liberty upon which these people valued themselves, requiring that every thing should be equal among them." The Amphictyons had full power to discuss and determine finally in all differences which might arise between the Amphictyonic cities, and to fine the culpable in such manner as they thought fit. They could employ not only the rigour of the laws in the execution of their decrees, but even raise troops, if it were necessary, to compel such as rebelled to submit to them. The three sacred wars undertaken by their order, of which I have spoken elsewhere, are an evident proof of this power. Before they were installed into this body, they took a very remarkable oath, the form of which has been preserved by Aschines, and is as follows: "I swear, that I will never destroy any of the cities honoured with the right of sitting in the Amphictyonic council, nor turn their running waters out of their course either in time of peace or war. If any people shall make such an attempt, I hereby engage to carry the war into their country, to demolish their cities, towns, and villages, and to treat them in all things as the most cruel ene mies. Moreover, if at any time any persons shall dare to be so impious as to steal and take away any of the rich offerings preserved in the temple of Apollo at Delphos, or abet any others in committing that crime, either by aiding or only counselling him therein, I will use my feet, hands, voice, in a word, all my powers and faculties, to avenge such sacrilege.' That oath was attended with the most terrible imprecations and curses: "That if any one infringes any thing contained in the oath I have now taken, whether private person, city, or people, may that person, city, or people, be deemed accursed; and in that ac ceptation, experience the whole vengeance of Apollo, Latona, Diana, and Mi nerva the foreknower. May their country produce none of the fruits of the earth, and their women, instead of generating children resembling their fathers, bring forth nothing but monsters; may their animals share in the same curse May those sacrilegious men lose all suits at law; may they be conquered in war, have their houses demolished, and, together with their children, be put to the sword." ""* I am not astonished, that after such terrible engagements, the boly war undertaken by the order of the Amphictyons, should be carried on with so much ardour and fury. The religion of an oath was of great force with the ancients; and how much more regard ought to be had to it in the Christian world, which professes to believe that the violation of it shall be punished with eternal torments; and yet how many are there among us, who make a trifle of breaking through the most solemn oaths! The authority of the Amphictyons had always been of great weight in Greece; but it began to decline exceedingly from the moment they condescended to admit Philip of Macedon into their body. For that prince, enjoying by this means all their rights and privileges, soon knew how to set himselt above all law, and to abuse his power, so far as to preside by proxy both in this illustrious assembly, and in the Pythian games; of which games the Amphictyons were judges and agonothetæ by virtue of their office. Demosthenes reproaches him with this in his third Philippic; "When he does not deign,' says he," to honour us with his presence, he sends HIS SLAVES to preside over us. Án odious but emphatical term, and in the spirit of Grecian liberty, by which the Athenian orator gives an idea of the Lase and abject subjection of the greatest lords in Philip's court. If the reader desires a farther knowledge of what relates to the Amphictyons, he may consult the dissertation of Mons.eur Valois, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres,† wherein this subject is treated with great extent and erudition. SECTION IX.-OF THE REVENUES OF ATHENS. THE revenues, TEAT. according to the passage of Aristophanes which I have cited above, and as they were computed in the time of the Peloponnesian war, • Aischin, in Grat. περί παραπρεσβείας † Vol. III. amounted to two thousand talents.* They were generally reduced to four classes. 1. The first comprised the revenues arising from agriculture, the sale of woods, the produce of mines, and other funds of a like nature, appertaining to the public. Among these may be included the duties upon the import and export of merchandise, and the taxes levied upon the inhabitants of the city, both natives and strangers. The history of Athens often makes mention of the silver mines of Laurium, which was a mountain situated between the Piræus and cape Sunium; and those of Thrace, from whence many persons extracted immense riches. Xenophon, in a treatise wherein he states this matter at large, demonstrates how much the public might gain by industriously working these mines, from the example of the many persons they had enriched.† Hipponicust let his mines and six hundred slaves to an undertaker, who paid him an obolus a-day for each slave, clear of all charges, which amounted in the whole to a minæ, Nicias, who was killed in Sicily farmed out his mines and a thousand slaves in the same manner, and with the same profit in proportion to that number. 2. The second class of revenue were the contributions paid the Athenians by the allies for the common expenses of the war. Under Aristides, they amounted only to four hundred and sixty talents. Pericles augmented them almost a third, and raised them to six hundred; and some time after they amounted to thirteen hundred. Taxes, which in the beginning were moderate and necessary, became thus in a little time excessive and exorbitant, notwithstanding all the protestations made to the allies, and the most solemn engagements to the contrary. 3. A third sort of revenue were the extraordinary capitation taxes, levied indiscriminately upon the inhabitants of the country, in pressing occasions and emergencies of the state. 4. The fines laid upon persons by the judges for different misdemeanors, constituted the fourth class, and were applied to the uses of the public, and laid up in the treasury; except the tenth part of them, which was consecrated to Minerva, and one fiftieth to the other divinities. The most natural and legal application of these different revenues of the republic, was to the payment of the sea and land forces, to the building and fitting out fleets, keeping up and repairing the public buildings, temples, walls, ports and citadels. But the greatest part of them, especially after the time of Pericles, was misapplied to unnecessary uses, and often consumed in frivolous expenses; games, feasts, and shows, which cost immense sums, and were of no manner of utility to the state. SECTION X.-OF THE EDUCATION OF THE YOUTH. I PLACE this article under the head of government, because all celebrated legislators have with reason believed that the education of youth was an essential part of it. The exercises that served for the forming of either the bodies or minds of the young Athenians, and the same may be said of almost all the people of Greece, were dancing, music, hunting, fencing riding, polite learning, and philosophy. It may be observed that I speak generally, and treat these several articles very slightly. I. DANCING.-MUSIC. DANCING was one of the exercises of the body, cultivated by the Greeks with great attention. It made a part of what the ancients called the gymnastic, divided according to Plato into two kinds, the orchestric, which derives its Page 925. Ten dollars. Six oboli made a drachm, one hundred drachms a minæ, and sixty minæ a talent name from the dance, Opera; and the Palæstric, so called from a Greek word Ilan which signifies wrestling. The exercises of the latter kind principally conduced to form the body for the fatigues of war, navigation, agriculture, and the other employments of society. Another end of dancing was to teach such rules of motion as were most proper to render the shape free and easy; to give the body a just proportion, and the whole person an unconstrained, noble, and graceful air; in a word, an external politeness, if we may be allowed to use that expression, which never fails to prejudice people in favour of those who have been formed to it early. Music was cultivated with no less application and success. The ancients ascribed wonderful effects to it. They believed it very proper to calm the passions, soften the manners, and even humanize people naturally savage and bar. barous. Polybius, a grave and serious historian, and who is certainly worthy of belief, attributes to the study of music, the extreme difference between two people of Arcadia, the one infinitely beloved and esteemed for the elegance of their manners, their benevolent inclinations, humanity to strangers, and piety to the gods; the other, on the contrary, generally reproached and hated for their malignity, brutality, and irreligion. I mean," says he, "the true and noble music, industriously cultivated by the one, and absolutely neglected by the other." * 66 After this, it is not surprising that the Greeks considered music as an essential part in the education of youth. Socrates himself, at a very advanced age, was not ashamed to learn to play upon musical instruments.† Themistocles, however otherwise esteemed, was thought to be wanting in point of merit, because at an entertainment he could not touch the lyre like the rest of the company. Ignorance in this respect was deemed a defect of education; on the contrary, skill in it did honour to the greatest men.§ Epaminondas was praised for dancing, and playing well upon the flute. We may observe in this place the different tastes and genius of nations. The Romans were far from having the same opinion with the Greeks in regard to music and dancing, and set no value upon them. It is very likely that the wisest and most learned among the latter did not apply to them with any great industry; and Philip's expression to his son Alexander, who had shown too much skill in music at a feast, induces me to be of this opinion: "Are you not ashamed," said he, to sing so well?" 66 There was a foundation however for this esteem for dancing and music. Both were employed in the most august feasts and the ceremonies of religion, to express their acknowledgment to their gods with the greater force and dig. nity, for the favours they had vouchsafed to confer upon them. They had generally the greatest share in their feasts and entertainments, which seldom or never began or ended, without some odes being sung in honour of the victors in the Olympic games, and on other similar occasions. They had a part also in war; and we know that the Lacedæmonians marched to battle dancing, and to the sound of flutes. Plato, the most grave philosopher of antiquity, valued both these arts, not as simple amusements, but as they had a great share in the ceremonies of religion and military exercises. Hence we see him very intent, in his books of laws, to prescribe rules upon dancing and music, and to keep them within the bounds of utility and decorum.¶ They did not continue long within these restrictions. The licence of the Grecian stage, on which dancing was in the highest vogue, and in a manner prostituted to buffoons and the most contemptible people, who made no other Polyb. p. 288-291. † Socrates, jam senex, instituti lyra non erubescebat.-Quintil. k i. c. 10. Themistocles, cum in epulis recusasset lyram, habitus est indoctior.-Cic. Tusc. Quæst. 1 i. n. 4. Summam eruditionem Græci sitam censebant in nervorum vocumque cantibus-discebantque id omnes, aec qui nesciebat, satis excultus doctrina putabatur.-Ibid. In Epaminondæ virtutibus commemoratum est, saltasse eum commode, scienterque tibiis cantasse--sciicet non eadem omnibus honesta sunt atque turpia, sed omnia majorum institutis judicantur.-Corn, Neg. in præfat Vit. Epan. De Leg. l. vii. use of it, than to suggest or excite the most vicious passions, soon corrupted an art, which might have been of some advantage, had it been regulated by Plato's opinion. Music underwent a like change; and perhaps the corruption of this did not a little contribute to the perversion of dancing. Voluptuousness and sensual pleasure were the sole arbiters consulted in the uses made of both; and the theatre became a school of every kind of vice. Plutarch in lamenting that the art of dancing was so degenerate from the merit which rendered it estimable to the great men of antiquity, does not omit to observe, that it was corrupted by a vicious kind of poetry, and a soft effeminate music, with which it was ill united, and which had taken place of the ancient poetry and music, that had something noble, majestic, and even religious and heavenly in them. He adds, that being made subservient to low taste and sensuality, by their aid, it exercised a kind of tyrannical power in the theatres, which were become the public schools of criminal passions and gross vices, wherein no regard was had to reason.* The reader will, without doubt, readily apply this passage of Plutarch to the sort of music which engrosses our theatres at this day, and which, by its effeininate and wanton airs, has given the last wound to the little manly force and virtue that remained among us. Quintilian describes the music of the times in these terms: "Quæ nunc in scenis effeminata, et impudicis modis fracta, non ex parte minima, si quid in nobis virilis roboris manebat, excidit."† II. OF THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE BODY. THE Young Athenians, and in general all the Greeks, were very attentive to forming themselves to all the exercises of the body, and to go through their lessons regularly with the masters of the palæstræ. They called the places allotted for these exercises, palæstræ or gymnasia, which in a degree resembles our academies. Plato, in his book of laws, after having shown of what importance it was in war to cultivate the hands and feet, adus, that, far from banishing from a well regulated republic the profession of the athletæ, prizes shoul on the contrary, be proposed for all exercises that conduce to the improvement of military virtue, such as those which render the body more active, and fitter for the race, more hard, robust, and supple, more capable of supporting great fatigues, and effecting great enterprises. We must remember, that there was no Athenian who ought not to have been capable of handling the oar in the largest galleys. The citizens themselves performed this labour, which was not left to slaves and criminals, as in these days. They were all brought up to the art of war, and often obliged to wear arms of iron from head to foot, of a great weight. For this reason, Plato and all the ancients, looked upon the exercises of the body as highly useful, and even absolutely necessary to the good of the public; and therefore this philosopher excluded from them only those who were incapable of service in war. There were also masters, who taught the youth to ride, and to handle their arms or fence; and others whose business it was to instruct them in all that was necessary to be known, in order to excel in the military art, and to become good commanders. The whole science of the latter consisted in what the ancients called the tactics, that is to say, the art of drawing up troops in battle, and of performing military evolutions. That science was useful, but did not suffice. Xenophon shows its defect, in producing a young man lately come from such a school, in which he imagined he had learned every thing, though in reality he had only acquired a foolish esteem for himself, accompanied with profound ignorance. He gives him, by the mouth of Socrates, admirable precepts upon the business of a soldier, and very proper to form an excellent officer. Hunting was also considered by the ancients as a fit exercise for forming youth to the stratagems and fatigues of war. It was for this reason that Xenophon, who was a great general as well as a great philosopher, did not 15. 748. Sympos. 1. ix. Plut. in Lachete, p. 181 VOL. II P. Quintil. 1. i. c. 1. Lib. viii. de Leg. p. 8 think it beneath him to write a treatise expressly upon hunting, in which he descends to the lowest particular; and animadverts upon the considerable ud. vantages derived from it, from being inured to suffer hunger, thirst, heat, and cold, without being discouraged either by the length of the chase, the difficulty of the clefts and thickets through which it is often necessary to press, or the small success of the long and painful fatigues which they often undergo to no purpose. He adds, that this innocent pleasure removes others equally shameful and criminal; but that a wise and moderate man would not, however, abandon himself so far to it as to neglect the care of his domestic affairs.* The same autnor, in the Cyropædia, frequently praises hunting, which he looks upon as a real exercise of war, and shows, in the example of his young hero, the good use that may be made of it.t III. OF THE EXERCISES OF THE MIND. ATHENS, to speak properly, was the school and abode of polite learning, arts, and sciences. The study of poesy, eloquence, philosophy, and mathematics, were in great vogue there, and much cultivated by the youth. The young people were sent first to learn grammar under masters, who taught them regularly, and upon proper principles, their own language; by which they attained a knowledge of all its beauty, energy, number, and cadence. Hence proceeded the universal fine taste of Athens, where, as history informs us, a simple herb-woman distinguished Theophrastus to be a stranger, from the affectation of a single word in expressing himself. And from the same cause, the orators were greatly apprehensive of letting fall the least injudicious expression, for fear of offending so refined and delicate an audience. It was very common for the young people to get the tragedies represented upon the stage by heart. We have seen, that after the defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, many of them, who had been taken prisoners and made slaves, softened their slavery by reciting the works of Euripides to their masters, who, extremely delighted with hearing such sublime verses, treated them from thenceforth with kindness and humanity. The composi tions of the other poets had no doubt the same effect; and Plutarch tells us, that Alcibiades, when very young, having entered a school in which there was not a Homer, gave the master a box on the ear as an ignorant fellow, and one who dishonoured his profession.§ As for eloquence, it is no wonder that it was particularly studied at Athens, as it opened the way to the highest offices, reigned absolute in the assemblies, decided the most important affairs of state, and gave an almost unlimited power to those who had the talent of speaking in an eminent degree, This therefore was the great employment of the young citizens of Athens, especially of those who aspired to the highest employments. To the study of rhetoric they annexed that of philosophy: I comprise under the latter, all the sciences, which are either parts of, or relate to it. The persons known to antiquity under the name of sophists, had acquired a great reputation at Athens, especially in the time of Socrates. These teachers, who were as presumptuous as avaricious, set themselves up for universal scholars. Their whole art lay in philosophy and eloquence; both of which they corrupted by the false taste and wrong principles which they instilled into their disciples I have observed in the life of Socrates, that philosopher's endeavours and success in discrediting them. * De Venat one. † Cyrop. l. i. p. 5, 6. et. l. ii. p. 59, FO. In Alcib. p. 194 Cic. in Brut n. 172-Quintil, I. viii. c. 1.-Plut. in Peric. p. 156. |