It is in the last two features--the interpretation of the legends, and the personal acquaintance with the country--that the more recent attempts excel the older masterpieces. Ernst Curtius spent several years in Greece, and published a complete and scholarly account of the Peloponnesus before he produced his history. Duruy gives life and colour to his narrative by references to his personal experiences in Greece. To visit and study the scenes of great events is now so easy and so habitual to scholars, that we may count it one of the necessary conditions for any future history which is to take a high place in the ever-increasing series of Hellenic studies[25:1]. In his opening chapters Ernst Curtius breathes such freshness and reality into the once dry preamble of geographical description that we feel we have attained a fresh epoch, and are led to expect great things from an experience gained upon the spot, which can verify the classical descriptions by the local features which remain. It is of course idle to think that this kind of familiarity will compensate for imperfect study. The modern Greek antiquarians, living upon the spot, have not yet shown themselves equal to many who have never seen what they discuss. Nevertheless, this is certain, that new force, and directness, are attained by a personal acquaintance with the coasts, the mountains, the rivers of Greece, and that many a wrong inference from ancient texts may be avoided by knowing that the scene of the events precludes it. [Sidenote: Example in the theatre of Athens.] [Sidenote: Its real size.] [Sidenote: No landscape for its background.]