The shades in the Athenian character strike the eye more rapidly than those in the Lacedaemonian: not because they are darker, but because they are on a brighter ground.The law of ostracism is an instance of this.Nothing can be conceived more odious than the practice of punishing a citizen, simply and professedly, for his eminence;--and nothing in the institutions of Athens is more frequently or more justly censured.Lacedaemon was free from this.And why? Lacedaemon did not need it.Oligarchy is an ostracism of itself,--an ostracism not occasional, but permanent, --not dubious, but certain.Her laws prevented the development of merit instead of attacking its maturity.They did not cut down the plant in its high and palmy state, but cursed the soil with eternal sterility.In spite of the law of ostracism, Athens produced, within a hundred and fifty years, the greatest public men that ever existed.Whom had Sparta to ostracise? She produced, at most, four eminent men, Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus.Of these, not one rose to distinction within her jurisdiction.It was only when they escaped from the region within which the influence of aristocracy withered everything good and noble, it was only when they ceased to be Lacedaemonians, that they became great men.Brasidas, among the cities of Thrace, was strictly a democratical leader, the favourite minister and general of the people.The same may be said of Gylippus, at Syracuse.Lysander, in the Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, were liberated for a time from the hateful restraints imposed by the constitution of Lycurgus.Both acquired fame abroad; and both returned to be watched and depressed at home.This is not peculiar to Sparta.Oligarchy, wherever it has existed, has always stunted the growth of genius.
Thus it was at Rome, till about a century before the Christian era: we read of abundance of consuls and dictators who won battles, and enjoyed triumphs; but we look in vain for a single man of the first order of intellect,--for a Pericles, a Demosthenes, or a Hannibal.The Gracchi formed a strong democratical party; Marius revived it; the foundations of the old aristocracy were shaken; and two generations fertile in really great men appeared.
Venice is a still more remarkable instance: in her history we see nothing but the state; aristocracy had destroyed every seed of genius and virtue.Her dominion was like herself, lofty and magnificent, but founded on filth and weeds.God forbid that there should ever again exist a powerful and civilised state, which, after existing through thirteen hundred eventful years, should not bequeath to mankind the memory of one great name or one generous action.
Many writers, and Mr Mitford among the number, have admired the stability of the Spartan institutions; in fact, there is little to admire, and less to approve.Oligarchy is the weakest and the most stable of governments; and it is stable because it is weak.
It has a sort of valetudinarian longevity; it lives in the balance of Sanctorius; it takes no exercise; it exposes itself to no accident; it is seized with an hypochondriac alarm at every new sensation; it trembles at every breath; it lets blood for every inflammation: and thus, without ever enjoying a day of health or pleasure, drags on its existence to a doting and debilitated old age.
The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home and dignity abroad.They cringed to the powerful; they trampled on the weak;they massacred their helots; they betrayed their allies; they contrived to be a day too late for the battle of Marathon; they attempted to avoid the battle of Salamis; they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives and liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by the Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which exertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they commenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements with Athens; they abandoned it in violation of their engagements with their allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed themselves under their protection;they bartered, for advantages confined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives of those who had served them most faithfully; they took with equal complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained from no injury, and they revenged none.Above all, they looked on a citizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy.These are the arts which protract the existence of government.