fecute him in the abfence of his friends, and of the army, where he was very powerful. It feems, he understood the refentments of a popular affembly too well, to trust them; and therefore, instead of returning, efcaped to Sparta; where his defires of revenge prevailing over his love to his country, he became its greatest enemy. Meanwhile, the Athenians before Sicily, by the death of one commander, and the fuperftition, weaknefs, and perfect ill conduct of the other, were utterly destroyed, the whole fleet taken, and a miferable flaughter made of the army, whereof hardly one ever returned. Some time after this, Alcibiades was recalled upon his own conditions, by the neceffities of the people, and made Chief Commander at fea and land; but his Lieutenant engaging against his pofitive orders, and being beaten by Lyfander, Alcibiades was again difgraced, and banished. However, the Athenians having loft all strength and heart, fince their misfortune at Sicily, and now deprived of the only perfon that was able to recover their loffes, repent of their rafhnefs, and endeavour in vain for his restoration; the Perfian Lieutenant, to whofe protection he fled, making him a facrifice to the refentments of Lyfander, the general of the Lacedemonians, who now reduces all the dominions of the Athenians, takes the city, razes their walls, ruins their works, and changes the form of their government; which, though again restored for fome time by Thrafybulus (as their walls were rebuilt by Conon) yet here we must

date

date the fall of the Athenian greatnefs; the dominion and chief power in Greece, from that period to the time of Alexander the Great, which was about fifty years, being divided between the Spartans and Thebans; though Philip, Alexander's father (the moft Chriftian King of that age) had indeed, fome time before, begun to break in upon the republics of Greece, by conqueft or bribery; particularly, dealing large money among fome popular orators, by which he brought many of them, as the term of art was then, to Philippize.

In the time of Alexander and his captains, the Athenians were offered an opportunity of recovering their liberty, and being restored to their former ftate; but the wife turn they thought to give the matter, was by an impeachment and facrifice of the author, to hinder the fuccefs. For, after the deftruction of Thebes by Alexander, this Prince, defigning the conqueft of Athens, was prevented by Phocion* the Athenian General, then Ambassador from that state; who, by his great wisdom and skill at negociations, diverted Alexander from his design, and restored the Athenians to his favour. The very fame fuccefs he had with Antipater after Alexander's death, at which time the government was new regulated by Solon's laws: but Polyperchon, in hatred to Phocion, having, by order of the young King, whofe governor he was, reftored thofe whom Phocion had banished, the plot fucceeded. Phocion

X 3

* The Earl of Portland. Orrery.

Phocion was accufed by popular orators, and put to death.

Thus was the most powerful commonwealth of all Greece, after great degeneracies from the inftitution of Solon, utterly deftroyed by that rafh, jealous, and inconftant humour of the people, which was never satisfied to fee a general either victorious or unfortunate: fuch ill judges, as well as rewarders, have popular affemblies been, of those who beft deferved from them.

Now, the circumftance which makes thefe examples of more importance, is, that this very power of the people in Athens, claimed fo confidently for an inherent right, and insisted on as the undoubted privilege of an Athenian born, was the rankeft encroachment imaginable, and the groffeft degeneracy from the form that Solon left them. In fhort, their government was grown into a dominatio plebis, or tyranny of the people, who, by degrees, had broke and overthrown the balance, which that legiflator had very well fixed and provided for. This appears not only from what has been already faid of that lawgiver, but more manifeftly from a paffage in Diodorus; who tells us, That Antipater, one of Alexander's captains, abrogated the popular government (in Athens,) and reflored the power of fuffrages and magiftracy, to fuch only as were worth two thousand drachmas; by which means, fays he, that republic came to be [again] administered by the laws of Solon. · By this quotation, it is manifeft, that great author

Lib. 18.

thor looked upon Solon's inftitution, and a popular government, to be two different things. And as for this restoration by Antipater, it had neither confequence nor continuance worth obferving.

I might eafily produce many more examples; but thefe are fufficient: and it may be worth the reader's time, to reflect a little on the merits of the cause, as well as of the men who had been thus dealt with by their country. I shall direct him no further, than by repeating, that Aristides was the most renowned by the people themselves, for his exact juftice and knowledge in the law; that Themiftocles was a moft fortunate admiral, and had got a mighty victory over the great King of Perfia's fleet; that Pericles was an able minifter of state, an excellent orator, and a man of letters : and laftly, that Phocion, befides the fuccefs of his arms, was also renowned for his negociations abroad, having, in an embassy, brought the greatest monarch of the world at that time, to the terms of an honourable peace, by which his country was preferved.

I fhall conclude my remarks upon Athens, with the character given us of that people by Polybius. About this time, fays he, the Athenians were governed by two men ; quite funk in their affairs; had little or no commerce with the rest of Greece, and were become great reverencers of crown

ed heads.

For, from the time of Alexander's captains, till Greece was fubdued by the Romans, to the latter part of which, this defcription of Polybius.

falls

falis in, Athens never produced one famous man, either for councils or arms, or hardly for learning. And indeed, it was a dark infipid period through all Greece: for, except the Achaian league under Aratus and Philopomen, and the endeavours of Agis and Cleomenes, to reftore the ftaté of Sparta, fo frequently haraffed by tyrannies, occafioned by the popular practices of the Ephori, there was very little worth recording. All which confequences may perhaps be juftly imputed to this degeneracy of Athens.

CHA P. III.

Of the diffenfions between the Patricians and Plebeians in Rome, with the confequences they had upon that fate.

HA

AVING, in the foregoing chapter, confined myself to the proceedings of the Commons only, by the method of impeachments against particular perfons, with the fatal effects they had upon the ftate of Athens; I fhall now treat of the diffenfions at Rome between the people and the collective body of the Patricians or Nobles. It is a large subject, but I fhall draw it into as narrow a compafs as I can.

As Greece, from the most ancient accounts we have of it, was divided into feveral kingdoms, fo was most part of Italy * into several petty commonwealths. And as those kings in Greece are

Dionyf. Halicar.

faid