[60]
gance? But if this People resembled Nero in their Extravagance, much more did they resemble and even exceed him in Cruelty and Injustice. In the Time of Pericles, one of the most celebrated Times in the History of that Commonwealth, a King of Egypt sent them a Donation of Corn. This they were mean enough to accept. And had the Egyptian Prince intended the Ruin of this City of wicked Bedlamites, he could not have taken a more effectual Method to do it, than by such an ensnaring Largess. The Distribution of this Bounty caused a Quarrel; the Majority set on foot an Enquiry into the Title of the Citizens, and upon a vain Pretence of Illegitimacy, newly and occasionally set up, they deprived of their Share of the royal Donation no less than five thousand of their own Body. They went further; they disfranchised them; and having once begun with an Act of Injustice, they could set no Bounds to it. Not content with cutting them off from the Rights of Citizens, theyplundered
