A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Antient Greece

1. COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE PRESENT AND THE PAST PERIODS.
DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ATTIC PERIOD. THE ATHENIANS
DEFICIENT IN THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY. ALTERED POSITIONS OF
ATHENS AND SPARTA IN REGARD TO POLITE CULTURE. 3. CAUSES OF
THE CHANGE. THE ATHENIANS DEFICIENT IN INVENTIVE GENIUS; AND
IN MUSICAL TALENT. DECLINE OF ELEGANT CULTURE IN SPARTA.- -4.
POLITICAL VICISSITUDES OF GREECE DURING THE ATTIC PERIOD. — 5.
GENERAL VIEW OF GREEK LITERATURE FROM 560 TO 510 B. C. PISI-
STRATUS. HIS LITERARY CIRCLE. THE PISISTRATIDE. POLYCRATES
OF SAMOS. BACKWARD STATE OF ATTIC LITERATURE DURING THE
"TYRANNY." POETRY AND PROSE FLOURISH IN THE IONIAN COLONIES.
-6. GENERAL VIEW OF GREEK LITERATURE FROM 510 B. C. TO THE
CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR IN 404 B. C. POETRY. PROSE
LITERATURE.-7. GENERAL VIEW OF GREEK LITERATURE FROM 404 B.C.
TO THE CLOSE OF THE ATTIC PERIOD. -8. STATE OF EDUCATION IN
GREECE DURING THE ATTIC PERIOD. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.
LIBRARIES. BOOK TRADE. 9. PATRONS OF LITERATURE. [PISISTRA-
TIDE. POLYCRATES.] PERICLES. 10. HIS CONNEXION WITH ASPASIA.
HIERO OF SYRACUSE. THE DIONYSII. THE MACEDONIAN MONARCHS.

tive view of

1. In the early volumes of this work, the vicissitudes Comparaof the Grecian family of tongues have been traced the Attic from its remote Indo-Pelasgic origin, down to the and the presettlement of its noblest branch as a distinct language riods."

ceding pe

in the region where it afterwards so brilliantly flourished. We have seen how, in the legends of the Æolo-Thracian sages, were shadowed forth the first successful essays of the Hellenic nation in those elementary styles of poetry and music which form the foundation of all polite literature; and how, in the different tribes of that nation, were formed those distinctions of character and dialect, which in every age constitute so important a feature in the genius of Hellenism. We have marked the spirit of local emulation among those tribes, fostering a corresponding spirit of heroic adventure; which afterwards, by a nobler impulse of national feeling, was directed towards great common enterprises against rival nations, resulting in extensive schemes of conquest and colonial settlement. We have seen how the minstrelsy in which those enterprises were celebrated, was matured from the fugitive ballad into the heroic Epopee; and how, under the influence of an opposite train of social causes, this highest style of poetical art, after having been carried by one master genius to perfection, gradually languished and decayed. We have, however, also seen, that this deterioration of Greek Epic style was but a prelude to a no less genial, though less expansive exercise of the poetical faculties, in the variety of forms comprised under the common title of Lyric poetry. We have witnessed, in fine, in these successive phases of national talent, the workings of the wayward infancy and lively youth of the Hellenic mind. In the period before us we shall contemplate its mature manhood; and the first symptoms of that decay which, in the inevitable course of human vicissitude, it was destined to undergo.

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A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Antient Greece, Volume 4