logic he derided and exposed, represented him as an enemy to the religion of his country, because, without regard to the popular superstitions, he led the mind to the knowledge of a Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe; and the belief of a future state of retribution. His defence he made himself with the manly fortitude of conscious innocence; but in vain his judges were his personal enemies; and he was condemned to die by poison 397 B.C. (See sect. 23, 5;) [he drank the poisonous draught with a serenity of aspect which his friends, overwhelmed with deep grief and intense emotion, in vain strove to imitate.]

6. On the death of Darius Nothus, his eldest son, Artaxerxes Mnemon, succeeded to the empire of Persia, His younger brother Cyrus, formed the project of dethroning him; and, with the aid of thirteen thousand Greeks, engaged him near Babylon, but was defeated and slain a just reward of his most culpable enterprise. The remainder of the Grecian army, to the amount of ten thousand, under the command of Xenophor, made a most amazing retreat, traversing a hostile country of sixteen hundred miles in extent, from Babylon to the banks of the Euxine. Xenophon has beautifully written the history of this expedition; but has painted the character of Cyrus in too flattering colours, and without the smallest censure of his criminal ambition.

7. The Greek cities of Asia had taken part with Cyrus. Sparta was engaged to defend her countrymen, and consequently was involved in a war with Persia. Had Athens added her strength, the Greeks might have once more defied the power of Asia; but jealousy kept the states divided, and even hostile to each other, and the gold of Artaxerxes excited a general league in Greece against Lacedæmon. Agesiläus, King of Sparta, sustained for a considerable time the honour of his country, and won some important battles in Asia; but others were lost in Greece; and a naval defeat near Cnidos utterly destroyed the Lacedæmonian fleet: finally, to escape total destruction, the Spartans sued for peace, and obtained it, by the sacrifice to Persia of all the Asiatic colonies, 387 B.C. Artaxerxes further demanded, and obtained for his allies, the Athenians, the islands of Scyros, Lemnos, and Imbros: a disgraceful treaty, a mortifying picture of the humiliation of the Greeks.

XIV.-The Republic of Thebes.

1. While Athens and Sparta were thus visibly tending to decline, the Theban republic emerged from obscurity, and rose for a time to a degree of splendour eclipsing all its cotemporary states. The republic was divided by faction, one party supporting its ancient democracy, and the other aiming at the establishment of an oligarchy. The latter courted the aid of the Spartans, who embraced that occasion to take possession of the citadel. Four hundred of the exiled Thebans fled for protection to Athens; among these was Pelopidas, who planned and accomplished the deliverance of his country. Disguising himself and twelve of his friends as peasants, he entered Thebes in the evening, and joining a patriotic party of the citizens, they surprised the heads of the usurpation amid the tumult of a feast, and put them all to death. Epaminondas, the friend of Pelopidas, shared with him in the glory of this enterprise, and attacking, with the aid of five thousand Athenians, the Lacedæmonian garrison, drove them entirely out of the Theban territory.

2. A war necessarily ensued between Thebes and Sparta, in which the former had the aid of Athens. This, however, was but for a season. Thebes singly opposed the power of Sparta and the league of Greece; but Epaminondas and Pelopidas were her generals. The latter, amidst a career of glory, perished in an expedition against the tyrant of Pheræa. Epaminondas, triumphant at Leuctra and Mantinéa, fell in that last engagement, and with him expired the glory of his country, 363 B.C. Athens and Sparta were humbled at the battle of Mantinéa; Thebes was victorious, but she was undone by the death of Epaminondas. All parties were tired of the war; and Artaxerxes, more powerful among those infatuated states than in his own dominions, dictated the terms of the treaty. It was stipulated that each power should retain what it possessed, and that the lesser states, now free from the yoke of the greater, should remain so.

XV.-Philip of Macedon.

1. Greece was now in the most abject situation; the spirit of patriotism appeared utterly extinct, and military glory at an end. Athens seemed to have lost all ambition; the pleasures of luxury had entirely supplanted

heroic virtue; poets, musicians, sculptors, and comedians, were now the only great men of Attica. Sparta, no less changed from the simplicity of her ancient manners, and her power abridged by the new independency of the states of Peloponnesus, was in no capacity to attempt a recovery of her former greatness. In this situation Philip of Macedon formed the ambitious project of bringing under his dominion the whole of Greece.

2. He had mounted the throne of Macedon by popular choice, in violation of the natural right of the nearer heirs to the crown; and he secured his power by the success of his arms against the Illyrians, Pæonians, and Athenians, who espoused the interest of his competitors. Uniting to great military talents the most consummate artifice and address, he had his pensionaries in all the states of Greece, who directed to his advantage every public measure. The miserable policy of these states, embroiled in perpetual quarrels, co-operated with his designs. A sacrilegious attempt of the Phocians to plunder the temple of Delphos, excited the Sacred War, in which almost all the republics took a part; and Philip's aid being courted by the Thebans and Thessalians, he began hostilities by invading Phócis, the key to the territory of Attica. Eschines the orator, bribed to his interest, attempted to quiet the alarms of the Athenians, by ascribing to Philip a design only of punishing sacrilege, and vindicating the cause of Apollo. Demosthenes, with true patriotism, exposed the artful designs of the invader, and with the most animated eloquence roused his countrymen to a vigorous effort for the preservation of the national liberties. But the event was unsuccessful. The battle of Cheronæa, fought 337 B.C., decided the fate of Greece, and subjected all her states to the dominion of the King of Macedon. But it was not his policy to treat them as a conquered people. They retained their separate and independent governments, while he controlled and directed all the national measures. Convoking a general council of the states, Philip was appointed commanderin-chief of the forces of Greece; and he laid before them his project for the conquest of Persia, appointing each republic to furnish its proportional subsidies. On the eve of this great enterprise, Philip was assassinated by Pausanias, a captain of his guards, in revenge of a private injury, 336 B.C. The Athenians, on the death of Philip,

meanly expressed the most tumultuous joy, in the hope of a recovery of their liberty; but this visionary prospect was never realized. The spirit of the nation was gone; and in their subsequent revolutions they only changed their masters.

XVI.-Alexander the Great.

1. Alexander, the son of Philip, succeeded at the age of twenty to the throne of Macedon, and, after a few successful battles against the revolted states, to the command of Greece. Assembling the deputies of the nation at Corinth, he communicated to them his resolution of prosecuting the designs of his father for the conquest of Persia.

2. With an army of thirty thousand foot and five thousand horse, the sum of seventy talents, and provisions only for a single month, he crossed the Hellespont, and, in traversing Phrygia, visited the tomb of Achilles. Darius Codomanus, resolved to crush at once this inconsiderate youth, met him on the banks of the Granicus with a hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse The Greeks swam the river, their king leading the van, and attacking the astonished Persians, left twenty thousand dead upon the field, and put to flight their whole army. [The Greeks are said to have lost only thirty foot and eighty-five horse.] Drawing from his first success a presage of continued victory, Alexander now sent home his fleet, leaving to his army the sole alternative, that they must subdue Asia or perish. Prosecuting their course for some time without resistance, the Greeks were attacked by the Persians in a narrow valley of Cilicia, near the town of Issus. The Persian host amounted to four hundred thousand, but their situation was such that only a small part could come into action, and they were defeated with prodigious slaughter. The loss of the Persians in this battle was one hundred and ten thousand; that of the Greeks (according to Q. Curtius) only four hundred and fifty.

3. The history of Alexander by Quintus Curtius, though a most excellent composition, is extremely suspicious on the score of authentic information. Arrian is the best authority.

4. The generosity of Alexander was displayed after the battle of Issus, in his attention to his noble prisoners,

the mother, the wife, and family of Darius. To the credit of Alexander it must be owned, that humanity, however overpowered and at times extinguished by his passions, certainly formed a part of his natural character.

5. The consequence of the battle of Issus was the submission of all Syria. Damascus, where Darius had deposited his chief treasures, was betrayed and given up by its governor. The Phoenicians were pleased to see themselves thus avenged for the oppression they had suffered under the yoke of Persia.

6. Alexander had hitherto borne his good fortune with moderation: "Happy," says Curtius, "could he have preserved this moderation to the end of his life; but fortune had not yet taken full possession of his mind." He directed his course towards Tyre, and desired admittance to perform a sacrifice to Hercules. The Tyrians shut their gates, and maintained for seven months a noble defence. The city was at length taken by storm; and the victor glutted his revenge by the inhuman massacre of eight thousand of the inhabitants [332 B.C.] The fate of Gaza, gloriously defended by Bætis, was equally deplorable to its citizens, and more disgraceful to the conqueror. Ten thousand of the former were sold into slavery, and its brave defender dragged at the wheels of the victor's chariot: "The king boasting that, in inflicting punishment on his enemy, he had imitated Achilles, from whom he derived his descent." Curt.

7. The taking of Gaza opened Egypt to Alexander, and the whole country submitted without opposition. Amidst the most incredible fatigues, he now led his army through the deserts of Lybia, to visit the temple of his father Jupiter Ammon. On his return he built Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, afterwards the capital of the Lower Egypt, and one of the most flourishing cities in the world. Twenty other cities of the same name were reared by him in the course of his conquests. It is such works as these that justly entitle the Macedonian to the epithet of Great. By rearing in the midst of deserts those nurseries of population and of industry, he repaired the waste and havoc of his conquests. But for those monuments of his glory he would have merited no other epithet than that assigned him by the Brahmins of India, The mighty Murderer.

8. Returning from Egypt, Alexander traversed Assyria, and was met at Arbéla by Darius, at the head of