Bucol. x. 32.—Warton’s Translation.
This must of course be understood as referring only to music and poetry of the pastoral kind. To the composition of the higher species of poetry, by which the Greeks of other countries laid a foundation for the instruction and delight of all succeeding ages, the Arcadians never aspired. At the same time there can be no doubt that they bestowed great care upon the exhibition of dramatic compositions, though they did not attempt to write them: of this fact we have sufficient proof in the remains of the theatres found upon the sites of their principal cities, and especially of the theatre of Megalopolis, which was the greatest in all Greece[301].
[301] Pausanias, l. viii. 32. 1. Leake’s Travels in the Morea, vol. ii. p. 32. 39, 40.
But with respect to their cultivation of music and its influence on their national character, we have upon record the full and explicit testimony of one of their most distinguished citizens, the historian Polybius, whose remarks will appear especially deserving of the reader’s attention, when it is considered, that he must himself have gone through the whole course of discipline and instruction which he describes. Having had occasion to mention the turbulent character as well as the cruel and perfidious conduct of the Cynætheans, who occupied a city and district in the north of Arcadia, he proposes to inquire why it was that, although they were indeed Arcadians, they had acted in a manner so entirely at variance with the usual habits and manners of the Greeks, and he then proceeds with earnestness and solemnity to explain upon the following principles the cause of this extraordinary contrast. It was, as he states, that the Cynætheans were the only inhabitants of Arcadia who had neglected to exercise themselves in music; and he then gives the following account of the established practice of the rest of the Arcadians in devoting themselves to the study of real music, by which he means the united arts of music, poetry, and dancing, of all those elegant and graceful performances, over which the Muses were supposed to preside. He informs us that the Arcadians, whose general habits were very severe, were required by law to go on improving themselves in music, so understood, until their thirtieth year. “In childhood,” says he, “they are taught to sing in tune hymns and pæans in honor of the domestic heroes and divinities. They afterwards learn the music of Philoxenus and Timotheus. They dance to the pipe in the theatres at the annual festival of Bacchus; and they do this with great emulation, the boys performing mock-fights adapted to their age, and the young men the so-called manly fights. In like manner throughout the whole of life their pleasure at feasts and entertainments consists, not in listening to singers hired for the purpose, but in singing themselves in their turns when called upon. For, although a man may decline any other performance on the ground of inability and may thereby bring no imputation on himself, no one can refuse to sing, because all have been obliged to learn it, and to refuse to take a part, when able, is deemed disgraceful. The young men also unite together to perform in order all the military steps and motions to the sound of the pipe, and at the public expense they exhibit them every year before their fellow-citizens. Besides these ballets, marches, and mock-fights, the men and women unite in great public assemblies and in numerous sacrifices, to which are to be added the circular or choral dances by the boys and virgins.” Polybius adds, that these musical exercises had been ordained as the means of communicating softness and refinement to the otherwise rough and laborious life of the Arcadians, and he warns them by the example of the half-savages of Cynæthæ never to abandon such wholesome institutions[302]. With how great benefit to our own social character might we adopt this counsel! How greatly might we contribute both to the innocent enjoyment and to the more improved and elevated tastes of our rustics and artisans, if well-regulated plans were devised, by which graceful recreations, providing at the same time exercise for the body, amusement for the imagination, and employment for the finer and more amiable feelings, were made to relieve the degrading and benumbing monotony of their protracted labors, whether in the factory or in the field!
[302] Polyb. l. iv. c. 20, 21.
It will be readily perceived, that the education here described, and the tastes and habits which it produced, were immediately associated with the popular religion, and especially with the notions and rites entertained towards the peculiar god of the shepherds. Other deities indeed, such as Apollo, Diana, and Minerva, who were also worshipped in Arcadia, may have contributed to the same effect; and especially this may have been the case with Mercury, perhaps the only one of the higher Greek divinities, who was conceived to have a benevolent character, who was the father of Pan, and was himself reported to have been born in a cave of the same mountain in Arcadia, on which he was worshipped. He was a lover of instrumental music, having invented the lyre, and he was frequently represented on coins and gems, riding upon a ram, or with his emblems so connected with the figures of sheep, and more rarely of goats and of dogs, as to prove that in his character as the god of gain the shepherds looked up to him together with his offspring to bless the flocks and to increase their produce[303]. Hence Homer, in order to convey the idea that Phorbas was remarkably successful in the breeding of sheep, says that he was beloved by Mercury above all the other Trojans[304]. The inhabitants of one territory even in Arcadia, viz. the city of Phineos, honored Mercury more than all the other gods, and expressed this sentiment by procuring a statue of him made by a celebrated sculptor in Ægina, in which he was represented carrying a ram under his arm, and which they placed in the great temple of Jupiter at Olympia[305]. At Corinth there was a brazen statue of Mercury in a sitting posture with a ram standing beside him. According to Pausanias (ii. 3, 4.) the reason of this representation was, that of all the gods Mercury was thought most to take care of flocks and to promote their increase. But, as the Corinthians had little or nothing to do with the tending of sheep and were devoted to commerce, we may ask what interest had they in this attribute of Mercury? It is very evident that it could only be an interest arising from the part which Corinth took in the wool-trade. That the Arcadians did not themselves consume their wool is manifest. How could they have built cities, which were so large, numerous, and handsome in proportion to the extent of their country, and have lived even in that degree of elegance and luxury, to which they attained, unless they had been able to dispose of the chief produce of their soil in a profitable manner? It is probable therefore, that the representation of Mercury or of his emblems in conjunction with the figure of the sheep on the coins of Corinth and Patræ may be regarded as an intimation, that the Arcadians disposed of their wool in those cities for exportation to foreign countries.
[303] Buonaroti (Osservazioni sopra alcuni Medaglioni Antichi, p. 41.) has exhibited brass coins, in one of which Mercury is riding on a sheep; in a second the sheep is seen with Mercury’s bag of money on its back; and in a third the caduceus is over the sheep, and two spikes of corn, emblems of agricultural prosperity, spring out of the ground before it. Among the gems of the Baron de Stosch, now belonging to the Royal Cabinet at Berlin, No. 381. Class II. represents Mercury sitting upon a rock with a dog by his side: Winckelmann observes, that “the dog is the symbol of Mercury as the protector of shepherds.” Nos. 392, 393, 396-402, in the same collection, represent him with sheep, and one of them (399.) exhibits him standing erect in a chariot drawn by four rams, and holding the bag or purse in his right hand and the caduceus in his left.
Some of the coins of Sicily appear to refer in like manner to the character of Mercury as the promoter of the trade in wool.
The Honorable Keppel Craven (Excursions in the Abruzzi, London, 1838, vol. i. ch. 4. p. 109.) mentions a temple at Arpinum, a city of Latium, which was dedicated, as appears from an inscription found on its site, to MERCURIUS LANARIUS. This title evidently represented Mercury as presiding over the growth of wool and the trade in it.
Perhaps the very ancient idea of Mercury making the fleece of Phryxus golden by his touch may have originated in the same view. See Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, l. 11. 1144, and Scholion ad locum.