writers, like Plato and 
 Aristophanes, who felt hurt at tradesmen coming 
 forward prominently in politics ; but the tone of 
 Athenian life is too marked in this respect, to let 
 us mistake the fact\ Hence came the favour and 
 indulgence shown to handsome aristocrats like 
 Alcibiades, hence too the excesses of men like De- 
 mosthenes' opponent Meidias, who evidently trusted 
 to this sentiment, whie'rlTfhovjglii djstinetly repressed 
 by the strie-t-TTnpaftietUty of Athenian law, yet swayed 
 the juries, and ofte.n retarded or mitigated a just 
 sentence. 
 
 Considering then this leisure, and considering the 
 selectness of Athenian society — which was not only 
 free from the vulgar and turbulent classes, but was 
 
 (6) poets and imitators; (7) artisans and husbandmen; (8) and (9) 
 are classes whom he personally hates. In the Laws he classes retail 
 traders and captains of merchantmen together. 
 
 ' Mr. Striibing {Aristoph. und die Kritik, p. 235) shows that a wealthy 
 middle class could not arise till the trade of Athens developed on sea. 
 Hence these people were despised by the old landed gentry. Plato 
 repeatedly speaks of the captains of merchant ships as a low class. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 261 
 
 not burdened with an aristocracy of mere birth, 
 overriding that of intellect — we have before us in 
 Plato's Dialogues, and in the numerous fragments of 
 the Middle and New Comedy, a life not inferior to 
 the best society of our own day. The instances of 
 delicate tact and of graceful refinement in Plato's 
 Dialogues especially are so numerous that there is 
 great difficulty in making choice among them. Thus 
 as to deportment, in the Lysis, and indeed elsewhere, 
 we find it held impolite either to whisper or to 
 monopolise attention in company \ On the other 
 hand, loud talking or hurried walking was thought 
 equally improper — I need only mention the frequent 
 apology of the Messengers in the Tragedies, that 
 they had important reasons for coming daaaov rj f/." 
 iXPV"^- Of course rudeness and violence in con- 
 versation were not less censured than in outward 
 demeanour, and nothing pleases us more in the 
 Platonic or Xenophontic Socrates than the gentleness 
 and irony with which he meets and quiets the few 
 opponents who lose their temper, and attack him 
 with impolite vehemence. 
 
 We have indeed in the fragments of Aristoxenus, 
 a very serious authority, grave charges against Socrates 
 himself for this very infirmity of violence in temper. 
 
 ' E. g. Sophist (iii. 476) : ' I feel ashamed, Socrates, upon coming into 
 a new society, instead of quietly conversing, to be spinning out a long 
 oration, -which even if adapted to another, would seem a kind of 
 display.' 
 
 ' Thus Sophocles, /r. 234 b (ed. Dind.) : 
 
 *ns vvv Taxos ffTfixtufiCv, ov ydp €<76' oirws 
 anovS^s SiKaias fivfios dij/eTai irorc. 
 
263 SOCIAL GREECE. [ch; 
 
 But though I have great faith in Aristoxenus' serious-' 
 ness, it seems hard to reconcile his statement, 
 which he bases on direct information from a friend 
 of Socrates, with the evidence of Xenophon, whose 
 reahstic and historical account of Socrates agrees 
 with Plato's ideal picture. However, the exact 
 truth as to Socrates really matters little from our 
 point of view. There can be no doubt as to what 
 Plato thought admirable, and what he required from 
 a perfect gentleman in society. Whether attributed 
 rightly to Socrates or not, the very prominence of 
 these features in any ideal sketch shows the estima- 
 tion in which they were held. 
 
 There is a very different point suggested by the 
 death of Socrates, which proves the refined culture 
 of the Athenians from another side. It is an uni- 
 versal contrast between civilised and semi-civilised 
 societies (not to speak of barbarians), that the pen- 
 alty of death, when legally incurred, is in the former 
 carried out without cruelty and torture, whereas in the 
 latter the victim of the law is farther punished by 
 insults and by artificial pains. The punishments 
 devised by kings and barons in the middle ages, 
 the hideous torments devised by the Church for the 
 bodies of those whose souls were doomed to even 
 worse for ever and ever — these cases will occur to 
 any reader from the history of semi-civilised nations. 
 It will not perhaps strike him that our own country 
 was hardly better even in the present century, and 
 that the formula now uttered by the judge in sen- 
 tencing to death suggests by its very wording hor- 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 263 
 
 rible cruelties threatened almost within the memory 
 of living men. ' That you be hanged by the neck, 
 till you are dead^ points to the form uttered in the 
 courts of Dublin within this century in cases of high 
 treason, though not then literally carried out. It 
 ran thus : 'It is therefore ordered by the Court 
 that they and each of them be taken from the bar 
 of the Court where they now stand, to the place 
 from whence they came — the gaol : that their irons 
 be there stricken off, that they be from thence car- 
 ried to the common place of execution, the gallows ; 
 and that there they and each of them be hanged by 
 the neck, but not until they be dead, for whilst they are 
 yet alive, they are to be taken down, their entrails are 
 to be taken out of their body, and whilst they are 
 yet alive, they are to be burned before their faces ; 
 their heads are then to be respectively cut off : their 
 bodies to be respectively divided into four quarters; 
 and their respective heads and bodies to be at His 
 Majesty's disposal V 
 
 Let us now compare these formulae, used by the 
 most cultivated and humane European nation in the 
 
 * I quote this from the original warrant issued for the execution (for 
 high treason) of Henry and John Sheares in July 1 798, now in the pos- 
 session of my friend Mr. T. T. Gray, of Trin. Coll. Dublin. The same 
 form was of course used in 1803, in the case of Emmett, and may be the 
 legal form now, for all I know. I cannot ascertain whether it was 
 carried out literally since the Restoration. In the Sheares' case the 
 decapitation on the gallows was, I think, the only addition to the hang- 
 ing, for these men were buried in S. Michan's Church, and were to be 
 seen, with their heads beside them, in good preservation about twenty- 
 five years ago. 
 
264 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 nineteenth century, with the enactments of the 
 Athenian democracy four hundred years before 
 Christ. In the first place, there was no penalty per- 
 mitted severer than a quiet and painless death. 
 There were no antecedent insults and cruelties, no 
 aggravations, no exhibitions before a heartless and 
 ribald mob. Even in his day, Herodotus, in describ- 
 ing the death of Artayctes (ix. 120), evidently re- 
 gards the manner of it as required for a special 
 atonement to the hero Protesilaus. In the next 
 generation care had even been taken to ascertain 
 the most easy and gentle death, as Xenophon dis- 
 tinctly implies {Apol. Socr. § 7), and for this reason 
 death by poisoning with hemlock was introduced — 
 at what exact period we cannot say. Here again 
 the Athenians were in advance even of the present 
 day, when death by hanging, in the hands of ignorant 
 and careless officials, is often a slow death, and a 
 death of torture ^ But all this is to my mind far 
 less significant than the manner of Athenian execu- 
 tions, as compared with those even of our day. We 
 have fortunately in Plato's Phczdo a detailed account 
 of this scene, which, however imaginary as to the 
 conversations introduced, must have lost all its dra- 
 matic propriety and force to Plato's contemporaries, 
 had not the details been reproduced from life with 
 faithful accuracy. 
 
 There is I think in all Greek literature no scene 
 
 ' This has been shown by the researches of my friend Prof. Haughton, 
 who has indicated the means of avoiding such results. Cp. his Animal 
 Mechanics, p. 7 sqq. 
 
I-X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 265 
 
 which ought to make us more ashamed of our boasted 
 Christian culture. The condemned, on the day of 
 execution, was freed from his chains, and allowed 
 to have his family and friends present in his cell, 
 as they had already been during the nights of his 
 imprisonment \ I suppose the state would then have 
 been slow to build great gloomy fortresses, whose 
 massive walls and iron gates mock the prisoners' 
 attempts, and render chains an idle precaution and 
 an additional cruelty. At all events, the chances of 
 escape, considering the many, friends who ■visited the 
 prisoners, were such as to render them necessary ^ ; 
 yet I feel very sure that any one who could try 
 both alternatives would without hesitation choose 
 the chains of the Athenian prison, in preference to 
 the solitude and gloom of the modern cell. 
 
 The condemned then was left with his family and 
 friends, to make his arrangements and bequests, to 
 give his last directions, to comfort and to be com- 
 forted by those dearest to him. When the hour of 
 death approached, the jailor came in, and left the 
 cup of poison with the victim, giving him directions 
 how to take it, and merely adding that it must be 
 done before a certain hour. He then retired and 
 left the prisoner in his last moments to the care of 
 
 ' This appears from Andocides, p. 20. 
 
 ° There is evidence in Lysias (pp. 67, 100) that escape from an im- 
 pending sentence was openly recognised. It is evident that exile vpas 
 in itself regarded a penalty sufficient for grave crimes, and one which 
 most people would not accept, if there was any chance of an acquittal. 
 However, the Eleven used to issue a Hue and Cry pioclamation, when 
 any one escaped. 
 
265 SOCIAL GREECE. [erf. 
 
 his friends. They sat about him as life gradually 
 ebbed away, and closed his eyes in peace. In the 
 absence of contrary evidence, it is certain that his 
 body was restored to his relatives, when death had 
 been officially testified, and the funeral obsequies 
 were decently and privately performed by his family. 
 The omission of any direct mention of them in 
 Socrates' case, shows that public and ostentatious 
 mourning was not allowed, while on the other hand, 
 had the body been buried without ceremony or cast 
 into the harathrum, Socrates would not have omitted 
 to argue against the supposed injury which such 
 treatment was held to inflict on the deceased, and 
 show that the moral laws of God could not allow the 
 dead to be punished for the acts of the living. 
 
 As this interesting question has not been discussed, 
 so far as I know, by Greek antiquaries, I may observe 
 that though in Socrates' case (who speaks of saving' 
 the women trouble by taking a bath before his death) 
 and in the case of several victims of the thirty ty- 
 rants, who were put to death merely for the sake of 
 their property, the bodies of the executed were given 
 back to their relatives, yet we have other cases men- 
 tioned by Lysias, when there was added to the simple 
 sentence of death the refusal of funeral rites, and there 
 was a place outside Athens, probably the barathrum, 
 also called opvyfia, where the bodies were cast out, 
 having been carried out from prison by the Upa ■nvXt], or 
 accursed gate \ It appears that in cases of public in- 
 
 ' This gives the point of the Stupid Man's answer in the Characters 
 (pseudo-Theophrastus?), when asked how many corpses had been 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE, 267 
 
 dignation against a culprit this harsh proceeding was 
 carried out (below, p. 391), the psephism of Cannonus 
 makes treason an offence for which it should be in- 
 flicted. It also appears that those convicted by an 
 eto-ayyeAi'a were refused burial in Attic soil, and this 
 was probably a humane or sanitary substitute for 
 casting into the barathrum. If this be so, we may 
 suppose that the additional penalty was inflicted ac- 
 cording to some precedent, if not according to some 
 strong feeling, outside the strict letter of the law, which 
 commanded death only '- 
 
 Let us compare all this humane and kindly feeling 
 with the gauntness and horror of our modern execu- 
 tions, as detailed to us with morbid satisfaction by 
 the daily newspapers. We are informed that the 
 prisoner's relatives came to see him the previous 
 evening, but were not allowed to stay with him 
 during the last dread hours of his life — during that 
 awful silence of the night, when each tolling hour 
 reminds him of the march of time, and when loneli- 
 ness and desolation, following upon the tears and 
 the sympathy of those who are torn from him, seem 
 
 carried out througli this gate. Mr. Jebb (p. 115) translates 'Sacred 
 Gate,' and is evidently puzzled by the passage, which other editors have 
 endeavoured to amend, from an ignorance of the true meaning of the 
 phrase. This is due to C. Wachsmuth {Stadt Athen. i. 346), who is 
 more doubtful about it than he need have been. 
 
 ' The facts above stated follow partly from a comparison of the 
 following passages in Lysias, pp. 79, 80, 92, 94, and 143, ed. Teubner. 
 Mr. H. Hager has since shown {Journal of Phil., viii. 1-13) further 
 evidence on this interesting point. It is not discussed in the books upon 
 Greek antiquities with which I am familiar. Cp. also Hypereides, Pap. 
 Arden. col. xvi. 
 
263 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 as it were so pre-arranged as, if possible, to drive him 
 mad. Sometimes, if the chaplain be very zealous, 
 these awful hours are relieved by religious exercises, 
 in which the danger of hell and the heinous nature 
 of sin are so prominently put before him, that God's 
 mercy, if extended to him, is held a miracle, and 
 God's vengeance the natural and proper issue of his 
 evil life. If he has fallen asleep from the exhaustion 
 of despair or of long devotions, he is roused in the gray 
 morning by the jailor and told to prepare for death 
 at that hour of the day when the spirits are most de- 
 pressed, when the temperature is most comfortless, 
 and when we hear with surprise that he ' partook of a 
 hearty breakfast.' I cannot bring myself to follow 
 out the hideous details farther. The pinioning, the 
 procession, the crying of the anxious chaplain for 
 Divine mercy, the masked executioner — there is no 
 single detail which is not hideous and harrowing. 
 Were not the old Greeks vastly superior? Even their 
 very executioner, instead of being a masked villain, 
 who shuns the light of day, is a respectable and 
 kindly official, of whom Socrates speaks with great 
 friendliness, and who sheds tears at the execution of 
 the sentence, remarking how rationally and amiably 
 Socrates had behaved. He adds an interesting 
 trait of manners, that many prisoners were wont to 
 curse him when he brought in the poison, and exe- 
 crate him as if he were the author of his misfor- 
 tunes ; and yet he seems to have borne all this, and 
 to have been a respectable and respected member of 
 society. This social position of the executioner, as 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 269 
 
 well as the whole scene in Socrates' prison, is the 
 greatest proof I know in Greek literature of a culture 
 exceeding in refinement and humanity that of our 
 own day. 
 
 But to any one who compares the Platonic with the 
 Periclean generation, there will gradually come into 
 sight a greater gentleness and softness, a toning down 
 of the hard features, a nearer approach to the greater 
 humanity of Christian teaching. It was impossible 
 that this should not be. The fearful civil war, in- 
 creasing yearly in cruelty and heartlessness, ended 
 with the most horrible massacre in Greek history^ 
 the cold-blooded execution of three thousand Athe- 
 nian prisoners at ^gospotami. We are told that the 
 Athenian general Philocles, who was the first to 
 suffer, had proposed, if not carried a vote, to ampu- 
 tate the right thumbs of all the prisoners taken by 
 Athens, in order that they might henceforth be unable 
 to wield the spear, and be only fit for rowing. 
 
 After all this barbarity, Athens was conquered, and 
 obliged to turn for years to her internal concerns. So 
 there arose a new generation, not nurtured amid raid 
 and rapine, but taught to live at home ; to learn from 
 the lips of the great teachers who had been hitherto 
 more admired than obeyed ; above all to live in re- 
 conciliation with political foes, and to feel that even 
 civil strife should be forgotten, and that men who had 
 stood behind lines of hostile shields, and met one 
 another with the spear's point, could settle down into 
 quiet and orderly citizens. The great misfortunes of 
 the state had taught the Athenians that citizen life 
 
270 SOCIAL GREECE. [en. 
 
 was too precious to be poured out in wrath, and so we 
 see with wonder and respect the restored democracy 
 passing their great Act of Amnesty, whereby as the 
 orators assure us, many murderers and other mis- 
 creants of the deepest dye were enabled to come back 
 to the city, and live under the eyes of their victims' 
 families \ 
 
 I do not remember in any of the later wars atro- 
 cities such as those which we have discussed hitherto. 
 Xenophon tells us that Agesilaus, after the fearful 
 struggle with the Thebans at Coronea, received the 
 news, when lying wounded, that eighty Thebans were 
 cut off from the rest, and had taken refuge in a neigh- 
 bouring temple with their arms. He ordered them to 
 be escorted in safety to their camp. For he was wont 
 to exhort his soldiers at all times 'that prisoners 
 in war were not personal enemies,' and should not 
 be treated with cruelty. Still earlier, the noble Cal- 
 licratidas had inaugurated the same high principles, 
 and refused to sell as slaves the Greeks whom he 
 had captured. Under Epaminondas, under Iphicrates, 
 
 ' This is sometimes the case in Ireland, where cold-blooded murderers 
 return, through the clemency of the English Government, and re- 
 sume their residence near the scene of their crime. An Irish judge 
 once told me that on a journey he suddenly found himself sitting 
 opposite a man whom he had himself sentenced to be hanged some 
 few years previously. There is, indeed, one contrast between Athens 
 and Ireland. At Athens the i etumed miscreant was in disgrace, and 
 apparently often threatened and molested. In Ireland it is the returned 
 murderer who threatens the remaining members of his victim's family, 
 and tells them ' he will serve them the same way, even if he was to get 
 t^uo years for ill' 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 271 
 
 and under Phocion, we hear of no massacre of prisoners, 
 and though the enslaving of women and children 
 was still common, yet we hear from Demosthenes 
 and ^schines how sad a sight the gangs of slaves 
 from Olynthus appeared when passing into Greece — 
 a feeling unknown in the Peloponnesian war. The 
 extreme barbarities of war had passed away with the 
 cruel Lysander. 
 
 I must add, however, that here as elsewhere, in 
 Greek benevolence, duty chanced to coincide speci- 
 ally with interest. When wars came to be carried 
 on chiefly by mercenaries, all extremities in treat- 
 ment of the vanquished in battle must necessarily 
 be abandoned. For these men will only fight on 
 such terms, and though they will stand the chance 
 pf battle, they cannot in fairness be supposed to 
 participate in the personal hates which have given 
 rise to the struggle. The aversion which the Spartan 
 felt for the Athenian could not in fairness be trans- 
 ferred to his paid representative — more especially 
 when this representative would take service for 
 money against his old employer, and become useful 
 to his captor. Thus mercenary wars, for many in- 
 dependent reasons, cannot be carried on except on 
 terms of reasonable humanity to the vanquished 
 army, and this circumstance cooperated with the 
 growth of real humanity and justice in the Greek 
 mind '. 
 
 ' Cf. Plutarch, Pelop. and Marcelli Comp., also Timol. capp. 20, 80. 
 Prof. Barlow suggests an interesting parallel, which he copied for me 
 from Ordericus Vitalis (xii. 18). This author, in describing a battle 
 
2 72 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 There are indeed not wanting hints that in private 
 hfe men had not attained to the Christian or modern 
 sentiment of regard for life. The cool way in which 
 Plato in his Republic (p. 461) speaks of exposing 
 children, shows that, as we should expect, with the 
 increase of luxury and the decay of the means of 
 satisfying it, the destruction of infants came more 
 and more into fashion. What can be more painfully 
 affecting than the practice implied by Socrates, when 
 he is comparing himself to a midwife {ThecBt. 151 B) : 
 ' And if I abstract and expose your firstborn, because 
 I discover that the conception you have formed is 
 a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me, as the manner 
 of women is, when tlieir first children are taken from 
 them. For I have actually known some men ready 
 to bite me when first I deprived them of a darling 
 folly.' So then after the exposure of a first child, 
 the unfortunate mother became comparatively recon- 
 ciled to it ! Is this what he implies ? 
 
 Again, at the opening of the Euthyphro there is 
 a story told, which is not intended to be anything 
 exceptional, and which shows that the free labourer, 
 or dependent, had not bettered his position since the 
 days when Achilles cited him (p. 65) as the most 
 miserable creature upon earth. ' Now the man who 
 is dead,' says Euthyphro, ' was a poor dependent of 
 
 between Henry I of England and Louis VI of France observes : ' In the 
 battle between the two kings, in which nearly 900 knights were engaged, 
 I have ascertained that three only were slain. This arose from their 
 being covered with steel armour, atid muhially sparing each other for the 
 fear of God, and out of regard for the fraternity of arms' 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 273 
 
 mine who worked for us as a [free] field-labourer at 
 Naxos, and one day, in a fit of drunken passion, he 
 got into a quarrel with one of our domestic servants 
 [slaves] and slew him. My father bound him hand 
 and foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent 
 to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with 
 him. Meantime he had no care or thought of him, 
 deeming him a murderer, and that even if he did 
 die there would be no great harm. And this was 
 just what happened. For such was the effect of cold 
 and hunger and chains upon him, that before the 
 messenger returned from the diviner, he was dead. 
 And my father and family are angry with me . for 
 taking the part of the murderer and prosecuting my 
 father.' I greatly fear that such doings were not 
 uncommon, and that the treatment of poor members 
 of the subject' cities by Athenians was not so gentle 
 as Mr. Grote would make us believe '. Neverthe- 
 less when we remember the absence of wholesale 
 massacres, and the humanity of Agesilaus to the 
 wounded and to little children, even in war, isolated 
 cases of cruelty will not overthrow the assertion of 
 a real improvement ; and so capital a fact as the 
 amnesty of Eucleides at Athens shows plainly that 
 the moral teaching of Euripides, of Socrates, and of 
 the more lofty Sophists, was making sure and silent 
 progress. 
 
 ' Cp. above, p. 241, on the question of torture, to which I may add 
 jEschines against Ctes. § 234. Cope's attempt {Introd. ioRket. p. 201) 
 to make out Aristotle as disapproving torture is wholly unwarrantable. 
 Meanwhile the reader who will compare Isocrates (p. 73 D), will see what a 
 terrible visitation to a subject-city an Athenian man-of-war usually proved. 
 
 T 
 
274 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Let us turn from war to domestic life, and con- 
 sider our great test point — the social position of 
 women. 
 
 The ideal pictures of Euripides — Alcestis, Macaria, 
 Polyxena, Iphigenia — these were dwelling in the 
 minds of the people. The teaching of Aspasia, if 
 we are to believe Xenophon {CBcon. p. 14) and the 
 Socratic ^schines S was directed chiefly to the duties 
 of husbands and wives, and to the bettering of the 
 social position of Athenian ladies. There can be 
 no doubt that the large sympathies of the great 
 Socrates led him in the same direction. Thus the 
 question of women's rights came up at Athens long 
 before Plato's RepiMic was written, and before Plato 
 had even begun to write. Our earliest hints of its 
 existence are not only these allusions to Aspasia, 
 which are few and obscure, but the curious play of 
 Aristophanes called the Ecclesidzuscz, brought out 
 some years after the close of the great war, and ridi- 
 culing some scheme or schemes of society strikingly 
 similar to the theories of Plato. Of course, the picture 
 of Aristophanes was intended to be a gross exaggera- 
 tion. He contemplates the women leaving their hus- 
 bands at home, and going in male attire to the agora, 
 to make laws and reform the state. Amid all his 
 ridicule this seems plain, that the success of the play 
 presupposes an audience whose minds had been exer- 
 cised about these social questions. The female sex, 
 hitherto tlQ\.i3\i,ivov SeSoikos koi (tkotuvov Qt\v — ' accus- 
 tomed to live cowed and in obscurity' — was distinctly 
 
 ' Quoted by Cicero, de Inventione, i. § 31. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 275 
 
 claiming, and giving rise to claims for, a better con- 
 dition. 
 
 We see the same attitude in Xenophon's remarkable 
 tract on Domestic Economy, strangely ignored by our 
 scholars, yet containing perhaps the most complete 
 picture we have of the duties of a model Greek 
 gentleman, and of what might be made of a young 
 Greek wife brought up in the ordinary way. In the 
 dialogue Socrates represents himself as having heard 
 all about it from a man of high position and repute 
 named Ischomachus, who had trained his own wife, 
 and managed his house with such success as to be 
 pointed to at Athens for a model of a KokoKayaQo^ or 
 'gentleman.' This very term implies a change in 
 social views, when we compare it with the utterances 
 of the earlier literature. It implies that combination 
 of breeding {h.yo.Qoi) and culture {koKos) which we re- 
 quire in our own aristocracy, and which was admired, 
 but not, I fancy, insisted upon, in earlier days. But 
 to return to our dialogue. 
 
 ' I should like to know this particularly from you,' 
 says Socrates, 'whether you yourself educated your 
 wife so as to make her what she ought to be, or 
 whether you received her from her parents with a 
 knowledge of her duties .' ' 'And how could. I have 
 received her so educated, Socrates, when she came to 
 me not fifteen years old, and had lived up to that 
 time under the strictest surveillance, that she might 
 see as little as possible, and hear as little as possible, 
 and enquire as little as possible. For surely you 
 would not be content with her knowing merely how 
 
 T a 
 
%"](} SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 to weave wool into a garment, and how to weigh out 
 the materials to her maids. But I must observe that 
 in matters of cookery she came to me very well 
 trained, a part of education which seems to me ex- 
 tremely important both for men and women.' 
 
 I call attention to this curious remark, showing 
 how the society of Xenophon had already felt what 
 our middle classes are only of late beginning to find 
 out, namely, that a competent knowledge of cookery 
 in the mistress of a house is necessary for comfort 
 and culture. There are certainly more respectable 
 houses in Ireland disgraced by their dinner table than 
 in any other way, and I hold with the Greeks, that 
 rudeness in this particular is a good index of general 
 want of refinement. It was the first duty of the 
 mythical tamers of savage men to amend them in 
 this respect : 
 
 'Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum 
 Caedibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus, 
 Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres rabidosque leones.* 
 
 ' In heaven's name, then,' says Socrates, ' tell me 
 how you first began to teach her; there is nothing 
 I should so much like to hear.' ' Well, then,' answers 
 Ischomachus, ' when she had become used to my 
 hand, and had become tame enough to carry on a 
 conversation \ I began to ask her some such question 
 
 ' I feel quite at a loss to render in English the forcible and affecting 
 expressions of the original, «7r«i ffim /wi xuftyqBrjs ?i/ ical hrfnBcuiafvTo, 
 Siare SioXiyeaBcu. He speaks of the young creature as of a scared 
 wild animal which only grew tame after some period of confinement 
 and of kind treatment. This is the prose side to the fine writmg of 
 the poets about Hymenseus, and about the joys of the nuptial state. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 277 
 
 as this : Have you ever thought, lady, what was in- 
 tended by your parents and by me in making this 
 marriage? Was it not that both you and I might 
 find the best possible partners in our house and chil- 
 dren? Well, then, if God grant us to have children, 
 we shall consult in due time about them, how we 
 may best educate them ; for this, too, is to us a 
 common good, to have them our staunchest allies 
 and supporters in old age. But now this house is 
 our common property. For I here produce all that 
 I have, and put it into the common stock, just as your 
 dowry went into the same common stock.' (There 
 appears to have been no allowance or reservation for 
 pin-money). ' And now we must not be each of us 
 thinking who contributed most, but rather reflect that 
 whichever of us makes the better use of it, has given 
 the most valuable share.' Then the wife said : 'How 
 can I help you, what power have I ? All rests with 
 you : but my duty, as my mother told me, is to be 
 chaste '.' ' Of course,' replies Ischomachus, ' and so 
 also my father told me. But it is the duty of chaste 
 men and women to see that their property is in good 
 order, and that they make the greatest profit they 
 can from what is fair and just. Try therefore to 
 perform as well as possible what the gods have 
 suited to your nature, and what the customs of men 
 coincide in approving. And these duties are by no 
 
 ' So Euripides :— 
 
 yvvaixl ycip tfiyq tc /cai T^ (TCti^poveTv 
 KoKKidTov, fiaai ff ^avxov yifviiv Sd/wiv. 
 
 Heracl. 476-7. 
 
278 SOCIAL GREECE. [Cli. 
 
 means trifling, any more than the duties of the queen 
 bee (jiyf^hv jxeXiTTo) in the hive.' 
 
 He proceeds to develop with great beauty and 
 clearness the several duties of husband and wife, 
 derived from the difference in their physical nature 
 and instincts, which, when contrasted, are yet so con- 
 trived as to supply one another's deficiencies, and 
 perfect our condition \ 
 
 He objects to artificial improvements of her person, 
 such as high-heeled shoes, false hair, dyed hair, rouge, 
 and pearl powder, all of which were clearly in com- 
 mon use among the respectable classes at Athens in 
 his day^. I cannot but suspect that this implies a 
 reaction of the eraipai on Attic households, and that 
 anxious mothers thought their daughters ought to 
 rival the studied charms of these very serious anta- 
 gonists to marriage. The Middle Comedy is full of 
 allusions' to the artificial means used by these in- 
 ferior ladies to enhance their attractions — and this 
 we should have assumed without evidence ; but it 
 seems to me somewhat painful to find secluded 
 Athenian girls so modern and advanced in their 
 culture. On this point Ischomachus is represented 
 as persuading his young wife easily, and she boldly 
 lays aside all these artificial beauties. 
 
 He develops, too, as we should expect a Greek 
 
 ^ Atct, 5i rb T^v tpiffiv pL^ irpts n&VTa TavTci afi^oripav eZ iTf<pvKivat, 
 StcL Tovro KtiX Ziovrai /mWoy a\\^\(uy, /cat rb ^evyos w(pi\LpL6mpov iavra 
 yeyivrjTait h t5 'trepov eK\eineTai rb erepov Swd/ievov. 
 
 " Cp. also Meineke, Frag. Com. iv. 409. 
 
 ' Meineke, iii. pp. 42 [-2, &c. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 279 
 
 gentleman to do, the satisfaction arising from the 
 exercise of power, from the consciousness of training 
 and improving her household, from the dispensing of 
 rewards and punishments according as they are de- 
 served. He concludes his first conversation with the 
 girl in the following noble terms. ' But the greatest 
 pleasure of all will be this, that if you are plainly 
 superior to me, you will become my mistress {efik aov 
 OepdiTovTa itoiriaijs), and will not have to fear that with 
 advancing years your influence in the house will wane, 
 but will rather be assured that in old age, the better 
 companion you are to me and the better guardian of 
 the house to our children, the more honoured will you 
 be at home. For you will come to be truly admired 
 and esteemed among men, not for good looks, but for 
 good deeds in practical life.' 
 
 Here,'then, we have an advance not attained even 
 by Pericles in the preceding generation ; for he en- 
 trusted all his household affairs, not to Aspasia, but 
 to a trusty steward, who seems to have been some- 
 what more frugal than a sensible manager, and withal 
 a well-bred lady, would have been. But perhaps the 
 most remarkable blot in Xenophon's sketch is the 
 total absence of any intellectual requirements on the 
 part of the woman. Socrates distinctly says at the 
 opening of the dialogue that if the wife is bad, it is 
 the husband's fault for not training her^, and it is 
 
 ' ' If a sheep,' says Socrates, ' is in bad condition, we generally blame 
 tlie shepherd, and if a horse do mischief we generally abuse his rider ; 
 so, as to a wife, if after being well taught by her husband, she does 
 ill, perhaps she should justly be blamed ; but if he does not teach her 
 
28o SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 plain enough that at fifteen years of age there is 
 ample time to teach her those purely practical duties 
 which he exclusively contemplates. The only duty 
 which he presupposes to be disagreeable is the tend- 
 ing of sick slaves, which the wife, on the contrary, 
 is most willing to do, in return for the gratitude which 
 she will earn. 
 
 I may also observe, before passing on, that here, as 
 in other Greek literature, we find ladies of rank under 
 restraints unknown to the lower classes. Ischo- 
 machus advises his wife to take exercise by folding 
 up and putting by clothes, so obtaining what she 
 ought to have obtained by walking out^. This 
 appears to me one of the greatest hardships of Attic 
 city life, and again the main reason why such im- 
 portance was attached to funeral ceremonies, and 
 other religious observances, where it was necessary to 
 let out ladies of the better classes. It also ex- 
 plains the expression,/ ol 'i^enophon in the same 
 dialogue, whgnjgjsiising country life : ' what is dearer 
 
 her duties, and then finds her unacquainted with them, is not the hus- 
 band justly to bear tlie blame?' {CEcon. iii. § 2.) This complete post- 
 ponement of education till after marriage is probably the reason of 
 the fact which Plato notices {Cratylus, p. 418) that women at Athens 
 spoke an archaic dialect, differing from that of men. Cicero (Be 
 Oralore, iii. 12) repeats the same remark about Roman ladies, but whether 
 he is speaking on independent grounds, or merely dopying Plato, is to 
 me uncertain. 
 
 ' He compares Greek women in general to those handicraftsmen, 
 ■who earn their livelihood sitting, and are thus injured in body — a thing 
 much despised by the Greeks. The Spartan women, on the contrary, 
 were carefully trained to out-of-door physical exercise. Cp. Laced. Pol. 
 cap. I. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 281 
 
 to the servants, or pleasanter to the wife, or more 
 longed for by the children, or more agreeable to 
 friends I ' 
 
 These practical improvements in the life of married 
 women Xenophon doubtless copied from the sugges- 
 tions of Socrates, and they had been probably, as 
 Socrates is represented to say, already advocated by 
 Aspasia. But it was almost impossible for the ad- 
 vocates of women's rights to stop here, and not to 
 recommend some change in the education of girls 
 before marriage. In fact, it must necessarily seem 
 absurd that men should be trained for their duties 
 by a laborious and expensive system, while women, 
 whose duties were, according to Xenophon, not less 
 important, though different, should pass away their 
 early youth in complete ignorance of anything beyond 
 weaving wool and cooking dinners. It is therefore 
 perfectly consistent in such a systematic and thorough 
 theorist as Plato, that he should advance to the 
 farther point of recommending the same education 
 for boys and girls. Plato held the very modern 
 theory that women had the same faculties and ca- 
 pacities as men, but in an inferior degree S and 
 hampered by the inconveniences of child-bearing. 
 He therefore advocated a joint education, pointing 
 not merely to the analogy of the domestic lower 
 animals, but to the precedent of Sparta. There, as 
 we know, girls joined even in athletic exercises pub- 
 
 * That this opinion was really inherited from Socrates, appears from 
 the corroboration of Xenophon, who puts the same sentiment into his 
 mouth (Symp. ii. § 2). 
 
28a SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 licly, and ran and wrestled with one another before 
 the eyes of men. Many of the Greek theorists were 
 so shocked at this, that they were slow to allow its 
 expediency. Ibycus also, in his lyric poems, and 
 Euripides, upon the stage, reviled this shamelessness. 
 Aristotle says that after all it did not attain the 
 desired effect, for that in great dangers these un- 
 restrained women proved more troublesome than the 
 enemy. But we can hardly expect a fair judgment 
 from men of Ionic training. So far as I can see, the 
 Spartan women, to judge from the few specimens that 
 are known to us, were not only noble and high- 
 spirited, but endowed with very good sense. In 
 Herodotus the celebrated Gorgo seems to have been 
 no ordinary person, and the fact that Spartan nurses 
 were sought all over Greece shows not only their 
 physical superiority \ which Aristophanes corrobo- 
 rates, but their good temper and gentleness. It is 
 evident that Cimon's celebrated sister, Elpinice, who 
 seems to have played as public a part at Athens 
 as Gorgo did at Sparta, rather affected this Spartan 
 liberty, seeing that her brother was proxenus of the 
 Lacedaemonians at Athens, and did not conceal his 
 admiration of Spartan life and habits as compared 
 with those of Athens. 
 
 It seems to me, then, that putting together the 
 evidence of Plato and Xenophon, as well as the 
 
 ^ To go out nursing was thought at Athens a very low occupation, 
 and only to be excused in a free woman on the ground of extreme 
 poverty (of. Demosth. p. 1310). Hence it became common at the close 
 of the Peloponnesian war. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 383 
 
 ridicule in Aristophanes' Ecclesiazuscs, we find a 
 general stir about the position of women, a disposi- 
 tion to recognise their importance, to acknowledge 
 their claims, and to keep them no longer in that state 
 of obscurity to which they were condemned in Peri- 
 clean days. 
 
 They were, indeed, far from holding their modern 
 and Christian position ; it was still common, even 
 after the practice of selling Greek men was dis- 
 credited, to sell the women of captured cities into 
 slavery and concubinage. And what was even more 
 significant in the matter was this, that such captives, 
 if recovered by their relatives, and restored to their 
 homes, were not thought the least disgraced by their 
 misfortune. In the case of adulterers, Xenophon tells 
 us that the laws punish them with death, because 
 they break in upon the mutual attachment of married 
 people, not for the more obvious reasons ; ' for if such 
 a stain happen to a woman by force of circumstances, 
 men honour her none the less, if her affection seems 
 to them to remain untainted ^' — a most reasonable way 
 of thinking, but utterly opposed to our modern no- 
 tions of purity. We find, too, even in later days, 
 such men as Demosthenes speaking about women 
 
 * itrd orav ye acppoSiaiacBrj Karci uv^Kpopav riva yvv^, ovblv ^ttov toi5- 
 Tov tvcK€V TifJiSictv avTas oi dvdpes, eav irep ^ <f>t\ia doKy avrots aK-qparos 
 Staiiivetv, (Xen. Hiero. iii. § 4.) Among the Spartans, according to the 
 same authority (Aa/ceS. 7ro\. c. l) this absence of sentiment led to strange 
 results. It was not uncommon for an elderly man to borrow a younger 
 husband for his wife, or for a man who disliked his wife, to obtain 
 another temporarily from a friend, with a view to fine and healthy 
 children. The physical results were, according to the author, excellent. 
 
384 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 in a tone to us very offensive. We must, therefore, 
 insist upon these limitations. But there was, never- 
 theless, a distinct advance upon older days. This I 
 have so far attributed to the teaching of the Socratic 
 philosophers. 
 
 There was another cause more powerful still, be- 
 cause it brought out the existing want of education 
 more practically. I allude to the rise of a class of 
 educated and refined haCpai — a class widely different 
 from that legalised by Solon — which comes promi- 
 nently forward at Athens only with the rise of the 
 Middle Comedy. The very history of the title is 
 interesting and suggestive. It was used by Sappho 
 {fr. 31) in the highest sense, as implying a companion 
 of the same rank and with the same interests. There 
 was no shade of reproach in its application to her 
 female friends. We have, unfortunately, not much 
 intermediate evidence, but when we come to the 
 Middle Comedy, which reached from the days of 
 Plato down to the Macedonian conquests, it comes 
 to be used in contrast to wife — a most significant 
 contrast indeed. Just in the same manner our word 
 mistress was of old used in a very dignified way, 
 and is still preserved in this sense in ordinary par- 
 lance, even as Athenaeus tells us (xiii. 571 D.) that 
 in his day girls were wont to call their female friends 
 fTalpas ; yet still the word has obtained another peculiar 
 meaning, as opposed to a lawful wife. The feeling of 
 this double meaning in the word is apparent in the 
 days of which we are now speaking. Antiphanes 
 {IIydria,fr. i) says : ' This man of whom I speak 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 285 
 
 fell in love with an eraipa who lived in the neighbour- 
 hood, a citizen, but unprotected by guardian or re- 
 lations. She was possessed of a disposition we might 
 call golden in reality — a veritable companion (oircos 
 era^pas) ; the rest traduce by their manners a name 
 which is really a noble one.' It appears that if a 
 Greek woman of this inferior social position was in- 
 deed of gentle and refined character, her company 
 was regarded as far superior to that of proud ladies 
 of old Attic families, who were full of importance, and, 
 as we can see from various authors, made their rank 
 disagreeably felt by their husbands. Thus the country 
 gentleman, at the opening of Aristophanes' Clouds, 
 purses the match-maker {■npoiJ.vriarpCa) who made up 
 a marriage for him with a lady of tJiA^a' women 
 Megacles ' ; for this lady brought up hs a crowd of 
 thorough contempt of all his father's Thus mar- 
 pations, and taught him to look to toarticularly 
 uncle for a model, and to squander his iPW, high 
 in horse-racing. Hence we can understafi more 
 fragment of Amphis ", in which the lawful ^an- 
 (yajxeTT^) is contrasted with the companion. The latt^' 
 he says, is far pleasanter, ' for the former with the 
 law on her side can afford to despise you and yet 
 stay in your house, whereas the other knows that 
 
 • The modem anxiety about making matches is therefore no new 
 thing. Thus Euripides says : — 
 
 H&rTjV TOVoOffiv ^ Si tS xP^^ Tt6aa 
 fiivovffa K&ff-noiSaiTTOs ^\9(V els S6fiovs 
 ' Meineke, iii. 301. 
 
386 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 she must either win over a man by her manners, 
 or go elsewhere.' 
 
 We must take care not to attach too much weight 
 to these isolated fragments, quoted for the most part 
 at random by Athenaeus, to show his learning. They 
 may be, like many of the abusive passages in Eu- 
 ripides' Hippolytus and other tragedies, 5poken in 
 character, and by angry or disappointed people. All 
 that we can argue from them is, that such senti- 
 ments were suited to the audience, especially as Greek 
 audiences, far more than we do, took to themselves 
 lessons from the stage, and understood the maxims 
 of the poet's characters as intended to represent his 
 jown. Still, this cannot be carried out universally, 
 of the sartie^e characters maintain opposing views, 
 was no shade" ssible that there may have been some 
 female friendpst to us, of indicating the poet's sym- 
 intermediaj-jf^ hinting in what cases he professed to 
 Middle frough his actor. Thus, for example, the 
 Plato critics speak in a peculiar way of Euripides' 
 to \anippe (r; ao^jj) as disclosing his philosophical 
 news '. But as we cannot now always feel sure of 
 this point, on which even the ancients made mistakes, 
 I repeat my caution that we should not understand 
 these fragments as giving us more than the current 
 opinions of some sections of Greek society. Such 
 I believe to be the numerous passages abusing, 
 
 ' Cp. Dindorf's ed. of the Fragments. This seems to have been 
 believed chiefly on account of the religious scepticism of which the play 
 seems to have been full, and which was thought the poet's real con- 
 viction. 
 
IX.] ATTIC CULTURE. 287 
 
 marriage, which we find scattered all through Mein- 
 eke's collection \ and which the reader may contrast 
 with the (Economicus of Xenophon, from which I 
 have already quoted at length. 
 
 ' The man is actually married,' says the poet An- 
 tiphanes. ' My goodness, do you say so ; is it the 
 man I left alive and walking about .' ' ' Great Ju- 
 piter,' says another poet, ' may I perish if I ever 
 spoke against women, the most precious of all ac- 
 quisitions. For if Medea was an objectionable person, 
 surely Penelope was an excellent creature. Does 
 any one abuse Clytemnestra ? I oppose the admir- 
 able Alcestis. But perhaps some one may abuse 
 Phaedra; then, I say, by Jove, what a capital person 
 
 was . Oh, dear ! the catalogue of good women 
 
 is already exhausted, while there remains a crowd of 
 bad ones that might be mentioned ! ' Thus mar- 
 riages with heiresses are criticised as particularly 
 foolish and unhappy, for in those days, as now, high 
 connection and fortune were preferred to the more 
 solid qualities of a wife. ' Whosoever,' says Menan- 
 der, ' desires to marry an heiress, is either suffering 
 under the wrath of the gods, or wishes to be called 
 lucky, while he is really miserable^.' 
 
 ' iii. pp. 151, 195, 261, 450, 519, &c. 
 
 ^ Cp. also Euripides, /rag-g-. 504, &c. The Spartans felt so strongly 
 the evil of marrying for money, that they actually punished men for 
 doing it. At the close of his Lysander, Plutarch tells us, 'that the state 
 punished those who had been wooing Lysander's daughters, but had 
 retired when his poverty was disclosed after his death ; for they had 
 courted him while he was rich, but deserted him when proved by his 
 poverty to have been just and honourable. For there were in Sparta, 
 
a88 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 In spite of all these complaints, almost every play 
 of Menander ended with the happy marriage, not, 
 indeed, of a surly heiress, who despised her husband, 
 but of some simple penniless girl, whose adventures 
 during the play had excited the deep sympathy of 
 the audience. 
 
 But satirical reflections on women are so common 
 in almost every age of Greek literature, indeed of 
 all literature, that they are not worth commenting 
 upon. 
 
 it seems, penalties for not marrying, and for late marrying, and for mis- 
 marrying, and under this last they brought more especially the case of 
 those who sought rich connections, instead of good ones, among their 
 own kin. ' 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ATTIC CULTURE {contmued) : — CERTAIN TRADES 
 AND PROFESSIONS. 
 
 I PREFER to turn to the literary features really 
 peculiar to the Platonic age in contrast to Periclean 
 days. These features are, no doubt, the decay of 
 practical politics, and the rise of theories of state 
 life, on the one hand, and pictures of private so- 
 ciety, on the other. Plato is purely a philosophical 
 speculator on education and on statecraft. Xenophon, 
 practical soldier and keen sportsman as he is, can- 
 not avoid the same tendency, and is, in /its way, a 
 speculator on politics and society. Yet both of these 
 men clothe their teaching in the dress of social con- 
 versation, and paint pictures of private society that 
 they may convey in them their theories. Here, 
 then, they are in contact with the professed drama- 
 tists of the Middle Comedy, who, for the most part, 
 ridicule speculation, and make a special butt of Plato 
 and his notions', but agree with him in painting 
 scenes from ordinary life, and representing professions 
 and classes upon their stage. As these sketches of 
 
 ' Allusions of Ihis kind are found in Aniphis (Mein. iii. p. 305), 
 Ephippus (p. 332), Epicrates (pp. 370, 378, 381), and all through the 
 fragments of Alexis. 
 
 U 
 
390 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 particular professions are highly instructive for our 
 purpose, I shall proceed to bring together our evi- 
 dence on doctors, fishmongers, cooks, and such other 
 classes as may be mentioned, previous to entering 
 upon a general sketch of manners as found in the 
 higher society of Plato's dialogues. 
 
 As to Medical Practice, we find, of course, that 
 there were two schools— the old quackery of charms 
 and incantations, and the rational observation and 
 treatment of disease by empirical remedies'. In 
 Homer the former seems prominent, and so it was 
 even in the days of Pindar ^ and ^schylus, though the 
 latter, in giving an account of Prometheus' gifts to 
 mankind, mentions real surgical and medical treat- 
 ment {Prom, vv. 476 sqq.). He also makes in the 
 same play an allusion very characteristic of the Greek 
 temper, and one that indicates the coming develop- 
 ment of medicine : ' To those that are sick it is sweet 
 to know clearly beforehand what they have yet to 
 suffer V Such an allusion points to no charms or 
 
 ' Therecovered medical treatises of the ancient Egyptians, and the 
 Coptic medical papyrus show the same duality of attitude in Egyptian 
 medicine. I have collected all the evidence, and discussed the subject 
 fully in my Prolegomena to Ancient Hktory. Herodotus lays stress on 
 the Egyptian doctors being specialists, and only treating one disease. 
 This was not commonly the case among the Greeks, though the scene 
 in the Plutus of Aristophanes seems to imply a speciality in that temple 
 for ophthalmia; Ran. 151 (Schol.) as -well as Eccles. 363 corroborate 
 this. But Plato (fiharmides, 156 B) notices on the other side, that able 
 physicians had even in his day recognised the importance of general 
 health in special affections, and, combated the latter through the fornjer. 
 
 ' Cp. Pyth. iii. 45, Nem. viii. 50. 
 
 ' Prom, 698: roU voaovcri rot yXvKv 
 
 T^ Konrbv aKyos irpov^enioTaaOai ropais. 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE, 291 
 
 wonder-making, but to the prognosis of the physician 
 who has learned by experience what to expect from 
 known symptoms. 
 
 This rational school had in truth been developed 
 earlier than the age of ^schylus, and strange to say, 
 not in relation to disease, but in relation to high 
 physical training for athletic purposes. Plato, indeed, 
 ascribes the origin of treatment by regimen to Hero- 
 dicus of Selymbria\ 'who being a trainer, and him- 
 self of a sickly constitution, by a happy combination 
 of training and doctoring, found out a way of tortur- 
 ing, first himself, and then the rest of the world.' So 
 then Greek medicine rather started from hygiene 
 than from pathology. The trainer found that amu- 
 lets and spells were of no use against better physical 
 conditions. We find the most celebrated early school 
 of medicine at Croton, which was also the home of 
 the greatest athletes. 
 
 The tyrants, and in imitation of them the free 
 cities, began to bid for men of this school, and give 
 them high yearly salaries for residing among them. 
 The case of Democedes^ is well known. He ran 
 away from a cruel father at Croton, and came to 
 jEgina, where he set up in private practice; and, 
 'though destitute of the needful appliances, out- 
 stripped the best physicians of the place in one year.' 
 .^gina, being at that time the most frequented sea- 
 port and emporium in Greece proper, was able to 
 
 ' Not Gorgias' brother, who was also a physician, but a native of 
 Leontini. 
 
 " Herod, iii. 131. 
 
 U % 
 
292 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 employ him as a state physician the following year, 
 for a talent {£246) ^ ; but the Athenian tyrants next 
 year bid £/\p6 for him, and the fourth year he was 
 engaged, for two talents (;^48o), by Polycrates, the 
 most powerful Greek prince then living. Such a 
 salary seems enormous at this epoch among the 
 Greeks. 
 
 However, we see here the habit of having state- 
 physicians, to which Aristophanes, Plato, and Xeno- 
 phon make many allusions in after days. There was 
 a technical term for such practitioners at Athens 
 (brjixoaifveiv) , and the scholiasts on Aristophanes 
 [Acharn. 1030) say they did not take private fees. 
 I should infer this to have been the case in Demo- 
 cedes' day also, as it would account for the high 
 state-salary. Plato implies plainly enough that the 
 profession was taken up by men of culture and edu- 
 cation, like Eryximachus,.who forms one of the very 
 aristocratic company in his Symposium ; and also 
 that they were publicly elected by the assembly, and 
 that they distinctly based their practice on ex- 
 perience ^. It seems certain from Xenophon * that 
 they sent in applications for the post, in which they 
 doubtless stated their claims, and perhaps even got 
 testimonials as to their private practice. That their 
 salary was large is not only implied by Democedes' 
 
 ■ Plato (Gorg. 514 E) speaks of it as ridiculous that a man should 
 set up to be a state-physician till he had attained eminence in private 
 practice. 
 
 ' Cp. Rep. 405 A, Gorgias, 455 B, and Rep. 408 E. 
 
 ' Xen. Mem. iv. 2. 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 293 
 
 case, but by Aristophanes {Plut. 403) who states that 
 owing to the poverty of the city there was no doctor 
 (I suppose state-doctor), and that accordingly the 
 craft had greatly declined. It is, on the contrary, 
 noticed among the perfections of Spartan military 
 arrangements, that a safe place was allotted to certain 
 indispensable attendants on the army, and among 
 these are mentioned military surgeons {Lac. Pol. 13), 
 who are very seldom alluded to in Greek literature ^ 
 
 Though Xenophon {GEcon. xiii.) speaks of their 
 visits to patients morning and evening, I fancy that 
 this applies to an inferior class of private practi- 
 tioners, and that the state-physicians were consulted 
 at their official residence. They had a number of 
 assistants, some of them slaves, who treated simple 
 cases, and more especially the diseases of slaves, by 
 going in and ordering the patients to take remedies ; 
 whereas with free men the practice was to persuade 
 the patient, by full explanation of the treatment, that 
 it would succeed. Plato is very interesting on this 
 point. In the case of the free man, 'he [the physic 
 cian] will not prescribe till he has persuaded him.' 
 A still more remarkable case, if true, is that men- 
 tioned in the Gorgias, where Plato says that the 
 physicians used to take with them Gorgias, who was 
 the most persuasive rhetorician of the day, in order 
 that he might convince the patients to adopt their 
 prescriptions. These things are very curious, and 
 show to what a pitch the Greeks had brought the 
 
 ' Mr. Hager adds Xen. Anab. iii. 4, 30; and Cyrop. i. 6, 15; iii. 
 2, 13- 
 
294 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 habit of inquiry and argument, in this case regardless, 
 as it seems, of the very bad effect such discussions 
 must have had on the nerves of many patients. But I 
 must add, in fairness to the Greeks, that this habit of 
 persuading the patient cannot have been universal. 
 Plato himself speaks of enforced treatment, and 
 Aristotle, a generation later, specially notes that the 
 physician's duty was not to compel or to persuade, 
 but simply to prescribe ^ 
 
 But for these saving passages, we should have been 
 disposed to compare the state of medicine in the best 
 days of Greece with that described by Mr. Palgrave 
 as existing in Central Arabia at the present day, 
 where the physician must first persuade his patient, 
 and then bargain with him for his fee, before he carl 
 begin to treat the case. We have even a hint of sucli 
 a habit being ridiculed {Laws, 857 E), 'For by this 
 you may be sure,' says the Athenian speaker, 'that 
 if one of these empirical physicians, who practise 
 medicine without science, were to come upon the 
 gentleman physician talking to his gentle patient, 
 and using the language almost of philosophy — be- 
 ginning at the beginning of the disease, and discours- 
 ing about the whole nature of the body — he would 
 burst into a hearty laugh, he would say what most 
 of those who are called doctors always have on their 
 tongue : — " Foolish fellow," he would say, " you are 
 not healing the sick man, but you are educating him, 
 and he does not want to be made a doctor, but to 
 
 ' Cp. Plalo, Rep. 293 A, Laws fi^d, 660 A ; and Aristotle, Pol. iv. 2 
 (P- 1324)- 
 
X.J ATTIC CULTURE. 395 
 
 get well." ' It appears, then, that though fashionable, 
 and thought philosophical, this persuasive treatment 
 was even in Plato's day beginning to be duly.appre- 
 ciated\ The age of Euripides was waning, that of 
 Menander was approaching, in which accurate dis- 
 cussion was no longer a duty and a delight, but a 
 trouble and a bore. 
 
 We know that the establishments of doctors (larpeia) 
 were quite different from apothecaries' shops, and 
 that relatively the two professions ranked as they 
 now do. On the other hand, I have been unable 
 to find any good proof of a separation between the 
 medical and surgical sides of the profession. There 
 is indeed, in Diogenes Laertius' account of Plato, a 
 separation of the science of healing into five branches, 
 one of which is strictly surgical. But the term tarpos 
 was used for both. Xenophon, for example, speaks 
 of them {Anab. v. 8) as cutting and burning their 
 patients. In Egypt, as I above observed, there was 
 probably some such separation. 
 
 But unfortunately, one solitary allusion to an hos- 
 pital^, which appears to have been situated in the 
 Peiraeus, gives us no insight into the public care of 
 health, beyond the appointment of state-doctors. 
 We hear that Peisistratus appointed part of the state- 
 fund to support such soldiers as were maimed in the 
 public service — a curious contrast to the supposed 
 
 ' Cp. Jowett, 1. p. 28. 
 
 ' natwyioy in Crates, Meineke, ii. 238, and cp. Schol. ad A risloph. Ach. 
 1211. 
 
296 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 law about the ^ap/xoKot, to which I have already 
 alluded. 
 
 It appears that even in Platonic days, when 
 medicine had been long domiciled at Athens, the 
 traditional superiority of the Western schools, and 
 those of Dorian Asia Minor, still held its ground. 
 We may infer this from a curious point mentioned as 
 early as Crates, but repeated by Epicrates and 
 Alexis '. Just as our doctors must prescribe in what 
 is called dog-Latin, and we should look with disgust 
 upon the ignorance of a good English recip4 so the 
 doctors at Athens were despised if they did not pre- 
 scribe in Doric Greek. The very remedy disdained 
 under its Attic name was adopted if supported by a 
 Doric brogue. Whether this fashion implies (as I 
 believe) that foreigners were considered the best 
 doctors, or that the Athenian must sojourn in a 
 foreign Doric school, and so learn to prescribe in its 
 dialect — the fact remains a very curious monument of 
 the modernness of Attic life. 
 
 I have been considering nothing but the social side 
 of medical practice in these remarks. It is, of course, 
 both beyond my knowledge, and beside my subject, 
 to criticise Greek medicine as to its principles, or to 
 express an opinion on such prescriptions as that of 
 Eryximachus, in Plato's Symposium (187 A). These 
 enquiries belong to the history of medicine, and must 
 be based on the Hippocratic writings — an interesting 
 but very difficult study. I shall content myself with 
 
 " Meineke, Com. Frag. ii. p. 249 ; iii. p. 448. 
 
X.j ATTIC CULTURE. 397 
 
 saying something on the lower side of medical prac- 
 tice, I mean the non-professional, or quack side. 
 
 This rude and ignorant practice held its place into 
 the best Attic times, side by side with rational 
 medicine ^ It was, of course, the kind practised by 
 women, who were the only advisers permitted in the 
 case of female diseases, as appears from Euripides ^ ; 
 it was also kept up by the secret cures existing in 
 certain clans and families, such as that mentioned 
 by Dicaearchus in later times as still in his day 
 subsisting at Mount Pelion. There was here a 
 certain plant, which, according to divers preparations, 
 was a certain cure for gout, for mesenteric diseases, 
 and for ophthalmia. ' But these virtues are known 
 to one family in the city, said to be descended from 
 Chiron. The secret is transmitted from father to 
 son, and so preserved that no other citizen knows 
 it. Those who know the use of the drug have a 
 conscientious objection (oiix otrtoj;) against taking fees 
 from the sick, but heal them gratis.' I know of 
 exactly similar instances at present in Ireland ; in 
 one, a case of cancer was absolutely cured among 
 my own acquaintance, in another, a sprain, which 
 had baffled the best surgeons, was subdued in a few 
 weeks. In these cases, too, it was o^x ot^'oy for the 
 practitioner to take ostensible fees, rather however 
 
 ' On Aristophanes' Plutus 879, the scholiast tells us in a curious note 
 that medicated rings were sold at Athens for a drachme each. 
 
 " Hipp. 292. There is, however (Dem. tt/jos 'Oi/tjt. A, p. 873), a case of a 
 married woman being attended by a doctor in presence of her husband. 
 On DicEearchus, cp. Miiller, Fragg. ii. 263. 
 
298 SOCIAL GREECE, [CH. 
 
 from the conscientious objections of the profession 
 than from his own\ I have, moreover, heard the 
 greatest and most philosophical physicians say that 
 there was a great deal of sound empirical knowledge 
 in the practice of these country quacks. 
 
 But quite apart from these isolated cases, there 
 seems to have been a systematic priestcraft attached 
 to such temples as that of -/Esculapius, where people 
 went and lay down, hoping for a miraculous cure 
 from the god. Doubtless the priests attached to 
 these temples had collected a great deal of real 
 knowledge in diseases, and applied rational cures 
 often enough ; nevertheless, the habit of asserting 
 miracles, the occult nature of their practice, and the 
 known conservatism of all priestly corporations, make 
 it certain that we should count these temple-hospitals 
 not with the licensed establishments of physicians, 
 but with the houses of the quacks. A curious scene 
 in one of these temples is to be found in the Plutus 
 of Aristophanes (vv. 655 sqq.) where it is hard to 
 separate the jokes from the earnest, as is usually the 
 case in Greek comedy, but where the general mise 
 en scene is of course taken from life. The various 
 details are hardly fit for translation ; but it appears 
 that the patients were brought in, and lay down to 
 sleep attended by their friends, being directed on no 
 account to stir if they heard a noise during the night. 
 The slave who tells the story then gives an amusing 
 account how the priests stole the offerings of food 
 
 • One of these quacks told a friend of mine, who consulted him, ' ihal 
 the head doctors would skiver him, if they caught him taking a fee.' 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 299 
 
 placed near the heads of the patients, and how he 
 followed their example. Then he describes the god 
 coming in, accompanied by personages carrying his 
 medicine-chest and implements. The cures on this 
 occasion were for ophthalmia, and it may possibly be 
 inferred, that in the case of a well-known man, whom 
 the poet disliked, the appliances made him (as the 
 poet says) far worse ; but perhaps this is only fun, or 
 a wish turned into a fact. 
 
 These details, gathered from various authors, give 
 us a very clear notion of the social position of the 
 medical profession in Plato's day ; nor do I know any 
 better way of transporting ourselves back to old times, 
 than by comparing the status of special classes with 
 these same classes in our own day. For this reason 
 I will take up a lower profession, but doubtless a 
 more important one at Athens, I mean the caterers, 
 and this includes two great classes, the cooks, who 
 not only dressed, but generally provided the enter- 
 tainments, and the fishmongers. 
 
 On no point is the Middle Comedy to us more 
 explicit, seeing that we have it filtered through 
 Athenseus, who excerpted largely in this direction. 
 
 There was no limit to the importance which the 
 cooks gave themselves, according to the Middle and 
 New Comedy. It was no mere trade, but a natural 
 gift, a special art, a school of higher philosophy. 
 Here is a specimen. 
 
 A. ' It is necessary for the cook to know long 
 beforehand for whom he is to prepare the dinner ; 
 for if he merely looks to this one point, how he 
 
300 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 ought to cook the food properly, and does not 
 foresee and consider in what manner it should be 
 served, or when and how arranged, he is no longer 
 a cook (fxayeipos), but a mere caterer {(>^0Ti0i6s), which 
 is by no means the same thing, but very far different. 
 Thus everybody who commands a force is indeed 
 commonly called a general, yet he who is able in a 
 crisis to collect himself, and see his way through it, 
 is the real general ; the other is a mere general officer. 
 So likewise in our profession, any chance fellow could 
 prepare or cut up good material, or boil it and blow 
 the bellows, but this is a mere caterer, a cook is quite 
 another thing. He must consider the place, the hour, 
 the host, and again the guest, [or the guest who has 
 dined there before.''] to know when and what fish 
 he should buy. For you can procure all kinds at any 
 time, but you will not find them equally grateful or 
 agreeable. Archestratus, indeed, has written on the 
 subject, and has the reputation among many of having 
 said some useful things, but in most points he is igno- 
 rant, and has not made one sound remark. Don't 
 listen to or learn all you hear ; what is written for 
 the vulgar public is as vain as if it had never been 
 written. For you cannot lay down fixed rules about 
 cookery, since it cannot be tied down within limits, 
 but is completely independent, so that, however well 
 you may apply the art, if you miss the right moment 
 of chance (that is, if chance be against you) all your 
 skill is worth nothing.' B. ' Sir, you are a great man ! ' 
 A. ' This fellow who, you say, has just arrived with 
 much experience in rich dinners, I shall make him 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 301 
 
 forget them every one, if I merely show him a haggis, 
 and put a dinner before him with the odour of our 
 Attic air\' 
 
 This is the tone of numerous comic fragments. 
 Like the doctors, it was grossly unfashionable for 
 cooks to speak Attic Greek ; if they did not use 
 Homeric phrases, they were bound to speak Doric 
 Greek^, for there is no doubt that in Sicily the art 
 of cooking had attained its highest development, 
 equalled, if anywhere in Greece, at Elis only, where 
 there was much accumulated wealth and luxurious 
 country life, and where I suppose the Olympic fes- 
 tival stimulated the natives to extraordinary efforts 
 during the great quadrennial meeting. 
 
 It was the fashion at Athens to hire both cooks 
 and appointments for a dinner-party, and to com- 
 mission the cook to undertake the marketing ; the 
 lights, tables, and other ware seem to have been sup- 
 plied by a separate class of tradesmen'. It appears, 
 too, strangely enough to our own notions, that the 
 employer went into the pottery-market {tov Kepaixov), 
 crying out, 'Who wants to undertake the supplying 
 of a dinner?' so that market cries, which certainly 
 existed, as appears from Aristophanes (Meineke, iii. 
 68) were not confined to the sellers. A remarkable 
 
 ■ Meineke, iii. 547- 
 
 ^ We have our own parallel in the French menus set forth on fashion- 
 able dinner tables. I suppose we shall never get into the habit of good 
 English for these purposes, in place of the mongrel, and generally mis- 
 spelt, jargon dignified in these documents with the title of French. 
 
 ' Called TpairtfoTTOioi, Meineke, iii. 83, 501. 
 
303 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 fragment in the Painter of Diphilus, gives the advice 
 of an experienced caterer on this matter. I quote 
 it here, though occurring in a later generation than 
 Plato's, as there seems to have been no change at 
 Athens in this respect, and it is more convenient to 
 discuss all our evidence on these customs at once 
 and in connection. He is addressing his colleague, 
 the rpaTTefoTToio's, who was to supply the appoint- 
 ments '. 
 
 ' Never fear, Draco, you shall never find me with 
 you in the way of business, that you will not be 
 occupied with your contract all day, and live in the 
 highest luxury. For I never go to a house till I 
 scrutinise who the man is that is giving the sacrifi- 
 cial feast, or the occasion . of the dinner, or whom he 
 has invited ; and I have a table in which are classified 
 under general heads the parties with whom I engage 
 myself, as well as those of whom I keep clear. Let 
 us look, for example, under the mercantile head. 
 Suppose a skipper is fulfilling a vow, who has lost 
 his mast or broken his rudder, and was obliged to 
 heave his cargo overboard from being waterlogged, I 
 dismiss such a fellow, he does nothing heartily, but 
 merely to satisfy his obligation. During the very 
 libation he is computing in his own mind what share 
 he can put upon his ship's company and passengers, 
 and so each man feels that he is dining at his own 
 expense. But another has sailed in from Byzantium 
 on the third day without accident, successful, de- 
 lighted at making his ten or twelve per cent., prating 
 ' Cp. Meineke, iv. p. 394. 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 303 
 
 about the passage-money, ready for any dissipation. 
 Such an one I take by the hands as he is disem- 
 barking, I remind him of Zeus Soter, I insist on 
 serving him. This is my habit. Again, some young 
 fool in love is squandering his patrimony. I go, of 
 course\ Another set having collected money for a 
 club dinner, come rushing into the pottery-market, 
 shouting, " Who wants an engagement to cook a 
 dinner?" I let them shout; for if you went you 
 would get cuffs, and have to work all night. If you 
 ask for your wages, you get impudence. " The len- 
 tils," he says, " had no vinegar." You ask again, and 
 he replies, " Go to the devil, king of all cooks ! " and 
 so on. But I am now bringing you to a house of 
 doubtful reputation, where an Irai'pa is celebrating 
 the festival of Adonis lavishly with others of her 
 class : you will get your fill and carry away plenty 
 besides.' 
 
 Having shown by these quotations the sauciness 
 and self-importance of these people, I will add 
 another curious passage on the grandeur of their 
 language. Like all Greeks, they excelled by their 
 acuteness and education the corresponding classes 
 in other nations. So in Epicurus' day, they at once 
 laid hold of his celebrated principle that pleasure 
 
 ' Anaxippus (Mein. iy. 460), who makes a learned cook descant on 
 the various dinners suitable to various persons, mentions this class: 
 ' a youth with his mistress is eating up his patrimony, I set before him 
 cuttle fish, and various shell fish, set off with rich sauces ; for such a 
 creature is not a trencherman (SetirvtjTiKSs) but has his mind intent on 
 love.' The philosopher on the contrary has a large appetite, and must 
 be fed accordingly. 
 
304 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 was the summum bonum. Of course they applied it 
 without the reservations of its illustrious author, and 
 explained it, not as he did, to be mainly mental 
 pleasure, but to be sesthetical pleasure, in which their 
 profession could claim a prominent place. His inti- 
 macy, indeed, with that prince of pleasure-seekers, 
 Menander, and the open support of him by the 
 pleasure-providing classes, produce upon us the strong 
 impression that the moral effect of Epicurus' teaching, 
 even in his own day, and from his own lips, was 
 not far removed from the somewhat coarse exposition 
 in Cicero's writings. But of these things there will 
 be future opportunity to speak. I return to the gran- 
 diloquent language of the cooks. 
 
 Strato, a poet of unknown date, but probably late 
 in the Middle Comedy, and about Alexander's time, 
 introduces an unfortunate host, saying : ' " I have taken 
 a male sphinx, and not a cook, into my house, for 
 by the gods I simply can't understand one word of 
 what he says. He came equipped with a new vo- 
 cabulary ; for no sooner was he in the house than 
 he asked me in portentous style, How many of the 
 articulately speaking {ix^poiras) have you invited to 
 dinner ; speak ?" " Is it / ask the articulately speaking 
 to dinner? You are mad. Do you think I know 
 such company ? Not one of them is coming — a good 
 joke, I declare, for me to ask the articulately speaking 
 to dinner 1" "There will not be present then any 
 wassailer at all ? " " Not Wassailer, I think. Let me 
 see : Philinus is coming, Moschion, Niceratus ; this 
 and that other fellow, I counted them up by name ; 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 305 
 
 there was no Wassailer at all among them." " There 
 is no such person coming at all," said I. " What do 
 you say, no one at all ? " and he grew very angry, as if 
 insulted at my not inviting some of the Wassailers — 
 very strange conduct.' The cook then enumerates 
 oxen and sheep by their Homeric names, and asks, 
 will they be sacrificed, so as to be available for the 
 feast. The host cannot understand him, and when 
 he deigns to explain, retorts testily: '"I neither un- 
 derstand you nor do I wish to do so. I am a plain 
 country bumpkin, 90 speak plainly to me." " Then 
 you are not versed in Homeric language ? " " Let 
 Homer talk, O cook, just as he pleases, but by Hestia 
 what concern is this of ours ? " " Because you and 
 I must transact business according to his prescription, 
 for I am a Homerist."' The host goes on to say 
 that he was obliged to take up the works of Philetas 
 on cookery, to find out what each thing meant ^ 
 
 This then was one of the main social grievances 
 which occupied the Middle Comedy, and which did 
 not subside till Menander's day. But with his pe- 
 culiar refinement I suppose that these discussions 
 about the preparations for dinner parties were as 
 much out of taste as they would be in our better 
 society, and so the long lists of dishes and the 
 general prominence of cookery vanish from his plays, 
 after a long and somewhat offensive importance 
 of more than two centuries^. With regard to the 
 
 ' Meineke, iv. 545. 
 
 * Indeed we may go back even farther. Solon, Hipponax, and 
 Simonides of Amorgos have left us fragments on dishes, just like the 
 Comic fragments ; cp. Bergk, Fragg. Lyr. pp. 436, 762, 787. 
 
 X 
 
3o6 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 pompous phraseology of the cooks, it should be no- 
 ticed that one of the main duties of the literary critics 
 of the day was to repress this tendency in various 
 ranks and classes, and the cooks were not more 
 severely dealt with than the tragic poets, who as a 
 rule did not follow the exquisite simplicity of Euripi^ 
 des' diction, but aped the pomp of ^schylus without 
 his titanic power. 
 
 The cooks however may have vanished from Me- 
 nander's stage for another reason. With the Mace- 
 donian times came in the fashion, continued by the 
 Romans, of having cooks among the slaves of their 
 household, a custom apparently unknown to the 
 earlier Athenians. Thus this social difficulty vanished, 
 and the free man, with his Homeric talk, and his 
 self-importance, made way for the expensive and 
 well-educated, but submissive slave. The reader will 
 here again notice the curious analogy to the history 
 of medicine, for among the late Greeks, and among 
 the Romans, the household physician was always a 
 slave attached to the family. 
 
 But in the days of free Attic society, it may well 
 be imagined that the unlucky host could not trust im- 
 plicitly the marketing of the Homeric cooks ; he was 
 often obliged to go himself to market, and to encounter 
 there a class of men hardly less manageable, the Fish- 
 mongers, who were decidedly the most important 
 catering class at Athens, seeing that the Attic people 
 ate little meat, and lived chiefly on fish and vegetables. 
 There were indeed butchers, who exposed joints of 
 meat for sale, but to feast on such fare is noticed as 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 307 
 
 Boeotian coarseness, while the Thebans retorted that 
 
 the Attic dinners might be elegantly served, but were 
 
 miserably stingy ^ So again the marriage feast of 
 
 Iphicrates with the princess of Thrace was notorious 
 
 throughout Greece for its lavish expenditure, and for 
 
 the enormous joints, or even whole animals, which 
 
 were put upon the table. I think so much may be 
 
 fairly inferred despite the comic ex9.ggeration of the 
 
 passage, which the Germans, of course, take au pied 
 
 de la lettre. But the maritime supremacy of Athens, 
 
 combined as it was with all manner of restrictions on 
 
 the trade of other ports, made the daily importation 
 
 of fresh fish, as well as the systematic traffic in salt 
 
 fish from the Black Sea and from Spain, one of the 
 
 most striking features in the myriad life of the 
 
 Peirseus. A few quotations on this point will not be 
 
 unacceptable. Fish being, as I have said, the staple 
 
 article of more refined Attic diet, the fishmongers 
 
 were a large and important class. It is I think very 
 
 strange, that among the various political men taunted 
 
 with having risen by the exercise of low trades, there 
 
 is not one who had practised the lucrative business of 
 
 retailing fish, and I am disposed to infer that they 
 
 were usually freedmen or metics. But however this 
 
 may be, according to the poets of the Middle Comedy, 
 
 and especially Antiphanes, their insolence and their 
 
 extortion were unbearable. 
 
 Some of the allusions are very comical. ' Both in 
 other respects,' says Antiphanes'', 'they say the 
 
 ' Plato, Lawi, 849 E j Meineke, Com. Frag. iv. p. 433. 
 ' Meineke, iii. p. 80, 
 
 X a 
 
3o8 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Egyptians are clever fellows, and also in this, that 
 they made the eel of equal dignity with the gods. 
 Nay in reality it is much more precious (Tt/i^tajrepa) 
 , than the gods. For to them we can attain by prayers, 
 but eels we are only allowed to smell after paying at 
 least twelve drachmae or more, so utterly sacred is the 
 creature.' And again : ' I used to think the Gorgons 
 a mere invention (of the poets), but when I go to 
 market I believe in them, for when I look upon the 
 fishmongers, I become petrified, so that I have to 
 speak to them with averted countenance ; if I behold 
 the tiny fish on which they put such a price I freeze 
 with horror ! ' ' It is ten thousand times easier,' too 
 (p. 312) to ' obtain an audience with the generals (the 
 highest state officials) and to get a question answered 
 by them, than by the cursed fishmongers in the 
 market. If you ask one of them a question, either he 
 takes up something lying near him, or stoops over it 
 in silence like (the) Telephus (of Euripides). And 
 this is fair enough, for they are every one of them 
 homicides like him. But then as if he had not heard 
 a word you say, muttering he shakes a polypus lying 
 before him, and won't even utter whole words, but 
 mutilates them into 'ripatv 'l3o\&v yivotr 5,v' (it might 
 go for four obols)' and so forth; 'this is what you 
 must submit to when you go marketing for fish.' 
 'When I see the generals,' says Alexis (p. 391), 
 ' drawing up their eyebrows (giving themselves airs), 
 I feel vexed, but don't much wonder that those se- 
 lected by the city for high honour should be more 
 conceited than their neighbours,, but when I see the 
 
X.] ATTIC CULTURE. 309 
 
 ruffianly fishmongers looking down, and having their 
 eyebrows drawn up to the crown of their heads, I 
 choke with rage. And if you ask one of them: at 
 what do you sell these two mullets, he says : " ten 
 obols." " A big price, would you take eight ? " " Yes, 
 if you buy one of them." " Come friend, take the 
 money and don't be joking." " The price is fixed, off 
 with you." Is not this bitterer than gall itself ? ' 
 
 It is idle to multiply these quotations, when the 
 idea has been fully conveyed ; they show plainly 
 what is told in hundreds of other passages, that there 
 was a sort of trade-union spirit among the retailers 
 at Athens, and that they had succeeded in some 
 branches of business, at all events, in keeping up high 
 prices. The city being four miles from the sea, it was 
 nearly impossible to obtain fish jlirectly from the 
 boats, and thus the fishmongers were in a strong 
 position. There were indeed laws enacted to prevent 
 them from selling stale fish, for we are told that they 
 were even forbidden to sprinkle it with water. But 
 as they are alleged to have evaded this law by faint- 
 ing at their stalls, and getting their friends to inun- 
 date them with water, so I suppose in other respects 
 they contrived to make their profits in spite of these 
 interferences. 
 
 It does not lie within my present scope to enter 
 into details about trades and professions which are not 
 prominently brought before us in the current lite- 
 rature. The veiy size and wealth of Athens, as com- 
 pared to lesser Greek towns, are said by Xenophon ' 
 ' Cyropced. viii. 2, 
 
310 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 to have caused a great subdivision of labour, so that, 
 for example, one man makes men's shoes, another 
 women's, a third cuts out the leather, a fourth stitches 
 it together \ It is also known that first Solon, then 
 Themistocles, and afterwards Pericles, encouraged 
 settlers from all parts of the Greek world, and even 
 from among barbarians, if they were skilled artisans. 
 The varied aspects of this motley throng afford ground 
 for many interesting observations, but they are ob- 
 servations of detail, and not suited to a general 
 sketch. This side of Greek life, or rather of Athenian 
 life, the reader will find in Stark's edition of Her- 
 mann's Greek Antiquities, and in Biichsenschiitz's 
 Besitz und Erwerb, two excellent books, whose very 
 excellence makes them unreadable except as works 
 of reference. 
 
 It is far better for the student who desires to learn 
 the subject thoroughly, to go to these authorities, than 
 to be content with the meagre abstract which might 
 have been added in this place. But I venture to 
 hope that the general principles sketched out here 
 will help him to arrange and classify the details for 
 himself. 
 
 ^ The Greelcs seem to have been very particular about the fitting of 
 their shoes. This is shewn not only by the facts above mentioned, 
 of comic complaints about unseasoned shoe-leather, but by a series of 
 proverbs which express fitness by metaphors taken from shoes. Cp. 
 the learned note on this in Donaldson's Pindar, on 01. vi. S. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ATTIC CULTURE. — ENTERTAINMENTS AND CONVER- 
 SATION. — THE EDUCATION OF BOYS. — THE 
 STREETS IN ATHENS. 
 
 These considerations, however, suggest to me to 
 say something more particular concerning the tone 
 of Greek dinner-parties, the preparation of which was 
 so troublesome. I shall not spend one line on dis- 
 cussing the peculiar dishes, and the peculiar ways of 
 dressing them — a minute and tedious enquiry, as any 
 one may see who will open Athenaeus. It is not at 
 all so important to us .to know what the Greeks ate, 
 as to know with what manners and conversation they 
 ate, and I cannot but think that most handbooks of 
 Greek antiquities make the mistake of confining 
 themselves so closely to the materials of old Greek 
 life, that the really important features fall into the 
 background. 
 
 We have, in addition to the allusions in the Middle 
 and New Comedy, three detailed pictures of imaginary 
 Greek dinner-parties, one the scene in Aristophanes' 
 Wasps above alluded to (p. 319), in which the gentle- 
 manly son instructs his rude father how to behave — a 
 scene, by the way, which shows that I am correct in 
 
3ia SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 making this particular branch of refinement a feature 
 of the Platonic, and not the Periclean age. The two 
 other pictures are the Symposia of Plato and of 
 Xenophon, in each of which Socrates' presence at 
 a banquet of aristocratic gentlemen is made the 
 occasion of much philosophical and aesthetical con- 
 versation. The dialogue of Xenophon is as usual 
 tamer and less brilliant than that of his rival, but 
 probably more faithful to life, and a more natural 
 specimen of Greek society than the deep and mystical 
 composition of Plato, which, though now- a- days 
 greatly admired, was by old critics, such as Dicsear- 
 chus ^, despised as ^opriKov, 
 
 Of course the whole tone of the entertainments was 
 affected by the exclusion of married women, and of 
 the children, who dined at midday^. As I said 
 before, conversation took a leading place in Athenian 
 society. ' We,' says a Spartan character ', ' are great 
 both at eating and working, but the Athenians at 
 talking, and eating little, and the Thebans at eating 
 a great deal.' Plato goes so far, in a striking passage 
 of his Protagoras, as to charge with great stupidity 
 those that introduce musicians into their feasts, as 
 being people devoid of rational conversation, and 
 
 ' Miiller, Frag. Hist. li. p. 243. 
 
 ^ Aristoph. Cocalus, fr. 2. It is not dear whether the children were 
 sent for after dinner in these days as they were in Theophrastus' time. 
 For the serious and philosophical conversation of the Symposia of Plato 
 and Xenophon could hardly have tolerated such an interruption. It 
 may, however, have been done at quiet family parties. " 
 
 = Meineke, iii. p. 208. 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 313 
 
 hiring mercenary musicians to amuse their guests ^- 
 ' The talk about the poets seems to me like a com- 
 monplace entertainment to which a vulgar company- 
 have recourse ; who, because they are not able to 
 converse, or amuse one another while they are drink- 
 ing with the sound of their own voices and conversa- 
 tion, by reason of their stupidity, raise the price of 
 flute-girls in the market, hiring for a great sum the 
 voice of a flute instead of their own breath, to be the 
 medium of intercourse among them : but when the 
 company are real gentlemen and men of education, 
 you will see no flute-girls, or dancing-girls, or harp- 
 girls ; and they have no nonsense or games, but are 
 contented with one another's conversation, of which 
 their own voices are the medium, and which they 
 carry on by turns and in an orderly manner, even 
 though they are very liberal in their potations.' This 
 is exactly the sort of thing we find in Plato's own 
 Symposium, of which there will be occasion to speak 
 more particularly hereafter. The hostility to music 
 at dinner-parties was evidently a marked feature in 
 the Socratlc society, for Aristophanes brings it out 
 in his Clouds, where old Strepsiades is giving an 
 account of how he and his son quarreled. 'As 
 we were sitting at table,' says he, 'first I asked 
 him to take up the lyre and sing some song of 
 Simonides, such as. The Shearing of the Ram. But 
 he replied that playing and singing at table were 
 gone out of fashion [ap^aiov etv' ecpaa-Ke to KiSapiC^Lv 
 absw re mvovd'), and only fit for women grinding at 
 ' Jowett, ii. p. 156 (p. 347 D). 
 
3H 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [cH. 
 
 the mill,' but ends by singing some loose lyric of 
 Euripides ^ I think any one who dines at those state 
 dinners, where it is the fashion to have a band play- 
 ing, will be disposed to agree with Plato that it is 
 very injurious to conversation. 
 
 But Xenophon's Symposium shows that we must 
 not take Plato's standard as the usual one, and that 
 professional musicians, and even jugglers, were com- 
 monly employed to amuse even those Athenian 
 gentlemen, who, like the rich Callias, affected philo- 
 sophy. In that dialogue the §y«aetBan who has 
 been hired with his slaves for tfiis purpose, is much 
 annoyed at Socrates for distracting the attention of 
 the guests by his talking powers ; and all through it 
 is a sort of conflict between the" juggler and the phi- 
 losopher, whether gymnastic fe;ats or philosophy are 
 to have the upper hand. / 
 
 But assuming that conversation was to prevail, we 
 can easily see that this was the great reason why 
 Attic feasts were limited to a few guests. The 
 studied elegance and completeness of the appoint- 
 ments are always sacrificed if there be a crowd, and 
 they were not so much prized by cultivated gentle- 
 men of that day, as to make them forget that proper 
 conversation must remain general, and never degene- 
 rate into separate tetes-a-tetes. In the Symposium of 
 Plato, and elsewhere, Socrates is at once pulled up 
 if he whispers, or addresses separate individuals. 
 Even in Herodotus' day, he represents the tyrant 
 
 • Cp. Jowett's Plato, ii. p. 156 (p. 347 D) and Aiistoph. Nuhes, 1353 
 sqq. See also Meinekfi, Com. Frag. vol. iii. p. 119. 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 315 
 
 Cleisthenes testing his daughter's suitors t& XeyoiJ.iv(o 
 h iJieiTov — by their powers of general conversation. 
 Thus there was in Plato's day no necessity for the 
 officers mentioned at a later period by the Come- 
 dians, and called yvvaiKovoixoi, who went round to 
 private houses, and punished people who had too 
 large a number of guests. The ostentation of these 
 later days, and the decay of higher culture, may 
 have led them back into such social absurdities as 
 our state dinners, which can be paralleled by the 
 feast which Herodotus speaks of, as given at Thebes 
 to the noble Persians of Mardonius' army, of whom 
 fifty were invited, and a Greek gentleman sat beside 
 each*. This was stately, but was not society. So 
 then according to the highest Attic taste the number 
 should not exceed the limits which render general 
 conversation possible. 
 
 But despite of their powers of talking, the Greeks 
 deprecated, as we do, any delay in serving the din- 
 ner, when the guests had arrived, especially as they 
 assembled in the dining-room. ' What a misfortune,' 
 says Alexis {fr. incert. 13), 'to lie down at table 
 before dinner is ready, for there is no chance of sleep, 
 nor can we attend to what any one says, for the mind 
 is intent upon the table.' This then is the mauvais 
 quart d'keure of the French. We may look back to 
 the passage in Aristophanes' Wasps already cited 
 (above p. 219) for hints as to the proper way of com- 
 mencing the entertainment under such circumstances. 
 
 • Cp. also the state-dinner given by Philip of Macedon, Machines, 
 p. 143 (Teubner). The Athenian official dinners sometimes reached two 
 hundred, ^schin. irapairpeaP, t63. 
 
3i5 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 But from the fact that such remarks on the appoint- 
 ments are not common in Plato and Xenophon, they 
 probably felt as we should, that praise of the banquet 
 and the furniture before the host's face was hardly 
 refined (aoretoj;). The Flatterer in Theophrastus is 
 thus noted as the first to praise the appointments. 
 He forthwith takes up some ornament on the table, 
 and observes to the host, 'What a beautiful thing 
 this is ! ' 
 
 I cannot but think that the same principles must 
 have been applied to those stock contrivances for 
 keeping up conversation which are so often mentioned 
 in the Comedy, I mean the scolia, when one guest 
 commenced a sentence in verse, and handed a branch 
 to any other he chose, who was compelled to finish 
 the verse in the cleverest way he could. Of this 
 practice we have happily a remarkable specimen in 
 the Wasps, where the only real social talent displayed 
 by the old dicast is in rounding off the scolia with 
 political jokes and allusions. 
 
 The other stock contrivance was the ypicjbos or 
 riddle, which appears to have been a later fashion, 
 and perhaps to have supplanted the scolia. The 
 fashionable haipai were very celebrated for propound- 
 ing these riddles, many of which are quoted by the 
 grammarians. But of course, as among ourselves 
 now-a-days riddles and acrostics and all such stuff 
 are miserable substitutes for witty or even sensible 
 conversation, so there seems in the philosophical 
 dialogues of the Platonic age a silent contempt for 
 such devices. They too, like tunes or tumbling, are 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 317 
 
 inconsistent with a really good and general conver- 
 sation. 
 
 It is from the very same stand-point that Me- 
 nander, whose essentially refined and social temper 
 belonged more properly to the Platonic than the 
 Hellenistic age, complains of the misery of being 
 invited to join a family party at dinner, whereas on 
 the other hand he censures as vulgar the habit of 
 crowding the table on such occasions with strangers \ 
 Thus a marriage feast is necessarily a family party, 
 and to this the family alone, and old family friends, 
 should be invited. 'For {fr. incert. 16) it is labour 
 and sorrow to fall' in among a company of relations, 
 where the father keeping the bottle in his hand 
 begins the conversation, and jokes in trite saws, then 
 the mother comes next, then some grandmother puts 
 in her talk, then a hoarse old man, her father, and 
 then some old woman that calls him her darling. 
 But he nods assent to them all.' 
 
 It appears, in spite of the constant accusations 
 of drunkenness brought against Greek women in 
 Attic Comedy, that well-bred ladies affected small 
 appetites, and the Milesian and Cean maidens were 
 even water-drinkers. Of course they were never 
 present except at strictly family dinners. The ladies 
 who frequented men's society, though they too af- 
 fected the same modesty, were often led away to 
 greater indulgences than were consistent with the 
 purest Attic salt. 
 
 Drunkenness was about as common and as repre- 
 ' Meineke, iv. 202. 
 
31 8 SOCIAL GREECE.. [CH. 
 
 liended, as it now is ; but it is at first sight difficult 
 to explain how the Greeks managed to get drunk 
 on the very weak mixture they drank. Three parts 
 of water to two of wine was the usual propor- 
 tion, four to three was thought strong, equal parts 
 ' made them mad,' as one of the comic fragments 
 asserts ^. Even now the wines of Greece are far too 
 strong for Englishmen in a southern climate; and it 
 is certain, that to them their wines were fully as 
 strong as whiskey is to us. As to their various kinds 
 and various value, it was as large a subject as it now 
 is. There are in Athenaeus endless discussions about 
 them, which are now very uninteresting, as we can- 
 not try the taste of the Greeks by any specimens. 
 Putting snow and salt water into wine seems curious 
 treatment. The most modern feature in Greek wine- 
 drinking is the coming into fashion of dry wines ^, 
 and the objections against them by the adherents of 
 the old fashion ; as in Homer, for example, sweetness 
 was a special recommendation to wine. We hear 
 that it was brought round in carts, like our city milk, 
 and there are analogous complaints that it was watered 
 before selling it (iii. 386, 405). Its bouquet seems to 
 have been as important as with our wines, and there 
 is a remarkable fragment of Hermippus (ii. 410) com- 
 paring the Mendean, the Magnesian, the Chian in this 
 respect, giving however the palm to a wine called 
 
 ' See on this point Meineke, iii. p. 529 and iv. p. 605. Also Bergk's 
 iyWc Fragments, pp. 594 and 1027, 
 
 2 Posidippus (Meineke, iv. 526) says : Att/yrjpSs, Swotos S iivpivtjs i 
 Tlftios. This epithet Sti//i]p6s (dry) has greatly puzzled the Germans, 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 319 
 
 trairpCas, literally rotten, but referring to a peculiar 
 treatment of the grape, still in use ^, 
 
 These scattered details will give the reader some 
 idea of Attic entertainments, especially if he compare 
 them with the detailed description in Plato's Sym- 
 posium. I think that in spite of an element of ro- 
 mance being admissible which is quite foreign to 
 our notions, on the whole they were about as orderly 
 as our gentlemen's parties, and intellectually some- 
 thing like an agreeable assemblage of university men, 
 particularly among lively people, like the Irish. This 
 is I think a juster verdict than taking Plato for an 
 historical guide, as some Germans have done, and 
 talking bombast about the loftiness and splendour 
 of Attic conversation. To my taste indeed the de- 
 scription of his feast abounds far too much in long 
 speeches, which are decidedly tedious, and which 
 would certainly not be tolerated at any agreeable 
 party in Ireland, where this is the branch of culture 
 thoroughly understood. But of course the scene of 
 the banquet is only a secondary point with Plato, 
 and he has done wonders to combine deep philoi 
 sophical instruction with his scenery. I am far from 
 censuring his great genius — I only wish to point 
 out that for our present purpose his dialogue is not 
 a safe guide. 
 
 There are, however, some excellent points of 
 manners in the dialogue. Even Socrates dresses 
 himself with peculiar care, and, contrary to his usual 
 
 ' The same epithet is applied by Aristophanes to a rich and luxurious 
 peace, coming after the wants and hardships of war. 
 
320 SOCIAL GREECE. \CXl. 
 
 custom, wears sandals, owing to the fashionable na- 
 ture of Agathon's entertainment. But nevertheless 
 he proposes to a friend whom he meets on the way 
 to come with him unbidden ; and stopping in one 
 of his usual trances, the unbidden Aristodemus does 
 not hesitate to proceed by himself. 'When he 
 reached the house of Agathon ' he found the doors 
 wide open, and a servant coming out met him, 
 and at once led him into the banqueting-hall " in 
 which the guests were reclining, for the banquet was 
 about to begin. " Welcome, Aristodemus," said Aga- 
 thon, " you are Just in time to sup with us ; if you 
 come on any other errand put that off, and make one 
 of us, as I was looking for you yesterday, and meant 
 to have asked you, if I could have found you." (I 
 suspect this was a polite way of speaking, not meant 
 to be believed.) "But what have you done with 
 Socrates.'"' Aristodemus explains that he himself 
 had come at Socrates' invitation. "You were quite 
 right in coming" said Agathon, "but where is he 
 himself?" " He was behind me just now, and I can- 
 not think what has become of him." , Agathon 
 then sends out a slave, who finds Socrates in a 
 portico, but comes back to say that -he cannot stir 
 
 * Jowett, ii. p. 49a. 
 
 ^ Cp. on this hospitable feature the charming fragment of ApoUodoms 
 (Meineke, iv. p. 455), a writer of the New Comedy. He says : ' "When 
 you go to visit a friend at his house, you can perceive his friendliness 
 the moment you enter the door, for first the servant who opens the 
 door looks pleased, then the dog wags its tail and comes up to you, and 
 the first person you meet hands you a chair, before a word has been 
 said.' 
 
XI.] 4.TTIC CULTURE. 321 
 
 him. When Agathon is assured that there is no use 
 in farther messages, he acquiesces ; and adds : " My 
 domestics, who on these occasions become my 
 masters, shall entertain us as their guests. Put on 
 the table whatever you like," he said to them, "as 
 you do when there is no one to give you orders, 
 which is my habit. Imagine that you are our hosts, 
 and that I and the company are your guests, and 
 treat us well and then we shall commend you." ' 
 Presently Socrates makes his appearance. Agathon 
 is himself reclining at the end of the table, which was, 
 I suppose, the proper place for the host. 
 
 When the meal is ended, the libations are offered, 
 and then a paean is sung to the god, 'but as they 
 were about to commence drinking, Pausanias re- 
 minded them that they had had a bout yesterday, 
 from which he and most of them were still suffering, 
 and they ought to be allowed to recover, and not go 
 on drinking to-day.' They then agree not to drink 
 hard, and Eryximachus next proposes, ' that the 
 flute-girl, who had just made her appearance, be 
 dismissed ; she may play to herself, if she have a 
 mind, or to the women who are within!' So then it 
 appears that the character of these flute girls did not 
 prevent them from being received, for amusement's 
 sake, in respectable ladies' apartments. ' But on this 
 day let us have conversation instead.' What follows 
 is indeed not properly conversation, but long speeches 
 in honour of love. 
 
 These are suddenly interrupted by a great knock- 
 ing at the door of the house, as of revellers, and the 
 
 Y 
 
333 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 sound of a flute is heard. Agathon tells the attend- 
 ants to go and see who were the intruders. ' If they 
 are friends of ours,' said he, ' invite them in, but if 
 not, say the drinking is over.' Here we again have 
 gi-eat politeness at the expense of truth. A little 
 while afterwards they hear the voice of Alcibiades 
 resounding in the court ; he was in a great state of 
 intoxication, and kept shouting, 'Where is Aga- 
 thon?' and at length supported by the flute-girl, 
 and by some of his companions, he made his way 
 to him. 
 
 I shall not follow up the very strange scene that 
 ensued, but recommend all those desirous of seeing 
 how far Greek ideas on some subjects differ from 
 ours, to read Alcibiades' speech which follows. The 
 feast is however again interrupted by another band of 
 revellers, apparently strangers, 'who suddenly enter 
 (p- 538) and spoil the order of the banquet. Some 
 one who was going out having left the door open, 
 they had found their way in, and made themselves at 
 home ; great confusion ensued, and everybody was 
 compelled to drink large quantities of wine.' Aristo- 
 demus having at last fallen asleep, is awakened to- 
 wards daybreak by the crowing of the cock, and finds 
 that the others were either asleep or gone away; 
 'there remained awake only Socrates, Aristophanes, 
 and Agathon, who were drinking out of a large goblet 
 which they passed round, and Socrates was dis- 
 coursing to them. Aristodemus did not hear the 
 beginning of it, and he was only half awake, but the 
 chief thing which he remembered was Socrates in- 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 323 
 
 sisting to the other two that the genius of comedy- 
 was the same as that of tragedy, and that the writer 
 of tragedy ought to be a writer of comedy also. To 
 this they were compelled to assent, being sleepy, and 
 not quite understanding his meaning.' 
 
 Such is the scene drawn by Plato of a fashionable 
 banquet of young men of quality at Athens. It 
 strikes us as strangely similar to one of the supper 
 parties that most of us remember in our college 
 days. Acute argument and philosophical discussion 
 combined with hard drinking and perhaps some 
 ribald talk — late in the evening an open door to any 
 exhilarated passer by, who is attracted by the sound 
 of revelry. In- one point the Greeks had the ad- 
 vantage, thd'e was none of that noisy singing, or of 
 those stupiw personal compliments in the shape of 
 toasts, whi^i degrade modern supper parties. 
 
 The gene^^|tone of Xenophon's Symposium is not 
 dissimilar, th«s^h he admits, not drunken revellers, 
 but profesgj'^pal makers of pleasure, such as the 
 joker Phil^piis, and the Syracusan jugglers. The 
 feast was given by the rich Callias at his sea-side 
 residence in the Peirseus, and properly for a beautiful 
 young friend Autolycus, whom he invites with his 
 father. He meets on his way the Socratic party, five 
 in number, and presses them to join him. ' At first,' 
 says Xenophon, 'as was seemly, they declined the 
 invitation with thanks {ttp&tov fiev, &a-n€p etxos riv, 
 fTTaivovvTes ttjv K\rj(7iv, ovx iniKTxyovvTo (rvvbenrvqaeLv), 
 but when they saw that he would be vexed at their 
 refusal, they went with him.' At once however they 
 
 Y a 
 
324 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 are all so struck with the beauty of Autolycus, that 
 they keep their eyes fixed on him, and are speechless, 
 some of them too show signs of awkward constraint 
 {iaxrjixaTiQyvTo irtos). So then they dined in silence as 
 if ordered to do so by a superior. 
 
 At this moment Philippus the joker knocks at the 
 door, and tells the ^servant to announce who he is, 
 and why he desires admission. ' It would be dis- 
 graceful,' says Callias, ' to shut the door against 
 him, let him come in.' But the company is too 
 serious, and will not appreciate his Jokes, at which 
 he gets very angry, and is appeased with politeness 
 by the host. The course of this feast results in a 
 mixture of conversation with professi0Qal entertain- 
 ment, which may have made a pleasant evening, 
 in spite of Plato's strictures on such ' devices. It 
 is to be observed that Autolycus goe'i' off to bed 
 before the last scene (of Aria,dne atiD^'Bacchus) in- 
 troduced by the Syracusan — a sccfc* which could 
 hardly have been considered suitable before so young 
 and innocent a guest. 
 
 It seems plain from both these dialogues, especially 
 from the end of Xenophon's, that even when the 
 guests became intoxicated and went out in procession 
 through the streets, there was no other place of 
 resort for them than the houses of their friends, 
 especially of friends who had company on the same 
 night ; failing these they invaded the houses of 
 strangers. This corroborates what I said above, that 
 we find no trace of gambling houses, and other such 
 establishments so common in modern cities, which 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 335 
 
 are only frequented at dead of night, and generally 
 by men tired of drinking at private houses'. 
 
 Without doubt the special feature in all these 
 entertainments — I mean the entertainments given to 
 their friends by men of character and position — 
 was the absence of ladies. But this want, which is so 
 fatal in modern society, was not felt among the Greeks. 
 For in the first place, women of good position at 
 Athens, and indeed elsewhere, were not sufficiently 
 educated to stimulate and sustain bright conversation, 
 nor had the morals of the age sunk to the level of 
 Menander's day, when grace and esprit were a 
 passport to aristocratic company in spite of moral 
 degradation. In the next place, the feature which 
 even apart from conversation makes ladies so 
 necessary an ornament at a feast is the beauty and 
 variety of their dress. Modern men have so com- 
 pletely resigned all hope of making themselves 
 graceful or picturesque, that by way of modest 
 security, they have settled upon the gloomiest and 
 ugliest possible dress, so making a men's party a 
 dull sameness of black and white, in which no one 
 dreams of looking even for a variety in plainness. Now 
 Greek men had very different notions. They wore 
 white, and other bright colours, they wreathed their 
 heads with fair garlands, and did not disdain the use 
 
 ■ There are some disreputable pothouses alluded to in the Attic 
 orators, but they appear to have been frequented only in the day. 1 
 suppose they were either outside the walls, or closed by law at night. 
 Cp. Lysias, pp. 122, 125, Isocrates, Antid. § 287; Isceus, p. 53 (Tauch- 
 nitz); ^schines in Timarch, § 53. 
 
3a6 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 of perfumes. They sang and played in the evening 
 as systematically as the young ladies of the present 
 day, and, let us hope, with more soul and expression. 
 Thus in colour and in ornament, the evening dress of 
 Greek gentlemen was as ornamental as the dress 
 of modern ladies ; and from an artistic point of view, 
 decidedly superior. So far then we can see that 
 these old classical banquets did not suffer as ours do 
 from the exclusion of ladies. 
 
 But it will be said that I have ungallantly left to 
 the last place the greatest attraction of modern 
 society — the beauty of the fairer sex, and its power- 
 ful influence upon men. To this I will merely reply 
 by pointing to the many statues still extant of Greek 
 youths, and asking whether any modern belle has yet 
 equalled in grace and loveliness these almost ideal 
 models of humanity. All historians, all art critics, 
 are agreed that in no race and at no period has 
 there been so marvellous a development of physical 
 perfection among men, and though I do not for one 
 moment subscribe to such nonsense as the statement 
 of a living German professor, that ugliness was then 
 an actual exception, I feel justified in saying that as 
 far as strict beauty goes, the Athenian dinner parties 
 of young men were better furnished than almost any 
 modern table. The modern reader will still hold that 
 there remains a great difference, that manly beauty 
 may indeed be very fine and admirable, but that it 
 can never have the same effect as the gentler and 
 softer graces of the other sex. Most men now-a-days 
 would be almost indifferent whether the men they 
 
XL] ATTIC CULTURE. 32; 
 
 met were really handsome ; they are not so in the 
 case of ladies. It is here that we come upon a very 
 marked distinction between Greek and modern hu- 
 manity, which I will explain as briefly as possible. 
 
 If we look at the terminology of the Greeks 
 generally, we find that no language is richer, or more 
 various in expressing its ideas. But in contrast to 
 this richness, we find certain words relating to 
 passions and desires used with a vagueness or with 
 a wideness of application which surprises us. Thus 
 Eros, even the personified Eros, is conceived by 
 Sophocles as not only sleeping on the maiden's 
 cheek, but as the Eros of wealth and of power. In 
 fact the love of power, and the love of riches, which 
 we distinguish widely from the passion of love, were 
 by the Greeks identified with it. For the Greeks 
 fixed their attention upon the subjective desire so 
 strongly as to consider its aim of secondary im- 
 portance. It was doubtless this unity in the nature 
 of desire, which suggested to Plato his famous theory 
 of a hidden unity in the objects of desire, for he held 
 that all love among men, sensual, aesth^etical, intel- 
 lectual, were but modifications of the love of the true 
 and the good, and that all earthly beauties, were like- 
 wise but various imperfect imitations of Essential 
 Beauty. As Mr. Jowett eloquently puts it in his 
 masterly introduction to the Symposium (i. 485) : — 
 
 'But Diotima, the prophetess of Mantineia^ whose 
 sacred and superhuman character raises her above 
 the ordinary proprieties of women, has taught So- 
 crates far more than this about the art and mystery 
 
328 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 of love. She has taught him that love is anothef 
 aspect of philosophy. The same want in the human 
 soul which is satisfied in the vulgar by the pro- 
 creation of children, may become the -highest aspira- 
 tion of intellectual desire. As the Christian might 
 speak of hungering and thirsting after righteousness ; 
 or of divine loves under the figure of human (cp. 
 Eph. V. 32 : "This is a great mystery, but I speak 
 concerning Christ and the church ") ; as the medieval 
 saint might speak of the "fruitio Dei," so the ab- 
 sorption and annihilation of all other loves and 
 desires in the love of knowledge is a feeling that was 
 at least intelligible to the Greek of the fifth century 
 before Christ. To most men reason and passion 
 appear to be antagonistic both in idea and fact. The 
 union of the greatest comprehension of knowledge 
 and the burning intensity of love is a contradiction 
 in nature, which may have existed in a far-off 
 primeval age in the mind of some Hebrew prophet or 
 other Eastern sage, but has now become an imagina- 
 tion only. Yet this " passion of the reason " is the 
 theme of thf Symposium of Plato. And as there is 
 no impossibility in supposing that " one king, or son 
 of a king, may be a philosopher," so also there is a 
 probability that there may be some few — perhaps one 
 or two in a whole generation — in whom the light of 
 truth may not lack the warmth of desire. And if 
 there be such natures, no one will be disposed to 
 deny that, " from them flow most of the benefits of 
 individuals and states." 
 
 ' Yet there is a higher region in which love is not 
 
XL] ATTIC CULTURE. 329 
 
 only felt, but satisfied, in the perfect beauty of 
 eternal knowledge, beginning with the beauty of 
 earthly things, and at last by regular steps reaching 
 a beauty in which all existence is seen harmonious 
 and one. The limited affection is enlarged, and en- 
 abled to behold the ideal beauty of all things. This 
 ideal beauty of the Symposium is the ideal good of 
 the Republic ; regarded not with the eye of know- 
 ledge, but of faith and desire. The one seems to say 
 to us " the idea is love," the other, " the idea is truth." 
 In both the lover of wisdom is the " spectator of all 
 time and all existence." This is a sort of " mystery " 
 in which Plato also obscurely intimates the inter- 
 penetration of the moral and intellectual faculties.' 
 
 It is a corollary to this exposition that to the 
 Greek the love of manly, beauty should not differ in 
 kind or in character from the love of women. ' Still 
 more remarkable is the fact, that the elevation of 
 sentiment, which is regarded by Plato as the first 
 step in the upward progress of the philosopher, is 
 aroused not by female beauty, but by the beauty of 
 youth, which alone seems to have been capable of 
 inspiring the modern feeling of romance in the Greek 
 mind. The passion which was unsatisfied by the 
 love of women, took the spurious form of an en- 
 thusiasm for the ideal of beauty — a worship as of 
 some godlike image of an Apollo or Antinous \' 
 
 Thus therefore we can see clearly how female 
 society was to some extent superseded by this 
 marvellous love of beauty in other forms, and in 
 ' Jowett, i. p. 486. 
 
330 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 consequence by the very romantic attachments which 
 are a leading feature in Greek history. So jealous 
 were these attachments, and so exclusive, that Aris- 
 totle gravely questions, in his Ethics, whether a man 
 can ever have more than a single friend — a belief not 
 less absurd than the vision of some modern romances, 
 that nature has produced people in pairs intended for 
 each other exclusively. 
 
 This peculiar feature of Greek life is not easy for 
 us to understand, but I need not here turn aside 
 to consider its varied aspects. The ordinary reader 
 can study the question a:mply in Mr. Jowett's trans- 
 lation of Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium, with his 
 admirable introduction'. 
 
 I must not, in concluding this subject, fail to add 
 the effects produced on the education of boys. It 
 seems to me that this extraordinary attention to which 
 Greek boys were liable, made their moral training, 
 when successful, more perfect than any now aimed at, 
 even by the strictest parents. In fact the higher edu- 
 cation of a Greek boy combined, with the best physical 
 and intellectual training then attainable, a moral super- 
 vision as strict as that which we practise in bringing 
 
 ' I have discussed the matter as fully as was possible in my first edition, 
 which the student of Greek life may compare with my present remarks. 
 I will suggest the following additional autliorities on the question: 
 Theognis' Elegies (cf. above, p. 107) ; Plato's Laws (Jowettj iv. 157, 
 347) 353); Xenophon's Sympos, (cap. viii.) ; Lysias' irpbs Si/uwa; 
 Aristotle in Miiller's i^rag-g-. Hisl. (ii. pp. 132, 143, 180, 211); .ffischines' 
 ward Tiiiapx. ; Plutarch's Agis (cap. xi. and xiii) ; and Lucian's Amores, 
 These are official discussions; stray allusions, as in Aristophanes, are 
 endless. 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 331 
 
 up our daughters. Far from casting out their sons into 
 public schools, with the full knowledge that they will 
 there lose all their simplicity and innocence, Greek 
 parents of the better sort kept their sons constantly 
 under the eye of a slave tutor or pedagogue, a sort of 
 male dtienna, who never let them out of his sight. It 
 is complained, indeed, both by the speakers in Plato, 
 and in the comedies, that these slaves were mostly old, 
 that they spoke with a bad accent \ that they were 
 rough in their manners, and that they were chosen for 
 the office of pedagogue because they were useless for 
 any other purpose. But we should never forget that 
 we hear this from the very people who found them in 
 the way, and who were thwarted and hindered by their 
 presence. Thus many a most respectable and kind- 
 hearted duenna has been reviled, because she was 
 faithful to her charge, and perhaps her highest enco- 
 mium is this abuse from her natural enemies. 
 
 However then the pedagogues may be ridiculed, it 
 appears to be certain that the boys whom they had in 
 charge were probably the most attractive the world 
 has ever seen. No one can study the splendid statues 
 of youths in the museums of Italy, without acknow- 
 ledging this remarkable feature. When do we now 
 see among young men a proper model for a sculptor, 
 
 ' If we may judge from Quintilian (i. 1.4), the Romans were in his 
 day more particular about accent than the Greeks. He insists upon 
 the importance of a good accent in nurses, and the difficulty of correcting 
 bad habits of speaking, when once acquired. We know this in Ireland 
 but too well. He even dissuades from exclusive learning of Greek at 
 an early age, as it produced an effect upon the speaking of Latin. 
 
333 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and yet to the Greeks there was no lack of such 
 models, exceeding in grace and beauty even the fairest 
 of women ? There are no sketches in all literature 
 more exquisite than these youths in Plato and Xeno- 
 phon. They combine with the highest beauty and 
 intelligence a peculiar modesty and freshness, which 
 is worn off our boys by the soil of school life, and 
 which now no longer dwells among us, save in our 
 delicately brought up girls. All this maiden grace 
 and purity, this implicit obedience to parents, this do- 
 cility to instruction, was, I believe, the direct result of 
 the greater moral risks to which they were liable, and 
 the consequent greater chastity and reticence with 
 which they were brought up ^. 
 
 There was no question more agitated at Athens than 
 the education of boys. There was no controversy on 
 which party-spirit ran more hotly, or on which the old 
 and the new Attic life differed more profoundly. The 
 older fashion had been to bring up boys very much as 
 we bring up girls, keeping them constantly under the 
 eye of a special atteadant or teacher, insisting above 
 all things on purity and modesty, teaching them the 
 received religion, and a little of the standard literature 
 and music, inculcating obedience to the gods and to 
 parents, but aiming at no higher intellectual standard. 
 If we except the gymnastic training of Greek boys in 
 the older Attic period, and to which the calisthenics 
 or deportment of modern young ladies but faintly 
 
 ' Greek fathers spoke more freely with their sons on some points than 
 we should do. JEschines {In Timarch. p. 84) assumes that all the boys 
 will ask about this case, and have it explained to them by their parents. 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 333 
 
 corresponds, we shall, I think, see reason for the as- 
 sertion that it was very Hke what is, and has been, the 
 received education of girls in our own civilisation. 
 The locus classicus on this question is undoubtedly the 
 famous controversy between the just and the unjust 
 arguments in Aristophanes' Clouds (w. 934 sqq.), in 
 which the poet, who was of the old school, puts the 
 fairest colours on the education of his own youth. He 
 represents all the boys of Athens going in crowds to 
 their schools early in the morning, and not even de- 
 terred by the heaviest snow. He describes the strict 
 supervision and discipline under which they were kept, 
 how every gesture was watched and every transgres- 
 sion strictly punished. He also lauds the graceful 
 gymnastic exercises, and the fine bodily condition 
 which this training had produced. There seems no 
 doubt that this description is in the main just. School 
 training was of old a recognised public necessity among 
 the Greeks. When the Athenians fled from Xerxes 
 with their families, and passed over from Salamis to 
 Troezen, we are told that their generous hosts not only 
 provided them with sustenance, but also with daily 
 education for their children. So strongly did the ab- 
 sence of public day schools strike a later observer, 
 Polybius, at Rome, that he could not understand how 
 Romans were educated ; and in this respect, says Cicero, 
 he misconceived the conditions of the state which he 
 had studied with so much accuracy ^ I cannot here 
 
 ' ' De qua Grseci multa frustra laborarunt, et in qua una Polybius 
 noster hospes nostrorum institutorum neglegentiam accusat; nullam 
 certam aut deslinatam legibus aut publice expositam aut unam omnium 
 
334 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 discuss the details of the Greek school instruction in 
 reading and writing, in singing and playing, generally 
 also in drawing, and in dancing. Suffice it to say that 
 it was essentially a liberal, as opposed to a professional 
 education. There were no special departments in par- 
 ticular courses for different boys. They were taught, 
 as our old universities ought to teach, nothing but 
 general culture through a study of classics and science. 
 Whether the poet paints with equal fairness the new 
 education may well be questioned. But the collateral 
 evidence we possess leaves us in no doubt as to its real 
 nature. Among the Sophists, and with Socrates, scep- 
 tical inquiry, intellectual acuteness, and rational per- 
 suasion usurped the place of the old-fashioned training 
 in received dogmas and in popular music. Instead of 
 playing and singing in society, their pupils were taught 
 to discuss morals and religion, and to train themselves 
 for politics and courts of justice rather than for the 
 battle-field. Of course the usual results followed. 
 Despite the great earnestness and exceeding manliness 
 of Socrates, whose strong and healthy nature withstood 
 the dangers and temptations of his condition, his dis- 
 ciples had the very opposite reputation. With a few 
 such exceptions as Xenophon and Plato, they were 
 daring unprincipled men, either reckless in politics, 
 if they were ambitious ; or reckless in morals, if they 
 were sensual. 
 
 esse voluenint.' Clc. de Rep. iv. 3, quoted by Grasberger, Erziehung, 
 Sec, ii. p. 76. In fact the Romans, like ourselves, trusted to home 
 influences, and to the care of parents. The Greelcs preferred to insist 
 upon education as a matter of state control. 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 335 
 
 This sceptical questioning fell in too well with the 
 salient weaknesses of Greek nature to escape per- 
 version ; and so while to the world at large, down 
 to our own day, the gain from the teaching of So- 
 crates has been greater than that from the teaching 
 of any other man, to the Athens of his day the 
 damage was, I believej grave and remarkable. I 
 have not the least doubt that the constantly re- 
 peated accusations of the Comic poets are mainly true, 
 and that the idleness openly countenanced by Socrates 
 was most injurious to his school. Of course he did not 
 call it idleness ; to him a deep and earnest discussion 
 of morals, an extracting of thought from the dor- 
 mant intellect of a pupil, was the noblest and most 
 important business of life, but as he never even 
 hinted at a test to distinguish serious and useful con- 
 versation from idle subtilties and wordy waste of time, 
 his school was certain to fall into this mistake. Even 
 the greatest of them all, Plato, shows us plainly by 
 his dialogues what a superfluity of talk was thought 
 desirable by the school, and there is no impression 
 stronger in modern practical minds, upon reading 
 these — doubtless immortal but — never-ending dis- 
 cussions, than the feeling that the Socratic school 
 were a school of idlers, whose time either had no 
 other value, or if it had, was frittered away with 
 unpardonable wastefulness ^ 
 
 ' Observe the contrast of the respectable and diligent Nicias. 
 'Thus then guarding himself against the professional false accusers 
 he neither dined out, nor mixed in general society or conversation, nor 
 did he at all allow himself leisure for such amusements, but as Archon 
 
336 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 But of course the excessive conversation of these 
 dialogues was no general Greek type. I suppose 
 that the Ischomachus of Xenophon's (Economics would 
 not have tolerated it. He went himself daily to 
 look after his country farm, and took his gallop 
 across country in order, as he says, to know how to 
 manage his horse when he served in the cavalry in 
 war. The very general criticism in the Comedy of 
 the day shows what the public felt, and we may 
 conclude that here, as usual, we have preserved to 
 us the spokesmen of the opposite sides, and that 
 the higher education of Athens, though deeply af- 
 fected by the sceptical spirit of Socrates, neverthe- 
 less maintained the old musical and gymnastic 
 training, nay even (as we shall see) the old ortho- 
 doxy to a considerable extent. Athenian boys were 
 after all in most respects like our own. 
 
 If there had been any game in Attica, they would 
 have taken to hunting, as the Spartans did ; and 
 the theoretical educators knew quite well what most 
 of us do not, that such field sports as this are vastly 
 superior to pure athletics in their effects upon the 
 mind.. It were well to reflect upon this now-a-daysi 
 when boat-racing and running and jumping and 
 
 he remained at his office till night, and was the last to leave the council, 
 having been the first to come. Nay even when he had no public duties to 
 perform, he was hard of access and difficult to meet, for he stayed at 
 home and in seclusion. But his friends used to receive people who came 
 to his door, and beg of them to excuse hira on the plea that even then 
 Nicias was engaged about some public business.' Plutarch's Nicias, 
 cap. V. Plutarch thinks from the tone of the comic poets, that this 
 diligence was partly assumed. This I do not believe. 
 
XL] ATTIC CULTURE. 337 
 
 putting weights are bidding fair to take the place 
 of our old fox-hunting, and shooting, and fishing. 
 The Greeks knew very well, what we ignore, that 
 such sports as require excessive bodily training and 
 care are low and debasing in comparison to those 
 which demand only the ordinary strength and quick- 
 ness of young men, but stimulate them to higher 
 mental exercise— daring and decision in danger, re- 
 source and ingenuity in difficulties ^ Xenophon's 
 tract on hare-hunting shows plainly how strongly 
 he advocated the same views ^- Plato argues this 
 point fully, and we find it again strongly put in 
 Plutarch's Philopcemen. ' As he appeared to have 
 natural qualifications for wrestling, and some of his 
 friends and tutors urged him to train, he asked 
 whether athletic training would at all interfere with 
 his condition for military purposes.' Being told that 
 it would, ' he not only avoided it altogether and 
 ridiculed it, but afterwards when commanding pun- 
 ished all such training with disgrace and even in- 
 sult.' But he rather feared physical results. Plato 
 sees the mental consequences more plainly. Lastly, 
 Alexander of Macedon established, says Plutarch, 
 many poetical and musical contests, but not a single 
 athletic contest, which shows plainly that, like Phil- 
 opcemen, he thought physical training of little use 
 for the serious affairs of life. 
 
 1 Cp. Jowett's Plalo, iv. p. 154; and Grate's Plalo, iii. p. 174. 
 
 ' He speaks with real enthusiasm of the wonderful delight of hunting 
 this sort of game, which was evidently the most prized in the Pelo- 
 ponnesus. His dogs were specially trained to neglect foxes, as useless 
 and inferior creatures. 
 
 Z 
 
338 SOCIAL GREECE. [cH, 
 
 The want of game, as I have said, in Attica, stood 
 greatly in the way of a proper physical education, 
 and so the high-spirited youths who could not bear 
 to keep talking all day, were obliged to vary their 
 gymnastics with lower amusements — dice-playing, 
 drinking and debauchery — which are much com- 
 plained of by Isocrates (ii. p. 169). 
 
 What I have said hitherto refers only to boys of 
 some age, who were approaching the age of puberty, 
 and had arrived at such a mental stage as was suited 
 for philosophical discussion. As to little children we 
 have but scanty advice, and apparently not much 
 sympathy among the philosophers. It was in fact 
 mainly the intellect which attracted the attention of 
 these speculators. The only educator who seems to 
 me to have had a really deep sympathy with the 
 temptations of his pupils was Socrates, and he did 
 not seem to concern himself with little children, but 
 only with boys old enough to understand argument. 
 
 I fear Plato was an old bachelor, and estimated chil- 
 dren accordingly. 'Of all animals,' he says in the 
 Laws (iv. 322), 'the boy is the most unmanageable, he 
 is the most insidious, sharpwitted, and insubordinate.' 
 He notices in the sequel how peculiarly the Egyptians 
 excelled in the education of children, thereby implying 
 inferiority in the Greeks. He proposes indeed to have 
 two or three stout nurses to carry about each child 
 in his ideal State, chiefly to obviate their roaring, in 
 which he contrasts them unfavourably with the lower 
 animals ; but this very advice, and the reason for it; 
 speaks plainly the unsympatlietic doctrinaire. So 
 
%1.] 4TT1C CULTURE. 339 
 
 Aristotle, too, when he recommends for Httle children 
 toys, ' that they may not break the household furni- 
 ture,' shows himself both a bad observer and a bad 
 adviser. Toys are most injurious to the peace of 
 mind and the good temper of children ; they will by 
 no means save the furniture, and it is certain that 
 intelligent children will exercise both their minds and 
 bodies far better by inventing plays and games, as 
 they all do, than by struggling for the possession of a 
 new toy, which is broken and forgotten within a few 
 hours. 
 
 I fancy, though we have little evidence, that the 
 average Greek parents were harsher than we are. 
 Lysis ^ says he would be beaten if he touched his 
 mother's spinning gear. He would be called in at 
 once if they wanted reading or writing done — an allu- 
 sion which leads us to suspect that the older genera- 
 tion were not very perfectly educated. But in spite 
 of the repressive system of education described in this 
 interesting passage of PlatOj we know from Plutarch's 
 anecdote (above, p. 232) about Alcibiades, that boys 
 even of high family played in the street, and in the 
 cartway. 
 
 I am persuaded by other hints, that the streets of 
 Athens were not at all more fit for respectable boys 
 to play in than the streets of modern towns. I have 
 mentioned people opening their doors, and shouting 
 e^ioTO) (stand aside) to the passers by, before they 
 threw out dirty water, as they do in the lanes of 
 London and Dublin. We hear of no strict super- 
 '■ Plato, i. p. 49. 
 Z 2 
 
340 SOCIAL GREECE, [cH. 
 
 vision of the streets — nothing that I know of save 
 one allusion in Aristophanes to men being arrested 
 as intoxicated, if they went out without a walking- 
 stick {^aKTTipiov), and one in Hypereides that women 
 who misconducted themselves in the streets were 
 fined looo drachmae — an enormous fine. Neverthe- 
 less, though in theory hurried walking, or laughter, or 
 noise of any kind was thought vulgar, the ordinary 
 Athenian public did not live up to an ideal level. 
 Old gentlemen often went along whistling, as Aris- 
 tophanes tells us. Crowds too would gather in the 
 streets, not only to run after a groom who was leading 
 a splendid horse \ as Xenophon tells us, but also to 
 hear and join in an altercation. 
 
 A very amusing account of such a street brawl is 
 given in one of Lysias' speeches. It was concerning 
 the possession of a boy whom the speaker endeavoured 
 to rescue from a drunken party attempting to carry 
 him off by violence. They had rushed into a fuller's 
 shop, where the boy had taken refuge and concealed 
 himself. The boy was dragged out screaming and 
 bawling; and many people having come up and cry- 
 ing out shame, the party gave them no heed, but 
 knocked down the fuller and others who tried to 
 
 • Cp. also Lysias, p. 1 78, on the other side. We see how ordinary 
 hacks were so common, that a very poor man could borrow one to ride 
 about on business, instead of doing the more comfortable thing and 
 driving. IsiEus (p. 53) corroborates this inference, when he tells us 
 that one could be had for three minse (£13), apparently the lowest 
 price. Theophrastus (p. 117, ed. Jebb) speaks of it as the mark of a 
 boor .to stand in the street and gape after a cow or an ass or a goat : 
 irav ii tSp 0ovv ^ Svov fj Tp&yoy iartjKiis 0eupetv. 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 341 
 
 rescue the boy. The speaker then came up, and as 
 the boy was his special favourite, he forthwith joins 
 in the fight. He and the boy both take to throwing 
 stones, and being helped by the by-standers, there 
 was a general melde. ' In this row we all had our 
 heads broken ^' He says that there were presently 
 two hundred people present. 
 
 The men who had been drunk and had assaulted 
 the speaker came afterwards and apologised, which 
 was the gentlemanly thing to do, as the penalties for 
 assault were at Athens very severe, and would be 
 enforced if the matter should come into court. Prob- 
 ably for the same reason, we are told (Lysias, p. 98) 
 that actions for abusive language were thought dis- 
 reputable. But I must reserve the legal peculiarities 
 of the Athenian state for a special discussion. I have 
 here only sought to show that while the theories of 
 Plato were most advanced and philosophical on educa- 
 tion, there was probably as great a difference between 
 his speculations and ordinary Athenian practice, as 
 there is between our theory and our practice in educa- 
 tion. I hold it therefore uncritical to quote Plato's 
 Dialogues as evidences of Athenian education, except 
 where he alludes to the ordinary practice directly, 
 and often as differing from his views. Most of his 
 theories were peculiar to himself, or to the select 
 few brought up in the higher atmosphere of Socratic 
 teaching. 
 
 ' hi TOUTifi tS SopvPa awTpi.p6ii.i6a tAs Ki<pa\Sii Ewavres (p. 31). 
 There is another street brawl described in Isocrates (p. 372), which was 
 however quelled by the accidental appearance of a magistrate. 
 
342 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 I think it necessary, before leaving the subject of 
 Attic culture, to remind the reader of its narrowness 
 as well as of its exclusiveness, and how it was con- 
 sidered by those who possessed it a special apanage 
 not even of all Greeks, but of the pure autochthonous 
 offspring of Attic soil. Here it is that we see a very 
 considerable inferiority to the views of earlier civilized 
 Greeks, who travelled to foreign capitals, and who 
 respected the culture of foreign races. Thus Hero- 
 dotus evidently admires and likes both Persians and 
 Egyptians. To him a Persian grandee or an Egyp- 
 tian high-priest was fully as cultured a man, nay in 
 many respects a much more thorough gentleman than 
 the best of the Greeks. The anecdotes I have above 
 cited (p. 158), the account he gives of Persian education 
 and Persian manners, especially confirm this. In one 
 point only, in politics, in their free institutions, he per- 
 ceives that the Greeks have an inestimable advantage. 
 
 But even in that generation Thucydides and the 
 tragedians show the narrowing effects of Attic culture. 
 Thucydides thinks the quarrels of Athens and Sparta 
 far more important than the vast shock of East and 
 West in a former generation. It was a war among 
 Greeks, and therefore in his mind far finer than any- 
 thing in which barbarians were concerned. And when 
 the Persian empire recovered sufficient strength to 
 profit by Greek dissensions, and to make its power 
 again feared, we find Greek generals and philosophers 
 advocating a theory called by Mr. Grote PanhelUnism, 
 which means a combination of all Greeks — of all the 
 various Hellenic tribes who spoke the same language, 
 worshipped the same p-ods, and attended the same 
 
XI.]" ATTIC CULTURE. 343 
 
 festivals — for the purpose of assailing and plundering 
 the barbarians. This theory was based on the unity 
 of the Hellenic race, as shown by the marks just 
 enumerated, and assumed a natural inferiority in all 
 other races — an assumption by which Aristotle actually 
 sought to justify slavery. He deliberately asserted 
 that nature had made the Greeks to rule, and the 
 barbarians — especially the Eastern barbarians — to be 
 their servants. Aristotle was here only repeating the 
 traditional theories of the Attic politicians, and though 
 he stood in presence of a greater mind which sought 
 to fuse races, and ' celebrate the marriage of Europe 
 and Asia,' he never saw his way to that broader 
 Hellenicism with which Alexander supplanted and 
 absorbed the Panhellenism of the Spartans and 
 Athenians. 
 
 The most perfect specimen of this narrower policy 
 — a policy which was nevertheless preached as broad 
 and philosophical in contrast to the parochial patriotism 
 of separate cities — will be found in the works of Iso- 
 crates. This well-meaning and gentlemanly, but some- 
 what vapid, rhetorician set himself up as the apostle 
 of Panhellenism, and spent his life in advocating what 
 he thought a large and noble policy among Greeks. 
 He was a man of culture, and worked very hard in 
 educating the aristocratic youth of his day. So 
 highly did he rate the advantages of the intellectual 
 atmosphere of Athens, that he even asserts {Pane- 
 gyricus, p. 51 A) his fellow-citizens to have caused 
 the name of Greek to be associated rather with 
 culture, than with race, throughout the world. 
 
 Yet I am convinced nothing could be farther from 
 
344 SOCIAL GREECE. [cir. 
 
 Isocrates' mind than the views attributed to him by 
 E. Curtius, of advocating a new Hellenedom founded 
 not upon race, but upon culture. He meant no more 
 in this isolated passage than a bigoted Englishman 
 might mean if ~he said that an Englishman was known 
 among foreigners rather by his superior style and tone 
 than by his language and complexion. Such a man 
 might say this, and still hold that the style and tone 
 were only to be found among Englishmen. In a 
 similar way Isocrates declares that it is the culture 
 and not the breed of the Greeks which was becoming 
 their prominent feature. But this in no way implies 
 that he thought the barbarians capable of like culture. 
 He is not indeed very consistent with himself, and is 
 apt to say whatever suits him rhetorically, so that any 
 isolated passage has no weight in comparison with 
 the general tone of his thinking. 
 
 Now if we look into this larger evidence, we find no 
 Greek author who insists more constantly on the con- 
 trast of Hellenes and barbarians, and who is more 
 conceited about the inherent and indestructible supe- 
 riority of the former. He had before him indeed two 
 remarkable examples of the extension of Hellenic 
 culture to these inferior races — in Cyprus and Mace- 
 donia. But though he is obliged to confess that in 
 both cases, a foreign or semi-foreign nationality appre- 
 ciated and endeavoured to appropriate this culture, he 
 never contemplates for a moment any independent 
 development, and attributes it all to the personal 
 ascendency and direction of Greeks. In the case of 
 Cyprus it is Evagoras who conquers the island, and 
 by despotic rule humanizes the natives, who were (he 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 345 
 
 asserts) an old Hellenic colony under Teucer, so that 
 they merely reverted to their pristine dignity, having 
 been barbarized by untoward circumstances. And 
 now it is altogether by a servile imitation of Greek 
 manners, and by intermarrying with Greek wives, 
 that they earn his respect. In the case of Mace- 
 donia, he lays the greatest stress on the heroic 
 origin of Philip, whose real country is Argos, and upon 
 his having about him large numbers of wise and en- 
 lightened Greeks. Under these circumstances, he is 
 able, as a despot, to impose Hellenic culture on his 
 barbarous subjects. 
 
 But had the Cyprians and Macedonians become the 
 most refined people in the world, Isocrates would not 
 for one moment have thought them the equals of the 
 Spartans, whose ignorance he himself exposes in great 
 detail. For these were at one time of his life the 
 natural leaders of the Hellenes, and in spite of their 
 ignorance and brutality were still the very cream 
 of Hellenic aristocracy. 
 
 In fact the whole aim of his policy, was to unite the 
 Greeks either under the Spartans, or under Philip, in 
 an aggressive war against the Persian barbarians. This 
 very narrow and unjustifiable scheme might have been 
 palliated by an open declaration that such conquest 
 would tend to civilise the East, and open it up to 
 commerce and to letters. But such an Alexandrian 
 notion of Hellenic conquest was far beyond the polit- 
 ical horizon of Isocrates. He tells us with cynical 
 frankness the advantages gained by such conquest. 
 It is ' that the barbarians will be turned out of their 
 country, and taught to think less of themselves' 
 
346 SOCIAL GREECE. \cw. 
 
 (p. 268 B). It is 'that all such barbarians as do not 
 help Philip shall become slaves to the Greeks' 
 (p. 41 2 D). It is in fact that the Greeks shall gain 
 every advantage they can at the expense of the 
 barbarians, and give them nothing instead^- Pro- 
 fessor E. Curtius is indeed persuaded that this 
 constant preaching of a war against Persia is only 
 an obsolete theory, and that Isocrates' real creed was 
 the spreading of a higher culture even beyond the 
 Hellenic race. But surely there is but one isolated 
 phrase (in the Panegyricus) to sustain this latter 
 principle ; whereas the aggressive war policy against 
 Persia runs all through his works. I am therefore 
 convinced, in spite of such high authority against 
 me, that the passage he cites about culture is only 
 an empty phrase, while the anti-Persian idea was his 
 real creed. It seems to me that Ernst Curtius' theory 
 should be exactly reversed. 
 
 It would be indeed strange to find in that very 
 mediocre and shallow philosopher, Isocrates, a fore- 
 taste of cosmopolitanism in human culture, when such 
 an idea was beyond the horizon of his far greater 
 contemporaries, Plato and Aristotle. Both of these 
 thinkers, in many respects so modern, and so beyond 
 
 ^ Let the reader in addition consider the tone of the following passages ; 
 pp. 48 A, 258 C, 278 D, 409 A, (Steph.) 61 E, 126 D (Reiske). They all 
 breathe the same thoroughly intolerant spirit, and are directly opposed 
 to true Hellenicism. I have elsewhere (Academy for April i, 1876) 
 already proposed to note this important distinction by the tenns Helle- 
 nism and Hellenicism, with the adjectives Hellenic and Hellenistic to 
 correspond. I still think this a convenient nomenclature, which, if 
 adopted, will save some respectable scholars from confusion of thought 
 on the subject, , 
 
XI.] ATTIC CULTURE. 347 
 
 their age, were strictly Hellenes of the Hellenes, and 
 could not conceive the doctrine that barbarians could 
 through culture claim equality with the Greeks. 
 
 So then the separation assumed by Isocrates 
 between Hellene and barbarian was as deep and 
 wide as that between Jew and Gentile under the 
 Pharisees, as that between Turk and Frank under the 
 Sublime Porte. It is plain then that not Isocrates, 
 nay not even Aristotle, was the true apostle of the 
 Hellenicism of the second century, but rather Alex- 
 ander, who disregarding the advice of his tutor to 
 treat the barbarians Seo-wort/cSs, as a master, knew how 
 to consult their interests, and to postpone the claims 
 of the offended and astonished Greeks. Attic culture 
 could never have widened itself to this condition, and 
 it was therefore necessary for the progress of the 
 world that the incomparable refinement of Athens 
 should be rudely shocked by the Macedonians, and 
 taught to accommodate itself to a new and subordinate 
 position. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS FEELING IN THE ATTIC AGE. 
 
 The common theory as to the religion of the Greeks 
 assumes that in Homeric days men believed faithfully 
 in the acts and adventures of the gods, as they were 
 collected and recited by the Epic poets. In these 
 primitive days the personification of natural powers 
 was universally admitted as the only reasonable ex- 
 planation of the action and order of nature ; and it 
 seemed not only impious but absurd to the early 
 Greek to regard his Helios as no longer a great god 
 driving his chariot daily, and casting an eye of desire 
 upon the fair things of this world, but a mere lump of 
 whitened metal suspended in the sky, and moved at 
 the beck of some unseen and spiritual agency. In 
 this sense the saying of Herodotus is often quoted, 
 that Homer and Hesiod ' made the theology of the 
 Greeks' ; in other words, these widely-spread and 
 popular poems gave some connected view of the 
 various scattered local beliefs concerning the gods 
 and their relations to men. 
 
 Mr. Grote has shown with great ability and force, 
 in his celebrated sixteenth chapter, how this simple 
 
RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 349 
 
 unreasoning faith began to fade out under the light 
 of criticism when the nation awoke into conscious 
 reflection. The Greeks were too subtle and thoughtful 
 a people to remain content with any received dogmas 
 either in religion or in politics, without sifting and 
 testing them by the light of reason ; and the Epic 
 theology of the Greeks required no singular acuteness 
 to disclose its inherent defects. Apart from the ele- 
 ment of the supernatural, which must always lack 
 scientific evidence, and is generally made to act with- 
 out sufficient reason — apart, I say, from this element 
 — there were open and uncensured immoralities, which 
 must shock the moral sense of any sound human 
 nature. To these blots in the Epic literature I have 
 already often adverted. The constant quarrels of the 
 gods, carried on by confessed fraud and deceit, and 
 involving injustice in the treatment of innocent 
 mortals, are almost the salient feature in the Iliad. 
 In the Odyssey we have, in the same way, but little 
 rational Providence, and in place of it, the man repre- 
 sented as the mere plaything of his friendly or hostile 
 god. In addition to this, we have, in the lay of 
 Demodocus, the first of these strange poems, called 
 hymns to the gods, which detail adulteries and per- 
 juries and thefts as no exceptional part of an eternal 
 and supremely happy life. 
 
 The remarkable feature in this Epic theology is 
 however, that it is by no means made up of immo- 
 ralities. These are a frequent and prominent feature 
 in the poems, but appear rather as the sport and re-, 
 creation of the blessed gods. For there are distinct 
 
350 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 moral principles — justice, humanity, gratitude, — under- 
 lying the levities and excesses of the gods, and it still 
 remains to us a problem hard to solve, how these 
 higher notions should have been combined with what 
 was plainly disgusting and immoral, even in the 
 serious thoughts of the poets themselves. 
 
 Of the many theories suggested in explanation I 
 will here refute only one, because it has the merit of 
 comparative novelty, and because it seems to me 
 exactly to reverse the real facts of the case. For 
 under such circumstances a refutation is a statement 
 of the right theory. I allude to the popular views of 
 the comparative mythologers, who hold that the im- 
 moral stories about the Greek gods and heroes were 
 not composed as such by the poets, but are misunder- 
 stood and mistranslated versions of old physical 
 aspects of nature. The old poetical view of the sun 
 or dawn being overpowered by the dark clouds, or 
 by the night, thus turns into the story of Helen, the 
 wife of Menelaus, being carried away by the adul- 
 terous Paris. The stealing of the oxen of Apollo by 
 Hermes, as detailed in the hymn to Hermes, is the 
 same fact, or a similar one, translated into mythical 
 symbolism. Mythology is forsooth only a disease in 
 language, a literal understanding of primitive meta- 
 phors, a forgetting that even the ideas most remote 
 from sense must have names of sensuous origin, and 
 that the action most remote from voluntary action 
 must be assimilated to it in our nomenclature. Thus, 
 say the comparative mythologers, the Greek poets 
 did not invent immoralities about the gods, but fell 
 
Xn.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 351 
 
 into believing them by mistake, and propagating 
 them by tradition. 
 
 It is indeed difficult to discuss such a theory 
 seriously, especially when we find it carried to its 
 full results in the works of Mr. Cox^ In a former 
 book I have gone into some detail upon the theory, 
 and have shown a good many of the fundamental 
 fallacies with which it positively teems^. The best 
 and most proper answer to it is such a reductio ad 
 abstirdum as was performed by a brilliant and well- 
 known writer in the fifth number of the Dublin 
 University Kottabos, and which has been accepted 
 with the highest satisfaction by competent judges all 
 over the literary world. 
 
 But here I am concerned with only one point, the 
 confessed immorality of so many of the Greek myths 
 — a point which I did not touch in my former refuta- 
 tion. I ask, has the theory in question even attempted 
 to explain it.'' For how does the misunderstanding 
 of an old pictorial statement about natural phenomena 
 introduce immorality ? It may introduce volition ; it 
 may introduce motives and intentions like unto ours ; 
 but why must it give these humanised actions an 
 immoral turn? Why must Paris be an adulterer'^. 
 why must Helen go with him of her own accord? 
 why must Hermes perjure himself after his theft ? why 
 must Aphrodite violate all propriety? Under their 
 
 ' Especially his Mythology of the Aryan Nations, a book which is very 
 useful in showing the full results of the theory. 
 * Prolegomena to Ancient History, pp. 42, sqq. 
 
353 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 clouds of words, and their series of examples, the 
 mythologers seem to have completely forgotten what 
 they had to prove, and to have substituted assertion 
 for argument. Given the facts in their primitive and 
 pictorial dress, they do not suggest anything but 
 simple acts, carried out by conscious agents, instead 
 of mere natural forces. The old language does not 
 suggest the motives, or paint the scenery — these must 
 be added by the epic poet, when he is about to pro- 
 duce the story in a mythical form. And so if the 
 poet were a serious and moral author, he would give 
 these stories a serious and moral complexion, and 
 add to the facts such motives as he thought worthy 
 of the blessed gods ; if on the contrary he were a 
 smooth court poet, singing to an audience of loose 
 morals, and of doubtful honesty, he would naturally 
 attribute to the gods motives similar to those common 
 among his own hearers, and transfer to the immortals 
 the foibles and the doubtful amusements of human 
 princes and princesses. 
 
 This is what was done by the Homeric poets. The 
 levity of the Ionic character, — which we see afterwards 
 in the history of the Asiatic colonies, which speaks in 
 the fragments of Mimnermus and of Anacreon, — was 
 present in the Homeric audiences, who received with 
 laughter and amusement these sallies about the im- 
 mortal gods. We can imagine what ground for satire 
 was given by the theory that the gods came down 
 from Olympus, and allied themselves secretly with 
 mortal beauties ; and we can also imagine the effect 
 upon the morals of the day, if a breach of chastity 
 
XII.J RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 353 
 
 might be ascribed to Divine persuasion, and the 
 child of shame glorified by a supernatural origin. 
 
 The immoral elements in the Greek Epos were 
 therefore late additions to the old beliefs about the 
 gods, and invented by the rhapsodists to please the 
 tastes of a luxurious and corrupt age. They are not 
 nearly so prominent in what we call Homer, as they 
 are in the Theogony of Hesiod and in the Homeric 
 Hymns, — a strong argument in support of their late 
 appearance in the Epic age. The primitive features, 
 on the contrary, are noble and simple. The awful 
 Zeus of Dodona, to whom the husbandman raises his 
 hands in pure adoration, is not only older but far 
 purer than the Zeus of Olympus, a sort of im- 
 mortalised Agamemnon — the prey of moral weakness 
 within, and of turbulent subjects without. Thus the 
 Epic poets built upon an old and pure foundation, 
 but deformed and defaced it with their voluptuous 
 additions. 
 
 Far therefore from these immoralities being primi- 
 tive or early features of the Greek religion, as the 
 mythologers pretend, they were the accidental out- 
 come of a special court poetry, and it was as such 
 that they were so severely criticised by Xenophanes, 
 and Socrates, and all sound Greek philosophers. 
 These sober critics knew perfectly that they were 
 inventions of the Epic poets, interwoven with a pure 
 and simple basis, and could they have eliminated this 
 feature in the Epos, they would doubtless have re- 
 commended expurgated editions, as we now have 
 (practically) expurgated Bibles, in which we pass by, 
 
 A a 
 
354 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and even palliate, apparent immoralities, in order to 
 force moral lessons out of the rude history of the old 
 Hebrews. 
 
 This analogy is far closer than at first appears, and 
 there is a vast deal of truth in calling Homer the 
 Bible of the Greeks. There are indeed three or four 
 special features so closely analogous to those of our 
 faith in this Epic religion of the Greeks, as to be well 
 worth a special and detailed discussion. Such con- 
 siderations, if well established, should have no small 
 effect upon the attitude we take towards our own 
 religious documents. 
 
 The first feature to be noted is the consistent asser- 
 tion of all our authorities that Homer wrote with a 
 moral intent, and with the conscious purpose of con- 
 veying moral lessons. There is nothing to my mind 
 farther from the truth, and yet nothing is more per- 
 sistently believed by the Greeks. It is directly im- 
 plied by Pindar, Aristophanes, Plato, Isocrates, and a 
 host of other authors. It is developed in the remain- 
 ing fragments of Dioscorides^ to an extraordinary 
 extent. In fact, just as we read the old Hebrew 
 history to our children much more from a moral than 
 an historical attitude, and give to all the facts a 
 didactic turn, so the old Greeks read Homer as a 
 
 ' Collected by Carl Miiller, in the 2nd vol. of his Fragmenta His- 
 toricorum Gracorum pp. 192 sqq. Athenseus expresses the effect of all 
 Greek literature upon him, when he says (p. 8 E) : °0/iij/jos &pS>v t^k 
 aoKppoaivriv olKaoroTfjv dperijv otaav rois viois koI wpwrjjv, f ti Si ap/idr- 
 Touffar Koi i!6.vTa!v tSiv koKSiv xopvy^" """■"''i PovKoiifvos kn<pv(r<u maiv 
 auT^i' an' dpxV' ic-tX. (iTe\fj uaTtaiciiaac irdcriv riv $iov kcH avT&pieri, 
 because eating and drinking were pronainent and dangerous appetites. 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 355 
 
 moral work, containing models of what men ought 
 to be, exhibitions of punished vice and meanness, 
 examples of fortitude, of temperance, of justice, and 
 of wisdom. If we object that the Homeric poems 
 were ill-suited to such a purpose, we shall only repeat 
 the criticisms of Xenophanes and Plato, but not invali- 
 date the facts. 
 
 We should do better to consider the analogy of 
 the Old Hebrew Scriptures. I need only mention 
 the fact that there are several chapters unsuited to 
 modern perusal, and passed over in all family read- 
 ing. This is of less importance. But what is more 
 curious, manifest immoralities are daily read, and are 
 glozed over by our moral attitude in such a way, that 
 they actually fail to do the harm which might have 
 been expected. There are cases of dishonesty in the 
 very highest characters of the history, which somehow 
 are passed over without making an impression on the 
 moral reader. There are lessons in cruelty, which 
 lose their effect by being considered Divine punish- 
 ments, and special commands of the Author of our 
 being. Thus the incidents which are in accordance 
 with our moral sense are utilised and insisted upon, 
 the other matters are forgotten, and so the whole 
 annals of a race in most respects unfit for our in- 
 struction are taught as if specially written for our 
 learning ^ 
 
 • I am merely speaking of these things as facts, and offering no 
 opinion upon them. I do not know whether any better system of edu- 
 cation will be discovered, than this moral intei-pretation of documents, 
 venerable in age, and of extreme literary excellence. Certain it is that 
 
 A a 3 
 
S56 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 It is not difficult to explain how the same attitude 
 existed as regards Homer among the Greeks. The 
 earliest known poets whom the Greeks possessed were 
 really moral teachers. First, there was the didactic 
 epos of Hesiod and his school, which professedly 
 dealt in moral lessons ; then came the gnomic or 
 proverbial poetry of the early elegiac and the philo- 
 sophical poets, and of the choral lyric poets. These 
 men monopolised the moral teaching in Greece, if we 
 except a few responses of the oracles, during the 
 seventh and sixth centuries. It was but natural that 
 they should represent themselves as the successors of 
 their brilliant predecessors in more than mere poetry, 
 and that they should ascribe to the splendid Iliad 
 and Odyssey an aim and intent similar to their own 
 tamer productions. Thus it came to pass that Homer, 
 in one sense 'the idle singer of an empty day,' — 
 because he sought no other object than the clear 
 and deep delineation of human character and human 
 passion — was degraded, if I may so say, into a moral 
 teacher, and accredited with definite theories of life 
 and of duty. 
 
 It was the same sort of blunder as we should make, 
 were we to dilate upon the moral purposes of Shelley 
 and Keats, and insist upon classing them with the 
 school of Dr. Watts. The obsequious rhapsodist who 
 sang before chiefs and ladies at high , feasts, and 
 depended upon their grace for his daily bread and for 
 
 all civilised men have proceeded on this plan, and no other has yet been 
 tried yn'Ca. success. Still I feel bound to state the facts clearly from a 
 purely historical point of view. 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 357 
 
 his fame, thought more of glorifying the royal ances- 
 tors of the palace where he sat, and the acts of his 
 patron's forefathers, than of insisting upon moral saws 
 or conveying deep lessons in voluptuous allegories. 
 But all historical Greece thought differently. As 
 gnomic poets were moral teachers, as the tragic poets 
 were moral teachers, and were openly criticised as 
 such, so Homer and his legends were accepted and 
 taught by all respectable Greeks as inspired lessons 
 of the highest wisdom and sanctity. 
 
 When I speak of them as inspired lessons, I am 
 using no rash expression, though it may doubtless be 
 objected that in this point lies the essential difference 
 of the Hebrew analogy which has been suggested. 
 We are not here concerned with the truth of this claim 
 for the documents on which our religion is founded, 
 nor is the present argument affected by such con- 
 siderations; all that is here insisted upon is that the 
 Greek epic poets, and indeed some of the lyric poets, 
 laid claim to a closely similar inspiration. In Plato's 
 official dialogue upon this subject, the /i?«,he develops 
 very fully a theory of inspiration in every respect like 
 that claimed for the Hebrew poets. He represents 
 the rhapsodists as asserting the great epic poems to 
 have been written under some sort of enthusiasm akin 
 to madness ; he represents the authors as only partly 
 responsible for what they said, and plainly asserts 
 that the moral lessons which they claimed to teach 
 were the inspiration of some Divine power, speaking 
 through the bard as a mortal and imperfect instru- 
 ment. 
 
358 SOCIAL GREECE. [ClI. 
 
 ' This gift which you have of speaking excellently 
 about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just saying, 
 an inspiration ; there is a divinity moving you, like 
 that in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet, but 
 which is commonly known as the stone of Heraclea. 
 For that stone not only attracts iron rings, but also 
 imparts to them a similar power of attracting other 
 rings ; and sometimes you may see a number of 
 pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another 
 so as to form quite a long chain : and all of them 
 derive their power of suspension from the original 
 stone. Now this is like the Muse, who first gives to 
 men inspiration herself; and from these inspired per- 
 sons a chain of other persons is suspended, who take 
 the inspiration from them \ For all good poets, epic 
 as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not as 
 works of art, but because they are inspired and pos- 
 sessed. And as the Corybantian revellers when they 
 dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets 
 are not in their right mind when they are composing 
 their beautiful strains : but when falling under the 
 power of music and metre they are inspired and pos- 
 sessed ; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and 
 honey from the rivers, when they are under the in- 
 fluence of Dionysus, but not when they are in their 
 right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the 
 same, as they themselves tell us ; for they tell us that 
 they gather their strains from honied fountains out of 
 the gardens and dells of the Muses ; thither, like the 
 bees, they wing their way. And this is true. For 
 ' Here we have the theory of Apostolical Succession also. 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 359 
 
 the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and 
 there is no invention in him until he has been inspired 
 and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer 
 in him : when he has not attained to this state, he is 
 powerless and is unable to utter his oracles., Many 
 are the noble words in which poets speak of actions 
 like your own words about Homer ; but they do not 
 speak of them by any rules of art : only when they 
 make that to which the Muse impels them are their 
 inventions inspired ; and then one of them will make 
 dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral 
 strains, another epic or iambic verses — and he who is 
 good at one is not good at any other kind of verse : 
 for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. 
 Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known 
 how to speak not of one theme only^ but of all ; and 
 therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and 
 uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners 
 and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them 
 may know that they speak not of themselves who utter 
 these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, btit 
 that God is the speaker, and that throtigh them he is 
 conversing with us. And Tynnichus, the Chalcidian, 
 affords a striking instance of what I am saying: he 
 wrote nothing that any one would care to remember 
 but the famous paean which is in every one's mouth, 
 and is one of the finest poems ever written, and is 
 certainly an invention of the Muses, as he himself 
 says. For in this way the God would seem to indi- 
 cate to us, and not allow us to doubt that these beau- 
 tiful poems are not human, or the work of man, but 
 
360 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 divine and the word of God ; and that the poets are 
 only the interpreters of the Gods by whom they are 
 severally possessed. Was not this the lesson which 
 the God intended to teach when by the mouth of the 
 worst of poets he sang the best of songs ? Am I not 
 right. Ion ' ? ' 
 
 Such a theory must have afforded them a ready 
 defence against the moral objections above stated. 
 Here then we have a second and most remarkable 
 analogy to the religious condition of our own day. 
 The documents on which moral instruction was based 
 claimed a higher authority than mere human wisdom, 
 they boasted a stranger origin than human genius and 
 human labour, for they claimed to be in some way 
 dictated by the Gods, and composed under the excite- 
 ment of a sudden and Divine compulsion. 
 
 Little need here be said upon the gradual develop- 
 ment of scepticism within the Greek religion, upon the 
 gradual separation, and at length conflict, between 
 religion and philosophy ; how the higher thinkers in 
 politics began to despise the oracles, and the higher 
 teachers in morals to condemn the poets. These 
 things are natural to every speculative race, and this 
 gradual development from instinctive faith and autho- 
 rity to reflective faith and private judgment, and then 
 to absolute freedom of thought or scepticism, is one 
 of the most universal and ever-recurring changes to 
 be found in civilised races. It has been expounded 
 with great power and marvellous richness of illustra- 
 tion by Mr. Grote, indeed by all historians of Greece, 
 
 ' Jowett, vol. i. pp. 237-8. 
 
XII. J RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 361 
 
 and my weaker pen can add nothing to what is now 
 historical commonplace. 
 
 I am rather here concerned with insisting upon a 
 point which they seem to me to have misrepresented, 
 either by distinct statement, or by implication. I 
 think they are disposed greatly to overrate the area 
 over which this scepticism spread, or its density within 
 any given area of population. It is somehow assumed, 
 that after the epoch of Pericles, as expounded by the 
 history of Thucydides, scepticism became the prevail- 
 ing I'eligion of the Athenians, if not of all educated 
 Greeks. It is assumed that Thucydides' sneers at the 
 oracles, and his silence upon the interference of the 
 gods, are evidence of the tone of mind pervading the 
 general Greek public. It is assumed, contrary to all 
 the evidence of history, that there was no reaction 
 from this advanced and negative attitude, and that 
 the positive faith of Greece died almost as her poli- 
 tical greatness came into full development. I know 
 not whether I am wronging the historians in this 
 matter, but such is certainly the general impression 
 they have left upon me, and upon many other 
 students whom I have consulted on this point. 
 
 But if I am in error as to their real views, I am the 
 more anxious to prevent others from like stumbling, 
 and to insist upon the true and natural attitude of 
 the Greeks on this all-important problem. The 
 general belief in the almost universal scepticism of 
 the Periclean age arises from our over-estimate of 
 Thucydides as its exponent. As I have often before 
 said, Herodotus is nearer the state of the public 
 
362 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 mind than Thucydides. The latter represents a 
 small set of advanced thinkers, such as Pericles, 
 Anaxagoras, Damon, and probably Phidias, who led 
 in politics, in art, and in literature, but were obliged 
 to conceal their advanced thinking in religion, and 
 could not lead their contemporaries here also. They 
 were probably indifferent on this point, and thought, 
 as many sceptics do, that faith was a good thing for 
 the crowd. There are stories in Plutarch's Pericles 
 which seem to point to some such belief in the mind 
 of Pericles himself \ 
 
 Thus we estimate the state of the Athenian mind 
 in general by a few brilliant exceptions, who stood 
 in direct opposition to it at this very time. In the 
 very same way the great literature of the Hebrews, 
 written by what was evidently a small though bril- 
 liant minority, blinds us to the fact perpetually 
 breaking through the history, that the masses of the 
 Jewish people were always idolatrous and polythe- 
 istic, though their literary monuments were composed 
 by the cultivated monotheists ; and hence these great 
 prophets and psalmists are now generally accepted 
 as uttering the voice of the whole nation. So in 
 the present day, to give a more homely and practical 
 example, because the German university men are 
 sceptics, and the tone of German learning is scep- 
 
 ' Especially the story of his being in great distress at a severe accident 
 to a workman engaged on one of his great public buildings, and his 
 being told in a dream of the proper remedy to apply. He came down 
 to the Agora, and announced that the Gods had revealed to him the 
 remedies which really proved effectual. Plut. Pericles, c. 13. 
 
XII. J RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 363 
 
 tical, we find tt commonly believed in England that 
 the Germans generally are an irreligious and unbe- 
 lieving people — a flagrant error, which the anecdotes 
 of the late war, and still more the politic telegrams 
 of the German emperor, should, have exploded. 
 
 But when we have gained from Thucydides this 
 general notion that the Greek mythology was then 
 altogether abandoned, we are so impressed with its 
 absurdities and its immoralities that we can hardly 
 conceive it rehabilitated, and thus we come to believe 
 in a sort of general scepticism pervading Attic society 
 from that day onward. This again is applying our 
 standpoint to other men, and forgetting that only the 
 few come to hold as absurd what they have once 
 believed, when it has really been to them the object 
 of deep veneration, and the source of their best and 
 purest moral principles. 
 
 There is no more common opinion among reason- 
 able and educated sceptics in our own day than this, 
 that however false Christianity may be, its effects 
 upon the moral and social history of man are such, 
 that it must for ever be regarded with respect and 
 high consideration. They will tell you, and with 
 great good sense, that the scoffing scepticism of 
 Paine and Proudhon was not only rude and out of 
 taste, but historically absurd and ignorant, and that 
 in a world where absolute truth is hardly to be dis- 
 covered, it is a very silly proceeding to ridicule a 
 system which, even regarded as fictitious, neverthe- 
 less impressed great moral principles upon man- 
 kind. All this applies, we may think, to our pure and 
 
364 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 venerable Christianity, but could never be asserted of 
 those heathen systems which teemed with dishonesty 
 and immorality. 
 
 This is the narrow modern position which I think 
 so false. To the old-fashioned Athenian, his myth- 
 ology was the source of his morals and of his high- 
 est culture. He had framed for himself ideals of 
 bravery, of honour, of greatness from his Homer ; he 
 had seen the tragic poets draw their most splendid 
 inspirations from these legends; he had seen the 
 Epos inspire the painter, the sculptor, and the archi- 
 tect — in fact, the whole glory of Athens, literary, 
 social, and artistic, was bound up with the Homeric 
 theology. Supposing him, therefore, to be persuaded 
 by the philosophers, and to abandon in secret the 
 faith of his forefathers, we can well imagine him 
 arguing with even more apparent force than the 
 modern sceptic, that however false or fictitious were 
 these ancient legends, however unproved or doubtful 
 this ancient creed, yet at all events under it, and 
 through it, Athens had grown in splendour, and 
 become perfect in culture ; that therefore no citizen 
 versed in the annals of Athens, and appreciating her 
 true greatness, could venture to speak disrespectfully 
 of her creedj even were it proved obsolete. I must 
 insist upon these subjective analogies, because of the 
 common habit, which is wellnigh the essence of 
 modern faith, of regarding one's own creed as abso- 
 lute truth, and all other systems as obviously absurd 
 and wicked. 
 
 In opposition then to all these one-sided and 
 
XII.J RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 365 
 
 partial views, it appears that the Greek pubHc was 
 always religious in the sense in which our own public 
 is religious, that is to say, bound by tradition and 
 habit to a creed, which many believe conscientiously, 
 and which even doubters care not to disturb. There 
 are among ourselves epochs and outbursts of scep- 
 ticism, when it seems as if all the world were abandon- 
 ing its faith, and as if a return to the old belief were 
 quite impossible. Such was the outbreak in the 
 eighteenth century ; such is perhaps the present atti- 
 tude of our English society in India. Such is that 
 of the German universities, and of our own literary 
 circles. And yet if history can be any guide, we 
 may be perfectly certain that there will and must 
 come a reaction into positive belief. The dogmas 
 may vary, the articles of our faith may possibly be 
 changed, but faith — that quality on which all our 
 early experience, all our higher feelings, all our 
 greatest hopes are based — faith will reassert itself. 
 
 It is a very interesting speculation, what form this 
 faith will take, whether it will be the reassertion of 
 some wider Christianity, or whether, as seems just 
 now likely, it may assume the stranger form of a 
 systematic spiritualism. When we see men who 
 have lived and preached as sceptics all their lives 
 coming round to believe the evidence of new miracles, 
 to argue the possibility of a scientific system of com- 
 munication with other existences, we seem to stand 
 on the threshold of an outburst of positive belief far 
 less rational, and therefore less enduring, than that 
 which is now being contemptuously cast aside. 
 
^66 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 I mention these things as analogous to the Greek 
 attitude upon religion, because they are eternal 
 features in civilised human nature, and will repeat 
 themselves wherever the circumstances are at all 
 similar. In this sense our present experience may be 
 as much a xT^ji/a Is ad applicable to older times, as 
 Thucydides' history is applicable to our times. The 
 important point in the analogy is this, that all through 
 Greek history scepticism never made way among the 
 majority even of educated people, but was merely 
 the privilege or pain of small circles of philosophers 
 and their followers. The Sophists indeed attempted 
 to transfuse this mental attitude, by means of edu- 
 cation, into the public mind, but the soberer portion 
 of the nation vehemently and successfully resisted 
 them. 
 
 The evidence upon this point need only be stated 
 to convince the reader. Protagoras' books were burnt 
 by the common hangman at Athens', perhaps the 
 earliest example of this curious practice of punishing 
 not men but things ; yet less curious than when oc- 
 curring in the middle ages, if we remember that there 
 was at Athens a special court and form of trial for 
 inanimate objects which had accidentally caused death, 
 and which were cast beyond the border, if found 
 guilty of homicide^. Damon and Anaxagoras, the 
 
 ' This must have happened after the date of Plato's Meno; cf. Afeno, 
 p. 91 E. 
 
 ' These are the di/iix<a' Si«ai described by Pollux, and also Harpocration 
 (sub. voc. firl npirraveiif)), but alluded to by both ^schines and Pausanias; 
 and probably a very ancient form of trial at Athens. Cp. Hermann- 
 Stark, Grieck. Antiqq. i. p. 487. 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 367 
 
 friends of Pericles, were prosecuted for impiety, in 
 spite of the powerful support of the prime minister, 
 nor did he dare to stand forward openly and defend 
 their theological tenets. We have next the frequent 
 and bitter complaints of Aristophanes in his comedies, 
 the whole of the Clouds being directed against even 
 Socrates' teaching, though he was confessedly no 
 common sceptic, but a man who desired to deepen 
 the foundations and strengthen the roots of popular 
 faith and of popular morals. Then comes the actual 
 prosecution of Socrates, in which the attitude of the 
 prosecutors is far more important than the result — 
 a result which depended partly upon a widespread 
 political animosity against the aristocrats, and partly 
 upon the contumacy of the accused. This attitude 
 is based firmly upon the orthodoxy of the general 
 public, and would have neither force nor meaning 
 without such presupposition. 
 
 These are the polemical evidences on the very sur- 
 face of Greek history, which need only be recalled to 
 the reader's attention, and which need not be sup- 
 ported by special quotations. During all this time 
 the youth of Greece were still being taught morals 
 and religion through Homer and Hesiod, and the 
 gnomic poets. The sophists talked a great deal, and 
 made such a noise that we still hear their voices, 
 across the gulf of centuries, above the voices of quiet 
 and orderly people; but these latter were after all 
 the great majority, and formed the popular mind. 
 Take Demosthenes, or the orator Lycurgus, or Hyper- 
 eides, or even any obscure contemporaries whose works 
 
368 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 have been preserved. Do they imply a public educated 
 by the sophists ? Do they preach or suggest sceptical 
 views? Nothing of the sort. All of them address 
 throughout an orthodox and even religious public^. 
 He complains that men were wanting in energy and 
 action, but he never attacks them for unbelief; nor, 
 on the other hand, does he encourage it, but alludes 
 to religion as we should do, admitting and enforcing 
 a faith in Divine Providence, and looking to the gods 
 for help and pardon in national dangers and trans- 
 gressions. 
 
 The same was the position of Xenophon, a very 
 good specimen of the educated Athenian in days 
 succeeding the outburst of the sophistic scepticism, 
 I do not so much refer to his own action in con- 
 sulting the oracle at the instigation of Socrates, for 
 in those days the oracle had been so often convicted 
 of partiality, that the * apostolical succession ' of its 
 priests and prophetess may have been open to gen- 
 eral question, though the old habit of consulting it on 
 moral difficulties still remained. But let us rather 
 consider the tone assumed towards religion through- 
 out his dialogues. We there find, as has been said, 
 that a sort of average orthodoxy is professed by his 
 speakers, and implied as the general state of belief. 
 
 Among the country folk this orthodoxy was of 
 course stronger and clearer, and appears associated 
 rather with a belief in some systematic ruler of the 
 
 * See for example the speech irpbs Ma/cdprarov (p. 1072), which may 
 not be Demosthenes'. Mr. Jebb and A. Schafer reject it, and thus 
 strengthen my argument, but I now incline (with Dionysius) to accept it. 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 369 
 
 world, single in purpose, and not specialised in form 
 or character, than with 'a passionate capricious per- 
 sonage like the Zeus of Homer. Indeed I am con- 
 vinced that many a good old country gentleman felt 
 how unworthy were the pictures of the poets, and 
 how much better was the rustic habit of speak- 
 ing of 'God' without farther detail, and insisting 
 upon his general benevolence and care of human 
 affairs, rather than upon his amours with some 
 ancestress, in order to claim a divine parentage. 
 Many old and picturesque sayings are even now 
 preserved among the Greeks, which point to these 
 simple and reasonable beliefs ; and we can well ap- 
 preciate that most poetical expression of Xenophon: 
 ' when the late harvest time is come, do not all men 
 turn their eyes towards God, to see when he will 
 water the earth, and let them out to sow their seed^?' 
 
 ' Xen. (Ecan. c. xvii. : iiai^hf ycip 6 lUTOirtapivba XP^"^ «^^n. Tavrea 
 1F0V 01 dvOpamoi npos rhv Otbv ano^Xiirovaiv^ 6iroT« ^pi^as t^v yijv atpi]aii 
 airoiis awupciv. This attitude of looking to one supreme God, especially 
 as tlie ruler of the weather, fell in easily with the Christian doctrine, so 
 that even in the present day Greece is full of these pictorial expres- 
 sions, which remind us of the old simple mythology. There are a 
 number of most interesting hints on this point in Bernhard Schmidt's 
 Volksleben der Neugriechen, especially pp. 26-35. They still say /3pe'xe< 
 S Beos, and even Karovpaei o Se6s, which strangely reminds us of old 
 Strepsiades' remark in the Clouds 373. Rainwater is still called Seorixd 
 vtp6, literally Theophrastus' to «k toC Aios vSmp. Lightning and thunder 
 are still caused by the god shaking his head, which we find in the magnifi- 
 cent lines of Homer, A. 528, where Zeus shakes his ambrosial locks, and 
 as they wave upon his immortal head, all the great Olympus rocks. God 
 still uses the thunderbolt for his weapon as we find it in Aristophanes, 
 Pindar, and yEschylus. The quaint form of these expressions points to 
 a great antiquity, dating from long before the Periclean age, nor was the 
 
 Bb 
 
370 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Such people had little to say to the sophists, and 
 cared little about the Socratic elenchus. 
 
 But even the speakers in more educated society, 
 the gentlemen assembled at Xenophon's Symposium, 
 express themselves satisfied with their faith, and de- 
 sirous to practise it as a duty. It is very manifest 
 * that both Greeks and barbarians consider the gods 
 to know all that is and that will be ; accordingly all 
 cities and all nations enquire of the gods through 
 prophecy what they ought and what they ought not 
 to do. Moreover, that we at least believe that they 
 can do us both good and ill, this too is plain, for 
 all pray to the gods to avert evil, and to grant 
 prosperity. These gods, then, that are omniscient 
 and all-powerful are so friendly to me, that through 
 care for me they never lose me out of their sight, 
 either by night or day, wherever I may go, or 
 yvhatever I may do. But by reason of their fore- 
 knowledge how each thing will result, they give me 
 signs, sending as their messengers (angels) voices 
 and dreams and omens, what I should do and what 
 I should forbear. When I obey these I never have 
 reason to repent, but it has happened that I have 
 been punished for want of faith in them.' Then 
 Socrates says : ' None of these things are the least in- 
 credible ; but this I should gladly hear, how you serve 
 them so as to make them such friends of yours.' 
 'So you shall,' is the reply, 'and I do it at very 
 
 habit probably ever interrupted. Thus Marcus Aurelius (v. 7) mentions 
 an Athenian prayer for rain beginning haov, Saoy, & ^i\e ZtS, which was 
 of course very old, but used down to his days. 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 371 
 
 moderate expense. For I praise them without any- 
 cost to myselfj and of what they grant me I always 
 return them a share. I speak of them respectfully, 
 as far as I can, and when I call them to witness, 
 I never intentionally tell a lie.' 'Well, by Jove,' 
 Says Socrates, ' if by so doing you have the gods 
 your friends, the gods too, it seems, are pleased with 
 gentlemanly conduct \' 
 
 This then is a fair account of the ordinary Greek 
 orthodoxy. It was not the faith of mystics, not an 
 absorption of the mind in the contemplation of Divine 
 perfections and Divine mysterieSj but rather the re- 
 ligion of a shrewd and practical people, who based 
 their worship upon their wants, and blessed their 
 God, not like Fenelon, because he was ideally per- 
 fect, but like Bossuet, because they received from 
 him many substantial favours. We have no reason to 
 think that the faith of Xenophon's speakers was a 
 decaying faith ; nay rather I fancy that after the fever 
 of the Peloponnesian war was over, when the novelty 
 of the sophists had gone by, when the hard and selfish 
 generation of Pericles had passed away, there may 
 have been a reaction towards positive belief, and 
 towards old-fashioned views. This seems to me the 
 position of the orator Lycurgus, so far as we can 
 judge from his remarkable extant speech. It seems 
 also implied by the arguments of his contemporary 
 Hypereides, whose whole speech vidp Ev^fvCitTrov turns 
 upon what we should call a state superstition, as to, 
 the special way in which individuals should announce 
 
 » Symp. iv. § 47, sqq. 
 
 Bb 2 
 
37a SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 important dreams to the state, and as to the veri- 
 fication of these professed dreams by sending to 
 Delphi \ 
 
 Thus the Demosthenic public was probably more 
 orthodox than the Periclean, certainly not less so, 
 and the supposed destruction of the Greek religion was 
 like the supposed destruction of the Christian faith 
 in the eighteenth century — a phase in speculation, 
 a fashion among philosophers, but no national abdi- 
 cation of faith. It was no doubt similar to the newer 
 outburst of scepticism under the influence of Epicu- 
 rus and Menander, who embraced an atheistical 
 philosophy from lassitude and for pleasure's sake, 
 not as their ancestors had done, from hard selfish- 
 ness and engrossment in the cares and ambitions of 
 public life. For though even the cooks of the New 
 Comedy profess philosophy, and tell us that Epi- 
 curus had raised their profession to the highest in life, 
 yet the victory of Stoicism at the same period, and 
 the appearance and success of moral reformers like 
 S. Paul and Dio Chrysostom, show that scepticism 
 had taken no firm hold even then. It was, as it has 
 
 ' Hypereides, pp. 36 sq. (ed. Blass) : ' The people directed Euxenippus 
 with two others to be put to sleep in the temple, but he having slept 
 there says he saw a dream, which he says he will announce to the people. 
 If you considered this to be true, and that he announced to the people 
 what he (really) saw in the dream, how is he blamed for telling the- 
 Athenians what the god directed him. But if, as you now say, you think- 
 he belied the god, and made a false report to the people in favour of 
 certain (friends of his own), you should not have proposed a decree about 
 the dream, but as the former speaker said, (you should have proposed) to 
 send to Delphi, and enquire the truth of the God.' The whole argument 
 turns upon the treatment of this report of Euxenippus. 
 
Xir.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 373 
 
 ever been, and probably will ever be, a transient state 
 of the human mind, and even as such unable to retain 
 the mass of mankind. 
 
 I have thus brought before the reader what may 
 be regarded as important analogies between the re- 
 ligion professed by the Greeks and that professed 
 in the present day — I do not mean in the dogmas 
 themselves, but in the attitude assumed towards 
 these venerable traditions, and towards their positive 
 teaching of morals in old Greek days, as compared 
 with our own. It seems to me that no branch of 
 our enquiry has demonstrated more clearly the 
 modernness of Attic life, and the contrast of what 
 we call the Middle Ages to both that life and to our 
 own. The world has not been progressing with even 
 and steady step, but has gained from time to time 
 great vantage ground, and has again been thrown 
 back by the tide of circumstances. Thus we are 
 in some respects only coming up to the level attained 
 by the Greeks ; in some respects they were striving 
 to attain our level, but we should class both the 
 Greeks and ourselves as developed nations, whereas 
 mediseval culture was rather an early and blind 
 groping towards politics and humane society. 
 
 These reflections would however be incomplete 
 were we not to take into account the points of con- 
 trast between Greek religion and our own. And here 
 I still use religion in its subjective sense, as a state 
 of mind, not as a collection of dogmas ; for to dis- 
 cuss in this latter sense the contrasts with Chris- 
 tianity were a mere idle enumeration of differences. 
 
374 SOCIAL GREECE. [CII. 
 
 But in the other Sense — of devout feeling, of reve- 
 rence in the presence of awful and unseen powers, 
 which wield weapons for the destruction and for the 
 chastisement, as wfeU as for the happiness of the 
 human race — we may find likenesses and contrasts 
 quite apart from the particular objects adored, and 
 may compare the manner of worship, even though 
 the matter be totally at variance. 
 
 I think the first contrast that strikes us from this 
 point of view is the love of mystery in our modern 
 religions, and its absence, or at least rare appearance, 
 in the religion of the Greeks. On the surface indeed 
 of the epic and gnomic poems, there is no trace of it 
 at all. The gods assume mortal forms, and act with 
 human feelings. They speak and argue like men, and 
 with men. When we compare the main dogmas of 
 our own religioh, the subtleties which brought fire 
 and blood upon the world in the. Middle Ages, the 
 secrets of the Incarnation, of the Atonement, of the 
 Trinity, of the Intermediate State, we stand in the pre- 
 sence of two mental conditions totally and thoroughly 
 opposed. The one got rid of all mystery, and made 
 all things plain. The other adored mystery as such, 
 regarded it as necessary to true religion, and made 
 all things abstract and difficult. So far Greek re- 
 ligion is in thorough consonance with Greek art. 
 The great reason why the Greek chefs-cTceuvres 
 have been everlasting, and have spoken to all culti- 
 vated men in all ages, is that their conception was 
 everywhere clear and precise. Whether in poetry, 
 in architecture, or in painting, strict form, distinctness 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. ^-jr^ 
 
 of view, chastened imagination, are the eternal fea- 
 tures of true Greek art. And this was the spirit in 
 which their early poets treated religion also. We 
 have inherited other traditions. The sublime vague- 
 ness of the Egyptian priest, the conscious self-pros- 
 tration of .the Semite shepherd, the fine-drawn sub- 
 tleties of the Orientalised Hellenist, all these passed 
 in the ferment of Alexandrian days into our creeds, 
 and leavened the whole lump. 
 
 But the Greek mind was too full and diverse to 
 be satisfied by mere clearness and beauty. However 
 hard and precise we may be in thinking, however 
 strict we may be in defining the outlines and bounds 
 of our ideas, there is still the vagueness of yearning 
 the longing of unsatisfied desire, which haunts all 
 natures in their highest moods, and makes them feel 
 after the perfect, and seek an union with the Pure 
 and the Good, — an union closer and more passionate 
 than arises from the fulfilment of a moral law, or the 
 performance' of a moral duty. The earliest Greek form 
 of this deep longing and vain regret was the reflection 
 on the moral imperfections of the world's course, and 
 the seeming random distribution of good and ill. I 
 have above noted (p. 93) this prominent feature in 
 the poets of the lyric age. Here is such a passage, 
 which I quote as a fair specimen from Theognis : — 
 
 ' Kymus I believe it, Fortune, good or ill, 
 No mortal effort, intellect or skill 
 Determine it; but heaven's superior will. 
 We struggle onward, ignorant and blind. 
 For a result unlmown and undesigned ;, 
 
376 SOCIAL GREECE. \cu. 
 
 Avoiding seeming ilU, misunderstood, 
 Embracing seeming evil as -a. good: 
 In our own plans unable to detect 
 Their final, unavoidable effect. 
 Tormented with unsatisfied desire, 
 The fortunate to farther aims aspire 
 Beyond the bounds of mortal happiness ; 
 Restless and wretched in their own success I 
 We live like children, and the Almighty plan 
 Controls the froward children of weak man ' 1 ' 
 
 This want, which was not absent from Greek nature, 
 they strove to satisfy by those religious Mysteries, of 
 which we hear so often but know so little. It seems, 
 however, nearly certain that they substituted the 
 knowledge and belief in new revelations, in hidden 
 dogmas, as a higher ground of action, and a more 
 all-embracing rule of life, for the cajm computation 
 of duty or higher interest. We are told by the Ger- 
 mans ^ that such doctrines as the immortality of the 
 sou! and the future retribution of good and evil were 
 among the tenets disseminated by these mysteries, 
 and that to them such poets as Pindar owed a clear 
 vision of these doctrines, which are foreign to Homer 
 and Hesiod. This seems true, and is likely enough 
 in itself, though it is hard to find any direct au- 
 thority for it in Greek literature, and I now believe 
 that we may cautiously receive it as more than an 
 ingenious theory. The Greeks have carefully con- 
 
 ' I transcribe this from Mr. Frere's Theognis Restituius, in his Works, 
 2nd ed. iii. p 383. 
 
 ' E. g. O. Miiller, Lit. o/Aac, Greece, vol. i. p. 76, and Hermann-Staik. 
 Griech. Aniiqq. part ii. p. 198, note 12, quoting from Nagelsbach and 
 others, also Petersen in Ersch and Gruber, vol. Ixxxiii. pp. 265-7. 
 
XII.J RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 377 
 
 cealed from us the teacliing of these mysteries ; they 
 prosecuted for impiety, and punished with death or 
 banishment any man who could be shown to have 
 divulged them. Thus they have concealed from us 
 one of the most interesting points in their religion, 
 and left us to mere conjectures about the exact scope 
 and teaching of these widely-spread and secret religious 
 exercises. It is unnecessary to repeat these conjec- 
 tures, or add to their number \ as I am concerned 
 with reproducing actual features in old Greek life ; 
 but it seems certain, and beyond mere hazard, that 
 whatever was their scope, they were meant, as their 
 very name of mysteries implies, to satisfy this longing 
 after the perfect, which was inadequately provided for 
 in the clear and human faith of the ordinary priests 
 and their temples. At all events, with this unex- 
 
 ' One remark is worth making, in opposition to the Germans and 
 their French followers, who think the influence of the mysterfes is 
 most prominently seen in Pindar. It is ^schylus who suggests the first 
 great change in the religious Anschauungsuieise of the Greeks. The few 
 additional dogmas alluded to by Pindar in the midst of his old-school 
 morals, and his commonplace view of human life and of Divine Pro- 
 vidence, are as nothing compared to the totally new and deep aspects 
 which form the main burden of ^^schylus' dramas. We should also re- 
 member that he (and not Pindar) was distinctly charged with having 
 divulged some of the mysteries in his Eumenides If all this be tnie, it 
 points to a speculative, rather than a moral character in these religious 
 exercises ; nor is this view really contradicted by Aristotle's remark, 
 which Synesius repeats: 'that he considers the initiated were not 
 bound to learn anything, but rather to be placed in a peculiar emo- 
 tional condition ' {naBeiv xal SiaT66^vai). This rather refers to the way 
 of instruction in the mysteries, which were like modern religious re- 
 vivals, where the new life is attained by a strong physical sympathy, and 
 not by ordinary instruction. 
 
378 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 plained feature in Greek religion before us, and with 
 the great probability that such was its principal ob- 
 ject, we cannot assert the hard contrast between Greek 
 and modern piety which our other sources would 
 warrant. For all we know, justification by faith may 
 have been a standard doctrine in these mysteries, just 
 as atonement by human sacrifice lasted down into 
 historical times, and caused scenes painful and shock- 
 ing (above p. 338) to such as did not embrace the 
 dogma, and blind their humanity by keeping the eye 
 of faith fixed upon its efficacy. 
 
 The remaining contrasts between Greek religious- 
 ness and our own are, like the former, partial con* 
 trasts only, but still contrasts, at least with the Pro- 
 testantism of modern Europe ; and though Catho- 
 licism be in outward form not so contrasted, its whole 
 temper and spirit was so thoroughly anti-Greek, that 
 I can hardly bring myself to take it into account in 
 the present sketch. The first of the points alluded to 
 is the intimate association of art with religion, in the 
 identification of the beautiful— that is to say, the 
 physically beautiful — with the good ; in the offerings 
 as the noblest tribute to the blessed gods, the purest 
 and best products which human genius could attain in 
 art. Strangely enough it is in mediaeval Christianity 
 that we find this feature reproduced. The magni- 
 ficent cathedrals of Normandy, the divine pictures of 
 the Fra Angelico and of Giotto, speak a religious 
 temper not unlike in manifestation to that which built 
 the Parthenon and carved the Zeus of Olympia. 
 But since the days of Protestantism the analogy has 
 
xn.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 379 
 
 vanished, and hunian art has been thrust into a 
 worldly attitude, nay even into hostility with our stern 
 and gaunt devoutness. It is wellnigh incalculable 
 what we have lost by this disastrous dissociation, how 
 much on the one hand religion has suffered, by aban- 
 doning those elements which are its most essential 
 features, and by casting aside the beauty, in order to 
 proclaim the uncompromising severity, of holiness. It 
 is equally plain how much mankind has suffered, how 
 artistic and passionate natures have been repelled and 
 disgusted, and have preferred what were branded as 
 the pleasures of sin to the joyless pilgrimage through 
 the dry and stony waste into which the fanatic priest 
 would blight our beautiful world. Had the Greek 
 priests or the Greek oracles ever attempted such a 
 crusade against art, their reign would indeed have 
 melted like winter snow, and one generation would 
 have been sufficient for the abolition of their inhuman 
 creed. 
 
 The remaining feature is again one which we find 
 i-ather in Catholic than in Protestant Christianity, yet 
 even there the analogy is rather apparent than real. I 
 allude to the embracing of all the pleasures of human 
 nature within the services performed in honour of the 
 gods. Divine service included the whole range of 
 human enjoyments; there were even in the cult of 
 Aphrodite allowances made for the gratification of the 
 animal nature, and the phallic processions show plainly 
 how the mystery of the origin of life was not excluded 
 from religious services, in spite of the coarse features 
 which it necessarily presented. But more generally, 
 
380 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 sport and religion were not opposed by the Greeks, but 
 identified. ' Ye play and keep your feasts,' say the 
 Athenians in Herodotus to the Spartans, ' and thus 
 betray your allies and the interests of Greece.' We 
 have it paralleled in the books of Moses : ' The people 
 did eat and drink and rose up to play.' What the 
 play included is plain enough \ This feature is really 
 quite ancient, and opposed to any modern cult ; and 
 the apparent jollity of Catholic feast-days, is, as I 
 have said, no real analogy. The Catholics are in so 
 far nearer to the Greek standpoint that they do not 
 set their face against human enjoyment on feast-days. 
 They permit relaxation and pleasure at the special 
 seasons set apart for the highest religious cere- 
 monies. But their pleasure on these days is relax- 
 ation, and not service ; it is a relief after the worship, 
 and not the worship itself. Here is the fundamental 
 difference. The Parisian goes to the theatre on Sun- 
 day evening, because it is a holy day, and because he 
 IS allowed relaxation and amusement after his de- 
 votions at High Mass. The old Greek went to the 
 theatre to honour and serve his god ; his praise was 
 offered up riot before, but in, the performance. To 
 him his pleasure, intellectual and physical, was not a 
 concession made by the jealous Deity to his weakness, 
 but a privilege granted by the gods who sanctioned 
 and encouraged his enjoyment. 
 
 The psychological result of this feature in Greek 
 religion was a certain earnestness in Greek pleasure, 
 
 ' Cp Numbers xxxi. 16, and the references there given to previous 
 passages. 
 
Xll.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 381 
 
 a certain seriousness in sport, which brings out a 
 curious analogy to the modern nation of all the most 
 widely diverse. The English people possess (I sup- 
 pose) only two attributes which are also to be found 
 prominently among the Greeks — an overweening self- 
 conceit and contempt for all outsiders, and this re- 
 markable mixture of seriousness and sport. But 
 in the latter case the result has been reached from 
 opposite points of view. The Greeks made their 
 serious pursuits, especially their religion, sportive — 
 real feasts, in the proper meaning of the term. The 
 English have made their sports serious by making 
 them important ends, and success in them a coveted 
 distinction. This was also done by the Greeks in 
 the case of the public games ; but still the first origin, 
 even here, was not amusement, as with us, but religion. 
 It is indeed true that the Christian Church has 
 talked much of joy and gladness, and has affected to 
 have feasts, like the heathen feasts, in which religion 
 and present pleasure might be combined ; but how is 
 this reasonably consistent ; how is it possible for a 
 faith which despises the body, which hates and con- 
 demns bodily pleasures, which extols self-denial and 
 continence, to combine with these features an element 
 of present enjoyment and indulgence? Thus the 
 Christian feasts which have any real jollity about 
 them are those where old heathen customs have sur- 
 vived, and have been allowed to foist themselves 
 upon the creed which proscribed and persecuted them. 
 It is therefore rather in British sports than in reli- 
 gious feasts that we should look for an analogy to 
 
38 i SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the Greek combination of wild pleasure and deep 
 earnest. 
 
 I need not lay stress upon sundry smaller resem- 
 blances, which are likely to spring up anywhere from 
 like circumstances, such for example as hereditary 
 priesthoods coming to be considered comfortable 
 sinecures^, or the transaction of love affairs under 
 the guise of attending religious worship — a thing of 
 every-day occurrence among strict people now-a-days, 
 and of course equally so at Athens, where young 
 women could not show themselves usually, save in 
 a stray peep through an open door. Human nature 
 will assert itself in some way, despite all restric- 
 tions, nor are religious meetings exempt from con- 
 tributing opportunities for this great purpose. 
 
 I turn in preference to an isolated argument in a 
 speech of Demosthenes ' which touches a very impor- 
 tant feature in the religion both of our day and of the 
 Greeks. He is arguing that to deprive certain men 
 of immunities once granted by the State is a breach 
 
 ' Isocrates, vol. ii. p. 118, ed. Teubner. Hermann-Stark (Griech. 
 ^nft'yy. i. p. 412) quote from Dionysius Halicam, a passage implying 
 the public sale, and even the letting by lease of such priesthoods, which 
 were evidently comfortable posts, abounding in indirect perquisites, like 
 the post of parish priest, or incumbent of a private chapel, among us. 
 The prophet or seer (/idi/Tis) was like his Hebrew parallel, not attached 
 to any temple, and often, as in the case of Lampon the founder of Thurii, 
 of great social importance, A passage in Demosthenes concerning the 
 prize oftrierarchy {Cr. 51, p. 1234) compares the jealousy of the rhetors, 
 who would allow no one to advise the assembly but themselves, to the 
 jealousy of men holding a peculiar priesthood as a monopoly. This 
 implies that it was generally a valuable monopoly. 
 
 ' vfbs AiVTiviiv, 495. 
 
XII.] RELIGION IN THE ATTIC AGE. 383 
 
 of public morality and not to be tolerated. ' But,' 
 says he, 'it may be urged that these immunities 
 from State duties include in them immunities from 
 doing honour to the gods, by spending money upon 
 expensive public processions and contests, and it may 
 be urged as impious and wrong that any man should 
 be relieved from his duties to the gods,' In fact the 
 heaviest public burdens at Athens were expensive 
 religious celebrations. ' Such an argument,' says the 
 orator, 'I consider full of danger {luvov). For if, 
 when they have no other way of proving it just that 
 you should take away these privileges, they seek to 
 do it by relying upon religious grounds (eiri tw jSiv 
 6e&v 6v6i/.aTi), how can we acquit them of a most 
 impious and dangerous proceeding ? For in my 
 opinion, whatever a man does, claiming the express 
 countenance of the gods, should surely be such an 
 action as will not appear base in .the eyes of men.' 
 
 Here then we have an instance, where we should 
 hardly have expected it, of the attempt to make 
 religion override morals, and of defending a piece of 
 common injustice under the plea of conferring honour 
 upon the gods. How often this sort of argument was 
 used in the Middle Ages, I need hardly recall to a 
 reader of history; it has recurred whenever dogma 
 has been made of primary importance, and where the 
 belief in creeds has been more anxiously promoted 
 than the doing of justice and loving of mercy. But 
 this was not an usual fault in Greek religion, and 
 I cannot but regard the passage as a very singular 
 one, and not yet sufficiently considered. 
 
384 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 I now conclude this brief chapter upon a very large 
 subject. But the classical student will find no diffi- 
 culty in illustrating for himself the general principles 
 sketched out here in rough outline. The chief rule 
 to be observed in this, as in all other branches of our 
 social enquiry, is to go straight to the authorities 
 themselves, to draw from the fountain-heads, and not 
 be content with the speculations of learned modern 
 thinkers. The trouble and tedium of this labour will 
 be relieved by the consideration that where our con- 
 clusions must be formed from scattered hints and 
 delicate inferences, no single writer can exhaust the 
 subject, and every honest gleaner who comes after 
 him may fairly expect to contribute materially to 
 the result. The same text which has revealed 
 nothing to one will suggest to others in a different 
 frame of mind many interesting points ; nay, even 
 a reperusal discovers, to the same mind many things 
 at first overlooked or imperfectly understood. The 
 subject of the present chapter, if fully treated by 
 a man of English common sense, who read Greek 
 literature through with a special attention to the 
 allusions bearing upon it, would form the argument 
 Cor a useful and instructive volume. 
 
CHAPTER XIII, 
 
 THE BUSINESS HABITS OF THE ATTIC GREEKS. 
 
 There still remains an important feature of Attic 
 civilisation, demanding a special chapter. It is well 
 known that one of the great features in Hellenic 
 life was its extensive commerce. From Homer's 
 days, when the Greeks first began timidly to creep 
 after Phoenician traders round the headlands which 
 bounded their seas, down to Attic days, when they 
 had long made the Mediterranean their own, and 
 when Athens was like London, a centre for traffic 
 extending from Pontus to Tartessus — during all this 
 period there were few things in Greek life more im- 
 portant than trade. Thus the colonies were founded 
 under solemn religious auspices, and at the advice of 
 the Delphic oracle ; their sites were specially chosen 
 as suitable for intercourse between the sea and the 
 interior ; we may even fairly suppose that all the 
 important wars which took place during the colo- 
 nising epoch of Greek history were wars concerning 
 commercial interests, and with a view to protect trade 
 interests. 
 
 We are told, for example, that almost all Greece 
 joined in a war between Chalcis and Eretria about 
 
 Cc 
 
386 SOCIAL GREECE. [ClI. 
 
 the Lelantine plain — a war alluded to as contem- 
 porary by Theognis, and concerning which even 
 Aristotle still preserved anecdotes. Historians have 
 justly pointed out the inconceivability of all Greece 
 being interested about some fields in Euboea, and 
 that the rivalry of the two towns concerning settle- 
 ments at the mouth of the Euxine was the real 
 cause, while a local dispute was the occasion, of the 
 war ^. The passage into the Black Sea was always of 
 vast importance, as even in Attic days the toll levied 
 for passing Byzantium formed a considerable item of 
 revenue ; and it appears that the Greek trading cities 
 supported Chalcis or Eretria according as pre-existing 
 treaties secured to them protection or immunity from 
 either party. Thus the Lelantine war, a name un- 
 known to our ordinary compendiums of Greek history, 
 was a great war of traders, and in Thucydides' 
 opinion (i. 1$) the only general struggle throughout 
 historical Greece previous to his own day. 
 
 These facts, as well as the innumerable speeches on 
 commercial disputes left us by the orators, show that 
 there was a strong trading instinct in the Greeks ; 
 and there were large portions of the community sup? 
 ported in this way ; that it was, as now, the best 
 avenue to wealth. No sketch, therefore, of social life 
 among the Greeks would be complete without some 
 notice of their business habits. Here, as elsewhere, 
 we shall only note la\ys and customs as illustrative of 
 manners and of sentiment. Innumerable books have 
 already been written on Greek laws, on Greek notions 
 ' E. g. E. Curtius, in his History, of Greece^ 
 
Xm.']£l7SlNi:SS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 387 
 
 of property and of inheritance, on Greek political 
 economy and social science. We are here concerned 
 with the subjective aspect of the facts which have 
 been collected, and which has as usual to be gathered 
 from stray hints and implied ideas. 
 
 Perhaps the first essential for a proper development 
 of business habits, and for a proper confidence in the 
 stability of trade, is a good and complete system of 
 law, promptly and firmly administered. Without 
 this all contracts are suspicious, and all speculations 
 mere gambling. As we might expect, then, Attic 
 trade could not exist without a system of Attic law, 
 upon the general features of which the following re- 
 flections may be interesting to the reader. 
 
 If he will look into any of the Classical Dictionaries 
 or books of antiquities on this subject, the first point 
 which will strike him is the rich and varied termin- 
 ology — the host of technical words employed, show- 
 ing a well-developed and complicated system. The 
 school-boy who knows no law is puzzled with de^ 
 murrers, and bills of exception, and judgments by 
 default, and affidavits and counter-affidavits ; every 
 case appears to be tried in two or three forms, and 
 no decision seems final without appeals, and motions 
 for re-hearing. All these things indicate an advanced 
 and systematised conception of law, and the orators 
 justly appeal to them as a proof of culture. Not 
 only were there a vast number of distinct courts and 
 boards of magistrates, before each of which the pro- 
 cedure was distinct ; but a variety of procedure was 
 allowed in the case of each single definite action. 
 
 C c a 
 
388 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 'Solon,' says Demosthenes \ 'did not grant to those 
 who sought redress from injury some single course of 
 procedure in each case, but many and divers.' For 
 he knew that men would not be equal in boldness 
 and daring, and that variety of procedure would help 
 the simpler and gentler litigant. ' He desired then 
 that every one should receive even-handed justice. 
 How can this be done ? By permitting many avenues 
 for attacking wrongdoers ; as, for example, in the case 
 of theft. Is your case strong, and are you confident ? 
 arrest him ; you run a risk of paying 1000 drachmae 
 (if the case goes against you). Are you too weak for 
 this ? lay an information before the archons ; they 
 will do it for you. Are you afraid even of this ? bring 
 an action against him. Are you a diffident person, and 
 so poor as not to be able to pay the 1000 drachmae ? 
 have a (preliminary) trial for theft with him before an 
 arbitrator, and you run no risk.' 
 
 Thus, in his famous speech against Aristocrates, 
 the same orator (p. 643) gives an exhaustive dis- 
 cussion of the laws concerning homicide, in which he 
 enumerates and explains six distinct procedures, but 
 in this case not for the same crime, but for six dif- 
 ferent shades of homicide — accidental, justifiable, in 
 self-defence, and so forth. Similarly in the case of 
 personal quarrels, it is noted that the Attic law 
 allowed an action for every step in the quarrel, from 
 the use of language ' calculated to provoke a breach 
 of the peace,' through common and aggravated assault, 
 up to grievous bodily harm and manslaughter. 'I 
 
 * In Androlion, p. 6oi. 
 
XIII.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 389 
 
 wonder,' says a speaker ^, ' whether there is any ex^ 
 cuse or pretence discovered among you which will 
 save a man from punishment if he is convicted of 
 assault and battery. For the laws with a very dif- 
 ferent spirit foresaw the excuses which would neces- 
 sarily arise, and guarded against their being allowed 
 to develop ; as, for example, there are actions for 
 using offensive language, which they say are intended 
 to prevent people from being betrayed by scolding 
 into striking one another. Again, there are actions 
 for insult (aki'as), for this purpose, that any one being 
 worsted in a quarrel should not defend himself with 
 a stone or potsherd^, but rather await the vindi- 
 cation of the law. Again, there are actions for 
 wounding, lest* from wounding manslaughter might 
 arise. The most trivial, I suppose, that for abusive 
 language, guards against the final and worst offence, 
 that manslaughter may not arise from a man being 
 gradually led on from bad language to blows, from 
 blows to wounds, from wounds to death ; but in the 
 laws there is redress for each of these, that they may 
 not be decided by the passion or caprice of the in- 
 dividual.' It was indeed thought disreputable to 
 bring an action for abusive language ^ an offence 
 atoned for easily by an apology ; but in theory this 
 is the fundamental conception of all sound law, and 
 
 ' Dem. against Canon, p. 1263. 
 
 ' The usual natural weapon seems to have been an oaTpaxov, and this 
 means, not a shell but a potsherd. Cp. Lysias, p. 37. 
 
 ° Cp. Lysias, Or, x. p. 117: mifKtiBepov yip Kal \iav <pi\6SiKov Hvai 
 voiii^a Kaicriyopias Siie&^ea9ai. But in this case the defendant had asserted 
 that the plaintiff had killed his own father. 
 
390 SOCIAL GREECE. [cH. 
 
 no nation can be said to have realised it till they 
 have abandoned the license of the tongue as well as 
 the carrying of arms, and thus openly declared their 
 dependence on law, as opposed to force. Thucydides 
 notices this carrying of arms as a sign of barbarism 
 in the Greece of former days, and Aristophanes in- 
 troduces the same feature as a mark of troublous and 
 disturbed times, in his Lysistrata \ The suppression 
 of piracy abolished this habit, which was so completely 
 gone from Attic usage that there were not even laws 
 against it. It may indeed have been also a provision 
 of the Peisistratids for their own safety, continued 
 afterwards on democratic grounds. 
 
 But even more marked than this abandonment of 
 arms was the strong feeling about -iJ/Spty, as they 
 called it, about personal violence, which they would 
 not allow even towards slaves. The writer of the 
 tract on the Athenian polity complains indeed of the 
 absurd independence allowed to slaves, who dressed 
 like freemen, and were not afraid to meet you in the 
 street. 'Of course,' says .iEschines^, 'the lawgiver 
 was not so anxious about slaves as to make such a 
 law, but what he did insist upon was the repression 
 of the habit of personal violence, which was fostered 
 through violent treatment of slaves by freemen, and 
 of the poor by the rich.' Hence any man, whether 
 concerned in the outrage or not, was allowed to 
 prosecute the offender. There is a very interesting 
 
 ' V. 656: fy/ TtaiaaiKv npirriaTov /ilv (in> StrKoiaiv d7op(i^orTa< ko! 
 ixaivoiikvovs k.t.\. 
 
 ' In Timareh. § 16. 
 
xm.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 391 
 
 oration of Isocrates' on the question {Or. 20) where 
 he plainly puts forward, that it is not the hurt, but 
 the insult, which is intolerable to a free citizen, just 
 as now-a-days to touch a man in anger constitutes an 
 assault. At the end of the speech the orator calls 
 iipon the crowd present to stand forward and join 
 him in the accusation. This strong feeling was even 
 made the lever of raising odium against a man. 
 Apollodorus complains that his enemy Nicostratus 
 sent in a city boy from a neighbouring house to 
 pull up his roses, and injure his garden, in order that 
 if Apollodorus struck or bound him, they might bring 
 an. action for v^pis against him ^. 
 
 These examples are from the criminal code of the 
 Athenians, which was perhaps developed at an earlier 
 period, and therefore may have been the most com- 
 plete; but the very same variety of procedure, the 
 very same accuracy of subdivision, and the same sen- 
 sitiveness may be found in their civil code ^ Closely 
 allied to this feature, in fact another aspect of it, is 
 the subdivision of legal business, and the confining 
 of each special court to a special class of business. 
 Thus the Eleven, who were the chief police officers 
 at Athens, were occupied with burglars and thieves 
 and with offenders condemned to death. The chief 
 archon had charge of heiresses and orphans. The 
 king archon tried cases of impiety, and those that 
 arose in gymnasia. The polemarch, again, investi- 
 gated all cases of patrons and clients. There remain 
 
 ' Detnosth. In Nicostr. p. 1251. 
 ' Cp. ib. In Lacrit. p. 940. 
 
392 SOCIAL GREECJS, [CH. 
 
 the generals, and they were concerned with the navy 
 and army, but not with mercantile shipping. We 
 have, on the other hand, in the extant fragments of 
 Aristotle's lost YloKiTeiai, a list of special boards of 
 magistrates supervising trade and commerce, which 
 is perfectly astonishing. There were ayopavofMoi, and 
 cnTo(j)ij\aKes, and HuTT&Tai, and inmeXryral over every- 
 thing, even T&v KOTspdvav, and in separate boards for 
 the city, and for the Peiraeus ^. There were besides 
 [xiTpovonoi, there were acrTwonoi, who controlled flute 
 girls and dancing girls, and scavengers ; Tra>\riTaC, who 
 superintended the sale of the state monopolies ; also 
 d-nobeKTM and koyia-raL These boards consisted of 
 numbers varying from five to fifteen, and all had 
 fixed duties. If we consider the number of these 
 offices, and how a great number of citizens over 
 sixty years of age were constantly employed as arbi- 
 trators and on juries, we must conceive the Athenian 
 people as very much oppressed by their self-imposed 
 duties. Thus, then, the Attic legal system afforded 
 ample means of redress, and by specialising its courts 
 apparently provided for a prompt and accurate treat- 
 ment of disputes. 
 
 But all these courts and boards and arbitrators 
 were subject to an appeal to the sovereign people, 
 sitting in juries — the dicasteries of which we hear so 
 much. It was not thought proper to appeal to these 
 juries until other modes of settlement had been at- 
 tempted, and many of the extant orations delivered 
 
 ' See especially the fragments quoted in MuUer's Fragg. Hist. Graee. 
 vol. ii. pp. 119, sqq. 
 
XIII.] £USINi:SS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 393 
 
 before them apologise for apparent litigiousness ; but 
 still any one who could speak well, or pay a good 
 speech-writer, seems to have been ready enough to 
 go before them. Consequently owing to press of 
 business, including not only city affairs, but' those 
 of their allies, owing also to the interruptions caused 
 by critical wars or revolutions, these juries were 
 generally far in arrear of their business, and there 
 was great difficulty and tediousness in getting a case 
 settled. The authorities speak of it just as our fore- 
 fathers did of a suit in Chancery'. It is, I suppose, 
 for this reason that we find suits revived after a lapse 
 of eight or ten years, nay even of eighteen years ^. 
 There was indeed a statute of limitations, which laid 
 down five years as the longest period of delay in 
 bringing an action, but it is clear that the Attic 
 juries were often in arrear of their work, or, like the 
 Irish juries, did not feel themselves bound by this 
 law, and listened to a litigant, if he spoke well, even 
 though he was excluded from pleading by the statute 
 book. 
 
 I have thus been passing from the strong side of 
 Attic law to its weaknesses. Indeed it seems to me 
 that all the inferior courts, all the preliminary en- 
 quiries, were on the best possible footing, but that 
 this appeal to a large and untrained body of men as 
 jurors was thoroughly unsound, and fraught with great 
 
 ' Cp. M. Striibing, Aristophanes, Sec, p. 94, and Dem. narci Sre^, o, 
 p. no. 
 
 ' Cp. Lysias, p. 109 ; Dem. In Meid. p. 541 ; Pro Phorm. p. 950 ; In 
 Nausim. p. 986, 
 
394 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 mischief. But both the Greek and the English trial 
 by jury were at one time the great political safeguard 
 against state oppression and injustice ; and, owing to 
 this origin, free nations become so attached to it that 
 they are blind to its defects. And just as Ireland 
 would now benefit beyond conception by the aboli- 
 tion of the jury system, so the secured Athenian (or 
 any other) democracy would have thriven better had 
 its laws been administered by courts of skilled judges. 
 For these large bodies of average citizens, who, by the 
 way, were not like our jurymen, unwilling occupants 
 of the jury-box, but who made it a paid business and 
 an amusement, did not regard the letter of the law. 
 They allowed actions barred by the reasonable limits 
 of time ; they allowed ai-guments totally beside the 
 question, though this too was illegal', for there was 
 no competent judge to draw the line ; they allowed 
 hearsay evidence^, though that too was against the 
 law; indeed the evidence produced in most of the 
 speeches is of the loosest and poorest kind. Worse 
 than all, there were no proper records kept of their 
 decisions, and witnesses were called in to swear what 
 had been the past decision of a jury sitting in the 
 same city, and under the same procedure ^ This is 
 
 * Cp. Lysias, irphs SifiSiya sub fin., and on its violation /ear' 'Epar, 
 p. 124, Lycurgus, p. 149. 
 
 ^ Cp. Dem. Trpbs EdjSovA.. p. 1301 : ovSk fmprvpeTv Smofju fSurtv ol v6fioi. 
 He quotes an exception made by the law in the case of deceased people, 
 botA Sn^. i3. p. I131 : aKoi)v eTvai jjiapTvpav TeBveSiTos. 
 
 ' Cp. the witnesses called in by Demosthenes in evidence of past de- 
 cisions against Meidias (p. 541). 
 
XIII.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 395 
 
 the more remarkable, as there were state archives, in 
 which the decrees of the popular assembly were kept 
 under the charge of the public ypaixiJ.aTeh. There is 
 a most extraordinary speech of Lysias against a man 
 called Nicomachus, who was appointed to transcribe 
 the laws of Solon in four months, but who kept them 
 in his possession for six years, and is accused of 
 having so falsified them as to have substituted himself 
 for Solon. Hence there can have been no recognised 
 duplicate extant, or such a thing could not be at- 
 tempted. So again, in the Trapeziticus of Isocrates, 
 it is mentioned as a well-known fact, that a certain 
 Pythodorus was convicted of tampering with state- 
 documents, signed and sealed by the magistrates, and 
 deposited in the Acropolis^. All these things meet 
 us at every turn in the court speeches of the Attic 
 orators. We are amazed at seeing relationships 
 proved in will cases by a man coming in and swear- 
 ing that such a man's father had told him that his 
 brother was married to such a woman, of such a 
 house. We find the most libellous charges brought 
 against opponents on matters totally beside the ques- 
 tion at issue, and even formal evidence of general bad 
 character admitted. We find some speakers in con- 
 sequence treating the jury with a sort of mingled 
 deference and contempt which is amusing. ' On the 
 former trial of this case,' they say, 'my opponent 
 managed to tell you many well devised lies ; of course 
 you were deceived, how could it be otherwise, and you 
 made a false decision ;' or else, ' You were so pu?zled 
 ' Isocrates, p. 365. 
 
396 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 that you got at variance with one another, you voted 
 at sixes and sevens, and by a small majority you came 
 to an absurd decision ^.' ' But I think you know well,' 
 says Isocirates, 'that the city has often repented so 
 bitterly ere this for decisions made in passion and 
 without evidence, as to desire after no long interval to 
 punish those who misled it, and to wish those who 
 had been calumniated were more than restored to 
 their former prosperity. Keeping these facts before 
 you, you ought not to be hasty in believing the pro- 
 secutors, nor to hear the defendants with interruption 
 and ill temper. For it is a shame to have the cha- 
 racter of being the gentlest and most humane of the 
 Greeks in other respects, and yet to act contrary to 
 this reputation in the trials which take place here. It 
 is a shame that in other cities, when a human life is at 
 stake, a considerable majority of votes is required for 
 conviction, but that among you those in danger do 
 not even get an equal chance with their false accusers. 
 You swear indeed once each year that you will attend 
 to both plaintiff and defendant, but in the interval 
 only keep your oath so far as to accept whatever the 
 accusers say, but you sometimes will not let those 
 who are trying to refute them utter even a single 
 word. You think those cities uninhabitable, in which 
 citizens are executed without trial, and forget that 
 those who do not give both sides a fair hearing are 
 doing the very same thing V 
 
 It is not desirable here to go at greater length into 
 
 ' Cp. Dem. p. 1104. " ntpi avTidia. p. 314. 
 
■Klll.']£l7S/N-ESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 397 
 
 a description of the jury system, especially as this 
 has been so ably done by Mr. Grote. It is, however, 
 worth repeating, that the inherent defects of any jury 
 system were enhanced at Athens, not only by the 
 absence of any judge to rule the law of the case, but 
 by the great size of the jury. Many obvious incon- 
 veniences resulted. In a complicated will case, the 
 speaker says^ : ' I had intended to make out a table 
 of the descendants of Hagnias and show it to the 
 jury, but then I considered that those sitting far off 
 would not be able to see it, so I must explain it in 
 words.' Mr. Grote has also enlarged upon the psycho- 
 logical peculiarities of a crowd, as contrasted with 
 single individuals, and how subject it is to sudden 
 impulses. That these were common among Attic 
 juries, appears from the allusions to cases where the 
 defendant could not obtain a hearing, and when the 
 jury decided without knowing both sides of the case. 
 There were men condemned to death at Athens in 
 this way ^ a melancholy and striking proof that with 
 
 ' Dem. p. 1053. 
 
 * Here is a significant passage in Lysias' igtli oration (about the properly 
 of Aristophanes, p. 143) : ' For I hear, and suppose that most of you 
 know, that calumny is most dangerous. This is best illustrated by the 
 case of several people being prosecuted on the same charge. For iij 
 most cases those who are last tried escape, because your anger being ap- 
 peased, you listen to them, and are then willing to accept argument and 
 evidence. Consider then that Nicophemus and Aristophanes died un- 
 tried, before any one heard them convicte4 before him of any crime. 
 For no one even saw them after their arrest, nor were their bodies even 
 given back to their friends for burial, but so great a calamity fell upon 
 them, that in addition to all the rest, they were deprived even of this,' 
 Cp. the same orator, pp. 164-174, and Isocrates, ii. pp. 201, 208, 
 
398 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 all the complications and refinements of their legal 
 system, these final decisions of large juries were a 
 great flaw, in fact an inherent weakness which could 
 not be avoided. 
 
 I do not consider the poet Aristophanes as a critic 
 of any historical value, and all inferences from his 
 broad farces must be received with the greatest 
 caution and suspicion ; but if he has anywhere criti- 
 cised fairly and to the point, it is probably in the 
 Wasps, where he pulls to pieces the jury system. It 
 may be that the appointment of temporary magis- 
 trates, even to legal offices, made the decisions of 
 special boards uncertain, and that an appeal to the 
 people was necessary when bitter personal animosi- 
 ties might exist between the judge and the litigant ; 
 but still the principle of the Athenian sovereign 
 people sitting down to : decide questions of law was 
 really absurd, and led to endless chicanery. Hence 
 the universal prevalence of what was called (JVKo^avTia, 
 a profession followed by men of impudence and ability 
 in speaking, who lived by carrying on ' speculative 
 actions,' as our newspapers now absurdly call them, 
 and who extorted money from rich and quiet people 
 by a sort of chantage, not very different from that 
 practised in modern Paris. All the Attic literature 
 is full of allusions to these villains, and it seems hope- 
 less to deny their existence or their power. Rich 
 men at Athens are even described in Xenophon ^ as 
 
 ' Cp. Xenophon, CEconom. c. ii. and xi. § 21, which show that the 
 Athenian people were stricter about the duties than the rights of pro- 
 perty. This is implied in Plutarch's iVic/as, quoted above, p. 315. See 
 
XIII.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 399 
 
 cowering with fear before the scrutiny of these inqui- 
 sitors. Of course such a state of things must have 
 told severely on the business habits of the age. 
 Honest as were the juries in their decisions, there 
 was nevertheless a great uncertainty in going before 
 them, and the timid quiet man was at a serious dis- 
 advantage. 
 
 As regards the literature of Greece, the effect of the 
 same system has been completely ruinous to Greek 
 legal oratory. Here the vastly inferior Romans are 
 on a far higher level. Take for example such a case 
 as that of Curius v. Coponius, argued in court by the 
 orators Crassus and Antonius, and often mentioned 
 by Cicero. The testator had left his property after 
 the death of his son to a friend, believing at the time 
 that he was sure to have issue. The supposition 
 proved false, and after the testator's death the legatee 
 
 also the curious description of the advantages of poverty in Xenophon's 
 Symposium, c. 4. § 29 sqq. Charmides describes his life while rich as one 
 of misery and constant fear, alvfays subject to heavy state duties, and 
 moreover he was not allowed to travel. Now he is not only free, but 
 threatens others, travels where he likes, and the rich make way for him 
 in the streets iyiraviffravTai 5e fiot ^8ij real daKOJv, koX dSwv k^iaTavrai ot 
 irKovaiot). The most barefaced attempt is that recorded by Hypereides 
 (p. 45, ed. Blass), where Tisis indicted Euthycrates on the ground that his 
 property was not private, but public, merely because it was too large, 
 amounting to sixty talents. On this occasion the accuser was disgraced ; 
 but there were cases where the Athenian Demos confiscated property to 
 obtain money, just like the worst Roman Emperors. Thus Lysias says, 
 p. 185 : ' knowing as I do that the Council in office, when it has sufficient 
 funds for its administration, does not go wrong ; but when it gets into 
 money difficulties, it is obliged to entertain indictments and to confis- 
 cate the property of citizens, and to foEow the public speakers who give 
 the most unprincipled advice.' 
 
40Q SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 claimed the property. But the next of kin argued 
 that the conditions had not been fulfilled. The tes- 
 tator's son had not died, seeing that he had never been 
 born. They therefore claimed the inheritance. It 
 was argued on the other side, that though the letter 
 of the will was unfulfilled, this arose merely through 
 the incautious wording of the testator ; that his clear 
 intention was to leave the property to his friend, in 
 default of issue by death or otherwise ; that it would 
 therefore violate the intention of the will, were its 
 wording strictly interpreted. This remarkable case, 
 one of the widest applications and of the greatest 
 importance, occupied the leading counsel of Rome 
 for days ; and they spoke to competent tribunals. 
 No such case occurs even in Isaeus' court speeches. 
 The nature of the jury degraded the eloquence of the 
 bar at Athens. Subtle points of law, large questions 
 of equity, were thrown away upon them. Simple and 
 plausible statements, plenty of random evidence, and 
 personal abuse, were the qualities desirable in their 
 harangues. Above all, appeals ad misericordiam 
 formed the staple conclusion of every speech, and it 
 was not held undignified for the greatest aristocrats, 
 or grotesque for the most notorious bullies, to burst 
 out crying in court, and to bring in their children to 
 excite the compassion of the jury by their tears. 
 Such a course was taken even by Meidias, a sort of 
 mock Alcibiades in Demosthenes' day, and a man of 
 notorious profligacy and violence, though nearly fifty 
 years of age. Such is the course expected from 
 Conon, a member of a sort of hell-fire club at Athens, 
 
XIII.] BUSINi:SS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 401 
 
 when he had knocked down a man in the street, 
 danced upon him with his friends, and then clapped 
 his arms and crowed in imitation of a victorious cock. 
 It was done too by the lich Aphobus, when he begged 
 the jury to diminish his fine^. 'I should not wonder,' 
 says another speaker, pleading against two young 
 mauvais sujets, ' if they try to weep and make them- 
 selves objects of compassion. But I ask you all to 
 consider how shameful, nay rather iniquitous it is, that 
 men, who have spent their own substance in eating 
 and drinking with noted scoundrels, should now set 
 up tears and lamentations in order to obtain other 
 people's property.' 
 
 I cannot but hazard the conjecture that the 
 Athenian juries, with their native shrewdness and 
 intelligence, their great impulsiveness, their tendency 
 to override strict law, and their facility of being 
 gained over by clever speaking though beside the 
 point, were more like the Irish juries of the present day 
 than any other parallel which can be found. They 
 had the same merits and the same defects, and were 
 there not a controlling judge in the Irish Law Courts, 
 the decisions would often be as irrelevant as those 
 of the Athenian peopled There can be no doubt 
 
 • Cp. Dem. pp. 873, 1259, 1271. 
 
 ^ Thus in pleading a demurrer, it was generally thought necessary to 
 prove the justice of the case on its merits apart from this formal objec- 
 tion to the adversary's procedure, though before a strictly legal tribunal 
 such a digression should not be allowed. Cp. the argument to Demo- 
 sthenes' speech {urJp *op/uWos, the freedman of Pasion. The pleading 
 was a irapaypatpTJ, . aimrai fieVTOi Kal Tys €v0eias 6 ^roop , . , tovto dk 
 irenoitjKiv iva )J vapafpaipfi fiSWov iax^V' ''5* cufleias SeiKVvoiiiyrjS t£ 
 
 Dd 
 
403 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 that the eloquence of the French bar is much more 
 like what we find in the Attic orators, than what is 
 thought decent elsewhere in modern times. Subtle, 
 therefore, as the Greeks were beyond all other men, 
 there is no subtilty in their legal oratory, which is 
 the very best field (as we should think) for displaying 
 it. There is not a single legal principle argued by 
 them which would be of use to modern lawyers. 
 
 No doubt the nature of the jury was one strong 
 reason, but there was also another — the poor and 
 shabby nature of Greek speculation, as compared 
 with either Roman or modern civilisation. For here 
 we come to a branch of social life in which the most 
 advanced of the ancients were on a level with the 
 Middle Ages rather than with ourselves. When we 
 look into the business habits of the Attic Greeks, as 
 shown in their trade, and their general treatment 
 of wealth and produce, we are surprised to find them 
 as children compared to the average German or 
 Frenchman, not to say the average Englishman or 
 Scotchman. The causes were many and various, but 
 before we consider them it is well to hold fast the 
 main facts, and they are plain enough before our 
 eyes. In -the first place the States of those days 
 knew nothing of free trade, and were constantly 
 passing prohibitory acts, preventing exports and in- 
 sisting upon special imports. Thus it was forbidden 
 
 ^ k-TtoWotiiptf craSpas. On the question of applying torture to obtain evi- 
 dence, and the universal confidence in its efficacy, I have spoken above 
 p. 240. Demosthenes' clients constantly profess the same principle, 
 cp. Dem. p. 875. 
 
Xlll.] BCrSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 403 
 
 that any man should cut down more than two olive 
 trees each year, because the State of Athens required 
 much olive oil, and could produce it of the best 
 quality. Thus there were all manner of restrictions 
 upon the corn trade ; Attic traders were not allowed 
 to import corn elsewhere, and foreign corn ships 
 which touched at Peiraeus were required to sell two- 
 thirds of their cargo to the Athenians. 
 
 When a scarcity arose, we have attacks upon 
 the corn traders in Peiraeus — apparently respectable 
 foreigners settled there — like those which form so 
 melancholy a feature in the ignorance and the 
 tyranny of the Middle Ages ; nor do I know of any 
 document more disgraceful to Greek culture than 
 the speech of Lysias against the corn-factors. All 
 the necessary and natural causes of enhanced prices 
 are overlooked, and, with the true spirit of the 
 Middle Ages, the dearness is wholly attributed to a 
 combination among the factors. The famous picture 
 in Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, reproduced as it was 
 last year in Italy — during which there have been 
 corn riots and orders from the authorities fixing the 
 price of bread — does not exhibit more stupidity and 
 ignorance than the tone assumed by the orator and 
 presupposed in his audience. 'For when the pry- 
 tanes referred their case to the council they were so 
 
 ' The Voce Libera of Genoa, in describing one of these disturbances at 
 Sassari, says (impression of 24th June, 1874) ' Quel signor Sotto Piefetto 
 ordinava indi immediamente I'arresto di tutti i spacciatori. II pane 
 nascosto dai rivenditori fu venduto al pubblico al prezzo della nuova 
 tariffa ... I signori spacciatori posti poi in liberty, colla massima trau- 
 quillita vendono il pane secondo il prezzo fissato dal municipio.' 
 D d 3 
 
404 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 enraged with them, that some of the public speakers 
 declared that they ought to be handed over untried 
 to the Eleven that they might put them to death. But 
 as I considered it a very serious thing that the council 
 should admit such a precedent, I stood up and said 
 they should first be tried,' &c. This, indeed, seems 
 fair in the speaker, but the whole tone of his speech 
 appeals to the passions of the mob. It appears from 
 the speech that these factors were not allowed to 
 purchase more than &.ity fhormi at a time, and they 
 were not allowed to charge more than an obol profit 
 upon a certain measure. The accused confesses that 
 he bought in a larger quantity, but on the advice of 
 the archons, who partly deny the imputation, and 
 partly equivocate about it. The orator argues that 
 even if the archons did advise it, it was illegal, that 
 in any case the price ran up in such a way that the 
 ordained profit had been exceeded, and for this he 
 demands instant death as the penalty. ' In the case 
 of other criminals,' he concludes, 'ye have to learn 
 their offence from the accusers, but the wickedness of 
 these men ye all know. If then ye condemn them 
 ye will act justly, and make corn cheaper, but if not, 
 dearer' 
 
 This harshness may be partially owing to the im- 
 portant fact that these factors were not citizens but 
 aliens, and that they thought it worth while, like the 
 Jews of the Middle Ages, to run such risks as these 
 on account of their large profits j yet still the whole 
 attitude of the accuser is thoroughly absurd, and the 
 laws to which he refers intolerably mediaeval. On the 
 
XIII.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 405 
 
 other hand, however, the concentration of trade, or 
 at least of most of the trade, in the hands of foreign 
 residents and of freedmen, produced a peculiar feature 
 in the protective laws which we are considering. 
 For the aristocrats, or even the body of well-to-do 
 citizens, despised trade, and looked down upon this 
 sort of lucre. Consequently all the prohibitory trade- 
 laws were for the protection of the whole state, that 
 is of the whole body of citizens, and never for the 
 protection of some privileged class of traders, or of 
 some trade-union powerful enough to influence the 
 legislature. Thus the protective laws of Greece, so 
 far as we know them, do not exhibit that odious 
 feature so common in European history, and which 
 forms far the worst feature in the past treatment of 
 Ireland by England. All the other oppressions of 
 the Irish were of no importance compared with the 
 destruction of their trade for the benefit of English 
 producers. The traders in Greece were a despised 
 and politically insignificant class, who were often 
 plundered by the State, but never protected or 
 favoured beyond some trifling immunities. There 
 is evidence that Pericles knew better, and sought 
 to induce them to settle at Athens ; but he was of 
 course far in advance of his time. We may accept 
 what we know of Athens on this point as similar 
 to the practice of other states, but probably more 
 generous than many of them. In some of them 
 trade was an actual disqualification for public life. 
 
 But the limitation of profits by law points to a 
 still more decisive feature — the ignorance that money 
 
4o6 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 has, like any other thing, a changeable market value, 
 and that interest for its use is no robbery and in- 
 justice, but a most useful principle in trade. Many 
 of the Greeks held the now exploded notion, that 
 all taking of interest partook of the nature of usury, 
 and except in the case of wardships and trusts, when 
 the law insisted upon money being usefully invested, 
 they looked upon the man who lived by investments 
 as a bad character, and his trade as a disreputable 
 occupation. Even Aristotle, a most advanced thinker 
 in some respects — even Aristotle shares this national 
 blunder, and talks the most arrant nonsense in his 
 Politics about money being an essentially barren 
 thing, which cannot produce any offspring or increase 
 without violating nature. There is evidence that in 
 practical life these foolish prejudices could not assert 
 themselves. As the later Athenians began to con- 
 sider trade an honourable road to riches, and aristo- 
 crats like Nicias were known as careful trade-masters, 
 so there were instances, as in the case of wards' pro- 
 perty, where interest was acknowledged fair ; but still 
 we should note the persistence of the old stupid pre- 
 judice, not merely in ordinary minds, but in those of 
 advanced thinkers. 
 
 The general absence of machinery made any large 
 employment of hands in manufacture impossible, and 
 the light Attic soil and limited territory made such 
 things as the Roman latifundia equally so. There 
 was considerable subdivision of labour, the various 
 parts of a shoe, for example, being made by different 
 classes of workmen, and so far as the population 
 
xlu.']BCrSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS, 407 
 
 could produce with the help of manual slave labour 
 there was in many parts of Greece a considerable 
 export trade. But still anything like our wholesale 
 modern manufactures they could not attain. In 
 another direction too, the want of mechanical de- 
 velopment was fatal. As they had no equivalent 
 for our paper or token money, beyond transferable 
 bonds, they had no such thing as a money-market, 
 no such thing as state banks ; in fact none of that 
 surprising and, to ordinary men, inconceivable sort 
 of trade — stock-exchange business. The objection 
 to interest already mentioned cooperated in this 
 result, but I fancy the main cause was, the want of 
 current and universally accepted tokens. The Greeks 
 were like the old arithmeticians trying to solve com- 
 plicated questions as compared with our modern alge- 
 braists. Here the discovery of the use of universal 
 symbols, easily handled, and so thoroughly accepted 
 as to make us forget the reality in the background, 
 has made a complete revolution in the way of handling 
 and solving problems, as well as in our power of 
 unravelling intricacies and mastering complications. 
 The modern stock - exchange stands to the old 
 methods of trade in the same relation. The sym- 
 bols in a share-list are as unlike the realities as the 
 X and y of an equation, and I believe are often used 
 without any conscious reference to reality by business 
 men. 
 
 Here we have a modern development, not second 
 to any of those which separate us from former cen- 
 turies ; it is really a new discovery. This is indeed 
 
4o8 SOCIAL GREECE. [ciI. 
 
 fortunate in some respects for students of Greek 
 literature. If the mysteries of such a system as our 
 stock-exchange wei-e argued in the Greek orations, 
 the translation and comprehension of these documents 
 would indeed be. a most ungrateful labour. For- 
 tunately the cases discussed in the Attic courts were 
 of a far simpler kind. The charges of fraud, which 
 are many, are of the vulgarest and simplest kind, 
 depending upon violence, on false swearing, and upon 
 evading judgment by legal devices. There is not a 
 single case of any large or complicated swindling, 
 such as is exhibited by the genius of modern English 
 and American speculators. There is not even such 
 ingenuity as was shown by Verres in his government 
 of Sicily to be found among the clever Athenians. 
 In this feature the Roman aristocracy seems far more 
 advanced. 
 
 We have already discussed one reason of the 
 poorness of Greek legal oratory — the nature of the 
 tribunal ; but it seems to me that the facts just 
 stated must also be taken into account, as contri- 
 buting to the same result. The smallness of the 
 Greek states, so conducive to political development, 
 was certainly unfavourable to large and safe trade. 
 Their constant wars and disputes made all inter- 
 national treaties transient and uncertain, and the 
 keen speculator, the man of large views and great 
 capital, never had the same scope for his talents 
 which was afforded him by the Roman Empire, or 
 by the great modern states. The nearest approach 
 to a large business was that established by the banker 
 
XIII.J BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 409 
 
 Pasion^ of whom I shall speak presently, who was 
 the generally acknowledged banker for all foreign 
 merchants, and who commanded credit all over the 
 Hellenic world. 
 
 But there Avere several laws tolerated in the best 
 Attic days, which prove in themselves that even 
 the Athenians had no real capacity for business, or 
 any complicated conditions of property. I allude 
 above all to the well known diriSoo-ts, or exchange 
 of property, about which we hear so much in the 
 Attic orators. In the first place their taxes were 
 not consolidated rates, regularly payable, but occa- 
 sional and varying charges, imposed in the case of 
 war or other public necessity, and generally for the 
 outfit of a fleet. The tax was then struck in propor- 
 tion to assessed property. It was actually the law 
 at Athens on such occasions, that any citizen who 
 was charged for the outfit of a ship, and thought 
 that some richer man had been passed over, could 
 challenge this other to accept the burden, and if he 
 refused, compel him to exchange properties for the 
 space of a year. No law can be conceived more 
 absurd. Any man whose property consisted in 
 numerous investments, could not transfer it to a 
 stranger without the chance of absolute ruin, and 
 even in the treatment of landed property, a change 
 of masters for one year might destroy the labour of 
 a life, and ruin all the improvements and the outlay 
 
 ' I should observe that Nicias had a thousand slaves farmed out in 
 the mines of Laurium, but this was a business not requiring the large 
 intelligence shown by Pasion. 
 
 / 
 
4IO SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 of years of toil. We can imagine a man preferring 
 to submit to the most unjust burdens in preference 
 to such an alternative. Of course it disposed men to 
 hide their wealth, to give false returns of it, and to 
 resort to all manner of deceit, as we can see from 
 the speeches of Isocrates and Demosthenes (against 
 PhcBiiippus) on this subject. It seems simply the 
 legislation of the Athenian mob about property 
 which they had never possessed and did not under- 
 stand, for the other alternative — that Athenian pro- 
 perties were small or of a simple nature, like our 
 I'entals of estates — is refuted by the many descrip- 
 tions of property in the orators. It is in fact 
 inexplicable that any intelligent people should have 
 tolerated such a law, and it is conclusive against the 
 business capacity of the men who tolerated it. 
 
 Similarly absurd were the arrangements for manag- 
 ing the ships so provided. It often occurred that 
 two or more citizens were required to join in the 
 expense of keeping a single ship afloat. In such 
 cases the system obliged one of them to fit out the 
 ship, and sail with it till his share of the time had 
 elapsed, when the other was bound to come out, and 
 take the ship with all its appointments off the hands 
 of his partner in the burden. He might, however, 
 consider these appointments too expensive, or un- 
 sound, in which case he might refuse to take them, 
 and refit the ship for himself. Can anything more 
 clumsy or foolish be imagined ? In the case from 
 which we know these details, that of Apollodorus 
 against Polycles, the former had gone to great ex- 
 
XIII.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 41 1 
 
 pense and done everything very handsomely. He 
 was to be succeeded in a certain time by Polycles, 
 but the latter, though he came out to the fleet in the 
 Thracian waters, delayed or refused to take over the 
 ship. He alleged that Apollodorus' ostentation had 
 made him fit out the vessel absurdly, and that he could 
 not take the appointments at a valuation : he did not, 
 and perhaps could not, supply himself in Thrace; 
 so Apollodorus was left for months on duty beyond 
 his time, and was sent by the generals on all manner 
 of state missions, which inflicted upon him expense 
 and hardship^. But suppose he had left the ship and 
 gone home, what would have been the consequences ? 
 And in any case, he was a grumbling and unwilling 
 paymaster, who only waited for his return to bring 
 an action against Polycles, and recover from him his 
 undue expenses. 
 
 Such a system was evidently not based on sound 
 business principles, and shows a want of the faculty 
 which the Romans and many modern nations have 
 acquired. Thus, to revert to money matters, we find 
 frequently in the orators assertions that intelligent 
 men of business hid money in the ground. This was 
 one of the pleas put forward by the guardians of 
 Demosthenes ^ to show that all the property of his 
 father had not come into their hands, and yet the 
 elder Demosthenes was evidently a thriving man of 
 business, keeping up two large establishments for the 
 purpose of two distinct manufactures. Though the 
 
 ' Demosthenes, pp. 1206, sqq. 
 ' Kor' 'A(p6fiov, p. p. 830. 
 
412 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 allegation was false, the fact of its being made, and 
 not ridiculed, shows that such stupid hiding of money 
 was not uncommon. 
 
 But it must be added that some weight should be 
 allowed to the bad condition of banks and banking. 
 We know that in older days the temples were used 
 as safe places for the deposit of treasure; we also 
 know that loans could be effected from them, so 
 that they may be regarded as the earliest banks 
 in Greece. But we are in ignorance as to the terms 
 they imposed, and indeed it may be doubted whether 
 they lent money to individuals, and did not confine 
 themselves to State loans. In Attic days we find 
 no attempt made by the State either to work or to 
 guarantee a bank, and thus this important business 
 was left to individuals. I say to individuals, for the 
 remarkable business invention of joint-stock companies 
 was beyond the reach of the old Greeks, who never 
 advanced beyond ordinary partnerships^ There were 
 then a large number of private banks and bankers at 
 Athens, on account of its great trade. They seem 
 distinct from the money-lenders, a class of men who 
 set up chiefly in the Peirseus, and made speculations 
 by lending on the security of ships and their cargoes, 
 
 ' There were indeed private societies called Siaffoi and opycSives, to 
 wliich both women and slaves were admitted, and which were founded 
 on some religious basis. But these private devotions are always men- 
 tioned with disfavour. On the other hand each member had a right 
 to borrow contributions of money from the rest, if he got into sudden 
 difficulties, such for example, as being taken prisoner in war. Ransoms 
 were often paid in this way, and when money was so dear, these organ- 
 ized mutual aid societies must have been very useful. Cf. Foucart, Les 
 Associations riligieuses chez les Grecs. 
 
Xin.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 413 
 
 getting from 25 to- 30 per cent, if the voyage prospered, 
 but losing their money if the ship foundered at sea. 
 This sort of lending was so general, that one of the 
 speakers asserts it impossible for any ship to leave the 
 Peirseus without having recourse to it ', so that it must 
 have corresponded to our maritime insurances. These 
 money-lenders, who were looked upon with suspicion 
 and dislike, were an inferior class to the bankers, one 
 of whom at least, the well-known Pasion, became so 
 important a man as to be granted the freedom of the 
 city. Yet even among them failures were frequent ^ ; 
 there is indeed an absurd statement that when they 
 were asked for money which had been lodged with 
 them, they made much ado about giving it up, think- 
 ing that it had become their own. Perhaps the safest 
 and clearest evidence as to their insecurity is the fact 
 stated on the bankers' side, that when Pasion's son 
 had his choice of a business worth 60 minse, or a 
 bank worth 100 in respective yearly income, he justly, 
 says the orator, preferred the ownership of the business 
 establishment, on account of the insecurity of an in- 
 come made from other people's money '. This speaks 
 volumes on the point, and is in itself sufficient evidence 
 ipf the bad condition of banking. 
 
 But there were many difficulties in the way, among 
 which the chief was the injustice with which aliens 
 
 ' Dem. irpis ^op/i. sub. fin. There is a most interesting text of a 
 ff«77pa^ij, a bond of agreement, quoted in Dem. irpis Adxptr, p. 926. 
 Cp. Biichsenschiitz, Besitz und Erwerb, p. 506. 
 
 " &vaaKiva^ea9at (rip) rpani^av) was the term for a bank breaking. 
 
 ' Dem. Srnip iopii. 948, 9. On Pasion cp. Mr. Sandys' Priv. Or. 0/ 
 Dem. ii. Introd., and Schafer's Demosthenes u. seine Zeii, vol. iii. 
 
414 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 were treated even at Athens, and the disadvantages 
 under which they laboured in asserting their rights. 
 As these men had most of the trade in their hands, 
 and also most of the banks, it is evident that there 
 were insuperable obstacles in the way of any real busi- 
 ness development. We happen to know a good deal 
 about the celebrated banker, Pasion, because his son 
 Apollodorus very frequently retained Demosthenes 
 as his special speech-writer, whereas his supplanter in 
 the bank, and chief adversary, once, at least, secured 
 the same orator's services, and this in a family dispute 
 about Pasion's will and bequests. From these various 
 speeches, which are strong evidence of the complete 
 impartiality of Demosthenes, who abuses the contend- 
 ing clients in turn according as he is paid, we can 
 sketch a picture of the social position of this remark- 
 able banker, who was evidently something of a power 
 in Greece, and probably one of the best-known men 
 in the crowded Peiraeus. It is not necessary for our 
 purpose to detail the routine of his business, which 
 consisted of keeping account books and making ac- 
 curate entries just as at present. 
 
 This Pasion then had been a slave, from what 
 country we know not, and had been the property of 
 bankers called Antisthenes and Archestratus. Being 
 found both hardworking and upright, he was pro- 
 moted to places of trust and enfranchised. He then 
 set up on his own account, and became so important 
 a man as almost to monopolise the banking of the 
 traders to the port of Athens. He commanded credit 
 all over the Greek world, and having done great 
 service to the State, among other things by present- 
 
XIII.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 415 
 
 ing it with 1000 shields (of which he owned a manu- 
 factory), he was made a citizen, and enrolled in the 
 respectable Acharnian deme^, by public vote. His 
 wealth was sufficient to enable him to fit out and equip 
 five ships of war at his own cost. He kept a mistress, 
 whom he afterwards made his wife, but of whom 
 we hear a very bad character from her own son, 
 Apollodorus. For Pasion, doubtless perceiving that 
 Apollodorus was an ostentatious and idle man, with 
 no business habits, and that his second son, Pasicles, 
 was a mere child, promoted a trusty slave, Phormion, 
 just as he himself had been promoted, by making him 
 free, and finally, as he became old and anxious to 
 retire from business, allowing him to manage the 
 bank at a fixed rent of nearly ;^7oo a year. But in 
 order to secure Phormion, he seems to have made him- 
 self a debtor to the bank for eleven talents [£%,6id). 
 This Phormion certainly was a man of good business 
 habits, for in a great monetary crisis, when all the 
 other Athenian banks broke, he, in spite of his heavy 
 rent, sustained the public credit, and remained un- 
 shaken. It was probably for this that Phormion, ten 
 years after Pasion's death, was also made an Athe- 
 nian citizen. 
 
 Pasion on his death-bed betrothed his wife with a 
 large dowry to this Phormion ^, and in other respects 
 
 1 The Attic demes varied greatly in respectability, as appears from De- 
 mosthenes' speech vphs Ei0ov\. p. 13 16 ; the fact also that Pasion, whose 
 life was spent in the Peirseus, was enrolled in the distant Acharnian 
 deme, shows that the people were not tied down by local considerations, 
 when electing a new citizen by public vote. 
 
 ' It was a usual proceeding for Athenians on their deathbed to betroth 
 their wives to some friend or relation, especially if he was appointed 
 
4i6 SOCIAL GREECE. [;(|CH. 
 
 1^ — 
 
 treated him with great favour. He probably 4iaw 
 that his business would go to ruin if left to his soims. 
 Hence there arose long and grievous litigation. Apol^ 
 Jodorus charged Phormion with falsifying the will; he"- 
 openly accuses him of having seduced Pasion's wife, 
 Apollodorus' mother, and insinuates that the younger 
 son, Pasicles, who sided with Phormion, was the re- 
 sult of this intimacy, and not his legitimate brother. 
 Phormion, on the other side, accuses Apollodorus of 
 being an immoral spendthrift, and endeavoufin| 
 plunder the faithful supporter of his father's house of 
 his honest profits. We need not go farther into the 
 quarrel, except to observe that Demosthenes appears 
 to have been first employed to argue a demurrer for 
 Phormion, which he easily carried, but afterwards to 
 have written speeches for Apollodorus in this liti- 
 gation, and against other adversaries. His abuse 
 of his old client contrasts curiously with his former 
 abuse of his new client, and shows that the Athenian 
 speech -writers were justly contemned as plying a 
 venal and unprincipled trade. It is hard to make 
 out the real state of the case between the contradic- 
 tory statements, both of them compiled with art by 
 Demosthenes ; but this is certain, that though Pasion 
 was so rich and important, he bore about him the 
 traces of his low origin. Even his son Apollodorus 
 apologises in court for his own bad manners. He 
 attributes his common face, his quick walk, and his 
 
 executor in the will. This was not the least against Attic sentiment, 
 but to treat a freedman with this confidence and intimacy, was thought 
 strange even then. It is a melancholy proof of the low consideration m 
 )(fhich women were held. 
 
xni.] BC/SIJVFSS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 417 
 
 loud voice to the misfortune of want of breeding ^^ 
 faults which constituted avalhua or vulgarity, accord- 
 ing to Attic taste. Doubtless the son was more 
 ostentatious than the wiser father, who was evidently 
 a quiet, peace-loving man, even conniving at injustice 
 to avoid incurring enmity. He lived in the Peirseus, 
 and in later years came up seldom to Athens, though 
 he seems to have died there. 
 
 His business was so large that he did not know all 
 his clients. In the interesting speech against Callippiis 
 we have a very characteristic picture of him from his 
 son. He is asked by this distinguished but unprinci- 
 pled Athenian whether one Lycon of Heraclea had 
 lodged money with him, and he answers (p. 1238) 
 ' that he thinks so, but that if Callippus would like to 
 go down to his bank in Peiraeus, he could at once 
 find out accurately.' ' Do you know why I ask, 
 Pasion ? ' replied the other ; ' I am consul {proxenus) 
 for the Heracleots here, and as this man was killed 
 by pirates, it is better for me to have the money 
 than a fellow who is a metic living in Scyros, and a 
 mere nobody.' This was Lycon's partner, entered in 
 Pasion's books as the proper recipient of the money 
 in case of Lycon's death. But Callippus thought 
 that as a proxenus he could make good some claim, 
 
 ^ Cp. Dem. p. 1125 : l^ct; 8' Si dvSpes ^ABrjvaioi ttjs ji\v ojpeeas ttJ (p^ffei 
 Kal to) raxitm PaSi^eiv fcal XaKfTv fieya ov raiv fvrvxttfs irffpVKOTOlv 
 ffiavTov Kpivoj, and a similar passage, p. 9S2. The opposite character, 
 or what we should call gentlemanliness, was acoippoavvrj, which Plato 
 (Charm, p. 159 B) fully explains as the habit of doing everything in an 
 orderly and quiet way, including walkuig in the streets, conversing, and 
 every other phase of life. 
 
 E e 
 
4i8 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 if he once got possession of the money. ' Callippus,' 
 replied Pasion, ' I desire to do what I can to please 
 you (indeed I should be mad if I did not), yet so 
 as not to lose my reputation or my profits. I have 
 no objection to tell this to the two friends who were 
 witnesses, or to his partner himself. But if they will 
 not agree when I tell them, do you talk to them 
 yourself.' 'Never mind, Pasion,' said the other, 'if 
 you like you can force them.' This was Pasion's 
 own story to his son. Of course the other people 
 refused to have anything to say to Callippus' bare- 
 faced proposal, and then the money was given back 
 to the proper owner. But Callippus actually prose- 
 cuted Pasion in his old age, for giving back the 
 money without his consent as proxenus, having (as he 
 alleged) agreed not to do so. 
 
 On the other side, the Trapeziticus of Isocrates 
 gives us a very dark picture of this very Pasion's 
 conduct when he found aliens in his power. He is 
 openly accused of embezzlement, and even of forgery. 
 Of course, in the absence of Pasion's defence, we 
 cannot say how far these grave charges were well 
 founded ; but the very fact of their being made in 
 open court, shows that the character of this prince 
 of bankers was not above suspicion. When com- 
 bined with the previous case, my impression of 
 Pasion is that he was a dishonest man of great 
 shrewdness, who knew when to cheat and when to 
 permit himself to be cheated with advantage. 
 
 But however this may be, these stories show very 
 well the position of the richest banker at Athens, 
 even after he had become a full citizen. We can 
 
xm.'] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 419 
 
 imagine how submissively and cautiously those must 
 have conducted themselves who were ' aliens and 
 hence of no influence ^/ It may therefore be inferred 
 that the utterance of Demosthenes is hardly ex- 
 aggerated, when he says that honesty and ability in 
 business were held a surprising combination. 
 
 These facts, which might doubtless be paralleled by 
 many more through Greek literature, seem to prove 
 conclusively the poor development of a real business 
 spirit among the old Greeks. We do not expect 
 these qualities now-a-days from artists and poets, 
 and even from politicians ; but among so many-sided 
 a people, to use a very hackneyed expression, it 
 is somewhat surprising that their wide coasting 
 trade, and their connections all over the Mediter- 
 ranean, did not generate those qualities which I 
 believe to have existed in some degree in the 
 Phoenicians, and still more in the Romans. The 
 Phoenicians appear to have had a like trading genius 
 to their brethren the Jews, and to have brought even 
 their seamanship to a far higher level than the 
 Greeks. At least Xenophon, in his CEconomics, 
 speaks of going down to Corinth to see the big Phoe- 
 nician ship, just as we should speak of visiting the 
 ' Devastation,' and the points which he remarks are 
 the extreme neatness and tidiness of the internal 
 arrangements. Everything was stowed away in the 
 smallest possible space, and rea'dy to hand. I know 
 
 ' ' Callippus,' says the speaker (Dem. p. 1 243), ' was one of our citizens, 
 
 and well able to do either benefit or harm, but Cephisiades was both an 
 
 alien, and of no influence, so that it is not credible that my father would 
 
 promote his interests against justice, rather than do justice to Callippus.' 
 
 E e a 
 
420 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 no more certain sign of superior abilities than this 
 very feature of cleanness and tidiness. The Romans 
 swayed no doubt a great Empire, welded into an 
 unity very different from the Hellenic unity, if we may 
 use so misleading a term of the Greeks in general. 
 But there was also something in the Roman gravitas, 
 an instinct of adherence to bonds and promises, 
 which Cicero, as I have quoted (p. 123), asserts to 
 be foreign to the Greeks, and which is the first 
 essential of any sound commercial prosperity. 
 
 This was in my opinion the great national blot on 
 their character, and the principal cause of their com- 
 parative failure in this direction. I know that my 
 judgment will be contested, that it is usual to assert 
 the Greeks to be the greatest and most successful 
 traders of antiquity ; but I appeal to the judicial 
 literature in proof of the reverse, and hold that how- 
 ever much they may have traded, however many 
 their ships, and various their exports and imports, 
 all this was as nothing compared to what such a 
 nation as the English would have accomplished in the 
 same position. That love of overreaching, that in- 
 grained shrewdness and intent watching of personal 
 interests, which I have noticed all through Greek 
 civilisation from Homer into the Attic times — these 
 were an obstacle to all their perfection, and not least 
 in those very branches of civilisation which are their 
 proper field. Trade* does not often fall into the 
 hands of the aristocracy of a nation ; it is the special 
 function of the middle classes, and hence the core of 
 a nation must be sound, the average man must be 
 steady and thrifty and honest, in a really mercantile 
 
XIII.] BUSIN£SS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 421 
 
 people. The noblest moral principles in the leading 
 men, the highest moral preaching among the philoso- 
 phers, are not adequate, nor are they a sure sign of 
 a solid national quality. It seems to me, upon a 
 careful review of a very wide and conflicting body of 
 evidence, that the Greeks had these great leaders and 
 preachers, but that the average man was below the 
 level of fair honesty. 
 
 It will be said in reply that the most noted trad- 
 ing races the world has seen have been notoriously 
 dishonest, that the Phoenicians and Jews are striking 
 examples of this side of the question. Even admit- 
 ting this doubtful statement, and without entering 
 into a full discussion, which would indeed require a 
 separate volume, I shall merely observe that the 
 Phoenicians and mediaeval Jews succeeded chiefly as 
 the Greeks succeeded^ either by opening up an inter- 
 course with savages, where mere enterprise secures 
 great advantages, or as members of a subject race, 
 constrained by the severest and most bloody penalties 
 to keep within the limits of fairness. So far the 
 Greeks succeeded in trade also. The early colonists 
 plundered the barbarians unmercifully under the 
 guise of barter ; the subject classes at Athens, such 
 as the cornfactors of whom I have spoken, were com- 
 pelled, by fear of execution uncondemned, to keep 
 within some limits, and under this compulsion, they 
 may have induced people to deal with them, and so 
 prospered under a supervision unjust as well as severe. 
 
 But when I speak of great and successful commerce, 
 I speak of it in a free and dominant race, carried on 
 upon large and fair principles, and without any con- 
 
422 SOCIAL GREECE. [cH. 
 
 stant thought of overreachhig those with whom we 
 deal. I speak of it, and of the business habits it 
 engenders, as we find it in such countries as England 
 and Belgium. This I do not believe ever to have 
 been attained by the Phoenicians, or by the Jews till 
 the present day, when they have taken their place as 
 free members of the great free iiations among whom 
 they dwell. 
 
 The considerations hitherto adduced may be cor- 
 roborated by adverting briefly to that highest and 
 most distinctive business of the Greeks, which is 
 beyond the scope of this book — I mean the pursuit 
 of politics. Here, if anywhere, we can find tests of 
 the average morality which was thought respectable, 
 and of the degree of dishonesty which incurred social 
 censure. And here too we find ample materials for 
 forming a judgment in the large literature of Attic 
 oratory, in the numerous charges and counter-charges 
 which have survived from the violent party conflicts 
 of the day. It would of course be absurd to take 
 these violent attacks, these systematic Xoihoiplai, as 
 they were called, to be sober evidence. But it is 
 still more absurd to reject them altogether, when 
 directed against some hero of modern historians, and 
 to believe that the Attic public would have tolerated 
 open and persistent charges of perjury and corruption 
 against a man of unsullied probity and honour, if such 
 there was among the politicians of the day. The 
 perpetual charges of treason, of corruption, and of 
 malversation can only have been tolerated because 
 the atmosphere of Attic politics made such things 
 easy and common, or because the ordinary acts of 
 
XIII.J J5irSINi:SS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 423 
 
 public men were such as could easily be interpreted 
 in this way. 
 
 I take up the case of the most respectable and 
 the most eminent of the later Attic politicians. De- 
 mosthenes is a man whom all modern historians have 
 united in lauding to the skies. We are told now that 
 our understanding the history of the epoch actually 
 depends on our appreciation of the purity and the 
 spotless honour of this great man. We are told 
 that all the attacks upon him were foul and dis- 
 honest charges by men who were themselves cor- 
 rupt, and that there is no tittle of evidence to con- 
 vince us that their assertions had any real foundation 
 in fact. 
 
 I will not now dispute this verdict. I will not urge 
 what I have often urged before, that modern philo- 
 logists unconsciously transfer their admiration for the 
 literary artist to his character, and think that because 
 he was the greatest of orators he must also have been 
 the noblest of men. But rather, admitting this esti- 
 mate, I will ask how did it come that the Attic public 
 tolerated all manner of scurrilous attacks upon him 
 in the public courts? He prosecutes .^schines for 
 corrupt malversation on an embassy, and is met by 
 counter-charges of the grossest kind. The result of 
 the trial is the acquittal of his adversary. In our day 
 such an action, if met by such a defence, and not 
 successful against it, would necessarily ruin the ac- 
 cuser. Later on in life, the same Demosthenes is 
 formally returned by the Areopagus, the gravest and 
 most solid court at Athens, for embezzling the definite 
 sum of 30 talents, and condemned in a formal trial 
 
424 SOCIAL GREECE. [cif. 
 
 by a large jury, in committee of the popular assembly, 
 consisting of 1500 members. We find moreover the 
 verdict of Greek posterity agreeing with this sentence. 
 Plutarch, no severe judge, and a great admirer of genius, 
 is convinced that Demosthenes though a great, was not 
 a good man. And such is the opinion of his age ^. 
 
 How are we to account for this remarkable change 
 of public opinion ? How is it possible that the same 
 facts, and the same evidence (if indeed Plutarch had 
 not better grounds than we) can lead to such diverse 
 estimates? I cannot but think that we estimate 
 Demosthenes by the moral standard of our northern 
 and western Europe, where dishonesty of a vulgar 
 and obtrusive kind has become so dissociated from 
 political life, that we cannot conceive it co-existing 
 with true greatness. If a Prime Minister in our day 
 were openly charged with taking bribes^ the accu- 
 sation could not be overlooked for a moment. Either 
 the accuser or the Minister must necessarily be ruined. 
 But there are many nations, political nations too, in 
 the world, where such is not the case, and where in- 
 direct profits are allowed to politicians by public 
 opinion. It is no doubt our wealthy and splendid 
 aristocracy, whose constant attention to politics has 
 rendered bribery in most cases impossible, in all dis- 
 graceful. Indeed this condition of things is said not 
 to have existed till the present century, and perhaps 
 the morality of public men in our dependencies may 
 not have yet attained to it, for we know that the 
 practice of taking large presents from native princes 
 existed quite lately in our Indian Empire. 
 
 ' Plutarch, Demasth. c. 14, and comp. Dem. et Cic. c. 3. 
 
Xlii.J BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 425 
 
 Now this is precisely the state of things which was 
 normal at Athens, and the honesty of Demosthenes 
 was not the honesty of a Lord Althorp, but rather 
 of a Warren Hastings. It was not even the highest 
 honesty at Athens, for we have in Phocion and in 
 Lycurgus men who were never exposed to the attacks 
 which are still extant on Demosthenes. 
 
 But I desire to insist upon this, that we must rather 
 blame the low average of political honesty at Athens, 
 than degrade the great orator to the position to which 
 modern morals would condemn him. In fact the 
 ordinary rules of political life at Athens tolerated 
 abuses which may perhaps still exist in America, 
 but which are happily almost extinct in England. 
 I allude above all to the abuse of allowing indirect 
 profits to be made by politics. 
 
 Our evidence on this point, and in the case of 
 Demosthenes is too precise to be refuted, and shows 
 us that he must have done many acts in his life 
 which left him open to charges of dishonesty which 
 he could only rebut by a general appeal to his 
 character, but which he could never directly refute. 
 All his accusers agree in speaking of his great wealth 
 in mature Iife\ It is the common theory of the 
 moderns that he made his fortune by speech-writing. 
 But as he abandoned this profession early, and as we 
 
 ' He never denies this in the De Corona, or appeals to his poverty as 
 i, proof of his honesty in poUtics. The disclaimer in the 3rd epistle, 
 ■which Blass quotes (Att. Ber. iii. p. 45) only strengthens my conviction 
 that the letter is spurious. At the same time I fully believe that 
 Demosthenes applied all his wealth lavishly to public objects, and hence 
 seems to have left no considerable fortune. 
 
426 SOCIAL GREECE. [en. 
 
 never hear of its being a very lucrative one, such an 
 explanation is quite inadequate. How do his oppo- 
 nents account for it ? Hypereides is peculiarly pre-? 
 else, and gives us exactly the information which is 
 interesting for our present purpose. ' As I have often 
 before said in public, judges, you allow many profits 
 without demur to generals and politicians — not by 
 the permission of the laws, but from your easy temper 
 and good nature — making this one condition, that 
 what they make must be for your sake, and not 
 against your interests. And I suppose that Demos- 
 thenes and Demades, from the mere decrees passed 
 in the city, and their relations with aliens, have each 
 received more than 60 talents, apart from gifts from 
 the Persian king ^.' We have the same thing asserted 
 in the speech for Euxenippus'^ quite generally; as to 
 Demosthenes, we have in the accusation of Deinarchus 
 the same facts worked out in detail ^. We are given 
 a list of decrees which he was supposed to have 
 carried not without gratuities for doing so, and then 
 we are informed that he had an immense property 
 of ready money — as much as 150 talents — the evi- 
 dence of the large profits of his politics. 
 
 I can see no reason to doubt, and I am convinced 
 no contemporary doubted, the truth of these state- 
 ments as to his wealth, and his manner of acquiring it. 
 But I repeat that it was looked upon as fair and 
 honourable in the society of that day, provided it was 
 obtained from friends, and not from enemies of the 
 democracy, and provided it was spent liberally on 
 ■ Cp. Hypereides, /tori Ai7;t. fr. x. " Col. xxiii, 
 
 » §§ 41 sq-. 69 sq. 
 
XIII.] BUSINESS HABITS OF THE GREEKS. 437 
 
 public objects. In fact the ordinary formula of accu- 
 sation all through these orations is not that the 
 accused took bribes and benevolences, but that he 
 took them Ka5' viiSiv, against your interests, and this 
 was the only criminal point. Accordingly in De- 
 mosthenes' replies, so far as we can judge from the 
 De Corona, he never denied his wealth ; he never 
 denied that he had received large monies on the 
 score of politics, but he insists that he never acted 
 or spoke' except in the interests of the democracy. 
 
 It is this aspect of political life at Athens which 
 explains to us how every speaker was permitted to 
 attack his opponent with charges of corruption. If 
 they all made indirect profits (with solitary excep- 
 tions like Phocion's) the distinction between harmless 
 presents and corrupt bribes was one which could not 
 easily be established, and every case was liable to 
 challenge. There may have been many where the 
 present from a foreigner or resident alien to the 
 politician who befriended him meant no more than 
 a lawyer's fee in the present day. But the abuse of 
 this indirect and underhand method of payment was 
 notorious enough, and contributed largely to the 
 downfall of the independence of Athens. 
 
 These very important illustrations from public life 
 will establish upon different grounds the somewhat 
 poor estimate I have made of the business habits 
 of the Greeks. We cannot conceive their commerce 
 managed on higher principles than their politics. And 
 there is reason to believe that the politics of other 
 Greek cities stood rather lower than those of Athens in 
 the scale of morality. The Spartan public men were 
 
428 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 notoriously venal, and whenever we hear of a defeat 
 like that of Chaeronea, from Thebes as well as Athens 
 comes the cry ' nous sommes trahis ' — the sure sign 
 of a corrupt state of public morality ^- Whether this 
 cry was true or false it shews the general belief that 
 as generals and politicians were in the habit of re- 
 ceiving presents, their loyalty could not be secure 
 in the moment of danger. 
 
 The judgment on Demosthenes' public character in 
 the foregoing pages, which was scouted as a paradox 
 not worth refuting when it first appeared, has since 
 been adopted by several eminent German critics, and 
 consequently by English scholars. It was the learning 
 and enthusiasm of S chafer, the specialist on Demos- 
 thenes, which had led men astray. The reader will 
 find a calm and sensible review of the controversy in 
 a recent work, which adopts a great many of my ideas, 
 with ample acknowledgment in many places — ^Adolf 
 Holm's Greek History, iii. 370 sqq. 
 
 ' Cp. Lycurgns apud Diodornm xviii ; Ceinarchus, Karh Aij/i. § ^4. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THK SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 
 
 I WILL now endeavour to fulfil my promise of com- 
 pleting this book with some account of the effects of 
 art on Greek life. There is a sort of general belief, 
 not only among scholars, but among the modern 
 public, that, owing to a fortunate conspiracy of men 
 and circumstances, the old Greeks were in constant 
 contact with ideal beauty of all kinds, and that to this 
 we owe the unparalleled influence they have since 
 exercised upon human culture. There is also a wide- 
 spread conviction that art, which is to-day the apanage 
 of the few, and which all the efforts of modern govern- 
 ments have been unable to spread among the masses, 
 was then public property, and universally appreciated. 
 No account of Social Life in Greece can be complete 
 which does not discuss these wide-spread convictions, 
 and test the bold assertions which they imply. 
 
 Perhaps many of my readers will have become 
 somewhat impatient at the detail with which I have 
 brought before them the commonplace and even 
 vulgar features of the old Greeks. We have heard 
 enough, they will say, of the perpetual political 
 
430 SOCIAL GREECE. [cil. 
 
 squabbles of the Greeks, of their want of veracity, 
 of their greed. We have heard too many citations 
 from their ' comedians and their cooks.' Was not 
 their society for all that the most brilliant and culti- 
 vated the world has seen ? How comes it that they 
 are still our teachers, in art, of grandeur and purity 
 both of conception and execution ? Surely the splendid 
 remains which affect us so deeply are only shattered 
 fragments of a vast world of ideal beauty, which must 
 either have moulded all society, or the study of art 
 must be deemed an idle amusement, and of no prac- 
 tical effect on the minds and morals of men. 
 
 It is necessary that these suggestions should receive 
 some answer ; but the difficulty and complexity of the 
 problems concerned are such that I did not venture to 
 approach them in my former editions, when I had not 
 yet visited the country itself, and studied personally 
 the relics of Greek art in the museums of southern 
 Europe. And even now I must confine myself strictly 
 to the social sides and effects of Greek art — the 
 only aspect which I venture to discuss. The social 
 importance of the fine arts can hardly be said to date 
 from before the Attic period, if we except Poetry, the 
 old national property of the Greek. The efforts of 
 the tyrants were indeed most important, and prepared 
 Greece for the culture of its golden age, but still the 
 culture of a court can hardly be called national culture, 
 and we may treat the fifth century art in Greece as 
 a mere introduction to its truly national development.^ 
 
 There can be no doubt that in later days Athens, 
 
 ' I have given some curious specimens from Athens in my Rambles 
 and Studies in Greece, pp. 6i, seqq. 
 
xiv.j SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 431 
 
 Delphi, Olympia, Argos, ^gina, and a host of other 
 towns were so studded over with temples, and statues, 
 and votive monuments, as to be almost museums or 
 palaces of art. We know that the very commonest 
 household furniture, lamps, pots and pans, chairs, 
 stools, were all designed with singular grace and 
 elegance. We seem to find a society so interpene- 
 trated with good taste that boorishness is a crime 
 and want of sensibility a strange disease. And yet 
 this is the society which has been pictured in the 
 preceding pages with no very flattering colours. It 
 would seem at first sight either that this moral picture 
 is too dark, or that the ordinary views of Greek art 
 are too bright, or else that its effect on social life was 
 less than we would fain believe. But we must not 
 hasten to a conclusion till we have carefully con- 
 sidered the facts before us. 
 
 It is a commonplace at the opening of all de- 
 partments of Greek history to enlarge upon the 
 exceptional natural advantages of the Greeks for 
 development and culture. They were surrounded, it 
 is said, by the most various beauties in nature, and by 
 the most unvarying beauty in man. These reacted 
 naturally upon their minds, and gave them that 
 aesthetic taste, that Schonheitsinn, which produced their 
 incomparable art. To some extent these assertions 
 are true, but must be received, like most of the state- 
 ments of enthusiastic Greek philologists, with great 
 caution. 
 
 I can affirm from personal observation that the 
 physical features of Greece and of the other coasts of 
 the .^gean are exceedingly beautiful and various, 
 
432 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and that not even Italy and Switzerland together 
 afford a greater wealth of grandeur and of pic- 
 turesqueness. It is also probable that the somewhat 
 colder climate of classical days, together with better 
 cultivation, made the vegetation richer and more 
 lasting, and so obviated the only flaw which now mars 
 the perfect beauty of the country. If then a perpetual 
 fair prospect could stimulate art, Greek landscape 
 must certainly do so. But nevertheless, as has been 
 long since observed, the old Greeks hardly ever speak 
 of scenery ; they seem not to have admired it con- 
 sciously, as moderns do, so that we might almost 
 argue the thesis, that an appreciation of landscape 
 beauty is the result and not the cause of a long- 
 developed artistic sense. Some unconscious effect 
 may perhaps be conceded, but surely an art either 
 professedly human in form, like their sculpture and 
 painting, or strictly artificial, like their architecture, 
 which never imitated inanimate objects, can hardly be 
 said to have been much influenced by the beauty of 
 surrounding nature. 
 
 When we approach human beauty as a stimulus 
 to art, the case is exactly reversed. There can be 
 no question of its direct and clearly felt influence, 
 but the facts commonly alleged about its extraordinary 
 frequency are open to grave doubt. As far as I can 
 make out, all the general descriptions of Greek beauty 
 come from very late authorities, who, as the nation 
 was then certainly not exceptionally handsome, are 
 evidently describing the older Greeks from the extant 
 statues and pictures by great masters. 
 
 Thus all the Germans quote with the highest faith and 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 433 
 
 approval a passage from Adamantius' Physiognomica, 
 as conclusive in the matter.^ The reader will naturally 
 wonder who Adamantius was, and what opportunities 
 he had of observing the classical Greeks. It will 
 hardly be credited that this Adamantius is an obscure 
 sophist of the fifth century A.D., whose Physiognomies 
 are a tract borrowed from a similar composition by 
 Pol'emo, another sophist of the third century A.D. ! 
 An examination of these tracts, which can be found 
 in old libraries, will show how clearly Adamantius 
 was describing, not real Greeks, but statues and pic- 
 tures. He borrows a chapter on the complexion of 
 divers races (wepl XP"'"" '''^' '''P'-X'^^) from Polemo, who 
 cannot distinguish them by natural features, because, 
 he says, they have become extremely mixed, Syrians 
 with Italians, Macedonians with Orientals, and so 
 forth. Here, however, Adamantius foists in a para- 
 graph of his own. But if, he says, the Hellenic or Ionic 
 race is anywhere to be found in its purity, its features 
 are as follows : and then comes the description. 
 
 It is not creditable to the German savants, that 
 such a passage as this has been copied in book after 
 book as evidence on Greek physiognomy, and as evi- 
 dence valid against the appeals to fact of Cicero and 
 Dion Chrysostom ! When will classical scholars learn 
 to weigh evidence ? For a perfectly trustworthy wit- 
 ness in this matter, the great phil-Hellene, Cicero, lets 
 
 * El S^ Tiffi rh 'EWtjvikov «al ^laivifcbv ysyos e(pvK&x'^V KttSapSiSj oZroi 
 eiffiv avT&pKaa fieyaXot avSpes, evpi^ffTepvoi, opOtoi, evna'yeiSt XevtcSrepoi t^v 
 Xpoiav, £av0ol, ffapxhs KpaffLV ex^i'Tes inrpiav, evnayeffripaVf crKe\Tj opBci, 
 OLKpa. evtpvTJ It, T. \, 6(p6a\jM3iis vypovs, ;^a/)07roirs, yopyohs^ <pSis noKh 
 eX<»'''0» iv ouTofs" iio(p8a\pi6TaTOV yoLp ttAvtoiv iOvSiv rb 'EKK/jvikSv, 
 
434 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the truth out accidentally. ' How rare/ he makes Cotta 
 say, ' is manly beauty ? When I was at Athens, you 
 could hardly find one in each crowd of youths.' ^ Dion 
 Chrysostom, who in his twenty-first oration (wept 
 xdAAous) makes complaints like Cicero of the decay 
 of beauty, plainly intimates that he uses sculpture 
 as his evidence of older times. He even suspects 
 that its excellence, and the decay of later sculpture 
 may account for the supposed facts, but insists that 
 this seems only partly the case, and that the natural 
 type might have also changed. This, say the Ger- 
 mans, was in the decay of the nation, and the passage 
 is indeed quoted as evidence of such decay. But I 
 deny that we have any evidence for physical decay, 
 and believe such a statement as Ernst Curtius', ' that 
 among Greeks ugliness was the exception,' to be com- 
 pletely unwarranted. 
 
 It is quite plain to me that Adamantius is merely 
 describing the types of statues and pictures, or in 
 other words the ideal types of Greek art, as if they 
 were the ordinary characteristics of the nation. More 
 particularly what he says about the lustrous eyes is 
 plainly copied from a feature so peculiar in the Pom- 
 peian wall-paintings, that it was probably one of the 
 leading features in Greek pictures. The faces in the 
 figure subjects on these walls are certainly copied 
 from the older masters, and the eyes, which are very 
 large and lustrous, seem consciously and manifestly 
 exaggerated. They are exceedingly wide open, and 
 somewhat staring. The remaining authorities cited 
 
 ' Be Nat. Dear. i. 28, 'quotas enira quisque formosus est? Athenis 
 quum essem, e gregibus epheborum vix singuli reperiebantar.' 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 435 
 
 in the handbooks are Lucian, Achilles Tatius, and 
 other such very late writers. 
 
 It seems therefore that our only good evidence for 
 the extreme beauty of the Greeks is the very chaste 
 and noble type preserved in their sculpture, and their 
 general reputation among the Asiatics, a reputation 
 partly due to their intelligence, and partly to the fair 
 complexion which is always admired by dark races. 
 And yet the extreme fixity of type in the sculpture 
 of the Attic age seems to me to point in a different 
 direction, and show that as the archaic face of the 
 stele of Aristion and other such remains is far too ugly 
 to represent contemporary faces, so the more beautiful 
 type of the Parthenon is far too ideal, and is probably 
 built upon a few exceptional models, refined and 
 exalted by the artist's genius. 
 
 It may then be possible that Greek sculpture had 
 no higher suggestion afforded among living forms 
 than might be found among the finer boys at 
 Eton and Harrow, many of whom are strikingly 
 handsome and well-formed, but yet do not belong 
 to a nation of perfect beauty.^ Indeed the real por- 
 trait busts of the Greek philosophers are not by 5iny 
 means handsomer than the busts of a similar number 
 of intellectual Englishmen. 
 
 The result of the whole matter is this, that we must 
 not overrate the influences of human beauty or of 
 landscape beauty on the art of the Greeks, and must 
 not imagine that we or any other people only require 
 similar conditions to develop similar results. Their 
 
 ' Of course the Greek habit of talcing athletic exercise naked gave 
 the sculptor an immense advantage for studying the play of muscle. 
 
430 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 conditions were no doubt favourable, very favourable, 
 but by no means so miraculous or exceptional as 
 they are usually made out to be. In other directions, 
 indeed, they were splendidly equipped, partly by the 
 national genius, and partly by accident. The very 
 flexible, rich, and graceful language which the race 
 developed out of the primitive Aryan gave them 
 scope and power in their poetry which has never since 
 been attainable ; it suggested to them music and 
 rhythm ; it induced harmony and grace of expression. 
 While the subjective arts of poetry and music were 
 provided with this perfect organ, the objective arts 
 of architecture and sculpture found in the marble 
 quarries of Pentelicus, of Paros, and elsewhere a 
 material which infinitely facilitated and enhanced 
 great effects, and even made many things possible 
 which could not else have been imagined or attempted. 
 But this richness of material only affects the artists 
 and not the masses, and possibly the excellence of a 
 man's language will not go one step towards making 
 him a poet, if he have not the inspiration of the 
 muse. 
 
 I have gone at some length into this question of the 
 natural conditions of art in Greece, in order to make it 
 plain that however national and diffused it became, this 
 was due to careful study, and training, and legislation, 
 and not to a sort of natural compulsion, when every 
 man and every scene were so lovely that people who 
 only copied them produced great works of art. As 
 natural beauty was always the exception among 
 Greek men, so artistic talent was also rare and special. 
 Enthusiasm for Greek art is very laudable, but must 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 437 
 
 not be allowed to misstate the facts and mislead our 
 judgment. 
 
 There are other circumstances in the social position 
 of Greek art which in most societies would have tended 
 to impair its popularity and its influence. We may- 
 lay it down as a rule that all Greek artists were 
 professionals, and that the admiration of the public 
 did not then take the form, as it now does, of amateur 
 attempts, or of the desire to fuse dilettantism and 
 professional art into one another. We know, indeed, 
 that the Seven Wise men were mostly poets as well as 
 statesmen, and in Solon especially we have a notable 
 example of the combination. We also know that 
 turbulent aristocrats could be both mercenaries and 
 poets, like Archilochus, Alcseus, and Timocreon the 
 Rhodian, and that their personal passions and ani- 
 mosities were told with such power as to make them 
 of world-wide interest. But we must remember that in 
 those early days poetry was often studied not as an art, 
 but as the only known means of setting forth personal 
 history, philosophic teaching, or moral reflections. A 
 great deal of the early elegiac poetry of the Greeks 
 has this grave prosaic tone, and it is eminently true of 
 the poetry of Solon. If these men did write scolia, or 
 other truly lyrical pieces, they seem to have been 
 slight and unimportant, though some of them became 
 very popular. 
 
 But when poetry became developed into a strict 
 art,^ the poet became as thoroughly a professional 
 
 ' It seems to me that we may fix this point at the time when the 
 Dorian choral lyric school finally overcame in public favour the personal 
 lyrics of the ^Eolians. So long as simple monostrophic outbursts of 
 
438 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 artist as the sculptor or the painter. The appoint- 
 ment of the poet Sophocles to a military command 
 appears to have excited ridicule, and I cannot re- 
 member any politician attempting to compete in his 
 art except the tyrant Dionysius, whose tragedy 
 appeared as much out of place as Sophocles' strategy. 
 Indeed, the whole tone of Greek literature indicates 
 that, although most Greek boys learned the elements 
 of music, and some celebrated men, like Cimon, kept 
 it up sufficiently to sing a song gracefully at an 
 evening party, no practical proficiency was expected 
 or indeed commended in amateurs. The case is still 
 stronger when we consider painting and sculpture. 
 The elements of drawing were, indeed, in the third 
 century B.C., a part of education ; but that an amateur 
 should paint or carve anything worth speaking of, or be 
 esteemed for so doing, seems to have entered nobody's 
 imagination. A group, said to have been by Socrates, 
 was set up in the Acropolis, but Socrates had begun 
 sculpture as a profession, and his work, if it was really 
 
 feeling were popular, any cultured aristocrat might aspire to be a poet. 
 But when the complicated antistrophic systems and epodes of Stesichorus 
 aad Arion, along with elaborate figures of choral dance, were recognised 
 as the national form of lyric poetry, when the poet must be a chorus- 
 master or teacher of orchestic, and an accomplished composer as well, 
 we naturally find him rapidly becoming a paid professional. The poet 
 mercenary made way for the mercenary poet. This change seems to 
 have been effected in the end of the sixth century. Anacreon is the last 
 celebrated artist who cultivated that form of lyric poetry which we 
 modems understand and imitate. The only analogy which remains to 
 the really Greek lyric performance, as recognised by the whole nation, is 
 the ballet, which combines music and elaborate dancing ; but we have 
 abandoned the text of the story, which is only conveyed by dumb 
 show. 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 439 
 
 there, and if it had any merit, was no example of 
 amateur genius. 
 
 We are now living in an age full of weariness, and 
 therefore full of distractions. Men are becoming 
 manysided for want of clear aims, for want of honest 
 diligence, for want of the patience to become masters 
 of detail, for the sake of vanity, or by reason of 
 ennui. So the fashion has come in of substituting 
 a social intimacy with artists for a thorough appre- 
 ciation and understanding of their art. Men obtain 
 a reputation as connoisseurs, and pick up what they 
 want for the purpose of gossiping about art in society, 
 by interloping in studios, lounging behind scenes, and 
 intruding at rehearsals. Every trivial detail about 
 the non-artistic side of artists' life is eagerly repeated. 
 Intimacy with their homes, or homeliness with their 
 intimates, is a matter of pride, and men rave with vapid 
 extravagance about the personal worth and the social 
 charms of people whose art, though great, is the only 
 contribution they have ever made to the good and 
 the happiness of their age. Every great artist is 
 assumed to be a social genius also, as if the history 
 of genius in all its developments did not preach the 
 contrary conclusion, and teach us that a man of great 
 genius, which means a great specialist, is likely to be 
 simple and even stupid in general matters of intelli- 
 gence, as well as eccentric, if not worse, in matters of 
 morals. 
 
 In the decay of Greek society, when politics had 
 passed away, and men came to attend to other things, 
 we find artists attaining some such social adoration, 
 but of this time it is not my province to speak in the 
 
440 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 present book. Through the Attic age on the con- 
 trary, we find that as amateur performances in art 
 were held of no value, so professional artists were 
 prized for their art alone, and did not attain through 
 it any exalted social position. The Greeks believed 
 little in sudden inspirations, in sudden flashes of 
 genius, in great extempore efforts. On the contrary, 
 they laid the greatest stress on careful training and 
 study, and upon the thorough completeness and 
 reasonableness of an artist's conception before he 
 attempted to carry it out. Thus while on the one 
 hand they discouraged amateur art, and only valued 
 the careful productions of a life devoted exclusively 
 to its object, they evidently considered the study of 
 art too arduous and absorbing to be a fit occupation 
 for a free Greek gentleman, whose first duties were 
 to politics and society. Hence artists were to some 
 extent despised among aristocratic people, and Plato 
 thinks it an obvious remark that no fashionable young 
 Athenian would choose to be even a Pheidias, with his 
 matchless fame as an artist, on account of his trades- 
 man life. Again in the very interesting passage in the 
 Apology of Socrates, in which Plato makes him tell 
 how he went about seeking for wisdom, he comes, 
 among others, to the brnLiovpyoi, or professional artists, 
 and finds that they know their own work far better 
 and more thoroughly than anybody else; but they 
 pretend to nothing else, and are quite separate from 
 both politicians and poets. There appears to have 
 been some sort of exception in the case of architects, 
 if we may judge from the enormous fees paid to 
 them ; but we do not meet any architect in Attic 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 441 
 
 society, as we do the poets, who were evidently re- 
 garded not merely as artists, but so to speak as the 
 established clergy of the day, who looked after morals, 
 as the physicians after health. 
 
 We are therefore in presence of the remarkable 
 fact, that in a society which more than any other 
 honoured and understood and promoted art, the great 
 majority of artists were not favoured, not very well 
 paid, and rather the clients than the patrons of other 
 men. All these considerations would seem to contra- 
 dict the ordinary belief about Greek art, and prevent 
 it from being really national, and really transfused 
 into the masses. 
 
 But these very same causes had other effects, equally 
 natural, which were very favourable to such a result. 
 In the first place let us remember that by the masses 
 in Greek towns we always mean the free population, 
 and exclude the slaves, to whom all menial work, and 
 all real servitude were confined. The poorest citizen 
 was accordingly in some sense an aristocrat. He had 
 some one to look down upon. He had something to 
 be proud of. Above all, he had considerable leisure. 
 Even if he condescended to trade, he could not sail 
 in the winter, and he could not retail in the noonday 
 heat. It is very difficult indeed to overrate the effects 
 of this leisure, and of the advantages of having slaves, 
 if men desire to keep a fine edge on their aesthetic 
 faculties. It is of course a mere negative cause, but 
 in my mind it was far more important than whatever 
 exceptional beauty the Greeks may have had above 
 other men. 
 
 Now all this leisure — and it was the leisure of active 
 
442 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and busy, not of idle and lazy, men — they spent not 
 in trying to produce amateur works, but in criticising 
 and comprehending the products of specially trained 
 artists, compared with the natural models offered 
 them by the palzestra, the festal processions, and the 
 solemn dances, in all of which the Greeks sought to 
 idealize human motion, as well as human rest. They 
 did not interfere with the artist's life, they did not, so 
 far as we know, annoy him with advice or suggestion, 
 partly from a certain contempt and carelessness about 
 him, partly because their energies went into politics, 
 and they wanted to enjoy not the processes but the 
 results of art. So then all the turbulent spirits, all 
 the reckless and innovating minds turned to public 
 affairs, and left the study of sculpture and painting 
 and other arts to more sedate and sober natures, 
 who accordingly followed the undisturbed tenor of 
 their way, and developed the eternal laws of the ideal 
 without hurry or agitation. 
 
 It seems to me that this is an important psycho- 
 logical cause of the conservatism, the chastity, the 
 reticence of the best Greek art. Had its rewards been 
 sufficient to entice ambitious natures, they would soon 
 have disturbed its serenity with their personality. But 
 here as in other great epochs, art and trade went hand 
 in hand ; the artist was not a grandee, but a trades- 
 man, who loves to make his work good, but makes it 
 for an employer whom he is compelled to satisfy. 
 Moreover, when his employer had paid him, he ad- 
 mitted no farther obligations of gratitude. 
 
 Thus, in Thucydides' political history, there is not 
 one single mention of any artist or of any work of art 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 443 
 
 so far as I know; and even when he introduces Pericles 
 rehearsing the glories of Athens, and speaking of the 
 resources devised by the state for making the citizens' 
 leisure agreeable, he speaks of contests and feasts, 
 and elegant private appointments, but does not deign 
 one word about the splendid artists whose genius had 
 in that very generation given to Athens its imperish- 
 able renown.' 
 
 These, then, were the secular causes which tended 
 to the stability of Greek artj and its consistency of 
 type. A very critical public, standing apart from the 
 artists, and regarding them strictly as a profession, 
 accepted or rejected, but did not control, their work; 
 Of course, almost all this work had some religious 
 object, and this was another, and the greatest cause 
 of its conservatism. The Greeks felt as much as we 
 do, the sanctity of antique quaintness ; and if .^schylus 
 did not venture to compete with the Hymn of Tyn- 
 nichus, we can imagine, how timidly a sculptor or 
 painter would introduce any novelty in the type of 
 a venerated god or hero. 
 
 Let us now recall to mind the smallness of the 
 Greek towns, and the systematic publicity of Greek 
 citizen life ; how the Agora with its colonnades, and 
 the adjoining streets and temples formed a sort of 
 great open-air club, with an exchange, a market, 
 
 ' To any one who reads between the lines of Thucydides, and knows 
 from Plutarch how jealous the Athenians were of Pericles' supposed 
 intimacy with Pheidias, and how they attacked Pheidias in consequence, 
 it will seem probable that this is the historian's silent answer to such 
 gossip, and that he makes his hero soar above all these weaknesses. If 
 so, the omission of all definite mention of art by Pericles is intentional, 
 and possibly unhistorical. 
 
444 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 and a set of law courts attached to it. In this great 
 open-air club, in the public buildings, in the fairest 
 suburbs, were set up all the consistent, uniform types 
 of the great artists, along the walls were their frescoes, 
 on the heights were their severe and symmetrical 
 temples, in theatres and processions were their strictly 
 conventional dramas and hymns — all these things 
 speaking the same sort of feeling, all teaching the 
 same sort of severe grace, all pointing to the same 
 sort of ideal beauty. Let me add that as the citizen 
 spent all his time in public, and only went home 
 to eat or sleep, his house was no proper place for 
 art, and that even family monuments, and portraits 
 of obscure people, were set up along the most public 
 thoroughfares^ and therefore all the work of the artist 
 •was public and common property, not hidden in mu- 
 seums or private collections. The creed of the nation 
 furthermore associated beauty, more even than good- 
 ness, with religion, and to set up a god in a form of 
 ideal beauty was an act of greater devotion, a nearer 
 approach to his perfection, a more lasting tribute, than 
 to sing hymns and offer sacrifices. 
 
 Thus, the publicity of ordinary life, the publicity 
 of art, and the publicity of religion encouraged each 
 other, and produced an exceptionally persistent and 
 perpetually acting influence upon the Greek citizen. 
 But it was the exceptional genius of the artists which 
 made this great influence the highest and the purest 
 education towards the ideal which the world has yet 
 seen. I am not able to explain why so many men of 
 
 ' Cf. Pausanias, i. 2, 4, wlio says, 'I don't know Vfhose the tomb is, 
 but it was carved by Praxiteles.' 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 445 
 
 genius arose in Greece, nor do I suppose the fact will 
 ever be explained, though it is scientifically established 
 and has occupied philosophic historians for ages. 
 
 But I think our evidence contradicts one solu- 
 tion, which is that the whole nation was so ex- 
 ceptionally gifted, that the occurrence of the highest 
 genius was merely the accident of a slight dif- 
 ference in degree among intellects all superior to 
 those of other men. This is one of those twaddling 
 theories about the Greeks which have been frequently 
 opposed in the present volume. Nothing can be 
 more false than to assert that the Greek public was 
 made up of great intellects, and perfectly educated 
 in the fine arts. The Greek public had its asinine 
 qualities predominant, like every other public. As 
 the majority of the crowd was not, I believe, beautiful, 
 so the majority was certainly not wise. Aristophanes 
 makes .^Eschylus treat it as ridiculous that an ordinary 
 Greek public should venture to criticise poetry, and 
 will not even submit to the Athenians as thoroughly 
 competent. Aristophanes in his own person derides 
 this very Athenian public, and openly rejects their 
 decision as ignorant. The greatness of Pheidias, and 
 the eternal monuments of his genius in the Acropolis, 
 still new and startling in their grandeur, could not save 
 him from odium and from persecution at the hands of 
 these same Athenians. The painter Agatharchus, a 
 famous man in his day, was treated with open violence 
 as a slave by Alcibiades, and apparently v/ithout 
 any public indignation. If Polygnotus obtained the 
 citizenship of Athens, we may he certain that it was 
 not his own influence, but that of his patron Cimon 
 
446 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 which obtained it for him. The tyrants of Sicily and 
 Macedonia were more generous and appreciative pa- 
 trons of tragic poetry than the Athenian Demos. 
 
 The only complete and trustworthy portrait of this 
 Demos is to be gathered from the Comedies of Aris- 
 tophanes taken together and in mutual relation. It 
 may be left to any fair critic whether this picture is 
 not that of a public with all the faults and vices of 
 other publics, but endowed with a better political 
 education, perhaps with more natural shrewdness, and 
 placed in circumstances unusually favourable. The 
 great artists lived and worked apart from this crowd. 
 Most of them despised it, all of them probably feared 
 it. For my own part, I gravely doubt whether Greek 
 art, which certainly developed and flourished in this 
 stormy atmosphere, would ever have attained all its 
 greatness had not its tender beginnings been fostered 
 and protected by the tyrants. It was, in fact, as the 
 direct successor of the tyrants that the Athenian Demos 
 assumed the attitude of a great art patron, if indeed 
 it was the Athenian Demos and not special leaders — 
 Cimon, Pericles, and Lycurgus, who led the crowd in 
 this nobler direction. The really vital point was the 
 public nature of the work they demanded ; it was 
 not done to please private and peculiar taste, it was 
 not intended for the criticism of a small clique of 
 partial admirers, but was set up, or performed for all 
 the city together, for the fastidious, for the vulgar, 
 for the learned, and for the ignorant. 
 
 It seems to me that this necessity, and the con- 
 sequent broad intention of the Greek artist, is the 
 main reason whv its _effect upon the world has never 
 
XIV.] SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GREEK ART. 447 
 
 diminished, and why its lessons are eternal. All that 
 was special and momentary and transitory, was 
 avoided, and the large enduring features are portrayed 
 with calm and majestic dignity. Let it be remem- 
 bered that I am now speaking of Hellenic art in its 
 most perfect epoch, and more particularly of Attic 
 art before the times when the city lost its imperial 
 character, and therefore its dignity in art as well as in 
 politics. During this great epoch, beginning in litera- 
 ture with .^schylus and ending with Demosthenes ; 
 in sculpture with Calamis and ending with Praxiteles, 
 -or perhaps Lysippus; in painting with Polygnotus 
 and ending with Apelles — during this loosely-defined 
 period, we may notice in the earlier remains a certain 
 calmness and reticence, almost a coldness, which may 
 have failed to satisfy the passions of the moment, 
 which may therefore have missed its reward from the 
 contemporary crowd. 
 
 But it is this very coldness which has secured for 
 it the sympathy of distant ages, of strange nations, 
 nay, even of men and women who only knew the 
 Greeks by vague report, and understood nothing of 
 their culture, or of the principles of their art. It is 
 almost pathetic to see the farthest waves of the Greek 
 Renaissance in the hideous churches and chapels of 
 Ireland, where up to the present generation men 
 thought they honoured their God best by setting up 
 melancholy travesties of the great shrines of Zeus 
 or of Athene in a foggy and Christian country. 
 The city of London is still full of similar mongrel 
 absurdities, more elaborate and expensive, but not 
 less remote from their great originals. Sculpture is 
 
448 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 perpetually reverting to the Greeks, and in our own 
 day painting shows the same tendency. 
 
 I have elsewhere explained (Rambles and Studies 
 in Greece, p. 71, sq.), in connection with the Attic 
 tombs, how the restraint of emotion was the feature 
 which gives to Greek sculpture its eternal freshness, 
 and attracts the ever renewed sympathy of mankind. 
 For these worksj which are full of feeling, but of 
 repressed feeling, not only carry with them the hearts 
 of men in their broad representations of human emo- 
 tion, but even allow every spectator of every age to 
 realize his own particular feelings under their large 
 and comprehensive types. 
 
 I will not repeat what I have there said, but will 
 turn in a new chapter to a more detailed consideration 
 of the subjective arts — music and painting — ^which 
 have not received their due share of appreciation ia 
 relation to Greek social life. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GREEK MUSIC AND PAINTING. 
 
 The attainments of the Greeks in architecture and 
 in sculpture are still sufficiently preserved to enable 
 us to form a clear judgment of their merits, and to 
 make them models for our imitation. So also their 
 writings, both in poetry and artistic prose, have 
 survived in sufficient quantity to teach us both the 
 principles and the practice of Greek artists in litera- 
 ture. The remnants of all these products of Greek 
 genius are, indeed, but miserable fragments of the 
 boundless wealth of the nation. They are defaced 
 by time, corrupted in transmission, deformed by re- 
 storation. But still the difficulty of destroying them 
 on the one hand, and the ease of preserving and 
 multiplying them on the other, have prevented their 
 total loss, and have saved for us some knowledge of 
 the greatest outcome of human genius. 
 
 The case is very different with their music and their 
 painting. Not a single specimen of the great com- 
 positions of the Greeks in colour and in sound has 
 survived. We have many enthusiastic descriptions 
 of these works ; we are told a great deal about their 
 
450 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 effects on those who enjoyed them ; they are not in 
 any way postponed by the critics to the splendid 
 sculpture and architecture with which they were 
 combined or compared. It is only by obscure and 
 doubtful inferences, and by the accidental preserva- 
 tion of four or five tunes of inferior composers, that 
 we can attempt to extract from the dry discussions 
 on musical theory what sort of thing practical Greek 
 music really was. In painting, the case is a little 
 better. We have in the wall paintings of Pompeii, 
 and in recent excavations on the Esquiline and Pala- 
 tine at Rome, specimens of what decorative painting 
 had reached by Roman imitation of Greek art. These 
 paintings are, no doubt, as inferior to their Greek 
 models as all other Roman imitations are, but still 
 they help us to guess what attainment the world had 
 reached in the technicalities of painting, even of a 
 higher kind, such as grouping of figures, and per- 
 spective in landscape. 
 
 There is a very large number of German books 
 on both these lost arts of the Greeks — books full of 
 learning, and deeply interesting to the special student. 
 But their exceeding dryness and minute detail make 
 them quite unfit for general readers. In England 
 the subject of Greek painting has been entirely 
 neglected, and that of Greek music has not been 
 really sifted till in the recent work of Mr. Chappell. 
 But even this very learned and able writer, who has 
 thrown a flood of light on the musical theory of the 
 Greeks, has not condescended to say much on the 
 moral and social aspects of his subject. I will en- 
 deavour to skptdLJiom this^side the general impres- 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 451 
 
 sion produced as to Greek music and painting by 
 the extant tunes and pictures, the allusions of classical 
 writers, and the varied discussions of theorists and 
 art critics. I will approach music first. 
 
 As culture was much more highly prized among 
 the Greeks than among us, and as they did not spend 
 their time in acquiring languages, it seems certain 
 that music was a more universal and a more impor- 
 tant feature in their education than ours. This con- 
 clusion, however, follows even more directly and 
 certainly from the deep moral effects which they 
 attached to it. The great majority of allusions to 
 it assume, as acknowledged, the fact that some kinds 
 of music stimulate to energy and manliness, while 
 others dispose the mind to effeminacy and luxury. 
 Statesmen and philosophers have this public aspect 
 of music constantly before them. The Spartans 
 punish and prohibit a musician who makes immoral 
 innovations in their traditional music, by adding 
 strings, and thus increasing the semitones and even 
 lesser transitions from note to note'. Plato and 
 Aristotle are most solicitous that only certain kinds 
 of major and minor scales shall be allowed in their 
 ideal State, because the others are relaxing or over- 
 exciting to the mind. The evidence on this point 
 
 • Here is a mediaeval parallel, for no doubt Scott had good authority 
 on the point. In Ivanhoe, when the captive Prior of Jorvaulx vrinds 
 a blast for the outlaws to show his accomplishments, Robin Hood 
 answers : ' Sir Prior, thou blowest a merry blast, but it may not ransom 
 thee. Moreover, I have found thee — thou art one of those who, with 
 new French graces and Tra-li-ras, disturb the ancient English bugle 
 notes. Prior, that last flourish on the recheat hath added fifty crowns 
 to thy ransom, for corrupting the true old manly blasts of venerie.' 
 
453 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 is endless, and forms one of the strongest contrasts 
 between Greek and modern notions about music. 
 
 The first inference I will draw from this fact is not 
 an obvious one, but one of the greatest importance. 
 We may conclude from it that Greek music was in 
 an elementary state. For the analogy of other nations, 
 and the history of other arts, tell us that the moral 
 effects of music are everywhere strongly felt, until 
 it becomes developed and complicated. Then the 
 pursuit of perfection, and the overcoming of technical 
 difficulties, become ends in themselves, and while 
 people learn deeper and more subtle sources of de- 
 light, they forget the moral side of the art. Thus the 
 Chinese, whose music, though good and clear, has not 
 reached a high stage, have always held opinions about 
 its moral effects quite similar to those of the old 
 Greeks^. Indeed, more generally, according as the 
 intellectual strain increases, the emotional effect dimi- 
 nishes, and so we hear of our forefathers shedding 
 tears at the singing of simple melodies, while no 
 music would probably touch in this way the followers 
 of Schumann and Wagner. Greek music, had, there^ 
 fore, a greater national importance, because it was far 
 ruder and less developed than ours. 
 
 But I am not the least disposed to assert more 
 than a difference of degree between them ; and far 
 from believing that the Greeks exaggerated the moral 
 side, I hold that we moderns have unduly lost sight 
 of it. An experience of many years has convinced 
 me that the moral characters of our musicians are 
 
 ' Cf. Dr. Plath, in the Transact, of the Munich Academy, vol. x, part 3, 
 pp. 483, 515. £'=• 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 453 
 
 directly influenced by the music which they cultivate. 
 The pursuit of any kind of our music, even the severest 
 classical quartets, seems to me inconsistent, in a real 
 lover of them, with other intellectual work of a high 
 order ; and the constant singing, or even hearing, of 
 the passionate love-songs of the newer Italian operas 
 may even be directly injurious to the character. The 
 more beautifully and perfectly the music corresponds 
 to the words of these productions, the more mis- 
 chievous they are likely to be. Thus the most perfect 
 of love duets, that in Gounod's Faust, expresses so 
 forcibly in its perpetual suspensions the hunger and 
 longing of passion, that the mind which feeds upon 
 it must inevitably, though perhaps unconsciously, be 
 stimulated in that direction. When, therefore, we 
 hear it commonly remarked that musicians are jealous 
 and quarrelsome, or that a young man with a good 
 tenor voice is sure to go to ruin, there may be musical 
 reasons for these observations which did not escape 
 the Greeks, though they are completely ignored 
 nowadays. 
 
 It is no answer to this curious speculation to say 
 that the moral effect belongs only to the words em- 
 ployed, and was transferred by mistake to the music. 
 For among the ancients both Plato and Plutarch are 
 vehement on the immorality of instrumental music 
 apart from words, which indeed they condemn alto- 
 gether ; and in modern times little attention is paid 
 to the words of an Italian love-song, provided the 
 general sense is understood, which is usually clear 
 from the character of the music. It is not even true 
 that our purely instrumental music is all of an intel- 
 
454 SOCIAL GREECE. [cH. 
 
 lectual type, as might, perhaps, be asserted ; for 
 nothing can be more intensely passionate than violin 
 playing, such as we hear it, not, perhaps, from 
 Joachim but from Wilhelmj or Auer. The same 
 might have been said of Ernst, whose well-known 
 Elegy will illustrate clearly what I intend. 
 
 The Greeks, then, were agreed about the powerful 
 moral effects of music — bad, if practised according to 
 certain subtle and luxurious innovations; good and 
 humanising, if practised according to the old national 
 traditions. It seems a plain inference that they must 
 have assumed everybody to possess the necessary 
 taste and ear for the purpose, and this they invariably 
 do in their discussions. There is nowhere, so far as 
 I know, a hint that such an one sang out of tune, 
 or had no ear. Every young gentleman was thought 
 as capable of music as every young lady is nowadays, 
 nor do we hear this conventional theory ridiculed then 
 as it now is or ought to be. Polybius ^ speaks of the 
 culture of the Arcadians as directly resulting from 
 their diffused musical training ; he even attributes the 
 barbarous character of a particular town to the neglect 
 , of this necessary element in education. 
 
 The public festivals of the gods had always some- 
 thing of a choral aspect, and the preparations for the 
 performance of a tragedy at the feast of Dionysus 
 entailed a great deal of expense and trouble. In 
 such celebrations it was in early times an honour to 
 take part, but they were quite separate from the 
 singing and playing in private society, which were 
 cultivated a good deal at Athens, though not at all 
 ' Lib. iv. sub fia. 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 455 
 
 at Sparta, where such performances were left to pro- 
 fessional musicians. It was, indeed, universally held 
 among Greeks that an independent gentleman should 
 not spend his life in practising, or in making a slave 
 of himself, for any special purpose. 
 
 Professional virtuosi, on -the other hand, rose 
 gradually in importance and popularity, and in the 
 Macedonian days we even read of whole orchestras 
 and regular concerts. It appears that music, having 
 begun, as it ought, by portraying pure emotion, 
 advanced to attempt the representation of external 
 facts — a great blunder in art, to which our Battles of 
 Prague, Battles of Vittoria, and other such com- 
 positions seventy years ago, afford an obvious parallel. 
 We hear in the days of the Ptolemies, about 250 B.C., 
 of a regular symphony performed at a Delphic feast, 
 in which the contest of Apollo and the Python was 
 represented in five movements with the aid of flutes 
 (or rather clarinettes, avXoL), harps, and fifes, without 
 singing or libretto. The conflict itself was represented 
 in the third movement, in which the clarinettes had 
 the chief part, and in a peculiar passage called the 
 gnashing {phovT\.a\t.6i) reproduced the noise made by 
 the monster's teeth when struck by the arrows. The 
 next movement expressed the dying struggles of the 
 dragon by the hissing (o-uptyyes), in which the fifes 
 came out. This elaborate instrumental symphony 
 was merely the development of the old competitions 
 in playing which had existed at Delphi from very 
 early days. 
 
 Such being the general social importance of music, 
 I will now say a word about the instruments used by 
 
456 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the Greeks, and their methods of tuning them, and 
 also give a specimen of the extant melodies. 
 
 Our previous conclusion that the music of the 
 Greeks was undeveloped, as compared with ours, is 
 strengthened by a review of the instrumental aids 
 they had invented. We may put out of account the 
 trumpet, which was of purely military use, and in the 
 playing of which there were indeed competitions at 
 Olympia, but only trials of loudness. Castanets and 
 cymbals produce rather rhj^hmical noise than music. 
 We hear of a water-organ, and may suppose a wind- 
 organ to have anticipated it, but both seem rather 
 Roman-Greek than early Greek inventions. The 
 double flute, also, with its bandage about the mouth, 
 seems to have had only a single note on one of the 
 pipes, and to have represented our bagpipes \ 
 
 It thus appears that as the principle of bowing on 
 strings was unknown, and as wire-strings were equally 
 so, Greek music was confined to twanging the gut- 
 strings of instruments made in the fashion of either 
 the harp or the guitar, and to blowing reeds or pipes, 
 analogous to the principle of our fife or flute, and our 
 clarinette or hautboy. These were at first used as 
 accompaniments to the voice, then separately, then 
 conjointly and together with singing. The descrip- 
 tions of the instruments are not very clear, but are 
 greatly assisted by the accurate pictures we have 
 of the corresponding ones among the Egyptians, 
 
 * I have indeed in my possession a pair of pipes, which I bought 
 from a boy at Messina, and which he played together, putting them in 
 his mouth without any common mouthpiece. One is tuned a good deal 
 lower than the other, and with it he played a pretty florid accompani- 
 ment to his air on the female (or higher) flute. 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 457 
 
 whose music appears to have been adopted by the 
 Greeks. Indeed all the musical terms for playing are 
 very much confused, so much so that one instrument, 
 the juayaSts, is sometimes spoken of as a stringed, 
 sometimes as a wind, instrument. 
 
 What sort of music did the Greeks make with 
 these, and their voices ? This is, after all, the practical 
 question which the reader desires to see answered. 
 Of course, there are two branches of the inquiry — 
 that of melody and that of harmony. As to the 
 former, we have actually two or three tunes remaining, 
 which are not good, in spite of the enthusiasm of the 
 Germans about them. Only one of them is alleged 
 to be by a celebrated master ; it is the music of one 
 of Pindar's odes, and, unfortunately, rests upon the 
 copy, two centuries old, of the Jesuit Kircher, who 
 alleged that he found it in a MS., which has never 
 since been discovered. The composition, however, 
 bears internal marks of being genuine, though it may 
 be inaccurately copied ; and this latter is the more 
 likely, as the comparison of MS S. of the other hymns 
 shows considerable variation. But these are by late 
 composers, and may, possibly, be bad specimens of 
 Greek tunes. Most unfortunately, no accompani- 
 ments have been preserved (except one of a few bars, 
 without its air), so that we are left to pure conjecture 
 as to how the Greeks assisted the voice with instru- 
 ments. It is also remarkable that the chorus part of 
 Pindar's ode is written in instrumental notes^ which 
 were quite a separate set of signs from the vocal \ 
 
 ' We are completely informed abont both these notations, which 
 were based on the letters of the alphabet, and were applied to scales 
 
458 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 But it seems quite certain that vocal part music 
 was not used by the Greeks, and that any harmony 
 they knew was confined to instruments ; but, possibly, 
 men and boys may have sung together in octaves, 
 with a full accompaniment — a sort of music with 
 which I was greatly struck when I heard it in the 
 Jewish synagogue at Pesth. Another point, urged by 
 Westphal, indicates that ancient melody was not 
 meant to vary with varying expression in the words, 
 like our modern tunes. The antistrophe in the 
 Greek tragedies was certainly sung to the same music 
 — possibly an octave up or -down — as the strophe. 
 Nevertheless, the tone of the words is often quite 
 different ^. 
 
 I now give, for the musical reader's benefit, the 
 notes of the best of the extant hymns. It dates from 
 
 tefore the intervals were properly understood. Thus, in the vocal 
 notation A and B both stand for quarter tones between our G and F. 
 r is F. Then A and E stand for minute intervals between our F and E. 
 Z is E. In this way twenty-four signs are used within an octave, and a 
 second octave is noted with a distorted alphabet on the same principle. 
 The instrumental notation had sixteen letters, used in three positions, 
 thus, E, W , a, for our C, CJ, CJ ; I- , J, H, for D, DJ, Df These 
 signs, with certain additions above and below, of later origin, make 
 sixty-four signs in all. Cf. the elaborate discussions on these notations 
 in Westphal's Musii der Griechen, and in Fortlage's article in Ersch 
 and Gruber, The omission of them in Mr. Chappell's book is to be 
 regretted. 
 
 ' On this I must remark that Euripides, who with the greater 
 development of music, probably felt the defect, does not usually change 
 the subject of his choral odes until the commencement of a new strophe. 
 The first pair of verses (so to speak) are often philosophical and 
 general ; the second approach the special subject of the act : cf. the 
 choruses in Alcest. 96a sqq. ; Medea, 834 sqq. ; Hippol. 733 sqq., 
 1100 sqq.; Heraclid. 829 sqq. and elsewhere. This tendency increased 
 in after years, nnri -"Hctronhic ndes went out of fashion. 
 
XV.] 
 
 MUSIC AND PAINTING. 
 
 459 
 
 the Roman-Greek epoch, but has good words, and 
 may have been thought a good composition, though 
 we have no evidence on the point. In fixing the 
 rhythm, I have been led absolutely by the metre of 
 the words, which is very plain and marked, and this 
 version differs accordingly from that of my friend 
 Mr. ChappelP, who, like Brill and other German 
 authorities, desires to maintain the same measure all 
 through the melody. 
 
 HYMN TO APOLLO AND THE MUSE. 
 
 f> j! J-"T?=- fe^^^ 
 
 Sc MoG - <ra fxot 0i • Xi;, MoX ■ 
 
 i 
 
 T .U-r 
 
 TTIJt 
 
 ^■r]S /car - ap 
 
 ■jiOV, 03) 
 
 pn 
 
 0a, fiov - <jav iTpoKod 
 
 ye - 
 
 • History of Music, p. 169. I have also followed Westphal's reading 
 of the notes, which differs occasionally from Mr. Chappell's, and which 
 thus affords the English reader another version, and, I think, a better 
 one. 
 
460 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 [CH. 
 
 la - re 
 
 There is, of course, this objection to the present 
 reading, that in two or three places long syllables 
 come in the short note of the bar (I have indicated 
 them, with Westphal, by sforzando marks) ^- But the 
 violence done to the metre by Mr. Chappell's version 
 is a far more serious difficulty. 
 
 Any modern theorist, to whom this tune was brought 
 as an exercise in melody, would point out that the 
 opening upward progression of a fifth almost compels 
 us to assume D minor as the key with this bass — 
 
 but no sooner are we well 
 at home in this key, than 
 we are suddenly brought up by the C natural of the 
 seventh bar, and forced from a chord in G minor into 
 the key of C, thus — 
 
 which is inadmis- 
 sible. 
 
 If we endeavour 
 to avoid it by this 
 progression in the bass — 
 
 » The MSS. mark these very notes with a eo, obviously for the same 
 reasoo. 
 
w 
 
 XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 4<^l 
 
 =. we should continue it through 
 = D to Cj and this D is in dis- 
 cord with the tune. As almost the same phrase occufs 
 in the next line but one, we are compelled to recon- 
 sider our first decision, and declare the tune to be 
 meant from the beginning to move in the key of F. 
 But, then, the opening — 
 
 is almost unbearable, and would 
 mark the composer as inelegant, 
 or ignorant. 
 
 The amount of modulation in 
 
 w 
 
 the tune is also very small, and it is altogether a very 
 thankless subject for an ingenious harmonist. 
 
 I have printed it in an easier key than Mr. Chappell, 
 because I do not think the question of pitch 
 determined, and we cannot tell how much the old 
 Greek pitch differed from ours. Bellermann shows 
 good arguments (from allusions to the ranges of 
 voices) to prove that it was about a third higher. 
 There can be no doubt that it was gradually raised, 
 so that singing in the original keys became difficult, 
 and there were some names in which transposition was 
 not allowed. So it came that Claudius Ptolemy pro- 
 posed to transpose all the scales a fourth down, and 
 his system seems to have found favour. 
 
 The historians do not inform us concerning the 
 history of this change of pitch, but it is very probable 
 that it arose from the same causes which have sent 
 our pitch up during the last century — a desire in in- 
 strumentalists to make their playing more brilliant, 
 and in singers to show off high notes. 
 
 We are left quite in the dark as to the Greek 
 
46a 
 
 SOCIAL GREECE. 
 
 [CH. 
 
 accompaniment, except that it usually ranged higher 
 than the voice, and the curious reader may compare 
 I^rofessor Macfarren's two versions (in Mr. Chappell's 
 book) with Westphal's {Elemente des Musikalischen 
 Rhythmus, p. xviii). They are probably all equally 
 wide of the historic truth. 
 
 But before passing on to the question of harmony, 
 I will add what may be inferred as to melody from 
 the extant scientific treatises. At a very early period, 
 it had been discovered that octaves were, in some 
 sense, the same sound, and that the progression down- 
 wards recommenced when the octave note had been 
 reached. Hence the division of tones and semitones 
 within the octave was analysed and determined. 
 Three distinct ways of accomplishing this scale were 
 in early use among the nations after whom they are 
 called — the Dorian, the Phrygian, and the Lydian. 
 The older seven-stringed instruments were tuned in 
 one or other of these ways, and the earliest accom- 
 paniment being either the playing of strict unison 
 ■with the voice, or in octaves with it, it follows that all 
 songs were composed in three scales. 
 
 Doric. ^ _ »__ « i» They differ merely in 
 
 the position occupied by 
 
 Phrygian. . .. . - ^ the scmitone intervals, 
 
 —I ■ ' which I have noted thus 
 V; but this distinctly 
 affects the character of 
 the scale. Thus the 
 Lydian is. what we should call major, while the 
 remaining two are minor scales. It is possible, 
 however, to place the two semitone intervals of a 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 463 
 
 diatonic scale in other positions than those above 
 specified, and thus several new scales, Ccllled hypo- 
 Dorian, hypo-Lydian, mixo-Lydian, etc., came gradu- 
 ally into use, in all of which music was composed, 
 and each of which was held to have as distinct a 
 character as the various keys which we now employ. 
 But the reason was different. Our major keys, for 
 example, of A flat and of D natural have the intei-vals 
 between the notes in the same order ; but, as the 
 tuning of our instruments is a system not of strict 
 intervals but of accommodation, these scales are not 
 different in pitch only, but, to an appreciable extent, 
 in character, owing to slight differences in the intervals 
 of the notes. Theoretically, we allow only two scales, 
 the major and minor, though the minor down scale 
 varies from the up scale. The Greeks had seven, 
 each of which varied in the actual progression of the 
 tones, which were separated by accurately determined 
 intervals. Modulation during the course of a melody 
 was only occasional, and within strictly- defined limits. 
 Accordingly the distinct effect produced upon Greek 
 ears by each of these scales seems to have been even 
 stronger and more marked than that of the different 
 keys upon modern ears, most of which cannot dis- 
 tinguish in what key the music is, and can only tell 
 major and minor distinctly. 
 
 But when instruments of two octave range came 
 into use, it was found that, by adhering to one fixed 
 tuning — that of the white notes on our pianofortes — 
 all the scales could be made by varying the note on 
 which each commenced. For example, from C to C 
 we have the Lydian or plain major scale ; from E to 
 
464 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 E we have the Dorian ; from A to A the hypo-Dorian. 
 This fact his led to the serious mistake of saying that 
 the Greek scales were mere differences of pitch — a 
 statement very likely to mislead the modern reader. 
 It was only owing to a fixed system of tuning that 
 the various scales became attached to fixed keynotes ; 
 and, even then, the scales differed not only in pitch, 
 which was unessential, but in the arrangement or 
 progression of the notes, which was the essential 
 feature \ 
 
 The Greeks were not confined to these diatonic 
 scales ; they knew chromatic, and even enharmonic 
 scales, in which they used intervals of quarter tones 
 which are unknown in our notation, though often 
 played on strings, and sung by voices, in legato tran- 
 sitions from one note to another. These subtleties 
 were, however, much studied by the Greeks, whose 
 melodies evidently attained an extraordinary elabora- 
 
 ' Sir Robert Stewart has pointed out to me a very interesting parallel 
 in the Irish harp music of the last century. These harps, ivhich in- 
 cluded about four octaves, were always tuned to the scale of G, with 
 no sharp except the necessary F sharp. Nevertheless, with this fixed 
 scale, the harpers composed and played tunes in four distinct keys — in 
 that of G (such as the Cooliri) of course, in that of E minor {Remember 
 the Glories of Brian), of D major, and of A minor. Specimens may be 
 found in Bunting's work, but later versions must not be consulted, as 
 singers often modified the tunes by introducing additional sharps sug- 
 gested by the ear. On the old harps this variety of key was attained 
 by dwelling on the keynote — perpetually returning to it, as Aristotle 
 says the Greeks did, and also by avoiding the phrases which required 
 the additional sharps. The familiar fiat seventh in Irish music arose 
 naturally from playing tunes in D major on instruments tuned in G. 
 Thus an ignorant harper might tell us that these old harp tunes only 
 differed in pitch, which distorts the facts of the case, for the pitch is 
 only changed in order to obtain a different key and character. 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 465 
 
 tion, and would be often quite unintelligible to modern 
 ears^- It is remarkable that these very small inter- 
 vals, which can only have been used for passing notes, 
 were, nevertheless, played on stringed instruments, 
 without bowing, and therefore without sliding from 
 one to the other. Yet the effect of rapid execution 
 was such as to bring down storms of applause from 
 great audiences, when this sort of playing was well 
 done, without any accompaniment. 
 
 The joyous or sombre character of a scale appeared 
 in them in no way associated with the character which 
 we call major or minor. Thus, their only purely major 
 scale, the Lydian, is always regarded as soft, plaintive, 
 and eifeminate ; though the hypo-Dorian, which nearly 
 approaches a major scale, was thought manly and 
 vigorous. On the contrary, the Dorian, which is dis- 
 tinctly minor, was considered martial and inspiring ; 
 whereas the Phrygian, also minor, was orgiastic and 
 passionate. Bellermann has observed, that in the 
 extant fragments the Lydian greatly predominates, 
 and it seems very natural that it should be so ; but 
 this was evidently owing to practical musicians being 
 guided by ear, and not from a scientific appreciation 
 of major scales. 
 
 On the whole, it is likely that even were several 
 good Greek melodies accurately handed down to us, 
 
 * Fortlage thinks that Greek melody was somewhat analogous to 
 modem harmony. We are not now improving in melody, or making 
 any advances in it, but have of late times been altogether bent on per- 
 fecting harmony. The Greeks, in contrast, never thought of making 
 new discoveries in harmony, but were always devising novelties to 
 improve their melodies. This difference of attitude shows the difficulty 
 of appreciating what the Greeks have written on the subject. 
 
466 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 we are not in a position to understand or appreciate 
 them, for several reasons : first, because of the different 
 tuning of their instruments, to whicli I will presently 
 revert. This difference is not merely important in 
 itself, but educated the ear of the nation, and so made 
 them enjoy and dislike with a different taste from 
 ours. I will not assert that the laws of harmony are 
 conventional — the physiological reasons of consonance 
 and dissonance are scientifically established, and must 
 always have guided the human ear ; but still, within 
 large limits, melody is a matter of taste, as Wagner 
 and Brahms have proved clearly enough, and by 
 training even one generation, men can come to ad- 
 mire tunes which they once thought hideous. How 
 much more may this be the case with the national 
 training of centuries ! While, therefore, I confidently 
 assert that such a phrase as this (from the opening of 
 the Hymn to the Muse) 
 
 is very disagreeable, I will not take upon myself to 
 say that Greek melody was positively bad : I will 
 only say that it differed so widely from the music of 
 modern Europe, that its beauties are completely lost 
 upon us. 
 
 This argument is greatly strengthened by another 
 reason — the wide differences between the Greek no- 
 tions and ours, concerning harmony. This is, to my 
 thinking, the most difficult problem of all those with 
 which Greek music abounds for us. For it seems as 
 if one essential element in modern harmony, an ele- 
 ment without which it cannot exist — the use of thirds 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 467 
 
 — was absent from concerted music. The ancients 
 tell us a great deal of consonances and dissonances, 
 and are unanimous that octaves, fourths, and fifths 
 are harmonious; but they seem equally agreed that 
 thirds, both major and minor, are discordant, and 
 may not be used. Mr. Chappell has even explained 
 scientifically how this resulted from their tuning, 
 which found the next full tone to any note by going 
 down to the fourth below, and then going up a full 
 fifth. This process, when twice repeated, gives the 
 ditone oi the Greeks — a greater third, so sharp as to 
 be unbearable. Accordingly, there is no trace of any 
 statement that Greek harmony consisted of three 
 simultaneous notes, nor are there any rules given for 
 it by any of the theorists. Hence, many authors have 
 been led to assert that there was no harmony in Greek 
 music save that of octaves, with fourths and fifths, 
 which, when used consecutively, are very offensive to 
 every good ear. If Greek music was of this kind, it 
 could only be fitly compared to the present music of 
 another very civilised race — the Japanese, who seem 
 to have no concords but these ^. This may have been 
 the condition of Greek harmony in early days. 
 
 Fortunately, however, we are in possession of some 
 hints which make us pause before we dismiss the 
 question. It is known that practical musicians (dp- 
 IxoviKoC) did not bind themselves by scientific canons 
 — that they followed their ear in preference, and made 
 many modifications not admitted by the theorists 
 {KavoviKoi). Thus, they flattened some strings in the 
 tuning ; they objected to consecutive fifths ; they 
 
 ' Cf. the passage ia Mr. Chappell's History of Music, i. p. 304. 
 
468 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 even spoke of thirds as itapa^mva, or something be- 
 tween concords and discords — nay, they mention 
 passing discords as permitted in harmony. Plato, 
 too, in a celebrated passage, speaks of the accompani- 
 ment as an elaborate thing, and independent of the 
 air, running counter in motion, and using various in- 
 tervals, even as we accompany our modern songs, in 
 contrast with the old humdrum accompaniments of 
 former generations. 
 
 These, and other stray hints which Mr. Chappell 
 and Westphal have gathered with great care, and 
 quite independently, have persuaded them that the 
 Greeks and Romans did know and use harmony in 
 our sense. Every Hellenist will be anxious to agree 
 with them, and to vindicate for the Greeks a high 
 position in this art also. I may add to their argu- 
 ments that the enharmonic and chromatic tetrachords 
 of Didymus and Ptolemy ar"e based upon the intervals 
 4 : 5, and 5 : 6, which are the greater and lesser third, 
 and thus show an attempt to recognise these as 
 natural intervals in music. It is likewise known ^ 
 that in the Middle Ages thirds, though used, were 
 not admitted to be a perfect consonance, and that it 
 required the genius of Descartes to break through 
 this prejudice also, and first declare the truth in his 
 ' Treatise on Music' 
 
 On the other hand, it must be confessed that all 
 the authorities whom Mr. Chappell has quoted are 
 comparatively modern— the pseudo- Aristotle, Gau- 
 dentius, and the Latins — and that the clearest evi- 
 
 - ' Cf., on both points, Fortlage in Erscli and Gruber's Eneyclop, art. 
 Greece, vol. il. pp. iq8, 207. 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 469 
 
 dences are certainly those derived from Cicero and 
 Seneca. In fact, all the earlier hints, including the 
 very old Egyptian pictures, are reconcilable with a 
 concord of two notes only. The silence of our autho- 
 rities as to any rules on the subject is equally striking 
 and inexplicable ; nor do I think the extant tunes are 
 in any respect like the tunes we might expect from a 
 nation trained in real harmony. The setting of them 
 in their proper scales, even with "modern resources, is 
 awkward and clumsy, as may be seen from the version 
 of such a harmonist as Sir George Macfarren. 
 
 I feel therefore obliged to conclude, upon the evi- 
 dence before us, that in the great days of Terpander, 
 Alcaeus, Sappho, and Pindar, there was little that we 
 could call harmony, and that music was practically in 
 a rude state. It appears that in course of time actual 
 performers may have accommodated their instruments 
 to real harmony, and composed real accompaniments ; 
 but the theory of music, which had been so advanced 
 in Pythagoras' day, did not keep pace with these 
 practical improvements, and fell into great arrear, 
 compared with the art. While players and singers 
 were delighting vast audiences, and inventing various 
 combinations of scales and of instruments, the theo- 
 rists wasted their time on useless subtleties, and did 
 not even amend their instrumental notation, which 
 was framed before the distinction of a full tone and 
 a semitone was properly understood. 
 
 We may, therefore, console ourselves for the loss 
 of the elaborate music with which Pindar, ^schylus, 
 Sophocles, and all the other poets, accompanied 
 their splendid odes. I do not believe that it would 
 
470 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 improve these poems in our ears. It would, no doubt, 
 explain to lis many difficulties about rhythms and 
 metres — it would, above all, bring us one step nearer 
 to a full understanding of Greek life ; but it would 
 probably not add to our aesthetic pleasure, though it 
 might give us some new elements to work into the 
 music of the future. 
 
 With these remarks I leave a subject of which the 
 details are drier and more uninteresting than those of 
 any other phase of Greek art. 
 
 When we turn to the history of painting, we find 
 many analogies to music. It arose among the Greeks 
 as the handmaid to architecture — so music was to 
 poetry — and found the same difficulty in freeing itself, 
 and rising to the condition of an independent art. 
 Painting among the Greeks has accordingly the his- 
 tory of an auxiliary art, beginning obscurely, deve- 
 loping late, and rising to dignity and splendour when 
 the greater arts have decayed. The first application 
 of colours, in the painting of stone temples, of wooden 
 statues, of clay vases, was not entrusted to any special 
 artist ; nor, indeed, do we often hear of great statues 
 being handed over to the painter, so that the colouring 
 must have been thoroughly conventional, and easily 
 applied. This strikes us as evident in the archaic 
 vases, which show but few colours, and apply them 
 without regard to nature. It is true that vase-painting 
 was afterwards looked on with contempt by greater 
 artists ; but there can be little doubt that these 
 humbler productions, which ultimately sank into the 
 position of mere tradesman's work, were originally of 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 47 1 
 
 equal standing and merit with other painting. They 
 have, in fact, preserved to us the archaic features of 
 the nascent art, and from this point of view are of 
 great historical interest. There is one class of themj 
 the Attic tJiKvQoi. or oil-flasks, which have many^ 
 coloured figures on a white ground, and which are 
 thought by most competent archseologists to be of 
 peculiar value for the solution of this question. 
 
 If we compare these indications of archaic painting 
 with older sculpture, we find that the Greeks did not 
 by any means obtain from the use of colour a nearer 
 approach to realism. The eyes of profile faces are 
 always painted full, and in early vases are even con- 
 ventionally varied, to mark the distinction of sex; 
 those of women being of oblong form, white with red 
 pupils, those of men scratched on the vase — a circle, 
 with two strokes attached to it. The flesh of women 
 is painted white, that of men is black or red. But, 
 on the other hand, the early painters used their ad- 
 vantage in portraying violent action, which sculpture 
 could not dare to attempt before the genius of Myron 
 realised the impossible. Thus the old vases often 
 show us rushing figures, and drapery tossed with the 
 wind— features which the poetic instinct of Keats 
 seized as of peculiar interest — 
 
 What men and gods are these? What maidens loath?' 
 What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 
 What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?' 
 
 ' From the Ode ore a Grecian Urn. The fact of this nm being of 
 marble does not in the least affect the statement that the old vases had 
 a character which struck Keats when he saw a specimen — though it 
 may have been in rnarble, and of very different execution from the 
 painting on pottery. 
 
473 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 But of realism in the sense of anatomical drawing, of 
 perspective — in short, of anything like illusion — old 
 Greek painting was quite ignorant. And, of course, 
 in the absence of perspective, any attempt at land- 
 scape was not to be expected, nor did any artist 
 desire to essay it, till new and peculiar circum- 
 stances, as we shall presently see, forced it into 
 notice. 
 
 Thus Polygnotus, the first painter of really national 
 importance, and all his immediate school, were alto- 
 gether figure painters, and used the least possible 
 accessories of landscape, if an occasional rock or house 
 can be called such. This great man, a native of 
 Thasos, but settled at Athens, and even promoted to 
 its citizenship, might be called the Phidias of Cimon, 
 on account of his intimate relations with that states- 
 man. His frescoes on the Acropolis were, unfor- 
 tunately, so decayed that when Pausanias saw them 
 he was only able to describe a few figures— a thing 
 much to be regretted, as he has left us a very full 
 and interesting account of a wall painting by the 
 same artist, in the AeVxtj, or assembly-room of the 
 Delphians, built as a votive offering by the Cnidians. 
 
 The two main walls were covered with two great 
 subjects — the Fall of Troy, and the Visit of Ulysses 
 to the regions of the Dead. These were each painted 
 in two long panels, one over the other, and I fancy, 
 from the way in which Pausanias passes from the 
 lower to the upper panel, and then back again, that 
 they must have been broken by vertical lines in the 
 decoration of the wall. The figures seem not so 
 much grouped as put into a sort of iiregular series, 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 473 
 
 with their names — as on the vases — written over 
 them. 
 
 Polygnotus and his immediate successors only used 
 or combined four colours^ — blue-black, yellow, I'ed, 
 and white. He knew nothing of light and shade, or 
 of foreshortening. Nevertheless Pausanias speaks of 
 various striking effects in his paintings. There were 
 leopard and bear skins represented in them — there 
 was a strand with pebbles, and the sea. There was 
 the river Acheron, with reeds, and sedge, and fishes 
 in the water, which looked shadows ; there was the 
 vampire Eurynomus, painted the colour of a blue- 
 bottle fly, apparently because he devoured human 
 flesh ; above all, there were various mental states — 
 grief, indifference, anger — conveyed by these frescoes. 
 But let us always remember that a violent ' pre- 
 Raphaelite,' like Pausanias, will discover pathos and 
 expression in such old work where there is really 
 •none. It is said that Polygnotus was the first to 
 depart from the conventional way of painting the 
 human face; yet in his long description, Pausanias 
 does not say one word about the beauty or senti- 
 ment of the faces, merely noting that some have 
 beards, while the majority have none. It seems that 
 all the expression was to be inferred from the atti- 
 tudes. 
 
 The glory of Polygnotus and the honour in which 
 he was held show that the public were thoroughly 
 satisfied with his art; and had Cimon, who was his 
 patron, held sway at Athens, instead of Pericles, it 
 is more than probable that painting, instead of the 
 sculpture of Phidias and his pupils, would have been 
 
474 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 the chief ornament of the Parthenon. But, among 
 other contrasts with Cimon, Pericles was far-seeing 
 enough to know that Greek sculpture was ever to 
 be the greatest of arts, and the frieze of the cella 
 proclaims its victory over the picture-gallery of the 
 Propylsea, which, even in Pausanias' day, was fading 
 out beyond recognition. 
 
 The next step in Greek painting was made, not by 
 a great artist, but apparently by a practical man, 
 working hurriedly, and seeking to meet a growing 
 want — that of adequate stage-scenery for the now 
 popular tragedy. This remarkable man, Agatharchus, 
 employed by Sophocles, and by .(Eschylus in his later 
 days, first attacked the question of perspective, which 
 he perceived to depend upon the painting of light 
 and shade. He wrote a tract on the subject, which 
 stimulated the philosophers Anaxagoras and Demo- 
 critus to study the matter further, and so led the way 
 to the adoption of his principles by ApoUodorus- 
 (400 B.C.), who is called the first shade painter by the 
 Greeks. But it is very significant that the term scene 
 painter was used as synonymous, Pliny's remark, 
 that ApoUodorus' paintings are the earliest worth 
 looking at, is probably based on a sound appi-eciation 
 of the requirements of the art, and confirms our 
 suspicion that Polygnotus was (ethically, perhaps, but) 
 not aesthetically to be admired. From the days of 
 ApoUodorus, however, /^Kr^/«2«^2«^ also made rapid 
 progress. Wall decoration became subordinate to the 
 painting of pictures proper ; arid a long series of great 
 artists, such as Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Pamphilus, Timan- 
 thes, and maiiy^^thers, led up to Apelles, the con- 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 475 
 
 temporary of Alexander, who brought this species of 
 painting to an unapproachable perfection. 
 
 With the splendid works of the sculptors to rival 
 them, these figure painters had no easy task in main- 
 taining their position; and the fact that the public, 
 accustomed to the bronze and marble of Phidias, 
 Polycletus, Euphranor, and Lysippus, not only tole- 
 rated, but delighted* in their pictures, shows that they 
 must have had real merit. This is further proved by 
 the technical details preserved to us. They studied 
 light and shade, and perspective, increased the number 
 of their colours, and used varnish to soften and pre- 
 serve their colouring. The figure subjects still extant 
 at Pompeii are in accordance with these evidences. 
 Though they are only the wall decorations of a 
 second-rate mongrel Greek town, there are both grace 
 and power in many of the figures. The colouring is 
 bright and lifelike, and the faces full of expression. 
 It is, in fact, a thoroughly realistic development of 
 art, and bears comparison with the beautiful bronzes 
 of the place, though none of the pictures equals the 
 Narcissus or the fishing Hermes. 
 
 It thus appears that this side of painting attained a 
 splendour and an independence far superior to that of 
 music. It freed itself from all relation to architecture ; 
 and great masters, such as Zeuxis and Apelles, enjoyed 
 a social position never accorded to musicians who were 
 mere performers, as distinguished from poets who 
 composed airs for their own odes. But any one who 
 chooses to follow up subtle analogies might well 
 occupy himself with the advance from four colours, 
 without light and shade, to all the appliances of 
 
476 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Apelles on the one hand ; and the similar advance 
 from a three-stringed lyre, or Pandean pipes, to the 
 varied scales and subdivisions of tone in the days of 
 Aristoxenus. If, however, my estimate of the com- 
 paratively backward condition of Greek music be just, 
 it will be easy to find in Greek painting a much closer 
 parallel, as regards social position and general im- 
 portance — I mean the parallel oi landscape painting. 
 
 I have already explained how figure painting made 
 a new start, as soon as Agatharchus was led by scene 
 painting to study the optical illusions produced by 
 drawing and colour. But surely, we should have 
 thought that these ideas would have been infinitely 
 more useful in the development of landscape painting. 
 It is true that the scenic requirements of the extant 
 plays are not very great. In most cases an architec- 
 tural background — some royal palace, or temple — is 
 the main feature, and changes of the whole scene were 
 not practicable, as a fixed wooden (and canvas?) 
 structure, of great height, so as to shut out the natural 
 background, occupied the whole rear of the shallow 
 stage. Two triangular prisms (jreptaKrai), with varied 
 sides, supplied the part of our shifting side-scenes, and 
 were turned on pivots when any modification was 
 required. Still this kind of landscape should have 
 been accurately studied, not merely in reproducing 
 well-known scenes, such as the groves of Colonus, the 
 Acropolis, or the outlines of Mount Parnes— which 
 would be ridiculous if very unlike the originals— but 
 fancy pictures also, foreign palaces, and cities of 
 strange men. And even beyond this there are, though 
 rarely, really picturesque scenes presupposed— tented 
 
xv.J . MUSIC AND PAINTING. 477 
 
 camps on the sea-shore, lonely and desert islands, 
 rocky homes of ancient worship. All these subjects 
 should have been suggested, and their imitation 
 developed, by the scene-painting for the great 
 Athenian theatre ; and yet nothing is more certain 
 than that landscape painting, as such, did not arise for 
 generations to come. Among all the roll of great 
 painters down to Apelles, there is not one celebrated 
 for depicting scenery, nor is there aught beyond the 
 slightest allusion to the scenery of their figure painting. 
 In fact, the Greeks felt no want of landscape painting, 
 and did not perceive this dark spot in the field of their 
 artistic vision. 
 
 This apparent defect in Greek taste has much 
 exercised the critics. It is called a want of feeling for 
 the picturesque; and some have even inferred that 
 the pleasure in beautiful scenery is of modern growth 
 — a late compensation for the unceasing toil and 
 weariness of mankind. But the general sensitiveness 
 of the Greeks, together with the innumerable proofs 
 in their poetry that they appreciated the sounds of 
 nature as we do, show that the matter cannot be so 
 easily settled. It was not from want of perceiving the 
 beauty of external nature, but from a different way of 
 perceiving it, that the Greeks did not turn their genius 
 to portray, either in colour or in poetry, the outlines, 
 the hues, and contrasts of all the fair valleys, and bold 
 cliffs, and golden noons, and rosy dawns, which their 
 beautiful country affords in lavish abundance. 
 
 Primitive people never, so far as I know, enjoy 
 what is called the picturesque in nature. Wild forests, 
 beetling cliffs, reaches of alpine snow, are with them 
 
478 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH, 
 
 great hindrances to human intercourse, and difficulties 
 in the way of agriculture. They are furthermore the 
 homes of the enemies of mankind, of the eagle, the 
 wolf, or the bear, and are most dangerous, in times of 
 earthquake or tempest. Hence the grand and striking 
 features of nature are at first looked upon with fear 
 and dislike, so that even nowadays, simple peasants, 
 who regard the earth merely as a source of subsistence, 
 feel much wonder at the admiring tourist, and are only 
 taught to understand his taste for the picturesque by 
 the direct benefit it confers upon their pockets. 
 
 I do not suppose the early Greeks differed in this 
 respect from other people, except that the frequent 
 occurrence of mountains and forests made agriculture 
 peculiarly difficult, and intercourse scanty, thus in- 
 creasing their dislike for the apparently reckless waste 
 in nature. We have even in Homer a similar feeling 
 as regards the sea — the sea that proved the source of 
 all their wealth, and the condition of most of their 
 greatness. Before they had learned all this, they 
 called it 'the unvintageable brine,' and looked upon 
 its shore as merely so much waste land. We can, 
 therefore, easily understand how, in the first beginnings 
 of Greek art, tJie representation of wild landscape 
 would find no place, whereas fruitful fields did not 
 suggest themselves as more than the ordinary back- 
 ground. Art in those days was struggling with 
 material nature, to which it felt a certain antagonism. 
 
 There was nothing in the social circumstances of the 
 Greeks to produce any revolution in this attitude 
 during their greatest days. The Greek republics were 
 small towns, where the pressure and fatigue of city 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 479 
 
 life was not felt. The Greeks themselves were essen- 
 tially townsmen, who never desired to see more of the 
 country than its olives and its grapes, and would not 
 accept even the large plenty of a farming life, with its 
 want of refinement and of discussion. 
 
 But as soon as the days of the Greek republics 
 were over, and men began to congregate for imperial 
 purposes into Antioch, or Alexandria, or, lastly, into 
 Rome, then we see the effect of noise, and dust, and 
 smoke, and turmoil, breaking out into the natural 
 longing for rural rest and retirement, so that after 
 Alexander's day, and beginning with the Alexandrian 
 Theocritus, we find not only bucolic poetry starting 
 into new favour, but all kinds of authors — epic poets, 
 lyrists, novelists, and preachers, agreeing in the praise 
 of nature, its rich colours, and its varied sounds. 
 Hence it was that landscape painting, as such, did not 
 become an independent art till this period, and even 
 then suffered from the lateness of its origin, and the 
 decay of Greece in genius ; for with rare exceptions, 
 architectural subjects and figures predominate, in spite 
 of this desire to escape from them. We are justified 
 in making this assertion from the many specimens 
 preserved on the walls of Pompeii, from the more 
 important pictures exhtimed on the Palatine and 
 Esquiline at Rome, and from detailed notices, such as 
 the eUovis of Philostratus, and the Criticisms of the 
 elder Pliny. 
 
 Thus lasting natural causes seem to have counter- 
 acted the impulse given to landscape painting by the 
 scene painting of Agatharchus, whose discoveries 
 concerning perspective, as well as his portraiture of 
 
48o SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 familiar views, ought to have stimulated a school of 
 imitators. We should have expected the many-sided 
 Athenians to have taken up this branch ; and, as they 
 had a school of rhopographers, or painters of homely 
 life (like the Dutch), they should have hqd a school of 
 pure landscape painters. The fact that they had not 
 is certain, and perhaps the natural causes I have 
 assigned may seem hardly sufficient to account for it. 
 Indeed, the knowledge of perspective attained by 
 Democritus and Anaxagoras was either in itself 
 defective, or little propagated, for the aixhitectural 
 landscapes of Pompeii, in spite of considerable merits 
 in other respects, display most absurd ignorance in 
 their perspective. But this is not the real want in 
 ancient landscape painting. It is rather the absence 
 of a deep feeling for nature as such, for its curious 
 symmetry amid countless variety — for its natural 
 contrasts of texture and colour — for its matchless 
 response — now to the vehemence and trouble, now to 
 the peacefulness and repose, of the human breast. 
 How is it possible that the sensitive, poetical Greeks 
 should have missed this infallible comfort, and lived 
 without this most unfailing and perpetual delight ? It 
 is an answer, but a very partial one, to say that beauty 
 of landscape is so constant in Greece that it might 
 fairly be taken for granted, without special allusion. 
 ■ The nations of southern Europe, who live in the fairest 
 clime and the clearest atmosphere, have always left 
 landscape painting to northern artists, where fog, and 
 mist, and dulness of outline give a strange zest to 
 exceptional beauty. How few of the Italian painters 
 have tho"'"'"* '^^ lanrlcsranel How few Italians and 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 481 
 
 Spaniards travel to see it ! Hence it may fairly be 
 said that we should not expect to find Attic, Ionic, 
 and Theban poets insisting upon things which every- 
 body saw and felt every day. But yet how keen is 
 their enjoyment of the sounds of nature ! How they 
 loved the swallow and the nightingale, the humming 
 bee and the shrill cicada, the whispering leaves and 
 the murmuring water 1 The rose, too, and the violet, 
 the white narcissus and the deep clustering ivy were 
 to them no less fair in colour, or delicious in odour, 
 than they are to modern men. Among all the pathetic 
 passages in the tragic poets, there are none so affect- 
 ing as those in which a dying hero or heroine addresses 
 the fair light of the sun, the woods and fields, the 
 cliffs and mountains. These appeals are, moreover, 
 common to them all, and not merely one of the special 
 features in Euripides. Surely such men could not 
 but feel the beauty of large grouping of mountain, and 
 wood, and water. 
 
 They did indeed feel it, but as Greeks, and not as 
 moderns. They did not oppose themselves to nature, 
 and study their own consciousness as contrasted with 
 the spontaneous or instinctive life of nature. To them 
 mountains, and rivers, and forests were full of con- 
 scious being — the home, nay, the impersonation of 
 gods, who thought and felt like men. For their re- 
 ligion, a sort of anthropomorphic pantheism, taught 
 them that all the life of trees and rivers was not un- 
 conscious, but the manifestation of a hidden god ; and 
 that solitude, as we call it, was peopled with oreads, 
 hamadryads, fauns, and satyrs. They believed that 
 in the wild mountains forest gods held their court, and 
 
 I i 
 
48? SOCIAL GREECE. [CH^ 
 
 demanded awe and worship from those who entered 
 the bounds of their domain. Thus the old Greek who 
 spoke of a river or a mountain named the god whose 
 dwelling-place it was, and remembered the myths and 
 legends of the poets, which, perhaps, made this god 
 his ancestor, or at least identified him with the history 
 and fortunes of the country. 
 
 The enjoyment of mere landscape was thus ex- 
 cluded and anticipated by a deeper sympathy — that 
 humanising instinct which saw conscious life, and life 
 of a human type, through all the kingdom of nature. 
 And so it came that to the Greek the most adequate 
 representation of a landscape was a representation of 
 the gods who were identified with its rivers and moun- 
 tains. The sculptor accordingly took the place, and 
 performed the work, of the landscape painter. 
 
 In earlier days, the mere human figure was thought 
 sufficient likeness for a god, and no special care was 
 taken to suit his outward form to the peculiar nature 
 of his attributes, or his special kingdom. Thus, in 
 the famous pediments of the Parthenon, so many 
 personified features of Attica were introduced, that a 
 great art critic — Brunn — has even declared these 
 groups to have been simply plastic landscapes, in- 
 tended to symbolise all the natural beauties of Attica. 
 The Ilissus, the Cephissus, Mount Parnes, Mount 
 Pentelicus, the fountain Callirrhoe — all these were 
 figured as divine men and women in the coloured 
 marble. 
 
 But the fragments which remain do not show any 
 desire to express by peculiar features each peculiar 
 character. The glory of solving this subtle problem, 
 
XV. J 3IUSIC AND PAINTING. aH 
 
 was left for those successors of Phidias who, as they 
 could not equal him in grave majesty, sought to excel 
 him in expression. In the scanty fragments and weak 
 copies of their work, we can still feel distinctly the 
 peculiar genius of two of them in imitating, or rather 
 suggesting, landscape by sculphire. To Scopas was 
 due the fixing of the general type for the great com- 
 pany of gods and nymphs which inhabited seas and 
 rivers — matted locks of dripping hair, and a longing 
 melancholy of expression, in which the restless moan- 
 ing of the troubled sea finds its plastic utterance. To 
 Praxiteles was due the analogous type for the forest 
 gods — the fauns and satyrs, which, with their gnarled 
 and knotty joints, and roughness of skin, image even 
 more clearly the sylvan forms which the superstitious 
 traveller saw with terror in the fantastic stems of aged 
 trees. Nay, even in his ideal Fatm — a creature of 
 perfect beauty — the listening attitude^ the Pandean 
 pipe, the indefinable suggestion of wantonness, and 
 of mystery, speak a deeper feeling for the beauty of 
 forest life than could be conveyed by any ordinary 
 landscape painting. 
 
 So true is it, that the sculptors were the landscape 
 artists of the Greeks. Accordingly, in later days, 
 when men had advanced to the notion of painting 
 mountains and rivers, as they appeared in nature, the 
 artist hardly ever omits to paint a figure of the god 
 sitting on his mountain, or by his river, thus showing 
 that the actual coloured sketch of the place did not 
 satisfy the spectator without the figure of the being 
 who gave it life, and instinct, and poetry— nay, who 
 ^lone gave it a distinctive name. 
 I i a 
 
484 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 The history of Greek painting is, therefore, in every 
 direction controlled and limited by that of sculpture, 
 which rivalled and outdid it in the idealising of figures, 
 and which actually invaded its peculiar province in the 
 representation of landscape. 
 
 A comparative review of the arts in Greece shows 
 that the most independent and self-contained — Archi- 
 tecture and Poetry — began with the dawn of history, 
 and reached their climax with the political climax of 
 the nation. After the year 400 B.C. there was little 
 more than imitation or repetition attempted in either, 
 till actual debasement set in. Sculpture started later, 
 reached its acme at the same time, but sustained itself 
 with a noble and continuous development, till far into 
 the decay of the nation, as the Laocoon, the Apollo 
 Belvedere, and the Dying Gaul, testify. Music and 
 painting may have begun with sculpture, but were far 
 longer in reaching perfection, so that the highest out- 
 come of both is to be sought in the days when the 
 other arts had passed their prime. They are, in fact, 
 the arts of private life, as contrasted with the political 
 arts of antiquity, and did not take the lead till the 
 society of Menander had said farewell to public affairs, 
 and turned to individual culture as the chief end of life. 
 
 It may be well, after these chapters of detail, to 
 close with a few general reflections upon the aspects 
 of Greek social life. So great a subject can never be 
 treated adequately or finally ; all that this book can 
 pretend to do, is to support clear and sober views 
 upon a subject much obscured by vagueness and 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 485 
 
 pedantry, and generally handled by men in little 
 contact with real life. 
 
 We can quite imagine that had the mere master- 
 pieces of Italian art and literature survived to us from 
 the middle ages, had we lost the endless chronicles, 
 and acts, and letters, which admit us to the secrets 
 of the age, and disclose ' in all their nakedness the 
 burning passions and the dark vices of artists, and 
 kings, and bishops, we might have formed a very 
 different and a very false idea of the brilliant Italian 
 republics, which supply the only real analogy to the 
 Greek states of classical days. We can imagine the 
 admirers of their noble pictures and churches, of 
 their splendid costumes and pageants, of their great 
 patriotism and valour, of their refined chivalry, to 
 have scouted any stray suspicions as to their darker 
 features. The Madonnas and other saints would 
 be taken as the ordinary type of their women, 
 the apostles and martyrs of their men, and they 
 would be reported a people of such universal beauty, 
 that ugliness was quite an exception. The diffusion 
 of their art through so many cities would prove that 
 they were all trained in the fine arts, and skilful 
 judges of artistic excellence. Their piety would be a 
 national feature, their poetic and chivalrous love would 
 be national also — in fact we might have a picture very 
 like the ordinary notions about the Greeks, with the 
 addition of some splendid features resulting from a 
 higher and purer faith. And these would probably 
 compensate for the undeniable inferiority of their art 
 to that of the Greeks. 
 
486 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 Yet all this picture would be, as we know, his- 
 torically false. The Italian republics were torn with 
 wild and savage passions ; their citizens were violent 
 and lawless, grossly immoral in their lives, and reck- 
 less in their actions. Their despots were cruel and 
 inhuman beyond all decent description, and the 
 Christian faith which they professed had no more 
 influence on their lives than the moral lessons of the 
 old philosophers and poets upon the Greeks— nay 
 rather, the possibility of deathbed absolution may 
 have acted as a release from all moral obligation 
 during active life. 
 
 Nevertheless, these peoples' art was splendid ; their 
 aesthetic sense was not dimmed by their crimes, and 
 even the most abandoned of them have about them 
 something truly and justly fascinating. And again 
 their pure and saintly men stand out in strange and 
 splendid relief. We thus come to see how great 
 intellectual and artistic excellence is compatible with 
 great moral faults, with vice, and with meanness. 
 We come to see that ideal conception and perfect 
 execution imply lofty genius and patient diligence, 
 but do not imply in the appreciative spectator either 
 of these qualities, and in the artist no moral counter- 
 parts. But we may also learn how the artist, or the 
 school and succession of artists, may always be the 
 few, the exceptional, and the isolated among . the 
 crowd, and how their great works may vaguely edu- 
 cate the judgment of the masses, without affecting 
 their principles. 
 
 I am not sure whether our extant evidence is suf- 
 ficient to lead us to a similar decision concernino- the 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 48/ 
 
 social aspects of Greek art. So far as we can see, 
 the private life of the Greeks was better than that of 
 the mediaeval Italians — at least better on the average, 
 for if there were fewer miscreants, there were also 
 fewer saints. But these yawning gulfs in the morals of 
 any society are always injurious, and so probably the 
 Greeks benefited by the absence of both extremes. 
 The art of the Greeks was also far purer and more 
 lasting than that of the Renaissance, so that the 
 comparison may still hold good. It is therefore not 
 impossible that the somewhat homely features which 
 I have found in the old Greek were combined with 
 intellectual and artistic powers quite apart from them, 
 and as it were a separate life in the nation. The 
 Greeks may have been somewhat mean, overreaching, 
 untruthful, and not very courageous, and yet have been 
 highly gifted, and keenly alive to the noble and the 
 true in art and literature. It is the ignorance that 
 such combination is possible in human nature, both 
 singly and collectively, which has made some zealous 
 Grecians in England very adverse to such a theory. 
 But mankind is a more complex thing than they 
 imagine, and will not simplify itself for the con- 
 venience of even the most accomplished scholar. 
 
 Yet on the whole, I am more inclined to adopt the 
 other suggestion already made, and hold that the 
 great Greek writers and artists stood as far intellec- 
 tually from the masses as such men now do, and owed 
 their stronger influence to their greater relative num- 
 ber, and to the greater publicity of every-day life. 
 Why they were so frequent is the point which cannot 
 be explained. But why they more easily reached thfe 
 
• 488 SOCIAL GREECE. [CH. 
 
 public is evident from the habits of southern climates, 
 and from the smallness of the Greek states. 
 
 It has been long ago shown by historians that a 
 quantity of neighbouring contesting states of small 
 dimensions are infinitely more stimulating to human 
 culture than the great centralised empires of modern 
 Europe. Now everybody and everything goes asleep 
 in the provinces ; then there were no provinces for 
 men to sleep in. Capitals abounded, centres of art 
 and of politics abounded, and life attained an inten- 
 sity in all directions, which we moderns in vain 
 attempt to realise. The Italian republics satisfied this 
 condition. The smaller German states might have 
 done so, with the increase of democracy in Europe, 
 had they not been swallowed up by the retrograde 
 despotism of Prussia. And even their local tyrants, 
 like the Greek tyrants, did a great deal for art and 
 literature; for local tyrants, with their rivalries and 
 competitions, are never so benumbing to culture as 
 the great central despots, who are absorbed in military 
 projects, and kill every higher ambition for the sake 
 of conquest. 
 
 Thus it must be confessed, that if these political 
 conditions produced Greek culture, or enabled it to 
 be produced, modern Europe is travelling in the 
 opposite direction, and yearly attaining a condition 
 less and less favourable for a diffused intensity of life. 
 Railways and steamers have so immensely aided 
 centralization in great capitals, that it is now hopeless 
 to attempt the opposite policy, nor does it survive 
 e-xcept among the Home Rulers in Ireland, or amono- 
 those wretched nationalities in the East of Europe 
 
XV.] MUSIC AND PAINTING. 489 
 
 concerning whose state we may remark (with Tacitus) 
 that it is harder to say what ought to be done than 
 to say that what is being done is the worst possible. 
 Perhaps modern civilization has in it other elements 
 which may counteract this injury, and it may yet be 
 the privilege of great states, like North America, to 
 combine intensity of life with a vast unity of empire. 
 But it is plain that such a development must be 
 widely different from that of the Greeks. Their 
 culture stands before us as a great complex growth, 
 of which the very conditions have passed away, and 
 which can never be reproduced in its old perfection. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Academy, the, referred to, 346. 
 
 Adamantius, Physiognomica, criti- 
 cised, 426-7. 
 
 Aelian, 223. 
 
 Aeschines (Socraticus) 200, 213, 274, 
 (Orator) 271, 332, 390. 
 
 Aeschylus, 114, 132, 146, 150 sq., 
 167, 183, 290-1, 377. 
 
 Aesthetic sense, Greek, 425. 
 
 Agariste, marriage of, 169 sq. 
 
 Agatharchus, 439, 474. 
 
 Agathon, 320-1. 
 
 Agesilaus, humanity of, 270. 
 
 Alcestis, 200-2. 
 
 Alcibiades, 218-24, 439. 
 
 Alexander, his policy, 343. 
 
 Alexandria, 479. 
 
 Alexis, 259, 289, 296, 308, 315. 
 
 Amateurs, modern, 432. 
 
 Amnesty, the Athenian, 370, 273. 
 
 Amphis, 285, 289. 
 
 Anacreon, 79, 115, 431. 
 
 Andocides, 159, 222, 241, 265. 
 
 Antidosis, its absurdity, 409. 
 
 Antigone, 184. 
 
 Antiphanes, 284, 287, 307-8. 
 
 Antiphon, 43, 136, 215, 226, 240, 
 
 243- 
 
 Apelles, 475. 
 
 ApoUodorus, 320, 410 sq., 414, 4.1 i.. 
 
 Arbitration, international, among 
 the Greeks, 6. 
 
 Archilochus, referred to, 77 sq., 127. 
 
 Architecture, 449. 
 
 'A/)6t:J, meaning of in older Greek,43. 
 
 Aristion, stele of, 429. 
 
 Aristophanes, 139, 154, 184, 188, 
 192, 196-7, 312, 439 ; Wasps, 219 
 sq., 231, 242, 245, 39S ; Achai-n., 
 244-6, 292; Eccles., 274, 290; 
 
 Clouds, 285, 313, 333, 367 ; ^«»-. 
 
 290; Plut., 290, 297-8; Lysist., 
 
 390. 
 Aristotle, his modernness, 2 ; his 
 
 narrowness, 343; referred to, 15, 
 
 16, 72, 124, 141, 165, 186; noA.1- 
 
 T«'ai, 258-9, 377, 406. 
 Aristoxenus, r6o, 205, 261, 
 
 Art, social side of Greek, chap. xiv. 
 
 Artists, social position of, 434-5. 
 
 Aspasia, 200, 214-6. 
 
 Associations, for mutual aid, 41 2. 
 
 Athenaeus, 185, 284, 354. 
 
 Athenians, stupidity of, 241 ; intel- 
 ligence of, 255. 
 
 Athletics, discountenanced, 337 ; 
 artistic benefit of, 429. 
 
 Attic period, 134. 
 
 •^culture, chaps, ix-xi. 
 
 narrowness of, 346. 
 
 Autonomy in culture, 488. 
 
 B. 
 Banks, Greek, 412 sq. 
 Barathrum, the, 266. 
 Barlow, Professor, 271. 
 Beauty, worship of, 157. 
 
 — Greek, exaggerated notions about, 
 426-7. 
 
 Becq de Foucquieres, Asfasie de 
 
 Milet, 200, 214. 
 Bergk, Poetae Lyr. Graec, chaps. 
 
 iv and y, passim. 
 Bible, Homer, the Greek, 354-5. 
 Boards, dishonesty of, 177. 
 Browning, Mr. Robert, 202. 
 Biichsenschiitz, Besitz und Erwerb, 
 
 310. 413- 
 
 C. 
 
 Cadmos, tyrant of Cos, 161. 
 Callippus, the case of, 417-8. 
 Ceos, manners in, 248, 317. 
 Chappell, Wm,, on Greek music, 
 
 451, 459 sq. 
 Characters, in Greek tragedy, as 
 
 evidence of habits, 196-9. 
 Characters not consistent in divers 
 
 plays, 209. 
 Children, loss of, 30, 163 sq. 
 Chinese, the, 248. 
 Chivalry, defects of, 5. 
 Christian religion, compared to 
 
 Greek, 8. 
 
 — culture, 264 sq. 
 
 Cicero, on Greek character, 123; 
 
 cited, 399, 420, 427. 
 Cimon, 473; 
 
492 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Clearchns, 147. 
 
 Cleon, 140. 
 
 Clytemnestra, in Homer, 56. 
 
 — in Aeschylus, 150 sq., 182. 
 
 Comedy, middle, 284, 289, 299, 305. 
 
 Compassion, Greek, 29. 
 
 Conversation, Greek notions o^ 170, 
 
 316-7. 
 Cooking in the lyric age, 305. 
 Cooks, 299 sq. ; Roman, 306. 
 Courage, Greek, 2T, 78 sq. 
 Courdaveaux, M., 183. 
 Cox, Mr. G. W., quoted, 351. 
 Crates, 295. 
 Croesus, 158. 
 
 Cruelty, Greek, 176, 234 sq., 262 sq. 
 Curtius. Professor Ernst, 16, 84, 208, 
 
 344-6, 428. 
 Cyprus, 159; hellenized, 344. 
 
 D. 
 
 Darius, Hystaspis, T58-60. 
 Demes, Attic, their various rank, 415. 
 Democedes, of Croton, 291. 
 Democracy, Athenian, Injustice of, 
 
 399 [add Isocrates, Antid. % 166], 
 
 410; aristocracy of, 435. 
 Democritus, 480. 
 A'qixoKowo'Sf 242. 
 Demos, the, 10. 
 Demosthenes, 179, 220, 282, 297, 
 
 382, 388-9, 392 sq ,410 sq., 423 sq. 
 Demurrers, in Attic law, 401. 
 Descartes, 468. 
 Despots, 488-9. 
 Dicaearchus, T04, 297, 312. 
 Dicastic habits of Athenians, 187. 
 Dinner parties, 311 sq. 
 Dio Chrysostom, 372, 427. 
 Diphilus, 302. 
 Dishonesty, Greek, 122 sq. 
 Ditone, 467. 
 
 Dogs, Homeric, 62 sq., 223-4. 
 Dogs, Attic, &c., 223, 337. 
 Doric Greek, in some respects the 
 
 fashion, 296, 301 ; scale, 462. 
 Drunkenness, 104 sq., 318. 
 Duncker, Max, cited, 16. 
 
 E. 
 
 Echetus, 65. 
 Education, 330 sq., 341. 
 
 Egyptians, the, 15, 40, 74, 295. 
 Electra, of the three tragedians, 
 
 183-4, 192-4- 
 Eleven, the, at Athens, 265, 391, 404. 
 Elpinice, 216. 
 English, the, compared to the 
 
 Greeks, 381. 
 Ephippus, 289. 
 Epicrates, 289. 
 Epicurus, 303-4, 372. 
 Eros, Greek notion of, 327, 
 Eupolis, 138, 148, 205, 233, 259. 
 Euripides, referred to, 6, 7, 36, 152, 
 
 168,186 sq., 247, 249-50,285-6,4*58. 
 Evagoras, 344-5- 
 Executions, Attic, 262-9. 
 
 F. 
 Factions, the policy of, 177-8. 
 Faust, Gounod's, 453. 
 Festivals, 454. 
 Figure painting, 474-5. 
 Fishmongers, 306 s<j. 
 Fortlage, 465. 
 Foxhunting, despised by Xenophon, 
 
 337- 
 Freeman, Mr., 255. 
 French nation, compared with Greek 
 
 in courage, 21. 
 French critics, criticised, 3-4. 
 Frere, Mr. J. H. (Trans, of Aris- 
 
 toph.), 229, 257. 
 Froude, Mr. J. A., his political 
 
 philosophy, 5. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gentlemen, rare in Greek tragedy, 
 228 sq.; notions about, 417. 
 
 German critics, criticised, 3, 11, 91, 
 
 ^ 14°. 197. 307. 326, 377. 
 
 German culture, 254. 
 
 — petty states, their effect on art, 445. 
 
 G^ruzez, Litt.fran(aise, 179. 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., criticised, 19, 75. 
 
 Grasberger, Ensiehung, &c., 334. 
 
 Greece, natural beauty of, 425. 
 
 Greeks, their effect on modem 
 Europe, i. 
 
 — Asiatic, 73, 147. 
 
 — aesthetic sense of, 425. 
 
 Grote, G., criticised, 13, 15, 43, i8t, 
 208, 273 ; cited, 19, 178, 342, 397. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 493 
 
 H. 
 
 Hager, Mr. H., 267, 293. 
 Harmony, Greek, 466. 
 Haughton, Professor Samuel, 264. 
 Hayman, Mr., quoted, 41-2, 46. 
 Hellenism, 342-6; opposed to Hel- 
 
 lenicism, 346. 
 Heracleides Ponticns, 1 76-7, 257. 
 Herodicus, of Selymbria, 291. 
 Herodotus, quoted, 16, 18, 23, 78, 
 
 96, 107, 125, 144, 148, 155 sq., 
 
 177, 182, 211, 282, 342. 
 Hesiod, his attitude, 10, 11, 14, 28, 
 
 43. 55. 66 sq., 82, 86, 91, 94-5, 98, 
 
 117, 123, 247 ; his broadness, 353. 
 Hetairai, 212-3, 278, 284, 303. 
 
 [There is some doubt whether the 
 
 Corinthian offering mentioned was 
 
 not made by the married women. 
 
 Cf. Bergk's note on Simonides, 
 
 frag- 1 37-] 
 Hipponax, referred to, 10, 239. 
 Hired servants, their condition, 65. 
 Homeric question, the, 9. 
 
 — poems, the, 18 sqq., 352-3. 
 
 — hymns, 39, 59 sq., 127. 
 Honour, among the Greeks, 20 sq. 
 Horace, 247-8. 
 
 Horses, price of, 340. 
 Hospitality, Greek, 49 sq., 124 sq. 
 Hospitals, mention of, 295. 
 Humanity of the Greeks, 243, 264-5. 
 Hymn, of Mesomedes, 459. 
 Hypereides,252, 340,371-2,399,425. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ibycns, 114, 283. 
 Iliad, the, quoted, 33-1, 34, 54. 
 Immorality of Greek myths, 351. 
 Imperialism, its effects on art, 488. 
 Inanimate objects, trial of, 366. 
 Injustice of Athenian democracy, 399. 
 Inspiration, acknowledged by Flato. 
 357-8. 
 
 — but not usually, 433. 
 Instruments, Greek; 456. 
 Ion, of Chios, 217. 
 
 Irish, the.compared with the Greeks, 
 18, 25, 31, 89, 99, 118, 123, 162, 
 270. 297, 319, 401, 464. 
 
 Isaeus, 340, 409. 
 
 Ischomachns, 145, 275. 
 
 Isocrates, 273, 341, 343 sq., 382, 
 
 395. 418. 
 Ister, 239. 
 Italian Republics, compared to the 
 
 Greek, 485-7. 
 — art, 480, 485. 
 
 Jealousy, Greek, 156. 
 
 Jebb, Professor, 267, 368. 
 
 Jowett, Professor, his translation of 
 
 Plato cited, passim; criticised, 
 
 253; cited, 327-9. 
 Juries, Athenian, 392 sq. 
 
 Keats, 471. ^ 
 
 Kings, divine right of, 68. 
 KirchhofF, A., Athenian tribute list, 
 
 139- 
 Kottabos, the DublinUniversity, 351. 
 
 L. 
 
 Landscape, in art, 476 sq. 
 
 Law, Athenian, complexity of, 387; 
 
 weaknesses of, 393 sq. 
 L«lantine war, the, 386. 
 Letters, breaking open of, 229. 
 Lewis, Sir G., 180. 
 Xx)ve, Greek, 117, 326 sq. 
 Xoye songs, operatic, 453. 
 Loyalty, Greek, 36 sq. 
 Lycurgus, the orator, 163, 371, 440. 
 Lydia, court of, 147 ; scale, 462. 
 Lying, Greek, 27, 123, 157, 177. 
 Lyric poets, the, chaps, iv and v, 10, 
 
 431- 
 Lysias, quoted, 23 note, 225, 227, 
 
 232, 265, 267, 340-1, 389, 393-4, 
 
 397.399.403- 
 
 M. 
 Macedonia, hellenized, 345. 
 Machiavelli, quoted, 29, 97, 179. 
 Magistrates at Athens, varieties of, 
 
 , 392- 
 
 Manufactures, Greek, 406-7. 
 Manzoni, Promessi Sposi, 179, 403. 
 Medical profession, the, 290 sq. 
 Meineke, Fragg. Com. Graec, quoted 
 passim, chaps, viii and following. 
 Melody, Greek, 465. 
 Melos, 174. 
 
494 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Menander, his modernness, 2 ; gen- 
 tleness, 6. 
 
 — quoted, 6 note, 288, 304-5. 
 Milesians, 159. 
 
 Mill, J. S., Autobiography, 179. 
 Milman's Agamemnon, Sec, 108, 
 
 131. 152- 
 Miltiades, 144. 
 Mimnermns, iig, 172. 
 Minos, referred to, 16, 79. 
 Models for artists, whence obtained, 
 
 215- 
 Modulation, 463. 
 Mommsen, Professor T., 90. 
 Miiller, Dr. Carl, his Fragg. Hist. 
 
 Grace, quoted passim. 
 Miiller, K. O., 376. 
 MuUer-Striibing, Mr., 181, 210, 260, 
 
 393- 
 Music, Greek, 451 sq. 
 Mycenae, 16-7. 
 Mystery, the love of, 374. 
 Mythology, comparative, 350, 
 
 N. 
 Narrovfness of Attic culture, 342 sq. 
 Nausicaa, 53. 
 Nicias, 335, 409. 
 Notation, musical, 458. 
 Nurses, Greek, 59 sq., 167. 
 
 O. 
 
 Odyssey, the, quoted, n note, 22-3 
 note,26-7,32,45-6,52sq.,i03,349. 
 
 — Worsley's translation, 48. 
 
 Old age, treatment of, 34, 119, 244 sq. 
 Olympus, 40-1. 
 Orangemen, Irish, 99. 
 Orchestic, Greek, 431, 
 Ordericus Vitalis, 271. 
 'Op7€ttn/€s, 412. 
 
 P. 
 Paintings, extant, 450; history of 
 
 Greek, 470 sq. 
 Palgrave, Mr. W. G., on medicine in 
 
 Arabia, 294. 
 Panhellenism, 342. 
 Paper money, not known in Greece, 
 
 407. 
 Pasion, 242, 409, 413 sq. 
 Pausanias, 438, 473, 
 Pedagogues, Greek, 331. 
 
 Peiraeus, the, 242, 256-7, 295, 412. 
 
 Peisistratus, 87, 144, 295. 
 
 Pericles, 136, 140, 363, 405, 436. 
 
 Persians, Greek estimate o^ 342. 
 
 Pherecrates, 213. 
 
 Phidias, 215-6,434. 
 
 Philocles, 269. 
 
 Philopoemen, 337. 
 
 Phoenician ships, worth visiting,4l9. 
 
 Phoenician trade, 421-2. 
 
 Phormion, banker, 415. 
 
 Phrygian scale, 462. 
 
 Picturesque, the, 477-8. 
 
 Pindar, referred to, 15, 22, 27, 68, 94, 
 96, 98, 107, 119, 130-1, 290, 377. 
 
 Plato, referred to, 7, 23 note, 39, 47, 
 71, 79 sq., 87, 89 sq., 91,106, 121, 
 129 sq., 141, 179, 227, 253, 259 sq., 
 272, 290, 293-3,312 sq.,357-9,453. 
 
 Plutarch, 85, 136, 141, 191, 216-8, 
 221, 231 sq., 343, 271,287, 336-7. 
 
 453- 
 Polemo, Physiognomica, quoted, 427. 
 Politeness, 323. 
 Polybius, 145, 333, 454. 
 Polycfates, of Samos, 169. 
 Polygnotus, 439-440,472-3. 
 Pompeii, 450, 479. 
 Pot-houses, at Athens, 325. 
 Praxiteles, 483. 
 Prisons, Attic, 265-7. 
 Professional musicians, 455. 
 Prolegomena to Ancient History, 
 
 quotea,74, 142, 181, 249, 290, 351. 
 Protagoras, his books publicly burnt, 
 
 366. 
 Protective laws in Greece, 405. 
 Ptolemy, Claud., 461, 468. 
 Pythagoras, 469. 
 Pythian feast, music at, 455. ^ 
 
 Q- 
 
 Quack doctors, 297 sq. 
 Quintilian, 331. 
 
 R. 
 Rambles and Studies in Greece, cited, 
 
 424, 441. 
 Religion, Greek, chap, xii passim. 
 
 — dignity of, 364. 
 
 — association with art, 378. 
 
 — not opposed to sport, 380-1, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 495 
 
 Renaissance, last echo of the, 441, 
 
 487. 
 Revue arch^ologique, 15 note. 
 Rhopographers, 480. 
 Roman plundering of provinces 
 
 superior to Greek, 408. 
 
 — legal oratory, superior to Greek, 
 
 399 sq. 
 
 — Gravitas, 420. 
 
 S. 
 Sailoring, Greek, 80-I. 
 Sappho, no, 114, 127. 
 SoTTpks, of wine, 319. 
 Scales, Greek, 462. 
 Scene painting, 476. 
 Scepticism, Greek, 360. 
 Schmidt, B., Libm der Neugriechm, 
 
 369- 
 Scopas, 483. 
 
 Scott, Sir W., quoted, 75, 451. 
 Sculpture, 449 sq., 482-3. 
 Selfishness, Greek, 41, 121. 
 Semite culture, 15-7. 
 Sentimentality, absent from the 
 
 Greeks, 246. 
 Shoes, Greek, 310. 
 Simonides, of Amorgos, 105, liosq., 
 
 119. 
 
 — of Ceos, 108. 
 
 Slaves, treatment of, 240 sq. 
 Socrates, 281 ; censure of, 259, 261, 
 
 335; his death, 266 sq., 432. 
 Solon, 85 sq., 117, 430. 
 Sophocles, quoted, 54, 172, 182 sq,, 
 
 249, 261. 
 
 — as a general, 432. 
 Spartans,the,23-4,35, 120, 169,233. 
 Sporting, 337. 
 
 ?/ac^,Griech. Antiqq,, 366, 376, 382. 
 "teitz, on Hesiod, 69, 91. 
 Stesidiorus, 109. 
 Stesimbrotus, 217. 
 Stewart, Sir R., 464. 
 Street cries, Athenian, 301. 
 Stupidity, of Athenians, 241. 
 Symonds, Mr. J. A., 205. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tacitus, quoted, 24, 243. 
 Tennyson, Mr. A., 102. 
 "^Ijargelia, 239. 
 
 Theognis, quoted, 70, 84, 92 sq., 103, 
 
 107, 121, 125, 375. 
 Theophrastus, 220, 231, 235, 266, 
 
 316, 340. 369- 
 Theopompus, 84. 
 Thera (Therasia), 15 note. 
 Thersites, 13, 
 0??, 65-6. 
 
 e/affoi, in the sense of clubs, 412. 
 Thucydides, referred to, 24, 42-3, 
 
 72, 82, 135, 139 sq., 171 sq., 224, 
 
 362-3, 366. 
 
 — his defects, 171 ; his narrowness, 
 
 342. 436- 
 Torture, at Athens, 227, 240 sq., 273. 
 Towns, Greek, character of, 437. 
 Trade, Greek notions of, 402 sq. 
 Trades, subdivision of, 310. 
 Tragic poets, 481. 
 Truth, disregarded, 27, 99, 177. 
 Tunes, Greek, 457 sq. 
 
 — Irish, 464. 
 
 Tynnichns, his famous hymn,3,i9,437. 
 
 Tyrants, the Greek, unjustly esti- 
 mated, 83 sq., 137, 168. 
 
 Tyrtaeus, 95 sq., 116. 
 V. 
 
 Vase painting, 470-1. 
 
 Voce Libera, of Genoa, cited, 403. 
 W. 
 
 Wachsmnth, Professor Curt, 239, 
 267. 
 
 Waitz, Anthropology, 248. 
 
 Webb, Professor, 204, 249. 
 
 ■Westphal, R., 459. 
 
 Whigs and Radicals at Athens, 140. 
 
 Wine, 46, 318-9. 
 
 Women, position of, 146 sq., 222-3, 
 238, 274 sq. 
 
 — of Sophocles, 184 sq. 
 
 — of Euripides, 199 sq., 274, 277. 
 
 — of Xenophon, 274 sq. 
 
 X. 
 Xenophanes, quoted, 38, 103. 
 Xenophon, quoted, 33, 145, 270, 275 
 sq., 292-3, 314 sq., 323, 368-71, 
 
 4'9- 
 Xerxes, 172. 
 
 Y. 
 Youths, the love of, 107, 1 28, 327 sq. 
 
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