number-the military population, reinforced by additional numbers of youth, had forgotten both the hardships of the war and the pressure of epidemic disease. Hence the fleet now got together, while it surpassed in number all previous armaments of Athens, except a single one in the second year of the previous war under Periklês,-was incomparably superior even to that, and still more superior to all the rest, in the other ingredients of force, material as well as moral; in picked men, universal ardour, ships as well as arms in the best condition, and accessories of every kind in abundance. Such was the confidence of success, that many Athenians went prepared for trade as well as for combat; so that the private stock thus added to the public outfit and to the sums placed in the hands of the generals, constituted an unparalleled aggregate of wealth. Much of this was visible to the eye, contributing to heighten that general excitement of Athenian imagination which pervaded the whole city while the preparations were going forward: a mingled feeling of private sympathy and patriotism -a dash of uneasiness from reflection on the distant and unknown region wherein the fleet was to act-yet an elate confidence in Athenian force such as had never before been entertained1. We hear of Sokrates the philosopher, and Meton the astronomer, as forming exceptions to this universal tone of sanguine anticipation: the familiar genius which

ii. Inscr. Att. no. 76. p. 117; also the Staats-haushaltung der Athener of the same author, vol. ii. p. 198. This Inscription belongs unquestionably to one of the years between 421-415 B.C., to which year we cannot say.

Thucyd. vi. 31; Diodor. xiii. 2, 3.

constantly waited upon the philosopher is supposed to have forewarned him of the result. It is not impossible that he may have been averse to the expedition, though the fact is less fully certified than we could wish. Amidst a general predominance of the various favourable religious signs and prophecies, there were also some unfavourable. Usually, on all public matters of risk or gravity, there were prophets who gave assurances in opposite ways: those which turned out right were treasured up; the rest were at once forgotten, or never long remembered'.

After between two and three months of active preparations, the expedition was almost ready to start, when an event happened which fatally poisoned the prevalent cheerfulness of the city. This was, the mutilation of the Hermæ, one of the most extraordinary events in all Grecian history.

of the Her

mæ at

and sanctity

of the Her

The Hermæ, or half-statues of the god Hermes, Mutilation were blocks of marble about the height of the human figure. The upper part was cut into a head, Athens. face, neck, and bust; the lower part was left as a quadrangular pillar, broad at the base, without arms, mæ. body, or legs, but with the significant mark of the male sex in front. They were distributed in great numbers throughout Athens, and always in the most conspicuous situations; standing beside the outer doors of private houses as well as of temples -near the most frequented porticos-at the intersection of cross ways-in the public agora. They

1 Plutarch (Nikias, c. 12, 13; Alkibiad. c. 17). Immediately after the catastrophe at Syracuse the Athenians were very angry with those prophets who had promised them success (Thucyd. viii. 1).

were thus present to the eye of every Athenian in all his acts of intercommunion, either for business or pleasure, with his fellow-citizens. The religious feeling of the Greeks considered the god to be planted or domiciliated where his statue stood', so that the companionship, sympathy, and guardianship of Hermês, became associated with most of the manifestations of conjunct life at Athens, political, social, commercial, or gymnastic. Moreover the quadrangular fashion of these statues, employed occasionally for other gods besides Hermês, was a most ancient relic handed down from the primitive rudeness of Pelasgian workmanship; and was popular in Arcadia, as well as peculiarly frequent in Athens2.

About the end of May 415 B.c., in the course of one and the same night, all these Hermæ, one of the most peculiar marks of the city, were mutilated by unknown hands. Their characteristic features were knocked off or leveled, so that nothing was left except a mass of stone with no resemblance to

1 Cicero, Legg. ii. 11. "Melius Græci atque nostri; qui, ut augerent pietatem in Deos, easdem illos urbes, quas nos, incolere voluerunt.”

How much the Grecian mind was penetrated with the idea of the god as an actual inhabitant of the town, may be seen illustrated in the Oration of Lysias, cont. Andokid. sect. 15-46: compare Herodotus, v. 67— a striking story, as illustrated in this History, vol. iii. ch. ix. p. 46-also Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 4-7; Livy, xxxviii. 43.

In an inscription in Boeckh's Corp. Insc. (part ii. No. 190, p. 320) a list of the names of Prytaneis appears, at the head of which list figures the name of Athênê Polias.

2 Pausanias, i. 24, 3; iv. 33, 4; viii. 31, 4; viii. 48, 4; viii. 41, 4. Plutarch, An Seni sit Gerenda Respubl. ad finem; Aristophan. Plut. 1153, and Schol.: compare O. Müller, Archäologie der Kunst, sect. 67; K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstl. Alterth. der Griechen, sect. 15; Gerhard, De Religione Hermarum. Berlin, 1845.

humanity or deity. All were thus dealt with in the same way, save and except very few: nay, Andokidês affirms (and I incline to believe him) that there was but one which escaped unharmed'.

citement

ous alarm

at Athens.

It is of course impossible for any one to sympa- Violent exthize fully with the feelings of a religion not his and religi own indeed the sentiment with which, in the case produced of persons of different creed, each regards the by the act strong emotions growing out of causes peculiar to the other, is usually one of surprise that such trifles and absurdities can occasion any serious distress or excitement. But if we take that reasonable pains, which is incumbent on those who study the history of Greece, to realise in our minds the

1 Thucyd. vi. 27. ὅσοι Ερμαῖ ἦσαν λίθινοι ἐν τῇ πόλει τῇ ̓Αθηναίων ......μιᾷ νυκτὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι περιεκόπησαν τὰ πρόσωπα.

Andokidês (De Myst. sect. 63) expressly states that only a single one was spared—καὶ διὰ ταῦτα ὁ Ἑρμῆς ὃν ὁρᾶτε πάντες, ὁ παρὰ τὴν πατρώαν οἰκίαν τὴν ἡμετέραν, οὐ περιεκόπη, μόνος τῶν Ἑρμῶν τῶν ̓Αθήνῃσι.

Cornelius Nepos (Alkibiad. c. 3) and Plutarch (Alkib. c. 13) copy Andokidês in his life of Nikias (c. 18) the latter uses the expression of Thucydidês-oi λéîσтoι. This expression is noway at variance with Andokidês, though it stops short of his affirmation. There is great mixture of truth and falsehood in the Oration of Andokidês; but I think that he is to be trusted as to this point.

Diodorus (xiii. 2) says that all the Hermæ were mutilated—not recognising a single exception. Cornelius Nepos, by a singular inaccuracy, talks about the Hermæ as having been all thrown down (dejicerentur).

2 It is truly astonishing to read the account given of this mutilation of the Herma, and its consequences, by Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alterthümer, vol. ii. sect. 65. p. 191-196. While he denounces the Athenian people, for their conduct during the subsequent inquiry, in the most unmeasured language-you would suppose that the incident which plunged them into this mental distraction, at a moment of overflowing hope and confidence, was a mere trifle: so briefly does he pass it over, without taking the smallest pains to show in what way it profoundly wounded the religious feeling of Athens.

Büttner (Geschichte der politischen Hetærieen zu Athen. p. 65), though very brief, takes a fairer view than Wachsmuth.

religious and political associations of the Athenians'-noted in ancient times for their superior piety, as well as for their accuracy and magnificence about the visible monuments embodying that feeling-we shall in part comprehend the intensity of mingled dismay, terror, and wrath, which beset the public mind on the morning after this nocturnal sacrilege, alike unforeseen and unparalleled. Amidst all the ruin and impoverishment which had been inflicted by the Persian invasion of Attica, there was nothing which was so profoundly felt or so long remembered as the deliberate burning of the statues and temples of the gods. If 1 Pausanias, i. 17, 1; i. 24, 3; Harpokration v. 'Epuaî. See Sluiter, Lectiones Andocideæ, cap. 2.

Especially the dyviarides depañeîai (Eurip. Ion. 187) were noted at Athens: ceremonial attentions towards the divine persons who protected the public streets-a function performed by Apollo Aguieus, as well as by Hermes.

Herodot. viii. 144; Æschylus, Pers. 810; Æschyl. Agam. 339; Isokratês, Or. iv. Panegyr. s. 182. The wrath for any indignity offered to the statue of a god or goddess, and impatience to punish it capitally, is manifested as far back as the ancient epic poem of Arktinus: see the argument of the 'Iiov IIépois in Proclus, and Welcker, Griechische Tragödien, Sophoklés, sect. 21. vol. i. p. 162. Herodotus cannot explain the indignities offered by Kambyses to the Egyptian statues and holy customs, upon any other supposition than that of stark madnessἐμάνη μεγάλως—Herod. iii. 37-38.

Timæus the Sicilian historian (writing about 320-290 B.C.) represented the subsequent defeat of the Athenians as a divine punishment for the desecration of the Hermæ, inflicted chiefly by the Syracusan Hermokrates, son of Hermon and descendant of the god Hermes (Timæi Fragm. 103-104, ed. Didot; Longinus, de Sublim. iv. 3).

The etymological thread of connection, between the Herma and Hermokrates, is strange enough: but what is of importance to remark, is the deep-seated belief that such an act must bring after it divine punishment, and that the Athenians as a people were collectively responsible, unless they could appease the divine displeasure. If this was the view taken by the historian Timæus a century and more after the transaction, much more keenly was it present to the minds of the Athenians of that day.