[242] That the Achaean governments were democracies appears sufficiently evident; nor is this at variance with the remark of Xenophon, that timocracies were "according to the laws of the Achaeans;" since timocracies were but modified democracies.
[243] The Pythagoreans assembled at the house of Milo, the wrestler, who was an eminent general, and the most illustrious of the disciples were stoned to death, the house being fired. Lapidation was essentially the capital punishment of mobs—the mode of inflicting death that invariably stamps the offender as an enemy to the populace.
[244] Arist. Metaph., i., 3.
[245] Diog. Laert., viii., 28.
[246] Plut. in vit. Them. The Sophists were not, therefore, as is commonly asserted, the first who brought philosophy to bear upon politics.
[247] See, for evidence of the great gifts and real philosophy of Anaxagoras, Brucker de Sect. Ion., xix.
[248] Arist. Eth. Eu., i., 5.
[249] Archelaus began to teach during the interval between the first and second visit of Anaxagoras. See Fast. Hell., vol. ii., B. C. 450.
[250] See the evidence of this in the Clouds of Aristophanes.
[251] Plut. in vit. Per.