it an aristocracy of property. Clisthenes widened its basis
from property to population; as we have already seen, it was, in all
probability, Clisthenes also who weakened the more illicit and
oppressive influences of wealth, by establishing the ballot or secret
suffrage instead of the open voting, which was common in the time of
Solon. It is the necessary constitution of society, that when one
class obtains power, the ancient checks to that power require
remodelling. The Areopagus was designed by Solon as the aristocratic
balance to the popular assembly. But in all states in which the
people and the aristocracy are represented, the great blow to the
aristocratic senate is given, less by altering its own constitution
than by infusing new elements of democracy into the popular assembly.
The old boundaries are swept away, not by the levelling of the bank,
but by the swelling of the torrent. The checks upon democracy ought
to be so far concealed as to be placed in the representation of the
democracy itself; for checks upon its progress from without are but as
fortresses to be stormed; and what, when latent, was the influence of
a friend, when apparent, is the resistance of a foe.

The Areopagus, the constitutional bulwark of the aristocratic party of
Athens, became more and more invidious to the people. And now, when
Cimon resisted every innovation on that assembly, he only ensured his
own destruction, while he expedited the policy he denounced.
Ephialtes directed all the force of the popular opinion against this
venerable senate; and at length, though not openly assisted by
Pericles [182], who took no prominent part in the contention, that
influential statesman succeeded in crippling its functions and
limiting its authority.

XVII. I do not propose to plunge the reader into the voluminous and
unprofitable controversy on the exact nature of the innovations of
Ephialtes which has agitated the students of Germany. It appears to
me most probable that the Areopagus retained the right of adjudging
cases of homicide [183], and little besides of its ancient
constitutional authority, that it lost altogether its most dangerous
power in the indefinite police it had formerly exercised over the
habits and morals of the people, that any control of the finances was
wisely transferred to the popular senate [184], that its irresponsible
character was abolished, and it was henceforth rendered accountable to
the people. Such alte