TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
Our Earlier Historians of Greece.
PAGE
Definite and indefinite problems[1]
Examples in theology and metaphysics[1]
Examples in literature[2]
The case of history generally[3]
Special claims of Greek history[4]
The claims of Rome and of the Jews[4]
Greek influences in our religion[4]
Increasing materials[5]
Plan of this Essay[6]
Universal histories[6]
Gillies[7]
Effects of the French Revolution on the writers of the time[8]
Mitford writes a Tory history of Greece[8]
He excites splendid refutations[9]
Thirlwall: his merits[10]
his coldness[11]
his fairness and accuracy, but without enthusiasm[11]
Clinton's Fasti: his merits[12]
Contrast of Grote's life[13]
His theory Radicalism[13]
The influences of his time[14]
To be compared with Gibbon[14]
His eloquence; his panegyric on democracy[15]
Objections: that democracies are short-lived[16]
that the Athenian democrat was a slave-holder and a ruler over subjects[16]
The Athenian not the ideal of the Greeks[17]
Grote's treatment of the despots[18]
Their perpetual recurrence in the Greek world[18]
Advantages of despotism[18]
Good despots not infrequent[19]
Grote a practical politician[20]
His treatment of Alexander the Great[20]
Contrast of Thirlwall[20]
Grote ignores the later federations, and despises their history[21]
His treatment of the early legends[22]
Even when plausible, they may be fictions[22]
Thirlwall's view less extreme[23]
Influence of Niebuhr on both historians[23]
Neither of them visited Greece, which later historians generally regard as essential[24]
Ernst Curtius and Victor Duruy[25]
The value of autopsy in verifying old authors[25]
Example in the theatre of Athens[25]
Its real size[26]
No landscape for its background[26]
Greek scenery and art now accessible to all[27]
CHAPTER II.
Recent Treatment of the Greek Myths.
The newer histories[28]
Not justifiable without particular reasons[28]
Max Duncker[28]
Not suited to English readers[29]
Busolt and Holm[29]
Return to Grote[30]
Holm's postulate[30]
The modern attitude[31]
Pure invention a rare occurrence[31]
Plausible fiction therefore not an adequate cause[32]
Cases of deliberate invention, at Pergamum, which breed general suspicion of marvellous stories[32]
Example of a trustworthy legend from Roman history[33]
Niebuhr, Arnold, Mommsen[34]
The rex sacrorum at Rome[34]
The king-archon at Athens[35]
Legends of foreign immigrants[35]
Corroborative evidence of art, but not of language[35]
Corroboration of legends in architecture[37]
Explanation of myths by the solar theory[37]
The analogy of Indian and Persian mythology, expounded by Professor Max Müller, founded on very wide learning[38]
long since shown inadequate, because it implies sentimental savages, which is contrary to our experience[39]
K. O. Müller's contribution[40]
The transference of myths[41]
Old anecdotes doing fresh duty[41]
Example from the Trojan legend[41]
but not therefore false[42]
The contribution of Dr. Schliemann[42]
History not an exact science[43]
Historical value of the Homeric poems[44]
Mycenæ preserved in legend only[44]
General teaching of the epic poems[44]
Social life in Greece[45]
Alleged artificiality of the poems[45]
Examples from the Iliad[45]
not corroborated by recent discoveries[46]
Fick's account of the Homeric dialect[46]
Difficulties in the theory[47]
Analogies in its favour[48]
Its application to the present argument[48]
Illustration from English poetry[49]
The use of stock epithets[49]
High excellence incompatible with artificiality[50]
The Homeric poems therefore mainly natural[50]
but only generally true[51]
and therefore variously judged by various minds[52]
CHAPTER III.
Theoretical Chronology.
Transition to early history[53]
The Asiatic colonies[53]
Late authorities for the details[54]
The colonization of the West[54]
The original authority[55]
What was nobility in early Greece?[55]
Macedonian kings[56]
Romans[56]
Hellenistic cities[56]
Glory of short pedigrees[56]
The sceptics credulous in chronology[57]
The current scheme of early dates[57]
The so-called Olympic register[58]
Plutarch's account of it[58]
The date of Pheidon of Argos[59]
revised by E. Curtius[60]
since abandoned[60]
The authority of Ephorus[61]
not first-rate[62]
Archias, the founder of Syracuse[62]
associated with legends of Corcyra and Croton[63]
Thucydides counts downward from this imaginary date[64]
Antiochus of Syracuse[64]
not trustworthy[65]
his dates illusory[66]
though supported by Thucydides[66]
who is not omniscient[66]
Credulity in every sceptic[67]
Its probable occurrence in ancient critics[68]
Value of Hippias' work[68]
Even Eratosthenes counts downward[69]
Clinton's warning[69]
Summary of the discussion[69]
The stage of pre-Homeric remains[70]
Prototype of the Greek temple[70]
Degrees in this stage[71]
Probably not so old as is often supposed[72]
Mr. Petrie's evidence[72]
The epic stage[72]
The earliest historical stage[73]
The gap between Homer and Archilochus[73]
Old lists suspicious, and often fabricated[74]
No chronology of the eighth centuryB.C. to be trusted[75]
Cases of real antiquity[76]
CHAPTER IV.
The Despots; The Democracies.
Brilliant age of the great lyric poets[77]
The Sparta of Alcman's time[77]
Its exceptional constitution[78]
E. Curtius on the age of the despots[78]
Grote's view[79]
Greek hatred of the despot[80]
how far universal in early days[81]
Literary portraits of the Greek despot[81]
How far exaggerated[82]
Reductio ad absurdum of the popular view[82]
The real uses to politics of temporary despots[82]
Questionable statement of Thucydides[83]
The tyrant welds together the opposing parties[84]
Cases of an umpire voluntarily appointed[84]
Services of the tyrants to art[85]
Examples[85]
Verdict of the Greek theorists[86]
Peisistratus and Solon[86]
Contrast of Greek and modern democracy[87]
Slave-holding democracies[88]
Supported by public duties[89]
Athenian leisure[89]
The assembly an absolute sovran[89]
CHAPTER V.
The Great Historians.
Herodotus and Thucydides[91]
Herodotus superior in subject[92]
Narrow scope of Thucydides[92]
His deliberate omissions[93]
supplied by inferior historians[93]
Diodorus[93]
Date of the destruction of Mycenæ[94]
Silence of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides[94]
Value of Plutarch's Lives[95]
The newly-found tract on The Polity of the Athenians[96]
Effects of Thucydides' literary genius[97]
The Peloponnesian war of no world-wide consequence[97]
No representation in Greek assemblies[98]
No outlying members save Athenian citizens settled in subject towns[99]
Similar defect in the Roman Republic[99]
Hence an extended Athenian empire not maintainable[99]
The glamour of Thucydides[100]
His calmness assumed[101]
He is backed by the scholastic interest[101]
on account of his grammatical difficulties[102]
He remains the special property of critical scholars[102]
Herodotus underrated in comparison[103]
The critics of Thucydides[103]
The Anabasis of Xenophon[104]
The weakness of Persia long recognized[105]
Reception of the Ten Thousand on their return[105]
The army dispersed[106]
Xenophon's strategy[106]
His real strategy was literary[107]
A special favourite of Grote[107]
Xenophon on Agesilaus and Epaminondas[108]
Injustice of the Hellenica[108]
Yet Xenophon is deservedly popular[109]
CHAPTER VI.
Political Theories and Experiments in the Fourth Century B.C.
Literary verdict of the Greeks against democracy[110]
Vacillation of modern critics[111]
Grote's estimate of Pericles, compared with Plato's[111]
The war policy of Pericles[112]
His miscalculations[112]
He depended on a city population against an army of yeomen[113]
Advantages of mercenaries against citizen troops[114]
The smaller States necessarily separatists[114]
Attempts at federation[115]
The second Athenian Confederacy[116]
its details; its defects[116]
Political theories in the fourth century[117]
Greece and Persia[117]
Theoretical politics[117]
inestimable even to the practical historian[118]
Plato[118]
Xenophon[118]
Aristotle[118]
Sparta ever admired but never imitated[119]
Practical legislation wiser in Greece than in modern Europe[119]
Sparta a model for the theorists[120]
A small State preferred[120]
Plato's successors[120]
Their general agreement; (1) especially on suffrage[121]
even though their suffrage was necessarily restricted[122]
(2) Education to be a State affair[122]
Polybius' astonishment at the Roman disregard of it[123]
The practical result in Rome[123]
Can a real democracy ever be sufficiently educated?[124]
Christianity gives us a new force[124]
Formal religion always demanded by the Greeks[125]
Real religion the property of exceptional persons[125]
Greek views on music; discussed in my Rambles and Studies in Greece[126]
Xenophon's ideal[127]
Aristotle's ideal[127]
Aristotle's Polities ignore Alexander[128]
Evidence of the new Politeia[128]
Alexander was to all the theorists an incommensurable quantity[129]
Mortality of even perfect constitutions[130]
Contrast of Greek and modern anticipations[130]
CHAPTER VII.
Practical Politics in the Fourth Century.
The practical politicians[131]
Isocrates, his anti-Persian policy[131]
No large ideas of spreading Hellenic culture[132]
Who is to be the leader of Greece?[132]
Demosthenes another ideal figure in this history[133]
He sees the importance of a foreign policy for Athens[134]
against Persia, or Macedonia[134]
Grote on Demosthenes[135]
A. Schäfer on Demosthenes[135]
Very different estimate of the ancients[136]
Conditions of the conflict[136]
made Philip's victory certain[137]
Demosthenes fights a losing game[138]
The blunders of his later policy[139]
Compared with Phocion[139]
Old men often ruinous in politics[139]
Hellenism despised[140]
The author feels he is fighting a losing game against democracy and its advocates[140]
The education of small free States[141]
Machiavelli and Aristotle[141]
Greek democratic patriotism[141]
Its splendid results[142]
appear to be essentially transitory[142]
from internal causes[143]
The case of America[143]
The demagogue[144]
Internal disease the real cause of decadence[144]
The Greek States all in this condition[144]
as Phocion saw; but which Demosthenes ignored[145]
The dark shadows of his later years[145]
His professional character as an advocate[146]
The affair of Harpalus[146]
Was the verdict against Demosthenes just?[147]
The modern ground of acquittal[148]
Morality of politicians expounded by Hypereides[148]
Modern sentiment at least repudiates these principles[149]
As regards practice we have Walpole[149]
and the Greek patriots of our own century[150]
analogous to the case of Demosthenes[150]
The end justified the means[151]
Low average of Greek national morality[152]
Demosthenes above it[152]
Deep effect of his rhetorical earnestness[153]
The perfection of his art is to be apparently natural[153]
CHAPTER VIII.
Alexander the Great.
The further course of Greek history[155]
Droysen's Geschichte des Hellenismus[155]
This period much neglected by English historians[155]
Nature of our authorities[156]
Alexander's place in history still disputed[157]
Grote's unfairness in accepting evidence against him[157]
Droysen's estimate[158]
Tendency to attribute calculation to genius[158]
Its spontaneity[159]
Alexander's military antecedents[159]
He learns to respect Persian valour and loyalty[160]
He discovers how to fuse the nations in Alexandria[160]
His development of commerce[161]
Diffusion of gold[161]
Development of Alexander's views[162]
His romantic imagination[162]
No pupil of Aristotle[162]
His portentous activity[163]
Compared with Napoleon[163]
and Cromwell[164]
Use of artillery[164]
Vain but not envious[165]
His assumption of divinity questioned[165]
An ordinary matter in those days[166]
Perhaps not asserted among the Greeks[166]
CHAPTER IX.
Post-Alexandrian Greece.
Tumults of the Diadochi: their intricacy[168]
their wide area[169]
The liberation of Greece[169]
Spread of monarchies[169]
The three Hellenistic kingdoms[170]
New problems[171]
Politics abandoned by thinking men[171]
except as a purely theoretical question, with some fatal exceptions[172]
Dignity and courage of the philosophers[172]
shown by suicide[173]
Rise of despots on principle[173]
Probably not wholly unpopular[174]
Contemptible position of Athens and Sparta in politics, exceptin mischievous opposition to the new federations, whoseorigin was small and obscure[174]
The old plan of a sovran State not successful[176]
The leading cities stood aloof from this experiment[176]
Athens and the Ætolians, or the Achæans[177]
Sparta and the Achæans[178]
A larger question[178]
What right has a federation to coerce its members?[178]
Disputed already in the Delian Confederacy by Athens and thelesser members[179]
Duruy's attitude on this question[179]
Greek sentiment very different[180]
Nature of the Achæan League[180]
Statement of the new difficulty[181]
In its clearest form never yet settled except by force[182]
Case of the American Union[182]
Arguments for coercion of the several members[183]
Cases of doubtful or enforced adherence[184]
Various internal questions[185]
Looser bond of the Ætolian League[185]
Radical monarchy of Cleomenes[186]
CHAPTER X.
The Romans in Greece.
Position of Rome towards the Leagues[187]
Roman interpretation of the 'liberty of the Greeks'[187]
Opposition of the Ætolians[188]
Probably not fairly stated by Polybius[189]
Rome and the Achæans[189]
Mistakes of Philopœmen gave Rome excuses for interference[189]
Mommsen takes the Roman side[190]
Hertzberg and Freeman on the Achæan question[190]
Senility of the Greeks[191]
Decay of the mother-country[191]
The advocates for union with Rome[192]
The advocates of complete independence[192]
The party of moderate counsels[193]
Money considerations[193]
acted upon both extremes[194]
Exaggerated statements on both sides[194]
The Separatists would not tolerate separation from themselves[195]
Democratic tyranny[195]
Modern analogies forced upon us[195]
and not to be set aside[196]
The history of Greece is essentially modern 196therefore modern parallels are surely admissible, if justlydrawn[197]
The spiritual history not closed with the Roman conquest[197]
The great bequests of the Roman period[199]
The Anthology, Lucian, Julian, Plotinus[200]
Theological Greek studies[200]
Have the Greeks no share in our religion?[201]
Or is it altogether Semitic?[201]
The language of the New Testament exclusively Greek[202]
Saint Paul's teaching[202]
Stoic elements in Saint Paul[203]
The Stoic sage[203]
The Stoic Providence[203]
Saint John's Gospel[204]
Neo-Platonic doctrine of the Logos[205]
The Cynic independence of all men[205]
The Epicurean dependence upon friends[206]
The university of Athens[206]
Greece indestructible[207]
Greek political history almost the private property of theEnglish writers,[207]
who have themselves lived in practical politics[208]
Not so in artistic or literary history[208]
where the French and Germans are superior[209]
especially in art[209]
Importance of studying Greek art[209]
Modern revivals of ancient styles,—Gothic, Renaissance[210]
Probability of Hellenic revival[211]
Greek art only recently understood. Winckelmann, Penrose, Dörpfeld[212]
Its effect upon modern art when properly appreciated[212]
and upon every detail of our life[212]
Greek literature hardly noticed in this Essay[213]
Demands a good knowledge and study of the language[213]
Other languages must be content to give way to this pursuit[214]
The nature and quality of Roman imitations[215]
The case of Virgil[215]
Theocritus only a late flower in the Greek garden of poetry[216]
APPENDIX.
On the Authenticity of the Olympian Register[217]