Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/462

 456 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. party was master and the other enslaved. The govern- ment was called aristocratic when the rich were in power, democratic when the poor ruled. In reality, true democracy no longer existed. From the day when it Avas mastered by material in- terests, it was changed and corrupted. Democracy, with the rich in power, had become a violent oligarchy; the democracy of the poor had become a tyranny. From the fifth to the second century before our era, we see in all the cities of Greece and of Italy, Rome still ex- cepted, that the republican forms are imperilled, and that they have become odious to one party. Now, we can clearly see who wish to desti'oy it, and who desire- its preservation. The rich, more enlightened and more haughty, remain faithful to republican government, wliilo the poor, for whom political rights have less val- ue, are ready to adopt a tyrant as their chief. When this poor class, after several civil wars, saw that victories gained them nothing, that the opposite party always returned to power, and that, after many interchanges of confiscations and restitutions, the struggle always recommenced, they dreamed of establishing a monarch- ical government which should conform to their inter- ests, and which, by forever suppressing the opposito party, should assure them, for the future, the fruits of their victory. And so they set up tyrants. From that moment the parties changed names; they were no longer aristocracy or democracy ; they fought for liberty or for tyranny. Under these two names wealth and poverty were still at war. Liberty signified the government wheie the rich had the rule, and defended their fortunes; tyranny indicated exactly the contrary. It is a general fact, and almost without exception in the history of Greece and of Italy, that the tyrants