Müller urged scholars to study Greek mythology in relation to human culture as a whole, but was adamantly opposed to recognizing any specific borrowings from the East. When it comes to higher culture, there has been an even greater reluctance to see any precise parallels. Volume 1 (1987)
The Classical writer most often appealed to to justify slavery was Aristotle, who had argued at length in its favour. The appeal was linked to the fact that his work was shot through with the belief that Greeks were inherently superior to other peoples. Volume 1 (1987)
With this reputation and the rise of anti-Semitism in the 1880s, there was a sustained attack on the Phoenicians which was particularly fierce where it came to their legendary contacts with, and influence on, the Greeks—who had by now been given semi-divine status. Volume 1 (1987)
It is absurd to try to summarize this book in a dozen paragraphs, when even the previous hundreds of pages in which I have attempted to set out some of the complications of this vast and extraordinarily ramified theme can best be described by the Chinese expression ‘looking at flowers from horseback’. Volume 1 (1987)