The third, or the period of the decline of Greek literature, extending from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) to the fall of the Byzantine empire (1453 A.D.), is characterized by the removal of Greek learning and literature from Athens to Alexandria, and by its gradual decline and extinction.

2. THE LANGUAGE.—Of all known languages none has attained so high a degree of perfection as that of the Greeks. Belonging to the great Indo- European family, it is rich in significant words, strong and elegant in its combinations and phrases, and extremely musical, not only in its poetry, but in its prose. The Greek language must have attained great excellence at a very early period, for it existed in its essential perfection in the time of Homer. It was, also, early divided into dialects, as spoken by the various Hellenic tribes that inhabited different parts of the country. The principal of these found in written composition are the Aeolic, Doric, Ionic, and Attic, of which the Aeolic, the most ancient, was spoken north of the Isthmus, in the Aeolic colonies of Asia Minor, and in the northern islands of the Aegean Sea. It was chiefly cultivated by the lyric poets. The Doric, a variety of the Aeolic, characterized by its strength, was spoken in Peloponnesus, and in the Doric colonies of Asia Minor, Lower Italy, and Sicily. The Ionic, the most soft and liquid of all the dialects, belonged to the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor and the islands of the Archipelago. It was the language of Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus. The Attic, which was the Ionic developed, enriched, and refined, was spoken in Attica, and prevailed in the flourishing period of Greek literature.

After the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, the Greek language, which had been gradually declining, became entirely extinct, and a dialect, which had long before sprung up among the common people, took the place of the ancient, majestic, and refined tongue. This popular dialect in turn continued to degenerate until the middle of the last century. Recently institutions of learning have been established, and a new impulse given to improvement in Greece. Great progress has been made in the cultivation of the language, and great care is taken by modern Greek writers to avoid the use of foreign idioms and to preserve the ancient orthography. Many newspapers, periodicals, original works, and translations are published every year in Greece. The name Romaic, which has been applied to modern Greek, is now almost superseded by that of Neo-Hellenic.

3. THE RELIGION.—In the development of the Greek religion two periods may be distinguished, the ante-Homeric and the Homeric. As the heroic age of the Greek nation was preceded by one in which the cultivation of the land chiefly occupied the attention of the inhabitants, so there are traces and remnants of a state of the Greek religion, in which the gods were considered as exhibiting their power chiefly in the changes of the seasons, and in the operations and phenomena of outward nature. Imagination led these early inhabitants to discover, not only in the general phenomena of vegetation, the unfolding and death of the leaf and flower, and in the moist and dry seasons of the year, but also in the peculiar physical character of certain districts, a sign of the alternately hostile or peaceful, happy or ill-omened interference of certain deities. There are still preserved in the Greek mythology many legends of charming and touching simplicity, which had their origin at this period, when the Greek religion bore the character of a worship of the powers of nature.

Though founded on the same ideas as most of the religions of the East, and particularly of Asia Minor, the earliest religion of the Greeks was richer and more various in its forms, and took a loftier and a wider range. The Grecian worship of nature, in all the various forms which it assumed, recognized one deity, as the highest of all, the head of the entire system, Zeus, the god of heaven and light; with him, and dwelling in the pure expanse of ether, is associated the goddess of the earth, who, in different temples, was worshiped under different names, as Hera, Demeter, and Dione. Besides this goddess, other beings are united with the supreme god, who are personifications of certain of his energies powerful deities who carry the influence of light over the earth, and destroy the opposing powers of darkness and confusion as Athena, born from the head of her father, and Apollo, the pure and shining god of light. There are other deities allied with earth and dwelling in her dark recesses; and as life appears not only to spring from the earth, but to return whence it sprung, these deities are, for the most part, also connected with death; as Hermes, who brings up the treasures of fruitfulness from the depths of the earth, and Cora, the child, now lost and now recovered by her mother, Demeter, the goddess both of reviving and of decaying nature. The element of water, Poseidon, was also introduced into this assemblage of the personified powers of nature, and peculiarly connected with the goddess of the earth; fire, Hephaestus, was represented as a powerful principle derived from heaven, having dominion over the earth, and closely allied with the goddess who sprang from the head of the supreme god. Other deities form less important parts of this system, as Dionysus, whose alternate joys and sufferings show a strong resemblance to the form which religious notions assumed in Asia Minor. Though not, like the gods of Olympus, recognized by all the races of the Greeks, Dionysus exerted an important influence on the spirit of the Greek nation, and in sculpture and poetry gave rise to bold flights of imagination, and to powerful emotions, both of joy and sorrow.

These notions concerning the gods must have undergone many changes before they assumed the form under which they appear in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. The Greek religion, as manifested through them, reached the second period of its development, belonging to that time when the most distinguished and prominent part of the people devoted their lives to the affairs of the state and the occupation of arms, and in which the heroic spirit was manifested according to these ideas. On Olympus, lying near the northern boundary of Greece, the highest mountain of that country, whose summit seems to touch the heavens, there rules the assembly or family of the gods; the chief of which, Zeus, summons at his pleasure the other gods to council, as Agamemnon summons the other princes. He is acquainted with the decrees of fate, and able to control them, and being himself king among the gods, he gives the kings of the earth their powers and dignity. By his side his wife, Hera, whose station entitles her to a large share of his rank and dominion; and a daughter of masculine character, Athena, a leader of battles and a protectress of citadels, who, by her wise counsels, deserves the confidence which her father bestows on her; besides these, there are a number of gods with various degrees of kindred, who have each their proper place and allotted duty on Olympus. The attention of this divine council is chiefly turned to the fortunes of nations and cities, and especially to the adventures and enterprises of the heroes, who being themselves, for the most part, sprung from the blood of the gods, form the connecting link between them and the ordinary herd of mankind. At this stage the ancient religion of nature had disappeared, and the gods who dwelt on Olympus scarcely manifested any connection with natural phenomena. Zeus exercises his power as a ruler and a king; Hera, Athena, and Apollo no longer symbolize the fertility of the earth, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the arrival of the serene spring; Hephaestus has passed from the powerful god of fire in heaven and earth into a laborious smith and worker of metals; Hermes is transformed into the messenger of Zeus; and the other deities which stood at a greater distance from the affairs of men are entirely forgotten, or scarcely mentioned in the Homeric mythology.

These deities are known to us chiefly through the names given to them by the Romans, who adopted them at a later period, or identified them with deities of their own. Zeus was called by them Jupiter; Hera; Juno; Athena, Minerva; Ares, Mars; Artemis, Diana; Hermes, Mercury; Cora, Proserpine; Hephaestus, Vulcan; Poseidon, Neptune; Aphrodite, Venus; Dionysus, Bacchus.

PERIOD FIRST.

FROM REMOTE ANTIQUITY TO HERODOTUS (484 B.C.),

1. ANTE-HOMERIC SONGS AND BARDS.—Many centuries must have elapsed before the poetical language of the Greeks could have attained the splendor, copiousness, and fluency found in the poems of Homer. The first outpourings of poetical enthusiasm were, doubtless, songs describing, in few and simple verses, events which powerfully affected the feelings of the hearers. It is probable that the earliest were those that referred to the seasons and their phenomena, and that they were sung by the peasants at their corn and wine harvests, and had their origin in times of ancient rural simplicity. Songs of this kind had often a plaintive and melancholy character. Such was the song "Linus" mentioned by Homer, which was frequently sung at the grape-picking. This Linus evidently belongs to a class of heroes or demi-gods, of which many instances occur in the religions of Asia Minor. Boys of extraordinary beauty and in the flower of youth were supposed to have been drowned, or devoured by raging dogs, and their death was lamented at the harvests and other periods of the hot season. According to the tradition, Linus sprang from a divine origin, grew up with the shepherds among the lambs, and was torn in pieces by wild dogs, whence arose the festival of the lambs, at which many dogs were slain. The real object of lamentation was the tender beauty of spring, destroyed by the summer heat, and other phenomena of the same kind which the imagination of those times invested with a personal form, and represented as beings of a divine nature. Of similar meaning are many other songs, which were sung at the time of the summer heat or at the cutting of the corn. Such was the song called "Bormus" from its subject, a beautiful boy of that name, who, having gone to fetch water for the reapers, was, while drawing it, borne down by the nymphs of the stream. Such were the cries for the youth Hylas, swallowed up by the waters of a fountain, and the lament for Adonis, whose untimely death was celebrated by Sappho.

The Paeans were songs originally dedicated to Apollo, and afterwards to other gods; their tune and words expressed hope and confidence to overcome, by the help of the god, great and imminent danger, or gratitude and thanksgiving for victory and safety. To this class belonged the vernal Paeans, which were sung at the termination of winter, and those sung in war before the attack on the enemy. The Threnos, or lamentations for the dead, were songs containing vehement expressions of grief, sung by professional singers standing near the bed upon which the body was laid, and accompanied by the cries and groans of women. The Hymenaeos was the joyful bridal song of the wedding festivals, in which there were ordinarily two choruses, one of boys bearing burning torches and singing the hymenaeos to the clear sound of the pipe, and another of young girls dancing to the notes of the harp. The Chorus originally referred chiefly to dancing. The most ancient sense of the word is a place for dancing, and in these choruses young persons of both sexes danced together in rows, holding one another by the hand, while the citharist, or the player on the lyre, sitting in their midst, accompanied the sound of his instrument with songs, which took their name from the choruses in which they were sung.

Besides these popular songs, there were the religious and heroic poems of the bards, who were, for the most part, natives of that portion of the country which surrounds the mountains of Helicon and Parnassus, distinguished as the home of the Muses. Among the bards devoted to the worship of Apollo and other deities, were Marsyas, the inventor of the flute, Musaeus and Orpheus. Many names of these ancient poets are recorded, but of their poetry, previous to Homer, not even a fragment remains.

The bards or chanters of epic poetry were called Rhapsodists, from the manner in which they delivered their compositions; this name was applied equally to the minstrel who recited his own poems, and to him who declaimed anew songs that had been heard a thousand times before. The form of these heroic songs, probably settled and fixed by tradition, was the hexameter, as this metre gave to the epic poetry repose, majesty, a lofty and solemn tone, and rendered it equally adapted to the pythoness who announced the decrees of the deity, and to the rhapsodist who recited the battles of heroes. The bards held an important post in the festal banquets, where they flattered the pride of the princes by singing the exploits of their forefathers.

2. POEMS OF HOMER.—Although seven cities contended for the honor of giving birth to Homer, it was the prevalent belief, in the flourishing times of Greece, that he was a native of Smyrna. He was probably born in that city about 1000 B.C. Little is known of his life, but the power of his transcendent genius is deeply impressed upon his works. He was called by the Greeks themselves, the poet; and the Iliad and the Odyssey were with them the ultimate standard of appeal on all matters of religious doctrine and early history. They were learned by boys at school, and became the study of men in their riper years, and in the time of Socrates there were Athenians who could repeat both poems by heart. In whatever part of the world a Greek settled, he carried with him a love for the great poet, and long after the Greek people had lost their independence, the Iliad and the Odyssey continued to maintain an undiminished hold upon their affections. The peculiar excellence of these poems lies in their sublimity and pathos, in their tenderness and simplicity, and they show in their author an inexhaustible vigor, that seems to revel in an endless display of prodigious energies. The universality of the powers of Homer is their most astonishing attribute. He is not great in any one thing; he is greatest in all things. He imagines with equal ease the terrible, the beautiful, the mean, the loathsome, and he paints them all with equal force. In his descriptions of external nature, in his exhibitions of human character and passion, no matter what the subject, he exhausts its capabilities. His pictures are true to the minutest touch; his men and women are made of flesh and blood. They lose nothing of their humanity for being cast in a heroic mould. He transfers himself into the identity of those whom he brings into action; masters the interior springs of their spiritual mechanism; and makes them move, look, speak, and do exactly as they would in real life.

In the legends connected with the Trojan war, the anger of Achilles and the return of Ulysses, Homer found the subjects of the Iliad and Odyssey. The former relates that Agamemnon had stolen from Achilles, Briseis, his beloved slave, and describes the fatal consequences which the subsequent anger of Achilles brought upon the Greeks; and how the loss of his dearest friend, Patroclus, suddenly changed his hostile attitude, and brought about the destruction of Troy and of Hector, its magnanimous defender. The Odyssey is composed on a more artificial and complicated plan than the Iliad. The subject is the return of Ulysses from a land beyond the range of human knowledge to a home invaded by bands of insolent intruders, who seek to kill his son and rob him of his wife. The poem begins at that point where the hero is considered to be farthest from his home, in the central portion of the sea, where the nymph Calypso has kept him hidden from all mankind for seven years. Having by the help of the gods passed through innumerable dangers, after many adventures he reaches Ithaca, and is finally introduced into his own house as a beggar, where he is made to suffer the harshest treatment from the suitors of his wife, in order that he may afterwards appear with the stronger right as a terrible avenger. In this simple story a second was interwoven by the poet, which renders it richer and more complete, though more intricate and less natural. It is probable that Homer, after having sung the Iliad in the vigor of his youthful years, either composed the Odyssey in his old age, or communicated to some devoted disciple the plan of this poem.

In the age immediately succeeding Homer, his great poems were doubtless recited as complete wholes, at the festivals of the princes; but when the contests of the rhapsodists became more animated, and more weight was laid on the art of the reciter than on the beauty of the poem he recited, and when other musical and poetical performances claimed a place, then they were permitted to repeat separate parts of poems, and the Iliad and Odyssey, as they had not yet been reduced to writing, existed for a time only as scattered and unconnected fragments; and we are still indebted to the regulator of the poetical contests (either Solon or Pisistratus) for having compelled the rhapsodists to follow one another according to the order of 'the poem, and for having thus restored these great works to their pristine integrity. The poets, who either recited the poems of Homer or imitated him in their compositions, were called Homerides.

3. THE CYCLIC POETS AND THE HOMERIC HYMNS.—The poems of Homer, as they became the foundation of all Grecian literature, are likewise the central point of the epic poetry of Greece. All that is most excellent in this line originated from them, and was connected with them in the way of completion or continuation. After the time of Homer, a class of poets arose who, from their constant endeavor to connect their poems with those of this master, so that they might form a great cycle, were called the Cyclic Poets. They were probably Homeric rhapsodists by profession, to whom the constant recitation of the ancient Homeric poems would naturally suggest the idea of continuing them by essays of their own. The poems known as Homeric hymns formed an essential part of the epic style. They were hymns to the gods, bearing an epic character, and were called proemia, or preludes, and served the rhapsodists either as introductory strains for their recitation, or as a transition from the festivals of the gods to the competition of the singers of heroic poetry.

4. POEMS OF HESIOD.—Nothing certain can be affirmed respecting the date of Hesiod; a Boeotian by birth, he is considered by some ancient authorities as contemporary with Homer, while others suppose him to have flourished two or three generations later. The poetry of Hesiod is a faithful transcript of the whole condition of Boeotian life. It has nothing of that youthful and inexhaustible fancy of Homer which lights up the sublime images of a heroic age and moulds them into forms of surpassing beauty. The poetry of Hesiod appears struggling to emerge out of the narrow bounds of common life, which he strives to ennoble and to render more endurable. It is purely didactic, and its object is to disseminate knowledge, by which life may be improved, or to diffuse certain religious notions as to the influence of a superior destiny. His poem entitled "Works and Days" is so entirely occupied with the events of common life, that the author would not seem to have been a poet by profession, but some Boeotian husbandman whose mind had been moved by circumstances to give a poetical tone to the course of his thoughts and feelings. The unjust claim of Perses, the brother of Hesiod, to the small portion of their father's land which had been allotted to him, called forth this poem, in which he seeks to improve the character and habits of Perses, to deter him from acquiring riches by litigation, and to incite him to a life of labor, as the only source of permanent prosperity. He points out the succession in which his labors must follow if he determines to lead a life of industry, and gives wise rules of economy for the management of a family; and to illustrate and enforce the principal idea, he ingeniously combines with his precepts mythical narratives, fables, and descriptions. The "Theogony" of Hesiod is a production of the highest importance, as it contains the religious faith of Greece. It was through it that Greece first obtained a religious code, which, although without external sanction or priestly guardians and interpreters, must have produced the greatest influence on the religious condition of the Greeks.

5. ELEGY AND EPIGRAM.—Until the beginning of the seventh century B.C., the epic was the only kind of poetry cultivated in Greece, with the exception of the early songs and hymns, and the hexameter the only metre used by the poets. This exclusive prevalence of epic poetry was doubtless connected with the political state of the country. The ordinary subjects of these poems must have been highly acceptable to the princes who derived their race from the heroes, as was the case with all the royal families of early times. The republican movements, which deprived these families of their privileges, were favorable to the stronger development of each man's individuality, and the poet, who in the most perfect form of the epos was completely lost in his subject, now came before the people as a man with thoughts and objects of his own, and gave free vent to the emotions of his soul in elegiac and iambic strains. The word elegeion means nothing more than the combination of a hexameter and a pentameter, making together a distich, and an elegy is a poem of such verses. It was usually sung at the Symposia or literary festivals of the Greeks; in most cases its main subject was political; it afterwards assumed a plaintive or amatory tone. The elegy is the first regularly cultivated branch of Greek poetry, in which the flute alone and neither the cithara nor lyre was employed. It was not necessary that lamentations should form the subject of it, but emotion was essential, and excited by events or circumstances of the time or place the poet poured forth his heart in the unreserved expression of his fears and hopes.

Tyrtaeus (fl. 694 B.C.), who went from Athens to Sparta, composed the most celebrated of his elegies on the occasion of the Messenian war, and when the Spartans were on a campaign, it was their custom after the evening meal, when the paean had been sung in honor of the gods, to recite these poems. From this time we find a union between the elegiac and iambic poetry; the same poet, who employs the elegy to express his joyous and melancholy emotions, has recourse to the iambus when his cool sense prompts him to censure the follies of mankind. The relation between these two metres is observable in Archilochus (fl. 688 B.C.) and Simonides (fl. 664 B.C.). The elegies of Archilochus, of which many fragments are extant (while of Simonides we only know that he composed elegies), had nothing of that spirit of which his iambics were full, but they contain the frank expression of a mind powerfully affected by outward circumstances. With the Spartans, wine and the pleasures of the feast became the subject of the elegy, and it was also recited at the solemnities held in honor of all who had fallen for their country. The elegies of Solon (592-559 B.C.) were pure expressions of his political feelings. Simonides of Scios, the renowned lyric poet, the contemporary of Pindar and Aeschylus, was one of the great masters of elegiac song.

The epigram was originally an inscription on a tombstone, or a votive offering in a temple, or on any other thing which required explanation. The unexpected turn of thought and pointedness of expression, which the moderns consider the essence of this species of composition, were not required in the ancient Greek epigram, where nothing was wanted but that the entire thought should be conveyed within the limit of a few distichs, and thus, in the hands of the early poets, the epigram was remarkable for the conciseness and expressiveness of its language and differed in this respect from the elegy, in which full expression was given to the feelings of the poet.

It was Simonides who first gave to the epigram all the perfection of which it was capable, and he was frequently employed by the states which fought against the Persians to adorn with inscriptions the tombs of their fallen warriors. The most celebrated of these is the inimitable inscription on the Spartans who died at Thermopylae: "Foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians that we are lying here in obedience to their laws." On the Rhodian lyric poet, Timocreon, an opponent of Simonides in his art, he wrote the following in the form of an epitaph: "Having eaten much and drank much and said much evil of other men, here I lie, Timocreon the Rhodian."

6. IAMBIC POETRY, THE FABLE AND PARODY.—The kind of poetry known by the ancients as Iambic was created among the Athenians by Archilochus at the same time as the elegy. It arose at a period when the Greeks, accustomed only to the calm, unimpassioned tone of the epos, had but just found a temperate expression of lively emotion in the elegy. It was a light, tripping measure, sometimes loosely constructed, or purposely halting and broken, well adapted to vituperation, unrestrained by any regard to morality and decency. At the public tables of Sparta keen and pointed raillery was permitted, and some of the most venerable and sacred of their religious rites afforded occasion for their unsparing and audacious jests. This raillery was so ancient and inveterate a custom, that it had given rise to a peculiar word, which originally denoted nothing but the jests and banter used at these festivals, namely, Iambus. All the wanton extravagance which was elsewhere repressed by law or custom, here, under the protection of religion, burst forth with boundless license, and these scurrilous effusions were at length reduced by Archilochus into the systematic form of iambic metre.

Akin to the iambic are two sorts of poetry, the fable and the parody, which, though differing widely from each other, have both their source in the turn for the delineation of the ludicrous, and both stand in close historical relation to the iambic. The fable in Greece originated in an intentional travesty of human affairs. It is probable that the taste for fables of beasts and numerous similar inventions found its way from the East, since this sort of symbolical narrative is more in accordance with the Oriental than with the Greek character. Aesop (fl. 572 B.C.) was very far from being regarded by the Greeks as one of their poets, and still less as a writer. They considered him merely as an ingenious fabulist, to whom, at a later period, nearly all fables, that were invented or derived from any other source, were attributed. He was a slave, whose wit and pleasantry procured him his freedom, and who finally perished in Delphi, where the people, exasperated by his sarcastic fables, put him to death on a charge of robbing the temple. No metrical versions of these fables are known to have existed in early times.

The word "parody" means an adoption of the form of some celebrated poem with such changes as to produce a totally different effect, and generally to substitute mean and ridiculous for elevated and poetical sentiments. "The Battle of the Frogs and Mice," attributed to Homer, but bearing evident traces of a later age, belongs to this species of poetry.

7. GREEK MUSIC AND LYRIC POETRY.—It was not until the minds of the Greeks had been elevated by the productions of the epic muse, that the genius of original poets broke loose from the dominion of the epic style, and invented new forms for expressing the emotions of a mind profoundly agitated by passing events; with few innovations in the elegy, but with greater boldness in the iambic metre. In these two forms, Greek poetry entered the domain of real life. The elegy and iambus contain the germ of the lyric style, though they do not themselves come under that head. The Greek lyric poetry was characterized by the expression of deeper and more impassioned feeling, and a more impetuous tone than the elegy and iambus, and at the same time the effect was heightened by appropriate vocal and instrumental music, and often by the figures of the dance. In this union of the sister arts, poetry was indeed predominant, yet music, in its turn, exercised a reciprocal influence on poetry, so that as it became more cultivated, the choice of the musical measure decided the tone of the whole poem.

The history of Greek music begins with Terpander the Lesbian (fl. 670 B.C.), who was many times the victor in the musical contests at the Pythian temple of Delphi. He added three new strings to the cithara, which had consisted only of four, and this heptachord was employed by Pindar, and remained long in high repute; he was also the first who marked the different tones in music. With other musicians, he united the music of Asia Minor with that of the ancient Greeks, and founded on it a system in which each style had its appropriate character. By the efforts of Terpander and one or two other masters, music was brought to a high degree of excellence, and adapted to express any feeling to which the poet could give a more definite character and meaning, and thus they had solved the great problem of their art. It was in Greece the constant endeavor of the great poets, thinkers, and statesmen who interested themselves in the education of youth, to give a good direction to this art; they all dreaded the increasing prevalence of a luxuriant style of instrumental music and an unrestricted flight into the boundless realms of harmony.

The lyric poetry of the Greeks was of two kinds, and cultivated by two different schools of poets. One, called the Aeolic, flourished among the Aeolians of Asia Minor, and particularly in the island of Lesbos; the other, the Doric, which, although diffused over the whole of Greece, was at first principally cultivated by the Dorians. These two schools differed essentially in the subjects, as in the form and style of their poems. The Doric was intended to be executed by choruses', and to be sung to choral dances; while the Aeolic was recited by a single person, who accompanied his recitation with a stringed instrument, generally the lyre.

8. AEOLIC LYRIC POETS.—Alcaeus (fl. 611 B.C.), born in Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, being driven out of his native city for political reasons, wandered about the world, and, in the midst of troubles and perils, struck the lyre and gave utterance to the passionate emotions of his mind. His war-songs express a stirring, martial spirit; and a noble nature, accompanied with strong passions, appears in all his poems, especially in those in which he sings the praises of love and wine, though little of his erotic poetry has reached our time. It is evident that poetry was not with him a mere pastime or exercise of skill, but a means of pouring out the inmost feelings of the soul. Sappho (fl. 600 B.C.) the other leader of the Aeolic school of poetry, was the object of the admiration of all antiquity. She was contemporary with Alcaeus, and in her verses to him we plainly discern the feeling of unimpeached honor proper to a free-born and well-educated maiden. Alcaeus testifies that the attractions and loveliness of Sappho did not derogate from her moral worth when he calls her "violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho." This testimony is, indeed, opposed to the accounts of later writers, but the probable cause of the false imputations in reference to Sappho seems to be that the refined Athenians were incapable of appreciating the frank simplicity with which she poured forth her feelings, and therefore they confounded them with unblushing immodesty. While the men of Athens were distinguished for their perfection in every branch of art, none of their women emerged from the obscurity of domestic life. "That woman is the best," says Pericles, "of whom the least is said among men, whether for good or for evil." But the Aeolians had in some degree preserved the ancient Greek manners, and their women enjoyed a distinct individual existence and moral character. They doubtless participated in the general high state of civilization, which not only fostered poetical talents of a high order among women, but produced in them a turn for philosophical reflection. This was so utterly inconsistent with Athenian manners, that we cannot wonder that women, who had in any degree overstepped the bounds prescribed to their sex at Athens, should be represented by the licentious pen of Athenian comic writers as lost to every sense of shame and decency. Sappho, in her odes, made frequent mention of a youth to whom she gave her whole heart, while he requited her love with cold indifference; but there is no trace of her having named the object of her passion. She may have celebrated the beautiful and mythical Phaon in such a manner that the verses were supposed to refer to a lover of her own. The account of her leap from the Leucadian rock is rather a poetical image, than a real event in the life of the poetess. The true conception of the erotic poetry of Sappho can only be drawn from the fragments of her odes, which, though numerous, are for the most part very short. Among them, we must distinguish the Epithalamia or hymeneals, which were peculiarly adapted to the genius of the poetess from the exquisite perception she seems to have had of whatever was attractive in either sex. From the numerous fragments that remain, these poems appear to have had great beauty and much of that expression which the simple and natural manners of the times allowed, and the warm and sensitive heart of the poetess suggested. That Sappho's fame was spread throughout Greece, may be seen from the history of Solon, who was her contemporary. Hearing his nephew recite one of her poems, he said that he would not willingly die until he had learned it by heart. And, doubtless, from that circle of accomplished women, of whom she formed the brilliant centre, a flood of poetic light was poured forth on every side. Among them may be mentioned the names of Damophila and Erinna, whose poem, "The Spindle," was highly esteemed by the ancients.

The genius of Anacreon (fl. 540 B.C.), though akin to that of Alcaeus and Sappho, had an entirely different bent. He seems to consider life as valuable only so far as it can be spent in wine, love, and social enjoyment. The Ionic softness and departure from strict rule may also be perceived in his versification. The different odes preserved under his name are the productions of poets of a much later date. With Anacreon ceased the species of lyric poetry in which he excelled; indeed, he stands alone in it, and the tender softness of his song was soon drowned by the louder tones of the choral poetry.

The Scolia were a kind of lyric songs sung at social meals, when the spirit was raised by wine and conversation to a lyrical pitch. The lyre or a sprig of myrtle was handed round the table and presented to any one who could amuse the company by a song or even a good sentence in a lyrical form.

9. DORIC, OR CHORAL LYRIC POETS.—The chorus was in general use in Greece before the time of Homer, and nearly every variety of the choral poetry, which was afterwards so brilliantly developed, existed at that remote period in a rude, unfinished state. After the improvements made by Terpander and others in musical art, choral poetry rapidly progressed towards perfection. The poets during the period of progress were Alcman and Stesichorus, while finished lyric poetry is represented by Ibycus, Simonides, his disciple Bacchylides and Pindar. These great poets were only the representatives of the fervor with which the religious festivals inspired all classes. Choral dances were performed by the whole people with great ardor and enthusiasm; every considerable town had its poet, who devoted his whole life to the training and exhibition of choruses.

Alcman (b. 660 B.C.) was a Lydian of Sardis, and an emancipated slave. His poems exhibit a great variety of metre, of dialect, and of poetic tone. He is regarded as having overcome the difficulties presented by the rough dialect of Sparta, and as having succeeded in investing it with a certain grace. He is one of the poets whose image is most effaced by time, and of whom we can obtain little accurate knowledge. The admiration awarded him by antiquity is scarcely justified by the extant remains of his poems.

Stesichorus (fl. 611 B.C.) lived at a time when the predominant tendency of the Greek mind was towards lyric poetry. His special business was the training and direction of the choruses, and he assumed the name of Stesichorus, or leader of choruses, his real name being Tesias. His metres approach more nearly to the epos than those of Aleman. As Quintilian says, he sustained the weight of epic poetry with the lyre. His language accorded with the tone of his poetry, and he is not less remarkable in himself, than as the precursor of the perfect lyric poetry of Pindar.

Arion (625-585 B.C.) was chiefly known in Greece as the perfecter of the "Dithyramb," a song of Bacchanalian festivals, doubtless of great antiquity. Its character, like the worship to which it belonged, was always impassioned and enthusiastic; the extremes of feeling, rapturous pleasure, and wild lamentation were both expressed in it.

Ibycus (b. 528 B.C.) was a wandering poet, as is attested by the story of his death having been avenged by the cranes. His poetical style resembles that of Stesichorus, as also his subjects. The erotic poetry of Ibycus is most celebrated, and breathes a fervor of passion far exceeding that of any similar production of Greek literature.

Simonides (556-468 B.C.) has already been described as one of the great masters of the elegy and epigram. In depth and novelty of ideas, and in the fervor of poetic feeling, he was far inferior to his contemporary Pindar, but he was probably the most prolific lyric poet of Greece. According to the frequent reproach of the ancients, he was the first that sold his poems for money. His style was not as lofty as that of Pindar, hut what he lost in sublimity he gained in pathos.

Bacchylides (fl. 450 B.C.), the nephew of Simonides, devoted his genius chiefly to the pleasures of private life, love, and wine, and his productions, when compared with those of Simonides, are marked by less moral elevation.

Timocreon the Rhodian (fl. 471 B.C.) owes his chief celebrity among the ancients to the hate he bore to Themistocles in political life, and to Simonides on the field of poetry.

Pindar (522-435 B.C.) was the contemporary of Aeschylus, but as the causes which determined his poetical character are to be sought in an earlier age, and in the Doric and Aeolic parts of Greece, he may properly be placed at the close of the early period, while Aeschylus stands at the head of the new epoch of literature. Like Hesiod, Pindar was a native of Boeotia, and that there was still much love for music and poetry there is proved by the fact that two women, Myrtis and Corinna, had obtained great celebrity in these arts during the youth of this poet. Myrtis (fl. 490 B.C.) strove with him for the prize at the public games, and Corinna (fl. 490 B.C.) is said to have gained the victory over him five times. Too little of the poetry of Corinna has been preserved to allow a judgment on her style of composition. Pindar made the arts of poetry and music the business of his life, and his fame soon spread throughout Greece and the neighboring countries. He excelled in all the known varieties of choral poetry, but the only class of poems that enable us to judge of his general style is his triumphal odes. When a victory was gained in a contest at a festival by the speed of horses, the strength and dexterity of the human body, or by skill in music, such a victory, which shed honor not only on the victor, but also on his family, and even on his native city, demanded a public celebration. An occasion of this kind had always a religious character, and often began with a procession to an altar or temple, where a sacrifice was offered, followed by a banquet, and the solemnity concluded with a merry and boisterous revel. At this sacred and at the same time joyous festival, the chorus appeared and recited the triumphal hymn, which was considered the fairest ornament of the triumph. Such an occasion, a victory in the sacred games and its end, the ennobling of a ceremony connected with the worship of the gods, required that the ode should be composed in a lofty and dignified style. Pindar does not content himself with celebrating the bodily prowess of the victor alone, but he usually adds some moral virtue which he has shown, and which he recommends and extols. Sometimes this virtue is moderation, wisdom, or filial love, more often piety to the gods, and he expounds to the victor his destiny, by showing him the dependence of his exploits on the higher order of things. Mythical narratives occupy much space in these odes, for in the time of Pindar the mythical past was invested with a splendor and sublimity, of which even the faint reflection was sufficient to embellish the present.

10. ORPHIC DOCTRINES AND POEMS.—The interval between Homer and Pindar is an important period in the history of Greek civilization. In Homer we perceive that infancy of the mind which lives in seeing and imagining, and whose moral judgments are determined by impulses of feeling rather than by rules of conduct, while with Pindar the chief effort of his genius is to discover the true standard of moral government. This great change of opinion must have been affected by the efforts of many sages and poets. All the Greek religious poetry, treating of death and of the world beyond the grave, refers to the deities whose influence was supposed to be exercised in the dark regions at the centre of the earth, and who had little connection with the political and social relations of human life. They formed a class apart from the gods of Olympus; the mysteries of the Greeks were connected with their worship alone, and the love of immortality first found support in a belief in these deities. The mysteries of Demeter, especially those celebrated at Eleusis, inspired the most animating hopes with regard to the soul after death. These mysteries, however, had little influence on the literature of the nation; but there was a society of persons called the followers of Orpheus, who published their notions and committed them to literary works. Under the guidance of the ancient mystical poet, Orpheus, they dedicated themselves to the worship of Bacchus or Dionysus, in which they sought satisfaction for an ardent longing after the soothing and elevating influences of religion, and upon the worship of this deity they founded their hopes of an ultimate immortality of the soul. Unlike the popular worshipers of Bacchus, they did not indulge in unrestrained pleasure or frantic enthusiasm, but rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners. It is difficult to tell when this association was formed in Greece, but we find in Hesiod something of the Orphic spirit, and the beginning of higher and more hopeful views of death.

The endeavor to obtain a knowledge of divine and human things was in Greece slowly and with difficulty evolved from their religious notions, and it was for a long time confined to the refining and rationalizing of their mythology. An extensive Orphic literature first appeared at the time of the Persian war, when the remains of the Pythagorean order in Magna Graecia united themselves to the Orphic associations. The philosophy of Pythagoras, however, had no analogy with the spirit of the Orphic mysteries, in which the worship of Dionysus was the centre of all religious ideas, while the Pythagorean philosophers preferred the worship of Apollo and the Muses. In the Orphic theogony we find, for the first time, the idea of creation. Another difference between the notions of the Orphic poets and those of the early Greeks was that the former did not limit their views to the present state of mankind, still less did they acquiesce in Hesiod's melancholy doctrine of successive ages, each one worse than the preceding; but they looked for a cessation of strife, a state of happiness and beatitude at the end of all things. Their hopes of this result were founded on Dionysus, from the worship of whom all their peculiar religious ideas were derived. This god, the son of Zeus, is to succeed him in the government of the world, to restore the Golden Age, and to liberate human souls, who, according to an Orphic notion, are punished by being confined in the body as in a prison. The sufferings of the soul in its prison, the steps and transitions by which it passes to a higher state of existence, and its gradual purification and enlightenment, were all fully described in these poems. Thus, in the poetry of the first five centuries of Greek literature, especially at the close of this period, we find, instead of the calm enjoyment of outward nature which characterized the early epic poetry, a profound sense of the misery of human life, and an ardent longing for a condition of greater happiness. This feeling, indeed, was not so extended as to become common to the whole Greek nation, but it took deep root in individual minds, and was connected with more serious and spiritual views of human nature.

11. PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY.—Philosophy was early cultivated by the Greeks, who first among all nations distinguished it from religion and mythology. For some time, however, after its origin, it was as far removed from the ordinary thoughts and occupations of the people as poetry was intimately connected with them. Poetry idealizes all that is most characteristic of a nation; its religion, mythology, political and social institutions, and manners. Philosophy, on the other hand, begins by detaching the mind from the opinions and habits in which it has been bred up, from the national conceptions of the gods and the universe, and from traditionary maxims of ethics and politics. The philosophy of Greece, antecedent to the time of Socrates, is contained in the doctrines of the Ionic, Eleatic, and Pythagorean. schools. Thales of Miletus (639-548 B.C.) was the first in the series of the Ionic philosophers. He was one of the Seven Sages, who by their practical wisdom nobly contributed to the flourishing condition of Greece. Thales, Solon, Bion (fl. 570 B.C.), Cleobulus (fl. 542 B.C.), Periander (fl. 598 B.C.), Pittacus of Mytilene (579 B.C.), and Chilon (fl. 542 B.C.), were the seven philosophers called the seven sages by their countrymen. Thales is said to have foretold an eclipse of the sun, for which he doubtless employed astronomical formulae, which he had obtained from the Chaldeans. His tendency was practical, and where his own knowledge was insufficient, he applied the discoveries of other nations more advanced than his own. He considered all nature as endowed with life, and sought to discover the principles of external forms in the powers which lie beneath; he taught that water was the principle of things. Anaximander (fl. 547 B.C.), and Anaximenes (fl. 548 B.C.) were the other two most distinguished representatives of the Ionic school. The former believed that chaotic matter was the principle of all things, the latter taught that it was air. The Eleatic school is represented by Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno. As the philosophers of the first school were called Ionians from the country in which they resided, so these were named from Elea, a Greek colony of Italy. Xenophanes (fl. 538 B.C.), the founder of this school, adopted a different principle from that of the Ionic philosophers, and proceeded upon an ideal system, while that of the latter was exclusively founded upon experience. He began with the idea of the godhead, and showed the necessity of considering it as an eternal and unchanging existence, and represented the anthropomorphic conceptions of the Greeks concerning their gods as mere prejudices. In his works he retained the poetic form of composition, some fragments of which he himself recited at public festivals, after the manner of the rhapsodists. Parmenides flourished 504 years B.C. His philosophy rested upon the idea of existence which excluded the idea of creation, and thus fell into pantheism. His poem on "Nature" was composed in the epic metre, and in it he expressed in beautiful forms the most abstract ideas. Zeno of Elea (fl. 500 B.C.) was a pupil of Parmenides, and the earliest prose writer among the Greek philosophers. He developed the doctrines of his master by showing the absurdities involved in the ideas of variety and of creation, as opposed to one and universal substance. Other philosophers belonging to Iona or Elea may be referred to these schools, as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras, whose doctrines, however, vary from those of the representatives of the philosophical systems above named. Heraclitus (fl. 505 B.C.) dealt rather in intimations of important truths than in popular exposition of them; his cardinal doctrine seems to have been that everything is in perpetual motion, that nothing has any permanent existence, and that everything is assuming a new form or perishing: the principle of this perpetual motion he supposed to be fixe, though probably he did not mean material fire, but some higher and more universal agent. Like nearly all the philosophers, he despised the popular religion. Empedocles (fl. 440 B.C.) wrote a doctrinal poem concerning nature, fragments of which have been preserved. He denied the possibility of creation, and held the doctrine of an eternal and imperishable existence; but he considered this existence as having different natures, and admitted that fire, earth, air, and water were the four elements of all things. These elements he supposed to be governed by two principles, one positive and one negative, that is to say, connecting love and dissolving discord. Democritus (fl. 460 B.C.) embodied his extensive knowledge in a series of writings, of which only a few fragments have been preserved. Cicero compared him with Plato for rhythm and elegance of language. He derived the manifold phenomena of the world from the different form, disposition, and arrangement of the innumerable elements or atoms as they become united. He is the founder of the atomic doctrine. Anaxagoras (fl. 456 B.C.) rejected all popular notions of religion, excluded the idea of creation and destruction, and taught that atoms were unchangeable and imperishable; that spirit, the purest and subtlest of all things, gave to these atoms the impulse by which they took the forms of individual things and beings; and that this impulse was given in circular motion, which kept the heavenly bodies in their courses. But none of his doctrines gave so much offence or was considered so clear a proof of his atheism as his opinion that the sun, the bountiful god Helios, who shines both upon mortals and immortals, was a mass of red-hot iron. His doctrines tended powerfully by their rapid diffusion to undermine the principles on which the worship of the ancient gods rested, and they therefore prepared the way for the subsequent triumph of Christianity.

The Pythagorean or Italic School was founded by Pythagoras, who is said to have flourished between 540 and 500 B.C. Pythagoras was probably an Ionian who emigrated to Italy, and there established his school. His principal efforts were directed to practical life, especially to the regulation of political institutions, and his influence was exercised by means of lectures, or sayings, or by the establishment and direction of the Pythagorean associations. He encouraged the study of mathematics and music, and considered singing to the cithara as best fitted to produce that mental repose and harmony of soul which he regarded as the highest object of education.

12. HISTORY.—It is remarkable that a people so cultivated as the Greeks should have been so long without feeling the want of a correct record of their transactions in war and peace. The difference between this nation and the Orientals, in this respect, is very great. But the division of the country into numerous small states, and the republican form of the governments, prevented a concentration of interest on particular events and persons, and owing to the dissensions between the republics, their historical traditions could not but offend some while they flattered others; it was not until a late period that the Greeks considered contemporary events as worthy of being thought or written of. But for this absence of authentic history, Greek literature could never have become what it was. By the purely fictitious character of its poetry, and its freedom from the shackles of particular truths, it acquired that general probability which led Aristotle to consider poetry as more philosophical than history. Greek art, likewise, from the lateness of the period at which it descended from the representation of gods and heroes to the portraits of real men, acquired a nobleness and beauty of form which it could not otherwise have obtained. This poetical basis gave the literature of the Greeks a noble and liberal turn.

Writing was probably known in Greece some centuries before the time of Cadmus of Miletus (fl. 522 B.C.), but it had not been employed for the purpose of preserving any detailed historical record, and even when, towards the end of the age of the Seven Sages (550 B.C.), some writers of historical narratives began to appear, they did not select recent historical events, but those of distant times and countries; so entirely did they believe that oral tradition and the daily discussions of common life were sufficient records of the events of their own time and country. Cadmus of Miletus is mentioned as the first historian, but his works seem to have been early lost. To him, and other Greek historians before the time of Herodotus, scholars have given the name of Logographers, from Logos, signifying any discourse in prose.

The first Greek to whom it occurred that a narrative of facts might be made intensely interesting was Herodotus (484-432 B.C.), a native of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, the Homer of Greek history. Obliged, for political reasons, to leave his native land, he visited many countries, such as Egypt, Babylon, and Persia, and spent the latter years of his life in one of the Grecian settlements in Italy, where he devoted himself to the composition of his work. His travels were undertaken from the pure spirit of inquiry, and for that age they were very extensive and important. It is probable that his great and intricate plan, hitherto unknown in the historical writings of the Greeks, did not at first occur to him, and that it was only in his later years that he conceived the complete idea of a work so far beyond those of his predecessors and contemporaries. It is stated that he recited his history at different festivals, which is quite credible, though there is little authority for the story that at one of these Thucydides was present as a boy, and shed tears, drawn forth by his own desire for knowledge and his intense interest in the narrative. His work comprehends a history of nearly all the nations of the world at that time known. It has an epic character, not only from the equable and uninterrupted flow of the narrative, but also from certain pervading ideas which give a tone to the whole. The principal of these is the idea of a fixed destiny, of a wise arrangement of the world, which has prescribed to every being his path, and which allots ruin and destruction not only to crime and violence, but to excessive power and riches and the overweening pride which is their companion. In this consists the envy of the gods so often mentioned by Herodotus, and usually called by the other Greeks the divine Nemesis. He constantly adverts in his narrative to the influence of this divine power, the Daemonion, as he calls it. He shows how the Deity visits the sins of the ancestors upon their descendants, how man rushes, as it were, wilfully upon his own destruction, and how oracles mislead by their ambiguity, when interpreted by blind passion. He shows his awe of the divine Nemesis by his moderation and the firmness with which he keeps down the ebullitions of national pride. He points out traits of greatness of character in the hostile kings of Persia, and shows his countrymen how often they owed their successes to Providence and external advantages rather than to their own valor and ability. Since Herodotus saw the working of a divine agency in all human events, and considered the exhibition of it as the main object of his history, his aim is totally different from that of a historian who regards the events of life merely with reference to men. He is, in truth, a theologian and a poet as well as a historian. It is, however, vain to deny that when Herodotus did not see himself the events which he describes, he is often deceived by the misrepresentations of others; yet, without his single-hearted simplicity, his disposition to listen to every remarkable account, and his admiration for the wonders of the Eastern world, Herodotus would never have imparted to us many valuable accounts. Modern travelers, naturalists, and geographers have often had occasion to admire the truth, and correctness of the information contained in his simple and marvelous narratives. But no dissertation on this writer can convey any idea of the impression made by reading his work; his language closely approximates to oral narration; it is like hearing a person speak who has seen and lived through a variety of remarkable things, and whose greatest delight consists in recalling these images of the past. Though a Dorian by birth, he adopted the Ionic dialect, with its uncontracted terminations, its accumulated vowels, and its soft forms. These various elements conspire to render the work of Herodotus a production as perfect in its kind as any human work can be.

PERIOD SECOND.

THE EPOCH OF THE ATHENIAN LITERATURE (484-322 B.C.).

1. LITERARY PREDOMINANCE OF ATHENS.—Among the Greeks a national literature was early formed. Every literary work in the Greek language, in whatever dialect it might be composed, was enjoyed by the whole nation, and the fame of remarkable writers soon spread throughout Greece. Certain cities were considered almost as theatres, where the poets and sages could bring their powers and acquirements into public notice. Among these, Sparta stood highest down to the time of the Persian war. But when Athens, raised by her political power and the mental qualities of her citizens, acquired the rank of the capital of Greece, literature assumed a different form, and there is no more important epoch in the history of the Greek intellect than the time when she obtained this pre-eminence over her sister states. The character of the Athenians peculiarly fitted them to take this lead; they were Ionians, and the boundless resources and mobility of the Ionian spirit are shown by their astonishing productions in Asia Minor and in the islands, in the two centuries previous to the Persian war; in their iambic and elegiac poetry, and in the germs of philosophic inquiry and historical composition. The literature of those who remained in Attica seemed poor and meagre when compared with that luxuriant outburst; nor did it appear, till a later period, that the progress of the Athenian intellect was the more sound and lasting. The Ionians of Asia Minor, becoming at length enfeebled and corrupted by the luxuries of the East, passed easily under the power of the Persians, while the inhabitants of Attica, encompassed and oppressed by the manly tribes of Greece, and forced to keep the sword constantly in their hands, exerted all their talents and thus developed all their extraordinary powers.

Solon, the great lawgiver, arose to combine moral strictness and order with freedom of action. After Solon came the dominion of the Pisistratidae, which lasted from about 560 to 510 B.C. They showed a fondness for art, diffused a taste for poetry among the Athenians, and naturalized at Athens the best literary productions of Greece. They were unquestionably the first to introduce the entire recital of the Iliad and Odyssey; they also brought to Athens the most distinguished lyric poets of the time, Anacreon, Simonides, and others. But, notwithstanding their patronage of literature and art, it was not till after the fall of their dynasty that Athens shot up with a vigor that can only be derived from the consciousness of every citizen that he has a share in the common weal.

It is a remarkable fact that Athens produced her most excellent works in literature and art in the midst of the greatest political convulsions, and of her utmost efforts for conquest and self-preservation. The long dominion of the Pisistratids produced nothing more important than the first rudiments of the tragic drama, for the origin of comedy at the country festivals of Bacchus falls in the time before Pisistratus. On the other hand, the thirty years between the expulsion of Hippias, the last of the Pisistratids, and the battle of Salamis (510-480 B.C.), was a period marked by great events both in politics and literature. Athens contended with success against her warlike neighbors, supported the Ionians in their revolt against Persia, and warded off the first powerful attack of the Persians upon Greece. During the same period, the pathetic tragedies of Phrynichus and the lofty tragedies of Aeschylus appeared on the stage, political eloquence was awakened in Themistocles, and everything seemed to give promise of future greatness.

The political events which followed the Persian war gradually gave to Athens the dominion over her allies, so that she became the sovereign of a large and flourishing empire, comprehending the islands and coasts of the Aegean and a part of the Euxine sea. In this manner was gained a wide basis for the lofty edifice of political glory, which was raised by her statesmen. The completion of this splendid structure was due to Pericles (500-429 B.C.). Through his influence Athens became a dominant community, whose chief business it was to administer the affairs of an extensive empire, flourishing in agriculture, industry, and commerce. Pericles, however, did not make the acquisition of power the highest object of his exertions; his aim was to realize in Athens the idea which he had conceived of human greatness, that great and noble thoughts should pervade the whole mass of the ruling people; and this was, in fact, the case as long as his influence lasted, to a greater degree than has occurred in any other period of history. The objects to which Pericles directed the people, and for which he accumulated so much power and wealth at Athens, may be best seen in the still extant works of architecture and sculpture which originated under his administration. He induced the Athenian people to expend on the decoration of Athens a larger part of its ample revenues than was ever applied to this purpose in any other state, either republican or monarchical. Of the surpassing skill with which he collected into one focus the rays of artistic genius at Athens, no stronger proof can be afforded, than the fact that no subsequent period, through the patronage of Macedonian or Roman princes, produced works of equal excellence, Indeed, it may be said that the creations of the age of Pericles are the only works of art which completely satisfy the most refined and cultivated taste.

But this brilliant exhibition of human excellence was not without its dark side, nor the flourishing state of Athenian civilization exempt from the elements of decay. The political position of Athens soon led to a conflict between the patriotism and moderation of her citizens, and their interests and passions. From the earliest times, this city had stood in an unfriendly relation to the rest of Greece, and her policy of compelling so many cities to contribute their wealth in order to make her the focus of art and civilization was accompanied with offensive pride and selfish patriotism. The energy in action, which distinguished the Athenians, degenerated into a restless love of adventure; and that dexterity in the use of words, which they cultivated more than the other Greeks, induced them to subject everything to discussion, and destroyed the habits founded on unreasoning faith. The principles of the policy of Pericles were closely connected with the demoralization which followed his administration. By founding the power of the Athenians on the dominion of the sea, he led them to abandon land war and the military exercises requisite for it, which had hardened the old warriors at Marathon. As he made them a dominant people, whose time was chiefly devoted to the business of governing their widely-extended empire, it was necessary for him to provide that the common citizens of Athens should be able to gain a livelihood by their attention to public business, and accordingly, a large revenue was distributed among them in the form of wages for attendance in the courts of justice and other public assemblies. These payments to citizens for their share in the public business were quite new in Greece, and many considered the sitting and listening in these assemblies as an idle life in comparison with the labor of the plowman and vine-grower in the country, and for a long time the industrious cultivators, the brave warriors, and the men of old-fashioned morality were opposed, among the citizens of Athens, to the loquacious, luxurious, and dissolute generation who passed their whole time in the market-place and courts of justice. The contests between these two parties are the main subject of the early Attic comedy.

Literature and art, however, were not, during the Peloponnesian war, affected by the corruption of morals. The works of this period exhibit not only a perfection of form but also an elevation of soul and a grandeur of conception, which fill us with admiration not only for those who produced them, but for those who could enjoy such works of art. A step farther, and the love of genuine beauty gave place to a desire for evil pleasures, and the love of wisdom degenerated into an idle use of words.

2. THE DRAMA.—The spirit of an age is more completely represented by its poetry than by its prose composition, and accordingly we may best trace the character of the three different stages of civilization among the Greeks in the three grand divisions of their poetry. The epic belongs to their monarchical period, when the minds of the people were impregnated and swayed by legends handed down from antiquity. Elegiac, iambic, and lyric poetry arose in the more stirring and agitated times which accompanied the development of republican governments, times in which each individual gave vent to his personal aims and wishes, and all the depths of the human breast were unlocked by the inspirations of poetry. And now, when at the summit of Greek civilization, in the very prime of Athenian power and freedom, we see dramatic poetry spring up as the organ of the prevailing thoughts and feelings of the time, we are naturally led to ask how it comes that this style of poetry agreed so well with the spirit of the age, and so far outstripped its competitors in the contest for public favor.

Dramatic poetry, as its name implies, represents actions, which are not, as in the epos, merely narrated, but seem to take place before the eyes of the spectator. The epic poet appears to regard the events, which he relates from afar, as objects of calm contemplation and admiration, and is always conscious of the great interval between him and them, while the dramatist plunges with his entire soul into the scenes of human life, and seems himself to experience the events which he exhibits to our view. The drama comprehends and develops the events of human life with a force and depth which no other style of poetry can reach.

If we carry ourselves in imagination back to a time when dramatic composition was unknown, we must acknowledge that its creation required great boldness of mind. Hitherto the bard had only sung of gods and heroes; it was, therefore, a great change for the poet himself to come forward all at once in the character of the god or hero, in a nation which, even in its amusements, had always adhered closely to established usages. It is true that there is much in human nature which impels it to dramatic representations, such as the universal love of imitating other persons, and the child-like liveliness with which a narrator, strongly impressed with his subject, delivers a speech which he has heard or perhaps only imagined. Yet there is a wide step from these disjointed elements to the genuine drama, and it seems that no nation, except the Greeks, ever made this step. The dramatic poetry of the Hindus belongs to a time when there had been much intercourse between Greece and India; even in ancient Greece and Italy, dramatic poetry, and especially tragedy, attained to perfection only in Athens, and here it was exhibited only at a few festivals of a single god, Dionysus, while epic rhapsodies and lyric odes were recited on various occasions. All this is incomprehensible, if we suppose dramatic poetry to have originated in causes independent of the peculiar circumstances of time and place. If a love of imitation and a delight in disguising the real person under a mask were the basis upon which this style of poetry was raised, the drama would have been as natural and as universal among men as these qualities are common to their nature.

A more satisfactory explanation of the origin of the Greek drama may be found in its connection with the worship of the gods, and particularly that of Bacchus. The gods were supposed to dwell in their temples and to participate in their festivals, and it was not considered presumptuous or unbecoming to represent them as acting like human beings, as was frequently done by mimic representations. The worship of Bacchus had one quality which was more than any other calculated to give birth to the drama, and particularly to tragedy, namely, the enthusiasm which formed an essential part of it, and which proceeded from an impassioned sympathy with the events of nature in connection with the course of the seasons. The original participators in these festivals believed that they perceived the god to be really affected by the changes of nature, killed or dying, flying and rescued, or reanimated, victorious, and dominant. Although the great changes, which took place in the religion and cultivation of the Greeks, banished from their minds the conviction that these events really occurred, yet an enthusiastic sympathy with the god and his fortunes, as with real events, always remained. The swarm of subordinate beings by whom Bacchus was surrounded—satyrs, nymphs, and a variety of beautiful and grotesque forms—were ever present to the fancy of the Greeks, and it was not necessary to depart very widely from the ordinary course of ideas to imagine them visible to human eyes among the solitary woods and rocks. The custom, so prevalent at the festivals of Bacchus, of taking the disguise of satyrs, doubtless originated in the desire to approach more nearly to the presence of their divinity. The desire of escaping from self into something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, broke forth in a thousand instances in those festivals. It was seen in the coloring of the body, the wearing of skins and masks of wood or bark, and in the complete costume belonging to the character.

The learned writers of antiquity agree in stating that tragedy, as well as comedy, was originally a choral song. The action, the adventures of the gods, was presupposed or only symbolically indicated; the chorus expressed their feelings upon it. This choral song belonged to the class of the dithyramb, an enthusiastic ode to Bacchus, capable of expressing every variety of feeling excited by the worship of that god. It was first sung by revelers at convivial meetings, afterwards it was regularly executed by a chorus. The subject of these tragic choruses sometimes changed from Bacchus to other heroes distinguished for their misfortunes and suffering. The reason why the dithyramb and afterwards tragedy was transferred from that god to heroes and not to other gods of the Greek Olympus, was that the latter were elevated above the chances of fortune and the alternations of joy and grief to which both Bacchus and the heroes were subject.

It is stated by Aristotle, that tragedy originated with the chief singers of the dithyramb. It is probable that they represented Bacchus himself or his messengers, that they came forward and narrated his perils and escapes, and that the chorus then expressed their feeling, as at passing events. The chorus thus naturally assumed the character of satellites of Bacchus, whence they easily fell into the parts of satyrs, who were his companions in sportive adventures, as well as in combats and misfortunes. The name of tragedy, or goat's song, was derived from the resemblance of the singers, in their character of satyrs, to goats.

Thus far tragedy had advanced among the Dorians, who, therefore, considered themselves the inventors of it. All its further development belongs to the Athenians. In the time of Pisistratus, Thespis (506 B.C.) first caused tragedy to become a drama, though a very simple one. He connected with the choral representation a regular dialogue, by joining one person to the chorus who was the first actor. He introduced linen masks, and thus the one actor might appear in several characters. In the drama of Thespis we find the satyric drama confounded with tragedy, and the persons of the chorus frequently representing satyrs. The dances of the chorus were still a principal part of the performance; the ancient tragedians, in general, were teachers of dancing, as well as poets and musicians.

In Phrynichus (fl. 512 B.C.) the lyric predominated over the dramatic element. Like Thespis, he had only one actor, but he used this actor for different characters, and he was the first who brought female parts upon the stage, which, according to the manners of the ancients, could be acted only by men. In several instances it is remarkable that Phrynichus deviated from mythical subjects to those taken from contemporary history.

3. TRAGEDY.—The tragedy of antiquity was entirely different from that which, in progress of time, arose among other nations; a picture of human life, agitated by the passions, and corresponding as accurately as possible to its original in all its features. Ancient tragedy departs entirely from ordinary life; its character is in the highest degree ideal, and its development necessary, and essentially directed by the fate to which gods and men were subjected. As tragedy and dramatic exhibitions, generally, were seen only at the festivals of Bacchus, they retained a sort of Bacchic coloring, and the extraordinary excitement of all minds at these festivals, by raising them above the tone of every-day existence, gave both to the tragic and comic muse unwonted energy and fire.

The Bacchic festal costume, which the actors wore, consisted of long striped garments reaching to the ground, over which were thrown upper garments of some brilliant color, with gay trimmings and gold ornaments. The choruses also vied with each other in the splendor of their dress, as well as in the excellence of their singing and dancing. The chorus, which always bore a subordinate part in the action of the tragedy, was in no respect distinguished from the stature and appearance of ordinary men, while the actor, who represented the god or hero, required to be raised above the usual dimensions of mortals. A tragic actor was a strange, and, according to the taste of the ancients themselves at a later period, a very monstrous being. His person was lengthened out considerably beyond the proportions of the human figure by the very high soles of the tragic shoe, and by the length of the tragic mask, and the chest, body, legs, and arms were stuffed and padded to a corresponding size; the body thus lost much of its natural flexibility, and the gesticulation consisted of stiff, angular movements, in which little was left to the emotion or the inspiration of the moment. Masks, which had originated in the taste for mumming and disguises of all sorts, prevalent at the Bacchic festivals, were an indispensable accompaniment to tragedy. They not only concealed the individual features of well-known actors, and enabled the spectators entirely to forget the performer in his part, but gave to his whole aspect that ideal character which the tragedy of antiquity demanded. The tragic mask was not intentionally ugly and caricatured like the comic, but the half-open mouth, the large eye-sockets, and sharply-defined features, in which every characteristic was presented in its utmost strength, and the bright and hard coloring were calculated to make the impression of a being agitated by the emotions and passions of human nature in a degree far above the standard of common life. The masks could, however, be changed between the acts, so as to represent the necessary changes in the state or emotions of the persons.

The ancient theatres were stone buildings of enormous size, calculated to accommodate the whole free and adult population of a great city at the spectacles and festal games. These theatres were not designed exclusively for dramatic poetry; choral dances, processions, revels, and all sorts of representations were held in them. We find theatres in every part of Greece, though dramatic poetry was the peculiar growth of Athens.

The whole structure of the theatre, as well as the drama itself, may be traced to the chorus, whose station was the original centre of the whole performance. The orchestra, which occupied a circular level space in the centre of the building, grew out of the chorus or dancing-place of the Homeric times. The altar of Bacchus, around which the dithyrambic chorus danced in a circle, had given rise to a sort of raised platform in the centre of the orchestra, which served as a resting-place for the chorus.

The chorus sang alone when the actors had quitted the stage, or alternately with the persons of the drama, and sometimes entered into dialogues with them. These persons represented heroes of the mythical world, whose whole aspect bespoke something mightier and more sublime than ordinary humanity, and it was the part of the chorus to show the impression made by the incidents of the drama on lower and feebler minds, and thus, as it were, to interpret them to the audience, with whom they owned a more kindred nature. The ancient stage was remarkably long, and of little depth; it was called the proscenium, because it was in front of the scene. Scene properly means tent or hut, such as originally marked the dwelling of the principal person. This hut at length gave place to a stately scene, enriched with architectural decorations, yet its purpose remained the same.

We have seen how a single actor was added to the chorus by Thespis, who caused him to represent in succession all the persons of the drama. Aeschylus added a second actor in order to obtain the contrast of two acting persons on the stage; even Sophocles did not venture beyond the introduction of a third. But the ancients laid more stress upon the precise number and mutual relations of these actors than can here be explained.

4. THE TRAGIC POETS.—Aeschylus (525-477 B.C.), like almost all the great masters of poetry in ancient Greece, was a poet by profession, and from the great improvements which he introduced into tragedy he was regarded by the Athenians as its founder. Of the seventy tragedies which he is said to have written, only seven are extant. Of these, the "Prometheus" is beyond all question his greatest work. The genius of Aeschylus inclined rather to the awful and sublime, than to the tender and pathetic. He excels in representing the superhuman, in depicting demigods and heroes, and in tracing the irresistible march of fate. The depth of poetical feeling in him is accompanied with intense and philosophical thought; he does not merely represent individual tragical events, but he recurs to the greater elements of tragedy—the subjection of the gods and Titans, and the original dignity and greatness of nature and of man. He delights to portray this gigantic strength, as in his Prometheus chained and tortured, but invincible; and these representations have a moral sublimity far above mere poetic beauty. His tragedies were at once political, patriotic, and religious.

Sophocles (495-406 B.C.), as a poet, is universally allowed to have brought the drama to the highest degree of perfection of which it was susceptible. Indeed, the Greek mind may be said to have culminated in him; his writings overflow with that indescribable charm which only flashes through those of other poets. His plots are worked up with more skill and care than those of either of his great rivals, Aeschylus or Euripides, and he added the last improvement to the form of the drama by the introduction of a third actor,—a change which greatly enlarged the scope of the action. Of the many tragedies which he is said to have written, only seven are extant. Of these, the "Oedipus Tyrannus" is particularly remarkable for its skillful development, and for the manner in which the interest of the piece increases through each succeeding act. Of all the poets of antiquity, Sophocles has penetrated most deeply into the recesses of the human heart. His tragedies appear to us as pictures of the mind, as poetical developments of the secrets of our souls, and of the laws to which their nature makes them amenable.

In Euripides (480-407 B.C.) we discover the first traces of decline in the Greek tragedy. He diminished its dignity by depriving it of its ideal character, and by bringing it down to the level of every-day life. All the characters of Euripides have that loquacity and dexterity in the use of words which distinguished the Athenians of his day; yet in spite of all these faults he has many beauties, and is particularly remarkable for pathos, so that Aristotle calls him the most tragic of poets. Eighteen of his tragedies are still extant.

The contemporaries of the three great tragic poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, must be regarded for the most part as far from insignificant, since they maintained their place on the stage beside them, and not unfrequently gained the tragic prize in competition with them; yet the general character of these poets must have been deficient in that depth and peculiar force of genius by which these great tragedians were distinguished. If this had not been the case, their works would assuredly have attracted greater attention, and would have been read mere frequently in later times.

5. COMEDY.—Greek comedy was distinguished as the Old, the Middle, and the New. As tragedy arose from the winter feast of Bacchus, which fostered an enthusiastic sympathy with the apparent sorrows of the god of nature, comedy arose from the concluding feast of the vintage, at which an exulting joy over the inexhaustible riches of nature manifested itself in wantonness of every kind. In such a feast, the Comus, or Bacchanalian procession, was a principal ingredient. This was a tumultuous mixture of the wild carouse, the noisy song, and the drunken dance; and the meaning of the word comedy is a comus song. It was from this lyric comedy that the dramatic comedy was gradually produced. It received its full development from Cratinus, who lived in the age of Pericles. Cratinus and his younger contemporaries, Eupolis (431 B.C.) and Aristophanes (452-380 B.C.), were the great poets of the old Attic comedy. Of their works, only eleven dramas of Aristophanes are extant. The chief object of these comedies was to excite laughter by the boldest and most ludicrous caricature, and, provided that end was obtained, the poet seems to have cared little about the justice of the picture. It is scarcely possible to imagine the unmeasured and unsparing license of attack assumed by these comedies upon the gods, the institutions, the politicians, philosophers, poets, private citizens, and women of Athens. With this universal liberty of subject there is combined a poignancy of derision and satire, a fecundity of imagination, and a richness of poetical expression such as cannot be surpassed. Towards the end of the career of Aristophanes, however, this unrestricted license of the comedy began gradually to disappear.

The Old comedy was succeeded by the Middle Attic comedy, in which the satire was no longer directed against the influential men or rulers of the people, but was rich in ridicule of the Platonic Academy, of the newly revived sect of the Pythagoreans, and of the orators, rhetoricians, and poets of the day. In this transition from the Old to the Middle comedy, we may discern at once the great revolution that had taken place in the domestic history of Athens, when the Athenians, from a nation of politicians, became a nation of literary men; when it was no longer the opposition of political ideas, but the contest of opposing schools of philosophers and rhetoricians, which set all heads in motion. The poets of this comedy were very numerous.

The last poets of the Middle comedy were contemporaries of the writers of the New, who rose up as their rivals, and who were only distinguished from them by following the new tendency more decidedly and exclusively. Menander (342-293 B.C.) was one of the first of these poets, and he is also the most perfect of them. The Athens of his day differed from that of the time of Pericles, in the same way that an old man, weak in body but fond of life, good-humored and self-indulgent, differs from the vigorous, middle-aged man at the summit of his mental strength and bodily energy. Since there was so little in politics to interest or to employ the mind, the Athenians found an object in the occurrences of social life and the charm of dissolute enjoyment. Dramatic poetry now, for the first time, centred in love, as it has since done among all nations to whom the Greek cultivation has descended. But it certainly was not love in those nobler forms to which it has since elevated itself. Menander painted truly the degenerate world in which he lived, actuated by no mighty impulses, no noble aspirations. He was contemporary with Epicurus, and their characters had much in common; both were deficient in the inspiration of high moral ideas.

The comedy of Menander and his contemporaries completed what Euripides had begun on the tragic stage a hundred years before their time. They deprived their characters of that ideal grandeur which had been most conspicuous in the creations of Aeschylus and the earlier poets, and thus tragedy and comedy, which had started from such different beginnings, here met as at the same point. The comedies of Menander may be considered as almost the conclusion of Attic literature; he was the last original poet of Athens; those who arose at a later period were but gleaners after the rich harvest of Greek poetry had been gathered.