Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/28

 xxiv THUCYDIDES tion with the history. And how great the temptation is to connect what we know with what we do not know may be seen in the early study of the hieroglyphics, and of the Sinaitic inscriptions. The true reply to the objection just urged is, that in any sound study of ancient Greek inscrip- tions we must be prepared for slender results. And the general confirmation of ancient writers afforded by those slender results is far from unimportant. The additional facts obtained from inscriptions throw greater light upon Greek antiquities than upon Greek history. We know a good deal more than we did of the institutions and customs of the ancient Hellenes, of their family and religious life, of their games and festivals, of their public hospitalities, of their marriage and funeral ceremonies, of their military and civic divisions, of their public and private economy, of their assessments of tribute and taxation, of their societies for religious and social purposes. The constitution imposed by Athens on Ery- thr« (C. I. A. 9), the oaths interchanged between the Athenians and the Chalcidians of Euboea (C. I. A. Suppl. i. 27 a), and the inventory yearly drawn up of the treasures in the Parthenon are some of these new facts hitherto unknown to the historian. The business of life is stereotyped before our eyes. Among the debris of material on the Acropolis earlier than 480 B.C. have been found two potsherds, fragments of vases, on which two Athenian citizens, — one of them clearly a better writer than the other, — inscribed for 'ostracism,' between 487 and 484 B.C., the names of Megacles son of Hippocrates and Xanthippus son of Ariphron the father of Pericles (See Athen. Polit. c. 22 : C. I. A. iv. Suppl. iii. 569, 570.) The annual accounts of the Athenian 'Board of Admiralty' are still preserved, not in books, but on tablets of Hymettian marble (C. I. A. vol. ii. part ii. p. 158 ff., 513 ff.). A report is extant of the works of the Erechtheum while in course of erection {(iupyaa-fxtva Koi r]fu€pya), B.C. 409 (C. I. A.
 * For a similar mention of Themistocles, see Addenda to this Essay.