Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/278

254 crush out the bitterness of party feeling, and to open men's eyes to wider interests than those which the "Few" and the "Many" respectively represented; but this new disease was simply the reassertion of the old spirit of disunion, — the breaking out of the old Adam, of the inbred sin of the City-State, in a form much less natural and far more dangerous than that which was healed at Athens by Solon, and at Rome by a gradual process of compromise. It meant, not so much the healthy self-assertion of the people, and the natural resistance of the old clans, — that inevitable struggle was over in most States; but a struggle of reckless poverty against selfish wealth. The old parties are still there, and they bear the same names; but each seems to have degenerated and to be losing self-control.

The name which the Greeks gave to this fell disease was Stasis, i.e. a standing, or taking up a distinct position in the State, with malicious intent towards another party. During the Peloponnesian war it aroused grave anxiety in the mind of the philosophic historian of that day, and in commenting on one particular and most malignant outbreak, he has spoken in language so intense, so weighty, and withal so difficult, that he seems to importune us for our attention by the very earnestness of his endeavour to express himself It will be well worth