There is no stronger evidence of their fondness for discussion and for listening to the spoken word than Greek literature itself. The historians are in the habit of stating the case of opposing parties by harangues which they put into the mouth of a representative of each. Greek poetry consists in a great measure of dialogue. Philosophy was chiefly developed by means of oral discussion. Comedy, even after it was no longer represented on the stage, still appears as dialogue and not in the usual form of the satire. Among its richest legacies to posterity is its oratory, and in it we have the spoken word in its most effective form; but it still represents words rather than deeds, and belongs for the most part to the declining age of Greece. A solitary thinker like Kant was wholly foreign to Greek ideas. So persistently has this trait remained a characteristic of the Hellenes that many of their best friends deplore their fondness for petty politics; their sleepless anxiety to assist in the management of the government instead of turning their attention to bettering their material condition by a steady devotion to private business. Many of the rich and well-to-do Greeks live outside the kingdom of Greece where their lingual activity is circumscribed and they are compelled by circumstances to turn their energies into more profitable channels. Rarely has a man, distinguished for eloquence alone, profoundly influenced the course of human events. Contemporaries are unanimous in ascribing to Julius Caesar oratorical gifts of the highest order; but he preferred to make his mark as a doer of deeds rather than as a maker of phrases.
In Rome the economic conditions were somewhat different from those prevailing in Greece and the East, yet Rome was not a commercial state. It was founded on military power, extended by valor and endurance in war, and when there were no more worlds to conquer, the forces that had been turned against external enemies began to be turned against herself. Rome was rich while she had other countries to plunder; when this was no longer possible her decay began. And these countries, by which we mean all the provinces outside of the city, were rich so long as the fertility of their soil continued and their mines were productive. That Rome’s moral decline antedated her economic retrogression by centuries is familiar to every reader of ancient history, but it is only the latter that we are concerned with here.