Note 496 — Chapter X · THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF HELLAS: AN IDEAL OF SELF-REALIZATION

Études sur l’histoire de humanité (1880), t. ii, p. 105. Because of its long exemption from the ravages of war, Elis was more populous and wealthy than any other district of the Peloponnesus (Polyb. iv. 73, 74). The contrast presented by Greece in general constituted an impressive commentary on the fatal consequences for Greek civilization of the war system. Speaking of the depopulation which incessant wars had caused over almost all the world he knew, Plutarch says of Greece, a land once “strong in cities,” that the whole country could raise barely three thousand men, the same number that the single city of Megara sent to Platæa at the time of the Persian war (Philosophical Essays, “On the Cessation of Oracles,” sec. viii).