Thus, the Jews, after leaving Babylon with Esdras and Nehemiah, soon became richer and more powerful than they had been under their kings.

Sparta was in a strong and prosperous condition during the two or three centuries which followed the death of Lycurgus.

The best days of Athens were those of the Persian war; Rome, whose inhabitants were divided from the beginning into two classes,--the exploiters and the exploited,--knew no such thing as peace.
When property is concentrated, society, abusing itself, polluted, so to speak, grows corrupt, wears itself out--how shall I express this horrible idea ?--plunges into long-continued and fatal luxury.
When feudalism was established, society had to die of the same disease which killed it under the Caesars,--I mean accumulated property.

But humanity, created for an immortal destiny, is deathless; the revolutions which disturb it are purifying crises, invariably followed by more vigorous health.

In the fifth century, the invasion of the Barbarians partially restored the world to a state of natural equality.