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ANCIENT LITERATURE.

By a Virginian, now a Citizen of Ohio.

XENOPHON.

We have sometimes been led to fear that in the flood-tide of modern literature, amid the numerous works of fiction and fancy, the easy narrative, the minute display of petty passions and fine shades of character and feeling in which the writers of the present day excel, the standard works of ancient literature would fall into neglect, and be, for all practical purposes, forgotten by our reading public.

We do not entirely acquit ourselves and our reviewing fraternity of all blame in aiding the tendency to this result. We have, or are supposed to have, to do only with that which is new and fresh before the reading public. We are expected to be their tasters at the sumptuous and varied feast served up out of the fresh products of each abundant year; to invite their attention to what is savory and wholesome on the wellspread board, and to warn them against all that is noxious or insipid. Laboring in this our vocation, we seldom ourselves find leisure to look back upon the past-to revel in the rich productions of other ages and other climes-and we feel nothing of the glow of original conception, no pride as the discoverer of hidden merit, when we commend those writings of high antiquity which need not the sanction of our judgment, because they have been consecrated by time.

No. VII.

FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

common merit. It is that they show us, both in great and in little things, in the highest aspirations of thought and feeling, as well as in the most common amusements and frivolity, the absolute identity of our race, and that man is now just what he was in the earliest age to which we can trace him, even in the very dawn of his history. Greatly as the circumstances in which he is placed are changed, and though the external man be moulded and modified to adapt itself to that which surrounds him, yet in all that goes to make up the being, in the unity of character, in his actions arising out of any given condition in which we find or place him, we see him to have been then just that which under like conditions we feel that he is now. Thus through the long lapse of ages, in remote lands and in different climes, in the first dawn of history, in the earliest poem and in the oldest proverb, we recognize the developments of the same nature which is still our own, and instinctively claim fellowship with the shadowy memories of the past.

We do not propose to write a dissertation upon ancient literature, or to institute a comparison between ancient and modern writers; but, led by the reflections which we have sketched, and with them for our apology, we invite our readers to sit down with us for one short hour, and renew his schoolboy acquaintance with one of the most beautiful writers and one of the most adventurous and generous spirits of antiquity-the bold, the simple, the elegant and classic Xenophon.

We do not write for scholars, but for ourselves and for the reading public. We refer to no Greek text, but to an excellent translation of the works of our author, which is to be found in any of our bookstores, and which may be read as a recreation by those who found it in the original a labor and a task, and with equal profit by those to whom in that original it was a sealed book.

We do not feel a blind veneration for antiquity, however much we may admire all that is excellent in what has been transmitted to us from remote times. We cannot but be struck with the vast inferiority of the ancients in all that relates to the physical sciences; and we are Xenophon was one of the scholars of Socrates, advised that they had in their day and genera- and imbibed deeply the opinions and philosophy tion multitudes of trashy writers, as well as of that extraordinary man. He lived at the time we-men who could write by the quantity for a when Athens had fallen under the dominion of wager-who, like Lucilius, could compose two | Sparta, and that iron power ruled in Greece hundred verses standing upon one leg-but their when the Persian Empire under Darius and Archaff has been long since given to the winds, and they have left us only the winnowed grain. There is one point of view in which we look with delight on some of the relics of antiquity, which would else, perhaps, in our eyes have but

taxerxes, his son, was in all its glory, and the Emperor was known among the States of Ionia and Greece as "the Great King"-when the Carthaginians ruled in Western Africa and Spain and were conquerors in Sicily, and when

VoL. IV.45

Yet it is just to suppose that he was jealous of the honor of his master, rather than of the comparative success of his own and Plato's treatise concerning him. His declared purpose was to appeal in behalf of Socrates, to the tribunal, "not where the Athenians were judges, but to all who consider the virtue of the man ;" and he was unwilling that his stern virtue and practical wisdom should be discolored or tinged by even a glow of poetic fancy.

Rome, which has since slowly risen, spread | we cannot be persuaded they deserve any study. wide its empire, lived out its appointed day, and I am not only careful of losing the honor due to crumbled to pieces and fell, so as to be itself learning, but tender also of Socrates, lest his among the remembrances of the long past, was virtue should incur any prejudice by my ill relaan inconsiderable city of a rude and barbarous tion of it." people, almost unknown and unnoticed by its more polished neighbors. Yet in searching the papers of this accomplished author, we enter into his thoughts and feelings as if he were of our own time-we sympathize with him as a friend whom we know and love, and feel that we could with him, or such as he was, pass a convivial hour very happily and much at our ease, and (all conventional forms aside) find him a gentleman, well fitted to adorn the social circle, to improve by his intelligence and delight by his wit; and we almost forget the mighty chasm of ages on ages of perishable States and Empires, and still more perishable man, which separates him from us.

The first thing that strikes us in the writings of Xenophon, indicative of his character, is the love and veneration which he bears to the person and memory of Socrates, and his care and attention to all that remains of him. While Xenophon lived in his native city, in his youth and early manhood, he was a constant follower of Socrates, devoted to his person and obedient to his counsels. During this period occurred most of those conversations which he has given in his "Memoirs of Socrates." They are narrated with much spirit, and contain in them, as we have reason to suppose, much more of the "father sage" than do similar notices from the pen of his other celebrated pupil, Plato. Xenophon indeed intimates in one of his epistles, that there is more of poetry than truth in Plato's account of the sayings of that philosopher, though he seems to speak, not without some slight tincture of rivalry. Writing to Lamprocles, son of Socrates, he says:

"I have a design to collect the sayings and actions of Socrates, which will be his best apology, both now and for the future, not in the court where the Athenians are judges, but to all who consider the virtue of the man, If we should not write this freely, it were a sin against friendship and truth. Even now there fell into my hands a piece of Plato's to that effect, wherein is the name of Socrates, and some discourses of his not unpleasant. But we must profess that we heard not, nor can commit to writing any in that kind, for we are not poets as he is, though he renounce poetry."

And in writing to Cebes and Simmias, he says:

"Plato, though absent, is much admired throughout Italy and Sicily for his treatises; but

In the first book of his Memoirs, he incidentally details a conversation between Pericles and Alcibiades, in which we find, in substance, Sir William Blackstone's definition of law. Alci biades, then a youth, having requested Pericles to explain to him "what a law is," Pericles replies:

"Your request, my Alcibiades, is not difficult to be complied with; for that is a law which the people agree upon in their public assemblies, and afterwards cause to be promulgated in a proper manner, ordaining what ought, and what ought not, to be done.”

And what do they ordain; good, or evil?" "Not evil, surely, my young friend." "But what do you call that," said Alcibiades, "which in states where the people have no rule, is advised and ordained by the few who may be in power?"

"I call that likewise a law," replied Pericles; "for laws are nothing but the injunctions of such men as are in possession of the sovereign authority."

But the young inquirer led the experienced statesman into those intricate mazes of social and political obligation, in which so many have been bewildered in our own times, and through difficulties inherent in the nature of government, for which a written constitution is the only remedy, and that, perhaps, not always effectual.

"But," said Alcibiades, "when a tyrant is possessed of this sovereign authority, are the things he ordains to be received as laws?" "As laws," returned Pericles.

"What then is violence and injustice?" said Alcibiades. "Is it not when the strong compel the weak, not by mildness and persuasion, but by force, to obey them?"

"I think it is."

"Will it not then follow, that what a tyrant decrees, and compels the observance of, contrary to the will of the people, is not law, but violence ?"

"I believe it may," answered Pericles; " for I cannot admit that as a law, which a tyrant enacts, contrary to the will of the people." "And when the few impose their decrees upon the many, not by persuasion, but by force, are we to call this also violence?"

"We are: and truly, I think," said Pericles, "that whatever is decreed and enforced without the consent of those who are to obey, is not law, but violence."

"Then ought that which is decreed by the people contrary to the will of the nobles, to be deemed violence, rather than law?"

"No doubt of it,” replied Pericles. "But, my Alcibiades, at your age we were somewhat more acute in these nice subtleties, when we made it our business to consider them."

In the same book, in a conversation with Aristodemus, an atheist, Socrates gives a brief but striking outline of that view of natural theology which Mr. Paley has so fully elaborated in his work on that subject.

"Tell me," said he, "Aristodemus, is there any man whom you admire on account of his merit ?"

Aristodemus having answered, "Many""Name some of them," said Socrates, "I pray you."

"I admire," said Aristodemus, "Homer for his epic poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for his tragedy, Polycletes for statuary, and Xeuxis for painting."

savory and unsavory, unless a palate had been given, conveniently placed to arbitrate between them and declare the difference? Is not that Providence in a most eminent manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of man is so delicate in its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors, whereby to secure it, which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, and again close when sleep approaches? Are not the eyelids provided, as it were, with a fence on the edge of them, to keep off the wind and guard the eye? Even the eyebrow itself is not without its office, but as a pent-house, is prepared to turn off the sweat falling from the forehead, which might enter and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part of us. Is it not to be admired that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and yet are not too much filled by them? That the fore teeth of the animal should be formed in such a manner as is evidently best suited for cutting of its food, as those on the side for grinding it in pieces? That the mouth, through which the food is conveyed, is placed so near the nose and eyes, as to prevent the passing unnoticed, whatsoever is unfit for nourishment? And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like these should be the work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance ?"

How strong his argument and how beautiful his illustrations! We must not forget that the light of Revelation was not yet upon the earth; and the Creator of the universe could be known only by his works.

"But which seems to you most worthy of admiration, Aristodemus; the artist who forms images void of motion and intelligence, or one Xenophon says of Socrates, that "when he who hath the skill to produce animals that are prayed, his petition was only this: 'that the endued not only with activity, but understand-gods would give to him those things that were ing?"

"The latter, there can be no doubt," replied Aristodemus, "provided the production be not the effect of chance, but of wisdom and contrivance."

"But since there are many things, some of which we can easily see the use of, while we cannot say of others, to what purpose they were produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do you suppose the work of wisdom?”

"It would seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness and utility is so evidently apparent."

"But," replied Socrates, "it is evidently apparent, that He who made man endued him with senses because they were good for him; eyes wherewith to behold whatever was visible, and ears to hear whatever was to be heard. And say, Aristodemus, to what purpose should odors be prepared, if the sense of smelling were denied? or why the distinctions of bitter and sweet,

good; and this he did forasmuch as they only knew what was good for man." The same with the prayer commended to us by Doctor Johnson in the conclusion of his beautiful poem on the Vanity of Human Wishes:

"Still raise for good the supplicating voice,

But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice."

In the feast of Callias, we are made present almost in very deed, at a fine scene of ancient conviviality. To this we will take leave to

introduce our readers.

"During the feast of Minerva, there was a solemn tournament, whither Callias, who tenderly loved Autolicus, carried him, which was soon after the victory which that youth had obtained at the Olympic games. When the shows were over, Callias taking Autolicus and his father with him, went down from the city to his house in the Pireum, with Nicerates, the son

of Nicias. But upon the way meeting Socrates, | soul, to abstain from kissing handsome women. Hermogenes, Critobulus, Antisthenes and Car-Carmides retorts, and effectually turns the tables mides, discoursing together, he gave orders to upon the old philosopher.

one of his people to conduct Autolicus and those "What," said Carmides, "must I be afraid of of his company to his house; and addressing coming near a handsome woman? Nevertheless, himself to Socrates and those who were with I remember very well, and I believe you do too, him, "I could not," said he, "have met with Socrates, that being one day in company with you more opportunely: I treat to-day Autolicus Critobulus's beautiful sister, who resembles him and his father; and, if I am not deceived, per- so much, as we were searching for a passage sons like you, who have their souls purified by in some author, you held your head very close to refined contemplations, would do much more that beautiful virgin, and I thought you seemed honor to our assembly, than your colonels of to take pleasure in touching her naked shoulder horse, captains of foot, and other gentlemen of with yours." business, who are full of nothing but their offices and employments." "You are always upon the banter," said Socrates; "for, since you gave so much money to Protagoras, Georgias and Prodicas, to be instructed in wisdom, you make but little account of us, who have no other assistance but ourselves to acquire knowledge." ""Tis true," said Callias, "hitherto I have concealed from you a thousand fine things I learned in the conversation of those gentlemen; but if you will sup with me this evening, I will teach you all I know, and after that I do not doubt you will say I am a man of consequence."

Then follows a humorous contest between Socrates and Critobulus for the prize of beauty. Socrates gives the challenge.

Critob. "Come, I will not refuse to enter the lists for once with you: pray then use all your eloquence, and let us know how you prove your self to be handsomer than I."

Socrates. "That shall be done presently: bring but a light, and the thing is done." Crit. "But, in order to state the question, will you allow me to ask you a few questions?" Soc. "I will."

Crit. "But, on second thought, I will give you leave to ask what questions you please first." Soc. "Agreed. Do you believe beauty is no where to be found but in man?"

Crit. "Yes, certainly, in other creatures too, whether animate, as a horse or bull, or inanimate things, as we say, that is a handsome sword, a fine shield, &c."

Soc. "But how comes it then, that things so very different as these, should yet all of them be handsome ?"

Soc. "Do you know the use of eyes?"
Crit. "To see."

Soc. "Well! it is for that very reason mine are handsomer than yours."

Socrates and his party accepted the invitation, and we soon find them seated at the supper table, which, like all other entertainments, whether called supper or dinner, was at the beginning dull enough. "A profound silence was observed, as though it had been enjoined." By-and-by, a buffoon entered, who tried to raise a laugh, but failed. After the first course, and they had made "effusion of wine in honor of the gods, a certain Syracusan entered, leading in a handsome girl, who played on the flute, another that danced and Crit. "Because they are well made, either by showed very nimble feats of activity, and a beau-art or nature, for the purposes they are employed tiful little boy, who danced, and played perfectly in." well on the guitar." Socrates became talkative. He complimented Callias on the liberality and good taste displayed in the entertainment; said some happy things in praise of the wives of Critobulus and Nicerates, two married gentlemen of the party; he recited some poetry, and the dancing girl's elegant performance drew from him some fine observations on the comparative beauty of objects at rest and in motion, together with a whimsical declaration that he himself was determined to learn to dance. The Amphytrion, Callias, called out all his guests, by requiring each to tell what he most valued himself for; and, as an interlude to this, Socrates banters Carmides, a young man of the party, about his excessive fondness for his mistress, Amandra, and taxes him with having snatched a kiss from her in his presence; and he sagely advises Carmides, if he would preserve the liberty of his

Crit. "Your reason."

Soc. "Yours see only in a direct line; but, as for mine, I can look not only directly forward, as you, but sideways too, they being seated on a kind of ridge on my face, and staring out." Crit. "At that rate, a crab has the advantage of all other animals in matter of eyes."

Soc. "Certainly; for theirs are incomparably more solid and better situated than any other creature's."

Crit. "Be it so as to eyes; but as to your nose, would you make me believe yours is better shaped than mine?"

Soc. "There is no room to doubt, if it be granted that the nose was made for the sense of

smelling; for, your nostrils are turned down- | number of these mercenary troops in his pay, ward, but mine are wide, and turned up toward with a view of employing them in an attempt heaven, to receive smells that come from every part," &c.

And thus for some time in detail taking off the uncouthness of his own person, in a better vein than it was ever done by his bitter satirist, Aristophanes. The world is not ready to admit that a man when he is once dubbed a philosopher, can ever after say any thing in sport; but we make him, whether he will or not, always speak oracles. So it has fared with many of the ludicrous paradoxes of Socrates, uttered in the humor of the moment, by way of parrying a jest, or of showing the skill with which he could handle the light weapons of the sophist. At the banquet he was rallied by one of the guests upon the intolerable temper of his wife, Xantippe; and his pleasant reply has induced half the world to believe that he really married a vixen by way of improving his own temper,

The concluding incident of the banquet is referred to by Mr. Addison in one of his Spectators, (No. 500,) but he attributes to the eloquence of Socrates, in a discourse on marriage, the effect which was produced by a scene between Bacchus and Ariadne, as exhibited by the party of the Syracusan.

Xenophon's account of the Expedition of Cyrus and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, is, in our opinion, a most perfect specimen of historic writing, containing also much of the interest of personal narrative. Upon this we must touch but briefly; premising, however, a general outline of the condition of the parties engaged in that enterprise, and the causes which involved them in its perils.

which he had long meditated upon his brother's crown and throne. Affairs being at last ripe for action, he collected at Sardis his Grecian force, about thirteen thousand strong, where they were joined by about a hundred thousand Asiatics, with the ostensible purpose of marching against the Pisidians, a mountain race not yet subjected to the Persian yoke. Xenophon, in his third book, explains the manner in which he was drawn into this enterprise.

"There was in the army an Athenian, by name Xenophon, who, without being a general, a captain or a soldier, served as a volunteer; for, having been long attached to Proxenus by the rights of hospitality, the latter sent for him from home, with a promise, if he came, to recommend him to Cyrus; from whom, he said, he expected greater advantages than from his own country. Xenophon having read the letter, consulted Socrates, the Athenian, concerning the voyage, who fearing lest his country might look upon his attachment to Cyrus as criminal, because that prince was thought to have espoused the interest of the Lacedemonians against the Athenians with great warmth, advised Xenophon to go to Delphos, and consult the oracle concerning the matter. Xenophon went thither accordingly, and asked Apollo to which of the gods he should offer sacrifice and address his prayers, to the end that he might perform the voyage in the best and most reputable manner, and, after a happy issue of it, return in safety. Apollo answered, that he should sacrifice to the proper gods. At his return, he acquainted Socrates with this answer, who blamed him because he had not asked Apollo whether it were better for him to undertake the

The ascendency which Sparta held in Greece at the time of this expedition, was partly acqui-voyage, in the first place, than to stay at home; red by the alliance and aid of the rich and voluptuous court of Persia. At the same time the Persian held a doubtful empire over the maritime states and cities on the borders of the Hellespont, the eastern coast and many of the islands of the Archipelago, and the adjacent shore of the Mediterranean sea. Darius Ochus died: Artaxerxes, his son, ascended the throne, and Cyrus, brother of Artaxerxes by the same mother, became satrap of the western portion of the empire and "general of all the people assembled in the plain of Castolus." In the wars which the Persians were constantly waging with their half conquered provinces in the west, large bodies of Greek adventurers, won by Persian gold, formed their most effective troops. These naturally fell under the command of Cyrus, who seems to have formed a high estimate of their military skill and prowess; and he kept for many years a large

but, having himself first determined to undertake it, he had consulted him on the most proper means of performing it with success; but since, said he, you have asked this, you ought to do what the god commanded. Xenophon, therefore, having offered sacrifice to the gods, according to the direction of the oracle, set sail, and found Proxenus and Cyrus at Sardis, ready to march towards the upper Asia. Here he was presented to Cyrus, and Proxenus pressing him to stay, Cyrus was no less earnest in persuading him, and assured him, as soon as the expedition was at an end, he would dismiss him; this he pretended was against the Pisidians."

The Greeks, all except Clearchus, the Lacedemonian general, who was no doubt from the first in the counsels of Cyrus, were led on by various artifices, until it became more dangerous to return than to go forward; then they at last

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