enemies as these would have neglected one of the most likely methods to discredit him in the opinion of his judges, if there had been any foundation or appearance for the use of it. I confess, however, that certain principles of Plato his disciple, held by him in common with his master, upon the nudity of the combatants in the public games, from which at the same time he did not exclude the fair sex, and the behaviour of Socrates himself, who wrestled naked man to man with Alcibiades, gives us no great idea of that philosopher's delicacy in point of modesty and bashfulness. *What shall we say of his visit to Theodota, a woman of Athens of indifferent reputation, only to assure himself with his own eyes of her extraordinary beauty, which was much talked of, and of the precepts he gave her for the attraction of admirers, and the retaining them in her snares? Do such lessons consist much with a philosopher? I pass over many other things in silence. I am the less surprised, after this, that several of the fathers have censured him in regard to purity of manners, and that they have thought fit to apply to him, as well as to his disciple Plato, what St. Paul † says of the philosophers; that God by a just judgment has abandoned them to a reprobate sense, and to the most shameful lusts for their punishment; in that, having clearly known there was but one true God, they had not honoured him as they ought, by publicly avowing their belief, and were not ashamed to associate him with an innumerable multitude of divinities, ridiculous and infamous even in their own opinions. And in this, properly speaking, consists the crime of Socrates, who was not guilty in the eyes of the Athenians, but gave occasion for his being justly condemned by the eternal Truth. It had illuminated his soul with the most pure and sublime lights, of which the pagan world was capable; for we are not ignorant, that all knowledge of God, even natural, cannot come but from himself alone. He held admirable principles with relation to the Divinity. He agreeably rallied the fables upon which the ridiculous mysteries of his age were founded. He often spoke, and in the most exalted terms, of the existence of one only God, eternal, invisible, creator of the universe, supreme director and arbiter of all events, avenger of crimes, and rewarder of virtues: but he did not dare to give a public testimony of these great truths. He perfectly discerned the false and the ridiculous of the pagan system, and nevertheless, as Seneca says of the wise man, and acted himself, he observed exactly all the customs and ceremonies, not as agreeable to the gods, but as enjoined by the laws. He acknowledged at bottom one only divinity, and worshipped with the people that multitude of infamous idols, which ancient superstition had heaped up during a long succession of ages. He held peculiar opinions in the schools, but followed the multitude in the temples. As a philosopher, he despised and detested the idols in secret; as a citizen of Athens and a senator, he * Xenoph. Memor. I. iii. p. 783–786. Rom. c. i. v. 17—82. Quæ omnia (ait Seneca) sapiens servabit tanquam legibus jussa, non tanquam diis grata- Omnem istam ignobilem deorum turbam, quam longo ævo longa superstitio congessit, sic, inquit, adorabimus, ut meminerimus cultum ejus magis ad morem, ad rem, pertinere.-Sed iste, quem philosophia quasi liberum fecerat, tamen, quia illustris senator erat, colebat quod reprehendebat, agebat quod arguebat, quod culpabat adorabat--eo damnabilis, quo illa, quæ mendaciter agebat, sic ageret, et cum populus veraciter agere existimaret. St. August. de civit. Dei. l. vi. c. 10. Eorum sapientes, quos philosophos vocant, scholas habebant dissentientes, et templa communia. Id. lib. de. ver. rel. c. 1. paid them in public the same adoration with others; by so much the more to be condemned, says St. Augustin, as that worship, which was only external and dissembled, seemed to the people to be the effect of sincerity and conviction. And it cannot be said that Socrates altered his conduct at the end of his life, or that he then expressed a greater zeal for truth. In his defence before the people, he declared that he had always received and honoured the same gods as the Athenians; and the last order he gave before he expired, was to sacrifice in his name a cock to Esculapius. Behold then this prince of the philosophers, declared by the Delphic oracle the wisest of mankind, who, notwithstanding his internal conviction of one only divinity, dies in the bosom of idolatry, and with the profession of adoring all the gods of the pagan theology. Socrates is the more inexcusable in this, that declaring himself a man expressly appointed by heaven to bear witness to the truth, he fails in the most essential duty of the glorious commission he acribes to himself: for if there be any truth in religion that we ought more particularly to avow, it is that which regards the unity of the Godhead, and the vanity of idol worship. In this his courage had been well placed, nor would it have been any great difficulty to Socrates, determined besides as he was to die. But, says St. Augustin,* these philosophers were not designed by God to enlighten the world, nor to bring men over from the impious worship of false deities to the holy religion of the true God. We cannot deny Socrates to have been the hero of the pagan world in regard to moral virtues. But to judge rightly of him, let us draw a parallel between this supposed hero and the martyrs of Christianity, who often were young children and tender virgins, and yet were not afraid to shed the last drop of their blood, to defend and confirm the same truths, which Socrates knew, without daring to assert in public; I mean the unity of God, and the vanity of idols. Let us also compare the so much boasted death of this prince of philosophers, with that of our holy bishops, who have done the Christian religion so much honour, by their sublimity of genius, the extent of their knowledge, and the beauty and excellence of their writings; a St. Cyprian, a St. Augustine, and so many others as were all seen to die in the bosom of humility, fully convinced of their unworthiness and nothingness, penetrated with a lively fear of the judg ments of God, and expecting their salvation from his sole goodness and condescending mercy. Philosophy inspires no such sentiments; they could proceed only from the grace of the Mediator, which, "we are taught to believe," Socrates did not deserve to know. * Non sic isti nati erant, ut populorum suorum opinionem ad verum cultum veri Dei a simulacrorum superstitione, atque ab hujus mundi vanitate, converterent. St. August. lib. de. ver. rel. c. 2. BOOK X. THE HISTORY OF THE PERSIANS AND GRECIANS, CONTAINING THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GREEKS. . MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GREEKS. THE most essential part of history, and which it concerns the reader most to know, is that which explains the character and manners as well of ⚫ the people in general, as of the great persons in particular of whom it treats; and this may be said to be in some sort the soul of history, of which the facts are only the body. I have endeavoured, as occasion offered, to paint in their true colours the most illustrious personages of Greece; it remains for me to show the genius and character of the people themselves. I shall confine myself to those of Lacedæmon and Athens, who always held the first rank among the Greeks, and shall reduce what I have to say upon this subject to three heads; their political government, war, and religion. Sigonius, Meursius, Potter, and several others, who have written upon the Grecian antiquities supply me with great lights, and are of equal use to me in the matters it remains for me to treat. CHAPTER 1: OF POLITICAL GOVERNMENT. THERE are three principal forms of government: monarchy, in which a single person reigns; aristocracy in which the eldest and wisest govern ; and democracy in which the supreme authority is lodged in the hands of the people. The most celebrated writers of antiquity, as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Plutarch, give the preference to the first kind as including the most advantages with the fewest inconveniences. But all agree, and it cannot be too often inculcated, that the end of all government, and the duty of every one in authority, in whatsoever manner it be, is to use his * utmost endeavours to render those under his command happy and just, by obtaining for them on the one side safety and tranquility, with the advantages and conveniences of life, and on the other all the means and helps that may contribute to making them virtuous. As the pilot's end, says Cicero, is to steer his vessel happily into its port, the physician's to preserve or restore health, the general's of an army to obtain victory; so a prince, and every man who governs others, ought to make the utility of the governed his view and motive, and to remember, that the supreme rule of all just government is the good of the public, Salus populi suprema lex esto. He adds, that the greatest and most noble function in the world is to be the author of the happiness of mankind. Plato in an hundred places, esteems as nothing the most shining qualities and actions of those who govern, if they do not tend to promote the two great ends I have mentioned, the virtue and happiness of the people ; and he refutes at large in the first book of his Republic, one Thrasy machus, who advanced, that subjects were born for the prince, and not the prince for his subjects; and that whatever promoted the interest of the prince and commonwealth ought to be deemed just and lawful. In the distinctions which have been made upon the several forms of government, it has been agreed, that that would be the most perfect which should unite in itself, by an happy mixture of institutions, all the advantages, and exclude all the inconveniences of the rest; and almost all the ancients have believed that the Lacedæmonian government came nearest to this idea of perfection. ARTICLE 1. OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SPARTA. FROM the time that Heraclides had re-entered Peloponnesus, Sparta was governed by two kings, who were always of the same two families, descended from Hercules by two different branches, as I have observed elsewhere. Whether from pride, or the abuse of despotic power on the the side of the kings, or the desire of independence, and an immoderate love of liberty on that of the people, Sparta, in its beginnings, was always involved in commotions and revolts, which would infallibly have occasioned its ruin, as had happened to Argos and Messene, two neighbouring cities equally powerful with itself, if the wise foresight of Lycurgus had not prevented fatal consequences by the reformation he made in the state. I have related it at large in the life of that legislator, and shall only touch here upon what regards the government. *Tenesne igitur, moderatorem illum reip. quo referre velimus omnia? Ut gubernatori cursus secundus, medico salus, imperatori victoria, sic huic moderatori reip. beata civium vita proposita est, ut opibus firma, copiis locuples, gloria ampla, virtute honesta sit. Hujus enim operis maximi inter homines atque optimi illum esse perfectorem volo. Ad. Attic. 1. viii. epist. 10. + Cic. de leg. l. iii. n. 8. Polyb. 1. vi. p. 458, 459. Page 338-343. |