CHAPTER III
‘Vivere, Lucili, militare est.’—Seneca.
During the fifty years which immediately preceded the period at which we now arrive Athens had risen from a level little higher than that of many of her neighbour towns to be the chief, the queen, of Hellas. Through an undiscoverable something in her people, through an innate power lying hid within her, through a succession of great men to lead her, through hard work and self-sacrifice, she had shot ahead of all her rivals. And while boundless enterprise, which sent her merchant vessels beyond Ionian and Aigaian Seas, enriched her coffers, she was protected seaward by a navy which had become a match for all the other Grecian states together, and landward by a solid force of soldiers, each of them a self-relying, self-governing citizen, believing the fate of home depended on his own peculiar strength, courage, and obedience; and all this compact mass by sea and land was led by Generals not unworthy of the warriors they commanded.
So Athens was become the head of numerous allied, almost dependent, towns and tributary states, whose help she could call upon at need, whose tribute flowed a constant stream to swell her treasury. And all the time that this material prosperity had been increasing, her intellectual, her artistic growth had been as wonderful. It is generally noticed that only in the decline of nations an æsthetic, or subtle, sense of beauty is obtained, and arts are seen to flourish. So true has this been found in other states and peoples that from the one the other may often be inferred. Was this so with Athens? Had not her arts grown with her growth, and flourished in their full perfection as she grew? Was it not peculiar to Athens that they had not to wait until she was decrepit? However this may be, we find that a small town, as it seems to us in our days of unwieldy cities, centres of overpeopled provinces, a fifth-rate municipality, with a population, even at its highest, not much greater than that of many a modern watering-place, had bred amongst her citizens the purest taste, and highest genius, that marks a people as superior to ordinary men. And not in some only of the higher occupations of the mind was she ahead of others: she excelled in all. Her sculptors, her painters, her architects, her orators, her tragedians, her comedians, her statesmen, her philosophers, at that time were the marvel of the world, as it seems they will remain that marvel for all time to come.
If it is hard to realize the pre-eminence of Athens in genius, who amongst us hath an imagination large enough to realize her outward show? Who is so vain as to attempt to picture it to others?
The city was placed just near enough to the sea to catch its breezes and the zest of life sea-breezes bring with them, under a sky hung higher overhead than ours in the North appears to be; her streets a maze of beauty with innumerable gold and marble statues wrought by the finest sculptors that the world has seen; her temples, public halls and colonnades at noontide giving shade, at evening shelter, at all times free to all; her groves and gardens perfumed by the rich scent of orange-trees and gayest flowers, beautiful by day and perhaps more lovely still on moonlit nights. And overshadowing was seen from every point of view the towering Akropolis, where the maiden goddess, sprung from the brain of Zeus, emblem and patroness of wisdom, her calm brow half covered by her Grecian helmet, her mighty spear in hand, stood guard over her beloved city, its silent sentinel.
But then the thronging concourse in the streets, the busy markets, workshops, arsenals! If outward Athens was chaste classic quietude, what a bustling stream of life she did contain! She had just reached the zenith of her day—everything was prosperous. Her rival states had been left far behind. The league of Delos, counterplot to the Peloponnesian confederacy, had placed Athens at its head, and Perikles was still in power.
Whenever a people has by self-restraint and long determined toil, patience, and courage, raised itself to wealth and greatness, the old and simple thoughts and ways soon begin to seem too small for them, the frugal practices of their forefathers all too poor. So life at Athens in the heyday of her splendour was very pleasant.
It was at this time that the son of Kleinias—the noble, duty-loving Kleinias, who kept aloof from politics, and let his abler comrades rule, while he was happy to obey the laws which others made, and give his strength and substance and, at last, his life for Athens—it was at this time the son of Kleinias approached the dawn of early manhood. Gifted with a greater power to enjoy the sensuous pleasures of the world than most others have been, he had a larger intellect to understand, a stronger will with which to keep others in subjection. He had, too, a loftier ambition, and every apparent means to gratify his pride.