238 Outlines of European History Egypt continued to be a permanent force exerting a steady pressure upon the life of the Mediterranean world, in commerce, in forms of government, in customs and usages, in art, literature, and religion. This pressure resulted in many ways in the slow orientalization of the Mediterranean world. When Christianity issued from Palestine, therefore, as we shall see (see p. 300), it found itself but one among many other influences from the Orient which were passing westward. Thus while Greek civili- zation, with its language, its art, its literature, its theaters and gymnasiums, was Hellenizing the Orient, the Orient in the same way was exercising a powerful influence on the West and was orientalizing the Mediterranean world. Disappear- In this process let us not fail to notice that the Hellenic civi- citkenship^ lization was on the whole the loser. In the Hellenistic states of the East there was no such thing as national citizenship. Herein they resembled the earlier Orient. Where citizenship existed it was that of a city-state, and implied no rights of the city-citizen in the affairs of the great nation or empire of which the city-state was a part. It was as if a citizen of Chicago might vote at the election of a mayor of the city but had no right to vote at the election of a President of the United States. There was not even a name for the empire of the Seleucids, and their subjects, wherever they went, bore the names of their home cities or countries.^ The conception of " native land " in the national sense was wanting, and patriotism did not exist. The citizen-soldier who defended his fatherland had long ago given way, even in Greece, to the professional soldier who came from abroad and fought for hire. The Greek no longer stood weapon in hand ready to defend his home and his community against every assault. The patriotic sense of responsibility for the wel- fare of the state which he loved, and the fine moral earnestness which this responsibility roused, no longer animated the Greek mind nor quickened it to the loftiest achievements in politics, in art, in architecture, in literature, and in original thought. 1 It was as if the citizens of the United States were termed Bostonians, New Yorkers, Philadelphians, Chicagoans, etc.
