butcher, samuel h._harvard lectures on greek subjects

8/3/2019 Butcher, Samuel H._harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects

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THE LIBRARYOFTHE UNIVERSITYOF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

Ex tibris[ C. K. OGDEN 1


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HARVARD LECTURESON

GREEK SUBJECTS


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HARVARD LECTURESON

GREEK SUBJECTS

LATE PROFESSOR OF GRKF.K !N THE I'NIVLRSITY OF EDINBURGHFORMERLY FELLOW OF 'IRIXITV COLL1-T,!'., CAMSIKIL".;!

EantionMAC MILLAN AND CO., LIMITEDNEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1904


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PREFACETHESE Lectures Public Lectures delivered atHarvard University in April 1904 owe theirorigin to a generous gift made to the Universityby Mr. Gardiner Martin Lane, of the Class ofi 88 i ; and will remain associated in my memorywith the recollection of infinite kindness re-ceived during my visit to Cambridge andBoston.

The Lectures, here and there slightly ex-panded, are, in other respects, published almostin the form in which they were delivered. Thehearers to whom they were originally addressedcomprised not only classical scholars, but also


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vi HARVARD LECTURESthe general public ; and they are now offeredto a similarly mixed body of readers.

The book may be regarded as forming akind of companion volume to Some Aspects ofthe Greek Genius (third edition, Macmillanand Co. 1904). Under various lights I haveattempted to bring out something of theoriginality of Greece. The contrast is at theoutset drawn between Greece and two oldercivilisations : that of Israel, dominated by agreat religious idea, and that of Phoenicia,given over to the pursuit of material well-being (I. and II.). In the subsequent lecturestwo features of the Greek intellect come intospecial prominence. First, a Love of Know-ledge, which not only seeks out the facts ofnature and of man's life, but persistently askstheir meaning ; and this belief in the interpreta-tive power of mind, working on and transmutingall raw material of knowledge, is shown to


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PREFACE vi i

extend beyond the domain of philosophy orof science, and to give significance to Greektheories of history and Greek views on educa-tion (HI.). Secondly, a Critical Faculty stand-ing in singularly close relation to the CreativeFaculty. Art and inspiration, logic and intui-tion, elsewhere so often disjoined, enter intoperfect union in the constructive efforts of theGreek imagination. It is but one eminentexample of that balance of contrasted qualities,that reconciliation of opposites, which meets usat every turn in the distinguished personalitiesof the Hellenic race, and which is too oftenthought of, in a merely negative way, as theavoidance of excess, rather than as the highestoutcome of an intense and many-sided vitality(IV.). But the critical instinct, one of theprimary endowments of the Greeks, operatesalso apart from the constructive power, and(chiefly from the time of Aristotle onwards)


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HARVARD LECTUREStries to penetrate the secret of the literary art.Here we have no longer the same sureness ofinsight ; indeed the lack of it is frequentlystartling. Nevertheless there remains a sufficient

body of interesting and even illuminatingCriticism, to enable us to see, through Greekeyes, some of those literary principles of en-during value which Greece has bequeathed(V. and VI.).

S. H. BUTCHER.

October 1904.


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CONTENTSI. GREECE AND ISRAEL

II. GREECE AND PHOENICIA . . 44III. THE GREEK LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE . . 82IV. ART AND INSPIRATION IN GREEK POETRY 129V. GREEK LITERARY CRITICISM . .169VI. GREEK LITERARY CRITICISM . .219


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I

GREECE AND ISRAELTwo nations, Greece and Israel, stand outfrom all others in the history of the world,and form a striking contrast as representingdivergent impulses and tendencies of humannature, different ideals of perfection. In this,however, they are alike, that each felt itselfto be a peculiar people, marked off from thesurrounding races by distinctions more inefface-able than those of blood by the possessionof intellectual or religious truths which deter-mined the bent and meaning of its history.That history, as it was gradually unfolded,became to each an unfailing source of inspira-tion. The records and famous deeds of therace were invested with ethical significance.


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HARVARD LECTURESIn interpreting them each people gained adeeper consciousness of its own ideal vocation.From the heritage of the past they drew freshstores of spiritual energy. Exclusive indeedthey both were, intensely national ; betweenGreeks and Barbarians, between Israel and theHeathen there could be no intimacy, no union.For many centuries the work of the Hellenesand of Israel went forward at the same time,but in separate spheres, each nation unconsciousof the other's existence. Had they crossedone another's path, they would have arousedmutual hatred and suspicion ; the Jews wouldhave been barbarians to the Greeks, the Greeksidolaters to the Jews. Yet this very spirit ofexclusiveness was one of the conditions whichenabled each to nurture and bring to maturitythe life-giving germ which it bore within it.In process of time each people burst the narrowlimits of its own nationality, and in dying toitself, lived to mankind. Morientes vivimusis the epitome of each history. The influenceby which both Jews and Greeks have acted onall after ages is one which has survived the


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GREECE AND ISRAELoutward forms of national existence ; it belongsto the mysterious forces of the spirit. Throughhumiliation and loss of independence they eachentered on a career of world-wide empire, tillat length the principles of Hellenism becamethose of civilisation itself, and the religion ofJudaea that of civilised humanity.

The Jews were from the outset conscious oftheir separateness, of their peculiar mission.From the family to the tribe, from the tribe tothe nation, they felt themselves to be destinedfor some high purpose, though the idea wasdeepened and expanded as their historyadvanced. With the Greeks it was otherwise.In the Homeric age Greeks and Barbarians didnot yet stand sharply opposed ; and, thoughduring that period and long afterwards manyelements of foreign civilisations were slowlyabsorbed, yet in the process of absorption theywere so transmuted that for the Hellenes thenet result was a heightened sense of differencebetween themselves and the non- Hellenes.The first impulse, however, towards nationalunity came, as with the Jews, through religion.


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HARVARD LECTURESThe religious life of primitive Greece centredat Dodona in Epirus, the seat of the oracle ofZeus, of whose cult we catch a curious glimpsein the famous invocation of Achilles (//. xvi.2 3 3). Dodona retained its immemorial sanctityfar into historical times ; but it never formed ameeting-point for the scattered families of theHellenic race. At a very early date the Dodo-naean cult gave place to the worship of Apollo,who made his abode on the Eastern coast ofGreece, at Parnassus, with Delphi as his sanc-tuary. Zeus still remained the supreme god,and Apollo, the youngest of the Olympians,became his 'prophet,' his interpreter. Thetribal cults are henceforth merged in a higherworship. A league of states representing thecommon sentiment of the Hellenes is associatedwith the Delphic shrine. Apollo here presidesat the Theoxenia the festival celebrating thefriendship of the gods. In reconciling thelocal deities he stands as the symbol of Hellenicfraternity and union. The nobler energies ofthe race now obtain a religious consecration.

Delphic religion was in its highest


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GREECE AND ISRAELintention an effort after spiritual freedom andenlightenment. In this respect it offers aremarkable counterpart to Hebrew prophecy.It asserts the binding claim of the moral lawalike over states and individuals. It deepensthe conception both of guilt and purification.As the Hebrew prophets were charged withguarding the spiritual heritage of Israel,so the Pythian Apollo fostered the ideal ofHellenic character in religion, morality, andart. In speaking of Delphic prophecy wemust dismiss the vulgar notion of merelypredicting future events or revealing secrets.This lower art of soothsaying was, no doubt,in great demand in Greece at all periods ofher history. Tablets discovered in Epirus in1 877 l give examples of the questions addressedby its rude votaries to the oracle of Dodona.A certain Agis asks about some lost property

mattresses and pillows whether they mayhave been stolen by a stranger. 2 Another

1 C. Carapanos, Dodone et ses Ruines.2 ^Trepwret *A*yt$ At'a Naor [/cat Aiuvav] vjrp rCjv ffTpu/jidruv

K[al T&V TrpocrJ/ce^aAcuwc, TO, d.7rw\oA[ei'] (? aTroAwAec), T) TUV


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inquires whether the god advises sheep-farmingas an investment.1 Even at Delphi some ofthe responses recorded are trivial enough. Butthe influence of Delphi must not be judged bysuch isolated utterances. The ethical andcivilising purpose it served is apparent to everyattentive reader of Greek history and literature.Apollo's chief office is not to declare the future ;nor is he concerned with minute ceremonialobservances. He bears a personal message tothe people ; he is the expounder of the divinewill ; it is part of his function to maintain anethical ideal and to quicken the national con-sciousness. The pious inquirer at his shrineapproaches him in the confidence of glad com-panionship, and holds converse with him as witha living personality. The mind of the supremegod is declared not in dark signs through thevoices of nature or through perplexing dreams,but by human utterance and in rhythmicalspeech. Apollo, the 7rpo^>ijrr)


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recognise not only a direct guidance fromwithout, but also an inward revelation, tellingof clear-felt duties and pointing to the god inthe human breast. Apollo, speaking from the' just-judging ' ] sanctuary, insists on inwardmotive, on purity of heart rather than on out-ward cleansing, on the spirit rather than on theletter of religion. He prefers the pious offeringto the sumptuous sacrifice ; he maintains thecause of the weak and the oppressed ofwomen, slaves, suppliants ; he inculcates theduty of reverence for oaths. But he was alsothe familiar friend and counsellor of the nation.He took into his keeping the civic life ofGreece. Under Delphic supervision the colonialsystem was organised, and missionaries ofGreek culture were settled in every land. Theexpress sanction of the Delphic oracle wassought for the founding of colonies, such asByzantium, Syracuse, Cyrene. Apollo, more-over, was invested with all the gracious attributesof knowledge and artistic skill. He was thegod of science, of art, of poetry ; he presided

1 Find. Pyth. xi. 9.


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HARVARD LECTURESat the games and festivals. Under his influencewere developed the contrasted ideals that markthe type of Hellene and of Barbarian theHellene with his self-knowledge and self-control ; his love of ordered freedom ; his beliefin reason and in the supremacy of the spiritover the senses : the Barbarian glorying inbrute force, with blind impulses carrying himnow towards anarchy, now towards slavery,unconscious of moral limitations, oversteppingthe bounds of law and reverence.

I am speaking of the Delphic worship onits ideal side, apart from the inherent unrealitiesand corruptions in which it was embedded.Yet, even from this point of view, there are strik-ing differences as well as resemblances betweenDelphic and Jewish prophecy. The Delphicpriestess, seized and subdued by an apparentlydivine possession, lifted out of herself in trans-port, presents a contrast to the Hebrew prophetwhose reason and senses remain undisturbedunder stress of inspiration. The familiar atti-tude, also, of the Greek towards his god is asunlike as can be to the distant and awful


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communion which the Hebrew prophet holdswith the Almighty. Nor again does the historyof the Hebrew prophets afford any parallel tothe defection of Delphi from the national cause.Even before the Persian wars Delphi had morethan once yielded to the temptations whichbeset an ambitious priesthood. Now, at thesupreme crisis of the nation's history, she couldnot rise above timid and temporising counsels.She was, it must be owned, forced to makea difficult choice. Her connexions over thebarbarian world were widely extended. The giftsof the East flowed in on her. Phrygia andLydia were among her clients. Her materialinterests forbade her to pronounce the clearword which would have put her at the headof Greek resistance to the barbarians. And so,the place, which from the eighth century onwardshe had held as the recognised conscience ofGreece, she now forfeited and never whollyregained. In politics, the championship ofthe Panhellenic cause was assumed by Athens ;and outside the political sphere, it devolvedmore and more on poets and philosophers to


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perpetuate the Delphic tradition by an effort tospiritualise the popular creed and reconcile itwith a purer morality. The case of the Hebrewprophets is one of marked contrast. Theynever ceased to be the guardians of an idealnational sentiment. Not that they merelyreflected prevalent opinion. If in a sense theywere the spokesmen of the nation, they becameso only by combating the will and denouncingthe vices of their fellow-countrymen. Betweenprophets and people there was an unendingconflict. We speak of the monotheism of theJews ; yet they were ever prone to idolatry,being recalled from it only by warning anddisasters. We speak of their spiritual faculty ;yet who more carnal than they? lovers ofpleasure, lovers of ease, lovers of money. Againand again they were saved from themselves onlyby their inspired teachers, by the austerevoice of prophecy.

There were moments when religion stoodopposed as one might think to a largerpatriotism ; and the prophets had to bearthe hard reproach of appearing anti-national.


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GREECE AND ISRAELJeremiah was cast into prison as a traitor.Two conflicting tendencies, as Renan has shown,were at work within Judaism : one, to mix withother nations and learn the ways of the world ;the other, to shun all contact with alien civilisa-tions art, commerce, foreign alliances beingregarded as so many dangers which mightdetach the people from their true allegiance.The first policy that of expansion was thepolicy of the kings ; the second, the policy ofthe prophets. The attitude of the prophetstowards outside movements and influences wasone of extreme circumspection or distrust. Butthe narrower we might be inclined to say themore illiberal view was, after all, the trulynational one. Once we grant that the peculiarmission of Israel was to guard the principle ofmonotheism, and that any premature attempt atexpansion would have meant absorption intoheathendom, it follows that the pursuit ofsecular aims and of a many-sided developmentwould have been for the nation the abandon-ment of her high calling.

Delphi in her earlier and better days was


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HARVARD LECTURESmore happily placed in relation to outsidecurrents of thought Vividly conscious thoughshe was of the antithesis between Greeks andBarbarians, no timid fears that Hellenism mightbe lost in barbarism checked her forwardenergies. Greece must not be kept out of thegeneral movement of the world. Rather it wasdimly felt that the world was one day to behellenised. The idea that is openly expressedin the fourth century B.C. of a larger Hellenismresting not on racial but on spiritual affinitiesseems to have floated vaguely before the mindat an earlier date. Delphi was long able topursue a policy of progress and expansion with-out endangering either patriotism or religion.Here we strike on the fundamental differencebetween Hebrews and Greeks the Hebrewspreoccupied, dominated by a single idea, andthat a religious one ; the Greeks moved by theimpulse for manifold culture. Two distinctindividualities stand out in clear relief. To theHebrews it was committed to proclaim to man-kind the one and supreme God, to keep alivehis pure worship, to assert the inexorable moral


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GREECE AND ISRAEL 13law in a corrupt and heathen world. For theGreeks the paramount end was the perfectionof the whole nature, the unfolding of everypower and capacity, the complete equipment ofthe man and of the citizen for secular existence.The Hebrews had no achievement to show inthe purely secular sphere of thought and con-duct. They had no art, if we except musicno science, no philosophy, no organised politicallife, no civic activity, no public spirit. Inregard to plastic representation, they were pureiconoclasts ; for idolatry was a danger near andmenacing. The search for causes the inspir-ing principle of the scientific spirit was forthem either an idle occupation of which mansoon wearies, as in Ecclesiastes, or an encroach-ment on the rights of God. The discovery ofa reign of law in nature, which to the loniansof the sixth century B.C. seemed the highestfunction of the human intellect, was alien tothe Hebrew mode of thought.

Poetry indeed they had, unique in its kind :the lyrical utterances of the Psalms, outpouringsof religious emotion unsurpassed, or rather un-


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I4 HARVARD LECTURES \

approached, in depth and range of feeling ; thatsublime drama, again, or dramatic lyric, theBook of Job ; the apocalyptic visions of theprophets, revealed in words such as those whichIsaiah the son of Amos ' saw.' Yet if we ex-cept the idyll of the Book of Ruth and the Songof Solomon a beautiful and human love-song,which stands in such curious isolation fromthe other contents of the volume with which itis bound up Hebrew poetry is of a differentorder from that of our Western civilisation ; it ispoetry lifted into another sphere and made onewith religion. The epic, and the drama in itsstrict sense, are wanting. We have not thelaughter as well as the tears of humanity ; noairy structures of the fancy ; none of the playfulironies of existence ; no half lights or subtleundertones ; none of the rich variety of poetry inits graceful and intermediate forms. The worldwhich Hebrew poetry reproduces is not a secondworld recreated out of the elements of the actual,though separate from reality a region into

*which we are transported by the power of imagin-ative sympathy. It is the actual world itself.


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I GREECE AND ISRAEL 15

The two living realities, God and the Soul, areface to face, engaged in everlasting colloquy.We overhear voices of pleading and warning, ofpathos and hope, of repentance and forgiveness.And as with the individual so with the nation.All the spiritual experiences of the race, assummed up in an unforgotten past, are ex-pressed in language instinct with poetic emotion.

In Hebrew poetry there is a pervading sub-limity which has no precise parallel in any otherliterature. To the Greek poet, ' Wonders aremany and nothing is more wonderful thanman ' : yet marvellous as are the achievementsof man's art and skill, his daring courage, hiscivic inventiveness, all fall short of the moralsublimity he attains through suffering, by theendurance of god-sent calamity, and by an un-conquerable will. In Hebrew poetry, lyrical anddescriptive, the note of sublimity is of a differentkind. It belongs to the domain of heaven.Man is in himself ' a thing of nought,' ' even asa dream when one awaketh ' ; feeble and perish-able ; vicissitude and decay are stamped on histerrestrial life. ' The earth shall reel to and fro


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1 6 HARVARD LECTURES \like a drunkard, and shall be removed like acottage.' At the sight of the majestic order ofthe universe, still more in the contemplation ofGod's everlasting righteousness, his unsearchablegreatness, there arises a sense of awe-struckexultation. ' The Lord is King, the earth maybe glad thereof : yea the multitude of the islesmay be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness areround about him : righteousness and judgmentare the habitation of his seat.' 'The Lord sittethabove the water-flood : the Lord remaineth aKing for ever.' Essentially sublime, too, arethe descriptions which suggest the omnipotenceof the divine word. ' And God said, Letthere be light : and there was light.'

' Forhe spake and it was done : he commandedand it stood fast.' ' Where wast thou whenI laid the foundations of the earth ? declare,if thou hast understanding. ... Or who laidthe corner stone thereof, when the morningstars sang together, and all the sons of Godshouted for joy ? Or who shut up the seawith doors . . . and said, Hitherto shalt thoucome, but no further ; and here shall thy proud


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I GREECE AND ISRAEL 17waves be stayed ? ' He who ' commandeth thesun and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars.'

Greek poetry in its more serious forms isalmost as deeply penetrated with theology asis Hebrew poetry with religion. The Hebrewpoets seldom dare to dwell upon those problemstouching the moral government of the worldwhich exercised a grave fascination over theimaginative mind of Greece. Yet at timessome troubled reflections

escape their lips, as inthe Psalms, or in shorter outbursts of lyricalemotion. In one book, ho\vevcr, of the Biblethe cry of humanity utters itself in tones ofreasoned rebellion and with unique audacity.The Book of Job and the PromctJicns ofAeschylus may be placed side by side, as thetwo protests of the ancient world against divineoppression the one the protest of monotheism,the other of polytheism. Let us glance for amoment at these two poems. They form aluminous comment on the contrasted spirit ofthe two nations.

The character of Zeus in the Prometheusexhibits every line and colour of tyranny as it


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was understood by the Greeks. Zeus is the' new lord,' l enforcing his will by relentlessministers, ' ruling by his own laws,' 2 ' keepingjustice in his own hands,' 3 ' a harsh monarchand irresponsible,' 4 distrustful of his friends,5malevolent towards his subjects, ungrateful tothose who had done him service. Even hisfriends do not question the judgment of his foes.His character is thrown into yet darker shadeby the appearance in the play of lo, in whosehistory is recorded one of the distinctive marksof the tyrant a selfish and heartless love.The two sufferers, lo and Prometheus, meet bychance on the rocks of Scythia, the one thevictim of the love of Zeus, the other of his hate ;the one the very emblem of restless movement,the other of a chained captivity. In variousdetails, moreover, the old legend is so modifiedas to place in strong relief the beneficent effectsof Prometheus' revolt. A single point may be

1 Prom. 96 vtos rayfe, cp. 149, 310, 389, 955.2 Ib. 403 t'Si'otJ v6/j.ois Kparvvuv.

3 Ib. 187 Trap' eavrif TO SiKaiov i-^uv.* Ib. 324 rpa-xjus /J.6vapxos ovd' iiirfvBvvos Kpartl, cp. 35.

8 Ib. 224-225.


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GREECE AND ISRAEL 19mentioned. In Hesiod the theft of fire leadsindirectly to all the evils that flesh inherits.Till then, under the rule of Cronus men wereas gods enjoying all happiness ware 6eolS' %a)ov. In the train of civilisation came allmanner of woes and sicknesses. It was as itwere the Fall of man. The age of ignorancewas the age of gold. In Aeschylus, by the actof Prometheus, the human race so far fromforfeiting a state of primitive well-being, risesfor the first time out of a feeble, timorous exist-ence ; it subdues to its own use the forces ofnature ; ' blind hopes ' are planted in man'sheart the pledge of future progress. Nor didPrometheus, as some would have it, by an actof impatient philanthropy forestall the wisepurposes of Zeus. The design of Zeus was tosweep away the race. Prometheus, therefore,rescued man not merely from a life of brutestagnation, but from death itself.

Many critics have maintained that in rangingourselves on the side of Prometheus againstZeus we are interpreting the drama in a modernsense and in a manner alien to the thought of


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Aeschylus. But the character of the benefactoris drawn in outlines no less firm than that ofthe oppressor of mankind ; and the words inwhich Prometheus sums up his own historyaccord with all the facts of the dramaticpresentation : 'In chains ye see me, an ill-fatedgod, the foe of Zeus, because I loved mortalsovermuch ' (Sta rrjv \Lav t\6r'rjTa /Sporty^). 1Prometheus embodies the Greek type of moralheroism as truly as Zeus does that of tyranny.The hero of Greek poetry, the hero as Athensloved to portray him, is not only eminent forcourage or indomitable in his will-power ; he isalso generous in sympathy; pitiful to the weak ;moved by a chivalrous, a romantic impulse toredress the wrongs of the world. Prometheusunites the two sides of the heroic character.He is tender as well as magnanimous. ' Outof the strong came forth sweetness.' Towardsthe Ocean Nymphs he shows a delicate andgentle courtesy. The tormented and confidinglo pours her woe into his ear ; and the sublimesorrow of the god finds room within it for the

1 Prom. 119-122.


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plaintive outpourings of the mortal. And, as' love overmuch ' has been his fault, so allcreation, animate and inanimate, mourns insympathy with him in the splendid chorus, lines397-435-

If this, then, is the true reading of the play,it presents the struggle between two wills, eachequally unyielding, the one strong in the con-sciousness of physical power, the other in moralgreatness and wisdom. That Aeschylus shouldhave placed Zeus in such a light before anAthenian audience, has seemed to many readersan impiety so daring as to be impossible. Butlet us not lose sight of the far-off period atwhich the action is imaginatively laid. TheAeschylean heroes are often men in whose veinsthe blood of gods still runs

Koi)7ru>


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HARVARD LECTURESaccompany such a change. The sovereignty ofZeus is as yet insecure. The ' new lord ' ofOlympus has had a beginning ; he will also havean end unless he mends his ways of governing.The shadow of dispossession hangs over him.He is subject to a mysterious power strongerthan himself; between his will and the supremeFate there is still a discord. His omnipotenceis limited by this control. So far is he frombeing omniscient that he is ignorant of thesecret on which the permanence of his thronedepends. His reign is stained by caprice andcrime. This is surely not the same Zeus thatis elsewhere called in Aeschylus, ' king ofkings,' ' most blessed of the blest,' ' all-seeing,'' who rewards all men according to their works,'' who guides men in the path of wisdom.'Rather, he represents a passing epoch ; he is theruler of the visible order of things in an erawhen might and right are not yet reconciled.The play itself looks forward to a future whichshall adjust the disorders of the present. Wecannot here discuss the difficult question of thesequel ; but once admit that within the


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I GREECE AND ISRAEL 23mythological framework of the Greek religionthe supreme god might be exhibited as subjectto a law of development, and as growing fromlawlessness into righteousness ; that even forZeus Time could be the great Teacher, in thefull significance of Prometheus' words

aAA' eKStSacr/cet Trdvd' o y/y/iacr/cojj' xpovos*-then, many of the elements for the futurereconciliation are ready to hand. As Aeschyluselsewhere sets the Eumenides against Apollo, theold against the new, so in the Prometheus doeshe set Zeus against the Titan, the new againstthe old. In each case the strife must be resolvedin a final harmony. In the Prometheus^ thesovereignty of the supreme god becomesassured only when Wisdom and Power shallhave entered into indissoluble union. Wisdomwithout Power is ineffectual : Power withoutWisdom, though it may last for a time, cannotbe enthroned as immortal.2 This is probably

1 Prom. 981.2 This view of the Prometheus, which I have placed before

my pupils for more than twenty years, is, I find, supported bythe authority of so eminent a scholar as Dissen, in a letter toWelcker printed in Welcker's Trilogie 1824; see an interesting


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24 HARVARD LECTURES Ithe explanation of what at first sight seemsthe most daring audacity ever enacted on theGreek stage. The mind of Aeschylus lovedto move among the dim forms of the elderworld. Before his vision gods in their successioncame and went. Viewed in the immenseperspective of the past the sway of these godswas almost as ephemeral as that of mortals.With them too the higher displaced the lower.Their story, like that of humanity, was one ofmoral growth. There was a law of evolution,a process of becoming, from which even deitywas not exempt. To Aeschylus the dramatistno theme could well have been more congenialthan that of the Prometheus, giving scope, as itdid, for a conflict of will-power on a scale ofsuch colossal grandeur. But Aeschylus theprofoundly religious theologian would surelyhave shrunk from a dramatic situation soperilous to piety, were it not that the fluidand ever- shifting forms of Greek mythologyarticle in the Classical Review, March 1904, by Janet Case. Alsoit has been ably and independently put forward by ProfessorLewis Campbell in his introduction to the Prometheus Bound(1890).


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I GREECE AND ISRAEL 25lent themselves to the utmost freedom of poetichandling.

In passing to the Book of Job, we observesome points of detailed resemblance in thesetting of the two poems. Just as Prometheusat the outset maintains silence one of thoseeloquent Aeschylean silences so too Job heldhis peace ' seven days and seven nights ' ; andthen, like Prometheus, reviews his life, proudlyproclaiming his own innocence. His friendsseek to convince him that he has done wrong.They cannot extort from him the admission.As compared with other men he knows himselfto be guiltless. And as the chief actors usesimilar language about themselves, the languagethey use about the deity is also in some degreesimilar. In Prometheus it is an expression ofproud defiance towards one whom he regardsas a tyrant and an upstart, and whose futureoverthrow he calmly contemplates. In Job,the voice of accusation seems to touch morenearly on blasphemy, as addressed to a Godwho was not only supreme, but in the highestsense righteous. It is, however, this very


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26 HARVARD LECTURES iperfection of power and goodness which adds asting to the apparent injustice. The feeling isone of conflict and strange perplexity. Almostin the same breath with passionate remonstranceand complaint there come accents of trust andutter self-surrender. It is the sort of ironywhich belongs to love. In form an accusationit is in reality an expression of belief in thevery attributes that are denied, an appeal tothe deity to remove the inconsistencies whichseem to darken his character, to explainthe flaws in his own work, to reconcile hisgoodness and his power. Hence the suddentransitions and alternations of mood. Now Godis a hard adversary ; for man to plead againsthim is despair : yet plead he will, though itshould be at the cost of his life (ch. ix. 20-21). 'Thou knowest that I am not wicked'(ch. x. 7) ; 'is it good unto thee that thoushouldest oppress ? ' (ch. x. 3). In his anguishGod and his enemies seem ranged on one side(ch. xvi. 7-16). But again by a sudden revulsionof feeling he turns to God, whom he invokesto be judge in his cause ; he him


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GREECE AND ISRAEL 27his arbiter even while he is his adversary:

'

Evennow, behold, my witness is in heaven, and hethat voucheth for me is on high' (ch. xvi. 19Rev. Vers.). He complains that God hidesfrom him, that he is not in the East nor in theWest. ' Oh that I knew where I might findhim ! that I might come even to his seat ! Iwould order my cause before him.' ' When hehath tried me, I shall come forth as gold ' (ch.xxiii. i-io). ' Now I have ordered my cause ; Iknow that I shall be justified ' (ch. xiii. i 8). Thesense of ill treatment and despair is heightenedin Job's case by a special circumstance.Whereas Prometheus is conscious that he is animmortal and that his victory in the future isassured, Job has no clear belief in immortality.At the most, it stands out dimly as a hope.The old patriarchal theory of life was in needof no hereafter. The good man was alwaysrewarded, the bad man punished. But thetheory was giving way ; it was discredited byexperience ; and with the blank so created thewhole scheme of things fell into confusion.For commonplace minds, such as Job's friends,


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28 HARVARD LECTURES \the old formulas still sufficed. But to thosewho looked steadily on life the discord betweenmerit and reward was apparent. How accountfor the divine misrule ? There are momentswhen Job hints, as it would seem, at a life here-after as the key to these moral problems ; butsuch rare glimpses are soon lost in deeperdarkness.

The endings of the two poems are signifi-cantly different. The decisive contrast lies inthe characters of the two deities whose justicehas been impugned. The God who is theantagonist of Prometheus has power, but he hasnot goodness : the God who is the antagonistof Job is perfect in goodness as in power. Andso Prometheus, strong in conscious right and inforeknowledge of the future, remains unshakenby persuasions and threats. At the close of thedrama, from out of elemental ruin earthquakeand lightning and tempest he utters his lastdefiant words : ' Thou seest what unjust thingsI suffer.' Job, who in all his troubled question-ings has never lost his central trust in the Godwhom he has upbraided, ends by a retractation :


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GREECE AND ISRAEL' I know that thou canst do all things, and thatno purpose of thine can be restrained ... Ihave uttered that which I understood not,things too wonderful for me, which I knewnot ' (ch. xlii. 2, 3 Rev. Vers.). The infinitemysteries of creation, as they are flashed beforehim in a series of sublime descriptions (ch. xxviii.-xli.), have subdued the heart as well as the in-tellect. Love, dormant throughout, is now fullyawakened. Yet even for Job the bewilderingproblem remained unsolved. Jehovah's answerhad merely shown him Nature's immensity andthe nothingness of Man.

While philosophy had for the Jews no mean-ing, history had a deeper significance than itbore to any other people. It was the chieffactor in their national unity, the source fromwhich they drew ethical and spiritual enlighten-ment Thither they turned as to living oraclesinscribed with the finger of the Almighty. Tohistory they appealed as the supreme tribunalof God's justice. Nor was the history of theirpast merely a possession of their own ; it wasa treasure they held in trust for the human race.


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30 HARVARD LECTURES iThe story of the Jews was part and parcel ofthe ' book of the generations of man. 5 Beforethe eyes of the prophets history as a wholeemerged as an orderly plan, conceived in thecounsels of the eternal, slowly unfolding itselfin the rise and fall of empires, in startlingcatastrophes, in sharp and swift punishmentswhich smite the innocent with the guilty ; butnot less in the normal processes of a nation'slife, its growth, its" decay, its obedience, itsrebellion, in the seed-time and harvest of themoral world. The great monarchies, Egypt,Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, pass across the scene.Their fortunes cross and interlock with those ofthe chosen race. Israel is the pivot on whichtheir destiny turns. In their pride they boastof victories not their own. The Assyrian says' By the strength of my hand I have done it,and by my wisdom ' ; but they are each aninstrument, though they know it not, in thehands of the Almighty, by which he chastiseshis forgetful people or re-admits them to hisfavour. History, in a word, is the drama inwhich himself is the protagonist, vindicating


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GREECE AND ISRAEL 31his justice and moral government on the stageof the visible world.

Never has any people been so conscious ofits own spiritual calling as the Jews ; none hashad so profound an intuition of the future.They pondered their long preparation andequipment for their office, its unique design,their repeated lapses, their baffled hopes, thepromises postponed. The outward trappingsof national existence fell away. All thatconstitutes history in the eyes of secular nations

war and politics, the deeds of kings, heroicstruggles for independence these things occu-pied an ever lessening space in their annals ;their only life was the indestructible life of thespirit. They were content to suffer and to wait.They had all the tenacity of hope. Disen-cumbered of material greatness, they enlistedthemselves on the side of purely spiritual forces.It was the prerogative of their race to be ' anensign to the nations,' to bear the banner ofthe true God.

The only Greek historian whose philosophyof history recalls in some chief features that of


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32 HARVARD LECTURES \the Jewish Scriptures is Herodotus. To himthe course of the world, its incidents great andsmall, are under divine governance. The same' forethought ' l or providence which is at work inmaintaining a just balance of forces within theanimal kingdom, likewise presides over thedestiny of empires. This supreme power revealsits will through various modes of utterancethrough oracular voices, through signs, throughdisturbances in the physical order of nature.It humiliates human pride, it lures on insolenceto its ruin, it pursues the guilty through genera-tions. And as in Jewish history the fortunesof Israel intermingle with the secular currentsof universal history, so in Herodotus Greekhistory is read in its larger and world-widerelations. The great military monarchies passbefore our eyes in a series of apparent digressions ;but the main theme is never forgotten ; thetragic action moves onward through retardingincidents, till at last the divine retributionhastens towards its goal, and all the pride ofthe East, gathered into one under Persia, flings

1irpovolr), Herod, iii. 108.


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itself in preordained ruin on the free land ofHellas.

The problems of politics never exercised themind of Israel. No questions arose aboutroyalty, aristocracy, or democracy, as entitledto put forward their several claims ; there wasno thought of tempering the evils of unmixedor extreme constitutions, or of harmonisingconflicting ideals, such as at an early periodseized upon the reflective spirit of Greece. TheJewish wars of liberation were waged not forpolitical, but for religious freedom. It has beenremarked by Renan that the Jews acceptedwith easy acquiescence any political regimewhich, like that of Persia, was fairly tolerant oftheir religious worship. On the other hand,the mind of Israel, ill-fitted indeed to found asecular state, or to adjust the various functionsof government, went out in aspiration towardsthe citizenship of a larger country. The one-ness of God carried with it, as an implicit con-sequence, the oneness of humanity. Even thelaw, though in the first instance a covenantwith a single people, and in spite of its minor


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34 HARVARD LECTURES \enactments and disciplinary rules, itself becamea unifying power. Its moral precepts, flowingfrom one God as the sole source of law, hada universal and binding force. And if thedemands of the law knew no restriction of race,so its privileges were open to all. No ancientconstitution accorded to strangers such aposition as they enjoyed under the Mosaic code.At Athens resident aliens received a morehumane and favoured treatment than in anyother state in Greece. Still, even there, theyhad no legal or civic status ; access to the courtswas secured to them only through the serviceof a patron ; and though this measure ofrecognition may be put down in part to Attic^>i\av0p(07rla or kindliness, the direct motiveundoubtedly was a commercial one. With theJews the rights of the alien are placed on aclear religious basis the unity of God involvingthe brotherhood of man. ' Ye shall have onemanner of law, as well for the stranger, as forone of your own country : for I am the Lordyour God' (Lev. xxiv. 22). The declarationthat ' God loveth the stranger

' (Dent. x. 1 8)


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GREECE AND ISRAEL 35involved far-reaching consequences which cannotbe extracted from the kindly religious sentimentexpressed in the Homeric words, ' the strangerand the beggar are from Zeus.' The lessons,moreover, of suffering and the memory of thehouse of bondage are brought in to reinforcethe ethical duty. ' Thou shalt love him asthyself; for ye were strangers in the land ofEgypt' (Lev. xix. 34). At the heart ofJudaism beneath its hard and often repellingexclusiveness the idea of universal humanitywas being matured. With the preaching ofthe prophets in the eighth century Judaismbecame essentially a social religion, a religionof humanity. In the last days of the kingdomof Judah the feeling of compassion for the weak,of sympathy for the poor and the oppressed,takes a deeper and tenderer tone. The senseof the inequalities of life strike in upon the mindwith a new and piercing force. ' To undo theheavy burdens and let the oppressed go free ' ;' to open the eyes of the blind ' ; ' to satisfy theafflicted soul ' ; to deliver suffering humanityfrom the darkness of the prison-house this


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36 HARVARD LECTURES i

became the absorbing passion of the Hebrew.Such a moral enthusiasm could recognise norestrictions of age or country. In a regeneratesociety, and under the law of the spiritual king-dom foreshadowed by the prophets, all barriersmust be broken down. The families of theearth, already united by a common origin, arehenceforth to be united by a common hope.' For my house shall be called an house ofprayer for all people.'

Greek thinkers no less than Hebrew prophetsfigure to their imagination an ideal society. InPlato's Republic justice finds an earthly home.The outward fabric and framework of the cityare essentially of the Hellenic type. In itslaws and bye-laws, as distinct from the moralprinciples on which it is based, it is subject tothe usual Hellenic limitations with, indeed, onenotable exception, that war between Hellenesis forbidden, and that one Hellenic state maynot enslave another. But the distinctionbetween Greeks and barbarians is retained ; andwithin the city sharp lines of demarcation aredrawn. There are full citizens, for the sake of


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I GREECE AND ISRAEL 37whose complete training in virtue and intellectthe state exists ; the governing power residesin their hands ; but beyond these there is agreat disinherited class, of traders and artisanswho are not true members but only parts ofthe community, and of slaves who are mereinstruments for carrying out their masters' will.

So far Plato does not rise above his own ageand country. But his real concern is not withthe external organisation of the state. Thesecret he desires to discover is the true methodof training intellect and character: how humannature may be moulded into the form of perfectgoodness ; how the highest natural endowments,the love of beauty, which reveals the world ofart and literature, and the love of truth, whichmakes man one with himself and one with hisfellow -men, may be fostered and combined.Plato is under no illusions as to any facile modeof reforming society. The high hopes of earlyyouth had been shattered. The lesson of Greekhistory was to him full of despair. Selfishnessand corruption, the inordinate assertion of theindividual without regard to the welfare of the


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38 HARVARD LECTURES \

whole this was what confronted him in civiclife. The thinking man who shrinks fromengaging in the turmoil of faction may well betempted to ' hold his peace and do his ownbusiness,' ' content if only he can live his ownlife and be pure from evil or unrighteousness,and depart in peace and good will with brighthopes.' l

No merely external changes could restore asociety so deeply corrupt. Until wisdom andbeneficence, knowledge and power the powerof government combined with true philosophicinsight were united in the same persons, man-kind could have no release from evil. We arereminded of the union foreshadowed in thePrometheus of power and goodness in the govern-ment of Olympus. Plato is bent on arrivingat an intellectual apprehension of the moralforces which underlie all political and socialimprovement. On the one hand he traces theascent of the soul, of the nobler philosophicnature, from the darkness to the light, andstudies the law of its upward progress ; on the

1Rep. vi. 496 D-E.


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GREECE AND ISRAEL 39other hand he gives a penetrating psychologicalanalysis of the successive stages of moral declineboth in states and individuals. The fervourwith which he describes the power of philosophyto raise and transform life, to bring thoughtand action into harmony, has the glow ofreligious emotion. His words fall little shortof Hebrew prophecy in their intensity. Butlet us not mistake his drift and purpose. Hehas not the directly operative aim of the socialreformer. He is not seeking to ameliorate theoutward conditions of existence, or to raise thelot of the poor and struggling. He is wellaware that the earthly state, in which he seeksto embody his highest conception of justice orhuman goodness, is an ideal, and that thepattern of his city is ' laid up in the heavens.'The regeneration of society stands out beforehim as a far-off hope. He strains his eyes afterthe heavenly vision, but it is the vision of aphilosopher not a prophet, of one who is ' thespectator of all time and all being ' ; for whomthe laws of truth and conduct are the greatprimary reality, towards which the mind must


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40 HARVARD LECTURES istrive in far-reaching aspiration, though no eraof righteousness is as yet dawning on the world.Yet he insists that the ideal is none the worsefor being merely an ideal. His belief neverwavers in the sovereignty of reason, in theaffinity of the human soul to the divine, and inthe vision of the Good as the illuminating powerof human life. It is the business of thephilosopher to open the eyes and to direct thegroping steps of the multitude. ' Could theysee the philosopher as he is, they wouldcertainly accept him for their guide.'

The vision of the prophets differed from thevision even of the greatest of the philosophersin the ever increasing clearness with which itsreality was apprehended. The spirit of hope, sodistinctive of the Jewish people, the invincibleoptimism which survived every disappointment,sustained them to the last. They laid hold ofthe future as their own possession, with a confi-dence unapproached by any other nation, unlesswe may find a distant parallel in the exhilarationof tone with which the Roman poets forecastthe imperial greatness of Rome. To the Greeks


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GREECE AND ISRAEL 41the future is dim and inscrutable; poets andprose writers repeat with many variations thesad refrain, ' uncertain is the future ' ] aSi]\ovTO //.eAAoz/. ' Forecasts of the future,' saysPindar, 'have been doomed to blindness.' 1 Thefuture is the secret belonging to the gods, andit were presumptuous for man to seek to pene-trate it. His duty is to seize the present withits limitless possibilities, and to use it with thatrational energy and forethought which are bornof an enlightened experience. It is a temperof mind wholly unlike that of the Jew, the lossof whose earthly country seemed to point himforward with a more victorious certitude to ' thecity which hath foundations,' to the HeavenlyJerusalem.

'He hath set Eternity in their heart': 2 somight we sum up the spirit of Israel. But theJewish ideal simplified life by leaving half of ituntouched. It remained for Greece to makethe earth a home, ordered and well equipped for

1 Find. Ol. viii. ad init. rSiv 8 /xeXXocrwv rerv


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42 HARVARD LECTURES \the race, if not indeed for the individual. Greecesupplied the lacking elements art, science,secular poetry, philosophy, political life, socialintercourse. The matchless force of the Greekmind and its success in so many fields of humanactivity is, as we shall see, due above all to this,that it was able harmoniously to combine diverseand even opposite qualities. Hebraism andHellenism stand out distinct, the one in all theintensity of its religious life, the other in thewealth and diversity of its secular gifts andgraces.

Thus the sharp contrasts of the sculptor's planShowed the two primal paths our race has trod ;

Hellas the nurse of man complete as man,Judaea pregnant with the living God.

I do not ask you to estimate the value of thesetwo factors, one against the other, to comparethings so incommensurable. Each people is atonce the historical counterpart and the supple-ment of the other. Each element, by contribut-ing its own portion to our common Christianity,has added to the inalienable treasure of theworld. For the present, however, our immediate


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GREECE AND 1'SKA EL 43concern is with Greece. Within these wallsthe Hellenes are, I imagine, a small and peculiarpeople ; though not, I hope, a dwindlingminority. Outside are the larger ranks of thenon-Hellenes I hardly like to call them bytheir Greek title, the Barbarians. But theHellenes, like the Hebrews, have always pre-vailed "by the few, not by the many. Norwas it till ancient Hellas ceased to be anindependent nation that it became one of themoving forces of the world's history. Withthe Greeks, as with the Hebrews, the days oftheir abasement have once and again precededtheir greatest triumphs ; the moment of apparentoverthrow has been the starting-point for freshspiritual or intellectual conquest. That is acheering omen when we are asked to believethat the study of Greek is now an anachronism,and out of keeping with our progressive civilis-ation.


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II

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IN this lecture I propose to place side by sidetwo contrasted civilisations that of Phoeniciaand that of Greece. The history of Phoeniciacentres mainly round the names of the greatcommercial cities of Sidon, Tyre, and at a laterperiod Carthage. I need not remind you thatthe Phoenicians were the pioneers of civilisationin the Mediterranean, and did the carryingtrade of the ancient world. They perfectedthe industrial discoveries of earlier nations,exhibiting singular resource and ingenuity indeveloping such arts as pottery, glass-making,gold-working, and the like. But theyalso startednew branches of industry of their own, and, inparticular, by the discovery of the purple dye,established an immense trade in textile fabrics.

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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 45Fearless and patient navigators and explorers,they felt their way along the stepping-stones ofthe Greek archipelago till they pushed to thefurthest limits of the known world. Theirsettlements extended over the whole Aegean,along the African coast and the westernMediterranean, and thence to the Atlantic ;they traded from the coasts of Britain to thoseof North -West India. Phoenicia was the' mart of nations ' ; ' whose merchants ' were' princes, whose traffickers ' were ' the honour-able of the earth.' l In the earliest glimpsewe get of them we see their mariners touchingat every shore, exchanging their manufacturedarticles for the natural products of the country,and at each point shipping some new cargofor their homeward voyage. Overtaken bywinter on a distant coast, they would quietlywait there till the return of spring enabledthem to sail on calmer seas. They opened uptrade routes for overland as well as maritimecommerce. The Phoenician merchant wouldpenetrate into African deserts or exile himself

1 Isaiah xxiii. 2, 8.


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46 HARVARD LECTURES nfor years in the bazaars of Nineveh or Babylonto extend his markets. Starting from thecoast of Palestine, a mere handful of men, thispeople created a world-wide commerce, main-tained themselves in scattered groups amongunfriendly populations, holding the very out-posts of civilisation, and laid the foundation ofa great colonial dominion. About 600 B.C.Tyrian sailors, despatched on a mission byPharaoh Necho of Egypt, are said to havedoubled the Cape of Good Hope and circum-navigated Africa.

' Those English of antiquity,' says a Frenchwriter; but, as one may hope, with only partialtruth in the description ; for the Phoeniciansamassed indeed wealth untold, and secured amonopoly in most of the markets of the world ;but they drove hard bargains on the strengthof their monopoly ; they eked out their gainsby kidnapping and trafficking in slaves. Wher-ever they appeared they were dreaded anddisliked, though, for business purposes, they wereindispensable. Unpleasant names are alreadyapplied to them in the Homeric poems. This


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 47was, perhaps, partly due to the instinctiveantipathy which has always existed betweenthe Semitic and Aryan races. In part it maybe traced to some inevitable misunderstandingbetween people who refuse to learn one another'slanguage. But, making all allowance for thesefacts, and speaking without any anti-Semiticprejudice, we must own that the Phoenicianswere an inhuman and unlovable race. Theywere animated by one passion, the greed ofgain. Wealth was with them the end of life,and not the means. Theirs was, in Bacon'sphrase, ' the Sabbathless pursuit of fortune.'They had no larger horizons, no hopes beyondmaterial advancement. Every artifice of con-cealment was employed by them to maintaintheir monopoly. With jealous exclusivenessthey guarded the secret of their geographicaldiscoveries, of their trade routes, of the windsand currents. By inventing fabulous horrorsthey sought to deter rivals from following intheir track, and at times committed acts ofmurderous cruelty upon those whose indiscreetcuriosity impelled them to pursue the quest.


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To the past and the future they were alikeindifferent Among the articles of their exporttrade we may reckon the alphabet, throughwhich they conveyed to Greece the art ofwriting, though they themselves never reallylearnt to write. Enough for them if they coulddraw up their tariffs and keep their accounts.Even of their own history they have left norecords; and it is to the research of the Greeksthat we are almost wholly indebted for suchfragments of information as we possess. Litera-ture they had none. Their art was merelyan imitation or reminiscence of the art ofothers. The sense of political unity, again,was wanting ; for Phoenicia was not a countryor a continuous territory, but a series of ports.Their municipal life was not without the vigourwhich is often inspired by commercial activity ;and, on occasion, too, Phoenician towns dis-played heroic qualities in defending theirindependence. But, speaking roughly, we maysay that civic discipline and loyalty werebut feebly felt ; even the great colony of Car-thage suffered the battles of the State to be


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 49fought mainly by mercenaries. In the absenceof any high ideal of personal or national welfarethe individual was crushed in the onwardmovement of material civilisation.

Let us turn now to Greece. The Greeks,also, were born sailors and traders, who from thedawn of history looked upon the sea as theirnatural highway, and explored its paths in aspirit in which the love of science and the loveof adventure were equally blended. To themmight be applied the name, 'Aetvavrai? whichwas given to a party of shipowners at Miletuswho transacted their business on board ship.They too were always afloat their home wason the sea. Like the Phoenicians, they wereshrewd men of business, keen in the pursuit ofcommerce, eager to make money. From thePhoenicians they learned all the arts and handi-crafts ; by degrees they wrested from them thesecrets of their trade routes, and equippedthemselves with all the instruments of wealthand civilisation which their jealous teacherssought to retain in their own hands. But with

1 Plutarch ii. 298 c.


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50 HARVARD LECTURES nthe Greeks the love of knowledge was strongerthan any instinct of monopoly ; the love ofknowledge carried with it the desire to impartit, and in giving to others they received againtheir own with usury. No people was ever lessdetached from the practical affairs of life, lessinsensible to outward utility ; yet they regardedprosperity as a means, never as an end. Theunquiet spirit of gain did not take possession oftheir souls. Shrewd traders and merchants,they were yet idealists. They did not losesight of the higher and distinctively humanaims which give life its significance. They hada standard of measure, a faculty of distinguish-ing values ; the several elements of nationalwelfare fell each into its proper place andorder. The Greek states did not, it is true,all in equal measure grasp the principle of thesubordination of the lower to the higher aim.In Corinth and Aegina, where the Semiticinstinct for trade was dominant, the distinctionbetween the material means and the moral orintellectual ends was not apprehended with thesame sureness or so decisively translated into


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 51action as at Athens. Still the fact remainsthat Greece was aware of the ideal ends of life ;Phoenicia was not. And so political science,ignored by the Phoenicians, became to theGreeks the highest of the practical sciences,the science of man, not as a trader, but as aman, fulfilling his function as a member of thesocial organism, and living with all the fulnessof life. Aristotle speaks of the State as exist-ing not ' for the sake of mere life, but of thenoble life ' ; and, though the formula is his ownand bears a philosophic stamp, he was butfollowing the guidance of educated thought anddeepening a popular conviction. Granted thatcertain external conditions must be satisfiedand material wants supplied, the true aim ofcivic existence still lies beyond. The Statewas felt to be no mere mechanism for thegetting of wealth ; its function was to build upcharacter and intellect, to unfold the powers ofthe heart as well as of the head, to provide freescope for the exercise of human personality inits manifold activities. An Athenian couldhave said with Burke : ' The State is a partner-


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52 HARVARD LECTURES \\ship in all science, in all art, in every virtue,and in all perfection.' The Greek orators areanimated by the same conception. Demo-sthenes never wearies of insisting on the moralbasis of national greatness. Wealth, population,armies, fleets, all the material elements ofstrength, if disjoined from the nobler sources ofcivic inspiration, become ' useless, ineffectual,unavailing.' l

Phoenicia remains a lasting witness to theinstability of power resting on a purelycommercial basis and unsustained by any loftyor aspiring aims. No more striking contrastcan be drawn than that between Greek andPhoenician colonisation. From the Phoeniciansthe Greeks learnt all the rudiments of thecolonising art. But the Phoenician colonies,scattered over the Mediterranean shores, wereas a rule little more than trading stations andfactories planted along the great internationalroutes ; paying over, in some cases, to themother city a portion of their commercialrevenues, but owning no real allegiance, and not

1 Phil. iii. 40 dx/)77"ra > S-TpaKTa, dv6vrjTa,.


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 53infrequently detached in sentiment. Nor didthey show much power of self-government orany aptitude for entering into political unionwith others. To keep on good terms with thenative populations on whose land they hadsettled, and to turn to profitable use theresources of the neighbouring tribes, was theirchief endeavour. Carthage, indeed, the greatestof Phoenician colonies, displayed a magnificentand conquering energy ; but her projects ofterritorial ambition in Sicily, Sardinia, andSpain were precisely the occasion of her down-fall.

The influence of Greater Greece is thedetermining fact in the history of the Hellenicpeople. Already in the sixth century B.C. thecoasts and islands were studded with Greektowns from the Crimea to North Africa, from theregions of the Caucasus to Lower Italy, to Sicily,and even to Gaul. In the Macedonian periodthe chain of Greek cities extended to the Indus.Plato might speak of the sea as ' a bitter andbrackish neighbour,' l a pleasant thing enough

1 Laws iv. 75 A tt\jUi'p6i' KO.L iriKpbv yeirovrjfj.a.


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54 HARVARD LECTURES nto have near you, but dangerous, and likely tobring in other strange products besides foreignmerchandise. Nature, however, had markedout a maritime destiny for the Hellenes, andtheir colonial activity was the highest politicalachievement of the race. Different motives ledthe several states to send out colonies. Greecewas a poor country Trevirj aei /core avvrpcxfioseVrt: 1 the growth of population outstrippedthe means of existence, and a foreign marketwas necessary to supplement the food supplyand to furnish the material for native industries.But though actual need was perhaps the mostfrequent of the impelling causes of emigration,the highest instincts of the race sought othersatisfaction in the colonising energy. Eachfounding of a city was a missionary enterprise.The emigrants carried with them the Apollineworship as the symbol of their spiritual unity ;and, as we expressly read in regard to the found-ing of Naxos (735 B.C.) the earliest of theGreek colonies in Sicily the first act on touchingthe new shore was to erect an altar to Apollo

1 Herod, vii. 102.


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 55Archegetes.

1

The jealousies which were so rifein the narrow cantons of Greece were softenedand sometimes forgotten in absence from home.The sense of Hellenic kinship was deepenedand clarified. The Hellenes became aware ofthemselves as children of one family, howeverwidely dispersed ; guardians of a common herit-age which they were bound to protect againstsurrounding barbarism ; they listened to oneHomer, they were nurtured on the same heroiclegends ; on the same days they sacrificed tothe same gods as their kinsfolk in the mothercities ; they lived under customs and institutionssimilar in spirit to the old.

Great diversity of aim and method prevailedin the colonising states. Corinth, the Veniceof antiquity, pursued a commercial policy, andthat policy rested on a colonial basis. Athens,entering much later on the field of colonialexpansion, kept larger political and social endsin view. Her colonial empire, growing out of areligious federal union, owed its final and distinc-tive form to the part the city played in repelling

1 Thucyd. vii. 3. I.


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the common danger which menaced Greeceduring the Persian wars. Even into the workof colonisation Athens sought to introduce alarge and comprehensive spirit. A salientexample occurs in the history of MagnaGraecia, the home of so many novel and in-teresting experiments in social organisation.After the destruction of Sybaris, the new city(henceforth named Thurii) was restored underthe guidance of Pericles, who desired to makeit a Panhellenic community : from the outsetit comprised not Athenians only but Arcadians,Eleans, and Boeotians. But widely as thestates of Greece differed as colonising agencies,Hellenic colonisation, viewed generally, had onenotable characteristic. Fitting in with thespirit of adventure and the disinterested curio-sity of a restless and daring intellect, it carriedmen into the heart of every science. With theenlargement of the physical horizon new in-tellectual needs sprang up. The art of naviga-tion demanded a closer study of astronomy andmathematics. The opening up of unknownlands, the importation of unfamiliar products,


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 57the acquaintance gained with alien civilisations,whetted the desire for anthropological and his-torical research. We can observe the fascinat-ing influence of geographical discoveries onthe imagination of a poet such as Aeschylus.We are reminded of the effect of similar ex-plorations on our own Elizabethan age. Indeed,the versatile colonial intellect of Greece, withits many-sided and, as it might seem, incom-patible activities, produced a type of characterwhich it is not too fanciful to compare with soromantic a personality as that of Sir WalterRaleigh, who was ' poet, historian, chemist,soldier, philosopher, courtier.'

The intellectual movement of the Greekworld during the sixth century, and down toabout the middle of the fifth century, radiatesfrom Greater Greece. The philosophic intellectof Ionia led the way. All the early philosophersare lonians by birth Thales, Anaximander,Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Xeno-phanes, Heraclitus ; and of these the first threebelong to one city Miletus. That same Miletus,which from the eighth century onwards sent forth


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intrepid mariners, who penetrated to the remotestcorners of the Euxine, planting some eightysettlements along the 'inhospitable' shores, alsomade fearless excursions into the domain ofphysical science, and gave to western Europeits first speculative impulse. In philosophy, thecolonies of Southern Italy and Sicily followedthe Ionian lead. In poetry, the earliest outburstof inspired song after Homer came from theisland of Lesbos. Sicily gave birth to comedy,to dramatic dialogue, to rhetoric. The smallerislands contributed their share. Ceos producedthe great Simonides ; Samos, Pythagoras ; Cos,Hippocrates, the father of medicine ; a centurylater Crete gave to the world the CynicDiogenes ; and Melos, the ' atheist ' Diagoras.Withdraw from Greece the colonies of her ownblood, and you rob her of some of her greatestnames ; not only those just mentioned, butalso Terpander, Archilochus, Mimnermus, Arion,Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, Anacreon, Ibycus,Bacchylides, Epicharmus, Empedocles, Herod-otus, Hellanicus, Gorgias I need not completethe list.


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 59In the colonies again the most diverse

political experiments were tried. The oldforms of constitution proved to be too rigidfor the new countries. Difficult problems pre-sented themselves and pressed for practicalsolution. All the adaptive powers of the race,their rich and flexible intelligence, their evrpa-TreXia, were called into play. Rival centres ofindustry or culture each acquired a distinctivecharacter. The literature, the art, the mode ofthought of the several colonies took their ownlocal colouring. The marvel is that at a dis-tance from home, a mere handful of strangers,they were not merged in the prevailing barbar-ism ; that they did not ' forget their language,forget their poets, and their gods.' l As it was,they not only maintained their Hellenism de-spite all diversity of developments, but enrichedthe common stock by a ceaseless output of ideas.The sacred fire taken from the hearth of themetropolis city, they kept alive, and from itkindled new and illuminating thoughts whichthey transmitted to the land of their origin.

1Perrot, Histoire de fArt dans I'Antiquite, vii. 299.


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60 HARVARD LECTURES nThe history of Greek art

l offers multipliedinstances of this vital and effective interactionbetween the colonies and the mother city. Acolony, free from the hampering traditions of aschool, aided, it might be, by the discovery of anew material as the medium of artistic expression,would strike out some bold experiment whichonly received its finished form in the old home.Among the causes which acted as a powerfulstimulus on artistic production none rankshigher than the agonistic contests of Greece.The desire to win national renown in this fieldof coveted achievement created a civic rivalry,intense in character and of far-reaching con-sequence. Each state was eager to know andappropriate the best results that had elsewherebeen accomplished. Hence there was an un-limited interchange of art products extendingeven to the outlying regions of Hellenism.Famous artists travelled with their wares. Notonly were the great religious and social centres,such as Olympia, Delphi, Delos, Miletus reposi-

1 Here I am much indebted to hints kindly given me byProfessor Waldstein.


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 61tories we might almost say museums whereworks of art could be viewed, but minor locali-ties also took a pride in acquiring masterpiecesrepresenting well-known individuals or differentschools. This free trade in art had in it aneducative and expansive force ; it gave unityno less than variety to artistic culture ; itquickened the sense of Hellenic patriotism ; ithad an influence analogous to that exercised bythe poetic recitations of the wandering rhap-sodists on the thought, the language, and thesentiment of Greece.

Here I can do no more than allude to thetopic. For the detail we should recall thehistory

of sculpture from the second half of theseventh century onward, especially in connex-ion with Chios, Crete, Samos, and other islands,whence the hereditary craft of certain familiesand schools found its way to the Grecian main-land. To Glaucus of Chios is attributed theinvention of soldering iron ; to Melas of Chios,the first working of marble an art which hebequeathed to his son Micciades and his directdescendants, Archermus, Bupalus, and Athennis.


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62 HARVARD LECTURES nIn Samos the art of bronze-casting originatedwith Rhoecus and his son Theodorus. Creteproduced a well-known school of sculpture, theearliest names being those of Dipoenus andScyllis, who travelled through Greece proper,visiting Sicyon, Argos, Cleonae, and Ambracia,and there introduced their new methods. Later,during the second half of the sixth centuryand the first half of the fifth, we note the freshand daring originality displayed in sculptureby Sicily pre-eminently in the earlier metopesfrom Selinus and also by Magna Graecia.Pythagoras of Rhegium, a rival of Myron ofEleutherae, and famous chiefly as the sculptorof Olympic victors, introduced his principles of' symmetry and rhythm ' ; he marks the laststep in the process of emancipation from archaicand hieratic bonds, which prepared the way forthe age of Phidias. Another colonial sculptorof genius was a contemporary of PhidiasPaeonius of Mende, near Aenus in the ThracianChersonese. His Nike, discovered at Olympiain 1875, exhibits an original spirit which un-doubtedly influenced the art of the fifth century.


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 63Again, in painting, Polygnotus of Thasos, underwhom were executed the great mural decorationsat Athens, appears to have held with Cimon aposition similar to that of Phidias with Pericles.In the Periclean age itself one of the mostdistinctive features of Attic art is its breadthof view, its large hospitality, its power ofassimilating every fruitful element of artistictaste and culture which came to it from allother Hellenic centres. Even in the followingperiod, when Argos and Sicyon and Athenstook the lead, it is worth remembering thatamong sculptors Scopas was a Parian ; and inthe fourth century, when painting reached itshighest point, the masters of the art wereZeuxis from Heraclea, Parrhasius from Ephesus,and Apelles from Colophon.

In that enchanted island of Sicily, whichfor more than a thousand years was the battle-ground of southern Europe, swept by a longsuccession of conquering races, Greeks andPhoenicians confronted one another for centuries.At certain critical moments of history Phoeniciathreatened to engulf our Western civilisation.


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64 HARVARD LECTURES nYet to-day, go where we may through theisland, it is Greece that speaks to us, in hertheatres and temples, in her ruined columnsand along deserted shores. The voice of Greekpoets, Greek philosophers and historians, wholived or died there, is still heard in the undyingpages of the past. As for Phoenicia, in Sicilyas elsewhere, her memorial has perished withher. In her day she did some humble, butreal, service to mankind in helping forward,though with a reluctant hand, a more giftedpeople on the road of material progress. Toher they owed their first lessons in shipbuildingand navigation, their knowledge of some of thelesser arts and crafts, and, as it would seem,certain practical applications of arithmetic.But, with all her wealth, she passed away, aswas foretold by Ezekiel in his doom of Tyre,and the vestiges of her that remain have anantiquarian, not a human interest.

It is just this human quality, lacking in thePhoenicians, which marks so conspicuously theHellenic temperament. There is in it a naturalexpansiveness, a desire to enter into kindly


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ii GREECE AND PHOENICIA 65human relations with others, to exchangegreetings with the stranger on the road, to giveutterance to the passing thought or fugitiveemotion ; or, if oral utterance is impossible, tomake writing serve the turn of speech, and sobind together in friendly intimacy the presentand the absent, the living and the dead. Eveninanimate objects are drawn into the circle ofthis genial human intercourse. A bowl fore-stalls your curiosity by telling you somethingof its personal history. A word or jotting ona piece of pottery sometimes a mere " vrpocr-ayopevw " carries the message of the artist tohis friend. Or again, a fragment inscribedwith the name of an Athenian youth calls upa tender reminiscence of old friendship when itis found far from Athens in the rock-tombs ofEtruria. The "^aipe," again, that is uttered overthe departed is repeated on the sepulchralslab ; and not infrequently the farewell wordis expanded into a brief dialogue between thedead man and the surviving friend, or even achance wayfarer. Such sepulchral greetingshave a memorial value of a very special kind.


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66 HARVARD LECTURES nUnlike more formal monumental inscriptions,they are the direct address of person to person ;they make an immediate appeal to the heartfor the very reason that they are so simple, sospontaneous ; as if the unspoken thought hadbeen intercepted before it reached the lips, andhad taken external shape while yet upon itsway.

In all these instances mind is not subjectedto things material ; it is the inner world thatdominates the outward. This is of a piecewith other characteristics already noted. InPlato's ideal commonwealth material well-beingdoes not occupy a commanding place. Thetrue constituent elements of happiness aremoral and intellectual. It is only in theUtopias of the comic poets that material enjoy-ments come into the foreground of the picture.In one of the fragments of Pherecrates 1 (acontemporary of Aristophanes), human beingsare by the bounty of Plutus equipped with allgood things without any effort of their own :' Of their own accord rivers of black broth,

1 ap. Athen. vi. 97.


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GREECE .-/AY) PHOENICIA 67gushing and gurgling, will flow along the high-ways from the springs of 1'lutus. . . . Fromthe roofs rivulets will run of the juice of thegrape with cheese-cakes and hot soup andomelets made of lilies and anemones.' Somerabbinical descriptions of the material happinessthat will prevail in the visible kingdom of Goddo not fall far short of this comic paradise.The rivers will flow with wine and honey ; thetrees will grow bread and delicacies ; in certaindistricts springs will break forth which willcure all diseases ; suffering will cease, and menwill be very long-lived, if they die at all. Evenif we admit that 'a good dose of materialismmay be necessary for religion that we may notstarve the world,' still Judaism, even in itsloftiest moments, is a little too much inclinedto hanker after material delights, and to expressitself in a form which would have shocked theideal sentiment of Greece. Take again theenjoyment of a Greek festival. The occasionwas not, as with other nations, one for eatingand drinking. The people shared the morerefined tastes of their gods, who, at the agonistic


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and dramatic festivals, came forth for the dayfrom their sanctuaries, and mingled gladlywith the throng of worshippers, demandingfrom them no costly banquets, but perfectedhuman powers dedicated to the service ofreligion : physical manhood with all its dis-ciplined skill ; powers too of intellect andimagination, expressing themselves in diverseforms of poetry and music. Similarly in thegreat national athletic contests, so long as thefiner instinct of Greece prevailed over Asiaticostentation, the reward of the victor hadno material value ; the wreath of wild olive,laurel, or parsley, with which he was crowned,was but the symbol of his consecration, nordid he retain it as a personal possession ; itwas hung up in the shrine of the local deity.

The Greek way of regarding private luxuryoffers a similar note of idealism. Moneylavished on purely personal enjoyment wascounted vulgar, oriental, inhuman. It was anoffence against good taste, a violation of thelaw of measure and self-restraint, the glorifica-tion of the individual on his selfish side. It


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 69implied a failure to discern the true ends whichmake social existence desirable. The famoussaying of Pericles, ' We are lovers of thebeautiful, but without extravagance ' (CKoK,a-\ovp,ev jap ytier' e^reA-eta?), may be taken as themotto of the private life of the Periclean age.Refinement and simplicity such was the idealunion. Mere economy had no attraction for aGreek, the real question being not the amountyou spend, but the occasion of the outlay andthe end in view. As for meanness, it wasviewed with special disfavour. \Ve ma}- recallthe man in Aristotle's Ethics, who, having spentliberally on a fitting object, then spoils thewhole effect for the sake of a trifle (ei> fjuicpw TOKa\bv ttTToXet). 1 But, of all forms of meanness,the worst was that which was combined withdisplay ; of which we have an example in afragment of a comic poet, where an economicalperson boasts that he had invited his guests toa wedding breakfast on the express understand-ing that they were each to bring their own food.Large outlay on rare and interesting occasions

1 Eth. Nic. iv. 2. 21.


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70 HARVARD LECTURESeven in private life meets with approval fromAristotle ; and one of the most characteristicallyGreek features in his description of such justifi-able outlay is that not only is the outlay on thegreat scale, it is also in the grand manner.The total effect is impressive ; it depends noton the amount expended, but on a certainharmonious and aesthetic quality that affectsthe imagination.1

Great outlay, according to the old ideal ofAthens, should be limited to public objects.In the next generation, Demosthenes looks backwith regret to the lost simplicity of private life.In earlier Athens, he says, the houses ofMiltiades and Themistocles differed in no wayfrom those of the ordinary citizen, while thepublic buildings and temples were on a scale ofgrandeur and magnificence that no future agescould surpass.2 The vast sums spent on theParthenon and other edifices have, indeed, beencriticised by some modern economists as somuch wealth locked up in bricks and mortaras unproductive expenditure which contributed

1 Eth. NIC. iv. 2. 10. 2 Dem. Olynth. iii. 25-26.


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GREECE AND PHOENICIA 71to the ruin of Athens. From the narrowfinancial point of view it may be difficult tojustify such expenditure. But, if we try to lookat it in the Athenian spirit, is there not muchto be said in its defence ? Simplicity in thehome, splendour in the city that was theprinciple. To spend largely on our privateselves, on our personal satisfaction, was luxury,and culpable luxury. To incur great outlayfor worthy objects which transcend self andminister to the enjoyment of the community,was praiseworthy munificence. The individualman and his material surroundings passed away;the city was the enduring reality ; it was insome sense a spiritual fabric, the embodimentof the people's nobler aspirations, of their higher,their collective self. All the efforts of art mightworthily be expended in its service ; that wealthwas not wasted which added to its beauty anddignity, and inspired in the citizens a passionateand admiring attachment. Here, again, theAthenians look beyond material interest or profit,and estimate the value of a thing in relation toideal ends, which are above the world of sense.


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72 HARVARD LECTURESThis conviction that the things of the mind

have a worth, an inherent dignity, which cannotbe measured in terms of money, is at the rootof many Greek ideas on education. If wewould pursue knowledge aright, we must loveit disinterestedly. Even learning may befollowed in the spirit of a shopkeeper ; and theintellectual vulgarity thus fostered is moreignoble than the frank avowal of money-gettingas in itself the end. Nothing is so truly de-grading as the intrusion of lower and mercenarymotives into the sphere of the higher activities.Plato l distinguishes between the educationwhich aims only at outward and worldly successand the true, the liberal education, which fitsmen for perfect citizenship. ' We are not nowspeaking of education in the narrower sense, butof that other education in virtue from youthupwards, which makes a man eagerly pursuethe ideal perfection of citizenship, and teacheshim how rightly to rule and how to obey. Thisis the only education which, upon our view,deserves the name ; that other sort of training

1 Laws i. 643 K-644 A.


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GREECE AND PHOENICIAwhich aims at the acquisition of wealth orbodily strength, or mere cleverness apart fromintelligence and justice, is mean and illiberal,and is not worthy to be called educationat all.'

The superior value of leisure in the Hellenicscheme of life as compared with work connectsitself with this high ideal of citizenship. Leisureis the Hellenic starting-point, the normal condi-tion of the citizen, the prerogative of freemen.Without leisure there is no freedom. ' Wework,' says Aristotle, ' in order that we mayhave leisure.' 1 At first sight this ma

butcher, samuel h._harvard lectures on greek subjects

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