Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/326

 304 HlbiuRY Ul< GKLKUt eion and danger. 1 Much more forcibly does this remark apply to the restoration after the Thirty, when the public condition of Athens was at the lowest depth of abasement, from which noth. ing could have rescued her except such exemplary wisdom and patriotism on the part of her victorious Demos. Nothing short of this could have enabled her to accomplish that partial resur- rection into an independent and powerful single state, though shorn of her imperial power which will furnish material for the subsequent portion of our Histcry. While we note the memorable resolution of the Athenian people to forget that which could not be remembered without ruin to the future march of the democracy, we must at the same time observe that which they took special pains to preserve from being forgotten. They formally recognized all the adjudged cases and all the rights of property as existing under the democracy anterior to the Thirty. " You pronounced, fellow-citizens (says Andokides),that all the judicial verdicts and all the decisions of arbitrators passed under the democracy should remain valid, in order that there might be no abolition of debts, no reversal of private rights, but that every man might have the means of enforcing contracts due to him by others." 2 If the Athenian people had been animated by that avidity to despoil the rich, and that subjection to the passion of the moment, which Mr. Mitford imputes to them in so many chapters of his history, neither motive nor opportunity was now wanting for wholesale confisca- tion, of which the rich themselves, during the dominion of the Thirty, had set abundant example. The amnesty as to political wrong, and the indelible memory as to the rights of property, stand alike conspicuous as evidences of the real character of the Athenian Demos. If we wanted any farther proof of their capacity of taking the largest and soundest views on a difficult political situation, we should find it in another of their measures at this critical period. 1 Thucyd. viii, 97. 6ialraf knoiTjaaTE KVpiaf elvcu, oiroeai fa> dri/MOKpaTovuevy ry tofai tyevovro, oTrwf p-r]TE xpeuv uno/foxa} elev pyre f'.Kai fiyiif'tcoi yevotvro, r<A?.d TUV l&iut avuBo'haiuv al rrpu^eif elev.
 * Andokides de Mysteriis, sect. 88. Tuf JJ.EV diKaf, u uvdpef, KOI ruf