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Tragedy and Comedy.—In the level country about Athens the young men celebrated in this manner each year religious dances in honor of Dionysos, the god of the vintage. One of these dances was grave; it represented the actions of the god. The leader of the chorus played Dionysos, the chorus itself the satyrs, his companions. Little by little they came to represent also the life of the other gods and the ancient heroes. Then some one (the Greeks call him Thespis) conceived the idea of setting up a stage on which the actor could play while the chorus rested. The spectacle thus perfected was transferred to the city near the black poplar tree in the market. Thus originated Tragedy.
The other dance was comic. The masked dancers chanted the praises of Dionysos mingled with jeers addressed to the spectators or with humorous reflections on the events of the day. The same was done for the comic chorus as for the tragic chorus: actors were introduced, a dialogue, all of a piece, and the spectacle was transferred to Athens. This was the origin of Comedy. This is the reason that from this time tragedy has been engaged with heroes, and comedy with every-day life.
Tragedy and comedy preserved some traces of their origin. Even when they were represented in the theatre, they continued to be played before the altar of the god. Even after the actors mounted on the platform had become the most important personages of the spectacle, the choir continued to dance and to chant around the altar. In the comedies, like the masques in other days, sarcastic remarks on the government came to be made; this was the Parabasis.
The Theatre.—That all the Athenians might be present at these spectacles there was built on the side of the Acropolis the theatre of Dionysos which could hold 30,000 spectators. Like all the Greek theatres, it was open to heaven and was composed of tiers of rock ranged in a half-circle about the orchestra where the chorus performed and before the stage where the play was given.
Plays were produced only at the time of the festivals of the god, but then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was a competition between poets, the public determining the victor. The most celebrated of these competitors were AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. There were also contests in comedy, but there remain to us only the works of one comic poet, Aristophanes.
THE ARTS
Greek Temples.—In Greece the most beautiful edifices were constructed to the honor of the gods, and when we speak of Greek architecture it is their temples that we have in mind.
A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace[86] where the god lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under compulsion to make splendid. The mass of the faithful do not enter the interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in the open air.
At the centre of the temple is the "chamber" of the god, a mysterious sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.[87] On the pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his head almost touches the summit of the temple. "If the god should rise," they said, "his head would shatter the roof." This sanctuary, a sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pass through a porch formed by a row of columns.
Behind the "chamber" is the "rear-chamber" in which are kept the valuable property of the god—his riches,[88] and often the gold and silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and museum.
Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second wall protecting the god and his treasures. There are three orders of columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is named from the style of the columns supporting it.
Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs constitute the frieze.
The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with statues.
Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt. It has at last been concluded, on reflection, that these bright colors were to give a clearer setting to the lines.
Characteristics of Greek Architecture.—A Greek temple appears at first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon a rock; the facade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer inspection "it is discovered[89] that not a single one of these lines is truly straight." The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements are necessary to detect the artifice. Greek architects discovered that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of illusions in perspective. "The aim of the architect," says a Greek writer, "is to invent processes for deluding the sight."
Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the gods. And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that they exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of gunpowder wrecked it.
The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and there are a very few,[90] wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this state, they enrapture those who behold them.
Sculpture.—Among the Egyptians and the Assyrians sculpture was hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks made it the principal art. Their most renowned artists, Phidias, Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors.
They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its facade or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon, representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of the goddess.[91]
They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory.
The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite similar to the Assyrian sculptures. They are often colored. Little by little they become graceful and elegant. The greatest works are those of Phidias in the fifth century and of Praxiteles in the fourth. The statues of the following centuries are more graceful, but less noble and less powerful.
There were thousands of statues in Greece,[92] for every city had its own, and the sculptors produced without cessation for five centuries. Of all this multitude there remain to us hardly fifteen complete statues. Not a single example of the masterpieces celebrated among the Greeks has come down to us. Our most famous Greek statues are either copies, like the Venus of Milo, or works of the period of the decadence, like the Apollo of the Belvidere.[93] Still there remains enough, uniting the fragments of statues and of bas-reliefs which are continually being discovered,[94] to give us a general conception of Greek sculpture.
Greek sculptors sought above everything else to represent the most beautiful bodies in a calm and noble attitude. They had a thousand occasions for viewing beautiful bodies of men in beautiful poses, at the gymnasium, in the army, in the sacred dances and choruses. They studied them and learned to reproduce them; no one has ever better executed the human body.
Usually in a Greek statue the head is small, the face without emotion and dull. The Greeks did not seek, as we do, the expression of the face; they strove for beauty of line and did not sacrifice the limbs for the head. In a Greek statue it is the whole body that is beautiful.
Pottery.—The Greeks came to make pottery a real art. They called it Ceramics (the potter's art), and this name is still preserved. Pottery had not the same esteem in Greece as the other arts, but for us it has the great advantage of being better known than the others. While temples and statues fell into ruin, the achievements of Greek potters are preserved in the tombs. This is where they are found today. Already more than 20,000 specimens have been collected in all the museums of Europe. They are of two sorts:
1. Painted vases, with black or red figures, of all sizes and every form;
2. Statuettes of baked earth; hardly known twenty years ago, they have now attained almost to celebrity since the discovery of the charming figurines of Tanagra in Boeotia. The most of them are little idols, but some represent children or women.
Painting.—There were illustrious painters in Greece—Zeuxis, Parrhasius, and Apelles. We know little of them beyond some anecdotes, often doubtful, and some descriptions of pictures. To obtain an impression of Greek painting we are limited to the frescoes found in the houses of Pompeii, an Italian city of the first century of our era. This amounts to the same as saying we know nothing of it.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] The moderns have called this time the Age of Pericles, because Pericles was then governing and was the friend of many of these artists; but the ancients never employed the phrase.
[82] See Aristophanes' "Clouds."
[83] The "Memorabilia" and "Apologia."
[84] Because Plato had lectured in the gardens of a certain Academus.
[85] Because Aristotle had given instruction while moving about. [Or rather from a favorite walk (Peripatus) in the Lyceum.—ED.]
[86] The Greek word for temple signifies "dwelling."
[87] But not by a square opening in the roof as formerly supposed.—ED. See Gardner, "Ancient Athens," N.Y., 1902, p. 268.
[88] The Parthenon contained vases of gold and silver, a crown of gold, shields, helmets, swords, serpents of gold, an ivory table, eighteen couches, and quivers of ivory.
[89] Boutmy, "Philosophie de l'Architecture en Grece."
[90] The most noted are the Parthenon at Athens and the temple of Poseidon at Paestum, in south Italy.
[91] Knights and other subjects were also shown.—ED.
[92] Even in the second century after the Romans had pillaged Greece to adorn their palaces, there were many thousands of statues in the Greek cities.
[93] It is not certain that the Apollo Belvidere was not a Roman copy.
[94] In the ruins of Olympia has been found a statue of Hermes, the work of Praxiteles.
CHAPTER XV
THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT
ASIA BEFORE ALEXANDER
Decadence of the Persian Empire.—The Greeks, engaged in strife, ceased to attack the Great King; they even received their orders from him. But the Persian empire still continued to become enfeebled. The satraps no longer obeyed the government; each had his court, his treasure, his army, made war according to his fancy, and in short, became a little king in his province. When the Great King desired to remove a satrap, he had scarcely any way of doing it except by assassinating him. The Persians themselves were no longer that nation before which all the Asiatic peoples were wont to tremble. Xenophon, a Greek captain, who had been in their pay, describes them as follows: "They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs. The nobles, for the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks into knights—even the valets who served them at table, dressed them or perfumed them. And so, although their armies were large, they were of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies traversed the empire more freely than their friends. They no longer dared to fight. The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler, sword, and axe, but they had no courage to use them. The drivers of chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy. For the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except there are Greeks in their army. They have for their maxim 'never to fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.'"
Expedition of the Ten Thousand.—This weakness was very apparent when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched against him to secure his throne. There were then some thousands of adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries. Cyrus retained ten thousand of them. Xenophon, one of their number, has written the story of their expedition.
This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without resistance from any one.[95] They at last came to battle near Babylon. The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the war-cry. The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even within bow-shot. The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to keep ranks.
When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let them through. Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception of one only who was wounded with an arrow. Cyrus was killed; his army disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart of a hostile country threatened by a large army. And yet the Persians did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to conclude a truce.
The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and their chariots, and began their retreat. They broke into the rugged mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, and the arrows of the natives who did not wish to let them pass, they came to the Black Sea and returned to Greece after traversing the whole Persian empire. At their return (399) their number amounted still to 8,000.
Agesilaus.—Three years after, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, with a small army invaded the rich country of Asia Minor, Lydia, and Phrygia. He fought the satraps and was about to invade Asia when the Spartans ordered his return to fight the armies of Thebes and Athens. Agesilaus was the first of the Greeks to dream of conquering Persia. He was distressed to see the Greeks fighting among themselves. When they announced to him the victory at Corinth where but eight Spartans had perished and 10,000 of the enemy, instead of rejoicing he sighed and said, "Alas, unhappy Greece, to have lost enough men to have subjugated all the barbarians!" He refused one day to destroy a Greek city. "If we exterminate all the Greeks who fail of their duty," said he, "where shall we find the men to vanquish the barbarians?" This feeling was rare at that time. In relating these words of Agesilaus Xenophon, his biographer, exclaims, "Who else regarded it as a misfortune to conquer when he was making war on peoples of his own race?"
CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER
Macedon.—Sparta and Athens, exhausted by a century of wars, had abandoned the contest against the king of Persia. A new people resumed it and brought it to an end; these were the Macedonians. They were a very rude people, crude, similar to the ancient Dorians, a people of shepherds and soldiers. They lived far to the north of Greece in two great valleys that opened to the sea. The Greeks had little regard for them, rating them as half barbarians; but since the kings of Macedon called themselves sons of Herakles they had been permitted to run their horses in the races of the Olympian games. This gave them standing as Greeks.
Philip of Macedon.—These kings ruling in the interior, remote from the sea, had had but little part in the wars of the Greeks. But in 359 B.C. Philip ascended the throne of Macedon, a man young, active, bold, and ambitious. Philip had three aims:
1. To develop a strong army;
2. To conquer all the ports on the coast of Macedon;
3. To force all the other Greeks to unite under his command against the Persians.
He consumed twenty-four years in fulfilling these purposes and succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the cities of northern Greece.
Demosthenes.—The most illustrious opponent of Philip was the orator Demosthenes. The son of an armorer, he was left an orphan at the age of seven, and his guardians had embezzled a part of his fortune. As soon as he gained his majority he entered a case against them and compelled them to restore the property. He studied the orations of Isaeus and the history of Thucydides which he knew by heart. But when he spoke at the public tribune he was received with shouts of laughter; his voice was too feeble and his breath too short. For several years he labored to discipline his voice. It is said that he shut himself up for months with head half shaved that he might not be tempted to go out, that he declaimed with pebbles in his mouth, and on the sea-shore, in order that his voice might rise above the uproar of the crowd. When he reappeared on the tribune, he was master of his voice, and, as he preserved the habit of carefully preparing all his orations, he became the most finished and most potent orator of Greece.
The party that then governed Athens, whose chief was Phocion, wished to maintain the peace: Athens had neither soldiers nor money enough to withstand the king of Macedon. "I should counsel you to make war," said Phocion, "when you are ready for it." Demosthenes, however, misunderstood Philip, whom he regarded as a barbarian; he placed himself at the service of the party that wished to make war on him and employed all his eloquence to move the Athenians from their policy of peace. For fifteen years he seized every occasion to incite them to war; many of his speeches have no other object than an attack on Philip. He himself called these Philippics, and there are three of them. (The name Olynthiacs has been applied to the orations delivered with the purpose of enlisting the Athenians in the aid of Olynthus when it was besieged by Philip.) The first Philippic is in 352. "When, then, O Athenians, will you be about your duty? Will you always roam about the public places asking one of another: What is the news? Ah! How can there be anything newer than the sight of a Macedonian conquering Athens and dominating Greece? I say, then, that you ought to equip fifty galleys and resolve, if necessary, to man them yourselves. Do not talk to me of an army of 10,000 or of 20,000 aliens that exists only on paper. I would have only citizen soldiers."
In the third Philippic (341) Demosthenes calls to the minds of the Athenians the progress made by Philip, thanks to their inaction. "When the Greeks once abused their power to oppress others, all Greece rose to prevent this injustice; and yet today we suffer an unworthy Macedonian, a barbarian of a hated race, to destroy Greek cities, celebrate the Pythian games, or have them celebrated by his slaves. And the Greeks look on without doing anything, just as one sees hail falling while he prays that it may not touch him. You let increase his power without taking a step to stop it, each regarding it as so much time gained when he is destroying another, instead of planning and working for the safety of Greece, when everybody knows that the disaster will end with the inclusion of the most remote."
At last, when Philip had taken Elatea on the borders of Boeotia, the Athenians, on the advice of Demosthenes, determined to make war and to send envoys to Thebes. Demosthenes was at the head of the embassy; he met at Thebes an envoy come from Philip; the Thebans hesitated. Demosthenes besought them to bury the old enmities and to think only of the safety of Greece, to defend its honor and its history. He persuaded them to an alliance with Athens and to undertake the war. A battle was fought at Chaeronea in Boeotia, Demosthenes, then at the age of forty-eight, serving as a private hostile. But the army of the Athenians and Thebans, levied in haste, was not equal to the veterans of Philip and was thrown into rout.
The Macedonian Supremacy.—Philip, victorious at Chaeronea, placed a garrison in Thebes and offered peace to Athens. He then entered the Peloponnesus and was received as a liberator among the peoples whom Sparta had oppressed. From this time he met with no resistance. He came to Corinth and assembled delegates from all the Greek states (337)[96] except Sparta.
Here Philip published his project of leading a Greek army to the invasion of Persia. The delegates approved the proposition and made a general confederation of all the Greek states. Each city was to govern itself and to live at peace with its neighbors. A general council was initiated to prevent wars, civil dissensions, proscriptions, and confiscations.
This confederacy made an alliance with the king of Macedon and conferred on him the command of all the Greek troops and navies. Every Greek was prohibited making war on Philip on pain of banishment.
Alexander.—Philip of Macedon was assassinated in 336. His son Alexander was then twenty years old. Like all the Greeks of good family he was accustomed to athletic exercises, a vigorous fighter, an excellent horseman (he alone had been able to master Bucephalus, his war-horse). But at the same time he was informed in politics, in eloquence, and in natural history, having had as teacher from his thirteenth to his seventeenth year Aristotle, the greatest scholar of Greece. He read the Iliad with avidity, called this the guide to the military art, and desired to imitate its heroes. He was truly born to conquer, for he loved to fight and was ambitious to distinguish himself. His father said to him, "Macedon is too small to contain you."
The Phalanx.—Philip left a powerful instrument of conquest, the Macedonian army, the best that Greece had seen. It comprised the phalanx of infantry and a corps of cavalry.
The phalanx of Macedonians was formed of 16,000 men ranged with 1,000 in front and 16 men deep. Each had a sarissa, a spear about twenty feet in length. On the field of battle the Macedonians, instead of marching on the enemy facing all in the same direction, held themselves in position and presented their pikes to the enemy on all sides, those in the rear couching their spears above the heads of the men of the forward ranks. The phalanx resembled "a monstrous beast bristling with iron," against which the enemy was to throw itself. While the phalanx guarded the field of battle, Alexander charged the enemy at the head of his cavalry. This Macedonian cavalry was a distinguished body formed of young nobles.
Departure of Alexander.—Alexander started in the spring of 334 with 30,000 infantry (the greater part of these Macedonians) and 4,500 knights; he carried only seventy talents (less than eighty thousand dollars) and supplies for forty days. He had to combat not only the crowd of ill-armed peoples such as Xerxes had brought together, but an army of 50,000 Greeks enrolled in the service of the Great King under a competent general, Memnon of Rhodes. These Greeks might have withstood the invasion of Alexander, but Memnon died and his army dispersed. Alexander, delivered from his only dangerous opponent, conquered the Persian empire in two years.
Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela.—Three victories gave the empire to Alexander. In Asia Minor he overthrew the Persian troops stationed behind the river Granicus (May, 333). At Issus, in the ravines of Cilicia, he routed King Darius and his army of 600,000 men (November, 333). At Arbela, near the Tigris, he scattered and massacred a still more numerous army (331).
This was a repetition of the Median wars. The Persian army was ill equipped and knew nothing of manoeuvring; it was embarrassed with its mass of soldiers, valets, and baggage. The picked troops alone gave battle, the rest were scattered and massacred. Between the battles the conquest was only a triumphal progress. Nobody resisted (except the city of Tyre, commercial rival of the Greeks); what cared the peoples of the empire whether they were subject to Darius or Alexander? Each victory gave Alexander the whole of the country: the Granicus opened Asia Minor, Issus Syria and Egypt, Arbela the rest of the empire.
Death of Alexander.—Master now of the Persian empire Alexander regarded himself as the heir of the Great King. He assumed Persian dress, adopted the ceremonies of the Persian court and compelled his Greek generals to prostrate themselves before him according to Persian usage. He married a woman of the land and united eighty of his officers to daughters of the Persian nobles. He aimed to extend his empire to the farthest limits of the ancient kings and advanced even to India, warring with the combative natives. After his return with his army to Babylon (324), he died at the age of thirty-three, succumbing to a fever of brief duration (323).
Projects of Alexander.—It is very difficult to know exactly what Alexander's purposes were. Did he conquer for the mere pleasure of it? Or did he have a plan? Did he wish to fuse into one all the peoples of his empire? Was he following the example already set him by Persia? Or did he, perhaps, imitate the Great King simply for vain-glory? And so of his intentions we know nothing. But his acts had great results. He founded seventy cities—many Alexandrias in Egypt, in Tartary, and even in India. He distributed to his subjects the treasures that had been uselessly hoarded in the chests of the Great King. He stimulated Greek scholars to study the plants, the animals, and the geography of Asia. But what is of special importance, he prepared the peoples of the Orient to receive the language and customs of the Greeks. This is why the title "Great" has been assigned to Alexander.
THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT
Dissolution of the Empire of Alexander.—Alexander had united under one master all the ancient world from the Adriatic to the Indus, from Egypt to the Caucasus. This vast empire endured only while he lived. Soon after his death his generals disputed as to who should succeed him; they made war on one another for twenty years, at first under the pretext of supporting some one of the house of Alexander—his brother, his son, his mother, his sisters or one of his wives, later openly in their own names.
Each had on his side a part of the Macedonian army or some of the Greek mercenary soldiers. The Greeks were thus contending among themselves who should possess Asia. The inhabitants were indifferent in these wars as they had been in the strife between the Greeks and the Persians. When the war ceased, there remained but three generals; from the empire of Alexander each of them had carved for himself a great kingdom: Ptolemy had Egypt, Seleucus Syria, Lysimachus Macedonia. Other smaller kingdoms were already separated or detached themselves later: in Europe Epirus; in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Pergamos; in Persia, Bactriana and Parthia. Thus the empire of Alexander was dismembered.
The Hellenistic Kingdoms.—In these new kingdoms the king was a Greek; accustomed to speak Greek, to adore the Greek gods, and to live in Greek fashion, he preserved his language, his religion, and his customs. His subjects were Asiatics, that is to say, barbarians; but he sought to maintain a Greek court about him; he recruited his army with Greek mercenaries, his administrative officers were Greeks, he invited to his court Greek poets, scholars, and artists.
Already in the time of the Persian kings there were many Greeks in the empire as colonists, merchants, and especially soldiers. The Greek kings attracted still more of these. They came in such numbers that at last the natives adopted the costume, the religion, the manners, and even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic, and became Hellenic. The Romans found here in the first century B.C. only peoples like the Greeks and who spoke Greek.[97]
Alexandria.—The Greek kings of Egypt, descendants of Ptolemy,[98] accepted the title of Pharaoh held by the ancient kings, wore the diadem, and, like the earlier sovereigns, had themselves worshipped as children of the Sun. But they surrounded themselves with Greeks and founded their capital on the edge of the sea in a Greek city, Alexandria, a new city established by the order of Alexander.
Built on a simple plan, Alexandria was more regular than other Greek cities. The streets intersected at right angles; a great highway 100 feet broad and three and one-half miles in length traversed the whole length of the city. It was bordered with great monuments—the Stadium where the public games were presented, the Gymnasium, the Museum, and the Arsineum. The harbor was enclosed with a dike nearly a mile long which united the mainland to the island of Pharos. At the very extremity of this island a tower of marble was erected, on the summit of which was maintained a fire always burning to guide the mariners who wished to enter the port. Alexandria superseded the Phoenician cities and became the great port of the entire world.
The Museum.—The Museum was an immense edifice of marble connected with the royal palace. The kings of Egypt purposed to make of it a great scientific institution.
The Museum contained a great library.[99] The chief librarian had a commission to buy all the books that he could find. Every book that entered Egypt was brought to the library; copyists transcribed the manuscript and a copy was rendered the owner to indemnify him. Thus they collected 400,000 volumes, an unheard-of number before the invention of printing. Until then the manuscripts of celebrated books were scarce, always in danger of being lost; now it was known where to find them. In the Museum were also a botanical and zooelogical garden, an astronomical observatory, a dissecting room established notwithstanding the prejudices of the Egyptians, and even a chemical laboratory.[100]
The Museum provided lodgings for scholars, mathematicians, astronomers, physicians, and grammarians. They were supported at the expense of the state; often to show his esteem for them the king dined with them. These scholars held conferences and gave lectures. Auditors came from all parts of the Greek world; it was to Alexandria that the youth were sent for instruction. In the city were nearly 14,000 students.
The Museum was at once a library, an academy, and a school—something like a university. This sort of institution, common enough among us, was before that time completely unheard of. Alexandria, thanks to its Museum, became the rendezvous for all the Orientals—Greeks, Egyptians, Jews, and Syrians; each brought there his religion, his philosophy, his science, and all were mingled together. Alexandria became and remained for several centuries the scientific and philosophical capital of the world.
Pergamum.—The kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor was small and weak. But Pergamum, its capital, was, like Alexandria, a city of artists and of letters. The sculptors of Pergamum constituted a celebrated school in the third century before our era.[101] Pergamum, like Alexandria, possessed a great library where King Attalus had assembled all the manuscripts of the ancient authors.
It was at Pergamum that, to replace the papyrus on which down to that time they used to write, they invented the art of preparing skins. This new paper of Pergamum was the parchment on which the manuscripts of antiquity have been preserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[95] An episode told by Xenophon shows what fear the Greeks inspired. One day, to make a display before the queen of Cilicia, Cyrus had his Greeks drawn up in battle array. "They all had their brazen helmets, their tunics of purple, their gleaming shields and greaves. The trumpet sounded, and the soldiers, with arms in action, began the charge; hastening their steps and raising the war-cry, they broke into a run. The barbarians were terrified; the Cilician queen fled from her chariot, the merchants of the market abandoning their goods took to flight, and the Greeks returned with laughter to their tents."
[96] There were two assemblies in Corinth—the first in, 338, the second in 337.—ED.
[97] The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles composed in Asia Minor were written in Greek.
[98] They were called Lagidae from the father of Ptolemy I.
[99] The library of the Museum was burnt during the siege of Alexandria by Caesar. But it had a successor in the Serapeum which contained 300,000 volumes. This is said to have been burnt in the seventh century by the Arabs. [The tale of the destruction of the library under orders of Omar is doubtful.—ED.]
[100] King Ptolemy Philadelphus who had great fear of death passed many years searching for an elixir of life.
[101] There still remain to us some of the statues executed by the orders of King Attalus to commemorate his victory over the Gauls of Asia.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST YEARS OF GREECE
DECADENCE OF THE GREEK CITIES
Rich and Poor.—In almost all the Greek cities the domains, the shops of trade, the merchant ships, in short, all the sources of financial profit were in the hands of certain rich families. The other families, that is to say, the majority of the citizens,[102] had neither lands nor money. What, then, could a poor citizen do to gain a livelihood? Hire himself as a farmer, an artisan, or a sailor? But the proprietors already had their estates, their workshops, their merchantmen manned by slaves who served them much more cheaply than free laborers, for they fed them ill and did not pay them. Could he work on his own account? But money was very scarce; he could not borrow, since interest was at the rate of ten per cent. Then, too, custom did not permit a citizen to become an artisan. "Trade," said the philosophers, "injures the body, enfeebles the soul and leaves no leisure to engage in public affairs." "And so," says Aristotle, "a well-constituted city ought not to receive the artisan into citizenship." The citizens in Greece constituted a noble class whose only honorable functions, like the nobles of ancient France, were to govern and go to war; working with the hands was degrading. Thus by the competition of slaves and their exalted situation the greater part of the citizens were reduced to extreme misery.
Social Strife.—The poor governed the cities and had no means of living. The idea occurred to them to despoil the rich, and the latter, to resist them, organized associations. Then every Greek city was divided into two parties: the rich, called the minority, and the poor, called the majority or the people. Rich and poor hated one another and fought one another. When the poor got the upper hand, they exiled the rich and confiscated their goods; often they even adopted these two radical measures:
1. The abolition of debts;
2. A new partition of lands.
The rich, when they returned to power, exiled the poor. In many cities they took this oath among themselves: "I swear always to be an enemy to the people and to do them all the injury I can."
No means were found of reconciling the two parties: the rich could not persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war," says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth."
They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors. "At Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee the city. But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them all, they took the children of the exiles, assembled them in barns and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reentered the city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive."
Democracy and Oligarchy.—Each of the two parties—rich and poor—had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when the party held the city. The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which gave the government into the hands of a few people. That of the poor was the Democracy which gave the power to an assembly of the people. Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar party in the other cities. Thus were formed two leagues which divided all the Greek cities: the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league of the poor, or Democracy. This regime began during the Peloponnesian War. Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic. The cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta. Thus at Samos when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich, exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses. Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with Athens. The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force. The city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of Sparta.
The Tyrants.—At length, the poor perceived that the democratic form of government did not give them strength enough to maintain the contest. In most of the cities they consented to receive a chief. This chief was called Tyrant. He governed as master without obeying any law, condemning to death, and confiscating property at will. Mercenaries defended him against his enemies. The following anecdote represents the policy of the tyrants: "Periander, tyrant of Corinth, sent one day to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, to ask what conduct he ought to follow in order to govern with safety. Thrasybulus led the envoy into the field end walked with him through the wheat, striking off with his staff all heads that were higher than the others. He sent off the envoy without further advice." The messenger took him for a fool, but Periander understood: Thrasybulus was counselling him to slay the principal citizens.
Everywhere the rich were killed by the tyrant and their goods confiscated; often the wealth was distributed among the poor. This is why the populace always sustained the tyrant.
There were tyrants in Greece from the sixth century; some, like Pisistratus, Polycrates, and Pittacus, were respected for their wisdom. At that time every man was called tyrant who exercised absolute power outside the limits of the constitution; it was not a title of reproach.
But when the tyrants made incessant warfare on the rich they became sanguinary and so were detested. Their situation is depicted in the famous story of Damocles. This Damocles said to Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, "You are the happiest of men." "I will show you the delight of being a tyrant," replied Dionysius. He had Damocles served with a sumptuous feast and ordered his servants to show the guest the same honors as to himself. During the feast Damocles raised his eyes and perceived a sword suspended to the ceiling held only by a horse hair, and hanging directly over his head. The comparison was a striking one—the tyrant's life hung only by a thread. The rich, his enemies, watched for an opportunity to cut it, for it was regarded as praiseworthy to assassinate a tyrant. This danger irritated him and made him suspicious and cruel. He dared not trust anybody, believed himself secure only after the massacre of all his enemies, and condemned the citizens to death on the slightest suspicion. Thus the name tyrant became a synonym of injustice.
Exhaustion of Greece.—The civil wars between rich and poor continued for nearly three centuries (430-150 B.C.). Many citizens were massacred, a greater number exiled. These exiles wandered about in poverty. Knowing no trade but that of a soldier, they entered as mercenaries into the armies of Sparta, Athens, the Great King, the Persian satraps—in short, of anybody who would hire them. There were 50,000 Greeks in the service of Darius against Alexander. It was seldom that such men returned to their own country.
Thus the cities lost their people. At the same time families became smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raise children, others having but one or two. "Is not this," says Polybius, "the root of the evil, that of these two children war or sickness removes one, then the home becomes deserted and the city enfeebled?" A time came when there were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror.
THE ROMAN CONQUEST
The Greek Leagues.—The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an assembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."[103]
The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the AEtolians and Achaeans, had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties—the AEtolian League the democratic, the Achaean League[104] the oligarchical.
The Roman Allies.—Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,[105] the king of Syria (193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their armies and made them surrender their fleets.
Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and his kingdom overthrown (167).[106] The Greeks made no effort to unite for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the Romans.[107] While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against Rome. Even among the Achaeans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans, prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were held twenty years without trial.
The Last Fight.—The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies. In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon, betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks assembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see his form, touch his hand; crowns and garlands were cast upon him. The pressure upon him was so great that he was nearly suffocated.
The Romans seeing themselves in control soon wished to command. The rich freely recognized their sovereignty; Rome served them by shattering the party of the poor. This endured for forty years. At last in 147, Rome being engaged with Carthage, the democratic party gained the mastery in Greece and declared war on the Romans. A part of the Greeks were panic-stricken; many came before the Roman soldiers denouncing their compatriots and themselves; others betook themselves to a safe distance from the cities; some hurled themselves into wells or over precipices. The leaders of the opposition confiscated the property of the rich, abolished debts, and gave arms to the slaves. It was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achaeans reassembled an army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The general Dioeus shut himself in his house with his whole family and set fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance; the Romans entered it, massacred the men, and sold the women and children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust, Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice.
THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT
Influence of Greece on Rome.—The Romans at the time of their conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to imitate these, as the Assyrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as the Persians did the Assyrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue, and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence. Later it was the fashion for the youth of the great Roman families to go as students to the schools of Athens and Alexandria. Thus the arts and science of the Greeks were gradually introduced into Rome. "Vanquished Greece overcame her savage conqueror," says Horace, the Roman poet; "she brought the arts to uncultured Latium."
Architecture.—The Romans had a national architecture. But they borrowed the column from the Greeks and often imitated their buildings. Many Roman temples resemble a Greek temple.
A wealthy Roman's house is composed ordinarily of two parts: the first, the ancient Roman house; the other is only a Greek house added to the first.
Sculpture.—The Greeks had thousands of statues, in temples, squares of the city, gymnasia, and in their dwellings. The Romans regarded themselves as the owners of everything that had belonged to the vanquished people. Their generals, therefore, removed a great number of statues, transporting them to the temples and the porticos of Rome. In the triumph of AEmilius Paullus, victor over the king of Macedon (Perseus), a notable spectacle was two hundred and fifty cars full of statues and paintings.
Soon the Romans became accustomed to adorn with statues their theatres, council-halls, and private villas; every great noble wished to have some of them and gave commissions for them to Greek artists. Thus a Roman school of sculpture was developed which continued to imitate ancient Greek models. And so it was Greek sculpture, a little blunted and disfigured, which was spread over all the world subject to the Romans.
Literature.—The oldest Latin writer was a Greek, Livius Andronicus, a freedman, a schoolmaster, and later an actor. The first works in Latin were translations from the Greek. Livius Andronicus had translated the Odyssey and several tragedies. The Roman people took pleasure in Greek pieces and would have no others. Even the Roman authors who wrote for the theatre did nothing but translate or arrange Greek tragedies and comedies. Thus the celebrated works of Plautus and of Terence are imitations of the comedies of Menander and of Diphilus, now lost to us.
The Romans imitated also the Greek historians. For a long time it was the fashion to write history, even Roman history, in Greek.
The only great Roman poets declare themselves pupils of the Greeks. Lucretius writes only to expound the philosophy of Epicurus; Catullus imitates the poets of Alexander; Vergil, Theocritus and Homer; Horace translates the odes of the Greek lyrics.
Epicureans and Stoics.—The Romans had a practical and literal spirit, very indifferent to pure science and metaphysics. They took interest in Greek philosophy only so far as they believed it had a bearing on morals.
Epicureans and Stoics were two sects of Greek philosophers. The Epicureans maintained that pleasure is the supreme good, not sensual pleasure, but the calm and reasonable pleasure of the temperate man; happiness consists in the quiet enjoyment of a peaceful life, surrounded with friends and without concern for imaginary goods. For the Stoics the supreme good is virtue, which consists in conducting one's self according to reason, with a view to the good of the whole universe. Riches, honor, health, beauty, all the goods of earth are nothing for the wise man; even if one torture him, he remains happy in the possession of the true good.
The Romans took sides for one or the other philosophy, usually without thoroughly comprehending either. Those who passed for Epicureans spent their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life. Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient religion and taught that all men are equal, slaves or citizens, Greeks or barbarians. Their Roman disciples renounced in their school certain old superstitions, and learned to show themselves less cruel to their slaves, less insolent toward other peoples.
The conquest of Greece by the Romans gave the arts, letters, and morals of the Greeks currency in the west, just as the conquest of the Persian empire by the Greeks had carried their language, customs, and religion into the Orient.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] In almost all the Greek cities there was no middle class. In this regard Athens with its thirteen thousand small proprietors is a remarkable exception.
[103] Polybius, v., 104.
[104] The Achaean league had illustrious leaders. In the third century, Aratus, who for twenty-seven years (251-224) traversed Greece, expelling tyrants, recalling the rich and returning to them their property and the government; in the second century Philopoemen, who fought the tyrants of Sparta and died by poison.
[105] There were two kings of Syria by the name of Antiochus, between 193 and 169.—ED.
[106] The decisive battle (Pydna) was fought in 168. Perseus walked in the triumph of Paullus the next year.—ED.
[107] The party policies of the Greeks of this period were hardly so clearly drawn as the above would seem to indicate. Thus the Achaean League allied itself with Macedon against the AEtolians and against Sparta. The AEtolians leagued with the Romans against Macedon.—ED.
CHAPTER XVII
ROME
ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY
THE ETRUSCANS
Etruria.—The word Italy never signified for the ancients the same as for us: the Po Valley (Piedmont and Lombardy) was a part of Gaul. The frontier country at the north was Tuscany. The Etruscans who dwelt there have left it their name (Tusci).
Etruria was a country at once warm and humid; the atmosphere hung heavily over the inhabitants. The region on the shore of the sea where the Etruscans had most of their cities is the famous Maremma, a wonderfully fertile area, covered with beautiful forests, but where the water having no outlet forms marshes that poison the air. "In the Maremma," says an Italian proverb, "one gets rich in a year, but dies in six months."
The Etruscan People.—The Etruscans were for the ancients, and are still for us, a mysterious people. They had no resemblance to their neighbor's, and doubtless they came from a distance—from Germany, Asia, or from Egypt; all these opinions have been maintained, but no one of them is demonstrated.
We are ignorant even of the language that they spoke. Their alphabet resembles that of the Greeks, but the Etruscan inscriptions present only proper names, and these are too short to furnish a key to the language.
The Etruscans established twelve cities in Tuscany, united in a confederation, each with its own fortress, its king, and its government. They had colonies on both coasts, twelve in Campania in the vicinity of Naples, and twelve more in the valley of the Po.
Etruscan Tombs.—There remain to us from the Etruscans only city walls and tombs.
When an Etruscan tomb is opened, one perceives a porch supported by columns and behind this chambers with couches, and bodies laid on these. Round about are ornaments of gold, ivory, and amber; purple cloths, utensils, and especially large painted vases. On the walls are paintings of combats, games, banquets, and fantastic scenes.
Industry and Commerce.—The Etruscans knew how to turn their fertile soil to some account, but they were for the most part mariners and traders. Like the Phoenicians they made long journeys to seek the ivory of India, amber from the Baltic, tin, the Phoenician purple, Egyptian jewels adorned with hieroglyphics, and even ostrich eggs. All these objects are found in their tombs. Their navies sailed to the south as far as Sicily. The Greeks hated them and called them "savage Tyrrhenians" or "Etruscan pirates." At this time every mariner on occasion was a pirate, and the Etruscans were especially interested to exclude the Greeks so that they might keep for themselves the trade of the west coast of Italy.
The famous Etruscan vases, which have been taken from the tombs by the thousand to enrich our museums, were imitations of Greek vases, but manufactured by the Etruscans. They represent scenes from Greek mythology, especially the combats about Troy; the human figures are in red on a black ground.
Religion.—The Etruscans were a sombre people. Their gods were stern, often malevolent. The two most exalted gods were "the veiled deities," of whom we know nothing. Below these were the gods who hurled the lightning and these form a council of twelve gods. Under the earth, in the abode of the dead, were gods of evil omen. These are represented on the Etruscan vases. The king of the lower world, Mantus, a winged genius, sits with crown on his head and torch in his hand. Other demons armed with sword or club with serpents in their hands receive the souls of the dead; the principal of these under the name Charun (the Charon of the Greeks), an old man of hideous form, bears a heavy mallet to strike his victims. The souls of the dead (the Manes) issue from the lower world three days in the year, wandering about the earth, terrifying the living and doing them evil. Human victims are offered to appease their lust for blood. The famous gladiatorial combats which the Romans adopted had their origin in bloody sacrifices in honor of the dead.
The Augurs.—The Etruscans used to say that a little evil spirit named Tages issued one day from a furrow and revealed to the people assembled the secrets of divination. The Etruscan priests who called themselves haruspices or augurs had rules for predicting the future. They observed the entrails of victims, the thunderbolt, but especially the flight of birds (whence their name "augurs"). The augur at first with face turned to the north, holding a crooked staff in his hand, describes a line which cuts the heavens in two sections; the part to the right is favorable, to the left unfavorable. A second line cutting the first at right angles, and others parallel to these form in the heavens a square which was called the Temple. The augur regarded the birds that flew in this square: some like the eagle have a lucky significance; others like the owl presage evil.
The Etruscans predicted the future destiny of their own people. They are the only people of antiquity who did not expect that they were to persist forever. Etruria, they said, was to endure ten centuries. These centuries were not of exactly one hundred years each, but certain signs marked the end of each period. In the year 44, the year of the death of Caesar, a comet appeared; an Etruscan haruspex stated to the Romans in an assembly of the people that this comet announced the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, the last of the Etruscan people.
Influence of the Etruscans.—The Romans, a semi-barbarous people, always imitated their more civilized neighbors, the Etruscans. They drew from them especially the forms of their religion: the costume of the priests and of the magistrates, the religious rites, and the art of divining the future from birds (the auspices). When the Romans found a city, they observe the Etruscan rites: the founder traces a square enclosure with a plough with share of bronze, drawn by a white bull and a white heifer. Men follow the founder and carefully cast the clods of earth from the side of the furrow. The whole ditch left by the plough is sacred and is not to be crossed. To allow entrance to the enclosure, it is necessary that the founder break the ditch at certain points, and he does this by lifting the plough and carrying it an instant; the interval made in this manner remains profane and it becomes the gate by which one enters. Rome itself was founded according to these rites. It was called Roma Quadrata, and it was said that the founder had killed his brother to punish him for crossing the sacred furrow. Later the limits of Roman colonies and of camps, and even the bounds of domains were always traced in conformity with religious rules and with geometrical lines.
The Roman religion was half Etruscan. The Fathers of the church were right, therefore, in calling Etruria the "Mother of Superstitions."
THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
Umbrians and Oscans.—In the rugged mountains of the Apennines, to the east and south of the Roman plain, resided numerous tribes. These peoples did not bear the same name and did not constitute a single nation. They were Umbrians, Sabines, Volscians, AEquians, Hernicans, Marsians, and Samnites. But all spoke almost the same language, worshipped the same gods, and had similar customs. Like the Persians, Hindoos, and Greeks, they were of Aryan race; secluded in their mountains, remote from strangers, they remained like the Aryans of the ancient period; they lived in groups with their herds scattered in the plains; they had no villages nor cities. Fortresses erected on the mountains defended them in time of war. They were brave martial people, of simple and substantial manners. They later constituted the strength of the Roman armies. A proverb ran: "Who could vanquish the Marsians without the Marsians?"
The Sacred Spring.—In the midst of a pressing danger, the Sabines, according to a legend, believing their gods to be angry, decided to appease their displeasure by sacrificing to the god of war and of death everything that was born during a certain spring. This sacrifice was called a "Sacred Spring." All the children born in this year belonged to the god. Arrived at the age of manhood, they left the country and journeyed abroad. These exiles formed several groups, each taking for guide one of the sacred animals of Italy, a woodpecker, a wolf, or a bull, and followed it as a messenger of the god. Where the animal halted the band settled itself. Many peoples of Italy, it was said, had originated in these colonies of emigrants and still preserved the name of the animal which had led their ancestors. Such were, the Hirpines (people of the wolf), the Picentines (people of the woodpecker), and the Samnites whose capital was named Bovianum (city of the ox).
The Samnites.—The Samnites were the most powerful of all. Settled in the Abruzzi, a paradise for brigands, they descended into the fertile plains of Naples and of Apulia and put Etruscan and Greek towns to ransom.
The Samnites fought against the Romans for two centuries; although always beaten because they had no central administration and no discipline they yet reopened the war. Their last fight was heroic. An old man brought to the chiefs of the army a sacred book written on linen. They formed in the interior of the camp a wall of linen, raised an altar in the midst of it, and around this stood soldiers with unsheathed swords. One by one the bravest of the warriors entered the precinct. They swore not to flee before the enemy and to kill the fugitives. Those who took the oath, to the number of 16,000, donned linen garments. This was the "linen legion"; it engaged in battle, and was slaughtered to the last man.
The Greeks of Italy.—All south Italy was covered with Greek colonies, some, like Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum, very populous and powerful. But the Greeks did not venture on the Roman coast for fear of the Etruscans. Except the city of Cumae the Greek colonies down to the third century had almost no relations with the Romans.
The Latins.—The Latins dwelt in the country of hills and ravines to the south of the Tiber, called today the Roman Campagna. They were a small people, their territory comprising no more than one hundred square miles. They were of the same race as the other Italians, similar to them in language, religion, and manners, but slightly more advanced in civilization. They cultivated the soil and built strong cities. They separated themselves into little independent peoples. Each people had its little territory, its city, and its government. This miniature state was called a city. Thirty Latin cities had formed among themselves a religious association analogous to the Greek amphictyonies. Every year they celebrated a common festival, when their delegates, assembled at Alba, sacrificed a bull in honor of their common god, the Latin Jupiter.
Rome.—On the frontier of Latium, on the borders of Etruria, in the marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb of Rome, as Piraeus was of Athens. The locality was therefore agreeable to a people of soldiers and merchants.
Roma Quadrata and the Capitol.—Of the first centuries of Rome we know only some legends, and the Romans knew no more than we. Rome, they said, was a little square town, limited to the Palatine Hill. The founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms traced the circuit with the plough. Every year, on the 21st of April, the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the founding had occurred in the year 754[108] B.C.
On the other hills facing the Palatine other small cities rose. A band of Sabine mountaineers established themselves on the Capitoline, a group of Etruscan adventurers[109] on Mount Coelius; perhaps there were still other peoples. All these small settlements ended with uniting with Rome on the Palatine. A new wall was built to include the seven hills. The Capitol was then for Rome what the Acropolis was for Athens: here rose the temples of the three protecting deities of the city—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and the citadel that contained the treasure and the archives of the people. In laying the foundations, it was said there was found a human head recently cleft from the body; this head was a presage that Rome should become the head of the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[108] Rather 753 B.C.—ED.
[109] There were three tribes in old Rome, the Ramnes on the Palatine, the Tities or Sabines on the Capitoline, and the Luceres; but whether the last were Etruscans or Ramnians or neither is uncertain.—ED.
CHAPTER XVIII
ROMAN RELIGION
The Roman Gods.—The Romans, like the Greeks, believed that everything that occurs in the world was the work of a deity. But in place of a God who directs the whole universe, they had a deity for every phenomenon which they saw. There was a divinity to make the seed sprout, another to protect the bounds of the fields, another to guard the fruits. Each had its name, its sex, and its functions.
The principal gods were Jupiter, god of the heaven; Janus, the two-faced god (the deity who opens); Mars, god of war; Mercury, god of trade; Vulcan, god of fire; Neptune, god of the sea; Ceres, goddess of grains, the Earth, the Moon, Juno, and Minerva.
Below these were secondary deities. Some personified a quality—for example, Youth, Concord, Health, Peace. Others presided over a certain act in life: when the infant came into the world there were a god to teach him to speak, a goddess to teach him to drink, another charged with knitting his bones, two to accompany him to school, two to take him home again. In short, there was a veritable legion of minor special deities.
Other gods protected a city, a certain section of a mountain, a forest; every river, every fountain, every tree had its little local divinity. It is this that makes an old woman in a Latin romance exclaim, "Our country is so full of gods that it is much easier to find a god than a man."
Form of the Gods.—The Romans, unlike the Greeks, did not give their gods a precise form. For a long time there was no idol in Rome; they worshipped Jupiter under the form of a rock, Mars under that of a sword. It was later that they imitated the wooden statues of the Etruscans and the marbles of the Greeks. Perhaps they did not at first conceive of the gods as having human forms.
Unlike the Greeks they did not imagine marriage and kinship among their gods; they had no legends to tell of these relationships; they knew of no Olympus where the gods met together. The Latin language had a very significant word for designating the gods: they were called Manifestations. They were the manifestations of a mysterious divine power. This is why they were formless, without family relationship, without legends. Everything that was known of the gods was that each controlled a natural force and could benefit or injure men.
Principles of the Roman Religion.—The Roman was no lover of these pale and frigid abstractions; he even seemed to fear them. When he invoked them, he covered his face, perhaps that he might not see them. But he thought that they were potent and that they would render him service, if he knew how to please them. "The man whom the gods favor," says Plautus, "they cause to gain wealth."
The Roman conceives of religion as an exchange of good offices; the worshipper brings offerings and homage; the god in return confers some advantage.[110] If after having made a present to the god the man receives nothing, he considers himself cheated. During the illness of Germanicus the people offered sacrifices for his restoration. When it was announced that Germanicus was dead, the people in their anger overturned the altars and cast the statues of the gods into the streets, because they had not done what was expected of them. And so in our day the Italian peasant abuses the saint who does not give him what he asks.
Worship.—Worship, therefore, consists in doing those things that please the gods. They are presented with fruits, milk, wine, or animal sacrifices. Sometimes the statues of the gods are brought from their temples, laid on couches, and served with a feast. As in Greece, magnificent homes (temples[111]) were built for them, and diversions were arranged for them.
Formalism.—But it is not enough that one make a costly offering to the gods. The Roman gods are punctilious as to form; they require that all the acts of worship, the sacrifices, games, dedications, shall proceed according to the ancient rules (the rites). When one desires to offer a victim to Jupiter, one must select a white beast, sprinkle salted meal on its head, and strike it with an axe; one must stand erect with hands raised to heaven, the abode of Jupiter, and pronounce a sacred formula. If any part of the ceremonial fails, the sacrifice is of no avail; the god, it is thought, will have no pleasure in it. A magistrate may be celebrating games in honor of the protecting deities of Rome; "if he alters a word in his formula, if a flute-player rests, if the actor stops short, the games do not conform to the rites; they must be recommenced."[112]
And so the prudent man secures the assistance of two priests, one to pronounce the formula, the other to follow the ritual accurately.
Every year the Arval Brothers, a college of priests, assemble in a temple in the environs of Rome where they perform a sacred dance and recite a prayer; this is written in an archaic language which no one any longer comprehends, so much so that at the beginning of the ceremony a written formulary must be given to each of the priests. And yet, ever since the time that they ceased to comprehend it, they continued to chant it without change. This is because the Romans hold before all to the letter of the law in dealing with their gods. This exactness in performing the prescribed ritual is for them their religion. And so they regarded themselves as "the most religious of men." "On all other points we are the inferiors or only the equals of other peoples, but we excel all in religion, that is, the worship we pay the gods."
Prayer.—When the Roman prays, it is not to lift his soul and feel himself in communion with a god, but to ask of him a service. He is concerned, then, first to find the god who can render it. "It is as important," says Varro, "to know what god can aid us in a special case as to know where the carpenter and baker live." Thus one must address Ceres if one wants rich harvests, Mercury to make a fortune, Neptune to have a happy voyage. Then the suppliant dons the proper garments, for the gods love neatness; he brings an offering, for the gods love not that one should come with empty hands. Then, erect, the head veiled, the worshipper invokes the god. But he does not know the exact name of the god, for, say the Romans, "no one knows the true names of the gods." He says, then, for example, "Jupiter, greatest and best, or whatever is the name that thou preferrest...." Then he proposes his request, taking care to use always the clearest expressions so that the god may make no mistake. If a libation is offered, one says, "Receive the homage of this wine that I am pouring"; for the god might think that one would present other wine and keep this back. The prayers, too, are long, verbose, and full of repetitions.
Omens.—The Romans, like the Greeks, believe in omens. The gods, they think, know the future, and they send signs that permit men to divine them. Before undertaking any act, the Roman consults the gods. The general about to engage in battle examines the entrails of victims; the magistrates before holding an assembly regards the passing birds (called "taking the auspices"). If the signs are favorable, the gods are thought to approve the enterprise; if not, they are against it. The gods often send a sign that had not been requested. Every unexpected phenomenon is the presage of an event. A comet appeared before the death of Caesar and was thought to have announced it.
When the assembly of the people deliberates and it thunders, it is because Jupiter does not wish that anything shall be decided on that day and the assembly must dissolve. The most insignificant fact may be interpreted as a sign—a flash of lightning, a word overheard, a rat crossing the road, a diviner met on the way. And so when Marcellus had determined on an enterprise, he had himself carried in a closed litter that he might be sure of not seeing anything which could impose itself on him as a portent.
These were not the superstitions of the populace; the republic supported six augurs charged with predicting the future. It carefully preserved a collection of prophecies, the Sibylline Books. It had sacred chickens guarded by priests. No public act—assembly, election, deliberation—could be done without the taking of the auspices, that is to say, observation of the flight of birds. In the year 195 it was learned that lightning had struck a temple of Jupiter and that it had hit a hair on the head of the statue of Hercules; a governor wrote that a chicken with three feet had been hatched; the senate assembled to discuss these portents.
The Priests.—The priest in Rome, as in Greece, is not charged with the care of souls, he exists only for the service of the god. He guards his temple, administers his property, and performs the ceremonies in his honor. Thus the guild of the Salii (the leapers) watches over a shield which fell from heaven, they said, and which was adored as an idol; every year they perform a dance in arms, and this is their sole function.
The augurs predict the future. The pontiffs superintend the ceremonies of worship; they regulate the calendar and fix the festivals to be celebrated on the various days of the year.
Neither the priests, the augurs, nor the pontiffs form a separate class. They are chosen from among the great families and continue to exercise all the functions of state—judging, presiding over assemblies, and commanding armies. This is the reason that the Roman priests, potent as they were, did not constitute, as in Egypt, a sacerdotal caste. At Rome it was a state religion, but not a government by the priests.
The Dead.—The Romans, like the Hindoos and the Greeks, believed that the soul survived the body. If care were taken to bury the body according to the proper rites, the soul went to the lower world and became a god; otherwise the soul could not enter the abode of the dead, but returned to the earth terrifying the living and tormenting them until suitable burial was performed. Pliny the Younger[113] relates the story of a ghost which haunted a house and terrified to death all the inhabitants of the dwelling; a philosopher who was brave enough to follow it discovered at the place where the spectre stopped some bones which had not been buried in the proper manner. The shade of the Emperor Caligula wandered in the gardens of the palace; it was necessary to disinter the body and bury it anew in regular form.
Cult of the Dead.—It was of importance, therefore, to both the living and the dead that the rites should be observed. The family of the deceased erected a funeral pile, burned the body on it, and placed the ashes in an urn which was deposited in the tomb, a little chapel dedicated to the Manes,[114] i.e., the souls that had become gods. On fixed days of the year the relatives came to the tomb to bring food; doubtless they believed that the soul was in need of nourishment, for wine and milk were poured on the earth, flesh of victims was burned, and vessels of milk and cakes were left behind. These funeral ceremonies were perpetuated for an indefinite period; a family could not abandon the souls of its ancestors, but continued to maintain their tomb and the funeral feasts. In return, these souls which had become gods loved and protected their posterity. Each family, therefore, had its guardian deities which they called Lares.
Cult of the Hearth.—Each family had a hearth, also, that it adored. For the Romans, as for the Hindoos, fire was a god and the hearth an altar. The flame was to be maintained day and night, and offerings made on the hearth of oil, fat, wine, and incense; the fire then became brilliant and rose higher as if nourished by the offering.
Before beginning his meal the Roman thanked the god of the hearth, gave him a part of the food, and poured out for him a little wine (this was the libation). Even the sceptical Horace supped with his slaves before the hearth and offered libation and prayer.
Every Roman family had in its house a sanctuary where were to be found the Lares, the souls of the ancestors, and the altar of the hearth. Rome also had its sacred hearth, called Vesta, an ancient word signifying the hearth itself. Four virgins of the noblest families, the Vestals, were charged with keeping the hearth, for it was necessary that the flame should never be extinguished, and the care of it could be confided only to pure beings. If a Vestal broke her vow, she was buried alive in a cave, for she had committed sacrilege and had endangered the whole Roman people.
THE FAMILY
Religion of the Family.—All the members of a family render worship to the same ancestors and unite about the same hearth. They have therefore the same gods, and these are their peculiar possession. The sanctuary where the Lares[115] were kept was concealed in the house and no stranger was to approach it. Thus the Roman family was a little church; it had its religion and its worship to which no others than its members had access. The ancient family was very different from the modern, having its basis in the principles of religion.
Marriage.—The first rule of this religion is that one should be the issue of a regular marriage if one is to have the right of adoring the ancestors of the family. Roman marriage, therefore, is at the start a religious ceremony. The father of the bride gives her away outside the house when a procession conducts her to the house of the groom chanting an ancient sacred refrain, "Hymen, O Hymen!" The bride is then led before the altar of the husband where water and fire are presented, and there in the presence of the gods of the family the bride and groom divide between them a cake of meal. Marriage at this period was called confarreatio (communion through the cake). Later another form of marriage was invented. A relative of the bride in the presence of witnesses sells her to the husband who declares that he buys her for his wife. This is marriage by sale (coemptio).
For the Romans as for the Greeks marriage is a religious duty; religion ordains that the family should not become extinct. The Roman, therefore, declares when he marries that he takes his wife to perpetuate the family through their children. A noble Roman who sincerely loved his wife repudiated her because she brought him no children.
The Roman Woman.—The Roman woman is never free. As a young girl, she belongs to her father who chooses her husband for her; married, she comes under the power of her husband—the jurisconsults say she is under his "manus," i.e., she is in the same position as his daughter. The woman always has a master who has the right of life and death over her. And yet, she is never treated like a slave. She is the equal in dignity of her husband; she is called the mother of the family (materfamilias) just as her husband is called the father of the family (paterfamilias). She is the mistress in the house, as he is the master. She gives orders to the slaves whom she charges with all the heavy tasks—the grinding of the grain, the making of bread, and the cooking. She sits in the seat of honor (the atrium), spins and weaves, apportions work to the slaves, watches the children, and directs the house. She is not excluded from association with the men, like the Greek woman; she eats at the table with her husband, receives visitors, goes into town to dinner, appears at the public ceremonies, at the theatre, and even at the courts. And still she is ordinarily uncultured; the Romans do not care to instruct their daughters; the quality which they most admire in woman is gravity, and on her tomb they write by way of eulogy, "She kept the house and spun linen."
The Children.—The Roman child belongs to the father like a piece of property. The father has the right of exposing him in the street. If he accepts the child, the latter is brought up at first in the house. Girls remain here until marriage; they spin and weave under the supervision of their mother. The boys walk to the fields with their father and exercise themselves in arms. The Romans are not an artistic people; they require no more of their children than that they know how to read, write, and reckon; neither music nor poetry is taught them. They are brought up to be sober, silent, modest in their demeanor, and obedient.
The Father of the Family.—The master of the house was called by the Romans the father of the family. The paterfamilias is at once the proprietor of the domain, the priest of the cult of the ancestors, and the sovereign of the family. He reigns as master in his house. He has the right of repudiating his wife, of rejecting his children, of selling them, and marrying them at his pleasure. He can take for himself all that belongs to them, everything that his wife brings to him, and everything that his children gain; for neither the wife nor the children may be proprietors. Finally he has over them all[116] the "right of life and death," that is to say, he is their only judge. If they commit crime, it is not the magistrate who punishes them, but the father of the family who condemns them. One day (186 B.C.) the Roman Senate decreed the penalty of death for all those who had participated in the orgies of the cult of Bacchus. The men were executed, but for all the women who were discovered among the guilty, it was necessary that the Senate should address itself to the fathers of families, and it was these who condemned to death their wives or their daughters. "The husband," said the elder Cato, "is the judge of the wife, he can do with her as he will; if she has committed any fault, he chastises her; if she has drunk wine, he condemns her; if she has been unfaithful to him, he kills her." When Catiline conspired against the Senate, a senator perceived that his own son had taken part in the conspiracy; he had him arrested, judged him, and condemned him to death.
The power of the father of the family endured as long as life; the son was never freed from it. Even if he became consul, he remained subject to the power of his father. When the father died, the sons became in turn fathers of families. As for the wife, she could never attain freedom; she fell under the power of the heir of her husband; she could, then, become subject to her own son.
FOOTNOTES:
[110] A legend represents King Numa debating with Jupiter the terms of a contract: "You will sacrifice a head to me?" says Jupiter. "Very well," says Numa, "the head of an onion that I shall take in my garden." "No," replies Jupiter, "but I want something that pertains to a man." "We will give you then the tip of the hair." "But it must be alive." "Then we will add to this a little fish." Jupiter laughed and consented to this.
[111] In Rome, as in Greece, the temple was called a house.
[112] The remark is Cicero's.
[113] Pliny, Epistles, vii, 27. See another story in Plautus's Mostellaria.
[114] The letters D.M. found on Roman tombs are the initials of Dei Manes.
[115] They were called the Penates, that is to say, the gods of the interior.
[116] In the language of the Roman law the wife, children, and slaves "are not their own masters."
CHAPTER XIX
THE ROMAN CITY
FORMATION OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE
The Kings.—Tradition relates that Rome for two centuries and a half was governed by kings. They told not only the names of these kings and the date of their death, but the life of each.
They said there were seven kings. Romulus, the first king, came from the Latin city of Alba, founded the hamlet on the Palatine, and killed his brother who committed the sacrilege of leaping over the sacred furrow encircling the settlement; he then allied himself with Tatius, a Sabine king. (A legend of later origin added that he had founded at the foot of the hill-city a quarter surrounded with a palisade where he received all the adventurers who wished to come to him.)
Numa Pompilius, the second king, was a Sabine. It was he who organized the Roman religion, taking counsel with a goddess, the nymph Egeria who dwelt in a wood.
The third king, Tullus Hostilius, was a warrior. He made war on Alba, the capital of the Latin confederation, took and destroyed it.
Ancus Martius, the fourth king, was the grandson of Numa and built the wooden bridge over the Tiber and founded the port of Ostia through which commerce passed up the river to Rome.
The last three kings were Etruscans. Tarquin the Elder enlarged the territory of Rome and introduced religious ceremonies from Etruria. Servius Tullius organized the Roman army, admitting all the citizens without distinction of birth and separating them into centuries (companies) according to wealth. The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, oppressed the great families of Rome; some of the nobles conspired against him and succeeded in expelling him. Since this time there were no longer any kings. The Roman state, or as they said, the commonwealth (res publica) was governed by the consuls, two magistrates elected each year.
It is impossible to know how much truth there is in this tradition, for it took shape a long time after the Romans began to write their history, and it includes so many legends that we cannot accept it in its entirety.
Attempt has been made to explain these names of kings as symbols of a race or class. The early history of Rome has been reconstructed in a variety of ways, but the greater the labor applied to it, the less the agreement among students with regard to it.
The Roman People.—About the fifth century before Christ there were in Rome two classes of people, the patricians and the plebeians. The patricians were the descendants of the old families who had lived from remote antiquity on the little territory in the vicinity of the city; they alone had the right to appear in the assembly of the people, to assist in religious ceremonies, and to hold office. Their ancestors had founded the Roman state, or as they called it, the Roman city (Civitas), and these had bequeathed it to them. And so they were the true people of Rome.
The Plebs.—The plebeians were descended from the foreigners[117] established in the city, and especially from the conquered peoples of the neighboring cities; for Rome had gradually subjected all the Latin cities and had forcibly annexed their inhabitants. Subjects and yet aliens, they obeyed the government of Rome, but they could have no part in it. They did not possess the Roman religion and could not participate in its ceremonies. They had not even the right of intermarrying with the patrician families. They were called the plebs (the multitude) and were not considered a part of the Roman people. In the old prayers we still find this formula: "For the welfare of the people and the plebs of Rome."
Strife between Patricians and Plebeians.—The people and the plebs were like two distinct peoples, one of masters, the other of subjects. And yet the plebeians were much like the patricians. Soldiers, like them, they served in the army at their own cost and suffered death in the service of the Roman people; peasants like them, they lived on their domains. Many of the plebeians were rich and of ancient family. The only difference was that they were descended from a great family of some conquered Latin city, while the patricians were the scions of an old family in the conquering city.
Tribunes of the Plebs.—One day, says the legend, the plebeians, finding themselves mistreated, withdrew under arms to a mountain, determined to break with the Roman people. The patricians in consternation sent to them Menenius Agrippa who told them the fable of the members and the stomach. The plebs consented to return but they made a treaty with the people. It was agreed that their chiefs (they called them tribunes of the plebs) should have the right of protecting the plebeians against the magistrates of the people and of prohibiting any measure against them. All that was necessary was to pronounce the word "Veto" (I forbid); this single word stopped everything; for religion prevented attacks on a tribune under penalty of being devoted to the infernal gods.
Triumph of the Plebs.—The strife between the two orders beginning at the end of the fifth century continued for two centuries (494 B.C. to about 300 B.C.).[118]
The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high magistracies, or, as it was said, "secure the honors." Religious scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a magistrate, the gods must be asked for their approval of the choice. This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds ("taking the auspices"). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be taken only on the name of a patrician; it was not believed that the gods could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with the consulship, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.[119] Patricians and plebeians then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people.
THE ROMAN PEOPLE
The Right of Citizenship.—The people in Rome, as in Greece, is not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the right of citizenship. The citizen has numerous privileges:
1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the right of voting in the assemblies of the Roman people, of serving in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were called public rights.
2. The citizen alone is protected by the Roman law; he only has the right of marrying legally, of becoming the father of a family, that is to say, of being master of his wife and his children, of making his will, of buying or selling. These were the private rights.
Those who were not citizens were not only excluded from the army and the assembly, but they could not marry, could not possess the absolute power of the father, could not hold property legally, could not invoke the Roman law, nor demand justice at a Roman tribunal. Thus the citizens constituted an aristocracy amidst the other inhabitants of the city. But they were not equal among themselves; there were class differences, or, as the Romans said, ranks.
The Nobles.—In the first rank are the nobles. A citizen is noble when one of his ancestors has held a magistracy, for the magisterial office in Rome is an honor, it ennobles the occupant and also his posterity.
When a citizen becomes aedile, praetor, or consul, he receives a purple-bordered toga, a sort of throne (the curule chair), and the right of having an image made of himself. These images are statuettes, at first in wax, later in silver. They are placed in the atrium, the sanctuary of the house, near the hearth and the gods of the family; there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried in the funeral procession, and a relative pronounces the oration for the dead. It is these images that ennoble a family that preserves them. The more images there are in a family, the nobler it is. The Romans spoke of those who were "noble by one image" and those who were "noble by many images."
The noble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to 300), for the magistracies which conferred nobility were usually given to men who were already noble.
The Knights.—Below the nobles were the knights. They were the rich who were not noble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the treasury must amount to at least 400,000[120] sesterces. They were merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the nobles.
If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the nobles called him a "new man" and his son became noble.
The Plebs.—Those who were neither nobles nor knights formed the mass of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants, cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an idea of their manners: "Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the greatest of all."[121]
Hardened to work, eager for the harvest, steady and economical, these laborers constituted the strength of the Roman armies. For a long time they formed the assembly too, and dictated the elections. The nobles who wished to be elected magistrates came to the parade-ground to grasp the hand of these peasants ("prensare manus," was the common expression). A candidate, finding the hand of a laborer callous, ventured to ask him, "Is it because you walk on your hands?" He was a noble of great family, but he was not elected. |
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