IV. MORALS

The Athenians of the fifth century are not exemplars of morality; the progress of the intellect has loosened many of them from their ethical traditions, and has turned them into almost unmoral individuals. They have a high reputation for legal justice, but they are seldom altruistic to any but their children; conscience rarely troubles them, and they never dream of loving their neighbors as themselves. Manners vary from class to class; in the dialogues of Plato life is graced with a charming courtesy, but in the comedies of Aristophanes there are no manners at all, and in public oratory personal abuse is relied upon as the very soul of eloquence; in such matters the Greeks have much to learn from the time-polished “barbarians” of Egypt or Persia or Babylon. Salutation is cordial but simple; there is no bowing, for that seems to the proud citizens a vestige of monarchy; handshaking is reserved for oaths or solemn farewells; usually the greeting is merely Chaire—“Rejoice”—followed, as elsewhere, by some brilliant remark about the weather.³⁷

Hospitality has lessened since Homeric days, for travel is a little more secure than then, and inns provide food and shelter for transients; even so it remains an outstanding virtue of the Athenians. Strangers are welcomed though without introduction; if they come with letters from a common friend, they receive bed and board, and sometimes parting gifts. An invited guest is always privileged to bring an uninvited guest with him. This freedom of entry gives rise in time to a class of parasites—parasitoi—a word originally applied to the clergy who ate the “corn left over” from the temple supplies. The well to do are generous givers in both public and private philanthropy; the practice as well as the word is Greek. Charity—charitas, or love—is also present; there are many institutions for the care of strangers, the sick, the poor, and the old.³⁸ The government provides pensions for wounded soldiers, and brings up war orphans at the expense of the state; in the fourth century it will make payments to disabled workmen.³⁹ In periods of drought, war, or other crisis, the state pays two obols (34 cents) a day to the needy, in addition to the regular fees for attendance at the Assembly, the courts, and the plays. There are the normal scandals; a speech of Lysias concerns a man who, though on public relief, has rich men for his friends, earns money by his handicraft, and rides horses for recreation.⁴⁰

The Greek might admit that honesty is the best policy, but he tries everything else first. The chorus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes expresses the tenderest sympathy for the wounded and deserted soldier, and then takes advantage of his slumber to counsel Neoptolemus to betray him, steal his weapons, and leave him to his fate. Everyone complains that the Athenian retailers adulterate their goods, give short weight and short change despite the government inspectors, shift the fulcrum of their scales towards the measuring weights,^40a and lie at every opportunity; the sausages, for example, are accused of being dogs.⁴¹ A comic dramatist calls the fishmongers “assassins”; a gentler poet calls them “burglars.”⁴² The politicians are not much better; there is hardly a man in Athenian public life that is not charged with crookedness;⁴³ an honest man like Aristides is considered exciting news, almost a monstrosity; even Diogenes’ daytime lantern does not find another. Thucydides reports that men are more anxious to be called clever than honest, and suspect honesty of simplicity.⁴⁴ It is an easy matter to find Greeks who will betray their country: “At no time,” says Pausanias, “was Greece wanting in people afflicted with this itch for treason.”⁴⁵ Bribery is a popular way to political advancement, criminal impunity, diplomatic accomplishments; Pericles has large sums voted to him for secret uses, presumably for lubricating international negotiations. Morality is strictly tribal; Xenophon, in a treatise on education, frankly advises lying and robbery in dealing with the enemies of one’s country.⁴⁶ The Athenian envoys at Sparta in 432 defend their empire in plain terms: “It has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger . . . no one has ever allowed the cry for justice to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything by might”⁴⁷—though this passage, and the supposed speech of the Athenian leaders at Melos,⁴⁸ may be exercises of Thucydides’ philosophical imagination, inflamed by the cynical discourses of certain Sophists; it would be as fair to judge the Greeks from the unconventional ethics of Gorgias, Callicles, Thrasymachus, and Thucydides as it would be to describe the modern European by the brilliant bizarreries of Machiavelli, La Rochefoucauld, Nietzsche, and Stirner—not saying how fair that would be. That something of this superiority to morals is an active ingredient in the Greek character appears in the readiness with which the Spartans agree with the Athenians on these mooted points of morals. When the Lacedaemonian Phoebidas, despite a treaty of peace, treacherously seizes upon the citadel of Thebes, and the Spartan King Agesilaus is questioned about the justice of this action, he replies: “Inquire only if it is useful; for whenever an action is useful to our country it is right.” Time and again truces are violated, solemn promises are broken, envoys are slain.⁴⁹ Perhaps, however, the Greeks differ from ourselves not in conduct but in candor; our greater delicacy makes it offensive to us to preach what we practice.

Custom and religion among the Greeks exercise a very modest restraint upon the victor in war. It is a regular matter, even in civil wars, to sack the conquered city, to finish off the wounded, to slaughter or enslave all unransomed prisoners and all captured noncombatants, to burn down the houses, the fruit trees, and the crops, to exterminate the live stock, and to destroy the seed for future sowings.⁵⁰ At the opening of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans butcher as enemies all Greeks whom they find on the sea, whether allies of Athens or neutrals;⁵¹ at the battle of Aegospotami,which closes the war, the Spartans put to death three thousand Athenian prisoners⁵²—almost the selected best of Athens’ depleted citizenry. War of some kind—of city against city or of class against class—is a normal condition in Hellas. In this way the Greece that defeated the King of Kings turns upon itself, Greek meets Greek in a thousand battles, and in the course of a century after Marathon the most brilliant civilization in history consumes itself in a prolonged national suicide.