When Neptune and Minerva disputed as to who should name the capital of Cecropia, the Olympian hierarchy decided that the right should be given to the one who bestowed the greatest benefit on man. Neptune smote the earth with his trident, from whence sprang a war-horse; while Minerva produced an olive-tree. Thenceforth, as the greatest glory of the age, the arts of peace prevailed, and the product and proof of the noblest fame was set forth in mighty sculpture along the western pediment of the Parthenon. This was of pure Attic origin, and worthily crowned the reminiscences of oriental skill beneath. Egypt gathered the palm and lotus, the papyrus and date-leaves together, and produced the column, that symbol of strength, fastened like a bundle of sticks, the binding together of which probably suggested elegant flutings to the Greeks. But, while mechanical execution absolutely perfect, and great exactness in copyism of ignoble types, were imported from the East, in vain do we there seek, from Moses to Ptolemy, for the least approximation to natural forms. In the land of its growth, the lotus-leaf never alters, nor do the owl and ibis borrow one truthful characteristic from the models which abounded in the valley of the Nile. According to Herodotus, a heroic mythology, that great lever of Greek art, was altogether wanting in Egypt; and for this reason, doubtless, of their individual poets, sculptors, and painters, we do not possess the slightest record. On the contrary, in the great western metropolis, infant art was progressively nourished by the refined spirit of both natural and ideal excellence; the permanent traces of which perpetually remain on the painted vases and delicate basso-relievos which in the temples of Theseus and Minerva adorned the councils of the supreme gods.
By means of polychromy, the Greeks endeavored to add elegance to their buildings, without detracting from their majesty, knowing well that this exquisite system of coloring, when applied under their pure sky, illuminated by brilliant sunshine, and encompassed by gorgeous vegetation, would bring artificial beauty into complete unison with the richness of nature. Thus colored statuary harmonized with mural historic painting, and this looked out from broad panels of beauty through tinted colonnades upon the sky, the groves, fields, and sparkling seas. By this combination, Athenian structures were rendered most worthy of admiration, because in them works which, taken separately, might move through single attractions, or approach the sublime, were so happily combined, as instantly to evoke a sentiment of perfection and delight such as no other monuments ever possessed. Colors were so graduated that the temple they vitalized was made to resemble and reflect the charming vicissitudes of a lovely Grecian day: cool in the morning, dazzling at noon, and at evening burned with all the glowing gorgeousness of the setting sun. Euphranor and Micon, to excite the emulation of compatriots, depicted the exploits of heroes in the Porticoes; Protogenes and Olbiades drew the portraits of renowned legislators in the Curia; the Odeia were decorated with the pictorial forms of poets, and with the Graces, their inseparable companions; the Gymnasia exhibited the godlike champions in the contests of Mars and the Muses; and even the Propylæa became more famous for the precious works of the painters than for the marbles out of which its structural grandeur was formed. But Phidias alone excepted, Polygnotus was perhaps the greatest public genius in the greatest artistic age. The pictures painted by him as votive offerings of the Cnidians were much admired, and the whole nation honored him for other monumental works. The Lesche, filled with the splendors of his skill, was the grand glyptothek of Athens, and first picture-gallery of the Grecian world.
In the Periclean age, art was held as a glory, not as a luxury. Private life was frugal and modest, while the public monuments were soaring in proudest display. Socrates, the cotemporary of Pericles, according to his own testimony preserved by Xenophon, occupied a house which, with all it contained, was valued at five minæ, or about ninety dollars. The dwellings of Miltiades, Aristides, Themistocles, and Cimon were contracted and devoid of all decoration. Alcibiades was the first who introduced painting as an ornament to his living apartments. But a passion for art actuated all classes, and was most prominent in the highest. Thus the beautiful Elpinice, sister of Cimon, took a pride in being a model to Polygnotus, at the same time her potent brother, at the head of the republic, triumphed over the mighty king. With kindred zeal, the populace of Croton gathered all the fairest damsels before Zeuxis, in order that from them he might select the best features with which to execute their commission to paint Helen. The astonishing progress made at that period in sculpture and painting was seen in the contrast which existed between an Indian idol, or Egyptian Isis, and the Jupiter of Phidias; between the infantile fancies of a Chinese designer, and the ineffable charms of a picture by Apelles. While Socrates employed the language of Homer as the medium of moral discourse, and Plato thence derived images and reasoning to convey the theologies of Orpheus and Pythagoras, Agatharcus invented dramatic painting, and drew for Æschylus the first scene that ever agreed with the rules of linear perspective. A picture of the battle of Marathon, representing Miltiades erect in the foreground, was solemnly guarded by the public, and deemed an adequate reward by that great captain. A pendant to this is said to have been one representing Aristides watching at night over the bloody field, in sight of the blue sea, no longer crowded by the barbarian fleet, and the white columns of the temple of Hercules, near which the Athenians had pitched their tents.
But when freedom ceased to preside over the public fortunes of Greece, grandeur and beauty withdrew from her private minds. As Philip of Macedon drew near, the propitious gods of Olympia migrated to Pella, and all the fair heritage assumed a sickly hue in the deepening shade. As rhetoric vainly mimicked the deep thunders of eloquence which had passed, and metaphysical sophistry was substituted for that lofty philosophy which had guided honorable destinies, so the grand taste which at first dictated to art the monumental style, degenerated into mere prettiness, or expanded into the heaviness of an unhealthy growth. But soon even the portion which yet retained some elegance ceased altogether, and what remained was rapidly transformed into the type of an age already gaining the ascendancy—colossal might. Phidias excelled in graphic as in plastic art. According to Pliny, his Medusa's head was a wonderful picture. Alcamenes, the Athenian, continued for a while the style of that great master, as did Agoracritus and Scopas of Paros. But the latter, like Lysippus, were transitional to Praxiteles of Cnidos, in whom great art expired. Original genius ceased to produce models of its own, and only expert imitators of mighty predecessors succeeded. Pamphilus was the Perugino, and Zeuxis, of Crotona, the Raphael, of Periclean painters. Apelles seems to have been the Titian of his age, and Protogenes, of Rhodes, a Greek Leonardo, whose picture of Temperance, his cotemporary Apelles declared, was worthy of being carried to heaven by the Graces. But with these masters pictorial art declined, and, like architectural and plastic art, was marked with the grossness of a coming age.
Cheronea was the grave of Grecian excellence, as Marathon had been the glorious scene of its birth. The principle of despotism there came into collision with that of democracy, and with fearful odds in favor of the former; but the result first demonstrated, as was afterward repeated at Thermopylæ, Salamis, and Platæa, the difference between the man who fights for another and him who contends for his own rights. From the days of Themistocles to the present hour, no writer has discussed the nature and influence of free institutions without drawing largely from this portion of Grecian heroism. It is impossible to estimate the influence of those battles on the destinies of mankind, as in all succeeding ages they have constituted the staple of patriotic appeal, the battle-cry of desperate struggles, and thrilling key-notes of triumphant songs. Thus consecrated to free government by martyred patriots, they are the universal watchwords of independence throughout the world. The calm fortitude of that invincible age was expressed in every department of art, even its melody. Music was an accomplishment in which the Greeks generally excelled. Alcibiades, however, surrendered the use of the flute, because it deranged the beauty of his features; and Themistocles, also, rejected its instruments, saying, "It is true I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small city to glory and greatness." Perhaps the best instance and symbol of all was Achilles. He was fed on the marrow of lions, and trained for conflict by the centaur Chiron, who was not less skillful in music than in the art of war. Resting from the chase of wild beasts in the desert, or, after the victorious fight with Trojans, sitting alone by the sea-shore, the lyre was the companion of his leisure, and, playing with its chords, he could control inward wrath by his own melody.
If architecture is the most significant and enduring portion of the history of a people, a sure index of their mental state and social progress, plastic and graphic art are also striking exponents of their national character. The beautiful marble which forms the cliffs and coasts of Greece, notwithstanding its homogeneous transformation, betrays by veins and fossils its sedimentary formation. And so Hellenism, although it may be homogeneous, nevertheless betrays its secondary origin, and the sedimentary material which constitutes its groundwork. The rudimentary vestiges bear the same impress in Assyria, Egypt, and even among savage races; but the Greeks ignored the origin of these, rose above their hieratical meanings, and stamped all creations with their own peculiar manner. Their system of polychromy was the richest in antiquity, combining the lapidary style brought by the Dorians from Egypt, and the more brilliant tints which were attained when the Ionic mind penetrated Doric matter, and transfigured it with all the glories of Asiatic color. As Homer describes only progressive actions, so his great race executed nothing but what was bounded by the delicate lines of grace. The Parthenon has generally been regarded as being exactly rectilinear; but Penrose has recently demonstrated, by careful admeasurements, that probably there is not a straight line in the building. All is embraced within mathematical curves, accurately calculated, and designed to correct the disagreeable effect produced on a practiced eye by perfectly straight lines. Taken as a whole, this work is sublimely grand, and, in its minutest details, it is perfectly wonderful. When unmutilated, it was the aggregate of all artistic worth, and yet remains, of its age, the chief emblem of intellectual majesty.
The Greek sculptor invested his work with an inexpressible serenity, as if it were a spirit without a passion, as appears in the Apollo and Antinous. Pride and scorn are strongly marked in these, yet over the whole figure is thrown a heavenly calm and placidness; there is no swelling vein, no contorted muscle, but a general smoothness and unperturbed dignity. The same subdued air and tone prevailed in the paintings of the best age. Achilles appears grieved at having slain Penthesilea; the brave beauty, bathed in her own blood so heroically shed, demands the esteem of her mightier antagonist, and elicits the exclamations of both compassion and love. The Greeks never painted a Fury, nor did extravagant rage or frightful despair degrade any of their productions. Indignant Jupiter hurled his lightnings with a serene brow; and Timanthes, in painting the sacrifice of Iphigenia, rather than over-pass the limits within which the Graces moved, when he knew that the grief of Agamemnon, the father, would spread contortions over the face of the hero, concealed the extreme of distress, and perfected at once the merit of the picture and the purity of his taste. The Philoctetes of Pythagoras of Leontini, appeared to impart his pain to the beholder; but this was telegraphed to the soul by the magnetic sympathy latent in all the work, and not by means of ugly features. Hercules in the poisoned garment, depicted by an unknown master of that age, was not the Hercules whom Sophocles described, shrieking so horridly that the rocks of Locris and headlands of Eubœa resounded therewith. What was truthful and appropriate in language, was not attempted to be adequately expressed through the distortions of inappropriate art. Zeuxis derived his inspiration from Homer, and when he had painted his Helen, he had the courage to write at her feet the renowned verses, in which the enraptured elders confess their admiration. This contest between poetry and painting was so remarkable, that the victory remained undecided, as both the poet and painter were deemed worthy of a crown. The Diana of Apelles also followed Homer closely, with the Graces mingling in the accompanying train of her Nymphs. In these instances, as with Phidias in his own loftier sphere, the imagination of the artist was fired by the exalted image of the poet, and thus became more capable of just and captivating representation.
But perhaps the grandest combination of glorious arts it is possible to conceive, was that which existed when Demosthenes addressed six thousand of his countrymen at the Pnyx. In the presence of this vast multitude, he ascended the bema, and saw beneath him the Agora, filled with statues and altars to heroes and gods. To the north lay the olive groves of wisdom, and sunny villages along the fruitful plains beneath the craggy heights of Parnes and Cithæron; while to the south sparkled the blue Ægean, whitened by many a sail. Before him was the Hill of Mars, seat of that most venerable tribunal, the Areopagus. Above him towered the Acropolis, with its temples glittering in the air; on the left, stood the lofty statue of Minerva Promachus, with helmet and spear ready to repel all who dared to invade her pride of place; and on the right, rising in supreme and stately splendor, was the marble Parthenon, glowing with chromatic legends spread behind the colonnades, and relieved with sculpture tipped with gold.
The splendid noon of Grecian greatness was succeeded by a splendid evening, divinely prolonged. Mental pre-eminence survived long after her political supremacy was overthrown; and even when trampled in the dust, she still won reverence from her brutal foe.