feat of Marathon.
Their case seemed desperate, for there was no Hellene likely to assist
them by land, and at sea they were attacked by more than a thousand
vessels;--their only hope, however slender, was in victory; so they
relied upon themselves and upon the Gods. Their common danger, and
the influence of their ancient constitution, greatly tended to promote
harmony among them. Reverence and fear--that fear which the coward never
knows--made them fight for their altars and their homes, and saved them
from being dispersed all over the world. 'Your words, Athenian, are
worthy of your country.' And you Megillus, who have inherited the
virtues of your ancestors, are worthy to hear them. Let me ask you
to take the moral of my tale. The Persians have lost their liberty
in absolute slavery, and we in absolute freedom. In ancient times the
Athenian people were not the masters, but the servants of the laws. 'Of
what laws?' In the first place, there were laws about music, and the
music was of various kinds: there was one kind which consisted of hymns,
another of lamentations; there was also the paean and the dithyramb,
and the so-called 'laws' (nomoi) or strains, which were played upon the
harp. The regulation of such matters was not left to the whistling and
clapping of the crowd; there was silence while the judges decided, and
the boys, and the audience in general, were kept in order by raps of a
stick. But after a while there arose a new race of poets, men of genius
certainly, however careless of musical truth and propriety, who made
pleasure the only criterion of excellence. That was a test which the
spectators could apply for themselves; the whole audience, instead of
being mute, became vociferous, and a theatrocracy took the place of an
aristocracy. Could the judges have been free, there would have been no
great harm done; a musical democracy would have been well enough--but
conceit has been our ruin. Everybody knows everything, and is ready to
say anything; the age of reverence is gone, and the age of irreverence
and licentiousness has succeeded. 'Most true.' And with this freedom
comes disobedience to rulers, parents, elders,--in the latter days to
the law also; the end returns to the beginning, and the old Titanic
nature reappears--men have no regard for the Gods or for oaths; and the
evils of the human race seem as if they would never cease. Whither are
we running away? Once more we must pull up the argument with bit an