Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/882

870 life and death, in the world above and in the world below"—is the brief but expressive phrase in which his personal character is summed up.

Sophocles appears, indeed, to have had every element which, in the judgment of a Greek, would go to make up a perfect character: the greatest beauty and symmetry of form; the highest skill in those arts which were prized above all others, music and gymnastics, of which the latter developed that bodily perfection, which always adorns if it does not actually contribute to intellectual greatness, while the former was not only essential to his art as a dramatist, but was also justly esteemed by the Greeks as one of the chiefest instruments in moulding the character of a man; a constitutional calmness and contentment, which seems hardly ever to have been disturbed, and which was probably the secret of that perfect mastery over the passions of others, which his tragedies exhibit; a cheerful and amiable demeanour, and a ready wit, which won for him the affectionate admiration of those with whom he associated; a spirit of tranquil and meditative piety, in harmony with his natural temperament, and fostered by the scenes in which he spent his childhood, and the subjects to which he devoted his life; a power of intellect, and a spontaneity of genius, of which his extant tragedies are the splendid, though mutilated monument: such are the leading features of a character, which the very harmony of its parts makes it difficult to pourtray with any vividness. The slight physical defect, weakness of voice, which is said to have disqualified him from appearing as an actor, could not have been of great consequence, considering the perfection to which the technical portion of the art had been brought by his own rules, improving upon those of Aeschylus, and the sufficiency of good actors, whom we could easily show to have flourished at Athens in his time. His moral defects, if we may believe the insinuations of the comic poets and the gossip of the scandal-mongering grammarians, are such as he would naturally be exposed to fall into through the perfection of his bodily senses and the easiness of his temper. Aristophanes, who treated him with such respect, as we have seen, after his death, during his life associated him with Simonides in the charge of love of gain (Pax, 695—699); and it is too probable that, when advanced in age, and with his taste for luxury confirmed, he might have yielded to that habit of making a gain of genius, which, since the time of Simonides, had been a besetting sin of literary men. The charge of his addiction to sensual pleasures, the vice of his age and country, seems well-founded, but in later life he appears to have overcome such propensities. (Plat Repub. i. p. 329, b. c; Cic. Cat. Maj. 14, de Offic. i. 40; Athen. xii. p. 510, xiii. p. 603.)

iii. The Poetical Character of Sophocles.—By the universal consent of the best critics, both of ancient and of modern times, the tragedies of Sophocles are not only the perfection of the Greek drama; but they approach as nearly as is conceivable to the perfect ideal model of that species of poetry. Such a point of perfection, in any art, is always the result of a combination of causes, of which the internal impulse of the man's creative genius is but one. The external influences, which determine the direction of that genius, and give the opportunity for its manifestation, must be most carefully considered. Among these influences, none is more powerful than the political and intellectual character of the age. That point in the history of states,—in which the minds of men, newly set free from traditional dogmatic systems, have not yet been given up to the vagaries of unbridled speculation,—in which religious objects and ideas are still looked upon with reverence, but no longer worshipped at a distance, as too solemn and mysterious for a free and rational contemplation,—in which a newly recovered freedom is valued in proportion to the order which forms its rule and sanction, and license has not yet overpowered law,—in which man firmly, but modestly, puts forward his claim to be his own ruler and his own priest, to think and work for himself and for his country, controuled only by those laws which are needful to hold society together, and to subject individual energy to the public welfare,—in which successful war has roused the spirit, quickened the energies, and increased the resources of a people, but prosperity and faction have not yet corrupted the heart, and dissolved the bonds of society,—when the taste, the leisure, and the wealth, which demand and encourage the means of refined pleasure, have not yet been indulged to that degree of exhaustion which requires more exciting and unwholesome stimulants,—such is the period which brings forth the most perfect productions in literature and art; such was the period which gave birth to Sophocles and Pheidias. The poetry of Aeschylus,—revelling in the ancient traditions and in the most unyielding fatalism, exhibiting the gods and heroes of the mythic period in their own exalted and unapproachable sphere, investing itself with an imposing but sometimes unmeaning pomp, and finding utterance in language sublime, but not always comprehensible,—was the true expression of the imperfectly regulated energy, the undefined aspirations, and the simple faith, of the men of Marathon and Salamis: while that of Euripides,—in its seductive beauty, its uncontrouled passion, its sophistical declamation, its familiar scenes and allusions—reflected but too truly the character of the degenerate race, which had been unsettled by the great intestine conflict of the Peloponnesian War, corrupted by the exercise of license at home and of despotism over their allies, perverted by the teaching of the sophists, and enervated by the rapid depravation of their morals. The genius of Aeschylus is religious and superhuman; that of Sophocles, without ceasing to be religious, but presenting religion in quite another aspect, is ethical and, in the best sense, human; that of Euripides is irreligious, unethical, and human in the lowest sense, working upon the passions, and gratifying the weaknesses, of a corrupt generation of mankind.

To these external influences, which affected the spirit of the drama as it appears in Sophocles, must be added the changes in its form and mechanism, which enlarged its sphere and modified its character. Of these changes, the most important was the addition of the, or third actor, by which three persons were allowed to appear on the stage at once, instead of only two. This change vastly enlarged the scope of the dramatic action, and indeed, as Müller justly observes, "it appeared to accomplish all that was necessary to the variety and mobility of action in tragedy, without sacrificing that simplicity and clearness which, in the good ages of antiquity, were always held to be the