THE HISTORY OF THE PERSIANS AND GRECIANS, CONTAINING THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GREEKS. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GREEKS. THE most essential part of history, and which it concerns the reader most to know, is that which explains the character and manners, as well of the people in general, as of the great persons in particular, of whom it treats; and this may be said to be in some sort the soul of history, of which the facts are only the body. I have endeavoured, as occasion offered, to paint in their true colours the most illustrious personages of Greece; it remains for me to show the genius and character of the people themselves. I shall confine myself to those of Lacedæmon and Athens, who always held the first rank among the Greeks, and shal! reduce what I have to say upon this subject to three heads; their political government, war, and religion." Sigonius, Meursius, Potter and several others, who have written upon the Grecian antiquities, supply me with great lights and are of equal use to me in the matters which remain for me to treat. CHAPTER I. OF POLITICAL GOVERNMENT. THERE are three principal forms of government: Monarchy, in which a single person reign, Aristocracy, in which the eldest and wisest govern; and Democracy, in which the supreme authority is lodged in the hands of the people. The most celebrated writers of antiquity, as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Plutarch, give the preference to the first kind, as including the most advantages with the fewest inconveniences. But all agree, and it cannot be too often inculcated, that the end of all government, and the duty of every one in authority, in whatever manner it be, is to use his utmost endeavours, to render those under his command happy and just, by obtaining for them, on the one side, safety and tranquillity, with the advantages and conveniences of life; and on the other, all the means and helps that may contribute to make them virtuous. As the pilot's object, says Cicero, is to steer his vessel safely into port, the physician's to preserve or restore health, the general's to obtain victory; so a prince, and every one who governs others, ought to make the utility of the governed his view and motive, and to remember, that the supreme rule of all just government is the good of the public: "Salus populi suprema lex esto." He adds, that the greatest and most noble function in the world, to be the author of the happiness of mankind.† Plato, in many places, lightly esteems the most shining qualities and actions of those who govern, if they do not tend to promote the two great ends which I have mentioned, the virtue and happiness of the people; and he refutes at large, in the first book of his republic, one Thrasy machus, who advanced, that subjects were born for the prince, and not the prince for his subjects; and that whatever promoted the interests of the prince and commonwealth, ought to be deemed just and lawful.‡ In the distinctions which have been made upon the several forms of govern ment, it has been agreed, that the most perfect, would be that which would anite in itself, by a happy mixture of institutions, all the advantages, and exclude all the inconveniences of the rest; and almost all the ancients have believed, that the Lacedæmonian government came nearest to this idea of perfection.§ ARTICLE I.-OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SPARTA. FROM the time that the Heraclides had re-entered Peloponnesus, Sparta was governed by two kings, who were always of the same two families, descended from Hercules by two different branches; as I have observed elsewhere. Whether from pride, or the abuse of despotic power, on the side of the kings, or the desire of independence and an immoderate love of liberty on that of the people, Sparta, in its early periods was always involved in commotions and revolts; which would infallibly have occasioned its ruin, as had happened at Argos and Messene, two neighbouring cities equally powerful with itself, if the wise foresight of Lycurgus had not prevented their fatal consequences by the reformation he made in the state. I have related it at large in the life of that legislator, and shall only touch here upon what regards the government. SECTION 1.-IDEA OF THE SPARTAN GOVERNMENT. LYCURGUS restored order and peace in Sparta by the establishment of the senate. It consisted of twenty-eight senators, over whom the two kings presided. This august council, formed out of the wisest and most experienced men in the nation, served as a counterpoise to the two other authorities, that of the kings and that of the people; and whenever the one was for overbearing the other, the senate interposed, by joining the weakest, and thereby held the balance between both. At length, to prevent this body itself from abusing its power which was very great, a check was established, by the nomination of five ephori, who were elected out of the people, whose office lasted only one year, and who had authority, not only over the senators, but over the kings themselves. The power of the kings was extremely limited, especially in the city, and in time of peace. In war they had the command of the fleets and armies, and at that time greater authority. But they had even then, a kind of inspectors and commissioners assigned them, who served as a necessary council, and were generally chosen for that office, from those who were out of favour with them, in order that there should be no connivance on their side, and that the republic might be the better served. There was almost continually some secret misunderstanding between the two kings; whether it proceeded from a natural jealousy between the two branches, or was the effect of the Spartan policy, to which their two great union might have given umbrage.¶ *Cic. de Leg. 1. iii. n. 8. Tenesne igitur, moderatorem illum reip. quo referre velimus omnia-Ut gubernatori cursus secundus, medico salus, imperatori victoria, sic, huic moderatori reip. beata civium vita proposita est, ut opibus firma, copiis locuples, gloria ampla, virtute honesta sit. Hujus enim operis maximi inter horaines atque optimi ik lum esse perfectorem volo. Ad Attic. I. viii. epist. 10. Page 338-343. Book. v. Art. vii, Polyb. I. vi. p. 458, 459. The ephori had a greater authority at Sparta than the tribunes of the Roman people. They presided in the election of the magistrates, and could call them to an account for their administration. Their power extended even to the persons of their kings, and of the princes of the royal blood, whom they had a right to imprison, which they actually used in regard to Pausanias. When they were seated in the tribunal, they did not rise up when the kings entered, which was a mark of respect paid them by all the other magistrates, and seems to imply a kind of superiority in the ephori from their representing the people; and it is observed of Agesilaus, that when he was seated upon his throne to dispense justice, and the ephori came in, he never failed to rise up to do them honour.* It is very probable, that before his time, it was not usual for the kings to act in that manner, Plutarch relating this behaviour of Agesilaus as peculiar to him. All public business was proposed and examined in the senate, and resolutions passed accordingly in the same place. But the decrees of the senate were of no force, unless ratified by the people. There must have been great wisdom in the laws established by Lycurgus for the government of Sparta, because, as long as they were exactly observed, no commotions or seditions of the people were ever known in the city, no change in the form of government was ever proposed, no private person usurped authority by violence, or made himself tyrant; the people never thought of depriving the two families, in which it had always been, of the sovereignty, nor did any of the kings ever attempt to assume more power than the laws admitted. This reflection, which both Xenophon and Polybius make, shows the idea they had of the wisdom of Lycurgus, in point of his policy, and the opinion we ought to have of it. In fact, no other city of Greece had this advantage; and all of them experienced many changes and vicissitudes, from a want of similar laws to perpetuate their form of government.† The reason of this constancy and stability of the Lacedæmonians in their government and conduct is, that in Sparta the laws governed absolutely and with sovereign authority; whereas the greater part of the other Grecian cities, abandoned to the caprice of individuals, to despotic power, to an arbitrary and irregular sway, experienced the truth of Plato's remark," that the city is miserable, where the magistrates command the laws, and not the laws the magistrates." The example of Argos and Messene, which I have already related, would alone suffice to show the justice and truth of that reflection. After their return from the Trojan war, the Greeks, distinguished by the name of Dorians, established themselves in three cities of Peloponnesus, Lacedæmon, Argos, and Messene, and entered into an alliance for their mutual protection. These three cities, governed alike by monarchial power, had equal advantages; except in the fertility of the lands where they were situated, in which the two latter greatly excelled. Argos and Messene, however, did not long preserve their superiority. The haughtiness of the kings, and the disobedience of the people, occasioned their fall from the flourishing condition in which they had been at first; "and their example proved," says Plutarch after Plato," that it was the peculiar favour of the gods, which gave the Spartans such a man as Lycurgus capable of prescribing so wise, and reasonable a plan of government."§ To support it without change, particular care was taken to educate the youth according to the laws and manners of the country, in order that they might become a second nature in them, by being early ingrafted into them, and confirmed by long habit. The hard and sober manner in which they were brought up, inspired them during the rest of their lives with a natural taste for frugality and temperance, that distinguished them from all other people, and wonderfully adapted them to support the fatigues of war. *Plut. in Agesil. p. 597. Plat. l. iv. de Leg. p. 715. Xenoph. in Agesil. p. 651 Plato observes Polyb. I. vi p. 456 that this salutary custom had been banished from Sparta, and all the territory dependent on her, drunkenness, debauchery, and all their consequential disor ders; insomuch that it was a crime punishable by law to drink wine to excess even in the Bacchanalia, which every where else were days of licentiousness, when entire cities gave themselves up to the greatest excesses.* They also accustomed the children from their earliest infancy to an entire ubmission to the laws, magistrates, and all in authority; and their education, properly speaking, was no more than an apprenticeship of obedience. It was for this reason Agesilaus advised Xenophon to send his children to Sparta, as to an excellent school, where they might learn the greatest and most noble of all sciences," to obey and to command," for the one naturally leads on to the other. It was not only the mean, the poor, and the ordinary citizens, who were subjected in this manner to the laws; but the rich, the powerful, the magistrates, and even kings: and they did not distinguish themselves from the others in any thing but a more exact obedience; convinced that such behaviour was the surest means of their being obeyed and respected themselves by their inferiors. Hence came the highly celebrated answers of Demaratus. Xerxes could not comprehend how the Lacedæmonians, who had no master to control them, should be capable of confronting dangers and death. " They are free and independent of all men," repiied Demaratus; "but the law is above them, and commands them; and that law ordains, that they must conquer or die."§ Upon another occasion, when somebody expressed their surprise, that being king, he should suffer himself to be banished: It is," said he, " because at Sparta the laws are more powerful than the kings." Ta's appears evidently in the ready obedience of Agesilaus to the ephori, whe recalled by them to the support of his country; a delicate occasion for a king and a conqueror; but to him it seemed more glorious ¶ to obey his counand the laws than to command numerous armies, or even to conquer Asia.** SECTION II.-LOVE OF POVERTY INSTITUTED AT SPARTA. To this entire submission to the laws of the state, Lycurgus added another principle of government no less admirable, which was to remove from Sparta all luxury, profusion, and magnificence; to decry riches absolutely, to make Poverty honourable, and at the same time necessary, by substituting a species of iron money instead of gold and silver coin, which till then had been current. I have explained elsewhere the measures that were used to make so difficult an undertaking succeed, and shall confine myself here to examining what judgment should be passed on it, as it affects a government. The poverty to which Lycurgus reduced Sparta, and which seemed to prohibit all conquest, and to deprive it of all means to augment its force and grandeur, was well adapted to rendering it powerful and flourishing. Such a constitution of government, which till then had no example, nor has since been imitated by any state, argues a great fund of prudence and policy in a legislator; and the medium conceived afterwards under Lysander, in continuing individuals in their poverty, and restoring to the public the use of gold and silver coin, was it not a wise amendment of what was too rigorous in that law of Lycurgus of which we are speaking? It seems, if we consult only the common views of human prudence, that it is just to reason in this manner; but the event, which is an infallible evidence and arbiter in this place, obliges me to be of a quite different opinion. While Sparta remained poor, and persisted in the contempt of gold and silver, which continued for several ages, she was powerful and glorious; and the commence *Plat. J. i. de Leg. p. 637. † Ωςε τὴν παιδείαν εἶναι μελέτην εὐπειθείας.-Plut. in Lycurg. p. 58. † Μαθησομένας των μαθηματὼν τὸ κάλλιςον, αρχεσθαι και αρχειν.—Plut. in Ages. p. 806. Herod. 1. vii. cap. 145, 146. Plut. in Apoph. Lacon. 220. T Multo gloriosius duxit, si institutis patri paruisset, quam si bello superasset Asiam.-Cornel. Nep. in Agenl. c. iv. ** Idem. in Agesil. p. 603, 604. |