section of the introduction to his Ancient History, entitled "Passion for the Representations of the Theatre, one of the principal Causes of the Decline, Corruption, and Degeneracy of the Athenian State." Now, Rollin speaks of this immoderate indulgence of the Athenians in a favourite pleasure, as leading to the result ascribed. If this position be true, it proves no more, than that the immoderate indulgence of any thing leads to evil, a conclusion that no one denies. It does not touch the inherent qualities of the institution itself, but its injudicious application. It is again an argument drawn from an abuse rather than use.

Plutarch, and after him, Justin, condemn the Athenians for lavishing on the production of a play, a greater sum than sufficed to equip the fleet which won the battle of Salamis, or the army which conquered at Marathon. The frugal Spartans were shocked at this extravagant luxury.* On the other hand, it is argued that "the Athenians chose generals of their armies, governors of their provinces, and guardians of their rights from among their poets; and no people were more jealous of their liberties, or better knew that corruption and degeneracy are the greatest foes to liberty. When the Athenians, as is recorded, laid out the enormous sum of one hundred thousand pounds on the decoration of a single tragedy of Sophocles, it may be an

*Plut. De Glor. Atheniens.

swered, that it was not merely for the sake of exhibiting a pompous spectacle for idleness to gaze at, but because it was the most rational, instructive, and delightful composition that human art had then arrived at, and consequently the most worthy to be the entertainment of a wise and warlike nation."* Here, as on almost every other subject, are divided opinions; but if we examine the evidence of history, we shall find that on both sides these are rather speculative theories, than reasonable and authentic facts. Degeneracy of mind and manners, arising from any given source, will be slow and imperceptible in its effects, and can scarcely produce a great and immediate political change. It may operate as a secondary and remote, but not as a primary and influential cause, and in the present instance I am inclined to think it was altogether a consequence. The fall of the Athenians from power to dependence was sudden, and not gradual; it was blow rather than a change. Their fondness for the Theatre was contemporaneous with, and not subsequent to their greatest public exertions. The virtuous precepts of the tragic writers, and the coarse satires of the comic one, were exhibited at the same time, and worked their effects, whether

* Brief View of the Rise and Progress of the English Stage, prefixed to Jones's Continuation of Baker's Biographia Dramatica.

for good or evil, on the same generation, who divided their energies between the love of poetry and the thirst of power. Simpler and more immediate causes than those ascribed for the ruin of the State, are to be found if sought for. Between opposite reasonings the subtle conclusion may be the most ingenious, but the obvious one is generally the truest. Without arguing on the inherent weakness of the Athenian government, and their extraordinary ingratitude to the most eminent warriors and legislators who had illustrated their annals, (and either of these are causes sufficient in themselves to account for public disaster,) the failure of their grand expedition against Syracuse under Nicias, gave the death blow to their political importance. While engaged in a domestic war with Sparta, which employed their resources, they attempted a foreign conquest which exhausted them. In the fulness of their power, and the height of their ambition, they rushed into an enterprize beyond their strength, and the result was fatal. They sent forth the most numerous fleet and army, that had ever been equipped by a single Grecian State, and they returned no more. The defeat was not partial, it was complete and crushing. The event," says Thucydides, the gravest of historians, and the soundest of authorities, "was most glorious to the victors, and to the vanquished most calamitous. In short root and branch, as is commonly said, their land armies

and their shipping were now ruined." "They had lost the bulk of their heavy armed infantry and horsemen, which they found it impossible to replace. They had neither shipping in their docks sufficient for a fresh equipment, nor money in the public treasury."* Cicero also, in speaking of this catastrophe, says, "Hic primum opes illius civitatis victæ, comminutæ, depressæque sunt: in hoc portu Atheniensium nobilitas, imperii, gloriæ, naufragium factum existimatur !" "It was then the troops of Athens, as well as their galleys, were ruined and sunk, and in the harbour of Syracuse the power and glory of the Athenians were miserably wrecked." With the energy of an enlightened nation, they roused themselves from the shock, and struggled nobly, but the mortal wound was given, and though the subsequent victories of Alcibiades retarded, they could not prevent their fall. The city was taken, the walls were razed to the sound of music, and as the Dorian flutes of Lysander proclaimed the triumph of his countrymen, the mournful echoes, sweeping across the harbour of Piræus, announced to the world, that Athens, the queen of the arts, the mistress of civilization, and the early bulwark of Greece, had fallen from her lofty pinnacle, never to resume it. Her subsequent history is dark, and although the names of Thrasy

*

Thucyd. Hist. of Pelop. War, Book VI. and commencement of Book VII. See Smith's Translation.

bulus, Phocion, Chabrias, and Demosthenes, enlighten some of the pages with bright flashes of virtue and genius, her political importance was annihilated from that hour, and she lost her rank among the independent nations.

This haughty republic, which had on all occasions taken the lead in the affairs of Greece, thus became by the event of war, secondary to a rival state. Her national pride was humbled in the dust, the loss of power diminished the love of independence, produced a lethargy of public spirit, an indifference to the hardy exercises of war, and wrought an important change in the features of the national character. When the energies of a State are forced by external circumstances to narrow their field of action, and are driven from the loftier excitements of ambition and conquest; an increased indulgence in favourite amusements, following as a natural consequence, will usurp the time and means which were formerly employed in nobler pursuits, and hasten the progress of degeneracy, which it can scarcely be said to have occasioned. The Athenians, who were roused by the eloquence of Demosthenes to make a stand against the encroachments of Philip, were no longer, in physical resources, the nation which under Pericles and Alcibiades had aspired to the sovereignty of Greece; their dominion had sunk into a remnant of its former greatness, a consequence produced by the untoward events of war, rather than by the