Author Description

Excerpt from the Preface:To set forth the history of a people by whom the first spark was set to the dormant intellectual capacities of our nature,--Hellenic phenomena, as illustrative of the Hellenic mind and character,--is the task which I propose to myself in the present work; not without a painful consciousness how much the deed falls short of the will, and a yet more painful conviction, that full success is rendered impossible by an obstacle which no human ability can now remedy,--the insufficiency of original evidence. For, in spite of the valuable expositions of so many able commentators, our stock of information respecting the ancient world still remains lamentably inadequate to the demands of an enlightened curiosity.