Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes Hence, even though vanquished, she was regarded with a species of respect, by her ruder masters. SECTION XXIX. POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ARISING FROM THE HISTORY OF THE STATES OF GREECE. 1. THE revolutions which the states of Greece underwent, and the situations into which they were thrown by their alternate connection and differences with each other, and their wars with foreign nations, were so various, that their history is a school of instruction in political science: as there is scarce a doctrine in that important science which may not find an example or an illustration from their history. The surest test of the truth or falsehood of abstract principles of politics, is their application to actual experience and to the history of nations. 2. The oppression which the states of Greece suffered under their ancient despots, a set of tyrants who owed their elevation to violence, and whose rule was subject to no control, or constitutional restraints, was assuredly a most justifiable motive for their establishing a new form of government, which promised them the enjoyment of greater political freedom. We believe, too, that those new forms of government were framed by their virtuous legislators in the true spirit of patriotism. But as to the real merits of those political fabrics, it is certain that they were very far from corresponding in practice with what was expected from them in theory. We seek in vain, either in the history of Athens or Lacedæmon, for the beautiful idea of a wellordered commonwealth. The revolutions of government which they were ever experiencing, the eternal factions with which they were embroiled, plainly demonstrate that there was a radical defect in the structure of the machine, which precluded the possibility of regular motion. The condition of the people under those governments was such as partook more of servitude and oppression than that of the subjects of the most despotic monarchies. The slaves formed the actual majority of the inhabitants in all the states of Greece. To these, the free citizens behaved with the most inhuman rigour: nor were they more inclined to a humane and liberal conduct to those of their own condition, from bondage being a consequence of the contraction of debts even by a free man. Thus a great proportion even of the free citizens were actually subject to the tyrannical control of their fellowcitizens. Nor were their richer classes in the actual enjoyment of a rational liberty and independence. They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked themselves under the banners of the contending chiefs of the republic; and these maintained their influence over their partisans by the most shameful corruption and bribery, of which the means were supplied alone by the plunder of the public. The whole was, therefore, a system of servility and debasement of spirit, which left nothing of a free or ingenuous nature in the condition of individuals, nor anything that could furnish encomium to a real advocate for the dignity of human nature. Such was the condition of the chief republics of antiquity. Their governments promised in theory what they never conferred in practice the political happiness of the citizens. 3. "In democracy," says Dr Fergusson, "men must love equality; they must respect the rights of their fellow-citizens; they must be satisfied with that degree of consideration they can procure by their abilities fairly measured against those of an opponent; they must labour for the public without hope of profit; they must reject every attempt to create a personal dependence.' This is the picture of a republic in theory. If we reverse this picture in every single particular, and take its direct opposite, we shall have the true portrait of a republican government in practice. 4. It is the fundamental theory of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, that the three distinct forms of government, the monarchical, despotical, and republican, are influenced by the three separate principles of honour, fear, and virtue; and this theory is the foundation on which the author builds a great part of his political doctrines. That each of these principles is exclusively essential to its respective form of government, but unnecessary and even prejudicial in the others, is a position contrary both to reason and to truth. No form of government can subsist where every one of those principles has not its operation. The admission of such a theory leads to the most mischievous conclusions; as, for example, that in monarchies the state dispenses with virtue in its officers and magistrates; the public employments ought to be venal; and that crimes, if kept secret, are of no con sequence. 5. It is only in the infant periods of the Grecian history, that we are to look for those splendid examples of patriotism and heroic virtue, which the ardent mind of uncorrupted youth will ever delight to contemplate. The most remarkable circumstance which strikes us on comparing the latter with the more early periods of the history of the Greeks, is the total change in the genius and spirit of the people. The ardour of patriotism, the thirst of military glory, the enthusiasm of liberty, decline with the rising grandeur and opulence of the nation; and an enthusiasm succeeds of another species, and far less worthy in its aim; an admiration of the fine arts, a violent passion for the objects of taste and for the refinements of luxury. This leads us to consider Greece in the light in which, after the loss of her liberty, she still continued to attract the admiration of other nations. SECTION XXX. STATE OF THE ARTS IN GREECE. 1. Ir is not among the Greeks that we are to look for the greatest improvement in the useful or the necessary arts of life. When we speak of the eminence of this people in the arts, we are understood to mean those which, by distinction, are termed the fine arts, or those which mark the refinement of a people, and which come in the train of luxury. In agriculture, manufactures, commerce, they never were greatly distinguished. But in those which are termed the fine arts-architecture, sculpture, painting, and music, Greece surpassed all the contemporary nations: and the monuments of these which yet remain, are the models of imitation, and the confessed standard of excellence, in the judgment of the most polished nations of modern times. 2. After the defeat of Xerxes, the active spirit of the Athenians, which would have otherwise languished for want of an object, taking a new direction from luxury, displayed itself signally in all the works of taste in the fine arts. The administration of Pericles was the era of luxury and splendour. The arts broke out at once with surprising lustre; and architecture, sculpture, and painting, were carried to the summit of perfection. This golden age of the arts in Greece endured for about a century, till after the death of Alexander the Great. 3. The Greeks were the parents of that system of architecture which is universally allowed to be the most perfect. The Greek architecture consisted of three distinct orders-the Doric, the Ionic, and Corinthian. The Doric was probably the first regular order; it has a masculine grandeur, and a superior air of strength to both the others. It is therefore best adapted to works of great magnitude and of a sublime character. The character of sublimity is essentially connected with chasteness and simplicity. Of this order is the temple of Theseus at Athens, built ten years after the battle of Marathon, that is, 481 years before the Christian era; a fabric which has stood upwards of 2,300 years, and is at this day almost entire. The Ionic order is light and elegant. The former has been compared to the robust and muscular proportions of a man; the latter to the more slender and delicate proportions of a woman. The character of this order is likewise simplicity, which is as essential a requisite to true beauty as it is to grandeur and su blimity. The Ionic admits, with propriety, of decorations which would be unsuitable to the Doric. Of this order were constituted some of the noblest of the Greek temples; particularly the temple of Apollo at Miletus, that of the Delphic Oracle, and the superb temple of Diana at Ephesus, classed among the wonders of the world. The Corinthian marks an age of luxury and magnificence, when pomp and splendour had become the predominant passion, but had not yet extinguished the taste for the sublime and beautiful. It had its origin at Corinth, one of the most luxurious cities of Greece; and was, probably, the production of an artist who had to effect the greatest splendour, and at the same time to preserve a grandeur and beauty of proportions. It attempts, therefore, an union of all these characters; but satisfies not the chastened judgment, and pleases only a corrupted taste. Of this order were built many of the most splendid temples, particularly that of Jupiter Olympus at Athens, founded by Pisistratus, but not completely finished till 700 years after, under the reign of Adrian. Its remains are yet very considerable. The characters of the three orders of Grecian architecture have been happily distinguished by the Poet of the Seasons:"First unadorn'd, And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose ; The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath." Thomson's Liberty, Part II. 4. The Tuscan and the Composite orders are of Italian origin. The Etruscan architecture appears to be nearly allied to the Grecian, but to possess an inferior degree of elegance. The Trajan pillar at Rome is of this order. This magnificent column has braved the injuries of time, and is entire at the present day. Its excellence consists less in the form and proportions of the pillar, than in the admirable sculpture, representing the victories of Trajan over the Dacians, which decorates it. The Composite order is what its name implies; it shows that the Greeks had in the three original orders exhausted all the principles of grandeur and beauty; and that it was not possible to frame a fourth, but by combining the former. 5. The Gothic architecture, which is often found to produce a striking effect, offers no-contradiction to these observations. The effect which it produces cannot be altogether accounted for by the rules of symmetry or harmony in the proportions between the several parts; but depends on a certain idea of vastness, gloominess, and solemnity, which are powerful ingredients in the sublime. Of this order is the cathedral of Milan, one of the noblest Gothic structures in the world. 6. Sculpture and painting were brought by the Greeks to as high a pitch of perfection as architecture. The remains of Grecian sculpture are at this day the most perfect models of the art; and the modern artists have no means of attaining to excellence so certain as the study of those great masterpieces. 7. The excellence of the Greeks in sculpture .nay perhaps be accounted for chiefly from their having the human figure often before their eyes quite naked, and in all its various attitudes, both in the Palæstra and in their public games. The antique statues have therefore a grandeur united with perfect simplicity, because the attitude is not the result of an artificial disposition of the figure, as in the modern academies, but is nature unconstrained. Thus, in the Dying Gladiator, when we observe the relaxation of the muscles, and the visible failure of strength and life, we cannot doubt that nature was the sculptor's immediate model of imitation.* 8. And this nature was in reality superior to what we now see in the ordinary race of men. The constant practice of gymnastic exercises gave a finer conformation of body than what is now to be found in the vitiated pupils of modern effeminacy, the artificial children of modern fashion. 9. A secondary cause of the eminence of the Greeks in the arts of design, was their theology, which furnished an ample exercise for the genius of the sculptor and painter. 10. We must speak with more diffidence of the ability of the Greeks in painting, than we do of their superiority in sculpture; because the existing specimens of the former are very few, and the pieces which are preserved are probably not the most excellent. But in the want of actual evidence, we have every presumption that the Greeks had attained to equal perfection in the art of painting and in sculpture; for if we find the judgment given by ancient writers of their excellence in sculpture, confirmed by the universal assent of the best critics among the moderns, we have just reason to presume an equal rectitude in the judgment which the same ancient writers have pronounced upon their paintings. If Pliny is right in his opinion of the merits of those statues which yet remain, the Venus of Praxiteles,† the Laocoon and his sons of Agesander,‡ of Polydorus, and Athenodorus, we have no reason to suppose his taste to be less just when he celebrates the merits and critically characterizes the different manners of Zeuxis, Apelles, Parrhasius, Protogenes, and Timanthes, whose works have perished. 11. The paintings found in Herculaneum, Pompeii, the Sepulchrum Nasonianum at Rome, were probably the work of Greek artists; for we have no evidence that the Romans were ever eminent in any of the arts dependent on design. These paintings exhibit great knowledge of proportions, and of the chiaro-oscuro; but betray an ignorance of the rules of perspective. "With such admirable art was the statue of the Dying Gladiator sculptured by Cresilas, that one could judge how much of life remained."-Plin. lib. 36. + Praxiteles flourished 369 B.C. His merits, and an enumeration of his principal works, may be found in Pliny, 1, 34, c. 8; 1. 36, c. 5. He excelled in female beauty. His naked Venus, after the model of the courtesan Phyrne, is preserved and known to the moderns by the name of the Venus de Medici; and the colossal statue of his veiled Venus was discovered in 1820, at Milo, and is now in the Louvre, being perhaps the most magnificent specimen of Greek art which now exists. The Laocoon was found in the baths of Titus, in 1506, and now stands on the Belvidere at Rome. |