Beacon Lights of History, Volume 03 | Page 3

do not look to
Egypt or to China for wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do

look to Greece and Rome, and to Rome especially, for a legislation
which shall balance the complicated relations of society on principles
of enlightened reason. Moreover, those great popular rights which we
now most zealously defend have generally been extorted in the strife of
classes and parties, sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes
and nobles. Where there has been no opposition to absolutism these
rights have not been secured; but whenever and wherever the people
have been a power they have imperiously made their wants known, and
so far as they have been reasonable they have been finally
secured,--perhaps after angry expostulations and, disputations.
Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history of
Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from
this legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a
permanent law in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of
discussion or contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human
experience. As the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients
are rich in moral wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and
ages in the struggle for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall
confine myself to them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious
details, but to show how far in general the enlightened nations of
antiquity made attainments in those things which we call civilization,
and particularly in that great department which concerns so nearly all
human interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and
this by modes and with results which have had their direct influence
upon our modern times.
When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their
marvellous achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are
surprised that they were so inferior to the Romans in
jurisprudence,--although in the early days of the Roman republic a
deputation of citizens was sent to Athens to study the laws of Solon.
But neither nations nor individuals are great in everything. Before
Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to the Spartans. This lawgiver,
one of the descendants of Hercules, was born, according to Grote,

about eight hundred and eighty years before Christ, and was the uncle
of the reigning king. There is, however, no certainty as to the time
when he lived; it was probably about the period when Carthage was
founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan senate, and gave
an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the senate, composed of
about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with the two kings, did
not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or old men, found in
other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs simply modified or
curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of time the senate, with
the kings included in it, became the governing body of the State, and
this oligarchical form of government lasted several hundred years. We
know but little of the especial laws given by Lycurgus. We know the
distinctions of society,--citizens and helots, and their mutual
relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury, the public men, the
public training of youth, the severe discipline to which all were
subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the attention given to
gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short, the habits and
customs of the people rather than any regular system of jurisprudence.
Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather than a
law-giver. Under his régime the citizen belonged to the State rather
than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike rather than
peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on principles of
equity, or a development of industrial interests, which are the great
aims of modern legislation.
The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing
the arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent
law and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of these
bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected, until
Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and belonged to
the noblest family of