Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/199

EARLIER AJND LATER DEMOCRACY CONTRASTED. XAi Such variations in the scale of national energy pervade his- tory, modern as well as ancient, but in regard to Grecian history, especially, they can never be overlooked. For a certain meas- ure, not only of positive political attachment, but also of active self-devotion, military readiness, and personal effort, was the indispensable condition of maintaining Hellenic autonomy, either in Athens or elsewhere ; and became so more than ever when the Macedonians were once organized under an enterprising and semi-Hellenized prince. The democracy was the first creative cause of that astonishing personal and many-sided energy which marked the Athenian character, for a century downward from Kleisthenes. That the same ultra-Hellenic activity did not longer continue, is referable to other causes, which will be here- after in part explained. No system of government, even sup- posing it to be very much better and more faultless than the Athenian democracy, can ever pretend to accomplish its legiti- mate end apart from the personal character of the people, or to supersede the necessity of individual virtue and vigor. During the half-century immediately preceding the battle of Cha^roneia, the Athenians had lost that remarkable energy which distin- guished them during the first century of their democracy, and had fallen much more nearly to a level with the other Greeks, in common with whom they were obliged to yield to the pres- sure of a foreign enemy. I here briefly notice their last period of languor, in contrast with the first burst of democratical fervor under Kleisthenes, now opening, a feeling which will be found, as we proceed, to continue for a longer period than could have been reasonably anticipated, but which was too high-strung to become a perpetual and inherent attribul ; of any communit ..