n his "Alexander the
Great," led off with this theory, the best writers upon Greek history
have gradually adopted it, deserting Grote more and more. Droysen went
too far. With him Alexander was the veritable demigod whom he sottishly
decreed that his subjects should see in him. Droysen, of course, has too
little respect for Demosthenes's policy. Victor Duruy is the only late
writer of note who still blows the trumpet for our old orator as a
statesman. He says that "the result of the Macedonian dominion was the
death of European Greece," and he calls it the immortal glory of
Demosthenes to have perceived this; yet even he admits that "the
civilization of the world gained" by the Macedonian conquest, and hence,
after all, places himself, "from the point of view of the world's
history, on the side of Philip and his son." The tendency of writers
upon this period is thus to exalt the man with a great national policy
in his head though with a sword in his hand, at the expense of him who,
never so honestly, dinned the populace with his high-sounding pleas for
an obstructive course.

We are learning that republicanism or democracy, whichever one pleases
to call it, was in ancient times a very different thing from aught that
now exists under either name. The various republics of Greece and the
republic of Rome were nothing but oligarchies, often atrociously
tyrannical. Even at their best estate the rights of individuals in them,
of their citizens even, were far less perfectly guarded than in some
pretty absolute monarchies of later times.

"The Athenian imperial democracy was no popular government. In the first
place there was no such thing as representation in their constitution.
Those only had votes who could come and give them at the general
assembly, and they did so at once upon the conclusion of the debate.
There was no Second Chamber or Higher Council to revise or delay their
decisions, no crown; no High Court of Appeal to settle claims against
the state. The body of Athenian citizens formed the assembly. Sections
of this body formed the jury to try cases of violation of the
constitution either in act or in the proposal of new laws.

"The result was that all outlying provinces, even had they obtained
votes, were without a voice in the government. But as a matter of fact
they had no votes, for the states which became subject to Athens were
merely tributary; and nothing was further from the ideas of the
Athenians than to