And in this, properly speaking, consists the crime of Socrates, who was not guilty in the eyes of the Athenians, but gave occasion for his being justly condemned by the eternal Truth. It had illuminated his soul with the most pure and sublime lights, of which the pagan world was capable for we are not ignorant, that all knowledge of God, even natural, cannot come but from himself alone. He held adınirable principles with relation to the Divinity. He agreeably rallied the fables upon which the ridiculous mysteries of his age were founded. He often spoke, and in the most exalted terms, of the existence of one only God, eternal, invisible, creator of the universe, supreme director and arbiter of all events, avenger of crimes, and rewarder of virtues: but he did not dare to give a public testimony of these great truths. He perfectly dis-eerned the false and the ridiculous of the pagan system, and nevertheless, as Seneca says of the wise man, and acted himself, he observed exactly all the customs and ceremonies, not as agreeable to the gods, but as enjoined by the laws. He tacknowledged at bottom one only divinity, and worshipped with the people that multitude of infamous idols, which ancient superstition had heaped up during a long succession of ages. He held peculiar opinions in the schools, but followed the multitude in the temples. As a philosopher, he despised and detested the idols in secret; as a citizen of Athens and a senator, he paid them in public the same adoration with others; by so much the more to be condemned, says St. Augustin, as that worship, which was only external and dissembled, seemed to the people to be the effect of sincerity and conviction.

And it cannot be said that Socrates altered his conduct at the end of his life, or that he then expressed a greater zeal for truth. In his defence before the people, he declared, that he had always received and honoured the same gods as the Athenians; and the last order he gave before he expired, was to sacrifice in his name a cock to Esculapius. Behold then this prince of the philosophers, declared by the Delphic oracle the wisest of mankind, who, notwithstanding his internal conviction of one only divinity, dies in the bosom of idolatry, and with

**Quæ omnia (ait Seneca) sapiens servabit tanquam legibus jussa, non tanquam diis grata-Omnem istam ignobilem deorum turbam, quam longo avo longa superstitio congessit, sic, inquit, adorabimus, ut meminerimus cultum ejus magis ad morem, quam ad rem, pertin ere. Sed iste, quem philosophia quasi liberum fecerat, tamen, quia illustris senator erat, colebat quod reprehendebat, agebat quod arguebat, quod culpabat adorabat-eo damnabilius, quo illa, quæ mendaciter agebat, sic ageret, et eum populus veraciter agere existimaSt August. de civit. Dei. I. vi. c. 10.

ret.

+ Eorum sapientes, quos philosophos vocant, scholas habebant. dissentientes, et templa communia. Id. lib. de, ver. rel. c. 1.

the profession of adoring all the gods of the pagan theology. Socrates is the more inexcusable in this, that declaring himself a man expressly appointed by heaven to bear witness to the truth, he fails in the most essential duty of the glorious commission he ascribes to himself: for if there be any truth in religion that we ought more particularly to avow, it is that which regards the unity of the Godhead, and the vanity of idol-worship. In this his courage had been well placed; nor would it have been any great difficulty to Socrates, determined besides as he was to die. But, says St. Augustin *, these philosophers were not designed by God to enlighten the world, nor to bring men over from the impious worship of false deities to the holy religion of the true God.

We cannot deny Socrates to have been the hero of the pagan world in regard to moral virtues. But to judge rightly of him, let us draw a parallel between this supposed hero and the martyrs of Christianity, who often were young children and tender virgins, and yet were not afraid to shed the last drop of their blood, to defend and confirm the same truths, which Socrates knew, without daring to assert in public: I mean, the unity of God, and the vanity of idols. Let us also compare the so much boasted death of this prince of philosophers, with that of our holy bishops, who have done the Christian religion so much honour, by their sublimity of genius, the extent of their knowledge, and the beauty and excellence of their writings; a St. Cyprian, a St. Augustin, and so many others who were all seen to die in the bosom of humility, fully convinced of their unworthiness and nothingness, penerated with a lively fear of the judgments of God, and expecting their salvation from his sole goodness and condescending mercy. Philosophy inspires no such sentiments; they could proceed only from the grace of the Mediator, which, "we are taught to believe," Socrates did not deserve to know.

Non sic ista nati erant, ut populorum suorum opinionem ad verum cultum veri Dei a simulacrorum superstitione, atque ab hujus mundi vanitate, converterent. . St. August. lib, de ver. rel. c. 2.

THE

HISTORY

OF THE

PERSIANS AND GRECIANS,

CONTAINING THE

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GREEKS.

THE

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GREEKS.

HE most essential part of history, and which it concerns the reader most to know, is that which explains the character and manners as well of the people in general as of the great persons in particular of whom it treats; and this may be. said to be in some sort the soul of history, of which the facts are only the body. I have endeavoured, as occasion offered, to paint in their true colours the most illustrious personages of Greece; it remains for me to show the genius and character of the people themselves. I shall confine myself to those of Lacedæmon and Athens, who always held the first rank among the Greeks, and shall reduce what I have to say upon this subject to three heads; their political government, war, and religion.

Sigonius, Meursius, Potter, and several others, who have written upon the Grecian antiquities supply me with great lights, and are of equal use to me in the matters it remains for

me to treat.

CHAP. I.

OF POLITICAL GOVERNMENT.

THERE THERE are three principal forms of government: monar chy, in which a single person reigns; aristocracy, in which the eldest and wisest govern; and democracy, in which the supreme authority is lodged in the hands of the people. The most celebrated writers of antiquity, as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Plutarch, give the preference to the first kind

as including the most advantages with the fewest inconveniences. But all agree, and it cannot be too often inculcated, that the end of all government, and the duty of every one in authority, in whatsoever manner it be, is to use his utmost endeavours to render those under his command happy and just, by obtaining for them on the one side safety and tranquillity, with the advantages and conveniences of life, and on the other all the means and helps that may contribute to making them virtuous. As the pilot's end, says Cicero *, is to steer his vessel happily into its port, the physician's to preserve or restore health, the generals of an army to obtain victory; so a prince, and every man who governs others, ought to make the utility of the governed his view and motive, and to remember, that the supreme rule of all just government is the good of the public, † Salus populi suprema lex esto. He adds, that the greatest and most noble function in the world is to be the author of the happiness of mankind.

Plato in an hundred places, esteems as nothing the most shining qualities and actions of those who govern, if they do not tend to promote the two great ends I have mentioned, the virtue and happiness of the people; and he refutes at large, in the first book of his Republic, one Thrasymachus, who advanced, that subjects were born for the prince, and not the prince for his subjects; and that whatever promoted the interest of the prince and commonwealth ought to be deemed just and lawful.

In the distinctions which have been made upon the several forms of government, it has been agreed, that that would be the most perfect which should unite in itself, by an happy mixture of institutions, all the advantages, and exclude all the inconveniences, of the rest; and almost all the ancients have believed that the Lacedæmonian government came nearest to this idea of perfection.

ARTICLE I.

OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SPARTA.

FROM the time that Heraclides had re-entered Peloponnesus, Sparta was governed by two kings, who were always of the same two families, descended form Hercules by two dif

* Tenesne igitur, moderatorem illum reip. quo referre velimus ●mnia? Ut gubernatori cursus secundus, medico salus, imperatori victoria, sic huic moderatori reip. beata civium vita proposita est, ut opibus firma, copiis locuples, gloria ampla, virtute honesta sit. Hujus enim operis maximi inter homines atque optimi illum esse perfectorem volo. Ad Attic. 1. viii. epist. 10.

+ Cic. de leg. 1. iii. n. 8. Polyb. L. vi. p. 458, 459,

| Page 338-343.

ferent branches, as I have observed elsewhere. Whether from pride, or the abuse of despotic power on the fide of the kings, or the defire of independence and an immoderate love of liberty on that of the people, Sparta, in its beginnings, was always involved in commotions and revolts, which would infallibly have occasioned its ruin, as had happened at Argos and Messene, two neighbouring cities equally powerful with itself, if the wise foresight of Lycurgus had not prevented fatal consequences by the reformation he made in the state. I have related it at large in the life of that legislator,* and shall only touch here upon what regards the government.

SECTION I.

IDEA OF THE SPARTAN GOVERNMENT.

LYCURGUS restored order and peace in Sparta by the esta blishment of the senate. It consisted of 28 senators, and the two kings presided in it. This august council, formed out of the wisest and most experienced men in the nation, served as a counterpoise to the two other authorities, that of the kings, and that of the people; and whenever the one was for overbearing the other, the senate interposed, by joining the weakest, and thereby held the balance between both. At length, to prevent this body itself from abusing its power, which was very great, a kind of curb was annexed to it, by the nomina tion of five Ephori, who were elected out of the people, whose office lasted only one year, and who had authority, not only over the senators, but the kings themselves.

The power of the kings was extremely limited, especially in the city, and in time of peace. In war they had the command of the fleets and armies, and at that time greater authority. However, they had even then a kind of inspectors and commissioners assigned them, who served as a necessary council, and were generally chosen for that office, from their being out of favour with them, in order that there should be no connivance on their side, and the republic be the better served. There was almost continually some secret misunderstanding between the two kings; whether it proceeded from a natural jealousy between the two branches, or was the effect of the Spartan policy, to which their too great union might have given umbrage.

The Ephori had a greater authority at Sparta than the tribunes of the Roman people. They presided in the election of the magistrates, and could call them to an account for their administration. Their power extended even to the persons of their kings, and of the princes of the blood royal, whom they had a right to imprison, which they actually used in regard to * Book v. Art. vii. † Arist. de, rep. 1. ii. p. 331.