MR. OMAN'S HISTORY OF GREECE.*
Ma. Ome./4 explains in his preface that this History was written because "for a considerable time there has appeared no new school History of Greece, brought up to the level of recent discoveries." He further explains that in writing it, he has "kept in view the requirements of the upper forms in schools, and of the final pass examination at the Universities." Now, we are not quite sure what the recent discoveries are to which Mr. Oman refers. In his chapter on the Homeric poems, he vigorously contends that they were certainly not built up by a dozen different poets of varying capacities, who wrote separate lays which were subsequently pieced together. And he says, with emphasis, that it is quite rational to hold that a single author of transcendent genius composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. We believe that he is entirely right on both points, but to make them so confidently seems an odd way of bringing his History up to the level of recent dis- coveries. He goes much farther, too. For while admitting that small inconsistencies may be here and there pointed out between two books of the Iliad, or between the Iliad and the Odyssey, be contemptuously insists. that "the results in that direction of the assiduous research of three generations of critics are ludicrously scanty." We are far from disagreeing with him, but we cannot help good- naturedly suggesting that something similar might be said of the "recent discoveries" which strike him as being so im- portant. Be this as it may, we are heartily glad to welcome his "short History of Greece," as a boon to young and unlearned students. For it tells the story of that famous land in a succinct and lively form, and it brings strongly out her great states and her great men. It is, in fact, if we may so far trust our memory, the best of all school Histories of Greece that we have read. And it is unquestionably the most readable. The opening chapter, on the geography of Greece, is particularly well done. Readers who are neither young nor unlearned will be pleased to learn that Greece was about equal in size to Scotland, and that it had as many miles of sea-coast as Spain and Portugal, though its superficial area is only one-tenth of that of the Iberian Peninsula. Such readers will be pleased also to be informed or reminded that "legend loves to pile all the details of an early constitution on to a single legislator," and that "in crediting Lycurgus with every dis- tinctive usage of the Spartan State-system, the Greeks were but illustrating the same tendency that made oar own ancestors say that King Alfred invented trial by jury, and divided England into shires." Apt, and not few, are the "modern instances" with which Mr. Oman in this way enlivens his story. But to two of them we must take exception. There are not "many points of similarity" between the way in which Dionysius of Syracuse and Napoleon Bonaparte acquired power, and there are no points of similarity between 4‘ the events of Arginum " and "the storm on the night after Trafalgar." And here, perhaps, we may notice what Mr. Oman says was "the crowning atrocity" of the Syracusaii tyrant's life in the eyes of "pious Greeks." He took the robe of Hera from her temple near Croton, and sold it to the Carthaginians for 120 talents (e27,000). There must be more in such a sale as this than meets the "nice and delicate ear of thought." We shall content ourselves with wondering whether this was the robe of which Flaubert discoursed such marvels in Salammbo. And with regard to the "pious Greeks," it is possible that Mr. Oman may be mistaken, as he clearly is in his extremely un- historical comment on the Malian atrocity which the A thenians perpetrated. "Every right-minded man in Greece," he says, " saw the vengeance of Heaven for the massacre of Melos in the unbroken series of disasters which thenceforward attended the Athenian arms." " Unbroken " here is too strong a word, for Mr. Oman describes the Battle of Cyzicus as the most
• A History of Greece, from the Earliest Times to the Macedonian Conquest. By C. W. 0. Oman, M.A., F.S.A , Fellow of All Soule College, and Lecturer at New College, Oxford. London: Riringtms. 1890.
complete victory which graced the arms of Athens during the whole war. Let that pass. Thucydides was not a "pious Greek," but he was a right-minded man, and he attributed the fall of Athens to a simple cause which Mr. Oman has completely overlooked. Alcibiades was a man without an atom of magnanimity or of real greatness in his nature ; but he was a first-rate General, and a master of the diplomatic duplicity which counted for so much in a contest like the Peloponnesian War. Mr. Oman does not do justice to the abilities of this celebrated man. He sneers at his plan of campaign in the Sicilian expedition, as being a "fatal middle course." He forgets that Alcibiades was recalled before he could get that plan into working order ; and Thucy- dides, who had no undue sympathies with a man like Alcibiades, has recorded with emphasis his opinion that the democracy, by treating Alcibiades as they did, destroyed Athens (bacpnway r4p wimp). It was the weakness which that democracy had for listening intermittently to windy demagogues which, in the long-run, ruined the Athenian empire ; and Mr. Oman, if we are not mistaken, fails to bring this weakness out as it should be brought. He dwells earnestly and frequently upon the passion for local autonomy, or Home-rule, which was the curse of the Greeks as a nation, and he points the moral of that passion when he declares that the constitution given by Philip of Macedon was "a more just and promising basis for the union of Greece than were any of the arrangements which Sparta and Athens had tried to force on their reluctant neighbours." It is possible, indeed, that this passion may have told largely against Athens during the war; but it was owing to her own crimes and blunders, and to her blunders rather than her crimes, that she sank after that memorable contest from an imperial city to a second-rate provincial town.
Writing for youthful readers, Mr. Oman very justly records the chief battles of Greek history at some length. His plans and his descriptions of Leuctra and Ma.ntinea leave nothing to be desired But we may remark incidentally that he seems to overrate the genius of Epaminondas. That great man—for great he was in the best sense of the word—invented a new order of battle. His array at Mantinea was precisely similar to what it had been at Leuctra. But from his double failure at Sparta we should infer that as a soldier he was distinctly inferior to Alexander the Great. His presence on the field of Clneronea would hardly have affected the issue of that "dis- honest victory ;" but the warmth of Mr. Oman's admiration for Epaminondas is catching, and we are sorry that he does not notice the fine compliment which Agesilaus paid to the man who had made haughty Sparta bite the dust. "What a splendid fellow !" was all the old King said when he saw Epaminondas wading across the swollen Eurotas at the head of his phalanx, to attack the city which he was himself de- fending. In his account of Marathon, Mr. Oman hesitatingly suggests that Dabis and Artaphernes may not have intended fighting. It seems certain to us that they did not. Their cavalry was on board, and their infantry was beyond a doubt embarking when Miltiades pounced down upon them. It is to the fact that the Athenians were more eager to capture ships than to slay fugitives that the comparatively small loss of the Persians was due. The really difficult point to decide in connection with this memorable battle is why the partisans of Hippias delayed so long before raising the shield on Pentelicus.
We strenuously recommend this History to the attention of schoolmasters, and to the large class of readers whom it is customary to call "general." It combines liveliness with solidity as they are rarely combined, and it deserves to meet with a large and rapid sale.
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