The Historians' History of the World 04

What then must necessarily be the attitude of the best citizens of Athens toward any one of their number who gained very great popularity and influence, and who seemed ambitious to use his power autocratically? Why, such a person, however respected, however loved even—indeed just in proportion to the respect and affection that he inspired—must be regarded with apprehension. And the ballot for ostracism solved the problem, after a fashion. It required no charge against the citizen. It accused him of no crime. It merely gave official expression to a popular belief that it were better for the state that this citizen should retire for a time from its precincts. It was a confession of governmental weakness, to be sure. A powerful unified democracy like the United States in modern times has no need of such a law; but a weak government like that of France still thinks itself obliged sometimes to resort to it in case of political offenders, who are feared for exactly the same reason that led to ostracism in Athens—as witness the case of Déroulède and his allies. In this view then the practice of ostracism, which very probably preserved the democratic government of Athens long after it would otherwise have been overthrown, is not the grotesque inconsistency it at first seems.

As to the factions of the cities, which led to what Ruskin calls the “suicide of Greece,” they come to seem as natural as human nature itself when one stops to reflect that Hellas was never a united country under unified government. The Greek had, to be sure, a prejudice in favour of his race against outside barbarians. But his keenest prejudice was for his own city. The idea of liberty was too new for the conception of a federation of cities to be grasped all at once. Even now, after more than twenty-five hundred years of experiment and effort, that idea has only in a few instances been successfully realised and practised on a large scale for considerable periods of time—by the Greek cities themselves at a later period; by the north Italian cities late in the Middle Ages; and by the Anglo-Saxon race in our own day. It is not strange then that the Athenian regarded the Spartan as a political foreigner; and the struggles between the two were not different from the struggles that have gone on ever since between different neighbouring states all over the world. The appalling fact of universal carnage inconsistently disturbing the dreams of the brotherhood of man is one of the saddest evidences of the restricted civilisation of our race. But with all recent history in our minds, we can hardly hold it too much against the Greek that he was not more advanced in this regard in the year 400 B.C. than is all the rest of the world in the year 1900 A.D.

Without going further it must be clear how very different the points of view are from which the “sympathetic” and the “antipathetic” historian will respectively regard a people, in particular a people of high genius like the Greeks. And, to return to Mitford, it is hardly an unjust criticism which has said of him that his ponderous work, despite its learning, “is scarcely more than a huge party pamphlet.” And this is true precisely because he viewed the Greek always from the standpoint of his own narrow prejudice. Yet this must not be taken to imply that Mitford’s history is valueless. The fact is far otherwise. With due allowance for its bias, it may be read with full profit by everyone, and there are many passages of it that are unprejudiced and authoritative, while the merits of its style commend it so highly that we have had occasion to return to it again and again.

But the greatest distinction of Mitford was to call forth the work of Grote; for it was through indignation aroused by Mitford’s attitude toward Grecian affairs that the London banker, whose recreation was the study of the classics, was led to present a different view of Grecian history. The intentions to combat Mitford developed finally the conception of a comprehensive history, and when this history was completed, a definitive presentation of Grecian affairs had been put forward. Next to Gibbon’s Rome

, perhaps the greatest historical work ever produced in England is Grote’s History of Greece. Unfortunately, Grote did not continue his history beyond the time of Alexander, so we must seek other guides for the period of the decline and fall of Grecian power. The earliest epochs of Grecian history also have been opened up by the work of Schliemann and his successors since the day of Grote. Nor need it be denied that in various details Grote’s theories have been modified by later investigations. But, in the main, his work was based upon such secure foundations, and was conceived and carried out in such a broad and philosophical spirit, that it must stand indefinitely, like the work of Gibbon, as a finished historical structure.