Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/354

302 suppose they would have us think is the tyranny, of a single person.

Many examples might be produced of the endeavours of each of these three rivals after absolute power; but I shall suit my discourse to the time I am writing in, and relate only such dissentions in Greece and Rome, between the nobles and commons, with the consequences of them, wherein the latter were the aggressors.

I shall begin with Greece, where my observation shall be confined to Athens, though several instances might be brought from other states thereof.





HESEUS is the first, who is recorded, with any appearance of truth, to have brought the Grecians from a barbarous manner of life, among scattered villages, into cities; and to have established the popular state in Athens, assigning to himself the guardianship of the laws, and chief command in war. He was forced, after some time, to leave the Athenians to their own measures, upon account of their seditious temper, which ever continued with them, till the final dissolution of their government by the Romans. It seems, the country about Attica was the most barren of any in Greece; through which means it happened, that the natives were  never