Too bad that every crest-wave of human achievement hastily tumbles to a depression correspondingly low as the swell was high. Scipio, conqueror at Zama, triumph-crowned, and honored with the appellation Africanus, was, on that same day one year later on trial for his life. What a tumult of conflicting feelings must have raged in his heart when, disdaining to reply to the accusations made against him, Scipio said, turning to the fickle populace, “I would remind the men of Rome that this day one year ago I won the battle of Zama.” And then the tide turned in his favor and the young-world children wept because of their ingratitude, and clamorously acquitted Scipio. But depressive doubt succeeded crest confidence and Scipio went into exile. Ingrata Patria! (Ungrateful Native Land!) Scipio exclaimed, as death drew near and his tired eyes turned longingly towards Rome.
Coriolanus, Roman exile, torn to pieces by the Volscians; Hannibal, lone boast of Carthage, hater of Rome; Themistocles, hero of Salamis; Aristides the Just; Socrates; Miltiades are among the tragic figures on the historic stage whose dying heart-throbs may have reproachfully re-echoed Ingrata Patria.
All the Glory That Was Greece.
From Marathon (490 B. C.) clarion of the birth of Athens, to Ægospotami (405 B. C.) her knell of death, momentous history was made.
Ægospotami knelled the fall of Athens; Leuctra, of Sparta; Mantinea, of Epaminondas-Thebes; and Chæronea, of all Hellas; but not all of Athens died at Ægospotami. Pericles, Aspasia, Phidias, Ictinus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon—have not died; they are effective forces in the world today.
Spartan military excellence, Spartan hardihood and endurance is a bubble that burst; it is no more: but Attic excellence of intellect endures imperishably—with Platonic wonder as freshly fair in college halls today as in the Academia and Lyceum of the old Athenian day. Mind is the only Conqueror.
Blue sky of Athens, white cliff Acropolis,—so unchanging amid change, so laughing fair among the ruins of the glory that was Greece!
Nature’s ever young irreverence towards the wreck of time is invigorating. It calls to the heart of man in language the heart understands, What’s Time!
“Men said, ‘But time escapes