Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Google Books Library Project. See http://www.google.com/books?id=yb4XAAAAYAAJ REFLECTIONS ON THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ANCIENT REPUBLICKS. Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain. Οὐ τί τῷδε, ἢ τῷδε δόξει λογιζόμενος Ἀλλὰ τί πέπρακται λέγων. Lucian. Histor. Scribend. by EDWARD W. MONTAGU, JUN. Philadelphia: Printed and Published by C. P. Wayne. 1806. CONTENTS. Page. PREFACE, i INTRODUCTION, vii CHAP. i. OF THE REPUBLICK OF SPARTA 1 CHAP. ii. OF ATHENS 54 CHAP. iii. OF THEBES 127 CHAP. iv. OF CARTHAGE 144 CHAP. v. OF ROME 184 CHAP. vi. OF THE REAL CAUSE OF THE RAPID DECLENSION OF THE ROMAN REPUBLICK 249 CHAP. vii. CARTHAGINIANS AND ROMANS COMPARED 270 CHAP. viii. OF REVOLUTIONS IN MIXED GOVERNMENTS 311 CHAP. ix. OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 322 PREFACE Plutarch takes notice of a very remarkable law of Solon’s,[1] “which declared every man infamous, who, in any sedition or civil dissension in the state, should continue neuter, and refuse to side with either party.” Aulus Gellius,[2] who gives a more circumstantial detail of this uncommon law, affirms the penalty to be “no less than confiscation of all the effects, and banishment of the delinquent.” Cicero mentions the same law to his friend Atticus,[3] and even makes the punishment capital, though he resolves at the same time not to conform to it under his present circumstances, unless his friend should advise him to the contrary. Which of these relators has given us the real penalty annexed to this law by Solon, is scarce worth our inquiry. But I cannot help observing, that strange as this law may appear at first sight, yet if we reflect upon the reasons of it, as they are assigned by Plutarch and A. Gellius, it will not appear unworthy of that great legislator. The opinion of Plutarch is; “that Solon intended no citizen, as soon as ever he had provided for the security of his own private affairs, should be so unfeeling with respect to the publick welfare, as to affect a brutal insensibility,[4] and not to sympathize with the distress and calamities of his country: but that he should immediately join the honester and juster party; and rather risque his all in defence of the side he had espoused, than keep aloof from danger until he saw which party proved the stronger.”