Читать книгу The Best of the World's Classics (All 10 Volumes) - Henry Cabot Lodge - Страница 19

[36] From Book VII of the "History of the Peloponnesian War," translated by Benjamin Jowett. "The noblest piece of tragedy in all written history," says John Morley of this book. Gray, the poet, in one of his letters, inquired, "Is it, or is it not, the finest thing you ever read in your life?" Macaulay, in a letter once wrote: "I do assure you that there is no prose composition in the world that I place so high as the Seventh book of Thucydides. Tacitus was a great man, but he was not up to the Sicilian expedition." Praise is given to this chapter by Mahaffy for "the sustained splendor of the narrative." Grote had profound admiration for the famous picture contained in the selection here given. He refers to its "condensed and burning phrases" as imparting an impression which modern historians have sought in vain to convey.

[37] The modern Catania, on the east coast of Sicily.

[38] The people of Acarnania, a province of Greece, lying on the Ionian Sea south of the Ambracian Gulf.

[39] Commander of the Athenians.

[40] The Spartan general who had been sent to Syracuse by advice of Alcibiades after he went over to the enemy.

[41] Next under Nicias in command of the expedition. He died twenty-nine years before the birth of the orator of the same name.

[42] Here occurred one of the most memorable events in the Peloponnesian war, the defense of Pylos under Demosthenes.

[43] This island lies immediately south of Pylos. It is long and narrow and guards the Bay of Navarino, the largest harbor in Greece, which was the scene of a famous battle between the English, French, Turkish, and Russian fleets in 1827.

[44] This allowance of food was only about one-half the amount usually given to a slave.