THE SPLENDOUR OF GREECE 87 



and famous throughout the old world, it grew 

 ambitious, and made the other small states subject 

 to it. Its modest empire even spread to the cities of 

 Asia Minor. As usual, this led to a growing dis- 

 content, hatred, and anger. At last it came to war, 

 with Sparta. The fifty years of peace were succeeded 

 by nearly fifty years of war. There was the usual 

 " destruction of the fit " and survival of the less fit. 

 The democracy and the leadership degenerated. More 

 wars were brought on. Altogether about eighty years 

 were troubled with war and all the waste that war 

 meant. 



Just at this time Philip of Macedon began to 

 intrigue for the formation of a Greek empire under 

 himself. Demosthenes, in the theatre, thundered out 

 his famous orations against Philip, but the democracy 

 was weary and incompetent. The imperialist adven- 

 turer got his way. The Greek states were swallowed 

 up in the world-empire of Alexander "the Great," 

 Philip's son. 



For a time this seemed to give protection. This 

 was the age of Aristotle, we must remember, and the 

 Stoics and Epicureans had still to come. To many of 

 us, indeed, this seems to be the best age of Greek 

 thought, as the mind was brought back to positive 

 knowledge from the theosophy of Plato and the meta- 

 physics of Aristotle. The Stoics worked out a human 

 code of morals which was, in the Roman world, to 

 have a remarkable social influence. Epicurus — whose 

 system was slandered by the more ascetic Stoics and 

 has been libelled ever since — conceived a philosophy 

 of nature and man of the most promising character, 

 including an ethic of the most sober description. But 

 thought was now dissociated entirely from civic life 



