Every theorist that followed Plato seems to have felt the same difficulties, and therefore he and they adopted in the main the Spartan solution,—first,
in limiting the number and condition of those to whom they would intrust power; secondly, in interfering from the beginning, more or less, in the education and training of the individual citizen. They differed as to the amount of control to be exercised,—Plato and the Stoic Zeno were the most trenchant, and thought least of the value of individual character;—they differed as to the particular form of the actual government; whether a small council of philosophic elders, or some limited assembly of responsible and experienced citizens, or, still better, one ideal man, the natural king among men, should direct the whole course of the State.
(1) especially on suffrage,
But on the other two points they were firm. First, universal suffrage had been in their opinion proved a downright failure. And let the reader remember that this universal suffrage only meant the voting of free citizens,—slaves never came within their political horizon,—still more, that the free citizens of many Greek democracies, notably of the Athenian, were more highly educated than any Parliament in our own day[121:1].
We now have as an additional document on the same side, the newly discovered Polity of the Athenians[121:2],
which, whether it be really Aristotle's work or not, certainly was quoted as such freely by Plutarch, and represents the opinions of the early Peripatetic school. Nothing is stranger in the book than the depreciation of Pericles, as the founder of the extreme democracy of Athens, and the praise of Thucydides (son of Melesias), Nicias, and Theramenes, as the worthiest and best of the later politicians,—Theramenes especially, whose shiftiness is explained as the opposition of a wise and temperate man to all extremes, while he was content to live under any moderate government.[122:1]
even though their suffrage was necessarily restricted.
I have already pointed out what important differences in the notions of democracy—the absence of all idea of representation, of all delay or control by a second legislative body, of the veto of a constitutional sovran—make this strong and consistent verdict not applicable by analogy to modern republics. Not that I reject Hellenic opinion as now of no value—far from it; but if we argue from analogy, we are bound to show where the analogy fits, and where it fails,—above all to acknowledge the latter cases honestly. For we are not advocates pleading a cause, but inquirers seeking the truth from the successes and the sufferings of older men of like passions with ourselves.
(2) Education to be a State affair.
Polybius' astonishment at the Roman disregard of it.