There is a question sometimes put to scholars, a doubt often latent in scholars' minds-How was it that Greek civilisation, with all its high ideals and achievements, fell so easily before what seems at first sight an altogether inferior culture? The difficulty is not solved by a reference to military resources or administrative skill, for moral strength is the only thing that matters in history, and a nation has never yet succeeded merely by pure intellect or by brute force. The fact is-and it is as well to state it plainly-that the Greek world perished from one main cause, a low ideal of womanhood and a degradation of women which found expression both in literature and in social life. The position of women and the position of slaves-for the two classes went together-were the canker-spots which, left unhealed, brought about the decay first of Athens and then of Greece.