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last of the Athenian generals who did honour to their country: no one after them being distinguished by merit or reputation.

* Chabrias had already acquired a great name, when having been sent. against the Spartans to the aid of the Thebans, and seeing himself abandoned in the battle by the allies, who had taken flight, he sustained alone the charge of the enemy; his soldiers, by his order, having closed their files with one knee upon the ground covered with their bucklers, and presented their pikes in front, in such a manner, that they could not be broke, and Agesilaus, though victorious, was obliged to retire. The Athenians erected a statue to Chabrias in the attitude he had fought. Iphicrates was of a very mean extraction, his father having been a shoemaker: but in a free city like Athens, merit was the sole nobility. This person may be truly said to be the son of his actions. Having signalized himself in a naval combat, wherein he was only a private soldier, he was soon after employed with distinction, and honoured with a command. In a prosecution carried on against him before the judges, his accuser, who was one of the descendants of Harmodius, and made very great use of his ancestor's name, having reproached him with the baseness of his birth, "Yes," replied he, "the nobility of my family begins in "me: that of yours ends in you." He married the daughter of Cotys, king of Thrace.

He is ranked with the greatest men of Greece, especially in what regards the knowledge of war and military discipline. He made several useful alterations in the soldiers' armour. Before him, the bucklers were very long and heavy, and for that reason were too great a burden, and extremely troublesome; he had them made shorter and lighter, so that without exposing the body, they added to its force and agility. On the contrary, he lengthened the pikes and swords, to make them capable of reaching the enemy at a greater distance. He also changed the cuirasses, and instead of iron and brass, of which they were made before, he caused them to be made of flax. It is not easy to conceive how such armour could defend the soldiers, or be any security against wounds. But that flax being soaked in vinegar mingled with salt, was prepared in such a manner that it grew hard, and became impenetrable either to fire or sword. The use of it was common among several nations.

No troops were ever better exercised or disciplined than those of Iphicrates. He kept them always in action, and in times of peace and tranquility made them perform all the necessary evolutions, either in attacking the enemy, or defending themselves; in laying ambuscades, or avoiding them; in keeping their ranks even in the pursuit of the enemy, without abandoning themselves to an ardour which often becomes pernicious; or to rally with success, after having begun to break and give way: so that when the battle was to be given, all was in motion with admirable promptitude and order. The officers and soldiers drew themselves up without any trouble, and even in the heat of action performed their parts, as the most able general would have directed them: a merit very rare, as I have been informed, but very estimable; as it contributes more than

*Cor. Nep. in Chab. c. i.

+ Diod. 1. xv. p. 360. Cor. Nep. in Iphic. c. i.

tphicrates Atheniensis non tam magnitudine rerum gestarum, quam disciplina militari nobilitatus est. Fuit enim talis dux, ut non solum ætatis suæ cum primus compararetur, sed ne de majoribus natu quidem quisquam anteponeretur. Cor. Nep.

VOL. II.

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can be imagined to the gaining of a battle, and implies a very uncommon superiority of genius in the general.

Timotheus was the son of Conon, so much celebrated for his great actions, and the important services he had rendered his country. * He did not degenerate from his father's reputation, either for his merit in the field, or his ability in the government of the state; but he added to those excellencies the glory which results from the talents of the mind, having distinguished himself particularly by the gift of eloquence and a taste for the sciences.

No captain at first ever experienced less than himself the inconstancy of the fortune of war. He had only to undertake an enterprise to accomplish it. Success perpetually attended his views and desires. Such uncommon prosperity did not fail to excite jealousy. Those who envied him, as I have already observed, caused him to be painted asleep, with Fortune by him, taking cities for him in nets. Timotheus retorted coldly, "If I take places in my sleep, what shall I do when I am awake?" He took the thing afterwards more seriously, and, angry with those who pretended to lessen the glory of his actions, declared in public, that he did not owe his success to fortune, but to himself. That goddess, says Plutarch, offended at his pride and arrogance, abandoned him entirely, and he was never afterwards successful. Such were the chiefs employed in the war of the allies.

The war and the campaign opened with the siege of Chio. Chares commanded the land, and Chabrias the sea forces. All the allies exerted themselves in sending aid to that island. Chabrias having forced the passage, entered the port, notwithstanding all the endeavours of the enemy. The other galleys were afraid to follow, and abandoned him. He was immediately surrounded on all sides, and his vessel exceedingly damaged by the assaults of the enemy. He might have saved himself by swimming to the Athenian fleet, as his soldiers did; but from a mistaken principle of glory, he thought it inconsistent with the duty of a general to abandon his vessel in such a manner, and preferred a death, glorious in his sense, to a shameful flight.

This first attempt having miscarried, both sides applied themselves vigorously to making new preparations. The Athenians fitted out a fleet of 60 galleys, and appointed Chares to command it, and armed 60 more ander Iphicrates and Timotheus. The Reet of the allies consisted of 100 sail. After having ravaged several islands belonging to the Athenians, where they made a great booty, they sat down before Samos. The Atheniaus on their side, having united all their forces, besieged Byzantium. The allies made all possible haste to its relief. The two fleets being in view of each other, prepared to fight, when suddenly a violent storm arose, notwithstanding which Chares resolved to advance against the eneiny. The two other captains, who had more prudence and experience than him, thought it improper to hazard a battle in such a conjuncture. Chares, enraged at their not following his advice, called the soldiers to

Hic a patre acceptam gloriam multis auxit virtutibus. Fuit enim disertus, impiger, laboriosus, rei militaris peritus, neque minus civitatis regendæ. Cor. Nep. c. i.

Timotheus Cononis filius, cum belli laude non inferior fuisset quam pater, ad eam laudem doctrinæ et ingenii gloriam adjecit. Cic. l. i. de offic. n. 116. + Plut. in Sylla, p. 454.

Diod. l. xvi. p. 412. Cor. Nep. in Chab. c. iv.

He was na

witness that it was not his fault they did not fight the enemy. turally vain, ostentatious, and full of himself; one who exaggerated his own services, depreciated those of others, and arrogated to himself the whole glory of successes. He wrote to Athens against his two colleagues, and accused them of cowardice and treason. Upon his complaint, the people,* capricious, warm, suspicious, and naturally jealous of such as were distinguished by their extraordinary merit or authority, recalled those two generals, and brought them to a trial.

The faction of Chares, which was very powerful, at Athens, having declared against Timotheus, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 100 talents,† a worthy reward for the noble disinterestedness he had shown upon another occasion, in bringing home to his country 1200 talents of booty taken from the enemy, without the least deduction for himself. He could bear no longer the sight of an ungrateful city, and being too poor to pay so great a fine, retired to Chalcis. After his death, the people, touched with repentance, mitigated the fine to ten talents, which they made his son Conon pay, to rebuild a certain part of the walls. Thus, by an event sufficiently odd, those very walls, which his grandfather had rebuilt with the spoils of the enemy, the grandson, to the shame of Athens, repaired in part at his own expence.

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|| Iphicrates was also obliged to answer for himself before the judges. It was upon this occasion that Aristophon, another Athenian captain, accused him of having betrayed and sold the fleet under his command. Iphicrates, with the confidence an established reputation inspires, asked him, "Would you have committed a treason of this nature?"" No," re66 plied Aristophon, "I am a man of too much honour for such an action!" "How!" replied Iphicrates, "could Iphicrates do what Aristophon would "not do ?"

He did not only employ the force of arguments in his defence, but called in also the assistance of arms. Instructed by his colleague's ill success, he saw plainly that it was more necessary to intimidate than convince his judges. He posted round the place where they assembled a number of young persons, armed with poniards which they took care to show from time to time. They could not resist so forcible and triumphant a kind of eloquence, and dismissed him acquitted of the charge. When he was afterwards reproached with so violent a proceeding, "I had "been a fool indeed," said he, " if, having made war successfully for the "Athenians, I had neglected doing so for myself."

Chares, by the recal of his two colleagues, was left sole general of the whole army, and was in a condition to have advanced the Athenian affairs very much in the Hellespont, if he had known how to resist the magnificent offers of Artabasus. That viceroy, who had revolted in Asia Minor against the king of Persia his master, besieged by an army of 70,000 men, and just upon the point of being ruined from the inequality of his forces, corrupted Chares. That general, who had no thoughts but of enriching himself, marched directly to the assistance of Artabasus, effectually relieved him, and received a reward suitable to the service. This action of Chares was treated as a capital crime. He had not only abandoned the service of the republic for a foreign war, but offended the king of

* Populus acer, suspicax, mobilis, adversarius, invidus etiam potentiæ, domum. revocat. Cor. Nep.

+100,000 crowns.

|| Arist. Rhet. I. ii. c. 23.

1,200,000 crowns.
Polyæn. Stratag. 1. iii.

Persia, who threatened by his ambassadors to equip 300 sail of ships in favour of the islanders allied against Athens. The credit of Chares sav. ed him again upon this, as it had done several times before on like occasions. The Athenians, intimidated by the king's menaces, applied themselves seriously to prevent their effects by a general peace.

*

Prior to these menaces, Isocrates had earnestly recommended this treaty to them in a fine discourse, which is still extant, wherein he gives them excellent advice. He reproaches them with great liberty, as does Demosthenes in almost all his orations, of abandoning themselves blindly to the insinuations of orators, who flatter their passions, whilst they treat those with contempt who give them the most salutary counsels. He applied himself particularly to correct in them their violent passion for the augmentation of their power, and dominion over the people of Greece, which had been the source of all their misfortunes. He recals to their remembrance those happy days, so glorious for, Athens, in which their ancestors, out of a noble and generous disinterestedness, sacrificed every thing for the support of the common liberty, and the preservation of Greece, and compares them with the present sad times, wherein the ambition of Sparta, and afterwards that of Athens, had successively plunged both states into the greatest misfortunes. He represents to them, that the real and lasting greatness of a state does not consist in augmenting its dominions, or extending its conquests to the utmost, which cannot be effected without violence and injustice, but in the wise government of the people, in rendering them happy, and protecting their allies, in being beloved and esteemed by their neighbours, and feared by their enemies. "A state," says he, "cannot fail of becoming the arbiter of all its neighbours, when "it knows how to unite in its measures the two great qualities, justice "and power, which mutually support each other, and ought to be insepa"rable. For as power, not regulated by the motives of reason and "justice, has recourse to the most violent methods to crush and subvert "whatever opposes it; so justice, when unarmed and without power, is exposed to injury, and neither in a condition to defend itself, nor protect "others." The conclusion drawn by Isocrates from this reasoning, is, that Athens, if it would be happy and in tranquility, ought not to affect the empire of the sea for the sake of lording it over all other states; but should conclude a peace, whereby every city and people should be left to the full enjoyment of their liberty; and declare themselves irreconcileable enemies of those who should presume to disturb that peace, or contravene such measures.

The peace was concluded accordingly under such conditions, and it was stipulated, that Rhodes, Byzantium, Chio, and Cos, should enjoy entire liberty. The war of the allies ended in this manner, after having continued three years.

SECTION III.

DEMOSTHENES EXCITES THE ATHENIANS FOR WAR.-DEATH OF MAUSOLUS. GRIEF OF ARTEMISA HIS WIFE.

THIS peace did not entirely remove the apprehensions of the Athenians with regard to the king of Persia.‡ The great preparations he was

* De pace, seu socialis. Ant. J. C. 356.

A. M. 3648. Ant. J. C. 356.

† A. M. $649.

making gave them umbrage; and they were afraid so formidable an armament was intended against Greece, and that Egypt was only a plausible pretext with which the king covered his real design. Athens took the alarm upon this rumour. The orators increased the fears of the people by their discourses, and exhorted them to have an immediate recourse to their arms, to prevent the king of Persia by a previ ous declaration of war, and to make a league with all the people of Greece against the common enemy. Demosthenes made his first appearance in public at this time, and mounted the tribunal for harangues to give his opinion. He was 28 years of age. I shall speak more extensively of him hereafter. Upon the present occasion, more wise than those precipitate orators, and having undoubtedly in view the importance to the republic of the aid of the Persians against Philip, he dared not indeed oppose in a direct manner their advice, lest he should render himself suspected: but admitting as a principle from the first, that it was necessary to consider the king of Persia as the eternal enemy of Greece, he represented that it was not consistent with prudence, in an affair of such great consequence, to precipitate any thing; that it was very improper, by a resolution taken upon light and uncertain reports, and by a too early declaration of war, to furnish so powerful a prince with a just reason to turn his arms against Greece; that all which was necessary at present, was to fit out a fleet of 300 sail, (in what manner, he proposed a scheme*) and to hold the troops in a readiness and condition to make an effectual and vigorous defence, in case of being attacked; that by so doing, all the people of Greece, without further invitation, would be sufficiently apprised of the common danger to join them; and that the report alone of such an armament would be enough to induce the king of Persia to change his measures, admitting he should have formed any designs against Greece.

For the rest, he was not of opinion that it was necessary to levy any immediate tax upon the estates of private persons for the expence of this war, which would not amount to a great sum, nor suffice for the occasion." It " is better," said he, to rely upon the zeal and generosity of the citizens. "Our city may be said to be almost as rich as all the other cities of Greece "together." [He had before observed that the estimate of the lands of Attica amounted to 6000 talents, about 850,0001. sterling.] "When we "shall see the reality and approach of the danger, every body will be rea"dy to contribute to the expences of the war; as no body can be so void "of reason as to prefer the hazard of losing their whole estate with their "liberty, to sacrificing a small part of it to their own and their country's preservation."

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“And we ought not to fear, as some people would insinuate, that the great riches of the king of Persia will enable him to raise a' great body "of auxiliaries, and render his army formidable against us. Our Greeks, "when they are to march against Egypt, or Orontes, and the other barba"rians, serve willingly under the Persians; but not one of them, I dare "be assured, not a single man of them will ever resolve to bear arms against "Greece."

This discourse had all its effect. The refined and delicate address of the orator in advising the imposition or a tax to be deferred, and artfully explaining at the same time, that it would fall only upon the rich, was highly proper to render abortive an affair which had no other foundation than in the overheated imagination of some orators, who were perhaps interested in the war they advised.

* I reserve this scheme for the seventh section, being curious, and very pro

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