Grote, again
“I have specified briefly each of the two or three hundred towns which agreed in bearing the Hellenic name, and recounted its birth and early life, as far as our evidence goes . . .”
It’s curiously addictive: the long, flat sentences, the frequent repetitions of the same point, the repeated warnings that the accounts left by the Greeks are not always reliable on points of detail . . . Grote is a careful writer, rather than a good one, too scrupulous for drama or epigram. This shows admirable character, but isn’t always compelling. And of course he remains an early nineteenth century figure, with all that that implies. His long account of the growth of Athenian democracy (Vol. III, pp 346-398) doesn’t come with the caveats a modern historian would mention: that Athens was a slave owning state and women were not included in the franchise.In fact, Grote, following his sources, barely mentions women. Sappho is mentioned – always paired, like an ancient double act, with her compatriot and contemporary Alkaeus – but she is remembered for her metrical innovations rather than the quality of her poetry – “Of their once celebrated lyric compositions, scarcely anything remains.”
In between I read Andy Beckett’s “When the lights went out,” a history of Britain in the 1970s. Melancholy reading, as all recent political history seems to be: a catalogue of missed opportunities, bad-faith arguments, and broken promises (cf. increases in VAT, student fees, major reforms of the NHS, “front line staff will not be effected,” etc).
