Our materials for forming an estimate of the nature of democracy in the Greek cities other than Athens are, as I have said, very scanty. But it seems clear that most of the democracies ruled with less moderation and self-control than the Athenian democracy, and had less stability. Revolutions from democracy to oligarchy or from oligarchy to democracy recurred at shorter intervals in many Greek cities than at Athens: and sometimes, as at Corcyra in 427 B.C., and at Argos in 371 B.C. or 370 B.C., an unsuccessful attempt at revolution was punished with wholesale massacre[185]. It is to be observed that the Greek writers, in speaking of democracy, generally seem to regard it with distrust and even dislike: and this could hardly have been the case, if all democratic governments had been as well conducted as the Athenian government. We know that at Athens the whole mass of the citizens were able at any moment to do whatever they liked, subject to no restraint except from the Graphê Paranomôn and from their own characters and inclinations: and it seems certain that in every Greek city mentioned by the Greek writers as democratically governed the citizens were still more free from restraint: for many of the best and most careful writers were great admirers of artificial restraints on democracy, and if any city had provided itself with such restraints the fact would have been recorded. It is clear that a government which allows the mass of the citizens to do whatever they choose must be beset with dangers, unless the citizens have learned habits of self-restraint and mutual forbearance from a long and gradual political education. The Athenians had learned such habits, but the other Greeks probably had not: for the Athenians alone among the Greeks had had the good fortune to live under the wise constitutions of a Solon and a Cleisthenes, which, by granting to the mass of the citizens at first a very small share and afterwards a larger share in the control of public affairs, provided them with such political training that eventually they were able with safety to expose themselves to the perils of complete self-government. [185] Thucydides III. 70-84. Grote, Part II. chapter LXXVIII. 5. _Oligarchy at Athens_, 411 B.C. _and_ 404 B.C.