Athenian

“ And so, in spite of her subordinate position in the background, the Athenian woman was of real influence in Athens. She reigned supreme in the household, and as her sons grew up, they recognized in her those qualities which every Greek and especially the Athenian, was taught to value so highly: that quiet courage which by its very steadfastness overcomes all the little anxieties and annoyances of daily life; and that self-control and self-mastery which, putting self in the background, sets free the individual for service to others. ”

“ To understand the Athenian civilization and genius it is not enough to know the outward history of the times, the wars, the laws, and the lawmakers. We must see Athens as the average man saw it and lived in it from day to day, and then perhaps we can partially understand how it was that during the brief but wonderful era of Athenian freedom and prosperity [*] , Athens was able to produce so many men of commanding genius as to win for her a place in the history of civilization which she can never lose. ”

“ These alien Powers that thus are made
Athenian evermore. To you
Fair be their will henceforth, to do
⁠Whate'er may bless and aid!
Chorus.
Hail to you all! hail yet again,
All who love Athens, Gods and men,
⁠Adoring her as Pallas' home!
And while ye reverence what ye grant—
My sacred shrine and hidden haunt—
⁠Blameless and blissful be your doom!
Athena. ”

“ The Athenian community, through its political eminence, its intellectual character, so original and diversified, its culture,—such that almost every citizen was qualified for civil office,—has no parallel in history. It is the elevation, not of a select class of the citizens, but of the whole society, which gives to Athens its unique distinction. Public spirit and enterprise, which made her navy dominant in the Aegean and over the sea-coast of Asia Minor, went hand in hand with delight in eloquence and in the creations of genius. ”

“ Mankind have become to the full as mercenary in their intellectual as in their civil marriages; and the Athenian muses, like the Athenian maidens, pine in unwooed neglect, because they have no dowry.
[210]
The Athenian University was long the boast of the Athens, not only as a school of philosophy, and a school of medicine, but as a general school of learning; and, with the exception, perhaps, of the latter, the titles were, in the case of a few illustrious men, well earned. ”

“ We alone do good to our neighbors, not upon a calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom, and in a frank and fearless spirit. To sum up, I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. ”

“ We sit to-day beneath a Greek sky on the rising tiers of the modern centuries, and the drama of Athenian life is reproduced before our eyes. The greater protagonists of literature and life play out their rôles. ”

“ Perhaps it is this total absence of every thing elegant in the shape of man from the public streets and walks of the Athens, that has given so singular a twist to the minds and manners of the Athenian fair. ”

“ The Average Athenian’s Idea of the Gods.—The average intelligent citizen probably has views midway between the stupid rabble and the daring philosophers. To him the gods of Greece stand out in full divinity, honored and worshipped because they are protectors of the good, avengers of the evil, and guardians of the moral law. They punish crime and reward virtue, though the punishment may tarry long. They demand a pure heart and a holy mind of all that approach them, and woe to him who wantonly defies their eternal laws. ”

“ The women of Athens whom we saw would not take a premium anywhere for beauty; but we noticed here and there one who wore upon her dark locks the long hanging red fez and gold tassel, who might have attracted the eye of a roving poet, and been passed down to the next age as the Maid of Athens. The Athenian men of the present are a fine race; we were constantly surprised by noble forms and intelligent faces. That they are Greek in feature or expression, as we know the Greek from coins and statuary, we could not say. ”

“ General Features of the Age.—Under the inspiration of Pericles, the Athenian state now entered upon the most brilliant period of its history. The epoch embraces less than the lifetime of a single generation, yet its influence upon the civilization of the world can hardly be overrated. During this short period Athens gave birth to more great men—poets, artists, statesmen, and philosophers—than all the world besides has produced in any period of equal length. ”

“ The Athenian lad will never need to crucify the flesh upon Latin, French, and German, or an equivalent for his own Greek. Therein perhaps he may be heavily the loser, save that his own mother tongue is so intricate and full of subtle possibilities that to learn to make the full use thereof is truly a matter for lifelong education. ”

“ 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. ”

“ History.—The ideals of Athens—educational, political, and moral—were in direct contrast to those of Sparta. At Athens, love of liberty, love of knowledge, and love of beauty went hand in hand. Though the body was not neglected, as is proved by the beautiful types of manhood preserved for us in Athenian art, the Athenians believed that the truest beauty was to be reached only by the development of the mind. ”

“ By an exceptional felicity and refinement of mental, moral, and physical organization, the Athenian realized in himself the most perfect development of natural civilization. {682} The dark, religious mysteries which tinge and sadden Hindu, Egyptian, and most Gentile life had little hold upon the Greek. Athens, in her prime, succeeded in escaping the pressure and responsibility of the hereafter. She aimed at making time a success independent of eternity. The real heaven of the Athenian and his disciples, in both classic peninsulas, was this world, not the next. ”

“ In the solemn procession all classes of Athenians were represented: noble maidens, bearing baskets with offerings for the sacrifice; youths with offerings, and youths on horseback; chariots; grave elders and priests; and cattle for the sacrifice. Aliens, too, were there, for it was not only Athens that was symbolized, but the Athenian Empire; symbol of what Athens hoped would be a united Greece. It is very difficult to distinguish between Athenian patriotism and religion. To the Athenian, the city was Athena, and Athena the city, and the Parthenon was the crown of both. ”

“ Following a kind of bridle path, however, we are soon amid the groves of olive and other trees, while the horses plod their slow way beside the brook. Not a few citizens going or coming from Athens meet us, for this is really one of the parks and breathing spaces of the closely built city. The Athenians and Greeks in general live in a land of such natural beauty that they take this loveliness as a matter of course. Very seldom do their poets indulge in deliberate descriptions of “beautiful landscapes”; but none the less the fair things of nature have penetrated deeply into their souls. ”

“ The whole conception strongly appealed to the sentiment of the Athenian citizen, since the two pediments represented the contest of Athene and Poseidon for the patronage of Athens, arts and laws, or the rule of the sea. We all know that the arts and laws won, and that Athens is immortal by reason of her art and poetry and philosophy, not by her command of the sea. ”

“ The Athenian ideal of service was that the man should give it wholly to the state, and the woman wholly to her home, but narrow as was her horizon, limited as were her opportunities, the Athenian woman exercised an influence in Athens, that helped to strengthen and preserve some of the noblest Athenian qualities. ”

“ But in no city of any age has the gracious art of doing nothing been brought to such perfection. The Athenians are an intensely gregarious people. Everybody knows everybody else. Says an orator, “It is impossible for a man to be either a rascal or an honest man in this city without your all knowing it.” ”

“ Indeed there are some even to-day who secretly share the view of the ancient Athenian, but no one would dare to express publicly what one of the foremost men of ancient Greece asserted freely and openly as a matter of course. ”

“ Athens has thus become a centre of learning, a meeting-place for scholars and a basis for research in every part of the Greek world. The attention of many students has naturally been concentrated on the ancient city, the birthplace of European art and literature, and a great development of investigation and discussion in the special domain of Athenian archaeology has given birth to a voluminous literature. ”

“ To drink wine neat was to be a barbarian, and the story of the Spartan king who was driven mad by his unmixed potations was often repeated at Athens. The typical citizen was a thin wiry person, active and restless, and the highest praise you could give to an Athenian was to call him εὐτράπελος, ready to turn his hand to anything. ”

“ So in Athens, our statesmen-dramatists lived in the full press of life, and their drama reflects the opinions and proverbs of their day. Men of the lamp could not have caught the spirit and attitude of the Athenian mind toward the problems of life which underlie the Greek plays. ”

“ It is far easier to learn how the Athenians arrange their houses than how the average man among them adjusts his attitude toward the gods. While any searching examination of the fundamentals of Greek cultus and religion is here impossible, two or three facts must, nevertheless, be kept in mind, if we are to understand even the OUTWARD side of this Greek religion which is everywhere in evidence about us. ”

“ To read public placards, inscriptions of laws, occasional epistles, commercial documents, etc., is probably, for many Athenians, reading enough. The great poets he will learn by ear rather than by eye; and he may go through a long and respected life and never be compelled to read a really sizable volume from end to end. ”

“ An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a policy.... In doing good, again, we are unlike others; we make our friends by conferring, not by receiving favours.... To sum up, I say that Athens is the school of Hellas ... ”

“ With the Athenians philosophy was not a thing apart from the occupations of life and the events of history—it was not the monopoly of a few studious minds, but was cultivated as a fashion by the young and the well-born, the statesman, the poet, the man of pleasure, the votary of ambition 250. It was inseparably interwoven with their manners, their pursuits, their glory, their decay. The history of Athens includes in itself the history of the human mind. ”

“ The Athenians were a totally different people. The leading classes in their commonwealth were cultivated, intellectual, and refined. The city of Athens was renowned for the splendor of its architecture, its temples, its citadels, its statues, and its various public institutions, which in subsequent times made it the great intellectual center of Europe. ”

“ Two Athenians are represented as leaving Athens, in disgust at the vices and follies of their fellow citizens, and seeking the kingdom of the birds, where they form a new state, by which the communication between the mortals and the immortals is cut off, and is only opened again by an arrangement between all the parties. ”

“ We must now return to Athens for awhile, and with amazement behold the people there when news of the affair of Notion reached them, and see a piteous spectacle,—one of the most piteous that is recorded in the pages of history,—an exhibition of the inconstancy, the childish instability, of this great people, for the sake of whom their greatest citizen had refused a crown. ”

“ I play and lo, all things are dancing,
All: Men and beasts and spirits!
Athens, the Centre of Greece
So much of the natural atmosphere of Athens and Attica. But the Athenians themselves, their thoughts, life, and dreams have not proved less important nor less effective for the poet's growth. The spiritual and intellectual currents moving the Greek nation of today start from this city. Here politics, poetry, and philosophy are still discussed in the old way at the various shops, the coffee houses, and under the plane trees by the banks of Ilissus. ”

“ The observations which I had occasion to make respecting the dramatic taste of the Athenians are equally applicable to their taste, not only in literature, but in every thing else. In youth their education is too superficial, and when they grow up, the drudgery of the law, to which so many of them are doomed, and which influences the habits of the whole, together with that dissipation in which they indulge as habitually and more deeply than any people with whom I am acquainted, give a turn to their minds which is the very opposite of literary. ”