DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0405
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE OLDER ATTIC SCHOOL. 369
accelerate their maturity and to make them predominant in the Grecian
world.
Great indeed was the change produced in the region of art, as well
as in every other phase of Greek life and civilisation, by the results of
this long and sanguinary war ; and we shall gain the clearest idea of
the characteristics of the new school, and the state of things from
which they sprang, by contrasting them with those of the Periclean
age. The latter, as we have seen, took its colour from the events and
results of the Persian wars. The sudden call to meet the giant power
of Darius produced nothing less than a political and social revolution
in Greece. Resistance was determined on, but resistance was possible
to the Greeks only on condition of their being ready to sacrifice every
selfish interest and feeling to the general weal. To give the Athenian
State any chance of success in the tremendous conflict with Persia the
whole force of the country must be placed at its disposal—the indi-
vidual must be valued, and value himself, only so far as he could pro-
mote his country's honour and independence.
The Athenians who came to the front in this awful crisis had been
inclined, like their Ionian kinsmen in Asia Minor, to luxury and
effeminacy ; they had been divided into factions, and the rich and noble
had tyrannised over the poor. But only freemen could be expected
to risk all for the preservation of national independence, and only the
self-denying and the temperate would prefer labour, privation, and
danger to gilded slavery. It is characteristic of the crisis that the
Athenians at this period changed the long flowing Ionian robes for
the short woollen tunic, more suitable to the exigencies of a hard)'
active life. The resolute turn which then took place in the life of
the Athenians towards simplicity, manliness, self-restraint, and sub-
ordination of the individual to the State, continued during the
whole of the Periclean age, and greatly influenced the character of
Attic art.
The religious feeling of the nation too was powerfully worked
upon by the events of the Persian war, and was most closely and
favourably connected with the development of the noblest art. Un-
doubting faith in the existence and intervention of the Gods still
ruled in the heart of the nation, and the feeling of reverential awe
accelerate their maturity and to make them predominant in the Grecian
world.
Great indeed was the change produced in the region of art, as well
as in every other phase of Greek life and civilisation, by the results of
this long and sanguinary war ; and we shall gain the clearest idea of
the characteristics of the new school, and the state of things from
which they sprang, by contrasting them with those of the Periclean
age. The latter, as we have seen, took its colour from the events and
results of the Persian wars. The sudden call to meet the giant power
of Darius produced nothing less than a political and social revolution
in Greece. Resistance was determined on, but resistance was possible
to the Greeks only on condition of their being ready to sacrifice every
selfish interest and feeling to the general weal. To give the Athenian
State any chance of success in the tremendous conflict with Persia the
whole force of the country must be placed at its disposal—the indi-
vidual must be valued, and value himself, only so far as he could pro-
mote his country's honour and independence.
The Athenians who came to the front in this awful crisis had been
inclined, like their Ionian kinsmen in Asia Minor, to luxury and
effeminacy ; they had been divided into factions, and the rich and noble
had tyrannised over the poor. But only freemen could be expected
to risk all for the preservation of national independence, and only the
self-denying and the temperate would prefer labour, privation, and
danger to gilded slavery. It is characteristic of the crisis that the
Athenians at this period changed the long flowing Ionian robes for
the short woollen tunic, more suitable to the exigencies of a hard)'
active life. The resolute turn which then took place in the life of
the Athenians towards simplicity, manliness, self-restraint, and sub-
ordination of the individual to the State, continued during the
whole of the Periclean age, and greatly influenced the character of
Attic art.
The religious feeling of the nation too was powerfully worked
upon by the events of the Persian war, and was most closely and
favourably connected with the development of the noblest art. Un-
doubting faith in the existence and intervention of the Gods still
ruled in the heart of the nation, and the feeling of reverential awe