PICTURES FROM GREEK LIFE AND STORY.* IT is a lamentable
fact that the story of the greatness and de- cline of the Greek peoples has never been simply and straight- forwardly told by a modern historian. Generally it has been political bias which has caused the narrator to interrupt the drconcrlis persona! in this most striking tragedy with tedious choric odes pointing political morals on one side or the other. Professor Church does not err in this direction, but he has too fixed a habit of moralising. For instance, he can hardly mention Themistocles without throwing up his hands and exclaiming on the horror with which he views this otherwise admirable statesman's unscrupulousness. And this is not only decidedly unflattering to the reader, who might fairly be supposed to have tasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil for himself, but argues also a certain want of adjust- ment of the historical focus. For political morals improve with the progress of civilisation, and it is idle to apply the same code of ethics to the conduct of Themistocles in B.C. 470 as we do to that of Mr. Cecil Rhodes in A.D. 1893. Hellas was only emerging from barbarism, in those days,—a fact which we are too apt to overlook, dazzled by the extra- ordinary rapidity of her progress during the next fifty years. And the Greek religion inculcated uprightness neither by precept nor example. If Themistocles took bribes, he was only following the precedent set by the Delphian Apollo, whose oracle he had himself hired to give answers in accord- ance with his own views on the situation. While in his double-dealings with the Persians, he always, at least, gave Athens the first chance, only reserving a. loophole for himself in case of disaster; his contemporaries, though they feared his ambition, probably rather admired his duplicity, and preferred it to the monotonous justice which marked Aristides' career.
Cimon is more sympathetically treated in the pages before us ; and in giving a position of prominence to this personage, Professor Church has rendered a distinct service to Greek history. For Cimon and his deeds have met with scant recog- nition from historians, both ancient and modern, probably because he came to the front only when the earlier and most dramatic victories of the Persian War were over. But he must have been a statesman of great sagacity,—perhaps he may fitly be called the Beaconsfield of Athenian statecraft; he first noted that the conversion of his people from an agricultural into a seafaring race would compel them to depend largely on an imported food-supply. With this conviction he secured the command of the islands lying between Attica and the Hellespont, and aided in the recovery of the fertile Chersonese ; just as Lord Beacons- field secured for us the passage to India and her har- vests by the acquisition of a preponderating stake in the Suez Canal. Moreover, Cimon, prompted by statesman- ship which was many centuries before its time, advocated the establishment of a balance of power in Hellas, so that her peoples might present a combined front to the bar- barian. But the Athenian democracy did not approve of this policy, and decided that a quarrel with Sparta and the oli- garchical tendency was inevitable, and must be fought out to a conclusion. In criticising this decision it must be remem- bered that the Eupatridre—the Athenian patricians—had never forgiven the abolition of their rights and privileges, and that there was always a party in Athens ready and eager to wreck the constitution with Spartan help. So that the democrats saw clearly that the maintenance of their beloved freedom was impossible unless Sparta could be reduced to a position of definite inferiority. This conviction accounts both for their unwillingness to make peace when they might have done so on fairly favourable terms, and also for the splendid desperation with which they fought out the struggle to the end. Their policy was not justified by results, but its failure was due to side-issues rather than inherent defects. It seems at first sight impossible to explain. why the Athenians, with all their readiness, enterprise, and enormous resources, should have fallen before a race of stupid soldiers, who were not even good soldiers at all points ; for the Spartans, with the exception of Brasidas, knew nothing of strategy, and were quite ignorant as to the conduct of a siege or anyother engineering operation. It is the custom to sneer at the courage of the Athenians, and to point to their dis- like of danger as a reason for their defeat. But though it Pictures from Greek .Life era Story. By tho Rev. A. J. Church, M.A., lately Profossor of 'Latin in tinisersity College, London. London Hutchinson and Co. is true that they bad no ]3erserker's love of battle for its own sake, yet the men who fought at Salamis and in the Corinthian Gulf under Phormio, and again later, when all seemed lost, won the victory of Arginusm, can hardly be dubbed cowards. If they wailed and lamented before an engagement, it was only because life in Athens was brighter and more enjoyable than it has ever been anywhere since, and because they had no false shame about manifesting emotion. Again, the attitude of Athens towards her allies has been severely called in question by historians, and brought forward as a cause of her downfall; but the charge of harshness has been greatly exaggerated,— the tribute exacted was by no means excessive, and the allies seem to have been well disposed to the Sovereign State as long as she maintained her prestige. The real cause of the fall of Athens, then, must be looked for elsewhere. The ravages of the plague had doubtless a terribly crippling effect, though to all appearances the State fully recovered from its results. But the rock on which the great democracy actually split was, paradoxical as the assertion may seem, political snobbery. Great as was their terror of tyranny, merciless as they were in banishing their great men on any suspicion of ambitious designs, the Athenian citizens were in reality easily dazzled by birth, wealth, and position. And this tendency wrought their rein, for it led first to their being cajoled by the fascinating lawlessness and horse-racing notoriety of Alci- biades into voting the Sicilian expedition, and then to their putting the chief command into the hands of the wealthy, religious, and spotlessly respectable Nicias. This worthy gentleman ought to have been born a Spartan. His respect for the vagaries of the moon is an exact parallel to the action of the Ephors at the time of the battle of Marathon. Like the Spartans, he was capable enough in action, but dull and inert, and innocent of any notion of strategy. His position as com- mander was anomalous, for he was strongly opposed to the expedition; and it must not be forgotten that he was a chronic sufferer from a painful disease. But the fact remains that, after losing chance after chance and making blunder after blunder, he threw away the flower of the Athenian forces and an enor- mous amount of her treasure in his criminally stupid attempts at besieging Syracuse. And then Alcibiades, whom a State less tolerant of aristocratic naughtiness would have whipped into a good citizen and a great statesman, completed the over- throw of Athens by preferring to join the Spartans rather than submit to trial for a silly escapade, and causing the fortification of Decelea and procuring supplies of Persian gold for his Peloponnesian friends.
The chief events in the struggle between Athens and Sparta, or in other words, between democracy and oligarchy in Greece, may well be gleaned from Professor Church's sketches by those who arc ignorant of the main outlines of the history of Hellas ; while those who were nurtured on the "Student's Greece," and have graduated in Grote, may refresh their . memory. by turning over these pages, which are always bright and interesting, even if they present little that is new. Professor Church confines himself to what he considers the authentic period of Greek story; he begins with Solon and his economic and social reforms, and carries us on through the Ionic Revolt and the Persian Invasions to the Peloponnesian War, ending with a very interesting account of Epaminondas and the Theban Supremacy. The episodes described are well chosen—though perhaps we may fairly lament the absence of any account of Brasidas and his exploits—and the battles-scenes put before us with graphic conciseness. Little more than one page is taken up by the description of Marathon, and yet the whole picture is vividly drawn :— " At the word of command the little army moved forward, at first at a moderate pace, afterwards, when the distance between thorn and the enemy was something less than a mile, at a run. When the two lines closed in conflict, the Athenian wings, on which Miltiades had massed his troops to the utmost of his resources, were speedily victorious, The Greeks were superior in strength and equipment to their adversaries, and here at least their formation was not wanting in solidity. Things went less favourably at the centre. Here--always the post of honour in an Asiatic army—the best troops, the native Persians and the warlike Sacai, were posted. The Greek line, perilously weak as it was, was broken, and the troops composing it were forced back to the very edge of the plain. Miltiades was not so occupied with his own success as not to perceive this reverse, which, indeed, he must have anticipated. He recalled the vic- torious wings from their pursuit of the flying enemy, and wheeled them round against the Persian centre, which they took in the
rear. This, probably disordered by its own success, was speedily broken, and the whole army fled to their ships."
The historical matter, thus brightly set forth, is further en- livened by biographical sketches of some of the most famous Hellenes. Socrates has three chapters to himself, filled with interesting excerpts from Plato and Xenophon. Professor Church is at great pains to account for the unpopularity of the "Wisest of Men." We may perhaps venture to suggest that he may have been thought an intolerable bore by those Athenians who did not possess Plato's imagination or Xenophon's reverential nature, and that this fact easily outweighed all his virtues in the eyes of the lively Athenians.
The biographical notices are illustrated by portraits ; but the historical instructiveness of the book is seriously lessened by an entire absence of maps.
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