Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/430

 406 mSTOBY OF GREECE. the speculative moral and political philosophy, and the didactic analysis of rhetoric and grammar, which long survived after Grecian creative genius had passed away i And it was one of the first measures of the oligarchy of I'hirty, to forbid, by an express law, any teaching of the art of speaking. Aristophanes derides the Athenians for their love of talk and controversy, as if it had enfeebled their military energy : but in his time, most undoubtedly, that reproach was not true ; nor did it become true, even in part, until the crushing misfortunes which marked the close of the Peloponnesian war. During the course of that war, restless and energetic action was the characteristic of Athens, even in a greater degree than oratory or political discussion, though before the time of Demosthenes a material alteration had taken place. The establishment of these paid dikasteries at Athens was thus one of the most important and prohfic events in all Grecian history. The pay helped to furnish a maintenance for old citi- zens, past the age of military service. Elderly men were the best persons for such a service, and were preferred for judicial purposes both at Sparta, and, as it seems, in heroic Greece: nevertheless, we need not suppose that all the dikasts were either old or poor, though a considerable proportion of them were so, and though Aiistophanes selects these quahties as among the most suitable subjects for his ridicule. Perikles has been often censured for this institution, as if he had been the first to insure pay to dikasts who before served for nothing, and had thus introduced poor citizens into couits previously composed of citi- zens above poverty. But, in the first place, this supposition is not correct in point of fact, inasmuch as there were no such con- stant dikasteries previously acting without pay ; next, if it had been true, the habitual exclusion of the poor citizens would have nullified the popular working of these bodies, and would have prevented them from answering any longer to the reigning senti- ' Xenoph. Memor. i, 2, 31. Myuv tex^'tjv firj iiSuaKsiv. Xenophon ascribes the passing of this law to a personal hatred of Kritias against Sokrates, and connects it -with an anecdote exceedingly puerile, when con- sidered as the alleged catise of that hatred, as well as of the consequent law. But it is evident that the law had a far deeper meaning; and wm aimed directly at one of the prominent democratica} habits.