Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/480

 474 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. piovitlecl the rites received no attack. It happened, therefore, without the practices being modified, that the beliefs were transformed, and that the domestic and municipal religion lost all influence over the minds of men. Then philosophy appeared, and overthrew all the rules of the ancient polity. It was impossible to touch the opinions of men vvitliout also touching the funda- mental principles of their government. Pythagoras, having a vague conception of the Supreme Being, dis- dained the local worships; and this was sufficient to <;ause him to reject the old modes of government, and to attempt to found a new order of society. Anaxagoras comprehended the God-Intelligence which reigns over all men and all beings. In reject- ing ancient religious notions, he also rejected ancient polity. As he did not believe in the gods of the pryta- neum, he no longer fulfilled all the duties of a citizen; he avoided the assemblies, and would not be a magis- trate. His doctrine was an attack npon the city ; and the Atbeninns condemned him to death. The Sophists came afterwards, and exercised more influence than these two great minds. They were men -eager to combat old errors. In the struggle which they entered against whatever belonged to the j^ast, they did not spare the institutions of the city more than they spared religious prejudices. They boldly examined and discussed the laws which still reigned in the state and in the family. They went from city to •city, proclaiming new principles, teaching, not precisely indifference to the just and the unjust, but a new justice, less narrow, less exclusive than the old, more humane, more rational, and freed from the formulas of preceding ages. This was a hardy enterprise, which stirred up a