Leseprobe
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On the track of Ulysses / Together with an excursion in quest of the so-called Venus / of Melos: two studies in archaeology, made during a cruise / among the Greek islands
William James Stillman
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Reise / Europa
Beschreibung
The series of papers herewith committed to the more or less permanent condition of book form were originally (less some development of their arguments) printed in the Century magazine, being the results of an exploring visit to Greek lands taken as a commission for that periodical. I have sought in them to solve, in a popular form, certain problems in archæology which seemed to me to have that romantic interest which is necessary to general human interest; and while necessarily, in such a study, dealing much with conjecture, I have not ventured to assume anything which I am not satisfied is true.
The problem of the so-called Venus of Melos is one of those which archæology has fretted over for two generations, and I cannot pretend to have offered a solution which will command assent from the severely scientific archæologist; but I have an interior conviction, stronger than any authority of ancient tradition to my own mind, that that solution is the true one. I do not wish it to be judged as a demonstration, but as an induction in which a kind of artistic instinct, not communicable or equally valuable to all people, has had the greatest part; and, for the rest, I am satisfied to let it be taken by the rule of “highest probability,” by which we solve to our satisfaction, more or less complete, problems of the gravest importance—a rule, indeed, which is for many such the only standard of truth. In archæology, as in some other inexact sciences, opinion has with most people greater weight than it always merits, but it should have weight in proportion to the knowledge its originator may have of his subject. As to this I have done all that any man can to penetrate to the material which exists for forming an opinion, and I rest in the sincere conviction, sustained through a study of many years, that the so-called Venus of Melos is really the Niké Apteros of the restored temple dedicated to that goddess.
