[16]
But all the
republics of the Greeks are governed by the rashness of the assembly while sitting. Therefore,
to say no more of this Greece, which has long since been overthrown and crushed through the
folly of its own counsels; that ancient country, which once flourished with riches, and rower,
and glory, fell owing to that one evil, the immoderate liberty and licentiousness of the
popular assemblies. When inexperienced men, ignorant and uninstructed in any description of
business whatever, took their seats in the theatre, then they undertook inexpedient wars; then
they appointed seditious men to the government of the republic; then they banished from the
city the citizens who had deserved best of the state.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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