Athens, Its Rise and Fall

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1837 edition. Excerpt: ... ATHENS; ITS RISE AND FALL. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. SITUATION AND SOIL OF ATTICA--THE PELASGIANS ITS EARLIEST INHABITANTS--THEIR RACE AND LANGUAGE AKIN TO THE GRE- CIAN--THEIR VARYING CIVILISATION AND ARCHITECTURAL RE- MAINS--CECROPS--WERE THE EARLIEST CIVILIZEHS OF GREECE FOREIGNERS OR GREEKS ?-THE FOUNDATION OF ATHENS--THE IMPROVEMENTS ATTRIBUTED TO CECROPS--THE RELIGION OF THE GREEKS CANNOT BE REDUCED TO A SINGLE SYSTEM-ITS INFLUENCE UPON THEIR CHARACTER AND MORALS, ARTS AND POETRY--THE ORIGIN OF SLAVERY AND ARISTOCRACY. I. To VINDICATE THE MEMORY OF THE ATHENIAN BOOK I. People, without disguising the errors of Athe- Chap. man Institutions;--and, in narrating alike the --1triumphs and the reverses--the grandeur and VOL. I. B Book i. the decay--of the most eminentof AncientStates, Chap, to record the causes of her imperishable influence on mankind not alone in Political Change or the fortunes of fluctuating War, but in the Arts, the Letters, and the Social Habits, which are equal elements in the history of a People;-- this is the object that I set before me;--not unreconciled to the toil of years, if, serving to divest of some party errors, and to diffuse through a wider circle, such knowledge as is yet bequeathed to us of a time and land, fertile in august examples and in solemn warnings-- consecrated by undying names and memorable deeds. II. In that part of earth termed by the Greeks Hellas, and by the Romans Graecia, * a small tract of land known by the name of Attica ex- Book I. tends into the iEgaean sea--the south-east Chap. * The passage in Aristotle, (Meteorol. 1. 1. c. 14, ) in which, speaking of the ancient Hellas, (the country about Dodona and the River Achelous, ) the author says it was inhabited by a people (along with the Helli, .