It is, however, a singular fact that plunder and piracy were considered honorable. Achilles, Odysseus, and Menelaus plunder whenever they can, either by artifice or by force. It was customary in welcoming a stranger to ask him whether his object in traveling was to enrich himself by piracy, just as we might to-day ask of a person whether his object be to enrich himself by mercantile speculation.*

The Greeks of the heroic age had no consciousness of their moral superiority to other races. The word "barbarian," which was afterward applied to all foreign nations, does not appear to have been in general use in that early period, nor to have conveyed the idea of mental or moral inferiority in the nations to whom it was applied. Homer uses the term only when speaking of a foreign language, or of a coarse and uncultivated provincial dialect.

The geographical knowledge of the heroic ages was very limited and unsatisfactory. In the Odyssey Homer displays a more extensive acquaintance with the land of Greece. than in the Iliad, which was composed before the former poem; and it is evident that he must at some period of his life have quitted his native Smyrna, and traveled extensively in Greece proper.

The costly and magnificent works of art with which the splendid apartments of Alkinous, of Menelaus, and of the other nobles were adorned, came from the East, the nations of which were at that early period vastly superior to Greece both in riches and manufactures. The precious

* It must be borne in mind, however, that piracy even among other ancient nations was not unusual. It was practiced by the Romans as late as the fifth century B. C.; for in their second treaty with the Carthaginians it was stipulated that the Romans should not practice piracy anywhere near the Punic settlements on the Spanish coast, nor engage in traffic with the natives of those parts, nor establish any colonies there; from which it may -be conjectured that plundering, trafficking, and colonizing were in those times regarded as collateral and equally legitimate occupations.

and elegantly carved breastplate of Agamemnon was a present from the island of Kypros (Cyprus). The very high esteem in which artists were held in Greece shows plainly that they were rare in that land. The arms were of bronze, not of iron, which came into use at a later period, although known as early as the time of Hesiod.

The most difficult operations in warfare were the sieges. Before the Homeric epoch, cities and villages were built, for greater security, upon inaccessible rocks and eminences. Afterward, when industry, the arts, and the social relations received greater development, the cities were extended to the plains below, and the "upper town" was generally abandoned as a place of residence, and simply called the citadel. The cities described in the Homeric poems are to be referred to the transition period, but were none the less strongly fortified; therefore their capture was difficult, engines of attack not having yet been invented. It was necessary either to shut off their supplies by a regular blockade, or to have recourse to deceit ; the long siege of Troy, and the final capture of the city by means of the stratagem of the wooden horse, being a case in point.

The notions of the Greeks in regard to the divinity were crude and childlike, and this circumstance, together with their warlike and independent manner of life, somehow led them to a proud consciousness of the worth and dignity of man; insomuch that they did not scruple to attribute to the gods not only the same forms, but also the same thoughts and passions, as to themselves.

The minstrel, sometimes accompanying his words with the lyre, sang at the festivals the achievements of heroes, and more especially the news of the day, if the latter were unknown to his hearers. The profession of a minstrel was especially honored. In the Odyssey the poet applies the epithet "divine" to the minstrel Phemius; and there are many other similar passages.

We can not form an accurate idea from the Homeric poems whether or not architecture had reached any great degree of perfection. The poet mentions "resplendent," "beautiful," "sparkling," "high-vaulted" apartments; but the praises that he lavishes on ornaments and decorations seem to refer to their costly material rather than to their graceful shape or proportions. The earliest buildings of which we find a record had their floors paved with stones, as was also the case with the Agora, or market-place. The most ancient of the buildings were the so-called “treasurehouses," some of which have been discovered in Mykenæ, Orchomenus, and Amykla. These buildings were conical in shape, and appear to have been used as tombs at first, though they were afterward, as their name indicates, turned into depositories for the treasures of the nobles. The monuments, both in their construction and ornamentation, show some advancement in architecture. Homer mentions various works of sculpture, goblets most exquisitely fashioned, beautiful glasses, highly polished and cunningly wrought throughout. The shield of Achilles, described in the Iliad, contained many groups of faces; and the hall of Alkinous was guarded by golden dogs, and lighted by candelabra in tho form of statuettes of young men holding torches. Numerous other examples might be adduced to show the degree of excellence which the metallic art, if it may be so termed, had attained during the Homeric period.

Objects of worship in this earlier epoch exhibit an even more exquisite sense of the beautiful than those fashioned in later ages. Pausanias, who traveled in Greece in the second century after Christ, mentions many such images and statues as still existing. The substance first employed by sculptors in the construction of their works was baked earth. In later years metal came to be used, and still later stone and marble.

The names of most of the characters of the Hellenic alpha

bet, their order, and their shape upon the ancient tombs, establish the truth of the tradition that the Greeks derived their alphabet from Phoenicia. It is not known definitely whether writing was in use during the heroic times. The Homeric poems give no clear evidence of it. In one passage of the Iliad it is said that Bellerophon brought to the king of Lykia sealed tablets inscribed with a mystic order that the bearer should be put to death; but whether these were written letters, hieroglyphic characters, or images, is not certain.

Such was the life of the Hellenic race during the heroic times. Their religious myths show that they were far from attaining to a knowledge of the true significance of the Supreme Being. The measures of government were irregular, but based on the same sound principles which afterward became wonderfully developed into free political constitutions. Manners and customs were rough and uncultivated, but contained the germs of all those virtues which in later years were destined to adorn the characters of men whose memory will be honored as long as mankind shall continue to esteem the beautiful, the brave, and the noble. Science and art were still in their infancy; but in poetry we have two masterpieces, twin works, bearing the immortal name of Homer,* and sufficient in themselves to glorify and immortalize a nation. The Hellenic race, therefore, not only contained within itself at

* The theory that no such man as Homer existed, and that the works attributed to him are the separate compositions of several poets, afterward ingeniously combined into elaborate poems, has been for centuries the theme of discussion among scholars. We are inclined, however, to believe that the poems were preserved for several generations solely in the memory of the minstrels, and were not committed to writing until the time of Peisistratus. Even at a later period men are reported to have been found at Athens capable of repeating both the Iliad and the Odyssey from beginning to end. Similar instances of prodigiously retentive memories occur among other nations, in which long unwritten poems have been handed down from one generation to another.

the earliest known period the seeds of its later growth, but, from the moment its history opens, stands in its peculiarity of development preeminent and unique in the annals of the world. Of these qualities we find an embodiment and representative in Alexander of Macedon alone, whose mind was formed and whose career was determined by the spirit of Hellenic nationality, and who may be said to have begun the performance of great actions in his earliest childhood.