"Greece" and "Greek" mean different things to different people. The historian, of course, will inform us that all Western civilisation has Greece for its mother. The author aims to throw some fresh light upon the secret of that people's greatness. It cannot be done by studying their history only. This book looks at the literature, statues and temples, their coins, vases, and pictures, their laws and governments, their ceremonies and amusements, their philosophy and religion.

Athens and Rome stand side by side as the parents of Western civilisation. The resemblances between Rome and Greece even from the first are very clearly marked. In many respects they are visibly of the same family, and, though we no longer speak as confidently of "Aryan" and "Indo-European" as did the ethnologists and philologists of the nineteenth century, yet there remains an obvious kinship of language, customs, and even dress.