The worst of all states is the popular state.

Thus Cinna justifies himself to Augustus. But Maximus also maintains that the worst of all states is the monarchical state. Bayle, having more than once in his Dictionary argued for and against this, paints in his article on Pericles a quite hideous picture of democracy, particularly of the one in Athens.

A great republican enthusiast for democracy, one of our askers of questions, sends us his refutation of Bayle and his defence of Athens. We shall make his arguments public. It is the privilege of every writer to judge the living and the dead; but one is judged oneself by others, who are judged in their turn, and from one century to the next the judgements passed are revised.

So Bayle, after a few banalities, says specifically: ‘That you would look in vain in the history of Macedonia for as much tyranny as there is in the history of Athens.’

Perhaps Bayle was unhappy with Holland when he wrote like that, and probably my republican, who refutes what he says, is pleased with his little democratic city at the moment.

It is difficult to weigh accurately in the scales the iniquities of the Athenian Republic against those of the Macedonian court. We still reproach the Athenians today with the banishment of Cimon, Aristides, Themistocles, Alcibiades, the death sentences pronounced on Phocion and Socrates, judgements similar to those passed by a few of our own cruel, absurd courts.