CHAPTER XXXI.

GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE PEISISTRATIDS.— REVOLUTION OF CLEISTHENES AND ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS.

 

With Hippias disappeared the mercenary Thracian garrison, upon which he and his father before him had leaned for defense as well as for enforcement of authority. Cleomenes with his Lacedaemonian forces retired also, after staying only long enough to establish a personal friendship, productive subsequently of important consequences between the Spartan king and the Athenian Isagoras. The Athenians were thus left to themselves, without any foreign interference to con­strain them in their political arrangements.

It has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, that the Peisistratids had for the most part respected the forms of the Solonian con­stitution. The nine archons, and the probouleutic or preconsidering Senate of Four Hundred (both annually changed), still continued to subsist, together with occasional meetings of the people—or rather of such portion of the people as was comprised in the gentes, phratries, and four Ionic tribes. The timocratic classification of Solon (or quadruple scale of income and admeasurement of political fran­chises according to it) also continued to subsist—but all within the tether and subservient to the purposes of the ruling family, who always kept one of their number as real master among the chief administrators, and always retained possession of the acropolis as well as of the mercenary force.

That overawing pressure being now removed by the expulsion of Hippias, the enslaved forms became at once endued with freedom and reality. There appeared again, what Attica had not known for thirty years, declared political parties, and pronounced opposition, between two men as leaders—on one side, Isagoras, son of Tisander, a person of illustrious descent—on the other, Cleisthenes, the Alcmaeonid, not less illustrious, and possessing at this moment a claim on the gratitude of his countrymen as the most persevering as well as the most effective foe of the dethroned despots. In what manner such opposition was carried on we are not told. It would seem to have been not altogether pacific; but at any rate, Cleisthenes had the worst of it, and in consequence of his defeat (says the historian) “he took into partnership the people, who had been before excluded from everything”. His partnership with the people gave birth to the Athenian democracy; it was a real and important revolution.

DEMOCRATICAL REVOLUTION.

The political franchise, or the character of an Athenian citizen, both before and since Solon, had been confined to the primitive four Ionic tribes, each of which was an aggregate of so many close cor­porations or quasi-families—the gentes and the phratries. None of the residents in Attica, therefore, except those included in some gens or phratry, had any part in the political franchise. Such non-privileged residents were probably at all times numerous, and became more and more so by means of fresh settlers. Moreover they tended most to multiply in Athens and Peiraeus, where immigrants would commonly establish themselves. Cleisthenes, breaking down the existing wall of privilege, imparted the political franchise to the excluded mass. But this could not be done by enrolling them in new gentes or phratries, created in addition to the old. For the gentile tie was founded upon old faith and feeling which in the existing state of the Greek mind could not be suddenly conjured up as a bond of union for comparative strangers. It could only be done by disconnecting the franchise altogether from the Ionic tribes as well as from the gentes which constituted them, and by redistributing the population into new tribes with a character and purpose exclusively political. Accordingly Cleisthenes abolished the four Ionic tribes, and created in their place ten new tribes founded upon a different principle, independent of the gentes and phratries. Each of his new tribes comprised a certain number of demes or cantons, with the enrolled proprietors and residents in each of them. The demes taken altogether included the entire surface of Attica, so that the Cleisthenean constitution admitted to the political franchise all the free native Athenians; and not merely these, but also many metics, and even some of the superior order of slaves. Putting out of sight the general body of slaves, and regarding only the free inhabitants, it was in point of fact a scheme approaching to universal suffrage, both political and judicial.

The slight and cursory manner in which Herodotus announces this memorable revolution tends to make us overlook its real impor­tance. He dwells chiefly on the alteration in the number and names of the tribes; Cleisthenes, he says, despised the Ionians so much, that he would not tolerate the continuance in Attica of the four tribes which prevailed in the Ionic cities; deriving their names from the four sons of Ion—just as his grandfather, the Sicyonian Cleisthenes, hating the Dorians, had degraded and nicknamed the three Dorian tribes at Sicyon. Such is the representation of Herodotus, who seems himself to have entertained some contempt for the Ionians, and therefore to have suspected a similar feeling where it had no real existence.

But the scope of Cleisthenes was something far more extensive. He abolished the four ancient tribes, not because they were Ionic, but because they had become incommensurate with the existing con­dition of the Attic people, and because such abolition procured both for himself and for his political scheme new as well as hearty allies. And, indeed, if we study the circumstances of the case, we shall see very obvious reasons to suggest the proceeding. For more than thirty years—an entire generation—the old constitution had been a mere empty formality, working only in subservience to the reigning dynasty, and stripped of all real controlling power. We may be very sure, therefore, that both the Senate of Four Hundred and the popular assembly, divested of that free speech which imparted to them not only all their value but all their charm, had come to be of little public estimation, and were probably attended only by a few partisans. Under such circumstances, the difference between quali­fied citizens and men not so qualified—between members of the four old tribes and men not members—became during this period prac­tically effaced. This in fact was the only species of good which a Grecian despotism ever seems to have done. It confounded the privileged and the non-privileged under one coercive authority com­mon to both, so that the distinction between the two was not easy to revive when the despotism passed away. As soon as Hippias was expelled, the senate and the public assembly regained their efficiency; but had they been continued on the old footing, including none but members of the four tribes, these tribes would have been re-invested with a privilege which in reality they had so long lost, that its revival would have seemed an odious novelty, and the remaining population would probably not have submitted to it. If in addition we consider the political excitement of the moment—the restoration of one body of men from exile, and the departure of another body into exile—the outpouring of long-suppressed hatred, partly against these very forms by the corruption of which the des­pot had reigned—we shall see that prudence as well as patriotism dictated the adoption of an enlarged scheme of government. Cleisthenes had learnt some wisdom during his long exile; and as he probably continued for some time after the introduction of his new constitution, to be the chief adviser of his countrymen, we may con­sider their extraordinary success as a testimony to his prudence and skill not less than to their courage and unanimity.

NAMES OF THE TRIBES.

Nor does it seem unreasonable to give him credit for a more gen­erous forward movement than what is implied in the literal account of Herodotus. Instead of being forced against his will to purchase popular support by proposing this new constitution, Cleisthenes may have proposed it before, during the discussions which immediately followed the retirement of Hippias; so that the rejection of it formed the ground of quarrel (and no other ground is mentioned) between him and Isagoras. The latter doubtless found sufficient support, in the existing senate and public assembly, to prevent it from being carried without an actual appeal to the people. His opposition to it, moreover, is not difficult to understand; for neces­sary as the change had become, it was not the less a shock to ancient Attic ideas. It radically altered the very idea of a tribe, which now became an aggregation of demes, of gentes—of fellow-demots, not of fellow-gentiles. It thus broke up those associations, religious, social, and political, between the whole and the parts of the old system, which operated powerfully on the mind of every old-fashioned Athenian. The patricians at Rome who composed the gentes and curiae—and the plebs, who had no part in these corporations—formed for a long time two separate and opposing fractions in the same city, each with its own separate organization. Only by slow degrees did the plebs gain ground, while the political value of the patrician gens was long maintained alongside of and apart from the plebeian tribe. So. too, in the Italian and German cities of the middle ages, the patrician families refused to part with their own separate political identity when the guilds grew up by the side of them; even though forced to renounce a portion of their power, they continued to be a separate fraternity, and would not submit to be regimented anew, under an altered category and denomination, along with the traders who had grown into wealth and importance. But the reform of Cleisthenes effected this change all at once, both as to the name and as to the reality. In some cases, indeed, that which had been the name of a gens was retained as the name of a deme, but even then the old gentiles were ranked indiscriminately among the remaining demots. The Athenian people, politely considered, thus became one homogeneous whole distributed for convenience into parts, numerical, local, and politically equal. It is, however, to be remembered, that while the four Ionic tribes were abolished, the gentes and phratries which composed them were left untouched, continuing to subsist as family and religious associations, though carrying with them no political privilege.

The ten newly-created tribes, arranged in an established order of precedence, were called—Erechtheis, Aegeis, Pandionis, Leontis, Akamantis, Oeneis, Kekropis, Hippothoontis, Aeantis, Antiochis; names borrowed chiefly from the respected heroes of Attic legend. This number remained unaltered until the year 305 b.c., when it was increased to twelve by the addition of two new tribes, Antigonias and Demetrias, afterward designated anew by the names of Ptolemais and Attalis: the mere names of these last two, borrowed from living kings, and not from legendary heroes, betray the change from freedom to subservience at Athens. Each tribe comprised a certain number of demes—cantons, parishes, or townships—in Attica. But the total number of these demes is not distinctly ascertained; for though we know that in the time of Polemo (the third century B.c.) it was 174, we cannot be sure that it had always remained the same; and several critics construe the words of Herodotus to imply that Cleisthenes at first recognized exactly one hundred demes, distributed in equal proportion among his ten tribes. Such con­struction of the words, however, is more than doubtful, while the fact itself is improbable; partly because if the change of number had been so considerable as the difference between one hundred and 174, some positive evidence of it would probably be found—partly because Cleisthenes would indeed have a motive to render the amount of citizen population nearly equal, but no motive to render the number of demes equal, in each of the ten tribes. It is well known how great is the force of local habits, and how unalterable are parochial or cantonal boundaries. In the absence of proof to the contrary, therefore, we may reasonably suppose the number and circumscription of the demes, as found or modified by Cleisthenes, to have subsisted afterward with little alteration, at least until the increase in the number of the tribes.

There is another point, however, which is at once more certain and more important to notice. The demes which Cleisthenes assigned to each tribe were in no case all adjacent to each other; and therefore the tribe, as a whole, did not correspond with any continu­ous portion of the territory, nor could it have any peculiar local interest, separate from the entire community. Such systematic avoidance of the factions arising out of neighborhood will appear to have been more especially necessary when we recollect that the quarrels of the Parali, the Diakrii, the Pediaki, during the preceding century, had all been generated from local feud, though doubtless artfully fomented by individual ambition. Moreover, it was only by this same precaution that the local predominance of the city, and the formation of a city-interest distinct from that of the country, was obviated; which could hardly have failed to arise had the city by itself constituted either one deme or one tribe. Cleisthenes dis­tributed the city (or found it already distributed) into several demes, and those demes among several tribes; while Peiraeus and Phalerum, each constituting a separate deme, were also assigned to different tribes; so that there were no local advantages either to bestow pre­dominance, or to create a struggle for predominance, of one tribe over the rest. Each deme had its own local interests to watch over; but the tribe was a mere aggregate of demes for political, military, and religious purposes, with no separate hopes or fears apart from the whole state. Each tribe had a chapel, sacred rites and festivals, and a common fund for such meetings, in honor of its eponymous hero, administered by members of its own choice: and the statues of all the ten eponymous heroes, fraternal patrons of the democracy, were planted in the most conspicuous part of the agora of Athens. In the future working of the Athenian government, we shall trace no symptom of disquieting local factions—a capital amendment, compared with the disputes of the preceding century, and traceable in part to the absence of border-relations between demes of the same tribe.

FUNCTIONS OF THE DEME.

The deme now became the primitive constituent element of the commonwealth, both as to persons and as to property. It had its own demarch, its register of enrolled citizens, is collective property, its public meetings and religious ceremonies, its taxes levied and administered by itself. The register of qualified citizens was kept by the demarch, and the inscription of new citizens took place at the as­sembly of the demots, whose legitimate sons were enrolled on attain­ing the age of eighteen, and their adopted sons at any time when pre­sented and sworn to by the adopting citizen. The citizenship could only be granted by a public vote of the people, but wealthy non-free-men were enabled sometimes to evade this law and purchase admis­sion upon the register of some poor deme, probably by means of a fictitious adoption. At the meetings of the demots, the register was called over, and it sometimes happened that some names were ex­punged, in which case the party thus disfranchised had an appeal to the popular judicature. So great was the local administrative power, however, of these demes, that they are described as the substitute, under the Cleisthenean system, for the Naukraries under the Solonian and ante-Solonian. The Trittyes and Naukraries, though nomi­nally preserved, and the latter augmented in number from forty-­eight to fifty, appear henceforward as of little public importance.

Cleisthenes preserved, but at the same time modified and expanded, all the main features of Solon’s political constitution; the public assembly or Ekklesia—the preconsidering senate composed of mem­bers from all the tribes—and the habit of annual election, as well as annual responsibility of magistrates, by and to the Ekklesia. The full value must now have been felt of possessing such pre-existing institutions to build upon, at a moment of perplexity and dissension. But the Cleisthenean Ekklesia acquired new strength, and almost a new character, from the great increase of the number of citizens qualified to attend it; while the annually changed senate, instead of being composed of four hundred members taken in equal proportion from each of the old four tribes, was enlarged to five hundred, taken equally from each of the new ten tribes. It now comes before us, under the name of Senate of Five Hundred, as an active and indis­pensable body throughout the whole Athenian democracy: moreover the practice now seems to have begun (though the period of com­mencement cannot be decisively proved) of determining the names of the senators by lot. Both the senate thus constituted, and the pub­lic assembly, were far more popular and vigorous than they had been under the original arrangement of Solon.

The new constitution of the tribes, as it led to a change in the annual senate, so it transformed no less directly the military arrange­ments of the state, both as to soldiers and as to officers. The citizens called upon to serve in arms were now marshalled according to tribes—each tribe having its own taxiarchs as officers for the hoplites, and its own phylarch at the head of the horsemen. Moreover, there were now created, for the first time, ten strategi or generals, one from each tribe; and two hipparchs, for the supreme command of the horsemen. Under the prior Athenian constitution it appears that the command of the military force had been vested in the third archon or polemarch, no strategi then existing. Even after the strategi had been created, under the Cleisthenean constitution, the polemarch still retained a joint right of command along with them—as we are told at the battle of Marathon, where Callimachus the polemarch not only enjoyed an equal vote in the council of war along with the ten strategi, but even occupied the post of honor on the right wing. The ten generals annually changed are thus (like the ten tribes) a fruit of the Cleis­thenean constitution, which was at the same time powerfully strengthened and protected by this remodeling of the military force. The functions of the generals became more extensive as the democ­racy advanced, so that they seem to have acquired gradually not merely the direction of military and naval affairs, but also that of the foreign relations of the city generally—while the nine archons, including the polemarch, were by degrees lowered down from that full executive and judicial competence which they had once enjoyed, to the simple ministry of police and preparatory justice. Encroached upon by the strategi on one side, they were also restricted in efficiency, on the other side, by the rise of the popular dikasteries or numerous jury-courts. We may be sure that these popular dikasteries had not been permitted to meet or to act under the despotism of the Peisistratids, and that the judicial business of the city must then have been conducted partly by the senate of Areopagus, partly by the archons; perhaps with a nominal responsibility of the latter at the end of their year of office, to an acquiescent Ekklesia. And if we even assume it to be true, as some writers contend, that the habit of direct popular judicature (over and above this annual trial of responsibility) had been partially introduced by Solon, it must have been discontinued during the long coercion exercised by the super­vening dynasty. But the outburst of popular spirit, which lent force to Cleisthenes, doubtless carried the people into direct action as jurors in the aggregate Heliaea, not less than as voters in the Ekklesia —and the change was thus begun which contributed to degrade the archons from their primitive character as judges, into the lower function of preliminary examiners and presidents of a jury. Such convocation of numerous juries, beginning first with the aggregate body of sworn citizens above thirty years of age, and subsequently dividing them into separate bodies or panels for trying particular causes, became gradually more frequent and more systematized; until at length, in the time of Pericles, it was made to carry a small pay, and stood out as one of the most prominent features of Athen­ian life. We cannot particularize the different steps whereby such final development was attained, and whereby the judicial competence of the archon was cut down to the mere power of inflicting a small fine. But the first steps of it are found in the revolution of Cleisthenes, and it seems to have been consummated after the battle of Plataea. Of the function exercised by the nine archons, as well as by many other magistrates and official persons at Athens, in con­voking a dikastery or jury-court, bringing on causes for trial, and presiding over the trial—a function constituting one of the marks of superior magistracy, and called the Hegemony or presidency of a dikastery—I shall speak more at length hereafter. At present I wish merely to bring to view the increased and increasing sphere of action on which the people entered at the memorable turn of affairs now before us.

The financial affairs of the city underwent at this epoch as com­plete a change as the military. The appointment of magistrates and officers by tens, one from each tribe, seems to have become the ordi­nary practice. A board of ten, called Apodektae, were invested with the supreme management of the exchequer, dealing with the contractors as to those portions of the revenue which were farmed, receiving all the taxes from the collectors, and disbursing them under competent authority. Of this board the first nomination is expressly ascribed to Cleisthenes as a substitute for certain persons called Kolakretae, who had performed the same function before and who were now retained only for subordinate services. The duties of the Apodektae were afterward limited to receiving the public income, and paying it over to the ten treasurers of the goddess Athene, by whom it was kept in the inner chamber of the Parthenon, and dis­bursed as needed; but this more complicated arrangement cannot be referred to Cleisthenes. From his time forward too, the Senate of Five Hundred steps far beyond its original duty of preparing matters for the discussion of the Ekklesia. It embraces, besides, a large cir­cle of administrative and general superintendence, which hardly admits of any definition. Its sittings become constant, with the exception of special holidays. The year is distributed into ten por­tions called Prytanies—the fifty senators of each tribe taking by turns the duty of constant attendance during one prytany, and receiv­ing during that time the title of The Prytanes: the order of prece­dence among the tribes in these duties was annually determined by lot. In the ordinary Attic year of twelve lunar months, or 354 days, six of the prytanies contained thirty-five days, four of them contained thirty-six: in the intercalated years of thirteen months, the number of days was thirty-eight and thirty-nine respectively, Moreover a farther subdivision of the prytany into five periods of seven days each, and of the fifty tribe-senators into five bodies of ten each, was recognized. Each body of ten presided in the senate for one period of seven days, drawing lots every day among their number for a new chairman called Epistates, to whom during his day of office were con­fided the keys of the acropolis and the treasury, together with the city seal. The remaining senators, not belonging to the prytanising tribe, might of course attend if they chose. But the attendance of nine among them, one from each of the remaining nine tribes, was imperatively necessary to constitute a valid meeting, and to insure a constant representation of the collective people.

During those later times known to us through the great orators, the Ekklesia, or formal assembly of the citizens, was convoked four times regularly during each prytany, or oftener if necessity required—usually by the senate, though the strategi had also the power of con­voking it by their own authority. It was presided over by the prytanes, and questions were put to the vote by their Epistates or chairman. But the nine representatives of the non-prytanising tribes were always present, as a matter of course, and seem indeed in the days of the orators to have acquired to themselves the direction of it, together with the right of putting questions for the vote—setting aside wholly or partially the fifty prytanes. When we carry our attention back, however, to the state of the Ekklesia, as first organized by Cleisthenes (I have already remarked that expositors of the Athenian constitution are too apt to neglect the distinction of times, and to sup­pose that what was the practice between 400-330 b.c. had been always the practice), it will appear probable that be provided one regular meeting in each prytany, and no more; giving to the senate and the strategi power of convening special meetings if needful but establishing one Ekklesia during each prytany, or ten in the year, as a regular necessity of state. How often the ancient Ekklesia had been convoked during the interval between Solon and Peisistratus, we cannot exactly say—probably but seldom during the year. Under the Peisistratids, its convocation had dwindled down into an inopera­tive formality. Hence the re-establishment of it by Cleisthenes, not merely with plenary determining powers, but also under full notice and preparation of matters beforehand, together with the best securi­ties for orderly procedure, was in itself a revolution impressive to the mind of every Athenian citizen. To render the Ekklesia efficient, it was indispensable that its meetings should be both frequent and free. Men were thus trained to the duty both of speakers and hearers, and each man, while he felt that he exercised his share of influence on the decision, identified his own safety and happiness with the vote of the majority, and became familiarized with the notion of a sovereign authority which he neither could nor ought to resist. This was an idea new to the Athenian bosom. With it came the feelings sanctify­ing free speech and equal law—words which no Athenian citizen ever afterward heard unmoved, together with that sentiment of the entire commonwealth as one indivisible, which always overruled, though it did not supplant, the local and cantonal specialties. It is not too much to say that these patriotic and ennobling impulses were a new product in the Athenian mind, to which nothing analogous occurs even in the time of Solon. They were kindled in part doubtless by the strong reaction against the Peisistratids, but still more by the fact that the opposing leader, Cleisthenes, turned that transitory feeling to the best possible account, and gave to it a vigorous perpetuity, as well as a well-defined positive object, by the popular elements con­spicuous in his constitution. His name makes less figure in history than we should expect, because he passed for the mere renovator of Solon’s scheme of government after it had been overthrown by Peisistratus. Probably he himself professed this object, since it would facilitate the success of his propositions: and if we confine ourselves to the letter of the case, the fact is in a great measure true, since the annual senate and the Ekklesia are both Solonian—but both of them under his reform were clothed in totally new circumstances, and swelled into gigantic proportions. How vigorous was the burst of Athenian enthusiasm, altering instantaneously the position of Athens among the powers of Greece, we shall hear presently from the lips of Herodotus, and shall find still more unequivocally marked in the facts of his history.

JUDICIAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE PEOPLE.

But it was not only the people formally installed in their Ekklesia, who received from Cleisthenes the real attributes of sovereignty—it was by him also that the people were first called into direct action as dikasts, or jurors. I have already remarked that this custom maybe said, in a certain limited sense, to have begun in the time of Solon, since that lawgiver invested the popular assembly with the power of pronouncing the judgment of accountability upon the archons after their year of office. Here again the building, afterward so spacious and stately, was erected on a Solonian foundation, though it was not itself Solonian. That the popular dikasteries, in the elaborate form in which they existed from Pericles downward, were introduced all at once by Cleisthenes, it is impossible to belive. Yet the steps by which they were gradually wrought out are not distinctly discovera­ble. It would rather seem that at first only the aggregate body of citizens above thirty years of age exercised judicial functions, being specially convoked and sworn to try persons accused of public crimes, and when so employed bearing the name of the Heliaea, or Heliasts; private offenses and disputes between man and man being still determined by individual magistrates in the city, and a considerable judicial power still residing in the Senate of Areopagus. There is reason to believe that this was the state of things established by Cleisthenes, which afterward came to be altered by the greater extent of judicial duty gradually accruing to the Heliasts, so that it was necessary to subdivide the collective Heliaea.

According to the subdivision, as practiced in the times best known, 6,000 citizens above thirty years of age were annually selected by lot out of the whole number, 600 from each of the ten tribes: 5,000 of these citizens were arranged in ten panels or decuries of 500 each, the remaining 1000 being reserved to fill up vacancies in case of death or absence among the former. The whole 6,000 took a prescribed oath, couched in very striking words; after which every man received a ticket inscribed with his own name as well as with a letter designat­ing his decury. When there were causes or crimes ripe for trial, the Thesmothets or six inferior archons determined by lot, first, which decuries should sit, according to the number wanted—next, in which court, or under the presidency of what magistrate, the decury B or E should sit, so that it could not be known beforehand in what cause each would be judge. In the number of persons who actually attended and sat, however, there seems to have been much variety, and sometimes two decuries sat together. The arrangement here described, we must recollect, is given to us as belonging to those times when the dikasts received a regular pay, after every day’s sit­ting; and it can hardly have long continued without that condition, which was not realized before the time of Pericles. Each of these decuries sitting in judicature was called the Heliaea—a name which belongs properly to the collective assembly of the people; this col­lective assembly having been itself the original judicature. I con­ceive that the practice of distributing this collective assembly or Heliaea into sections of jurors for judicial duty, may have begun under one form or another soon after the reform of Cleisthenes, since the direct interference of the people in public affairs tended more and more to increase. But it could only have been matured by degrees into that constant and systematic service which the pay of Pericles called forth at last in completeness. Under the last men­tioned system the judicial competence of the archons was annulled, and the third archon or polemarch withdrawn from all military functions. But this had not been yet done at the time of the battle of Marathon, where Callimachus the polemarch not only commanded along with the strategi, but enjoyed a sort of pre-eminence over them; nor had it been done during the year after the battle of Mara­thon, in which Aristides was archon—for the magisterial decisions of Aristides formed one of the principal foundations of his honor­able surname, the Just.

With this question as to the comparative extent of judicial power vested by Cleisthenes in the popular dikastery and the archons, are in reality connected two others in Athenian constitutional law; relating first, to the admissibility of all citizens for the post of archon—next, to the choosing of archons by lot. It is well known that in the time of Pericles, the archons, and various other individual func­tionaries, had come to be chosen by lot—moreover all citizens were legally admissible, and might give in their names to be drawn for by lot, subject to what was called the Dokimasy, or legal examina­tion into their status of citizen and into various moral and religious qualifications, before they took office; while at the same time the function of the archon had become nothing higher than preliminary examination of parties and witnesses for the dikastery, and presidence over it when afterward assembled, together with the power of imposing by authority a fine of small amount upon inferior offenders. Now all these three political arrangements hang essentially together. The great value of the lot, according to Grecian democratic ideas, was that it equalized the chance of office between rich and poor: but so long as the poor citizens were legally inadmissible, choice by lot could have no recommendation either to the rich or to the poor. In fact, it would be less democratic than election by the general mass of citizens, because the poor citizen would under the latter system enjoy art important right of interference by means of his suffrage, though he could not be elected himself. Again, choice by lot could never under any circumstances be applied to those posts where special com­petence, and a certain measure of attributes possessed only by a few, were indispensable—nor was it ever applied throughout the whole history of democratic Athens, to the strategi or generals, who were always elected by show of hands of the assembled citizens. Accord­ingly, we may regard it as certain, that at the time when the archons first came to be chosen by lot, the superior and responsible duties once attached to that office had been, or were in course of being, detached from it, and transferred either to the popular dikasts or the ten elected strategi: so that there remained to these archons only a routine of police and administration, important indeed to the state, yet such as could be executed by any citizen of average probity, dili­gence, and capacity—at least there was no obvious absurdity in thinking so; while the Dokimasy excluded from the office men of notoriously discreditable life, even after they might have drawn the successful lot. Pericles, though chosen strategus year after year successively, was never archon; and it may be doubted whether men of first-rate talents and ambition often gave in their names for the office. To those of smaller aspirations it was doubtless a source of importance, but it imposed troublesome labor, gave no pay, and entailed a certain degree of peril upon any archon who might have given offense to powerful men, when he came to pass through the trial of accountability which followed immediately upon his year of office. There was little to make the office acceptable, either to very poor men, or to very rich and ambitious men; and between the middling persons who gave in their names, any one might be taken without great practical mischief, always assuming the two guarantees of the Dokimasy before, and accountability after office. This was the conclusion—in my opinion a mistaken conclusion, and such as would find no favor at present—to which the democrats of Athens were conducted by their strenuous desire to equalize the chances of office for rich and poor. But their sentiment seems to have been satisfied by a partial enforcement of the lot to the choice of some offices— especially the archons, as the primitive chief magistrates of the state —without applying it to all or to the most responsible and difficult. Hardly would they have applied it to the archons, if it had been indispensably necessary that these magistrates should retain their original very serious duty of judging, disputes and condemning offenders.

I think, therefore, that these three points—1. The opening of the post of archon to all citizens indiscriminately; 2. The choice of archons by lot; 3. The diminished range of the archon’s duties and responsibilities, through the extension of those belonging to the popular courts of justice on the one hand and to the strategi on the other—are all connected together, and must have been simultaneous, or nearly simultaneous, in the time of introduction: the enactment of universal admissibility to office certainly not coming after the other two, and probably coming a little before them.

Now in regard to the eligibility of all Athenians indiscriminately to the office of archon, we find a clear and positive testimony as to the time when it was first introduced. Plutarch tells us that the oligarchic, but high-principled, Aristides was himself the proposer of this constitutional change, shortly after the battle of Plataea, with the consequent expulsion of the Persians from Greece, and the return of the refugee Athenians to their ruined city. Seldom has it hap­pened in the history of mankind that rich and poor have been so completely equalized as among the population of Athens in that memorable expatriation and heroic struggle; nor are we at all sur­prised to hear that the mass of the citizens, coming back with freshly kindled patriotism as well as with the consciousness that their coun­try had only been recovered by the equal efforts of all, would no longer submit to be legally disqualified from any office of state. It was on this occasion that the constitution was first made really “com­mon” to all, and that the archons, strategi, and all functionaries, first began to be chosen from all Athenians without any difference of legal eligibility. No mention is made of the lot, in this important statement of Plutarch, which appears to me everyway worthy of credit, and which teaches us, that down to the invasion of Xerxes, not only had the exclusive principle of the Solonian law of qualification continued in force (whereby the first three classes on the census were alone admitted to all individual offices, and the fourth or Thetic class excluded), but also the archons had hitherto been elected by the citizens—not taken by lot. Now for financial pur­poses, the quadruple census of Solon was retained long after this period, even beyond the Peloponnesian war and the oligarchy of Thirty; but we thus learn that Cleisthenes in his constitution retained it for political purposes also, in part at least. He recog­nized the exclusion of the great mass of the citizens from all indi­vidual offices—such as the archon, the strategus, etc. In his time, probably, no complaints were raised on the subject. For his con­stitution gave to the collective bodies—senate, ekklesia, and heliaea or dikastery—a degree of power and importance such as they had never before known or imagined. And we may well suppose that the Athenian people of that day had no objection even to the pro­claimed system and theory of being exclusively governed by men of wealth and station as individual magistrates—especially since many of the newly enfranchised citizens had been before metics and slaves. Indeed it is to be added, that even under the full democracy of later Athens, though the people had then become passionately attached to the theory of equal admissibility of all citizens to office, yet in practice, poor men seldom obtained offices which were elected by the general vote, as will appear more fully in the course of this history.

The choice of the strategi remained ever afterward upon the foot­ing on which Aristides thus placed it; but the lot for the choice of archon must have been introduced shortly after his proposition of universal eligibility, and in consequence too of the same tide of demo­cratic feeling—introduced as a farther corrective, because the poor citizen, though he had become eligible, was nevertheless not elected. And at the same time, I imagine, that elaborate distribution of the Heliaea, or aggregate body of dikasts or jurors, into separate panels or dikasteries for the decision of judicial matters, was first regularized. It was this change that stole away from the archons so important a part of their previous jurisdiction: it was this change that Pericles more fully consummated by insuring pay to the dikasts.

But the present is not the time to enter into the modifications which Athens underwent during the generation after the battle of Plataea. They have been here briefly noticed for the purpose of reasoning back, in the absence of direct evidence, to Athens, as it stood in the gener­ation before that memorable battle, after the reform of Cleisthenes. His reform, though highly democratical, stopped short of the mature democracy which prevailed from Pericles to Demosthenes, in three ways especially, among various others; and it is therefore sometimes considered by the later writers as an aristocratical constitution:—1. It still recognized the archons as judges to a considerable extent, and the third archon or polemarch as joint military commander along with the strategi. 2 It retained them as elected annually by the body of citizens, not as chosen by lot. 3. It still excluded the fourth class of the Solonian census from all individual office, the archonship among the rest. The Solonian law of exclusion, however, though retained in principle, was mitigated in practice thus far—that whereas Solon had rendered none but members of the highest class on the census (the Pentakosiomedimni) eligible to the archonship, Cleisthenes opened that dignity to all the first three classes, shutting out only the fourth. That lie did this may be inferred from the fact that Aristides, assuredly not a rich man, became archon. I am also inclined to believe that the senate of Five Hundred as constituted by Cleisthenes was taken, not by election, but by lot, from the ten tribes—and that every citizen became eligible to it. Election for this purpose—that is, the privilege of annually electing a batch of fifty senators all at once by each tribe—would probably be thought more troublesome than valu­able; nor do we hear of separate meetings of each tribe for purposes of election. Moreover the office of senator was a collective, not an individual office; the shock therefore to the feelings of semi democ­ratized Athens, from the unpleasant idea of a poor man sitting among the fifty prytanes, would be less than if they conceived him as pole­march at the head of the right wing of the army, or as an archon administering justice.

A farther difference between the constitution of Solon and that of Cleisthenes is to be found in the position of the senate of Areopagus. Under the former, that senate had been the principal body in the state, and Solon had even enlarged its powers; under the latter, it must have been treated at first as an enemy and kept down. For as it was composed only of all the past archons, and as during the pre­ceding thirty years every archon had been a creature of the Peisistratids, the Areopagites collectively must have been both hostile and odious to Cleisthenes and his partisans—perhaps a fraction of its members might even retire into exile with Hippias. Its influence must have been sensibly lessened by the change of party, until it came to be gradually filled by fresh archons springing from the bosom of the Cleisthenean constitution. Now during this important interval, the new-modeled senate of Five Hundred and the popular assembly stepped into that ascendency which they never afterward lost. From the time of Cleisthenes forward, the Areopagites cease to be the chief and prominent power in the state. Yet they are still considerable; and when the second fill of the democratical tide took place, after the battle of Plataea, they became the focus of that which was then con­sidered as the party of oligarchical resistance. I have already remarked that the archons during the intermediate time (about 509-477 b.c.) were all elected by the ekklesia, not chosen by lot—and that the fourth or poorest and most numerous class on the census were by law then ineligible; while election at Athens, even when every citizen without exception was an elector and eligible, had a natural tendency to fall upon men of wealth and station. We thus see how it hap­pened that the past archons, when united in the senate of Areopagus, infused into that body the sympathies, prejudices, and interests of the richer classes. It was this which brought them into conflict with the more democratical party headed by Pericles and Ephialtes, in times when portions of the Cleisthenean constitution had come to be discredited as too much imbued with oligarchy.

One other remarkable institution, distinctly ascribed to Cleisthenes, yet remains to be noticed—the ostracism; upon which 1 have already made some remarks in touching upon the memorable Solonian proclamation against neutrality in a sedition. It is hardly too much to say that without this protective process none of the other institutions would have reach maturity.

WEAKNESS OF THE PUBLIC FORCE.

By the ostracism a citizen was banished without special accusation, trial, or defense for a term of ten years—subsequently diminished to five. His property was not taken away, nor his reputation tainted; so that the penalty consisted solely in the banishment from his native city to some other Greek city. As to reputation, the ostracism was a compliment rather than otherwise; and so it was vividly felt to be, when, about ninety years after Cleisthenes, the conspiracy between Nicias and Alcibiades fixed it upon Hyperbolus: the two former had both recommended the taking of an ostracizing vote, each hoping to cause the banishment of the other; but before the day arrived, they accommodated their own quarrel. To fire off the safety-gun of the republic against a person so little dangerous as Hyperbolus, was denounced as the prostitution of a great political ceremony: “It was not against such men as him (said the comic writer Plato) that the shell was intended to be used.” The process of ostracism was carried into effect by writing upon a shell or potsherd the name of the person whom a citizen thought it prudent for a time to banish; which shell, when deposited in the proper vessel, counted for a vote toward the sentence.

I have already observed that all the governments of the Grecian cities, when we compare them with that idea which a modern reader is apt to conceive of the measure of force belonging to a government, were essentially weak—the good as well as the bad, the democratical, the oligarchical, and the despotic. The force in the hands of any government, to cope with conspirators or mutineers, was extremely small, with the single exception of a despot surrounded with his mer­cenary troop. Accordingly, no tolerably sustained conspiracy or usurper could be put down except by direct aid of the people in sup­port of the government; which amounted to a dissolution, for the time, of constitutional authority, and was pregnant with reactionary consequences such as no man could foresee. To prevent powerful men from attempting usurpation was therefore of the greatest possible moment. Now a despot or an oligarchy might exercise at pleasure preventive means, much sharper than the ostracism, such as the assassination of Cimon, mentioned in my last chapter as directed by the Peisistratids. At the very least, they might send away any one, from whom they apprehended attack or danger, without incurring even so much as the imputation of severity. But in a democracy, where arbitrary action of the magistrate was the thing of all others most dreaded, and where fixed laws, with trial and defense as pre­liminaries to punishment, were conceived by the ordinary citizen as the guarantees of his personal security and as the pride of his social condition—the creation of such an exceptional power presented seri­ous difficulty. If we transport ourselves to the times of Cleisthenes, immediately after the expulsion of the Peisistratids, when the work­ing of the democratical machinery was as yet untried, we shall find this difficulty at its maximum. But we shall also find the necessity of vesting such a power somewhere, absolutely imperative. For the great Athenian nobles had yet to learn the lesson of respect for any constitution. Their past history had exhibited continual struggles between the armed factions of Megacles, Lycurgus, and Peisistratus, put down after a time by the superior force and alliances of the latter; and though Cleisthenes, the son of Megacles, might be firmly disposed to renounce the example of his father and to act as the faithful citizen of a fixed constitution, he would know but too well that the sons of his father’s companions and rivals would follow out ambitious purposes without any regard to the limits imposed by law, if ever they acquired sufficient partisans to present a fair prospect of success. Moreover, when any two candidates for power, with such reckless dispositions, came into a bitter personal rivalry, the motives to each of them, aris­ing as well out of fear as out of ambition, to put down his opponent at any cost to the constitution, might well become irresistible, unless some impartial and discerning interference could arrest the strife in time. “If the Athenians were wise (Aristides is reported to have said, in the height and peril of his parliamentary struggle with Themistocles), they would cast both Themistokles and me into the barathrum.” And whoever reads the sad narrative of the Corcyrian sedition, in the third book of Thucydides, together with the reflections of the historian upon it, will trace the gradual exasperation of these party feuds, beginning even under democratical forms, until at length they break down the barriers of public as well as of private morality.

PURPOSE OF THE OSTRACISM

Against this chance of internal assailants Cleisthenes had to pro­tect the democratical constitution—first, by throwing impediments in their way and rendering it difficult for them to procure the requisite support; next, by eliminating them before any violent projects were ripe for execution To do either the one or the other, it was necessary to provide such a constitution as would not only conciliate the good will, but kindle the passionate attachment, of the mass of citi­zens, insomuch that not even any considerable minority should be deliberately inclined to alter it by force. It was necessary to create In the multitude, and through them to force upon the leading ambi­tious men, that rare and difficult sentiment which we may term a constitutional morality—a paramount reverence for the forms of the constitution, enforcing obedience to the authorities acting under and within those forms, yet combined with the habit of open speech, of action subject only to definite legal control, and unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public acts—combined, too, With a perfect confidence in the bosom of every citizen, amidst the bitterness of party contest, that the forms of the constitution will be not less sacred in the eyes of his opponents than in his own. This co-existence of freedom and self-imposed restraint—of obedience to authority with unmeasured censure of the persons exercising it—may be found in the aristocracy of England (since about 1688) as well as in the democracy of the American United States: and because we are familiar with it, we are apt to suppose it a natural sentiment; though there seem to be few sentiments more difficult to establish and diffuse among a community, judging by the experience of history. We may see how imperfectly it exists at this day in the Swiss Cantons; while the many violences of the first French revolution illustrate, among various other lessons, the fatal effects arising from its absence, even among a people high in the scale of intelligence. Yet the diffu­sion of such constitutional morality, not merely <unong the majority of any community, but throughout the whole, is the indispensable condition of a government at once free and peaceable; since even any powerful and obstinate minority may render the working of free institutions impracticable, without being strong enough to conquer ascendancy for themselves. Nothing less than unanimity, or so overwhelming a majority as to be tantamount to unanimity, on the cardinal point of respecting constitutional forms, even by those who do not wholly approve of them, can render the excitement of political passion bloodless, and yet expose all the authorities in the state to the full license of pacific criticism.

At the epoch of Cleisthenes, which by a remarkable coincidence is the same as that of the regifuge at Rome, such constitutional morality, if it existed anywhere else, had certainly no place at Athens; and the first creation of it in any particular society must be esteemed an inter­esting historical fact. By the spirit of his reforms,—equal, popular, and comprehensive, far beyond the previous experience of Athenians —he secured the hearty attachment of the body of citizens. But from the first generation of leading men, under the nascent democ­racy, and with such precedents as they had to look back upon, no self-imposed limits to ambition could be expected. Accord­ingly, Cleisthenes had to find the means of eliminating before­hand any one about to transgress these limits, so as to escape the necessity of putting him down afterward, with all that blood­shed and reaction, in the midst of which the free working of the constitution would be suspended at least, if not irrevocably extin­guished. To acquire such influence as would render him dangerous under democratical forms, a man must stand in evidence before the public, so as to afford some reasonable means of judging of his character and purposes. Now the security which Cleisthenes pro­vided was to call in the positive judgment of the citizens respecting his future promise purely and simply, so that they might not remain too long neutral between two formidable political rivals—pursuant in a certain way to the Solonian proclamation against neutrality in a sedition, as I have already remarked in a former chapter. He incor­porated in the constitution itself the principle of privilegium (to employ the Roman phrase, which signifies not a peculiar favor granted to anyone, but a peculiar inconvenience imposed), yet only under cir­cumstances solemn and well-defined, with full notice and discussion beforehand, and by the positive secret vote of a large proportion of the citizens, “No law shall be made against any single citizen, without the same being made against all Athenian citizens; unless it shall so seem good to 6,000 citizens voting secretly.” Such was that general principle of the constitution, under which the ostracism was a particular case. Before the vote of ostracism could be taken, a case was to be made out in the senate and the public assembly to justify it. In the sixth prytany of the year, these two bodies debated and determined whether the state of the republic was menacing enough to call for such an exceptional measure. If they decided in the affirm­ative, a day was named, the agora was railed round, with ten entrances left for the citizens of each tribe, and ten separate casks or vessels for depositing the suffrages, which consisted of a shell or a potsherd with the name of the person written on it whom each citizen designed to banish. At the end of the day the number of votes were summed up, and if 6,000 votes were found to have been given against any one per. son, that person was ostracized; if not, the ceremony ended in nothing. Ten days were allowed to him for settling his affairs, after which he was required to depart from Attica for ten years, but retained his property, and suffered no other penalty.

It was not the maxim at Athens to escape the errors of the people, by calling in the different errors, and the sinister interest besides, of an extra-popular or privileged few. Nor was any third course open, since the principles of representative government were not under­stood, nor indeed conveniently applicable to very small communities. Beyond the judgment of the people (so the Athenians felt), there was no appeal. Their grand study was to surround the delivery of that judgment with the best securities for rectitude, and the best preserv­atives against haste, passion, or private corruption. Whatever meas­ure of good government could not be obtained in that way, could not, in their opinion, be obtained at all. I shall illustrate the Athe­nian proceedings on this head more fully when I come to speak of the working of their mature democracy. Meanwhile in respect to this grand protection of the nascent democracy—the vote of ostra­cism—it will be found that the securities devised by Cleisthenes, for making the sentence effectual against the really dangerous man and against no one else, display not less foresight than patriotism. The main object was, to render the voting an expression of de­liberate public feeling, as distinguished from mere factious anti­pathy. Now the large minimum of votes required (one-fourth of the entire citizen population) went far to insure this effect—the more so, since each vote, taken as it was in a secret manner, counted unequivocally for the expression of a genuine and independent sentiment, and could neither be coerced nor bought. Then again. Cleisthenes did not permit the process of ostracizing to be opened against any one citizen exclusively. If opened at all, every one without exception was exposed to the sentence; so that the friends of Themistocles could not invoke it against Aristides, nor those of the latter against the former, without exposing their own leader to the same chance of exile. It was not likely to be invoked at all, therefore, until exasperation had proceeded so far as to ren­der both parties insensible to this chance—the precise index of that growing internecive hostility which the ostracism prevented from coming to a head. Nor could it even then be ratified, unless a case was shown to convince the more neutral portion of the senate and the ekklesia; moreover, after all, the ekklesia did not itself ostracize, but a future day was named, and the whole body of the citizens were solemnly invited to vote. It was in this way that security was taken not only for making the ostracism effectual in protecting the consti­tution, but to hinder it from being employed for any other purpose. We must recollect that it exercised its tutelary influence not merely on those occasions when it was actually employed, but by the mere knowledge that it might be employed, and by the restraining effect which that knowledge produced on the conduct of the great men. Again, the ostracism, though essentially of an exceptional nature, was yet an exception sanctified and limited by the constitution itself; so that the citizen, in giving his ostracizing vote, did not in any way depart from the constitution or lose his reverence for it. The issue placed before him—“Is there any man whom you think vitally dan­gerous to the state? if so, whom?”—though vague, was yet raised directly and legally. Had there been no ostracism, it might probably have been raised both indirectly and illegally, on the occasion of some special imputed crime of a suspected political leader, when accused before a court of justice—a perversion involving all the mischief of the ostracism, without its protective benefits.

Care was taken to divest the ostracism of all painful consequence except what was inseparable from exile. This is not one of the least proofs of the wisdom with which it was devised. Most certainly it never deprived the public of candidates for political influence; and when we consider the small amount of individual evil which it inflicted—evil, too, diminished in the cases of Cimon and Aristides, by a reactionary sentiment which augmented their subsequent popu­larity after return—two remarks will be quite sufficient to offer it. the way of justification. First, it completely produced its intended effect; for the democracy grew up from infancy to manhood without a single attempt to overthrow it by force—a result upon which no reflecting contemporary of Cleisthenes could have ventured to calculate. Next, through such tranquil working of the democrati­cal forms, a constitutional morality quite sufficiently complete was produced among the leading Athenians, to enable the people after a certain time to dispense with that exceptional security which the ostracism offered. To the nascent democracy, it was absolutely indispensable; to the growing, yet militant democracy it was salutary; but the full-grown democracy both could and did stand without it. The ostracism passed upon Hyperbolus, about ninety years after Cleisthenes, was the last occasion of its employ­ment. And even this can hardly be considered as a serious instance: it was a trick concerted between two distinguished Athenians (Nicias and Alcibiades) to turn to their own political account a process already coming to be antiquated. Nor would such a maneuver have been possible, if the contemporary Athenian citizens had been pene­trated with the same serious feeling of the value of ostracism as a safeguard of democracy, as had been once entertained by their fathers and grandfathers. Between Cleisthenes and Hyperbolus, we hear of about ten different persons as having been banished by ostracism: first of all, Hipparchus of the deme Cholargus, the son of Charmus, a relative of the recently-expelled Peisistratid despots; then Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, and Thucydides, son of Melesias, all of them renowned political leaders: also Alcibiades and Megacles (the paternal and maternal grandfathers of the distinguished Alcibiades), and Kallias, belonging to another eminent family at Athens; lastly, Damon, the preceptor of Pericles in poetry and music, and eminent for his acquisitions in philosophy. In this last case comes out the vulgar side of humanity, aristocratical as well as democratical; for with both, the process of philosophy and the persons of philosophers are wont to be alike unpopular. Even Cleisthenes himself is said to have been ostracized under his own law, and Xanthippus; but both upon authority too weak to trust. Miltiades was not ostracized at all, but tried and punished for misconduct in his command.

I should hardly have said so much about this memorable and peculiar institution of Cleisthenes, if the erroneous accusations against the Athenian democracy, of envy, injustice, and ill-treatment of their superior men, had not been greatly founded upon it, and if such criticisms had not passed from ancient times to modern with little examination. In monarchical governments, a pretender to the throne, numbering a certain amount of supporters, is as a matter of course excluded from the country. The Duke of Bordeaux cannot now reside in France—nor could Napoleon after 1815—nor Charles Edward in England during the last century. No man treats this as any extravagant injustice, yet it is the parallel of the ostracism— with a stronger case in favor of the latter, inasmuch as the change from one regal dynasty to another does not of necessity overthrow all the collateral institutions and securities of the country. Plutarch has affirmed that the ostracism arose from the envy and jealousy inher­ent in a democracy, and not from justifiable fears—an observation often repeated, yet not the less demonstrably untrue. Not merely because ostracism so worked as often to increase the influence of that political leader whose rival it removed—but still more, because, if the fact had been as Plutarch says, this institution would have con­tinued as long as the democracy; whereas it finished with the ban­ishment of Hyperbolus, at a period when the government was more decisively democratical than it had been in the time of Cleisthenes. It was, in truth, a product altogether of fear and insecurity on the part both of the democracy and its best friends—fear perfectly well grounded, and only appearing needless because the precautions taken prevented attack. So soon as the diffusion of a constitutional moral­ity had placed the mass of the citizens above all serious fear of an aggressive usurper, the ostracism was discontinued. And doubtless the feeling that it might safely be dispensed with must have been strengthened by the long ascendency of Pericles—by the spectacle of the greatest statesman whom Athens ever produced, acting steadily within the limits of the constitution; and by the ill-success of his two opponents, Cimon and Thucydides—aided by numerous partisans, and by the great comic writers, at a period when comedy was a power in the state such as it has never been before or since—in their attempts to get him ostracized. They succeeded in fanning up the ordinary antipathy of the citizens toward philosophers so far as to procure the ostracism of his friend and teacher Damon; but Pericles himself (to repeat the complaint of his bitter enemy the comic poet Cratinus) “holds his head as high as if he carried the Odeion upon it, now that the shell has gone by”—i.e. now that he has escaped the ostracism. If Pericles was not conceived to be dangerous to the constitution, none of his successors were at all likely to be so regarded. Damon and Hyperbolus were the two last persons ostra­cized. Both of them were cases, and the only cases, of an unequivo­cal abuse of the institution, because, whatever the grounds of dis­pleasure against them may have been, it is impossible to conceive cither of them as menacing to the state—whereas all the other known sufferers were men of such position and power, that the 6,000 citi­zens who inscribed each name on the shell, or at least a large propor­tion of them, may well have done so under the most conscientious belief that they were guarding the constitution against real danger. Such a change in the character of the persons ostracized plainly evinces that the ostracism had become dissevered from that genuine patriotic prudence which originally rendered it both legitimate and popular. It had served for two generations an inestimable tutelary purpose—it lived to be twice dishonored—and then passed, by uni­versal acquiescence, into matter of history.

A process analogous to the ostracism subsisted at Argos, at Syra­cuse, and in some other Grecian democracies. Aristotle states that it was abused for factious purposes: and at Syracuse, where it was introduced after the expulsion of the Gelonian dynasty, Diodorus affirms that it was so unjustly and profusely applied as to deter per­sons of wealth and station from taking any part in public affairs for which reason it was speedily discontinued. We have no particulars to enable us to appreciate this general statement. But we cannot safely infer that because the ostracism worked on the whole well at Athens, it must necessarily have worked well in other states—the more so as we do not know whether it was surrounded with the same precautionary formalities, nor whether it even required the same large minimum of votes to make it effective. This latter guarantee, so valuable in regard to an institution essentially easy to abuse, is nor noticed by Diodorus in his brief account of the Petalism—so the process was denominated at Syracuse.

Such was the first Athenian democracy, engendered as well by the reaction against Hippias and his dynasty as by the memorable part­nership, whether spontaneous or compulsory, between Cleisthenes and the unfranchised multitude. It is to be distinguished both from the mitigated oligarchy established by Solon before, and from the full-grown and symmetrical democracy which prevailed afterward from the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, toward the close of the career of Pericles. It was indeed a striking revolution, impressed upon the citizen not less by the sentiments to which it appealed than by the visible change which it made in political and social life. He saw himself marshaled in the ranks of hoplites alongside of new companions in arms—he was enrolled in a new register, and his prop­erty in a new schedule, in his deme and by his demarch, an officer before unknown—he found the year distributed afresh, for all legal purposes, into ten parts bearing the name of prytanies, each marked by a solemn and free-spoken ekklesia at which he had a right to be present—his ekklesia was convoked and presided by senators called prytanes, members of a senate novel both as to number and distribu­tion—his political duties were now performed as member of a tribe, designated by a name not before pronounced in common Attic life, connected with one of ten heroes whose statues he now for the first time saw in the agora, and associating him with fellow-tribemen from all parts of Attica. All these and many others were sensible novelties felt in the daily proceedings of the citizen. But the great novelty of all was the authentic recognition of the ten new tribes as a sovereign Demos or people, apart from all specialties of phratric or gentile origin, with free speech and equal law; retaining no distinction except the four classes of the Solonian property-schedule with their gradations of eligibility. To a considerable proportion of citi­zens this great novelty was still farther endeared by the fact that it had raised them out of the degraded position of metics and slaves; while to the large majority of all the citizens, it furnished a splendid political idea, profoundly impressive to the Greek mind—capable of calling forth the most ardent attachment as well as the most devoted sense of active obligation and obedience. We have now, to see how their newly-created patriotism manifested itself.

ISAGORAS CALLS IN KLEOMENES.

Cleisthenes and his new constitution carried with them so com­pletely the popular favor, that Isagoras had no other way of oppos­ing it except by calling in the interference of Cleomenes and the Lacedaemonians. Cleomenes listened the more readily to this call, as he was reported to have been on an intimate footing with the wife of Isagoras. He prepared to come to Athens; but his first aim was to deprive the democracy of its great leader Cleisthenes, who, as belonging to the Alkmaeonid family, was supposed to be tainted with the inherited sin of his great-grandfather Megacles, the destroyer of the usurper Kylon. Cleomenes sent a herald to Athens, demanding the expulsion “of the accursed”—so this family were called by their enemies, and so they continued to be called eighty years afterward, when the same maneuver was practiced by the Lacedaemonians of that day against Pericles. This requisition, recommended by Isagoras, was so well-timed, that Cleisthenes, not venturing to disobey it, retired voluntarily; so that Cleomenes, though arriving at Athens only with a small force, found himself master of the city. At the instigation of Isagoras, he sent into exile 700 families, selected from the chief partisans of Cleisthenes. His next attempt was to dissolve the new senate of Five Hundred, and to place the whole government in the hands of 300 adherents of the chief whose cause he espoused. But now was seen the spirit infused into the people by their new constitution. At the time of the first usurpa­tion of Peisistratus, the senate of that day had only not resisted, but even lent themselves to the scheme. Now, the new senate of Cleisthenes resolutely refused to submit to dissolution, while the citizens generally, even after the banishment of the chief Cleisthenean partisans, manifested their feelings in a way at once so hostile and so determined, that Cleomenes and Isagoras were altogether baffled. They were compelled to retire into the acropolis and stand upon the defensive. This symptom of weakness was the signal for a general rising of the Athenians, who besieged the Spartan king on the holy rock. He had evidently come without any expectation of finding, or any means of overpowering, resistance; for at the end of two days his provisions were exhausted, and he was forced to capitulate. He and his Lacedaemonians, as well as Isagoras, were allowed to retire to Sparta; but the Athenians of the party captured along with him were imprisoned, condemned, and executed by the people.

Cleisthenes, with the 700 exiled families, was immediately re­called, and his new constitution materially strengthened by this first success. Yet the prospect of renewed Spartan attack was suf­ficiently serious to induce him to send envoys to Artaphernes, the Persian Satrap at Sardis, soliciting the admission of Athens into the Persian alliance. He probably feared the intrigues of the expelled Hippias in the same quarter. Artaphernes, having first informed himself who the Athenians were, and where they dwelt, replied that if they chose to send earth and water to the king of Persia they might be received as allies, but upon no other condition. Such were the feelings of alarm under which the envoys had quitted Athens, that they went the length of promising this unqualified token of sub­mission. But their countrymen on their return disavowed them with scorn and indignation.

It was at this time that the first connection began between Athens and the little Boeotian town of Plataea, situated on the northern slope of the range of Cithaeron, between that mountain and the river Asopus—on the road from Athens to Thebes; and it is upon this occasion that we first become acquainted with the Boeotians and their politics. In one of my preceding volumes, the Boeotian federation has already been briefly described, as composed of some twelve or thirteen au­tonomous towns under the headship of Thebes, which was, or pro­fessed to have been, their mother-city. Plataea had been (so the Thebans affirmed) their latest foundation; it was ill-used by them, and discontented with the alliance. Accordingly, as Cleomenes was on his way back from Athens, the Plataeans took the opportunity of addressing themselves to him, craving the protection of Sparta against Thebes, and surrendering their town and territory without reserve. The Spartan king, having no motive to undertake a trust which promised nothing but trouble, advised them to solicit the pro­tection of Athens, as nearer and more accessible for them in case of need. He foresaw that this would embroil the Athenians with Boeotia, and such anticipation was in fact his chief motive for giving the advice, which the Plataeans followed. Selecting an occasion of pub­lic sacrifice at Athens, they dispatched thither envoys, who sat down as suppliants at the altar, surrendered their town to Athens, and implored protection against Thebes. Such an appeal was not to be resisted, and protection was promised. It was soon needed, for the Thebans invaded the Plataean territory, and an Athenian force marched to defend it, Battle was about to be joined, when the Cor­inthians interposed with their mediation, which was accepted by both parties. They decided altogether in favor of Plataea, pronouncing that the Thebans had no right to employ force against any seceding member of the Boeotian federation. The Thebans, finding the decision against them, refused to abide by it, and attacked the Athe­nians on their return, but sustained a complete defeat; a breach of faith which the Athenians avenged by joining to Plataea the portion of Theban territory south of the Asopus, and making that river the limit between the two. By such success, however, the Athenians gained nothing, except the enmity of Boeotia—as Cleomenes had foreseen. Their alliance with Plataea, long-continued, and present­ing in the course of this history several incidents touching to our sympathies, will be found, if we except one splendid occasion, pro­ductive only of burden to the one party, yet insufficient as a protec­tion to the other.

Meanwhile Cleomenes had returned to Sparta full of resentment against the Athenians, and resolved on punishing them as well as on establishing his friend Isagoras as despot over them. Having been taught, however, by humiliating experience, that this was no easy achievement, he would not make the attempt, without having assembled a considerable force. He summoned allies from all the various states of Peloponnesus, yet without venturing to inform them what he was about to undertake. He at the same time concerted measures with the Boeotians, and with the Chalcidians of Euboea, for a simultaneous invasion of Attica on all sides. It appears that he had greater confidence in their hostile dispositions toward Athens than in those of the Peloponnesians, for he was not afraid to acquaint them with his design—and probably the Boeotians were incensed with the recent interference of Athens in the affair of Plataea. As soon as these preparations were completed, the two kings of Sparta, Cleomenes and Demaratus, put themselves at the head of the united Pelo­ponnesian force, marched into Attica, and advanced as far as Eleusis on the way to Athens. But when the allies came to know the pur­pose for which they were to be employed, a spirit of dissatisfaction manifested itself among them. They had no unfriendly sentiment toward Athens; and the Corinthians especially, favorably disposed rather than otherwise toward that city, resolved to proceed no farther, withdrew their contingent from the camp, and returned home. At the same time, King Demaratus, either sharing in the general dis­satisfaction or moved by some grudge against his colleague which had not before manifested itself, renounced the undertaking also. Two such examples, operating upon the pre-existing sentiment of the allies generally, caused the whole camp to break up and return home without striking a blow.

We may here remark that this is the first instance known in which Sparta appears in act as recognized head of an obligatory Peloponne­sian alliance, summoning contingents from the cities to be placed under the command of her king. Her headship, previously recognized in theory, passes now into act, but in an unsatisfactory manner, so as to prove the necessity of precaution and concert beforehand—which will be found not long wanting.

SUCCESSES OF ATHENS.

Pursuant to the scheme concerted, the Boeotians and Chalcidians attacked Attica at the same time that Cleomenes entered it. The former seized Oenoe and Hysiae, the frontier demes of Attica on the side toward Plataea; while the latter assailed the north-eastern frontier which faces Euboea. Invaded on three sides, the Athenians were in serious danger, and were compelled to concentrate all their forces at Eleusis against Cleomenes, leaving the Boeotians and Chalcidians unopposed. But the unexpected breaking up of the invading army from Peloponnesus proved their rescue, and enabled them to turn the whole of their attention to the other frontier. They marched into Boeotia to the strait called Euripus which separates it from Euboea intending to prevent the junction of the Boeotians and Chalcidians, and to attack the latter first apart. But the arrival of the Boeotians caused an alteration in their scheme; they attacked the Boeotians first, and gained a victory of the most complete character—killing a large number, and capturing 700 prisoners. On the very same day they crossed over to Euboea, attacked the Chalcidians, and gained another victory so decisive that it at once terminated the war. Many Chalcidians were taken, as well as Boeotians, and conveyed in chains to Athens, where after a certain detention they were at last ransomed for two minae per man. Of the sum thus raised, a tenth was employed in the fabrication of a chariot and four horses in bronze, which was placed in the acropolis to commemorate the vic­tory. Herodotus saw this trophy when he was at Athens. He saw, too, what was a still more speaking trophy, the actual chains in which the prisoners had been fettered, exhibiting in their appearance the damage undergone when the acropolis was burnt by Xerxes: an inscription of four lines described the offerings and recorded the vic­tory out of which they had sprung.

Another consequence of some moment arose out of this victory. The Athenians planted a body of 4,000 of their citizens as Kleruchs (lot-holders) or settlers upon the lands of the wealthy Chalcidian oligarchy called the Hippobotae—proprietors probably in the fertile plain of Lelantum between Chalcis and Eretria. This is a system which we shall find hereafter extensively followed out by the Athe­nians in the days of their power; partly with the view of providing for their poorer citizens—partly to serve as garrison among a popula­tion either hostile or of doubtful fidelity. These Attic Kleruchs (I can find no other name by which to speak of them) did not lose their birth-right as Athenian citizens. They were not colonists in the Grecian sense, and they are known by a totally different name—but they correspond very nearly to the colonies formerly planted out on the conquered lands by Rome. The increase of the poorer popula­tion was always more or less painfully felt in every Grecian city; for though the aggregate population never seems to have increased very fast, yet the multiplication of children in poor families caused the subdivision of the smaller lots of land, until at last they became insufficient for a maintenance; and the persons thus impoverished found it difficult to obtain subsistence in other ways, more especially as the labor for the richer classes was so much performed by imported slaves. Doubtless some families possessed of landed property became extinct. Yet this did not at all benefit the smaller and poorer pro­prietors, for the lands rendered vacant passed, not to them, but by inheritance or bequest or intermarriage to other proprietors for the most part in easy circumstances—since one opulent family usually intermarried with another. I shall enter more fully at a future opportunity into this question—the great and serious problem of population, as it affected the Greek communities generally, and as it was dealt with in theory by the powerful minds of Plato and Aris­totle—at present it is sufficient to notice that the numerous Kleruchies sent out by Athens, of which this to Euboea was the first, arose in a great measure out of the multiplication of the poorer population, which her extended power was employed in providing for. Her sub­sequent proceedings with a view to the same object will not be always found so justifiable as this now before us, which grew naturally, according to the ideas of the time, out of her success against the Chalcidians.

The war between Athens, however, and Thebes with her Boeotian allies, still continued, to the great and repeated disadvantage of the latter, until at length the Thebans in despair sent to ask advice of the Delphian oracle, and were directed to “solicit aid from those nearest to them.” “How (they replied) are we to obey? Our nearest neighbors, of Tanagra, Koroneia, and Thespiae, are now, and have been from the beginning, lending us all the aid in their power.” An ingenious Theban, however, coming to the relief of his perplexed fellow-citizens, dived into the depths of legend and brought up a happy meaning. “Those nearest to us (he said) are the inhabitants of Aegina: for Thebe (the eponym of Thebes) and Aegina (the eponym of that island) were both sisters, daughters of Asopus. Let us send to crave assistance from the Aeginetans.” If his subtle interpretation (founded upon their descent from the same legendary progenitors) did not at once convince all who heard it, at least no one had any better to suggest. Envoys were at once sent to the Aeginetans; who, in reply to a petition founded on legendary claims, sent to the help of the Thebans a reinforcement of legendary, but venerated, auxiliaries— the Aeakid heroes. We are left to suppose that their effigies are here meant. It was in vain, however, that the glory and the supposed presence of the Aeakids Telamon and Peleus were introduced into the Theban camp. Victory still continued on the side of Athens; so that the discouraged Thebans again sent to Aegina, restoring the heroes, and praying for aid of a character more human and positive. Their request was granted, and the Aeginetans commenced war against Athens, without even the decent preliminary of a herald and declaration.

This remarkable embassy first brings us into acquaintance with the Dorians of Aegina—oligarchical, wealthy, commercial, and powerful at sea, even in the earliest days; more analogous to Corinth than to any of the other cities called Dorian. The hostility which they now began without provocation against Athens—repressed by Sparta at the critical moment of the battle of Marathon—then again breaking out—and hushed for a while by the common dangers of the Persian invasion under Xerxes, was appeased only with the conquest of the island about twenty years after that event, and with the expulsion and destruction of its inhabitants. There had been indeed, according to Herodotus, a feud of great antiquity between Athens and Aegina—of which he gives the account in a singular narrative blend­ing together religion, politics, exposition of ancient customs, etc. But at the time when the Thebans solicited aid from Aegina, the latter was at peace with Athens. The Aeginetans employed their fleet, powerful for that day, in ravaging Phalerum and the mari­time demes of Attica; nor had the Athenians as yet any fleet to resist them. It is probable that the desired effect was produced, of diverting a portion of the Athenian force from the war against Boeotia, and thus partially relieving Thebes; but the war of Athens against both of them continued for a considerable time, though we have no infor­mation respecting its details.

Meanwhile the attention of Athens was called off from these com­bined enemies by a more menacing cloud which threatened to burst upon her from the side of Sparta. Cleomenes and his countrymen, full of resentment at the late inglorious desertion of Eleusis, were yet more incensed by the discovery, which appears to have been then recently made, that the injunctions of the Delphian priestess for the expulsion of Hippias from Athens had been fraudulently pro cured. Moreover Cleomenes, when shut up in the acropolis of Athens with Isagoras, had found there various prophecies previously treasured up by the Peisistratids, many of which foreshadowed events highly disastrous to Sparta. And while the recent brilliant manifestations of courage and repeated victories, on the part of Athens, seemed to indicate that such prophecies might perhaps be realized—Sparta bad to reproach herself, that, from the foolish and mischievous conduct of Cleomenes, she had undone the effect of her previous aid against the Peisistratids, and thus lost that return of gratitude which the Athenians would otherwise have testified. Un­der such impressions, the Spartan authorities took the remarkable step of sending for Hippias from his residence at Sigeium to Pelo­ponnesus, and of summoning deputies from all their allies to meet him at Sparta.

The convocation thus summoned deserves notice as the commence­ment of a new era in Grecian politics. The previous expedition of Cleomenes against Attica presents to us the first known example of Spartan headship passing from theory into act: that expedition mis­carried because the allies, though willing to follow, would not follow blindly, nor be made the instruments of executing purposes repug­nant to their feelings. Sparta had now learnt the necessity, in order to insure their hearty concurrence, of letting them know what she contemplated, so as to ascertain at least that she had no decided oppo­sition to apprehend. Here then is the third stage in the spontane­ous movement of Greece toward a systematic conjunction, however imperfect, of its many autonomous units; first we have Spartan head­ship suggested in theory, from a concourse of circumstances which attract to her the admiration of all Greece—power, unrivaled train­ing, undisturbed antiquity, etc.: next, the theory passes into act, yet rude and shapeless: lastly, the act becomes clothed with formalities and preceded by discussion and determination. The first convoca­tion of the allies at Sparta, for the purpose of having a common object submitted to their consideration, may well be regarded as an important event in Grecian political history: the proceedings at the convocation are no less important, as an indication of the way in which the Greeks of that day felt and acted, and must be borne in mind as a contrast with times hereafter to be described.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVOCATION

Hippias having been presented to the assembled allies, the Spartans expressed their sorrow for having dethroned him—their resentment and alarm at the newborn insolence of Athens, already tasted by her immediate neighbors, and menacing to every state represented in the convocation—and their anxiety to restore Hippias, not less as a rep­aration of the past wrong, than as a means, through his rule, of keeping Athens low and dependent. But the proposition, though emanating from Sparta, was listened to by the allies with one com­mon sentiment of repugnance. They had no sympathy for Hippias—no dislike, still less any fear, of Athens—and a profound detesta­tion of the character of a despot. The spirit which had animated the armed contingents at Eleusis now re-appeared among the deputies at Sparta, and the Corinthians again took the initiative. Their dep­uty Sosikles protested against the project in the fiercest and most indignant strain. No language can be stronger than that of the long harangue which Herodotus puts into his mouth, wherein the bitter recollections prevalent at Corinth respecting Kypselus and Periander are poured forth. “Surely heaven and earth are about to change places—the fish are coming to dwell on dry land, and mankind going to inhabit the sea—when you, Spartans, propose to subvert the popu­lar governments, and to set up in the cities that wicked and bloody thing called a Despot. First try what it is for yourselves at Sparta, and then force it upon others if you can: you have not tasted its calamities as we have, and you take very good care to keep it away from yourselves. We adjure you by the common gods of Hellas—plant not despots in her cities: if you persist in a scheme so wicked, know that the Corinthians will not second you.”

This animated appeal was received with a shout of approbation and sympathy on the part of the allies. All with one accord united with Sosikles in adjuring the Lacedaemonians “not to revolutionize any Hellenic city.” No one listened to Hippias when he replied, and warned the Corinthians that the time would come, when they, more than anyone else, would dread and abhor the Athenian democ­racy, and wish the Peisistratidae back again. “He knew well (says Herodotus) that this would be, for he was better acquainted with the prophecies than any man; but no one then believed him, and he was forced to take his departure back to Sigeium; the spartans not venturing to espouse his cause against the determined sentiment of the allies.”

That determined sentiment deserves notice, because it marks the present period of the Hellenic mind; fifty years later it will be found materially altered. Aversion to single-headed rule, and bitter recol­lection of men like Kypselus and Periander, are now the chords which thrill in an assembly of Grecian deputies. The idea of a revo­lution (implying thereby an organic and comprehensive change of which the party using the word disapproves) consists in substituting a permanent One in place of those periodical magistrates and assemblies which were the common attribute of oligarchy and democracy; the antithesis between these last two is as yet in the background, and there prevails neither fear of Athens nor hatred of the Athenian democracy. But when we turn to the period immediately before the Peloponnesian war, we find the order of precedence between these two sentiments reversed. The anti-monarchical feeling has not per­ished, but has been overlaid by other and more recent political antipathies—the antithesis between democracy and oligarchy having become, not indeed the only sentiment, but the uppermost sentiment, in the minds of Grecian politicians generally, and the soul of active party movement. Moreover, a hatred of the most deadly character has grown up against Athens and her democracy, especially in the grand­sons of those very Corinthians who now stand forward as her sympa­thizing friends. The remarkable change of feeling here mentioned is nowhere so strikingly exhibited as when we contrast the address of the Corinthian Sosikles just narrated, with the speech of the Corin­thian envoys at Sparta immediately antecedent to the Peloponnesian war, as given to us in Thucydides. It will hereafter be fully explained by the intermediate events, by the growth of Athenian power, and by the still more miraculous development of Athenian energy.

Such development, the fruit of the fresh-planted democracy as well as the seed for its sustentation and aggrandizement, continued progressive during the whole period just adverted to; but the first unexpected burst of it, under the Kleisthenean constitution and after the expulsion of Hippias is described by Herodotus in terms too emphatic to be omitted. After narrating the successive victories of the Athenians over both Boeotians and Chalcidians, that historian proceeds—“Thus did the Athenians grow in strength. And we may find proof not merely in this instance but everywhere else, how valu­able a thing freedom is; since even the Athenians, while under a despot, were not superior in war to any of their surrounding neigh­bors, but so soon as they got rid of their despots, became by far the first of all. These things show that while kept down by one man, they were slack and timid, like men working for a master; but when they were liberated, every single man became eager in exertions for his own benefit.” The same comparison reappears a short time after­ward, where he tells us that “the Athenians, when free, felt them­selves a match for Sparta; but while kept down by any man under a despotism, were feeble and apt for submission.”

Stronger expressions cannot be found to depict the rapid improve­ment wrought in the Athenian people by their new democracy. Of course this did not arise merely from suspension of previous cruel­ties, or from better laws, or better administration. These, indeed, were essential conditions, but the active transforming cause here was, the principle and system of which such amendments formed the detail: the grand and new idea of the sovereign people, composed of free and equal citizens—or liberty and equality, to use words which so profoundly moved the French some centuries ago. It was this comprehensive political idea which acted with electric effect upon the Athenians, creating within them a host of sentiments, motives, sympathies, and capacities, to which they had before been strangers. Democracy in Grecian antiquity possessed the privilege, not only of kindling an earnest and unanimous attachment to the constitution in the bosoms of the citizens, but also of creating an energy of public and private action, such as could never be obtained under an oligarchy, where the utmost that could be hoped for was a passive acquiescence and obedience. Mr. Burke has remarked that the mass of the people are generally very indifferent about theories of government; but such indifference (although improvements in the practical working of all governments tend to foster it) is hardly to be expected among any people who exhibit decided mental activity and spirit on other matters; and the reverse was unquestionably true, in the year 500 b.c., among the communities of ancient Greece. The­ories of government were there anything but a dead letter: they were connected with emotions of the strongest as well as of the most oppo­site character. The theory of a permanent ruling One, for example, was universally odious: that of a ruling Few, though acquiesced in, was never positively attractive, unless either where it was associated with the maintenance of peculiar education and habits, as at Sparta, or where it presented itself as the only antithesis to democracy, the latter having by peculiar circumstances become an object of terror. But the theory of democracy was pre-eminently seductive; creating in the mass of the citizens an intense positive attachment, and dis­posing them to voluntary action and suffering on its behalf, such as no coercion on the part of other governments could extort. Herodotus, in his comparison of the three sorts of government, puts in the front rank of the advantages of democracy “its most splendid name and promise”—its power of enlisting the hearts of the citizens in support of their constitution, and of providing for all a common bond of union and fraternity. This is what even democracy did not always do; but it was what no other government in Greece could do; a reason alone sufficient to stamp it as the best government, and pre­senting the greatest chance of beneficent results, for a Grecian com­munity. Among the Athenian citizens, certainly, it produced a strength and unanimity of positive political sentiment, such as has rarely been seen in the history of mankind, which excites our surprise and admiral ion the more when we compare it with the apathy which had preceded, and which is even implied as the natural state of the public mind in Solon’s famous proclamation against neutrality in a sedition. Because democracy happens to be unpalatable to most modern readers, they have been accustomed to look upon the senti­ment here described only in its least honorable manifestations —in the caricatures of Aristophanes, or in the empty commonplaces of rhetorical declaimers. But it is not in this way that the force, the earnestness, or the binding value of democratic sentiment at Athens is to be measured. We must listen to it as it comes from the lips of Pericles, while he is strenuously enforcing upon the people those active duties for which it both implanted the stimulus and supplied the courage; or from the oligarchic Nikiasin the harbor of Syracuse, when he is endeavoring to revive the courage of his despairing troops for one last death-struggle, and when he appeals to their democratic patriotism as to the only flame yet alive and burning even in that moment of agony. From the time of Cleisthenes downward, the creation of this new mighty impulse makes an entire revolution in the Athenian character; and if the change still stood out in so promi­nent a manner before the eyes of Herodotus, much more must it have been felt by the contemporaries among whom it occurred.

The attachment of an Athenian citizen to his democratic consti­tution comprised two distinct veins of sentiment: first, his rights, protection, and advantages derived from it—next, his obligations of exertion and sacrifice toward it and with reference to it. Neither of these two veins of sentiment was ever wholly absent; but according as the one or the other was present at different times in varying pro portions, the patriotism of the citizen was a very different feeling. That which Herodotus remarks is, the extraordinary efforts of heart and hand which the Athenians suddenly displayed; the efficacy of the active sentiment throughout the bulk of the citizens. We shall observe even more memorable evidences of the same phenomenon in tracing down the history from Cleisthenes to the end of the Pelopon­nesian war: we shall trace a series of events and motives eminently calculated to stimulate that self-imposed labor and discipline which the early democracy had first called forth. But when we advance farther down, from the restoration of the democracy after the Thirty Tyrants, to the time of Demosthenes—(I venture upon this brief anti­cipation, in the conviction that one period of Grecian history can only be thoroughly understood by contrasting it with another)—we shall find a sensible change in Athenian patriotism. The active sen­timent of obligation is comparatively inoperative; the citizen, it is true, has a keen sense of the value of the democracy as protecting him and insuring to him valuable rights, and he is, moreover, willing to perform his ordinary sphere of legal duties toward it; but he looks upon it as a thing established, and capable of maintaining itself in a due measure of foreign ascendency, without any such personal efforts as those •which his forefathers cheerfully imposed upon them­selves. The orations of Demosthenes contain melancholy proofs of such altered tone of patriotism—of that langour, paralysis, and wait­ing for others to act, which preceded the catastrophe of Chaeroneia, notwithstanding an unabated attachment to the democracy as a source of protection and good government. That same preternatural activity which the allies of Sparta, at the beginning of the Pelopon­nesian war, both denounced and admired in the Athenians, is noted by the orator as now belonging to their enemy Philip. Such varia­tions in the scale of national energy pervade history, modern as well as ancient, but in regard to Grecian history, especially, they can never be overlooked. For a certain measure, not only of positive political attachment, but also of active self-devotion, military readiness, and personal effort, was the indispensable condition of maintaining Hel­lenic autonomy, either in Athens or elsewhere; and became so more than ever when the Macedonians were once organized under an enter­prising and semi-Hellenized prince. The democracy was the first creative cause of that astonishing personal and many-sided energy which marked the Athenian character, for a century downward from Cleisthenes; that the same ultra-Hellenic activity did not longer con­tinue, is referable to other causes which will be hereafter in part explained. No system of government, even supposing it to be very much better and more faultless than the Athenian democracy, can ever pretend to accomplish its legitimate end apart from the personal character of the people, or to supersede the necessity of individual virtue and vigor. During the half-century immediately preceding the battle of Chaeroneia, the Athenians had lost that remarkable energy which distinguished them during the first century of their democracy, and had fallen much more nearly to a level with the other Greeks, in common with whom they were obliged to yield to the pressure of a foreign enemy. I here briefly notice their last period of languor, in contrast with the first burst of democratic fervor under Cleisthenes now opening—a feeling, winch will be found, as we proceed, to continue for a longer period than could have been reasonably anticipated, but which was too high-strung to become a perpetual and inherent attribute of any community.