A summarization such as this, in style austere and authoritative, in content the product of penetrating insight and wonderful sense for political realities, not only bears witness to the greatness of Thucydides; when it is contrasted with similar analyses in Plato and Aristotle it testifies to the loss of power for sustained historical thinking which Greece suffered when men of genius were no longer enriched by the experience which came through living in a state like the imperial democracy of Athens. Not the least of its merits is its self-restraint. Having concluded that the reckless rivalries of her would-be leaders and the reckless dissensions of her citizens ruined Athens, he refrains from assigning a cause for the spirit of lawlessness. It is not Thucydides, but Alcibiades, who declared that democracy was "manifest folly"; not he, but Cleon, who reiterated that "a democracy cannot manage an empire." Thucydides does not despair of democracy. In the case of Athens it was less the unsoundness of the "majority" than the selfishness of the "remnant" that caused the nation to perish. For the demoralization of their leaders, however, the Athenians themselves held Socrates responsible, meaning to incriminate the Sophistic movement. Who shall say that they were wrong? And who shall hold democracy responsible for the evils of the Sophistic movement? SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von. _Von des attischen Reiches Herrlichkeit_ (1877). In _Reden und Vorträge_, pp. 27 _ff._ 2. Jebb, R.C. _The Age of Pericles_ (1889). In _Essays and Addresses_, pp. 104 _ff._ 3. Meyer, Eduard. _Geschichte des Altertums_, IV (1901). 4. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von. _Staat und Gesellschaft der Griechen_ (1910): C. _Die athenische Demokratie_, pp. 95 _ff._ 5. Zimmern, Alfred. _The Greek Commonwealth_ (1911). 6. Cavaignac, E. _Histoire de l'Antiquité_, II: _Athènes_ (480-330), (1912). FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 18: Pages 27 _ff._] [Footnote 19: Delbrück, _Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege_, pp. 137 _ff._; Beloch, _Griechische Geschichte_, I (1893), p. 368, n. 3.] [Footnote 20: Thucy., II, 36, 2.] [Footnote 21: Thucy., II, 37 _ff._] [Footnote 22: For the following sections see especially Aristotle's _Constitution of the Athenians_.] [Footnote 23: Seven cents, equal in purchasing power to thirty-five cents perhaps.] [Footnote 24: Greenidge, _Greek Constitutional History_ (1896), pp. 170 _ff._] [Footnote 25: See particularly Ed. Meyer, _Die Sklaverei im Altertum_ (_Kleine Schriften_, pp. 169 _ff._).] [Footnote 26: Pseudo-Xenophon, _State of the Athenians_, II, 10. (The translation used here and elsewhere, with a few modifications, is that of Dakyns.)] [Footnote 27: Pseudo-Xenophon, _State of the Athenians_, II, 2 _ff._] [Footnote 28: Pseudo-Xenophon, _State of the Athenians_, I, 2.] [Footnote 29: Plut., _Pericles_, XI, 4.] [Footnote 30: _Const. of the Athenians_, 24, 3.]