lent winds and currents which modern experience attests to prevail around that formidable promontory, are quite sufficient to justify the apprehensions of the ancient Greek merchant, with his imperfect apparatus for navigation. tion essential for colonies. It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece Proper which could be considered as out of reach of the sea, while most parts of it were convenient and easy of access: in fact, the Arcadians were the only large section of the Hellenic name (we may add the Doric Tetrapolis and the mountaineers along the chain of Pindus and Tymphrêstus) who were altogether without a seaport. But Greece Proper constituted only a fraction of the entire Hellenic world, during the historical age; there were the numerous islands, and still more numerous conti- Sea-communicanental colonies, all located as independ- the islands and ent intruders on distinct points of the coast, in the Euxine, the Egean, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic; and distant from each other by the space which separates Trebizond from Marseilles. All these various cities were comprised in the name Hellas, which implied no geographical continuity: all prided themselves on Hellenic blood, name, religion and mythical ancestry. As the only communication between them was maritime, so the sea, important even if we look to Greece Proper exclusively, was the sole channel for transmitting ideas and improvements, as well as for maintaining sympathies, social, political, religious, and literary, throughout these outlying members of the Hellenic aggregate. The ancient philosophers and legislators were deeply impressed with the contrast between an inland and a maritime city in the former, sim Views of the an- : plicity and uniformity of life, tenacity of ancient habits and dislike of what is new or foreign, great force of exclusive sympathy and narrow range both of objects and ideas; in the latter, variety and novelty of sensations, expansive imagination, toleration, and occasional preference for extraneous customs, greater activity of the individual and corresponding mutability of the state. This distinction stands prominent in the many comparisons instituted between the Athens of Periklês and the Athens of the earlier times down to Solôn. Both Plato and Aristotle dwell upon it emphatically — and the former especially, whose genius conceived the comprehensive scheme of prescribing beforehand and ensuring in practice the whole course of individual thought and feeling in his imaginary community, treats maritime communication, if pushed beyond the narrowest limits, as fatal to the success and permanence of any wise scheme of education. Certain it is that a great difference of character existed between those Greeks who mingled much in maritime affairs, and those who did not. The Arcadian may stand as a type of the pure Grecian landsman, with his rustic and illiterate habits-his diet of sweet chestnuts, barley cakes and pork (as contrasted with the fish which formed the chief seasoning for the bread of an Athenian) - his superior courage and endurance - his reverence for Lacedæmonian head Difference between the land states and the sea states in Greece. ship as an old and customary influence his sterility of intellect and imagination as well as his slackness. in enterprise his unchangeable rudeness of relations. with the gods, which led him to scourge and prick Pan if he came back empty-handed from the chase; while the inhabitant of Phôkæa or Milêtus exemplifies the Grecian mariner, eager in search of gain-active, skilful, and daring at sea, but inferior in steadfast bravery on land—more excitable in imagination as well as more mutable in character- full of pomp and expense in religious manifestations towards the Ephesian Artemis or the Apollo of Branchida: with a mind more open to the varieties of Grecian energy and to the refining influences of Grecian civilization. The Peloponnesians generally, and the Lacedæmonians in particular, approached to the Arcadian type — while the Athenians of the fifth century B. C. stood. foremost in the other; superadding to it, however, a delicacy of taste, and a predominance of intellectual sympathy and enjoyments, which seem to have been peculiar to themselves. Effects of the configuration of Greece upon the political relations The configuration of the Grecian territory, so like in many respects to that of Switzerland, produced two effects of great moment upon the character and history of the people. In the first place, it materially strengthened their powers of defence: it shut up against those invasions from the interior which successively subjugated all their continental colonies; and it at the same time rendered each fraction more difficult to be attacked by the rest, so as to exercise a of the inhabitants. the country certain conservative influence in assuring the tenure of actual possessors: for the pass of Thermopylæ between Thessaly and Phokis, that of Kithærôn between Boeotia and Attica, or the mountainous range of Oneion and Geraneia along the Isthmus of Corinth, were positions which an inferior number of brave men could hold against a much greater force of assailants. But, in the next place, while it tended to protect each section of Greeks from being conquered, it also kept them politically disunited and perpetuated their separate autonomy. It fostered that powerful principle of repulsion, which disposed even the smallest township to constitute itself a political unit apart from the rest, and to resist all idea of coalescence with others, either amicable or compulsory. To a modern reader, accustomed to large political aggregations, and securities for good government through the representative system, it requires a certain mental effort to transport himself back to a time when even the smallest town clung so tenaciously to its right of self-legislation. Nevertheless, such was the general habit and feeling of the ancient world, throughout Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Gaul. Among the Hellenes it stands out more conspicuously, for several reasons-first, because they seem to have pushed the multiplication of autonomous units to an extreme point, seeing that even islands not larger than Peparêthos and Amorgos had two or three separate city communities: secondly, because they produced, for the first time in the history of mankind, acute systematic thinkers on matters of government, amongst all of whom the idea of the autonomous city was accepted as the indispensable basis of political speculation; thirdly, because this incurable sub-division proved finally the cause of their ruin, in spite of pronounced intellectual superiority over their conquerors; and lastly, because incapacity of political coalescence did not preclude a powerful and extensive sympathy between the inhabitants of all the separate cities, with a constant tendency to fraternize for numerous purposes, social, religious, recreative, intellectual, and æsthetical. For these reasons, the indefinite multiplication of self-governing towns, though in truth a phænomenon common to ancient Europe as contrasted with the large monarchies of Asia, appears more marked among the ancient Greeks than elsewhere: and there cannot be any doubt that they owe it, in a considerable degree, to the multitude of insulating boundaries which the configuration of their country presented. intellectual devel Nor is it rash to suppose that the same causes may have tended to promote that unborrowed intellectual development for which they stand so conspicuous. General propositions respecting the Effects upon their working of climate and physical agen- opment. cies upon character are indeed treacherous; for our knowledge of the globe is now sufficient to teach us that heat and cold, mountain and plain, sea and land, moist and dry atmosphere, are all consistent with the greatest diversities of resident men: moreover, the contrast between the population of Greece itself, for the seven centuries preceding the Christian æra, and the Greeks of more modern times, is alone enough to |