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She was unequal to the task, superbly unequal to it. The destruction of
her army at Syracuse[3] was only the foremost of a series of inevitable
disasters, which left her helpless. After that, Sparta, and then Thebes,
became the leading city of Greece. Athens slowly regained her fighting
strength; her intellectual supremacy she had not lost. Socrates,[4]
greatest of her sons, endeavored to teach a morality higher than earth
had yet received, higher than his contemporaries could grasp. Plato gave
to thought a scientific basis.
[Footnote 3: See _Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse_, page 48.]
[Footnote 4: See _Condemnation and Death of Socrates_, page 87.]
Then Macedonia, a border kingdom of ancient kinship to the Greeks, but
not recognized as belonging among them, began to obtrude herself in
their affairs, and at length won that leadership for which they had all
contended. A hundred and fifty years had elapsed since the Greeks had
stood united against Persia. During all that time their strength had
been turned against themselves.


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