ONE HUNDRED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “BRIEF HISTORY OF GREECE” AND “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH.”

BY A. M. MARTIN,
General Secretary C. L. S. C.

I.—FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “BRIEF HISTORY OF GREECE.”

1. Q. So far as we know where did the history of Europe begin? A. In Greece.

2. Q. Who first settled the country, and who first conquered the land? A. The Pelasgians, a simple agricultural people, were the first to settle the country. Next, the Hellenes, a warlike race, conquered the land.

3. Q. To what did the blending of the Pelasgians and the Hellenes give rise? A. To the Grecian language and civilization.

4. Q. What were two great “holding-points” for all the Greeks? A. The half-yearly meeting of the Amphictyonic Council, and the national games or festivals.

5. Q. What are the subjects of four of the early legends in the history of Greece? A. The Argonautic Expedition in search of the Golden Fleece, the Twelve Labors of Hercules, the Siege of Troy, and the Hunt of the Caledonian Boar.

6. Q. What was one of the first clearly defined events of Grecian history? A. The Dorian migration. The Dorians descended from the mountains, moved south, conquered the AchÆans in the Peloponnesus, and occupied the chief cities—Argos, Corinth, and Sparta.

7. Q. What two races came to be the leading ones in Greece, and what rival cities represented their opposing traits? A. The Dorians and the Ionians. Sparta represented the Dorians and Athens the Ionians.

8. Q. Who finally crystallized into a constitution all the peculiarities of the Spartan character? A. Lycurgus, a member of the royal family.

9. Q. What are some of the regulations Lycurgus prescribed in his aim to make the Spartans a race of soldiers? A. Trade and travel were prohibited. No money was allowed, except cumbrous iron coins. Most property was held in common. Boys were educated and cared for by the state.

10. Q. What conquest made Sparta dominant in the Peloponnesus? A. The conquest of Messenia in two long, bloody wars.

11. Q. According to the legends, what did Cecrops, the first King of Athens, teach the people of Attica? A. Navigation, marriage, and the culture of the olive.

12. Q. After the death of Codrus, the last monarch, how was Athens governed? A. By archons, who first ruled for life, then for ten years, and finally for one year.

13. Q. What was the character of a code of laws prepared by Draco for the government of Athens? A. They were said to have been written in blood, every offence being punished with death.

14. Q. Who drew a new constitution, repealing the harsh edicts of Draco, and what was the effect upon Athens? A. Solon. Athens prospered under his wise management.

15. Q. What tyrants subsequently governed Athens? A. Pisistratus, and his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus.

16. Q. After the assassination of Hipparchus and the banishment of Hippias, what form of government was established in Athens by Cleisthenes as archon? A. A democracy.

17. Q. What brought about the Persian wars near the beginning of the fifth century? A. The attempt of Cyrus, the King of Persia, to punish Athens for assisting the Ionian cities of Asia Minor in throwing off the Persian yoke.

18. Q. What was the result of the first expedition against Greece, sent out under Mardonius, the son-in-law of Darius? A. The land troops were defeated in Thrace, and the fleet was shattered while rounding Mount Athos.

19. Q. In what famous battle were the Persians defeated on a second expedition against Greece? A. The battle of Marathon, the victorious forces being commanded by Miltiades.

20. Q. After the death of Miltiades what two generals associated with him at Marathon came to be the leading men in Athens? A. Themistocles and Aristides.

21. Q. Under whom was the third invasion of Greece by the Persians attempted? A. Under Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, with over a million soldiers.

22. Q. At what place were the Persian hosts held in check by a small band of Greeks under Leonidas, a Spartan? A. At the pass of ThermopylÆ.

23. Q. On the third day, a traitor having pointed out a mountain path by which the Persians gained the rear of the Greeks, what was the fate of Leonidas? A. He, with three hundred Spartans and seven hundred Thespians, perished, fighting to the last.

24. Q. What leading city of Greece did the army of Xerxes burn? A. Athens.

25. Q. In what naval contest were the Persians soon after totally defeated? A. The battle of Salamis.

26. Q. On the same day of the battle of Salamis what contest occurred at the island of Sicily? A. The battle of Himera, in which the Carthaginian forces under Hamilcar were utterly routed by Gelo, the tyrant of Syracuse.

27. Q. In the following year what land and what naval battles gave the final death blow to the Persian rule in Europe? A. PlatÆa and Mycale.

28. Q. What league was formed to keep the Persians out of the Ægean? A. A league called the Confederation of Delos, the different states annually contributing to Athens a certain number of ships, or a fixed sum of money for the support of the navy.

29. Q. After the banishment of Themistocles and the death of Aristides, who were the leading men at Athens? A. Pericles and Cimon.

30. Q. To all students of Grecian literature, who must always appear as the central figure of Grecian history? A. Pericles.

31. Q. What is the period during which Pericles ruled Athens called? A. The Age of Pericles.

32. Q. During the latter part of the life of Pericles what war broke out in Greece, which lasted twenty-seven years? A. The Peloponnesian war in which nearly all the states of Greece took part, Athens and Sparta being on opposite sides.

33. Q. What was the plan for the conduct of the war on either side? A. The Spartan plan was to invade and desolate Attica, while that of Athens was to ravage the coast of the Peloponnesus with its fleet.

34. Q. While the citizens of Attica were seeking protection within the walls of Athens, what leader died during the pestilence that followed? A. Pericles.

35. Q. Who was chief among the demagogues that now arose in Athens? A. Cleon, a cruel, arrogant boaster, who gained power by flattering the populace.

36. Q. What was the fate of PlatÆa during this war? A. It was besieged by the Spartans, and when those defending the city surrendered every man was put to death and the city razed to the ground.

37. Q. After peace had been established, by the influence of what demagogue was the bloody contest renewed? A. By the influence of Alcibiades, a young nobleman, the nephew of Pericles and pupil of Socrates.

38. Q. What naval expedition was fitted out at the instance of Alcibiades, and with what result? A. An expedition against Sicily. The Athenian ships were defeated, and the troops attempting to flee by land were overtaken and forced to surrender.

39. Q. Before the final defeat of the expedition, to what rival city had Alcibiades given his support upon being summoned to Athens to answer charges that had been brought against him? A. To Sparta.

40. Q. How was the Peloponnesian war ended? A. By the surrender of Athens and her fleet, and the destruction of her long walls.

41. Q. By whom was Athens now for a time ruled? A. An oligarchy of thirty persons. After they had ruled only eight months the Athenian exiles returned in arms, overthrew the tyrants, and re-established a democratic government.

42. Q. What is meant by the “Retreat of the Ten Thousand” in Grecian history? A. The march of ten thousand Greeks from the heart of the Persian empire through a hostile country back to Greece.

43. Q. What battle, under what general resulted in the overthrow of Spartan rule, and made Thebes the chief city in Greece? A. The battle of Leuctra, the Theban army being led by Epaminondas.

44. Q. At what place did Epaminondas fight his last battle and die in the moment of victory? A. At Mantinea.

45. Q. When Philip came to the throne of Macedon, to what end did he bend every energy of his mind? A. To becoming the head of all Greece.

46. Q. What wars grew out of Philip’s scheme? A. The Sacred wars.

47. Q. At what battle did the Macedonian phalanx annihilate the armies of Thebes and Athens? A. The battle of ChÆronea.

48. Q. What befell Philip as he was preparing to lead an army into Persia? A. He was assassinated at his daughter’s marriage feast.

49. Q. Who succeeded Philip, and by his conquests established a vast empire in Asia? A. His son, Alexander.

50. Q. Soon after the death of Alexander, among whom was his empire divided? A. Among his principal generals.

II.—FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH,” FROM COMMENCEMENT OF BOOK TO PAGE 87.

51. Q. What is the specific object of the “Preparatory Greek Course in English?” A. To put into the hands of readers the means of accomplishing, so far as this can be done in English, the same course of study in Greek as that prescribed for those who are preparing to enter college.

52. Q. Of what three most famous peoples in the world are the Greeks one? A. The Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans.

53. Q. By what name did the Greeks speak of themselves, and what was their name for the land in which they lived? A. Hellenes, and Hellas was their name for the land in which they lived.

54. Q. When trustworthy history begins, what were the three chief divisions of the Hellenic stock? A. The Dorians, the Æolians, and the Ionians.

55. Q. For what two things is the literature of Greece equally remarkable? A. For its matter and for its form.

56. Q. What is there remarkable about the form of Greek literature? A. There never has been elsewhere in the world so much written approaching so nearly to ideal perfection in form as among the Greeks.

57. Q. In what department of literature do we without reserve have to acknowledge the supremacy of the Greeks? A. In eloquence, and in the literature of rhetoric, of taste, and of criticism.

58. Q. What is the golden age of Greek literature, Greek art, and Greek arms? A. The age of Pericles.

59. Q. What do we know of the pronunciation of their language by the ancient Greeks? A. Nobody knows with certainty exactly how the ancient Greeks pronounced their language.

60. Q. What has been the general rule for scholars in the pronunciation of Greek? A. To pronounce somewhat according to the analogy of their own vernacular.

61. Q. What attempt, only partially successful, has recently been made to introduce uniformity in the pronunciation of Greek? A. To secure the common adoption of the pronunciation prevalent in Greece at the present day.

62. Q. What four Greek grammars are mentioned as perhaps the best? A. Hadley’s, Goodwin’s, Crosby’s and Sophocles’.

63. Q. To what source of Greek learning do all these manuals acknowledge their indebtedness? A. To German sources of Greek learning.

64. Q. Who is the most recent of the great German authorities in Greek grammar? A. Curtius.

65. Q. In what dialect are the books chiefly written from which the selections are taken in making up Greek readers? A. The Attic dialect.

66. Q. How many chief dialects were there of the Greek language, and how were they created? A. There were three—the Ionic, the Doric and the Attic—created in part by differences of age, and in part by difference of country.

67. Q. In whose writings is the Ionic dialect exemplified, and how is it characterized? A. In the writings of Homer and Herodotus, and is characterized by fluent sweetness to the ear.

68. Q. In what dialect were the most of the greatest works in Greek literature composed? A. The Attic.

69. Q. What are some of the distinguishing features of the Attic dialect? A. It is the neatest, most cultivated and most elegant of all the varieties of Greek speech.

70. Q. To whom are the fables commonly attributed that are generally found in Greek readers? A. To Æsop.

71. Q. Who made the collection of fables that go under Æsop’s name? A. They are mainly the collection of a monk of the fourteenth century.

72. Q. What are the names of some of the eminent persons about whom anecdotes are usually related in the collections found in Greek readers? A. Diogenes, Plato, Zeno, Solon, Alexander, and Philip of Macedon.

73. Q. What Greek writer of the second century after Christ is more or less quoted from in the ordinary Greek reader? A. Lucian.

74. Q. What famous dialogues did he write? A. Dialogues of the dead.

75. Q. Of what have these dialogues been the original? A. Of several justly admired imitations.

76. Q. In what direction did Lucian exercise his wit? A. In ridiculing paganism.

77. Q. What are some of the kinds of other matter that goes to make up the Greek reader? A. Bits of natural history and fragments of mythology.

78. Q. From what work of Xenophon do Greek readers often embrace extracts? A. His “Memorabilia of Socrates.”

79. Q. What was the design of this work? A. To vindicate the memory of Socrates from the charges of impiety and of corrupting influence exerted on the Athenian youth, under which he had suffered the penalty of death.

80. Q. What is the plan of the work largely? A. To relate what Socrates did actually teach.

81. Q. What work by a Christian writer did pagan Socrates in large part anticipate? A. “Natural Theology,” by Paley.

82. Q. What was the chief characteristic trait of the method of Socrates in teaching? A. His art in asking questions.

83. Q. What is the book usually adopted in sequel to the reader for giving students their Greek preparation to enter college? A. Xenophon’s “Anabasis.”

84. Q. In what two respects is this work highly interesting? A. First, as a specimen of literary art, and second, as strikingly illustrative of the Greek spirit and character.

85. Q. What is the meaning of the word “Anabasis?” A. “A march upward,” that is, from the sea.

86. Q. Of what is the book an account? A. Of an expedition by Cyrus the Younger into Central Asia, and the retreat of the Greek part of his army.

87. Q. Who accompanied Cyrus on this expedition? A. An oriental army of about 100,000, and a body of Greeks numbering about 13,000.

88. Q. What was the object of this invasion on the part of Cyrus? A. To obtain possession of the Persian throne, occupied by his brother, Artaxerxes.

89. Q. In what does the main interest of the Anabasis as a narrative lie? A. Rather in the retreat than in the advance.

90. Q. From what does the whole matter of the famous advance and retreat of the ten thousand derive grave secondary importance? A. From the fact that it resulted in revealing to Greece the essential weakness and vulnerability of the imposing Persian empire.

91. Q. When was Xenophon, the author, born, and with whom was he not far from contemporary? A. He was born about 431 B. C., being thus not far from contemporary with the Hebrew prophet Malachi.

92. Q. What did Xenophon’s presence of mind and practical wisdom give him in the retreat? A. A kind of leadership which he maintained until a prosperous issue was reached on the shores of Greece.

93. Q. Among the other chief works of Xenophon what one is prominent? A. The “CyropÆdia.”

94. Q. What was the starting point of the expedition related in the Anabasis? A. Sardis.

95. Q. During the march what city did the army plunder where four hundred years later the Apostle Paul was born? A. Tarsus.

96. Q. When they reached the river Euphrates what did Cyrus openly tell the Greek captains as to the object of the expedition? A. That he was marching to Babylon against the great king Artaxerxes.

97. Q. What was the result of this disclosure when made to the men? A. They felt, or feigned, much displeasure, but by lavish promises the majority were prevailed upon to adhere to Cyrus.

98. Q. What Persian commander among the forces proved a traitor and met with a tragic death? A. Orentes.

99. Q. Where did the armies of Cyrus and Artaxerxes finally encounter each other? A. At Cunaxa.

100. Q. In what way did Cyrus meet with his death? A. While engaged in a personal contest with Artaxerxes Cyrus was struck with a javelin under the eye and slain.