Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/61

 PRESENT GIVEM TO THE PROPHET SJLANUS. $ ing these superior qualities with the political freedom which they enjoy. To hear this young prince expressing such strong admi- ration and envy for Grecian freedom, and such ardent personal preference for it above all the splendor of his own position, was doubtless the most flattering of all compliments which he could pay to the listening citizen-soldiers. That a young Persian prince should be capable of conceiving such a sentiment, is no slight proof of his mental elevation above the level both of his family and of his nation. The natural Persian opinion is ex- pressed by the conversation between Xerxes and Demaratus ] in Herodotus. To Xerxes, the conception of free citizenship, and of orderly, self-sufficing courage planted by a public disci- pline, patriotic as well as equalizing, was not merely repugnant, but incomprehensible. He understood only a master issuing or ders to obedient subjects, and stimulating soldiers to bravery by means of the whip. His descendant Cyrus, on the contrary, had learnt by personal observation to enter into the feeling of personal dignity prevalent in the Greeks around him, based as it was on the conviction that they governed themselves and that there was no man who had any rights of his own over them, that the law was their only master, and that in rendering obedience to it they were working for no one else but for themselves. 2 Cyrus knew where to touch the sentiment of Hellenic honor, so fatally extin- guished after the Greeks lost their political freedom by the hands 1 See Herodot. vii, 102, 103, 209. Compare the observations of the Per sian Achsemenes, c. 236. 2 Herod, vii, 104. Demaratus says to Xerxes, respecting the Lacedse- monians 'E/li}i9epoi yij,p tovref, oil Ttavra ehev&spoi eiai- tireari, yap ci Je(T7r6T7?c, vopof, rbv vrroSei/uaivovai Tro/i/lo) //d/l/lov ij o! crol ere. Again, the historian observes about the Athenians, and their extraordi- nary increase of prowess after having shaken off the despotism of Hippias ( v> 78) &7]?iol (?' oi) /cai>' ev fidvov uMu rcavra^ov, rj larryopir] wf iari %PW<* ts-novSalov el Kal ' 'A.'Brjvalot TVpa.vvevdfi.Evoi (JLEV, ovdafiuv TUV aipeaf -rrepioiKe- OVTUV }]aav ra no^e/nia a/neivovf, aTra/lAa^evrff 6i rvpuvvuv, ftaicpu npiJTOi ijKvovro. A?/Aot uv TavTa, fin Ka.Tex6/j.evoi (J.EV Me^.o/ca/CEeov, (if deairorg khev&epudivruv <5e, avrbf e/cacrrof luvrti npo&vfieeTO epydfra- Compare Menander, Fragm. Incert. CL. ap. Mcincke, Fragr Coinia Graec. vol. iv. p. 268 'E/leviSepof Truf svt detiovhuTat, vofiy Afffiv <5e Jov/lof, Kal vofiu not