What have the Greeks done for modern civilisation? : the Lowell lectures of 1908-09 / by John Pentland Mahaffy.

  • John Pentland Mahaffy
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: What have the Greeks done for modern civilisation? : the Lowell lectures of 1908-09 / by John Pentland Mahaffy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    precede the evidence of that greatness, which we gather by the lamp, often dim, of history, if not by the searchlight of archaeological science. Though this subject cannot but prove dull to some of you, I shall do my best to relieve the dul- ness by illustrations or even by digressions into kindred fields of knowledge. I know that there are two considerations which, in the minds of people who are easily satisfied, pass for an adequate account of this extraordi- nary genius of the Greeks. It is usual, especially among those who will not take the trouble to learn Greek, to say that it was really through Rome that the greatness of the Hellenic race was created. Rome conquered the Western world with her roads, her armies, her laws, her language, and im- pressed even on barbarians the culture which she had herself adopted and developed. The Latin races which were in the van of civilisation up to the seventeenth century were the daughters of Rome and had little direct teaching from Greece. All this is perfectly true, but it only moves the problem one step backward. Assuming that the Romans were the carriers of enlightenment to the North and West of Europe, why did they depend so completely on Greek teaching; why did they one and all confess that this was the unique source