Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/33

I is, then, a City-State that we have to deal with in Greek and Roman history; a State in which the whole life and energy of the people, political, intellectual, religious, is focussed at one point, and that point a city. To understand the life and work of these two peoples, it is indispensable to get a firm grasp of this fact; for their development from first to last was profoundly affected by it, and almost all their contributions to civilisation may be traced to it directly or indirectly.

Now it will not need much reflection to see that a form of State whose most striking feature is city life, where the social, political, and intellectual forces at work in it are concentrated at a single point, will be a simpler problem to handle historically than a State in which these forces are spread over a wide area, and over populations differing from each other in many ways. The was in fact, in most respects though not in all, a more perfect form of social union than the modern State, and its history, if we were more exactly informed about it, would be relatively easier to understand. The difficulties of Greek and Roman history do not lie in the nature of the Greek and Roman form of State, but in the fragmentary character of our knowledge, and in the consequent need of a peculiarly skilful interpretation. And even as it is, it may be doubted whether the study of a comparatively simple organism, even with such drawbacks as these, is not a better introduction to the science