overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested
less on any religious 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 intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this
contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their
own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they
feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations
of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had
recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking
that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure
by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of
precaution.
Meanwhile Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes
alluded to; of the reprisals exacted by the governed who had never
experienced equitable treatment or indeed aught but insolence from
their rulers- when their hour came; of the iniquitous resolves of
those who desired to get rid of their accustomed poverty, and ardently
coveted their neighbours' goods; and lastly, of the savage and
pitiless excesses into which men who had begun the struggle, not in
a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by their ungovernable
passions. In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the
cities, human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its
master, gladly showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect
for justice, and the enemy of all superiority; since revenge would not
have been set above religion, and gain above justice, had it not
been for the fatal power of envy. Indeed men too often take upon
themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of
doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for