Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/187

169 FEELINGS AT ATHENS. 169 the excitement of a Spanish or Italian town, on finding that all the images of the Virgin had been defaced during the same night, we should have a parallel, though a very inadequate parallel, to what was now felt at Athens, where religious asso- ciations and persons were far more intimately allied with all civil acts and with all the proceedings of every-day life ; where, too, the god and his efficiency were more forcibly localized, as well as identified with the presence and keeping of the statue. To the Athenians, when they went forth on the following morn- ing, each man seeing the divine guardian at his doorway dishon- ored and defaced, and each man gradually coming to know that the devastation was general, it would seem that the town had become as it were godless ; that the streets, the market-place, the porticos, were robbed of their divine protectors ; and what was worse still, that these protectors, having been grossly insulted, carried away with them alienated sentiments, wrathful and vindictive instead of tutelary and sympathizing. It was on the protection of the gods, that all their political constitution as well as the blessings of civil life depended ; insomuch that the curses of the gods were habitually invoked as sanction and punishment for grave offences, political as well as others : l an extension and generalization of the feeling still attached to the judicial oath. This was, in the minds of the people of Athens, a sincere and literal conviction, not simply a form of speech to be pronounced in prayers and public harangues, without being ever construed as a reality in calculating consequences and determining practical measures. the subsequent defeat of the Athenians as a divine punishment for the des- ecration of the Ilermae, inflicted chiefly by the Syracusan Hermokratei, son of Hermon and descendant of the god Hermes (Timsci Fragm. 103-104, cd. Didot; Longinus, de Sublim. iv, 3). The etymological thread of connection, between the Ilermoe and Her- mokrates, is strange enough : but what is of importance to remark, is tho deep-seated belief that such an act must bring after it divine punishment, and that the Athenians as a people were collectively responsible, unless they could appease the divine displeasure. If this was the view taken by the historian Timajus a century and more after the transaction, much moro keenly was it present to the minds of the Athenians of that day. 1 Thucyd. viii, 97 ; Plato, Legg. ix, pp. 871 b, 881 d. f) TOV vopov upa, etc Demosthen. Fals. Lcgat. p. 363, c. 24, p. 404, c. 60; Phitarch, Solcn, c. 34 VOL. VII. 8