Page:Odes of Pindar (Myers).djvu/17

Rh however the surpassing brilliance of Athenian literature and history has made us somewhat prone to forget the importance of non-Athenian elements in the complex whole of Hellenic life and thought. Athens was the eye of Hellas, nay, she had at Marathon and Salamis made good her claim to be called the saving arm, but there were other members not to be forgotten if we would picture to ourselves the national body in its completeness.

Pindar was a Boeotian, of a country not rich in literary or indeed any kind of intellectual eminence, yet by no means to be ignored in an estimate of the Hellenic race. Politically indeed it only rises into pre-eminence under Epameinondas; before and afterwards Boeotian policy under the domination of Thebes is seldom either beneficent or glorious: it must be remembered, however, that the gallant Plataeans also were Boeotians. The people of Boeotia seem to have had generally an easy, rather sensually inclined nature, which accorded with their rich country and absence of nautical and commercial enterprise and excitement, but in their best men this disposition remains only in the form of a genial simplicity. Pelopidas in political, and Plutarch and Pausanias in literary history, will be allowed to be instances of this. That the poetry which penetrated Hellenic life was not wanting in Boeotia we have proof enough in the existence of the Sacred Band, that goodly fellowship of friends which seems to have united what Hallam has called the three strongest motives to enthusiastic action that have appeared in history, patriotism, chivalric honour, and religion. Nor is there any nobler figure in history than that of Epameinondas.

One fact indeed there is which must always make the thought of Pindar's Theban citizenship painful to us, and that is the shameful part taken by Thebes in the Persian war, when compulsion of her exposed situation, and oligarchical cabal within her walls, drew her into unholy alliance with the barbarian invader. Had it been otherwise how passionately pure would Pindar's joy have uttered itself when the 'stone of Tantalos' that hung over the head of Hellas was smitten into dust in that greatest crisis of the fortunes of humanity. He exults nobly as it is, he does all honour to Athens, 'bulwark of Hellas,' but the shame of his