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THE ARMY AND NAVY. 165amples of those times have also proved that evils areinseparable from the custom.The use of mercenaries in Greece, may be traced to a veryremote period. The tyrants, those usurpers who made theirappearance in the cities at so early a date, were doubtless thefirst to introduce it ;because they needed an armed force toprotect their usurped authority. But this force did notalways consist of foreigners ;but rather., especially in theearly times, of an armed party of the citizens, or was selectedfrom among the partisans of the 1tyrant andj further, an institution which was regarded as unjust, could not continue,still less be adopted and regularly established.Hired troops, of which we would here treat, began to beemployed in the Grecian cities at a later period. In thebeginning of the Persian war, at Marathon and atwe Plataesehear nothing of them. In the Peloponnesian war, theywere 2commonly, and after these times, almost universallyemployed. Several causes operated to produce this effect.The first was the whole condition of privatelife. Whenluxury and the comforts of life were introduced after thePersians were known, it is not astonishing that the rich desired to be free from military service. On the other hand,the Peloponnesian war and the almost universal revolutionsproduced by it, had so increased the number of the poor, thatthere was a numerous class who made a profession of war,and were ready to serve any one who would pay them. Butstill more important was the fact, that with the Persians noless than the Greeks, the same change in domestic life produced the same consequences. The subsidies of the formerfirst enabled the Spartans to hire troops. But they soonhired in their turn, and in greater numbers than the Greeks ;and no mercenaries were so acceptable, none so indispensable to them as the Grecian. The high wages which theygave, like those of the British in modern times, allured nu~1This was done "by Pisistratus on his first usurpation ; Herod, i. 59. In.later times, (let the history of Syracuse be called to mind,) the hired troopsof the tyrants were wholly or chiefly composed of foreigners.2The hired troops of the Spartans, from the Peloponnesus, are mentioned asearly as the times of Brasidas ; Thueyd. L. iv. 80 those of Athens from;Thrace, about the same time ; Thucyd. L. v. 6 those of the Corinthians; ^andothers we find constantly mentioned. In the Peloponnesus, it was chieflythe Arcadians who served as mercenaries ;hence the proverb among thepoets ; If 'Aproe&ac Iwucovpoi, Athen. i.p. 27, for they did not serve for nothing.