Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/405

 CHANGES AT ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES. 381 SO often represented as institutions of Solon, and as merely sup- plied with pay by Perikles. This erroneous supposition prevents all clear view of the growth of the Athenian democracy, by throwing back its last elaborations to the period of its early and imperfect start. To strip the magistrates of all their judicial power, except that of imposing a small fine, and the Areopagus of all its jurisdiction, except in cases of homicide, — providing popular, numerous, and salaried dikasts to decide all the judicial business at Athens, as well as to repeal and enact laws ; this was the consummation of the Athenian democracy : no serious consti- tutional alteration — I except the temporary interruptions of the Four Hundred and the Thirty — was afterwards made until the days of Macedonian interference. As Perikles made it, so it remained in the days of Demosthenes, — though wath a sensible change in the character, and abatement in the energies, of the people, rich as well as poor. In appreciating the practical working of these numerous di- kasteries at Athens, in comparison with such justice as might have been expected from individual magistrates, we have to con- sider, first, that personal and pecuniary corruption seems to have been a common vice among the leading men of Athens and Spar- ta, when acting individually or in boards of a few members, and not uncommon even with the kings of Sparta, — next, that in the Grecian cities generally, as we know even from the oligarchical Xenophon (he particularly excepts Sparta), the rich and great men were not only insubordinate to the magistrates, but made a parade of showing that they cared nothing about them.' We know, also, from the same unsuspected source,^ that whUe the ' Xenophon, De Republ. Laced, c. 8, 2. TeK/iaipofiai de Tavra, on tv fiev Tal^ akXacg TcoTisaLv ol dwaruTEpot, ovrs ^ ovXovt at SokeIv rug u p- Xu( o^ Elad-ai, a'kXa v Ojii^ov at tovto uv eXev^^ e pov slvac Ev 6e t^ STraprj? oi KpuTiaroi Kal VTzipxovrai /ia?u(jTa rug upxug, etc. Eespecting the violent proceedings committed by powerful men at Thebes, whereby it became almost impossible to procure justice against them for fear of being put to death, see Dikaearchus, Vit. Grsec. Tragm. ed. Fabr. p. 143, and Polybius, xx, 4, 6 ; xxiii, 2. ovrug Tjyov avTiKEOTu TiOVtipicf, voaslv ^A.'&rjvaiovg- Oi'x opag, cig evtukto i UEV Eiffiv kv Tolg vavTiKolg, EVTUKTug (5' iv Tolg yvfiviKolg uyuac TiEi'&ovTai Tolg ETTicrd-aig, ovdevuv 6e KoradEEffrepov kv rolg x^P'^^^ vnrjpe-
 * Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 5, 18. M??(5a//cJf, Hi] 6 "ZuKparriQ, u IlEpiK?.EiCf