Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
by Edward Bulwer Lytton
TO HENRY FYNES CLINTON, ESQ., etc., etc. AUTHOR OF "THE FASTI
HELLENICI."
My Dear Sir,
I am not more sensible of the distinction conferred upon me when youallowed me to inscribe this history with your name, than pleased withan occasion to express my gratitude for the assistance I have derivedthroughout the progress of my labours from that memorable work, inwhich you have upheld the celebrity of English learning, and affordedso imperishable a contribution to our knowledge of the Ancient World.To all who in history look for the true connexion between causes andeffects, chronology is not a dry and mechanical compilation of barrendates, but the explanation of events and the philosophy of facts. Andthe publication of the Fasti Hellenici has thrown upon those times, inwhich an accurate chronological system can best repair what isdeficient, and best elucidate what is obscure in the scantyauthorities bequeathed to us, all the light of a profound anddisciplined intellect, applying the acutest comprehension to therichest erudition, and arriving at its conclusions according to thetrue spirit of inductive reasoning, which proportions the completenessof the final discovery to the caution of the intermediate process. Myobligations to that learning and to those gifts which you haveexhibited to the world are shared by all who, in England or in Europe,study the history or cultivate the literature of Greece. But, in thepatient kindness with which you have permitted me to consult youduring the tedious passage of these volumes through the press—in thecareful advice—in the generous encouragement—which have so oftensmoothed the path and animated the progress—there are obligationspeculiar to myself; and in those obligations there is so much thathonours me, that, were I to enlarge upon them more, the world mightmistake an acknowledgment for a boast.
With the highest consideration and esteem,
Believe me, my dear sir,
Most sincerely and gratefully yours,
EDWARD LYTTON BULWER
London, March, 1837.
The work, a portion of which is now presented to the reader, hasoccupied me many years—though often interrupted in its progress,either by more active employment, or by literary undertakings of acharacter more seductive. These volumes were not only written, butactually in the hands of the publisher before the appearance, andeven, I believe, before the announcement of the first volume of Mr.Thirlwall's History of Greece, or I might have declined going over anyportion of the ground cultivated by that distinguished scholar [1].As it is, however, the plan I have pursued differs materially fromthat of Mr. Thirlwall, and I trust that the soil is sufficientlyfertile to yield a harvest to either labourer.
Since it is the letters, yet more than the arms or the institutions ofAthens, which have rendered her illustrious, it is my object tocombine an elaborate view of her literature with a complete andimpartial account of her political transactions. The two volumes nowpublished bring the reader, in the one branch of my subject, to thesupreme administration of Pericles; in the other, to a criticalanalysis of the tragedies of Sophocles. Two additional volumes will,I trust, be sufficient to accomplish my task, and close the records ofAthens at that period when, with the accession of Augustus, th