Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/37

I of States in general, and to serve as a rough, though useful, test of their power of resistance, as well as of their power of cohesion.

It may be doubted, however, whether any modern State has realised the force of these various ties in the same degree as did the City-States of ancient Greece and Italy. The city, in which was their heart and life, could exert over the citizens a more powerful influence than a modern country, for it was capable of being taken in at a glance both by eye and mind, like Rome from the Janiculan Hill:

The delight of the Greek poets in the cities they celebrate, whether they are their own homes, or those of their patrons, arises from this feeling of civic patriotism much more than from the enjoyment of natural beauty in and for itself. In regard to the tie of race, the citizens, though not always the whole number of inhabitants, were homogeneous and spoke the same language; and this meant more than it does now. It meant not only a binding connection by descent, but one by religion also; for to believe that you and your fellow-citizens were descended from the same stock implied necessarily that you shared the same worship. The unifying power of religion too, as has often been shown, was itself so strong and irresistible as to be almost beyond the comprehension of a modern unfamiliar with the life of the ancient world. The gods of the city were not only its patrons and protectors; they were looked on as actually inhabitants of it, who