Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/305

283 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 283 Athenians were not cruel and sanguinary by nature ; but a reckless severity, when there was a question of maintaining principles which they thought necessary to their existence, was implanted deeply in their character ; and circumstances too often impelled them to employ it against their allies. The Athenian policy of compelling so many cities to contribute their wealth in order to make Athens the focus of art and cultivation, was indeed accompanied with pride and selfish patriotism. Yet the Athenians did not reduce millions to a state of abject servitude, for the purpose of ministering to the wants of a few thousand persons. The object of their statesmen, such as Pericles, doubtless was, to make Athens the pride of the whole confederacy; that their allies should enjoy in common with them the productions of Athenian art, and especially should participate in the great festivals, the Panathenaea and Dionysia, on the embellishment of which all the treasures of wealth and art were lavished*. § 7. Energy in action and cleverness in the use of languagef were the qualities which most distinguished the Athenians in comparison with the other Greeks, and which are most clearly seen in their political conduct and their literature. Both qualities are very liable to abuse. The energy in action degenerated into a restless love of adventure, which was the chief cause of the fall of the Athenian power in the Peloponnesian war, after the conduct of it had ceased to be directed by the clear and com- posed views of Pericles. The consciousness of dexterity in the use of words, which the Athenians cultivated more than the other Greeks, in- duced them to subject everything to discussion. Hence too arose a copiousness of speech, very striking as compared with the brevity of the early Greeks, which compressed the results of much reflection in a few words. It is remarkable that, soon after the Persian war, the great Chnon was distinguished from his countrymen by avoiding all Attic eloquence and loquacity j. Stesimbrotus, of Thasos, a contemporary, observed of him, that the frank and noble were prominent in his cha- racter, and that he had the qualities of a Peloponnesian more than of an Athenian§. Yet this fluency of the Athenians was long restrained by the deeply-rooted maxims of traditional morality ; nor was it till the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when a foreign race of teachers, pressly for the allies, who attended them in large numbers. Prayers were also pub- licly offered at the Panathenaea for the Plateaus (Herod, vi. m.), and at all great public festivals for the Chians (Theopomp. ap. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 880), who were nearly the only faithful ally of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war, after the defection of the Mytilenaeans. Moreover, the colonies of Athens (i.e. probably, in general, the cities of the confederacy) offered sacrifices at the Panathenaea. to ipaffrriptov xct) to ohvoy. J oitvorns and e-u//.u'ia. § In Plutarch, Cimon, c. 4, indeed, Stesimbrotus is not unjustly censured for his credulity and his fondness for narrating the chronique scandaieuse of those times : but statements, such .is thai in the text, founded upon personal observation of the general slate of society, are always very valuable,
 * There are many grounds for thinking that these festivals were instituted ex-