political organization. Of these nations, the Greeks, through
their vicinity to Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt, were among
the very foremost in acquiring the principles and habits of
civilized life; and they also at once imparted a new and wholly
original stamp on all which they received. Thus, in their
religion they received from foreign settlers the names of all
their deities and many of their rites, but they discarded the
loathsome monstrosities of the Nile, the Orontes, and the
Ganges;--they nationalized their creed; and their own poets
created their beautiful mythology. No sacerdotal caste ever
existed in Greece. So, in their governments they lived long
under hereditary kings, but never endured the permanent
establishment of absolute monarchy. Their early kings were
constitutional rulers, governing with defined prerogatives. And
long before the Persian invasion the kingly form of government
had given way in almost all the Greek states to republican
institutions, presenting infinite varieties of the balancing or
the alternate predominance of the oligarchical and democratical
principles. In literature and science the Greek intellect
followed no beaten track, and acknowledged no limitary rules.
The Greeks thought their subjects boldly out; and the novelty of
a speculation invested it in their minds with interest, and not
with criminality. Versatile, restless, enterprising and self-
confident, the Greeks presented the most striking contrast to the
habitual quietude and submissiveness of the Orientals. And, of
all the Greeks, the Athenians exhibited these national
characteristics in the strongest degree. This spirit of activity
and daring, joined to a generous sympathy for the fate of their
fellow-Greeks in Asia, had led them to join in the last Ionian
war; and now, mingling with their abhorrence of the usurping