blished every where the king's authority, and reduced those who had revolted in his neighbourhood to return to their obedience; some he brought over by his address and stratagems, and others by force of arms. In a word, he knew so well how to improve his advantages, that at length he subjected them all to the yoke, and reinstated the king's affairs in all those provinces.

A. M. 3656.

In the first year of the 108th Olympiad, died Plato, Ant. J. C. 348. the famous Athenian philosopher.

SECTION V.

Death of Ochus. Arses succeeds him, and is succeeded by Darius Codomanus.

Ochus,* after the conquest of Egypt, and the reduction of the revolted provinces of his empire, abandoned himself to pleasure and luxurious ease during the rest of his life, and left the care of affairs entirely to his ministers. The two principal of them were the eunuch Bagoas, and Mentor the Rhodian, who divided all power between them; so that the first had all the provinces of the upper, and the latter all those of the lower Asia under him.

A. M. 3666.

After having reigned twenty-three years, Ochus died Ant. J. C. 338. of poison given him by Bagoas. That eunuch, who was by birth an Egyptian, had always retained a love for his country, and a zeal for its religion. When his master conquered it, he flattered himself that it would be in his power to soften the destiny of the one, and protect the other from insult. But he could not restrain the brutality of his prince, who acted a thousand things in regard to both, which the eunuch saw with extreme sorrow, and always violently resented in his heart.

Ochus, not contented with having dismantled the cities and pillaged the houses and temples, as has been said, had besides taken away all the archives of the kingdom, which were deposited and kept with religious care in the temples of the Egyptians; and in derision of their worship,t he had caused the god Apis to be killed, that is, the sacred bull which they adored under that name. What gave occasion for this last action was, that Ochus being as lazy and heavy as he was cruel, the Egyptians, from the first of those qualities, had given him the insulting surname of the stupid animal whom they found he resembled. Violently enraged at this affront, Ochus said that he would make them sensible that he was not an ass but a lion, and that the ass, which they despised so much, should eat their ox. Accordingly, he ordered Apis to be dragged out of his temple, and sacrificed to an ass. After which he made his cooks dress, and serve him up to the officers of his household. This piece of wit incensed Bagoas. As for the archives, he redeemed them afterwards, and sent them back to the places where it was the custom to keep them; but the affront which had been done to his religion † Elian. 1. iv. c. 8.

*Diod. 1. xvi. p.

490.

Plut. de Isid. et Osir. p. 363,

was irreparable; and that, it is believed, was the real occasion of his master's death.

His revenge did not stop there:* he caused another body to be interred instead of the king's; and to revenge his having made the officers of his household eat the god Apis, he made cats eat his dead body, which he gave them cut in small pieces: and as for his bones, those he turned into handles for knives and swords, the natural symbols of his cruelty. It is very probable that some new cause had awakened in the heart of this monster his ancient resentment; without which it is not to be conceived that he could carry his barbarity so far towards his master and benefactor.

After the death of Ochus, Bagoas, in whose hands all power was at that time, placed Arses upon the throne, the youngest of all the late king's sons, and put the rest to death, in order to possess with better security, and without a rival, the authority he had usurped. He gave Arses only the name of king, whilst he reserved to himself the whole power of the sovereignty. But perceiving that the young prince began to discover his wickedness, and was taking measures to punish it, he prevented him by having him assassinated, and destroyed his whole family with him. Arses had reigned about two years.

A. M. 3668.

Bagoas, after having rendered the throne vacant by Ant. J. C. 336. the murder of Arses, placed Darius upon it, the third of that name who reigned in Persia. His true name was Codomanus: of him much will be said hereafter.

We see here clearly the sad effect of the pernicious policy of the kings of Persia, who, to ease themselves of the weight of public business, abandoned their whole authority to an eunuch. Bagoas might have more address and understanding than the rest, and thereby merit some distinction. It is the duty of a wise prince to distinguish merit; but it is equally his duty to continue always the entire master, judge, and arbiter of his affairs. A prince like Ochus, that had made the greatest crimes serve as steps for ascending the throne, and who had supported himself in it by the same measures, deserved to have such a minister as Bagoas, who vied with his master in perfidy and cruelty. Ochus experienced their first effects. Had he desired to have nothing to fear from him, he should not have been so imprudent as to render him formidable, by giving him an unlimited power.

SECTION VI.

Abridgment of the life of Demosthenes, till the time of his appearance with honour and applause in the public assemblies against Philip of Macedon.

As Demosthenes will perform a conspicuous part in the history of Philip and Alexander, which will be the subject of the ensuing

*Elian. 1. vi. c. 8

volume, it is necessary to give the reader some previous idea of him, and to let him know by what means he cultivated, and to what a degree of perfection he carried his talent of eloquence; which made him more formidable to Philip and Alexander, and enabled him to render greater services to his country, than the highest military

valour could have done.

A. M. 3623.

That orator,* born two years after Philip,† and 280. Ant. J. C. 381. before Cicero, was not the son of a dirty smoky blacksmith, as Juvenal would seem to intimate, but of a man moderately rich, who made considerable profit by forges. Not that the meanest extraction could derogate in the least from the reputation of Demosthenes: his works are a higher title of nobility than the most splendid the world affords. Demosthenes tells us himself, that his father employed thirty slaves at his forges, each of them valued at three mine, or fifty crowns; two excepted, who were without doubt the most expert in the business, and directed the work, and those were each of them worth 100 crowns. It is well known that part of the wealth of the ancients consisted in slaves. Those forges, after all charges were paid, cleared annually thirty minæ, that is, 1500 livres. To this first manufactory, appropriated to the forging of swords and such kind of arms, he added another, wherein beds and tables of fine wood and ivory were made, which brought him in yearly twelve mine. In this only twenty slaves were employed, each of them valued at two minæ, or 100 livres.||

Demosthenes's father died possessed of an estate of fourteen talents. His son at that time was only seven years of age. He had the misfortune to fall into the hands of sordid and avaricious guardians, who had no views but of making the most out of his fortune. They carried that base spirit so far as to refuse their pupil's masters the stipend due to them: so that he was not educated with the care which so excellent a genius as his required; besides which, the weakness of his constitution and the delicacy of his health, in conjunction with the excessive fondness of a mother that doated upon him, prevented his masters from obliging him to apply closely to his studies.

The schools of Isocrates,** in which so many great men had been educated, was at that time the most famous, at Athens. But whether the avarice of Demosthenes's guardians prevented him from improving under a master whose price was very high; or that the soft and placid eloquence of Isocrates was not to his taste, at that time he studied under Isæus, whose characteristic was strength and vehemence. He found means, however, to get the principles *Plut. in Demost. p. 847-849. †The fourth year of the ninety-ninth Olympiad. Quem pater ardentis massa fuligine lippus, A carbone et forcipibus, gladiosque parante Incude, et luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit. Juv. Sat. 10.

In Orat. i. cont. Aphob. p. 896. About 41, 10s.

T Fourteen thousand crowns. **Isocrates-cujus è Judo, tanquam ex equo Trojano, innumeri principes exierunt. De tt About 921. 10s.

Orat. n. 94.

of rhetoric taught by the former: but Plato* in reality contributed the most to form Demosthenes; he read his works with great application, and even received lessons from him; and it is easy to distinguish in the writings of the disciple, the noble and sublime air of the master.

A. M. 3639.

But he soon quitted the schools of Isæus and Plato for another;† I mean to frequent the bar; of which this was the occasion. The orator Callistratus was appointed to plead in a full assembly the cause of the city of Oropus, situated between Boeotia and Attica. Chabrias, having disposed the Athenians to march to the aid of the Thebans, who were in great distress, they hastened thither, and delivered them from the enemy. The Thebans, forgetting so great a service, took the town of Oropus, which was upon their frontier, from the Athenians. Chabrias was suspected, and charged with treason upon this occasion. Callistratus was chosen to plead against him. The reputation of the orator, and the importance of the cause, excited curiosity, and made a great noise in Ant. J. C. 365. the city. Demosthenes, who was then sixteen years of age, earnestly entreated his masters to carry him with them to the bar, that he might be present at so famous a trial. The orator was heard with great attention: and having had extraordinary success, was attended home by a crowd of illustrious citizens, who seemed to vie with each other in praising and admiring him. The young man was extremely affected with the honours which he saw paid to the orator, and still more with the supreme influence of eloquence over the minds of men, over which it exercises a kind of absolute power. He was himself sensible of its effects; and not being able to resist its charms, he gave himself wholly up to it, from thenceforth renounced all other studies and pleasures, and as long as Callistratus continued at Athens, he never quitted him, but made all the improvement he could from his precepts.

The first essay of his eloquence was against his guardians, whom he obliged to refund a part of his fortune. Encouraged by this success, he ventured to speak before the people, but with very ill fortune. He had a weak voice, an impediment in his speech, and a very short breath; notwithstanding which, his periods were so long, that he was often obliged to stop in the midst of them to take breath. This occasioned his being hissed by the whole audience; from whence he retired entirely discouraged, and determined to renounce for ever a function of which he believed himself incapable. One of his auditors, who, through all these imperfections, had observed an excellent fund of genius in him, and a kind of eloquence which came very near that of Pericles, gave him new spirit from the

*Lectitavisse Platonem studiosè, audivisse etiam, Demosthenes dicitur: idque apparet ex genere et granditate sermonis. Cic. in Brut. n. 121.

Illud jusjurandum, per casos in Marathone ac Salamine propugnatores Reip. satis manifesto docet, præceptorem ejus Platonem fuisse. Quint. 1. xii. c. 10.

Aul. Gel. I. iii. c. 13. + Demost. in Midi. p. 613.

grateful idea of so glorious a resemblance, and the good advice which he added to it.

He ventured, therefore, to appear a second time before the people, and was no better received than before. As he withdrew, hanging down his head, and in the utmost confusion, Satyrus, one of the most excellent actors of those times, who was his friend, met him, and having learnt from himself the cause of his being so much dejected, he assured him that the evil was not without remedy, and that the case was not so desperate as he imagined. He desired him only to repeat some of Sophocles' or Euripides' verses to him, which he accordingly did. Satyrus spoke them after him, and gave them such graces by the tone, gesture, and spirit, with which he pronounced them, that Demosthenes himself found them quite different from what they were in his own manner of speaking. He perceived plainly what he wanted, and applied himself to the acquiring of it.

His efforts to correct his natural defect of utterance, and to perfect himself in pronunciation, of which his friend had made him understand the value, seem almost incredible, and prove, that an industrious perseverance can surmount all things. He stammered to such a degree,* that he could not pronounce some letters; amongst others, that with which the name of the art he studied begins; and he was so short-breathed, that he could not utter a whole period without stopping. He at length overcame these obstacles by putting small pebbles into his mouth, and pronouncing several verses in that manner without interruption; and that even when walking, and going up steep and difficult places; so that, at last, no letter made him hesitate, and his breath held out through the longest periods. He went also to the sea-side, and whilst the waves were in the most violent agitation, he pronounced harangues, to accustom himself, by the confused noise of the waters, to the roar of the people, and the tumultuous cries of public assemblies.

Demosthenes took no less care of his action than of his voice.¿ He had a large looking-glass in his house, which served to teach him gesture, and at which he used to declaim, before he spoke in public. To correct a fault which he had contracted by an ill habit, of continually shrugging his shoulders, he practised standing upright in a kind of very narrow pulpit or rostrum, over which hung a halbert, in such a manner that, if in the heat of action that motion escaped him, the point of the weapon might serve at the same time to admonish and correct him.

His pains were well bestowed; for it was by this means that he carried the art of declaiming to the highest degree of perfection of which it is capable; whence it is plain, he well knew its value and importance. When he was asked three several times, which quality

*Cic. 1. i. de Orat. n. 200, 261. Id. 1. xi. c. 3.

† Rhetoric.

Quintil. I. x. c. 3.