completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens.--Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_ (_Poste's Version, with slight alterations_). That perfect harmony between power and worth at which the Athenian State aimed, was something not easily attained or preserved. As far back as its recorded history reaches, we find a struggle for power going on between a party which possessed more power than its worth justified, and a party which possessed less; that is, between a party which, having once been worthy, strove to hold power in virtue of its past history, and one that claimed power in virtue of the worth into which it was growing: in a word, a struggle between declining aristocracy and growing democracy. To the party in power, of course, this seemed a rebellion against lawful authority and privilege, and it did its best to suppress it. Hence came the rigorous legislation of Draco; later the more conciliatory, less out-spoken, but equally aristocratic legislation of Solon; then the tyranny of Pisistratus, lasting as long as he could hold the balance of power between the contending parties; then the constitution of Clisthenes, with the breaking up of the old Athenian aristocratic system, the remodelling of the tribes, the degradation of the Areopagus, and the definite triumph of democracy. To complete the movement and, as it were, to consecrate it, came the Persian Wars, which mark the turning-point, the _peripeteia_, in Athenian history and education. Whatever efforts aristocracy makes to maintain itself after this, are made in the name of, and under cover of a zeal for, democracy.