[122] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 701 B. Ἐφεξῆς δὴ ταύτῃ τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἡ τοῦ μὴ ἐθέλειν τοῖς ἄρχουσι δουλεύειν γίγνοιτ’ ἄν.
The phrase here employed by Plato affirms inferential tendencies — not facts realised. How much of the tendencies had passed into reality at Athens, he leaves to the imagination of his readers to supply. It is curious to contrast the faithless and lawless character of Athens, here insinuated by Plato — with the oration of Demosthenes adv. Leptinem (delivered B.C. 355, near upon the time when the Platonic Leges were composed), where the main argument which the orator brings to bear upon the Dikasts, emphatically and repeatedly, to induce them to reject the proposition of Leptines, is — τὸ τῆς πόλεως ἦθος ἀψευδὲς καὶ χρηστόν, οὐ τὸ λυσιτελέστατον πρὸς ἀργύριον σκοποῦν, ἀλλά τι καὶ καλὸν πρᾶξαι (p. 461) … οὐδ’ ὁ πλεῖστος λόγος ἔμοιγε περὶ τῆς ἀτελείας ἔστιν, ἀλλ’ ὑπὲρ τοῦ πονηρὸν ἔθος εἰσάγειν τὸν νόμον, καὶ τοιοῦτον δι’ οὖ παντ’ ἄπιστ’ ὅσα ὁ δῆμος δίδωσιν ἔσται, also pp. 500-507, and indeed throughout nearly the whole oration. So also in the other discourses, not only of Demosthenes but of the other orators also — good faith, public and private, and respectful obedience to the laws, are constantly invoked as primary and imperative necessities.
Indeed, in order to find a contradiction to the picture here presented by Plato, of Athenian tendencies since the Persian war, we need not go farther than Plato himself. We have only to read the Menexenus, wherein he professes to describe and panegyrise the achievements of Athens during that very period which he paints in such gloomy colours in the Leges — the period succeeding the Persian invasion. Who is to believe that the people, upon whose virtue he pronounces these encomiums, had thrown off all reverence for good faith, obligation, and social authority? As for the Τιτανικὴ φύσις, to which Plato represents the Athenians as approximating, the analogy is principally to be found in the person of the Titan Promêtheus, with his philanthropic disposition (see Plato, Menexenus, pp. 243 E, 244 E), and the beneficent suggestions which he imparted to mankind in the way of science and art (Æschyl. Prom. 440-507 — Πᾶσαι τέχναι βροτοῖσιν ἐκ Προμηθέως).
Danger of changes in the national music — declared by Damon, the musical teacher.
The opinion here expressed by Plato — that the political constitution of Athens was too democratical, and that the changes (effected by Perikles and others during the half century succeeding the Persian invasion) whereby it had been rendered more democratical, were mischievous — was held by him in common with a respectable and intelligent minority at Athens. That minority had full opportunity of expressing their disapprobation — as we may see by the language of Plato himself; though he commends the Spartans for not allowing any such opportunity to dissenters at Sparta, and expressly prohibits any open expression of dissent in his own community. But his assertion, that the deterioration at Athens was introduced and originated by an innovation in the established canon of music and poetry — is more peculiarly his own. The general doctrine of the powerful revolutionising effect wrought by changes in the national music, towards subverting the political constitution, was adopted by him from the distinguished musical teacher Damon,[123] the contemporary and companion of Perikles. The fear of such danger to the national institutions is said to have operated on the authorities at Sparta, when they forbade the musical innovations of the poet Timotheus, and destroyed the four new strings which he had just added to the established seven strings of his lyre.[124]
[123] Plato, Republ. iv. p. 424 D.
[124] Cicero, De Legib. ii. 15; Pausanias, iii. 12.
Cicero agrees with Plato as to the mischievous tendency of changes in the national music.
Plato’s aversion to the tragic and comic poetry at Athens.
Of this general doctrine, however, Plato makes a particular application in the passage now before us, which he would have found few Athenians, either oligarchical or democratical, to ratify. What he really condemns is, the tragic and comic poetical representations at Athens, which began to acquire importance only after the Persian war, and continued to increase in importance for the next half century. The greatest revolution which Grecian music and poetry ever underwent was that whereby Attic tragedy and comedy were first constituted:— built up by distinguished poets from combination and enlargement of the simpler pre-existent forms — out of the dithyrambic and phallic choruses.[125] The first who imparted to tragedy its grand development and its special novelty of character was Æschylus — a combatant at Marathon as well as one of the greatest among ancient poets: after him, Sophokles carried improvement still further. It is them that Plato probably means, when he speaks of the authors of this revolution as men of true poetical genius, but ignorant of the lawful purpose of the Muse — as authors who did not recognise any rightful canon of music, nor any end to be aimed at beyond the emotional satisfaction of a miscellaneous audience. The abundance of dramatic poetry existing in Plato’s time must have been prodigious (a few choice specimens only have descended to us):— while its variety of ingredients and its popularity outshone those four ancient and simple manifestations, which alone he will tolerate as legitimate. He censures the innovations of Æschylus and Sophokles as a deplorable triumph of popular preference over rectitude of standard and purpose. He tacitly assumes — what Aristotle certainly does not believe, and what, so far as I can see, there is no ground for believing — that the earlier audience were passive, showing no marks of favour or disfavour: and that the earlier poets had higher aims, adapting their compositions to the judgment of a wise few, and careless about giving satisfaction to the general audience. This would be the practice in the Platonic city, but it never was the practice at Athens. We may surely presume that Æschylus stood distinguished from his predecessors not by desiring popularity more, but by greater success in attaining it: and that he attained it partly from his superior genius, partly from increasing splendour in the means of exhibition at Athens. The simpler early compositions had been adapted to the taste of the audience who heard them, and gave satisfaction for the time; until the loftier genius of Æschylus and the other great constructive dramatists was manifested.