Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/98

 66 HISTORY OF GREECE. Next, Zeus made a fourth race, far justcr and better than the last preceding. These were the Heroes or demigods, who fought at the sieges of Troy and Thebes. But this splendid stock alse became extinct : some perished in war, others were removed by Zeus to a happier state in the islands of the Blest. There they dwell in peace and comfort, under the government of Kronos, reaping thrice in the year the spontaneous produce of the earth. 1 The fifth race, which succeeds to the Heroes, is of iron : it is the race to which the poet himself belongs, and bitterly does he regret it. He finds his contemporaries mischievous, dishonest, unjust, ungrateful, given to perjury, careless both of the ties of consanguinity and of the behests of the gods : Nemesis and JEdoa (Ethical Self-reproach) have left earth and gone back to Olym- pus. How keenly does he wish that his lot had been cast either earlier or later ! a This iron race is doomed to continual guilt, care, and suffering, with a small infusion of good ; but the time will come when Zeus will put an end to if. The poet does not venture to predict what sort of race will succeed. Such is the series of distinct races of men, which Hesiod, or the author of the " Works and Days," enumerates as having existed down to his own time. I give it as it stands, without placing much confidence in the various explanations which critics have offered. It stands out in more than one respect from the general tone and sentiment of Grecian legend : moreover the sequence of races is neither natural nor homogeneous, the heroic race not having any metallic denomination, and not occu- pying any legitimate place in immediate succession to the brazen. Nor is the conception of the daemons in harmony either with Homer or with the Hesiodic theogony. In Homer, there is scarcely any distinction between gods and daemons, while the goda nyes (Theogon. 187), "gensque virdm truncis et duro robore nata" (Vir gil, JEneid, viii. 315), hearts of oak. 1 Opp. Di. 157. AvJpwv 'Hpuuv ftelov yefof, ol nateovTai H/wtfeo; TrpoTepy jtvii) /car' inreipova yalcat. Opp Di. 173. M^/cer' t^eir' txpethov y& Trip.nToi.ai, perelvcu. 'Avtipuaiv, a)M fj irpoade davelv, % iireiTa Kvv yap 6rj -yevof iarl aidf/pecv. .....