weak to make its overthrow a matter of comparative facility.  Unless upon the supposition of a band of foreign mercenaries—­which would render the government a system of naked force, and which the Athenian lawgiver would of course never contemplate—­there was no other stay for it except a positive and pronounced feeling of attachment on the part of the mass of citizens.  Indifference on their part would render them a prey to every daring man of wealth who chose to become a conspirator.  That they should be ready to come forward, not only with voice but with arms—­and that they should be known beforehand to be so—­was essential to the maintenance of every good Grecian government.  It was salutary in preventing mere personal attempts at revolution; and pacific in its tendency, even where the revolution had actually broken out, because in the greater number of cases the proportion of partisans would probably be very unequal, and the inferior party would be compelled to renounce their hopes.

It will be observed that, in this enactment of Solon, the existing government is ranked merely as one of the contending parties.  The virtuous citizen is enjoined, not to come forward in its support, but to come forward at all events, either for it or against it.  Positive and early action is all which is prescribed to him as matter of duty.  In the age of Solon there was no political idea or system yet current which could be assumed as an unquestionable datum—­no conspicuous standard to which the citizens could be pledged under all circumstances to attach themselves.  The option lay only between a mitigated oligarchy in possession, and a despot in possibility; a contest wherein the affections of the people could rarely be counted upon in favor of the established government.  But this neutrality in respect to the constitution was at an end after the revolution of Clisthenes, when the idea of the sovereign people and the democratical institutions became both familiar and precious to every individual citizen.  We shall hereafter find the Athenians binding themselves by the most sincere and solemn oaths to uphold their democracy against all attempts to subvert it; we shall discover in them a sentiment not less positive and uncompromising in its direction, than energetic in its inspirations.  But while we notice this very important change in their character, we shall at the same time perceive that the wise precautionary recommendation of Solon, to obviate sedition by an early declaration of the impartial public between two contending leaders, was not lost upon them.  Such, in point of fact, was the purpose of that salutary and protective institution which is called the Ostracism.  When two party leaders, in the early stages of the Athenian democracy, each powerful in adherents and influence, had become passionately embarked in bitter and prolonged opposition to each other, such opposition was likely to conduct one or other to violent measures.  Over and above the hopes of party triumph, each might