The Historians' History of the World 03

Hence its character was purely human, its aim the complete and harmonious development of man; and if for that very reason it always strove to be moderate and to adapt itself to the moral and cosmical forces that govern human life, nevertheless it could accomplish this only in free subordination, by absorbing the moral commandment into its own will. Therefore it did not permit the opposing theological tendencies to gain control, strong as was their development in considerable districts of Greece in the sixth century. At that very period, on the other hand, it was stretching out to grasp the apples on the tree of knowledge; in the most advanced regions of Hellas science and philosophy were opposing theology. National as it was, this culture lacked but one thing: the political unity of the nation, the co-ordination of all its powers in the vigorous organism of a great state.

The instinct of freedom itself, upon which the greatness of this civilisation rested, favoured by the geographical conformation of the Greek soil, had caused a constantly increasing political disunion, which saw in the complete and unlimited autonomy of every individual community, even of the tiniest of the hundreds of city states into which Hellas was divided, the highest ideal of liberty, the only fit existence for a Hellene. And, internally, every one of these dwarf states was eaten by the canker of political and social contrasts which could not be permanently suppressed by any attempt to introduce a just political order founded upon a codified law and a written constitution—whether the ideal were the rule of the “best,” the rule of the whole, i.e. of the actual masses, or that of a mixed constitution. The smaller the city and its territory, the more apt were these attempts to become bloody revolutions. Lively as was the public spirit, clearly as the justice of the demand for subordination to law was recognised, every individual and every party interpreted it according to its own conception and its own judgment, and at all times there were not a few who were ready to seize for themselves all that the moment offered.

To be sure, manifold and successful attempts to found a greater political power were brought about by the advancing growth of industry and culture, as well as by the development of the citizen army of hoplites, which had a firm tactical structure and was well schooled in the art of war. In the Peloponnesus Sparta brought the whole south under the rule of its citizens and not only effected the union of almost the whole peninsula into a league, but established its right, as the first military power of Hellas, to leadership in all common affairs.

In middle Greece, Thebes succeeded in uniting Bœotia into a federal state, while its neighbour Athens, which had maintained the unity of the Attic district since the beginning of history, began to annex the neighbouring districts of Megara, Bœotia, and Eubœa, and laid the foundation of a colonial power, as Corinth had formerly done. In the north the Thessalians acquired leadership over all surrounding tribes. In the west, in Sicily, usurpers had founded larger monarchical unified states, especially in Syracuse and Agrigentum.

But all these combinations were after all only of very limited extent and by no means firmly united; on the contrary, the weaker communities felt even the loosest kind of federation, to say nothing of dependence, as an oppressive fetter which impaired the ideal of the individual destiny of the autonomous state, and which at least one party,—generally the one that happened to be out of power,—felt justified in bursting at the first opportunity.

However, as things lay, the nation found itself forced, with this sort of constitution, to take up the struggle for its political independence. The Greeks of Asia Minor, formerly subjects of the kings of Sardis, had become subjects of the Persian kingdom under Cyrus; the free Hellenes had the most varied relations with the latter, and more than once gave him occasion to intervene in their affairs. The Persian kingdom, which under Darius no longer attempted conquests that were not necessary for the maintenance of its own existence, took no advantage of these provocations until the revolt of the Greeks of Asia Minor, supported by Athens, made war inevitable.