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50 ANCIENT GREECE, [CHAP. vn.pas enriching itself with that infinite treasure of practicalwisdom, it continued at the same time to live m a world ofheroes, and to preserve living sensibility to the great andthe noble. Of this it is to estimate the conseimpossiblequences, the gain of the nation as a nation, by the encouragement of its warlike spirit, by the of its lovepreservationof libertyand independence.In one respect,those lawgivers were unquestionably in the righta nation, of which;the culture rested on the Iliad and Odyssey,could not easilybe reduced to a nation of slaves.CHAPTER VII.MEANS OF PBESEBVING THE NATIONAL CHAEACTEB.THE Greeks, though divided at home, and extended widelyin foreign countries, always considered themselves as forming but one nation. The character of the Hellenes wasno where obliterated ;the citizen of Massilia and Byzantium retained it no less than the Spartan and Athenian,The name barbarian, althoughit was appliedto all whowere not Greeks, conveyed a secondary idea, which wasclosely interwoven with the Grecian character; that theyesteemed themselves more cultivated than the rest of theworld. It was not that gross kind of national pride, whichdespises all foreigners because they are foreigners; evenwhere it was in itself unjust, its origin was a just one.But this higher culture could never have remained a bondof national union, the different tribes of the Hellenes possessed it in such different degrees. External marks weretherefore needed. These were afforded by two things ; bylanguage, and certain institutions sanctioned by religion.Various and different as were the dialects of the Hellenes,1and these differences existed not only among the varioustribes, but even among the several neighbouring cities,they yet acknowledged in their language, that they formedbut one nation, were but brancheg of the same family.1See what Herodotus says of the dialects of the Grecian cities in Asia,i. 142,