BOOKS.
THE GREEK COMMONWEALTH.*
THE word " commonwealth " is one of the most beautiful words in the world. It suggests, as no other word does, just what a state, whatever its size and whatever its form of government, ought in fact to be, and points out that the true aim of all politics is to secure, both for the social organism as a whole and for each member of it in particular, the fullest measure of weal or well-being in its widest sense. There have been few such "commonwealths," and the term has usually either been applied to some Utopian dream or become, as in our own history, a mere antithesis to "monarchy." Bnt undoubtedly when Mr. Zimmern speaks of "the Greek Com- monwealth " he uses a phrase which corresponds closely with what was the Greek and, above all, the Athenian ideal. Modern states indeed are so huge, modern life and modes of government are so complex, that the ordinary citizen is apt to become a mere voter, who at uncertain intervals drops a paper into a ballot-box, and so to lose that living sense of immediate participation in the work and welfare of the community with- out which there can be no real citizenship. But in Greece, as Mr. Zimmern shows in some admirable chapters, Nature her- self had set her face against all tendency to aggregation. With no rivers to assist intercourse, for the "winter torrent" became in summer "a dry, stony bed with perhaps a trickle in the middle of it," the tiny patches of fertile plain were shut off from one another by mountain barriers, so that the Greeks lived, as it were, "in compartments," and the variety of their dialects still attests the extent of their isolation. To the Greek his own little city-state was a thing apart. " His city was tLe only city, and her ways the only ways; he loved every rock and spring in the folds of her mountains, every shrine and haunt within the circuit of her walls," and he felt with an intense glow of personal patriotism that her life was one with his life and her welfare with his own. At one time, no doubt, there was a danger that these little commonwealths might have become petty princi- palities and each acropolis a little castle from which a " Zeus-born king" levied toll and tribute or led his retainers out to war, as in the old Homeric days, and in the seventh century there were abundant attempts to set up "tyrannies " of some sort. But, happily, the " two voices " of the sea and of the mountains sounded Liberty's " chosen music" too clearly in the Greek ear, and there was, too, another influence which, wherever men are not wholly destitute of courage and capacity, is always alien to servitude. For poor men, if they have spirit, do not easily brook arbitrary princes or give their labour to maintain palaces, and " Hellas," says Herodotus, " and Poverty were ever foster-sisters." The Greeks, indeed, either suffered or enjoyed a poverty which Mr. Zimmern declares to be " incredible." Though they were " the pioneers of civilization" they had almost none of those " material blessings and com- forts" in the possession of which we to-day imagine that civili- zation chiefly consists. They all wore the same simple clothes, consisting of a single outer and a single inner garment, so that if you took away a man's "cloak " he was left with his " coat (xere6v) only The houses of great folk were not much bigger or more comfortable than those of little folk, and " there was no rich man's quarter," for in fact there were no riches. At • The Greek Commonwealth. By A. E. Zimmern, Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Oxford : at the Clarendon Press. [8e. 6d. net.] Sparta men reckoned their wealth by a "handful" (apax/.4i) of six " iron-spits " or " obols " (OSEA01), though " Attic owls " —the phrase will be familiar to coin-collectors—were some- times found nestling under their roof, and in the days when Athens built the Parthenon the 10,000 talents in her public treasury "was probably more than the private wealth of all her citizens put together." Privatus illis census erat brevis, Commune magnum, says Horace of the old Roman state when it was still a true republic (respublica) or "matter of every- body's interest," and it was the same in Greece. What wealth there was belonged chiefly to the state, or, when in individual hands, was treated largely as a public trust. Pericles probably never kept a carriage—how the Automobile Club would have shocked Hellas 1—and though a man might boast of be- longing to " a family which kept a four-in-hand" (obc Tedotatrorp64os) the equipage was only used to maintain the city's credit at Olympia; and among the Athenian citizens, who met every day in the market-place to discuss politics or the last masterpiece of Sophocles, there was no such difference as to-day separates a duke from a labourer or a millionaire from an artisan. Of course there were aristocrats who could trace their pedigree to some god or hero, and who tried to form clubs, cliques, and oligarchies, but as a rule every Greek felt himself about as good as another Greek and twenty times better than a barbarian. In war he fought side by side with his fellow-townsman or was packed close to him in the same trireme ; in peace, living mostly out of doors, he rubbed shoulders with him daily in the street, the theatre, or the assembly, talking to him doubtless with that " complete freedom of speech " which Greek alone ex- presses in a single noun (waphcrta), and under such conditions there naturally springs up a spirit of equality which repudiates distinctions of rank and class.
There is, however, one distinction which Mr. Zimmern has not, we think, made with sufficient clearness. For though the Greeks everywhere had a passionate love of their city and a keen sense of citizenship, it is doubtful whether many of them realized what a commonwealth should be as fully as the Athenians. To call Sparta, for instance, a commonwealth seems to misuse words, for its government was that of a military caste who enjoyed equality themselves, but held in subjection a vast body of dependent-s, on whose labour they subsisted, while we know comparatively little about the other Greek states, and in writing about " the Greek Common- wealth " Mr. Zimmern is really writing about " the Athenian Commonwealth," the character of which was, we imagine, in many ways as exceptional as that of the Athenians themselves. " The average ability of the Athenian race," says Mr. Galion, in words that may well give us pause, " was, on the lowest possible estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own, that is, about as much as our race is above that of the African Negro," and it was largely because of their intellectual superiority that they realized what a commonwealth should be in a manner " to which the world has seen nothing nu- parable before or since." What their conception of such a body was is set out in that " Funeral Speech " in which one of the greatest of statesmen and one of the greatest of historians speak to all after ages with a united and common voice. That speech Mr. Zimmern rightly makes the sure foundation of his whole argument, and examines it with the closest care ; but though we cannot follow him into details there is one point which stands out in it and in the history of Periclean Athens with unforgettable clearness. For the Athenian citizen understood—and it is a lesson which every democracy must learn or perish—that in a true common- wealth every member must not only receive but give. There never were men who gave more to the state than the Athenians. " The rich gave free gifts of money for ships or choruses or monuments; the poor (and they were mostly poor) gave their widow's mite—themselves." There was among them no shirking of public duty or laying on the backs of others the burden that each must himself bear. The army, the navy, the Council, administration, and the work of the law courts claimed regularly, according to Wilamowitz, the personal service of no fewer than one in four of the adult citizens, while the man who held aloof from affairs on the plea that he was " no busybody" was ruthlessly condemned as "good for nothing" (axpeicw). To his city each man felt that he owed all, and in return he gave it freely of bin best, whether it were his efforts, his money, or that "last full measure of devotion" which was his death. It is, if one can forget the slaves, who Mr. Zimmern ingeniously describes as " fellow-workers," an almost ideal picture. " Government of the people, by the people, for the people" seemed to have reached its perfect expression, while during the great half- century that followed Salamis there must have been a general joy and pride in life such as modern democracies seek in vain. An ordinary man might preside in the assembly when Pericles was " thundering and lightening " ; watch Pheidias superintending his work on the Acropolis, or Socrates chiselling his group of the clothed Graces ; see the Antigone played and then vote for its author being made a general; stroll down the street where humble craftsmen were fashion- ing those wonderful vases of which " two exactly identical do not exist," or do a score like things. It must surely have been pleasant to be one of the people in those days; but unhappily even ideal democracies have some day to come face to face with the hard, inevitable laws of economics, and of economics the Athenians knew just nothing. Everything else they knew, but not that. Of finance and "budgeting" they were incapable. They put their money into a box like children and spent it when and how they chose, nobly indeed, so that " the world is still blessing them for what they did with it," but uneconomically, and thereby came their ruin. For they were not a bard-working race; their soil was poor; they did not manufacture much ; and being consequently in want of money they resorted to the simple plan of taking it from other people. After the Persian wars, as is well known, they first afforded their allies the protection of their fleet, asking "a contribution " in return, but afterwards slowly reduced them into subjects and turned their voluntary "contribution " into a forced tribute, which they banked in the temple of Athena and used exactly as they pleased. Mr. Zimmern tries to gloss over the facts, and even heads a chapter on the subject with the paradoxical title "Liberty, or the Rule of Empire" ; but they are undoubted, and when Pericles asserted that it was all done " in the fearless confidence of freedom," and that " the subjects of Athens felt no shame at the indignity of their dependence," he was only trying to conceal the truth. " The 250 dependent communities," of whom Athens had become " the metropolis or mistress," were by no means pleased. The imperial city, no doubt, " policed the seas," secured " free intercourse " throughout the 2Egean, and did other good things for them ; but, as men will do, they preferred freedom and the right to spend their own money, so that when the hour of trial came Athens found herself at once without any friends who could be trusted and without any revenue that was native and her own. In all other respects she had given to the world what might seem the model of a perfect commonwealth, but she had failed to understand that no people can in the end maintain itself otherwise than by the labour of its own hands, and when the Peloponnesian War broke out the brief era of her greatness was at an end for ever.
For the rest we have only most warmly to commend Mr. Zimniern's work to every reader. It is, perhaps, somewhat vague and indefinite in its conclusions, nor is it always possible to agree with them ; but he writes with a knowledge and insight, with a racy -vigour and capacity for shrewd criticism and apt illustration which are exceptional ; while if a reviewer may judge a book by the number of passages which he has marked as noteworthy, this volume will certainly claim the most favourable sentence. There is hardly a page which has not something in it which excites interest, and special praise must be given to the quotations placed at the head of the various chapters. "Your labour only may be sold ; your soul must not " (Ruskin); " With the Greek every handicraft was an art ; with the Romans every art was a handicraft" (Mar- quardt) : these are the quotations prefixed to the chapter on " Craftsmen." They are not any better than many others given elsewhere by Mr. Zimmern, but it would be difficult to find two which would more aptly introduce the particular subject.
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