Early European History

by Hutton Webster

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 noble 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 cumbrous 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.

[Illustration: 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
manuscript 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 Hellas. 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 passed 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 classical 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.