RELATIONS OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 599 



The attention, once directed upon the relations of the so-called 

 classical peoples with others without writing or literature, was bound 

 to bring classical archaeology in general into closer touch with gen- 

 eral ethnology. It \vas a long time, and there was, particularly in 

 Germany, strong opposition to overcome which is in places very 

 active still before the sciences of classical antiquity began to 

 recognize and admit that the Greeks and Romans were men as other 

 men are, and that, in spite of the high grade of their culture, they 

 shared the basis of it with other peoples, and that for an under- 

 standing thereof an acquaintance with these other peoples was 

 essential. This acknowledgment, which became fruitful for the 

 most various branches of the science of antiquity, has taught ar- 

 chaeology in especial the better understanding of the beginnings of 

 art on classic soil. 



It is, however, especially the history of religion which has gained 

 most from ethnology, and has undergone through its influence a 

 complete revolution. The religion and mythology of the Greeks and 

 Romans are to-day also dealt with by all intelligent students 

 entirely on the basis of the teachings of ethnology; a few only, 

 German scholars in particular, still cling in narrow one-sidedness to 

 the old standpoint, according to which Greeks and Romans might 

 be explained only from themselves, that is, in reality, only from the 

 incomplete, circumscribed ideas of modern mankind. As the greatest 

 and most important part of the content of classical art comes from 

 religion and mythology, the history of religion becomes one of the 

 sciences most closely related to archaeology. In particular, the 

 understanding of that infinitely rich abundance of antique remains 

 which are connected in any way with the ideas about departed spirits, 

 could have been won by archaeology only by frank dependence on 

 modern ethnological studies in the history of religion. 



As it is the content or subject of antique art which leads to 

 the alliance with the above-mentioned field of science, so it is the 

 formal side which binds archaeology to the modern history of art. 

 Archaeology is. as we saw, nothing else than antique art-history and 

 a part of general art-history. But the descent of archaeology from 

 philology has brought it about that in practice a sharp separation 

 obtains between it and the modern history of art so much so that, 

 according to the dominant view, as it appears in our university in- 

 struction and in the organization of scientific congresses, the so-called 

 "History of Art " begins with the Christian Era. This separation is 

 greatly to be deplored, and redounds to the harm of both branches 

 of science. That there are real scientific congresses which use the 

 name of history of art. and at the same time shut out antique art. 

 is an extraordinary fact, only to be explained by the historical 

 development of that branch of science. Inasmuch as the whole art 



