the history of Greece. The jealous claim of autonomy or political independence, displayed by the pettiest cities, and abused by Sparta at all times, and preeminently in the infamous treaty of Autalcidas, was due to the scanty limits and segregated position of the sea-girt and mountain-locked valleys, in which every city and almost every village was confined. To the same cause may also be ascribed in great measure, the amazing disproportion between the populations of the Greek States, and the heroism and fame of their exploits. South of Thessaly there was no field of battle broad enough for the operation of large armies. The face of the country was so furrowed by mountain chains and ridges, difficult defiles, and deep ravines, that a numerous army was crowded together so as to become helpless, or dismembered so as to prevent any reciprocity of support between its different parts. The plain of Marathon is only six miles long, and varies in width from one and a half to two miles. It is divided into two parts by the river Charadrus, and is enclosed on all sides. In front is the bay, while abrupt hills, the spurs of Parnes and Pentelicus, defend the rear, and bend at the extremities to the sea. The plain is still further contracted by extensive marshes on the right and left, which are dry during the heat of summer, but must have been rendered by the rains impassible for cavalry when the battle took place in September, A. C. 490.* It was on the broken ridges of Citharon that the Greeks encamped, and from them that they descended to defeat Mardonius on the field of Platea. Northwards, a smooth road over a level plain led to Thebes, ten miles distant;+ but southwards rose the unassailable heights of Citharon, which protected the rear and the flanks of the Greeks. The neighbourhood of Scolus, too, where Mardonius formed his camp of refuge, was so rugged as to occasion the proverb: Εἰς Σκῶλον μήτ' αυτὸς ἔμεν, μήτ' ἄλλῳ ἔπεσθαι. These examples are cited as brief illustrations of the absolute * Wordsworth, Greece Pict. Hist. and Descriptive, pp. 108-113; Grote, Hist. Greece, pt. II, ch. xxxvi, vol. IV, pp. 346-8. The legends of the battle-field reported by Pausanias, (Attica, p. 31, 1. 21, ed Sylburg.) show how completely Greek mythology and Greek heroism were intermingled. The spectral armies which continued to haunt the plain, and the spectral horses neighing around the tomb of Miltiades, may have suggested to Zedlitz "Die Nächtliche Heerschau." Odos λeía Tãoα xài TiTεdos. Dicæarch. Messen., De Græciæ Urbibus, §12. Fragm. Hist. Gr., vol. ii, p. 258. δυσοίκητος τόπος και τραχύς, ἀφ' ου και ἡ παροιμία, κ. τ. λ. Strabo, lib. ix, cap. ii. necessity of a minute acquaintance with the topography of Greece in order to appreciate the incidents and character of its history. We place a high estimate upon Mr. Grote's careful delineation of the physical aspect of the country. In this labour he has had many distinguished predecessors, Heeren, Wachsmuth, Thirlwall, Wordsworth, and numerous others. He surpasses them all in precision, perspicuity, suggestivenes, and compactness; though he possesses neither the topographical instinct of Arnold, nor the topographical fancy of Wordsworth. But he is faithful and diligent, and supplies an instinctive representation of the anatomy, physiology, and physiognomy of ancient Hellas; and, when the occasion requires, of the countries colonized or traversed by the Greeks. If mythology was one of the parents of history, geography was the other. The logographers and topographers were the precursors of the Greek historians. The fragments of Hecatæus, Charon of Lampsacus, and Xanthus, show how much of their attention was given to topographical details. Herodotus occupies himself with physical and geographical details as much as with historical incidents; but the practice of the father of history was abandoned by the political Thucydides, and has been only recently revived to any considerable extent. Mr. Grote is most assiduous in writing the description of countries and localities with the notice of their inhabitants, and of the record of the actions witnessed by them. He pursues his geographical investigations so zealously as sometimes to subordinate the main functions of history to its accessaries. The central idea of the work is never forgotten; but it is often obscured by the facility with which he yields to the temptation of dilating upon the geography and early annals of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and Scythians. His chapter on Cyrene is the ancient history of Northern Africa. He may have been betrayed into this error by too close adherence to his teacher, Comte, who properly insists upon the duty of historical speculation to study the medium, the external influences, by which social evolutions are affected. The descriptions of countries, states, and populations, occupy the latter half of the second volume, extend through the third, and recur in the fourth and some of the subsequent volumes. In these delineations is included everything of immediate interest, connected with the separate Greek nationalities, during those ages of obscurity, which do not enter into the consecutive annals of Greece. The government of Pisistratus at Athens, says Clinton,* "is marked as being the first date in Grecian history from which * Fasti Hellenici. Introduction. vol. II, p. 1.. an unbroken series of dates can be deduced in regular succession." Clinton cannot be accused of bringing down too low the commencement of authentic history; he is constantly assailed by Mr. Grote for the opposite tendency. The regular chronology of Greece may descend from the usurpation of Pisistratus, but it was scarcely before the establishment of democracy by Clisthenes, or even before the battle of Marathon, that the authoritative history of Greece began. The long previous ages had not been passed in torpor, but in silence; and they were buried in loose traditions more bewildering than silence: Omnes illacrymabiles Urgentur ignotique longa Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.t These unknown, or dimly known generations, of which no trustworthy record has been preserved, were full of life and activity. It was a period of rapid growth and vigorous development; it contained the promise, and nursed the energies of the future. It combined the elements of Greek civilization, fashioned them into shape, and rendered the name of Greek a national designation.† It spread the colonies and the arts of Greece along the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Euxine. It created the wealth, the commerce, the numbers, the spirit, the laws, and the institutions of the Hellenic race; and it is probable that the resources, the enterprises, and the capabilities of that race, were never as great as before their reliable history began, until their nationality was extinguished, or transformed and extended, by the Macedonian conquest. The burning of Sardis and the complete subjugation of Ionia, constitute the opening scene of the authentic and continuous history of Greece. By that blow the wealthier and more brilliant half of the Greek family of cities was crushed. All that goes before, eventuating in the prosperity thus overthrown, in the strength and energy capable of repelling a similar fate from the mainland of Greece when threatened by the Persian hosts, and from Sicily, when simultaneously invaded by the Carthaginians, belongs to the uncertain and fragmentary traditions of the prehistoric age. These traditions Mr. Grote has collected and criticized in the careful notices of the early condition of the several Greek populations. He has distinguished between the fictitious and the *Hor., iv od. ix, 26-8. A Latin panegyrist ascribes even the fame of Greece to the eloquence of her authors. Mamertini Grat. Actio, c. viii, § 1, vide Amtzen; ad loc. The remark may have been suggested by Sallust. Cat. c. iii. Antiphanis Antous, Fragm. Com. Græc, vol. III, p. 17, Ed. Menicke. αρχη κακῶν Ελλησί τε και βαρβάροισι. Herod., v, xcvii. plausible, between the plausible and the true, marking the approximation to credibility as we descend to the later time. The Messenian wars, the institution of the Olympic and the other national games, the growth of national sentiments, the progress of Greek colonization, the rise of Greek commerce, the legislation of Lycurgus, Solon, and the Italic law-givers; the Amphictyonic Council, the first sacred war, the tyrants, the seven wise men, and the germs of Greek philosophy, the successful cultivation of lyric poetry and music, the introduction of weights, measures, and coined money, all belong to this important period, and are all discussed with signal ability, and his habitual exuberance, by Mr. Grote. All that can be done by critical acumen, combined with copious learning, large historical information, and political experience, is happily achieved; and we may at length compare the scanty array of authentic facts previous to the expulsion of the Pisistratidæ, with the attractive but bewildering display of uncertain or imaginary events. The criticism of Pindar on the miraculous legend of Pelops and his ivory arm, is singularly appropriate to the earlier chapters of Greek history: * θαυματὰ πολλὰ, και πού τι και βροτῶν φρένας ὑπὲρ τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον In noticing a work so voluminous, and so replete with suggestion as the present, it is impossible, and would be tedious if it were possible, to touch in even the most hurried manner upon all its principal features and separate divisions. We must check our disposition to dwell upon details, to indicate novelties, to eulogize or cavil at particular views. Some choice must be exercised, and some principle of discrimination adopted, to restrain the tendency to incessant divagation, or too prodigal expatiation. We can only guide our steps by a single thread, and prudence advises the utmost abridgement of the course. Our selection is made; it is dictated by the most essential characteristic of Greek history. If compelled to eliminate the greater portion of Mr. Grote's labours, they are neither ignored nor unappreciated. From the burning of Sardis to the death of Alexander at Babylon, there is an epic unity and magnificence in the history of Greece, which is vaguely felt, but very imperfectly manifested by Mr. Grote. It is one of the grand stages in the march of humanity. It is a grand triumph in human advancement. It is the first great struggle of freedom against despotism-of Europe against Asia * Mr. Grote remembers nearly everything; but in the exhibition of the glory of the victorious athletes, he has overlooked their vituperation by Euripides. Autolycus, Fragm. 1. Pindar, Olymp. I, vv. 44-8, ed. Bergkh. of the petty forces of the little Greece against the countless hosts of the interminable east. Such a contest can be comprehended only by a sympathetic enthusiasm in the cause of liberty and intelligence: it is invisible to the narrow partizanship and local prejudices of Mitford; it is imperceptible to the conservative indifferentism of Thirlwall; it is inappreciable by the cloistered erudition and dusty pedantry of German scholars; it is only half suspected by the radical fanaticism of Grote. The same contest has been renewed on other fields, and in other centuries, always with the same ultimate result. The wars of Rome against Carthage; of the Roman empire against the Parthians; of Stilicho and Etius against the Huns; of the Byzantine empire against Khosron, against the Mahometans, and against the Tartars; of Charles Martel and the Spaniards against the Saracens; of the Crusades-are later acts of the same drama, which closed, but not for ever, in the victory of Lepanto, and the triumph of John Sobieski beneath the walls of Vienna. Greece leads the van of the columns of freedom, introducing the world-wide warfare, which, starting from a single city on the rock of the Athenian acropolis, has spread with the lapse of time, till it has embraced the destinies of the human race. Well might the orators of Athens boast of the share of their native city in the emancipation of Greece! Their boasts were just if the blessing had extended no further; but do they not receive a larger significance, and claim a nobler acceptance, when it is perceived that those victories of the Athenian freemen secured the fortunes and the progress of all posterity? The same battle has been often fought again, with more numerous and better appointed armies, and on ampler arenas; but never has it been fought more brilliantly, never has the triumph been adorned by loftier achievements in arms, in statesmanship, in arts, and in letters. This great resistance of Europe to Asia, in the case of Greece, grew out of, and was intertwined with, the domestic changes of Athens, and was also linked with the contemporary fortunes of the other Greek cities. Persia had her own ambition to gratify, her own injuries to avenge, but she appeared on the soil of Greece as the ally and armed advocate of the Pisistratidæ, who had been expelled from Athens, on the overthrow of their tyranny. The Athenian intervention in the Ionic revolt had been determined partly by natural sympathy for her Ionic colonies, partly by apprehension of the assistance which Hippias might derive from the Persians and the despots in the Asiatic cities, partly by jealousy of Sparta, which had been the declared enemy of the Athenians, and the friend of her tyrants. The stream of Grecian history is not interrupted by its collision with Asia in the * Isocrat., Paneg. c, xx. Ad Philipp. c, Ixii. Demosth., De Corona, c, xxi, lix. |