20 JUNE 1914, Page 25

The Athenian Empirrs and the Great Illusion. By R M.

W. Tillyard. (Macmillan and Co. Is. net) —This pamphlet contains the essay which gained the prize offered by the Garton Foundation to the Cambridge University War and Peace Society in 1912-13. It is much above the average of prize essays, and well deserves to be presented to a wider public. Mr. Tillyard has studied the history of ancient Athens in the light of the ideas of Mr. Norman Angell as to the unrennmerative nature of war. He has taken the diffusion of Athenian pottery as a rough measure of the development of Athenian commerce, and comes to the conclusion that the economical and political successes of Athens varied inversely. "Athenian trade was founded before Athens possessed strong armaments. The beginning of her so-culled greatness was the beginning of her economic decline. By living on plunder she damaged her trade." We commend Mr. Tillyard's able and suggestive essay to the notice of those German states- men who are fond of finding classical precedents for Germany's need of a strong navy.