“Now, hear my ordinance, Athenians!”
This address of the goddess, of practical wisdom, in constituting the Court of the Areopagus, was pointed by the poet directly against the democratic spirit, in his day beginning to become rampant in Athens; and is applicable not less to all times in which great and, perhaps, necessary social changes take place. The poet states, with the most solemn distinctness, that the mere love of liberty will never protect liberty from degenerating into licentiousness; but that a religious reverence for law is as essential to society as a religious jealousy of despotism. Only he who profoundly fears God can dispense with the fear of man; and he who fears both God and man is the only good citizen.
“. . . Here, on this hill,
The embattled Amazons pitched their tents of yore.”
The Amazons, “as strong as men” (αντιάνειραι, Il. III. 189), are famous in the history of the Trojan war; and their expedition against Athens, mentioned here, was familiar to every Athenian eye, from the painting in the Stoa Pœcile, described by Pausanias (I. 15). As to the historical reality of these hardy females, the sober Arrian (VII. 13) is by no means inclined (after the modern German fashion) to brush them, with a stroke of his pen, out of the world of realities; and, considering what a strange and strangely adaptable creature man is, I see no reason why we should be sceptical as to their historical existence.
“Thou say’st.”
“This is an ancient way of replying to a captious question, as we see in the Gospel (Matth. xxvii.), where, when Pilate asks, ‘art thou the king of the Jews,’ our Lord, Jesus Christ, answers in these very words Συ λέγεις—‘Thou say’st.’”—Stan.