power, tempered the strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the
moderation of age in the institution of your senate. A third saviour
bridled your rising and swelling power by ephors, whom he assimilated to
officers elected by lot: and thus the kingly power was preserved, and
became the preserver of all the rest. Had the constitution been arranged
by the original legislators, not even the portion of Aristodemus would
have been saved; for they had no political experience, and imagined that a
youthful spirit invested with power could be restrained by oaths. Now that
God has instructed us in the arts of legislation, there is no merit in
seeing all this, or in learning wisdom after the event. But if the coming
danger could have been foreseen, and the union preserved, then no Persian
or other enemy would have dared to attack Hellas; and indeed there was not
so much credit to us in defeating the enemy, as discredit in our
disloyalty to one another. For of the three cities one only fought on
behalf of Hellas; and of the two others, Argos refused her aid; and
Messenia was actually at war with Sparta: and if the Lacedaemonians and
Athenians had not united, the Hellenes would have been absorbed in the
Persian empire, and dispersed among the barbarians. We make these
reflections upon past and present legislators because we desire to find
out what other course could have been followed. We were saying just now,
that a state can only be free and wise and harmonious when there is a
balance of powers. There are many words by which we express the aims of
the legislator,--temperance, wisdom, friendship; but we need not be
disturbed by the variety of expression,--these words have all the same
meaning. 'I should like to know at what in your opinion the legislator
should aim.' Hear me, then. There are two mother forms of states--one
monarchy, and the other democracy: the Persians have the first in the
highest form, and the Athenians the second; and no government can be well
administered which does not include both. There was a time when both the
Persians and Athenians had more the character of a constitutional state