Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/190

1 66 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE place of character a settled bitterness against everything that represented the Empire. He was like that malcontent islander whom Isocrates answers in his Panegyriais, a representative of the Oligarchic and Particularist party in the allied states, the aristocrats and dependents of aris- tocrats, whose influence and property were lost through the Athenian predominance, and to whom the Demo- cracy and the Empire were alike anathema. Yet he came to Athens like every one else, like those ' dozens of Thasians ' mentioned by Hegemon the satirist : " Close-shorn, not over nice, whom sheer Want ships on the packet, Damaged and da7nagi7ig mefi, to profess bad verses in At hens J^ Stesimbrotus lectured successfully as a sophist ; wrote on Homer and on current politics. At last he was able to relieve his feelings by a perfect masterpiece of libel, Upon TJieinistodes, Thticydides, and Pericles* The first and last were his especial arch-fiends ; the son of Melesias, being Pericles's opponent, probably came off with the same mild treatment as Kimon, who, " although an abject boor, ignorant of every art and science, had at least the merit of being no orator and possessing the rudiments of honesty ; he might almost have been a Pelopomtesian !" If Stesim- brotus were not such an infamous liar, one would have much sympathy for him. As it is, the only thing to be urged in his favour is that he did not, as is commonly supposed, combine his rascality with sanctimoniousness. His book on the The Mysteries* must have been an attack. The mysteries were a purely and characteris- tically Athenian possession, to which, as Isocrates says, they only admitted other Greeks out of generosity ; and Stesimbrotus would have falsified his whole position if he had praised them. The man is a sort of intransigeant