the usual iron coin. But Lysander's friends opposed this decree, and sparing no pains to retain the gold and silver in Sparta, the affair was referred to farther deliberation. There naturally seemed only two plans to be proposed; which were, either to make the gold and silver coin current, or to cry them down and prohibit them absolutely. The men of address and policy found out a third expedient, which, in their opinion, reconciled both the others with great success: this was wisely to choose the mean betwixt the vicious extremes of too much rigour and too much remissness. It was therefore resolved, that the new coin of gold and silver should be solely employed by the public treasury; that it should only pass in the occasions and uses of the state; and that every private person, in whose possession it should be found, should be immediately put to death.

A strange expedient! says Plutarch; as if Lycurgus had feared the specie of gold and silver, and not the avarice they occasion: an avarice less to be extinguished by prohibiting individuals from possessing it, than inflamed by permitting the state to amass and make use of it for the service of the public. For it was impossible, whilst that money was held in honour and esteem with the public, that it should be despised in private as useless, and that people should look upon that as of no value in their domestic affairs, which the state prized, and was so anxious to have for its occasions; bad usages, authorized by the practice and example of the public, being a thousand times more dangerous to individuals than the vices of individuals to the public. The Lacedæmonians therefore, continues Plutarch, in punishing those with death who should make use of the new money in private, were so blind and imprudent as to imagine, that the placing of the law, and the terror of punishment, as a guard at the door, was sufficient to prevent gold and silver from entering the house: whilst they left the hearts of their citizens open to the desire and admiration of riches, and introduced themselves a violent passion for amassing treasure, in causing it to be deemed a great and honourable thing to become rich.

It was about the end of the Peloponnesian war, that Darius Nothus king of Persia died, after a reign of nineteen years.

130

A. M. 3600. Ant. J. C. 40.

HISTORY OF THE PERSIANS AND GRECIANS. [BK. VIII.

Cyrus had arrived at the court before his death, and Parysatis, his mother, whose idol he was, not contented with having made his peace, notwithstanding the faults he had committed in his government, pressed the old king to declare him his successor also, after the example of Darius the first, who gave Xerxes the preference before all his brothers, because he had been born, as Cyrus was, after his father's succession to the throne. But Darius did not carry his complaisance for her so far. He gave the crown to Arsaces, his eldest son by Parysatis also, whom Plutarch calls Arsicas, and bequeathed to Cyrus only the provinces he had already.

131

BOOK THE NINTH.

THE HISTORY

OF THE

PERSIANS AND GRECIANS;

CONTINUED

DURING THE FIRST FIFTEEN YEARS OF THE REIGN OF ARTAXERXES MNEMON.

CHAPTER I.

Artax. Mnemon,

A. M. 3600. Ant. J. C. 404.

SECT. I. CORONATION OF ARTAXERXES MNEMON. CYRUS ATTEMPTS TO ASSASSINATE HIS BROTHER, AND IS SENT INTO ASIA MINOR. CRUEL REVENGE OF STATIRA, WIFE OF ARTAXERXES, UPON THE AUTHORS AND ACCOMPLICES IN THE Murder of her Brother. DEATH OF ALCIBIADES. HIS CHARACTER.-Arsaces, upon ascending the throne, assumed the name of Artaxerxes: he it is to whom the Greeks gave the surname of * MNEMON, from his prodigious memory. Being near his father's bed when he was dying, he asked him, a few moments before he expired, what had been the rule of his conduct during so long and happy a reign as his, that he might make it his example. 'It has been,' replied he, to do always what justice and religion required of me:' memorable words, and well worthy of being set up in letters of gold in the palaces of kings to keep them perpetually in mind of what ought to be the guide

Athen. I. xii. p. 548.

a

Which word signifies in the Greek, one of a good memory.

and rule of all their actions. It is not uncommon for princes to give excellent instructions to their children on their deathbeds, which would be more efficacious, if preceded by their own example and practice; without which they are as weak and impotent as the sick man who gives them, and seldom survive him long.

b Soon after Darius's death, the new king set out from his capital for the city of * Pasargada, in order to his coronation, according to custom, by the priests of Persia. There was in that city a temple of the goddess who presided over war, in which the coronation of their kings was solemnized. It was attended with very singular ceremonies, which no doubt had some mysterious sense; though Plutarch does not explain it. The prince at his consecration took off his robe in the temple, and put on that worn by the ancient Cyrus before he came to the throne, which was preserved in that place with great veneration. After that he ate a dry fig, chewed some leaves of the turpentine tree, and drank a draught composed of milk and vinegar. Was this to signify, that the sweets of sovereign power are mingled with the bitterness of care and disquiet, and that, if the throne be surrounded with pleasures and honours, it is also attended with pains and anxieties? It seems sufficiently evident, that the design in putting the robes of Cyrus upon the new king, was to make him understand, that he should also clothe his mind with the great qualities and exalted virtues of that prince.

Young Cyrus, corroded by ambition, was in despair upon being for ever frustrated in his hopes of ascending a throne with which his mother had inspired him, and on seeing the sceptre, which he thought his right, transferred into the hands of his brother. The blackest crimes cost the ambitious nothing. Cyrus resolved to assassinate Artaxerxes in the temple itself, and in the presence of the whole court, just when he was about to take off his own robe, to put on that of Cyrus. Artaxerxes was apprized of this design by the priest himself, who had educated his brother, to whom he had imparted it. Cyrus was seized and condemned to die, when his mother

b Plut. in Artax. p. 1012.

• A city of Persia built by Cyrus the Great.

Parysatis almost out of her senses, flew to the place, clasped nim in her arms, tied herself to him with the tresses of her nair, fastened her neck to his, and by her shrieks, and tears, and prayers, prevailed so far as to obtain his pardon, and that he should be sent back to his government of the maritime provinces. He carried thither with him an ambition no less ardent than before, and animated besides with resentment of the disgrace he had received, and the warm desire of revenge, and armed with an absolute unbounded power. Artaxerxes upon this occasion acted contrary to the most common rules of policy, which do not admit * the nourishing and inflaming, by extraordinary honours, the pride and haughtiness of a bold and enterprising young prince like Cyrus, who had carried his personal enmity to his brother so far, as to have resolved to assassinate him with his own hand, and whose ambition for empire was so great, as to employ the most criminal methods for the attainment of its end.

Scarce had her husband

Artaxerxes had espoused Statira. ascended the throne, when she employed the power her beauty gave her over him, to avenge the death of her brother Teriteuchmes. History has not a more tragical scene, nor a more monstrous complication of adultery, incest, and murder; which, after having occasioned great disorders in the royal family, terminated at length in the most fatal manner to all who had any share in it. But it is necessary for the reader's knowledge of the fact to trace it from the beginning.

Hidarnes, Statira's father, a Persian of very high quality, was governor of one of the principal provinces of the empire. Statira was a lady of extraordinary beauty, which induced Artaxerxes to marry her: he was then called Arsaces. At the same time Teriteuchmes, Statira's brother, married Hamestris, Arsaces's sister, one of the daughters of Darius and Parysatis; in favour of which marriage Teriteuchmes, upon his father's death, had his government given him. There was at the same time another sister in this family, named Roxana, no less beautiful than Statira, and who besides excelled in the

eCtes. c. li. lv.

Ne quis mobiles adolescentium animos præmaturis honoribus ad superbiam extolleret. Tacit. Annal. I. iv. c. 17.