Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks

PREFACE

Plutarch takes notice of a very remarkable law of Solon’s,[1] “which declared every man infamous, who, in any sedition or civil dissension in the state, should continue neuter, and refuse to side with either party.” Aulus Gellius,[2] who gives a more circumstantial detail of this uncommon law, affirms the penalty to be “no less than confiscation of all the effects, and banis...