COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.
P. 16.—“Herodotus.” Critical essays containing the results of the researches concerning Herodotus will be found in the works of the eminent Germans, Creuzer, Dahlman, Heyse, Blum, A. Bauer, K. O. Müller, Stein, Kirchhoff and Blakesley. De Quincey has an essay in Vol. i. of “Historical and Critical Essays.” See also Vol. ii. of “A History of Classical Greek Literature,” by J. P. Mahaffy.
The following abridged opinions on Herodotus are interesting. Macaulay says of him: Of the romantic historians, Herodotus is the earliest and the best. His animation, his simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful talent for description and dialogue, and the pure, sweet flow of his language place him at the head of narrators. He reminds us of a delightful child.… But he has not written a good history.… The faults of Herodotus are the faults of a simple and imaginative mind. He wrote as it was natural he should write. He wrote for a nation susceptible, curious, lively, insatiably desirous of novelty and excitement; for a nation in which the fine arts had attained their highest excellence, but in which philosophy was still in its infancy. Mahaffy quotes the German Blakesley’s opinion that Herodotus wrote not to instruct but to please, that he selected such events and attributed such motives as he thought would be striking and popular, without any misgivings as to the accuracy of statement; that at his time there was no historic sense, but that the idea of exact and critical historical writing is a late and gradual acquisition which Thucydides acquired only by his extraordinary genius and circumstances in those early days.
P. 21.—“Rawlinson,” The Rev. George. (1815-⸺.) An Oxford man, in 1874 made Canon of Canterbury. Besides his “Herodotus” he has published a celebrated work called “The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, or the History, Geography and Antiquities of Chaldea, Assyria, Babylonia, Media and Persia.” To this he added, in 1873, the “Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,” meaning Parthia, and in 1876 the “Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy; or the Geography, History and Antiquity of the Sassanian or New Persian Empire.”
“Rawlinson,” Sir Henry. (1810-⸺.) A brother of the former. When but sixteen years of age he was sent to the East in the service of the East India Company; being transferred to the Persian army, he began to study the Persian cuneiform inscriptions and forwarded valuable copies to England. He also explored the countries of Central Asia. His studies have given him high rank among modern archæologists. His publications include several valuable works on the history and inscriptions of Assyria, Babylon and Chaldea, and he has contributed many learned papers to the journals of the Asiatic Society.
“Wilkinson.” (1797-1875.) An Englishman who during a residence of twelve years in Egypt studied the history, ruins, manners and customs of the country. His studies were embodied in voluminous works on a great variety of phases of Egyptian life and history, including the “Topography of Thebes and General View of Egypt,” “Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,” “Architecture of Ancient Egypt,” “Modern Egypt and Thebes,” and others. In striking contrast was a subject on which he published a work in 1858—“Color, and the General Diffusion of Taste among all Classes.”
P. 22.—“Lydian Empire.” Lydia was a very early seat of Asiatic civilization, the empire being founded at Sardis in mythical times. Three dynasties of kings are said to have ruled the country, the Atyadæ, the Heraclidæ and the Mermnadæ, the last of which alone is authentic. Of their civilization Smith says: “Among the inventions or improvements which the Greeks are said to have derived from them were the weaving and dyeing of fine fabrics; various processes of metallurgy; the use of gold and silver money, which the Lydians are said to have first coined; and various metrical and musical improvements, especially the scale or mode of music called the Lydian, and the form of lyre called the Magadis.” After the Persian conquest of Lydia it formed with Mysia, the second satrapy. After the Macedonian conquest it passed to the kings of Syria, thence to those of Pergamus, and finally to the Romans, who made it a part of the province of Asia.
“Sardis,” or Sardes, stood until the wars of the Middle Ages, when in 1402 it was almost entirely destroyed by Tamerlane. The remains extend over a wide space. Two Ionic columns (see illustration, page 33, of “College Greek Course,”) are the most conspicuous of the remains. These columns are supposed to have belonged to a temple of Cybele. The walls of the Acropolis, some of its towers, a few remnants of the magnificent palace of Crœsus, of a gymnasium, and a few other buildings are all that can be traced. The tombs of the Lydian kings are in the neighborhood, prominent among which is the tumulus of Alyattes, a huge circular mound 1,140 feet in diameter. An Arabian village of mud huts called Sart now stands on its site.
P. 26.—“Crœsus’s father.” Alyattes, king of Lydia, B. C. 617-560.
P. 27.—“Hermus.” A good sized river of Asia Minor, rising in Phrygia, flowing through Lydia, watering the plain of Sardis, and emptying into the Gulf of Smyrna.
P. 28.—“Telmessus.” A town of Cana about six miles from Halicarnassus. Its people were celebrated for their power in divination.
P. 32.—“Agbatana.” The usual form of writing the word is Ecbatana; the first form is the Ionic, used in poetry.
“Pactyas.” An army was sent against this man when he fled to Cyme, thence to Mytilene, and from there to Chios. The Chians gave him up to the Persians.
P. 33.—“L’Allegro,” läl-lāˈgrō. The merry, the gay.
P. 35.—“Nitocris.” Supposed to have been the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and the mother or grandmother of Belshazzar. While queen of Babylon many important works were carried on by her for the improvement of the city.
P. 37.—“Massagetæ.” They were probably a nomad people of Central Asia. The best authorities suppose them to have lived north of the Jaxartes and the sea of Aral. Some critics identify them with the Mesech of the Scriptures. Many of their customs were very peculiar. They worshipped the sun, to which they sacrificed horses. Their very old people were killed and eaten. The race to which they belonged is in dispute, though usually considered the Turkoman.
P. 40.—“Prexaspes.” He had always been held in high honor by Cambyses, having been employed by the latter to kill his brother Smerdis, whom he feared. Later in life an impostor calling himself Smerdis, tried to usurp the throne and Cambyses suspected Prexaspes, but he cleared himself. After the death of Cambyses this false Smerdis was acknowledged king, and the Magi, who had put him on the throne, tried to win over Prexaspes to their plans, but he told before the assembled Persians of the assassination of the true Smerdis, and then threw himself from the tower on which he was standing.
P. 43.—“Apis.” A bull worshipped by the Egyptians. He was supposed to contain the spirit of the divinity Osiris, and was the symbol of fertility. The god must be black, with a white square or triangular mark on his forehead, an eagle on the back, and other mysterious marks about the body. When such an animal was found he was carried to Heliopolis and thence to Memphis, where he had his own temple and priests. The lifetime of Apis was twenty-five years. If one died the whole land was in mourning until a successor was found.
P. 45.—“Staters,” stāˈter. The chief gold coin of the Greeks, usually worth about $5.50, though it varied much in value.
P. 51.—“Andrians.” The inhabitants of Andros, the most northerly of the Cyclades.
“Ca-rysˈti-ans.” Those of Carystus, a town on the southern coast of Eubœa. Beautiful white marble and the mineral asbestos abounded near Carystus.
“Parians.” From Paros, one of the largest of the Cyclades, north of Delos.
P. 52.—“Thucydides.” For additional readings on Thucydides see Grote’s History of Greece, and also Thirwall’s, Mahaffy’s History of Classical Greek Literature, Müller and Donaldson’s History of Greek Literature, and Mure’s History of the Greek Language and Literature.
Cicero commends Thucydides as “a faithful and dignified narrator of facts,” and declares that he surpasses all others in the art of composition.
Macaulay says: “Thucydides has surpassed all his rivals in the art of historical narration, in the art of producing an effect on the imagination by skilful selection and disposition without indulging in the license of invention.”
Mahaffy thus compares Herodotus and Thucydides: “While the conceptions of history in Herodotus and Thucydides were mainly the consequence of the temper of the men and of their surroundings, it must be declared that, for an historian, the atmosphere in which the latter lived, while giving him critical acumen and freeing him from theological prejudices narrowed his view and distorted his estimate of the relative importance of events. We may indeed feel very grateful that Herodotus was not attracted in early life by this brilliant exclusiveness, and that he remained an Ionic instead of becoming an Attic historian.”
P. 56.—“Jowett,” jowˈet. (1817-⸺.) An English Greek scholar and professor.
P. 72.—“Peabody.” (1811-⸺.) An American theologian and author.
P. 73.—“Eurymedon.” One of the Athenian generals in the Peloponnesian war. After the expedition to Corcyra, Eurymedon commanded in the expedition against Sicily in 425. In 414 he was a leader in a second armament fitted out against Syracuse; he fell in the first sea fight in the harbor of that city.
P. 81.—“Alcæus.” About B. C. 600. A native of Mytilene. In a war between Athens and his country he is said to have fled, leaving his arms on the field of battle. He was afterward driven from his native land in a strife between the nobility and people, and spent the remainder of his life traveling. Some of his odes are extant, and the imitations of Horace have made the character of Alcæus’ verse well known. See “Brief History of Greece,” page 52. Mahaffy says of Alcæus, we see in him “the perfect picture of an unprincipled, violent, lawless Greek aristocrat, who sacrificed all and everything to the demands of pleasure and power.”