It was in these festivals, at which no foreigner, however eminent, was allowed to contend for prizes, that the Greeks buried their quarrels, and incited each [pg 200] other to heroism. The places in which they were celebrated became marts of commerce like the mediæval fairs of Germany; and the vast assemblage of spectators favored that communication of news, and inventions, and improvements which has been produced by our modern exhibitions. These games answered all the purposes of our races, our industrial exhibitions, and our anniversaries, religious, political, educational, and literary, and thus had a most decided influence on the development of Grecian thought and enterprise. The exhibition of sculpture and painting alone made them attractive and intellectual, while the athletic exercises amused ordinary minds. They were not demoralizing, like the sports of the amphitheatre, or a modern bull-fight, or even fashionable races. They were more like tournaments in the martial ages of Europe, but superior to them vastly, since no woman was allowed to be present at the Olympic games under pain of death.
Changes in government. Erection of temples. Legal equality and political rights.
It has already been shown that the form of government in the States of Ancient Greece, in the Homeric ages, was monarchical. In two or three hundred years after the Trojan war, the authority of kings had greatly diminished. The great immigration and convulsions destroyed the line of the ancient royal houses. The abolition of royalty was in substance rather than name. First, it was divided among several persons, then it was made elective, first for life, afterward for a definite period. The nobles or chieftains gained increasing power with the decline of royalty, and the government became, in many States, aristocratic. But the nobles abused their power by making an oligarchy, which is a perverted aristocracy. This aroused hatred and opposition on the part of the people, especially in the maritime cities, where the increase of wealth by commerce and the arts raised up a body of powerful citizens. Then followed popular revolutions under leaders or demagogues. These leaders in turn became tyrants, and their exactions gave rise to more hatred than that produced by the government of powerful families. They gained power by stratagem, and perverted [pg 201] it by violence. But to amuse the people whom they oppressed, or to please them, they built temples, theatres, and other public buildings, in which a liberal patronage was extended to the arts. Thus Athens and Corinth, before the Persian wars, were beautiful cities, from the lavish expenditure of the public treasury by the tyrants or despots who had gained ascendency. In the mean time, those who were most eminent for wealth, or power, or virtue, were persecuted, for fear they would effect a revolution. But the parties which the tyrants had trampled upon were rather exasperated than ruined, and they seized every opportunity to rally the people under their standard, and effect an overthrow of the tyrants. Sparta, whose constitution remained aristocratic, generally was ready to assist any State in throwing off the yoke of the usurpers. In some States, like Athens, every change favored the rise of the people, who gradually obtained the ascendency. They instituted the principle of legal equality, by which every freeman was supposed to exercise the attributes of sovereignty. But democracy invariably led to the ascendency of factions, and became itself a tyranny. It became jealous of all who were distinguished for birth, or wealth, or talents. It encouraged flatterers and sycophants. It was insatiable in its demands on the property of the rich, and listened to charges which exposed them to exile and their estates to confiscation. It increased the public burdens by unwise expenditures to please the men of the lower classes who possessed political franchise.
Different forms of government.
But different forms of government existed in different States. In Sparta there was an oligarchy of nobles which made royalty a shadow, and which kept the people in slavery and degradation. In Athens the democratic principle prevailed. In Argos kings reigned down to the Persian wars. In Corinth the government went through mutations as at Athens. In all the States and cities experiments in the various forms of government were perpetually made and perpetually failed. They existed for a time, and [pg 202] were in turn supplanted. The most permanent government was that of Sparta; the most unstable was that of Athens. The former promoted a lofty patriotism and public morality and the national virtues; the latter inequalities of wealth, the rise of obscure individuals, and the progress of arts.
Commercial enterprise.
The fall of the ancient monarchies and aristocracies was closely connected with commercial enterprise and the increase of a wealthy class of citizens. In the beginning of the seventh century before Christ, a great improvement in the art of ship-building was made, especially at Corinth. Colonial settlements kept pace with maritime enterprise; and both of these fostered commerce and wealth. The Euxine lost its terrors to navigators, and the Ægean Sea was filled with ships and colonists. The Adriatic Sea was penetrated, and all the seas connected with the Mediterranean. From the mouth of the Po was brought amber, which was highly valued by the ancients. A great number of people were drawn to Egypt, by the liberal offers of its kings, who went there for the pursuit of knowledge and of wealth, and from which they brought back the papyrus as a cheap material for writing. The productions of Greece were exchanged for the rich fabrics which only Asia furnished, and the cities to which these were brought, like Athens and Corinth, rapidly grew rich, like Venice and Genoa in the Middle Ages.
Increase of wealth. Introduction of art.
Wealth of course introduced art. The origin of art may have been in religious ideas—in temples and the statues of the gods—in tombs and monuments of great men. But wealth immeasurably increased the facilities both for architecture and sculpture. Artists in old times, as in these, sought a pecuniary reward—patrons who could afford to buy their productions, and stimulate their genius. Art was cultivated more rapidly in the Asiatic colonies than in the mother country, both on account of their wealth, and the objects of interest around them. The Ionian cities, especially, were distinguished for luxury and refinement. Corinth took the lead in the early patronage [pg 203] of art, as the most wealthy and luxurious of the Grecian cities.
Architecture.