200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dowed people. This government is that in which the idea of the 

 city and that of the state are merged ; in which each city is a liv- 

 ing body, all the members of which take a more or less direct 

 part in the administration of public affairs. 



It is not without some surprise that we learn from history how 

 at once intense and scattered was life in the whole Hellenic world, 

 from the eighth to the third century b. a, and what organic 

 potency, what intestinal activity, and what expansive force were 

 possessed by each of the little states which the vigor of Grecian 

 genius had scattered over all the Mediterranean shores. This 

 municipal life was endowed with a mobility and variety that 

 were not exhibited elsewhere. The minds of the people, easily re- 

 ceptive to the beautiful and the true, were stimulated to reflection 

 by letters, philosophy, and science, and matured rapidly. Rheto- 

 ric, placed at the service of private and public interests, bred an 

 eloquence which was fed by broad ideas that raised the dignity 

 of party strifes. On all the theatres of action, before which the 

 attention of the audience was never relaxed, the politician, artist, 

 poet, writer, or orator — the man always in sight and in action — 

 never ceased to display his passionate energy ; while the lively 

 emulation of these cities, at once rivals and sisters, none of which 

 would submit willingly to be less than the others, or let them 

 achieve a glory in which it could not have a part, augmented the 

 ardor of the universal effort. Thus we find in the creation of the 

 city the source of the high, originality of Greece, and the stimu- 

 lant to its real work — the building up of ancient civilization. 



The relief of the land in the Hellenic peninsula and its de- 

 pendencies gave rise to the city. The nature of the country and 

 the climate had a salutary influence on the development of what 

 Alfieri calls " the human plant." The land co-operated with the 

 sea in promoting the supple and robust development of the body 

 and the alert action of the mind. The life of the sailor inures 

 the limbs and adapts them to all kinds of motion ; with its con- 

 stantly imminent perils, it exacts coolness and watchfulness and 

 makes the mind quick to perceive and precise in observation. 

 There were few Greeks who had not lived more or less on the sea 

 and received some education of this kind. 



Even those Greeks whose occupations kept them habitually 

 ashore were subjected to somewhat similar influences. The land 

 is one of sharp contrasts. One can pass in a few hours' walk 

 from the vicinity of almost eternal snows, through forests of 

 beech and fir, to plains where the palm-tops wave. Marked con- 

 trasts appear in the distribution of water. Gravelly ravines, in 

 which ribbons of verdure, of laurels and tamarisk, are the only sign 

 of the existence of a stream beneath the surface, are a predomi- 

 nant type ; on the western slopes of Hellas are limpid streams, 



