Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/419

401 OLIGARCHY AND DEMOCRACY. 40] tonally among the generals and the trierarchs. Even Astyochus ; the general-in-chief, took his share in this corrupt bargain, against which not one stood out except the Syracusan Hermokrates. 1 Such prolonged inaction of the armament, at the moment of its greatest force, Avas thus not simply the fruit of honest mistake, like the tardiness of Nikias in Sicily, but proceeded from the dis- honesty and personal avidity of the Peloponnesian officers. I have noticed, on more than one previous occasion, the many evidences which exist of the prevalence of personal corruption even in its coarsest form, that of direct bribery among the leading Greeks of all the cities, when acting individually. Of such evidences the incident here recorded is not the least remark- able. Nor ought this general fact ever to be forgotten by those who discuss the question between oligarchy and democracy, as it stood in the Grecian world. The confident pretensions put forth by the wealthy and oligarchical Greeks to superior virtue, public as well as private, and the quiet repetition, by various writers modern and ancient, of the laudatory epithets implying such as- sumed virtue, are so far from being bome out by history, that these individuals were perpetually ready as statesmen to betray their countrymen, or as generals even to betray the interests of their soldiers, for the purpose of acquiring money themselves. Of course, it is not meant that this was true of all of them ; but it was true suf- ficiently often, to be reckoned upon as a contingency more than probable. If, speaking on the average, the leading men of a Grecian community were not above the commission of political misdeeds thus palpable, and of a nature not to be disguised even from themselves, far less would they be above the vices, always more or less mingled with self-delusion, of pride, power-seeking, party-antipathy or sympathy, love of ease, etc. And if the com- munity were to have any chance of guarantee against such abuses, it could only be by full license of accusation against delinquents, 1 Thucyd. viii. 45. Suggestions of Alkibiadus to Tissaphernes Kal rot)f Tpiripdpxoi'f Kal Toi)f c-parriyovf TUV xoheuv editiaaiCEv &a T e d ovr a % pf; par a O.VTOV TT si a a i, uare fuy^wp^aat r av T a eavrti, ir^7/i> TUV ZvpaKoaiuv TOVTUV 6e, 'F.puoKpaTTis t/vavriovro u 6 vo f vTTep re v About the l>ribea to Astyjchus 1 imself. sec also c. 50. VOL. VK. 26OC