lose the connexion of its parts, because the eye cannot take them in at once. Still less will a large picture give us pleasure, if every part of it presents a different scene, each unconnected with the other." Such is the history of the successors of Alexander. 1. Nor is the history of Greece from the period of the death of Alexander any longer an interesting or pleasing object of contemplation. Demosthenes once more made a noble attempt to vindicate the national freedom, and to rouse his countrymen, the Athenians, to shake off the yoke of Macedon. But it was too late. The pacific counsels of Phocion suited better the languid spirit of this once illustrious people. 2. The history of the different republics present from this time nothing but a disgusting series of uninteresting revolutions; with the exception only of that last effort made by the Achæan states to revive the expiring liberty of their country. The republic of Achaia was a league of a few of the smaller states to vindicate their freedom against the domineering spirit of the greater. They committed the government of the league to Aratus of Sicyon, with the title of prætor, a young man of high ambition, who immediately conceived the more extensive project of rescuing the whole of Greece from the dominion of Macedon. But the jealousy of the greater states rendered this scheme abortive. Sparta refused to arrange itself under the guidance of the prætor of Achaia: and Aratus, forgetting his patriotic designs, sought only now to wreak his vengeance against the Lacedæmonians. For this purpose, with the most inconsistent policy, he courted the aid even of the Macedonians: the very tyrants who had enslaved his country. 3. The period was now come for the intervention of a foreign power, which was to reduce all under its wide-spreading dominion. The Romans were at this time the most powerful of all the contemporary nations. The people of Etolia, attacked by the Macedonians, with a rash policy besought the aid of the Romans, who, eager to add to their dominion this devoted country, cheerfully obeyed the summons, and speedily accomplished the reduction of Macedonia. Perseus, its last sovereign, was led captive to Rome, and graced the triumph of Paulus Æmilius, 167 A. C. From that period the Romans were hastily advancing to the dominion of all Greece; a progress in which their art was more conspicuous than their virtue. They gained their end by fostering dissensions between the states, which they directed to their own advantage, corrupting their principal citizens, and using, in fine, every art of the most insidious policy. A pretext was only wanting to unsheath the sword, and this was furnished by the Achæan states, who insulted the deputies of imperial Rome. This drew on them at once the resentment of the Romans. Metellus marched his legions into Greece, gave them battle, and entirely defeated them. Mummius the consul terminated the work, and made an easy conquest of the whole of Greece, which from that period became a Roman province, under the name of Achaia, 146 A. C 4. Rome had acquired from her conquests a flood of wealth, and began now to manifest a taste for luxury, and a spirit of refinement. In these points Greece was to its conquerors an instructer and a model: Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes Hence, even though vanquished, it was regarded with a species of respect by its ruder masters. SECTION XIX. POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ARISING FROM THE HISTORY OF THE STATES OF GREECE. 1. THE revolutions which the states of Greece underwent, and the situations into which they were thrown by their connexion and differences with each other, and their wars with foreign nations, were so various, that their history is a school of instruction in political science. The surest test of the truth or falsehood of abstract principles of politics, is their application to actual experience and to the history of nations. 2. The oppression which the states of Greece suffered under their ancient despots, who were subject to no constitutional control, was a most justifiable motive for their establishing a new form of government, which promised them the enjoyment of greater political freedom. We believe too that those new forms of government were framed by their virtuous legislators in the true spirit of patriotism. But as to the real merits of those political fabrics, it is certain that they were very far from corresponding in practice with what was expected from them in theory. We seek in vain, either in the history of Athens or Lacedæmon, for the beautiful idea of a well-ordered commonwealth. The revolutions of government which they were ever experiencing, the eternal factions with which they were embroiled, plainly demonstrate that there was a radical defect in the structure of the machine, which precluded the possibility of regular motion. The condition of the people under those governments was such as partook more of servitude and oppression, than that of the subjects of the most despotic monarchies. The slaves formed the actual majority of the inhabitants in all the states of Greece. To these the free citizens were rigorous bond-masters. Bondage being a consequence of the contraction of debts even by freemen, a great proportion of these was subject to the tyrannical control of their fellow-citizens. Nor were the richer classes in the actual enjoyment of independence. They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked themselves under the banners of the contending chiefs of the republic. Those parties were kept together solely by corruption. The whole was therefore a system of servility and debasement of spirit, which left nothing of a free or ingenuous nature in the condition of individuals, nor any thing that could furnish encomium to a real advocate for the dignity of human nature. Such was the condition of the chief republics of antiquity. Their governments promised in theory, what they never conferred in practice, the political happiness of the citizens. *For conquered Greece subdued her conquering foe, 3. "In democracy (says Dr. Fergusson) men must love equality; 41 they must respect the rights of their fellow-citizens; they must be satisfied with that degree of consideration which they can procure by their abilities fairly measured against those of an opponent; they must labour for the public without hope of profit; they must reject every attempt to create a personal dependance." This is the picture of a republic in theory. If we reverse this picture in every single particular, and take its direct opposite, we shall have the true portrait of a republican government in practice. 4. It is the fundamental theory of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, that the three distinct forms of government, the monarchical, despotical, and republican, are influenced by the three separate principles of honour, fear, and virtue; and this theory is the foundation on which the author builds a great part of his political doctrines. That each of these principles is exclusively essential to its respective form of government, but unnecessary and even prejudicial in the others, is a position contrary both to reason and to truth. No form of government can subsist where every one of those principles has not its operation. The admission of such a theory leads to the most mischievous conclusions; as, for example, that in monarchies the state dispenses with virtue in its officers and magistrates; that public employments ought to be venal; and that crimes, if kept secret, are of no consequence. 5. It is only in the infant periods of the Grecian history that we are to look for those splendid examples of patriotism and heroic virtue, which the ardent mind of uncorrupted youth will ever delight to contemplate. The most remarkable circumstance which strikes us on comparing the latter with the more early periods of the history of the Greeks, is the total change in the genius and spirit of the people. The ardour of patriotism, the thirst of military glory, the enthusiasm of liberty, decline with the rising grandeur and opulence of the nation, and an enthusiasm of another species, and far less worthy in its aim, succeeds: an admiration of the fine arts, a violent passion for the objects of taste, and for the refinements of luxury. This leads us to consider Greece in the light in which, after the loss of its liberty, it still continued to attract the admiration of other na tions. SECTION XX. STATE OF THE ARTS IN GREECE 1. Ir is not among the Greeks that we are to look for the greatest improvements in the useful and necessary arts of life. In agriculture, manufactures, commerce, they never were greatly distinguished. But in those which are termed the fine arts, Greece surpassed all the contemporary nations. The monuments of those which yet remain are the models of imitation, and the confessed standard of excellence, in the judgment of the most polished nations of modern times. 2. After the defeat of Xerxes the active spirit of the Athenians, which would have otherwise languished for want of an object, taking a new direction from luxury, displayed itself signally in all the works of taste in the fine arts. The administration of Pericles was the æra of luxury and splendour. The arts broke out at once with surprising lustre; and architecture, sculpture, and painting, were carried D2 to the summit of perfection. This golden age of the arts in Greece endured for about a century, till after the death of Alexander the great. 3. The Greeks were the parents of that system of architecture which is universally allowed to be the most perfect. The Greek architecture consisted of three distinct orders: the Doric, the Ionic, and Corinthian. The Doric has a masculine grandeur, and a superior air of strength to both the others. It is therefore best adapted to works of great magnitude, and of a sublime character. The character of sublimity is essentially connected with chasteness and simplicity. Of this order is the temple of Theseus at Athens, built ten years after the battle of Marathon, and at this day almost entire. The Ionic order is light and elegant. The former has a masculine grandeur; the latter a feminine elegance. The Ionic is likewise simple for simplicity is an essential requisite in true beauty. Of this order were the temple of Apollo at Miletus, the temple of the Delphic oracle, and the temple of Diana at Ephesus. The Corinthian marks an age of luxury and magnificence, when pomp and splendour had become the predominant passion, but had not yet extinguished the taste for the sublime and beautiful. It attempts therefore a union of all these characters, but satisfies not the chastened judgment, and pleases only a corrupted taste. "First unadorned, "And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose; "Her airy pillar heav'd; luxuriant last "The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath." THOMPSON'S Liberty, Part 2. 4. The Tuscan and the Composite orders are of Italian origin. The Etruscan architecture appears to have been nearly allied to the Grecian, but to have possessed an inferior degree of elegance. The Trajan column at Rome is of this order; less remarkble for the beauty of its proportions than for the admirable sculpture which decorates it. The Composite order is what its name implies; it shows that the Greeks had in the three original orders exhausted all the principles of grandeur and beauty; and that it was not possible to frame a fourth, except by combining the former. 5. The Gothic architecture offers no contradiction to these observations. The effect which it produces cannot be altogether accounted for from the rules of symmetry or harmony in the proportions between the several parts; but depends on a certain idea of vastness, gloominess, and solemnity, which are powerful ingredients in the sublime. 6. Sculpture was brought by the Greeks to as high perfection as architecture. The remains of Grecian sculpture are at this day the most perfect models of the art; and the modern artists have no means of attaining to excellence so certain, as the study of those great master-pieces. 7. The excellence of the Greeks in sculpture may perhaps be accounted for chiefly from their having the human figure often before their eyes quite naked, and in all its various attitudes, both in the palestra, and in the public games. The antique statues have therefore a grandeur united with perfect simplicity, because the attitude is not the result of an artificial disposition of the figure, as in the_modern academies, but is nature unconstrained. Thus, in the Dying Gladiator, when we observe the relaxation of the muscles, and the visible failure of strength and life, we cannot doubt that nature was the sculptor's immediate model of imitation.* 8. And this nature was in reality superior to what we now see in the ordinary race of men. The constant practice of gymnastic exercises gave a finer conformation of body than what is now to be found in the vitiated pupils of modern effeminacy, the artificial children of modern fashion. 9. A secondary cause of the eminence of the Greeks in the arts of design, was their theology, which furnished an ample exercise for the genius of the sculptor and painter. 10. We must speak with more diffidence of the ability of the Greeks in painting, than we do of their superiority in sculpture; because the existing specimens of the former are extremely rare, and the pieces which are preserved are probably not the most excellent. But in the want of actual evidence we have every presumption that the Greeks had attained to equal perfection in the art of painting and in sculpture; for if we find the judgment given by ancient writers of their excellence in sculpture confirmed by the universal assent of the best critics among the moderns, we have every reason to presume an equal rectitude in the judgment which the same ancient writers have pronounced upon their paintings. If Pliny is right in his opinion of the merits of those statues which yet remain, the Venus of Praxiteles, and the Laocoon of Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, we have no reason to suppose his taste to be less just when he celebrates the merits, and critically characterizes the different manners of Zeuxis, Apelles, Parrhasius, Protogenes, and Timanthes, whose works have perished. 11. The paintings found in Herculaneum, Pompeii, the Sepulchrum Nasonianum at Rome, were probably the work of Greek artists; for the Romans were never eminent in any of the arts dependent on design. These paintings exhibit great knowledge of proportions, and of the chiaro-oscuro; but betray an ignorance of the rules of perspective. 12. The music of the ancients appears to have been very greatly inferior to that of the moderns. 13. The peculiar genius of the Greeks in the fine arts extended its effects to the revolutions of their states, and influenced their fate as a nation. SECTION XXI. OF THE GREEK POETS. 1. THE Greeks were the first who reduced the athletic exercises to a system, and considered them as an object of general attention and importance. The Panathenæan, and afterwards the Olympic, the Pythian, Nemaan, and Isthmian games, were under the regulation of the laws. They contributed essentially to the improvement of the nation; and, while they cherished martial ardour, and promoted har * Cresilas vulneratum deficientem fecit, ex quo possit intelligi quantum Testet animi. Plin. lib. 36. Cresilas has represented a wounded man fainting, from which we may perceive how much life still remains. |