Sophocles, after having composed 113 dramas, is said to have read the chorus of the Œdipus at Colonus aloud, to disprove the rumour that he was incapable of managing his own affairs by reason of the infirmities of old age. Cratinus was ninety-one when he produced Dame Bottle, the saucy comedy with which he defeated Aristophanes, who had looked upon him as a rival whose day was over. Simonides, Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno, were likewise examples of healthy and vigorous old age. Timocreon combined the skill of an athlete with the profession of a poet. Polus, Sophocles’ favourite actor, was competent to take the leading part in eight tragedies in four days. Lastly, the sterling capacity and versatility of the masters of those days is shown by the fact that though extraordinarily prolific authors of imaginative works, they spared time to strive after scientific certainty concerning the problems and resources of their art, and combined absolute self-possession and the love of theoretical study with the enthusiasm of the artist temperament. Thus Lasus, the inventor of the perfected form of the dithyrambus, was at the same time an accomplished critic and one of the first writers on the theory of music; and Sophocles himself wrote a treatise on the tragic chorus, to set forth his views as to its place and purpose in tragedy. In like manner the most distinguished architects wrote scientific treatises on the principles of their art, Polyclitus worked out the theory of numbers which lies at the root of plastic symmetry, and Agatharchus the principles of optics, according to which he had arranged the decoration of the stage. In so doing he took the first step towards the teaching of perspective, which was subsequently developed by Democritus and Anaxagoras.[b]
Aristophanes
CHAPTER XXX. THE OUTBREAK OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
No admirer of Greek civilisation can turn from the peaceful age of Pericles and follow the next step in Grecian history without a feeling of sadness, for he has to see the most cultured people of antiquity torn by internal dissensions and interstate jealousies; he has to see the people who represent the acme of culture harassed for a generation by an imbecile strife, which shall leave it so weakened that it will become an easy prey to outside foes. In every succeeding generation, when men have studied the history of classical times, the same feeling of amazement has prevailed, and has often found expression in contemplating this period of the Peloponnesian War; but it remained for John Ruskin to invent the vivid phrase which in three words epitomises the entire story, when he speaks of this amazing conflict as the “suicide of Greece.” It was in truth nothing less than that.
There was no great question at issue between the Athenian and Spartan peoples that must be decided by the arbitrament of arms or otherwise. There was no reason outside the temperament of the people themselves why the Athenians on the one hand, and the Spartans on the other, might not have gone on indefinitely, each people pre-eminent in its own territory, and each standing aloof from the other; but that interstate jealousy which was responsible for so many things in Grecian history came as a determining influence which at last could not longer be controlled. Persian might, which dared not re-enter Greece, but which longed for the overthrow of an old enemy, urged on one side or the other, as seemed for the moment best to serve that end. The remaining Grecian cities took sides with Athens or Sparta according to their predilections, or their own personal enmities and jealousies, and there resulted a war which involved practically all the cities of Greece, and which, after continuing for a full generation, brought Hellas as a whole to destruction.