Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/127

 DEFENCE AGAINST AGGRESSION. m to elude tlie inference, which might be deduced from its insignifi- cant size, in disproof of the grandeur of Agamemnon. 1 SucL fortifications supplied a means of defence incomparably superior to those of attack. Indeed, even in historical Greece, and after the invention of battering engines, no city could be taken except by surprise or blockade, or by ruining the country around, and thus depriving the inhabitants of their means of subsistence. And in the two great sieges of the legendary time, Troy and Thebes, the former is captured by the stratagem of the wooden horse, while the latter is evacuated by its citizens, under the warning of the gods, after their defeat in the field. This decided superiority of the means of defence over those of attack, in rude ages, has been one of the grand promotive causes both of the growth of civic life and of the general march of hu- man improvement. It has enabled the progressive portions of mankind not only to maintain their acquisitions against the pre- datory instincts of the ruder and poorer, and to surmount the difficulties of incipient organization, but ultimately, when their organization has been matured, both to acquire predominance, and to uphold it until their own disciplined habits have in part passed to their enemies. The important truth here stated is illustrated not less by the history of ancient Greece, than by that of modern Europe during the Middle Ages. The Homeric chief, combining superior rank with superior force, and ready to rob at every con- venient opportunity, greatly resembles the feudal baron of the Middle Ages, but circumstances absorb him more easily into a city life, and convert the independent potentate into the member of a governing aristocracy. 2 Traffic by sea continued to be beset with 1 Thucyd. i. 10. Kal OTI [iiv Mwcjyvat fj.iK.pbv 7/v, jy el n ~tJv TOTE uij u^io^peuv doKet elvat, etc. 2 Nagelsbach, Homerische Theologie, Abschn. v. sect. 54. Hesiod strongly condemns robbery, Awe uyatf^, upTraf de Kant/, davuroio fioreipa (Opp. Di. 356, comp. 320) ; but the sentiment of the Grecian heroic poetry seems not to go against it, it is looked upon as a natural employment of superior force, AvTo/naroi 6' ayadol deiAuv ixi dalra? iaaiv (Athenae. v. p. 178; comp. Pindar, Fragm. 48, ed. Dissen.) : the long spear, sword, an I breast- plate, of the Kretan Hybreas, constitute his wealth (Skolion 27, p. 877 ; Poet Lyric, ed. Bergk), wherewith he ploughs and reaps, while the n (warlike, who dare not or cannot wield these weapons, fall at his feet, and call him The Great King. The feeling is different in the later age of Demetrius