Sublime

Polybius on the politics of Rome

The democracy did not suppress poverty, but, on the contrary, rendered it more perceptible. Equality of political rights made the inequality of conditions appear still more plainly.

Their city ( urbs) might remain standing, but the state ( civitas) had perished.

Written or unwritten, these laws were always formulated into very brief sentences, which may be compared in form to the verses of Leviticus, or the slocas of the book of Manu. It is quite probable, even, that the laws were rhythimical.392 According to Aristotle, before the laws were written, they were sung.393 Traces of this custom have remained in

All this history was a material proof of the existence of the national gods; for the events which it contained were the visible form under which these gods had revealed themselves from age to age. Even among these facts there were many that gave rise to festivals and annual sacrifices. The history of the city told the citizen what he must believe a

These were the strategi. The word signifies chief of the army, but the authority of these officers was not purely military; they had the care of the relations with other cities, of the finances, and of whatever concerned the police of the city.

There was no city, however small and obscure it might be, that did not pay the greatest attention to preserving an account of what had passed within it. This was not vanity, but religion.