Coupled with the vastness of the
architectural works which actually remain, such descriptions as that
in Homer of the chamber of Paris and the house of Alcinous furnish
forth a picture of that early period--the tyrants' age, the age of
the acropoleis, the period of great dynasties with claims to "divine
right"' and in many instances at least with all the culture of their
time. The vast buildings make us sigh at the thought of wasted human
labour, though there is a public usefulness too in some of these
designs, such as the draining of the Copaic lake, to which the backs
of the people are bent whether they will or not. For the princes
there is much of that selfish personal luxury which is a constant
trait of feudalism in [209] all ages. For the people, scattered over
the country, at their agricultural labour, or gathered in small
hamlets, there is some enjoyment, perhaps, of the aspect of that
splendour, of the bright warriors on the heights--a certain share of
the nobler pride of the tyrants themselves in those tombs and
dwellings. Some surmise, also, there seems to have been, of the
"curse" of gold, with a dim, lurking suspicion of curious facilities
for cruelty in the command over those skilful artificers in metal--
some ingenious rack or bull "to pinch and peel"--the tradition of
which, not unlike the modern Jacques Bonhomme's shudder at the old
ruined French donjon or bastille, haunts, generations afterwards, the
ruins of those "labyrinths" of stone, where the old tyrants had their
pleasures.
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