ANCIENT GREECE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XIX, 8 May 1897, Page 570

ANCIENT GREECE.

In no other country has the geography more influenced the history than Greece. Hengel, drawing his inspiration from the fact that the west coast of Greece is mountainous and harbourless, while the east coast is full of bays, gulfs and havens, as though she turned her back on Italy, and chose communication with Asia Minor, said : * Mountains alone divide, seas unite.’ Greece is the cradle of all the civilization in the world. It gave birth to the arts and sciences, painting and sculpture, poetry and history, aye, parodoxical as it may seem, with the history of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great before our eyes, liberty itself. It was the seat of learning, and from its Attic halls went forth those gems of philosophy which have come down the ages, and been accepted by the wise and true of all the intervening centuries. The heroism displayed by her soldiers in time of battle, the Spartan heroism that held the pass at Thermopyke, the battles of Salamis, Marathon and the Peloponesian war, with their thousands of instances of valour, all bear testimony to the fact that it stood upon the pinnacle of the world’s greatness. A race was developed with special gifts of mind and body. The Hellenes set the Hellenic stamp on everything they

created ; first upon their language itself; then on their politics, their literature and their manners. The Hellenes have always been an original people in the sense that they either invent or transform. The historical interest in Grecian affairs does not begin at the point where details and dates become approximately certain. Its early history is the first chapter in the political and intellectual life of Europe. The Greek recognises the principle that no personal rule shall be unlimited, and this leads him to aim at a due balance of powers and tendencies in the State, and at the definition of duties and the protection of rights. There are two main threads which link together the earlier and later history of civilised man. One passes through Rome and is Latin, and the other passes through the new Rome on the east and is Greek. In the history of ancient Greece six periods may be distinguished. The first is the prehistoric period which dates down to the time of the great migrations. The second is the early history of the leading States down to about 500 B.C. The third includes the lonic revolt and the wars with Persia, 502-479 B.C. The fourth was the period of Athenian supremacy, 478 431 B.C. The fifth was during the Peloponesian war, 431-404, and this was followed by a period of Spartan and then Theban ascendancy, which lasted from 404 to 362 B.C. The culmination came during the reign of Philip and his son and successor. Alexander, the history of the modern Greek nationality dates from the days of Alexander.