Bishop Thirlwall's History of Greece

Connop Thirlwall’s History of Greece appeared in eight volumes between 1835 and 1844 and ran to a second edition (1846–52). This single volume provides a representative selection from the original eight.

Each selection has been edited to suit the conventions of modern scholarship, while the introduction places Thirlwall’s history in the context of nineteenth-century historiography of ancient Greece. Liddel also examines Thirlwall’s free-thinking intellectual background, and analyses his disavowal of certainty, his use of material evidence and analogy, and his sophisticated understanding of the relations between ancient and modern.

Frontispiece: Connop Thirlwall, ii; Preface, vii; Introduction, by Peter P. Liddel, ix; Selections from A HISTORY OF GREECE by the Rev. Connop Thirlwall; 1. Introduction, 3; 2. The Inhabitants of Early Greece, 15; 3. History and Mythology, 39; 4. Colonisation and Culture, 73; 5. Periclean Athens, 89; 6. The Decline of Athens, 113; 7. Greece and Philip II, 137; 8. Alexander the Great, 173; 9. Hellenistic Greece, 203; 10. Greece under the Romans and beyond, 221; Appendix: On the Trial of Socrates, 235; Editor's Notes, 255; Index, 258.

Connop Thirlwall (1797–1875) was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1818 to 1834, prior to a career in the Church. Peter P. Liddel is Lecturer in Ancient History in the University of Manchester.