Problems in Greek history Part 1

Problems in Greek history.

by John Pentland Mahaffy.

PREFACE

Even since the following sheets were printed, the researches into prehistoric Greek life, and its relation both to the East, to the Homeric poems, and to the Greece we know in the 7th century B.C., have progressed, and we are beginning to see some light through the mist. I can refer the reader to two books, of which one has just been published in English. The other, the second edition of Busolt's _History of Greece_, though still in the press, will be accessible to those that read German in a few weeks. I prefer to cite the former--Schuchardt's account of _Schliemann's Excavations_--in its English form, as it is there enriched with an Introduction, and apparently a revision of the text, by Mr. Walter Leaf. This is the first systematic attempt to bring into a short compa.s.s, with the ill.u.s.trations, and with some regard to chronology, the great body of facts discovered and hastily consigned to many large volumes by the gifted discoverer. There is, moreover, a separate chapter (vi.) which gathers these facts under a theory, not to speak of the acute and cautious criticism of Mr. Leaf, which will be found in the Introduction to the volume. The Introduction to Busolt's _History_, of which (by the author's courtesy) I have seen some 130 pages, contains a complete critical discussion of the same evidence.

Here is the general result in Busolt's own exposition (_G. G._ 2nd ed.

pp. 113 sq.): 'The Homeric culture is younger than the Mykenaean, it is also simpler and in better proportion. The former had come to use iron for arms and tools, the latter is strictly in the age of bronze[vi:1].

If the culture of the Epics does show a lower stage of technical development, we perceive also a decline of oriental influences. In many respects, in matters of interment, dress and armour, the epic age contrasts with the Mykenaean, but in many points we find transitions and threads which unite the two civilizations. The Homeric palace shows remarkable agreements with those of Mykenae and Tiryns. The Homeric heroes fight with sword, spear, and bow, like the Mykenaean. Splendid vases, too, and furniture, such as occur within the range of the Mykenaean culture, agree even in details with the descriptions of the Epos. The Epos, too, knows Mykenae "rich in gold," and the "wealthy"

Odeomenos. In general the homes of the Mykenaean culture are prominent in the Iliad. The splendour of the Mykenaean epoch was therefore still fresh in the memory of the aeolians and Ionians when the Epos arose.

'If the life thus pictured in the Epos thus shows many kindred features to that of Mykenae, the Doric life of the Peloponnesus stands in harsh contrast. Not in strong fortresses, but in open camps, do we find the Dorian conquerors. The n.o.bles do not fight on chariots in the van, but serried infantry decides the combat[vii:1].

'It was about from 1550 to 1150, that Mykenaean culture prevailed, and was then replaced, as the legends a.s.serted, by the Dorian invaders.'

Let us note that the earlier and ruder civilisation of Troy may be contrasted with that of Mycenae, though both of them show successive stages--the later stage of the (second) city of Troy approaching to the intermediate stage of Tiryns, and indeed, forming an unbroken chain with this, Mycenae, and even the later and more finished relics of prehistoric art found at Menidi and at Vaphio (Amyclae). The whole series is h.o.m.ogeneous. The long-misunderstood palace of Troy is of the same kind in plan and arrangement as that of Tiryns and that of Mycenae; the gold ornaments of Mycenae are akin to those of Amyclae; we stand in the presence of an old and organised civilisation which was broken off or ceased in prehistoric days, and recommenced on a different basis, and upon a somewhat different model, among the historical Greeks. And yet the prehistoric dwellers at Tiryns and Mycenae had certainly some features in common with the later race. Not to speak of details such as the designs in pottery, or in the architecture of the simpler historic temples, they were a mercantile and a maritime people, receiving the products of far lands, and sending their own abroad; above all, they show that combination of receptivity and originality in their handicrafts which gives a peculiar stamp to their successors. While the ruder Trojan remains are said to show no traces of Phnician importation, the Mycenaean exhibit objects from Egypt, from northern Syria, and from Ph[oe]nicia; while on the other hand all the best authorities now recognise in much of the pottery, and of the other handicrafts, intelligent home production, which can even be traced in exports along a line of islands across the southern aegean and as far as Egypt. This latter fact, and the closer trade-relations with Hitt.i.te Syria than with Egypt or Phnicia, are brought out by Busolt in his new Introduction.

In what relation do these facts, now reduced to some order, stand to the Homeric poems? According to Schuchardt they vindicate for our Homer an amount of historical value which will astonish the sceptics of our generation. In the first place, however, it is certain that Homer (using the name as a convenient abstraction) has preserved a true tradition of the great seats of culture in prehistoric days. He tells us rightly that Tiryns had gone by when Mycenae took the lead, and that the civilisation of this great centre of power in Greece was kindred to that of Troy, an equally old and splendid centre, which however was destroyed by fire before it had attained to the perfection of the later stages of Mycenaean art. Homer also implies that seafaring connections existed between Asia Minor and Greece, and that early wars arose from reprisals for piratical raids, as Herodotus confirms.

Some advanced kinds of handicraft, such as the inlaying of metals, which have been brought to light in Mycenaean work, are specially prominent in the Homeric poems. It is hard to conceive the nucleus of the poems having originated elsewhere than in the country where Mycenaean grandeur was still fresh. The legend which brings the rude Dorians into Greece about 1100 B.C. (the date need not be so early) accounts for the disappearance of this splendour, and the migration of the Achaeans with their poems to Asia Minor. So far Mr. Leaf agrees, as well as with the theory of Fick, that the earliest poems were composed, not in Ionic, but in the old dialect of Greece, which may be called aeolic, provided (he adds) we do not identify it with the late aeolic to which it has been reduced by Fick. It is added by Schuchardt that the great body of _Nostoi_ seems irreconcilable with E. Curtius' theory that the lays were composed for the early aeolic settlers, who made Asia Minor their permanent home; so that the Trojan War may really have been a mercantile war of Mycenae against the Trojan pirates, who were outside the zone of the Mycenaean trade-route, but may have seriously injured it. Mr. Leaf justly points out that the obscure islands along this route, Cos, and Carpathus, together with Rhodes, in which Mycenaean wares have been found, are counted by the Homeric _Catalogue_ as Achaean allies of Mycenae, while the (Carian) Cyclades, though much larger and perhaps more populated, are ignored.

So far the case for the early date and historic basis of Homer seems considerably strengthened by recent research. Nevertheless, the marked contrasts between the Mycenaean Greeks and the society in Homer create a great difficulty. Some of these have been removed by the aid of (perhaps legitimate) ingenuity, but differences of dress, of burial customs, in the use of iron, &c., remain. The seafaring too of the Homeric Greeks does not seem to me at all what we may infer the Mycenaean seafaring to have been. Minos, or somebody else, must have suppressed piracy, and prehistoric trading cannot have been so exclusively in the hands of the Phnicians. The Old Mycenaeans were perfectly ignorant of the art of writing, a fact which seems to preclude any systematic dealing with the Phnicians, though Busolt rather infers from it a want of personal intercourse with the Hitt.i.tes, and a mere reception of Asiatic luxuries through rude and semi-hostile Sidonian adventurers. Busolt thinks we can follow down prehistoric art through its various steps to that which leads into the Homeric epoch, but as yet such a gradual transition seems to me not clearly shown; I cannot but feel a gulf between the two.

Either therefore the original poets of the Iliad were separated by a considerable gap of time from the life they sought to describe--there may have been a period of decadence before the Dorians appeared--or the Ionic recension was far more trenchant than a mere matter of dialect, and by omission or alteration accommodated the already strange and foreign habits of a bygone age to their own day; or else the Alexandrian editors have destroyed traces of old customs far more than has. .h.i.therto been suspected[xi:1].

It does not therefore appear to me that the antiquity of the Homer which we possess is materially established by these newer researches. That the earliest lays embodied in the _Iliad_ were very old has never been doubted by any sane critic, and has always been maintained by me on independent grounds. But I now think it likely that the great man who brought dramatic unity into the Iliad, and who may have lived near 800 B.C., did far more than merely string together, and make intelligible, older poems. He made the old life of Mycenae into the newer Ionic life of Asia Minor. I am sorry to disagree with Mr. Leaf when he calls that Ionic society 'democratic to the core.' Any one who will read what even Pausanias records of its traditions will see that it was aristocratic to the core, and quite as likely to love heroic legends as any other Greek society of that day.

I must not conclude this Preface without acknowledging the constant help of my younger colleagues in correcting and improving what I write. Of these I will here specify Mr. L. Purser and Mr. Bury.

TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, _February, 1892_.

FOOTNOTES:

[vi:1] 'In the whole range of the Mykenaean 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 Mykenaeans--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.

PROBLEMS IN GREEK HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

OUR EARLIER HISTORIANS OF GREECE.

[Sidenote: Definite and indefinite problems.]

-- 1. There are scientific problems and literary tasks which can be worked out once for all, or which, at least, admit of final solution, to the lasting fame of him that finds that solution, as well as to the permanent benefit of civilized man. There are others, more numerous and far more interesting, which are ever being solved, finally perhaps in the opinion of the discoverer, and even of his generation, but ever arising again, and offering fresh difficulties and fresh attractions to other minds and to newer generations of men.

[Sidenote: Examples in theology and metaphysics.]

I will cite the largest instances, as the most obvious ill.u.s.tration of this second cla.s.s. The deep mysteries of Religion, the dark problems of Knowing and Being, which have occupied the theologian and the metaphysician for thousands of years, are still unsettled, and there is hardly an age of thinking men which does not attack these questions 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.

[Sidenote: 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 pa.s.sages 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.

[Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: 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.

n.o.body 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 h.e.l.lenic speculation.

[Sidenote: The claims of Rome and of the Jews.]

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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 Inst.i.tute at Athens, the _Bulletin de Correspondance h.e.l.lenique_, the English _h.e.l.lenic 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.

[Sidenote: 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.