The victory of Apollo over the Python is represented by a statue called Apollo Belvedere, perhaps the greatest existing work of ancient art. It was found in 1503, among the ruins of ancient Antium, and it derives its name from its position in the belvedere, or open gallery, of the Vatican at Rome, where it was placed by Pope Julius II. It shows the conception which the ancients had of this benign deity, and also the high degree of perfection to which they had attained in sculpture. A modern writer gives the following account of it:
"The statue is of heroic size, and shows the very perfection of manly beauty. The god stands with the left arm extended, still holding the bow, while the right hand, which has just left the string, is near his hip. This right hand and part of the right arm, as well as the left hand, were wanting in the statue when found, and were restored by Angelo da Montor'soli, a pupil of Michael Angelo. The figure is nude; only a short cloak hangs over the left shoulder. The breast is full and dilated; the muscles are conspicuous, though not exaggerated; the body seems a little thin about the hips, but is poised with such singular grace as to impart to the whole a beauty hardly possessed by any other statue. The sculptor is not known: many attribute the statue to He-ge'si-as, the Ephesian, others to Praxit'e-les or Cal'amis; but its origin and date must remain a matter of conjecture."
The following poetical description of this wonderful statue is given us by THOMSON:
All conquest-flushed, from prostrate Python came
The quivered god. In graceful act he stands,
His arm extended with the slackened bow:
Light flows his easy robe, and fair displays
A manly, softened form. The bloom of gods
Seems youthful o'er the bearded cheek to wave;
His features yet heroic ardor warms;
And, sweet subsiding to a native smile,
Mixed with the joy elating conquest gives,
A scattered frown exalts his matchless air.
THE NATIONAL COUNCILS.
While the elements of union we have been considering produced a decided effect in forming Greek national character—serving to strengthen, in the mind of the Greek, the feelings which bound him to his country by keeping alive his national love and pride, and exerting an important influence over his physical education and discipline—they possessed little or no efficacy as a bond of political union—what Greece so much needed. It was probably a recognition of this need that led, at an early period, to the formation of national councils, the primary object of which was the regulation of mutual intercourse between the several states.
Of these early councils we have an example in the several associations known as the Amphicty'o-nes, of which the only one that approached a national senate received the distinctive title of the "Amphictyon'ic Council." This is said to have been instituted by Amphic'tyon, a son of Deucalion, King of Thessaly; but he was probably a fictitious personage, invented to account for the origin of the institution attributed to him. The council is said to have been composed, originally, of deputies from twelve tribes or nations—two from each tribe. But, as independent states or cities grew up, each of these also was entitled to the same representation; and no state, however powerful, was entitled to more. The council met twice every year; in the spring at Delphi, and in the autumn at Anthe'la, a village near Thermopylæ.
While the objects of this council, so far as they can be learned, were praiseworthy, and its action tended to produce the happiest political effects, it was, after all, more especially a religious association. It had no right of interference in ordinary wars between the communities represented in it, and could not turn aside schemes of ambition and conquest, or subdue the jealousies of rival states. The oath taken by its members ran thus: "We will not destroy any Amphictyonic town, nor cut it off from running water in war or peace; if anyone shall do so, we will march against him and destroy his city. If anyone shall plunder the property of the god, or shall take treacherous counsel against the things in his temple at Delphi, we will punish him with foot, and hand, and voice, and by every means in our power." Its chief functions, as we see, were to guard the temple of Delphi and the interests of religion; and it was only in cases of a violation of these, or under that pretence, that it could call for the cooperation of all its members. Inefficient as it had proved to be in many instances, yet Philip of Macedon, by placing himself at its head, overturned the independence of Greece; but its use ceased altogether when the Delphic oracle lost its influence, a considerable time before the reign of Constantine the Great.
Aside from the causes already assigned, the want of political union among the Greeks may be ascribed to a natural and mutual jealousy, which, in the language of Mr. Thirlwall, "stifled even the thought of a confederacy" that might have prevented internal wars and saved Greece from foreign dominion. This jealousy the institutions to which we have referred could not remove; and it was heightened by the great diversity of the forms of government that existed in the Grecian states. As another writer has well observed, "The independent sovereignty of each city was a fundamental notion in the Greek mind. The patriotism of a Greek was confined to his city, and rarely kindled into any general love for the welfare of Hellas. So complete was the political division between the Greek cities, that the citizen of one was an alien and a stranger in the territory of another. He was not merely debarred from all share in the government, but he could not acquire property in land or houses, nor contract a marriage with a native woman, nor sue in the courts except through the medium of a friendly citizen. The cities thus repelling each other, the sympathies and feelings of a Greek became more central in his own."
In view of these conditions it is not surprising that Greece never enjoyed political unity; and just here was her great and suicidal weakness. The Romans reduced various races, in habitual war with one another and marked by variations of dialect and customs, into a single government, and kept them there; but the Greeks, though possessing a common inheritance, a common language, a common religion, and a common type of character, of manners, and of aspirations, allowed all these common interests, that might have created an indissoluble political union, to be subordinated to mutual jealousies—to an "exclusive patriotism" that rendered it difficult for them to unite even under circumstances of common and terrible danger. "It was this political disunion that always led them to turn their arms against one another, and eventually subjected them to the power of Macedon and of Rome."