stability of his work. The rest of Hellas, says Thucydides,
undertook the colonisation of Heraclea the more readily, having a
feeling of security now that they saw the Lacedaemonians taking part in
it. The Spartan state appears to us in the dawn of history as a vision
of armed men, irresistible by any other power then existing in the
world. It can hardly be said to have understood at all the rights
or duties of nations to one another, or indeed to have had any moral
principle except patriotism and obedience to commanders. Men were so
trained to act together that they lost the freedom and spontaneity of
human life in cultivating the qualities of the soldier and ruler. The
Spartan state was a composite body in which kings, nobles, citizens,
perioeci, artisans, slaves, had to find a 'modus vivendi' with one
another. All of them were taught some use of arms. The strength of the
family tie was diminished among them by an enforced absence from
home and by common meals. Sparta had no life or growth; no poetry or
tradition of the past; no art, no thought. The Athenians started on
their great career some centuries later, but the Spartans would have
been easily conquered by them, if Athens had not been deficient in the
qualities which constituted the strength (and also the weakness) of her
rival.

The ideal of Athens has been pictured for all time in the speech which
Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles, called the Funeral Oration.
He contrasts the activity and freedom and pleasantness of Athenian
life with the immobility and severe looks and incessant drill of the
Spartans. The citizens of no city were more versatile, or more readily
changed from land to sea or more quickly moved about from place to
place. They 'took their pleasures' merrily, and yet, when the time for
fighting arrived, were not a whit behind the Spartans, who were like men
living in a camp, and, though always keeping guard, were often too late
for the fray. Any foreigner might visit Athens; her ships found a way
to the most distant shores; the riches of the whole earth poured in upon
her. Her citizens had their theatres and festivals; they 'provided their
souls with many relaxations'; yet they were not less manly than the
Spartans or less willing to sacrifice this enjoyable existence for their
country's good. The Athenian was a nobler form of life than that of
their rivals, a life of music as well as of gymnastic, the life of a
citizen as well as of a so