of the Deity, for the most part, impersonally, or as one almighty Zeus. The vague and negative attitude of their religion naturally coloured their practical ethics, and so we here find many conflicting apophthegms, as is wont to be the case in all proverbial philosophy. According to the writer's momentary attitude, according to the subject in hand, the preacher frames his parable, without regard to consistency. This peculiarity is indeed so salient in the extant works of Theognis, that it seems impossible to deny extensive interpolations; and there can be little doubt that here, as in Hesiod, the use of the author as a schoolbook induced men to smuggle in foreign morality under the shelter of a great name. It is then impossible to gather such teaching under general heads, or present it as a connected system. But there are some points on which lyric poets as widely apart as Tyrtæus and Pindar agree, and this because they have both inherited them from the Ionic and Boeotian Epos. They both think, for example, that the best way of inculcating heroism is not by sentimental appeals, but by showing the solid advantages to be derived from it. It is far better, says Tyrtæus (fr. 10), to die in battle, than to be driven from one's city and rich fields and have to beg, going about with one's aged father, one's wife and little children. For a man is hateful to those whom he visits in his poverty and dire distress, and disgraces his race and his own respectability. 'If then,' the poet proceeds, there is no regard for a wandering man, nor respect, nor consideration, nor pity, let us fight with courage, and not spare our 6 lives.' This picture of the contempt in which a vagrant beggar is held, even if sprung from gentle blood, reminds us of the anxious hurrying of Ulysses to the asylum of the hearth, of Hesiod's advice to Perses (v. 367), and also of the sad words of Andromache, in describing the lot of her orphan child (above, p. 39). Pindar, whose evidence is not quite so valuable, inasmuch as he wrote in the interest of his profession, repeatedly tells us that the satisfaction of doing great things is nothing, if the glory of being publicly praised does not attend it. We saw above that this worship of success was quite Homeric, being the counterpart of the contempt of failure, and equally prominent in the Greek mind. To the passages already quoted I may add one in Pindar, which shocks us in comparison with the gentleness and sympathy of Achilles with the vanquished at the games. He says that the deity has given to the four lads, whom Alcimedon conquered, a most hateful return from the arena1. The same idea is found in one of his fragments (fr. 150). A very remarkable historical parallel is to be read in Herodotus (vi. 67), where the new king of Sparta sends a messenger to ask his deposed rival, out of insolence and derision, how he liked being a magistrate after being a king. I fear, therefore, that in this respect, the Greeks of the lyric age were hardly gentlemen in our sense. Another feature may, perhaps, be regarded as at that epoch (if not, indeed, at all epochs) really na · νόστον ἔχθιστον καὶ ἀτιμοτέραν γλῶσσαν καὶ ἐπίκρυφον οἶμον. Ol. viii. 68. tional and Hellenic. Their usual teaching, which was in theory sound, and based upon the excellence and the satisfactions of virtue, did not extend to political life, or at least was confessedly to be there overridden by the pressure of circumstances. This inconsistency was the natural outcome of their religion. As they believed in a Providence, and in this Providence rewarding virtue, so they taught that men should follow virtue. As they also held that the reward was often withheld, and that dishonesty and craftiness were constantly successful; so they did not expect men to be proof against pressure, but advised them to follow the stream of fortune, and, above all, not to miss the satisfactions of love and of revenge1. They were, like Machiavelli, more outspoken than we are on this side, as many of them were hardly moral teachers, and were more intent on painting life as it is, and as they found it, than on raising the standard of actions. But I hardly know whether we should not note the same kind of inconsistency in our orthodox preacher, who exhorts his congregation to turn the other cheek to the man who has smitten one, and to give their cloaks to the man who has taken their coats, but when he goes home upbraids and scorns his friend if he brooks an insult without instant satisfaction. The party struggles of the Greek cities made the aristocrats, who were in the end for the most part defeated, far more vindictive than ever Greek nature could have been originally, and the poems of 1 Solon, fr. 13; Archil. fr. 65. Theognis, which were general favourites among the nobles throughout Greece, show a mixture of contempt and hatred against the lower classes that excludes all generous and even honest treatment. It was openly recommended to fawn upon your enemy, and deceive him till he was in your power, and then wreak vengeance upon him. It is usual among critics to speak of this as the attitude of Theognis, and of the special aristocracy to which he belonged. They forget that we find the same attitude in the moral Pindar (Pyth. ii. 84). φίλον εἴη φιλεῖν· ποτὶ δ ̓ ἐχθρὸν ἅτ ̓ ἐχθρὸς ἐὼν λύκοιο δίκαν ὑποθεύσομαι, It is expounded by Hesiod as proximate, by Thucydides as universal, at a later epoch. I cannot but dwell for a moment on this painful feature, inasmuch as it is so closely paralleled in the Ireland of to-day. Theognis is full of exhortations against making friendships, against trusting in any way the lower classes, who will ever be found false and ungrateful. Make none of these townspeople (vv. 60 sq.) your friend when you really want him; rather seem to be friendly with them all in words (ἀπὸ γλώσσης), but communicate not at all with them in any serious matter, for you may know the minds of these miserable men, how they have no honour (míσris) in their actions, but they love wile and stratagem, and tortuous ways, like men despairing of safety' (unkéti owcóμevo). Many other passages (vv. 279, 847, 853) repeat this doctrine. It is precisely the feeling entertained towards Roman Catholics by the old-school Orangemen of Ireland. Hundreds of times have I myself been warned not to trust the 'false papists,' whose religion was full of lies, and whose word could not be believed, who had been known to betray their best friends, and to violate the holiest ties1. Unfortunately, there are certain real facts sufficient to vamp up such a frightful theory. In the first place, the pure Celt, who is always a Catholic, has less regard for truth than the Protestant, with his touch of Saxon breeding. Secondly, the long oppression of the Roman Catholics, and their enforced separation from Protestant society, has created a clan feeling, which, in times of great bitterness and bloodshed, has been known to outweigh even the closest ties of friendship with the enemies of the clan. In this way, what one side translate as faith towards country and religion, the other call traitorous betrayal of friends and relations. Thus any thoughtful man who has lived in Ireland comes to understand Greek political hate with peculiar clearness. 1 This antipathy sometimes assumes a very grotesque form. How are you getting on, James?' said a friend of mine to one of these Orangemen. Badly enough, your honour; sure the country is gone to the divil.' Why do you say that? I see your farm in good order, with plenty of stock on it.' 'What matter about that, doesn't your honour know that if you shot a Papist now you'd be tried for it?' When my friend looked amused, the Orangeman added with much warmth: Well, with the blessing of God, I'll have one day's fowling among them before I die.' Another was known to object vehemently to controversial sermons, whereby the Papists might be converted. Till hell with them,' he exclaimed, I wouldn't convert them.' Such anecdotes might be multiplied ad libitum. The Roman Catholic party have just as strong sentiments, but do not express them so boldly. |