Mosaics of Grecian History Part 48

That vivid force of soul a pa.s.sage found; The flaming walls that close the world around He far o'erleaped; his spirit soared on high Through the vast whole, the one infinity.

Victor, he brought the tidings from the skies What things in nature may, or may not, rise; What stated laws a power finite a.s.sign, And still with bounds impa.s.sable confine.

Thus trod beneath our feet the phantom lies; We mount o'er Superst.i.tion to the skies.

--Trans. By ELTON.

The school of the Stoics was founded by Zeno, a native of Cyprus, who went to Athens about 299 B.C., and opened a school in the Poi'ki-le Sto'a, or painted porch, whence the name of his sect arose. As is well known, the chief tenets of the Stoics were temperance and self-denial, which Zeno himself practiced by living on uncooked food, wearing very thin garments in winter, and refusing the comforts of life generally. To the Stoics pleasure was irrational, and pain a visitation to be borne with ease.

Both Stoicism and Epicureanism flourished among the Romans. The teachings of Epictetus, the Roman Stoic philosopher, are summed up in the formula, "Bear and forbear;" and he is said to have observed that "Man is but a pilot; observe the star, hold the rudder, and be not distracted on thy way." Both these schools of philosophy, however, pa.s.sed into skepticism. Epicureanism became a material fatalism and a search for pleasure; while Stoicism ended in spiritual fatalism. But when the Gospel awakened the human heart to life, it was the Greek mind which gave mankind a Christian theology.

IV. HISTORY

XENOPHON.

The most distinguished Greek historian of this period was Xenophon, of whom we have already seen something as the leader of the famous "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," and as the author of a delightful and instructive account of that achievement. He was born in Athens about 443 B.C., and at an early age became the pupil of Socrates, to whose principles he strictly adhered through life, in practice as well as in theory. Seemingly on account of his philosophical views he was banished by the Athenians, before his return from the expedition into Asia; but the Spartans, with whom he fought against Athens at Coronea, gave him an estate at Scil'lus, in Elis, and here he lived, engaging in literary pursuits, that were diversified by domestic enjoyments and active field-sports.

He died either at Scillus or at Corinth--to which latter place some authorities think he removed in the later years of his life--in the ninetieth year of his age.

Among the works of Xenophon is the Anab'asis, considered his best, descriptive of the advance into Persia and the masterly retreat; the h.e.l.len'ica, a history of Greece, in seven books, from the time of Thucydides to the battle of Mantine'a, in 362 B.C.; the Cyropoedi'a, a political romance, based on the history of Cyrus the Great; a treatise on the horse, and the duties of a cavalry commander; a treatise on hunting; a picture of an Athenian banquet, and of the amus.e.m.e.nt and conversation with which it was diversified; and, the most pleasing of all, the Memorabil'ia, devoted to the defence of the life and principles of Socrates. Concerning the remarkable miscellany of Xenophon, MR. MITCh.e.l.l says: "The writer who has thrown equal interest into an account of a retreating army and the description of a scene of coursing; who has described with the same fidelity a common groom and a perfect pattern of conjugal faithfulness--such a man had seen life under aspects which taught him to know that there were things of infinitely more importance than the turn of a phrase, the music of a cadence, and the other niceties which are wanted by a luxurious and opulent metropolis. The virtuous feelings that were necessary in a mind const.i.tuted as his was, took into their comprehensive bosom the welfare of the world."

Although the genius of Xenophon was not of the highest order, his writings have afforded, to all succeeding ages, one of the best models of purity, simplicity, and harmony of language: By some of his contemporaries he has been styled "The Attic Muse;"

by others, "The Athenian Bee;" while his manners and personal appearance have been described by Diog'enes Laer'tius, in his Lives of the Philosophers, in the following brief but comprehensive sentence: "Modest in deportment, and beautiful in person to a remarkable degree."

POLYB'IUS.

Of the prominent Greek historians, Polybius was the last. Born about 204 B.C., he lived and wrote in the closing period of Grecian history. Having been carried a prisoner to Rome with the one thousand prominent citizens of Achaia, his accomplishments secured for him the friends.h.i.+p of Scip'io Africa'nus Mi'nor, and of his father, aemil'ius Pau'lus, at whose house he resided. He spent his time in collecting materials for his works, and in giving instruction to Scipio. In the year 150 B.C. he returned to his native country with the surviving exiles, and actively exerted himself to induce the Greeks to keep peace with the Romans, but, as we know, without success. After the Roman conquest the Greeks seem to have awakened to the wisdom of his advice, for on a statue erected to his memory was the inscription, "h.e.l.las would have been saved had the advice of Polybius been followed." Polybius wrote a history in forty books, embracing the time between the commencement of the Second Punic War, in 218 B.C., and the destruction of Carthage and Corinth by the Romans, in 146 B.C.

It is the most trustworthy history we possess of this period, and has been closely copied by subsequent writers. A correct estimate of its character and worth will be found in the following summary:

"The greater part of the valuable and laborious work of Polybius has perished. We have only the first five books entire, and fragments and extracts of the rest. As it is, however, it is one of the most valuable historical works that has come down to us. His style, indeed, will not bear a comparison with the great masters of Greek literature: he is not eloquent, like Thucydides; nor practical, like Herodotus; nor perspicuous and elegant, like Xenophon. He lived at a time when the Greek language had lost much of its purity by an intermixture of foreign elements, and he did not attempt to imitate the language of the Attic writers. He wrote as he spoke: he gives us the first rough draft of his thoughts, and seldom imposes on himself the trouble to arrange or methodize them; hence, they are often meager and desultory, and not infrequently deviate entirely from the subject.

"But in the highest quality of an historian--the love of truth-- Polybius has no superior. This always predominates in his writings.

He has judgment to trace effects to their causes, a full knowledge of his subjects, and an impartiality that forbids him to conceal it to favor any party or cause. In his geographical descriptions he is not always clear, but his descriptions of battles have never been surpa.s.sed. 'His writings have been admired by the warrior, copied by the politician, and imitated by the historian.

Brutus had him ever in his hands, Tully transcribed him, and many of the finest pa.s.sages of Livy are the property of the Greek historian.'"

ART.

I. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.

After the close of the Peloponnesian war the perfection and application of the several orders of Grecian architecture were displayed in the laying out of cities on a grander scale, and by an increase of splendor in private residences, rather than by any marked change in the style of public buildings and temples.

Alexandria in Egypt, and Antioch in Syria, were the finest examples of Grecian genius in this direction, both in the regularity and size of their public and private buildings, and in their external and internal adornment. This period was also distinguished for its splendid sepulchral and other monuments. Of these, probably the most exquisite gem of architectural taste is the circular building at Athens, the Cho-rag'ic Monument, or "Lantern of Demosthenes," erected in honor of a victory gained by the chorus of Lysic'rates in 334 B.C. "It is the purest specimen of the Corinthian order," says a writer on architecture, "that has reached our time, whose minuteness and un.o.btrusive beauty have preserved it almost entire among the ruins of the mightiest piles of Athenian art." Other celebrated monuments of this period were the one erected at Halicarnas'sus by the Ca'rian queen Artemi'sia to the memory of her husband Mauso'lus, adorned with sculptural decorations by Sco'pas and others, and considered one of the seven wonders of the world; and the octagonal edifice, the Horolo'gium of Androni'cus Cyrrhes'tes, at Athens.

In sculpture, Athens still a.s.serted its pre-eminence, but the style and character of its later school were materially different from those of the preceding one of Phid'ias. "Toward the close of the Peloponnesian war," says a recent writer, "a change took place in the habits and feelings of the Athenian people, under the influence of which a new school of statuary was developed.

The people, spoiled by luxury, and craving the pleasures and excitements which the prosperity of the age of Pericles had opened to them, regarded the severe forms of the older masters with even less patience than the austere virtues of the generation which had driven the Persians out of Greece. The sculptors, giving a reflex of the times in their productions, instead of the grand and sublime cultivated the soft, the graceful, and the flowing, and aimed at an expression of stronger pa.s.sion and more dramatic action. Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the favorite subjects of the Phidian era, gave place to such deities as Venus, Bacchus, and Amor; and with the departure of the older G.o.ds departed also the serene and composed majesty which had marked the representations of them." [Footnote: C. S. Weyman.]

The first great artist of this school was Scopas, born at Paros, and who flourished in the first half of the fourth century B.C.

Although famous in architectural sculpture, he excelled in single figures and groups, "combining strength of expression with grace."

The celebrated group of Ni'o-be and her children slain by Ar'temis and Apollo, a copy of which is preserved in the museum of Florence, and the statue of the victorious Venus in the Louvre at Paris, are attributed to Scopas. The most esteemed of his works, according to Pliny, was a group representing Achilles conducted to the Island of Leu'ce by sea deities. The only other artist of this school that we will refer to is Praxit'eles, a contemporary of Scopas.

He excelled in representing the female figure, his masterpiece being the Cnid'ian Aphrodi'te, a naked statue, in Parian marble, modeled from life, representing Venus just leaving the bath.

This statue was afterward taken to Constantinople, where it was burned during the reign of Justinian.

This Athenian school of sculpture was followed, in the time of Alexander the Great, by what was called the Si-cy-o'ni-an school, of which Euphra'nor, of Corinth, and Lysip'pus, of Si'cy-on, were the leading representatives. The former was a painter as well as sculptor. His statues were executed in bronze and marble, and were admired for their dignity. Lysippus worked only in bronze, and was the only sculptor that Alexander the Great permitted to represent him in statues. His works were very numerous, including the colossal statue of Jupiter at Tarentum, sixty feet high, several of Hercules, and many others. The succeeding and later Greek sculptors made no attempt to open a new path of design, but they steadily maintained the reputation of the art. Many works of great excellence were produced in Rhodes, Alexandria, Ephesus, and elsewhere in the East. Among these was the famous Colossus, a statue of the sun, designed and executed by Cha'res of Rhodes, that reared its huge form one hundred and five feet in height at the entrance to Rhodes harbor; the Farnese Bull, at Naples, found in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, also the work of a Rhodian artist; and the Apollo Belvedere, in the Vatican.

Two works of this late age deserve special mention. One is the statue of the Dying Gladiator, in the Capitoline Museum at Rome, supposed to have come from Pergamus. Says LuBKE, "It undoubtedly represents a Gaul who, in battle, seeing the foe approach in overwhelming force, has fallen upon his own sword to escape a shameful slavery. Overcome by the faintness of approaching death, he has fallen upon his s.h.i.+eld; his right arm with difficulty prevents his sinking to the ground; his life ebbs rapidly away with the blood streaming from the deep wound beneath his breast; his broad head droops heavily forward; the mists of death already cloud his eyes; his brows are knit with pain; and his lips are parted in a last sigh. There is, perhaps, no other statue in which the bitter necessity of death is expressed with such terrible truth--all the more terrible because the hardy body is so full of strength."

Supported on his shortened arm he leans, p.r.o.ne agonizing; with inc.u.mbent fate Heavy declines his head, yet dark beneath The suffering feature sullen vengeance lowers, Shame, indignation, unaccomplished rage; And still the cheated eye expects his fall.

--THOMSON.

The other statue is that masterpiece of art, the group of the La-oc'o-on, now in the Vatican at Rome, the work of the three Rhodian sculptors, Agesan'dros, Polydo'rus, and Athenodo'rus.

It represents a scene, in connection with the fall of Troy, that Virgil describes in the Second Book of the aeneid. A Trojan priest, named Laoc.o.o.n, endeavored to propitiate Neptune by sacrifice, and to dissuade the Trojans from admitting within the walls the fatal wooden horse, whereupon the G.o.ddess Minerva, ever favorable to the Greeks, punished him by sending two enormous serpents from the sea to destroy him and his two sons. The poet THOMSON well describes the agony and despair that the statue portrays:

Such pa.s.sion here!

Such agonies! such bitterness of pain Seem so to tremble through the tortured stone That the touched heart engrosses all the view.

Almost unmarked the best proportions pa.s.s That ever Greece beheld; and, seen alone, On the rapt eye the imperious pa.s.sions seize: The father's double pangs, both for himself And sons, convulsed; to Heaven his rueful look, Imploring aid, and half-accusing, cast; His fell despair with indignation mixed As the strong-curling monsters from his side His full-extended fury cannot tear.

More tender touched, with varied art, his sons All the soft rage of younger pa.s.sions show: In a boy's helpless fate one sinks oppressed, While, yet unpierced, the frighted other tries His foot to steal out of the horrid twine.

An American writer thus apostrophizes this grand representation:

Laoc.o.o.n! thou great embodiment Of human life and human history!

Thou record of the past, thou prophecy Of the sad future! thou majestic voice, Pealing along the ages from old time!

Thou wail of agonized humanity!

There lives no thought in marble like to thee!

Thou hast no kindred in the Vatican, But standest separate among the dreams Of old mythologies-alone-alone!

--J. G. HOLLAND.

II. PAINTING.

In painting, the Asiatic school of Zeuxis and Parrhasius was also followed by a "Si-cy-o'ni-an school"--the third and last phase of Greek painting, founded by Eupom'pus, of Si'cy-on. The characteristics of this school were great ease, accuracy, and refinement. Among its chief masters were Pam'philus, Apel'les, Protog'enes, Ni'cias, and Aristides. Of these the most famous was Apelles, a native of Col'ophon, in Ionia, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great, with whom he was a great favorite.

Of his many fine productions the finest was his painting of Venus rising from the Sea, and concerning which ANTIPATER, the poet of Sidon, wrote the following epigram:

Graceful as from her native sea she springs, Venus, the labor of Apelles, view: With pressing hands her humid locks she wrings, While from her tresses drips the frothy dew: Ev'n Juno and Minerva now declare, No longer we contend whose form's most fair.

APELLES AND PROTOGENES.

A very pleasing story is told, by Pliny, of Apelles and his brother-artist, Protogenes, which DR. ANTHON relates as follows:

"Apelles, having come to Rhodes, where Protogenes was then residing, paid a visit to the artist, but, not finding him at home, obtained permission from a domestic in waiting to enter his studio. Finding here a piece of canvas ready on the frame for the artist's pencil, Apelles drew upon it a line (according to some, a figure in outline) with wonderful precision, and then retired without disclosing his name. Protogenes, on returning home, and discovering what had been done, exclaimed that Apelles alone could have executed such a sketch. However, he drew another himself--a line more nearly perfect than that of Apelles--and left directions with his domestic that, when the stranger should call again, he should be shown what had been done by him. Apelles came, accordingly, and, perceiving that his line had been excelled by Protogenes, drew a third one, much better than the other two, and cutting both. Protogenes now confessed himself vanquished; he ran to the harbor, sought for Apelles, and the two artists became the warmest friends. The canvas containing this famous trial of skill became highly prized, and at a later day was placed in the palace of the Caesars at Rome. Here it was burned in a conflagration that destroyed the palace itself."

Protogenes was noted for his minute and scrupulous care in the preparation of his works. He carried this peculiarity to such excess that Apelles was moved to make the following comparison: "Protogenes equals or surpa.s.ses me in all things but one--the knowing when to remove his hand from a painting." Protogenes survived Apelles, and became a very eminent painter. It is stated that when Demetrius besieged Rhodes, and could have reduced it by setting fire to a quarter of the city that contained one of the finest productions of Protogenes, he refused to do so lest he should destroy the masterpiece of art. It is to this incident that the poet THOMSON undoubtedly refers when he says,

E'en such enchantment then thy pencil poured, That cruel-thoughted War the impatient torch Dashed to the ground; and, rather than destroy The patriot picture, let the city 'scape.

From the time of Alexander the art of painting rapidly deteriorated, and at the period of the Roman conquest it had scarcely an existence. Grecian art, like Grecian liberty, had lost its spirit and vitality, and the spoliation of public buildings and galleries, to adorn the porticos and temples of Rome, hastened its extinction. We have now reached the close of the history of ancient Greece. But h.e.l.las still lives in her thousand hallowed a.s.sociations of historic interest, and in the numerous ruins of ancient art and splendor which cover her soil-- recalling a glorious Past, upon which we love to dwell as upon the memory of departed friends or the scenes of a happy childhood-- "sweet, but mournful to the soul." And although the ashes of her generals, her poets, her scholars, and her artists are scattered from their urns, and her statuary and her temples are mutilated and discolored ruins, ancient Greece lives also in the song, the art, and the research of modern times. In contemplating the influence of her genius, the mind is naturally fixed upon the chief repository of her taste and talent--Athens, "the eye of Greece"--from which have sprung "all the strength, the wisdom, the freedom, and the glory of the western world."

Within the surface of Time's fleeting river Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay, Immovably unquiet, and forever It trembles, but it cannot pa.s.s away!

The voices of thy bards and sages thunder With an earth-awaking blast Through the caverns of the past; Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast; A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew, Rending the veil of s.p.a.ce and time asunder!