Note 6 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTION

Is there any Hellenic city that ever carried out one single comprehensive work that tells of care for future generations? The road and water systems which research has assigned to the Mycenæan—i.e., the pre-Classical—age fell into disrepair and oblivion from the birth of the Classical peoples—that is, from the Homeric period. It is a remarkably curious fact, proved beyond doubt by the lack of epigraphic remains, that the Classical alphabet did not come into use till after 900, and even then only to a limited extent and for the most pressing economic needs. Whereas in the Egyptian, the Babylonian, the Mexican and the Chinese Cultures the formation of a script begins in the very twilight of dawn, whereas the Germans made themselves a Runic alphabet and presently developed that respect for writing as such which led to the successive refinements of ornamental calligraphy, the Classical primitives were entirely ignorant of the numerous alphabets that were current in the South and the East. We possess numerous inscriptions of Hittite Asia Minor and of Crete, but not one of Homeric Greece. (See Vol. II, pp. 180 et seq.)