530 



GREECE. (LITERATURE.) 



new settlements, abounding in harbours, and destined 

 by nature for commerce and industry, ationlcd them 

 not only a more tranquil life, but also a wider field for 

 refinement, and gave rise to new modes of life. The 

 ancients ascribed to the colonies in Ionia and Asia 

 Minor the character of luxury and voluptuousness. 

 The blue sea, the pure sky, the balmy air, die beauti- 

 ful prospects, the finest fruits and most delicious 

 vt'o-ftables in abundance, all the requisites of luxury, 

 here united to nourish a soft sensuality. Poetry and 

 philosophy, painting and statuary, here attained their 

 highest perfection ; but great and heroic deeds were 

 oftener celebrated than performed. Near the scene 

 of the first grand national enterprise of the Greeks 

 the Trojan war it was not strange that the interest 

 it excited should be lively, and that it should take a 

 powerful hold of the imagination. Poetry thus found 

 a subject, in the treatment of which it necessarily 

 assumed a character entirely distinct from that of the 

 former period. Among all nations, heroic poetry 

 lias flourished with the spirit of heroism. The heroes 

 were here followed by the bards, and thus the epopee 

 was formed. We therefore call this second period the 

 epic age of the Greeks. The minstrel (KO^OS) now 

 appears separated from the priest, but highly hon- 

 oured, particularly because the memory of the heroes 

 lived in his verse ; and poetry was the guardian of 

 all the knowledge of preceding times, so long as 

 traditions were not committed to writing. From its 

 very nature, the epopee must be historical, in an en- 

 larged sense. Under such circumstances, it is not 

 strange that regular schools for poets were establish- 

 ed ; for the imagination of the first poet fired the 

 imagination of others, and it was then, perhaps, be- 

 lieved that poetry must be learned like other arts 

 a belief to which the schools for priests contributed 

 not a little, on which the schools for minstrels were 

 probably modelled. But they were minstrels in the 

 strictest sense, for their traditions were sung, and the 

 poet accompanied his verses on a stringed instrument. 

 On every important occasion, minstrels were present, 

 who were regarded as standing under the immediate 

 influence of the gods, especially of the muses, who 

 were acquainted with the present, the past, and the 

 future. The minstrel, witli the seer, thus stood at 

 the head of men. But among the many minstrels 

 which this age undoubtedly possessed, Homer alone 

 has survived. We have from him two great epic 

 poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, with several hymns 

 and epigrams. One mock heroic poem, the Batra- 

 chomyomachy (the Battle of the Frogs and Mice), is 

 ascribed to him. From him an Ionian school of min- 

 strels takes its name the Homeridce who probably 

 constituted, at first, at Chios, a distinct family of 

 rhapsodists, and who preserved the old Homeric and 

 epic style, the spirit and tone of the Homeric verse. 

 Much that is attributed to Homer, may reasonably 

 be assigned to them. The same may be the case 

 with the epic Cyclus,also ascribed to Homer ; which 

 brings us to the Cyclic poets, who began, however, 

 to deviate materially from the Ionian epos, the histori- 

 cal element predominating more and more over the 

 poetical. By Cyclus, we here understand the whole 

 circle of traditions and fables, and not merely the 

 events of the Trojan war. Cyclic poetry compre- 

 hended the whole compass of mythology ; and we 

 may, therefore, divide it into, 1. a cosmogonical, 

 2. a genealogical, and 3. a heroic Cyclus ; in 

 the latter of which there are two separate periods ; 

 1. tliat of the heroes before, and 2. that of those 

 after, the expedition of the Argonauts. To the first 

 class belong the battles of the Titans and giants ; to 

 the second, the theogonies and herogonies. To the 

 first period of the third class belong the Europia, 

 several Heracleia and Dionysiacs, several Thebaicls, 



A rgonautics, Theseids, Danaids, Amazonica, &c. In 

 the second period, the poetry generally related to the 

 Trojan war. To this belonged the Nostoi, which 

 treated of the return of the heroes from Troy. The 

 earliest of these Cyclic poets appeared about the 

 time of the first Olympiad. A history of the gradual 

 Formation of their poetry cannot be given, because 

 we have only very general accounts respecting them. 

 But what we do know justifies us in concluding that 

 between these historic poets and the Ionian school of 

 minstrelsy, something intervened, making, as it were, 

 the transition. And we actually find this in the 

 Bceotian-Ascrean school, which arose in European 

 Greece probably about 890 B. C. It derived its 

 name from Ascra in Bceotia, the residence of Hesiod, 

 who stood at its head, and by whom poetry was pro- 

 bably conducted back again from Asia Minor (for he 

 originated from Cunue in ^Eolia) to Greece. His 

 works, also, were at first preserved by rhapsodists. 

 They were not arranged till a later period, when 

 they were augmented by foreign additions ; so that, 

 in their present form, their authenticity is as doubtful 

 as that of the poems ascribed to Homer. (See Hesiod.) 

 Of the sixteen works attributed to him, there have 

 come down to us the Theogony, the Shield of Her- 

 cules (the fragment of a larger poem), and Works 

 and Days, a didactic poem on agriculture, the choice 

 of days, intermixed with moral and prudential max- 

 ims, &c. These works, especially those of Homer 

 and Hesiod, which acquired a canonical importance, 

 and constituted, in a certain degree, the foundation 

 of youthful education, gave to the character of the 

 Greeks that particular direction, by which it was 

 afterwards distinguished, and which was most strik- 

 ingly displayed in their religion ; which, for want of 

 the necessary dignity, and specially of a caste of 

 priests, was so indefinite, and therefore so fanciful. 

 The mysticism of the first period was, therefore, for 

 the most part, discarded ; and in the later Grecian 

 mythology (for that a new system of divinities had 

 arisen cannot be doubted), nothing was seen but the 

 perfection of human nature. Sensuality thence be- 

 came the characteristic of the Grecian religion, in 

 which no other morality could subsist but that which 

 teaches the enjoyment of the pleasures of life with 

 prudence. Hitherto poetry had been the only in- 

 structress of the Grecian world ; and it remained so 

 still, when it took another direction. This happened 

 in the third period, the age of lyric poetry, of apo- 

 logues and philosophy, with which history gradual ly 

 acquired a greater certainty. About the beginning 

 of the epoch of the Olympiads (776 B.C.), there en- 

 sued a true ebb and flood of constitutions among the 

 small states of Greece. After numerous vicissitudes 

 of power, during which the contending parties perse- 

 cuted each other for a long time with mutual hatred, 

 republics, with democratical constitutions, finally 

 sprang up, which were in some measure united into 

 one whole by national meetings at the sacred games. 

 The spirit prevalent in such a time greatly favoured 

 lyric poetry, which now became an art in Greece, 

 and reached the summit of its perfection at the time 

 of the invasion of the Persians. Next to the gods, 

 who were celebrated at their festivals with hymns, 

 their country, with its heroes, was the leading sub- 

 ject of this branch of poetry, on the character of which 

 external circumstances seem to have exercised no 

 slight influence. The mental energies of the nation 

 were roused by the circumstances of the country ; 

 and the numerous wars and conflicts, patriotism, the 

 love of freedom and the hatred of enemies and ty- 

 rants, gave birth to the heroic ode. Life, however, 

 was at the same time viewed more on its dark side. 

 Thence there was an intermingling of more sensibility 

 in the elegy, as well as, on the other side, a vigorous 



