Part 8

This high tension is the natural reaction of a spirit, finely and richly endowed as the Greek was, to the pressure of strong alien forces. If the tension relaxed or broke, the result was what you might expect; there was a rocket-like flash to an extreme. Others as well as I may have wondered at the sort of language we find in Greek writers concerning “tyrants.” The horror expressed is not merely conventional or naïve as in a child’s history book, it is real and deeply felt. The danger of tyranny was of course very actual in most of the Greek states, even in Athens. But it is not so much the danger of suffering as of exercising a tyranny that is in the minds of the best Greek writers. The tyrant is a damned soul. Waiting for him in the dark are “certain fiery-looking” devils and the Erinyes, Avengers of Blood. The tyrant is the completion and final embodiment of human depravity.... Well, perhaps he is. But we should never think of giving the tyrant so very special a pre-eminence over every other type of criminal. Yet the Greek feeling seems quite natural when we reflect that the very definition of a tyrant is one that is placed above the law, and is therefore under no external obligation to self-restraint, lacking which the average Greek very rapidly and flamboyantly went to the devil.

There was, for example, Alexander prince of Pherae, whom Shakespeare read about in his Plutarch. Alexander had a habit of burying people alive, or wrapping them in the skins of bears or boars; he used to hunt them with dogs. He consecrated the spear with which he had murdered his uncle, crowning it with garlands and offering sacrifices to it under the name of Tychon, an obscene god. This same Alexander was present once at a performance of Euripides’ _Trojan Women_, and was so overcome by his feelings that he hurried from the theatre, leaving a message for the leading actor, which explained that he did not disapprove of the acting, but was ashamed to let people see him, who had never shown the least pity for his victims, crying over Hecuba and Andromache. _What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?_

One might perhaps say of Alexander what Ruskin (speaking, as he assures us, after due deliberation) says of Adam Smith, that he was “in an entirely damned state of soul.” It would be easy to multiply examples like that of this Pheraean, but it would be still easier to disgust the reader with them. I will take, then, a milder case (more instructive in its way than much pathology) which has for us this twofold value, that it is full of human and pathetic interest, and at the same time reflects, all the more if there are legendary elements in it, the popular imagination of the tyrant’s mood. It is the tragedy of Periandros, lord of Corinth. Hear Sosikles the Corinthian in Herodotus.

_When Kypselos had reigned thirty years and ended his life happily, he was succeeded by his son, Periandros. Now Periandros was milder than his father at first, but afterwards by means of messengers he joined himself to Thrasyboulos the tyrant of Miletus, and became yet more bloody by far than Kypselos. For he sent a herald to Thrasyboulos and inquired how he might most safely put affairs in order and best govern Corinth. Thrasyboulos brought the messenger of Periandros forth from the city, and entering into a field of corn he went through the corn, putting one question after another to the herald on the matter of his coming from Corinth. And ever as he spied an ear that overtopped the rest, he would strike it off, and so marring it cast it down, until in this way he destroyed the fairest and tallest portion of the crop. And having traversed the field he sends away the herald without giving him a word of counsel. When the herald returned to Corinth, Periandros wished to learn the counsel. But the other said that Thrasyboulos had answered nothing, and that he marvelled at him, what manner of man he had sent him to, one beside himself and a destroyer of his own possessions; relating what he saw done by Thrasyboulos. But Periandros, understanding the action and perceiving that Thrasyboulos advised him to slay the most eminent of the citizens, then showed every manner of villainy towards the Corinthians. Whatever Kypselos had left unaccomplished by his slaughterings and banishments, Periandros fulfilled. And in one day he stripped naked all the women of Corinth for his wife Melissa’s sake. For when he had sent messengers to the river Acheron in Thesprotia, to the Oracle of the Dead there, to inquire concerning a treasure deposited by a stranger, the ghost of Melissa appeared and said that she would not signify nor declare in what place the treasure was laid; for she was cold and naked, since she had no profit of the garments that had been buried with her, for that they had not been burned; and for proof that her words were true she had a secret message for his ear.... When these things were reported to Periandros (for the secret forced him to believe, since he had had to do with Melissa when she was dead) immediately after he caused it to be proclaimed that all the wives of the Corinthians should come forth to the temple of Hera. And when they came, wearing their richest garments as for a holy feast, he set his bodyguard in their way, and stripped them all, bond and free alike, and gathering all into a trench he burned the pile with prayer to Melissa. And when he had done this, and had sent to her the second time, the ghost of Melissa told him where she had deposited the stranger’s treasure._

Periandros had murdered Melissa. After her death _another calamity_, says Herodotus, _befell him as I shall tell. He had two sons by Melissa, one seventeen years of age and the other eighteen. Their mother’s father Prokles, tyrant of Epidaurus, sent for them to his castle and kindly entreated them, as was natural, for they were his daughter’s children. But when he was bidding them farewell, he said, “Know ye, my children, who slew your mother?” This saying the elder regarded not, but the younger, whose name was Lykophron, when he heard it was so moved_—the poor young man—_that when he came to Corinth, he spake no word to his father, accounting him his mother’s murderer, neither would he converse with him nor answer any question. And at last Periandros in great anger drave him from the house. And after he had expelled him, he questioned the elder son, what discourse their uncle had held with them. And he told his father that Prokles had received them kindly, but made no mention of that speech of Prokles, which he uttered at their departing, for he had not marked it. But Periandros declared that it was in no way possible but that he had given them some counsel, and closely questioned the lad, till he remembered and told this also. And Periandros, understanding the matter and resolved not to yield weakly in any thing, sent a messenger to those with whom the son whom he had driven forth was living, and forbade them to take him in. And whenever the wanderer came to another house, he would be driven from this also, Periandros threatening those who received him and commanding them to thrust him forth. And he went wandering from house to house of his friends, who, for all their fear, used to receive him, seeing that he was the son of Periandros. But at last Periandros caused proclamation to be made, that whosoever should receive him in his house or speak to him, the same must pay such and such a sacred penalty to Apollo. Therefore because of this proclamation no man was willing to speak to the lad or to give him shelter. Moreover neither would he himself try to obtain that which was forbidden him, but endured all, haunting the public porticos. On the fourth day Periandros saw him all unwashen and emaciated for lack of food, and was moved to pity, and remitting somewhat of his anger he approached and said, “My son, whether is better, to fare as now thou farest, or to take over my lordship and the good things that are mine, reconciled to thy father? But thou, my son and prince of wealthy Corinth, hast chosen a vagrant life, opposing and showing anger against him whom thou oughtest least to hate. If there has been a mishap in that matter, the same hath befallen me also, and I have the larger share therein, as mine was the deed. But apprehending how far better it is to be envied than pitied, and at the same time what manner of thing it is to be wroth with them that begat thee and are stronger than thou, come back home.” With these words Periandros sought to constrain his son, but he made no other answer but only this, that his father had incurred the sacred penalty to the god by entering into speech with him. And Periandros, perceiving that there was no dealing with nor overcoming of the enmity of his son, sends him away out of his sight on board a ship to Corcyra, for he was master of Corcyra also. But after he had dispatched him, Periandros made an expedition against Prokles his father-in-law, blaming him chiefly for what had happened, and took Epidaurus, and took Prokles himself alive._

_But in course of time Periandros came to be old, and knew himself no longer capable of watching over and administering affairs. Wherefore he sent to Corcyra and recalled Lykophron to the tyranny; for he saw nothing in his elder son, but looked upon him as somewhat dull of wit. But Lykophron would not even answer the messenger. But Periandros, who was bound up in the young man, made a second attempt, sending his own daughter, Lykophron’s sister, thinking he would most readily listen to her. And when she had come she said, “Dear Lykophron, is it your desire that our lordship should fall to others and thy father’s substance be scattered abroad, rather than come away and have it thyself? Come home; cease punishing thyself. A proud heart is poor profit. Do not cure one evil with another. Many prefer mercy to justice; and many ere now in seeking what was their mother’s have lost what their father had. A tyranny is a slippery thing, and many there be that long for it; and he is now an old man and past his prime. Give not away what is thine own to others.” These were her words, which her father had taught to her as the most persuasive. But Lykophron answered that he would on no account come to Corinth so long as he knew his father was alive. When she had brought back this answer, Periandros sends a third messenger, a herald, to propose that he should go himself to Corcyra, and bidding Lykophron come to Corinth to succeed him in the tyranny. The young man agreed to these terms, and Periandros was setting out for Corcyra and the prince to Corinth, when the Corcyraeans, becoming aware of all this, in order that Periandros might not come to their land, put the lad to death. Therefore Periandros took vengeance on the Corcyraeans_.

The revenge of the old man was to send three hundred boys of the chief Corcyraean families to the great Lydian king, Alyattes, to be made eunuchs.... He was cheated of his revenge by a humane stratagem of the Samians. The lonely old man, with that touch of original nobleness all gone now, black frustrate rage in his heart, love turned to an inhuman hate of all the world, wearing this Nessus shirt of remorse and despair! _Such is tyranny_, says Sosikles at the end of his speech, _Such is tyranny, O Lacedaemonians, and such its consequences._

Periandros, you see, has already become a type. There is a curious fitness in the application to these old “tyrants” of the worn quotation from _The Vanity of Human Wishes_—they do very specially point a moral and adorn a tale. The moral they point is the danger of losing _Sophrosyne_. There is a wonderful description in Plato’s _Republic_ of the tyrant’s genesis, a description which may startle us by the intensity of feeling which one touches in it. It is a story of the gradual loss of Sophrosyne, ending in perfect degeneration and the loss of all the other virtues as well. This Sophrosyne (one of the cardinal Greek virtues and the most characteristic of all) confronts us at the outset of any study of the Hellenic temperament. To understand the one is to understand the other. Complete understanding is of course impossible, but we may get nearer and nearer to the secret.

Sophrosyne is the “saving” virtue. That means little—or nothing—until it is steeped in the colours of the Greek temperament, and viewed in the Greek attitude to life. Well then, the Greek attitude to life—how shall we describe that? I am going to describe it in a phrase which is at least accurate enough to help on our discussion greatly: it looks upon life as an _Agon_, and by an Agon is meant the whole range of activities from the most to the least heroic, from the most to the least spiritual, contest or competition. The reader will forgive an appearance of pedantry in this, since the word needs careful translation. Now my suggestion is that this _agonistic_ view of life, if I may so call it, pervades and characterizes all Classical antiquity. To understand clearly the nature of an Agon we must keep firmly in mind its origin. It would be misleading surely to call its origin religious—as if men needed to be religious to fight!—but it is undeniable that its roots are embedded in that primitive life which is so largely mastered by religion and magic. In consequence an ancient Agon was nearly always a religious ceremony. That seems curious enough to a modern mind, yet nothing is more certain. The great national Games like the Olympic, the rhapsodic and musical contests, the Attic Drama (which was specifically an Agon)—all had this religious or supernatural _aura_ investing them. And when one looks into Greek religion itself, one finds everywhere as its characteristic expression a choric dance, which normally takes the form of an actual or mimic contest between two sides or “semi-choruses.”

The motive then of an Agon differed from that of an ordinary modern contest. It was normally a _ritual_ contest, and its motive a _religious_ motive. It was not held for its own sake, like a football match, but for a definite object. This object the Greeks called _Nikê_, which we translate—inadequately enough, as is plain from the facts we have been considering—as “victory.” It was felt to be not so much a personal distinction as a blessing upon the whole community. It possessed a magical virtue. There was even a sense in which in an ancient Agon everybody won. Nor does it seem extravagant to say that Greek society, like a primitive society, only in a far richer, more complex, more significant and spiritual way, was organized for the production of Nikê.

That is a large matter. There is, to be sure, no need of accumulated detail to prove that the Agon was the most characteristic institution of ancient life; it only requires to be pointed out; everywhere we find these competitions. What may chiefly interest us for the moment is that the Agon was simply the outward expression of the characteristic Greek outlook upon life and upon the whole human scene. For the Greek looked upon life itself as a struggle, an Agon, an opportunity for the production of Nikê. Mr. Wells gives to one of his essays the title of “The Human Adventure.” Life as the Human Adventure very well expresses the Greek feeling about it. Only let us not forget that the Nikê which is the object and justification of every Agon is—I have already remarked it—something utterly, qualitatively different from mere success. It is the triumph of the Cause. “Success”—“the successful business man”—not that kind of success.

The most successful man in Greece, every one remembers, was rewarded with a little garland of wild olive. _God help us, Mardonios_, said a noble Persian when he heard this, _what men are these thou hast brought us to fight against!—men that contend not for money but for merit_. The individual Greek could want money badly enough, as may be gathered from the amusing, but satirical, _Characters_ of Theophrastus. Yet in the soul of Hellas, for all its strong sense of reality and despite some inclination to avarice, one finds at last something you might almost call quixotic. Is there not some element of quixotry in every high adventure? And what adventure could be higher than to fight for “the beautiful things,” _Ta Kala_, against the outnumbering Barbarian?

Sophrosyne is the virtue that “saves” in this battle. Understand it so, and you must share some part of the ardour this word inspired. It means the steady control and direction of the total energy of a man. It means discipline. It means concentration. It is the angel riding the whirlwind, the charioteer driving the wild horses. There is no word for it in English, and we must coldly translate “moderation,” “temperance,” “self-restraint.” “Moderation” as a name for this strong-pulsed, triumphant thing! Why even the late-born, unromantic Aristotle, even while he is describing Sophrosyne as a “mean” between excessive and deficient emotionality, turns aside to remark, as a thing almost too obvious to need pointing out, that “there is a sense in which Sophrosyne is an _extreme_.” This is She whom Dante beheld on the Mountain of Purgatory such that “never were seen in furnace glasses or metals so glowing and red”:

_giammai non si videro in fornace vetri o metalli sì lucenti e rossi_.

VI

GODS AND TITANS

It was an ancient hypothesis that the Gods are only deified men. A certain Euêmeros suggested this. His favourite illustration was Zeus; that greatest of the Gods, he said, was a prehistoric king in Crete, as the Cretan legends about him proved. This theory has received a fresh life from the investigations of modern scholars. Historically, it seems to be largely true; psychologically, it explains nothing at all. _All men have need of the Gods_, says Homer; the religious instinct, that is the important thing, or rather (since the other is important too) that is the fundamental thing. It is also the prior thing, the spring of the religious act. If I want to know why primitive men make a god of one of their number, it seems no answer to assure me that they do so. Yet the historical inquiry has great interest too, and throws a dim and rather lurid light on the development of religion and religious thought. And I could not leave untouched an aspect of the old Greek life so vital as its belief about the gods without illustrating how here also the conflict of Greek and Barbarian worked itself out.

It is almost the other day that we rediscovered the old Aegean religion—the immemorially ancient religion of the non-Greek peoples, the Barbarians, who lived about the Aegean Sea. It is now clear that the Hittites, the Phrygians, the ancient peoples of Anatolia generally, worshipped a kind of triad or trinity of Father, Son and Consort. Sometimes, as in the Hittite sculptures, the Father and the Son seem the important members of the group; sometimes, as in the Phrygian religion, the emphasis is chiefly on the Mother and Consort, and the Son. But the third member can always be discovered too, standing pretty obviously in the background. In prehistoric Crete (which, of course, became Greek in historical times) we again recognize the divine Three in the persons of those native divinities whom the Greeks learned to call Kronos, Rhea and Zeus. That is the skeleton of the old religion; the living flesh in which it was clothed was begotten in tribal custom. Primitive peoples fashion their gods after their own image. Their chief god they think of as a greater and more worshipful “king,” swayed by the passions, observing the etiquette, and wearing the regalia of their earthly rulers. Now the primitive king held his place by force or craft or the terror of his rages (his _menos_)—and by no other tenure. He lived in constant dread of the rival who, younger and stronger, would one day rise against him and seize his throne. The rival might be a stranger, but more frequently he was the king’s own son, who, for one thing, would be thought likely to inherit the magical virtue of his sire. Accordingly, when the Young King was born, the Old King would seek his life. But there he would be apt to meet the opposition of the Queen, who would seek to convey the child to a safe retreat. Then, grown at last to manhood, suddenly the Prince would return to challenge the Old King to mortal combat. The Gods behave exactly like that.

The chief depositary in ancient Greece of popular beliefs about the Gods is the curious poem attributed to Hesiod, called the _Theogony_. Along with certain parts of Homer, it formed what might be called the handbook of orthodoxy, and it tells us with an incomparable authoritativeness what the sacred tradition was. Eldest of all, says the _Theogony_, was Gaia or Mother Earth, a goddess. Now she _bare first starry Ouranos, equal to herself, that he might cover her on every side ... and afterward she lay with him, and bare the deep coil of Okeanos, and Koios, and Krios, and Hyperîon, and Iapetos, and Thea, and Rhea, and Themis, and Mnemosyne, and Phoibe with the gold upon her head, and lovely Tethys. And, after these, youngest was born Kronos the Crooked-Thinker, most dangerous of her sons, who loathed his lusty begetter._ There is a fuller account in another place. _Next, of Gaia and Ouranos were born three sons, huge and violent, ill to name, Kottos and Briareos and Gyes, the haughty ones. From their shoulders swang an hundred arms invincible, and on their shoulders, upon their rude bodies, grew heads a fifty upon each; irresistible strength crowned the giant forms. Of all the children of Gaia and Ouranos most to be feared were these, and they were hated of their Sire from the first; yea, soon as one was born, he would not let them into the light, but would hide them all away in a hiding-place of Earth, and Ouranos gloried in the bad work. And, being straitened, huge Gaia groaned inwardly; and she thought of a cruel device. Hastily she created the grey flint, and of it fashioned a mighty Sickle, and expounded her thought to her Sons, speaking burning words from an anguished heart. “Sons of me and of an unrighteous Father, if ye will hearken to me, on your Father ye may take vengeance for his sinful outrage, for it was He began the devising of shameful deeds!”_

_So spake she, but fear seized them all, I ween, neither did one of them utter a word. But mighty Kronos the Cunning took heart of grace, and made answer again to his good Mother. “Mother, I will undertake and will perform this thing, since of our Father (‘Father!’) I reck not; for it was He began the devising of shameful deeds!” So spake he, and mighty Gaia rejoiced greatly in her heart, and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands the sharp-fanged Sickle, and taught him all the plot._

_Great Ouranos came with falling night and cast him broadly over Gaia, desiring her, and outstretched him at large upon her. But that other, his Son, reached out with his left hand from the place of his hiding ... and with his right grasping the monstrous fanged Sickle, he swiftly reaped the privy parts of his Father and cast them to fall behind him._