NEW CHAPTERS IN GREEK HISTORY.*
THE object of this book is to expound the new views of Greek history which have been brought up before us by recent excava- tions in classical countries,—" in Greece and Asia Minor," says the author on the title-page, but elsewhere also, seeing that one of the most interesting parts of the volume is the seventh chapter, " Naueratis and the Greeks in Egypt." "The New Chapters," Mr. Gardner is careful to explain, "are not the chapters of this book, but the chapters which have been opened to us at Mycenae, at Olympia, and in the other scenes of recent researches." We are indeed living in a very in- teresting period of classical discovery, one which almost equals * New Chapters in Greek History. By Percy Gardner, M.L. London : John Murray. 1892.
that exciting time when the scholars of the Renaissance were bringing to light long-missing treasures of Greek and Roman literature. Our finds now are not manuscripts, though these too are not wanting in the list of recent discoveries ; but all the vast variety of objects which the spade of the excavator lays bare, and out of which we are able to construct so much of the private and public life of Greece and Rome.
Four chapters, containing together more than a fourth of the whole book, are devoted to an account of the remains of pre-historic Greece, so far as they have been brought to light by recent discoveries,—Greece being taken to include the scene of Schliemann's excavations at Hissarlik. The chief literary question here involved is, of course, the date of the Homeric poems. The existence of an Achwan civilisation which was swept away by the Dorian invasion is now, we may say, a fact accepted by all scholars. The matter in dispute is whether the Iliad and Odyssey in the main, later accretions being allowed for, belonged to this period or to a later time, when its glories were only a tradition. Mr. Gardner quotes with a general approval the theory which assigns " the latest parts of the Iliad to the eighth century; the Odyssey to the eighth and seventh centuries." At the same time, he allows that " both poems incorporate legends and even ballads of a much earlier period,"—i.e., we suppose that much of the matter and something of the form belongs to the pre-Dorian period. The old question—many Homers or one P—turns up again, as it always must. Scholars in whom the literary instinct is the stronger will continue to believe in the " indivisible supremacy ;" those who are dominated by the critical faculty will find their solution of the problem in a school of Homeric singers. To us it seems that all difficulties of language and the like are as nothing to the impossibility of conceiving a plurality of Homers. Though we cannot agree with Mr. Gardner on this matter, we have found these chapters most interesting and valuable. We may specially commend to our readers that on " The Palace at Tiryns." Here, indeed, is " a new chapter of Greek history." It may safely be said that five-and-twenty years ago no one had any conception of what archaeological research has now proved to have been a reality :-
" We are accustomed to think of Greece as a land of political communities, of little self-governing states with agora, and harbour, and senate-house, and with an acropolis covered not with a palace, but with the temples of the gods. Such is the Greece of history. But utterly different was pre-historic Greece. There is a broad line dividing mythical from political Hellas, a line which seems to coincide with the great break made in the continuity of Hellas by the Dorian invasion. On the other side of that line we see the castles of magnificent princes standing amid the huts of their dependants, but no trade, no high art, curiously enough, no temples of the gods, though rude images of them. On the more recent side of the line we see vigorous communities, choosing their own governments, carrying on trade with all parts of the Mediterranean and Euxine, and planting colonies on all shores, full of the highest artistic feelings, and building on the heights where the royal castles had stood those magnificent temples to Apollo and Athene, Zeus and Poseidon, which were the centres of all the higher life of Hellas, so long as Hellas lived."
Nancratis is another remarkable instance of what the spade has done for us. The story of the discovery of the site by Mr. Flinders Petrie is carious. One of the Arabs who make their living out of visitors to the Pyramids sold him an archaic Greek statuette. He questioned the man as to the place from which it had come, and found it strewn with fragments of Greek pottery. By a strange stroke of luck, in the very house where he took up his quarters, he found a decree of the city of Naucratis. He had, in fact, lighted on the very spot. Naucratis was never a large place. It was a port, half-trading, half-military, not unlike the factories which European enterprise has set up on the African coast. It had a stronghold, which Mr. Gardner thus describes:— "It was in form a square, 60 yards each way, framed by walls 16 feet thick and about 60 feet high. The entrance was at 18 feet above the ground, evidently approached by a wooden scaffolding, which could be on occasion removed, and led into a passage, from which branched off to right and left twenty-six chambers. Under each of these chambers was a cellar, but the cellars did not com- municate one with the other. There were also upper floors divided into chambers in similar fashion. It is at once evident that we have in this building a great market and store-house. The deep cellars, each only accessible from the chamber above it, would furnish ample and secure space for storage ; the rooms above would serve as show-rooms and offices, as well as work- rooms. The whole would form a hive of industry much like a modern factory, full of looms and wheels, and the sound of iron and brass. Than the agora in ordinary Greek cities, nothing could be more open and simple. Outdoor life, with crowding and talking and sightseeing, suited the restless and enquiring Greek. Yet here we see him living in a vast pile of building. And the reason is clear. In Hellas he felt himself to be surrounded by friends and fellow-citizens. But in Egypt he felt that he was surrounded by an alien race and a rival civilisation ; by a people who frankly despised instead of admiring him, and would be delighted at any opportunity to drive him into the sea. So he took precautions. Close consideration of the factory shows it to have been admirably fitted for defence, whether against a crowd or an army. There was no entrance save at 18 feet from the ground, the approach to which could easily be removed. ' If an enemy began to mine the wall, which was 16 feet thick, he would at last, on getting through it, find himself in the bottom of a well' (that is in one of the cellars),' from which the besieged would have had ample time and notice to remove all means of communication. To mount a wall 18 feet high to a doorway, in the face of oppo- nents above, would be impossible ; or even the floors might be taken out and the doors fastened, so that the defenders could hurl down stones from a height of 50 feet or more on the enemy. The building was simply impregnable to direct attack, and has never been breached in this way.' "
The history of the military colony is remarkable. Psammi- tichus founded it. It flourished under the Kings of his house. When another dynasty succeeded in the person of Amasis, it was treated by the new Sovereign with such favour, that Herodotus actually attributes its foundation to him. With Amasis passed away the glory of Egypt and the prosperity of Nancratis. Two centuries later came another blow in the establishment of Alexandria. It continued, however, to exist under the Ptolemies, and lasted down as far as the third century of our era. In its last days, it must have been the seat of some culture, for Athenmus, the learned author of the Deipnosophistx, was born and lived here.
A wholly different subject—and, indeed, one of the charms of Mr. Gardner's book is its variety of interest—is presented to us in the chapter on the " Reliefs and Inscriptions of Athenian Tombs." Possibly the reader may be somewhat disenchanted by it. All Athenians did not show the classical type of beauty ; "one head is almost African in type with thick lips and woolly hair ;" nor did they always write good sense and good metre. Many of the inscriptions are much on a level with the statuary's verse of our own churchyards. Still, we find in them a real human interest. Sometimes they have an historic character, as that which commemorates the citizens who fell at Potidaea in 432, thus translated by Mr. Gardner :—
" Thus to the dead is deathless honour paid, Who, fired with courage hot, in arms arrayed, Felt each our fathers' valour in him glow, And won long fame by victory o'er the foe.
Heaven claimed their souls, in earth their limbs were laid, Yet past the gates their conquering charge they made ; Of those they routed some in earth abide, Some in strong walls their lives for safety hide.
Erechtheus' city mourns her children's fall, Who fought and died by Potidaea's wall, True sons of Athens, for a virtuous name They gave their lives, and swelled their country's fame."
Commonly, the epitaph is some simple record of private love and sorrow. Some of the inscriptions, which number four thousand in all, belong to Christian times, and "are quite equal to the pagan ones in literary taste and felicity of language, while in sentiment they mark a striking advance." "Spartan Tombs and the Cultus of the Dead" deals with a less familiar subject. Any glimpse into the inner life of this remarkable people is peculiarly welcome. Of the other chapters, that on " Eleusis and the Mysteries " is possibly the most interesting; but all will be found to repay perusal.
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