But the changes in the political principles of the Grecian states were necessarily slow, and were usually attended with domestic quarrels and convulsions. Monarchy, in most instances, was abolished by first taking away its title, and substituting that of archon, or chief magistrate, a term less offensive than that of king; next, by making the office of chief ruler elective, first in one family, then in more—first for life, then for a term of years; and, finally, by dividing the power among several of the nobility, thus forming an aristocracy or oligarchy. At the time in Grecian history to which we have come democracy was as yet unknown; but the principal Grecian states, with the exception of Sparta, which always retained the kingly form of government, had abolished royalty and substituted oligarchy. This change did not better the condition of the people, who, increasing in numbers and intelligence, while the ruling class declined in numbers and wealth, became conscious of their resources, and put forward their claims to a representation in the government.

* * * * *

II. FROM OLIGARCHIES TO DESPOTISMS.

The fall of the oligarchies was not accomplished, however, by the people. "The commonalty," says THIRLWALL, "even when really superior in strength, could not all at once shake off the awe with which it was impressed by years of subjection. It needed a leader to animate, unite, and direct it; and it was seldom that one capable of inspiring it with confidence could be found in its own ranks," Hence this leader was generally found in an ambitions citizen, perhaps a noble or a member of the oligarchy, who, by artifice and violence, would make himself the supreme ruler of the state. Under such circumstances the overthrow of an oligarchy was not a triumph of the people, but only the triumph of a then popular leader. To such a one was given the name of tyrant, but not in the sense that we use the term. HEEREN says, "The Grecians connected with this word the idea of an illegitimate, but not necessarily of a cruel, government." As the word therefore signifies simply the irresponsible rule of a single person, such person may be more correctly designated by the term despot, or usurper; although, in point of fact, the government was frequently of the most cruel and tyrannical character.

"The merits of this race of rulers," says BULWER, "and the unconscious benefits they produced, have not been justly appreciated, either by ancient or modern historians. Without her tyrants Greece might never have established her democracies. The wiser and more celebrated tyrants were characterized by an extreme modesty of deportment: they assumed no extraordinary pomp, no lofty titles—they left untouched, or rendered yet more popular, the outward forms and institutions of the government—they were not exacting in taxation—they affected to link themselves with the lowest orders and their ascendancy was usually productive of immediate benefit to the working-classes, whom they employed in new fortifications or new public buildings—dazzling the citizens by a splendor that seemed less the ostentation of an individual than the prosperity of a state. It was against the aristocracy, not against the people, that they directed their acute sagacities and unsparing energies. Every politic tyrant was a Louis the Eleventh, weakening the nobles, creating a middle class. He effected his former object by violent and unscrupulous means. He swept away by death or banishment all who opposed his authority or excited his fears. He thus left nothing between the state and a democracy but himself; and, himself removed, democracy naturally and of course ensued."[Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," vol. i., pp. 148, 149.]

From the middle of the seventh century B.C., and during a period of over one hundred and fifty years, there were few Grecian cities that escaped a despotic government. While the history of Athens affords, perhaps, the most striking example of it, the longest tyranny in Greece was that in the city of Si'cyon, which lasted a hundred years under Orthag'orus and his sons. Their dynasty was founded about 676 B.C., and its long duration is ascribed to its mildness and moderation. The last of this dynasty was Clis'thenes, whose daughter became the mother of the Athenian Clisthenes, the founder of democracy at Athens on the expulsion of the Pisistrat'idae. The despots of Corinth were more celebrated. Their dynasty endured seventy-four years, having been founded in the year 655. Under Perian'der, who succeeded to power in 625, and whose government was cruel and oppressive, Corinth reached her highest prosperity. His reign lasted upward of forty years, and soon after his death the dynasty ended, being overpowered by Sparta.

Across the isthmus from Corinth was the city of Meg'ara, of which, in 630 B.C., Theag'enes, a bold and ambitious man, made himself despot. Like many other usurpers of his time, he adorned the city with splendid and useful buildings. But he was overthrown after a rule of thirty years, and a violent struggle then ensued between the oligarchy and the people. At first the latter were successful; they banished many of the nobles, and confiscated their property, but the exiles returned, and by force of arms recovered their power. Still the struggle continued, and it was not until after many years that an oligarchical government was firmly established. Much interest is added to these revolutions in Megara by the writings of THEOG'NIS, a contemporary poet, and a member of the oligarchical party. "His writings," says THIRLWALL, "are interesting, not so much for the historical facts contained in them as for the light they throw on the character and feelings of the parties which divided his native city and so many others."

In the poems of THEOGNIS "his keen sense of his personal sufferings is almost absorbed in the vehement grief and indignation with which he contemplates the state of Megara, the triumph of the bad [his usual term for the people], and the degradation of the good [the members of the old aristocracy]." Some of the social changes which the popular revolution had effected are thus described:

Our commonwealth preserves its former fame: Our common people are no more the same. They that in skins and hides were rudely dressed, Nor dreamed of law, nor sought to be redressed By rules of right, but in the days of old Lived on the land like cattle in the fold, Are now the Brave and Good; and we, the rest, Are now the Mean and Bad, though once the best.

It appears, also, that some of the aristocracy by birth had so far forgotten their leading position as to inter-marry with those who had become possessed of much wealth; and of this condition of things the poet complains as follows:

But in the daily matches that we make The price is everything; for money's sake Men marry—women are in marriage given; The Bad or Coward, that in wealth has thriven, May match his offspring with the proudest race: Thus everything is mixed, noble and base.

The usurpations in Sicyon, Corinth, and Megara furnish illustrations of what occurred in nearly all of the Grecian states during the seventh and sixth centuries before the Christian era. Some of those of a later period will be noticed in a subsequent chapter.



CHAPTER VI.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS.

I. THE LEGISLATION OF DRACO.

As we have already stated, the successive encroachments on the royal prerogatives that followed the death of Co'drus, and that finally resulted in the establishment of an oligarchy, are almost the only events that fill the meager annals of Athens for several centuries, or down to 683 B.C. "Here, as elsewhere," says a distinguished historian, "a wonderful stillness suddenly follows the varied stir of enterprise and adventure, and the throng of interesting characters that present themselves to our view in the Heroic Age. Life seems no longer to offer anything for poetry to celebrate, or for history to record." The history of Athens, therefore, may be said to begin with the institution of the nine annual archons in 683 B.C. These possessed all authority, religious, civil, and military. The Athenian populace not only enjoyed no political rights, but were reduced to a condition only a little above servitude; and it appears to have been owing to the anarchy that arose from the ruinous extortions of the nobles on the one hand, and the resistance of the people on the other, that Dra'co, the most eminent of the nobility, was chosen to prepare the first written code of laws for the government of the state (624 B.C.).

Draco prepared his code in conformity to the spirit and the interest of the ruling class, and the severity of his laws has made his name proverbial. It has been said of them that they were written, not in ink, but in blood. He attached the same penalty to petty thefts as to sacrilege and murder, saying that the former offences deserved death, and he had no greater punishment for the latter. Of course, the legislation of Draco failed to calm the prevailing discontent, and human nature soon revolted against such legalized butchery. Says an English author, "The first symptoms in Athens of the political crisis which, as in other of the Grecian states, marked the transition of power from the oligarchic to the popular party, now showed itself." Cy'lon, an Athenian of wealth and good, family, had married the daughter of Theagenes, the despot of Megara. Encouraged by his father-in-law's success, he conceived the design of seizing the Acropolis at the next Olympic festival and making himself master of Athens. Accordingly, at that time he seized the Acropolis with a considerable force; but not having the support of the mass of the people the conspiracy failed, and most of those engaged in it were put to death.

* * * * *

II. LEGISLATION OF SOLON.

The Commonwealth was finally reduced to complete anarchy, without law, or order, or system in the administration of justice, when Solon, who was descended from Codrus, was raised to the office of first magistrate (594 B.C.). Solon was born in Salamis, about 638 B.C., and his first appearance in public life at Athens occurred in this wise: A few years prior to the year 600 the Island of Salamis had revolted from Athens to Megara. The Athenians had repeatedly failed in their attempts to recover it, and, finally, the odium of defeat was such that a law was passed forbidding, upon pain of death, any proposition for the renewal of the enterprise. Indignant at this pusillanimous policy, Solon devised a plan for rousing his countrymen to action. Having some poetical talent, he composed a poem on the loss of Salamis, and, feigning madness in order to evade the penalty of the law, he rushed into the market-place. PLUTARCH says, "A great number of people flocking about him there, he got up on the herald's stone, and sang the elegy which begins thus:

'Hear and attend; from Salamis I came To show your error.'"

The stratagem was successful: the law was repealed, an expedition against Salamis was intrusted to the command of Solon, and in one campaign he drove the Megarians from the island.

Solon the poet, orator, and soldier, became the judicious law-giver, whose fame reached the remotest parts of the then known world, and whose laws became the basis of those of the Twelve Tables of Rome. Says an English poet,

Who knows not Solon, last, and wisest far, Of those whom Greece, triumphant in the height Of glory, styled her father? him whose voice Through Athens hushed the storm of civil wrath; Taught envious Want and cruel Wealth to join In friendship, and with sweet compulsion tamed Minerva's eager people to his laws, Which their own goddess in his breast inspired? —AKENSIDE.

Having been raised, as stated, to the office of first archon, Solon was chosen, by the consent or an parties, as the arbiter of their differences, and invested with full authority to frame a new Constitution and a new code of laws. He might easily have perverted this almost unlimited power to dangerous uses, and his friends urged him to make himself supreme ruler of Athens. But he told them, "Tyranny is a fair field, but it has no outlet;" and his stern integrity was proof against all temptations to swerve from the path of honor and betray the trust reposed in him.

The ridicule to which he was exposed for rejecting a usurper's power he has described as follows:

Nor wisdom's palm, nor deep-laid policy Can Solon boast. For when its noblest blessings Heaven poured into his lap, he spurned them from him; Where was his sense and spirit when enclosed He found the choicest prey, nor deigned to draw it? Who, to command fair Athens but one day, Would not himself, with all his race, have fallen Contented on the morrow?

The grievous exactions of the ruling orders had already reduced the laboring classes to poverty and abject dependence; and all whom bad times or casual disasters had compelled to borrow had been impoverished by the high rates of interest; while thousands of insolvent debtors had been sold into slavery, to satisfy the demands of relentless creditors. In this situation of affairs the most violent or needy demanded a new distribution of property; while the rich would have held on to all the fruits of their extortion and tyranny. Pursuing a middle course between these extremes, Solon relieved the debtor by reducing the rate of interest and enhancing the value of the currency: he also relieved the lands of the poor from all encumbrances; he abolished imprisonment for debt; he restored to liberty those whom poverty had placed in bondage; and he repealed all the laws of Draco except those against murder. He next arranged all the citizens in four classes, according to their landed property; the first class alone being eligible to the highest civil offices and the highest commands in the army, while only a few of the lower offices were open to the second and third classes. The latter classes, however, were partially relieved from taxation; but in war they were required to do duty, the one as cavalry, and the other as heavy-armed infantry.

Individuals of the fourth class were excluded from all offices, but in return they were wholly exempt from taxation; and yet they had a share in the government, for they were permitted to take part in the popular assemblies, which had the right of confirming or rejecting new laws, and of electing the magistrates; and here their votes counted the same as those of the wealthiest of the nobles. In war they served only as light troops or manned the fleets. Thus the system of Solon, being based primarily on property qualifications, provided for all the freemen; and its aim was to bestow upon the commonalty such a share in the government as would enable it to protect itself, and to give to the wealthy what was necessary for retaining their dignity—throwing the burdens of government on the latter, and not excluding the former from its benefits.

Solon retained the magistracy of the nine archons, but with abridged powers; and, as a guard against democratical extravagance on the one hand, and a check to undue assumptions of power on the other, he instituted a Senate of Four Hundred, and founded or remodeled the court of the Areop'agus. The Senate consisted of members selected by lot from the first three classes; but none could be appointed to this honor until they had undergone a strict examination into their past lives, characters, and qualifications. The Senate was to be consulted by the archons in all important matters, and was to prepare all new laws and regulations, which were to be submitted to the votes of the assembly of the people. The court of the Areopagus, which held its sittings on an eminence on the western side of the Athenian Acropolis, was composed of persons who had held the office of archon, and was the supreme tribunal in all capital cases. It exercised, also, a general superintendence over education, morals, and religion; and it could suspend a resolution of the public assembly, which it deemed foolish or unjust, until it had undergone a reconsideration. It was this court that condemned the philosopher Socrates to death; and before this same venerable tribunal the apostle Paul, six hundred years later, made his memorable defence of Christianity.

Such is a brief outline of the institutions of Solon, which exhibit a mingling of aristocracy and democracy well adapted to the character of the age and the circumstances of the people. They evidently exercised much less control over the pursuits and domestic habits of individuals than the Spartan code, but at the same time they show a far greater regard for the public morals. The success of Solon is well summed up in the following brief tribute to his virtues and genius, by the poet THOMSON:

He built his commonweal On equity's wide base: by tender laws A lively people curbing, yet undamped; Preserving still that quick, peculiar fire, Whence in the laurelled field of finer arts And of bold freedom they unequalled shone, The pride of smiling Greece, and of mankind.

Solon is said to have declared that his laws were not the best which he could devise, but were the best that the Athenians could receive. In the following lines we have his own estimate of the services he rendered in behalf of his distracted state:

"The force of snow and furious hail is sent From swelling clouds that load the firmament. Thence the loud thunders roar, and lightnings glare Along the darkness of the troubled air. Unmoved by storms, old Ocean peaceful sleeps Till the loud tempest swells the angry deeps. And thus the State, in full distraction toss'd, Oft by its noblest citizen is lost; And oft a people once secure and free, Their own imprudence dooms to tyranny. My laws have armed the crowd with useful might, Have banished honors and unequal right, Have taught the proud in wealth, and high in place, To reverence justice and abhor disgrace; And given to both a shield, their guardian tower, Against ambition's aims and lawless power."

* * * * *

III. THE USURPATION OF PISIS'TRATUS.

The legislation of Solon was not followed by the total extinction of party-spirit, and, while he was absent from Athens on a visit to Egypt and other Eastern countries, the three prominent factions in the state renewed their ancient feuds. Pisistratus, a wealthy kinsman of Solon, who had supported the measures of the latter by his eloquence and military talents, had the art to gain the favor of the mass of the people and constitute himself their leader. AKENSIDE thus happily describes him as—

The great Pisistratus! that chief renowned, Whom Hermes and the Ida'lian queen had trained, Even from his birth, to every powerful art Of pleasing and persuading; from whose lips Flowed eloquence which, like the vows of love, Could steal away suspicion from the hearts Of all who listened. Thus, from day to day He won the general suffrage, and beheld Each rival overshadowed and depressed Beneath his ampler state; yet oft complained As one less kindly treated, who had hoped To merit favor, but submits perforce To find another's services preferred, Nor yet relaxeth aught of faith or zeal. Then tales were scattered of his envious foes, Of snares that watched his fame, of daggers aimed Against his life.

When his schemes were ripe for execution, Pisistratus one day drove into the public square of Athens, his mules and himself disfigured with recent wounds inflicted by his own hands, but which he induced the multitude to believe had been received from a band of assassins, whom his enemies, the nobility, had hired to murder "the friend of the people." Of this scene the same poet says:

At last, with trembling limbs, His hair diffused and wild, his garments loose, And stained with blood from self-inflicted wounds, He burst into the public place, as there, There only were his refuge; and declared In broken words, with sighs of deep regret, The mortal danger he had scarce repelled.

The ruse was successful. An assembly was at once convoked by his partisans, and the indignant crowd immediately voted him a guard of fifty citizens to protect his person, although Solon, who had returned to Athens and was present, warned them of the pernicious consequences of such a measure.

Pisistratus soon took advantage of the favor he had gained, and, arming a large body of his adherents, he threw off the mask and seized the Acropolis. Solon alone, firm and undaunted, publicly presented himself in the market-place, and called upon the people to resist the usurpation.

Solon, with swift indignant strides The assembled people seeks; proclaims aloud It was no time for counsel; in their spears Lay all their prudence now: the tyrant yet Was not so firmly seated on his throne, But that one shock of their united force Would dash him from the summit of his pride Headlong and grovelling in the dust.

But his appeal was in vain, and Pisistratus, without opposition, made himself master of Athens. The usurper made no change in the Constitution, and suffered the laws to take their course. He left Solon undisturbed; and it is said that the aged patriot, rejecting all offers of favor, went into voluntary exile, and soon after died at Salamis. Twice was Pisistratus driven from Athens by a coalition of the opposing factions, but he regained the sovereignty and succeeded in holding it until his death (527 B.C.). Although he tightened the reins of government, he ruled with equity and mildness, and adorned Athens with many magnificent and useful works, among them the Lyceum, that subsequently became the famous resort of philosophers and poets. He is also said to have been the first person in Greece who collected a library, which he threw open to the public; and to him posterity is indebted for the collection of Homer's poems. THIRLWALL says: "On the whole, though we cannot approve of the steps by which Pisistratus mounted to power, we must own that he made a princely use of it; and may believe that, though under his dynasty Athens could never have risen to the greatness she afterward attained, she was indebted to his rule for a season of repose, during which she gained much of that strength which she finally unfolded."

THE TYRANNY AND THE DEATH OF HIP'PIAS.

On the death of Pisistratus his sons Hippias, Hippar'chus, and Thes'salus succeeded to his power, and for some years trod in his steps and carried out his plans, only taking care to fill the most important offices with their friends, and keeping a standing force of foreign mercenaries to secure themselves from hostile factions and popular outbreaks. After a joint reign of fourteen years, a conspiracy was formed to free Attica from their rule, at the head of which were two young Athenians, Harmo'dius and Aristogi'ton, whose personal resentment had been provoked by an atrocious insult to the family of the former. One of the brothers was killed, but the two young Athenians also lost their lives in the struggle. Hippias, the elder of the rulers, now became a cruel tyrant, and soon alienated the affections of the people, who obtained the aid of the Spartans, and the family of the Pisistratids was driven from Athens, never to regain its former ascendancy (510 B.C.). Hippias fled to the court of Artapher'nes, governor of Lydia, then a part of the Persian dominion of Dari'us, where his intrigues largely contributed to the opening of a war between Persia and Greece.

The names of Harmodius and Aristogiton have been immortalized by what some writers term "the ignorant or prejudiced gratitude of the Athenians." DR. ANTHON considers them cowardly conspirators, entitled to no heroic honors. But, as he says, statues were erected to them at the public expense; and when an orator wished to suggest the idea of the highest merit and of the noblest services to the cause of liberty, he never failed to remind his hearers of Harmodius and Aristogiton. Their names never ceased to be repeated with affectionate admiration in the convivial songs of Athens, which assigned them a place in the islands of the "blessed," by the side of Achilles and Tydi'des. From one of the most famous and popular of these songs, by CALLIS'TRATUS, we give the following verses:

Harmodius, hail! Though 'reft of breath, Thou ne'er shalt feel the stroke of death; The heroes' happy isles shall be The bright abode allotted thee. * * * * * While freedom's name is understood You shall delight the wise and good; You dared to set your country free, And gave her laws equality.

* * * * *

IV. THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY.

On the expulsion of Hippias, Clis'thenes, to whom Athens was mainly indebted for its liberation from the Pisistratids, aspired to the political leadership of the state. But he was opposed by Isag'oras, who was supported by the nobility. In order to make his cause popular, Clisthenes planned, and succeeded in executing, a change in the Constitution of Solon, which gave to the people a greater share in the government. He divided the people into ten tribes, instead of the old Ionic four tribes, and these in turn were subdivided into districts or townships called de'mes. He increased the powers and duties of the Senate, giving to it five hundred members, with fifty from each tribe; and he placed the administration of the military service in the hands of ten generals, one being taken from each tribe. The reforms of Clisthenes gave birth to the Athenian democracy. As THIRLWALL observes, "They had the effect of transforming the commonalty into a new body, furnished with new organs, and breathing a new spirit, which was no longer subject to the slightest control from any influence, save that of wealth and personal qualities, in the old nobility. The whole frame of the state was reorganized to correspond with the new division of the country."

On the application of Isagoras and his party, Sparta, jealous of the growing strength of Athens, made three unsuccessful attempts to overthrow the Athenian democracy, and reinstate Hippias in supreme command. She finally abandoned the project, as she could find no allies to assist in the enterprise. "Athens had now entered upon her glorious career. The institutions of Clisthenes had given her citizens a personal interest in the welfare and the grandeur of their country, and a spirit of the warmest patriotism rapidly sprung up among them. The Persian wars, which followed almost immediately, exhibit a striking proof of the heroic sacrifices which they were prepared to make for the liberty and the independence of their state."



CHAPTER VII.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GREEK COLONIES.

An important part of the history of Greece is that which embraces the age of Grecian colonization, and the extension of the commerce of the Greeks to nearly all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Of the various circumstances that led to the planting of the Greek colonies, and especially of the Ionic, AEolian, and Dorian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the AEgean Sea, we have already spoken. These latter were ever intimately connected with Greece proper, in whose general history theirs is embraced; but the cities of Italy, Sicily, and Cyrena'ica were too far removed from the drama that was enacted around the shores of the AEgean to be more than occasionally and temporarily affected by the changing fortunes of the parent states. A brief notice, therefore, of some of those distant settlements, that eventually rivaled even Athens and Sparta in power and resources, cannot be uninteresting, while it will serve to give more accurate views of the extent and importance of the field of Grecian history.

At an early period the shores of Southern Italy and Sicily were peopled by Greeks; and so numerous and powerful did the Grecian cities become that the whole were comprised by Strabo and others under the appellation Magna Graecia, or Great Greece. The earliest of these distant settlements appear to have been made at Cu'mae and Neap'olis, on the western coast of Italy, about the middle of the eleventh century. Cumae was built on a rocky hill washed by the sea; and the same name is still applied to the ruins that lie scattered around its base. Some of the most splendid fictions of Virgil's AEneid relate to the Cumaean Sibyl, whose supposed cave, hewn out of the solid rock, actually existed under the city:

A spacious cave, within its farmost part, Was hewed and fashioned by laborious art, Through the hill's hollow sides; before the place A hundred doors a hundred entries grace; As many voices issue, and the sound Of Sibyl's words as many times rebound. —AEneid B. VI.

GROTE says: "The myth of the Sibyl passed from the Cymae'ans in AE'olis, along with the other circumstances of the tale of AEne'as, to their brethren, the inhabitants of Cumae in Italy. In the hollow rock under the very walls of the town was situated the cavern of the Sibyl; and in the immediate neighborhood stood the wild woods and dark lake of Avernus, consecrated to the subterranean gods, and offering an establishment of priests, with ceremonies evoking the dead, for purposes of prophecy or for solving doubts and mysteries. It was here that Grecian imagination localized the Cimme'rians and the fable of O-dys'seus."[Footnote: The voyage of Ulysses (Odysseus) to the infernal regions. Odyssey, B. XI.]

The extraordinary fertility of Sicily was a great attraction to the Greek colonists. Naxos, on the eastern coast of the island, was founded about the year 735 B.C.; and in the following year some Corinthians laid the foundations of Syracuse. Ge'la, on the western coast of the island, and Messa'na, now Messi'na, on the strait between Italy and Sicily, were founded soon after. Agrigen'tum, on the south-western coast, was founded about a century later, and became celebrated for the magnificence of its public buildings. Pindar called it "the fairest of mortal cities," and to The'ron, its ruler from 488 to 472, the poet thus refers in the second Olympic ode:

Come, now, my soul! now draw the string; Bend at the mark the bow: To whom shall now the glorious arrow wing The praise of mild benignity? To Agrigentum fly, Arrow of song, and there thy praise bestow; For I shall swear an oath: a hundred years are flown, But the city ne'er has known A hand more liberal, a more loving heart, Than, Theron, thine! for such thou art.

Yet wrong hath risen to blast his praise; Breath of injustice, breathed from men insane, Who seek in brawling strain The echo of his virtues mild to drown, And with their violent deeds eclipse the days Of his serene renown. Unnumbered are the sands of th' ocean shore; And who shall number o'er Those joys in others' breasts which Theron's hand hath sown? —Trans. by ELTON.

In the mean time the Greek cities Syb'aris, Croto'na, and Taren'tum had been planted on the south-eastern coast of Italy, and had rapidly grown to power and opulence. The territorial dominions of Sybaris and Crotona extended across the peninsula from sea to sea. The former possessed twenty-five dependent towns, and ruled over four distinct tribes or nations. The territories of Crotona were still more extensive. These two Grecian states were at the maximum of their power about the year 560 B.C.—the time of the accession of Pisistratus at Athens—but they quarreled with each other, and the result of the contest was the ruin of Sybaris, in 510 B.C. Tarentum was settled by a colony of Spartans about the year 707 B.C., soon after the first Messenian war. No details of its history during the first two hundred and thirty years of its existence are known to us; but in the fourth century B.C. the Tar'entines stood foremost among the Italian Greeks, and they maintained their power down to the time of Roman supremacy.

During the first two centuries after the founding of Naxos, in Sicily, Grecian settlements were extended over the eastern, southern, and western sides of the island, while Him'era was the only Grecian town on the northern coast. These two hundred years were a period of prosperity among the Sicilian Greeks, who dwelt chiefly in fortified towns, and exercised authority over the surrounding native population, which gradually became assimilated in manners, language, and religion to the higher civilization of the Greeks. "It cannot be doubted," says GROTE, "that these first two centuries were periods of steady increase among the Sicilian Greeks, undisturbed by those distractions and calamities which supervened afterward, and which led indeed to the extraordinary aggrandizement of some of their communities, but also to the ruin of several others; moreover, it seems that the Carthaginians in Sicily gave them no trouble until the time of Ge'lon. Their position will seem singularly advantageous, if we consider the extraordinary fertility of the soil in this fine island, especially near the sea; its capacity for corn, wine, and oil, the species of cultivation to which the Greek husbandman had been accustomed under less favorable circumstances; its abundant fisheries on the coast, so important in Grecian diet, and continuing undiminished even at the present day—together with sheep, cattle, hides, wool, and timber from the native population in the interior."[Footnote: "History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 367.]

During the sixth century before the Christian era the Greek cities in Sicily and Southern Italy were among the most powerful and flourishing that bore the Hellenic name. Ge'la and Agrigentum, on the south side of Sicily, had then become the most prominent of the Sicilian governments; and at the beginning of the fifth century we find Gelon, a despot of the former city, subjecting other towns to his authority. Finally obtaining possession of Syracuse, he made it the seat of his empire (485 B.C.), leaving Gela to be governed by his brother Hi'ero, the first Sicilian ruler of that name.

Gelon strengthened the fortifications and greatly enlarged the limits of Syracuse, while to occupy the enlarged space he dismantled many of the surrounding towns and transported their inhabitants to his new capital, which now became not only the first city in Sicily, but, according to Herodotus, superior to any other Hellenic power. When, in 480 B.C., a formidable Carthaginian force under Hamil'-car invaded Sicily at the instigation of Xerxes, King of Persia, who had overrun Greece proper and captured Athens, Gelon, at the head of fifty-five thousand men, engaged the Carthaginians in battle at Himera, and defeated them with terrible slaughter, Hamilcar himself being numbered among the slain. The victory at Himera procured for Sicily immunity from foreign war, while the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis, on the very same day, dispelled the terrific cloud that overhung the Greeks in that quarter.

Syracuse continued a flourishing city for several centuries later; but the subsequent events of interest in her history will be related in a later chapter. Another Greek colony of importance was that of Cyre'ne, on the northern coast of Africa, between the territories of Egypt and Carthage. It was founded about 630 B.C., and, having the advantages of a fertile soil and fine climate, it rapidly grew in wealth and power. For eight generations it was governed by kings; but about 460 B.C. royalty was abolished and a democratic government was established: Cyrene finally fell under the power of the Carthaginians, and thus remained until Carthage was destroyed by the Romans. We have mentioned only the most important of the Grecian colonies, and even the history that we have of these, the best known, is unconnected and fragmentary.



CHAPTER VIII.

PROGRESS OF LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.

I. THE POEMS OF HE'SIOD.

The rapid development of literature and the arts is one of the most pleasing and striking features of Grecian history. As one writer has well said, "There was an uninterrupted progress in the development of the Grecian mind from the earliest dawn of the history of the people to the downfall of their political independence; and each succeeding age saw the production of some of those master-works of genius which have been the models and the admiration of all subsequent time." The first period of Grecian literature, ending about 776 B.C., may be termed the period of epic poetry. Its chief monuments are the epics of Homer and of Hesiod. The former are essentially heroic, concerning the deeds of warriors and demi-gods; while the latter present to us the different phases of domestic life, and are more of an ethical and religious character. Homer represents the poetry, or school of poetry, belonging chiefly to Ionia, in Asia Minor. Of his poems we have already given some account, and, passing over the minor intervening poets, called Cyclic, of whose works we have scarcely any knowledge, we will here give a brief sketch of the poems ascribed to Hesiod.

Hesiod is the representative of a school of bards which first developed in Boeotia, and then spread over Phocis and Euboea. The works purporting to be his, that have come down to us, are three in number—the Works and Days, the Theogony, and the Shield of Hercules. The latter, however, is now generally considered the production of some other poet. From DR. FELTON we have the following general characterization of these poems: "Aside from their intrinsic merit as poetical compositions, these poems are of high value for the light they throw on the mythological conceptions of those early times, and for the vivid pictures presented, by the "Works and Days", of the hardships and pleasures of daily life, the superstitious observances, the homely wisdom of common experience, and the proverbial philosophy into which that experience had been wrought. For the truthfulness of the delineation generally all antiquity vouched; and there is in the style of expression and tone of thought a racy freshness redolent of the native soil." Of the poet himself we learn, from his writings, that he was a native of As'cra, a village at the foot of Mount Hel'icon, in Boeotia. Of the time of his birth we have no account, but it is probable that he flourished from half a century to a century later than Homer. But few incidents of his life are related, and these he gives us in his works, from which we learn that be was engaged in pastoral pursuits, and that he was deprived of the greater part of his inheritance by the decision of judges whom his brother Per'ses had bribed. This brother subsequently became much reduced in circumstances, and applied to Hesiod for relief. The poet assisted him, and then addressed to him the "Works and Days", in which he lays down certain rules for the regulation and conduct of his life.

The design of Hesiod, as a prominent writer observes, was "to communicate to his brother in emphatic language, and in the order, or it might be the disorder, which his excited feelings suggested, his opinions or counsels on a variety of matters of deep interest to both, and to the social circle in which they moved. The Works and Days may be more appropriately entitled 'A Letter of Remonstrance or Advice' to a brother; of remonstrance on the folly of his past conduct, of advice as to the future. Upon these two fundamental data every fact, doctrine, and illustration of the poem depends, as essentially as the plot of the Iliad on the anger of Achilles." [Footnote: Mure's "Language and Literature of Ancient Greece," vol. ii., p.384.] The whole work has been well characterized by another writer as "the most ancient specimen of didactic poetry, consisting of ethical, political, and minute economical precepts. It is in a homely and unimaginative style, but is impressed throughout with a lofty and solemn feeling, founded on the idea that the gods have ordained justice among men, have made labor the only road to prosperity, and have so ordered the year that every work has its appointed season, the sign of which may be discerned."

There are three remarkable episodes in the Works and Days. The first is the tale of Prome'theus, which is continued in the Theogony; and the second is that of the Four Ages of Man. Both of these are types of certain stages or vicissitudes of human destiny. The third episode is a description of Winter, a poem not so much in keeping with the spirit of the work, but "one in which there is much fine and vigorous painting." The following extract from it furnishes a specimen of the poet's descriptive powers:

Winter.

Beware the January month, beware Those hurtful days, that keenly-piercing air Which flays the herds; when icicles are cast O'er frozen earth, and sheathe the nipping blast. From courser-breeding Thrace comes rushing forth O'er the broad sea the whirlwind of the north, And moves it with his breath: the ocean floods Heave, and earth bellows through her wild of woods. Full many an oak of lofty leaf he fells, And strews with thick-branch'd pines the mountain dells: He stoops to earth; the crash is heard around; The depth of forest rolls the roar of sound. The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold, And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold; Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin, But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within. Not his rough hide can then the ox avail; The long-hair'd goat, defenceless, feels the gale: Yet vain the north wind's rushing strength to wound The flock with sheltering fleeces fenced around. He bows the old man crook'd beneath the storm, But spares the soft-skinn'd virgin's tender form. Screened by her mother's roof on wintry nights, And strange to golden Venus' mystic rites, The suppling waters of the bath she swims, With shiny ointment sleeks her dainty limbs; Within her chamber laid on downy bed, While winter howls in tempest o'er her head.

Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet, Starved 'midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat; For now no more the sun, with gleaming ray, Through seas transparent lights him to his prey. And now the horned and unhorned kind, Whose lair is in the wood, sore-famished, grind Their sounding jaws, and, chilled and quaking, fly Where oaks the mountain dells embranch on high: They seek to conch in thickets of the glen, Or lurk, deep sheltered, in some rocky den. Like aged men, who, propp'd on crutches, tread Tottering, with broken strength and stooping head, So move the beasts of earth, and, creeping low, Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow. —Trans. by ELTON.

The Theogony embraces subjects of a higher order than the Works and Days. "It ascends," says THIRLWALL, "to the birth of the gods and the origin of nature, and unfolds the whole order of the world in a series of genealogies, which personify the beings of every kind contained in it." A late writer of prominence says that "it was of greater value to the Greeks than the Works and Days, as it contained an authorized version of the genealogy of their gods and heroes—an inspired dictionary of mythology—from which to deviate was hazardous." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets," by John Addington Symonds.] This work, however, has not the poetical merit of the other, although there are some passages in it of fascinating power and beauty. "The famous passage describing the Styx," says PROFESSOR MAHAFFY, "shows the poet to have known and appreciated the wild scenery of the river Styx in Arcadia; and the description of Sleep and Death, which immediately precedes it, is likewise of great beauty. The conflict of the gods and Titans has a splendid crash and thunder about it, and is far superior in conception, though inferior in execution, to the battle of the gods in the Iliad." [Footnote: Mahaffy's "History of Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p. 111.] The poems of Hesiod early became popular with the country population of Greece; but in the cities, and especially in Sparta, where war was considered the only worthy pursuit, they were long cast aside for the more heroic lines of Homer.

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II. LYRIC POETRY.

From the time of Homer, down to about 560 B.C., many kinds of composition for which the Greeks were subsequently distinguished were practically unknown. We are told that the drama was in its infancy, and that prose writing, although more or less practiced during this period for purposes of utility or necessity, was not cultivated as a branch of popular literature. There was another kind of composition, however, which was carried to its highest perfection in the last stage of the epic period, and that was lyric poetry. But of the masterpieces of lyric poetry only a few fragments remain.

CALLI'NUS.

The first representative of this school that we may mention was Callinus, an Ephesian of the latter part of the eighth century B.C., to whom the invention of the elegiac distich, the characteristic form of the Ionian poetry, is attributed. Among the few fragments from this poet is the following fine war elegy, occasioned, probably, by a Persian invasion of Asia Minor:

How long will ye slumber! when will ye take heart, And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand? Fie! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part, While the sword and the arrow are wasting our land! Shame! Grasp the shield close! cover well the bold breast! Aloft raise the spear as ye march on the foe! With no thought of retreat, with no terror confessed, Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow. Oh, 'tis noble and glorious to fight for our all— For our country, our children, the wife of our love! Death comes not the sooner; no soldier shall fall Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above. Once to die is man's doom: rush, rush to the fight! He cannot escape though his blood were Jove's own. For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight; Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone. Unlamented he dies—unregretted? Not so When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave; Thrice hallowed his name among all, high or low, As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave. —Trans. by H. N. COLERIDGE.

[Footnote: The "sisters" here alluded to were the Par'coe, or Fates—three goddesses who presided over the destinies of mortals: 1st, Clo'tho, who held the distaff; 2d, Lach'esis, who spun each one's portion of the thread of life; and, 3d, At'ropos, who cut off the thread with her scissors.

Clotho and Lachesis, whose boundless sway, With Atropos, both men and gods obey. —HESIOD.]

ARCHIL'OCHUS.

Next in point of time comes Archilochus of Pa'ros, a satirist who flourished between 714 and 676 B.C. He is generally considered to be the first Greek poet who wrote in the Iambic measure; but there are evidences that this measure existed before his time. This poet was betrothed to the daughter of a noble of Paros; but the father, probably tempted by the alluring offers of a richer suitor, forbade the nuptials. Archilochus thereupon composed so bitter a lampoon upon the family that the daughters of the nobleman are said to have hanged themselves. Says SYMONDS, "He made Iambic metre his own, and sharpened it into a terrible weapon of attack. Each verse he wrote was polished, and pointed like an arrow-head. Each line was steeped in the poison of hideous charges against his sweetheart, her sisters, and her father." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets;" First Series, p. 108.]

Thenceforth Archilochus led a wandering life, full of vicissitudes, but replete with evidences of his merit. "While Hesiod was in the poor and backward parts of central Greece, modifying with timid hand the tone and style of epic poetry, without abandoning its form, Archilochus, storm-tossed amid wealth and poverty, amid commerce and war, amid love and hate, ever in exile and yet everywhere at home—Archilochus broke altogether with the traditions of literature, and colonized new territories with his genius." [Footnote: "Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p.157.] He is said to have returned to Paros a short time before his death, where, on account of a victory he had won at the Olympic festival, the resentment and hatred formerly entertained against him were turned into gratitude and admiration. His death, which occurred on the field of battle, could not extinguish his fame, and his memory was celebrated by a festival established by his countrymen, during which his verses were sung alternately with the poems of Homer. "Thus," says an old historian, "by a fatality frequently attending men of genius, he spent a life of misery, and acquired honor after death. Reproach, ignominy, contempt, poverty, and persecution were the ordinary companions of his person; admiration, glory, respect, splendor, and magnificence were the attendants of his shade." With the exception of Homer, no poet of classical antiquity acquired so high a celebrity. Among the Greeks and Romans he was equally esteemed. Cicero classed him with Sophocles, Pindar, and even Homer; Plato called him the "wisest of poets;" and Longinus "speaks with rapture of the torrent of his divine inspiration."

ALC'MAN.

Passing over Simonides of Amorgos, who is chiefly celebrated for a very ungallant but ingenious and smooth satire on women, and over Tyrtae'us, whose animating and patriotic odes, as we have seen, proved the safety of Sparta in one of the Messenian wars, we come to the first truly lyric poet of Greece—Alcman— originally a Lydian slave in a Spartan family, but emancipated by his master on account of his genius. He flourished after the second Messenian war, and his poems partake of the character of this period, which was one of pleasure and peace. They are chiefly erotic, or amatory, or in celebration of the enjoyments of social life. He successfully cultivated choral poetry, and his Parthenia, made up of a variety of subjects, was composed to be sung by the maidens of Tayge'tus. "His excellence," says MURE, "appears to have lain in his descriptive powers. The best, and one of the longest extant passages of his works is a description of sleep, or rather of night; a description unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, by any similar passage in the Greek or any other language, and which has been imitated or paraphrased by many distinguished poets." [Footnote: "History of Greek Literature," vol. iii., p. 205.] The following is this author's translation of it:

Now o'er the drowsy earth still night prevails. Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales, The rugged cliffs and hollow glens; The wild beasts slumber in their dens, The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood No more with noisy hum of insect rings; And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued, Roost in the glade and hang their drooping wings.

ARI'ON AND STESICH'ORUS.

Arion, the greater part of whose life was spent at the court of Periander, despot of Corinth, and Stesichorus, of Himera, in Sicily, who flourished about 608 B.C., were two Greek poets especially noted for the improvements they made in choral poetry. The former invented the wild, irregular, and impetuous dithyramb, [Footnote: From Dithyrambus, one of the appellations of Bacchus.] originally a species of lyric poetry in honor of Bacchus; but of his works there is not a single fragment extant. The latter's original name was Tis'ias, and he was called Stesichorus, which signifies a "leader of choruses." A late historian characterizes him as "the first to break the monotony of the choral song, which had consisted previously of nothing more than one uniform stanza, by dividing it into the Strophe, the Antistrophe, and the Epodus—the turn, the return, and the rest." PROFESSOR MAHAFFY observes of him as follows: "Finding the taste for epic recitation decaying, he undertook to reproduce epic stories in lyric dress, and present the substance of the old epics in rich and varied metres, and with the measured movements of a trained chorus. This was a direct step to the drama, for when anyone member of the chorus came to stand apart and address the rest of the choir, we have already the essence of Greek tragedy before us." [Footnote: "Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p. 203.] The works of Stesichorus comprised hymns in honor of the gods and in praise of heroes, love-songs, and songs of revelry.

ALCAE'US.

Among the lyric poets of Greece some writers assign the very first place to Alcaeus, a native of Lesbos, who flourished about 610 B.C., and who has been styled the ardent friend and defender of liberty, more because he talked so well of patriotism than because of his deeds in its behalf. The poet AKENSIDE, however, calls him "the Lesbian patriot," and thus contrasts his style with that of Anac'reon:

Broke from the fetters of his native land, Devoting shame and vengeance to her lords, With louder impulse and a threat'ning hand The Lesbian patriot smites the sounding chords: "Ye wretches, ye perfidious train! Ye cursed of gods and free-born men! Ye murderers of the laws! Though now ye glory in your lust, Though now ye tread the feeble neck in dust, Yet Time and righteous Jove will judge your dreadful cause."

The poems of Alcaeus were principally war and drinking songs of great beauty, and it is said that they furnished to the Latin poet Horace "not only a metrical model, but also the subject-matter of some of his most beautiful odes." The poet fought in the war between Athens and Mityle'ne (606 B.C.), and enjoyed the reputation of being a brave and skilful warrior, although on one occasion he is said to have fled from the field of battle leaving his arms behind him. Of his warlike odes we have a specimen in the following description of the martial embellishment of his own house:

The Spoils of War.

Glitters with brass my mansion wide; The roof is decked on every side, In martial pride, With helmets ranged in order bright, And plumes of horse-hair nodding white, A gallant sight! Fit ornament for warrior's brow— And round the walls in goodly row Refulgent glow Stout greaves of brass, like burnished gold, And corselets there in many a fold Of linen foiled; And shields that, in the battle fray, The routed losers of the day Have cast away. Euboean falchions too are seen, With rich-embroidered belts between Of dazzling sheen: And gaudy surcoats piled around, The spoils of chiefs in war renowned, May there be found: These, and all else that here you see, Are fruits of glorious victory Achieved by me. —Trans. By MERIVALE.

SAPPHO.

Contemporary with Alcaeus was the poetess Sappho, the only female of Greece who ever ranked with the illustrious poets of the other sex, and whom Alcaeus called "the dark-haired, spotless, sweetly smiling Sappho." Lesbos was the center of AEolian culture, and Sappho was the center of a society of Lesbian ladies who applied themselves successfully to literature. Says SYMONDS: "They formed clubs for the cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the arts of beauty, and sought to refine metrical forms and diction. Nor did they confine themselves to the scientific side of art. Unrestrained by public opinion, and passionate for the beautiful, they cultivated their senses and emotions, and indulged their wildest passions." Sappho devoted her whole genius to the subject of Love, and her poems express her feelings with great freedom. Hence arose the charges of a later age, that were made against her character. But whatever difference of view may exist on this point, there is only one opinion as to her poetic genius. She was undoubtedly the greatest erotic poet of antiquity. Plato called her the tenth Muse, and Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might not die until he had committed it to memory. We cannot forbear introducing the following eloquent characterization of her writings:

"Nowhere is a hint whispered that the poetry of Sappho is aught but perfect. Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and inimitable grace. In her art she was unerring. Even Archilochus seems commonplace when compared with her exquisite rarity of phrase. Whether addressing the maidens whom, even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could not forget, or embodying the profounder yearnings of an intense soul after beauty which has never on earth existed, but which inflames the hearts of noblest poets, robbing the eyes of sleep and giving them the bitterness of tears to drink—these dazzling fragments,

'Which still, like sparkles of Greek fire, Burn on through time and ne'er expire,'

are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate utterance —diamonds, topazes, and blazing rubies—in which the fire of the soul is crystallized forever." [Footnote: Symond's "Greek Poets," First Series, p. 189.]

It is related that an associate of Sappho once derided her talents, or stigmatized her poetical labors as unsuited to her sex and condition. The poetess, burning with indignation, thus replied to her traducer:

Whenever Death shall seize thy mortal frame, Oblivion's pen shall blot thy worthless name; For thy rude hand ne'er plucked the beauteous rose That on Pie'ria's sky-clad summit blows: [Symond's "Greek Poets," First Series, p. 139.] Thy paltry soul with vilest souls shall go To Pluto's kingdom—scenes of endless woe; While I on golden wings ascend to fame, And leave behind a muse-enamored, deathless name.

The memory of this poetess of Love rouses the following strain of celebration in ANTIP'ATER of Sidon:

Does Sappho, then, beneath thy bosom rest, AEolian earth? that mortal Muse confessed Inferior only to the choir above, That foster-child of Venus and of Love; Warm from whose lips divine Persuasion came, Greece to delight, and raise the Lesbian name? O ye, who ever twine the threefold thread, Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead That mighty songstress, whose unrivalled powers Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers? —Trans. by FRANCIS HODGSON.

ANAC'REON.

The last lyric poet of this period that we shall notice was Anacreon, a native of Teos, in Ionia, who flourished about 530 B.C. He was a voluptuary, who sang beautifully of love, and wine, and nature, and who has been called the courtier and laureate of tyrants, in whose society, and especially in that of Polyc'rates and Hippar'chus, his days were spent. The poet AKENSIDE thus characterizes him:

I see Anacreon smile and sing, His silver tresses breathe perfume; His cheeks display a second spring, Of roses taught by wine to bloom. Away, deceitful cares, away, And let me listen to his lay; Let me the wanton pomp enjoy, While in smooth dance the light-winged hours Lead round his lyre its patron powers, Kind laughter and convivial joy.

The following is Cowper's translation of a pretty little poem by Anacreon on the grasshopper:

Happy songster, perched above, On the summit of the grove, Whom a dew-drop cheers to sing With the freedom of a king, From thy perch survey the fields, Where prolific Nature yields Naught that, willingly as she, Man surrenders not to thee. For hostility or hate, None thy pleasures can create. Thee it satisfies to sing Sweetly the return of spring, Herald of the genial hours, Harming neither herbs nor flowers. Therefore man thy voice attends, Gladly; thou and he are friends. Nor thy never-ceasing strains Phoebus and the Muse disdains As too simple or too long, For themselves inspire the song. Earth-born, bloodless; undecaying, Ever singing, sporting, playing, What has Nature else to show Godlike in its kind as thou?

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III. EARLY GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.

We now enter upon a new phase of Greek literature. While the first use of prose in writing may be assigned to a date earlier than 700 B.C., it was not until the early part of the sixth century B.C. that use was made of prose for literary purposes; and even then prose compositions were either mythological, or collections of local legends, whether sacred or profane. The importance and the practical uses of genuine history were neither known nor suspected until after the Persian wars. But Grecian philosophy had an earlier dawn, and was coeval with the poetical compositions of Hesiod, although it was in the sixth century that it began to be separated from poetry and religion, and to be cultivated by men who were neither bards, priests, nor seers. This is the era when the practical maxims and precepts of the Seven Grecian sages began to be collected by the chroniclers, and disseminated among the people.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

Concerning these sages, otherwise called the "Seven Wise Men of Greece," the accounts are confused and contradictory, and their names are variously given; but those most generally admitted to the honor are Solon (the Athenian legislator); Bias, of Ionia; Chi'lo (Ephor of Sparta); Cleobu'lus (despot of Lindos, in the Island of Rhodes); Perian'der (despot of Corinth); Pit'tacus (ruler of Mityle'ne); and Tha'les, of Mile'tus, in accordance with the following enumeration:

"First Solon, who made the Athenian laws; While Chilo, in Sparta, was famed for his saws; In Miletus did Thales astronomy teach; Bias used in Prie'ne his morals to preach; Cleobulus of Lindus was handsome and wise; Mitylene 'gainst thraldom saw Pittacus rise; Periander is said to have gained, through his court, The title that Myson, the Chenian, ought." [Footnote: It is Plato who says that Periander, tyrant of Corinth; should give place to Myson.]

The seven wise men were distinguished for their witty sayings, many of which have grown into maxims that are in current use even at the present day. Out of the number the following seven were inscribed as mottoes, in later days, in the temple at Delphi: "Know thyself," Solon; "Consider the end," Chilo; "Suretyship is the forerunner of ruin" (He that hateth suretyship is sure; Prov. xi. 15), Thales; "Most men are bad" (There is none that doeth good, no, not one, Psalm xiv. 3), Bias; "Avoid extremes" (the golden mean), Cleobulus; "Know thy opportunity" (Seize time by the forelock), Pittacus; "Nothing is impossible to industry" (Patience and perseverance overcome mountains), Periander. GROTE says of the seven sages: "Their appearance forms an epoch in Grecian history, inasmuch as they are the first persons who ever acquired an Hellenic reputation grounded on mental competency apart from poetical genius or effect—a proof that political and social prudence was beginning to be appreciated and admired on its own account."

The eldest school of Greek philosophy, called the Ionian, was founded by Thales of Miletus, about the middle of the sixth century B.C. In the investigation of natural causes and effects he taught, as a distinguishing tenet of his philosophy, that water, or some other fluid, is the primary element of all things —a theory which probably arose from observations on the uses of moisture in the nourishment of animal and vegetable life. A similar process of reasoning led Anaxim'enes, of Miletus, half a century later, to substitute air for water; and by analogous reasoning Heracli'tus, of Ephesus, surnamed "the naturalist," was led to regard the basis of fire or flame as the fundamental principle of all things, both spiritual and material. Diog'enes, the Cretan, was led to regard the universe as issuing from an intelligent principle—a rational as well as sensitive soul—but without recognizing any distinction between mind and matter; while Anaximan'der conceived the primitive state of the universe to have been a vast chaos or infinity, containing the elements from which the world was constructed by inherent or self-moving processes of separation and combination. This doctrine was revived by Anaxag'oras, an Ionian, a century later, who combined it with the philosophy of Diogenes, and taught the existence of one supreme mind.

XENOPH'ANES AND PYTHAG'ORAS.

Two widely different schools of philosophy now arose in the western Greek colonies of lower Italy. Xenophanes, a native of Ionia, who had fled to E'lea, was the founder of one, and Pythagoras, of Samos, of the other. The former, known as the Eleat'ic philosophy, admitted a supreme intelligence, eternal and incorporeal, pervading all things, and, like the universe itself, spherical in form. This system was developed in the following century by Parmen'ides and Zeno, who exercised a great influence upon the Greek mind. Pythagoras was the first Grecian to assume the title of philosopher, although he was more of a religious teacher. Having traveled extensively in the East, he returned to Samos about 540 B.C.; but, finding the condition of his country, which was then ruled by the despot Polycrates, unfavorable to the progress of his doctrines, he moved to Croto'na, in Italy, and established his school of philosophy there.

Pythagoras, Vexed with the Samian despot's lawless sway (For tyrants ne'er loved wisdom), crossed the seas, And found a home on the Hesperian shore, Time when the Tarquin arched the infant Rome With vaults, the germ of Caesar's golden hall. There, in Crotona's state, he held a school Of wisdom and of virtue, teaching men The harmony of aptly portioned powers, And of well-numbered days: whence, as a god, Men honored him; and, from his wells refreshed, The master-builder of pure intellect, Imperial Plato, piled the palace where All great, true thoughts have found a home forever. —J. STUART BLACKIE.

Pythagoras made some important discoveries in geometry, music, and astronomy. The demonstration of the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid is attributed to him. He also discovered the chords in music, which led him to conceive that the planets, striking upon the ether through which they move in their celestial orbits; produce harmonious sounds, varying according to the differences of the magnitudes, velocities, and relative distances of the planets, in a manner corresponding to the proportion of the notes in a musical scale. Hence the "music of the spheres." From what can be gathered of the astronomical doctrine of Pythagoras, it has been inferred that he was possessed of the true idea of the solar system, which was revived by Coper'nicus and fully established by Newton. With respect to God, Pythagoras appears to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent mind, the first principle of the universe, the source and cause of all animal life and motion, in substance similar to light, in nature like truth, incapable of pain, invisible, incorruptible, and only to be comprehended by the mind. His philosophy and teachings are thus pictured by the poet THOMSON:

Here dwelt the Samian sage; to him belongs The brightest witness of recording fame. He sought Crotona's pure, salubrious air, And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught. His mental eye first launched into the deeps Of boundless ether; where unnumbered orbs, Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky Unerring roll, and wind their steady way. There he the full consenting choir beheld; There first discerned the secret band of love, The kind attraction, that to central suns Binds circling earths, and world with world unites. Instructed thence, he great ideas formed Of the whole-moving, all-informing God, The Sun of Beings! beaming unconfined— Light, life, and love, and ever active power: Whom naught can image, and who best approves The silent worship of the moral heart, That joys in bounteous Heaven and spreads the joy.

Pythagoras also taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which he probably derived from the Egyptians; and he professed to preserve a distinct remembrance of several states of existence through which his soul had passed. It is related of him that on one occasion, seeing a dog beaten, he interceded in its behalf, saying, "It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognize by its voice." It would seem as if the poet COLERIDGE had at times been dimly conscious of the reality of this Pythagorean doctrine, for he says:

Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

One of our favorite American poets; LOWELL, indulges in a like fancy in the following lines from that dream, like, exquisite fantasy, "In the Twilight," found in the Biglow Papers:

Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dream-land sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere— Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music once heard by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it— A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show— A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago!

And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain— Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again— Could I but speak and show it, This pleasure, more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should not lack a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad Long ago.

On the whole, the system of Pythagoras, with many excellencies, contained some gross absurdities and superstitions, which were dignified with the name of philosophy, and which exerted a pernicious influence over the opinions of many succeeding generations.

THE ELEUSIN'IAN MYSTERIES,

Closely connected with the public and private instruction that the philosophers gave in their various systems, were certain national institutions of a secret character, which combined the mysteries of both philosophy and religion. The most celebrated of these, the great festival of Eleusinia, sacred to Ce'res and Pros'erpine, was observed every fourth year in different parts of Greece, but more particularly by the people of Athens every fifth year, at Eleu'sis, in Attica.

What is known of the rites performed at Eleusis has been gathered from occasional incidental allusions found in the pages of nearly all the classical authorities; and although the penalty of a sudden and ignominious death impended over anyone who divulged these symbolic ceremonies, yet enough is now known to describe them with much minuteness of detail. We have not the space to give that detailed description here, but the ceremonies occupied nine days, from the 15th to the 23d of September, inclusive. The first day was that on which the worshippers merely assembled; the second, that on which they purified themselves by bathing in the sea; the third, the day of sacrifices; the fourth, the day of offerings to the goddess; the fifth, the day of torches, when the multitude roamed over the meadows at nightfall carrying flambeaus, in imitation of Ceres searching for her daughter; the sixth, the day of Bacchus, the god of Vintage; the seventh, the day of athletic pastimes; the eighth, the day devoted to the lesser mysteries and celestial revelations; and the ninth, the day of libations.

The language that Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchi'ses, in the Sixth Book of the AEneid, is regarded as a condensed definition of the secrets of Eleusis and the creed of Pythagoras. The same book, moreover, is believed to represent several of the scenes of the mysteries. In the following words the shade of Anchises answers the inquiries of "his godlike son:"

"Know, first, that heav'n, and earth's contracted frame, And flowing waters, and the starry flame, And both the radiant lights, one common soul Inspires and feeds—and animates the whole. This active mind, infused through all the space, Unites and mingles with the mighty mass. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain, And birds of air, and monsters of the main. Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same; And ev'ry soul is fill'd with equal flame— As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay Of mortal members subject to decay, Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day. From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts, Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts, And grief and joy: nor can the grovelling mind, In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined, Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind: Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains; But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.

"The relics of invet'rate vice they wear And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear. For this are various penances enjoin'd; And some are hung to bleach upon the wind, Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires, Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires. All have their ma'nes, and those manes bear: The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair, And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air. Then are they happy, when by length of time The scurf is worn away of each committed crime; No speck is left of their habitual stains, But the pure ether of the soul remains. But, when a thousand rolling years are past (So long their punishments and penance last), Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god, Compell'd to drink the deep Lethe'an flood, In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares Of their past labors and their irksome years, That, unrememb'ring of its former pain, The soul may suffer mortal flesh again." —Trans. by DRYDEN.

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IV. ARCHITECTURE.

In architecture and sculpture Greece stands pre-eminently above all other nations. The first evidences of the former art that we discover are in the gigantic walls of Tiryns, Mycenae, and other Greek cities, constructed for purposes of defence in the very earliest periods of Greek history, and generally known by the name of Cyclo'pean, because supposed by the early Greeks to have been built by those fabled giants, the Cyclo'pes.

Ye cliffs of masonry, enormous piles, Which no rude censure of familiar time Nor record of our puny race defiles, In dateless mystery ye stand sublime, Memorials of an age of which we see Only the types in things that once were ye.

Whether ye rest upon some bosky knoll, Your feet by ancient myrtles beautified, Or seem, like fabled dragons, to unroll Your swarthy grandeurs down a bleak hill-side, Still on your savage features is a spell That makes ye half divine, ineffable.

With joy upon your height I stand alone, As on a precipice, or lie within Your shadow wide, or leap from stone to stone, Pointing my steps with careful discipline, And think of those grand limbs whose nerve could bear These masses to their places in mid-air:

Of Anakim, and Titans, and of days Saturnian, when the spirit of man was knit So close to Nature that his best essays At Art were but in all to follow it, In all—dimension, dignity, degree; And thus these mighty things were made to be. —LORD HOUGHTON.

It was in the erection of the temples of the gods, however, that Grecian architecture had its ornamental origin, and also made its most rapid progress. The primeval altar, differing but little from a common hearth, was supplanted by the wooden habitation of the god, and the latter in turn gave way to the temple of stone. Then rapidly rose the three famed orders of architecture —the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian—the first solemn, massive, and imposing, while the others exhibit, in their ornamental features, a gradual advance to perfection.

First, unadorned, And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose; The Ionic then, with decent matron grace, Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant last, The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath. —THOMSON,

Passing over the earlier structures devoted to purposes of worship, we find at the beginning of the sixth century several magnificent temples in course of erection. Among these the most celebrated were the Temple of He'ra (Juno), at Samos, and the Temple of Ar'temis (Diana), at Ephesus. The order of architecture adopted in the first was Doric, and in the second Ionic. Both were built of white marble. The former was 346 feet in length and 189 feet in breadth; while the latter was 425 feet long and 220 feet broad. Its columns were 127 in number, and 60 feet in height; and the blocks of marble composing the architrave, or chief beams resting immediately on the columns, were 30 feet in length.

CHER'SIPHRON, AND THE TEMPLE OF DIANA.

The great Temple of Diana was commenced under the supervision of Chersiphron, an architect of Crete, but it occupied over two hundred years in building. It is related of Chersiphron that, having erected the jambs of the great door to the temple, he failed, after repeated efforts, continued for many days, to bring the massive lintel to its place in line with the jambs. He finally sank down in despair, and fell asleep. In his dreams he saw the divine form of the goddess, who assured him that those who labored for the gods should not go unrewarded. On awaking he beheld the massive lintel in its proper place, laid there by the hand of the goddess herself. An American sculptor and poet relates the incident, and gives its moral in the following poem:

When to the utmost we have tasked our powers, And Nem'esis still frowns and shakes her head; When, wearied out and baffled, we confess Our utter weakness, and the tired hand drops, And Hope flees from us, and in blank despair We sink to earth, the face, so stern before, August will smile—the hand before withdrawn Reach out the help we vainly pleaded for, Take up our task, and in a moment do What all our strength was powerless to achieve.

Unless the gods smile, human toil is vain. The crowning blessing of all work is drawn Not from ourselves, but from the powers above. And this none better knew than Chersiphron, When on the plains of Ephesus he reared The splendid temple built to Artemis. With patient labor he had placed at last The solid jambs on either side the door, And now for many a weary day he strove With many a plan and many a fresh device, Still seeking and still failing, on the jambs Level to lay the lintel's massive weight: Still it defied him; and, worn out at last, Along the steps he laid him down at night. Sleep would not come. With dull distracting pain The problem hunted through his feverish thoughts, Till in his dark despair he longed for death, And threatened his own life with his own hand.

Peace came at last upon him, and he slept; And in his sleep, before his dreaming eyes He saw the form divine of Artemis: O'er him she bent and smiled, and softly said, "Live, Chersiphron! Who labor for the gods The gods reward. Behold, your work is done!" Then, like a mist that melts into the sky, She vanished; and awaking, he beheld, Laid by her hand above the entrance-door, The ponderous lintel level on the jambs. —W. W. STORY.

Another celebrated temple of this period was that of Delphi, which was rebuilt, after its destruction by fire in 548 B.C., at a cost equivalent to more than half a million of dollars. It was in the Doric style, and was faced with Parian marble. About the same time the Temple of Olympian Jove was commenced or restored at Athens by Pisistratus. All the temples mentioned have nearly disappeared. That of Diana, at Ephesus, was burned by Heros'tratus, in order to immortalize his name, on the night that Alexander the Great was born (356 B.C.). It was subsequently rebuilt with greater magnificence, and enriched by the genius of Sco'pas, Praxit'eles, Parrha'sius, Apel'les, and other celebrated sculptors and painters. A few of its columns support the dome of the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, two of its pillars are in the great church at Pi'sa, and recent excavations have brought to light portions of its foundation. Other temples, however, erected as far back as the fourth and fifth centuries, have more successfully resisted the ravages of time. Among these are the six, of the Doric order, whose ruins appear at Selinus, in Sicily; while at Paestum, in Southern Italy, are the celebrated ruins of two temples, which, with the exception of the temple of Corinth, are the most massive examples of Doric architecture extant. "It was in the larger of these two temples," says a visitor, "during the moonlight of a troubled sky, that we experienced the emotions of the awful and sublime, such as impress a testimony, never to be forgotten, of the power of art over the affections."

There, down Salerno's bay, In deserts far away, Over whose solitudes The dread malaria broods, No labor tills the land— Only the fierce brigand, Or shepherd, wan and lean, O'er the wide plains is seen. Yet there, a lovely dream, There Grecian temples gleam, Whose form and mellowed tone Rival the Parthenon. The Sybarite no more Comes hither to adore, With perfumed offering, The ocean god and king. The deity is fled Long-since, but, in his stead, The smiling sea is seen, The Doric shafts between; And round the time-worn base Climb vines of tender grace, And Paestum's roses still The air with fragrance fill. —CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.

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V. SCULPTURE.

Like architecture, sculpture, or, more properly speaking, statuary, owed its origin to religion, and was introduced into Greece from Egypt. With the Egyptians the art never advanced beyond the types established at its birth; but the Greeks, led on, as a recent writer well says, "by an intuitive sense of beauty which was with them almost a religious principle, aimed at an ideal perfection, and, by making Nature in her most perfect forms their model, acquired a facility and a power of representing every class of form unattained by any other people, and which have rendered the terms Greek and perfection, with reference to art, almost synonymous." The first specimens of Greek sculpture were rough, unhewn wooden representations of the gods. These were followed, a little later, by wooden images having some resemblance to life, and clothed and decorated with ornaments of various kinds. While this branch of the art long remained in a rude state, sculptured figures on architectural monuments were executed in a superior style as early as the age of Homer.

Long before the period of authentic history, other materials than wood were used in making statues; and as early as 700 B.C. a statue was executed of Zeus, or Jupiter, in bronze. The art of soldering metals is attributed to Glaucus of Chios, about 690 B.C.; while to Rhoe'cus and his son Theodo'rus, of Samos, is ascribed the invention of modeling and casting figures of bronze in a mould. The use of marble, also, for statues, was introduced in the early part of the sixth century by Dipoe'nus and Scyl'lis of Crete, who are the first artists celebrated for works in this material. But, while these improvements were important, they did not necessarily involve any change in style; and it was the removal of the restraints imposed by religion and hereditary cultivation that laid the foundation for the rapid progress of the art and its subsequent perfection. These changes, and the results produced by them, are well summed up in the following extract from THIRLWALL:

"The principal cause of the progress of sculpture was the enlargement which it experienced in the range of its subjects, and the consequent multiplicity of its productions. As long as statues were confined to the interior of the temples, and no more were seen in each sanctuary than the idol of its worship, there was little room and motive for innovation; and, on the other hand, there were strong inducements for adhering to the practice of antiquity. But, insensibly, piety or ostentation began to fill the temples with groups of gods and heroes, strangers to the place, and guests of the power who was properly invoked there. The deep recesses of their pediments were peopled with colossal forms, exhibiting some legendary scene appropriate to the place or the occasion of the building. The custom of honoring the victors at the public games with a statue—an honor afterward extended to other distinguished persons—contributed, perhaps, still more to the same effect; for, whatever restraints may have been imposed on the artists in the representation of sacred subjects, either by usage or by a religious scruple, these were removed when the artists were employed in exhibiting the images of mere mortals. As the field of the art was widened to embrace new objects, the number of masters increased; they were no longer limited, where this had before been the case, to families or guilds; their industry was sharpened by a more active competition and by richer rewards. As the study of nature became more earnest, the sense of beauty grew quicker and steadier; and so rapid was the march of the art, that the last vestiges of the arbitrary forms which had been hallowed by time or religion had not yet everywhere disappeared when the final union of truth and beauty, which we sometimes endeavor to express by the term ideal, was accomplished in the school of Phid'ias." [Footnote: Thirlwall's "History of Greece," vol. i., p. 206.]

We cannot attempt to give here the names of the masters of sculpture who flourished prior to 500 B.C., or trace the still extant remains of their genius; but their works were numerous, and the beauty and grandeur of many of them caused them to be highly valued in all succeeding ages. In fact, before the Persian wars had commenced, the branch of sculpture termed statuary had attained nearly the summit of its perfection.



CHAPTER IX.

THE PERSIAN WARS.

Returning now to the political and military history of Greece, we find that, about the year 550 B.C., the independence of the Grecian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor was crushed by Croe'sus, King of Lydia, who conquered their territories. Thus the Asiatic Greeks became subject to a barbarian power; but Croesus ruled them with great mildness, leaving their political institutions undisturbed, and requiring of them little more than the payment of a moderate tribute. A few years later they experienced a change of masters, and, together with Lydia, fell by conquest under the dominion of Persia, of which Cyrus the elder was then king. Under Darius Hystas'pes, the second king after Cyrus, the Persian empire attained its greatest extent— embracing, in Asia, all that at a later period was contained in Persia proper and Turkey; in Africa taking in Egypt as far as Nubia, and the coast of the Mediterranean as far as Barca; thus stretching from the AEgean Sea to the Indus, and from the plains of Tartary to the cataracts of the Nile. Such was the empire against whose united strength a few Grecian communities were soon to contend for the preservation of their very name and existence.

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I. THE IONIC REVOLT.

Like the Lydians, the Persians ruled the Greek colonies with a degree of moderation, and permitted them to retain their own form of government by paying tribute; yet the Greeks seized every opportunity to deliver themselves from this species of thraldom, and in 502 B.C. an insurrection broke out in one of the Ionian states, which soon assumed a formidable character. Before the Persians could collect sufficient forces to quell the revolt, the Ionians sought the aid of their Grecian countrymen, making application first to Sparta, but in vain, and then to Athens and the islands of the AEgean Sea. The Athenians, regarding Darius as an avowed enemy, gladly took part with the Ionians, and, in connection with Euboe'a, furnished them a fleet of twenty-five vessels. The allied Grecians, though at first successful, were defeated near Ephesus with great loss. Their commanders then quarreled, and the Athenians sailed for home, leaving the Asiatic Greeks (divided among themselves) to contend alone against the whole power of Persia. Still, the revolt attained to considerable proportions, and was protracted during a period of six years. It was terminated by the capture of Miletus, the capital of the Ionian Confederacy, in 495 B.C. The inhabitants of this city who escaped the sword were carried into captivity by the conquerors, and the subjugation of Ionia was complete.

The principal achievement of the allied Grecians during this war was the burning of Sardis, the capital of the old Lydian monarchy. When Darius was informed of it he burst into a paroxysm of rage, directing his wrath chiefly against the Athenians and Euboeans who had dared to invade his dominions. "The Athenians!" he exclaimed, "who are they?" Upon being told, he took his bow and shot an arrow high into the air, saying, "Grant me, Jove, to take vengeance upon the Athenians." He also charged one of his attendants to call aloud to him thrice every day at dinner, "Sire, remember the Athenians!" As soon, therefore, as Darius had satisfied his vengeance against the Greek cities and islands of Asia, he turned his attention to the Athenians and Euboeans, in pursuance of his vow. He meditated, however, nothing less than the conquest of all Greece; but the Persian fleet that was to aid in carrying out his plans was checked in its progress, off Mount Athos, by a storm so violent that it is said to have destroyed three hundred vessels and over twenty thousand lives; and his son-in-law, Mardo'nius, who had entered Thrace and Macedon at the head of a large army, abruptly terminated his campaign and recrossed the Hellespont to Asia.

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II. THE FIRST PERSIAN WAR.

Darius, having renewed his preparations for the conquest of Greece, sent heralds through the Grecian cities, demanding earth and water as tokens of submission. Some of the smaller states, intimidated by his power, submitted; but Athens and Sparta haughtily rejected the demands of the Eastern monarch, and put his heralds to death with cruel mockery, throwing one into a pit and another into a well, and bidding them take thence their earth and water.

In the spring of 490 B.C. a Persian fleet of six hundred ships, conveying an army of 120,000 men, and guided by the aged tyrant Hippias, directed its course toward the shores of Greece. Several islands of the AEgean submitted without a struggle. Euboea was severely punished; and with but little opposition the Persian host landed and advanced to the plains of Marathon, within twenty miles of Athens. The Athenians called on the Plataeans and the Spartans for aid, and the former sent their entire force of one thousand men; but the Spartans refused to give the much-needed help, because it lacked a few days of the full moon, and it was contrary to their religious customs to begin a march during this interval. Meantime the Athenians had marched to Marathon, and were encamped on the hills that surrounded the plain. Their army numbered ten thousand men, and was commanded by Callim'achus, the Pol'emarch or third Archon, and ten generals, among whom were Milti'ades, Themis'tocles, and Aristi'des, who subsequently acquired immortal fame. Five of the ten generals were afraid to hazard a battle without the aid of the Spartans; but the arguments of Miltiades finally prevailed upon Callimachus to give his casting vote in favor of immediate action. Although the ten generals were to command the whole army successively, each for one day, it was agreed to invest Miltiades with the command at once, and intrust to his military skill the fortunes of Athens. He immediately drew up the little army in order of battle.

THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.

The Persians were extended in a line across the middle of the plain, having their best troops in the center, while their fleet was ranged behind them along the beach. The Athenians were drawn up in a line opposite, but having their main strength in the extreme wings of their army. Miltiades quickly advanced his force across the mile of plain that separated it from the foe, and fell upon the immense army of the Persians. As he had foreseen, the center of his line was soon broken, while the extremities of the enemy's line, made up of motley and undisciplined bands of all nations, were routed and driven toward the shore, and into the adjoining morasses. Miltiades now hastily concentrated his two wings and directed their united force against the Persian center, which, deeming itself victorious, was taken completely by surprise. The Persians, defeated, fled in disorder to their ships, but many perished in the marshes; the shore was strewn with their dead, and seven of their ships were destroyed. Their loss was six thousand four hundred; that of the Athenians, not including the Plataeans, only one hundred and ninety two. Such, in brief, was the famous battle of Marathon. The Persians were strong in the terror of their name, and in the renown of their conquests; and it required a most heroic resolution in the Athenians to face a danger that they had not yet learned to despise.