1817.] On the Education and Morals of the Athenians. nations by the general tenor of their conduct; we pursue the broad highway along which their course lay, and do not run after a few deviating footsteps. But when a man can see nothing in his father land to inspire satisfaction, his ill-humour with every thing around him will add force to his prepossession for antiquity, and induce him to overlook every defect, "nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et præmia posci." One cannot regard without disgust the digraceful persecution of their worthiest and bravest citizens, of the devoted benefactors and saviours of their country. Cimon, who was banished upon some paltry, frivolous pretext, humbled for them the pride of the great king; The mistocles, who shared the same fate, had conquered for them at Salamis, had confirmed their naval superiority, had by his address succeeded in spite of every obstacle in fortifying their city, and had raised it to a grandeur which was the envy of all Greece, Miltiades, to whom they were indebted for the victory of Marathon, was permitted to die in prison when he was suffering with a dangerous wound received in their service. The manner in which these great men, these ornaments of their country, were treated, displays in strong colours the envious and pitiful malignity of their compatriots towards every thing exalted above themselves. Their eagerness to pronounce sentence on Themistocles admits of a farther explanation; for they confiscated every drachma of the large property he left behind him in. Athens. The recall of Alcibiades, whom they had condemned to death, in his absence, regardless of the infamous character of his accusers, from the Sicilian expedition, deprived it of the only commander at all likely to conduct it with success; in revenge for this injury, however, he induced the Spartans to send such succours to the Syracusans as accomplished the destruction of the finest armament ever prepared in Greece. After his restoration, the state was again deprived of his important services by the arts of factious demagogues at hoine, who chose rather to ruin a man whom they hated, than to permit the community to reap the benefit of his extraordinary talents. The incapables who succeeded him, by their fatal misconduct, the result of which Alcibiades clearly foresaw and warned them of, which advice they contemptuously slighted, suffered Lysander to surprize them. The Spartan not only destroyed or captured their whole fleet TxU 3 but made himself master of Athens, and established there the thirty tyrants, who, according to Xenophon, put to death more Athenians in eight months, than were slain in the ten years' war with the Peloponnesians. After the decisive defeat they had suffered, even when their victorious enemy was about to follow up his victory by proceeding to Athens, were its factious inhabitants, instead of joining with one accord to repel the common enemy, divided into hostile parties, each struggling for civil pre-eminence. Lysias relates the detestable artifices by which the best, the bravest, and wisest men among them, whose exertions might perhaps have averted the disgrace and misery which followed, were betrayed by their countrymen, and delivered over to the remorseless vengeance of those sanguinary monsters. The mind recoils with horror at the dreadful barbarity of the Peloponnesians to their captives. Three thousand Athenians who fell into their hands were murdered without mercy; a crime but little extenuated by the confession of Philocles, that had the fortune of the day been reversed, his soldiers would have inflicted upon their prisoners the severest cruelty. Before the surrender of the city, an embassy must be dispatched to Lysander; and whom did this incorrupt and intelligent people permit to place himself at its head? The light, inconstant, Theramenes, who had before contributed so largely to subvert their liberty, by imposing upon them the tyranny of the four hundred. What was the consequence of such an appointment? That he who had cheated them on a former occasion treacherously betrayed this trust. Two articles of the treaty which was ratified by the aristocratical faction, and to which the "manly virtue" of the people submitted, obliged them to follow the Spartan standard, and to receive whatever form of government their conquerors thought proper to dictate. There is nothing strange in all this. Such calamities are the natural effects that flow from a system which places the supreme power of the state in the hands of a mob. What else could be expected from the tumultuous proceedings and distracted counsels of the Athenian Ecclesiæ. It is perfectly consonant to the nature of a democracy under no restraint, like that of Athens, that a country under such a government (it is almost an abuse of language so to call it) should be torn asunder by intestine commotions; for there will never be wanting in such republics On the Education and Morals of the Athenians. cunning and ambitious demagogues It was not the love of equity, but the gratification of a cruel, envious, and capricious temper, that prompted them to take away the valuable and harmless life of the venerable Socrates. The doctrines which that philosopher had long maintained in public without molesta tion, were made the pretext of his persecution, after their author had been caricatured by a buffoon. His destruction was secured by an unjust accusation before the corrupt assembly of the Heliæa, instead of the more equitable tribunal of the Areopagus; and by the employment of wretches, whose perjured evidence might be procured in Athens for a mere trifle. From the execrable murder of this good man, and a proscription of his disciples, the next transition, in a fit of repentance, was to massacre his accusers, and to raise statues to his memory! From what place but Athens would Phidias, whose labours reflected such real glory upon that city, have been expelled? Had he conspired against the safety of the state or the freedom of the citizens? No: but he had offended them by introducing into his delineation of the battle of the Amazons on the shield of his Minerva the effigy of himself and of Pericles. It was pretended that these figures would weaken the authenticity of ancient history; but, as Plutarch says, "the excellence of his work, and the envy arising thence, was the thing that ruined Phidias." Proh Mores! However enamoured this people might be of the extreme license of liberty themselves, they exercised upon all within their power an unrelenting tyranny. The officers deputed to the government of their dependencies were encouraged, by the connivance of their friends at home, to impoverish them by the most [Feb. 1, impudent exaction. In vain did these vic- Such was the treatment of these un- One very extraordinary feature of Athenian manners must not be overlooked: I mean the total seclusion of women. Instead of occupying that important station in society for which they were formed by nature that has ever been so bounteous to them; instead of heightening its pleasures, and of polishing, by a gentle and corrective influence, its unfinished asperity; they were prevented from qualifying themselves for an intercourse with the world, by the rigid prohibition of every liberal acquirement, and by a strict incarceration at home. It was the occupation of their lives to perform, in retired apartments, the servile offices, and to supervise the economy 1817.] On the Education and Morals of the Athenians. of the household. Their education had no other object than to fit them for domestic drudgery. For the intelligence and accomplishments withheld from them, the school of Aspasia was highly celebrated and they who caused such mental desolation in their own families, very consistently wandered thither in search of more agreeable companions. The business of their courts was conducted with barefaced and indecent dishonesty. It was customary for the citi zens (who by the help of interested demagogues came at length to engross in their tribunals almost all the causes) to cast lots which of them should fill the office of judges, or in other words (in numerous instances), which of them should eat a good meal, and which should rest content with the pittance allowed them by the treasury. From such a corruptible source as this, a pure and unpolluted stream of public justice could not possibly flow. Their votes were, like any other commodity, at the service of the highest bidder. So notorious was their venality, that one Philocrates, we are told, having distributed among the principal speakers the sum of three talents, to purchase their defence of Ergocles, and they being deterred from speaking in his favour by the successful pleading of Lysias, he demanded back his money, which being refused, he threatened them with a prosecution! Nothing can evince more strongly the unprincipled rapacity of the Athenians, and their confirmed indifference as to the mode of satisfying it, than the miserable fate of Nicophemus and his son Aristophanes. The friendship of Conon had conferred upon them the means of acquiring considerable property; but as it was a crime in the eyes of the rabble for any man to possess wealth which they had fixed their affections upon, these men were, for that heinous offence, put to death without the tedious formality of trial. But their unrighteous purpose was frustrated; and the cause of that disappointment must be looked upon as an aggravation of their infamy. The magnitude of the "argenti pondus et auri" which they expected to find was suggested to these plunderers, and their desire to seize married his sister. The following curious passage in his defence I should like to see paralleled by any asperser of government from the records of our courts of justice: "It is difficult, and I am fully aware of the difficulty, to convince you of the real state of Nicophemus's fortune, and of your having received every thing belonging both to him and Aristophanes, while the present scarcity of money continues in the city, and the interests of the exchequer are concerned!" The property of the rich, indeed, was entirely at the mercy of these robbers. We find in Isocrates an account of a very ingenious and effectual method practised to despoil them of their possessions. They were appointed to "various offices, which (says he) they must either ruin themselves in executing, or be obliged to exchange their estates with those who were willing to undertake them. By means of these, the rich are rendered as miserable as the poor." If, after their departure from office, their conduct in discharging it was not approved of by the people, they could neither travel nor remove the residue of that which had been expended in their public employment. The wealthy citizens were reduced by this villainy to the expedient of concealing their real condition, by assuming the garb of poverty. If there be any stickler for democracy who owns a score acres of good land, let him learn from this a lesson of contentment. The residence of strangers in that city was subject to some conditions not very consistent with the rights of hospitality. They were obliged to perform certain services to their patrons, on the neglect of which they were visited with confisca tion; and if they did not make their annual payment of ten drachmas to the state, they might be sold as slaves. The immoral and vicious lives of the Athenians is a subject upon which I forbear to dwell; but I may just advert to the laws of Solon, and to the fact that the fine arts of painting and sculpture were prostituted to the vilest purposes. I might continue to quote, Sir, but enough, and more than enough, has been advanced, to make it apparent, I con upon it inflamed, by the very profusion ceive, that Dr. Busby's rapturous eulogy with which no inconsiderable portion of that wealth had been dissipated in entertainments for their gratification. They fancied, however, they had started game, and, continuing the pursuit, accused a citizen of having concealed the object of their search, because Aristophanes had of Grecian morals is by no means war- any Neale's History of Westminster Abbey. unrestrained authority lodged in human hands be hurtful to society and experience teaches, that the controlling balance absolutely necessary for that restraint can exist only under a constitution where there is a distribution of power conformable to the diversity of ranks and inequality of condition instituted by nature, and which, by assigning to each member of the social convention its proper share, and defining its operation, diffuses an equable circulation of vigour through the whole. This alone can confine selfishness and cupidity to the maintenance of their own rights, and prevent them from invading those of others. This rectifying and counteracting principle it is which causes the agitation of peculiar and conflicting interests, contentions which have shaken other states to their foundations, to subside into calmness, not only without injury, but frequently with manifest improvement to our political health. In Athens, on the contrary, there was no barrier strong enough to throw back the tide of popular encroachment. The numerous and wholesome regulations of Solon were too feeble to correct that large infusion of democracy in his plan of govern ment, whose necessary progress it was, like an unsightly excrescence, to absorb to itself the aliment destined for the preservation of every part of the civil body. These inefficient limitations were quickly removed by the men of the people; by men who, to elevate themselves above their fellows, could deliberately cajole the dupes of their artifices by an apparent increase of liberty, into the relinquishment of all the substantial freedom which a submission to the laws of that legislator would have secured to them; and abandon them to the most mischievous of all tyranny-the unrestrained licence of their own passions. To this end did Pericles contrive to bring into disrepute the court of Areopagus, by introducing men who disgraced it by their infamous characters; for this purpose did Clisthenes invent the scheme of Ostracism, designing to rid himself of all opponents to his ambition. The citizens, having ("vires eundo") gained strength, forced themselves, with arms in their hands, into the magistracy; and, the democracy completed, not a vestige remained of safety for the life of any man who had riches to invite the violence of avarice. The intestine broils consequent upon these events, led them to the commission of the blackest iniquity. We find that the men of Athens were inces [Feb. 1, santly reproached by their orators for loitering, with folded arms, either in the forum or in the shops of musicians, and for their enervating and unmanly pleasures. But these dissolute courses were not likely to be forsaken for more honorable and dignified pursuits. The exhausted finances of the gambler and debauchee could be at any time recruited by murdering and seizing the property of innocent and even highly deserving men. The fanciful speculator, the man of theory who has a favourite position to establish, inay, if he pleases, reverse this representation; he may, if he think proper, give the reins to his imagination, and substitute a description of a race of heroes, whose inviolable integrity and severe virtue "Muneribus sapienter uti, Duramque callet pauperiem pati, Pejusque Letho flagitium timet." But the delineations of Athenian cruelty, of Athenian venality, and of Athenian tyranny are too firmly and indelibly engraved on the tablet of history to be effaced. fair ground for exulting in the unequalled They will for ever supply to Englishmen a constitution under which they have the happiness to live; and an irrefragable proof that there is nothing in the turbulence and confusion of the Athenian Ochlocracy to tion. I am convinced there is not an increate their envy or to merit their imitahabitant of this empire, excepting a low herd of raving jacobins, into whom the has infused new life and spirit, who would present distress of our beloved country the models of government that have yet not join with me in declaring, that of all subsisted in the world, the very last for us to work after is that of Athens. R. Dec. 12, 1816. MR. EDITOR, "THE History and Illustrations of Westminster Abbey," by J. P. NEALE, has been expected with some impatience, and more particularly as there is not a good history of that venerable structure, considering the importance of the building, the literary and topographical research of the present day, and the great superiority which our artists have acquired over their predecessors. With regard to the literary department, the single part before the public does not enable me to speak with decision; but I am afraid that Mr. BRAYLEY, who conducts it, will find himself cramped in giving the History with that satisfaç tion to himself and the public, which 1817.] Uncertainty of Geological Data. Of the plates I may be allowed to speak more decisively, because each is a whole of itself, and stands complete before the eye; but in giving an opinion, I wish to be understood as not being an artist, and that I shall express my feelings, without considering whether I do or do not use terins of art. The drawings are admirable, not only for the accuracy of the representation, which I hold to be the first requisite, but also for the selection of interesting points of view, and the feeling with which they are executed; and I have no hesitation in saying, that if Mr. Neale continues to make the drawings with the same fidelity and taste, he will rank with the first draftsmen of architectural subjects. give him this opinion publicly, as I feel it to be his due. Of the engravings, there be a may little difference of opinion, as they are executed by different hands, and some may prefer one style and some another; I like WOOLNOTH's plate of the view in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, because it gives the character of the building, and of stone in a high degree, although some may wish it had more delicacy: the North Transept and Aisle by LEWIS is a most beautiful engraving, and fastidious must that eye be which does not feel the skill of the artists in the tone and feeling expressed both in the draw ing and engraving; but the view of the South Screen, &c., of Henry the Seventh's Chapel, by SMITII, is I think one of the finest specimens of the graphic art ever seen. The etching is inimitable; and if Smith should never execute another plate, this is sufficient to stamp him as an artist of the highest excellence. I think it but just to Mr, Neale to A SUBSCRIBER TO THE WORK. December, 1816. MR. EDITOR, IT would scarcely be possible to adduce a stronger evidence of the "glorious uncertainty" to which the science of geology has attained in the present enlightened and philosophical age than the following results of the lucubrations of two modern professors. While your correspondent the Rev. Mr. CORMOULS is labouring to prove that the age of the globe cannot exceed 6,000 years, a Mr. JOHN MIDDLETON asserts, in a paper in the old Monthly Magazine.* that the production of the strata of sea formation must have occupied one million and fiftysix thousand years! The one estimates the general thickness of those strata at 800 yards, accumulated at the rate of 15 inches per annum; the other at 10,560 feet, formed at the rate of about a foot in one hundred years. So true it is that when men adopt a theory, however preposterous, nothing is more easy than to find proofs in support of it. As for the uninitiated, like me, well may they exclaim : "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" NO GEOLOGIST. London, Dec. 29, 1816. MR. EDITOR, I CONCUR with your correspondent W. M. S. in deprecating the frequently fatal effects which result from the deceptions of those who pretend to exercise the arts of "fortune-telling and casting nativities." If the following observations in reply to his query, to which are subjoined a few remarks on witchcraft and its concomitants, be considered worthy of a place in your miscellany, you will oblige me by their insertion. Witchcraft, enchantment, and sorcery certainly militate against religion; but to deny that they have actually existed, is to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages of the Old and New Testament. And the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world has borne testimony, either by well-authenticated examples, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits. The civil law punished with death both the sorcerers themselves and those who con * No, 290, Nov. 1816, p. 291. |