GREEK WORLD

BY

JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY, C.V.O., D.D., D.C.L.

SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN

CHICAGO

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

LONDON

T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE

PREFACE

This book is intended to replace my Greek World under Roman Sway, now out of print, in a maturer and better form, and with much new material superadded. There has grown up, since its appearance, a wider and more intelligent view of Greek life, and people are not satisfied with knowing the Golden Age only, without caring for what came before and followed after. In this Silver Age of Hellenism many splendid things were produced, and the world was moulded by the teaching which went out from Greek lands. If this teaching diminished in quality, it certainly increased greatly in influence, and led its higher pupils back to the great masters of the earlier age. The Roman poets, for example, began by imitating Alexandrian poetry, and so led the way for Horace and Virgil, who went back to the great masters. But not a little of the sentimental side of Virgil is due to his studies of the Silver Age, and even now our museums of Greek treasure would be grievously denuded if the masterpieces of that age were to be carried away.

For the rest, this book must speak for itself.

I have to thank my colleague, Mr. E. H. Alton, for much help in correcting the proofs, and making many learned suggestions, as well as for his self-denying labour in compiling the index.

On the yacht "Niagara" off the coast of Sicily,

April 6, 1906.