THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 367 We must never forget in reading Demosthenes and ^schines, that we are dealing with an impetuous Southern nation in the agony of its last struggle. The politenesses and small generosities of politics are not there. There is no ornamental duelling. The men fight with naked swords, and mean business. Demos- thenes thought of his opponents, not as statesmen who made bad blunders, but as perjured traitors who were selling Greece to a barbarian. They thought him, not, indeed, a traitor — that was impossible — but a malignant and insane person who prevented a peaceful settlement of any issue. The words ' treason ' and * bribe ' were bandied freely about ; but there is hardly any proved case of treason, and none of bribery, unless the Harpalus case can by a stretch of language be called so. There are no treasury scandals in Athens at this time. There is no legal disorder. There is a singular absence of municipal corruption. The Athenians whom Demos- thenes reproaches with self-indulgence, were living at a strain of self-sacrifice and effort which few civilised communities could bear. The wide suspicion of bribery was caused chiefly by the bewilderment of Athens at finding herself in the presence of an enemy far her superior both in material force and in diplomacy. Why was she so incomprehensibly worsted in wars, where she won most of the battles ? Why were her acutest states- men invariably outwitted by a semi-barbarous king ? Somebody must be betraying her! Demosthenes on this point loses all his balance of mind. He lives in a world peopled by imaginary traitors. We hear how he rushed at one Antiphon in the streets, and seized him with his own hands. Happily the jurors did not lose their sanity. There were almost no convictions. It was
