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of affairs. The steadiness of their political sympathies-exhibited at one time by putting down the tyrants or despots, at another by overthrowing the democracies stood in the place of ability, and even the recognised failings of their government were often covered by the sentiment of respect for its early commencement and uninterrupted continuance. If such a feeling acted on the Greeks generally, much more powerful was its action upon the Spartans themselves, in inflaming that haughty exclusiveness for which they stood distinguished. And it is to be observed that the Spartan mind continued to be cast on the oldfashioned scale, and unsusceptible of modernizing influences, longer than that of most other people of Greece: the ancient legendary faith and devoted submission to the Delphian oracle remained among them unabated, at a time when various influences had considerably undermined it among their fellow-Hellens and neighbours.'-vol. ii. pp. 477, 478.

The most important point, however, in the legislation of Lycurgus, in which Mr. Grote differs from all his predecessors, is the alleged re-division of the land of the country by the lawgiver. According to the well-known story as related by Plutarch, Lycurgus found fearful inequality in the landed possessions of the Spartans, nearly all the land being in the hands of a few rich men, whilst the majority of the people were in hopeless misery; and, that in order to remedy this state of things, he made a new division of the Spartan district into 9000 equal lots, and the rest of Laconia into 30,000 equal lots. This statement had previously given rise to much discussion, as we find in the historical period great inequalities of property among the Spartans; and accordingly several modern scholars, among others Dr. Thirlwall, while admitting the general fact of a re-division of the land by Lycurgus, have supposed that Plutarch has given an erroneous account of the circumstances which attended it. Mr. Grote seeks a different solution of the problem by denying the fact altogether; he points out that such an equal division of the Spartan land by Lycurgus is unknown to any of the earlier writers, and that Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle, not only do not say a word about it, but that some of them, Aristotle among the number, clearly did not believe that equality of property was an original feature in the system of Lycurgus. This belief, being subsequent to the time of Aristotle, is supposed by Mr. Grote to have arisen in the third century before the Christian era, when an attempt was made by Agis and Cleomenes to raise Sparta from her degraded condition and to emulate her ancient glories. They saw no other means of accomplishing their object except by again enrolling as citizens those who had been disfranchised, cancelling all debts, and re-dividing the lands. The discipline of Lycurgus suggested to men's minds the idea of equality among

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the citizens, and this idea may easily have given origin to the belief among ardent spirits like Agis and his friends, that the equal partition of lands was an original institution of their great lawgiver, which his degenerate descendants had abandoned. That such a belief should have spread widely will not appear surprising, when we recollect how many similar delusions have obtained Vogue in modern times far more favourable to historical accuracy, how much false colouring has been attached by the political feeling of recent days to matters of ancient history, such as the Saxon Wittenagemote, the Great Charter, the rise and growth of the English House of Commons, or even the Poor Law of Elizabeth.'*

The character of Pythagoras is drawn by Mr. Grote with a firm and unfaltering hand, and differs in several respects from the picture of him by preceding writers. K. O. Müller, Niebuhr, and other eminent scholars, have supposed that the object of Pythagoras was chiefly political, and that he came to Croton with the aim of exhibiting in this city the ideal of a pure Dorian state. Even Dr. Thirlwall, though he rejects this theory, believes that the political views of Pythagoras formed an essential part of his philosophical and religious system, and that none of these objects ought to be regarded as predominant. Mr. Grote, on the contrary, following the testimony of witnesses nearest to the age of Pythagoras, represents him as the religious missionary and the schoolmaster,' with little of the politician. It was only the later writers-the Pythagoreans of the Platonic age-who ascribed to him political schemes, and who were anxious to dignify with the name of their founder the great political reforms which they longed to introduce into the Grecian states. The primitive Pythagoras is inspired by the gods to reveal a new course of life, and to promise the divine favour to a select few as a recompense of a severe course of training both mental and bodily. He chose Croton, for reasons unknown to us, as favourable for the propagation of his opinions. Here he met with extraordinary success, and 'at his first preaching, no less than two thousand persons were converted.' He formed his disciples into a secret society, bearing in many respects a striking resemblance to that of the Jesuits, pledged by solemn vows to one another, and to obedience to the general of their order. Mr. Grote conceives that this private society had originally no political object, and that it only obtained influence in the state from the accident of the most wealthy citizens of Croton being enrolled in its ranks.

*Vol. ii. p. 529.

VOL. XCIX. NO. CXCVII.

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The Athenian people must occupy the foreground in every picture of Grecian history. Though in the earlier times they were of little account among the Grecian states, and even at a later period were scarcely more than a match for Megara, or the little island of Egina; yet, during the great epochs they appear on every scene, and are by turns the fear and admiration of the Hellenic world. Upon no part of his subject does Mr. Grote bestow more pains, or work with more zealous toil. He is an ardent admirer of the Athenian democracy; and one of his main objects in writing his history, was to clear the Athenian people from the many calumnies that have been heaped upon them by later historians. Although we are no lovers of democracy, as understood in modern times, we think it is impossible for any one to deny, after reading Mr. Grote's work, that the great ends for which government is instituted were more completely attained at Athens than in any other Grecian state. Nowhere were life and property so secure; nowhere did citizens submit more readily to legal and constitutional restraints; and nowhere, notwithstanding the jokes and taunts of the comic poets, was there a more equitable government, or a more impartial administration of justice. Among the numerous charges brought against the Athenian people, none has been so frequently repeated as that of fickleness, to which their conduct on some occasions would seem indeed to lend some colour; but we recommend to the notice of those who are disposed to join in the common chorus of condemnation the following observations of Mr. Grote. The passage also serves to illustrate the conscientiousness which we have already described as one of his most marked features; for even in an elaborate vindication of his much-loved Athenians, when he is most anxious to produce a favourable impression of their character, he does not attempt to conceal their faults:

If we are to predicate any attribute of the multitude, it will rather be that of undue tenacity than undue fickleness; and there will occur nothing in the course of this history to prove that the Athenian people changed their opinions on insufficient grounds more frequently than an unresponsible one or few would have changed. But there were two circumstances in the working of the Athenian democracy which imparted to it an appearance of greater fickleness without the reality :first, that the manifestations and changes of opinion were all open, undisguised, and noisy: the people gave utterance to their present impression, whatever it was, with perfect frankness; if their opinions were really changed, they had no shame or scruple in avowing it: secondly and this is a point of capital importance in the working of democracy generally-the present impression, whatever it might be, was not merely undisguised in its manifestations, but also had a tendency

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to be exaggerated in its intensity. This arose from their habit of treating public affairs in multitudinous assemblages, the well-known effect of which is to inflame sentiment in every man's bosom by mere contact with a sympathising circle of neighbours. Whatever the sentiment might be, fear, ambition, cupidity, wrath, compassion, piety, patriotic devotion, &c.; and whether well-founded or ill-founded, it was constantly influenced more or less by such intensifying cause. This is a defect which of course belongs, in a certain degree, to all exercise of power by numerous bodies, even though they be representative bodies-especially when the character of the people, instead of being comparatively sedate and slow to move, like the English, is quick, impressible, and fiery, like Greeks or Italians; but it operated far more powerfully on the self-acting Démos assembled in the Pnyx. It was in fact the constitutional malady of the democracy, of which the people were themselves perfectly sensible-as I shall show hereafter from the securities which they tried to provide against it--but which no securities could ever wholly eradicate. Frequency of public assemblies, far from aggravating the evil, had a tendency to lighten it: the people thus became accustomed to hear and balance many different views as a preliminary to ultimate judgment; they contracted personal interest and esteem for a numerous class of dissentient speakers; and they even acquired a certain practical consciousness of their own liability to error. Moreover the diffusion of habits of public speaking, by means of the sophists and the rhetors, whom it has been so much the custom to disparage, tended in the same direction-to break the unity of sentiment among the listening crowd, to multiply separate judgments, and to neutralise the contagion of mere sympathising impulse. These were important deductions, still further assisted by the superior taste and intelligence of the Athenian people: but still the inherent malady remained-excessive and misleading intensity of present sentiment.

These two attributes, then, belonged to the Athenian democracy; first, their sentiments of every kind were manifested loudly and openly; next, their sentiments tended to a pitch of great present intensity. Of course, therefore, when they changed, the change of sentiment stood prominent and forced itself upon every one's notice-being a transition from one strong sentiment past to another strong sentiment present. And it was because such alterations, when they did take place, stood out so palpably to remark, that the Athenian people have drawn upon themselves the imputation of fickleness: for it is not at all true (I repeat) that changes of sentiment were more frequently produced in them by frivolous or insufficient causes, than changes of sentiment in other governments.'-vol. iv. pp. 505-508.

In his account of the Athenian constitution Mr. Grote traces carefully the gradual growth of the democracy, and marks distinctly the various steps in its progress. This is an important improvement upon his predecessors, and throws great light upon the development of the Greek mind and the progress of Athenian affairs. Many able scholars, and among the rest Dr. Thirlwall,

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have ascribed to Solon the peculiar democratical institutions which we find in full force in the age of Pericles and Demosthenes, such as the public Dikasteries, or jury-courts, the Nomothetæ or board for the revision of the laws, and the prosecution called Graphé Paranomon. But they all belong undoubtedly to a later age. Mr. Grote distinguishes four stages in the growth of the Athenian democracy, which may be marked by the names of Solon, Clisthenes, Aristides, and Pericles. Solon effected many social and legislative reforms, and introduced a new division of the citizens according to their property: but there are only two new political institutions which can safely be ascribed to him. First, he enlarged the powers of the popular assembly by giving them the right of electing the Archons, and by making the latter accountable to the assembly at the expiration of their year of office, for the manner in which they discharged its duties. Secondly, he created the Senate of Four Hundred (increased to five hundred members by Clisthenes), elected by the people, like the Archons, but not chosen by lot as was afterwards the case. The Archons, however, could only be taken from the Pentakosiomedimni or highest class of citizens in the Solonian census, and they still continued to act as judges, deciding cases without the intervention of jury-courts, and without appeal from their sentence. The Solonian constitution had in it, according to Mr. Grote, but a faint streak of democracy;' and the real Athenian democracy begins with Clisthenes.

The full import and significance of the important revolutions carried into effect by Clisthenes after the expulsion of the Pisistratida are explained for the first time by Mr. Grote; and we see the important service which he has rendered to this period of Athenian history, by comparing the two pages which are all that so able a scholar as Dr. Thirlwall has devoted to this subject, with his full, searching, and masterly criticism.* Our limits forbid us from entering into any account of the changes of Clisthenes; and we can only remark in general, that the Athenian constitution as established by this remarkable man, occupies an intermediate position between the mitigated oligarchy or incipient democracy of Solon and the 'full-grown and symmetrical democracy' of the age of Pericles. There are three points in particular, in which the reform of Clisthenes, according to Mr. Grote, stopped short of the mature democracy of a later time. 1. Though it called into existence the dikasteries or popular jury-courts, it still recognised the archons as judges to a considerable extent, and the third archon or polemarch as joint

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