The strength of Greek and Roman oligarchies, on the other hand, lay in precisely this _morale_, or solidarity of interest. Their small size and racial homogeneity brought the ruler into direct relations with a constituency which was clearly conscious of its purpose and held him closely to it. So even where the kingship lingered on as a form, this polity was virtually a compact self-governing community. The benefits of government, to which every other interest was harshly subordinated, were still judgment and military prowess. But these benefits were effectually guaranteed; and the sacrifices which they required became a code of honor, both to be praised and gloried in as parts of happiness. Those who think that the Spartans felt their discipline to be essentially a hardship should read the song of Tyrtaeus, {155} which they recited in their tents on the eve of battle: With spirit let us fight for this land, and for our children die, being no longer chary of our lives. Fight, then, young men, standing fast one by another, nor be beginners of cowardly flight or fear. But rouse a great and valiant spirit in your breasts, and love not life when ye contend with men. And the elders, whose limbs are no longer active, the old desert not or forsake. For surely this were shameful, that fallen amid the foremost champions, in front of the youths, an older man should lie low, having his head now white and his beard hoary, breathing out a valiant spirit in the dust. . . . Yet all this befits the young while he enjoys the brilliant bloom of youth. To mortal men and women he is lovely to look upon, whilst he lives; and noble when he has fallen in the foremost ranks.[8] But the cost is none the less heavy because it is not felt. In the first place, there was the cost untold to those whom the oligarchy held in subjection, a hundred thousand Messenians and twice as many Helots. Their unequal participation in the benefits of government, necessary though it may have been, lent instability to the whole polity. It was the menace of their resentment that forced upon their rulers a policy of perpetual vigilance and military discipline. And in the second place, there was the cost to the Spartan himself of attaining to a physical efficiency equal to that of ten Helots. {156} In the rival polity of Athens, the first of these abuses is only in a measure corrected. The liberal extension of the privileges of citizenship is the achievement of a later age. But the democracy of Athens did demonstrate the internal wastefulness of a polity dominated by purely military aims. The classic representation of this protest against sacrificing individual taste and capacity, together with all growth and abundance in the arts of peace, to the harsh rigors and passive obedience of a soldier's life, is to be found in Thucydides. In the funeral oration attributed to Pericles there is this account of the superiority of Athenian institutions: