FOOTNOTES
[61] Βίοι σοφ. ii. 32, 2.
[62] The picture of Athens given in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. xvii.) shows that the city was full of people cultivated in philosophy and letters, but indisposed to pursue any serious calling. They lived in the agora all day, as in a great club, looking out for gossip and news. If any one desires to see a modern parallel, I refer him to the Hall and Library of the Four Courts in Dublin—the most agreeable place in the world to visit; for there the bar of Ireland, many of them for want of briefs, occupy themselves with all the scandal of the day. Nay, even those who are busy refresh themselves, in passing, with five minutes’ talk, and are never too hurried to enjoy a good story when it is offered to them. There is even a great deal of real business done in this desultory and peripatetic way. Whether a new system of philosophy or a new religion would find a hearing is perhaps doubtful, and marks the difference between the old Greek and the modern idler.
[63] Thus, a critic might argue that the present ills of Ireland arise not only from general idleness and want of thrift, but from melancholy ignorance of all scientific principles of agriculture, and from a total misappreciation of the conditions of trading; for here, if anywhere, honesty is the best policy; but it is not obvious to the ignorant, especially if they be astute. These evils might be diminished by diffusing agricultural and commercial schools through the country, not by granting university degrees for a smattering in arts.
[64] In his Lexicon, sub voc. Plato.
[65] All foreigners, on the contrary, seem to love official dress, whether military or not. I was once in Genoa during a regatta, when a crew of visitors from Spezia or Livorno used to walk about the streets in boating costume, with their oars over their shoulders, to the admiration of the Genoese. Imagine the Oxford eight, the day before the University race, sauntering along Piccadilly in this style! I recommend this case to the theorists who maintain that human nature is the same at all times and places.
[66] The description by Libanius of the rhetor’s duty, to receive the lad from his parents, to advise him, and even to punish him for idleness, to acquaint the parents periodically of his progress, etc., reminds us perfectly of the duties of a college tutor. But this was clearly a voluntary task, and generally undertaken not merely from duty towards the lad, but from a desire to be popular and to secure a large following.
[67] Χορός, θίασος, σύνοδος (religious), συνουσία, ποίμνιον, ἀγέλη. I see that Sievers, in his life of Libanius, understands ἄρχων and χορός of a council of professors; but this is surely incorrect. He was probably misled by finding so much power attributed to a mere student.
[68] Called by the Romans sagatio, and hence probably soldiers’ horse-play, as sagum is a soldier’s cloak.
[69] Libanius, i. 17.
[70] ii. and iii. are published; iv. is to follow.
[71] It is said that the exiled iconoclasts, driven out to Bulgaria, were the spiritual parents of the Hussites and other early reformers in Bohemia. From this new centre Protestantism spread across Europe. So that the Scottish Puritan, and, for that matter, the New England Puritan, derives his uncompromising earnestness from the remote source which produced both Stoicism and the most vigorous early Christianity.