The same thing happened to the Romans, when military success took them out of Italy,--a thing which the author of the prosopopoeia of Fabricius could not explain.

It is not the cultivation of the arts which corrupts morals, but their degradation, induced by inactive and luxurious opulence.

The instinct of property is to make the industry of Daedalus, as well as the talent of Phidias, subservient to its own fantastic whims and disgraceful pleasures.
Property, not wealth, ruined the Spartans.
When Solon appeared, the anarchy caused by property was at its height in the Athenian republic.

"The inhabitants of Attica were divided among themselves as to the form of government.

Those who lived on the mountains (the poor) preferred the popular form; those of the plain (the middle class), the oligarchs; those by the sea coast, a mixture of oligarchy and democracy.