Mosaics of Grecian History Part 47

Menander was an intimate friend of Epicu'rus, the philosopher, and is supposed to have adopted his teachings. On this point, however, MR. SYMONDS thus remarks: "Speaking broadly, the philosophy in vogue at Athens during the period of the New Comedy was what in modern days is known as Epicureanism. Yet it would be unjust to confound the grave and genial wisdom of Menander with so trivial a philosophy as that which may be summed up in the sentence 'eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' A fragment from an unknown play of his expresses the pathos of human existence with a depth of feeling that is inconsistent with mere pleasure-seeking:

"'When thou would'st know thyself, what man thou art, Look at the tombstones as thou pa.s.sest by: Within those monuments lie bones and dust Of monarchs, tyrants, sages, men whose pride Rose high because of wealth, or n.o.ble blood, Or haughty soul, or loveliness of limb; Yet none of these things strove for them 'gainst time; One common death hath ta'en all mortal men.

See thou to this, and know thee who thou art.'"

As EUGENE LAWRENCE says: "Most modern comedies are founded on those of Menander. They revive their characters, repeat their jokes, transplant their humor; and the wit of Moliere, Shakspeare, or Sheridan is often the same that once awoke shouts of laughter on the Attic stage."

II. ORATORY.

Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democracy, Shook the a.r.s.enal, and fulmined over Greece To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.

--MILTON.

Eloquence, or oratory, which Cicero calls "the friend of peace and the companion of tranquillity, requiring for her cradle a commonwealth already well-established and flouris.h.i.+ng," was fostered and developed in Greece by the democratic character of her inst.i.tutions. It was scarcely known there until the time of Themistocles, the first orator of note; and in the time of Pericles it suddenly rose, in Athens, to a great height of perfection. Pericles himself, whose great aim was to sway the a.s.semblies of the people to his will, cultivated oratory with such application and success, that the poets of his day said of him that on some occasions the G.o.ddess of persuasion, with all her charms, seemed to dwell on his lips; and that, at other times, his discourse had all the vehemence of thunder to move the souls of his hearers. The golden age of Grecian eloquence is embraced in a period of one hundred and thirty years from the time of Pericles, and during this period Athens bore the palm alone.

Of the many Athenian orators the most distinguished were Lys'ias, Isoc'rates, aeschines, and Demosthenes. The first was born about 435 B.C., and was admired for the perspicuity, purity, sweetness, and delicacy of his style. Having become a resident of Thurii in early life, on his return to Athens he was not allowed to speak in the a.s.semblies, or courts of justice, and therefore wrote orations for others to deliver. Many of these are characterized by great energy and power. Dionysius, the Roman historian and critic, praises Lysias for his grace; Cicero commends him for his subtlety; and Quintilian esteems him for his truthfulness. Isocrates was born at Athens in 436. Having received the instructions of some of the most celebrated Sophists of his time, he opened a school of rhetoric, and was equally esteemed for the excellence of his compositions--mostly political orations--and for his success in teaching. His style was more philosophic, smooth, and elegant than that of Lysias. "Cicero,"

says a modern critic, "whose style is exceedingly like that of Isocrates, appears to have especially used him as a model--as indeed did Demosthenes; and through these two orators he has moulded all the prose of modern Europe." Isocrates lived to the advanced age of ninety-eight, and then died, it is said, by voluntary starvation, in grief for the fatal battle of Chaeronea.

"That dishonest victory.

At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, Killed with report that old man eloquent."

aeSCHINES AND DEMOSTHENES.

The orator aeschines was born in 398 B.C. He is regarded as the father of extemporaneous speaking among the Greeks, but is chiefly distinguished as the rival of Demosthenes, rather than for his few orations (but three in number) that have come down to us, although he was endowed by nature with extraordinary rhetorical powers, and his orations are characterized by ease, order, clearness, and precision. "The eloquence of aeschines," says an American scholar and statesman, [Footnote: Hugh S. Legare, of Charleston, South Carolina, in an article on "Demosthenes" in the New York Review.] "is of a brilliant and showy character, running occasionally, though very rarely, into a Ciceronean declamation. In general his taste is unexceptionable; he is clear in statement, close and cogent in argument, lucid in arrangement, remarkably graphic and animated in style, and full of spirit and pleasantry, without the least appearance of emphasis or effort.

He is particularly successful in description and the portraiture of character. That his powers were appreciated by his great rival is evident from the latter's frequent admonitions to the a.s.sembly to remember that their debates are no theatrical exhibitions of voice and oratory, but deliberations involving the safety of their country."

On leaving Athens, after his defeat in the celebrated contest with Demosthenes, aeschines went to Rhodes, where he established a school of rhetoric. It is stated that on one occasion he began his instruction by reading the two orations that had been the cause of his banishment. His hearers loudly applauded his own speech, but when he read that of Demosthenes they were wild with delight. "If you thus praise it from my reading it," exclaimed aeschines, "what would you have said if you had heard Demosthenes himself deliver it?"

By the common consent of ancient and modern times, Demosthenes stands pre-eminent for his eloquence, his patriotism, and his influence over the Athenian people. He was born about 383 B.C.

On attaining his majority, his first speech was directed against a cousin to whom his inheritance had been intrusted, and who refused to surrender to him what was left of it. Demosthenes won his case, and his victory brought him into such prominent notice that he was soon engaged to write pleadings for litigants in the courts. He devoted himself to incessant study and practice in oratory, and, overcoming by various means a weakly body and an impediment in his speech, he became the chief of orators.

Of his public life we have already seen something in the history of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, the closing years of his life were shaded with misery and disgrace. Fifty years after his death the Athenians erected a bronze statue to his memory, and upon the pedestal placed this inscription:

Divine in speech, in judgment, too, divine, Had valor's wreath, Demosthenes, been thine, Fair Greece had still her freedom's ensign borne, And held the scourge of Macedon in scorn!

With regard to the character of the orations of Demosthenes, it must be confessed that somewhat conflicting views have been entertained by the moderns. LORD BROUGHAM, while admitting that Demosthenes "never wanders from the subject, that each remark tells upon the matter in hand, that all his ill.u.s.trations are brought to bear upon the point, and that he is never found making a step in any direction which does not advance his main object, and lead toward the conclusion to which he is striving to bring his hearers," still denies that he is distinguished for those "chains of reasoning," and that "fine argumentation" which are the chief merit of our greatest modern orators. While he admits that Demosthenes abounds in the most "appropriate topics, and such happy hits--to use a homely but expressive phrase--as have a magical effect upon a popular a.s.sembly, and that he clothes them in the choicest language, arranges them in the most perfect order, and captivates the ear with a music that is fitted, at his will, to provoke or to soothe, and even to charm the sense,"

he regards all this as better suited to great popular a.s.semblies than to a more refined, and a more select audience--such as one composed of learned senators and judges. But this is admitting that he adapted himself, with admirable tact and judgment, to the subject and the occasion. But while the character thus attributed to the orations of the great Athenian orator may be the true one, as regards the Philippics, the speech against aeschines, and the one on the Crown, it is not thought to be applicable to the many pleas which he made on occasions more strictly judicial.

"That which distinguishes the eloquence of Demosthenes above all others, ancient or modern," says the American writer already quoted, "is earnestness, conviction, and the power to persuade that belongs to a strong and deep persuasion felt by the speaker.

It is what Milton defines true eloquence to be, 'none but the serious and hearty love of truth'--or, more properly, what the speaker believes to be truth. This advantage Demosthenes had over aeschines. He had faith in his country, faith in her people (if they could be roused up), faith in her inst.i.tutions. He is mad at the bare thought that a man of Macedon, a barbarian, should be beating Athenians in the field, and giving laws to Greece.

The Roman historian and critic, Dionysius, said of his oratory, that its highest attribute was the spirit of life that pervades it. Other remarkable features were its amazing flexibility and variety, its condensation and perfect logical unity, its elaborate and exquisite finish of details, to which must be added that polished harmony and rhythm which cannot be attained, to a like degree, in any modern language. Moreover, however elaborately composed these speeches were, they were still speeches, and had the appearance of being the spontaneous effusions of the moment.

No extemporaneous harangues were ever more free and natural."

The historian HUME says of the style of Demosthenes: "It was rapid harmony adjusted to the sense; vehement reasoning without any appearance of art; disdain, anger, boldness, and freedom, involved in a continued strain of argument." Another writer says: "It was his undeviating firmness, his disdain of all compromise, that made him the first of statesmen and orators; in this lay the substance of his power, the primary foundation of his superiority; the rest was merely secondary. The mystery of his mighty influence, then, lay in his honesty; and it is this that gave warmth and tone to his feelings, an energy to his language, and an impression to his manner before which every imputation of insincerity must have immediately vanished."

III. PHILOSOPHY.

PLATO.

While oratory was thus attaining perfection in Greece, philosophy was making equal progress in the direction marked out by Socrates.

Among the philosophers of the brighter period of Grecian history are the names of Plato and Aristotle, names that will ever be cherished and venerated while genius and worth continue to be held in admiration. Of the pupils of Socrates, Plato, born in Athens in 429 B.C., was by far the most distinguished, and the only one who fully appreciated the intellectual greatness and seized the profound conceptions of his master. In fact, he came to surpa.s.s Socrates in the profoundness of his views, and in the correctness and eloquence with which he expressed them. On the death of his teacher, Plato left Athens and pa.s.sed twelve years in visiting different countries, engaged in philosophic investigation. Returning to Athens, he founded his school of philosophy in the Acade'mia, a beautiful spot in the suburbs of the city, adorned with groves, walks, and fountains, and which his name has immortalized.

Here Philosophy With Plato dwelt, and burst the chains of mind; Here, with his stole across his shoulders flung, His homely garments with a leathern zone Confined, his snowy beard low cl.u.s.t'ring down Upon his ample chest, his keen dark eye Glancing from underneath the arched brow, He fixed his sandaled foot, and on his staff Leaned, while to his disciples he declared How all creation's mighty fabric rose From the abyss of chaos: next he traced The bounds of virtue and of vice; the source Of good and evil; sketched the ideal form Of beauty, and unfolded all the powers Of mind by which it ranges uncontrolled, And soars from earth to immortality.

--HAYGARTH.

To Plato, as the poet intimates in his closing lines, we owe the first formal development of the Socratic doctrine of the spirituality of the soul, and the first attempt toward demonstrating its immortality. As a late writer has well said, "It is the genius of Socrates that fills all Plato's philosophy, and their two minds have flowed out over the world together."

Of his doctrine on this subject, as expressed in the Phoe'do, LORD BROUGHAM thus wrote: "The whole tenor of it refers to a renewal or continuation of the soul as a separate and individual existence after the dissolution of the body, and with a complete consciousness of personal ident.i.ty: in short, to a continuance of the same rational being's existence after death. The liberation from the body is treated as the beginning of a new and more perfect life." Plato's only work on physical science is the Timoe'us.

His works are all called "Dialogues," which the critics divide into two cla.s.ses--those of search, and those of exposition. Among the latter, the Republic and the Laws give us the author's political views; and, on the former, More's Uto'pia and other works of like character in modern times are founded.

"Plato, of all authors," says DR. A. C. KENDRICK, [Footnote: Article "Plato," in Appleton's American Cyclipoedia.] "is the one to whom the least justice can be done by any formal a.n.a.lysis.

In the spirit which pervades his writings, in their untiring freshness, in their purity, love of truth and of virtue, their perpetual aspiring to the loftiest height of knowledge and of excellence, much more than in their positive doctrines, lies the secret of their charm and of their unfailing power. Plato is often styled an idealist. But this is true of the spirit rather than of the form of his doctrine; for strictly he is an intense realist, and differs from his great pupil, Aristotle, far less in his mere philosophical method than in his lofty moral and religious aspirations, which were perpetually winging his spirit toward the beautiful and the good. His formal errors are abundant; but even in his errors the truth is often deeper than the error; and when that has been discredited, the language adjusts itself to the deeper truth of which it was rather an inadequate expression than a direct contradiction." Concerning the style of Plato's writings, a distinguished English scholar and translator observes as follows: "Nor is the language in which his thoughts are conveyed less remarkable than the thoughts themselves. In his more elevated pa.s.sages he rises, like his own Prometheus, to heaven, and brings down from thence the n.o.blest of all thefts, [Footnote: See the story of Prometheus.] Wisdom with Fire; but, in general, calm, pure, and unaffected, his style flows like a stream which gurgles its own music as it runs; and his works rise, like the great fabric of Grecian literature, of which they are the best model, in calm and noiseless majesty." [Footnote: Thomas Mitch.e.l.l.]

Plato died at the advanced age of eighty-one, his mental powers unimpaired, and he was buried in the Academe. On his tomb was placed the following inscription:

Here, first of all men for pure justice famed, Aris'tocles, the moral teacher, lies: [Footnote: The proper name of Plato was Aristocles: but in his youth he was surnamed Plato by his companions in the gymnasium, on account of his broad shoulders.

(From the Greek word platus, "broad.")]

And if there ere has lived one truly wise, This man was wiser still: too great for envy.

ARISTOTLE.

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C., at Stagi'ra, in Macedonia. Hence he is frequently called the "Stag'i-rite;" as POPE calls him in the following tribute found in his Temple of Fame:

Here, in a shrine that cast a dazzing light, Sat, fixed in thought, the mighty Stagirite; His sacred head a radiant zodiac crowned, And various animals his sides surround; His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view Superior worlds, and look all nature through.

He repaired to Athens at the age of seventeen, and soon after became a pupil of Plato. His uncommon acuteness of apprehension, and his indefatigable industry, early won the notice and applause of his master, who called him the "mind" of the school, and said, when he was absent, "Intellect is not here." On the death of Plato, Aristotle left Athens, and in 343 he repaired to Macedonia, on the invitation of Philip, and became the instructor of the young prince Alexander. In after years Alexander aided him in his scientific pursuits by sending to him many objects of natural history, and giving him large sums of money, estimated in all at two millions of dollars.

In the year 335 Aristotle returned to Athens, and opened his school in the Lyce'um. He walked with his scholars up and down the shady avenues, conversing on philosophy, and hence his school was called the peripatetic. Aristotle nowhere exhibits the merits of Plato in the service of metaphysics, yet he was the most learned and most productive of the writers of Greece. He had neither the poetical imagination nor the genius of his teacher, but he mastered the whole philosophical and historical science of his age, and, more than Plato, his intellect has influenced the course of modern civilization. He was eminently a practical philosopher--a cold inquirer, whose mind did not reach the high and lofty teaching of Plato, concerning Deity and the destiny of mankind. We find the following just estimate of him in BROWNE'S Greek Cla.s.sical Literature: "One cannot set too high a value on the practical nature of Aristotle's mind. He never forgot the bearing of all philosophy upon the happiness of man, and he never lost sight of man's wants and requirements. He saw the inadequacy of all knowledge, unless he could trace in it a visible practical tendency. But, beyond this one single point, he falls grievously short of his great master, Plato. All his ideas of man's good are limited to the consideration of this life alone. It is impossible to trace in his writings any belief in a future state or immortality."

For many centuries succeeding the Middle Ages, especially from the eleventh to the fifteenth, the metaphysical teachings of Aristotle held a tyrannic sway over the public mind; but they have been gradually yielding to the more lofty and sublime teachings of Plato. His investigations in natural science, however, and his work as a logician and political philosopher, const.i.tute his greatness, and create the enormous influence that he has wielded in the world. "Science owes to him its earliest impulse,"

says MR. LAWRENCE. "He perfected and brought into form," says DR. WILLIAM SMITH, "those elements of the dialectic art which had been struck out by Socrates and Plato, and wrought them by his additions into so complete a system that he may be regarded as at once the founder and perfecter of logic as an art." Says MAHAFFY, "He has built his politics upon so sound a philosophic basis, and upon the evidence of so large and varied a political experience, that his lessons on the rise and fall of governments will never grow old, and will be perpetually receiving fresh corroborations, so long as human nature remains the same."

Aristotle was a friend of the Macedonians, and, on the death of Alexander, he fled, from Athens to Chal'cis, in Euboea, to escape a trial for impiety. There he died in 322 B.C. In the lives of the three great philosophers of Greece--Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle--is embraced what is commonly called "The Philosophical Era of Athens." To this era MILTON has beautifully alluded in his well-known description of the famous city; and for the Academe, or Academia, the beautiful garden that was the resort of the philosophers, EDWIN ARNOLD expresses these sentiments of veneration:

Pleasanter than the hills of Thessaly, Nearer and dearer to the poet's heart Than the blue ripple belting Salamis, Or long gra.s.s waving over Marathon, Fair Academe, most holy Academe, Thou art, and hast been, and shalt ever be.

I would be numbered now with things that were, Changing the wasting fever of to-day For the dear quietness of yesterday: I would be ashes, underneath the gra.s.s, So I had wandered in thy platane walks One happy summer twilight--even one.

Was it not grand, and beautiful, and rare, The music and the wisdom and the shade, The music of the pebble-paven rills, And olive boughs, and bowered nightingales, Chorusing joyously the joyous things Told by the gray Silenus of the grove, Low-fronted and large-hearted Socrates!

Oh, to have seen under the olive blossoms But once--only once in a mortal life, The marble majesties of ancient G.o.ds!

And to have watched the ring of listeners-- The Grecian boys gone mad for love of truth, The Grecian girls gone pale for love of him Who taught the truth, who battled for the truth; And girls and boys, women and bearded men, Crowding to hear and treasure in their hearts Matter to make their lives a happiness, And death a happy ending.

EPICU'RUS AND ZE'NO.

What is known as the Epicure'an school of philosophy was founded by Epicurus, a native of Samos, born in 342, who went to Athens in early youth, and, at the age of thirty, established himself as a philosophical teacher. He met with great success. He did not believe in the soul's immortality, and taught the pursuit of mental pleasure and happiness as the highest good. While his learning was not great, he was a man of unsullied morality, respected and loved by his followers to a wonderful degree.

Although he wrote books in advocacy of piety, and the reverence due to the G.o.ds on account of the excellence of their nature, he maintained that they had no concern in human affairs. Hence the Roman poet LUCRETIUS, who lived when the old belief in the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of the heathen world had nearly faded away, attributes to the teachings of Epicurus the triumph of philosophy over superst.i.tion.

On earth in bondage base existence lay, Bent down by Superst.i.tion's iron sway.

She from the heavens disclosed her monstrous head, And dark with grisly aspect, scowling dread, Hung o'er the sons of men; but toward the skies A man of Greece dared lift his mortal eyes, And first resisting stood. Not him the fame Of deities, the lightning's forky flame, Or muttering murmurs of the threat'ning sky Repressed; but roused his soul's great energy To break the bars that interposing lay, And through the gates of nature burst his way.