THE ENVIRONMENT OF GRECIAN CULTURE. 199 



had its interior circulation ; its blood was sent out to the extremi- 

 ties, and from the limbs returned to the heart to be purified 

 there and charged anew with the nutritious elements that kept 

 up the life and originality of the race, and gave it its superior 

 energy. It had the mobility of the waves, which, after they had 

 sown the Grecian colonies all along the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean, were incessantly bringing them back to their native coun- 

 try. The sea, when they were still an infant and savage race, 

 brought them the germs of civilization from the East. Through 

 it they received the figures and the rites of divinities, the worship 

 of which was destined to bring men together and make them so- 

 cial — writing, metals, and the processes and implements of the 

 principal arts. The sea placed the Greeks in relations of the most 

 favorable character with foreign nations ; in such relations as are 

 suggestive and not oppressive. It permitted frequent intercourse 

 and prolonged visits, but did not lend itself readily to attempts at 

 invasion. The peril from this source was the less in the early 

 days of Greece, because the chief military powers of those times 

 had no navies on the Mediterranean ; and when Persia was ready 

 to send armed fleets to achieve its conquest, Greece had become 

 mature and had capable commanders and well-managed fleets. 



Greece was further protected in the days of its development, 

 on the continental side, by the formidable chain of Hsemus or the 

 Balkan Mountains, behind which it was enabled to work out its 

 destiny unobserved and unmolested by the barbarian peoples who 

 were moving and marching beyond them in the valley of the 

 Danube. South of these rise in succession the mountains that en- 

 velop Thessaly with their ramifications westward, and the Cambu- 

 nian Mountains, both crossed only by narrow and difficult passes. 

 When these were forced, and the enemy was in Thessaly, he had 

 to scale other barriers no less difficult in order to reach the plains 

 of Boeotia ; and then, to get from each small state to the next, he 

 had to surmount the other considerable chains that severally sepa- 

 rate them, where he was constantly liable to be exposed to the 

 eyes and arrows of the native population. Even if, after over- 

 coming all these obstacles, a conqueror succeeded in penetrating 

 to the end of the last redoubt, a slight accident might any day 

 turn his triumph into a disaster. All the doors which he had 

 opened might be closed upon him in an instant. " Greece," says 

 M. Michelet, " is made like a trap with three bottoms : you find 

 yourself caught in Thessaly, then between Thermopylffi and the 

 isthmus, and at last in the Peloponnesus." It is a great advan- 

 tage to a people to feel that it is secure in the country it lives in. 



This peculiar disposition of their territory further enabled 

 the Greeks to try the experiment of municipal government, and 

 to demonstrate the excellent results it can give to a happily en- 



