arrival he was impeached by the commons for treache ry, though not able to appear by reafon of his wounds, fined 30,000 crowns, and died in prifon. Though the confequences of this proceeding upon the affairs of Athens were no other than the untimely lofs of so great and good a man, yet I could not forbear relating it. Their next great man was Ariftides *. Befides the mighty fervice he had done his country in the wars, he was a perfon of the strictest juslice, and beft acquainted with the laws as well as fornus of their government, fo that he was in a manner chancellor of Athens. This man, upon a flight and falfe acculation of favouring arbitrary power, was banished by oflracifm; which rendered into modern English, would fignify, that they voted he should be removed from their prefence and council for ever. But however, they had the wit to recall him, and to that action owed the preservation of their ftate by his future fervices. For it must be still confeffed in behalf of the Athenian people, that they never conceived themselves perfectly infallible, nor arrived to the heights of modern affemblies, to make obftinacy confirm what fudden heat and temerity began. They thought it not below the dignity of an affembly to endeavour at correcting an ill ftep; at least to repent, though it often fell out too late. Themistocles + was at firft a commoner himself : it was he that raised the Athenians to their greatness at sea, which he thought to be the true and constant intereft of that commonwealth; and the famous naval victory over the Perfians at Salamis was owing to his conduct. It seems the people obferved fomewhat of haughtiness in his temper and behaviour, and therefore banished him for five years; but finding fome flight matter of accufation against him, they fent to feize his perfon, and he hardly efcaped to the Perfian court; from whence, if the love of his country had not furmounted its base ingratitude to him, he had many in + Lord Somers. He was the general patron of the literati, and the particular friend of Dr Swift. Orrery. + Earl of Orford. He had been confidered in a manner as Lord High Admiral, the whole affairs of the navy having been committed to his charge. Orrery. vitations vitations to return at the head of the Persian fleet, and take a terrible revenge: but he rather chofe a voluntary death. The people of Athens impeached Pericles * for mifapplying the public revenues to his own private ufe. He had been a perfon of great defervings from the republic, was an admiral speaker, and very popular. His accounts were confufed, and he could not then give them up; therefore merely to divert that difficulty, and the confequences of it, he was forced to engage his country in the Peloponnefian war, the longest that ever was known in Greece, and which ended in the utter ruin of Athens. The fame people, having refolved to fubdue Sicily, fent a mighty fleet under the command of Nicias, Lyfimachus, and Alcibiades; the two former, perfons of age and experience; the last, a young man of noble birth, excellent education, and a plentiful fortune. A little before the fleet fet fail, it feems one night the ftone images of Mercury, placed in feveral parts of the city, were all pared in the face: this action the Athenians interpreted for a defign of deftroying the popular state; and Alcibiades, having been formerly noted for the like frolics and excurfions, was immediately accused of this. He, whether confcious of his innocence, or affured of the fecrecy, offered to come to his trial before he went to his command; this the Athenians refufed. But as foon as he was got to Sicily, they fent for him back, designing to take the advan Lord Halifax He had a fine genius for poetry, and had employed his more youthful part of life in that fcience. He was diftinguished by the name of Mouse Montague, having ridiculed, jointly with Mat. Prior, Mr Dryden's famous poem of the Hind and Panther. The parody is drawn from Horace's fable of the city-mouse and country moufe. But afterwards, upon Mr Moun tague's promotion to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, Prior, with a good-humoured indignation at feeing his friend preferred, and himself neglected, concludes an epiftle, written in the year 1698, to Fleetwood Shepherd, Efq; with thefe three lines. My friend Charles Mountague's preferr'd, That one mouse cats while t'other's ftarv'd. Orrery. tage, tage, and profecute him in the abfence of his friends, and of the army, where he was very powerful. It feems, he understood the refentments of a popular affembly too well to trust them; and therefore, instead of returning, efcaped to Sparta ; where his defires of revenge prevailing over his love to his country, he became its greatest enemy. Mean while the Athenians before Sicily, by the death of one commander, and the fuperftition, weakness, and perfect ill conduct of the other, were utterly deftroyed, the whole fleet taken, and a miferable flaughter made of the army, whereof hardly one ever returned. Some time after this, Alcibiades was recalled upon his own conditions, by the necessities of the people, and made chief commander at fea and land; but his lieutenant engaging against his pofitive orders, and being beaten by Lyfänder, Alcibiades was again difgraced, and banished. However, the Athenians having loft all strength and heart fince their miffortune at Sicily, and now deprived of the only perfon that was able to recover their loffes, repent of their rafhnefs, and endeavour in vain for his restoration the Perfian lieutenant, to whofe protection he fled, making him a facrifice to the refentments of Lyfander the general of the Lacedemonians, who now reduces all the dominions of the Athenians, takes the city, razes their walls, ruins their works, and changes the form of their government; which though again reftored for fome time by Thrafybulus, (as their walls were rebuilt by Conon), yet here we muft date the fall of the Athenian greatnefs; the dominion and chief power in Greece from that period to the time of Alexander the Great, which was about fifty years, being divided between the Spartans and Thebans. Though Philip, Alexander's father, (the Mof Chriftian King of that age), had indeed fome time before begun to break in upon the republics of Greece by conqueft or bribery; particularly dealing large money among fome popular orators, by which he brought many of them, as the term of art was then, to Philippize. In the time of Alexander and his captains, the Athenians were offered an opportunity of recovering their liberty, and being restored to their foriner state; but the the wife turn they thought to give the matter, was by an impeachment and facrifice of the author, to hinder the fuccefs. For, after the destruction of Thebes by Alexander, this prince defigning the conqueft of Athens, was prevented by Phocion * the Athenian general, then ambaffador from that ftate; who, by his great wif dom and skill at negotiations, diverted Alexander from his defign, and reftored the Athenians to his favour. The very fame fuccefs he had with Antipater after A lexander's death, at which time the government was new regulated by Solon's laws: but Polyperchon, in hatred to Phocion, having, by order of the young King, whofe governor he was, reftored thofe whom Phocion had banished, the plot fucceeded. Phocion was accused by popular orators, and put to death. Thus was the most powerful commonwealth of all Greece, after great degeneracies from the inftitution of Solon, utterly destroyed by that rafh, jealous, and inconftant humour of the people, which was never fatif fied to fee a general either victorious or unfortunate; fuch ill judges, as well as rewarders, have popular af femblies been, of those who beft deferved from them.. Now, the circumstance, which makes thefe examples of more importance, is, that this very power of the people in Athens, claimed fo confidently for an inherent right, and insisted on as the undoubted privilege of an Athenian born, was the rankeft incroachinent imaginable, and the groffeft degeneracy from the form that Solon left them. In fhort, their government was grown into a dominatio plebis, or tyranny of the people, who, by degrees, had broke and overthrown the balance, which that legiflator had very very well fixed and provided for. This appears not only from what has been already faid of that lawgiver, but more manifeftly from a paffage in Diodorus; who tells ust, That Antipater, one of Alexander's captains, abrogated the popular government (in Athens), and refiored the power of fuffrages and magiftracy to fuch only as were worth two thousand drachmas; by which means, fays he, that republic came to be [again] adminiflered by the * The Earl of Portland. Orrery. ↑ Lib. 18.. laws baws of Solon. By this quotation it is manifeft, that great author looked upon Solon's institution, and a popular government, to be two different things. And as for this restoration by Antipater, it had neither confequence nor continuance worth obferving. I might calily produce many more examples, but thefe are fufficient: and it may be worth the reader's time to reflect a little on the merits of the cause, as well as of the men, who had been thus dealt with by their country. I fhall direct him no further than by repeating, that Ariftides was the moft renowned by the people themfelves for his exact juftice and knowledge in the law; that Themiftocles was a most fortunate admiral, and had got a mighty victory over the great King of Perfia's fleet; that Pericles was an able minifter of ftate, an excellent orator, and a man of letters and, laftly, that Phocion, befides the fuccefs of his arms, was alfo renowned for his negotiations abroad, having in an embally brought the greatest monarch of the world at that time to the terms of an honourable peace, by which - his country was preserved. I fhall conclude my remarks upon Athens with the character given us of that people by Polybius. About this time, lays he, the Athenians were governed by two men; quite funk in their affairs; had little or no commerce with the rest of Greece, and were become great reverencers of crowned heads. For, from the time of Alexander's captains till Greece was fubdued by the Romans, to the latter part of which this description of Polybius falls in, Athens never produced one famous man either for councils or arms, or hardly for learning. And indeed it was a dark infipid period through all Greece: for except the Achaian league under Aratus and Philopomen; and the endeavours of Agis and Cleomenes to restore the ftate of Sparta, fo frequently haraffed by tyrannies occafioned by the popular practices of the Ephori, there was very little worth recording. All which confequences may perhaps be juftly imputed to this degene- . racy of Athens. CHA P |