science, and verbal quibbles for sure evidences of proficiency in the ars artium. We cannot wonder then that Dante, who calls his Latin Aristotle "the master of those that know," and an Italian version of the Moralia "his own ethics"," should make no mention of Æschylus and Sophocles in his survey of the shades of departed poets, but should class the rhetorical Euripides, and the no less quibbling Agathon, among the greatest of the poets of Greece. But if it be easy to explain how the quasi-philosophical character of Euripides gained him so much popularity among his less civilized contemporaries, the Sicilians and Macedonians, and among the semi-barbarous Europeans of the middle ages, we shall have still less difficulty in explaining how he came to be so unlike the two great writers who preceded him; one of whom was in his later days the competitor of Euripides. We have already insisted at some length upon the connexion between the actors of Sophocles, Eschylus, and their predecessors, and the Homeric rhapsode. Now the rhapsodes were succeeded by a class of men whom, for want of a more definitive name, it has been customary to call sophists', and sometimes the sophist and the rhapsode were united in the same person: indeed so completely were they identified in most cases, that Plato makes Socrates treat Hippias the sophist, who was also a rhapsode, and Ion the rhapsode, who seems to have been a sophist too, with banter and irony of precisely the same kind. Since then Euripides was nursed in the lap of sophistry, was the pupil and friend of the most eminent of the sophists, and perhaps to all intents a sophist himself, we cannot wonder that he should turn the rhapsodical element of the Greek Drama into a sophistical one: in fact, the transition was not only natural, but perhaps even necessary. It may, however, be asked, how is this reconcileable with the statement that Socrates assisted Euripides in the composition of his tragedies? for Inf. iv. 131. Inf. xi. 80, referring to Aristot. Eth. vii. 1. That Dante read Aristotle's Ethics in the Italian translation of Taddeo d'Alderotto, surnamed l'Ippocratista, may be inferred from the Convito, I. 10, p. 39. Purgat. xxii. 106. Euripide v'è nosco e Anacreonte, Simonide, Agatone, e altri piúe Greci che già di lauro ornar la fronte. ? The young student will find some interesting remarks on these personages in Coleridge's Friend, Vol. III. p. 112, fol. See also the articles on Prodicus in Nos. I. and IV. of the Rhein. Mus. 1832. h Socrates was, if we can believe Plato's representation of him, the sworn foe of the sophists. We answer that Socrates was, in the more general sense of the word, himself a sophist; his opposition to the other sophists, which has probably been exaggerated by his pupils and apologists, to whom we owe nearly all we know about him, is no proof of a radical difference between him and them: on the contrary, it is proverbial that there are no disagreements so rancorous and implacable as those between persons who follow the same trade with different objects in view. That Socrates was the least pernicious of the sophists, that, if he was not a good citizen, he was at least an honest man, we are very much disposed to believe; but in the eyes of his contemporaries he differed but little from the rest of the tribe: Aristophanes attacks him as the head of the school, and perhaps some of the comedian's animosity to Euripides may have arisen from his belief that the tragedian was only a Socrates and a sophist making an epideixis in iambics 3. Euripides was not only a rhetorical sophist. He also treated his audience to some of the physical doctrines of his master Anaxagoras'. For instance, he goes out of his way to communicate to them the Anaxagorean discovery, that the sun is nothing but an ignited stone': he tells them that the overflowing of the Nile is merely the consequence of the melting of the snow in Æthiopia', and that the æther is an embodiment of the Deity'. In his political opinions Euripides was attached to Alcibiades and to the war party; and in this again he was opposed to Aristophanes, and, we may add, to the best interests of his country. He endeavours to inspire his countrymen with a contempt for their formidable enemies the Spartans', and with a distrust of their good faith; in order that the Athenians Aristophanes speaks of him thus: ὅτε δὴ κατῆλθ' Εὐριπίδης ἐπεδείκνυτο τοῖς λωποδύταις, κ. τ. λ.—Range, 771. On the allusions which Euripides makes to the philosophy of Anaxagoras, the reader of this poet should consult Valckenaer's Diatribe, pp. 25–58. 1 Orest. vi. 984, and the fr. of the Phaethon. 2 Helen. 1-3. fr. of the Archelaus. 3 Troad. 878, seqq. 4 For instance, in his ridiculous exhibition of Menelaus in the Troades, and in the Orestes. See particularly Orest. 717, seqq. Androm. 590. 5 Andromache 445, seqq. might not, through fear for their prowess, scruple to continue at war with them, and might, through suspicion, be as unwilling as possible to make peace. We find him also united with the sophist Gorgias and the profligate Alcibiades in urging the disastrous expedition to Sicily; for he wrote the trilogy to which the Troades belonged, in the beginning of the year 415, in which that expedition started, manifestly with a view to encourage the gaping quidnuncs of the Agora to fall into the ambitious schemes of Alcibiades, by recalling the recollection of the success of a similar expedition, undertaken in the mythical ages; and we believe that his wiser opponent wrote the "Birds" in the following year, to ridicule the whole plan and its originators'. Besides obliterating the genuine character of the Greek Tragedy, by introducing sophistry and philosophy into the dialogue, Euripides degraded it still farther by laying aside all the dignity and кaλoкàyalía which distinguished the costumes and the characters of Eschylus and Sophocles, by vulgarizing the tragic style, by introducing rags and tatters on the stage', by continually making mention of the most trivial and ordinary subjects', and by destroying the connexion which always subsisted, in the perfect form of the Drama, between the chorus and the actors. With regard to his system of prologues, which Lessing most paradoxically considers as showing the perfection of the Drama, we need only mention that Menander adopted it from him, and point to the difference between this practice and that of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, in order to justify the ridicule which Aristophanes unsparingly heaps upon them as factitious and unnecessary parts of a Tragedy. Like the other Sophists, Euripides was altogether devoid of religious feelings; his moral character was the worst possible; and, unlike the good-tempered, cheerful Sophocles, he dis6 See Clinton, F. H. II. p. 75. 7 See J. W. Süvern's interesting Essay on the " Birds" of Aristophanes. See Müller, Hist. Lit. Gr. I. p. 366. In Hercul. fur. 859, it is clear that orádia δραμοῦμαι, the reading of Flor. 2, is a gloss on the genuine σταδιοδρομήσω, which ought to be restored, 9 Ran. 841, seqq. 1 Ib. 980, seqq. 2 Καὶ τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαβεῖν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν καὶ μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου, καὶ συναγωνίζεσθαι, μὴ ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδης, ἀλλ ̓ ὥσπερ Σοφοκλῆς.-Aristot. Poet. xviii. 21. played the same severity of manner which distinguished his never-smiling preceptor, Anaxagoras. On the whole, were it not for the exceeding beauty of many of his choruses, and for the proof which he occasionally exhibits of really tragic power, we should join with Aristophanes, in calling him, not only what he undeniably was, a bad citizen3, and an unprincipled man, but also a very second-rate poet. Thanks to accident, or the bad taste of those to whom we owe all of ancient literature that we possess, the remaining plays of Euripides are more than all the extant Dramas of Eschylus and Sophocles taken together. Of his many compositions, fifteen Tragedies, two Tragi-comedies, and a satyrical Drama, have come down to us; and the fragments of the lost plays are very numerous. 3 On the connexion of Euripides and Socrates with the mischievous Girondism of the middle-class party at Athens, we have written elsewhere (Quarterly Review, No. CLXI. Vol. 71. p. 116. Continuation of Müller's Hist. Lit. Gr. p. 127.) Or 16, if the Rhesus is reckoned one of his. 3 The Orestes and the Alcestis. 6 The Cyclops. CHAPTER V. SECTION V. AGATHON AND THE REMAINING TRAGEDIANS. Επιφυλλίδες ταῦτ ̓ ἐστὶ καὶ στωμύλματα ARISTOPHANES. In addition to the seven Tragedians, of whom we have attempted to give some account, a list of thirty-four names of tragic poets, so called, has been drawn up'. Of these, very few are worthy of even the slightest mention, and we have but scanty information respecting those few, of whom we might have wished to know more. IoN, the son of Orthomenes of Chios, was, according to Suidas, not only a Tragedian, but a lyric poet and philosopher also. He began to exhibit in B.C. 451, and wrote twelve, thirty, or forty dramas. The names of eleven have been collected. He gained the third prize when Euripides was first with the Hippolytus in B.C. 428'. He wrote, not only Tragedies, but elegies', dithyrambs', and an account of the visits paid by eminent men to his native island. Though he did not exhibit till after Euripides had commenced his dramatic career, and though he was, like that poet, a friend of Socrates', we should be inclined to infer, from his having written dithyrambs, that he belonged 1 By Clinton, F. H. ii. p. xxxii.—xxxv. 2 By Bentley (Epistola ad Millium). Athenæus, x. p. 436. Athenæus, iii. p. 93. 3 Argum. Hippolyti. 5 Aristoph. Pax, 798. 7 Diogenes Laert. ii. p. 23. |