king should have ruled in every community, than that there should have been to each a body of warriors or of husbandmen in possession of authority. This, however, is past finding out; nor is it easier to gather whether Theseus went about, as is narrated, in the guise of a suppliant, or armed himself, as is probable, to bring his subjects to reason; these things are no more to be told than the hue of his hair or the tone of his voice can be described. One single tribunal was finally established in Athens, and the divisions of the Athenians were no longer local, but only those of individuals or classes in general: as Plutarch relates, they were nobles, husbandmen, and artisans.30 All this, however, is but a dream 31 of the freedom for which Athens was afterwards illustrious, that Theseus had inspired his subjects to behold. One reason for believing Theseus to have been the hero of a great revolution consists in the multiplied traditions concerning the fate which befell him. The victory, it seems, was fatal to the victor, and Theseus, unable to resist the ingratitude and the force which were brought against him, went into exile, with many curses, it was said,32 upon the Athenians. The heroism of his life was thus both requited with wrong and crowned with passion and despair; but when, long after, his bones, or some supposed to be his, were discovered in the island where he died, they 30 Plut., Thes., 25. The Greek names of the three classes are these: Εὐπατρίδαι, Γεωμόροι, Δημιουργοί. If the artisans mean the strangers or the slaves, they must not, of course, be considered enfranchised. The 31 Plut., Thes., 32. were brought back with great joy and buried beneath a tomb, which long continued to be a sanctuary to the oppressed, in memory of the early hero. 33 The spirit of a people, if it have any, is nearly the first and the last chapter in its history. As much the gift of Heaven, in the beginning, as the earth upon which the wall is laid, or the waters upon which the sail is given to the wind, it is the creator and the creature, the actor and the sufferer in all the after existence of the nation into whom it has been originally breathed. The spirit of the Greeks was first embodied in their heroes; and it is for the sake of the substance they contain rather than of the forms they wear, that the legends from Hercules to Theseus have been here repeated. It would be desirable to separate the true from the untruth in them, so much, at least, as to know what was done and what was believed by the minstrel or the story-teller to have been done; for we should then be sure how far our view was, so to speak, prospective of the nation, to which the heroes were but the pioneers. Greece, as we have now sufficiently observed, was full of different interests, for ever contending and for ever changing. The mountains were not impassable; but the people of one town were unable to behold the walls of another, unless they left the valley or the nook in which they nestled by themselves. Sometimes nearer neighbours would unite for the sake of 34 celebrating their common festivals with greater splendor and security; and the chance gatherings once commenced might become the established meetings of a religious or a national confederacy. The great Amphictyonic league, between as many as twelve different states, may have arisen from some such simple origin; and though there were no very numerous or very considerable functions involved in the protection of a temple or in the fulfilment of the rites to which the temple was dedicated, the connection between the members of the league was sure to be a humanizing and a strengthening bond.35 Other motives of union would exist in the purposes of adventure or warfare to which their activity was continually directed; and any chief who took shield and spear from their resting-place had only to send a herald forth with a summons, to fill his camp or fleet with followers. Every century, if not every year, must have witnessed a union nearer in many ways amongst the Greeks, who, kindred in all the prominent characteristics by which they were distinguished from other people, could not live so utterly apart as not to know one another's names and be proud of 34 The Thessalians, Boeotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Locrians, Ætæans or Anians, Achæans of Phthiotis, Malians, Phocians, and Dolopes. See Hermann, Polit. Antiq., and the references in note 3 to sect. 13, ch. 1. Each of these tribes sent deputies to the Council, which, together with the great Assembly of the League, met semiannually at Delphi or at Thermopyla. 35"We perceive," says Thirlwall," two main functions assigned to the council, — to guard the temple at Delphi, and to restrain the violence of hostility amongst Amphictyonic states." Hist. Greece, Ch. X. See Wachsmuth, Hist. Antiq., Sect. 24. one another's deeds. The curse of the nation was war; its blessing was varied and unceasing progress: by the latter its people were united, or would have been, had the former been spared them in their destiny. Their most thorough union, in the age of the heroes, was brought about by the war with Troy.36 It seemed, indeed, as if these restless times must end, at last, in some great outbreak of the warlike enthusiasm which, even with Minos and the countrymen of Theseus, had retained the uppermost place in Grecian hearts. The poets sang, that Jupiter ordained the Trojan war in order that the earth might be lightened of its heroes and a new age ushered in.37 More various forces and more gallant chieftains had never met, according to the story, than assembled at Aulis to fill the fleets of Agamemnon. The fair wind, obtained by the massacre, as was commonly believed, of a maiden child, bore on the multitude without remorse to the ruin of Ilion and the people of spear-armed Priam. The dissensions and disasters of the victors are familiar tales. At the beginning of the new age which we have supposed to wait the disappearance or the transformation of the heroes is the place of Homer. He is not yet far enough removed from the departed, it 36 The fall of Troy is placed, according to Eratosthenes, at A. C. 1183,- according to Callimachus, at A. C. 1127. Clinton's Fast. Hell., Vol. I. P. 140. "And many brave souls loosed From breasts heroic," etc., as the Iliad begins. The cause of the war was also ascribed to the hatred of Jupiter for Priam. Il., 37 Cypr., Carmin., I., from Schol. XX. 306. ad Homer., II., I. 5. might still be called the departing, period, to escape the love of battle and warlike life above all other scenes or memories. But if he sings of conflicts, he sings of virtues in as fervent strains; and as time has thrown its mellowness around his song, the sharp sounds of the spear, the groan, and the angry tongue of his heroes are softened into the devotion, the hospitality, and the affection of our own fellow men. The grief of Andromache for Hector's peril, or the joy of Penelope at Ulysses's return, was the exaltation of all womanhood in the sympathy expressed and awakened for them. The love of friend or father was as tenderly described; and the duty of the child was recognized in a single word, which meant the nurture returned to the parent by the offspring. The hero of Troy was the hero of humanity; not Achilles, indeed, but Hector, the compassionate brother to Helen, the humble son to Priam, the loving husband, and the childlike father, who would not offer up his vows with blood-stained hands.39 A softer light is spread over poetry such as this; and truths we reverence appear as if half revealed through opening clouds. Beyond all evils was seen one universal right, no longer ideal, but actively supported on earth as well as above Olympus. The poor man and the stranger were confessed to belong to Jupiter, who would himself accept the slightest gift and himself 38 Θρεπτήρια οι θρέπτρα. Il., IV. 478. 39"Nor is it lawful, thus imbued with blood and dust, to prove II., VI. 266-269, Chapman's transl. |