In strong contrast to these prosaic lines is Critias’ superb apostrophe to the Creator, which may be paraphrased thus:—
From all time, O Lord, is thy being; neither is there any that saith, This is my son.
All that is created, lo, thou hast woven the firmament about it; the heavens revolve, and all that is therein spinneth like a wheel.
Thou hast girded thyself with light; the gloom of dusk is about thee, even as a garment of netted fire.
Stars without number dance around thee; they cease not, they move in a measure through thy high places.
From the same hymn probably comes the majestic passage which tells of “unwearied Time that in full flood ever begets himself, and the Great Bear and the Less....”
In apparent contrast to this tone is the remarkable passage, of forty-two lines, from the Sisyphus. It is a purely rationalistic account of religion. First human life was utterly brutish: there were no rewards for righteousness, no punishment of evil-doers. Then law was set up, that justice might be sovereign; but this device only added furtiveness to sin. Finally, “some man of shrewdness and wisdom ... introduced religion” (or “the conception of God,” τὸ θεῖον), so that even in secret the wicked might be restrained by fear. The contradiction between these two plays is illusory: Critias combines with disbelief in the personal Greek gods belief in an impersonal First Cause. It is too often forgotten that among the “Thirty Tyrants” were men of strong religious principles. The democratic writers of Athens loved to depict them as mercenary butchers, but it is plain from the casual testimony of Lysias[85] that they looked upon themselves as moral reformers. “They said that it was their business to purge the city of wicked men, and turn the rest of the citizens to righteousness and self-restraint.” Such passages read like quotations from men who would inaugurate a “rule of the saints,” and if their severities surpassed those of the English Puritans, they were themselves outdone by the cruelty which sternly moral leaders of the French Revolution not only condoned but initiated. Critias was the Athenian Robespierre. But the one revolution was the reverse of the other. The régime of the Thirty was a last violent effort of the Athenian oligarchs to stem the tide of ochlocracy, to induce some self-discipline into the freedom of Athens. They failed, and Critias was justified on the field of Chæronea.
The most successful tragic playwright of the fourth century was Astydamas, whose history furnishes good evidence that after the disappearance of Euripides and Sophocles the Greek genius was incapable of carrying tragedy into new developments. While prose could boast such names as Plato and Demosthenes, the tragic art found no greater exponent than this Astydamas, of whose numerous plays nothing is left save nine odd lines. There were, moreover, two Astydamantes, father and son, whose works (scarcely known save by name) it is difficult to distinguish. But it seems that it was the son whose popularity was so great as to win him fifteen first prizes and an honour before unknown. His Parthenopæus won such applause in 340 B.C. that the Athenians set up a brazen statue of the playwright in the theatre; it was not till ten years later that the orator Lycurgus persuaded them to accord a like honour to the three Masters. We learn from Aristotle[86] that Astydamas altered the story of Alcmæon, causing him to slay his mother in ignorance; and Plutarch[87] alludes to his Hector as one of the greatest plays. He was nothing more than a capable writer who caught the taste of his time, and probably owed much of his popularity to the excellence of his actors.
Only one fact is known about Polyidus “the sophist,” but that is sufficiently impressive. Aristotle twice[88] takes the Recognition-scene in his Iphigenia as an example, and in the second instance actually compares the work of Polyidus with one of Euripides’ most wonderful successes—the Recognition-scene in the Iphigenia in Tauris. It appears that as Orestes was led away to slaughter he exclaimed: “Ah! So I was fated, like my sister, to be sacrificed.” This catches the attention of Iphigenia and saves his life. Polyidus here undoubtedly executed a brilliant coup de théâtre.