Summary
Affairs of ATHENS and MACEDONIA, from the Renewal of Hostility between them, to the End of the War between the ATHENIANS and their Allies, called the Confederate or Social War
SECTION I
Alliance, of Macedonia with Olynthus against Athens. Negotiation between Athens, Macedonia and Olynthus. Hostilities prosecuted. Successes of the Allies
In all Grecian history there is scarcely any period more interesting than that with which we are now ingaged, and for that interesting period we are almost without an antient historian. The Sicilian annalist, Diodorus, fuller on the concerns of his native iland, assists, for the general history of Greece, principally by the ground he affords for connection and arrangement of materials given by others, especially the orators, but even for this he often fails. Occasional assistance we gain from Plutarch, but the orators furnish incomparably the richest mine. The testimony of an orator however must be received with much caution. For facts indeed, of general notoriety among those before whom he spoke, his first object, persuasion, would generally forbid gross falshood. But, whatever he might venture to disguise would receive a coloring from the purpose of his argument: where he might venture to feign, even fiction may be suspected. Toward ascertaining truth, adverse orators, in the scanty opportunities offering, should be compared; the course of events, the character of the times, the characters of parties, the character of the orator himself, his purpose in the moment, and the opportunity for answering him, should be considered.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The History of Greece , pp. 267 - 307Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1808