Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

It was in the day of Themistocles especially, the Greeks appear to have been sensible that they were instruments in the hands of destiny, and that their greatness was greatly to sway the generations of all coming time. This national consciousness, increasingly intensified in description and illustration, is strongly impressed on the sententious pages of Thucydides. The theme of Herodotus was a particular war, the Persian, and he treated it as an epical artist. But his acuter successor added philosophical composition to the densest power of combination, and was the first to attempt the analysis and portraiture of character. Thus, as in every other literary walk, the march of historical excellence became most extended and regular at the mighty heart of intelligence; on the spot where its origin was indigenous, its perfection was most splendidly evolved.

Though fortune for the moment gave the Spartan, Eurybiades, the nominal command at Salamis, genius predestined the Athenian, Themistocles, to actual pre-eminence over his age, that he might command the remotest sequences of events. Certainly he was the greatest of his own age, and was not soon surpassed. Pisistratus, Cimon, Aristides, and Pericles, were of noble birth; but Themistocles was the first, and, except Demosthenes, the greatest of those who rose from the humblest ranks, but none the less ennobled himself, while he elevated the common fortunes in his own ascent. His genius alone was the architect of all his grandeur, and drew from Diodorus the exclamation, "What other man could, in the same time, have placed Greece at the head of nations, Athens at the head of Greece, himself at the head of Athens? In the most illustrious age the most illustrious man."

But the age of warlike glory ended with the occasion for its use, and an appropriate link was required between the ostentation of Themistocles and the intellectual sovereignty of Pericles. This was supplied in Cimon, who fostered popular spectacles, and invested them with increased magnificence; built the Theseion, embellished the public buildings before extant, and originated those classic colonnades, beneath which, sheltered from sun or rain, the inquisitive citizens were accustomed to hold civil, literary, or artistic debate. The Agora, adorned with oriental planes; and the palm-groves of Academe, the immortal school of Plato, were his work. His hand formed the secluded walks, fashioned the foliaged alcoves, adorned each nook with its relevant bust or statue, and poured through the green retreats the melodious waters of the Ilissus, in sparkling fountains, or eddying pools, to rest the weary, and exhilarate the sad. Thus he more fully realized the social policy, commenced by Pisistratus, who was the first to elicit diversified talents from the recesses of private life, with the intention of causing all to merge into one animated, multifarious, and invincible public life. The works now written, and the sublime creations of art at this time multiplied, were the first foundation of culture for the futurity of the human mind. It was an age that gave to the world what can nowhere else be obtained. The priceless legacy was produced by that wonderful people during the brief period of freedom and undiminished greatness, when their literature was made to fulmine on the capacities of man, and reflect the brightest glory on the principles of democratic polity.

Pericles was not less ambitious to aggrandize Athens, than were his more martial or plebeian precursors; but he well understood the destiny of his race, and knew on what surer foundations to build than aristocratic or regal titles, which, if he had the power to possess, he always affected to despise. The wider extension of national domain was to yield to the loftier cultivation of the national mind. Obedient to his behest, and in harmony with the popular will, all superior proficients gathered round the Acropolis, a spot too sacred for human habitations, and, by their united labors, soon rendered it the central glory of "a city of the gods."

In his youth, Pericles had known Pindar and Empedocles. He had seen the prison of Miltiades, and turned from a music lesson to gaze after Aristides driven into exile. Æschylus he early loved, and exercised maturer thought with Sophocles, in debates on eloquence. By Euripides had he been instructed in ethical philosophy; and Protagorus and Democritus, Anaxagoras and Meton, did he question as to the best rules of state polity. Herodotus and Thucydides initiated him into history. Acron and Hippocrates imbued him with a beneficent philosophy; Ictinus built to his order, the Parthenon, worthy of Polygnotus to paint; while Phidias set up under the same auspices the tutelary deity of the land, in ivory and gold. Thus trained among a people susceptible and fastidious, that had itself become a Pericles, competent to appreciate, in every department the high excellence they inspired and recompensed, he was the first to mirror to themselves fully, the exalted models after which universal poetry prompted them to aspire. Themistocles had led them to deeds of daring and enterprise, but the adroit son of Xanthippus soon eclipsed every competitor, even that mighty Cimon, whose extraordinary qualities had prepared the way for his supremacy.

The grave aspect of Pericles, his composed gait, the decorous arrangement of his robe, and the subdued modulation of his voice, are dwelt upon by his eulogists, just as if his posthumous statue had been the subject of their comments. It was this close and constant attention to the inner spirit and external expression of all thought, art, and manners, that distinguished the memorable period when the grand style characterized every thing. To use the words of Plutarch: "Pericles gave to the study of philosophy the color of rhetoric. The most brilliant imagination seconded all the powers of logic. Sometimes he thundered with vehemence, and set all Greece in flames; at other times the goddess of persuasion, with all her allurements, dwelt upon his tongue, and no one could defend himself from the solidity of his argument, and the sweetness of his discourse."

This was the era of great orators, such as Lysias, Eschines, and Isocrates. Like the shout of Stentor, rousing the prowess of comrades, who, single-handed, rushed upon embattled armies, clad in iron, so awoke mighty eloquence, which shook impassioned democracies, annihilated tyrannies, and fostered all ennobling arts. But the age of criticism came after the age of invention; Aristotle after Sophocles, Longinus after Homer, the Sophists after Pericles. Demosthenes was the last great writer whose works were addressed to the Greeks as a nation. His was the genius of industry, always luminous and constantly at work; like that Indian bird which could not only enjoy the sunshine all day, but secured no ignoble resemblance at night, by hanging glow-worms on the boughs about its nest. Demosthenes was a great orator, and nothing more. He represented a period of civilization which had passed, and therefore his downfall was inevitable. So long as the democratic spirit pervaded the masses he performed prodigies in the tribune; but when the empire of beauty was about to be displaced by the empire of force, he ran away at Cherronea, and without dignity. The eloquence of a great nation, expressed in Pericles, was succeeded by the Phillipics of a great partizan, and when this was silenced, the age of its origin had closed.

Pericles was the first to commit his speeches to writing before they were delivered; and, in his pride of universal accomplishment, he signalized the zenith of his country's glory and its decline. In all the progress of Greece up to the splendor of her culmination, originality was sought and exemplified only in some one grand pursuit. The epic bard was not ambitious of rending the ivy destined to adorn the brows of lyric poets; nor did the master of tragedy, with unlaced buskin, stride carelessly over Thalia's stage, to lay irreverent hands on Homer's harp. The historian, studious in private to portray the annals of his country, came not to the Agora to contest honors with the public orator; nor did the latter, with foolish ambition, endeavor to excel the sages who, in the Portico, at the Lyceum, or under plane-trees on the banks of the Ilissus, explained the problems of the universe; but each one made some exalted endeavor the speciality of his life, on it concentrated all the rays of his intellect, and scorned no measure of time or toil requisite to insure absolute perfection in his work. Thoughts so elaborated became never setting stars, to cheer the world, and point unerringly through the cycles of a corrupt taste to ideal excellence. As each growth, minute or majestic, was equally perfect of its kind, though differenced by peculiarity of form and tints, the whole was charmingly blended in that wreath of consummate beauty, which, in the age of Pericles, Greece hung round the constitution of the state, high on the central shrine of the most magnificent temple of her gods.

CHAPTER II.

ART.