(0) In the mean time the Alcmeonida, who from the be ginning of the revolution had been banished from Athens by Pifiitratus, and who faw their hopes fruftrated by the bad fuccefs of the laft confpiracy, did not however lofe courage, but turned their views another way. As they were very rich and powerful, they got themfelves appointed by the Amphyctions, that is, the heads of the grand or general council of Greece, fuperintendants for rebuilding the temple of Delphos, for the fum of three hundred talents, or nine hundred thousand livres. As they were very generous in their natures, and befides had their reafons for being fo on this occafion, they added to this fum a great deal of their own money, and made the whole frontifpiece of the temple all of Parian marble, at their par ticular expence; whereas, by the contract made with the Amphyctions, it was only to have been made of common stone.

The liberality of the Alcmeonidae was not altogether a free bounty; neither was their magnificence towards the god of Delphos, a pure effect of religion. Pelicy was the chief motive. They hoped by this means to acquire great credit and influence in the temples, which happened according to their expectation. The money, which they had plentifully poured into the hands of the prieftefs, rendered them abfolute masters of the oracle, and of the pretended god who prefided over it, and who for the future becoming their echo, faithfully repeated. the words they dictated to him, and gratefully lent them the affiftance of his voice and authority. As often therefore as any . Spartan came to confult the priestefs, whether upon his own affairs, or upon thofe of the state, no promife was ever made him of the god's affiftance, but upon condition that the Lacedaemonians Thould deliver Athens from the yoke of tyranny. This order was fo often repeated to them by the oracle, that they refolved at laft to make war against the Pififtratides, though they were under the strongest engagements of friendship and hofpitality with them; herein preferring the will of God, fays Herodotus, to all human confiderations.

The first attempt of this kind mifcarried; and the troops. they fent against the tyrant were repulfed with lofs. Notwithftanding, a little time after they made a fecond, which feemed to promife no better an iue than the first; because most of the Lacedæmonians, feeing the fiege they had laid before Athens. likely to continue a great while, retired, and left only a small number of troops to carry it on. But the tyrant's children,

(o) Herod. 1. v. c. 62--96.

• About 40,000 1. Sterling, δὲν ἀνδρῶν,

who

† Τὰ γὰρ τῷ Θεῷ πρεσβύτερα ἐποιῶντο, ἢ τὰ

who had been clandeftinely conveyed out of the city, in order to be put in a safe place, being taken by the enemy, the father, to redeem them, was obliged to come to an accommodation with the Athenians, by which it was ftipulated, that he should depart out of Attica in five days time. (p) Accordingly he actually retired within the time limited, and fettled at Sigæum, a town in Phrygia, feated at the mouth of the river Scamander. (9) Pliny obferves, that the tyrants were driven out of Athens the fame year the kings were expelled Rome. Extraordinary honours were paid to the memory of Harmodius and Ariftogiton. Their names were infinitely refpected at Athens in all fucceeding ages, and almost held in equal reverence with those of the gods. Statues were forthwith erected to them in the market place, which was an honour, that never had been rendered to any man before. The very fight of thefe ftatues, expofed to the view of all the citizens, kept up their hatred and deteftation of tyranny, and daily renewed their fentiments of gratitude to thofe generous defenders of their liberty, who had not fcrupled to purchase it with their lives, and to feal it with their blood. (x) Alexander the Great, who knew how dear the memory of thefe men were to the Athenians, and how far they carried their zeal in this refpect, thought he did them a fenfible plea fure in fending them the ftatues of thofe two great men, which he found in Perfia after the defeat of Darius, and which Xerxes before had carried thither from Athens. (s) This city, at the time of her deliverance from tyranny, did not confine her gratitude folely to the authors of her liberty; but extended it even to a woman, who had fignalized her courage on that occa fion. This woman was a courtezan, named Leona, who, by the charms of her beauty, and skill in playing upon the harp, had particularly captivated Harmodius and Ariftogiton. After their death, the tyrant, who knew they had concealed nothing from this woman, caufed her to be put to the torture, in order to make her declare the names of the other confpirators. But fhe bore all the cruelty of their torments with an invincible conftancy, and expired in the midst of them; gloriously fhewing the world, that her fex is more courageous, and more capable of keeping a fecret, than fome men imagine. The Athenians would not fuffer the memory of fo heroick an action to be loft: And, to prevent the luftre of it from being fullied by the confideration of her character as a courtezan, they endeavoured to conceal that circumftance, by reprefenting her in

(p) A. M. 3496. Ant. J. C. 508. (g) Plin. l. xxxiv. c, 4. c. 8. (1) Ibid. 1. vii, c. 23, & 1, xxxiv, CAS..

the

(x) Ibid.

the flatue, which they erected to her honour,, under the figure of a lionefs without a tongue.

() Plutarch, in the life of Ariflides, relates a thing, which does great honour to the Athenians, and which fhews to what a pitch they carried their gratitude to their deliverer, and their refpect for his memory. They had learned that the granddaughter of Ariftogiton lived at Lemnos, in very mean and poor circumstances, nobody being willing to marry her upon account of her extreme indigence and poverty. The people of Athens fent for her, and marrying her to one of the most rich and confiderable inen of their city, gave her an estate in land in the town of Potamos for her portion.

Athens feemed in recovering her liberty to have alfo recovered her courage. During the reigns of her tyrants, he had acted with indolence and inactivity, as knowing what he did was not for herself, but for them. But after her deliverence from their yoke, the vigour and activity fhe exerted was of a quite different kind; because then her labours were her own.

Athens however did not immediately enjoy a perfect tranquillity. Two of her citizens, Clifthenes, one of the Alc monides, and Ifagoras,, who were men of the greateft credit and power in the city, by contending with each other for fuperiority, created two confiderable factions. The former, who had gained the people on his fide, made an alteration in the form of their establishment, and instead of four tribes, whereof they confifled before, divided that body into ten tribes, to which he gave the names of the ten fons of Ion, whom the Greek hiftorians make the father and first founder of the nation. Ifagoras, feeing himself inferior in credit to his rival, had recourfe to the Lacedæmonians. Cleomenes, one of the two kings of Sparta, obliged Cliflrenes to depart from Athens, with feven hundred families of his adherents. But they foon returned, and were reftored to all their eftates and fortunes.

The Lacedæmonians, flung with fpite and jealoufy against Athens, becaufe fhe took upon her to aft independent of their authority; and repenting alfo, that they had delivered her from her tyrants upon the credit of an oracle, of which they had fince difcovered the impofture, began to think of reinftating Hippias, one of the fons of Pififtratus; and to that end fent for him from Sigæum, whether he had retired. They then communicated their defign to the deputies of their allies, whofe affillance and concurrence they propofed to use, in order to render their enterprize more fuccesful."

The

3

(1) Page 335.

The deputy of Corinth spoke firft on this occafion, and expreffed great aftonishment, that the Lacedæmonians, who were themselves avowed enemies of tyranny, and profeffed the greatest abhorrence for all arbitrary government, fhould defire to establish it elsewhere; defcribing at the fame time, in a lively manner, all the cruel and horrid effects of tyrannical government, as his own country Corinth had but very lately felt by woful experience. The reft of the deputies applauded his difcourfe, and were of his opinion. Thus the enterprize came to nothing and had no other effect, but to difcover the base jealousy of the Lacedæmonians, and to cover them with fhame and confufion.

Hippias, defeated of his hopes, retired into Afia to Artaphernes, governor of Sardis for the king of Perfia, whom he endeavoured by all manner of means to engage in a war against Athens; reprefenting to him, that the taking of fo rich and powerful a city would render himr mafter of all Greece. Artaphernes hereupon required of the Athenians, that they would reinitate Hippias in the government; to which they made no other anfwer, but by a downright and abfolute refufal. This was the original ground and occafion of the wars between the Pers and the Greeks, which will be the fubject of the fol lowing volumes.

ILLUSTRIOUS MEN, who diftinguished themselves in arts and fciences...

Begin with the Poets, becaufe the moft ancient..

HOMBR, the most celebrated and illuftrious of all the poets, is he of whom we have the leaft knowledge, either with refpect to the country where he was born, or the time in which he lived. Among the feven cities of Greece, that contend for the honour of having given him birth, Smyrna feems to have the best title.

(u) Herodotus tells us, that Homer wrote four hundred years before his time, that is, three hundred and forty years after the taking of Troy For Herodotus flourished feven hundred and forty years after that expedition.

Some authors have pretended, that he was called Homer, because he was born blind. Velleius Paterculus rejects this ftory with contempt. "If any man, fays he, believes that 661 Homer

(2) Lib, ii. c. 53. A. M..3160. Ant. J. C. 844. Quem fi quis cæcum gentium putat, omnibus fenfibus orbus eft. Paterci

"Homer was born blind, he must be so himself, and even

have loft all his fenfes." Indeed, according to the obfervatation of (w) Cicero, Homer's works are rather pictures than poems; fo perfectly does he paint to the life, and fet the images of every thing, he undertakes to defcribe, before the eyes of the reader: And he feems to have been intent upon introducing all the moft delightful and agreeable objects, that nature affords, into his writings, and to make them in a manner pass in review before his readers.

What is most aftonishing in this poet is, that having applied himself the first, at least of those that are known, to that kind of poetry, which is the moft fublime and difficult of all, he should however foar fo high, and with fuch rapidity, at the first flight as it were, as to carry it at once to the utmost perfection; which feldom or never happens in other arts, but by flow degrees, and after a long feries of years.

The kind of poetry we are speaking of, is the epick poem, fo called from the Greek word nos; because it is an action related by the poet. The fubject of this poem must be great, in ftructive, ferious, containing only one principal event, to which all the reft must refer, and be fubordinate: And this principal action must have paffed in a certain space of time, which must not exceed a year at most.

Homer has compofed two poems of this kind, the Iliad and the Odyffey: The fubject of the firft is the anger of Achilles, fo pernicious to the Greeks, when they befieged Ilion, or Troy; and that of the second is the voyages and adventures of Ulyffes, after the taking of that city.

It is remarkable, that no nation in the world, however learned and ingenious, has ever produced any poems comparable to his; and that whoever have attempted any works of that kind, have taken their plan and ideas from Homer, borrowed alb their rules from him, made him their model, and have only fucceeded in proportion to their fuccefs in copying him. The truth is, Homer was an original genius, and fit for others to be formed upon (x) Fons ingeniorum Homerus.

All the greatest men and the most exalted' genius's, that have appeared for these two thousand and five or fix hundred years,

(z) Tuf. Quæft. l. v. n. 114, ❤ Clariffimum deinde Homeri illuxit ingenium, fine exemplo maximum: qui magnitudine operis, & fulgore carminum, folus appellari Poeta mesuit. In quo hoc maximum eft, quod neque ante illum, quem ille imitare.

(x) Plin. 1. xvii c. 5.

in

| tur; neque poft illum, qui imitari cum poffit, inventus eft: neque quem. quam alium, cujus operis primus auctor fderit, in eo perfectiffimum, præter Homerum & Archilochum reperiemus, Vell, Pater, §. i. c. 5.