1. The Romans, more than any other people of ancient times, understood how to establish a well ordered state. Respect for order and law among them was very great. The idea of a government with a definite constitution, which the rulers should always respect, and which should be an adequate bulwark to the people against oppression, had never occurred to any of the Asiatic nations. The nearest approach to it among the Greeks was in Sparta; but as their aim was directed, not so much to the general welfare of the state as to training a race of soldiers, their experiment was a failure. The Greeks had a great impatience of subjection; they had no great ambition to rule, but were impulsive, and each state wanted freedom to pursue its own particular fancy. Their exhaustless energy[79] and acute minds were devoted to the pursuit of ideal objects. Even the sober and resolute Spartan put aside every other consideration in order to realize his idea of a well formed, thoroughly trained, and invincible warrior. Weakly and deformed children were destroyed in their infancy, by order of the state. The young women were subjected to the most rigorous physical training, that they might become mothers of hardy children. Physical training was one of the passions of all Greece, originating in their delight in beauty and symmetry of person. Sports that contributed to this were as pleasing to the Greeks as to our modern school-boys. 2. Athens, which most perfectly represented the Grecian mind, esteemed a fine poet, an able writer, a skillful painter or sculptor, as much as an enthusiastic scholar of our day can do. They had a passion for beauty, and their love of liberty was in great part produced by their ardent longing for mental freedom and the gratification of their mental tastes. The worship of their gods was chiefly their admiration for superhuman majesty, sublimity, and beauty, as they conceived them, and their theology was compounded of their thirst for knowledge and their love of the mysterious, the grand, the terrible, and the beautiful. Life was of no value to them, if they could not gratify these instincts, and their tenacity in maintaining their liberties found its inspiration in them. They were a nation of mental enthusiasts. They had no love of conquest for the sake of power. They were invaded by the Persians, and a handful of Greeks conquered its immense hosts with ease, by their intelligence and ardor. It was only when they saw the splendor and wealth of the East, and felt that they could repeat the glorious deeds of their mythic heroes, that they became enthusiastic over the romantic idea of conquering a magnificent empire. It was the mental charm of the undertaking that gave to Alexander his miraculous success.
But the Greeks were not practical. They wanted worldly wisdom. The Lacedemonians of Sparta had no adequate[80] object when they sacrificed almost all that common humanity holds dear, to rear up model soldiers. Their ambition was confined mainly to preserving the headship of their state among the petty republics of Greece; and the resources of all the states were wasted in the effort to preserve a balance of power among the various members of the nation; or in struggles of the more powerful to obtain a leading influence. They had little political wisdom, when the independence of their territories was secured and the governments that restrained them too much from their favorite enthusiasms were abolished. Athens and all Greece admired immensely the wise measures of Solon, when he reformed the government and gave it excellent laws. But they had not the prudence to maintain them. In ten years all was again confusion. Most of their great men who possessed a special genius for government, were abandoned when they showed the most ability for benefitting their country by their wise statesmanship. Pericles alone, who was the most perfect embodiment of Grecian character, preserved his influence to the last; but it was by falling in perfectly with the tone of Grecian feeling, and he laid the foundation of innovations that corrupted and finally overthrew their liberty. He was as little practical and prudent as his countrymen. Beautiful in person, cultivated in mind, possessed of exquisite taste in literature and art, to which he devoted himself with boundless enthusiasm, Greece could always appreciate him. His age was the glory and joy of Greece; but when more homely political virtues were required to preserve his creations and protect this literary and artistic state, the people could not follow them. Their best statesmen were ostracised, banished, or slain, when their practical genius was most needed.
3. Rome was the opposite of this. She had a genius for producing and preserving a constitution, adding to it by slow degrees, maintaining checks and balances that preser............