SIGHT AND SEEING IN ANCIENT TIMES 423 



of his own head.' If it be alleged in extenuation that the circum- 

 stances under which his notes were taken were ill suited to the careful 

 study of external nature, it is to be said in reply that he observed and 

 recorded what most interested him. His itinerary is so inaccurately, 

 or at least so sparingly, marked that no modern explorer has been able 

 to follow or trace it. In view of the fact that the ancients did not 

 receive as much pleasure from the contemplation of scenery as we 

 moderns, it is probable that they did not regard blindness or failing 

 sight as a very serious misfortune. In Schiller's Tell we have a 

 notable passage describing the frightful misfortune of blindness : 



Oh! 'tis a noble gift of Heaven, 



The gift of sight, each being lives on light, 



And all creation feels its gladding power! 



The plants themselves turn joyfull to the light: 



To die — is nothing — nothing! but to live, 



And not to see — is misery indeed! 



The Greeks believed that the power of internal vision was enhanced 

 by lack of bodily sight. This belief was in accordance with the law of 

 compensation held by them. Fortune, good or ill, is always outweighed 

 by its opposite. ' The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle ' was sup- 

 posed to have been blind because his intellectual insight was pre- 

 ternaturally acute and accurate. Tiresias, the most famous seer in 

 Greek legend, is always spoken of as blind. We do not know whether 

 this preternatural acumen was the result of his want of sight or 

 whether the latter was a condition precedent to the former. One of 

 the favorite characters of Greek mythology was CEdipus, spending the 

 sunset of his life in dignified retirement near Athens under the care of 

 his daughter Antigone. In early years he had blinded himself after 

 discovering that he had unwittingly been guilty of incest. The Greeks 

 did but little by artificial light. They were early risers and all repu- 

 table people were supposed to retire early. Plato, in his Laws, says the 

 master and mistress of the household should be the first to rise in the 

 morning in order to show a good example to the other members. He 

 further says : " Magistrates who keep awake at night are terrible to the 

 bad whether enemies or citizens and are honored and revered by the 

 temperate, and are useful to themselves." Throughout the entire 

 ancient, medieval and 'modern world, until within comparatively recent 

 times, the badly lighted or totally dark streets made it a matter of 

 prudence for honest people to go abroad as little as possible after night- 

 fall, especially if they carried or were supposed to carry articles of value. 

 The comparative sameness in the style of clothing gave the footpad the 

 opportunity to replenish his wardrobe at the expense of his fellow 

 without saying, ' By your leave.' We are not told that the man who 

 went down to Jericho was attacked in the night, but we are informed 

 that he was stripped. That the ancients placed a much higher value on 

 worn garments than is done by the moderns is shown by the statement 



