Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 1 (1897).djvu/61

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INTRODUCTION

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a history of the "Byzantine Empire" which embedded a history of Greece.^[1] The great value of Finlay's work lies not only in its impartiality and in his trained discernment of the commercial and financial facts underlying the superficial history of the chronicles, but in its full and trustworthy narration of the events. By the time that Mr. Tozer's edition appeared in 1876, it was being recognized that Gibbon's word on the Other researches later Empire was not the last. Meanwhile Hertzberg was going over the ground in Germany, and Gfrörer, whose ecclesiastical studies had taken him into those regions, had written a good deal of various value. Hirsch's Byzantinische Studien had just appeared, and Rambaud's l'Empire grec au x^me siècle. M. Sathas was bringing out his Bibliotheca Græca medii aevi—including two volumes of Psellus—and was beginning his Documents inédits. Professor Lambros was working at his Athens in the Twelfth Century and preparing his editio princeps of the great Archbishop Akominatos. Hopf had collected a mass of new materials from the archives of southern cities. In England, Freeman was pointing out the true position of New Rome and her Emperors in the history of Europe.

These tendencies have increased in volume and velocity within the last twenty years. They may be said to have reached their culminating point in the publication of Professor Krumbacher Krumbacher's History of Byzantine Literature.^[2] The importance of this work, of vast scope and extraordinary accuracy, can only be fully understood by the specialist. It has already promoted and facilitated the progress of the study in an incalculable measure; and it was soon followed by the inaugura-

↑ Since then a Greek scholar, K. Paparrigopulos, has covered the whole history of Greece from the earliest times to the present century, in his Ίστορία τοῦ Ὲλληνικοῦ ἔθνους. The same gigantic task, but in a more popular form, has been undertaken and begun by Professor Lambros, but is not yet finished.
↑ Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (565-1453), 1891.

[1] Since then a Greek scholar, K. Paparrigopulos, has covered the whole history of Greece from the earliest times to the present century, in his Ίστορία τοῦ Ὲλληνικοῦ ἔθνους. The same gigantic task, but in a more popular form, has been undertaken and begun by Professor Lambros, but is not yet finished.

[2] Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (565-1453), 1891.

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