1973/12/01 by M. L. West · 80 citations
Social Sciences · #Classical Antiquity Studies #Poetry #Greeks #Literature #Reflexive pronoun #Classics #History #Modern Greek #Art
paper · doi:10.1017/s0009838800036648
published in The Classical Quarterly 23(2), 179-192 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1973/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
They used to believe that mankind began in 4004 B.C. and the Greeks in 776. We now know that these last five thousand years during which man has left written record of himself are but a minute fraction of the time he has spent developing his culture. We now understand that the evolution of human society, its laws and customs, its economics, its religious practices, its games, its languages, is a very slow process, to be measured in millennia. In the case of Greek religious usage it is now appreciated that it has its roots not in Mycenaean but in Palaeolithic times. As for Greek poetry, comparative studies have shown that it goes back by a continuous tradition to Indo-European poetry.