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40 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP. xvi.it could hardly have been expected,still remained, and withit the hope of better times. Amidst all their wars with oneanother, the Greeks never ceased to consider themselves asone nation. The idea of one day assuming that characteranimated the best of them. It is an idea which is expressedin almost every one of the writings of the xpure Isocrates ;and which he could not survive, when after the battle ofCheeronea, the spirit of the eloquent old man voluntarilyescaped from its earthly veil, beneath which it had passed ahundred years. Yet the echo of his wishes, his prayers, andhis instructions did not die away. The last of the Greekshad not yet appeared ;and the times were to come, when,in the Achaean league, the splendid day of the greatness ofHellas was to be followed by a still more splendid evening1.So certain is it, that a nation is never deserted by destiny,so longas itdoes not desert itself.1See especially Panathen. Op. 235.