that it was better for a man to lose his arms than his life. Thus resolved upon conquest or death, they went calmly forward with all the confidence of success, sure of meeting a glorious victory, or, what they valued equally, a noble death.

50. Thus depending upon their valour alone for safety, their legislator forbid walling the city. It was his maxim that a wall of men was preferable to a wall of bricks, and that confined valour was scarce preferable to cowardice. Indeed, a city, in which were thirty thousand fighting men, stood in little need of walls to protect it; and we have scarce an instance in history, of their suffering themselves to be driven to their last

retreats.

51. War and its honours was their employment and ambition. Their Helotes, or slaves, tilled their grounds, and did all their servile drudgery. These unhappy men were in a manner bound to the soil; it was not lawful to sell them to strangers, or to make them free. If at any time their increase became inconvenient, or created a suspicion in their fierce masters, there was a diabolical cryptia, or secret act, by which they were permitted to destroy them.

52. From this barbarous severity, however, Lycurgus is acquitted by Plutarch; but it is plain, that his institutions were not sufficient to restrain the people from such baseness and cruelty. It was by this abominable act allowed for several companies of young men to go out of the city by day, and, concealing themselves in the thickets, to rush out in the night upon their slaves, and kill all they could find in their way. Thucydides relates, that two thousand of these slaves disappeared at once without ever after being heard of.

53. It is truly amazing, how a people like the Spartans, renowned for lenity to the conquered, for submission to their superiors, for reverence to old age, and friendship for each other, should yet be so horribly brutal to those beneath them, to men that ought to be considered in every respect as their equals, as their countrymen, and only degraded by an unjust usurpation. Yet nothing is more certain than their cruel treatment: they were not only condemned to the most servile occupations, but often destroyed without reason. They were frequently made drunk and exposed before the children, in order to deter them from so brutal a species of debauchery.

54. Such was the general purport of the institutions of Lycurgus, which, from their tendency, gained the esteem and admiration of all the surrounding nations. The Greeks were ever apt to be dazzled rather with splendid than useful virtues : d praised the laws of Lycurgus, which at best were calculated

to make men more warlike than happy, and to substitute insensibility to enjoyment.

55. If considered in a political light, the city of Lacedæmon was but a military garrison, supported by the labour of a mimerous peasantry that were slaves. The laws, therefore, by which they were governed, are not much more rigorous than many of the military institutions of modern princes. The same labour, the same discipline, the same poverty, and the same subordination, is found in many of the garrisoned towns of Europe that prevailed for so many centuries in Sparta.

56. The only difference that appears to me between a soldier of Lacedæmon, and a soldier in garrison at Gravelines, is, tha the one was permitted to marry at thirty, and the other obliged to continue single all his life: the one lives in the midst of a civilized country, which he is supposed to protect; the other lived in the midst of a number of civilized states, w'ich he had no inclination to offend. War is equally the trade of both : and a campaign is frequently a relaxation from the more rigorous confinement of garrison duty.

57. When Lycurgus had thus completed his military institution, and when the form of government he had established seemed strong and vigorous enough to support itself, his next care was to give it all the permanence in his power. He, therefore, signified to the people that something still remained for the completion of his plan, and that he was under the necessity of going to consult the oracle at Delphos for its advice. In the mean time, he persuaded them to take an oath for the strict ob servance of all his laws till his return, and then departed with a full resolution of never seeing Sparta more.

58. When he was arrived at Delphos, he consulted the oracle to know whether the laws he had made were sufficient to render the Lacedæmonians happy: and being answered, that nothing was wanting to their perfection, he sent his answer to Sparta and then voluntarily starved himself to death. Others say, that he died in Crete, ordering his body to be burned, and his ashes to be thrown into the sea. The death of this great lawgiver gave a sanction and authority to his laws which his life was unable to confer.

59. The Spartans regarded his end as the most glorious of all his actions, a noble finishing of all his former services; they considered themselves as bound by every tie of gratitude and religion to a strict observance of all his institutions; and the long continuance of the Spartan government is a proof of their persevering resolution.

60. The Lacedæmonians thus constituted, seemed only de

sirous of an opportunity of displaying the superiority of their power among the neighbouring states, their rivals. The war between them and the Messenians soon taught them to know the advantages of their military institutions; but as I am hastening to more important events, I will touch upon this as concisely

as I can.

61. There was a temple of Diana common to the Messenians and Lacedæmonians, standing upon the borders of either kingdom. It was there that the Messenians were accused of attempting the chastity of some Spartan virgins; and of killing Teleculus, one of the Spartan kings, who interposed in their defence. The Messenians, on the other hand, denied the charge, and averred that these supposed virgins were young men thus dressed up with daggers under their clothes, and placed there by Teleculus with an intent to surprise them.

62. To the mutual resentment occasioned by this, another cause of animosity was soon after added: Polychares, a Messenian, who had won the prize in the Olympic games, let out some cows to pasture to Euphænus, a Lacedæmonian, who was to pay himself for their keeping with a share of the increase. Euphænus sold the cows, and pretended they were stolen from

him.

63. Polychares sent his son to demand the money; but the Lacedæmonian, to aggravate his crime, killed the young man, and persuaded his countrymen to give no redress. Polychares, therefore, undertook to do himself justice, and killed all the Lacedæmonians that came in his way. Expostulations passed between both kingdoms, till at last the affair came to a general war, which was carried on for many years, with doubtful success. 64. In this situation the Messenians sent to consult the oracle of Delphos, who required the sacrifice of a virgin of the family of Epytus. Upon casting lots among the descendants of this prince, the chance fell upon the daughter of Lycisus: but being thought to be suppositious, Aristodemus offered his daughter, whom all allowed to be his own. Her lover, however, attempted to avert the blow, by asserting that she was with child by him, but her father was so enraged that he ripped up her belly with his own hand publicly to vindicate her innocence.

65. The enthusiasm which this sacrifice produced, served for a while to give the Messenians the advantage; but being at last overthrown and besieged in the city of Ithoe, Aristodemus finding all things desperate, slew himself upon his daughter's grave. With him fell the kingdom of Messenia, not without a most obstinate resistance, and many a defeat of the Spartan army, which they held thus engaged for above twenty years.

66. Nor must we omit one memorable transaction of the Lacedæmonians during this war : having drained their city of all its male inhabitants, and obliged themselves by oath not to return until their designs were accomplished; their women in the mean time, remonstrated, that from their long absence all posterity would be at an end.

67. To remedy this inconvenience, they detached fifty of their most promising young men from the army to go to Sparta, and to lie promiscuously with all the young women they fancied. The offspring of these virgins were, from them, called Partheniæ; who finding themselves contemned and slighted by the Spartans on their return, joined some years after, in an insurrection with the Helotes; but were soon suppressed. Being expelled the state, they went under the conduct of their captain, Philanthus, and settled at Tarentum, in Italy.

68. After a rigorous subjection of thirty-nine years, the Messenians, once more, made a vigorous struggle for freedom, being headed by Aristomenes, a young man of great courage and capacity. The success of the first engagement was doubtful; and the Lacedæmonians being advised by the oracle to send for a general from among the Athenians, this politic state sent them Tyrtæus, a poet and schoolmaster, whose chief business was to harangue and repeat his own verses.

69. The Spartans were little pleased with their new leader; but their veneration for the oracle kept them obedient to his commands. Their success, however, did not seem to improve with their duty: they suffered a defeat from Aristomenes, who losing his shield in the pursuit, their total overthrow was pre

vented.

70. A second and a third defeat followed soon after; so that the Lacedæmonians, quite dispirited, had thoughts of concluding a peace upon any terms; but Tyrtæus so inflamed them by his orations and songs in praise of military glory, that they resolved upon another battle, in which they were victorious; and soon after, Aristomenes was taken prisoner in a skirmish, with fifty of his followers.

71. The adventures of this hero deserve our notice. Being carried prisoner to Sparta, he was thrown into a deep dungeon, which had been used for the execution of malefactors, and his fifty soldiers with him. They were all killed by the fall, except Aristomenes, who finding a wild beast at the bottom preying upon a carcass, he secured the animal's mouth, and continued to hold by the tail, until the beast made directly to its hole. There, finding the issue too narrow, he was obliged to let go his hold; but following the track with his eye, he perceived

a glimmering from above, and at length wrought his way

out.

72. After this extraordinary escape, he repaired immediately to his troops; and, at their head, made a successful sally by night, against the Corinthian forces. Nevertheless he was once more, shortly after, taken by some Cretans; but his keepers. being made drunk, he stabbed them with their own daggers, and returned to his forces.

73. But his single valour was not sufficient to avert the ruin of his country; although, with his own single prowess, he had thrice earned the Hecatomphonia, a sacrifice due to those who had killed one hundred of the enemy hand to hand in battle. The body of his forces being small, and fatigued with continual duty, the city of Eira, which he defended, was taken; and the Messenians were obliged to take refuge with Anaxilas, a prince of Sicily.

A. M.

3340.

74. As for Tyrtæus, the Lacedæmonians made him free of their city, which was the highest honour they had in their power to bestow. By the accession of the Messenian country to the territory of Sparta, this state became one of the most powerful of all Greece, and was second only to Athens, which state it always considered with an eye of jealousy.

CHAPTER III.

Of the Government of Athens, the Laws of Solon, and the History of the Republic from the time of Solon to the commencement of the Persian war.

1. We now return to Athens. Codrus, the last king of this state, having devoted himself for the good of his country, a magistrate, under the title of archon, was appointed to succeed him. The first who bore this office was Medon, the son of the late king, who being opposed by his brother Nileus, was preferred by the oracle, and accordingly invested with his new dignity. This magistracy was at first for life: it was soon reduced to a period of ten years, and at last became annual; and in this state it continued for near three hundred years.

2. During this inactive government, little offers to adorn the page of history; the spirit of extensive dominion had not as yet entered into Greece, and the citizens were too much employed in their private intrigues to attend to foreign concerns. Athens, therefore, continued a long time incapable of enlarging her power; content with safety amidst the contending interests of aspiring potentates and factious citizens.