Such in briefest outline is the historical content of the Great Century, and such is the story of the first of European empires. What bearing has it upon our original inquiry as to the causes of the artistic and intellectual brilliance of the fifth century? We have, to start with, a people singularly endowed by Nature with quick intelligence and a marvellous sense of form. The Persian wars and the rise of Athens had added to these natural advantages a passion of pride in their city and an almost fanatical belief in her mission. Thus all her citizens were eager to do their utmost to increase the beauty and honour of the violet-crowned city and her virgin goddess. A city-state makes a much more direct appeal to the emotion of patriotism than the large modern territorial state. Lastly, there was freedom in Athens such as no state in history has ever enjoyed, freedom in thought as well as in politics. This has been denied, but the attacks made upon Pheidias and Pericles, and upon the philosophers Anaxagoras and Socrates, may all be explained on political grounds. We have only to look at the plays of Aristophanes to see what amazing liberty of speech prevailed at Athens. Moreover, it was a privileged and educated equality. We must never forget the thousands of slaves whose cruel toil in mine and factory rendered this brilliant society possible at such an early stage in history. It must not be forgotten that Greek liberty and communism was that of an aristocracy, however democratic might be the relations between its members. Thus you have at Athens a large citizen body lifted by the state above all sordid cares and interests, living a very full social life in the open air, with everything to stimulate intellectual interests--the daily speeches and debates in law-court and Assembly, the continual festivals and dramatic exhibitions, the endless conversations in the agora, the palæstra, and the various colonnades, the daily coming and going of ships from all quarters, constant embassies from the cities of the League, visits from all the talent of Greece, just sufficient intercourse with Egypt and the East--everything to stimulate the intelligence, and yet a dominant religious or moral conviction which tended inevitably to the austerest self-restraint and abhorrence of all extravagance.