different might have proved their future! With no yearning for the city's gayest pleasuresthe theatre, the concert-hall, and and ball-room -as courted by the mediocre class of the social scale with whom they mingled-with more elevated ideas and a higher standard, they would never have gone back to the city to become the wives of fast young men, who married them for their portions, and then led them lives of neglect and unhappiness.

And the poor, hard-working mother-what of her? Ah, when the iron hand was lifted, it was too late. The springs of her life had been sapped long before. For a few years she went

about in an absent, quiet sort of way-missing the stern rule to which she had for so long been accustomed; and then she died.

The neighbours said "it was the oldfashioned consumption. Folks always dropped away sudden with it, at last." Of wha treal use was Deacon Morris's wealth? What good seed did he sow in his life? Little, we judge; for the harvest reaped was scanty and blighted; and the Dead Sea Apples, whose taste is like ashes, were put to his family's lips. And it might have been so different for them all.

Ah! are not the lives of all men like Deacon Morris's, sad mistakes?

The city of Katharia, until recently, had no place in any book before the public, or known to scholars. It belongs to the most ancient period of uninspired history, lying just beyond the age illustrated in the "Iliad" of Homer and the "Eneid" of Virgil. The existence of this city in that remote antiquity, and its tragical fall, have lately been brought to light by the discovery, in the Vatican Library at Rome, of a volume of surpassing interest, entitled, "A History of the War of the Allies and the Kathari, by Pherecydes of Syros." The internal and external evidences attending this book or roll prove it, beyond a doubt, to be the oldest known manuscript in existence-dating with the earliest use of alphabetic writing-and to be a genuine writing of the ancient historian whose name is attached to it, who preceded Herodotus nearly a hundred years, and who has been known hitherto only by references and fragments in the collections of Anaximines and Diodorus Siculus. It is written in Doric Greek. Its style is very simple, and purely narrative, reminding us much of that of the Old Testament Scriptures. It has upon it labels and other marks, which show that it belonged to the library of Pisistratus in Athens, which was transported by Xerxes into Persia, and afterwards brought back by Seleucus Nicanor to Athens, where it was plundered by Sylla, by whom, it is probable, this volume was carried to Rome. Of its resting-place from that time whether in the Ulpian or Palatine, and after their destruction in some other public or private library of Rome-to the founding of the Vatican in 1450; we know nothing. In the Vatican it was buried beneath a heap of valueless manuscripts-the taste of the age for scholastic and theological literature causing it to be neglected and left unexamined-where it remained until its recent disinterment.

The city of Katharia, whose history is narrated in this volume, was situated in the central and mountainous region of the Greek Peninsula, north of Etolia, and east of Arcarnania. In population and wealth it seems never to have equalled Thebes, Athens, Argos, or Sparta, but was more ancient, and in civilization earlier advanced, than any of the other cities of Greece. It was founded soon after the Greek tribes began to emerge from their barbarous state, when, finding the necessity of banding together for protection against the universal rapine and plunder in the country, they began to gather in centres and to build the cities which became the heads of almost as many independent states. It was located in this least fertile region of the country, to be out of the way of banditti, who infested the richer sections, and, thus far from the sea, to avoid the robbers-almost as numerous upon that element as upon the land. When, in the course of time, the reasons governing this location were removed, by the general advancement of civilization, the restriction upon the growth in population, wealth, and power which it imposed remained, and barred the prospect of a successful race, in respect of these, with the cities of the plains and the seaboard. It needed not the severe laws imposed upon the Lacedemonians to secure simplicity in the habits and tastes of its people. The limited supplies of the region and the slender resources for trade compelled to the practice of industry and frugality. With these habits grew up the virtues which are usually found united with them. The people, in general, were just, truthful, unambitious, temperate, chaste, and obedient to the laws. Crime was of rare occurrence, and, when it occurred, was severely punished. Virtuous and united, they were happy and free.

The government of Katharia was republican.

It was the first of Grecian cities or states to throw off monarchy. The public affairs were administered by a senate of thirty men chosen by the people, called the Triakas, twenty of whom must unite in any measure proposed before it should become a law; failing of which number, any proposition nearly dividing them must be referred to the popular Assembly for decision. This reference, however, seldom was made--and never except on great occasions and dangerous crises in public affairs-owing to the virtue and intelligence of the people in excluding party strifes, and in selecting only worthy men for this high office, and to the wisdom and harmony of the men chosen. The responsibility for the execution of the laws was laid upon the President of the Triakatioi, who was chosen by that body out of their own number. The Triakas also exercised judicial powers, hearing and deciding all differences between citizens that could not be settled privately by calling in three neighbours as umpires. Serious litigation was of rare occurrence; and no class of professional advocates or attorney's existed in the little commonwealth, the Triakatioi themselves appointing one of their number to assist each of the parties appearing before them, and inflicting a penalty upon anyone found to have shown an unjustly litigious spirit. The laws were few and inild and wise, such as were suited to a people who had not been corrupted by tyranny or avarice or the lust of foreign conquests, and retained the utmost simplicity in taste and living. They jealously provided for the maintenance of private faith and the public credit-enjoining with greatest stress and using their highest sanctions to secure truth and honour and fair dealing between citizens, and the faithful payment of dues and duties to the state, as the cardinal virtues necessary to make a good government. As a check to both the accumulation and the contraction of debt, they had a provision for its expiration after a definite period, something like the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee of the Jews, from whom it may have been borrowed. For the protection of the state-strictly for defence and not for aggression-the whole adult male population, except those disqualified by sickness or the infirmities of age, were brought into a military organization, and practised regularly in the handling of arms and the movements of the field. The youth were trained from an early period to warlike exercises. Their physical development-from these exercises and their simple habits and avocations-their tall stature and muscular frames, and skill in the use of weapons, made them formidable adversaries in those ancient days, when conflicts were hand-to-hand, and were decided by personal prowess and strength.

The religion of the Kathari was an elevated Monotheism and Rationalism. They made no claim to a divine revelation, and held to pure reason as the only guide to religious truth, yet practised a number of rites which again remind us of the Jews, and which go to prove some in

tercourse with that people, as between the Jews and Lacedemonians in the time of Jonathan Maccabeus. They worshipped one God in a costly temple, with prayers and sacrifices of birds and of beasts. They attached the highest importance to individual purity, and as an emblem of it to cleanliness of person, and performed frequent ablutions as a religions ordinance. They held the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, but in connection with metempsychosis, which they believed to be a continuous progression up to the highest state of endless felicity.

The relations of the Kathari to the surrounding kingdoms were disturbed and unhappy, from the time of their deposition of their last king, and their abolition of monarchy. The jealousy and hostility of the neighbouring princes were shown for some years in a series of encroachments, which rendered resistance necessary, and occasioned frequent collisions in arms with the separate states, in which the rights and power of the republic were always maintained. At length this deep-seated and long-growing hostility eventuated in a league of the monarchical powers for the destruction of Katharia. A long war ensued; the arms of the republic were victorious upon many a field. The war was carried to the very gates of the enemy. In the progress of the wasting strife, however, it became evident that the republic must be overwhelmed. Its resources were too feeble compared with those of the powerful allied enemy. Its supply of men was being daily exhausted, whilst that of the allies was constantly renewed. At last its valiant army, greatly reduced in numbers, was beaten in the field, and fell back toward the city, followed by the victorious enemy. Phrontistes, the general commanding, sent before him a messenger to the president of the Triakatioi, informing him of his retreat, of the approach of the enemy, and of his inability to give battle with the hope of success, and asking for orders. The Triakas was summoned for deliberation. The assembly was grave and solemn: there was deep solicitude marked on each brow, but no craven fear in any breast. All were agreed that resistance should be made, even to extermination, and that the last available man in the city must be sent forth to the conflict; but it was determined first to call an assembly of the people. In obedience to the summons of their magistrates, the people came out in great multitudes. The smith left his forge and the unfinished weapon upon the anvil, the baker his ovens, the physician the bedside of the sick and dying; the lame hobbled along on their crutches; the old men came out, and even the women and the boys were there. The presi dent of the Triakas made a brief statement of the conflict that had been forced upon them, of the long-sustained toils and valour of their soldiers in the field, of their final defeat and retreat before overwhelming numbers, and of the approach of the enemy to their gates; and concluded by calling upon the assembly to give their voices, whether they should submit and

latter. Behind the archers the heavier armed troops quickly formed, each command of an hundred, by a rapid and simple evolution, making a solid square equal in rank and file. They came on five of these abreast, and with others following so closely as to leave little more space between them, than between the ranks of each. At the word of command, the Kathari rushed forward against this solid array, with a fury that seemed to make up their want of numbers and to equalize the strife. Like the wrestling of the wind and the trees, when a tornado goes straining, creaking, and crashing through some tall forest, levelling all before it save here and there a sturdy oak, were the struggle and confused noise when these strong, brave men threw themselves upon their assailants. Helmets and shields were powerless to resist the mighty blows they let fall upon them. They drove right through the foremost squares of the enemy, cutting a swarth as broad as their own front, and covering the ground with dead as they went, until they stood inclosed on three sides by their foes; then dividing and opening on either hand, they pressed the enemy back in confusion upon his flanks. A few of the stronger and braver of the allies, however, extricating themselves from the mass, and cleaving about them a space for the use of their weapons, began to make a successful stand along the rear-lines of the first divisions, giving time for those behind to recover from the confusion made by the pressure upon them. Hippocleas, a tall and powerful Thessalian, stood like a breaker resisting the surf. About him lay the prostrate bodies of six Katharian warriors. The valiant Astropus engaged him. Above the din of the battle their powerful blows were heard. They seemed matched in strength and skill. At length Hippocleas, seizing the opportunity of an unguarded moment of Astropus, lifted his great mace for a blow with which to decide and end the combat, which shivered the helmet of Astropus and stunned and staggered him; but before he could repeat it or interpose, the battle-axe of Astropus was buried in his brain. The brave Astropus strove long with a gigantic Phocian, commander of an hundred; but in the act of cleaving his helmet his forehead was pierced through by a spear from

the side.

For more than an hour victory seemed to belong to the Kathari. But it was a contest in which mere valour could not triumph. The wearied and shattered divisions of the enemy were skilfully withdrawn, and others fresh and well-organized hurled upon Phrontistes and his surviving heroes. The latter, reduced in numbers, and faint from their great exertions, and many of them from the loss of blood, met the new host with desperate courage and all the strength that remained to them. They piled the dead around them in heaps, and fought over ramparts made by their enemies' corpses. But their own blood was flowing, and many of them were falling, borne down by the overwhelming numbers and fresh energies of their foes.

At this time the signal was given, by order

of Leitus, for the advance of the aged men under his command, and the boys under Eugathes. The old men, on the right, moved forward with the elastic step of youth, and with the order of veterans, as they were. The weight of two-score years seemed to have been lifted off them. They seemed to themselves put back in their early manhood, and again under their ancient and glorious leader, also restored to his vigorous prime. They threw themselves upon the enemy, who were amazed at the strange spectacle and at the strange weight of their blows with battle-axe and spear, and with awe questioned in themselves whether an army of heroes of past ages had been raised up from the earth for the aid of the Kathari. Old Leitus was as an infuriated and uncaged lion. More than the strength of even early manhood seemed in his arm. He encountered the enemy first where the brave and good Phrontistes had been, with his single arm, holding at bay a multitude of assailants, and just as that great soldier fell pierced through the heart with a javelin. He threw himself in the midst of the throng as their shouts of triumph were raised above the noise of the strife, and swinging round his huge battle-axe, weighing fully one-half more than those of later make, smote down on the right hand and the left and before and behind. The bewildered enemy shrank and scattered from before his death-dealing weapon. His command, with a courage like that of their leader, and with a fury that could not be resisted, engaged the enemy along their whole right line, and drove them back in confusion. Wonderful to behold was the heroism of those old men and the carnage they made.

On the left, the boys advanced with great courage and steadiness. The more generous of the allies regarded them with admiration for their courage, and with pity for the immolation to which they seemed doomed, and were inclined to interpose to turn them back, if possible, and save them; but the greater part looked upon them with contempt and derision. When they had come within easy range, the boys who were armed with bows let fly their arrows, which now, in the comparatively unguarded and uncovered state of many of the enemy, did much execution, killing some and wounding more. Two companies of spearmen from the enemy were ordered to charge and disperse them. These, as they came on, were met by another shower of arrows, some of which were aimed with such precision and with such short range that several fell mortally pierced by them, among whom was the leader of the charge; others were wounded in the feet and legs beneath their shields, and unable to withdraw the barbs or to endure the pain, dropped out of their ranks. The older and stronger boys then rushed forward with their spears. What they lacked in strength of being equal to their opponents, they made up in activity and skill. Their astonished assailants who had come out, as to a short and easy work, to disperse them, were beaten back into their

lines with their comrades, leaving many of their number wounded and dead. The conflict now became general on the part of the boys. They fought with blind and wild desperation; they could not be propitiated or put off by the magnanimous of the enemy, who endeavoured to avoid encounter with them and to spare them; and they engaged the fiercest and stoutest, regardless of the inequality of their strength. Yet there was an alertness and an ingenuity united with their recklessness, which outwitted and vanquished many a veteran warrior before whom no other foe had ever been able to stand. The powerful Petalus of Argos, attacked and long beset and foiled by the small Ascates, aimed at him a blow one-half of whose weight would have crushed the slender frame; Ascates, nimble as a roe, stooping, leaped forward, avoiding the blow, and before the warrior could recover his arm, rushed up under his shield and drove his short sword through his bowels. Little Ellus provoked a powerful thrust of the spear from Duscheres of Ætolia, from before which he nimbly sprung, and in the moment of Duscheres's exertion and partial uncovering, lodged a dart deep in his right eye. It would be impossible to decide which were the more to be admired and the more wonderful in valour, Leitus and the old men, or Eugathes and the boys. Together they turned the tide of battle again against the allies; yet other ground was gained, the enemy who escaped from their weapons being driven back upon their rear-lines. But the contest was one hopeless as to its issue, from the exhaustless numbers of the enemy, directed as they were by able and experienced generals. Other and fresh divisions were again brought up, and those broken and weary relieved. The devoted Kathari of all classes, now led by Leitus since the fall of Phrontistes, struggled heroically but without avail against the new avalanche hurled upon them. They yielded the ground they had gained only as they embraced it in death. As the hope of a victory which would save all dear to them that was left died out in their hearts, they were fired with the energy of despair. None cared to survive. They neither asked nor gave quarter. Pressed hard on every side, they fell in great numbers, but made dreadful carnage among the enemy as the price of their lives.

The women had long waited in vain for some signal for them to advance. Seeing now their fathers and brothers and husbands and sons pressed sorely, and about to be overwhelmed in this terrible and unequal conflict, and resolved to perish with them, they left their position and moved rapidly on toward the bloody field. The allies, when they first saw them, supposed they had come out to supplicate them for the city and the lives of the surviving Kathari. But when they drew near and they saw weapons in their hands, they were filled with amazement; and some among them began to comprehend the great love of liberty which made a whole people prefer death to living without it. It is

not possible to define or describe the terrible fury with which the Katharian women flung themselves into the strife. It was not merely desperation; it was more a frenzy, a mania, a delirium, as if the snuffing of the scent of blood-the blood of slaughtered kindred and relatives-had set their brains on fire. They fought with a frantic energy far beyond all ordinary strength of their sex. Calliste seemed scarcely of earth or mortal. Superb of stature, yet feminine and graceful; in the prime of womanhood, yet retaining the freshness of youth; of the rarest beauty, now made more striking by the intense passion evinced in her whole frame and flashing and flaming from her eyes; and handling her spear with masculine strength, which had already in rapid succession brought three stout warriors to the earth, she seemed to the enemy some celestial being-as Hebe taken to martial strife, or Diana having left off the sports of the field, and come to fight the battle of the Kathari. An awe like a paralysis smote those whom she assailed. Her followers everywhere were reckless of life and regardless of death. They rushed right up on to the spears of the enemy, and though many were thrust through, and others were crushed by maces and battle-axes, others pressed on until they reached the foe with spear or sword or dagger. Sophronia, a noble matron and mother of a brave young warrior who had already fallen, received a mortal wound from a spear, which was broken in the effort to withdraw it, leaving the head buried in her breast. With convulsive energy she threw herself upon the soldier who made the thrust, plunged her short sword into his heart, and fell with him dying. Arete, a beautiful maiden, was skilfully disarmed, except of the dagger in her girdle, by an athletic Locritian, whose rich attire indicated princely rank and high command, who, thinking to secure his fair prize and bear her away, approached and threw his arm around her, when he received the unobserved dagger deep in his side.

It would require many pages to narrate all the remarkable encounters and displays of personal heroism in that desperate conflict. And any further detail of the progress of the battle would be only a repetition of the melancholy story we have gone overof matchless valour contending hopelessly against the overwhelming numbers of a ruthless but brave and disciplined enemy. After five hours of struggle and carnage, the field was nearly cleared of Kathari—that is, of the living. Their dead and dying lay everywhere thick, and in spots in frightful heaps, mingled together with the dead and dying of the enemy; dead warriors lying facing each other, each transfixed by the other's vision, their features pointed with the fierceness of the strife, fixed and made ghastly by death; the grey head of the old man, partly dyed with blood, protruding from beneath a mass of bodies, some lifeless, others still warm and bleeding; touching the rigid face of the mortal enemy, the blanched cheek of the young mother yet faintly breathing,