CHAPTER XVI.

_THE FRAGMENTS OF THE LOST TRAGIC POETS._

Apparent Accident in the Preservation of Greek Poetry.--Criticism among the Ancients.--Formation of Canons.--Libraries.--The Political Vicissitudes of Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople.--Byzantine Scholarship in the Ninth Century.--The Lost MS. of Menander.--Tragic Fragments preserved by the Comic Poets and their Scholiasts; by Athenæus, by Stobæus.--Aristotle.--Tragedy before Æschylus.--Fragments of Aristarchus.--The _Medea_ of Neophron.--Ion.--The _Games_ of Achæus.--Agathon; his Character for Luxurious Living.--The _Flower_.--Aristotle's Partiality for Agathon.--The Family of Æschylus.--Meletus and Plato among the Tragic Playwrights.--The School of Sophocles.--Influence of Euripides.--Family of Karkinos.--Tragedians ridiculed by Aristophanes.--The _Sisyphus_ of Critias.--Cleophon.--Cynical Tragedies ascribed to Diogenes.--Extraordinary Fertility of the Attic Drama.--The Repetition of Old Plots.--Mamercus and Dionysius.--Professional Rhetoricians appear as Playwrights.--The School of Isocrates.--The _Centaur_ of Chæremon.--His Style.--The _Themistocles_ of Moschion.--The Alexandrian Pleiad.--The _Adonis_ of Ptolemy Philopator.

Among the losses in Greek literature few are so tantalizing as the almost absolute extinction of the tragic poets who preceded and followed the supreme Athenian triumvirate. It would have been exceedingly interesting to trace the history of the drama from its rude origins up to the point at which the creative genius of Æschylus gave it an inalienable character, and again to note the deviation of the tragic muse from heroic themes to fables of pure fiction under the influence of Agathon. This pleasant task of analytical criticism, concordant with the spirit of our age, which is not satisfied with admiring masterpieces unless it can also understand the law of their growth and mark the several stages in the process of historical development, will fall to the lot of no student now, unless, indeed, Pompeii render up a treasure-house of MSS. as yet undreamed of, and Signor Fiorelli save the priceless leaflets of charred tinder from destruction.

Why is it that out of the seventy plays of Æschylus only seven are extant; of the Sophoclean one hundred and thirteen (allowing seventeen others which bore his name to have been spurious) only seven; while eighteen--or, if we admit the _Rhesus_, nineteen--are the meagre salvage from the wreck of at least seventy-five dramas by Euripides? Why is it that of their lost tragedies we possess but inconsiderable fragments--just enough to prove that the compilers of commonplace books like Stobæus might, if they had pleased, have gratified our curiosity beyond the dreams of a Renaissance scholar's covetousness? Why, again, is it that of Agathon, whose dramatic romance, the _Flower_, was thought worthy of citation by Aristotle, whom Aristophanes named as #Agathôn ho kleinos, agathos poiêtês kai potheinos tois philois#,[70] whose thanksgiving banquet supplied a frame for Plato's dialogue on Love, and whose style, if faithfully depicted by the philosopher, was a very "rivulet of olive-oil noiselessly running"--why is it that of this Agathon we know nothing but what may be inferred from the caricature of the _Thesmophoriazusæ_, the portrait of the _Symposium_, and a few critical strictures in the _Poetics_? Why is it that Ion, who enjoyed a great renown (#periboêtos egeneto#) and ranked as fifth in the muster-roll of Athenian tragic poets, is now but a mere empty name? To these questions, which might be rhetorically multiplied _ad infinitum_ on a hundred tones of querulous and sad expostulation with the past, there is no satisfactory answer. Not, as Bacon asserted, has time borne down upon his flood the froth and trash of things; far rather may we thank fate that the flotsam and the jetsam that have reached our shore include the best works of antiquity. Yet, notwithstanding this, "the iniquity of oblivion," in the words of Sir Thomas Browne, "blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity."

The students of antiquity attached less value than we do to literature of secondary importance. It was the object of their criticism, especially in the schools of Alexandria, to establish canons of perfection in style. The few great authors who were deemed worthy to rank as standards received unlimited honor, nor was it thought too much by Aristarchus or Aristophanes to devote a lifetime to their service. For inferior poets, whom we should prize as necessary to a full comprehension of the history of art, they felt less respect, not having grasped the notion that æsthetics are a branch of science, that the topmost peaks of Parnassus tower above the plain by gradual ascent from subordinate mountain-ranges, and that those who seek to scale the final altitudes must tread the intermediate heights. They were contented with representative men. Marlowe, according to their laws of taste, would have been obscured by Shakespeare; while the multitude of lesser playwrights, whom we honor as explaining and relieving by their comradeship the grandeur of _the_ dramatist (#ho tragôidopoios# they might have styled Shakespeare, as their Pindar was #ho lyrikos#), would have sunk into oblivion, leaving him alone in splendid isolation. Much might be said for this way of dealing with literature. By concentrating attention on undeniable excellence, a taste for the noblest things in art was fostered, while the danger that we run of substituting the historical for the æsthetic method was avoided.[71] In our own century Auguste

Comte has striven to revive the cultus of unique standards and to re-establish the empire of selective canons.

The scholiasts of Alexandria, working in vast libraries which contained the whole treasures of Greek literature, decided that only a few poets were worthy of minute study. The works of these few poets, again, they classified into masterpieces and inferior productions. A further selection sifted those that seemed best suited for the education of youth. Thus it happened that copies were repeated of certain well-established favorites; and so the treasures of dramatic poetry inherited by us represent the taste of scholiasts and teachers rather than the likings of the Attic audience. To judge by references in the plays of Aristophanes, the lost _Myrmidones_ of Æschylus, the lost _Andromeda_ of Euripides, enjoyed more popularity at Athens than even the _Agamemnon_ or the _Medea_. Alexandrian and Byzantine pedagogues thought otherwise, and posterity was bound to be their pensioner. The difficulty of multiplying codices must be added as a most important cause of literary waste. It is doubtful whether we should now possess more than a few plays of Shakespeare and Jonson out of the whole voluminous Elizabethan literature, but for the accident of printing. When we consider the circumstances under which the Attic dramatists survived, taking into account the famous fraud whereby Ptolemy Euergetes possessed himself of the MS. of Æschylus,[72] and remembering the vicissitudes successively of Alexandria, of Rome, and of Byzantium, perhaps we ought to be surprised that the sum total of our inheritance is so great. What the public voice of the Athenians had approved, the scholiasts of Alexandria winnowed. What the Alexandrians selected found its way to Rome. What the Roman grammarians sanctioned was carried in the dotage of culture to Byzantium. At each transition the peril by land and sea to rare codices, sometimes probably to unique autographs, was incalculable. Then followed the fury of iconoclasts and fanatics, the firebrands of Omar, the remorseless crusade of Churchmen against paganism, and the three great conflagrations of Byzantium. It is humiliating to the nations of Western Europe to compare the wealth of Greek books enjoyed by Photius in the ninth century, even after the second burning, with the meagre fragments which seem to have survived the pillage of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. To this final disaster we ought probably to assign the destruction of the larger portion of Greek literature. In addition to all the ruin wrought by fire and pillage must be reckoned the slow decay of learning during the centuries of intellectual apathy that preceded the fall of the Eastern Empire. What the fire and the Frank had spared was still exposed to the tooth of the worm and to the slow corrosion of dust, damp, and mildew.

When the passion for antiquity was rekindled in the fourteenth century by the Italians, they eagerly demanded from Constantinople the treasures that the capital of Greece contained; nor is there any good reason to suppose that the Turkish troops of Mahomet II., in 1453, destroyed many books that had not previously been transferred in copies to Florence and Venice. During at least a quarter of a century before the downfall of the Byzantine Empire the princes of Italy were eagerly competing with each other for the purchase of Greek manuscripts; and throughout this period it was the immediate interest of the palæologi to lay them under such obligations as might enlist their sympathy and call forth a return of friendly service. For the emperor to have closed the doors of the Byzantine libraries against the agents of the Medici and the Venetian nobles, at the same time that he was sending Manuel Chrysoloras as an ambassador for aid against the Turks to Western Europe, would have been ridiculous. We must also bear in mind how many eager Italian scholars, supported by exhibitions from the lords of Florence, and supplied with almost unlimited credit for the purchase of literary treasures, pursued their studies at Constantinople, and returned, like bees, book-laden with the honey of old learning, home; how many Levant merchants, passing to and fro between Italian and Greek ports, discovered that parchments were a more profitable freight than gems or spices. Taking all this into consideration, and duly weighing Curzon's competent opinion--"so thoroughly were these ancient libraries" (of Athos) "explored in the fifteenth century that no unknown classic author has been discovered, nor has any MS. been found of greater antiquity than some already known in the British Museum and other libraries"--we have the right to infer that what the printing-press of Aldus made imperishable, was all, or nearly all, that the degenerate scholars of the later age of Hellas cared to treasure. The comparative preservation of Neoplatonic philosophy, for example, when contrasted with the loss of dramatic literature may be referred to the theological and mystical interests of Byzantine students. Only one codex of first-rate importance is supposed to have perished in Italy after importation from Byzantium and before the age of printing. That was a MS. of Menander, which Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, mentioned among the gems of the library of Urbino.[73] Little, however, was known about the Greek dramatic poets at the time when Vespasiano wrote his Lives, and it is not impossible that what he took for a collection of Menander's plays, was really a commonplace book of such fragments as we still possess. Yet the mere mention of this volume raises curious speculation. We know that when Cesare Borgia possessed himself of Urbino in 1502 he carried off from the ducal palace a booty in jewels, plate, furniture, and books to the value of 150,000 ducats. Some of the MSS. found their way into the Vatican collection; others were restored to Urbino, whence they were again transferred to Rome after the extinction of the ducal family in the seventeenth century. It is conceivable that the Menander, if it existed, may have been lost in the hurry of forced marches and the confusion that involved the Borgia's career. Had it been stolen, the thief could hardly have offered it for sale in its splendid dress of crimson velvet and silver clasps stamped with the arms of Montefeltro. It may even now be lurking somewhere in obscurity--a treasure of more value than the Koh-i-noor.

Putting aside the fragments of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, it may be broadly stated that what survives of the other tragic poets of the Attic stage, and what we know about their lives, have been derived in the main from four sources. The plays of Aristophanes and the fragments of the later comic poets, who were the merciless critics of contemporary tragedians, have, in the first place, supplied us with some meagre quotations and with numerous insignificant caricatures. From these questionable authorities we learn, for instance, that Agathon was a man of effeminate manners, that Philocles was horribly ugly, that Morsimus was an indifferent eye-doctor as well as a writer of tame tragedies, that Meletus had no inspiration, that the whole family of Carkinus were barbarians, that Pythangelus and Akestor were no better than slaves, that Gnesippus mismanaged his Choruses, that Hieronymus delighted in horrors, that Nothippus and Morychus were gluttons, that Moschion was a parasite, and so forth. To attach very much weight to comic squibs which dwell exclusively upon personal defects and foibles, and repeat _ad nauseam_ the stock Athenian calumnies of drunkenness and debauchery, would be uncritical; though it must be borne in mind that satire in a Greek city, where all the eminent burghers were well known to the play-goers, was pointless unless it contained a grain of truth. Our second great authority is Athenæus, a man of wide reading and extensive curiosity, whose heart unhappily was set on trifles. Sauces, unguents, wreaths, the various ways of dressing fish, the changes of fashion in wine-drinking, formed the subjects of his profoundest investigations. Therefore the grave and heightened tragedies of our unfortunate poets were ransacked by him for rare citations, capable of throwing light upon a flower, a dish, or a wine-cup. These matters were undoubtedly the veriest _parerga_ to poets bent on moving the passions of terror and pity; nor can we imagine a more distressing torment for their souls in Hades than to know that what remains of a much-pondered and beloved _Thyestes_ is a couple of lines about a carving-knife or meat-dish. To be known to posterity through a calumny of Aristophanes and a citation in the _Deipnosophistæ_, after having passed a long life in composing tragedies, teaching choruses, and inventing chants, is a caricature of immortality which might well deter a man of common-sense from literature, and induce the vainest to go down speechless to the grave in peace. Those poets who fell under the hands of Stobæus, our third chief source of information, have fared better. It is more consistent with the aims and wishes of a tragic artist to survive, however mangled, in the commonplace book of a moralist, than in the miscellanies of a literary _bon vivant_. The authors, therefore, of the Euripidean school,

Teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received, In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate and chance and change in human life,

may be said to have fared better than their predecessors, whose style rendered them less conveniently subject to the eclectic process of the Macedonian collector. Much of the difficulty, however, which obscures the text of these sententious fragments arises from their collector having in all probability quoted from memory, so that bad grammar, trivial terminations to otherwise well-worded lines, and passages ruthlessly compressed by omissions are frequent. In the fourth place we have to thank Aristotle for a few most precious, though, alas, laconic, criticisms pronounced in the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetics_ upon his contemporaries, and for occasional quotations in the _Ethics_ to Nicomachus and Eudemus. These criticisms help us to understand the history of the Greek drama by throwing a dim light upon the serious art of many defunct poets, who in their day shook the Attic scene. To Plutarch, to Pausanias, and to the scholiasts we owe similar obligations, though the value of their critical remarks is slight compared with that of every word which fell from Aristotle's pen.

This rapid enumeration of the resources at our command will prepare any one familiar with such matters for spare and disappointing entertainment. The chief interest of such a survey as that which I propose to make consists in the variety and extent of the lost dramatic literature that it reveals. Nothing but a detailed examination of existing fragments suffices to impress the mind with the quantity of plays from which malignant fortune has preserved samples, fantastically inadequate, and, in many cases, tantalizingly uncharacteristic. The quotations from Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, meanwhile, have already supplied matter of more sterling and intrinsic value.

When we take up the collection of _Perditorum Tragicorum Omnium Fragmenta_, published at Paris by the care of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot, our first sensation, on seeking what may possibly be left of poets before Æschylus, is one of liveliest disappointment. Thespis, to begin with, is a name: we know that he made tragedy dramatic instead of dithyrambic, by introducing monologue in order to support and rest the Chorus; but that is all. Choerilus is a name: we know that he exhibited above fifty plays, that he was reckoned worthy by the comic poet Alexis to be cited together with Hesiod, Homer, and Epicharmus, and that Aristotle devoted three lost books of critical discussions to the elucidation of difficult passages in his poems as well as in those of Archilochus and Euripides. All the rest is obscure, except that we have reason to believe that Choerilus excelled in the satyric drama. Pratinas, again, is a name. Dim tradition reports that he invented the satyric drama; and it has thence been inferred with probability that the 150 plays ascribed to him were chiefly composed in tetralogies of one comic and three serious pieces. He was also celebrated for the excellence of his lyrics; while a story, preserved by Suidas, relates how an accident that happened to the wooden stage at Athens during the exhibition of one of his tragedies led to the building of the recently discovered theatre of Dionysus. A few unimportant fragments have survived, in two of which Pratinas avows his preference for the Æolian mood in music. Phrynichus, though his poems have fared no better than those of his contemporaries, stands before us with a more distinguished personality. Herodotus tells the famous tale of his tragedy upon the _Taking of Miletus_, which moved the Athenian audience to tears, and so angered them by the vivid presentation of a recent disaster that they fined the author in a sum of 1000 drachmas, and forbade the acting of his drama. The sweetness of the songs of Phrynichus has reached us like the echo of a bird's voice in a traveller's narrative. Aristophanes, who loved the good old music of his youth, delighted in it, and invented one of his rare verbal conglomerates to express its quality: #kai minyrizontes melê archaiomelêsidônophrynichêrata# is a phrase he puts into the mouth of Bdelycleon in the _Wasps_, while in the _Frogs_ he describes Phrynichus as making harvest in the meadows of the Muses. Agathon, again, in the _Thesmophoriazusæ_ is represented saying:

And Phrynichus--this surely you have heard-- Was beautiful, and beautifully dressed; And this, we cannot doubt, was why his plays Were beautiful; for 'tis a natural law That like ourselves our work must ever be.

From the passage just referred to in the _Frogs_ (1298-1307) it is clear that much of a tragic poet's reputation for originality at Athens depended upon the invention of melodies; and that the merit of Phrynichus consisted to some extent in the excellence and sweetness of his tunes. No real light can now be thrown upon the dark subject of Greek music in general, and of its relation to lyrical and tragic poetry in particular. All we know serves to excite our inquisitiveness without satisfying it. Thus Plutarch informs us that Phrynichus and Æschylus preferred the harp (#kithara#) and adhered to the enharmonic scale (#harmonia#) instead of employing chromatic modulations (#chrôma#). The general drift of this remark is that the early tragic poets maintained a simple and severe style of music, and avoided the allurements of what Aristotle termed the most artificial of the Greek scales. Collateral value is given to Plutarch's observation by the Aristophanic criticism of the melodies in Agathon and Euripides. For speculations on its deeper significance, it is impossible to do more than refer the curious to Professor Donkin, General Perronet Thompson, and Mr. Chappell, with the reiterated warning that the obscurity of the subject is impenetrable. Phrynichus, in conclusion, was celebrated as a ballet-master for his Pyrrhic dances, and, as a practical dramatist, for the introduction of female characters. One line, among the few ascribed to him, calls for quotation by reason of its beauty:

#lampei d' epi porphyreais parêisi phôs erôtos.#

The light of love burns upon crimson cheeks.

Aristias, the next in order of these lost poets, was a son of Pratinas, who lived long enough to compete with Sophocles. The names of his plays, _Antæus_, _Atalanta_, _Cyclops_, _Orpheus_, and _The Fates_, show, like similar lists which might be quoted from the meagre notices of his predecessors, that the whole material of Greek mythology was handled and rehandled by the Attic playwrights.

The tragedians who follow can certainly not be considered older than Æschylus, and are, all of them, most probably his juniors. Aristarchus, a native of Tegea, calls for notice because he is reported by Suidas to have determined the length of tragedies, whatever that may mean. Ennius translated his drama of _Achilles_ into Latin, which proves that he retained the fame of a first-rate poet till the beginning of the Græco-Roman period. His fragments recall the Euripidean style; and the two best of them have been preserved by Stobæus, the notorious admirer of Euripides. To omit these, in the dearth of similar heirlooms from antiquity, would be wasteful, especially as they serve to determine the date at which he wrote, and to confirm the report of Suidas that he was a contemporary of Euripides. Here is one that savors strongly of agnosticism:

#kai taut' ison men eu legein ison de mê; ison d' ereunan, ex isou de mê eidenai; pleion gar ouden hoi sophoi tôn mê sophôn eis tauta gignôskousin; ei d' allou legei ameinon allos, tôi legein hyperpherei.#[74]

The second treats of love:

#erôtos hostis mê pepeiratai brotôn, ouk oid' anankês thesmon; hôi peistheis egô houtô kratêtheis tasd' apestalên hodous; houtos gar ho theos kai ton asthenê sthenein tithêsi, kai ton aporon heuriskein poron.#[75]

Next to Aristarchus of Tegea we find Neophron of Sikyon, who claims particular attention as the author of a tragedy acknowledged by antiquity to have been the original of the _Medea_ of Euripides. There are few students of literature who do not recognize in the _Medea_ the masterpiece of that poet, and who have not wondered why it only won the third prize at Athens, in the year 431 B.C. Is it possible that because Euripides borrowed his play from Neophron--#to drama dokei hypobalesthai para Neophronos diaskeuasas# are the words of the Greek argument to _Medea_, while Suidas says of Neophron #hou phasin einai tên tou Euripidou Mêdeian#--therefore the public and the judges thought some deduction should be made from the merit of the drama?

Stobæus has handed down a long and precious fragment from the speech in which Neophron's Medea decides to kill her children. A comparison of this fragment with the splendid rhesis composed for Medea by Euripides proves the obligation owed by the younger poet to the elder, both in style and matter.

Here, then, is the monologue of Neophron's Medea:

#eien; ti draseis thyme? bouleusai kalôs prin ê 'xamartein kai ta prosphilestata echthista thesthai. poi pot' exêixas talas? katische lêma kai sthenos theostyges. kai pros ti taut' odyromai, psychên emên horôs' erêmon kai parêmelêmenên pros hôn echrên hêkista? malthakoi de dê toiauta gignomestha paschontes kaka? ou mê prodôseis thyme sauton en kakois. oimoi dedoktai; paides ektos ommatôn apelthet'; êdê gar me phoinia megan dedike lyssa thymon; ô cheres, cheres, pros hoion ergon exoplizomestha; pheu; talaina tolmês, hê polyn ponon brachei diaphtherousa ton emon erchomai chronôi.#[76]

It is hardly possible not to recognize in these lines the first sketch of the picture afterwards worked out so elaborately in detail by Euripides.

Ion was a native of Chios, who came while still a boy (#pantapasi meirakion#) to Athens, and enjoyed the honor of supping with Cimon in the house of a certain Laomedon. Of his life and work very little is known, although his reputation among the ancients was so great that the Alexandrians placed him among the first five tragic poets. The titles of eleven of his plays have been preserved; but these were only a few out of many that he wrote. He was, besides, a voluminous prose-author, and practised every kind of lyrical poetry. From the criticism of Longinus we gather that his dramas were distinguished for fluency and finish rather than for boldness of conception or sublimity of style. After praising their regularity, Longinus adds that he would not exchange the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles for all the tragedies of Ion put together. Personally, Ion had the reputation of a voluptuary: #philopotên kai erôtikôtaton# are the words of Athenæus which describe him. There is also a story that he passed some portion of his life at Corinth in love-bondage to the beautiful Chrysilla. In short, both as a man and an artist, Ion was true to his name and race. It is unfortunate that the few fragments we possess of Ion's tragedies have been transmitted for the most part by Hesychius and Athenæus in illustration of grammatical usages and convivial customs. The following gnomic couplet, preserved by Plutarch, is both interesting in itself and characteristic of the poet's style:

#to gnôthi sauton, tout' epos men ou mega, ergon d', hoson Zeus monos epistatai theôn.#[77]

Another passage, quoted by Sextus Empiricus, contains an elegant description of the power of Sparta:

#ou gar logois Lakaina pyrgoutai polis, all' eut' Arês neochmos empesêi stratôi, boulê men archei, cheir d' epexergazetai.#[78]

Almost less can be said about Achæus of Eretria, the fifth, with Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Ion, in the Alexandrian #prôtê taxis#, or first class of tragic worthies. Diogenes Laertius records his skill in the satyric drama; Athenæus remarks that his style was obscure, and that he filled his plays with riddles. The names of some of his dramas--_Linus_, _The Fates_, _Philoctetes at Troy_, _Omphale_, _Peirithous_--excite our curiosity; but the fragments are, as usual, cited for some merely frivolous or pedantic purpose.

The following corrupt passage from a play called #Athloi# or #Athla#, _The Games_--the loss of which is greatly to be regretted, since it might have thrown a new light upon the feeling of the Greeks for their public contests--presents a lively picture of the physical splendor of trained athletes:

#gymnoi gar ôthoun phaidimous brachionas hêbêi sphrigôntes emporeuontai, neôi stilbontes anthei karteras epômidas; adên d' elaiou sterna kai podôn kytos chriousin, hôs echontes oikothen tryphên.#[79]

Another glimpse of athletes may be got from three lines torn out of the same play:

#potera theôrois eit' agônistais legeis? poll' esthiousin, hôs epaskountôn tropos. podapoi gar eisin hoi xenoi? Boiôtioi.#[80]

In this portrait we recognize the young men satirically described by Euripides in a fragment, translated above, of the lost _Autolycus_, as roaming about the city in the radiant insolence of youth, like animated statues.

Mourn as we may the loss of Ion and Achæus, our grief for that of Agathon must needs be greater. Though he was not placed in the first class by the Alexandrian critics, it is clear from the notices of Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle that he enjoyed the widest popularity at Athens, and was, besides, a poet of marked originality. Personally, he was amiable, delicate, pleasure-loving, and extremely beautiful. He is always called--even by Plutarch and Athenæus--#Agathôn ho kalos#, Agathon the beautiful; while the passionate friendship with which he had inspired Pausanias is celebrated by Plato in _Protagoras_, by Xenophon in the _Symposium_. Later authors, like Maximus Tyrius, gave him the title of #habrotatos#, while Lucian compared him to Cinyras or Sardanapalus. Apparently he was rich enough to indulge the most luxurious tastes. One of the best comic scenes in the _Thesmophoriazusæ_ is that in which Aristophanes described Agathon surrounded by all the appliances of a voluptuary, while engaged in the composition of an effeminate play. Euripides, entering this study of a Sybarite, implores him to put on female attire, using these arguments:

#sy d' euprosôpos, leukos, exyrêmenos, gynaikophônos, hapalos, euprepês idein.#[81]

In poetry Agathon adopted innovations consistent with his own voluptuous temperament. His style was distinguished by melodious sweetness and rhetorical refinements; in particular, we are told that he affected the flowery tropes and the antitheses of Gorgias. Sophistry was fashionable in his youth, and Aristophanes recognized in Agathon the true companion of Euripides. Leaving the severer music of the elder tragedians, he invented chromatic melodies, which seem to have tickled the sensuality of his Athenian audience.[82]

We are therefore justified in regarding Agathon as the creator of a new tragic style combining the verbal elegances and ethical niceties of the sophists with artistic charms of a luxurious kind. Aristotle observes that he separated the Chorus from the action of the drama to such an extent that his lyrics became mere musical interludes #embolima#, equally adapted to any tragic fable.[83] He also remarks that Agathon composed plays upon romantic subjects, inventing the story for himself, instead of adhering to the old usage of rehandling mythological material.[84] The title of one of these dramatic romances, _The Flower_, has been preserved; but unhappily we are told nothing about its subject, and have no extracts to judge from. That the form of tragedy suffered other changes at the hands of Agathon may be inferred from another passage in the _Poetics_, where Aristotle censures him for having included a whole epic, _The Taking of Troy_, in one play.[85] This play, it may be said in passing, was hissed off the stage. The popularity of Agathon may be gathered from the fact that the first tetralogy he exhibited was crowned in 416 B.C. Plato has chosen the supper-party which he gave in celebration of this victory for the scene of the _Symposium_; and it is there that we must learn to know this brilliant man of letters and of fashion in the wittiest period of Attic social life. It is not a little curious that the most interesting fragments of Agathon are embedded in the _Ethics_ and the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle, who must have made attentive study of his works. While discussing the subject of free-will, the sage of Stageira quotes this couplet:

#monou gar autou kai theos sterisketai, agenêta poiein hass' an êi pepragmena.#[86]

Again, on the topic of art and chance, he cites:

#technê tychên esterxe kai tychê technên.#[87]

Speaking in the _Eudemian Ethics_ about the true and spurious kinds of courage, he adds:

#kathaper kai Agathôn phêsi: phauloi brotôn gar tou ponein hêssômenoi thanein erôsi.#[88]

Another quotation, for the sake of both the poet and the philosopher, may be adduced from the _Rhetoric_:

#kai mên ta men ge têi technêi prassein, ta de hêmin anankêi kai tychêi prosgignetai.#[89]

One of the peculiarities to be noticed in the practice of the poetic art among the Greeks was the formation of schools by families of artists, in whom talent continued to be hereditary for several generations. We observe this among the lyrists; but the tragedians offer even more remarkable instances, proving how thoroughly the most complicated of all the arts, the tragic drama--including, as it did, the teaching of music and of dancing to Choruses, the arrangement of stage effects, and the training of actors--was followed as a profession at Athens. That Phrynichus founded a school of playwrights distinguished for their musical rather than their dramatic ability appears from the nineteenth section of the _Problemata_ of Aristotle; but we do not know whether the #hoi peri Phrynichon# there mentioned belonged to the poet's family. It is possible, on the other hand, to draw the pedigree of Æschylus, in which every name will represent a tragic poet. Here it is:

Euphorion. | |----------------------------------| 1. Æschylus. A daughter, married to Philopeithes. |------------| | 2. Bion. 3. Euphorion. 4. Philocles the elder. | 5. Morsimus. | 6. Astydamas the elder. |-----------------------------| 7. Philocles the younger. 8. Astydamas the younger.

The #hoi peri Aischylon#, therefore, of whom the scholiasts often speak, numbered, together with Æschylus himself, eight dramatists. Their common characteristic consisted in the adherence to the Æschylean style, in the presentation of tetralogies, and in the privilege successively enjoyed by them of bringing out old plays of Æschylus in competition with the works of younger poets. The dramas of Æschylus were in fact "a property" to his descendants. The Athenians had publicly decreed that they might be from year to year produced upon the scene, and Euphorion, his son, spent his time in preparing them for exhibition. In this way he gained four prizes, taking the first crown upon the notable occasion, in 431 B.C., when Sophocles was second, and Euripides, with the _Medea_, third. It appears that, as time went on, the original compositions of Æschylus suffered mutilations and alterations at the hands of his posterity, who pretended to improve them--after the manner of Davenant, presumably--and adapt them to the modern taste. At last Lycurgus, about 340 B.C., decreed that after accurate copies had been taken of the authorized text and deposited in the public archives, the clerk of the city should collate them with the acted plays, and see that no deviations from the original became established. We gather from the comic poets that the family of Æschylus also produced their own tragedies, none of which, however, appear to have been very excellent. Philocles the elder was laughed at by Aristophanes partly because he was an ugly, snub-nosed, little man, with a head like a hoopoe; partly because he introduced a comic incident into his tragedy of _Pandionis_ by exhibiting Tereus dressed out with the feathers of a bird. The scholiasts to Aristophanes, in like manner, inform us that Morsimus owed a certain celebrity to his ugliness, to the tameness of his tragic style, and to his want of skill as a professional oculist. Astydamas the elder achieved the same sad sort of immortality through the accident of having received the honor of a public statue before Æschylus. It is lost labor trying to form a clear conception of poets who are only known to us in anecdotes like these.

Frederick Wagner, the collector of the tragic fragments, reckons Meletus, the accuser of Socrates, and Plato, the divine philosopher, among the school of Æschylus, because it appears that both of them composed tetralogies. From a passage in the scholiast to Aristophanes (_Frogs_, 1302) it may be inferred that Meletus the tragedian and Meletus the informer were one and the same person: #kômôideitai de kai hôs psychros en têi poiêsei kai hôs ponêros ton tropon#--"he is satirized both for want of genius as a poet and also for the badness of his moral character." This sentence constitutes his title to fame. He is known to have composed a series of plays with the title _Oedipodeia_, the plot, as sketched by Hyginus,[90] offering some notable divergences from the Sophoclean treatment of the tale of Thebes. Plato may be numbered among the tragedians on the strength of an anecdote in Ælian,[91] according to which he had composed a tetralogy, and had already distributed the parts to the actors, when he determined to abandon poetry and gave his verses to the flames.

The school of Sophocles includes two sons of the poet, Iophon and Ariston, and his grandson Sophocles. In fact, it combines the actors in that family drama played out before the jury of the tribe, when the singer of Colonus silenced his accuser by the recitation of the Chorus from his second _Oedipus_. Iophon exhibited tragedies with distinguished success during the life of Sophocles, and even entered into competition with his father. After the old man's death he produced the posthumous works that formed his heirloom, completing such as were unfinished or executing those of which the plan was sketched in outline. He is said to have exhibited fifty plays, and that he was no mean poet appears from the following passage of the _Frogs_:

_H._ Is not Iophon a good one?--He's alive, sure?

_B._ If he's a good one, he's our only good one; But it's a question; I'm in doubt about him.

_H._ There's Sophocles; he's older than Euripides-- If you go so far for 'em, you'd best bring him.

_B._ No; first I'll try what Iophon can do Without his father, Sophocles, to assist him.[92]

The drift of these lines would be obscure without some explanation to readers who have not studied Aristophanes. All the good tragic poets are dead, and Dionysus is journeying to Hades to fetch one back again to rule the Attic stage. Herakles falls into conversation with him on the subject, and reminds him that Iophon is living. The doubt expressed by Dionysus seems to refer to a suspicion prevalent at Athens that Sophocles helped his son in the composition of his plays. Meanwhile, the qualified praise awarded him by Dionysus implies considerable admiration on the part of so severe a castigator of the tragic dramatists as Aristophanes. Only four and a half lines, and these by no means noticeable, remain of Iophon. His half-brother Ariston has fared better, since we possess a long and curious dialogue upon Providence, quoted by Theophilus of Antioch from an unknown play of his. This fragment supports the Christian belief that, though the careless seem to prosper, while the virtuous get no benefit from their asceticism, justice will eventually be dealt with even hand to all:

#chôris pronoias ginetai gar oude hen.#

It is right to add that the authorship of these lines must be at least considered doubtful, and that their versification, as it now stands, is unworthy of the Attic drama.

By the middle of the fourth century before Christ the whole dramatic literature of the Athenians, both tragic and comic, was being penetrated with the Euripidean spirit. It is impossible not to notice in the style of these later playwrights either the direct influence of Euripides or else the operation of the laws of intellectual development he illustrated. We cannot, therefore, treat the Euripidean school with the definiteness applicable to that of Æschylus or Sophocles. At the same time it is certain that a son or a nephew bearing his name continued to exhibit his posthumous dramas.

A stronger instance of histrionic and dramatic talent transmitted through four generations is presented by the family of Carkinus, some of whom were famous for mimetic dancing, while others contended in the theatre as playwrights. What we know about Carkinus and his children is chiefly derived from the satires of Aristophanes, who was never tired of abusing them. Their very name serves as a scarecrow, and the muse is invoked to keep them off the stage. To stir the rubbish-heap of obscure allusions and pedantic annotations, in order to discover which of the six Carkinidæ we know by name were poets, and which of them were dancers, is a weary task not worth the labor it involves. Suffice it to say that the grandson of Aristophanes's old butt, himself called Carkinus, produced the incredible number of 160 dramas, was three times mentioned with respect by Aristotle,[93] and has survived in comparatively copious quotations. One passage, though not very remarkable for poetical beauty, is interesting because it describes the wanderings of Demeter through Sicily in search of Persephone. Diodorus, who cites it from an unknown play, mentions that Carkinus frequently visited Syracuse and saw the processions in honor of Demeter.

About the Attic tragedians who lived during the old age of Aristophanes, the first thing to notice is that they may fairly be called the Epigoni of Euripides. Æschylus was old-fashioned. The style of Sophocles did not lend itself to easy imitation. The psychological analyses, casuistical questions, rhetorical digressions, and pathetic situations wherein the great poet of the _Hippolytus_ delighted were exactly suited to the intellectual tastes and temper of incipient decadence. A nation of philosophers and rhetoricians had arisen; and it is noteworthy that many of the playwrights of this period were either professed orators or statesmen. In his own lifetime Aristophanes witnessed the triumph of the principles against which he fought incessantly with all the weapons of the comic armory. Listen to the complaint of Dionysus in the _Frogs_:

_H._ But have not you other ingenious youths That are fit to out-talk Euripides ten times over-- To the amount of a thousand, at least, all writing tragedy?

_D._ They're good for nothing--"Warblers of the Grove"-- "Little, foolish, fluttering things"--poor puny wretches, That dawdle and dangle about with the tragic muse, Incapable of any serious meaning.[94]

To translate the Greek for modern readers is not possible. The pith of the passage is found in this emphatic phrase, #gonimon de poiêtên an ouk heurois eti#, "there's not a sound male poet capable of procreation left." Accordingly he vents his venom on Pythangelus, Gnesippus, Akestor, Hieronymus, Nothippus, Morychus, Sthenelus, Dorillus, Spintharus, and Theognis, without mercy. Not a single fragment remains to judge these wretched poets by. It is better to leave them in their obscurity than to drag them forth into the dubious light of comic ribaldry.

Critias, the son of Callæschrus, the pupil of Socrates, who figures in so many scenes of Xenophon and Plato, and who played a memorable part in the political crisis of 404 B.C., was a tragic poet of some talent, if we are to accept a fragment from the _Sisyphus_ as his. Sextus Empiricus transcribed forty lines of this drama, setting forth the primitive conditions of humanity. First, says Critias, men began by living like the brutes, without rewards for virtue or punishment for vice. Mere might of hand prevailed. Then laws were framed and penalties affixed to crime. Open violence was thus repressed; but evil-doers flourished in secret. Fraud and hypocrisy took the place of force. To invent the dread of gods and to create a conscience was the next step taken by humanity. Then followed the whole scheme of religion, and with religion entered superstition, and men began to fear the thunder and to look with strange awe on the stars. The quotation is obviously imperfect: yet it may advantageously be compared with the speeches of Prometheus in Æschylus, and also with the speculations of Lucretius. The hypothesis of deliberate invention implied in the following phrases,

#tênikauta moi dokei pyknos tis kai sophos gnômên anêr gnônai theon thnêtoisin,#[95]

and #to theion eisêgêsato#,[96] sufficed not only for antiquity, but also for those modern theorists who, like Locke, imagined that language was produced artificially by wise men in counsel, or who, like Rousseau and the encyclopedists, maintained that religions were framed by knaves to intimidate fools.

Cleophon demands a passing notice, because we learn from Aristotle[97] that he tried to reduce tragedy to the plain level of common life by using every-day language and not attempting to idealize his characters. The total destruction of his plays may be regretted, since it is probable that we should have observed in them the approximation of tragedy to comedy which ended finally in the new comic style of the Athenians. About Cleophon's contemporary, Nicomachus, of whom nothing is known except that he produced a great many tragedies on the stock subjects of mythology, nothing need be said. The case is somewhat different with a certain Diogenes who, while writing seven tragedies under the decorous titles of _Thyestes_, _Helen_, _Medea_, and so forth, nevertheless contrived to offend against all the decencies of civilized life. Later grammarians can hardly find language strong enough to describe their improprieties. Here is a specimen: #arrhêtôn arrhêtotera kai kakôn pera, kai oute hoti phô peri autôn axiôs echô.... houtô pasa men aischrotês, pasa de aponoia en ekeinais tôi andri pephilotechnêtai#. To ascribe these impure productions to Diogenes the Cynic, in spite of his well-known contempt for literature, was a temptation which even the ancients, though better informed than we are, could not wholly resist. Yet, after much sifting of evidence, it may be fairly believed that there were two Diogeneses--the one an Athenian, who wrote an innocuous play called _Semele_, the other a native perhaps of Gadara, who also bore the name of Oenomaus, and who perpetrated the seven indecent parodies. Diogenes of Sinope, meanwhile, was never among the poets, and the plays that defended cannibalism and blasphemed against the gods, though conceived in his spirit, belonged probably to a later period.[98]

Time would fail to tell of Antiphon and Polyeides, of Crates and Python, of Nearchus and Cleænetus, of the Syracusan Achæus and of Dikaiogenes, of Apollodorus and Timesitheus and Patrocles and Alkimenes and Apollonius and Hippotheon and Timocles and Ecdorus and Serapion--of all of whom it may be briefly said we know a few laborious nothings. Their names in a list serve to show how the sacred serpent of Greek tragedy, when sick to death, continued still for many generations drawing its slow length along. Down to the very end they kept on handling the old themes. Timesitheus, for instance, exhibited _Danaides_, _Ixion_, _Memnon_, _Orestes_, and the like. Meanwhile a few pale shades emerge from the nebulous darkness demanding more consideration than the mere recording of their names implies. We find two tyrants, to begin with, on the catalogue--Mamercus of Catana, who helped Timoleon, and Dionysius of Syracuse. Like Nero and Napoleon III., Dionysius was very eager to be ranked among the authors. He spared no expense in engaging the best rhapsodes of the day, and sent them to recite his verses at Olympia. To deceive a Greek audience in matters of pure æsthetics was, however, no easy matter. The men who came together attracted by the sweet tones of the rhapsodes soon discovered the badness of the poems and laughed them down. Some fragments from the dramas of Dionysius have been preserved, among which is one that proves his preaching sounder than his practice:

#hê gar tyrannis adikias mêtêr ephy.#[99]

The intrusion of professional orators into the sphere of the theatre might have been expected in an age when public speaking was cultivated like a fine art, and when opportunities for the display of verbal cleverness were eagerly sought. We are not, therefore, surprised to find Aphareus and Theodectes, distinguished rhetoricians of the school of Isocrates, among the tragedians. Of Theodectes a sufficient number of fragments survive to establish the general character of his style; but it is enough in this place to notice the fusion of forensic eloquence with dramatic poetry, against which Aristophanes had inveighed, and which was now complete.

Chæremon and Moschion are more important in the history of the Attic drama, since both of them attempted innovations in accordance with the literary spirit of their age, and did not, like the rhetoricians, follow merely in the footsteps of Euripides. Chæremon, the author of _Achilles Thersitoctonos_ and several other pieces, was mentioned by Aristotle for having attempted to combine a great variety of metres in a poem called _The Centaur_,[100] which was, perhaps, a tragi-comedy or #hilarotragôidia#. He possessed remarkable descriptive powers, and was reckoned by the critics of antiquity as worthy of attentive study, though his dramas failed in action on the stage. We may regard him, in fact, as the first writer of plays to be read.[101] The metamorphoses through which the arts have to pass in their development repeat themselves at the most distant ages and under the most diverse circumstances. It is, therefore, interesting to find that Chæremon combined with this descriptive faculty a kind of euphuism which might place him in the same rank as Marini and Calderon, or among the most refined of modern idyllists. He shrank, apparently, from calling things by their plain names. Water, for example, became in his fantastic phraseology #potamou sôma#. The flowers were "children of the spring," #earos tekna#--the roses, "nurslings of the spring," #earos tithênêmata#--the stars, "sights of the firmament," #aitheros theamata#--ivy, "lover of dancers, offspring of the year," #chorôn erastês eniautou pais#--blossoms, "children of the meadows," #leimônôn tekna#, and so forth. In fact, Chæremon rivals Gongora, Lyly, and Herrick on their own ground, and by his numerous surviving fragments proves how impossible it is to conclude that the Greeks of even a good age were free from affectations. Students who may be interested in tracing the declensions of classic style from severity and purity will do well to read the seventeen lines preserved by Athenæus from the tragedy of _Oeneus_.[102] They present a picture of girls playing in a field, too artful for successful rendering into any but insufferably ornate English.

The claim of Moschion on our attention is different from that of his contemporary Chæremon. He wrote a tragedy with the title of _Themistocles_, wherein he appears to have handled the same subject-matter as Æschylus in the _Persæ_. The hero of Salamis was, however, conspicuous by his absence from the history-play of the elder poet. Lapse of time, by removing the political difficulties under which the _Persæ_ was composed, enabled Moschion to make the great Themistocles his protagonist. Two fragments transmitted by Stobæus from this drama, the one celebrating Athenian liberty of speech, while the other argues that a small band may get the better of a myriad lances, seem to be taken from the _concio ad milites_ of the hero:

#kai gar en napais brachei polys sidêrôi keiretai peukês klados, kai baios ochlos myrias lonchês kratei.#[103]

Another tragedy of Moschion, the _Pheræi_, is interesting when compared with the _Antigone_ of Sophocles and the _Sisyphus_ ascribed to Critias. Its plot seems in some way to have turned upon the duty which the living owe the dead:

#kenon thanontos andros aikizein skian; zôntas kolazein ou thanontas eusebes.#[104]

And, again, in all probability from the same drama:

#ti kerdos ouket' ontas aikizein nekrous? ti tên anaudon gaian hybrizein pleon? epên gar hê krinousa kai thêdiona kai taniara phroudos aisthêsis phtharêi, to sôma kôphou taxin eilêphen petrou.#[105]

A long quotation of thirty-four iambics, taken apparently in like manner from the _Pheræi_, sets forth the primitive condition of humanity. Men lived at first in caverns, like wild beasts. They had not learned the use of iron; nor could they fashion houses, or wall cities, or plough the fields, or garner fruits of earth. They were cannibals, and preyed on one another. In course of time, whether by the teaching of Prometheus or by the evolution of implanted instincts, they discovered the use of corn, and learned how to press wine from the grape. Cities arose and dwellings were roofed in, and social customs changed from savage to humane. From that moment it became impiety to leave the dead unburied; but tombs were dug, and dust was heaped upon the clay-cold limbs, in order that the old abomination of human food might be removed from memory of men. The whole of this passage, very brilliantly written, condenses the speculations of Athenian philosophers upon the origin of civilization, and brings them to the point which the poet had in view--the inculcation of the sanctity of sepulture.

Nothing more remains to be said about the Attic tragedians. At the risk of being tedious, I have striven to include the names at least of all the poets who filled the tragic stage from its beginning to its ending, in order that the great number of playwrights and their variety might be appreciated. The probable date at which Thespis began to exhibit dramas may be fixed soon after 550 B.C. Moschion may possibly have lived as late as 300 B.C. These, roughly calculated, are the extreme points of time between which the tragic art of the Athenians arose and flourished and declined. When the Alexandrian critics attempted a general review of dramatic literature, they formed, as we have seen already, two classes of tragedians. In the first they numbered five Athenian worthies. The second, called the Pleiad, included seven poets of the Court of Alexandria; nor is there adequate reason to suppose that this inferior canon, #deutera taxis#, was formed on any but just principles of taste. How magnificent was the revival of art and letters, in all that pertained, at any rate, to scenic show and pompous ritual, during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, how superbly the transplanted flowers of Greek ceremonial flourished on the shores of ancient Nile, and how Hellenic customs borrowed both gorgeous colors and a mystic meaning from the contact with Egyptian rites, may be gathered from the chapters devoted by Athenæus in the fifth book of the _Deipnosophistæ_ to these matters. The Pleiad and the host of minor Alexandrian stars have fared, however, worse than their Athenian models. They had not even comic satirists to keep their names alive "immortally immerded." With the exception of Lycophron, they offer no firm ground for modern criticism. We only know that, in this Alexandrian Renaissance, literature, as usual, repeated itself. Alexandria, like Athens, had its royal poets, and, what is not a little curious, Ptolemy Philopator imitated his predecessor Dionysius to the extent of composing a tragedy, _Adonis_, with the same title and presumably upon the same theme.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Agathon the famous, a good poet, and lovable to his friends.

[71] Aristophanes, the grammarian, and Aristarchus included five tragic poets--Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Ion, and Achæus--in the first rank. In a second series they placed the works of the so-called Pleiad, seven tragic poets who at Alexandria revived the style of the Attic drama. Their names were Homerus, Sositheus, Lycophron, Alexander, Philiscus, Sosiphanes, and Dionysiades.

[72] The story is told with wonderful vividness by Victor Hugo, _William Shakespeare_, pp. 176-194.

[73] _Vite di Uomini Illustri_, p. 97. He catalogues "tutte l'opere di Sofocle; tutte l'opere di Pindaro; tutte l'opere di Menandro."

[74]

Fair speech in such things and no speech are one: Study and ignorance have equal value; For wise men know no more than simple fools In these dark matters; and if one by speaking Conquer another, mere words win the day.

[75]

That man who hath not tried of love the might, Knows not the strong rule of necessity, Bound and constrained whereby, this road I travel. Yea, our lord, Love, strengthens the strengthless, teaches The craftless how to find both craft and cunning.

[76]

Well, well; what wilt thou do, my soul? Think much Before this sin be sinned, before thy dearest Thou turn to deadliest foes. Whither art bounding? Restrain thy force, thy god-detested fury. And yet why grieve I thus, seeing my life Laid desolate, despitefully abandoned By those who least should leave me? Soft, forsooth, Shall I be in the midst of wrongs like these? Nay, heart of mine, be not thy own betrayer! Ah me! 'Tis settled. Children, from my sight Get you away! for now bloodthirsty madness Sinks in my soul and swells it. Oh, hands, hands, Unto what deed are we accoutred? Woe! Undone by my own daring! In one minute I go to blast the fruit of my long toil.

[77]

Know thou thyself--the saw is no great thing; To do it, Zeus alone of gods is able.

[78]

The town of Sparta is not walled with words; But when young Ares falls upon her men, Then reason rules and the hand does the deed.

[79] It is clear that #gar ôthoun# is wrong. The best suggestion seems to be #g' anôthen#, adopting which we may render the lines thus:

Naked above, their radiant arms displaying, In lustihood of ruffling youth, and bloom Of beauty bright on stalwart breasts, they fare; Their shoulders and their feet in floods of oil Are bathed, like men whose homes abound in plenty.

[80]

Ambassadors or athletes do you mean? Great feeders are they, like most men in training. Of what race are the strangers, then? Boeotians.

[81]

While you are smooth-faced, white-skinned, closely shaven, Voiced like a woman, tender, fair to see.

[82] This is strongly expressed in an untranslatable speech of Mnesilochus (Ar. _Thesmoph._ 130 _et seq._), which reminds one of the first satire of Persius:

Cum carmina lumbum Intrant et tremulo scalpuntur ut intima versu.

[83] _Poet._ cap. 18.

[84] _Ibid._ cap. 9.

[85] _Ibid._ cap. 18.

[86]

For from this one thing God himself is barred-- To make what's done as though it ne'er had been.

[87]

Art is true friend of chance, and chance of art.

[88] Even as saith also Agathon:

Worsted by suffering cowards dote on death.

[89] I have followed Grotius in transposing #tychêi# and #technêi#, and translate:

Thus some things we can do by art, while some Are thrust on us as fate and fortune will.

[90] _Fab._ 172.

[91] _Varia Historia_, ii. 30. Compare Diog. Laert. iii. 80.

[92] Frere's Translation, p. 229.

[93] _Poet._ cap. 17; _Rhet._ ii. 23, iii. 16.

[94] Frere, p. 229.

[95]

Then, I think, A man of subtle counsel and keen wit Discovered God for mortals.

[96] Introduced the notion of deity.

[97] _Poet._ capp. ii., xxii.; _Rhet._ iii. 7.

[98] The whole matter is too obscure for discussion in this place. Suffice it to add that a certain Philiscus, the friend and follower of Diogenes, enjoyed a portion of the notoriety attaching to the seven obnoxious dramas.

[99] The rule of one man is of wrong the parent.

[100] _Poet._ i., xxiv.

[101] See Ar. _Rhet._ iii. 12.

[102] Athen. xiii. p. 608_a_.

[103]

In far mountain vales See how one small axe fells innumerous firs; So a few men can curb a myriad lances.

[104]

'Tis vain to offer outrage to thin shades; God-fearers strike the living, not the dead.

[105]

What gain we by insulting mere dead men? What profit win taunts cast at voiceless clay? For when the sense that can discern things sweet And things offensive is corrupt and fled, The body takes the rank of mere deaf stone.