M. Sismondi also observes, in speaking of the long attachment of the city of Pisa to the cause of the emperors and to the Ghibelin party: “Pise montra dans plus d’une occasion, par sa constance à supporter la cause des empereurs au milieu des revers, combien la reconnoissance lie un peuple libre d’une manière plus puissante et plus durable qu’elle ne sauroit lier le peuple gouverné par un seul homme.” (Histoire des Républ. Italiennes, ch. xiii, tom. ii, p. 302.)
[684] Dêmosthenês, Olynth. iii, c. 9, p. 35, R.
[685] This is the general truth, which ancient authors often state, both partially, and in exaggerated terms as to degree: “Hæc est natura multitudinis (says Livy); aut humiliter servit aut superbe dominatur.” Again, Tacitus: “Nihil in vulgo modicum; terrere, ni paveant; ubi pertimuerint, impune contemni.” (Annal. i, 29.) Herodotus, iii, 81. ὠθέει δὲ (ὁ δῆμος) ἐμπεσὼν τὰ πρήγματα ἄνευ νοῦ, χειμάῤῥῳ ποταμῷ ἴκελος.
It is remarkable that Aristotle, in his Politica, takes little or no notice of this attribute belonging to every numerous assembly. He seems rather to reason as if the aggregate intelligence of the multitude was represented by the sum total of each man’s separate intelligence in all the individuals composing it (Polit. iii, 6, 4, 10, 12); just as the property of the multitude, taken collectively, would be greater than that of the few rich. He takes no notice of the difference between a number of individuals judging jointly and judging separately: I do not, indeed, observe that such omission leads him into any positive mistake, but it occurs in some cases calculated to surprise us, and where the difference here adverted to is important to notice: see Politic. iii, 10, 5, 6.
[686] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὅποτε γοῦν αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ καιρὸν ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι· καὶ δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ θαρσεῖν.
[687] Such swing of the mind, from one intense feeling to another, is always deprecated by the Greek moralists, from the earliest to the latest: even Demokritus, in the fifth century B. C., admonishes against it,—Αἱ ἐκ μεγάλων διαστημάτων κινεόμεναι τῶν ψυχῶν οὔτε εὐσταθέες εἰσὶν, οὔτε εὔθυμοι. (Democriti Fragmenta, lib. iii, p. 168, ed. Mullach ap. Stobæum, Florileg. i, 40.)
[688] The letters of Bentley against Boyle, discussing the pretended Epistles of Phalaris,—full of acuteness and learning, though beyond measure excursive,—are quite sufficient to teach us that little can be safely asserted about Phalaris. His date is very imperfectly ascertained. Compare Bentley, pp. 82, 83, and Seyfert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, p. 60: the latter assigns the reign of Phalaris to the years 570-554 B. C. It is surprising to see Seyfert citing the letters of the pseudo-Phalaris as an authority, after the exposure of Bentley.
[689] Pindar. Pyth. 1 ad fin, with the Scholia, p. 310, ed. Boeckh; Polyb. xii, 25; Diodor. xiii, 99; Cicero cont. Verr. iv, 33. The contradiction of Timæus is noway sufficient to make us doubt the authenticity of the story. Ebert (Σικελίων, part ii, pp. 41-84, Königsberg, 1829) collects all the authorities about the bull of Phalaris. He believes the matter of fact substantially. Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 20) tells a story of the fable, whereby Stêsichorus the poet dissuaded the inhabitants of Himera from granting a guard to Phalaris: Conon (Narrat. 42 ap. Photium) recounts the same story with the name of Hiero substituted for that of Phalaris. But it is not likely that either the one or the other could ever have been in such relations with the citizens of Himera. Compare Polybius, vii, 7, 2.
[690] Polyæn. v, 1, 1; Cicero de Officiis, ii, 7.
[691] Plutarch, Philosophand. cum Principibus, c. 3, p. 778.