The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]

The umpires at the Olympian games are the first to apply the name of Hellenes to the nation—more exactly speaking, to the class. For here it has come to pass that, though politically divided into numberless cantons, though involved in perpetual feuds and irreconcilable local animosities, the members of this class recognise one another, intermarry, call a truce for the festivals, and find a common interest in maintaining their class supremacy against the encroachments of the lower orders. The protection of the patriarchal organisation places Sparta at the head of a loose federation. The spirit of the age is masculine. The loin-cloth is laid aside at gymnastic exercises, the nude male form is the fairest of objects. The love of boys becomes not only a national institution but the sole province in which love claims the co-operation of the soul. Everything presents the sharpest contrast to Homer. Gymnastics require self-control and training; military service requires obedience; class supremacy is not favourable to the predominance of the individual man, but demands his subordination to the class. Thus, then, these men trained themselves strictly and austerely, and gained control over themselves, body and soul. They set up an ideal of the perfect man, who by training and obedience earns the right to be free and to rule. And they held out to him the prospect of becoming equal with the gods, even as Hercules entered heaven; but on earth they kept him within bounds by raising above him the other Greek ideal, that of the free self-governing community—the aggregate of equally worthy and therefore equally privileged free men. However much the reality may have altered, these two ideals remained inviolate, and they are the specifically European element which the Greeks have to show as against the East—the Greeks of the mother-country, be it understood, for Homer knows of nothing but an unbridled individualism; he does homage to the hero who, in good and evil alike, knows no bounds. These nobles are not licensed to aspire beyond the limits of their class nor do they wish to do so. They invented an ideal of happiness that could be realised on earth; all that was required was to keep within bounds. Hercules, the ideal hero of this society, had nothing but toil upon earth, but in return he made the step from human to divine by his own strength. This grand conception betrays the lengths to which Doric self-reliance believed itself able to go.

The free man has come into being; the power above him, which we call society or the state, has also come; at that time it was called Law or Custom—Nomos; and this power is sanctified by the existence of an exponent of the divine revelation, the god (i.e. the Apollo) of Delphi. The authority of this god, and of the oracles by which he answers through his priests, is undisputed. He addresses the mortal with the warning “Know thyself,” that is, as a creature that is mortal. He enjoins self-control and self-restraint; the numerous Greek adages recommending moderation, the praise of the mean and of equality, the encomiums on sophrosyne, belong to this period and to this world. No doubt, so much would not have been said of this virtue if it had not been so rare, but erroneous as it is to conceive of the Greeks as examples of the virtues they recommend, the establishment of this moral ideal is significant; a complement to their faith in the power of man to gain admittance into heaven by force. Under Apollo’s direction music takes its place by the side of gymnastics; music also masters the wild instincts; it includes every kind of intellectual culture known to this society. The boy learns to sing, to strike the lute, to keep time in the dance; and the consecration of worship rests upon it all. Harmony must reign in the deportment and movement of the body, and of the soul likewise. The piper takes his place in the column on the march; it marks an important advance that the line of battle now marches to meet the enemy in step and in serried ranks; it is thought a fit subject for the painter’s art, and not without justice. The ruling caste does not often produce a poet who is a musician at the same time; the poets are for the most part brought from the East: but the nobles must be able to sing the songs, to dance, and even to improvise a verse to a set tune over the wine. The female sex also takes its part in music; choirs of maidens are popular, and native poetesses occur more frequently than native poets. Side by side with solemn gravity we get, at stated times of the ceremonial year, the most unbridled enjoyment, ecstatic revelry, the grossest kind of burlesque; but this is curbed; it appeals more to the lower social strata, and does not find expression in art until a late period.