Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/391

 DISPOSITIONS OF THE DIKASTEUY. 873 duct. 1 That which an accused person at Athens usually strives to produce is, an impression in the minds of the dikasts fasorablt to his general character and behavior. Of course, he meets the particular allegation of his .accuser as well as he can, but he never fails also to remind them emphatically, how well he has performed his general duties of a citizen, how many times he has served in military expedit.'ons, how many trierarchies and liturgies he has performed, and performed with splendid effi- ciency. In fact, the claim of an accused person to acquittal is made to rest too much on his prior services, and too little upon innocence or justifying matter as to the particular indictment. When we come down to the time of the orators, I shall be pre- pared to show that such indisposition to confine themselves to a special issue was one of the most serious defects of the assem- bled dikasts at Athens. It is one which we should naturally expect from a body of private, non-professional citizens assem- bled for the occasion, and which belongs more or less to the system of jury-trial everywhere ; but it is the direct reverse of that ingratitude, or habitual insensibility to prior services, for which they have been so often denounced. The fate of Miltiades, then, so far from illustrating either the fickleness or the ingratitude of his countrymen, attests their just appreciation of deserts. It also illustrates another moral, of no small importance to the right comprehension of Grecian affairs ; it teaches us the painful lesson, how perfectly maddening were the effects of a copious draught of glory on the temperament of an enterprising and ambitious Greek. There can be no doubt, ' Machiavel, in the twenty-ninth chapter of his Discorsi sopra T. Livio, examines the question, " Which of the two is more open to the charge of being ungrateful, a popular government, or a king? " He thinks that tho latter is more open to it. Compare chapter fifty-nine of the same work, M. Sismondi also observes, in speaking of the long attachment of the city of Pisa to the cause of the emperors and to the Ghibelin party: " Pisa rnontra dans plus d'une occasion, par sa Constance <n supporter la cause des empereurs au milieu des revers, combien la reconnoissance lie un peuplo libre d'une maniere plus puissante et plus durable qu'elle nc sauroit Her le penple gouverne par un seul homme v (Histoire des Republ. ItaHenne* eh. xiii, torn, ii, p. 302.)
 * rhere he again supports a similar opinion.