Plato congratulates
the, Athenians on having shown in their relations to Persia, beyond all
the other Greeks, "a pure and heartfelt hatred of the foreign
nature."[76] Instead of opposing, it had sanctioned and consecrated the
savage instinct which leads us to hate whatever is strange or
unintelligible, to distrust those who live on the further side of a
river, to suppose that those whom we hear talking together in a foreign
tongue must be plotting some mischief against ourselves. The lapse of
time and the fusion of races doubtless diminished this antipathy
considerably, but at the utmost it could but be transformed into an icy
indifference, for no cause was in operation to convert it into kindness.
On the other hand, the closeness of the bond which united
fellow-citizens was considerably relaxed. Common interests and common
dangers had drawn it close; these in the wide security of the Roman
Empire had no longer a place. It had depended upon an imagined
blood-relationship; fellow-citizens could now no longer feel themselves
to be united by the tie of blood.
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