of social life, the
encouragement of commerce, and the general prosperity of the State." His
whole legislation is marked by wisdom and patriotism, and adaptation to
the circumstances of the people who intrusted to him so much power and
dignity. The laws were, however, better than the people, and his
legislative wisdom and justice place him among the great benefactors of
mankind, for who can tell the ultimate influence of his legislation on
Rome and on other nations. The most beautiful feature was the
responsibility of the chief magistrates to the people who elected them,
and from the fact that they could subsequently be punished for bad conduct
was the greatest security against tyranny and peculation.

(M383) After having given this constitution to his countrymen, the
lawgiver took his departure from Athens, for ten years, binding the people
by a solemn oath to make no alteration in his laws. He visited Egypt,
Cyprus, and Asia Minor, and returned to Athens to find his work nearly
subverted by one of his own kinsmen. Pisistratus, of noble origin, but a
demagogue, contrived, by his arts and prodigality, to secure a guard,
which he increased, and succeeded in seizing the Acropolis, B.C. 560, and
in usurping the supreme authority--so soon are good laws perverted, so
easily are constitutions overthrown, when demagogues and usurpers are
sustained by the people. A combination of the rich and poor drove him into
exile; but their divisions and hatreds favored his return. Again he was
exiled by popular dissension, and a third time he regained his power, but
only by a battle. He sustained his usurpation by means of Thracian
mercenaries, and sent the children of all he suspected as hostages to
Naxos. He veiled his despotic power under the forms of the constitution,
and even submitted himself to the judgment of the Areopagus on the charge
of murder. He kept up his popularity by generosity and affability, by
mingling freely with the citizens, by opening to them his gardens, by
adorning the city with beautiful edifices, and by a liberal patronage of
arts and letters. He founded a public library, and collected the Homeric
poems in a single volume. He ruled beneficently, as tyrants often
have,--like Caesar, like Richelieu, like Napoleon,--identifying his own glory
with the welfare of the State. He died after a successful reign of
thirty-three years, B.C. 527, and his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus,
succeeded him in the government, ruli