Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/521

 CLOSE OF GRECIAN HISTORY. 489 refinements of Hellenism, in this remote and little-uotlced city, form an important addition to the picture of Hellas as a whok!, — prior to ils days of subjection, — which it has been the purpose of this history to present. I have now brought down the history of Greece to the point of time marked out in the Preface to my First Volume — the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander — the epoch, from whence dates not only the extinction of Grecian political freedom and self-action, but also the decay of produc- tive genius, and the debasement of that consummate literary and rhetorical excellence which the fourth century b. c. had seen exhibited in Plato and Demosthenes.^ The contents of this last Volume indicate but too clearly that Greece as a separate subject of history no longer exists ; for one full half of it is employed in depicting Alexander and his conquests — aypiov alxfirjrr^v, Kpare- pbv fjLya-Twpa ^oySoto^ — that Non- Hellenic conqueror into whose vast possesions the Greeks are absorbed, with their intellectual brightness bedimmed, their spirit broken, and half their virtue taken away by Zeus — the melancholy emasculation inflicted (according to Homer) upon victims overtaken by the day of slavery.* One branch of intellectual energy there was, and one alone, which continued to flourish, comparatively little impaired, under the preponderance of the Macedonian sword — the spirit of spec- ulation and philosophy. During the century which we have 1 How marked that degradation was, may be seen attested by Dionysius of Halikarnassus, De Antiquis Oratoribus, pp. 445, 446, Reiske — ^i' yap «5^ TOlC Tpi) TjfLUD ;i'pOV0<f T/ fllv Upxaitt Kal <pl?i6aO(pOC {)J}TOpLKJj TZpOT7Tl2,aKl(o- uivTj Kai 6etvac v(3peig virofiivovaa KaTeXvero, up^afiivrj fxiv and rf/g 'A?i,e^- avSpov Tov MukeSovo; Te^evTTJc innveli' Kal napaiveaOat kut' oXtyov, stvI Je r^f Kai?' J/uag rjTiiKiag [iiKpov Serjaaaa eIq Ti7i.og rjoav'iadai. Compare Dio- nys. De Composit. Verbor. p. 29, 30, Reisk. ; and Westcrmann, Geschichtj der Griechischen Beredtsamkcit, s. 75-77. Tiftiav yap r' uper^g uTroaivvrai Evpvoira Zft)f uvipog, sir'' uv fiiv Kara dov?ii:v f/fiap fAyaiv.
 * Horn. Iliad, vi. 97. ' Horn. Odyss. xvii. 322.—