Problems in Greek history Part 2

[Sidenote: Good despots not infrequent.]

We hear, of course, of many violent and vicious despots in Greek history; and these are the cases always cited as proving the unsoundness of that form of government. But if a list could be procured of the numerous tyrants who governed wisely or moderately, and who improved the manners and the culture of their subjects, it would probably comprise an immense number of names. The good specimens pa.s.sed by without notice; the criminal cases were paraded in the schools and upon the stage[19:1]: and so a one-sided estimate has pa.s.sed into history. This estimate was taken up with warmth, and paraded with great amplitude by the Radical historian. And yet the very history of Europe since he wrote has shown us strong reasons to doubt that every nation is best managed by a parliamentary system. But on this point Grote had no misgivings. The will of the majority was to him the inspired voice, and he trusted to better education and larger experience to correct the occasional errors from which not even the fullest debate will save an excited populace.

[Sidenote: Grote a practical politician.]

-- 9. These observations, though meant as strictures upon the sanguine enthusiasm of Grote's Radical views, are not to be understood as detracting from the charm of his work. It is this very enthusiasm which has led him to understand and to interpret political movements or accommodations completely misunderstood by many learned continental professors; for he was a practical politician, accustomed to parliamentary life,--above all to the conservative effects of tradition and practice, even in the face of the most innovating theories. He has, therefore, put the case of an educated democracy with more power and more persuasiveness than any other writer; and for this reason alone his book must occupy a prominent place even in the library of the mere practical politician.

[Sidenote: His treatment of Alexander the Great.]

[Sidenote: Contrast of Thirlwall.]

-- 10. Far more serious are the objections to his last volume, on the life and conquests of Alexander the Great. So unequal, indeed, is this episode, which to him was a mere appendix to the story of independent Greece, that a fabulous anecdote prevails of his publisher having persuaded him against his will to pursue his narrative beyond the battle of Chaeronea[20:1]. Here it is that the calmness and candour of Thirlwall stand out in marked contrast. The history of the great conqueror and of the recovered independence (such as it was) of Greece, are treated by the scholar-bishop with the same care and fairness which mark all the rest of his work. But Grote is distinctly unfair to Alexander; his love of democracy led him to hate the man who made it impossible and absurd for Greece, and he shows this bias in every page of his twelfth volume.

[Sidenote: Grote ignores the later federations,]

As regards the subsequent history, which embraces the all-important development of federal government throughout Greece, he does not condescend to treat it at all. His great work is therefore incomplete in plan, and stops before the proper conclusion of his subject. Of course he would have found it hard to panegyrize his favourite democracies when he came to the h.e.l.lenistic age. There the inherent weaknesses of a popular government in days of poverty and decay, in the face of rich and powerful monarchs, showed themselves but too manifestly.

[Sidenote: and despises their history.]

But he will not confess this weak point; he even covers his retreat by the bold a.s.sertion in his preface that Greek history from the generation of Alexander has no interest in itself, or any influence on the world's history--a wonderful judgment! However great therefore and complete the work of Grote is on the earlier periods, this may be added as a warning,--the reader of Greek history should stop with the death of Philip of Macedon, and read the remainder in other books. It is indeed necessary for schoolmasters to limit the bounds of Greek literature in school studies, and so with common consent they have admitted nothing later than the golden age. But the vast interest and paramount importance of Greek ideas in the culture of the Roman world have tempted me to sketch the subject in my _Greek Life and Thought from Alexander to the Roman Conquest_ and _Greek Life under Roman Sway_. Any reader of these volumes will at least concede the vastness, the importance, and the deep interest of the period which Grote despised. But so intricate are the details, and so little arranged, that to write upon it is rather pioneer's work than anything else.

[Sidenote: His treatment of the early legends.]

[Sidenote: Even when plausible, they may be fictions].

-- 11. Let us now, before pa.s.sing to his successors, turn back to the very beginning of the subject, and say a word on his treatment of the elaborate mythical system which the Greeks prefixed to their historical annals. Here the Positivism of the man was sure to bear fruit and produce some remarkable results. He gives, accordingly, with all deliberation and fulness of detail, a complete recital of the stories about the G.o.ds and heroes, telling all their acts and adventures, and then proceeds to argue that they are to be regarded as quite distinct from, and unconnected with, any historical facts. He argues that as there is in the legends a large quant.i.ty of a.s.sertions plainly false and incredible, but intertwined indissolubly with plausible and credible statements, we have no right to pick out the latter and regard them as derived from actual facts. There is such a thing as plausible fiction; and we have no guarantee that the authors of incredible stories about G.o.ds and their miracles did not invent this plausible kind as well.

Rejecting, therefore, all historical inferences from the Greek legends, he merely regards them as conclusive evidence of the state of mind of their inventors,--a picture of the Greek mind in what Comte called the 'theological stage.'

[Sidenote: Thirlwall's view less extreme.]

It is remarkable how fully Thirlwall states this view of the Greek myths, and how clearly his cautious mind appreciates the indisputable weakness of all such legends in affording proper and trustworthy evidence. But when we come to persistent bodies of legend which a.s.sert that Oriental immigrants--Cadmus, Danaus, Pelops, &c.--brought civilization to yet barbarous Greece, Thirlwall, with all his doubts, with all his dislike to vague and shifting stories, cannot make up his mind to regard these agreeing myths as mere idle inventions. Moreover, he urged the point, which Grote omitted to consider, _that early art might so corroborate a story_ as to make its origin in fact morally certain.

[Sidenote: Influence of Niebuhr on both historians.]

No doubt both historians were considerably under the influence of Niebuhr, whose rejection of the old Roman legends, which were often plausible fiction, produced a very great sensation in the literary world[23:1]. Nor did they live to see the great discoveries in early art and prehistoric culture which have since been made by the archaeologists. It seems to me, therefore, that as regards the _incunabula_ of Greek history these great men came at the moment when little more than a negative att.i.tude was possible. The mental history of the nation in its pa.s.sage from easy faith to utter scepticism was expounded by Grote in a masterly way; but for the construction of the myths he would not admit any other than subjective causes. Here, then, was the point on which some further advance might fairly be expected.

[Sidenote: Neither of them visited Greece,]

-- 12. There was another matter also, connected with the life and habits of the time, which made the appreciation of the facts less keen and picturesque than it might have been. Neither Thirlwall nor Grote, though each of them possessed ample means and leisure, seems ever to have thought of visiting the country and seeking to comprehend the geographical aspects of their histories from personal experience. They both--Thirlwall especially--cite the earlier travellers who had explored and pictured the h.e.l.lenic peninsula; but in those days the traveller was regarded as a different kind of man from the historian, who wrote from books in his closet.

[Sidenote: which later historians generally regard as essential.]

[Sidenote: Ernst Curtius and Victor Duruy.]

[Sidenote: The value of autopsy in verifying old authors.]

It is in the last two features--the interpretation of the legends, and the personal acquaintance with the country--that the more recent attempts excel the older masterpieces. Ernst Curtius spent several years in Greece, and published a complete and scholarly account of the Peloponnesus before he produced his history. Duruy gives life and colour to his narrative by references to his personal experiences in Greece. To visit and study the scenes of great events is now so easy and so habitual to scholars, that we may count it one of the necessary conditions for any future history which is to take a high place in the ever-increasing series of h.e.l.lenic studies[25:1]. In his opening chapters Ernst Curtius breathes such freshness and reality into the once dry preamble of geographical description that we feel we have attained a fresh epoch, and are led to expect great things from an experience gained upon the spot, which can verify the cla.s.sical descriptions by the local features which remain. It is of course idle to think that this kind of familiarity will compensate for imperfect study. The modern Greek antiquarians, living upon the spot, have not yet shown themselves equal to many who have never seen what they discuss. Nevertheless, this is certain, that new force, and directness, are attained by a personal acquaintance with the coasts, the mountains, the rivers of Greece, and that many a wrong inference from ancient texts may be avoided by knowing that the scene of the events precludes it.

[Sidenote: Example in the theatre of Athens.]

[Sidenote: Its real size.]

[Sidenote: No landscape for its background.]

-- 13. Here is an example. It is commonly inferred from a pa.s.sage in Plato's _Symposium_, which speaks of thirty thousand citizens being addressed by Agathon in his plays, that the theatre held that number of spectators. This is copied into book after book, though I have long ago called attention to the impossibility of maintaining such an interpretation[26:1]. I need not urge the absurdity of speaking from an open-air stage to thirty thousand people. The actual theatre is now recovered, and any one who has seen it and possesses reasonable common-sense will perceive that about fifteen thousand people was the utmost it could ever have contained[26:2]. To expect a larger crowd to hear any performance of human voices would be ridiculous. What the pa.s.sage, therefore, means is that the whole population of freemen in Athens were in the habit of enjoying the drama,--not, of course, all at the same moment. Other fancies, which have given rise to eloquent musings concerning the picturesque view of the sea and islands enjoyed by the Athenian as a natural background to his tragedy, can be disposed of in the same way by simply sitting even on the top row and making the experiment[26:3],--not to speak of the false notion of attributing to the Athenian citizen a conscious love of picturesque scenery, or an attempt to combine two heterogeneous and incongruous aesthetic interests.

[Sidenote: Greek scenery and art now accessible to all.]

If the writer of Greek history is bound to have visited Greece, this cannot be expected of the reader. But for him too our generation has brought its benefits. In the fine ill.u.s.trations now published of all the objects of interest in Greek museums, and of the finest scenery throughout the country, the general public can find some equivalent; and from this point of view the history of Duruy marks a fresh epoch, even as compared with that of Curtius. For I am not aware that there has. .h.i.therto been any accessible collection of all the interesting things in Nature and Art which the student of Greek history ought to have seen, at least in reproduction. There are, of course, splendid monographs on special buildings, such as the works of the Dilettanti Society, or on special discoveries, such as the original and richly adorned volumes of Dr. Schliemann on Mycenae and Tiryns. But these are beyond the reach of moderate fortunes. The gallery of photographs begun by Mr. Stillman, and now in process of publication by the h.e.l.lenic Society, are both more varied and less expensive, and will make the treasures of Greece perfectly familiar to any student who chooses to acquire them.

FOOTNOTES:

[4:1] Mr. Evelyn Abbott's _History of Greece_, preface.

[7:1] More numerous, and much better, in France and Germany than they are in England.

[7:2] The first volume of his work has recently been translated by Mr.

Prothero, of King's College, Cambridge.

[7:3] I have seen but not read Stanyan's _Grecian History_ in 2 vols.

(1739), and Gast's _History of Greece_, published in Dublin (1793). O.

Goldsmith's Handbook is one of a number published about a hundred years ago, all of which are forgotten. Of these I have looked through at least six. They have now no value.

[8:1] It is remarkable that he never mentions his contemporary, Gillies, so far as I know.

[9:1] The new (second) edition of 1829 has an interesting defence of his history by Lord Redesdale, his younger brother. There is also a cabinet edition in 8 vols., published in 1835, and continued from the death of Agesilaus, where Mitford had stopped, to that of Alexander, by R. A.

Davenport.

[10:1] The dates are, Thirlwall's history, 1835, Grote's first two volumes, 1846. But Grote says he had his materials collected for some years. Upon the publication of these volumes, Thirlwall at once confessed his inferiority, and wrote no more upon the subject.

[11:1] The most obvious proof of this is the price of the book in auction catalogues. The second (octavo) edition is both rare and expensive. The first is the cabinet edition in Lardner's series, the editor of which suggested the work.

[12:1] Published by the Clarendon Press. Clinton alludes to Mitford's effect upon him in his _Journal_.

[15:1] Thus the recent book on the Homeric theory, by Professor Jebb, a scholar who in an earlier primer had inclined to the views of Theodor Bergk, now advocates mainly Grote's theory. Thus Zeller's latest edition of the _History of Greek Philosophy_, a masterly work, treats the Sophists with constant reference to Grote's views. Both the recent German histories of Greece, Holm's and Busolt's, acknowledge fully the great merits of Grote, whose att.i.tude towards the Greek myths is indeed maintained by Holm.

[17:1] In his Editorial Preface to the 2nd ed. of Mitford's _Greece_.

[18:1] This curious contrast should be carefully noted in estimating Grote. The justified and reasonable objections of Greek historians to ultra-democracy he ignores; their violent and personal objections to the despots he adopts without one word of qualification.

[18:2] I am glad to see this point dwelt on with great justice and discrimination in Mr. E. Abbott's recent _History of Greece_, i. 368.

[19:1] Thus Strabo says, when speaking of Sicyon, that the tyrants who had long ruled the city before its liberation by Aratus were for the most part good men; and this accounts for the high reputation of Sicyon for culture. It was Lycophron, in his tragedy ent.i.tled the _Casandreans_, who painted the typical portrait of a tyrant in the monster Apollodorus. (Cf. my _Greek Life and Thought_, p. 283.) Whether he was really as bad as he was painted, and whether his Galatian guards really drank human blood, &c., depends on the comparative weight the critic a.s.signs to general improbability, as against the veracity of a stage portrait. We have no other evidence, for the late historians borrow the traditional features without criticism. But let us suppose that in the next century the evidence concerning the character of Napoleon III depended upon Mr. Freeman's allusions in his _Federal Government_, and upon V. Hugo's monograph, would the inferences from these great writers be even near the real truth?