The Greek peninsula was favorably situated for development. Protected on the north by a mountain range from the rigors of a northern climate and from the predatory tribes, with a range of mountains through the centre, with its short spurs cutting the entire country into valleys, in which were developed independent community states, circumstances were favorable to local self-government of the several tribes. This independent social life was of great importance in the development of Greek thought. In the north the grains and cereals were grown, and in the south the citrus and the orange. This wide range from a temperate to a semi-tropical climate {211} furnished a variety of fruits and diversity of life which gave great opportunity for development. The variety of scenery caused by mountain and valley and proximity to the sea, the thousand islands washed by the Aegean Sea, brought a new life which tended to impress the sensitive mind of the Greek and to develop his imagination and to advance culture in art. _Character of the Primitive Greeks_.--The magnificent development of the Greeks in art, literature, philosophy, and learning, together with the fortunate circumstance of having powerful writers, gives us rather an exaggerated notion of the Greeks, if we attempt to apply a lofty manner and a magnificent culture to the Homeric period. They had a good deal of piratical boldness, and, after the formation of their small states, gave examples of spurts of courage such as that at Marathon and Thermopylae. Yet these evidences were rare exceptions rather than the rule, for even the Spartan, trained on a military basis, seldom evinced any great degree of bravery. Perhaps the gloomy forebodings of the future, characteristic of the Greeks, made them fear death, and consequently caused them to lack in courage. However, this is a disputed point. Pages of the earlier records are full of the sanction of deception of enemies, friends, and strangers. Evidently, there was a low moral sense regarding truth. While the Greek might be loyal to his family and possibly to his tribe, there are many examples of disloyalty to one another, and, in the later development, a disloyalty of one state toward another. Excessive egoism seems to have prevailed, and this principle was extended to the family and local government group. Each group appeared to look out for its own interests, irrespective of the welfare of others. How much a united Greece might have done to have continued the splendors and the service of a magnificent civilization is open to conjecture.