Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/107

 KEPRESENTATION BY IIESIOD. 91 protection, 1 those unprincipled chiefs, who consume his substance, find sympathy rather than disapprobation among the people of Ithaka. As a general rule, he who cannot protect himself finds no protection from society : his own kinsmen and immediate companions are the only parties to whom he can look with confi- dence for support. And in this respect, the representation given by Hesiod makes the picture even worse. In his emphatic denunciation of the fifth age, that poet deplores not only the absence of all social justice and sense of obligation among his contemporaries, but also the relaxation of the ties of family and hospitality.' 3 There are marks of querulous exaggeration in the poem of the Works and Days ; yet the author professes to de- scribe the real state of things around him, and the features of his picture, soften them as we may, will still appear dark and calam- itous. It is, however, to be remarked, that he contemplates a state of peace, thus forming a contrast with the Homeric poems. His copious catalogue of social evils scarcely mentions liability to plunder by a foreign enemy, nor does he compute the chances of predatory aggression as a source of profit. There are two special veins of estimable sentiment, on which it may be interesting to contrast heroic and historical Greece, and which exhibit the latter as an improvement on the former, not less in the affections than in the intellect. The law of Athens was peculiarly watchful and provident with respect both to the persons and the property of orphan minors ; but the description given in the Iliad of the utter and hopeless destitution of the orphan boy, despoiled of his paternal inherit- ance, and abandoned by all the friends of his father, whom he urgently supplicates, and who all harshly cast him off, is one of the most pathetic morsels in the whole poem. 3 In reference 1 Odyss. iv. 165, among many other passages. Telemachus laments the misfortune of his race, in respect that himself, Odysseus, and Laertes were all only sons of their fathers : there were no brothers to serve as mutual auxil- iaries (Odyss. xvi. 118). Ovde TraTrjp rcaiSeaaiv vpoitof, oiide n TratJef, OMe fcivof ^ivo6oK<f), Kal iraipof iralpv, Oiide Kaa'r/vjjTof ty'Ckoi; eaaerat, & rb nupof Trep, A.ITJJCL 6s -yqpuffKovraf aTifiqaovat TOKTJaf, etc. 3 Iliad, xxii. 437-500. Hesiod dwells upon injury to orphan children however, as a heinous offence. (Opp. Di. 330).
 * 0pp. Di. 182-199: