I will here notice only one of his misrepresentations respecting the events of this period, because it is definite as well as important (vol. iv, p. 9, chap. xviii, sect. 1). “But thus (he says) in every little state, lands were left to become public property, or to be assigned to new individual owners. _Everywhere, then, that favorite measure of democracy, the equal division of the lands of the state, was resolved upon_: a measure impossible to be perfectly executed; impossible to be maintained as executed; and of very doubtful advantage, if it could be perfectly executed and perfectly maintained.” Again, sect. iii, p. 23, he speaks of “that incomplete and iniquitous partition of lands,” etc. Now, upon this we may remark:— 1. The _equal division of the lands_ of the state, here affirmed by Mr. Mitford, is a pure fancy of his own. He has no authority for it whatever. Diodorus says (xi, 76) κατεκληρούχησαν τὴν χώραν, etc.; and again (xi, 86) he speaks of τὸν ἀναδασμὸν τῆς χώρας: the _redivision_ of the territory; but respecting _equality of division_, not one word does he say. Nor can any principle of division in this case be less probable than equality; for one of the great motives of the redivision was to provide for those exiles who had been dispossessed by the Gelonian dynasty: and these men would receive lots, greater or less, on the ground of compensation for loss, greater or less as it might have been. Besides, immediately after the redivision, we find rich and poor mentioned, just as before (xi, 86). 2. Next, Mr. Mitford calls “the equal division of all the lands of the state” the _favorite measure of democracy_. This is an assertion not less incorrect. Not a single democracy in Greece, so far as my knowledge extends, can be produced, in which such equal partition is ever known to have been carried into effect. In the Athenian democracy, especially, not only there existed constantly great inequality of landed property, but the oath annually taken by the popular heliastic judges had a special clause, protesting emphatically against _redivision of the land or extinction of debts_. But though peace was thus reëstablished, these large mutations of inhabitants first begun by the despots,—and the incoherent mixture of races, religious institutions, dialects, etc., which was brought about unavoidably during the process,—left throughout Sicily a feeling of local instability, very different from the long traditional tenures in Peloponnesus and Attica, and numbered by foreign enemies among the elements of its weakness.[170] The wonder indeed rather is, that such real and powerful causes of disorder were soon so efficaciously controlled by the popular governments, that the half century now approaching was decidedly the most prosperous and undisturbed period in the history of the island. [170] Thucyd. vi, 17.