A General History for Colleges and High Schools

P >> P. V. N. Myers >> A General History for Colleges and High Schools

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35

THE SOPHISTS.--The Sophists, of whom the most noted were Protagoras,
Gorgias, and Prodicus, were a class of philosophers or teachers who gave
instruction in rhetoric and the art of disputation. They travelled about
from city to city, and contrary to the usual custom of the Greek
philosophers, took fees from their pupils. They were shallow but brilliant
men, caring more for the dress in which the thought was arrayed than for
the thought itself, more for victory than for truth; and some of them
inculcated a selfish morality. The better philosophers of the time
despised them, and applied to them many harsh epithets, taunting them with
selling wisdom, and accusing them of boasting that they could "make the
worse appear the better reason."

SOCRATES.--Volumes would not contain what would be both instructive and
interesting respecting the lives and works of the three great philosophers
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We can, however, accord to each only a few
words. Of these three eminent thinkers, Socrates (469-399 B.C.), though
surpassed in grasp and power of intellect by both Plato and Aristotle, has
the firmest hold upon the affections of the world.

Nature, while generous to the philosopher in the gifts of soul, was unkind
to him in the matter of his person. His face was ugly as a satyr's, and he
had an awkward, shambling walk, so that he invited the shafts of the comic
poets of his time. He loved to gather a little circle about him in the
Agora or in the streets, and then to draw out his listeners by a series of
ingenious questions. His method was so peculiar to himself that it has
received the designation of the "Socratic dialogue." He has very happily
been called an _educator_, as opposed to an _instructor_. In the young men
of his time Socrates found many devoted pupils. The youthful Alcibiades
declared that "he was forced to stop his ears and flee away, that he might
not sit down by the side of Socrates and grow old in listening."

[Illustration: SOCRATES.]

Socrates was unfortunate in his domestic relations. Xanthippe, his wife,
seems to have been of a practical turn of mind, and unable to sympathize
with the abstracted ways of her husband.

This great philosopher believed that the proper study of mankind is man,
his favorite maxim being "Know Thyself"; hence he is said to have brought
philosophy from the heavens and introduced it to the homes of men.

Socrates held the Sophists in aversion, and in opposition to their selfish
expediency taught the purest system of morals that the world had yet
known, and which has been surpassed only by the precepts of the Great
Teacher. He thought himself to be restrained from entering upon what was
inexpedient or wrong by a tutelary spirit. He believed in the immortality
of the soul and in a Supreme Ruler of the universe, but sometimes spoke
slightingly of the temples and the popular deities. This led to his
prosecution on the double charge of blasphemy and of corrupting the
Athenian youth. The fact that Alcibiades had been his pupil was used to
prove the demoralizing tendency of his teachings. He was condemned to
drink the fatal hemlock. The night before his death he spent with his
disciples, discoursing on the immortality of the soul.

PLATO.--Plato (429-348 B.C.), "the broad-browed," was a philosopher of
noble birth, before whom in youth a brilliant career in the world of Greek
affairs opened; but, coming under the influence of Socrates, he resolved
to give up all his prospects in politics and devote himself to philosophy.
Upon the condemnation and death of his master he went into voluntary
exile. In many lands he gathered knowledge and met with varied
experiences. He visited Sicily, where he was so unfortunate as to call
upon himself the resentment of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, through
having worsted him in an argument, and also by an uncourtly plainness of
speech. The king caused him to be sold into slavery as a prisoner of war.
Being ransomed by a friend, he found his way to his native Athens, and
established a school of philosophy in the Academy, a public garden close
to Athens. Here amid the disciples that thronged to his lectures, he
passed the greater part of his long life,--he died 348 B.C., at the age of
eighty-one years,--laboring incessantly upon the great works that bear his
name.

[Illustration: PLATO.]

Plato imitated in his writings the method of Socrates in conversation. The
discourse is carried on by questions and answers, hence the term
_Dialogues_ that attaches to his works. He attributes to his master,
Socrates, much of the philosophy that he teaches: yet his _Dialogues_
are all deeply tinged with his own genius and thought. In the _Republic_
Plato portrays his conception of an ideal state. He was opposed to the
republic of Athens, and his system, in some of its main features, was
singularly like the Feudal System of Mediaeval Europe.

The _Phaedo_ is a record of the last conversation of Socrates with his
disciples--an immortal argument for the immortality of the soul.

Plato believed not only in a future life (post-existence), but also in
pre-existence; teaching that the ideas of reason, or our intuitions, are
reminiscences of a past experience. [Footnote: In the following lines from
Wordsworth we catch a glimpse of Plato's doctrine of pre-existence:--
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
Nor yet in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home."--_Ode on Immortality_.] Plato's
doctrines have exerted a profound influence upon all schools of thought
and philosophies since his day. In some of his precepts he made a close
approach to the teachings of Christianity. "We ought to become like God,"
he said, "as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become
holy and just and wise."

ARISTOTLE.--As Socrates was surpassed by his pupil Plato, so in turn was
Plato excelled in certain respects by his disciple Aristotle, "the master
of those who know." In him the philosophical genius of the Hellenic
intellect reached its culmination. He was born in the Macedonian city of
Stagira (384 B.C.), and hence is frequently called the "Stagirite." As in
the case of Socrates, his personal appearance gave no promise of the
philosopher. His teacher, Plato, however, recognized the genius of his
pupil, and called him the "Mind of the school."

After studying for twenty years in the school of Plato, Aristotle became
the preceptor of Alexander the Great. When Philip invited him to become
the tutor of his son, he gracefully complimented the philosopher by saying
in his letter that he was grateful to the gods that the prince was born in
the same age with him. Alexander became the liberal patron of his tutor,
and aided him in his scientific studies by sending him large collections
of plants and animals, gathered on his distant expeditions.

At Athens the great philosopher delivered his lectures while walking about
beneath the trees and porticoes of the Lyceum; hence the term
_peripatetic_ (from the Greek _peripatein_, "to walk about") applied to
his philosophy.

[Illustration: ARISTOTLE.]

Among the productions of his fertile intellect are works on rhetoric,
logic, poetry, morals and politics, physics and metaphysics. For centuries
his works were studied and copied and commented upon by both European and
Asiatic scholars, in the schools of Athens and Rome, of Alexandria and
Constantinople. Until the time of Bacon in England, for nearly two
thousand years, Aristotle ruled over the realm of mind with a despotic
sway. All teachers and philosophers acknowledged him as their guide and
master.

ZENO AND THE STOICS.--We are now approaching the period when the political
life of Hellas was failing, and was being fast overshadowed by the
greatness of Rome. But the intellectual life of the Greek race was by no
means eclipsed by the calamity that ended its political existence. For
centuries after that event the poets, scholars, and philosophers of this
intellectual people led a brilliant career in the schools and universities
of the Roman world.

From among all the philosophers of this long period, we can select for
brief mention only a few. And first we shall speak of Zeno and Epicurus,
who are noted as founders of schools of philosophy that exerted a vast
influence upon both the thought and the conduct of many centuries.

Zeno, founder of the celebrated school of the Stoics, lived in the third
century before our era (about 362-264). He taught at Athens in a public
porch (in Greek, _stoa_), from which circumstance comes the name applied
to his disciples.

The Stoical philosophy was the outgrowth, in part at least, of that of the
Cynics, a sect of most rigid and austere morals. The typical
representative of this sect is found in Diogenes, who lived, so the story
goes, in a tub, and went about Athens by daylight with a lantern, in
search, as he said, of a _man_. The Cynics were simply a race of pagan
hermits.

The Stoics inculcated virtue for the sake of itself. They believed--and it
would be very difficult to frame a better creed--that "man's chief
business here is to do his duty." They schooled themselves to bear with
perfect composure any lot that destiny might appoint. Any sign of emotion
on account of calamity was considered unmanly and unphilosophical. Thus,
when told of the sudden death of his son, the Stoic replied, "Well, I
never imagined that I had given life to an immortal."

Stoicism became a favorite system of thought with certain classes of the
Romans, and under its teachings and doctrines were nourished some of the
purest and loftiest characters produced by the pagan world. It numbered
among its representatives, in later times, the illustrious Roman emperor
Marcus Aurelius, and the scarcely less renowned and equally virtuous slave
Epictetus. In many of its teachings it anticipated Christian doctrines,
and was, in the philosophical world, a very important preparation for
Christianity.

[Illustration: EPICURUS.]

EPICURUS AND THE EPICUREANS.--Epicurus (342-270 B.C.), who was a
contemporary of Zeno, taught, in opposition to the Stoics, that
_pleasure_ is the highest good. He recommended virtue, indeed, but
only as a means for the attainment of pleasure; whereas the Stoics made
virtue an end in itself. In other words, Epicurus said, "Be virtuous,
because virtue will bring you the greatest amount of happiness"; Zeno
said, "Be virtuous, because you ought to be."

Epicurus had many followers in Greece, and his doctrines were eagerly
embraced by many among the Romans during the corrupt period of the Roman
empire. Many of these disciples carried the doctrines of their master to
an excess that he himself would have been the first to condemn. Allowing
full indulgence to every appetite and passion, their whole philosophy was
expressed in the proverb, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." No
pure or exalted life could be nourished in the unwholesome atmosphere of
such a philosophy. Epicureanism never produced a single great character.

THE SKEPTICS; PYRRHO.--About the beginning of the third century B.C.
skepticism became widespread in Greece. It seemed as though men were
losing faith in everything. Many circumstances had worked together in
bringing about this state of universal unbelief. A wider knowledge of the
world had caused many to lose their faith in the myths and legends of the
old mythologies. The existence of so many opposing systems of philosophy
caused men to doubt the truth of any of them. Many thoughtful minds were
hopelessly asking, "What is truth?"

Pyrrho (about 360-270 B.C.) was the doubting Thomas of the Greeks. He
questioned everything, and declared that the great problems of the
universe could not be solved. He asserted that it was the duty of man, and
the part of wisdom, to entertain no positive judgment on any matter, and
thus to ensure serenity and peace of mind.

The disciples of Pyrrho went to absurd lengths in their skepticism, some
of them even saying that they asserted nothing, not even that they
asserted nothing. They doubted whether they doubted.

THE NEO-PLATONISTS.--Neo-Platonism was a blending of Greek philosophy and
Oriental mysticism. It has been well called the "despair of reason,"
because it abandoned all hope of man's ever being able to attain the
_highest_ knowledge through reason alone, and looked for a Revelation. The
centre of this last movement in Greek philosophical thought was Alexandria
in Egypt, the meeting-place, in the closing centuries of the ancient
world, of the East and the West.

Philo the Jew (b. about 30 B.C.), who labored to harmonize Hebrew
doctrines with the teachings of Plato, was the forerunner of the Neo-
Platonists. But the greatest of the school was Plotinus (A.D. 204-269),
who spent the last years of his life at Rome, where he was a great
favorite.

CONFLICT BETWEEN NEO-PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY.--While the Neo-Platonists
were laboring to restore, in modified form, the ancient Greek philosophy
and worship, the teachers of Christianity were fast winning the world over
to a new faith. The two systems came into deadly antagonism. Christianity
triumphed. The gifted and beautiful Hypatia, almost the last
representative of the old system of speculation and belief, was torn to
pieces in the streets of Alexandria by a mob of fanatic Christian monks
(A.D. 415). Finally the Roman emperor Justinian forbade the pagan
philosophers to teach their doctrines (A.D. 529). This imperial edict
closed forever the Greek schools, in which for more than a thousand years
the world had received instruction upon the loftiest themes that can
engage the human mind. The Greek philosophers, as living, personal
teachers, had finished their work; but their systems of thought will never
cease to attract and influence the best minds of the race.

SCIENCE AMONG THE GREEKS.

The contributions of the Greek observers to the physical sciences have
laid us under no small obligation to them. Some of those whom we have
classed as philosophers, were careful students of nature, and might be
called scientists. The great philosopher Aristotle wrote some valuable
works on anatomy and natural history. From his time onward the sciences
were pursued with much zeal and success. Especially did the later Greeks
do much good and lasting work in the mathematical sciences.

MATHEMATICS: EUCLID AND ARCHIMEDES.--Alexandria, in Egypt, became the seat
of the most celebrated school of mathematics of antiquity. Here, under
Ptolemy Lagus, flourished Euclid, the great geometer, whose work forms the
basis of the science of geometry as taught in our schools at the present
time. Ptolemy himself was his pupil. The royal student, however, seems to
have disliked the severe application required to master the problems of
Euclid, and asked his teacher if there was not some easier way. Euclid
replied, "There is no royal road to geometry."

In the third century B.C., Syracuse, in Sicily, was the home of
Archimedes, the greatest mathematician that the Grecian world produced.

ASTRONOMY.--Among ancient Greek astronomers, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and
Claudius Ptolemy are distinguished.

Aristarchus of Samos, who lived in the third century B.C., held that the
earth revolves about the sun as a fixed centre, and rotates on its own
axis. He was the Greek Copernicus. But his theory was rejected by his
contemporaries and successors.

Hipparchus, who flourished about the middle of the second century B.C.,
was, through his careful observations, the real founder of scientific
astronomy. He calculated eclipses, catalogued the stars, and wrote several
astronomical works of a really scientific character.

Claudius Ptolemy lived in Egypt about the middle of the second century
after Christ. His great reputation is due not so much to his superior
genius as to the fortunate circumstance that a vast work compiled by him,
preserved and transmitted to later times almost all the knowledge of the
ancients on astronomical and geographical subjects. In this way it has
happened that his name has become attached to various doctrines and views
respecting the universe, though these probably were not originated by him.
The phrase _Ptolemaic system_, however, links his name inseparably
with that conception of the solar system set forth in his works, which
continued to be the received theory from his time until Copernicus--
fourteen centuries later.

Ptolemy combated the theory of Aristarchus in regard to the rotation and
revolution of the earth; yet he believed the earth to be a globe, and
supported this view by exactly the same arguments that we to-day use to
prove the doctrine.

CHAPTER XXI.

SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS.

EDUCATION.--Education at Sparta, where it was chiefly gymnastic, as we
have seen (p. 115), was a state affair; but at Athens and throughout
Greece generally, the youth were trained in private schools. These schools
were of all grades, ranging from those kept by the most obscure teachers,
who gathered their pupils in some recess of the street, to those
established in the Athenian Academy and Lyceum by such philosophers as
Plato and Aristotle.

[Illustration: A GREEK SCHOOL. (After a vase-painting.)]

It was only the boys who received education. These Grecian boys, Professor
Mahaffy imagines, were "the most attractive the world has ever seen." At
all events, we may believe that they were trained more carefully and
delicately than the youth among any other people before or since the days
of Hellenic culture.

In the nursery, the boy was taught the beautiful myths and stories of the
national mythology. At about seven he entered school, being led to and
from the place of training by an old slave, who bore the name of
_pedagogue_, which in Greek means a guide or leader of boys--not a
teacher. His studies were grammar, music, and gymnastics, the aim of the
course being to secure a symmetrical development of mind and body alike.

Grammar included reading, writing, and arithmetic; music, which embraced a
wide range of mental accomplishments, trained the boy to appreciate the
masterpieces of the great poets, to contribute his part to the musical
diversions of private entertainments, and to join in the sacred choruses
and in the paean of the battlefield. The exercises of the palestrae and the
gymnasia trained him for the Olympic contests, or for those sterner hand-
to-hand battle-struggles, in which so much depended upon personal strength
and dexterity.

Upon reaching maturity, the youth was enrolled in the list of citizens.
But his graduation from school was his "commencement" in a much more real
sense than with the average modern graduate. Never was there a people
besides the Greeks whose daily life was so emphatically a discipline in
liberal culture. The schools of the philosophers, the debates of the
popular assembly, the practice of the law-courts, the religious
processions, the representations of an unrivalled stage, the Panhellenic
games--all these were splendid and efficient educational agencies, which
produced and maintained a standard of average intelligence and culture
among the citizens of the Greek cities that probably has never been
attained among any other people on the earth. Freeman, quoted approvingly
by Mahaffy, says that "the average intelligence of the assembled Athenian
citizens was higher than that of our [the English] House of Commons."

SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMAN.--Woman's social position in ancient Greece may
be defined in general as being about half-way between Oriental seclusion
and Western freedom. Her main duties were to cook and spin, and to oversee
the domestic slaves, of whom she herself was practically one. In the
fashionable society of Ionian cities, she was seldom allowed to appear in
public, or to meet, even in her own house, the male friends of her
husband. In Sparta, however, and in Dorian states generally, she was
accorded much greater freedom, and was a really important factor in
society.

The low position generally assigned the wife in the home had a most
disastrous effect upon Greek morals. She could exert no such elevating or
refining influence as she casts over the modern home. The men were led to
seek social and intellectual sympathy and companionship outside the family
circle, among a class of women known as Hetairae, who were esteemed chiefly
for their brilliancy of intellect. As the most noted representative of
this class stands Aspasia, the friend of Pericles. The influence of the
Hetairae was most harmful to social morality.

THEATRICAL ENTERTAINMENTS.--Among the ancient Greeks the theatre was a
state establishment, "a part of the constitution." This arose from the
religious origin and character of the drama (see p. 193), all matters
pertaining to the popular worship being the care and concern of the state.
Theatrical performances, being religious acts, were presented only during
religious festivals, and were attended by all classes, rich and poor, men,
women, and children. The women, however, except the Hetairae, were, it
would seem, permitted to witness tragedies only; the comic stage was too
gross to allow of their presence. The spectators sat under the open sky;
and the pieces followed one after the other in close succession from early
morning till nightfall.

[Illustration: GREEK TRAGIC FIGURE.]

There were companies of players who strolled about the country, just as
the English actors of Shakespeare's time were wont to do. While the better
class of actors were highly honored, ordinary players were held in very
low esteem. The tragic actor increased his height and size by wearing
thick-soled buskins, an enormous mask, and padded garments. The actor in
comedy wore thin-soled slippers, or socks. The _sock_ being thus a
characteristic part of the make-up of the ancient comic actor, and the
_buskin_ that of the tragic actor, these foot coverings have come to
be used as the symbols respectively of comedy and tragedy, as in the
familiar lines of Dryden:--

"Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear."

The theatre exerted a great influence upon Greek life. It performed for
ancient Greek society somewhat the same service as that rendered to modern
society by the pulpit and the press. During the best days of Hellas the
frequent rehearsal upon the stage of the chief incidents in the lives of
the gods and the heroes served to deepen and strengthen the religious
faith of the people; and later, in the Macedonian period, the theatre was
one of the chief agents in the diffusion of Greek literary culture over
the world.

BANQUETS AND SYMPOSIA.--Banquets and drinking-parties among the Greeks
possessed some features which set them apart from similar entertainments
among other peoples.

The banquet proper was partaken, in later times, by the guest in a
reclining position, upon couches or divans, arranged about the table in
the Oriental manner. After the usual courses, a libation was poured out
and a hymn sung in honor of the gods, and then followed that
characteristic part of the entertainment known as the _symposium_.

The symposium was "the intellectual side of the feast." It consisted of
general conversation, riddles, and convivial songs rendered to the
accompaniment of the lyre passed from hand to hand. Generally,
professional singers and musicians, dancing-girls, jugglers, and jesters
were called in to contribute to the merrymaking. All the while the wine-
bowl circulated freely, the rule being that a man might drink "as much as
he could carry home without a guide,--unless he were far gone in years."
Here also the Greeks applied their maxim, "Never too much."

The banqueters usually consumed the night in merry-making, sometimes being
broken in upon from the street by other bands of revellers, who made
themselves self-invited guests.

OCCUPATION.--The enormous body of slaves in ancient Greece relieved the
free population from most of those forms of labor classed as drudgery. The
aesthetic Greek regarded as degrading any kind of manual labor that marred
the symmetry or beauty of the body.

At Sparta, and in other states where oligarchical institutions prevailed,
the citizens formed a sort of military class, strikingly similar to the
military aristocracy of Feudal Europe. Their chief occupation was martial
and gymnastic exercises and the administration of public affairs. The
Spartans, it will be recalled, were forbidden by law to engage in trade.
In other aristocratic states, as at Thebes, a man by engaging in trade
disqualified himself for full citizenship.

In the democratic states, however, speaking generally, labor and trade
were regarded with less contempt. A considerable portion of the citizens
were traders, artisans, and farmers.

Life at Athens presented some peculiar features. All Attica being included
in what we should term the corporate limits of the city, the roll of
Athenian citizens included a large body of well-to-do farmers, whose
residence was outside the city walls. The Attic plains, and the slopes of
the half-encircling hills, were dotted with beautiful villas and inviting
farmhouses.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35