[Sidenote: The leading cities stood aloof from this experiment.] [Sidenote: Athens and the Ætolians] It is most significant that these new and powerful federations were formed outside and apart from the leading cities. Neither Athens nor Sparta, nay, not even Thebes, and hardly even Argos, would condescend to a federation where they should have only a city vote in conjunction with other cities; and so the new trial was deprived both of their advice and of the prestige of their arms and arts. If, for example, both Athens and Thebes, but especially the former, had joined the Ætolian League of wild mountaineers, who had wealth and military power, but no practice in the peaceful discussion and settlement of political questions, they would probably have influenced the counsels of the League for good, and saved it from falling into the hands of unprincipled mercenary chiefs, who regarded border wars as a state of nature, and plunder as a legitimate source of income. But Athens stood sullenly aloof from this powerful organization, remembering always her long-lost primacy, and probably regarding these mountaineers as hardly Hellenes, and as unworthy to rank beside the ancient and educated States, which had once utilized them as mere semi-barbarous mercenaries. And yet the Ætolians were the only Greeks who were able to make a serious and obstinate struggle for their liberties, even against the power of Rome. [Sidenote: or the Achæans.] § 74. But if to have rude Ætolians as co-equal members of a common council would have been too bitter a degradation for Athens, why not ally herself to the civilized and orderly Achæans? For the Achæan cities, though insignificant heretofore, had old traditions, legendary glories; and in later times Sicyon especially had been a leading centre, a chosen home for the fine arts. When Corinth and Argos were forced to join this League, why should Athens stand aloof? Yet here was the inevitable limit, beyond which the Achæan League could never obtain a footing. It stopped with the Isthmus, because no arguments could ever induce Athens to give it her adhesion[178:1]. [Sidenote: Sparta and the Achæans.] Within the Peloponnesus the case was even worse; for here Sparta was ever the active opponent of the Achæan League, and sought by arms or by intrigues to separate cities and to make any primacy but her own impossible. Thus the Leagues had to contend with the sullen refusal or the active opposition of the principal Powers of Greece; and if, in spite of all that, they attained to great and deserved eminence, it only shows how unworthy was the opposition of those States whose narrow patriotism could not rise beyond their own susceptibilities. This it was which made the success of the experiment from the first doubtful. [Sidenote: A larger question.] [Sidenote: What right has a federation to coerce its members?]