WE modern people love the sound of the word "big." We pride ourselves
upon the fact that we belong to the "biggest" country in the world and
possess the "biggest" navy and grow the "biggest" oranges and potatoes,
and we love to live in cities of "millions" of inhabitants and when we
are dead we are buried in the "biggest cemetery of the whole state."
A citizen of ancient Greece, could he have heard us talk, would not have
known what we meant. "Moderation in all things" was the ideal of
his life and mere bulk did not impress him at all. And this love of
moderation was not merely a hollow phrase used upon special occasions:
it influenced the life of the Greeks from the day of their birth to the
hour of their death. It was part of their literature and it made them
build small but perfect temples. It found expression in the clothes
which the men wore and in the rings and the bracelets of their wives. It
followed the crowds that went to the theatre and made them hoot down any
playwright who dared to sin against the iron law of good taste or good
sense.
The Greeks even insisted upon this quality in their politicians and in
their most popular athletes. When a powerful runner came to Sparta and
boasted that he could stand longer on one foot than any other man in
Hellas the people drove him from the city because he prided himself
upon an accomplishment at which he could be beaten by any common goose.
"That is all very well," you will say, "and no doubt it is a great
virtue to care so much for moderation and perfection, but why should
the Greeks have been the only people to develop this quality in olden
times?" For an answer I shall point to the way in which the Greeks
lived.
The people of Egypt or Mesopotamia had been the "subjects" of a
mysterious Supreme Ruler who lived miles and miles away in a dark palace
and who was rarely seen by the masses of the population. The Greeks on
the other hand, were "free citizens" of a hundred independent little
"cities" the largest of which counted fewer inhabitants than a large
modern village. When a peasant who lived in Ur said that he was a
Babylonian he meant that he was one of millions of other people who paid
tribute to the king who at that particular moment happened to be master
of western Asia. But when a Greek said proudly that he was an Athenian
or a Theban he spoke of a small town, which was both his home and his
country and which recognised no master but the will of the people in the
market-place.
To the Greek, his fatherland was the place where he was born; where he
had spent his earliest years playing hide and seek amidst the forbidden
rocks of the Acropolis; where he had grown into manhood with a thousand
other boys and girls, whose nicknames were as familiar to him as those
of your own schoolmates. His Fatherland was the holy soil where his
father and mother lay buried. It was the small house within the high
city-walls where his wife and children lived in safety. It was a
complete world which covered no more than four or five acres of rocky
land. Don't you see how these surroundings must have influenced a man
in everything he did and said and thought? The people of Babylon and
Assyria and Egypt had been part of a vast mob. They had been lost in
the multitude. The Greek on the other hand had never lost touch with
his immediate surroundings. He never ceased to be part of a little
town where everybody knew every one else. He felt that his intelligent
neighbours were watching him. Whatever he did, whether he wrote plays
or made statues out of marble or composed songs, he remembered that his
efforts were going to be judged by all the free-born citizens of his
home-town who knew about such things. This knowledge forced him to
strive after perfection, and perfection, as he had been taught from
childhood, was not possible without moderation.
In this hard school, the Greeks learned to excel in many things. They
created new forms of government and new forms of literature and new
ideals in art which we have never been able to surpass. They performed
these miracles in little villages that covered less ground than four or
five modern city blocks.
And look, what finally happened!
In the fourth century before our era, Alexander of Macedonia conquered
the world. As soon as he had done with fighting, Alexander decided that
he must bestow the benefits of the true Greek genius upon all mankind.
He took it away from the little cities and the little villages and tried
to make it blossom and bear fruit amidst the vast royal residences of
his newly acquired Empire. But the Greeks, removed from the familiar
sight of their own temples, removed from the well-known sounds and
smells of their own crooked streets, at once lost the cheerful joy and
the marvellous sense of moderation which had inspired the work of
their hands and brains while they laboured for the glory of their old
city-states. They became cheap artisans, content with second-rate work.
The day the little city-states of old Hellas lost their independence and
were forced to become part of a big nation, the old Greek spirit died.
And it has been dead ever since.