Trinity College, Dublin,
February, 1892.

FOOTNOTES:

[vi:1] 'In the whole range of the Mykenæan culture, there have only been found in the later graves of the lower city, and in the beehive tomb of Vaphio, remains of some finger-rings of iron, used for ornaments. Iron tools and weapons were unknown to the Mykenæans—in spite of Beloch's opinion to the contrary. In the Iliad bronze is mentioned 279 times, iron 23; in the Odyssey they are named 80 and 25 times respectively, but the use of the later metal was far more diffused than the conventional style of the Epos betrays. Iron weapons are indeed only mentioned in the Iliad IV, 123; VII, 141, 144; and XVIII, 34. Books IV and VII are undoubtedly of later origin. Still the use of iron for tools was known throughout the whole Homeric age, and was gradually increasing during the growth of the Epos.'

[vii:1] Probably, Busolt adds in the sequel, the use of iron weapons by the Dorian invaders may have been one cause of their victory. But it seems to me mainly to have been the victory of infantry over cavalry, and thus a very early type of the decisive day at Orchomenus, when the Spanish infantry of the Grand Catalan Company destroyed Guy de la Roche and his Frankish knights, and seized the country as their spoil.

[xi:1] This last clause is suggested by the fragment of the Iliad, published in my Memoir on the Petrie Papyri, which shows, in thirty-five lines, five unknown to modern texts. Cf. Plate III and p. 34 of that Memoir.

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]