The Greek View of Life

The Greek View of Life

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Title: The Greek View of Life
Author: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
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THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE
BY
G. LOWES DICKINSON, M.A.
SIXTH EDITION
NEW YORK
1909

PREFACE
The following pages are intended to serve as a general introduction to
Greek literature and thought, for those, primarily, who do not know
Greek. Whatever opinions may be held as to the value of translations, it
seems clear that it is only by their means that the majority of modern
readers can attain to any knowledge of Greek culture; and as I believe
that culture to be still, as it has been in the past, the most valuable
element of a liberal education, I have hoped that such an attempt as the
present to give, with the help of quotations from the original authors,
some general idea of the Greek view of life, will not be regarded as
labour thrown away.
It has been essential to my purpose to avoid, as far as may be, all
controversial matter; and if any classical scholar who may come across
this volume should be inclined to complain of omissions or evasions, I
would beg him to remember the object of the book and to judge it
according to its fitness for its own end.
"The Greek View of Life," no doubt, is a question-begging title, but I
believe it to have a quite intelligible meaning; for varied and manifold
as the phases may be that are presented by the Greek civilization, they

do nevertheless group themselves about certain main ideas, to be
distinguished with sufficient clearness from those which have
dominated other nations. It is these ideas that I have endeavoured to
bring into relief; and if I have failed, the blame, I submit, must be
ascribed rather to myself than to the nature of the task I have
undertaken.
From permission to make the extracts from translations here printed my
best thanks are due to the following authors and publishers:--Professor
Butcher, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. E. D. A. Morshead, Mr. B. B. Rogers,
Dr. Verrall, Mr. A. S. Way, Messrs. George Bell and Sons, the Syndics
of the Cambridge University Press, the Delegates of the Clarendon
Press, Oxford, Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Mr. John Murray, and
Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston and Co.--I have also to thank the
Master and Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford, for permission to quote
at considerable length from the late Professor Jowett's translations of
Plato and Thucydides.
Appended is a list of the translations from which I have quoted.

LIST OF TRANSLATIONS USED
AESCHYLUS (B.C. 525--456). "The House of Atreus" (I.E. the
"Agamemnon," "Choephorae" and "Eumenides"), translated by E. D. A.
MORSHEAD (Warren and Sons). The "Eumenides," translated by DR.
VERRALL (Cambridge, 1885).
ARISTOPHANES (C. B.C. 444--380). "The Acharnians, the Knights,
and the Birds," translated by JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE (Morley's
Universal Library, Routledge). [Also the "Frogs" and the "Peace" in his
Collected Works, (Pickering)]. The "Clouds," the "Lysistrata"
["Women in Revolt,"] the "Peace," and the "Wasps," translated by B. B.
ROGERS
ARISTOTLE (B.C. 384--322). The "Ethics," the "Politics," and the
"Rhetoric," translated by J. E. C. WELLDON (Macmillan & Co.).
DEMOSTHENES (B.C. 385--322). "Orations," translated by C. R.
KENNEDY (Bell).
EURIPIDES (B.C. 480--406). "Tragedies," translated by A. S. WAY
(Macmillan & Co.).
HERODOTUS (B.C. 484-- ). "The History," translated by S. R.
RAWLINSON (Murray).

HOMER. The "Iliad," translated by LANG, LEAF AND MYERS; the
"Odyssey," translated by BUTCHER & LANG (Macmillan).
PINDAR (B.C. 522--442). "Odes," translated by E.