or example.--Young? Well, yes; I
suspect if there had ever been an Athenian glory before, it was
ages before Troy fell. She plays no great part in the legends of
the former manvantara; Homer has little to say about her. She
had paid tribute at one time to Minos, king of Crete; her
greatness belonged not to the past, but to the future.

As all Greeks admired the Spartans--what we call a 'sneaking'
admiration--so too they admired the Persians; who were gentleman
in a great sense, and in most moral qualities their betters. Who
was _Ho Basileus, The King_ par excellence? Always 'the Great
King, the King of the Persians.' Others were mere kings of
Sparta, or where it might be. And this Great King was a far-way,
tremendous, golden figure, moving in a splendor as of fairy
tales; palaced marvelously, so travelers told, in cities
compared with which even Athens seemed mean. Greek drama sought
its subjects naturally in the remote and grandiose; always in
the myths of prehistory, save once--when Aeschylus found a
kindred atmosphere, and the material he wanted, in the palace of
the Great King. To whom, as a matter of history, not unrecorded
by Herodotus, his great chivalrous barons accorded a splendid
loyalty,--and loyalty is always a thing that lies very near the
heart of Bushido. Most Greeks would cheerfully sell their native
city upon an impulse of chagrin, revenge, or the like. Xerxes'
ships were overladen, and there was a storm; the Persian lords
gaily jumped into the sea to lighten them. Such Samurai action
might not have been impossible to Greeks,--Spartans especially;
but in the main their eyes did not wander far from the main
chance. You will think of many exceptions; but this comes as
near truth, probably, as a generalization may. We should
understand their temperament; quick and sensitive, capable of
inspiration to high deeds; but, en masse, rarely founded on
enduring principles. That jumping into the seas was nothing to
the Persians; they were not sung to it; it was not done in
defense of home, or upon a motive of sudden passion, as hate or
the like; but permanent elements in their character moved them
to it quietly, as to the natural thing to do. But if Greeks
had done it, with what kudos, like Thermopylae, it would have
come down!

They were great magnificoes, very lordly gentlemen, those Persian
nobles; _hijosdalgo,_ as they say in Spain; men of large lives,
splendor and leisure, scorning trade;