attendant on amalgamation with strange natives, as well as on a fresh
distribution of land,—would have added greatly to our knowledge both
of Greek character and Greek social existence.
[101] Thucyd. i, 15.
Taking the two centuries now under review, then, it will appear
that there is not only no growing political unity among the Grecian
states, but a tendency even to the contrary,—to dissemination and
mutual estrangement. Not so, however, in regard to the other feelings
of unity capable of subsisting between men who acknowledge no
common political authority,—sympathies founded on common religion,
language, belief of race, legends, tastes and customs, intellectual
appetencies, sense of proportion and artistic excellence, recreative
enjoyments, etc. On all these points the manifestations of Hellenic
unity become more and more pronounced and comprehensive, in spite of
increased political dissemination, throughout the same period. The
breadth of common sentiment and sympathy between Greek and Greek,
together with the conception of multitudinous periodical meetings as
an indispensable portion of existence, appears decidedly greater in
560 B. C. than it had been a century before. It was fostered by the
increased conviction of the superiority of Greeks as compared with
foreigners,—a conviction gradually more and more justified as Grecian
art and intellect improved, and as the survey of foreign countries
became extended,—as well as by the many new efforts of men of genius
in the field of music, poetry, statuary, and architecture, each of
whom touched chords of feeling belonging to other Greeks hardly
less than to his own peculiar city. At the same time, the life of
each peculiar city continues distinct, and even gathers to itself a
greater abundance of facts and internal interests. So that during the
two centuries now under review there was in the mind of every Greek
an increase both of the city-feeling and of the Pan-Hellenic feeling,
but on the other hand a decline of the old sentiment of separate
race,—Doric, Ionic, Æolic.
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