[61] Lysias, who was himself of the popular faction and very narrowly escaped from the Thirty Tyrants, says that the democracy was as violent a government as the oligarchy. Orat. 24, de statu. popul.
[62] Orat. 24. And in Orat. 29 he mentions the factious spirit of the popular assemblies as the only cause why these illegal punishments should displease.
[63] Lib. 3. The country in Europe in which I have observed the factions to be most violent, and party hatred the strongest, is Ireland. This goes so far as to cut off even the most common intercourse of civilities between the Protestants and Catholics. Their cruel insurrections, and the severe revenges which they have taken of each other, are the causes of this mutual ill-will, which is the chief source of the disorder, poverty, and depopulation of that country. The Greek factions I imagine to have been inflamed still to a higher degree of rage, the revolutions being commonly more frequent, and the maxims of assassination much more avowed and acknowledged.
[64] Diod. Sic., lib. 14. Isocrates says there were only 5000 banished. He makes the number of those killed amount to 1500. Areop. Æschines contra Ctesiph. assigns precisely the same number. Seneca (De tranq. anim. cap. 5) says 1300.
[65] We shall mention from Diodorus Siculus alone a few which passed in the course of sixty years during the most shining age of Greece. There were banished from Sybaris 500 of the nobles and their partisans (lib. 12 p. 77, ex edit. Rhodomanni); of Chians, 600 citizens banished (lib. 13 p. 189); at Ephesus, 340 killed, 1000 banished (lib. 13 p. 223); of Cyrenians, 500 nobles killed, all the rest banished (lib. 14 p. 263); the Corinthians killed 120, banished 500 (lib. 14 p. 304); Phæbidas the Spartan banished 300 Bæotians (lib. 15 p. 342). Upon the fall of the Lacedemonians, democracies were restored in many cities, and severe vengeance taken of the nobles, after the Greek manner. But matters did not end there, for the banished nobles, returning in many places, butchered their adversaries at Phialæ in Corinth, in Megara, in Phliasia. In this last place they killed 300 of the people; but these again revolting, killed above 600 of the nobles and banished the rest (lib. 15 p. 357). In Arcadia 1400 banished, besides many killed. The banished retired to Sparta and Pallantium. The latter delivered up to their countrymen, and all killed (lib. 15 p. 373). Of the banished from Argos and Thebes there were 500 in the Spartan army (id. p. 374). Here is a detail of the most remarkable of Agathocles’ cruelties from the same author. The people before his usurpation had banished 600 nobles (lib. 19 p. 655). Afterwards that tyrant, in concurrence with the people, killed 4000 nobles and banished 6000 (id. p. 647). He killed 4000 people at Gela (id. p. 741). By Agathocles’ brother 8000 banished from Syracuse (lib. 20 p. 757). The inhabitants of Ægesta, to the number of 40,000, were killed—man, woman, and child; and with tortures, for the sake of their money (id. p. 802). All the relations—viz., father, brother, children, grandfather, of his Libyan army, killed (id. p. 103). He killed 7000 exiles after capitulation (id. p. 816). It is to be remarked that Agathocles was a man of great sense and courage; his violent tyranny, therefore, is a stronger proof of the manners of the age.
[66] In order to recommend his client to the favour of the people, he enumerates all the sums he had expended. When χορηγος, 30 minas; upon a chorus of men, 20 minas; ειπυρριχιστας, 8 minas; ανδρασι χορηγων, 50 minas; κυκλικῳ χορῳ, 3 minas; seven times trierarch, where he spent 6 talents: taxes, once 30 minas, another time 40; γυμνασιαρχων, 12 minas; χορηγος παιδικῳ χορῳ, 15 minas; κομοδοις χορηγων, 18 minas; πυρριχισταις αγενειοις, 7 minas; τριηρει ἁμιλλομενος, 15 minas; αρχιθεωρος, 30 minas. In the whole, ten talents 38 minas—an immense sum for an Athenian fortune, and what alone would be esteemed great riches (Orat. 20). It is true, he says, the law did not oblige him absolutely to be at so much expense, not above a fourth; but without the favour of the people nobody was so much as safe, and this was the only way to gain it. See further, Orat. 24, de pop. statu. In another place, he introduces a speaker who says that he had spent his whole fortune—and an immense one, eighty talents—for the people (Orat. 25, de prob. Evandri). The μετοικοι, or strangers, find, says he, if they do not contribute largely enough to the people’s fancy, that they have reason to repent (Orat. 30, contra Phil.). You may see with what care Demosthenes displays his expenses of this nature, when he pleads for himself de corona; and how he exaggerates Midias’s stinginess in this particular, in his accusation of that criminal. All this, by the by, is the mark of a very iniquitous judicature: and yet the Athenians valued themselves on having the most legal and regular administration of any people in Greece.
[67] The authorities cited above are all historians, orators, and philosophers whose testimony is unquestioned. It is dangerous to rely upon writers who deal in ridicule and satire. What will posterity, for instance, infer from this passage of Dr. Swift? “I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia (Britain), by the natives called Langdon (London), where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and pay of ministers of state and their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons,” etc. (Gulliver’s Travels.) Such a representation might suit the government of Athens, but not that of England, which is a prodigy even in modern times for humanity, justice, and liberty. Yet the Doctor’s satire, though carried to extremes, as is usual with him, even beyond other satirical writers, did not altogether want an object. The Bishop of Rochester, who was his friend, and of the same party, had been banished a little before by a bill of attainder with great justice, but without such a proof as was legal, or according to the strict forms of common law.
[68] Lib. 2. There were 8000 killed during the siege, and the whole captives amounted to 30,000. Diodorus Siculus (lib. 17) says only 13,000; but he accounts for this small number by saying that the Tyrians had sent away beforehand part of their wives and children to Carthage.
[69] Lib. 5. He makes the number of the citizens amount to 30,000.
[70] In general there is more candour and sincerity in ancient historians, but less exactness and care, than in the moderns. Our speculative factions, especially those of religion, throw such an illusion over our minds that men seem to regard impartiality to their adversaries and to heretics as a vice or weakness; but the commonness of books, by means of printing, has obliged modern historians to be more careful in avoiding contradictions and incongruities. Diodorus Siculus is a good writer, but it is with pain I see his narration contradict in so many particulars the two most authentic pieces of all Greek history—viz., Xenophon’s Expedition and Demosthenes’ Orations. Plutarch and Appian seem scarce ever to have read Cicero’s Epistles.