[82:2] Cf. my Greek Life and Thought, p. 416.
[86:1] I shall return to this subject of tyrants in connection with their later and Hellenistic features. Cf. below, [§ 71].
[87:1] Three remarkable laws, all intended to save the Athenian democracy, whose ministers had no standing-army at their control, from sudden overthrow, seem to me never to have been clearly correlated by the historians. Solon's law (1) ordained that where an actual στάσις had arisen, every citizen must take some side, calculating that all quiet and orderly people, if compelled to join in the conflict, would side with the established Government. Cleisthenes saw that this appeal to the body of the citizens came too late, and indeed had failed when the usurpation of Peisistratus took place. He (2) established Ostracism, which interfered before the στάσις, but when the rivalry of two leaders showed that the danger was at hand. So far Grote expounds the development. But this expedient also failed when the rivals combined, and turned the vote against Hyperbolus. It is from that date only—about 416 B.C.—that I can find cases (3) of the γραφὴ παρανόμων, or prosecution for making illegal proposals, thus interfering at a still earlier stage. This last form of the safeguard replaced Ostracism, and lasted to the end of Athenian history. It was a democratic engine often abused, but always safe to be applied in good time.
[87:2] These have been increased for us by the text of the Aristotelian Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία, from which Plutarch cited, but not fully, his quotations in the Life of Solon.
[88:1] Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. chap. xix. § 2. He claims in his interesting preface to the last edition to have attained Grote's conclusions independently thirty years ago, when they were regarded in France as dangerous paradoxes.
[89:1] G. G. ii. 391. There is a very curious summary of the various classes of public employments on which the Attic citizen lived in the Aristotelian Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία, § 24. The author estimates the total number of civil servants or pensioners at over 20,000.
[90:1] This has for the first time been clearly put by Duruy in his History of Rome. Our irresponsible and final Houses of Parliament, whose acts may annul any law, are a very dangerous modern analogy.
