We may be quite sure of one thing, that the Grecian states never could have stopped the advance of Persia if it had not been for the marvellous courage and discipline of the Spartans, and that the Spartans never could have had this marvellous courage and discipline if it had not been for the remarkable character of their institutions and their government. Their great idea {138} was that the individual man or woman did not matter at all. What mattered was the state--that the state should be powerful, should have good soldiers to defend it and to attack its enemies. It was with that purpose in view that all its laws were made. The Spartans lived not for themselves but for the state. Hardihood, therefore, and courage were what they aimed at in themselves and their children, so that the state might be well served. The Spartan punishments for offences against the laws were fearfully severe. So were the punishments of children by their parents, and for a child to cry or utter a sound under such punishment was regarded as a dreadful disgrace to it. "Spartan fortitude" is a proverbial saying even amongst us to-day. It was training of this kind which made the Spartan troops so steadfast in battle and which gave the Spartans on the whole the leadership over the other states. It was a very noble idea, very self-sacrificing--this of each citizen living not for himself alone but for the state; but these people were not large-minded enough to carry the idea a little farther and see that it would be for the advantage of all Greece if each state could sacrifice its own interests and good for the sake of the whole. They could sacrifice themselves as individuals for Sparta, but they had no idea of sacrificing Sparta for Greece. On the contrary, they were terribly eager to build up the power of Sparta at the cost of Athens or of any other state. They would even ally themselves with the enemy of all Greece, with Persia, in order to do so. The other states were equally selfish about their own state interests, but their individuals had not the same idea of self-sacrifice for the good of the state; {139} and therefore their states were not so powerful as Sparta, nor their soldiers so brave and well disciplined. The Athenians, however, were far more cultivated, better artists, musicians, orators, writers and so on, than the Spartans. The most glorious days of Greece, we may say, reached from 500 B.C. to 350 B.C. I have made it a rule in this story to bother you as little as possible with names, either of places or persons, and only now and then with dates, because too many names and figures always seem to me to confuse a story; but I am going to name now a few of the greatest persons in these glorious days of Greece because they are the persons who have been makers of the world's very best thoughts and best artistic products. [Sidenote: Greek literature]