Note 204-9 — Chapter VII

The spirit of the Grecian moneyed oligarchy is best revealed by Plato, De Republ., VIII, and Aristotle, Polit., III, VI, passim, the first of whom considers the contrast between rich and poor as in itself demoralizing (IV, 422). All that can be called by the name of tradition, the political faith of a people, and the national feeling of right, had, in the Grecian world, been transformed into mere reasoning and concerned itself, with frightful exclusiveness, to the contrast existing between rich and poor. Compare Aristot., Pol., II, 4, 1, with Droysen, Gesch. des Hellenismus, II, 496 etc., and the citations from Menander in Stob., Serm., LXXXIX, 503, in which gold and silver are proclaimed almighty. It is a remarkable proof of the omne venalia esse in Greece that Thucydides (II, 65) lauds even Pericles, especially for his incorruptibility. Demosthenes says of his contemporaries, that it excited envy when any one was bribed, laughter when he confessed it; that he who was convicted of it (bribery) was pardoned, and he who blamed it, hated. (Phil., II, 121.) Compare the list in Demosth., Pro. Cor., 324; Pausan, III, 10. In Athens, on the occasion of the census-constitution imposed forcibly on the state by Antipater, that in a population of 21,000 citizens, only 9,000 had a property worth 2,000 drachmas or more, that is, enough for a man to live on in the most niggardly way, on the highest interest it would yield. If, in addition to this, account be taken of the large number of slaves, the small number of the property class is all the more surprising, inasmuch as Lycurgus' financial administration bears evidence that the people were in a flourishing and comfortable condition; that afterwards, peace for the most part prevailed, and that Alexander's victories enabled Grecian commerce to make large gains. Compare Boeckh, Staatsh. IV, 3, 9.

In Sparta, the governing class finally numbered only 700 families, 100 of which owned all the land, and 600 of which were, therefore, only noble proletarians. It is well known that the social attempts at reform by Agis and Kleomenes only precipitated the downfall of the state. (Plutarch, Agis and Kleomenes.) Aratos owed a great part of the consideration in which he was held to the reputation which he obtained by protecting the property of the Sicyonian exiles (Thirlwall, History of Greece, VIII, 167), while on the other hand, men like Agathocles and Nabis supported their faction by persecution of the rich, new debtor-laws and new division of land. (Polyb., XIII, 6, XVI, 13, XVII, 17, XXVI, 2; Livy, XXXII, 38, 40, XXXIV, 31, XXXVIII, 34; Plutarch, Cleom, 20.) Livy expressly says that all the optimates were in favor of the Romans, and that the multitude wanted novare omnia (XXXV, 34). On the frightful struggle between these opposite parties, on the revolutions and counter revolutions, see also Polyb., XIII, 1, 2; XVIII, 36 ff., XXX, 14; XXII, 21; XXXVIII, 2, 3; Diodor., XIX, 6, 9; Exc., 587, 623; Livy, XLI, 25, XLII, 5; Pausan, VII, 14. In Bœotia, no one was for 25 years, chosen by the people for the higher offices, from whom they did not expect a suspension of the administration of justice in the matter of crimes and debts, as well as the spending of the national treasure. (Polyb., XX, 14, 5, 6.) The events at Corinth, before its conquest by the Romans, forcibly remind one of the Paris Commune of 1871. This decline had, as usual, begun earliest in the colonies: thus, in Sicily, even in Thucyd., V, 4. Milesian struggle off the πλουτὶς[TN 29] and χειρομάχα [TN 30] in Plutarch, Qu. Gr., 32; Athen., XII, 524.