The procedure in ordinary legislation was as follows. At the first meeting of the assembly in the year, the people was asked whether it would permit motions to be made for altering or supplementing the existing laws. A debate ensued, and, if such permission were granted, any citizen who wished to make a motion to the above effect was required to publish his proposals in the market-place, and to hand them to the secretary of the council (Boulē) to be read aloud at more than one meeting of the assembly. At the third regular meeting the people appointed the legislative commissioners, who were drawn by lot from the whole number of those then qualified to act as jurors. The number, and the duration of the commission, were determined in each case by the people. The proceedings before the commission were conducted exactly in the manner of a lawsuit. Those who desired to see old laws repealed, altered or replaced by new laws came forward asaccusersof those laws; those of the contrary opinion, asdefenders; and the defence was formally entrusted to public advocates specially appointed for the purpose (συνήγοροι). The number of the commissioners varied with the number or importance of the laws in question; there is evidence for the number 1001 (Dem. xxiv. 27). If a law approved by the commission was deemed to be unconstitutional, the proposer was liable to be prosecuted (by aγραφὴ παρανόμων), just as in the case of the proposer of an unconstitutional decree in the public assembly. Formal proceedings might also be instituted against laws on the sole ground of their inexpediency (see note on Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, p. 219, ed. Sandys). A prosecutor who (like Aeschines in his indictment of Ctesiphon) failed to obtain one-fifth of the votes was fined 1000drachmae(£40), and lost the right to adopt this procedure in future. When a year had elapsed, the proposer of a law or a decree was free from personal responsibility. This was the case with Leptines, but the law itself could still be attacked, and, in this event, five advocates were appointed to defend it (σύνδικοι), cf. Dem.Lept.144, 146.
The procedure in ordinary legislation was as follows. At the first meeting of the assembly in the year, the people was asked whether it would permit motions to be made for altering or supplementing the existing laws. A debate ensued, and, if such permission were granted, any citizen who wished to make a motion to the above effect was required to publish his proposals in the market-place, and to hand them to the secretary of the council (Boulē) to be read aloud at more than one meeting of the assembly. At the third regular meeting the people appointed the legislative commissioners, who were drawn by lot from the whole number of those then qualified to act as jurors. The number, and the duration of the commission, were determined in each case by the people. The proceedings before the commission were conducted exactly in the manner of a lawsuit. Those who desired to see old laws repealed, altered or replaced by new laws came forward asaccusersof those laws; those of the contrary opinion, asdefenders; and the defence was formally entrusted to public advocates specially appointed for the purpose (συνήγοροι). The number of the commissioners varied with the number or importance of the laws in question; there is evidence for the number 1001 (Dem. xxiv. 27). If a law approved by the commission was deemed to be unconstitutional, the proposer was liable to be prosecuted (by aγραφὴ παρανόμων), just as in the case of the proposer of an unconstitutional decree in the public assembly. Formal proceedings might also be instituted against laws on the sole ground of their inexpediency (see note on Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, p. 219, ed. Sandys). A prosecutor who (like Aeschines in his indictment of Ctesiphon) failed to obtain one-fifth of the votes was fined 1000drachmae(£40), and lost the right to adopt this procedure in future. When a year had elapsed, the proposer of a law or a decree was free from personal responsibility. This was the case with Leptines, but the law itself could still be attacked, and, in this event, five advocates were appointed to defend it (σύνδικοι), cf. Dem.Lept.144, 146.
Limits of space make it impossible to include in the present article any survey of the purport of the extant remains of the laws of Athens. Such a survey would begin with the laws of the family, including laws of marriage, adoptionThe laws of Athens.and inheritance, followed by the law of property and contracts, and the laws for the protection of life, the protection of the person, and the protection of the constitution. The texts have been collected and classified in Télfy’sCorpus juris Attici(1867), a work which can be supplemented or corrected with the aid of Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens; while some of the recent expositions of the subject are mentioned in the bibliography at the end of this article. We now proceed to notice the law of homicide, but solely in connexion with jurisdiction.
The general term for a tribunal isδικαστήριον(fromδικάζω), Anglicized “dicastery.” Of all the tribunals of Athens those for the trial of homicide were at once the most primitiveJurisdiction; the five primitive tribunals for the trial of homicide.and the least liable to suffer change through lapse of time. In the old Germanic law all trials whatsoever were held in the open air (Grimm 793 f.). At Athens this custom was characteristic of all the five primitive courts of homicide, the object being to prevent the prosecutor and the judges from coming under the same roof as one who was charged with the shedding of blood (Antiphon,De caede Herodis, 11). The place where the trial was held depended on the nature of the charge.
1. The rock of the Acropolis, outside the earliest of the city-walls, was the proper place for the trial of persons charged with premeditated homicide, or with wounding with intent to kill.On the Areopagus.The penalty for the former crime was death; for the latter exile; and, in either case, the property was confiscated. If the votes were equal, the person accused was acquitted. The proceedings lasted for three days, and each side might make two speeches. After the first speech the person accused of premeditated homicide was mercifully permitted to go into exile, in which case his property was confiscated, and in the ordinary course he remained in exile for the rest of his life.2. Charges of unpremeditated homicide, or of instigating another to inflict bodily harm on a third person, or of killing a slave or a resident alien or a foreigner, were tried at the Palladion,At the Palladion.the ancient shrine of Pallas, east of the city-walls. The punishment for unpremeditated homicide was exile (without confiscation) until such time as the criminal had propitiated the relatives of the person slain, or (failing that) for some definite time. The punishment for instigating a crime was the same as for actually committing it.3. Trials at the Delphinion, the shrine of ApolloAt the Delphinion.At Phreatto.Delphinios, in the same quarter, were reserved for special cases of either accidental or justifiable homicide.4. If a man already in exile for unpremeditated homicide were accused of premeditated homicide, or of wounding with intent to kill, provision was made for this rare contingency by permitting him to approach the shore of Attica and conduct his defence on board a boat, while his judges heard the cause on shore, at a “place of pits” called Phreatto, near the harbour of Zea. If the accused were found guilty, he incurred the proper penalty; if acquitted, he remained in exile.5. The court in the precincts of the Prytaneum, to the north of the Acropolis, was only of ceremonial importance. It “solemnly heard and condemned undiscovered murderers, and animals orAt the Prytaneum.inanimate objects that had caused the loss of life.”2The writ ran “against the doer of the deed,” and any instrument of death that was found guilty was thrown across the frontier. The trial was held by the four “tribe-kings” (φυλοβασιλεῖς), an archaic survival from before the time of Cleisthenes. (On these five courts see Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, c. 57, and Dem.Aristocr.65-79.)In all the courts of homicide the president was the archon-basileus, or king-archon, who on these occasions laid aside his crown. Originally all these courts were under the jurisdiction of an ancient body of judges called the ephetae (ἐφέται),Ephetae.whose institution was ascribed to Draco. The transfer of the first of the above courts to the council of the Areopagus is attributed to Solon. In practice the jurisdiction of the ephetae (see alsoAreopagus) was probably confined to the courts at the Palladion and Delphinion; but even there the rights of this primitive body became obsolete, for trials “at the Palladion” sometimes came before an ordinary tribunal of 500 or 700 jurors (Isocr.c. Callim.52, 54; [Dem.]c. Neaeram, 10).
1. The rock of the Acropolis, outside the earliest of the city-walls, was the proper place for the trial of persons charged with premeditated homicide, or with wounding with intent to kill.On the Areopagus.The penalty for the former crime was death; for the latter exile; and, in either case, the property was confiscated. If the votes were equal, the person accused was acquitted. The proceedings lasted for three days, and each side might make two speeches. After the first speech the person accused of premeditated homicide was mercifully permitted to go into exile, in which case his property was confiscated, and in the ordinary course he remained in exile for the rest of his life.
2. Charges of unpremeditated homicide, or of instigating another to inflict bodily harm on a third person, or of killing a slave or a resident alien or a foreigner, were tried at the Palladion,At the Palladion.the ancient shrine of Pallas, east of the city-walls. The punishment for unpremeditated homicide was exile (without confiscation) until such time as the criminal had propitiated the relatives of the person slain, or (failing that) for some definite time. The punishment for instigating a crime was the same as for actually committing it.
3. Trials at the Delphinion, the shrine of ApolloAt the Delphinion.At Phreatto.Delphinios, in the same quarter, were reserved for special cases of either accidental or justifiable homicide.
4. If a man already in exile for unpremeditated homicide were accused of premeditated homicide, or of wounding with intent to kill, provision was made for this rare contingency by permitting him to approach the shore of Attica and conduct his defence on board a boat, while his judges heard the cause on shore, at a “place of pits” called Phreatto, near the harbour of Zea. If the accused were found guilty, he incurred the proper penalty; if acquitted, he remained in exile.
5. The court in the precincts of the Prytaneum, to the north of the Acropolis, was only of ceremonial importance. It “solemnly heard and condemned undiscovered murderers, and animals orAt the Prytaneum.inanimate objects that had caused the loss of life.”2The writ ran “against the doer of the deed,” and any instrument of death that was found guilty was thrown across the frontier. The trial was held by the four “tribe-kings” (φυλοβασιλεῖς), an archaic survival from before the time of Cleisthenes. (On these five courts see Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, c. 57, and Dem.Aristocr.65-79.)
In all the courts of homicide the president was the archon-basileus, or king-archon, who on these occasions laid aside his crown. Originally all these courts were under the jurisdiction of an ancient body of judges called the ephetae (ἐφέται),Ephetae.whose institution was ascribed to Draco. The transfer of the first of the above courts to the council of the Areopagus is attributed to Solon. In practice the jurisdiction of the ephetae (see alsoAreopagus) was probably confined to the courts at the Palladion and Delphinion; but even there the rights of this primitive body became obsolete, for trials “at the Palladion” sometimes came before an ordinary tribunal of 500 or 700 jurors (Isocr.c. Callim.52, 54; [Dem.]c. Neaeram, 10).
Except in the case of the primitive courts of homicide, the right of jurisdiction was entrusted to the several archons until the date of Solon (594). When the direct jurisdiction of the archons was impaired by Solon’s institutionThe presidents of the tribunals.The chief archon.The king-archon.of the “right of appeal to the law-courts,” the dignity of those officials was recognized by their having the privilege of presiding over the new tribunals (ἡγεμονία δικαστηρίου). A similar position was assigned to the other executive officers, such as the strategi (generals), the board of police called the “Eleven,” and the financial officers, all of whom presided over cases connected with their respective departments. In their new position as presidents of the several courts, the archons received plaints, obtained from both parties the evidence which they proposed to present, formally presided at the trial, and gave instructions for the execution of the sentence. The choice of the presiding magistrate in each case was determined by the normal duties of his office. Thus the chief archon, the official guardian of orphans andThe polemarch.The strategi.The thesmothetae.widows, presided in all cases, public or private, connected with the family property of citizens (Aristotle,u.s.c. 56). The king-archon had charge of all offences against religion,e.g.indictments for impiety, disputes within the family as to the right to hold a particular priesthood, and all actions for homicide (c. 57). The third archon, the polemarch, discharged in relation to resident aliens all such legal duties as were discharged by the chief archon in relation to citizens (c. 58). The trial of military offences was under the presidency of the strategi, who were assisted by the other military officers in preparing the case for the court. The six junior archons, thethesmothetae, acted as a board which was responsible for all cases not specially assigned to any other officials (details in c. 59).
The Forty, who were appointed by lot, four for each of the ten tribes, acted as sole judges in petty cases where the damages claimed did not exceed tendrachmae. Claims beyond that amount they handed over to the arbitrators.The Forty.The four representatives of any given tribe received notice of such claims brought against members of that tribe. It seems probable that they dealt with all private suits not otherwise assigned, but, unlike the archons, they did not prepare any case for the court but referred it, in the first instance, to a public arbitrator appointed by lot (c. 53).3
The public arbitrators (διαιτηταί) were a body including all Athenian citizens in the sixtieth year of their age. The arbitrator, on receiving the case from the four representatives of the Forty, first endeavoured to bring the partiesThe public arbitrators.to an agreement. If this failed, he heard the evidence and gave a decision. If the decision were accepted, the case was at an end, but, if either of the two parties insisted on appealing to a law-court, the arbitrator placed in two caskets (one for each party) copies of all the depositions, oaths and challenges, and of all the laws quoted in the case, sealed them up, and, after attaching a copy of his own decision, handed them over to the four representatives of the Forty, who brought the case into court and presided over the trial. Documents which had not been brought before the arbitrator could not be produced in court. The court consisted of 201 jurors where the sum in question was not more than 1000drachmae(£40); in other cases the number of jurors was 401 (c. 53).
A small board of five appointed by lot, one for each pair of tribes, and known as the “introducers” (εἰσαγωγεῖς), broughtEisagōgeis.up certain of the cases that had to be decided within a month (ἔμμηνοι δίκαι), such as actions for restitution of dowry, repayment of capital for setting up a business, and cases connected with banking.
The largest and most important of the legal tribunals, the “dicastery” (par excellence), was known as theheliaea. The name, which is of uncertain origin,4denotes not only the place where the court was held but also the membersHeliaea.of the court,—theheliastaeof Aristophanes, thedicastae, orἄνδρες δικασταί, of the Attic orators. During the palmy days of the Athenian democracy, in the interval between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, the total number liable to serve as jurors is said to have been 6000 (Aristotle,u.s.c. 24. 3), and this number was never exceeded (Aristoph.Vesp.661 f.). Any Athenian citizen in full possession of his rights, and over thirty years of age, was entitled to be placed on the list (Aristotle,u.s.c. 63. 3). At the beginning of the year the whole body of jurors assembled on the hill of Ardēttos looking down on the Panathenaic Stadium, and there took a solemn oath to the effect that they would judge according to the laws and decrees of the Athenian people and of the council of the Five Hundred (Boulē), and that, in cases where there were no laws, they would decide to the best of their judgment; that they would hear both sides impartially, and vote on the case actually before the court.
It has been suggested that, as the normal number of a court was 500, the maximum number of 6000 jurors was probably divided into ten sections of 500 each, with 1000 reserves. There is evidence in the 4th century for courts of 200, 400, 500, 700 and(in important political trials) various multiples of 500, namely, 1000, 1500, 2000 or 2500. To some of these numbers one juror is added; it was probably added to all, to obviate the risk of the votes being exactly equal.
The evidence as to the organization of the jurors in the early part of the 4th century is imperfect. Passages in Aristophanes (Ecclesiazusae, 682-688;Plutus, 1166 f.) imply that in 392-388B.C.the total number was divided into ten sections distinguished by the first ten letters of the Greek alphabet, A to K. Every juror, on his first appointment, received a ticket of boxwood (or of bronze) bearing his name with that of his father and his deme, and with one of the above letters in the upper left-hand corner. Of the bronze tickets many have been found (see notes on Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, c. 63, and fig. 1 in frontispiece, ed. Sandys). These tickets formed part of the machinery for allotting the jurors to the several courts. To guard against the possibility of bribery or other undue influence, the allotment did not take place until immediately before the hearing of the case. Each court contained an equal number of jurors from each of the ten tribes, and thus represented the whole body of the state. The juror, on entering the court assigned him, received a counter (see fig. 3 in frontispiece,u.s.), on presenting which at the end of the day he received his fee. The machinery for carrying out the above arrangements is minutely described at the end of Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens(for details, cf. Gilbert, 397-399, Eng. trans., or Wyse in Whibley’sCompanion to Greek Studies, 387 f.).
The law-courts gradually superseded most of the ancient judicial functions of the council and the assembly, but the council continued to hold a strict scrutiny (δοκιμασία) of candidates for office or for other privileges, whileJurisdiction of the council and assembly.Eisangelia.the council itself, as well as all other officials, had to give account (εὔθυνα) on ceasing to hold office. The council also retained the right to deal with extraordinary crimes against the state. It was open to any citizen to bring such crimes to the knowledge of the council in writing. The technical term for this information, denunciation or impeachment waseisangelia(εἰσαγγελία). The council could inflict a fine of 500drachmae(£20), or, in important cases, refer the matter either to a law-court, as in the trial of Antiphon (Thuc. viii. 68), or to the ecclesia, as in that of Alcibiades (415B.C.), and the strategi in command at Arginusae (406; Xen.Hell.i. 7. 19). The termεἰσαγγελίαwas also applied to denunciations brought against persons who wronged the orphan or the widow, or against a public arbitrator who had neglected his duty (Dem.Meidias, 86 f.).
A “presentation” of criminal information (προβολή) might be laid before the assembly with a view to obtaining its preliminary sanction for bringing the case before a judicial tribunal. Such was the mode of procedureProbolē.adopted against persons who had brought malicious, groundless or vexatious accusations, or who had violated the sanctity of certain public festivals. The leading example of the former is the trial of the accusers who prompted the people to put to death the generals who had won the Battle of Arginusae (Xen.Hell.i. 7. 34); and, of the latter, the proceedings of Demosthenes against Meidias.
Legal actions (δίκαι) were classified as private (ἴδιαι) or public (δημόσιαι). The latter were also described asγραφαίor “prosecutions,” but someγραφαίwere called “private,” when the state was regarded as only indirectly injuredClasses of legal actions.by a wrong done to an individual citizen (Dem. xxi. 47). A private suit could only be brought by the man directly interested, or, in the case of a slave, a ward or an alien, by the master, guardian or patron respectively; and, if the suit were successful, the sum claimed generally went to the plaintiff. Public actions may be divided into ordinary criminal cases, and offences against the state. As a rule they could be instituted by any person who possessed the franchise, and the penalty was paid to the state. If the prosecutor failed to obtain one-fifth of the votes, he had to pay a fine of 1000drachmae(£40), and lost the right of ever bringing a similar action.
Lawsuits, whether public or private, were also distinguished asδίκαι κατά τινοςorπρός τινα, according as the defeated party could or could not be personally punished. Actions (ἀγῶνες) were also distinguished asἀγῶνες τιμητοί(“to be assessed”), in which the amount of damages had to be determined by the court, because it had not been fixed by law, andἀτίμητοι(“not to be assessed”), in which the damages hadnotto be determined by the court, because they had already been fixed by law or by special agreement.
Among special kinds of action wereἀπαγωγή,ἐφήγησιςandἔνδειξις. These could only be employed when the offence was patent and could not be denied. In the first, the person accused was summarily arrested by the prosecutor and haled into the presence of the proper official. In the second, the accuser took the officer with him to arrest the culprit (Dem. xxii. 26). In the third, he lodged an information with the official, and left the latter to effect the capture.Φάσις, a general term for many kinds of legal “information,” was a form of procedure specially directed against those who injured the fiscal interests of the state, and against guardians who neglected the pecuniary interests of their wards.Ἀπογραφήwas an action for confiscating property in private hands, which was claimed as belonging to the state, the term being derived from the claimants’ written inventory of the property in question.
The ordinary procedure in all lawsuits, public or private, began with a personal summons (πρόσκλησις) of theOrdinary legal procedure.defendant by the plaintiff accompanied by two witnesses (κλητῆρες). If the defendant failed to appear in court, these witnesses gave proof of the summons, and judgment went by default.
The action was begun by presenting a written statement of the case to the magistrate who presided over trials of the class in question. If the statement were accepted, court-fees were paid by both parties in a private action, and by the prosecutor alone in a public action. The magistrate fixed a day for the preliminary investigation (ἀνάκρισις), and, whenever several causes were instituted at the same time, he drew lots to determine the order in which they should be taken. Hence the plaintiff was said “to have a suit assigned him by lot” (λαγχάνειν δίκην), a phrase practically equivalent to “obtaining leave to bring an action.” At theἀνάκρισιςthe plaintiff and defendant both swore to the truth of their statements. If the defendant raised no formal protest, the trial proceeded in regular course (εὐθυδικία), but he might contend that the suit was inadmissible, and, to prove his point, might bring witnesses to confront those on the side of the plaintiff (διαμαρτυρία), or he might rely on argument without witnesses by means of a written statement traversing that of the plaintiff (παραγραφή). The person who submitted the special plea in bar of action naturally spoke first, and, if he gained the verdict, the main suit could not come on, or, at any rate, not in the way proposed or before the same court. A cross-action (ἀντιγραφή) might be brought by the defendant, but the verdict did not necessarily affect that of the original suit.
In the preliminary examination copies of the laws or other documents bearing on the case were produced. If any such document were in the hands of a third person, he could be compelled to produce it by an action for thatDocuments.purpose (εἰς ἐμφανῶν κατάστασιν). The depositions were ordinarily made before the presiding officer and were taken down in his presence. If a witness were compelled to be absent, a certified copy of his deposition might be sent (ἐκμαρτυρία). The depositions of slaves were not accepted, unless made under torture, and for receiving such evidence the consent of both parties was required. Either party could challenge the other to submit his slaves to theChallenges.test (πρόκλησις εἰς βάσανον), and, in the event of the challenge being refused, could comment on the fact when the case came before the court. Either party could also challenge the other to take an oath (πρόκλσις εἰς ὄρκον), and, if the oath were declined, could similarly comment on the fact.
Mercantile cases had to be decided within the interval of a month; others might be postponed for due cause. If, on the day of trial, one of the parties was absent, his representative had to show cause under oath (ὑπωμοσία);The trial.if the other party objected, he did so under oath (ἀνθυπωμοσία). If the plea for delay were refused by the court, and it were the defendant who failed to appear, judgment went by default; in the absence of the plaintiff, the case was given in favour of the defendant.
The official who had conducted the preliminary inquiry also presided at the trial. The proceedings began with a solemn sacrifice. The plea of the plaintiff and the formal reply of the defendant were then read by the clerk. The court was next addressed first by the plaintiff, next by the defendant; in some cases there were two speeches on each side. Every litigant was legally required to conduct his own case. The speeches were often composed by professional experts for delivery by the parties to the suit, who were required to speak in person, though one or more unprofessional supporters (συνήγοροι) might subsequently speak in support of the case. The length of the speeches was in many cases limited by law to a fixed time recorded by means of a water-clock (clepsydra). Documents were not regarded as part of the speech, and, while these were being read, the clock was stopped (Goethe found a similar custom in force in Venice in October 1786). The witnesses were never cross-examined, but one of the litigants might formally interrogate the other. The case for the defence was sometimes finally supported by pathetic appeals on the part of relatives and friends.
When the speeches were over, the votes were taken. In the 5th century mussel-shells (χοιρῖναι) were used for the purpose. Each of the jurors received a shell, which he placed in one of the two urns, in that to the front if he voted for acquittal; in that to the back if he voted for condemnation. If a second vote had to be taken to determine the amount of the penalty, wax tablets were used, on which the juror drew a long line, if he gave the heavy penalty demanded by the plaintiff; a short one, if he decided in favour of the lighter penalty proposed by the defendant.
In the 4th century the mussel-shells were replaced by disks of bronze. Each disk (inscribed with the wordsΨΗΦΟΣ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΑ) was about 1 in. in diameter, with a short tube running through the centre. This tube was either perforated or closed (see figs. 6 and 7 in frontispiece to Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, ed. Sandys). One of each kind was given to every juror, who was required to use the perforated or the closed disk, according as he voted for the plaintiff or for the defendant. On the platform there were two urns, one of bronze and one of wood. The juror placed in the hollow of his hand the disk that he proposed to use, and closed his fingers on the extremity of the tube, so that no one could see whether it were a perforated disk or not, and then deposited it in the bronze urn, and (with the same precaution to ensure secrecy) dropped the unused disk into the wooden urn. The votes were sorted by persons appointed by lot, and counted by the president of the court, and the result announced by the herald. For any second vote the same procedure was adopted (Aristotle,u.s., c. 68 of Kenyon’s Berlin text).
Pecuniary penalties were inflicted both in public and in private suits; personal penalties, in public suits only. Personal penalties included sentences of death or exile, or different degrees of disfranchisement (ἀτιμία) with orPenalties.without confiscation. Imprisonmentbeforetrial was common, and persons mulcted in penalties might be imprisoned until the penalties were paid, but imprisonment was never inflicted as thesolepenalty after conviction. Foreigners alone could be sold into slavery. Sentences of death were carried out under the supervision of the board of police called the “Eleven.” In ancient times a person condemned was hurled into a deep pit (the barathrum) in a north-western suburb of Athens. In later times he was compelled to drink the fatal draught of hemlock. Common malefactors were beaten to death with clubs. Fines were collected and confiscated property sold by special officials, calledπράκτορεςandπωληταίrespectively. In private suits the sentence was executed by the state if the latter had a share in any fine imposed, or if imprisonment were part of the penalty. Otherwise, the execution of the sentence was left to the plaintiff, who had the right of distraint, or, if this failed, could bring an action of ejectment (δίκη ἐξούγης).
From the verdict of the heliaea there was no appeal. But, if judgment had been given by default, the person condemned might bring an action to prove that he was not responsible for such default,τὴν ἔρημον(sc.δίκην)ἀντιλαγχάνειν. The corresponding term for challenging the award of an arbitrator wasτὴν μὴ οὖσαν ἀντιλαγχάνειν. He might also bring an action for false evidence (δίκη ψευδομαρτυριῶν) against his opponent’s witnesses, and, on their conviction, have the sentence annulled. This “denunciation” of false evidence was technically calledἐπίσκηψιςandἐπισκήπτεσθαι.
The large number of the jurors made bribery difficult, but, as was first proved by Anytus (in 409), not impossible. It also diminished the feeling of personal responsibility, while it increased the influence of political motives. InCharacter of the Athenian tribunals.addressing such a court, the litigants were not above appealing to the personal interests of the general public. We have a striking example of this in the terms in which Lysias makes one of his clients close a speech in prosecution of certain retail corn-dealers who have incurred the penalty of death by buying more than 75 bushels of wheat at one time: “If youcondemnthese persons, you will be doing what is right, and will paylessfor the purchase of your corn; if youacquitthem, you will paymore” (xxii. § 22).
Speakers were also tempted to take advantage of the popular ignorance by misinterpreting the enactments of the law, and the jurors could look for no aid from the officials who formally presided over the courts. The latter were not necessarily experts, for they owed their own original appointment to the caprice of the lot. Almost the only officials specially elected as experts were the strategi, and these presided only in their own courts. Again, there was every temptation for the informer to propose the confiscation of the property of a wealthy citizen, who would naturally prefer paying blackmail to running the risk of having his case tried before a large tribunal which was under every temptation to decide in the interests of the treasury. In conclusion we may quote the opinions on the judicial system of Athens which have been expressed by two eminent classical scholars and English lawyers.
A translator of Aristophanes, Mr B. B. Rogers, records his opinion “that it would be difficult to devise a judicial system less adapted for the due administration of justice” (Preface toWasps, xxxv. f.), while a translator of Demosthenes, Mr C. R. Kennedy, observes that the Athenian jurors “were persons of no legal education or learning; taken at haphazard from the whole body of citizens, and mostly belonging to the lowest and poorest class. On the other hand, the Athenians were naturally the quickest and cleverest people in the world. Their wits were sharpened by the habit ... of taking an active part in important debates, and hearing the most splendid orators. There was so much litigation at Athens that they were constantly either engaged as jurors, or present as spectators in courts of law” (Private Orations, p. 361).Authorities.—1.Greek Law.B. W. Leist,Gräco-italische Rechtsgeschichte(Jena, 1884); L. Mitteis,Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Provinzen des römischen Kaiserreichs, mit Beiträgen zur Kenntnis des griechischen Rechts(Leipzig, 1891); J. H. Lipsius,Von der Bedeutung des griechischen Rechts(Leipzig, 1893); G. Gilbert, “Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des ... griechischen Rechtes” inJahrb. für kl. Philologie(Leipzig, 1896); H. J. Hitzig,Die Bedeutung des altgriechischen Rechtes für die vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft(Stuttgart, 1906); R. Hirzel,Themis, Dike und Verwandtes(Leipzig, 1907); J. J. Thonissen,Le Droit criminel de la Grèce légendaire, followed byLe Droit pénal de la république athénienne(Brussels, 1875).2.Attic Law.(a) Editions of Greek texts: I. B. Télfy,Corpus juris Attici(Pest and Leipzig, 1868); Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, ed. Kenyon (London, 1891, &c., and esp. ed. 4, Berlin, 1903); ed. 4, Blass (Leipzig, 1903); text with critical and explanatory notes, ed. Sandys (London, 1893); Lysias, ed. Frohberger (Leipzig, 1866-1871); Isaeus, ed. Wyse (Cambridge, 1904); Demosthenes,Private Orations, ed. Paley and Sandys, ed. 3 (Cambridge, 1896-1898);Against Midias, ed. Goodwin (Cambridge, 1906); Dareste, Haussoullier, Th. Reinach,Inscr. juridiques grecques(Paris, 1891-1904). (b) Modern treatises: K. F. Hermann,De vestigiis institutorum... Atticorum per Platonis de legibus libros indagandis(Marburg, 1836);Staatsaltertümer, ed. 6, Thumser (Freiburg, 1892);Rechtsaltertümer, ed. 3, Thalheim (Freiburg, 1884); G. Busolt,Staatsund Rechtsaltertümer, ed. 2 (Munich, 1892); U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff,Aristoteles und Athen(Berlin, 1893); G. Gilbert,Gk. Constitutional Antiquities(vol. i., Eng. trans., pp. 376-416, London, 1895); J. H. Lipsius, (1) new ed. of Meier and Schömann,Der attische Process(Berlin, 1883-1887); (2) ed. 4 of Schömann,Gr. Altertümer(Berlin, 1897-1902); (3)Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren(Leipzig, 1905); Daremberg and Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités(Paris, 1877); G. Glotz,La Solidarité de la famille dans le droit criminel en Grèce(Paris, 1904); L. Beauchet,Droit privé de la rép. athén.(4 vols., Paris, 1897); C. R. Kennedy,Appendices to transl. of Dem.vols. iii. and iv. (1856-1861); Smith’sDictionary of ... Antiquities, ed. 3 (1891); F. B. Jevons, in Gardner and Jevons,Greek Antiquities(1895, pp. 526-597); W. Wyse, in Whibley’sCompanion to Greek Studies(Cambridge, 1905), pp. 377-402.
A translator of Aristophanes, Mr B. B. Rogers, records his opinion “that it would be difficult to devise a judicial system less adapted for the due administration of justice” (Preface toWasps, xxxv. f.), while a translator of Demosthenes, Mr C. R. Kennedy, observes that the Athenian jurors “were persons of no legal education or learning; taken at haphazard from the whole body of citizens, and mostly belonging to the lowest and poorest class. On the other hand, the Athenians were naturally the quickest and cleverest people in the world. Their wits were sharpened by the habit ... of taking an active part in important debates, and hearing the most splendid orators. There was so much litigation at Athens that they were constantly either engaged as jurors, or present as spectators in courts of law” (Private Orations, p. 361).
Authorities.—1.Greek Law.B. W. Leist,Gräco-italische Rechtsgeschichte(Jena, 1884); L. Mitteis,Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Provinzen des römischen Kaiserreichs, mit Beiträgen zur Kenntnis des griechischen Rechts(Leipzig, 1891); J. H. Lipsius,Von der Bedeutung des griechischen Rechts(Leipzig, 1893); G. Gilbert, “Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des ... griechischen Rechtes” inJahrb. für kl. Philologie(Leipzig, 1896); H. J. Hitzig,Die Bedeutung des altgriechischen Rechtes für die vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft(Stuttgart, 1906); R. Hirzel,Themis, Dike und Verwandtes(Leipzig, 1907); J. J. Thonissen,Le Droit criminel de la Grèce légendaire, followed byLe Droit pénal de la république athénienne(Brussels, 1875).
2.Attic Law.(a) Editions of Greek texts: I. B. Télfy,Corpus juris Attici(Pest and Leipzig, 1868); Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, ed. Kenyon (London, 1891, &c., and esp. ed. 4, Berlin, 1903); ed. 4, Blass (Leipzig, 1903); text with critical and explanatory notes, ed. Sandys (London, 1893); Lysias, ed. Frohberger (Leipzig, 1866-1871); Isaeus, ed. Wyse (Cambridge, 1904); Demosthenes,Private Orations, ed. Paley and Sandys, ed. 3 (Cambridge, 1896-1898);Against Midias, ed. Goodwin (Cambridge, 1906); Dareste, Haussoullier, Th. Reinach,Inscr. juridiques grecques(Paris, 1891-1904). (b) Modern treatises: K. F. Hermann,De vestigiis institutorum... Atticorum per Platonis de legibus libros indagandis(Marburg, 1836);Staatsaltertümer, ed. 6, Thumser (Freiburg, 1892);Rechtsaltertümer, ed. 3, Thalheim (Freiburg, 1884); G. Busolt,Staatsund Rechtsaltertümer, ed. 2 (Munich, 1892); U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff,Aristoteles und Athen(Berlin, 1893); G. Gilbert,Gk. Constitutional Antiquities(vol. i., Eng. trans., pp. 376-416, London, 1895); J. H. Lipsius, (1) new ed. of Meier and Schömann,Der attische Process(Berlin, 1883-1887); (2) ed. 4 of Schömann,Gr. Altertümer(Berlin, 1897-1902); (3)Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren(Leipzig, 1905); Daremberg and Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités(Paris, 1877); G. Glotz,La Solidarité de la famille dans le droit criminel en Grèce(Paris, 1904); L. Beauchet,Droit privé de la rép. athén.(4 vols., Paris, 1897); C. R. Kennedy,Appendices to transl. of Dem.vols. iii. and iv. (1856-1861); Smith’sDictionary of ... Antiquities, ed. 3 (1891); F. B. Jevons, in Gardner and Jevons,Greek Antiquities(1895, pp. 526-597); W. Wyse, in Whibley’sCompanion to Greek Studies(Cambridge, 1905), pp. 377-402.
(J. E. S.*)
1For further information as to the evolution of the Athenian constitution seeArchon,Areopagus,Boulē,Ecclesia,Strategus, and articles on all the chief legislators.2In the case of “animals,” we may compare the Mosaic law of Exod. xxxi. 28 and the old Germanic law (Grimm 664); and in that of “inanimate objects,” the English law of deodands (Blackstone i. 300), repealed in 1846. See also Frazer on Pausanias, i. 28. 10.3Cf. R. J. Bonner, inClassical Philology(Chicago, 1907), 407-418, who urges that only cases belonging to the Forty were subject to public arbitration.4Connected either withἁλίζεσθαι, “to assemble,” orἥλιος, orἭλις(cf. Curt Wachsmuth,Stadt Athen, ii. (1) 359-364). The first is possibly right (cf. Rogers on Aristoph.Wasps, xvii. f.); the second implies that this large court was held in the open air (Lipsius,Att. Recht, 172).
1For further information as to the evolution of the Athenian constitution seeArchon,Areopagus,Boulē,Ecclesia,Strategus, and articles on all the chief legislators.
2In the case of “animals,” we may compare the Mosaic law of Exod. xxxi. 28 and the old Germanic law (Grimm 664); and in that of “inanimate objects,” the English law of deodands (Blackstone i. 300), repealed in 1846. See also Frazer on Pausanias, i. 28. 10.
3Cf. R. J. Bonner, inClassical Philology(Chicago, 1907), 407-418, who urges that only cases belonging to the Forty were subject to public arbitration.
4Connected either withἁλίζεσθαι, “to assemble,” orἥλιος, orἭλις(cf. Curt Wachsmuth,Stadt Athen, ii. (1) 359-364). The first is possibly right (cf. Rogers on Aristoph.Wasps, xvii. f.); the second implies that this large court was held in the open air (Lipsius,Att. Recht, 172).
GREEK LITERATURE.—The literature of the Greek language is broadly divisible into three main sections: (1) Ancient, (2) Byzantine, (3) Modern. These are dealt with below in that order.
1. The Ancient Greek Literature
The ancient literature falls into three periods: (A)The Early Literature, to about 475B.C.; epic, elegiac, iambic and lyric poetry; the beginnings of literary prose. (B)The Attic Literature475-300B.C.; tragic and comic drama; historical, oratorical and philosophical prose. (C)The Literature of the Decadence, 300B.C.toA.D.529; which may again be divided into the Alexandrian period, 300-146B.C., and the Graeco-Roman period, 146B.C.toA.D.529.
For details regarding particular works or the lives of their authors reference should be made to the separate articles devoted to the principal Greek writers. The object of the following pages is to sketch the literary development as a whole, to show how its successive periods were related to each other, and to mark the dominant characteristics of each.
(A)The Early Literature.—A process of natural growth may be traced through all the best work of the Greek genius. The Greeks were not literary imitators of foreign models; the forms of poetry and prose in which they attained to such unequalled excellence were first developed by themselves. Their literature had its roots in their political and social life; it is the spontaneous expression of that life in youth, maturity and decay; and the order in which its several fruits are produced is not the result of accident or caprice. Further, the old Greek literature has a striking completeness, due to the fact that each great branch of the Hellenic race bore a characteristic part in its development. Ionians, Aeolians, Dorians, in turn contributed their share. Each dialect corresponded to a certain aspect of Hellenic life and character. Each found its appropriate work.
The Ionians on the coast of Asia Minor—a lively and genial people, delighting in adventure, and keenly sensitive to everything bright and joyous—created artistic epic poetry out of the lays in which Aeolic minstrels sang of the oldThe dialects.Achaean wars. And among the Ionians arose elegiac poetry, the first variation on the epic type. These found a fitting instrument in the harmonious Ionic dialect, the flexible utterance of a quick and versatile intelligence. The Aeolians of Lesbos next created the lyric of personal passion, in which the traits of their race—its chivalrous pride, its bold but sensuous fancy—found a fitting voice in the fiery strength and tenderness of Aeolic speech. The Dorians of the Peloponnesus, Sicily and Magna Graecia then perfected the choral lyric for festivals and religious worship; and here again an earnest faith, a strong pride in Dorian usage and renown had an apt interpreter in the massive and sonorous Doric. Finally, the Attic branch of the Ionian stock produced the drama, blending elements of all the other kinds, and developed an artistic literary prose in history, oratory and philosophy. It is in the Attic literature that the Greek mind receives its most complete interpretation.
A natural affinity was felt to exist between each dialect and that species of composition for which it had been specially used. Hence the dialect of the Ionian epic poets would be adopted with more or less thoroughness even by epic or elegiac poets who were not Ionians. Thus the Aeolian Hesiod uses it in epos, the Dorian Theognis in elegy, though not without alloy. Similarly, the Dorian Theocritus wrote love-songs in Aeolic. All the faculties and tones of the language were thus gradually brought out by the co-operation of the dialects. Old Greek literature has an essential unity—the unity of a living organism; and this unity comprehends a number of distinct types, each of which is complete in its own kind.
Extant Greek literature begins with the Homeric poems. These are works of art which imply a long period of antecedent poetical cultivation. Of the pre-Homeric poetry we have no remains, and very little knowledge. SuchPre-Homeric poetry.glimpses as we get of it connect it with two different stages in the religion of the prehistoric Hellenes. The first of these stages is that in which the agencies or forms of external nature were personified indeed, yet with the consciousness that the personal names were only symbols. Some very ancient Greek songs of which mention is made maySongs of the seasons.have belonged to this stage—as the songs of Linus, Ialemus and Hylas. Linus, the fair youth killed by dogs, seems to be the spring passing away before Sirius. Such songs have been aptly called “songs of the seasons.” The second stage is that in which the Hellenes have now definitively personified the powers which they worship. Apollo, Demeter, Dionysus, Cybele, have now become to them beings with clearly conceived attributes. To this second stage belongHymns.the hymns connected with the names of the legendary bards, such as Orpheus, Musaeus, Eumolpus, who are themselves associated with the worship of the Pierian Muses and the Attic ritual of Demeter. The seats of this early sacred poetry are not only “Thracian”—i.e.on the borders of northern Greece—but also “Phrygian” and “Cretan.” It belongs, that is, presumably to an age when the ancestors of the Hellenes had left the Indo-European home in central Asia, but had not yet taken full possession of the lands which were afterwards Hellenic. Some of their tribes were still in Asia; others were settling in the islands of the Aegean; others were passing through the lands on its northern seaboard. If there was a period when the Greeks possessed no poetry but hymns forming part of a religious ritual, it may be conjectured that it was not of long duration. Already in theIliada secular character belongs to the marriage hymn and to the dirge for the dead, which in ancient India were chanted by the priest. The bent of the Greeks was to claim poetry and music as public joys; they would not long have suffered them to remain sacerdotal mysteries. And among the earliest themes on which the lay artist in poetry was employed were probably war-ballads, sung by minstrels in the houses of the chiefs whose ancestors they celebrated.
Such war-ballads were the materials from which the earliest epic poetry of Greece was constructed. By an “epic” poem the Greeks meant a narrative of heroic action in hexameter verse. The termἔπηmeant at first simplyEpos.“verses”; it acquired its special meaning only whenμέλη, lyric songs set to music, came to be distinguished fromἔπηverses not set to music, but merely recited. Epic poetry is the only kind of extant Greek poetry which is older than about 700B.C.The early epos of Greece is represented by theIliadand theOdyssey, Hesiod and the Homeric hymns; also by some fragments of the “Cyclic” poets.
After the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus, the Aeolian emigrants who settled in the north-west of Asia Minor brought with them the warlike legends of their chiefs, the Achaean princes of old. These legends lived in theThe “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.”ballads of the Aeolic minstrels, and from them passed southward into Ionia, where the Ionian poets gradually shaped them into higher artistic forms. Among the seven places which claimed to be the birthplace of Homer, that which has the best title is Smyrna. Homer himself is called “son of Meles”—the stream which flowed through old Smyrna, on the border between Aeolia and Ionia. The tradition is significant in regard to the origin and character of theIliad, for in theIliadwe have Achaean ballads worked up by Ionian art. A preponderanceof evidence is in favour of the view that theOdysseyalso, at least in its earliest form, was composed on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor. According to the Spartan account, Lycurgus was the first to bring to Greece a complete copy of the Homeric poems, which he had obtained from the Creophylidae, a clan or gild of poets in Samos. A better authenticated tradition connects Athens with early attempts to preserve the chief poetical treasure of the nation. Peisistratus is said to have charged some learned men with the task of collecting all “the poems of Homer”; but it is difficult to decide how much was comprehended under this last phrase, or whether the province of the commission went beyond the mere task of collecting. Nor can it be determined what exactly it was that Solon and Hipparchus respectively did for the Homeric poems. Solon, it has been thought, enacted that the poems should be recited from an authorized text (ἐξ ὑποβολῆς); Hipparchus, that they should be recited in a regular order (ἐξ ὑπολήψεως). At any rate, we know that in the 6th centuryB.C.a recitation of the poems of Homer was one of the established competitions at the Panathenaea, held once in four years. The reciter was called arhapsodist—properly one who weaves a long, smoothly-flowing chant, then an epic poet who chants his own or another’s poem. The rhapsodist did not, like the early minstrel, use the accompaniment of the harp; he gave the verses in a flowing recitative, bearing in his hand a branch of laurel, the symbol of Apollo’s inspiration. In the 5th centuryB.C.we find that various Greek cities had their own editions (αἱ πολιτικαί, κατὰ πόλειςorἐκ πόλεων ἐκδόσεις) of the poems, for recitation at their festivals. Among these were the editions of Massilia, of Chios and of Argolis. There were also editions bearing the name of the individual editor (αἱ κατ᾽ ἄνδρα)—the best known being that which Aristotle prepared for Alexander. The recension of the poems by Aristarchus (156B.C.) became the standard one, and is probably that on which the existing text is based. The oldest Homeric MS. extant, Venetus A of theIliad, is of the 10th century; the first printed edition of Homer was that edited by the Byzantine Demetrius Chalcondyles (Florence, 1488).
The ancient Greeks were almost unanimous in believing theIliadand theOdysseyto be the work of one man, Homer, to whom they also ascribed some extant hymns, and probably much more besides. Aristotle and Aristarchus seemThe Homeric question.to have put Homer’s date about 1044B.C., Herodotus about 850B.C.It is not till about 170B.C.that the grammarians Hellanicus and Xenon put forward the view that Homer was the author of theIliad, but not of theOdyssey. Those who followed them in assigning different authors to the two poems were called the Separators (Chorizontes). Aristarchus combated “the paradox of Xenon,” and it does not seem to have had much acceptance in antiquity. Giovanni Battista Vico, a Neapolitan (1668-1744), seems to have been the first modern to suggest the composite authorship and oral tradition of the Homeric poems; but this was a pure conjecture in support of his theory that the names of ancient lawgivers and poets are often mere symbols. F. A. Wolf, in theProlegomenato his edition (1795), was the founder of a scientific scepticism. TheIliad, he said (for he recognized the comparative unity and consistency of theOdyssey), was pieced together from many small unwritten poems by various hands, and was first committed to writing in the time of Peisistratus. This view was in harmony with the tone of German criticism at the time; it was welcomed as a new testimony to the superiority of popular poetry, springing from fresh natural sources, to elaborate works of art; and it at once found enthusiastic adherents. For the course of Homeric controversy since Wolf the reader is referred to the articleHomer.
The Ionian school of epos produced a number of poems founded on the legends of the Trojan war, and intended as introductions or continuations to theIliadand theOdyssey. The grammarian Proclus (A.D.140) hasCyclic poems.preserved the names and subjects of some of these; but the fragments are very scanty. TheNostoiorHomeward Voyages, by Agias (or Hagias) of Troezen, filled up the gap of ten years between theIliadand theOdyssey; theLay of Telegonus, by Eugammon of Cyrene, continued the story of the Odyssey to the death of Odysseus by the hand of Telegonus, the son whom Circe bore to him. Similarly theCyprian Laysby Stasinus of Cyprus, ascribed by others to Hegesias (or Hegesinus) of Salamis or Halicarnassus, was introductory to theIliad; theAethiopisand theSack of Troy, by Arctinus of Miletus, and theLittle Iliad, by Lesches of Mytilene, were supplementary to it. These and many other names of lost epics—some taken also from the Theban myths (Thebaïs,Epigoni,Oedipodea)—serve to show how prolific was that epic school of which only two great examples remain. The name ofepic cyclewas properly applied to a prose compilation of abstracts from these epics, pieced together in the order of the events. The compilers were called “cyclic” writers; and the term has now been transferred to the epic poets whom they used.1
The epic poetry of Ionia celebrated the great deeds of heroes in the old wars. But in Greece proper there arose another school of epos, which busied itself with religious lore and ethical precepts, especially in relation to the ruralHesiodic epos.life of Boeotia. This school is represented by the name of Hesiod. The legend spoke of him as vanquishing Homer in a poetical contest of Chalcis in Euboea; and it expresses the fact that, to the old Greek mind, these two names stood for two contrasted epic types. Nothing is certainly known of his date, except that it must have been subsequent to the maturity of Ionian epos. He is conjecturally placed about 850-800B.C.; but some would refer him to the early part of the 7th centuryB.C.His home was at Ascra, a village in a valley under Helicon, whither his father had migrated from Cyme in Aeolis on the coast of Asia Minor. In Hesiod’sWorks and Dayswe have the earliest example of a didactic poem. The seasons and the labours of the Boeotian farmer’s year are followed by a list of the days which are lucky or unlucky for work. TheTheogony, or “Origin of the Gods,” describes first how the visible order of nature arose out of chaos; next, how the gods were born. Though it never possessed the character of a sacred book, it remained a standard authority on the genealogies of the gods. So far as a corrupt and confused text warrants a judgment, the poet was piecing together—not always intelligently—the fragments of a very old cosmogonic system, using for this purpose both the hymns preserved in the temples and the myths which lived in folklore. The epic lay in 480 lines called theShield of Heracles—partly imitated from the 18th book of theIliad—is the work of an author or authors later than Hesiod. In the Hesiodic poetry, as represented by theWorks and Daysand theTheogony, we see the influence of the temple at Delphi. Hesiod recognizes the existence ofδαίμονες—spirits of the departed who haunt the earth as the invisible guardians of justice; and he connects the office of the poet with that of the prophet. The poet is one whom the gods have authorized to impress doctrine and practical duties on men. A religious purpose was essentially characteristic of the Hesiodic school. Its poets treated the old legends as relics of a sacred history, and not merely, in the Ionian manner, as subjects of idealizing art. Such titles as theMaxims of Cheironand theLay of Melampus, the seer—lost poems of the Hesiodic school—illustrate its ethical and its mystic tendencies.
TheHomeric Hymnsare a collection of pieces, some of them very short, in hexameter verse. Their traditional title is—HymnsorPreludes of Homer and the Homeridae. The second of the alternative designations is the true one.The Homeric hymns.The pieces are not “hymns” used in formal worship, but “preludes” or prefatory addresses (προοίμια) with which the rhapsodists ushered in their recitations of epic poetry. The “prelude” might be addressed to the presiding god of the festival, or to any local deity whom the reciter wished to honour. The pieces (of which there are 33) range in date perhaps from 750 to 500B.C.(though some authorities assign dates as late as the 3rd and 4th centuriesA.D.; see ed. by Sikes and Allen,e.g.p. 228), and it is probable that the collection wasformed in Attica, for the use of rhapsodists. The style is that of the Ionian or Homeric epos; but there are also several traces of the Hesiodic or Boeotian school. The principal “hymns” are (1) to Apollo (generally treated as two or more hymns combined in one); (2) to Hermes; (3) to Aphrodite; and (4) to Demeter. The hymn to Apollo, quoted by Thucydides (iii. 104) as Homer’s, is of peculiar interest on account of the lines describing the Ionian festival at Delos. Two celebrated pieces of a sportive kind passed under Homer’s name. TheMargites—a comic poem on one “who knew many things but knew them all badly”—is regarded by Aristotle as the earliest germ of comedy, and was possibly as old as 700B.C.Only a few lines remain. TheBatracho(myo)machia, orBattle of the Frogs and Miceprobably belongs to the decline of Greek literature, perhaps to the 2nd centuryB.C.2About 300 verses of it are extant.
In theIliadand theOdysseythe personal opinions or sympathies of the poet may sometimes be conjectured, but they are not declared or even hinted. Hesiod, indeed, sometimes gives us a glimpse of his own troubles or views.Transition from epos to elegy.Yet Hesiod is, on the whole, essentially a prophet. The message which he delivers is not from himself; the truths which he imparts have not been discovered by his own search. He is the mouthpiece of the Delphian Apollo. Personal opinion and feeling may tinge his utterance, but they do not determine its general complexion. The egotism is a single thread; it is not the basis of the texture. Epic poetry was in Greece the foundation of all other poetry; for many centuries no other kind was generally cultivated, no other could speak to the whole people. Politically, the age was monarchical or aristocratic; intellectually, it was too simple for the analysis of thought or emotion. Kings and princes loved to hear of the great deeds of their ancestors; common men loved to hear of them too, for they had no other interest. The mind of Greece found no subject of contemplation so attractive as the warlike past of the race, or so useful as that lore which experience and tradition had bequeathed. But in the course of the 8th centuryB.C.the rule of hereditary princes began to disappear. Monarchy gave place to oligarchy, and this—often after the intermediate phase of a tyrannis—to democracy. Such a change was necessarily favourable to the growth of reflection. The private citizen is no longer a mere cipher, the Homericτις, a unit in the dim multitude of the king-ruled folk; he gains more power of independent action, his mental horizon is widened, his life becomes fuller and more interesting. He begins to feel the need of expressing the thoughts and feelings that are stirred in him. But as yet a prose literature does not exist; the new thoughts, like the old heroic stories, must still be told in verse. The forms of verse created by this need were the Elegiac and the Iambic.
The elegiac metre is, in form, a simple variation on the epic metre, obtained by docking the second of two hexameters so as to make it a verse of five feet or measures. But the poetical capabilities of the elegiac couplet are of aElegy.wholly different kind from those of heroic verse.ἔλεγοςseems to be the Greek form of a name given by the Carians and Lydians to a lament for the dead. This was accompanied by the soft music of the Lydian flute, which continued to be associated with Greek elegy. The non-Hellenic origin of elegy is indicated by this very fact. The flute was to the Greeks an Asiatic instrument—string instruments were those which they made their own—and it would hardly have been wedded by them to a species of poetry which had arisen among themselves. The early elegiac poetry of Greece was by no means confined to mourning for the dead. War, love, politics, proverbial philosophy, were in turn its themes; it dealt, in fact, with the chief interest of the poet and his friends, whatever that might be at the time. It is the direct expression of the poet’s own thoughts, addressed to a sympathizing society. This is its first characteristic. The second is that, even when most pathetic or most spirited, it still preserves, on the whole, the tone of conversation or of narrative. Greek elegy stops short of lyric passion. English elegy, whether funereal as in Dryden and Pope, or reflective as in Gray, is usually true to the same normal type. Roman elegy is not equally true to it, but sometimes tends to trench on the lyric province. For Roman elegy is mainly amatory or sentimental; and its masters imitated, as a rule, not the early Greek elegists, not Tyrtaeus or Theognis, but the later Alexandrian elegists, such as Callimachus or Philetas. Catullus introduced the metre to Latin literature, and used it with more fidelity than his followers to its genuine Greek inspiration.
Elegy, as we have seen, was the first slight deviation from epos. But almost at the same time another species arose which had nothing in common with epos, either in form or in spirit. This was the iambic. The wordἴαμβος,Iambic verse.iambus(ἰάπτειν, to dart or shoot) was used in reference to the licensed raillery at the festivals of Demeter; it was the maiden Iambe, the myth said, who drew the first smile from the mourning goddess. The iambic metre was at first used for satire; and it was in this strain that it was chiefly employed by its earliest master of note, Archilochus of Paros (670B.C.). But it was adapted to the expression generally of any pointed thought. Thus it was suitable to fables. Elegiac and iambic poetry both belong to the borderland between epic and lyric. While, however, elegy stands nearer to epos, iambic stands nearer to the lyric. Iambic poetry can express the personal feeling of the poet with greater intensity than elegy does; on the other hand, it has not the lyric flexibility, self-abandonment or glow. As we see in the case of Solon, iambic verse could serve for the expression of that deeper thought, that more inward self-communing, for which the elegiac form would have been inappropriate.
But these two forms of poetry, both Ionian, the elegiac and the iambic, belong essentially to the same stage of the literature. They stand between the Ionian epos and the lyric poetry of the Aeolians and Dorians. The earliest of the Greek elegists, Callinus and Tyrtaeus, use elegy to rouse a warlike spirit in sinking hearts. Archilochus too wrote warlike elegy, but used it also in other strains, as in lament for the dead. The elegy of Mimnermus of Smyrna or Colophon is the plaintive farewell of an ease-loving Ionian to the days of Ionian freedom. In Solon elegy takes a higher range; it becomes political and ethical.3Theognis represents the maturer union of politics with a proverbial philosophy. Another gnomic poet was Phocylides of Miletus; an admonitory poem extant under his name is probably the work of an Alexandrine Jewish Christian. Xenophanes gives a philosophic strain to elegy. With Simonides of Ceos it reverts, in an exquisite form, to its earliest destination, and becomes the vehicle of epitaph on those who fell in the Persian Wars. Iambic verse was used by Simonides (or Semonides) of Amorgus, as by Archilochus, for satire—but satire directed against classes rather than persons. Solon’s iambics so far preserve the old associations of the metre that they represent the polemical or controversial side of his political poetry. Hipponax of Ephesus was another iambic satirist—using theσκάζων(“limping”) or choliambic verse, produced by substituting a spondee for an iambus in the last place. But it was not until the rise of the Attic drama that the full capabilities of iambic verse were seen.
The lyric poetry of early Greece may be regarded as the final form of that effort at self-expression which in the elegiac and iambic is still incomplete. The lyric expression is deeper and more impassioned. Its intimate unionLyric poetry.with music and with the rhythmical movement of the dance gives to it more of an ideal character. At the same time the continuity of the music permits pauses to the voice—pauses necessary as reliefs after a climax. Before lyric poetry could be effective, it was necessary that some progress should have been made in the art of music. The instrument used by the Greeks to accompany the voice was the four-stringed lyre, and the first great epoch in Greek music was when Terpander of Lesbos (660B.C.), by adding three strings, gave the lyre thecompass of the octave. Further improvements are ascribed to Olympus and Thaletas. By 500B.C.Greek music had probably acquired all the powers of expression which the lyric poet could demand. The period of Greek lyric poetry may be roughly defined as from 670 to 440B.C.Two different parts in its development were taken by the Aeolians and the Dorians.
The lyric poetry of the Aeolians—especially of Lesbos—was essentially the utterance of personal feeling, and was usually intended for a single voice, not for a chorus. Lesbos, in the 7th centuryB.C., had attained some navalAeolian school.and commercial importance. But the strife of oligarchy and democracy was active; the Lesbian nobles were often driven by revolution to exchange their luxurious home-life for the hardships of exile. It is such a life of contrasts and excitements, working on a sensuous and fiery temperament, that is reflected in the fragments of Alcaeus. In these glimpses of war and love, of anxiety for the storm-tossed state and of careless festivity, there is much of the cavalier spirit; if Archilochus is in certain aspects a Greek Byron, Alcaeus might be compared to Lovelace. The other great representative of the Aeolian lyric is Sappho, the only woman of Greek race who is known to have possessed poetical genius of the first order. Intensity and melody are the characteristics of the fragments that remain to us.4Probably no poet ever surpassed Sappho as an interpreter of passion in exquisitely subtle harmonies of form and sound. Anacreon of Teos, in Ionia, may be classed with the Aeolian lyrists in so far as the matter and form of his work resembled theirs, though the dialect in which he wrote was mainly the Ionian. A few fragments remain from his hymns to the gods, from love-poems and festive songs. The collection of sixty short pieces which passes current under his name date only from the 10th century. The short poems which it comprises are of various age and authorship, probably ranging in date fromc.200B.C.toA.D.400 or 500. They have not the pure style, the flexible grace, or the sweetness of the classical fragments; but the verses, though somewhat mechanical, are often pretty.
The Dorian lyric poetry, in contrast with the Aeolian, had more of a public than of a personal character, and was for the most part choral. Hymns or choruses for the public worship of the gods, and odes to be sung at festivals onDorian school.occasions of public interest, were its characteristic forms. Its central inspiration was the pride of the Dorians in the Dorian past, in their traditions of worship, government and social usage. The history of the Dorian lyric poetry does not present us with vivid expressions of personal character, like those of Alcaeus and Sappho, but rather with a series of artists whose names are associated with improvements of form. Thus Alcman (the Doric form of Alcmaeon; 660B.C.) is said to have introduced the balanced movement of strophe and antistrophe. Stesichorus, of Himera in Sicily, added the epode, sung by the chorus while stationary after these movements; Arion of Methymna in Lesbos gave a finished form to the choral hymn (“dithyramb”) in honour of Dionysus, and organized the “cyclic” or circular chorus which sang it at the altar. Ibycus of Rhegium (c.540) wrote choral lyrics after Stesichorus and glowing love-songs in the Aeolic style.
The culmination of the lyric poetry is marked by two great names, Simonides and Pindar. Simonides (556-468) was an Ionian of the island of Ceos, but his lyrics belonged by form to the choral Dorian school. Many of his subjectsSimonides and Pindar.were taken from the events of the Persian wars: his epitaphs on those who fell at Thermopylae and Salamis were celebrated. In him the lyric art of the Dorians is interpreted by Ionian genius, and Athens—where part of his life was passed—is the point at which they meet. Simonides is the first Greek lyrist whose significance is not merely Aeolian or Dorian but Panhellenic. The same character belongs even more completely to his younger contemporary. Pindar (518-c.443) was born in Boeotia of a Dorian stock; thus, as Ionian and Dorian elements meet in Simonides, so Dorian and Aeolian elements meet in Pindar. Simonides was perhaps the most tender and most exquisite of the lyric poets. Pindar was the boldest, the most fervid and the most sublime. His extant fragments5represent almost every branch of the lyric art. But he is known to us mainly by forty-fourEpinicia, or odes of victory, for the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian festivals. The general characteristic of the treatment is that the particular victory is made the occasion of introducing heroic legends connected with the family or city of the victor, and of inculcating the moral lessons which they teach. No Greek lyric poetry can be completely appreciated apart from the music, now lost, to which it was set. Pindar’s odes were, further, essentially occasional poems; they abound in allusions of which the effect is partly or wholly lost on us; and the glories which they celebrate belong to a life which we can but imperfectly realize. Of all the great Greek poets, Pindar is perhaps the one to whom it is hardest for us to do justice; yet we can at least recognize his splendour of imagination, his strong rapidity and his soaring flight.
Bacchylides of Ceos (c.504-430), the youngest of the three great lyric poets and nephew of Simonides, was known only by scanty fragments until the discovery of nineteen poems on an Egyptian papyrus in 1896. They consist of thirteen (or fourteen) epinicia, two of which celebrate the same victories as two odes of Pindar. The papyrus also contains six odes for the festivals of gods or heroes. The poems contain valuable information on the court life of the time and legendary history. Bacchylides, the little “Cean nightingale,” is inferior to his great rival Pindar, “the Swan of Dirce,” in originality and splendour of language, but he writes simply and elegantly, while his excellentγνῶμαιattracted readers of a philosophical turn of mind, amongst them the emperor Julian.
Similarly, the scanty fragments of Timotheus of Miletus (d. 357), musical composer and poet, and inventor of the eleven-stringed lyre, were increased by the discovery in 1902 of some 250 lines of his “nome” thePersae, written after the manner of Terpander. The beginning is lost; the middle describes the battle of Salamis; the end is of a personal nature. The papyrus is the oldest Greek MS. and belongs to the age of Alexander the Great. The language is frequently very obscure, and the whole is a specimen of lyric poetry in its decline.
(B)The Attic Literature.—The Ionians of Asia Minor, the Aeolians and the Dorians had now performed their special parts in the development of Greek literature. Epic poetry had interpreted the heroic legends of warlike deeds done by Zeus-nourished kings and chiefs. Then, as the individual life became more and more elegiac and iambic poetry had become the social expression of that life in all its varied interests and feelings. Lastly, lyric poetry had arisen to satisfy a twofold need—to be the more intense utterance of personal emotion, or to give choral voice, at stirring moments, to the faith or fame, the triumph or the sorrow, of a city or a race. A new form of poetry was now to be created, with elements borrowed from all the rest. And this was to be achieved by the people of Attica, in whose character and language the distinctive traits of an Ionian descent were tempered with some of the best qualities of the Dorian stock.
The drama (q.v.) arose from the festivals of Dionysus, the god of wine, which were held at intervals from the beginning of winter to the beginning of spring. A troop of rusticOrigin of drama.Tragedy.worshippers would gather around the altar of the god, and sing a hymn in his honour, telling of his victories or sufferings in his progress over the earth. “Tragedy” meant “the goat-song,” a goat (τράγος) being sacrificed to Dionysus before the hymn was sung. “Comedy,” “the village-song,” is the same hymn regarded as an occasion forrustic jest. Then the leader of the chorus would assume the part of a messenger from Dionysus, or even that of the god himself, and recite an adventure to the worshippers, who made choral response. The next step was to arrange a dialogue between the leader (κορυφαῖος,coryphaeus) and one chosen member of the chorus, hence called “the answerer” (ὑποκριτής,hypocritēs, afterwards the ordinary word for “actor”). This last improvement is ascribed to the Attic Thespis (about 536B.C.). The elements of drama were now ready. The choral hymn to Dionysus (the “dithyramb”) had received an artistic form from the Dorians; dialogue, though only between the leader of the chorus and a single actor, had been introduced in Attica. Phrynichus, an Athenian, celebrated in this manner some events of the Persian Wars; but in his “drama” there was still only one actor. Choerilus of Athens and Pratinas of Phlius, who belonged to the same period, developed the satyric drama; Pratinas also wrote tragedies, dithyrambs, andhyporchemata(lively choral odes chiefly in honour of Apollo).
Aeschylus (born 525B.C.) became the real founder of tragedy by introducing a second actor, and thus rendering the dialogue independent of the chorus. At the same time the choral song—hitherto the principal part of the performance—becameAeschylus.subordinate to the dialogue; and drama was mature. Aeschylus is also said to have made various improvements of detail in costume and the like; and it was early in his career that the theatre of Dionysus under the acropolis was commenced—the first permanent home of Greek drama, in place of the temporary wooden platforms which had hitherto been used. The system of the “trilogy” and the “tetralogy” is further ascribed to Aeschylus,—the “trilogy” being properly a series of three tragedies connected in subject, such as theAgamemnon,Choëphori,Eumenides, which together form theOresteia, or Story of Orestes. The “tetralogy” is such a triad with a “satyric drama” added—that is, a drama in which “satyrs,” the grotesque woodland beings who attended on Dionysus, formed the chorus, as in the earlier dithyramb from which drama sprang. TheCyclopsof Euripides is the only extant specimen of a satyric drama. In the seven tragedies which alone remain of the seventy which Aeschylus is said to have composed, the forms of kings and heroes have a grandeur which is truly Homeric; there is a spirit of Panhellenic patriotism such as the Persian Wars in which he fought might well quicken in a soldier-poet; and, pervading all, there is a strain of speculative thought which seeks to reconcile the apparent conflicts between the gods of heaven and of the underworld by the doctrine that both alike, constrained by necessity, are workingSophocles.out the law of righteousness. Sophocles, who was born thirty years after Aeschylus (495B.C.), is the most perfect artist of the ancient drama. No one before or after him gave to Greek tragedy so high a degree of ideal beauty, or appreciated so finely the possibilities and the limitations of its sphere. He excels especially in drawing character; hisAntigone, hisAjax, hisOedipus—indeed, all the chief persons of his dramas—are typical studies in the great primary emotions of human nature. He gave a freer scope to tragic dialogue by adding a third actor; and in one of his later plays, theOedipus at Colonus, a fourth actor is required. From the time when he won the tragic prize against Aeschylus in 468 to his death in 405B.C.he was the favourite dramatist of Athens; and for us he is not only a great dramatist, but also the most spiritual representative of the age of Pericles. The distinctive interest of Euripides is ofEuripides.another kind. He was only fifteen years younger than Sophocles; but when he entered on his poetical career, the old inspirations of tragedy were already failing. Euripides marks a period of transition in the tragic art, and is, in fact, the mediator between the classical and the romantic drama. The myths and traditions with which the elder dramatists had dealt no longer commanded an unquestioning faith. Euripides himself was imbued with the new intellectual scepticism of the day; and the speculative views which were conflicting in his own mind are reflected in his plays. He had much picturesque and pathetic power; he was a master of expression; and he shows ingenuity in devising fresh resources for tragedy—especially in his management of the choral songs. Aeschylus is Panhellenic, Sophocles is Athenian, Euripides is cosmopolitan. He stands nearer to the modern world than either of his predecessors; and though with him Attic tragedy loses its highest beauty, it acquires new elements of familiar human interest.