I had hoped to be able, inthis Volume, to carry the history of Greece down as far as the battleof Knidus; but I find myself disappointed.

A greater space than I anticipated has been necessary, notmerely to do justice to the closing events of the Peloponnesianwar, especially the memorable scenes at Athens after the battle ofArginusæ, but also to explain my views both respecting the Sophistsand respecting Sokratês.

It has been hitherto common to treat the sophists as corruptorsof the Greek mind, and to set forth the fact of such corruption,increasing as we descend downwards from the great invasion of Xerxês,as historically certified. Dissenting as I do from former authors,and believing that Grecian history has been greatly misconceived,on both these points, I have been forced to discuss the evidences,and exhibit the reasons for my own way of thinking, at considerablelength.

To Sokratês I have devoted one entire Chapter. No smaller spacewould have sufficed to lay before the reader any tolerable picture ofthat illustrious man, the rarest intellectual phenomenon of ancienttimes, and originator of the most powerful scientific impulse whichthe Greek mind ever underwent.

G. G.

London, February, 1850.