If from his achievements we turn to his dispositions, his ends, and his means, there are few characters in Grecian history who present so little to esteem, whether we look at him as a public or as a private man. His ends are those of exorbitant ambition and vanity, his means rapacious as well as reckless, from his first dealing with Sparta and the Spartan envoys, down to the end of his career. The manœuvres whereby his political enemies first procured his exile were indeed base and guilty in a high degree; but we must recollect that if his enemies were more numerous and violent than those of any other politician in Athens, the generating seed was sown by his own overweening insolence, and contempt of restraints, legal as well as social.
On the other hand, he was never once defeated either by land or sea. In courage, in ability, in enterprise, in power of dealing with new men and new situations, he was never wanting; qualities, which, combined with his high birth, wealth, and personal accomplishments, sufficed to render him for the time the first man in every successive party which he espoused; Athenian, Spartan, or Persian; oligarchical or democratical. But to none of them did he ever inspire any lasting confidence; all successively threw him off. On the whole, we shall find few men in whom eminent capacities for action and command are so thoroughly marred by an assemblage of bad moral qualities, as Alkibiadês.[507]
CHAPTER LXVII.
THE DRAMA. — RHETORIC AND DIALECTICS. — THE SOPHISTS.
Respecting the political history of Athens during the few years immediately succeeding the restoration of the democracy, we have unfortunately little or no information. But in the spring of 399 B.C., between three and four years after the beginning of the archonship of Eukleidês, an event happened of paramount interest to the intellectual public of Greece as well as to philosophy generally, the trial, condemnation, and execution of Sokratês. Before I recount that memorable incident, it will be proper to say a few words on the literary and philosophical character of the age in which it happened. Though literature and philosophy are now becoming separate departments in Greece, each exercises a marked influence on the other, and the state of dramatic literature will be seen to be one of the causes directly contributing to the fate of Sokratês.
During the century of the Athenian democracy between Kleisthenês and Eukleidês, there had been produced a development of dramatic genius, tragic and comic, never paralleled before or afterwards. Æschylus, the creator of the tragic drama, or at least the first composer who rendered it illustrious, had been a combatant both at Marathon and Salamis; while Sophoklês and Euripidês, his two eminent followers, the former one of the generals of the Athenian armament against Samos in 440 B.C., expired both of them only a year before the battle of Ægospotami, just in time to escape the bitter humiliation and suffering of that mournful period. Out of the once numerous compositions of these poets we possess only a few, yet sufficient to enable us to appreciate in some degree the grandeur of Athenian tragedy; and when we learn that they were frequently beaten, even with the best of their dramas now remaining, in fair competition for the prize against other poets whose names only have reached us, we are warranted in presuming that the best productions of these successful competitors, if not intrinsically finer, could hardly have been inferior in merit to theirs.[508]
The tragic drama belonged essentially to the festivals in honor of the god Dionysus; being originally a chorus sung in his honor, to which were successively superadded, first, an Iambic monologue; next, a dialogue with two actors; lastly, a regular plot with three actors, and the chorus itself interwoven into the scene. Its subjects were from the beginning, and always continued to be, persons either divine or heroic, above the level of historical life, and borrowed from what was called the mythical past: the Persæ of Æschylus forms a splendid exception; but the two analogous dramas of his contemporary, Phrynichus, the Phœnissæ and the capture of Milêtus, were not successful enough to invite subsequent tragedians to meddle with contemporary events. To three serious dramas, or a trilogy, at first connected together by sequence of subject more or less loose, but afterwards unconnected and on distinct subjects, through an innovation introduced by Sophoklês, if not before, the tragic poet added a fourth or satyrical drama; the characters of which were satyrs, the companions of the god Dionysus, and other heroic or mythical persons exhibited in farce. He thus made up a total of four dramas, or a tetralogy, which he got up and brought forward to contend for the prize at the festival. The expense of training the chorus and actors was chiefly furnished by the chorêgi, wealthy citizens, of whom one was named for each of the ten tribes, and whose honor and vanity were greatly interested in obtaining the prize. At first, these exhibitions took place on a temporary stage, with nothing but wooden supports and scaffolding; but shortly after the year 500 B.C., on an occasion when the poets Æschylus and Pratinas were contending for the prize, this stage gave way during the ceremony, and lamentable mischief was the result. After that misfortune, a permanent theatre of stone was provided. To what extent the project was realized before the invasion of Xerxes, we do not accurately know; but after his destructive occupation of Athens, the theatre, if any existed previously, would have to be rebuilt or renovated along with other injured portions of the city.
It was under that great development of the power of Athens which followed the expulsion of Xerxes, that the theatre with its appurtenances attained full magnitude and elaboration, and Attic tragedy its maximum of excellence. Sophoklês gained his first victory over Æschylus in 468 B.C.: the first exhibition of Euripidês was in 455 B.C. The names, though unhappily the names alone, of many other competitors have reached us: Philoklês, who gained the prize even over the Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophoklês; Euphorion son of Æschylus, Xenoklês, and Nikomachus, all known to have triumphed over Euripidês; Neophron, Achæus, Ion, Agathon, and many more. The continuous stream of new tragedy, poured out year after year, was something new in the history of the Greek mind. If we could suppose all the ten tribes contending for the prize every year, there would be ten tetralogies—or sets of four dramas each, three tragedies and one satyrical farce—at the Dionysiac festival, and as many at the Lenæan. So great a number as sixty new tragedies composed every year,[509] is not to be thought of; yet we do not know what was the usual number of competing tetralogies: it was at least three; since the first, second, and third are specified in the didaskalies, or theatrical records, and probably greater than three. It was rare to repeat the same drama a second time unless after considerable alterations; nor would it be creditable to the liberality of a chorêgus to decline the full cost of getting up a new tetralogy. Without pretending to determine with numerical accuracy how many dramas were composed in each year, the general fact of unexampled abundance in the productions of the tragic muse is both authentic and interesting.
Moreover, what is not less important to notice, all this abundance found its way to the minds of the great body of the citizens, not excepting even the poorest. For the theatre is said to have accommodated thirty thousand persons:[510] here again it is unsafe to rely upon numerical accuracy, but we cannot doubt that it was sufficiently capacious to give to most of the citizens, poor as well as rich, ample opportunity of profiting by these beautiful compositions. At first, the admission to the theatre was gratuitous; but as the crowd of strangers as well as freemen, was found both excessive and disorderly, the system was adopted of asking a price, seemingly at the time when the permanent theatre was put in complete order after the destruction caused by Xerxes. The theatre was let by contract to a manager, who engaged to defray, either in whole or part, the habitual cost incurred by the state in the representation, and who was allowed to sell tickets of admission. At first, it appears that the price of tickets was not fixed, so that the poor citizens were overbid, and could not get places. Accordingly, Periklês introduced a new system, fixing the price of places at three oboli, or half a drachma, for the better, and one obolus for the less good. As there were two days of representation, tickets covering both days were sold respectively for a drachma and two oboli. But in order that the poor citizens might be enabled to attend, two oboli were given out from the public treasure to each citizen—rich as well as poor, if they chose to receive it—on the occasion of the festival. A poor man was thus furnished with the means of purchasing his place and going to the theatre without cost, on both days, if he chose; or, if he preferred it, he might go on one day only; or might even stay away altogether, and spend both the two oboli in any other manner. The higher price obtained for the better seats purchased by the richer citizens, is here to be set against the sum disbursed to the poorer; but we have no data before us for striking the balance, nor can we tell how the finances of the state were affected by it.[511]
Such was the original theôrikon, or festival-pay, introduced by Periklês at Athens; a system of distributing the public money, gradually extended to other festivals in which there was no theatrical representation, and which in later times reached a mischievous excess; having begun at a time when Athens was full of money from foreign tribute, and continuing, with increased demand at a subsequent time, when she was comparatively poor and without extraneous resources. It is to be remembered that all these festivals were portions of the ancient religion, and that, according to the feelings of that time, cheerful and multitudinous assemblages were essential to the satisfaction of the god in whose honor the festival was celebrated. Such disbursements were a portion of the religious, even more than of the civil establishment. Of the abusive excess which they afterwards reached, however, I shall speak in a future volume: at present, I deal with the theôrikon only in its primitive function and effect, of enabling all Athenians indiscriminately to witness the representation of the tragedies.