Antiquity

“ At the same time the antiquarian may here occupy himself with the examination of the rude relics of antiquity, which lie scattered on all sides—nothing is more pleasing than that sacred enthusiasm which is kindled in the mind by the contemplation of the faded monuments of past ages, and surely no spot was ever more congenial to such sensations. ”

“ The budding of new art, the survival of old religion, at isolated centres of provincial life, where varieties of human character also were keen, abundant, asserted in correspondingly effective incident— this is what irresistible fancy superinduces on historic details, themselves meagre enough. The sentiment of antiquity is indeed a characteristic of all cultivated people, even in what may seem the freshest ages, and not exclusively a humour of our later world. ”

“ The people here, even the lowest and meanest among them seem to have imbibed a profound respect for antiquity and antiquities, which sometimes produces a comic effect. I am often amused by the exultation with which they point out a bit of old stone, or piece of brick wall, or shapeless fragment of some nameless statue, and tell you it is antico, molto, antico, and the half contemptuous tone in which they praise the most beautiful modern production, é moderna—ma pure non é cativà! ”

“ It would be worth while, indeed, discussing whether the classical scholar of some old foundation derives the sense of antiquity, that knowledge that we are parts of a pattern, the threads of which pass out on either side of us, which forms so human, so tolerant a basis for his ideas and his actions, more from the study of Homer and Catullus than from the tranquillising presence on every side of him of old buildings, gothic arches and cloisters, and curious quadrangles. ”

“ In the mean time, the manners, monuments, customs, practices, and opinions of antiquity, by forming so strong a contrast with those of our own times, and by exhibiting human nature and human inventions in new lights, in unexpected appearances, and in various forms, are objects which forcibly strike a feeling imagination. ”

“ Nor was this all; the influence of the civilization of the Renaissance, of a civilization directly issued from the Middle Ages, was entirely at variance with the influence of antique civilization through the medium of ancient art; the Middle Ages and Antiquity, Christianity and Paganism, were even more opposed to each other than could be the statue and the easel picture, the fresco and the bas-relief. ”

“ All the arguments, archæological and philological, erected and advanced by mere erudition will not convince me to the contrary. To some people antiquity is a living [224] thing, a warm and glowing environment, a world with the paths and manners of which they are better acquainted than with the streets of every day. ”

“ There is not a single historian of antiquity, whether Greek or Latin, who has not recorded oracles, prodigies, prophecies, and miracles, on the occasion of some memorable events, or revolutions of states and kingdoms. ”

“ Antiquity has a charm of its own, and to smarten it up would only damage it. One day I was sitting on a red marble bench in the vestibule looking up at an ancient piece of apprentice-work, in mosaic, illustrative of the command to “multiply and replenish the earth.” ”

“ The word Renaissance, indeed, is now generally used to denote not merely that revival of classical antiquity which took place in the fifteenth century, and to which the word was first applied, but a whole complex movement, of which that revival of classical antiquity was but one element or symptom. ”

“ In those places which are only distinguished by classical fame, and valuable remains of antiquity, have your classics in your hand and in your head; compare the ancient geography and descriptions with the modern, and never fail to take notes. ”

“ There are Byzantine and mediaeval representations, too,— reproductions of ancient apartments, decorations, statues from tombs, monuments, religious and funereal,—that gave me new ideas of what antiquity has been. It takes down one's overweening opinion of the present time, to see how many kinds of beauty and magnificence have heretofore existed, and are now quite passed away and forgotten; and to find that we, who suppose that, in all matters of taste, our age is the very flower-season of the time,—that we are poor and meagre as to many things in which they were rich. ”

“ Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art every thing! When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity—then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou called'st it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses [1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing! ”

“ But we, whose thoughts have been so multiplied and who speak with so many tongues, are in a position, as our fathers were not, to realise to what elements in our own speech, to what stage of our own past, the language and thoughts of each epoch of antiquity correspond, and, realising this, to give the great works of antiquity a rendering which, if sometimes suffering from the defects of a compromise, is absolutely the best possible. ”

“ If we cast our eyes over the numerous remains of antiquity, we shall perceive, that besides the immediate representations of the gods, and the holy instruments of their worship, the elegant forms and agreeable fictions consecrated by the imagination of the Greeks, were introduced as the richest ornaments of the houses, the dress, and the furniture of the Pagans. 47 Even the arts of music and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same impure origin. ”

“ To the human world, thus unveiling itself, the individual who sought to make it serve his purposes required a guide; and the guide was found in the ancient literature of Greece and Rome. Hence the whole transformation, which presently extended from Italy to Northern Europe, is known as the Renaissance, or rebirth of classical antiquity. ”

“ To my Lord PEMBROKE. I Have sometimes in travelling been apt, within my own mind, to make a comparison between the excellence of the study of Philosophy, and that commonly called Antiquity, that is, ancient history. ”

“ The reverence for classic antiquity, you must understand, which sprang up at the renaissance in the fifteenth century, was as indiscriminating as it was earnest. Men caught the trash as well as the jewels. ”

“ Such, for example, are the inscriptions on the monuments of Egypt and on the buried ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Such are the ancient epitaphs, heathen and Christian, in the Roman catacombs. The study of ancient inscriptions of various sorts has thrown much light of late upon Grecian and Roman antiquity.
3. The entire literature of a people, in which its intellectual, moral, and social condition, at any particular era, is mirrored. ”

“ Before however proceeding to inspect these great monuments of Grecian art and civilization, which rank amongst the most venerable as well as the most beautiful relics of antiquity, it is only meet that we should carry with us into their ruined halls a few grains of historical knowledge, whereby our sense of reality and our appreciation of their greatness and splendour may be increased. ”

“ These symbolical ceremonies, restoring antiquity as if by magic, could not be explained to us without leading us back into past times, and informing us of the manners, customs, and feelings of those early ancestors who were so strangely made present to us by pipers and deputies seemingly risen from the dead, and by tangible gifts which might be possessed by ourselves. ”

“ AS my own knowledge of and interest in anthropology are confined to the great outlines, rather than to the special details of the science, I propose to give a very brief and general sketch of the modern doctrine as to the Antiquity and Origin of Man, and to suggest certain points of difficulty which have not, I think, yet received sufficient attention.
Many now present remember the time (for it is little more than twenty years ago) when the antiquity of man, as now understood, was universally discredited. ”

“ We seem to forget that antiquity, viewed as a period, is only old when we falsely add to it our own weight of years; and that antiquities, as objects, are only hoary when{329} they have taken upon them the marks of their slow attainment, century by century, to the venerable age in which we now live. ”

“ Antiquity has handed down to us a character possessed, in a most transcendent degree, of all the qualifications we [Pg 77] have exacted. We always like to get an example or two from antiquity, because it looks learned. ”

“ Far-sighted were the initiates of antiquity. They realized that nations come and go, that empires rise and fall, and that the golden ages of art, science, and idealism are succeeded by the dark ages of superstition. ”

“ For they had little knowledge of the present workings of nature, and they read the records of geologic time as a child reads the history of Rome or Greece, and fancies that antiquity was grand, heroic, and unlike the present because it is unlike his little experience of the present. ”

“ That is the only way to speak it perfectly; which I expect you will do, because I am sure you may, before you leave Rome. View the most curious remains of antiquity with a classical spirit; and they will clear up to you many passages of the classical authors; particularly the Trajan and Antonine Columns; where you find the warlike instruments, the dresses, and the triumphal ornaments of the Romans. ”

“ The principal facts of ancient history, and the authenticity of the works from which chiefly our knowledge of antiquity is derived, are now freely admitted, after a few exceptive instances have been set off, which are unproved, or doubtful. ”

“ Then we have a series of legendary stories full of miraculous incidents, but in which grains of truth may here and there be discerned. The value of this early part of the work is enhanced by the numerous poems of great antiquity which have been incorporated into it, and which have considerable antiquarian and philological interest. ”

“ These modes of operating have no doubt the recommendation of antiquity; but here antiquity is always at a discount, and no one doubts the propriety of its being so. The arts are advancing; and they who would impede their progress on the plea of not departing from the usages of antiquity, would be pitied or laughed at. ”

“ It is only slowly making its way towards the recognized method and the recognized principles which even an art requires. Here, it seemed, a student of ancient history might proffer parallels from antiquity, and especially from the Hellenistic and Roman ages, which somewhat resemble the present day in their care for the well-being of the individual. ”

“ NO. XL.—HERCULANEUM.
"It is characteristic of the noblest natures and the finest imaginations," says an elegant writer [262] , "to love to explore the vestiges of antiquity, and to dwell in times that are no more. The first is the domain of the imaginative affections alone; we can carry none of our baser passions with us thither. The antiquary is often spoken of as being of a peculiar construction of intellect, which makes him think and feel differently from other people. ”

“ The arguments for the great antiquity of man [1640] are deduced in the main from the testimony of the river [384] gravels, the bone caves, the peat deposits, the shell heaps, and the Lacustrine villages, for the mounds and other relics of defence, habitation, and worship are very likely not the records of a great antiquity. ”

“ We use the term in deference to universal custom, although Francis Bacon protested 250 years ago that “Antiquity, as we call it, is the young state of the world; for those times are ancient when the world is ancient, and not those we vulgarly account ancient by computing backwards—so that the present time is the real Antiquity.”—Advancement of Learning, I. See also Novum Organum. ”

“ The Renaissance of science and art in the fifteenth century, together with the resurrection of the knowledge of antiquity, revived the philosophical and aesthetical ideals of Greek life and transferred them to modern life. ”

“ The mounds, the basement works, the gigantic sculptures, the inscriptions, combine to give evidence concerning Nineveh, and Babylon, and Persepolis, and in doing so shed a light upon remote antiquity, which, while it extends the limits of what is called “the historic period,” avails also at once to correct and to corroborate the extant written materials of [Pg 365] history. ”

“ But beyond the limited circle of those peculiarly interested in geology or archæology, this discovery will claim the especial attention of all who, whether on ethnological, philological, or theological grounds, are interested in the great question of the antiquity of man upon the earth. ”

“ In the second place, it is to be noticed that this life, on account of the very great antiquity of its style, which was held in much regard, used to be read in the schools of our antiquarians in the presence of their pupils, being elucidated and expounded by the glosses of the masters, and by interpretations of and observations on the more abstruse words ”

“ The Latin treatises on past history were naturally concerned, for the most part, with classical antiquity. What we are most surprised to find among these humanists are some considerable works on the history of the Middle Ages. ”

“ But one need only read a few pages from the pen of ancient authors to discover that what startles us to-day as a thing without precedent, had passed into a well-known custom in the earliest ages of Christianity. It is into the subject of lectures and conferences among the ancients that I propose to inquire, as a topic offering interest if not profit to those who like to compare antiquity with our own times. ”