Nearly all the more recent romances and dramas, whose scene is laid in classic times, depict the period of the great rupture between Paganism and Christianity. This is true of “Hypatia,” “Fabiola,” “The Last Days of Pompeii,” “The Epicureans,” “The Emperor and The Galilean,” “The Last Athenian,” and many other works. The cause of this coincidence is not difficult to understand; for a period containing such strong contrasts invites ?sthetic treatment.
The present tales derive their material from a different, but no less interesting epoch. They give pictures of the flowering of Hellas, the distant centuries whose marvellous culture rested solely on the purely human elements of character as developed beneath a mild and radiant sky.
Yet it required a certain degree of persistence to procure this material. When we examine the Greek writers to find descriptions of the men of those times or the special characteristics of the social life of the period, Greek literature, so rich in accounts of historical events, becomes strangely laconic, nay almost silent.
How entirely different is the situation of a personii who desires to sketch a picture of the Frenchmen of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. The whole collection of memoirs is at his disposal. In these writings the author discourses familiarly with the reader, gives him lifelike portraits of the ladies and gentlemen of the court, and tells him the most minute anecdotes of the society of that day.
Greek literature has nothing of this kind. The description of common events and the history of daily existence are forms of writing of later origin, nothing was farther from the minds of ancient authors than the idea that private life could contain anything worth noting. Herodotus and Thucydides narrated little or nothing of what the novelists of the present day seek, nay, even among the orators only scattered details are found, and strangely enough there are more in the speeches of Lysias than of Demosthenes.
Among the poets Aristophanes produces a whole gallery of contemporary characters, but indistinctly and in vague outlines; they were what would now be called “originals from the street” who, during the performance of his comedies, sat among the spectators, and whom he only needed to mention to evoke the laughter of the crowd. Something more may be gathered from Lucian and Apuleius, together with the better “Milesian” tales, especially from Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius while, on the contrary, the great Alexandrian lumber-room, owed to Athenaeus, contains more gewgaws of learning and curiosa than really marked characteristics.
iii In the obscure recesses of Greek literature, where we are abandoned by all translators, and where—as everybody knows who has devoted himself to the interpretation of the classics—only short excursions can be made, we are sometimes surprised at finding, by pure accident, useful matter. Dion Chrysostomus (VII) gives extremely interesting descriptions of life in the Greek villages and commercial towns. But what is discovered is always so scattered that only a few notes can be obtained from numerous volumes.
When I decided to turn what I had read to account, I was fully aware that a presentation of ancient life in the form of a romance or novel was one of the most difficult ?sthetic tasks which could be undertaken. If, nevertheless, I devoted myself to it, I naturally regarded the work only as an experiment.
In choosing the narrow frame-work of short stories I set before myself this purpose—to sketch the ordinary figures of ancient life on a historical background. I have—resting step by step on the classic writers—endeavored to present some pictures of ancient times; but I have no more desired to exalt former ages at the expense of our own than the contrary. As to the mode of treatment—I have steadily intended to keep the representations objective, and to avoid using foreign words or giving the dialogues a form so ancient that they would not be easy to read.A The stiffiv classic ceremonies, foot-washings, etc., I have almost entirely omitted, and the archaeological and historical details have everywhere been subordinated to the contents of the story, so that they merely serve to give an antique coloring to the descriptions. Lastly, I have believed that the Greek characters ought to be completely banished from the book, and even from the notes and preface.
A So far as the idiomatic differences of the two languages would permit, the translator has endeavored to retain the simplicity of style deemed by the author best suited to his purpose.
After these general remarks I must be permitted to dwell briefly upon the different tales, partly to point out the authority for such or such a stroke and partly to give some few more detailed explanations.
Little is known of the Pelasgian epoch; but it is a historical fact that a woman was abducted at the fountain of Callirrho?. On this incident the first story “Zeus Hypsistos” is founded, and the climax of Periphas’ death is based upon an ancient idea: a voice of fate. The belief in Phēmai or Cledones is older than in that of most oracles, and dates back to the days of Homer. When Ulysses is wandering about, pondering over the thought of killing the suitors, he prays to Zeus for a sign and omen, a voice of fate, which then sounds in a thunder-clap and, inside of the house, he hears a slave-girl wishing evil to the suitors. The old demi-god Cychreus of Salamis is mentioned by Pausanias (I. 36). It was a universal idea in ancient times that demi-gods liked to transform themselves into serpents. In the battle of Salamis a serpent appeared in the Athenian fleet; the oracle declared that it was the ancient demi-god Cychreus. In Eleusis Demeter hadv a serpent called the Cychrean, for Cychreus, who had either slain it or himself assumed its form. For the remarkable ceremonial of purification after a murder (page 58), see Apollonius’ Argonautica (IV. 702). The words: “Zeus was, Zeus is, and Zeus will be” are borrowed from the ancient hymn sung by the Dodonian priestesses, called Peleiades (doves.)
In “The Sycophant” the notes cited on pages 72–73 would be valueless, if they did not contain the punishments which, according to ............