much less be admitted into a body of Laws, where the language ought to be plain and proper, and where any metaphor at all makes but a very bad figure, especially a new one, as this must needs be then, which perhaps could not be understood, at first hearing, by one half of the citizens. It is true, when Tragedy was propagated from Athens into the courts of Princes, the splendour of the Tragic Chorus was exceedingly magnificent, as at Alexandria and Rome, &c. ; which gave occasion to that complaint of Horace's, that the show of Plays was so very gaudy, that few minded the words of them*: "Tanto cum strepitu ludi spectantur, et artes Dixit adhuc aliquid? Nil sane. Quid placet ergo? 99 And in another place, he says †, the Tragic Actor was It is no wonder, therefore, that in those ages Teaywdia might be used metaphorically, to signify riches and splendour; and so Philo, and Lucian, and some others, use it; but I do not find any example of it within a whole century of the date of Charondas's Laws. II. 1. But this objection will be much more considerable if Charondas really lived before the original of the Thurian government, and even before Æschylus himself, the first inventor of Tragic ornaments; for it will then be of equal force against Charondas's Laws as against those of Zaleucus. Theodoret tells us ‡ "that Charondas is said to have been the first Lawmaker of Italy and Sicily:" and if this be true, he must be senior to Zaleucus himself, and before the very name of Tragedy, much more before the use of this metaphor taken from it; or, if we allow of their reckoning §, that make Charondas the Scholar of Zaleucus, it is more than enough to our present purpose; for they supposed his Master Zaleucus to have been contemporary with Lycurgus the Spartan; by which account they must place Charondas ccc years before Thespis. Nay, even according to Eusebius, Zaleucus's Laws bear date above cc years before the founding of Thurii, and *Hor. Ep. ii, 1. + Id. in Arte Poët. above c years before the original of Tragedy. But we have a better authority than these; I mean Heraclides, in his Book of Governments; who informs us*, "That the Rhegians of Italy were governed by an aristocracy; for a thousand men, chosen out according to their estates, managed every thing; and their Laws were those of Charondas the Catanian; but Anaxilas the Messanian made himself Tyrant there." Which account is confirmed in the main by Aristotle, when he says "The oligarchy of Rhegium was changed into a tyranny by Anaxilas †." Here, I conceive, Heraclides has very plainly asserted that Charondas's Laws were made before the time of Anaxilas; but we are assured this Anaxilas died at Olymp. LXXVI, 1, after he had reigned at Rhegium and Messana XVIII years at the least, which commence from Olymp. LXXI, 3. Now the first victory that Eschylus won at the Stage, was at Ol. LXXIII, 3‡; and we may fairly suppose, because he never got the prize till then, that he had not invented Scenes and Machines, and the other ornaments before. If Charondas's Laws, therefore, were made but the very year that Anaxilas usurped the government, yet they are older by VIII years than the original of Tragical Scenes. But, without question, Charondas's form of government had been a good while in Rhegium before Anaxilas subverted it; for the city had been built then cc years; and the very account in Heraclides clearly implies that the aristocracy was of some continuance. * Heraclid. de Polit. Νόμοις ἐχρῶντο τοῖς Χωρώνδου τοῦ Καταναίου. Marm. Arund. END OF THE EXTRACTS FROM BENTLEY'S PHALARIS. |