a strong central controlling force; and Demosthenes' policy was hopeless just because Athens could never be the centre of such a union, nor could any other city.
Demosthenes is thus the last, and in some respects the most heroic champion of the old Greek instinct for autonomy. He is the true child of the City-State, but the child of its old age and decrepitude. He still believes in Athens, and it is on Athens that all his hopes are based. He looks on Philip as one who must inevitably be the foe alike of Athens and of Greece. He seems to think that he can be beaten off as Xerxes was, and to forget that even Xerxes almost triumphed over the divisions of the Greek States, and that Philip is a nearer, a more permanent, and a far less barbarian foe. Splendid figure as he is, the failure of Demosthenes shows clearly that the vitality of the πόλις has been greatly weakened since the Persian wars, and at the same time that the old instinct still has force enough to make a real and life-giving union impracticable.
The Policy of Phocion.
This remarkable Athenian figure was the somewhat odd exponent of the practical side of a school of thought which had been gaining strength in Greece for some time past. This school was now brought into prominence by the rise of Macedon, and came to have a marked influence on the history of the City-State.
It began with the philosophers, and with the
