be sold into perpetual slavery without a murmur or an attempt to escape. Every throw of these Athenians, as you may gather from their exclamations, has the name of some god, prince, or hero, the most favourable of all being called Venus. The gamblers on the other side of the gate, engaged at a different game, employ only three dice, which they throw through a hollow cylinder upon a checker-board, in order to prevent cheating. These are games of pure chance; but yonder is a party playing at a table marked with lines and pyramidal points, on which are ranged pieces or men of different colours, the skill of the combatant being shown by sustaining his own men, and capturing or blocking up those of his adversary. Sometimes this game is played with dice, the movements being regulated by the number thrown, but still so as to leave room for much judgment and intricate combination on the part of the player.*

Here we are in the crowded forum, the centre of which is still occupied with the market people and others of the lower class, whose satirical pleasantries with one another and gibing raillery upon the passengers, though not always refined, are never deficient in the drollery and facetiousness that characterize while they form the constant amusement of the Athenian populace. These porticoes and colonnades will presently be thronged with loungers, newsmongers, and philosophers, each seeking their appropriate recreation, and indulging in eager discourse adapted to the different tastes of the colloquists; for among the lively Athenians even the stoics are social and loquacious, and lonely meditation is but little practised. The crowd flocking down this street to the left are hastening to the gymnasium, and those pursuing the direction of the river are hurrying to the baths, the use of which is considered so indispensable, that they are not only found in most of the private houses, but have even been introduced on board ship.

This stream of passengers on foot and on horseback, this throng of carters, water-carriers, criers of ediets, labourers, and beggars with their dancing dogs, pushing in all directions with an ardour that will not allow of ceremony, begins

* The former game is presumed to have borne some resemblance to chess, and the latter to backgammon.

to be irksome; we will therefore withdraw under this colonnade, where we may enjoy the scene without being incommoded by its bustle. Some of the higher classes are now beginning to appear, as you may perceive by the chariots and gaily-adorned litters, few of which are suffered to pass without taunts or jeering remarks from the poorer citizens. Many of the former are followed by a servant carrying a folding chair, that their masters may sit down when fatigued. Most of the men, you will observe, are provided with a cane, and the women with a parasol, but no external mark of wealth or station can exempt them from the raillery of their bantering fellow-countrymen. Such is the mania, even among the educated classes, for this species of recreation, that there is a society at Athens "whose only object is to observe and collect every species of ridiculous absurdity, and to divert itself with pleasantries and bon-mots. The members of it, to the number of sixty, are all men of extraordinary vivacity and brilliant wit: their meetings are held from time to time in the temple of Hercules, where they pronounce their humorous decrees in presence of a crowd of spectators, drawn thither by the singularity of the scene; nor have the misfortunes of the state ever induced them. to intermit their meetings."*

Materials for the satire and the raillery of such a society can never be wanting in a city like Athens. Look! there are two individuals approaching us, who, though they are as dissimilar as possible in their appearance, are both equally calculated to excite and justify the ridicule of these professed wags. One of them, a smooth-shaven fop, who in his affectation of attic elegance is dressed in the extremity of the fashion, loads the air with perfume as he picks his way along the colonnade, simpering to display his white teeth, arranging the flowers at his ears, dangling his twisted cane, and occasionally looking down with an air of complacency at his Alcibiades shoes. The other, affecting the laconomania or the rough manners of the Spartans, wears a coarse cloak and plain sandals; his long beard is untrimmed, his hair falls in disorder about his shoulders, he carries a huge staff in his hand, and walks with a severe, solemn gait. The singularities of the former excite only a

* Travels of Anacharsis, vol. ii. cap. 20.

smile or a sneer from the bystanders, but some of them seem disposed to treat the pretended simplicity of the latter as an insult to the national manners, at least if we may judge by the bitter sarcasms with which they pursue him.* We have recorded the number of holydays kept by the Jews, which occupied a quarter of the year. Those ob served by the lively pleasure-loving Athenians were still more numerous, upwards of eighty days being regularly devoted to public spectacles; none of which, it must be recollected, shared the character of the Jewish Sabbath, but were literally and throughout festive merrimakings. Exclu sively of these local holydays and sports, there were the four great national festivals of the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, each of which lasted several days; and all of which, from the narrow dimensions of the Grecian territory and the universal truce observed during their celebration, were accessible to all classes even in the midst of war. Nor were private entertainments of rare occurrence; for the birth of children, their enrolment as citizens, their first exhibition in the gymnasium, and numerous other occasions were also celebrated as festivals. In the Athenian calendar we find an abstract of all the glorious events by which their city has been distinguished; nor could a better method have been devised for attaching the people to the religion and the government, than by perpetuating the memory of these occurrences in the public solemnities, Some were celebrated with such magnificence that three hundred oxen were led to the altars at once amid every circumstance of sacrificial pomp. The earliest festivals of the Greeks, and indeed of all nations, were kept in the autumn, after gathering in the fruits of the earth, when gratitude prompted them to offer up sacrifices to heaven, and social festivities were the natural consequences of plenty. Ceres and Bacchus were therefore the chief primal divinities: spring and summer soon claimed their appro priate representatives and celebrations; and human heroes and benefactors next received the honours of the apotheosis, none of whom, probably, conferred such blessings on mankind by their living exploits, which could only affect a single age, as by their laying the foundation of a public festival to be

*Travels of Anacharsis, vol. ii. cap. 20.
D

enjoyed by long succeeding generations of a whole people. In the mode of celebrating these holydays at the politer age of Athens, there will be found a large admixture of the most refined mental enjoyments with the rude corporeal sports that characterized the Homeric era. The shows consisted of sacrifices which inspired reverence by the pomp of their solemnization; processions calculated to display the charms of the youth of both sexes; musical theatrical pieces, the productions of the finest geniuses of Greece; dances, songs, and combats, in which strength, skill, and talent were by turns exhibited. The persons of all the actors were inviolable during the festival, nor could any individual be arrested for debt at this period of general amusement and happiness. In the constitution of the scenic representations, of which the chorus formed so remarkable a portion, the intellectual may be said to predominate; while the ancient festivals addressed themselves more especially to the eyes and the senses. Each of the ten tribes furnished a chorus, and a choragus, or leader, who was ineligible under forty years of age, and with whom rested the choice of the performers, generally selected from the class of children or of youths. An excellent player on the flute to direct their voices and an able master to regulate their steps and gestures were indispensable. As victory might depend on the superior skill of these teachers, they were publicly drawn for by lot, and generally proceeded to exercise their pupils some months previous to the festival. The choragus, whose functions were not only consecrated by religion, but ennobled by the example of the most eminent men of the state, who had deemed it an honour to fill that expensive office, appeared at the festival as well as his followers with a gilt crown and a magnificent robe. Each tribe was anxious to engage the most celebrated poet to compose the sacred hymns, the success of which depended upon the sentiments and style more than upon the accompanying music.

It was the province of the chorus to appear in the pomps or processions, to range themselves round the altars, to sing hymns during the sacrifice, and to assist in the theatrical representations, where they exerted themselves with the utmost ardour to maintain the reputation of their respective tribes. "The people, almost as jealous of their pleasures as of their liberty, waited the decision of the contest with

the same anxiety, the same tumult, as if their most important interests were the subject of discussion. The glory resulting from the victory was shared between the triumphant chorus, the tribe to which it belonged, and the masters who gave the preparatory lessons.”*

The festival of the Panathenæa, instituted in the earliest ages in honour of Minerva, and revived by Theseus, had received so many additions since its first establishment, that it finally assumed a mixed character in which the intellectual and corporeal competitors were pretty equally balanced. As this was one of the most important of the public festivals of Athens, we shall give an outline of the mode in which it was celebrated, reminding the reader that it occurred in the first month, which began at the summer solstice; the greater Panathenæa being quinquennial, and the smaller annual. Upon these occasions every Athenian city and colony sent the tribute of an ox to Minerva, the goddess having the honour of the hecatomb, and the people the profit, for the flesh of the victims served to regale the spectators. We may trace the progress of public taste in the successive modifications and additions made to these sports. The first contest, which took place at night, and in which the athlete carried flambeaux, was originally a foot-race, subsequently converted into an equestrian course; the second, a gymnastic contest, was held for some centuries in a rude stadium constructed by Lycurgus, the Rhætor, but magnificently rebuilt at a later period by the celebrated Herodes Atticus; the third exhibition, instituted by Pericles, was destined to poetry and music.

All the people of Attica, as the name of the festival imports, being expected to assist in its celebration, were to be seen at the period of its occurrence, wearing a chaplet of flowers, crowding to the capital with their victims. The sports began in the morning by horse-races on the banks of the Ilissus, in which the sons of the most distinguished citizens contended for the victory. Next came the wrestling and gymnastic exercises, in the stadium, succeeded by the gentler and less perilous competitions in the odeum, where the most exquisite musicians executed rival pieces on the flute, or cithara, while others sang, and accompanied their

* Anacharsis, vol. ii. cap. 24.