All who had been present at the games, caused afterwards every part of Greece to resound with the name and glory of this illustrious historian.

Lucian, who writes the fact which I have related, adds, that after the example of Herodotus, many of the sophists and rhetoricians went to Olympia, to read the harangues of their composing; finding that the shortest and most certain method of acquiring a great reputation in a little time.

Plutarch observes,(170) that Lysias, the famous Athenian orator, contemporary with Herodotus, pronounced a speech in the Olympic games, wherein he congratulated the Greeks upon their reconciliation with each other, and their having united to reduce the power of Dionysius the Tyrant, as upon the greatest action they had ever done.

We may judge of the eagerness of the poets to signalize themselves in these solemn games, from that of Dionysius himself.(171) That prince, who had the foolish vanity to believe himself the most excellent poet of his time, appointed readers, called in Greek, ῥαψωδοὶ (Rhapsodists,) to read several pieces of his composing at Olympia. When they began to pronounce the verses of the royal poet, the strong and harmonious voices of the readers occasioned a profound silence, and they were heard at first with the greatest attention, which continually decreased as they went on, and turned at last into downright horse-laughs and hooting; so miserable did the verses appear. He comforted himself for this disgrace by a victory he gained some time after in the feast of Bacchus at Athens, in which he caused a tragedy of his composition to be represented.(172)

The disputes of the poets in the Olympic games were nothing, in comparison with the ardour and emulation that prevailed at Athens; which is what remains to be said upon this subject, and therefore I shall conclude with it: taking occasion to give my readers, at the same time, a short view of the shows and representations of the theatre of the ancients.

Those who would be more fully informed on this subject, will find it treated at large in a work lately made public by the reverend father Brumoi the Jesuit; a work which abounds with profound knowledge and erudition, and with reflections entirely new, deduced from the nature of the poems of which it treats. I shall make considerable use of that piece, and often without citing it; which is not uncommon with me.

Extraordinary Fondness of the Athenians for the Entertainments of the Stage. Emulation of the Poets in disputing the Prizes in those Representations. A short Idea of Dramatic Poetry.

No people ever expressed so much ardour and eagerness for the entertainments of the theatre as the Greeks, and especially the Athenians. The reason is obvious: as no people ever demonstrated such extent of genius, nor carried so far the love of eloquence and poesy, taste for the sciences, justness of sentiments, elegance of ear, and delicacy in all the refinements of language. A poor woman, who sold herbs at Athens, discovered Theophrastus to be a stranger, by a single word which he affectedly made use of in expressing himself.(173) The common people got the tragedies of Euripides by heart. The genius of every nation expresses itself in the people's manner of passing their time, and in their pleasures. The great employment and delight of the Athenians were to amuse themselves with works of wit, and to judge of the dramatic pieces, that were acted by public authority several times a year, especially at the feasts of Bacchus, when the tragic and comic poets disputed for the prize. The former used to present four of their pieces at a time; except Sophocles, who did not think fit to continue so laborious an exercise, and confined himself to one performance, when he disputed the prize.

The state appointed judges, to determine upon the merit of the tragic or comic pieces, before they were represented in the festivals. They were acted before them in the presence of the people; but undoubtedly with no great preparation. The judges gave their suffrages, and that performance, which had the most voices, was declared victorious, received the crown as such, and was represented with all possible pomp at the expense of the republic. This did not, however, exclude such pieces, as were only in the second or third class. The best had not always the preference; for what times have been exempt from party, caprice, ignorance, and prejudice? AElian(174) is very angry with the judges, who, in one of these disputes, gave only the second place to Euripides. He accuses them of judging either without capacity, or of suffering themselves to be bribed. It is easy to conceive the warmth and emulation, which these disputes and public rewards excited amongst the poets, and how much they contributed to the perfection, to which Greece carried dramatic performances.

The dramatic poem introduces the persons themselves, speaking and acting upon the stage: in the epic, on the contrary, the poet only relates the different adventures of his characters. It is natural to be delighted with fine descriptions of events, in which illustrious persons and whole nations are interested; and hence the epic poem had its origin. But we are quite differently affected with hearing those persons themselves, with being the confidents of their most secret sentiments, and auditors and spectators of their resolutions, enterprises, and the happy or unhappy events attending them. To read and see an action, are quite different things; we are infinitely more moved with what is acted, than with what we merely read. Our eyes as well as our minds are addressed at the same time. The spectator, agreeably deceived by an imitation so nearly approaching life, mistakes the picture for the original, and thinks the object real. This gave birth to dramatic poetry, which includes tragedy and comedy.

To these may be added the satiric poem, which derives its name from the satyrs, rural gods, who were always the chief characters in it; and not from the "satire," a kind of abusive poetry, which has no resemblance to this, and is of a much later date. The satiric poem was neither tragedy nor comedy, but something between both, participating of the character of each. The poets, who disputed the prize, generally added one of these pieces to their tragedies, to allay the gravity and solemnity of the one, with the mirth and pleasantry of the other. There is but one example of this ancient poem come down to us, which is the Cyclops of Euripides.

I shall confine myself upon this head to tragedy and comedy; both which had their origin amongst the Greeks, who looked upon them as fruits of their own growth, of which they could never have enough. Athens was remarkable for an extraordinary appetite of this kind. These two poems, which were for a long time comprised under the general name of tragedy, received there by degrees such improvements, as at length raised them to their highest perfection.

The Origin and Progress of Tragedy. Poets who excelled in it at Athens; AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

There had been many tragic and comic poets before Thespis; but as they had made no alterations in the original rude form of this poem, and as Thespis was the first that made any improvement in it, he was generally esteemed its inventor. Before him, tragedy was no more than a jumble of buffoon tales in the comic style, intermixed with the singing of a chorus in praise of Bacchus; for it is to the feasts of that god, celebrated at the time of the vintage, that tragedy owes its birth.

La tragedie, informe et grossiere en na'ssant, N'etoit qu'un simple choeur, ou chacun en dansant, Et du dieu des raisins entonnant les louanges, S'efforcoit d'attirer de fertiles vendanges. La, le vin et la joie eveillant les esprits, Du plus habile chantre un bouc etoit le prix.

Formless and gross did tragedy arise, A simple chorus, rather mad than wise; For fruitful vintages the dancing throng Roar'd to the god of grapes a drunken song: Wild mirth and wine sustain'd the frantic note, And the best singer had the prize, a goat.(175)

Thespis made several alterations in it, which Horace describes after Aristotle, in his Art of Poetry. The first(176) was to carry his actors about in a cart, whereas before they used to sing in the streets, wherever chance led them. Another was to have their faces smeared over with wine-lees, instead of acting without disguise, as at first. He also introduced a character among the chorus, who, to give the actors time to rest themselves and to take breath, repeated the adventures of some illustrious person; which recital, at length, gave place to the subjects of tragedy.

Thespis fut le premier, qui barbouille de lie, Promena par les bourgs cette heureuse folie, Et d'acteurs mal oines chargeant un tombereau, Amusa les passans d'un spectacle nouveau.(177)

First Thespis, smear'd with lees, and void of art, The grateful folly vented from a cart; And as his tawdry actors drove about, The sight was new, and charm'd the gaping rout.

(M1) Thespis lived in the time of Solon.(178) That wise legislator, upon seeing his pieces performed, expressed his dislike, by striking his staff against the ground; apprehending that these poetical fictions and idle stories, from mere theatrical representations, would soon become matters of importance, and have too great a share in all public and private affairs.

(M2) It is not so easy to invent, as to improve the inventions of others. The alterations Thespis made in tragedy, gave room for AEschylus to make new and more considerable of his own. He was born at Athens, in the first year of the sixtieth Olympiad. He took upon him the profession of arms, at a time when the Athenians reckoned almost as many heroes as citizens. He was at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea, where he did his duty. (M3) But his disposition called him elsewhere, and put him upon entering into another course, where no less glory was to be acquired; and where he was soon without any competitors. As a superior genius, he took upon him to reform, or rather to create tragedy anew; of which he has, in consequence, been always acknowledged the inventor and father. Father Brumoi, in a dissertation which abounds with wit and good sense, explains the manner in which AEschylus conceived the true idea of tragedy from Homer's epic poems. The poet himself used to say, that his works were the remnants of the feasts given by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey.

Tragedy therefore took a new form under him. He gave masks(179) to his actors, adorned them with robes and trains, and made them wear buskins. Instead of a cart, he erected a theatre of a moderate elevation, and entirely changed their style; which from being merry and burlesque, as at first, became majestic and serious.

Eschyle dans le choeur jetta les personages: D'un masque plus honnete habilla les visages: Sur les ais d'un theatre en public exhausse Fit paroitre l'acteur d'un brodequin chausse.(180)

From AEschylus the chorus learnt new grace: He veil'd with decent masks the actor's face, Taught him in buskins first to tread the stage, And rais'd a theatre to please the age.

But that was only the external part or body of tragedy. Its soul, which was the most important and essential addition of AEschylus, consisted in the vivacity and spirit of the action, sustained by the dialogue of the persons of the drama introduced by him; in the artful working up of the stronger passions, especially of terror and pity, which, by alternately afflicting and agitating the soul with mournful or terrible objects, produce a grateful pleasure and delight from that very trouble and emotion; in the choice of a subject, great, noble, interesting, and contained within due bounds by the unity of time, place, and action: in short, it is the conduct and disposition of the whole piece, which, by the order and harmony of its parts, and the happy connection of its incidents and intrigues, holds the mind of the spectator in suspense till the catastrophe, and then restores him his tranquillity, and dismisses him with satisfaction.

The chorus had been established before AEschylus, as it composed alone, or next to alone, what was then called tragedy. He did not therefore exclude it, but, on the contrary, thought fit to incorporate it, to sing as chorus between the acts. Thus it supplied the interval of resting, and was a kind of person of the drama, employed either(181) in giving useful advice and salutary instructions, in espousing the party of innocence and virtue, in being the depository of secrets, and the avenger of violated religion, or in sustaining all those characters at the same time according to Horace. The coryphaeus, or principal person of the chorus, spoke for the rest.

In one of AEschylus's pieces, called the Eumenides, the poet represents Orestes at the bottom of the stage, surrounded by the Furies, laid asleep by Apollo. Their figure must have been extremely horrible, as it is related, that upon their waking and appearing tumultuously on the theatre, where they were to act as a chorus, some women miscarried with the surprise, and several children died of the fright. The chorus at that time consisted of fifty actors. After this accident, it was reduced to fifteen by an express law, and at length to twelve.

I have observed, that one of the alterations made by AEschylus in tragedy, was the mask worn by his actors. These dramatic masks had no resemblance to ours, which only cover the face, but were a kind of case for the whole head, and which, besides the features, represented the beard, the hair, the ears, and even the ornaments used by women in their head-dresses. These masks varied according to the different pieces that were acted. The subject is treated at large in a dissertation of M. Boindin's, inserted in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres.(182)

I could never comprehend, as I have observed elsewhere,(183) in speaking of pronunciation, how masks came to continue so long upon the stage of the ancients; for certainly they could not be used, without considerably deadening the spirit of the action, which is principally expressed in the countenance, the seat and mirror of what passes in the soul. Does it not often happen, that the blood, according as it is put in motion by different passions, sometimes covers the face with a sudden and modest blush, sometimes enflames it with the heat of rage and fury, sometimes retires, leaving it pale with fear, and at others diffuses a calm and amiable serenity over it? All these affections are strongly imaged and distinguished in the lineaments of the face. The mask deprives the features of this energetic language, and of that life and soul, by which it is the faithful interpreter of all the sentiments of the heart. I do not wonder, therefore, at Cicero's remark upon the action of Roscius.(184) "Our ancestors,"' says he, "were better judges than we are. They could not wholly approve even Roscius himself, whilst he performed in a mask."

(M4) AEschylus was in the sole possession of the glory of the stage, with almost every voice in his favour, when a young rival made his appearance to dispute the palm with him. This was Sophocles. He was born at Colonos, a town in Attica, in the second year of the seventy-first Olympiad. His father was a blacksmith, or one who kept people of that trade to work for him. His first essay was a masterpiece. (M5) When, upon the occasion of Cimon's having found the bones of Theseus, and their being brought to Athens, a dispute between the tragic poets was appointed, Sophocles entered the lists with AEschylus, and carried the prize against him. The ancient victor, laden till then with the wreaths he had acquired, believed them all lost by failing of the last, and withdrew in disgust into Sicily to king Hiero, the protector and patron of all the learned in disgrace at Athens. He died there soon after in a very singular manner, if we may believe Suidas. As he lay asleep in the fields, with his head bare, an eagle, taking his bald crown for a stone, let a tortoise fall upon it, which killed him. Of ninety, or at least seventy, tragedies, composed by him, only seven are now extant.

Nor have those of Sophocles escaped the injury of time better, though one hundred and seventeen in number, and according to some one hundred and thirty. He retained to extreme old age all the force and vigour of his genius, as appears from a circumstance in his history. His children, unworthy of so great a father, upon pretence that he had lost his senses, summoned him before the judges, in order to obtain a decree, that his estate might be taken from him, and put into their hands. He made no other defence, than to read a tragedy he was at that time composing, called OEdipus at Colonos, with which the judges were so charmed, that he carried his cause unanimously; and his children, detested by the whole assembly, got nothing by their suit, but the shame and infamy due to so flagrant ingratitude. He was twenty times crowned victor. Some say he expired in repeating his Antigone, for want of power to recover his breath, after a violent endeavour to pronounce a long period to the end; others, that he died of joy upon his being declared victor, contrary to his expectation. The figure of a hive was placed upon his tomb, to perpetuate the name of Bee, which had been given him, from the sweetness of his verses: whence, it is probable, the notion was derived, of the bees having settled upon his lips when in his cradle. (M6) He died in his ninetieth year, the fourth of the ninety-third Olympiad, after having survived Euripides six years, who was not so old as himself.

(M7) The latter was born in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, at Salamis, whither his father Mnesarchus and mother Clito had retired when Xerxes was preparing for his great expedition against Greece. He applied himself at first to philosophy, and, amongst others, had the celebrated Anaxagoras for his master. But the danger incurred by that great man, who was very near being made the victim of his philosophical tenets, inclined him to the study of poetry. He discovered in himself a genius for the drama, unknown to him at first; and employed it with such success, that he entered the lists with the great masters of whom we have been speaking. His works(185) sufficiently denote his profound application to philosophy. They abound with excellent maxims of morality; and it is in that view that Socrates in his time, and Cicero long after him,(186) set so high a value upon Euripides.

One cannot sufficiently admire the extreme delicacy expressed by the Athenian audience on certain occasions, and their solicitude to preserve the reverence due to morality, virtue, decency, and justice. It is surprising to observe the warmth with which they unanimously reproved whatever seemed inconsistent with them, and called the poet to an account for it, notwithstanding his having a well-founded excuse, as he had given such sentiments only to persons notoriously vicious, and actuated by the most unjust passions.

Euripides had put into the mouth of Bellerophon a pompous panegyric upon riches, which concluded with this thought: "Riches are the supreme good of the human race, and with reason excite the admiration of the gods and men." The whole theatre cried out against these expressions; and he would have been banished directly, if he had not desired the sentence to be respited till the conclusion of the piece, in which the advocate for riches perished miserably.

He was in danger of incurring serious inconveniences from an answer he puts into the mouth of Hippolytus. Phaedra's nurse represented to him, that he had engaged himself under an inviolable oath to keep her secret. "My tongue, it is true, pronounced that oath," replied he, "but my heart gave no consent to it." This frivolous distinction appeared to the whole people, as an express contempt of the religion and sanctity of an oath, that tended to banish all sincerity and good faith from society and the intercourse of life.

Another maxim(187) advanced by Eteocles in the tragedy called the Phoenicians, and which Caesar had always in his mouth, is no less pernicious: "If justice may be violated at all, it is when a throne is in question; in other respects, let it be duly revered." It is highly criminal in Eteocles, or rather in Euripides, says Cicero, to make an exception in that very point, wherein such violation is the highest crime that can be committed. Eteocles is a tyrant, and speaks like a tyrant, who vindicates his unjust conduct by a false maxim; and it is not strange that Caesar, who was a tyrant by nature, and equally unjust, should lay great stress upon the sentiments of a prince whom he so much resembled. But what is remarkable in Cicero, is his falling upon the poet himself, and imputing to him as a crime the having advanced so pernicious a principle upon the stage.

Lycurgus, the orator,(188) who lived in the time of Philip and Alexander the Great, to reanimate the spirit of the tragic poets, caused three statues of brass to be erected, in the name of the people, to AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and having ordered their works to be transcribed, he appointed them to be carefully preserved amongst the public archives, from whence they were taken from time to time to be read; the players not being permitted to represent them on the stage.

The reader expects, no doubt, after what has been said relating to the three poets, who invented, improved, and carried tragedy to its perfection, that I should point out the peculiar excellencies of their style and character. For that I must refer to father Brumoi, who will do it much better than it is in my power. After having laid down, as an undoubted principle, that the epic poem, that is to say Homer, pointed out the way for the tragic poets; and having demonstrated, by reflections drawn from human nature, upon what principles and by what degrees this happy imitation was conducted to its end, he goes on to describe the three poets above mentioned, in the most lively and brilliant colours.

Tragedy took at first from AEschylus its inventor, a much more lofty style than the Iliad; that is, the magnum loqui mentioned by Horace. Perhaps AEschylus, who had a full conception of the grandeur of the language of tragedy, carried it too high. It is not Homer's trumpet, but something more. His pompous, swelling, gigantic diction, resembles rather the beating of drums and the shouts of battle, than the noble harmony of the trumpets. The elevation and grandeur of his genius would not permit him to speak the language of other men, so that his Muse seemed rather to walk in stilts, than in the buskins of his own invention.

Sophocles understood much better the true excellence of the dramatic style: he therefore copies Homer more closely, and blends in his diction that honeyed sweetness, from whence he was denominated "the Bee," with a gravity that gives his tragedy the modest air of a matron, compelled to appear in public with dignity, as Horace expresses it.

The style of Euripides, though noble, is less removed from the familiar; and he seems to have affected rather the pathetic and the elegant, than the nervous and the lofty.

As Corneille, says father Brumoi in another place, after having opened to himself a path entirely new and unknown to the ancients, seems like an eagle towering in the clouds, from the sublimity, force, unbroken progress, and rapidity of his flight; and, as Racine, in copying the ancients in a manner entirely his own, imitates the swan, that sometimes floats upon the air, sometimes rises, then falls again with an elegance of motion, and a grace peculiar to herself; so AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, have each of them a particular characteristic and method. The first, as the inventor and father of tragedy, is like a torrent rolling impetuously over rocks, forests, and precipices; the second resembles a canal,(189) which flows gently through delicious gardens; and the third a river, that does not follow its course in a continued line, but loves to turn and wind his silver wave through flowery meads and rural scenes.

This is the character which father Brumoi gives of the three poets, to whom the Athenian stage was indebted for its perfection in tragedy. AEschylus(190) drew it out of its original chaos and confusion, and made it appear in some degree of lustre; but it still retained the rude unfinished air of things in their beginning, which are generally defective in point of art and method. Sophocles and Euripides added infinitely to the dignity of tragedy. The style of the first, as has been observed, is more noble and majestic; of the latter, more tender and pathetic; each perfect in their way. In this diversity of character, it is difficult to decide which is most excellent. The learned have always been divided upon this head; as we are at this day, with respect to the two poets of our own nation,(191) whose tragedies have made our stage illustrious, and not inferior to that of Athens.

I have observed, that the tender and pathetic distinguishes the compositions of Euripides, of which Alexander of Pherae, the most cruel of tyrants, was a proof. That barbarous man, upon seeing the Troades of Euripides acted, found himself so moved with it, that he quitted the theatre before the conclusion of the play, professing that he was ashamed to be seen in tears for the distress of Hecuba and Andromache, who had never shown the least compassion for his own citizens, of whom he had butchered such numbers.

When I speak of the tender and pathetic, I would not be understood to mean a passion that softens the heart into effeminacy, and which, to our reproach, is almost alone, or at least more than any other passion received upon our stage, though rejected by the ancients, and condemned by the nations around us of greatest reputation for their genius, and taste for the sciences and polite learning. The two great principles for moving the passions amongst the ancients, were terror and pity.(192) And, indeed, as we naturally refer every thing to ourselves, or our own particular interest, when we see persons of exalted rank or virtue sinking under great evils, the fear of the like misfortunes, with which we know that human life is on all sides invested, seizes upon us, and from a secret impulse of self-love we find ourselves sensibly affected with the distresses of others: besides which, the sharing a common nature(193) with the rest of our species, makes us sensible to whatever befalls them. Upon a close and attentive inquiry into those two passions, they will be found the most deeply inherent, active, extensive, and general affections of the soul; including all orders of men, great and small, rich and poor, of whatever age or condition. Hence the ancients, accustomed to consult nature, and to take her for their guide in all things, with reason conceived terror and compassion to be the soul of tragedy; and that those affections ought to prevail in it. The passion of love was in no estimation amongst them, and had seldom any share in their dramatic pieces; though with us it is a received opinion, that they cannot be supported without it.

It is worth our trouble to examine briefly in what manner this passion, which has always been deemed a weakness and a blemish in the greatest characters, got such footing upon our stage. Corneille, who was the first who brought the French tragedy to any perfection, and whom all the rest have followed, found the whole nation enamoured with the perusal of romances, and little disposed to admire any thing not resembling them. From the desire of pleasing his audience, who were at the same time his judges, he endeavoured to move them in the manner they had been accustomed to be affected; and, by introducing love in his scenes, to bring them the nearer to the predominant taste of the age for romance. From the same source arose that multiplicity of incidents, episodes, and adventures, with which our tragic pieces are crowded and obscured; so contrary to probability, which will not admit such a number of extraordinary and surprising events in the short space of four-and-twenty hours; so contrary to the simplicity of ancient tragedy; and so adapted to conceal, by the assemblage of so many different objects, the sterility of the genius of a poet, more intent upon the marvellous, than upon the probable and natural.

Both the Greeks and Romans have preferred the iambic to the heroic verse in their tragedies; not only because the first has a kind of dignity better adapted to the stage, but, whilst it approaches nearer to prose, retains sufficiently the air of poetry to please the ear; and yet has too little of it to put the audience in mind of the poet, who ought not to appear at all in representations, where other persons are supposed to speak and act. Monsieur Dacier makes a very just reflection on this subject. He says, that it is the misfortune of our tragedy to have almost no other verse than what it has in common with epic poetry, elegy, pastoral, satire, and comedy; whereas the learned languages have a great variety of versification.

This inconvenience is highly obvious in our tragedy; which consequently is obliged to lose sight of nature and probability, as it obliges heroes, princes, kings, and queens, to express themselves in a pompous strain in their familiar conversation, which it would be ridiculous to attempt in real life. The giving utterance to the most impetuous passions in an uniform cadence, and by hemistichs and rhymes, would undoubtedly be tedious and offensive to the ear, if the charms of poetry, the elegance of expression, and the spirit of the sentiments, and perhaps, more than all of them, the resistless force of custom, had not in a manner subjected our reason, and spread a veil before our judgment.

It was not chance, therefore, which suggested to the Greeks the use of iambics in their tragedy. Nature itself seems to have dictated that kind of verse to them. Instructed by the same unerring guide, they made choice of a different versification for the chorus, better adapted to the motions of the dance, and the variations of the song; because it was necessary for poetry here to shine out in all its lustre, whilst the mere conversation between the real actors was suspended. The chorus was an embellishment of the representation, and a relaxation to the audience, and therefore required more exalted poetry and numbers to support it, when united with music and dancing.

Of the Old, Middle, and New Comedy.

Whilst tragedy was thus rising to perfection at Athens, comedy, the second species of dramatic poetry, and which, till then, had been much neglected, began to be cultivated with more attention. Nature was the common parent of both. We are sensibly affected with the dangers, distresses, misfortunes, and, in a word, with whatever relates to the lives and conduct of illustrious persons; and this gave birth to tragedy. And we are as curious to know the adventures, conduct, and defects of our equals; which supply us with occasions of laughing, and being merry at the expense of others. Hence comedy derives itself; which is properly an image of private life. Its design is to expose defects and vices upon the stage, and, by affixing ridicule to them, to make them contemptible; and, consequently, to instruct by diverting. Ridicule, therefore, (or, to express the same word by another, pleasantry,) ought to prevail in comedy.

This species of entertainment took at different times three different forms at Athens, as well from the genius of the poets, as from the influence of the government, which occasioned various alterations in it.

The old comedy, so called by Horace,(194) and which he dates after the time of AEschylus, retained something of its original rudeness, and the liberty it had been used to take of throwing out coarse jests and reviling the spectators from the cart of Thespis. Though it was become regular in its plan, and worthy of a great theatre, it had not learnt to be more reserved. It represented real transactions, with the names, dress, gestures, and likeness, in masks, of whomsoever it thought fit to sacrifice to the public derision. In a state where it was held good policy to unmask whatever carried the air of ambition, singularity, or knavery, comedy assumed the privilege to harangue, reform, and advise the people upon their most important interests. No one was spared in a city of so much liberty, or rather licentiousness, as Athens was at that time. Generals, magistrates, government, the very gods were abandoned to the poet's satirical vein; and all was well received, provided the comedy was diverting, and the Attic salt not wanting.

In one of these comedies,(195) not only the priest of Jupiter determines to quit his service, because no more sacrifices are offered to the god; but Mercury himself comes, in a starving condition, to seek his fortune amongst mankind, and offers to serve as a porter, sutler, bailiff, guide, door-keeper; in short, in any capacity, rather than return to heaven. In another,(196) the same gods, reduced to the extremity of famine, from the birds having built a city in the air, whereby their provisions are cut off, and the smoke of incense and sacrifices prevented from ascending to heaven, depute three ambassadors in the name of Jupiter to conclude a treaty of accommodation with the birds, upon such conditions as they shall approve. The chamber of audience, where the three famished gods are received, is a kitchen well stored with excellent game of all sorts. Here Hercules, deeply smitten with the smell of roast meat, which he apprehends to be more exquisite and nutritious than that of incense, begs leave to make his abode, and to turn the spit, and assist the cook upon occasion. The other pieces of Aristophanes abound with strokes still more satirical and severe upon the principal divinities.

I am not much surprised at the poet's insulting the gods, and treating them with the utmost contempt, as from them he had nothing fear; but I cannot help wondering at his having brought the most illustrious and powerful persons of Athens upon the stage, and presuming to attack the government itself, without any manner of respect or reserve.

Cleon having returned triumphant, contrary to the general expectation, from the expedition against Sphacteria, was looked upon by the people as the greatest captain of that age. Aristophanes, to set that bad man in a true light, who was the son of a tanner, and a tanner himself, and whose rise was owing solely to his temerity and impudence, was so bold as to make him the subject of a comedy,(197) without being awed by his power and influence: but he was obliged to play the part of Cleon himself, and appeared for the first time upon the stage in that character; not one of the comedians daring to represent it, nor to expose himself to the resentment of so formidable an enemy. His face was smeared over with wine-lees; because no workman could be found, that would venture to make a mask resembling Cleon, as was usual when persons were brought upon the stage. In this piece he reproaches him with embezzling the public treasures, with a violent passion for bribes and presents, with craft in seducing the people, and denies him the glory of the action at Sphacteria, which he attributes chiefly to the share his colleague had in it.

In the Acharnians, he accuses Lamachus of having been made general, rather by bribery than merit. He imputes to him his youth, inexperience, and idleness; at the same time that he, and many others, whom he covertly designates, convert to their own use the rewards due only to valour and real services. He reproaches the republic with their preference of the younger citizens to the elder, in the government of the state, and the command of their armies. He tells them plainly, that when peace shall be concluded, neither Cleonymus, Hyperbolus, nor many other such knaves, all mentioned by name, shall have any share in the public affairs; they being always ready to accuse their fellow-citizens of crimes, and to enrich themselves by such informations.

In his comedy called the Wasps, imitated by Racine in his Plaideurs, he exposes the mad passion of the people for prosecutions and trials at law, and the enormous injustice frequently committed in passing sentence and giving judgment.

The poet,(198) concerned to see the republic obstinately bent upon the unhappy expedition to Sicily, endeavours to excite in the people a thorough disgust for so ruinous a war, and to inspire them with the desire of a peace, as much the interest of the victors as the vanquished, after a war of several years' duration, equally pernicious to each party, and capable of involving all Greece in ruin.

None of Aristophanes's pieces explains better his boldness, in speaking upon the most delicate affairs of the state in the crowded theatre, than his comedy called Lysistrata. One of the principal magistrates of Athens had a wife of that name, who is supposed to have taken it into her head to compel Greece to conclude a peace. She relates, how, during the war, the women inquiring of their husbands the result of their counsels, and whether they had not resolved to make peace with Sparta, received no answers but imperious looks, and orders to mind their own business: that, however, they perceived plainly to what a low condition the government was declined: that they took the liberty to remonstrate mildly to their husbands upon the sad consequences of their rash determinations, but that their humble representations had no other effect than to offend and enrage them: that, at length, being confirmed by the general opinion of all Attica, that there were no longer any men in the state, nor heads for the administration of affairs, their patience being quite exhausted, the women had thought it proper and advisable to take the government upon themselves, and preserve Greece, whether it would or no, from the folly and madness of its resolves. "For her part, she declares, that she has taken possession of the city and treasury, in order," says she, "to prevent Pisander and his confederates, the four hundred administrators, from exciting troubles, according to their custom, and from robbing the public as usual." (Was ever any thing so bold?) She goes on to prove, that the women only are capable of retrieving affairs by this burlesque argument; that admitting things to be in such a state of perplexity and confusion, the sex, accustomed to untangling their threads, were the only persons to set them right again, as being best qualified with the necessary address, patience, and moderation. The Athenian politics are thus made inferior to those of the women, who are only represented in a ridiculous light, to turn the derision upon their husbands, who were engaged in the administration of the government.

These extracts from Aristophanes, taken almost word for word from father Brumoi, seemed to me very proper to give an insight into that poet's character, and the genius of the ancient comedy, which was, as we see, a satire of the most poignant and severe kind, that had assumed to itself an independency from respect to persons, and to which nothing was sacred. It is no wonder that Cicero condemns so licentious and uncurbed a liberty. It might, he says,(199) have been tolerable, had it attacked only bad citizens, and seditious orators, who endeavoured to raise commotions in the state, such as Cleon, Cleophon, and Hyperbolus; but when a Pericles, who for many years had governed the commonwealth both in war and peace with equal wisdom and authority (he might have added, and a Socrates, declared by Apollo the wisest of mankind) is brought upon the stage to be laughed at by the public, it is as if our Plautus or Naevius had attacked the Scipios, or Caecilius had dared to revile Marcus Cato in his plays.

That liberty is still more offensive to us, who are born, and live under a monarchical government, which is far from being favourable to licentiousness. But without intending to justify the conduct of Aristophanes, which is certainly inexcusable, I think, to judge properly of it, it would be necessary to lay aside the prejudices of birth, nations, and times, and to imagine we live in those remote ages in a state purely democratical. We must not fancy Aristophanes to have been a person of little consequence in his republic, as the comic writers generally are in our days. The king of Persia had a very different idea of him.(200) It is a known story, that in an audience of the Greek ambassadors, his first inquiry was after a certain comic poet (meaning Aristophanes) that put all Greece in motion, and gave such effectual counsels against him. Aristophanes did that upon the stage, which Demosthenes did afterwards in the public assemblies. The poet's reproaches were no less animated than the orator's. In his comedies he uttered the same sentiments as he had a right to deliver from the public rostrum. They were addressed to the same people, upon the same occasions of the state, the same means of success, and the same obstacles to their measures. In Athens the whole people were the sovereign, and each of them had an equal share in the supreme authority. Upon this they were continually intent, were fond of discoursing upon it themselves, and of hearing the sentiments of others. The public affairs were the business of every individual, on which they were desirous of being fully informed, that they might know how to conduct themselves on every occasion of war or peace, which frequently offered, and to decide upon their own, as well as upon the destiny of their allies or enemies. Hence rose the liberty taken by the comic poets, of discussing affairs of the state in their performances. The people were so far from being offended at it, or at the manner in which those writers treated the principal persons of the state, that they conceived their liberty in some measure to consist in it.

Three poets(201) particularly excelled in the old comedy; Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes. The last is the only one of them, whose pieces have come down to us entire; and, out of the great number which he composed, eleven are all that remain. He flourished in an age when Greece abounded with great men, and was contemporary with Socrates and Euripides, whom he survived. During the Peloponnesian war, he made his greatest figure; less as a writer to amuse the people with his comedies, than as a censor of the government, retained to reform the state, and to be almost the arbiter of his country.

He is admired for an elegance, poignancy, and happiness of expression, or, in a word, that Attic salt and spirit, to which the Roman language could never attain, and for which Aristophanes(202) is more remarkable than any other of the Greek authors. His particular excellence was raillery. None ever touched what was ridiculous in the characters whom he wished to expose with such success, or knew better how to convey it in all its full force to others. But it would be necessary to have lived in his times, to be qualified to judge of this. The subtle salt and spirit of the ancient raillery, according to father Brumoi, is evaporated through length of time, and what remains of it is become flat and insipid to us; though the sharpest part will retain its vigour throughout all ages.

Two considerable defects are justly imputed to this poet, which very much obscure, if not entirely efface, his glory. These are, low buffoonery, and gross obscenity; and it has in vain been attempted to offer, in excuse for the first of these faults, the character of his audience; the bulk of which generally consisted of the poor, the ignorant, and dregs of the people, whom, however, it was as necessary to please, as the learned and the rich. The depraved taste of the lower order of people, which once banished Cratinus and his company, because his scenes were not grossly comic enough for them, is no excuse for Aristophanes, as Menander could find out the art of changing that grovelling taste, by introducing a species of comedy, not altogether so modest as Plutarch seems to insinuate, yet much less licentious than any before his time.

The gross obscenities, with which all Aristophanes's comedies abound, have no excuse; they only denote to what a pitch the libertinism of the spectators, and the depravity of the poet, had proceeded. Had he even impregnated them with the utmost wit, which however is not the case, the privilege of laughing himself, or of making others laugh, would have been too dearly purchased at the expense of decency and good manners.(203) And in this case it may well be said, that it were better to have no wit at all, than to make so ill a use of it.(204) F. Brumoi is very much to be commended for having taken care, in giving a general idea of Aristophanes's writings, to throw a veil over those parts of them that might have given offence to modesty. Though such behaviour be the indispensable rule of religion, it is not always observed by those who pique themselves most on their erudition, and sometimes prefer the title of scholar to that of Christian.

The old comedy subsisted till Lysander's time; who, upon having made himself master of Athens, changed the form or the government, and put it into the hands of thirty of the principal citizens. The satirical liberty of the theatre was offensive to them, and therefore they thought fit to put a stop to it. The reason of this alteration is evident, and confirms the reflection made before upon the privilege which the poets possessed of criticizing with impunity the persons at the head of the state. The whole authority of Athens was then invested in tyrants. The democracy was abolished. The people had no longer any share in the government. They were no more the prince; their sovereignty had expired. The right of giving their opinions and suffrages upon affairs of state was at an end; nor dared they, either in their own persons or by the poets, presume to censure the sentiments and conduct of their masters. The calling persons by their names upon the stage was prohibited: but poetical ill-nature soon found the secret of eluding the intention of the law, and of making itself amends for the restraint which was imposed upon it by the necessity of using feigned names. It then applied itself to discover what was ridiculous in known characters, which it copied to the life, and from thence acquired the double advantage of gratifying the vanity of the poets, and the malice of the audience, in a more refined manner: the one had the delicate pleasure of putting the spectators upon guessing their meaning, and the other of not being mistaken in their suppositions, and of affixing the right name to the characters represented. Such was the comedy, since called the Middle Comedy, of which there are some instances in Aristophanes.

It continued till the time of Alexander the Great, who, having entirely assured himself of the empire of Greece by the defeat of the Thebans, caused a check to be put upon the licentiousness of the poets, which increased daily. From thence the New Comedy took its birth, which was only an imitation of private life, and brought nothing upon the stage but feigned names, and fictitious adventures.

Chacun peint avec art dans ce nouveau miroir, S'y vit avec plaisir, ou crut ne s'y pas voir. L'avare des premiers rit du tableau fidele D'un avare souvent trace sur son modele; Et mille fois un fat, finement exprime, Meconnut le portrait sur lui-meme forme.

In this new glass, whilst each himself survey'd, He sat with pleasure, though himself was play'd: The miser grinn'd whilst avarice was drawn, Nor thought the faithful likeness was his own; His own dear self no imag'd fool could find, But saw a thousand other fops design'd.(205)

This may properly be called fine comedy, and is that of Menander. Of one hundred and eighty, or rather eighty plays, according to Suidas, composed by him, all of which Terence is said to have translated, there remain only a few fragments. We may form a judgment of the merit of the originals from the excellence of the copy. Quintilian, in speaking of Menander, is not afraid to say,(206) that with the beauty of his works, and the height of his reputation, he obscured, or rather obliterated, the fame of all other writers in the same way. He observes in another passage,(207) that his own times were not so just to his merit as they ought to have been, which has been the fate of many others; but that he was sufficiently made amends by the favourable opinion of posterity. And indeed Philemon, a comic poet, who flourished about the same period, though older than Menander, was preferred before him.

The Theatre of the Ancients described.

I have already observed, that AEschylus was the first founder of a fixed and durable theatre adorned with suitable decorations. It was at first, as well as the amphitheatres, composed of wooden planks, the seats in which rose one above another; but those having one day broke down, by having too great a weight upon them, the Athenians, excessively enamoured of dramatic representations, were induced by that accident to erect those superb structures, which were imitated afterwards with so much splendour by the Roman magnificence. What I shall say of them, has almost as much relation to the Roman as the Athenian theatres; and is extracted entirely from M. Boindin's learned dissertation upon the theatre of the ancients,(208) who has treated the subject in its fullest extent.

The theatre of the ancients was divided into three principal parts; each of which had its peculiar appellation. The division for the actors was called in general the scene, or stage; that for the spectators was particularly termed the theatre, which must have been of vast extent,(209) as at Athens it was capable of containing above thirty thousand persons; and the orchestra, which amongst the Greeks was the place assigned for the pantomimes and dancers, though at Rome it was appropriated to the senators and vestal virgins.

The theatre was of a semicircular form on one side, and square on the other. The space contained within the semicircle was allotted to the spectators, and had seats placed one above another to the top of the building. The square part in the front of it was appropriated to the actors; and in the interval, between both, was the orchestra.

The great theatres had three rows of porticoes, raised one upon another, which formed the body of the edifice, and at the same time three different stories for the seats. From the highest of those porticoes the women saw the representation, sheltered from the weather. The rest of the theatre was uncovered, and all the business of the stage was performed in the open air.

Each of these stories consisted of nine rows of seats, including the landing-place, which divided them from each other, and served as a passage from side to side. But as this landing-place and passage took up the space of two benches, there were only seven to sit upon, and consequently in each story there were seven rows of seats. They were from fifteen to eighteen inches in height, and twice as much in breadth; so that the spectators had room to sit at their ease, and without being incommoded by the legs of the people above them, no foot-boards being provided for them.

Each of these stories of benches were divided in two different manners; in their height by the landing-places, called by the Romans Praecinctiones, and in their circumferences by several staircases, peculiar to each story, which intersecting them in right lines, tending towards the centre of the theatre, gave the form of wedges to the quantity of seats between them, from whence they were called Cunei.

Behind these stories of seats were covered galleries, through which the people thronged into the theatre by great square openings, contrived for that purpose in the walls next the seats. Those openings were called Vomitoria, from the multitude of people crowding through them into their places.

As the actors could not be heard to the extremity of the theatre, the Greeks contrived a means to supply that defect, and to augment the force of the voice, and make it more distinct and articulate. For that purpose they invented a kind of large vessels of copper, which were disposed under the seats of the theatre, in such a manner, as made all sounds strike upon the ear with more force and distinctness.

The orchestra being situated, as I have observed, between the two other parts of the theatre, of which one was circular, and the other square, it participated of the form of each, and occupied the space between both. It was divided into three parts.

The first and most considerable was more particularly called the orchestra, from a Greek word(210) that signifies to dance. It was appropriated to the pantomimes and dancers, and to all such subaltern actors as played between the acts, and at the end of the representations.

The second was named θυλέλη, from its being square, in the form of an altar. Here the chorus was generally placed.

And in the third the Greeks disposed their band of music. They called it ὑποσκήνιον, from its being situate at the bottom of the principal part of the theatre, to which they gave the general name of the scene.

I shall describe here this third part of the theatre, called the scene; which was also subdivided into three different parts.

The first and most considerable was properly called the scene, and gave its name to this whole division. It occupied the whole front of the building from side to side, and was the place allotted for the decorations. This front had two small wings at its extremity, from which hung a large curtain, that was let down to open the scene, and drawn up between the acts, when any thing in the representation made it necessary.

The second, called by the Greeks indifferently προσκήνιον, and λοτεῖον and by the Romans proscenium, and pulpitum, was a large open space in front of the scene, in which the actors performed their parts, and which, by the help of the decorations, represented either a public square or forum, a common street, or the country; but the place so represented was always in the open air.

The third division was a part reserved behind the scenes, and called by the Greeks παρασκήνιον. Here the actors dressed themselves, and the decorations were locked up. In the same place were also kept the machines, of which the ancients had abundance in their theatres.

As only the porticoes and the building of the scene were roofed, it was necessary to draw sails, fastened with cords to masts, over the rest of the theatre, to screen the audience from the heat of the sun. But as this contrivance did not prevent the heat, occasioned by the perspiration and breath of so numerous an assembly, the ancients took care to allay it by a kind of rain; conveying the water for that use above the porticoes, which falling again in form of dew through an infinity of small pores concealed in the statues, with which the theatre abounded, did not only diffuse a grateful coolness all around, but the most fragrant exhalations along with it; for this dew was always perfumed. Whenever the representations were interrupted by storms, the spectators retired into the porticoes behind the seats of the theatre.

The fondness of the Athenians for representations of this kind cannot be expressed. Their eyes, their ears, their imagination, their understanding, all shared in the satisfaction. Nothing gave them so sensible a pleasure in dramatic performances, either tragic or comic, as the strokes which were aimed at the affairs of the public; whether pure chance occasioned the application, or the address of the poets, who knew how to reconcile the most remote subjects with the transactions of the republic. They entered by that means into the interests of the people, took occasion to soothe their passions, authorize their pretensions, justify, and sometimes condemn, their conduct, entertain them with agreeable hopes, instruct them in their duty in certain nice conjunctures; in consequence of which they often not only acquired the applauses of the spectators, but credit and influence in the public affairs and counsels: hence the theatre became so grateful and so interesting to the people. It was in this manner, according to some authors, that Euripides artfully adapted his tragedy of Palamedes(211) to the sentence passed against Socrates; and pointed out, by an illustrious example of antiquity, the innocence of a philosopher, oppressed by malignity supported by power and faction.

Accident was often the occasion of sudden and unforeseen applications, which from their appositeness were very agreeable to the people. Upon this verse of AEschylus, in praise of Amphiaraus,

—— 'Tis his desire Not to appear, but be the great and good,

the whole audience rose up, and unanimously applied it to Aristides.(212) The same thing happened to Philopoemen at the Nemaean games. At the instant he entered the theatre, these verses were singing upon the stage:

—— He comes, to whom we owe Our liberty, the noblest good below.

All the Greeks cast their eyes upon Philopoemen,(213) and with clapping of hands and acclamations of joy expressed their veneration for the hero.

In the same manner at Rome, during the banishment of Cicero,(214) when some verses of Accius,(215) which reproached the Greeks with their ingratitude in suffering the banishment of Telamon, were repeated by AEsop, the best actor of his time, they drew tears from the eyes of the whole assembly.

Upon another, though very different, occasion, the Roman people applied to Pompey the Great some verses to this effect:

'Tis our unhappiness has made thee great;(216)

and then addressing the people;

The time shall come when you shall late deplore So great a power confided to such hands;

the spectators obliged the actor to repeat these verses several times.

Fondness for Theatrical Representations one of the principal Causes of the Decline, Degeneracy, and Corruption of the Athenian State.

When we compare the happy times of Greece, in which Europe and Asia resounded with nothing but the fame of the Athenian victories, with the later ages, when the power of Philip and Alexander the Great had in a manner reduced it to slavery, we shall be surprised at the strange alteration in that republic. But what is most material, is the investigation of the causes and progress of this declension; and these M. de Tourreil has discussed in an admirable manner in the elegant preface to his translation of Demosthenes's orations.

There were no longer, he observes, at Athens any traces of that manly and vigorous policy, equally capable of planning good and retrieving bad success. Instead of that, there remained only an inconsistent loftiness, apt to evaporate in pompous decrees. They were no more those Athenians, who, when menaced by a deluge of barbarians, demolished their houses to build ships with the timber, and whose women stoned the abject wretch to death that proposed to appease the great king by tribute or homage. The love of ease and pleasure had almost entirely extinguished that of glory, liberty, and independence.

Pericles, that great man, so absolute, that those who envied him treated him as a second Pisistratus, was the first author of this degeneracy and corruption. With the design of conciliating the favour of the people, he ordained that upon such days as games or sacrifices were celebrated, a certain number of oboli should be distributed amongst them; and that in the assemblies in which affairs of state were to be discussed, every individual should receive a certain pecuniary gratification in right of being present. Thus the members of the republic were seen for the first time to sell their care in the administration of the government, and to rank amongst servile employments the most noble functions of the sovereign power.

It was not difficult to foresee where so excessive an abuse would end: and to remedy it, it was proposed to establish a fund for the support of the war, and to make it a capital crime to advise, upon any account whatsoever, the application of it to other uses: but, notwithstanding, the abuse always subsisted. At first it seemed tolerable, whilst the citizen, who was supported at the public expense, endeavoured to deserve it by doing his duty in the field for nine months together. Every one was to serve in his turn, and whoever failed was treated as a deserter without distinction: but at length the number of the transgressors carried it against the law; and impunity, as it commonly happens, multiplied their number. People accustomed to the delightful abode of a city, where feasts and games were perpetually taking place, conceived an invincible repugnance for labour and fatigue, which they looked upon as unworthy of free-born men.

It was therefore necessary to find amusement for this indolent people, to fill up the great void of an unactive, useless life. Hence arose principally their fondness, or rather frenzy, for public shows. The death of Epaminondas, which seemed to promise them the greatest advantage, gave the final stroke to their ruin and destruction. "Their courage," says Justin,(217) "did not survive that illustrious Theban. Freed from a rival, who kept their emulation alive, they sunk into a lethargic sloth and effeminacy. The funds for armaments by land and sea were soon lavished upon games and feasts. The seaman's and soldier's pay was distributed to the idle citizen. An indolent and luxurious mode of life enervated every breast. The representations of the theatre were preferred to the exercises of the camp. Valour and military knowledge were entirely disregarded. Great captains were in no estimation; whilst good poets and excellent comedians engrossed the universal applause."

Extravagance of this kind makes it easy to comprehend in what multitudes the people thronged to the dramatic performances. As no expense was spared in embellishing them, exorbitant sums were sunk in the service of the theatre. "If," says Plutarch,(218) "an accurate calculation were to be made what each representation of the dramatic pieces cost the Athenians, it would appear, that their expenses in playing the Bacchanalians, the Phoenicians, OEdipus, Antigone, Medea, and Electra, (tragedies written either by Sophocles or Euripides,) were greater than those which had been employed against the Barbarians, in defence of the liberty and for the preservation of Greece." This gave a Spartan just reason to exclaim, on seeing an estimate of the enormous sums laid out in these contests of the tragic poets, and the extraordinary pains taken by the magistrates who presided in them,(219) "that a people must be void of sense to apply themselves in so warm and serious a manner to things so frivolous. For," added he, "games should be only games; and nothing is more unreasonable than to purchase a short and trivial amusement at so great a price. Pleasures of this kind agree only with public rejoicings and seasons of festivity, and were designed to divert people at their leisure hours; but should by no means interfere with the affairs of the public, nor the necessary expenses of the government."

After all, says Plutarch, in the passage which I have already cited, of what utility have these tragedies been to Athens, though so much boasted by the people, and admired by the rest of the world? I find that the prudence of Themistocles enclosed the city with strong walls; that the fine taste and magnificence of Pericles improved and adorned it; that the noble fortitude of Miltiades preserved its liberty; and that the moderate conduct of Cimon acquired it the empire and government of all Greece. If the wise and learned poetry of Euripides, the sublime diction of Sophocles, the lofty buskin of AEschylus, have obtained equal advantages for the city of Athens, by delivering it from impending calamities, or by adding to its glory, I am willing (he goes on) that dramatic pieces should be placed in competition with trophies of victory, the poetic theatre with the field of battle, and the compositions of the poets with the great exploits of the generals. But what a comparison would this be? On the one side would be seen a few writers, crowned with wreaths of ivy, and dragging a goat or an ox after them, the rewards and victims assigned them for excelling in tragic poetry: on the other, a train of illustrious captains, surrounded by the colonies which they founded, the cities which they captured, and the nations which they subjected. It is not to perpetuate the victories of AEschylus and Sophocles, but in remembrance of the glorious battles of Marathon, Salamis, Eurymedon, and many others, that so many feasts are celebrated every month with such pomp by the Grecians.

The inference which Plutarch draws from hence, in which we ought to agree with him, is,(220) that it was the highest imprudence in the Athenians thus to prefer pleasure to duty, fondness for the theatre to the love of their country, trivial shows to application to public business, and to consume, in useless expenses and dramatic entertainments, the funds intended for the support of fleets and armies. Macedon, till then obscure and inconsiderable, well knew how to take advantage of the Athenian indolence and effeminacy;(221) and Philip, instructed by the Greeks themselves, amongst whom he had for several years applied himself successfully to the art of war, was not long before he gave Greece a master, and subjected it to the yoke, as we shall see in the sequel.

I am now to open an entirely new scene to the reader's view, not unworthy his curiosity and attention. We have seen two states of no great consideration, Media and Persia, extend themselves far and wide, under the conduct of Cyrus, like a torrent or a conflagration; and, with amazing rapidity, conquer and subdue many provinces and kingdoms. We shall see now that vast empire setting the nations under its dominion in motion, the Persians, Medes, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, and many others; and falling, with all the forces of Asia and the East upon a little country, of very small extent, and destitute of all foreign assistance; I mean Greece. When, on the one hand, we behold so many nations united together, such preparations of war made for several years with so much diligence; innumerable armies by sea and land, and such fleets as the sea could hardly contain; and, on the other hand, two weak cities, Athens and Lacedaemon, abandoned by all their allies, and left almost entirely to themselves; have we not reason to believe, that these two little cities are going to be utterly destroyed and swallowed up by so formidable an enemy; and that no footsteps of them will be left remaining? And yet we shall find that they will prove victorious; and by their invincible courage, and the several battles they gain, both by sea and land, will make the Persian empire lay aside all thoughts of ever again turning their arms against Greece.

The history of the war between the Persians and the Greeks will illustrate the truth of this maxim, that it is not the number, but the valour of the troops, and the conduct of the generals, on which depends the success of military expeditions. The reader will admire the surprising courage and intrepidity of the great men at the head of the Grecian affairs, whom neither all the world in motion against them could deject, nor the greatest misfortunes disconcert; who undertook, with an handful of men, to make head against innumerable armies; who, notwithstanding such a prodigious inequality of forces, dared to hope for success; who even compelled victory to declare on the side of merit and virtue; and taught all succeeding generations what infinite resources are to be found in prudence, valour, and experience; in a zeal for liberty and our country; in the love of our duty; and in all the sentiments of noble and generous souls.

This war of the Persians against the Grecians will be followed by another amongst the Greeks themselves, but of a very different kind from the former. In the latter, there will scarce be any actions, but what in appearance are of little consequence, and seemingly unworthy of a reader's curiosity who is fond of great events; in this he will meet with little besides private quarrels between certain cities, or some small commonwealths; some inconsiderable sieges, (excepting that of Syracuse, one of the most important related in ancient history,) though several of these sieges were of no short duration; some battles between armies, where the numbers were small, and but little blood shed. What is it, then, that has rendered these wars so famous in history? Sallust informs us in these words: "The actions of the Athenians doubtless were great; and yet I believe they were somewhat less than fame will have us conceive of them. But because Athens abounded in noble writers, the acts of that republic are celebrated throughout the whole world as most glorious; and the gallantry of those heroes who performed them, has had the good fortune to be thought as transcendent as the eloquence of those who have described them."(222)

Sallust, though jealous enough of the glory the Romans had acquired by a series of distinguished actions, with which their history abounds, yet does justice in this passage to the Grecians, by acknowledging, that their exploits were truly great and illustrious, though somewhat inferior, in his opinion, to their fame. What is then this foreign and borrowed lustre, which the Athenian actions have derived from the eloquence of their historians? It is, that the whole universe agrees in looking upon them as the greatest and most glorious that ever were performed: Per terrarum orbem Atheniensium facta PRO MAXIMIS CELEBRANTUR. All nations, seduced and enchanted as it were with the beauties of the Greek authors, think that people's exploits superior to any thing that was ever done by any other nation. This, according to Sallust, is the service which the Greek authors have done the Athenians, by their excellent manner of describing their actions; and very unhappy it is for us, that our history, for want of similar assistance, has left a thousand brilliant actions and fine sayings unrecorded, which would have been put in the strongest light by the writers of antiquity, and have done great honour to our country.

But, be this as it may, it must be confessed, that we are not always to judge of the value of an action, or the merit of the persons who shared in it, by the importance of the event. It is rather in such sieges and engagements as we find recorded in the history of the Peloponnesian war, that the conduct and abilities of a general are truly conspicuous. Accordingly, it is observed, that it was chiefly at the head of small armies, and in countries of no great extent, that our best generals of the last age displayed their great capacity, and showed themselves not inferior to the most celebrated captains of antiquity. In actions of this sort chance has no share, and does not cover any oversights that are committed. Every thing is conducted and carried on by the prudence of the general. He is truly the soul of the forces, which neither act nor move but by his direction. He sees every thing, and is present every where. Nothing escapes his vigilance and attention. Orders are seasonably given, and seasonably executed. Contrivances, stratagems, false marches, real or feigned attacks, encampments, decampments; in a word, every thing depends upon him alone.

On this account, the reading of the Greek historians, such as Thucydides, Xenophon, and Polybius, is of infinite service to young officers; because those historians, who were also excellent commanders, enter into all the particulars of the events which they relate, and lead the readers, as it were by the hand, through all the sieges and battles they describe; showing them, by the example of the greatest generals of antiquity, and by a kind of anticipated experience, in what manner war is to be carried on.

Nor is it only with regard to military exploits, that the Grecian history affords us such excellent models. We shall there find celebrated legislators, able politicians, magistrates born for government, men that have excelled in all arts and sciences, philosophers that carried their inquiries as far as was possible in those early ages, and who have left us such maxims of morality, as might put many Christians to the blush.

If the virtues of those who are celebrated in history may serve us for models in the conduct of our lives; their vices and failings, on the other hand, are no less proper to caution and instruct us; and the strict regard which an historian is obliged to pay to truth will not allow him to dissemble the latter, through fear of eclipsing the lustre of the former. Nor does what I here advance contradict the rule laid down by Plutarch, on the same subject, in his preface to the life of Cimon.(223) He requires, that the illustrious actions of great men be represented in their full light; but as to the faults, which may sometimes escape them through passion or surprise, or into which they may be drawn by the necessity of affairs, considering them rather as a certain degree of perfection wanting to their virtue,(224) than as vices or crimes that proceed from any corruption of the heart; such imperfections as these, he would have the historian, out of compassion to the weakness of human nature, which produces nothing entirely perfect, content himself with touching very lightly; in the same manner as an able painter, when he has a fine face to draw, in which he finds some little blemish or defect, does neither entirely suppress it, nor think himself obliged to represent it with a strict exactness, because the one would spoil the beauty of the picture, and the other would destroy the likeness. The very comparison Plutarch uses, shows, that he speaks only of slight and excusable faults. But as to actions of injustice, violence, and brutality, they ought not to be concealed or disguised on any pretence; nor can we suppose, that the same privilege should be allowed in history as is in painting, which invented the profile, to represent the side-face of a prince who had lost an eye, and by that means ingeniously concealed so disagreeable a deformity.(225) History, the most essential rule of which is sincerity, will by no means admit of such indulgences, as indeed would deprive it of its greatest advantage.

Shame, reproach, infamy, hatred, and the execrations of the public, which are the inseparable attendants on criminal and brutal actions, are no less proper to excite a horror for vice, than the glory, which perpetually attends good actions, is to inspire us with the love of virtue. And these, according to Tacitus, are the two ends which every historian ought to propose to himself, by making a judicious choice of what is most extraordinary both in good and evil, in order to occasion that public homage to be paid to virtue, which is justly due to it, and to create the greater abhorrence for vice, on account of that eternal infamy that attends it.(226)

The history which I am writing furnishes but too many examples of the latter sort. With respect to the Persians, it will appear, by what is said of their kings, that those princes, whose power has no other bounds than those of their will, often abandon themselves to all their passions; that nothing is more difficult than to resist the illusions of a man's own greatness, and the flatteries of those that surround him; that the liberty of gratifying all one's desires, and of doing evil with impunity, is a dangerous situation; that the best dispositions can hardly withstand such a temptation; that even after having begun their career favourably, they are insensibly corrupted by softness and effeminacy, by pride, and their aversion to sincere counsels; and that it rarely happens they are wise enough to consider, that, when they find themselves exalted above all laws and restraints, they stand then most in need of moderation and wisdom, both in regard to themselves and others; and that in such a situation they ought to be doubly wise, and doubly strong, in order to set bounds within, by their reason, to a power that has none without.

With respect to the Grecians, the Peloponnesian war will show the miserable effects of their intestine divisions, and the fatal excesses into which they were led by their thirst of dominion: scenes of injustice, ingratitude, and perfidy, together with the open violation of treaties, or mean artifices and unworthy tricks to elude their execution. It will show, how scandalously the Lacedaemonians and Athenians debased themselves to the barbarians, in order to beg aids of money from them: how shamefully the great deliverers of Greece renounced the glory of all their past labours and exploits, by stooping and making their court to haughty and insolent satrapae, and by going successively, with a kind of emulation, to implore the protection of the common enemy, whom they had so often conquered; and in what manner they employed the succours they obtained from them, in oppressing their ancient allies, and extending their own territories by unjust and violent methods.

On both sides, and sometimes in the same person, we shall find a surprising mixture of good and bad, of virtues and vices, of glorious actions and mean sentiments; and sometimes, perhaps, we shall be ready to ask ourselves, whether these can be the same persons and the same people, of whom such different things are related: and whether it be possible, that such a bright and shining light, and such thick clouds of smoke and darkness, can proceed from the same source?

The Persian history includes the space of one hundred and seventeen years, during the reigns of six kings of Persia: Darius, the first of the name, the son of Hystaspes; Xerxes the first; Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus; Xerxes the second; Sogdianus (these two last reigned but a very little time); and Darius the second, commonly called Darius Nothus. This history begins at the year of the world 3483, and extends to the year 3600. As this whole period naturally divides itself into two parts, I shall also divide it into two distinct books.

The first part, which consists of ninety years, extends from the beginning of the reign of Darius the first, to the forty-second year of Artaxerxes, the same year in which the Peloponnesian war began; that is, from the year of the world 3483, to the year 3573. This part chiefly contains the different enterprises and expeditions of the Persians against Greece, which never produced more great men and great events, nor ever displayed more conspicuous or more solid virtues. Here will be seen the famous battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataeae, Mycale, Eurymedon, &c. Here the most eminent commanders of Greece signalized their courage; Miltiades, Leonidas, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pausanias, Pericles, Thucydides, &c.

To enable the reader the more easily to recollect what passed within this space of time among the Jews, and also among the Romans, the history of both which nations is entirely foreign to that of the Persians and Greeks, I shall here set down in few words the principal epochas relating to them.



Epochas of the Jewish History.

The people of God were at this time returned from their Babylonish captivity to Jerusalem, under the conduct of Zorobabel. Usher is of opinion, that the history of Esther ought to be placed in the reign of Darius. The Israelites, under the shadow of this prince's protection, and animated by the earnest exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, did at last finish the building of the temple, which had been interrupted for many years by the cabals of their enemies. Artaxerxes was no less favourable to the Jews than Darius: he first of all sent Ezra to Jerusalem, who restored the public worship, and the observation of the law; then Nehemiah, who caused walls to be built round the city, and fortified it against the attacks of their neighbours, who were jealous of its reviving greatness. It is thought that Malachi, the last of the prophets, was contemporary with Nehemiah, or that he prophesied not long after him.

This interval of the sacred history extends from the reign of Darius I. to the beginning of the reign of Darius Nothus; that is to say, from the year of the world 3485, to the year 3581. After which the Scripture is entirely silent, till the time of the Maccabees.



Epochas of the Roman History.

The first year of Darius I. was the 233d of the building of Rome. Tarquin the Proud was then on the throne, and about ten years afterwards was expelled, when the consular government was substituted to that of the kings. In the succeeding part of this period happened the war against Porsenna; the creation of the tribunes of the people; Coriolanus's retreat among the Volsci, and the war that ensued thereupon; the wars of the Romans against the Latins, the Veientes, the Volsci, and other neighbouring nations; the death of Virginia under the Decemvirate; the disputes between the people and senate about marriages and the consulship, which occasioned the creating of military tribunes instead of consuls. This period of time terminates in the 323d year from the foundation of Rome.

The second part, which consists of twenty-seven years, extends from the 43d year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, to the death of Darius Nothus; that is, from the year of the world 3573, to the year 3600. It contains the first nineteen years of the Peloponnesian war, which continued twenty-seven, of which Greece and Sicily were the seat, and wherein the Greeks, who had before triumphed over the barbarians, turned their arms against each other. Among the Athenians, Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades; among the Lacedaemonians, Brasidas, Gylippus, and Lysander, distinguished themselves in the most extraordinary manner.

Rome continues to be agitated by different disputes between the senate and the people. Towards the end of this period, and about the 350th year of Rome, the Romans formed the siege of Veji, which lasted ten years.

(M8) I have already observed, that eighty years after the taking of Troy, the Heraclidae, that is, the descendants of Hercules, returned into the Peloponnesus, and made themselves masters of Lacedaemon, where two brothers, Eurysthenes and Procles, sons of Aristodemus, reigned jointly together.

Herodotus observes,(227) that these two brothers were, during their whole lives, at variance; and that almost all their descendants inherited the like disposition of mutual hatred and antipathy; so true it is, that the sovereign power will admit of no partnership, and that two kings will always be too many for one kingdom! However, after the death of these two, the descendants of both still continued to sway the sceptre jointly: and, what is very remarkable, these two branches subsisted for near nine hundred years, from the return of the Heraclidae into the Peloponnesus, to the death of Cleomenes, and supplied Sparta with kings without interruption, and that generally in a regular succession from father to son, especially in the elder branch of the family.



The Origin and Condition of the Elotae, or Helots.

When the Lacedaemonians first began to settle in Peloponnesus, they met with great opposition from the inhabitants of the country, whom they were obliged to subdue one after another by force of arms, or receive into their alliance on easy and equitable terms, with the imposition of a small tribute. Strabo(228) speaks of a city, called Elos, not far from Sparta, which, after having submitted to the yoke, as others had done, revolted openly, and refused to pay the tribute. Agis, the son of Eurysthenes, newly settled in the throne, was sensible of the dangerous tendency of this first revolt, and therefore immediately marched with an army against them, together with Soues, his colleague. They laid siege to the city, which, after a pretty long resistance, was forced to surrender at discretion. This prince thought it proper to make such an example of them as should intimidate all their neighbours, and deter them from the like attempts, and yet not alienate their minds by too cruel a treatment; for which reason he put none to death. He spared the lives of all the inhabitants, but at the same time deprived them of their liberty, and reduced them all to a state of slavery. From thenceforward they were employed in all mean and servile offices, and treated with extreme rigour. These were the people who were called Elotae, or Helots. The number of them exceedingly increased in process of time, the Lacedaemonians giving undoubtedly the same name to all the people whom they reduced to the same condition of servitude. As they themselves were averse to labour, and entirely addicted to war, they left the cultivation of their lands to these slaves, assigning every one of them a certain portion of ground, the produce of which they were obliged to carry every year to their respective masters, who endeavoured, by all sorts of ill usage, to make their yoke more grievous and insupportable. This was certainly very bad policy, and could only tend to breed a vast number of dangerous enemies in the very heart of the state, who were always ready to take arms and revolt on every occasion. The Romans acted more prudently; for they incorporated the conquered nations into their state, by associating them into the freedom of their city, and thereby converted them from enemies, into brethren and fellow-citizens.