ἀγένητα ποιεῖν ἅσσ’ ἂν ᾖ πεπραγμένα
“this alone is beyond the power even of God, to make undone that which has been done,” and even the celebrated τέχνη τύχην ἔστερξε καὶ τύχη τέχνην, “skill loves luck, and luck skill,” give the measure of his power over epigram. His easy way of expressing simple ideas with admirable neatness may remind us of a much greater dramatist—Terence, or, in later times, of Marivaux.[78]
Plato tells us that he was a pupil both of Prodicus[79] and of Gorgias,[80] the renowned sophists, and we may trace their teaching in the fragments and in the remarkable speech which the greatest stylist of all time puts into his mouth in the Symposium—the rhymes, antitheses, quibbles, and verbal trickiness of argument. The parody, both brilliant and careful, which Aristophanes presents at the opening of his Thesmophoriazusæ is directed chiefly perhaps against his music, whereof we have no trace. The blunt auditor, Mnesilochus, describes it as lascivious.[81] The words set to it read like a feeble copy of Euripides—fluent, copious, nerveless, in spite of the “lathe,” the “glue,” the “melting-pot,” and the “moulds”[82] over which his satirist makes merry.
Agathon, then, marks unmistakably the beginning of decadence. The three masters had exhausted the possibilities of the art open to that age. A new impulse from without or the social emancipation of women might have opened new paths of achievement. But no great external influence was to come till Alexander, and then the result for Greece itself was loss of independence and vigour. And the little that could be done with women still in the harem or the slave-market was left to be performed by Menander and his fellow-comedians.[83] Agathon made a valiant effort to carry tragedy into new channels, but lacked the genius to leave more than clever experiments.
On a lower plane of achievement stands Critias, the famous leader of the “Thirty Tyrants”. Two tragedies from his pen are known to us, Pirithous[84] and Sisyphus, both at one time attributed to Euripides; but he is too doctrinaire, too deficient in brilliant idiomatic ease, for such a mistake to endure. The Pirithous deals with Heracles’ descent into Hades to rescue Theseus and to demand of Pluto Persephone’s hand for Pirithous. Of this astounding story we find little trace in the fragments, which are mostly quasi-philosophical dicta. For instance:—
A temper sound more stable is than law;
The one no politician’s eloquence
Can warp, but law by tricks of cunning words
Full often is corrupted and unhinged.