Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/42

18 the ideas of the earlier Romans in relation to their state and their religion. No such literary record exists of the growth and life of any modern State. Of Greek literature there is no need to speak here. From Homer to Herodotus, from Herodotus to Aristotle, and from Aristotle to Plutarch, we have the life of the Greeks, both in their and in their external relations, mirrored in the most exquisite of languages, or made the subject of profound thought.

And this brings us to a third point. We have not only the history of the, but also its philosophy. Its small and compact form, and the very close relation in which the individual stood to it, prompted the inquisitive Greek mind to inquire into its nature. Plato and Aristotle saw that it was impossible to search out and analyse the nature of man, without reference to the form of community in which he lived, and from which he could not free himself. The State was the chief agent in making man's life worth living, and he could not therefore be philosophically treated apart from the State. The study of the thus holds out for us an inducement which the modern State can hardly be said to offer. We have in the Republic and Laws of Plato, and in the Politics of Aristotle, the thoughts of two of the profoundest of all thinkers on the nature of the State they lived in; and we have also at least something of the same kind, though of far less value, in Polybius and Cicero, on the nature and government of the Roman State.