Page images
PDF
EPUB

or representing it, according to the rationalistic method, as a pious fraud of the prudent general.

Another of Mr. Grote's merits is the ethical interest which he imparts to his subject. Other historians may excel him in picturesque description; they may paint in more gorgeous colours the pomp of war, the intrigues of courts, and the outward events of history; but no writer with whom we are acquainted, with the sole exception of Thucydides, penetrates more deeply into the inward life of a people, and analyses more carefully the political, social, and moral significance of each event. The method pursued by the other most eminent historian of antiquity in the English language presents a striking contrast to the method of Mr. Grote. In the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' the grandeur of the events, their mighty influence upon the destinies of the world, and the pictorial skill with which their most prominent features are seized and presented to our view, arrest our attention and excite our imagination. The decay of the Empire which had so long ruled the world-the origin and progress of Christianitythe irruptions and settlements of the barbarians of Germany and Scythia the foundation of Constantinople-the life of Mohammed and the rapid spread of the new religion-the Crusades of the nations of Western Europe to recover possession of the Holy Land-the conquests of Zingis Khan, Tamerlane, and the Turks-the fall of Constantinople-the revolutions of Rome in the middle ages-these events pass before our eyes in the brilliant pages of Gibbon, like some gorgeous pageant or moving panorama; but all ethical interest is wanting; the historian rarely penetrates below the surface, and rarely endeavours to ascertain the inner motives or feelings which determine the conduct of men and nations. It would be impossible to illustrate fully Mr. Grote's ethical treatment of history without taking some large and important subject which would not be within our limits; but two or three examples of the numerous incidental remarks which he makes upon events will exhibit this peculiarity in his work. Thus the well-known tale of the scourging of the Hellespont by Xerxes, because the rebellious stream had destroyed the bridge of the Persian monarch, has been frequently regarded as the invention of the Greeks, who attributed to the mad barbarian an act of childish absurdity. But Mr. Grote well observes that the absurdity and childishness of the proceeding is no reason for its rejection, if we identify ourselves with the feelings of the time and the person concerned. To transfer to inanimate objects the sensitive as well as the willing and designing attributes of human beings, is among the early and wide-spread instincts of mankind, and one of the primitive forms of religion; and although the enlargement

VOL. XCIX. NO. CXCVII.

F

enlargement of reason and experience gradually displaces this elementary fetichism, and banishes it from the regions of reality into those of conventional fictions, yet the force of momentary passion will often suffice to supersede the acquired habit, and even an intelligent man may be impelled in a moment of agonizing pain to kick or beat the lifeless object from which he has suffered.' In like manner Mr. Grote remarks upon the destruction of the citadel of Dionysius in the island of Ortygia at Syracuse, that 'it was beneficial in discharging the reactionary antipathies of the Syracusans, inevitable after so long an oppression, upon unconscious stones; and thus leaving less of it to be wreaked on the heads of political rivals, compromised in the former proceedings.' Again, in narrating the immediate repentance of the Athenians after passing the barbarous decree that the male population of Mitylene should be put to death, Mr. Grote directs attention to an important principle in human affairs, which was doubtless one cause of the instant revulsion of feeling, 'that the sentiment of wrath against the Mitylenians had been really in part discharged by the mere passing of the sentence, quite apart from its execution; just as a furious man relieves himself from over-boiling anger by imprecations against others, which he would himself shrink from afterwards realizing.' ‡

In the elaborate account of the trial and condemnation of the six generals who fought at the battle of Arginusæ-one of the foulest blots upon the page of Athenian history-Mr. Grote takes especial pains to investigate the causes which led the Athenians to violate the laws securing to prisoners a fair trial. On no other occasion did the Athenian people commit an act of similar injustice. Even under the strongest provocation, after the hateful usurpation of the Four Hundred and the tyranny of the Thirty, the accused parties were not deprived of the judicial securities provided by the law. This wrong was now perpetrated, not in the case of traitors or declared enemies of the state, but in the case of generals who had just gained a signal victory -a victory, too, which saved Athens from inevitable ruin. So strange does the conduct of the Athenians appear, that some modern writers have attempted to explain it by the supposition of a deep-laid oligarchical plot; but Mr. Grote gives a very different and much more probable explanation. He points out that this atrocious act was owing to the people having broken loose from their obligations as citizens and members of the commonwealth, and having surrendered themselves heart and soul to the family sympathies and antipathies. At the outset † Vol. xi. p. 234.

*Vol. v. p. 22.

Vol. vi. p. 337.

their feelings had been powerfully affected by the thought of their friends and relations having been left to perish unheeded upon the wrecks of the vessels, and then these feelings had been still further inflamed by the family festival of the Apaturia, which took place after the first day's debate upon the trial of the generals, and at which the relations of those who had perished appeared in the garb of mourning. So intense and overwhelming was the excitement thus produced that the survivors thought of nothing but vengeance, and were ready to sacrifice to its gratification even the constitution itself. Mr. Grote's concluding remarks upon this occurrence are eminently characteristic:

'Such is the natural behaviour of those who, having for the moment forgotten their sense of political commonwealth, become degraded into exclusive family-men. The family affections, productive as they are of so large an amount of gentle sympathy and mutual happiness in the interior circle, are also liable to generate disregard, malice, sometimes even ferocious vengeance, towards others. Powerful towards good generally, they are not less powerful occasionally towards evil, and require, not less than the selfish propensities, constant subordinating control from that moral reason which contemplates for its end the security and happiness of all. And when a man, either from low civilization, has never known this large moral reason; or when from some accidental stimulus, righteous in the origin, but wrought up into fanaticism by the conspiring force of religious as well as family sympathies, he comes to place his pride and virtue in discarding its supremacy— there is scarcely any amount of evil or injustice which he may not be led to perpetrate by a blind obedience to the narrow instincts of relationship. "Ces pères de famille sont capables de tout," was the satirical remark of Talleyrand upon the gross public jobbing so largely practised by those who sought place or promotion for their sons. The same words, understood in a far more awful sense and generalized for other cases of relationship, sum up the moral of this melancholy proceeding at Athens.'-vol. viii. p. 281.

We can give only one more example. Pericles, in a wellknown passage of his celebrated speech in the second book of Thucydides, praises Athens for its tolerance of different tastes and pursuits. Mr. Grote directs attention to this part of the speech, because it serves to correct an assertion usually made, that the ancient societies sacrified the individual to the state, and that only in modern times has individual agency been allowed its proper freedom. The ideal societies of Plato and Aristotle are frequently referred to in confirmation of this opinion; but it should be recollected that those philosophers were strongly opposed to the existing institutions and social arrangements at Athens, and that it would be as reasonable to

[blocks in formation]

judge of the state of Athenian society from the writings of these philosophers as of the social condition of England or France from the theories of Robert Owen or Fourier. The current opinion respecting the difference between ancient and modern societies is true of Sparta, but is certainly untrue of Athens, and, as far as we know, of most other Grecian cities. Modern society, while it allows the citizen greater licence in his relation to the state, is in reality intolerant of all social differences; but the Athenian democracy, while it strictly exacted from the citizen the discharge of his public duties, permitted the indulgence of individual tastes, impulses, and even eccentricities to a degree unknown in England. In this country, and, indeed, in almost all modern governments, the intolerance of the national opinion cuts down individual character to one out of a few set types, to which every person or every family is constrained to adjust itself, and beyond which all exceptions meet either with hatred or derision. To impose upon men such restraints, either of law or of opinion, as are requisite for the security or comfort of society-but to encourage rather than repress the free play of individual impulse, subject to those limits-is an ideal which, if it was ever approached at Athens, has certainly never been attained, and has indeed comparatively been little studied or cared for in any modern society.'

*

In connexion with these two characteristics of Mr. Grotea vivid conception of antiquity and an ethical mode of treating its history-we would mention a third, which imparts additional liveliness and instruction to his work. With a view of realizing the past more perfectly, and bringing it home more faithfully to our minds and our hearts, Mr. Grote frequently calls in the aid of the institutions and events of modern times, in the way either of analogy or of contrast. We are well aware that historical analogy is a somewhat dangerous ground, and has been frequently abused, of which we have a signal instance in Niebuhr's Lectures on Ancient History,' where many of the analogies are far-fetched and misleading. At the same time it must be recollected that as human life is essentially the same in all ages, and as the same causes will produce the same results, many modern events throw light upon those of ancient times; there can be no objection to employ them, provided the important distinction is preserved of using them as illustrations, and not as proofs. If used only as illustrations, even if the analogy is not always perfect, no great injury is done; while they serve to correct the error which is apt insensibly to creep over

Vol. vi. p. 202,

and

us,

us, that because the men of antiquity are removed from us by an interval of two or three thousand years, they are not men of like passions with ourselves, subject to the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows. Mr. Grote's allusions to modern events are very frequent and striking; and they display an acquaintance with modern literature, which is really surprising in one who possesses such a thorough knowledge of the ancient writers. No modern work which could throw even a ray of light upon Grecian antiquity seems to have escaped his notice; a recondite treatise on mediaval law, a fugitive book of travels, or a code of laws for a Transatlantic state, are equally pressed into his service, and made to yield their contributions to the illustration of his subject. We know of no historian of antiquity, with the exception of Niebuhr, whose learning is at once so multifarious and so profound as Mr. Grote's, and who can produce it so readily, or so aptly. The readers of his volumes will obtain a vast fund of information upon many subjects which they would never have expected to find in a work devoted to Grecian history. Thus the chapter on Grecian myths, of which we shall speak presently, gives rise to another chapter on the mythical tendencies of modern Europe,* as manifested in the legends of the saints, and the legends of chivalry, which are narrated and explained with the most copious learning, and which open new and unexpected ranges of thought. In like manner the account of the phratriæ and gentes at Athens suggests analogies borrowed from very different people, and very different parts of the world. The regulations of Solon respecting debtors and creditors leads to an instructive essay upon the lending of money upon interest in the ancient world, and in the middle ages.‡ Mr. Grote points out very clearly the great difference which existed in the judgment of antiquity between the demand of the creditor for repayment of principal and the demand for payment of interest; and he traces the gradual change of moral feeling in ancient and modern times, in reference to money-lenders. § The dikasteries,

+ Vol. iii. p. 81, seq.

* Vol. i. p. 613, seq. Vol. iii. p. 140. $ Mr. Grote's concluding remarks upon this subject deserve to be quoted :To trace this gradual change of moral feeling is highly instructive, the more so as that general basis of sentiment, of which the antipathy against lending money on interest is only a particular case, still prevails largely in society, and directs the current of moral approbation and disapprobation. In some nations, as among the ancient Persians before Cyrus, this sentiment has been carried so far as to repudiate and despise all buying and selling (Herodot. i. 153). With many the principle of reciprocity in human dealings appears, when conceived in theory, odious and contemptible, and goes by some bad name, such as egoism, selfishness, calculation, political economy; or the only sentiment which they will admit

« PreviousContinue »