The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian Warre · Thomas Sprat
XXII.
The Meetings and Assemblies cease, no more The people throng about the Orator. No course of Justice did appear, No noise of Lawyers fill’d the ear, The Senate cast away The Robe of Honour, and obey Deaths more resistless sway, Whilest that with Dictatorian power Doth all the great and lesser Officers devour. No Magistrates did walk about; No Purple aw’d the rout, The common people too A Purple of their own did shew; And all their Bodies o’re, The ruling colours bore, No Judge, no Legislators sit Since this new _Draco_ came, And harsher Laws did frame, Laws that like his in blood are writ. The Benches and the Pleading-place they leave, About the streets they run and rave: The madness which Great _Solon_ did of late But counterfeit For the advantage of the State, Now his successors do too truly imitate.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.