THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF
" GREECE,

GreEcE learned too late the art of combining for
self-defence. In the war against the vast power of
Persia, Athens stood almost alone. What aid she
got from the rest of Greece was given grudgingly.
Themistocles had to gain the aid of the Grecian
fleet at Salamis by a trick. Philip of Macedonia
conquered Greece by dividing it and fighting it
piecemeal. Only after the close of the Macedonian
power and the beginning of that of Rome did
Grecce begin to learn the art of unity, and then the
lesson came too late, The Achwan League, which
combined the nations of the Peloponnesus into a
federal republic, was in its early days kept busy in
forcing its members to remain true to their pledge.
If it had survived for a century it would probably
have brought all Greece into the League, and have
produced a nation capable of self-defence. But
Rome already had her hand on the throat of
Greece, and political wisdom came to that land too
late to avail.

We have come, indeed, to the end of the story of
Grecian liberty. Twico Greece rose in arms against
the power of Rome, but in the end she fell hopelessly

into the fetters forged for the world by that lord of
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