Mr. Murray on "Ionia and Attica"

Mr. Gilbert Murray, formerly professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow, delivered the last of his series of lectures on "Greek Traditional Poetry" last night on the subject. "Ionia and Attica."

About the middle of the sixth century, said Mr. Murray, the pressure of the Persian army on the Ionic coast, caused the literary, as well as the military, supremacy to pass from Ionia to Attica, and as a result, the authentic recitation of the Iliad was also transferred. About this time the decay of the epic and the birth of tragedy marked the beginning of a new epoch.

Homer's anthropomorphism caused the gods to dominate the life of the Greeks. Consider, for instance, the supersititious terror about the mutilation of the Hermes, the Eleusinian mysteries, etc. The "Milesian Spirit" in the Iliad is illustrated by the numerous battles between the gods favorable to the Greeks and those favorable to the Trojans, and by the marriage between Zeus and Hera, often called the trickery of Zeus.

In summing up, Mr. Murray said that the races which built up Homer, at length outgrew him, but that the end of the epoch was not a mere cessation, but a change to a language less beautiful, but more explicit.