had each 120 men, and those of Philoctetes 50; and this no doubt denotes the greatest and smallest vessels. Their galleys had no decks, but were built like common boats; which is still practised, says Thucydides, by the pirates, to prevent their being so soon discovered at a distance.

The Corinthians are said to have been the first who changed the form of ships; and instead of simple galleys made vessels with three ranks, in order to add, by increasing the number of oars, to the swiftness and impetuosity of their motion. Their city, advantageously situated between two seas, was well adapted for commerce, and served as a staple for merchandise. After their example, the inhabitants of Corcyra, and the tyrants of Sicily, equipped also many galleys of three benches, a little before the war against the Persians. It was about the same time that the Athenians, animated by the forcible exhortations of Themistocles, who foresaw the war which soon after broke out, built ships of the same form, though even then the deck did not reach the whole length of the vessel; and from thenceforth they applied themselves to naval affairs with incredible ardour and success.

The beak of the prow (rostrum) was that part of the vessel of which most use was made in sea-fights. Ariston of Corinth persuaded the Syracusans, when their city was besieged by the Athenians, to make their prows lower and shorter; which advice gained them the victory. For the prows of the Athenian vessels being very high and very weak, their beaks struck only the parts above water, and for that reason did little damage to the enemy's ships; whereas those of the Syracusans, whose prows were strong and low, and their beaks level with the water, often sunk, at a single blow, the triremes of the Athenians.

more of the labour than they? Fatner Montfaucon believes that in the vessels of more than five ranks there might be several men to one oar.

He who took care of the whole crew, and command.. ed the vessel, was called nauclerus, and was the principal officer. The second was the pilot, gubernator; his place was in the poop, where he held the helm in his hand, and steered the vessel. His skill consisted in knowing the coasts, ports, rocks, shoals, and especially the winds and stars; for before the invention of the compass, the pilot had nothing to direct him during the night but the stars.

2. The soldiers who fought in the ships were armed almost in the same manner with the land forces. There was no fixed number. The Athenians, at the battle of Salamis, had 180 vessels, and in each of them eighteen fighting men, four of whom were archers, and the rest heavy-armed troops. The officer who commanded these soldiers was called rpipapxos, and the commander of the whole fleet, vabaoxos or oтparnyós.

We cannot exactly ascertain the number of soldiers, mariners, and rowers, that served on board each ship; but it generally amounted to 200, more or less, as appears from Herodotus's estimate of the Persian fleet in the time of Xerxes, and in other places where mention is made of that of the Greeks. I mean here the great vessels, the triremes, which were the species most in use.

G

The pay of those who served in these ships varied very much at different times. When the younger Cyrus arrived in Asia, it was only three oboli, which was half a drachma, or five-pence; and the treaty be tween the Persians and Lacedæmonians was concluded at that rate; which gives reason to believe that the usual pay was three oboli. Cyrus, at Lysander's reTwo sorts of people served on board these galleys. quest, added a fourth, which made sixpence-halfpenny The one were employed in steering and working the a day. It was often raised to a whole drachma,* ship, who were the rowers, remiges, and the mariners, about ten-pence French. In the fleet fitted out against naula. The rest were soldiers intended for the fight, Sicily, the Athenians gave a drachma a day to the and are denoted in Greek by the word zißarai. This troops. The sum of sixty talents, which the people distinction did not prevail in the early times, when the of Egesta advanced to the Athenians monthly for the same persons rowed, fought, and did all the necessary maintaining of sixty ships, 10 shows that the pay of work of the ship, and this was also not wholly disused each vessel for a month amounted to a talent, that is to in later days. For Thucydides, in describing the say, to about 1401.; which supposes that each ship's arrival of the Athenian fleet at the small island of company consisted of 200 men, each of whom receivSphacteria, observes, that only the rowers of the low-ed a drachma, or ten-pence, a day. As the officers' est bench remained in the ships, and that the rest went on shore with their arms.

1. The condition of the rowers was very hard and laborious. I have already said that the rowers, as well as mariners, were all citizens and freemen, and not slaves or foreigners, as in these days. The rowers were distinguished by their several stages. The lower rank were called thalamita, the middle zugita, and the highest thranita. Thucydides remarks, that the latter had greater pay than the rest, because they worked with longer and heavier oars than those of the lower benches. It seems that the crew, in order to pull in concert, and with greater regularity, were sometimes guided by the singing of a man, and sometimes by the sound of an instrument; and this grateful harmony served not only to regulate the motion of their oars, but to diminish and sooth their toil.

It is a question amongst the learned, whether there was only one man to every oar in these great ships, or several, as in the galleys of these days. What Thucydides observes concerning the pay of the thranitæ, seems to imply that they worked single. For if others had shared the work with them, wherefore had they greater pay given them than those who managed an oar alone, as the latter had as much, and perhaps

pay was higher, the republic perhaps either furnished the overplus, or it was deducted out of the total of the sum advanced for a vessel, by abating something in the pay of the private men.

The same may be said of the land troops as has been said of the seamen, except that the cavalry had double their pay. It appears that the ordinary pay of the foot was three oboli a day, and that it was augmented according to times and occasions. Thimbron the Lacedæmonian, when he marched against Tissaphernes, promised a darick a month to each soldier, two to a captain, and four to the colonels. Now a darick a month is four oboli a day. The younger Cyrus, to animate his troops, who were disheartened by the idea of a too long march, instead of one darick, promised one and a half to each soldier, which amounted to a drachma, or ten-pence French, a day.

It may be asked how the Lacedæmonians, whose iron coin, the only species current amongst them, would pass no where else, could maintain armies by sea and land; and where they found money for their subsistence. It is not to be doubted but they raised it, as the Athenians did, by contributions from their allies, and still more from the cities to which they gave liberty and protection, or from those they had

conquered from their enemies. Their second fund for paying their fleet and armies was the aids which they drew from the king of Persia, as we have seen on several occasions.

SECTION V. PECULIAR CHARACTER OF THE

ATHENIANS.

PLUTARCH Will furnish us with almost all the leading features upon this head. Every body knows how well he succeeds in copying nature in his portraits, and how well calculated he was to trace the character of a people whose genius and manners he had studied with so profound an attention.

I. The people of Athens,' says Plutarch, are easily provoked to anger, and as easily induced to resume sentiments of benevolence and compassion. History supplies us with an infinity of examples of this kind: the sentence of death passed against the inhabitants of Mitylene, and revoked the next day: the condemnation of the ten generals, and that of Socrates,-both followed with an immediate repentance and the most lively grief.

II. They are better pleased with forming a prompt decision, and almost guessing at the result of an affair, than with giving themselves leisure to be informed in it thoroughly, and in all its extent.

while appeared at last with a wreath of flowers upon his head, and desired the people to adjourn their deliberations to the next day: "For to day," said he, “I have business. I have been sacrificing to the gods, and am to entertain some strangers, my friends, at supper." The Athenians, setting up a laugh, rose, and broke up the assembly. At Carthage, it would have cost any man his life, who had presumed to vent such a pleasantry, and to take such a liberty with a proud," haughty, jealous, morose people, little disposed by nature to cultivate the graces, and still less inclined to humour. Upon another occasion the orator Stratocles, having informed the people of a victory, and in consequence caused sacrifices to be offered,-three days after, news came of the defeat of the army. As the people expressed their discontent and resentment upon the false information, he asked them "of what they had to complain, and what harm he had done them, in making them pass three days more agreeably than they would else have done ?"

IV. They are pleased with hearing themselves praised, and yet readily bear to be ridiculed or criticised. The least acquaintance with Aristophanes and Demosthenes will show with what address and effect they employed praises and censure with regard to the people of Athens.

emergencies of the state, they became serious, and gave the preference to those whose custom it had been to oppose their unjust desires: such as Pericles, Phocion, and Demosthenes.

V. They keep even those who govern them in awe, and show their humanity even to their enemies.10

Nothing is more surprising than this circumstance When the republic enjoyed peace and tranquilin their character, which it is very hard to conceive, as lity," says the same Plutarch in another place, the it seems almost incredible. Artificers, husbandmen, Athenian people diverted themselves with the ora soldiers, mariners, are generally a heavy kind of peo-tors who flattered them; but in important affairs and ple, and very dull in their conceptions; but the people of Athens were of a quite different turn. They had naturally a penetration, vivacity, and even delicacy of wit, that surprise us. I have already mentioned what happened to Theophrastus. He was cheapening something of an old woman of Athens that sold herbs: No, Mr. Stranger, said she, you shall not have it for less. He was much surprised to see himself treated as a stranger, who had passed almost his whole life at Athens, and piqued himself upon excelling all others in the elegance of his language. It was, however, from that she knew he was not of her country. We have seen that the Athenian soldiers knew the fine passages of the tragedies of Euripides by heart. Besides, these artificers and soldiers, from assisting at the public deliberations, were versed in affairs of state, and understood every thing at half a word. We may judge of this from the orations of Demosthenes, whose style we know is ardent, nervous, and concise.

III. As they are naturally inclined to relieve persons of a low condition and mean circumstances, so are they fond of conversations seasoned with pleasantry, and calculated to make people laugh.

They assisted persons of a mean condition, because from such they had nothing to apprehend in regard to their liberty, and saw in them the characters of equality and resemblance with themselves. They loved pleasantry, and in that showed they were men; but men abounding with good nature and indulgence, who understood raillery, who were not prone to take offence, nor over delicate in point of the respect due to them. One day when the assembly was fully formed, and the people had already taken their places, Cleon, after having made them wait his coming a great

The people of Athens made good use of the talents of those who distinguished themselves by their eloquence and prudence; but they were full of suspicion, and kept themselves always on their guard against their superiority of genius and ability; they took pleasure in restraining their courage, and lessening their glory and reputation. This may be judged from the ostracism, which was instituted only as a curb on those whose merit and popularity ran too high, and which spared neither the greatest nor the most worthy persons. The hatred of tyranny and tyrants, which was in a manner innate in the Athenians, made them extremely jealous and apprehensive for their liberty with regard to those who governed.

As to what relates to their enemies, they did not treat them with rigour; they did not make an insolent use of victory, nor exercise any cruelty towards the vanquished. The amnesty decreed after the ty ranny of the Thirty, shows that they could not forget the injuries which they had undergone from them.

To these different characteristics, which Plutarch unites in the same passage of his works, some others may be added, extracted principally from the same author.

VI. It was from this fund of humanity and benevolence," of which I have now spoken, and which was natural to the Athenians, that they were so attentive to the rules of politeness, and so delicate in point of decorum-qualities one would not expect to find among the common people. In the war against Philip of Macedon, having intercepted one of his couriers, they read all the letters he carried, except that from Olympias his wife, which they returned sealed

up and unopened, out of regard to conjugal love and What day could be more glorious for Athens, than secrecy, the rights of which are sacred, and ought that in which, when all the allies were trembling at to be respected even amongst enemies. The same the vast offers made her by the king of Persia, she Athenians having decreed that a strict search should answered his ambassador by the mouth of Aristides,* be made after the presents distributed by Harpalus That all the gold and silver in the world was not caamongst the orators, would not suffer the house of pable of tempting them to sell their own liberty or Callicles, who was lately married, to be visited, out that of Greece. It was from such generous sentiof respect for his bride, not long brought home. Such ments that the Athenians not only became the bul behaviour is not very common; and upon like occa-wark of Greece, but preserved the rest of Europe, and sions people do not always stand upon forms and po- all the western world, from the invasion of the Perliteness. sians.

VII. The taste of the Athenians for all arts and sciences is too well known to require dwelling long upon it in this place. But we cannot see, without admiration, a people, composed for the most part, as I have said before, of artisans, husbandmen, soldiers, and mariners, carry delicacy of taste in every kind to so high a degree of perfection, which seems the peculiar attribute of a more exalted condition, and a nobler education.

1

VIII. It is no less wonderful, that this people should have had such great views, and risen so high in their pretensions. In the war which Alcibiades made them undertake, filled with vast projects and unbounded hopes, they did not confine themselves to the taking of Syracuse or the conquest of Sicily, but had already grasped Italy, Peloponnesus, Libya, the Carthaginian states, and the empire of the sea as far as the Pillars of Hercules. Their enterprise failed, but they had formed it; and the taking of Syracuse, which seemed no great difficulty, might have enabled them to put it in execution.

These great qualities were mingled with great defects, often the very reverse of them, such as we may imagine in a fluctuating, light, inconstant, capricious people, as were the Athenians.

SECTION VI.-COMMON CHARACTER OF THE LACE

DÆMONIANS AND ATHENIANS.

I CANNOT refuse giving a place here to what M. Bossuet says upon the character of the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. The passage is long, but will not appear so; and will include all that is wanting to a perfect knowledge of the genius of both those states.

Amongst all the republics of which Greece was composed, Athens and Lacedæmon were undoubtedly the principal. No people could have more wit than the Athenians, nor more solid sense than the Lacedæmonians. Athens affected pleasure; the Lacedæmonian way of life was hard and laborious. Both loved glory and liberty; but liberty at Athens tended to licentiousness: and, controlled by severe laws at Lacedæmon, the more restrained it was at home, IX. The same people, so great, and, one may say, the more ardent it was to extend itself by ruling so haughty in their projects, had nothing of that cha- abroad. Athens wished also to reign, but upon anoracter in other respects. In what regarded the ex- ther principle, in which interest had a share with glory. pense of the table, dress, furniture, private build- Her citizens excelled in the art of navigation, and ings, and, in a word, private life, they were frugal, her sovereignty at sea had enriched her. To contisimple, modest, and poor; but sumptuous and mag-nue in the sole possession of all commerce, there was nificent in every thing public, and capable of doing honour to the state. Their victories, conquests, wealth, and continual communication with the people of Asia Minor, introduced neither luxury, gluttony, pomp, nor vain profusion amongst them-Xenophon2 observes that a citizen could not be distinguished from a slave by his dress. The richest inhabitants and the most famous generals were not ashamed to go to market themselves.

X. It was very glorious for Athens to have produced and formed so many persons who excelled in the arts of war and government; in philosophy, eloquence, poesy, painting, sculpture, and architecture: to have furnished alone more great men in every department than any other city of the world; if, perhaps, we except Rome, which had imbibed her information from Athens, and knew how to apply her lessons to the best advantage: to have been in some sort the school, and tutor of almost the whole universe to have served, and still continue to serve, as the model for all nations which pique themselves most upon their fine taste in a word, to have set the fashion, and prescribed the laws of all that regards the talents and productions of the mind.

XI. I shall conclude this description of the Athenians with one more attribute which cannot be denied them, and appears evidently in all their actions and enterprises; and that is, their ardent love of liberty. This was their darling passion, and the main-spring of their policy. We see them, from the commencement of the war with the Persians, sacrifice every thing to the liberty of Greece. They abandon, without the least hesitation, their lands, estates, city, and houses, and remove to their ships, in order to fight the common enemy, whose view was to enslave them.

1 Μέγα φρονεῖ, μεγάλων ὀρέγεται. Plut.
De Rep. Athen. p. 693.

Grecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio. Horat. Epist. 1. 1. 2.
Greece taken, took her savage victors' hearts,
And polish'd rustic Latium with her arts.

VOL. 1.-49

nothing she was not desirous of subjecting to her power; and her riches, which inspired this desire, supplied her with the means of gratifying it. On the contrary, at Lacedæmon money was in contempt. As all the laws tended to make the latter a military republic, martial glory was the sole object that engrossed the minds of her citizens. From thence she naturally affected dominion; and the more she was above interest, the more she abandoned herself to ambition.

Lacedæmon, from her regular life, was steady and determinate in her maxims and measures. Athens was more lively and active, and the people too much masters. Philosophy and the laws had indeed the most happy effects upon such exquisite natural parts as theirs; but reason alone was not capable of keeping them within due bounds. A wise Athenian, who knew admirably the genius of his country, informs us, that fear was necessary to those too ardent and free spirits; and that it was impossible to govern them, after that the victory at Salamis had removed their fears of the Persians.

Two things, then, ruined them; the glory of their great actions, and the supposed security of their present condition. The magistrates were no longer heard; and as Persia was afflicted with excessive slavery, so Athens, says Plato, experienced all the evils of excessive liberty.

Those two great republics, so contrary in their manners and conduct, interfered with each other in the design they had each formed of subjecting all Greece; so that they were always enemies, still more from the contrariety of their interests than from the incompatibility of their humours..

The Grecian cities were unwilling to submit to the dominion of either the one or the other; for, besides that each was desirous of preserving their liberty, they found the empire of those two republics too grievous to bear. That of the Lacedæmonians was severe.

Plut. in Aristid. P. 342.
Plat. l. iii. de leg.

agree

The Athenians were naturally more mild and able. Nothing was more delightful to behold than their city, in which feasts and games were perpetual; where wit, liberty, and the various passions of men daily exhibited new objects: but the inequality of their conduct disgusted their allies, and was still more insupportable to their own subjects. It was impossible for them not to experience the extravagance and caprice of a flattered people; that is to say, according to Plato, something more dangerous than the same excesses in a prince vitiated by flattery. These two cities did not permit Greece to continue in repose. We have seen the Peloponnesian and other wars, which were always occasioned, or fomented, by the jealousy of Lacedæmon and Athens. But the same jealousies which involved Greece in troubles, supported it in some measure, and prevented its falling into dependence upon either the one or the other of those republics.

CHAPTER III.

OF RELIGION.

It is observable, that in all ages and in every country the several nations of the world, however various ners, have always united in one essential point; the and opposite in their characters, inclinations, and maninherent opinion of an adoration due to a Supreme Be

to ensure success, we find them careful to consult the

they believe the most solemn treaties are rendered in

That people were observed to have something almost brutal in their character. A government too rigid,' and a life too laborious, rendered their tempers too haughty, austere, and imperious in power: besides which, they could never expect to live in peace under the influence of a city, which being formed for war, could not support itself, but by continuing perpetually in arms. So that the Lacedæmonians were desirous of attaining to command, and all the world were afraiding, and of external forms, calculated to evince such a belief. Into whatever country we cast our eyes, we they should do so.2 find priests, altars, sacrifices, festivals, religious ceremonies, temples, or places consecrated to religious worship. Among every people we discover a reverence and awe of the Divinity; an homage and honour paid to him; and an open profession of an entire detheir necessities, in all their adversities and dangers. pendence upon him in all their undertakings, in all Incapable of themselves to penetrate into futurity and Divinity by oracles, and by other methods of a like nature; and to merit his protection by prayers, vows, and offerings. It is by the same supreme authority violable. It is that which gives sanction to their oaths; and to it by imprecations is referred the punishment of such crimes and enormities as escape the On all their private knowledge and power of men. concerns, voyages, journeys, marriages, diseases, the Divinity is still invoked. With him their every repast The Persians soon perceived this condition of begins and ends. No war is declared, no battle fought, Greece; and accordingly the whole mystery of their no enterprise formed, without his aid being first impolitics consisted in keeping up those jealousies, and plored; to which the glory of the success is constantly fomenting those divisions. Lacedæmon, which was tion of the most precious of the spoils, which they never ascribed by public acts of thanksgiving, and by the oblathe most ambitious, was the first that gave them occa-fail to set apart as appertaining by right to the Divinity. sion to take a part in the quarrels of the Greeks. They engaged in them from the sole view of making them- No variety of opinion is discernible in regard to the selves masters of the whole nation; and, industrious foundation of this belief. If some few persons, deto weaken the Greeks by their own arms, they waited praved by false philosophy, presume from time to time only the opportunity to crush them altogether. The to rise up against this doctrine, they are immediately states of Greece, in their wars, already regarded only lar and alone, without making parties, or forming disclaimed by the public voice. They continue singuthe king of Persia, whom they called the Great King, or the King, by way of eminence, as if they had already sects: the whole weight of the public authority falls reckoned themselves among the number of his sub-upon them; a price is set upon their heads; whilst jects. But it was impossible that the ancient spirit of they are universally regarded as execrable persons, the Greece should not revive, when they were upon the bane of civil society, with whom it is criminal to have point of falling into slavery, and the hands of the bar- any kind of commerce. barians.

The petty kings of Greece undertook to oppose this great king, and to ruin his empire. With a small army, but bred in the discipline we have related, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, made the Persians tremble in Asia Minor, and showed it was not impossible to subvert their power. The divisions of Greece alone put a stop to his conquests. The famous retreat of the 10,000, who, after the death of the younger Cyrus, in spite of the victorious troops of Artaxerxes, made their way in a hostile manner through the whole Persian empire, and returned into their own country that action, I say, demonstrated to Greece more than ever, that their soldiery was invincible, and superior to all opposers; and that only their domestic divisions could subject them to an enemy too weak to resist

their forces when united.

We shall see, in the series of this history, by what methods Philip, king of Macedon, taking advantage of these divisions, succeeded at length, partly by address and partly by force, in making himself little less than the sovereign of Greece, and by what means he obliged the whole nation to march under his colours against the common enemy. What he had only planned, his son Alexander brought to perfection; and showed to the wondering world how much ability and valour avail against the most numerous armies and the most formidable preparations.

Šo general, so uniform, so perpetual a consent of all the nations of the universe, which neither the prejudice of the passions, the false reasoning of some philosophers, nor the authority and example of certain princes, have ever been able to weaken or vary, can proceed only from a first principle, which forms a part of the nature of man; from an inward sentiment implanted in his heart by the Author of his being; and from an original tradition as ancient as the world itself.

Such were the source and origin of the religion of the ancients; truly worthy of man, had he been capable of persisting in the purity and simplicity of these first principles: but the errors of the mind, and the vices of the heart, those sad effects of the corrup tion of human nature, have strangely disfigured their original beauty. There are still some faint rays, some brilliant sparks of light, which a general depravity has not been able to extinguish utterly; but they are incapable of dispelling the profound darkness of the gloom which prevails almost universally, and presents nothing to view but absurdities, follies, extravagancies, licentiousness, and disorder; in a word, a hideous chaos of frantic excesses and enormous vices.

Can any thing be more admirable than these principles laid down by Cicero ? That we ought above

Sit hoc jam à principio persuasum civibus: dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores deos, eaque quæ geruntur eorum geri judicio ac numine; eosdemque optimè de genere hominum mereri; et, qualis quisque sit, quid

1 Aristot. Polit. 1. i. p. 4. * Xenoph. de Rep. Lacon. agat, quid in se admittat, quá mente, quâ pietate religiones

Plat. de Rep. I. viii.

Plat. l. iii. de leg. Isocrat. Panegyr.

Polyb. 1. iii.

colat, intueri; piorumque et impiorum habere rationemAd divos adeunto casiè. Pietatem adhibento, opes amovento. Cic. de Leg. 1. ii. n. 15 et 19.

all things to be convinced that there is a Supreme Be- foot, in which each of the runners carried a lighted ing, who presides over all the events of the world, and torch in his hand, which they exchanged continually disposes every thing as sovereign lord and arbiter: with each other, without interrupting the race. They that it is to him mankind are indebted for all the good started from the Ceramicus, one of the suburbs of they enjoy: that he penetrates into, and is conscious Athens, and crossed the whole city. The first that of, whatever passes in the most secret recesses of our came to the goal, without having put out his torch, hearts: that he treats the just and the impious accord-carried the prize. In the afternoon they ran the same ing to their respective merits: that the true means of course on horseback. acquiring his favour, and of being pleasing in his sight, is not by employing of riches and magnificence in the worship that is paid to him, but by presenting him with a heart pure and blameless, and by adoring him with an unfeigned profound veneration.