(C).— History and Antiquities

HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES. 309 Inscriptiones Tyrae, Olbiae, Chersonesi Tauricae, <fcc. By B. LATYSCHEV. St. Petersburg, 1885. 4to., pp. i.-viii. 1-243. THIS is the first volume of the corpus of " Greek and Latin Inscriptions from the Northern Shores of the Euxine," undertaken by Mr. Latyschev for the Imperial Archaeological Society of Russia. The commentary on the inscriptions is in Latin, and in most cases a translation in Russian is appended. The work is especially welcome, as many of the texts printed in it were hitherto only to be found in rather inaccessible Russian publications. The inscriptions of Tyras and its neighbourhood occupy pp. 3-18. There is a rich series of Olbia (pp. 18-164), including honorary, dedicatory, and sepulchral inscriptions. No. 17, a decree in honour of Nikeratos, a benefactor of Olbia, gives a glimpse of the wretched condition of the city shortly before the beginning of the Christian Era, when it was exposed to the invasions of a barbarian people (perhaps the Getae). No. 46 is an edict of the " Septemviri " of the city. No. 50 and following numbers form a series of dedicatory inscriptions which accompanied the gifts annually made by the city magistrates to various divinities, especially Apollo Prostates, Hermes Agoraios, and Achilles Pontarehes. There are few sepulchral inscriptions. The inscriptions of Chersonesus fill pp. 173-218. In the series of "Decrees" of this city, No. 185 is an important text found in 1878, and since commented on by Foucart and other writers (see Latyschev, p. 174). It is a decree in honour of Diophantes, the general of Mithradates the Great, and mentions three campaigns undertaken by him against the barbarian enemies of Chersonesus.—W W. (C).— HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES. Griechische Geschichte bis zur Schlacht bei Chaironeia. Von DR. GEOEG BUSOLT. I. Teil. Bis zu dem Perserkriegen. Gotha, 1885. History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the End of the Persian War. Translated from the German of PROFESSOR MAX DUNCKER by S. F. ALLEYNE and EVELYN ABBOTT. Vols. I. and II. London, 1881. Griechische Geschichte von ihrem Ursprunge bis zum Untergange der Selbstandigkeit. Von ADOLF HOLM. Erster Band. Berlin, 1886. IN these three works we have the latest results of the labours of German erudition directed to a thorough examination of the sources 310 NOTICES OF BOOKS. of early Greek history and a reconstruction of that history in the light that has recently been brought to bear on it, chiefly from the discoveries and generalisations of archaeologists and comparative mythologists. But the work of criticism and of reconstruction has in each case been undertaken from a different point of view, and its results are presented in a different form. Dr. Busolt's work shows generally a more sceptical attitude than that of the other two authors. It also supposes that his readers possess both an acquaintance with ancient and modern sources and facilities for referring to such sources. His chapters on authorities at the beginning of each chapter are most useful, and his foot-notes refer us to all manner of stores of information. Prof. Duncker's book is that of one who has long laboured in the same field and is in some respects more original and less critical. For the convenience of the general reader, he not only refers to, but copies in extenso, all that the earlier and traditional authorities have to tell us on some important subjects, even where his subsequent examination of their statements makes them almost entirely valueless. He has, as he says in his preface, ' woven together the indispensable critical dis- quisitions upon a basis of traditional facts.' The history of Holm is shorter, less pretentious in character, and truly admirable for the clearness with which proved facts are distinguished from dubious hypotheses. The narrative in the text is not much broken by critical examinations, but very valuable criticisms are given in an appendix to each chapter. The book is thus at once attractive to the general reader, and useful to those preparing for special studies. Some of the characteristics of each author may be shown by comparing the view which each takes of a few important problems in Greek history, such as the nature of the pre-Dorian population of the Peloponnese, the work of Lycurgus, the Phoenician settle- ments in Greece, and the character of the Corinthian tyranny. On the first of these points, the state of the Peloponnese before the Dorian invasion, we cannot present any positive opinion of Dr. Busolt, as his criticism is here mainly destructive. He considers that the races dispossessed by the Dorians were akin to the Arcadians, and so far from attaching any credit to the traditions of their early greatness, regards the remains of Tiryns and Mycenae as belonging to Dorian princes, and would even attribute the renown of the Peloponnesian Achaeans to Spartan pride work- ing on the material of epic poets, in whose eyes the Achaeans were inhabitants of Thessaly and not of the Peloponnese at all. Prof. Duncker, on the other hand, believes in the greatness HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES. 311 and the wealth of the empire of the Pelopidae, and his views as to the origin of the Greek people seem substantially the same as those of Prof. Curtius. It is, however, exceedingly difficult to determine clearly what he would connote by the names given to primitive Greek peoples. ' We may be quite sure,' he says, ' that the Pelasgians, Achaeans, and Hellenes were not three distinct races, but that these names rather indicate three distinct periods of Greek history, and denote three stages arising out of, and following one another, in the development of the one Greek people.' In another place he speaks of ' the name of Pelasgus, derived from the universal intuition of the Greeks of ancient times.' To Holm, however, the Achaeans are not a phase, but a definite people, who inhabited Argolis and probably also Laconia before the Dorian occupation, and the Pelasgi also are a definite people, inhabiting definite districts in Europe and Asia, whose name was extended, for various ex- plicable reasons, so as to take in many to whom it did not properly belong. The primitive, pious, peace-loving, rather colourless Pelasgians of the ordinary conception seem to be banished to the regions of the blameless Ethiopians. In his chapter on the remains of prehistoric art in Greece, the author sets before us a lively picture of the best times of Tiryns and Mycenae, calling in the historical imagination to relieve the vagueness of conflicting traditions and conjectures. If we turn to another matter—the character of Lycurgus and his work—we see similar differences in method of treatment. Dr. Busolt does not go so far as to deny the historical personality of Lycurgus altogether, but he would not attribute to him any of the fundamental institutions of the Spartan state, nor yet, apparently, the peculiarities of the Spartan discipline. Prof. Duncker has a brilliant theory, which would account for much that has hitherto baffled investigation, especially the double monarchy, the eponymous titles of the kings, and the position of the law-giver. He holds that the work of Lycurgus was the union into one political body of two Dorian states, dwelling on the Oenus and on the upper Eurotas respectively, and that this union was effected after King Charilaus had been worsted in the war with the Tegeans. The military system, the discipline, and the sumptuary laws of the Spartans he would assign to a later period. Holm recognises the great ingenuity of Duncker's hypothesis without venturing to adopt it. But he does not consider it impossible that the laws against wealth and luxury may have originated at the same time as the new political order, and have been promulgated by the originator of that order. In tracing the early history of Attica, Dr. Busolt rejects all 312 NOTICES OF BOOKS. traditions of Phoenician colonies, though he recognises the important influence of Phoenician trade. ' The opinion that they (the Phoenicians) colonised Thebes is certainly unfounded, nor have we any more reason to suppose that a colony in Athens (Melite) was founded by them.' Duncker, on the other hand, regards the settle- ment of the Phoenicians in Athens as a clearly ascertained fact, and associates its overthrow with the union of Attic communities into one state traditionally ascribed to Theseus. Holm considers the existence of Phoenician colonies in Thebes and in Athens as not improbable, though not clearly proved. In treating of the government of the Cypselidae in Corinth, both Busolt and Duncker are inclined to a more favourable view than that of Herodotus. Busolt attributes the sentiments of the speech put by Herodotus into the mouth of the Corinthian Sosicles to the relations existing between Athens and Corinth at the moment when the historian published his narrative. Duncker traces the motive which led the Corinthians to accuse their tyrants of spoliation, to the desire to represent as their own property the treasures laid up at Delphi and elsewhere. But while defending Periander from some of the charges brought against him, Prof. Duncker insists, on grounds which hardly seem sufficiently strong, that he ' must bear the guilt of the death of Melissa.' Holm does not pass a definite judgment on the arbitrary acts of Cypselus and his son, but shows the improbability of the theory that princes who encouraged the worship of Dionysus should in their internal regulations have acted solely with a view to public order and decency. In spite of all differences, however, we may observe important common characteristics in the methods of all three authors.

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