English Photo Co., Athens
front only. The upper story was reached by a rock-terrace cut out of the hill-side at the back. The whole temple, with out-buildings, was enclosed by a wall.
Summing up the architectural character of the period, we should say that it was severely limited by the conservatism of religion to the austerest outlines and the simplest plans. Such laws it loyally obeyed, and yet found scope for exquisite workmanship and subtle varieties within them. Ictinus and Mnesicles were quite capable of adapting themselves to any local peculiarities, but the strict Doric style still reigned supreme. Finally we note that fine architecture is almost entirely confined to the service of religion and patriotism, while private and secular buildings are still on the most unpretentious scale. The only architectural work of a strictly utilitarian character that we can mention is the planning of the Peiræus, which was as orderly, as regular and as dull as “town-planned” towns generally are.
Tragedy and Comedy
It was the policy of Pericles, when he trusted his fellow-citizens with so much power, to train them to be fit to wield it. Fond as the Athenian was of political and social equality within his own circle of citizenship, his tone and temper were, I think, like those of all the other Greeks, inherently aristocratic. The Greeks were a chosen people. They stood aloof, with slaves and helots beneath them, and with barbarians all round them. Few Greeks would have disputed the doctrine by which Aristotle justified slavery: the Greek is by nature superior; set him down in a barbarian city, and in a short time the Greek would be king. They would have laughed sweetly at Lafayette’s “Rights of Man.” Man only gets his rights as a member of a partnership, a corporate community—to wit, a city. This community he entered, when he was acknowledged as a citizen, not without a strict scrutiny into his claims, as formally as we enter a club. Having once joined partnership with such a state as Athens, his rights became precise and important. Among other rights, a democracy offered him that of taking his turn in the government if the lot or the votes of his fellow-citizens designated him for office. Political philosophy maintains as an axiom that the better people ought to rule over the worse, condemning all democracy, and Athens in particular, because there the many ruled over the few, and therefore necessarily the worse over the better. Pericles would not have denied the doctrine, but only its applicability to Athens. He would have claimed that the whole Athenian citizen body possessed “virtue” in the political philosopher’s sense of the word; they were all aristoi, for he had seen to it that the Athenian citizens should all receive a training, which, though utterly different from the Spartan in its aims and methods, was even more capable of turning the masses into an aristocracy of manners and intelligence.
It was a liberal education even to walk in the streets of that wonderful city, to worship in her splendid shrines, to sail the Mediterranean in her fleets, to lounge in her colonnades and listen to the wisdom of the wise. The temple services, the festivals, and the banquets were intended with solemn symbolism to uplift the minds of the worshippers. There was actual practice in public business for every one, whether in the Assembly or the Council Hall or the large Jury Courts. Thus it was hoped that any man whom the lot might appoint to be archon or president would be fit for his duties.
But of all instruments of public education perhaps the most important was the Drama. This word, which we associate with entertainment after dinner, with tinsel and bad ventilation, meant to the Greeks a religious solemnity destined to the praise of gods and the edification of men. During the fifth century at Athens the stage was far the most powerful form of literary and artistic expression—so much so that as Greek literature in this period is almost entirely absorbed by Athens, all the other voices of poetry are for a time reduced to silence. The amazingly rapid development of this form of expression was largely due to the concentration with which the literary
