Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/307

Rh , and the men of old-fashioned morality were opposed, among the citizens of Athens, to the loquacious, luxurious, and dissolute generation who passed their whole time in the market-place and courts of justice. The contest between these two parties is the main subject of the early Attic comedy; and accordingly we shall recur to it in connexion with Aristophanes.

§ 8. Literature and art, however, were not, during the Peloponnesian war, affected by the corruption of morals. The works of this period,—which the names of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Phidias are sufficient to call to our minds—exhibit not only a perfection of form, but also an elevation of soul and a grandeur of conception, which fill us almost with as much admiration for those whose minds were sufficiently mature and strong to enjoy such works of art, as for those who produced them. Pericles, whose whole administration was evidently intended to diffuse a taste for genuine beauty among the people, could justly use the words attributed to him by Thucydides: "We are fond of beauty without departing from simplicity, and we seek wisdom without becoming effeminate ." A step farther, and the love of genuine beauty gave place to a desire for evil pleasures, and the love of wisdom degenerated into a habit of idle logomachy.

We now turn to the drama, the species of poetry which peculiarly belongs to the Athenians; and we shall here see how the utmost beauty and elegance were gradually developed out of rude, stiff, antique forms.





§ 1. Causes of dramatic poetry in Greece. § 2. The invention of dramatic poetry peculiar to Greece. $ 3. Origin of the Greek drama from the worship of Bacchus. § 4 Earliest, or Doric form of tragedy, a choral or dithyrambic song in the worship of Bacchus. § 5. Connexion of the early tragedy with a chorus of satyrs. § 6. Improvement of tragedy at Athens by Thespis; §7. by Phrynichus; § 8. and by Chœrilus. Cultivation of the satyric drama by the latter. § 9. The satyric drama completely separated from tragedy by Pratinas.

§ 1. spirit of an age is, in general, more completely and faithfully represented by its poetry than by any branch of prose composition; and, accordingly, we may best trace the character of the three different stages of civilization among the Greeks in the three grand divisions of their poetry. The epic poetry belongs to a period when, during the 