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or in support of a foreign ally. We naturally think of the military side of Greek life as developed chiefly in the Doric states, and notably in Sparta, where mothers bade their sons return "with their shields or upon them." But it was equally the first duty of the citizens elsewhere to bear arms when occasion required it. At Athens all alike on coming of age had to take a solemn oath that they would neither disgrace their shield nor desert a fellow-soldier; * and we know that Socrates, who in this as in other things may be taken as representative, served on at least three separate occasions in the Athenian army.

An illustration of the way in which the Athenian gentleman of the 4th century B.C. combined private business with military training, has come down to us in the vivid picture which Xenophon draws in his Oeconomicus. Socrates there asks Ischomachus how he manages it, to which he replies, "I have been in the habit, Socrates, of rising at an hour when if I should wish to see anybody I am likely to find him at home. If I have any business to do in town, I make this serve as a walk. But if I do not require to go into town, my servant leads my horse into the country, and I take my walk in the same direction and with more profit than if I paced up and down the arcade. When I get out into the country, if I find any of my workmen planting trees, or digging,

*The form of oath is preserved in slightly different forms in Stobæus, Flor. xliii. 48, and Pollux, viii. 105. An additional clause is mentioned by Plutarch, Alcib. 15, and Cicero, de Repub. iii. 9.

† xi. § 13.

or sowing, or harvesting, I examine the methods they are employing, and make any suggestion I may have for improving them. I then mount my horse and take a ride, as nearly as possible resembling the kind we have to be prepared for in actual war, avoiding neither slant nor steep, ditch nor canal, only taking care as far as possible not to lame my horse over it. After this my servant lets him have a roll, and then leads him off, taking with him anything we may require in town, while I make my way home-sometimes at a walk, sometimes running. After that I have a rub down. Then I lunch, taking just enough to get through the day without feeling empty and at the same time without overloading my stomach."

"The day," so far as it was devoted to business, was occupied with his public duties, strictly so called. They consisted of attendance on the various meetings and committees by which the government was carried on. He might be a member of the Senate, in which case he might have to consider the kind of question which we associate with a cabinet council-the preparation of bills for presentation to the popular assembly or the superintendence of administration. certainly be a member of the legislative Assembly, and his vote might be called for in an election of public officers or an important debate on foreign policy. As a member of the executive he might have to preside at such a meeting. Or, again, as a member of one of the permanent bands of jurymen he might have to spend his day in judicial administration.

He would

3. It was rounded by leisure. The above account

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of the occupations which filled up the time of the ordinary Greek citizen in the century preceding that in which Plato and Aristotle wrote, would be incomplete if no mention were made of another feature of Greek life-the leisure which it left and was designed to leave. The Greek citizen did not live for arms or for politics any more than for bread alone. He was a creature of large discourse, and had an outlook on a larger world than that of his soldiership, his private business, or even his public duties. This world was represented by the buildings and statues that were daily before his eyes; by the great religious festivals that divided the year, culminating in dramatic representations, where questions of fate, free-will, and the government of the world were worked out before his eyes; by the gymnasia or social clubs where friends met for free discussion of current topics; and last, but not least, by the schools of the philosophers, which, as politics declined, became more and more the meeting-ground of the abler and more ardent spirits.

From all this it is easy to understand that his citizenship or his fellowship with citizens was the prominent fact in the life of the Greek of the 5th and 4th centuries before Christ. It was impossible to miss this feature or to describe the full and satisfying life without a reference to it. To be a good citizen and to be recognized and appreciated by fellow-citizens was to be a happy man, and to be a good citizen in the full sense meant not only to be a brave soldier, an economical and liberal manager of property, but

a just judge and a wise administrator. And if these things did not satisfy, behind them all, and made possible by them, there was the refined enjoyment of all that makes life most worth living-art, literature, science, and philosophy.

Understanding the facts that Aristotle had before him in this light, the reader will have less difficulty in finding his bearings among the distinctions and definitions in which the philosopher attempts to express what is of permanent human interest in them. Thus, when we are told that "man is a political being," * we shall understand that Aristotle means more than that his physical needs make union with others a necessity to him. It is of course true that human societies in their origin are unions of individuals or families for the purpose of furnishing food and protection. But they are more. Political organization is necessary to enable man to develop the best that is in him. "Society," says Aristotle, "originates in the need of a livelihood, but it exists for the sake of life."

Similarly, when Aristotle goes on to define the conditions of the good or happy life as the efficient discharge of functions, we shall be prepared to understand that by functions he means the actions that are distinctive of the man and the citizen. It is true that the functions of the man have their roots deep down

The phrase in Ethics, I. c. vii. § 6, is " Man is by nature a citizen;" in IX. c. ix. § 3, "Man is a political being and made for society." In Politics, III. c. vi. § 3, the full phrase occurs, “Man is a creature naturally designed for life in a city-state,"

in organic functions common to him with the animals, and that the individual comes in point of time before the citizen. But the one class of functions are only in Aristotle's language the potentiality of the other; the functions of man's animal and individual nature find their end and justification in the relation they bear to the functions he is called upon to exercise to the best of his power as a member of a civilized community.

Again, when, going on to define wherein excellence in this discharge of function consists, Aristotle propounds the now familiar doctrine that excellence or virtue is a "mean," we shall be the less likely to misapprehend his teaching, as is not uncommonly done. We shall know that the "mean" must be understood in relation to the permanent ends of the citizen, not to an arbitrarily chosen standard of what is prudent or consistent with good taste in the individual. We shall thus be prepared to find that Aristotle regards his own definition as inadequate to express the full meaning of virtue. When we are seeking for a formal definition we may describe the good act as a mean, yet when we look to its essential nature it is an extreme-the best that can be done.

Again, when, passing beyond the attempt to fix in what sense the cardinal virtues or capacities of the Greek citizen-his courage, his self-command, his liberality—are a mean, we come to the relation of the virtuous life to the highest form of good living open to man, viz. the life of reason or complete self-consciousness, we shall be prepared to hear of other conditions

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