Britannica History of Greece

I. Introductory.—It is necessary to indicate at the outset the scope and object of the present article. The reader must not expect to find in it a compendious summary of the chief events in the history of ancient Greece. It is not intended to supply an “Outlines of Greek History.” It may be questioned whether such a sketch of the history, within the limits of space which are necessarily imposed in a work of reference, would be of utility to any class of readers. At any rate, the plan of the present work, in which the subject of Greek history is treated of in a large number of separate articles, allows of the narrative of events being given in a more satisfactory form under the more general of the headings (e.g. athens, sparta, peloponnesian war) The character of the history itself suggests a further reason why a general article upon Greek history should not be confined to, or even attempt, a narrative of events. A sketch of Greek history is not possible in the sense in which a sketch of Roman history, or even of English history, is possible. Greek history is not the history of a single state. When Aristotle composed his work upon the constitutions of the Greek states, he found it necessary to extend his survey to no less that 158 states. Greek history is thus concerned with more than 150 separate and independent political communities. Nor is it even the history of a single country. The area occupied by the Greek race extended from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, and from southern Russia to northern Africa. It is inevitable, therefore that the impression conveyed by a sketch of Greek history should be a misleading one. A mere narrative can hardly fail to give a false perspective. Experience shows that such a sketch is apt to resolve itself into the history of a few great movements confine itself, at any rate for the greater part of the period dealt with, to the history of Greece in the narrower sense i.e. of the Greek peninsula. For the identification of Greece with Greece proper there may be some degree of excuse when we come to the 5th and 4th centuries. In the period that lies behind the year 500 b.c. Greece proper forms but a small part of the Greek world. In the 7th and 6th centuries it is outside Greece itself that we must look for the most active life of the Greek people and the most brilliant manifestations of the Greek spirit The present article, therefore, will be concerned with the cause and conditions of events, rather than with the events themselves it will attempt analysis rather than narrative. Its object will be to indicate problems and to criticize views; to suggest lessons and parallels, and to estimate the importance of the Hellenic factor in the development of civilization.