[59] Cf. the author’s Great Inspirers, p. 16 (New York, 1917).
[60] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V, Chap. LIII.
[61] Op. cit., Vol. VI, Chap. LXVI. “Indeed,” declares a recent writer, “when we consider that this state—the Byzantine Empire—was for a thousand years the defence of Europe against Asiatic invaders, which beat back the Arabs and Seljouks, and checked for a century the advance of the Ottomans, when at the height of their power; that during this period it represented civilization in the midst of barbarism, and maintained a wide commerce by land and sea; that by its missionaries both the Russians and the South Slavonic peoples were evangelized, and the Cyrillic alphabet invented; that to its care in preserving and multiplying manuscripts the existence of a great part of our classical literature is due; and finally, that it was the birthplace of Italian painting, and that its architecture has exercised a greater power than any other style, reaching in its effects from Spain to India; we can hardly overestimate its influence on the world’s history.” History of Greece From Its Conquest by the Romans to the Present Time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864, Vol. I, p. vii (by George Finlay, Oxford, 1877).
[62] Among the more distinguished Hellenists besides Lascaris and Chrysoloras, whose labors in Italy contributed enormously towards initiating and developing the work of the Renaissance, and who reflected undying honor on the Greek name, must be mentioned Theodore Gaza, Gemistus Plethon, John Argyropoulos, George of Trebizond, Demitrius Chalcondyles, and Cardinal Bessarion—who were all, as Hody, the noted Hellenist of Oxford, declared, “viri nullo ævo perituri.”
[63] Marriott, op. cit., Chap. II.
[64] Napoleon et Alexander I, L’Alliance Russe sous Le Premier Empire, Tom. I, p. 306 et seq. (by Albert Vandal, Paris, 1896).
[65] Note to “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto III, strophe XCI.
[66] How different is now the condition of the Trojan plain from what it was in ancient times! Then according to Schliemann it contained “eleven flourishing cities, all of which were probably autonomous and of which five coined their own money. If we consider further that the eleven cities, besides two villages, existed here simultaneously in classical antiquity and that one of these—the city of Ilium itself—had at least seventy thousand inhabitants, we are astounded and amazed how such large masses of people could have found the means of subsistence here, whilst the inhabitants of the present seven poor villages of the plain have the greatest difficulty in providing for their miserable existence. And not only had these ancient cities an abundance of food but they were also so populous and so rich that they could carry on wars and, as their ruins prove, they could erect temples and many other public buildings of white marble; Ilium especially must have been ornamented with a vast number of such sumptuous edifices.” Troja, Results of the Latest Researches and Discoveries on the Site of Homer’s Troy, pp. 345, 346 (New York, 1884).
[67] “The main contention was that the Iliad and the Odyssey were a collection of songs composed at different times and of very unequal values and that, like the Niebelungen Lied, they could be resolved into shorter lays, each celebrating the deeds of individual heroes. The more famous of these heroes, Achilles for example, like Siegfried, had, it was maintained, their ultimate origin in mythological personages, once worshiped as divine.” Schliemann’s Excavations, an Archæological and Historical Study, p. 17 (by C. Schuchhardt, London, 1891).