Homer, it has well been said, was to the Greek at once Bible, Shakespeare, and Robinson Crusoe. When the youth left school it was but to enter on a wider training of a like kind in the Assembly, in the lecture halls of the rhetoricians and sophists, in the countless festivals and religious processions and dramatic representations of his city, and in the constant enjoyment of the noblest and purest works of art. Physical training1 began with the child and continued through old age. No Greek youth would pass a day without devoting some hours to the development of his body and to overcoming any physical defect or awkwardness. All classes of citizens, except those bound by necessity to the workshop, met for exercise. The result was a perfection of physical power and beauty never attained SO universally by any other people. Indeed it was from this perfection of the body, and from the unrivaled opportunity to study it constantly in all the exercises of the gymnasium, that the surpassing excellence of Greek sculpture came. Says Symonds: "The whole race rehearsed the great works of Pheidias and Polygnotus in physical exercises, before it learned to express itself in marble or in color." THE DISK THROWER.-After Myron. Now in the Vatican. 1 Read Gardner, New Chapters, 266-270. 209. Summary: Extent and Degree of Culture.' - The amazing extent and degree of Athenian culture overpower the imagination. With the few exceptions indicated, the famous men mentioned in the paragraphs above were all Athenian citizens. That one city with its small free population gave birth to more famous men of the first rank in this one century, it has been said, than all the world has ever produced in any other equal period of time. Others swarmed to the same center from less favored parts of Hellas; for, despite the condemnation of Socrates and some other such crimes, it remains true that no other city in the world afforded such freedom of thought, and that nowhere else was artistic merit so appreciated. The lists of names that have been mentioned give but a faint impression of the splendid throngs of brilliant poets, artists, philosophers, and orators, who jostled each other in the streets of Athens. This, after all, is the final justification of the Athenian democracy; and Abbott (History, II. 415), one of its sternest modern critics, is forced to exclaim, "Never before or since has life developed so richly as it developed in the beautiful city which lay at the feet of the virgin goddess." The finest glorification of the Athenian spirit as a whole is contained in the great funeral oration delivered by Pericles over the fallen Athenians at the close of the second year of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides gives the speech and represents no doubt the ideas, if not the words, of the orator: "And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many re laxations from toil; we have our regular games and sacrifices throughout the year; at home the style of our life is refined, and the delight which we daily feel in all these things helps to banish melancholy. Because of the greatness of our city, the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as of our own. . . . "And in the matter of education, whereas our adversaries from early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live at ease, and yet are equally ready to face the perils which they face. 1 Holm, I. 1-4; Mahaffy, Social Life. "If then we prefer to meet danger with a light heart but without laborious training, and with a courage which is gained by habit and not enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers ? ... "We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there is a real use for it. To avow poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character. . . . In the hour of trial Athens alone is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages. . . . For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valor, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. . . . "To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. . "I would have you day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens, until you become filled with the love of her; and when you are impressed by the spectacle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it, and who in the hour of conflict had the fear of dishonor always present to them. . . . "For the whole earth is a sepulcher of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men. Make them your examples, and, esteeming courage to be freedom and freedom to be happiness, do not weigh too nicely the perils of war. 210. Summary: Limitations. tations in Greek culture must be noted. a. It rested necessarily on slavery and consequently could not honor labor, as modern culture at least tries to do. militant rather than industrial. Trades and commerce were It was left largely to the free non-citizen class, and actual manual labor was performed mainly by slaves. As a rule, it is true, this slavery was not harsh. In Athens, in particular, the slaves were ordinarily hardly to be distinguished from the poorer citizens, and indeed they were better treated than were poor citizens in many oligarchic states; but there was always the possibility of cruelty and of judicial torture, and in the mines, even in Attica, the slaves were killed off brutally by the merciless hardships to which they were subjected. b. Greek culture was for males only. It is not probable that the wife of Pheidias or of Thucydides could read. Women had lost the freedom of the semi-barbaric society of Homer's time, without gaining much in return. Except at Sparta, where physical training was thought needful for them, they passed a secluded life in separate women's apartments, with no public interests, appearing rarely on the streets. At best they were only higher domestic servants. The chivalry of the medieval knight toward woman and the love of the modern gentleman for his wife were equally unthinkable by the finest Greek society of this age. A rare exception proves the rule. No account of the Athens of Pericles should omit mention of Aspasia. She was a native of Miletus, loved by Pericles. Since she was not an Athenian citizen he could not marry her; but he lived with her in all respects as his wife, a union not grievously offensive to Greek ideas; and her dazzling wit and beauty made his home the focus of the intellectual life of Athens. Anaxagoras, Socrates, Pheidias, delighted in her conversation, and she has sometimes been credited with inspiring the policy of Pericles himself; but she is the only woman who need be named in Greek history after the time of Sappho and Corinna.1 III. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 211. Causes. - The Thirty Years' Truce between Athens and Sparta ran only half its length. The immediate occasion for the renewal of the conflict was some assistance that the Athe 1 The student with a taste for a noble book should read Landor's Pericles and Aspasia. |