The Republican form of government mostly prevailed in the various Greek settlements and Colonies, established round the shores of the Mediterranean; for it is to this species of government that maritime nations, commercial cities, and petty states almost always incline, as long as their territories remain circumscribed. Yet in these states, we find a great variety of political constitutions; for along with that multitude of small commercial Republics, there were many, like Sparta and others, that depended exclusively, or for the most part, on agriculture and the riches of the soil. In these, the hereditary nobility, the proprietors of the soil, formed the principal class; for in general the Greeks attached a very high importance to the noble races and princely families that deduced their descent from the old heroic times. The original constitution of many, of almost the greater part of these small Greek Republics, was a tolerably mild aristocracy, headed by an hereditary Prince, or chieftain. In some states, as for instance in Athens, the transition from this old aristocratical government, headed by an hereditary prince, to a thoroughly democratic constitution, was but slow and gradual; as the memory of their ancient kings, for example, of Codrus, who fell in the defence of his country, was ever cherished by the Athenian people with love and reverence. The popular hatred in Athens was directed only against those leaders of the state who, like Pisistratus, after having obtained their power by means of popular influence, sought to stretch and perpetuate it by force of arms and the use of foreign mercenaries. Yet even Pisistratus possessed great qualities, and his sway was in general mild, and conformable to the laws of Solon;--it cannot be denied, however, that his was an usurped authority, and one founded on illegitimate force. At a later period, and when the Athenian state became more and more democratic--as there is not a more thankless being in all nature than the sovereign people, in its lawless and capricious rule, the people of Athens, jealous of their freedom, and too easily deluded by the arts of oratorical sophistry, pointed their hatred at all the great men and deserving citizens of the state. The general Miltiades perished in prison; Aristides the just, Cimon and many others fell the victims of ostracism, and died in exile, as did the great historians, Herodotus and Thucydides. Themistocles himself, who had been the liberator of Athens and of Greece, was obliged to take refuge at the court of the Persian monarch, from whom he received protection and hospitality. The wisest of the Athenians, the master of Plato, who had ever proved himself an honest citizen and a valiant defender of his country, received the cup of poison for his recompence.