ceremonies, not as agreeable to the gods, but as enjoined by the laws. He acknowledged 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, be 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 worthy of blame, 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 professing to adore all the gods of the Pagan theology. Socrates is the more inexcusable in this, since, 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 most particularly to avow, it is that which regards the unity of the Godhead, and the vanity of idol worship. In this his courage would have been well placed; nor would it have been any great difficulty to Socrates, determined besides as he was to die. But, says St. Augustin, it was not these philosophers who were 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 them 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 the sublimity of their genius, the extent of their knowledge, and the beauty and excellence of their writings; a saint Cyprian, a saint

*Eorum sapientes, quos philosophos vocant, scholas habebant dissentientes, et templa communia. S. August. lib. de ver. rel. c. i.

† Non sic isti nati erant, ut populorum suorum opinionem ad verum cultum veri Dei à simulacrorum superstitione atque ab hujus mundi vanitate converterent. Id. c. ii.

Augustin, and so many others, who were all seen to die in the bosom of humility, fully convinced of their unworthiness and nothingness, penetrated 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 Socrates was not thought worthy to know.

BOOK X.

THE

ANCIENT HISTORY

OF THE

PERSIANS AND GRECIANS.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GREEKS.

THE most essential part of history, and that 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, while 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 Grecian antiquities, supply me with great lights, and are of much use to me in the subject which it remains for me to treat.

CHAPTER I.

OF POLITICAL GOVERNMENT.

There are three principal forms of Government: Monarchy, in which a single person reigns; Aristocracy, in which the elders. and wisest govern; and Democracy, under 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 invested with it, be the form what it may, 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 aim, says Cicero,* is to steer his vessel happily into port, the physician's to preserve or restore health, the general's of an army to obtain victory; so a prince, and every man who governs others, ought to make the utility of the governed his ultimate aim; and to remember, that the supreme law of every 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 a nation.

Plato, in a 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 interests of the prince or 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 a 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 the Heraclidæ had re-entered Peloponnesus, Sparta was governed by two kings, who were always of the same two families, descended from Hercules, by two different branches; as I have observed elsewhere. Whether from pride and the abuse of despotic power on the side of the kings, or the desire 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

*Tenes-ne igitur, moderatorem illum reip. quò referre velimus omnia ?-Ut gubernatori cursus secundus, medico salus, imperatori victoria, sie huie moderatori reip. beata civium vita proposita est, ut opibus firma, copiis locuples, gloriâ ampla, virtute honesta sit. Hujus enim operis maximi inter homines atque optimi illum esse perfectorem volo. Ad Attic. 1. viii. Epist. 10. Polyb. 1. vi. p. 458, 459.

† Cic. de leg. 1 iïï. n. 8. VOL. IV.

+ Page 338-343.

E

happened at Argos and Messene, two neighbouring cities equally powerful with itself, if the wise foresight of Lycurgus had not prevented the fatal consequences by the reformation which 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.

Abridged idea of the Spartan government. Entire submission to the laws was in a manner the soul of it.

Lycurgus restored order and peace in Sparta, by the establishment of the senate. It consisted of twenty-eight senators, and the two kings presided in it. This august assembly, 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 attempted to overbear the other, the senate interposed, by joining the weakest, and thereby held the balance even 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 nomination of five Ephori, who were elected out of the people, whose office lasted only one year, but 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 among those citizens who were 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 people at Rome. They presided in the election of the magistrates, and called 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 right they actually used in the case of Pausanias. When they sat upon their seats in the tribunal, they did not rise up when the kings entered, which was a mark of respect paid them by all the other magistrates, and this seems to imply a kind of superiority in the Ephori in consequence of their representing the people; and it is observed of Agesilaus, that when he was seated upon his throne to dispense justice, and the Ephori came in, he never failed Plut. in Agesil. p. 597.

Vol. il.

↑ Arist. de rep. 1. ii. p. 331.