The salary of the judges was different at different times They had at first only an obolus a day, and afterwards three, where their fee remained fixed. it was but a small matter in itself, but became in time a very great charge to the public, and exhausted the treasury without greatly enriching individuals. We may judge of this from what is related by Aristophanes in the comedy of the Wasps, wherein that poet ridicules the passion of the Athenians for trying causes, and their eager desire for the gain arising from it, which protracted and multiplied suits to infinity.

In this comedy, a young Athenian, who was to act the part I have mentioned, of turning the judges and trials of Athens into ridicule, from a state of the revenues paid into the public treasury, finds their amount to be two thousand talents. He then examines how much of that sum falls to the share of the judges, with whom Athens was over-run, at three oboli each per day. This appears to be annually, including all of them, only one hundred and fifty tạlents. The calculation is easy. The judges were paid only ten months in the year, the other two being employed in festivals, when all proceedings at law were prohibited. Now, three oboli a-day paid to six thousand men, makes fifteen talents a month, and consequently one hundred and fifty in ten months. According to this calculation the most assiduous judge gained only about fourteen dollars a year. "What then becomes of the remainder of the two thousand talents?"" cries the young Athenian. What," replies his father, who was one of the judges, "it goes to those- -but let us not expose the shame of Athens; let us always be for the people." The young Athenian goes on to explain, that the remainder went to such as robbed the public treasury; to the orators, who incessantly flattered the people; and to those who were employed in the government and the army. I have extracted this remark from the works of Father Brumoi the Jesuit, with which I will make very free, when I come to speak of public shows and dramatic representations.

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SECTION VIII.-OF THE AMPHICTYONS.

THE famous Council of the Amphictyons is introduced here, though not peculiar to the Athenians, but common to all Greece, because it is often mentioned in Grecian history; and I do not know that I shall have a more proper occasion to speak of it.

The assembly of the Amphictyons was in a manner the general assembly of the states of Greece. The establishment of it is attributed to Amphictyon, king of Athens, and son of Deucalion, frem whom it derived its name. His principal view in the institution of this council, was to unite in the sacred band of amity the several people of Greece admitted into it, and to oblige them by that union to undertake the defence of each other, and be mutually vigilant for the happiness and tranquillity of their country. The Amphictyons were also created to be the protectors of the oracle of Delphos, and the guardians of the prodigious riches of that temple; and also to adjudge the differences which might arise between the Delphians and those who came to consult the oracle. This council was held at Thermopyla, and sometimes at Delphos itself. It assembled regularly twice a year, in the spring and autumn, and more fre quently when affairs required.

The number of people or cities which had a right to sit in this assembly is not precisely known, and varied, without doubt, at different times. When the Lacedæmonians, in order to pass in it what decrees they thought fit, were for excluding the Thessalians, Argives, and Thebans, Themistocles, in the speech he made to the Amphictyons to prevent that design from taking effect, seems to insinuate, that there were only thirty-one cities at that time which had this right. Each city sent two deputies, and consequently had two votes in the council, and that without distinction, or the more powerful having any perogative of honour or pre eminence over inferior states in regard to the suffrages; the

About 2,000,000 dollars.

† Abont 150,000 dollars.

Plut. in Themist. p. 122.

liberty upon which these people valued themselves, requiring that every thing should be equal among them.

The Amphictyons had full power to discuss and determine finally in all differ ences which might arise between the Amphictyonic cities, and to fine the culpable in such manner as they thought fit. They could employ not only the rigour of the laws in the execution of their decrees, but even raise troops, if it were necessary, to compel such as rebelled to submit to them. The three sacred wars undertaken by their order, of which I have spoken elsewhere, are an evident proof of this power.

Before they were installed into this body, they took a very remarkable cath, the form of which has been preserved by Aschines, and is as follows: swear, that I will never destroy any of the cities honoured with the right of sitting in the Amphictyonic council, nor turn their running waters out of thei course either in time of peace or war. If any people shall make such an attempt, I hereby engage to carry the war into their country, to demolish their cities, towns, and villages, and to treat them in all things as the most cruel ene mies. Moreover, if at any time any persons shall dare to be so impious as to steal and take away any of the rich offerings preserved in the temple of Apoll at Delphos, or abet any others in committing that crime, either by aiding o only counselling him therein, I will use my feet, hands, voice, in a word, all my powers and faculties, to avenge such sacrilege." That oath was attended with the most terrible imprecations and curses: "That if any one infringes any thing contained in the oath I have now taken, whether private person, city, or people, may that person, city, or people, be deemed accursed; and in that ac ceptation, experience the whole vengeance of Apollo, Latona, Diana, and Mi nerva the foreknower. May their country produce none of the fruits of the earth, and their women, instead of generating children resembling their fathers bring forth nothing but monsters; may their animals share in the same curse May those sacrilegious men lose all suits at law; may they be conquered ir war, have their houses demolished, and, together with their children, be put to the sword."* I am not astonished, that after such terrible engagements, the holy war undertaken by the order of the Amphictyons, should be carried or with so much ardour and fury. The religion of an oath was of great force with the ancients; and how much more regard ought to be had to it in the Christian world, which professes to believe that the violation of it shall be punished with eternal torments; and yet how many are there among us, who make a trifle of breaking through the most solemn oaths!

The authority of the Amphictyons had always been of great weight in Greece; but it began to decline exceedingly from the moment they conde scended to admit Philip of Macedon into their body. For that prince, enjoying by this means all their rights and privileges, soon knew how to set himself above all law, and to abuse his power, so far as to preside by proxy both in this illustrious assembly, and in the Pythian games; of which games the Amphictyons were judges and agonothetæ by virtue of their office. Demosthenes reproaches him with this in his third Philippic; "When he does not deign,' says he," to honour us with his presence, he sends HIS SLAVES to preside over us. An odious but emphatical term, and in the spirit of Grecian liberty, by which the Athenian orator gives an idea of the base and abject subjection of the greatest lords in Philip's court.

If the reader desires a farther knowledge of what relates to the Amphic tyons, he may consult the dissertation of Monsieur Valois, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres,† wherein this subject is treated with great extent and erudition.

SECTION IX.-OF THE REVENUES OF ATHENS.

THE revenues, TEAM, according to the passage of Aristophanes which I have cited above, and as they were computed in the time of the Peloponnesian war,

• Eschin, in Grat. περί παραπρεσβειας.

↑ Vol. III.

amounted to two thousand talents. They were generally reduced to four classes.

1. The first comprised the revenues arising from agriculture, the sale of woods, the produce of mines, and other funds of a like nature, appertaining to the public. Among these may be included the duties upon the import and export of merchandise, and the taxes levied upon the inhabitants of the city, both natives and strangers.

The history of Athens often makes mention of the silver mines of Laurium, which was a mountain situated between the Piræus and cape Sunium; and those of Thrace, from whence many persons extracted immense riches. Xenophon, in a treatise wherein he states this matter at large, demonstrates how much the public might gain by industriously working these mines, from the example of the many persons they had enriched. Hipponicust let his mines and six hundred slaves to an undertaker, who paid him an obolus a-day for each slave, clear of all charges, which amounted in the whole to a minæ,? Nicias, who was killed in Sicily, farmed out his mines and a thousand slaves in the same manner, and with the same profit in proportion to that number.

2. The second class of revenue were the contributions paid the Athenians by the allies for the common expenses of the war. Under Aristides, they amounted only to four hundred and sixty talents.|| Pericles augmented them almost a third, and raised them to six hundred and some time after they amounted to thirteen hundred. Taxes, which in the beginning were moderate and necessary, became thus in a little time excessive and exorbitant, notwithstanding all the protestations made to the allies, and the most solemn engagements to the contrary.

3. A third sort of revenue were the extraordinary capitation taxes, levied indiscriminately upon the inhabitants of the country, in pressing occasions and emergencies of the state.

4. The fines laid upon persons by the judges for different misdemeanors, constituted the fourth class, and were applied to the uses of the public, and laid up in the treasury; except the tenth part of them, which was consecrated to Minerva, and one fiftieth to the other divinities.

The most natural and legal application of these different revenues of the republic, was to the payment of the sea and land forces, to the building and fitting out fleets, keeping up and repairing the public buildings, temples, walls, ports and citadels. But the greatest part of them, especially after the time of Pericles, was misapplied to unnecessary uses, and often consumed in frivolous expenses; games, feasts, and shows, which cost immense sums, and were of no manner of utility to the state.

SECTION X.-OF THE EDUCATION OF THE YOUTH.

I PLACE this article under the head of government, because all celebrated legislators have with reason believed that the education of youth was an essential part of it.

The exercises that served for the forming of either the bodies or minds of the young Athenians, and the same may be said of almost all the people of Greece, were dancing, music, hunting, fencing, riding, polite learning, and philosophy. It may be observed that I speak generally, and treat these several articles very slightly.

I. DANCING.-MUSIC

DANCING was one of the exercises of the body, cultivated by the Greeks with great attention. It made a part of what the ancients called the gymnastic, divided according to Plato into two kinds, the orchestric, which derives its

*About 2,000,000 dollars.

De ration, redituum.

Page 925. Ten dollars. Six oboli made a drachm, one hundred drachms a minæ, and sixty mina a talent. A talent was worth about a thousand dollars.

name from the dance, Opxtroba and the Palæstric, so called from a Greek word Han, which signifies wrestling. The exercises of the latter kind principally conduced to form the body for the fatigues of war, navigation, agriculture, and the other employments of society.

Another end of dancing was to teach such rules of motion as were most proper o render the shape free and easy; to give the body a just proportion, and the whole person an unconstrained, noble, and graceful air; in a word, an external politeness, if we may be allowed to use that expression, which never fails to prejudice people in favour of those who have been formed to it early.

Music was cultivated with no less application and success. The ancients ascribed wonderful effects to it. They believed it very proper to calm the passions, soften the manners, and even humanize people naturally savage and barbarous. Polybius, a grave and serious historian, and who is certainly worthy of belief, attributes to the study of music, the extreme difference between two people of Arcadia, the one infinitely beloved and esteemed for the elegance of their manners, their benevolent inclinations, humanity to strangers, and piety to the gods; the other, on the contrary, generally reproached and hated for their malignity, brutality, and irreligion. "I mean," says he, "the true and noble music, industriously cultivated by the one, and absolutely neglected by the other." *

After this, it is not surprising that the Greeks considered music as an essen tial part in the education of youth. Socrates himself, at a very advanced age, was not ashamed to learn to play upon musical instruments. Themistocles, however otherwise esteemed, was thought to be wanting in point of merit, because at an entertainment he could not touch the lyre like the rest of the company. Ignorance in this respect was deemed a defect of education; on the contrary, skill in it did honour to the greatest men.§ Epaminondas was praised for dancing, and playing well upon the flute. We may observe in this place the different tastes and genius of nations. The Romans were far from having the same opinion with the Greeks in regard to music and dancing, and set no value upon them. It is very likely that the wisest and most learned among the latter did not apply to them with any great industry and Philip's expression. to his son Alexander, who had shown too much skill in music at a feast, induces me to be of this opinion: “Are you not ashamed,” said he, to sing so well?"

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There was a foundation however for this esteem for dancing and music. Both were employed in the most august feasts and the ceremonies of religion, to express their acknowledgment to their gods with the greater force and dig. nity, for the favours they had vouchsafed to confer upon them. They had generally the greatest share in their feasts and entertainments, which seldom or never began or ended, without some odes being sung in honour of the victors in the Olympic games, and on other similar occasions. They had a part also in war; and we know that the Lacedæmonians marched to battle dancing, and to the sound of flutes. Plato, the most grave philosopher of antiquity, valued both these arts, not as simple amusements, but as they had a great share in the ceremonies of religion and military exercises. Hence we see him very intent, in his books of laws, to prescribe rules upon dancing and music, and to keep them within the bounds of utility and decorum. T

They did not continue long within these restrictions. The licence of the Grecian stage, on which dancing was in the highest vogue, and in a manner prostituted to buffoons and the most contemptible people, who made no other

Polyb. p. 288-291.

Socrates, jam senex, instituti lyra non erubescebat.-Quintil. I. i. c. 10 Themistocles, cum in epulis recusasset lyram, habitus est indoctior.-Cic. Tusc. Quæst. 1. i. n. 4. Summam eruditionem Græci sitam censebant in nervorum vocumque cantibus-discebantque id omnes, sec qui nesciebat, satis excultus doctrina putabatur. Ibid.

In Epaminondæ virtutibus commemoratum est, saltasse eum commode, scienterque tibiis cantasse--sci icet non eadem omnibus honesta sunt atque turpia, sed omnia majorum institutis judicantur.--Corn. Nep a præfat Vit. Epam

De Leg. 1. vil

use of it, than to suggest or excite the most vicious passions soon corrupted an art, which might have been of some advantage, had it been regulated by Plato's opinion. Music underwent a like change, and perhaps the corruption of this did not a little contribute to the perversion of dancing. Voluptuousness and sensual pleasure were the sole arbiters consulted in the uses made of both; and the theatre became a school of every kind of vice.

Plutarch in lamenting that the art of dancing was so degenerate from the merit which rendered it estimable to the great men of antiquity, does not omit to observe, that it was corrupted by a vicious kind of poetry, and a soft effeminate music, with which it was ill united, and which had taken place of the ancient poetry and music, that had something noble, majestic, and even religious and heavenly in them. He adds, that being made subservient to low taste and sensuality, by their aid, it exercised a kind of tyrannical power in the theatres, which were become the public schools of criminal passions and gross vices, wherein no regard was had to reason.*

The reader will, without doubt, readily apply this passage of Plutarch to the sort of music which engrosses our theatres at this day, and which, by its effeminate and wanton airs, has given the last wound to the little manly force and virtue that remained among us. Quintilian describes the music of the times in these terms: Quæ nunc in scenis effeminata, et impudicis modis fracta, non ex parte minima, si quid in nobis virilis roboris manebat, excidit."†

II. OF THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE BODY.

THE young Athenians, and in general all the Greeks, were very attentive to forming themselves to all the exercises of the body, and to go through their lessons regularly with the masters of the palæstræ. They called the places allotted for these exercises, palæstræ or gymnasia, which in a degree resembles our academies. Plato, in his book of laws, after having shown of what importance it was in war to cultivate the hands and feet, adds, that, far from banishing from a well regulated republic the profession of the athletæ, prizes should on the contrary, be proposed for all exercises that conduce to the improvement of military virtue, such as those which render the body more active, and fitter for the race, more hard, robust, and supple, more capable of supporting great fatigues, and effecting great enterprises. We must remember, that there was no Athenian who ought not to have been capable of handling the oar in the largest galleys. The citizens themselves performed this labour, which was not left to slaves and criminals, as in these days. They were all brought up to the art of war, and often obliged to wear arms of iron from head to foot, of a great weight. For this reason, Plato and all the ancients, looked upon the exercises of the body as highly useful, and even absolutely necessary to the good of the public; and therefore this philosopher excluded from them only those who were incapable of service in war.

There were also masters, who taught the youth to ride, and to handle their arms or fence; and others whose business it was to instruct them in all that was necessary to be known, in order to excel in the military art, and to become good commanders. The whole science of the latter consisted in what the ancients called the tactics, that is to say, the art of drawing up troops in battle, and of performing military evolutions. That science was useful, but did not suffice. Xenophon shows its defect, in producing a young man lately come from such a school, in which he imagined he had learned every thing, though in reality he had only acquired a foolish esteem for himself, accompanied with profound ignorance. He gives him, by the mouth of Socrates, admirable precepts upon the business of a soldier, and very proper to form an excellent officer.

Hunting was also considered by the ancients as a fit exercise for forming youth to the stratagems and fatigues of war. It was for this reason that Xenophon, who was a great general as well as a great philosopher, did not

*Sympos. 1. ix. qu. 15. p. 748. Plut. in Lachete, p. 131

VOL. II

t Quintil. I. i. c. 1.

30*

Lib. viii. de Leg. p. 830 s Memorab. 1. iii. p. 701, be.