These also being exceeding numerous, became
burdensome to themselves and dangerous to the commonwealth; the
more for their ill-education, as is observed by Xenophon and
Polybius, who compare them to mariners that in a calm are
perpetually disputing and swaggering one with another, and never
lay their hands to the common tackling or safety till they be all
endangered by some storm. Which caused Thucydides, when he saw
this people through the purchase of their misery become so much
wiser as to reduce their Comitia or assemblies to 5,000, to say
in his eighth book: 'And now, at least in my time, the Athenians
seem to have ordered their State aright, consisting of a moderate
tempor both of the few (by which he means the Senate of the Bean)
and of the many,' or the 5,000. And he does not only give you his
judgment, but the best proof of it; for 'this,' says he, 'was the
first thing that, after so many misfortunes past, made the city
again to raise her head.' The place I would desire your lordships
to note, as the first example that I find, or think is to be
found, of a popular assembly by way of representative.
"Lacedaemon consisted of 30,000 citizens dispersed throughout
Laconia, one of the greatest provinces in all Greece, and
divided, as by some authors is probable, into six tribes.
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