Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete

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[ Machiavel (Discourses on the first Decade of Livy, b. i., c. vi.), attributes the duration of the Spartan government to two main causes—first, the fewness of the body to be governed, allowing fewness in the governors; and secondly, the prevention of all the changes and corruption which the admission of strangers would have occasioned. He proceeds then to show that for the long duration of a constitution the people should be few in number, and all popular impulse and innovation checked; yet that, for the splendour and greatness of a state, not only population should be encouraged, but even political ferment and agitation be leniently regarded. Sparta is his model for duration, republican Rome for progress and empire. “To my judgment,” the Florentine concludes, “I prefer the latter, and for the strife and emulation between the nobles and the people, they are to be regarded indeed as inconveniences, but necessary to a state that would rise to the Roman grandeur.”

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[ Plut. de Musica.

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[ At Corinth they were abolished by Periander as favourable to an aristocracy, according to Aristotle; but a better reason might be that they were dangerous to tyranny.

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[ “Yet, although goods were appropriated, their uses,” says Aristotle, “were freely communicated,—a Spartan could use the horses, the slaves, the dogs, and carriages of another.” If this were to be taken literally, it is difficult to see how a Spartan could be poor. We must either imagine that different times are confounded, or that limitations with which we are unacquainted were made in this system of borrowing.

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[ See, throughout the Grecian history, the Helots collecting the plunder of the battle-field, hiding it from the gripe of their lords, and selling gold at the price of brass!

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[ Aristotle, who is exceedingly severe on the Spartan ladies, says very shrewdly, that the men were trained to submission to a civil by a military system, while the women were left untamed. A Spartan hero was thus made to be henpecked. Yet, with all the alleged severity of the Dorian morals, these sturdy matrons rather discarded the graces than avoided the frailties of their softer contemporaries. Plato [Footnote Plat. de legibus, lib. i. and lib. vi.: and Aristotle [Footnote Aristot. Repub., lib. ii.: give very unfavourable testimonials of their chastity. Plutarch, the blind panegyrist of Sparta, observes with amusing composure, that the Spartan husbands were permitted to lend their wives to each other; and Polybius (in a fragment of the 12th book) [Footnote Fragm. Vatican., tom. ii., p. 384.: informs us that it was an old-fashioned and common custom in Sparta for three or four brothers to share one wife. The poor husbands!—no doubt the lady was a match for them all! So much for those gentle creatures whom that grave German professor, M. Mueller, holds up to our admiration and despair.

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[ In Homer the condition of the slave seems, everywhere, tempered by the kindness and indulgence of the master.

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[ Three of the equals always attended the king’s person in war.

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[ The institution of the ephors has been, with probability, referred to this epoch—chosen at first as the viceroys in the absence of the kings.

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[ Pausanias, Messenics.

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[ See Mueller’s Dorians, vol. i., p. 172, and Clinton’s Fast. Hell. vol. i., p. 183.

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[ For the dates here given of the second Messenian war see Fast. Hell., vol. i., 190, and Appendix 2.

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[ Now called Messina.

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[ In Phocis were no less than twenty-two states (poleis); in Boeotia, fourteen; in Achaia, ten. The ancient political theorists held no community too small for independence, provided the numbers sufficed for its defence. We find from Plato that a society of five thousand freemen capable of bearing arms was deemed powerful enough to constitute an independent state. One great cause of the ascendency of Athens and Sparta was, that each of those cities had from an early period swept away the petty independent states in their several territories of Attica and Laconia.

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[ Machiavel (Discor., lib. i., c. ii.).

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[ Lib. iv., c. 13.

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[ Aristotle cites among the advantages of wealth, that of being enabled to train horses. Wherever the nobility could establish among themselves a cavalry, the constitution was oligarchical. Yet, even in states which did not maintain a cavalry (as Athens previous to the constitution of Solon), an oligarchy was the first form of government that rose above the ruins of monarchy.

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[ One principal method of increasing the popular action was by incorporating the neighbouring villages or wards in one municipality with the capital. By this the people gained both in number and in union.

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[ Sometimes in ancient Greece there arose a species of lawful tyrants, under the name of Aesymnetes. These were voluntarily chosen by the people, sometimes for life, sometimes for a limited period, and generally for the accomplishment of some particular object. Thus was Pittacus of Mitylene elected to conduct the war against the exiles. With the accomplishment of the object he abdicated his power. But the appointment of Aesymnetes can hardly be called a regular form of government. They soon became obsolete—the mere creatures of occasion. While they lasted, they bore a strong resemblance to the Roman dictators—a resemblance remarked by Dionysius, who quotes Theophrastus as agreeing with Aristotle in his account of the Aesymnetes.

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[ For, as the great Florentine has well observed, “To found well a government, one man is the best—once established, the care and execution of the laws should be transferred to many.”—(Machiavel. Discor., lib. i., c. 9.) And thus a tyranny builds the edifice, which the republic hastens to inhabit.

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[ That of Orthagoras and his sons in Sicyon. “Of all governments,” says Aristotle, “that of an oligarchy, or of a tyrant, is the least permanent.” A quotation that cannot be too often pressed on the memory of those reasoners who insist so much on the brief duration of the ancient republics.

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[ Besides the representation necessary to confederacies—such as the Amphictyonic League, etc., a representative system was adopted at Mantinea, where the officers were named by deputies chosen by the people. “This form of democracy,” says Aristotle, “existed among the shepherds and husbandmen of Arcadia;” and was probably not uncommon with the ancient Pelasgians. But the myrioi of Arcadia had not the legislative power.

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[ “Then to the lute’s soft voice prolong the night, Music, the banquet’s most refined delight.” Pope’s Odyssey, book xxi., 473.

It is stronger in the original—

Moltae kai phormingi tu gar t’anathaemata daitos.

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[ Iliad, book ix., Pope’s translation, line 250.