c!U. XX.1 CONDITIONS OF PBOGBES& 261 



was an event of less importance than "a good colliery 

 accident," because forsooth only 192 lives were lost on the 

 side of the Greeks!^ To him, however, who has acquired 

 the habit of looking at European history as one connected 

 whole, it will not seem extravagant to say that contemporary 

 English civilization is indebted to the victory of Marathon 

 in a far higher degree than to the victories of Crecy or 

 Agincourt, or even of Waterloo. The immense relative 

 importance of some of these ancient military events of small 

 dimensions, is due to the fact that military strength was not 

 then concentrated in the most highly civilized communities, 

 as it is in modern times. In antiquity there was a real 

 danger that the nascent civilization of higher type might be 

 extinguished by the long-established civilization of far lower 

 type, or even by barbarism, through mere disparity of 

 numbers. We do not know how often in prehistoric times 

 some little gleam of civilization may have been put out by 

 an overwhelming wave of barbarism, though by reason of 

 the great military superiority which even a little civilization 

 gives, such occurrences are likely to have been on the whole 

 exceptionaL This great superiority is well exemplified in 

 the ease with which the Greeks defeated ten times their own 

 number of Asiatics at Marathon, and afterwards at Kynaxa. 

 Nevertheless it cannot be questioned that the invasions ot 

 B.C. 490 and 480 were fraught with serious danger to Grecian 

 independence, and if Datis or Mardonios had happened to 

 possess the military talent of Cyrus or of Timour, the danger 

 Mould have been alarming indeed. Now if little Greece had 

 thus been swallowed up by giant Persia, and the nascent 

 political ana intellectual freedom extinguished in Athens aa 

 it was in the Ionic cities of Asia Minor, the entire future 

 history of Macedonia, of Eome, and of Europe, would have 

 been altered in a way that is not pleasant to contemplate. 

 When we reflect upon the enormous place in human history 

 ^ See Freeman, Comparative Politics, p. 498. 



