JOHN

See also:

• JOHN GILLIES (1747-1836)

GILLIES (1747-1836)  , Scottish historian and classical scholar, was born at Brechin, in Forfarshire, on the 18th of January 1747 . He was educated at Glasgow University, where, at the age of twenty, he acted for a short time as substitute for the professor of Greek . In 1784 he completed his History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conquests (published 1786) . This work, valuable at a time when the study of Greek history was in its infancy, and translated into French and German, was written from a strong Whig bias, and is now entirely superseded (see GREECE: Ancient History," Authorities ") . On the death of William Robertson (1721-1793), Gillies was appointed historiographer-royal for Scotland . In his old age he retired to Clapham, where he died on the 15th of February 1836 . Of his other works, none of which are much read, the principal are: View of the Reign of Frederic H. of Prussia, with a Parallel between that Prince and Philip H. of Macedon (1789), rather a panegyric than a critical history; translations of Aristotle's Rhetoric (1823) and Ethics and Politics (1786—1797); of the Orations of Lysias and Isocrates (1778) ; and History of the World from Alexander to Augustus (1807), which, although deficient in style, was commended for its learning and research .