XXIV. THE TRIUMPH OF ULYSSES

PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES




INTRODUCTION


Three thousand years ago the world was still young. The western
continent was a huge wilderness, and the greater part of Europe
was inhabited by savage and wandering tribes. Only a few nations
at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in the neighbouring
parts of Asia had learned to dwell in cities, to use a written
language, to make laws for themselves, and to live in a more
orderly fashion. Of these nations the most brilliant was that of
the Greeks, who were destined in war, in learning, in government,
and in the arts, to play a great part in the world, and to be the
real founders of our modern civilization. While they were still a
rude people, they had noble ideals of beauty and bravery, of duty
and justice. Even before they had a written language, their
singers had made songs about their heroes and their great deeds;
and later these songs, which fathers had taught to children, and
these children to their children, were brought together into two
long and wonderful poems, which have ever since been the delight
of the world, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_.

The _Iliad_ is the story of the siege of Ilium, or Troy, on
the western coast of Asia Minor. Paris, son of the king of Troy,