The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

8 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

The later poets of the Homeric school, and the
poets of the Hesiodic school, worked in obedience
to the need of systematic arrangement and chronological order. There was no absolute chronology,
no dates; but time-sequence determined the completion of the Trojan cycle, and the relation of the
Trojan to other cycles (such as the Theban), and,
in the very nature of the subject, it controlled the
genealogical poems. Scattered and contradictory
traditions were harmonized more or less into a
superficially consistent picture of the past by the
activity of these poets. Their work must have
counted for a great deal in both satisfying and
stimulating the self-consciousness of the Greeks.
~ 2. The foundation qf history by Hecatacus
It might be expected that such an examination
of the ancient literature and traditions, though
carried out with no under-thought of questioning
their truth as a whole, would have sown the germs
of criticism and prepared the way for incredulity.
This is a difficult question, as our knowledge of
this literature is so fragmentary. We can point
at least to the notorious scepticism of Stesichorus
about the story of Helen. But we can do more.,The truth seems to be that towards the end of the; epic period there arose in Iona a spirit which it
would be going too far to describe as incredulous,
but which was certainly flippant and sceptical and
might at any moment break out into positive