Glory, in common acceptance, is a form or expression of public opinion. It is the judgment uttered by fellow-mortals upon our lives or acts. It is the product of their voices. It is the echo of their characters and minds. Its value and significance are, therefore, measured by the weight justly attached to this opinion. If those from whom it proceeds are enlightened, benevolent, and just, it may be the mark of honor. If, on the other hand, they are ignorant, heartless, or unjust, it must be an uncertain index, varying always in accordance with the elevation, mediocrity, or degradation of the intellectual and moral nature.
This explanation enables us to appreciate different foundations of Fame. In early and barbarous periods homage is rendered exclusively to achievements of physical strength, chiefly in slaying wild beasts or human beings termed "enemies." The feats of Hercules, filling the fable and mythology of early Greece, were triumphs of brute force. Conqueror of the Nemean lion and the many-headed hydra, strangler of the giant Antæus, illustrious scavenger of the Augean stables, grand abater of contemporary nuisances, he was hailed as hero and commemorated as god. At a later time honor was still continued to mere muscular strength of arm. The most polite and eminent chief at the siege of Troy is distinguished by Homer for the ease with which he hurled a stone such as could not be lifted even by two strong men of his day:—
"A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved to throw,
Pointed above, and rough and gross below;
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days;
Yet this, as easy as a swain could bear
The snowy fleece, he tossed and shook in air."[188]
This was Glory in an age which had not learned to regard the moral and intellectual nature, or that which distinguishes man from the beast, as the only source of conduct worthy of just renown.
As we enter the polished periods of antiquity, ambition gleams in new forms, while we still discern the barbarism that slowly yields to advancing light. The Olympic games echoed to the Isthmian in shouts of praise. All Greece joined in competition for prizes awarded to successful charioteers and athletes; and victory was hailed as a great Glory. Poets did not disdain to sing these achievements; and the odes of Pindar—the Theban eagle, whose pride of place is still undisturbed in the Grecian firmament—are squandered in commemoration of these petty or vulgar contests. In Sparta honor was the monopoly of the soldier returning with his shield, or on it. The arts of peace yielded servile precedence to the toils of war, in which were absorbed life and education. Athens, instinct with the martial spirit, did not fail to cherish the owl with the spear that belonged to her patron goddess; poetry, eloquence, philosophy, history, art, held divided empire with arms; so that this city is wreathed with a Glory other and higher than that of Sparta. And yet this brilliant renown, admired through a long succession of ages, must fade and grow dull by the side of triumphs grander and holier than any achieved by force or intellect alone.