troops. Being thus refused all assistance from their | On the banishment of this eminent individual, Themisneighbours, the Athenians were left to depend entirely tocles, a person who was more democratic in his sention their own courage and resources. A more remark-ments, became the leader of the councils of the Atheable instance of a small state endeavouring to oppose nians. Meanwhile the Grecian liberties were again the wicked aggression of an overgrown power, has sel- menaced by the Persians. Xerxes, son of Darius, dom occurred in ancient or modern times; but the con- marched an army across the Hellespont by a bridge of stant exercises and training of the Athenian population boats from the Asiatic shore, and led it towards the enabled them to present a bold, and by no means con- southern part of Greece. The utmost force that the temptible front to the invader. War had been their confederated Greeks could oppose to the countless host principal employment, and in the field they displayed of Persians did not exceed 60,000 men. Of these, a their noblest qualities. They were unacquainted with band of Spartans, numbering 8000 soldiers, under Leothose highly-disciplined evolutions which give har- nidas their king, was posted at the pass of Thermopylæ, mony and concert to numerous bodies of men; but to intercept the enemy, and here they discomfited every what was wanting in skill they supplied by courage. successive column of the Persians as it entered the The Athenian, and also other Greek soldiers, marched defile. Ultimately, foreseeing certain destruction, Leoto the field in a deep phalanx, rushed impetuously to nidas commanded all to retire but 300, with whom he the attack, and bravely closed with their enemies. proposed to give the Persians some idea of what the Each warrior was firmly opposed to his antagonist, and Greeks could submit to for the sake of their country. compelled by necessity to the same exertions of valour He and his 300 were cut off to a man. Xerxes took as if the fortune of the day had depended on his single possession of Attica and Athens, but in the naval battle arm. The principal weapon was a spear, which, thrown with the Athenian fleet at Salamis, which occurred soon by the nervous and well-directed vigour of a steady after (October 20, 480 B.C.), his army was utterly hand, often penetrated the firmest shields and bucklers. routed, and its scattered remains retreated into Asia. When they missed their aim, or when the stroke proved By this splendid victory the naval power of Persia ineffectual through want of force, they drew their was almost annihilated, and the spirit of its monarch so swords, and summoning their utmost resolution, darted completely humbled, that he durst no longer undertake impetuously on the foe. This mode of war was com- offensive operations against Greece. Here, therefore, mon to the soldiers and generals, the latter being as the war ought to have terminated; but so great and much distinguished in battle by their strength and valuable had been the spoils obtained by the concourage as their skill and conduct. The Greeks had federate forces, that they were unwilling to relinquish bows, slings, and darts, intended for the practice of such a profitable contest. The war, therefore, was condistant hostility; but their chief dependence was on tinued for twenty years longer, less, apparently, for the the spear and sword. Their defensive armour consisted chastisement of Persia, than for the plunder of her (as shown in the fig.) of a bright helmet, adorned with conquered provinces. plumes, and covering the head, a strong corslet defending the breast, greaves of brass descending the leg to the feet, and an ample shield, loosely attached to the left shoulder and which turned in all directions, and opposed its firm

arm,

resistance

to every hostile assault. With men thus organised and accoutred, a battle consisted of so many duels, and the combatants fought with all the keenness of personal resentment. The slaughter in such engagements was correspondingly great, the fight seldom terminating till one of the parties was nearly destroyed, or at least greatly reduced in numbers.

It was a people so animated and prepared that the hosts of Persia were about to encounter. Compelled to meet the invaders unassisted, the Athenians were able to march an army of only 9000 men, exclusive of about as many light-armed slaves, into the field. With Miltiades as their leader and commander-in-chief, they met the Persians in battle on the plain of Marathon, thirty miles from Athens, and by great skill and courage, and the force of their close phalanx of spearmen, completely conquered them. Upwards of 6000 Persians were slain on the field, while the number killed of the Athenians was but 192. This is reckoned by historians one of the most important victories in ancient times, for it saved the independence of the whole of Greece. To the disgrace of the fickle Athenians, they afterwards showed the greatest ingratitude to Miltiades, and put him in prison on a charge of favouring the Persians. He died there the year after his great victory. Soon after, the citizens of Athens, on a plea equally unfounded, banished Aristides, an able leader of the aristocratic party in the state, and who, from his strict integrity and wisdom, was usually entitled 'Aristides the Just.'

But now that all danger was over, many of the smaller states, whose population was scanty, began to grow weary of the contest, and to furnish with reluctance their annual contingent of men to reinforce the allied fleet. It was, in consequence, arranged that those states whose citizens were unwilling to perform personal service, should send merely their proportion of vessels, and pay into the common treasury an annual subsidy, for the maintenance of the sailors with whom the Athenians undertook to man the fleet. The unforeseen but natural consequence of this was the establishment of the complete supremacy of Athens. The annual subsidies gradually assumed the character of a regular tribute, and were compulsorily levied as such; while the recusant communities, deprived of their fleets, which had been given up to the Athenians, were unable to offer effectual resistance to the oppressive exactions of the dominant state. The Athenians were thus raised to an unprecedented pitch of power and opulence, and enabled to adorn their city, to live in dignified idleness, and to enjoy a constant succession of the most costly public amusements, at the expense of the vanquished Persians, and of the scarcely more leniently-treated communities of the dependent confederacy.

Pericles.

We have arrived at the most flourishing period of Athenian history, during which Pericles rose to distinction, and greatly contributed to the beautifying of the capital. The talents of Pericles were of the very first order, and they had been carefully cultivated by the ablest tutorage which Greece could afford. After serving for several years in the Athenian army, he ventured to take a part in the business of the popular assembly, and his powerful eloquence soon gained him an ascendancy in the national councils; and his power, in fact, became as great as that of an absolute monarch (445 B. C.). Some of the most interesting events of Grecian history now occurred. After a number of years of general peace, a dispute between the state of Corinth and its dependency the island of Corcyra (now Corfu), gave rise to a war which again disturbed the repose of all the Grecian states. Corcyra was a colony of Corinth, but having, by its maritime skill and enterprise, raised itself to a higher pitch of opulence than

and providing many costly entertainments for the people, his own domestic establishment was regulated with such strict attention to economy, that the members of his family complained of a parsimony which formed a marked contrast to the splendour in which many of the wealthy Athenians then lived.

its parent city, it not only refused to acknowledge Co- | temples, porticoes, and other magnificent works of art, rinthian supremacy, but went to war with that state on a question respecting the government of Epidamnus, a colony which the Corcyreans had planted on the coast of Illyria. Corinth applied for and obtained aid from several of the Peloponnesian states to reduce the Corcyreans to subjection; while Corcyra, on the other hand, concluded a defensive alliance with Athens, which sent a fleet to assist the island in vindicating its independence. By way of punishing the Athenians for intermeddling in the quarrel, the Corinthians stirred up a revolt in Potidea, a town of Chalcidice, near the confines of Macedonia, which had originally been a colony of Corinth, but was at this time a tributary of Athens. The Athenians immediately despatched a fleet and army for the reduction of Potidea, and the Peloponnesians were equally prompt in sending succours to the city. The Corinthians, meanwhile, were actively engaged in endeavouring to enlist in their cause those states which had not yet taken a decided part in the dispute. To Lacedæmon, in particular, they sent ambassadors to complain of the conduct of the Athenians, which they characterised as a violation of a universally-recognised law of Grecian policy-that no state should interfere between another and its dependencies. The efforts of the Corinthians were successful, and almost all the Peloponnesian states, headed by Sparta, together with many of those beyond the isthmus, formed them- The memorable contest of twenty-seven years' duraselves into a confederacy for the purpose of going to tion, called the Peloponnesian War,' now commenced war with Athens. Argos and Achaia at first remained (431 B. c.). The Spartan king, Archidamus, entered neuter. Corcyra, Acarnania, some of the cities of Thes-Attica at the head of a large army of the confederates, saly, and those of Platea and Naupactus, were all that took part with the Athenians.

Pericles beheld without dismay the gathering of the storm, but his countrymen were not equally undaunted. They perceived that they were about to be called upon to exchange the idle and luxurious life they were at present leading for one of hardship and danger, and they began to murmur against their political leader for involving them in so alarming a quarrel. They had not at first the courage to impeach Pericles himself, but vented their displeasure against his friends and favourites. Phidias, a very eminent sculptor, whom the great statesman had appointed superintendent of public buildings, was condemned to imprisonment on a frivolous charge; and the philosopher Anaxagoras, the preceptor and friend of Pericles, was charged with disseminating opinions subversive of the national religion, and banished from Athens. Respecting another celebrated individual who at this time fell under persecution, it becomes necessary to say a few words. Aspasia of Miletus was a woman of remarkable beauty and brilliant talents, but she wanted that chastity which is the greatest of feminine graces, and by her dissolute life was rendered a reproach, as she would otherwise have been an ornament, to her sex. This remarkable woman having come to reside in Athens, attracted the notice of Pericles, who was so much fascinated by her beauty, wit, and eloquence, that, after separating from his wife, with whom he had lived unhappily, he married Aspasia. It was generally believed that, for the gratification of a private grudge, she had instigated Pericles to quarrel with the Peloponnesian states, and her unpopularity on this score was the true cause of her being now accused, before the assembly of the people, of impiety and grossly immoral practices. Pericles conducted her defence in person, and pled for her with so much earnestness, that he was moved even to tears. The people, either finding the accusations to be really unfounded, or unable to resist the eloquence of Pericles, acquitted Aspasia. His enemies next directed their attack against himself. They accused him of embezzling the public money; but he completely rebutted the charge, and proved that he had drawn his income from no other source than his private estate. His frugal and unostentatious style of living must have of itself gone far to convince the Athenians of the honesty with which he had administered the public affairs; for while he was filling the city with

Confirmed in his authority by this triumphant refutation of the slanders of his enemies, Pericles adopted the wisest measures for the public defence against the invasion which was threatened by the Peloponnesians. Unwilling to risk a battle with the Spartans, who were esteemed not less invincible by land than the Athenians were by sea, he caused the inhabitants of Attica to transport their cattle to Euboea and the neighbouring islands, and to retire, with as much of their other property as they could take with them, within the walls of Athens. By his provident care, the city was stored with provisions sufficient for the support of the multitudes which now crowded it; but greater difficulty was found in furnishing proper accommodation for so vast a population. Many found lodgings in the temples and other public edifices, or in the turrets on the city walls, while great numbers were obliged to construct for themselves temporary abodes in the vacant space within the long walls extending between the city and the port of Piræus.

and meeting with no opposition, proceeded along its eastern coast, burning the towns, and laying waste the country in his course. When the Athenians saw the enemy ravaging the country almost up to their gates, it required all the authority of Pericles to keep them within their fortifications. While the confederates were wasting Attica with fire and sword, the Athenian and Corcyrean fleets were, by the direction of Pericles, avenging the injury by ravaging the almost defenceless coasts of the Peloponnesus. This, together with a scarcity of provisions, soon induced Archidamus to lead his army homewards. He retired by the western coast, continuing the work of devastation as he went along.

Early in the summer of the following year, the confederates returned to Attica, which they were again permitted to ravage at their pleasure, as Pericles still adhered to his cautious policy of confining his efforts to the defence of the capital. But an enemy far more terrible than the Peloponnesians attacked the unfortu nate Athenians. A pestilence, supposed to have originated in Ethiopia, and which had gradually spread over Egypt and the western parts of Asia, broke out in the town of Piræus, the inhabitants of which at first supposed their wells to have been poisoned. The disease rapidly advanced into Athens, where it carried off a great number of persons. It is described as having been a species of infectious fever, accompanied with many painful symptoms, and followed, in those who survived the first stages of the disease, by ulcerations of the bowels and limbs. Historians mention, as a proof of the singular virulence of this pestilence, that the birds of prey refused to touch the unburied bodies of its victims, and that all the dogs which fed upon the poisonous relics perished. The mortality was dreadful, and was of course greatly increased by the overcrowded state of the city. The prayers of the devout, and the skill of the physicians, were found equally unavailing to stop the progress of the disease; and the miserable Athenians, reduced to despair, believed themselves to be forgotten or hated by their gods. The sick were in many cases left unattended, and the bodies of the dead allowed to lie unburied, while those whom the plague had not yet reached, openly set at defiance all laws, human and divine, and rushed into every excess of criminal indulgence.

Pericles was in the meantime engaged, with a fleet of 150 ships, in wasting with fire and sword the shores of the Peloponnesus. At his return to Athens, finding

by Nicias, the leader of the aristocratical party, a man of virtuous but unenterprising character, and a military officer of moderate abilities. Under his auspices a peace for fifty years, commonly known by the name of the Peace of Nicias,' was concluded in the tenth year of the war (421 B.C.). It was not long, however, till the contest was resumed. Offended that its allies had given up a contest undertaken for the assertion of its alleged rights, Corinth refused to be a party to the treaty of peace, and entered into a new quadruple alliance with Argos, Elis, and Mantinæa, a city of Arcadia; the ostensible object of which confederation was the defence of the Peloponnesian states against the aggressions of Athens and Sparta. This end seemed not difficult of attainment, as fresh distrusts had arisen between the two last-mentioned republics, on account of the reluctance felt and manifested by both to give up certain places which they had bound themselves by treaty mutually to surrender. The jealousies thus excited were fanned into a violent flame by the artful measures of Alcibiades, a young Athenian, who now began to rise into political power, and whose genius and character subsequently exercised a strong influence upon the affairs of Athens.

that the enemy had hastily retired from Attica, through | Cleon was succeeded in the direction of public affairs fear of the contagion of the plague, he despatched the fleet to the coast of Chalcidice, to assist the Athenian land forces who were still engaged in the siege of Potidæa-an unfortunate measure, productive of no other result than the communication of the pestilence to the besieging army, by which the majority of the troops were speedily swept away. Maddened by their sufferings, the Athenians now became loud in their murmurs against Pericles, whom they accused of having brought upon them at least a portion of their calamities, by involving them in the Peloponnesian war. An assembly of the people was held, in which Pericles entered upon a justification of his conduct, and exhorted them to courage and perseverance in defence of their independence. The hardships to which they had been exposed by the war, were, he observed, only such as he had in former addresses prepared them to expect; and as for the pestilence, it was a calamity which no human prudence could either have foreseen or averted. He reminded them that they still possessed a fleet which that of no potentate on earth could equal or cope with, and that, after the present evil should have passed away, their navy might yet enable them to acquire universal empire. What we suffer from the gods,' continued he, we should bear with patience; what from our enemics, with manly firmness; and such were the maxims of our forefathers. From unshaken fortitude in misfortune has arisen the present power of this commonwealth, together with that glory which, if our empire, according to the lot of all earthly things, decay, shall still survive to all posterity.'

The eloquent harangue of Pericles diminished, but did not remove, the alarm and irritation of the Athenians, and they not only dismissed him from all his offices, but imposed upon him a heavy fine. Meanwhile domestic afflictions were combining with political anxieties and mortifications to oppress the mind of this eminent man, for the members of his family were one by one perishing by the plague. Still, however, he bore himself up with a fortitude which was witnessed with admiration by all around him; but at the funeral of the last of his children, his firmness at length gave way; and while he was, according to the custom of the country, placing a garland of flowers on the head of the corpse, he burst into loud lamentations, and shed a torrent of tears. It was not long till his mutable countrymen repented of their harshness towards him, and reinvested him with his civil and military authority. He soon after followed his children to the grave, falling, like them, a victim to the prevailing pestilence (429 B.C.). The concurrent testimony of the ancient writers assigns to Pericles the first place among Grecian statesmen for wisdom and eloquence. Though ambitious of power, he was temperate in its exercise; and it is creditable to his memory, that, in an age and country so little scrupulous in the shedding of blood, his long administration was as merciful and mild as it was vigorous and effective. When constrained to make war, the constant study of this eminent statesman was, how to overcome his enemies with the least possible destruction of life, as well on their side as on his own. It is related that, when he was lying at the point of death, and while those who surrounded him were recounting his great actions, he suddenly interrupted them by expressing his surprise that they should bestow so much praise on achievements in which he had been rivalled by many others, while they omitted to mention what he considered his highest and peculiar honour-namely, that no act of his had ever caused any Athenian to put on mourning.

Alcibiades.

Alcibiades was the son of Clinias, an Athenian of high rank. Endowed with uncommon beauty of person, and talents of the very highest order, he was unfortu nately deficient in that unbending integrity which is an essential element of every character truly great, and his violent passions sometimes impelled him to act in a manner which has brought disgrace on his memory. While still very young, Alcibiades served in the Athenian army, and became the companion and pupil of Socrates, one of the wisest and most virtuous of the Grecian sages. Having rendered some service to his country in a protracted and useless war with Lacedæmon, and being possessed of a talent for addressing the passions of the multitude, Alcibiades, as others had done before him, became the undisputed head of public affairs in Athens. But this pre-eminence was not of long continuance. An opinion arose among the people that he designed to subvert the constitution, and his fall was as quick as his promotion. Many of his friends were put to death, and he, while absent on an expedition, deprived of his authority. Being thus left without a public director of affairs, Athens, as usual, was torn by internal discords: the aristocratic faction succeeded in overthrowing the democratical government (411 B.C.), and establishing a council of 400 individuals to administer the affairs of the state, with the power of convoking an assembly of 5000 of the principal citizens for advice and assistance in any emergency. These 400 tyrants, as they were popularly called, were no sooner invested with authority, than they annihilated every remaining portion of the free institutions of Athens. They behaved with the greatest insolence and severity towards the people, and endeavoured to confirm and perpetuate their usurped power, by raising a body of mercenary troops in the islands of the Egean, for the purpose of overawing and enslaving their fellow-citizens. The Athenian army was at this period in the island of Samos, whither it had retired after an expedition against the revolted cities of Asia Minor. When intelligence arrived of the revolution in Athens, and the tyrannical proceedings of the oligarchical faction, the soldiers indignantly refused to obey the new government, and sent an invitation to Alcibiades to return among them, and assist in re-establishing the democratical constitution. He obeyed the call; and as soon as he arrived in Samos, the troops elected him their general. He then sent a message to Athens, commanding the 400 tyrants to divest themselves immediately of their unconstitutional authority, if they wished to avoid deposition and death at his hands.

After the death of Pericles, the war was continued, without interruption, for seven years longer, but with no very decisive advantage to either side. During this period the Athenian councils were chiefly directed by a coarse-minded and unprincipled demagogue named Cleon, who was at last killed in battle under the walls This message reached Athens at a time of the greatest of Amphipolis, a Macedonian city, of which the posses- confusion and alarm. The 400 tyrants had quarrelled sion was disputed by the Athenians and Lacedæmonians. | among themselves, and were about to appeal to the

man guiltless of every offence but that of disgracing, by his illustrious merit, the vices and follies of his contemporaries. On the false charge of corrupting the morals of the pupils who listened to his admirable expositions, and of denying the religion of his country, he was, to the eternal disgrace of the Athenians, compelled to die by drinking poison, a fate which he submitted to with a magnanimity which has rendered his name for ever celebrated. This odious transaction occurred in the year 400 B.C.

sword: the island of Euboea, from which Athens had | tion of Socrates, an eminent teacher of morals, and a for sometime been principally supplied with provisions, had revolted, and the fleet which had been sent to reduce it had been destroyed by the Lacedæmonians, so that the coasts of Attica, and the port of Athens itself, were now without defence. In these distressing circumstances, the people, roused to desperation, rose upon their oppressors, overturned the government of the 400, after an existence of only a few months, and re-established their ancient institutions. Alcibiades was now recalled; but before revisiting Athens, he was desirous of performing some brilliant military exploit, which might obliterate the recollection of his late connection with the Spartans, and give his return an air of triumph. He accordingly joined the Athenian fleet, then stationed at the entrance of the Hellespont, and soon obtained several important victories over the Lacedæmonians, both by sea and land. He then returned to Athens, where he was received with transports of joy. Chaplets of flowers were showered upon his head, and amidst the most enthusiastic acclamations he proceeded to the place of assembly, where he addressed the people in a speech of such eloquence and power, that at its conclusion a crown of gold was placed upon his brow, and he was invested with the supreme command of the Athenian forces, both naval and military. His forfeited property was restored, and the priests were directed to revoke the curses which had formerly been pronounced upon him.

This popularity of Alcibiades was not of long continuance. Many of the dependencies of Athens being in a state of insurrection, he assumed the command of an armament intended for their reduction. But circumstances arose which obliged him to leave the fleet for a short time in charge of one of his officers, named Antiochus, who, in despite of express orders to the contrary, gave battle to the Lacedæmonians during the absence of the commander-in-chief, and was defeated. When intelligence of this action reached Athens, a violent clamour was raised against Alcibiades: he was accused of having neglected his duty, and received a second dismissal from all his offices. On hearing of this, he quitted the fleet, and retiring to a fortress he had built in the Chersonesus of Thrace, he collected around him a band of military adventurers, with whose assistance he carried on a predatory warfare against the neighbouring Thracian tribes.

Alcibiades did not long survive his second disgrace with his countrymen. Finding his Thracian residence insecure, on account of the increasing power of his Lacedæmonian enemies, he crossed the Hellespont, and settled in Bithynia, a country on the Asiatic side of the Propontis. Being there attacked and plundered by the Thracians, he proceeded into Phrygia, and placed himself under the protection of Pharnabasus, the Persian satrap of that province. But even thither the unfortunate chief was followed by the unrelenting hatred of the Lacedæmonians, by whose directions he was privately and foully assassinated. Thus perished, about the fortieth year of his age (403 B.C.), one of the ablest men that Greece ever produced. Distinguished alike as a warrior, an orator, and a statesman, and in his nature noble and generous, Alcibiades would have been truly worthy of our admiration if he had possessed probity; but his want of principle, and his unruly passions, led him to commit many grievous errors, which contributed not a little to produce or aggravate those calamities which latterly overtook him.

DECLINE OF ATHENIAN INDEPENDENCE.

With Alcibiades perished the last of the great men who possessed the power to sway the wild democracy, or, properly speaking, the mob of Athens. From the period of his death till the subjugation of the country, the Athenian people were at the mercy of contending factions, and without a single settled principle of government. During this brief period of their history, in which a kind of popular democracy had attained the command of affairs, happened the trial and condemna

After the death of this great man, the political independence of Athens drew to its termination—a circumstance which cannot excite the least surprise, when we reflect on the turbulence of its citizens, their persecution of virtue and talent, and their unhappy distrust of any settled form of government. Their ruin was finally accomplished by their uncontrollable thirst for war, and can create no emotions of pity or regret in the reader of their distracted history. The Lacedæmonians, under the command of an able officer named Lysander, attacked and totally destroyed the Athenian fleet. By this means having obtained the undisputed command of the sea, Lysander easily reduced those cities on the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, and those islands of the Egean, which still acknowledged the supremacy of Athens. Having thus stripped that once lordly state of all its dependencies, he proceeded to blockade the city of Athens itself. The Athenians made a heroic defence; but after a lengthened siege, during which they suffered all the horrors of famine, they were obliged to surrender on such conditions as their enemies thought fit to impose (404 B.C.). The Spartans demanded that the fortifications of Piræus, and the long walls which connected it with the city, should be demolished; that the Athenians should relinquish all pretensions to authority over their former tributaries, recall the exiled partisans of the 400 tyrants, acknowledge the supremacy of Sparta, and follow its commanders in time of war; and finally, that they should adopt such a political constitution as should meet the approbation of the Lacedæmonians.

Thus sank the power of Athens, which had so long been the leading state of Greece, and thus terminated the Peloponnesian war, in which the Grecian communities had been so long engaged, to little other purpose than to waste the strength, and exhaust the resources, of their common country.

Condition of Athens.

6

During the age preceding its fall, Athens, as already mentioned, had been greatly beautified and enlarged by Pericles. At the same time, the comparative simplicity of manners which formerly prevailed was exchanged for luxurious habits. This alteration has been thus described by Gillies in his History of Ancient Greece :'In the course of a few years, the success of Aristides, Cimon, and Pericles, had tripled the revenues, and increased in a far greater proportion the dominions of the republic. The Athenian galleys commanded the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean; their merchantmen had engrossed the traffic of the adjacent countries; the magazines of Athens abounded with wood, metal, ebony, ivory, and all the materials of the useful as well as of the agreeable arts; they imported the luxuries of Italy, Sicily, Cyprus, Lydia, Pontus, and Peloponnesus; experience had improved their skill in working the silver mines of Mount Laurium; they had lately opened the valuable marble veins in Mount Pentelicus; the honey of Hymettus became important in domestic use and foreign traffic; the culture of their olives (oil being long their staple commodity, and the only production of Attica which Solon allowed them to export) must have improved with the general improvement of the country in arts and agriculture, especially under the active administration of Pericles, who liberally let loose the public treasure to encourage every species of industry.

But if that minister promoted the love of action, he found it necessary at least to comply with, if not to ex

to rival. While Athens had extended its power over a great part of the coasts of the Ægean Sea, and increased its trade and commerce by every available means, it had also become a city of palaces and temples, whose ruins continue to be the admiration of ages for their grandeur and beauty. It is understood that the Greeks had acquired their knowledge of architecture from the Egyptians; but they greatly excelled them in the clegance of their designs, and are in a great measure entitled to the character of inventors in the art. The beauty of the Corinthian pillar, for example, has never been excelled either in ancient or modern times. (See ARCHITECTURE, in Vol. I.)

cite the extreme passion for pleasure which then began | and which succeeding artists have in vain endeavoured to distinguish his countrymen. The people of Athens, successful in every enterprise against their foreign as well as domestic enemies, seemed entitled to reap the fruits of their dangers and victories. For the space of at least twelve years preceding the war of Peloponnesus, their city afforded a perpetual scene of triumph and festivity. Dramatic entertainments, to which they were passionately addicted, were no longer performed in slight, unadorned edifices, but in stone or marble theatres, erected at great expense, and embellished with the most precious productions of nature and of art. The treasury was opened, not only to supply the decorations of this favourite amusement, but to enable the poorer citizens to enjoy it, without incurring any private expense; and thus, at the cost of the state, or rather of its tributary allies and colonies, to feast and delight their ears and fancy with the combined charms of music and poetry. The pleasure of the eye was peculiarly consulted and gratified in the architecture of theatres and other ornamental buildings; for as Themistocles had strengthened, Pericles adorned, his native city; and unless the concurring testimony of antiquity was illustrated in the Parthenon, or Temple of Minerva, and other existing remains worthy to be immortal, it would be difficult to believe that in the space of a few years there could have been created those numerous, yet inestimable wonders of art, those temples, theatres, statues, altars, baths, gymnasia, and porticoes, which, in the language of ancient panegyric, rendered Athens the eye and light of Greece.

After the surrender of Athens to the Spartans (404 B. C.), the democratical constitution was abolished, and the government was intrusted to thirty persons, whose rapacious, oppressive, and bloody administration ere long procured them the title of the Thirty Tyrants. The ascendancy of these intruders was not, however, of long duration. Conon, assisted privately by the Persians, who were desirous of humiliating the Spartans, expelled the enemy, and re-established the independence of his country. About seventy years later, a new source of agitation throughout Greece was caused by the warlike projects of Alexander, king of Macedon, usually styled

Alexander the Great.

This intrepid and ambitious soldier was the son of Philip, king of Macedon, a small territory adjacent to Pericles was blamed for thus decking one favourite the Grecian states, from which it had originally received city, like a vain voluptuous harlot, at the expense of a knowledge of arts and learning. Alexander was born plundered provinces; but it would have been fortunate in the year 356 B. C., and by his father was committed for the Athenians if their extorted wealth had not been to the charge of the philosopher Aristotle to be eduemployed in more perishing, as well as more criminal, cated; a duty which was faithfully fulfilled. By the luxury. The pomp of religious solemnities, which were assassination of Philip, Alexander was called to the twice as numerous and costly in Athens as in any other throne of Macedon while yet only twenty years of age, city of Greece-the extravagance of entertainments and and immediately had an opportunity of displaying his banquets, which on such occasions always followed the great warlike abilities in conducting an expedition into sacrifices-the increase of private luxury, which natu- Grecce, which was attended with signal success, and rally accompanied this public profusion-exhausted the procured for him the honour of succeeding his father resources, without augmenting the glory, of the republic. as commander-in-chief of the Grecian states. He now Instead of the bread, herbs, and simple fare recom-carried out a design which had been formed by Philip, mended by the laws of Solon, the Athenians, soon after the eightieth Olympiad, availed themselves of their extensive commerce to import the delicacies of distant countries, which were prepared with all the refinements of cookery. The wines of Cyprus were cooled with snow in summer; in winter, the most delightful flowers adorned the tables and persons of the wealthy Athe-counters completely conquered the armies of Persia; nians. Nor was it sufficient to be crowned with roses, unless they were likewise anointed with the most precious perfumes. Parasites, dancers, and buffoons, were a usual appendage of every entertainment. Among the weaker sex, the passion for delicate birds, distinguished by their voice or plumage, was carried to such excess, as merited the name of madness. The bodies of such youths as were not peculiarly addicted to hunting and horses, which began to be a prevailing taste, were corrupted by a lewd style of living; while their minds were still more polluted by the licentious philosophy of the sophists. It is unnecessary to crowd the picture, since it may be observed, in one word, that the vices and extravagances which are supposed to characterise the declining ages of Greece and Rome, took root in Athens during the administration of Pericles, the most splendid and most prosperous in the Grecian annals.'

During this period flourished schylus and Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, dramatists; Pindar, a lyrical poet; Herodotus and Thucydides, historians; Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, philosophers (reasoners upon the nature of the human mind, and upon man's immortal destiny). In this period also, under the administration of Pericles (from 458 to 429 B. C.), sculpture and architecture attained their perfection. It was then that Phidias executed those splendid works, statues of the gods and goddesses, which excited the admiration of the world,

to subdue Persia and other countries in Asia. In the spring of 334 B. C., he crossed over to the Asiatic coast, with an army of 30,000 foot and 5000 horse, thus commencing the most important military enterprise which is narrated in the pages of ancient history. Alexander marched through Asia Minor, and in successive enbut the whole history of his progress is but an account of splendid victories. During a space of about seven or eight years, he conquered Persia, Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, and, in fact, became master of nearly all the half-civilised countries in Asia and Africa. It does not appear that Alexander had any motive for this wide-spread overthrow of ancient and remote sovereignties, excepting that of simple ambition, or desire of conquest, with perhaps the indefinite idea of improving the social condition of the countries which he overran. From various circumstances in his career, it is apparent that he never contemplated the acquisition of wealth or of praise, except such as could be shared with his soldiers, for whom he displayed a most paternal affection. His character in this respect shines forth in a remarkable speech which he delivered to his army after these great conquests, and when some mutinous murmurs had broken forth in his camp. Mounting the tribunal, he spoke as follows:- It is not my wish, Macedonians, to change your resolution. Return home without hindrance froin me. But before leaving the camp, first learn to know your king and yourselves. My father Philip (for with him it is ever fit to begin) found you, at his arrival in Macedon, miserable and hopeless fugitives; covered with skins of sheep; feeding among the mountains some wretched herds, which you had neither strength nor courage to defend against the Thracians, Illyrians, and Triballi.