confederacy under the banners of Athens which fought the great and decisive battle of Chæronea. {p72}
It is true the Grecian wars are regarded by historians as wars of emulation rather than of politics, and each state seems to have had more in view the honour of leading the rest than any well-grounded hopes of authority and dominion. If we consider, indeed, the small number of inhabitants in any one republic compared to the whole, the great difficulty of forming sieges in those times, and the extraordinary bravery and discipline of every freeman among that noble people, we shall conclude that the balance of power was of itself sufficiently secured in Greece, and needed not to be guarded with that caution which may be requisite in other ages. But whether we ascribe the shifting sides in all the Grecian republics to jealous emulation or cautious politics, the effects were alike, and every prevailing power was sure to meet with a confederacy against it, and that often composed of its former friends and allies.
The same principle—call it envy or prudence—which produced the ostracism of Athens and petalism of Syracuse, and expelled every citizen whose fame or power overtopped the rest—the same principle, I say, naturally discovered itself in foreign politics, and soon raised enemies to the leading state, however moderate in the exercise of its authority.
The Persian monarch was really, in his force, a petty prince compared to the Grecian republics, and therefore it behoved him, from views of safety more than from emulation, to interest himself in their quarrels, and to support the weaker side in every contest. This was the advice given by Alcibiades to Tissaphernes, and it prolonged near a century the date of the Persian empire; till the neglect of it for a moment, after the first appearance of the aspiring genius of Philip, brought that lofty and frail edifice to the ground with a rapidity of which there are few instances in the history of mankind.