Whilst Alcibiades resided with Tissaphernes, and gave the Persians the best instructions he could for regulating their conduct, he at the same time formed a scheme for procuring the repeal of his sentence, and liberty to return once more to his native country.115He judged the best way to obtain this favour would be to convince the Athenians of his intimacy with Tissaphernes. To effect this, he wrote to the chief officers of the Athenian forces, which then lay at Samos, directing them to inform all those of the greatest weight and authority how desirous he was of revisiting Athens if the government should be once lodged in the hands of asmall number of the principal citizens; but that he could by no means think of returning whilst the democracy subsisted, and the state was governed by a parcel of abandoned wretches, who had so scandalously driven him out of his country. Upon that condition he promised to procure the friendship of Tissaphernes, and declared himself ready to accept a share with them in the administration. The event answered his expectations; for the officers and the leading men, both of the sea and land forces, which were at Samos, were eagerly bent upon subverting the democracy. Thus the treaty was set on foot at Samos, and the scheme laid for altering the government.116The principal men were in hopes of a share in the administration, and the inferior people acquiesced from the expectation of large subsidies from the Persians. Phrynicus, one of the generals, alone opposed it, sensible that Alcibiades cared as little for an aristocratick government as for a democracy, and had no other point in view (which, as Thucydides acknowledges, was the real truth) than to procure such a change in the present administration as might enable his friends to recall him. The terms, however, which Alcibiades offered, were agreed to by the rest, and Pisander, one of the leading men, was sent to Athens to manage the affair.117
Pisander at first met with violent opposition from the people;118and the enemies of Alcibiades in particular clamoured loudly against the violation of the laws, when his return was proposed, which they chiefly dreaded. But Pisander applied so artfully to the fears of the people, and showed them so plainly that it was the only resource they had left which could possibly save the state, that they at last agreed to it, though with great reluctance.119He therefore, with ten others, was appointed to settle the affair with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades as they should judge most conducive to the interest of the republick; but Tissaphernes, who dreaded the power of the Peloponnesians, was not so ready to enter into a convention with the Athenians, as they were taught to believe.120Alcibiades therefore, to save his credit, and conceal from the Athenians his inability to make good what he had promised, insisted, in the name of Tissaphernes, upon such high terms that the treaty broke off, and the deputies returned to Samos, enraged at the trick which they thought had been put upon them by Alcibiades. Determined however, at all events, to pursue their scheme, Pisander, with some of the deputies, returned to Athens, where their party had already made a considerable progress, for they had privately assassinated such of the leading men as were averse to an aristocracy, and thoughthey permitted the senate and people to assemble and vote as usual, yet they would not allow any thing to be decreed but what they thought proper;121besides, none but those of their own faction durst venture to harangue the people; for if any one attempted to speak in opposition, he was sure to be dispatched at the first convenient opportunity; nor was any inquiry made after the assassins, or any process issued out against those who were strongly suspected of the murders. The people were so terrified with these bloody executions, that they acquiesced to whatever was proposed, and every man thought himself happy if no violence was offered him, even though he continued quiet and silent. They were deprived even of the power of bewailing the common calamity to each other, in order to concert measures for revenge: for the faction had artfully spread so strong and so universal a diffidence amongst the popular party, that no one durst venture to confide in his neighbour, but each man suspected every other as an accomplice of the crimes which were daily perpetrated.
In this situation Pisander found the city at his arrival,122and immediately prepared to finish what his friends had so successfully begun: convoking therefore an assembly of the people, the aristocratick faction openly declared their resolution to abolishthe ancient form of government, and to lodge the supreme power in the hands of four hundred of the nobility, who should govern the state in the manner they thought best, with the power of assembling five thousand of the citizens to consult with as oft as they thought proper. Pisander was the man who acquainted the people with this definitive resolution,123but Antiphon was the person who formed the plan, and was chief manager of the whole affair: a man, according to the testimony of Thucydides, who knew him personally, master of the greatest abilities, and of by far the most nervous eloquence of any of his contemporaries. Thus the oligarchy was established, and the Athenians deprived of that liberty which they had enjoyed near one hundred years from the expulsion of Hippias: during which whole space they had been subject to none, but had been accustomed, above half that time, to lord it over others; for as soon as this decree had passed in the assembly without opposition,124the chiefs of the conspiracy artfully permitted such citizens as were upon duty, but had not been let into the secret, to go wherever they pleased; but directed their own friends to continue under arms, and disposed them in such a manner as might best favour their enterprise: for the Athenians kept at that time a constant guard upon their walls, as the Spartan army was encamped in their neighbourhood. When they had made theirdisposition, the four hundred nobles with poignards concealed under their habits, and attended by an hundred and twenty daring young fellows, whom they employed in their assassinations, surrounded the senators,125and paying them what was due upon their salaries, commanded them to depart the court. The senators tamely submitting,126and not the least stir happening amongst the citizens, they proceeded to elect magistrates out of their own body, and performed all the religious ceremonies usually practised upon those occasions. When they had thus got possession of the government, they did not think proper to recall those whom the people had formerly banished, for fear of being obliged to include Alcibiades in the number, whose enterprising genius they dreaded extremely; but they behaved most tyrannically to the citizens, putting some to death, throwing some into prison, and banishing others.
The spirit of liberty however is not so easily extinguished. Pisander had brought mercenary troops with him out of some of the cities which he passed through on his return to Athens, who were of great service to the new governors in their enterprise:127but the forces at Samos consisted of Athenian citizens, jealous even of the least attempt upon the liberty of their country, and declared enemies to every speciesof tyranny. The first news which these brave fellows received of the usurpation, brought such exaggerated accounts of the cruelty and insolence of the four hundred, that they were with great difficulty restrained from cutting every one to pieces who was in the interest of the oligarchy. However,128they took the command from their former generals, and cashiered every officer they suspected, substituting others in their places; the chief of whom were Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. Alcibiades was recalled,129and unanimously declared their captain general both by the sea and land forces; which gave such a turn to affairs at Athens, that the four hundred were deposed, in spite of all their efforts to continue in power, and the publick tranquillity once more established.
The people confirmed Alcibiades in the command, and committed the whole management of the war to his conduct.130But his soul was too great to receive his recall from banishment, and even his high post as an act of favour.131He determined to merit both by some signal service, and not to revisit Athens until he could return with glory. His usual success attended him in this war, and he seemed to bring victory with him wherever he appeared; for he gained so many victories both by sea and land, anddistressed the Peloponnesians so much by his address and conduct, that he once more retrieved the dominion of the sea, and returned triumphant to Athens.132His entry was splendidly magnificent, adorned with the trophies of two hundred ships of war, which he had destroyed or taken, and a vast number of prisoners.133His reception was attended with all the honours and applause he had so justly merited. The people, conscious of the late happy change in their affairs under the administration of Alcibiades, lamented with tears their miscarriage in Sicily, and other subsequent calamities; all which they imputed to their own fatal error in not trusting the sole command to so able and successful a commander.
The fortune however of this great man was perpetually fluctuating, and seemed to be ever on the extreme; and Plutarch remarks,134that if ever man owed his ruin to his own glory, it must be Alcibiades; for the people were so prepossessed with the opinion of his courage and conduct, that they looked upon him as absolutely invincible. Whenever therefore he failed in any one point, they imputed it entirely to his neglect, or want of will; for they could imagine nothing so difficult, but what they thought him able to surmount, if he applied to it with earnestness andvigour. Thus, in the same campaign, he sailed to the isle of Andros with a powerful fleet, where he defeated the joint forces of the inhabitants and Spartans; but, as he did not take the city, he gave his enemies a fresh handle for renewing their usual accusations; for the people already fancied themselves masters of Chios and the rest of Ionia, and were extremely out of humour because his conquests did not keep pace with their heated imaginations. They made no allowance for the wretched state of their finances, which frequently obliged him to quit his army to go in search of money to pay, and provisions to subsist, his forces, whilst their enemies had a constant resource for all their wants in the treasures of Persia. To one of these excursions, which necessity obliged him to make in order to raise money, he properly owed his ruin: for leaving the command of the fleet to one Antiochus, an able seaman indeed, but rash, in every other respect unequal to such a charge, he gave him the most positive orders not to fight the enemy upon any account whatsoever during his absence; but the vain Antiochus treated his orders with so much contempt, that he sailed out with a few ships to brave the Spartan admiral Lysander, which brought on a general engagement. The event was, the death of Antiochus, the defeat of the Athenians, who lost many of their ships, and a trophy erected by the Spartans in honour of their victory. Alcibiades, at the first news of this misfortune, returned to Samos with precipitation,and endeavoured to bring Lysander to a decisive action; but the wary Spartan knew too well how different a man he had now to deal with, and would by no means hazard a second engagement.
In the mean time one Thrasybulus,135who bore a mortal enmity to Alcibiades, posted to Athens, and impeached him as the cause of the late defeat, affirming that he committed the care of the fleet to his potcompanions, whilst he rambled at pleasure amongst the provinces, raising money, and living in a state of riot and dissipation with wine and women. A violent charge, besides, was brought against him for fortifying a place near Bizanthe,136as a retreat upon occasion, which his enemies urged as a proof that he either was not able, or not willing, to reside in his native country.
Jealousy and inconstancy were the characteristicks of the Athenian people. They gave implicit belief to the suggestions of his enemies, and discharged, as Plutarch tells us, the fury of their gall upon the unfortunate Alcibiades, whom they deprived immediately of the command.
Thucydides,137speaking of the behaviour of his countrymen to Alcibiades upon the impeachmentbrought against him for defacing the statues, imputes their ruin to that jealousy which they constantly harboured both of his ambition and abilities. For though he had done the state many great and signal services, yet his way of life made him so odious to every individual, that the command was taken from him and given to others, which not long after drew on the destruction of the republick.
For Tydeus,138Menander, and Adimantus, the new generals, who lay with the Athenian fleet, in the river Ægos, were so weak as to sail out every morning at daybreak to defy Lysander, who kept his station at Lampsacus; and, at their return from this idle bravado, spent the rest of the day without order or discipline, or keeping any look-out, from an affected contempt of the enemy. Alcibiades, who was at that time in the neighbourhood, and thoroughly sensible of their danger, came and informed them of the inconveniences of the place where their fleet then lay, and the absurdity of suffering their men to go ashore and ramble about the country. He assured them too, that Lysander was an experienced and vigilant enemy, who knew how to make the most of every advantage: but they, vain of their new power, despised his advice, and treated him with the utmost rudeness. Tydeus, in particular, ordered him to be gone, and told him insolently, that not he, but theywere now commanders, and knew best what to do. The event happened as Alcibiades had foreseen. Lysander attacked them unexpectedly whilst they lay in their usual disorder, and gained so complete a victory, that of all their fleet eight vessels alone escaped, which fled at the first onset. The able Spartan, who knew as well how to make use of, as to gain, a victory, soon after compelled Athens itself to surrender at discretion. As soon as he was master of the city,139he burnt all their shipping, placed a garrison in their citadel, and demolished the rest of their fortifications. When he had thus reduced them to a state of absolute subjection, he abolished their constitution, and left them to the mercy of thirty governors of his own choosing, well known in history by the appellation of the Thirty Tyrants.
This tyranny, though of very short duration, was to the last degree inhuman. The tyrants sacrificed all whom they suspected to their fear, and all who were rich to their avarice. The carnage was so great, that, according to Xenophon,140the thirty put more Athenians to death in eight months only, than had fallen in battle, against the whole force of the Peloponnesians, during ten years of the war. Butthe publick virtue of Thrasybulus141could not bear to see his country enslaved by such inhuman monsters: collecting therefore about seventy determined citizens, who, like him, had fled to Thebes for refuge, he first seized upon Phyle,142a strong fort near Athens; and, strengthened by the accession of fresh numbers, which flocked in to him from every side, he got possession of the Pyræum.143The thirty tyrants endeavoured to retake it, but were repulsed, and Critias144and Hippomachus, two of their number, slain in the attempt. The people now, weary of the tyrants,145drove them out of the city, and chose ten magistrates, one out of each tribe, to supply their places. The tyrants applied to their friend Lysander, who sailed and invested the Pyræum, and reduced Thrasybulus, and his party, to an extreme want of necessaries, for they were yet confined to the Pyræum, as the people, though they had deposed the tyrants, yet refused to receive them into the city; but Pausanias,146one of the kings of Sparta, who commanded the land forces in this expedition, jealous of the reputation which that great man had acquired, gained over two of the ephori, who accompanied him, and granted peace to the Athenians notwithstanding all the opposition of Lysander.Pausanias returned to Sparta with his army, and the tyrants,147despairing of assistance, began to hire foreign troops, and were determined to re-establish themselves by force in that power of which they had been so lately deprived. But Thrasybulus, informed of their design, marched out with all his forces, and, drawing them to a parley, punished them with that death their crimes so justly merited. After the execution of the tyrants, Thrasybulus proclaimed a general act of indemnity and oblivion, and by that salutary measure restored peace and liberty to his country without further bloodshed.
The conclusion of the Peloponnesian war may properly be termed the period of the Athenian grandeur; for though, by the assistance of the Persians, they made some figure after that time, yet it was of but short duration. The manners of the people were greatly degenerated, and the extreme scarcity of virtuous characters, so visible in their subsequent history, marks at once the progress and the degree of their degeneracy. Conon, who escaped with eight ships only when they were so totally defeated by Lysander, had convinced the Persian monarch how much his interest was concerned in supporting the Athenians, and obtained the command of a powerful armament in their favour. Whilst the artful Tithraustus,148general of the Persianforces in Asia, raised a strong confederacy against the Spartans by properly distributing large sums amongst the leading men of the Grecian republicks. Conon149totally defeated the Spartan fleet commanded by Pisander, and, by the help of the Persian money, rebuilt150the strong walls and other fortifications of Athens, which Lysander had demolished. The Spartans,151jealous of the rising power of the Athenians who seemed to aspire at recovering their former grandeur, made such advantageous offers to the Persians by their admiral Antalcidas, that they once more drew them over to their party. Conon152was recalled and imprisoned upon the suggestions of Antalcidas, that he had embezzled the money allotted for the re-establishment of Athens, and was no friend to the Persian interest. The Athenians now sent Thrasybulus, their great deliverer, with a fleet of forty sail to annoy the Spartans: he reduced several cities which had revolted to the enemy, but was slain by the Rhodians in an unsuccessful attempt upon their island. Conon,153according to Justin, was executed at Susa by the Persians. Xenophon, who lived at the same time, is silent as to his death; but, whatever might be his fate, it is certain he is no more mentioned in history. After the death of these two great men we meet with none but Chabrias, Iphicrates,and Timotheus, the son of Conon, whose characters are worthy of our notice, until the time of Demosthenes and Phocion. The martial spirit of the Athenians subsided in proportion as luxury and corruption gained ground amongst them. The love of ease, and a most insatiable fondness for diversions, now took place of those generous sentiments which before knew no other object but the liberty and glory of their country. If we trace the rise of publick virtue up to its first source, and show the different effects arising from the prevailing influence of the different ruling passions, we may justly account for the fatal and amazing change in that once glorious republick. A short digression therefore, on that subject, may perhaps be neither unuseful nor unentertaining.
Of all human passions, ambition may prove the most useful, or the most destructive to a people. The....
...Digito monstrari et dicier hic est;154
...Digito monstrari et dicier hic est;154
...Digito monstrari et dicier hic est;154
...Digito monstrari et dicier hic est;154
the fondness for admiration and applause seems coeval with man, and accompanies us from the cradle to the grave. Every man pants after distinction, and even in this world affects a kind of immortality. When this love of admiration and applause is theonly end proposed by ambition, it then becomes a primary passion; all the other passions are compelled to be subservient, and will be wholly employed on the means conducive to that end. But whether this passion for fame, this eagerness after that imaginary life, which exists only in the breath of other people, be laudable or criminal, useful or frivolous, must be determined by the means employed, which will always be directed to whatever happens to be the reigning object of applause. Upon this principle, however the means may differ, the end will be still the same; from the hero down to the boxer in the bear-garden; from the legislator who new-models a state, down to the humbler genius who strikes out the newest cut for a coat-sleeve. For it was the same principle directing to the same end, which impelled Erostratus to set fire to the temple of Diana, and Alexander to set the world in a flame so quickly after.
There is no mark which so surely indicates the reigning manners of a people at different periods, as that quality or turn of mind, which happens to be the reigning object of publick applause. For as the reigning object of applause will necessarily constitute the leading fashion, and as the leading fashion always takes rise among the great or leading people; if the object of applause be praiseworthy, the example of the great will have a due influence upon the inferior classes; if frivolous or vicious, thewhole body of the people will take the same cast, and be quickly infected by the contagion. There cannot, therefore, be a more certain criterion, by which we may form our judgment of the national virtue or national degeneracy of any people, in any period of their existence, than from those characters, which are the most distinguished in every period of their respective histories. To analyze these remarkable characters, to investigate the end proposed by all their actions, which opens to us all their secret springs; and to develop the means employed for the acquisition of that end, is not only the most entertaining, but, in my opinion, by much the most useful, part of history. For as the reigning object of applause arises from the prevailing manners of a people, it will necessarily be the reigning object of desire, and continue to influence the manners of succeeding generations, until it is opposed, and gradually gives way to some new object. Consequently the prevailing manners of any people may be investigated without much difficulty, in my opinion, if we attend to the increase or decrease of good or bad characters, as recorded in any period of their history; because the greater number will generally endeavour to distinguish themselves by whatever happens at that time to be the reigning object of applause. Hence too we may observe the progressive order, in which the manners of any people prepared the way for every remarkable mutation in their government. For no essential mutation canever be effected in any government (unless by the violence of external force) until the prevailing manners of the people are ripe for such a change. Consequently, as like causes will ever produce like effects; when we observe the same similarity of manners prevailing amongst our own people, with that which preceded the last fatal mutation of government in any other free nation; we may, at such a time, give a shrewd guess at the approaching fate of our constitution and country. Thus in the infancy and rise of the Grecian republicks, when necessity of self-defence had given a manly and warlike turn to the temper of the people, and the continuance of the same necessity had fixed it into a habit, the love of their country soon became the reigning object of publick applause. As this reigning object consequently became the chief object of desire to every one who was ambitious of publick applause, it quickly grew to be the fashion. The whole people in those states glowed with the generous principle of publick virtue to the highest degree of enthusiasm. Wealth had then no charms, and all the bewitching pleasures of luxury were unknown, or despised. And those brave people courted and embraced toils, danger, and even death itself, with the greatest ardour, in pursuit of this darling object of their universal wishes. Every man planned, toiled, and bled, not for himself, but for his country. Hence the produce of those ages was a race of patriot statesmen and real heroes.This generous principle gave rise to those seminaries of manly bravery and heroick emulation, the Olympick, Isthmian, and other publick games. To obtain the victory at those scenes of publick glory was esteemed the utmost summit of human felicity, a wreath of wild olive, laurel or parsley (the victor's prize) thatpalma nobilis, as Horace terms it, which
Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos,
Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos,
Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos,
Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos,
was infinitely more the object of emulation in those generous times, than coronets and garters are of modern ambition. Let me add too, that as the former were invariably the reward of merit only, they reflected a very different lustre upon the wearer. The honours acquired at these games quickly became the darling themes of the poets, and the charms of musick were called in to give additional graces to poetry. Panegyrick swelled with the most nervous strokes of eloquence, and decked up with all the flowers of rhetorick, was joined to the fidelity and dignity of history; whilst the canvass glowing with mimick life, and the animated marble contributed all the powers of art to perpetuate the memory of the victors. These were the noble incentives, which fired the Grecian youth with the glorious emulation of treading in the steps of those publick-spirited heroes, who were the first institutors of these celebrated games. Hence that refined taste for arts and sciences arose in Greece, and produced thosemasterpieces of every kind, the inimitable remains of which not only charm, but raise the justest admiration of the present times.
This taste raised a new object of applause, and at last supplanted the parents which gave it birth. Poetry, eloquence, and musick became equally the subjects of emulation at the publick games, were allotted their respective crowns, and opened a new road to fame and immortality. Fame was the end proposed and hoped for by all; and those who despaired of attaining it by the rugged and dangerous paths of honour, struck into the new and flowery road,155which was quickly crowded with the servile herd of imitators. Monarchs turned poets,156and great men, fiddlers; and money was employed to bias the judges at the publick games to crown wretched verses and bungling performers with the wreaths appropriated only to superior merit. This taste prevailed more or less in every state of Greece (Sparta alone excepted) according to the different turn of genius of each people; but it obtained the most ready admission at Athens, which quickly became the chief seat of the muses and graces.
Thus a new object of applause introducing a new taste, produced that fatal alteration in the mannersof the Athenians, which became a concurrent cause of the ruin of their republick. For though the manners of the Athenians grew more polite, yet they grew more corrupt, and publick virtue ceased gradually to be the object of publick applause and publick emulation. As dramatick poetry affected most the taste of the Athenians; the ambition of excelling in that species of poetry was so violent, that Æschylus died with grief, because in a publick contention with Sophocles the prize was adjudged to his antagonist.157But though we owe the finest pieces of that kind now extant to that prevailing taste, yet it introduced such a rage for theatrical entertainments as fatally contributed to the ruin of the republick.
Justin informs us that the publick virtue of Athens declined immediately after the death of Epaminondas.158No longer awed by the virtue of that great man, which had been a perpetual spur to their ambition, they sunk into a lethargy of effeminate indolence. The publick revenues appropriated for the service of the fleet and army were squandered in publick festivals and publick entertainments. The stage was the chief object of the publick concern, and the theatres were crowded whilst the camp was a desert. Who trod the stage with the greatest dignity, or who excelled most in the conduct of thedrama; not who was the ablest general, or most experienced admiral, was the object of the publick research and publick applause. Military virtue and the science of war were held cheap, and poets and players engrossed those honours due only to the patriot and the hero; whilst the hard-earned pay of the soldier and the sailor was employed in corrupting the indolent pleasure-taking citizen. The fatal consequence of this degeneracy of manners, as Justin assures, was this: that the able Philip, taking advantage of the indolence and effeminacy of the Athenians, who before took the lead in defence of the liberty of Greece, drew his beggarly kingdom of Macedon out of its primitive obscurity, and at last reduced all Greece under the yoke of servitude. Plutarch, in his inquiry whether the Athenians were more eminent in the arts of war or in the arts of peace, severely censures their insatiable fondness for diversions.159He asserts, that the money idly thrown away upon the representation of the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides alone, amounted to a much greater sum than had been expended in all their wars against the Persians, in defence of their liberty and common safety. That judicious philosopher and historian, to the eternal infamy of the Athenians, records a severe but sensible reflection of a Lacedemonian who happened to be present at these diversions. The generous Spartan, trained up in a statewhere publick virtue still continued to be the object of publick applause could not behold the ridiculous assiduity of the choragi, or magistrates who presided at the publick shows, and the immense sums which they lavished in the decorations of a new tragedy, without indignation. “He therefore, frankly told the Athenians, that they were highly criminal in wasting so much time, and giving that serious attention to trifles, which ought to be dedicated to the affairs of the publick.160That it was still more criminal to throw away upon such bawbles as the decorations of a theatre, that money which ought to be applied to the equipment of their fleet, or the support of their army. That diversions ought to be treated merely as diversions, and might serve to relax the mind at our idle hours,161or when over a bottle; if any kind of utility could arise from such trifling pleasures. But to see the Athenians make the duty they owed to their country give way to their passion for the entertainments of the theatre, and to waste unprofitably that time and money upon such frivolous diversions, which ought to be appropriated to the affairs and the necessities of the state, appeared to him to be the height of infatuation.”
Could we raise the venerable philosopher from the grave to take a short survey of the present manners of our own countrymen, would he not find them an amazingly exact copy of those of the Athenians, inthe times immediately preceding their subjection to Macedon? Would he not see the same series of daily and nightly diversions, adapted to the taste of every class of people, from the publick breakfasting (that bane to the time and industry of the tradesman) up to our modern orgies, the midnight-revels of the masquerade? If he censured the Athenians for throwing away so much time and attention upon the chaste and manly scenes of Sophocles and Euripides, what must he have thought of that strangeShakespearomania(as I may term it) which prevailed so lately, and so universally amongst all ranks and all ages? Had he inquired of those multitudes who so long crowded both theatres at the representation of Romeo and Juliet, what were the striking beauties which so strongly and so repeatedly engaged their attention, could a tenth part of the affected admirers of that pathetick poet, have given him a more satisfactory answer than, “that it was the fashion?” would he not be convinced that fashion was the only motive, when he saw the same people thronging with the same eagerness, and swallowing the ribaldry of modern farce, and the buffoonery of pantomime with the same fury of applause? must he not have pronounced, that they as much exceeded the Athenians in thoughtless levity and folly, as they sunk beneath them in taste and judgment? For Plutarch does not find fault with the fine taste of the Athenians for the noble compositions of those incomparable poets; but for that excess of passion for the theatre, which, bysetting up a new object of applause, had almost extinguished that publick virtue, for which they had been so greatly eminent; and made them more solicitous about the fate of a new tragedy, or the decision of the pretensions of two rival players, than about the fate of their country. But what idea must he have of the higher class of our people, when he saw those who should be foremost in a time of distress and danger, to animate the drooping spirit of their countrymen by the lustre of their example, attentive only to the unmanning trills of an opera; a degree of effeminacy which would have disgraced even the women of Greece, in times of greatest degeneracy. If he was informed that this species of diversion was so little natural to the rougher genius, as well as climate of Britain, that we were obliged to purchase and fetch over the worst performers of Italy at the expense of vast sums; what opinion must he form of our understanding? but if he was to see the insolence of these hirelings, and the servile prostration of their paymasters to these idols of their own making, how must such egregious folly excite his contempt and indignation! In the midst of these scenes of dissipation, this varying round of unceasing diversions, how must he be astonished at the complaint of poverty, taxes, the decay of trade, and the great difficulty of raising the necessary supplies for the publick service, which would strike his ear from every quarter! would not his censure upon our inconsistent conduct be just the same which thehonest Spartan passed upon the infatuated Athenians? when a national militia of sixty thousand men only was asked for, would he not have blushed for those who opposed a measure (once the support and glory of every free state in Greece) and whittled it down to half the number from a pretended principle of economy? but could his philosophick gravity refrain a smile, when he saw the same people lavishing their thousands in subscriptions to balls, concerts, operas, and a long train of expensive et cætera's, yet so wonderous frugal in pounds, shillings, and pence, in a measure so essential to the very safety of the nation? If therefore he saw a people bending under an accumulating load of debt, almost to bankruptcy, yet sinking more and more into a luxury, known in his time only to the effeminate Persians, and which required the wealth of Persia to support it: involved in a war, unsuccessful until measures were changed with ministers; yet indulging in all the pleasures of pomp and triumph, in the midst of national losses and national dishonour: ... contracting daily fresh debts of millions, to carry on that war, yet idly consuming more wealth in the useless pageantry of equipage, dress, table, and the almost innumerable articles of expensive luxury, than would support their fleets and armies; he could not help pronouncing such a people mad past the cure of Hellebore, and self-devoted to destruction.
This strange degeneracy of the Athenian manners, which Plutarch so severely censures, was firstintroduced (as that great man informs us) by Pericles.162That ambitious man determined to supplant his rival Cimon, who, by theeclatof his victories, and the services he had done the publick, was considered as the first man in Athens, and supported his popularity by the distribution of a large fortune. Pericles, greatly inferior in point of fortune, and no way able to contend with him in liberality and magnificence, struck out a new method of gaining over the people to his party. He procured a law, by which every citizen was entitled to a gratuity out of the publick money, not only for attending at the courts of judicature, and assemblies of the states; but even at the entertainments of the theatre, and the publick games and sacrifices on their numerous days of festivity. Thus Pericles bought the people with their own money; a precedent which has been so successfully followed by corrupt and ambitious statesmen in all succeeding ages. To this piece of state-craft, not to superior abilities, late ministers owed their long reigns, which enabled them to reduce corruption into system.
The consequence of this corruption, as we may gather from the writings of Demosthenes, was, that in a few years time the Athenians were no more the same people. The annual fund, appropriated to the publick service for the army and navy, was whollydiverted to the support of the theatre. Their officers regarding nothing but their rank and pay, instead of patriots, were degenerated into mere mercenaries.163The emulation, of who should serve their country best, no longer subsisted amongst them; but of who should obtain the most lucrative command. The people tasting the sweets of corruption, and enervated by the luxury of a city, which was one perpetual scene of festivals and diversions, grew averse to the toils and dangers of war, which now seemed an insupportable slavery, and beneath the dignity of free citizens. The defence of the state was committed to mercenary hirelings, who behaved so ill that their affairs were in the utmost disorder. Of all their leading men, Demosthenes and Phocion were alone proof against the gold of Macedon; the rest were Philip’s known and avowed pensioners. Demosthenes, at this alarming juncture, laid before the people the ambitious views of Philip, and the distressed situation of their country, with the utmost freedom. He employed all the energy and pathos of eloquence, to rouse them out of that lethargy of indolence and inattention to the publick safety, into which their own luxury, and the flatteries of their corrupt demagogues, had thrown them.
He demonstrated to them, that the glorious principle, which had so long preserved the liberty of Greece, and had enabled them to triumph over the whole force and opulence of the mighty power of Persia, was that common hatred, that general detestation of corruption, which prevailed so universally amongst their generous forefathers.164That, in those times of publick virtue, to receive presents from any foreign power was deemed a capital crime. That if any man should be found so shamefully profligate, as to sell himself to any one, who had designs upon the liberty of Greece; or should endeavour to introduce corruption into his own country; death without mercy would have been his punishment here, and his memory branded with indelible and eternal infamy hereafter. That the statesmen and generals of those happier times, were absolute strangers to that most criminal and infamous kind of traffick; which was grown so common and so universal, that honour, fame, character, the liberty and welfare of their country were all set to sale, and sold publickly by auction to the best bidder.165He then made use of his utmost art, backed with the greatest strength of reasoning, to persuade the people, to give up that fund to the support of the army and navy (the service to which it had been originally appropriated) which from the time of Pericles had been applied solely to defray the expenses of the theatre. He showed nextthe folly and danger of confiding the defence of the state to mercenary forces, who had already served them so ill. He informed them, that their allies the Olynthians earnestly insisted, that the troops sent to their assistance might no longer be composed of venal hirelings as before, but of native Athenians, animated with a zeal for the glory of their country, and warm in the interest of the common cause. Both these motions were opposed by the corrupt party who adhered to Philip. The people were unwilling to give up that fund, even to the most pressing exigencies of the state, which enabled them to gratify their favourite passion; thus the opposition of the people quashed the former of these motions. But though the urgent, and repeated remonstrances of Demosthenes prevailed in favour of the latter, yet the demagogues, who omitted no opportunity of convincing Philip, how well he employed his money, took care to reduce the promised succours to a very small number, and to procure Chares, a creature of their own, to be placed at the head of the expedition.166Small as those succours were, yet they did the Olynthians essential service. But as all the eloquence of Demosthenes could not prevail upon his countrymen to make more vigorous efforts, the city of Olynthus fell the year following into the hands of Philip by the treachery of Euthycrates and Lasthenes, two of the leading citizens.167Philip still continuedhis encroachments upon the allies of Athens; sometimes cajoling, sometimes bullying the Athenians; just as he found either method most conducive to his purpose, in which he was punctually seconded by the corrupt demagogues. But at last the joint attack which he made upon the cities of Perynthus and Byzantium, from whose territories the Athenians drew their chief supplies of corn, at once opened their eyes, and roused them from their indolence. They equipped a very large armament with great expedition; but the Philippick faction had still influence enough with the people, to obtain the command of it for their friend Chares. The conduct of this general was exactly answerable to the opinion and hopes of his friends, who had procured him that employment. Chares, voluptuous, yet sordidly avaricious; vain and assuming, yet without either courage or capacity; rapacious, and intent only upon enriching himself at the expense either of friend or foe, was refused admittance by the inhabitants of Byzantium; who from experience were too well acquainted with his character. Enraged at such an unexpected affront; this doughty general employed his time in parading along the coasts, detested by his allies whom he plundered, and despised by his enemies whom he had not the courage to face. The Athenians, sensible of their folly, displaced Chares, and gave the command to Phocion. The able and honest Phocion was received with open arms by the Byzantines, and quickly convinced his countrymen, that he was morethan a match for Philip. He not only drove that ambitious monarch out of the territories of the allies; but compelled him to retire with great loss and precipitation into his own dominions, where Phocion made several glorious and successful incursions. Philip now throwing off the masque, marched his army towards Athens, with a resolution to humble that people, who were the chief obstacle to his ambitious views. Demosthenes alone took the lead upon this occasion, and persuaded his countrymen to join the Thebans with all the force they could raise, and make head against the invader. Philip finding his measures quite disconcerted by this confederacy, sent an embassy to Athens to propose terms of peace, and to profess his desire of living in amity with the Athenians. Phocion, anxious about the success of a war, which he knew his countrymen had not virtue enough to support, and where the loss of a single battle must be fatal to the state, pleaded strongly for pacifick measures. But the flaming zeal of Demosthenes prevailed. Phocion was not only insulted, but excluded from all share in the command of the army by the infatuated people. Chares, so notorious for his cowardice and incapacity, who (as Diodorus Siculus informs us168) knew no more the duty of a general than the meanest private soldier in the army, and one Lysicles, a man of daring courage, but rash and ignorant, were appointed commanders in chief. AsDemosthenes had pushed on the people to this war, and was at that time at the head of affairs, this fatal step must be entirely attributed to his private pique at Phocion for opposing his measures. Phocion had more than once beaten Philip with much inferior forces, and was indisputably the ablest general of the age, and the only man whom Philip was afraid of. The conduct therefore of Demosthenes was so rash and weak in the management of this war,169that Plutarch resolves the whole into a certain divine fatality; which, in the circumvolution of mundane affairs, had limited the freedom of Greece to that particular point of time. The battle of Chæronea, which ensued quickly after, gave the Athenians a too fatal proof of the superior foresight and sagacity of Phocion, and their own superlative folly in the choice of their generals. The battle was fought with equal bravery and obstinacy on both sides, and the confederates behaved as well as men could do upon the occasion; but their defeat was owing entirely to the incapacity of the Athenian commanders. This was so apparent,170that Philip observing a capital blunder committed by Lysicles in the heat of the action,171turned about coolly, and remarked to his officers, “that the Athenians knew not how to conquer.” This fault in point of generalship quickly turned the scale in favour of the abler Philip, who knew his tradetoo well to let slip so material an advantage. The Athenians were totally routed, and that fatal day put a period to the liberty and independency of Greece.172
Thus fell the Athenians, and their fall involved the rest of Greece in one common ruin. The decadence of this once glorious and free state was begun by Pericles, who first introduced venality amongst the people for the support of luxury; continued by the venal orators, who encouraged that corruption to maintain their influence over the people; but finished by that fatal disunion between the only two men, whose publick virtue and abilities could have saved their country from destruction.
Athens, however, by her fall, has left us some instructions highly useful for our present conduct. Warned by her fate we may learn ... that the most effectual method which a bad minister can take, to tame the spirit of a brave and free people, and to melt them down to slavery, is to promote luxury, and encourage and diffuse a taste for publick diversions ... that luxury, and a prevailing fondness for publick diversions, are the never-failing forerunners of universal idleness, effeminacy, and corruption ... that there cannot be a more certain symptom of the approaching ruin of a state than when a firmadherence to party is fixed upon as the only test of merit, and all the qualifications requisite to a right discharge of every employment, are reduced to that single standard ... that these evils take root, and spread by almost imperceptible degrees in time of peace and national affluence; but, if left to their full and natural effects without controul, they will inevitably undermine and destroy the most flourishing and best founded constitution ... that in times of peace and affluence, luxury, and a fondness for diversions, will assume the specious names of politeness, taste, and magnificence. Corruption will put on different masks. In the corruptors it will be termed able management, encouraging the friends of the administration, and cementing a mutual harmony, and mutual dependence between the three different estates of the government.173In the corrupted it will be denominated loyalty, attachment to the government, and prudence in providing for one’s own family. That in such times these evils will gain a fresh accession of strength from their very effects; because corruption will occasion a greater circulation of the publick money; and the dissipation of luxury, by promoting trade,174will gild over private vices with the plausible appearance ofpublick benefits ... that when a state so circumstanced, is forced into a war with any formidable power, then, and not until then, these baleful evils will show themselves in their true colours, and produce their proper effects. The counsels in such a state will be weak and pusillanimous, because the able and honest citizens, who aim solely at the publick welfare, will be excluded from all share in the government from party motives ... their measures will terminate in poor shifts, and temporary expedients, calculated only to amuse, or divert the attention of the people from prying too closely into their iniquitous conduct. Their fleets and armies will be either employed in useless parade, or will miscarry in action from the incapacity of their commanders, because, as all the chief posts will be filled up with the creatures of the prevailing faction, such officers will be more intent upon enriching themselves than annoying the enemy; and will act as shall be judged most conducive to the private interest of their party, not to the publick service of their country. For they will naturally imagine, that the same power, which placed them in the command, will have weight enough to screen them from the resentment of an injured people ... their supplies for the extraordinary expenses of the war will be raised with difficulty; ... because, as so great a part of the publick money will be absorbed by the number of pensions and lucrative employments, and diverted to other purposes of corruption, the funds destined for the publickservice will be found greatly deficient. If the rich are applied to, in such depraved times, to contribute their superfluous wealth towards the publick expenses, their answer will be the same which Scopas the rich Thessalian made to a friend, who asked him for a piece of furniture, which he judged wholly useless to the possessor, because it was quite superfluous.175“You mistake, my friend; the supreme happiness of our lives consists in those things which you call superfluous, not in those things which you call necessaries.” The people, accustomed to sell themselves to the best bidder, will look upon the wages of corruption as their birthright, and will necessarily rise in their demands, in proportion as luxury, like other fashions, descends from the higher to the lower classes. Heavy and unequal taxes must consequently be imposed to make up this deficiency; and the operations of the war must either be retarded by the slowness in collecting the produce, or the money must be borrowed at high interest and excessive premiums, and the publick given up a prey to the extortion of usurers. If a venal and luxurious Demades should be at the head of the ruling party,176such an administration would hardly find credit sufficient to support their measures, as the moneyed men would be averse to trusting theirproperty in such rapacious hands;177for the chain of self-interest, which links such a set of men together, will reach from the highest quite down to the lowest officer of the state; because the higher officers, for the mutual support of the whole, must connive at the frauds and rapines of the inferior, or screen them if detected.
If therefore the united voice of a people, exhausted by the oppressions of a weak and iniquitous administration, should call a truly disinterested patriot to the helm, such a man must be exposed to all the malice of detected villany, backed by the whole weight of disappointed faction. Plutarch has handed down to us a striking instance of this truth in the case of Aristides, which is too remarkable to be omitted.
When Aristides was created quæstor, or high treasurer of Athens, he fairly laid before the Athenians what immense sums the publick had been robbed of by their former treasurers,178but especially by Themistocles, whom he proved to be more criminal than any of the others. This warm and honest remonstrance produced such a powerful coalition between these publick plunderers, that when Aristides, at the expiration of his office, (which was annual and elective) came to give up his accompts to the people, Themistocles publickly impeached him of the same crime, and, by the artifice of hiscorrupt party, procured him to be condemned and fined; but the honester, and more respectable part of the citizens highly resenting such an infamous method of proceeding, not only acquitted Aristides honourably, and remitted his fine, but, to show their approbation of his conduct, elected him treasurer for the following year. At his entrance upon his office the second time, he affected to appear sensible of his former error, and, by winking at the frauds of the inferior officers, and neglecting to scrutinize into their accompts, he suffered them to plunder with impunity. These state-leeches thus gorged with the publick money, grew so extremely fond of Aristides, that they employed all their interest to persuade the people to elect him a third time to that important office. On the day of election, when the voices of the Athenians were unanimous in his favour, this real patriot stood up with honest indignation, and gave the people this severe, but just reprimand. “When,” says he, “I discharged my duty in this office the first time, with that zeal and fidelity which every honest man owes to his country, I was vilified, insulted, and condemned. Now I have given full liberty to all these robbers of the publick here present to pilfer, and prey upon your finances at pleasure, I am, it seems, a most upright minister, and a most worthy citizen. Believe me, O Athenians! I am more ashamed of the honour, which you have so unanimously conferred upon me this day, than of that unjust sentence which you passed upon mewith so much infamy the year before. But it gives me the utmost concern, upon your account, when I see that it is easier to merit your favour and applause by flattering, and conniving at the rogueries of a pack of villains, than by a frugal and uncorrupt administration of the publick revenues.” He then disclosed all the frauds and thefts, which had been committed that year in the treasury, which he had privately minuted down for that purpose. The consequence was, that all those, who just before had been so loud in his praise, were struck dumb with shame and confusion; but he himself received those high encomiums, which he had so justly merited, from every honest citizen. It is evident from this whole passage, as related by Plutarch, that Aristides might have made his own fortune, at the expense of the publick, with the same ease, and to as great a degree, as any of his predecessors had done before, or any ministers in modern states have done since. For the rest of the officers, who seemed to think their chief duty consisted in making the most of their places, showed themselves extremely ready to conceal the speculation of their chief, because it gave them a right to claim the same indulgence from him in return. A remark not restricted to the Athenians alone, but equally applicable to every corrupt administration under every government. History, both ancient and modern, will furnish us with numerous instances of this truth, and posterity will probably make the same remark, when thegenuine history of some late administrations shall see the light in a future age.
If the Athenians were so corrupt in the time when Aristides lived, ought we to wonder at that amazing height to which that corruption arrived in the time of Demosthenes, when left to its full effects for so long a term of years? Could the state of Athens at that time have been preserved by human means; the indefatigable zeal of Demosthenes, joined to the strict economy, the inflexible integrity, and superior abilities of Phocion, might have raised her once more to her ancient lustre. But the event showed, that luxury, corruption and faction, the causes of her ruin, had taken too deep root in the very vitals of the republick. The Grecian history indeed affords us ever memorable instances of republicks bending under the yoke of foreign or domestick oppression, yet freed and restored to their former liberty and dignity by the courage and virtue of some eminent patriot-citizen. But if we reflect upon the means, by which these great events were so successfully conducted, we shall always find, that there yet remained in the people a fund of publick virtue sufficient to support their chiefs in those arduous enterprises. The spirit of liberty in a free people may be cramped and pressed down by external violence; but can scarce ever be totally extinguished. Oppression will only increase its elastick force, and when roused to action by some daring chief, it will break out, like firedgunpowder, with irresistible impetuosity. We have no occasion to look back to antiquity for convincing proofs of this most important truth. Our own history is but one continued scene of alternate struggles between encroaching princes, aiming at absolute power, and a brave people resolutely determined to vindicate their freedom. The genius of liberty has hitherto rose superior in all those conflicts, and acquired strength from opposition. May it continue to prevail to the end of time! The United Provinces are a striking proof that the spirit of liberty, when animated and conducted by publick virtue, is invincible. Whilst under the dominion of the house of Austria, they were little better than a poor assemblage of fishing towns and villages. But the virtue of one great man not only enabled them to throw off that inhuman yoke, but to make a respectable figure amongst the first powers in Europe. All the different states in Europe, founded by our Gothic ancestors, were originally free. Liberty was as truly their birthright as it is ours, and though they have been wormed out of it by fraud, or robbed of it by violence, yet their inherent right to it still subsists, though the exercise of that right is superseded, and restrained by force. Hence no despotick government can ever subsist without the support of that instrument of tyranny and oppression, a standing army. For all illegal power must ever be supported by the same means by which it was at first acquired. France was not broke into the yoke of slavery until the infamous administrations of Richelieu and Mazarin. But though loyalty and zeal for the glory of their prince seem to form the characteristick of the French nation, yet the late glorious stand against the arbitrary impositions of the crown, which will immortalize the parliament of Paris, proves that they submit to their chains with reluctance. Luxury is the real bane of publick virtue, and consequently of liberty, which gradually sinks in proportion as the manners of a people are softened and corrupted. Whenever, therefore, this essential spirit, as I may term it, of a free nation is totally dissipated, the people become a merecaput mortuum, a dead inert mass, incapable of resuscitation, and ready to receive the deepest impressions of slavery. Thus the publick virtue of Thrasybulus, Pelopidas, and Epaminondas, Philopœmen, Aratus, Dion, &c. restored their respective states to freedom and power, because though liberty was suppressed, yet the spirit of it still remained, and acquired new vigour from oppression. Phocion and Demosthenes failed, because corruption had extinguished publick virtue, and luxury had changed the spirit of liberty into licentiousness and servility.
That luxury and corruption, encouraged and propagated by a most abandoned faction, have made an alarming progress in our nation, is a truth too evident to be denied. The effects have been too sensibly felt during the course of the late and present wars, which, until the last campaign, were the most expensive,and the least successful of any we ever yet engaged in. But a late signal change must convince our enemies, that we have a fund of publick virtue still remaining capable of vindicating our just rights, and raising us out of that calamitous situation, into which we were plunged, under some late administrations. When the publick imagined the helm in the hands of corruption, pusillanimity and ignorance, they transferred it to a virtuous citizen, possessed, in their opinion, of the zeal and eloquence of Demosthenes, joined to the publick economy, incorrupt honesty, and immovable fortitude of Aristides and Phocion. The numerous disinterested marks of approbation, so lately given from every part of this kingdom, demonstrate the resolution and ability of the publick to support that minister, as long as he pursues his upright plan of conduct with undeviating firmness.
From the time of Phocion, the Athenian history affords little more than a detail of scandalous decrees, and despicable instances of the levity and servile adulation of that abject people.179Reduced at last to a province of the Romans, Athens contributed her taste for arts and sciences towards polishing, and her passion for theatrical performances towards corrupting the manners of that warlike people.