A History of Greece, Volume 1

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Harper & brothers, 1860 - Greece

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Page xxiv - But I am aware that the public cling to these anomalies with a tenacity proportioned to their absurdity, and are jealous of all encroachment on ground consecrated by prescription to the free play of blind caprice.
Page 161 - ... though the highest offices of the state might be reserved to a privileged class. But a finished democracy, that which fully satisfied the Greek notion, was one in which every attribute of sovereignty might be shared, without respect to rank or property, by every freeman.
Page 94 - ... in the Hades, or the still more terrible Tartarus ; while, on the other hand, only the most exalted heroes are, after their death, endowed with a new body and enjoy the pleasures of Elysium. But these are very exceptional cases : ' When a man is dead,' says the shade of Anticlea, ' the flesh and the bones are left to be consumed by the flames, but the soul passes away like a dream.
Page 329 - Platsans, who were not in the plot, imagined the force by which their city had been surprised to be much stronger than it really was, and, as no hostile treatment was offered to them, remained quiet, and entered into a parley with the Thebans. In the course of these conferences they gradually discovered that the number of the enemy was small, and might be easily overpowered ; and, as they were in general attached to the Athenians, or, at least, strongly averse to an alliance with Thebes, they resolved...
Page 80 - ... of Helen, Paris only repeats an exploit also attributed to Theseus. ***** If however we reject the traditional occasion of the Trojan war, we are driven to conjecture in order to explain the real connection of the events ; yet not so as to be wholly without traces to direct us.
Page 88 - Thirlwall (Greece, vol. ip 176, seq.) well illustrate the character of the friendship subsisting between the two heroes:— " One of the noblest and most amiable sides of the Greek character, is the readiness with which it lent itself to construct intimate and durable friendships ; and this is a feature no less prominent in the earliest, than in later times. It was indeed connected with the comparatively...
Page 80 - We find it impossible to adopt the poetical story of Helen, partly on account of its inherent improbability, and partly because we are convinced that Helen is a merely mythological person.
Page 119 - Athenians now sent a herald to claim the body of their king, and the Dorian chiefs, deeming the war hopeless, withdrew their forces from Attica. Such is the story which continued for centuries to warm the patriotism of the Athenians...
Page xxiii - One consisting of persons who wish to acquire something more than a superficial acquaintance with Greek history, but who have neither leisure nor means to study it for themselves in its original sources ; the other of such as have access to the ancient authors, but often feel the need of a guide and an interpreter.
Page 36 - Nature were spread over the face of Boeotia, the abundant returns of its grain, the richness of its pastures, the materials of luxury furnished by its woods and waters, are chiefly remarkable, in an historical point of view, from the unfavourable effect they produced on the character of the race, which finally established itself in this envied territory. It was this cause, more than the dampness and thickness of their atmosphere, that depressed the intellectual and moral energies of the Boeotians,...

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