one of the principal subjects of their lyric poetry. We find that all the odes of the four books of Pindar turn upon it, each of which takes its title from the games in which the combatants signalized themselves, whose victories those poems celebrate. The poet, indeed, frequently enriches his matter, by calling in to the champion's assistance, incapable alone of inspiring all the enthusiasm necessary, the aid of the gods, heroes, and princes, who have any relation to his subject; and to support the flights of imagination, to which he abandons himself. Before Pindar, the poet Simonides practised the same manner of writing, intermingling the praises of the gods and heroes with those of the champions whose victories he sang. It is related upon this head, that one of the victors in boxing, called Scopas, having agreed with Simonides for a poem upon his victory, the poet, according to custom, after having given the highest praises to the champion, expatiated in a long digression to the honour of Castor and Pollux. Scopas, satisfied in appearance with the performance of Simonides, paid him, however, only the third part of the sum agreed on, referring him for the remainder to the Tyndaridæ, whom he had celebrated so well. And in fact he was well paid by them, if we may believe the sequel; for, at the feast given by the champion, whilst the guests were at table, a servant came to Simonides, and told him, that two men, covered with dust and sweat, were at the door, and desired to speak with him in all haste. He had scarce set his foot out of the chamber, in order to go to them, when the roof fell in, and crushed the champion, with all his guests, to death. y Sculpture united with poetry to perpetuate the fame of the champions. Statues were erected to the victors, especially in the Olympic games, in the very place where they had been crowned, and sometimes in that of their birth also; which was commonly done at the expense of their country. Amongst the statues which adorned Olympia, were those of several children of ten or twelve years old, who had obtained the prize at that age in the Olympic games. They did not only raise such monuments to the champions, but to the very horses to whose swiftness they were indebted for the Agonistic crown and Pausanias mentions one, which was erected in honour of a mare, called Aura, whose history is worth repeating. Phidolas her rider, having fallen off in the beginning of the race, the mare continued to run in the same manner as if he had been upon her back. She outstripped all the rest; and upon the sound of the trumpets, which was usual towards the end of the race to animate the competitors, she redoubled her vigour and courage, turned round the goal; and, as if she had been sensible that she had gained the victory, presented herself before the judges of the games. The Eleans declared Phidolas victor, with permission to erect a monument to himself and the mare that had served him so well. x Cic. de Orat. l. ii. n. 352, 353. Phæd. 1. ii. fab. 24. Quintil. 1. xi. c. 2. The different Taste of the Greeks and Romans, in regard to BEFORE I make an end of these remarks upon the combats and games so much in estimation amongst the Greeks, I beg the reader's permission to make a reflection, that may serve to explain the difference of character between the Greeks and Romans, with regard to this subject. The most common entertainment of the latter, at which the fair sex, by nature tender and compassionate, were present in throngs, was the combat of the gladiators, and of men with bears and lions; in which the cries of the wounded and dying, and the abundant effusion of human blood, supplied a grateful spectacle for a whole people, who feasted their cruel eyes with the savage pleasure of seeing men murder one another in cool blood and in the times of the persecutions, with the tearing in pieces of old men and infants, of women and tender virgins, whose age and weakness are apt to excite compassion in the hardest hearts. In Greece these combats were absolutely unknown, and were only introduced into some cities, after their subjection to the Roman people. The Athenians, however, whose distinguishing characteristics were benevolence and humanity, never admitted them into their city; and when it was proposed to introduce the combats of the gladiators, that they might not be outdone by the Corinthians in that point, First throw down, cried out an Athenian from the midst of the assembly, throw down the altar, erected above a thousand years ago by our ancestors to Mercy. * It must be allowed that in this respect the conduct and wisdom of the Greeks were infinitely superior to that of the Romans. I speak of the wisdom of Pagans. Convinced that the multitude, too much governed by the objects of sense to be sufficiently amused and entertained by the pleasures of the understanding, could be delighted only with sensible objects, both nations were studious to divert them with games and shows, and such external contrivances as were proper to affect the senses; in the institution of which, each evinced and followed its peculiar inclination and disposition. The Romans, educated in war, and accustomed to battles, always retained, notwithstanding the politeness upon which they piqued themselves, something of their ancient ferocity; and hence it was, that the effusion of blood, and the murders exhibited in their public shows, far from inspiring them with horror, formed a grateful entertainment to them. The insolent pomp of triumphs flowed from the same source, and argued no less inhumanity. To obtain this honour, it was necessary to prove, that eight or ten thousand men had been killed in battle. The spoils, which were carried with so much ostentation, proclaimed, that an infinity of worthy families had Lucian, in vit. Demonact. p. 1014. It was Demonax, a celebrated philosopher, whose disciple Lucian had been. He flourished in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. been reduced to the utmost misery. The innumerable troop of captives had been free persons a few days before, and were often distinguishable for honour, merit, and virtue. The representation of the towns that had been taken in the war, explained that they had sacked, plundered, and burnt, the most opulent cities; and had either destroyed or enslaved their inhabitants. In short, nothing was more inhuman, than to drag kings and princes in chains before the chariot of a Roman citizen, and to insult their misfortunes and humiliation in that public manner. The triumphal arches, erected under the emperors, where the enemies appeared with chains upon their hands and legs, could proceed only from a haughty fierceness of disposition, and an inhuman pride, that took delight in immortalizing the shame and sorrow of subjected nations. a The joy of the Greeks after a victory was far more modest. They erected trophies, indeed, but of wood, a substance of no long duration, which time would soon consume; and these it was prohibited to renew. Plutarch's reason for this is admirable.* After time had destroyed and obliterated the marks of dissension and enmity that had divided nations, it would have been the excess of odious and barbarous animosity, to have thought of re-establishing them, to perpetuate the remembrance of ancient quarrels, which could not be buried too soon in silence and oblivion. He adds, that the trophies of stone and brass, since substituted to those of wood, reflect no honour upon those who introduced the custom. b I am pleased with the grief depicted on Agesilaus's countenance, after a considerable victory, wherein a great number of his enemies, that is to say, of Greeks, were left upon the field, and to hear him utter, with sighs and groans, these words, so full of moderation and humanity: Oh, unhappy Greece, to deprive thyself of so many brave citizens, and to destroy those who had been sufficient to have conquered all the Barbarians! The same spirit of moderation and humanity prevailed in the public shows of the Greeks. Their festivals had nothing mournful or afflictive in them. Every thing in those feasts tended to delight, friendship, and harmony and in that consisted one of the greatest advantages which resulted to Greece from the solemnization of these games. The republics, separated by distance of country and diversity of interests, having the opportunity of meeting from time to time in the same place, and in the midst of rejoicing and festivity, allied themselves more strictly with one another, stimulated each other against the barbarians and the common enemies of their liberty, and made up their differences by the mediation of some neutral state in alliance with them. The same language, manners, sacrifices, exercises, and worship, all conspired to unite the several little states of Greece into one great and formidable nation; and to preserve amongst them the same disposition, the same principles, Plut. in Quæst. Rom. p. 273. b Plut. in Lacon. Apophthegm. p. 211. a Ὅτι τοῦ χρόνου τὰ σημεῖα τῆς πρὸς τοὺς πολεμίους διαφορᾶς ἀμαυροῦντος, αὐτοὺς ἀναλαμβάνειν καὶ καινοποιἓν ἐπίφθονον ἐστὶ καὶ φιλαπέχθημον. the same zeal for their liberty, and the same foudness for the arts and sciences. Of the Prizes of Wit, and the Shows and Representations of the Theatre. I HAVE reserved, for the conclusion of this head, another kind of competition, which does not at all depend upon the strength, activity, and address of the body, and may be called with reason the combat of the mind: wherein the orators, historians, and poets made trial of their capacities, and submitted their productions to the censure and judgment of the public. The emulation in this sort of dispute was so much the more lively and ardent, as the victory in question might justly be deemed to be infinitely superior to all others, because it affects the man more nearly, is founded on his personal and internal qualities, and decides upon the merit of his intellectual capacity; which are advantages we are apt to aspire after, with the utmost vivacity and passion, and of which we are least of all inclined to renounce the glory to others. It was a great honour, and at the same time a most sensible pleasure, for writers, who are generally fond of fame and applause, to have known how to unite in their favour the suffrages of so numerous and select an assembly as that of the Olympic games; in which were present all the finest geniuses of Greece, and all who were most capable of judging of the excellency of a work. This theatre was equally open to history, eloquence, and poetry. • Herodotus read his history at the Olympic games to all Greece, assembled at them, and was heard with such applause, that the names of the nine Muses were given to the nine books which compose his work, and the people cried out wherever he passed, That is he, who has written our history, and celebrated our glorious successes against the Barbarians so excellently. All who had been present at the games, caused afterward every part of Greece to resound with the name and glory of this illustrious historian. Lucian, who writes the fact which I have related, adds, that after the example of Herodotus, many of the sophists and rhetoricians went to Olympia, to read the harangues of their composing; finding that the shortest and most certain method of acquiring a great reputation in a little time. d Plutarch observes, that Lysias, the famous Athenian orator, contemporary with Herodotus, pronounced a speech in the Olympic games, wherein he congratulated the Greeks upon their reconciliation with each other, and their having united to reduce the power of Dionysius the Tyrant, as upon the greatest action they had ever done. We may judge of the eagerness of the poets to signalize themselves in these solemn games, from that of Dionysius himself. That prince, who had the foolish vanity to believe himself the most excellent poet of his time, appointed readers, called in Greek paydoì, • Lucian. in Herod. p. 622. d Plut. de vit. Orat. p. 836. e Diod. 1. xiv. p. 318. (rhapsodists,) to read several pieces of his composing at Olympia. When they began to pronounce the verses of the royal poet, the strong and harmonious voices of the readers occasioned a profound silence, and they were heard at first with the greatest attention, which continually decreased as they went on, and turned at last into downright horse-laughs and hooting; so miserable did the verses appear. He comforted himself for this disgrace by a victory he gained some time after in the feast of Bacchus at Athens, in which he caused a tragedy of his composition to be represented. The disputes of the poets in the Olympic games were nothing in comparison with the ardour and emulation that prevailed at Athens; which is what remains to be said upon this subject, and therefore I shall conclude with it, taking occasion to give my read. ers, at the same time, a short view of the shows and representations of the theatre of the ancients. Those who would be more fully informed on this subject, will find it treated at large in a work lately made public by the reverend Father Brumoi, the Jesuit; a work which abounds with profound knowledge and erudition, and with reflections entirely new, deduced from the nature of the poems of which it treats. I shall make considerable use of that piece, and often without citing it; which is not uncommon with me. Extraordinary fondness of the Athenians for the Entertainments of the Stage. Emulation of the Poets in disputing the Prizes in those Representations. A short Idea of Dramatic Poetry. No people ever expressed so much ardour and eagerness for the entertainments of the theatres as the Greeks, and especially the Athenians. The reason is obvious; as no people ever demonstrated such extent of genius, nor carried so far the love of eloquence and poesy, taste for the sciences, justness of sentiments, elegance of ear, and delicacy in all the refinements of language. A poor woman, who sold herbs at Athens, discovered Theophrastus to be a stranger, by a single word which he affectedly made use of in expressing himself. The common people got the tragedies of Euripides by heart. The genius of every nation expresses itself in the people's manner of passing their time, and in their pleasures. The great employment and delight of the Athenians were to amuse themselves with works of wit, and to judge of the dramatic pieces that were acted by public authority several times a year, especially at the feasts of Bacchus, when the tragic and comic poets disputed for the prize. The former used to present four of their pieces at a time; except Sophocles, who did not think fit to continue so laborious an exercise, and confined himself to one performance, when he disputed the prize. The state appointed judges, to determine upon the merit of the tragic or comic pieces, before they were represented in the festivals. f Diod. l. xv. p. 381. * Attica anus Theophrastum, hominem alioqui disertissimum, annotatâ unius affectatime verbi, hospitem dixit. Quint. 1. viii. c. 1. |