Mythic period of Grecian history—Savage state of Greece compared with that of Scandinavia—Anecdotes of Northern warriors—Hercules—Theseus—State of Greece in their time, illustrated by that of England subsequent to the Conquest—Argonautic expedition—Theban war—Story of Don Pedro of Castile—Trojan war.
The traditions from which our knowledge of what is called the mythic age of Greece, or the age of fable, from the earliest notices of it to the Trojan war, is almost entirely derived, furnish few materials for a work like this, for where everything is misty and undefined, there can be little opportunity for comparison. The wonderful poetic talent displayed in their narration and embellishment has, however, given them a place in history, and an importance otherwise undeserved, and men study the actions and genealogy of an Achaian prince, as gravely as if he had been really the descendant of Jupiter, and the conqueror of monsters and oppressors innumerable. It becomes the more interesting therefore to inquire into the actual condition of Greece in its earliest times, and ascertain, if possible, whether the godlike men, sprung from the Gods, of whose superhuman powers and exploits succeeding ages have read, until by the mere force of repetition they have half believed them, had in reality any advantage over barbarians of other races and regions. To guide us in the inquiry we have two sorts of information, totally distinct in their nature: the meagre notices of authentic history, and a copious store of mythological and poetical legends. So far as the former is available, we have no reason to think that the heroic age had much advantage over those dark times in which the foundations of modern Europe were laid. Passing over the account given by Thucydides of the earliest inhabitants of Greece as being applicable to any savage race, in the next stage of society, when the arts had somewhat advanced, in the reign of Minos, the first person perhaps of whom any rational and credible account is given, a code of honour existed which made strength not only the first but the sum–total of all virtues, and filled the sea with pirates and the land with robbers.
“Minos was the most ancient of all that by report we know to have built a navy, and he made himself master of the now Grecian sea, and both commanded the Isles called Cyclades,[2] and also was the first who sent colonies into most of the same, expelling thence the Carians, and constituting his own sons there for governors, and also freed the sea from pirates as much as he could, for the better coming in, as is likely, of his own revenue.
“For the Grecians in old time and such barbarians[3] as in the continent lived near unto the sea or else inhabited the islands, when they began more often to cross over to one another in ships, became thieves, and went abroad under the conduct of their most puissant men, both to enrich themselves and to fetch in maintenance for the weak: and falling upon towns unfortified, and scatteringly inhabited, rifled them, and made this the best means of their living; being at that time a matter nowhere in disgrace, but rather carrying with it something of glory. This is manifest by some that dwell on the continent, among whom, so it be performed nobly, it is still esteemed as an ornament. The same also is proved by some of the ancient poets, who introduce men questioning such as sail by, on all coasts alike, whether they be thieves or not;[4] as a thing neither scorned by such as were asked, nor upbraided by those that were desirous to know. They also robbed one another within the main land: and much of Greece useth that old custom, as the Locrians called OzolÆ (or Stinkards), the Acarnanians, and those of the continent in that quarter unto this day. Moreover the fashion of wearing iron remaineth yet with the people of that continent from their old trade of thieving.
“For once they were wont throughout all Greece to go armed, because their houses were unfenced and travelling unsafe, and accustomed themselves like the barbarians to the ordinary wearing of their armour. And the nations of Greece that live so yet, do testify that the same manner of life was anciently universal to all the rest.”[5]
A condition of society identical with that described in the latter part of this extract still exists among the Curdish and Caucasian and other Asiatic mountaineers, and existed till lately in the Scottish Highlands. But descriptions of the latter have been multiplied, until they have become familiar in men’s mouths as household terms; and we pass in preference to a less hackneyed subject. In the eighth and ninth centuries the piratical spirit of ancient Greece was revived among those fierce Danes and Norwegians, who led a life of constant rapine and bloodshed; of interminable warfare at home, of frightful devastation abroad. “The Sea–kings of the North were a race of beings whom Europe beheld with horror. Without a yard of territorial property, with no wealth but their ships, no force but their crews, and no hope but from their swords, they swarmed upon the boisterous ocean, and plundered in every district that they could approach.... It is declared to have been a law or custom in the North, that one of the male children should be selected to remain at home to inherit the government. The rest were exiled to the ocean, to wield their sceptres amid the turbulent waters. The consent of the northern societies entitled all men of royal descent, who assumed piracy as a profession, to enjoy the name of kings, though they possessed no territory. The sea–kings had the same honour, but they were only a portion of those pirates, or vikingr, who in the ninth century were covering the ocean. Not only the children of the kings, but every man of importance equipped ships, and roamed the seas to acquire property by force. Piracy was not only the most honourable occupation and the best harvest of wealth; it was not only consecrated to public estimation by the illustrious who pursued it, but no one was esteemed noble, no one was respected, who did not return in the winter to his home with ships laden with booty.”[6] Part of the regulations of a band of pirates is preserved by Bartholinus, and may serve as a specimen of the better class, though the reader may not be inclined to agree with him in considering them as men “devoted to virtue, bravery, and humanity, rather than to the oppression of innocent persons.” These regulations were called the Constitutions of King Half. “No one might wear a sword more than an ell in length, that they might be compelled to close in battle. Each was to be equal in strength to twelve ordinary men. They made prisoners neither women nor boys. None was to bind his wounds until the lapse of twenty hours. These men everywhere infested the land, and everywhere were victorious. They lay at anchor at the ends of headlands. They never raised bulwarks on their ships’ sides, and never lowered their sails, let the wind blow as it would. Their captain never had in his ship more than sixty men.” No less creditable were the ordinances of Hialmar, the sum of which was, that his men should plunder neither traders nor husbandmen; that they should neither rob women of their money, nor carry them off against their consent: and should not eat raw flesh.[7] The fiercer class indulged in this disgusting food, and washed it down suitably with draughts of blood. Savage in all things, it was an amusement to toss infants from one to another, and catch them on the points of their lances. Many used to work themselves literally into a state of bestial ferocity. Those who were subject to these paroxysms were called Berserkir: they studied to resemble wild beasts; they excited themselves to a strength which has been compared to that of bears; and this unnatural power was succeeded, as we may well suppose, by corresponding debility. In the French and Italian romances, we frequently find a warrior endowed, for a part of the day, with a double or treble share of strength; and it is not improbable that the fiction may have been derived from this species of frenzy, which is thus described by the Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus. “Sivald had seven sons, so skilled in magic, that, impelled by the sudden access of fury, they used often to howl savagely, to gnaw their shields, to devour live coals, and rush fearlessly into fire; and this passion could only be appeased by confinement in fetters, or by human blood.” This Sivald and Haldan were rivals for the Swedish crown. Sivald challenged Haldan to decide their quarrel by contending alone with himself and his seven sons. The latter answered that the legitimate form of the duel did not admit of more than two. “No wonder,” replied his antagonist, “that a man without wife or offspring, whose mind and body are alike deficient in warmth, should refuse the proffered encounter. But my children, who own me as the author of their existence, and myself, have one common origin, and must be considered as one man.” The force of the argument was admitted, and, in obedience to this modest request, Haldan knocked out the brains of the eight.
The same warrior was challenged by another Berserkir, named Harthben, who always had twelve chosen men in attendance to prevent his doing mischief when the fit was upon him. Upon hearing that Haldan undertook to fight himself and his followers, he was seized with a paroxysm which was not subdued until he had killed six of them, by way of trying his hand: and then he was killed by his antagonist, as he richly deserved, for throwing away half his chance.[8] So also we read that Odin could blunt the weapons of his enemies; that his soldiers went to battle without armour, biting their shields, raging like wolves or dogs: like bears or bulls in strength, they slaughtered their foes, and were themselves invulnerable to fire and sword.[9] At length, however, this passion changed from a distinction to a reproach, and was ultimately prohibited by penal laws.
Harold Harfager, or the Fairhaired, who consolidated Norway under his sceptre, A.D. 910, cleared the Northern Ocean from the scourge of piracy, as did Minos the Grecian seas. Still the spirit of depredation was alive. The spread of Christianity moderated the excesses of the Northmen, but it was long ere their fondness for freebooting was extinguished; nay, the very rites of religion were employed to give a sanction to robbery. Maritime expeditions seemed to the Danes pious and necessary, that they might protect themselves from the incursions of their Sclavonic neighbours on the continent, and piracy was therefore practised under certain laws, which in the opinion of Bartholinus breathe a spirit of defence rather than of aggression. “Pirates had power to take such ships as appeared suited to their purpose, even without consent of the owners, upon payment of one–eighth of the booty by way of hire. Before a voyage they made confession to the priests, and having undergone penance, they received the sacrament, as if at the point of death, believing that things would go more prosperously if they duly propitiated God before war. Content with their food and armour, they avoided burdening their vessels, and took nothing that could delay their voyage. Their watches were frequent, their mode of life sparing. They slept leaning upon their oars. Their battles were numerous: their victory ever easy, and almost bloodless. The booty was shared equally, the master receiving no larger portion than a common rower. Those Christians whom they found enslaved in the captured vessels, they presented with clothing, and dismissed to their own homes.”[10]
The frantic ravages of these barbarians have been described by the sufferers, and belong in part to our own history; while those committed by the unknown tribes who two thousand years before occupied the other extremity of Europe, are long since forgotten, or remembered only in the flattering traditions of their countrymen. The former, therefore, are known and execrated, while the latter stand fair with the world: and in the absence of evidence, we are far from wishing to impute to them that bestial ferocity which so often disgraced the Northmen: but who can compare the passages just given with that quoted from Thucydides, without being convinced that they refer to corresponding periods of civilization, and describe similar principles, if not similar modes of action? And as the best historical accounts which we can procure represent the feelings and habits of the early Greeks as closely akin to those of our own barbarous ancestors, so their traditions and fables lead us to the same conclusion. The Scaldic poems bear, indeed, a more savage cast; some say from the inhospitable rigour of our northern sky; but more probably because we possess them in their original or nearly their original state, while the earliest Greek compositions extant were written in an age comparatively civilized. But the heroes of both were actuated by the same spirit. Siegfrid and Wolf Dietrich differ little but in external ornament from Castor, or Achilles, or Diomed; their pride was in the same accomplishments, their delight in the same pleasures, their hope in an immortality of the same sensual enjoyments.[11]
Some sketch of the life of Starchaterus, a purely fictitious person, may serve as a specimen of these stories.
Starchaterus was born in Sweden, a few years after the Christian era. He was of giant stature, and of strength and courage correspondent to the magnitude of his frame, so that in prowess he was held inferior to none of mortal parentage; and, as he excelled all in bodily endowments, so his life was protracted to three times the usual duration of human existence. Like his great prototype, the Grecian Hercules, he traversed the neighbouring regions, and went even to Ireland and Constantinople in quest of adventures; but, unlike him, he was animated by a most intolerant hatred of everything approaching to luxury, insomuch that he treated an invitation to dinner as an insult, and inflicted severe punishment upon all who were so imprudently hospitable as to request his company. For it was the mark of a buffoon and parasite, he said, to run after the smell of another man’s kitchen, for the sake of better fare.[12] In other respects the severity of his manners was more commendable; when he found any of the classes who live by the follies or vices of mankind mixing with soldiers, he drove them away with the scourge, esteeming them unworthy to receive death from the hands of brave men. In addition to his other accomplishments, he was skilled in poetry, and persecuted luxury in verse no less successfully than by corporeal inflictions, as is evident from certain of his compositions, which have been translated into Latin by Saxo Grammaticus.
He went to Russia on purpose to fight Visin, who possessed the power of blunting weapons with a look, and trusting in this magic power, exercised all sorts of cruelty and oppression. Starchaterus rendered the charm of no avail by covering his sword with thin leather, and then obtained an easy victory.
Nine warriors of tried valour offered to Helgo, king of Norway, the alternative of doing battle singly against the nine, or losing his bride upon his marriage–day. Helgo thought it best to appear by his champion, and requested the assistance of Starchaterus, who was so eager for the adventure, that in following Helgo to the appointed place, in one day, and on foot, he performed a journey which had occupied the king, who travelled on horseback, during twelve days. On the morrow, which was the appointed day, ascending a mountain, which was the place of meeting, he chose a spot exposed to the wind and snow, and then, as if it were spring, throwing off his clothes, he set himself to dislodge the fleas that nestled in them. Then the nine warriors ascended the mountain on the other side, and showed the difference of their hardihood by lighting a fire in a sheltered spot. Not perceiving their antagonist, one went to look out from the mountain top, who saw at a distance an old man covered with snow up to the shoulders. They asked him if it were he who was to fight with them, and being answered in the affirmative, inquired further, whether he would receive them singly or all together. His reply was rather more churlish than the question deserved: “When the dogs bark at me, I drive them off all together, and not one by one.” Then, after a severe battle, he slew them all.
At last, being overtaken by age, he thought it fit to terminate his life before his glory was dimmed by decrepitude; for men used to consider it disgraceful for a warrior to perish by sickness. So he hung round his neck one hundred and twenty pounds of gold, the spoil of one Olo, to buy the good offices of an executioner, thinking it fit that the wealth which he had obtained by another man’s death should be spent in procuring his own. And meeting Hather, whose father he had formerly slain, he exhorted him to take vengeance for that injury, and pointed out what he would gain by doing so. Hather willingly consented, and Starchaterus, stretching out his neck, bade him strike boldly, adding, for his encouragement, that if he leaped between the severed head and the trunk before the latter touched the earth, he would become invincible in arms. Now, whether he said this out of good will, or to be quits with his slayer, who ran a good chance of being crushed by the falling giant, is doubtful. The head, stricken off at a blow, bit the earth, retaining its ferocity in death: but Starchaterus’ real meaning remained unknown, for Hather showed his prudence by declining to take a leap, which had he taken, he might never have leaped again.[13]
This is an early and rude specimen of an errant knight; the same character which was afterwards expanded into Roland and Launcelot, the paladins and peers of Charlemagne and Arthur, worthies closely allied to the heroes of Homer and Hesiod. The triple–bodied Geryon, the Nemean lion and LernÆan hydra, the deliverance of Andromeda by Perseus, the capture of the golden fleece, and above all, perhaps, Amycus, who compelled all strangers to box with him, till he was beaten by Pollux, and bound by oath to renounce the practice, are entirely in unison with the spirit and imagery of chivalric romance. Examples to this effect might easily be multiplied. But an essay on the fictions of the Greeks would be foreign to the scope of this publication: and it would be absurd to enter upon a critical investigation of a series of stories, extended by some chronologers over seven centuries, from the foundation of Argos to the Trojan war, while Newton contracts them within a century and a half, which tell of little but bloodshed, abductions, and violence of all sorts, intermixed, however, with notices of those who invented the useful arts and fostered the gradual progress of civilization. As we approach to the Trojan war, a sort of twilight history begins to dawn upon us. It is to what may seem at first the strongholds of fiction, to the exploits of Hercules and Theseus, that we refer. The earliest ascertained fact is the establishment of a regular government by Minos, who also cleared the sea from pirates. At no long interval the above–named heroes made another step in civilization; they cleared the land from rapine, as Minos had cleared the sea. Other men, roaming in search of adventures, had carried bloodshed through the land at the suggestion of their passions or for the advancement of their fame; but Hercules first traversed the earth with the express design of avenging the oppressed and exterminating their oppressors, and the example was soon after followed by his kinsman Theseus. Their exploits, of course, are chiefly fabulous: but it is worthy of observation that those of Theseus approach much nearer to probability than the far–famed labours of Hercules. Indeed the history of the former presents this peculiarity, that the accounts of his youth are consistent, and scarcely improbable, while those of his age run into all the extravagance of romance. Theseus, travelling from Troezen to Athens, was strongly urged to go by sea, the way by land being beset with robbers and murderers. He refused to do so, being inflamed with emulation of Hercules’ renown; and on the journey signalized himself by slaying Sinnis, surnamed the Pine–bender, because he dismembered travellers by tying them to the tops of trees forcibly brought together and then allowed to start asunder; Procrustes, who exhibited a passion for uniformity worthy a German general of the old school, in reducing all men to the measure of his own bed, by stretching those who were too short, and docking those who were too long; together with others of less note, and similar habits. That Plutarch believed in these stories is evident, from the tone in which he recites them; a corroboration, indeed, of no great weight, for he proceeds with equal gravity to relate things which no one will credit; but in this instance his account of the state of Greece gives warranty for his belief, and is itself confirmed by our knowledge of later ages. The passage has often been quoted, but it is striking and to the purpose, and its want of novelty, therefore, shall be no bar to its insertion. “The world at that time brought forth men, which for strongness in their arms, for swiftness of their feet, and for a general strength of the whole body, did far pass the common force of others, and were never weary for any labour or travail they took in hand. But for all this, they never employed these gifts of nature to any honest or profitable thing; but rather delighted villainously to hurt and wrong others; as if all the fruit and profit of their extraordinary strength had consisted in cruelty and violence only, and to be able to keep others under and in subjection; and to force, destroy, and spoil all that came to their hands. Thinking that the more part of those which think it a shame to do ill, and commend justice, equity, and humanity, do it of faint, cowardly hearts, because they dare not wrong others, for fear they should receive wrong themselves; and, therefore, that they which by might could have vantage over others, had nothing to do with such qualities.”[14]
The enormities ascribed to Sinnis and his fellows have discredited the whole train of adventures to which they belong; but this is an untenable ground of doubt. He who reads descriptions of the state of England, before laws were strong enough to control private violence, given by contemporaries who saw what they relate, and whose narratives bear the impress of sincerity, will better appreciate the extent of human ferocity. In the reign of Stephen disorder was at its height. “The barons cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle–works, and when the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. Then took they those whom they supposed to have any goods, both by night and day, labouring men and women, and threw them into the prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted on them unutterable tortures: for never were any martyrs so tortured as they were. Some they hanged up by the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke, and some by the thumbs, or the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. They tied knotted cords about their heads, and twisted them until the pain went to their brains. They put them into dungeons where were adders, and snakes, and toads, and so destroyed them. Some they placed in a crucet house; that is, in a chest that was short and narrow, and not deep, wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrust the man therein, that they broke all the limbs. In many of the castles were things loathsome and grim, called Sachenteges, of which two or three men had enough to bear one. They were thus made: they were fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go about a man’s throat, so that he could in no direction either sit, or lie, or sleep, but bear all that iron. Many thousands they wore out with hunger. I neither can, nor may I tell all the wounds and pains which they inflicted on wretched men in this land.”[15]
“Some, seeing the sweetness of their country turned into bitterness, went into foreign parts: others built hovels about churches in hope of security, and there passed life in fear and pain, subsisting for lack of food (for famine was felt dreadfully over all England) upon the forbidden and unused flesh of dogs and horses, or relieving hunger with raw herbs and roots, until throughout the provinces men, wasted by famine, died in crowds, or went voluntarily with their families into a miserable exile. You might see towns of famous name, standing lonely, and altogether emptied by the death of their inhabitants of all ages and sexes; the fields whitening under a thriving harvest, but the husbandman cut off by pestilential famine ere it ripened: and all England wore the face of grief and calamity, of misery and oppression. In addition to these evils, the savage multitude of barbarians who resorted to England for the gains of warfare was moved neither by the bowels of piety nor by any feeling of human compassion for such misery: everywhere they conspired from their castles to do all wickedness, being always at leisure to rob the poor, to promote quarrels, and intent everywhere upon slaughter with all the malice of a wicked mind.” Even churchmen amused themselves with these pastimes. “The bishops themselves, as I am ashamed to say, not all indeed, but many of them, clad in handsome armour, rode up and down on prancing horses with these upsetters of their country; shared in their booty; exposed to fetters, or torture, knights, or any wealthy persons soever, whom they intercepted; and being themselves the head and cause of all this wickedness, they threw the blame not on themselves, but only upon their followers.”[16]
Enough of general descriptions, which are fully borne out by the particulars related. “In the reign of Stephen, Robert, the son of Hubert, had gotten possession of the castle of Devizes. He was a man exceeding all within memory in barbarity and blasphemy, who used freely to make boast, that he had been present when twenty–four monks were burnt together with their church, and profess that he would do as much in England, and ruin utterly the abbey of Malmesbury. If he ever dismissed a prisoner unransomed, and without the torture, which very seldom happened, at such times, when they thanked him in God’s name, I have with these ears heard him answer, ‘God will never own the obligation to me.’ He would expose his captives naked to the burning sun, anointed with honey, to attract flies, and such other tormenting insects.”[17] This worthy met with a fit end, being taken and hanged; but this act of retribution was one of illegal violence, being done by a knight who held Marlborough Castle, without a shadow of authority, and apparently on the principle that any one had a right to abate a nuisance.
“In these times (the reign of William Rufus) men come not to great name but by the highest wickedness. Thomas, a great baron near Laudun in France, was great in name, because he was extreme in wickedness. At enmity with the surrounding churches, he had brought all their wealth into his own exchequer. If any one by force or guile were holden in his keeping, truly might that man say, ‘the pains of hell got hold upon me.’ Murder was his glory and delight. Against all usage, he placed a countess in a dungeon, whom the foul ruffian harassed with fetters and torments to extort money. He would speak words of peace to his neighbour, and stab him to the heart with a smile, and hence, under his cloak, he more often wore his sword naked than sheathed. Therefore, men feared, respected, worshipped him. All through France was he spoken of. Daily did his estate, his treasure, his vassalage increase. Wouldst thou hear the end of this villain? Being stricken with a sword unto death, refusing to repent, and turning away his head from the Lord’s body, in such manner he perished: so that it might well be said, ‘Befitting to your life was that death.’ You have seen Robert de Belesme, a Norman baron, who when established in his castle was Pluto, MegÆra, Cerberus, or anything that can be named more dreadful. He took pains not to dismiss, but to dispatch his captives. Pretending to be in play, he put out his son’s eyes with his thumbs, while he was muffled up in a cloak; he impaled persons of both sexes. Horrid slaughter was as a meat pleasant to his soul: therefore was he found in all men’s mouths, so that the wonderful doings of Robert de Belesme passed into proverbs. Let us come at length to the end. He who had afflicted others in prison, being at last thrown into prison by King Henry, ended his wicked life by an enduring punishment.”[18]
It was this state of disorder which produced knight–errantry, and there is nothing absurd in believing that equal lawlessness in another country was checked by the same sort of interference. The reality of knight–errantry has, indeed, been questioned; it has been pronounced a fiction, suited to the wants of the period in which it was supposed to exist. If this were so, and the tales of Hercules and Theseus equally groundless, it would still be curious to see that men had been led to imagine the same means of making amends for the want of an executive power: but we do not believe this to be the case. The romances gave system and consistency to the scattered acts of individuals; they described the better qualities of knighthood in their own days, and filled up the picture with imaginary virtues and preter–human prowess, attributes which men are always ready to confer on their ancestors, as Nestor makes the heroes with whom he fought in youth far superior to those whom he lectured in old age, and Homer endows those who fought under Troy with the strength of three or four men, “such as mortals now are.” But their productions bear the stamp of copies, not originals, and it is not very easy to believe that they would have invented, or their audience and readers relished, characters and rules of action for which their own experience gave no warrant.
There is, however, a double Theseus, of historic as well as legendary fame. In his latter capacity, both for the degree of reality and the nature of his exploits, he may be compared to Arthur; in his former, still to draw an illustration from British history, he is not unworthy to be placed by the side of Alfred. The union of these two, discordant as it may appear, is not more so than that of the poetic and the historical Theseus. Alfred, indeed, signalised his military talents in many hard–fought fields, but his victories were those of a general: the exploits of Theseus were those of a knight. But among the mass of stories of questionable truth or unquestioned falsehood relating to him, it is generally acknowledged that this man, whose very existence we might else have doubted, was the author of extensive and judicious reforms in government, such as proved the foundation of Attic greatness: reforms which he effected by the rarest and most virtuous of all sacrifices, the resignation of his own power.[19] Attica was divided into twelve districts, shires we might call them, except that, taken all together, they were less than one of the larger English counties. Professedly forming one body, and owning a precarious obedience to one prince, they had still their petty and conflicting interests, and could with difficulty be induced to concur in any measures for the benefit of the whole. Theseus, encouraged by the popularity which he had gained by delivering Athens from its subjection to Crete,[20] undertook to substitute a better polity. “He went through the several towns, and persuaded the inhabitants to give up their separate councils and magistrates, and submit to a common jurisdiction. Every man was to retain his dwelling and his property as before; but justice was to be administered and all public business transacted at Athens. The mass of the people came into his measures, and to subdue the reluctance of the powerful, who were loath to resign the importance accruing from the local magistracies, he gave up much of his own authority, reserving only the command of the army, and the care of watching over the execution of the laws. Opposition was silenced by his liberality, together with the fear of his power, ability, and courage, and the union of Attica was effected by him and made lasting. To bind it closer, without disturbing the religious observances of the several towns, he instituted a common festival in honour of Minerva, which was called the feast of union, and (PanathenÆa) the feast of all the Athenians.”[21]
This process bears some resemblance to the consolidation of the Saxon Heptarchy, nominally effected by Egbert, but completed and made truly beneficial by Alfred. The evils which were to be reformed were very different in the two cases: at Athens civil dissension was to be remedied; in England a rude people, intermixed with foreign barbarians more ferocious than themselves, and reduced to poverty by a series of destructive invasions, required a strong curb for the re–establishment of order and security. We must not expect, therefore, to find any resemblance between their institutions: the Saxons required no measures to prevent civil war, and inspire a spirit of nationality; the Athenians, though well inclined to civil broils, respected, from the earliest dawn of history, the security of property, and in consequence far outstripped the rest of Greece in wealth and refinement. Nevertheless the names of these princes may fairly be selected to adorn the same page: both advanced beyond their age in legislative and political science; both directed their wisdom, power, and popularity to truly noble ends; and therefore merit the respect of all who believe rank and office to have been instituted for other ends than for the advantage of those who possess them.
We have spoken of Hercules and Theseus as indicating the commencement of Grecian history. Previous to them, facts are mentioned which we have no ground to disbelieve, as the various settlements by Phoenician or Egyptian emigrants; but all further particulars of these persons, with the exception of Minos, are of such a nature, that where we find no internal evidence to pronounce them fabulous we can yet assign but scanty reasons for relying confidently upon their truth. But about this era our knowledge begins to increase. We must refer to it an event of which it is not easy to fix the date with certainty; namely, the celebrated Argonautic expedition, in which both these heroes are said to have joined: a statement, however, irreconcileable with the accounts of Theseus’ introduction to Ægeus, and the plot formed against him by Medea.[22] Without troubling ourselves to account for these discrepancies, it is evident that the expedition, if it ever took place, which there seems reason to believe in spite of Bryant’s opposition, who would ascribe this, and almost all other legends, to some faint traditions of the deluge and preservation of Noah, must have borne a close resemblance to the Danish piratical excursions which we have already described. Not long after occurs the first confederate war mentioned in Grecian history, that of the Seven against Thebes;[23] an event so closely connected with mythology that its reality might reasonably be questioned, but for the testimony of Homer and Hesiod. The revolting nature of the struggle between two brothers, for the kingdom of a banished, miserable, and neglected father, would incline us indeed to give as little credit to the concluding tragedy of the house of Laius, as to the series of crimes and misery by which that house had been polluted: but all arguments founded upon the horrors of such fratricidal warfare fall to the ground, when in the brightest period of chivalry we find it revived with no less rancour, and a no less fatal end, and the flower of French knighthood a calm spectator, nay, almost an actor in the scene. The strife between Don Pedro of Castile, and his brother Henry of Transtamara, the deadly struggle in which Pedro, who had already slain one brother, fell, when defeated and a prisoner, by the dagger of another against whom his own hand was armed, involve circumstances of horror scarce less adapted to dramatic effect than those legends which have so often employed the Greek tragedians.
Don Pedro was the legitimate heir to the crown of Castile. Don Henry and Don Fadrique (or Frederick) were his half–brothers by Donna Leonora de Guzman, whom their father had entertained as his mistress, and even proclaimed queen, during the life–time of his lawful wife. When Pedro succeeded to the throne, at his mother’s instigation he put her rival to death: his brothers, Henry and Fadrique, escaped, and the former renounced his allegiance: the latter fled into Portugal; but after some time he made his peace, returned, and was appointed master of the order of St. Iago. When several months had elapsed, he was invited to join the court at Seville, and take his share in the amusements of an approaching tournament. He accepted the invitation, but was sternly and ominously received, and immediately executed within the palace. The friends of Pedro asserted, that the king had, that very day, detected Don Fadrique in a correspondence with his brother Henry and the Arragonese; while popular belief attributed the slaughter of the master to the influence of Pedro’s mistress, Maria de Padilla. The circumstances of this event are powerfully described in one of the Spanish ballads, so admirably translated by Mr. Lockhart. There is a peculiarity of construction in the ballad, the person of the narrator being changed in the course of it. It is commenced by the victim himself, who describes the alacrity with which he obeyed his brother’s summons.
I sat alone in Coimbra—the town myself had ta’en,—
When came into my chamber a messenger from Spain:
There was no treason in his look, an honest look he wore,
I from his hand the letter took—my brother’s seal it bore.
“Come, brother dear, the day draws near (’twas thus bespoke the king)
For plenar court and nightly sport, within the listed ring.”
Alas, unhappy master, I easy credence lent:
Alas, for fast and faster I at his bidding went.
When I set out from Coimbra, and passed the bounds of Spain,
I had a goodly company of spearmen in my train;
A gallant force, a score of horse, and sturdy mules thirteen;
With joyful heart I held my course, my years were young and green.
A journey of good fifteen days within the week was done,
I halted not, though signs I got, dark tokens many a one;
A strong stream mastered horse and mule, I lost a poniard fine,
And left a page within the pool, a faithful page of mine.
Yet on to proud Seville I rode—when to the gate I came,
Before it stood a man of God to warn me from the same:
The words he spake I would not hear, his grief I would not see;
“I seek,” I said, “my brother dear—I will not stop for thee.”
No lists were closed upon the sand, for royal tourney dight,
No pawing horse was seen to stand, I saw no armed knight:
Yet aye I gave my mule the spur, and hasted through the town,
I stopt before his palace–door, then gaily leapt I down.
They shut the door—my trusty score of friends were left behind;
I would not hear their whispered fear, no harm was in my mind;
I greeted Pedro, but he turned—I wot his look was cold;
His brother from his knee he spurned—“Stand off, thou master bold.
“Stand off, stand off, thou traitor strong!” ‘twas thus he saith to me,
“Thy time on earth shall not be long—what brings thee to my knee?
My lady craves a new year’s gift, and I will keep my word;
Thy head methinks may serve the shift—good yeoman, draw thy sword—“
The master lay upon the floor, ere well that word was said,
Then in a charger off they bore his pale and bloody head.
They brought it to Padilla’s chair, they bowed them on the knee—
“King Pedro greets thee, lady fair, his gift he sends to thee.”
She gazed upon the master’s head, her scorn it could not scare,
And cruel were the words she spoke, and proud her glances were.
“Thou now shalt pay, thou traitor base, the debt of many a year,
My dog shall lick that haughty face, no more that lip shall sneer.”
She seized it by the clotted hair, and o’er the window flung:
The mastiff smelt it in his lair, forth at her cry he sprung;
The mastiff that had crouched so low, to lick the master’s hand,
He tossed the morsel to and fro, and licked it on the sand.
And ever as the mastiff tore, his bloody teeth were shown,
With growl and snort he made his sport, and picked it to the bone!
The baying of the beast was loud; and swiftly on the street
There gathered round a gaping crowd to see the mastiff eat.
Then out and spake King Pedro—“What governance is this?
The rabble rout the gate without torment my dogs, I wiss.”
Then out and spake King Pedro’s page—“It is the master’s head,
The mastiff tears it in his rage, therewith they have him fed.”
Then out and spake the ancient nurse, that nursed the brothers twain—
“On thee, King Pedro, lies the curse; thy brother thou hast slain;
A thousand harlots there may be within the realms of Spain,
But where is she can give to thee thy brother back again?”
Came darkness o’er King Pedro’s brow, when thus he heard her say;
He sorely rued the accursed vow he had fulfilled that day;
He passed unto his paramour, where on her couch she lay.
Leaning from out her painted bower, to see the mastiff’s play.
He drew her to a dungeon dark, a dungeon strong and deep;
“My father’s son lies stiff and stark, and there are few to weep.
Fadrique’s blood for vengeance calls, his cry is in mine ear;
Thou art the cause, thou harlot false; in darkness lie thou here.”
After Pedro had alienated his people’s hearts by his cruelty, Don Henry returned with a formidable body of French auxiliaries. At first the fortune of the rightful owner of the throne, who was supported by Edward the Black Prince, prevailed, and the invader was obliged to retire back to France: but suddenly renewing the attack, assisted by Du Guesclin, the flower of French knighthood, after the English auxiliaries had quitted Spain, he defeated and took prisoner his brother. Upon entering the chamber where he was confined, Henry exclaimed, “Where is that whoreson and Jew, who calls himself King of Castile?” Pedro, as proud and fearless as he was cruel, stepped instantly forward, and replied, “Here I stand, the lawful son and heir of Don Alphonso, and it is thou that art but a false bastard.” The rival brothers instantly grappled like lions; the French knights, and Du Guesclin himself, looking on. Henry drew his poniard, and wounded Pedro in the face, but his body was protected by a coat of mail. A violent struggle ensued. Henry fell across a bench, and his brother, being uppermost, had well nigh mastered him, when one of Henry’s followers seizing Don Pedro by the leg, turned him over, and his master thus at length gaining the upper hand, instantly stabbed the king to the heart. Menard, in his history of Du Guesclin, says that, while all around gazed like statues on the furious struggle of the brothers, Du Guesclin exclaimed to this attendant of Henry, “What! will you stand by, and see your master placed at such a pass by a false renegade? Make forward and help him, for well you may.”[24]
At Athens, the poets who contended for the tragic prize, were expected to exhibit three pieces, which, from their number, were called collectively a trilogy, together with a fourth, satirical, drama, which came last in the order of representation, like our farces now. Often they chose for the argument of these tragedies different events in the same story, so that the three formed a connected whole: of which an instance, the only instance extant, remains in the Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides of Æschylus. The tale which has just been narrated is well fitted for this kind of representation, and would furnish materials not unworthy even of that poet’s genius. In the first play we may imagine an insulted queen and deserted wife, brooding over past injuries, rejoicing in the prospect of revenge, and urging the savage temper of her son to seek it in the blood of those who should have been dearest to him; the play terminating with the death of Leonora de Guzman, and the escape of her sons, preserved, like Orestes, to be at once the ministers of vengeance and the instruments of further crime. For the second the unsuspecting confidence of Don Fadrique, his rejection of the signs and warnings, which were offered in vain, and the successful machinations of a wicked, perhaps a rejected woman, acting upon the proud and cruel Pedro, are well suited; while the chorus would find a fitting part, at first, in dark and indistinct presages of evil, and lamentations over the blindness with which the fated victim rushed into the snare; and at the end, in indignant description of the circumstances of horror narrated in the ballad, and in joining the aged nurse to bewail the death of her foster son, and denouncing vengeance upon the murderer’s head. The third would contain the capture of Pedro, the mutual defiance and death–struggle of the brothers, and the barbarous exposure by Henry of his brother’s corpse: while at the end the impression of these horrors might be relieved by the constant love of Maria de Padilla, who, now neglected and despised, still watched over the forsaken body of her monarch and lover, with a fidelity worthy of a purer bosom.[25]
We reach at length the Trojan war, the point assumed by Thucydides for the commencement of his sketch of Grecian history: a circumstance alone sufficient to discredit the scepticism of those who believe it to be a mere fabulous legend. The universal voice of antiquity testifies to its reality, and we know not of any arguments strong enough to shake this testimony. Herodotus, on the authority of the Persians, mentions the Rape of Helen as one of a series of reprisals consequent upon the aggression of the Phoenicians, who carried off Io; the cause and commencement of hostility between the Greeks and the Asiatic nations. The former were clearly in the wrong, in the opinion of the Persians, both because the rape of Helen only balanced accounts, and because the Greeks made such injuries a ground for war. “Up to that time they confined themselves to mutual depredations; but the Greeks set the example of carrying war from one continent to the other. Now, to carry off women is the act of rogues; but to be over eager to avenge their loss is the part of fools; and wise men will take no thought for them after they are gone: for it is plain that they would not have been run away with, except with their own good will. And in truth, say the Persians, the Asiatics made no account of the carrying off their women: but the Greeks collected a mighty armament on account of a LacedÆmonian female, and then came to Asia, to pull down the empire of Priam!”[26] So thought the Persians. Herodotus confesses that he is not prepared to say how these things took place, and sets us the example of hastening to ground which he can tread with some certainty. That there is no intrinsic improbability in the story, has already been asserted by Mitford, on the ground of its close analogy to an incident in the history of the British islands.
Dermod Mac Morough (or Mac Murchad), prince of Leinster, was attached to Dervorghal, wife of Tiernan O’Ruark, another Irish chief, who held the county of Leitrim, with some adjacent districts,—a lady of great beauty, but small virtue, who took advantage of her husband’s being driven into hiding by O’Connor, who was then predominant in Ireland, to elope with her lover. “An outrage of this kind was not always regarded with abhorrence by the Irish; they considered it rather as an act of pardonable gallantry, or such an offence as a reasonable pecuniary compensation might atone for. But the sullen and haughty prince, provoked more by the insolence and treachery of his ravisher than the infidelity of his wife, conceived the most determined animosity against Dermod. He practised secretly with O’Connor, promised the most inviolable attachment to his interest, and prevailed on him, not only to reinstate him in his possessions, but to revenge the insult of Mac Morough, whom he represented, and justly, as a faithless vassal, really devoted to the service of his rival. The King of Connaught led his forces into Leinster, rescued Dervorghal from her paramour, and restored her to her friends; with whom she lived, if not in a state of reconciliation with her husband, at least in that opulence and splendour which enabled her to atone for the crime of infidelity, by the usual method of magnificent donations to the church.”[27] This domestic squabble led to more than usually important results, for the expelled Dermod applied to our Henry II. for assistance, and the conquest of Ireland followed.
The ambition of Agamemnon, however, is regarded by Thucydides as the cause of the war; the abduction of Helen served only as the pretext. “To me it seemeth that Agamemnon got together that fleet, not so much for that he had with him the suitors of Helena, bound thereto by oath to Tyndareus, as for that he exceeded the rest in power. For Atreus, after that Eurystheus was slain by the HeraclidÆ, obtained the kingdom of MycenÆ, and whatever else had been under him, for himself. To which greatness Agamemnon succeeding; and also far excelling the rest in shipping, took that war in hand, as I conceive it, and assembled the said forces, not so much on favour as by fear. For it is clear, that he himself both conferred most ships to that action, and that some also he lent to the Arcadians. And this is likewise confirmed by Homer (if any think his testimony sufficient), who, at the delivery of the sceptre unto him, calleth him, ‘Of many isles, and of all Argos king.’”[28] Argos here signifies the whole peninsula, called afterwards Peloponnesus. It is plain, however, from Homer, that the sovereignty here ascribed to him was of a most uncertain and insecure tenure; that his subordinate princes were in fact independent within their own dominions, and were too high spirited and powerful to be maltreated with impunity. Altogether, without the elaborate machinery of the feudal system, the power and influence of Agamemnon seem to have resembled that possessed by the kings of France, and emperors of Germany, over those great vassals who held whole provinces, and singly or united often proved an overmatch for their sovereign.
Here ends the Mythic age. We shall pass over the next three, or according to most chronologers the next five centuries, which are but partially filled up by notices of events, such as the return of the HeraclidÆ, the gradual subversion of monarchy throughout Greece, and the great emigrations which peopled the Asiatic coast with a Hellenic race. About the sixth century b.c. we begin to reap the benefit of contemporary authorities; and thenceforward history, if not free from an admixture of fiction, at least runs with a copious and uninterrupted stream.
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