Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3
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Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3
Editor: Charles F. Horne
Release date: August 27, 2008 [eBook #26423]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN. VOL. 3 ***
Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
been maintained.
Captions marked with [TN] have been added while producing this file.]
[Illustration: Justinian and his council.]
GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
VOL. III.
Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
edited by Charles F. Horne
[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
SUBJECT AUTHOR PAGE
ALFRED THE GREAT, _Sir J. Bernard Burke, LL.D._, 101
ST. AMBROSE, _Rev. A. Lambing, LL.D._, 68
ARCHIMEDES, _John Timbs, F.S.A._, 59
ARISTOTLE, _Fenelon_, 54
ST. AUGUSTINE OF
CANTERBURY, _Rt. Rev. Henry Codman Potter_, 88
ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, _James, Cardinal Gibbons_, 73
FRANCIS BACON, _Hon. Ignatius Donnelly_, 154
WILLIAM BRADFORD, _Elbridge S. Brooks_, 172
AUGUSTUS CAESAR, 66
JOHN CALVIN, 140
CHARLES I. OF ENGLAND, _F. Hindes Groome_, 177
_Letter written on the eve of his
execution by Charles I. to his son_, 180
CHARLES V. OF GERMANY, 133
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, _Rev. W. J. Brodribb_, 63
NICHOLAS COPERNICUS, _John Stoughton, D.D._, 122
OLIVER CROMWELL, _Lord Macaulay_, 181
DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL, _Margaret E. Sangster_, 10
DEMOSTHENES, _E. Benjamin Andrews_, 47
DIOGENES, _Fenelon_, 54
ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF
ENGLAND, _Samuel L. Knapp_, 149
FREDERICK, THE GREAT ELECTOR, 189
GALILEO GALILEI, 161
JOHN HUSS, _Rev. Dr. Tweedy_, 106
ISABELLA OF CASTILE, _Sarah H. Killikelly_, 114
JUSTINIAN THE GREAT, 85
JOHN KNOX, _P. Hume Brown_, 144
LOUIS XI. OF FRANCE, _E. Spencer Biesly, M.A._, 111
LOUIS XIV., _Oliver Optic_, 192
MARTIN LUTHER, 127
_Letter of affection from Luther
to his little son Hans_, 132
LYCURGUS, _Rev. Joseph T. Duryea_, 22
MAHOMET, 95
MOSES, _Henry George_, 1
ST. PATRICK, _Rev. G. F. Maclear, B.D._, 80
WILLIAM PENN, 200
PERICLES, 34
CARDINAL RICHELIEU, 166
SOCRATES, _Fenelon_, 38
SOLOMON, _Rev. Charles F. Deems_, 16
THEMISTOCLES, 29
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME III.
PHOTOGRAVURES
ILLUSTRATION ARTIST TO FACE PAGE
JUSTINIAN AND HIS COUNCIL, _Benjamin Constant_ _Frontispiece_
MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES, _Paul Delaroche_ 2
THE VICTORS OF SALAMIS, _Fernand Cormon_ 32
DEMOSTHENES PRACTISING ORATORY, _Jules Jean
Lecomte-du-Nouy_ 48
AUGUSTUS CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA, _August von Heckel_ 66
LOUIS XI. AND OLIVIER LE DAIN, _Hermann Kaulbach_ 112
MARTIN LUTHER BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF
WORMS, _E. Delperte_ 130
CHARLES V. ON HIS WAY TO THE CONVENT, _Hermann Schneider_ 138
MOLIERE AT BREAKFAST WITH LOUIS XIV., _Jean Leon Gerome_ 198
WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
DAVID CALMING THE WRATH OF SAUL, _J. J. Lefebvre_ 12
JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON, _Jos. Fuehrich_ 18
DEATH OF SOCRATES, _Louis David_ 42
DIOGENES IN HIS TUB, _Jean Leon Gerome_ 44
DEATH OF ARCHIMEDES, _Gustave Courtois_ 60
AMBROSE REBUKES THEODOSIUS, _Peter Paul Rubens_ 72
ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS MOTHER,
ST. MONICA, _Ary Scheffer_ 74
ST. PATRICK JOURNEYING TO TARA, 82
CONVERSION OF ETHELBERT BY AUGUSTINE, _H. Tresham_ 92
THE MUEZZIN, _Jean Leon Gerome_ 100
KING ALFRED VISITING A MONASTERY
SCHOOL, _Benziger_ 104
EXECUTION OF HUSS, _C. G. Hellquist_ 110
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA--THE SURRENDER
OF GRANADA, _F. de Pradilla_ 120
COPERNICUS, _O. Brausewetter_ 124
LUTHER INTRODUCED TO THE HOME OF FRAU
COTTA, _G. Spangenberg_ 128
ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART, _Hermann Kaulbach_ 152
GALILEO BEFORE THE INQUISITION, 164
A CONCERT AT RICHELIEU'S PALACE, _J. Leisten_ 172
A PURITAN CHRISTMAS, _Hyde_ 174
PRINCESS ELIZABETH IN PRISON, _J. Everett Millais_ 180
CROMWELL'S DAUGHTER ENTREATS HIM TO
REFUSE THE CROWN 186
THE GREAT ELECTOR WITHDRAWS FROM THE
ASSOCIATION OF THE DUTCH NOBILITY, _F. Neuhaus_ 190
STATESMEN AND SAGES
Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
--LONGFELLOW
MOSES[1]
By HENRY GEORGE
(1571-1451 B.C.)
[Footnote 1: Copyright. 1894. by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Moses. [TN]]
Three great religions place the leader of the Exodus upon the highest
plane they allot to man. To Christendom and to Islam, as well as to
Judaism, Moses is the mouthpiece of the Most High; the medium, clothed
with supernatural powers, through which the Divine Will has spoken. Yet
this very exaltation, by raising him above comparison, may prevent the
real grandeur of the man from being seen. It is amid his brethren that
Saul stands taller and fairer.
On the other hand, the latest school of Biblical criticism asserts that
the books and legislation attributed to Moses are really the product of
an age subsequent to that of the prophets. Yet to this Moses, looming
vague and dim, of whom they can tell us almost nothing, they, too,
attribute the beginning of that growth which flowered centuries after in
the humanities of Jewish law, and again, higher still and fairer,
gleamed forth in that star of spiritual light which rested over the
stable of Bethlehem, in Judea.
But whether wont to look on Moses in this way or in that, it may be
sometimes worth our while to take the point of view in which all shades
of belief may find common ground, and accepting the main features of
Hebrew record,[2] consider them in the light of history, and of human
nature as it shows itself to-day. Here is a case in which sacred history
may be treated as we would treat profane history without any shock to
religious feeling. The keenest criticism cannot resolve Moses into a
myth. The fact of the Exodus presupposes such a leader.
[Footnote 2: Moses, the lawgiver of the Hebrew people, was,
according to the Biblical account, an Israelite of the tribe of
Levi, and the son of Amram and Jochebed. He was born in Egypt,
in the year 1571 B.C., according to the common chronology. To
evade the edict of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, that all the
male children of the Hebrews should be killed, he was hid by
his mother three months, and then exposed in an ark of rushes
on the banks of the Nile. Here the child was found by Pharaoh's
daughter, who adopted him for her son, entrusting him to his
own mother to nurse, by which circumstance he was preserved
from being entirely separated from his own people. He was
probably educated at the Egyptian court, where he became
"learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." At the age of
forty years Moses conceived the idea of freeing his Hebrew
brethren from their bondage in Egypt, and on one occasion,
seeing an Egyptian maltreating an Israelite, he interfered,
slew the Egyptian, and buried him in the sand. The next day,
upon his attempting to reconcile two Hebrews who had
quarrelled, his services were scornfully rejected, and he was
upbraided with the murder of the Egyptian. Finding that his
secret was known, he fled from Egypt, and took refuge with a
tribe of Midianites in Arabia Petraea, among whom he lived as a
shepherd forty years, having married the daughter of their
priest Jethro or Reuel.
As Moses led his father-in-law's flocks in the desert of Sinai,
God appeared to him at Mount Horeb in a bush which burnt with
fire, but was not consumed, and commanded him to return to
Egypt and lead out his people thence into the land of Canaan.
On his arrival in Egypt, the Israelites accepted him as their
deliverer and after bringing ten miraculous plagues upon the
land of Egypt before he could gain Pharaoh's consent to the
departure of the people, he led them out through the Red Sea,
which was miraculously divided for their passage, into the
peninsula of Sinai. While the people were encamped at the foot
of Sinai, God delivered to them through Moses the law which,
with some additions and alterations, was ever after observed as
their national code. After leading the Israelites through the
wilderness for forty years, Moses appointed Joshua as his
successor in the command over them, and died at the age of one
hundred and twenty years, on Mount Pisgah, on the east side of
the River Jordan, having first been permitted to view the land
of Canaan from its summit. God buried him in the valley of
Bethpeor, in the land of Moab, but his tomb was never made
known.]
To lead into freedom a people long crushed by tyranny; to discipline and
order such a mighty host; to harden them into fighting men, before whom
warlike tribes quailed and walled cities went down; to repress
discontent and jealousy and mutiny; to combat reactions and reversions;
to turn the quick, fierce flame of enthusiasm to the service of a steady
purpose, require some towering character--a character blending in
highest expression the qualities of politician, patriot, philosopher,
and statesman.
Such a character in rough but strong outline the tradition shows us--the
union of the wisdom of the Egyptians with the unselfish devotion of the
meekest of men. From first to last, in every glimpse we get, this
character is consistent with itself, and with the mighty work which is
its monument. It is the character of a great mind, hemmed in by
conditions and limitations, and working with such forces and materials
as were at hand--accomplishing, yet failing. Behind grand deed, a
grander thought. Behind high performance, the still nobler ideal.
Egypt was the mould of the Hebrew nation--the matrix in which a single
family, or, at most, a small tribe, grew to a people as numerous as the
American people at the time of the Declaration of Independence. For four
centuries, according to the Hebrew tradition--a period as long as
America has been known to Europe--this growing people, coming a
patriarchal family from a roving, pastoral life, had been placed under
the dominance of a highly developed and ancient civilization--a
civilization symbolized by monuments that rival in endurance the
everlasting hills; a civilization so ancient that the Pyramids, as we
now know, were hoary with centuries ere Abraham looked on them.
[Illustration: Moses in the bulrushes.]
No matter how clearly the descendants of the kinsmen who came into Egypt
at the invitation of the boy-slave become prime minister, maintained the
distinction of race, and the traditions of a freer life, they must have
been powerfully affected by such a civilization; and just as the Hebrews
of to-day are Polish in Poland, German in Germany, and American in the
United States, so, but far more clearly and strongly, the Hebrews of the
Exodus must have been Egyptian.
It is not remarkable, therefore, that the ancient Hebrew institutions
show in so many points the influence of Egyptian ideas and customs. What
is remarkable is the dissimilarity. To the unreflecting nothing may seem
more natural than that a people, in turning their back upon a land where
they had been long oppressed, should discard its ideas and institutions.
But the student of history, the observer of politics, know that nothing
is more _un_natural. For "institutions make men." And when amid a people
used to institutions of one kind, we see suddenly arise institutions of
an opposite kind, we know that behind them must be that active, that
initiative force--the "men who in the beginnings make institutions."
This is what occurs in the Exodus. The striking differences between
Egyptian and Hebrew policy are not of form but of essence. The tendency
of the one is to subordination and oppression; of the other, to
individual freedom. Strangest of recorded births! from out the strongest
and most splendid despotism of antiquity comes the freest republic. From
between the paws of the rock-hewn Sphinx rises the genius of human
liberty, and the trumpets of the Exodus throb with the defiant
proclamation of the rights of man.
Consider what Egypt was. The very grandeur of her monuments testify to
the enslavement of the people--are the enduring witnesses of a social
organization that rested on the masses an immovable weight. That narrow
Nile Valley, the cradle of the arts and sciences, the scene, perhaps, of
the greatest triumphs of the human mind, is also the scene of its most
abject enslavement. In the long centuries of its splendor its lord,
secure in the possession of irresistible temporal power, and securer
still in the awful sanctions of a mystical religion, was as a god on
earth, to cover whose poor carcass with a tomb befitting his state
hundreds of thousands toiled away their lives. For the classes who came
next to him were all the sensuous delights of a most luxurious
civilization, and high intellectual pleasures which the mysteries of the
temple hid from vulgar profanation. But for the millions who constituted
the base of the social pyramid there was but the lash to stimulate their
toil, and the worship of beasts to satisfy the yearnings of the soul.
From time immemorial to the present day the lot of the Egyptian peasant
has been to work and to starve, that those above him might live
daintily. He has never rebelled. The spirit for that was long ago
crushed out of him by institutions which made him what he is. He knows
but to suffer and to die.
Imagine what opportune circumstances we may, yet to organize and carry
on a movement resulting in the release of a great people from such a
soul-subduing tyranny, backed by an army of half a million highly
trained soldiers, requires a leadership of most commanding and
consummate genius. But this task, surpassingly great though it is, is
not the measure of the greatness of the leader of the Exodus. It is not
in the deliverance from Egypt, it is in the constructive statesmanship
that laid the foundations of the Hebrew commonwealth that the
superlative grandeur of that leadership looms up. As we cannot imagine
the Exodus without the great leader, neither can we account for the
Hebrew polity without the great statesman. Not merely intellectually
great, but morally great--a statesman aglow with the unselfish
patriotism that refuses to grasp a sceptre or found a dynasty.
It matters not when or by whom were compiled the books popularly
attributed to Moses; it matters not how much of the code there given may
be the survivals of more ancient usage or the amplifications of a later
age; its great features bear the stamp of a mind far in advance of
people and time, of a mind that beneath effects sought for causes, of a
mind that drifted not with the tide of events, but aimed at a definite
purpose.
The outlines that the record gives us of the character of Moses--the
brief relations that wherever the Hebrew scriptures are read have hung
the chambers of the imagination with vivid pictures--are in every way
consistent with this idea. What we know of the life illustrates what we
know of the work. What we know of the work illumines the life.
It was not an empire such as had reached full development in Egypt or
existed in rudimentary patriarchal form in the tribes around, that Moses
aimed to found. Nor was it a republic where the freedom of the citizen
rested on the servitude of the helot, and the individual was sacrificed
to the state. It was a commonwealth based upon the individual; a
commonwealth whose ideal it was that every man should sit under his own
vine and fig-tree, with none to vex him or make him afraid; a
commonwealth in which none should be condemned to ceaseless toil; in
which, for even the bond slave, there should be hope; in which, for even
the beast of burden, there should be rest. A commonwealth in which, in
the absence of deep poverty, the manly virtues that spring from personal
independence should harden into a national character; a commonwealth in
which the family affections might knit their tendrils around each
member, binding with links stronger than steel the various parts into
the living whole.
It is not the protection of property, but the protection of humanity,
that is the aim of the Mosaic code. Its sanctions are not directed to
securing the strong in heaping up wealth, so much as to preventing the
weak from being crowded to the wall. At every point it interposes its
barriers to the selfish greed that, if left unchecked, will surely
differentiate men into landlord and serf, capitalist and workman,
millionaire and tramp, ruler and ruled. Its Sabbath day and Sabbath year
secure, even to the lowliest, rest and leisure. With the blast of the
Jubilee trumpets the slave goes free, the debt that cannot be paid is
cancelled, and a re-division of the land secures again to the poorest
his fair share in the bounty of the common Creator. The reaper must
leave something for the gleaner; even the ox cannot be muzzled as he
treadeth out the corn. Everywhere, in everything, the dominant idea is
that of our homely phrase--"Live and let live!"
And the religion with which this civil policy is so closely intertwined
exhibits kindred features--from the idea of the brotherhood of man
springs the idea of the fatherhood of God. Though the forms may resemble
those of Egypt, the spirit is that which Egypt had lost; though a
hereditary priesthood is retained, the law in its fulness is announced
to all the people. Though the Egyptian rite of circumcision is
preserved, and the Egyptian symbols reappear in all the externals of
worship, the tendency to take the type for the reality is sternly
repressed. It is only when we think of the bulls and the hawks, of the
deified cats and sacred ichneumons of Egypt, that we realize the full
meaning of the command--"Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven
image!"
And if we seek, beneath form and symbol and command, the thought of
which they are but the expression, we find that the distinctive feature
of the Hebrew religion, that which separates it by such a wide gulf from
the religions amid which it grew up, is its utilitarianism, its
recognition of divine law in human life. It asserts, not a God whose
domain is confined to the far-off beginning or the vague future, who is
over and above and beyond men, but a God who in His inexorable laws is
here and now; a God of the living as well as of the dead; a God of the
market-place as well as of the temple; a God whose judgments wait not
another world for execution, but whose immutable decrees will, in this
life, give happiness to the people that heed them and bring misery upon
the people that forget them.
The absence in the Mosaic books of any reference to a future life is
only intelligible by the prominence into which this truth is brought.
Nothing could have been more familiar to the Hebrews of the Exodus than
the doctrine of immortality. The continued existence of the soul, the
judgment after death, the rewards and punishments of the future state,
were the constant subjects of Egyptian thought and art. But a truth may
be hidden or thrown into the background by the intensity with which
another truth is grasped. And the truth that Moses brought so
prominently forward, the truth his gaze was concentrated upon, is a
truth that has often been thrust aside by the doctrine of immortality,
and that may perhaps, at times, react on it in the same way. This is the
truth that the actions of men bear fruit in this world, that though on
the petty scale of individual life wickedness may seem to go unpunished
and wrong to be rewarded, there is yet a Nemesis that with tireless feet
and pitiless arm follows every national crime, and smites the children
for the father's transgression; the truth that each individual must act
upon and be acted upon by the society of which he is a part; that all
must in some degree suffer for the sin of each, and the life of each be
dominated by the conditions imposed by all.
It is the intense appreciation of this truth that gives the Mosaic
institutions so practical and utilitarian a character. Their genius, if
I may so speak, leaves the abstract speculations where thought so easily
loses and wastes itself, or finds expression only in symbols that
become finally but the basis of superstition, in order that it may
concentrate attention upon laws that determine the happiness or misery
of men upon this earth. Its lessons have never tended to the essential
selfishness of asceticism, which is so prominent a feature in Brahmanism
and Buddhism, and from which Christianity and Islamism have not been
exempt. Its injunction has never been, "Leave the world to itself that
you may save your own soul," but rather, "Do your duty in the world that
you may be happier and the world be better." It has disdained no
sanitary regulation that might secure the health of the body. Its
promise has been of peace and plenty and length of days, of stalwart
sons and comely daughters.
It may be that the feeling of Moses in regard to a future life was that
expressed in the language of the Stoic, "It is the business of Jupiter,
not mine;" or it may be that it partook of the same revulsion that shows
itself in modern times, when a spirit essentially religious has been
turned against the forms and expressions of religion, because these
forms and expressions have been made the props and bulwarks of tyranny,
and even the name and teachings of the Carpenter's Son perverted into
supports of social injustice--used to guard the pomp of Caesar and
justify the greed of Dives.
Yet, however such feelings influenced Moses, I cannot think that such a
soul as his, living such a life as his--feeling the exaltation of great
thoughts, feeling the burden of great cares, feeling the bitterness of
great disappointments--did not stretch forward to the hope beyond; did
not rest and strengthen and ground itself in the confident belief that
the death of the body is but the emancipation of the soul; did not feel
the assurance that there is a power in the universe upon which it might
confidently rely, through wreck of matter and crash of worlds. But the
great concern of Moses was with the duty that lay plainly before him:
the effort to lay foundations of a social state in which deep poverty
and degrading want should be unknown--where men, released from the
meaner struggles that waste human energy, should have opportunity for
intellectual and moral development.
Here stands out the greatness of the man. What was the wisdom and
stretch of the forethought that in the desert sought to guard in advance
against the dangers of a settled state, let the present speak.
In the full blaze of the nineteenth century, when every child in our
schools may know as common truths things of which the Egyptian sages
never dreamed; when the earth has been mapped, and the stars have been
weighed; when steam and electricity have been pressed into our service,
and science is wresting from nature secret after secret--it is but
natural to look back upon the wisdom of three thousand years ago as the
man looks back upon the learning of the child.
And yet, for all this wonderful increase of knowledge, for all this
enormous gain of productive power, where is the country in the civilized
world in which to-day there is not want and suffering--where the masses
are not condemned to toil that gives no leisure, and all classes are not
pursued by a greed of gain that makes life an ignoble struggle to get
and to keep? Three thousand years of advance, and still the moan goes
up, "They have made our lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in
brick, and in all manner of service!" Three thousand years of advance!
Yet the piteous voices of little children are in the moan.
We progress and we progress; we girdle continents with iron roads and
knit cities together with the mesh of telegraph wires; each day brings
some new invention; each year marks a fresh advance--the power of
production increased, and the avenues of exchange cleared and broadened.
Yet the complaint of "hard times" is louder and louder: everywhere are
men harassed by care, and haunted by the fear of want. With swift,
steady strides and prodigious leaps, the power of human hands to satisfy
human wants advances and advances, is multiplied and multiplied. Yet the
struggle for mere existence is more and more intense, and labor is
cheapest of commodities. Beside glutted warehouses human beings grow
faint with hunger and shiver with cold; under the shadow of churches
festers the vice that is born of want.
Trace to their root the causes that are thus producing want in the midst
of plenty, ignorance in the midst of intelligence, aristocracy in
democracy, weakness in strength--that are giving to our civilization a
one-sided and unstable development; and you will find it something which
this Hebrew statesman three thousand years ago perceived and guarded
against. Moses saw that the real cause of the enslavement of the masses
of Egypt was, what has everywhere produced enslavement, the possession
by a class of the land upon which and from which the whole people must
live. He saw that to permit in land the same unqualified private
ownership that by natural right attaches to the things produced by
labor, would be inevitably to separate the people into the very rich and
the very poor, inevitably to enslave labor--to make the few the masters
of the many, no matter what the political forms, to bring vice and
degradation no matter what the religion.
And with the foresight of the philosophic statesman he sought, in ways
suited to his times and conditions, to guard against this error.
Everywhere in the Mosaic institutions is the land treated as the gift of
the Creator to His common creatures, which no one has the right to
monopolize. Everywhere it is, not your estate, or your property; not the
land which you bought, or the land which you conquered, but "the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee"--"the land which the Lord lendeth
thee." And by practical legislation, by regulations to which he gave the
highest sanctions, he tried to guard against the wrong that converted
ancient civilizations into despotisms--the wrong that in after centuries
ate out the heart of Rome, and produced the imbruting serfdom of Poland
and the gaunt misery of Ireland, the wrong that is to-day crowding
families into single rooms and filling our new States with tramps. He
not only provided for the fair division of the land among the people,
and for making it fallow and common every seventh year, but by the
institution of the jubilee he provided for a redistribution of the land
every fifty years and made monopoly impossible.
I do not say that these institutions were, for their ultimate purpose,
the best that might even then have been devised, for Moses had to work,
as all great constructive statesmen have to work, with the tools that
came to his hand, and upon materials as he found them. Still less do I
mean to say that forms suitable for that time and people are suitable
for every time and people. I ask, not veneration of the form, but
recognition of the spirit.
Yet how common it is to venerate the form and to deny the spirit! There
are many who believe that the Mosaic institutions were literally
dictated by the Almighty, yet who would denounce as irreligious and
"communistic" any application of their spirit to the present day. And
yet to-day how much we owe to these institutions! This very day, the
only thing that stands between our working classes and ceaseless toil is
one of these Mosaic institutions. Let the mistakes of those who think
that man was made for the Sabbath, rather than the Sabbath for man, be
what they may; that there is one day in the week on which hammer is
silent and loom stands idle, is due, through Christianity, to
Judaism--to the code promulgated in the Sinaitic wilderness.
It is in these characteristics of the Mosaic institutions that, as in
the fragments of a Colossus, we may read the greatness of the mind whose
impress they bear--of a mind in advance of its surroundings, in advance
of its age; of one of those star souls that dwindle not with distance,
but, glowing with the radiance of essential truth, hold their light
while institutions and languages and creeds change and pass.
That the thought was greater than the permanent expression it found, who
can doubt? Yet from that day to this that expression has been in the
world a living power.
From the free spirit of the Mosaic law sprang that intensity of family
life that amid all dispersions and persecutions has preserved the
individuality of the Hebrew race; that love of independence that under
the most adverse circumstances has characterized the Jew; that burning
patriotism that flamed up in the Maccabees and bared the breasts of
Jewish peasants to the serried steel of Grecian phalanx and the
resistless onset of Roman legion; that stubborn courage that in exile
and in torture has held the Jew to his faith. It kindled that fire that
has made the strains of Hebrew seers and poets phrase for us the highest
exaltations of thought; that intellectual vigor that has over and over
again made the dry staff bud and blossom. And passing outward from one
narrow race it has exerted its power wherever the influence of the
Hebrew scriptures has been felt. It has toppled thrones and cast down
hierarchies. It strengthened the Scottish Covenanter in the hour of
trial, and the Puritan amid the snows of a strange land. It charged with
the Ironsides at Naseby; it stood behind the low redoubt on Bunker Hill.
But it is in example as in deed that such lives are helpful. It is thus
that they dignify human nature and glorify human effort, and bring to
those who struggle hope and trust. The life of Moses, like the
institutions of Moses, is a protest against that blasphemous doctrine,
current now as it was three thousand years ago; that blasphemous
doctrine preached ofttimes even from Christian pulpits: that the want
and suffering of the masses of mankind flow from a mysterious
dispensation of Providence, which we may lament, but can neither quarrel
with nor alter.
Adopted into the immediate family of the supreme monarch and earthly
god; standing almost at the apex of the social pyramid which had for its
base those toiling millions; priest and prince in a land where prince
and priest might revel in all delights--everything that life could offer
to gratify the senses or engage the intellect was open to him.
What to him the wail of them who beneath the fierce sun toiled under the
whips of relentless masters? Heard from granite colonnade or beneath
cool linen awning, it was mellowed by distance, to monotonous music. Why
should _he_ question the Sphinx of Fate, or quarrel with destinies the
high gods had decreed? So had it always been, for ages and ages; so must
it ever be. The beetle rends the insect, and the hawk preys on the
beetle; order on order, life rises from death and carnage, and higher
pleasures from lower agonies. Shall the man be better than nature?
Soothing and restful flows the Nile, though underneath its placid
surface finny tribes wage cruel war, and the stronger eat the weaker.
Shall the gazer who would read the secrets of the stars turn because
under his feet a worm may writhe?
Theirs to make bricks without straw; his a high place in the glorious
procession that with gorgeous banners and glittering emblems, with clash
of music and solemn chant, winds its shining way to dedicate the
immortal edifice their toil has reared. Theirs the leek and the garlic;
his to sit at the sumptuous feast. Why should he dwell on the
irksomeness of bondage, he for whom the chariots waited, who might at
will bestride the swift coursers of the Delta, or be borne on the bosom
of the river with oars that beat time to songs? Did he long for the
excitement of action?--there was the desert hunt, with steeds fleeter
than the antelope and lions trained like dogs. Did he crave rest and
ease?--there was for him the soft swell of languorous music and the
wreathed movements of dancing girls. Did he feel the stir of
intellectual life?--in the arcana of the temples he was free to the lore
of ages; an initiate in the society where were discussed the most
engrossing problems; a sharer in that intellectual pride that centuries
after compared Greek philosophy to the babblings of children.
It was no sudden ebullition of passion that caused Moses to turn his
back on all this, and to bring the strength and knowledge acquired in a
dominant caste to the life-long service of the oppressed. The
forgetfulness of self manifested in the smiting of the Egyptian shines
through the whole life. In institutions that moulded the character of a
people, in institutions that to this day make easier the lot of toiling
millions, we may read the stately purpose.
Through all that tradition has given us of that life runs the same grand
passion--the unselfish desire to make humanity better, happier, nobler.
And the death is worthy of the life. Subordinating to the good of his
people the natural disposition to found a dynasty, which in his case
would have been so easy, he discards the claims of blood and calls to
his place of leader the fittest man. Coming from a land where the rites
of sepulture were regarded as all-important, and the preservation of the
body after death was the passion of life; among a people who were even
then carrying the remains of their great ancestor, Joseph, to rest with
his fathers, he yet conquered the last natural yearning and withdrew
from the sight and sympathy of men to die alone and unattended, lest the
idolatrous feeling, always ready to break forth, should in death accord
him the superstitious reverence he had refused in life.
"No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." But while the despoiled
tombs of the Pharaohs mock the vanity that reared them, the name of the
Hebrew who, revolting from their tyranny, strove for the elevation of
his fellow-men, is yet a beacon light to the world.
[Signature of the author.]
DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL[3]
By MARGARET E. SANGSTER
(1074-1001 B.C.)
[Footnote 3: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: David Rex. [TN]]
More than a thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era, in
a little farmstead in Palestine, there was rejoicing at the birth of a
son. Not the first-born, whose coming was a fit occasion for gifts and
feasting, not the second, the third, nor even the seventh. David was the
eighth son of Jesse the Bethlehemite. Jesse would seem to have been a
landholder, as his fathers had been before him, a man of substance, with
fields and flocks and herds. We first meet David, a ruddy, fair-haired
lad, tough of sinew and keen of eye and aim, keeping the sheep among the
mountains.
Two hundred years before David's day, a fair woman of Moab had brought a
new infusion of strength, a new type, into the princely line of Judah.
The blood of the daring children of the wilderness flowed in the veins
of those who descended from Boaz. Just as in modern times and in royal
houses a single feature, as a set of the jaw, a curve of the lips, a
fulness of the brow or the eye, is stamped upon a race by some marriage
of its heir with a strong woman of another race, so, it has always
seemed to me, that the poetry, the romance, the fire and the passion,
came with Ruth of Moab into the household of Boaz. For they were strong
and beautiful, these sons of Jesse, who had Ruth as their not remote
ancestress, and the mother-qualities live long and tell through many
generations.
Of Jesse's many sons, David was the youngest. His early life was spent
as was that of other boys belonging to his class and period. He must
have added to his natural abilities and quickness, rare talents for
attaining such knowledge as was possible, knowledge of all woodcraft and
of nature, knowledge of musical instruments, and acquaintance with arms.
Clean of limb and sure of foot, ready of repartee, fearless and alert,
he was, even as a boy, something of what he was to become in maturity,
one of the greatest men of his own or any age. Unique in some
capacities, versatile and varied in arts and accomplishments, at once
vindictive and forgiving, impetuous and politic, shrewd and impulsive,
heroic and mean, of long memory for wrongs committed, of decisive act
and incisive speech, relentless and magnanimous, strong and weak. A man
whose influence has never died out among men, and who is to-day a vital
force in the world of religion, of philanthropy, and of letters.
The short and ill-starred reign of Saul, the first king of the Jews,
chosen when the people had wearied of the theocratic style of
government, came to a speedy end. While yet the crown was on his head,
the favor of the Lord departed from Saul, and Samuel, the Lord's
prophet, was sent, 1064 B.C., to anoint his successor. The monarch was
virtually deposed, though still in power. Saul was like a man under
sentence of death who is still ignorant of his coming fate, and Samuel,
who entertained a strong regard for him, evidently cared little to carry
out the command received from God to discover the new king. Almost under
protest, the old prophet sought Jesse the Bethlehemite, great-grandson
of Boaz and the beautiful Ruth, and father of the sturdy set of stalwart
sons who passed in review before him.
The youngest of these, a lad herding sheep in the fields, ruddy and
goodly to look upon, bearing in his eyes the fearlessness of her who
left her father's house to follow Naomi's desolate fortunes, came from
the fields when he was sent for. Peaceful as was his shepherd's life in
general, it was not without its occasional spice of danger, as when a
lion and a bear, famished and furious and ravening for their prey, came
out of the wintry woods to devour the sheep. Then, as the sacred
chronicler tersely and with Homeric brevity tells us, the shepherd "slew
both the lion and the bear."
That strange possession, the Spirit of the Lord, came upon David from
the day of his anointing by Samuel, though it is improbable that he
understood then, or for long afterward, precisely what was the function
to which he had been consecrated. David was far older, and had dipped
deep into many cups, before he spoke or thought of himself as "The
Lord's Anointed."
The steps toward the throne were not smoothed for the boy's feet, though
his upward path was in a comparatively straight line. First, quite
naturally, it came about that he was sent for by King Saul, who was
afflicted with periods of melancholia which were charmed away only by
the sweetness of melody. David's harp, on which he played skilfully, was
the instrument of relief to Saul, and Saul looking on the young man
loved him, desired to attach him to his person, and speedily made him
his armor-bearer. Jonathan, Saul's son, grew so deeply attached to
David, that their souls were knit together in that strong friendship
which strikes its fibres into the soil underlying passion, and godlike
in its endurance. The friendship of the two young men passed into a
proverb, a proverb which is the crystallization of history. As David and
Jonathan, is friendship's strongest simile.
Of the episodes of this portion of David's life, the conflict with
Goliath is familiar to every reader. The youth, armed with a pebble and
a sling, slays the boastful champion, storming about in helmet and
greaves and brazen target, and the victorious hosts of Israel pursue the
defeated and flying Philistines hour after hour, till the sun goes down.
Saul, apparently forgetful of his former favorite and armor-bearer,
inquires whose son the stripling is, led proudly into his presence by
Abner, the captain of the host.
"I am the son of thy servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite," is the modest
answer.
Again, this time aroused by jealousy, Saul's moody fit returns and his
insanity is once more dispelled by David's harp. David becomes the
king's son-in-law, and Michal, the king's daughter, loves her husband so
dearly that she sets her woman's wits at work to save him when her
father's hot displeasure, in the summary fashion known to Eastern kings,
sends messengers to seek his life. Poor Michal, whose love was never
half returned!
The next chapter in David's history is a curious one. Anointed king over
Israel, he wanders an outlaw captain, hiding in crannies of the
mountains, gathering to himself a band of young and daring spirits,
reckless of peril, and willing to accept service under a leader who
fears nothing, and whose incursions into the adjacent countries dispose
people to hold him in wholesome terror. Again and again, in this
precarious Robin Hood life of his, David has the opportunity to revenge
himself upon Saul, but with splendid generosity puts the temptation
aside.
"The Lord judge between me and thee," he exclaims; "the Lord avenge me
of thee, but mine hand shall not be upon thee."
An interesting side-light is thrown upon this portion of David's career,
by the incident of his meeting with Abigail, a woman fair and discreet,
married to a sordid churl named Nabal. David and his band had protected
Nabal's fields from other rovers, and had been, so to speak, a wall of
fire between the churl's estate and the hand of depredation. But at the
time of the sheep-shearing the surly ingrate refuses food and drink to
the band of David, though the favor is most courteously asked. When the
rough answer is brought back, one sees the quick temper of the soldier,
in the flashing repartee, and the hand flying to the sword. Little had
been left to Nabal of barn or byre, if sweet-voiced and stately Abigail,
wiser than her lord, had not herself brought a present in her hand, and
with a gentle tongue soothed the angry warrior.
In days to come, Abigail was to be wife to David, after the custom of
the period, which attached a numerous harem to the entourage of a
chieftain or a king.
[Illustration: David calming the wrath of Saul.]
In judging of David, of his relations with women, and of his dealings
with his enemies, it is not fair to measure him by the standards of our
own time. His was a day of the high hand, and of lax morality. The kings
of neighboring countries knew no gentleness, no law but of
self-interest and of self-pleasing in their marriages, and in their
quarrels. Many of the alliances made by David were distinctly in the
line of political arrangements, bargains by which he strengthened his
boundary lines, and attracted to his own purposes the resources or the
kindly interest of other nations.
Reading of David's dashing forays, when he and his valiant two hundred
fought the Amalekites, chased the Philistines, took prisoners and spoil,
yet with rare wisdom ordained that, in the division of the spoils, those
who tarried at home by the stuff, the guard of wives and children,
should share equally with those who took upon them the pleasanter, if
more perilous, tasks of the battle, we are transported into the morning
of the world. These were days when the trumpets blew and the flags
fluttered, days of riotous health and the joy of life.
After the death of Saul and of Jonathan his son, David succeeded to the
throne. This story is very dramatic. The conquering Philistines affixed
the bodies of the dead heroes to their temple walls, and hung their
armor as a trophy in the house of Ashtaroth. But the valiant men of
Jabesh-Gilead came by night, took down the bodies and burned them, then
buried the bones, and wept over them for seven days. David himself
ordered to execution the messenger who brought him Saul's crown and
bracelet, confessing that his own hand had given the king the _coup de
grace_. His lamentation over Saul and Jonathan rises to the height of
the sublime. Never laureate sang in strains more solemn and tender.
But from this moment on the tenor of David's life was boisterous and
broken. He was constantly at war, now war that was defensive only, again
war that was fiercely aggressive. He had to face internal dissensions.
As his sons grew up, children of different mothers and of different
trainings, there came to the heart of the father, always most
passionately loving, such bitterness as none but great souls know.
Between David's house and that of Saul there was long and fierce
dispute, and never any real peace. Treachery, assassination, jealousy,
marked the course of these two houses, though David, to his lasting
honor, be it said, showed only kindness and rendered only protection to
the kindred of Saul. He could not control the cupidity or fierceness of
his retainers, but he gave the crippled Mephibosheth the household and
the income befitting a prince.
David was thirty years old when he began his reign. His first capital
was Hebron, where he was publicly anointed, after the custom of the
period. His reign lasted forty years, seven years and six months of
which he spent in Hebron. Observing the natural advantages of Jerusalem
as a stronghold, he took it after a sharp contest, and set up the throne
there, remaining there for thirty-three years.
In nothing did David display great abilities in a more marked manner
than in the choice of his generals and counsellors. Joab, Abishai, and
Zeruiah, Hushai and Ahithophel were all men of great administrative or
executive powers. They were not invariably faithful to David's
interests, but in the main they served him well, and to his "mighty men
of valor" he owed the debt for success that all great captains owe to
those who surround their persons, further their plans, and aid their
enterprises.
In the Second Book of Chronicles the honor-roll of David's heroes is
starred with undying lustre. Thirty captains are mentioned, among them
three mightiest, and the record of these valiant men is like the record
written of Thor and his followers in the legendry of the stormy
Norsemen. There was one who slew an Egyptian, a giant five cubits high,
with a spear like a weaver's beam, and the champion went down to the
combat armed with a staff only, disarmed the Egyptian, and slew him with
his own spear. Another slew "a lion in a pit in a snowy day." One sees
the picture, the yellow-maned, fierce-eyed lion, the white drift of the
blinding flakes, the hole of the pit, deep-walled and narrow, a fit lair
for the wild beast. The incident of the well of Bethlehem belongs here.
The king was spent and athirst, and he longed for a drink from the old
well by the gate. But when three mighty men cut their way sword in hand
through the enemy's host, and brought the precious water, the king would
not drink it, but poured it out before the Lord in libation. "God
forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should drink the blood of these men, that
have put their lives in jeopardy!"
If David had always been as noble! But men have the defects of their
qualities. These mighty men of earth have often, on one side or another,
a special liability to temptation. In the seduction of Bathsheba and the
cowardly murder of Uriah, her husband, David committed a sin for which
he was punished not only in the denunciation of Nathan the prophet and
the loss of Bathsheba's first child, but by the stings of a deep
remorse, which expresses itself in a psalm which is a miserere. Yet
Bathsheba became the mother of Solomon, and Solomon was the heir chosen
by the Lord to preserve the kingly line of David, and to maintain the
kingdom in great glory and splendor.
In the quaint language of the sacred scribes, we find David's frequent
battles graphically described. Rapid and pitiless as Attila or Napoleon,
he "smote" the Amalekites, and the Ammonites, and the neighboring
warlike peoples, and compelled them to pay tribute. He was not more
rapacious than France has recently shown herself to Siam, or than
England to India, and he was emphatically the "battle-axe of God." It
was enlightenment against savagery, the true religion against the
idolatries and witchcrafts of a false worship. In every way David
displayed statesmanship, not carrying on war for the mere pleasure of
it, but strengthening his national lines, and laying deep the
foundations on which his successor was to carry forward a kingdom of
peace.
It was not until Hiram, king of Tyre, sent cedar from Lebanon, on floats
down the Mediterranean, that David built him a house. The hardy soldier
had often slept with the sky for his roof, and the grass for his bed,
but as he grew rich and strong he needed a palace. With the pleasure and
security of the palace, the ceiled house, came the wish of the devout
soul to erect a temple to God. Never was sacrifice greater nor pain more
intense than that which the great king experienced when told that not
for him was to be this crowning joy, this felicity which would have made
his cup overflow. His hands had shed too much blood. He had been a man
of war from his youth. The temple on Mount Zion, a glittering mass of
gold and gems, shining like a heap of snowflakes on the pilgrims going
up to the annual passover, was to be the great trophy not of David's,
but of Solomon's time. David acquiesced in the divine ordering, though
with a sore heart. But he occupied himself with the accumulation of rich
materials, so that when Solomon came to the throne he might find much
and valuable preparation made.
The troubles of David's reign, gathering around him thickly, as the
almond blossoms of age grew white upon his head, were chiefly brought
upon him through dissensions in his family. Did so loving a father spoil
his sons in their early youth, or were they, as is probable, influenced
by the spites, the malignities, and the weaknesses of the beautiful
foreign princesses who were their mothers? In the rebellion of Absalom,
the king tasted the deepest draught of sorrow ever pressed to mortal
lips, and the whole tragic tale is as vivid in its depiction, and as
intensely real in its appeal to-day, as when fresh from the pen of the
writer.
The conduct of Absalom, whose beauty and vanity were equalled by his
ambition and his ingratitude, has made him forever infamous. He omitted
no act that could convict him of shameless infidelity to all that was
worthy a prince, and with an armed host he set his battle in array
against his father. One charge, reiterated again and again, showed the
depth of that father's heart--a heart like that of the Father in Heaven
for its yearning over ingrates and rebels:
"Beware that none touch the young man Absalom!"
Joab, of all men in the realm, least afraid of David and most relentless
when any one stood in his way, himself became Absalom's executioner,
when, David's people being victors, Absalom hung caught by his hair in
the boughs of an oak, unable to escape. Then it was a question who
should tell the king these tidings, which dashed the hearts of the
conquerors with a sudden pang. Finally a swift runner reached the
watch-tower, whence the old king looked forth, awaiting news of the day.
"Is the young man Absalom safe?" he asked
And Cushi answered, "The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise
against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is."
"And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate,
and wept; and as he went, thus he said 'O my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom my son, my son!'"
Long, long ago, these battles and sieges, these truces and victories,
were over forever on this earth. Egypt and Assyria, contemporary with
Israel in greatness, have perished from the memories of men, save as a
few marbles remain to tell their tale. The vitality of David is
imperishable, but not because he was a shrewd statesman, a doughty
warrior, or a captain of conquering armies. David the shepherd, David
the king, are of the past. David the musician, David the psalmist, is as
alive to-day as he ever was, the music of his harp still vibrating in
temples and cathedrals and in human souls. Those matchless hymns
antedating our modern era by so many shifting centuries, are lisped by
children at their mother's knee, form part of every religious ritual of
which the one God is the centre, and voice the love and prayer and
praise of every heart that seeks the Creator. With the intense adoration
and trust of the Hebrew, we too exclaim, "The Lord is my shepherd, I
shall not want," and "God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in time of trouble."
[Signature of the author.]
SOLOMON[4]
By REV. CHARLES F. DEEMS
(1033-975 B.C.)
[Footnote 4: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: A town. [TN]]
Looking down the vista of the past ages we see standing conspicuous
among men David, the father of Solomon. In David's case it is as if the
all-wise God had constructed in one human being an organ with all the
keys and stops possible to humanity, and as if the Holy Ghost had on
that organ with those keys and stops played every tune of every song
that all humanity may need to sing in life or death, or carry in memory
from earth to heaven. When we remember who Solomon's father was we are
helped to grasp the significance of the life and character of the son,
who, narrower indeed than his father, was yet more brilliant and more
intense.
In 1033 B.C., shortly after the death of David's first child by
Bathsheba, which was begotten in sin, a second child was born, whom
David called "Solomon," or "peaceful," probably with reference to the
peace between God and David brought about by the latter's deep penitence
for his sin against Uriah. But the Prophet Nathan, to whose wise and
tender care he was early committed, called him "Jedediah," or, "The
beloved of the Lord." If, as the best authorities are agreed, Solomon
wrote the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, he had still another name,
"Lemuel," which means, "to God," or "dedicated to God."
The great number and variety of traditions about Solomon extant in
Persia, Arabia, Abyssinia, and among the Jews and other peoples, is a
proof of the profound impression which he made on his age, and an
evidence of his greatness; for only the great among men beget many
traditions. Before taking up the authentic and credible history of
Solomon a few specimens of these traditions may well receive our
attention.
The Abyssinians claim that a son given to the Queen of Sheba by Solomon
was the founder of their imperial dynasty! In Persian literature Solomon
is a favorite character. With nothing to say of David, it has countless
stories of his gifted son. One alone, called "Solomon-Nameh," fills
eighty books. Arabia also claims Solomon as the Father of her kings, and
to this day, under the eastern sky dusky Arabs sit around the lonely
tent-fire and tell weird and wonderful tales of the wit, wisdom, and
wealth of Solomon. Legends of which he is the hero are also preserved
not only in Asia and Africa, but also in the remotest corners of Europe.
According to these stories he could interpret the language of birds and
beasts, was acquainted with the mysterious virtues of herbs and gems,
knew spells for casting out demons and charms for curing diseases,
possessed a ring which revealed to him the past, present, and future,
was acquainted with the arts of magic and by them made evil spirits his
slaves, who helped him with his vast buildings and other great
enterprises. It was with the assistance of demons called Jinns that he
built the gorgeous city of Persepolis; while other evil spirits,
rebelling, he conquered after a long and fierce struggle and immured in
dark depths and caves of the sea. But let us return to sober history.
The only trustworthy account of the wise king available, is that which
is written in the Bible and in the crumbling ruins of his great
buildings and public and private works in the East, especially in and
around Jerusalem.
He was ten years of age when the rebellion of his older brother,
Absalom, fell almost like a death-blow upon the brow and heart of his
aged father David, with whom he shared the perils of flight and a brief
exile. Not many years later Adonijah, another brother, with the
connivance of Joab, David's rugged old general, and Abiathar, the elder
high priest, attempting to steal the throne, Zadok the high priest,
Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the most famous and heroic of Israel's
captains after Joab, together with Bathsheba, the beautiful and
ambitious mother of Solomon, succeeded in thwarting Adonijah's base
designs and roused in David for a short time his old-time energy.
Whereupon he placed Solomon upon the throne while yet a young man only
fifteen or twenty years of age.
Upon taking up his sceptre Solomon first of all, removed his father's
enemies and the heads of the conspiracies which had been made against
the throne, not even hesitating to cut off Joab, whose deeds of prowess
had added a marvellous lustre to the military fame of Israel. Solomon
now sat secure upon his throne, the undisputed monarch of the wide
territory secured by the conquests of his great father. About this time,
in order to strengthen his kingdom, he married a daughter of the
Pharaoh of Northern Egypt, an alliance which pleased the people, for it
showed that their king was a king among kings. The end of this political
alliance, however, was not as brilliant as its beginning promised;
because, although Egypt was at that time the most mighty nation of the
world, because the most wealthy and civilized, yet it was divided into
two kingdoms, and after the lapse of years, the Pharaoh of the united
kingdom did not hesitate to become Solomon's foe because one of his
wives had been an Egyptian princess.
After removing the enemies of the throne, and marrying the daughter of
Pharaoh, Solomon repaired to the heights of Gibeon, six miles north of
Jerusalem, a spot far-famed as the home of the Tabernacle of the
Congregation, which was the original Tent of the wanderings. On the
brazen altar in front of the Tabernacle the young king offered to
Jehovah a holocaust of a thousand victims.
It was on the night after this magnificent sacrifice that the Lord
offered to Solomon, dreaming, his heart's chief desire. The wise and as
yet pious young king asking for wisdom, the Lord was so pleased that He
promised him not only wisdom, but also wealth, honor, and long life. He
had already been endowed with extreme personal beauty.
Immediately following this vision the wisdom of the king was tested in a
way which showed that his God was a faithful promiser. Into the royal
presence two women of bad character were ushered by the authorities,
bringing two babes, the one living and the other cold in death. In the
night the latter's mother had by accident smothered it, whereupon she
had stolen the living babe from its mother's side. In the morning a
bitter conflict was waged by the two women over the living child, each
wildly claiming it as her own. When the officers of the law were
appealed to they brought the case before their king, whose wisdom and
fitness to judge a great kingdom were now to be tried. As the spectators
of the dramatic scene looked on, it was with anxious curiosity, which in
a moment was turned into horror as Solomon ordered a stalwart attendant
to take a keen sword and cut the living little one into two parts and
give to each mother a half. One of the women appeared stolidly satisfied
with this arrangement, but the other sprang between the babe and its
executioner, and, weeping, pleaded that its life might be spared and her
rival be permitted to have the whole child. In this pity and tenderness
Solomon discovered the true mother heart, and to her gave the babe,
while the news of the marvellous wisdom of the new king spread like
wild-fire through Jerusalem and all Israel.
Solomon had now secured an assured place in the hearts of his subjects,
and was firmly seated on a throne from which for forty years he governed
Israel with a rule whose wisdom was surpassed only by its magnificence.
As it is impossible at this date to get at the exact chronological order
of the events of his life from the time that he ascended the throne, and
as it was remarkable for the fruits of peace rather than war, we may
best study it by considering his government, household, buildings,
riches, and writings.
[Illustration: Judgment of Solomon.]
Solomon's rule extended over a wide territory and over many peoples, for
it had been the glory of David that he fought successfully with and
subdued the enemies of Israel on every side. From the Mediterranean
Sea to the Euphrates, and from the Red Sea to the northern bounds of
Syria, the great son of David held sway, and thus was God's ancient
promise to Abraham fulfilled. (Gen. xv. 18.)
Solomon's government was Asiatic, that is it was an absolutism, marked
by luxury, display, and taxation so heavy as to amount almost to
oppression. Its luxuriousness and display are illustrated by his
seraglio, which included seven hundred wives (1 Kings xi. 3); and its
despotic nature is seen in such acts as his summary and severe
punishment of Adonijah, Joab, and Abiathar.
For the first time in the history of Israel, alliances were entered into
with other nations. We have already seen how Solomon had married an
Egyptian princess. Then he made a treaty with his neighbor on the
Mediterranean coast, Hiram, king of Tyre, who in exchange for corn
agreed to supply Solomon with timber for building the Temple and his own
magnificent palace. The timber was floated down from Tyre to Joppa
whence it was transported to Jerusalem or wherever needed.
At peace with surrounding nations, and with a thoroughly systematized
and centralized government, Solomon sat on his throne of ivory and gold
and looked around on his people, to see an astonishing increase of
population and a tremendous growth in business and wealth, especially
during the first half of his reign.
Entering his court and his household, one saw all things in keeping with
his Asiatic government: magnificent palaces, surrounded by beautiful
gardens; multitudes of slaves, each one having his work and doing it
with swiftness and precision; troops of courtiers, and a harem of seven
hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Around his gorgeous throne
stood his officers and attendants, in his stables were forty thousand
horses, and chariots in proportion. Whenever he went forth before his
people it was to dazzle them with his splendor. But, fond as he was of
display and of women, he nevertheless did not neglect the business of
his kingdom, a large part of each day being spent either in his
throne-room with his officials, or superintending his great public and
private works. Besides this no inconsiderable part of his time in his
home was given to study, meditation, and writing.
The king was one of the greatest builders of the ages. Among the
structures erected by him, easily first in splendor was the Temple. In
Solomon's Temple lies Solomon's true greatness and glory rather than in
his songs, his proverbs, his riches, and his outward splendor. It was
the bud whose blooming was in Christ and Christianity. Around it was to
be preserved the people chosen to save the true knowledge of their God
for the human race and produce the human nature of Jesus Christ,
humanity's incarnate God and Saviour.
The conception of a fitting, permanent, earthly abode for Jehovah, and
for the ark and the sacred symbols therein, was David's. He it was who
took the ark to Jerusalem and placed it in a temporary tabernacle or
tent while he collected money and materials for a great shrine. To aid
him in his great work David had already secured the friendship of Hiram,
king of Tyre, with whom, as we have seen, Solomon made a treaty, and
from whom he procured both workmen and materials for his great
enterprise.
The Temple was begun four hundred and eighty years after the exodus from
Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, or 1012 B.C., and was
completed in the twelfth year of his reign. Its site was Mount Moriah at
the point where Araunah's threshing-floor had been, and where the angel
met David at the time the plague was stayed.
The house of the Lord finished, Solomon built his gorgeous palaces. And
thirteen years after the completion of the Temple (991 B.C.) the people
of Israel assembled on the occasion of its dedication. This occurred at
the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, when a magnificent festival of two
weeks' duration was held. The priests bore the ark into the "Holy of
Holies" and deposited it under the wings of the cherubim. When they had
retired the cloud of glory filled the whole edifice, and thus proclaimed
the approving presence of Jehovah. Thereupon Solomon stood upon the
brazen platform which had been built for him and made his memorable
prayer. He thanked God for helping him to build the Temple; and prayed
that He would hear the prayers that should there be made. Scarcely was
his prayer ended when fire came down from heaven and consumed the
sacrifice which had been laid on the altar, and the awe-stricken
multitude bowed with their faces to the ground upon the pavement and
worshipped and adored the Lord, saying, "For He is good; for His mercy
endureth forever." (2 Chron. vii. 3.)
In keeping with the Temple were the gorgeous palaces on which for
thirteen years Solomon lavished time and toil and money. In the "Tower
of the House of David," as one of these was called, hung a thousand
golden bucklers; while in the great judgment-hall stood the far-famed
throne of the great king. (1 Kings x. 18-20.) Solomon's other buildings
were beautiful gardens and pools, and aqueducts and a luxurious summer
resort. He moreover, either established or built many important towns or
fortresses, among others being Tadmor in the wilderness, afterward
celebrated in history as Palmyra. Countless workmen and inestimable
wealth were involved in the building enterprises of the great king,
which included at the last, to his shame, rival temples to Moloch, and
the other false gods of his heathen wives.
Of course, Solomon's government, household, and buildings, as we have
considered them, involved the accumulation and expenditure of vast sums
of money. But the king's ambition, energy, industry, and business talent
rose to the height of these demands. From two sources he drew his vast
wealth, namely, taxation and commerce. He received large revenues in the
way of tributes from subject peoples, in addition to the increasingly
heavy taxes which he imposed on the people of Israel. Besides taxation,
the king increased his wealth by means of his great commercial
operations in the desert, which was the highway between the Orient and
the Occident, and by means of his two fleets, one on the Mediterranean
and the other on the eastern arm of the Red Sea, which provided a
waterway to both Southern Asia and Western Africa. So rich did Solomon
become from these sources that it is said that he "made silver and gold
at Jerusalem as plentiful as stones." (2 Chron. i. 15.) There was,
however, one fatal fault in Solomon's commercial policy: all the gain
went to the palace and the government. Herein lay one of the secrets of
the division and fall of the nation immediately upon the close of his
career.
Naturally, Solomon's commercial greatness, together with the pomp and
splendor of his court and government, carried his fame to all parts of
the earth. But that for which he received the greatest respect from
surrounding nations was his wisdom, manifested in many ways but chiefly
in his writings. One of the marked effects of David's long and vigorous
reign was to stimulate mental activity in the Hebrew mind. The great
foreign wars with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Sabeans, and the
surrounding nations, who were more or less advanced in a knowledge of
the arts and sciences, had the effect of widening the range of knowledge
of Israel as a nation, and of stirring her up to an ambition to excel
her neighbors in affairs of peace as well as in those of war. Solomon's
peaceful and wise reign, characterized as it was by commercial
prosperity, gave the people both the time and means for cultivating the
arts. In study and in wisdom the king was the leader of his day and
generation. He was learned in political economy, a great king. He was
learned in music and poetry, having composed some of the most beautiful
of the Psalms, such as the second. But in cultivating the fine arts he
did not neglect the physical sciences, for he was a botanist, writing of
all kinds of trees and plants; and he was a natural historian, writing
works on beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes. It would be most
interesting to see these science primers prepared by Solomon, and
compare them with what we see on the same subjects in our own day. But
the Bible has not preserved them, and they have long centuries ago
passed into oblivion. Solomon's knowledge was not of that shallow sort
which is limited to the sphere of earthly material, "seen things;" for
he was wise with that deeper knowledge which has for its object God and
the human soul, and their natures and movements in their natural
relations. This wisdom is illustrated and handed down to us in his
Proverbs of which we are told he spoke three thousand. A portion of
these is in the Book of Proverbs, the others are lost to us.
In his poetry also was crystallized much of his wisdom. This consisted
of one thousand and five songs, all of which have gone down in the flood
of years, with the exception of the Song of Solomon, which is an
epithalamium, in which pure wedded love is incarnated. It is a sort of
poetry of the family relations, and, therefore, worthy a place in the
sacred canon. Taken literally and read with a pure heart, it is
eminently fitted to spiritualize the family relations. This theory of
this much discussed portion of Solomon's writings by no means shuts out
the more spiritual use of the book, wherein we see in it the Church
represented by the bride and God by the bridegroom.
In Ecclesiastes we have the latest conclusions of Solomon's moral
wisdom. Read in the light of its general scope rather than the dim light
of detached portions, it appears as the confessions of a humbled,
penitent, believing, godly man, who, after piety followed by apostasy,
comes back to piety with the conclusion that after all, "the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
Through his writings and sayings Solomon's genius flashed from Jerusalem
into the surrounding darkness of the heathen nations, and lighted by its
rays, as mariners by the beacon in the light-house tower, there came of
all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth,
which had heard of his wisdom, (1 Kings x. 1-10.) The celebrated visit
of the Queen of Sheba is a deeply interesting illustration of these
royal visits to the court of Israel's splendid king.
Such was King Solomon the magnificent, and such the life of one of
earth's most famous men. But, after all, he is a striking illustration
of Plato's saying, that "Princes are never without flatterers to seduce
them, ambition to deprave them, and desires to corrupt them." So,
forgetting that as a king he was God's vicegerent, he lived more and
more to gratify his lusts and ambitions, and to please his flatterers,
especially his heathen wives. These finally seduced him into permitting
temples to be built to Moloch and their other false gods. This ended in
Solomon's becoming idolatrous himself. Then his wealth gradually melted
away, his allies plotted against him, and, in the midst of life, being
about fifty-eight years old, he died in the year 975 B.C., leaving a
terrible legacy to his sons: a corrupted religion, a depleted treasury,
and a discontented and broken people.
Although there is every reason to believe that Solomon died a penitent
man, yet his sins and the consequent wretchedness of soul, and the ruin
of his kingdom, teach most emphatically the weakness of human nature,
even when accompanied by the greatest genius, the perils of material
prosperity, and the real insufficiency of all possible earthly good to
satisfy the wants of the soul of man.
[Signature of the author.]
LYCURGUS[5]
By REV. JOSEPH T. DURYEA
(About 884-820 B.C.)
[Footnote 5: Copyright. 1894. by Selmar Hess.]
Scholars generally agree in the judgment that Lycurgus was a real
person. It is probable that he was born in the ninth century B.C., and
that, in the later part of the same century (850-820), he was an
important, if not the principal, agent in the reconstruction of the
Dorian state of Sparta, in the Peloponnesus. According to Herodotus, he
was the uncle of King Labotas, of the royal line of Eurysthenes. Others,
whom Plutarch follows, describe him as the uncle and guardian of King
Charilaus, and therefore in the line of Procles. Either way his
mythical lineage would be traced to Hercules. We are able to find no
trustworthy records of the circumstances of his birth, and of the
incidents of his childhood and youth. Plutarch, with all his diligence,
found nothing. Nor could he sift and blend the varying stories of his
later life and so construct a consistent and credible narrative, O.
Mueller says: "We have absolutely no account of him as an individual
person."
[Illustration: Lycurgus. [TN]]
Accordingly Lycurgus appears already in his maturity. We know what he
was only from what he did. He has this imperishable honor, that he did
something, and did it in such a manner and with such effect that the
memory of him and his deeds has lasted until this late time, and bids
fair to last throughout all time.
The following traditions concerning Lycurgus are commonly repeated.
Polydectes, his brother, was king in Sparta. After the king's death a
son was born to the widow. Lycurgus became his guardian and presented
him to the magistrates as their future king. He was suspected by the
queen's brother of a design to take the crown, and even of a purpose to
destroy his infant nephew. Accordingly he went into exile. He remained
some time in Crete, studying the institutions of the Dorian people of
that island. He travelled extensively in Asia and was especially careful
to observe the manners and customs of the Ionians. He found the poems of
Homer, transcribed and arranged them, and caused them to be more
generally known. The Egyptians claimed that he visited their country and
derived much of his wisdom from them. Meanwhile the affairs of Sparta
were in a critical condition and the king and the people alike desired
his presence and his aid in restoring peace and renewing the prosperity
of the community and the people of Laconia. Immediately upon his return
he entered upon the work of framing a constitution and reconstructing
the state. Notwithstanding much opposition and complaint from the
classes obliged to make concessions and sacrifices for the common good,
he secured the assent of the people to his legislation. Having seen the
system in working order, he announced his purpose to leave the country
for a period, and moved the citizens to take an oath that they would
observe the laws until he should return. He departed to remain away to
the end of his life, but first repaired to Delphi and obtained an oracle
promising prosperity to the Spartans, so long as they should maintain
faithfully the constitution.
Laconia was the southeastern portion of the peninsula. The soil was
mainly mountain land and meagrely productive under toilsome and careful
tillage. So much of it as was naturally fertile lay in the centre, shut
in from the sea by the mountains. At the time of the Dorian immigration,
it was occupied in part by the descendants of the old Pelasgian
population and in part by a mixed people which had come in at different
times and from various sources. Because of the limited area there was
already considerable pressure between the several elements. Accordingly
the Dorians and their Achaean and AEolian allies met with a stout
resistance, and established themselves after an obstinate and
long-continued struggle. They descended from the sources of the Eurotas
and forced their way into the plains in the midst of the land. They
seized the heights on the right bank of the river at a point where its
channel is split by an island and it was most easy to cross the stream.
The hill of Athene became the centre of the settlement. Their
establishment in the land was a slow process. It is said Laconia was
divided into six districts, with six capital cities, each ruled by a
king. The immigrants were distributed among the inhabitants and lands
were allotted to them, in return for which they recognized the authority
of the kings and engaged to support them in power. They seem to have
been adopted by the kings, as their kindred were in Crete, as the
military guardians of their prerogatives. The result was inevitable.
They who are intrusted to maintain power become conscious that it is
really their own, take formal possession of it, and exercise it for
their own ends.
Two leading families drew to themselves the central body of the Dorians,
rallied the rest, gathered them all at one point, and made it the centre
of the district and the seat of government. They were supported by
families of common descent and recognized by the people of the land, who
suffered no change in the circumstances of their life. These gave them
homage, paid to them taxes, and united with their kindred in celebrating
funeral rites at their tombs. Sparta became the capital of the whole
country, while the former capitals became country towns.
But there were difficulties in the way of the new regime. There were
conflicting claims between the two royal families. Both of them were in
collision with families in all respects their equals as to lineage and
rank. The older and newer elements of the mass of the population were
mingled but not yet combined. Everywhere there was friction, with
occasions enough for irritation and confusion. The descendants of the
primitive races were attached to their ancient ways. The Dorians were
not less, but more tenacious of their traditional customs. And they were
conscious of their vantage and knew they were able to insist on their
preferences. As the props of the royal houses they could hope to make
terms with them, or withdraw and let them fall, or turn to cast them
down. The kings were compelled, on the one hand, to exert themselves to
hold in control a subject people, and, on the other, to check the
headstrong Dorian warriors. There was danger of the disruption of the
kingdom, a lapse into anarchy, the rise of opposing factions, and a
conflict destructive alike and equally of the welfare of all classes of
the people.
There was need of a statesman who could comprehend the problem, find a
solution, commend it to the judgment of all classes, and gain their
cordial consent to the renovation of the state upon a more equitable
basis. He must be a man of large capacity, great attainments, thorough
sincerity, earnest devotion, generous and self-sacrificing patriotism.
He must have ability to conceive a high ideal, steadily contemplate it,
and nevertheless consider the materials on which and the conditions
under which he must do his work, maintain the sober judgment which
discriminates between the ideal and the practicable, and exercise the
rigid self-control which calmly renounces the best conceivable and
resolutely attempts the best attainable. He must have regard to the
ideas, sentiments, associations, sacred traditions, and immemorial
customs of the several races and classes of the people. He must be
prudently conservative and keenly cautious in shaping and applying new
measures and methods. He must study and comprehend the inevitable
oppositions of interests, and conceive modes of action which involve
reasonable concessions accompanied by manifest compensations. He must
ally himself with no party and yet command the confidence of all
parties. Whatever prior advantage he may have had in the matters of
birth, rank, and association, he must use to conciliate those who would
be asked to make the largest apparent sacrifices, and so turn it to
account for the benefit of those who might otherwise suspect and
distrust him and fall away from his influence. He must be able to
explain and commend the system he might devise, convince the several
parties of its wisdom, persuade them to yield their preferences and
accept the needful compromises, and move them to make a fair and full
experiment of its provisions. Such a man was Lycurgus, if we may trust
the persistent tradition that he was the framer of the new constitution
and the second founder of the Dorian state of Sparta. From time to time
the question has been raised, was the work of Lycurgus original or an
imitation, shaped perhaps by his observations among the Dorian folk on
the island of Crete? It does not matter what the answer shall be. The
statesman who fitly adapts may be as wise and skilful as he who invents
and creates. The man who loves his people, plans and labors for their
good, will not peril their welfare by his experiments, disdaining the
help of those who have wrought before him, and the guidance of his
contemporaries in examples, the benign results of which he may have had
opportunity to witness. The truth appears to be that Lycurgus had
respect to the reverence of the people for the ancient ways, and
retained as far as he was able the suitable elements of the primitive
polity of the Homeric age. This was based on the Council of Chiefs or
Elders and occasional meetings of an assembly of the people to listen
and learn, to assent and give heed. From whatsoever sources he drew, he
adapted the materials of his knowledge to the conditions under which his
structure must be shaped, the circumstances under which it must get on
its base and stand secure. Those who affirm the exemplary influence of
the Cretan polity, hold fast to the tradition that Lycurgus visited the
island and could not have failed to observe the features of society
there, and could not have expelled from his mind the similarity of
conditions among the two peoples and the expedients which the lawgiver
of Crete had employed to meet and resolve the difficulties he
encountered and secure the results he attained. It must, however, be
remembered that similar peoples with common traditions and customs,
under like circumstances may independently work out for themselves
systems of society analogous in many particulars and varying only by
adaptation to special conditions. If Lycurgus perceived what was
suitable to the exigency, wrought it into a plan, moved the people to
accept it, brought harmony out of discord, order out of confusion,
contentment out of unrest, prosperity out of impending calamity, and
rescued the commonwealth for the time, he deserved abundant honor and
still deserves a permanent rank among the notable statesmen of the
world.
The constitution was unwritten. Its provisions were expressed in forms
known as Rhaetra. The kings were retained. Their power was a guaranty of
unity. They maintained the continuity of civic life. Each was a check
upon the other. They were held under restraint by the senate. Its
composition and functions were now fixed. It met not only to deliberate
and advise, but to perform judicial offices. In case of capital offences
the kings sat with the elders, each having, with every other member, but
a single vote. The members were thirty in number, one for each of the
ten clans of each of the three tribes, the kings representing their
clans and sitting as equals with equals, though presiding at the
sessions. The elders must be of the age of sixty and upward, and were
appointed for life. The ancient division of the people was preserved;
the households were grouped in thirties, the thirties in clans, the
clans in tribes. Their capital was Sparta. It was not a compact walled
town. It stretched into the open country and Dorians lived along the
entire valley of the Eurotas. Not only those dwelling at the ford of the
river, but all were acknowledged as Spartans. The kings were required to
summon the heads of the families in the assembly once every month. The
place was designated. The session was brief. To encourage brevity there
was no provision for seats, but the freemen stood. Elders and other
public officers were chosen. Official persons made known new laws,
declarations of war and peace and treaties. The people simply voted aye
or nay. The decision was according to the volume of sound. The session
closed with a military review.
The army: The Dorians had entered the land and held their place in it by
force of arms. To maintain their power it was necessary to develop a
military system and maintain a body of vigorous and able soldiers. All
citizens were constituted guardians of the nation. To all their rights
was attached the duty of military service. They composed a standing
army. The valley became a camp. The men left their estates under the
management of the women. The wife cared for the home, reared the young
children, and superintended the laborers in the business of the farm.
The soldier could not leave the valley or enter it without announcement.
The older men visited their homes on "leave of absence," the younger by
stealth at night. Emigration was desertion punishable by death. To have
gold and silver was to risk the same penalty. The heavy iron money only
could be held, and this was without value in foreign parts. The soldier
was part of an animated machine. His simple duty was to obey. Speech was
repressed. It became abrupt, brief, pithy. Relief was found at the
Lesche, near the training-ground, where talk was often free and even
merry. The whole aim of the discipline was to form the soldier. Marriage
was delayed for the sake of vigorous offspring. The girls were trained
for motherhood. They were subject to a system of athletic exercises, and
engaged in contests of running, wrestling, and boxing. The boys were put
under training at the age of eight years. They became accustomed to
severe exercise, and were inured to patient and painful endurance. They
were compelled to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and fatigue, and to
bear torture without flinching or show of emotion. Their food was kept
almost within the limits of war rations. To increase the amount and
variety they were allowed to steal. But they were careful not to be
detected, lest they should be severely punished. Likely this was a
device for training them to stealthy and cautious movements. After the
time of their maturity they continued gymnastic culture. They hunted the
goats, boars, stags, and bears on the rugged heights of the Taygetus
range. There was no system of liberal education; mental growth and
development were not sought as ends. They were rather feared. Poetry and
music were used to a limited degree, so far as they might be made
conducive to forming the traits of the soldier.
While the Spartans were solely occupied in preparation for the art of
war, it is evident there must have been a population as wholly given to
the pursuit of the practical arts, or the community could not have
existed. There were two classes of laborers. The Perioeci dwelt in the
rural townships. They were mainly of the mixed population of the lands,
but there were Dorians among them. They were freemen; they held lands,
and enjoyed certain rights of local government, voting for their
magistrates in their townships. More and more they were trained for
military service and entered the ranks as heavy-armed infantry. Some of
them were shepherds and herdsmen. From them came all the skilled
workmen, who wrought in the quarries and mines, provided building
materials, shaped iron implements, made woollen stuff and leathern
wares. Their number was three times as great as that of the citizens of
the capital city. But over all their townships the Spartans held sway
through the kings, the senate, and the assembly. These facts exhibit the
civil polity which became so common during Greek and Roman times, and
obtained again in Italy after the fall of the empire and the barbarian
invasions, up to the time of the Renaissance.
The Helots were a rural people dwelling on the lands of the Spartans
which lay about the capital or in the Laconian towns. Some of them were
in the country as villagers and rustics when the Dorians came. They
remained upon their lands as they were before, but were forced to pay a
part of the annual produce of barley, oil, and wine. Some of them were
people made captive in the border wars. They were serfs. They were,
however, wards of the state. No one could treat them as personal
property. They could not be sold or given away. They belonged to the
inventory of the farm. Their taxes were defined by law. More could not
be exacted. They could not be harmed in person. They were of value to
the state and therefore protected. More and more they were needed in the
army, where they were respected and honored for energy and bravery.
Grote says they were as happy as the peasantry of the most civilized and
humane modern nations. They lived in their villages, enjoyed their homes
and the companionship of their wives and children, and the common
fellowship of their neighbors, with ample supply for their needs and
comfort from the surplus product of their labor and apart from the eye
of their masters. Still the Helot had in him the common sentiments of
our nature. His state was servile and mean. It was not to be expected he
would always remain content in his subjection to his superiors in social
and civil life. More and more his discontent would menace the stability
of the community. Especially when the exigencies of war should compel
his rulers to place arms in his hands and enlist him for defence against
the foreign foe, it would become necessary to keep close watch upon him
and to use strong measures for the repression of his impulse toward
freedom.
Judged by the highest standards, Lycurgus certainly did not form the
Laconians into an ideal nationality. He set up a military sovereignty in
the land, and this demanded that the citizens should be soldiers, live
in the camp, and devote themselves solely to the art of war. It is
likely he perceived the imperfections of the system, anticipated its
reflex effect upon the character and manners of the Spartans, and
foreknew its weakness and the consequent perils of the people when it
should inevitably be put to stress and strain by the aspirations of the
subject classes after freedom and social equality. Could he speak for
himself, he would doubtless say, with Solon, that he had not done the
best he knew but the best he could, that his constitution was
provisional and suited to the time, and that it was designed to serve as
a bridge over which his countrymen could cross a torrent and reach
safely the solid ground on which they might securely stand to rearrange
their polity and form themselves on a more equitable and generous basis
into a real and happy commonwealth.
[Signature of the author.]
THEMISTOCLES
(514-449 B.C.)
[Illustration: Themistocles. [TN]]
Themistocles, who raised Athens from a subordinate position to her proud
rank as leader of the Grecian States, was born about the year B.C., 514.
He was the son of Nicocles, an Athenian of moderate fortune, who,
however, was connected with the priestly house of the Lycomedae; his
mother, Abrotonon, or, according to others Euterpe, was not an Athenian
citizen; and according to most authorities, not even a Greek, but either
a native of Caria or of Thrace. The education which he received was like
that of all Athenians of rank at the time, but Themistocles had no taste
for the elegant arts which then began to form a prominent part in the
education of Athenian youths; he applied himself with much more zeal to
the pursuit of practical and useful knowledge. This, as well as the
numerous anecdotes about his youthful wilfulness and waywardness,
together with the sleepless nights which he is said to have passed in
meditating on the trophies of Miltiades, are more or less clear symptoms
of the character which he subsequently displayed as a general and a
statesman. His mind was early bent upon great things, and was incapable
of being diverted from them by reverses, scruples, or difficulties. The
great object of his life appears to have been to make Athens great. The
powers with which nature had endowed him were quickness of perception,
an accurate judgment of the course which was to be taken on sudden and
extraordinary emergencies, and sagacity in calculating the consequences
of his own actions; and these were the qualities which Athens during her
wars with Persia stood most in need of. His ambition was unbounded, but
he was at the same time persuaded that it could not reach its end unless
Athens was the first among the Grecian States; and as he was not very
scrupulous about the means that he employed for these ends, he came into
frequent conflict with Aristides the Just, who had nothing at heart but
the welfare of his country and no desire for personal aggrandizement.
In the year 483 B.C., when Aristides was sent into exile by ostracism,
Themistocles, who had for several years taken an active part in public
affairs, and was one of the chief authors of the banishment of his
rival, remained in the almost undivided possession of the popular favor,
and the year after, B.C. 482, he was elected archon eponymus of Athens.
The city was at that time involved in a war with AEgina, which then
possessed the strongest navy in Greece, and with which Athens was unable
to cope. It was in this year that Themistocles conceived and partly
carried into effect the plans by which he intended to raise the power of
Athens. His first object was to increase the navy of Athens; and this he
did ostensibly to enable Athens to contend with AEgina, but his real
intention was to put his country in a position to meet the danger of a
second Persian invasion, with which Greece was threatened. The manner in
which he raised the naval power was this. Hitherto the people of Athens
had been accustomed to divide among themselves the yearly revenues of
the silver-mines of Laurion. In the year of his archonship these
revenues were unusually large, and he persuaded his countrymen to forego
their personal advantage, and to apply these revenues to the enlargement
of their fleet. His advice was followed, and the fleet was raised to the
number of two hundred sail. It was probably at the same time that he
induced the Athenians to pass a decree that for the purpose of keeping
up their navy, twenty new ships should be built every year. Athens soon
after made peace with AEgina, as Xerxes was at Sardis making preparations
for invading Greece with all the forces he could muster. At the same
time Themistocles was actively engaged in allaying the disputes and
hostile feelings which existed among the several states of Greece. He
acted, however, with great severity toward those who espoused the cause
of the Persians, and a Greek interpreter, who accompanied the envoys of
Xerxes that came to Athens to demand earth and water as a sign of
submission, was put to death for having made use of the Greek tongue in
the service of the common enemy.
After affairs among the Greeks were tolerably settled, a detachment of
the allied troops of the Greeks was sent out to take possession of
Tempe, under the command of Themistocles, of Athens, and Euaenetus, of
Sparta; but on finding that there they would be overwhelmed by the host
of the barbarians, they returned to the Corinthian isthmus. When Xerxes
arrived in Pieria, the Greek fleet took its post near Artemisium on the
north coast of Euboea, under the command of the Spartan admiral
Eurybiades, under whom Themistocles condescended to serve in order not
to cause new dissensions among the Greeks, although Athens alone
furnished one hundred and twenty-seven ships, and supplied the
Chalcidians with twenty others; while the Spartan contingent was
incomparably smaller. When the Persian fleet, notwithstanding the severe
losses which it had sustained by a storm, determined to sail round the
eastern and southern coasts of Euboea, and then up the Euripus, in order
to cut off the Greek fleet at Artemisium, the Greeks were so surprised
and alarmed that Themistocles had great difficulty in inducing them to
remain and maintain their station. The Euboeans, who perceived the
advantages of the plan of Themistocles, rewarded him with the sum of
fifty talents, part of which he gave to the Spartan Eurybiades and the
Corinthian Adimantus to induce them to remain at Artemisium. In the
battle which then took place, the Greeks gained considerable advantage,
though the victory was not decisive. A storm and a second engagement
near Artemisium, severely injured the fleet of the Persians, but the
Greeks also sustained great losses, as half of their ships were partly
destroyed and partly rendered unfit for further service. When at the
same time they received intelligence of the defeat of Leonidas, at
Thermopylae, the Greeks resolved to retreat from Artemisium, and sailed
to the Saronic gulf.
Xerxes was now advancing from Thermopylae, and Athens trembled for her
existence, while the Peloponnesians were bent upon seeking shelter and
safety in their peninsula, and upon fortifying themselves by a wall
across the Corinthian isthmus. On the approach of the danger the
Athenians had sent to Delphi to consult the oracle about the means they
should employ for their safety, and the god had commanded Athens to
defend herself behind wooden walls. This oracle, which probably had been
given at the suggestion of Themistocles, was now also interpreted by him
as referring to the fleet, and his advice to seek safety in the fleet
was followed. He then further moved that the Athenians should abandon
the city to the care of its tutelary deity, that the women, children,
and infirm should be removed to Salamis, AEgina, or Troezen, and that the
men should embark in the ships. The fleet of the Greeks, consisting of
three hundred and eighty ships, assembled at Salamis, still under the
supreme command of Eurybiades. When the Persians had made themselves
masters of Attica, and Athens was seen in flames at a distance, some of
the commanders of the fleet, under the influence of fear, began to make
preparation for an immediate retreat. Themistocles saw the disastrous
results of such a course, and exerted all his powers of persuasion to
induce the commanders of the fleet to maintain their post; when all
attempts proved ineffectual, Themistocles had recourse to threats, and
thus induced Eurybiades to stay. The example of the admiral was followed
by the other commanders also. In the meantime the Persian fleet arrived
in the Saronic gulf, and the fears of the Peloponnesians were revived
and doubled, and nothing seemed to be able to keep them together. At
this last and critical moment Themistocles devised a plan to compel them
to remain and face the enemy. He sent a message to the Persian admiral,
informing him that the Greeks were on the point of dispersing, and that
if the Persians would attack them while they were assembled, they would
easily conquer them all at once, whereas it would be otherwise necessary
to defeat them one after another.
This apparently well-meant advice was eagerly taken up by the enemy, who
now hastened, as he thought, to destroy the fleet of the Greeks. But the
event proved the wisdom of Themistocles. The unwieldy armament of the
Persians was unable to perform any movements in the narrow straits
between the island of Salamis and the mainland. The Greeks gained a most
complete and brilliant victory, for they only lost forty ships, while
the enemy lost two hundred, or according to Ctesias, even five hundred.
Very soon after the victory was decided, Xerxes with the remains of the
fleet left the Attic coast and sailed toward the Hellespont. The battles
of Artemisium and Salamis occurred in the same year, B.C. 480.
When the Greeks were informed of the departure of Xerxes, they pursued
him as far as Andros, without gaining sight of his fleet, and
Themistocles proposed to continue the chase. But he gave way to the
opposition that was made to this plan, and consented not to drive the
vanquished enemy to despair. The Greek fleet therefore only stayed some
time among the Cyclades, to chastise those islanders who had been
unfaithful to the national cause. Themistocles, in the meantime, in
order to get completely rid of the king and his fleet, sent a message to
him, exhorting him to hasten back to Asia as speedily as possible, for
otherwise he would be in danger of having his retreat cut off.
Themistocles availed himself of the stay of the Greek fleet among the
Cyclades for the purpose of enriching himself at the cost of the
islanders, partly by extorting money from them by way of punishment, and
partly by accepting bribes for securing them impunity for their conduct.
He was now, however, the greatest man in Greece, his fame spread
everywhere, and all acknowledged that the country had been saved through
his wisdom and resolution. But the confederate Greeks, actuated by
jealousy, awarded to him only the second prize; at Sparta, whither he
went, as Herodotus says, to be honored, he received a chaplet of
olive-leaves--a reward which they had bestowed upon their own admiral
Eurybiades--and the best chariot that the city possessed, and on his
return three hundred knights escorted him as far as Tegea in Arcadia.
When the Persian army had been again defeated at Plataea and Mycale in
B.C. 479, and when the Athenians had rebuilt their private dwellings, it
was also resolved, on the advice of Themistocles, to restore the
fortifications of Athens, but on a larger scale than they had been
before, and more in accordance with the proud position which the city
now occupied in Greece. This plan excited the fear and jealousy of the
rival states, and especially of Sparta, which sent an embassy to Athens,
and under the veil of friendship, which ill concealed its selfish
policy, endeavored to persuade the Athenians not to fortify the city.
Themistocles, who saw through their designs, undertook the task of
defeating them with their own weapons. He advised his countrymen to
dismiss the Spartan ambassadors, and to promise that Athenian envoys
should be sent to Sparta to treat with them there respecting the
fortifications. He himself offered to go as one of the envoys, but he
directed the Athenians not to let his colleagues follow him until the
walls, on which all hands should be employed during his absence, should
be raised to such a height as to afford sufficient protection against
any attack that might be made upon them. His advice was followed, and
Themistocles, after his arrival at Sparta, took no steps toward opening
the negotiations, but pretended that he was obliged to wait for the
arrival of his colleagues. When he was informed that the walls had
reached a sufficient height, and when he could drop the mask with
safety, he gave the Spartans a well-deserved rebuke, returned home, and
the walls were completed without any hindrance. He then proceeded to
carry into effect the chief thing which remained to be done to make
Athens the first maritime power of Greece. He induced the Athenians to
fortify the three ports of Phalerum, Munychia, and Piraeus by a double
range of walls.
[Illustration: The victors of Salamis.]
When Athens was thus raised to the station on which it had been the
ambition of Themistocles to place it, his star began to sink, though he
still continued for some time to enjoy the fruits of his memorable
deeds. He was conscious of the services he had done his country, and
never scrupled to show that he knew his own value. His extortion and
avarice, which made him ready to do anything, and by which he
accumulated extraordinary wealth, could not fail to raise enemies
against him. But what perhaps contributed more to his downfall was his
constant watchfulness in maintaining and promoting the interests of
Athens against the encroachments of Sparta, which in its turn was ever
looking out for an opportunity to crush him. The great men who had grown
up by his side at Athens, such as Cimon, and who were no less indebted
to him for their greatness in the eyes of Greece than to their own
talents, were his natural rivals, and succeeded in gradually supplanting
him in the favor of the people. They also endeavored to represent him as
a man of too much power, and as dangerous to the public. The consequence
of all this was that in B.C. 472, he was banished from Athens by the
ostracism. He took up his residence at Argos, where he was still
residing when, in the same year, B.C. 472, Pausanias was put to death at
Sparta for his ambitious and treacherous designs, and his fate involved
that of Themistocles. The Spartans, in their search to discover more
traces of the plot of Pausanias, found a letter of Themistocles from
which it was evident that he had been acquainted with his plans. This
was sufficient for the Spartans to ground upon it the charge that
Themistocles had been an accomplice in his crime, and ambassadors were
forthwith sent to Athens to demand that he should suffer the same
punishment as Pausanias.
This charge was no less welcome to his enemies at Athens than the
discovery of his letter had been to the Spartans. Orders were
consequently issued to arrest and convey him to Athens; and foreseeing
that his destruction would be unavoidable if he should fall into the
hands of his enemies, he fled to Corcyra, and thence to the opposite
coast of Epirus, where he took refuge at the court of Admetus, king of
the Molossians. On his arrival the king was absent, but his Queen Phthia
received him kindly, and pointed out to him in what manner he might win
the sympathy of Admetus. When the king returned home, Themistocles,
seated on the hearth and holding the child of Admetus in his arms,
implored the king not to deliver him up to his persecutors, who traced
him to the court of the Molossians. It is stated that Themistocles was
here joined by his wife and children. The king not only granted his
request, but provided him with the means of reaching the coast of the
AEgean, whence he intended to proceed to Asia and seek refuge at the
court of the king of Persia. From Pydna he sailed in a merchant ship to
the coast of Asia Minor. At Ephesus he received such part of his
property as his friends had been able to wrest from the hands of his
enemies at Athens, together with that which he had left at Argos.
A few months after his arrival in Asia, Xerxes was assassinated (B.C.
465), and was after a short interval succeeded by Artaxerxes. Various
adventures are told of Themistocles before he reached the residence of
the Persian king. On his arrival he sent him a letter, in which he
acknowledged the evils he had inflicted upon his predecessor; but at the
same time claimed the merit of having saved him from destruction by his
timely advice. He added that his present exile was only the consequence
of his great zeal for the interests of the king of Persia. He did not
ask for an immediate interview with the king, as he was yet unacquainted
with the language and the manners of the Persians, to acquire which he
requested a year's time. During this period he applied himself so
zealously and with such success to these studies that at the close of
the year, when he was presented to the king, he is said to have excited
the jealousy of the courtiers, and was most kindly received by the king,
to whom he held out prospects of conquering Greece by his assistance.
The king became so attached to him, that Themistocles was always in his
company.
But death overtook him at the age of sixty-five, before any of his plans
were carried into effect. Most of the ancient writers state that he put
an end to his life by poison, or according to another strange story, by
drinking the blood of a bull, because he despaired of being able to
fulfil his promises to the king. The motive for his suicide is very
questionable. Reflection on his past life and upon the glory of his
former rivals at Athens, are much more likely to have rendered him
dissatisfied with life. Before he took the poison he is said to have
requested his friends to convey his remains secretly to Attica, and in
later times a tomb which was believed to contain them existed in Piraeus.
In the market-place of Magnesia a splendid monument was erected to his
memory, and his descendants in that place continued to be distinguished
by certain privileges down to the time of Plutarch.
PERICLES
(499-429 B.C.)
[Illustration: Pericles. [TN]]
Pericles, the greatest statesman of ancient Greece, was born of
distinguished parentage in the early part of the fifth century B.C. His
father was that Xanthippus who won the victory over the Persians at
Mycale, 479 B.C.; and by his mother, Agariste, the niece of the great
Athenian reformer, Cleisthenes, he was connected with the princely line
of Sicyon and the great house of the Alcmaeonidae. He received an
elaborate education, but of all his teachers the one whom he most
reverenced was the serene and humane philosopher, Anaxagoras. Pericles
was conspicuous all through his career for the singular dignity of his
manners, the Olympian grandeur of his eloquence, his "majestic
intelligence" in Plato's phrase, his sagacity, probity, and profound
Athenian patriotism. Both in voice and in appearance he was so like
Pisistratus, who had once overturned the Athenian republic and ruled as
a king, that for some time he was afraid to come forward in political
life. When he entered on public life Aristides had only recently died,
Themistocles was an exile, and Cimon was fighting the battles of his
country abroad. Although the family to which he belonged was good, it
did not rank among the first in either wealth or influence, yet so
transcendent were the abilities of Pericles that he rapidly rose to the
highest power in the state as the leader of the dominant democracy. The
sincerity of his attachment to the popular party has been questioned,
but without a shadow of evidence. At any rate, the measures which,
either personally or through his adherents, he brought forward and
caused to be passed, were always in favor of extending the privileges of
the poorer class of the citizens, and, if he diminished the spirit of
reverence for the ancient institutions of public life, he enlisted an
immense body of citizens on the side of law. He extended enormously, if
he did not originate, the practice of distributing gratuities among the
citizens for military service, for acting as dicast and in the Ecclesia
and the like, as well as for admission to the theatre--then really a
great school for manners and instruction. Pericles seems to have grasped
very clearly, and to have held as firmly, the modern radical idea, that
as the state is supported by the taxation of the body of the citizens,
it must govern with a view to general interests rather than to those of
a caste alone. About 463, Pericles, through the agency of his follower,
Ephialtes, struck a great blow at the influence of the oligarchy, by
causing the decree to be passed which deprived the Areopagus of its most
important political powers. Shortly after the democracy obtained another
triumph in the ostracism of Cimon (461). During the next few years the
political course pursued by Pericles is less clearly intelligible to us,
but it is safe to say that in general his attitude was hostile to the
desire for foreign conquest or territorial aggrandizement, so prevalent
among his ambitious fellow-citizens. Shortly after the battle of Tanagra
(457), in which he showed conspicuous courage, Pericles magnanimously
carried the measure for the recall of Cimon. His successful expeditions
to the Thracian Chersonese, and to Sinope on the Black Sea, together
with his colonies planted at Naxos, Andros, Oreus in Euboea, Brea in
Macedonia, and AEgina, as well as Thurii in Italy, and Amphipolis on the
Strymon, did much to extend and confirm the naval supremacy of Athens,
and afford a means of subsistence for her poorer citizens. But his
greatest project was to form, in concert with the other Hellenic states,
a grand Hellenic confederation in order to put an end to the mutually
destructive wars of kindred peoples, and to make Greece one mighty
nation, fit to front the outlying world. The idea was not less sagacious
than it was grand. Had it been accomplished, the semi-barbarous
Macedonians would have menaced the civilized Greeks in vain, and even
Rome at a later period, might perhaps have found the Adriatic, and not
the Euphrates, the limit of her empire. But the Spartan aristocrats were
utterly incapable of appreciating such exalted patriotism, or of
understanding the political necessity for it, and by their secret
intrigues the well-planned scheme was brought to nothing. Athens and
Sparta were already in that mood toward each other which rendered the
disaster of the Peloponnesian war inevitable. When the Spartans, in 448,
restored to the Delphians the guardianship of the temple and treasures
of Delphi, of which they had been deprived by the Phocians, the
Athenians immediately after marched an army thither and reinstated the
latter. Three years later an insurrection broke out in the tributary
Megara and Euboea, and the Spartans again appeared in the field as the
allies of the insurgents. The position of Athens was critical. Pericles
wisely declined to fight against all his enemies at once. A bribe of ten
talents sent the Spartans home, and the insurgents were then thoroughly
subdued. The thirty years' peace with Sparta (445) left him free to
carry out his schemes for the internal prosperity of Athens.
Cimon was now dead and was succeeded in the leadership of the
aristocratic party by Thucydides, son of Melesias, who in 444 B.C. made
a strong effort to overthrow the supremacy of Pericles by attacking him
in the popular assembly for squandering the public money on buildings
and in festivals and amusements. Thucydides made an effective speech;
but Pericles immediately rose and offered to execute the buildings at
his own expense, if the citizens would allow him to put his own name
upon them instead of theirs. The sarcasm was successful. Thucydides was
ostracized, and to the end of his life, Pericles reigned the undisputed
master of the public policy of Athens. During the rest of his career
"there was," says the historian Thucydides, "in name a democracy, but in
reality a government in the hands of the first man." And the Athens of
his day was the home of AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Anaxagoras,
Zeno, Protagoras, Socrates, as well as Myron and Phidias; while there
flourished at the same time, but elsewhere in Greece, Herodotus,
Hippocrates, Pindar, Empedocles, and Democritus. The centre of this
splendid group was Pericles, of whom the truthful pen of Thucydides
records that he never did anything unworthy of his high position, that
he did not flatter the people or oppress his adversaries, and that with
all his unlimited command of the public purse, he was personally
incorruptible.
Soon after this the Samian war broke out, in which Pericles gained high
renown as a naval commander. This war originated in a quarrel between
Miletus and the island of Samos, in which Athens was led to take part
with the former. The Samians, after an obstinate struggle, were beaten,
and a peace was concluded (439). The position in which Athens then stood
toward many of the Greek states was peculiar. Since the time of the
Persian invasion, she had been the leader of the confederacy formed to
resist the attacks of the powerful enemy, and the guardian of the
confederate treasury kept in the isle of Delos. Pericles caused the
treasury to be removed to Athens, and commuting the contingents of the
allies for money, enormously increased the contributions to the
patriotic fund, Athens herself undertaking to protect the confederacy.
The grand charge against Pericles is that he applied the money thus
obtained to other purposes than those for which it was designed; that,
in short, he adorned and enriched Athens with the spoils of the allied
states. To his mind Hellas was subordinate to Athens, and he confounded
the splendor of the dominant city with the splendor of Greece, in a
manner possible to a man of poetic imagination, hardly to a man of the
highest honor. His enemies, who dared not attack himself, struck at him
in the persons of his friends. Phidias was flung into prison for the
impiety of introducing portraits of himself and Pericles into the battle
of the Amazons depicted on the shield of the goddess Athena in the
Parthenon; the brilliant Aspasia, the famous mistress of Pericles, was
arraigned on a charge of impiety, and only acquitted through the
eloquence of Pericles on her behalf; while the aged Anaxagoras was
driven from the city.
It is unnecessary to give a detailed account of all that Pericles did to
make his native city the most glorious in the ancient world. Greek
architecture and sculpture under his patronage reached perfection. To
him Athens owed the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, left unfinished at his
death, the Propylaea, the Odeum, and numberless other public and sacred
edifices; he also liberally encouraged music and the drama; and during
his life, industry and commerce were in so flourishing a condition that
prosperity was universal in Attica.
At length, in 431, the long foreseen and inevitable Peloponnesian war
broke out between Athens and Sparta. The plan of Pericles was for Athens
to adopt a defensive attitude, to defend the city itself, leaving Attica
to be ravaged by the enemy, but to cripple the power of Sparta by
harassing its coasts. The story of the war must be told elsewhere; here
it is enough to say that the result was unfavorable to Athens for
reasons for which Pericles was only in small part to blame. He trusted
in the ultimate success of Athens, both from her superior wealth and
from her possessing the command of the sea, but he had not calculated
upon the deterioration in her citizens' spirit, nor upon the robust
courage of the Boeotian and Spartan infantry. Nor was his advice to keep
behind the city walls rather than face the enemy in the field, best
calculated to arouse the Athenians' courage. The plague ravaged the city
in 430, and in the autumn of the following year, Pericles died after a
lingering fever. His two sons had been carried off by the plague, he had
been harassed by a charge of peculation brought by Cleon, and the actual
infliction of a fine by the dicastery, while he had been without office
from July, 430, to July, 429, but before the last he recovered his hold
over the Ecclesia, and was gratified in the closing days of his life by
its legitimation of his and Aspasia's son.
As a statesman his greatest fault was a failure to foresee that personal
government is ultimately ruinous to a nation. He taught the people to
follow a leader, but he could not perpetuate a descent of leaders like
himself. Hence we cannot wonder, when days of trouble broke over Athens,
how that men spoke bitterly of Pericles and all his glory. Yet he was a
lofty-minded statesman, inspired by noble aspirations, and his heart
was full of a noble love for the city and her citizens. Plutarch tells
the story that, as he lay dying and apparently unconscious, his friends
around his bed were passing in review the great achievements of his
life, and the nine trophies which he had erected at different times for
so many victories. The dying patriot quietly interrupted with the
characteristic sentence: "What you praise in my life belongs partly to
good fortune, and is, at best, common to me with many generals. But that
of which I am proudest, you have left unnoticed--no Athenian has ever
put on mourning through any act of mine."
SOCRATES
From the French of FENELON
(468-399 B.C.)
[Illustration: Socrates. [TN]]
Socrates, who, by the consent of all antiquity, has been considered as
the most virtuous and enlightened of Pagan philosophers, was a citizen
of Athens, and belonged to the town of Alopece.
He was born in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad. His father,
Sophroniscus, was a sculptor; and his mother, Phanarete, a midwife.
He first studied philosophy under Anaxagoras, and next under Archelaus,
the natural philosopher. But finding that all these vain speculations
concerning natural objects served no useful purpose, and had no
influence in rendering the philosopher a better man, he devoted himself
to the study of ethics; and (as Cicero, in the third book of his
Tusculan Questions, observes) may be said to be the founder of moral
philosophy among the Greeks. In the first book, speaking of him still
more particularly and more extensively, he expresses himself thus: "It
is my opinion (and it is an opinion in which all are agreed) that
Socrates was the first who, calling off the attention of philosophy from
the investigation of secrets which nature has concealed (but to which
alone all preceding philosophers had attached themselves), engaged her
in those things which concern the duties of common life; his object was
to investigate the nature of virtue and vice; and to point out the
characteristics of good and evil; saying, that the investigation of
celestial phenomena was a subject far above the reach of our powers;
and that even were they more within the reach of our faculties, it could
have no influence in regulating our conduct."
That part of philosophy, then, whose province is the cultivation of
morals, and which embraces every age and condition of life, he made his
only study. This new mode of philosophizing was the better received on
this account, that he who was the founder of it, fulfilling with the
most scrupulous care all the duties of a good citizen, whether in peace
or in war, enforced by example the precepts which he taught.
Of all the philosophers who have acquired celebrity, he (as Lucian in
his dialogue of the Parasite remarks) was the only one that ever
subjected himself to the hardships of war. He served two campaigns, in
both of which, though unsuccessful, he served in person and exhibited a
manly courage. In the one, he saved the life of Xenophon, who when
retreating, had fallen from his horse and would have been killed by the
enemy, had not Socrates taking him upon his shoulders, removed him from
the danger and carried him several furlongs, till his horse, which had
run off, was brought back. This fact is related by Strabo.
In his other campaign, the Athenians having been entirely defeated and
put to flight, Socrates was the last to retreat, and showed such a stern
aspect that the pursuers of those who fled, seeing him every moment
ready to turn upon them, never had the boldness to attack him. This
testimony is given him by Athenaeus.
After these two expeditions, Socrates never set a foot out of Athens. In
this, his conduct was very different from that of the other
philosophers, who all devoted a part of their life to travelling, that
by intercourse with the learned of other countries they might acquire
new knowledge. But as that kind of philosophy to which Socrates limited
himself led a man to use every effort to know himself rather than to
burden his mind with knowledge which has no influence on moral conduct,
he thought it his duty to dispense with tedious travelling, in which
nothing was to be learned which he might not learn at Athens among his
countrymen, for whose reformation, besides, he thought his labors ought
to be devoted, rather than to that of strangers. And as moral philosophy
is a science which is taught better by example than by precept, he laid
it down as a rule to himself, to follow and practise all that right
reason and the most rigid virtue could demand.
It was in compliance with this maxim that, when elected one of the
senators of the city, and having taken the oath to give his opinion
"according to the laws," he peremptorily refused to subscribe to the
sentence by which the people, in opposition to the laws, had condemned
to death nine officers; and though the people took offence at it, and
some of the most powerful even threw out severe menaces against him, he
always firmly adhered to his resolution; thinking it inconsistent with
the principles of a man of virtue or honor, to act contrary to his oath
merely to please the people. Except on this single occasion, we know not
whether he ever acted in a civil capacity; but insulated as the occasion
was, he acquired such reputation by it at Athens, for probity and the
other virtues, that he was more respected there than the magistrates
themselves.
He was very careful of his person, and blamed those who paid no
attention to themselves, or who affected exterior negligence. He was
always neat, dressed in a decent, becoming manner; observing a just
medium between what might seem gross and rustic, and what savored of
pride and effeminacy.
Though furnished with few of the blessings of fortune, he always
maintained perfect disinterestedness by receiving no remuneration from
those who attended on his instructions. By such conduct he condemned the
practice of the other philosophers, whose custom it was to sell their
lessons, and to tax their scholars higher or lower, according to the
degree of reputation they had acquired.
Thus Socrates, as Xenophon relates, used to say that he could not
conceive how a man, whose object it was to teach virtue, should think of
turning it to gain; as if to form a man of virtue, and to make of his
pupil a good friend, were not the richest advantages and the most solid
profit with which his cares could be rewarded.
It must further be remarked that Socrates kept no class, as did the
other philosophers, who had a fixed place where their scholars
assembled, and where lectures were delivered to them at stated hours.
Socrates' manner of philosophizing consisted simply in conversing with
those who chanced to be where he was, without any regard to time or
place.
He was always poor; but in his poverty so contented, that though to be
rich was within the reach of a wish, by receiving the presents which his
friends and scholars often urged him to accept, he always returned them;
to the great displeasure of his wife, who had no relish for carrying
philosophy to such a height. In regard to food and clothes, so hardy was
his manner of life that Antiphon, the Sophist, sometimes reproached him,
by saying that he had not a slave so miserable as would be contented
with it: "For," said he, "your food is disgustingly mean; besides, not
only are you always very poorly dressed, but winter or summer you have
the same robe; and never anything above it: with this, you on all
occasions, go barefoot."
But Socrates proved to him that he was greatly mistaken if he thought
that happiness depended on wealth or finery; and that, poor as he might
seem to him, he was in fact happier than he. "I consider," said he,
"that as to want nothing is the exclusive prerogative of the gods, so
the fewer wants a man has, the nearer he approaches to the condition of
the gods."
It was impossible that virtue so pure as that of Socrates should have no
effect in exciting admiration, especially in a city such as Athens,
where that example must have appeared very extraordinary. For those very
persons who have not the happiness to follow virtue themselves, cannot
refrain from doing justice to those who do follow it. This soon gained
Socrates the universal esteem of his fellow-citizens, and attracted to
him many scholars of every age; by whom the advantages of listening to
his instructions, and engaging in conversation with him, were preferred
to the most fascinating pleasure and the most agreeable amusements.
What rendered the manner of Socrates peculiarly engaging was, that
though in his own practice he maintained the most rigid severity, yet to
others he was in the highest degree gentle and complaisant. The first
principle with which he wished to inspire his youthful auditors was
piety and reverence for the gods; he then allured them as much as
possible to observe temperance, and to avoid voluptuousness;
representing to them how the latter deprives a man of liberty, the
richest treasure of which he is possessed.
His manner of treating the science of morals was the more insinuating,
as he always conducted his subject in the way of conversation and
without any apparent method. For without proposing any point for
discussion, he kept by that which chance first presented. Like one who
himself wished information, he first put a question, and then, profiting
by the concessions of his respondent, brought him to a proposition
subversive of that which in the beginning of the debate had been
considered as a first principle. He spent one part of the day in
conferences of this kind, on _morals_. To these everyone was welcome,
and according to the testimony of Xenophon, none departed from them
without becoming _a better man_.
Though Socrates has left us nothing in writing, yet by what we find in
the works of Plato and Xenophon, it is easy to judge both of the
principles of his ethical knowledge and of the manner in which he
communicated them. The uniformity observable (especially in his manner
of disputing), as transmitted by these two scholars of Socrates, is a
certain proof of the method which he followed.
It will be difficult to conceive how a person who exhorted all men to
honor the gods, and who preached, so to speak, to the young to avoid and
abandon every vice, should himself be condemned to death for impiety
against the gods received at Athens, and as a corrupter of youth. This
infamously unjust proceeding took place in a time of disorder and under
the seditious government of the thirty tyrants. The occasion of it was
as follows:
Critias, the most powerful of these thirty tyrants, had formerly, as
well as Alcibiades, been a disciple of Socrates. But both of them being
weary of a philosophy the maxims of which would not yield to their
ambition and intemperance, they, at length, totally abandoned it.
Critias, though formerly a scholar of Socrates, became his most
inveterate enemy. This we are to trace to that firmness with which
Socrates reproached him for a certain shameful vice; and to those means
by which he endeavored to thwart his indulging in it. Hence it was that
Critias, having become one of the thirty tyrants, had nothing more at
heart than the destruction of Socrates, who, besides, not being able to
brook their tyranny, was wont to speak against them with much freedom.
For, seeing that they were always putting to death citizens and powerful
men, he could not refrain from observing, in a company where he was,
that if he to whom the care of cattle was committed, exhibited them
every day leaner and fewer in number, it would be very strange if he
would not himself confess that he was a bad cow-herd.
Critias and Charicles, two of the most powerful of the thirty tyrants,
feeling the weight of the allusion fall upon themselves, first enacted
that no one should teach in Athens the art of reasoning. Although
Socrates never had professed that art, yet it was easy to discover that
he was aimed at; and that it was intended thus to deprive him of the
liberty of conversing as usual, on moral subjects, with those who
resorted to him.
That he might have a precise explanation of this law, he went to the two
authors of it; but as he embarrassed them by the subtlety of his
questions, they plainly told him that they prohibited him from entering
into conversation with young people.
But, seeing Socrates' reputation was so great that to attack him and
serve him with an indictment would have drawn upon them public odium, it
was thought necessary to begin by discrediting him in the view of the
public. This was attempted by the comedy of Aristophanes entitled "The
Clouds," in which Socrates was represented as teaching the art of making
that which is just appear unjust.
The comedy having had its effect, by the ridicule which it threw upon
Socrates, Melitus brought a capital accusation against him, in which he
alleged; first, that he did not honor those as gods, who were
acknowledged such at Athens, and that he was introducing new ones;
secondly, that he corrupted the youth; that is to say, that he taught
them not to respect their parents, or the magistrates. The accuser
required that for these two crimes he should be condemned to death.
Enraged as the tyrants were (and especially Critias and Charicles)
against Socrates, it is certain that they would have been very reluctant
to condemn him, had he availed himself in the least of the favorable
circumstances in his case. But the intrepidity and resolution with which
he heard the accusation, refusing even to pay any fine, as that would
have been to avow himself in some degree culpable; and especially the
firmness with which he addressed the judges when called upon to state
the punishment which he thought he deserved, enraged them against him.
For, with confidence in his integrity, he answered them, "That he
thought he deserved to be maintained at the public expense during the
rest of his life." This whetted afresh the resentment of the thirty
tyrants, who caused him now to be condemned to death.
Lysias, a very eloquent philosopher, had composed an apologetical
oration that Socrates might avail himself of it, and pronounce it before
the judges, when called to appear before them. Socrates having heard it,
acknowledged it to be a very good one, but returned it, saying that it
did not suit him. "But why," replied Lysias, "will it not suit you,
since you think it a good one?"
"Oh, my friend!" returned Socrates, "may there not be shoes and
different articles of dress very good in themselves, and yet not
suitable for me?"
The fact is, though the oration was very fine and energetic, yet the
manner in which it was conducted, did not suit the uprightness and
candor of Socrates.
[Illustration: Death of Socrates.]
Now condemned to death, Socrates was put into prison, where some days
after, he died by drinking the poison hemlock. For this was the
instrument of death, then used by the Athenians, in the case of those
who were condemned for capital crimes.
According to Diogenes Laertius, Socrates was twice married, but of the
two wives he has given him, we know nothing except of the famous
Xantippe, by whom he had a son named Tamprocles; Xantippe rendered
herself celebrated by her ill-humor, and by the exercise which she
afforded to the patience of Socrates. He had married her, he said, from
a persuasion that if he were able to bear with her bad temper, there
could be nothing which he might not support.
He died in the first year of the 95th Olympiad, aged seventy.
DIOGENES
From the French of FENELON
(412-323 B.C.)
[Illustration: Diogenes. [TN]]
Diogenes the Cynic, son of Icesius a banker, was born about the 91st
Olympiad, in Sinope, a city of Paphlagonia. He was accused of having
forged money, in concert with his father. Icesius was arrested, and died
in prison. Alarmed at the fate of his father, Diogenes fled to Athens.
When he had arrived at that city, he inquired for Antisthenes; but the
latter, having resolved never to take a scholar, repulsed him and beat
him off with his stick. Diogenes was by no means discouraged by this
treatment. "Strike--fear not," said he to him, bowing his head; "you
shall never find a stick hard enough to make me run off, so long as you
continue to speak." Overcome by the importunity of Diogenes, Antisthenes
yielded, and permitted him to become his scholar.
Banished from his native country and without any resource, Diogenes was
reduced to great indigence. He perceived one day, a mouse running
briskly up and down, without any fear of being surprised by the approach
of night, without any anxiety about a lodging-place, and even without
thinking of food. This reconciled him to his misery. He resolved to live
at his ease, without constraint, and to dispense with everything which
was not absolutely necessary for the preservation of life. He doubled
his cloak, that by rolling himself up in it, it might serve the purposes
both of a bed and of a coverlet. His movables consisted of a bag, a jug,
and a staff; and wherever he went he always carried his furniture along
with him. His stick, however, he used only when he went to the country,
or on some emergency. Persons really lame were, he said, neither the
deaf nor the blind, but those who had no bag.
He always went barefoot, nor did he wear sandals even when the ground
was covered with snow. He endeavored also to accustom himself to eat raw
flesh, but this was a point of perfection to which he never could
arrive. He entreated a person of his acquaintance to afford him some
little hole in his lodging, to which he might occasionally retire. But
as he was dilatory in giving him a positive answer he took possession of
an earthen tub, which he always carried about with him, and which was
the only house he ever had. In the heat of summer when the fields were
scorched by the sun, he used to roll among the burning sands, and in
winter to embrace statues covered with snow, that he might accustom
himself to endure without pain the inclemencies of heat and cold.
He treated everyone with contempt. He accused Plato and his scholars of
dissipation, and of the crime of loving good cheer. All the orators he
styled "the slaves of the people." Crowns were, he said, as brittle
marks of glory as bubbles of water, which burst in the formation; that
theatrical representations were the wonder of fools only. In a word,
nothing escaped his satiric humor.
He ate, he spoke, he slept, without discrimination, wherever chance
placed him. Pointing to Jupiter's porticos on one occasion, he
exclaimed: "How excellent a dining-room the Athenians have built for me
there!"
He frequently said: "When I consider the rulers, the physicians, and the
philosophers whom the world contains, I am tempted to think man
considerably elevated by his wisdom above the brutes; but when, on the
other hand, I behold augurs, interpreters of dreams, and people who can
be inflated with pride on account of their riches or honors, I cannot
help thinking him the most foolish of all animals."
When taking a walk one day, he observed a child drinking from the hollow
of his hand. He felt greatly affronted at the sight. "What!" exclaimed
Diogenes, "do children know better than I do with what things a man
ought to be contented?" Upon which he took his jug out of his bag, and
instantly broke it, as a superfluous movable.
The province in philosophy to which Diogenes attached himself, was that
of morals. He did not, however, entirely neglect the other sciences. He
was possessed of lively parts, and easily anticipated objections.
[Illustration: Diogenes in his tub.]
As he was one day discoursing on a very serious and important subject
everyone passed by without giving himself the least concern about what
Diogenes was saying. Upon this, he began to sing. The people crowded
about him. He immediately seized the opportunity of giving them a severe
reprimand for flocking about him and attending with eagerness to a
mere trifle, while they would not so much as listen to things of the
greatest importance.
Walking out once at noon, with a lighted torch in his hand, he was asked
what he was in quest of. "I am searching for a _man_," said he. On
another occasion he called out in the middle of a street: "Ho!
_men_--_men_." A great many people assembling around him, Diogenes beat
them away with his stick, saying "I was calling for men."
Alexander passing through Corinth on one occasion, had the curiosity to
see Diogenes, who happened to be there at that time. He found him
basking in the sun in the grove Craneum, where he was cementing his tub.
"I am," said he to him, "the great king Alexander." "And I," replied the
philosopher, "am the dog Diogenes." "Are you not afraid of me?"
continued Alexander. "Are you good or bad?" returned Diogenes. "I am
good," rejoined Alexander. "And who would be afraid of one who is good?"
replied Diogenes.
Alexander admired the penetration and free manners of Diogenes. After
some conversation, he said to him: "I see, Diogenes, that you are in
want of many things; and I shall be happy to have an opportunity of
assisting you: ask of me what you will." "Retire a little to one side
then," replied Diogenes; "you are depriving me of the rays of the sun."
It is no wonder that Alexander stood astonished at seeing a man so
completely above every human concern. "Which of the two is richest?"
continued Diogenes: "he who is content with his cloak and his bag, or he
for whom a whole kingdom is not sufficient, but who is daily exposing
himself to a thousand dangers in order to extend its limits?"
Alexander's courtiers felt indignant that so great a king should do so
much honor to such a dog as Diogenes, who did not even rise from his
place. Alexander perceived it, and turning about to them said: "Were I
not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes."
As Diogenes was one day going to Egina, he was taken by pirates, who
brought him to Crete, and exposed him to sale. He did not appear to be
in the least disconcerted, nor to feel the least uneasiness on account
of his misfortune. Seeing one Xeniades, corpulent and well-dressed, "I
must be sold to that person," said he, "for I perceive he needs a
master. Come, child," said he to Xeniades, as he was coming up to
purchase him, "come, child, buy a man." Being asked what he could do, he
said he had the talent of commanding men. "Crier," said he, "call out in
the market, _If anyone needs a master, let him come here and purchase
one_."
Xeniades charged him with the instruction of his children, a task which
Diogenes performed with great fidelity. He made them commit to memory
the finest passages of the poets, with an abridgment of his own
philosophy, which he composed on purpose for them. He made them exercise
themselves in running, wrestling, hunting, horsemanship, and in using
the bow and the sling. He accustomed them to very plain fare, and in
their ordinary meals to drink nothing but water. He ordered them to be
shaven to the skin. He brought them with him into the streets very
carelessly dressed, and frequently without sandals and tunics. These
children had a great affection for Diogenes, and took particular care to
recommend him to their parents.
When Diogenes was in slavery, some of his friends used their interest to
procure him his liberty. "Fools!" said he, "you are jesting. Do you not
know that the lion is not the slave of them who feed him? They who feed
him are his slaves."
Diogenes one day heard a herald publish that Dioxippus had conquered men
at the Olympic games. "Say slaves and wretches," said he to them. "It is
I who have conquered men."
When it was said to him, "You are old, you must take your ease," he
said, "What? must I slacken my pace at the end of my course? Would it
not be fitter that I should redouble my efforts?"
When walking in the streets, he observed a man let fall some bread which
he was ashamed to lift. In order to show him that a man ought never to
blush when he is desirous to save anything, Diogenes collected the
fragments of a broken bottle and carried them through the town. "I am
like good musicians," said he, "who leave the true sound that others may
catch it." To one who came to him to be his disciple, he gave a gammon
of bacon to carry and desired him to follow him. Ashamed to carry it
through the streets, the man threw it down and made off. Diogenes
meeting him a few days after, said to him, "What? has a gammon of bacon
broken our friendship?"
After reflecting on his life, Diogenes smiling said: "That all the
imprecations generally uttered in tragedies had fallen upon him; that he
had neither house, nor city, nor country; and that, in a state of
indigence he lived from day to day; but that to fortune he opposed
firmness; to custom, nature; and reason to the disorders of the soul."
Diogenes was greatly beloved and highly esteemed by the Athenians. They
publicly scourged one who had broken his tub, and gave the philosopher
another.
He was one day asked where he chose to be buried after his death? He
replied: "In an open field." "How!" said one, "are you not afraid of
becoming food for birds of prey and wild beasts?" "Then I must have my
stick beside me," said Diogenes, "to drive them away when they come."
"But," resumed the other, "you will be devoid of all sensation." "If
that be the case," replied he, "it is no matter whether they eat me or
not, seeing I shall not be sensible to it."
Some say that having arrived at the age of ninety, he ate a neat's-foot
raw, which caused indigestion to such a degree that he burst. It is said
by others that feeling himself burdened with age, he retained his
breath, and was thus the cause of his own death. His friends coming next
day, found him muffled up in his cloak. Upon first discovering him they
doubted whether he were not asleep (which with him, was very unusual);
they were soon convinced that he was dead. There was a great dispute
among them about who should bury him; but when on the eve of breaking
out into open violence, the magistrates and old men of Corinth
opportunely arrived to appease the disturbance.
Diogenes was buried beside the gate lying toward the isthmus. There was
erected, beside his tomb, a dog of Parian marble. The death of this
philosopher happened in the first year of the 114th Olympiad, on the
same day that Alexander died at Babylon.
DEMOSTHENES[6]
By E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, PRES'T OF BROWN UNIVERSITY.
(385-322 B.C.)
[Footnote 6: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Demosthenes. [TN]]
Demosthenes, the foremost orator of all history, was born in Athens
about July in the year 385 B.C. His father, also named Demosthenes, a
manufacturer of swords, was a gentleman widely and justly esteemed. His
mother was Cleobule, the daughter of Gylon by a Scythian lady. The
father died when the son was about seven years of age, leaving an estate
of fourteen or fifteen talents, equal to some $200,000 now. The
guardians partly embezzled, partly wasted the property, and the young
orator's first law business, occupying several years, was the
prosecution of these criminals to recover what he might. His success was
but partial, yet his patrimony, with what he earned, always kept him in
relative affluence, spite of his expensive tastes and great public and
private munificence. As a boy he was weak, and did not avail himself of
the physical training then usual among Greek youth of good families. He,
however, employed the best teachers in his studies and his mental
education was thorough. To Thucydides and the old rhetoricians he was
ardently devoted, and these, with personal instruction by the orator
Isaeus, did most to form his style.
The early years of Demosthenes's manhood were spent in preparing
speeches for sale, in instructing pupils in rhetoric, and in the severe
and painstaking education of himself as a public speaker. His resolution
in overcoming obstacles is much dwelt upon by ancient writers. He at
first lisped and stammered and had a weak voice. To cure these faults he
enunciated with pebbles in his mouth and declaimed while walking uphill
and by the roaring breakers of the sea-shore. He shut himself in an
underground study, which he constructed for the purpose, and practised
going through long trains of thought there alone. "When he went out
upon a visit or received one," says Plutarch, "he would take something
that passed in conversation, some business or fact that was reported to
him, for a subject to exercise himself upon. As soon as he had parted
from his friends, he went to his study, where he repeated the matter in
order as it passed, together with the arguments for and against it. The
substance of the speeches which he heard he committed to memory, and
afterward reduced them to regular sentences and periods, meditating a
variety of corrections and new forms of expression, both for what others
had said to him and he had addressed to them. Hence it was concluded
that he was not a man of much genius, and that all his eloquence was the
effect of labor. A strong proof of this seemed to be that he was seldom
heard to speak anything extempore, and though the people often called
upon him by name as he sat in the assembly, to speak to the point
debated, he would not do it unless he came prepared." It is related that
when in speaking he happened to be thrown into confusion by any
occurrence in the assembly, the orator Demades, the foremost extempore
speaker of the age, often arose and supported him in an extempore
address, but that he never did this for Demades. Demosthenes was not,
however, the slave of manuscript or memory. He declared that "he neither
wrote the whole of his orations nor spoke without first committing part
to writing." There was said to be greater spirit and boldness in his
impromptu speeches than in those which he had elaborately prepared.
People thought that sometimes when he spoke out thus on a sudden, his
eloquence was inspired from above, as when once he uttered, in regular
though unpremeditated verse, the forceful oath:
"By earth, by all her fountains, streams, and floods."
Demosthenes's first speeches were harsh and obscure. The sentences were
too long, the metaphors violent and inapt. On the occasion of his first
set address before a public assembly he even broke down. He was,
however, indomitable in his determination and efforts to speak well, and
persevered until at last the most critical heard him with delight.
Notwithstanding certain defects which nice critics very early remarked,
such as undue vehemence, argumentation and intensity too long sustained,
and, in general, lack of variety and relief, Demosthenes's oratory is
worthy the exalted regard which the best readers have in all ages
accorded to it. His thought is always lucid and weighty, his argument
fair and convincing, his diction manly and solid. He never uses a
superfluous or a far-fetched word, never indulges in flowers,
word-painting, or rhetorical trickery of any kind. He shows no trace of
affectation, no effort to surprise or to be witty He depends for effect
upon truth logically and earnestly presented. If such a style,
everywhere perfectly kept up, was in any degree artificial, how
matchless the art which concealed the art! So plain and straightforward
are many of the speeches, that one is tempted to refer their wonderful
power when spoken to some richness of elocution not appreciable now.
Says Hume, treating of Demosthenes' manner, "Could it be copied, its
success would be infallible over a modern assembly. It is rapid harmony
exactly adjusted to the sense. It is vehement reasoning without any
appearance of art; it is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in
a continued stream of argument; and, of all human productions, the
orations of Demosthenes present to us the models which approach nearest
to perfection." ("Essay of Eloquence." Comp. Lord Brougham's Works,
vii., 59 foll.)
[Illustration: Demosthenes practising oratory.]
Demosthenes was between twenty-five and thirty when Philip of Macedon
began his astonishing career of conquest. It was soon clear that he was
to be the rival of Athens for the headship of Greece. Demosthenes became
the champion of the Athenian cause, and henceforth, so long as he lived,
used all his powers against Macedonian aggressions. Most of his best
speeches relate to this issue. His eloquence, argument, and personal
influence won nearly all the Grecian states to a coalition that, for a
time, successfully forbade Philip to set foot in Greece proper. Only
Thebes and Sparta stood out, and when Philip, daring them all, ventured
south and conquered Phocis, even the Thebans yielded to Demosthenes's
pleas and joined the league. In vain, however. At the decisive battle of
Chaeronea, B.C. 338, Philip was entirely victorious. The allies fled,
Demosthenes himself among them, leaving Philip to become at his leisure
the master of every city so far south at least as the northern confines
of Sparta. He might have realized his wish at once but for his excesses.
He drank himself drunk, dancing over his slain foes, and beating time in
maudlin song to the caption of the Athenian decree which Demosthenes had
procured against him. But it is said that when sober again he trembled
to remember "the prodigious power of that orator who had obliged him to
put both empire and life on the cast of a day." Two years after the
battle of Chaeronea Philip is stricken down by the assassin Pausanias.
Alexander mounts the throne, a youth of twenty. Greece flies to arms
against him, not dreaming that a greater than Philip is here. Marching
quickly against the Thracians and the Illyrians, who at once succumb, he
volts to smite rebellious Thebes and Athens, whom Demosthenes's
incessant appeals have again induced to take the field. In spite of him,
the Athenians now basely desert the Thebans, leaving them to stand the
entire fury of the war alone. Greece is thus soon quieted again, and the
boy warrior, leaving Antipater behind with a sufficient home guard,
crosses to Asia never to return. Once, later, when Harpalus, Alexander's
renegade treasurer, came to Athens with his bags of Asiatic gold, and
again after Alexander's death, it for a moment seemed possible to throw
off Macedonia's yoke. Each time the orator led in an attempt to do this,
but failed. Fined fifty talents for taking some of Harpalus' gold, he
fled from Athens, living for a time in Troezen and AEgina. The new hope
for the former Greek regime evoked by Alexander's death was brief.
Athens recalled Demosthenes and he made a successful tour of the cities
to rally them against Antipater. Antipater, however, was too strong, and
his victory at Cranon, B.C. 322, fully restored Macedonia's supremacy.
Pursued to Calaurea by Antipater's emissaries, Demosthenes fled for
refuge to the temple of Neptune there, took poison, which he had long
carried with him for that purpose, and died, aged sixty-two.
It is clear that both the Macedonian conquerors deemed Demosthenes their
most powerful foe. Drunk or sober, Philip thought constantly of him as
the great force to be reckoned with. When he with nine other deputies
visited Philip's court, it was Demosthenes's speech to which Philip felt
called to give special reply, treating him with argument, while
bestowing his choicest hospitality upon the others. AEschines and
Philocrates accordingly came home full of praise for Philip. He was
eloquent, they said, handsome, and could drink more liquor than any
other man. Demosthenes, showing for the nonce some wit, ridiculed these
traits, the first as that of a sophist, the second as that of a woman,
the third as that of a sponge. "The fame of Demosthenes reached the
Persian court; and the king wrote letters to his lieutenants commanding
them to supply him with money and to attend to him more than to any
other man in Greece; because he best knew how to make a diversion in his
favor by raising fresh troubles and finding employment for the
Macedonian arms nearer home. This Alexander afterward discovered by
letters of Demosthenes which he found at Sardis, and the papers of the
Persian government expressing the sums which had been given him."
(Plutarch.)
The moral character of Demosthenes was fiercely assailed during his
life, the chief charges being vacillation, unchastity, cowardice, and
the receipt of bribes. In weighing these accusations we must remember
that they were inspired by personal hatred, and that public life in
Demosthenes's day was characterized by almost inconceivable strife and
bitterness. There was probably considerable ground for all the
allegations, except, perhaps, that of infirmity in purpose. Plutarch
believes that the orator was "vindictive in his nature and implacable in
his resentments." But the same author wonders how Theopompus could say
that he was a man of no steadiness, since it appeared that "he abode by
the party and the measures which he first adopted, and was so far from
quitting them during his life that he forfeited his life rather than
forsake them." "He was never a time-server either in his words or in his
actions. The key of politics which he first touched he kept to without
variation." But he certainly lacked physical courage. At Chaeronea, a
battle which he himself had brought on, he fled ignominiously, throwing
away his arms. His cowardice was recognized in the inscription upon the
pedestal of the bronze statue which the Athenians erected to him.
"Divine in speech, in judgment, too, divine,
Had valor's wreath, Demosthenes, been thine,
Fair Greece had still her freedom's ensign borne,
And held the scourge of Macedon in scorn."
It is equally certain that he loved gold too well, and sometimes took it
when it should have burnt his hands.
For all this, Demosthenes's character was rather a noble one for that
age. Among the distinguished Athenians of the day, only Phocion's
outshone it. Nearly all that Demosthenes's foes cite to his discredit
seems weak considering the known vices of the period, while much of it,
as when they taunt him with always drinking water instead of wine,
implies on his part a creditable strength of will, which is further
attested by his self-discipline in mastering his chosen art. What, after
all, speaks the most strongly for the orator's character is the serious
moral tone of his orations. This cannot have been simulated, and hence
cannot have proceeded from a man with a vicious nature.
The esteem in which Demosthenes was held at Athens is seen in what
occurred soon after the battle of Chaeronea, an event which led to
Demosthenes' greatest oratorical effort. One Ctesiphon had proposed that
the people reward Demosthenes' public services by the gift of a golden
crown, and the senate had passed a bill to this effect, for submission
to the vote of the assembly. AEschines denied that the orator's conduct
gave him any right to be thus honored, and prosecuted Ctesiphon for
bringing forward an unconstitutional measure. After years of delay, the
trial came on in B.C. 330, AEschines delivering his famous address
against Ctesiphon, really an adverse critical review of Demosthenes's
public and private life to that time, to which Demosthenes replied by
his immortal Oration on the Crown. Demosthenes gained a surprising
victory. Although the judges were nearly all of the Macedonian party,
AEschines did not secure for his cause a fifth part of their votes, a
fact which, according to Athenian law, subjected him to a fine of a
thousand drachmas for provoking the litigation. He at once left Athens
and never returned.
The most recent judgment of Demosthenes as a statesman differs much from
that in which nearly all the standard English and American authorities
since Grote agree. Till lately it has been common to think of Athens as
a real democracy, favorable to freedom, the bulwark of liberty then for
Greece and the world. Philip has been deemed a mere barbarian, whose
victory was certain to be, and was, the death of Grecian liberty. This
being so, Demosthenes, in opposing Philip and his son Alexander, was not
only a sincere patriot but a wise one. This is the view of Greek
politics then which one gets from Demosthenes himself. Readers of his
masterly orations insensibly adopt it, without due reflection upon the
evidence now available to substantiate a different one. Demosthenes is
understood to argue for a constitutional form of government, which, to
all lovers of such, is an additional reason for siding with him. Grote's
history urges the same view in a most enthusiastic and unhesitating way,
and has had enormous influence in disseminating it. Thucydides, the
original Greek historian most read in our time, makes the fate of
everything good in Greece turn upon that of Athens. This great author so
trains us in his manner of thought as to disqualify us from coolly
considering the question whether the fortunes of Greece might not have
risen or fallen in some other way.
The present writer believes the above theory to be almost entirely an
error. Doubtless Demosthenes was honest, but he was mistaken in his
views of what was best for Greece and even for Athens. Philip and
Alexander, however selfish, were neither in purpose nor in fact so
hostile to Greek freedom as the mighty orator makes out. Inordinate
ambition possessed both. In this they are to be ranked with Napoleon and
Julius Caesar rather than with Washington. They, however, clearly saw the
vanity of the old Greek _regime_, the total uselessness of trying to
unify Greece or to make her independent of Persia through any of the
devices paraded by the politicians. Therefore, with patriotism and
philanthropy enough to give their cause a certain moral glow in their
minds, they set out by force of arms--the only possible way to
succeed--first, to unify Greece, and next, to make her eternally
independent of Persia. Since Gustav Droysen, in his "Alexander the
Great," led off with this theory, the best writers upon Greek history
have gradually adopted it, deserting Grote more and more. Droysen went
too far. With him Alexander was the veritable demigod whom he sottishly
decreed that his subjects should see in him. Droysen, of course, has too
little respect for Demosthenes's policy. Victor Duruy is the only late
writer of note who still blows the trumpet for our old orator as a
statesman. He says that "the result of the Macedonian dominion was the
death of European Greece," and he calls it the immortal glory of
Demosthenes to have perceived this; yet even he admits that "the
civilization of the world gained" by the Macedonian conquest, and hence,
after all, places himself, "from the point of view of the world's
history, on the side of Philip and his son." The tendency of writers
upon this period is thus to exalt the man with a great national policy
in his head though with a sword in his hand, at the expense of him who,
never so honestly, dinned the populace with his high-sounding pleas for
an obstructive course.
We are learning that republicanism or democracy, whichever one pleases
to call it, was in ancient times a very different thing from aught that
now exists under either name. The various republics of Greece and the
republic of Rome were nothing but oligarchies, often atrociously
tyrannical. Even at their best estate the rights of individuals in them,
of their citizens even, were far less perfectly guarded than in some
pretty absolute monarchies of later times.
"The Athenian imperial democracy was no popular government. In the first
place there was no such thing as representation in their constitution.
Those only had votes who could come and give them at the general
assembly, and they did so at once upon the conclusion of the debate.
There was no Second Chamber or Higher Council to revise or delay their
decisions, no crown; no High Court of Appeal to settle claims against
the state. The body of Athenian citizens formed the assembly. Sections
of this body formed the jury to try cases of violation of the
constitution either in act or in the proposal of new laws.
"The result was that all outlying provinces, even had they obtained
votes, were without a voice in the government. But as a matter of fact
they had no votes, for the states which became subject to Athens were
merely tributary; and nothing was further from the ideas of the
Athenians than to make them members of their Imperial Republic, in the
sense that a new State is made a member of the American Republic.
"This it was which ruined even the great Roman republic, without any
military reverses, and when its domination of the world was unshaken.
Owing to the absence of representation, the empire of the Roman republic
was in the hands of the city population, who were perfectly incompetent,
even had they been in real earnest, to manage the government of the vast
kingdoms their troops had conquered. In both cases the outsiders were
governed wholly for the benefit of the city crowd.
"The mistakes and the injustices which resulted in the Roman executive
were such that any able adventurer could take advantage of the
world-wide discontent, and could play off one city faction against the
other. It is not conceivable that any other general course of events
would have taken place at Athens, had she become the ruler of the
Hellenic world. Her demos regarded itself as a sovran, ruling subjects
for its own glory and benefit; there can therefore be no doubt that the
external pressure of that wide discontent, which was the primary cause
of the Peloponnesian war, would have co-operated with politicians
within, if there were no enemies without, and that ambitious military
chiefs, as at Rome, would have wrested the power from the sovran people
either by force or by fraud." (Mahaffy, "Problems in Greek History," 98
foll.)
In other words, however distressing the ills which might happen to
Athens through Philip's success, they could not be worse than those
which were sure to beset her in any event; while for Greece as a whole,
Philip's victory would mean unity and peace such as could have been
secured in no other way.
This splendid possibility, which must have impressed the minds of
Phocion and Philip, is obscured to our thought by the untimely death of
both the great Macedonian generals, before their plans had any time to
bear fruit. Desperate chaos follows Alexander's death of course; and
when, little by little, order is evolved, it is a new order, not the old
one. Never again does Athens sit there as a queen looking out upon her
AEgean, but her day of political glory is ended forever.
It is natural to trace all this wild disorder, involving the decline of
Athens, the wars of Alexander's successors, small and great, and also
the Roman conquest at last, to Philip's victory at Chaeronea. As we read
the tangled and bloody record, we say to ourselves: Oh, how much better
all would have been had the Athenians roused at the cry of Demosthenes,
and beaten Philip instead of being beaten! We assume that had this
happened Greece would have kept on its old splendid way, able to have
conquered Rome herself when Rome came. Philip ruined Greece; the advice
of Demosthenes, had it been followed, would have saved her.
Superficially considered, all this seems clever reasoning; but it is in
fact a stupendous fallacy. _Post hoc ergo propter hoc._ Philip conquered
and subsequently things went ill with Greece. A man looked at Mars and
subsequently had the cholera.
Let us no longer argue so childishly. The evils that befell Hellas were
not at all those which Demosthenes prophesied. They are no proof of his
foresight. From the point of view of his wishes they were entirely
accidental. To see this we need only inquire what would in all
probability have come to pass had Alexander lived. One may heavily
discount Droysen's adoration of the young conqueror, and yet, from what
he achieved while alive and the way in which he achieved it, believe
that immeasurable blessings to Greece and to humanity would have
resulted from a lengthening of his days. I cannot think it rash to
affirm that ten or twenty years added to Alexander's career would
probably have changed subsequent history in at least three colossal
particulars:
1. Probably Greece would have been more happily, perfectly, and
permanently cemented together than was the case, or could in any other
way have been the case.
2. Probably Greece would not only have been at last forever free from
Asia but would also have become Asia's lord, and this in a manner truly
beneficial to both lands.
3. Probably Greece would have ruled Rome instead of being ruled by Rome,
and this, too, in such wise as to have benefited both, and the world as
well.
[Signature of the author.]
ARISTOTLE
From the French of FENELON
(384-322 B.C.)
[Illustration: Two men sitting face to face. [TN]]
Of all the philosophers of antiquity, Aristotle was one of the most
celebrated; and in every seat of learning, his name, even at this day,
is held in esteem.
He was son of Nicomachus, a physician, and friend of Amyntas, king of
Macedonia, and was descended from Machaon, son of AEsculapius. He was
born at Stagira, a city of Macedonia, in the first year of the 99th
Olympiad. He lost his father and mother in his infancy, and was very
much neglected by those who had the charge of his education.
In his early years he dissipated almost all his patrimony in libertinism
and debauchery. At first he became a soldier; but the profession of arms
not suiting his turn of mind, he went to Delphi to consult the Oracle,
and fix his determination. By the response of the Oracle, he was
directed to go to Athens and pursue the study of philosophy. He was
then in his eighteenth year. For twenty years he studied in the academy
under Plato, and as he had spent all his inheritance, he was induced, in
order to procure a subsistence, to vend medicines at Athens.
Aristotle ate little and slept less. So strong was his passion for
study, that in order to resist the oppression of sleep, he kept at his
bedside a brazen basin, over which when in bed, he stretched one of his
hands in which he held an iron ball, that if he should fall asleep, the
noise of the ball dropping into the basin might awake him instantly.
According to Laertius his voice was shrill and squeaking, his eyes
small, his legs slender, and he dressed magnificently.
Aristotle was a man of acute parts, and one who easily comprehended the
most difficult questions. He soon became master of the doctrines of
Plato, and distinguished himself among the other academicians. No
question was decided in the academy without the opinion of Aristotle,
though it was often subversive of that of Plato. By all his
fellow-students he was considered as a prodigy of genius, and his
opinions were often followed, in opposition to those of his master.
Aristotle left the academy. This excited the resentment of Plato. He
could not refrain from treating him as a rebel, comparing him to the
chick which pecks its dam.
The Athenians appointed him ambassador to Philip, king of Macedonia,
father of Alexander the Great. Aristotle, having spent some time in
Macedonia in settling the affairs of the Athenians, found, upon his
return, that Xenocrates had been chosen master of the academy. Seeing
that place thus filled he said, "It would be a shame for me to be
silent, when Xenocrates speaks." He accordingly established a new sect,
and taught doctrines different from those of his master Plato.
The celebrity of Aristotle, who now surpassed all his contemporaries in
every kind of science, especially in the departments of philosophy and
politics, induced Philip, king of Macedonia, to offer him the care of
the education of his son Alexander, then fourteen years of age.
Aristotle accepted. He continued Alexander's preceptor for eight years;
and according to the testimony of Plutarch, taught him some secret
doctrines which he communicated to none other.
The study of philosophy did not render the manners of Aristotle austere.
He applied to business, and took an interest in everything that passed
at the court of Macedonia. From respect to this philosopher, Philip
rebuilt Stagira, his native city, which had been destroyed during the
wars, and restored to their possessions all the inhabitants, of whom
some had fled and others had been reduced to slavery.
When Alexander's education was finished, Aristotle returned to Athens,
where he was well received on account of the mildness with which, for
his sake, that city had been treated by Philip. He fixed upon a place in
the Lyceum highly beautified with avenues of trees, where he established
his school. He used to walk about when teaching and from this
circumstance his sect was called _Peripatetic_. The Lyceum was soon
thronged by a concourse of students whom Aristotle's reputation had
drawn together from every quarter of Greece.
Alexander recommended to him to attend particularly to experiments in
physical science. To facilitate his observations he sent him, besides
800 talents to defray expenses, a great number of huntsmen and fishermen
to supply him from every quarter with subjects for experiment.
At that time Aristotle published his books of physics and metaphysics.
Of this, Alexander who was now in Asia, got information. That ambitious
prince, desirous of being in everything the first man in the world, was
dissatisfied that the learning of his master should become common.
He showed his resentment by the following letter: "You have not done
well in publishing your books on speculative science. If what you taught
me be taught to men of all ranks, I shall then have nothing but in
common with others. But I would have you consider that I had rather be
superior to other men in abstract and secret knowledge, than to surpass
them in power."
To appease this prince Aristotle sent him for answer, that he had
published his books, but in such a way that in fact they were not
published. By this he apparently meant, that his doctrines were laid
down in a manner so embarrassed that it was impossible for any one ever
to understand them.
Aristotle carefully investigated that question, the great object of
moral philosophy, how men might be rendered happy in the present world.
In the first place, he refutes the opinion of the voluptuous, who make
happiness to consist in corporal pleasures. "Not only," said he, "are
these pleasures fleeting, they are also succeeded by disgust; and while
they enfeeble the body they debase the mind."
He next rejects the opinion of the ambitious, who place happiness in
honors, and, with this object in view, pay no regard to the maxims of
equity or the restraints of law. "Honor," he said, "exists in him who
honors." "The ambitious," he adds, "desire to be honored in consequence
of some virtue of which they wish themselves supposed to be possessed;
that consequently, happiness consists in virtue, rather than in honors,
especially as these are external and do not depend upon ourselves."
In the last place, he refutes the system of the avaricious, who
constitute riches the supreme good. "Riches," he said, "are not
desirable on their own account; they render him who possesses them
unhappy, because he is afraid to use them. In order to render them
really useful it is necessary to use and to distribute them, and not to
place happiness in what is in itself detestable and not worth the
having."
The opinion of Aristotle is, that happiness consists in the most perfect
exercise of the understanding and the practice of the virtues. The most
noble exercise of the understanding, he considered to be speculation
concerning natural objects; the heavens, the stars, nature, and chiefly
the First Being. He observed, however, that without a competency of the
good things of fortune suited to a man's situation in life, it was
impossible to be perfectly happy, because without this we could neither
have time to pursue speculation, nor opportunity to practise the
virtues. Thus, for example, one could not please his friends; and to do
good to those whom we love is always one of the highest enjoyments of
life.
"Happiness depends therefore," he said, "on three things: the goods of
mind, as wisdom and prudence; the goods of the body, as beauty, health,
strength; and the goods of fortune, as riches and nobility." Virtue he
maintained, is not sufficient to render men happy; the goods of the body
and of fortune are absolutely necessary; and a wise man would be unhappy
were he to want riches or if his share of them were insufficient.
He affirmed, on the other hand: "Vice is sufficient to render men
unhappy. Though in the greatest affluence and enjoying every other
advantage, it is impossible for a man ever to be happy while the slave
of vice. The wise man is not wholly exempted from the ills of life, but
his share of them is small." "The virtues and vices," he said, "are not
incompatible, for the same man, though intemperate, may be just and
prudent."
He mentions three kinds of friendship; one of relationship, another of
inclination, and a third of hospitality.
Elegant literature, he thinks, contributes greatly to produce a love of
virtue; and the cultivation of letters he affirms to be the greatest
consolation of age.
Like Plato, he admitted the existence of a Supreme Being, to whom he
attributed providence.
In his politics, he maintains that the monarchical form of government is
the most perfect, because in other forms there are more rulers than one.
An army under the conduct of one able commander, succeeds better than
one conducted by several leaders; and while deputies, or chief men, are
employed in assembling and deliberating, a monarch has already finished
an expedition and executed his designs. The rulers of a republic do not
care though they should ruin the state, provided they enrich themselves.
Jealousies are engendered, divisions arise, and the republic is in
danger of being finally destroyed and overthrown. In a monarchy, on the
other hand, the interests of the prince are those of the state; and the
state of course must flourish.
Aristotle was one day asked, "What does a man gain by telling a lie?"
"Not to be believed," said he, "even when he tells the truth."
Having been blamed for giving alms to a bad man, he said: "It is not
because he is bad, but because he is a man, that I have compassion for
him."
To his friends and scholars he used to say, that knowledge is to the
soul what light is to the eyes; and that mellowness of the fruit makes
up for the bitterness of the root. When irritated against the Athenians,
he reproached them with neglecting their _laws_, and using their _corn_;
though possessed of the former, as well as the latter.
He was one day asked, "What it is that is soonest effaced?" "Gratitude,"
replied he. "What is hope?" "A waking man's dream."
Diogenes presented Aristotle with a fig. Aristotle very well knew that
were he to refuse it, Diogenes would level his wit against him. He took
the fig, therefore, and with a smile said, "Diogenes has at once lost
his fig and the use he intended to make of it."
He said there were three things very necessary to children: Genius,
exercise, and instruction. When asked the difference between the learned
and the ignorant, he replied: "The same as between the living and the
dead." "Knowledge," he said, "is an ornament in prosperity, and in
adversity a refuge. Those who give children a good education, are much
more their fathers than those who have begotten them; the latter
communicate mere life to them; the former put it in their power to spend
it comfortably." "Beauty," said he, "is a recommendation infinitely
stronger than any kind of learning."
He was one day asked, What pupils should do to turn their instructions
to the greatest advantage? "They must," said he, "always keep in view
those before them, and never look back to those behind them."
A certain person was one day boasting of being the citizen of an
illustrious state. "Do not value yourself upon that," said Aristotle;
"rather ask yourself whether you deserve to be so?"
Reflecting on human life, he sometimes said: "There are some who amass
riches with as much avidity as if they were to live forever; others are
as careless about their possessions as if they were to die to-morrow."
When asked, what is a friend? he replied, "One soul animating two
bodies." "How," said one to him, "ought we to act to our friends?" "As
we would have them to act toward us," replied Aristotle. He used
frequently to exclaim, "Ah! my friends, there is not a friend in the
world!"
He was one day asked, "How it comes that we prefer beautiful women to
those who are ugly?" "You now ask a blind man's question," returned
Aristotle.
He was asked what advantage he had derived from philosophy? "To do
voluntarily," replied he, "what others do through fear of the laws."
It is said that during his stay at Athens he was intimate with an able
Jew, by whom he was accurately instructed in the science and religion of
the Egyptians, for the acquisition of which everyone at that time used
to go to Egypt itself.
Having taught in the Lyceum for thirteen years with great reputation,
Aristotle was accused of impiety by Eurimedon, priest of Ceres. He was
so overwhelmed with the recollection of what Socrates had suffered that
he hastily left Athens and retired to Chalcis in Euboea. It is said by
some that he there died of vexation because he could not discover the
cause of the flux and reflux of the Euripus. By others it is added that
he threw himself into that sea, and when falling said, "Let the Euripus
receive me since I cannot comprehend it." And lastly, it is affirmed by
others that he died of a colic in the sixty-third year of his age, two
years after the death of his pupil, Alexander the Great.
By the Stagirites, altars were erected to him as a god.
Aristotle made a will, of which Antipater was appointed the executor. He
left a son called Nicomachus, and a daughter who was married to a
grandson of Demaratus, king of Lacedaemonia.
ARCHIMEDES
By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.
(287-212 B.C.)
[Illustration: A boat. [TN]]
It is scarcely possible to view the vast steamships of our day without
reflecting that to a great master of mechanics, upward of two thousand
years since, we in part owe the invention of the machine by which these
mighty vessels are propelled upon the wide world of waters. This power
is an application of "the Screw of Archimedes," the most celebrated of
the Greek geometricians. He was born in Sicily, in the Corinthian colony
of Syracuse, in the year 287 B.C., and when a very young man, was
fortunate enough to enjoy the patronage of his relative Hiero, the
reigning prince of Syracuse.
The ancients attribute to Archimedes more than forty mechanical
inventions--among which are the endless screw; the combination of
pulleys; an hydraulic organ, according to Tertullian; a machine called
the HELIX, or screw, for launching ships; and a machine called
_loculus_, which appears to have consisted of forty pieces, by the
putting together of which various objects could be framed, and which
were used by boys as a sort of artificial memory.
Archimedes is said to have obtained the friendship and confidence of
Hiero by the following incident. The king had delivered a certain weight
of gold to a workman, to be made into a crown. When the crown was made
and sent to the king, a suspicion arose in the royal mind that the gold
had been adulterated by the alloy of a baser metal, and he applied to
Archimedes for his assistance in detecting the imposture; the difficulty
was to measure the bulk of the crown without melting it into a regular
figure; for silver being, weight for weight, of greater bulk than gold,
any alloy of the former in place of an equal weight of the latter would
necessarily increase the bulk of the crown; and at that time there was
no known means of testing the purity of metal. Archimedes, after many
unsuccessful attempts, was about to abandon the subject altogether, when
the following circumstance suggested to his discerning and prepared mind
a train of thought which led to the solution of the difficulty. Stepping
into his bath one day, as was his custom, his mind doubtless fixed on
the object of his research, he chanced to observe that, the bath being
full, a quantity of water of the same bulk as his body must flow over
before he could immerse himself. He probably perceived that any other
body of the same bulk would have raised the water equally; but that
another body of the same weight, but less bulky, would not have produced
so great an effect. In the words of Vitruvius, "as soon as he had hit
upon this method of detection, he did not wait a moment, but jumped
joyfully out of the bath, and running forthwith toward his own house,
called out with a loud voice that he had found what he sought. For as he
ran he called out, in Greek, 'Eureka! Eureka!--I have found it! I have
found it!'" When his emotion had sobered down, he proceeded to
investigate the subject calmly. He procured two masses of metal, each of
equal weight with the crown--one of gold and the other of silver--and
having filled a vessel very accurately with water, he plunged into it
the silver, and marked the exact quantity of water that overflowed. He
then treated the gold in the same manner, and observed that a less
quantity of water overflowed than before. He next plunged the crown into
the same vessel full of water, and observed that it displaced more of
the fluid than the gold had done, and less than the silver; by which he
inferred that the crown was neither pure gold nor pure silver, but a
mixture of both. Hiero was so gratified with this result as to declare
that from that moment he could never refuse to believe anything
Archimedes told him.
Travelling in Egypt, and observing the necessity of raising the water of
the Nile to points which the river did not reach, as well as the
difficulty of clearing the land from the periodical overflowings of the
Nile, Archimedes invented for this purpose the screw which bears his
name. It was likewise used as a pump to clear water from the holds of
vessels; and the name of Archimedes was held in great veneration by
seamen on this account. The screw may be briefly described as a long
spiral with its lower extremity immersed in the water, which, rising
along the channels by the revolution of the machine on its axis, is
discharged at the upper extremity. When applied to the propulsion of
steam-vessels the screw is horizontal; and being put in motion by a
steam-engine, drives the water backward, when its reaction, or return,
propels the vessel.
The mechanical ingenuity of Archimedes was next displayed in the various
machines which he constructed for the defence of Syracuse during a three
years' siege by the Romans. Among these inventions were catapults for
throwing arrows, and ballistae for throwing masses of stone; and iron
hands or hooks attached to chains, thrown to catch the prows of the
enemy's vessels, and then overturn them. He is likewise stated to have
set their vessels on fire by burning-glasses; this, however, rests upon
modern authority, and Archimedes is rather believed to have set the
ships on fire by machines for throwing lighted materials.
[Illustration: Death of Archimedes.]
After the storming of Syracuse, Archimedes was killed by a Roman
soldier, who did not know who he was. The soldier inquired, but the
philosopher, being intent upon a problem, begged that his diagram might
not be disturbed; upon which the soldier put him to death. At his own
request, expressed during his life, a sphere inscribed in a cylinder was
sculptured on his tomb, in memory of his discovery that the solid
contents of a sphere is exactly two-thirds of that of the circumscribing
cylinder; and by this means the memorial was afterward identified. One
hundred and fifty years after the death of Archimedes, when Cicero was
residing in Sicily, he paid homage to his forgotten tomb. "During my
quaestorship," says this illustrious Roman, "I diligently sought to
discover the sepulchre of Archimedes, which the Syracusans had
totally neglected, and suffered to be grown over with thorns and briars.
Recollecting some verses, said to be inscribed on the tomb, which
mentioned that on the top was placed a sphere with a cylinder, I looked
round me upon every object at the Agragentine Gate, the common
receptacle of the dead. At last I observed a little column which just
rose above the thorns, upon which was placed the figure of a sphere and
cylinder. This, said I to the Syracusan nobles who were with me, this
must, I think, be what I am seeking. Several persons were immediately
employed to clear away the weeds and lay open the spot. As soon as a
passage was opened, we drew near, and found on the opposite base the
inscription, with nearly half the latter part of the verses worn away.
Thus would this most famous, and formerly most learned, city of Greece
have remained a stranger to the tomb of one of its most ingenious
citizens, had it not been discovered by a man of Arpinum."
To Archimedes is attributed the apophthegm: "Give me a lever long
enough, and a prop strong enough, and with my own weight I will move the
world." This arose from his knowledge of the possible effects of
machinery; but however it might astonish a Greek of his day, it would
now be admitted to be as theoretically possible as it is practically
impossible. Archimedes would have required to move with the velocity of
a cannon-ball for millions of ages to alter the position of the earth by
the smallest part of an inch. In mathematical truth, however, the feat
is performed by every man who leaps from the ground; for he kicks the
world away when he rises, and attracts it again when he falls back.
Under the superintendence of Archimedes was also built the renowned
galley for Hiero. It was constructed to half its height, by three
hundred master workmen and their servants, in six months. Hiero then
directed that the vessel should be perfected afloat; but how to get the
vast pile into the water the builders knew not, till Archimedes invented
his engine called the helix, by which, with the assistance of very few
hands he drew the ship into the sea, where it was completed in six
months. The ship consumed wood enough to build sixty large galleys; it
had twenty tiers of bars and three decks; the middle deck had on each
side fifteen dining apartments besides other chambers, luxuriously
furnished, and floors paved with mosaics of the story of the "Iliad." On
the upper deck were gardens with arbors of ivy and vines; and here was a
temple of Venus, paved with agates, and roofed with Cyprus-wood; it was
richly adorned with pictures and statues, and furnished with couches and
drinking-vessels. Adjoining was an apartment of box-wood, with a clock
in the ceiling, in imitation of the great dial of Syracuse; and here was
a huge bath set with gems called Tauromenites. There were also on each
side of this deck, cabins for the marine soldiers, and twenty stables
for horses; in the forecastle was a fresh-water cistern which held 253
hogsheads; and near it was a large tank of sea-water, in which fish were
kept. From the ship's sides projected ovens, kitchens, mills, and other
offices, built upon beams, each supported by a carved image nine feet
high. Around the deck were eight wooden towers, from each of which was
raised a breastwork full of loopholes, whence an enemy might be annoyed
with stones each tower being guarded by four armed soldiers and two
archers. On this upper deck was also placed the machine invented by
Archimedes to fling stones of 300 pounds weight and darts eighteen feet
long, to the distance of 120 paces; while each of the three masts had
two engines for throwing stones. The ship was furnished with four
anchors of wood and eight of iron; and "the water-screw" of Archimedes,
already mentioned, was used instead of a pump for the vast ship; "by the
help of which one man might easily and speedily drain out the water,
though it were very deep." The whole ship's company consisted of an
immense multitude, there being in the forecastle alone 600 seamen. There
were placed on board her 60,000 bushels of corn, 10,000 barrels of salt
fish, and 20,000 barrels of flesh, besides the provisions for her
company. She was first called the Syracuse, but afterward the
Alexandria. The builder was Archias, the Corinthian shipwright. The
vessel appears to have been armed for war and sumptuously fitted for a
pleasure-yacht, yet was ultimately used to carry corn. The timber for
the main mast, after being in vain sought for in Italy, was brought from
England. The dimensions are not recorded, but they must have exceeded
those of any ship of the present day; indeed, Hiero, finding that none
of the surrounding harbors sufficed to receive his vast ship, loaded it
with corn and presented the vessel with its cargo to Ptolemy, King of
Egypt, and on arriving at Alexandria it was hauled ashore, and nothing
more is recorded respecting it. A most elaborate description of this
vast ship has been preserved to us by Athenaeus, and translated into
English by Burchett, in his "Naval Transactions."
Archimedes has been styled the Homer of geometry; yet it must not be
concealed that he fell into the prevailing error of the ancient
philosophers--that geometry was degraded by being employed to produce
anything useful. "It was with difficulty," says Lord Macaulay, "that he
was induced to stoop from speculation to practice. He was half ashamed
of those inventions which were the wonder of hostile nations, and always
spoke of them slightingly, as mere amusements, as trifles in which a
mathematician might be suffered to relax his mind after intense
application to the higher parts of his science."
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
By REV. W. J. BRODRIBB
(106-43 B.C.)
[Illustration: Cicero. [TN]]
Marcus Tullius Cicero, the foremost orator of ancient Rome, one of her
leading statesmen, and the most brilliant and accomplished of her men of
letters, lived in those stirring later days of the Roman republic, that
age of revolution and civil wars, in which an old and decaying order of
things was passing away. It was the age of great and daring spirits, of
Catiline, Caesar, Pompey, Antony, with whose history Cicero's life is so
closely intertwined.
Born 106 B.C., at an old Italian town, Arpinum in Latium, of a good
family, and inheriting from his father, who was a man of considerable
culture, a moderate estate, he went as a boy to Rome, and there, under
the best teachers and professors, he learned law and oratory, Greek
philosophy, and Greek literature, acquiring in fact the universal
knowledge which he himself says in his essay "On the Orator" (De
Oratore), an orator ought to possess. An orator in the ancient world, we
should bear in mind, was first and chiefly a pleader of causes, causes
both legal and political--speaker alike, as we should say, at the bar
and in parliament. Hence the necessity for knowledge and information of
every kind. Cicero's first important speech, in his twenty-sixth year,
was the successful defence in a criminal trial of a client against one
of the favorites of the all-powerful Sulla, then dictator. After a visit
to Athens, and a tour in Asia Minor, where he profited by the society of
eminent professors of rhetoric and men of letters, he returned to Rome,
and at thirty years of age he was in the highest repute at the Roman
bar.
In 76 B.C., having been elected quaestor (a financial secretary, as we
may say) by a unanimous popular vote, he held an appointment in Sicily,
where he won the good opinion of two highly important interests, apt at
times to conflict, the traders and the revenue collectors. To this he
owed the glory of his successful impeachment of the infamous Verres, in
70 B.C., which he undertook at the request of the Sicilian provincials.
The bad man who had so hideously misgoverned them, felt himself crushed
by Cicero's opening speech, and went into voluntary exile. Cicero was
now a power in the state, and his rise up the official ladder was sure
and rapid; in 66 B.C. he was praetor, and supported in a great political
speech (Pro Lege Manilia) the appointment of Pompey to the conduct of
the war with Mithridates, which in fact carried with it the supreme
control of Asia and of the East. In 63 B.C., at the age of forty-four,
he was consul, the highest dignity attainable to a Roman; in that
memorable year he foiled by a bold promptitude, the revolutionary plot
of Catiline, in which many distinguished Romans--Caesar it was even said
among them--were implicated. He was now at the height of his fame;
"father of his country" he was actually called, for a brief space he was
with all classes the great man of the day. But the tide so
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