Karl Otfried Müller

“ Connecting the idea of Apollo, which we have now acquired, with our preceding inquiries, we find the whole combine in an easy and natural manner. Apollo, as a divine hero, overcomes every obstacle to the order and laws of heaven; and those are heavenly regulations and laws which he proclaims as the prophet of Zeus. By these, also, tranquillity, brightness, and harmony, are every where established, and every thing destructive of them is removed. The belief in a fixed system of laws, of which Apollo was the executor, formed the foundation of all prophecy in his worship. ”

“ Since Herodotus saw the working of a divine agency in all human events, and considered the exhibition of it as the main object of his history, his aim is entirely different from that of a historian who regards the events of life merely with reference to man. Herodotus is, in truth, a theologian and a poet as well as an historian. The individual parts of his work are treated entirely in this spirit. His aim is not merely to give the results of common experience in human life. ”

“ The mere act of fighting, the common and disciplined movement of thousands directed to the same end, the “pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war,” arouse the feelings, and inspire the mind with the noblest and most elevated thoughts; and there is a certain affinity between the art of war and the more regular and peaceful arts; thus a military body resembled, in its movements and array, a large choral dance. These feelings and views were among all nations most natural to the Greeks, and, of the Greek races, familiar to the Dorians in particular. ”

“ The fundamental idea of all the heroic mythology may be pronounced to be a proud consciousness of power innate in man, by which he endeavours to place himself on a level with the gods, not through the influence of a mild and benign destiny, but by labour, misery, and combats. The highest degree of human suffering and courage is attributed to Hercules: his character is as noble as could be conceived in those rude and early times ”

“ It is, indeed, a wonderful migration, being from one end of the Grecian world to the other, and it presents a striking anomaly in the history of the ancient colonies. We must suppose that the Dorians, whilst in their first settlements, excluded from the plain, and pressed by want, or restless from inactivity, constructed piratical canoes, manned these frail and narrow barks with soldiers, who themselves worked at the oars, and thus being changed from mountaineers into seamen—the Normans of Greece—set sail for the distant island of Crete. ”

“ Now I call the Spartan constitution an aristocracy, without the least hesitation, on account of its continued and predominant tendency towards governing the community by a few, who were presumed to be the best, and as it inculcated in the citizens far less independent confidence than obedience and fear of those persons whose worth was guaranteed by their family, their education, and the public voice which had called them to the offices of state. ”

“ Although both in the Iliad and Odyssey we can clearly discern traces of the infancy of the nation to which they belong, and although a spirit of simplicity pervades them, peculiar to the childhood of the human race, yet the class of poetry under which they fall, appears in them at its full maturity; all the laws which reflection and experience can suggest for the epic form are observed with the most refined taste ”

“ Thus, if we except the purifying and propitiatory rites, the festivals of Apollo bore the character of a serene and joyful mind, every other attribute of the deity being lost in those of victory and mercy. ”

“ He was therefore nearly in the prime of his life at the time when Xerxes invaded Greece, and the battles of Thermopylæ and Salamis were fought. He thus belongs to that period of the Greek nation, when its great qualities were first distinctly unfolded; and when it exhibited an energy of action, and a spirit of enterprise, never afterwards surpassed, together with a love of poetry, art, and philosophy, which produced much, and promised to produce more. The modes of thought, and style of art, which arose in Athens after the Persian war, must have been unknown to him. ”

“ Hence many persons have asked, what merit it was in a Spartan if he preferred death to flight, since a punishment far worse than death awaited the coward? It is indeed true, that the merit of each individual Spartan was less if he preferred dying at his post to saving himself by flight, than if public opinion had not affixed so severe a penalty to the offence of the cowardly soldier. ”

“ In the time of Aristotle the power of the cosmi had acquired a despotic character. The number of the families from which they were chosen had become less numerous; individual families had acquired an immediate influence upon the government, and their disputes had created parties, in which the whole nation took a share. The constitution had been thus converted into a narrow oligarchy; the democratic element, the public assembly, being too feeble to put an end to these dissensions. To this was added, at a time when men had ceased to venerate ancient customs, a want of written laws. ”

“ Asia, and also Athens, together with Phocis, Thessaly, and the colonies in Sicily and Italy, were all in the hands of tyrants, who doubtless assisted one another, and knew their common interest; and that Sparta alone, in most instances at the instigation of the Delphian oracle, declared against all these rulers a lasting war, and in fact overthrew them all, with the exception of the Sicilian tyrants; it must be confessed, that in this period of Grecian history no contest took place either greater, or, by its extent as well as its principles, of more important political and moral consequences. ”

“ Herodotus lastly shows his awe of the divine Nemesis by his moderation and the firmness with which he keeps down the ebullitions of national pride. For, if the eastern princes by their own rashness bring destruction upon themselves, and the Greeks remain the victors, yet he describes the East, with its early civilization, as highly worthy of respect and admiration; he even points out traits of greatness of character in the hostile kings of Persia; shows his countrymen how they often owed their successes to divine providence and external advantages, rather than to their own valour and ability ”

“ Before we speak of the form of government which prevailed in the Doric states, it will be necessary to set aside all modern ideas respecting the origin, essence, and object of a state; namely, that it is an institution for protecting the persons and property of the individuals contained in it. We shall approach nearer to the ancient notion, if we consider the essence of a state to be, that by a recognition of the same opinions and principles, and the direction of actions to the same ends, the whole body become, as it were, one moral agent. ”

“ The national hero is represented as everywhere preparing the way for his people and their worship; and as protecting them from other races. Thus he opens a communication between Tempe and Delphi, between the fabulous worshippers of Apollo, the Hyperboreans, and the worshippers of his own age. At the same time his own person is an outward symbol of the national worship; he complies with its rites of expiation for homicide, being himself both the victim and the sacrificer. ”

“ LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 283 Athenians were not cruel and sanguinary by nature ; but a reckless severity, when there was a question of maintaining principles which they thought necessary to their existence, was implanted deeply in their character ; and circumstances too often impelled them to employ it against their allies. The Athenian policy of compelling so many cities to contribute their wealth in order to make Athens the focus of art and cultivation, was indeed accompanied with pride and selfish patriotism. ”

“ Thus we behold Apollo the representative of the severe, even, and simple music of the Greeks, in contest with that impassioned spirit, alternating between the extremes of fury and apathy, which the professors of an elementary religion sought to represent even in their music; and consequently this fable also harmonizes with the fundamental principles of the religion of Apollo. ”

“ The severity and rudeness of this music (which appeared gloomy and harsh to the later ages, and would be still more so to our ears, accustomed to a softer style) was strikingly contrasted with the mild and pleasing character which had then long pervaded the Epic poetry. It teaches us undoubtedly to distinguish between the Asiatic Greeks, and those sprung from the mountains in the north of Greece, who, proud of their natural loftiness of character and vigour of mind, had acquired but little refinement from any contact with strangers. ”

“ The contest, with all its attendant miseries, appears even beneficial in its results. This is the course of the tragedies of Æschylus, and indeed of Greek tragedy in general, so far as it remains true to its object. The tragedies of Æschylus uniformly require faith in a divine power, which, with steady eye and firm hand, guides the course of events to the best issue, though the paths through which it leads may be dark and difficult, and fraught with distress and suffering. The poetry of Æschylus is full of profound and enthusiastic glorifications of Zeus as this power. ”

“ Aristotle indeed speaks of the paternal Apollo (Ἀπόλλων πατρῷος) as being a son of Athene and Hephæstus;1024 but this is nothing more than an endeavour to create a family connexion between the principal gods of the same town: for where do we ever find a temple dedicated conjointly to Athene and Apollo? what ceremonies and sacrifices were offered to them in common? and in what legends are they found connected? Till such an union of the two deities is discovered, we must consider Athene as an ancient and native deity, Apollo as one of much later introduction. ”

“ Indeed we know that in the embellishment of their sacred edifices the Dorians employed a style of building which they themselves invented, from the strict principles of which they never deviated, and which at the same time they took the utmost care to bring to perfection. That they were in strictness the original inventors of this style of architecture has been first satisfactorily proved by the remarkable discoveries of modern times, which have laid open to us the monuments of the unknown ages of Greece in all their strange peculiarities. ”

“ The victory, in truth, is always the point upon which the whole of the ode turns; only he regards it, not simply as an incident, but as connected with the whole life of the victor. Pindar establishes this connexion by forming a high conception of the fortunes and character of the victor, and by representing the victory as the result of them. And as the Greeks were less accustomed to consider a man in his individual capacity, than as a member of his state, and his family ”

“ As every old man had the right of severely censuring the habits of any youth, so every citizen was a youth in comparison with these aged fathers of the state. Hence the awe and veneration with which they were commonly regarded at Sparta. That, however, to an Athenian orator of the democratic times, the gerusia should appear possessed of despotic authority, is not surprising; for it is so far true, that this institution, if transplanted to Athens, would necessarily have caused a tyrannical dominion. ”

“ The heroic life (which is no fiction of the poets) , the fondness for vigorous and active exertion, the disinclination to the harmless occupations of husbandry, which is so remarkably seen in the conquering race of the Hellenes, necessarily awakened and cherished an entirely different train of religious feeling. Hence the Zeus Hellanius of Æacus, the Zeus Laphystius of Athamas, and, finally, the Doric Zeus, whose son is Apollo, the prophet and warrior,55 are rather representations of the moral order and harmony of the universe, after the ancient method, than of the creative powers of nature. ”

“ Tragedy could not, in conformity with those associations, consist entirely of the opposition and conflict between the free will of an individual and omnipotent fate; it must appease contending powers and assign to each of them its proper place. Contentions may rise higher and higher, the opposition may be stretched to the utmost, yet the divine guidance which presides over the whole finds means to restore order and harmony, and allots to each conflicting power its own peculiar right. ”

“ Thousands of written laws always leave open a door for the entrance of arbitrary decision, if they have not by their mutual connexion a complete power of supplying what is deficient; this power is, however, alone possessed by the law, connate with the people, which, in the ancient simple times, when national habits are preserved in perfect purity, is better maintained by custom fixed under the inspection of the best men, than by any writing. ”

“ Apollo was a subject peculiarly adapted for sculpture. Since his connexion with elementary religion was slight, and there was nothing mystic in his character, the sculptors were soon able to fix upon a regular cast of features, to distinguish him from other deities: for Apollo, not only in poetry, but in the fables most nearly connected with his worship, is generally represented as a human god, and in all his actions and sufferings more nearly connected with the heroes than any other divinity. ”

“ The admonitions which Pindar addresses to Hiero are to cultivate a calm serenity of mind, after the cares and toils by which he had founded and extended his empire, and to purify and ennoble by poetry a spirit which had been ruffled by unworthy passions. Even when the skill of the victor is put in the foreground, Pindar in general does not content himself with celebrating this bodily prowess alone, but he usually adds some moral virtue which the victor has shown, or which he recommends and extols. ”

“ For the Spartans considered marriage, not as a private relation, about which the state had little or no interest, but as a public institution, in order to rear up a strong and healthy progeny to the nation. ”

“ Asia, passed from thence into Greece, and was worshipped as the moon, the goddess of the woods, the huntress, the nurse of children, and a nurse of the universe, as well by the choruses of the virgins of Caryæ, as in the dances of the temples;”1514 we will endeavour to ascertain some historical criterion, which may distinguish the worship of Artemis from that of any other deity, and which must not be one of the ideas or symbols of the worship itself, since it is concerning the possibility or impossibility of their connexion that we are to inquire. ”

“ We will now explain, as precisely as possible, the occasion of an epinikian ode, and the mode of its execution. A victory has been gained in a contest at a festival, particularly at one of the four great games most prized by the Greek people [13] , either by the speed of horses, the strength and dexterity of the human body, or by skill in music [14] . Such a victory as this, which shed a lustre not only on the victor himself, but on his family, and even on his native city, demanded a solemn celebration. ”

“ After all, it must be confessed that the constitution of Sparta too much restrained the natural inclination of the citizens; and by making every thing too subservient to public ends, checked the free growth of the people, and, like a plant trimmed by an unsparing hand, destroyed its means both of actual strength and future increase. At the time of Aristotle they endeavoured to increase the population by exempting the father of three sons from serving in war, and the father of four sons from all taxes.907 But even Herodotus only reckons 8000 Spartans in the 9000 families ”