IDEALISM The age which followed the great Persian Wars was the time of the highest political, literary, and intellectual development in Greece.

Nor was it unfavourable to strength and depth of religious feeling among the people.

If the more thoughtful among them were inclined to doubt whether some of the stories told about the gods were either probable or edifying, these were the very men who, on the other hand, were most capable of appreciating the higher and nobler conceptions of the gods which we find in contemporary poets.

And the great delivery from the Persians not only gave the Greeks a confidence in themselves which justly increased their national pride and thereby strengthened their national ideals, but it also gave occasion to a confidence in the gods and a gratitude to them which found expression in numerous buildings and offerings.

All this religious activity could not fail to have considerable influence upon the common people; and in some cases, as at Athens, there was the necessity of replacing the temples and statues that had been destroyed or carried off by the Persian invader.