Professor Curtius’ personal point of view may be described at once as sympathetic and critical; he had the ripest scholarship, and he early imbibed much of Müller’s enthusiasm, but he perhaps brought to his subject a shade more of practicality than his great master. The combination of traits made him almost a perfect historian. As a teacher he was long regarded as one of the most successful in the land of great teachers. Professor Boyesen, in a popular article on the Berlin University, written for an American magazine some years ago, described at some length a seminar of Professor Curtius, and expressed his surprise and admiration at the ease and fluency with which Professor Curtius carried on what might be styled a familiar conversation in classical Latin. Such an incident is far less novel in Germany than it would be in France, or England, or America; for in Germany the student is still taught to speak Latin—after a fashion—in the Gymnasium, and the scholars are not few who learn to handle it with relative ease as a spoken language. In the case of Professor Curtius, then, this mastery of classical languages is perhaps less remarkable than his practical mastery of his mother-tongue; for there are many German professors who can speak Latin fluently where there is one who can write German that anyone who is not a German can read with pleasure.
Curtius, Quintus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, Venice, 1471; The Wars of Alexander (trans. by William Young), London, 1747.
Dahlmann, F. C., Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Gesch., Altona, 1822-1824.—Daremberg, C. V., and Saglio, E., Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, Paris, 1873; La Médecine dans Homère, Paris, 1865.—Dares, the Phrygian, Daretis Phrygii de Excidio Trojæ Historia, L’hist. véritable de la guerre des Grecs et des Troyens, faite française par Ch. de Bourgueville, 1893.—Dauban, C. A., Extraits des auteurs anciens sur l’hist. grecque, Paris, 1888.—Deltour, N. F., Histoire de la littérature grecque, Paris, 1885.—Diodorus, Siculus, Βιβλιοθήκη ἱστορική, edited by L. Dindorf, Leipsic, 1828, 6 vols. The Historical Library, London, 1700.—Diogenes, Laertius, φιλόσοφοι βίοι, edited by H. G. Hübner, Leipsic, 1828, 6 vols.—Lives and Opinions of the Most Eminent Philosophers (trans. by C. D. Yonge), London, 1848.—Dodge, T. A., Great Captains; History of Origin and Growth of Art of War, Boston, 1890.—Donaldson, J., Modern Greek Grammar, Edinburgh, 1853.—Dragoumes, N., Souvenirs historiques, Paris, 1890.—Droysen, J. G., Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen, Gotha, 1892; Gesch. des Hellenismus, Gotha, 1877-1878.
Johann Gustav Droysen was born at Treptow, Pomerania, Prussia, July 6, 1808; died at Berlin, June 19, 1884. His history of Alexander was written before any of the really great modern histories of Greece were undertaken, and it far surpassed any preceding effort in the fullness with which it drew upon all sources of antiquity and in the critical acumen with which it analysed the material thus gathered. It had, moreover, the merit of a style of more than average lucidity, and this, added to its other qualities, gave it at once a wide popularity and an authoritative position which it has continued to hold to this day. Indeed, it is only very recently that anyone has attempted to write a history of Alexander which could be regarded as competing in the same field with that of Droysen, except such extended sketches as form part of such comprehensive Grecian histories as those of Grote, Thirlwall, and Curtius.
Droysen treats his subject from a truly sympathetic point of view. For him Alexander is a very great hero; he is thoroughly in sympathy with the monarchical idea, and he regards Alexander as a great benefactor of his kind, who, had he lived, would have put the stamp of his genius still more firmly upon the most important epoch in the history of human evolution. Even such debatable points as Alexander’s demand that divine honours should be paid him by the Greeks, after the oriental manner, are made by Droysen, as we have seen, to appear altogether favourable to his hero. It must not be supposed from this, however, that the history of Droysen is a fulsome eulogy. It is, on the other hand, the work of a candid critic of broad views and clear insight, who is by no means blind to the defects of his hero, but who believes that, in spite of these defects, the hero was not merely one of the greatest military geniuses, but one of the greatest men of any age.
Having treated the age of Alexander, it was not unnatural that Droysen should go on to the study of later Greek life. His treatment of the Hellenic age remains perhaps the most comprehensive and scholarly contribution to this difficult subject.
Droysen, H.,(in Hermann’s Lehrbuch d. griechischen Antiquitäten) Freiburg, 1889; Untersuchungen über Alexanders des Grossen Heerwesen und Kriegführung, Freiburg, 1885; Athen und der Westen vor der Sicilischen Expedition, Berlin, 1882.—Drumann, W., Verfall der Griechischen Staaten, Berlin, 1815.—Dujon, E., Problèmes de Mythologie, Auxerre, 1887.—Du Mesnil, A., Politik des Epaminondas, Munich, 1863—Dunbar, G., in Potter’s Antiquities of Greece, Edinburgh, 1820.—Duncker, M., Abhandlungen aus der griech. Geschichte, Leipsic, 1887; History of Greece to the End of the Persian War (trans.), London and Edinburgh, 1883.—Duruy, V., Histoire des Grecs, Paris, 1887-1889.—Dyer, L., Studies of the Gods in Greece at Certain Sanctuaries, London, 1891.
Elser, C., Die Lehre des Aristoteles über das Wirken Gottes, Münster, 1893.—Ely, T., Olympos, Tales of the Gods of Greece, London, 1891.—Eugamon, Τηλεγονία, (Telegonia).
Falke, J. von, Greece and Rome, their Life and Art (trans. by W. H. Browne), New York, 1882.—Farfar, J. A., Paganism and Christianity, London, 1891.—Fellows, C., An Account of Discoveries in Lycia, London, 1841.—Finlay, G., History of Byzantine and Greek Empires from 716 to 1453, Edinburgh, 1853; History of Greece from Conquest by Crusaders, 1204-1461, Edinburgh and London, 1851; History of Greek Revolution, Edinburgh and London, 1861; History of Greece under Ottoman and Venetian Domination, Edinburgh and London, 1856; Greece under the Romans, Edinburgh, 1844. Most of Finlay’s works, dealing with the later period of Grecian history, are properly without the scope of the present bibliography. They treat the Byzantine epoch from a Greek point of view and are thus complementary to Gibbon’s work. We shall have occasion to return to them when dealing with the later Roman Empire.—Flathe, J. L. F. F., Geschichte Macedoniens, Leipsic, 1832-1834.—Floigl, V., Cyrus und Herodot, Leipsic, 1881.—Fraenkel, A., Die Quellen der Alexander Historiker, 1884, 8 vols.—Françillon, R. E., Gods and Heroes, Edinburgh, 1892.—Freeman, E. A., History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy, London, 1893; History of Sicily, Oxford, 1891; article on “Sicily” in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. The first edition of Professor Freeman’s work on federal government, cited above, bore the following title: The History of Federal Government from the Foundation of the Achæan League to the Dissolution of the United States; a title which suggests the difficulties an historian may encounter when his enthusiasm leads him to enter the fields of prophecy. For obvious reasons the author was not able to complete his work in accordance with the original title. Unfortunately, he did not move as far towards its completion as he might have done, as a second volume was never published. The fragment that he has given us, however, retains great importance in its application to that late and futile effort of the Greeks to harmonise the relations of their antagonistic cities.—Furtwängler (in collaboration with Löschke), Mykenische Vasen, Berlin, 1886.