Clarksville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1865-1867, 1866-05-04
For the Chronicle,1
HISTORICAL READINGS, NO. 4.

We must for the present leave the
"Clime of the forgotten bravei
Whose land from plain to mountains cave
Was freedoms home or glorys graver'
leave her with the past, her only glory
Next in the history of civilization comes
Rome. Notwithstanding her colossal power
and the great virtues and greater crime;
which distinguished the Ippe mother of dead
empires" we have at present but little to
say of her save by way of comparison.
The Romans were more characterized by
action than by thought. Inferior to the
Greeks in creative conception they excelled
them in hardihood and persevering courage
Their achievements and victories were in po-
iitical and military science-in the senate
and the camp-in the forum and in the field.
From the extent Of their empire they did
much in carrying abroad the elements Of
civilization, but the philosophy and science
they thus diffused were the philosophy and
science of Greece. Almost all of science
they, themselves had, was what they had re-
ceived from their Gieecian teacher, for they
added to 1t but little of their own. Enough
we justly prize their historians and poets,
still we must regard them rather as compil-
ers and imitators than as originals. With
few exceptions-and these, contrary to the
common opinion, rather of the later than of
the earlier periods-her writers serviley i'm:
initiated the great standards of Grecian
literature. All, who under the EmperOrs
gave an impulse 10 decling philosophy
or added any lpstre to science were Of Greek
origin. Later in historical existence and
more long tried in her po;perity than
GREECE, Rome, unlike her predecessor, never
surpassed the nation from whom she derived
her science and civilization.
Possessing neither great power nor wealth,
nor fertility of soil, in science and literature,
in taste and skill in the fine arts, and the
permanent influence they exerted on man.
kiud, the Greeks surpassed any nation of
antiquity, and for this, several reasons may
be assigned.
The genius of the people was such as to
give them superiority over most other ma.
tions. With an intellect both acute and
philosophical, yet p-edisposed to the objective
and practical, they possessed an imagination
ardent as their own suny skies, rich as their
own magnificent scenery, and fine taste
almost amounting to passion for asthetie
beauty. To this must be added the inan-
ence of happy climate, fine geographical
position and the workings Of wise and gen.
erous institutions. Knowing the powerful
influence which causes, such as those just
mentioned, have on the human mind, and
especially on minds so susceptible, we will
not wonder at the superiority Of the Greeks
that literature there made her greatest
achevements-that the art obtained her
greatest triumphs.
The Greeks and Egyptians were essentially
different in the structure and qualities Of
their minds. Both were gifted. Both have
left behind them unmistaken evidence of
their genius. The oriental was creative,
but in the vastness of his conception neglec-
ted proportion and symmetry Of its parts
The Creek was likewise creative, but he was
also critical, and with taste almost intuitive
and skill that scarcely admitted Of i'm
provement, be disposed the minutest Inca
ments of his embodied conception.
The sculpture of the Egyptians represented
strange and unnatural beings with Uniform
and expressive features. The hpman form
was Of colossal proportions charterized by
a countenance of cold and death-like repose.
The Greeks, on the other hand, copied the
human form In Its most perfect symmetry
and its most graceful attitudes, and breathed
as it were, into the cold marble the glow and
and expression Of the living souls. The
one filed the beholder with an awe ap-
proaching e terror which made no long
continued gaze desirable. The other invited
prolonged contemplation by the delight
and admiration which its thoughtful beauty
afforded. The architecture of the Greeks,
like their statuary, was simple, sympetri-
cal and graceful, the embodiment Of chaste
and lovely idea. That of the orientals was
grand and gloomy, complicated in its plan,
vast In proportion, symbolcal in meaning.
In both these countries art represented well
the genius of its people. In Greece, while
beautiful in its creations, 1t combined har-
monious purity with strength like their own
acute and practical minds, their own rich,
delicate and flexible language. Among the
Qrieptsls it was gloomy and massive with
more or less of dark and mysterious mean
ing like the genius of the people, it was grand
and sombre, like their philosophy which abb
sorhed the ipite in the in6nite, and taught
that ali changes multiplied and varied were
but expressions OF the viii of the invisisible
and indeterminate one--the absolute unity
from which multiplicity arose, and into
which it wogld fnauy be absorbed.
The religion of both nations was equally
Characteristic. Among the Egyptians II ap-
peared gloomy and mysterious. The esoteriS
doctrines taught of one God without a
name--of whom au the other gods were de-
ceHdants. Osiris and Iris--the luminous and
and active, the dark and passive principles
sprang from him and are the parents of al
things that exist. The powers of nature
are but manifestations of the DaitY and BY