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194 change. In the Athens of Melos and the Sicilian expedition there was something that roused his aversion far more than did the mere ignorance of a stupid Greek farmer. It was a deeper "amathia," a more unteachable brutality. The men who spoke in the Melian Dialogue were full of what they considered "Sophia." It is likely enough that they conformed carefully to the popular religious prejudices—such politicians always do: but in practice they thought as little of "the gods" as the most pronounced sceptic could wish. They had quite rejected such unprofitable ideals as "pity and charm of words and the generosity of strength," to which the simple man of the old times had always had the door of his heart open. They were haunters of the market-place, mockers at all simplicity, close pursuers of gain and revenge: rejecters, the poet might feel in his bitterness, both of beauty and of God. And the Herd, as represented by Athens, followed them. Like other ideal democrats he turned away from the actual Demos, which surrounded him and howled him down, to a Demos of his imagination, pure and uncorrupted, in which the heart of the natural man should speak. His later plays break out more than