The Historians' History of the World 04

Mannert, C., Geographie der Griechen und Römer, Nürnberg, 1788-1792.—Manso, J. C. F., Sparta, Leipsic, 1800-1805.—Martin, H., Les Cavaliers Athéniens, Paris, 1886.—Masom

, W. F., Synopsis of Grecian History, London, 1888.—Maspero, G., Hist. ancienne des peuples de l’orient, Paris, 1886.—Mela, Pomponius, De Situ Orbis Libri III, ed. by Vinetus, Paris, 1572; (trans. by Arthur Golding, Rare and Singular Works of Pomponius Mela, London, 1590).—Melingo, P. v., Griechenland in unseren Tagen, Vienna, 1892.—Ménard

, L., Histoire des Grecs, Paris, 1893, 2 vols.—Merivale, Charles, History of the Romans under the Empire, London, 1850-1851.—Meyer, E., Geschichte des Alterthums, Stuttgart, 1884-1893.—Milchoefer, A., Anfänge der Kunst in Griechenland, Leipsic, 1883.—Milligan

, W., Religion of Ancient Greece, Edinburgh, 1882.—Mitford, W., History of Greece, London, 1841.—Monceaux, P., La Grèce avant Alexandre, Paris, 1892.—Müller, I., Handbuch der klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft, Nördlingen, 1885, etc., 9 vols., in progress.—Müller

, A. (in Hermann’s Lehrbuch der Griechischen Antiquitäten), Freiburg, 1880.—Müller, H. D., Historisch-mythologische Untersuchungen, Göttingen, 1892.—Müller, Karl, Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum, Paris, 1841-1870, 5 vols.; new edition, 1883.—Müller, K. O., History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, London, 1858; History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, London, 1830; Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst, Stuttgart, 1878.

Karl Otfried Müller was born at Brieg, Prussia, August 28, 1797; died at Athens, August 1, 1840. If to be sympathetic with the genius of a people is a prerequisite for the great historian, Müller was eminently qualified to write a history of the Greek people. He was a man of essentially poetical and artistical temperament, and combined with these qualities a profound scholarship. An incident of his early manhood will illustrate perfectly his temperament. The incident occurred during his visit to the famous art gallery in Dresden. In itself it was nothing more than the fact of his becoming entranced by the celebrated Raphael there. Before this picture, as he himself writes, he stood quite enchanted, and he could scarcely bring himself to leave it long enough to visit other portions of the gallery. Now, of course, to any person of less impressionable temperament who has seen the picture, it will be quite clear that Müller, standing thus entranced before the Madonna, saw with the inner eye of his own enthusiasm, rather than with the more tangible organ of sense. Doubtless, in his half-hypnotic trance, he would have been equally delighted had the veriest chromo been substituted in the canvas for the original picture. He had gone to see the Raphael full of enthusiastic expectancy, and he was sure not to be disappointed. He did not see the awkward, mechanical, old-fashioned grouping; he was quite unmindful of the defect of drawing which had given unequal legs to the kneeling figure at the right. He did not know that, if he had come across this same painting unlabelled and before unheard of, he would scarcely have given it a second thought; he only knew that it represented an ideal—an ideal that had lingered fondly in his mind since his earliest youth. To stand before that picture and see it with his own eyes was to realise that ideal. Many another person has had that same sensation before that same canvas, and for the same reason; and with them, as with him, it was a test of personal temperament, and not a test of the excellence of the picture itself.

Gifted with this impressionable artistic temperament, it was not strange that Müller’s ambitions early looked in the direction of Greece. From his earliest youth the study of classical times became his one absorbing passion, and long before he had reached middle age he had come to be known to scholars everywhere as a member of that inner circle who have made classical lore their own. Naturally he wrote as well as studied, and his works on Greece became classical from the moment of their issue. His especial interest during those early years, which were to represent the largest portion of his working life, was directed towards the early history of the Greeks as a nation and towards the effort to solve the riddles of that period. In particular, his studies of the Doric race became famous, and remain to this day practically the last word that has been said on the subject. One must, perhaps, sometimes make allowance for Müller’s enthusiasm and favourable prejudice, just as for Mitford’s opposite point of view; but generally speaking, Müller’s work is distinguished above all things, next to its scholarship, for its fairness and the breadth of view from which the subject is contemplated.