Hellas - A Short History of Ancient Greece

In Greek History, someone has said, little that happened mattered much; it was what the Greeks thought that counted. This, broadly speaking, is the truth; and here I have tried to lay the main emphasis on Greek ideas, setting them against the background of historic events. Obviously the best clue to their understanding is to be found in what the Greeks themselves wrote; and, though no English version can be an adequate substitute, I have given in translation whatever passages appear to me most revealing. With these it has been my object to convey effectively the author’s meaning rather than slavishly to reproduce his phraseology; and I have taken, I confess, some liberty with the task, abbreviating by frequent omissions of words, clauses and even whole sentences, occasionally elaborating to bring out the full sense, and above all recasting the original syntactic construction in approximation to our own modern idiom. In the illustrations, similarly, I have here and there allowed myself the licence of reconstruction when details have suffered through accident or age.

I have to record with gratitude my great debt to Mrs. Eric James and Mr. W. H. Plommer and Mr. L. F. R. Audemars for valuable criticisms and suggestions. My thanks are also due to Messrs. Methuen, the publishers of my “History of Greece,” for permission to produce this complementary volume. It may be that the reader will be encouraged to further study of the subject; and on certain points—few among many which limits of space have compelled me to summarize or omit—I have ventured to insert a cross-reference.