] Wield
authority
only after you have learned to obey it.
Universal Anthology - v03
As for the virgins appearing naked, there was nothing disgraceful in it, because everything was conducted with modesty, and without one indecent word or action.
Nay, it caused a simplicity of manners and an emulation for the best habit of body ; their ideas, too, were naturally enlarged, while they were not excluded from their share of bravery and honor.
Hence they were furnished with sentiments and language such as Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, is said to have" made use of.
When a woman of another country said to her, You of Lace- daemon are the only women in the world that rule the men," she answered, " We are the only women that bring forth men.
"
These public dances and other exercises of the young maidens naked, in sight of the young men, were, moreover, in centives to marriage ; and, to use Plato's expression, drew them almost as necessarily by the attractions of love, as a geometrical conclusion follows from the premises. To encourage it still more, some marks of infamy were set upon those that continued bachelors. For they were not permitted to see these exercises of the naked virgins ; and the magistrates commanded them to march naked round the marketplace in the winter, and to sing a song composed against themselves, which expressed how justly they were punished for their disobedience to the laws. They were also deprived of that honor and respect which the younger people paid to the old ; so that nobody found fault with what was said to Dercyllidas, though an eminent com mander. It seems, when he came one day into company, a young man, instead of rising up and giving place, told him, " You have no child to give place to me, when I am old. "
It was not left to the father to rear what children he pleased, but he was obliged to carry the child to a place called Lesche, to be examined by the most ancient men of the tribe, who were assembled there. If it was strong and well-proportioned, they gave orders for its education, and assigned it one of the nine thousand shares of land ; but if it was weakly and deformed, they ordered it to be thrown into the place called Apotheta, which is a deep cavern near the mountain Taygetus ; conclud ing that its life could be no advantage either to itself or to the public, since nature had not given it at first any strength or goodness of constitution. For the same reason the women did not wash their new-born infants with water, but with wine, thus making some trial of their habit of body, imagining that sickly
112 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
and epileptic children sink and die under the experiment, while healthy became more vigorous and hardy.
Great care and art was also exerted by the nurses ; for, as they never swathed the infants, their limbs had a freer turn, and their countenances a more liberal air ; besides, they used them to any sort of meat, to have no terrors in the dark, nor to be afraid of being alone, and to leave all ill humor and unmanly crying. Hence people of other countries purchased Lacedae monian nurses for their children ; and Alcibiades the Athenian is said to have been nursed by Amicla, a Spartan. But if he was fortunate in a nurse, he was not so in a preceptor ; for Zopyrus, appointed to that office by Pericles, was, as Plato tells us, no better qualified than a common slave. The Spartan children were not in that manner, under tutors purchased or hired with money, nor were the parents at liberty to educate them as they pleased ; but as soon as they were seven years old, Lycurgus ordered them to be enrolled in companies, where they were all kept under the same order and discipline, and had their exercises and recreations in common. He who showed the most conduct and courage amongst them, was made captain of the company. The rest kept their eyes upon him, obeyed his orders, and bore with patience the punishment he inflicted : so that their whole education was an exercise of obedience. The old men were present at their diversions, and often sug gested some occasion of dispute or quarrel, that they might observe with exactness the spirit of each, and their firmness in battle.
As for learning, they had just what was absolutely neces sary. All the rest of their education was calculated to make them subject to command, to endure labor, to fight and con quer. They added, therefore, to their discipline, as they ad vanced in age — cutting their hair very close, making them go barefoot, and play, for the most part, quite naked. At twelve years of age, their under-garment was taken away, and but one upper one a year allowed them. Hence they were necessarily dirty in their persons, and not indulged the great favor of baths, and oils, except on some particular days of the year. They slept in companies, on beds made of the tops of reeds, which they gathered with their own hands, without knives, and brought from the banks of the Eurotas. In winter they were permitted to add a little thistle down, as that seemed to have some warmth in it.
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 113
At this age, the most distinguished amongst them became the favorite companions of the elder ; and the old men at tended more constantly their places of exercise, observing their trials of strength and wit, not slightly and in a cursory manner, but as their fathers, guardians, and governors : so that there was neither time nor place where persons were wanting to in struct and chastise them. One of the best and ablest men of the city was, moreover, appointed inspector of the youth, and he gave the command of each company to the discreetest and most spirited of those called Irens. An Iren was one that had been two years out of the class of boys ; a Melliren one of the oldest lads. This Iren, then, a youth twenty years old, gives orders to those under his command in their little battles, and has them to serve him at his house. He sends the oldest of them to fetch wood, and the younger to gather pot herbs : these they steal where they can find them, either slyly getting into gardens, or else craftily and warily creeping to the com mon tables. But if any one be caught, he is severely flogged for negligence or want of dexterity. They steal, too, whatever
victuals they possibly can, ingeniously contriving to do it when persons are asleep, or keep but indifferent watch. If they are discovered, they are punished not only with whipping, but with hunger.
Indeed, their supper is but slender at all times, that, to fence against want, they may be forced to exercise their courage and address. This is the first intention of their spare diet : a subordinate one is, to make them grow tall. For when the animal spirits are not too much oppressed by a great quantity of food, which stretches itself out in breadth and thickness, they mount upwards by their natural lightness, and the body easily and freely shoots up in height. This also contributes to make them handsome : for thin and slender habits yield more freely to nature, which then gives a fine proportion to the limbs ; while the heavy and gross resist her by their weight.
The boys steal with so much caution, that one of them hav ing conveyed a young fox under his garment, suffered the creature to tear out his bowels with his teeth and claws, choos ing rather to die than to be detected. Nor does this appear incredible, if we consider what their young men can endure to this day ; for we have seen many of them expire under the
lash at the altar of Diana Orthia. VOL. III. — 8
114 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
The Iren, reposing himself after supper, used to order one of the boys to sing a song ; to another he put some question which required a judicious answer ; for example, " Who was the best"man in the city ? " or " What he thought of such an action ? This accustomed them from their childhood to judge of the virtues, to enter into the affairs of their country men. For if one of them was asked, " Who is a good citizen, or who an infamous one," and hesitated in his answer, he was considered a boy of slow parts, and of a soul that would not aspire to honor. The answer was likewise to have a reason assigned for it, and proof conceived in few words. He whose account of the matter was wrong, by way of punishment had his thumb bit by the Iren. The old men and magistrates often attended these little trials, to see whether the Iren exercised his authority in a rational and proper manner. He was per mitted, indeed, to inflict the penalties ; but when the boys were gone, he was to be chastised himself if he had punished them either with too much severity or remissness.
The adopters of favorites also shared both in the honor and disgrace of their boys : and one of them is said to have been mulcted by the magistrates, because the boy whom he had taken into his affections let some ungenerous word or cry es cape him as he was fighting. This love was so honorable and in so much esteem, that the virgins too had their lovers amongst the most virtuous matrons. A competition of affection caused no misunderstanding, but rather a mutual friendship between those that had fixed their regards upon the same youth, and an united endeavor to make him as accomplished as possible.
The boys were also taught to use sharp repartee, seasoned with humor, and whatever they said was to be concise and pithy. For Lycurgus, as we have observed, fixed but a small value on a considerable quantity of his iron money; but, on the contrary, the worth of speech was to consist in its being comprised in a few plain words, pregnant with a great deal of sense ; and he contrived that by long silence they might learn to be sententious and acute in their replies. As debauchery often causes weakness and sterility in the body, so the intem perance of the tongue makes conversation empty and insipid. King Agis, therefore, when a certain Athenian laughed at the Lacedaemonian short swords, and said, "The jugglers would swallow them with ease upon the stage," answered in his la conic way, "And yet we can reach our enemies' hearts with
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 115
them. " Indeed, to me there seems to be something in this con cise manner of speaking which immediately reaches the object aimed at, and forcibly strikes the mind of the hearer.
Lycurgus himself was short and sententious in his discourse, if we may judge by some of his answers which are recorded, that, for instance, concerning the constitution. When one ad vised him to establish a popular government in Lacedaemon, " Go," said he, " and first make a trial of it in thy own family. " That again, concerning sacrifices to the Deity, when he was asked why he appointed them so trifling and of so little value, " That we might never be in want," said he, " of something to offer him. " Once more, when they inquired of him, what sort of martial exercises he allowed of, he answered, " All, except those in which you stretch out your hands. " Several such like replies of his are said to be taken from the letters which he wrote to his countrymen : as to their question, " How shall we best guard against the invasion of an enemy ? " — " By continu ing poor, and not desiring in your possessions to be one above another. " And to"the question, whether they should inclose Sparta with walls, That city is well fortified, which has a wall of men instead of brick. "
Whether these and some other letters ascribed to him are genuine or not, is no easy matter to determine. However, that they hated long speeches, the following apothegms are a farther proof. King Leonidas said to one who discoursed at an improper time about affairs of some concern, " My friend, you should not talk so much to the purpose, of what it is not to the purpose to talk of. " Charilaus, the nephew of Lycurgus, being asked why his uncle had made so few laws, answered, "To men of few words, few laws are sufficient. " Some people finding fault with Hecataeus the sophist, because, when ad mitted to one of the public repasts, he said nothing all the time, Archidamidas replied, "He that knows how to speak, knows also when to speak. " I said, were sea
The manner of their repartees, which, as
soned with humor, may be gathered from these instances. When a troublesome fellow was pestering Demaratus with impertinent questions, and this in particular several times re peated, " Who is the best man in Sparta? " he answered, " He that is least like you. " To some who were commending the Eleans for managing the Olympic games with so much justice and propriety, Agis said, " What great matter is the Eleans
it, if
116 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
do justice once in five years ? " When a stranger was profess ing his regard for Theopompus, and saying that his own country men called him Philolacon (a lover of the Lacedaemonians), the king answered him, " My good friend, it were much better, if they called you Philopolites " (a lover of your own country men). Plistonax, the son of Pausanias, replied to an orator of Athens, who said the Lacedaemonians had no learning, " True, for we are the only people of Greece that have learned no ill of you. " To one who asked what number of men there was in Sparta, Archidamidas said, "Enough to keep bad men at a distance. "
Even when they indulged a vein of pleasantry, one might perceive that they would not use one unnecessary word, nor let an expression escape them that had not some sense worth attending to. For one being asked to go and hear a person who imitated the nightingale to perfection, answered, " I have heard the nightingale herself. " Another said, upon reading this epitaph, —
Victims of Mars, at Selinus they fell, Who quenched the rage of tyranny.
" And they deserved to fall, for, instead of quenching it, they should have let it burn out. " A young man answered one that promised him some gamecocks that would stand their death, " Give me those that will be the death of others. " Another seeing some people carried into the country in litters, said, " May I never sit in any place where I cannot rise before the aged ! "
This was the manner of their apothegms : so that it has been justly enough observed that the term lakonizein (to act the Lacedaemonian) is to be referred rather to the exercises of the mind than those of the body.
Nor were poetry and music less cultivated among them than a concise dignity of expression. Their songs had a spirit which could rouse the soul, and impel it in an enthusiastic manner to action. The language was plain and manly, the subject serious and moral. For they consisted chiefly of the praises of heroes that had died for Sparta, or else of expressions of detestation for such wretches as had declined the glorious opportunity, and rather chose to drag on life in misery and contempt. Nor did they forget to express an ambition for glory suitable to their respective ages.
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 117
On these occasions they relaxed the severity of their disci pline, permitting their men to be curious in dressing their hair, and elegant in their arms and apparel, while they expressed their alacrity, like horses full of fire and neighing for the race. They let their hair, therefore, grow from their youth, but took more particular care, when they expected an action, to have it well combed and shining, remembering a saying of Lycurgus, that " a large head of hair made the handsome more graceful, and the ugly more terrible. " The exercises, too, of the young men, during the campaigns, were more moderate, their diet not so hard, and their whole treatment more indulgent : so that they were the only people in the world with whom military dis cipline wore, in time of war, a gentler face than usual.
When they had routed the enemy, they continued the pur suit till they were assured of the victory; after that they immediately desisted, deeming it neither generous nor worthy of a Grecian to destroy those who made no farther resistance. This was not only a proof of magnanimity, but of great service to their cause. For when their adversaries found that they killed such as stood it out, but spared the fugitives, they con cluded it was better to fly than to meet their fate upon the spot.
The discipline of the Lacedaemonians continued after they were arrived at years of maturity. For no man was at liberty to live as he pleased ; the city being like one great camp, where all had their stated allowance, and knew their public charge, each man concluding that he was born not for himself, but for his country. Hence, if they had no particular orders, they employed themselves in inspecting the boys, and teaching them something useful, or in learning of those that were older than themselves. One of the greatest privileges that Lycurgus procured his countrymen, was the enjoyment of leisure, the con sequence of his forbidding them to exercise any mechanic trade. It was not worth their while to take great pains to raise a for tune, since riches there were of no account ; and the Helotes, who tilled the ground, were answerable for the produce above- mentioned. To this purpose we have a story of a Lacedae monian who, happening to be at Athens while the court sat, was informed of a man who was fined for idleness ; and when the poor fellow was returning home in great dejection, attended by his condoling friends, he desired the company to show him the person that was condemned for keeping up his dignity. So
118 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
much beneath them they reckoned all attention to mechanic arts, and all desire of riches !
Lawsuits were banished from Lacedaemon with money. The Spartans knew neither riches nor poverty, but possessed an equal competency, and had a cheap and easy way of supplying their few wants. Hence, when they were not engaged in war, their time was taken up with dancing, feasting, hunting, or meeting to exercise, or converse. They went not to market under thirty years of age, all their necessary concerns being managed by their relations and adopters. Nor was it reckoned a credit to the old to be seen sauntering in the market place ; it was deemed more suitable for them to pass great part of the day in the schools of exercise, or places of conversation. Their discourse seldom turned upon money, or business, or trade, but upon the praise of the excellent, or the contempt of the worth less ; and the last was expressed with that pleasantry and humor, which conveyed instruction and correction without seeming to intend it. Nor was Lycurgus himself immoderately severe in his manner ; but, as Sosibius tells us, he dedicated a little statue to the god of laughter in each hall. He consid ered facetiousness as a seasoning of their hard exercise and diet, and therefore ordered it to take place on all proper occasions, in their common entertainments and parties of pleasure.
Upon the whole, he taught his citizens to think nothing more disagreeable than to live by (or for) themselves. Like bees, they acted with one impulse for the public good, and always assembled about their prince. They were possessed with a thirst of honor, an enthusiasm bordering upon insanity, and had not a wish but for their country. These sentiments are confirmed by some of their aphorisms. When Padaretus lost his election for one of the "three hundred," he went away " rejoicing that there were three hundred better men than him self found in the city. " Pisistratidas going with some others, ambassador to the king of Persia's lieutenants, was asked whether they came with a public commission, or on their own account, to which he answered, " If successful, for the public ; if unsuccessful, for ourselves. " Agrileonis, the mother of Brasidas, asking some Amphipolitans that waited upon her at
her house, whether Brasidas died honorably and as became a Spartan ? they greatly extolled his merit, and said there was not such a man left in Sparta : whereupon she replied, " Say not so, my friends ; for Brasidas was indeed a man of
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 119
honor, but Lacedaemon can boast of many better men than he. "
He would not permit all that desired to go abroad and see other countries, lest they should contract foreign manners, gain traces of a life of little discipline, and of a different form of government. He forbade strangers, too, to resort to Sparta, who could not assign a good reason for their coming ; not, as Thu- cydides says, out of fear they should imitate the constitution of that city, and make improvements in virtue, but lest they should teach his own people some evil. For along with for eigners come new subjects of discourse ; new discourse pro duces new opinions ; and from these there necessarily spring new passions and desires, which, like discords in music, would disturb the established government. He therefore thought it more expedient for the city to keep out of it corrupt customs and manners, than even to prevent the introduction of a pestilence.
Thus far, then, we can perceive no vestiges of a disregard to right and wrong, which is the fault some people find with the laws of Lycurgus ; allowing them well enough calculated to produce valor, but not to promote justice. Perhaps it was the Cryptia, as they called it, or ambuscade, if that was really one of this lawgiver's institutions, as Aristotle says it was, which gave Plato so bad an impression both of Lycurgus and his laws. The governors of the youth ordered the shrewdest of them from time to time to disperse themselves in the coun try, provided only with daggers and some necessary provisions. In the daytime they hid themselves, and rested in the most pri vate places they could find; but at night they sallied out into the roads, and killed all the Helotes they could meet with. Nay, sometimes by day, they fell upon them in the fields and murdered the ablest and strongest of them. Thucydides re lates in his history of the Peloponnesian war, that the Spartans selected such of them as were distinguished for their courage, to the number of two thousand or more, declared them free, crowned them with garlands, and conducted them to the temples of the gods ; but soon after they all disappeared ; and no one could, either then or since, give account in what manner they were destroyed. Aristotle particularly says, that the Ephori, as soon as they were invested in their office, declared war against the Helotes, that they might be massacred under pretense of law.
120 A MARTIAL ODE.
In other respects they treated them with great inhumanity: sometimes they made them drink till they were intoxicated, and in that condition led them into the public halls, to show the young men what drunkenness was. They ordered them, too, to sing mean songs, and to dance ridiculous dances, but not to meddle with any that were genteel and graceful. Those who say that a freeman in Sparta was most a freeman, and a slave most a slave, seem well to have considered the difference of states.
A MARTIAL ODE. By TYRTilUS.
[Ttbt^us, Greek elegiac poet, was a native of Attica, and lived about b. c. 700. The Lacedaemonians applied to the Athenians for a commander to lead them in the second Messenian war. They were presented with Tyrtaeus. The war lyrics which he composed so animated the flagging spirits of the Spartan troops that they renewed the contest, and ultimately secured a complete triumph to their arms. }
(Thomas Campbell's Translation. )
How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, In front of battle for their native land !
But oh ! what ills await the wretch that yields, A recreant outcast from his country's fields ! The mother whom he loves shall quit her home, An aged father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe ;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face, They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
Stain of his breed ! dishonoring manhood's form, All ills shall cleave to him : affliction's storm Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years, Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,
He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name, And children, like himself, inured to shame.
But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life blood where we stand, To save our children : — fight ye side by side, And serried close, ye men of youthful pride, Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
A MARTIAL ODE.
Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might; Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age (a sight unblest)
To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
His hoary head dishevelled in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears ;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.
(Polwhele's Translation. )
If, fighting for his dear paternal soil, The soldier in the front of battle fall ;
Tis not in fickle fortune to despoil
His store of fame, that shines the charge of alL
But oppressed by penury, he rove
Far from his native town and fertile plain,
And lead the sharer of his fondest love,
In youth too tender, with her infant train
And if his aged mother — his shrunk sire Join the sad group so many bitter ill
Against the houseless family conspire,
And all the measure of the wretched fill.
Pale, shivering want, companion of his way, He meets the luster of no pitying eye
To hunger and dire infamy prey —
Dark hatred scowls, and scorn quick passes by.
Alas no traits of beauty or of birth — No blush now lingers in his sunken face Dies every feeling (as he roams o'er earth)
Of shame transmitted to wandering race.
But be ours to guard this hallowed spot, To shield the tender offspring and the wife
Here steadily await our destined lot,
And, for their sakes, resign the gift of life.
;
! it
if,
a
a
;
;
;
;
a
122 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Anecdotes and Aphorisms op EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
By DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
[Diogenes, of Laerte In Alicia, wrote — probably about a. d. 200-250 — a book of biographies of Greek philosophers, from which, scrappy and confused as it is, nearly all our knowledge of the history of ancient philosophy is derived. There are reasons for thinking that the extant book is not the original, but a clumsy compilation from it. ]
Thales.
Being asked why he did not become a father, he answered that it was because he was fond of children. When his mother exhorted him to marry, he said, " It is not yet time," and after wards, when he was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, " It is no longer time. "
He thanked fortune for three things : first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast ; secondly, that he was a man and not a woman ; and thirdly, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.
It is said that once he was led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself ; on which the old woman said to him, " Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that you shall understand what is in heaven ? " [For a better form of this, see Bacon's "Apothegms. "]
He said also that there was no difference between life and death. " Why, then," said some one to him, " do not you die ? " "Because," said he, "it does make no difference. "
Another man asked him whether a man who did wrong could escape the notice of the Gods. "No, not even if he thinks wrong," said he.
An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that he had not committed adultery. " Perjury," said he, " is no worse than adultery. "
When the question was put to"him how a man might most easily endure misfortune, he said, If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still. "
When asked how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, " If we never do ourselves what we blame in
others. " " The apothegm,
Know thyself," is his.
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS. 123
Solon.
Laws are like cobwebs : if anything small or weak falls into them, they hold it fast ; if of any size, it breaks the meshes and escapes.
Kings' favorites are like the pebbles used in calculating : the masters make them count for more or less as they will.
When asked how public wrongs could be prevented, he answered, " If those not injured feel as much resentment as those who are. "
Wealth gluts men, and satiety makes them insolent.
Maxims of conduct : Consider your honor as a gentleman of more weight than an oath. Never lie. Attend to serious affairs. Do not be hasty either in making friends or discard ing them. [See Hesiod.
] Wield authority only after you have learned to obey it. Do not give agreeable advice, but good advice. Be guided by reason. Keep out of bad com pany. Honor the gods and your parents.
When lamenting his dead son, some one told him, "Your weeping does no good. " He replied, "That is why I weep — because it does no good. "
Cedxo.
He said to his brother, angry at not being made an Ephor while he (Chilo) was one, " It is because I know how to bear injustice, and you do not. "
Educated men differ from ignorant ones in the rationality of their hopes.
The three hardest things are to keep secrets, to make good use of leisure, and to be able to bear injustice.
Rule your tongue, especially at banquets, and do not speak ill of neighbors.
Threaten no one : that is a woman's trick.
Visit your friends more promptly in adversity than in pros perity.
Do not speak evil of the dead.
Watch yourself.
Choose punishment rather than dishonest gain : the former
is painful but once, the latter all one's life.
Do not deride any one in misfortune.
If you are powerful, be also kind, so that others may respect
rather than fear you.
124 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Learn to order your own household well. Do not let your tongue outrun your sense. Restrain anger. Do not wish im possibilities. Do not hasten too fast on your road. Obey the laws.
Gold is tested by hard stones ; men are tested by gold. Security, then destruction.
He said the one action of his of which he doubted the jus
tice, was voting as a juryman against a friend according to law, but inducing another to vote for and acquit him.
PlTtACUS.
Power shows the man.
The best course is to do well what one is doing at the moment.
It is the part of wise men to provide that perilous junctures shall not arise ; of brave men, to make the best of them when arisen.
Do not tell your designs beforehand: you will be laughed at if you fail.
Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but your enemies.
Watch your chance.
Alcaeus, his contemporary, appears to have loved him. He says Pittacus was splay-footed, dragged his feet in walking, and had scars on them ; put on airs without cause ; was fat, weak-eyed, dirty, and lazy. As another authority says he ground corn for exercise, the poet may have exaggerated.
Bias.
The hardest thing is to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity.
He said he would rather be umpire between his enemies than his friends, " For out of two friends I am sure to make one enemy; while out of two enemies I stand to make one friend. "
Men should live as though they were to live a long time and a short one both [for fear evil results of conduct would bring a long punishment, for fear there would be little time to
work or amend].
Men should love each other as if they might yet come to
hate each other.
Choose your course deliberately, then pursue it firmly.
THE LEGEND OP ARION. 125
THE LEGEND OF ARION. By HERODOTUS.
(Translated by Canon Rawlinson. )
[Herodotus : A celebrated Greek historian, sumamed " The Father of History " ; born between b. c. 490 and b. c. 480, at Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor. While his country was being oppressed by the tyrant Lygdamis, he withdrew to Samos, and subsequently traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Having later assisted in the expulsion of Lygdamis, he took part in the coloni zation of Thurii in southern Italy, and gave public readings from his writings. He died about b. c. 426. His monumental work, "The Histories," consists of nine books, named from the nine Muses, and treats of the history of the Greeks and barbarians from the Persian invasion of Greece down to b. c. 479, as well as to some extent of the history, traditions, geography, manners, and customs of other nations which came in contact with Greece. It marks the beginning of historical writing among the Greeks. ]
Periander was son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. In his time a very wonderful thing is said to have happened. The Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of the matter. They relate that Arion of Methymna, who as a player on the harp was second to no man living at that time, and who was, so far as we know, the first to invent the dithyrambic measure, to give it its name, and to recite in it at Corinth, was carried to Taenarum on the back of a dolphin.
He had lived for many years at the court of Periander, when a longing came upon him to sail across to Italy and Sicily. Having made rich profits in those parts, he wanted to recross the seas to Corinth. He therefore hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking that there was no people in whom he could more safely confide; and going on board, he set sail from Tarentum. The sailors, however, when they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he fell on his knees, beseeching them to spare his life, and making them welcome to his money. But they refused ; and required him either to kill himself outright, if he wished for a grave on the dry land, or without loss of time to leap overboard into the sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and there to play and sing, promising that as soon as his song was ended, he would destroy himself.
126
THE LEGEND OF ARION.
Delighted at the prospect of hearing the very best harper in the world, they consented, and withdrew from the stern to the middle of the vessel; while Arion dressed himself in the full costume of his calling, took his harp, and standing on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian. His strain ended, he flung himself, fully attired as he was, headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dol phin, they say, took him upon his back and carried him to Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence proceeded to Corinth in his musician's dress, and told all that had happened to him.
Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward, to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched anxiously for the return of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them before him, and asked them if they could give him any tidings of Arion. They returned for answer that he was alive and in good health in Italy, and that they had left him at Tarentum, where he was doing well. Thereupon Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the vessel: the men, astonished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their guilt. Such is the account which the Corinthians and Lesbians gave; and there is to this day at Taenarum an offering of Arion's at the shrine, which is a small figure in bronze, representing a man seated upon a dolphin.
[The story was apparently invented from the statue, which was one of Apollo. There is extant a short hymn in which the writer thanks the dolphins for preserving him from death at sea : it is ascribed to Arion, and if his, as Mure thinks, the legend is only a legitimate decoration of the statements in the poem ; though these were doubt less meant figuratively, to express having been saved from ship wreck, —the dolphins, which sport around vessels at sea in calm weather, being considered as guardian sub-deities of seafarers, and " to be saved by the dolphins " being a current term for escaping from perils of the sea. The poem is generally thought apocryphal ; but after all, some one must have written and under this interpre tation as likely to have been Arion as another. The same may be said of the statue was doubtless personal offering in grati tude for having got safe to land, and why should not the poet have made the offering?
; it
it is
a
it,
ARION. 127
ARION.
By GEORGE ELIOT.
[George Eliot, pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Evans Cross : A famous English novelist ; born in Warwickshire, England, November 22, 1819. After the death of her father (1840) she settled in London, where she became assistant editor of the Westminster Review (1851). In 1864 she formed a union with George Henry Lewes, and after his death married, in 1880, John Walter Cross. " Scenes of Clerical Life" first established her reputation as a writer, and was followed by the novels "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," "Silas Marner," "Rom- ola," "Felix Holt," "Middlemarch," and "Daniel Deronda. " Among her other works may be mentioned " The Spanish Gypsy," a drama, and the poems "Agatha," " The Legend of Jubal," and "Armgart. "]
Arion, whose melodic soul Taught the dithyramb to roll
Like forest fires, and sing Olympian suffering,
Had carried his diviner lore From Corinth to the sister shore
Where Greece could largelier be, Branching o'er Italy.
Then, weighted with his glorious name And bags of gold, aboard he came
'Mid harsh seafaring men To Corinth bound again.
The sailors eyed the bags and thought : "The gold is good, the man is naught—
And who shall track the wave That opens for his grave ? "
With brawny arms and cruel eyes They press around him where he lies
In sleep beside his lyre, Hearing the Muses quire.
He waked and saw this wolf-faced Death Breaking the dream that filled his breath
With the inspiration strong Of yet unchanted song.
" Take, take my gold and let me live ! " He prayed as kings do when they give
Their all with royal will, Holding born kingship stilL
ARION.
To rob the living they refuse,
One death or other he must choose,
Either the watery pall Or wounds and burial.
" My solemn robe then let me don, Give me high space to stand upon,
That dying I may pour A song unsung before. "
It pleased them well to grant this prayer, To hear for naught how it might fare
With men who paid their gold For what a poet sold.
In flowing stole, his eyes aglow
With inward fire, he neared the prow
And took his godlike stand, The cithara in hand.
The wolfish men all shrank aloof, And feared this singer might be proof
Against their murderous power, After his lyric hour.
But he, in liberty of song, Fearless of death or other wrong,
With full spondaic toll
Poured forth his mighty soul :
Poured forth the strain his dream had taught, A nome with lofty passion fraught
Such as makes battles won On fields of Marathon.
The last long vowels trembled then As awe within those wolfish men : They said, with mutual stare,
Some god was present there.
But lo ! Arion leaped on high, Ready, his descant done, to die ;
Cotasking, "Is it well? " Like a pierced eagle fell.
SAPPHO AND THE ^OLIAN STOCK. 129
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. By J. A. SYMONDS.
[John Addington Stmonds, English man of letters, was born October 5, 1840 ; graduated at Balliol College, Oxford. He wrote " Introduction to the Study of Dante" (1872) ; "Studies of the Greek Poets" (1873-1876) ; "The Renaissance in Italy " (six volumes, 1875-1886) ; " Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama" (1884); "Life of Michelangelo" (1892); several vol umes of poetry ; translated Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography ; etc. He died April 18, 1893, at Rome. ]
Fob a certain space of time, the JSolians occupied the very foreground of Greek literature, and blazed out with a brilliance of lyrical splendor that has never been surpassed. There seems to have been something passionate and intense in their temper ament, which made the emotions of the Dorian and the Ionian feeble by comparison. Lesbos, the centre of . <Eolian culture, was the island of overmastering passions: the personality of the Greek race burned there with a fierce and steady flame of con centrated feeling. The energies which the Ionians divided between pleasure, politics, trade, legislation, science, and the arts, and which the Dorians turned to war and statecraft and social economy, were restrained by the ^Eolians within the sphere of individual emotions, ready to burst forth volcanically. Nowhere in any age of Greek history, or in any part of Hellas, did the love of physical beauty, the sensibility to radiant scenes of nature, the consuming fervor of personal feeling, assume such grand proportions and receive so illustrious an expression as they did in Lesbos.
At first this passion blossomed into the most exquisite lyrical poetry that the world has known: this was the flower time of the -<Eolians, their brief and brilliant spring. But the fruit it bore was bitter and rotten. Lesbos became a byword for cor ruption. The passions which for a moment had flamed into the gorgeousness of art, burning their envelope of words and images, remained a mere furnace of sensuality, from which no expression of the divine in human life could be expected. In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provencal trouba dours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art upon the beauty of color, the voluptuous charms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic
passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as VOL. m. — 9
130 SAPPHO AND THE iEOLIAN STOCK.
its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued.
Several circumstances contributed to aid the development of lyric poetry in Lesbos. The customs of the iEolians permitted more social and domestic freedom than was common in Greece. ^Eolian women were not confined to the harem like Ionians, or subjected to the rigorous discipline of the Spartans. While mixing freely with male society, they were highly educated, and accustomed to express their sentiments to an extent unknown elsewhere in history — until, indeed, the present time. The Lesbian ladies applied themselves successfully to literature. 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 pas sionate for the beautiful, they cultivated their senses and emo tions, and indulged their wildest passions.
All the luxuries and elegances of life which that climate and the rich valleys of Lesbos could afford were at their disposal: exquisite gardens, where the rose and hyacinth spread perfume ; river beds ablaze with the oleander and wild pomegranate; olive groves and fountains, where the cyclamen and violet flowered with feathery maidenhair; pine-tree-shadowed coves, where they might bathe in the calm of the tideless sea; fruits such as only the southern sun and sea wind can mature; marble cliffs, starred with jonquil and anemone in spring, aromatic with myrtle and lentisk and samphire and wild rosemary through all the months ; nightingales that sang in May; temples dim with dusky gold and bright with ivory ; statues and frescoes of heroic forms. In such scenes as these the Lesbian poets lived, and thought of love. When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colors, sounds, and lights of that luxurious land distilled in verse. Nor was a brief but biting winter wanting to give tone to their nerves, and, by contrast with the summer, to prevent the palling of so much luxury on sated senses. The voluptuousness of ^Eolian poetry is not like that of Persian or Arabian art. It is Greek in its self-restraint, proportion, tact. We find nothing burdensome in its sweetness. All is so rhythmically and sublimely ordered in the poems of Sappho that supreme art lends solemnity and grandeur to the expression of unmitigated passion.
The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss
Sappho
Photogravure from the painting by Alma Tadema
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. 131
of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest fragments pre served in Bergk's "Collection" — the line, for example, which Ben Jonson fancifully translated, "the dear glad angel of the spring, the nightingale" — that we muse in a sad rapture of astonishment to think what the complete poems must have been. Among the ancients Sappho enjoyed a unique renown. She was called "The Poetess," as Homer was called "The Poet. " Aristotle quoted without question a judgment that placed her in the same rank as Homer and Archilochus. Plato in the "Phaedrus" mentioned her as the tenth muse. Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might not see death till he had learned it. Strabo speaks of her genius with religious awe. Longinus cites her love ode as a specimen of poetical sublimity. The epigrammatists call her Child of Aphrodite and Eros, nursling of the Graces and Persuasion, pride of Hellas, peer of Muses, companion of Apollo. Nowhere is a hint whispered that her poetry was aught but perfect. As far as we can judge, these praises were strictly just. 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.
About her life — her brother Charaxus, her daughter Cleis, her rejection of Alcaeus and her suit to Phaon, her love for Atthis and Anactoria, her leap from the Leucadian cliff — we know so very little, and that little is so confused with mythol ogy and turbid with the scandal of the comic poets, that it is not worth while to rake up once again the old materials for hypo thetical conclusions. There is enough of heart-devouring pas sion in Sappho's own verse without the legends of Phaon and the cliff of Leucas. The reality casts all fiction into the shade; for nowhere, except, perhaps, in some Persian or Provencal love songs, can be found more ardent expressions of overmas tering emotion. Whether addressing the maidens, whom even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could not forget; or em bodying the profounder yearnings of an intense soul after beauty, which has never on earth existed, but which inflames the hearts of noblest poets, robbing their 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,
132 SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK.
are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate utterance, dia monds, topazes, and blazing rubies, in which the fire of the soul is crystalized forever.
Bt HENRY T. WHARTON.
Sappho, the one great woman poet of the world, who called herself Psappha in her own iEolic dialect, is said to have been at the zenith of her fame about the year 610 B. C. During her lifetime Jeremiah first began to prophesy (628 B. C. ), Daniel was carried away to Babylon (606 B. C. ), Nebuchadnezzar be sieged and captured Jerusalem (587 B. C. ), Solon was legislating at Athens, and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, is said to have been reigning over Rome. She lived before the birth of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.
Two centuries have sufficed to obscure most of the events in the life of Shakspere; it can hardly be expected that the lapse of twenty-five centuries should have left many authentic records of the history of Sappho. Little even of that internal evidence upon which biography may rely can be gathered from her extant poems, in such fragmentary form have they come down to us. Save for the quotations of grammarians and lexicographers, no word of hers would have survived. Yet her writings seem to have been preserved intact till at least the third century of our era ; for Athenaeus, who wrote about that time, applies to himself the words of the Athenian comic poet Epicrates in his "Anti Lais" (about 360 B. C. ), saying that he, too,
Had learned by heart completely all the songs Breathing of love which sweetest Sappho sang.
Scaliger says, although there does not seem to exist any confirmatory evidence, that the works of Sappho and other lyric poets were burnt at Constantinople and at Rome in the year 1073, in the popedom of Gregory VII. Cardan says the burning took place under Gregory Nazianzen, about 380 a. d. And Petrus Alcydrius says that he heard when a boy that very many of the works of the Greek poets were burnt by order of the Byzantine emperors, and the poems of Gregory Nazianzen circulated in their stead.
These public dances and other exercises of the young maidens naked, in sight of the young men, were, moreover, in centives to marriage ; and, to use Plato's expression, drew them almost as necessarily by the attractions of love, as a geometrical conclusion follows from the premises. To encourage it still more, some marks of infamy were set upon those that continued bachelors. For they were not permitted to see these exercises of the naked virgins ; and the magistrates commanded them to march naked round the marketplace in the winter, and to sing a song composed against themselves, which expressed how justly they were punished for their disobedience to the laws. They were also deprived of that honor and respect which the younger people paid to the old ; so that nobody found fault with what was said to Dercyllidas, though an eminent com mander. It seems, when he came one day into company, a young man, instead of rising up and giving place, told him, " You have no child to give place to me, when I am old. "
It was not left to the father to rear what children he pleased, but he was obliged to carry the child to a place called Lesche, to be examined by the most ancient men of the tribe, who were assembled there. If it was strong and well-proportioned, they gave orders for its education, and assigned it one of the nine thousand shares of land ; but if it was weakly and deformed, they ordered it to be thrown into the place called Apotheta, which is a deep cavern near the mountain Taygetus ; conclud ing that its life could be no advantage either to itself or to the public, since nature had not given it at first any strength or goodness of constitution. For the same reason the women did not wash their new-born infants with water, but with wine, thus making some trial of their habit of body, imagining that sickly
112 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
and epileptic children sink and die under the experiment, while healthy became more vigorous and hardy.
Great care and art was also exerted by the nurses ; for, as they never swathed the infants, their limbs had a freer turn, and their countenances a more liberal air ; besides, they used them to any sort of meat, to have no terrors in the dark, nor to be afraid of being alone, and to leave all ill humor and unmanly crying. Hence people of other countries purchased Lacedae monian nurses for their children ; and Alcibiades the Athenian is said to have been nursed by Amicla, a Spartan. But if he was fortunate in a nurse, he was not so in a preceptor ; for Zopyrus, appointed to that office by Pericles, was, as Plato tells us, no better qualified than a common slave. The Spartan children were not in that manner, under tutors purchased or hired with money, nor were the parents at liberty to educate them as they pleased ; but as soon as they were seven years old, Lycurgus ordered them to be enrolled in companies, where they were all kept under the same order and discipline, and had their exercises and recreations in common. He who showed the most conduct and courage amongst them, was made captain of the company. The rest kept their eyes upon him, obeyed his orders, and bore with patience the punishment he inflicted : so that their whole education was an exercise of obedience. The old men were present at their diversions, and often sug gested some occasion of dispute or quarrel, that they might observe with exactness the spirit of each, and their firmness in battle.
As for learning, they had just what was absolutely neces sary. All the rest of their education was calculated to make them subject to command, to endure labor, to fight and con quer. They added, therefore, to their discipline, as they ad vanced in age — cutting their hair very close, making them go barefoot, and play, for the most part, quite naked. At twelve years of age, their under-garment was taken away, and but one upper one a year allowed them. Hence they were necessarily dirty in their persons, and not indulged the great favor of baths, and oils, except on some particular days of the year. They slept in companies, on beds made of the tops of reeds, which they gathered with their own hands, without knives, and brought from the banks of the Eurotas. In winter they were permitted to add a little thistle down, as that seemed to have some warmth in it.
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 113
At this age, the most distinguished amongst them became the favorite companions of the elder ; and the old men at tended more constantly their places of exercise, observing their trials of strength and wit, not slightly and in a cursory manner, but as their fathers, guardians, and governors : so that there was neither time nor place where persons were wanting to in struct and chastise them. One of the best and ablest men of the city was, moreover, appointed inspector of the youth, and he gave the command of each company to the discreetest and most spirited of those called Irens. An Iren was one that had been two years out of the class of boys ; a Melliren one of the oldest lads. This Iren, then, a youth twenty years old, gives orders to those under his command in their little battles, and has them to serve him at his house. He sends the oldest of them to fetch wood, and the younger to gather pot herbs : these they steal where they can find them, either slyly getting into gardens, or else craftily and warily creeping to the com mon tables. But if any one be caught, he is severely flogged for negligence or want of dexterity. They steal, too, whatever
victuals they possibly can, ingeniously contriving to do it when persons are asleep, or keep but indifferent watch. If they are discovered, they are punished not only with whipping, but with hunger.
Indeed, their supper is but slender at all times, that, to fence against want, they may be forced to exercise their courage and address. This is the first intention of their spare diet : a subordinate one is, to make them grow tall. For when the animal spirits are not too much oppressed by a great quantity of food, which stretches itself out in breadth and thickness, they mount upwards by their natural lightness, and the body easily and freely shoots up in height. This also contributes to make them handsome : for thin and slender habits yield more freely to nature, which then gives a fine proportion to the limbs ; while the heavy and gross resist her by their weight.
The boys steal with so much caution, that one of them hav ing conveyed a young fox under his garment, suffered the creature to tear out his bowels with his teeth and claws, choos ing rather to die than to be detected. Nor does this appear incredible, if we consider what their young men can endure to this day ; for we have seen many of them expire under the
lash at the altar of Diana Orthia. VOL. III. — 8
114 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
The Iren, reposing himself after supper, used to order one of the boys to sing a song ; to another he put some question which required a judicious answer ; for example, " Who was the best"man in the city ? " or " What he thought of such an action ? This accustomed them from their childhood to judge of the virtues, to enter into the affairs of their country men. For if one of them was asked, " Who is a good citizen, or who an infamous one," and hesitated in his answer, he was considered a boy of slow parts, and of a soul that would not aspire to honor. The answer was likewise to have a reason assigned for it, and proof conceived in few words. He whose account of the matter was wrong, by way of punishment had his thumb bit by the Iren. The old men and magistrates often attended these little trials, to see whether the Iren exercised his authority in a rational and proper manner. He was per mitted, indeed, to inflict the penalties ; but when the boys were gone, he was to be chastised himself if he had punished them either with too much severity or remissness.
The adopters of favorites also shared both in the honor and disgrace of their boys : and one of them is said to have been mulcted by the magistrates, because the boy whom he had taken into his affections let some ungenerous word or cry es cape him as he was fighting. This love was so honorable and in so much esteem, that the virgins too had their lovers amongst the most virtuous matrons. A competition of affection caused no misunderstanding, but rather a mutual friendship between those that had fixed their regards upon the same youth, and an united endeavor to make him as accomplished as possible.
The boys were also taught to use sharp repartee, seasoned with humor, and whatever they said was to be concise and pithy. For Lycurgus, as we have observed, fixed but a small value on a considerable quantity of his iron money; but, on the contrary, the worth of speech was to consist in its being comprised in a few plain words, pregnant with a great deal of sense ; and he contrived that by long silence they might learn to be sententious and acute in their replies. As debauchery often causes weakness and sterility in the body, so the intem perance of the tongue makes conversation empty and insipid. King Agis, therefore, when a certain Athenian laughed at the Lacedaemonian short swords, and said, "The jugglers would swallow them with ease upon the stage," answered in his la conic way, "And yet we can reach our enemies' hearts with
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 115
them. " Indeed, to me there seems to be something in this con cise manner of speaking which immediately reaches the object aimed at, and forcibly strikes the mind of the hearer.
Lycurgus himself was short and sententious in his discourse, if we may judge by some of his answers which are recorded, that, for instance, concerning the constitution. When one ad vised him to establish a popular government in Lacedaemon, " Go," said he, " and first make a trial of it in thy own family. " That again, concerning sacrifices to the Deity, when he was asked why he appointed them so trifling and of so little value, " That we might never be in want," said he, " of something to offer him. " Once more, when they inquired of him, what sort of martial exercises he allowed of, he answered, " All, except those in which you stretch out your hands. " Several such like replies of his are said to be taken from the letters which he wrote to his countrymen : as to their question, " How shall we best guard against the invasion of an enemy ? " — " By continu ing poor, and not desiring in your possessions to be one above another. " And to"the question, whether they should inclose Sparta with walls, That city is well fortified, which has a wall of men instead of brick. "
Whether these and some other letters ascribed to him are genuine or not, is no easy matter to determine. However, that they hated long speeches, the following apothegms are a farther proof. King Leonidas said to one who discoursed at an improper time about affairs of some concern, " My friend, you should not talk so much to the purpose, of what it is not to the purpose to talk of. " Charilaus, the nephew of Lycurgus, being asked why his uncle had made so few laws, answered, "To men of few words, few laws are sufficient. " Some people finding fault with Hecataeus the sophist, because, when ad mitted to one of the public repasts, he said nothing all the time, Archidamidas replied, "He that knows how to speak, knows also when to speak. " I said, were sea
The manner of their repartees, which, as
soned with humor, may be gathered from these instances. When a troublesome fellow was pestering Demaratus with impertinent questions, and this in particular several times re peated, " Who is the best man in Sparta? " he answered, " He that is least like you. " To some who were commending the Eleans for managing the Olympic games with so much justice and propriety, Agis said, " What great matter is the Eleans
it, if
116 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
do justice once in five years ? " When a stranger was profess ing his regard for Theopompus, and saying that his own country men called him Philolacon (a lover of the Lacedaemonians), the king answered him, " My good friend, it were much better, if they called you Philopolites " (a lover of your own country men). Plistonax, the son of Pausanias, replied to an orator of Athens, who said the Lacedaemonians had no learning, " True, for we are the only people of Greece that have learned no ill of you. " To one who asked what number of men there was in Sparta, Archidamidas said, "Enough to keep bad men at a distance. "
Even when they indulged a vein of pleasantry, one might perceive that they would not use one unnecessary word, nor let an expression escape them that had not some sense worth attending to. For one being asked to go and hear a person who imitated the nightingale to perfection, answered, " I have heard the nightingale herself. " Another said, upon reading this epitaph, —
Victims of Mars, at Selinus they fell, Who quenched the rage of tyranny.
" And they deserved to fall, for, instead of quenching it, they should have let it burn out. " A young man answered one that promised him some gamecocks that would stand their death, " Give me those that will be the death of others. " Another seeing some people carried into the country in litters, said, " May I never sit in any place where I cannot rise before the aged ! "
This was the manner of their apothegms : so that it has been justly enough observed that the term lakonizein (to act the Lacedaemonian) is to be referred rather to the exercises of the mind than those of the body.
Nor were poetry and music less cultivated among them than a concise dignity of expression. Their songs had a spirit which could rouse the soul, and impel it in an enthusiastic manner to action. The language was plain and manly, the subject serious and moral. For they consisted chiefly of the praises of heroes that had died for Sparta, or else of expressions of detestation for such wretches as had declined the glorious opportunity, and rather chose to drag on life in misery and contempt. Nor did they forget to express an ambition for glory suitable to their respective ages.
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 117
On these occasions they relaxed the severity of their disci pline, permitting their men to be curious in dressing their hair, and elegant in their arms and apparel, while they expressed their alacrity, like horses full of fire and neighing for the race. They let their hair, therefore, grow from their youth, but took more particular care, when they expected an action, to have it well combed and shining, remembering a saying of Lycurgus, that " a large head of hair made the handsome more graceful, and the ugly more terrible. " The exercises, too, of the young men, during the campaigns, were more moderate, their diet not so hard, and their whole treatment more indulgent : so that they were the only people in the world with whom military dis cipline wore, in time of war, a gentler face than usual.
When they had routed the enemy, they continued the pur suit till they were assured of the victory; after that they immediately desisted, deeming it neither generous nor worthy of a Grecian to destroy those who made no farther resistance. This was not only a proof of magnanimity, but of great service to their cause. For when their adversaries found that they killed such as stood it out, but spared the fugitives, they con cluded it was better to fly than to meet their fate upon the spot.
The discipline of the Lacedaemonians continued after they were arrived at years of maturity. For no man was at liberty to live as he pleased ; the city being like one great camp, where all had their stated allowance, and knew their public charge, each man concluding that he was born not for himself, but for his country. Hence, if they had no particular orders, they employed themselves in inspecting the boys, and teaching them something useful, or in learning of those that were older than themselves. One of the greatest privileges that Lycurgus procured his countrymen, was the enjoyment of leisure, the con sequence of his forbidding them to exercise any mechanic trade. It was not worth their while to take great pains to raise a for tune, since riches there were of no account ; and the Helotes, who tilled the ground, were answerable for the produce above- mentioned. To this purpose we have a story of a Lacedae monian who, happening to be at Athens while the court sat, was informed of a man who was fined for idleness ; and when the poor fellow was returning home in great dejection, attended by his condoling friends, he desired the company to show him the person that was condemned for keeping up his dignity. So
118 SOCIALISM IN SPARTA.
much beneath them they reckoned all attention to mechanic arts, and all desire of riches !
Lawsuits were banished from Lacedaemon with money. The Spartans knew neither riches nor poverty, but possessed an equal competency, and had a cheap and easy way of supplying their few wants. Hence, when they were not engaged in war, their time was taken up with dancing, feasting, hunting, or meeting to exercise, or converse. They went not to market under thirty years of age, all their necessary concerns being managed by their relations and adopters. Nor was it reckoned a credit to the old to be seen sauntering in the market place ; it was deemed more suitable for them to pass great part of the day in the schools of exercise, or places of conversation. Their discourse seldom turned upon money, or business, or trade, but upon the praise of the excellent, or the contempt of the worth less ; and the last was expressed with that pleasantry and humor, which conveyed instruction and correction without seeming to intend it. Nor was Lycurgus himself immoderately severe in his manner ; but, as Sosibius tells us, he dedicated a little statue to the god of laughter in each hall. He consid ered facetiousness as a seasoning of their hard exercise and diet, and therefore ordered it to take place on all proper occasions, in their common entertainments and parties of pleasure.
Upon the whole, he taught his citizens to think nothing more disagreeable than to live by (or for) themselves. Like bees, they acted with one impulse for the public good, and always assembled about their prince. They were possessed with a thirst of honor, an enthusiasm bordering upon insanity, and had not a wish but for their country. These sentiments are confirmed by some of their aphorisms. When Padaretus lost his election for one of the "three hundred," he went away " rejoicing that there were three hundred better men than him self found in the city. " Pisistratidas going with some others, ambassador to the king of Persia's lieutenants, was asked whether they came with a public commission, or on their own account, to which he answered, " If successful, for the public ; if unsuccessful, for ourselves. " Agrileonis, the mother of Brasidas, asking some Amphipolitans that waited upon her at
her house, whether Brasidas died honorably and as became a Spartan ? they greatly extolled his merit, and said there was not such a man left in Sparta : whereupon she replied, " Say not so, my friends ; for Brasidas was indeed a man of
SOCIALISM IN SPARTA. 119
honor, but Lacedaemon can boast of many better men than he. "
He would not permit all that desired to go abroad and see other countries, lest they should contract foreign manners, gain traces of a life of little discipline, and of a different form of government. He forbade strangers, too, to resort to Sparta, who could not assign a good reason for their coming ; not, as Thu- cydides says, out of fear they should imitate the constitution of that city, and make improvements in virtue, but lest they should teach his own people some evil. For along with for eigners come new subjects of discourse ; new discourse pro duces new opinions ; and from these there necessarily spring new passions and desires, which, like discords in music, would disturb the established government. He therefore thought it more expedient for the city to keep out of it corrupt customs and manners, than even to prevent the introduction of a pestilence.
Thus far, then, we can perceive no vestiges of a disregard to right and wrong, which is the fault some people find with the laws of Lycurgus ; allowing them well enough calculated to produce valor, but not to promote justice. Perhaps it was the Cryptia, as they called it, or ambuscade, if that was really one of this lawgiver's institutions, as Aristotle says it was, which gave Plato so bad an impression both of Lycurgus and his laws. The governors of the youth ordered the shrewdest of them from time to time to disperse themselves in the coun try, provided only with daggers and some necessary provisions. In the daytime they hid themselves, and rested in the most pri vate places they could find; but at night they sallied out into the roads, and killed all the Helotes they could meet with. Nay, sometimes by day, they fell upon them in the fields and murdered the ablest and strongest of them. Thucydides re lates in his history of the Peloponnesian war, that the Spartans selected such of them as were distinguished for their courage, to the number of two thousand or more, declared them free, crowned them with garlands, and conducted them to the temples of the gods ; but soon after they all disappeared ; and no one could, either then or since, give account in what manner they were destroyed. Aristotle particularly says, that the Ephori, as soon as they were invested in their office, declared war against the Helotes, that they might be massacred under pretense of law.
120 A MARTIAL ODE.
In other respects they treated them with great inhumanity: sometimes they made them drink till they were intoxicated, and in that condition led them into the public halls, to show the young men what drunkenness was. They ordered them, too, to sing mean songs, and to dance ridiculous dances, but not to meddle with any that were genteel and graceful. Those who say that a freeman in Sparta was most a freeman, and a slave most a slave, seem well to have considered the difference of states.
A MARTIAL ODE. By TYRTilUS.
[Ttbt^us, Greek elegiac poet, was a native of Attica, and lived about b. c. 700. The Lacedaemonians applied to the Athenians for a commander to lead them in the second Messenian war. They were presented with Tyrtaeus. The war lyrics which he composed so animated the flagging spirits of the Spartan troops that they renewed the contest, and ultimately secured a complete triumph to their arms. }
(Thomas Campbell's Translation. )
How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, In front of battle for their native land !
But oh ! what ills await the wretch that yields, A recreant outcast from his country's fields ! The mother whom he loves shall quit her home, An aged father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe ;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face, They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
Stain of his breed ! dishonoring manhood's form, All ills shall cleave to him : affliction's storm Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years, Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,
He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name, And children, like himself, inured to shame.
But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life blood where we stand, To save our children : — fight ye side by side, And serried close, ye men of youthful pride, Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
A MARTIAL ODE.
Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might; Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age (a sight unblest)
To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
His hoary head dishevelled in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears ;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.
(Polwhele's Translation. )
If, fighting for his dear paternal soil, The soldier in the front of battle fall ;
Tis not in fickle fortune to despoil
His store of fame, that shines the charge of alL
But oppressed by penury, he rove
Far from his native town and fertile plain,
And lead the sharer of his fondest love,
In youth too tender, with her infant train
And if his aged mother — his shrunk sire Join the sad group so many bitter ill
Against the houseless family conspire,
And all the measure of the wretched fill.
Pale, shivering want, companion of his way, He meets the luster of no pitying eye
To hunger and dire infamy prey —
Dark hatred scowls, and scorn quick passes by.
Alas no traits of beauty or of birth — No blush now lingers in his sunken face Dies every feeling (as he roams o'er earth)
Of shame transmitted to wandering race.
But be ours to guard this hallowed spot, To shield the tender offspring and the wife
Here steadily await our destined lot,
And, for their sakes, resign the gift of life.
;
! it
if,
a
a
;
;
;
;
a
122 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Anecdotes and Aphorisms op EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
By DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
[Diogenes, of Laerte In Alicia, wrote — probably about a. d. 200-250 — a book of biographies of Greek philosophers, from which, scrappy and confused as it is, nearly all our knowledge of the history of ancient philosophy is derived. There are reasons for thinking that the extant book is not the original, but a clumsy compilation from it. ]
Thales.
Being asked why he did not become a father, he answered that it was because he was fond of children. When his mother exhorted him to marry, he said, " It is not yet time," and after wards, when he was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, " It is no longer time. "
He thanked fortune for three things : first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast ; secondly, that he was a man and not a woman ; and thirdly, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.
It is said that once he was led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself ; on which the old woman said to him, " Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that you shall understand what is in heaven ? " [For a better form of this, see Bacon's "Apothegms. "]
He said also that there was no difference between life and death. " Why, then," said some one to him, " do not you die ? " "Because," said he, "it does make no difference. "
Another man asked him whether a man who did wrong could escape the notice of the Gods. "No, not even if he thinks wrong," said he.
An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that he had not committed adultery. " Perjury," said he, " is no worse than adultery. "
When the question was put to"him how a man might most easily endure misfortune, he said, If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still. "
When asked how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, " If we never do ourselves what we blame in
others. " " The apothegm,
Know thyself," is his.
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS. 123
Solon.
Laws are like cobwebs : if anything small or weak falls into them, they hold it fast ; if of any size, it breaks the meshes and escapes.
Kings' favorites are like the pebbles used in calculating : the masters make them count for more or less as they will.
When asked how public wrongs could be prevented, he answered, " If those not injured feel as much resentment as those who are. "
Wealth gluts men, and satiety makes them insolent.
Maxims of conduct : Consider your honor as a gentleman of more weight than an oath. Never lie. Attend to serious affairs. Do not be hasty either in making friends or discard ing them. [See Hesiod.
] Wield authority only after you have learned to obey it. Do not give agreeable advice, but good advice. Be guided by reason. Keep out of bad com pany. Honor the gods and your parents.
When lamenting his dead son, some one told him, "Your weeping does no good. " He replied, "That is why I weep — because it does no good. "
Cedxo.
He said to his brother, angry at not being made an Ephor while he (Chilo) was one, " It is because I know how to bear injustice, and you do not. "
Educated men differ from ignorant ones in the rationality of their hopes.
The three hardest things are to keep secrets, to make good use of leisure, and to be able to bear injustice.
Rule your tongue, especially at banquets, and do not speak ill of neighbors.
Threaten no one : that is a woman's trick.
Visit your friends more promptly in adversity than in pros perity.
Do not speak evil of the dead.
Watch yourself.
Choose punishment rather than dishonest gain : the former
is painful but once, the latter all one's life.
Do not deride any one in misfortune.
If you are powerful, be also kind, so that others may respect
rather than fear you.
124 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Learn to order your own household well. Do not let your tongue outrun your sense. Restrain anger. Do not wish im possibilities. Do not hasten too fast on your road. Obey the laws.
Gold is tested by hard stones ; men are tested by gold. Security, then destruction.
He said the one action of his of which he doubted the jus
tice, was voting as a juryman against a friend according to law, but inducing another to vote for and acquit him.
PlTtACUS.
Power shows the man.
The best course is to do well what one is doing at the moment.
It is the part of wise men to provide that perilous junctures shall not arise ; of brave men, to make the best of them when arisen.
Do not tell your designs beforehand: you will be laughed at if you fail.
Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but your enemies.
Watch your chance.
Alcaeus, his contemporary, appears to have loved him. He says Pittacus was splay-footed, dragged his feet in walking, and had scars on them ; put on airs without cause ; was fat, weak-eyed, dirty, and lazy. As another authority says he ground corn for exercise, the poet may have exaggerated.
Bias.
The hardest thing is to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity.
He said he would rather be umpire between his enemies than his friends, " For out of two friends I am sure to make one enemy; while out of two enemies I stand to make one friend. "
Men should live as though they were to live a long time and a short one both [for fear evil results of conduct would bring a long punishment, for fear there would be little time to
work or amend].
Men should love each other as if they might yet come to
hate each other.
Choose your course deliberately, then pursue it firmly.
THE LEGEND OP ARION. 125
THE LEGEND OF ARION. By HERODOTUS.
(Translated by Canon Rawlinson. )
[Herodotus : A celebrated Greek historian, sumamed " The Father of History " ; born between b. c. 490 and b. c. 480, at Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor. While his country was being oppressed by the tyrant Lygdamis, he withdrew to Samos, and subsequently traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Having later assisted in the expulsion of Lygdamis, he took part in the coloni zation of Thurii in southern Italy, and gave public readings from his writings. He died about b. c. 426. His monumental work, "The Histories," consists of nine books, named from the nine Muses, and treats of the history of the Greeks and barbarians from the Persian invasion of Greece down to b. c. 479, as well as to some extent of the history, traditions, geography, manners, and customs of other nations which came in contact with Greece. It marks the beginning of historical writing among the Greeks. ]
Periander was son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. In his time a very wonderful thing is said to have happened. The Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of the matter. They relate that Arion of Methymna, who as a player on the harp was second to no man living at that time, and who was, so far as we know, the first to invent the dithyrambic measure, to give it its name, and to recite in it at Corinth, was carried to Taenarum on the back of a dolphin.
He had lived for many years at the court of Periander, when a longing came upon him to sail across to Italy and Sicily. Having made rich profits in those parts, he wanted to recross the seas to Corinth. He therefore hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking that there was no people in whom he could more safely confide; and going on board, he set sail from Tarentum. The sailors, however, when they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he fell on his knees, beseeching them to spare his life, and making them welcome to his money. But they refused ; and required him either to kill himself outright, if he wished for a grave on the dry land, or without loss of time to leap overboard into the sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and there to play and sing, promising that as soon as his song was ended, he would destroy himself.
126
THE LEGEND OF ARION.
Delighted at the prospect of hearing the very best harper in the world, they consented, and withdrew from the stern to the middle of the vessel; while Arion dressed himself in the full costume of his calling, took his harp, and standing on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian. His strain ended, he flung himself, fully attired as he was, headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dol phin, they say, took him upon his back and carried him to Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence proceeded to Corinth in his musician's dress, and told all that had happened to him.
Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward, to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched anxiously for the return of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them before him, and asked them if they could give him any tidings of Arion. They returned for answer that he was alive and in good health in Italy, and that they had left him at Tarentum, where he was doing well. Thereupon Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the vessel: the men, astonished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their guilt. Such is the account which the Corinthians and Lesbians gave; and there is to this day at Taenarum an offering of Arion's at the shrine, which is a small figure in bronze, representing a man seated upon a dolphin.
[The story was apparently invented from the statue, which was one of Apollo. There is extant a short hymn in which the writer thanks the dolphins for preserving him from death at sea : it is ascribed to Arion, and if his, as Mure thinks, the legend is only a legitimate decoration of the statements in the poem ; though these were doubt less meant figuratively, to express having been saved from ship wreck, —the dolphins, which sport around vessels at sea in calm weather, being considered as guardian sub-deities of seafarers, and " to be saved by the dolphins " being a current term for escaping from perils of the sea. The poem is generally thought apocryphal ; but after all, some one must have written and under this interpre tation as likely to have been Arion as another. The same may be said of the statue was doubtless personal offering in grati tude for having got safe to land, and why should not the poet have made the offering?
; it
it is
a
it,
ARION. 127
ARION.
By GEORGE ELIOT.
[George Eliot, pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Evans Cross : A famous English novelist ; born in Warwickshire, England, November 22, 1819. After the death of her father (1840) she settled in London, where she became assistant editor of the Westminster Review (1851). In 1864 she formed a union with George Henry Lewes, and after his death married, in 1880, John Walter Cross. " Scenes of Clerical Life" first established her reputation as a writer, and was followed by the novels "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," "Silas Marner," "Rom- ola," "Felix Holt," "Middlemarch," and "Daniel Deronda. " Among her other works may be mentioned " The Spanish Gypsy," a drama, and the poems "Agatha," " The Legend of Jubal," and "Armgart. "]
Arion, whose melodic soul Taught the dithyramb to roll
Like forest fires, and sing Olympian suffering,
Had carried his diviner lore From Corinth to the sister shore
Where Greece could largelier be, Branching o'er Italy.
Then, weighted with his glorious name And bags of gold, aboard he came
'Mid harsh seafaring men To Corinth bound again.
The sailors eyed the bags and thought : "The gold is good, the man is naught—
And who shall track the wave That opens for his grave ? "
With brawny arms and cruel eyes They press around him where he lies
In sleep beside his lyre, Hearing the Muses quire.
He waked and saw this wolf-faced Death Breaking the dream that filled his breath
With the inspiration strong Of yet unchanted song.
" Take, take my gold and let me live ! " He prayed as kings do when they give
Their all with royal will, Holding born kingship stilL
ARION.
To rob the living they refuse,
One death or other he must choose,
Either the watery pall Or wounds and burial.
" My solemn robe then let me don, Give me high space to stand upon,
That dying I may pour A song unsung before. "
It pleased them well to grant this prayer, To hear for naught how it might fare
With men who paid their gold For what a poet sold.
In flowing stole, his eyes aglow
With inward fire, he neared the prow
And took his godlike stand, The cithara in hand.
The wolfish men all shrank aloof, And feared this singer might be proof
Against their murderous power, After his lyric hour.
But he, in liberty of song, Fearless of death or other wrong,
With full spondaic toll
Poured forth his mighty soul :
Poured forth the strain his dream had taught, A nome with lofty passion fraught
Such as makes battles won On fields of Marathon.
The last long vowels trembled then As awe within those wolfish men : They said, with mutual stare,
Some god was present there.
But lo ! Arion leaped on high, Ready, his descant done, to die ;
Cotasking, "Is it well? " Like a pierced eagle fell.
SAPPHO AND THE ^OLIAN STOCK. 129
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. By J. A. SYMONDS.
[John Addington Stmonds, English man of letters, was born October 5, 1840 ; graduated at Balliol College, Oxford. He wrote " Introduction to the Study of Dante" (1872) ; "Studies of the Greek Poets" (1873-1876) ; "The Renaissance in Italy " (six volumes, 1875-1886) ; " Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama" (1884); "Life of Michelangelo" (1892); several vol umes of poetry ; translated Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography ; etc. He died April 18, 1893, at Rome. ]
Fob a certain space of time, the JSolians occupied the very foreground of Greek literature, and blazed out with a brilliance of lyrical splendor that has never been surpassed. There seems to have been something passionate and intense in their temper ament, which made the emotions of the Dorian and the Ionian feeble by comparison. Lesbos, the centre of . <Eolian culture, was the island of overmastering passions: the personality of the Greek race burned there with a fierce and steady flame of con centrated feeling. The energies which the Ionians divided between pleasure, politics, trade, legislation, science, and the arts, and which the Dorians turned to war and statecraft and social economy, were restrained by the ^Eolians within the sphere of individual emotions, ready to burst forth volcanically. Nowhere in any age of Greek history, or in any part of Hellas, did the love of physical beauty, the sensibility to radiant scenes of nature, the consuming fervor of personal feeling, assume such grand proportions and receive so illustrious an expression as they did in Lesbos.
At first this passion blossomed into the most exquisite lyrical poetry that the world has known: this was the flower time of the -<Eolians, their brief and brilliant spring. But the fruit it bore was bitter and rotten. Lesbos became a byword for cor ruption. The passions which for a moment had flamed into the gorgeousness of art, burning their envelope of words and images, remained a mere furnace of sensuality, from which no expression of the divine in human life could be expected. In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provencal trouba dours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art upon the beauty of color, the voluptuous charms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic
passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as VOL. m. — 9
130 SAPPHO AND THE iEOLIAN STOCK.
its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued.
Several circumstances contributed to aid the development of lyric poetry in Lesbos. The customs of the iEolians permitted more social and domestic freedom than was common in Greece. ^Eolian women were not confined to the harem like Ionians, or subjected to the rigorous discipline of the Spartans. While mixing freely with male society, they were highly educated, and accustomed to express their sentiments to an extent unknown elsewhere in history — until, indeed, the present time. The Lesbian ladies applied themselves successfully to literature. 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 pas sionate for the beautiful, they cultivated their senses and emo tions, and indulged their wildest passions.
All the luxuries and elegances of life which that climate and the rich valleys of Lesbos could afford were at their disposal: exquisite gardens, where the rose and hyacinth spread perfume ; river beds ablaze with the oleander and wild pomegranate; olive groves and fountains, where the cyclamen and violet flowered with feathery maidenhair; pine-tree-shadowed coves, where they might bathe in the calm of the tideless sea; fruits such as only the southern sun and sea wind can mature; marble cliffs, starred with jonquil and anemone in spring, aromatic with myrtle and lentisk and samphire and wild rosemary through all the months ; nightingales that sang in May; temples dim with dusky gold and bright with ivory ; statues and frescoes of heroic forms. In such scenes as these the Lesbian poets lived, and thought of love. When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colors, sounds, and lights of that luxurious land distilled in verse. Nor was a brief but biting winter wanting to give tone to their nerves, and, by contrast with the summer, to prevent the palling of so much luxury on sated senses. The voluptuousness of ^Eolian poetry is not like that of Persian or Arabian art. It is Greek in its self-restraint, proportion, tact. We find nothing burdensome in its sweetness. All is so rhythmically and sublimely ordered in the poems of Sappho that supreme art lends solemnity and grandeur to the expression of unmitigated passion.
The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss
Sappho
Photogravure from the painting by Alma Tadema
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. 131
of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest fragments pre served in Bergk's "Collection" — the line, for example, which Ben Jonson fancifully translated, "the dear glad angel of the spring, the nightingale" — that we muse in a sad rapture of astonishment to think what the complete poems must have been. Among the ancients Sappho enjoyed a unique renown. She was called "The Poetess," as Homer was called "The Poet. " Aristotle quoted without question a judgment that placed her in the same rank as Homer and Archilochus. Plato in the "Phaedrus" mentioned her as the tenth muse. Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might not see death till he had learned it. Strabo speaks of her genius with religious awe. Longinus cites her love ode as a specimen of poetical sublimity. The epigrammatists call her Child of Aphrodite and Eros, nursling of the Graces and Persuasion, pride of Hellas, peer of Muses, companion of Apollo. Nowhere is a hint whispered that her poetry was aught but perfect. As far as we can judge, these praises were strictly just. 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.
About her life — her brother Charaxus, her daughter Cleis, her rejection of Alcaeus and her suit to Phaon, her love for Atthis and Anactoria, her leap from the Leucadian cliff — we know so very little, and that little is so confused with mythol ogy and turbid with the scandal of the comic poets, that it is not worth while to rake up once again the old materials for hypo thetical conclusions. There is enough of heart-devouring pas sion in Sappho's own verse without the legends of Phaon and the cliff of Leucas. The reality casts all fiction into the shade; for nowhere, except, perhaps, in some Persian or Provencal love songs, can be found more ardent expressions of overmas tering emotion. Whether addressing the maidens, whom even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could not forget; or em bodying the profounder yearnings of an intense soul after beauty, which has never on earth existed, but which inflames the hearts of noblest poets, robbing their 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,
132 SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK.
are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate utterance, dia monds, topazes, and blazing rubies, in which the fire of the soul is crystalized forever.
Bt HENRY T. WHARTON.
Sappho, the one great woman poet of the world, who called herself Psappha in her own iEolic dialect, is said to have been at the zenith of her fame about the year 610 B. C. During her lifetime Jeremiah first began to prophesy (628 B. C. ), Daniel was carried away to Babylon (606 B. C. ), Nebuchadnezzar be sieged and captured Jerusalem (587 B. C. ), Solon was legislating at Athens, and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, is said to have been reigning over Rome. She lived before the birth of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.
Two centuries have sufficed to obscure most of the events in the life of Shakspere; it can hardly be expected that the lapse of twenty-five centuries should have left many authentic records of the history of Sappho. Little even of that internal evidence upon which biography may rely can be gathered from her extant poems, in such fragmentary form have they come down to us. Save for the quotations of grammarians and lexicographers, no word of hers would have survived. Yet her writings seem to have been preserved intact till at least the third century of our era ; for Athenaeus, who wrote about that time, applies to himself the words of the Athenian comic poet Epicrates in his "Anti Lais" (about 360 B. C. ), saying that he, too,
Had learned by heart completely all the songs Breathing of love which sweetest Sappho sang.
Scaliger says, although there does not seem to exist any confirmatory evidence, that the works of Sappho and other lyric poets were burnt at Constantinople and at Rome in the year 1073, in the popedom of Gregory VII. Cardan says the burning took place under Gregory Nazianzen, about 380 a. d. And Petrus Alcydrius says that he heard when a boy that very many of the works of the Greek poets were burnt by order of the Byzantine emperors, and the poems of Gregory Nazianzen circulated in their stead.
