A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

by Cora May Williams

When we come to inquire as to the moral status of the Greeks with regard to honesty, truthfulness, and reliability in general, we find them particularly lacking. Their failure to come up with modern standards in this respect "every schoolboy knows." Ulysses is called the "man of many wiles," with evident intent to compliment. In the poems of Theognis, favorites with the Greek nobility, "it was openly recommended to fawn upon your enemy, to deceive him till he was in your power, and then wreak vengeance upon him. It is usual, among critics, to speak of this as the attitude of Theognis, and of the special aristocracy to which he belonged. They forget that we find the same attitude in the moral Pindar (Pyth. ii. 84). It is expounded by Hesiod as proximate (*Εργ. 165 sqq.), by Thucydides as universal, at a later epoch."[208] Mahaffy says of the Greeks up to the time of Thucydides, that they "had been often treacherous and cruel, generally dishonest and selfish; but, withal, often generous and gentlemanly, always clever and agreeable, and always carried away by a love of beauty more than by a respect for truth."[209] At the time of Darius, the Milesians, who had involved that king in a bloody and expensive war, and burned his Lydian capital, were yet treated kindly by him when taken prisoners, and settled in his own country. In return they were always trying to beg or embezzle the treasure of the king at Susa. "There was, indeed, a single exception, Scythes, tyrant of Zancle—who asked leave to visit Sicily, and returned to die in Persia. 'Him Darius considered to be the most righteous of all those who had gone up to him from Greece, in that he kept his promise to the great king.'"

"What an evidence of Greek dishonesty. We can well fancy the Aryan barons of Darius' court speaking in the tone of the Roman Juvenal. To them, too, the Græculus esuriens was but too well known,—with his fascination, his cleverness, and, withal, his mean and selfish knavery. I need hardly remind the Greek scholar," continues Mahaffy, "that all through the Ionic revolt, and through the Persian wars, this treachery and this selfishness were the mainstays of the Persians; in fact, had they depended upon these more completely, the subjugation of Greece would have been a mere question of time."[210]

"There was a certain Glaucus at Sparta, celebrated for justice, as well as in other respects, to whom a Milesian, who had heard of his fame, came and entrusted a treasure, wishing as he said, to get the benefit of his justice, since Ionia was disturbed. Of course, such a temptation was too much even for this paragon of Greek honesty. When the heirs of the Milesian came with their tokens and claimed the treasure, he professed to know nothing of the affair," though when they had gone away, he consulted the oracle as to whether he might spend the money, and was so strongly rebuked, that he finally gave it back.[211] This Mahaffy mentions as an instance where the influence of the oracle was a moral one.

There remains one general and especially significant criticism to be made on Greek morals as a whole; the great mass of the people were little cared for and in a state of unfreedom. Professor Robiou of Rennes aptly remarks that the democracy of ancient times, and that of Athens in particular, had little in common with modern democracy. "The very large majority of the working population were slaves, and had, consequently, no rights of any sort, so that the 'laborers,' at whose political rights Xenophon and Aristophanes jest, were generally what we call patrons....

"As for the laborers and the inhabitants of the environs and villages, since political rights could be exercised only at the Athenian Pnyx and there was no idea of a representative system, it is clear that the presence of many of them in the assembly could be only an exception, in spite of the modest indemnity which was offered them; among the country people the large and middle-class proprietors alone were in a condition to take part regularly. That is to say, one has no difficulty in concluding that, in comparison with other times and other countries, the Athenian democracy was an aristocracy."[212] And we may add that, all things considered, the great mass of the people had less of liberty and privilege, were far more subject to the despotism and caprice of the few, than in most modern monarchies. In what modern country not inhabited by savages would a man be permitted, at the present day, to throw even a murderer into a ditch and leave him to perish of hunger and cold? The carelessness of the Greeks in regard to the inner spirit of morals is often excused on the ground that it was at least combined with a large degree of tolerance; but this tolerance appears to be, to a great extent, mythical. The politics of Athens ostracized men whose opinion was feared by the state, or rather by a certain number of citizens, and the Greek religion stained its records with the death of Socrates and the persecution of other philosophers. Stilpo was exiled for doubting whether the Athene of Phidias was a goddess and the books of Anaxagoras and Protagoras were publicly burned. There was, moreover, an inquisitorial bureau at Athens.[213] However, it is true that the Greeks were, as a people, too little in earnest and too superstitious to fall into doubt of the national mythology.

We have less difficulty in showing the superiority of modern to Roman civilization, and for the reason, partly, that we know more about Roman, than we do about Greek civilization.

The Romans were, from the beginning, a robust and warlike people, and the military discipline which made them conquerors extended into their social relations and even into their family life. The exposure of children appears to have been a common practice, and looked upon leniently even after direct infanticide was visited with some degree of general disapproval. Parents were the absolute masters of their children, having the power to put them to death, or to sell them as slaves; and this was not only true of children in their younger years, but during the whole life of the father. Livy and Valerius Maximus give numerous instances of parents who had put their children to death. It is recorded, however, that Hadrian banished a man who had killed his son, and decreed that whatever a son might earn in military service should belong to himself; while Alexander Severus forbade the killing of adult sons, and Diocletian rendered the sale of children illegal.[214] Lecky however remarks that "the sale of children in case of great necessity, though denounced by the Fathers, continued long after the time of Theodosius, nor does any Christian emperor appear to have enforced the humane enactments of Diocletian."[215]

Human sacrifices occurred among the Romans far more frequently than among the Greeks, and continued even down to a late date, says Mahaffy. "In the year 46 b.c., Cæsar sacrificed two soldiers on the altar in the Campus Martius. Augustus is said to have sacrificed a maiden named Gregoria. Even Trajan, when Antioch was rebuilt, sacrificed Calliope, and placed her statue in the theatre. Under Commodus, and later emperors, human sacrifices appear to have been more common; and a gladiator appears to have been sacrificed to Jupiter Latialis even in the time of Constantine. Yet these awful rites had been expressly forbidden b.c. 95; and Pliny asserts that in his time they were never openly solemnized."[216]

If, however, the direct sacrifice of human victims came in time to be forbidden, there grew out of it, at a comparatively early period, a custom very nearly if not quite as barbarous, which was practised on an immense scale and down to a late date; namely, the gladiatorial contests. The men who took part in these contests were either slaves, criminals, military captives, or men especially trained for the "profession." Many of these last were exposed children who had been rescued for the purpose; their number being also recruited from other ranks. Lecky seems to excuse the condemnation of military captives to these shows, saying that their fate "could not strike the early Romans with the horror it would now inspire, for the right of the conquerors to massacre their prisoners was almost universally admitted."[217] The argument is similar to that noticed and criticised above—one bad principle cannot be an excuse for another, though the two are, doubtless, in this case, coördinate. Every criminal can give us a reason for his crime out of the uniformity of his own character. The question is, simply, whether we are considering the facts from a purely indifferent standpoint, as historical, or from an ethical standpoint; and if from the latter, then we must have some standard of measurement. We may choose to make this, in all cases, the average of the period and nation; though there will be, in that case, considerable difficulty in determining the average. Or we may use some ideal standard, which, as ideal, does not vary with all variations of the society considered, but is constant. But we have no logical right, having assumed the one standard, to confuse it with the other, treating the two as interchangeable. The standard of any age by which men judged their deeds is also part of the morality of the age, by which we may judge it. As for the criminals who fought in the arena, they were sometimes pardoned, when victorious, so that society received back again its most muscular, or skilful and alert criminals. Of all Roman authors and rulers, Lecky mentions only Seneca, Plutarch, Petronius, Junius Mauricus, and Marcus Aurelius, who condemn the games.[218] Cicero is undecided on the subject; rather in favor of them. The great satirist, Juvenal, though he repeatedly mentions, does not condemn them. And "of all the great historians who recorded them not one seems to have been conscious that he was recording a barbarity, not one appears to have seen in them any greater evils than an increasing tendency to pleasure and an excessive multiplication of a dangerous class." On the other hand, the attempt to introduce them into Athens was unsuccessful.[219]

An immense increase of gladiators and gladiatorial shows took place in the earlier days of the empire, when the increase of slavery freed a large portion of the Roman population from the necessity of labor, and men came to occupy themselves with amusements, on the one hand as a profession, on the other as means of passing the time. In the days of the Republic, the slaves were comparatively few in number and probably treated with more care, though scarcely with much consideration; all things were permitted the master by law, says Lecky, though probably the censor might interfere in extreme cases. "The elder Cato speaks of slaves simply as instruments for obtaining wealth, and he encouraged masters, both by his precept and his example, to sell them as useless when aged and infirm."[220] Under Titus and Trajan probably occurred the greatest number of shows that "were compressed into a short time,... and no Roman seems to have imagined that the fact of 3000 men having been compelled to fight under the one, and 10,000 under the other, cast the faintest shadow upon their characters."[221] Moreover, "the mere desire for novelty impelled the people to every excess or refinement of barbarity. The simple combat became at last insipid, and every variety of atrocity was devised to stimulate the flagging interest. At one time a bear and a bull, chained together, rolled in fierce contest along the sand; at another, criminals dressed in the skins of wild beasts were thrown to bulls, which were maddened by red-hot irons, or by darts tipped with burning pitch. Four hundred bears were killed on a single day under Caligula; three hundred on another day under Claudius. Under Nero, four hundred tigers fought with bulls and elephants; four hundred bears and three hundred lions were slaughtered by his soldiers. In a single day, at the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals perished.... Lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags, even crocodiles and serpents, were employed to give novelty to the spectacle. Nor was any form of human suffering wanting. The first Gordian, when edile, gave twelve spectacles, in each of which from one hundred and fifty to five hundred pair of gladiators appeared. Eight hundred pair fought at the triumph of Aurelian. Ten thousand men fought during the games of Trajan.... Under Domitian, an army of feeble dwarfs was compelled to fight, and more than once female gladiators descended to fight in the arena. A criminal personating a fictitious character was nailed to a cross, and there torn by a bear. Another, representing Scævola, was compelled to hold his hand in a real flame. A third, as Hercules, was burnt alive upon the pile. So intense was the craving for blood, that a prince was less unpopular if he neglected the distribution of corn than if he neglected the games; and Nero himself, on account of his munificence in this respect, was probably the sovereign who was most beloved by the Roman multitude. Heliogabalus and Galerius are reported, when dining, to have regaled themselves with the sight of criminals torn by wild beasts. It was said of the latter that 'he never supped without human blood.'" Moreover, the prince was most popular who, at the show of thumbs, "permitted no consideration of economy to make him hesitate to sanction the popular award."[222] "Even in the closing years of the fourth century, the prefect Symmachus, who was regarded as one of the most estimable pagans of his age, collected some Saxon prisoners to fight in honor of his son. They strangled themselves in prison, and Symmachus lamented the misfortune that had befallen him from their 'impious hands,' but endeavored to calm his feelings by recalling the patience of Socrates and the precepts of philosophy."[223]