Elements of barbarism
had run uncurbed alongside of intellectual and artistic refinements.
Mingled with high-minded heroes were a set of treacherous Iscariots.
But why, it will naturally be asked, had there not been _hitherto_ some
outbreak of these discordant elements? That question is easily answered,
if we consider that up to this time there had existed certain external
elements, which, by arousing incessantly the patriotic feelings of all
Greece against hostilities from without, had administered an opiate to
the Cerberus of domestic strife. The terrible storm was maturing its
thunderbolts treacherously and in subterranean chambers; but its
mutterings were effectually silenced by the more audible thunderings
that burst across the Aegean from the Persian throne. Treachery was
lulled to sleep, while the nobler sentiment which united Greece against
Asiatic despotism was perpetually stung into activity in the popular
heart, and inspired the utterances of eloquence. Thus it might not
have been, if Greece had first come within hail of Persia through the
ordinary commerce of peace; since, in that case, after receiving from
the latter her treacherous gifts, her voluptuous effeminacies, she would
easily have fallen into the vast net-work that already trammelled all
Asia, and would then, through her own entanglement, include the whole
world. But it was not in peace that they met.
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