Problems in Greek history

by J. P. Mahaffy

It is certain that there was a great struggle round the very site given in the poems. It was alleged

to be a struggle of many Greek chiefs, at a time when Mycenæ was the richest capital, against the wealth and discipline of the princes about the Troad, of whom the chief of Ilion was the head. This, too, is remarkable, that in spite of the superior wealth and larger population of Asia Minor, the superiority of the Greek peninsula over this greater and richer land is plainly asserted. The whole course of known history has verified the broad fact taught by the legend. Greece has always been the poorer sister, and the superior, of Asia Minor.

Mycenæ preserved in legend only.

That Mycenæ was really the most powerful city in the Greece of some early period, is another fact which nobody would ever have suspected but for the teaching of the legend. Even Dr. Schliemann's new demonstration of its truth, by the display of wealth and of high art which he found in the royal tombs, would never have been attempted had he not been guided by the consistent assertions of the Iliad. For the massive remains of the fortifications, and the tombs, proved no guides to the historical Greeks, who knew Argos only as the head of that province, and early forgot the splendour of Mycenæ so far as it was not kept alive in their epic Bible.

General teaching of the epic poems.

§ 23. Quite apart from such particular facts, which teach us that the statements of Greek legend are never to be despised, there are large general conclusions which most of us think warranted by the Homeric poems. We may infer the political ideas prevalent when they were composed; the

relative importance of king, nobles, and commons; the usages of peace and war; the life of men in its social side; the position of women and of slaves; the religious notions of the day; and such other questions as must be answered if we desire to obtain a living picture of the people. Every recent history of Greece has a chapter on the Homeric poems from this point of view—none of them fuller or better than the chapters of Grote.

Social Life in Greece.

Alleged artificiality of the poems.

What I had to say on this subject was set down in the opening chapters of my Social Life in Greece, from which some stray critics have indeed expressed their dissent, without undertaking to probe and refute my arguments. Until that is done, the sketch there given of the aristocratic society described in the Iliad and the Odyssey claims to be just, and it is unnecessary to defend it here. Perhaps, however, recent inquiry may have led some students to imagine that I have attached too much credit to the Homeric pictures of life, seeing that they are now often asserted to be artificial, and constructed by the poets to represent an age and a society different from their own.