282 HISTORY OF GREECE. as to fitru ss of means. Unjustifiable acts in abundance are committed by both, and in comparing the two, we are often obliged to employ the emphatic language which Tacitus uses respecting Otho and Vitellius : " Deteriorem fore, quisquis vi- cisset ;" of two bad men, all that the Roman world could fore- see was, that the victor, whichsoever he was, would prove the worst. But in regard to the Korkyraean revolution, we can arrive at a more discriminating criticism. We see that it is from the beginning the work of a selfish oligarchical party, playing the game of a foreign enemy, and the worst and most ancient enemy of the island, aiming to subvert the existing democracy and acquire power for themselves, and ready to employ any meas- ure of fraud or violence for the attainment of these objects. "While the democracy which they attack is purely defensive and conservative, the oligarchical movers, having tried fair means in vain, are the first to employ foul means, which latter they find retorted with greater effect against themselves. They set the example of judicial prosecution against Peithias, for the destruc- tion of a political antagonist ; in the use of this same weapon, he proves more than a match for them, and employs it to their ruin. Next, they pass to the use of the dagger in the senate-house, against him and his immediate fellow-leaders, and to the whole- sale application of the sword against the democracy generally. The Korkyraean Demos are thus thrown upon the defensive, and instead of the affections of ordinary life, all the most intense anti- social sentiments, fear, pugnacity, hatred, vengeance, obtain unqualified possession of their bosoms ; exaggerated too through the fluctuations of victory and defeat successively brought by Nikostratus, Alkidas, and Eurymedon. Their conduct as victors is such as we should expect under such maddening circumstances, from coarse men, mingled with liberated slaves : it is vindictive and murderous in the extreme, not without faithless breach of assurances given. But we must remember that they are driven to stand upon their defence, and that all their energies are indis- pensable to make that defence successful. They are provoked by an aggression no less guilty in the end than in the means, an aggression, too, the more gratuitous, because, if we look at the
taia ov !he island at the time when the oligarchical captives
