Chapter XV: Front Matter (15)

It is towards the end of the 5th century that a fresh source of information becomes available in the speeches of the orators, the earliest of whom is Antiphon (d. 411 B.C.). Lysias is of great importance for the history of the Thirty (see the speeches against Eratosthenes and Agoratus), and a good deal may be gathered from Andocides with regard to the last years of the 5th and the opening years of the next century. At the other end of this period Lycurgus, Hyperides and Dinarchus throw light upon the time of Philip and Alexander. The three, however, who are of most importance to the historian are Isocrates, Aeschines and Demosthenes. Isocrates (q.v.), whose long life (436-338) more than spans the interval between the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War and the triumph of Macedon at Chaeronea, is one of the most characteristic figures in the Greek world of his day. To comprehend that world the study of Isocrates is indispensable; for in an age dominated by rhetoric he is the prince of rhetoricians. It is difficult for a modern reader to do him justice, so alien is his spirit and the spirit of his age from ours. It must be allowed that he is frequently monotonous and prolix; at the same time it must not be forgotten that, as the most famous representative of rhetoric, he was read from one end of the Greek world to the other. He was the friend of Evagoras and Archidamus, of Dionysius and Philip; he was the master of Aeschines and Lycurgus amongst orators and of Ephorus and Theopompus amongst historians. No other contemporary writer has left so indelible a stamp upon the style and the sentiment of his generation. It is a commonplace that Isocrates is the apostle of Panhellenism. It is not so generally recognized that he is the prophet of Hellenism. A passage in the Panegyricus (S 50 [Greek: hoste to ton Hellenon onoma meketi tou genous alla tes dianoias dokein einai kai mallon Hellenas kaleisthai tous tes paideuseos tes hemeteras e tous tes koines physeos metechontas]) is the key to the history of the next three centuries. Doubtless he had no conception of the extent to which the East was to be hellenized. He was, however, the first to recognize that it would be hellenized by the diffusion of Greek culture rather than of Greek blood. His Panhellenism was the outcome of his recognition of the new forces and tendencies which were at work in the midst of a new generation. When Greek culture was becoming more and more international, the exaggeration of the principle of autonomy in the Greek political system was becoming more and more absurd. He had sufficient insight to be aware that the price paid for this autonomy was the domination of Persia; a domination which meant the servitude of the Greek states across the Aegean and the demoralization of Greek political life at home. His Panhellenism led him to a more liberal view of the distinction between what was Greek and what was not than was possible to the intenser patriotism of a Demosthenes. In his later orations he has the courage not only to pronounce that the day of Athens as a first-rate power is past, but to see in Philip the needful leader in the crusade against Persia. The earliest and greatest of his political orations is the _Panegyricus_, published in 380 B.C., midway between the peace of Antalcidas and Leuctra. It is his _apologia_ for Panhellenism. To the period of the Social War belong the _De pace_ (355 B.C.) and the _Areopagiticus_ (354 B.C.), both of great value as evidence for the internal conditions of Athens at the beginning of the struggle with Macedon. The _Plataicus_ (373 B.C.) and the _Archidamus_ (366 B.C.) throw light upon the politics of Boeotia and the Peloponnese respectively. The _Panathenaicus_ (339 B.C.), the child of his old age, contains little that may not be found in the earlier orations. The _Philippus_ (346 B.C.) is of peculiar interest, as giving the views of the Macedonian party.

Demosthenes.

Not the least remarkable feature in recent historical criticism is the reaction against the view which was at one time almost universally accepted of the character, statesmanship and authority of the orator Demosthenes (q.v.). During the last quarter of a century his character and statesmanship have been attacked, and his authority impugned, by a series of writers of whom Holm and Beloch are the best known. With the estimate of his character and statesmanship we are not here concerned. With regard to his value as an authority for the history of the period, it is to his speeches, and to those of his contemporaries, Aeschines, Hypereides, Dinarchus and Lycurgus, that we owe our intimate knowledge, both of the working of the constitutional and legal systems, and of the life of the people, at this period of Athenian history. From this point of view his value can hardly be overestimated. As a witness, however, to matters of fact, his authority can no longer be rated as highly as it once was, e.g. by Schaefer and by Grote. The orator's attitude towards events, both in the past and in the present, is inevitably a different one from the historian's. The object of a Thucydides is to ascertain a fact, or to exhibit it in its true relations. The object of a Demosthenes is to make a point, or to win his case. In their dealings with the past the orators exhibit a levity which is almost inconceivable to a modern reader. Andocides, in a passage of his speech _On the Mysteries_ (S 107), speaks of Marathon as the crowning victory of Xerxes' campaign; in his speech _On the Peace_ (S 3) he confuses Miltiades with Cimon, and the Five Years' Peace with the Thirty Years' Truce. Though the latter passage is a mass of absurdities and confusions, it was so generally admired that it was incorporated by Aeschines in his speech _On the Embassy_ (SS 172-176). If such was their attitude towards the past; if, in order to make a point, they do not hesitate to pervert history, is it likely that they would conform to a higher standard of veracity in their statements as to the present--as to their contemporaries, their rivals or their own actions? When we compare different speeches of Demosthenes, separated by an interval of years, we cannot fail to observe a marked difference in his statements. The farther he is from the events, the bolder are his mis-statements. It is only necessary to compare the speech _On the Crown_ with that _On the Embassy_, and this latter speech with the _Philippics_ and _Olynthiacs_, to find illustrations. It has come to be recognized that no statement as to a matter of fact is to be accepted, unless it receives independent corroboration, or unless it is admitted by both sides. The speeches of Demosthenes may be conveniently divided into four classes according to their dates. To the pre-Philippic period belong the speeches _On the Symmories_ (354 B.C.), _On Megalopolis_ (352 B.C.), _Against Aristocrates_ (351 B.C.), and, perhaps, the speech _On Rhodes_ (? 351 B.C.). These speeches betray no consciousness of the danger threatened by Philip's ambition. The policy recommended is one based upon the principle of the balance of power. To the succeeding period, which ends with the peace of Philocrates (346 B.C.), belong the _First Philippic_ and the three _Olynthiacs_. To the period between the peace of Philocrates and Chaeronea belong the speech _On the Peace_ (346 B.C.), the _Second Philippic_ (344 B.C.), the speeches _On the Embassy_ (344 B.C.) and _On the Chersonese_ (341 B.C.), and the _Third Philippic_. The masterpiece of his genius, the speech On the Crown, was delivered in 330 B.C., in the reign of Alexander. Of the three extant speeches of Aeschines (q.v.) that _On the Embassy_ is of great value, as enabling us to correct the mis-statements of Demosthenes. For the period from the death of Alexander to the fall of Corinth (323-146 B.C.) our literary authorities are singularly defective. For the Diadochi Diodorus (books xviii.-xx.) is our chief source. These books form the most valuable part of Diodorus' work. They are mainly based upon the work of Hieronymus of Cardia, a writer who combined exceptional opportunities for ascertaining the truth (he was in the service first of Eumenes, and then of Antigonus) with an exceptional sense of its importance. Hieronymus ended his history at the death of Pyrrhus (272 B.C.), but, unfortunately, book xx. of Diodorus' work carries us no farther than 303 B.C., and of the later books we have but scanty fragments. The narrative of Diodorus may be supplemented by the fragments of Arrian's _History of the events after Alexander's death_ (which reach, however, only to 321 B.C.), and by Plutarch's _Lives of Eumenes_ and of _Demetrius_. For the rest of the 3rd century and the first half of the 2nd we have his _Lives of Pyrrhus_, of _Aratus_, of _Philopoemen_, and of _Agis and Cleomenes_. For the period from 220 B.C. onwards Polybius (q.v.) is our chief authority (see ROME: _Ancient History_, section "Authorities"). In a period in which the literary sources are so scanty great weight attaches to the epigraphic and numismatic evidence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The literature which deals with the history of Greece,
in its various periods, departments and aspects, is of so vast a bulk
that all that can be attempted here is to indicate the most important
and most accessible works.

_General Histories of Greece._--Down to the middle of the 19th century
the only histories of Greece deserving of mention were the products of
English scholarship. The two earliest of these were published about
the same date, towards the end of the 18th century, nearly
three-quarters of a century before any history of Greece, other than a
mere compendium, appeared on the Continent. John Gillies' _History of
Greece_ was published in 1786, Mitford's in 1784. Both works were
composed with a political bias and a political object. Gillies was a
Whig. In the dedication (to George III.) he expresses the view that
"the History of Greece exposes the dangerous turbulence of Democracy,
and arraigns the despotism of Tyrants, while it evinces the
inestimable benefits, resulting to Liberty itself, from the steady
operation of well-regulated monarchy." Mitford was a Tory, who thought
to demonstrate the evils of democracy from the example of the Athenian
state. His _History_, in spite of its bias, was a work of real value.
More than fifty years elapsed between Mitford's work and Thirlwall's.
Connop Thirlwall, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, afterwards
bishop of St David's, brought a sound judgment to the aid of ripe
scholarship. His _History of Greece_, published in 1835-1838 (8
vols.), is entirely free from the controversial tone of Mitford's
volumes. Ten years later (1846) George Grote published the first
volumes of his history, which was not completed (in 12 vols.) till
1856. Grote, like Mitford, was a politician--an ardent Radical, with
republican sympathies. It was in order to refute the slanders of the
Tory partisan that he was impelled to write a history of Greece, which
should do justice to the greatest democracy of the ancient world, the
Athenian state. Thus, in the case of three of these four writers, the
interest in their subject was mainly political. Incomparably the
greatest of these works is Grote's. Grote had his faults and his
limitations. His prejudices are strong, and his scholarship is weak;
he had never visited Greece, and he knew little or nothing of Greek
art; and, at the time he wrote, the importance of coins and
inscriptions was imperfectly apprehended. In spite of every defect,
however, his work is the greatest history of Greece that has yet been
written. It is not too much to say that nobody knows Greek history
till he has mastered Grote. No history of Greece has since appeared in
England on a scale at all comparable to that of Grote's work. The most
important of the more recent ones is that by J. B. Bury (1 vol.,
1900), formerly fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, afterwards Regius
Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. Mitford and Bury end with
the death of Alexander; Gillies and Grote carry on the narrative a
generation farther; while Thirlwall's work extends to the absorption
of Greece in the Roman Empire (146 B.C.).

While in France the _Histoire des Grecs_ (ending at 146 B.C.) of
Victor Duruy (new edition, 2 vols., 1883), Minister of Public
Instruction under Napoleon III., is the only one that need be
mentioned, in Germany there has been a succession of histories of
Greece since the middle of the 19th century. Kortum's _Geschichte
Griechenlands_ (3 vols., 1854), a work of little merit, was followed
by Max Duncker's _Geschichte der Griechen_ (vols. 1 and 2 published in
1856; vols. 1 and 2, Neue Folge, which bring the narrative down to the
death of Pericles, in 1884; the two former volumes form vols. 5, 6 and
7 of his _Geschichte des Altertums_), and by the _Griechische
Geschichte_ of Ernst Curtius (3 vols., 1857-1867). An English
translation of Duncker, by S. F. Alleyne, appeared in 1883 (2 vols.,
Bentley), and of Curtius, by A. W. Ward (5 vols., Bentley, 1868-1873).
Among more recent works may be mentioned the _Griechische Geschichte_
of Adolf Holm (4 vols., Berlin, 1886-1894; English translation by F.
Clarke, 4 vols., Macmillan, 1894-1898), and histories with the same
title by Julius Beloch (3 vols., Strassburg, 1893-1904) and Georg
Busolt (2nd ed., 3 vols., Gotha, 1893-1904). Holm carries on the
narrative to 30 B.C., Beloch to 217 B.C., Busolt to Chaeronea (338
B.C.).[32] Busolt's work is entirely different in character from any
other history of Greece. The writer's object is to refer in the notes
(which constitute five-sixths of the book) to the views of every
writer in any language upon every controverted question. It is
absolutely indispensable, as a work of reference, for any serious
study of Greek history. The ablest work since Grote's is Eduard
Meyer's _Geschichte des Altertums_, of which 5 vols. (Stuttgart and
Berlin, 1884-1902) have appeared, carrying the narrative down to the
death of Epaminondas (362 B.C.). Vols. 2-5 are principally concerned
with Greek history. It must be remembered that, partly owing to the
literary finds and the archaeological discoveries of the last thirty
years, and partly owing to the advance made in the study of epigraphy
and numismatics, all the histories published before those of Busolt,
Beloch, Meyer and Bury are out of date.

_Works bearing on the History of Greece._--Earlier works and editions
are omitted, except in the case of a work which has not been
superseded.

_Introductions._--C. Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in das Studium der alten
Geschichte_ (1 vol., Leipzig, 1895); E. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alten
Geschichte_ (2 parts, Halle, 1892-1899; quite indispensable); J. B.
Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_ (London, 1909).

_Constitutional History and Institutions._--G. F. Schomann,
_Griechische Altertumer_ (2 vols., Berlin, 1855-1859; vol. i., tr. by
E. G. Hardy and J. S. Mann, Rivingtons, 1880); G. Gilbert,
_Griechische Staatsaltertumer_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., Leipzig, 1893; vol.
i. tr. by E. J. Brooks and T. Nicklin, Swan Sonnenschein, 1895); K. F.
Hermann, _Lehrbuch der griechischen Antiquitaten_ (6th ed., 4 vols.,
Freiburg, 1882-1895); Iwan Muller, _Handbuch der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_ (9 vols., Nordlingen, 1886, in progress;
several of the volumes are concerned with Greek history); J. H.
Lipsius, _Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren_ (Leipzig, 1905, in
progress); A. H. J. Greenidge, _Handbook of Greek Constitutional
History_ (1 vol., Macmillan, 1896); Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyklopadie
der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_ (Stuttgart, 1894 foll.).

_Geography._--E. H. Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography amongst the
Greeks and Romans_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., Murray, 1883), W. M. Leake,
_Travels in the Morea_ (3 vols., 1830), and _Travels in Northern
Greece_ (4 vols., 1834); H. F. Tozer, _Lectures on the Geography of
Greece_ (1 vol., Murray, 1873), and _History of Ancient Geography_ (1
vol., Cambridge, 1897); J. P. Mahaffy, _Rambles and Studies in Greece_
(3rd ed., 1 vol., Macmillan, 1887, an admirable book); C. Bursian,
_Geographie von Griechenland_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1872); H. Berger,
_Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen_ (4 parts,
Leipzig, 1887-1893); Ernst Curtius, _Peloponnesos_ (2 vols., Gotha,
1850-1851).

_Epigraphy and Numismatics._--_Corpus inscriptionum Atticarum_
(Berlin, 1875, in progress), _Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum_ (Berlin,
1892, in progress). The following selections of Greek inscriptions may
be mentioned: E. F. Hicks and G. F. Hill, _Manual of Greek Historical
Inscriptions_ (new ed., 1 vol., Oxford, 1901): W. Dittenberger,
_Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., Berlin, 1898); C.
Michel, _Recueil d'inscriptions grecques_ (Paris, 1900). Among works
on numismatics the English reader may refer to B. V. Head, _Historia
numorum_ (1 vol., Oxford, 1887); G. F. Hill, _Handbook of Greek and
Roman Coins_ (1 vol., Macmillan, 1899), as well as to the _British
Museum Catalogue of Greek Coins_. In French the most important general
work is the _Monnaies grecques_ of F. Imhoof-Blumer (Paris, 1883).

_Chronology, Trade, War, Social Life, &c._--H. F. Clinton, _Fasti
Hellenici_ (3rd ed., 3 vols., Oxford, 1841, a work of which English
scholarship may well be proud; it is still invaluable for the study of
Greek chronology); B. Buchsenschutz, _Besitz und Erwerb im
griechischen Altertume_ (1 vol., Halle, 1869; this is still the best
book on Greek commerce); J. Beloch, _Die Bevolkerung der
griechisch-romischen Welt_ (1 vol., Leipzig, 1886); W. Rustow and H.
Kochly, _Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens_ (1 vol., Aarau,
1852); J. P. Mahaffy, _Social Life in Greece_ (2nd ed., 1 vol., 1875).
(E. M. W.)

b. _Post-Classical: 146 B.C.-A.D. 1800_