Teftament, and fuggefts to us the fimilarity of character, which prevailed between the patriarchs of Canaan and the heroes of Greece,

Greece was divided into a variety of unconpected states, diftinguished by different forms of government, and remarkable for frequent revolutions. Yet as the political importance of them all was for the moft part relative, and depended, cfpecially in the later and more celebrated periods of their hiftory, upon their connexion with Athens and Lacedemon, thefe diftinguished Republics ought to be confidered with a more immediate view to their RELIGION, GOVERNMENT, ARTS, MANNERS, and CONQUESTS.

I. The Religion of Greece.

From the Egyptians, and other nations to whom the Greeks were indebted for their earliest laws, they derived their religion. According to the poetical and popular belief, immortal beings of various powers prefided over the various parts of the creation. The Oreads governed the mountains, the Dryads the woods, Neptune, the Tritons, and the Nereids ruled the ocean, Apollo the God of Mufic and the nine Mufes prefiding over the various kinds of poetry, inhabited mount Helicon. Of all the deities, Jupiter the Father of Gods and Men, reftrained by the power of the Fates, was the fupreme, and feated on Olympus ruled both heaven and

earth,

earth, while Pluto governed the fubterraneous realms of departed fpirits. To the worship of the twelve principal divinities, the gratitude of fucceeding ages added the deification of heroes and legislators, renowned for their important fervices to fociety; temples were erected, feftivals were inftituted, games were celebrated, and facrifices were offered with more or lefs pomp and magnificence to them all.

The religion of the people extended little beyond the external honours of facrifices and proceffions, The facred ceremonies were magnificent and public, except that the votaries of Bacchus and Ceres were indulged in their fecret myfteries. The festivals were obferved with every circumftance of pomp and fplendour to charm the eye, and please the imagination. A facrifice was a feaft attended with gaiety, and even licentioufnefs. Every temple was the refort of the idle and the diffolute; and the fhrines of the Cyprian Venus, and the Athenian Minerva, could atteft that devotion, far from being a pure and exalted exercise of the mind, was only the introduction to diffolutenefs and debauchery. Athens was moft renowned for the number of temples, and excelled the reft of the Grecian cities in the frequency and grandeur of her feftivals.

The northern regions of Greece were particularly renowned for temples, from whence oracles were iffued. The temple of Apollo at Delphi, x 4

fituated

fituated upon a lofty rock near Parnaffus, and that of Jupiter in the groves of Dodona, were celebrated for the refponfes of the Pythia and the priefts; they were held in the greateft veneration for many ages; and their oracles were confulted, even in the most enlightened times, by philofophers themselves, who, in this inftance, as well as many others, conformed to the popular fuperftitions.

The spirit of the religion of ancient Greece was included in these principles,-that the worship of the Gods was of fuperior obligation and importance to all other duties, and that they frequently displayed their power in this world, in the punishment of the bad, and the profperity of the virtuous: fuch were the opinions inculcated by the moft celebrated philofophers and poets. But the common people, more gratified by the fictions of the received mythology, than by tenets of pure ethics, found in the actions recorded of their gods and goddeffes, a fufficient excufe for licentioufnefs of every kind.

With refpect to a Future State of existence, the philofophers appear to have been uncertain, as may be collected from the fentiments of Socrates himfelf. The poets inculcated a belief in Tartarus and Elyfium. Of the former they have drawn a picture in the moft gloomy and horrific colours, defcribing it as the place where men, who had been remarkable for impiety to the gods, fuch as Tantalus,

talus, Tityus, and Sifyphus, were tortured with a yariety of mifery, ingenioufly adapted to their crimes. The profpect of Elyfium is more beautiful and inviting, as defcribed by Hefiod and Pindar, than that given by Homer. In that delightful region there is no inclement weather, but the foft Zephyrs blow from the ocean to refresh the inhabitants, who live without care or anxiety; there reign perpetual funshine and ferenity of fky, and the fertile earth thrice in a year produces delicious fruits for their fuftenance. These enjoyments were, however, not only of a grofs and fenfual nature, but were limited to persons of rank and diftinction. Proteus informs Menelaus, that he hall be conveyed to the islands of the bleffed, because he is the husband of Helen, and the fon in law of Jupiter". No incentives to goodness, from the confideration of a future ftate, are held out by the older poets to the female fex, or to the ignoble or vulgar, however pure their conduct, or exemplary their virtues. In later times we find, that Pindar extends his rewards to good men in general; but Euripides is fometimes fceptical, and Iphigenia, the principal character in one of his tragedies, without hesitation expreffes her difbelief of the popular mythology.

It is well remarked by the ingenious and learned Jortin, "That it gives us pleasure to trace in Homer the important doctrine of a fupreme God,

a providence, a free agency in man, fuppofed to be confiftent with fate or destiny; a difference between moral good and evil, inferior gods, or angels, fome favourable to men, others malevolent; and the immortality of the foul: but it gives us pain to find these notions fo miferably corrupted, that they muft have had a very weak influence to excite men to virtue, and to deter them from vice "." This obfervation may be applied to the state of opinions even in the most enlightened times of Greece, when the credulity and ignorance of the vulgar, and the errors and doubts of the greatest philofophers, proved the necessity and the importance of the Chriftian revelation, with refpect both to the duties of man, and the incentives to the difcharge of thofe duties, arifing from his final destination.

The characters of the two great legislators of Sparta and Athens were evidently very different. Lycurgus was diftinguished by the vigour and the inflexibility of his difpofition. Solon was mild, circumfpect, and compliant. The marks of their tempers were vifibly impreffed upon their respective political establishments.

II. Sparta

It is unneceffary to enlarge upon the conftitu tion of Sparta, previous to the time of LYCURGUS,

n

Jortin, Differtation VI. p. 245.

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