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THE COLONIES.

set an example of the manner in which the ad- the limits of the Grecian world, and opening an
vantages of a close federal union might be rec-intercourse between its most distant regions.
onciled with mutual independence. They dis- How far political changes were connected with
tributed their twenty-three cities into three the prime spring of that wonderful activity
classes: the cities of the first rank possessed which was displayed by the Asiatic Greeks,
each three votes, those of the second two, those more especially the Ionians, in the seventh and
of the lowest one, and each contributed to a sixth centuries before our era, can only be con-
common fund in proportion to its weight in the jectured. It seems probable that the fall of the
common council. This was held, not in any ancient aristocracies which succeeded the he-
fixed place, so as to raise one city to the rank roic monarchy, and the emulation between a
of a capital, but in one appointed for the time growing commonalty and an oligarchy which
A supreme magistrate grounded its political claims solely on superior
by common consent.
and other officers were here elected, and a court wealth, were conditions without which the Io-
was instituted for the decision of all disputes nian genius would not have found room to ex-
that might arise between members of the con- pand itself so freely. On the other hand, the
federacy, the cities contributing, in proportion inferior degree in which the Dorians and Æo-
to their rank, to fill the places in the national lians were animated with the spirit of commer-
judicature and magistracy. In the same as- cial adventure may have been owing to their
semblies were discussed all questions relating political institutions not less than to a differ-
to peace and war, and the general interests of ence in their national character. It is, howev-
the united states. Had the Greeks on the west-er, certain, that in the two centuries just men-
ern coast of Asia adopted similar institutions,
their history, and even that of the mother-coun-
try, might have been very different from what it
became.

But whatever ill effects may be attributed to
their want of union, it does not seem imme-
diately to have checked the growth or to have
diminished the prosperity of the several cities.
They may, perhaps, have shot up the more vig-
orously and luxuriantly from the absence of all
restraint. This advantage undoubtedly also re-
sulted from the abolition of the monarchical
form of government, which probably took place
everywhere within a few generations after the
first settlement, though the good was balanced
by great evils. From the scanty fragments re-
maining of the internal history of the Asiatic
colonies, it may be collected that they passed
through the various stages of which we have
given an outline in a preceding chapter, and that
they suffered much from intestine discord.
Thus it is related that Miletus, after the over-
throw of a tyrannical dynasty, was split into
two factions, designated by names which seem
to indicate an oligarchy and a commonalty.*
The former gained the ascendant, but was
forced to take extraordinary precautions to pre-
serve it. Again we read of a struggle between
the wealthy citizens and the commonalty, ac-
companied with the most horrible excesses of
cruelty on both sides. It is uncertain wheth-
er this is the period to which Herodotus refers
when he speaks of a civil war which lasted for
two generations at Miletus, and reduced it to
great distress, and was at length terminated by
the mediation of the Parians, who seem to have
committed the government to those landown
ers who had shown the greatest moderation, or
had kept aloof from the contest of the parties. ‡
These convulsions took place within the same
period in which Miletus rose to the summit of
her greatness as a maritime state, and in which
her colonies and her commerce were extending

Plut., Qu. Gr.. 32, i dovris (Iouri,?) and Xecpopaxa.
The oligarchs held their councils on shipboard.
† Athen.. x., 524, from Heraclides Ponticus. Here the
commonalty bears the name Pipride,-that of the remuant
of the ancient Teucriaus in the frons Strabo, xm., p. 569
Herud, va.. 43. Achen, 1, 256-They are a rustic pop-
ulation, and crush the children of their adversaries to death
on their threshing floors the opposite party revenges it-
self by Lurung them alive with their children.

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tioned, the progress of mercantile industry and
maritime discovery was coupled with the culti-
new intellectual fields, in a degree to which
vation of the nobler arts and the opening of
history affords no parallel before the beginning
Among the secondary impulses which for-
of the latest period of European civilization.
warded this progress, one may be thought to
have proceeded from the mother-country. Thu-
cydides fixes the beginning of the seventh cen-
tury B.C. as the epoch of a considerable im-
provement in the art of shipbuilding, which was
first adopted in Corinth, and was imparted by a
Corinthian named Ameinocles to the Samians.
It seems to have been after this epoch, yet not
much later, that the Milesians began to plant a
series of colonies on the eastern coast of the
Propontis, though Cyzicus, the most important
of them, is referred to an earlier origin.* The
rivalry of the Phocæans, who founded Lampsa-
cus on the same coast, and that of the Megari-
ans, who occupied the most advantageous posi-
tions on the European shore, may have urged
them to push forward into a wider field of en-
terprise, and to explore the coasts of the long-
dreaded sea, which was supposed to have been
traversed many centuries before by the Argo-
nauts, but seems to have been now first opened
for ordinary navigation by the Milesians. To
them is attributed the glory of having changed
its name from the Inhospitable to the Hospita-
ble, the Euxine; and it was to the struggles
which they had to maintain with the barbarous
hordes on its coasts that they owed their once
proverbial reputation for valour. Here they
planted the greater part of their numerous col-
no less than eighty, and, according to Strabo,
onies, which, according to Pliny, amounted to
lay almost exclusively on the Propontis and the
Euxine. These colonies, unlike most of those
hitherto mentioned, were undoubtedly founded

* Eusebius gives two dates, B.C. 756 and B.C. 675. Mr.
Clinton, F. H., 1, a, 756 and 675, supposes the first to be-
tioned by Lydus. De Mag., ., 70. where, however, unless
long to a Milesian, the second to a Megarian colony, men-
we adopt the conjecture oikirares, it may be doubted wheth-
er there is sufficient authority for saying that Cyzicus was
The planting of other Milesian
founded by the Megarians.
Colonies in the neighbourhood, which took place nearly at
to render it probable that Miletus had at least a share in the
second settlement of Cyzicus
the same time, as Abydos, Priapus, and Proconnesus, seems

Τι άλαι ποτ' ἦσαν ἀλκιμοι Μιλήσιοι. Athen., xii., 26.

with a distinct view to commercial advantages, | B.C., they gained access to Etruria, and, as apand probably remained for a time in close con- | pears from the story of Demaratus, were soon nexion with the parent city. And there is followed by the Corinthians. Herodotus also some ground for believing that, during the same seems to ascribe the still more important disperiod, Miletus was regarded as the commor. covery of Iberia and Tartessus-the delta of the protectress of the Greek settlers in this region. Guadalquivir-to the Phocæans. But perhaps Hence perhaps the parental title, a valued dis- he may only mean that their example encourtinction, may in some instances have been trans- aged other adventurers, who finally outstripped ferred to her, and her fecundity may have been them. For in the thirty-fifth Olympiad a fortuexaggerated at the expense of some of the oth-nate Samian, named Colæus, reached Tarteser cities which established colonies on the same sus, and found, as Herodotus says, a virgin coast. Thus Strabo attributes to Miletus the mart, from which he carried home the most foundation of the Pontic Heraclea, the most profitable cargo ever imported by a Greek merwestern of the Greek colonies on the Asiatic chant. But if the Samian led the way, the Phoside of the Euxine; and adds that the settlers cæans did not long remain behind; and they acreduced the Mariandynians, the ancient inhabi- quired so great favour with the Tartessian king tants, to a state of bondage exactly resembling Arganthonius, that he is said to have invited that of the Spartan Helots. But this very fact the whole people to leave Ionia, and settle in strongly confirms the testimony of other writers, his dominions. The Rhodians appear very earwho describe Heraclea as a Megarian colony,* | ly to have pursued the same direction, though in which we may expect to find Dorian institu- we must reject as a fabulous legend the statetions. The earliest Milesian settlement seems ment that they visited the coasts of Spain many to have been planted much farther eastward; years before the Olympiads, and even settled in for Sinope, though its history is involved in the Balearic isles soon after their return from great obscurity, has apparently the best claim Troy. But there is no reason to doubt that to this precedence.+ It became, in its turn, the they founded Parthenope, perhaps in conjuncmother of several flourishing cities. Amisus, tion with the Cumæans, as its later name, Neon the same coast, is also assigned to the Mile-apolis, was derived from a new colony of Chalsians by Strabo, on the authority of Theopom- cidians and Athenians. Hence we may the pus, but perhaps with no better ground than more readily believe that they established themHeraclea; other authors ascribe it to the Pho-selves at Rhode or Rhodos (Rosas, in Catalocæans, and fix the epoch of its foundation four nia) before the Phocæans had gained a footing years previous to that of Heraclea. Yet it is on the neighbouring coast at Emporia (Ampunot absolutely certain that the southern side of rias), and we may even suspect that the Rhone the Euxine was the earliest occupied by the (Rhodanus) was named after them. If so, they Greek colonists; and it is possible that before must here also have preceded the Phocæans, they had circumnavigated that great projection who about 600 B.C. founded their most celebraof the Asiatic coast which terminates towards ted colony, Massilia, perhaps on Ligurian ground, the north in Cape Carambis, they may have where they maintained themselves with the aid been carried across to the Tauric Chersonesus, of the Celtic tribes, whose good-will they gainwhich became in later times one of the princi-ed and requited by diffusing among them the pal granaries of Greece, and the seat of a pow-arts of civilized life, and Grecian usages and erful state. letters. Miletus, however, did not neglect the The Euxine had already lost a part of its ter-commerce of the West; her fleeces, which rors before any Greek navigator ventured to ex- were of singular fineness, supplied the luxury plore the recesses of the Adriatic, or to launch of Sybaris with clothes, carpets, and tapestry, out beyond Sicily into the western seas. The and became the occasion of so close an alliance Phocæans had the glory of opening these new between the two cities, that the Milesians distracks of commerce, in which, however, they played their grief for the fall of Sybaris by a pubwere soon followed by bold and active rivals. lic mourning. In the Adriatic they were probably attracted to the mouth of the Po by the lucrative traffic in amber, for which this river-which at length was identified with the fabulous Eridanus, the scene of the fall of Phaethon, over which his sisters dropped their glittering tears-had long been a real channel. The date of their first adventure in the Adriatic cannot be precisely fix-thrown open for permanent and friendly intered; but it was probably not later than the beginning of their voyages to the western coasts of Italy, where, early in the seventh century

Nearly at the same time that the Phocæans were making their first excursions in the west of the Mediterranean, the country from which, according to general belief, Greece had in ancient times received the germs of her arts, religion, and civility, but which had long been jealously closed against foreign settlers, was

course to the Greeks. About 650 B.C., a band composed of Ionians and Carians chanced, in the course of a piratical expedition, to land on the coast of Egypt, and were induced by great of

who established himself on the throne by their aid. He not only rewarded them with a grant of lands on the Nile, but gave all their countrymen free access to his dominions;* and, to pro

*Scymnus, Fr., 230. Boeotians also took part in it. + Scymnus, Fr., 210, speaks of a Milesian, named Am-fers to enter into the service of Psammetichus, brou, as the first founder after the mythical times, or, at least, as having been cut off, before he had accomplished his undertaking, by the Cimmerians. While this people was overrunning Asia, in the reign of the Lydian king Ardys, between 678 and 629 B.C., a new colony seems to have been founded with better success by Milesian exiles. According to some accounts, they were headed by a Coan named Critias or Critines. Steph. B., Eivorn. Eustath. on Dionys., p. 772.

+ Scyminus, 181. Not forty years, as is stated both by Raoul Rochette (Col. Gr.. i., p. 334) and by Mueller (Or chom., p. 291). Hyginus, F., 154.

*This account of the matter in Herod., ., 154. is no doubt substantially correct, and yet it may not be a sufficient ground for rejecting the date assigned by Eusebius to the foundation of Naucrats, which, according to him, was founded by Milesians, Ol. vi., 4, confirmed by the story in Athenæus, xv, c. 18.

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THE COLONIES.

Though we have not yet brought the political history of the Asiatic colonies down to the period at which we dropped that of the mothercountry, just before the beginning of the great struggle between Greece and Asia, as the present seems to be the most suitable place for taking a view of the progress of art and literature, which was so intimately connected with the rise of those colonies, we shall not scruple, for the sake of continuity, to trace it down to the Persian war.

mote their commerce with his subjects, consign- | found employment at home in the arts by which ed a number of Egyptian boys to their care, to their private and public life was cheered and be instructed in the Greek language, so as to adorned. Among the cities of Greece perhaps form a permanent class of interpreters. His Corinth alone can be compared to them. There successors adhered to the same policy; and the overthrow of the Bacchiads was attributed But though the thus Greeks of various classes were drawn to to their luxury, which probably formed a conEgypt, in the pursuit of knowledge as well as of trast to the plainness and frugality that prevailgain. Of the impression produced on an inquis-ed in the other Dorian states. itive and intelligent Greek by the sight of this Dorian character and institutions were adverse wonderful land, which even by its ruins, and in to luxury, they did not exclude the highest deAnd hence even where, as at Sparits lowest state of degradation, has never ceased gree of magnificence in works either consecrato inspire astonishment and awe, we are able ted to the gods, or designed for the service of to judge from the testimony of Herodotus. Even the state. if the effects of the intercourse between the two ta, the Dorian freemen were not permitted themnations had been limited to those of a purely selves to cultivate any of the arts, artists of vamaterial traffic, they would have been incalcu- rious kinds were well received, and found abunlably great, because to this traffic Greek litera- dant employment; and schools of art occur ture was indebted for one of the most important more frequently in Dorian than in Ionian cities. outward conditions of its development-a cheap The first steps in the arts of drawing, of paintand commodious material for writing, which ing, of moulding figures in clay, were commonwas supplied by the Egyptian papyrus; but, un- ly attributed to the Corinthians, who, as they doubtedly, these effects did not terminate here, afterward gave their name to one of the three though it is difficult to estimate them, and the orders of architecture, made the earliest imBut Sicyon disputed the honour of some of these opinions of learned men are divided as to their provement in the form of the Doric temple.* nature and extent. inventions with Corinth, and was more celebrated than her wealthier neighbour for her school of sculpture. Those of Argos and Lacedæmon, of Rhodes and Crete, and, above all, of Ægina, were fruitful and renowned, while that of Athens, though it boasted Dædalus as its founder, and transmitted his art in an uninterrupted succession of families, seems to have been barren in great works, as it was in illustrious names. the richness of their productions or in the gloBut the Ionians were not behind-hand either in We have seen that several arts, subservient ry of new inventions. They began early to vie either to the enjoyment of the great and afflu- with one another in the magnitude and splenent, or to the uses of religion, had been cultiva- dour of their sacred buildings, and, consequentted by the Greeks before the time of Homer ly, in all the arts which served to adorn them. with a considerable degree of activity and suc- The temple of Heré at Samos, the largest of all cess, and it may easily be conceived that their that Herodotus had seen, appears to have been progress kept pace with the advance of public begun in the eighth century B.C., or early in the soon after generally gave way in the Asiatic and private prosperity. The increase of wealth seventh. It was built in the Doric style, which and refinement appears to have been much more rapid in the Asiatic colonies, particularly in Io- temples to the lighter Ionic. Its architect, RhoThe most nia, than among the Greeks of the mother-coun- cus, a native of the island, was the father of try, where it was not equally favoured by na- Theodorus, who was equally celebrated as the ture, and was long checked by the troubles builder of the Lemnian labyrinth, and the author which followed the Dorian conquest. The Io- of several memorable inventions. nian cities were probably, at an early period, dis- important was the art of casting metal statues, tinguished by a degree of luxury before unknown which before had been formed of pieces wrought to the Greeks, and hence Lycurgus is said to with the hammer, and nailed together. Theodohave visited them in order to observe the con- rus exerted his ingenuity in overcoming the diftrast between their magnificence and the Cre-ficulties presented by the nature of the ground, tan simplicity.* The same fact is indicated by in laying the foundation of the great temple of the legend that the daughter of Neleus, the founder, was seduced by one of the barbarians,t and is, most probably, the ground of the picture which Homer has drawn of the Phæacians, in whom it is scarcely possible to avoid recognizing his Ionian countrymen. About the beginning of the Olympiads, the fall of Magnesia on the Meander was ascribed by poets of the same century to the prevalence of effeminate habits.‡ We have seen, however, that the Ionians did not abandon themselves to indolence, and the active spirit which led them to pursue their commercial adventures into unknown regions,

Plut., Lyc., 4.

Tzetzes ad Lyc., 1385. Eudocia, p. 145. ↑ Athen., xii., c. 29.

Artemis at Ephesus. It would seem, too, that
the art of painting had made considerable prog-
ress in Ionia, while it was in its first rudiments
at Corinth, if we may believe the account that
a picture of Bularchus was purchased at a high
price in the eighth century by the Lydian king
Candaules, and can reconcile this fact with
the Corinthian tradition, that the earliest essays
in colouring were made by Cleophantus, at the
time of the overthrow of the Bacchiads.

See Boeckh on Pindar, O. xiii., p. 214.

+ Diog. L., ii., 103. He suggested the use of charcoal for this purpose.

Plin., N. H., vii., 39; xxxv., 34. It represented the destruction of Magnesia on the Meander, probably that which it suffered from the Cimmerian tribe, the Treres, about Ol. xvii. Candaules is said to have paid its weight in gold.

Plin., Nat. Hist., xxxv., 5. He, or another artist of the

ues.*

It will not be expected that we should enter | er, of the evidence which the Homeric poems afinto the history of the fine arts in their various ford, to elevate our conceptions of the earlier branches, or that we should fill our pages with state of Greek art, descriptions have been left the names of the masters, and with the accounts to us of several elaborate works, which, though preserved by the ancients of their works. Our their date cannot, perhaps, be precisely ascerobject is only to point out the connexion be- tained, appear to belong to the period precetween the progress of these arts, and that which ding the opening of a regular intercourse with the Greeks made during the same period in oth- Egypt, and would prove that the Greeks cannot er spheres of intellectual exertion. And for have been much indebted to the Egyptians duthis purpose it will be sufficient to observe the ring this period for instruments or processes of manner in which one art-the most important, art. A tenth of the profits made by Colæus in as an indication of the genius of the people, of his voyage, which we have already mentioned, all those which were occupied with the creation to Tartessus, was dedicated, probably not long of visible forms-which, to avoid the reference after, to Heré, in the shape of a huge vessel of to the nature of its materials implied in the brass, adorned with figures of griffons round its word sculpture, is better termed statuary, rose border, and supported by three colossal statwithin this period nearly to the summit of its The magnificent coffer of cedar-wood, perfection. We have already, in our view of covered with groups of figures, some of the the Homeric age, had occasion to notice a very same wood, others of ivory, others of gold, which difficult question relating to the origin of this was consecrated at Olympia by the Cypselids, art-the uncertainty whether it sprang up, and was said to be the very same in which the inwas gradually formed in Greece, or was intro- fant Cypselus had been concealed from the duced from the East in a stage of comparative search of the Bacchiads, and if so, had been, no maturity, at which it remained for centuries, doubt, long one of the family treasures. † The fixed by the control of religion. It happens, by colossal throne of Apollo at Amycle, which was a singular coincidence, that the epoch at which constructed for the Spartans by a company of the Greeks opened or renewed their intercourse artists from Magnesia on the Mæander, and with Egypt was also that in which statuary was richly adorned with sculptures, seems with was on the point of breaking through its ancient great probability to be referred to the eighth cenrestraints and of entering on a new career, in tury B.C., in which, after Magnesia had been which it arrived, within little more than anoth-destroyed by the Cimmerians, these artists may er century, at its highest point of attainable ex- have taken refuge, and sought employment in cellence. It is not surprising that two facts Greece.# which in time came so nearly together, should It seems, at all events, certain that there have been thought to be related to each other were other causes which operated much more as cause and effect. And hence it may seem efficaciously than the intercourse with Egypt, a probable opinion that the Greek artists, as to urge the rapid progress of statuary in the soon as they were able to visit Egypt, were in- century preceding the Persian wars. Among structed by the Egyptians in various technical these causes might be mentioned the preferprocesses which had been long familiar to them, ence which was generally given to brass and but hitherto unknown to the Greeks, and that, marble over the ancient material, wood, which by this fortunate assistance, Greek art advanced henceforth, when employed, was commonly at once from a degree of extreme rudeness to overlaid with more precious substances, as the same level which it had attained in Egypt ivory and gold. This change arose in part out through the persevering labour of numberless of the invention of Theodorus, which gave a generations. There is a celebrated story which new command over the metals. The use of has been thought to confirm this opinion: that marble for statues is said to have been introthe Samian Theodorus, and his brother Tele-duced in the fiftieth Olympiad by two Cretan cles, having studied in Egypt, on their return artists named Dipænus and Scyllis, but was, made a statue of Apollo, in such exact conform-probably, most promoted by the closer alliance ity to the rules which they had learned, that the with architecture into which statuary began to one half, which Telecles executed at Samos, be brought, and by the increased sumptuoustallied with the other, on which his brother had ness of the temples, in which, as in that of been employed during the same time at Ephe- Delphi, when rebuilt by the Alemæonids, marsus, as exactly as if the whole had been the ble frequently took the place of ordinary stone. work of one artist. But if the truth of this sto- It may, however, be conceived, that the techry was certain, the inference would lose all its nical rules taught by the Egyptians had first force, if, as there are strong reasons for believ-enabled the Greeks to treat the harder material ing, the two brothers flourished in the eighth with ease and freedom. But this substitution, century B.C. ;t and we should then be driven though an important step, did not of necessity to a supposition which the language of Herodo-involve any change of style, and would not of tus seems directly to contradict, that Egypt itself have prevented the art from remaining had been visited by Greek artists before the stationary at the stage to which it had been reign of Psammetichus. Independently, howev- carried by the Egyptians themselves. A cause same name, was said to have followed Demaratus into which it experienced in the range of its subof still greater efficacy was the enlargement Italy. On the age of the brothers, see Thiersch, Epoch., p.jects, and the consequent multiplicity of its pro181, not. 94. On the story itself, p. 51, not. 42. the interior of the temples, and no more were ductions. As long as statues were confined to

* Diodor., i., 98.

It is not clear how Thiersch, who inaintains the probability of the story, gets rid of this difficulty, since he seems to admit (p. 27, n. 15) that the ancient intercourse which he believes to have existed between Greece and Egypt was suspended between the time of Homer and the reign of Psammetichus.

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PROGRESS OF ART AND LITERATURE.

seen in each sanctuary than the idol of its wor- sufficient reason for denying that the name Thus much appears to have ship, there was little room and motive for in- properly belonged to one eminent person, yet it novation; and, on the other hand, there were seems clear that it was extended to many othstrong inducements for adhering to the practice ers of less note. of antiquity. But, insensibly, piety or ostenta- been generally admitted by the ancients; and tion began to fill the temples with groups of in the great number of works attributed to HeWe are thus led to congods and heroes, strangers to the place, and siod, one only was held to be genuine by the guests of the power who was properly invoked inhabitants of the district in which he is bethere. The deep recesses of their pediments lieved to have lived.* were peopled with colossal forms, exhibiting sider him as a poet who exercised an influence some legendary scene, appropriate to the place similar to that of Homer over his contemporaor the occasion of the building. The custom, ries and posterity, or as the founder of a poetiwhich we have already noticed, of honouring cal school, and to inquire by what means he obthe victors at the public games with a statue-tained such influence, and what was the charan honour afterward extended to other distin- acter of his school. guished persons-contributed, perhaps, still more to the same effect; for, whatever restraints may have been imposed on the artists in the representation of sacred subjects, either by usage or by a religious scruple, were removed when they were employed in exhibiting As the field of the images of mere mortals. the art was widened to embrace new objects, the number of masters increased: they were no longer limited, where this had before been the case, to families or guilds: their industryed in the division of his small patrimony, about was sharpened by a more active competition and by richer rewards: as the study of nature became more earnest, the sense of beauty grew quicker and steadier; and so rapid was the march of the art, that the last vestiges of the arbitrary forms which had been hallowed by time or religion had not yet everywhere disappeared, when the final union of truth and beauty, which we sometimes endeavour to express by the term ideal, was accomplished in the school of Phidias.

The same observant and inquisitive spirit
which was the inmost spring of this new life in
the world of art, gave birth, about the same
time, to new branches and forms of poetry.
The first period of Greek poetry which is known
to us otherwise than by tradition is entirely
filled by the names of Homer and Hesiod.
When these names are regarded as represent-
atives of a period, they may not improperly be
coupled together, as they are by Herodotus,
But the
and in the legend which describes the two po-
ets as engaged in a poetical contest.
works which have been transmitted to us under
their names lead to the conclusion that the
name of Homer marks the beginning, that of
Hesiod the close of the period. This, however,
is not the sole, or the main distinction between
them: it may rather be said that they approach
one another only in the outward forms of versi-
fication and dialect, but in other respects move
in two totally different spheres. The Homeric
poems, therefore, stand, throughout the whole
of this period, completely alone. Yet it cannot
be imagined that they exhibit more than a very
small part of its poetical produce; and the si-
lence of history as to the rest would be sur-
prising, if it were not probable, not only that
the names of many contemporary bards have
been lost in the lustre of Homer's, but that
their works frequently served as a basis for
celebrated labours of subsequent poets, and
hence were soon neglected and forgotten.

The collection which passes under the name
of Hesiod contains works or fragments of many
different authors; and though there may not be

In the same poem, which
was alone recognised by his countrymen, the
poet has given some account of his private con-
dition, by which it appears that he was a native
of the Baotian village of Ascra, at the foot of
Helicon, to which his father had migrated, for
It has been suspected,† not on very
the sake of bettering his fortune, from Cuma in
Æolis.
solid ground, that the harsh epithets which he
applies to his native village were prompted by
resentment at some wrong which he had suffer-

which he had a dispute with his brother. In
another poem he describes himself as tending a
flock on the side of Helicon. Unless we entire-
ly reject the authority of these passages, we
must believe that he was born in an humble sta-
tion, and was himself engaged in rural pursuits;
and this perfectly accords with the subject of
the poem which was unanimously ascribed to
him, the Works and Days, which is a collection
ry and the regulation of a rural household. We
of reflections and precepts relating to husband-
But what we have
have, perhaps, only some disjointed portions of
the original work, interpolated with passages
which did not belong to it.
is sufficient to afford a distinct notion of the
spirit and character of the whole, and it excites
our surprise and curiosity as to two points.
Nothing can be conceived much more homely,
or more sparingly enlivened with poetical orna-
ments, than this didactic work, which never-
theless appears to have been the sole or the
should have raised him to such celebrity is the
main basis of Hesiod's reputation. That it
more remarkable, as the subject itself was not
one which possessed any dignity or attraction
in the eyes of the warlike races which became
the lords of Greece after the Return of the Her-
acleids. In the dull fiction, indeed, which de-
scribes a contest between Homer and Hesiod,
the prize is awarded to the latter, on the ground
that he had dedicated his strains to the encour-
agement of rural and peaceful labours, not to
the description of battles and carnage. But
when we remember that at Thespiæ, to which
was held degrading to a freeman, and how
the poet's birthplace was subject, agriculture
contemptuously the Spartan Cleomenes spoke
of Hesiod as the Helot's poet, in contrast with
Homer, the delight of the warrior, we may
conceive with how little favour such a produc-
tion as the Works and Days was likely to be
the poet's contemporaries. Another difficulty
received by the wealthy and powerful among

Paus, ix., 31, 4.

By Goettling, in his edition of Hesiod, p. iv.
Heracl. Pont., 42.

Plut., Apoph. Lac. Cleom., 1.

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