leagues of this period are the Aetolian and the Achaean. Both had existed in the 4th century, but the latter, which had been dissolved shortly before the beginning of the 3rd century, becomes important only after its restoration in 280 B.C., about which date the former, too, first begins to attract notice. The interest of federalism lies in the fact that it marks an advance beyond the conception of the city-state. It is an attempt to solve the problem which the Athenian empire failed to solve, the reconciliation of the claims of local autonomy with those of national union. The federal leagues of the 3rd century possess a further interest for the modern world, in that there can be traced in their constitutions a nearer approach to a representative system than is found elsewhere in Greek experience. A genuine representative system, it is true, was never developed in any Greek polity. What we find in the leagues is a sort of compromise between the principle of a primary assembly and the principle of a representative chamber. In both leagues the nominal sovereign was a primary assembly, in which every individual citizen had the right to vote. In both of them, however, the real power lay with a council (βουλή) composed of members representative of each of the component states.[1]
The real interest of this period, however, is to be looked for elsewhere than in Greece itself. Alexander’s career is one of the turning-points in history. He is one of the few to whom it has been given to modify the whole future of the human race. He originated two forces which Alexander’s empire. have profoundly affected the development of civilization. He created Hellenism, and he created for the western world the monarchical ideal. Greece had produced personal rulers of ability, or even of genius; but to the greatest of these, to Peisistratus, to Dionysius, even to Jason of Pherae, there clung the fatal taint of illegitimacy. As yet no ruler had succeeded in making the person of the monarch respectable. Alexander made it sacred. From him is derived, for the West, that “divinity that doth hedge a king.” And in creating Hellenism he created, for the first time, a common type of civilization, with a common language, literature and art, as well as a common form of political organization. In Asia Minor he was content to reinforce the existing Hellenic elements (cf. the case of Side, Arrian, Anabasis, i. 26. 4). In the rest of the East his instrument of hellenization was the polis. He is said to have founded no less than seventy cities, destined to become centres of Greek influence; and the great majority of these were in lands in which city-life was almost unknown. In this respect his example was emulated by his successors. The eastern provinces were soon lost, though Greek influences lingered on even in Bactria and across the Indus. It was only the regions lying to the west of the Euphrates that were effectively hellenized, and the permanence of this result was largely due to the policy of Rome. But after all deductions have been made, the great fact remains that for many centuries after Alexander’s death Greek was the language of literature and religion, of commerce and of administration throughout the Nearer East. Alexander had created a universal empire as well as a universal culture. His empire perished at his death, but its central idea survived—that of the municipal freedom of the Greek polis within the framework of an imperial system. Hellenistic civilization may appear degenerate when compared with Hellenic; when compared with the civilizations which it superseded in non-Hellenic lands, it marks an unquestionable advance. (For the history of Greek civilization in the East, see Hellenism.) Greece left her mark upon the civilization of the West as well as upon that of the East, but the process by which her influence was diffused was essentially different. In the East Hellenism came in the train of the conqueror, and Rome was content to build upon the foundations laid by Alexander. In the West Greek influences were diffused by the Roman conquest of Greece. It was through the ascendancy which Greek literature, philosophy and art acquired over the Roman mind that Greek culture penetrated to the nations of western Europe. The civilization of the East remained Greek. The civilization of the West became and remained Latin, but it was a Latin civilization that was saturated with Greek influences. The ultimate division, both of the empire and the church, into two halves, finds its explanation in this original difference of culture.
Ancient Authorities.—(I.) For the earliest periods of Greek history, the so-called Minoan and Mycenaean, the evidence is purely archaeological. It is sufficient here to refer to the article Aegean Civilization. For the next period, the Heroic or Homeric Age, the evidence is derived from the poems of Homer. In any estimate of the value of these poems as historical evidence, much will depend upon the view taken of the authorship, age and unity of the poems. For a full discussion of these questions see Homer. It cannot be questioned that the poems are evidence for the existence of a period in the history of the Greek race, which differed from later periods in political and social, military and economic conditions. But here agreement ends. If, as is generally held by German critics, the poems are not earlier than the 9th century, if they contain large interpolations of considerably later date and if they are Ionian in origin, the authority of the poems becomes comparatively slight. The existence of different strata in the poems will imply the existence of inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence; nor will the evidence be that of a contemporary. It will also follow that the picture of the heroic age contained in the poems is an idealized one. The more extreme critics, e.g. Beloch, deny that the poems are evidence even for the existence of a pre-Dorian epoch. If, on the other hand, the poems are assigned to the 11th or 12th century, to a Peloponnesian writer, and to a period anterior to the Dorian Invasion and the colonization of Asia Minor (this is the view of the late Dr D. B. Munro), the evidence becomes that of a contemporary, and the authority of the poems for the distribution of races and tribes in the Heroic Age, as well as for the social and political conditions of the poet’s time, would be conclusive. Homer recognizes no Dorians in Greece, except in Crete (see Odyssey, xix. 177), and no Greek colonies in Asia Minor. Only two explanations are possible. Either there is deliberate archaism in the poems, or else they are earlier in date than the Dorian Invasion and the colonization of Asia Minor.
II. For the period that extends from the end of the Heroic Age to the end of the Peloponnesian War[2] the two principal authorities are Herodotus and Thucydides. Not only have the other historical works which treated of this period perished (those at least whose date is earlier than Herodotus. the Christian era), but their authority was secondary and their material chiefly derived from these two writers. In one respect then this period of Greek history stands alone. Indeed, it might be said, with hardly an exaggeration, that there is nothing like it elsewhere in history. Almost our sole authorities are two writers of unique genius, and they are writers whose works have come down to us intact. For the period which ends with the repulse of the Persian invasion our authority is Herodotus. For the period which extends from 478 to 411 we are dependent upon Thucydides’. In each case, however, a distinction must be drawn. The Persian Wars form the proper subject of Herodotus’s work; the Peloponnesian War is the subject of Thucydides. The interval between the two wars is merely sketched by Thucydides; while of the period anterior to the conflicts of the Greek with the Persian, Herodotus does not attempt either a complete or a continuous narrative. His references to it are episodical and accidental. Hence our knowledge of the Persian Wars and of the Peloponnesian War is widely different in character from our knowledge of the rest of this period. In the history of these wars the lacunae are few; in the rest of the history they are alike frequent and serious. In the history, therefore, of the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars little is to be learnt from the secondary sources. Elsewhere, especially in the interval between the two wars, they become relatively important.
In estimating the authority of Herodotus (q.v.) we must be
