The ending of most oligarchies has been a violent one, as was that of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens, or that of the Decemviri at Rome. At Venice the sway of a “caste” lasted for centuries, and was ended only by a foreign conqueror--so complete an ascendency had the privileged patricians gained over the fettered populace. The wonderful mercantile prosperity of the community stifled the sentiment of popular liberty--a notable warning to mercantile and materialistic America! No oligarchy, and nothing of oligarchic tendencies can be endured in this country. We must not and will not have a dominant “caste.” FOOTNOTES: [4] In the best age of Athens, life was marked by a dignified and elegant simplicity. Every free citizen was one of the rulers of the state, through his vote in the assembly and the law courts; and, consequently, there was little exclusiveness in social life. An Athenian might be poor, but if he had general ability, wit, or artistic skill, he was welcome in the best houses of Athens.--_Sanderson’s Epitome of History_, p. 169. [5] Childe Harold, Canto IV. CHAPTER XXI. EGYPT, 4235 B. C. Egypt, the cradle of civilization, had its Democrats, who struck resistless blows for equality, freedom, and fraternity for the race. So accustomed have we become, in thinking of Egypt, to be struck so forcibly by those evidences, the pyramids, of slave labor and the oppressed condition of the large portion of the ancient population of Egypt, that the existence of democrats in Egypt seems totally inconsistent with our preconceived idea of the ancient civilization of that country. Yet, we find, during the fourth dynasty--4235 B. C., the pyramids were builded, and the great Sphinx at Gizeh. The wealth and splendor of Egypt were unapproached elsewhere; civilization, the arts and sciences, reached a height which, in some respects, the world has never known since that time. The civilization of to-day is unequal to the task of rearing such structures as the pyramids, over which more than fifty centuries have rolled without displacing a stone or crumbling a corner of the prodigious masses of granite, hewn from the distant quarries of Asswan, Mokattam and Tarah, and transported by means beyond the skill and comprehension of the science of the nineteenth century. But with all its splendor, wealth, magnificence and culture, the kings and rulers of the Fourth Dynasty became corrupt, oppressive and tyrannical. The Common People, as they were called, revolted, and a revolution of fire and blood extinguished the dynasty, 3951 B. C.