ligious sanction than upon complicity in crime. The fair
proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the
stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge
also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of
reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an immediate
difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand; but
when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize it and to take
his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious vengeance sweeter than
an open one, since, considerations of safety apart, success by treachery
won him the palm of superior intelligence. Indeed it is generally the
case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest,
and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the
first. The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from
greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of
parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each
provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry
of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate
aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests
which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their
struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts
of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what
justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice
of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the
condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm
to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honour with
neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was
in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished
between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy
would not suffer them to escape.

Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by
reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so
largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became
divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end to
this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could
command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation
upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more