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Essays and Lectures-Part3_OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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representative, looked back, as a great many of our own day still

do, to a fabulous age of innocent happiness, a BELL' ETE DELL'



AURO, where sin and death were unknown and men and women were like

Gods, the foremost men of intellect such as Aristotle and Plato,



AEschylus and many of the other poets (1) saw in primitive man 'a

few small sparks of humanity preserved on the tops of mountains



after some deluge,' 'without an idea of cities, governments or

legislation,' 'living the lives of wild beasts in sunless caves,'



'their only law being the survival of the fittest.'

And this, too, was the opinion of Thucydides, whose ARCHAEOLOGIA as



it is contains a most valuable disquisition on the early condition

of Hellas, which it will be necessary to examine at some length.



Now, as regards the means employed generally by Thucydides for the

elucidation of ancient history, I have already pointed out how



that, while acknowledging that 'it is the tendency of every poet to

exaggerate, as it is of every chronicler to seek to be attractive



at the expense of truth; he yet assumes in the thoroughly

euhemeristic way, that under the veil of myth and legend there does



yet exist a rational basis of fact discoverable by the method of

rejecting all supernatural interference as well as any



extraordinary motives influencing the actors. It is in complete

accordance with this spirit that he appeals, for instance, to the



Homeric epithet of [Greek text which cannot be reproduced], as

applied to Corinth, as a proof of the early commercial prosperity



of that city; to the fact of the generic name HELLENES not

occurring in the ILIAD as a corroboration of his theory of the



essentially disunited character of the primitive Greek tribes; and

he argues from the line 'O'er many islands and all Argos ruled,' as



applied to Agamemnon, that his forces must have been partially

naval, 'for Agamemnon's was a continental" target="_blank" title="a.大陆的，大陆性的">continental power, and he could not



have been master of any but the adjacent islands, and these would

not be many but through the possession of a fleet.'



Anticipating in some measure the comparative method of research, he

argues from the fact of the more barbarous Greek tribes, such as



the AEtolians and Acarnanians, still carrying arms in his own day,

that this custom was the case originally over the whole country.



'The fact,' he says, 'that the people in these parts of Hellas are

still living in the old way points to a time when the same mode of



life was equally common to all.' Similarly, in another passage, he

shows how a corroboration of his theory of the respectable



character of piracy in ancient days is afforded by 'the honour with

which some of the inhabitants of the continent still regard a



successful marauder,' as well as by the fact that the question,

'Are you a pirate?' is a common feature of primitive society as



shown in the poets; and finally, after observing how the old Greek

custom of wearing belts in gymnastic contests still survived among



the more uncivilised Asiatic tribes, he observes that there are

many other points in which a likeness may be shown between the life



of the primitive Hellenes and that of the barbarians to-day.'

As regards the evidence afforded by ancient remains, while adducing



as a proof of the insecure character of early Greek society the

fact of their cities (2) being always built at some distance from



the sea, yet he is careful to warn us, and the caution ought to be

borne in mind by all archaeologists, that we have no right to



conclude from the scanty remains of any city that its legendary

greatness in primitive times was a mere exaggeration. 'We are not



justified,' he says, 'in rejecting the tradition of the magnitude

of the Trojan armament, because Mycenae and the other towns of that



age seem to us small and insignificant. For, if Lacedaemon was to

become desolate, any antiquarian judging merely from its ruins



would be inclined to regard the tale of the Spartan hegemony as an

idle myth; for the city is a mere collection of villages after the






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