GREEK
TERATURE
'#: TILLYARD, M. A.
THE- PEOPLE'S -BOOKS
THE
PEOPLE'S
BOOKS
GREEK LITERATURE
GREEK LITERATURE
BY H. J. W. TILL YARD, M.A.
LECTURER IN GREEK AT EDINBURGH UNIYERSITT
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
INTRODUCTION
THE Greeks were the most intellectual people of the
old world. They were explorers in every field of
knowledge and art, where they showed in the highest
degree the desire for truth and the love of the beauti-
ful. Freedom of thought and deed seemed to them
essential to happiness and self -development ; while
a sense of fitness and dislike of excess saved them, as
a rule, from wildness of imagination or impropriety
of action. Ancient Greece was never a great nation,
as Assyria and Persia were great. In a small country
divided into countless valleys and tracts, little city-
states arose and worked out on a small scale and in
a short time the whole process of growth, maturity,
and decay. The genial climate of Greece helped the
quick advance of man, and the narrow seas facilitated
commerce and lured the adventurer abroad. Thus
the Greeks were by nature and circumstances chosen
to be the educators of Europe. They founded philo-
sophy, natural science, mathematics, medicine,
music, and political economy. Almost every literary
form used at the present day can be traced back to a
Greek original. In architecture and sculpture the
Greeks have given models to every school. Greece
by her instruction equipped Rome for her great
civilising work : and it was in the Greek tongue, in a
vi GREEK LITERATURE
language enriched by Greek thinkers, that the world
received the Christian religion.
The study of Greek literature is therefore a proper
element in a liberal education. The Greek language,
naturally flexible and rich in poetical words, becomes
in the hands of the great writers a medium of un-
equalled force, clearness, and adaptability, able to
express as well the highest aspirations of the poet
as the subtlest shades of philosophical argument or
the most abstruse technicalities. The books of
Greece have passed the critical selection of the ages,
and the student, unencumbered by masses of
inferior material, can approach the works of acknow-
ledged masters, the true fountain-head of European
culture.
Note. — The dates of many Greek authors being
uncertain, the approximate time of their activity,
indicated by floruit circa (fl. c.), is all that can be given.
The bibliography is only a limited selection, and is
confined to books needing no knowledge of Greek.
ATJTHOEITIES
ABBOT, E. V. — Hellenica : Essays on Greek Poetry and
Philosophy.
BUTCHEB, S. R. — Some Aspects of Greek Genius.
JEBB, R. C. — Primer of Greek Literature, and Growth and
Influence of Classical Greek Poetry.
JEVONS, F. B. — History of Greek Literature.
MAHAFFY, J. P. — Classical Greek Literature.
MURRAY, G. — History of Ancient Greek Literature.
SYMONDS, A. — Studies of the Greek Poets.
WRIGHT, W. C. — Short History of Greek Literature.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION V
I. HOMER AND THE EPIC .... 9
II. LYRIC, ELEGIAC, AND IAMBIC POETRY . 19
III. TRAGEDY 29
IV. COMEDY 43
V. EARLY GREEK PROSE I HERODOTUS, THUCY-
DIDES 47
VI. PHILOSOPHY ! PLATO, ARISTOTLE . . 60
VH. ORATORY I ISOCRATES, DEMOSTHENES . 72
. THE HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGES . 79
INDEX 91
Yii
GREEK LITERATURE
CHAPTER I
HOMER AND THE EPIC
EXTANT Greek literature seldom gives a glimpse of
any immature effort or feeble striving after artistic
form. Each type of composition seems to dawn in
its full splendour. The earliest Greek epics have not
only been the models for all European epic poets, but
are in themselves the final standard of unsurpassable
perfection.
The two chief poemis ascribed to Homer are the
Iliad and the Odyssey. In the Iliad we have in
twenty-four books a series of episodes from the Trojan
war. Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, has carried
off from Sparta Helen, wife of Menelaus. To avenge
this wrong the latter calls in his brother Agamemnon,
King of Argos, who leads against Troy a host of
Achaeans from the chief cities in Greece. For
nearly ten years the war drags on. The Trojans are
blockaded and most of their land and small cities
plundered. Then a quarrel arises between Agamem-
non and the mightiest of the Achaean champions,
Achilles. The latter refuses to fight, and his Wrath
is announced as the subject of the Iliad. The re-
10 GREEK LITERATURE
maining Achaean heroes are no match for Hector,
the mighty man of Troy, but by the fickle inter-
ference of the gods in the struggle, the fortunes of
battle are various. At last the Achaeans are driven
back to their ships, when Achilles, hitherto deaf to
all pleading, now gives his harness to Patroclus, his
squire, and sends him to fight in his stead. Hector,
though forewarned of his own fate, slays and despoils
Patroclus. Thereupon Achilles, infuriated at his
friend's death and rearmed with the divine armour
made by Hephaestus, rushes into the fray, pursues
and overcomes Hector, and drags his body round the
walls of Troy. The aged Priam comes as a suppliant
to beg for his son's body. Achilles grants it, and
the Iliad ends with the burial of Hector.
Most of these central incidents in the story are con-
tained in a few books, especially i., ix., xv., and xvi.
The others are mainly episodic, giving great battle-
pieces with the exploits of various heroes, councils
of the gods and their influence on the war, scenes in
the besieged city such as the conversations of Paris
and Helen, or the parting of Hector from his wife
Andromache, the funeral games for Patroclus, and
lastly the catalogue in Book ii. of the captains on
both sides and their forces.
Few critics would now assert the Iliad to be the
work of one man. Apart from the disconnectedness
of the story there are differences in dialect, in his-
torical and archaeological conditions between one
passage and another, which suggest composite
authorship. The Homeric question was debated in
antiquity, and since the publication of Wolf's Prolego-
HOMER AND THE EPIC 11
mena in 1795 every conceivable theory as to the
origin of the poems has been held. The age of ex-
cavation beginning with Schliemann (publications
1881 onwards) has only added fresh material to the
controversy. The following account may be put
forward as fairly representative of modern views. ^
In the Iliad the Achaeans inhabit Greece, but Asia
Minor is still barbarian. Agamemnon, the greatest
Achaean chief, rules over the plain of Argos, which
was the centre of the bronze age culture in southern
Greece. Achilles, on the other hand, is a Thessalian
hero, so that there may be a confusion with the Thes-
salian Argos. The Dorians, who predominated hi
southern Greece in historical times, have not yet
made their great invasion. But even the Achaeans
seem to have been newcomers. We hear of them as
a tall, fair-haired race, using iron weapons and burn-
ing their dead, while the bronze-age or Mycenean
people buried theirs. On the other hand, all the
Homeric sites so far explored have yielded Mycenean
remains, and there is enough cultural likeness to
suggest that at any rate the origin of epic tradition
lies in the Mycenean age. Possibly Agamemnon
and his house represent a northern dynasty ruling a
less warlike but more civilised Aegaean people. The
central event of the Homeric poems, namely the siege
of Troy, had some foundation in fact. The Achaean
race is spreading eastwards, perhaps under pressure
of the Dorian invasion, or even earlier, and the
walled city commanding the Hellespont must have
been a great barrier to their progress. No less than
six cities have stood and fallen on the site of Troy ;
12 GREEK LITERATURE
the siege of such a stronghold may well have become
famous in song. It is well known that traditions
and legends tend to group themselves round famous
sites or incidents, and in this way we may explain
the transference to Asia of the Thessalian myth of
Achilles.
The honour of composing out of current lays an
epic of outstanding merit on the Wrath of Achilles is
claimed for a nameless poet of Asia Minor singing in
the Aeolian dialect and living perhaps at Smyrna
some time between 1000 and 800 B.C. The Aeolians
were the first Greek settlers in Asia, and the dialect
of Homer has traces of Aeolic. Then about two cen-
turies later the real " Homer," an Ionian minstrel,
possibly a native of Chios, worked up the " Wrath "
into a great poem which was substantially our Iliad.
The dialect he changed as far as possible into Ionic,
and modified a few of the descriptions to suit the
taste of his own age. In weaving together tradi-
tional sagas he gave his work enough cohesion to
hold the attention of his hearers, while he enriched
the older epic with episodes of incomparable dignity,
fire, and pgihgs. This " Homer " was the chief of a
school or clan of minstrels called Homeridae, to whom
we owe the latest portions of the Iliad, and the other
LeBJ° P°ems to be mentioned below.
The companion poem to the Iliad is the Odyssey,
also in twenty-four books. Odysseus, King of Ithaca,
an island of Western Greece, had fought at Troy, and
is setting out for home. On the way he incurs the
wrath of the Sun-god and of Poseidon, whereby his
return is delayed for ten years by adventures in the
HOMER AND THE EPIC 13
fabulous regions on the borderland of ancient geo-
graphy. Odysseus is a typical Ionian hero, the
patient man of endless resource, a good warrior, but
preferring persuasion to force. This steadfast wis-
dom and the favour of Athena finally bring him
safely out of his troubles. The poet also shows us
the state of Ithaca in its ruler's absence : the young
Telemachus, unable to control his subjects : the
faithful Queen Penelope, beset by insolent suitors,
and finally rewarded by the return and triumph of
Odysseus. The personality of the hero gives the
Odyssey more apparent unity than the Iliad. The
ancients believed it to have been a work of Homer's
old age, but in comparing it with the Iliad we find
more signs of altered conditions than could be covered
by the lifetime of a single poet.
The gods in the Iliad are glorified human beings
and take part in the Trojan war. Zeus holds a
doubtful sway, his consort Hera being often in re-
bellion. In the Odyssey Zeus is supreme, and the
gods dwell on Mount Olympus, remote from the
strife of men. Land in the Iliad is held by the
community and farmed in common, while in the
Odyssey private ownership is established. These are
only a few differences among many which have led
scholars to assume a separate authorship for the
Odyssey. Indeed it is now generally held (since the
theory of Eorchhoff, 1859) that our Odyssey is itself
an expansion of a lay on the Return of Odysseus,
into which a short saga about Telemachus has been
woven. This hypothetical " kernel " is found chiefly
in Books v.-xui. We may say then that most of the
14 GREEK LITERATURE
Odyssey is contemporary with the latest books of
the Iliad.
Inferior to the Iliad in pathos and sublimity, the
Odyssey has a unique charm as an adventure-story
and fairy tale. It is less savage than the warlike
Iliad. We leave din of battle for the toil of the oars
and touch the dreamy land of the lotus-eaters, or
linger in Calypso's enchanted grotto, or roam in
wonder through the gardens and palace of Alcinous.
'The metre of the Greek epic is the dactylic hexa-
meter. It had perhaps been first used in primitive
ritual, and was adopted by the Delphic Oracle for its
responses. Homer's versification is perfect. His
hexameters are rippling, swift, and sonorous. The
Greek tongue with its long and short vowels, its
musical pitch-accent, and its richness in light ter-
minations, flows easily and strongly in this metre.
Virgil's hexameters are mellow and stately, perfect
in their own way, but not Homeric. No modern
language has been able to approach the effect of the
Greek epic verse.
The Homeric poems were worked up from tradi-
tional lays, and a striking token of their origin is
seen in the recurrence of whole lines and stock epi-
thets applied especially to gods and heroes. Thus
daybreak is regularly announced by the line, " Now
when early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered."
Hera is "Ox-eyed," Athena "Grey-eyed," Zeus
"Cloud-gatherer," AchiUes "Swift of foot," Aga-
memnon " Shepherd of the host." In this we see
the simplicity of the early poets, who do not yet crave
for constant variety in expression, and are content
HOMER AND THE EPIC 15
to let their characters go about under their crudely
explicit labels. Homer is famed for the beauty of
his imagery. He usually keeps his similes to adorn
the great events in the narrative. The similes them-
selves are taken from all kinds of familiar scenes, the
sea, nature, handicraft, and daily life. The Achaean
array is compared to tribes of birds that " fly hither
and thither joying in their plumage and with loud
cries settle ever onward," and again to flies " that
hover about a herdsman's steading in the spring
time, when milk drencheth the pails." But the
supreme merit of the poems lies in their simple
directness, their power of swift narration, and the
whole-hearted absorption of the poet in the story
that he tells.
Homer had a profound and lasting influence over
Greek literature. His poems were recited in all
Greek cities and learned in every school. But al-
though writing was known at the time when most of
the epics were composed, we cannot tell how far an
art still unfamiliar and chiefly applied to short in-
scriptions was used by poets. At any rate the rhap-
sodists or professional reciters were the chief agents
in spreading the knowledge of Homer. Great as
their services in this way must have been, they were
liable to mistakes or tempted to interpolate lines to
gratify the local patriotism of their hearers. Solon
(600 B.C.) is said to have passed a law to regulate
public recitations at Athens, and the Athenian
tyrant Pisistratus (550-527 B.C.) is credited with
having ordered an official recension of the poems.
Although this recension is now held to be a fiction,
16 GREEK LITERATURE
the fact remains that Athens took the epics under
a kind of protection, which has left traces of Attic
dialect in Homer. By the end of the sixth century
the poems were current in practically the same form
as they have reached us, though the work of the
Alexandrian critics, of whom Aristarchus (160 B.C.)
was the greatest, helped to purify and explain the
text.
The Minor Epics. — The Iliad and Odyssey only
represent a small part of the poetry dealing with
the Trojan war and the Trojan cycle of legends.
The remaining parts of the story were worked up
into epics by the so-called " Cyclic " poets ranging
in date from the eighth to the sixth century. These
poems, which finally covered the whole ground of the
Trojan expedition, the fall of Troy, and the home-
coming of the heroes, were admittedly far inferior to
the true Homeric poems, and only fragments now
survive.
Another group of lost poems clustered round
Thebes, the most famous being the Thebais. Both
cycles supplied endless plots to the Greek tragedians,
from whose works and from the Latin Thebais of
Statius we can infer at any rate the subjects pre-
sented.
The so-called Homeric Hymns or preludes were
composed by the rhapsodists to introduce recitations
from the longer epics. They are in honour of various
gods, and may have been intended for the festivals
where Homer was recited. Thirty-four of these survive,
and date from the seventh century B.C. downwards.
The most famous are the hymn to the Delian Apollo,
HOMER AND THE EPIC 17
which gives an agreeable picture of the festival at
Delos ; and that to Demeter, describing her wander-
ings in search of Persephone. The diction of the
hymns is closely copied from Homer, under whose
name they passed in antiquity.
Hesiod. — From the courts of Aeolian and Ionian
princes, the patrons of epic poets and rhapsodes,
we pass to a barren countryside in Boeotia, where
Hesiod's father, an Aeolian of Cyme in Asia, had
reclaimed a strip of waste land near Mount Helicon.
On its owner's death the little farm was divided
between Hesiod and his brother Perses ; but the
latter, by bribing the lords of the district, gained the
larger share for himself. Perses was a shiftless,
unsuccessful farmer, and for him and his like Hesiod
composed the Works and Days. In the eighth cen-
tury the peasant's lot was hard. The nobles held the
best land and oppressed the poor. Trade is growing,
but the Greeks are still terribly afraid of the sea.
The Works and Days is the first didactic poem. It
begins with exhortations to Perses and to the unjust
judges, the text of the sermon being the need for
work. This is emphasized by the legend of Prome-
theus who stole fire from heaven, and of Zeus' con-
sequent wrath and his punishment of man by the
sending of Pandora, the type of feminine deception,
with her jar in which all the ills of the world were
stored. The Five Ages of man, embodying the Greek
belief in the fallen state of humanity, are also de-
scribed. Then follow the precepts of agriculture,
as it was practised by small peasant farmers : next
a series of maxims and proverbs, such as all primi-
B
18 GREEK LITERATURE
tive folk have evolved ; and finally the calendar
(by the moon) of lucky and unlucky days. Hesiod
is a true tiller of the soil, shrewd, selfish, discontented,
superstitious. The Greeks respected his ethical teach-
ing, such as it was : the Romans, greater lovers of
the country, valued his agricultural advice, which
inspired Virgil in his Georgics ; but the modern reader
is chiefly concerned with the picture of Hesiod's
times and surroundings, and to hear from him a
voice not of kings or heroes but from the heart of
the people.
The Theogony is a didactic poem on the birth of the
gods and their warfare with the Titans which ended
in the dominion of Zeus. It became the great text-
book of Greek religion. A poem called Eoiae on
heroines who had wedded gods is almost wholly lost.
The epic fragment called the Shield of Heracles was
ascribed to Hesiod, but is by a later imitator of
Homer. Hesiod used the epic hexameter, but,
except for rare flights, his style is prosaic. The
poems have come down to us in a mixture of Aeolic
and Ionic dialect, the latter element being perhaps
due to Ionian recitation and adaptation.
HOMER — Translations : Iliad, Lang, Leaf, and Myers.
Odyssey, Butcher and Lang (prose) ; Cotterill, Mackail.
Both these are recent verse. Older versions : Chapman,
Pope, Cowper. General ; Browne, Homeric Study ;
Jebb, Introduction to Homer ; Murray, Rise of the
Greek Epic ; Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece. HESIOD
—Trans. , &c. , Mair. HYMNS— Trans. , Lang,
ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY 19
CHAPTER II
LYBIO, ELEGIAC, AND IAMBIC POETRY
WE have now passed from the Heroic age into his-
torical times. By the eighth century the Greeks
are settled in their lasting abode on the coast of Asia
Minor, the Aegean islands, and the mainland of Greece.
Colonies are being planted in Italy and Sicily, in the
northern Aegean regions, and on the Black Sea.
The Greeks were a disunited people. Every city
was a political unit, whose independence could only
be given up under the strongest inducement or neces-
sity. Racial divisions also existed. The Aeolian,
Ionian, and Dorian folk had their own dialects and
tribal cults, and developed their own literature. The
Ionian cities of the middle coast of Asia Minor,
Smyrna, Ephesus, and Miletus, with the island of
Chios, rose in the seventh and sixth centuries to great
splendour. Monarchy, the Homeric form of govern-
ment, gives place to oligarchy, and this in its turn to
tyranny, an unconstitutional kingship resting on
force, followed in most cities by complete democracy.
The genius of the lonians is scientific and methodical.
Their poetry is reflective, sententious, and satirical.
In pure emotion they were far surpassed by the
Aeolian Greeks of northern Asia Minor and Lesbos.
The Greeks, in spite of their separation, were
always aware of their underlying unity ; and in the
sixth century the growth of trade and intercourse,
together with the common dangers that began to
press upon the race, brought its scattered elements
20 GREEK LITERATURE
closer together, until the patriotism of united Greece
repulsed the Persian enslaver at Salamis and Plataea.
Most of the Greek lyric poets are only known to us
in short fragments quoted by later writers ; but
enough remains to show the exquisite skill of the
greater lyrists. Lyric poetry had various forms,
such as religious and processional hymns, choral or
solo ; odes of victory, dirges, wedding-songs, drink-
ing-catches ; poems of the emotions, love-songs,
political lampoons. The chief poets wrote in several
of these classes. Music was essential to a lyric poem,
and the poet was generally also the composer. The
accompaniment was played on the lyre or seven-
stringed lute.
Aeolian poetry reached its height at Lesbos, where
in a society rich, brilliant, passionate, but torn with
the bitterest party strife, Alcaeus and Sappho com-
posed their immortal works. Sappho (fl. c. 580) is
the world's greatest poetess. " Of all the poets of the
world," says Mr. Addington Symonds, " and of all
the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the
one whose every word has a peculiar and unmis-
takable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and
inimitable grace." Her odes were inspired by
sentimental attachments to young girls, among
whom she formed a school of poetry. The longest
fragment is addressed to Aphrodite, whom she im-
plores to aid her, as aforetime, in winning the heart
of her beloved. Elsewhere we see a wonderful
feeling for nature and a beauty of imagery which may
be imperfectly mirrored in the Latin lyrists. Alcaeus
(ft. c. 600), a friend of Sappho, is a Lesbian cavalier,
ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY 21
a man of war and faction, hating tyrants and de-
spising the people, a man of love, wine, and song. To
him is ascribed the invention both of the Alcaic and
of the Sapphic metres, which were used freely by
Horace and later writers.
Although poetry like that of Alcaeus and Sappho
is almost untranslatable, some notion of their spirit
can be gathered from the following versions, one of a
fragment of Alcaeus by Col. Mure, the other by
Symonds of the Aphrodite ode already mentioned
(four stanzas quoted).
" From floor to roof the spacious palace halls
Glitter with war's array.
With burnished metal clad, the lofty walls
Beam like the bright noon-day.
There white-plumed helmets hang from many a nail
Above in threatening row.
Steel-garnished tunics and broad coats of mail
Spread o'er the space below.
Chalcidian blades enow, and belts are here,
Greaves and emblazoned shields,
Well-tried protectors from the hostile spear
On other battle-fields.
With these good helps our work of war's begun :
With these our victory must be won."
" Glittering-throned, undying, Aphrodite,
Wile- weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee,
Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish.
" But hither come if ever erst of old time
Thou didst incline and listen to my crying,
And from thy father's palace thou descending
Camest with golden
22 GREEK LITERATURE
" Chariot yoked, Thee fair swift-flying sparrows
Over dark earth with multitudinous flapping,
Pinion on pinion thorough the middle ether
Down from heaven hurried.
" Quickly they came like light ; and thou, blest lady,
Smiling with clear undying eyes, didst ask me,
What was the woe that troubled me, and wherefore
I had cried to thee."
The lonians invented the elegiac couplet, a modi-
fied form of the Homeric hexameter. This metre
is said to have been first used for dirges sung to the
flute. It can indeed bear an almost lyrical character,
but sinks readily into a prosaic form suitable to
sententious utterance, political or gnomic. Prose
did not become a literary medium until the fifth
century, and the sayings of the early philosophers
and moralists were usually in elegiac verse.
The iambic metre, which is the nearest approach
that poetry could make to common speech, is said
to have been invented by Archilochus of Paros
(about 700 B.C.). This metre was especially used
for satire, of which Archilochus seems to have been a
master. He led a wandering, dissatisfied life, de-
spising wealth and ease, a slighted lover, an un-
successful colonist, a soldier who scorned defeat but
never profited by victory. Once he dropped his
shield in flight. " What matter ? " he cries ; " I'll
get another just as good." The fame of Archilochus
in antiquity makes the loss of his main work a matter
of deep regret.
Of the gnomic writers only a few can be mentioned.
Xenophanes of Colophon (fl. c. 540 B.C.) criticised
ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY 23
Homeric religion as giving an unworthy estimate of the
gods. Theognis of Megara (c. 520), though an Aeolian,
wrote in Ionic elegiacs a poem addressed to a young
Megarian noble giving all kinds of precepts in the
oligarchic interest, and deploring the growing strength
of the popular party. Solon of Athens (639-559) vindi-
cated in verse his own political reforms, by which he
had hoped to relieve the distress of the poor and to
avert a tyranny. From Semonides of Amorgos (fl. c.
625 B.C.) we have a satire in iambics on woman. The
various types of women are drawn from animals :
the vain woman from the horse, the inquisitive from
the weasel, and finally the virtuous from the bee.
Homeric chivalry has given way to an Oriental sus-
picion of woman and dislike of her influence. The
tone of Hipponax of Ephesus (fl. c. 540) is equally
peevish and misogynistic. He is the reputed in-
ventor of the choliambic or lame iambii^-nretee, an
ugly form of verse used later in
One quotation will show his characj
"When is a wife her husband's joy ?
The day she weds him and the day
Of Ionian love-poets Mimnermus oT~~Smyrna
(fl. c. 630), and Anacreon of Teos (fl. c. 540) were
the most notable. Mimnermus used the elegiac
metre and became the model for the amatory elegies
of Alexandria and Rome. Anacreon was a lyrist.
Both are unromantic, selfish voluptuaries. Mim-
nermus soon wearies of life. He pities the sun for
being obliged " all day long his course to run," and
prays for a painless death at sixty. Anacreon lived
24 GREEK LITERATURE
at the court of Polycrates, prince of Samos, and with
other tyrants, and enjoyed favour and ease till his
death at the age of eighty-five. In him the degene-
racy of the Ionian race, now unwarlike and fond
only of wine and pleasure, found poetical expression.
His verses, of which few survive, were much read and
imitated in later antiquity.
Among the Dorians poetry had a definite place in
public as well as in religious life. Choral singing was
an important subject in the education of both sexes ;
the strains of the flute led the Spartan armies into
battle, and their marching-songs were famous. It
is not surprising that the Spartans, a nation of soldiers,
should have borrowed most of their poets from other
states. We first hear of Terpander of Lesbos (fl. c.
676 B.C.) who made some great improvement in
stringed instruments, as well as in lyric metre. His
compositions, which only free Spartans might sing,
were typical of the stately, unadorned, archaic style.
Tyrtaeus (fl. c. 640 B.C.) is said to have been a lame
Athenian schoolmaster, sent to Sparta in obedience
to an oracle. Sparta was at war with Messenia, and
the royal house dreaded a revolution. Tyrtaeus
wrote to defend the divine right of the Spartan
kings and to exhort the citizens to repel the foe. His
poetic eloquence won the day. These elegiac poems
were written in a kind of Ionic dialect, but in his
marching-songs he used the pure anapaestic metre
and the Doric tongue.
Alcman (fl. c. 650), the chief lyrist of Sparta,
shows us a more genial aspect of Dorian life. He
was born at Sardis, and seems to have come to Sparta
ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY 25
as a slave some time in the seventh century. His
chief works were the Parthenia or choral songs for
the choirs of maidens who sang in honour of Artemis
Orthia. These odes were mainly religious and
mythological, but the poet turns aside now and
then to describe the beauties of nature or to aim a
little playful banter at members of the chorus.
Arion, a Lesbian poet of the late seventh century,
lived mainly at the court of Periander, tyrant of
Corinth. He wandered in the west, and, says the
legend, was saved by a dolphin, when thrown over-
board by sailors covetous of his wealth. Arion's
achievement was the invention of the dithyramb, a
wild choral song with dancing in honour of Dionysus.
From this form tragedy ultimately sprang. Stesichorus
of Him era in Sicily (fi. c. 600 B.C.) made further
progress in the adaptation of epic themes to choral
lyric. His fame was such that the coins of Minerva
were afterwards stamped with his likeness. In the
use of myth he made bold to change the traditional
version : thus Helen, he declared, never went to
Troy, but the gods sent a phantom instead.
With Simonides of Ceos (556-467 B.C.) Greek
poetry ceases to be local and dialectic and assumes
a national character. The Persian wars had roused
the Greeks to common action in defence of their
country ; and the patriotic verse of Simonides was
a lasting memorial of their victory and of their
mighty dead. Most famous is his epitaph on the
heroes of Thermopylae :
" Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie."
26 GREEK LITERATURE
Simonides seems to have been the first to give
literary form to the epigram, which meant originally
an inscription on a grave, statue, or votive offering.
He, like others, used the elegiac metre for this pur-
pose. But his many-sided genius showed itself
further in all kinds of lyrical forms, among which
his dithyrambs, dirges, and odes of victory were
pre-eminent. In dirges, which were sung at funerals
to the music of the flute, he showed rare pathos.
This is exemplified in the fragment giving the lament
of Danae in the carven ark beside her sleeping babe
Perseus. The odes of victory or Epinicia were per-
formed in honour of victories at athletic contests,
the poet being specially employed to glorify the
victor and his city. Athletics had been the accom-
paniment of funeral feasts since Homeric times,
and were, it appears, regularly held at the graves of
certain heroes. Four of these local meetings, the
Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games,
rose to national importance, and drew competitors
from the whole Greek world. To win a victory at
such games was the highest ambition of young Greek
aristocrats. The tyrants increased their fame and
popularity by entering for the more expensive events,
notably the chariot race ; and they were the poets'
best patrons in ordering Epinician odes and pro-
viding the chorus for their production. The greatest
master of this style was Pindar (522-442 B.C.). He
was born near Thebes, and is said to have studied
poetry under the local poetess Corinna as well as at
Athens. He travelled widely, and was a friend and
guest of the great Sicilian and Cyrenian princes.
ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY 27
He wrote odes to order for religious purposes and
in honour of athletic victories. Of the former we
have only some long fragments of his Paeans (in-
augural hymns to Apollo), but the latter, the Epini-
cian odes, have survived. Pindar's great skill lies
in the lyrical treatment of legend. He never wearies
us with the details of the victories, but loves to
relate the victor to the mythical glories of his house
or city. Avoiding the straightforward detail of epic
narration, he can express by a few touches the essen-
tials of a situation and the ethos of the characters
involved in it. Pindar writes as an aristocrat for
aristocrats. He is orthodox in belief, refusing to ad-
mit any story discreditable to the gods. Politically
a Conservative, he has certain definite ideals of good
government and moderation, which he loses no
opportunity of impressing upon his regal patrons.
Though keenly alive to the beauty and radiance of
life, he never forgets the vanity of human ambition
and the imminence of doom. But more than other
Greek poets he had visions of a future life and of
the Islands of the Blest, the home of righteous souls.
Pindar's diction is lofty, intricate, and richly
coloured. Metaphors or catchwords echo through
his poems, suggesting vistas of allusions and hidden
meanings. He has a rare sense of landscape beauty
and a passion for light and brilliance, typifying suc-
cess, joy, and immortal fame. The aesthetic effect
of his odes, with their carefully balanced stanzas,
and still more carefully planned irregular corre-
spondence of metre and sense, can never, in the ab-
sence of the music, be fully appreciated. But those
28 GREEK LITERATURE
who have patience to read and know him can travel
back in imagination to the green banks of the Alpheus
with their shining temples and white tiers of marble
seats, where the victor, in the flower of youth and
beauty, is received with a nation's applause and
immortalised by the poet's song, the " warbled notes
of boys," in an age when the world was young, and
the Olympian olive-wreath the highest prize that
life could offer.
Bacehylides was a nephew of Simonides, and
flourished about 468 B.C. Like Pindar, he wrote
odes of victory, and was patronised by tyrants. Until
1897 he was a mere name to us ; but then a number
of his odes came to light from an Egyptian papyrus.
Bacehylides and Pindar were jealous rivals, and
although the inferiority of the former is unquestioned,
he may have been more popular owing to his greater
simplicity and easy grace of style. Like Pindar he
uses mythology freely in his Epinicia. We have also
some of his dithyrambs, now no longer confined to
Dionysus-worship, but resembling a religious operetta
with musical dialogue between the choruses.
By the middle of the fifth century the glories of
Greek lyric poetry are at an end. Tragedy becomes
the prevailing form, and absorbs for its choral odes
most of the lyric genius of the age.
One later poet, Timotheus of Miletus (447-357),
gave further scope to the dithyramb, to which he
assimilated the nome, the ancient lyric song of Ter-
pander. An example of a nome found in an Egyp-
tian papyrus is the Persae, a cantata on the battle of
Salamis. Timotheus was a favourite at Athens, and
TRAGEDY 29
writes in a modified Attic dialect. The Spartans,
however, expelled him because they disapproved of
his innovations in music. What these were is un-
certain. He is said to have added an eleventh string
to the cithara, and possibly his rich orchestration
spoilt the understanding of the words. Timotheus
writes in a bombastic style, full of novel compound
words ; his high-flown rhetoric alternates with tragi-
comic bathos.
SAPPHO — Wharton, Sappho (trans., &c.) PINDAR —
trans., Myers. BACCHYLIDES — Trans., Poste. (See also
Histories of Greek Literature given on p. vi.)
CHAPTER III
TRAGEDY
TRAGEDY seems to owe its origin to choral lays, sung
at festivals of Dionysus. The name is uncertain
in its meaning. It was applied to the dithyrambs
of Arion and Bacchylides, where choral songs were
sometimes interspersed with a kind of dialogue
between the leader and the chorus on the mythical
subject of the hymn. To Athens belongs the honour
of giving a dramatic form to this lyrical ode.
Thespis (sixth century B.C.) introduced an actor
who answered the leader of the chorus. Their dia-
logue was partly in iambic metre, which represented
ordinary speech. The actor could change his dress
in a booth called o-Krjvrj (hence our scene).
In 535 B.C. public tragic competitions were estab-
lished at Athens under Pisistratus. Any poet could
30 GREEK LITERATURE
submit a tragedy to the Archon. The three best
plays or sets of plays competed at the festival. The
chorus were paid and equipped by some wealthy
citizen nominated by the Archon. The poet was
responsible for the music as well as the text, and had
to train the chorus and actors, usually taking a part
himself. The accompaniment was played on the
cithara and double flute. The chorus wore costumes
appropriate to the play, and went through the motions
of a stately dance. The winning chorus sometimes
put up a monument to its victory.
Of Thespis and his successors little remains. They
are known to have taken plots from all kinds of
mythology.
Phrynichus (fl. 511-476 B.C.) attempted to use
historical subjects, perhaps under the patriotic
influence of Themistocles. His play, the Capture
of Miletus is said to have moved the Athenians to
tears ; but they afterwards fined the poet for re-
minding them of their misfortunes.
Aeschylus (fl. 499-456 B.C.) fought in the Persian
wars and wrote, it is said, ninety plays. He usually
exhibited a set of three tragedies, called a trilogy,
followed by a satyr-drama. His great improvement
was the addition of a second actor, so that the essen-
tial incidents in a drama could be represented on the
stage. His tragedies tend to become less choral and
more dramatic. Thus in the Supplices more than half
the play consists of choral odes, and the second actor
is hardly needed ; while in the fourth extant play, the
Prometheus, the crisis is enacted before our eyes,
and the later plays need a third actor. Aeschylus
TRAGEDY 81
is said to have invented a regular tragic costume,
including thick-soled buskins and appropriate masks.
The stage arrangements were very simple. Prob-
ably the actors used the back of the semicircular
orchestra. Behind them was a stage-building with
three entrances. It was hung with some kind of
painted scenery, usually the front of a temple or
palace. A complete change of scene was very rare.
There was a device called Eccyclema, a kind of turn-
table by which any actor or object could be brought
forward from behind the scenes. An actor could
appear at an upper window, or a god could be swung
forward by a crane and take his stand on a high
ledge. Probably most of these devices were later than
Aeschylus. The imagination of the audience could
remedy the deficiencies of the staging. It is re-
markable that the use of a raised stage above the
orchestra was probably unknown until the third or
fourth century B.C.
/'Aeschylus was a deep religious thinker, and his
tragedies are full of great problems that were begin-
ning to force themselves on men's minds : the power
of Destiny, the seeming injustice of the gods, both
in legend and in providence, the inheritance of doom,
and the suffering of the innocent. /In the Persae the
great patriotic drama of Greece, the defeat of Xerxes
is indeed easily explained as the punishment of
impiety and presumption. But what of Prometheus,
the benefactor of mankind, tormented by Zeus for his
generous acts ? What of Orestes, who in obedience
to Apollo's bidding to avenge his father's death, has
slain his mother, and the Furies are out for his blood ?
32 GREEK LITERATURE
Aeschylus answers thus. Necessity rules ; Zeus is
supreme because he wills what Necessity directs.
He is also just. Pride and sin never go unpunished ;
if the sinner escapes, the curse hangs over his house.
But the guiltless do not suffer ; the curse slumbers
until a fresh misdeed calls down the wrath of heaven.
Prometheus is punished for a time, but is at last
liberated and glorified. In Aeschylus' fourth play,
the Seven against Thebes, Eteocles is king and is
threatened by an invasion under Polynices, his exiled
brother. Both are under their father's curse. Yet
Aeschylus makes us feel that Eteocles by prudence
can save his city and himself. It is because, in
impious rage against his brother, he rushes to fight
him hand to hand, that he falls and brings final ruin
on his house. The crowning work of Aeschylus is
the trilogy, Agamemnon, Choephori (Libation-bearers),
and Eumenides. Agamemnon, returning victorious
from Troy, is murdered by his queen Clytaemnestra.
For a time she reigned with her paramour Aegisthus.
Then Orestes comes home and avenges his father.
Pursued by the Furies for matricide, he flies to Delphi,
where Apollo bids him stand his trial at Athens.
Athena herself calls the Council of Mars' Hill, the
Areopagus. Orestes is finally acquitted, and the
Furies are appeased by the founding of their worship
at Athens. Here we see an important aspect of
Greek tragedy in showing the people the origin of
their own cults. Aeschylus believed in the old
religion and had studied it deeply. His aim is to
show its noblest side, to overawe the worldly minded,
and to satisfy the doubter.
TRAGEDY 33
Of all dramatists Aeschylus is the greatest master
of the grand style. His characters are like archaic
statues, rugged and superhuman. His verse is
massive, full of big, sonorous words. None can
depict like him the splendour of war, the din of
battle, the lone majesty of mountains, and, above
all, the might of elemental forces, the rock-hurling
Titans, and the thunders of Zeus.
Sophocles (497-405 B.C.) was born at Colonus
near Athens. As a boy he was chosen to lead the
choir that sang the triumphal song after the battle of
Salamis. At the age of twenty-eight he defeated
Aeschylus in the tragic contest, and during the next
sixty years he wrote more than a hundred tragedies
and won more first prizes than any other tragedian.
He was popular at Athens, held several public offices,
and never settled away from home. Seven tragedies
are extant, of which the Ajax is probably the earliest.
Ajax has competed with Odysseus for the arms of
Achilles, towards the end of the Trojan war, and
having lost the award resolved to slay the Greek
generals. But maddened by Athena he falls upon
their cattle instead. Now he is himself again, and
overcome by shame determines to die. After a
pathetic farewell to his infant son he escapes to the
shore and falls upon his sword. The rest of the play
is concerned with the question of Ajax' burial, which
was necessary to secure his immortality as a hero.
Finally Agamemnon, as general, allows it. In the
Antigone (c. 440 B.C.) we have the sequel to Aeschylus'
Seven against Thebes. Creon, the new king, has
buried with honour Eteocles, the defender of his
0
34 GREEK LITERATURE
country, but ordered Polynices to be left to the birds
and dogs. Antigone chooses to obey God rather than
man, and in defiance of the edict performs the rite
of burial for her brother. She is arrested, brought
before Creon, and sentenced to death. Creon's son
Haemon, her betrothed, pleads in vain for her life.
Then Teiresias, the blind seer, declares to Creon that
heaven is about to punish his impiety. Creon, now
thoroughly alarmed, sets out to release Antigone ;
but he comes too late. Antigone has hanged herself
in her living tomb and Haemon, at the sight of his
father, stabs himself in despair. When Creon re-
turns to the palace he finds that Eurydice, the queen,
hearing of Haemon's death, has taken her own life.
In this play Sophocles raises the vexed question of
the conflict of duties, the claims of conscience and
claims of the state. Creon is evidently in the wrong :
he breaks a universal law of Greece in refusing burial
to a foe. But it is excess of patriotism that mis-
leads him, and his fate is a climax of tragic horror.
Antigone is a pattern heroine. Dauntless, pious,
faithful to the last, she seems to modern readers to
lack womanliness. In all her laments over the fall of
her house, she can only spare one line for her lover.
We admire her virtue but she does not win our hearts.
The Eledra dramatises an episode already used by
Aeschylus. Sophocles reverts to the Homeric view
of the vengeance of Orestes. Aegisthus, his father's
murderer, is a proper victim of retribution, and the
punishment of the faithless wife and unnatural
mother appears as a secondary act of justice. The
interest centres in Electra herself, who through
TRAGEDY 35
years of ill-usage had refused to truckle to the usurper,
and is now a relentless abettor of her mother's doom.
The recognition-scene between Electra and her
brother, whom she has not seen since babyhood, is
particularly telling. The Oedipus Rex was Aristotle's
ideal tragedy. It contains an earlier phase of the
myth used in the Seven against Thebes and Antigone.
Oedipus has solved the riddle of the Sphinx and
saved Thebes from her attacks. For this service he is
chosen king in the room of Laius, who has been mur-
dered on the road to Delphi. Jocasta, the widowed
queen, marries Oedipus. They live in peace for
some years. Then a plague smites the land, and
Apollo bids the slayer of Laius to be tracked down
and punished. Oedipus takes up the case with all
his energy, and step by step discovers the truth,
that he has fallen into the very doom of which Apollo
warned him, that he is himself the son and the mur-
derer of Laius and the paramour of his own mother.
This revelation, in which proof after proof is hurled
at the luckless king, is the most effective in all litera-
ture. Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus, who can
no longer bear the light of day, puts out his eyes,
and is finally allowed to go into exile.
In old age Sophocles completed the story in his
Oedipus at Colonus. The hero with his two daughters
has taken refuge in Attica, the mythical protectress
of the outcast. Good king Theseus grants him
shelter, and in the peaceful grove, near the poet's
own home, he finds his last resting-place. Creon
comes with threats to demand his surrender, and
Polynices, his thankless son, now in exile, is con-
36 GREEK LITERATURE
demned by his father's curse. But the serenity of
the age-worn sufferer is untouched, and his end is a
beatific translation to a better world. Cicero says
that Sophocles was brought into court by one of his
sons, who sought an interdict against him as incom-
petent to manage his estate ; and that the poet
read aloud from his unpublished play the beautiful
chorus describing Colonus ; whereupon the jury,
their patriotism and admiration touched, at once
dismissed the case.
The Trachiniae deals with the death of Heracles,
caused by the robe poisoned in the blood of the
centaur Nessus. Deianira, to regain the love of Her-
acles, uses this as a charm. Heracles is tortured by
the poison and dies on a pyre. The character of
Deianira is full of pathos. Her joyful expectation
of her lord's homecoming, her dismay at his infidelity,
her forbearance towards a young rival whom she
pities, and finally her silent resolution to die on the
receipt of the fatal news, are presented with true
humanity. In the Philoctetes Sophocles used a
theme from the Trojan war that had already been
used by Aeschylus and by Euripides. Philoctetes
had been bitten by a snake and was marooned on
the island Lemnos when the great expedition sailed
on to Troy. Nevertheless this lonely wretch with
a festering wound in his foot has the only weapon
that can take the city, the bow and arrows of Her-
acles. In Sophocles' play Odysseus and Neoptole-
mus arrive from Troy to fetch the hero. Philoctetes
receives the younger man rapturously, and pours
out an unspeakably touching account of his woes.
TRAGEDY 37
Neoptolemus has been primed by Odysseus to outwit
Philoctetes and steal the bow. He does this, but his
nobler nature quickly asserts itself and he gives
back the weapon. Philoctetes now flatly refuses to
help the Greeks, and the matter is only settled by the
miraculous appearance of Heracles, who bids Philoc-
tetes be of good cheer and set sail for Troy. This
device of the de,us ex machina was abused by
Euripides, but is magnificently effective in the
present instance.
Sophocles improved the drama by the addition of a
third actor. This made possible more complicated
action and a finer play of character. The chorus,
whose number he raised to fifteen, becomes less
important than with Aeschylus.
In the technique of tragedy Sophocles holds the
highest place. His plots unfold with sheer inevita-
bility. His character-drawing is vivid and con-
sistent ; he is a master of eloquence, alike in pleading,
in narration, and in wrath. His dialogue is full of
subtle balance and retort ; his lyrics have not the
grandeur of Aeschylus but they glow with a mellow
radiance of poetic fire. Tragic irony, in which the
speaker uses words of whose hidden meaning he is
unaware while the audience marks it, is an effective
device in the hands of Sophocles. He is the most
Attic of the tragedians — if not the greatest, yet cer-
tainly the most perfect.
Euripides (485-407/6 B.C.), the third of the great
Attic tragedians, was born at Salamis, became a
disciple of the philosopher Anaxagoras, and a friend
of Socrates and the Sicilian rhetorician Protagoras.
38 GREEK LITERATURE
He is said to have written ninety-two plays, but only
gained the first prize five times. Of a retiring nature,
he lived much alone at Salamis, where Aristophanes
jestingly shows him surrounded with his books and
tragic properties. Euripides' last years were spent
at the court of Archelaus in Macedonia.
Euripides, though less admired in his own day,
has been the most popular Attic dramatist in later
antiquity and modern times. This is due, firstly,
to the pathos of some of his scenes, next to the simple
beauty of his lyrics, and thirdly to his critical attitude
towards the facts of life. A reader would not be
struck by the weakness of plot, the frigidity in the
speeches, and frequent lack of tragic dignity which
must have displeased the Athenian theatrical public.
The chorus is now felt as a hindrance to the action,
partly because the myths suited to choric treatment
had been exhausted. In Euripides it is a spectator
of the drama uttering platitudes and singing more
or less irrelevant odes. Sometimes it leaves the stage
altogether. To obviate misunderstanding of the
legend, which Euripides often altered to suit his
purpose, he uses a prologue in the modern sense,
practically addressed to the spectators. The appear-
ance of a god on the stage was a frequent device in all
tragedy. But while in Aeschylus the whole atmos-
phere is so unearthly that this causes no astonish-
ment, Euripides resorts to it to clear up an otherwise
hopeless situation, or at best to give a kind of epilogue
detailing the destinies of the characters. For ex-
ample, in the Iphigenia in Tauris Orestes has come,
in obedience to Apollo, to rescue his sister from the
TRAGEDY 39
clutches of Thoas, in whose land strangers are sacri-
ficed, and to carry off the image of Artemis. After
a touching recognition, Iphigenia plans their escape
by desperate cunning. After a fierce fight with
some of Thoas' followers they take ship, only to be
driven back by a contrary wind, and left at the
mercy of Thoas. Suddenly Athena appears and
orders Thoas to let the fugitives sail with the image.
He obeys and all ends happily. It will be seen that
up to the final stroke the gods have taken no part in
the action. Apollo, whose oracle suggested the
venture, gives no help whatever. The human
characters are left altogether to their own resources,
and a certain and tragic failure stares them in the
face. Exactly similar conclusions recur in many
plays. What did Euripides mean ? Does he be-
lieve that the gods do intervene, however late, or
that their help is an incredible addition to the real
inhumanity of the early legends ? The latter view
finds favour to-day. Euripides often shows the
gods, especially Apollo, in an odious light, yet he
protests that the gods can do no evil. Hence it is
thought that Euripides had learnt a more philo-
sophical religion from Anaxagoras and other thinkers,
and while outwardly following the legends, wishes
to bring home to the intelligent part of his audience
the folly and barbarism of primitive beliefs.
The diction of Euripides is less elevated than that
of the other dramatists. His dialogue approaches
the simplicity of every-day life. Often in his set
speeches he makes free use of rhetoric. In lyrics he
sometimes gives us a symphony of beautiful sounds,
40 GREEK LITERATURE
with repeated words or groups of synonyms without
very much regard to the sense.
Seventeen of his plays are extant. The Cyclops
is the one surviving satyr-drama. It deals with
the adventure of Odysseus in the Cyclops' cave in
a spirit of conventional buffoonery. With some
exceptions the earlier plays are more cheerful in
tone than the later; and it has been thought that
Euripides, inspired by Pericles' ideals, wished to
glorify Athens, while his disappointment in their
failure and disgust at the excesses of the democracy
may have saddened the last part of his life.
Much attention has lately been paid to Euripides'
attitude to women. It used to be said that he was
a misogynist, but the fact seems to be that he tries
to show women with their real good and bad qualities
instead of conventional virtues invented for them
by men.
In the Medea Jason has won the Golden Fleece
and brought Medea home as his bride. He then
tires of her and for political reasons weds Glauce.
He attempts to justify his conduct on the plea that
Medea is really better off in Greece than in a bar-
barian land. Medea in a passion of jealousy resolves
on the only possible vengeance, the murder of their
two children. She commits this crime and escapes,
leaving Jason in despair. Medea's account of the
grievances of her sex exceeds the demands of the
situation ; but we must remember that women
were present at tragic performances. The genius of
Euripides forces us to sympathise with the wife and
mother, witch and murderess though she be, rather
TRAGEDY 41
than the respectable Jason, who has done nothing
against conventional Greek morality, but is none
the less depicted as a quibbler and a coward. Against
this must be set the many virtuous heroines in
Euripides : Alcestis, for example, dies without a
murmur to save Admetus, her amiable but mean-
spirited husband. When she is restored by the
intervention of Heracles, we can only feel that
Admetus is worthily deprived even of the dignity
of suffering.
Even where Euripides shows the commoner failings
of women, he does so with a certain sympathy.
Electra has been called a typical old maid. In the
other dramatists she is a tragic heroine, rebellious
in bondage and dignified under oppression ; in
Euripides' Electra she is banished from court, wedded
to an old peasant, and burdened with tasks that
make her weary and querulous. The vengeance of
Orestes on Aegisthus is shown as a sordid crime. Electra
sends for Clytemnestra, who arrives in state, but sad
at heart, not knowing of her paramour's death. We
see the pathos of her sin and splendour. For a
moment she pities Electra, who answers ironically
and invites her into the cottage where she lives.
There Orestes slays his mother. After the deed both
brother and sister are plunged in remorse. The
Dioscuri order Orestes to go wandering, and Electra
to marry his friend Pylades ; and we can hardly
determine which of the murderers has the heavier
punishment. It is worth noting that the wickedness
of the chief characters is contrasted with the almost
tiresome virtue of Electra's nominal husband, the
42 GREEK LITERATURE
old peasant. Euripides fully believed that moral
goodness was independent of rank.
The final achievement of Euripides' life was the
Bacchae. In earlier plays he had criticised the
traditional religion, but now he seems to return to
orthodoxy. The subject of the play is the intro-
duction of Bacchic worship at Thebes, and the fate
of Pentheus, who attempted to thwart its spread.
The whole population, including even Teiresias, and
the aged king Cadmus, is given up to this orgiastic
cult. Pentheus imprisons Bacchus, and forbids the
rites. The god escapes and lures Pentheus to dis-
guise himself and spy on the Bacchanals, who are
out on Mount Cithaeron. Pentheus is quickly de-
tected, and is torn to pieces by his mother Agave
and the other Maenads, who in their frenzy think he
is a young lion. In the ravings of Agave, and the
ecstatic hymns of the chorus, are some of the most
inspired passages of Euripides.
AESCHYLUS — Trans., verse: Campbell; Morshead.
SOPHOCLES — Trans., verse : Campbell ; some plays by
Murray; Phillimore. Prose: Jebb. EUBIPIDES —
Verse : Murray (some plays) ; Way. General : Haigh,
Attic Theatre and Tragic Drama of the Greeks ; Verrall,
Euripides the Rationalist, Four Plays of Euripides,
Bacchants of Euripides, and other Essays.
COMEDY 43
CHAPTER IV
COMEDY
GREEK comedy seems to have originated in rude
performances given at rustic festivals. Aristotle
says that it was taken from the Dorians. There is
evidence for such acting at Sparta, where grotesque
clay masks have been discovered, and also at Megara
and in Sicily. It is supposed that strolling players
crossed into Attica and introduced comedy. For a
long time it had no official recognition, but was
produced by subscription at Dionysian festivals.
Cratinus (520-422 B.C.) was the founder of political
comedy, his forerunners having written merely for
fun. Of him and other early comedians little remains.
We only know that they were free in attacking
political opponents and were more or less successful
rivals of Aristophanes.
Aristophanes (fl. 427-388 B.C.) was the greatest
master of the Old Comedy. His earliest plays are
mainly taken up with politics and support the Con-
servative party. He attacks Cleon and other
demagogues, and deplores the Peloponnesian war.
The Acharnians (425), Knights (424), Peace (421) are
mainly political. In the Clouds he ridicules the new
sophistic learning, of which Socrates is unfairly taken
as a representative. The Wasps (423) satirises the
litigious character of the Athenians. The Birds (414)
is a brilliant absurdity describing a city built in
mid-air by the birds, on the advice of two discon-
tented Athenians. It is probably a satire on the
44 GREEK LITERATURE
wild ambitions of Athens. In the Lysistrata (411)
the women of Greece are supposed to plot a universal
strike, which stops the Peloponnesian war. Two
plays, ThesmopJioriazusae (410) and Frogs (405), are
mainly aimed at Euripides, of whom orthodox
Athenians disapproved. In the Ecclesiazusae (393)
the poet ridicules current notions of socialism and
the rights of women. The latter form a parliament
which founds a communistic state. In the Plutus
the unjust distribution of wealth is discussed. Plutus,
god of wealth, regains his sight, whereby the good
are enriched and injustice ceases.
The Old Comedy can scarcely be said to have a
plot. There is a comic situation more or less fan-
tastic ; and the question at issue is usually debated
in set speeches. After the decision, various
irrelevant episodes are introduced. The chorus
sings odes between the acts, which are either satirical
or imitations of hymns or festal songs. An impor-
tant feature was the pardbasis, where the chorus
faced the audience, and addressed them in the name
of the poet. Thus Attic comedy was a kind of
pantomime, not devoid of serious purpose, full of
reference to current events, but using all means,
from the finest satire to the most vulgar buffoonery,
to raise a laugh.
The style of Aristophanes is remarkably vigorous ;
in comic ribaldry he is only to be compared with
Shakespeare. His wit is ever fresh and boisterous,
but he can write lyrics showing high poetic feeling
and a true love of nature.
To the Old Comedy succeeded the Middle Comedy ;
COMEDY 45
but there was of course no sharp division. Aris-
tophanes' last play, the Plutus, already shows most
of the features of the later species. Political and
individual satire is seldom found : the playwright is
more concerned with types of character ; and slaves,
cooks, and other low-class fellows supply the comic
element. Women play prominent parts ; two ap-
pear in the Plutus ; and in a fragment of Epicrates,
Lais in advancing years is compared to an old eagle,
no longer able to secure her prey. The chorus only
sings one short irrelevant ode in Plutus. Otherwise
the leader only takes part in the dialogue. In Middle
and New Comedy the chorus had a purely formal
connection with the play, and gave a performance of
singing and dancing between the acts.
The masters of the Middle Comedy are mere names
to us. Antiphanes (404-328) is said to have written
230 comedies. Alexis of Thurii (c. 390-288) ridi-
culed the Platonists. Timocles attacked Demos-
thenes. It appears that much variety of subject,
whether mythological, social, political, or philosophi-
cal, was still allowed. Many of the plays were
probably meant for reading rather than for the stage.
New Comedy differs in no essential from Middle
Comedy, but the process of evolution is now com-
plete. The genius of Menander gave classical drama
its final shape, and made it the prototype for the
Roman, mediaeval and modern theatre. We have
no means of telling how much credit is due to
Menander himself for such a momentous innovation,
and how much was the result of the spirit of his age.
But the fact remains, that there is no play, either
46 GREEK LITERATURE
tragic or comic (apart from opera and pantomime)
but owes its form (by direct historical descent) to the
Attic New Comedy. Menander did for comedy
what Euripides did for tragedy, and Socrates for
philosophy. He proved that " the proper study of
mankind is man." But while Euripides left no worthy
successor and so far killed ancient tragedy, Menander
founded a tradition that is still alive and fruitful.
He lived at Athens 342-291 B.C., was a student
of Theophrastus, a friend of Epicurus, and a lover
of the renowned beauty, Glycera. He wrote 108
plays. Apart from numerous quotations, we have
now large fragments of six plays, and can fairly judge
of Menander's style and methods. His plots are
taken from every-day life, and are concerned with
love, quarrels, and recognitions. Certain stock
characters, the heavy father, scapegrace son, de-
signing mistress, ingenious slave, braggart soldier,
make their appearance. The diction is simple, and
usually free from rhetoric. Menander excels as a
psychologist. His figures are not only of universal
interest as types, but possess that individuality
which makes them dramatically alive, and wins the
sympathy of the reader.
A few of his pithy sayings deserve quotation.
" No god goes about with money in his pocket, but
when propitious he provides means and shows oppor-
tunities : if you miss these don't beg of the gods, but
fight your own idle disposition." " We live not as we
like, but as we can." " Being a man ask not the
gods for freedom from vexation, but rather for pati-
ence. If you want to escape care, you must be a god
EARLY GREEK PROSE 47
or a corpse. But longsuffering is a cure for evil."
" In all men you'll find much to put up with : but if
the good outweighs the ill, then give credit accord-
ingly." " A man in misfortune is naturally confiding :
for being always disappointed in his own calculations,
he thinks his neighbour wiser than himself." " The
only chance for idle words is to make them short and
suited to the occasion." " Length of days is vexa-
tion of spirit. 0 grievous age, thou hast nought of
good, but much trouble and annoyance for men.
Yet we all desire and pray to attain unto thee."
" Surely love is the greatest of the gods and far the
most to be honoured. For there is no man so stingy
and exact in his ways, but has spent a part of his
belongings on this god. Those with whom love deals
lightly he compels to do this in their youth, but those
that postpone the reckoning till old age are forced to
pay with interest on arrears."
ARISTOPHANES — Trans., verse: Frere (some plays).
Text and verse trans. : Rogers. MENANDEB— -Greek
text and prose trans, by " Unus multorum."
CHAPTER V
EARLY GREEK PROSE I HERODOTUS, THUCYDIDES
UNTIL the sixth century the use of prose was confined
to documents, treaties, inventories, official records,
legal codes, and the ordinary affairs of life. It was
the rise of Ionian philosophy and history that created
the need for a literary vehicle of scientific expression.
48 GREEK LITERATURE
The critical spirit of Ionia began at this epoch to
revolt against the traditional theology and cosmo-
gony of the poets, and against the Orphic religion,
which threatened to dominate Greece by a system
of mystery and initiation. The lonians sought for a
rational explanation of nature. Thales of Miletus,
the father of European philosophy and science,
conceived of water as the principle of being. He
was so eminent an astronomer that he foretold the
solar eclipse of 585 B.C. Xenophanes, whose poetry
has already been mentioned, was a rationalistic
thinker and an enemy of Orphic mysticism : he
asserted that God is One and not like mortals.
Heracleitus of Ephesus (c. 500 B.C.) held the doctrine
of flux : "all things are in motion." He wrote in
a prose style peculiar to himself, terse and obscure.
Parmenides, who went back to verse to express his
doctrines, asserted the reality of Being, and cast
doubt upon the sense-data. The teaching of these
sages helped to win a great victory for freedom of
thought, and averted the danger of a narrow religious
domination. Little remains of the writings of the
early philosophers. Anaxagoras, the friend of Pericles
and Euripides (c. 440 B.C.), asserted the supremacy
of Mind. Democritus was the founder of the atomic
theory. Both these thinkers were famous for their
literary style, but the details of their systems belong
to the history of philosophy.
History begins in the writings of the logographers,
who wrote down the ancient legends in prose, and to
some extent co-ordinated them and related them to
family history or local tradition. The greatest of
EARLY GREEK PROSE 49
the logographers was Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 500 B.C.).
He was a traveller and geographer, and became the
political adviser of the lonians during their revolt
against Persia. His book of travels was freely used
by Herodotus. Hellanicus of Lesbos wrote a history
of Attica from the earliest times to his own day
(c. 430 B.C.).
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the Father of History,
was born about 485 B.C. Political troubles and the
desire to see the world sent him on his travels, and
he visited Asia Minor, Babylon, and Egypt. He
lived for some time at Athens, and joined the
Athenian colony to Thurii in Italy (443 B.C.), which
country he also came to know well. The subject of
his work is the Persian wars, regarded as an episode
in the age-long struggle between East and West.
Herodotus knew the Attic tragedians well, and has
an Aeschylean belief in Nemesis. The gods hate
excessive prosperity. The fate of the great invasion
appears as a direct retribution for the pride and
impiety of Xerxes. The hero in the tragedy is the
Athenian democracy. It is not surprising that the
people of Athens favoured and rewarded Herodotus.
But beyond everything Herodotus is a story-teller.
He does not seek facts for their political significance,
but for their picturesqueness and dramatic interest.
In narrative power he is a true heir of epic tradition.
Speeches, almost Homeric in style, adorn his work.
His dialect is a literary Ionic, which he writes in an
easy, flowing manner, not without some new rhetorical
devices. The Alexandrines divided his history into
nine books, named after the Muses. He first sets
D
50 GREEK LITERATURE
before us the rise of the Persian empire and the
fate of the kingdoms on whose ruin it was built.
In Book ii. the Persian invasion of Egypt is the
occasion for a detailed description of the religion,
customs, and natural features of the country. Hero-
dotus was an eager but very uncritical inquirer, and
all kinds of curious tales were foisted on him during
his wanderings. He certainly did not believe all he
heard ; but he relates a good story, whenever he
finds one, without vouching for strict accuracy.
The third and fourth books deal with the consolida-
tion of the Persian empire by Darius, and his invasion
of Scythia ; Books v.-ix. deal with the Ionic revolt
and the Persian wars, including frequent digressions
on the early conflicts of the Greek states. The
capture of Sestos by the Athenians in 478 B.C. is the
final event in his history. In writing of military and
political matters Herodotus suffered from lack of
expert knowledge. He was inexperienced in war, and
had no informants in touch with the strategic move-
ments of the time. In respect of numbers he is quite
untrustworthy, and he lacked the critical power to
disentangle the truth from the tissue of error and
prejudice that his sources presented. Nor is he free
from superstition, and a belief in oracles natural to
a religious man in that age. On the other hand, he
is fair-minded, and honestly desires to speak the
truth. His love of Athens does not blind him to
the merits of the other Greeks or of the barbarians.
The Persian wars were an event of world-wide im-
portance, and we owe our knowledge of them almost
wholly to Herodotus. Besides that, he has given
EARLY GREEK PROSE 51
mankind one of the most delightful story-books in
existence.
Although few years separate Herodotus from
Thucydides, the two authors are totally different
in style, method, and outlook upon life. Thucydides
was an Athenian, and his genius was influenced by
the new sophistic learning which flourished at Athens
in the later fifth century. Democracy had invaded
every side of public life. Success in politics de-
pended largely on the power of swaying the assembly
by eloquence. In law all important cases came before
large juries highly susceptible to persuasive speech.
Any citizen might find himself at the mercy of an
informer if he could not defend himself in open
court. Hence the art of rhetoric, first cultivated
in Sicily, gained an immediate footing at Athens,
and the cleverest young men of the day thronged to
hear its professors. But the science of words alone
could not satisfy the eager learners : geometry,
astronomy, dialectic, geography, and political science
were all included in the new Higher Learning.
Many of the teachers, called Sophists, were foreigners
settled at Athens, and their curriculum shocked the
more conservative sort, who believed that the old
poets, with a smattering of music and plenty of
athletics, were the safest subjects of education.
Protagoras of Abdera (c. 450 B.C.), known to us
from Plato, was a man of versatile ability. He
founded the science of grammar, and lectured on
rhetoric and ethics. For his unorthodox views on
religion he was prosecuted and fled from Athens.
Among the other sophists Gorgias of Leontini in
52 GREEK LITERATURE
Sicily (born c. 485 B.C.) was the most famous teacher
of rhetoric. He came on an embassy to Athens in
427, and attracted such a following that he remained
there, writing show speeches, e.g. funeral orations,
and giving lessons. His prose is highly rhythmical,
with a careful balance of clauses, and much an-
tithesis. Though carried to excess by Gorgias and
his followers, these devices become part of the regular
style of Greek oratory.
The merits of the sophists were their ingenuity
and variety of interests. Their chief fault was that
they aimed at success rather than virtue. Their
pupils were cultured men and astute politicians ;
they were not always good citizens.
Thucydides was born near Athens between 471
and 461 B.C. He came of a noble and wealthy
family, and is said to have learned rhetoric from the
orator Antiphon. During the early years of the
Peloponnesian war he was at Athens. He took the
plague in 430, but recovered. In 424 he was in
command of a small fleet meant to protect the
Athenian possessions in Thrace. But the active
Brasides, the Spartan general, forestalled him by the
occupation of Amphipolis. Thucydides was banished
after this failure, and spent twenty years in exile.
His plan of a history of the Peloponnesian war now
took shape, and he visited the chief sites, watched
the course of campaigns and political movements,
and by associating with both sides, learned their
motives and methods.
His history is in eight books, of which the first
seven show signs of revision after the end of the war.
EARLY GREEK PROSE 53
The eighth, giving events following the Athenian
disaster in Sicily, never received the finishing touches.
The arrangement of his history is highly syste-
matic. Book i. is introductory, dealing chiefly with
the growth of the Athenian empire and the pre-
liminaries of the war. Books ii., iii., and iv.
contain the earlier campaigns, which are arranged
chronologically by summers and winters. In Book
v. come the events leading up to the Peace of Nicias
in 421, and the complications before the Sicilian
expedition. This latter is the subject of Books vi.
and vii., and Book viii. contains the events subse-
quent to it down to 411 B.C. The few digressions
are intended to give accurate details of some race,
country, or episode. Outside the speeches the chief
reflective passage is suggested by the cruelties of
party strife at Corcyra.
" Every form of death was to be seen, and every-
thing, and more than everything that commonly
happens in revolutions, happened then. The father
slew the son, and the suppliants were torn from the
temples and slain near them ; some of them were even
walled up in the temple of Dionysus and there per-
ished. To such extremes of cruelty did revolution
go ; and this seemed to be the worst of revolutions,
because it was the first. . . .
" When troubles had once begun in the cities, those
who followed carried the revolutionary spirit further
and further, and determined to outdo the report of
all who had preceded them by the ingenuity of their
enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges. The
meaning of the words had no longer the same re-
54 GREEK LITERATURE
lation to things, but was changed by them as they
thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be
loyal courage ; prudent delay was the excuse of a
coward ; moderation was the disguise of unmanly
weakness ; to know everything was to do nothing.
Frantic energy was the true quality of a man. A
conspirator who wanted to be safe was a recreant in
disguise. The lover of violence was always trusted,
and his opponent suspected. He who succeeded in
a plot was deemed knowing, but a still greater master
in craft was he who detected one. . . .
" Revenge was dearer than self-preservation. Any
agreements sworn to by either party, when they
could do nothing else, were binding as long as both
were powerless. But he who on a favourable oppor-
tunity first took courage and struck at his enemy
when he saw him off his guard, had greater pleasure
in a perfidious than he would have had in an open
act of revenge ; he congratulated himself that he had
taken the safer course, and also that he had over-
reached his enemy and gained the prize of superior
ability." (Trans., Jowett.)
Thucydides is the first scientific historian. His
object is to show how human beings have acted and
will act under certain given circumstances. Divine
intervention plays no part in his scheme. It is with
the ambitions, plans, fortunes of states and individuals
that he is concerned. He refuses to embellish his
work with legends or personalities. This conception
of the dignity of history may have led him to ignore
facts that, though trifling in themselves, influenced
the course of events. As a seeker for truth and an
EARLY GREEK PROSE 55
impartial narrator he is above reproach. He claims
to state nothing on mere hearsay, but to have ascer-
tained from all available sources the exact truth in
every case. But his scientific spirit has not destroyed
his humanity. The Peloponnesian war is a tragedy,
and Thucydides' own country is the victim. Her
sufferings in the plague and during the fatal Sicilian
expedition are brought home to us with a pathos
intensified by reticence. Thucydides may have felt
that a kind of Nemesis had overtaken Athens for her
ambition and cruelty. But this is due to no divine
vengeance, but to the innate blindness and infatuation
of human nature. Everywhere he sees man growing
insolent in prosperity, reckless and treacherous in
party strife, and ruthless in the hour of victory. It
is the wise man, who knows human frailty and the
transience of prosperity and is forearmed by pru-
dence against reverse, that Thucydides most admires.
For Pericles, the trusted leader of imperial Athens,
he has a genuine respect. The funeral oration
assigned to him by Thucydides is a splendid monu-
ment of the glory of Athens.
A few phrases may be quoted here :
" I have dwelt upon the greatness of Athens be-
cause I want to show you that we are contending for
a higher prize than those who enjoy none of these
privileges, and to establish by manifest proof the
merit of these men whom I am now commemorating.
Their loftiest praise has been already spoken. For in
magnifying the city I have magnified them, whose
virtues made her glorious. . . .
" Any one can discourse to you for ever about the
56 GREEK LITERATURE
advantages of a brave defence which you know
already. But instead of listening to him I would
have you day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness
of Athens, until you become filled with the love of
her ; and when you are impressed by the spectacle of
her glory, reflect that this empire has been acquired
by men who knew their duty and had the courage to
do it, who in the hour of conflict had the fear of dis-
honour always present to them, and who, if ever they
failed in an enterprise, would not allow their virtues
to be lost to their country, but freely gave their lives
to her as the fairest offering which they could present
at her feast. The sacrifice which they collectively
made was individually repaid to them ; for they
received again each one for himself a praise which
grows not old, and the noblest of all sepulchres — I
speak not of that in which their remains are laid, but
of that in which her glory survives, and is proclaimed
always and on all fitting occasions both in word and
deed. For the whole earth is the sepulchre of famous
men ; not only are they commemorated by columns
and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign
lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of
them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men."
(Trans., Jowett.)
The speeches which fill a large place in Thucydides*
history do not profess to be reports of what was
actually delivered, nor are they, on the other hand,
mere rhetorical exhibitions. The object of the
speeches is to sum up a situation and to bring out
the principles involved. Here Thucydides shows his
rhetorical training ; his speeches are full of anti-
EARLY GREEK PROSE 57
thesis, complicated in grammatical structure, and
condensed in reasoning. Most ancient critics con-
demn their obscurity.
A favourite device of Thucydides was to give the
speeches made on both sides of a question, or by
opposing leaders before a battle. Among these the
rival arguments of Cleon and Diodotus on the pun-
ishment of the revolted Mytileneans may be taken as
typical. Cleon maintained that might is right, that
subject states can only be held by fear, and he rallies
the assembly on its fickleness and craving for novelty.
Thucydides disliked Cleon, but deftly uses him to
point out the weakness of the Athenian democracy.
The reply of Diodotus is a careful essay on the theory
of punishment. Human nature, he says, can never
be restrained by fear as long as hope suggests the
possibility of impunity. Therefore to terrify the
allies would only nerve them to more desperate re-
sistance. The true course is to remove the tempta-
tion to revolt, to dissemble even well-grounded
suspicion, and if an offender has to be punished, to
do this in such a moderate way as to secure a useful
subject for the future. It is scarcely credible that
such cool logic can really have been used before the
excitable Athenian assembly when it was a question
of life or death for the whole population of Mytilene.
In the debate on the fate of the island of Melos
Thucydides marshals his arguments in dialogue
form. The Athenians ruthlessly assert the doctrine
of Cleon, which they speedily put into practice by
the capture of Melos and the slaughter of its adult
citizens. This episode stands ominously before the
58 GREEK LITERATURE
Sicilian expedition. Thucydides does not remark on
the cruelty of Athens ; but we feel his indignation
to be too deep for words.
The task of continuing the history of Thucydides
to the end of the Peloponnesian war and later fell to
a man of very different temperament from Thucy-
dides himself. Xenophon was born in Attica about
430 B.C. ; he became a disciple of Socrates. In 401
he joined the expedition of Cyrus against his brother,
King Artaxerxes. Xenophon, who went as a
volunteer, led the Ten Thousand on their famous
retreat. In 396 he took service with Agesilaus,
King of Sparta, and fought in various campaigns on
the Spartan side. He was rewarded by the gift of
an estate near Olympia, where he lived for twenty
years as a country squire. In letters he was an
amateur ; his records of Socrates, of which the
Memorabilia is the chief, preserve some valuable
details, but show little understanding of Socratic
teaching. In the Economicus, we have a conversa-
tion on household and farm-management. The
Anabasis describes the expedition of Cyrus already
mentioned ; it gives an interesting account of the
interior of Asia, and reveals the cool bravery and
resource of the Greek mercenaries who had chosen
Xenophon to lead them home. The Hellenica,
intended as a continuation of Thucydides, is bald in
style, and marred by a prejudice in favour of Sparta
and of his own general, Agesilaus. In the Cyropaedia
Xenophon expresses his own educational ideals. The
book professes to describe the elder Cyrus, but the
account of his education is chiefly drawn from the
EARLY GREEK PROSE 59
Spartan discipline, with some Persian features, and
a few biographical anecdotes. Xenophon was a
keen huntsman and lover of the country, but the
book on hunting ascribed to him, the Cynegeticus,
is considered spurious. Xenophon does not write
a pure- Attic Greek, but his narrative style and his
occasional descriptions of scenery are not without
simple charm.
Two historians of the second rank flourished in the
fourth century. Theopompus of Chios wrote a
sequel to Xenophon's Hellenica, and a history of
Philip of Macedonia. Ephorus of Cyme wrote a
universal history from the coming of the Dorians to
340 B.C. This work was much used by later his-
torians. Both Ephorus and Theopompus were
pupils of the great rhetorician Isocrates, whose
elaborate style, as the few extant fragments show,
they did not fail to imitate. Part of the writings
of another historian has recently been found in an
Egyptian papyrus. The extant portion deals with
the wars of the fourth century. Cratippus, an obscure
writer of the period, is supposed to be the author.
PHILOSOPHY — Burnet, Early Greek Philosophers, w.
trans.; Benn, Greek Philosophers. HEBODOTUS — Trans.,
Rawlinson, Macaulay. THTJCYDIDES — Trans., Jowett.
XENOPHON — Trans., Dakyns. GENERAL — Bury, J. B.,
The Ancient Greek Historians.
60 GREEK LITERATURE
CHAPTER VI
PHILOSOPHY : PLATO, ARISTOTLE
THE Ionian sages had chiefly busied themselves with
speculations on the nature of the material world.
It was the glory of Athenian thinkers to lay a
scientific basis for ethics, and to construct a workable
system of logic. The man whose eccentric genius
originated this movement was Socrates (469-399
B.C.). His father was a sculptor, but Socrates had
a fair general education, and soon forsook his father's
craft for his chosen mission of teacher and reformer.
A divine voice, heard from time to time in his inmost
soul, strengthened his self-confidence, as did the
remarkable saying of the Delphic Oracle that no
man was wiser than Socrates. He wrote nothing,
but imparted his views in talk and cross-examination.
He had no respect for venerable fallacies, and had a
sure eye for an opponent's weak spot. Traditional
doctrines, social, moral, and political, were subjected
to a searching criticism, which exasperated the
wiseacre and shocked the orthodox. Unlike the
Sophists, Socrates took no fees and did not train
men for any special career. He was as stimulating
to the young and open-minded as he was vexatious to
the old and opinionated. At first an object of good-
humoured banter, he finally came under the bitter
hatred of the democracy. He was suspected of
oligarchic leanings. Some of his pupils, Alcibiades,
Critias, and Xenophon, had given signal proof of their
unpatriotism. After the fall of the Thirty Tyrants
PHILOSOPHY: PLATO, ARISTOTLE 61
an indictment was brought against Socrates by
Anytus, an honest but narrow-minded democrat.
He was charged with irreligion and the corruption of
youth. Scorning flight or recantation, he was
sentenced to death, and met his end with a martyr's
courage.
No cosmogony or body of doctrine emanated from
Socrates. It is in the aim and method of philosophy
that he was an innovator. The axiom of his teaching
is that virtue is knowledge. Men sin through
ignorance. No one willingly chooses the worse rather
than the better. Therefore men must be taught to
know the good. The majority of mankind have no
clear notions of the moral principles which they
obey. Hence Socrates sought for definitions, and
arrived at general concepts by inductive reasoning.
Of the various schools of philosophy which claimed
descent from Socratic teaching, three may be men-
tioned. Antisthenes (c. 422 B.C.) was the founder of
the Cynics, whose doctrines were self-sufficiency
and contempt for the world. Later Cynics, like
Diogenes of Sinope (412-323 B.C.), practised an
austere asceticism, which the Greeks as a whole greatly
disliked. Aristippus of Cyrene and Epicurus, the
Athenian (342-270 B.C.), may be classed together
as regarding happiness to be the aim of life.
The former was a hedonist and looked upon pleasure
as a good, while the more moderate Epicureans
sought rather for tranquillity and absence of pain.
The Stoics, of whom Zeno (died c. 260 B.C.) was the
founder, held that virtue is the highest good, and
that a truly wise man is independent of his environ-
62 GREEK LITERATURE
ment. This sturdy, uncompromising system ap-
pealed in later times to many of the noblest Romans,
such as Cato and Marcus Aurelius, while the doc-
trines of Epicurus were a ready cloak for the pleasure-
seeker. The literary remains of these schools are
scanty.
Most of our knowledge of Socrates' personality
and teaching is due to the ablest of his followers,
Plato, the son of Ariston (427-347 B.C.). He came of
a noble family and was familiar with all the current
philosophic thought of his day, as well as with
literature and the other subjects of Athenian edu-
cation. For eight years he was an ardent disciple
of Socrates, and after his death visited Egypt and
the west. He had a nattering welcome from the
great Sicilian prince Dionysius I ; but tyranny was
hateful to the philosopher, and he soon returned to
Athens, where he set up his school of philosophy at
the gymnasium of the Academy. When Dionysius II
succeeded his father, Plato was tempted to revisit
Syracuse in 367, by the prospect of founding an ideal
state on Utopian lines. Dionysius was young and
enthusiastic, but when Plato, true to his own
doctrines, imposed a course of geometry on the
whole court, he presently wearied of the experiment ;
and Plato left Sicily disappointed.
As Socrates had taught chiefly in conversation, it
was natural for Plato to perpetuate his teaching in
dialogues. Forty-two of these have come down
under Plato's name, besides the Apology, a speech
put into the mouth of Socrates in his own defence,
thirteen mostly spurious letters, and a number of
PHILOSOPHY; PLATO, ARISTOTLE 63
epigrams. The dialogue has several advantages
over a formal treatise. It enables real persons
to speak in character, and it allows the vivid
presentation of both sides of a question, without
committing the writer to a doctrine felt to be un-
certain. On the other hand it was a little too easy
to make the chief speaker unfailingly elicit answers
that strengthened his case ; and when exposition
was needed, the trifling comments or assent of the
listeners are mere concessions to form. Plato keeps
himself wholly in the background, and allows Socrates
to dominate his works.
The search for exact definition, and the belief that
Virtue is Knowledge, were common to master and
disciple, but in other respects it is hard to sift out
the truly Socratic elements from the great mass of
Platonic teaching. Plato was more of a visionary,
and the imaginative passages must be his own
creation. His style is ornate and poetical.
In some dialogues little or no positive result is
reached. The Lysis, for example, is an argument
on the nature of friendship. It is held among a
group of men and youths who are all friends ; but
although many suggestive remarks are made, the
main question is left unsolved. So in the Euthyphro
it is asked, " What is piety ? " but no answer is
arrived at. In the Theaeketus the whole basis of
knowledge is subjected to a similar negative process.
The Euthydemus ridicules the pretensions of the
Sophists, of whose influence Plato disapproved.
The Protagoras and Gorgias are named after the
great sophist and the great rhetorician of whom
64 GREEK LITERATURE
Plato gives striking descriptions. In the latter
dialogue Socrates makes a noble plea for absolute
morality against utilitarianism. In the former he
takes the other side, and argues that sin is only an
error, while virtue is a teachable quality, namely
the power of choosing what is really worth having.
The same question about virtue is raised in the
Meno, where the doctrine of Reminiscence is stated.
Plato holds that " our birth is but a sleep and a
forgetting," and that, when the truth is put before
us, we remember what we knew in a former state.
In two very remarkable dialogues, the Symposium
and Phaedrus, the Platonic theory of love is revealed,
that Eros is one, and that the passion for Truth and
the love of the Beautiful are only two manifestations
of the same instinct. The Symposium or Banquet
was given by Agathon, the tragic poet, after a dramatic
victory. Aristophanes is among the speakers. The
climax of the dialogue is the entrance of the young
Alcibiades with some fellow-revellers, and the eulogy
of Socrates which he delivers. The Phaedrus also
contains a more constructive theory of rhetoric and
refers favourably to Isocrates, the great teacher of it,
to whom Plato elsewhere alludes with disapproval.
In the Phaedo is the story of the last hours of
Socrates and his inspired discourse on Immortality.
The inveterate arguer is true to his nature almost to
the last, and plunges into a course of intricate reason-
ing based largely on Plato's metaphysical system.
The death-scene, in its simple pathos, is hardly to be
read without tears. Idealistic thinkers of all ages
have found inspiration in this dialogue.
PHILOSOPHY: PLATO, ARISTOTLE 65
Plato's contribution to metaphysics was the theory
of Ideas. Ideas are what we call Universals or
general concepts. Plato assigned to these an ob-
jective existence, in some higher sphere of being,
where they are directly apprehended by the souls of
the righteous. In this ideal world the Idea of Good
is what the sun is in the visible world. Material
objects owe their qualities to their likeness to the
corresponding Idea. The human mind can only
approach to the Ideas by the path of dialectic. Such
a system, though not easy to refute, landed its votaries
in difficulties of which Plato himself was well aware.
What was the exact relation of the Idea to its material
copy ? Has every object, however mean, an Ideal
prototype ? To such questions there is no definite
answer: but Plato exalts his metaphysics almost
into a religion, and, when argument fails, he resorts
to the poetical device of a myth. His views of the
destiny of the soul hereafter, its reward or punish-
ment, and reincarnation or final beatification, are
given in passages of most imaginative eloquence,
half mystical, half phantastic, a kind of fiction more
deeply true than truth.
The most important of Plato's constructive works
is the Republic. The question is raised : What is
Justice ? And it is soon discovered that justice can
only exist in an ideal state. This Plato proceeds to
describe. The philosophers had little sympathy
with democracy. Plato's state is governed by a small
caste of " Guardians," who are at once philosophers,
soldiers, and statesmen, while the ordinary citizens
are to be compelled simply to mind their own busi-
E
66 GREEK LITERATURE
ness. The education and life of the Guardians is the
main topic of the dialogue. They were to hold
property in common, to contract temporary mar-
riages on strictly eugenic lines ; parents to have no
control over their children's upbringing (indeed they
are not to know who their children are), which is to
be state-regulated in every detail. Men and women
are to be equal and to have the same education.
Music and philosophy (including of course mathe-
matics) are its main subjects ; poetry, even Homer's,
is excluded. A new religion, based on the theory of
ideas, with new myths is to be taught. The supreme
power is to be wielded by a small council of elders,
all true philosophers.
This picture of an ideal state, obviously drawn
in part from Sparta, is the prototype of all later
Utopias. In the Laws, a work of Plato's old age,
this ideal scheme is somewhat modified, Plato having
perhaps been convinced of the impracticability of
his own theories and wishing to adapt them to
Athenian taste.
As a writer Plato is remarkably fresh and stimu-
lating : he is constantly throwing out brilliant sug-
gestions which have inspired the most various schools
of thought. It is impossible to read him without
being thrilled by the enthusiasm of his search for
truth, and the higher nature of every man re-
sponds instinctively to the loftiness of his moral
appeal.
I may be allowed to quote two characteristic
PHILOSOPHY: PLATO, ARISTOTLE 67
THE IDEA OF GOOD
"Now, that which imparts truth to the known
and the power of knowing to the knower is what I
would have you term the idea of good, and this you
will deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in
so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge ;
beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you
will be right in esteeming this other nature as more
beautiful than either, and, as in the previous in-
stance, light and sight may be truly said to be like
the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other
sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like
the good, but not the good ; the good has a place of
honour yet higher.
" What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said,
which is the author of science and truth, and yet
surpasses them in beauty ; for you surely cannot
mean to say that pleasure is the good ?
" God forbid, I replied ; but may I ask you to
consider the image in another point of view ?
" In what point of view ?
" You would say, would you not, that the sun is not
only the author of visibility in all visible things, but
of generation and nourishment and growth, though
he himself is not generation ?
" Certainly.
" In like manner the good may be said to be not
only the author of knowledge to all things known,
but of their being and essence, and yet the good
is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity
and power." — (Republic, Bk. vi, trans., Jowett.)
68 GREEK LITERATURE
ON THE BEAUTIFUL
" He who has been instructed thus far in the things
of love and who has learned to see the beautiful in
due order and succession, when he comes toward the
end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous
beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of alJ
our former toils) — a nature which in the first place is
everlasting, not growing and decaying or waxing and
waning ; secondly, not fair in one point of view and
foul in another, or at one time or in one relation . . .
but beauty absolute, separate, simple and everlasting,
which without diminution and without increase, or
any change is imparted to the ever-growing and
perishing beauties of all other things. He who from
these ascending under the influence of true love,
begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the
end. And the true order of going, or being led by
another, to the things of love, is to begin from the
beauties of the earth and mount upwards for the sake
of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and
from one going on to two, and from two to all fair
forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from
fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions
he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at
last knows what the essence of beauty is." —
(Symposium, 211, trans., Jowett.)
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was born at Stagira on
the north coast of the Aegean. He studied rhetoric
under Isocrates and philosophy under Plato. Later
he became the tutor of Alexander the Great, who
was then fourteen years old. In 335 he opened the
philosophic school of the Lyceum at Athens. Here
PHILOSOPHY: PLATO, ARISTOTLE 69
he taught until 323, when he was endangered by a
reaction against the Macedonian dominion, of which
he approved, and was obliged to leave the city.
Aristotle was both a writer and a lecturer. His
school was called Peripatetic, because discourses
were given while teacher and pupil were strolling
through the groves of the Lyceum. His advanced
or esoteric lectures were given from notes, which
were treasured by his followers, and perhaps not
published in book form until 50 B.C. This accounts
for the disconnected style of Aristotle's greater
works, while his popular treatises were carefully
written and published by the author himself.
Aristotle was a man of encyclopaedic knowledge,
and his works are said to have reached four hundred
in number. In natural science he was a shrewd
observer, as his books on zoology and astronomy
prove. Logic and metaphysics (so named from
coming after his Physics) he regarded as funda-
mental sciences. In the Metaphysics he enunciates
the principle of the Four Causes, formal, material,
efficient, and final. He attacks the Platonic theory
of the Ideas, allowing them no objective existence.
In the Ethics he arrives at practical definitions of
Happiness and Virtue, and develops his view of
the Golden Mean. Each good quality is the mean
between two bad ones, e.g. courage between cowardice
and foolhardiness ; truthfulness between self -de-
preciation and boastfulness. In this connection
Aristotle gives a picture of the high-minded man,
whose conscious merit is the crown of all the other
virtues : Christian humility was certainly not
among these. Having found certain principles for
70 GREEK LITERATURE
the conduct of the individual, Aristotle naturally
passes to consider in what kind of state his principles
are best exercised. In the Politics, a work owing
much to Plato, Aristotle gives his ideal constitution,
which is to be a small city-state under a carefully-
trained aristocratic government. Plato's wilder
theories were as unacceptable to Aristotle as the
imperial ambitions of Alexander. Criticism of actual
constitutions and a system of education for the
governing class hold an important place in the
treatise. Aristotle had a high opinion of music in
character training. The Constitution of Athens,
discovered in a papyrus in 1885, is the one survivor
of 158 popular handbooks on Greek forms of govern-
ment.
The Poetics is an incomplete work on poetry and
drama, the chief extant portion dealing with tragedy.
Aristotle's canons were partly versified in Horace's
Ars Poetica, and have been regarded since the six-
teenth century as almost oracular. To him we owe
the notion of the purification of the emotions by
pity and terror as an essential function of tragedy,
the first hint of the Unities of the drama, and the
suggestion that Art is an improved imitation of nature.
In his criticism of the Attic stage Aristotle is fair
and acute, and though the attempts made to apply
his canons directly to modern drama have not
always succeeded, there is no doubt that the Poetics
laid the foundation of scientific literary criticism.
Aristotle regarded rhetoric, the art of persuasion,
as akin to dialectic. In the work which bears that
name he first considers the nature of proof and the
PHILOSOPHY: PLATO, ARISTOTLE 71
rhetorical syllogism or enthymeme ; next the re-
lation of the speaker to his audience, and the effect
of his character upon them ; and finally prose
rhythm and style. Aristotle strongly objected to
exaggerated and poetical turns, and condemned
the irrelevance and appeal to the passions too often
tolerated in the Athenian law courts.
To every subject Aristotle brought a methodical
mind stored with immense learning. He was a
great systematiser and co-ordinator, classifying facts
and equipping science with exact terms and de-
finitions. The mediaeval lore of the Schoolmen was
based upon his work. But besides the oddities of
his style there is a certain dry intellectuality in
Aristotle which makes us feel that Plato with all his
mistakes and unpractical dreams is a more inspiring
and greater teacher. Yet in rare moments Aristotle
too rises to enthusiasm, as when in the Ethics he
shows the divine dignity of the contemplative life,
or in his ode in praise of Virtue he likens her to a
maiden wooed of many in Greece, but to be won
only by arduous toil.
Theophrastus (372-287 B.C.), the successor of
Aristotle at the Lyceum, has left us two treatises on
botany and a small series of psychological portraits
called Characters. The bulk of his work is lost.
Psychology was the main interest in the writings of
Theophrastus' friend, the great dramatist Menander,
and here too we have a mild satire, not devoid of
humour, on various types of vice and folly, such as
Cowardice, Superstition, or Petty Vanity. Theo-
phrastus is severe on the ill-treatment of slaves,
72 GREEK LITERATURE
but otherwise deals more with outward faults of
bearing than with moral depravity.
PLATO — Trans., Jowett ; Davies and Vaughan, Repub.
ARISTOTLE — Trans., Welldon, Pol. Rhet. Eth. ; M'Mahon,
Metaph. ; Peters* Ethics ; Owen, Logic, &c. ; Misc. works
trans. , edd. Smith and Ross. POETICS — Text with trans.,
Butcher, Bywater. THEOPHBASTUS — Trans., Jebb.
GENERAL — Gomperz, Greek Thinkers ; Nettleship,
Lectures on Republic of Plato ; Pater, Plato and
Platonism.
CHAPTER VII
ORATORY I ISOCRATES, DEMOSTHENES
MENTION has already been made of the teaching of
the Rhetoricians at Athens. The first native orator
of distinction whose writings have survived is
Antiphon (c. 480-411 B.C.). Politically an extreme
oligarch, he took part in the revolution of the 400,
and was implicated in intrigues with Sparta. On
the fall of the 400 he was tried for treason and
executed. His defence at this trial was his most
famous speech. A number of model speeches,
written for the instruction of his pupils, all dealing
with murder cases, are extant, besides three actual
court pleadings. Antiphon shows the influence of
Sicilian rhetoric, and makes free use of moral common-
places and the argument from probability. His
style, which is stiff and archaic, resembles that of
Thucydides.
Andocides (c. 440-390 B.C.) was implicated in the
mutilation of the Hermae just before the Sicilian
ORATORY 73
expedition in 415. He was arrested on suspicion,
but allowed to escape on informing against others.
About 410 he made the extant speech On the Return,
claiming pardon for his old offence ; he did not,
however, succeed until the amnesty of 403. A few
years later the original charge was again brought
up, and Andocides defended himself in his best-
known speech On the Mysteries, which it was alleged
the old sentence debarred him from attending.
The speech contains a tortuous account of the con-
spiracy. Andocides was acquitted and went in
391 on a mission to Sparta, after which his speech
On the Peace was delivered. His style is simple
and sometimes trivial, seldom impressive.
Lysias (c. 440-380 B.C.) was the son of a Sicilian
and lived at Athens as an alien. For his services in
the democratic restoration in 403 it was proposed
to confer citizenship on Lysias. The motion passed
the Assembly but was overruled on technical grounds,
so that he continued to reside as an alien but em-
ployed himself in speech-writing.
In the Athenian law courts every litigant was
obliged to plead his own case, but there was nothing
to prevent him from procuring a speech written by
a professional and then reciting it to the jury. Nearly
all the so-called private orations of the Attic orators
were intended to be delivered in this way. Lysias
had a special skill in fitting his style to the character
of the litigant. His manner was simple and per-
suasive, with natural eloquence and apparent sin-
cerity ; he was skilled in inventing attractive intro-
ductions. His Greek is a pure and graceful Attic.
74 GREEK LITERATURE
In the Phaedrus a show-speech attributed to Lysias
is quoted and by many critics it is thought to be
genuine. Plato disapproved of the profession of
Lysias but admired his style.
On the restoration of the democracy in 403, Lysias
prosecuted one of the tyrants who were responsible
for the death of his brother. The speech Against
Eratosthenes is Lysias' greatest achievement. It
contains a vivid and dramatic account of the mis-
deeds of the Thirty. Over 400 speeches were as-
signed to Lysias in antiquity, of which about thirty
survive.
Isaeus (c. 389-352 B.C.) was an imitator of Lysias,
though less skilful in impersonating character. His
style is more artificial. Eleven speeches are extant,
all dealing with inheritance cases.
Isocrates (436-338 B.C.) was the greatest Athenian
teacher of rhetoric. He opened his school in 393
and trained the chief orators of his time. His suc-
cess roused the jealousy of philosophers, as we gather
from Plato. Isocrates had no power of delivery, and
his chief works appeared as pamphlets in which he
dealt with the great political questions of the day.
Twenty-one speeches and nine letters survive. His
chief production was the Panegyricus. The leading
idea is that the Greeks must combine against Persia
under such a leader as Philip of Macedon. In the
Panaihenaicus (342) he delivers a panegyric on
Athens. Isocrates bestowed extraordinary pains on
the composition of speeches, and perfected the
periodic style. He made a rule of the absolute
avoidance of hiatus. Although we feel that form
ORATORY 75
is more than substance in such oratorical displays,
yet Isoorates is an undeniable master of his own art.
Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.) was the greatest of
Athenian orators. He was early left an orphan,
and was defrauded by his guardian, whom he subse-
quently prosecuted with success. After an arduous
training he became a brilliant public speaker as well
as an accomplished speech-writer for the courts.
His Private Orations show a great power of narrative
and of refuting an opponent's argument. But it
was in political cases and in the Assembly that he
found his true sphere. He excelled all others in
swaying the passions of the Athenian populace. The
history of Demosthenes' oratorical career is the
history of Athens. At first he leads the opposition
to the cautious policy of Enbulus. But the latter
was well-suited to the unwarlike temper of the
Athenians, and Demosthenes was usually unsuccess-
ful. The advance of the Macedonian power began
to alarm Athenian patriots, and Demosthenes spares
no effort to rouse his countrymen to make a stand
against Philip. In the First Philippic he eloquently
exhorts the people to arm against the northern in-
vader and to shrink from no sacrifice to make resist-
ance effective. The Assembly, however, refused to
be roused. In 349, when Philip was attacking
Chalcidice, Demosthenes in his Olynthiac Orations
urges that a citizen-army should be sent to help
Olynthus, the chief town of the district, and that
the festival fund, from which the people were sup-
plied with free seats in the theatre, should be used
for the war. But his advice was taken too late.
76 GREEK LITERATURE
After the peace of Philostratus (346) Demosthenes
turned his energy against the Macedonian party.
In the speech Against Midias, with whom he had a
private feud, Demosthenes displays a rare power of
invective. In a speech On the False Embassy he at-
tacks unsuccessfully his great rival Aeschines. By
340 he had persuaded the Athenians to break entirely
with Philip and to devote the festival fund to the war.
In 338 Philip invaded Greece, and Demosthenes in-
duced the Thebans to make an alliance with Athens
against Macedonia. The Greeks were defeated at
Chaeronaea, and the policy of Demosthenes was
discredited. In 330 Aeschines brought an action
against Ctesiphon, who had proposed that Demos-
thenes should have a gold crown for his public ser-
vices. This action gave Demosthenes the chance
of vindicating his whole career in the grandest of his
speeches, On the Crown. The result was a complete
triumph, and Aeschines was obliged to leave
Athens. Demosthenes was involved in the abortive
rising after the death of Alexander. The Mace-
donian general Antipater demanded his surrender,
to avoid which Demosthenes took poison.
The style of Demosthenes is highly rhythmical, with
a careful balance of clauses, but his manner is
generally simple. He is stronger in invective than
pathos, and his personality, keen and enthusiastic,
dominates everything that he wrote. Indeed his
genius as an orator made him less effective as a
statesman ; he was led astray by patriotic fervour
to overrate the possibilities of Athens in his time.
The great days of Periclean imperialism could not
ORATORY 77
be recalled by any art of words, and in his fierce
opposition to Macedonia Demosthenes has incurred
the blame of scientific historians. But this was the
noble error of a true patriot, and there was nothing
that made his speeches effective so much as the
heartfelt enthusiasm for the freedom of Greece with
which he was inspired.
Aeschines (fl. 357-330 B.C.) was the great rival of
Demosthenes and supporter of Macedonian interests
at Athens. Demosthenes tried to prosecute him for
treason in 345, but Aeschines diverted the attack by
exposing in his speech Against Timarchus the private
misconduct of Demosthenes' coadjutor. Again in
343 Aeschines, in an eloquent speech On the False
Embassy, successfully defended himself against the
impeachment laid by Demosthenes. He had another
triumph at Delphi, where he turned the anger of the
Amphictyonic Council, who were threatening Athens
with a Sacred War, against the Amphissans on a
charge of sacrilege. In 330 he signally failed, as
has been said, in his prosecution of Ctesiphon. His
speech is extant, but its effectiveness falls far short
of Demosthenes' masterpiece. After this reverse he
withdrew to Rhodes and lived as a teacher. Al-
though Aeschines was a self-made man, and an un-
scrupulous politician, he had high oratorical powers ;
and his readiness in extempore speaking, with no
small gift of invective and vigorous description,
atoned for his lack of professional training. His
style is somewhat theatrical, and admits poetical
words. As a paid intriguer in the Macedonian cause
he can lay no claim to the high patriotic fervour of
78 GREEK LITERATURE
Demosthenes. But the latter too, it must be re-
membered, was not above taking a present, and the
verdict of history tends to justify the policy of
Aeschines.
Hyperides (389-322 B.C.) was a statesman of the
Demosthenic party, and an energetic agitator against
Macedonia, who prosecuted in political trials some
of the Macedonian agents. He fell into the hands
of the conquerors after the Lamian war, and was put
to death. On one occasion he appeared against
Demosthenes, when the latter had appropriated
some of the money brought to Athens by Harpalus,
the absconding treasurer of Alexander. Demosthenes
was fined. The chief surviving speech of political
importance is the Funeral Oration for the fallen in
the Lamian war. It shows the smooth, limpid, and
pathetic style for which Hyperides was famous.
This speech and several private pleadings have been
recovered in Egyptian papyri. The art of Hyperides,
lacking the dignity of the great political orators,
was specially effective in cases where the personal
element was strong, as in his famous defence of
Phryne, the reigning beauty, and in the extant
speech Against Athenogenes, exposing the fraud of
an Egyptian scent-maker. The critic Longinus
showers praise on Hyperides, but only intends to
prove that with all his technical perfection he fell
far short of the genius of Demosthenes.
Lycurgus (c. 390-324 B.C.) also belonged to the
patriotic party. He studied under Isocrates, and
became the chief financial minister of Athens. He
was energetic in beautifying the city, and the Theatre
HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGES 79
of Dionysus, still remaining on the south side of the
Acropolis, was built under his administration. He
also published official acting editions of the great
Attic playwrights. Love of country made him a
stern avenger of disloyalty and cowardice. His one
extant speech, Against Leocrates, is aimed at one who
had fled from Athens after the disaster at Chaeronaea,
and whom on his return Lycurgus impeaches on a
capital charge. The attack was extremely bitter,
and the accused barely escaped. The speech is full
of quotations, including thirty-two lines of Tyrtaeus.
GENERAL — Jebb, Attic Orators. DEMOSTHENES —
Trans. : Collier, Kennedy, Leland.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HELLENISTIC AND KOMAN AGES
AFTER Alexander's conquests, and the consequent
expansion of the Greek race over a great part of the
Levant, Greek was established as the court-language
of the Hellenistic princes, and became the general
means of communication among educated people.
But it was no longer the old tongue. The ancient
dialects begin to die out, and we find on the one
hand a new popular speech, and on the other a
literary idiom, upholding most of the Attic tradition,
and becoming less and less akin to the spoken
language. Between these stood the so-called Koine
or common dialect, as the ordinary written medium
used throughout the Greek world. This persisted
80 GREEK LITERATURE
with some changes and varying degrees of purity
during the Roman and Byzantine ages, and finally
resulted in the literary Greek of the present day.
The more popular tongue is known to us from
innumerable papyri discovered in Egypt. Here we
see Greek used in business documents, letters, con-
tracts, and all every-day concerns. The language
of the Septuagint and New Testament is virtually
the same as this. Its main features are the loss of
many idioms, greater simplicity of construction with
fewer subordinate clauses, and probably some Oriental
or Hebrew influence. As the language of Holy
Scripture it has coloured all Christian 4iterature,
and is the ancestress of spoken modern Greek ; but
the more ambitious Greek writers of all ages, and
on all subjects, have aimed at a higher classical
diction.
POETRY
An artificial language has a worse effect on verse
than on prose : it checks the fancy, and never reaches
the heart of the people. Most of the later Greek
poets write for a select cultured audience, and as
they became the models for much of Latin poetry,
their faults of stiffness and pedantry were borrowed
by Rome from the school of Alexandria.
But two new poetical forms appear, the Idyll and
the Mime, which were meant for a wider public.
THE IDYLL
It was reserved for the Hellenistic age to give
pastoral poetry an artistic form. The town-life of the
great cities created a desire for refreshment among
HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGES 81
rural scenes. Theocritus was the first to adapt the
rude strains of Sicilian shepherds to the taste of
cultured readers. The subjects of these rustic
poems were taken from native folklore. Thus the
works of Theocritus are purely artificial productions ;
but his inimitable grace, his love of nature, his pathos,
and his humour make him one of the most delightful
of Greek poets. His popularity in antiquity was
boundless ; and he set the model for all later idyllists.
He lived c. 310-270 B.C. partly at Cos, partly in
Sicily, as well as at Alexandria. Besides his poems
of rustic life, he wrote short epics, epigrams, and
two idylls of town life, one of which, describing
the visit of two Sicilian ladies to the festival of
Adonis, is among the most humorous poems of
antiquity.
I quote the tenth idyll, which shows that blend
of sentiment with playful irony beloved by Theo-
critus :
Two reapers, MILO and BATTUS.
M. What now, poor o'erworked drudge, is on thy mind ?
No more in even swathe thou layest the corn :
Thy fellow-reapers leave thee far behind,
As flocks a ewe that's footsore from a thoru.
By noon and midday what will be thy plight
If now, so soon, thy sickle fails to bite 1
B. Hewn from hard rocks, untired at set of sun,
Milo, didst ne'er regret some absent one ?
M. Not I. What time have workers for regret ?
B. Hath love ne'er kept thee from thy slumbers yet ?
M. Nay, heaven forbid ! If once the cat taste cream !
B. Milo, these ten days love hath been my dream.
M. You drain your wine, while vinegar's scarce with me.
B. Hence since last spring untrimmed my borders be.
F
82 GREEK LITERATURE
M. What lass flouts thee ? B. She whom we heard play
Amongst Hippocoon's reapers yesterday.
M. Your sins have found you out — you're e'en served right:
You'll clasp a corn-crake in your arms all night.
B. You laugh : but headstrong Love is blind no less
Than Plutus : talking big is foolishness.
M. I talk not big. But My the corn-ears low
And trill the while some love-song — easier so
Will seem your toil : you used to sing, I know.
B. Maids of Pieria, of my slim lass sing !
One touch of yours ennobles everything.
(Sings) Fairy Bombyca ! thee do men report
Lean, dusk, a gipsy : I alone nut-brown.
Violets and pencilled hyacinths are swart,
Yet first of flowers they're chosen for a crown.
As goats pursue the clover, wolves the goat,
And cranes the ploughman, upon thee I dote.
Had I but Cro3sus' wealth, we twain should stand
Gold-sculptured in Love's temple ; thou, thy lyre
(Ay or a rose or apple) in thy hand,
I in my brave new shoon and dance-attire.
Fairy Bombyca ! twinkling dice thy feet,
Poppies thy lips, thy ways none knows how sweet !
M. Who dreamed what subtle strains our bumpkin wrought ?
How shone the artist in each measured verse !
Fie on the beard that I have grown for naught !
Mark, lad, these lines, by glorious Lytierse.
(Sings) O rich in fruit and cornblade : be this field
Tilled well, Demeter, and fair fruitage yield !
Avoid a noontide nap, ye threshing men :
The chaff flies thickest from the corn-ears then.
Wake when the lark wakes ; when he slumbers, close
Your work, ye reapers : and at noontide doze.
HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGES 83
Boys, the frogs' life for me ! They need not him
Who fills the flagon, for in drink they swim.
Better boil herbs, tliou toiler after gain,
Than splitting cummin, split thy hand in twain.
Strains such as these, I trow, befit them well
Who toil and moil when noon is at its height :
Thy meagre love-tale, bumpkin, thou shouldst tell
Thy grandam as she wakes up ere 'tis light.
(Trans. C. S. Calverley.)
Theocritus' imitators, Bion and Mosclms, though
not lacking in poetical feeling, have no true love of
the country, nor possess the imagination of their
master.
THE MIME— HERODAS (fl. c. 300-250 B.C.)
A Mime is a dramatic sketch, usually of humble
life, performed by one actor.
Herodas is a sheer realist. His metre (the scazon)
is harsh and unpoetical. He shrinks from no ex-
tremity of vice or horror ; but his sketches are won-
derfully true and lifelike, however sordid or repulsive.
Of his seven surviving mimes we may mention
No. 3, in which a woman brings a disobedient son
to be flogged by a schoolmaster, who positively
gloats over the task. In No. 4 two women visit
the temple of Aesclepius at Cos, where they
admire paintings by Apelles, and make fatuous com-
ments. No. 5 depicts the fury of a jealous woman
who orders a slave, whom she has loved, a thousand
lashes. She then relents and countermands the
order.
84 GREEK LITERATURE
THE FABLE
Only one other writer of the more popular order
needs mentioning. This is Babrius (first or second
century A.D.), who versified in simple language the
fables going under the name of Aesop. The latter is
a somewhat mythical figure, placed in the sixth century
B.C., and whose fables must have been largely tra-
ditional. Babrius is not without merit as a writer,
and his work has been a school-book in all ages.
THE EPIGEAM
An epigram was originally an inscription on some
object, usually a votive offering, statue, or tomb.
Later the form embodied moral or lyrical sentiments,
descriptions, or gibes.
This branch of poetry was successfully cultivated
down to the Byzantine age. It needed no sustained
inspiration, and encouraged the ingenuity of inferior
minds. Nevertheless the best Greek epigrams are
unmatched in their own field. Theocritus, Calli-
maclius, Alexander of Aetolia, and Leonidas of Taren-
tum (all about the third century B.C.) were the chief
early epigrammatists. Leonidas is notable for his
love of the sea.
Meleager (c. 60 B.C.) made a collection of epigrams
enriched with many of his own. He is pre-eminently
a love-poet. His verse is full of poetic fire and an
Oriental richness, due partly to his Syrian origin.
In the Roman age Philippus (first century), Strato
of Sardis (age of Hadrian), the latter mainly a love-
poet, were notable. The grammarian Palladas
HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGES 85
(fifth century), and Agathias (c. A D. 550), and many
others wrote epigrams. Agathias also made a col-
lection, which was partly absorbed in that of Maxi-
mus Planudes (fourteenth century), known to us as
the Anthologia Palatina, in which the most famous
epigrams are preserved.
Translations from the Anthology have often been
made. I quote a few :
" A child of five short years, unknown to woe,
Callimachus my name, I rest below.
Mourn not my fate. If few the joys of life,
Few were its ills, its conflicts ; brief its strife."
LUCIAN, trans. T. Farley.
Thais in advancing Years.
" Venus, take my votive glass,
Since I am not what I was :
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see."
[PLATO], trans. Prior.
" Thou sleep'st, soft silken flower. Would I were Sleep,
For ever on those lids my watch to keep.
So should I have thee all my own ; nor he,
Who seals Love's wakeful eyes, my rival be."
MELEAGER, trans. J. H. Merivale.
" The stars, my Star, thou view'st ; heaven might I be,
That I with many eyes might gaze on thee."
[PLATO], trans. T. Stanley
LYEIC POETEY
The so-called Anacreontea, poems of various dates,
mostly written in iambic half -lines, artificial but not
unhappy imitations of Anacreon, are the nearest
86 GREEK LITERATURE
approach to lyric poetry in this age. Although
none of these sound the true note of passion, and
suggest the schoolmaster rather than the lover, they
are easy, pleasant reading, and have often been ad-
mired and translated. Only a few pedants experi-
mented in the older lyric metres, for, as poetry was
now to read not to sing, there was no advantage in
elaborate song-forms.
LEARNED POETRY — THE ALEXANDRINE EPIC AND
DIDACTIC SCHOOL
Aratus of Soli (fl. c. 276 B.C.) lived at the court of
Antigonus Gonatas, King of Macedonia, and wrote
a work on astronomy called Phenomena. The metre
is the Homeric hexameter, and the poem, though of
small poetical merit, is correct in form, and was much
admired in antiquity. Cicero translated it.
Callimachus, after studying at Athens, became
librarian at Alexandria under Ptolemy Philadelphus
(285-247 B.C.). He is said to have written 800 books
on literary, historical, and religious subjects, in-
cluding many poems in the elegiac metre. Of his
hymns and epigrams many survive. But his longest
poem, on the origins of myths (Aitiai), is lost, while
the best known, the Lock of Berenice, is extant only
in Catullus' Latin version.
Apollonius Ehodius became librarian at Alexandria
under Ptolemy Epiphanes (205-181 B.C.). He wrote
several learned epics, of which the most important,
the Argonautica, survives. It deals with Jason's
cruise for the Golden Fleece, and was imitated by
Valerius Flaccus. In attempting a long epic in the
HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGES 87
manner of Homer, Apollonius was opposing the
doctrines of his master, Callimachus. The latter
advocated the newer forms, such as the short epic
and elegy. A bitter literary quarrel ensued between
the two poets and their admirers. Apollonius writes
Homeric Greek with ease, adding new poetical turns.
His descriptions of places and treatment of emo-
tion are good — for example, the account of Jason's
meeting with Medea in a temple. But his narrative
is lifeless, and he digresses too much on antiquarian
matters.
In the fourth and fifth centuries, a time of great
literary activity, we see the final effort of pagan
epic.
Nonnus of Panopolis in Egypt (fifth century A.D.)
wrote a poem in forty-eight books on the Myth of
Dionysus. He modified the Homeric hexameter to
suit the current pronunciation of Greek, where
quantity was no longer heard. His style, like that
of the earlier Alexandrians, is rich in poetical words
and phrases ; but he is prone to extravagance and
bathos. Thus Mount Cithaeron weeps, Dionysus
dances in his mother's womb, and Atlas spins the
heavens on his shoulders. Late in life Nonnus be-
came a Christian and versified the Fourth Gospel.
His follower Musaeus (date uncertain) wrote an epic
of 340 lines on the legend of Leander and Hero. This
has been called " the last rose in the fading garden of
Greek poetry." Musaeus, like his master, was con-
verted, and may have found fresh inspiration in the
new Faith, which now claimed the greatest intellects
of his time.
88 GREEK LITERATURE
PROSE
Of the historians of the Hellenistic age only trifling
fragments remain. The rise of the Roman empire
was a theme that inspired one of the most notable
men of the second century B.C., the statesman and
traveller Polybius. Sent to Rome as a hostage of
the Achaean League, he became the friend of Scipio
the Younger. Shortly after his exile the fall of
Corinth brought Greece finally under the power of
Rome. Polybius was convinced that the imperial
career of Rome was the will of Heaven. He accom-
panied Scipio in the last campaign against Carthage,
and he brought to the study of history the experience
of a statesman and a soldier's eye. His history in
forty books extended from the first Punic war to
144 B.C. Only five whole books remain ; but these
are enough to make him the leading authority for the
Punic wars, the Achaean League, and the earlier
Roman wars of conquest. In the collection of
material Polybius was very conscientious ; in im-
partiality and clearsightedness he is the true suc-
cessor of Thucydides, but, unlike his model, he despises
style. This fault was partly due to a reaction
against his rhetorical predecessors, whom he often
attacks for their historical incompetence. His dia-
lect resembles the common speech of the day.
Diodorus Siculus (c. 40 B.C.) wrote a universal
history down to Caesar's Gallic war. His arrange-
ment is annalistic, but is not free from confusion.
In covering such a vast period he was obliged to
borrow uncritically from historians of varying merit.
HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN AGES 89
But for many periods he is our sole authority. Out-
side a few studied battle-pieces his style is tedious.
Two geographical writers deserve mention. Strabo
(c. 54 B.C.-A.D. 24) in his Geography describes most of
the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Though
not always accurate, the work is pleasantly written and
gives valuable information. Pausanias (second cen-
tury A.D.) wrote a Description of Greece based on his
own travels, giving an account of the chief cities and
their monuments. The past had more charm for this
author than the present, and we owe to him many
details of ancient history, archaeology, and religion.
Most of the historians of the Roman age have little
literary interest. An exception must be made for
Arrian (c. A.D. 95-175). A native of Asia, he strove
to return to a pure Attic style. His chief work is
the Anabasis of Alexander the Great, a historical
work of some merit.
The most popular writer of the age was Plutarch
of Chaeronaea (born c. A.D. 50). His best-known
work, the Parallel Lives, has been the delight of
subsequent ages. The lives, numbering forty-eight,
are nearly all arranged in pairs, one Greek and one
Roman, on the basis of some similarity in the circum-
stances. Plutarch is a biographer, not a historian.
His chief interest is in character and conduct, which
he illustrates by anecdote and reminiscence. His
miscellaneous works deal with a great variety of
moral, religious, and literary subjects. In religion
he was an allegorist, and tried to interpret the old
religion spiritually. He attacks the Epicureans, and
expounds Egyptian theology. It may be said that
90 GREEK LITERATURE
we have more general information about antiquity
from Plutarch than from any other single writer.
Two treatises on literature belong to this age ;
that of Demetrius on Style, a discussion of the art
of prose writing, based on Aristotle's Rhetoric ; and
a work On the Sublime, assigned to Longinus (died
A.D. 273). This is one of the world's best critical
essays. The author had a faultless taste and a
glowing enthusiasm for ancient poetry.
The most successful of the Atticists was Lucian of
Samosata (c. A.D. 125-200). He was born in poverty,
and earned a precarious livelihood as a travelling
rhetorician and lecturer. His Attic style is singu-
larly pure ; he also studied philosophy and revived
the dialogue as a literary form. He uses mythology
as a subject for jest, and shows a very subtle sense of
humour. In a superstitious age he attacked credulity
and helped to undermine the old religion. Against
the pretensions of philosophers and rhetoricians he
is mercilessly sarcastic. His own style is remarkably
easy and smooth, and not overloaded with rhetorical
devices.
THEOCRITUS, &c. — Trans., verse, Calverley ; prose,
Lang. HEEODAS — Trans., verse, Sharpley. ANTHO-
LOGY— Select trans., prose, Mackail ; verse, Grundy.
ANACEEONTEA — Trans., verse, Addison, Moore.
MUSAEUS — Trans., verse, Chapman. POLYBIUS —
Trans., Shuckburgh. STEABO — Trans., Hamilton and
Falconer. PAUSANIAS — Trans., Frazer. PLUTAECH —
Lives, trans., Langhorne. LONGINUS — Trans., Havell,
Stebbing. LUCIAN — Trans., Fowler
INDEX
AEOLIANS, 19
DEMETRIUS, 90
Aeschines, 76-7
Democritus, 48
Aeschylus, 30
Demosthenes, 45, 75-7, 78
Aesop, 84
Didactic poetry, 17, 86
Agathias, 85
Diodorus Siculus, 88
Alcaeus, 20
Diogenes, 61
Alcman, 24
Dithyramb, 25, 28-9
Alexander of Aetolia, 84
Dorians, 24
Alexandrian literature, 80 ff.
Alexis, 45
ELEGIAC metre, 22, 26
Anacreon, 23
Ephorus, 59
Anacreontea, 85
Epic, Alexandrian, 86
Anaxagoras, 37, 48
— ancient, 9 £f.
Andocides, 72
Epicurus, 46, 61
Anthologia Palatina, 85
Epicureans, 61, 89
Antiphanes, 45
Epigram, 26, 84-5
Antiphon, 52, 72
Epinician odes, 26-8
Antisthenes, 61
Ethics of Aristotle, 69
Apollonius Rhodius, 86
Euripides, 37-42, 44
Aratus, 86
Archilochus, 22
FABLE, 84
Arion, 25
Aristarchus, 16
GNOMIC writers, 22
Aristippus, 61
Gorgias, 51, 63
Aristophanes, 43
Aristotle, 43, 68-71, 90
HECATAEUS, 49
Arrian, 89
Hellanicus, 49
Hellenistic age, 79 ff.
BABBITTS, 84
Heracleitus, 48
Bacchylides, 28
Herodas, 83
Bion, 83
Herodotus, 49-51
Hesiod, 17
CALLIMACHTTS, 84, 86
Hipponax, 23
Catullus, 86
Historians, 48, 88
Choliambic metre, 23
Homer, 9 ff.
Chorus, 30, 44
Homeric hymns, 16
Comedy, 43
Hyperides, 78
Cratinus, 43
Cratippus, 59
IAMBIC metre, 22, 29
Cyclic poets, 16
Idyll, 80
Cynics, 61
Iliad, 9 ff.
91
92
GREEK LITERATURE
lonians, 19
Isaeus, 74
Isocrates, 68, 74, 78
KOINE, 79
LEONIDAS of Tarentum, 84
Lesbos, 20
Logographers, 48
Longinus, 78, 90
Lucian, 90
Lyceum, 68, 71
Lycurgus, 78
Lysias, 73
MELEAGER, 84-5
Menander, 45
Middle Comedy, 45
Mime, 83
Mimnennus, 23
Moschus, 83
Musaeus, 87
Music, 20, 28, 70
NEW Comedy, 45
New Testament, 80
Nome, 28
Nonnus, 87
ODYSSEY, 12
Oratory, 52, 71, 72-9
Paean, 27
Palladas, 84
Parabasis, 44
Parmenides, 48
Parihenia, 25
Pastoral poetry, 81
Pausanias, 89
Peripatetic School, 69
Philippics of Demosthenes, 75
Philippus, 84
Phrynicus, 30
Pindar, 26
Pisistratus, 15, 29
Planudes, M.aximus, 85
Plato, 62-8
Plutarch, 89
Poetics of Aristotle, 70
Polybius, 88
Protagoras, 37, 51, 63
Republic of Plato, 65
Ehetoricians, 51, 72
SAPPHO, 20
Satyr-drama, 30
Semonides, 23
Septuagint, 80
Simonides, 25
Socrates, 37, 43, 68, 60
Solon, 15, 23
Sophists, 43, 51, 60, 63
Sophocles, 33
Stesichorus, 25
Stoics, 61
Strabo, 89
Strato, 84
TEEPANDEE, 24
Thales, 48
Theocritus, 81, 84
Theognis, 23
Theophrastus, 46, 71
Theopompus, 59
Thespis, 29
Thucydides, 51-8, 88
Timocles, 45
Timotheus, 28
Tragedy, 29-42
Tyrtaeus, 24, 79
XENOPHANES, 22, 48
Xenophon, 58, 60
ZENO, 61
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By Ford Fairford.
123. Tolstoy By L. Winstanley, M.A.
x*4. Greek Literature By H. J. W. Tillyard, M.A.
LONDON AND EDINBURGH: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
OPINIONS OF WEIGHT
THE NATION
"A wonderful enterprise, admirably planned, and deserving
the highest success.'*
WESTMINSTER GAZETTE
"We have nothing but the highest praise for these little
books, and no one who examines them will have anything
else."
TIMES
"The undertaking bids fair to prove of real value as an
educative influence. . . . The information that they give, far
from being scrappy, is wonderfully complete and clearly pre-
sented, and the judiciously chosen bibliographies at the end of
each volume will help their readers to pass on from these
capable treatises, which are something more than introductions,
to a fuller study of the several subjects."
NATURE
"The People's Books represent an independent and signi-
ficant venture, which we cordially hope will meet with success.
In this series we are provided with dainty volumes, written
by people whose lives have been devoted to the subjects which
they survey."
PALL MALL GAZETTE
" A series with a great and popular future."
MEDICAL TIMES
"We can imagine nothing better than these books for the
use of evening science classes or for private study . . . every
volume is well worth possessing."
ACADEMY
"The series bids fair to provide a liberal education at a
nominal cost to ail who are fortunate enough to possess it."
OBSERVER
" They seem to be taking the world for their parish."
DAILY CHRONICLE
" One volume, an anthology of verse, is entitled Pure Gold.
This surely would be a not improper name for the whole series."
SUNDAY TIMES
"Here are volumes which throw open all the treasures of
science, philosophy, history, and literature, as they are known
to scholars of the present generation, books which are planned
to cover the whole range of knowledge, and summarise some
particular branch in an easy and simple style that is sure to
urge the reader to closer study of the subject. Was I not right
in declaring that education is within everyone's reach to-day ?
With the * People's Books' in hand there should be nobody
of average intelligence unable to secure self-education. His
library — this library — should be his all-sufficing university,"
THE STAR (JOHANNESBURG)
"Probably this bold undertaking by Messrs. Jack is the first
attempt to throw open all the treasures of science, philosophy,
history, and literature known to scholars of the present genera-
tion. We have selected the series for special mention in our
leading rather than in our review columns, because we are con-
vinced that it is precisely what is wanted in South Africa and
other British Colonies, whose peoples are profoundly interested
in the new knowledge, but whose chances of obtaining accurate
information on the subject are few and far between,"
THE EXPOSITORY TIMES
"The most amazing of all the issues of cheap books which
have astonished our day and generation."
NOTES AND QUERIES
11 They are not only well ' up-to-date,' and the work of com-
petent authors, but are clearly printed on sufficiently good
paper and quite prettily bound."
MR. WILL CROOKS, M.P.
"The simple, homely language in dealing with a scientific
subject is such a rarity that at first sight one took to reading
without effort."
Tillyard, H*J.W.
Greek literature.
PA
3054-
.T5
cop. 2
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