THE
LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE
I
HOMER
Introductory
In attempting to understand the scope and development of Greek literature, our greatest difficulty comes from the fragmentary and one-sided nature of our tradition. There has perhaps never been any society in history so near to the highest side of our own as the Athens of Euripides and Plato. The spiritual vividness and religious freedom of these men, the genuineness of their culture and humanity, the reasoned daring of their social and political ideals, appeal to us almost more intimately than does our own eighteenth century. But between us and them there has passed age upon age of men who saw differently, who sought in the books that they read other things than truth and imaginative beauty, or who did not care to read books at all. Of the literature produced by the Greeks in the fifth century B.C., we possess about a twentieth part; of that produced in the seventh, sixth, fourth, and third, not nearly so large a proportion. All that has reached us has passed a severe
