Problems in Greek history

by J. P. Mahaffy

Even when plausible, they may be fictions

§ 11. Let us now, before passing to his successors, turn back to the very beginning of the subject, and say a word on his treatment of the elaborate mythical system which the Greeks prefixed to their historical annals. Here the Positivism of the man was sure to bear fruit and produce some remarkable results. He gives, accordingly, with all deliberation and fulness of detail, a complete recital of the stories about the gods and heroes, telling all their acts and adventures, and then proceeds to argue that they are to be regarded as quite distinct from, and unconnected with, any historical facts. He argues that as there is in the legends a large quantity of assertions plainly false and incredible, but intertwined indissolubly with plausible and credible statements, we have no right to pick out the latter and regard them as derived from actual facts. There is such a thing as plausible fiction;

and we have no guarantee that the authors of incredible stories about gods and their miracles did not invent this plausible kind as well. Rejecting, therefore, all historical inferences from the Greek legends, he merely regards them as conclusive evidence of the state of mind of their inventors,—a picture of the Greek mind in what Comte called the 'theological stage.'

Thirlwall's view less extreme.

It is remarkable how fully Thirlwall states this view of the Greek myths, and how clearly his cautious mind appreciates the indisputable weakness of all such legends in affording proper and trustworthy evidence. But when we come to persistent bodies of legend which assert that Oriental immigrants—Cadmus, Danaus, Pelops, &c.—brought civilization to yet barbarous Greece, Thirlwall, with all his doubts, with all his dislike to vague and shifting stories, cannot make up his mind to regard these agreeing myths as mere idle inventions. Moreover, he urged the point, which Grote omitted to consider, that early art might so corroborate a story as to make its origin in fact morally certain.

Influence of Niebuhr on both historians.

No doubt both historians were considerably under the influence of Niebuhr, whose rejection of the old Roman legends, which were often plausible fiction, produced a very great sensation in the literary world[23:1]. Nor did they live to see the great

discoveries in early art and prehistoric culture which have since been made by the archæologists. It seems to me, therefore, that as regards the incunabula of Greek history these great men came at the moment when little more than a negative attitude was possible. The mental history of the nation in its passage from easy faith to utter scepticism was expounded by Grote in a masterly way; but for the construction of the myths he would not admit any other than subjective causes. Here, then, was the point on which some further advance might fairly be expected.

Neither of them visited Greece,

§ 12. There was another matter also, connected with the life and habits of the time, which made the appreciation of the facts less keen and picturesque than it might have been. Neither Thirlwall nor Grote, though each of them possessed ample means and leisure, seems ever to have thought of visiting the country and seeking to comprehend the geographical aspects of their histories from personal experience. They both—Thirlwall especially—cite the earlier travellers who had explored and pictured the Hellenic peninsula; but in those days the traveller was regarded as a different kind of man from the historian, who wrote from books in his closet.