That determined sentiment deserves notice, because it marks the
present period of the Hellenic mind: fifty years later it will
be found materially altered. Aversion to single-headed rule, and
bitter recollection of men like Kypselus and Periander, are now
the chords which thrill in an assembly of Grecian deputies: the
idea of a revolution, implying thereby a great and comprehensive
change, of which the party using the word disapproves, consists in
substituting a permanent One in place of those periodical magistrates
and assemblies which were the common attribute of oligarchy and
democracy: the antithesis between these last two is as yet in the
background, nor does there prevail either fear of Athens or hatred of
the Athenian democracy. But when we turn to the period immediately
before the Peloponnesian war, we find the order of precedence
between these two sentiments reversed. The anti-monarchical feeling
has not perished, but has been overlaid by other and more recent
political antipathies,—the antithesis between democracy and oligarchy
having become, not indeed the only sentiment, but the uppermost
sentiment, in the minds of Grecian politicians generally, and the
soul of active party-movement. Moreover, a hatred of the most deadly
character has grown up against Athens and her democracy, especially
in the grandsons of those very Corinthians who now stand forward
as her sympathizing friends. The remarkable change of feeling here
mentioned is nowhere so strikingly exhibited as when we contrast
the address of the Corinthian Sosiklês, just narrated, with the
speech of the Corinthian envoys at Sparta, immediately antecedent
to the Peloponnesian war, as given to us in Thucydidês.[310] It
will hereafter be fully explained by the intermediate events, by
the growth of Athenian power, and by the still more miraculous
development of Athenian energy.
[310] Thucydid. i, 68-71, 120-124.
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