GEORGE GROTE.
[p. i]
HISTORY OF GREECE.
I. Legendary Greece.
II. Grecian History to the Reign of
Peisistratus at Athens.
BY
GEORGE GROTE, Esq.
VOL. I.
REPRINTED FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
329 AND 331 PEARL STREET.
1880.
[p. ii]
PART I.—LEGENDARY GREECE
Ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων θεῖον γένος, οἳ καλέονται
Ἡμίθεοι προτἐρῃ γενέῃ.—Hesiod
PART II.—HISTORICAL GREECE.
... Πόλιες μερόπων ἀνθρώπων.—Homer
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PREFACE.
The first idea of this History wasconceived many years ago, at a time when ancient Hellas was known tothe English public chiefly through the pages of Mitford; and my purposein writing it was to rectify the erroneous statements as to matter offact which that History contained, as well as to present the generalphenomena of the Grecian world under what I thought a juster and morecomprehensive point of view. My leisure, however, was not at that timeequal to the execution of any large literary undertaking; nor is ituntil within the last three or four years that I have been able todevote to the work that continuous and exclusive labor, without which,though much may be done to illustrate detached points, no entire orcomplicated subject can ever be set forth in a manner worthy to meetthe public eye.
Meanwhile the state of the English literary world, in reference toancient Hellas, has been materially changed in more ways than one. Ifmy early friend Dr. Thirlwall’s History of Greece had appeared a fewyears sooner, I should probably never have conceived the design of thepresent work at all; I should certainly not have been prompted to thetask by any deficiencies, such as those which I felt and regretted inMitford. The comparison of the two authors affords, indeed, a strikingproof of the progress of sound an