INTRODUCTION.✦

Many moral phenomena appear to baffle the sagacity of statesmen, because, confiding too implicitly in experience, they omit to widen the range of their contemplation so as to embrace the whole circle of the people’s existence whose fortunes and character they desire to comprehend. To be successful in such an inquiry it is requisite to lay open, as far as possible, the influence on that people of climate and geographical position, to break through the husk and shell of customs, manners, laws, religions, that we may come to the kernel of its moral nature, to that inner organization, intellectual and physical, of which the external circumstances of its civil and political life are but so many fluctuating symbols.

To accomplish this, however, even in the case of a contemporary nation, among whom we may behold in full activity all the material movements of society, is no easy task. But the difficulty must be very much augmented, when, in addition to the obstacles which necessarily under the most favourable circumstances beset every avenue to a people’s inner life, those are added arising out of the distance on the track of time at which the nation we are considering happens to stand, the scantiness and contradictory nature of the reports that reach us, and more, perhaps, than all, the atmosphere of prejudice through which we are apt to view whatever in any degree differs from our own manners and institutions. But this consideration, though it should bespeak indulgence for the unavoidable errors even of the most diligent investigator, can certainly be no reason for abstaining from all further investigation. For, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which we labour, it is still possible to extract from the fragments remaining of ancient literature materials for reconstructing something more than the skeleton of antiquity. We can invest the bones with sinews and muscles, clothe them with flesh and skin, spread over the whole colours that shall resemble life; and if we cannot steal from heaven celestial fire to kindle this image of surpassing beauty, that, at least, is the only thing which exceeds our power.

In saying this, I merely state my opinion of what is possible, not by any means what I conceive myself to have effected in the present work. I am but too sensible of how far the execution falls short of “the ample proposition that hope made,” when, many years ago, the idea suggested itself to me at that ardent and flattering season of life in which we are apt to imagine all things within our reach. But as

Every action that hath gone before Whereof we have record, trial did draw Bias, and thwart; not answering the aim And that unbodied figure of the thought That gave ’t surmised shape;

so, no doubt, in my own case, the realisation will be found to be a very imperfect embodying of the ideal plan.

Few subjects, however, abound more in interest or instruction than the one I have here ventured to treat. The inquiry turns upon the institutions and moral condition of a people to whose fortunes history affords no parallel; of a people that, like the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, which the servant of the prophet saw from the top of Carmel, contained within itself the seeds of mightiest and most momentous events. The Hellenes can never, in fact, by any but the uninformed be regarded in the same light as ordinary political communities. Their power, vast and astonishing for the age in which they flourished, arose entirely out of their national character and the spirit of their institutions. It was the power of intellect. They were in reality the sun and soul of the ancient world, and darted far into the darkness around them those vivifying rays which, reflected from land to land, have since lighted up the world.

Athens, the wisest and noblest of Grecian states,

Mother of arts And eloquence,

was the great preceptress of mankind. The spirit of her laws, transmitted through those of Rome, still pervades the whole civilized world. Her wisdom and her arts form, in all polished communities, a principal object of study; and to comprehend and to enjoy them is to be a gentleman. Sallust, therefore, notwithstanding his genius and sagacity, took but a commonplace view of national greatness, when he considered that of Athens to be chiefly based on the splendour shed around her achievements by historians. Her triumphs, it is true, were not effected by vast military masses, such as those which many barbarous nations in different ages have put in motion for the purpose of spoil or conquest. Athens built her glory on other foundations. She could not, indeed, lead countless armies into the field, but she knew how, with a little band, to defeat those who could. In the days of her freedom no human force could subdue her. To effect this, every man within the borders of Attica must have been exterminated; for so long as an Athenian was left, the indomitable spirit of democracy would have survived in him and sufficed to kindle up fresh contests.

But the energies of Athens, how great soever, did not, like those of most other states, develope themselves chiefly in war. It is the characteristic of barbarians to destroy, but to create nothing. The delight and glory of the people of Athens consisted, on the contrary, in the exercise of creative power, in calling into existence new arts, founding colonies, widening the circle of civilisation, covering the earth with beautiful structures, sacred and civil; in producing pictures, statues, vases, and sculptured gems, of conception and delicacy of workmanship inimitable. Wherever the Athenian set his foot, the very earth appeared to grow more lovely beneath it. His genius beautified whatever it touched. His imagination vivified everything. He spread a rich mythological colouring over land and sea. Gods, at his bidding, entered the antique oak, sported in the waters of brook and fountain, scattered themselves in joyous groups over the uplands and through the umbrageous valleys, and their voices and odoriferous breath mingled with every breeze that blew.

In the distant colonies whither he betook himself, when poverty had relaxed the chain that bound him indissolubly to the Attic soil, a few years saw a new diminutive Athens springing up. The Pnyx, the Odeion, the Theatre of Bacchos, the Prytaneion, the Virgin’s Fane, rose on a diminished scale around him, presenting an image, though faint, of his earlier home, the loveliest, undoubtedly, and, after Jerusalem, the most hallowed spot ever inhabited by man. Above all things, he was everywhere careful to enjoy the blessings of his ancestral institutions, and listened, as in the mother city, to those popular thunders which, thrice in every month, rolled from the bema over the assembled crowd, communicating pleasurable emotions to his mind, and rousing continually the passion for freedom.

It were needless to dwell at any considerable length on the naval and military achievements of the Athenians. The world is still full of the victories of Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, and the soil, drenched in defence of liberty with Attic blood, is to this day sacred in the eyes of the most phlegmatic. I appeal in proof of this to every man’s daily experience: for does not the bare mention of any spot where the great Demos triumphed or suffered some national calamity, make the blood bound more rapidly and tingle in our veins? Even the grovelling and worldly-minded, who affect to consider nothing holy but Mammon, can have fire struck out of their cold natures by the spell of those glorious syllables; for virtue, and valour, and that religious link which binds the soul to the spot where a mother’s dust reposes, are found, and will ever be found, to kindle warm admiration in every heart. And never since society began did these great qualities develope themselves more visibly than among the people of Athens. For this reason, who can visit Syracuse, or the shores of the Hellespont, or the site of Memphis’s White Castle, without experiencing as he gazes on the scene an electrical thrill of mental anguish at the recollection of what Athenian citizens more than two thousand years ago suffered there? Even Thermopylæ, glorious as it is, scarcely stirs our nature so deeply as Marathon; for the coarser and more material genius and institutions of Sparta, the nurse of those heroes who fell at the Gates of Hellas inspire less of that fervent admiration which the great actions and great men of Athens awaken in every cultivated mind.

Of the political institutions which throughout Hellas influenced so powerfully the developement of the national character, it is not my design in the present volumes to speak. I confine myself entirely to the other causes which rendered the ancient Greeks what they were; reserving the examination of their forms of government for a separate treatise. The subject here discussed possesses sufficient interest of itself. It has been my aim to open up as far as possible a prospect into the domestic economy of a Grecian family, the arts, comforts, conveniences, regulations affecting the condition of private life, and those customs and manners which communicated a peculiar character and colour to the daily intercourse of Greek citizens. For, in all my investigations about the nature and causes of those ancient institutions which, during so many ages constituted the glory and the happiness of the most highly gifted race known to history, I found my attention constantly directed to the circumstances of their private life, from which, as from a great fountain, all their public prosperity and grandeur seemed to spring.