that many cities of the allies, in emulation with each other, supplied Alcibiades with all things necessary for the support of such incredible magnificence; equipages, horses, tents, sacrifices, the most exquisite provisions, the most delicate wines; in a word, all that was necessary to the support of his table or train. The passage is remarkable; for the same author assures us, that this was not only done when Alcibiades went to the Olympic games, but in all his military expeditions and journeys by land or sea. "Wherever," says he, Alcibiades travelled, he made use of four of the allied cities as his servants. Ephesus furnished him with tents, as magnificent as those of the Persians; Chios took care to provide for his horses; Cyzicum supplied him with sacrifices, and provisions for his table; and Lesbos gave him wine, with all the other necessaries for his house." I must not omit, in speaking of the Olympic games, that the ladies were admitted to dispute the prize in them as well as the men; which many of them obtained. Cynisca, sister of Agesilaus king of Sparta, first opened this new path of glory to her sex, and was proclaimed conqueror in the race of chariots with four horses.* This victory, which till then had no example, did not fail of being celebrated with all possible splendour.† A magnificent monument was erected in Sparta in honour of Cynisca; and the Lacedæmonians, though otherwise very little sensible to the charms of poetry, appointed a poet to transmit this new triumph to posterity, and to immortalize its memory by an inscription in verse. She herself dedicated a chariot of brass, drawn by four horses, in the temple of Delphos, in which the charioteer was also represented; a certain proof that she did not drive it herself.§ In process of time, the picture of Cynisca, drawn by the famous Apelles, was annexed to it, and the whole adorned with many inscriptions in honour of that Spartan heroine.|| OF THE HONOURS AND REWARDS GRANTED TO THE VICTORS. THESE honours and rewards were of several kinds. The acclamations of the spectators in honour of the victors were only a prelude to the rewards designed them. These rewards were different wreaths of wild olive, pine, parsley, or laurel, according to the different places where the games were celebrated. Those crowns were always attended with branches of palm, that the victors carried in their right hand; which custom according to Plutarch arose, perhaps, from the nature of the palm-tree, which displays new vigour the more endeavours are used to crush or bend it, and is a symbol of the champion's courage and resistance in the attainment of the prize. As he might be victor more than once in the same games, and sometimes on the same day, he might also receive several crowns and palms. When the victor had received the crown and palm, a herald, preceded by a trumpet, conducted him through the stadium, and proclaimed aloud the name and country of the successful champion, who passed in that kind of review before the people, while they redoubled their acclamations and applauses at the sight of him. When he returned to his own country, the people came out in a body to meet him, and conducted him into the city, adorned with all the marks of his victory, and riding upon a chariot drawn by four horses. He made his entry, not through the gates, but through a breach purposely made in the walls. Lighted torches were carried before him, and a numerous train followed to do honour to the procession. The athletic triumph almost always concluded with feasts made for the victors, their relations and friends, either at the expense of the public, or by particular persons, who regaled not only their families and friends, but often a great part of the spectators. Alcibiades, after having sacrificed to the Olym * Paysan. 1. iii p. 172. † Pag. 288. Pausan. 1. vi. p. 344. Pag. 172. T Sympos. 1. viii. quæst. 4. Id. 1. v. p. 309. pian Jupiter, which was always the first care of the victor, treated the whole assembly. Leophron did the same, as Athenæus reports; who adds, that Empedocles of Agrigentum, having conquered in the same games, and not having it in his power, being a Pythagorean, to regale the people with flesh or fish, he caused an ox to be made of a paste, composed of myrrh, incense, and all sorts of spices, pieces of which were given to every person present. One of the most honourable privileges granted to the athletic victors, was the right of precedence at the public games. At Sparta it was a custom for the king to take them with him in military expeditions, to fight near his person, and to be his guard; which, with reason, was judged very honourable. Another privilege, in which advantage was united with honour was that of being maintained for the rest of their lives at the expense of their country. That this charge might not become too expensive to the state, Solon redu ced the pension of a victor in the Olympic games to five hundred drachms ;§ in the Isthmian to a hundred ; and in the rest in proportion. The victor and his country considered this pension less as a relief of the champion's indigence, than as a mark of honour and distinction. They were also exemptd from all civil offices and employments. The celebration of the games being over, one of the first cares of the magistrates, who presided in them, was to inscribe, in the public register, the name and country of the athlete who had carried the prizes, and to annex the species of combat in which they had been victorious. The chariot-race had the preference over all other games. From v hence the historians, who ciate occurrences by the Olympiads, as Thucydides, Dionysius of Halicamassus, Diodorus Siculus, and Pausanias, almost always express the Olympiad by the name and country of the victors in that race. The praises of the victorious athlete were, among the Greeks, one of the principal subjects of the 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 com.batants signalized themselves whose victories those poems celebrate. The poet, indeed, frequently enriches his matter, by calling into 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 wri ting, 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 Tyndarides, whom he had celebrated so well. And in fact he was well paid by them, if we may believe the se quel for, at the feast given by the champion, while 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. 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. Among 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 About $47. ¶ Cic. Orat. 1. ii. n. 352, 353. Phæd. 1. ii. Fab. 24. Quintil. I. xi. c. 2. Plut. in Alcib. p. 196. + Lib. i. P. 3. Diog. Laert. in Solon. p. 37. Olympic games. They did not only raise such monuments to the champions, but to the very horses to whose swiftness they were indebted for che agonis tic 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 toward 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.* THE DIFFERENT TASTE OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS, IN REGARD to publIC SHOWS. BEFORE I make an end of these remarks upon the combats and games, so much in estimation among the Greeks, I beg the reader's permission to make a reflection which may serve to explain the difference of character between the Greeks and the 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 combats 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 the 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 Athe nians, 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 Atheniant from the midst of the assembly, the altar erected above a thousand years ago by our ancestors to Mercy. It must be allowed in this respect, that the conduct and wisdom of the Greeks was 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 with 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 genius and disposition. The Romans, educated in war, and accustomed to battles, 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 at least had been killed in battle. The spoils, which were carried with so much ostentation, proclaimed, that an infinity of worthy families had been reduced to the utmost misery. The innumerable troop of captives had been free persons a few days before, and were often distinguish * Lib. vi. p. 368. 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. C2 able 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 either destroyed, or enslaved their inhabitants. In fine, 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 during the reign of 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.* The joy of the Greeks after a victory was far more modest. They erected trophies indeed, but of wood, a substance 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 the people, it would have been the excess of odious and barbarous animosity to have thought of re-establishing them, and to have perpetuated 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 for those of wood, reflect no honour upon those who introduced the custom.† 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 conquer 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 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 among them the same disposition, the same principles, the same zeal for their liberty, and the same fondness 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 most lively and ardent, as the victory in question might justly be deemed to be infinitely superior to all the others, because it affects the man more nearly, is founded on his personal and internal qualities, and decides the merit of his wit and capacity; which are advantages we are apt to aspire at with the utmost vivacity and passion, and of which we are least of all inclined to renounce the glory to others. *Plut. in Quæst. Rom. p. 273. † Ὅτι του χρόνε τὰ σημεῖα τῆς πρὸς τοὺς πολεμίους διαφορᾶς ἀμοιυροῦντος αὐτοὺς αναλαμβάνειν καὶ καινοποεῖν ἐπιφθόνων ἐστι καὶ φιλαπεχθήμον. t Plut. in Lacon. Apophthegm. p. 211. 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 the best judges 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 afterwards made every part f Greece resound with the name and glory of this illustrious historian. Lucian, who writes the fact 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 to be the shortest and most certain method of acquiring a great reputation in a little time. 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 passion 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 the Greek pool, (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, at 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 readers, 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 work, and often without citing it; which is not uncommon with me. EXTRAORDINARY PASSION OF THE ATHENIANS FOR THE ENTERTAINMENTS OF THE STAGE.- EMULATION OF THE POETS IN DISPUTING THE PRIZES OF THOSE REPRESENTATIONS.-A SHORT IDEA OF DRAMATIC POETRY. No people ever expressed so much ardour and eagerness for the entertainments of the theatre as the Greeks, and especially the Athenians. The reason is obvious; no people ever demonstrated such extent of genius, nor carried so far the love of eloquence and poesy, taste for the sciences, justness of sentiment, correctness of ear, and delicacy in all the refinements of language. A poor woman who sold herbs at Athens, discovered Theophrastus to be a t Diod. 1. xiv. p. 318, Lucian. in Herod. P. 622. † Plut. de Vit. Orat. p. 836. |