Persian wars; it only rolls on with a larger and ever-increasing volume over its rugged channel, till it spreads over the whole of the then known east by the conquests of Alexander.

Within the larger epic a smaller epic is contained; the mutual rivalry of the principal States of Greece-condensed and exhibited in the inveterate jealousies and long enduring warfare of Athens and Sparta-continued after the depression of the former by the brief and sudden ascendency of Thebes under Epaminondas, revived at a later day, and out of time, by the Achæan league, by Pyrrhus, and by the Etolians. This smaller epic, it is perceived, breaks into many smaller epics. The main one, the only one to be now considered, is the rivalry of Athens and Sparta, and its connection with the wars of Persia and Greece.

With this, the larger epic is immediately connected. The two plots are intricately entwined. They may be separated, but the impressiveness of each is grievously impaired by the separation. The overthrow of the Lydian monarchy brought Cyrus and the victorious Persians in direct contact with the Ionic cities of Asia Minor, which had owned a partial subjection to Croesus. Refusing to submit to the conqueror, they were subdued, and punished with great severity. Taking advantage of the disturbed state of the Persian empire, consequent upon a change of dynasty and organization, incited by the intrigues of Histiæus and Aristagoras, and encouraged by the inglorious expedition of Darius against the Scythians, they revolted from the Persian sway, and applied first to Sparta, as the chief city of the mother country, and then to Athens as their own metropolis, for aid. Spartan cooperation was refused; Athenian assistance was rendered, but it was slight and ineffectual. Sardis was taken and burnt. This provocation called for revenge.

The conquest of Greece was resolved upon. The Ionic cities were subdued, and rendered subservient to this design. Hellas proper was, at this time, scarcely as populous, and certainly not as wealthy as the Greek colonies in Asia Minor. Mardonius was despatched to win an easy triumph, at the head of a large army, attended by a powerful navy. Three hundred vessels of his fleet were destroyed in doubling Mount Athos, and he was compelled to return. Two years later, Datis and Artaphernes, accompanied by the exiled tyrant, Hippias, landed at Marathon. The story of that battle does not demand repetition. The Athenian forces, with the aid of a thousand Plateans, gained a complete victory, and repelled the invaders, as well as defeated domestic treachery. Two thousand Spartans arrived after the battle, having been detained at home by jealousy, habitual dilatoriness, or the superstitious observances alleged as their excuse. This victory, and the absence of the Spartans, gave a new life and spirit to the Athenians, and inflamed the rivalry between their respective cities.

Ten years after the battle of Marathon, Xerxes, the young

sovereign of Persia, repeated the attempt at conquest, leading in his train the fleets of Phoenicia and Asia Minor, and an army embracing the multitudinous nations subject to his sceptre. Again, the selfishness and jealousies of Sparta endangered the liberties of Greece; the magnanimity and disinterestedness of Athens were more conspicuous than before. More than half of Greece tendered the tribute of earth and water to Persia. The march of Xerxes was delayed by the heroism of Leonidas and his Spartan band at the pass of Thermopyla; the fleet was injured by a storm, and checked by the victory at Artemisium; it was finally shattered by the crowning triumph of Salamis. These great successes were due to the foresight, energy, and unscrupulous tact of Themistocles, to the gallantry of the Greeks, and the self-sacrificing spirit of the Athenians, who had abandoned to the enemy their homes, their temples, and their city; and had embarked their present and future fortunes on the waves. From the heights overlooking the Bay of Salamis, and the scene of his great disaster, Xerxes fled in dismay to his own dominions, leaving Mardonius with an army still vast to complete or commence the conquest of Greece, so ostentatiously, and thrice vainly undertaken. Next year, Mardonius was overthrown at Platea, and the reünited navy of Persia was defeated and destroyed at Mycale.

The foot of the invader was repelled from the soil of Greece; it was never trodden again by a Persian army. The dominion of the seas was wrested from the Persian grasp, and the tide of war rolled back to the shores of Asia, from which the Persian navy was gradually expelled by the allied fleets of Greece, first under Spartan, afterwards under Athenian guidance. The victories of Cimon at the Eurymedon,* and seventeen years afterwards at Cyprus, where he met his death, close this part of the grand struggle. Persian aggression had been repulsed, Persian ambition frustrated, and the Persian monarch confined to the interior of his own domain.

The interest of the story is entirely withdrawn for many years from the side of Persia, and restricted to the native soil of Greece. The exploits achieved or attempted may range over a much wider space, but Greece, and the two principal cities of Greece, become the principal objects of attraction, and other points acquire importance only with reference to them. When Persia reäppears, she does not come as a conqueror, but as an insidious, treacherous friend; hostile at heart to those whom she pretends to favour as to those whom she openly hates, and lavishing her bribes for the ruin

*We notice with pleasure that Mr. Grote recognizes the treaty of the Eurymedon. Hist. Greece, pt. ii, c. xlv, vol. v, pp. 335-42.

of all Greeks, whom she does not again venture to assail with open and voluntary war.

The repulse of Xerxes defended Greece against external violence, and left free the development of its indigenous civilization. It also rekindled ancient animosities at home. Sparta had been regarded as the head of the Hellenic States. But Athens, after the battle of Salamis, occupied an entirely different position from Athens before that great victory. The institutions of Clisthenes, which are, for the first time, adequately expounded by Mr. Grote,* and the liberty which they had established, had borne their luxuriant fruitage. The sacrifices of Athens, the energy which she had displayed, the efficacious services rendered to the common cause, entitled her to claim a prouder position than she had yet assumed, and the disposition of her citizens, equally stimulated and encouraged by the recent successes, partly won by their almost unaided efforts, inclined her to enforce her claim. The first step taken in this direction, obviously required as a measure of judicious protection, was the fortification of the city and harbours-the opening of the Piraeus-and the construction of the walls. These projects aroused the opposition of Sparta, but were successfully commenced by the extraordinary energy of the citizens, and the consummate diplomacy of Themistocles. The deception was remembered and revenged, when Athens fell into the hands of Lysander at the close of the Peloponnesian war.

The curse imprecated upon his sons by Edipus, and the fate by which that curse was accomplished, attended the career of Greece. The overthrow of the Persians was the commencement of its realization. The hereditary hostility of the Doric and Ionic races, the legendary contentions of the two communities, their dissimilar temperament, polity, and pursuits, the incompatibility of their respective aims, tended naturally to produce antagonism between Athens and Sparta; and circumstances soon rendered them the instruments and the representatives of the diverse tendencies of the different Greek States. The immediate cause of the open and active rivalry, which fills the mature period of Greek history, and inflicted woes innumerable upon the Greeks (

*Grote, Hist. Greece, pt. II, ch. xxxi, vol. iv, pp. 126-181.

+ Δηλοι δὲ οὐ κατ' ἓν μοῦνον, ἀλλὰ πανταχῇ ἡ ἰσηγορίη ὡς ἐστὶ χρῆμα σπουδαιον, ἐι καὶ ̓Αθηναῖοι τυραννευόμενοι μὲν οὐδαμῶν τῶν σφέας περιοικεόντων ἦσαν τὰ πολέμια ἀμείνους, ἀπαλλαχθέντες δὲ τυράννων μακρῷ πρῶτοι ἐγένοντο. Δηλῶν ὧν ταυτα ὅτι κατεχόμενοι μὲν ἠθελοκάκεον ὡς δεσπότῃ ἐργαζόμενοι, έλευθερωθέντων δὲ αὐτὸς ἕκαστος ἑαυτῷ προεθυμέετο κατεργάζεσθαι.

There is only too much justice in the bitter epithets by Timocreon, ap. Plut. Vit. Themist., c. xxi.

Ψεύσταν, ἄδικον, προδόταν.

Herod., v. c, lxxviii. bestowed upon Themistocles

μυρί' Αχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν), was the arrogance of Pausanias and the harshness of Spartan supremacy; the equity and affability of the Athenian admirals, Aristides and Cimon; the superior numbers and efficiency of the Athenian navy; the distinguished services recently rendered by Athens to the common cause; and the transfer of the Persian war to the islands of the Egean, the coasts of Asia, and the bosom of the sea. The confederate marine deferred the naval supremacy to Athens by its own act;* and splendidly did she discharge her new duties. The current of events rapidly converted the preeminence in danger and in function into a veritable empire.† As the wealth of the allies poured into Athens as the common treasury, their contributions came to be regarded as a tribute, and were employed for the advancement of Athenian power in Greece, and induced her to contend, with a prospect of success, with the head of the Doric States, for the same supremacy on land already enjoyed on the sea.

The aggressive and diffusive tendencies of democratic organization unquestionably influenced the attitude assumed by Athens in Greece. It is not the least of the merits of Mr. Grote that he has been nearly the first to recognize, explain, and develope the character of the Greek democracies, and to defend them against the sweeping and acrimonious denunciations of former historians. Himself a liberal and a reformer in politics, he has entered with earnest sympathy into the feelings, the requirements, and the circumstances of the democratic States of Greece, and has thus introduced a juster and more luminous spirit into the consideration of their history. Especially has this been the case in his discussion of the Athenian annals, which he has exhibited in a more pleasing, a more candid, and consequently more intelligible manner, than had ever been previously done. He is as enthusiastic in the display of the virtues of the Athenians, and the excellences of the Athenian polity, as Mitford had been industrious in the defamation of both. The Philo-Laconism of the latter is at length fairly counterbalanced by the Philo-demism of his successor, which is a great advance in historical justice and perspicacity, though it must be confessed it not unfrequently runs into extravagance. Assenting usually to Mr. Grote's views, which we have occasionally anticipated in the pages of this Review and elsewhere, and cordially sympathizing with his aims, we must nevertheless admit that he has exposed himself to attack by his excessive partialities, and has provoked such replies as that of Col. Mure on the religious intolerance of the Athenians.* Into whatever errors he may thus have been

*Grote, Hist. Greece, pt. II, ch. xliv, vol. v, pp. 255–264. Grote, Hist. Greece, pt. II, ch. xlv, vol. v, pp. 290–303.

Mure, Crit. Hist. of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. iv, pp. 519-523. Appendix A.

betrayed, they are venial in comparison with the unmeasured laudation of Sparta, and abuse of the Athenian democracy, which had long been habitual, and which might be appropriately compared to the infatuation which would prefer the retrogressive policy of Spain in comparison with the institutions of England or the United States. It is not too much to say that Mr. Grote has been the first to understand and to elucidate the internal growth of the Greek States, and their complicated and conflicting international, or inter-Hellenic policy, and has succeeded principally in consequence of his ardent participation in the liberal impulses which governed Athenian life.

Brief, but very brilliant, was the period of Athenian glory; still briefer the duration of her power. It is the misfortune of all democracies to exhaust, as well as to attain, rapidly, the fulness of prosperity. Athens was no exception to the rule; her career, like that of Achilles, was soon achieved.

Ωκύμορος δή μοι, τέκος, ἔσσεαι.

Sophocles, the tragedian, was born five years before the battle of Marathon; he was the colleague of Pericles in the expedition against Samos; and he died only the year before the close of the Peloponnesian war. Gorgias, who was born in the year of the victory at Salamis, lived long enough to have heard of the victory of Epaminondas at Leuctra. The birth of Isocrates preceded by five years the Peloponnesian war; his death followed and was occasioned by the defeat of Athens, by the triumph of Philip at Charonea. A single life was coëxtensive with the rise and fall of Athens; less than two long lives embraced the triumph and the overthrow of Greece. The fatal lists were opened when Athens triumphed over Persia, and divided with Sparta the command of Greece.

The most exhilarating success attended the first years of Athenian ascendency. The Persian fleet was repeatedly defeated, and almost destroyed; the Persian garrisons and governors were expelled from the towns in Thrace and on the Hellespont; in a single year, the Athenian arms were displayed in Cyprus, Egypt, the Halicis, Egina, and Megara ;* the Athenian confederacy was organized, and the refractory members reduced to submission; Euboea, Megara, Egina were added to the Athenian domain; Boeotia yielded to Athenian influence; the Athenian arms were carried into Thessaly, Acarnania, and Phocis, and to the western shores of Greece and the adjacent islands; Athenian colonies were planted in Thrace, in the northern islands of the Ægean, and on

*Grote, Hist. Greece, pt. II, ch. xlv, vol. v, p. 322.