Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/439

 CUAP. X. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 433 There was thus, in almost all the cities whose history is known to us, a period during which the rich class, or at any rate the well-to-do class, was in possession of the government. This political system had its merits, as every system may have, when it conforms to the manners of the epoch, and the religious ideas are not opposed to it. The sacerdotal nobility of the preceding period had assuredly rendered groat services. They were the first to establish laws and found regular gov- ernments. They had enabled human societies to live, during several centuries, with calmness and dignity. The aristocracy of wealth had another merit; it im- pressed upon society and the minds of men a new impulse. Having sprung from labor in all its forms, it honored and stimulated the laborer. This new gov- ernment gave the most political importance to the most laborious, the most active, or the most skilful man; it was, therefore, fjxvorablc to industry and commerce. It was also favorable to intellectual progress; for the acquisition of this wealth, which was gained or lost, ordinarily, according to each one's merit, made instruc- tion the first need, and intelligence the most powerful spring of luiman affairs. We are not, therefore, surprised that under this government Greece and Rome enlarged the limits of their intellectual culture, and advanced their civilization. The rich class did not hold the empire so long as the ancient hereditary nobility had held it. Their title to dominion was not of the same value. They had not the sacrcd character with which the ancient Eupatrid U8, that at the same date there were fourteen thousand citizens. The proletariat, therefore, who could not serve among the hoplites, were not counted among the citizens. The Athenian constitution, then, in 430 was not yet completely democratic. 28