The French Revolution and its Aftermath

Abstract

Abstract Warnings have been uttered of late against supposing that classical antiquity, far from having a significant influence upon the course of events in the French Revolution, was even referred to, by most of the leading figures of the time, with any great frequency or seriousness, and against giving too much political importance to superficial classical fashions. Such warnings are doubtless justified; but it is misleading either to take all the classical states together, or to take them in isolation from other possible sources of inspiration. In particular, Sparta’s place in the literature of and about the Revolution can only be understood if the history of her reputation in the previous half-century be kept in mind. For if many of the politicians of the time had read Livy, Cicero, and Tacitus at school, they had not learnt much about Greece there. The interest in Rome, indubitably the most discussed ancient state at this as at so many periods, may have been fed in part directly from ancient sources; but in spite of Plutarch (or for that matter Rollin) it is clear that Sparta still appears almost exclusively in the very individual dress given her by recent French writers. This is not quite the case with Athens, whose democracy gradually becomes more acceptable than ever before in modern times.