Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 1 of 3: I. Prolegomena II. Achæis; or, the Ethnology of the Greek RacesGladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
History
Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 1 of 3: I. Prolegomena II. Achæis; or, the Ethnology of the Greek Races
Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
Civilization, Homeric; Epic poetry, Greek -- History and criticism; Homer
While Homer himself seems to represent the unbounded wealth and
fulness, and the manifold and versatile power, of the composite Greek
mind, we appear to have, in the rural strains of Hesiod, if not in the
unenlivened theogonic traditions ascribed to him, the just and natural
exemplification of all that we might expect in a Pelasgic poet.
_States especially Hellic or Pelasgic._
In later, as well as in Homeric times, the Arcadians seem in the most
marked manner to have exhibited the Pelasgic aspect of the Greek mind
and life: and they show it much in the same relation to the Hellic
races, as that of the Saxons to the Norman chivalry. Like the Saxons,
it was not in bravery that they failed: they were ἐγχεσίμωροι and
ἐπιστάμενοι πολεμίζειν: but in energy and passion, and likewise in
governing and organizing powers, they were beneath the competing race,
and therefore they gave way: while, from their enduring and solid
qualities, they were well qualified in after generations to supply the
greater waste caused by a more vivid temperament and keener action in
the soil above them.
Among the Spartans we find developed, in a very peculiar degree, two
of the imperial elements of the Greek character. The first is that
political faculty of the Hellic races, by which, as Strabo says, they
preserved their ἡγεμονία from the time of Lycurgus, down to the fifth
century.
And the second is, the idea of the education of the body, as an
essential and main part of human training: a sentiment which to us may
seem narrow, but we must remember that the Greeks kept fully in their
view what we have dropped from our theories, though it may be hoped,
not wholly from our practice, namely, the influence of bodily exercise
and discipline in forming mental qualities and habits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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