Were it
not for this there would be somewhat less to be said in favour of great
states and kingdoms. As modern life grows more and more complicated and
interdependent, the Great State subserves innumerable useful purposes;
but in the history of civilization its first service, both in order of
time and in order of importance, consists in the diminution of the
quantity of warfare and in the narrowing of its sphere. For within the
territorial limits of any great and permanent state, the tendency is for
warfare to become the exception and peace the rule. In this direction
the political careers of the Greek cities assisted the progress of
civilization but little.
Under the conditions of Graeco-Roman civic life there were but two
practicable methods of forming a great state and diminishing the
quantity of warfare. The one method was _conquest with incorporation_,
the other method was _federation_. Either one city might conquer all
the others and endow their citizens with its own franchise, or all the
cities might give up part of their sovereignty to a federal body which
should have power to keep the peace, and should represent the civilized
world of the time in its relations with outlying barbaric peoples. Of
these two methods, obviously the latter is much the more effective, but
it presupposes for its successful adoption a higher general state of
civilization than the former.
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