Note (return) — Chapter I

The peculiar configuration of the territory of Greece, its forms of relief, "so like, in many respects, to Switzerland," could not fail to exert a powerful influence on the character and destiny of its people. Its inclosing mountains materially increased their defensive power, and, at the same time, inspired them with the love of liberty. Those mountains, as we have seen, so unique in their distribution, were natural barriers against the invasion of foreign nations, and they rendered each separate community secure against the encroachments of the rest. The pass of Thermopylæ, between Thessaly and Phocis, that of Cithæron, between Bœotia and Attica; and the mountain ranges of Oneion and Geraneia, along the Isthmus of Corinth, were positions which could be defended against any force of invaders. This signal peculiarity in the forms of relief protected each section of the Greeks from being conquered, and at the same time maintained their separate autonomy. The separate states of Greece lived, as it were, in the presence of each other, and at the same time resisted all influences and all efforts towards a coalescence with each other, until the time of Alexander. Their country, a word of indefinite meaning to the Asiatic, conveyed to them as definite an idea as that of their own homes. Its whole landscape, with all its historic associations, its glorious monuments of heroic deeds, were perpetually present to their eyes. Thus their patriotism, concentrated within a narrow sphere, and kept alive by the sense of their individual importance, their democratic spirit, and their struggles with surrounding communities to maintain their independence, became a strong and ruling passion. Their geographical surroundings had, therefore, a powerful influence upon their political institutions. Conquest, which forces nations of different habits, characters, and languages into unity, is at last the parent of degrading servitude. These nations are only held together, as in the Roman empire, by the iron hand of military power. The despot, surrounded by a foreign soldiery, appears in the conquered provinces, simply to enforce tribute, and compel obedience to his arbitrary will. But the small Greek communities, protected by the barriers of their seas and gulfs and mountains, escaped, for centuries, this evil destiny. The people, united by identity of language and manners and religion, by common interest and facile intercommunication, could readily combine to resist the invasions of foreign nations, as well as the encroachments of their own rulers. And they were able to easily model their own government according to their own necessities and circumstances and common interests, and to make the end for which it existed the sole measure of the powers it was permitted to wield. 20