CURRENT LITERATURE.
Ancient Athens : its History, Topography, and Remains. By Thomas H. Dyer, LL.D. (Bell and Sons.)—This is a very copious and elaborate work, which it is impossible properly to appreciate without an acquaint- ance not only with the literary authorities on the subject, but also with the localities of the modern city. Dr. Dyer commences with a sketch of the history of Athens, disclaiming, as he does so, the task of inquiring whether this history be truth or fiction. He observe; with perfect truth, that it is his business to relate what the Athenians themselves believed. It was their legendary, not their real history, which was illustrated by the monuments which, in a profusion unequalled elsewhere, crowded their city ; it is with their legendary history, therefore, that the antiquarian and topographer are concerned. Dr. Dyer, however, may be supposed to perform this part of his-work with the more satisfaction and success because, as is well known, he is an energetic partisan of what may be called the " believing " school of historians. In the third chapter, after passing rapidly over the heroic times, as represented by the names of Theseus and Codrus, and the semi-historic period of Solon, he comes down to the dynasty of Peisistratus, with which the literary and artistic existence of Athens may be said to have com- menced. The actual city which we know through its great poets, historians, and orators dated from after the Persian war. Copious notices of its fortifications and harbours, its building; sacred and profane, are to be found throughout, the literature of. the next six centuries, but we are indebted to a writer of the second century after Christ for the most complete account of its topography. Pausanias, a native of Magnesia in Lydia, visited Athens at a time when it had reached, thanks to the munificence of Herodes Atticus, its acme of splendour. He wrote what we should call a " guide " to the artistic objects to be seen in the city, and introduced in the course of his de- scriptions many notices of its legends and history. This description is divided into six walks or tours, all of them perfectly plain and easy of recognition, if we except the first, about which there is a certain obscu- rity, owing to a doubt as to the gate by which the writer entered the city. These tours Dr. Dyer follows, illustrating what the "cicerone" of the second century tells us by what still remains in the nineteenth. And he also adds the description of various things which it did not come within the purpose of Pausanias to include in his work, among them the great processions, viz., the Eleusinian and the Pan-Athenaic. Dr. Dyer's volume will be a work of reference to the student of Greek history and literature of the greatest interest and value.
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