THE ANCIENT REPUBLICS:

A GLANCE AT EARLY CIVILIZATION.

"Out of history we may gather a policy no less wise than eternal, by the comparison and application of other men's forepast miseries with our own like errors and ill-deservings."

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

THE records of past ages are the inheritance of the present. They are a study fertile in interest and value. They form the great textbook, to which all make their appeal. It is in the classic ages we seek for the most splendid triumphs of art-the purest modelswhether in sculpture or poetry, in philosophy, science, ethics, or law. We gaze, through the dim vista of centuries, with deep and solemn interest upon the ruins of those grand and colossal states and empires which successively swayed the destinies of the world-the Assyrian, the Egyptian, the Grecian, and Roman. We are not only amazed at their magnificence and splendor, but we are curious to know the secret sources of their rise, progress, and decay. It is thus that "history is philosophy teaching by example."

The Germans, who are distinguished for their love of antiquarian research, yet fail, with all their zeal and perseverance, to derive all the advantages of which the study is susceptible. Their deductions, Coleridge compares to the stern-lights of a ship, illuminating merely the past; the true uses of history-its warnings and teachings—are comparatively forgotten. May not every government read, in the experience of the ancients, its dangers, its destiny, and its duties? And especially to every republican government, are not the fall of the classic republics, and the sanguinary revolutions of France, full of admonitory interest? Let us extract the moral which the eventful story of the free States of antiquity suggests. A vast amount of labor

and learned research has been expended upon the history of the ancient republics, but comparatively little is written or known concerning their social economy, which formed the great moral lever of society. We propose to take a brief survey of the causes which superinduced the overthrow of these renowned States. We shall avail ourselves of the best recorded testimony, and the best judg ments of historians and political economists. If it be an admitted maxim of liberal government, that the safety and happiness of the whole community is the true and only end of all government; and if this is the basis of the republican form, and the converse of it, the despotic-who among us is not fired with a generous enthusiasm as he pores over the details of the heroic virtues, and lingers over the philosophic maxims of the sages of antiquity? Who does not glory in their brilliant though brief successes, or watch, with the sympathy of suffering friends, their decline and fall? The world is on the side of liberty, and the history of its progressive development comprehends the history of the race. The advocate of freedom is, therefore, the friend of humanity. But it must not be forgotten that between true liberty and unbridled license, there exists as wide a distinction as between virtue and vice. The latter is the bane of the former; they have ever been antagonistic in their influences.

A mysterious system of causes has crystallized society into cycles, in each of which some particular idea has become the dominant principle. These cycles are illustrated by the early idolaters of Canaan, who had their Iconoclast in Abraham; by the sophists of Athens, and their Aristophanes; those of Rome, with their Lucian; the knightserrant of modern Europe, with Cervantes; the religious bigots of the sixteenth century, with their polemical and philosophical scribes.* Coleridge observes that "the Jewish theocracy was itself but a mean to a further and greater end; and that the effects of the policy were subordinated to an interest far more momentous than that of any single kingdom or commonwealth could be." Liberty, civil and political, has also had its confessors and noble army of martyrs, and *Dem. Rev., 1842.

the history of its heroic progress is filled with illustrious names and deeds-Pericles, Cicero, and Cæsar; Tell, Wallace, and Washington; Cromwell, Mirabeau, and Napoleon. These were, in the language of an old dramatist, the planets of the ages in which they lived, and illustrate their times. It was for her sacred cause that the evermemorable events of Thermopyla, of the Punic wars, of Marston Moor, and the American war of Independence were enacted,-the last named of which has this proud distinction: that it is guiltless of wantonly shedding the blood of the innocent; and was triumphant alike over tyranny and despotism, and the lawless passions of victors. Taking a bird's-eye view of history, we see Cæsar, the pagan, preparing the way for Christianity; Charlemagne, the barbarian, for civilization; and Napoleon, the despot, for liberty-yet presenting the anomalous character of the popular patron of aristocratical power.

The study of history is one of political and social progress. In the earliest ages, society was in a crude, chaotic condition, equally removed from the luxuries and refinements, as well as the amenities and courtesies which characterize it in modern times. We discover the germ of popular or republican power in Greece and Rome. There was yet wanting in these republican States the great essential of free institutions-self-government. The intellectual force of Grecian character kept in check the revolutionary tendency of the fickle populace, while in Rome the intellectual refinement of Greece tended rather to emasculate than invigorate the body politic. The histories of these States-Greece and Rome-are, therefore, those of our instructors in the arts and sciences,―guides in literature and patterns of intellectual excellence, rather than the models of political or social ethics. The history of the medieval ages-which forms the connecting link between the remote past and the present-although comparatively barren of instructive teaching, is necessarily replete with interest, being that of our more immediate ancestors, from whom we have derived our language, laws, and customs. The feudal system of the Middle Ages, with all that may be justly urged against it, for its severe exactions upon popular freedom, was yet a necessity of the

times, while it superinduced a love of heroism, patriotism, and virtue. A romantic interest invests that long period of the world's eclipse; for although the populace surrendered themselves to the thraldom of superstition and ignorance, it was the proud era of Papal pomp and magnificence, of gorgeous cathedrals, splendid pageants, cloistered learning, and the chivalrous exploits of the knights-errant. Society, however, was in servile subjection. Two classes-lords, or feudal barons, with their vassals, or serfs-constituted its great distinctions. Feudalism accomplished nothing for popular progress. Amidst the brilliant constellation of genius which at length dispelled the lingering darkness, came forth the great spirits of Liberty. Then came the great revolutionary eras of modern times-the English, the French, and the American. These tended, in each instance, to determine the true sources of power, and to reveal the long-hidden truth, that freedom is the birthright of the race. It was the American “Declaration of Independence" which gave the full solution of the problem, and assigned it a place in the common heart. It was that modern "Magna Charta” which conferred upon the model republic of the nineteenth century the full immunities and privileges of freemen.* The great religious revolution originating with Luther and his

"It is as a great, solemn political act, that it demands our highest veneration. What had the world ever seen that was equal, that approached to it? Go to antiquity-to Greece, to Rome-travel over France, Spain, Germany, and the whole of modern continental Europe,-all was comparative gloom; political science had not risen. Go to the isles of the sea-to Britain, then the freest of nations; and Englishmen would proudly point you to their Magna Charta, as their most valuable birthright, and the greatest bulwark of liberty which any nation had raised. It was so. And yet how does it dwindle in contrast with our Declaration of Independence, which was a greater era in the history of mankind, than Magna Charta was in the history of England! The latter was a concession, extorted by armed barons from their sovereign. It was what is called a charter from the king, as the fountain of all right and power. He was their lord and master-the ultimate owner of all the soil in the kingdom; and this was a grant-forced, it is true, but still a grant from his grace and favor, allowing the exercise of some rights to his subjects, and consenting to some limits to his royal prerogative.

"The former is not a grant of privileges to a portion of a single nation; it is