I have already mentioned what happened to Theophrastus. He was cheapening something of an old woman of Athens that sold herbs;* No, Mr. Stranger, said she, you shall not have it for less. He was much surprised to see himself treated as a stranger, who had passed almost his whole life at Athens, and piqued himself upon excelling all others in the elegance of his language. It was, however, from that she knew he was not of her country. We have seen that the Athenian soldiers knew the fine passages of the tragedies of Euripides by heart. Besides, these artificers and soldiers, from assisting at the public deliberations, were versed in affairs of state, and understood every thing at half a word. We may judge of this from the orations of Demosthenes, whose style we know is ardent, nervous, and concise. III. As they are naturally inclined to relieve persons of a low condition and mean circumstances, so are they fond of conversations seasoned with pleasantry, and calculated to make people laugh.† They assisted persons of a mean condition, because from such they had nothing to apprehend in regard to their liberty, and saw in them the characters of equality and resemblance with themselves. They loved pleasantry, and in that showed they were men; but men abounding with good nature and indulgence, who understood raillery, who were not prone to take offence, nor over delicate in point of the respect due to them. One day when the assembly was fully formed, and the people had already taken their places, Cleon, after having made them wait his coming a great while, appeared at last with a wreath of flowers upon his head, and desired the people to adjourn their deliberations to the next day: For to-day, said he, I have business. I have been sacrificing to the gods, and am to entertain some strangers, my friends, at supper. The Athenians, setting up a laugh, rose, and broke up the assembly. At Carthage, it would have cost any man his life, who had presumed to vent such a pleasantry, and to take such a liberty with a proud, haughty, jealous, morose people, little disposed by nature to cultivate the graces, and still less inclined to humour. Upon another occasion the orator Stratocles, having informed the people of a victory, and in consequence caused sacrifices to be offered, three days after news came of the defeat of the army. As the people expressed their discontent and resentment upon the false information, he asked them, of what they had to complain, and what harm he had done them, in making them pass three days more agreeably than they would else have done? *Cum Theophrastus percontaretur ex aniculâ quândam, quanti aliquid venderet, et respondisset illa, atque addidisset, Hospes, non potes minoris; tulit molestè, se non effugere hospitis speciem, cùm ætatem ageret Athenis, optiméque loqueretur. Cic. de Clar Orat. n. 17. † Ὥσπες τῶν ἀνδρῶν τοῖς ἀδόξοις καὶ ταπεινοῖς βοήθειν προθυμότερος, οὕτως τῶν λόγων τους παιγνιώδεις καὶ γελοίους ἀσπάζεται καὶ προτιμά. Xenoph. de Athen. Rep. p. 691. § Πικρόν, σκυθρωπόν, πρὸς παιδίαν καὶ χαρὶν ἀνήδυντον καὶ σκληρὸν. IV. They are pleased with hearing themselves praised, and yet readily bear to be ridiculed or criticised.* The least acquaintance with Aristophanes and Demosthenes will show, with what address and effect they employed praises and censure with regard to the people of Athens. When the republic enjoyed peace and tranquillity,† says the same Plutarch in another place, the Athenian people diverted themselves with the orators who flattered them; but in important affairs and emergencies of the state, they became serious, and gave the preference to those whose custom it had been to oppose their unjust desires: such as Pericles, Phocion, and Demosthenes. V. They keep even those who govern them in awe, and show their humanity even to their enemies.t The people of Athens made good use of the talents of those who distinguished themselves by their eloquence and prudence; but they were full of suspicion, and kept themselves always on their guard against their superiority of genius and ability; they took pleasure in restraining their courage, and lessening their glory and reputation. This may be judged from the ostracism, which was instituted only as a curb on those whose merit and popularity ran too high, and which spared neither the greatest nor the most worthy persons. The hatred of tyranny and tyrants, which was in a manner innate in the Athenians, made them extremely jealous and apprehensive for their liberty with regard to those who governed. As to what relates to their enemies, they did not treat them with rigour; they did not make an insolent use of victory, nor exercise any cruelty towards the vanquished. The amnesty decreed after the tyranny of the Thirty, shows that they could not forget the injuries which they had undergone from them. To these different characteristics, which Plutarch unites in the same passage of his works, some others may be added, extracted principally from the same author. VI. It was from this fund of humanity and benevolence, of which I have now spoken, and which was natural to the Athenians, that they were so attentive to the rules of politeness, and so delicate in point of decorum; qualities one would not expect to find among the common people. In the war against Philip of Macedon,|| having intercepted one of his couriers, they read all the letters he carried, except that from Olympias his wife, which they returned sealed up and unopened, out of regard to conjugal love and secrecy, the rights of which are sacred, and ought to be respected even amongst enemies. The same Athenians having decreed that a strict search * Τοῖς μὲν ἐπαινοῦσιν αὐτὸν μάλιστα χαίρει, τοῖς δὲ σκώπτουσιν ἥκιστα δυσχεραίνει. ↑ Plut. in Phocion. p. 746. * Φόβερός ἐστιν ἀχρὶ τῶν ἀρχόντων, εἶτα φιλάνθρωπος ἀχρὶ τῶν πολεμίων. Ο Πάτριον αὐτοῖς καὶ σύμφυτον ἦν τὸ φιλάνθρωπον. In Pelop. p. 280. Plut. in Demetr. p. 898. should be made after the presents distributed by Harpalus amongst the orators, would not suffer the house of Callicles, who was lately married, to be visited, out of respect for his bride, not long brought home. Such behaviour is not very common; and upon like occasions people do not always stand upon forms and politeness. VII. The taste of the Athenians for all arts and sciences is too well known to require dwelling long upon it in this place. But we cannot see, without admiration, a people, composed for the most part, as I have said before, of artizans, husbandmen, soldiers, and mariners, carry delicacy of taste in every kind to so high a degree of perfection, which seems the peculiar attribute of a more exalted condition and a nobler education. VIII. It is no less wonderful, that this people should have had such great views,* and risen so high in their pretensions. In the war which Alcibiades made them undertake, filled with vast projects and unbounded hopes, they did not confine themselves to the taking of Syracuse or the conquest of Sicily, but had already grasped Italy, Peloponnesus, Libya, the Carthaginian states, and the empire of the sea as far as the Pillars of Hercules. Their enterprise failed, but they had formed it; and the taking of Syracuse, which seemed no great difficulty, might have enabled them to put it in execution. IX. The same people, so great, and, one may say, so haughty in their projects, had nothing of that character in other respects. In what regarded the expense of the table, dress, furniture, private buildings, and, in a word, private life, they were frugal, simple, modest, and poor; but sumptuous and magnificent in every thing public and capable of doing honour to the state. Their victories, conquests, wealth, and continual communication with the people of Asia Minor, introduced neither luxury, gluttony, pomp, nor vain profusion amongst them. Xenophont observes, that a citizen could not be distinguished from a slave by his dress. The richest inhabi. tants and the most famous generals were not ashamed to go to market themselves. X. It was very glorious for Athens to have produced and formed so many persons who excelled in the arts of war and government; in philosophy, eloquence, poesy, painting, sculpture, and architecture: to have furnished alone more great men in every department than any other city of the world; if, perhaps, we except Rome, which had imbibed her information from Athens, and knew how to apply her lessons to the best advantage:‡ to have been in some sort the school, and tutor of almost the whole universe: to have served, and still continue to serve, as the model for all nations which pique them * p. Μέγα φρονεί, μεγάλων ὀρέγεται. Plut. † De Rep. Athen. 693. Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes selves most upon their fine taste: in a word, to have set the fashion, and prescribed the laws of all that regards the talents and productions of the mind. XI. I shall conclude this description of the Athenians with one more attribute which cannot be denied them, and appears evidently in all their actions and enterprises; and that is, their ardent love of liberty. This was their darling passion, and the main-spring of their policy. We see them, from the commencement of the war with the Persians, sacrifice every thing to the liberty of Greece. They abandon, without the least hesitation, their lands, estates, city, and houses, and remove to their ships, in order to fight the common enemy, whose view was to enslave them. What day could be more glorious for Athens, than that in which, when all the allies were trembling at the vast offers made her by the king of Persia, she answered his ambassador by the mouth of Aristides,* That all the gold and silver in the world was not capable of tempting them to sell their own liberty or that of Greece. It was from such generous sentiments that the Athenians not only became the bulwark of Greece, but preserved the rest of Europe, and all the western world, from the invasion of the Persians. These great qualities were mingled with great defects, often the very reverse of them, such as we may imagine in a fluctuating, light, inconstant, capricious people, as were the Athenians. SECTION VI. Common character of the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. I cannot refuse giving a place here to what M. Bossuet says upon the character of the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. The passage is long, but will not appear so; and will include all that is wanting tó a perfect knowledge of the genius of both those states. Amongst all the republics of which Greece was composed, Athens and Lacedæmon were undoubtedly the principal. No people could have more wit than the Athenians, nor more solid sense than the Lacedæmonians. Athens affected pleasure; the Lacedæmonian way of life was hard and laborious. Both loved glory and liberty; but liberty at Athens tended to licentiousness: and, controlled by severe laws at Lacedæmon, the more restrained it was at home, the more ardent it was to extend itself by ruling abroad. Athens wished also to reign, but upon another principle, in which interest had a share with glory. Her citizens excelled in the art of navigation, and her sovereignty at sea had enriched her. To continue in the sole possession of all commerce, there was nothing she was not desirous of subjecting to her power; and her riches, which inspired this desire, supplied her with the means of gratifying it. On the contrary, at Lacedaemon money was in contempt. As all the laws tended to make the latter a military republic, martial glory was the sole object that engrossed the minds of her citizens. From thence she naturally affected dominion; and the more she was above interest, the more she abandoned herself to ambition. Lacedæmon, from her regular life, was steady and determinate in her maxims and measures. Athens was more lively and active, and the people too much masters. Philosophy and the laws had indeed the most happy effects upon such exquisite natural parts as theirs; but reason alone was not capable of keeping them within due bounds. A wise Athenian,* who knew admirably the genius of his country, informs us, that fear was necessary to those too ardent and free spirits; and that it was impossible to govern them, after that the victory at Salamis had removed their fears of the Persians. Two things, then, ruined them; the glory of their great actions, and the supposed security of their present condition. The magistrates were no longer heard; and as Persia was afflicted with excessive slavery, so Athens, says Plato, experienced all the evils of excessive liberty. Those two great republics, so contrary in their manners and conduct, interfered with each other in the design they had each formed of subjecting all Greece; so that they were always enemies, still more from the contrariety of their interests than from the incompatibility of their humours. The Grecian cities were unwilling to submit to the dominion of either the one or the other; for, besides that each was desirous of preserving their liberty, they found the empire of those two republics too grievous to bear. That of the Lacedæmonians was severe. That people were observed to have something almost brutal in their character. A government too rigid,† and a life too laborious, rendered their tempers too haughty, austere, and imperious in power: besides which, they could never expect to live in peace under the influence of a city, which being formed for war, could not support itself, but by continuing perpetually in arms. So that the Lacedæmonians were desirous of attaining to command, and all the world were afraid they should do so.t The Athenians were naturally more mild and agreeable. Nothing was more delightful to behold than their city, in which feasts and games were perpetual; where wit, liberty, and the various passions of men daily exhibited new objects: but the inequality of their conduct disgusted their allies, and was still more insupportable to their own subjects. It was impossible for them not to experience the extravagance and caprice of a flattered people; that is to say, according to Plato, something more dangerous than the same excesses in a prince vitiated by flattery. Plat. I. lii. de leg. † Aristot. Polit. 1. i. p. 4 Xenoph. de Rep. Lason. |