Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks

iences, and the centre of wit, gaiety, and politeness, exhibits a strong contrast to that o

a circumstance which implies either the most cruel austerity in the temper of the lawgiver, or such an abandoned profligacy in the manners of the people, as laid him under a necessity of applying such violent remedies. As the historians have not clearly decided which of these was the case, I shall only remark, that the humanity of the people, so natural to the human species, was interested upon the occasion, and the excessive rigour of the laws obstructed the very means of their being carried into execution. A plain proof that a multiplicity of rigorous penal laws are not only incompatible wi

ranger to that kind of ambition, and preferred the freedom and happiness of his countrymen to the splendour of a crown.48 He continued the archons in their office as usual, but limited their authority by instituting a senate of four hundred persons elected by the people, by way of ballot, out of the four tribes into which the community was at that time divided. He revived and improved the senate and court of Areopagus, the most sacred and most respectable tribunal, not only of Greece, but of all which we ever read of in history.49 The integrity and equity of this celebrated court was so remarkable, that not only the Greeks, but the Romans, sometimes, submitted such causes to their determination which they found too intricat

ctually obliged to sell their children to make good their payments; and such numbers had fled their country to avoid the effects of their detestable inhumanity, that, as Plutarch observes, the city was almost unpeopled by the extortion of the usurers.50 Solon, apprehensive of an insurrection amongst the poorer citizens, who openly threatened to alter the government, and make an equal partition of the lands, thought no method so effectual to obviate this terrible evil, as to cancel all debts, as Lycurgus had done formerly at Sparta. But some of his friends, to whom he had privately communicated his scheme, with an assurance that he did not propose to meddle with the lands, were too w

d the poor were disappointed of that share of the lands which they so greedily expected. How Solon drew himself out of this difficulty, historians have no where informed u

thout their approbation, and the highest officers in the republick were subject to their censure, this assembly became the dernier resort in all causes, and this mob government, as it may be justly termed, was the great leading cause of the ruin of their republick. Anacharsis the Scythian philosopher, who at that time resided with Solon, justly ridiculed this excess of power which he had lodged in the people.52 For when he had heard some points debated, first in the senate, and afterwards decided in the assembly of the people, he humourously told Solon, that at Athens "wise men debated, but fools decided." Solon was as sensible of this capital defect as Anacharsis; but he was too well acquainted with the licentiousness and natural levity of the people, to divest them of a power, which he knew they would resume by violence at the first opportunity. The utmost therefore he could do was to fix his two senates as the moorings of the constitution.53 That of four hundred, to secure the state against the fluctuating temper and tumultuous fury of the people;54 that of the areopagus, to restrain the dangerous encroachments of the great and wealthy.55 He repealed all the laws of Draco, those against murder alone excepted; rightly judging, as Plutarch remarks, that it was not only most iniquitous, but most absurd, to inflict the same punishment upon a man for being idle, or stealing a cabbage or an apple out of a

s an unpardonable crime, and a kind of high treason against the republick.62 And the real patriots were rendered suspected to the people, just as the demagogues were influenced by envy or private pique, or even bribed by ambitious or designing men, who aspired at the very thing of which the others were unjustly accused. The history of Athens abounds with instances of the levity and inconstancy of that unsteady people. For how frequently do we find their best and ablest citizens imprisoned or sentenced to banishment by the ostracism, in honour of whom the same people had just before erected statues:63 nay not unfrequently raising statues to the memory of those illustrious and innocent men, whom they had illegally doomed to death in the wantonness of their power;64 at once the monuments of their injustice and too late repentance! This evil was the natural consequence of that capital error in Solon's polity, when he entrusted the supreme power to the giddy and fluctuating populace. A defect which (as I observed before) was the great leading cause of the loss of that liberty which they had so licentiously abused. For as the removal of all the honest citizens either b

s, quickly regained possession of their city by the slaughter of most of the invaders. The Plat?ans immediately applied to the Athenians for assistance; the Thebans to the Spartans.68 Both states entered eagerly into the quarrel between their respective allies, and engaged as principals in that destructive war which at last involved all Greece in the common calamity. Wherever the fortune of the Spartan prevailed, an oligarchical aristocracy was established, and the friends to a popular government destroyed or banished. Where the Athenians were victors, democracy was settled or restored, and the people glutted their revenge with the blood of the nobility. Alternate revolts, truces violated as soon as made, massacres, proscriptions, and confiscations, were the perpetual consequences, in all the petty republicks, of the alternate good or bad success of those two contending rivals. In a word, all Greece seems to have been seized with

per of that unsteady people.72 Elate beyond measure with any good success, they were deaf to the most reasonable overtures of peace from their enemies, and their views were unbounded. Equally dejected with any defeat, they thought the enemy just at their doors, and threw the whole blame upon their commanders, who were always treated as unpardonably criminal when unsuccessful. The demagogues, who watched every turn of temper in that variable people, took care to adapt every circumstance that offered to their own ambitious views, either of gaining or supporting an ascendency in the state, which kept up a perpetual spirit of faction in that unhappy republick. Thus, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, Cleon, a noisy seditious demagogue, declaimed violently against Pericles, and was the constant opposer of all his measures:73 but the firmness and superior abilities of that great man enabled him to baffle all his antagonists. When Pericles was carried off by that fatal pestilence which almost depopulated Athens, the nobility, jealous of that sway which Cleon had acquired over the people, s

s. His lust of power was too great to bear either a superior or an equal;77 and he determined at all events to supplant him, alike regardless either of the equity of the means, or of the consequences of it to his country. The Athenians were not a little displeased with the Spartans, who had not been very punctual in fulfilling the conditions of the treaty.78 Alcibiades finding his countrymen in a hum

ced to the selfish and private views of each party! But, in the midst of these vast preparations, an odd accident threw the whole city into confusion, and at once alarmed the superstition and jealousy of the people. The terms, or statues of Mercury, were all defaced in one and the same night by some unknown persons; nor could the Athenians ever discover the real authors of this reputed sacrilege.84 Proclamations were issued with a free pardon, and reward for any of the accomplices who could make a discovery, and the information of strangers and slaves was allowed as legal evidence; but no information could be procured as to the true authors of that particular fact; a circumstance which to me does not appear at all surprising: for it was evidently, in my opinion, a piece of party-craft played off against Alcibiades by the opposite faction, who knew that to attack the established religion, was to touch the master-spring of the passions of their countrymen.85 Some slaves indeed, and other low persons (suborned, as Plutarch asserts, by Androcles,86 one of the demagogues) deposed, that long before that, some statues had been mutilated, and the most sacred mysteries of their religion ridiculed, in a drunken frolick by some wild young fellows, and that Alcibiades was of the party.87 This information, which, according to Plutarch, was a palpable contrivance of his enemies, enabled them to fix the odium of the last action upon Alcibiades.88 The demagogues of the opposite faction greatly exaggerated the whole affair to the people. They accused him of a treasonable design against the popular government, and produced his contemptuous ridicule of the sacred mysteries, and the mutilation of Mercury's statues, in

fore he sailed upon the expedition.98 And since they now had not the least doubt of his being concerned in the affair of defacing the statues, they were more than ever convinced that he was equally guilty of the pollution of the mysteries, and that both those crimes were committed by him and his associates with the same design of subverting the popular government. For a body of Spartan troops happened to make an incursion, in that very juncture, as far as the Isthmus, upon some design or other against the B?otians. This unlucky incident confirmed the people in their suspicions that this was a scheme concerted beforehand with Alcibiades, covered with the specious pretext of attacking the B?otians;99 and that if the plot had not been happily discovered in time, and the execution of it prevented by the death of the conspirators, their city would most inevitably have been betrayed to the Spartans.100 Thus on every side suspicions fell strongly upon Alcibiades, and the people determining to put him to death, sent a private express to Sicily to recall him and such of his friends as were named in the information. The officers dispatched in the Salaminian galley, which was sent on that occasion, were ordered to acquaint Alcibiades, that he was desired to return with them to Athens to clear himself of those things which were objected to him before the people; but they received a strict charge not to offer to take him or his friends into custody; not only from the dread of some mutiny amongst their own soldiers upon his account, but for fear the allied troops, whom his influence had engaged, should desert and abandon the enterprise.101 Alcibiades obeyed the summons, and taking his friends, who were included in the information, into his own ship, left Sicily in company with the Salaminian galley, seemingly as if returning to Athens; but, whether he only suspected, or, which is more probable, had received intelligence of the measures taken by his enemies in his absence, he, with his friends, went ashore at Thuria, and gave the Athenian officers the slip, not caring to stand the sentence of the credulous and prejudiced people.102 The officers finding all their search after him quite fruitless, returned to Athens without him, and the Athenians passed sentence of death upon him and all those who accompanied him, and confiscated their estates for non-appearance.103 Thus, instead of uniting their joint efforts to promote the success of an enterprise upon which they had staked their all, the infatuated Athenians were intent upon nothing b

ne, who never stuck at the most infamous means of gratifying his passions, debauched Tim?a, the wife of Agis, king of Sparta, his great friend and protector.111 Dreading the resentment of that prince for so shameful a breach of friendship and hospitality, as well as the jealousy of the Peloponnesians, who had sent private orders to Astyochus, the Lacedemonian admiral, to cut him off, he fled to Tissaphernes, at that time governor of the provinces in the lower Asia under the Persian monarch.112 Alcibiades, who was a consummate master in the art of address, quickly insinuated himself into his good graces, and explained to him the true interest of the Persians with respect to the Grecian republicks.113 He showed him the bad policy of raising one state to a superiority over all the rest, which would deprive his master of all his alli

number of the principal citizens; but that he could by no means think of returning whilst the democracy subsisted, and the state was governed by a parcel of abandoned wretches, who had so scandalously driven him out of his country. Upon that condition he promised to procure the friendship of Tissaphernes, and declared himself ready to accept a share with them in the administration. The event answered his expectations; for the officers and the leading men, both of the sea and land forces, which were at Samos, were eagerly bent upon subverting the democracy. Thus the treaty was set on foot at Samos, and the scheme laid for altering the government

edit, and conceal from the Athenians his inability to make good what he had promised, insisted, in the name of Tissaphernes, upon such high terms that the treaty broke off, and the deputies returned to Samos, enraged at the trick which they thought had been put upon them by Alcibiades. Determined however, at all events, to pursue their scheme, Pisander, with some of the deputies, returned to Athens, where their party had already made a considerable progress, for they had privately assassinated such of the leading men as were averse to an aristocracy, and though they permitted the senate and people to assemble and vote as usual, yet they would not allow any thing to be decreed but what they thought proper;121 besides, none but those of their own faction durst venture to harangue the people; for if any one attem

any of his contemporaries. Thus the oligarchy was established, and the Athenians deprived of that liberty which they had enjoyed near one hundred years from the expulsion of Hippias: during which whole space they had been subject to none, but had been accustomed, above half that time, to lord it over others; for as soon as this decree had passed in the assembly without opposition,124 the chiefs of the conspiracy artfully permitted such citizens as were upon duty, but had not been let into the secret, to go wherever they pleased; but directed their own friends to continue under arms, and disposed them in such a manner as might best favour their enterprise: for the Athenians kept at that time a constant guard upon their walls, as the Spartan army was encamped in their neighbourhood. When they had made their disposition, the four hundred nobles with

es to every species of tyranny. The first news which these brave fellows received of the usurpation, brought such exaggerated accounts of the cruelty and insolence of the four hundred, that they were with great difficulty restrained from cutting every one to pieces who was in the interest of the oligarchy. However,128 they took the command from their former generals, and cashiered every officer

victory with him wherever he appeared; for he gained so many victories both by sea and land, and distressed the Peloponnesians so much by his address and conduct, that he once more retrieved the dominion of the sea, and returned triumphant to Athens.132 His entry was splendidly magnificent, adorned with the trophies of two hundred ships of war, which he had destroyed or taken, and a vast number of pr

ity, he gave his enemies a fresh handle for renewing their usual accusations; for the people already fancied themselves masters of Chios and the rest of Ionia, and were extremely out of humour because his conquests did not keep pace with their heated imaginations. They made no allowance for the wretched state of their finances, which frequently obliged him to quit his army to go in search of money to pay, and provisions to subsist, his forces, whilst their enemies had a constant resource for all their wants in the treasures of Persia. To one of these excursions, which necessity obliged him to make in order to raise money, he properly owed his ruin: for leaving the command of the fleet to one Antiochus, an able seaman indeed, but rash, in every othe

to his potcompanions, whilst he rambled at pleasure amongst the provinces, raising money, and living in a state of riot and dissipation with wine and women. A violent charge, besides, was brough

t belief to the suggestions of his enemies, and discharged, as Plutarch tells us, the fury o

that jealousy which they constantly harboured both of his ambition and abilities. For though he had done the state many great and signal services, yet his way of

ng their men to go ashore and ramble about the country. He assured them too, that Lysander was an experienced and vigilant enemy, who knew how to make the most of every advantage: but they, vain of their new power, despised his advice, and treated him with the utmost rudeness. Tydeus, in particular, ordered him to be gone, and told him insolently, that not he, but they were now commanders, and knew best what to do. The event happened as Alcibiades had foreseen. Lysander attacked them unexpectedly whilst they lay in their usual disorder, and gained so complete a victory, that of all the

ry side, he got possession of the Pyr?um.143 The thirty tyrants endeavoured to retake it, but were repulsed, and Critias144 and Hippomachus, two of their number, slain in the attempt. The people now, weary of the tyrants,145 drove them out of the city, and chose ten magistrates, one out of each tribe, to supply their places. The tyrants applied to their friend Lysander, who sailed and invested the Pyr?um, and reduced Thrasybulus, and his party, to an extreme want of necessaries, for they were yet confined to the Pyr?um, as the people, though they had deposed the tyrants, yet refused to receive them into the city; but Pausanias,146 one of the kings of Sparta, who commanded the land forces in this expedition, jealous of the reputation which that gr

ander, and, by the help of the Persian money, rebuilt150 the strong walls and other fortifications of Athens, which Lysander had demolished. The Spartans,151 jealous of the rising power of the Athenians who seemed to aspire at recovering their former grandeur, made such advantageous offers to the Persians by their admiral Antalcidas, that they once more drew them over to their party. Conon152 was recalled and imprisoned upon the suggestions of Antalcidas, that he had embezzled the money allotted for the re-establishment of Athens, and was no friend to the Persian interest. The Athenians now sent Thrasybulus, their great deliverer, with a fleet of forty sail to annoy the Spartans: he reduced several cities which had revolted to the enemy, but was slain by the Rhodians in an unsuccessful attempt upon their island. Conon,153 according to Justin, was executed at Susa by the Persians. Xenophon, who lived at the same time, is silent as to

y prove the most useful, or the mo

strari et dici

employed on the means conducive to that end. But whether this passion for fame, this eagerness after that imaginary life, which exists only in the breath of other people, be laudable or criminal, useful or frivolous, must be determined by the means employed, which will always be directed to whatever happens to be the reigning object of applause. Upon this principle, however the means may

ill necessarily be the reigning object of desire, and continue to influence the manners of succeeding generations, until it is opposed, and gradually gives way to some new object. Consequently the prevailing manners of any people may be investigated without much difficulty, in my opinion, if we attend to the increase or decrease of good or bad characters, as recorded in any period of their history; because the greater number will generally endeavour to distinguish themselves by whatever happens at that time to be the reigning object of applause. Hence too we may observe the progressive order, in which the manners of any people prepared the way for every remarkable mutation in their government. For no essential mutation can ever be effected in any government (unless by the violence of external force) until the prevailing manners of the people are ripe for such a change. Consequently, as like causes will ever produce like effects; when we observe the same similarity of manners prevailing amongst our own people, with that which preceded the last fatal mutation of government in any other free nation; we may, at such a time, give a shrewd guess at the approaching fate of our constitution and country. Thus in the infancy and rise of the Grecian republicks, when necessity

ominos eve

ive additional graces to poetry. Panegyrick swelled with the most nervous strokes of eloquence, and decked up with all the flowers of rhetorick, was joined to the fidelity and dignity of history; whilst the canvass glowing with mimick life, and the animated marble contributed all the powers of art to perpetuate the memory of the victors. These were the noble incentives, which f

nd those who despaired of attaining it by the rugged and dangerous paths of honour, struck into the new and flowery road,155 which was quickly crowded with the servile herd of imitators. Monarchs turned poets,156 and great men, fiddlers; and money was employed to bias the judges at the publick games to crown wretched verses an

publick virtue ceased gradually to be the object of publick applause and publick emulation. As dramatick poetry affected most the taste of the Athenians; the ambition of excelling in that species of poetry was so violent, that ?schylus died with grief, because in a publi

able Philip, taking advantage of the indolence and effeminacy of the Athenians, who before took the lead in defence of the liberty of Greece, drew his beggarly kingdom of Macedon out of its primitive obscurity, and at last reduced all Greece under the yoke of servitude. Plutarch, in his inquiry whether the Athenians were more eminent in the arts of war or in the arts of peace, severely censures their insatiable fondness for diversions.159 He asserts, that the money idly thrown away upon the representation of the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides alone, amounted to a much greater sum than had been expended in all their wars against the Persians, in defence of their liberty and common safety. That judicious philosopher and historian, to the eternal infamy of the Athenians, records a severe but sensible reflection of a Lacedemonian who happened to be present at these diversions. The generous Spartan, trained up in a state where publick virtue still continued to be the object of publick applause could not behold the ridiculous assiduity of the choragi, or magistra

does not find fault with the fine taste of the Athenians for the noble compositions of those incomparable poets; but for that excess of passion for the theatre, which, by setting up a new object of applause, had almost extinguished that publick virtue, for which they had been so greatly eminent; and made them more solicitous about the fate of a new tragedy, or the decision of the pretensions of two rival players, than about the fate of their country. But what idea must he have of the higher class of our people, when he saw those who should be foremost in a time of distress and danger, to animate the drooping spirit of their countrymen by the lustre of their example, attentive only to the unmanning trills of an opera; a degree of effeminacy which would have disgraced even the women of Greece, in times of greatest degeneracy. If he was informed that this species of diversion was so little natural to the rougher genius, as well as climate of Britain, that we were obliged to purchase and fetch over the worst performers of Italy at the expense of vast sums; what opinion must he form of our understanding? but if he was to see the insolence of these hirelings, and the servile prostration of their paymasters to these idols of their own making, how must such egregious folly excite his contempt and indignation! In the midst of these scenes of dissipation, this varying round of unceasing diversions, how must he be astonished at the complaint of poverty, taxes, the decay of trade, and the great difficulty of raising the necessary supplies for th

une. Pericles, greatly inferior in point of fortune, and no way able to contend with him in liberality and magnificence, struck out a new method of gaining over the people to his party. He procured a law, by which every citizen was entitled to a gratuity out of the publick money, not only for attending at the courts of judicature, and assemblies of the states; but even at the entertainments of t

t of who should obtain the most lucrative command. The people tasting the sweets of corruption, and enervated by the luxury of a city, which was one perpetual scene of festivals and diversions, grew averse to the toils and dangers of war, which now seemed an insupportable slavery, and beneath the dignity of free citizens. The defence of the state was committed to mercenary hirelings, who behaved so ill that their affairs were in the utmost disorder. Of all their leading men, Demosthenes and Phoc

own, to be placed at the head of the expedition.166 Small as those succours were, yet they did the Olynthians essential service. But as all the eloquence of Demosthenes could not prevail upon his countrymen to make more vigorous efforts, the city of Olynthus fell the year following into the hands of Philip by the treachery of Euthycrates and Lasthenes, two of the leading citizens.167 Philip still continued his encroachments upon the allies of Athens; sometimes cajoling, sometimes bullying the Athenians; just as he found either method most conducive to his purpose, in which he was punctually seconded by the corrupt demagogues. But at last the joint attack which he made upon the cities of Perynthus and Byzantium, from whose territories the Athenians drew their chief supplies of corn, at once opened their eyes, and roused them from their indolence. They equipped a very large armament with great expedition; but the Philippick faction had still influence enough with the people, to obtain the command of it for their friend Chares. The conduct of this general was exactly answerable to the opinion and hopes of his friends, who had procured him that employment. Chares, voluptuous, yet sordidly avaricious; vain and assuming, yet without either courage or capacity; rapacious, and intent only upon enriching himself at the expense either of friend or foe, was refused admittance by the inhabitants of Byzantium; who from experience were too well acquainted with his character. Enraged at such an unexpected affront; this doughty general employed his time in parading along the coasts, detested by his allies whom he plundered, and despised by his enemies whom he had not the courage to face. The Athenians, sensible of their folly, displaced Chares, and gave the command to Phocion. The able and honest Phocion was received with open arms by the Byzantines, and quickly convinced his countrymen, that he was more than a match for Philip. He not only drove that ambitious monarch out of the territories of the allies; but compelled him to retire with great loss and precipitation into his own dominions, where Phocion made several glorious and successful incursions. Philip now throwing off the masque, marched his army towards Athens, with a resolution to humble that people, who were the chief obstacle to his ambitious views. Demosthenes alone took the lead upon this occasion, and persuaded his countrymen to join the Thebans with all th

ho first introduced venality amongst the people for the support of luxury; continued by the venal orators, who encouraged that corruption to maintain their influen

e corruption will occasion a greater circulation of the publick money; and the dissipation of luxury, by promoting trade,174 will gild over private vices with the plausible appearance of publick benefits ... that when a state so circumstanced, is forced into a war with any formidable power, then, and not until then, these baleful evils will show themselves in their true colours, and produce their proper effects. The counsels in such a state will be weak and pusillanimous, because the able and honest citizens, who aim solely at the publick welfare, will be excluded from all share in the government from party motives ... their measures will terminate in poor shifts, and temporary expedients, calculated only to amuse, or divert the attention of the people from prying too closely into their iniquitous conduct. Their fleets and armies will be either employed in useless parade, or will miscarry in action from the incapacity of their commanders, because, as all the chief posts will be filled up with the creatures of the prevailing faction, such officers will be more intent upon enriching themselves than annoying the enemy; and will act as shall be judged most conducive to the private interest of their party, not to the publick service of their country. For they will naturally imagine, that the same power, which placed them in the command, will have weight enough to screen them from the resentment of an injured people ... their supplies for the extraordinary expenses of the war will be raised with difficulty; ... because, as so great a part of the publick money will be absorbed by the number of pensions and lucrative employments, and diverted to other purposes of corrupt

terested patriot to the helm, such a man must be exposed to all the malice of detected villany, backed by the whole weight of disappointed

remely fond of Aristides, that they employed all their interest to persuade the people to elect him a third time to that important office. On the day of election, when the voices of the Athenians were unanimous in his favour, this real patriot stood up with honest indignation, and gave the people this severe, but just reprimand. "When," says he, "I discharged my duty in this office the first time, with that zeal and fidelity which every honest man owes to his country, I was vilified, insulted, and condemned. Now I have given full liberty to all these robbers of the publick here present to pilfer, and prey upon your finances at pleasure, I am, it seems, a most upright minister, and a most worthy citizen. Believe me, O Athenians! I am more ashamed of the honour, which you have so unanimously conferred upon me this day, than of that unjust sentence which you passed upon me with so much infamy the year before. But it gives me the utmost concern, upon your account, when I see that it is easier to merit your favour and applause by flattering, and conniving at the rogueries of a pack of villains, than by a frugal and uncorrupt administration of the publick revenues." He then disclosed all the frauds and thefts, which had

l break out, like fired gunpowder, with irresistible impetuosity. We have no occasion to look back to antiquity for convincing proofs of this most important truth. Our own history is but one continued scene of alternate struggles between encroaching princes, aiming at absolute power, and a brave people resolutely determined to vindicate their freedom. The genius of liberty has hitherto rose superior in all those conflicts, and acquired strength from opposition. May it continue to prevail to the end of time! The United Provinces are a striking proof that the spirit of liberty, when animated and conducted by publick virtue, is invincible. Whilst under the dominion of the house of Austria, they were little better than a poor assemblage of fishing towns and villages. But the virtue of one great man not only enabled them to throw off that inhuman yoke, but to make a respectable figure amongst the first powers in Europe. All the different states in Europe, founded by our Gothic ancestors, were originally free. Liberty was as truly their birthright as it is ours, and though they have been wormed out of it by fraud, or robbed of it by violence, yet their inherent right to it still subsists, though the exercise of that right is superseded, and restrained by force. Hence no despotick government can ever subsist without the support of that instrument of tyranny

st convince our enemies, that we have a fund of publick virtue still remaining capable of vindicating our just rights, and raising us out of that calamitous situation, into which we were plunged, under some late administrations. When the publick imagined the helm in the hands of corruption, pusillanimity and ignorance, they transferred it to a virtuous citizen, possessed, in their opinion, o

e levity and servile adulation of that abject people.179 Reduced at last to a province of the Romans, Athens contributed her taste for