38 



ATHENS. 



Athens, baths, placet of meeting, and other accommodations, 

 ' *" ' of more than royal magnificence, were supplied to 

 the lowest of the people. Trials were decided by a 

 species of jury, the members of whicli were called 

 Dicasts, and received a small sum (three oboli, equal 

 to fourpence) for the exercise of their office. To 

 be on juries became thus a regular source of sub- 

 sistence to the poorer classes ; hence sprung in- 

 numerable abuses. The number of jurymen was 

 raised to 500 ; that of courts, which sat daily, to 

 ten. Every disposition was shewn, both to multiply 

 trials, and to protract their duration. Accusations 

 were willingly received ; and so little was the security, 

 even to the best citizens, of a favourable issue, that 

 Socrates could give no better advice, than to repel 

 them by a counter accusation. The greatest men 

 of the state paid the most humble court to these di- 

 casts. The comic poet introduces one of them say- 

 ing : " The principal men of the commonwealth at- 

 tend our levee in the morning. Presently one of 

 those who have embezzled public money approaches, 

 makes a low bow, and begs my favour. If ever,' 

 says he, ' you yourself, in any office, or even in the 

 management of a military mess, cheated your com- 

 rades, pity me.' He stood trembling before me, as if 

 I had been a god." With the same view of accom- 

 modating the people, holidays, the sacrifices at which 

 were distributed among them, were multiplied, till 

 they filled nearly a sixth of the year. 



While the revenue of the state was thus employed, 

 rather for private than public wants, the question 

 eame to be, how the latter were to be supplied. 

 With this view, the people cast their eyes on the 

 rich, whom they were never disposed to regard very 

 favourably. Was a frigate to be equipped ; they 

 pitched upon the man who appeared best able to af- 

 ford it, and compelled him to do it at his own ex- 

 pense. The same system was adopted with regard 

 to all other branches of public service. The only re- 

 medy which remained was of the most irregular na- 

 ture. The man, on whom this burden was laid, 

 could call upon any other whom he thought better 

 able to bear it, either to do the service, or to make a 

 complete exchange of property with himself. Upon 

 the whole, Mr Mitford, who certainly shews no par- 

 tiality to the Athenian government, hesitates not to 

 declare, that the security of property in it was less 

 than in the most arbitrary of the oriental govern- 

 ments. 



Her pro- Having thus surveyed the political character of 



{frets in the ^ tnenS) we s h a vj now take a brief view of that 

 sciences. which she displayed in arts and letters. The first 

 foundations of her fame in this department were 

 laid under the family of Pisistratus. They shew- 

 ed themselves zealous patrons of learning ; and Pi- 

 sistratus himself is said to have been the first 

 who collected together the scattered fragments of 

 the Iliad and Odyssey. The grand efforts of Athe- 

 nian genius, however, were subsequent to this aera ; 

 it continued to blaze uninterruptedly during the whole 

 period of her political greatness, and even for a short 

 time survived its extinction. The departments in 

 which she chiefly excelled, and to which, indeed, she 

 gave birth, seem to have been those connected with 



human manners and passions the drama, moral and Athem. 

 political philosophy, and history. v v ' 



To Athens the drama was indebted, at once for its The drama. 

 first origin and its highest perfection. Yet her first 

 essays were of the rudest description. At certain 

 seasons of the year, festivals were celebrated in ho- 

 nour of Bacchus ; and, on these occasions, it was cus- 

 tomary for the peasants to mount their cars, and 

 sing extemporary verses in honour of that deity. 

 On some, who displayed, in this exercise, peculiar 

 powers of amusing the public, rustic rewards, a cask 

 of wine, or a goat, were bestowed ; hence arose the 

 expressions, trugtcdia, irugtedia, the song of the 

 cask, the song of the goat. These persons wore 

 masks, a custom always retained on the Greek thea- 

 tre ; and, as they gradually improved, and dialogue 

 was added, the exhibitions approached more and more 

 to the nature of regular dramas. Athens now be- 

 coming a city of some magnitude and opulence, a de- 

 mand arose in it for similar amusements, and persons 

 were not wanting to gratify this taste. The division 

 into comedy and tragedy had now been established. 

 The first year before the establishment of the ty- 

 ranny of Pisistratus, Susarion mounted a scaffold, and 

 performed a sort of comedy, or satirical dialogue. 

 About thirty years after, Thespis, from a waggon, 

 exhibited the first tragedy on record. Before his time 

 there had been nothing but the chorus ; he added a 

 single actor. Tragedy, though posterior in its ori- 

 gin to comedy, was soonest carried to perfection. 

 Thespis was succeeded by Cratinas, in whose time 

 the scaffolding, similar probably to that used in our 

 puppet-shows, on which the exhibition was perform- 

 ed, having accidentally broke down, the Athenians 

 applied themselves to build a secure and more ele- 

 gant theatre. Phrynichus, his successor, perfected 

 tragedy still more, by substituting the iambic verse 

 for the trochaic, which had been employed as suit- 

 ed to the accompaniment of dancing, once an es- 

 sential part of theatrical entertainments. The spec- 

 tacles were now addressed to the fancy more than to 

 the senses. Immediately after him, and about the 

 period of the Persian war, arose Eschylus, who car- ^ . 

 ried Grecian tragedy to the summit of perfection. 

 His pieces are characterized by a fierce and terrible 

 sublimity, congenial to his own character, and that 

 of his age, which were wholly devoted to mili- 

 tary glory. He was succeeded by Sophocles, who, 

 born in a milder and more polished age, exhibited 

 different characters. Inferior in energy and sublimi- 

 ty, he still combined a large portion of these quali- 

 ties with more skilful contexture of plot, and great- 

 er powers of pathos. Immediately following, and 

 for a long time contemporary, was Euripides, who 

 excelled both his predecessors in pathetic powers, in 

 which, among the ancients at least, he stands unri- 

 valled ; and who cultivated also a sententious mora- 

 lity unknown to his predecessors. In other respects, 

 however, he is inferior to ^Eschylus and Sophocles. 



With him tragedy, after a short reign, expired ; 

 but comedy had only now attained its perfection, and 

 continued to flourish during successive ages. It as- 

 sumed different aspects, according to the different 

 periods of its existence. These are called the Old, 

 the Middle, and the New Comedy. 



