William Smith

“ That no traces of the walls of Themistocles can be discovered will not surprise us, when we recollect the enormous buildings which have totally disappeared in places that have continued to be inhabited, or from which the materials could be carried away by sea. Of the great walls of Syracuse not a vestige remains; and that this should have been the case at Athens is the less strange, because we know that the walls facing Hymettus and Pentelicus were built of bricks baked in the sun. ”

“ In the new capital of Constantine, emancipated from the restraint of Pagan associations and art, the Byzantine builders founded an architecture peculiarly their own. Of this the cupola was the great characteristic, to which every other feature was subordinate. In consequence of this principle, that which at Athens was straight, angular, and square, became in Constantinople curved and rounded, concave within, and convex without. Thus the old architecture of Greece owed its destruction to the same nation from which it had taken its first birth. ”

“ The Great Desert is such an ocean of sand, with here and there an oasis. The Sahara of Barbary is "a vast archipelago of oases, each of which presents to the eye a lively group of towns and villages. Each village is surrounded by a large circuit of fruit-trees. The palm is the king of these plantations, as much by the height of its stature as the value of its products ”

“ The total force, which Carthage could raise with ease, may be computed at 100,000 men. Though the standing armies of modern states were then unknown, a military force must always have been kept on foot to garrison the city and the foreign possessions; and in both cases these garrisons were composed of mercenaries.
Such was the army of Carthage, equally wanting in consistence and security. The discipline of such a motley host was as difficult as it was necessary; and Livy justly adduces, as one proof of Hannibal's genius, his maintenance of authority over his troops. ”

“ It is placed by Leake and most other authorities at the north-western angle of the Acropolis. A recent traveller remarks that "the story of the Pelasgic settlement under the north side of the Acropolis inevitably rises before us, when we see the black shade always falling upon it, as over an accursed spot, in contrast with the bright gleam of sunshine which always seems to invest the Acropolis itself; and we can imagine how naturally the gloom of the steep precipice would conspire with the remembrance of an accursed and hateful race, to make the Athenians dread the spot." ”

“ A purer faith had indeed freed the later Greeks from the degradation of the seraglio, had given an impulse to intellectual development, and infused a sense of the responsibilities of power to which their Ottoman conquerors were strangers. But even Christianity failed to reconcile the conflicting elements and hostile influences of the East and West, and was itself penetrated by an admixture of Oriental thought and sentiment. And in later times, after the severance of Constantinople from the Latin Communion, the rest of Europe had no sympathy for what was considered an alien creed. ”

“ So numerous a staff was not in the peculiar polity of Egypt altogether superfluous, neither does it seem to have been peculiarly burdensome to the nation, since it derived its support from regular taxes and from its proprietary lands. Nowhere in the ancient world was the number of temples so great as in Egypt: nowhere were there so many religious festivals; nowhere was ordinary life so intimately blended with religion. ”

“ If we take about half the proportion of Paris, and assume 12 persons to a house, we obtain 120,000 for the population of Athens; and we may perhaps assign 40,000 more for the collective inhabitants of Peiraeeus, Munychia and Phalerum." Leake supposes the population of the whole city to have been 192,000; and though no certainty on the point can be attained, we cannot be far wrong in assuming that Athens contained at least a third of the total population of Attica. ”

“ Every thing by which a people can outwardly show what is within—literature, art, and architecture, displays the influence of the East. The literature learned, artificial, florid, but deficient in elegance and grace, and without a spark of genius to illumine it. ”

“ It is certain that every Athenian citizen was enrolled in some damns, and that the whole territory of Attica was distributed into a certain number of demi. Hence the city must have been formed by Cleisthenes into one or more demi; for otherwise the inhabitants of the city would have belonged to no demus, which we know to have been impossible. At the same time there is nothing surprising in the statement of Isocrates, since the demi within the walls of Athens were few, and had nothing to do with the organization of the city. ”

“ The foundation of the Erechtheium is thus connected with the origin of the Athenian religion. We have seen that according to Homer a temple of Athena existed on the Acropolis before the birth of Erechtheus; but Erechtheus was usually regarded as the founder of the temple, since he was the chief means of establishing the religion of Athena in Attica. This temple was also the place of his interment, and was named after him. It contained several objects of the greatest interest to every Athenian. Here was the most ancient statue of Athena Polias, that is, Athena, the guardian of the city. ”

“ In describing the buildings of the city, it is more convenient to follow the historical succession than to take the topographical arrangement. For, it must be recollected, how little now remains. Where they first arose there they also fell. Constantinople, ravaged by earthquakes, fires, the internal strife, and the foreign foe, when the last of the Constantines lost his empire and life, possessed perhaps not one edifice which the first Constantine or even Justinian had seen; especially, too, as the fury of the Latin crusaders destroyed every work of art that had escaped former disasters. ”

“ Although the temple itself is nearly perfect, the sculptures hare sustained great injury. The figures in the two pediments have entirely disappeared; and the metopes and the frieze have been greatly mutilated. Enough, however, remains to show that these sculptures belong to the highest style of Grecian art. The relief is bold and salient, approaching to the proportions of the entire statue, the figures in some instances appearing to be only slightly attached to the table of the marble. ”

“ The war-caste was necessarily a very important element in a state which was frequently engaged in distant conquests, and had a wide extent of territory to defend. Yet until the reigns of Sethos, when the priests invaded its privileges, and of Psammetichus, when the king encroached upon them, we find no trace of mutiny or civil war in Egypt, — a proof that the Calasirians and Hermotybians were not only well disciplined, but also, in the main, contented with their lot. ”

“ The First Punic War was a contest for the dominion of Sicily. Though virtually decided in its second and third years by Hiero's adhesion to the Romans (B.C. 263) , and by the fall of Agrigentum (B.C. 262) , the great resources of Carthage prolonged it for twenty-three years (B.C. 264 — 241) , and it was only brought to a close by the exhaustion of her finances. Besides the loss of Sicily, it cost her the dominion of the W. Mediterranean, and placed Rome on more than an equality with her as a naval power. But there were two results of the war still more fatal to the republic. ”

“ The great work of composing a special history of Carthage, worthy of the present state of ancient scholarship, remains to be performed by some one who may superadd to a prefect knowledge of Greek and Roman history a thorough acquaintance with the language and antiquities of the Semitic races, and a vast power of critical research. ”

“ The sculptures on the outside of the Parthenon have been described so frequently that it is unnecessary to speak of them at any length on the present occasion. These various pieces of sculpture were all closely connected in subject, and were intended to commemorate the history and the honours of the goddess of the temple, as the tutelary deity of Athens. ”

“ Whatever judgment may be formed of the conqueror of Greece and Persia, the founder of Alexandreia demands an exalted place among those who have benefited mankind by the extension of their knowledge. There, in a position accessible by sea from all the coasts of the east and of the west, commerce was maintained and extended by the advance of science, whose aid she rewarded by contributions of fresh knowledge from remote countries ”

“ Here the extensive remains of an ancient city have been found: a considerable part of the ancient walls, as well as ruins and foundations of Thermae, aqueducts, temples, an amphitheatre and other buildings have been discovered, though many of them have since perished; and the whole site abounds in coins, gems, bronzes, and other minor relics of antiquity. The inscriptions found here, as well as the situation on the Appian Way, and the distance from Benevento, clearly prove these remains to be those of Aeculanum, and attest its splendour and importance under the Roman empire. ”

“ Aristotle's brief notice of the Carthaginian constitution (Polit. ii. 11) , precious and trustworthy as it is, only makes the want of fuller information the more apparent, and compels us the more to regret the loss of his treatise on Governments, in which that of Carthage was discussed at length. Among the historians of the wars of Carthage with the Greeks of Sicily and the Romans, Polybius stands first, in authority and accuracy, as well as in time. ”

“ The surpassing beauty and clearness of the Athenian atmosphere naturally allowed the inhabitants to pass much of their time in the open air. Hence, as the same writer remarks, "we may in part account for the practical defects of their domestic architecture, the badness of their streets, and the proverbial meanness of the houses of the noblest individuals among them. Hence certainly it was that in the best days of Athens, the Athenians worshipped, they legislated, they saw dramatic representations, under the open sky." ”

“ The military system of Carthage therefore grew entirely out of that necessity for foreign conquest which was entailed upon the state, as we have seen, by the extension of her commerce. Men do not risk their lives in war merely for the acquisition of wealth, least of all when a force of dependents and mercenaries can easily be found to fight their battles for them. ”

“ Their youth fanned the only regular army (as distinguished from mercenaries) which Carthage possessed; and, as a specimen of their taxation, they were made, in the first Punic War, to contribute fifty per cent on the produce of their land, while those of them who inhabited the cities had to pay twice their former amount of tribute. No respite or remission was given to the poor, but their persons were seized in default of payment. Their uneasiness under this heavy yoke is shown by the ardour with which they joined the mercenary soldiers in their revolt from Carthage. ”

“ It appears that wealth was one indispensable qualification, and that magistrates and generals procured their appointments in a great measure by corrupt means. Of such corruption, one variety was, the habit of constantly regaling the citizens in collective banquets of the curiae, or the political associations; a habit so continual, and embracing so wide a circle of citizens, that Aristotle compares these banquets to the Phiditia, or public mess of Sparta. ”

“ In this island of Atlantis, he adds, there arose a great and powerful dynasty of kings, who became masters of the whole island, and of many of the other islands and of parts of the continent And moreover, on this side the Atlantic, within the Straits, they ruled over Libya up to Egypt, and Europe up to Tyrrhenia. They next assembled their whole force for the conquest of the rest of the countries on the Mediterranean ; but the Athenians, though deserted by their allies, repelled the invaders, and restored the liberty of all the peoples within the Pillars of Hercules. ”

“ Julius Caesar and Augustus contributed to the erection of the portico of Athena Archegetis, which still exists.
But Hadrian (A.D. 117—138) was the greatest benefactor of Athens. He not only completed the temple of Zeus Olympius, which had remained unfinished for 700 years, but adorned the city with numerous other public buildings, — two temples, a gymnasium, a library and a stoa, — and gave the name of Hadrianopolis to a new quarter of the city, which he supplied with water by an aqueduct (Comp. Paus. i. 18.) Shortly afterwards a private individual emulated the imperial munificence. ”

“ But on foreign service in Sicily, these mercenaries often enabled Carthage to make conquest at the cost only of her money, without any waste of the blood of her own citizens. The Carthaginian generals seem generally to have relied, like Persians, upon numbers — manifesting little or no military skill; until we come to the Punic wars with Rome, conducted under Hamilcar Barca and his illustrious son Hannibal. ”

“ ATLANTES (Άτλαντες) , a people in the interior of Libya, inhabiting one of the chain of oases formed by salt hills, which are described by Herodotus as extending along the N. of the Great Desert (Sahara) , ten days' journey W. of the Atarantes, and in the vicinity of M. Atlas, whence they derived their name. They were reported to abstain from using any living thing for food, and to see no visions in their sleep. ”

“ The history of Carthage is so interwoven with the general course of ancient history, especially in the parts relating to its wars with the Greeks of Sicily and with the Romans, that it would be alike impracticable and superfluous to narrate it here with any approach to fulness. We can only attempt a brief sketch, to be filled up by the reader from the well-known histories of Greece and Rome. ”