play upon musical instruments. Themistocles, however otherwise esteemed, was thought deficient in polite accomplishments,* because at an entertainment he could not touch the lyre like the rest of the company. Ignorance in this respect was deemed a defect of edu cation; on the contrary, skill did honour to the greatest men Epaminondas was praised for dancing and playing well upon the flute. We may observe in this place the different tastes and genius of nations. The Romans were far from having the same opinion with the Greeks in regard to music and dancing, and set no value upon them. It is very likely that the wisest and most sensible amongst the latter did not apply to them with any great industry; and Philip's expression to his son Alexander, who had shown too much skill in music at a feast, induces me to be of this opinion: Are you not ashamed, said he, to sing so well? In other respects, there were some grounds for this esteem for dancing and music. Both the one and the other were employed in the most august feasts and ceremonies of religion, to express with greater force and dignity their acknowledgment to the gods for the favours they had vouchsafed to confer upon them. They formed generally the greatest and most agreeable part of their feasts and entertainments, which seldom or ever began or ended without some odes being sung, like those in honour of the victors in the Olympic games, and on other similar subjects. They had a part also in war; and we know that the Lacedæmonians marched to battle dancing, and to the sound of flutes. Plato, the most grave philosopher of antiquity, considered both these arts not as simple amusements, but as having a great share in the ceremonies of religion and military exercises. Hence we see him very intent, in his books of laws, to prescribe judicious regulations with respect to dancing and music, in order to keep them within the bounds of utility and decorum. They did not continue long within these restrictions. The licentiousness of the Grecian stage, on which dancing was in the highest vogue, and in a manner prostituted to buffoons and the most contemptible people, who made no other use of it than to awaken or cherish the most vicious passions; this licentiousness, I say, soon corrupted an art which might have been of some advantage, had it been regulated by Plato's opinion. Music had a like destiny; and perhaps the corruption of this did not a little contribute to the depraving and perverting of dancing. Voluptuousness and sensual pleasure were the sole arbiters consulted as to the use which was to be made of both, and the theatre became a school of every kind of vice. * Themistocles, cùm in epulis recusâsset lyram, habitus est indoctior. Cic. Tusc. Quest. l. i. n. 4. † Summam eruditionem Græci sitam censebant in nervorum vocumque cantibus--discebantque id omnes; nec qui nesciebat, satis excultus doctrinâ putabatur. Cic. Tuse. Quæst. b i n. 4. In Epaminondæ virtutibus commemoratum est saltâsse eum commodè, scienterque tibus cantasse-Scilicet non eadem omnibus honesta sunt atque turpia, sed omnia majo rum institutis judicantur. Corn. Nep. in præfat. vit. Epam. De leg. 1. vii. Plutarch,* in lamenting that the art of dancing was much fallen from the merit which rendered it so estimable to the great men of antiquity, does not omit to observe, that it was corrupted by a vicious kind of poetry, and a soft effeminate music, with which it had formed an injudicious union, and which had taken place of that ancient poetry and music, which had something noble, majestic and even religious and heavenly in them. He adds, that being made subservient to voluptuousness and sensuality, it exercised, by their aid, a kind of tyrannical power in the theatres, which were become the public schools of criminal passions and gross vices, wherein no regard was paid to reason. The reader, without my reminding him, will make the application of this passage of Plutarch to that sort of music with which our theatres resound at this day, and which, by its effeminate and wanton airs, has given the last wound to the little manly force and virtue that remained among us. Quintilian describes the music of his times in these terms: Quæ nunc in scenis effeminata, et impudicis modis fracta, non ex parte minimâ, si quid in nobis virilis roboris manebat, excidit.ț 2. Of the other exercises of the body. The young Athenians, and in general all the Greeks, were very careful to form themselves in all the exercises of the body, and to take lessons regularly from the masters of the Palæstræ. They called the places allotted for these exercises, Palæstræ or Gymnasia; which answers very near to our academies. Plato, in his books of laws, after having shown of what importance it was with a view to war, to cultivate strength and agility of the hands and feet, adds,‡ that, far from banishing from a well-regulated republic the profession of the Athletæ, on the contrary, prizes ought to be proposed for all exercises that conduce to the improvement of the military art: such are those which render the body more active and fitter for the race; more hardy, robust, and supple; more capable of supporting great fatigues, and effecting great enterprises. We must remember, that there was no Athenian who ought not to have been capable of handling the oar in the largest galleys. The citizens themselves performed this office, which was not left to slaves and criminals, as in these days. They were all destined to the trade of war, and often obliged to wear armour of iron from head to foot of a great weight. For this reason, Plato, and all the ancients, looked upon the exercises of the body as highly useful, and even absolutely necessary to the good of the public, and therefore this philosopher excludes only those which were of no service in war. There were also masters who taught the youth to ride, and to handle their arms, or fence; and others whose business it was to + Lib. viii. de leg † Quintil. Li. c. 10. *Sympos. 1. ix. qu. 15. p. 748. p. 832, 833. Plat. in Lachete, p. 181. instruct them in all that was necessary to be known, in order to excel in the art military, and to become good commanders. The whole science of the latter consisted in what the ancients called Tactics, that is to say, the art of drawing up troops in battle, and of making military evolutions. That science was useful, but it was not sufficient. Xenophon* shows its insufficiency, by producing a young man lately come from such a school, in which he imagined he had learnt every thing, though in reality he had only acquired a foolish esteem for himself, attended with perfect ignorance. He gives him, by the mouth of Socrates, admirable precepts as to the business of a soldier, and well calculated to form an excellent officer. Hunting was also considered by the ancients as an exercise wel. calculated for forming youth to the stratagems and fatigues of war. It is for this reason that Xenophon, who was no less a great general than a great philosopher, did not think it below him to write a treatise expressly upon hunting, in which he descends to the minutest particulars; and points out the considerable advantages that may be derived from it, from being inured to suffer hunger, thirst, heat, cold, without being discouraged either by the length of the course, the difficulty of the clifts and thickets through which it is often necessary to press, or the small success of the long and painful fatigues which are often undergone to no purpose. He adds, that this innocent pleasure removes others equally shameful and criminal; and that a wise and moderate man would not, however, abandon himself so much to it as to neglect the care of his domestic affairs. The same author,‡ in the Cyropædia, frequently praises hunting, which he looks upon as a real study of the art of war; and shows, in the example of his young hero, the good use that may be made of it. 3. Of the exercises of the mind. Athens, properly speaking, was the school and abode of polite learning, arts, and sciences. The study of poesy, eloquence, philosophy, and mathematics, was in great vogue there, and much cultivated by the youth. The young people were first sent to learn grammar under masters who taught them regularly, and upon proper principles, their own language; by which they attained a knowledge of its whole beauty, energy, number, and cadence. Hence proceeded that fine taste, which universally pervaded Athens, where, as history informs us, a simple herb-woman distinguished Theophrastus to be a foreigner, from the affectation of a single word in expressing himself. And from the same cause the orators were greatly apprehensive of letting fall the least injudicious expression, for fear of offending so refine and delicate an audience. It was very common for the young pe † De venatione. • Memorab. 1. iii. p. 761, &c. 60. Cyrop. l. i. p. 5, 6. & 1. i ple to get the tragedies represented upon the stage by heart. We have seen, that after the defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse many of them, who had been taken prisoners and made slaves, softened their slavery by reciting the works of Euripides to their masters, who, extremely delighted with hearing such sublime verses, treated them from henceforth with kindness and humanity. The compositions of the other poets had no doubt the same effect; and Plutarch tells us, that Alcibiades, when very young, having entered a school in which there was not a Homer, gave the master a box in the ear as an ignorant fellow, and one who dishonoured his profession.* As for eloquence, it is no wonder that it was particularly studied at Athens. It was that which opened the way to the highest offices, reigned absolute in the assemblies, decided the most im portant affairs of the state, and gave an almost unlimited power to those who had the talent of oratory in an eminent degree. This therefore was the great employment of the young citizens of Athens, especially of those who aspired to the highest offices. To the study of rhetoric, they annexed that of philosophy. I comprise under the latter all the sciences which are either parts of, or relate to, it. The persons known to antiquity under the name of Sophists had acquired a great reputation at Atliens, especially in the time of Socrates. These teachers, who were as presumptuous as avaricious, set themselves up for universal scholars. Their chief strength lay in philosophy and eloquence, both of which they corrupted by the false taste and wrong principles which they instilled into their disciples. I have observed, in the life of Socrates, that philosopher's endeavours and success in discrediting them. CHAPTER II. OF WAR. SECTION I. The nations of Greece in all times very warlike, especially the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. No people of antiquity (I except the Romans) can dispute the glory of arms and military virtue with the Greeks. During the Trojan war Greece signalized her valour in battle, and acquired immortal fame by the bravery of the captains she sent thither. This expedition was however, properly speaking, no more than the cradle of her infant glory; and the great exploits by which she distinguished herself there, were only her first essays and apprenticeship in the art of war. There were in Greece several small republics, neighbours to one another by their situation, but widely distant in their customs, laws, * In Alcib. p. 194 characters, and particularly in their interests. This difference of manners and interests was a continual source and occasion of divisions amongst them. Every city, little satisfied with its own territory, was studious to aggrandize itself at the expense of its next neighbours, according as they lay most commodious for it. Hence all these little states, either out of ambition, and to extend their conquests, or the necessity of a just defence, were always under arms; and by that continual exercise of war, there was formed throughout the whole of these nations a martial spirit, and an intrepidity of courage which made them invincible in the field; as appeared in the sequel, when the whole united forces of the East came to invade Greece, and made her sensible of her own strength, and of what she was capable. Two cities distinguished themselves above the rest, and held indisputably the first rank; these were Sparta and Athens: in consequence of which those cities, either successively or together, had the empire of Greece, and maintained themselves through a long series of time in a power which the sole superiority of merit, univer sally acknowledged by all the other states, had acquired them. This merit consisted principally in their military knowledge and martial virtue; of which both of them had given the most glorious proofs in the war against the Persians. Thebes disputed this honour with them for some years, by surprising actions of valour, which had something of prodigy in them: but this was but a short-lived blaze, which, after having shone out with exceeding splendour, soon disappeared, and left that city in its original obscurity. Sparta and Athens will therefore be the only objects of our reflections, as to what relates to war; and we shall join them together, in order to be the better able to form a notion of their characters, as well in what they resemble, as in what they differ from each other. SECTION II. Origin and cause of the valour and military virtue by which the Lacedæmonians and Athenians always distinguished themselves. All the laws of Sparta and all the institutions of Lycurgus seem to have had no other object than war, and tended solely to the making the subjects of that republic a body of soldiers. All other employments, all other exercises, were prohibited amongst them. Arts, polite learning, sciences, trades, even husbandry itself, formed no part of their employment, and seemed in their eyes unworthy of them. From their earliest infancy no other taste was instilled into them but for arms; and indeed the Spartan education was wonderfully well adapted to that end. To go barefoot, to lie on the bare ground, to be satisfied with little meat and drink, to suffer heat and cold, to be exercised continually in hunting, wrestling, running on foot and horseback, to be inured to blows and wounds so as to vent neither complaint nor groan; these were the rudiments of education |