198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



this road only a few days at a time, while through all other sea- 

 sons the ships could sail freely, promoting an incessant exchange 

 of visits and mutual favors among districts between which Nature 

 had within placed the restrictions of numerous and high barriers. 



The attachment of the Greeks to the sea was confirmed by the 

 regularity and mildness of the winds. This sea and these winds 

 favored the moral unity of Greece, which it enjoyed till the time 

 of the Roman conquest without ever having political and admin- 

 istrative unity. Until the capture of Corinth by Mummius it was 

 divided into a number of cantons separated from one another by 

 Nature, which were as many independent states. This universal 

 presence of the sea furnishes a means of accounting for the supe- 

 riority of the part which Greece has played in the world. The 

 country, while it was free, had no roads, and did not need them. 

 It was easier and more convenient to spread sail, in order to go 

 from one place to another, than to climb the mountains and coast 

 along the precipices. It would have been hard to find, even out- 

 side of the very numerous class of professional sailors, a Greek 

 who had not, once at least in his life, left his native village or city 

 for purposes of war, commerce, pleasure, or piety. The last two 

 motives were confounded in practice. The desire to consult a re- 

 nowned oracle, or to attend the festivals celebrated in honor of the 

 great national deities, caused the movement, every year, of thou- 

 sands of Greeks, many of whom came from a great distance — from 

 remote parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa. These festivals held a 

 place in the lives of the Greeks of which we, subject to the tyranny 

 of professional duty and the cares of business, can hardly form a 

 conception. We can imagine that the attendants upon them, dur- 

 ing the few hours they passed together, would have much to tell 

 one another and to learn, and would improve the opportunity. 

 Can anything be fancied better than these removals and meetings 

 to awaken the mind and keep it on the alert, and thus to forestall 

 the estrangement with which the race was threatened by reason 

 of the dispersion and wide separation of its branches ? The Greeks 

 of Hellas could refresh and increase their knowledge by conver- 

 sation with those of their brethren who, like Ulysses, had " seen 

 cities and learned the thoughts of many men." The citizens of the 

 most remote colonies, those who lived in small groups among bar- 

 barians or in the oases of the desert, having taken part in the 

 periodical solemnities at Athens, Delphi, or Olympia, could re- 

 turn more Greek in feeling and thought, manners and language. 

 Like the giant of one of their fables, they had recruited their 

 strength by touching the mother's bosom of the country of which 

 they were children. 



Greece was thus at once central and scattered ; central in Hel- 

 las, scattered and multiplied in the periphery. The great body 



