Oscar Wilde: Essays and Lectures

FOOTNOTES 1. Footnotes (continued)

(17) Polybius resembled Gibbon in many respects. Like him he held that all religions were to the philosopher equally false, to the vulgar equally true, to the statesman equally useful.

(18) Cf. Polybius, xii. 25, [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]

(19) Polybius, xxii. 8.

(20) I mean particularly as regards his sweeping denunciation of the complete moral decadence of Greek society during the Peloponnesain War, which, from what remains to us of Athenian literature, we know must have been completely exaggerated. Or, rather, he is looking at men merely in their political dealings: and in politics the man who is personally honourable and refined will not scruple to do anything for his party.

(21) Polybius, xii. 25.

(22) The Two Paths, Lect. iii. p. 123 (1859 ed.).