Each day the Trojans gained, though one day Jupiter forbade any of the gods or goddesses to interfere, and on another he let them all go down and fight for their own parties. He was himself impartial; but one day Juno managed to borrow Venus' girdle, which made her so charming that nothing could resist her, and she lulled him to sleep. During that time the Greeks prevailed again, but this only lasted till Jupiter awoke, and then the Trojans gained great success. All the Greek heroes were disabled one after another, and Hector and his men broke through the rampart they had made round their camp, and were about to burn the ships, when Patroclus, grieved at finding all his friends wounded, came to Achilles with an entreaty that he might be allowed to send out the Myrmidons, and try to save the ships. Achilles consented, and dressed Patroclus in his own armour. Then all gave way before the fresh Myrmidons led by Patroclus, and the Trojans were chased back to their walls; but as Hector made a last stand before the gates, Apollo, who loved Troy because he had built the walls, caused a sunbeam to strike on Patroclus and make him faint, so that Hector easily struck him down and killed him. Then there was a desperate fight over his body. The Trojans did get the armour off it, but the Greeks saved the corpse, and had almost reached the rampart, when the Trojans came thicker and more furiously on them, and were almost bursting in, when Achilles, hearing the noise, came out, and, standing on the rampart just as he was, all unarmed, gave a terrible thundering shout, at which the Trojans were filled with dismay, and fled back in confusion, while the corpse of Patroclus was borne into the tent, where Achilles mourned over it, with many tears and vows of vengeance against Hector.

[Picture: Achilles binding his armour on Patroclus] His mother Thetis came from the sea and wept with him, and thence she went to Vulcan, from whom she obtained another beautiful suit of armour, with a wondrous shield, representing Greek life in every phase of war or peace; and in this Achilles went forth again to the battle. He drove the Trojans before his irresistible might, came up with Hector, chased him round and round the walls of Troy, and at length came up with him and slew him. Then, when Patroclus had been laid on a costly funeral pile, Achilles dragged Hector's body at the back of his chariot three times round it. Further, in honour of his friend, he had games of racing in chariots and on foot, wrestling, boxing, throwing heavy stones, and splendidly rewarded those who excelled with metal tripods, weapons, and robes.

But when poor old Priam, grieving that his son's corpse should lie unburied, thus hindering his shade from being at rest, came forth at night, in disguise, to beg it from Achilles, the hero received the old man most kindly, wept at the thought of his own old father Peleus, fed and warmed him, and sent home the body of Hector most honourably.

Here ends the Iliad. It is from other poems that the rest of the history is taken, and we know that Achilles performed many more great exploits, until Paris was aided by Apollo to shoot an arrow into the heel which alone could be wounded, and thus the hero died. There was another great fight over his body, but Ajax and Ulysses rescued it at last; Ajax bore it to the ships, and Ulysses kept back the Trojans. Thetis and all the Nereids and all the Muses came to mourn over him; and when he was burnt in the funeral pile she bore away his spirit to the white island, while the Greeks raised a huge mound in his honour. She promised his armour to the Greek who had done most to rescue his corpse. The question lay between Ajax and Ulysses, and Trojan captives being appointed as judges, gave sentence in favour of Ulysses. Ajax was so grieved that he had a fit of frenzy, fancied the cattle were the Greeks who slighted him, killed whole flocks in his rage, and, when he saw what he had done, fell on his own sword and died.

[Picture: Sepulchral mound, known as the Tomb of Ajax]

Having lost these great champions, the Greeks resolved to fetch Achilles' young son Pyrrhus to the camp, and also to get again those arrows of Hercules which Philoctetes had with him. Ulysses and Pyrrhus were accordingly sent to fetch him from his lonely island. They found him howling with pain, but he would not hear of coming away with them. So Ulysses stole his quiver while he was asleep, but when he awoke and missed it his lamentations so moved young Pyrrhus that he gave them back; and this so touched the heart of Philoctetes that he consented to return to the camp. There Machaon, the physician of the Greeks, healed his foot, and he soon after shot Paris with one of the arrows.

Instead of now giving up Helen, Deiphobus and Helenus, the two next brothers, quarrelled as to which should marry her, and when she was given to Deiphobus, Helenus was so angry that he went out and wandered in the forests of Mount Ida, where he was made prisoner by Ulysses, who contrived to find out from him that Troy could never be taken while it had the Palladium within it. Accordingly, Ulysses and Diomed set out, and, climbing over the wall by night, stole the wondrous image. While the Trojans were dismayed at the loss, the Greeks seemed to have changed their minds. They took ship and went away, and all the surviving Trojans, relieved from their siege, rushed down to the shore, where all they found was a monstrous wooden horse. While they were looking at it in wonder, a Greek came out of the rocks, and told them that his name was Sinon, and that he had been cruelly left behind by the Greeks, who had grown weary of the siege and gone home, but that if the wonderful horse were once taken into Troy it would serve as another Palladium. The priest of Neptune, Laocoon, did not believe the story, and declared that Sinon was a spy; but he was cut short in his remonstrance by two huge serpents, which glided out of the sea and devoured him and his two sons. Cassandra, too, a daughter of Priam, who had the gift of prophecy, but was fated never to be believed, shrieked with despair when she saw the Trojans harnessing themselves to the horse to drag it into Troy, but nobody heeded her, and there was a great feast to dedicate it to Pallas. Helen perhaps guessed or knew what it meant, for at dark she walked round it, and called the names of Ulysses, and many other Greeks, in the voices of Penelope and the other wives at home.

[Picture: Laocoon] For indeed the horse was full of Greeks; and at dark Sinon lighted a beacon as a signal to the rest, who were only waiting behind the little isle of Tenedos. Then he let the others out of the horse, and slaughter and fire reigned throughout Troy. Menelaus slew Deiphobus as he tried to rise from bed, and carried Helen down to his ship. Poor old Priam tried to put on his armour and defend Hecuba and his daughters, but Pyrrhus killed him at the altar in his palace-court; and AEneas, after seeing this, and that all was lost, hurried back to his own house, took his father Anchises on his back, and his little son Iulus in one hand, his household gods in the other, and, with his wife Creusa following, tried to escape from the burning city with his own troop of warriors. All succeeded except poor Creusa, who was lost in the throng of terrified fugitives, and was never found again; but AEneas found ships on the coast, and sailed safely away to Italy.

All the rest of the Trojans were killed or made slaves. Ulysses killed Hector's poor little son, and Andromache became slave to young Pyrrhus. Cassandra clung to Pallas' statue, and Ajax Oileus, trying to drag her away, moved the statue itself—such an act of sacrilege that the Greeks had nearly stoned him on the spot—and Cassandra was given to Agamemnon. Polyxena, the youngest sister, was sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, and poor old Hecuba went mad with grief.

[Picture: Funeral Feast]



CHAP. X.—THE WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

The overthrow of the temples at Troy was heavily visited on the Greeks by the gods, and the disasters that befel Ulysses are the subject of another grand Greek poem called the Odyssey, from his right Greek name Odysseus. He was the special favourite of Pallas Athene, but she could not save him from many dangers. He had twelve ships, with which he set out to return to Ithaca; but as he was doubling Cape Malea, one of the rugged points of the Peloponnesus, a great storm caught him, and drove him nine days westward, till he came to an island, where he sent three men to explore, but they did not return, and he found that this was the land of the lotus-eaters, a people who always lie about in a dreamy state of repose, and that to taste the food drives away all remembrance of home and friends. He was obliged to drag his men away by force, and bind them to the benches. The lotus bean, or jujube, is really eaten in Africa, but not with these effects.

Next they came to another island, where there was a bay with rocks around, with goats leaping on them. Here Ulysses left eleven ships, and sailed with one to explore the little islet opposite. Landing with his men, he entered an enormous cavern, well stored with bowls of milk and cream, and with rows of cheeses standing on the ledges of rock. While the Greeks were regaling themselves, a noise was heard, and great flocks of sheep and goats came bleating in. Behind them came a giant, with a fir tree for a staff, and only one eye in the middle of his forehead. He was Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, sons of Neptune, and workmen of Vulcan. He asked fiercely who the strangers were, and Ulysses told him that they were shipwrecked sailors, imploring him for hospitality in the name of the gods. Polyphemus laughed at this, saying he was stronger than the gods, and did not care for them; and, dashing two unhappy Greeks on the floor, he ate them up at once; after which he closed up the front of the cave with a monstrous rock, penned up the kids and lambs, and began to milk his goats, drank up a great quantity of milk, and fell asleep on the ground. Ulysses thought of killing him at once, but recollected that the stone at the mouth of the cave would keep him captive if the giant's strength did not move it, and abstained. In the morning the Cyclops let out his flocks, and then shut the Greeks in with the stone; but he left his staff behind, and Ulysses hardened the top of this in the fire. A skin of wine had been brought from the ships, and when Polyphemus came home in the evening, and had devoured two more Greeks, Ulysses offered it to him. It was the first wine he had tasted, and he was in raptures with it, asking his guest's name as he pledged him. "No-man," replied Ulysses, begging again for mercy. "This will I grant," said the Cyclops, "in return for thy gift. No-man shall be the last whom I devour." He drank up the whole skin of wine, and went to sleep. Then Ulysses and four of his companions seized the staff, and forced its sharpened top into the Cyclops' single eye, so that he awoke blind, and roaring with pain so loud that all the other Cyclops awoke, and came calling to know who had hurt him. "No-man," shouted back Polyphemus; and they, thinking it was only some sudden illness, went back to their caves. Meanwhile, Ulysses was fastening the remaining Greeks under the bellies of the sheep and goats, the wool and hair hanging over them. He himself clung on under the largest goat, the master of the herd. When morning came, bleatings of the herds caused the blind giant to rouse himself to roll back the stone from the entrance. He laid his hand on each beast's back, that his guests might not ride out on them, but he did not feel beneath, though he kept back Ulysses' goat for a moment caressing it, and saying, "My pretty goat, thou seest me, but I cannot see thee."

As soon as Ulysses was safe on board ship, and had thrust out from land, he called back his real name to the giant, whom he saw sitting on the stone outside his cave. Polyphemus and the other Cyclops returned by hurling rocks at the ship, but none touched it, and Ulysses reached his fleet safely. This adventure, however, had made Neptune his bitter foe, and how could he sail on Neptune's realm?

However, he next came to the Isle of the Winds, which floated about in the ocean, and was surrounded by a brazen wall. Here dwelt AEolus, with his wife and sons and daughters, and Ulysses stayed with him a whole month. At the end of it, AEolus gave Ulysses enough of each wind, tied up in separate bags, to take him safely home; but his crew fancied there was treasure in them, and while he was asleep opened all the bags at once, and the winds bursting out tossed all the ships, and then carried them back to the island, where AEolus declared that Ulysses must be a wretch forsaken of the gods, and would give him no more.

Six days later the fleet came to another cannibal island, that of the Laestrygonians, where the crews of all the ships, except that of the king himself, were caught and eaten up, and he alone escaped, and, still proceeding westward, came to another isle, belonging to Circe, the witch goddess, daughter to Helios. The comrades of Ulysses, whom he had sent to explore, did not return, and he was himself landing in search of them, when Mercury appeared to him, and warned him that, if he tasted of the bowl she would offer him, he would, like his friends, be changed by her into a hog, unless he fortified himself with the plant named moly—a white-flowered, starry sort of garlic, which Mercury gave him. Ulysses then made his way through a wood to the hall where Circe sat, waited on by four nymphs. She received him courteously, offered him her cup, and so soon as he had drunk of it she struck him with her wand, and bade him go grunt with his fellows; but as, thanks to the moly, he stood unchanged before her, he drew his sword and made her swear to do him no hurt, and to restore his companions to their proper form. They then made friends, and he stayed with her a whole year. She told him that he was fated not to return home till he had first visited the borders of the world of Pluto, and consulted Tiresias, the blind prophet. She told him what to do, and he went on beyond the Mediterranean into the outer ocean, to the land of gloom, where Helios, the sun, does not shine. Here Ulysses dug a pit, into which he poured water, wine, and the blood of a great black ram, and there flocked up to him crowds of shades, eager to drink of it, and to converse with him. All his own friends were there—Achilles, Ajax, and, to his surprise, Agamemnon—all very melancholy, and mourning for the realms of day. His mother, who had died of grief for his absence, came and blessed him; and Tiresias warned him of Neptune's anger, and of his other dangers, ere he should return to Ithaca. Terror at the ghastly troop overcame him at last, and he fled and embarked again, saw Circe once more, and found himself in the sea by which the Argo had returned. The Sirens' Isle was near, and, to prevent the perils of their song, Ulysses stopped the ears of all his crew with wax, and though he left his own open, bade them lash him to the mast, and not heed all his cries and struggles to be loosed. Thus he was the only person who ever heard the Sirens' song and lived. Scylla and Charybdis came next, and, being warned by Pallas, he thought it better to lose six than all, and so went nearest to the monster, whose six mouths at once fell on six of the crew, and tore them away.

[Picture: Ulysses tied to the mast]

The isle of Trinacria was pasture for the 360 cattle of Helios, and both Tiresias and Circe had warned Ulysses that they must not be touched. He would fain have passed it by, but his crew insisted on landing for the night, making oath not to touch the herds. At dawn such a wind arose that they could not put to sea for a month, and after eating up the stores, and living on birds and fish, they took some of the oxen when Ulysses was asleep, vowing to build a temple to Helios in recompense. They were dismayed at seeing the hides of the slain beasts creep on the ground, and at hearing their flesh low as it boiled in the cauldron. Indeed, Helios had gone to Jupiter, and threatened to stop his chariot unless he had his revenge; so as soon as the wretched crew embarked again a storm arose, the ship was struck by lightning, and Ulysses alone was saved from the wreck, floating on the mast. He came back past Scylla and Charybdis, and, clinging to the fig tree which hung over the latter, avoided being sucked into the whirlpool, and by-and-by came to land in the island of the nymph Calypso, who kept him eight years, but he pined for home all the time, and at last built a raft on which to return. Neptune was not weary of persecuting him, and raised another storm, which shattered the raft, and threw Ulysses on the island of Scheria. Here the king's fair daughter Nausicaa, going down to the stream with her maidens to wash their robes, met the shipwrecked stranger, and took him home. Her father feasted him hospitably, and sent him home in a ship, which landed him on the coast of Ithaca fast asleep, and left him there. He had been absent twenty years; and Pallas further disguised his aspect, so that he looked like a beggar, when, in order to see how matters stood, he made his way first to the hut of his trusty old swineherd Eumaeus.

[Picture: Port of Ithaca]

Nothing could be worse than things were. More than a hundred powerful young chiefs of the Ionian isles had taken possession of his palace, and were daily revelling there, thrusting his son Telemachus aside, and insisting that Penelope should choose one of them as her husband. She could only put them off by declaring she could wed no one till she had finished the winding-sheet she was making for old Laertes, her father-in-law; while to prevent its coming to an end she undid by night whatever she wove by day. Telemachus had gone to seek his father, but came home baffled to Eumaeus' hut, and there was allowed to recognise Ulysses. But it was as a beggar, broken-down and foot-sore, that Ulysses sought his palace, and none knew him there but his poor old dog Argus, who licked his feet, and died for joy. The suitors, in their pride, made game of the poor stranger, but Penelope sent for him, in case he brought news of her husband. Even to her he told a feigned story, but she bade the old nurse Euryclea take care of him, and wash his feet. While doing so, the old woman knew him by a scar left by the tusk of a wild boar long ago, and Ulysses could hardly stifle her cry of joy; but she told him all, and who could be trusted among the slaves. The plans were fixed. Telemachus, with much difficulty, persuaded his mother to try to get rid of the suitors by promising to wed him only who could bend Ulysses' bow. One after another tried in vain, and then, amid their sneers, the beggar took it up, and bent it easily, hit the mark, and then aimed it against them! They were all at the banquet-table in the hall. Eumaeus and the other faithful servants had closed all the doors, and removed all the arms, and there was a terrible slaughter both of these oppressors and the servants who had joined with them against their queen and her son.

After this, Ulysses made himself known to his wife, and visited his father, who had long retired to his beautiful garden. The kindred of the suitors would have made war on him, but Pallas pacified them, and the Odyssey leaves him to spend his old age in Ithaca, and die a peaceful death. He was just what the Greeks thought a thoroughly brave and wise man; for they had no notion that there was any sin in falsehood and double-dealing.

[Picture: Greek Pottery]



CHAP. XI.—THE DOOM OF THE ATRIDES.

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You remember that Ulysses met Agamemnon among the other ghosts. The King of Men, as the Iliad calls him, had vast beacons lighted from isle to isle, and from cape to cape, to announce that Troy was won, and that he was on his way home, little knowing what a welcome was in store for him.

His wife Clytemnestra had never forgiven him for the loss of Iphigenia, and had listened to his cousin AEgisthus, who wanted to marry her. She came forth and received Agamemnon with apparent joy, but his poor captive Cassandra wailed aloud, and would not cross the threshold, saying it streamed with blood, and that this was a house of slaughter. No one listened to her, and Agamemnon was led to the bath to refresh himself after his journey. A new embroidered robe lay ready for him, but the sleeves were sewn up at the wrists, and while he could not get his hands free, AEgisthus fell on him and slew him, and poor Cassandra likewise.

His daughter Electra, fearing that her young brother Orestes would not be safe since he was the right heir of the kingdom, sent him secretly away to Phocis, where the king bred him up with his own son Pylades, and the two youths loved each other as much as Achilles and Patroclus had done. It was the bounden duty of a son to be the avenger of his father's blood, and after eight years, as soon as Orestes was a grown warrior, he went with his friend in secret to Mycenae, and offered a lock of his hair on his father's tomb. Electra, coming out with her offerings, found these tokens, and knew that he was near. He made himself known, and she admitted him into the house, where he fulfilled his stern charge, and killed both Clytemnestra and AEgisthus, then celebrated their funeral rites with all due solemnity.

This was on the very day that Menelaus and Helen returned home. They had been shipwrecked first in Egypt, where they spent eight years, and then were held by contrary winds on a little isle on the coast of Egypt, where they would have been starved if Menelaus had not managed to capture the old sea-god Proteus, when he came up to pasture his flock of seals on the beach, and, holding him tight, while he changed into every kind of queer shape, forced him at last to speak. By Proteus' advice, Menelaus returned to Egypt, and made the sacrifices to the gods he had forgotten before, after which he safely reached Sparta, on the day of Clytemnestra's obsequies. Just as they were ended, the Furies, the avengers of crime, fell upon Orestes for having slain his mother. He fled in misery from Mycenae, which Menelaus took into his own hands, while the wretched Orestes went from place to place, still attended and comforted by faithful Pylades, but he never tried to rest without being again beset by the Furies. At last Apollo, at the oracle at Delphi, sent him to take his trial at the court of justice at Athens, called Areopagus, Ares' (or Mars') Hill, after which the oracle bade him fetch the image of Diana from Tauris, marry his cousin Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, and recover his father's kingdom.

Pallas Athene came down to preside at Areopagus, and directed the judges to pronounce that, though the slaying of a mother was a fearful crime, yet it was Orestes' duty to avenge his father's death. He was therefore acquitted, and purified by sacrifice, and was no more haunted by the Furies, while with Pylades he sailed for Tauris. In that inhospitable place it was the custom to sacrifice all strangers to Diana, and, as soon as they had landed, Orestes and Pylades were seized, and taken to the priestess at the temple, that their hair might be cut and their brows wreathed for the sacrifice. The priestess was no other than Iphigenia, who had been snatched away from Aulis, and, when she and the brother, whom she had left an infant, found each other out, she contrived to leave the temple by night, carrying the image of Diana with her. They went to Delphi together, and there Iphigenia met Electra, who had heard a false report that her beloved Orestes had been sacrificed by the priestess of Tauris, and was just going to tear out her eyes, when Orestes appeared, and the sisters were made known to each other. A temple was built for the image near Marathon, in Attica, and Iphigenia spent the rest of her life as priestess there. Orestes, in the meantime, married Hermione—after, as some say, killing Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, to whom she was either promised or married—and reigned over both Mycenae and Sparta until the hundred years' truce with the Heracleids, or grandsons of Hercules, had come to an end, and they returned with a party of Dorians and conquered Sparta, eighty years after the Trojan war.

[Picture: Plain of Sparta, with Mount Taygetus]

This is the last of the events of the age of heroes, when so much must be fable, though there may be a germ of historical truth which no one can make out among the old tales that had come from the East, and the like of which may be found among the folk-lore of all nations. These are the most famous of the stories, because they joined all Greeks together, and were believed in by all Greeks alike in their main circumstances; but every state had its own story, and one or two may be told before we end this chapter of myths, because they are often heard of, and poetry has been written about some of them.

At Thebes, in Boeotia, the king, Laius, was told that his first child would be his death. So as soon as it was born he had its ancles pierced, and put it out in a wood to die; but it was found by a shepherd, and brought to Corinth, where the queen named it OEdipus, or Swollen Feet, and bred it up as her own child. Many years later OEdipus set out for the Delphic oracle, to ask who he was; but all the answer he received was that he must shun his native land, for he would be the slayer of his own father. He therefore resolved not to return to Corinth, but on his journey he met in a narrow pass with a chariot going to Delphi. A quarrel arose, and in the fight that followed he slew the man to whom the chariot belonged, little knowing that it was Laius, his own father.

He then went on through Boeotia. On the top of a hill near Thebes sat a monster called the Sphinx, with a women's head, a lion's body, and an eagle's wings. She had been taught riddles by the Muses, and whoever failed to answer them she devoured upon the spot. Whoever could answer her was to marry the king's sister, and share the kingdom. OEdipus went bravely up to her, and heard her question, "What is the animal that is at first four-legged, then two-legged, then three-legged?" "Man," cried OEdipus. "He creeps as a babe on all-fours, walks upright in his prime, and uses a staff in his old age." Thereupon the Sphinx turned to stone, and OEdipus married the princess, and reigned many years, till there was a famine and pestilence, and the oracle was asked the cause. It answered that the land must be purified from the blood of Laius. Only then did OEdipus find out that it was Laius whom he had slain; and then, by the marks on his ancles, it was proved that he was the babe who had been exposed, so that he had fulfilled his fate, and killed his own father. To save Thebes, he left the country, with his eyes put out by way of expiation, and wandered about, only attended by his faithful daughter Antigone, till he came to Athens, where, like Orestes, he was sheltered, and allowed to expiate his crime. After his death, Antigone came back to Thebes, where her two brothers Eteocles and Polynices had agreed to reign each a year by turns; but when Eteocles' year was over he would not give up to his brother, and Polynices, in a rage, collected friends, among whom were six great chiefs, and attacked Thebes. In the battle called "The Seven Chiefs against Thebes," all were slain, and Eteocles and Polynices fell by each other's hands. Their uncle Creon forbade that the bodies of men who had so ruined their country should receive funeral honours from anyone on pain of death, thus condemning their shades to the dreary flitting about on the banks of the Styx, so much dreaded. But their sister Antigone, the noblest woman of Greek imagination, dared the peril, stole forth at night, and gave burial alone to her two brothers. She was found out, and put to death for her sisterly devotion, though Creon's own son killed himself for grief and love of her. This happened in the generation before the Trojan war, for Tydeus, the father of Diomed, was one of the seven chiefs.

Macedon, the country northward of Greece, had one very droll legend. Midas, king of the Bryges, at the foot of Mount Bermion, had a most beautiful garden, full of all kinds of fruit. This was often stolen, until he watched, and found the thief was old Silenus, the tutor of Bacchus. Thereupon he filled with wine the fount where Silenus was used to drink after his feast, and thus, instead of going away, the old god fell asleep, and Midas caught him, and made him answer all his questions. One was, "What is best for man?" and the answer was very sad, "What is best for man is never to have been born. The second best is to die as soon as may be." At last Silenus was released, on condition that he would grant one wish, and this was that all that Midas touched should turn to gold; and so it did, clothes, food, and everything the king took hold of became solid gold, so that he found himself starving, and entreated that the gift might be taken away. So he was told to bathe in the river Pactolus, in Lydia, and the sands became full of gold dust; but, in remembrance of his folly, his ears grew long like those of a donkey. He hid them by wearing a tall Phrygian cap, and no one knew of them but his barber, who was told he should be put to death if ever he mentioned these ears. The barber was so haunted by the secret, that at last he could not help relieving himself, by going to a clump of reeds and whispering into them, "King Midas has the ears of an ass;" and whenever the wind rustled in the reeds, those who went by might always hear them in turn whisper to one another, "King Midas has the ears of an ass." Some accounts say that it was for saying that Pan was a better musician than Apollo that Midas had his ass's ears, and that it was Lydia of which he was king; and this seems most likely, for almost as many Greeks lived in the borders of Asia Minor as lived in Greece itself, and there were many stories of the hills, cities, and rivers there, but I have only told you what is most needful to be known—not, of course, to be believed, but to be known.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]



CHAP. XII.—AFTER THE HEROIC AGE.

All these heroes of whom we have been telling lived, if they lived at all, about the time of the Judges of Israel. Troy is thought to have been taken at the time that Saul was reigning in Israel, and there is no doubt that there once was a city between Mount Ida and the AEgean Sea, for quantities of remains have been dug up, and among them many rude earthenware images of an owl, the emblem of Pallas Athene, likenesses perhaps of the Palladium. Hardly anything is told either false or true of Greece for three hundred years after this time, and when something more like history begins we find that all Greece, small as it is, was divided into very small states, each of which had a chief city and a government of its own, and was generally shut in from its neighbours by mountains or by sea. There were the three tribes, Ionian, Dorian, and AEolian, dwelling in these little states, and, though they often quarrelled among themselves, all thinking themselves one nation, together with their kindred in the islands of the AEgean, on the coasts of Asia, and also in Sicily and Southern Italy, which was sometimes called Greater Greece.

Some time between the heroic age and the historical time, there had been a great number of songs and verses composed telling of the gods and heroes. Singers and poets used to be entertained by the kings, and sometimes to wander from one place to another, welcomed by all, as they chanted to the harp or the lyre the story of the great forefathers of their hosts, especially when they had all joined together, as in the hunt of the great boar of Calydon, in the voyage for the Golden Fleece, and, above all, in the siege of Troy. The greatest of all these singers was the blind poet Homer, whose songs of the wrath of Achilles and the wanderings of Ulysses were loved and learnt by everyone. Seven different cities claimed to be his birth-place, but no one knows more about him than that he was blind—not even exactly when he lived—but his poems did much to make the Greeks hold together.

And so did their religion. Everybody sent to ask questions of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and there really were answers to them, though no one can tell by what power. And at certain times there were great festivals at certain shrines. One was at Olympia, in Elis, where there was a great festival every five years. It was said that Hercules, when a little boy, had here won a foot-race with his brothers, and when the Heracleids returned to Sparta they founded a feast, with games for all the Greeks to contend in. There were chariot races, horse races, foot races, boxing and wrestling matches, throwing weights, playing with quoits, singing and reciting of poems. The winner was rewarded with a wreath of bay, of pine, of parsley, or the like, and he wore such an one as his badge of honour for the rest of his life. Nothing was thought more of than being first in the Olympic games, and the Greeks even came to make them their measure of time, saying that any event happened in such and such a year of such an Olympiad. The first Olympiad they counted from was the year 776 B.C., that is, before the coming of our blessed Lord. There were other games every three years, which Theseus was said to have instituted, on the isthmus of Corinth, called the Isthmean Games, and others in two different places, and no honour was more highly esteemed than success in these.

There were also councils held of persons chosen from each tribe, called Amphictyons, for arranging their affairs, both religious and worldly, and one great Amphictyonic council, which met near Delphi, to discuss the affairs of all Greece. In truth, all the great nations who long ago parted in Asia have had somewhat the same arrangement. A family grew first into a clan, then into a tribe, then into a nation, and the nation that settled in one country formed fresh family divisions of clans, tribes, and families. At first the father of a family would take council with the sons, the head of a clan with the fathers of families, the chief of a tribe with the heads of clans, and as these heads of clans grew into little kings, the ablest of them would lead the nation in time of war, as Agamemnon did the chiefs against Troy. However, the Greeks seem for the most part, between the heroic and historical ages, to have dropped the king or chief of each state, and only to have managed them by various councils of the chief heads of families, who were called aristoi, the best, while those who were not usually called into council, though they too were free, and could choose their governors, and vote in great matters, were termed demos, the people. This is why we hear of aristocracy and democracy. Under these freemen were the people of the country they had conquered, or any slaves they had bought or taken captive, or strangers who had come to live in the place, and these had no rights at all.

Greek cities were generally beautiful places, in valleys between the hills and the sea. They were sure to have several temples to the gods of the place. These were colonnades of stone-pillars, upon steps, open all round, but with a small dark cell in the middle, which was the shrine of the god, whose statue, and carvings of whose adventures, adorned the outside. There was an altar in the open-air for sacrifices, the flesh of which was afterwards eaten. In the middle of a town was always a market-place, which served as the assembling-place of the people, and it had a building attached to it where the fire of Vesta was never allowed to go out. The charge of it was given to the best men who could be found; and when a set of citizens went forth to make a new home or colony in Asia, Sicily, or Italy, they always took brands from this fire, guarded them carefully in a censer, and lighted their altar-fires therefrom when they settled down.

[Picture: Greek Interior]

These cities were of houses built round paved courts. The courts had generally a fountain in the middle, and an altar to the hero forefather of the master, where, before each meal, offerings were made and wine poured out. The rooms were very small, and used for little but sleeping; and the men lived chiefly in the cloister or pillared walks round the court. There was a kind of back-court for the women of the family, who did not often appear in the front one, though they were not shut up like Eastern women. Most Greeks had farms, which they worked by the help of their slaves, and whence came the meat, corn, wine, and milk that maintained the family. The women spun the wool of the sheep, wove and embroidered it, making for the men short tunics reaching to the knee, with a longer mantle for dignity or for need; and for themselves long robes [Picture: Greek robe] reaching to the feet—a modest and graceful covering—but leaving the arms bare. Men cut their hair close; women folded their tresses round their heads in the simplest and most becoming manner that has yet been invented. The feet were bare, but sandalled, and the sandals fastened with ornamented thongs. Against the sun sometimes a sort of hat was worn, or the mantle was put over the head, and women had thick veils wrapping them.

In time of war the armour was a helmet with a horse-hair crest, a breast-plate on a leathern cuirass, which had strips of leather hanging from the lower edge as far down as the knee; sometimes greaves to guard the leathern buskin; a round shield of leather, faced with metal, and often beautifully ornamented; and also spears, swords, daggers, and sometimes bows and arrows. Chariots for war had been left off since the heroic times; indeed Greece was so hilly that horses were not very much used in battle, though riding was part of the training of a Greek, and the Thessalian horses were much valued. Every state that had a seaboard had its fleet of galleys, with benches of oars; but the Greek sailors seldom ventured out of sight of land, and all that Greece or Asia Minor did not produce was brought by the Phoenicians, the great sailors, merchants, and slave-dealers of the Old World. They brought Tyrian purple, gold of Ophir, silver of Spain, tin of Gaul and Britain, ivory from India, and other such luxuries; and they also bought captives in war, or kidnapped children on the coast, and sold them as slaves. Ulysses' faithful swineherd was such a slave, and of royal birth; and such was the lot of many an Israelite child, for whom its parents' "eyes failed with looking and longing."

[Picture: Male costume] The Greeks had more power of thought and sense of grace than any other people have ever had. They always had among them men seeking for truth and beauty. The truth-seekers were called philosophers, or lovers of wisdom. They were always trying to understand about God and man, and this world, and guessing at something great, far beyond the stories of Jupiter; and they used to gather young men round them under the pillared porches and talk over these thoughts, or write them in beautiful words. Almost all the sciences began with the Greeks; their poems and their histories are wonderfully written; and they had such great men among them that, though most of their little states were smaller than an ordinary English county, and the whole of them together do not make a country as large as Ireland, their history is the most remarkable in the world, except that of the Jews. The history of the Jews shows what God does for men; the history of Greece shows what man does left to himself.

Greece was not so small as what is called Greece now in our modern maps. It reached northwards as far as the Volutza and Khimera mountains, beyond which lay Macedon, where the people called themselves Greeks, but were not quite accepted as such. In this peninsula, together with the Peloponnesus and the isles, there were twenty little states, making up Hellas, or Greece. {109}

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CHAP. XIII.—LYCURGUS AND THE LAWS OF SPARTA. B.C. 884-668.

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You remember that after a hundred years the grandsons of Hercules returned, bringing with them their followers of Dorian birth, and conquered Laconia. These Dorians called themselves Spartans, and were the rulers of the land, though the Greeks, who were there before them, were also freemen, all but those of one city, called Helos, which revolted, and was therefore broken up, and the people were called Helots, and became slaves to the Spartans. One of the Spartan kings, sons of Hercules, had twin sons, and these two reigned together with equal rights, and so did their sons after them, so that there were always two kings at Sparta. One line was called the Agids, from Agis, its second king; the other Eurypontids, from Eurypon, its third king, instead of from the two original twins.

The affairs of Sparta had fallen into a corrupt state by the third generation after Eurypon. The king of his line was killed in a quarrel, and his widow, a wicked woman, offered his brother Lycurgus to kill her little new-born babe, if he would marry her, that she might continue to be queen. Lycurgus did not show his horror, but advised her to send the child alive to him, that he might dispose of it. So far from killing it was he, that he carried it at once to the council, placed it on the throne, and proclaimed it as Charilaus, king of Sparta.

There were still murmurs from those who did not know that Lycurgus had saved the little boy's life. As he was next heir to the throne, it was thought that he must want to put Charilaus out of the way, so as to reign himself; so, having seen the boy in safe keeping, Lycurgus went on his travels to study the laws and ways of other countries. He visited Crete, and learnt the laws of Minos; and, somewhere among the Greek settlements in Asia, he is said to have seen and talked to Homer, and heard his songs. He also went to Egypt, and after that to India, where he may have learnt much from the old Brahmin philosophy; and then, having made his plan, he repaired to Delphi, and prayed until he received answer from Apollo that his laws should be the best, and the state that obeyed them the most famous in Greece. He then went home, where he had been much missed, for his young nephew Charilaus, though grown to man's estate, was too weak and good-natured to be much obeyed, and there was a great deal of idleness, and gluttony, and evil of all sorts prevailing.

Thirty Spartans bound themselves to help Lycurgus in his reform, and Charilaus, fancying it a league against himself, fled into the temple of Pallas, but his uncle fetched him out, and told him that he only wanted to make laws for making the Spartans great and noble. The rule was only for the real Dorian Spartans, the masters of the country, and was to make them perfect warriors. First, then, he caused all the landmarks to be taken up, and the lands thrown into one, which he divided again into lots, each of which was large enough to yield 82 bushels of corn in a year, with wine and oil in proportion. Then, to hinder hoarding, he allowed no money to be used in the country but great iron weights, so that a small sum took up a great deal of room, and could hardly be carried about, and thus there was no purchasing Phoenician luxuries; nor was anyone to use gold or ivory, soft cushions, carpets, or the like, as being unworthy of the race of Hercules. The whole Spartan nation became, in fact, a regiment of highly-disciplined warriors. They were to live together in public barracks, only now and then visiting their homes, and even when they slept there, being forbidden to touch food till they came to the general meal, which was provided for by contributions of meal, cheese, figs, and wine from each man's farm, and a little money to buy fish and meat; also a sort of soup called black broth, which was so unsavoury that nobody but a Spartan could eat it, because it was said they brought the best sauce, namely, hunger. A boy was admitted as soon as he was old enough, and was warned against repeating the talk of his elders, by being told on his first entrance, by the eldest man in the company, "Look you, sir; nothing said here goes out there." Indeed no one used more words than needful, so that short, pithy sayings came to be called Laconic. To be a perfect soldier was the great point, so boys were taught that no merit was greater than bearing pain without complaint; and they carried this so far, that a boy who had brought a young wolf into the hall, hidden under his tunic, let it bite him even to death without a groan or cry. It is said that they were trained to theft, and were punished, not for the stealing, but the being found out. And, above all, no Spartan was ever to turn his back in battle. The mothers gave the sons a shield, with the words, "With it, or on it." The Spartan shields were long, so that a dead warrior would be borne home on his shield; but a man would not dare show his face again if he had thrown it away in flight. The women were trained to running, leaping, and throwing the bar, like the men, and were taught stern hardihood, so that, when their boys were offered to the cruel Diana, they saw them flogged to death at her altar without a tear. All the lives of the Spartans were spent in exercising for war, and the affairs of the state were managed not so much by the kings, but by five judges called Ephors, who were chosen every year, while the kings had very little power. They had to undergo the same discipline as the rest—dressed, ate, and lived like them; but they were the high priests and chief captains, and made peace or war.

At first Lycurgus' laws displeased some of the citizens much, and, when he was proposing them, a young man named Alcander struck him on the face with his staff, and put out his eye. The others were shocked, and put Alcander into Lycurgus' hands, to be punished as he thought fit. All Lycurgus did was to make him wait upon him at meals, and Alcander was so touched and won over that he became one of his best supporters. After having fully taught Sparta to observe his rule, Lycurgus declared that he had another journey to take, and made the people swear to observe his laws till he came back again. He never did come back, and they held themselves bound by them for ever.

This story of Lycurgus has been doubted, but whether there were such a man or not, it is quite certain that these were the laws of Sparta in her most famous days, and that they did their work of making brave and hardy soldiers. The rule was much less strict in the camp than the city, and the news of a war was delightful to the Spartans as a holiday-time. All the hard work of their farms was done for them by the Helots, who were such a strong race that it was not easy to keep them down, although their masters were very cruel to them, often killing large numbers of them if they seemed to be growing dangerous, always ill-treating them, and, it is said, sometimes making them drunk, that the sight of their intoxication might disgust the young Spartans. In truth, the whole Spartan system was hard and unfeeling, and much fitter to make fighting machines than men.

The first great Spartan war that we know of was with their neighbours of Messenia, who stood out bravely, but were beaten, and brought down to the state of Helots in the year 723 B.C., all but a small band, who fled into other states. Among them was born a brave youth named Aristomenes, who collected all the boldest of his fellow-Messenians to try to save their country, and Argos, Arcadia, and Elis joined with them. Several battles were fought. One, which was called the battle of the Boar's Pillar, was long sung about. An augur had told Aristomenes that under a tree sat the Spartan brothers Castor and Pollux, to protect their countrymen, and that he might not pass it; but in the pursuit he rushed by it, and at that moment the shield was rent from him by an unseen hand. While he was searching for it, the Spartans (who do seem this time to have fled) escaped; but Messene was free, and he was crowned with flowers by the rejoicing women. A command from Apollo made him descend into a cave, where he found his shield, adorned with the figure of an eagle, and, much encouraged, he won another battle, and would have entered Sparta itself, had not Helen and her twin brothers appeared to warn him back. At last, however, the war turned against him, and in a battle on Laconian ground he was stunned by a stone, and taken prisoner, with 50 more. They were all condemned to be thrown down a high rock into a deep pit. Everyone else was killed by the fall, but Aristomenes found himself unhurt, with sky above, high precipices on all sides, and his dead comrades under him. He wrapped himself in his cloak to wait for death, but on the third day he heard something moving, uncovered his face, and saw that a fox had crept in from a cavern at the side of the pit. He took hold of the fox's tail, crawled after it, and at last saw the light of day. He scraped the earth till the way was large enough for him to pass, escaped, and gathered his friends, to the amazement of the Spartans. Again he gained the victory, and a truce was made, but he was treacherously seized, and thrown into prison. However, this time he was set free by a maiden, whom he gave in marriage to his son. At last Eira, the chief city of Messenia, was betrayed by a foolish woman, while Aristomenes was laid aside by a wound. In spite of this, however, he fought for three days and nights against the Spartans, and at last drew up all the survivors—women as well as men—in a hollow square, with the children in the middle, and demanded a free passage. The Spartans allowed these brave Messenians to pass untouched, and they reached Arcadia. There the dauntless Aristomenes arranged another scheme for seizing Sparta itself, but it was betrayed, and failed. The Arcadians stoned the traitor, while the gentle Aristomenes wept for him. The remaining Messenians begged him to lead them to a new country, but he would not leave Greece as long as he could strike a blow against Sparta. However, he sent his two sons, and they founded in Sicily a new Messene, which we still call Messina. Aristomenes waited in vain in Arcadia, till Damagetus, king of Rhodes, who had been bidden by an oracle to marry the daughter of the best of Greeks, asked for the daughter of Aristomenes, and persuaded him to finish his life in peace and honour in Rhodes.

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CHAP. XIV.—SOLON AND THE LAWS OF ATHENS. B.C. 594-546.

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North of the Peloponnesus, jutting out into the AEgean Sea, lay the rocky little Ionian state of Attica, with its lovely city, Athens. There was a story that Neptune and Pallas Athene had had a strife as to which should be the patron of the city, and that it was to be given to whichever should produce the most precious gift for it. Neptune struck the earth with his trident, and there appeared a war-horse; but Pallas' touch brought forth an olive-tree, and this was judged the most useful gift. The city bore her name; the tiny Athenian owl was her badge; the very olive-tree she had bestowed was said to be that which grew in the court of the Acropolis, a sacred citadel on a rock above the city; and near at hand was her temple, called the Parthenon, or Virgin's Shrine. Not far off was the Areopagus, a Hill of Ares, or Mars, the great place for hearing causes and doing justice; and below these there grew up a city filled with men as brave as the Spartans, and far more thoughtful and wise, besides having a most perfect taste and sense of beauty.

[Picture: Gate of Mycenae]

The Athenians claimed Theseus as their greatest king and first lawgiver. It was said that, when the Dorians were conquering the Peloponnesus, they came north and attacked Attica, but were told by an oracle that they never would succeed if they slew the king of Athens. Codrus, who was then king of Athens, heard of this oracle, and devoted himself for his country. He found that in battle the Dorians always forbore to strike him, and he therefore disguised himself, went into the enemy's camp, quarrelled with a soldier there, and thus caused himself to be killed, so as to save his country. He was the last king. The Athenians would not have anyone less noble to sit in his seat, and appointed magistrates called Archons in the stead of kings.

Soon they fell into a state of misrule and disorder, and they called on a philosopher named Draco to draw up laws for them. Draco's laws were good, but very strict, and for the least crime the punishment was death. Nobody could keep them, so they were set aside and forgotten, and confusion grew worse, till another wise lawgiver named Solon undertook to draw up a fresh code of laws for them.

Solon was one of the seven wise men of Greece, who all lived at the same time. The other six were Thales, Bion, Pittacus, Cleobulus, Chilo, and Periander. This last was called Tyrant of Corinth. When the ancient Greeks spoke of a tyrant, they did not mean a cruel king so much as a king who had not been heir to the crown, but had taken to himself the rule over a free people. A very curious story belongs to Periander, for we have not quite parted with the land of fable. It is about the poet Arion, who lived chiefly with him at Corinth, but made one voyage to Sicily. As he was coming back, the sailors plotted to throw him overboard, and divide the gifts he was bringing with him. When he found they were resolved, he only begged to play once more on his lyre; then, standing on the prow, he played and sung a hymn calling the gods to his aid. So sweet were the sounds that shoals of dolphins came round the ship, and Arion, leaping from the prow, placed himself on the back of one, which bore him safely to land. Periander severely punished the treacherous sailors. Some think that this story was a Greek alteration of the history of Jonah, which might have been brought by the Phoenician sailors.

Solon was Athenian by birth, and of the old royal line. He had served his country in war, and had travelled to study the habits of other lands, when the Athenians, wearied with the oppressions of the rich and great, and finding that no one attended to the laws of Draco, left it to him to form a new constitution. It would be of no use to try to explain it all. The chief thing to be remembered about it is, that at the head of the government were nine chief magistrates, who were called Archons, and who were changed every three years. To work with them, there was a council of four hundred aristoi, or nobles; but when war or peace was decided, the whole demos, or people, had to vote, according to their tribes; and if a man was thought to be dangerous to the state, the demos might sentence him to be banished. His name was written on an oyster shell, or on a tile, by those who wished him to be driven away, and these were thrown into one great vessel. If they amounted to a certain number, the man was said to be "ostracised," and forced to leave the city. This was sometimes done very unjustly, but it answered the purpose of sending away rich men who became overbearing, and kept tyrants from rising up. There were no unnatural laws as there were at Sparta; people might live at home as they pleased; but there were schools, and all the youths were to be taught there, both learning and training in all exercises. And whether it was from Solon's laws or their own character, there certainly did arise in Athens some of the greatest and noblest men of all times.

After having set things in order, Solon is said to have been so annoyed by foolish questions on his schemes, that he went again on his travels. First he visited his friend Thales, at Miletus, in Asia Minor; and, finding him rich and comfortable, he asked why he had never married. Thales made no answer then, but a few days later he brought in a stranger, who, he said, was just from Athens. Solon asked what was the news. "A great funeral was going on, and much lamentation," said the man. "Whose was it?" He did not learn the name, but it was a young man of great promise, whose father was abroad upon his travels. "The father was much famed for his wisdom and justice." "Was it Solon?" cried the listener. "It was." Solon burst into tears, tore his hair, and beat his breast; but Thales took his hand, saying, "Now you see, O Solon, why I have never married, lest I should expose myself to griefs such as these;" and then told him it was all a trick. Solon could not much have approved such a trick, for when Thespis, a great actor of plays, came to Athens, Solon asked him if he were not ashamed to speak so many falsehoods. Thespis answered that it was all in sport. "Ay," said Solon, striking his staff on the ground; "but he that tells lies in sport will soon tell them in earnest."

After this, Solon went on to Lydia. This was a kingdom of Greek settlers in Asia Minor, where flowed that river Pactolus, whose sands contained gold-dust, from King Midas' washing, as the story went. The king was Croesus, who was exceedingly rich and splendid. He welcomed Solon, and, after showing him all his glory, asked whom the philosopher thought the happiest of men. "An honest man named Tellus," said Solon, "who lived uprightly, was neither rich nor poor, had good children, and died bravely for his country." Croesus was vexed, but asked who was next happiest. "Two brothers named Cleobis and Bito," said Solon, "who were so loving and dutiful to their mother, that, when she wanted to go to the temple of Juno, they yoked themselves to her car, and drew her thither; then, having given this proof of their love, they lay down to sleep, and so died without pain or grief." "And what do you think of me?" said Croesus. "Ah!" said Solon, "call no man happy till he is dead."

Croesus was mortified at such a rebuff to his pride, and neglected Solon. There was a clever crooked Egyptian slave at Croesus' court, called AEsop, who gave his advice in the form of the fables we know so well, such as the wolf and the lamb, the fox and the grapes, etc.; though, as the Hindoos and Persians have from old times told the same stories, it would seem as if AEsop only repeated them, but did not invent them. When AEsop saw Solon in the background, he said, "Solon, visits to kings should be seldom, or else pleasant." "No," said Solon; "visits to kings should be seldom, or else profitable," as the courtly slave found them. AEsop came to a sad end. Croesus sent him to Delphi to distribute a sum of money among the poor, but they quarrelled so about it that AEsop said he should take it back to the king, and give none at all; whereupon the Delphians, in a rage, threw him off a precipice, and killed him.

Croesus was just thinking of going to war with the great Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, the same who overcame Assyria, took Babylon, and restored Jerusalem, and who was now subduing Asia Minor. Croesus asked council of all the oracles, but first he tried their truth. He bade his messenger ask the oracle at Delphi what he was doing while they were inquiring. The answer was—

"Lo, on my sense striketh the smell of a shell-covered tortoise Boiling on the fire, with the flesh of a lamb, in a cauldron; Brass is the vessel below, brass the cover above it."

Croesus was really, as the most unlikely thing to be guessed, boiling a tortoise and a lamb together in a brazen vessel. Sure now of the truth of the oracle, he sent splendid gifts, and asked whether he should go to war with Cyrus. The answer was that, if he did, a mighty kingdom would be overthrown.

He thought it meant the Persian, but it was his own. Lydia was overcome, Sardis, his capital, was burnt, and he was about to be slain, when, remembering the warning, "Call no man happy till his death," he cried out, "O Solon, Solon, Solon!"

Cyrus heard him, and bade that he should be asked what it meant. The story so struck the great king, that he spared Croesus, and kept him as his adviser for the rest of his life.

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CHAP. XV.—PISISTRATUS AND HIS SONS. B.C. 558-499.

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After all the pains that Solon had taken to guard the freedom of the Athenians, his system had hardly begun to work before his kinsman Pisistratus, who was also of the line of Codrus, overthrew it. First this man pretended to have been nearly murdered, and obtained leave to have a guard of fifty men, armed with clubs; and with these he made everyone afraid of him, so that he had all the power, and became tyrant of Athens. He was once driven out, but he found a fine, tall, handsome woman, a flower-girl, in one of the villages of Attica, dressed her in helmet and cuirass, like the goddess Pallas, and came into Athens in a chariot with her, when she presented him to the people as their ruler. The common people thought she was their goddess, and Pisistratus had friends among the rich, so he recovered his power, and he did not, on the whole, use it badly. He made a kind law, decreeing that a citizen who had been maimed in battle should be provided for by the State, and he was the first Greek to found a library, and collect books—namely, manuscripts upon the sheets of the rind of the Egyptian paper-rush, or else upon skins. He was also the first person to collect and arrange the poems of Homer. Everybody seems to have known some part by heart, but they were in separate songs, and Pisistratus first had them written down and put in order, after which no Greek was thought an educated man unless he thoroughly knew the Iliad and Odyssey.

Pisistratus ruled for thirty-three years, and made the Athenians content, and when he died his sons Hippias and Hipparchus ruled much as he had done, and gave no cause for complaint. One thing they did was to set up mile-stones all over the roads of Attica, each with a bust of Mercury on the top, and a wise proverb carved below the number of the miles. But they grew proud and insolent, and one day a damsel of high family was rudely sent away from a solemn religious procession, because Hipparchus had a quarrel with her brother Harmodius. This only made Harmodius vow vengeance, and, together with his friend Aristogeiton, he made a plot with other youths for surrounding the two brothers at a great festival, when everyone carried myrtle-boughs, as well as their swords and shields. The conspirators had daggers hidden in the myrtle, and succeeded in killing Hipparchus, but Harmodius was killed on the spot, and Aristogeiton was taken and tortured to make him reveal his other accomplices, and so was a girl named Leoena, who was known to have been in their secrets; but she bore all the pain without a word, and when it was over she was found to have bitten off her tongue, that she might not betray her friends. Hippias kept up his rule for a few years longer, but he found all going against him, and that the people were bent on having Solon's system back; so, fearing for his life, he sent away his wife and children, and soon followed them to Asia, B.C. 510. This—which is called the Expulsion of the Pisistratids—was viewed by the Athenians as the beginning of their freedom. They paid yearly honours to the memory of the murderers Harmodius and Aristogeiton; and as Leoena means a lioness, they honoured that brave woman's constancy with the statue of a lioness without a tongue.

Hippias wandered about for some time, and ended by going to the court of the king of Persia. Cyrus was now dead, after having established a great empire, which spread from the Persian Gulf to the shore of the Mediterranean, and had Babylon for one of its capitals. When Croesus was conquered, almost all the Greek colonies along the coast of Asia Minor likewise fell to the "Great King," as his subjects called him. The Persians adored the sun and fire as emblems of the great God, and thought the king himself had something of divinity in his person, and therefore, like most Eastern kings, he had entire power over his people for life or death; they were all his slaves, and the only thing he could not do was to change his own decrees.

[Picture: Shores of the Persian Gulf]

After the Asian coast, the isles of the AEgean stood next in the way of the Persian. In the little isle of Samos lived a king called Polycrates, who had always been wealthy and prosperous. His friend Amasis, king of Egypt, told him that the gods were always jealous of the fortunate, and that, if he wished to avert some terrible disaster, he had better give up something very precious. Upon this Polycrates took off his beautiful signet ring and threw it into the sea; but a few days later a large fish was brought as a present to the king, and when it was cut up the ring was found in its stomach, and restored to Polycrates. Upon this Amasis renounced his friendship, declaring that, as the gods threw back his offering, something dreadful was before him. The foreboding came sadly true, for the Persian satrap, or governor, of Sardis, being envious of Polycrates, declared that the Ionian was under the Great King's displeasure, and invited him to Sardis to clear himself. Polycrates set off, but was seized as soon as he landed in Asia, and hung upon a cross.

Amasis himself died just as the Persians were coming to attack Egypt, which Cyrus' son Cambyses entirely conquered, and added to the Persian empire; but Cambyses shortly after lost his senses and died, and there was an unsettled time before a very able and spirited king named Darius obtained the crown, and married Cyrus' daughter Atossa. Among the prisoners made at Samos there was a physician named Democedes, who was taken to Susa, Darius' capital. He longed to get home, and tried not to show how good a doctor he was; but the king one day hurt his foot, and, when all the Persian doctors failed to cure him, he sent for Democedes, who still pretended to be no wiser, until torture was threatened, and he was forced to try his skill. Darius recovered, made him great gifts, and sent him to attend his wives; but Democedes still pined for home, and managed to persuade Atossa to beg the king to give her Spartan and Athenian slaves, and to tell him some great undertaking was expected from him. The doctor's hope in this was that he should be sent as a spy to Greece, before the war, and should make his escape; but it was a bad way of showing love to his country. Hippias was at Susa too, trying to stir up Darius to attack Athens, and restore him as a tributary king; and there was also Histiaeus, a Greek, who had been tyrant of Miletus, and who longed to get home. All the Ionian Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor hated the Persian rule, and Histiaeus hoped that if they revolted he should be wanted there, so he sent a letter to his friend Aristagoras, at Miletus, in a most curious way. He had the head of a trusty slave shaved, then, with a red-hot pin, wrote his advice to rise against the Persians, and, when the hair was grown again, sent the man as a present to Aristagoras, with orders to tell him to shave his head.

Aristagoras read the letter, and went to Sparta to try to get the help of the kings in attacking Persia. He took with him a brass plate, engraven with a map of the world, according to the notions of the time, where it looked quite easy to march to Susa, and win the great Eastern empire. At first Cleomenes, the most spirited of the kings, was inclined to listen, but when he found that this easy march would take three months he changed his mind, and thought it beyond Spartan powers. Aristagoras went secretly to his house, and tried to bribe him, at least, to help the Ionians in their rising; but while higher and higher offers were being made, Gorgo, the little daughter of Cleomenes, only eight years old, saw by their looks that something was wrong, and cried out, "Go away, father; this stranger will do you harm." Cleomenes took it as the voice of an oracle, and left the stranger to himself.

He then went to Athens, and the Athenians, being Ionians themselves, listened more willingly, and promised to aid their brethren in freeing themselves. Together, the Athenians and a large body of Ephesians, Milesians, and other Ionians, attacked Sardis. The Persian satrap Artaphernes threw himself into the citadel; but the town, which was built chiefly of wicker-work, that the houses might not be easily thrown down by earthquakes, caught fire, and was totally burnt. The Athenians could not stay in the flaming streets, and had to give back, and the whole Persian force of the province came up and drove them out. Darius was furious when he heard of the burning of Sardis, and, for fear he should forget his revenge, ordered that a slave should mention the name of Athens every day to him as he sat down to dinner. Histiaeus, however, succeeded in his plan, for Darius believed him when he said the uproar could only have broken out in his absence, and let him go home to try to put it down.

He was not very well received by Artaphernes, who was sure he was at the bottom of the revolt. "Aristagoras put on the shoe," he said, "but it was of your stitching."

Aristagoras had been killed, and Histiaeus, fleeing to the Ionians, remained with them till they were entirely beaten, and he surrendered to the Persians, by whom he was crucified, while the Ionians were entirely crushed, and saw their fairest children carried off to be slaves in the palace at Susa. Darius had longed after Greek slaves ever since he had seen a fine handsome girl walking along, upright, with a pitcher of water on her head, the bridle of a horse she was leading over her arm, and her hands busy with a distaff. He did not know that such grand people are never found in enslaved, oppressed countries, like his own, and he wanted to have them all under his power, so he began to raise his forces from all parts of his empire, for the conquest of what seemed to him the insolent little cities of Greece, and Hippias, now an old man, undertook to show him the way to Athens, and to betray his country. The battle was between the East and West—between a despot ruling mere slaves, and free, thoughtful cities, full of evil indeed, and making many mistakes, but brave and resolute, and really feeling for their hearths and homes.

[Picture: Armour]



CHAP. XVI.—THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. B.C. 490.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

The whole Persian fleet, manned by Phoenician sailors, and a huge army, under the two satraps Datis and Artaphernes, were on the opposite side of the AEgean Sea, ready to overwhelm little Attica first, and then all Greece. Nobody had yet stood firm against those all-conquering Persians, and as they came from island to island the inhabitants fled or submitted. Attica was so small as to have only 9000 fighting men to meet this host. They sent to ask the aid of the Spartans, but though these would have fought bravely, an old rule forbade them to march during the week before the full moon, and in this week Athens might be utterly ruined. Nobody did come to their help but 600 men from the very small state of Plataea, and this little army, not numbering 10,000, were encamped around the temple of Hercules, looking down upon the bay of Marathon, where lay the ships which had just landed at least 200,000 men of all the Eastern nations, and among them many of the Greeks of Asia Minor. The hills slant back so as to make a sort of horse-shoe round the bay, with about five miles of clear flat ground between them and the sea, and on this open space lay the Persians.

It was the rule among the Athenians that the heads of their ten tribes should command by turns each for a day, but Aristides, the best and most high-minded of all of them, persuaded the rest to give up their turns to Miltiades, who was known to be the most skilful captain. He drew up his men in a line as broad as the whole front of the Persian army, though far less deep, and made them all come rushing down at them with even step, but at a run, shouting the war-cry, "Io paean! Io paean!" In the middle, where the best men of the Persians were, they stood too firm to be thus broken, but at the sides they gave way, and ran back towards the sea, or over the hills, and then Miltiades gave a signal to the two side divisions—wings, as they were called—to close up together, and crush the Persian centre. The enemy now thought of nothing but reaching their ships and putting out to sea, while the Athenians tried to seize their ships; Cynegyrus, one brave Greek, caught hold of the prow of one ship, and when the crew cut off his hand with an axe, he still clung with the other, till that too was cut off, and he sank and was drowned. The fleet still held many men, and the Athenians saw that, instead of crossing back to Asia Minor, it was sailing round the promontory of Sunium, as if to attack Athens. It was even said that a friend of Hippias had raised a shield, glittering in the sun, as a signal that all the men were away. However, Miltiades left Aristides, with his tribe of 1000 men, to guard the plain and bury the dead, and marched back over the hills with the rest to guard their homes, that same night; but the Persians must have been warned, or have changed their mind, for they sailed away for Asia; and Hippias, who seems to have been wounded in the battle, died at Lemnos. The Spartans came up just as all was over, and greatly praised the Athenians, for indeed it was the first time Greeks had beaten Persians, and it was the battle above all others that saved Europe from falling under the slavery of the East. The fleet was caught by a storm as it crossed the AEgean Sea again.

All the Athenians who had been slain were buried under one great mound, adorned with ten pillars bearing their names; the Plataeans had another honourable mound, and the Persians a third. All the treasure that was taken in the camp and ships was honourably brought to the city and divided. There was only one exception, namely, one Kallias, who wore long hair bound with a fillet, and was taken for a king by a poor Persian, who fell on his knees before him, and showed him a well where was a great deal of gold hidden. Kallias not only took the gold, but killed the poor stranger, and his family were ever after held as disgraced, and called by a nickname meaning, "Enriched by the Well."

The Plataeans were rewarded by being made freemen of Athens, as well as of their own city; and Miltiades, while all his countrymen were full of joy and exultation, asked of them a fleet of seventy ships, promising to bring them fame and riches. With it he sailed for the island of Faros, that which was specially famed for its white marble. He said he meant to punish the Parians for having joined the Persians, but it really was because of a quarrel of his own. He landed, and required the Parians to pay him a hundred talents, and when they refused he besieged the city, until a woman named Timo, who was priestess at a temple of Ceres near the gates, promised to tell him a way of taking the city if he would meet her at night in the temple, where no man was allowed to enter. He came, and leaped over the outer fence of the temple, but, brave as he was in battle, terror at treading on forbidden and sacred ground overpowered him, and, without seeing the priestess, he leaped back again, fell on the other side, and severely injured his thigh. The siege was given up, and he was carried back helpless to Athens, where there was no mercy to failures, and he was arraigned before the Areopagus assembly, by a man named Xanthippus, for having wasted the money of the State and deceived the people, and therefore being guilty of death.

It must have been a sad thing to see the great captain, who had saved his country in that great battle only a year or two before, lying on his couch, too ill to defend himself, while his brother spoke for him, and appealed to his former services. In consideration of these it was decided not to condemn him to die, but he was, instead, to pay fifty talents of silver, and before the sum could be raised, he died of his hurts. It was said that his son Kimon put himself into prison till the fine could be raised, so as to release his father's corpse, which was buried with all honour on the plain of Marathon, with a tomb recording his glory, and not his fall.

The two chief citizens who were left were Aristides and Themistocles, both very able men; but Aristides was perfectly high-minded, unselfish, and upright, while Themistocles cared for his own greatness more than anything else. Themistocles was so clever that his tutor had said to him when he was a child, "Boy, thou wilt never be an ordinary person; thou wilt either be a mighty blessing or a mighty curse to thy country." When he grew up he used his powers of leading the multitude for his own advantage, and that of his party. "The gods forbid," he said, "that I should sit on any tribunal where my friends should not have more advantage than strangers." While, on the other hand, Aristides was so impartial and single-hearted that he got the name of Aristides the Just. He cared most for the higher class, the aristoi, and thought they could govern best, while Themistocles sought after the favour of the people; and they both led the minds of the Athenians so completely while they were speaking, that, after a meeting where they had both made a speech, Aristides said, "Athens will never be safe till Themistocles and I are both in prison," meaning that either of them could easily make himself tyrant.

However, Aristides, though of high family, was very poor, and men said it was by the fault of his cousin Kallias, the "Enriched by the Well;" and Themistocles contrived to turn people's minds against him, so as to have him ostracised. One day he met a man in the street, with a shell in his hand, who asked him to write the name of Aristides on it, as he could not write himself. "Pray," said Aristides, "what harm has this person done you, that you wish to banish him?"

"No harm at all," said the man; "only I am sick of always hearing him called the Just."

Aristides had no more to say, but wrote his own name; and six thousand shells having been counted up against him, he was obliged to go into exile for ten years.

Cynegyrus, the man whose hands had been cut off in the bay of Marathon, had a very famous brother named AEschylus—quite as brave a soldier, and a poet besides. The Athenians had come to worshipping Bacchus, but not in the horrid, mad, drunken manner of the first orgies. They had songs and dances by persons with their heads wreathed in vine and ivy leaves, and a goat was sacrificed in the midst. The Greek word for a goat is tragos, and the dances came to be called tragedies. Then came in the custom of having poetical speeches in the midst of the dances, made in the person of some old hero or god, and these always took place in a curve in the side of a hill, so worked out by art that the rock was cut into galleries, for half-circles of spectators to sit one above the other, while the dancers and speakers were on the flat space at the bottom. Thespis, whom Solon reproved for falsehoods, was the first person who made the dancers and singers, who were called the chorus, so answer one another and the speakers that the tragedy became a play, representing some great action of old. The actors had to wear brazen masks and tall buskins, or no one could have well seen or heard them. AEschylus, when a little boy, was set to watch the grapes in his father's vineyard. He fell asleep, and dreamt that Bacchus appeared to him, and bade him make his festivals noble with tragedies; and this he certainly did, for the poetry he wrote for them is some of the grandest that man ever sung, and shows us how these great Greeks were longing and feeling after the truth, like blind men groping in the dark. The custom was to have three grave plays or tragedies on the same subject on three successive days, and then to finish with a droll one, or comedy, as it was called, in honour of the god Comus. There is one trilogy of AEschylus still preserved to us, where we have the death of Agamemnon, the vengeance of Orestes, and his expiation when pursued by the Furies, but the comedy belonging to them is lost.

Almost all the greatest and best Greeks of this time believed in part in the philosophy of Pythagoras, who had lived in the former century, and taught that the whole universe was one great divine musical instrument, as it were, in which stars, sun, winds, and earth did their part, and that man ought to join himself into the same sweet harmony. He thought that if a man did ill his spirit went into some animal, and had a fresh trial to purify it, but it does not seem as if many others believed this notion.

[Picture: View in the vicinity of Athens]



CHAP. XVII.—THE EXPEDITION OF XERXES. B.C. 480.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

The Athenians had not a long breathing-time. Darius, indeed, died five years after the battle of Marathon; but his son Xerxes was far more fiery and ambitious, and was no sooner on the throne than he began to call together all the vast powers of the East, not to crush Athens alone, but all the Greeks. He was five years gathering them together, but in the spring of 480 he set out from Sardis to march to the Hellespont, where he had a bridge of ships chained together, made to enable his army to cross the strait on foot. Xerxes was a hot-tempered man, not used to resistance, and it was said that when a storm broke part of his bridge he caused the waves to be scourged and fetters to be thrown in, to show that he was going to bind it to his will. He sat on a throne to watch his armies pass by. It is said that there were two million six hundred thousand men, of every speech and dress in Asia and Egypt, with all sorts of weapons; and as the "Great King" watched the endless number pass by, he burst into tears to think how soon all this mighty host would be dead men!

Xerxes had a huge fleet besides, manned by Phoenicians and Greeks of Asia Minor, and this did not venture straight across the AEgean, because of his father's disaster, but went creeping round the northern coast. Mount Athos, standing out far and steep into the sea, stood in the way, and it was dangerous to go round it; so Xerxes thought it would be an undertaking worthy of him to have a canal dug across the neck that joins the mountain to the land, and the Greeks declared that he wrote a letter to the mountain god, bidding him not to put rocks in the way of the workmen of the "Great King." Traces of this canal can still be found in the ravine behind Mount Athos.