Volume 1

History of Greece / by George Grote.

  • Grote, George, 1794-1871.
Date:
1849-1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of Greece / by George Grote. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    688/698 (page 648)
    Standard of histo- rical evi- dence— raised in regard to England— —not raised in regard to Greece. 648 HISTORY OF GREECE. [Part I. precedent, the historians of the nineteenth century begin the history of England with Julius Caesar. They do not attempt either to settle the date of king Bladud’s accession, or to determine what may be the basis of truth in the affecting narrative of Lear^ The standard of historical credibility, espe- cially with regard to modern events, has indeed been greatly and sensibly raised within the last hundred years. But in regard to ancient Grecian history, the rules of evidence still continue relaxed. The dictum of Milton, regarding the ante*Caesarian history of England, still represents pretty exactly the feeling now prevalent respecting the mythical history of Greece :—Yet those old and inborn kings (Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, Jason, Adrastus, Amphiaraus, Meleager, &c.), never any to have been real persons, or done in their lives at least some part of what so long hath been remem- bered, cannot be thought without too strict incre- dulity.” Amidst much fiction (we are still told), there must be some truth : but how is such truth to * Dr. Zachary Grey has the followicg observations in his Notes on Shakespeare (London, 1754, vol. i. p. 112) In eommenting on the passage in King Lear, Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness, he says, “ This is one of Shakespeare’s most remarkable anachronisms. King Lear suceeeded his father Bladnd anno mundi 3105; and Nero, anno mundi 401/, was sixteen years old, when he married Oetavia, Csesar’s daughter. See rimccii Chronologia, p. 94.” Such a supposed chronological discrepancy would hardly be ])ointed out in any commentary now written. The introduction j)refixed by Mr. Giles to his recent translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1842) gives a just view both of the use which our old poets made of his tales, and of the general credence so long and so unsuspectingly accorded to them. The list of old British kings given by Mr. Giles also deserves attention, as a parallel to the Grecian genea- logies anterior to the Olympiads.