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Our Great War and the Great War of the Ancient Greeks
Our Great War and the Great War of the Ancient Greeks Author:Gilbert Murray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: monger, like Aristophanes himself, was "a good European." The Peace-x£-£J4eias-jfailed. The impetus of the war was too great. The natural drift of affairs was... more » in Cleon's direction, and the farther Athens was carried the harder it became for any human wisdom or authority to check the rush of the infuriated herd. And since Nicias was too moderate and high-minded and law- abiding to fight Cleon with his own weapons, he lost hold on the more extreme spirits of his own party; so that at the end of the war the informers had created the very thing they had dreamed about and had turned their ) own lies into truth. There was at last an actual pro-Spartan group; there were real secret societies, real conspiracies; and a party that was ready to join hands with the enemy in order to be delivered from the corrupted and war-maddened mob that governed them. One is tempted in a case like this to pass no judgement on men or policies, but merely record the actual course of history and try to understand the conflicting policies and ideals; instead of judgement, taking refuge in the lacrimae rerum—the eternal pity that springs from the eternal tragedy of human endeavour. When the soldiers of Nicias in Sicily, mad with thirst, pressed on to drink the water, thick with blood and mire, of the little stream where the enemy archers shot them down at leisure, it was not only an army that perished but a nation, and a nation that held the hopes of the world. When we read that immortal praise of Athens which our historian puts into the mouth of Pericles, the city of law and freedom, of simplicity and beauty, the beloved city in whose service men live and die rejoicing as a lover in his mistress, we should notice that the words are spoken in a Funeral Speech. The thing so praised, so beloved, is dead;...« less