Mahaffy goes far beyond such mild measures as these,
and begins his history by frankly expressing his regret that Demosthenes
was not summarily put to death for his attempt to keep the spirit of
patriotism alive among the citizens of Athens! Indeed, he has no
patience with what he calls 'the foolish and senseless opposition to
Macedonia'; regards the revolt of the Spartans against 'Alexander's Lord
Lieutenant for Greece' as an example of 'parochial politics'; indulges in
Primrose League platitudes against a low franchise and the iniquity of
allowing 'every pauper' to have a vote; and tells us that the
'demagogues' and 'pretended patriots' were so lost to shame that they
actually preached to the parasitic mob of Athens the doctrine of
autonomy--'not now extinct,' Mr. Mahaffy adds regretfully--and
propounded, as a principle of political economy, the curious idea that
people should be allowed to manage their own affairs! As for the
personal character of the despots, Mr. Mahaffy admits that if he had to
judge by the accounts in the Greek historians, from Herodotus downwards,
he 'would certainly have said that the ineffaceable passion for autonomy,
which marks every epoch of Greek history, and every canton within its
limits, must have arisen from the excesses committed by the officers of
foreign potentates, or local tyrants,' but a careful study of the
cartoons published in United Ireland has convinced him 'that a ruler may
be the soberest, the most conscientious, the most considerate, and yet
have terrible things said of him by mere political malcontents.' In
fact, since Mr. Balfour has been caricatured, Greek history must be
entirely rewritten! This is the pass to which the distinguished
professor of a distinguished university has been brought. Nor can
anything equal Mr. Mahaffy's prejudice against the Greek patriots, unless
it be his contempt for those few fine Romans who, sympathising with
Hellenic civilisation and culture, recognised the political value of
autonomy and the intellectual importance of a healthy national life. He
mocks at what he calls their 'vulgar mawkishness about Greek liberties,
their anxiety to redress historical wrongs,' and congratulates his
readers that this feeling was not intensified by the remorse that their
own forefathers had been the oppressors. Luckily, says Mr. Mahaffy, the
old Greeks had conquered Troy, and so the pangs of conscience which now
so deeply afflict a Gladstone and a Morley for the sins of their
ancestors could hardly affect a Marcius or a Quinctius! It is quite
unnecessary to comment on the silliness and bad taste of passages of this
kind, but it is interesting to note that the facts of history are too
strong even for Mr. Mahaffy. In spite of his sneers at the provinciality
of national feeling and his vague panegyrics on cosmopolitan culture, he
is compelled to admit that 'however patriotism may be superseded in stray
individuals by larger benevolence, bodies of men who abandon it will only
replace it by meaner motives,' and cannot help expressing his regret that
the better classes among the Greek communities were so entirely devoid of
public spirit that they squandered 'as idle absentees, or still idler
residents, the time and means given them to benefit their country,' and
failed to recognise their opportunity of founding a Hellenic Federal
Empire. Even when he comes to deal with art, he cannot help admitting
that the noblest sculpture of the time was that which expressed the
spirit of the first great _national_ struggle, the repulse of the Gallic
hordes which overran Greece in 278 B.C., and that to the patriotic
feeling evoked at this crisis we owe the Belvedere Apollo, the Artemis of
the Vatican, the Dying Gaul, and the finest achievements of the Perganene
school. In literature, also, Mr.