CHAPTER XI ATHENS AND ITS DEMOCRACY

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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 eligibility was confined to serving as dicasts or jurymen, and who were exempted from the graduated income-tax imposed on the three higher classes. All citizens had a right of membership in the Ecclesia or popular assembly, to which the BoulÉ or Council of 400, selected by lot, had to submit any proposals of a legislative character. A special benefit was at the same time conferred upon the distressed agriculturists by a measure called Seisachtheia, for relieving them more or less from the burdens which their costly mortgages had entailed upon them.

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)


THE ACROPOLIS FROM THE BASE OF THE PHILOPAPPUS HILL Over the talus of the dÉbris from the excavations on the south side of the Acropolis we see the front of the Theatre of Herodes Atticus, with the long portico connecting it with the Theatre of Dionysos. On the Acropolis itself, if we proceed from left to right, are BeulÉ’s gate, the PropylÆa and neighbouring remains, the Erechtheum and the Parthenon. Towering above the east end of the Acropolis is Lycabettos, with the chapel on its summit catching the sunlight. This drawing is intended to convey some idea of the glitter of sunlight upon the splendid series of marble temples and monuments of the Athenian Acropolis.

THE ACROPOLIS FROM THE BASE OF THE PHILOPAPPUS HILL

Over the talus of the dÉbris from the excavations on the south side of the Acropolis we see the front of the Theatre of Herodes Atticus, with the long portico connecting it with the Theatre of Dionysos. On the Acropolis itself, if we proceed from left to right, are BeulÉ’s gate, the PropylÆa and neighbouring remains, the Erechtheum and the Parthenon. Towering above the east end of the Acropolis is Lycabettos, with the chapel on its summit catching the sunlight. This drawing is intended to convey some idea of the glitter of sunlight upon the splendid series of marble temples and monuments of the Athenian Acropolis.

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 created for the purpose of defraying the expenses of public festivals, and bestowing on each citizen the price of admission to the theatre on such occasions. In course of time this was followed by the payment of citizens for attendance at the meetings of the general assembly.

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 with wreaths, the Spartans set up the tyranny of the “Thirty,” which gave the Athenians a more bitter experience of injustice, oppression and cruelty than they had experienced even in the closing years of the Peisistratid dynasty. A remarkable proof of the intense hatred of political tyranny which prevailed at Athens nearly half a century later was afforded by the reception given to two young Thracian Greeks, who had at one time studied under Plato, when they repaired to Athens after assassinating Cotys, the tyrant of their country. Partly on general grounds, partly because Cotys had been a dangerous enemy of Athens, they were received with the greatest honour, being admitted to the freedom of the city and presented with golden wreaths. So glowing were the eulogies passed upon them in the Assembly that one of the two felt constrained to declare, “It was a god who did the deed; we only lent our hands.” The feeling against despotic power was scarcely less strong in Magna GrÆcia, where the iron entered into the soul of many communities under the usurpation of Dionysius of Syracuse, about the beginning of the fourth century B.C. His request for a wife from the city of Rhegium, which was accompanied with a promise of benefactions to the city, was rejected; and in the public discussion of the subject one of the speakers remarked that the daughter of the public executioner would be the only suitable wife for him. Dionysius fared better at Locri, where he obtained the hand of a lady named Doris, the daughter of an eminent citizen, but not till after another citizen, a friend of Plato, had refused his daughter, saying that he would rather see her dead than wedded to a despot. Doris, it is interesting to learn, made her voyage to Syracuse in a magnificent new ship with five banks of oars, and on landing was conveyed to the tyrant’s house in a beautiful chariot drawn by four white horses. The same day Dionysius also married one of his own subjects, and, strange to say, the two ladies were treated with equal respect, and sat with dignity at the same table.

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


THE LOWER PART OF THE AUDITORIUM OF THE THEATRE OF DIONYSOS AT ATHENS Beginning at the left hand below, we notice first the breast-wall dividing the orchestra from the auditorium, and below it again the partially covered channel for rain-water. In the foremost row of marble seats or thrones, the third seat to the right is that of the Priest of Dionysos, distinguished by the exquisite relief, on the arm of the throne, of Eros engaged in cock-fighting. Higher up in the auditorium are pedestals for honorary statues.

THE LOWER PART OF THE AUDITORIUM OF THE THEATRE OF DIONYSOS AT ATHENS

Beginning at the left hand below, we notice first the breast-wall dividing the orchestra from the auditorium, and below it again the partially covered channel for rain-water. In the foremost row of marble seats or thrones, the third seat to the right is that of the Priest of Dionysos, distinguished by the exquisite relief, on the arm of the throne, of Eros engaged in cock-fighting. Higher up in the auditorium are pedestals for honorary statues.

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 erected, whose ruins still excite so much interest and admiration. Immediately to the west of the theatre are the remains of a colonnade—the Stoa of Eumenes—which led from the theatre to the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, one of the most munificent of the Roman benefactors of Athens in the second century A.D. The Odeum was built in memory of his wife Regilla, and though the marble-covered seats and cedar roof are gone, its arches form an imposing ruin.

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[7] (whence the name of


THE CAVERN CHAPEL (PANAGIA SPELIOTISSA) ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE ACROPOLIS This is the site of the Choragic monument of Thrasyllus. The square opening is cut in the scarped face of the Acropolis rock at the top of the Theatre of Dionysos. Above stand two columns, which supported tripods dedicated to the god.

THE CAVERN CHAPEL (PANAGIA SPELIOTISSA) ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE ACROPOLIS

This is the site of the Choragic monument of Thrasyllus. The square opening is cut in the scarped face of the Acropolis rock at the top of the Theatre of Dionysos. Above stand two columns, which supported tripods dedicated to the god.

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 religious character, notwithstanding its association with the worship of Bacchus and the prominence assigned to dancing. Its subjects were almost always of a heroic nature, drawn from the national mythology, and the problems of human sin and suffering were treated from a deeply religious point of view. As Prof. J. S. Blackie says in his translation of Æschylus (vol. i. pp. xxxviii-xxxix):—

“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 intellectual banquet were not base-minded. Had their stability been equal to their susceptibility, the world had never seen their equal.”

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. At first voluntary, the procession afterwards became a recognised part of the Athenian festival, and was subsidised by the state, the result being that it assumed a dramatic character in the hands of the poet Cratinus. While fun and laughter were the primary objects it was intended to serve, it found room for an infusion of beautiful lyric poetry; and the chorus became the mouth-piece of the poet for expressing his mind on the questions of the day, and satirising the vices and follies of politicians and other public men. Unfortunately Aristophanes did not spare even such a salutary teacher as Socrates, whom we find caricatured in the Clouds. Though the comic poets were generally conservative in their instincts and bitterly opposed to philosophic radicalism, they owed their right of criticism very largely to the free spirit of the Athenian democracy; and they soon gave up their scathing personalities when power passed out of the hands of the people. Moreover the revelry associated with the worship of Dionysus seemed to justify the licence which they claimed; and when the old religion lost its hold on the mind of the nation they lost their courage and independence as public censors. In Menander and others the “New Comedy” became little more than an amusing reflection of the social life of the day.

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


THE CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES Behind it rises the grand mass of the eastern end of the Acropolis rock; along the southern front of the Acropolis walls are seen the two votive columns which bore votive tripods, similar to the one for which the “Monument of Lysicrates” served as a support.

THE CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES

Behind it rises the grand mass of the eastern end of the Acropolis rock; along the southern front of the Acropolis walls are seen the two votive columns which bore votive tripods, similar to the one for which the “Monument of Lysicrates” served as a support.

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 their courage and persuading the Thebans to join with them in resisting the victorious advance of Philip. It was a great contrast to the treatment he had experienced in the same place many years before, when a wealthy Hipparch named Meidias attacked him with his fists at the very time he was acting as choregus for his tribe Pandionis. In general, great decorum was observed in the theatre. It was not even permitted to the officials who were responsible for maintaining order to inflict a blow on any disorderly person, though it might be their duty to remove him by force. That same year Demosthenes and some other leading Athenians paid a visit to the court of Philip at Pella. Among other entertainments which the king provided for them, his son Alexander, then a boy of ten years of age, recited a dialogue, along with a companion, from one of the great tragic poets of Athens. The taste for this kind of literature never left the great prince, though his interest in natural science was also shown by a grant of 800 talents to his former tutor, Aristotle, for the purpose of carrying on zoological researches. When he asked Harpalus to send him something to read during his stay in Upper Asia, the works of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were among the few books selected. Again, when he returned from the conquest of Egypt to Phoenicia, after he had been saluted as the son of Zeus by the priest of Jupiter-Ammon in the Libyan desert, dramatic representations formed an important part of the festivals which were got up in his honour; and the princes of Cyprus were conspicuous for the zeal and liberality with which they acted the part of choregi in competitions modelled on those of Athens. Of the popularity of the tragic poets with Greek soldiers we have a remarkable evidence in the fact that when, a century before, the Athenian army which had been sent for the invasion of Sicily was utterly destroyed, a number of men who escaped capture and wandered about the country, and also some of those who had been reduced to slavery, won the hearts of their conquerors by reciting passages of Euripides which they happened to know by heart. In this connection it may be mentioned that all free-born children in Athens were taught to read and write, while the recitation of selected passages from great authors, and the practice of music on the lyre or flute, along with gymnastics for the training of the body, were always included in a liberal education.

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 who abandoned the quest for abstract truth and devoted themselves to studies which had a direct bearing on the practical interests of life. They naturally gravitated to Athens as the intellectual capital of Greece, and found many young men who were eager to acquire the arts and accomplishments they professed to impart. Socrates has been called the greatest of the sophists, but, apart from deeper points of difference, he was distinguished from them by the facts that he gave no instruction in public speaking (for which he had no taste), and that he accepted no fee from his disciples. On the latter point, however, the sophists do not seem to have been so mercenary as is sometimes alleged, if we may judge from the example of Protagoras, who is represented by Plato as stating that he made no bargain with his pupils beforehand, and that if they thought on leaving that he was asking too much he allowed them to name a smaller figure, on condition that they went into a temple and declared on oath that they considered it a more just remuneration.

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


THE PNYX; OR, PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE At the junction of the converging lines of scarped rock is the bema, or altar, of the Pnyx, with a platform in front, from which, it is believed, the orators addressed the people. It will be seen that the steps, at the side of the cubical mass of rock, which has been called an altar, ascend right up to the top of it; and it seems probable that we have here rather the basis of the altar than the altar itself. The latter may very well have been movable. Above the bema will be seen the remains of a semicircular row of seats, apparently the seats of the Prytanes, facing the people. In the middle distance of the drawing the Acropolis rises majestically, and is finely opposed by the long line of Mount Hymettos.

THE PNYX; OR, PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE

At the junction of the converging lines of scarped rock is the bema, or altar, of the Pnyx, with a platform in front, from which, it is believed, the orators addressed the people. It will be seen that the steps, at the side of the cubical mass of rock, which has been called an altar, ascend right up to the top of it; and it seems probable that we have here rather the basis of the altar than the altar itself. The latter may very well have been movable. Above the bema will be seen the remains of a semicircular row of seats, apparently the seats of the Prytanes, facing the people. In the middle distance of the drawing the Acropolis rises majestically, and is finely opposed by the long line of Mount Hymettos.

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 the destiny of all Greece. Here might be heard the demagogue Cleon, who knew how to play on the passions and prejudices of the mob. By the strange working of the Athenian constitution, he found himself on two important occasions at the head of the army, first at Sphacteria, when the forces under his command inflicted on Sparta one of the greatest humiliations which it ever suffered at the hands of Athens, and again at Amphipolis, when the Spartan general Brasidas gained the victory, though at the cost of his own life, Cleon also being slain by a spear-wound in the back when he was fleeing from the field. Here too Phocion delivered his opinions, the plain, blunt, warm-hearted soldier who studied brevity and candour in all his utterances, never condescending to flatter or even to please his audience. On one occasion, when some remark he had made was loudly applauded, he turned round to a neighbour and inquired whether he had said anything very much amiss! His wisdom was not always equal to his honesty and courage, but his career was long and honourable, as he was forty-five times elected general for a year, and on many occasions rendered signal service to his country. The conduct of the citizens, assembled in the theatre, in refusing him a hearing (an old man of eighty-four years) before condemning him to death as a traitor, will always be a blot on the history of the Athenian democracy.

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 specimens of parliamentary and forensic eloquence in ancient or in modern times. The power of Demosthenes in delivery seems to have been equal to his skill in argument and his clearness and felicity of expression—the result of marvellous patience and perseverance in the face of difficulties which would have seemed to most men to be insuperable, arising from defective articulation, a weak voice, short breath and an awkward manner. His devotion to his country was equal to his enthusiasm as an orator; and if it had been still possible to teach the democracy wisdom and preserve the liberties of Athens, Demosthenes would have been the man to do so. But his lot fell in evil times, and fate was against him. His end, like that of many of the great men of antiquity, was a very sad one. In 324 B.C., six years after delivering his great speech De Corona, which has been fitly called “the funeral oration of Greek liberty,” he was thrown into prison on a charge of conspiring against the Macedonian authority. He made his escape and took refuge in the Peloponnesus, where he was living at the time of the death of Alexander the Great—an event which kindled in the breasts of patriotic Greeks a fresh hope of regaining their liberties. Demosthenes took the lead in the movement for liberation and secured for his countrymen the help of Peloponnesian allies in a last effort to throw off the Macedonian yoke. On landing at PirÆus he received a magnificent welcome from all classes of his fellow-citizens. But the rising was soon suppressed. Antipater compelled the city to surrender at discretion; and within a year Demosthenes was again a fugitive under sentence of death, passed against him by the remnant of citizens who were still permitted to abide at Athens. In his extremity he took refuge in a temple of Poseidon at Calauria, which had been an inviolable asylum from time immemorial. The Athenian who was at the head of the Thracian force sent by Antipater to take him was afraid to desecrate the sanctuary, and tried to entice him beyond its precincts by promising that his life would be spared. But Demosthenes knew how little faith was to be put in such a promise. He knew that even if his life were spared he might have his tongue cut out, like other orators who had done what they could to warn their countrymen against Macedonian aggression. Despairing of being able to render any further service to his country he resolved to put an end to his life by swallowing the poison which he had secreted about his person to meet such an emergency. As soon as he felt the poison begin to work he arose and walked slowly out of the sanctuary, calling for support to his tottering steps, in order to save the temple from being desecrated by his death.

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


THE ACROPOLIS, WITH KALLIRRHOÈ IN THE FOREGROUND The worn and polished bed of the Ilissus, down which trickles the water of the fountain of KallirrhoÈ, is richly coloured with blue and purple, owing to reflected light from the blue sky of a brilliant early morning in summer. The Acropolis, with the Parthenon (divided into two masses from this point of view), is relieved against the sky. To the right are some of the lofty columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the little cafÉ or refreshment house giving scale to them.

THE ACROPOLIS, WITH KALLIRRHOÈ IN THE FOREGROUND

The worn and polished bed of the Ilissus, down which trickles the water of the fountain of KallirrhoÈ, is richly coloured with blue and purple, owing to reflected light from the blue sky of a brilliant early morning in summer. The Acropolis, with the Parthenon (divided into two masses from this point of view), is relieved against the sky. To the right are some of the lofty columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the little cafÉ or refreshment house giving scale to them.

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 were material bodies, whose motions and magnitudes could be ascertained by the intellect of man.

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 writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the revival of literature on politics.... He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature; and many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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