Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. C>^ 



€d by internal diforders, of which weakh was not primarily the 

 caiife. As to the heroic governments of Greece, it appears from 

 Homer, that, at the time of the Trojan war, they had departed fo 

 far from the natural life, that they ate flelh and drank wine in great 

 plenty. But, in more antient times, it appears, they lived like 

 other nations upon the natural fruits of the ear^h; and there are two 

 herbs mentioned that they were particularly fond of, the u^ .\ayn 

 and the cc<r<pohXog^ that is mallo'ws and afpbodel ; and, as late as tb.e 

 days of Hefiod, it appears, that the men, who lived in that way, were 

 judged to be happier than thofe who lived in the luxury of eating 

 flefh and drinking wine; for, fpe^iking of men who deiired great 

 eftates for that purpofe, he fays, J'hey were fools^ ?iot knowing that 

 the half of what they defired was better than the whole; nor iihat 

 advantage there was in feeding upon mallows and a/phodel"^. It was 

 this luxury of diet, joined, no doubt, with other articles of expence, 

 which made the heroic kings, after the Trojan war, d fire more 

 wealth than their fore-fathers had enjoyed ; and this produced the 

 changes of government mentioned by Thucydides f . 



As to the government of Sparta, Solon difcovered, from his own 

 natural underftanding, (which, the oracle faid, was fo much fuperior 

 to that of other men, that he did not know whether to call him a 

 god or a man.) or perhaps from what he had learned from the def- 

 trudion of the heroic kings after the Trojan war, that wealth was 

 the ruin of all government and good order in a Rate; and, therefore, 

 he prohibited the ufe of gold and filver in Sparta. But he allow- 

 ed iron to be ufed and given by way of exchange for other com- 

 modities, not coined, but circulated in the fame way as gold and 

 filver were among the Greeks at the time of the Trojan war, that 



I 2 is 



* N)i7r«iJ, ovo itrxiTt *»tu wAjov 'tjutJV Travroj, 



Ovl' 'oro¥ tr ,K«Aflc;^j] KXl ei<rfe}i>^a> f^iy' oyiiic^, ■ Opera ft JDieS^ 



t Lib. I. cap. 13. 



