CHAP. XLI - PHILIP OF MACEDON

Summary

To an enlightened and patriotic Greek the prospects of his country must have appeared more gloomy after the battle of Mantinea than at any previous epoch. The most desirable of all conditions for Greece would have been, to be united in a confederacy, strong enough to prevent intestine warfare among its members, and so constituted as to guard against all unnecessary encroachment on their independence. This was the mark toward which the aims of the nation would have been most wisely directed. But though the Amphictyonies, particularly that of Delphi, afforded not only a hint, but a ground-work, which might have been enlarged and adapted to this purpose: though the Lycian colonies exhibited an admirable example of a similar union: though the Persian invasion held out a strong motive, and a fair opportunity for such an undertaking; it is doubtful whether the thought had ever occurred to a single Greek statesman; and it is probable that, if it had suggested itself, it would have been rejected as a chimera. The next good to this would have been the supremacy of some Grecian state, powerful enough to enforce peace, but not to crush liberty. Nearly such had been that which Sparta exercised over the Peloponnesian confederacy before the Persian war. And, for a few years after, the division of power between Sparta and Athens might have seemed to promise the attainment of the blessing, in a different form indeed, but in one which afforded better security for freedom than could have been enjoyed under the sway of either alone.