PREFACE
The purpose of this book is to interpret Greek lands by literature, and Greek literature by local associations and the physical environment. Those who possess an intimate acquaintance with Greek or who have the good fortune to stay long in Greece will be able to draw upon their own resources. Many travellers, however, must curtail their visit to a few weeks or months, and it is hoped that to them this book may prove useful as a companion in travel, while to a wider range of readers it may prove suggestive in appraising what is most vital in our “Hellenic heritage.”
To keep within reasonable bounds it has seemed necessary to limit our survey to those portions of the mainland of Greece and those islands, immediately adjacent in the Gulf of Ægina, which may be easily visited during a short stay in Athens as headquarters. But the visitor cannot be too strongly urged to avail himself of opportunities to visit the remoter islands and the shores of Asia Minor, which are so beautiful a part of the Greek world and have played so brilliant a rôle in Greek history and literature.
In quoting or summarizing the literature the limitations of space are obvious. Selections have been made which to us seemed most fairly to interpret the countries and sites. It is hoped that these will not only prove representative when taken together but will recall much that has perforce been omitted.
Purely learned treatises in Greek have not been cited except by way of illustration. The historical geographer Strabo, of the time of Augustus, has offered suggestive material; and Pausanias, of the second century of our era, the pious and often charming writer of the “Guidebook to Greece,” has, as was inevitable, been the cicerone in many places.
History it has seemed proper to use chiefly to explain the literature, or, especially in the case of Herodotus and Thucydides, as itself part of the noblest prose literature. But in different chapters emphasis has been laid, to some extent, upon different elements, such as myth and legend, prehistoric tradition, the history of certain epochs in classic times, the demands of religion, the growth of the artistic impulse or the bloom of the Attic period. By this means we have hoped, without too much repetition, to suggest a fairly adequate outline of the different factors in Greek civilization. The introductory chapter is intended to provide the essential background for the others.
Forms of art other than literature are only incidentally touched upon. Archæological information or discussion, except as illustration, is precluded by the purpose of the book, which deals with the literature and the land as being permanent possessions that are not essentially modified by the successive data of archæology, necessarily shifting from month to month.
In translating Greek authors it has seemed best, as a rule, to offer new versions, rendering the thought as literally as is consistent with our idiom or, in the case of poetry, with the exigencies of English verse. The anapæstic dimeters and, in the dialogue parts of the drama, the six-stress iambic verse have been retained; less uniformly the elegiac couplet; and, occasionally only, the heroic hexameter. Elsewhere poetry has been usually turned by rhymed verse or by rhythmic prose.
Some existing translations or paraphrases have been used, for which credit has been given in the text or the footnotes. Moreover, in most of the citations from Pausanias Mr. Frazer’s admirable translation has been used without explicit mention, and for this we make acknowledgment here. In translating Pindar many turns of expression have been taken from the beautiful translation of Ernest Myers, although, when they are not expressly credited, the versions have been rewritten. While it is hoped that full credit has thus been given wherever it is due, there are doubtless expressions here and there remaining in the memory from numerous commentators on Greek authors that form a common stock in trade for the translator.
In transliterating Greek names we have followed, as a rule, familiar English usage.
Among many books of reference there are a few to which we are especially indebted. We have used constantly Mr. J. G. Frazer’s “Commentary on Pausanias,” which includes a wealth of outside references, as, for example, citations from other travellers beginning with Dicæarchus, the entertaining geographer of the fourth century b. c. We are also indebted to Curtius’s “History of Greece” and Tozer’s “Geography of Greece”; Dr. W. Judeich’s “Topographie von Athen” (especially for Piræus); Professor Ernest Gardner’s “Ancient Athens,” which should be in the hands of every visitor to Athens; and Miss J. E. Harrison’s “Primitive Athens.” Professor J. B. Bury’s “History of Greece” has been constantly suggestive. On modern Greece Schmidt’s “Das Volksleben der Neugriechen” and Sir Rennell Rodd’s “Customs and Lore of Modern Greece” have furnished definite material.
Among the numerous editions of Greek authors necessarily consulted we are under special obligations to Professor Gildersleeve’s “Pindar, the Olympian and Pythian Odes,” and to Professor Smyth’s “Melic Poets.” Certain quotations in the text, not provided for in the footnotes, are acknowledged in the Appendix, in which are also given, for the sake of comparison, exact references to the Greek.
Our personal thanks are due to Professor J. Irving Manatt, of Brown University, for valuable suggestions and criticism of several chapters, and to Professor Walter G. Everett for his discussion of the section on Greek philosophy. We are also especially indebted to Professor Herbert Richard Cross of Washington University, St. Louis, for placing at our disposal his water-color sketch of the Propylæa, from which the frontispiece is taken, and to Professors C. B. Gulick and G. H. Chase of Harvard University for assistance in obtaining the impression of the coin upon the cover of this book.
F. G. A.
A. C. E. A.
Providence, October, 1909.