Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/123

 MILITARY AND CIVIL RETROSPECT. 107 as to illustrate forcibly the general difference between heroic and historical Greece. While in the former, a few splendid figures stand forward, in prominent relief, the remainder being a mere unorganized and ineffective mass, in the latter, these units have been combined into a system, in which every man, officer and soldier, has his assigned place and duty, and the victory, when gained, is the joint work of all. Preeminent individual prowess is indeed materially abridged, if not wholly excluded, no man can do more than maintain his station in the line : l but on the other hand, the grand purposes, aggressive or defensive, for which alone arms are taken up, become more assured and easy, and long-sighted combinations of the general are rendered for the first time practicable, when he has a disciplined body of men to obey him. In tracing the picture of civil society, we have to remark a similar transition we pass from Herakle?, Theseus, Jason, Achilles, to Solon, Pythagoras, and Perikles from "the shepherd of his people," (to use the phrase in which Homer depicts the good side of the heroic king,) to the legislator who introduces, and the statesman who maintains, a preconcerted system by which willing citizens consent to bind themselves. If commanding individual talent is not always to be found, the whole community is so trained as to be able to maintain its course under inferior leaders ; the rights as well as the duties of each citizen being predetermined in the social order, according to principles more or less wisely laid down. The contrast is similar, and the transition equally remarkable, in the civil as in the military picture. In fact, the military organization of the Grecian repub- lics is an element of the greatest importance in respect to the conspicuous part which they have played in human affairs, meric array, or else the close order and conjunct spears of the hoplites had not yet been introduced duriag the second Messenian war. Thiersch and Schneidewin would substitute jra/l/loirec in place of /3uA- Aoj'ref. Euripides (Androm. 695) has a similar expression, yet it does not apply well to hoplites ; for one of the virtues of the hoplite consisted in car- rying his spear steadily : Sopdruv Kivrjou; betokens a disorderly march, and the want of steady courage and self-possession. See the remarks of Bra- fidas upon the ranks of the Athenians under Kleon at Amphipolis (Thucyd. v. C). 1 Euripid. Andromach. 696.