A Smaller History of Greece: From the Earliest Times to the Roman Conquest

Front Cover
Harper & Brothers, 1887 - Greece - 248 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 223 - Seven cities laid claim to his birth, $ and most of them had legends to tell respecting his romantic parentage, his alleged blindness, and his life of an itinerant bard acquainted with poverty and sorrow. It cannot be disputed that he was an Asiatic Greek ; but this is the only fact in his life which can be regarded as certain. Several of the best writers of antiquity supposed him to...
Page 14 - ... the matches. The only prize given to the conqueror was a garland of wild olive ; but this was valued as one of the dearest distinctions in life. To have his name proclaimed as victor before assembled Hollas was an object of ambition with the noblest and the wealthiest of the Greeks.
Page 101 - Oppressed at once by war and pestilence, their lands desolated, their homes filled with mourning, it is not surprising that the Athenians were seized with rage and despair, or that they vented their anger on Pericles, whom they deemed the author of their misfortunes. But that statesman still adhered to his plans with unshaken firmness. Though the Lacedaemonians were in Attica, though the plague had already seized on Athens, he was vigorously pushing his plans of offensive operations.
Page 57 - Abydos on the Hellespont, the army crossed over to Europe by the bridge of boats. Xerxes surveyed the scene from a marble throne. His heart swelled within him at the sight of such a vast assemblage of human beings ; but his feelings of pride and pleasure soon gave way to sadness, and he burst into tears at the reflection that in a hundred years not one of them would be alive.
Page 34 - Solon was the only man, who, without fear or shrinking, deplored the folly of the times, and reproached the Athenians with their cowardice and treachery. You might, said he, with ease have crushed the tyrant in the bud; but nothing now remains but to pluck him up by the roots.
Page 159 - Grecian cities, both small and great, independent, — except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which are to belong to Athens, as of old. Should any parties refuse to accept this peace, I will make war upon them, along...

Bibliographic information