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I.]
HIS AGE AND SURROUNDINGS.
15
But as general readers cannot be expected to have the facts of Greek history fresh in their minds, I here append a chronicle of the principal events in the poet's life, and his chief contemporaries. By this means, at least a skeleton of the period will be conveyed, and old scholars will easily recall through it their former studies. There is, indeed, a great deal of uncertainty about many of the sculptors and painters, of whom we seldom know more than the vague floruit from such people as Pliny. But in every case we can fairly determine the artists' generation, and tell that they were contemporaries of our poet, even when we cannot affirm that they influenced his rising genius.
