OF DR. GOLDSMITH'S HISTORY OF GREECE, ABRIDGED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. REVISED, CORRECTED, AND VERY CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED, BY EdueT 628, 43.435 HARVARD COLLEGE NOV 19 1912 Prof. J. H. Ropeen ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE. THE alterations that have been made in this new edition of the Grecian history are so numerous and extensive, as almost to make it a new work. The original history of Dr. Goldsmith contains many anecdotes of questionable authority, and very doubtful interest, derived from Plutarch and Curtius, while such important. matters as the Dorian migration and the sedition of Cylon are wholly omitted. The compiler of the abridgment, following the same track, hurried over some of the most important periods with brief and scanty notice, while he assigned very disproportionate length to a few isolated incidents. The present editor has endeavoured to remedy both evils, by abridging whatever appeared too diffuse, expanding those parts which were so brief as to be scarcely intelligible, and supplying the numerous omissions of the original work. The authorities to which he has principally had recourse, are the histories of Gillies and Mitford in the earlier part of the work, and Leland and Gast for the period subsequent to the third Peloponnesian war. A brief sketch of modern Grecian history is subjoined, in order that the student may have an opportunity of comparing the present prospects with the former fame of Greece. The introductory chapters are for the most part an abridgment of Professor Heeren's valuable work on the political history of Greece: they-contain a view of the principal causes that operated in forming the national character of that people, whose history the student is about to peruse, and a sketch of those circumstances of situation, climate, religion, and government, which influenced, in no small degree, the various fortunes of the different states. The concluding chapters contain some account of Grecian literature and philosophy, designed to stimulate, rather than gratify curiosity: and to excite in the youthful student a desire for more intimate acquaintance with those works which, after the lapse of so many centuries, still continue the noblest monuments of human genius. A brief sketch of the history of the minor states and of the islands is subjoined to the Appendix, and references are given to the share they had in any of the transactions recorded in the body of the work. |