Very different indeed are his praises of Theron of Akragas, one of the greatest and best of the Greek tyrants, with whom he was contemporary. The Second Olympian Ode is perhaps the most fulsome. Cary rendered it:
“Theron for his conquering car
Shall spread a shout of triumph far and wide;
True to his friends, the people’s pride;
Stay of Akragas and flower
Of many a noble ancestor;
They, long toils and perils past,
By the rivers built at last
Their sacred bower, and were an eye
To light the land of Sicily.
And I will swear
That city none, though she enroll
A century past her radiant scroll,
Hath brought a mortal man to light
Whose heart with love more genial glows,
Whose hand with larger bounty flows,
Than Theron’s.”
It was during the reign of Theron that the city, approaching the height of its prosperity and pride, joined forces with Gelon and the Syracusans in defeating Hamilcar’s Carthaginians in a tremendous battle at Himera. The victors took an immense number of the defeated soldiers captive, and Theron began to rush forward epoch making municipal improvements. The slaves, being only human, could not last forever, and they were worked hard while their strength endured, toiling in the stone quarries, building the city wall, excavating a huge fishpond, and commencing the construction of the magnificent temples along the southern rampart.
“Tyrant,” by the way, in that age of civilization, did not necessarily mean a brutal, oppressive or fire-breathing monster. Indeed, some of the tyrants were among the best rulers Greek Sicily ever had. As Freeman says, “tyrant” meant a forceful usurper, a man who raised himself to the supreme authority when kings and kingship were not only unlawful but were not even the fashion.
Of the six glorious temples—among the most brilliant achievements of the most brilliant period of Greek freedom in Sicily—only two remain standing, at the verge of the hill, limned in all their marvelous Greek severity and simplicity against the tender landscape. Overhead burns the cobalt sky of Sicily; around them burgeon crimson poppies, delicate buttercups and spurge, and other flowers innumerable. Flute-voiced birds swing and sing in among the olives, in air languid with the perfume of the almond in bloom.—And in the clear sunlight of the South, the temples themselves glow with a golden radiance that must surely be a faint reflection of the fires of the immortal gods.
Models of Doric simplicity, these temples consisted only of a windowless shrine for the god, surrounded by an open colonnade, the whole covered by a gabled roof. Their design was at once the result of the climate and of Greek civilization. The religion was intimately connected with devotion to the State; hence the homes of the gods, who were both the patrons and companions of the people, were public buildings, their porticoes open to the daily life and commerce, the intercourse of the citizens.
The Greek religion was beautiful, rarely beautiful. But exclusive, mysterious? No! Its rites were simple—choral hymns, rhythmic dances, ceremonies executed by the citizens themselves. And the priests guarded no occult sciences, as did the Egyptians; kept to themselves no written hieroglyph unintelligible except to the initiate. They were laymen, married men with families, soldiers, merchants, men engaged in every walk of life.
Marvelous architects, those old fifth century Greeks! To give their low and heavy buildings greater charm than was possible with mere straight lines, they made their columns gently swelling; smaller at the top than at the bottom. At the corners of the edifice they even sloped them slightly inward. They bent the foundation upward a little in the middle, and did the same thing with the long line of the entablature above. Yet it would seem that they were given to gilding the lily. They covered the rich golden travertine of which the edifices were built with a thin coat of white stucco or mortar, upon which were painted striking ornaments in many brilliant colors. It is hard to believe that the temples when painted could have been as magnificent as they are to-day; yet they must have been—who are we to impugn Greek taste!
The Temple of Concord, because of its use in the Middle Ages as the church of Saint Gregory of the Turnips, is one of the best preserved pagan buildings in existence, all of its thirty-four giant columns still standing. It makes a picture of beautiful and serene old age that loses nothing by comparison with the eternal youth of its surroundings. House of peace it has been called, and house of peace it still is, after the storms and wars of more than fourteen centuries have ebbed and flowed about its massive base.