CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL ESSAYS.* An extract from the regulations for the

Prince Consort Prize informs us that these essays have been declared by the adjudi- cators of that prize for 1888 "to be deserving of publication." The public, we have little doubt., will applaud this declaration of the adjudicators ; and as that prize is given for "disputa- tions involving original historical research," and no member of the University may compete for it who is of more than four years' standing from admission to his first degree, we shall be paying Mr. Whibley, the author of the first essay, the best compliment that we can by noting the points in it on which we differ from him. His subject is, "Political Parties in Athens during the Peloponnesian War." There are sixteen names in his list of the chief modern books which he has quoted and con- sulted, and fifteen of these are German. Grote is the remaining name, and Mr. Whibley is not inclined to pay to that great historian more reverence than is due to him. But he over- rates, or we are mistaken greatly, the value of some of his German authorities. "We do not quarrel," says one of them, by name Wilamowitz-M011endorf, "we do not quarrel with history. The doom of Athens was inevitable and not undeserved. But yet it was the conquered cause that pleased the gods ; and we, mortals of a later day, cannot reflect without regret on the fate of this wondrous nation, which Nature meant for the political idea—but Nature missed the mark." This passage, "so brilliant and so true," in Mr. Whibley's opinion, is "adapted," he says, from Mr. Wilamowitz-Mollendorf. We are unable to say, therefore, with precision whether it is the adapter or the author whom we may charge with quarrelling with Nature, if not with history. But in the "final conclu- sions" which Mr. Whibley reaches, he omits rather ominously to notice the emphatic way in which Thucydides ascribes the fall of Athens to its treatment of Alcibiades. Nature had, in its bounty, given to the Athenians a leader who,

Cambridge Historical Essays :—No. I. By L. Whibley. II. By E, W.

Kellett, M.A. Cambridge: At the Univeraity Press. 1899.

if it was their "duty," which we gravely doubt, "to fight the Dorians to the death," would, in all human probability, have enabled them to do their duty. But, with a folly of which history knows few examples. the Athenians served that leader as the base Indian served his

pearl, and by so doing, as Thucydides says, without a thought of Nature's bad marksmanship or of gods pleased with a beaten cause, they destroyed Athens (acrnxam Ttil■ -ó,$). Now, Mr. Whibley speaks of writers who "accept everything that Thucydides wrote almost as if he were verbally inspired." Their error, at all events, is on the right side, for we would

take that historian's word for a thousand pounds against Cleon,

for instance, and his modern defenders. Yet Mr. Whibley quotes from an A. Schmidt quoted by Miiller-Striibing, the following sentences :—" The man who thinks Thucydides impartial is in error. Theopompus' partiality was gross and evident, but Thucydides' is so carefully concealed that we can only discover it with immense trouble and luck." The only

moral that remarks like these point is indissolubly connected

with a needle and a bottle of hay. And Mr. Whibley's novel and ingenious theory that Aristophanes was using paradox rather than exaggeration when he attacked Cleoa in The Knights, is to our comprehension unintelligible. It is idle to criticise Thucydides for not "giving us definite information on constitutional development," or on "the intellectual move- ments and inner life of the people of Athens ;" and if Mr.

Whibley thinks that Muller-Striibing is justified in ventilating

such criticism, it would scarcely be going too far to say Arcades antho of such a pair.

It is time, however, in justification of the verdict which we

have anticipated from the public on these essays, to quote from Mr. Whibley at his best. And he is so, we think, in his treat- ment of the .7rpoctricTnc TOD 41401/ at Athens :— " At one time it was thought that this title denoted a magistrate with definite powers, but Arnold and Grote have shown that it was purely unofficial, and was only used to describe the leading dema- gogue, who acted as guardian of the demos, as the ordinary wpocrraTlis did of the metosc. It was equivalent to aniecryarybs with a notion of primacy. His power was entirely dependent on the support of the assembly, but his position compared with that of the other speakers was recognised as special and pre-eminent. We may therefore follow Grote in his denial that the wpm-mils con- ferred any official power or responsibility, but his own theory of it is open to great objection. From the fact that men of birth were usually elected to the generalship, and from the important part the demagogues took in criticising the administration, he developed the idea that the irpoardrns led the opposition to the government of the rich oligarchy. This theory is based in part on the false idea that all opponents of the demagogues were of necessity oligarchs. As a matter of fact, the oligarchs did not regularly take part in ordinary politics, and men of known oligarchic senti- ments, even if elected, would have been rejected at the official examination (Swaps/34a); most of the generals, even if not keen democrats, were certainly not anti-democratic. The government, in the sense of the chief executive magistracy, was the subject of party contention, and frequently changed hands. The democrats proper (the war party) and the moderates or middle party (usually inclining to peace) had a fairly equal share of office. Hence it is obvious that the leader of the demos was as often on the side of Government as on that of the Opposition, and inasmuch as he could generally command the attention of the assembly, Leader of the House would be as fair a description of him as Leader of the Opposition."

This is a fair sample of Mr. Whibley at his best, and it gives us warrant for praising his essay, and for recommending it strongly to all young students of Greek history. Yet we have an impression that Pericles had, properly speaking, no successor to himself as Irpocercia-nc roi; Zwzov, for his rule, as

Thucydides distinctly says, was a monarchy. Alcibiades was

rpoar krn for a short period after his return from banish- ment, but who besides Alcibiades can be named as having been rrpoen-krn; Tot, atif.4011 from the death of Pericles to the death of

Demosthenes ?

We must notice the second number of these essays very

briefly. Its subject is, "Pope Gregory the Great and his Relations with Gaul," and the author, Mr. Kellett, seems to have studied his subject as carefully as Mr. Whibley studied his. But this subject is one of which the present writer has no knowledge beyond what he acquired from a perusal of Milman's Latin Christianity. It may safely, however, be

taken for granted that the adjudicators were as competent to declare with justice that Mr. Kellett's essay was "deserving of publication," as we have seen that they were in the case of Mr. Whibley. In one respect, indeed, Mr. Kellett has a great advantage over the gentleman with whom he has been bracketed. His style is more lively and lucid than Mr.

Whibley's, and it is as a specimen of style rather than of matter that we quote the following passages from his pleasantly written essay It has been said that Gregory deliberately turned to the Frankish Court as a counterpoise to the Imperial power, that he sought in the Teutonic races support against the encroachments of Constantinople. We are asked to believe that with prophetic insight he perceived that the Pontiff of Borne needed external aid if he were to maintain his rights against the Emperor, and that like an earlier Canning, he called a new political world into existence to redress the balance of the old. But is there anything in the narrative of his relations with Gaul to support this theory ? He never throws himself upon the help of the Franks, never plays them off against the Emperor, never hints in any of his letters that they can be of any service to himself. He even abandons the policy of his predecessor, which pointed somewhat in this direc- tion, preferring to meet the Lombards unaided, to calling in the half-heathen Franks against them. The old Roman spirit was too strong in him, and the pride of his senatorial family was too high in his heart, for him ever to forget that the Emperor was a Roman, the Frankish Ring a barbarian."