Laudator Temporis Acti

Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), The Rise of the Greek Epic, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), pp. 10-11:

You will notice in the ordinary language of ancient writers a characteristic which throws light on this aspect of Greek life. Non-Hellenic nations are nearly always spoken of by their tribes or races—'Ethnè'—Pelasgians, Macedonians, Phoenicians; the Greeks are spoken of by their cities, or, what comes to the same thing, by their islands—Milesians, Phocaeans, Eretrians, Athenians. On the mainland it is the Polis or circuit wall that forms the essential boundary of the nation; in the case of the islands, Samos, Naxos, Aegina, it is the equivalent wall of sea. Every Greek community is like a garrison of civilization amid wide hordes of barbarians; a picked body of men, of whom each individual has in some sense to live up to a higher standard than can be expected of the common human animal. As the shield is the typical weapon of the Greek warrior, so the wall is the typical mark of Greek civilization.