instruct them in all that was necessary to be known, in order to excel in the art military, and to become good commanders. The whole science of the latter consisted in what the ancients called Tactics, that is to say, the art of drawing up troops in battle, and of making military evolutions. That science was useful, but it was not sufficient. Xenophon* shows its insufficiency, by producing a young man lately come from such a school, in which he imagined he had learnt every thing, though in reality he had only acquired a foolish esteem for himself, attended with perfect ignorance. He gives him, by the mouth of Socrates, admirable precepts as to the business of a soldier, and well calculated to form an excellent officer. Hunting was also considered by the ancients as an exercise well calculated for forming youth to the stratagems and fatigues of war. It is for this reason that Xenophon, who was no less a great general than a great philosopher, did not think it below him to write a treatise expressly upon hunting,† in which he descends to the minutest particulars; and points out the considerable advantages that may be derived from it, from being inured to suffer hunger, thirst, heat, cold, without being discouraged either by the length of the course, the difficulty of the clifts and thickets through which it is often necessary to press, or the small success of the long and painful fatigues which are often undergone to no purpose. He adds, that this innocent pleasure removes others equally shameful and criminal; and that a wise and moderate man would not, however, abandon himself so much to it as to neglect the care of his domestic affairs. The same author, in the Cyropædia, frequently praises hunting, which he looks upon as a real study of the art of war; and shows, in the example of his young hero, the good use that may be made of it.

3. Of the exercises of the mind.

Athens, properly speaking, was the school and abode of polite learning, arts, and sciences. The study of poesy, eloquence, philosophy, and mathematics, was in great vogue there, and much cultivated by the youth.

The young people were first sent to learn grammar under masters who taught them regularly, and upon proper principles, their own language; by which they attained a knowledge of its whole beauty, energy, number, and cadence. Hence proceeded that fine taste, which universally pervaded Athens, where, as history informs us, a simple herb-woman distinguished Theophrastus to be a foreigner, from the affectation of a single word in expressing himself. And from the same cause the orators were greatly apprehensive of letting fall the least injudicious expression, for fear of offending so refined and delicate an audience. It was very common for the young peo

* Memorab. 1. iii. p. 761, &c. 60.

† De venatione. Cyrop. 1. i. p. 5, 6. & l. ii. Cic. in Brut. n. 172. Quintil. 1. viii. c. 1. Plut in Peric. p. 156.

ple to get the tragedies represented upon the stage by heart. We have seen, that after the defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, many of them, who had been taken prisoners and made slaves, softened their slavery by reciting the works of Euripides to their masters, who, extremely delighted with hearing such sublime verses, treated them from henceforth with kindness and humanity. The compositions of the other poets had no doubt the same effect; and Plutarch tells us, that Alcibiades, when very young, having entered a school in which there was not a Homer, gave the master a box in the ear as an ignorant fellow, and one who dishonoured his profession.*

As for eloquence, it is no wonder that it was particularly studied at Athens. It was that which opened the way to the highest offices, reigned absolute in the assemblies, decided the most important affairs of the state, and gave an almost unlimited power to those who had the talent of oratory in an eminent degree.

This therefore was the great employment of the young citizens of Athens, especially of those who aspired to the highest offices. To the study of rhetoric, they annexed that of philosophy. I comprise under the latter all the sciences which are either parts of, or relate to, it. The persons known to antiquity under the name of Sophists had acquired a great reputation at Athens, especially in the time of Socrates. These teachers, who were as presumptuous as avaricious, set themselves up for universal scholars. Their chief strength lay in philosophy and eloquence, both of which they corrupted by the false taste and wrong principles which they instilled into their disciples. I have observed, in the life of Socrates, that philosopher's endeavours and success in discrediting them.

CHAPTER II.
OF WAR.

SECTION I. The nations of Greece in all times very warlike, especially the Laceda monians and Athenians.

No people of antiquity (I except the Romans) can dispute the glory of arms and military virtue with the Greeks. During the Trojan war Greece signalized her valour in battle, and acquired immortal fame by the bravery of the captains she sent thither. This expedition was however, properly speaking, no more than the cradle of her infant glory; and the great exploits by which she distinguished herself there, were only her first essays and apprenticeship in the art of war.

There were in Greece several small republics, neighbours to one another by their situation, but widely distant in their customs, laws,

In Alcib. p. 194.

characters, and particularly in their interests. This difference of manners and interests was a continual source and occasion of divisions amongst them. Every city, little satisfied with its own territory, was studious to aggrandize itself at the expense of its next neighbours, according as they lay most commodious for it. Hence all these little states, either out of ambition, and to extend their conquests, or the necessity of a just defence, were always under arms; and by that continual exercise of war, there was formed throughout the whole of these nations a martial spirit, and an intrepidity of courage which made them invincible in the field; as appeared in the sequel, when the whole united forces of the East came to invade Greece, and made her sensible of her own strength, and of what she was capable.

Two cities distinguished themselves above the rest, and held indisputably the first rank; these were Sparta and Athens: in consequence of which those cities, either successively or together, had the empire of Greece, and maintained themselves through a long series of time in a power which the sole superiority of merit, univer sally acknowledged by all the other states, had acquired them. This merit consisted principally in their military knowledge and martial virtue; of which both of them had given the most glorious proofs in the war against the Persians. Thebes disputed this honour with them for some years, by surprising actions of valour, which had something of prodigy in them: but this was but a short-lived blaze, which, after having shone out with exceeding splendour, soon disappeared, and left that city in its original obscurity. Sparta and Athens will therefore be the only objects of our reflections, as to what relates to war; and we shall join them together, in order to be the better able to form a notion of their characters, as well in what they resemble, as in what they differ from each other.

SECTION II.

Origin and cause of the valour and military virtue by which the Lacedæmonians and Athenians always distinguished themselves.

All the laws of Sparta and all the institutions of Lycurgus seem to have had no other object than war, and tended solely to the making the subjects of that republic a body of soldiers. All other employments, all other exercises, were prohibited amongst them. Arts, polite learning, sciences, trades, even husbandry itself, formed no part of their employment, and seemed in their eyes unworthy of them. From their earliest infancy no other taste was instilled into them but for arms; and indeed the Spartan education was wonderfully well adapted to that end. To go barefoot, to lie on the bare ground, to be satisfied with little meat and drink, to suffer heat and cold, to be exercised continually in hunting, wrestling, running on foot and horseback, to be inured to blows and wounds so as to vent neither complaint nor groan; these were the rudiments of education

of the Spartan youth with regard to war, and enabled them one day to support all its fatigues, and to confront all its dangers.

The habit of obeying, contracted, from the most early years, respect for the magistrates and elders, a perfect submission to the laws, from which no age nor condition was exempt, prepared them amazingly for military discipline, which is in a manner the soul of war, and the principle of success in all great enterprises.

Now one of these laws was to conquer or die, and never to surrender to the enemy. Leonidas with his 300 Spartans was an illustrious example of this; and his intrepid valour, extolled in all ages with the highest applauses, and proposed as a model to all posterity, had given the same spirit to the nation, and traced them out the plan they were to follow. The disgrace and infamy annexed to the violation of this law, and to such as quitted their arms in battle, confirmed the observance of it, and rendered it in a manner inviolable. The mothers recommended to their sons, when they set out for the field, to return either with or upon their bucklers. They did not weep for those who died with arms in their hands, but for those who preserved themselves by flight. Can we be surprised, after this, that a small body of such soldiers, with such principles, should put to a stand an innumerable company of barbarians?

The Athenians were not bred up so roughly as the people of Sparta, but had no less valour. The taste of the two nations was quite different in regard to education and employment; but they attained the same end, though by different means. The Spartans knew only how to use their arms, and were soldiers alone: but amongst the Athenians (and we must say as much of the other people of Greece) arts, trades, husbandry, commerce, and navigation, were held in honour, and thought no disgrace to any one. These occupations were no obstacles to military skill and valour; they disqualified none for rising to the greatest commands and the first dignities of the republic. Plutarch observes, that Solon, seeing the territory of Attica was barren, applied himself to direct the industry of his citizens towards arts, trades, and commerce, in order to supply his country thereby with what it wanted on the side of fertility. This taste became one of the maxims of the government and fundamental laws of the state, and perpetuated itself amongst the people, but without lessening in the least their ardour for war.

The ancient glory of the nation, which had always distinguished itself by military bravery, was a powerful motive for not degenerating from the reputation of their ancestors. The famous battle of Marathon, wherein they had sustained alone the shock of the barbarians, and gained a signal victory over them, infinitely heightened their courage; and the battle of Salamis, in the success of which they had the greatest share, raised them to the highest pitch of glory, and rendered them capable of the greatest enterprises.

A noble emulation not to give place in merit to Sparta, the rival of Athens, and a keen jealousy of their glory, which during the war

with the Persians contained itself within due bounds, were another strong incentive to the Athenians, who every day made new efforts to excel themselves, and sustain their reputation.

The rewards and honours granted to those who had distinguished themselves in battle; the monuments erected in memory of the citizens who had died in the defence of their country; the funeral orations publicly pronounced in the midst of the most august religious ceremonies, to render their names immortal:-all conspired in the highest degree to eternize the valour of the Athenians particularly, and to make fortitude a kind of law and indispensable necessity to them.

Athens had a law by which it was ordained,* that those who had been maimed in war should be maintained at the expense of the public. The same favour was granted to the fathers and mothers, as well as to the children, of such as had fallen in battle, and left their families poor and not in a condition to support themselves. The republic, like a good mother, generously took them into her care, and fulfilled towards them all the duties and procured them all the relief that they could have expected from those whose loss they deplored.

This exalted the courage of the Athenians, and rendered their troops invincible, though not very numerous. In the battle of Platææ, where the army of the barbarians, commanded by Mardonius, consisted at the least of 300,000 men, and the united forces of the Greeks of only 108,200 men, there were in the latter only 10,000 Lacedæmonians, of which one half were Spartans, that is to say, inhabitants of Sparta, and 8000 Athenians. It is true, each Spartan brought with him seven Helots, which made in all 35,000 men; but they were scarce ever reckoned as soldiers.

This shining merit, in point of martial valour, generally acknowledged by the other states, did not suppress in their minds all sentiments of envy and jealousy; as appeared once in relation to the Lacedæmonians. The allies, who were very much superior to them in number, could with difficulty endure to see themselves subjected to their order, and murmured against it in secret. Agesilaus, king of Sparta, without seeming to have any knowledge of their disgust, assembled the whole army; and after having made all the allies sit down on one side, and the Lacedæmonians by themselves on the other, he caused proclamation to be made by a herald, that all smiths, masons, carpenters, (and so on, through the other trades,) should rise up. Almost all the allies did so, and not one of the Lacedæmonians, to whom all trades were prohibited. Agesilaus then smiling, You see, said he, how many more soldiers Sparta alone furnishes than all the rest of the allies together; thereby intimating, that to be a good soldier, it was necessary to be only a soldier; that trades diverted the artisan from applying himself wholly to the profession

* Plut. in Solon. p. 96. Plat. in Menex. p. 248, 249. Diog. Laert. in Solon. 37 VOL. IV.

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