Homer, that great singer, sang--it is much to be doubted whether he ever wrote---long before this period. There were also Sappho, the poetess, and Alcæus, who wrote in those metres from which we have named our Sapphics and Alcaics. These did not come within the most glorious days. But in that splendid time, and inspired no doubt by its splendour, came Sophocles and Æschylus, writers of the finest tragedies; there was Euripides, who was a tragic writer for the stage too, yet has imagined some of his scenes in a lighter and livelier way than those older and fearfully grim writers of the drama. Later came Aristophanes, the comic dramatist, who brings on birds and frogs as actors in his plays. There was the mighty orator, Demosthenes. Oratory and speech-making were very much studied and practised. Probably there were a large number of speakers whom even to-day we would think extraordinarily fine. There were a host of painters {140} and musicians; but we cannot hear their music and the pictures have perished. Then there was Socrates, the great philosopher, and Plato, who wrote the dialogues in which Socrates, who was his master, was the chief speaker. Socrates was not a writer. I suppose we can never know how much in the dialogues is Plato's and how much Socrates'. We may suspect that very much is due to Plato, though he gives Socrates nearly all the credit. Later came Aristotle, who wrote about everything--about philosophy, about science, about morality, about natural history, about government. Plato, before him, or Socrates speaking to us by Plato's pen, had been very much interested in the art of government--in discussing the best form of government. But the government which they all discussed was the government of those small city states which we have seen in Greece. They did not concern themselves with government of large nations and empires. [Sidenote: Sculpture] But almost more glorious than any of these were the sculptors, of whom the greatest were Phidias and Praxiteles. The work of the sculptors was employed chiefly in connection with the work of the architects, of the builders of the temples and the public buildings. The temples were splendidly ornamented with the most perfect statues and cuttings in marble that man has ever produced. The architecture of the Greeks was more perfect than that of any nation before or since. We may suppose, as we have seen, that it owed much to the example of that very fine Minoan art which was produced in Crete very long before, and which was carried to the mainland of Greece, and is especially seen in excavations at Mycenæ.