The Historians' History of the World 03

His tragedies contributed more than any other works to give spiritual significance, as Pericles strove to do, to the age of Athenian might and splendour. Like Pericles, Sophocles endeavoured to maintain the ascendency of the ancient worship and customs of the country, the unwritten precepts of sacred law, while at the same time mastering every step of intellectual progress and every enlargement of the bounds of knowledge. His diction bears the stamp of a trained and powerful intellect, which often carries terseness to the verge of obscurity; but with what skill does he preserve the charm of graceful expression, what a spirit of felicitous harmony pervades all his works! He was a man after Pericles’ own heart, and his personal intimacy with the latter is proved by the gay and unaffected manner in which the statesman treats the poet as his colleague in the camp. Sophocles was never a partisan or party writer in the same sense as Æschylus, and as Phrynichus seems to have been, but his art was a mirror of the noblest tendencies of the time, a glorified version of the Athens of Pericles. We meet with his clear and sound judgment on civil affairs in every passage in which he praises prudent counsel as the safeguard of states, and the Attic people rightly appreciated him as the true poet of his age, for none ever won so many prizes or enjoyed his fame so unmolested as Sophocles, nor could Euripides (who though only fifteen or sixteen years his junior belonged to a totally different era) gain any success as his rival until the age of Pericles was past. And even to him Sophocles was never obliged to yield the palm.

COMEDY

Side by side with tragedy, and from the same germ, i.e.

, from the Bacchic festivities, comedy developed. It is full sister to tragedy, but grew up longer in rustic freedom and fell much later under the discipline and training of the city; and for that reason it retained more faithfully the character of its source. For its origin was the jollity of the vintage, the merry-making of country folk over the increase of another year, which is found in all wine-growing districts. Swarms of masked holiday-makers sang the praises of the genial god and in tipsy merriment played all kinds of jokes and tricks on every one who met the procession and gave an opening for pranks and raillery, the events of the day were freely exploited, and he who hit upon the merriest quips was rewarded by the hearty laughter and applause of a grateful audience.

Thus the autumnal festival was kept in Attica in its day, and more particularly in the district of Icaria, not far from Marathon. The worship of Dionysus as there celebrated made it in a manner the nursery of the whole body of Athenian drama, for Thespis came from Icaria. Thither, too, came Susarion of Megara, bringing from his native place the rude wit of Megarian farce and setting the fashion which remained in vogue for the time in Attica. From his school arose Mæson, who was very popular in the time of the Pisistratidæ. The next step was the transference of the rustic stage to the capital, where it was recognised by the government as a part of the Dionysian festival and supported out of the public funds. This took place in the time of Cimon, after the Persian wars, and the energetic temper which at that time pervaded the life of Athens proved its vigour by transforming the rude, half-foreign farce into a well-organised form of art, full of significance and thoroughly Attic in character, of which we must regard Chionides and Magnes of Icaria as the founders.

When once the Icarian drama was naturalised in the home of tragedy many of the concomitants of the tragic drama were transferred to it, public contests in comedy were instituted by the state, prizes were adjudicated and awarded, and the cost of the chorus was defrayed from the public funds; moreover it was similarly arranged in such matters as the stage, the dialogue, the chorus, and the number of actors, without, however, forfeiting its peculiar characteristics. For tragedy carried the spectators into a loftier sphere, and strove by every means at her command to present figures and conditions on a grander scale than that of ordinary life, while comedy maintained the closest relations with contemporary and common life. It remained more unaffected in dance, versification, and diction no less than in poetic design; nay, to such an extent did it retain its topical character and its adaptation to the events of the hour that the poet used the choir to interrupt the course of the action entirely in order to discuss his personal affairs or the burning questions of the time with the audience in lengthy parabases.