Cyrus : a Tale of the Ten Thousand. By H.
A. D. Surridge, M.A. (Skeffington and Son.)—Mr. Surridge, when he keeps close to Xenophon, gives a critic no cause to complain. But when he lets his imagination run away with him, he makes a protest necessary. Adolf, Gurth and Bena—who marries, by the way, an Athenian citizen—are really too amazing when we find them at Athens B.C. 421. But a more serious matter is the wild-beast fight at Epheene. This is, we presume, one of the passages "intended to illustrate parts of the New Testament," and the reference is to St. Paul "fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus." Mr. Surridge, too, excuses himself by saying that he describes the city as it was in St. Paul's time. But this is not one of the anachronisms that are pardonable. A Greek city, corrupted by Roman influence and example, might have such a spectacle. But in 400 B.C. such a thing would have been impossible. It is a gross libel on the Greek character.
Previous page
