because of the great cold.
Allowing, therefore, this remark to be just, that Europe is become warmer than formerly, how can we account for it? Plainly by no other method than by supposing that the land is at present much better cultivated, and that the woods are cleared which formerly threw a shade upon the earth and kept the rays of the sun from penetrating to it. Our northern colonies in America become more temperate in proportion as the woods are felled,[92] but in general, every one may remark that cold still makes itself more severely felt both in North and South America, than in places under the same latitude in Europe.
Saserna, quoted by Columella, affirmed that the disposition of the heavens was altered before his time, and that the air had become much milder and warmer. “As appears hence,” says he, “that many places now abound with vineyards and olive plantations which formerly, by reason of the rigour of the climate, could raise none of these productions.”
Such a change, if real, will be allowed an evident sign of the better cultivation and peopling of countries before the age of Saserna;[93] and if it be continued to the present times, is a proof that these advantages have been continually increasing throughout this part of the world.
Let us now cast our eye over all the countries which were the scene of ancient and modern history, and compare their past and present situation. We shall not, perhaps, find such foundation for the complaint of the present emptiness and depopulation of the world. Egypt is represented by Maillet, to whom we owe the best account of it, as extremely populous, though he esteems the number of its inhabitants to be diminished. Syria, and the Lesser Asia, as well as the coast of Barbary, I can really own to be very desert in comparison of their ancient condition. The depopulation of Greece is also very obvious. But whether the country now called Turkey in Europe may not, in general, contain as many inhabitants as during the flourishing period of Greece may be a little doubtful. The Thracians seem then to have lived like the Tartars at present, by pillage and plunder; the Getes were still more uncivilized, and the Illyrians were no better. These occupy nine-tenths of that country, and though the government of the Turks be not very favourable to industry and propagation, yet it preserves at least peace and order among the inhabitants, and is preferable to that barbarous, unsettled condition in which they anciently lived.
Poland and Muscovy in Europe are not populous, but are certainly much more so than the ancient Sarmatia and Scythia, where no husbandry or tillage was ever heard of, and pasturage was the sole art by which the people were maintained. The like observation may be extended to Denmark and Sweden. No one ought to esteem the immense swarms of people which formerly came from the North, and overran all Europe, to be any objection to this opinion. Where a whole nation, or even half of it, remove their seat, it is easy to imagine what a prodigious multitude they must form, with what desperate valour they must make their attacks, and how the terror they strike into the invaded nations will make these magnify, in their imagination, both the courage and multitude of the invaders. Scotland is neither extensive nor populous, but were the half of its inhabitants to seek new seats they would form a colony as large as the Teutons and Cimbri, and would shake all Europe, supposing it in no better condition for defence than formerly.
Germany has surely at present twenty times more inhabitants than in ancient times, when they cultivated no ground, and each tribe valued itself on the extensive desolation which it spread around, as we learn from Cæsar, and Tacitus, and Strabo. A proof that the division into small republics will not alone render a nation populous, unless attended with the spirit of peace, order, and industry.
The barbarous condition of Britain in former times is well known, and the thinness of its inhabitants may easily be conjectured, both from their barbarity and from a circumstance mentioned by Herodian, that all Britain was marshy, even in Severus’s time, after the Romans had been fully settled in it above a whole century.
It is not easily imagined that the Gauls were anciently much more advanced in the arts of life than their northern neighbours, since they travelled to this island for their education in the mysteries of the religion and philosophy of the Druids.[94] I cannot therefore think that Gaul was then near so populous as France is at present.
Were we to believe, indeed, and join together the testimony of Appian and that of Diodorus Siculus, we must admit an incredible populousness in Gaul. The former historian says that there were 400 nations in that country; the latter affirms that the largest of the Gallic nations consisted of 200,000 men, besides women and children, and the least of 50,000. Calculating therefore at a medium, we must admit of near 200,000,000 of people in a country which we esteem populous at present, though supposed to contain little more than twenty.[95] Such calculations therefore by their extravagance lose all manner of authority. We may observe that that equality of property, to which the populousness of antiquity may be ascribed, had no place among the Gauls. Their intestine wars also, before Cæsar’s time, were almost perpetual. And Strabo observes that though all Gaul was cultivated, yet it was not cultivated with any skill or care, the genius of the inhabitants leading them less to arts than arms, till their slavery to Rome produced peace among themselves.
Cæsar enumerates very particularly the great forces which were levied at Belgium to oppose his conquests, and makes them amount to 208,000.
These were not the whole people able to bear arms in Belgium; for the same historian tells us that the Bellovaci could have brought a hundred thousand men into the field, though they engaged only for sixty. Taking the whole, therefore, in this proportion of ten to six, the sum of fighting men in all the states of Belgium was about 350,000; all the inhabitants a million and a half. And Belgium being about the fourth of Gaul, that country might contain six millions, which is not the third of its present inhabitants.[96] We are informed by Cæsar that the Gauls had no fixed property in land; but that the chieftains, when any death happened in a family, made a new division of all the lands among the several members of the family. This is the custom of Tanistry, which so long prevailed in Ireland, and which retained that country in a state of misery, barbarism, and desolation.
The ancient Helvetia was 250 miles in length and 180 in breadth, according to the same author, yet contained only 360,000 inhabitants.
The Canton of Berne alone has at present as many people.
After this computation of Appian and Diodorus Siculus, I know not whether I dare affirm that the modern Dutch are more numerous than the ancient Batavi.
Spain is decayed from what it was three centuries ago; but if we step backward two thousand years and consider the restless, turbulent, unsettled condition of its inhabitants, we may probably be inclined to think that it is now much more populous. Many Spaniards killed themselves when deprived of their arms by the Romans. It appears from Plutarch that robbery and plunder were esteemed honourable among the Spaniards. Hirtius represents in the same light the situation of that country in Cæsar’s time, and he says that every man was obliged to live in castles and walled towns for his security. It was not till its final conquest under Augustus that these disorders were repressed.
The account which Strabo and Justin give of Spain corresponds exactly with those above mentioned. How much therefore must it diminish from our idea of the populousness of antiquity when we find that Cicero, comparing Italy, Africa, Gaul, Greece, and Spain, mentions the great number of inhabitants as the peculiar circumstance which rendered this latter country formidable.[97] Italy, it is probable however, has decayed; but how many great cities does it still contain? Venice, Genoa, Pavia, Turin, Milan, Naples, Florence, Leghorn, which either subsisted not in ancient times, or were then very inconsiderable. If we reflect on this, we shall not be apt to carry matters to so great an extreme as is usual with regard to this subject.
When the Roman authors complain that Italy, which formerly exported corn, became dependent on all the provinces for its daily bread, they never ascribe this alteration to the increase of its inhabitants, but to the neglect of tillage and agriculture. A natural effect of that pernicious practice of importing corn in order to distribute it gratis among the Roman citizens, and a very bad means of multiplying the inhabitants of any country.[98] The sportula, so much talked of by Martial and Juvenal, being presents regularly made by the great lords to their smaller clients, must have had a like tendency to produce idleness, debauchery, and a continual decay among the people. The parish-rates have at present the same bad consequences in England.
Were I to assign a period when I imagine this part of the world might possibly contain more inhabitants than at present, I should pitch upon the age of Trajan and the Antonines, the great extent of the Roman Empire being then civilized and cultivated, settled almost in a profound peace both foreign and domestic, and living under the same regular police and government.[99] But we are told that all extensive governments, especially absolute monarchies, are destructive to population, and contain a secret vice and poison, which destroy the effect of all these promising appearances. To confirm this, there is a passage cited from Plutarch, which being somewhat singular, we shall here examine it.
That author, endeavouring to account for the silence of many of the oracles, says that it may be ascribed to the present desolation of the world, proceeding from former wars and factions, which common calamity, he adds, has fallen heavier upon Greece than on any other country; insomuch that the whole could scarce at present furnish three thousand warriors, a number which, in the time of the Median War, were supplied by the single city of Megara. The gods, therefore, who affect works of dignity and importance, have suppressed many of their oracles, and deign not to use so many interpreters of their will to so diminutive a people.
I must confess that this passage contains so many difficulties that I know not what to make of it. You may observe that Plutarch assigns for a cause of the decay of mankind not the extensive dominion of the Romans, but the former wars and factions of the several nations, all which were quieted by the Roman arms. Plutarch’s reasoning, therefore, is directly contrary to the inference which is drawn from the fact he advances.
Polybius supposes that Greece had become more prosperous and flourishing after the establishment of the Roman yoke;[100] and though that historian wrote before these conquerors had degenerated from being the patrons to be the plunderers of mankind, yet as we find from Tacitus that the severity of the emperors afterwards checked the licence of the governors, we have no reason to think that extensive monarchy so destructive as it is so often represented.
We learn from Strabo that the Romans, from their regard to the Greeks, maintained, to his time, most of the privileges and liberties of that celebrated nation, and Nero afterwards rather increased them.
How therefore can we imagine that the Roman yoke was so burdensome over that part of the world? The oppression of the proconsuls was restrained, and the magistracies in Greece being all bestowed in the several cities by the free votes of the people, there was no great necessity for the competitors to attend the emperor’s court. If great numbers went to seek their fortunes in Rome, and advance themselves by learning or eloquence, the commodities of their native country, many of them would return with the fortunes which they had acquired, and thereby enrich the Grecian commonwealths.
But Plutarch says that the general depopulation had been more sensibly felt in Greece than in any other country. How is this reconcilable to its superior privileges and advantages?
Besides, this passage by proving too much really proves nothing. Only three thousand men able to bear arms in all Greece! Who can admit so strange a proposition, especially if we consider the great number of Greek cities whose names still remain in history, and which are mentioned by writers long after the age of Plutarch? There are there surely ten times more people at present, when there scarce remains a city in all the bounds of ancient Greece. That country is still tolerably cultivated, and furnishes a sure supply of corn in case of any scarcity in Spain, Italy, or the South of France.
We may observe that the ancient frugality of the Greeks, and their equality of property, still subsisted during the age of Plutarch, as appears from Lucian. Nor is there any ground to imagine that that country was possessed by a few masters and a great number of slaves.
It is probable, indeed, that military discipline, being entirely useless, was extremely neglected in Greece after the establishment of the Roman Empire; and if these commonwealths, formerly so warlike and ambitious, maintained each of them a small city-guard to prevent mobbish disorders, it is all they had occasion for; and these, perhaps, did not amount to three thousand men throughout all Greece. I own that if Plutarch had this fact in his eye, he is here guilty of a very gross paralogism, and assigns causes nowise proportioned to the effects. But is it so great a prodigy that an author should fall into a mistake of this nature?[101] But whatever force may remain in this passage of Plutarch, we shall endeavour to counterbalance it by as remarkable a passage in Diodorus Siculus, where the historian, after mentioning Ninus’s army of 1,700,000 foot and 200,000 horse, endeavours to support the credibility of this account by some posterior facts; and adds that we must not form a notion of the ancient populousness of mankind from the present emptiness and depopulation which is spread over the world. Thus an author, who lived at that very period of antiquity which is represented as most populous,[102] complains of the desolation which then prevailed, gives the preference to former times, and has recourse to ancient fables as a foundation for his opinion. The humour of blaming the present and admiring the past is strongly rooted in human nature, and has an influence even on persons endued with the most profound judgment and most extensive learning.
NOTES, OF THE POPULOUSNESS OF ANCIENT NATIONS.
[39] An ingenious writer has honoured this discourse with an answer full of politeness, erudition, and good sense. So learned a refutation would have made the author suspect that his reasonings were entirely overthrown, had he not used the precaution from the beginning to keep himself on the sceptical side; and having taken this advantage of the ground, he was enabled, though with much inferior forces, to preserve himself from a total defeat. That reverend gentleman will always find, where his antagonist is so entrenched, that it will be difficult to enforce him. Varro, in such a situation, could defend himself against Hannibal, Pharnaces against Cæsar. The author, however, very willingly acknowledges that his antagonist has detected many mistakes both in his authorities and reasonings; and it was owing entirely to that gentleman’s indulgence that many more errors were not remarked. In this edition advantage has been taken of his learned animadversions, and the essay has been rendered less imperfect than formerly.
[40] Columella says (lib. 3, cap. 8) that in Egypt and Africa the bearing of twins was frequent and even customary; _gemini partus familiares, ac pæne solennes sunt_. If this was true, there is a physical difference both in countries and ages, for travellers make no such remarks of these countries at present; on the contrary, we are apt to suppose the northern nations more fertile. As those two countries were provinces of the Roman Empire, it is difficult, though not altogether absurd, to suppose that such a man as Columella might be mistaken with regard to them.
[41] This too is a good reason why the smallpox does not depopulate countries so much as may at first sight be imagined. Where there is room for more people they will always arise, even without the assistance of naturalisation bills. It is remarked by Don Geronimo de Ustariz that the provinces of Spain which send most people to the Indies are most populous, which proceeds from their superior riches.
[42] The same practice was common in Rome, but Cicero seems not to think this evidence so certain as the testimony of free citizens. (_Pro Cælio_.)
[43] Epistle 122. The inhuman sports exhibited at Rome may justly be considered too as an effect of the people’s contempt for slaves, and was also a great cause of the general inhumanity of their princes and rulers. Who can read the accounts of the amphitheatrical entertainments without horror? Or who is surprised that the emperors should treat that people in the same way the people treated their inferiors?
One’s humanity on that occasion is apt to renew the barbarous wish of Caligula, that the people had but one neck. A man could almost be pleased by a single blow to put an end to such a race of monsters. “You may thank God,” says the author above cited (Epistle 7), addressing himself to the Roman people, “that you have a master (viz., the mild and merciful Nero) who is incapable of learning cruelty from your example.” This was spoken in the beginning of his reign; but he fitted them very well afterwards, and no doubt was considerably improved by the sight of the barbarous objects to which he had from his infancy been accustomed.
[44] We may here observe that if domestic slavery really increased populousness, it would be an exception to the general rule, that the happiness of any society and its populousness are necessary attendants.
A master, from humour or interest, may make his slaves very unhappy, and yet be careful, from interest, to increase their number. Their marriage is not a matter of choice with them, no more than any other action of their life.
[45] Ten thousand slaves in a day have been often sold for the use of the Romans at Delus in Cilicia.—Strabo, lib. 14.
[46] As _servus_ was the name of the genus, and _verna_ of the species, without any correlative, this forms a strong presumption that the latter were by far the least numerous. It is a universal observation which we may form upon language that where two related parts of a whole bear any proportion to each other in numbers, rank, or consideration, there are always correlative terms invented which answer to both the parts, and express their mutual relation. If they bear no proportion to each other, the term is only invented for the less, and marks its distinction from the whole. Thus man and woman, master and servant, father and son, prince and subject, stranger and citizen are correlative terms; but the words—seaman, carpenter, smith, tailor, etc., have no correspondent terms which express those who are no seaman, no carpenter, etc. Languages differ very much with regard to the particular words where this distinction obtains, and may thence afford very strong inferences concerning the manners and customs of different nations. The military government of the Roman emperors had exalted the soldiery so high that they balanced all the other orders of the state; hence _miles_ and _paganus_ became relative terms, a thing till then unknown to ancient, and still so to modern languages. Modern superstition has exalted the clergy so high that they overbalance the whole state; hence clergy and laity are terms opposed in all modern languages, and in these alone. And from the same principles I infer that if the number of slaves bought by the Romans from foreign countries had not extremely exceeded those bred at home, _verna_ would have had a correlative which would have expressed the former species of slaves; but these, it would seem, composed the main body of the ancient slaves, and the latter were but a few exceptions.
[47] _Verna_ is used by the Roman writers as a word equivalent to _scurra_, on account of the petulance and impudence of those slaves.
(Mart., lib. 1, ep. 42.) Horace also mentions the _vernæ procaces_; and [48] It is computed in the West Indies that a stock of slaves grow worse five per cent. every year unless new slaves be bought to recruit them. They are not able to keep up their number even in those warm countries where clothes and provisions are so easily got. How much more must this happen in European countries, and in or near great cities?
[49] Corn. Nepos in _Vita Attici_. We may remark that Atticus’s estate lay chiefly in Epirus, which being a remote, desolate place, would render it profitable for him to rear slaves there.
[50] κλινοποι οι, makers of those beds which the ancients lay upon at meals.
[51] “Non temere ancillæ ejus rei causa comparantur ut pariant” texts are to the same purpose:—“Spadonem morbosum non esse, neque vitiosum, verius mihi videtur; sed sanum esse, sicuti illum qui unum testiculum habet, qui etiam generare potest” (_Digest._ lib. 2, tit.
ut tam necessaria pars corporis penitus absit, morbosus est” (_Id._ _lex 7_). His impotence, it seems, was only regarded so far as his health or life might be affected by it; in other respects he was full as valuable. The same reasoning is employed with regard to female slaves. “Quæritur de ea muliere quæ semper mortuos parit, an morbosa sit? et ait Sabinus, si vulvæ vitio hoc contingit, morbosam esse” (_Id._ _lex_ 14). It has even been doubted whether a woman pregnant was morbid or vitiated, and it is determined that she is sound, not on account of the value of her offspring, but because it is the natural part or office of women to bear children. “Si mulier prægnans venerit, inter omnes convenit sanam eam esse. Maximum enim ac præcipuum munus fœminarum accipere ac tueri conceptum. Puerperam quoque sanam esse; si modo nihil extrinsecus accedit, quod corpus ejus in aliquam valetudinem immitteret. De sterili Cœlius distinguere Trebatium dicit, ut si natura sterilis sit, sana sit; si vitio corporis, contra” (_Id._).
[52] The slaves in the great houses had little rooms assigned them, called _cellæ_; whence the name of cell was transferred to the monk’s room in a convent. See further on this head, Just. Lipsius, Saturn.
1, cap. 14. These form strong presumptions against the marriage and propagation of the family slaves.
[53] Tacitus blames it—_De morib. Germ._ [54] _De fraterno amore._ Seneca also approves of the exposing of sickly, infirm children (_De ira_, lib. i. cap. 15).
[55] The practice of leaving great sums of money to friends, though one had near relations, was common in Greece as well as Rome, as we may gather from Lucian. This practice prevails much less in modern times; and Ben Jonson’s _Volpone_ is therefore almost entirely extracted from ancient authors, and suits better the manners of those times.
It may justly be thought that the liberty of divorces in Rome was another discouragement to marriage. Such a practice prevents not quarrels from humour, but rather increases them; and occasions also those from interest, which are much more dangerous and destructive.
Perhaps too the unnatural lusts of the ancients ought to be taken into consideration as of some moment.
[56] Cæsar gave the centurions ten times the gratuity of the common soldiers (_De bell. Gallico_, lib. viii.). In the Rhodian cartel, mentioned afterwards, no distinction in the ransom was made on account of ranks in the army.
[57] Plin. lib. 18, cap. 3. The same author, in cap. 6, says, “Verumque fatentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam; jam vero et provincias. Sex domo semissem Africæ possidebant, cum interfecit eos Nero princeps.” In this view the barbarous butchery committed by the first Roman emperors was not perhaps so destructive to the public as we may imagine. These never ceased till they had extinguished all the illustrious families which had enjoyed the plunder of the world during the latter ages of the republic. The new nobles who rose in their place were less splendid, as we learn from Tacit. _Ann._ lib. 3, cap. 55.
[58] The ancient soldiers, being free citizens above the lowest rank, were all married. Our modern soldiers are either forced to live unmarried, or their marriages turn to small account towards the increase of mankind—a circumstance which ought, perhaps, to be taken into consideration, as of some consequence in favour of the ancients.
[59] What is the advantage of the column after it has broken the enemy’s line? Only that it then takes them in flank, and dissipates whatever stands near it by a fire from all sides; but till it has broken them, does it not present a flank to the enemy, and that exposed to their musketry, and, what is much worse, to their cannon?
[60] Inst. lib. 2, cap. 6. It is true the same law seems to have been continued till the time of Justinian, but abuses introduced by barbarism are not always corrected by civility.
[61] Lysias, who was himself of the popular faction and very narrowly escaped from the Thirty Tyrants, says that the democracy was as violent a government as the oligarchy. Orat. 24, _de statu. popul._ [62] Orat. 24. And in Orat. 29 he mentions the factious spirit of the popular assemblies as the only cause why these illegal punishments should displease.
[63] Lib. 3. The country in Europe in which I have observed the factions to be most violent, and party hatred the strongest, is Ireland. This goes so far as to cut off even the most common intercourse of civilities between the Protestants and Catholics. Their cruel insurrections, and the severe revenges which they have taken of each other, are the causes of this mutual ill-will, which is the chief source of the disorder, poverty, and depopulation of that country. The Greek factions I imagine to have been inflamed still to a higher degree of rage, the revolutions being commonly more frequent, and the maxims of assassination much more avowed and acknowledged.
[64] Diod. Sic., lib. 14. Isocrates says there were only 5000 banished.
He makes the number of those killed amount to 1500. Areop. Æschines _contra Ctesiph._ assigns precisely the same number. Seneca (_De tranq.
[65] We shall mention from Diodorus Siculus alone a few which passed in the course of sixty years during the most shining age of Greece. There were banished from Sybaris 500 of the nobles and their partisans (lib.
223); of Cyrenians, 500 nobles killed, all the rest banished (lib. 14 Phæbidas the Spartan banished 300 Bæotians (lib. 15 p. 342). Upon the fall of the Lacedemonians, democracies were restored in many cities, and severe vengeance taken of the nobles, after the Greek manner. But matters did not end there, for the banished nobles, returning in many places, butchered their adversaries at Phialæ in Corinth, in Megara, in Phliasia. In this last place they killed 300 of the people; but these again revolting, killed above 600 of the nobles and banished the rest (lib. 15 p. 357). In Arcadia 1400 banished, besides many killed.
The banished retired to Sparta and Pallantium. The latter delivered up to their countrymen, and all killed (lib. 15 p. 373). Of the banished from Argos and Thebes there were 500 in the Spartan army (_id._ p.
374). Here is a detail of the most remarkable of Agathocles’ cruelties from the same author. The people before his usurpation had banished 600 nobles (lib. 19 p. 655). Afterwards that tyrant, in concurrence with the people, killed 4000 nobles and banished 6000 (_id._ p. 647).
He killed 4000 people at Gela (_id._ p. 741). By Agathocles’ brother 8000 banished from Syracuse (lib. 20 p. 757). The inhabitants of Ægesta, to the number of 40,000, were killed—man, woman, and child; and with tortures, for the sake of their money (_id._ p. 802). All the relations—viz., father, brother, children, grandfather, of his Libyan army, killed (_id._ p. 103). He killed 7000 exiles after capitulation (_id._ p. 816). It is to be remarked that Agathocles was a man of great sense and courage; his violent tyranny, therefore, is a stronger proof of the manners of the age.
[66] In order to recommend his client to the favour of the people, he enumerates all the sums he had expended. When χορηγος, 30 minas; upon a chorus of men, 20 minas; ειπυρριχιστας, 8 minas; ανδρασι χορηγων, 50 minas; κυκλικῳ χορῳ, 3 minas; seven times trierarch, where he spent 6 talents: taxes, once 30 minas, another time 40; γυμνασιαρχων, 12 minas; χορηγος παιδικῳ χορῳ, 15 minas; κομοδοις χορηγων, 18 minas; πυρριχισταις αγενειοις, 7 minas; τριηρει ἁμιλλομενος, 15 minas; αρχιθεωρος, 30 minas. In the whole, ten talents 38 minas—an immense sum for an Athenian fortune, and what alone would be esteemed great riches (Orat. 20). It is true, he says, the law did not oblige him absolutely to be at so much expense, not above a fourth; but without the favour of the people nobody was so much as safe, and this was the only way to gain it. See further, Orat. 24, _de pop. statu._ In another place, he introduces a speaker who says that he had spent his whole fortune—and an immense one, eighty talents—for the people (Orat. 25, _de prob. Evandri_). The μετοικοι, or strangers, find, says he, if they do not contribute largely enough to the people’s fancy, that they have reason to repent (Orat. 30, _contra Phil._). You may see with what care Demosthenes displays his expenses of this nature, when he pleads for himself _de corona_; and how he exaggerates Midias’s stinginess in this particular, in his accusation of that criminal. All this, by the by, is the mark of a very iniquitous judicature: and yet the Athenians valued themselves on having the most legal and regular administration of any people in Greece.
[67] The authorities cited above are all historians, orators, and philosophers whose testimony is unquestioned. It is dangerous to rely upon writers who deal in ridicule and satire. What will posterity, for instance, infer from this passage of Dr. Swift? “I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia (Britain), by the natives called Langdon (London), where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and pay of ministers of state and their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons,” etc.
(_Gulliver’s Travels._) Such a representation might suit the government of Athens, but not that of England, which is a prodigy even in modern times for humanity, justice, and liberty. Yet the Doctor’s satire, though carried to extremes, as is usual with him, even beyond other satirical writers, did not altogether want an object. The Bishop of Rochester, who was his friend, and of the same party, had been banished a little before by a bill of attainder with great justice, but without such a proof as was legal, or according to the strict forms of common law.
[68] Lib. 2. There were 8000 killed during the siege, and the whole captives amounted to 30,000. Diodorus Siculus (lib. 17) says only 13,000; but he accounts for this small number by saying that the Tyrians had sent away beforehand part of their wives and children to Carthage.
[69] Lib. 5. He makes the number of the citizens amount to 30,000.
[70] In general there is more candour and sincerity in ancient historians, but less exactness and care, than in the moderns. Our speculative factions, especially those of religion, throw such an illusion over our minds that men seem to regard impartiality to their adversaries and to heretics as a vice or weakness; but the commonness of books, by means of printing, has obliged modern historians to be more careful in avoiding contradictions and incongruities. Diodorus Siculus is a good writer, but it is with pain I see his narration contradict in so many particulars the two most authentic pieces of all Greek history—viz., Xenophon’s Expedition and Demosthenes’ Orations.
Plutarch and Appian seem scarce ever to have read Cicero’s Epistles.
[71] Diogenes Laertius (in _vita Empedoclis_) says that Agrigentum contained only 800,000 inhabitants.
[72] The country that supplied this number was not above a third of Italy—viz., the Pope’s dominions, Tuscany, and a part of the kingdom of Naples; but perhaps in those early times there were very few slaves except in Rome, or the great cities.
[73] Plutarch (in _vita Cæs._) makes the number that Cæsar fought with amount only to three millions; Julian (in _Cæsaribus_) to two.
[74] Argos seems also to have been a great city, for Lysias contents himself with saying that it did not exceed Athens. (Orat. 34.)
[75] Orat. _contra Verem_, lib. 4, cap. 52. Strabo, lib. 6, says it was twenty-two miles in compass; but then we are to consider that it contained two harbours within it, one of which was a very large one, and might be regarded as a kind of bay.
[76] Demosthenes assigns 20,000.
[77] Lib. 2. Diodorus Siculus’s account perfectly agrees (lib. 12).
[78] We are to observe that when Dionysius Halicarnassæus says that if we regard the ancient walls of Rome the extent of the city will not appear greater than that of Athens, he must mean the Acropolis and high town only. No ancient author ever speaks of the Pyræum, Phalerus, and Munychia as the same with Athens; much less can it be supposed that Dionysius would consider the matter in that light after the walls of Cimon and Pericles were destroyed and Athens was entirely separated from these other towns. This observation destroys all Vossius’s reasonings and introduces common sense into these calculations.
[79] The same author affirms that Corinth had once 460,000 slaves, Ægina 470,000; but the foregoing arguments hold stronger against these facts, which are indeed entirely absurd and impossible. It is however remarkable that Athenæus cites so great an authority as Aristotle for this last fact; and the scholiast on Pindar mentions the same number of slaves in Ægina.
[80] Demost. _contra Lept._ The Athenians brought yearly from Pontus 400,000 medimni or bushels of corn, as appeared from the custom-house books; and this was the greatest part of their importation. This, by the by, is a strong proof that there is some great mistake in the