Chapter XII · (continued 2)

Socrates next refers to the indignation that he may have occasioned because he has not wept, begged, and entreated for his life, and has not brought forward his children and relatives to plead for him, as others would have done on so serious an occasion. He says that he has relatives, and three children; but he declares that not one of them shall appear in court for any such purpose —not from any insolent disposition on his part, but because he believes that such a course would be degrading to the reputation which he enjoys, as well as a disgrace to the state. He then closes his defence as follows:

"But, setting aside the question of dishonor, there seems to be something wrong in petitioning a judge, and thus procuring an acquittal, instead of informing and convincing him. For his duty is not to make a present of justice, but to give judgment; and he has Sworn that he will adjudge according to the law, and not according to his own good pleasure; and neither he nor we should get into the habit of perjuring ourselves—there can be no piety in that. Do not, then, require me to do what I consider dishonorable, and impious, and wrong, especially now, when I am being tried for impiety. For if, O men of Athens, by force of persuasion and entreaty, I could overpower your oaths, then I should be teaching you to believe that there are no gods, and convict myself, in my own defence, of not believing in them. But that is not the case; for I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my cause, to be determined by you as is best for you and me."

As he had expected, and as the tenor of his speech had assured his friends would be the case, Socrates was found guilty—but by a majority of only five or six in a body of over five hundred. He would make no proposition, as was his right, for a mitigation of punishment; and after sentence of death had been passed upon him he spent the remaining thirty days of his life in impressing on the minds of his friends the most sublime lessons in philosophy and virtue. Many of these lessons have been preserved to us in the works of Plato, in whose Phoe'do, which pictures the last hours of the prison life of Socrates, we find a sublime conversation on the immortality of the soul. The following is an extract from this work:

Socrates' Views of a Future State.

"When the dead arrive at the place to which their demon leads them severally, first of all they are judged, as well those who have lived well and piously as those who have not. And those who appear to have passed a middle kind of life, proceeding to Ach'eron, and embarking in the vessels they have, on these arrive at the lake, and there dwell; and when they are purified, and have suffered punishment for the iniquities they may have committed, they are set free, and each receives the reward of his good deeds according to his deserts; but those who appear to be incurable, through the magnitude of their offences, either from having committed many and great sacrileges, or many unjust and lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these a suitable destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth. But those who appear to have been guilty of curable yet great offences, such as those who through anger have committed any violence against father or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life in a state of penitence, or they who have become homicides in a similar manner—these must, of necessity, fall into Tartarus; but after they have fallen, and have been there a year, the wave casts them forth, the homicide into Cocy'tus, [Footnote: Co-cy'tus] but the parricides and matricides into Pyriphleg'ethon; [Footnote: Pyr-i-phlege-thon, "fire-blazing;" one of the rivers of hell] but when, being borne along, they arrive at the Acheru'sian lake, [Footnote: Ach'e-ron. Cocytus signifies the river of wailing; Pyriphlegethon, the river that burns with fire; Acheron, the river of woe; and the Styx, another river of the lower world, the river of hatred. Thus Homer, in describing "Pluto's murky abode," says:

there they cry out to and invoke, some, those whom they slew, others, those whom they injured; and, invoking them, they entreat and implore them to suffer them to go out into the lake and to receive them; and if they persuade them, they go out, and are freed from their sufferings; but if not, they are borne back to Tartarus, and thence again to the rivers, and they do not cease from suffering this until they have persuaded those whom they have injured—for this sentence was imposed on them by the judges. But those who are found to have lived an eminently holy life—these are they who, being freed and set at large from these regions in the earth as from a prison—arrive at the pure abode above, and dwell on the upper parts of the earth. And among these, those who have sufficiently purified themselves by philosophy shall live without bodies throughout all future time, and shall arrive at habitations yet more beautiful than these, which it is neither easy to describe, nor at present is there sufficient time for the purpose.

"For the sake of these things which we have described we should use every endeavor to acquire virtue and wisdom in this life, for the reward is noble and the hope great. To affirm positively, however, that these things are exactly as I have described them, does not become a man of sense; but that either this, or something of the kind, takes place with respect to our souls and their habitations—since our soul is certainly immortal—appears to me most fitting to be believed, and worthy the hazard for one who trusts in its reality; for the hazard is noble, and it is right to allure ourselves with such things, as with enchantments; for which reason I have prolonged my story to such length. On account of these things, then, a man ought to be confident about his soul, who during this life has disregarded all the pleasures and ornaments of the body as foreign from his nature, and who, having thought that they do more harm than good, has zealously applied himself to the acquirement of knowledge, and who, having adorned his soul not with a foreign but with its own proper ornaments—temperance, justice, fortitude, freedom, and truth— thus waits for his passage to Hades as one who is ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him."

After some farther conversation with his friends respecting the disposition to be made of his body, and having said farewell to his family, Socrates drank the fatal hemlock with as much composure as if it had been the last draught at a cheerful banquet, and quietly laid himself down and died. "Thus perished," says DR. SMITH, "the greatest and most original of Grecian philosophers, whose uninspired wisdom made the nearest approach to the divine morality of the Gospel." As observed by PROFESSOR TYLER of Amherst College, "The consciousness of a divine mission was the leading trait in his character and the main secret of his power. This directed his conversations, shaped his philosophy, imbued his very person, and controlled his life. This was the power that sustained him in view of approaching death, inspired him with more that human fortitude in his last days, and invested his dying words with a moral grandeur that 'has less of earth in it than heaven.'" [Footnote: Preface to "Plato's Apology and Crito."] There was a more special and personal influence, however, to which Socrates deemed himself subject through life, and which probably moved him to view death with such calmness.

With all his practical wisdom, the great philosopher was not free from the control of superstitious fancies. He not only always gave careful heed to divinations, dreams, and oracular intimations, but he believed that he was warned and restrained, from childhood, by a familiar spirit, or demon, which he was accustomed to speak of familiarly and to obey implicitly. A writer, in alluding to this subject, says: "There is no more curious chapter in Grecian biography than the story of Socrates and his familiar demon, which, sometimes unseen, and at other times, as he asserted, assuming human shape, acted as his mentor; which preserved his life after the disastrous battle of De'lium, by pointing out to him the only secure line of retreat, while the lives of his friends, who disregarded his entreaties to accompany him, were sacrificed; and which, again, when the crisis of his fate approached, twice dissuaded him from defending himself before his accusers, and in the end encouraged him to quaff the poisoned cup presented to his lips by an ungrateful people."

ART.

Having briefly traced the history of Grecian literature in its best period, it remains to notice some of the monuments of art, "with which," as ALISON says, "the Athenians have overspread the world, and which still form the standard of taste in every civilized nation on earth."

I. SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.

Grecian sculpture, as we have seen, had attained nearly the summit of its perfection at the commencement of the Persian wars. Among those who now gave to it a wider range may be mentioned Pythagoras, of Rhegium, and Myron, a native of Eleu'theræ. The former executed works in bronze representing contests of heroes and athletes; but he was excelled in this field by Myron, who was also distinguished for his representations of animals. The energies of sculpture, however, were to be still more directly concentrated and perfected in a new school. That school was at Athens, and its master was Phid'ias, an Athenian painter, sculptor, and architect, who flourished about 460 B.C. "At this point," observes LÜBKE, [Footnote: "Outlines of the History of Art," by Wilhelm Lübke; Clarence Cook's edition.] "begins the period of that wonderful elevation of Hellenic life which was ushered in by the glorious victory over the Persians. Now, for the first time, the national Hellenic mind rose to the highest consciousness of noble independence and dignity. Athens concentrated within herself, as in a focus, the whole exuberance and many-sidedness of Greek life, and glorified it into beautiful unity. Now, for the first time, the deepest thoughts of the Hellenic mind were embodied in sculpture, and the figures of the gods rose to that solemn sublimity in which art embodied the idea of divinity in purely human form. This victory of the new time over the old was effected by the power of Phidias, one of the most wonderful artist-minds of all time."

Phidias was intrusted by Pericles with the superintendence of the public works erected or adorned by that lavish ruler, and his own hands added to them their most valuable ornaments. But before he was called to this employment his statues had adorned the most celebrated temples of Greece. "These inimitable works," says GILLIES, [Footnote: Gillies's "History of Ancient Greece," p. 178.] "silenced the voice of envy; and the most distinguished artists of Greece—sculptors, painters, and architects—were ambitious to receive the directions, and to second the labors of Phidias, which were uninterruptedly employed, during fifteen years, in the embellishment of his native city." The chief characteristic of Phidias was ideal beauty of the sublimest order in the representation of divinities and their worship; and he substituted ivory for marble in those parts of statues that were uncovered, such as the face, hands, and feet, while for the covered portion he substituted solid gold in place of wood concealed with real drapery. The style and character of his work are well described by LÜBKE, as follows:

"That Phidias especially excelled in creating images of the gods, and that he preferred, as subjects for his art, those among the divinities the essence of whose nature was spiritual majesty, marks the fundamental characteristic of his art, and explains its superiority, not only to all that had been produced before his time, but to all that was contemporary with him, and to all that came after him. Possessed of that unsurpassable masterly power in the representation of the physical form to which Greek art, shortly before his time, had attained by unceasing endeavor, his lofty genius was called upon to apply these results to the embodiment of the highest ideas, and thus to invest art with the character of sublimity, as well as with the attributes of perfect beauty. Hence it is said of him, that he alone had seen images of the gods, and he alone had made them visible to others. Even in the story that, in emulation with other masters, he made an Amazon, and was defeated in the contest by his great contemporary Polycle'tus, we see a confirmation of the ideal tendency of his art. But that his works realized the highest conceptions of the people, and embodied the ideal of the Hellenic conception of the divinity, is proved by the universal admiration of the ancient world. This sublimity of conception was combined in him with an inexhaustible exuberance of creative fancy, an incomparable care in the completion of his work, and a masterly power in overcoming every difficulty, both in the technical execution and in the material."

Probably the first important work executed by Phidias at Athens was the colossal bronze image of Minerva, which stood on the Acropolis. It was nearly seventy feet in height, and was visible twenty miles out at sea. It was erected by the Athenians, in memory of their victory over the Persians, with the spoils of Marathon. A smaller bronze statue, on the same model, was also erected on the Acropolis. But the greatest of the works of Phidias at Athens was the ivory and gold statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, erected with the booty taken at Salamis. It was forty feet high, representing the goddess, "not with her shield raised as the vigorous champion of her people, but as a peaceful, protecting, and victory-giving divinity." Phidias was now called to Elis, and there he executed his crowning work, the gold and ivory statue of Jupiter at Olympia. "The father of the gods and of men was seated on a splendid throne in the cella of his Olympic temple, his head encircled with a golden olive-wreath; in his right hand he held Nikè, who bore a fillet of victory in her hands and a golden wreath on her head; in his left hand rested the richly-decorated sceptre." The throne was adorned with gold and precious stones, and on it were represented many celebrated scenes. "From this immeasurable exuberance of figures," says LÜBKE, "rose the form of the highest Hellenic divinity, grand and solemn and wonderful in majesty. Phidias had represented him as the kindly father of gods and men, and also as the mighty ruler in Olympus. As he conceived his subject he must have had in his mind those lines of Homer, in which Jupiter graciously grants the request of Thetis:

While the art of painting was early developed in Greece, certainly as far back as 718 B.C., the first painter of renown was Polygno'tus, of Tha'sos, who went to Athens about 463 B.C., and established there what was called "the Athenian school" of painting. Aristotle called him "the painter of character," as he was the first to give variety to the expression of the countenance, and ease and grace to the outlines of figures or the flow of drapery. He painted many battle scenes, and with his contemporaries, Diony'sius of Col'oplon, Mi'con, and others, he embellished many of the public buildings in Athens, and notably the Temple of Theseus, with representations of figures similar to those of the sculptor. About 404 B.C. painting reached a farther degree of excellence in the hands of Apollodo'rus, a native of Athens, who developed the principles of light and shade and gave to the art a more dramatic range. Of this school Zeux'is, Parrha'sius, and Timan'thes became the chief masters.

PARRHASIUS.

Of the artists of this period it has been asserted by some authorities that Parrhasius was the most celebrated, as he is said to have "raised the art of painting to perfection in all that is exalted and essential;" uniting in his works "the classic invention of Polygnotus, the magic tone of Apollodorus, and the exquisite design of Zeuxis." He was a native of Ephesus, but became a citizen of Athens, where he won many victories over his contemporaries. One of these is recorded by Pliny as having been achieved in a public contest with Zeuxis. The latter displayed a painting of some grapes, which were so natural as to deceive the birds, that came and pecked at them. Zeuxis then requested that the curtain which was supposed to screen the picture of Parrhasius be withdrawn, when it was found that the painting of Parrhasius was merely the representation of a curtain thrown over a picture-frame. The award of merit was therefore given to Parrhasius, on the ground that while Zeuxis had deceived the birds, Parrhasius had deceived Zeuxis himself.

The Roman philosopher Seneca also tells a story of Parrhasius as follows: While engaged in making a painting of "Prometheus Bound," he took an old Olynthian captive and put him to the torture, that he might catch, and transfer to canvas, the natural expression of the most terrible of mortal sufferings. This story, we may hope, is a fiction; but the incident is often alluded to by the poets, and the American poet WILLIS has painted the alleged scene in lines scarcely less terrible in their coloring than those pallid hues of death-like agony which we may suppose the painter-artist to have employed.

Parrhasius and his Captive.

II. ARCHITECTURE.

We have already referred, in general terms, to the monuments of art for which the era of Athenian greatness was distinguished, and have stated that it was more particularly in the "Age of Pericles" that Athenian genius and enthusiasm found their full development, in the erection or adornment of those miracles of architecture that crowned the Athenian Acropolis or surrounded its base. The following eloquent description, from the pen of BULWER, will convey a vivid idea of the magnitude and the brilliancy of the labors performed for

The Adornment of Athens.

"Then rapidly progressed those glorious fabrics which seemed, as Plutarch gracefully express it, endowed with the bloom of a perennial youth. Still the houses of private citizens remained simple and unadorned; still were the streets narrow and irregular; and, even centuries afterward, a stranger entering Athens would not at first have recognized the claims of the mistress of Grecian art. But to the homeliness of her common thoroughfares and private mansions the magnificence of her public edifices now made a dazzling contrast. The Acropolis, that towered above the homes and thoroughfares of men—a spot too sacred for human habitation— became, to use a proverbial phrase, 'a city of the gods.' The citizen was everywhere to be reminded of the majesty of the state —his patriotism was to be increased by the pride in her beauty— his taste to be elevated by the spectacle of her splendor.

"Thus flocked to Athens all who throughout Greece were eminent in art. Sculptors and architects vied with one another in adorning the young empress of the seas: then rose the masterpieces of Phidias, of Callic'rates, of Mnesicles, which, either in their broken remains, or in the feeble copies of imitators less inspired, still command so intense a wonder, and furnish models so immortal. And if, so to speak, their bones and relics excite our awe and envy, as testifying of a lovelier and grander race, which the deluge of time has swept away, what, in that day, must have been their brilliant effect, unmutilated in their fair proportions— fresh in all their lineaments and hues? For their beauty was not limited to the symmetry of arch and column, nor their materials confined to the marbles of Pentel'icus and Pa'ros. Even the exterior of the temples glowed with the richest harmony of colors, and was decorated with the purest gold: an atmosphere peculiarly favorable to the display and the preservation of art, permitted to external pediments and friezes all the minuteness of ornament —the brilliancy of colors, such as in the interior of Italian churches may yet be seen—vitiated, in the last, by a gaudy and barbarous taste. Nor did the Athenians spare any cost upon the works that were, like the tombs and tripods of their heroes, to be the monuments of a nation to distant ages, and to transmit the most irrefragable proof 'that the power of ancient Greece was not an idle legend.'" [Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," pp. 256, 257.]

1. THE ACROPOLIS AND ITS SPLENDORS.

The Acropolis, the fortress of Athens, was the center of its architectural splendor. It is a rocky height rising abruptly out of the Attic plain, and was accessible only on the western side, where stood the Propylæ'a, a magnificent structure of the Doric order, constructed under the direction of Pericles by the architect Mnesicles, and which served as the gate as well as the defence of the Acropolis. But the latter's chief glory was the Parthenon, or Temple of Minerva, built in the time of Pericles by Icti'nus and Callic'rates, and which stood on the highest point, near the center. It was constructed entirely of the most beautiful white marble from Mount Pentelicus, and its dimensions were two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred and two —having eight Doric columns in each of the two fronts, and seventeen in each of the sides, and also an interior range of six columns in each end. The ceiling of the western part of the main building was supported by four interior columns, and of the eastern end by sixteen. The entire height of the building above its platform was sixty-five feet. The whole was enriched within and without with matchless works of art by various artists under the direction of Phidias—its chief wonder, however, being the gold and ivory statue of the Virgin Goddess, the work of Phidias himself, elsewhere described.

This magnificent structure remained entire until the year 1687, when, during a siege of Athens by the Venetians, a bomb fell on the devoted Parthenon, and, setting fire to the powder that the Turks had stored there, entirely destroyed the roof and reduced the whole building almost to ruins. The eight columns of the eastern front, however, and several of the lateral colonnades, are still standing; and the whole, dilapidated as it is, retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and sublimity.

The Parthenon.

North of the Parthenon stood the Erechthe'um, an irregular but beautiful structure of the Ionic order, dedicated to the worship of Neptune and Minerva. Considerable remains of it are still standing. In addition to the great edifices of the Acropolis referred to, which were adorned with the most finished paintings and sculptures, the entire platform of the hill appears to have been covered with a vast composition of architecture and sculpture, consisting of temples, monuments, and statues of gods and heroes. The whole Acropolis was at once the fortress, the sacred enclosure, and the treasury of the Athenian people—forming the noblest museum of sculpture, the richest gallery of painting, and the best school of architecture in the world.

2. OTHER ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS OF ATHENS.

Beneath the southern wall of the Acropolis was the Theatre of Bacchus, capable of seating thirty thousand persons, and the seats of which, rising one above another, were cut out of the sloping rock. Adjoining this on the east was the Ode'um, a smaller covered theatre, built by Pericles, and so constructed as to imitate the form of Xerxes's tent. On the north-east side was the Prytane'um, where were many statues, and where citizens who had rendered service to the state were maintained at the public expense. A short distance to the north-west of the Acropolis, and separated from it only by some hollow ground, was the small eminence called Areop'agus, or Hill of Mars, at the eastern extremity of which was situated the celebrated court of Areopagus. About a quarter of a mile south-west stood the Pnyx, the place where the public assemblies of Athens were held in its palmy days, and a spot that will ever be associated with the renown of Demosthenes and other famed orators. The steps by which the speaker mounted the rostrum, and a tier of three seats for the audience, hewn in the solid rock, are still visible.

The only other monument of art to which we shall refer in this connection is the celebrated Temple of Theseus, built of marble by Cimon as a resting-place for the bones of the distinguished hero. [Footnote: Cimon conquered the island of Scy'ros, the haunt of pirates, and brought thence to Athens what were supposed to be the bones of Theseus.] It is of the Doric order, one hundred and four feet by forty-five, and surrounded by columns, of which there are six at each front and thirteen at the sides. The roof, friezes, and cornices of this temple have been but little impaired by time, and the whole is one of the most noble remains of the ancient magnificence of Athens, and the most nearly perfect, if not the most beautiful, existing specimen of Grecian architecture.

The Temple of Theseus.

So much for some of the architectural wonders of Athens. As BULWER says, "It was the great characteristic of these works that they were entirely the creation of the people. Without the people Pericles could not have built a temple nor engaged a sculptor. The miracles of that day resulted from the enthusiasm of a population yet young—full of the first ardor for the beautiful— dedicating to the state, as to a mistress, the trophies honorably won, or the treasures injuriously extorted, and uniting the resources of a nation with the energy of an individual, because the toil, the cost, were borne by those who succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated the glory." TALFOURD, in his Athenian Captive, calls all that went to make up Athens in the days of her glory