even cause their fidelity to be suspected by false informations,* bring them to trial as criminals against the state, and force the king's most faithful servants, in order to defend themselves against their calumniators, to seek their safety in revolting and in turning those arms against their prince, which they had so often made triumph for his glory and the service of the empire.

V. The ministers, to hold the generals in dependance, restrained them under such limited orders as obliged them to let slip the opportunities of conquering, and prevented them, by waiting for new. orders, from pushing their advantages. They also often made them responsible for their bad success, after having let them want every thing necessary to conduce to it.

VI. The kings of Persia had extremely degenerated from the frugality of Cyrus and the ancient Persians, who contented themselves with cresses and salads for their food, and water for their drink. The whole nobility had been infected with the contagion of this example. In retaining the single meal of their ancestors, they made it last during the greatest part of the day, and prolonged it far into the night by drinking to excess; and far from being ashamed of drunkenness, they made it their glory, as we have seen in the younger Cyrus.

VII. The extreme remoteness of the provinces, which extended from the Caspian and Euxine to the Red Sea and Ethiopia, and from the rivers Ganges and Indus to the Egean sea, was a great obstacle to the fidelity and affection of the people, who never had the satisfaction to enjoy the presence of their masters; who knew them only by the weight of their taxations, and by the pride and avarice of their satraps or governors; and who, in transporting themselves to the court, to make their demands and complaints there, could not hope to find access to the princes, who believed it contributed to the majesty of their persons to make themselves inaccessible and invisible.

VIII. The multitude of the provinces in subjection to Persia did not compose a uniform empire, nor the regular body of a state whose members were united by the common ties of interest, manners, language, and religion, and animated with the same spirit of government, under the guidance of the same laws. It was rather a confused, disjointed, tumultuous, and even forced assemblage of different nations, formerly free and independent; of whom some, who were torn from their native countries and the sepulchres of their forefathers, saw themselves with grief transported into unknown regions, or amongst enemies, where they persevered in retaining their own laws and customs, and a form of government peculiar to themselves. These different nations, who not only lived without any common tie or relation between them, but with a diversity of manners and worship, and often with antipathy of characters and inclinations, desired

nothing so ardently as their liberty and re-establishment in their own countries. All these people therefore were unconcerned for the preservation of an empire which was the sole obstacle to their so warm and just desires, and could not feel any affection for a government that treated them always as strangers and subjected nations, and never gave them any share in its authority or privileges. IX. The extent of the empire, and its remoteness from the court, made it necessary to give the viceroys of the frontier provinces a very great authority in every branch of government; to raise and pay armies; to impose tributes; to adjudge the quarrels of cities, provinces, and vassal kings; and to make treaties with the neighbouring states. A power so extensive and almost independent, in which they continued many years without being changed, and without colleagues or council to deliberate upon the affairs of their provinces, accustomed them to the pleasure of commanding absolutely, and of reigning. In consequence of which, it was with great repugnance they submitted to be removed from their governments, and often endeavoured to support themselves in them by force of

arms.

X. The governors of provinces, the generals of armies, and all the other officers and ministers, gloried in imitating, in their equipages, tables, furniture, and dress, the pomp and splendour of the court in which they had been educated. To support so destructive a pride, and to supply expenses so much above the fortunes of private persons, they were reduced to oppress the subjects under their jurisdiction with exorbitant taxes, flagrant extortions, and the shameful traffic of a public venality, that set those offices to sale for money, which ought to have been granted only to merit. All that vanity lavished, or luxury exhausted, was made good by mean arts, and the violent rapaciousness of an insatiable

avarice.

These gross irregularities, and abundance of others, which remained without remedy, and which were daily augmented by impunity, tried the people's patience, and occasioned a general discontent amongst them, the usual forerunner of the ruin of states. Their just complaints, long time despised, were followed by an open rebellion of several nations, who endeavoured to do themselves that justice by force, which was refused to their remonstrances. In such a conduct, they failed in the submission and fidelity which subjects owe to their sovereigns; but Paganism did not carry its lights so far, and was not capable of so sublime a perfection, which was reserved for a religion that teaches, that no pretext, no injustice, no vexation, can ever authorize the rebellion of a people against their prince.

BOOK XIII.

THE

HISTORY

OF THE

PERSIANS AND GRECIANS.

SECTION I.

Ochus ascends the throne of Persia. His cruelties. Revolt of several nations.

THE more the memory of Artaxerxes Mnemon was honoured and revered throughout the whole empire, the more Ochus believed he had reason to fear for himself; convinced, that in succeeding to him, he should not find the same favourable dispositions in the people and nobility, by whom he had made himself abhorred for the murder of his two brothers. To prevent that aversion from occasioning his exclusion,* he prevailed upon the eunuchs, and others about the king's person, to conceal his death from the public. He began by taking upon himself the administration of affairs, giving orders and sealing decrees in the name of Artaxerxes, as if he had been still alive; and by one of those decrees he caused himself to be proclaimed king throughout the whole empire, still by the order of Artaxerxes. After having governed in this manner almost ten months, believing himself sufficiently established, he at length declared the death of his father, and ascended the throne, taking A. M. 3644. upon himself the name of Artaxerxes. Authors, howAnt. J. C. 360. ever, most frequently give him that of Ochus, by which name I shall generally call him in the sequel of this history.

Ochus was the most cruel and wicked of all the princes of his race, as his actions soon evinced. In a very short time the palace and the whole empire were filled with his murders. To remove from the revolted provinces all pretext of setting some other of the royal family upon the throne, and to rid himself at once of all trouble that the princes and princesses of the blood might occasion

him, he put them all to death, without regard to sex, age or proximity of blood. He caused his own sister Ŏcha, whose daughter he had married, to be buried alive; and having shut up one of his uncles, with 100 of his sons and grandsons,* in a court of the palace, he ordered them all to be shot to death with arrows, only because those princes were much esteemed by the Persians for their probity and valour. That uncle is probably the father of Sisygambis, the mother of Darius Codomannus: for Quintus Curtiust tells us that Ochus had caused fourscore of her brothers, with their father, to be massacred in one day. He treated with the same barbarity, throughout the whole empire, all those who gave him any umbrage, sparing none of the nobility whom he suspected of harbouring the least discontent whatsoever.

A. M. 3648.

The cruelties exercised by Ochus did not deliver Ant. J. C. 356. him from inquietude. Artabazus, governor of one of the Asiatic provinces, engaged Chares the Athenian, who commanded a fleet and a body of troops in those parts, to assist him, and with his aid defeated an army of 70,000 men sent by the king to reduce him. Artabazus, in reward of so great a service, made Chares a present of money to defray the whole expenses of his armament. The king of Persia resented exceedingly this conduct of the Athenians towards him. They were at that time employed in the war of the allies. The king's menace to join their enemies with a numerous army obliged them to recall Chares.

A. M. 3651.

This

Artabazus, being abandoned by them, had recourse Ant. J. C. 353. to the Thebans, of whom he obtained 5000 men that he took into his pay, with Pammenes to command them. reinforcement put him into a condition to acquire two signal victories over the king's troops. Those two actions did the Theban troops and their commander great honour. Thebes must have been extremely incensed against the king of Persia, to send so powerful a succour to his enemies, at a time when that republic was engaged in a war with the Phocæans. It was, perhaps, an effect of their policy, to render themselves more formidable, and to enhance the price of their alliance. It is certain that soon after they made their peace with the king, who paid them 300 talents, that is to say, 300,000 crowns. Artabazus, destitute of all support, was overcome at last, and obliged to take refuge with Philip in Macedon.

Ochus being delivered at length from so dangerous an enemy, turned all his thoughts towards Egypt, that had revolted long before. About the same time several considerable events happened in Greece, which have little or no connexion with the affairs of Persia. I shall insert them here, after which I shall return to the reign of Ochus, not to interrupt the series of his history.

*Val. Max. 1. ix. c. 2. Diod. I. xvi. p. 438.

† Quint Curt. 1. x. c. 5.

Diod. l. xvi. p. 433, 434

A. M. 3646.

SECTION II.

War of the Allies against the Athenians.

Some few years after the revolt of Asia Minor, of Ant. J. C. 358. which I have been speaking, in the third year of the 105th Olympiad, Chios, Cos, Rhodes, and Byzantium, took up arms against Athens, upon which till then they had been dependant. To reduce them, the Athenians employed both great forces and great captains; Chabrias, Iphicrates, and Timotheus. They were the last of the Athenian generals,* who did honour to their country; no one after them distinguishing himself by his merit or reputation.

CHABRIAS had already acquired a great name,t when, having been sent to the aid of the Thebans, against the Spartans, 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 presenting their pikes in front, in such a manner that they could not be broken; and Agesilaus, though victorious, was obliged to retire. The Athenians erected a statue to Chabrias in the attitude in which 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 have been 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 plumed himself extremely upon 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 his time the bucklers were very long and heavy, and for that reason were too great a burden, and extremely cumbersome. 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

* Hæc extrema fuit atas imperatorum Atheniensium, Iphicratis, Chabriæ, Timothei: neque post illorum obitum quisquam dux in illâ urbe fuit dignus memoriâ. Cor. Nep. in Timot. c. iv.

Cor. Nep. in Chab. c. i. Diod. I. xv. p. 360. Cor. Nep. in. Iphic. c. 1. Ipicrates Atheniensis, non tam magnatudine rerum gestarum, quâm disciplina militari nobilitatus est. Fuit enim talis dux, ut non solum ætatas suæ cum primis compararetur sed ne de majoribus natu quidem quisquam anteponeretur. Cor. Nep. VOL. IV.

X