these scenes
furnish, when thoroughly examined, as by Mr. Grote, only the more
convincing proof that the Athenian was usually swayed by sound reason
and good sense to an extraordinary degree. All great points in fact,
were settled rather by sober appeals to reason than by intrigue or
lobbying; and one cannot help thinking that an Athenian of the time
of Perikles would have regarded with pitying contempt the trick of the
"previous question." And this explains the undoubted pre-eminence
of Athenian oratory. This accounts for the fact that we find in the
forensic annals of a single city, and within the compass of a single
century, such names as Lysias, Isokrates, Andokides, Hypereides,
Aischines, and Demosthenes. The art of oratory, like the art of
sculpture, shone forth more brilliantly then than ever since, because
then the conditions favouring its development were more perfectly
combined than they have since been. Now, a condition of society in
which the multitude can always be made to stand quietly and listen to a
logical discourse is a condition of high culture. Readers of Xenophon's
Anabasis will remember the frequency of the speeches in that charming
book. Whenever some terrible emergency arose, or some alarming quarrel
or disheartening panic occurred, in the course of the retreat of the
Ten Thousand, an oration from one of the commanders--not a demagogue's
appeal to the lower passions, but a calm exposition of circumstances
addressed to the sober judgment--usually sufficed to set all things in
order. To my mind this is one of the most impressive historical lessons
conveyed in Xenophon's book. And this peculiar kind of self-control,
indicative of intellectual sobriety and high moral training, which was
more or less characteristic of all Greeks, was especially characteristic
of the Athenians.

These illustrations will, I hope, suffice to show that there is nothing
extravagant in the high estimate which I have made of Athenian culture.
I have barely indicated the causes of this singular perfection of
individual training in the social circumstances amid which the Athenians
lived. I have alleged it as an instance of what may be accomplished by
a well-directed leisure and in the absence or very scanty development of
such a complex industrial life as that which surrounds us to-day. But I
have not yet quite done with the Athenians. Before leaving this part of
the subject, I must mention one further circumstance which tends