THE history of Athens is scarcely less interesting from a political than from an artistic and architectural point of view. It affords the first example of a thoroughly organised democracy, and as such it has much to teach the nations of modern Europe, both in the way of encouragement and warning. Reference has already been made to what was done by Solon in the beginning of the sixth century B.C. to establish a constitutional form of government, in which all classes of the population, slaves only excepted, should have some degree of representation. The form of government which Solon introduced has been called a timocracy—property, not birth or rank, being the standard of political power. He divided the population into four classes, the highest consisting of citizens who possessed 500 medimni of corn. It was from this last class alone that the nine archons—Ministers of State in a restricted sense—and the strategoi or generals had to be chosen. All other offices were open to the whole population—the lowest class or Thetes alone excepted, whose Still more democratic measures were introduced, nearly a century later, by Cleisthenes, a member of the AlcmÆonid family. He abolished all class distinctions, with the single exception that the office of archon was still confined to the highest of the four classes recognised by Solon. He also divided the community into ten tribes; increased the number of the BoulÉ to 500, 50 being chosen from each tribe; and gave to the general Assembly, of which all citizens above eighteen years of age were members, a more definite and secure place in the constitution. No one was eligible for public office till he was thirty years of age. From each of the ten tribes 600 dicasts were annually appointed by lot, 5000 of the total number being required for service in the law courts, and the remaining 1000 for revision of the laws. It was also with Cleisthenes that the measure known as Ostracism originated. It gave the assembly power in any political emergency to banish from the country for ten years (later the period was changed to five years) any one whose presence seemed to endanger the safety of the state. When a vote of this nature was taken, each of the citizens could nominate for banishment any one he chose; but unless 6000 votes were recorded the whole proceedings fell to the ground. The measure seems a strange one, but it provided a safety-valve for political feeling on critical occasions before the institutions of the country had become firmly established. In the course of the fifth century ten politicians were ostracised, the first being Cleisthenes himself, and the last (417 B.C.) Hyperbolus, who was made a scape-goat for Alcibiades and Nicias, the two rival leaders of the day. By another singular enactment, directed against movements of a factious or seditious character, it was obligatory on every citizen, when civil commotions arose, to range himself either on one side or the other—neutrality in such circumstances being regarded as treason to the state. The constitution established by Cleisthenes remained in force as long as Athens continued to be a free state, with a few additional reforms, which gave it a still more democratic character. The restriction of the archonship to men of wealth was abolished, and the power of the Areopagus, the oldest and most venerable body in Athens, embracing in its membership all who had previously held the office of archon, was reduced to little more than the right of adjudicating in cases of alleged homicide. In the days of Pericles provision was made for the payment of citizens officiating as dicasts or jurymen, and a “Theoric Fund” was also In the age of Pericles the greatness of Athens reached its culminating point, and never before had democracy been so justified by its results. In the funeral oration delivered by Pericles on one occasion (p. 168) we have an attractive picture of the state whose fortunes he was guiding:— “From the magnitude of our city, the products of the whole earth are brought to us, so that our enjoyment of foreign luxuries is as much our own and assured as those which we grow at home.... We combine elegance of taste with simplicity of life, and we pursue knowledge without being enervated: we employ wealth not for talking and ostentation, but as a real help in the proper season. The magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil their domestic duties also—the private citizen, while engaged in professional business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we stand alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter not as harmless but as useless. In fine, I affirm that our city, considered as a whole, is the schoolmistress of Greece.”—Thuc. ii. 40. The continuity of the Athenian democracy was rudely broken by the Spartans the year after the fateful battle of Ægospotami. Having demolished the walls of the city (which was starved into surrender) amid the flute-playing and dancing of women crowned At Athens the drama was one of the most powerful educative influences in the community. The remains of what was no doubt in its time the chief Dionysiac theatre may be seen in the neighbourhood of the Acropolis—part of the southern face of the rock having been scarped to form the back of the theatre. Plato speaks of it as accommodating 30,000 people, but this is probably an exaggeration, 20,000 being nearer the mark. The front seats running round part of the orchestra are in the form of marble thrones, adorned with reliefs on their fronts and sides, and bearing the names of priests and other dignitaries for whom they were intended. These seats probably formed part of the original stone theatre, but the latest inscriptions date from the time of Hadrian. The Emperor’s throne seems to have stood on an elevation (still to be seen) in a central position behind the front row of seats, and images of him were set up in various parts of the theatre—a departure from the example of Lycurgus, who set up statues of the great dramatists, the bases of some of which are still in existence. Immediately in front of the seats is a circular wall, which appears to have been erected as a protection from wild beasts in the time of the Roman gladiatorial exhibitions. On the other side of the orchestra, facing the auditorium, are the remains of a stage with figures in relief, representing the birth of Dionysus and other cognate subjects, and a crouching Silenus supporting the stage. These were probably not set up in their present form before the third century A.D., though the marbles themselves may date from the time of Nero. Farther back there are the foundations of other stages of an earlier date, with a stoa or colonnade, intended as a shelter for the people in case of rain. Traces have also been found, partly beneath the present orchestra, of the primitive enclosure which served as an orchestra before the construction of the theatre. It was probably here that the most famous Greek tragedies were exhibited, though it appears to have been at a different spot, in the Agora, that the first play of Æschylus was enacted, when the scaffolding on which the people sat gave way, rendering it necessary that some new arrangement should be provided. At first a cart or table is said to have served as a stage for the actor, a booth being provided at a later time as a background and dressing-room, with some kind of platform for a stage, in the neighbourhood of a spot suitable for dancing and overlooked by a rising ground from which the spectators might be able to hear and see what was going on. It was probably not till about 330 B.C., in the days of Lycurgus, that the elaborately constructed theatre was Historically speaking, Greek tragedy, the flower and crown of Greek poetry, had a very humble origin. It was developed from the dithyramb, a lyric hymn in honour of Dionysus (Bacchus), which seems to have been derived from Thrace, and was of a wild, impassioned, semi-oriental character. Hence the theatre stood within the precincts sacred to Dionysus: and the foundations of a shrine, as well as of a larger temple in which the image of the god in gold and ivory was preserved, have been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood of the theatre. About 600 B.C. the dithyramb entered on a new phase in the hands of Arion of Methymna in Lesbos, who found Corinth a congenial scene for such revelry. He organised a chorus of fifty members in the form of satyrs tragedy or “goat song”), who danced around the altar or image of the wine-god. Half a century later this performance was introduced at Athens, and became a feature of the greater Dionysia which were instituted by the “Tyrant” Peisistratus. By and by, at one of these celebrations, Thespis, in order to give a rest to the chorus, came forward as a reciter of poetry, which he seems to have addressed not to the chorus, but to a person who was described as hypocrites (“answerer”), which became the name for an actor. The dramatic element thus introduced was strengthened a few years later by Æschylus, who provided employment for two actors and gave dialogue a more important place, though the entertainment was still largely of a lyrical character. A farther step was taken by Sophocles (who gained a victory over the great founder of Greek tragedy in 468 B.C.) by the addition of a third actor and the adoption of scene-painting. Sophocles arranged his plays in trilogies or sets of three, frequently choosing subjects that had no connection with each other, instead of the tetralogy (set of four), which had formerly been the fashion. As a result of this change the number of the chorus was increased to fifteen instead of twelve, which had been approximately the fourth part of Arion’s chorus of fifty. What strikes a western mind as the most remarkable thing about Greek tragedy is its high moral and “Our modern Puritans, who look upon the door of a theatre (according to the phrase of a famous Edinburgh preacher) as the gate of hell, might take any one of these seven plays which are here presented in an English dress, and, with the simple substitution of a few Bible designations for heathen ones, find, so far as moral and religious doctrine is concerned, that, with the smallest possible exercise of the pruning-knife, they might be exhibited in a Christian church, and be made to subserve the purposes of practical piety as usefully as many a sermon. The following passage from the Agamemnon is not a solitary gem from a heap of rubbish, but the very soul and significance of the Æschylean drama:— For Jove doth teach men wisdom, sternly wins To virtue by the tutoring of their sins; Yea! drops of torturing recollection chill The sleeper’s heart; ’gainst man’s rebellious will Jove works the wise remorse: Dread Powers, on awful seats enthroned, compel Our hearts with gracious force.” And again (p. xlviii):— “The lyrical tragedy of the Greeks presents, in a combination elsewhere unexampled, the best elements of our serious drama, our opera, our oratorio, our public worship, and our festal recreations. The people who prepared and enjoyed such an The religious element is not so prominent in the poetry of Sophocles, who brought his compositions to the highest perfection of art; and the rationalising element is still more apparent in Euripides, with whom philosophy may be said to have gained the ascendency. In his hands the Athenian drama lost to a large extent its ideal and heroic character, becoming realistic in its mode of thought, and showing the same speculative tendencies as the Sophists had begun to indulge in. Euripides represents a period of decline; but for intellectual keenness and subtlety, for humane sentiment and tender pathos, he is generally regarded as the greatest of the three. It gives us some idea of the marvellous intellectual wealth of Athens at this period in her history when we remember that the great poets we have mentioned were sometimes defeated by competitors, whose writings have unfortunately perished. Side by side with the later developments of Greek tragedy, Attic comedy reached its culminating point in the writings of Aristophanes, whose plays, eleven in number (dating from 427 B.C. onwards), are all that exist of the comic literature of this period. It originated in the droll procession, with merry song and rude comments on public affairs, which formed one of the features of the “Greater Dionysia”—borrowed no doubt from the rustic celebrations at vintage and harvest which are usually attributed to the Dorian genius. The plays in the theatre were only part of the Dionysiac festival, which was celebrated with great magnificence by a public procession and sacrifices. During the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., when the Greek drama was at its best, the responsibility of producing a play was generally undertaken by some rich man who was called the choregus, it being his duty to provide the chorus and furnish its members with suitable dresses. In the event of the play being successful in the competition, the choregus received a prize in the form of a tripod, which it was customary for him to set up in the precincts of Dionysus’ temple, or in an adjoining street. Fortunately one such monument has been preserved, which had been erected (as the inscription tells) by Lysicrates in 335 B.C.—surmounted by a bronze tripod, which has disappeared. Apart from its historical interest the monument has considerable value from an architectural point of view, as it is one of the earliest and finest specimens of the Corinthian order. It is in the form of a small circular temple of Pentelic marble, fully 20 feet high, standing on a high square pediment of PirÆic limestone 13 feet high, with a cornice of Hymettus marble. It is beautifully decorated in a chaste and delicate style, the roof consisting of a single leaf-shaped block of marble, and the frieze being ornamented with scenes in the mythological history of Dionysus. For many years it served as the library of a Capuchin convent which was built round it. The convent was a favourite residence for Englishmen at Athens, and Lord Byron is said to have used the interior of the monument for a study. The theatre was often used for public meetings. It was there that it was proposed to honour Demosthenes with a golden wreath in acknowledgment of the signal service he had rendered to his countrymen in reviving Another great educative influence in democratic Athens was the practice and the love of oratory. In the beginning of the sixth century B.C. we find Solon employing verses on political subjects for the persuasion of his countrymen, while at the same time condemning the incipient drama of Thespis, when he saw him acting, as tending to falsehood—emphasising his opinion, we are told, by striking his stick on the ground. It was not till nearly a century later that the cultivation of prose rhetoric became common in Greece. The Ionic philosophers of Asia Minor, and their successors in Magna GrÆcia, who had tried to grapple with the problems of the universe, gave place to the sophists The fact that every citizen who had a case in the law courts of Athens was obliged to plead his cause in person before a court consisting of about 500 jurors, gave a great impetus to the cultivation of oratory. Not only was the preparation of the speeches often entrusted to professional rhetoricians, but their services as teachers of elocution were also called into requisition by those who were anxious to do justice to their cause by means of an effective delivery. The general Assembly offered a still larger field for the practice of eloquence, on the part of those who were ambitious of a political career, and it was open to all citizens who chose to attend. The result was that the Athenians became as pre-eminent in their power of expression in language as in the visible forms of art. One of the most interesting spots in Athens is the Pnyx, where the Assembly usually met—“that angry, waspish, intractable, little old man, Demos of Pnyx”—to quote the words of Aristophanes. The place of meeting was a semicircular space on the face of a low rocky hill, a quarter of a mile west of the Acropolis. Where the diameter of the circle would be, but forming an obtuse angle, is a wall of hewn rock, fifteen feet high at its central part, but getting lower towards the sides. In front of this wall, about where the centre of the circle would be, there is a block of stone eleven feet long and as many broad, resting on a platform of three steps about thirty feet wide at its front base, cut out of the natural rock. This is believed to have been the bema (“stone in the Pnyx”) from which the speakers in the Assembly sometimes addressed 6000 or 7000 citizens chiefly resident in Athens or the immediate neighbourhood and belonging to the middle or lower classes. Round part of the semicircle, retaining-walls can still be traced, which appear to have been originally much higher, so that the enclosure would slope down towards the bema or platform, and thus bring the speaker within sight and hearing of the whole Assembly. It was in the Pnyx that the great debates took place which determined the policy of Athens and influenced In the Pnyx, as well as in the law courts, might be heard the consummate orator, whose extant speeches are pronounced by general consent to be the finest A few words may be added regarding another aspect of Athenian greatness during the period of the democracy, which has already been incidentally mentioned. The latter half of the fifth century B.C., which was the golden age of the sophists, also saw the rise of a new intellectual movement, which was destined to secure for Athens a position of supremacy in the department of philosophy for hundreds of years after it had sunk into political insignificance, and even after the sceptre in the realm of literature had passed to Alexandria. The man to whom this new departure was chiefly due was Socrates, a brave soldier, a genial friend, and an incorruptible citizen, as well as an original thinker. Greatly to his own astonishment, he was declared by the Delphian oracle to be the wisest of men—a statement which he could only credit in the sense that he was wiser than others inasmuch as he was aware of his own ignorance. He not only imparted a higher moral tone to the teaching of Greek philosophy than it ever had before, but also laid the foundation of the Logic of Definition, and anticipated in the sphere of ethics the principle of Induction on which Aristotle acted in the next century in various departments of his encyclopÆdic studies, and which was to be fully applied by Lord Bacon in the natural world nearly 2000 years afterwards. Before the days of Socrates the greatest, or at least the most ambitious, thinkers had made vain attempts to unveil the secrets of the physical universe, and in doing so had either ignored the traditional theology, or else explained it away, like Xenophanes, who held that the gods were the creation of human imagination, and that if oxen or lions were to become religious they would likewise make for themselves gods in their own image. With such impiety Socrates could have no sympathy, as we may judge from the fact that he even condemned the presumption of Anaxagoras in treating Helios and SelenÉ (sun and moon) as if they In Plato, the disciple and exponent of Socrates, Greek speculation may be said to have reached its culminating point. How greatly his thoughts have influenced the course of philosophy in subsequent times, even to our own day, may be judged from the following words of the late Professor Jowett in his introduction to the Republic, which is generally acknowledged to be the greatest and most suggestive of the numerous works of Plato:— “He (Plato) was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based on the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary—these and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him.... In the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero’s De Republica, of St. Augustine’s City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other States which are framed upon the same model.... The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the |