Two Archaic Ages of Greece

Abstract

It must be made quite clear at the outset that I have nothing new to say about either of these Two Archaic Ages of Greece’, one ancient, from the eighth century B.C. to about 500 B.C., the other modern from the War of Independence to the present day. Rather, the purpose is to suggest that if we regard the latter as archaic rather than Classical we may arrive, we or others more learned than ourselves, at some new appreciation of it. Much time has been wasted by students of Modern Greece either in assuming or in rebutting an assumption which has little to do with the case; much time wasted, and some distortion introduced. To put it very crudely, these students of Modern Greece tend to fall into two classes. On the one hand there are the ‘philhellenes’, those who think that Greece really is, or at any rate ought to be, like Periclean Athens; fountain of the arts and cradle of democracy. But the trouble about philhellenes is that they have never much liked Greeks, not real Greeks. They worship them as once they were, or how in the misty future they might become, given proper instruction by philhellenes, but not as they are. It’s all so different from the home life of our dear darling Pericles. So Alexander the Great showed his love of Pindar by destroying every other house in Thebes except his.