Chương Chương 12 · The Greek Cities That Were Really States

We modern people love the sound of the word “big.” We pride ourselves

upon the fact that we belong to the “biggest” country in the world and

possess the “biggest” navy and grow the “biggest” oranges and potatoes,

and we love to live in cities of “millions” of inhabitants and when we

are dead we are buried in the “biggest cemetery of the whole state.”

A citizen of ancient Greece, could he have heard us talk, would not

have known what we meant. “Moderation in all things” was the ideal of

his life and mere bulk did not impress him at all. And this love of

moderation was not merely a hollow phrase used upon special occasions:

it influenced the life of the Greeks from the day of their birth to the

hour of their death. It was part of their literature and it made them

build small but perfect temples. It found expression in the clothes

which the men wore and in the rings and the bracelets of their wives.

It followed the crowds that went to the theatre and made them hoot down

any playwright who dared to sin against the iron law of good taste or

good sense.

The Greeks even insisted upon this quality in their politicians and

in their most popular athletes. When a powerful runner came to Sparta

and boasted that he could stand longer on one foot than any other man

in Hellas the people drove him from the city because he prided himself

upon an accomplishment at which he could be beaten by any common goose.

“That is all very well,” you will say, “and no doubt it is a great

virtue to care so much for moderation and perfection, but why should

the Greeks have been the only people to develop this quality in olden

times?” For an answer I shall point to the way in which the Greeks

lived.

[Illustration: MOUNT OLYMPUS WHERE THE GODS LIVED]

The people of Egypt or Mesopotamia had been the “subjects” of a

mysterious Supreme Ruler who lived miles and miles away in a dark

palace and who was rarely seen by the masses of the population. The

Greeks on the other hand, were “free citizens” of a hundred independent

little “cities” the largest of which counted fewer inhabitants than a

large modern village. When a peasant who lived in Ur said that he was

a Babylonian he meant that he was one of millions of other people who

paid tribute to the king who at that particular moment happened to be

master of western Asia. But when a Greek said proudly that he was an

Athenian or a Theban he spoke of a small town, which was both his home

and his country and which recognised no master but the will of the

people in the market-place.

To the Greek, his fatherland was the place where he was born; where he

had spent his earliest years playing hide and seek amidst the forbidden

rocks of the Acropolis; where he had grown into manhood with a thousand

other boys and girls, whose nicknames were as familiar to him as

those of your own schoolmates. His Fatherland was the holy soil where

his father and mother lay buried. It was the small house within the

high city-walls where his wife and children lived in safety. It was a

complete world which covered no more than four or five acres of rocky

land. Don’t you see how these surroundings must have influenced a man

in everything he did and said and thought? The people of Babylon and

Assyria and Egypt had been part of a vast mob. They had been lost in

the multitude. The Greek on the other hand had never lost touch with

his immediate surroundings. He never ceased to be part of a little

town where everybody knew every one else. He felt that his intelligent

neighbours were watching him. Whatever he did, whether he wrote plays

or made statues out of marble or composed songs, he remembered that

his efforts were going to be judged by all the free-born citizens of

his home-town who knew about such things. This knowledge forced him to

strive after perfection, and perfection, as he had been taught from

childhood, was not possible without moderation.

In this hard school, the Greeks learned to excel in many things. They

created new forms of government and new forms of literature and new

ideals in art which we have never been able to surpass. They performed

these miracles in little villages that covered less ground than four or

five modern city blocks.

And look, what finally happened!

In the fourth century before our era, Alexander of Macedonia conquered

the world. As soon as he had done with fighting, Alexander decided

that he must bestow the benefits of the true Greek genius upon all

mankind. He took it away from the little cities and the little villages

and tried to make it blossom and bear fruit amidst the vast royal

residences of his newly acquired Empire. But the Greeks, removed from

the familiar sight of their own temples, removed from the well-known

sounds and smells of their own crooked streets, at once lost the

cheerful joy and the marvellous sense of moderation which had inspired

the work of their hands and brains while they laboured for the glory

of their old city-states. They became cheap artisans, content with

second-rate work. The day the little city-states of old Hellas lost

their independence and were forced to become part of a big nation, the

old Greek spirit died. And it has been dead ever since.