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virtuous times of the republic. No law furely could exist at Athens to make the friendly and humane action of Epicrates a capital crime. His condemnation could proceed only from a decree of the people; and though Plutarch expreffes himself dubious of the authority of Stefimbrotus, yet it appears not to have been because he thought the Athenian people incapable of making fuch a decree.

The fole hope therefore of fecurity, remaining to Themif tocles against the most cruel perfecution that party-fpirit could urge, was in the chance of protection from the great enemy of his country, the king of Perfia. He might indeed think himfelf, beyond all others, obnoxious to the Perfians, as a principal caufe of their difgraces and loffes in their attempts againft Greece. Yet as it had long been the policy of the Perfian court to protect and encourage Grecian refugees, he might hope that the acquifition of him as a future fiend would be valued, in proportion as he had been heretofore a formidable enemy. The ftate of the Perfian empire, fcarcely yet rettored to internal quiet, favored his views.; and he ventured to address a letter to Artaxerxes, then lately settled on the throne. Receiving a favorable answer he applied himself diligently to acquire the Perfian language and get information of the Perfian manners; and after he had thus employed a year, he went to Sufa. His reception at that court was fuch as no Greek had ever before experienced. After having been treated there fome time with the highest diftinction, an extenfive command in Afia Minor was conferred upon him, with a revenue far exceeding Grecian ideas of private wealth. In the ufual style of oriental magnificence, three Grecian cities, yet remaining under the Perfian dominion, and three of the most flourishing, were, with their territories, affigned for the nominal purpofe of fupplying his table only: Magnefia was to furnish bread, Myus meat, and Lampfacus wine. According to Thucydides, the reduction of Greece under the Perian empire was the return which he was expected to make to the king for fuch munificence,

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Plutarch fays that Themistocles lived long in this fplendid banishment; but his account is not altogether coherent; and from earlier writers it rather appears that he did not live long: from all accounts it is evident that he did nothing memorable; and probably he had little real enjoyment in all the advantages of high fortune, to which the bounty of the Perfian monarch raised him. A temper warm like his, is likely to have been violently agitated by the confideration of the circumstances in which he flood, and the business he had undertaken. To raise his country to power and fplendour had been the object that, through life, his mind had purfued with fingular ardour. He had fucceeded, and his fuccefs had covered him with no common glory. The thought of being engaged, now in advanced years, in the purpose of bringing deftruction on that country, of ruining his own great work, could not but imbitter his best

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hopes;

hopes; while at the fame time every fair hope was highly precarious; the envy and jealoufy of his new friends were little lefs to be apprehended than the fwords of his enemies; and defeat, in fuch a caufe, muft involve him in tenfold mifery and difgrace. It is no wonder therefore reports fhould have gained that he procured a voluntary death by poison; but, though the truth was not certainly knows, Thucydides feems rather to have thought that his end was natural. A magnificent monument raised to his memory in the agora of Magnesia on the Mæander, where had been his principal refidence, is mentioned by Thucydides, and remained to the age of Plutarch; but his bones, in purfuance of his dying request, were carried into Attica, and privately buried there. This circumstance, to which Thucydides evidently gave credit, though it seems not to have been fully authenticated, would mark, beyond all others, the regret he had in undertaking the part against his country, to which the ruthlefs violence of his political opponents drove him.'

Though we have not thought proper to extend the extract to a greater length, we must obferve that the hiftorian has done ample juftice to the character of Themiftocles, who may be confidered as the most eminent perfonage of his time, with reSpect to political importance.

The next chapter is employed on the affairs of Greece from the establishment of its fecurity against Perfia, to the truce for thirty years between Athens and Lacedæmon. This period was diftinguished by the banishment of Cimon, and the fubfequent elevation of Pericles, another illuftrious character, who built the long walls of Athens, and increafed the fplendour of that capital to an extraordinary degree. Under his auspicious administration, science, arts, and fine taste, made a glorious progrefs at Athens; and he attempted to improve the conftitution, not only of Athens but of Greecé in general; though, from the jealoufy of other ftates, particularly of Lacedæmon, his great defign proved abortive. The philofophical hiftorian likewife pays, in the fubfequent chapter of the work, ȧ just tribute of praife to. the memory of this accomplished citizen, who by his eloquence, his political abilities, his magnificent patronage of the elegant arts, and his civil and military atchievements, procured to himfelf and his country immortal renown. Our author thus celebrates his character:

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No man feems to have been held in fuch estimation by most of the ableft writers of Greece and Rome, for univerfal fuperiority of talents, as Pericles. The accounts remaining of his actions hardly fupport his renown; which was yet perhaps more fairly earned than that of many, the merit of whofe atchievements has been in a great degree due to others acting un

der

der them, whofe very names perished. The philofophy of Peicles taught him not to be vain-glorious; but to reft his fame upon effentially great and good, rather than upon brilliant ac tions. It is oblerved by Plutarch that, as often as he commanded the Athenian forces, he never was defeated; yet, though he won many trophies, he never gained a fplendid victory. A battle, according to a great modern authority, is the resource of ignorant generals: when they know not what to do, they fight a battle. It was almost univerfally the refource of the age of Pericles little conception was entertained of militany opera tions, beyond ravage and a battle. His genius led him to a fu perior fyftem, which the wealth of his country enabled him to carry into practice. His favourite maxim was to fpare the lives of his foldiers; and fearcely any general ever gained fo many important advantages with io little bloodshed, It is faid to have been his confolation and his boat in his dying hours, that he never was the caufe that a fellow-citizen wore mourning: a glorious and perhaps a fingular fubject of exultation for a head of a party in Greece; where, in the ftruggles of faction, fecret affallinations, numerous public executions, and bloody contests in arms, were fo ordinary. Pericles might almoft equally have made it his boat in his capacity of general of the commonwealth; for when his foldiers fell, they fell victims to the neceflity of their country's fervice, and not to the incapacity, rafhnefs, or vanity of the commander. Had he been lefs a patriot, lefs a philofopher, lefs humane, his atchievements might have been more brillant, but he would not equally have earned, from the mouth of Socrates, the praife of fupereminence in whatever was wife, great, and becoming."

Mr. Mitford recites with great perfpicuity the progrefs of the Peloponnefian war, through all the complex and fluctuating circumftances which diftinguish this period of Grecian history. He follows chiefly, through the whole, with undeviating attention, the authority of Thucydides, whofe narrative he frequently illuftrates with judicious obfervations, rendering even the lefs explicit parts of that contemporary hiftorian fubfervient to the establishment of facts. Nothing can elucidate the political ftate of Greece in general, at the time, or the ftate of parties in the principal republics, more clearly than the accurate account detailed of them by our author in the course of the present work; and we think he has likewife given a more just idea of the intrigues of the Grecian aristocracies, as well as the capricioufnefs and barbarism of the democratical governments, than we meet with in any other writer who has treated of Grecian affairs. Of capriciousness the inftances are innumerable, and thofe of barbarifm abound in a degree almost beyond what is credible of civilized nations. The following may ferve as an example:

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After

After all we have gone through of Grecian history, we can not but fhudder at what followed. The Athenians had no pretence for any command over the Means but that they were ftronger. Connected by blood, by habit, and by their form of government with Lacedæmon, thofe iflanders had nevertheless been cautiously inoff nfive to Athens, till forced to become ene mies. The puniflument for this involuntary crime, even to the lower people, fuppofed all along in fome degree friendly, when all were furrendered together to the mercy of the Athenians, was no less than what the unfortunate Siconans had undergone, for that termed their rebellion. All the adult males were put to death, and the women and children, of all ranks, were fold for flaves. The ifland was divided among five hundred Athenian families. With the moft unquestionable testimony to facts which frike with horror when prpetrated by a tribe of favages, we are at a lofs to conceive how they could take place in the peculiar country and age of philofophy and the fine arts; where Pericles had spoken and ruled, where Thucydides was then writing, where Socrates was then teaching, where Xenophon and Plato and Ifocrates were receiving their education, and where the paintings of Parrhafius and Zeuxis, the fculp ture of Pheidias and Praxiteles, the architecture of Callicrates and Mneficles, and the fublime and chafte dramas of Sophocles and Euripides formed the delight of the people.'

The portion of history comprised in the prefent volume, exhibits the republic of Athens involved in a difmal fucceffion of difafters :-Attica ravaged by the Peloponnefians; a fecond inyafion by the fame confederates; a peftilence at Athens; a third invafion of Attica; a fourth invafion; the Athenians reduced to the utmost distress by their overthrow in Sicily; their conqueft afterwards by the Lacedæmonians; and lastly, to complete their humiliation, the deftruction of the long walls and the fortifications of Piræus. Amidst all her calamities, however, Athens was never found deftitute of fome eminent men, whose extraordinary spirit and activity inspired general animation, and reftored the fortunes of the republic. The fpeech of Nicias to the foldiers, after the difafter at Syracufe, is worthy to be prefented to our readers as a valuable ancient monument of philo fophical magnanimity.

Amid the extreme dejection and anguish, not without rea fon pervading the armament, Nicias wonderfully fupported the dignity of his character and fituation. Individually the diftrefs of the existing circumflances appeared not to affect him; his only anxiety feemed to be to relieve that of others, and to diffufe encouragement among all. What authority the historian may have had for the remarkable words he attributes to him on the occafion, we cannot know; but whether we confider them as conveying the fentiments of Nicias or of Thucydides, they

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are highly interesting, as they mark the opinion entertained of the divine providence, by a man of exalted rank, of extenfive information and experience, juft and religiously difpofed, but never taught to consider this life as a fate of probation, and to expect in futurity the reward of good or the punishment of evil deeds. From the head of the line, Thucydides informs us, exering his voice to the utmost, that he might be heard as extenfively as poffible, Nicias, with an unruffled countenance, defired the troops to advert to his own cafe: "I, he faid, am in body (you may fee indeed the ftate to which my diforder has reduced me) very far from being the strongest among you. In the bleffings of high fortune I was once inferior to none: but now I must bear every prefent evil, I have to apprehend every threatened danger, in common with the lowest under my command. Such is my lot; who have always been regular and zealous in every duty to the gods; and generally not only feru pulously just, but liberally charitable among men. Hence I have hope and confidence that our fortune will change for the better. The affliction we now fuffer is furely beyond our defert; the enemy have already been fufficiently fortunate; and if our enterprize against this country has offended any of the gods, it cannot be but our prefent evils are adequate punish ment. For we are not the first who have drawn our fwords in the attempt, unjustifiable be it confeffed, to fubjugate and reduce to flavery our fellow-creatures, and feize to ourselves their poffeffions. In doing thus, however, doing only what is ordi nary among men, others have fuffered for it only what men may bear. We therefore have furely reafon to hope that the gods will at length moderate their apparent excefs of vengeance against us; objects as we are already become, of pity rather than of indignation.

"Confiding thus far then in the divine mercy let us look to what, mere human things confidered, our circumstances are, and furely we ought not to defpond. Such a force as we pof fefs, with fo large a proportion of regular troops, wherever we establish our abode, we are not only a formidable army, we are a commonwealth. Certainly no Sicilian ftate, Syracuse excepted, will eafily drive us from any fituation we may occupy; or even prevent us from occupying any we may defire. To be fafe, indeed, we have only to reach the Sicel territory; for their fear of the Syracufans infures to us the friendship of the barbarians. Firm minds and orderly conduct then are the things principally neceffary to your welfare; and not to yours only, but that of the Athenian commonwealth; which, however lamentably fallen through our misfortune, it may not be beyond our ability to restore; fince the strength of a state confifts not an towns, nor in territory, nor in fhips, but in men."

In the annotations which occur in this volume, we have every where reason to approve of the obfervations of our au

thor,

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