Three Visions of Greece
What Democracy Meant to the Greeks. By Walter It Agard. (Humphrey Milford. as. 6d.) The Colossus of Maroussi. By Henry Miller. (Seeker and Warburg. 8s. 6d.) Salute to Greece. An Anthology of Cartoons published in the British Press. Edited by S. L. Hourmouzios. (Evans Bros. 6s.)
I DO not suppose that What Democracy Meant to the Greeks would have been published in England before the war. This is not to deny the book merit ; for the author is an American scholar who has lived in Greece and written widely on classical subjects. For the English, however, his book falls between two stools: it is not eclectic enough for the specialists and it is not a thoroughgoing popularisation. It is the sort of thing which would carry off high honours as a post- graduate thesis. One feels that the author saw an opportunity of reinterpreting the democracy of the Greek City State. in the light of our modern history. He begins a chapter with the words: "One of the basic tests of any society is its treatment of foreign people and its own minorities." He writes of Athens under the threat of Mace- donian aggression : "The help which it sent (to its allies) was always too little and too late to be effective." There is a single reference to "Fifth Columnism." These echoes of modernity are, however, half-hearted that they excite little interest. We are left with steady, accurate, conservative jog-trot of Ancient Greek polif theory and practice from Homer' through the Golden Age, to decline of the Greek City State under Macedon and Rome. book appears in its American dress, which explains the wide mar and many virgin pages.
The Colossus of Maroussi is an unusual kind of travel again by an American writer. Here is style or nothing ; so I offer example (a fair sample) of the style. The author is on the point entering Agamemnon's tomb at Mycenae.
"I stand outside full-blown, the most beautiful, the most cultured, the most marvellously fabricated soul on earth. I am going to my foot over the threshold—now. I do so. I hear nothing. I not even there to hear myself shattering into a billion splintered smithereens. Only Agamemnon is there."
For all its affectation of profundity, I judge this to be a shall book. Everything is unbuttoned, woolly and dithyrambic ; a when anything tangible crops up the author exhibits a bla Insouciance, as if a full exposition were too much trouble. This so of thing. "To recount the exploits of the men of Hydra would to write a book about a race of madmen." And we hear nothi more about the men of Hydra. Or this: "Talking of lo Bouboulina's name came up . . . it was an extraordinary story told me and I have no doubt that most of it was true.' But not word of Bouboulina's history finds its way on to the printed pa My disappointment was made complete by the fact that Mr. Miller devotes some thousand words to an island on which I spent ma than a year of my life and I do not recognise one feature of it fro his description!
Nobody can turn over the pages of a book of cartoons withou interest ; and Salute to Greece is a collection of the cartoons of th Greek-Italian war which appeared in the British Press during the epic Battle of Greece. I would have liked to say that our cartoonis had risen to the same heights as Gieek military valour • evident( they tried hard. Low is three times represented ; but I like best s simple piece of anti-Mussolini vulgarity by Wyndham Robinson. On the whole, this collection, proves that the ridiculous suits the cartoonist better than the sublime. KENNETH MATTHEWS.
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