The Glory That Was Greece: a survey of Hellenic culture and civilisation

In Crete art dwelt in palaces; in classical Greece it haunted the market-place and the temple. For the present art is confined to the home. If we may judge by the charming “inte...

“On it also he wrought a vineyard heavy-laden with grapes, beautifully wrought in gold. Up above were the black bunches, and the vineyard was set with silver poles throughout; r...

But in some quarters the pure Greek spirit still produced lovely and reasonable work in art and literature alike. It seems to me impossible to think of degeneracy in connection...

We must not be carried too far by our wonder at this unexpected revelation of prehistoric culture. The later Greeks never reached such a standard as these people in writing or i...

To be naked and unashamed was one of the glories of the cultivated Greek. It astonished (and still shocks) the barbarian. When Agesilaus, the Spartan king, was fighting on Persi...

Lysander, her conqueror, to revise her constitution in an oligarchic direction. Once more the sacred laws were thrown into the melting-pot, and there were elaborate programmes,...

Hippias, as I have said, was expelled by the machinations of the Alcmæonids and the strong arm of Sparta in 510 B.C. It was the Alcmæonid Cleisthenes who was called upon to draw...

The subject of the front or eastern pediment[49] was the birth of Athena. The central scene had gone when Carrey sketched it. It is probable that the armed figure of the goddess...

The little states of old, with their natural citadels, provided a splendid opportunity for any ambitious and unscrupulous person who wished to make himself tyrant. All you had t...

This sea will also invite commerce if the Greeks have anything to sell. It does not look as if they will have much. A few valleys and small plains are fertile enough to feed the...

So we come to the last great fight of this epoch--that of Mantinea. Here Spartans and Athenians fought on the same side against Thebes. The Theban tactics were the same precisel...

While the white marble columns and the white marble roof presented this appearance of simple strength and purity, the decorative mouldings between were enriched not only with th...

“Neolithic man” in Crete, though his weapons and tools were but polished stones, and far as he was behind his Neolithic brothers of Central Europe, had already begun to design p...

always been a rhetorical people. We have noted how, even in Homer, persuasion by the power of speech was a god-given attribute of kings and elders. The Greeks, and the Romans to...

The side of this great contest which chiefly concerns us is its effect in promoting Athenian civilisation. Salamis and Platæa had pushed Athens forward into the front rank of Gr...

As soon as they were of military age the army and the secret police took most of their time and thought. Arts, crafts, and business they considered the work of slaves. Dancing,...

But this very plausible and suggestive theory has scarcely yet had time to stand its trial. What is certain and most important for the understanding of Tragedy is that the Drama...

Xenophanes of Colophon was another Ionian philosopher of the sixth century who came to instruct the West. He was the founder of the important Eleatic school of philosophy, teach...

“Such is the duty, the task of a poet, Fulfilling in honour his office and trust. Look to traditional history, look To antiquity, primitive, early, remote: See there what a bles...

Philip had learnt strategy at the feet of the Theban Epaminondas. The army he created included a _corps d’élite_ of noble horse-guards, the Companions of the King. These were th...

To return to the god and his oracle: the Dorians had planted him at Delphi on their way south about 1000 B.C., and when they had overrun the whole Peloponnesus, except Arcadia a...

Euripides, against athletes, 79; the chorus in, 174; the sceptic and prophet of the new age, 177; the “Alcestis,” 179; number of his works, 182; in the “Frogs” of Aristophanes,...

From a photograph by the English Photo Co., Athens. The best extant example of a Greek theatre. In the centre is the circular _orchestra_, where the chorus danced and sang, and...

But every national virtue has its characteristic defect which will come to the surface as soon as the stimulus of national self-respect is removed. A strong conquering breed is...

We have many fine works of the fourth century of unknown authorship. Foremost of all--surely one of the six greatest statues in the world[90]--is the Demeter of Cnidos, in the B...

With the progress of research, classical scholarship tends more and more towards narrower fields of specialisation. Real students are now like miners working underground each in...

Theseus, the story of, 15; legendary King of Athens, 96, 97; Peisistratus and, 110, 111; the Panathenæa, 112; “Theseus” statue, 152; the contests of (sculpture), 153; and Peirit...