THE EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 63 



recovery leads us to the third part of my discourse the extension 

 of Greek history into later times and other societies than those of the 

 golden age; for the consideration of our gains will naturally lead 

 us to the manner and method by which these gains were made. And 

 in the first place, what have we acquired? In actual texts complete, 

 or partially complete, we now have the Mimes of Herondas, dramatic 

 sketches of low or vulgar life, such as the Dutch Teniers has given us 

 with his brush. We have most of the Constitution of Athens, a tract 

 ascribed to Aristotle and often quoted as such by Plutarch. We have 

 some of the Odes of Bacchylides, the lesser contemporary of Pindar, 

 and, what is far more valuable, among them specimens of the dithy- 

 ramb, a form of poetry much cited by the ancients, but never under- 

 stood till this discovery. We have the Persians of Timotheus, another 

 to us novel form of poem composed for an elaborate musical illustra- 

 tion, somewhat like the Italian opera, and rivaling the texts of that 

 opera in its tenth-rate quality. But when music is fitted to verse, it is 

 but seldom the setting of perfect music unto noble words, of which 

 the poet dreams. One partner becomes predominant. Let us hope 

 for the sake of Timotheus, for the sake of the public of whom he was 

 the idol, that in this case, as in that of Richard Wagner, the music 

 was the real attraction. But I must refrain from criticism. The works 

 just named are all incomplete or shattered in some part, for the 

 exterior of the papyrus rolls on which they were written could hardly 

 fail to have been affected by long centuries of burial or by the hands 

 of ignorant finders. But they give us enough to judge both the works 

 and their authors. Of lesser fragments, stray pages, single scenes of 

 plays, or even of music-hall farces, elegant extracts, epigrams, we 

 have a whole library. Almost every known Greek author, and a great 

 number of unknown, are represented in these newly acquired texts. 

 It is of course known to you all that this treasure comes from 

 Egypt, not Greece, and was preserved by the Greek-speaking popu- 

 lation of that important branch of Hellenism, from Ptolemaic to late 

 Roman days. The life of these Greek settlements in Egypt, with their 

 language, their books, their traditions all from Greece, are now a 

 vital chapter even in the political and economic history of the nation. 

 Among the literary remains are innumerable business documents, 

 official orders, every-day correspondence, copies of wills and of 

 contracts all Hellenic in language and origin, and pointing back 

 to the classical culture of the mother country. Here indeed we have 

 a perfectly unexpected and notable specimen of what the conquests 

 of Alexander produced in foreign lands of that Hellenism which is 

 at last commanding the attention of classical scholars. For there 

 is every reason to think that these Greek settlements, in the midst of 

 a native population, were not exceptional, but typical of what Alex- 

 ander projected and his followers effected all over the East. Not only 



