_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_." It appears that the foundation
of aristocracy--living in comparative luxury, in devotion to art and
the culture of life--was early laid by the side of the foundation of
poverty and wretchedness of the great mass of the people. While, then,
the Greeks derived from their ancestry the beautiful pictures of heroic
Greece, they inherited the evils of imperfect social conditions. As we
pass to the historical period of Greece, these different phases of life
appear and reappear in changeable forms. If to the nobleman life was
full of inspiration; if poetry, religion, art, and politics gave him
lofty thoughts and noble aspirations; to the peasant and the slave,
life was full of misery and degradation. If one picture is to be drawn
in glowing colors, let not the other be omitted.

The freedom from great centralized government, the development of the
individual life, the influences of the early ideas of art and life, and
the religious conceptions, were of great importance in shaping the
Greek philosophy and the Greek {214} national character. They had a
tendency to develop men who could think and act. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the first real historical period was characterized by
struggles of citizens within the town for supremacy. Fierce quarrels
between the upper and the lower classes prevailed everywhere, and
resulted in developing an intense hatred of the former for the latter.
This hatred and selfishness became the uppermost causes of action in
the development of Greek social polity. Strife led to compromise, and
this in turn to the recognition of the rights and privileges of
different classes.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The Aegean culture.

2. The relation of Greek to Egyptian culture.

3. What were the great Greek masterpieces of (_a_) Literature, (_b_)
Sculpture, (_c_) Architecture, (_d_) Art, (_e_) Philosophy?

4. Compare Greek democracy with American democracy.

5. What historical significance have Thermopylae, Marathon,
Alexandria, Crete, and Delphi?

[1] Sergi, in his _Mediterranean Race_, says that they came from N. E.
Africa. Beginning about 5000 years B.C., they gradually infiltrated
the whole Mediterranean region. This is becoming the general belief
among ethnologists, archaeologists, and historians.

[2] Recent studies indicate that some of the Cretan inscriptions are
prototypes of the Greece-Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenicians
evidently