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GEORGE GROTE
Selected
Works (Paperback
- 24 Aug 2010)
Robert D. Morritt
Availability
These pages contain a sample of
the works of George Grote born November 17, 1794. Educated at first by his mother, then sent to Seven Oaks
Grammar School (1800-1804). His
father refused to send him to University and instead sent him to work in a
bank.
 He wrote articles on Parliamentary
Reform (1831) and in 1846, the first two volumes of the History appeared. In
1856 George Grote began to prepare his works on Plato and Aristotle. “Plato
and the other companions of Socrates (sic)” appeared in three volumes in
1865, for that work he was recognized as “the greatest nineteenth-century
Plato scholar.” His work on Aristotle lay incomplete due to his death June
1887.
His analysis of the first
democratic laws to be established in early Greece. Grote describes the
earlier life of despotism and members of families being used as chattels to
secure credit advances.
The “Life of Solon” shows the
influence of Solon in creating laws that ensured fair government together
with controls he created to ensure that the democratic process would be
protective to the public.
Grote allows us to view the Greek
conquests, which include a rare description of the Pontus and of {Kolchia)
Colchia (now in the modern Republic of Georgia) as outlined in his “History
of Greece” “The retreat of the ten thousand Greeks”. His portrayal of Troy
gives another opinion of the events that are hypothesized to have occurred
there.)
The most learned Classical scholar
of his age, and how out of chaos were created the first democratic laws of
Greece. From the construction of the first Greek Commonwealth. There were no
written laws in Athens until the time of Draco 621 BPE. Draco as archon was entrusted to frame a
legal code. The main features of his legislation referred to the punishment
of crime, the penalties he devised were so extreme that in later times it was
declared to have been written in blood. The Draconian laws remained in force
until superceded by the great system of Solon enjoyed a universal reputation
for wisdom and uprightness, was called upon by the oligarchy, which again
held rule, to assume what was in fact, almost absolute power.
Chapters include the following
items of interest: Early Greek Legislation (Solon), Transition from Oligarchy
to Democracy, Pythian games at Delphi, The Life of Solon, Fall of Troy,
Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and Athenian Constitutional History
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