opulation. The Greeks on
the other hand, were "free citizens" of a hundred independent little
"cities" the largest of which counted fewer inhabitants than a large
modern village. When a peasant who lived in Ur said that he was a
Babylonian he meant that he was one of millions of other people who paid
tribute to the king who at that particular moment happened to be master
of western Asia. But when a Greek said proudly that he was an Athenian
or a Theban he spoke of a small town, which was both his home and his
country and which recognised no master but the will of the people in the
market-place.

To the Greek, his fatherland was the place where he was born; where he
had spent his earliest years playing hide and seek amidst the forbidden
rocks of the Acropolis; where he had grown into manhood with a thousand
other boys and girls, whose nicknames were as familiar to him as those
of your own schoolmates. His Fatherland was the holy soil where his
father and mother lay buried. It was the small house within the high
city-walls where his wife and children lived in safety. It was a
complete world which covered no more than four or five acres of rocky
land. Don't you see how these surroundings must have influenced a man
in everything he did and said and thought? The people of Babylon and
Assyria and Egypt had been part of a vast mob. They had been lost in
the multitude. The Greek on the other hand had never lost touch with
his immediate surroundings. He never ceased to be part of a little
town where everybody knew every one else. He felt that his intelligent
neighbours were watching him. Whatever he did, whether he wrote plays
or made statues out of marble or composed songs, he remembered that his
efforts were going to be judged by all the free-born citizens of his
home-town who knew about such things. This knowledge forced him to
strive after perfection, and perfection, as he had been taught from
childhood, was not possible without moderation.

In this hard school, the Greeks learned to excel in many things. They
created new forms of government and new forms of literature and new
ideals in art which we have never been able to surpass. They performed
these miracles in little villages that covered less ground than four or
five modern city blocks.

And look, what finally happened!

In the fourth century before our era, Alexander of Macedonia conquered
the world. As soon as he had done with fighting, Alexander decided that
he