Part 22

What is the advantage of the column after it has broken the enemy’s line? Only that it then takes them in flank, and dissipates whatever stands near it by a fire from all sides; but till it has broken them, does it not present a flank to the enemy, and that exposed to their musketry, and, what is much worse, to their cannon?

Inst. lib. 2, cap. 6. It is true the same law seems to have been continued till the time of Justinian, but abuses introduced by barbarism are not always corrected by civility.

Lysias, who was himself of the popular faction and very narrowly escaped from the Thirty Tyrants, says that the democracy was as violent a government as the oligarchy. Orat. 24, de statu. popul.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lib. 5. He makes the number of the citizens amount to 30,000.

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.

Diogenes Laertius (in vita Empedoclis) says that Agrigentum contained only 800,000 inhabitants.

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.

Plutarch (in vita Cæs.) makes the number that Cæsar fought with amount only to three millions; Julian (in Cæsaribus) to two.

Argos seems also to have been a great city, for Lysias contents himself with saying that it did not exceed Athens. (Orat. 34.)

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.

Demosthenes assigns 20,000.

Lib. 2. Diodorus Siculus’s account perfectly agrees (lib. 12).

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.

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.

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.

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.

De rep. Laced. This passage is not easily reconciled with that of Plutarch above, who says that Sparta had 9000 citizens.

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.

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.

“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.