The political forms under which a people live are, as has been already intimated, much less worthy objects of inquiry than the spirit from which they spring, and upon which they react, as the secondary, rather than the primary, element of liberty. The institutions of the early age in Greece may be very simply delineated. At first, the hero and the prince were generally identical; whoever had the strongest arm and the boldest heart was the ruler of others who could not rule themselves. But in following years, the hero was sometimes subject, as Hercules to Eurystheus, and the authority of the king rises superior to the fame of the hero, wherever the two are separated. The claim of birth displaced the claim of strength, and hereditary power succeeded to the power of the old heroism. Homer intrusts his kings with duties as well as with dominions; and it was then or soon afterwards the universal belief, that sovereign authority depended upon the pleasure of the immortals, who might command the subject to punish the crimes of the king. 42 Next to the king were the nobles or warriors, his immediate companions and counsellors, who formed the Boule, or council, of the state; and after these, the main body of freemen, who met in the Agora, or assembly, to be made acquainted with the decision of the council, which had itself been adopted at the command or the instigation of the king.43 The nobles were the progressive class,

42❝Indeque reges Homero passim dicti Aloyeveîs, Atorpepeîs, a Jove geniti ac nutriti." Ev. Feith, Ant. Homer., II. sect. 1. See the Iliad,

I. 238, 239, II. 205, 206; and the Odyssey, III. 214, 215, XIV. 83, 84. 43 See Grote's account of the assembly described in the second book

as they may be called; to them the king yielded the priestly robes that he had hitherto worn with his armour; to them, also, he surrendered the judicial offices which he would be either indifferent or unable to exercise. The lower classes had still to bide their time for power, though their rights were more generally acknowledged. Neither slaves nor strangers were protected, except, perhaps, in life and limb; but the number of these was so small in each divided town or kingdom, that they would scarcely then appear entitled to consideration.44 The government over all the people was one of arms; and though there might be some sort of laws, divine and human, in existence, they were engraven on the shields or suspended to the swords of the nobles and the he

roes.

The best principles of liberty under these heroic governments consisted in the truths concerning earth and heaven, which, as we have seen, were partially disclosed; but the actual occupations and relations of the Greeks are, after all, the surest materials of any general conception concerning the condition and the prospects of their race. The hero of the Odyssey is described, not only as the crafty warrior, but as the active husbandman and the skilful artisan;45 and as

of the Iliad Hist. Greece, Pt. I. classes were then very much upon a ch. 20. level in point of taste, sentiment, and instruction." Hist. Greece, Vol. II. p. 132.

44" On the whole," says Grote, "the slavery of legendary Greece does not present itself as existing under a peculiarly harsh form, especially if we consider that all the

45 Odys., XVIII. 366 et seq., XXIII. 189 et seq.

these three were the only divisions known in the time of Ulysses, it appears that the boundaries of birth and of employment were not so rigorously defined as to be oppressive. The truth is, that the heroes were as little cultivated in intellectual tastes, though generally freed from manual occupations, as most of the men by whom they were admired or obeyed; and if they employed themselves in the same labors that their inferiors habitually pursued, on the other hand, the common classes would sometimes engage in the adventures and the exploits by which the renown of the heroes was acquired. In this respect, the narrowness of the ancient states in territory and population would very greatly contribute to the increase of individual energy and general union. Each man was important to the whole body, while there were but few in all; and between fellowtownsmen or near neighbours a spirit of kindliness and concord would gradually be formed, in preparation for the law and the freedom not yet appeared. The concentration of a people, like that of Attica,16 into a single city was followed by more important consequences than Theseus or any hero could have foreseen. The country and the town folk would be instantly benefited by the change which opened larger markets and established wider festivals; but as year succeeded to year, the collected and the

46 "On trouve les traces d'une semblable révolution chez les Arcadiens [Paus., Cor., 15] et les Argiens [Id., Attic., I. 2]. Elle paraît même

avoir été générale parmi les anciens Grecs." Ste. Croix, Gouv. Fédératifs, p. 11.

strengthened people would be continually fitter 47 for the laws that were yet to be brought them by Lycurgus and Solon.

The religion of the heroes was in all important points the religion of their posterity. More cheerful and more social, as it is commonly described, than almost any other forms which heathenism assumed, it was too much the creation of men according to their own image to be in any wise spiritual. The race of gods and of men was everywhere believed to be but one.48 The same clouds which covered men with shade or rain were believed to encompass the immortals of Olympus; the same sensations, the same delights, and the same sufferings which belonged to the human were attributed to the divine nature; and the will of Jupiter was nearly as much exposed to be thwarted or controlled as the desires of the humblest mortal who knelt before his altars upon earth. If the character of gods like these were unable to fill their worshippers with terror, it was equally unsuited to the purposes of hope and of consolation.

In the manner of worship there was more to satisfy the souls that had not yet dreamed of Heaven in its joy. The priest was one of the people; always, indeed, of the higher class, but still as much a mortal as any of those who joined his ceremonies or celebra

47 The distinction between town and country, so far as political improvement was concerned, is drawn in Müller's Dorians, Vol. II. pp. 70 -74, Eng. trans.

VOL. I.

17

48 “Εν ἀνδρῶν, ἓν θεῶν γένος. Pind., Nem., VI. So Hesiod, Works and Days, 108 et seq.

tions. These were all magnificent and tumultuous, exhilarating the eye and the ear, at least, with sounds of poesy and music, and scenes of splendor and applause.49 Even the mysteries, so called, though sometimes regarded as impositions, and sometimes as merely traditional ceremonies, seem to have been introduced in order to lighten the gloom yet fearful to those of more anxious thoughts or more desponding prospects. This withdrawal of the veil from the services, if not from the truths, of religion was ordered in mercy, such as the Greek, however, of early or of later times, was not permitted to comprehend. The forms which were seen to people his heaven did not immediately dissuade him from his devotions. But in proportion as his love of beauty was deepened and his search for truth extended, the wants which he of the true heart would feel to be unsatisfied from on high were the incentives, at first, to greater courage 50 and then to wider skepticism in inquiry. With courage, he would be borne on, like Socrates, to powers exceeding the limits of all ancient liberty; with skepticism, he would be reduced, like the contemporaries of Cicero, to the weakness and the humility which were required of mankind before the star arose over Bethlehem.