John Edwin Sandys

“ If a law approved by the commission was deemed to be unconstitutional, the proposer was liable to be prosecuted (by a γραφὴ παρανόμων) , just as in the case of the proposer of an unconstitutional decree in the public assembly. Formal proceedings might also be instituted against laws on the sole ground of their inexpediency (see note on Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens, p. 219, ed. Sandys) . A prosecutor who (like Aeschines in his indictment of Ctesiphon) failed to obtain one-fifth of the votes was fined 1000 drachmae (£40) , and lost the right to adopt this procedure in future. ”

“ To the 'Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology,' founded by Hort, Lightfoot, and Mayor in 1854, he contributed two learned and comprehensive articles on Latin lexicography (Nov. 1865 and March 1857) .
Throughout life Mayor applied himself with exceptional ardour to various forms of literary and antiquarian research, and he proved indefatigable in amassing information. He brought together an immense library, which he stoned until 1881 in his college rooms over the gateway of the second court. ”

“ At the moment when the university of Paris was, by the absence of its rivals, placed in complete control of the education of France, Classical education attacked. she found herself driven to defend the principles of classical education against a crowd of assailants. All kinds of devices were suggested for expediting the acquisition of Latin; grammar was to be set aside; Latin was to be learned as a “living language”; much attention was to be devoted to acquiring an extensive vocabulary; and, “to save time,” composition was to be abolished. ”

“ He is rather reticent as to the character of the roads, but he records, with the gratitude of a traveller, the fact that the narrow and perilous cornice of the Scironian way along the coast of Megara had been made wider and safer by Hadrian. He is inspired by a patriotic interest in the ancient glories of Greece, recognizing in Athens all that was best in the old Greek life, and lamenting the ruin that had befallen the land on the fatal field of Chaeronea. He is most at home in describing the religious art and architecture of Olympia and of Delphi ”

“ Of all the tribunals of Athens those for the trial of homicide were at once the most primitive and the least liable to suffer change through lapse of time. In the old Germanic law all trials whatsoever Jurisdiction; the five primitive tribunals for the trial of homicide. ”

“ As professor, Wilkins proved a highly effective teacher and a valuable and stimulating member of the staff. ‘Within the college he was the unwearied champion of the claims of women to equal educational rights with men,’ and ‘an even more vigorous champion of the establishment of a theological department in the university,’ both of which causes were crowned with success. In 1903, after thirty-four years' tenure of the Latin professorship in Manchester, a weakness of the heart compelled him to resign, but he was appointed to the new and lighter office of professor of classical literature. ”

“ Treasury of Minyas, " the Athenian Propylaea, the theatre of Epidaurus, the temples of Bassae and Tegea, the walls of Messene, the Odeum at Patrae, as well as the building
of the same name lately built at Athens by Herodes Atticus (vii. 20, 6) , and finally the Stadium which that munificent Athenian had faced with white marble from the quarries of Pentelicus. His descriptions of the monuments of art are plain and unadorned; they bear the impress of reality, and their accuracy is confirmed by the extant remains. He is perfectly frank in his confessions of ignorance. ”

“ In that treatise the essential marks of an educated person are, not only ability to write Latin verse, but also, a point of “at least equal importance,” “familiarity with the language and literature of Greece.” “Without a knowledge of Greek, Latin scholarship itself is, in any real sense, impossible” (1459) .
By the fall of Constantinople in 1453, “Italy (in the eloquent phrase of Carducci) became sole heir and guardian of the ancient civilization,” but its fall was in no way necessary for the revival of learning, which had begun a century before. ”

“ Any Athenian citizen in full possession of his rights, and over thirty years of age, was entitled to be placed on the list (Aristotle, u.s. c. 63. 3) . At the beginning of the year the whole body of jurors assembled on the hill of Ardēttos looking down on the Panathenaic Stadium, and there took a solemn oath to the effect that they would judge according to the laws and decrees of the Athenian people and of the council of the Five Hundred (Boulē) , and that, in cases where there were no laws, they would decide to the best of their judgment ”

“ Latin continued to be the living language of learning and of literature, and a correct and elegant Latin style was regarded as the mark of an educated person. Greek was taught in all the great schools, but became more and more confined to the study of the Greek Testament. ”

“ Mayor became president of his college in Oct. 1902, and at the fellows' table he charmed visitors of the most varied tastes by his old-fashioned courtesy, and by his learned and lively talk. His interests within their own lines remained alert to the last. When the National Library of Turin was partly destroyed by fire on 26 Jan. 1904, he promptly sent the library no fewer than 710 volumes (The Eagle, xxvi. 264 f.) . In 1907 he easily mastered Esperanto.
Mayor's wide learning received many marks of respect in his later years. ”

“ They opened the doors of their schools to the Greek and Latin classics, but they represented the ancient masterpieces dissevered from their original historic environment, as impersonal models of taste, as isolated standards of style. They did much, however, for the cultivation of original composition modelled on Cicero and Virgil. They have been charged with paying an exaggerated attention to form, and with neglecting the subject-matter of the classics. ”

“ The law-courts gradually superseded most of the ancient judicial functions of the council and the assembly, but the council continued to hold a strict scrutiny (δοκιμασία) of candidates for office or for other privileges, while the council itself, as well as all other officials, had to Jurisdiction of the council and assembly.
Eisangelia. give account (εὔθυνα) on ceasing to hold office. The council also retained the right to deal with extraordinary crimes against the state. It was open to any citizen to bring such crimes to the knowledge of the council in writing. ”

“ Mercantile cases had to be decided within the interval of a month; others might be postponed for due cause. If, on the day of trial, one of the parties was absent, his representative had to show cause under oath (ὑπωμοσία) ; if the other party objected, he did so under oath The trial. (ἀνθυπωμοσία) . If the plea for delay were refused by the court, and it were the defendant who failed to appear, judgment went by default; in the absence of the plaintiff, the case was given in favour of the defendant.
The official who had conducted the preliminary inquiry also presided at the trial. ”

“ Like many of the finest spirits under the early empire, Pliny was an adherent to the Stoics. He was acquainted with their noblest representative, Thrasea Paetus, and he also came under the influence of Seneca. The Stoics were given to the study of nature, while their moral teaching was agreeable to one who, in his literary work, was unselfishly eager to benefit and to instruct his contemporaries (Praef. 16, xxviii. 2, xxix. 1) . He was also influenced by the Epicurean and the Academic and the revived Pythagorean school! But his view of nature and of God is essentially Stoic. ”

“ The preamble includes a striking tribute to the advantages that France had derived from the study of the classics:—
“L’étude de l’antiquité grecque et latine a donné au génie français une mesure, une clarté et une élégance incomparables. C’est par elle que notre philosophie, nos lettres et nos arts ont brillé d’un si vif éclat; c’est par elle que notre influence morale s’est exercée en souveraine dans le monde. Les humanités doivent être protégées contre toute atteinte et fortifiées. ”

“ Pliny’s view of life is gloomy; he regards the human race as plunged in ruin and in misery (ii. 24, vii. 130) . Against luxury and moral corruption he indulges in declamations, which are so frequent that (like those of Seneca) they at last pall upon the reader; and his rhetorical flourishes against practically useful inventions (such as the art of navigation) are wanting in good sense and good taste (xix. 6) .
With the proud national spirit of a Roman he combines an admiration of the virtues by which the republic had attained its greatness (xvi. 14, xxvii. 3, xxxvii. 201) . ”

“ By the scheme of 1901 the pupils of the Realgymnasium, the Oberrealschule and the Gymnasium were admitted to the university on equal terms in virtue of their leaving-certificates, but Greek and Latin were still required for students of classics or divinity.
For the Gymnasium the aim of the new scheme is, in Latin, “to supply boys with a sound basis of grammatical training, with a view to their understanding the more important classical writers of Rome, and being thus introduced to the intellectual life and culture of the ancient world” ”

“ There were others no less "demented," who, being Roman citizens, would be sent to Rome for trial. Soon, as the natural consequence of these proceedings, a variety of cases had come under his notice. He had received an anonymous statement giving a list of accused persons. Some of them, who denied that they had ever been Christians, had consented to pray to the gods, to adore the image of the emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; these he had dismissed. Others admitted that they were Christians, but presently denied it, adding that they had ceased to be Christians for some years. ”

“ The scholars of the Byzantine age cannot be compared with the great Alexandrians, but they served to maintain the continuity of tradition by which the Greek classics selected by the critics of Alexandria were transmitted to modern Europe. ”