Note 109.2 — Chapter IV · THE THIRD PERIOD, 500-338 B.C.

The great fifth-century poets were all moralists each in his own way. The history of Greek ethics only concerns us at the several points where it touches religion; and to this history, both generally and on its religious side, the works of Pindar and the three dramatists make important contributions. Of special interest is their attitude to Greek mythology which, in spite of its general brightness and beauty, seriously needed in parts the puritanical reformer, if it was to be harmonised with the higher religious thought. But none of these poets, not even the grave Æschylus, was willing to undertake such a rôle. Pindar of all the three comes nearest to preaching, for his métier allowed him more personal freedom of comment. While following, on the whole, the beaten path of tradition, he could innovate or invent if a moral purpose was to be gained; for instance, he preaches to a friend the doctrine of forgiveness of injuries and confirms it by the example of Zeus, who forgave and released the Titans, a myth for which he is the sole authority.109.2 We find him anticipating Plato in his protest against some grotesque and repulsive stories, such as the cannibalism of the Gods in the myth of Pelops, or blasphemous stories, such as the theomachies and the combats of heroes against divinities: “let all war and strife stand far apart from the immortals”109.3 is a good sententious maxim for the expurgation of Greek mythology and for the enrichment of Greek ethico-religious thought. But neither Pindar nor the two older dramatists protest against the more licentious myths, and they accept at need various legends about the amours of the Gods. In fact, the axiom that sexual purity was an essential attribute of all divinity was not yet accepted by the higher thought of Greece.