A history of classical Greek literature / by J.P. Mahaffy.

  • John Pentland Mahaffy
Date:
1910
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of classical Greek literature / by J.P. Mahaffy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    \(.yoiroi6Q of early date, he seems to point to some form of prose fable far older than his own time. It is remarkable that savage races in our own day have made beast-fables their first literary effort on the discovery of the use of writing.* But all these things have left us but faint and doubtful traces ; for the wisdom of the Seven Wise Men, and the fables of .^Esop, have come down to us in a rehandled and modern form, and we know nothing of any early prose form in which these things were originally composed. But on the whole, we have ample evidence for the common use of writing throughout the seventh century, evidence which is, in my opinion, necessary to account for the development of Greek lyric poetry, the construction of codes of law, and the general literary culture of the age. In fact, the wonder is, not that prose writing came so early, but so late in the history of Greek literature. But the national taste was so well satisfied by poetry that it required special influences, other than the mere familiarity with writing, to induce men to set down their thoughts in unmetrical form. To these we may now turn. § 298. We cannot embrace in this volume either the history of Greek religion or of Greek philosophy, both large and inter- esting subjects, and demanding special investigation. We are here concerned with them only so far as they produced a direct effect in moulding either the form or the tendencies of general literature. But as religion underwent great changes in the sixth century, and philosophy then originated, our sketch of Greek literature must embrace the remoter effects of both on the writers of that and succeeding generations. We have already noted ^ in Pindar the allusions to a future world, and to its rewards and punishments, and that this doctrine was due to the Orphic mysteries, which were com- mon through Greece in this century. The origin of these mysteries is uniformly referred to Pieria in Thrace, from which they are said to have been brought to Lesbos, and then spread over Greece. They are closely identified, on the one hand, with the worship of Dionysus, which also originated in Thrace, * Cf. my Proleg. to Anc. Hist., pp. 118, 391. * Vol. I. § 150.