Were the Athenians More Famous in War or in Wisdom? (5)

Athens, to be sure, possessed no famous writer of either epic or melic poetry; for Cinesias[*] seems to have been an infelicitous dithyrambic poet. He was himself without family or fame but, jeered and mocked by the comic poets, he acquired his share in unfortunate notoriety. And for the dramatic poets, the Athenians considered the writing of comedy so undignified and vulgar a business that there was a law forbidding any member of the Areopagus to write comedies. But tragedy blossomed forth and won great acclaim, becoming a wondrous entertainment for the ears and eyes of the men of that age, and, by the mythological character of its plots, and the vicissitudes which its characters undergo, it effected a deception wherein, as Gorgias[*] remarks, he who deceives is more honest than he who does not deceive, and he who is deceived is wiser than he who is not deceived. For he who deceives is more honest, because he has done what he promised to do; and he who is deceived is wiser, because the mind which is not insensible to fine perceptions is easily enthralled by the delights of language.

What profit, then, did these fine tragedies bring to Athens to compare with the shrewdness of Themistocles which provided the city with a wall, with the

diligence of Pericles which adorned the Acropolis, with the liberty which Miltiades bestowed, with the supremacy to which Cimon advanced her? If in this manner the wisdom of Euripides, the eloquence of Sophocles,[*] and the poetic magnificence of Aeschylus rid the city of any of its difficulties or gained for her any brilliant success, it is but right to compare their tragedies with trophies of victory, to let the theatre rival the War Office, and to compare the records of dramatic performances with the memorials of valour.