Relevant Warning from an 18th Century Professor About Democracy–Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
The erumor does not name but quotes, allegedly from a work called “The Fall of the Athenian Republic,” by a university professor who says that democracies eventually vote themselves out of existence.
The Truth:
This quote has been circulating on the Internet for quite a while.
We have not found any documentation of it beyond the past ten years.
Some versions say its author is a man named Tyler, but It is most often attributed to Sir Alex Fraser Tytler.
Tytler is real. He was a Scottish jurist, historian, and Edinburgh University professor.
We can find evidence that he wrote only one book titled “Universal history, from the creation of the world to the beginning of the eighteenth century” published in 1837 by Hilliard, Gray and Company in Boston.
TruthOrFiction.com has searched a digital version of the book and has not found anything resembling the alleged quote.
We have not found a book titled “The Decline and the Fall of the Athenian Republic” as is described in some versions of the eRumor or a book titled “The Fall of the Athenian Republic.”
Last updated 9/27/03