A Comic History of Greece

Excerpt from Comic History of Greece: From the Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander the Great

A preface is usually an apology, - a gratuitous confession of a weakness which the writer would be chagrined to have the reader accredit to him.

The critic is thus informed of the heel of Achilles, and very gratefully proceeds to aim his shafts at that point of vulnerability.

This book was undertaken for the purpose of getting even with Greece for ever venturing to have a history.

Two or three of the unstudious back row of which the author was a conspicuous member at college have expressed, with humiliating frank ness, their astonishment at the writer's associa tion with the project, and their concern for the publisher.

At any rate, the author does not forget the exasperating Hellenic topography which he was compelled to describe, nor is he likely to lose sight of the drudgery which began with the Pelas gians and concluded with Philip of Macedon and an apology.