THE EXPANSION OF GREEK HISTORY 67 



and bring his labors to a close. And yet since then Freeman has 

 given us an admirable and instructive volume on Greek Federations ; 

 the fourth volume of Hohn's History, and the monumental work of 

 Droysen are on the same epoch. It is not in a mere address, but by the 

 studies of many years, that I have shown my own personal interest 

 in this once neglected period. Freeman, utilizing his Polybius as 

 no one had done before, was the first to show how the idea of federa- 

 tion, long obscure and almost dormant in the Greek mind, came 

 into vogue when the little city states of Greece found great kingdoms 

 rising up around them. To remain isolated after the old Greek 

 fashion meant ruin; some form of combination, some accumulated 

 strength, was necessary to preserve not. only the political but the 

 economic existence of small states. This fruitful idea, first carried 

 out on a considerable scale by the leagues of ^Etolia and Achsea, then 

 with great effect by Rhodes, failed on the whole, and failed on account 

 of the ingrained conviction of the Greeks that every state which 

 voluntarily entered a confederation was entitled to secede from 

 it at any subsequent moment. If it could not be brought back by 

 argument, had the rest any right to bring it back by force? Need 

 I say one word more in this place to enforce the world-importance 

 of this problem? Seeing that the Greek sentiment, as might be 

 expected from small separate cities, with long traditions of inde- 

 pendence, and perpetual jealousies of their neighbors, was always 

 in favor of secession, there remained no other alternative than to 

 combine under a foreign monarchy. For this, while it granted local 

 liberties, from indifference or from policy, defended its subject states 

 by a superior military force, and prohibited those local wars, which 

 were the bane of the Greek world. 



If the history of the rise of federations has at last received due 

 attention, that is not the case with the resurgence of the idea of 

 monarchy, not merely enforced upon the Greeks by their Macedonian 

 conqueror, but defended in many books and tracts from Xenophon's 

 Cyrus down to the tracts of philosophers about royalty (irepl /WtXe/as) 

 of which many fragments and notices remain. This once hateful 

 form of government was not therefore thrust upon a democratic 

 world against its will, but recognized on trial to be the practical 

 solution of difficulties which were bringing political ruin upon the 

 Greek world. How far this great change of ideas prevailed appears 

 from the readiness with which even skeptical democracies lavished not 

 only royal titles but divine honors upon the new king. Never was 

 the Divine right of hereditary monarchy so quickly and readily 

 adopted. It was, in fact, far safer to have a distant king, who theoret- 

 ically could do no wrong, than a present tyranny of pauper fellow 

 citizens, with irresponsible power to do practical mischief at every 

 assembly they chose to hold. It was far better for the herald's 



