(0) The last of these two had his fhare in the general calamity: For that fame year he was taken by the Perfians, and carried to Sardis, where Artaphernes caused him to be immediately hanged, without confulting Darius, left that prince's affection for Hystiæus should incline him to pardon him, and by that means a dangerous enemy fhould be left alive, who might create the Perfians new troubles. It appeared by the fequel, that Artaphernes's conjecture was well grounded: For when Hyftiæus's head was brought to Darius, he expreffed great diffatisfaction at the authors of his death, and caused The head to be honourably interred, as being the remains of a perfon to whom he had infinite obligations, the remembrance whereof was too deeply engraven on his mind, ever to be effaced by the greatness of any crimes he had afterwards committed. Hyfliæus was one of those restlefs, bold, and enterprizing fpirits, in whom many good qualities are joined with ftill greater vices; with whom all means are lawful and good, that feem to promote the end they have in view; who look upon justice, probity, and fincerity, as mere empty names; who make no fcruple to employ lying or fraud, treachery, or even perjury, when it is to serve their turn; and who reckon it as nothing to ruin nations, or even their own country, if neceffary to their own elevation. His end was worthy his fentiments, and what is common enough to these irreligious politicians, who facrifice every thing to their ambition, and acknowledge no other rule of their actions, and hardly any other God, but their intereft and fortune.

SECT. VII. The expedition of DARIUS's armies againf

GREECE.

ARIUS, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign,

(2)D having recalled all his other generals, fent Mardo

nius the son of Gobryas, a young lord of an illustrious Persian family, who had lately married one of the king's daughters, to command in chief throughout all the maritime parts of Afia, with a particular order to invade Greece, and to revenge the burning of Sardis upon the Athenians and Eretrians The king did not fhew much wisdom in this choice, by which he preferred a young man, because he was a favourite, to all his oldeft and most experienced generals; efpecially as it was in fo difficult a war, the fuccefs of which he had very much at heart, and wherein the glory of his reign was infinitely concerned.

(0) Herod. 1. vi. c. 29, 30. Herod, I. vi. c. 43, 45:

His

(p) A. M. 3510. Ant. J. C. 494. 5

His being fon-in-law to the king was a quality indeed, that might augment his credit, but added nothing to his real merit, or his capacity as a general.

Upon his arrival in Macedonia, into which he had marched with his land-forces after having paffed through Thrace, the whole country, terrified by his power, fubmitted. But his fleet, attempting to double mount Athos (now called Capo Santo) in order to gain the coafts of Macedonia, was attacked with fo violent a ftorm of wind, that upwards of three hundred fhips, with above twenty thousand men, perished in the fea. His land-army met at the fame time with no less fatal a blow. For, being encamped in a place of no fecurity, the Thracians attacked the Perfian camp by night, made a great flaughter of the men, and wounded Mardonius himself. All this ill fuccefs obliged him fhortly after to return into Afia, with grief and confufion at his having miscarried both by fea and land in this expedition.

Darius, perceiving too late, that Mardonius's youth and inexperience had occafioned the defeat of his troops, recalled him, and put two other generals in his place, Datis, a Mede, and Artaphernes, fon of his brother Artaphernes, who had been governor of Sardis. The king's thoughts were earnestly bent upon putting in execution the great defign he had long had in his mind, which was, to attack Greece with all his forces, and particularly to take a fignal vengeance of the people of Athens and Eretria, whofe enterprize against Sadis was perpetually in his thoughts.

1. The fate of ATHENS. The characters of M1LTIADES, THEMISTOCLES, and ARISTIDES.

Before we enter upon this war, it will be proper to refresh our memories with a view of the ftate of Athens at this time, which alone fuftained the first shock of the Perfians at Marathon; as also to form fome idea beforehand of the great men who shared in that celebrated victory.

Athens, juft delivered from that yoke of fervitude, which fhe had been forced to bear for above thirty years under the tyranny of Pififtratus and his children, now peaceably enjoyed the advantages of liberty, the fweetnefs and value of which were only heightened and improved by that fhort privation. Lacedæmon, which was at this time the mistress of Greece, and had contributed at first to this happy change in Athens, feemed afterwards to repent of her good offices: And growing jealous of the tranquillity she herself had procured for her neighbours,

the attempted to disturb it, by endeavouring to reinftate Hippias the fon of Pififtratus, in the government of Athens. But all her attempts were fruitlefs, and ferved only to manifeft her ill-will, and her grief, to fee Athens determined to maintain its independence even of Sparta itself. Hippias hereupon had recourse to the Perfians. Artaphernes, governor of Sardis, fent the Athenians word, as we have already mentioned, that they must re-establish Hippias in his authority, unless they chofe rather to draw the whole power of Darius upon them. This Lecond attempt fucceeded no better than the first, Hippias was obliged to wait for a more favourable juncture. We shall fee prefently, that he served as a conductor or guide to the Perfian generals, fent by Darius against Greece.

Athens, from the recovery of her liberty, was quite another city than under her tyrants, and difplayed a very different kind of fpirit. (9) Among the citizens, Miltiades diflinguished himfelf moit in the war with the Perfians, which we are going to relate. He was the fon of Cimon an illuftrious Athenian. This Cimon had a half-brother by the mother's fide, whofe name was likewife Miltiades, of a very ancient and noble family in Egina, who had lately been received into the number of the Athenian citizens. He was a perfon of great credit even in the time of Pififtratus: But, being unwilling to bear the yoke of a defpotick government, he joyfully embraced the offer made him, of going to fettle with a colony in the Thracian Cherfonefus, whither he was invited by the Dolonci, the inhabitants of that country, to be their king, or, according to the language of thole times, their tyrant. He dying with out children, left the fovereignty to Stefagoras, who was his nephew, and eldeft fon of his brother Cimon; and Stefagoras dying alfo without iffue, the fons of Pififtratus, who then ruled the city of Athens, fent his brother Miltiades, the perfon we are now fpeaking of, into that country to be his fucceffor. He, arrived there, and established himself in the government in the fame year Darius undertook bis expedition against the Scythians. He attended that prince with fome flips as far as the. Danube; and was the person who advised the lonians to destroy the bridge, and return home without waiting for Darius, During his refidence in the Cherfonefus, he married Hegefipyla, daughter of Olorus, a Thracian king in the neighbourhood, by whom he had Cimon, the famous Athenian general, of whom

(9) Herod, 1, vi, e. 34, 41. After the death of Miltiades, this princess bad by a fecond bufband a fun, who was called Olorus, after the name

Cor. Nep. in Mil. cap. i-iii.
of his grandfather, and who was the
farker" of "Ibicydides the biftorian.
tierpd.

whom a great deal will be faid in the fequel. Miltiades, having for feveral reafons abdicated his government in Thrace, embarked, and took all that he had on board five fhips, and. fet fail for Athens. There he fettled a fecond time, and acquired great reputation.

(r) At the fame time two other citizens, younger than Miltiades, began to diftinguish themfelves at Athens, namely, Ariftides and Themistocles. Plutarch obferves, that the former of these two had endeavoured to form himself upon the model of Clifthenes, one of the greatest men of his time, and a zealous defender of liberty, who had very much contributed to the restoring it at Athens, by expelling the Pififtratides out of that city. It was an excellent custom among the ancients, and which it were to be wished might prevail amongst us, that the young men, ambitious of publick employments, particu larly attached themfelves to fuch aged and experienced perfons, as had diftinguished themfelves moft eminently therein; and who, both by their converfation and example, could teach them the art of acting themfelves, and governing others with wifdom and difcretion. Thus, fays Plutarch, did Ariftides attach himself to Clifthenes, and Cimon to Ariftides; and he mentions feveral others, among the reft Polybius, whom we have mentioned fo often, and who in his youth was the conftant difciple, and faithful imitator of the celebrated Philopomen.

Themistocles and Ariftides were of very different difpofitions; but they both rendered great fervices to the commonwealth. Themistocles, who naturally inclined to popular government, omitted nothing, that could contribute to render him agreeable to the people, and to gain him friends; behaving himself with great affability and complaifance to every body, always ready to do fervice to the citizens, every one of. whom he knew by name; nor was he very nice about the means he used to oblige them. (5) Somebody talking with him once on this fubject, told him, he would make an excellent magiftrate, if his behaviour towards the citizens was more equal, and if he was not biaffed in favour of one more than another God forbid, replied Themiftocles, I fhould ever fit upon a tribunal, where my friends fhould find no more credit or favour than firangers. Cleon, who appeared fome time after at Athens, obferved a quite different conduct, but yet fuch as was not

S 3

wholly. (r) Plut. in Arift. p. 319, 320. & in Them. p. 112, 113. An feni fit ger. Refp. p. 790, 791. (s) Cic. de Senect. Plut. An fit ger..

Rep. p. 806, 807.

Difcere à peritis, fequi optimos. Tacit. in Agric.

wholly exempt from blame. When he came into the administration of publick affairs, he affembled all his friends, and declared to them, that from that moment he renounced their friendship, left it should prove an obftacle to him in the difcharge of his duty, and caufe him to act with partiality and injuftice. This was doing them very little honour, and judging hardly of their integrity. But, as Plutarch fays, it was not his friends but his paffions that he ought to have renounced. Ariftides had the difcretion to obferve a juft medium between thefe two vicious extremes. Being a favourer of aristocracy in imitation of Lycurgus, whofe great admirer he was, he in a manner ftruck out a new path of his own; not endeavouring to oblige his friends at the expence of juflice, and yet always ready to do them fervice when confiftent with it. He carefully avoided making ufe of his friends recommendations for obtaining employments, left it fhould prove a dangerous obligation upon him, as well as a plaufible pretext for them, to require the fame favour from him on the like occafion. He used to fay, that the true citizen, or the honeft man, ought to make no other ufe of his credit and power, than upon all occafions to practise what was honeft and just, and engage others to do the fame.

Confidering this contrariety of principles and humours among thefe great men, we are not to wonder, if, during their adminiftration, there was a continual oppofition between them. Themiftocles, who was bold and enterprizing in almoft all his attempts, was still fure almost always to find Aristides against him, who thought himself obliged to thwart the other's defigns, even fometimes when they were juft and beneficial to the publick, left he fhould get too great an afcendant and authority, which might become pernicious to the commonwealth. One day, having got the better of Themiftocles, who had made fome proposal really advantageous to the state, he could not contain himself, but cried out aloud as he went out of the affembly, That the Athenians would never profper, till they threw them both into the Barathram: The Barathrum was a pit, into which malefactors condemned to die were thrown. (t) But notwithstanding this mutual oppofition, when the common intereft was at stake, they were no longer enemies: And whenever they were to take the field, or engage in any expedition, they agreed together to lay afide all differences on leaving the city, and to be at liberty to refume them on their return, if they thought fit. The predominant paffion of Themistocles was ambition and the love of glory, which difcovered itfelf from his childhood.

() Plut. Apophthegm. p. 186,

After