A classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography, mythology and geography / based on the larger dictionaries by Sir William Smith ; revised throughout and in part rewritten by G.E. Marindin.

Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography, mythology and geography / based on the larger dictionaries by Sir William Smith ; revised throughout and in part rewritten by G.E. Marindin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PEEFACE THE Classical Dictionary, published more than thirty years ago, of which this book is a revision, was designed by the late Sir William Smith to include in a single volume as much of the information contained in his larger Dictionaries of Biography and Mythology, and of Ancient Geography, as would be serviceable for the upper forms of schools, and might make it useful also as a compendious book of reference for somewhat more advanced students. It was intended chiefly to elucidate the Greek and Roman writers usually read in schools, and to the characters and subjects dealt with in their works the greatest space was accordingly allotted ; but a large number of shorter articles not included within those hmits were added, as it was not considered expedient to omit any names connected with antiquity of which it is expected that some knowledge should be possessed by every person who aspii'es to a liberal education. The book has for many years been found useful for the object for which it was written, and it is hoped that a revision with the ad- vantages of the new light thrown by the writings of more recent scholars and explorers will be no less serviceable at the present time. The design of this revised edition, projected by Sir William Smith more than two years ago, is much the same as that of the older work. It is intended for the use of the same class of students, as an aid in reading those Greek and Latin authors which wiU usually be studied by them. Hence the old limits are for the most part observed, and, as was then said, ' the historical articles mclude all the names of any importance which occur in Greek and Roman writers from the earUest times down to the extinction of the Western Empire in the year 476. Very few names are inserted which are not included in this period ; but still there are some persons who lived after the fall of the Western Empire who could not with propriety be omitted in a Classical Dictionary. Such is the case with Justinian, whose legislation has exercised such an important influence upon the nations of Western Europe ; with Theodoric, at wliose court Hved Cassiodorus and Boethius ; and with a few others.' Among the hterary articles has been included some notice, necessarily brief in many cases, of all Greek and Latin authors whose works are extant, and others who exercised an important influence upon literature, but whose writings have not come down to us. For those, however, who wrote only on