"It was the struggle with Xerxes which developed all the latent energies of the Greeks, which intensified their national existence, and which secured for Athens, as the central power on which the scattered forces of the race converged, the intellectual dictatorship of Hellas. It was a struggle of spiritual energy against brute force, of liberty against oppression, of intellectual freedom against superstitious ignorance, of civilization against barbarism; and Athens, who had fought and won this battle of the Spirit--by spirit we mean the greatness of the soul, liberty, intelligence, and everything which raises men above brutes and slaves, and makes them free beneath the arch of heaven--became immediately the recognized impersonation of the spirit itself. Whatever was superb in human nature found its natural home and sphere in Athens. We hear no more of the colonies. All great works of art and literature are now produced in Athens, and it is to Athens that the sages come to teach and to be taught." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets." First Series, p. 19.] * * * * * I. LYRIC POETRY. SIMON'IDES AND PINDAR. The rapid progress made in the cultivation of lyric poetry preceding the Persian wars found its culmination, during those wars, in Simonides of Ceos, the most brilliant period of whose life was spent at Athens; and in Pindar, a native of Thebes, who is considered the greatest lyric poet of all ages. The life of Simonides was a long one, reaching from 556 to 469 B.C. "Coming forward at a time," says MAHAFFY, "when the tyrants had made poetry a matter of culture, and dissociated it from politics, we find him a professional artist, free from all party struggles, alike welcome at the courts of tyrants and among the citizens of free states; he was respected throughout all the Greek world, and knew well how to suit himself, socially and artistically, to his patrons. The great national struggle with Persia gave him the opportunity of becoming the spokesman of the nation in celebrating the glories of the victors and the heroism of the fallen patriots; and this exceptional opportunity made him quite the foremost poet of his day, and decidedly better known and more admired than Pindar, who has so completely eclipsed him in the attention of posterity." [Footnote: "Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p. 207.]