ATHENIAN SPLENDOUR

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22307, 22 January 1938, Page 16

ATHENIAN SPLENDOUR

A Study of Pericles

Pericles. By Compton Mackenzie. Hoddcr and Stoughton Ltd. 351 pp. (21/- net.) From YV. S. Smart. [Reviewed by DR. JOHN NICOL]

The publishers say that as fully authentic details about the personal life of Pericles are lacking, Mr Mackenzie has preferred to regard him through the eyes of the historical novelist. Their statement is unfortunate, for one expects a novelist's portrait of an historical character to be clear, coherent, life-like, and convincing. Scott's presentation of King James, for example, in "The Fortunes of Nigel," may not be wholly accurate, but it is self-con-sistent and plausible and conveys the impression of reality. Mr Mackenzie's portrayal of Pericles is, until after middle age at least, obscure, indefinite, and confused. . The book is loosely constructed and the author's facts are not well marshalled. His familiarity with the topography of Greece and with the campaigns he is describing leads him in the early chapters to throw an

undue burden on the reader. The events of the 25 years following Plataea and Mycale, which raised the Athenian power to its maximum on sea and land, are narrated at length, but in a desultory fashion, so that the reader has himself, from a mass of detail, to deduce their significance and weigh their relative importance. Mr Mackenzie's sentences are often clumsy and awkwardly arranged:

If we allow to Cimon's conduct of his last campaign the fullest credit for the advantageous position in which Athens stood in regard to Persia, it is Pericles who must be praised for making the best of it, and that in the teeth of what must have been bitter opposition, an echo of ■which we shall hear after the suppression of the Samian revolt, when Elpinice will sneer at his victory over an allied city instead of like her brother Cimon over the Phoenicians or Modes.

Modern comparisons are introduced at every opportunity and recent events cited to serve as a commentary on the author's argument. In general, these citations are apt and effective, but too often they are dragged in to voice his personal views on the morals, politics, and social organisation of our own times. The relationship of Pericles to Aspasia has no bearing on the English dynastic crisis of 1936; but it is made the pretext for a jibe at Lord Baldwin and the Archbishop of Canterbury; Athenian perseverance in reducing the Chersonese is an excuse for belittling Mr Winston Churchill; Fascism, Communism, and English "brass hats," law and Toryism, are caricatured and soundly berated* as, occasion arises.

Mr Mackenzie outdoes most English historians and all Germans in lauding Pericles. But, despite its faults, the book is instructive and entertaining. It catches something of the glamour of an unrivalled period and gives a comprehensive picture of Athenian civilisation at the time of its greatest glory. The concluding chapters rest on an authority of surpassing excellence and reach a consistently high level, though one questions the wisdom of translating six and then eight consecutive pages direct from Thucydides, especially when the rendering is a poor substitute for the Greek. The workmanship is far from perfect: but the book has its merits.