escaped from the Thirty Tyrants, says that the democracy was as violent
a government as the oligarchy. Orat. 24, _de statu. popul._
[62] Orat. 24. And in Orat. 29 he mentions the factious spirit of the
popular assemblies as the only cause why these illegal punishments
should displease.
[63] Lib. 3. The country in Europe in which I have observed the
factions to be most violent, and party hatred the strongest, is
Ireland. This goes so far as to cut off even the most common
intercourse of civilities between the Protestants and Catholics. Their
cruel insurrections, and the severe revenges which they have taken of
each other, are the causes of this mutual ill-will, which is the chief
source of the disorder, poverty, and depopulation of that country. The
Greek factions I imagine to have been inflamed still to a higher degree
of rage, the revolutions being commonly more frequent, and the maxims
of assassination much more avowed and acknowledged.
[64] Diod. Sic., lib. 14. Isocrates says there were only 5000 banished.
He makes the number of those killed amount to 1500. Areop. Æschines
_contra Ctesiph._ assigns precisely the same number. Seneca (_De tranq.
anim._ cap. 5) says 1300.
[65] We shall mention from Diodorus Siculus alone a few which passed in
the course of sixty years during the most shining age of Greece. There
were banished from Sybaris 500 of the nobles and their partisans (lib.
12 p. 77, _ex edit._ Rhodomanni); of Chians, 600 citizens banished
(lib. 13 p. 189); at Ephesus, 340 killed, 1000 banished (lib. 13 p.
223); of Cyrenians, 500 nobles killed, all the rest banished (lib. 14
p. 263); the Corinthians killed 120, banished 500 (lib. 14 p. 304);
Phæbidas the Spartan banished 300 Bæotians (lib. 15 p. 342). Upon the
fall of the Lacedemonians, democracies were restored in many cities,
and severe vengeance taken of the nobles, after the Greek manner. But
matters did not end there, for the banished nobles, returning in many
places, butchered their adversaries at Phialæ in Corinth, in Megara,
in Phliasia. In this last place they killed 300 of the people; but
these again revolting, killed above 600 of the nobles and banished the
rest (lib. 15 p. 357). In Arcadia 1400 banished, besides many killed.
The banished retired to Sparta and Pallantium. The latter delivered up
to their countrymen, and all killed (lib. 15 p. 373). Of the banished
from Argos and Thebes there were 500 in the Spartan army (_id._ p.
374). Here is a detail of the most remarkable of Agathocles’ cruelties
from the same author. The people before his usurpation had banished
600 nobles (lib. 19 p. 655). Afterwards that tyrant, in concurrence
with the people, killed 4000 nobles and banished 6000 (_id._ p. 647).
He killed 4000 people at Gela (_id._ p. 741). By Agathocles’ brother
8000 banished from Syracuse (lib. 20 p. 757). The inhabitants of
Ægesta, to the number of 40,000, were killed—man, woman, and child;
and with tortures, for the sake of their money (_id._ p. 802). All the
relations—viz., father, brother, children, grandfather, of his Libyan
army, killed (_id._ p. 103). He killed 7000 exiles after capitulation
(_id._ p. 816). It is to be remarked that Agathocles was a man of great
sense and courage; his violent tyranny, therefore, is a stronger proof
of the manners of the age.
[66] In order to recommend his client to the favour of the people, he
enumerates all the sums he had expended. When χορηγος, 30 minas; upon
a chorus of men, 20 minas; ειπυρριχιστας, 8 minas; ανδρασι χορηγων, 50
minas; κυκλικῳ χορῳ, 3 minas; seven times trierarch, where he spent
6 talents: taxes, once 30 minas, another time 40; γυμνασιαρχων, 12
minas; χορηγος παιδικῳ χορῳ, 15 minas; κομοδοις χορηγων, 18 minas;
πυρριχισταις αγενειοις, 7 minas; τριηρει ἁμιλλομενος, 15 minas;
αρχιθεωρος, 30 minas. In the whole, ten talents 38 minas—an immense
sum for an Athenian fortune, and what alone would be esteemed great
riches (Orat. 20). It is true, he says, the law did not oblige him
absolutely to be at so much expense, not above a fourth; but without
the favour of the people nobody was so much as safe, and this was the
only way to gain it. See further, Orat. 24, _de pop. statu._ In another
place, he introduces a speaker who says that he had spent his whole
fortune—and an immense one, eighty talents—for the people (Orat. 25,
_de prob. Evandri_). The μετοικοι, or strangers, find, says he, if they
do not contribute largely enough to the people’s fancy, that they have
reason to repent (Orat. 30, _contra Phil._). You may see with what care
Demosthenes displays his expenses of this nature, when he pleads for
himself _de corona_; and how he exaggerates Midias’s stinginess in this
particular, in his accusation of that criminal. All this, by the by, is
the mark of a very iniquitous judicature: and yet the Athenians valued
themselves on having the most legal and regular administration of any
people in Greece.
[67] The authorities cited above are all historians, orators, and
philosophers whose testimony is unquestioned. It is dangerous to rely
upon writers who deal in ridicule and satire. What will posterity, for
instance, infer from this passage of Dr. Swift? “I told him that in the
kingdom of Tribnia (Britain), by the natives called Langdon (London),
where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people
consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers,
accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several
subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the
conduct, and pay of ministers of state and their deputies. The plots
in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons,” etc.
(_Gulliver’s Travels._) Such a representation might suit the government
of Athens, but not that of England, which is a prodigy even in modern
times for humanity, justice, and liberty. Yet the Doctor’s satire,
though carried to extremes, as is usual with him, even beyond other
satirical writers, did not altogether want an object. The Bishop of
Rochester, who was his friend, and of the same party, had been banished
a little before by a bill of attainder with great justice, but without
such a proof as was legal, or according to the strict forms of common
law.
[68] Lib. 2. There were 8000 killed during the siege, and the whole
captives amounted to 30,000. Diodorus Siculus (lib. 17) says only
13,000; but he accounts for this small number by saying that the
Tyrians had sent away beforehand part of their wives and children to
Carthage.
[69] Lib. 5. He makes the number of the citizens amount to 30,000.
[70] In general there is more candour and sincerity in ancient
historians, but less exactness and care, than in the moderns. Our
speculative factions, especially those of religion, throw such an
illusion over our minds that men seem to regard impartiality to their
adversaries and to heretics as a vice or weakness; but the commonness
of books, by means of printing, has obliged modern historians to be
more careful in avoiding contradictions and incongruities. Diodorus
Siculus is a good writer, but it is with pain I see his narration
contradict in so many particulars the two most authentic pieces of all
Greek history—viz., Xenophon’s Expedition and Demosthenes’ Orations.
Plutarch and Appian seem scarce ever to have read Cicero’s Epistles.
[71] Diogenes Laertius (in _vita Empedoclis_) says that Agrigentum
contained only 800,000 inhabitants.
[72] The country that supplied this number was not above a third of
Italy—viz., the Pope’s dominions, Tuscany, and a part of the kingdom
of Naples; but perhaps in those early times there were very few slaves
except in Rome, or the great cities.
[73] Plutarch (in _vita Cæs._) makes the number that Cæsar fought with
amount only to three millions; Julian (in _Cæsaribus_) to two.
[74] Argos seems also to have been a great city, for Lysias contents
himself with saying that it did not exceed Athens. (Orat. 34.)
[75] Orat. _contra Verem_, lib. 4, cap. 52. Strabo, lib. 6, says it
was twenty-two miles in compass; but then we are to consider that it
contained two harbours within it, one of which was a very large one,
and might be regarded as a kind of bay.
[76] Demosthenes assigns 20,000.
[77] Lib. 2. Diodorus Siculus’s account perfectly agrees (lib. 12).
[78] We are to observe that when Dionysius Halicarnassæus says that if
we regard the ancient walls of Rome the extent of the city will not
appear greater than that of Athens, he must mean the Acropolis and high
town only. No ancient author ever speaks of the Pyræum, Phalerus, and
Munychia as the same with Athens; much less can it be supposed that
Dionysius would consider the matter in that light after the walls of
Cimon and Pericles were destroyed and Athens was entirely separated
from these other towns. This observation destroys all Vossius’s
reasonings and introduces common sense into these calculations.
[79] The same author affirms that Corinth had once 460,000 slaves,
Ægina 470,000; but the foregoing arguments hold stronger against these
facts, which are indeed entirely absurd and impossible. It is however
remarkable that Athenæus cites so great an authority as Aristotle for
this last fact; and the scholiast on Pindar mentions the same number of
slaves in Ægina.
[80] Demost. _contra Lept._ The Athenians brought yearly from Pontus
400,000 medimni or bushels of corn, as appeared from the custom-house
books; and this was the greatest part of their importation. This, by
the by, is a strong proof that there is some great mistake in the
foregoing passage of Athenæus, for Attica itself was so barren in corn
that it produced not enough even to maintain the peasants. Tit. Liv.,
lib. 43; cap. 6, Lucian, in his _navigium sive vota_, says that a ship,
which by the dimensions he gives seems to have been about the size of
our third rates, carried as much corn as would maintain all Attica for
a twelvemonth. But perhaps Athens was decayed at that time, and besides
it is not safe to trust such loose rhetorical calculations.
[81] Diod. Sic., lib. 17. When Alexander attacked Thebes we may safely
conclude that almost all the inhabitants were present. Whoever is
acquainted with the spirit of the Greeks, especially of the Thebans,
will never suspect that any of them would desert their country when it
was reduced to such extreme peril and distress. As Alexander took the
town by storm, all those who bore arms were put to the sword without
mercy, and they amounted only to 6000 men. Among these were some
strangers and manumitted slaves. The captives, consisting of old men,
women, children, and slaves, were sold, and they amounted to 30,000. We
may therefore conclude that the free citizens in Thebes, of both sexes
and all ages, were near 24,000, the strangers and slaves about 12,000,
These last, we may observe, were somewhat fewer in proportion than at
Athens; as is reasonable to imagine from this circumstance, that Athens
was a town of more trade to support slaves, and of more entertainment
to allure strangers. It is also to be remarked that thirty-six thousand
was the whole number of people, both in the city of Thebes and the
neighbouring territory; a very moderate number, it must be confessed,
and this computation being founded in facts which appear undisputable,
must have great weight in the present controversy. The above-mentioned
number of Rhodians, too, were all the inhabitants of the island who
were free and able to bear arms.
[82] _De rep. Laced._ This passage is not easily reconciled with that
of Plutarch above, who says that Sparta had 9000 citizens.
[83] Strabo, lib. 5, says that the Emperor Augustus prohibited the
raising houses higher than seventy feet. In another passage, lib. 16,
he speaks of the houses of Rome as remarkably high. See also to the
same purpose Vitruvius, lib. 2, cap. 8. Aristides the Sophist, in his
oration εις Ρωμην, says that Rome consisted of cities on the top of
cities; and that if one were to spread it out and unfold it, it would
cover the whole surface of Italy. Where an author indulges himself in
such extravagant declamations, and gives so much in to the hyperbolical
style, one knows not how far he must be reduced. But this reasoning
seems natural: if Rome was built in so scattered a manner as Dionysius
says, and ran so much into the country, there must have been very few
streets where the houses were raised so high. It is only for want of
ground that anybody builds in that inconvenient manner.
[84] Lib. 2, epist. 16; lib. 5, epist. 6. It is true Pliny there
describes a country house; but since that was the idea which the
ancients formed of a magnificent and convenient building, the great
men would certainly build the same way in town. “In laxitatem ruris
excurrunt,” says Seneca of the rich and voluptuous, epist. 114.
Valerius Maximus, lib. 4, cap. 4, speaking of Cincinnatus’ field of
four acres, says: “Augustus se habitare nunc putat, cujus domus tantum
patet quantum Cincinnati rura patuerant.” To the same purpose see lib.
36, cap. 15; also lib. 18, cap. 2.
[85] “Mœnia ejus (Romæ) collegere ambitu imperatoribus, censoribusque
Vespasianis, A.U.C. 828, pass. xiii. MCC, complexa montes septem,
ipsa dividitur in regiones quatuordecim, compita earum 265. Ejusdem
spatii mensura, currente a milliario in capite Rom. Fori statuto, ad
singulas portas, quæ sunt hodie numero 37, ita ut duodecim portæ semel
numerentur, prætereanturque ex veteribus septem, quæ esse desierunt,
efficit passuum per directum 30,775. Ad extrema vero tectorum cum
castris prætoris ab eodem Milliario, per vicos omnium viarum, mensura
collegit paulo amplius septuaginta millia passuum. Quo si quis
altitudinem tectorum addat, dignam profecto, æstimationem concipiat,
fateaturque nullius urbis magnitudinem in toto orbe potuisse ei
comparari.” (Pliny, lib. 3, cap. 5.)
All the best manuscripts of Pliny read the passage as here cited, and
fix the compass of the walls of Rome to be thirteen miles. The question
is, what Pliny means by 30,775 paces, and how that number was formed?
The manner in which I conceive it is this: Rome was a semicircular
area of thirteen miles circumference. The Forum, and consequently the
Milliarium, we know was situated on the banks of the Tiber, and near
the centre of the circle, or upon the diameter of the semicircular
area. Though there were thirty-seven gates to Rome, yet only twelve of
them had straight streets, leading from them to the Milliarium. Pliny,
therefore, having assigned the circumference of Rome, and knowing that
that alone was not sufficient to give us a just notion of its surface,
uses this further method. He supposes all the streets leading from the
Milliarium to the twelve gates to be laid together into one straight
line, and supposes we run along that line so as to count each gate
once, in which case, he says that the whole line is 30,775 paces; or,
in other words, that each street or radius of the semicircular area is
upon an average two miles and a half, and the whole length of Rome is
five miles, and its breadth about half as much, besides the scattered
suburbs.
Père Hardouin understands this passage in the same manner, with regard
to the laying together the several streets of Rome into one line in
order to compose 30,775 paces; but then he supposes that streets led
from the Milliarium to every gate, and that no street exceeded 800
paces in length. But (1) a semicircular area whose radius was only
800 paces could never have a circumference near thirteen miles, the
compass of Rome as assigned by Pliny. A radius of two miles and a half
forms very nearly that circumference. (2) There is an absurdity in
supposing a city so built as to have streets running to its centre from
every gate in its circumference. These streets must interfere as they
approach. (3) This diminishes too much from the greatness of ancient
Rome, and reduces that city below even Bristol or Rotterdam.
The sense which Vossius, in his _Observationes Variæ_, puts on this
passage of Pliny errs widely in the other extreme. One manuscript of
no authority, instead of thirteen miles, has assigned thirty miles for
the compass of the walls of Rome; and Vossius understands this only
of the curvilinear part of the circumference, supposing that, as the
Tiber formed the diameter, there were no walls built on that side. But
(1) this reading is allowed contrary to almost all the manuscripts.
(2) Why should Pliny, a concise writer, repeat the compass of the
walls of Rome in two successive sentences? (3) Why repeat it with so
sensible a variation? (4) What is the meaning of Pliny’s mentioning
twice the Milliarium if a line was measured that had no dependence on
the Milliarium? (5) Aurelian’s wall is said by Vopiscus to have been
drawn _laxiore ambitu_, and to have comprehended all the buildings
and suburbs on the north side of the Tiber, yet its compass was only
fifty miles; and even here critics suspect some mistake or corruption
in the text. It is not probable that Rome would diminish from Augustus
to Aurelian. It remained still the capital of the same empire; and
none of the civil wars in that long period, except the tumults on
the death of Maximus and Balbinus, ever affected the city. Caracalla
is said by Aurelius Victor to have increased Rome. (6) There are no
remains of ancient buildings which mark any such greatness of Rome.
Vossius’s reply to this objection seems absurd—that the rubbish would
sink sixty or seventy feet below ground. It appears from Spartian (_in
vita Severi_) that the five-mile stone _in via Lavicana_ was out of the
city. (7) Olympiodorus and Publius Victor fix the number of houses in
Rome to be between forty and fifty thousand. (8) The very extravagance
of the consequences drawn by this critic, as well as Lipsius, if they
be necessary, destroys the foundation on which they are grounded—that
Rome contained fourteen millions of inhabitants, while the whole
kingdom of France contains only five, according to his computation, etc.
The only objection to the sense which we have affixed above to the
passage of Pliny seems to lie in this, that Pliny, after mentioning
the thirty-seven gates of Rome, assigns only a reason for suppressing
the seven old ones, and says nothing of the eighteen gates, the
streets leading from which terminated, according to my opinion, before
they reached the Forum. But as Pliny was writing to the Romans, who
perfectly knew the disposition of the streets, it is not strange
he should take a circumstance for granted which was so familiar to
everybody. Perhaps, too, many of these gates led to wharves upon the
river.
[86] Not to take the people too much from their business, Augustus
ordained the distribution of corn to be made only thrice a year; but
the people, finding the monthly distribution more convenient (as
preserving, I suppose, a more regular economy in their family), desired
to have them restored. (Sueton. August. cap. 40.) Had not some of the
people come from some distance for their corn, Augustus’s precaution
seems superfluous.
[87] Quintus Curtius says its walls were only ten miles in
circumference when founded by Alexander (lib. 4, cap. 8). Strabo, who
had travelled to Alexandria, as well as Diodorus Siculus, says it was
scarce four miles long, and in most places about a mile broad (lib.
17). Pliny says it resembled a Macedonian cassock, stretching out in
the corners (lib. 5, cap. 10). Notwithstanding this bulk of Alexandria,
which seems but moderate, Diodorus Siculus, speaking of its circuit as
drawn by Alexander (which it never exceeded, as we learn from Ammianus
Marcellinus, lib. 22, cap. 16), says it was μεγεθει διαφεροντα,
extremely great (_ibid._). The reason why he assigns for its surpassing
all cities of the world (for he excepts not Rome) is that it contained
300,000 free inhabitants. He also mentions the revenues of the
kings—viz., 6000 talents—as another circumstance to the same purpose,
no such mighty sum in our eyes, even though we make allowances for
the different value of money. What Strabo says of the neighbouring
country means only that it was well peopled, οἰκουμενα καλως. Might
not one affirm, without any great hyperbole, that the whole banks of
the river from Gravesend to Windsor are one city? This is even more
than Strabo says of the banks of the lake Mareotis, and of the canal
to Canopus. It is a vulgar saying in Italy that the King of Sardinia
has but one town in Piedmont—for it is all a town. Agrippa in Josephus
(_de bello Judaie_, lib. 2, cap. 16), to make his audience comprehend
the excessive greatness of Alexandria, which he endeavours to magnify,
describes only the compass of the city as drawn by Alexander, a clear
proof that the bulk of the inhabitants were lodged there, and that the
neighbouring country was no more than what might be expected about all
great towns, very well cultivated and well peopled.
[88] He says ἐλευθεροι, not πολιται, which last expression must have
been understood of citizens alone, and grown men.
[89] He says (in _Nerone_, cap. 30) that a portico or piazza of it
was 3000 feet long; “tanta laxitas ut porticus triplices milliarias
haberet.” He cannot mean three miles, for the whole extent of the house
from the Palatine to the Esquiline was not near so great. So when
Vopiscus, in _Aureliano_, mentions a portico of Sallust’s gardens,
which he calls _porticus milliariensis_, it must be understood of a
thousand feet. So also Horace—
“Nulla decempedis
Metata privatis opacam
Porticus excipiebat Arcton.” (Lib. ii. ode 15.)
So also in lib. i. Satyr. 8—
“Mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum
Hic dabat.”
[90] Lib. ix. cap. 10. His expression is ἀνθρωπος, not πολιτης;
inhabitant, not citizen.
[91] Such were Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Ephesus, Lyons, etc.,
in the Roman Empire. Such are even Bordeaux, Toulouse, Dijon, Rennes,
Rouen, Aix, etc., in France; Dublin, Edinburgh, York, in the British
dominions.
[92] The warm southern colonies also become more healthful; and it is
remarkable that in the Spanish histories of the first discovery and
conquest of these countries they appear to have been very healthful,
being then well peopled and cultivated. No account of the sickness or
decay of Cortes’s or Pizarro’s small armies.
[93] He seems to have lived about the time of the younger Africanus.
(Lib. i. cap. 1.)
[94] Cæsar, _De bello Gallico_, lib. 16. Strabo (lib. 7) says the Gauls
were not much more improved than the Germans.
[95] Ancient Gaul was more extensive than modern France.
[96] It appears from Cæsar’s account that the Gauls had no domestic
slaves, who formed a different order from the Plebes. The whole common
people were indeed a kind of slaves to the nobility, as the people
of Poland are at this day; and a nobleman of Gaul had sometimes ten
thousand dependants of this kind. Nor can we doubt that the armies were
composed of the people as well as of the nobility. An army of 100,000
noblemen from a very small state is incredible. The fighting men
amongst the Helvetii were the fourth part of the whole inhabitants—a
clear proof that all the males of military age bore arms. See Cæsar,
_De bello Gall._, lib. 1.
We may remark that the numbers in Cæsar’s commentaries can be more
depended on than those of any other ancient author, because of the
Greek translation which still remains, and which checks the Latin
original.
[97] “Nec numero Hispanos, nec robore Gallos, nec calliditate Pœnos,
nec artibus Græcos, nec denique hoc ipso hujus gentis, ac terræ
domestico nativoque sensu, Italos ipsos ac Latinos—superavimus.” (_De
harusp. resp._, cap. 9.) The disorders of Spain seem to have been
almost proverbial: “Nec impacatos a tergo horrebis Iberos.” (Virg.
_Georg._, lib. 3.) The Iberi are here plainly taken by a poetical
figure for robbers in general.