The age of Pericles is justly regarded as attaining the high-water mark of Greek cul ture. At this time Athens became the chief city of Greece and the centre of Mediterranean civilization. Here the various excellences of the several Hellenic stocks, Doric, .Folic and Ionic, were tempered and united in one superior blend of character. Here the streams of dialect merged into one clear, vigorous and beautiful medium of expression, the Attic. Here the early systems of philosophy which had arisen in distant Asia Minor or near-by Megara were sifted and incorporated in the native systems of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Here was de veloped tragedy; hither came comedy from Syracuse. Here the Homeric poems were learned by heart as the one basic element of education; and tragedies founded upon stories from the great epic tradition became familiar to a populace, large numbers of whom in course of time took part in the choruses. In this period, Athenian life was characterized by the dominance of a regulated imagination in every sphere of activity, and by a complete inter penetration of theory and practice. Imagina tion, hand in hand with reason, appeared in the ordering of the state, in the development of commerce and colonization, in the public festi vals and religion, in the consummation of every fine and every useful art. In fact, the dis tinction between fine and useful art was not observed, so that even the commonest utensils became objects of beauty, to be wondered at by subsequent ages. For the simultaneous flourish ing of sculpture, painting, architecture, music and poetry, no other age can be compared with this,. unless, perhaps, the 13th century of our era. But in Greece the arts subsisted in closer combination with each other, with the functions of the state, with religion and with life. Wit ness the Attic tragedy and comedy, which arose in the worship of Dionysus, and were associated with the chief religious festivals and proces sions; were exhibited in a theatre which was virtually a temple of the god, a masterpiece of architecture in marble, capable of holding a large share of the free populace at once; were supported by a state that supplied every citizen with the price of admission; were produced by poets who took part in the acting as well as in training the actors, and who were eligible to any office in the democracy—as Sophocles was ap pointed one of the ten generals who led against the revolt in Samos; were attended by strangers from every part of Greece — serving to unify the Hellenic con sciousness; and in fact combined in one our modern drama, opera, dancing and lyrical poetry, with the embellishments of the best landscape painting and artistic costume.
But Greek civilization was something more than what the Greeks actually accomplished, in art, or in commerce, or in statesmanship. The creator is greater than his works. More im portant than what they wrought were the agents, the men themselves, with their ability to produce both these and other works — with their unlimited capacity for contemplation and construction — for the highest kind of action, the orderly life of the spirit. Greek civiliza tion means Phidias and Praxiteles, the sculp tors, rather than the small part of their work now remaining. It means Ictinus, the arch itect; Socrates, Anaxagoras and Plato, the philosophers; Pindar, the lyric poet; Hero dotus and Thucydides, the historians; Demos thenes, the orator; Aristophanes, the comic poet; 2Eschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the masters of tragedy; and Pericles, the states man, the artist and philosopher in govern ment. There were also strange, indecent men, like Diogenes; and bad or irresponsible men, like Alcibiades and Cleon. Yet on the whole
the Athenians maintained a norm of good and beautiful conduct, observing measure in all things, even while devoting themselves each to his chosen way of life and communal service; for the life of the individual was subordinated to the welfare of the state, and found complete realization therein — the state did not, as in modern times, mainly exist for the sake of the individual.
From this wonderful group and succession of gifted and cultivated men, whose activities really constituted the essence of Greek civiliza tion, it is customary, following the example of Thucydides and Plutarch, to single out Pericles, leader and conserver of the Athenian polity, as the representative citizen and the type of Hellenic culture. Grave and reserved, fearless and eloquent, combining judgment with imagination, intelligence with sentiment, fore thought with passion, of commanding presence, endowed, as it seemed to his fellows, with every physical excellence and power of mind and possessed of the good breeding which is the crown of virtue, he might well have sat for the character-sketch of the "Highminded Man* that is drawn by Aristotle in the Nico machean But for our purposes of illustration the magnanimous Sophocles may serve even better. For, first, he is a poet, or "maker," par excellence; and examples of his work are still intact — while the Penclean state came to a sudden termination. And secondly, it is easier to compare him with other typical Greeks, since he occupies the place of a golden mean betwixt the religious iEschylus, who "did right" as a dramatist "without knowing why," and the rationalist and realist Euripides, who drew men "as they are"; whereas Sophocles, as he himself was aware, proceeded aright from correct principles of art as well as correct sentiments, and, observing men and human life even more truly than did Euripides, neverthe less properly idealized his characters for the ends of tragic representation. As in his own life, so in elaborating his dramas and in the very process of displaying the misfortunes of a self-blinded tEdipus, he shows how the artistic regulation of impulse leads to success and hap piness. Nor did his fellow-Athenians blunder in their estimate of him, for in the dramatic contests he secured first prize no fewer than 20 times. Moreover, in the comedy of the Aristophanes, with his keen eye for dispropor tion, ridicules /Eschylus somewhat, and Eurip ides yet more, for departing on this side or that from the golden mean, while he significantly re frains from attempting to distort the work of Sophocles.
As a typical Greek, Sophocles is religious; not, like the Athenians in their later decadence, "too religious," as Saint Paul described them. He is also many-sided, with a number of diverse faculties ready for the accomplishment of both his immediate and his final aim. But the unity and compactness of structure in his (CEdipus Rex) or his 'Antigone> reflect the inner unity of spirit in the author. Sophocles knows when to amplify and when to inhibit ; he is equally sensitive to broad perspective and to the value of each detail. His vision is steady and comprehensive, as a comparison of the eighth Psalm, in the Bible, with his chorus on man, in the will disclose. He has formed a just estimate of the relation between external nature, mankind and the Divine. In the delineation of charaoter he has never been sur passed, yet his plays do not, like those of Shakespeare, fail to take direct cognizance of the action of a higher Divine power (not merely of an impersonal moral law) in the affairs of men.