399 



evda /xev rjiQcoi /ecu TrapOevoi aA<ecri/3oicu 



There, too, he will see priests in gorgeous apparel leading 

 with choral song the procession, which bears marvellously- 

 wrought caskets and delicately-woven pictures worth a 

 king's ransom. He will observe that the Ecclesia and 

 the Agora have new meanings, but are none the less 

 centres of as intense and picturesque a folk-life as they 

 ever were in Athens. He may hear the clash of arms, 

 and see the men, ' goodly and great in their armour,' 

 standing on the city walls to defend wife and child and 

 home. Or he may be jostled by the crowd as it hastens 

 in holiday garb and humour to see its great drama 

 performed on the wooden scaffolding, such as ^Eschylus 

 himself had used ; and he will note that the gods are 

 there on the stage as they were among the Greeks, and 

 that neither folk will hesitate to laugh at the expense 

 of its deities. Nay, if the Hellenist stays to examine 

 further, he will find the same minute traditions concern- 

 ing each religious and social custom ; he will find each 

 action of civic, of economic, and of religious life re- 

 gulated with the same surprising detail that he has 

 already marvelled at and gloried in when he studied 

 the art and social life of Greece. Then he will begin 

 to realise that he is watching the development of two 

 closely -allied races, with somewhat different environ- 

 ments, it is true, but none the less with the same 

 fundamental folk -instincts, namely, to make religion 

 and art go hand-in-hand, and both of them heritages of 

 the people. It matters not whether the art be Doric 

 or Gothic, be sculpture or painting, be passion-play or 



