of commanders-in-chief with that of priests and judges; next after them, heroes acquired, by warlike exploits, places of honour according to their merits. Ancient usages in domestic life were strictly observed, and suffered not the slightest alteration. Under this kind of government, passed away, in combats and adventures, the heroic age, and its roughness was somewhat softened by the songs of early and wise bards. Among the enterprises of this period, the expedition of the Argonauts (1250 B.C?) was the most important. The successful attack upon Troy, (1200 B. C.) which brought into combination the small and separated states of Greece, and united them with the more cultivated tribes of Upper Asia, terminated, this species of warfare. Most of the leaders who had exerted their power in the vigorous prosecution of this popular siege, were exhausted by their efforts, and lost their superiority. Many princely families became extinct, or sought out other countries. Many, after their return' home, were destroyed by internal factions. New competitors arose and struggled vigorously for power and. liberty; the people, in general, had lost their ancient habit of discipline, and civil contests were carried on with wild and martial rage; the possession of land proprietors was disturbed, and whole tribes were obliged to emigrate. Dorians and Ætolians led on by Heraclidians, conquered the most fertile countries of the Peloponnesus, and drove off the Molians and Achæans, and Ionians. At that time (1100 B.C.) the colonies on the western shore of Upper Asia were founded, where first the national Epopeia issued perfect from the school of the bards; and philosophy, as the fruit of conscious liberty, prospered. Afterwards (740 B. C.) followed the settlements in Lower Italy and Sicily, which soon attained the possession of a péculiar literature. During these long confusions and disorders, the reverence for royalty, which had been for some time decaying, was entirely lost, except in Sparta, to which Lycurgus had given a monarchicoaristocratic constitution, and in Epirus, which was left to the arbitrary humour of kings; but neither of them has done any thing for art or science. All the other states of Greece adopted free constitutions; and though tyrants, at some intervals, assumed authority, it was accompanied by no influence upon the predominant national spirit. In Athens, centered every thing that breathed the true spirit of Grecian genius. Solon had given (594 B. C.) to this town a constitution, which reconciled and brought together all the existing, deep-rooted and original principles of social life. This, under Pisistratus (560 B.C?) and VOL. VI. NO. 11. 5 Pericles (444 B.C?) was reformed into a democracy. Under Pericles, Athens attained her golden age of literature and art. The drama, history, eloquence and philosophy were carried to their perfection. This brilliant display of the noblest powers of the mind was, nevertheless, accompanied by moral degeueracy and frivolous licentiousness. The victory of Philip at Cheronea, (338 B. C.) destroyed her political independence; but the blessings of her mental labours were felt in future ages. The influence of her literature was especially conspicuous at Alexandria, where extensive literary corporations were formed; it gained a second life by its decided effect upon Roman letters. Under the most adverse circumstances, it was impossible to extinguish it; when Constantinople (1453 A.D.) fell a prey to the Turks, Grecian literature found protection and esteem in the West, and animated study there with new spirit and life. The Greeks were very much indebted to other nations for what may be termed the external forms of civilization, and for the means of appropriating them to social use; but in every thing that belonged to mental developement of the sublimest nature, and to the finished and artful expression of that developement, they displayed a peculiar and striking nationality, as is most evident from the natural representation of their sentiments in poetry, from their productions in science, and above all, from their pure prose, which could not have been borrowed from any Asiatic nation, even by the most civilized. The first seeds of mental activity were sown by priestly wisdom in the East, which grew up and enriched the ancient world; but this merry and sensual people only comprehended what was external, without penetrating into the hidden meaning. All that belonged to theology was excluded from their religious poetry. Natural powers were idolized, and mysterious appearances of earthly life as well as divinities, were personified in the most noble human shape. Thus mythology, in cooperation with practical art, excited, promoted and nourished Greek fantasy, and led to a higher culture, which united the most perfect developement of human powers with cheerful enjoyment of the present, and by its superior moral tendency, and its public show and exhibition, secured a vigorous duration, while it delighted by its ever recurring novelty. This superiority of mental production and enjoyment had its origin in the freedom of the Greeks, in early times, from priestly guardianship. The sectional peculiarities of the chief tribes of the Hellenic race exercised a decided influence upon the litera ture of the Greeks. This is remarkably conspicuous in the effects produced by the practical and moral life of the Ionians and Dorians. The Ionic republicanism and the Doric aristocracy were long opposed to each other, and contended with the bitterest hatred in the Peloponnesian war. Their views of life were widely different. The merry Ionian endeavoured to colour life with the brightest hues, snatched with eagerness the present moment, and willingly exchanged the old for the new. The Dorian, reared among mountains, loved tranquillity and ancestral manners, was naturally inclined to reflection and moral seriousness, and strove after all that was great and sublime. Among the Ionians, the plastic epos was formed according to the impressions of reality, the epic history from tales and sententious wisdom, the satirical iambic, and the elegy from reflection and experience, and their playful, sensual poetry from joyous humour and sentiment. To the Dorians the higher lyric is indebted for its refinement; it was elevated from a deep sentiment to a serious animation and close reflection on God and man. The Ionic philosophy issued from the outward forms and images of nature and the explanation of their existence; the Doric was occupied with the spiritual essence, and separated pure and abstract reasoning from physiology. The philosophy of the former included realism, and that of the latter idealism. Between the Ionians and Dorians stood the Eolians, with an inferior constitution leaning to anarchy. Among them sprung up the didactic epos, and their passionate temperament produced lyric poems full of glowing sentiments and a corresponding music. The Athenians united the qualities of both the Ionians and Dorians; a lively imagination with serious sublimity, in a very high degree. Hence, the tragedy arose from the epos and solemn lyric; the comedy, from the iambic of republican liberty, ennobled by the dignity of the lyric; hence, the easy, comprehensible history which facilitates the knowledge of the past; hence the amalgamation of realism and idealism into Platonism. - Greek literature embraces poetry in its entire variety and excellence-eloquence in its highest signification for public lifehistory in mature perfection-philosophy exhibited in all its relations-politics modelled to an ingenious theory by various experience-natural history and medicine in simplicity and intelligible truth. Still later also, mathematics and astronomy, grammar and criticism, acquired excellent and scientific reformation. The Greek language, susceptible of all the improvements of art, and expressing clearly all abstract notions, is distin guished by its richness, euphony, flexible softness, manly energy, copiousness and precision. It acquired these advantages by the very lively activity of the national spirit-by the publicity of civil life-by a correct feeling for beauty, and by an acute sense for the arts. Its various dialects* were cultivated and brought to great excellence; the Doric and Æolic were energetic, and gloomily or passionately serious-the lonic was more mild and melodious-the Attic united the good qualities and avoided the deficiencies of the others; it was manly and youthfully fresh, rich and full sounding, tender, subtle and insinuating, and equally satisfying the demands of poetry and eloquence. The art of writing, which Cadmus is supposed to have brought to Greece, (1500 B. C.) must have remained for a long time a dead treasure. The alphabet of sixteen letters, which was, at the beginning of the seventh century, B. C. enriched one-half. more by the Ionic Callistratus, was late enough (403 B. C.) exchanged at Athens for another more complete, and it does not seem to have come into public use in the Ionic colonies of Asia Minor before the seventh century. The education of youth was, for a long time, entrusted to the government. The institutions which Pythagoras founded, (600 B.C?) were calculated to exercise the new generation in practical philosophy, and to rear them for the higher services of the state. Solon (594 B.C.) opened at Athens proper public schools, in which language, history and mathematics were taught, but music and gymnastics constituted the chief objects of education and instruction. By means of Gorgias (424 B. C.) were instituted, first, sophistical, and soon after, philosophical schools. The existence of libraries at the time of Pisistratus and Polycrates, is doubtful, and even improbable. They could only have been formed in the fourth century, B. C. and even then to a very limited extent. The early poetry† of the Greeks was of an origin and tenor strictly religious, and appears to have been introduced from Lycia into Thrace by the priests; thence it passed to Thessaly and Boeotia. It consisted in divine sentences of prophets and, sybils, in worship and prayers, in solemn songs and exclamations of pious devotion, joined with dancing and music, in moral sentences and symbolic reflections on nature and the world, and in celebrations of the favourites of the Gods. Perhaps it was Comp. Fr. Jacobs, G. Hermann observat: de Gr. dialect: et de dialecto Pindari and Maittaire Græc. Ling. dialec., + Heyne in Opusc. Acad. vol. ii. F. Schlegel Hist. of Roman and Greek Poetry. customary with the mysterious and religious fraternities to style peculiar solemn songs after the founder or superintendent of these corporations, and in this way may posterity have received the mythological names of Eumolpus, Thamyris, Philammon, Melampus, Olen, Linus, and many others. The mythological Orpheus, and his pupil Musæus, were renowned as models, but the poems attributed to both of them are of later times. To Orpheus* have been attributed— I. Hymns in old fashionable temple-style, rich in mythological traditions and notions. Many suppose Onomacritus (555 B. C.) to have been their author, but they, more probably, had their origin in the Alexandrian ages. II. Argonautica, by an Alexandrian of the fourth century after Christ. III. Lithika, of the secret powers of stone, belongs to the fourth century after Christ. Of the many fragments, that on earth, is the most important. Under the name of Musæus,† come to us the oracles which are supposed to have been brought into vogue by Onomacritus. The author (of the same name) of the pleasant erotic epopee, Hero and Leander, lived long after Christ. In the Ionic Upper Asia, poetry was first divested of its religious cast, and was conversant about the affairs of civil life. The epopee, with the heroic verse which soon became peculiar to it, celebrated the heroes of antiquity. The didactic epopee, which sprung up among the Æolians, took the tone of reflection. Observations on practical and civil life soon began to be made and expressed by the elegy, in diminutive heroic rhythm. Out of this sententious poetry arose the iambic, critical of human faults and vices. The epic and iambic united to form the lyric. Of this class of poetry, there were three styles indicative of the nations who practised them. The first was of a lofty tone, high-souled, with the three-footed metre, and this the Dorians claimed. The impassioned lyric, full of ardent and burning feeling, belonged to the Eolians. The Ionians delighted in the easy and playful versification. The epopee, the iambic and the lyric, woven into a dialogical plot, made up the drama, and this combination attained its perfection at Athens. Besides these, the artful dithyrambic and epigram were also cultivated. All the poetical productions of later ages were but Fabric. Biblioth. Græc. vol. i. p. 140. + Ibid. p. 123 |