till it sunk into its original obscurity; so that it saw its glory take birth and expire with this great man. It has been doubted whether he was a more excellent captain or good man. He sought not power for himself, but for his country; and was so perfectly void of self-interest, that at his death he was not worth the expences of his funeral. Truly a philosopher, and poor out of taste, he despised riches, without affecting any reputation from that contempt; and if Justin may be believed, he coveted glory as little as he did r. ɔney. It was aways against his will that commands were conferred upon him, and he behaved himself in them in such a manner as did more honour to dignities than dignities to him. Though poor himself, and without any estate, his very poverty, by drawing upon him the esteem and confidence of the rich, gave him the opportunity of doing good to others. One of his friends being in great necessity, Epaminondas sent him to a very rich citizen, with orders to ask him for 1000 † crowns in his name. That rich man coming to his house, to know his motives for directing his friend to him upon such an errand : "Why," replied Epaminondas, "it is because this honest "man is in want, and you are rich §." He had cultivated those generous and noble sentiments in himself by the study of polite learning and philosophy, which he had made his usual employment and sole delight from his earliest infancy; so that it was surprising, and a question frequently asked, how, and at what time, it was possible for a man, always busy amongst books, to attain, or rather seize, the knowledge of the art military in so great a degree of perfection. Fond of leisure, which he devoted to the study of philosophy,his darling passion,he shunned public employments, and made no interests but to exclude himself from them. moderation concealed him so well, that he lived obscure and almost unknown. His merit, however, discovered him. He was taken from his solitude by force to be placed at the head of armies; and he demonstrated that philosophy, though generally in contempt with those who aspire at the glory of arms, is wonderfully useful in forming heroes; for besides its being His * Fuit incirtum, vir melior an 'dux esset. Nam imperium non sibi semper, sed patriæ quæsivit ; et pecuniæ adeo parcus fuit, ut sumptus funeri desuerit. Gloria quoque non cupidior, quam pecuniæ: quippe recusanti omnia imperia ingesta sunt, honoresque ita gesit, ut ornamentum non accipere, sed dare ipsi dignitati videretur. Justin. Plut. de præcept. reipub. ger. p. 809. + A talent. § Ότι χρησός, εἶπεν ἔτος ὧν πέρι σὼ δὲ πλυτεῖς. Jam literarum studium, jam philosophiæ doctrina tanta, ut mira bile videretur, unde tam insignis militia scientia homini inter literas nato. Justin. VOL. IV. Aa a great advance towards conquering the enemy, to know how to conquer one's self, in this school anciently were taught the great maxims of true policy, the rules of every kind of duty, the motives for a true discharge of them, what we owe our country, the right use of authority, wherein true courage consists; in a word the qualities that form the good citizen, statesman, and great captain. He possessed all the ornaments of the mind; he had the talent of speaking in perfection, and was well versed in the most sublime sciences. But a modest reserve threw a veil over all those excellent qualities, which still augmented their value, and of which he knew not what it was to be ostentatious. Spintharus, in giving his character, said, "+ that he never “had met with a man that knew more and spoke less." It may be said therefore of Epaminondas, that he falsified the proverb, which treated the Baotians as gross and stupid. This was their common charasteristic, and was imputed to the gross air of the country, as the Athenian delicacy of taste was attributed to the subtilty of the air they breathed. Horace says, that to judge of Alexander from his bad taste of poetry, one would swear him a true Boeotian; Bœotum in crasso jurares aere natum. Epist. i. 1. 2. "In thick Boeotian air you'd swear him born." When Alcibiades was reproached with having little inclination to music he thought fit to make this excuse: "it is for "Thebans to sing as they do, who know not how to speak." Pindar and Plutarch, who had very little of the soil in them, and who are proof that genius is of all nations, do themselves condemn the stupidity of their countrymen. Epaminondas did honour to his country, not only by the greatness of his military exploits, but by that sort of merit which results from elevation of genius and the study of science. I shall conclude his portrait and character with a circumstance that gives place in nothing to all his other excellencies, and which may in some sense be preferred to them, as it ex-. presses a good heart, and a tender and sensible spirit ; qualities very rare amongst the great, but infinitely more estimable than all those splendid attributes, which the vulgar of mankind commonly gaze at with admiration, and seem almost the only objects worthy either of being imitated or envied. The victory at Leuctra had drawn the eyes and admiration of all the *The works of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, are proofs of this. + Plut. de audit. p. 39. Inter locorum naturas quantum intersit, videmus-Athenis tenue cœlum, ex quo acutiores etiam putantur Attici; erassum Thebis, itaque pingues Thebani. Cic. de fano, n. 7. § They were great musiciaus. neighbouring people upon Epaminondas, who looked upon him as the support and restorer of Thebes, as the triumphant conqueror of Sparta, as the deliyerer of all Greece ; in a word as the greatest man, and the most excellent captain that ever was in the world. In the midst of this universal applause so capable of making the general of an army forget the man for the victor, Epaminondas, little sensible to so affecting and so deserved a glory, 66 * my joy," said he, “ arises from my sense "of that which the news of my victory will give my father "and my mother." Nothing in history seems so valuable to me as such sentiments which do honour to human nature, and proceed from a heart, which neither false glory nor false greatness have corrupted. I confess it is with grief I see these noble sentiments daily expire amongst us, especially in persons whose birth and rank raise them above others, who, too frequently, are neither good fathers, good sons, good husbands, nor good friends, and who would think it a disgrace to them to express for a father and mother the tender regard, of which we have here so fine an example from a pagan. Until Epaminondas's time, two cities had exercised alternately a kind of empire over all Greece. The justice and moderation of Sparta had at first acquired it a distinguished preeminence, which the pride and haughtiness of its generals, and especially of Pausanias, soon lost it. The Athenians, until the Peloponnesian war, held the first rank, but in a manner scarce discernable in any other respect, than their care in acquitting themselves worthily, and in giving their inferiors just reason to believe themselves their equals. They judged at that time and very justly, that the true method of commanding and of continuing their power, was to evidence their superiority only by services and benefactions. Those times, so glorious for Athens, were of about 45 years continuance, and they retained a part of that preeminence during the 27 years of the Peloponnesian war, which make in all the 72 or 73 years, which Demosthenes gives to the duration of their empiret: but for this latter space of time, the Greeks, disgusted by the haughtiness of Athens, received no laws from that city without reluc tance. Hence the Lacedæmonians became again the arbiters of Greece, and continued so from the time Lysander made himself master of Athens, until the first war undertaken by the Athenians, after their re-establishment by Conon, to withdraw themselves and the rest of the Greeks from the tyranny of Sparta, which was now grown more insolent than At length Thebes disputed the supremacy, and by the exalted merit of a single man, saw itself at the head of all Greece. But that glorious condition was of no long continu* Plut. in Coriol. p. 215. Demost. Philip. iii. p. 89. ever. ance; and the death of Epaminondas, as we have already ob served,plunged it again into the obscurity in which he found it. Demosthenes remarks, in the passage above cited, that the pre-eminence granted voluntarily either to Sparta or Athens, was a pre-eminence of honour, not of dominion, and that the intent of Greece was to preserve a kind of equality and independence in the other cities. Hence, says he, when the governing city attempted to ascribe to itself what did not belong to it, and aimed at any innovations contrary to the rules of justice and established customs, all the Greeks thought themselves obliged to have recourse to arms, and without any motive of personal discontent, to espouse with ardour the cause of the injured. I shall add here another very judicious reflection from Poly bius †. He attributes the wise conduct of the Athenians, in the times I speak of, to the ability of the generals who were then at the head of their affairs; and he makes use of a comparison which explains, not unhappily, the character of that people. A vessel without a master, says he, is exposed to great dangers, when every one insists upon its being steered according to his opinion, and will comply with no other measures. If then a rude storm attacks it, the common danger conciliates and unites them; they abandon themselves to the pilot's skill, and all the rowers doing their duty, the ship is saved, and in a state of security. But if the tempest ceases, and when the weather grows calm again, the discord of the mariners revives; if they will hearken no longer to the pilot, and some are for continuing the voyage, whilst others resolve to stop in the midst of their course; if on one side they loose their sails, and furl them on the other; it often happens, that after having escaped the most violent storms, they are shipwrecked even in the port. This, says Polybius, is a natural image of the Athenian republic. As long as it suffered itself to be guided by the wise counsels of an Aristides, a Themistocles, a Pericles, it came off victorious from the greatest dangers. But prosperity blinded and ruined it; following no longer any thing but ca price, and being become too insolent to be advised or governed, it plunged itself into the greatest misfortunes. SECTION VIII. DEATH OF EVAGORAS, KING OF SALAMIN. ADMIRABLE CHARACTER OF THAT PRINCE. THE third year of the 101st Olympiad soon after the Thebans had destroyed Platea and Thespiæ, as has been ob served before, Evagoras, king of Salamin, in the isle of Cyprus, + Polyb. 1. vii. p. 488. * A. M. 3630. Ant. J. C. 874. Dicd. l. xv. p. 363. of whom much has been already said, was assassinated by one of his eunuchs. His son Nicocles succeeded him. He had a fine model before him in the person of his father; and he seem ed to make it his duty to be entirely intent upon treading in his steps t. When he took possession of the throne, he found the public treasures entirely exhausted, by the great expences his father had been obliged to be at in the long war between him and the king of Persia. He knew that the generality of princes, upon like occasions, thought every means just for the re-establishment of their affairs; but for him he acted upon different principles. In his reign there was no talk of banishment, taxes, and confiscation of estates. The public felicity was his sole object, and justice his favourite virtue. He discharged the debts of the state gradually, not by crushing the people with excessive imposts, but by retrenching all unneces sary expences, and by using a wise economy in the administra tion of his revenue. "I am assured ‡," said he, "that no "citizen can complain that I have done him the least wrong; "and I have the satisfaction to know that I have enriched many with an unsparing hand." He believed this kind of vanity, if it be vanity, might be permitted in a prince, and that it was glorious for him to have it in his power to make his subjects such a defiance. *He piqued himself also in particular upon another virtue,, which is the more admirable in princes, as very uncommon in their fortune; I mean temperance. It is most amiable, but very difficult, in an age and a fortune, to which every thing is lawful, and wherein pleasure, armed with all her arts and attractions, is continually lying in ambush for a young prince,, and preventing his desires, to make a long resistance against the violence and insinuation of her soft assaults. Nicocles. gloried in having never known any woman besides his wife during his reign, and was amazed that all other contracts of civil society should be treated with due regard, whilst that of marriage, the most sacred and inviolable of obligations, was broke through with impunity, and that men should not blush to commit an infidelity in respect to their wives, of which, should their wives be guilty, it would throw them into the ut most anguish and despair. What I have said of the justice and temperance of Nicocles, Isocrates puts into that prince's own mouth; and it is not probable that he should make him speak in such a manner if his conduct had not agreed with such sentiments... It is in a discourse, supposed to be addressed by that king to his people, wherein he describes to them the duties of subjects to their princes; love, respect, obedience, fidelity, and devotion to Isocrat. in Nicoc. 64, P. Ibid. p. 65, 66.. * Ibid. p. 64. |