A History of Greece, Volume 1

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Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1845 - Greece

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Page iii - 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 192 - It was indeed connected with the comparatively low estimation in which female society was held: but the devotedness and constancy with which these attachments were maintained, was not the less admirable and engaging. The heroic companions whom we find celebrated, partly by Homer and partly in traditions, which, if not of equal antiquity, were grounded on the same feeling, seem to have but one heart and soul, with scarcely a wish or object apart, and only to live, as they are always ready to die,...
Page 163 - Helen a 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 iii - upon the established system, if an accidental custom may be so called, as a mass of anomalies, the growth of ignorance and chance, equally repugnant to good taste and to common sense.
Page 192 - 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 211 - Their other affections correspond to the grossness of these animal appetites. Capricious love and hatred, anger and jealousy, often disturb the calm of their bosoms; the peace of the Olympian state might be broken by factions, and even by conspiracies formed against its chief. He himself cannot keep perfectly aloof from their quarrels ; he occasionally wavers in his purpose, is overruled by artifice, blinded by desires, and hurried by resentment into unseemly violence.
Page i - 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 456 - It must not be forgotten, that the body to which the terms oligarchy and democracy refer formed a comparatively small part of the population in most Greek states, since it did not include either slaves or resident free foreigners. The sovereign power resided wholly in the native freemen ; and whether it was exercised by a part or by all of them, was the question which determined the nature of the government.
Page 457 - ... 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. More than this was not implied in democracy ; and little less than this was required, according to the views of the philosophers, to constitute the character of a citizen, which, in the opinion of Aristotle, could not exist without a voice in the legislative assembly, and such a share in the administration...
Page 22 - Œnus the Eurotas flows through a very deep and narrow valley, which near Sparta is so much contracted as to leave room for little more than the channel of the river. After it leaves Sparta the hills recede farther from the river ; but near...

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