After this, the Athenians were oppressed by 30 tyrants, and for a while laboured under the weight of their own calamities. They recovered something of their usual spirit in the age of Philip, and boldly opposed his ambitious views; but their short-lived efforts were not of great service to the interest of Greece, and they fell into the hands of the Romans, B.C. 86. The Athenians have been admired in all ages for their love of liberty, and for the great men that were born among them; but favour there was attended with danger; and there are very few instances in the history of Athens that can prove that the jealousy and frenzy of the people did not persecute and disturb the peace of the man who had fought their battles and exposed his life in the defence of his country. Perhaps, not one single city in the world can boast, in such a short space of time, of such a number of truly illustrious citizens, equally celebrated for their humanity, their learning, and their military abilities. The Romans, in the more polished ages of their republic, sent their youths to finish their education at Athens, and respected the learning, while they despised the military character of the inhabitants. The reputation which the Athenian schools had acquired under Socrates and Plato was maintained by their degenerate and less learned successors; and they flourished with diminished lustre, till an edict of emperor Justinian suppressed, with the Roman consulship, the philosophical meetings of the academy. It has been said by Plutarch that the good men whom Athens produced were the most just and equitable in the world; but that its bad citizens could not be surpassed in any age or country, for their impiety, perfidiousness, or cruelties. Their criminals were always put to death by drinking the juice of hemlock. The ancients, to distinguish Athens in a more particular manner, called it Astu, one of the eyes of Greece, the learned city, the school of the world, the common patroness of Greece. The Athenians thought themselves the most ancient nation of Greece, and supposed themselves the original inhabitants of Attica, for which reason they were called ἀυτοχθονες, produced from the _same earth_ which they inhabited, γηγενες _sons of the earth_, and τεττιγες _grasshoppers_. They sometimes wore golden grasshoppers in their hair as badges of honour, to distinguish them from other people of later origin and less noble extraction, because those insects are supposed to be sprung from the ground. The number of men able to bear arms at Athens in the reign of Cecrops was computed at 20,000, and there appeared no considerable augmentation in the more civilized age of Pericles; but in the time of Demetrius Phalereus there were found 21,000 citizens, 10,000 foreigners, and 40,000 slaves. Among the numerous temples and public edifices none was more