of
obsequious courtiers, trampling on a nameless multitude of slaves.
Europe was to make democracies, or at least to try her hand at them.

It has been well said that a democracy is the strongest government for
defence, the weakest for attack. Every little Greek city clung jealously
to its own freedom, and to its equally obvious right to dominate its
neighbors. The supreme danger of the Persian invasion united them for a
moment; but as soon as safety was assured, they recommenced their
bickering. Sparta with her record of ancient leadership, Athens with her
new-won glory against the common foe, each tried to draw the other
cities in her train. There was no one man who could dominate them all
and concentrate their strength against the enemy. So for a time Persia
continued to exist; she even by degrees regained something of her former
influence over the divided cities.

Among these Athens held the foremost rank. She was, as we have
previously seen, far more truly representative of the Greek spirit than
her rival. Sparta was aristocratic and conservative; Athens democratic
and progressive. The genius of her leaders gathered the lesser towns
into a great naval league, in which she grew ever more powerful. Her
allies sank to be dependent and unwilling vassals, forced to contribute
large sums to the treasury of their overlord.

This was the age of Pericles.[1] As Athens became wealthy, her citizens
became cultured. Statues, temples, theatres made the city beautiful.
Dramatists, orators, and poets made her intellectually renowned. A
marvellous outburst, this of Athens! Displaying for the first time in
history the full capacity of the human mind! Had there been similar
flowerings of genius amid forgotten Asiatic times? One doubts it; doubts
if such brilliancy could ever anywhere have passed, and left no clearer
record of its triumphs.

[Footnote 1: See _Pericles Rules in Athens_, page 12.]

Amid such splendor it seems captious to point out the flaw. Yet Athenian
and all Greek civilization did ultimately decline. It represented
intellectual, but not moral culture. The Greeks delighted intensely in
the purely physical life about them; they had small conception of
anything beyond. To enjoy, to be successful, that was all their goal;
the means scarce counted. The Athenians called Aristides the Just; but
so little did they honor his high rectitude that they banished him for a
decade. His title, or it may have been his insistenc