VII. INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL LIFE.

This brilliant, jostling Greek society of the seventh and sixth centuries, which had just awakened to a sense of its oneness (§ 87), which had been sowing Hellenic cities broadcast along the Mediterranean shores (§ 91), which had built up at least one great military power (§§ 96-99), and which was now developing political democracy (§§ 109-126), was marked also by new forms of intellectual activity.

127. Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture, all began in the sixth century to show a Greek character, as compared with Oriental arts, though none of them yet reached full bloom. The chief centers of such arts in this period were Miletus and Ephesus in Ionia, and Athens under Peisistratus. Architecture was more advanced than painting or sculpture. It found its highest expression, not in palaces, as with many Oriental peoples, but in the temples of the gods. In every Greek city the temples were the most beautiful and the most prominent structures.

The plan of the Greek temple was very simple. In its best stage the temple was rectangular, and its low-gabled roof, projecting beyond the inclosed part of the building, was supported by a row of columns running around the four sides. In front and rear there were often two rows of columns. The gables

(pediments) in front and rear were filled with statuary, as was also the frieze, or band of stone around the four sides between the cornice and the columns. Sometimes there was a second frieze upon the solid walls of the inclosed building inside the

3

2

DORIC COLUMN.-From

the Temple of Theseus

at Athens.

1, The shaft; 2, the capital; 8, the frieze (triglyphs nice: 5, part of roof,

and metopes); 4, cor

showing the low slope.

colonnade. Within were chambers for the statues of the gods, for the altar, and for all the utensils of the sacred service.

The building took much of its beauty from its colonnades; and the chief differences in the styles of architecture were marked by the columns and their capitals. According to differences in these features, a building is said to belong to the Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian "order."

In the Doric order the column has no base of its own, but rests directly upon the foundation from which the walls rise. The shaft is grooved lengthwise with some twenty flutings, and it has a slight outward swelling, not perceptible to the eye, but just enough to keep the shaft from seeming to taper too regularly and too fast. The capital is severely simple, consisting of a circular band of stone, swelling up from the shaft, capped by a square block, all without ornament. Upon the capitals rested a plain band of massive stones (the architrave), and above this was the frieze which supported the roof.

Outside the spaces within the gables, the ornament is confined to the frieze. This is divided at equal spaces by triglyphs, a series of projecting perpendicular flutings; and the spaces between the triglyphs (metopes) are filled with noble relief sculptures. The Doric style is the simplest of the three orders. Indeed it is almost austere in its

plainness, giving rise to a sense of self-controlled power and repose. Sometimes it is called a masculine style, in contrast with the more ornate and refined feminine character of the Ionic order.

The Ionic order came later into general use, but it was employed in Ionia even during this early period. In this order the column has a base arranged in three expanding circles The shaft is more slender than the Doric. The swelling bell of the capital is often nobly carved, and it is surmounted by two spiral rolls (volutes). The frieze has no triglyphs, and the sculpture upon it is one continuous band.

The Corinthian order is a later development and does not belong to the period we are now considering. It resembles the Ionian; but the capital is taller, lacks the volutes, and is more highly ornamented, with forms of leaves or animals.

128. Lyric Poetry. In poetry there was more development even than in architecture. The earliest Greek poetry had been made up of ballads, celebrating wars and heroes. These ballads were stories in verse, sung by wandering bards and harpers. The form and meter were simple and uniform. The greater of such compositions rose to epic poetry, of which the Iliad and Odyssey (§ 72) are the great examples. Their epoch is called the Epic Age.

IONIC ORDER.

CORIN

THIAN

ORDER.

But in the seventh and sixth centuries most poetry consisted of odes and songs in a great variety of meters, expressive of the more varied life of the time. Love and pleasure are the favorite themes, and the poems are descriptive of feelings rather than of outward events. They were intended to

WILLI

RUINS OF THE PARTHENON, on the Acropolis of Athens, east front. This famous temple is of the Doric order (§ 182).

be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. They are therefore known as lyrics; and the seventh and sixth centuries are called the Lyric Age. The most famous poets of the period are grouped below.

a. Lyric and Elegiac Poets. - Seventh and sixth centuries. From Lesbos: Alcaeus; Arion, patronized by Periander, tyrant of Corinth (§ 95); Sappho, whom the ancients were wont to designate simply "the poetess," just as they referred to Homer as "the poet"; Terpander.

From Ceos: Simonides, whose odes incited to Hellenic patriotism and who lived over into the next age.

From Teos: Anacreon (§ 116).

From Paros: Archilochus, who wrote war songs.

From Ephesus: Callinus.

From Attica (?): Solon (§§ 109-113); and perhaps Tyrtaeus, a war poet

at Sparta in the Second Messenian War.

From Ionia (?), but living at Sparta: Aleman.
From Sicily: Stesichorus.

From Megara: Theognis, poet of the oligarchs against the people. From Boeotia Corinna, a woman; and Pindar, who belongs also to the next age.

b. Poets representing other than Lyric Poetry. - Hesiod (eighth cen tury), from Boeotia: poetic history of creation and of the gods

1 Pindar was a Theban noble, and was accounted the greatest Greek lyric poet. He delighted to celebrate the victors in the Olympic contests. Professor Jebb says of him (Primer, 68): "The glory of his song has passed forever from the world, with the sound of the rolling harmonies on which it once was borne, with the splendor of rushing chariots and athletic forms around which it threw its radiance, with the white-pillared cities of the Aegean in which it wrought its spell, with the beliefs and joys which it ennobled; but those who love his poetry, and who strive to enter into its high places, can still know that they breathe a pure and bracing air, and can still feel vibrating through a clear, calm sky the strong pulse of an eagle's wings, as he soars with steady eyes against the sun."