Note 432 — ON AIRS, WATERS, AND PLACES.

The best practical proof of the justness of our author’s reflections in this place is the result of the battle of Salamis; and the noblest intellectual monument which ever the wit of man has raised to the triumph of freedom is the Persæ of Æschylus, in celebration of that event. A single line, descriptive of the Greeks, is sufficient to account for their superiority to the Asiatics:

None seem to have felt the force of this great truth so much as the Persian despots themselves, or to have estimated the effects of civil liberty higher than they did. The younger Cyrus, before the battle of Cynaxa, addresses his Grecian soldiers in the following memorable words: Ὦ ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, οὐκ ἀνθρώπων ἀπορῶν βαρβάρων συμμάχους ἡμᾶς ἄγω, ἀλλὰ νομίζων ἀμείνονας καὶ κρείττους πολλπῶν βαρβάρων ὑμᾶς εἶναι διὰ τοῦτο προσέλαβον ὅπως οὖν ἔσεσθε ἄνδρες ἄξιοι τῆς ἐλευθερίας, ἧς κέκτησθε, καὶ ὑπὲρ ἧς ὑμᾶς ἐγὼ εὐδαιμονίζω· εὖ γὰρ ἴστε, ὅτι τὴν ἐλευθερίαν ἑλοίμην ἂν ἀντὶ ὧν ἔχω πάντων καὶ ἄλλων πολλαπλασίων.—Anab., i., 7. Such being the established opinions of the intelligent portion of mankind in the days of Hippocrates, the sentiment here expressed would then be regarded as a self-evident truth. Plato, indeed, modifies this opinion in so far when he holds despotism to be the consequence and not the cause of servility.—De Repub., viii.