Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/27

 ULYSSES 7 Before this time Attica contained many independent townships, which were only nominally united. Theseus incorporated the people into one state, removed the principal courts for the administration of justice to Athens, and greatly en- larged the city, which had hitherto covered little more than the rock which after- ward formed the citadel. To cement their union he instituted several festivals, and especially changed the Athenaea into the Panathenasa, or the festivals of all the Atticans. He encouraged the nobles to reside at Athens, and surrendered a part of his kingly prerogatives to them ; for which reason he is perhaps repre- sented a^'the founder of the Athenian democracy, although the government which he established was, and continued to be long after him, strictly aristocratic. ULYSSES * Bv CHARLES F. HORNE TTTHILE courage and strength seemed to the ancient Greeks the noblest of virtues, they ranked wisdom and ready wit almost as high. Achilles was the strongest of the Grecian warriors at the siege of Troy, but there was another almost as strong, equally brave, and far shrewd- er of wit. This was Ulysses. It was he who ultimately brought about the capture of the city. Homer speaks often of him in his " Iliad ; " and the bard's second great work, the " Odyssey/' is devoted entirely to the wanderings of Odysseus, or, as we have learned from the Romans to call him, Ulysses. Whether he was a real person or only a crea tion of the poet's fancy, it is impossible to say. But as it is now generally agreed that there was a siege of Troy, it follows that there was probably a Ulys- ses ; and his adventures, while in the main mythical, are of value as having per- haps some foundation in truth, and giving, at all events, a picture of what the old Greeks thought a hero should be and do. Ulysses was King of Ithaca when he was summoned to join the rest of the Grecian princes for the war with Troy. He had no wish to go, for he had lately married a beautiful girl, Penelope, and was happy as a man might be. So when the heralds came he pretended to be insane, and hitching a yoke of oxen to a plough he drove them along the sands of the sea-shore. He sang and shouted, and ploughed up the sand, and scattered salt as if he were sowing it, and cried out that he would soon have a beautiful crop of salt waves. The heralds watched him for a moment, and then returning to the princes told them that
 * Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.