Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/100

78 78 HISTORY OF THE diately quitted this narrow territory, and joined the Achaeans, who, just at this time, having been driven from Peloponnesus, were sailing to Lesbos, Tenedos, and the opposite shores of Asia Minor, there to found the colonies in which the name of iEolians subsequently preponderated over that of Achaeans, and became the collective denomination. As new cities and states rose up and flourished in these regions of Asia Minor, which were moreover founded and governed by descendants of the most renowned princes of the heroic age, a free scope was given to the genius of poetry, and a bright and poetical view of man's destiny was naturally produced. But in Boeotia a comparison of the present with the past gave rise to a different feeling. In the place of the races celebrated in numerous legends, the Cadmeans and Minyans, who were the early occupants of Thebes and Orchomenos, had succeeded the Moic Boeotians, whose native mythology appears meagre and scanty as compared with that of the other tribes. It is true that the Homeric bards allowed themselves to be so far influenced by the impressions of the present as to introduce the heroes of these Boeotians, and not the Cadmeans, as taking a part in the expedition against Troy. But how little of real individual character and of poetic truth is there in Peneleus and Leitus, when compared with the leaders of the Achaean bands from Peloponnesus and Thessaly ! The events of Greek history have, though not always, yet in most cases, verified the promises of their early le- gends ; and thus we find the Boeotians always remaining a vigorous, hardy race, whose mind can never soar far above the range of bodily existence, and whose cares are for the most part limited to the supply of their immediate wants — equally removed from the proud aspirings of the Doric spirit, which subjected all things within its reach to the influ- ence of certain deeply implanted notions, and from the liveliness and fine susceptibility of the Ionic character, which received all impressions with a fond and impassioned interest. But, even in this torpid and ob scure condition of Boeotian existence, some stars of the first magnitude appear, as brilliant in politics as in art — Pindar, Epaminondas, and before them Hesiod, with the other distinguished poets who wrote under his name. But Hesiod, although a poet of very considerable power, was yet a true child of his nation and his times. His poetry is a faithful transcript of the whole condition of Boeotian life; and we may, on the other hand, complete our notions of Boeotian life from his poetry. If, before we proceed to examine each separate poem in detail, we first state our general impression of the whole, and compare it with that which we receive from the Homeric poems, we shall find throughout the writings of Hesiod (as well in the complete ones as in those which we can only judge by fragments) that we miss the powerful sway of a youthful fancy, which in every part of the poems of Homer sheds an expression of bright and inexhaustible enjoyment, which lights up the