Chapter 6 No.6

Political Theories and Experiments in the Fourth Century B.C.

Literary verdict of the Greeks against democracy 110

Vacillation of modern critics 111

Grote's estimate of Pericles, compared with Plato's 111

The war policy of Pericles 112

His miscalculations 112

He depended on a city population against an army of yeomen 113

Advantages of mercenaries against citizen troops 114

The smaller States necessarily separatists 114

Attempts at federation 115

The second Athenian Confederacy 116

its details; its defects 116

Political theories in the fourth century 117

Greece and Persia 117

Theoretical politics 117

inestimable even to the practical historian 118

Plato 118

Xenophon 118

Aristotle 118

Sparta ever admired but never imitated 119

Practical legislation wiser in Greece than in modern Europe 119

Sparta a model for the theorists 120

A small State preferred 120

Plato's successors 120

Their general agreement; (1) especially on suffrage 121

even though their suffrage was necessarily restricted 122

(2) Education to be a State affair 122

Polybius' astonishment at the Roman disregard of it 123

The practical result in Rome 123

Can a real democracy ever be sufficiently educated? 124

Christianity gives us a new force 124

Formal religion always demanded by the Greeks 125

Real religion the property of exceptional persons 125

Greek views on music; discussed in my Rambles and Studies in Greece 126

Xenophon's ideal 127

Aristotle's ideal 127

Aristotle's Polities ignore Alexander 128

Evidence of the new Politeia 128

Alexander was to all the theorists an incommensurable quantity 129

Mortality of even perfect constitutions 130

Contrast of Greek and modern anticipations 130