The old idea had been to put them under the hegemony, or leadership, of one of the great cities. But these had all abused the confidence reposed in them. Athens, Sparta, Thebes, had never for one moment understood the duty of ruling in the interests, not only of the governing, but of the governed. The Athenian law, by which subject-cities could seek redress before the courts of Athens, had been in theory the fairest; and so Grote and Duruy have made much of this apparent justice. But the actual hints we find of individual wrong and oppression, and the hatred in which Athens was held by all her dependencies or allies, show plainly that the democratic theory, fair as it may seem in the exposition of Grote, did not work with justice. Accordingly, we find both in northern and in southern Greece the experiment of federations of cities attaining much success, and receiving much support in public opinion.
The leading cities stood aloof from this experiment.
Athens and the Ætolians
It is most significant that these new and powerful federations were formed outside and apart from the leading cities. Neither Athens nor Sparta, nay, not even Thebes, and hardly even Argos, would condescend to a federation where they should have only a city vote in conjunction with other cities;
and so the new trial was deprived both of their advice and of the prestige of their arms and arts. If, for example, both Athens and Thebes, but especially the former, had joined the Ætolian League of wild mountaineers, who had wealth and military power, but no practice in the peaceful discussion and settlement of political questions, they would probably have influenced the counsels of the League for good, and saved it from falling into the hands of unprincipled mercenary chiefs, who regarded border wars as a state of nature, and plunder as a legitimate source of income.
But Athens stood sullenly aloof from this powerful organization, remembering always her long-lost primacy, and probably regarding these mountaineers as hardly Hellenes, and as unworthy to rank beside the ancient and educated States, which had once utilized them as mere semi-barbarous mercenaries. And yet the Ætolians were the only Greeks who were able to make a serious and obstinate struggle for their liberties, even against the power of Rome.
or the Achæans.
§ 74. But if to have rude Ætolians as co-equal members of a common council would have been too bitter a degradation for Athens, why not ally herself to the civilized and orderly Achæans? For the Achæan cities, though insignificant heretofore, had old traditions, legendary glories; and in later times Sicyon especially had been a leading centre, a chosen home for the fine arts. When Corinth and Argos were forced to join this League,
why should Athens stand aloof? Yet here was the inevitable limit, beyond which the Achæan League could never obtain a footing. It stopped with the Isthmus, because no arguments could ever induce Athens to give it her adhesion[178:1].
Sparta and the Achæans.