act of filial piety to their mother." In short, we obtain distinct approvals of them in numberless accidental passages, not in poets and rhapsodists only, but in orators, philosophers, and historians. It is a favourite allusion. Would Demosthenes in his first Philippic, upbraid his countrymen for their short-sighted policy and inconstant resistance? "Just as barbarians engage at boxing, so you make war with Philip: for when one of these receives a blow, that blow engrosses him; if struck in another part, to that part his hands are suddenly turned; but to ward off the blow, or to watch his antagonist, he has neither skill nor prowess." Would Aristotle urge, in the Nicomachean Ethics, the necessity of energetic virtue? "But as in the Olympic Games, not the most beautiful and robust are crowned, but those who contend, and only some of these are victorious; so they who act rightly obtain those things in this life which are beautiful and good." And again in his Art of Rhetoric, he speaks of the abrupt exordium as resembling "the absence of any preparing extension and graceful movement of the arms like the Athletæ before they begin their strife." Would Thucydides aggrandise a national Deliverer ? "When Brasidas entered Scione in the Pellene, the inhabitants repaid his eulogies by placing a golden crown upon his head, while every individual was busy in adorning him with ribbons, and caressing him like a victor in the solemn games." The Christian Fathers, without any implicit favour towards them, often make them illustrative of their purpose. Clement, in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, observes, "Moreover we must consider, that he who contends in a corruptible combat, if he is found doing any thing that is not fair, is taken away and scourged, and cast out of the lists. What think ye then that he shall suffer, who does any thing that is not fitting in the combat of immortality?"

Hitherto we have only noticed this Festival in connection with physical enterprise: it was not without the lustre of polite letters. Gorgias was celebrated for his eloquence in the grand assembly. It is asserted, without an atom of evidence against it, that Herodotus read to the people, or some portion of the people,'

Lucian. Herodotus or Etio.

*

thus convened, his History of the Expedition of Xerxes against the liberty of Greece, when the tear of admiration fell from the son of Thucydides. Pausanias assures us that there was a place called Lalichmion, in one of the gymnasia, in which were exhibited specimens both of extemporary orations, and writings of every kind. Orators, we gather from Dionysius Halicarnassensis,* were engaged to animate the athlete. Not pretending to settle the question of the Arundelian Marbles, we may believe them when they inform us that Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were permitted to contend in literary contests, using for the conqueror the word, viz. In the ninety-first Olympiad, according to Ælian, this latter tragedian competed with Xenocles. Isocrates delivered his Пavyugixost at the same spot, and it testifies that, whatever was the neglect of literature, it was not despised. "I have always thought it extraordinary that the lawgivers who instituted our public games, and established our general assemblies, should have appointed prizes of no mean value to the combatants who excel in feats of bodily strength and dexterity, while they allowed the talents of men of genius to languish under discouragement....... The wrestler may increase his own activity, the racer may redouble his speed, but neither of them can transfer any share of those excellencies to another; but the wisdom of the sage diffuses itself through the whole society. ......The little encouragement given to literary studies shall, however, never induce me to renounce them." Lysias spoke to the same Concourse: the speech is lost: but a fragment is preserved in Dionysius Halicarnassensis. Horace strongly insinuates his preference of literary, to gymnastic, honours.§

Music was one of those more refined arts in which men strove to excel. The twelfth Pythian is inscribed, Aur. While there was the Arena for the combatant, and the Suggestum for the orator, there was a building, similar to the Odeum at Athens, for the Musical essays and prizes. It is,

Ars Rhet.

↑ Пavnyugis, signifies in the first instance, an assembly, a convention,-the encomiastic idea is quite accidental.

+ Vol. II.

§ Carm: lib. iv. 3.

·

I know, most difficult to determine what the Greeks included in music. Sometimes it is put for obedience to the laws, because the earlier laws were in verse and were periodically chanted. It often intends poetry. It further occasionally describes ethics, Αρμονίαι ηθικωταται.......πρακτικα.* A Spartan education consisted in gymnastics and music. Socrates, in Plato's Phodo, speaking of the mandate which had haunted him through life, to attend to music, says,-he "once supposed it to mean that he should labour in philosophy which is the greatest music :" afterwards he thinks he obeyed the charge, by versifying Esop's Fables. But in these trials, Music must be literally intended: and, in a manner, it would soften the sterner passions and rougher contentions of the scene. Pliny+ informs us that at the Pythian games a contest of painting took place in the time of Phidias, and that Panænus succeeded.

The Harp was of various form. Sometimes it was strung with seven wires, as in the second Pythian, επακτυμου φόρμιγγος. The same number is ascribed to it in the fifth Nemean, poguiyya επταγλωσσον. The player upon it was commonly the composer of his strain. The poet and the performer were judged at once. The victor of the course was glad of this commemoration, and felt that the common hymn of Archilochus did not suffice. He sought, therefore, a personal inditing of lyric fame: to be himself the burden of a votive song.

What a singular amalgam is this festival,-rude to savagism, refined to philosophy! It reminds us of the honours paid to Castor and Pollux: Ιππηες, κιθαριςαι, αεθλητήρες, αιδοι. It was characteristic of the people and of the age. They were elevated, and most depressed: free, and most enslaved: noble, and most degraded. Thus extremes were combined, and inconsistencies reconciled. And such an institute as this was true to their violence and cultivation, like the common altar of Hercules and the Muses, or like the hoof of Pegasus opening up Hippocrene.

We must not, still, think that they were without some defence. And a few of their advantages shall be reviewed.

Arist:

+ Nat. Hist: xxxv. 9.

Theoc: Id. xxii.

Qualities were then It is of little conse

They were the imitative arts of war. necessary which are little regarded now. quence in modern tactics that, generals should be stalwart as Ajax, and swift-footed as Achilles. But these things are still wanted in their troops. Now Greece was a number of small states. Their population was bound to serve whenever there was intestine, or common, danger. They were all, therefore, educated for this. The sports were only the pupillage through which they passed. The Olympic was the field-day of those exercises which again and again had been performed in the barrack-yard. Running was necessary for the onset: the castus would have given the arm a vigour whatever the weapon it wielded, and whenever it was left unprotected: wrestling was often necessary in grappling with the foe, while the power of seizing and raising a person was often happily applied to bearing a wounded ally from the field to throw the javelin and to leap were equally essential discipline. The chariot broke the hostile ranks, and the rider of the vaulting horse was thus accustomed to a very common practice. Xenophon tells us that the light-armed infantry mounted behind the troopers, who were often little more than carriers, were rapidly borne where they were most wanted, and could make as sudden an attack, leaping from their horses, as in jumping upon them again, they could make a retreat. The apparent folly is thus retrieved. Lycurgus rewarded the victor with military promotion. Whatever we may think of thus arming a whole people, it is done to this day. Every free town of the Continent is most rigid in levying its inhabitants. It is virtually required among ourselves.

The rewards of these Games were adapted to raise a disinterested feeling, and afterwards, though changed, to secure a constant competition. An olive-wreath was a compensation of no sordid character. And yet a nimbus, a halo, could not have inspired them more. "You have all things," was the greeting, "short of being Jupiter himself." It was a knightly pledge. And if chivalry is content with decorative order and symbol, how foolish is the state which grudges it, and the people that envy at

Isth: : V.

it. Its consciousness may prompt a haughtier air and carriage, -but what suffering is redressed, and toil rewarded! If this be not "the unbought grace of life," surely it is "the cheap defence of nations." It is a true wisdom to beget in the public mind a generous desire to serve the land of our fathers and of our children, and that it should feel the service repaid in its acknowledgment. The age is degenerate when all is barter and huckstering, and pure fame is outweighed by gold.

"Honour 's a sacred tie, the law of kings,

The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,

That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her,

And imitates her actions where she is not:

It ought not to be sported with."*

But quickly thus degenerated that lofty unbargaining ardour! The combatants sought more substantial honours. They were indulged with exemption from all taxes, a place in the magisterial feasts, precedence in society, and a strange power of transferring their distinctions. Cimon made over the glory of his first two victories in Olympia to Miltiades and Pisistratus. In the latter instance, whatever was the motive in the former, it was the condition of a recall from exile.+ Hercules, in the Az, informs Admetus (to account for the restoration of his deceased wife to his arms,) that he had obtained her as a prize, while other combatants, in the games which he had celebrated, received horses and oxen. Such was certainly true in some of the earlier contests. When the æstus of a noble enthusiasm fired them, these pastimes themselves struck terror in the foe. Xerxes having enquired of some Arcadian princes, how they, the Greeks, were then employed, was answered,—that they were keeping the Olympic feast, and looking on gymnastic and equestrian sports. Again enquiring, what was the victor's recompense, it was replied, an olive-chaplet: when Tigranes, hearing that they fought for honour and not for money, could no longer repress his admiration, but said to Mardonius,-Against what a people dost thou lead us, a people who fight not for mercenary hire, but only for renown,-agsins, virtue! When once this

Addison.

+ Herod: Era: 232.

Herod: Uran : 298.