were poor
and in humble circumstances, and humane even towards their enemies;
jealous of their liberties, and keeping even their rulers in awe. In
regard to their intellectual traits, he affirms their minds were not
formed for laborious research, and though they seized a subject as it
were by intuition, yet wanted patience and perseverance for a thorough
examination of all its bearings. "An observation," says the writer of
the article on "_Attica_," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "more
superficial in itself, and arguing a greater ignorance of the Athenians,
can not easily be imagined." Plutarch lived more than three hundred
years after the palmy days of the Athenian Demos had passed away. He was
a Boeotian by birth, not an Attic, and more of a Roman than a Greek in
all his sympathies. We are tempted to regard him as writing under the
influence of prejudice, if not of envy. He was scarcely reliable as a
biographer, and as materials for history his "Parallel Lives" have been
pronounced "not altogether trustworthy."[30]

[Footnote 29: "De Praecept."]

[Footnote 30: _Encyc. of Biography_, art. "Plutarch."]

That the Athenians were remarkable for the ardor and vivacity of their
temperament,--that they were liable to sudden gusts of passion,--that
they were inconstant in their affections, intolerant of dictation,
impatient of control, and hasty to resent every assumption of
superiority,--that they were pleased with flattery, and too ready to
lend a willing ear to the adulation of the demagogue,--and that they
were impetuous and brave, yet liable to be excessively elated by
success, and depressed by misfortune, we may readily believe, because
such traits of character are in perfect harmony with all the facts and
conclusions already presented. Such characteristics were the natural
product of the warm and genial sunlight, the elastic bracing air, the
ethereal skies, the glorious mountain scenery, and the elaborate
blending of sea and land, so peculiar to Greece and the whole of
Southern Europe.[31] These characteristics were shared in a greater or
less degree by all the nations of Southern Europe in ancient times, and
they are still distinctive traits in the Frenchman, the Italian, and the
modern Greek.[32]

[Footnote 31: "As the skies of Hellas surpassed nearly all other
climates in brightness and elasticity, so, also, had nature dealt most
lovingly with the inhabitants of this land. Throughout the whole being
of the Gre