390 



GREECE 



there were some 1200 flour-mills worked by water 

 and wind, and less than 100 by steam ; over 200 

 distilleries ; and numerous dye-works, tanneries, and 

 manufactures of machinery, cotton and silk goods, 

 &c. 570 miles of railway were open, and 300 in 

 course of construction ; and there were nearly 4900 

 miles of telegraph lines. For the canal across the 

 isthmus of Corinth, see CORINTH. 



Literature. The distinguishing characteristic of 

 classical Greek literature and the clue to its 

 development is the fact that it was oral, that jt 

 was in all cases composed not to be read with the 

 eyes, but to be delivered by the lips and heard by 

 the ears. It is the distinguishing characteristic, 

 because when Greek literature ceased to be oral it 

 ceased to be classical ; and it affords the clue to 

 the evolution of classical Greek literature, because 

 that literature went through a series of forms 

 epic, lyric, and dramatic, historical, oratorical, and 

 philosophical which forms were impressed on it 

 by the changing nature of the circiim stances under 

 which the composer addressed his audience. These 

 circumstances varied not capriciously but directly 

 with the change of social and political conditions. 

 Thus, in ancient Greece the form of literature pre- 

 vailing at any given period was the expression and 

 outcome of the form, of society existing at that 

 time ; and hence the history of the literature is but 

 one aspect of the history of the people. That the 

 place and occasion on which an audience is gathered 

 together determines the form of that which is 

 addressed to it is plain enough in the case of a 

 sermon and a play. That it was not the author 

 who determined whether a play or an oration 

 should be most popular is explained by the fact 

 that it is the great public which it is most artists' 

 ambition to please; and it was circumstances which 

 decided that the great public in Athens should be 

 found at one period in the law-courts rather than 

 in the theatre, at another in the theatre rather 

 than in the law-courts. When political liberty was 

 extinguished in Greece there ceased to be a great 

 public, works were composed for the approval of 

 learned and narrow cliques, and classical Greek 

 literature was at an end. Without a great public, 

 no great artist. 



We now propose to trace the successive forms 

 through which classical Greek literature went, and 

 to show to what social and political causes these 

 were due. For details as to the lives and works, 

 and for criticism on the genius, of individual 

 authors, we must refer to the articles in which 

 they receive individual attention. In the litera- 

 ture of Greece, as of other countries, verse preceded 

 prose, partly because the pleasure verse gives to 

 the ear is much more pronounced and more easily 

 produced, and partly because verse is so much more 

 effectually retained in the memory a point of 

 cardinal importance when writing is as yet un- 

 known. Of poetry, the first form to appear in 

 Greece was epic. An epic poem is a narrative 

 poem ; and the epics of Homer the only epics that 

 have come down to us, though by no means the 

 only epics composed are of considerable length. 

 This fact, which has been regarded since Wolf as 

 indicating that the poems could not have existed 

 at such length when writing was either unknown 

 or not used for literary purposes, is really the best 

 proof that they belong to the most ancient period 

 of Greek literature. That poems as long as those 

 of Homer may be handed down by memory is 

 beyond doubt. The question is when and where 

 could a public have existed for whom we may 

 suppose them to have been composed ? They can- 

 not indeed have been recited at a single sitting ; 

 therefore they cannot have been composed for 

 audiences such as those at the great Greek festi- 

 vals. They must have been composed for an audi- 



ence small enough to be gathered together night 

 after night until the whole had been recited. 

 Further, the audience must have been such as it 

 was a pride for the artist to address. The only 

 audience which satisfies all these conditions is that 

 which is occasionally described in the Homeric 

 poems themselves, that gathered in the hall of the 

 chieftain of the village-community, which was the 

 earliest form of Greek as of English society. At 

 no other period in Greek history was there an 

 audience for whom we can conceive a poet compos- 

 ing such poems as those of Homer. 



\Vhen in the natural course of development the 

 village-community expanded into the city-state, 

 the village chieftain's hall ceased to be the centre 

 of society. ' Society ' now consisted of the mem- 

 bers of the aristocratic or oligarchic families. They 

 cared not to hear of the past glories of the heroic 

 ancestors of those chieftains whom they may them- 

 selves have helped to turn out of power. Nor was 

 the same audience gathered together night after 

 night in any great house ; symposia, or drink- 

 ing-parties, were indeed given frequently, but 

 the guests were not the same on each occasion. 

 Song again was as much in request as wine at 

 these drin king-parties, but the songs were from the 

 nature of the case short, their subjects drawn from 

 the present, not from the past, and their most 

 frequent themes, love, wine, and politics. In a 

 word, the second form assumed by Greek literature 

 was that of lyric poetry the lyrics of Sappho, 

 Alcseus, Anacreon, Archilochus, Ibycus, Theognis. 

 There was indeed another form of lyric, which was 

 choral and religious ; and it needs special mention, 

 not because its genesis differed essentially from 

 that of other lyric poetry, for it also was composed 

 for a special occasion, with reference to the present 

 and under circumstances which precluded length of 

 treatment, but because from it was developed the 

 third form of Greek verse literature the drama. 

 Choral lyric might celebrate the victory of some 

 athlete at the national games, or the mighty works 

 of the god at whose festival the poem was designed 

 to be performed. The odes of Pindar which have 

 come down to us belong to the former class. To 

 the latter class belong the odes addressed to 

 Dionysus (q.v.), the god of wine, from which the 

 drama was evolved. Unfortunately of these odes, 

 dithyrambs, we have not a specimen. Simonides of 

 Ceos, Arion, and Alcman were the great composers 

 of this class of lyric. 



That an ode relating the adventures of a god 

 should first be accompanied by sympathetic gesture 

 and action, and should then come to be really acted, 

 is readily comprehended. And that the gestures 

 should be especially realistic at the festivals of the 

 god of wine is not hard to believe. But it is not 

 probable that literary form would have been given 

 either to the more or to the less solemn side of this 

 piece of ritual had it not been that present on 

 these occasions was a public greater than any that 

 a poet had hitherto been able to address i.e. the 

 whole of the community gathered together for an 

 act of public worship. The development of the 

 drama was the work of democracy. A greater 

 audience was provided at the public festivals of a 

 democratic state than could be found in the house 

 of any oligarch ; and genius at once deserted the 

 form of literature adapted to the symposium for 

 that by which it could reach the ears of the people 

 at large. At the same time the drama, though it 

 required other powers as well, afforded scope for 

 the exhibition of both epic and lyric power. The 

 chorus, out of which the drama grew, was still 

 retained in the drama ; and thus lyrics were an 

 essential part of the play. On the other hand, 

 much of a Greek play consists in the narrative of 

 what has occurred off the stajre. The number of 



