Problems in Greek history

by J. P. Mahaffy

The claims of Rome and of the Jews.

Greek Influences In Our Religion.

And when the originality of our Roman teachers is reduced to its very modest proportions, there is no other ancient nation that can be named among our schoolmasters except the Hebrews. Here there has been great exaggeration, and it has not yet been sifted and corrected, as in the case of Rome. It is still a popular truism that while we owe all we have of intellectual and artistic refinement to the Greeks, in one great department of civilization, and that the highest, we owe them

nothing, but are debtors to the Semite spirit,—to the clear revelation and the tenacious dogma conveyed to the world by the Jews. Like many such truisms, this statement contains some truth, but a great deal of falsehood. When we have surveyed the earlier centuries, we shall revert to this question, and show how far the prejudice in favour of the Semite has ousted the Greek from his rightful place. Even serious history is sometimes unjust, much more the hasty generalizations of theologians or mere literary critics. For the history of religion will be found to rest, like everything good which we possess, partly upon a Greek basis; but of course mainly on that portion of Greek history which has only recently risen into public notice among our scholars,—I mean the later and the spiritual development of the nation when the conquests of Alexander had brought the whole ancient world under its sway.

Increasing materials.

So the subject is still quite fresh, and even the evidence of books is as yet unexhausted, not to speak of the yearly increment we obtain from the keen labour of many excavators. The Mittheilungen of the German Institute at Athens, the Bulletin de Correspondance hellénique, the English Hellenic Journal, and even the daily papers at Athens, teem with accounts of new discoveries. A comparison of the newest guide to Greece, the Guide-Joanne (1891), with the older books of the kind will show the wonderful increase in our knowledge of pre-historic antiquities. These recent books and reviews are

following in the wake of Dr. Schliemann, whose great researches have set us more new problems than we are likely to solve in the present century.

Plan of this Essay.

§ 3. What I purpose, therefore, to do in this Essay is to review the general lines followed by the great historians of Greece of the last three generations; to show the main points in which each of them excels, and where each of them still shows a deficiency. I shall then notice some current misconceptions, as well as some errors to be corrected by interesting additions to our evidence, even since the last of our larger histories has appeared; and in doing this shall specially touch on those more disputed and speculative questions which are on principle omitted in practical and non-controversial books. By this means we shall ascertain in a general way what may be expected from any fresh attempt in Greek history, and where there still seems room for discovery or for the better establishing of truths already discovered, but not yet accepted in the current teaching of our day. Whatever occasional digressions may occur will all be subordinate to this general plan, which is in fact an essay, not upon Greek history, but upon the problems of Greek history. We shall conclude with some reflections upon the artistic lessons of Greek life which are at last becoming accessible to the larger public.

Universal histories.