Note 166 — Chapter II · CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.

Aristotle says that the orators of Athens, who governed the people, passed sometimes the whole of the day seeing mountebanks or jugglers, or talking with those who had travelled as far as the Phasis or Borysthenes; and that they never read anything save the Supper of Philoxenos and that not all.—Athen. i. 10. It was in the opinion of these persons perhaps, that “a great book was a great evil.”—Id. iii. 1.