some persons upon dromedaries to Peucestas, with an account of them.

Peucestas, distracted with terror at this news, prepared for flight, intending to take with him such troops as he could collect on the way. But Eumenes soon dispelled their fears and uneasiness, by promising so to impede the enemy's march, that they would arrive three days later than they were expected. Finding that they listened to him, he sent orders to the officers to draw all the troops from the quarters, and assemble them with speed. At the same time he took his horse, and went with his colleagues to seek out a lofty piece of ground, which might attract the attention of the troops marching below. Having found one that answered his purpose, he measured it, and caused a number of fires to be lighted at proper intervals, so as to resemble a camp.

When Antigonus beheld those fires upon the heights, he was in the utmost distress. For he thought the enemy were apprised of his intention some time before, and were come to meet him. Not choosing, therefore, with forces so harassed and fatigued with their march, to be obliged to fight troops that were perfectly fresh and had wintered in agreeable quarters, he left the short road, and led his men through the towns and villages; giving them abundant time to refresh themselves. But when he found that no parties came out to gall him in his march, which is usual when an enemy is near, and was informed, by the neighbouring inhabitants, that they had seen no troops whatever, nor any thing but fires upon the hills, he perceived that Eumenes had outdone him in point of generalship; and this incensed him so much that he advanced with a resolution to try his strength in a pitched battle.

mate the Greeks and the barbarians. On the other hand, the Phalanx and the Argyras pides bade him be of good courage, assuring him that the enemy would not stand the encounter. For they were veterans who had served under Philip and Alexander, and like so many champions of the ring, had never had a fall to that day. Many of them were seventy years of age, and none less than sixty. So that when they charged the troops of Antigonus, they cried out, "Villains! you fight against your fathers!" Then they fell furiously upon his infantry and soon routed them. Indeed, none of the battalions could stand the shock, and the most of them were cut in pieces upon the spot. But though Antigonus had such bad success in this quarter, his cavalry were victorious, through the weak and dastardly behaviour of Peucestas, and took all the baggage. Antigonus was a man, who had an excellent presence of mind on the most trying occasions, and here the place and the occasion befriended him. It was a plain open country, the soil neither deep nor hard, but like the sea-shore, covered with a fine dry sand, which the trampling of so many men and horses, dur ing the action, reduced to a small white dust, that, like a cloud of lime, darkened the air, and intercepted the prospect; so that it was easy for Antigonus to take the baggage unperceived.

their baggage, some desired him to assume the spirit of victory, which he had gained; others accused the rest of their commanders. Thus watching their opportunity, they fell upon him, took away his sword, and bound his hands behind him with his own girdle.

After the battle was over, Teutamus sent some of his corps to Antigonus, to desire him to restore the baggage. He told them, he would not only return the Argyraspides their baggage, but treat them, in all other respects, with the greatest kindness, provided they would put Eumenes in his hands. The Argyraspides came into that abominable measure, and agreed to deliver up that brave man alive to his eneMeantime the greatest part of the forces re- mies. In pursuance of this scheme, they ap pairing to Eumenes, in admiration of his ca- proached him unsuspected, and planted thempacity, desired him to take the sole command.selves about him. Some lamented the loss of Upon this Antigenes and Teutamus, who were at the head of the Argyraspides, were so exasperated with envy, that they formed a plot against his life: and having drawn into it most of the grandees and generals, they consulted upon a proper time and method to take him off. They all agreed to make use of him in the en- Nicanor was sent by Antigonus to receive suing battle, and to assassinate him immediate- him. But, as they led him through the midst ly after. But Eudamus, master of the ele- of the Macedonians, he desired first to speak phants, and Phædimus, privately informed to them; not for any request he had to make, Eumenes of their resolutions; not out of any but upon matters of great importance to them. kindness or benevolent regard, but because Silence being made, he ascended an eminence, they were afraid of losing the money they had and stretching out his hands, bound as they lent him. He commended them for the hon-were, he said: "What trophy, ye vilest of all our with which they behaved, and retired to his tent. There he told his friends, "That he lived among a herd of savage beasts," and immediately made his will. After which he destroyed all his papers, lest, after his death, charges and impeachments should rise against the persons who wrote them, in consequence of the secrets discovered there. He then considered, whether he should put the enemy in the way of gaining the victory, or take his flight through Media and Armenia into Cappadocia; but he could not fix upon any thing while his friends stayed with him. After revolving various expedients in his mind, which was now almost as changeable as his fortune, he drew up the forces and endeavoured to ani

the Macedonians! what trophy could Antigonus have wished to raise, like this which you are raising, by delivering up your general bound? Was it not base enough to acknow ledge yourselves beaten, merely for the sake of your baggage, as if victory dwelt among your goods and chattels, and not upon the points of your swords; but you must also send your general as a ransom for that baggage? For my part, though thus led, I am not conquered; I have beaten the enemy, and am ruined by my fellow-soldiers. But I conjure you by the god of armies,* and the awful deities who preside over oaths, to kill

* Jupiter.

SERTORIUS AND EUMENES COMPARED.

415

me here with your own hands. If my life be | bring him necessary refreshments. Thus he taken by another, the deed will be still yours. spent some considerable time in deliberating Nor will Antigonus complain, if you take the how to dispose of him, and sometimes listened work out of his hands; for he wants not Eu- to the applications, and promises of Nearches menes alive, but Eumenes dead. If you the Cretan, and his own son Demetrius, who choose not to be the immediate instruments, made it a point to save him. But all the other loose but one of my hands, and that shall do officers insisted that he should be put to death, my business. If you will not trust me with a and urged Antigonus to give directions for it sword, throw me, bound as I am, to wild beasts. If you comply with this last request, acquit you of all guilt with respect to me, and declare you have behaved to your general like the best and honestest of men."

The rest of the troops received this speech with sighs and tears, and every expression of sorrow; but the Argyraspides cried out, "Lead him on, and attend not to his trifling. For it is no such great matter, if an execrable Chersonesian, who has harassed the Macedonians with infinite wars, have cause to lament his fate; as it would be, if the best of Alexander's and Philip's soldiers should be deprived of the fruit of their labours, and have their bread to beg in their old age. And have not our wives already passed three nights with our enemies?" So saying they drove him forward.

Antigonus, fearing some bad consequence from the crowd (for there was not a man left in his camp), sent out ten of his best elephants, and a corps of spearmen, who were Medes and Parthians, to keep them off. He could not bear to have Eumenes brought into his presence, because of the former friendly connexions there had been between them. And when those who took charge of him, asked, in what manner he would have him kept? He said, "So as you would keep an elephant or a lion." Nevertheless he soon felt some impressions of pity, and ordered them to take off his heavy chains, and allow him a servant who had been accustomed to wait upon him. He likewise permitted such of his friends as desired it, to pass whole days with him, and to

One day, we are told, Eumenes asked his keeper, Onomarchus, "Why Antigonus, now he had got his enemy into his power, did not either immediately dispatch him, or generously release him?" Onomarchus answered, in a contemptuous manner, "That in the battle, and not now, he should have been so ready to meet death." To which Eumenes replied, "By heavens, I was so! Ask those who ventured to engage me if I was not. I do not know that I met with a better man than myself."--" Well," said Onomarchus, now you have found a better man than yourself, why do you not patiently wait his time?"

When Antigonus had resolved upon his death, he gave orders that he should have no kind of food. By this means, in two or three days time, he began to draw near his end: and then Antigonus, being obliged to decamp upon some sudden emergency, sent in an executioner to dispatch him. The body he delivered to his friends, allowing them to burn it honourably, and to collect the ashes into a silver urn, in order to their being sent to his wife and children.

Thus died Eumenes: and divine justice did not go far to seek instruments of vengeance against the officers and soldiers who had betrayed him. Antigonus himself, detesting the Argyraspides as impious and savage wretches, ordered Ibyrtius, governor of Araceosia,† under whose directions he put them, to take every method to destroy them; so that not one of them might return to Macedonia, or set his eyes upon the Grecian sea.

SERTORIUS AND EUMENES COMPARED.

Chersonesian, and commanded the Macedonians, who had conquered the whole world. It should be considered too, that Sertorious the more easily made his way, because he was a senator, and had led armies before; but Eumenes, with the disreputation of having been only a secretary, raised himself to the first military employments. Nor had Eumenes only fewer advantages, but greater impediments also in the road to honour. Numbers opposed him openly, and as many formed private designs against his life: whereas no man ever opposed Sertorius in public, and it was not till towards the last, that a few of his party

THESE are the most remarkable particulars had been subject to Rome; the other was a which history has given us concerning Eumenes and Sertorius. And now to come to the comparison. We observe first, that though they were both strangers, aliens, and exiles, they had, to the end of their days, the command of many warlike nations, and great and respectable armies. Sertorius, indeed, has this advantage, that his fellow-warriers ever freely gave up the command to him on account of his superior merit; whereas many disputed the post of honour with Eumenes, and it was his actions only that obtained it for him. The officers of Sertorius were ambitious to have him at their head; but those who acted under Eumenes never had recourse to him, till experience had showed them their own incapacity, and the necessity of employing another.

The one was a Roman, and commanded the Spaniards and Lusitanians, who for many years

*Antigenes, commander-in-chief of the Silver Shields, was, by order of Antigonus, put in a coffin, and buried alive. Eudamus, Celbanus, and many others of the enemies of Eumenes, experienced a like fate. A province of Parthia, near Bactriana.

entered upon a private scheme to destroy him. I citizen Hence, the one voluntarily engaged The dangers of Sertorius were generally over when he had gained a victory; and the dangers of Eumenes grew out of his very victories, among those who envied his success.

in war, for the sake of gaining the chief com mand; the other involuntarily took the com mand, because he could not live in peaceEumenes, therefore, in his passion for the camp, preferred ambition to safety; Sertorius was an able warrior, but employed his talents only for the safety of his person. The one was not apprized of his impending fate; the other expected his every moment. The one had the candid praise of confidence in his friends; the other incurred the censure of weakness; for be would have fled,* but could not. The death of Sertorius did no dishonour to his life; he suffered that from his fellow-soldiers which the enemy could not have effected. Eumenes could not avoid his chains, yet after the indig

Their military performances were equal and similar, but their dispositions were very different. Eumenes loved war, and had a native spirit of contention; Sertorius loved peace and tranquillity. The former might have lived in great security and honour, if he would not have stood in the way of the great; but he rather chose to tread for ever in the uneasy paths of power, though he had to fight every step he took; the latter would gladly have withdrawn from the tumult of public affairs; but was forced to continue the war, to defend himself against his restless persecutors. For Antigo-nity of chains,t he wanted to live; so that he nus would have taken pleasure in employing Eumenes, if he would have given up the dispute for superiority, and been content with the station next to his; whereas Pompey would not grant Sertorius his request to live a private

could neither escape death, nor meet it as he ought to have done; but, by having recourse to mean applications and entreaties, put his mind in the power of the man who was only master of his body.

AGESILAUS.

ARCHIDAMUS, the son of Xeuxidemus, after having governed the Lacedæmonians with a very respectable character, left behind him two sons; the one named Agis, whom he had of Lampito,t a woman of an illustrious family; the other much younger, named Agesilaus, whom he had by Eupolia, the daughter of Melisippidas. As the crown, by law, was to descend to Agis, Agesilaus had nothing to expect but a private station, and therefore had a common Lacedæmonian education; which, though hard in respect of diet, and full of laborious cxercises, was well calculated to teach the youth obedience. Hence, Simonides is said to have called that famed city, the man-subduing Sparta, because it was the principal tendency of her discipline to make the itizens obedient and submissive to the laws; and she trained her youth as the colt is trained to the manege. The law does not lay the young princes who are educated for the throne under the same necessity. But Agesilaus was singular in this, that before he came to govern, he had learned to obey. Hence it was that he accommodated himself with a better grace to his subjects than any other of the kings; having added to his princely talents and inclinations a humane manner and popular civility.

conquered or borne down, yet he was equally remarkable for his gentleness, where it was necessary to obey. At the same time, it appeared, that his obedience was not owing to fear, but to the principle of honour, and that throughout his whole conduct he dreaded disgrace more than toil.

He was lame of one leg: but that defect, during his youth, was covered by the agreeable turn of the rest of his person; and the easy and cheerful manner in which he bore it, and his being the first to rally himself upon it, always made it the less regarded. Nay, that defect made his spirit of enterprise more remarkable; for he never declined on that ac count any undertaking, however difficult or laborious.

We have no portrait or statue of him. He would not suffer any to be made while he lived, and at his death he utterly forbade it. We are only told, that he was a little man, and that he had not a commanding aspect. But a perpetual vivacity and cheerfulness, attended with a talent for raillery, which was expressed without any severity either of voice or look, made him more agreeable, even in age, than the young and the handsome. Theophrastus tells us, the Ephori fined Archidamus for marrying a little woman. "She will bring us," said they, "a race of pigmies, instead of kings."

During the reign of Agis, Alcibiades, upon his quitting Sicily, came an exile to Lacedæmon.

While he was yet in one of the classes or societies of boys, Lysander had that honourable attachment to him which the Spartans distinguish with the name of love. He was charmed with his ingenuous modesty. For, though he had a spirit above his companions, * Upon notice of the intention of his enemies to dean ambition to excel, which made him unwill-stroy him after the battle, he deliberated whether he ing to sit down without the prize, and a should give up the victory to Antigonus, or retire into vigour and impetuosity which could not be Cappadocia.

Archidamus II.

Lampito, or Lampido, was sister to Arcbidamus, by the father's side. Vid. Plut. Alcibiad,

†This does not appear from Plutarch's account of him. He only desired Antigonus either to give immediate orders for his execution or to show his generosity in releasing him.

And he had not been there long, before he | was suspected of a criminal commerce with Time, the wife of Agis. Agis would not acknowledge the child which she had for his, but said it was the son of Alcibiades. Duris informs us, that the queen was not displeased at the supposition, and that she used to whisper to her women, the child should be called Alcibiades, not Leotychidas. He adds, that Alcibiades himself scrupled not to say, "He did not approach Timæa to gratify his appetite, but from an ambition to give kings to Sparta." However, he was obliged to fly from Sparta, lest Agis should revenge the injury. And that prince looking upon Leotychidas with an eye of suspicion, did not take notice of him as a son. Yet, in his last sickness, Leotychidas prevailed upon him by his tears and entreaties, to acknowledge him as such before many wit

nesses.

among them; by which means the inheritance procured him respect and honour, instead of envy and aversion.

Xenophon tells us, that by obedience to the laws of his country, Agesilaus gained so much power, that his will was not disputed. The case was this, the principal authority was then in the hands of the Ephori and the senate. The Ephori were annual magistrates, and the senators had their office for life. They were both appointed as a barrier against the power of the kings, as we have observed in the life of Lycurgus. The kings, therefore, had an old and hereditary antipathy to them, and perpetual disputes subsisted between them. But Lysander took a different course. He gave up all thoughts of opposition and contention, and paid his court to them on every occasion; taking care in all his enterprizes, to set out under their auspices. If he was called, he went faster than usual: if he was upon his throne, administering justice, he rose up when the Ephori approached: if any one of them was admitted a member of the senate, he sent him a robe and an ox,* as marks of honour. Thus, while he seemed to be adding to the dignity and importance of their body, he was privately increasing his own strength, and the authority of the crown, through their support and attach⚫

Notwithstanding this public declaration, Agis was no sooner dead, than Lysander, who had vanquished the Athenians at sea, and had great power and interest in Sparta, advanced Agesilaus to the throne; alleging that Leotychidas was a bastard, and consequently had no right to it. Indeed the generality of the citizens, knowing the virtues of Agesilaus, and that he had been educated with them in all the severity of the Spartan discipline, joined with pleas-ment. ure in the scheme.

There was then at Sparta, a diviner, named Diopithes, well versed in ancient prophecies, and supposed an able interpreter of every thing relating to the gods. This man insisted, it was contrary to the divine will, that a lame man should sit on the throne of Sparta; and on the day the point was to be decided, he publicly read this oracle

Beware, proud Sparta, lest a maimed empire⭑
Thy boasted strength impair; for other woes
Than thou behold'st, await thee-borne away
By the strange tide of war-

In his conduct with respect to the other citi. zens, he behaved better as an enemy than as a friend. If he was severe to his enemies, he was not unjustly so; his friends he countenanced even in their unjust pursuits. If his enemies per formed any thing extraordinary, he was ashamed not to take honourable notice of it; his friends he could not correct when they did amiss. On the contrary, it was his pleasure to support them, and go the same lengths they did; for he thought no service dishonourable which he did in the way of friendship. Nay, if his adversaries fell into any misfortune, he was the first to sympathize with them, and ready to give Lysander observing upon this, that if the them his assistance, if they desired it. By these Spartans were solicitous to act literally accord-means he gained the hearts of all his people. ing to the oracle, they ought to beware of Leotychidas; for that heaven did not consider it as a matter of importance, if the king happened to have a lame foot; the thing to be guarded against was the admission of a person who was not a genuine descendant of Hercules: for that would make the kingdom itself lame. Agesilaus added, that Neptune had borne witness to the bastardy of Leotychidas, in throwing Agis out of his bed by an earthquake;t ten months after which, and more, Leotychidas was born; though Agis did not cohabit with Timæa during that time.

The Ephori saw this, and, in their fear of his increasing power, imposed a fine upon him; alleging this as a reason, that whereas the cit izens ought to be in common, he appropriated them to himself. As the writers upon physics

say,

that if war and discord were banished the

universe, the heavenly bodies would stop their course, and all generation and motion would cease, by reason of that perfect harmony; so the contention into the Spartan constitution, as an great Lawgiver infused a spirit of ambition and incentive to virtue, and wished always to see some difference and dispute among the good By these ways and means, Agesilaus gained and virtuous. He thought that general comthe diadem, and at the same time was put in plaisance, which leads men to yield to the possession of the private estate of Agis; Leoty-next proposal, without exploring each other's chidas being rejected on account of his illegiti-intentions, and without debating on the consemacy. Observing, however, that his relations by the mother's side, though men of merit, were very poor, he gave a moiety of the estate

*The two legs of the Spartan constitution were the two kings, which, therefore, must be in a maimed and ruined state when one of them was gone. In fact, the consequence produced not a just and good monarch, but a tyrant.

See Xenophon, Grecian Hist. book iii.

not the name of harmony.† Some imagine that quences, was an inert principle, and deserved he would not have made Agamemnon rejoice,

Homer saw this, and when Ulysses and Achil-, of Baotia. And the officers not only gave les contended in such opprobious terms, if he had not expected that some great benefit would arise to their affairs in general, from this particular quarrel among the great. This point, however, cannot be agreed to, without some exception; for violent dissensions are pernicious to a state, and productive of the greatest dan-ations would be incomplete, and his expedigers.

Agesilaus had not long been seated on the throne before accounts were brought from Asia, that the king of Persia was preparing a great fleet to dispossess the Lacedæmonians of their dominion of the sea. Lysander was very desirous to be sent again into Asia, that he might support his friends whom he left governors and masters of the cities, and many of whom, having abused their authority to the purposes of violence and injustice, were banished or put to death by the people. He therefore persuaded Agesilaus to enter Asia with his forces, and fix the seat of war at the greatest distance from Greece, before the Persian could have finished his preparations. At the same time he instructed his friends in Asia to send depu-ilaus, with the stern, the short, and authoritaties to Lacedæmon, to desire Agesilaus might be appointed to that command.