oes not mean that the slave is perpetually at work, or that war is the
sole duty of a great State, but as the soul destined to slavery is
incapable even in leisure of the contemplations of the soul destined to
freedom, so to the nation which shrinks from war the greatness that
belongs to peace can never come. Courage, Plato defines as "the
knowledge of the things that a man should fear and that he should not
fear," and in a state, a city, or an empire courage consists in the
unfaltering pursuit of its being's end against all odds, when once that
end is manifest. This ideal element, this formative principle,
underlies the Hellenic conception of war throughout its history, from
its first glorification in Achilles to the last combats of the Achaean
League--from the divine beauty of the youthful Achilles, dazzling as
the lightning and like the lightning pitiless, yet redeemed to pathos
by the certainty of the quick doom that awaits him, on to the last
bright forms which fall at Leuctra, Mantinea, and Ipsus. It requires a
steadfast gaze not to turn aside revolted from the destroying fury of
Greeks against Greeks--Athens, Thebes, Sparta, Corinth, and
Macedon--and yet even their claim to live, their greatness, did in this
consist, that for so light yet so immortal a cause they were content to
resign the sweet air and the sight of the sun, and of this wondrous
fabric of a world in which their presence, theirs, the children of
Hellas, was the divinest wonder of all.

Of the grandeur and elevation which Rome imparted to war and to man's
nature it is superfluous to speak. As in statesmanship, so in war, he
who would greatly praise another describes his excellence as Roman, and
thinks that all is said. The silver eagle which Caius Marius gave as
an ensign to the legions is for once in history the fit emblem of the
race that bore it to victory and world-dominion. History by fate or
chance added a touch of the supernatural to the action of Marius. The
silver eagle announced the empire of the Caesars; the substitution of
the _Labarum_ by Constantine heralded its decline. With the emblem of
humiliation and peace, the might of Rome sinks, yet throughout the
centuries that follow, returns of galvanic life, recollections of its
ancient valour--as in Stilicho, Belisarius, Heraclius, and
Zimisces[4]--bear far into the Middle Age the dread name of the Roman
legion, though the circuit of the eagle's flight, once wide as the
ambient ai