Early European History Part 51

It is difficult for us to realize the att.i.tude of ancient peoples toward their slaves. They were regarded as part of the chattels of the house--as on a level with domestic animals rather than human beings. Though Athenian law forbade owners to kill their slaves or to treat them cruelly, it permitted the corporal punishment of slaves for slight offenses. At Rome, until the imperial epoch, [19] no restraints whatever existed upon the master's power. A slave was part of his property with which he could do exactly as he pleased. The terrible punishments, the beating with scourges which followed the slightest misconduct or neglect of duty, the branding with a hot iron which a runaway slave received, the fearful penalty of crucifixion which followed an attempt upon the owner's life--all these tortures show how hard was the lot of the bondman in pagan Rome.

POSSIBILITIES OF FREEDOM

A slave, under some circ.u.mstances, could gain his freedom. In Greece, where many little states constantly at war bordered one another, a slave could often run away to liberty. In a great empire like Rome, where no boundary lines existed, this was usually impossible. Freedom, however, was sometimes voluntarily granted. A master in his will might liberate his favorite slave, as a reward for the faithful service of a lifetime. A more common practice permitted the slave to keep a part of his earnings until he had saved enough to purchase his freedom.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SLAVE'S COLLAR A runaway slave, if recaptured, was sometimes compelled to wear a metal collar riveted about his neck. One of these collars, still preserved at Rome, bears the inscription: _Servus sum dom(i)ni mei Scholastici v(iri) sp(ectabuis). Tene me ne fugiam de domo._--"I am the slave of my master Scholasticus, a gentleman of importance. Hold me, lest I flee from home."]

PERMANENCE OF SLAVERY

Slavery in Greece and Italy had existed from the earliest times. It never was more flouris.h.i.+ng than in the great age of cla.s.sical history. Nor did it pa.s.s away when the Roman world became Christian. The spread of Christianity certainly helped to improve the lot of the slave and to encourage his liberation. The Church, nevertheless, recognized slavery from the beginning. Not until long after ancient civilization had perished did the curse of slavery finally disappear from European lands. [20]

94. GREEK LITERATURE

EPIC POETRY

The literature of Greece begins with epic poetry. An epic may be defined as a long narrative in verse, dealing with some large and n.o.ble theme. The earliest epic poetry of the Greeks was inseparable from music. Wandering minstrels sang at feasts in the palaces of kings and accompanied their lays with the music of the clear-toned lyre. In time, as his verse reached a more artistic character, the singer was able to give up the lyre and to depend for effect solely on the poetic power of his narrative. Finally, the scattered lays were combined into long poems. The most famous are the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, works which the Greeks attributed to Homer.

[21]

LYRIC POETRY

Several centuries after Homer the Greeks began to create a new form of poetic expression--lyric poetry. In short poems, accompanied by the flute or the lyre, they found a medium for the expression of personal feelings which was not furnished by the long and c.u.mbrous epic. The greatest lyric poet was Pindar. We still possess forty-four of his odes, which were written in honor of victorious athletes at the Olympian and other national games. [22] Pindar's verses were so popular that he became, as it were, the "poet laureate" of Greece. When Alexander the Great destroyed Thebes, [23] the native town of Pindar, he spared that poet's birthplace from the general ruin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOPHOCLES (Lateran Museum, Rome) This marble statue is possibly a copy of the bronze original which the Athenians set up in the theater of Dionysus. The feet and the box of ma.n.u.script rolls are modern restorations.]

ATHENIAN TRAGEDY

The three great masters of the tragic drama [24] lived and wrote in Athens during the splendid half century between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars. Such was the fertility of their genius that they are said to have written altogether nearly three hundred plays. Only thirty-two have come down to us. Aeschylus, the first of the tragic poets, had fought at Marathon and Salamis. One of his works, the _Persians_, is a magnificent song of triumph for the victory of h.e.l.las. Sophocles, while yet a young man, gained the prize in a dramatic contest with Aeschylus. His plays mark the perfection of Greek tragedy. After the death of Sophocles the Athenians revered him as a hero and honored his memory with yearly sacrifices. Euripides was the third of the Athenian dramatists and the most generally popular. His fame reached far beyond his native city. We are told that the Sicilians were so fond of his verses that they granted freedom to every one of the Athenian prisoners captured at Syracuse who could recite the poet's lines.

ATHENIAN COMEDY

Athenian comedy during the fifth century B.C. is represented by the plays of Aristophanes. He was both a great poet and a great satirist. In one comedy Aristophanes attacks the demagogue Cleon, who was prominent in Athenian politics after the death of Pericles. In other comedies he ridicules the philosophers, makes fun of the ordinary citizen's delight in sitting on jury courts and trying cases, and criticizes those responsible for the unfortunate expedition to Sicily. The plays of Aristophanes were performed before admiring audiences of thousands of citizens and hence must have had much influence on public opinion.

HISTORY

The "father of history," Herodotus, flourished about the middle of the fifth century B.C. Though a native of Asia Minor, Herodotus spent some of the best years of his life at Athens, mingling in its brilliant society and coming under the influences, literary and artistic, of that city. He traveled widely in the Greek world and in the East, as a preparation for his great task of writing an account of the rise of the Oriental nations and the struggle between Greece and Persia. Herodotus was not a critical historian, diligently sifting truth from fable. Where he can he gives us facts. Where facts are lacking, he tells interesting stories in a most winning style. A much more scientific writer was Thucydides, an Athenian who lived during the epoch of the Peloponnesian War and became the historian of that contest. An Athenian contemporary of Thucydides, Xenophon, is best known from his _Anabasis_, which describes the famous expedition of the "Ten Thousand" Greeks against Persia. [25]

BIOGRAPHY

Of the later prose writers of Greece it is sufficient to name only one-- the immortal Plutarch. He was a native of Chaeronea in Boeotia and lived during the first century of our era. Greece at that time was only a province of the Roman Empire; the days of her greatness had long since pa.s.sed away. Plutarch thus had rather a melancholy task in writing his _Parallel Lives_. In this work he relates, first the life of an eminent Greek, then of a famous Roman who in some way resembled him; and ends the account with a short comparison of the two men. Plutarch had a wonderful gift of sympathy for his heroes and a keen eye for what was dramatic in their careers. It is not surprising, therefore, that Plutarch has always been a favorite author. No other ancient writer gives us so vivid and intimate a picture of the cla.s.sical world.

ORIGINALITY OF GREEK LITERATURE

From the foregoing survey it is clear that the Greeks were pioneers in many forms of literature. They first composed artistic epic poems. They invented lyric and dramatic poetry. They were the first to write histories and biographies. In oratory, as has been seen, they also rose to eminence.

[26] We shall now find that the Greek intellect was no less fertile and original in the study of philosophy.

95. GREEK PHILOSOPHY

THE SOPHISTS

The Greek philosophy took its rise in the seventh century B.C., when a few bold students began to search out the mysteries of the universe. Their theories were so many and so contradictory, however, that after a time philosophers gave up the study of nature and proposed in turn to study man himself. These later thinkers were called sophists. They traveled throughout Greece, gathering the young men about them and lecturing for pay on subjects of practical interest. Among other things they taught the rhetoric and oratory which were needed for success in a public career.

SOCRATES

One of the founders of Greek philosophy and the greatest teacher of his age was Socrates the Athenian. He lived and taught during the period of the Peloponnesian War. Socrates resembled the sophists in his possession of an inquiring, skeptical mind which questioned every common belief and superst.i.tion. But he went beyond the sophists in his emphasis on problems of every-day morality.

Though Socrates wrote nothing, his teaching and personality made a deep impression on his contemporaries. The Delphic oracle declared that no one in the world was wiser than Socrates. Yet he lived through a long life at Athens, a poor man who would neither work at his trade of sculptor, nor (as did the sophists) accept money for his instruction. He walked the streets, barefoot and half-clad, and engaged in animated conversation with anyone who was willing to discuss intellectual subjects with him. Socrates must have been a familiar figure to the Athenians. His short body, large, bald head, and homely features hardly presented the ideal of a philosopher. Even Aristophanes in a comedy laughs at him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOCRATES (Vatican Gallery, Rome)]

CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SOCRATES

Late in life Socrates was accused of impiety and of corrupting the youth of Athens with his doctrines. As a matter of fact he was a deeply religious man. If he objected to the crude mythology of Homer, he often spoke of one G.o.d, who ruled the world, and of a divine spirit or conscience within his own breast. A jury court found him guilty, however, and condemned him to death. He refused to escape from prison when opportunity offered and pa.s.sed his last days in eager conversation on the immortality of the soul. When the hour of departure arrived, he bade his disciples farewell and calmly drained the cup of hemlock, a poison that caused a painless death. Although Socrates gave his life for his philosophy, this did not perish with him.

PLATO

One of the members of the Socratic circle was Plato, a wealthy n.o.ble who abandoned a public career for the attractions of philosophy. After the death of Socrates, Plato traveled widely in the Greek world and even visited Egypt, where he interviewed the learned priests. On his return to Athens Plato began teaching in the garden and gymnasium called the Academy. [27] His writings, known as _Dialogues_, are cast in the form of question and answer that Socrates had used. In most of them Plato makes Socrates the chief speaker. Plato's works are both profound in thought and admirable in style. The Athenians used to say that if Zeus had spoken Greek he would have spoken it as did Plato.

ARISTOTLE

As great a philosopher as Plato, but a far less attractive writer, was Aristotle. He was not an Athenian by birth, but he pa.s.sed many years in Athens, first as a pupil of Plato, who called him the "mind" of the school, and then as a teacher in the Athenian city. Aristotle seems to have taken all knowledge for his province. He investigated the ideas underlying the arts of rhetoric and poetry; he gathered the const.i.tutions of many Greek states and drew from them some general principles of politics; he studied collections of strange plants and animals to learn their structure and habits; he examined the acts and beliefs of men in order to write books on ethics. In all this investigation Aristotle was not content to accept what previous men had written or to spin a pleasing theory out of his own brain. Everywhere he sought for facts; everything he tried to bring to the test of personal observation. Aristotle, then, was as much a scientist as a philosopher. His books were reverently studied for centuries after his death and are still used in our universities.

EPICUREANISM

The system of philosophy called Epicureanism was founded by a Greek named Epicurus. He taught in Athens during the earlier part of the third century B.C. Epicurus believed that pleasure is the sole good, pain, the sole evil. He meant by pleasure not so much the pa.s.sing enjoyments of the hour as the permanent happiness of a lifetime. In order to be happy men should not trouble themselves with useless luxuries, but should lead the "simple life." They must be virtuous, for virtue will bring more real satisfaction than vice. Above all, men ought to free themselves from idle hopes and fears about a future existence. The belief in the immortality of the soul, said Epicurus, is only a delusion, for both soul and body are material things which death dissolves into the atoms making up the universe. And if there are any G.o.ds, he declared, they do not concern themselves with human affairs. Some of the followers of Epicurus seemed to find in his philosophic system justification for free indulgence in every appet.i.te and pa.s.sion. Even to-day, when we call a person an "Epicurean," we think of him as a selfish pleasure seeker.

STOICISM

The n.o.blest of all pagan philosophies was Stoicism, founded by Zeno, a contemporary of Epicurus. Virtue, said the Stoic, consists in living "according to nature," that is, according to the Universal Reason or Divine Providence that rules the world. The followers of this philosophy tried, therefore, to ignore the feelings and exalt the reason as a guide to conduct. They practiced self-denial, despised the pomps and vanities of the world, and sought to rise above such emotions as grief, fear, hope, and joy. The doctrines of Stoicism gained many adherents among the Romans [28] and through them became a real moral force in the ancient world.

Stoicism is even now no outworn creed. Our very word "stoical" is a synonym for calm indifference to pleasure or to pain.

96. ROMAN LITERATURE

RISE OF ROMAN LITERATURE

The beginnings of Roman literature go back to the third century B.C., when some knowledge of the Greek language became increasingly common in Rome.

The earlier writers--chiefly poets and dramatists--did little original work, and usually were content to translate and adapt the productions of Greek authors for Roman audiences. During this period the Romans gradually discovered the capabilities of their language for prose composition. The republican inst.i.tutions of Rome, like those of Athens, were highly favorable to the art of public speaking. It was the development of oratory which did most to mold the Latin language into fitness for the varied forms of prose.

CICERO

Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators, created a style for Latin prose composition which has been admired and imitated by men of letters even to our own day. Latin, in his hands, became a magnificent instrument for the expression of human thought. Cicero's qualities as an author are shown, not only by his _Orations_, but also by the numerous _Epistles_ which he wrote to friends and correspondents in all parts of the Roman world.

Besides their historical interest Cicero's letters are models of what good letters ought to be--the expression of the writer's real thoughts and feelings in simple, unstilted language. Cicero also composed a number of _Dialogues_, chiefly on philosophical themes. If not very profound, they are delightfully written, and long served as textbooks in the schools.

CAESAR

Another eminent statesman--Julius Caesar--won success in literature. As an orator he was admitted by his contemporaries to stand second to Cicero.

None of his speeches have survived. We possess, however, his invaluable _Commentaries_ on the Gallic and Civil wars. These works, though brief and in most parts rather dull, are highly praised for their simple, concise style and their mastery of the art of rapid narration.