bondage. It is true
that in Athens itself, where such convulsions were scarcely known,
the condition of the higher orders was disagreeable; that they were
compelled to contribute large sums for the service or the amusement
of the public; and that they were sometimes harassed by vexatious
informers. Whenever such cases occur, Mr Mitford's scepticism vanishes.
The "if," the "but," the "it is said," the "if we may believe," with
which he qualifies every charge against a tyrant or an aristocracy, are
at once abandoned. The blacker the story, the firmer is his belief, and
he never fails to inveigh with hearty bitterness against democracy as
the source of every species of crime.

The Athenians, I believe, possessed more liberty than was good for
them. Yet I will venture to assert that, while the splendour, the
intelligence, and the energy of that great people were peculiar to
themselves, the crimes with which they are charged arose from causes
which were common to them with every other state which then existed.
The violence of faction in that age sprung from a cause which has always
been fertile in every political and moral evil, domestic slavery.

The effect of slavery is completely to dissolve the connection which
naturally exists between the higher and lower classes of free citizens.
The rich spend their wealth in purchasing and maintaining slaves. There
is no demand for the labour of the poor; the fable of Menenius ceases to
be applicable; the belly communicates no nutriment to the members; there
is an atrophy in the body politic. The two parties, therefore, proceed
to extremities utterly unknown in countries where they have mutually
need of each other. In Rome the oligarchy was too powerful to be
subverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies,
though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest
against men who possessed the whole property of the state. Hence the
necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society,
and to take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, and
the agrarian laws--propositions absurdly condemned by men who do
not consider the circumstances from which they sprung. They were the
desperate remedies of a desperate disease. In Greece the oligarchical
interest was not in general so deeply rooted as at Rome. The multitude,
therefore, often redressed by force grievances which, at Rome, were
commonly attacked under the forms of