Homer himself witnesses to the
intercourse, through early, adventurous commerce, as in the bright
and animated picture with which [217] the history of Herodotus
begins, between the Greeks and Eastern countries. We may, perhaps,
forget sometimes, thinking over the greatness of its place in the
history of civilisation, how small a country Greece really was; how
short the distances upwards, from island to island, to the coast of
Asia, so that we can hardly make a sharp separation between Asia and
Greece, nor deny, besides great and palpable acts of importation, all
sorts of impalpable Asiatic influences, by way alike of attraction
and repulsion, upon Greek manners and taste. Homer, as we saw, was
right in making Troy essentially a Greek city, with inhabitants
superior in all culture to their kinsmen on the Western shore, and
perhaps proportionally weaker on the practical or moral side, and
with an element of languid Ionian voluptuousness in them, typified by
the cedar and gold of the chamber of Paris--an element which the
austere, more strictly European influence of the Dorian Apollo will
one day correct in all genuine Greeks.
Pages:
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256