Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/241

 GRECIAN LANDSMEN AND SEAMEN. 223 between them was maritime, so the sea, important, even if we look to Greece proper exclusively, was the sole channel for transmitting ideas and improvements, as well as for maintaining sympathies social, political, religious, and literary throughout these outlying members of the Hellenic aggregate. The ancient philosophers and legislators were deeply im- pressed with the contrast between an inland and a maritime city : in the former, simplicity and uniformity of life, tenacity of ancient habits, and dislike of what is new or foreign, great force of exclusive sympathy, and narrow range both of objects and ideas ; in the latter, variety and novelty of sensations, expansive imagination, toleration, and occasional preference for extraneous customs, greater activity of the individual, and corresponding mutability of the state. This distinction stands prominent in the many comparisons instituted between the Athens of Perikles and the Athens of the earlier times down to Solon. Both Plato and Aristotle dwell upon it emphatically, and the former especially, whose genius conceived the comprehensive scheme of prescribing beforehand and insuring in practice the whole course of individual thought and feeling in his imaginary com- munity, treats maritime communication, if pushed beyond the narrowest limits, as fatal to the success and permanence of any wise scheme of education. Certain it is, that a great difference of character existed between those Greeks who mingled much in maritime affairs, and those who did not. The Arcadian may stand as a type of the pure Grecian landsman, with his rustic and illiterate habits, 1 his diet of sweet chestnuts, barley-cakes, and pork (as contrasted with the fish which formed the chief seasoning for the bread of an Athenian,) his superior courage and endurance, his reverence for Lacedaemonian headship as 1 Hckatscus. Fragm. 'ApKadmbv delirvov. , . .[id&c Kal veia Kpt-a. Herodot i. 66. ftahavr/QayoL uvdpe?. Theocrit. Id. vii. 106. ~K.rjv HEV TO.V&' ipdyf, u Tiuv $'ikt, [1% TI TV iratdef 'hpK.aSiK.ol CK.i7Jkaiaiv inrd x'h.Evpdg re KOI U/J.QVC TaviKa fiacrriffdoiev 5re Kpla TVT&il irapeitj EZ <5' aA/lwf vevcraif narti [lev XP a navf bvvxeaai Aa/cvo/zfvof KvdaaLO, etc. The alteration of Xo, which is obviously out of place, in the scholia on thu passage, to EVIOI, appears unquestionable. ' VOL. II. 10* 150C.