Problems in Greek history

by J. P. Mahaffy

afresh, and offer new systems and new solutions for the acceptance of the human race. Nor can we say that in these cases new facts have been discovered, or new evidence adduced; it is rather that mankind feels there is more in the mystery than is contained in the once accepted explanation, and endeavours by some new manipulation of the old arguments to satisfy the eternal craving for that mental rest which will never be attained till we know things face to face.

Examples in literature.

But perhaps these are instances too lofty for my present purpose: I can show the same pertinacious tendency to re-solve literary problems of a far humbler kind. How striking is the fact that the task of translating certain great masterpieces of poetry seems never completed, and that in the face of scores of versions, each generation of scholars will attack afresh Homer's Iliad, Dante's Divina Commedia, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, and Goethe's Faust! There are, I believe, forty English versions of Faust. How many there are of the Iliad and the Divina Commedia, I have not ascertained; but of the former there is a whole library, and of the latter we may predict with certainty that the latest version will not be the last. Not only does each generation find for itself a new ideal in translation,—the fine version of the Iliad by Pope is now regarded with scorn,—but each new aspirant is discontented with the earlier renderings of the passages he himself loves best; and so year after year we see the same attempt made, often with great but

never with universally accepted success. For there are always more beauties in the old masterpiece than have been conveyed, and there are always weaknesses in the translation, which show after a little wear.

The case of history generally.

This eternal freshness in great masterpieces of poetry which ever tempts new translators, is also to be found in great historical subjects, especially in the history of those nations which have left a permanent mark on the world's progress. There is no prospect that men will remain satisfied with the extant histories, however brilliant, of England or of France, even for an account of the periods which have long since elapsed, and upon which no new evidence of any importance can be found. Such is likewise the case with the histories of Greece and Rome. No doubt there is frequently new material discovered; the excavator may in a month's digging find stuff for years of speculation. No doubt there is an oscillation in the appreciation even of well-sifted materials: a new theory may serve to rearrange old facts and present them in a new light.

But quite apart from all this, men will be found to re-handle these great histories merely for the sake of re-handling them. In the words of the very latest of these attempts: 'Though we can add nothing to the existing records of Greek history, the estimate placed upon their value and the conclusions drawn from them are constantly changing; and for this reason the story which has been told

so often will be told anew from time to time so long as it continues to have an interest for mankind,—that is, let us hope, so long as mankind continues to exist.'[4:1]

Special claims of Greek history.

§ 2. Perhaps the history of Greece has more right than any other to excite this interest, since the effects of that country and its people are probably far greater, certainly more subtle and various, than those of any other upon our modern life. It is curious that this truth is becoming recognized universally by the very generation which has begun to agitate against the general teaching of Greek in our higher schools. Nobody now attributes any real leading to the Romans in art, in philosophy, in the sciences, nay, even in the science of politics. If their literature was in some respects great, every Roman knew and confessed that this greatness was due to the Greeks; if their practical treatment of law and politics was certainly admirable, the theory of the latter was derived from Hellenic speculation.