appointed general of the whole army, as he expected, but only of the foreign troops; that Chabrias was made general of the seaforces, and that Tachos retained the command-in-chief to himself. This was not the only mortification he had to experience.

Tachos came to a resolution to march into Phoenicia, thinking it more advisable to make that country the seat of war, than to await the enemy in Egypt. Agesilaus, who knew better, represented to him in vain, that his affairs were not sufficiently established to admit his removing out of his dominions; that he would do much better to remain in them, and content himself with acting by his generals in the enemy's country. Tachos despised this wise counsel, and expressed no less disregard for him on all other occasions. Agesilaus was so much incensed at such conduct, that he joined the Egyptians, who had taken arms against him during his absence, and had placed Nectanebus his cousin upon the throne.* Agesilaus, abandoning the king, to whose aid he had been sent, and joining the rebel who had dethroned him, alleged in justification of himself, that he was sent to the assistance of the Egyptians; and that they having taken up arms against Tachos, he was not at liberty to serve against them without new orders from Sparta. He despatched expresses thither; and the instructions he received were, to act as he should judge most advantageous for his country. He immediately declared for Nectanebus. Tachos, obliged to quit Egypt, retired to Sidon, from whence he went to the court of Persia. Artaxerxes not only forgave him his fault, but even gave him the command of his troops against the rebels.

Agesilaus covered so criminal a conduct with the veil of the public utility. But, says Plutarch, let that delusive blind be removed, the most just and only true name which can be given the action, is that of perfidy and treason. It is true that the Lacedæmonians, making the glorious and the good consist principally in the service of their country, which they idolized, knew no other justice than what tended to the augmentation of the grandeur of Sparta, and the extending of its dominions. I am surprised so judicious an author as Xenophon should endeavour to palliate a conduct of this kind, by saying only, that Agesilaus attached himself to that of the two kings who seemed the best affected to Greece.

At the same time, a third prince, of the city of Mendes, set up for himself, to dispute the crown with Nectanebus. This new competitor had an army of 100,000 men to support his pretensions. Agesilaus gave his advice to attack them before they were exercised and disciplined. Had that counsel been follc wed, it would have been easy to have defeated a body of people raised in haste, and without any experience in war. But Nectanebus imagined that Agesilaus only gave him this advice to betray him afterwards, as he had done Tachos. He therefore gave his enemy time to discipline

* Diodorus calls him his son; Plutarch, his cousin.

his troops, who soon after reduced him to retire into a city, fortified with good walls and of very great extent. Agesilaus was obliged to follow him thither; where the Mendesian prince besieged them. Nectanebus would then have attacked the enemy before his works (which were begun in order to surround the city) were advanced, and pressed Agesilaus to that purpose; but he refused to comply at first, which extremely augmented the suspicions conceived of him. At length, when he saw the work in a sufficient forwardness, and that there remained only as much ground between the two ends of the line as the troops within the city might occupy, drawn up in battle, he told Nectanebus that it was time to attack the enemy, that their own lines would prevent their surrounding him, and that the interval between them was exactly the space he wanted, for ranging his troops in such a manner as that they might all act together effectively. The attack was executed according to Agesilaus's plan; the besiegers were beaten, and from thenceforth Agesilaus conducted all the operations of the war with so much success, that the prince their enemy was always overcome, and at last taken prisoner.

A. M. 3643.

The following winter, after having firmly established Ant. J. C. 361. Nectanebus, he embarked to return to Lacedæmon, and was driven by contrary winds upon the coast of Africa, into a place called the port of Menelaus, where he fell sick and died, at the age of fourscore and four years. He had reigned forty-one of them at Sparta; and of those forty-one he had passed thirty with the reputation of the greatest and most powerful of all the Greeks, and had been looked upon as the leader and king of almost all Greece, till the battle of Leuctra. His latter years did not entirely support the reputation he had acquired; and Xenophon, in his eulogium of this prince, wherein he gives him the preference to all other captains, has been found to exaggerate his virtues, and extenuate his faults too much.

The body of Agesilaus was carried to Sparta. Those who were about him not having honey, with which it was the Spartan custom to cover the bodies they wished to embalm, made use of wax in its stead. His son Archidamus succeeded to the throne, which continued in his house down to Agis, who was the fifth king of the line of Agesilaus.

Towards the end of the Egyptian war, the greatest part of the provinces in subjection to Persia revolted.

Artaxerxes Mnemon had been the involuntary occasion of this defection. That prince, of himself, was good, equitable, and benevolent. He loved his people and was beloved by them. He had abundance of mildness and sweetness of temper in his character; but that easiness degenerated into sloth and luxury, and particularly in the latter years of his life, in which he discovered a dislike for all business and application, from whence the good qualities which he otherwise possessed, as well as his beneficent intentions, became

useless and without effect. The satraps and governors of provinces, abusing his favour and the infirmities of his great age, oppressed the people, treated them with insolence and cruelty, loaded them with taxes, and did every thing in their power to render the Persian yoke insupportable.

The discontent became general, and broke out, after long suffering, almost at the same time on all sides. Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, and many other provinces, declared themselves openly, and took up arms. The principal leaders of the conspiracy were, Ariobarzanes satrap of Phrygia, Mausolus king of Caria, Orontes governor of Mysia, and Autophradates governor of Lydia. Datames, of whom mention has been made before, and who commanded in Cappadocia, was also engaged in it. By this means, half the revenues of the crown were on a sudden diverted into different channels, and the remainder would not have been sufficient for the expenses of a war against the revolters, had they acted in concert. But their union was of no long continuance; and those who had been the first and most zealous in shaking off the yoke, were also the foremost in resuming it, and in betraying the interests of the others, to make their peace with the king.

The provinces of Asia Minor, on withdrawing from their obedience, had entered into a confederacy for their mutual defence, and had chosen Orontes, governor of Mysia, for their general. They had also resolved to add 20,000 foreign troops to those of the country, and had charged the same Orontes with the care of raising them. But when he had got the money for that service into his hands, with the addition of a year's pay, he kept it for himself, and delivered to the king the persons who had brought it from the revolted provinces.

Reomithras, another of the chiefs of Asia Minor, being sent into Egypt to draw succours from that kingdom, committed a treachery of a like nature. Having brought from that country 500 talents and fifty ships of war, he assembled the principal revolters at Leucas, a city of Asia Minor, under pretence of giving them an account of his negotiation, seized them all, delivered them to the king to make his peace, and kept the money he had received in Egypt for the confederacy. Thus this formidable revolt, which had brought the Persian empire to the very brink of ruin, dissolved of itself, or to speak more properly, was suspended for some time.

SECTION XI.

Troubles at the court of Artaxerxes concerning his successor. Death of that prines. The end of Artaxerxes's reign abounded with cabals. The whole court were divided into factions in favour of one or other of his sons, who pretended to the succession. He had 150 by his con*Diodorus says he was sent to Tachos, but it is more likely that it was to Nectanelus. † Plut. in Artax. p. 1024-1027. Diod. l. xv. p. 400. Justin. 1. x. e. 1, 2.

cubines, who were in number 360, and three by his lawful wife Atossa; Darius, Ariaspes, and Ochus. To put a stop to these intrigues, he declared Darius, the eldest, his successor; and to remove all cause of disputing that prince's right after his death, he permitted him to assume from thenceforth the title of king, and to wear the royal tiara.* But the young prince was for having something more real. Besides which, the refusal of Artaxerxes to give him one of his concubines, whom he had demanded, had extremely incensed him, and he formed a conspiracy against his father's life, wherein he engaged fifty of his brothers.

It was Tiribazus, of whom mention has been made several times in the preceding volume, who contributed the most to his taking so unnatural a resolution, from a like subject of discontent against the king; who having promised to give him first one of his daughters in marriage, and then another, broke his word both times, and married them himself. Such abominable incest was permitted at that time in Persia, the religion of the nation not prohibiting it.

The number of the conspirators was already very great, and the day fixed for the execution, when a eunuch, well informed of the whole plot, discovered it to the king. Upon that information, Artaxerxes thought it would be highly imprudent to despise so great a danger, by neglecting a strict inquiry into it; but that it would be much more so, to give credit to it without certain and unquestionable proof. He assured himself of it with his own eyes. The conspirators were suffered to enter the king's apartment, and then seized. Darius and all his accomplices were punished as they deserved.

After the death of Darius, the cabals began again. Three of his brothers were competitors; Ariaspes, Ochus, and Arsames. The two former pretended to the throne in right of birth, being the sons of the queen. The third had the king's favour, who tenderly loved him, though only the son of a concubine. Ochus, prompted by his restless ambition, studied perpetually to rid himself of both his rivals. As he was equally cunning and cruel, he employed his craft and artifice against Ariaspes, and his cruelty against Arsames. Knowing the former to be extremely simple and credulous, he made the eunuchs of the palace, whom he had found means to corrupt, threaten him so terribly in the name of the king his father, that, expecting every moment to be treated as Darius had been, he poisoned himself to avoid it. After this, there remained only Arsames to give him umbrage, because his father and all the world considered that prince as most worthy of the throne, from his ability and other excellent qualities. Him he caused to be assassinated by Harpates, son of Tiribazus.

This loss, which followed close upon the other, and the exceed

*This tiara was a turban, or kind of head-dress, with the plume of feathers standing pright upon it. The seven counsellors had also plumes of feathers, but these they wore aslant, and before All others wore them aslant, and behind.

ing wickedness with which both were attended, gave the old king a grief that proved mortal: nor is it surprising, that at his age he should not have strength enough to support so great an affliction. A. M. 3643. It overpowered him, and brought him to the grave, after Ant. J. C. 361. a reign of forty-three years, which might have been called happy, if it had not been interrupted by many revolts. That of his successor will be no less disturbed with them.

SECTION XII.

Causes of the frequent insurrections and revolts in the Persian empire.

I have taken care in relating the seditions that happened in the Persian empire, to observe from time to time the abuses which occasioned them. But as these revolts were more frequent than ever in the latter years, and will be more so, especially in the succeeding reign, I thought it would be proper to unite here, under one point of view, the different causes of these insurrections, which foretell the approaching decline of the Persian empire.

I. After the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, the kings of Persia abandoned themselves more and more to the charms of voluptuousness and luxury, and the delights of an indolent and inactive life. Shut up generally in their palaces, amongst women and a crowd of flatterers, they contented themselves with enjoying, in soft effeminate ease and idleness, the pleasure of universal command, and made their grandeur consist in the splendid glare of riches and an expensive magnificence.

II. They were, besides, princes of no great talents for the conduct of affairs, of small capacity in the art of governing, and void of taste for glory. Not having a sufficient extent of mind to animate all the parts of so vast an empire, nor sufficient strength to support the weight of it, they transferred to their officers the cares of public business, the fatigues of commanding armies, and the dangers which attend the execution of great enterprises; confining their ambition to bearing alone the lofty title of the Great King, and the King of kings.

III. The great offices of the crown, the government of the provinces, the command of armies, were generally bestowed upon people without either the claim of service or merit. It was the influence of the favourites, the secret intrigues of the court, the solicitations of the women of the palace, which determined the choice of the persons who were to fill the most important posts of the empire, and appropriated the rewards due to the officers who had done the state real service, to their own creatures.

IV. These courtiers, frequently, through a base and mean jealousy of the merit that gave them umbrage and reproached ther small abilities, removed their rivals from pab.ic employments, and rendered their talents useless to the state. Sometimes they would