Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/88

 C HISTORY- OF GREECE. feeling in t :Ankfulness to the god, followed by song, dance, and rev. elry of vanous kinds, into costly and diversified performances, first, by a trained chorus, next, by actors superadded to it ;! and the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied the per- fection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated to invite a Pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment of Hel- lenic unity. The dramatic literature of Athens, however, belongs properly to a later period; previous to the year 5GO B.C., we see only those commencements of innovation which drew upon Thes- pis - the rebuke of Solon, who himself contributed to impart to the Panathenaic festival a more solemn and attractive character, by checking the license of the rhapsodes, and insuring to those present a full, orderly recital of the Iliad. The sacred games and festivals, here alluded to as a class, took hold of the Greek mind by so great a variety of feelings, 3 as to counterbalance in a high degree the political disseverance, and to keep alive among their wide-spread cities, in the midst of con- si ant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of brothei'hood and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died away. The Theors, or sacred envoys, who came to Olympia or Delphi from so many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives to enrich or adorn one respected scene. Nor must we forget that the festival afforded opportunity for a sort ' Aristot. Poetic, c. 3 and 4; Maximus Tyrius, Diss. xxi, p. 215; Plu- tarch, De Cupidine Divitiarum. c. 8, p. 527 : compare the treatise, " Quod non potest suaviter vivi sccundum Epicurum," c. 16, p. 1098. The old oracles quoted by Demosthenes, cont. Meidiam (c. 15, p. 531, and cont Makartat. p. 1072: see also Buttmann's note on the former passage), convey the idea of the ancient simple Athenian festival. 1 Plutarch, Solon, c. 29: see above, chap, xi, vol. iii, p. 195. 3 The orator Lysias, in a fragment of his lost Panegyrical Oration preserved by Dionysius of Ilalikarnassus (vol. v, p. 520 R.). describes the influence of the games with great force and simplicity. Herakle*. I he founder of them, ayuva fiev auparuv lair/ae, ^i7.orifuav < )ru/tri 6' tfiSuftf tv TU Kd/./iiaTi.) r^c 'EA/.u<5cf Iva TOVTL^ t'nrii > evfxa ff rb OVTO ll.&u/jev, ru ftev bwofievoi, ra f~ uKovaofieioi. 'Hyr/ )'&p rbv ivdutie oii7J^o-/ov apxfiv yevetfdai - >if 'E/.) r t ai Tr/f ir