PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 71 



which, also for the past, had been constantly determined in its 

 genesis and in its ulterior development by the prevailing currents 

 in all the remaining sciences, and by the changing of political and 

 philosophical ideas. The study of classical antiquity from the end 

 of the sixteenth century through the eighteenth, especially in Pro- 

 testant countries, has been the substratum of political and civil 

 education. When the triumph of liberal ideas was obtained in 

 Europe, the science of antiquity did not become the object of mere 

 erudite curiosity, but was taken as the foundation and the ideal of 

 literary and moral education. And it is in this blind and exclusive 

 admiration of the life of the Greeks and Romans that one must trace 

 the reason why their civilization was considered quite different from 

 the Eastern, while the Greek one was supposed autochthonous, sprung 

 by its own virtue, like Athena completely armed from the head of 

 Jove. Thus the declarations of the ancients were considered erroneous ; 

 though, far from feeling any shame of this contact with the oriental 

 world, they insisted particularly on it. And the same insistence and 

 warmth, which would be urged to prove the constant purity of 

 blood in the lineage of an aristocratic family, was used in attribut- 

 ing a purely Hellenic origin to the myth of Herakles, and to deny the 

 Phoenician descendance of Thales. The merit of having overthrown 

 the theories which have had for so many years the preponderance 

 in the field of European science is undoubtedly due to the various 

 scientific European and American missions, and to many learned 

 Englishmen. And without letting ourselves be blinded by the exag- 

 gerations to which every reaction leads, -w r e must follow with great 

 love the discoveries made in Egypt, Crete, Greece, and Sicily, reveal- 

 ing the existence of civilization of the Mykencean type, which de- 

 monstrates to us, with increasing strength, the truth of the aphorism 

 that in the world nothing is isolated, but everything is in relationship 

 with preceding or with parallel phenomena. Scientists are to-day 

 better disposed to listen to the demonstrations of Ginzel on the astro- 

 nomical discoveries of the people of Babylon, and on their efficacy 

 over the posterior doctrines of Hipparchus and Ptolomaeus, just as 

 they have no more difficulty in recognizing the possibility of ancient 

 political relations between Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. And it 

 is to be hoped that new discoveries may not only benefit the develop- 

 ment of material civilization, but may one day be of great advantage 

 in illustrating the genesis of the Greek conscience, which is still sub- 

 stantially dominating the modern world. 



The great and luminous discoveries which to-day have thrown 

 light upon the relations between Egypt, Asia Minor, and the coun- 

 tries inhabited by the Hellenes, were to have a necessary rebounding 

 action in the researches regarding the origins of civilization and 

 Italian history. 



