Literature and art, too, shared the general decadence, as it ever must be, since they always respond to the dominant ideals of a time and a people. To this general statement the exception must be noted that philosophy, as represented by Plato and Aristotle, and oratory, as represented by a long succession of Attic orators, had developed into higher and better forms. The history of human experience has shown that philosophy often becomes more subtle and more profound in times when men fall away from their ancient high standards, and become shaken in their old beliefs. So oratory attains its perfect flower in periods of the greatest stress and danger, whether from foreign foes or from internal discord. Both these forms of utterance of the active human intellect show, in their highest attainment, the realization of imminent emergency and the effort to point out a way of betterment and safety. Not only the condition of affairs at home was full of portent of coming disaster. The course of events in other parts of Greece and in the barbarian kingdom of Macedon seemed all to be converging to one inevitable result,--the extinction of Hellenic freedom. When a nation or a race becomes unfit to possess longer the most precious of heritages, a free and honorable place among nations, then the time and the occasion and the man will not be long wanting to co-operate with the internal subversive force in consummating the final catastrophe. "If Philip should die," said Demosthenes, "the Athenians would quickly make themselves another Philip." Throughout Greece, mutual jealousy and hatred among the States, each too weak to cope with a strong foreign foe, prevented such united action as might have made the country secure from any barbarian power; and that at a time when it was threatened by an enemy far more formidable than had been Xerxes with all his millions. The Greeks at first entirely underrated the danger from Philip and the Macedonians. They had, up to this time, despised these barbarians. Demosthenes, in the third Philippic, reproaches his countrymen with enduring insult and outrage from a vile barbarian out of Macedon, whence formerly not even a respectable slave could be obtained. It is indeed doubtful whether the world has ever seen a man, placed in a position of great power, more capable of seizing every opportunity and of using every agency, fair or foul, for accomplishing his ambitious purposes, than was Philip of Macedon. The Greeks were most unfortunate in their enemy.