THE ARTS IN GREECE

ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES

=Pericles.=—­In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself the most powerful city in Greece.  Pericles, descended from one of the noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state.  He wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the vanity of the people.  But the Athenians respected him and acted only in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and so they permitted him to govern.  For forty years Pericles was the soul of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, “The democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the first citizen.”

=Athens and Her Monuments.=—­In Athens, as in the majority of Greek cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved.  The Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments.  Ever after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful edifices.  In the market-place they built a portico adorned with paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music.  But the most beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic pedestal.  There were two temples of which the principal, the Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city; a colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of ornamental character leading up to the Propylaea.  Athens was from this time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.[81]

=Importance of Athens.=—­Athens became at the same time the city of artists.  Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors—­some Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek world—­met here and produced their masterpieces.  There were without doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but never were so many assembled at one time in the same city.  Most of the Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love of the beautiful.  If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither their little states nor their small armies have played a great role in the world.  This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned above all the rest of the Greek cities.

LETTERS

=The Orators.=—­Athens is above all the city of eloquence.  Speeches in the assembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and subjects.  Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow their counsels and often commit to them important public functions:  Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against Philip.