[36:1] _Hist. of Greece_, chap. ii. sect. 3.
[36:2] Holm (G. G. i. 125) admits this motive for the Germans: 'Im Grunde leugnet man phönizische Siedelungen in Griechenland besonders deswegen, weil man nicht will, dass die Griechen jenen Leuten Wichtiges verdanken'--that is to Semites. He himself asserts early contacts, and thinks their influence upon Greece but trifling.
The general body of opinion in Germany seems to agree with what I have cited from Duruy in the text. The words just quoted may serve to put the English reader upon his guard against the _subjective_ tone of many of the most learned modern studies on Greek history.
[37:1] On this cf. Adler's remarkable preface to Schliemann's _Tiryns_.
[39:1] Cf. my _Prolegomena to Ancient History_, Longmans, 1872. A _reductio ad absurdum_ which attained serious attention, in spite of its patent jocoseness, appeared in an early number of the Dublin University _Kottabos_.
[39:2] Accordingly, some use was made of the exceptional and alarming phenomena, such as thunder-storms and eclipses, to supply a more reasonable and adequate cause for the violent transitions from terror and grief to joy, which the theory demanded. But it was the regular daily phenomena which figured in the leading _rôle_ of the comparative mythologers.
[40:1] _A History of Greek Classical Literature_ (3rd ed.), Macmillan, 1891. The history of K. O. Müller has since been re-edited and supplemented by Heitz, but in a very different style.
[42:1] Duruy, in speaking of the controversy as to the site (is it Hissarlik, or Bunarbaschi?), says that even this will never be settled, in spite of the striking discoveries by which Dr. Schliemann has shown that Hissarlik was a prehistoric city, and the total absence of any evidence for a city upon the other site. And Duruy is probably right, because on these matters writers are too often pedants, who, if once committed to a theory, will not accept the most convincing evidence that they have been mistaken. They seem to think the chief merit of a scholar is to maintain an outward show of impeccability, and therefore hold the candid confession of a mistake to be not honourable, but disgraceful. Duruy himself inclines to follow E. Curtius, who holds the wrong opinion. Holm (i. 96) sees clearly that in the light of Schliemann's discoveries there can hardly remain a doubt that Hissarlik was the site which the Homeric poets had in view, though their details may be inaccurate. This conclusion would have been universally accepted, had not certain scholars pledged themselves to the other site.