[Born (uncertain). Died about B.C. 468.]
His unbending integrity procured him the title of “The Just.” Was at the battle of Marathon (B.C. 480), where he fought bravely. Opposed to the extreme democratical party in Athens, headed by Themistocles, by whose influence he was banished (about B.C. 483). He was still in exile at the time of the sea-fight of Salamis (B.C. 482), but he raised a band, and fought for his country in this battle. Recalled by the Athenians from banishment, and commanded their army at the battle of Platæa (B.C. 479). His sense of justice spotless: his self-denial unimpeachable. At his death he was very poor, although he had borne the highest offices of the State. The Athenians became more virtuous from the contemplation of this bright example. It is related that in the representation of one of the tragedies of Æschylus, a sentence was uttered in favour of moral goodness. The eyes of the audience turned involuntarily and at once from the actor to Aristides.
9. Euripides. Greek Poet.
[Born at Salamis, B.C. 480. Died in Macedonia, B.C. 406. Aged 74.]
The father of Euripides, putting his own interpretation upon the oracle which promised that his son should be crowned with “sacred garlands,” had him carefully trained in gymnastic exercises, and whilst yet a boy Euripides won the prize at the Eleusinian and Thesean games. But the lad was soon allured from physical sports, by the fascinations of philosophy and literature. He became the ardent pupil and friend of the philosopher Anaxagoras, and the instruction thus derived is visible in many of his productions. At the age of 18, Euripides wrote his first tragedy. He gained the first prize B.C. 441, and continued to exhibit his plays until within two years of his death. He died in Macedonia, and is said to have been torn in pieces by the dogs of the Macedonian king. Twenty of his plays are extant. Like Anaxagoras, Euripides was of a serious temper, and averse to mirth. He was intimate with Socrates, and the contemporary of Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Pindar, Aristophanes, Æschylus, and Sophocles. To assign him his poetical rank we must look back. In the three great Attic tragedians we trace a natural progress of their theatre. In Æschylus, the stage appears attracted with predominant force to the high mythological ideas which it arose to embody: the muse stalks sublimely above the heads of men. In Sophocles, the art tempers and adjusts, with admirable equipoise, the superhuman and the human element; the spirits and hearts of men are more closely approached by the poet, still overshadowed by the heroic and the divine. In Euripides, although the story which he represents is still drawn from the same source of divine and heroic fable, the sympathy with passions, events, interests, and sufferings, incident to humanity, prevails in excess. With him, amidst strewings of beautiful poetry, and whilst penetrated with strokes of singular pathos, we too much feel that we step on our own daily and common earth. We miss the elevation of an art which should, in reflecting ourselves, lift us above ourselves: as we have experience in our own Shakspeare. Sophocles said that “he himself represented men as they ought to be, but Euripides as they are.”
[This bust is verified by another in the Louvre, and one in the Naples Museum, which has the name of Euripides engraved on the breast. There is also a cameo of exceeding beauty in the Louvre, on which we find the same head. Portraits of Euripides were common at Athens, and even as late as the 5th century his statues were to be seen at Constantinople. A small seated statue of Euripides will be found in the Bas-relief Gallery, No. 215. It is inscribed with his name, and has a list of his plays, upon the slab which supports the statue. See Handbook to Greek Court, No. 215.]
10. Aratus. Astronomer.
[Flourished about B.C. 270.]
A fellow-countryman of St. Paul, who quotes one of his works in his address to the Athenians. Called to the Court of Antigonus Gonatas, King of Macedonia. He there pursued physics, grammar, and philosophy. He also versified two astronomical treatises by Eudoxus. There are many errors with much want of precision in the descriptive portions of these works, proving the poet to have been neither a mathematician nor an acute observer. As a poet, Aratus was hardly more eminent. He is wanting in originality and poetic feeling; yet his verses obtained popularity both in Greece and Rome.
[The well known head, representing, as it is supposed, the Poet of the Stars, in the attitude of viewing the heavens. The same head is found on medals, of which the best is preserved in the Hunterian Museum of the College of Surgeons, London.]