The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 03

In thinking of the mythical period with its citations of fables about gods and goddesses galore and heroes unnumbered, one is apt to become the victim of a mental mirage. One ca...

Pisistratus left three legitimate sons--Hippias, Hipparchus, and Thessalus: the general belief at Athens among the contemporaries of Thucydides was, that Hipparchus was the elde...

In the populous and extensive kingdoms of modern Europe, the revolutions of public affairs seldom disturb the humble obscurity of private life; but the national transactions of...

The battle of Salamis is a watchword of Greek triumph, and yet it by no means solved the problem of independence, for a great army was still in the country, enjoying the confide...

No admirer of Greek civilisation can turn from the peaceful age of Pericles and follow the next step in Grecian history without a feeling of sadness, for he has to see the most...

The largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily has been a stepping-stone between African, Asiatic, and European nations. Freeman[e] has compared it with Great Britain in its “g...

At Mycenæ in 1876 Dr. Schliemann lifted the corner of the veil which had so long enshrouded the elder age of Hellas. Year by year ever since that veil has been further withdrawn...

ARRIAN, JULIUS BELOCH, A. BŒCKH, JOHN B. BURY, GEORG BUSOLT, H. F. CLINTON, GEORGE W. COX, ERNST CURTIUS, HERMANN DIELS, DIODORUS SICULUS, JOHANN G. DROYSEN, GEORGE GROTE, HEROD...

A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations;--all were his, He counted them at break of day, And when...

This was the ruler of the land When Athens was the land of fame: This was the light that led the band When earth was like a living flame; The centre of earth’s noblest ring-- Of...

What follows is one of the most interesting parts of Herodotus. It exhibits the most circumstantial detail of the expedition of Xerxes against Greece, by a writer almost contemp...

When the Persians had retreated from Europe after being conquered both by sea and land by the Greeks, and those of them had been destroyed who had fled with their ships to Mycal...

Land of the lordly mien and iron frame! Where wealth was held dishonour, Luxury’s smile Worse than a demon’s soul-destroying wile! Where every youth that hailed the Day-God’s be...

Where’er we tread ’tis haunted, holy ground; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the muse’s tales seem truly told, Ti...

It was towards the close of autumn that Pericles, chosen by the people for the purpose, delivered the funeral oration at the public interment of those warriors who had fallen du...

The fourth year of the war, 428 B.C., opened with the third invasion of Attica by Archidamus, but the Periclean policy of remaining within the walls was continued. Athens hersel...

The judicial alterations effected at Athens by Pericles and Ephialtes, described in a preceding chapter, gave to a large proportion of the citizens direct jury functions and an...

It is on the occasion of Solon’s legislation that we obtain our first glimpse--only a glimpse, unfortunately--of the actual state of Attica and its inhabitants. It is a sad and...

What! are these stones, yon column’s broken shaft, Where moss-crowned Ruin long hath sat and laughed, These shattered steps, these walls that earthward bow, All Sparta’s Royal S...

The complete change in the map of Greece at the close of the Achæan period and the origin of the ethnographic system with which the history of Hellenic times begins, were always...

Of all branches of literature there is none more closely interwoven with political life than oratory. This art could only have been developed among the Ionians, for no other rac...

Cleomenes and Leotychides, the two kings of Sparta (the former belonging to the elder or Eurysthenid, the latter to the younger or the Proclid, race), had conspired for the purp...

The character of every people is more or less closely connected with that of its land. The station which the Greeks filled among nations, the part which they acted, and the work...

Perpetual warfare, pushed to the last extremity of hostile rage, would in no long time have consumed or ruined the little tribes whose territories occupied only a few adjacent v...

Athens! thou birthplace of the great, the free! Though bowed thy power, and dimmed thy name may be, Though old Renown’s once dazzling sun hath set, Fair beams the star of Memory...

Crete was an island, which, from its position, should have dominated over the whole of Greece, as it had for its neighbours the coasts of the Peloponnesus and of Asia. The Creta...

Among students of Greek history the little town of Platæa takes a large hold upon the affections. We have seen how its old time devotion to Athens brought upon it a sudden desce...

Policy united with natural inclination to induce Pericles to patronise the arts, and call forth their finest productions for the admiration and delight of the Athenian people. T...

Aristotle’s survey of the Greek forms of government was founded on a vast store of information which he had collected on the history and constitution of more than a hundred and...

Everywhere in the ancient world, but in a higher or less degree in different countries, the necessaries of life upon the whole were cheaper than they are at the present day. But...

The singers of the epic poems as well as their hearers were as yet wholly unconscious of the gap separating mythology from history. To them the Trojan War, the march of the Seve...

Peace between Lacedæmon and Athens was indispensable towards the quiet of the rest of the nation, but, in the want of such a union as Pericles had projected, was unfortunately f...

Pisistratus directed with admirable moderation the courses of the revolution he had produced. Many causes of success were combined in his favour. His enemies had been the suppos...

That there were two long contests between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians, and that in both the former were completely victorious, is a fact sufficiently attested. And if we co...

Everything among the Spartans conduced to plant in their hearts the most heroic courage, by the remembrance of their ancestors, whose principles and sentiments were the spur to...

Thucydides remarks that after the Peace of Nicias, there was but one of the predictions current at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War that was reputed to have received it...

Happy would it have been for Miltiades if he had shared the honourable death of the polemarch Callimachus, in seeking to fire the ships of the defeated Persians at Marathon. The...

Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin. Prof. Joseph Halévy, College of France. Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University. Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan. P...

The value of the myths, 67. The exploits of Perseus, 68. The labours of Hercules, 69. The feats of Theseus, 71. The Seven against Thebes, 72. The Argonauts, 73. The Trojan War,...

Mardonius makes overtures to Athens, 354. Mardonius moves on Athens, 356. Athens appeals to Sparta, 357. Mardonius destroys Athens and withdraws, 358. A preliminary skirmish, 36...

Athens after the Sicilian débâcle, 617. Alcibiades again to the fore, 620. The overthrow of the democracy; the Four Hundred, 624. The revolt from the Four Hundred, 627. The triu...

Sicilian history, 591. The mutilation of the Hermæ, 596. The fleet sails, 599. Alcibiades takes flight, 601. Nicias tries strategy, 602. Spartan aid, 604. Alcibiades against Ath...

Plutarch’s account of Lycurgus, 129. The institutions of Lycurgus, 131. Regulations regarding marriage and the conduct of women, 133. The rearing of children, 135. The famed Lac...

Battle of Artemisium, 331. Athens abandoned, 334. The fleet at Salamis, 337. Xerxes at Delphi, 338. Athens taken, 339. Xerxes inspects his fleet, 340. Schemes of Themistocles, 3...

The revolt of Mytilene, 566. Thucydides’ account of the revolt of Corcyra, 570. Demosthenes and Sphacteria, 575. Further Athenian successes, 579. A check to Athens; Brasidas bec...

The life and laws of Solon according to Plutarch, 209. The law concerning debts, 213. Class legislation, 215. Miscellaneous laws; the rights of women, 216. Results of Solon’s le...

The Areopagus, 420. Cimon exiled, 423. The war with Corinth, 424. The Long Walls, 425. Cimon recalled, 427. The Five-Years’ Truce, 430. The confederacy becomes an empire, 431. C...

Athens rebuilds her walls, 382. The new Athens, 384. The misconduct of Pausanias, 386. Athens takes the leadership, 388. The confederacy of Delos, 389. The treason of Pausanias,...

The origin of animosity, 262. The Ionic revolt, 264. War with Ægina, 267. The first invasion, 268. Battle of Marathon, 272. On the courage of the Greeks, 277. If Darius had inva...

The famous story as told by Herodotus, 320. Leonidas and his allies, 321. Xerxes assails the pass, 323. The treachery of Ephialtes, 323. The final assault, 325. Discrepant accou...

The oration of Pericles, 535. Thucydides’ account of the plague, 539. Last public speech of Pericles, 545. The end and glory of Pericles, 548. Wilhelm Oncken’s estimate of Peric...