statues which were erected to great men, the freedom of the city which was granted to strangers, and the privilege of being maintained in the Prytaneum at the public expense. The view of Athens in these honourable distinctions, which were sometimes perpetuated through families, was to express their high sense of gratitude, and to kindle at the same time in the hearts of their citizens a noble thirst of glory, and an ardent love for their country.

Besides the statues erected to Harmodius and Aristogiton, the deliverers of Athens, their descendants were for ever exempted from all public employments, and enjoyed that honourable privilege many ages after.

As Aristides died without any estate,* and left his son Lysimachus no other patrimony but his glory and poverty, the republic gave him 100 acres of wood, and as much arable land, in Eubœa, besides 100 minæf at one payment, and four drachmas, or forty pence, a day.

Athens, in the services which were done it, regarded more the good-will than the action itself. A certain person of Cyrene, named Epicerdus, being at Syracuse when the Athenians were defeated, touched with compassion for the unfortunate prisoners dispersed in Sicily, whom he saw ready to expire for want of food, distributed 100 minæ amongst them, that is, about 2407. Athens adopted him into the number of its citizens, and granted him all the immunities before mentioned. Some time after, in the war against the thirty tyrants, the same Epicerdus gave the city a talent. These were but small matters on either occasion with regard to the grandeur and power of Athens; but they were deeply affected with the good-will of a stranger, who, without any view of interest, in a time of public calamity, exhausted himself in some measure for the relief of those with whom he had no connexion, and from whom he had nothing to expect.

The same Athens granted the freedom of their city,|| and an exemption from customs, to Leucon, who reigned in the Bosphorus, and to his children, because they imported from the lands of that prince a considerable quantity of corn, of which they were in extreme want, subsisting almost entirely upon what came from foreign parts. Leucon, in his turn, not to be outdone in generosity, exempted the Athenian merchants from the duty of a thirtieth that was imposed upon all grain exported from his dominions, and granted them the privilege of supplying themselves with corn in his country in preference to all other people. That exemption amounted to a considerable sum. For they brought from thence alone 2,000,000 of quarters of corn, of which the thirtieth part amounted to almost 70,000.

The children of Conon and Chabrias were also granted an immu

* Demosth. in Orat. ad Lep. p. 558. About two hundred and forty pounds. A thousand crowns.

Demosth. in Orat. ad Lep. p. 757. Demosth. in Orat. ad Lep. p. 545, 546.

nity from public offices. The names alone of those illustrious generals sufficiently justify that liberality of the Athenian people. A person, however, called Leptines, out of a mistaken zeal for the public good, proposed to abrogate by a new law all the grants of that kind, which had been made from time immemorial, except those which regarded the posterity of Harmodius and Aristogiton; and to enact, that for the future the people should not be permitted to grant such privileges.

Demosthenes strongly opposed this law, though with great delicacy towards the person who proposed it; praising his good intentions, and not speaking of him but with esteem; a much more efficacious manner of refuting, than those violent invectives, and that eager and passionate style, which serve only to alienate the minds of the hearers, and to render an orator suspected, who discredits his cause himself, and shows its weak side, by substituting railing in the place of reasons, which are alone capable of convincing.

After having shown that so odious a reform would prove of little or no advantage to the republic, from the inconsiderable number of the exempted persons, he goes on to expose its inconveniences, and sets them in a full light.

It is first, says he, doing injury to the memory of those great men, whose merit the state intended to acknowledge and reward by such immunities; it is in some manner calling in question the services they have done their country; it is throwing a suspicion upon their great actions, injurious to, if not destructive of, their glory. And were they now alive and present in this assembly, which of us all would presume to offer them such an affront? Should not the respect we owe their memories make us consider them as always alive and present?

But if we are a little affected with what concerns them, can we be insensible to our own interest? Besides that cancelling so ancient a law is to condemn the conduct of our ancestors, what shame shall we bring upon ourselves, and what an injury shall we do our reputation? The glory of Athens, and of every well-governed state, is to value itself upon its gratitude; to keep its word religiously, and to be true to all its engagements. A private person that fails in these respects, is hated and abhorred; and who is not afraid of being reproached with ingratitude? And shall the commonwealth, in cancelling a law that has received the sanction of public authority, and been in a manner consecrated by the usage of many ages, be guilty of so scandalous a prevarication? We prohibit lying in the very markets under heavy penalties, and require truth and good faith to be observed in them; and shall we renounce them ourselves, by the revocation of grants passed in all their forms, and upon which every private man has a right to insist?

To act in such a manner, would be to extinguish in the hearts of our citizens all emulation for glory, all desire to distinguish themselves by great exploits, all zeal for the honour and welfare of their country,

which are the great springs and principles of almost all the actions of life. And it is to no purpose to object the example of Sparta and Thebes, which grant no such exemptions. Do we repent our not resembling them in many things; and is there any wisdom in proposing their defects, and not their virtues, for our imitation?

Demosthenes concludes with demanding the law of exemptions to be retained in all its extent, with this exception, that all persons should be deprived of the benefits of it, but those who had a just title to them; and that a strict inquiry should be made for that purpose.

It is plain that I have only made a very slight extract in this place of an exceeding long discourse, and that I designed to express only the spirit and sense, without confining myself to the method and expressions of it.

There was a meanness in Leptines's desiring to obtain a trivial advantage for the republic, by retrenching the moderate expenses that were an honour to it, and in no degree burdensome, whilst there were other abuses of far greater importance to reform.

Such marks of public gratitude perpetuated in a family, perpetuate also in a state an ardent zeal for one's country, and a warm desire to obtain distinction by glorious actions. It is not without pain I find amongst ourselves, that part of the privileges granted to the family of the Maid of Orleans have been retrenched. Charles VII.* had ennobled her, her father, three brothers, and all their descendants, even by the female line. In 1614, at the request of the attorney-general, the article of nobility on the women's side was retrenched.

Z 2

* Mezerai.

BOOK XIV.

THE

HISTORY OF PHILIP.

04140

SECTION I.

The birth and infancy of Philip. Beginning of his reign. His first conquests. The birth of Alexander.

MACEDON was an hereditary kingdom, situated in ancient Thrace: and bounded on the south by the mountains of Thessaly; on the east by Bottia and Pieria; on the west by the Lyncestæ; and on the north by Mygdonia and Pelagonia. But after Philip had conquered part of Thrace and Illyrium, this kingdom extended from the Adriatic sea to the river Strymon. Edessa was at first the capital of it, but afterwards resigned that honour to Pella, famous for giving birth to Philip and Alexander.

Philip, whose history we are going to write, was the son of Amyntas II. who is reckoned the sixteenth king of Macedon from Caranus, who had founded that kingdom about 430 years before; that is, in the year of the world 3210, and before Christ 794. The history of all these monarchs is sufficiently obscure, and includes little more than several wars with the Illyrians, the Thracians, and other neighbouring people.

The kings of Macedon pretended to descend from Hercules by Caranus, and consequently to be Greeks by extraction. Notwithstanding this, Demosthenes often styles them barbarians, especially in his invectives against Philip. The Greeks, indeed, gave this name to all other nations, without excepting the Macedonians. Alexander,* king of Macedon, in the reign of Xerxes, was excluded, on pretence of his being a Barbarian, from the Olympic games; and was not admitted to share in them, till after having proved his being descended originally from Argos. The above-mentioned Alexander,t when he went over from the Persian camp to that of the Greeks, in order to acquaint the latter that Mardonius was determined to surprise them at day-break, justified this perfidy by his ancient descent, which he declared to be from the Greeks.

The ancient kings of Macedon did not think it beneath them to live at different times under the protection of the Athenians, Thebans, and Spartans, changing their alliances as it suited their interest.

We shall soon see this Macedon, which formerly had paid tribute to Athens, become, under Philip, the arbiter of Greece; and triumph, under Alexander, over all the forces of Asia.

A. M. 3606.

Amyntas, father of Philip, began to reign the third Ant. J. C. 398. year of the ninety-sixth Olympiad. Having the very year after been warmly attacked by the Illyrians, and dispossessed of a great part of his kingdom, which he thought it scarce possible for him ever to recover again, he had applied to the Olynthians; and in order to engage them the more firmly in his interest, had given up to them a considerable tract of land in the neighbourhood of their city. According to some authors, Argæus, who was of the blood royal, being supported by the Athenians, and taking advantage of the troubles which broke out in Macedonia, reigned there two A. M. 3621. years. Amyntas was restored to the throne by the Ant. J. C. 383. Thessalians;* upon which he was desirous of resuming the possession of the lands, which nothing but the unfortunate situation of his affairs had obliged him to resign to the Olynthians. This occasioned a war; but Amyntas, not being strong enough to make head singly against so powerful a people, the Greeks, and the Athenians in particular, sent him succours, and enabled him to weaken the power of the Olynthians, who threatened him with a total and impending ruin. It was then that Amyntas,† in an assembly of the Greeks, to which he had sent a deputation, engaged to unite with them in enabling the Athenians to possess themselves of Amphipolis, declaring that this city belonged to the last-mentioned people. This close alliance was continued after his death with queen Eurydice, his widow, as we shall soon see.

A. M. 3621. Philip, one of the sons of Amyntas, was born the Ant. J. C. 383. same year this monarch declared war against the Olynthians. This Philip was father of Alexander the Great; for we cannot distinguish him better, than by calling him the father of such a son, as Cicerot observes of the father of Cato of Utica.

A. M. 3629.

Amyntas died, after having reigned twenty-four Ant. J. C. 375. years. He left three legitimate children, whom Eurydice had brought him, viz. Alexander, Perdiccas, and Philip, and 8 natural son named Ptolemy.

Alexander, as eldest son, succeeded his father. In the very beginning of his reign, he was engaged in a sharp war against the Illyrians, neighbours to, and perpetual enemies of, Macedonia. Having concluded a peace with them, he put Philip, his younger

Diod. 1. xiv. p. 307. 341. Æschin. de Fals. Legat. p. 400. M. Cato sententiam dixit, hujus nostri Catonis pater. Ut enim cæteri ex patribus, sic bic, qui lumen illud progenuit, ex filio est nominandus. De Offic. 1. iii. n. 66. Diod. p. 373. Justin. 1. vii. c. 4.