Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

Simonides (556-468 B.C.) has already been described as one of the great masters of the elegy and epigram. In depth and novelty of ideas, and in the fervor of poetic feeling, he was far inferior to his contemporary Pindar, but he was probably the most prolific lyric poet of Greece. According to the frequent reproach of the ancients, he was the first that sold his poems for money. His style was not as lofty as that of Pindar, hut what he lost in sublimity he gained in pathos.

Bacchylides (fl. 450 B.C.), the nephew of Simonides, devoted his genius chiefly to the pleasures of private life, love, and wine, and his productions, when compared with those of Simonides, are marked by less moral elevation.

Timocreon the Rhodian (fl. 471 B.C.) owes his chief celebrity among the ancients to the hate he bore to Themistocles in political life, and to Simonides on the field of poetry.

Pindar (522-435 B.C.) was the contemporary of Aeschylus, but as the causes which determined his poetical character are to be sought in an earlier age, and in the Doric and Aeolic parts of Greece, he may properly be placed at the close of the early period, while Aeschylus stands at the head of the new epoch of literature. Like Hesiod, Pindar was a native of Boeotia, and that there was still much love for music and poetry there is proved by the fact that two women, Myrtis and Corinna, had obtained great celebrity in these arts during the youth of this poet. Myrtis (fl. 490 B.C.) strove with him for the prize at the public games, and Corinna (fl. 490 B.C.) is said to have gained the victory over him five times. Too little of the poetry of Corinna has been preserved to allow a judgment on her style of composition. Pindar made the arts of poetry and music the business of his life, and his fame soon spread throughout Greece and the neighboring countries. He excelled in all the known varieties of choral poetry, but the only class of poems that enable us to judge of his general style is his triumphal odes. When a victory was gained in a contest at a festival by the speed of horses, the strength and dexterity of the human body, or by skill in music, such a victory, which shed honor not only on the victor, but also on his family, and even on his native city, demanded a public celebration. An occasion of this kind had always a religious character, and often began with a procession to an altar or temple, where a sacrifice was offered, followed by a banquet, and the solemnity concluded with a merry and boisterous revel. At this sacred and at the same time joyous festival, the chorus appeared and recited the triumphal hymn, which was considered the fairest ornament of the triumph. Such an occasion, a victory in the sacred games and its end, the ennobling of a ceremony connected with the worship of the gods, required that the ode should be composed in a lofty and dignified style. Pindar does not content himself with celebrating the bodily prowess of the victor alone, but he usually adds some moral virtue which he has shown, and which he recommends and extols. Sometimes this virtue is moderation, wisdom, or filial love, more often piety to the gods, and he expounds to the victor his destiny, by showing him the dependence of his exploits on the higher order of things. Mythical narratives occupy much space in these odes, for in the time of Pindar the mythical past was invested with a splendor and sublimity, of which even the faint reflection was sufficient to embellish the present.

10. ORPHIC DOCTRINES AND POEMS.—The interval between Homer and Pindar is an important period in the history of Greek civilization. In Homer we perceive that infancy of the mind which lives in seeing and imagining, and whose moral judgments are determined by impulses of feeling rather than by rules of conduct, while with Pindar the chief effort of his genius is to discover the true standard of moral government. This great change of opinion must have been affected by the efforts of many sages and poets. All the Greek religious poetry, treating of death and of the world beyond the grave, refers to the deities whose influence was supposed to be exercised in the dark regions at the centre of the earth, and who had little connection with the political and social relations of human life. They formed a class apart from the gods of Olympus; the mysteries of the Greeks were connected with their worship alone, and the love of immortality first found support in a belief in these deities. The mysteries of Demeter, especially those celebrated at Eleusis, inspired the most animating hopes with regard to the soul after death. These mysteries, however, had little influence on the literature of the nation; but there was a society of persons called the followers of Orpheus, who published their notions and committed them to literary works. Under the guidance of the ancient mystical poet, Orpheus, they dedicated themselves to the worship of Bacchus or Dionysus, in which they sought satisfaction for an ardent longing after the soothing and elevating influences of religion, and upon the worship of this deity they founded their hopes of an ultimate immortality of the soul. Unlike the popular worshipers of Bacchus, they did not indulge in unrestrained pleasure or frantic enthusiasm, but rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners. It is difficult to tell when this association was formed in Greece, but we find in Hesiod something of the Orphic spirit, and the beginning of higher and more hopeful views of death.

The endeavor to obtain a knowledge of divine and human things was in Greece slowly and with difficulty evolved from their religious notions, and it was for a long time confined to the refining and rationalizing of their mythology. An extensive Orphic literature first appeared at the time of the Persian war, when the remains of the Pythagorean order in Magna Graecia united themselves to the Orphic associations. The philosophy of Pythagoras, however, had no analogy with the spirit of the Orphic mysteries, in which the worship of Dionysus was the centre of all religious ideas, while the Pythagorean philosophers preferred the worship of Apollo and the Muses. In the Orphic theogony we find, for the first time, the idea of creation. Another difference between the notions of the Orphic poets and those of the early Greeks was that the former did not limit their views to the present state of mankind, still less did they acquiesce in Hesiod's melancholy doctrine of successive ages, each one worse than the preceding; but they looked for a cessation of strife, a state of happiness and beatitude at the end of all things. Their hopes of this result were founded on Dionysus, from the worship of whom all their peculiar religious ideas were derived. This god, the son of Zeus, is to succeed him in the government of the world, to restore the Golden Age, and to liberate human souls, who, according to an Orphic notion, are punished by being confined in the body as in a prison. The sufferings of the soul in its prison, the steps and transitions by which it passes to a higher state of existence, and its gradual purification and enlightenment, were all fully described in these poems. Thus, in the poetry of the first five centuries of Greek literature, especially at the close of this period, we find, instead of the calm enjoyment of outward nature which characterized the early epic poetry, a profound sense of the misery of human life, and an ardent longing for a condition of greater happiness. This feeling, indeed, was not so extended as to become common to the whole Greek nation, but it took deep root in individual minds, and was connected with more serious and spiritual views of human nature.

11. PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY.—Philosophy was early cultivated by the Greeks, who first among all nations distinguished it from religion and mythology. For some time, however, after its origin, it was as far removed from the ordinary thoughts and occupations of the people as poetry was intimately connected with them. Poetry idealizes all that is most characteristic of a nation; its religion, mythology, political and social institutions, and manners. Philosophy, on the other hand, begins by detaching the mind from the opinions and habits in which it has been bred up, from the national conceptions of the gods and the universe, and from traditionary maxims of ethics and politics. The philosophy of Greece, antecedent to the time of Socrates, is contained in the doctrines of the Ionic, Eleatic, and Pythagorean. schools. Thales of Miletus (639-548 B.C.) was the first in the series of the Ionic philosophers. He was one of the Seven Sages, who by their practical wisdom nobly contributed to the flourishing condition of Greece. Thales, Solon, Bion (fl. 570 B.C.), Cleobulus (fl. 542 B.C.), Periander (fl. 598 B.C.), Pittacus of Mytilene (579 B.C.), and Chilon (fl. 542 B.C.), were the seven philosophers called the seven sages by their countrymen. Thales is said to have foretold an eclipse of the sun, for which he doubtless employed astronomical formulae, which he had obtained from the Chaldeans. His tendency was practical, and where his own knowledge was insufficient, he applied the discoveries of other nations more advanced than his own. He considered all nature as endowed with life, and sought to discover the principles of external forms in the powers which lie beneath; he taught that water was the principle of things. Anaximander (fl. 547 B.C.), and Anaximenes (fl. 548 B.C.) were the other two most distinguished representatives of the Ionic school. The former believed that chaotic matter was the principle of all things, the latter taught that it was air. The Eleatic school is represented by Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno. As the philosophers of the first school were called Ionians from the country in which they resided, so these were named from Elea, a Greek colony of Italy. Xenophanes (fl. 538 B.C.), the founder of this school, adopted a different principle from that of the Ionic philosophers, and proceeded upon an ideal system, while that of the latter was exclusively founded upon experience. He began with the idea of the godhead, and showed the necessity of considering it as an eternal and unchanging existence, and represented the anthropomorphic conceptions of the Greeks concerning their gods as mere prejudices. In his works he retained the poetic form of composition, some fragments of which he himself recited at public festivals, after the manner of the rhapsodists. Parmenides flourished 504 years B.C. His philosophy rested upon the idea of existence which excluded the idea of creation, and thus fell into pantheism. His poem on "Nature" was composed in the epic metre, and in it he expressed in beautiful forms the most abstract ideas. Zeno of Elea (fl. 500 B.C.) was a pupil of Parmenides, and the earliest prose writer among the Greek philosophers. He developed the doctrines of his master by showing the absurdities involved in the ideas of variety and of creation, as opposed to one and universal substance. Other philosophers belonging to Iona or Elea may be referred to these schools, as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras, whose doctrines, however, vary from those of the representatives of the philosophical systems above named. Heraclitus (fl. 505 B.C.) dealt rather in intimations of important truths than in popular exposition of them; his cardinal doctrine seems to have been that everything is in perpetual motion, that nothing has any permanent existence, and that everything is assuming a new form or perishing: the principle of this perpetual motion he supposed to be fixe, though probably he did not mean material fire, but some higher and more universal agent. Like nearly all the philosophers, he despised the popular religion. Empedocles (fl. 440 B.C.) wrote a doctrinal poem concerning nature, fragments of which have been preserved. He denied the possibility of creation, and held the doctrine of an eternal and imperishable existence; but he considered this existence as having different natures, and admitted that fire, earth, air, and water were the four elements of all things. These elements he supposed to be governed by two principles, one positive and one negative, that is to say, connecting love and dissolving discord. Democritus (fl. 460 B.C.) embodied his extensive knowledge in a series of writings, of which only a few fragments have been preserved. Cicero compared him with Plato for rhythm and elegance of language. He derived the manifold phenomena of the world from the different form, disposition, and arrangement of the innumerable elements or atoms as they become united. He is the founder of the atomic doctrine. Anaxagoras (fl. 456 B.C.) rejected all popular notions of religion, excluded the idea of creation and destruction, and taught that atoms were unchangeable and imperishable; that spirit, the purest and subtlest of all things, gave to these atoms the impulse by which they took the forms of individual things and beings; and that this impulse was given in circular motion, which kept the heavenly bodies in their courses. But none of his doctrines gave so much offence or was considered so clear a proof of his atheism as his opinion that the sun, the bountiful god Helios, who shines both upon mortals and immortals, was a mass of red-hot iron. His doctrines tended powerfully by their rapid diffusion to undermine the principles on which the worship of the ancient gods rested, and they therefore prepared the way for the subsequent triumph of Christianity.

The Pythagorean or Italic School was founded by Pythagoras, who is said to have flourished between 540 and 500 B.C. Pythagoras was probably an Ionian who emigrated to Italy, and there established his school. His principal efforts were directed to practical life, especially to the regulation of political institutions, and his influence was exercised by means of lectures, or sayings, or by the establishment and direction of the Pythagorean associations. He encouraged the study of mathematics and music, and considered singing to the cithara as best fitted to produce that mental repose and harmony of soul which he regarded as the highest object of education.

12. HISTORY.—It is remarkable that a people so cultivated as the Greeks should have been so long without feeling the want of a correct record of their transactions in war and peace. The difference between this nation and the Orientals, in this respect, is very great. But the division of the country into numerous small states, and the republican form of the governments, prevented a concentration of interest on particular events and persons, and owing to the dissensions between the republics, their historical traditions could not but offend some while they flattered others; it was not until a late period that the Greeks considered contemporary events as worthy of being thought or written of. But for this absence of authentic history, Greek literature could never have become what it was. By the purely fictitious character of its poetry, and its freedom from the shackles of particular truths, it acquired that general probability which led Aristotle to consider poetry as more philosophical than history. Greek art, likewise, from the lateness of the period at which it descended from the representation of gods and heroes to the portraits of real men, acquired a nobleness and beauty of form which it could not otherwise have obtained. This poetical basis gave the literature of the Greeks a noble and liberal turn.

Writing was probably known in Greece some centuries before the time of Cadmus of Miletus (fl. 522 B.C.), but it had not been employed for the purpose of preserving any detailed historical record, and even when, towards the end of the age of the Seven Sages (550 B.C.), some writers of historical narratives began to appear, they did not select recent historical events, but those of distant times and countries; so entirely did they believe that oral tradition and the daily discussions of common life were sufficient records of the events of their own time and country. Cadmus of Miletus is mentioned as the first historian, but his works seem to have been early lost. To him, and other Greek historians before the time of Herodotus, scholars have given the name of Logographers, from Logos, signifying any discourse in prose.