Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/499

 OHAP. II. TIIE KOMAN CONQUEST. 493 and LncedeiTionian party, the democrats were in favor of Athens. At Corcyra the popular foction were for Athens, and the aristocracy for Sparta.' Athens had alUcs in all the cities of Peloponnesus, and Sparta had them in all the Ionian cities. Thucydidcs and Xeno- phon agree in saying that there was not a single city where the people were not fixvorahle to the Athenians, and the aristocracy to the Spartans.' This war rep- resents a general effort which the Greeks made to establish everywhere a single constitution with the hegemony of a city ; but a part desired an aristocracy under the protection of Sparta, while others favored a democracy with the support of Athens. It was the same in Philip's time. The aristocratic party, in all the cities, desired the domination of Macedon. In Piiiloj^cemeu's time the cases were reversed, but the sen- timents remained the same ; the popular party accepted the empire of Macedon, and all who were in favor of the aristocracy joined the Achaean league. Thus the wishes and the affections of men no longer had the city as the object. There were few Greeks Avho were not ready to sacrifice municipal independence in order to obtain the constitution which they preferred. As to honest and scrupulous men, the perpetual dissensions which they saw disgusted them with the municipal system. They could not love a form of society, where it was necessary to fight every day, where the rich and the poor were always at war, and where they saw popular violence and aristocratic ven- geance alternate without end. They wished to escape irora a regime which, after having produced real gran- ' Tliucydidcs, II. 2; III. C5, 70; V. 29, 7G. » Thucydidcs, III. 47. Xenophon, IIclL, VI. 3