Marcy I largest amount of patronage for their friends went against it. have no doubt was hostile to the bill. Mr. Pierce is also for Cuba. But Marcy is not. And I fear that the South will be "gulled" by him on that question. As for myself I am for Cuba, and I think if our citizens see fit to go and rescue the Island from Spanish misrule and English abolition policy they ought not to be punished by us for so doing. In other words I am for repealing our laws which make it a misdemeanor and punishable to take part in such a struggle as it is believed will take place there between the planters and the Govmt before the legislative decree goes into effect in August next. If the people then resist I am for aiding them. It will be another St. Domingo struggle and any American in my opinion should feel a sympathy for his own race. I am against Cuba's becoming a negroe state. But again enough. Excuse my haste. I have but a few moments to scribble you these lines. I hope to see you before many months and talk over these things. But I must repeat once more that my strong desire is to get out of this bustle and retire to the quiet and repose of my own sequestered home and leave the world to take [care] of itself. My best respects to Mrs. Burch and kind regards to all the family. Yours most sincerely Robert S. Burch, Esq ALEXANDER H STEPHENS Marietta Ga AM, HIST. REV., VOL. VIII.-7. REVIEWS OF BOOKS The Great Persian War and its Preliminaries; A Study of the Evidence, Literary and Topographical. By G. B. GRUNDY. (London: John Murray; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1901. Pp. xiii, 591.) THE author of this ambitious and important monograph spent the winter of 1892-1893, the summer of 1895 and the summer of 1899 in Greece and in the course of these visits examined the principal military routes used in ancient times and the most famous battle-fields. Thus equipped with an accurate knowledge at first hand of the theater of operations, he has studied afresh the literary evidence concerning the Persian wars, with a view to settling the political, strategical and tactical questions to which it has given rise and incidentally to determining the character of Herodotus as an historian. What gives his book its unique value is its topographical apparatus. This includes not only notes made in all parts of the field but also the results of especially careful observation in the plain of Marathon and the strait of Salamis, both already surveyed by others, and above all detail maps of Thermopyle and Platea, as surveyed the first time by Mr. Grundy himself. His analysis of this material, which is illustrated by a large number of original sketches and some photographic views, must be taken into account in all future discussion of the four great battles of the war and the campaigns that hinged upon them. While at work in the field Mr. Grundy naturally depended upon the evidence of his own eyes. In reporting physical data he could afford to ignore the opinions of those who had never seen the ground. It would seem as if this had led him to believe that, in the very different work of interpreting the literary tradition in the light of this new evidence, he could safely rely, to an altogether undue extent, upon his own unaided reason. Except in a few instances, he has entirely failed to assimilate the contributions which others have made toward the solution of his problems or to test his own conclusions by entering fully into their arguments. He discusses consequently a vast amount of irrelevant detail, raises old difficulties long since solved, proposes rejected explanations, and proves over again established conclusions. The half of his book would be more than the whole. It is now fifteen years since Hans Delbrück in his Perserkriege und Burgunderkriege laid the basis for all future treatment of the military and literary problems of the Persian wars. This book is nowhere named by Mr. Grundy. Its author is mentioned twice, each time in a foot-note. Thus we read on page 210, in support of the statement that some modern writers have underestimated the size of Xerxes's army: "E. g. Delbrück attributes to Xerxes an army of from 65,000 to 75,000 combatants.'' Now this is a question of fundamental importance and, whether Delbrück's estimate be right or wrong, the very remarkable chain of argument by which he led up to it, deserves consideration. Mr. Grundy writes as if he had never read it and although he admits that the figures given by Herodotus are impossible, yet he concludes solely from the extent of the Persian Empire and from the Oriental reliance upon numbers that 500,000 should be regarded as the minimum figure for the troops employed on land. How such a force, with at least an equal number of non-combatants could be maintained in Greece, how it could be manipulated on the battle-field, or how such an overwhelming predominance of numbers on one side can be reconciled with the actual conduct of the war, he omits to explain in the course of the few sentences with which the whole matter is dismissed. His survey of Thermopyle and his examination of the strait of Salamis were not made until the summer of 1899. In November of the same year, in ample time for him to use it, appeared the second volume of Eduard Meyer's Forschungen zur alten Geschichte. However difficult it may have been for him at that advanced stage to adopt a truly critical attitude towards Herodotus, for whom indeed he claims extraordinary accuracy in the statement of facts, he might at least have learned from Meyer not to credit the legend that the Greek fleet on the eve of Salamis was in a state of panic nor to repeat the charge that Leonidas was sacrificed by the failure of his government to reinforce him. According to Meyer's view, the force under Leonidas was large enough to hold the pass until the Greek fleet at Artemisium should engage the Persian ships, and no force that Sparta could furnish could have done more. The hesitation of the fleet to risk a decisive battle made the position on land untenable. Delbrück and Meyer agree in urging on general principles that such a position as that at Thermopylae can always be turned sooner or later. Both mention the road from Malis into Doris as a possible route by which the turning movement might have been made. In controverting Delbrück's statement of the case, Mr. Grundy adduces real grounds against the assumption that this road existed in ancient times but fails entirely to meet the main point,-the force of which, for instance, the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo and the Confederates at Rich Mountain found out to their cost. He emphasizes the connection between the Greek positions at Artemisium and Thermopylæ, ascribing to them, however, co-ordinate importance, but he ignores Bury's article in the Annual of the British School at Athens for 1895-1896 to which Meyer, in discussing the same question, has acknowledged his indebtedness. It is curious to note further that, while acknowledgment is made of another article of Bury's -year and volume not given (p. 389)-the explanation of the Scythian. expedition suggested by the same scholar in the Classical Review for July 1897 is mentioned as "a theory which has recently been put forward," without further identification. It is difficult to account for this haphazard method of reference. Often enough Mr. Grundy shows his capacity to learn, if he will, from others. Thus, in the chapter on Salamis he accepts, with ample recognition, Professor Goodwin's view as to the Persian position—that it was outside, not inside the entrance to the strait-and repeats the arguments on which it was based, reinforcing them by observations of his own. He finds it impossible, however, to reconcile this with the account given by Herodotus and offers an ingenious explanation of the latter's mistake; but he neglects to tell us of the manner in which Goodwin so interpreted the crucial passage in Herodotus as to bring it into harmony with the testimony of Eschylus and the nature of the scene of action. After all that has been said in criticism of Mr. Grundy's method, it is only fair to repeat that large parts of his book possess permanent value. His chapter on Platea especially will repay careful study. It is to be hoped that he will carry out his purpose to deal in another volume with the remaining campaigns of the fourth century, but no less to be desired that, in expressing his opinion of the strategy of Pericles and the authority of Thucydides, he will not overlook two books which have appeared since his first one was written. One of these is the first volume of Delbrück's Geschichte der Kriegskunst and the other is the fourth volume of Meyer's Geschichte des Altertums. H. A. SILL. Geschichte des hellenistischen Zeitalters. Von JULIUS KAERST. ter Band. Teubner. Ers Die Grundlegung des Hellenismus. (Leipzig: B. G. 1901. Pp. x, 433.) THE author has for some years been favorably known as a critical student of the sources for the history of Alexander, and his articles in historical and philological periodicals have roused expectation of some such general historical work as that of which the first volume is now before the world. "Ich habe mir die Aufgabe gestellt," he explains in his preface (p. iv), "die Umwandlung des in den engen Grenzen der Polis sich darstellenden Staates in die umfassenden politischen Gestaltungen der hellenistischen Zeit und der in der hellenischen Polis erwachsenen Kultur in die hellenistischen Weltkultur nachzuweisen und das Wesen dieser neuen universalen Bildungen, die treibenden Kräfte, die wichtigsten Entwicklungstendenzen derselben darzulegen." The first volume is exclusively devoted to the political philosophy of the evolution of Alexander's world-sovereignty. Of the economical, social, artistic and religious aspects of the Hellenistic as contrasted with the Hellenic period, subsequent volumes will doubtless treat. For a history of the period "grossen Stiles," we must still go to Droysen; for detailed pragmatic history, with exhaustive apparatus, to Niese. Of the first predecessor in the field, the author speaks everywhere with due apprecia Kaerst: Geschichte des hellenistischen Zeitalters ΙΟΙ tion; of the second no mention whatever is made in the preface, and none in the main text of the work. Less than a dozen references to him in the foot-notes are without exception controversial and even deprecatory, though neither in this nor in any other case is the author's controversial procedure virulent or undignified. With Hogarth's recent book the author shows a slight acquaintance, and honors it with a somewhat disdainful reference. The main tendencies of the work are perfectly clear. Toward our tradition of the histories of Philip and Alexander of Macedon, the author takes a distinctly conservative position, and the kernel of historical truth within the husk of romantic accretion is, as a rule, carefully sought. There is refreshingly little of the arbitrary subjective pronunciamento so prevalent in much recent work on ancient history among the Germans. Toward the personalities of Philip and Alexander the attitude is consistently favorable, not to say apologetic, and yet admiration and praise are never allowed to escape the most perfect control. Dignity even to heaviness characterizes the whole work; plan and method are noble and sedate. Military details and attractive anecdotes obscure in wonderfully slight degree the main political thread of the argument. Alexander's siege of Tyre is disposed of in less than two pages; his capture of the Aornos fastness in a brief sentence, and as a result of this self-control, the conception of the Greek Polis, with which the volume opens, is given a truly artistic contrast to that of Alexander's world-swaying personality, with which the volume closes. The Battle of Charoneia decided the claims of city-state and monarchical supremacy to the leadership of Hellas. The Athenian citystate, during its leadership, had slowly lost sight of the national, PanHellenic idea, in attempting to satisfy the local and social demands of its sovereign democracy. Sparta and Thebes, during their leaderships, had been unable to triumph over city-state exclusiveness and achieve a general Pan-Hellenic symmachy. Persia had become the chief power in Hellas. Meanwhile, in spiritual, economical and political life, the technical superiority of the gifted individual was seeking and obtaining scope for itself. The Socratic doctrine of "knowledge" favored the conception and realization of a technically skilled bureaucracy and a technically qualified individual leader of the state. The Macedonian monarchy, as developed by Philip II., and as enlarged by Alexander, furnished both individual leader and trained bureaucracy. Philip II. won for this political system the leadership of Hellas. The Macedonians were a distinct folk from the Hellenes, but nearly related to them, more nearly than any of their neighbors were, or than they were to any of their neighbors. The royal line were of genuine. Macedonian stock. Their pure Hellenic origin was a political fiction of great influence in the Hellenizing process which had been under way long before Philip II., but which was not complete till the time of PerThe Macedonian monarchy, with its elastic principles of folk and territorial unity, contrasts fully with the city-state's separation and seus. |