Copy 1, Volume 1

The history of the manners and customs of ancient Greece / By J.A. St. John.

  • James Augustus St. John
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the manners and customs of ancient Greece / By J.A. St. John. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/464
    it were in the camp from the cradle to the grave. But, in thus deciding, justice is scarcely done to the character of Athens; for, if the former ex¬ celled in discipline, to the latter belonged, indis¬ putably, the superiority in native courage. Trained or not trained they faced whatever enemy pre¬ sented himself, and won at least as many laurels from Sparta, on the ocean, as the Doric State, in all its wars, ever gathered on land. And, lastly, at Platnea, among which race, among Ionians or Do¬ rians, was most activity manifested ? In whose ranks was found the greatest ardour to engage? Who bore the first brunt of the Median horse, and broke the dreaded shock of that vaunted Asiatic chivalry which the Barbarian hoped would have trampled down with its innumerable hoofs the spirit of Gre¬ cian freedom ? This was effected by the Athenians ; by those gay and seemingly effeminate soldiers, who went forth from their beautiful city curled, per¬ fumed, clad in purple, as to the mimic combats of the theatre. The spirit of their commonwealth, all splendour without and all energy within, urged them to the field. Their cry at the approach of the king was “ Freedom or honourable graves! ” — such as their countrymen had ever been wont to repose in. In fact, the Athenians, under a free government, had learned what it was to live — had imbibed from their education the feeling, that if deprived of such a government, if reduced to bow beneath the yoke of despotism, to die, if the Apostle’s words may without blame be thus applied, would 6. 2