The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

136 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

justice, Pericles takes the same line, though with
more cynicism, as a modern British chauvinist contemptuous of those whom he calls the Little Englanders. He sneers at their conscience, which, he
suggests, is a cloak for cowardice. Alcibiades in
advocating the Sicilian expedition points out the
necessity to imperial states of an active and aggressive policy. Hermocrates, the enemy of Athens,
does not complain of such a policy on grounds
of morality; he says: "I can fully pardon the
Athenians for their grasping policy; I do not
blame those who seek empire, but those who are
ready to submit; for it has always been the natural
instinct of man to rule him who yields and to resist
the aggressor."
The excuse which both Hermocrates and
Athenians urge for the acquisition of empire is
the instinct of human nature. But Pericles also
attempted what may be called a justification on
higher grounds. In the Funeral Oration he draws
a picture of the grandeur and the culture of
Athens. There, he so much as says, is the ideal
which our city, by winning power and wealth,
through an empire which was certainly not built
on foundations of justice, has realised for the
admiration and imitation of Hellas. Such things
cannot be achieved by timid justice and stay-athome piety. This is the leit-motif of the Funeral
Oration.
Thus the historian kept before himself, and
keeps before us, the fact that the empire cannot be