Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/224

 202 HISTORY OF GREECE. to grant universal autonomy. She had indeed promised it ; but we might pardon a departure from specific performance, had she exchanged the boon for one far greater, which it was within her reasonable power, at the end of 405 B. c., to confer. That universal town autonomy, towards which the Grecian instinct tended, though immeasurably better than universal subjection, was yet accompa- nied by much internal discord, and by the still more formidable evil of helplessness against any efficient foreign enemy. To en- sure to the Hellenic world external safety as well as internal concord, it was not a new empire which was wanted, but a new political combination on equitable and comprehensive principles ; divesting each town of a portion of its autonomy, and creating a common authority, responsible to all, for certain definite controlling purposes. If ever a tolerable federative system would have been practicable in Greece, it was after the battle of JEgospotami. The Athenian empire, which, with all its defects, I believe to have been much better for the subject-cities than universal autonomy would have been, had already removed many difficulties, and shown that combined and systematic action of the maritime Grecian world was no impossibility. Sparta might now have substituted herself for Athens, not as heir to the imperial power, but as presi- dent and executive agent of a new Confederacy of Delos, reviving the equal, comprehensive, and liberal principles, on which that confederacy had first been organized. It is true that sixty years before, the constituent members of the original synod at Delos had shown themselves insensible to its ealue. As soon as the pressing alarm from Persia had passed over, some had discontinued sending deputies, others had disobeyed requisitions, others again had bought off their obligations, and for- feited their rights as autonomous and voting members, by pecu- niary bargain with Athens ; who, being obliged by the duties of her presidency to enforce obedience to the Synod against all reluc- tant members, made successively many enemies, and was gradually converted, almost without her own seeking, from President into Emperor, as the only means of obviating the total dissolution of the Confederacy. But though such untoward circumstances had hap- pened before, it does not follow that they would now have happened again, jissuming the same experiment to have been retried by Sparta, with manifest sincerity of purpose and tolerable