ROMAN people in this particular, makes use of it as an argument that they were originally of GRECIAN. extraction: Whence we may conclude, that the factions and revolutions in the barbarous republics were usually more violent than even thofe of GREECE above-mentioned.

If the ROMANS were fo late in coming to blows, they made ample compenfation after they had once entered upon the bloody fcene; and APPIAN's history of their civil wars contains the most frightful picture of massacres, profcriptions, and forfeitures, that ever was prefented to the world. What pleases moft, in that hiftorian, is, that he feems to feel a proper resentment of these barbarous proceedings; and talks not with that provoking coolness and indifference, which custom had produced in many of the GREEK hiftorians *.

The maxims of antient politics contain, in general, fo little humanity and moderation, that it feems fuperfluous to give

*The authorities cited above, are all historians, orators, and philofophers, whose teftimony is unquestioned. 'Tis dangerous to rely upon writers who deal in ridicule and fatyr.. What will pofterity, for instance, infer. from this paffage of Dr. SWIFT? "I told him, that in the kingdom of TRIBNIA, (BRITAIN) by the natives called "LANGDON (LONDON) where I had fojourned fome time in my travels, the bulk of 'the people confist, in a manner, wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accufers, profecutors, evidences, fwearers, together with their feveral fubfervient "and fubaltern inftruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and pay of ministers "of state and their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship, of those perfons," &c. GULLIVER's travels. Such a reprefentation might fuit the government of ATHENS; but not that of ENGLAND, which is a prodigy, even in modern times, for humanity, justice, and liberty. Yet the Doctor's fatyr, though . carried to extremes, as is ufual with him, even beyond other fatyrical writers, did, not altogether want an object. The Bishop of ROCHESTER, who was his friend, and of the fame party, had been banished a little before by a bill of attainder, with great justice, but without fuch a proof as was legal, or according to the strict forms of- common law.

any

any particular reason for the violences committed at any particular period. Yet I cannot forbear obferving, that the laws, in the latter ages of the ROMAN commonwealth, were fo abfurdly contrived, that they obliged the heads of parties to have recourse to these extremities. All capital punishments were abolished: However criminal, or, what is more, however dangerous any citizen might be, he could not regularly be punished otherwife than by banishment: And it became necessary, in the revolutions of party, to draw the fword of private vengeance; nor was it eafy, when laws were once violated, to fet bounds to these fanguinary proceedings. Had BRUTUS himfelf prevailed over the triumvirate, could he, in common prudence, have allowed OCTAVIUS and ANTHONY to live, and have contented himself with banishing them to RHODES or MARSEILLES, where they might still have plotted new commotions and rebellions? His executing C. ANTONIUS, brother to the triumvir, fhows evidently his sense of the matter. Did not CICERO, with the approbation of all the wife and virtuous of ROME, arbitrarily put to death CATILINE'S affociates, contrary to law, and without any trial or form of procefs? And if he moderated his executions, did it not proceed, either from the clemency of his temper, or the conjunctures of the times? A wretched fecurity in a government which pretends to laws and liberty!

Thus, one extreme produces another. In the fame manner as exceffive severity in the laws is apt to beget great relaxation in their exccution; fo their exceffive lenity naturally produces cruelty and barbarity. 'Tis dangerous to force us, to pass their facred boundaries.

in any

cafe,

One

One general cause of the disorders fo frequent in all antient governments, feems to have confifted in the great difficulty of establishing any Ariftocracy in those ages, and the perpetual difcontents and feditions of the people, whenever even the meanest and most beggarly were excluded from the legislature, and from public offices. The very quality of freeman gave fuch a rank, being opposed to that of flave, that it seemed to intitle the poffeffor to every power and privilege of the commonwealth. SOLON'S laws excluded no freeman from votes or elections, but confined fome magiftracies to a particular cenfus; yet were the people never fatisfied till those laws were: repealed. By the treaty with ANTIPATER †, no ATHENIAN had a vote whofe cenfus was lefs than 2000 drachmas (about : 60l. Sterling). And though fuch a government would to us appear fufficiently democratical, it was fo disagreeable to that people, that above two thirds of them immediately left their country. CASSANDER reduced that cenfus to the half||; yet ftill the government was confidered as an oligarchical tyranny, and the effect of foreign violence.

SERVIUS TULLIUS'S § laws feem very equal and reafonable, by fixing the power in proportion to the property: Yet. the ROMAN people could never be brought quietly to fubmit to them.

In thofe days there was no medium between a fevere, jealous Ariftocracy, ruling over difcontented fubjects; and a turbu~lent, factious, tyrannical Democracy.

But, thirdly, there are many other circumftances, in which antient nations feem inferior to the modern, both for the happinefs and increase of mankind. Trade, manufactures, induftry, were no where, in former ages, fo flourishing as they are at prefent in EUROPE. The only garb of the antients, both for males and females, feems to have been a kind of flannel, which they wore commonly white or gray, and which they scoured as often as it grew dirty. TYRE, which carried on, after CARTHAGE, the greatest commerce of any city in the MEDITERRANEAN, before it was deftroyed by ALEXANDER, was no mighty city, if we credit ARRIAN's account of its inhabitants *. ATHENS is commonly fuppofed to have 'been a trading city: But it was as populous before the MEDIAN war as at any time after it, according to HERODOTUS; and yet its commerce, at that time, was fo inconfiderable, that, as the fame hiftorian obferves ‡, even the neighbouring coafts of ASIA, were as little frequented by the GREEKS as the pillars of HERCULES: For beyond these he conceived nothing.

Great interest of money, and great profits of trade, are an infallible indication, that induftry and commerce are but in *their infancy. We read in LYSIAS || of 100 per cent. profit made of a cargo of two talents, fent to no greater distance than from ATHENS to the ADRIATIC: Nor is this mentioned as an instance of exorbitant profit. ANTIDORUS, fays DE

Lib. 2. There were 8cco killed during the fiege; and the whole captives amounted to 30,cCO. DIODORUS SICULUS, lib. 17. fays only 13,0co: But he accounts for this small number, by saying that the TYRIANS had sent away beforehand part of their wives and children to CARTHAGE.

† Lib. 5. he makes the number of the citizens amount to 30,000. || Orat. 33. adverf. DIAGIT.

1 lb. 5.

MOSTHENES,

MOSTHENESS, paid three talents and a half for a house, which he let at a talent a-year: And the orator blames his own tutors for not employing his money to like advantage. My fortune, says he, in eleven years minority, ought to have been tripled. The value of 20 of the flaves left by his father, he computes at 40 minas, and the yearly profit of their labour at 12 *. The most moderate interest at ATHENS, (for there was higher often paid) was 12 per cent. ‡, and that paid monthly. Not to infift upon the exorbitant intereft of 34 per cent. to which the vast fums diftributed in elections had raised money

at ROME, we find, that VERRES, before that factious period, stated 24 per cent. for money, which he left in the publicans hands. And though CICERO declaims against this article, it is not on account of the extravagant ufury; but because it had never been customary to ftate any interest on such occafions. Interest, indeed, funk at ROME, after the settlement of the empire: But it never remained any confiderable time fo low, as in the commercial states of modern ages ††.

Among the other inconveniencies which the ATHENIANS felt from the fortifying DECELIA by the LACEDEMONIANS, it is represented by THUCYDIDES ‡‡, as one of the most confiderable, that they could not bring over their own corn from EUBEA by Land, paffing by OROPUS; but were obliged to embark it, and to fail about the promontory of SUNIUM. A fur