§ 78. Such were the profoundly interesting and thoroughly modern problems which agitated the minds of men in post-Alexandrian Greece. There were moreover various internal questions,—whether new cities which joined should have equal rights with the original members; whether large cities should have a city vote only equal to the vote of the smallest; whether the general Assembly should be held in turn at each of the cities, or in the greatest and most convenient centre, or in a place specially chosen for its insignificance, so that the Assembly might be entirely free from local influences? All these questions must have agitated the minds of the founders of the Swiss Union and the American Union, for the problems remain the same, however nations may wax and wane.
Looser bond of the Ætolian League.
The Achæan and Ætolian Unions were very popular indeed, especially the latter, which required no alterations in the administration of each State, but accepted any member merely on terms of paying a general tax, and obtaining in lieu thereof military aid, and restitution of property from other members if they had carried off plunder from its territory[185:1]. The Achæan League required more. A tyrant must abdicate before his city could become a member, and in more than one case this actually took place.
The most dangerous, though passive, enemy of
this hopeful compromise between the Separatist and the truly National spirit was, as I have said, the sullen standing aloof of the greater cities. Of course the ever active foe was the power of Macedon, which could deal easily with local tyrants, or even single cities, but was balked by the strength of the combination.
Radical monarchy of Cleomenes.
At last there arose a still more attractive alternative, which was rapidly destroying the Achæan League, when its leader, Aratus, called in the common enemy from Macedon, and enslaved his country in order to checkmate his rival. This rival was the royalty of Sparta, who offered to the cities of the Peloponnesus an Union on the old lines of a Confederation under the headship of Sparta, but of Sparta as Cleomenes had transformed it; for he had assassinated the ephors, abolished the second king, and proposed sweeping reforms in the direction of socialistic equality,—division of large properties, and protection of the poor against the oppression of aristocrats or capitalists. This kind of revolution, with the military genius of Cleomenes to give it strength and brilliancy, attracted men's minds far more than the constitutional, but somewhat torpid and plutocratic, League. Of course the fatal struggle led practically to the destruction of both schemes by the superior force and organization of Macedon.
FOOTNOTES:
[168:1] We may well apply to it the famous words of Tacitus at the opening of his Histories: 'Opus adgredior opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum; principes ferro interempti, bella civilia, plura externa ac plerumque permixta . . . pollutae caeremoniae; magna adulteria; plenum exiliis mare; infecti caedibus scopuli . . . corrupti in dominos servi, in patronos liberti; et quibus deerat inimicus, per amicos oppressi.'