416 files changed, 29695 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/25642-8.txt b/25642-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f68905
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9851 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15)
+       The Romance of Reality
+
+Author: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008 [EBook #25642]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL 10 (OF 15) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A GREEK SHEPHERD, OLYMPIA.]
+
+
+
+
+  Édition d'Élite
+
+  Historical Tales
+
+  The Romance of Reality
+
+  By
+
+  CHARLES MORRIS
+
+  _Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
+  Dramatists," etc._
+
+  IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES
+
+  Volume X
+
+  Greek
+
+  J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+  PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1896, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1904, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1908, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                          PAGE
+
+  HOW TROY WAS TAKEN                         7
+
+  THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS               28
+
+  THESEUS AND ARIADNE                       33
+
+  THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES                  41
+
+  LYCURGUS AND THE SPARTAN LAWS             50
+
+  ARISTOMENES, THE HERO OF MESSENIA         60
+
+  SOLON, THE LAW-GIVER OF ATHENS            67
+
+  THE FORTUNE OF CROESUS                    77
+
+  THE SUITORS OF AGARISTÉ                   86
+
+  THE TYRANTS OF CORINTH                    93
+
+  THE RING OF POLYCRATES                   100
+
+  THE ADVENTURES OF DEMOCEDES              109
+
+  DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS                 117
+
+  THE ATHENIANS AT MARATHON                126
+
+  XERXES AND HIS ARMY                      135
+
+  HOW THE SPARTANS DIED AT THERMOPYLÆ      144
+
+  THE WOODEN WALLS OF ATHENS               154
+
+  PLATÆA'S FAMOUS DAY                      165
+
+  FOUR FAMOUS MEN OF ATHENS                174
+
+  HOW ATHENS ROSE FROM ITS ASHES           186
+
+  THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS                     194
+
+  THE ENVOYS OF LIFE AND DEATH             200
+
+  THE DEFENCE OF PLATÆA                    205
+
+  HOW THE LONG WALLS WENT DOWN             213
+
+  SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES                  221
+
+  THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND          231
+
+  THE RESCUE OF THEBES                     245
+
+  THE HUMILIATION OF SPARTA                259
+
+  TIMOLEON, THE FAVORITE OF FORTUNE        271
+
+  THE SACRED WAR                           288
+
+  ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND DARIUS           296
+
+  THE WORLD'S GREATEST ORATOR              305
+
+  THE OLYMPIC GAMES                        315
+
+  PYRRHUS AND THE ROMANS                   324
+
+  PHILOPOEMEN AND THE FALL OF SPARTA       334
+
+  THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF GREECE             345
+
+  ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS                     351
+
+  THE LITERARY GLORY OF GREECE             360
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+GREEK.
+
+                                                PAGE
+
+  A GREEK SHEPHERD, OLYMPIA            _Frontispiece_.
+
+  PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE                15
+
+  OEDIPUS AND ANTIGONE                            42
+
+  GRECIAN LADIES AT HOME                          87
+
+  THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS                         98
+
+  RUINS OF THE PARTHENON                         130
+
+  THE PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIANS         145
+
+  THE VICTORS AT SALAMIS                         160
+
+  ANCIENT ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM, ATHENS        181
+
+  A REUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA              190
+
+  PIRÆUS, THE PORT OF ATHENS                     213
+
+  PRISON OF SOCRATES, ATHENS                     229
+
+  GATE OF THE AGORA, OR OIL MARKET, ATHENS       255
+
+  BED OF THE RIVER KLADEOS                       289
+
+  THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT               300
+
+  THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES IN THE STADIUM        316
+
+  THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS, ATHENS                 322
+
+  REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, CORINTH      345
+
+  THE RUINS OF PALMYRA                           358
+
+  ALONG THE COAST OF GREECE                      362
+
+
+
+
+_HOW TROY WAS TAKEN._
+
+
+The far-famed Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, was the most
+beautiful woman in the world. And from her beauty and faithlessness came
+the most celebrated of ancient wars, with death and disaster to numbers
+of famous heroes and the final ruin of the ancient city of Troy. The
+story of these striking events has been told only in poetry. We propose
+to tell it again in sober prose.
+
+But warning must first be given that Helen and the heroes of the Trojan
+war dwelt in the mist-land of legend and tradition, that cloud-realm
+from which history only slowly emerged. The facts with which we are here
+concerned are those of the poet, not those of the historian. It is far
+from sure that Helen ever lived. It is far from sure that there ever was
+a Trojan war. Many people doubt the whole story. Yet the ancient Greeks
+accepted it as history, and as we are telling their story, we may fairly
+include it among the historical tales of Greece. The heroes concerned
+are certainly fully alive in Homer's great poem, the "Iliad," and we can
+do no better than follow the story of this stirring poem, while adding
+details from other sources.
+
+Mythology tells us that, once upon a time, the three goddesses, Venus,
+Juno, and Minerva, had a contest as to which was the most beautiful, and
+left the decision to Paris, then a shepherd on Mount Ida, though really
+the son of King Priam of Troy. The princely shepherd decided in favor of
+Venus, who had promised him in reward the love of the most beautiful of
+living women, the Spartan Helen, daughter of the great deity Zeus (or
+Jupiter). Accordingly the handsome and favored youth set sail for
+Sparta, bringing with him rich gifts for its beautiful queen. Menelaus
+received his Trojan guest with much hospitality, but, unluckily, was
+soon obliged to make a journey to Crete, leaving Helen to entertain the
+princely visitor. The result was as Venus had foreseen. Love arose
+between the handsome youth and the beautiful woman, and an elopement
+followed, Paris stealing away with both the wife and the money of his
+confiding host. He set sail, had a prosperous voyage, and arrived safely
+at Troy with his prize on the third day. This was a fortune very
+different from that of Ulysses, who on his return from Troy took ten
+years to accomplish a similar voyage.
+
+As might naturally be imagined, this elopement excited indignation not
+only in the hearts of Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon, but among the
+Greek chieftains generally, who sympathized with the husband in his
+grief and shared his anger against Troy. War was declared against that
+faithless city, and most of the chiefs pledged themselves to take part
+in it, and to lend their aid until Helen was recovered or restored. Had
+they known all that was before them they might have hesitated, since it
+took ten long years to equip the expedition, for ten years more the war
+continued, and some of the leaders spent ten years in their return. But
+in those old days time does not seem to have counted for much, and
+besides, many of the chieftains had been suitors for the hand of Helen,
+and were doubtless moved by their old love in pledging themselves to her
+recovery.
+
+Some of them, however, were anything but eager to take part. Achilles
+and Ulysses, the two most important in the subsequent war, endeavored to
+escape this necessity. Achilles was the son of the sea-nymph Thetis, who
+had dipped him when an infant in the river Styx, the waters of which
+magic stream rendered him invulnerable to any weapon except in one
+spot,--the heel by which his mother had held him. But her love for her
+son made her anxious to guard him against every danger, and when the
+chieftains came to seek his aid in the expedition, she concealed him,
+dressed as a girl, among the maidens of the court. But the crafty
+Ulysses, who accompanied them, soon exposed this trick. Disguised as a
+pedler, he spread his goods, a shield and a spear among them, before the
+maidens. Then an alarm of danger being sounded, the girls fled in
+affright, but the disguised youth, with impulsive valor, seized the
+weapons and prepared to defend himself. His identity was thus revealed.
+
+Ulysses himself, one of the wisest and shrewdest of men, had also sought
+to escape the dangerous expedition. To do so he feigned madness, and
+when the messenger chiefs came to seek him they found him attempting to
+plough with an ox and a horse yoked together, while he sowed the field
+with salt. One of them, however, took Telemachus, the young son of
+Ulysses, and laid him in the furrow before the plough. Ulysses turned
+the plough aside, and thus showed that there was more method than
+madness in his mind.
+
+And thus, in time, a great force of men and a great fleet of ships were
+gathered, there being in all eleven hundred and eighty-six ships and
+more than one hundred thousand men. The kings and chieftains of Greece
+led their followers from all parts of the land to Aulis, in Boeotia,
+whence they were to set sail for the opposite coast of Asia Minor, on
+which stood the city of Troy. Agamemnon, who brought one hundred ships,
+was chosen leader of the army, which included all the heroes of the age,
+among them the distinguished warriors Ajax and Diomedes, the wise old
+Nestor, and many others of valor and fame.
+
+The fleet at length set sail; but Troy was not easily reached. The
+leaders of the army did not even know where Troy was, and landed in the
+wrong locality, where they had a battle with the people. Embarking
+again, they were driven by a storm back to Greece. Adverse winds now
+kept them at Aulis until Agamemnon appeased the hostile gods by
+sacrificing to them his daughter Iphigenia,--one of the ways which those
+old heathens had of obtaining fair weather. Then the winds changed, and
+the fleet made its way to the island of Tenedos, in the vicinity of
+Troy. From here Ulysses and Menelaus were sent to that city as envoys to
+demand a return of Helen and the stolen property.
+
+Meanwhile the Trojans, well aware of what was in store for them, had
+made abundant preparations, and gathered an army of allies from various
+parts of Thrace and Asia Minor. They received the two Greek envoys
+hospitably, paid them every attention, but sustained the villany of
+Paris, and refused to deliver Helen and the treasure. When this word was
+brought back to the fleet the chiefs decided on immediate war, and sail
+was made for the neighboring shores of the Trojan realm.
+
+Of the long-drawn-out war that followed we know little more than what
+Homer has told us, though something may be learned from other ancient
+poems. The first Greek to land fell by the hand of Hector, the Trojan
+hero,--as the gods had foretold. But in vain the Trojans sought to
+prevent the landing; they were quickly put to rout, and Cycnus, one of
+their greatest warriors and son of the god Neptune, was slain by
+Achilles. He was invulnerable to iron, but was choked to death by the
+hero and changed into a swan. The Trojans were driven within their city
+walls, and the invulnerable Achilles, with what seems a safe valor,
+stormed and sacked numerous towns in the neighborhood, killed one of
+King Priam's sons, captured and sold as slaves several others, drove off
+the oxen of the celebrated warrior Æneas, and came near to killing that
+hero himself. He also captured and kept as his own prize a beautiful
+maiden named Briseis, and was even granted, through the favor of the
+gods, an interview with the divine Helen herself.
+
+This is about all we know of the doings of the first nine years of the
+war. What the Greeks were at during that long time neither history nor
+legend tells. The only other event of importance was the death of
+Palamedes, one of the ablest Grecian chiefs. It was he who had detected
+the feigned madness of Ulysses, and tradition relates that he owed his
+death to the revengeful anger of that cunning schemer, who had not
+forgiven him for being made to take part in this endless and useless
+war.
+
+Thus nine years of warfare passed, and Troy remained untaken and
+seemingly unshaken. How the two hosts managed to live in the mean time
+the tellers of the story do not say. Thucydides, the historian, thinks
+it likely that the Greeks had to farm the neighboring lands for food.
+How the Trojans and their allies contrived to survive so long within
+their walls we are left to surmise, unless they farmed their streets.
+And thus we reach the opening of the tenth year and of Homer's "Iliad."
+
+Homer's story is too long for us to tell in detail, and too full of war
+and bloodshed for modern taste. We can only give it in epitome.
+
+Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, robs Achilles of his beautiful
+captive Briseis, and the invulnerable hero, furious at the insult,
+retires in sullen rage to his ships, forbids his troops to take part in
+the war, and sulks in anger while battle after battle is fought.
+Deprived of his mighty aid, the Greeks find the Trojans quite their
+match, and the fortunes of the warring hosts vary day by day.
+
+On a watch-tower in Troy sits Helen the beautiful, gazing out on the
+field of conflict, and naming for old Priam, who sits beside her, the
+Grecian leaders as they appear at the head of their hosts on the plain
+below. On this plain meet in fierce combat Paris the abductor and
+Menelaus the indignant husband. Vengeance lends double weight to the
+spear of the latter, and Paris is so fiercely assailed that Venus has to
+come to his aid to save him from death. Meanwhile a Trojan archer wounds
+Menelaus with an arrow, and a general battle ensues.
+
+The conflict is a fierce one, and many warriors on both sides are slain.
+Diomedes, a bold Grecian chieftain, is the hero of the day. Trojans fall
+by scores before his mighty spear, he rages in fury from side to side of
+the field, and at length meets the great Æneas, whose thigh he breaks
+with a huge stone. But Æneas is the son of the goddess Venus, who flies
+to his aid and bears him from the field. The furious Greek daringly
+pursues the flying divinity, and even succeeds in wounding the goddess
+of love with his impious spear. At this sad outcome Venus, to whom
+physical pain is a new sensation, flies in dismay to Olympus, the home
+of the deities, and hides her weeping face in the lap of Father Jove,
+while her lady enemies taunt her with biting sarcasms. The whole scene
+is an amusing example of the childish folly of mythology.
+
+In the next scene a new hero appears upon the field, Hector, the warlike
+son of Priam, and next to Achilles the greatest warrior of the war. He
+arms himself inside the walls, and takes an affectionate leave of his
+wife Andromache and his infant son, the child crying with terror at his
+glittering helmet and nodding plume. This mild demeanor of the warrior
+changes to warlike ardor when he appears upon the field. His coming
+turns the tide of battle. The victorious Greeks are driven back before
+his shining spear, many of them are slain, and the whole host is driven
+to its ships and almost forced to take flight by sea from the victorious
+onset of Hector and his triumphant followers. While the Greeks cower in
+their ships the Trojans spend the night in bivouac upon the field. Homer
+gives us a picturesque description of this night-watch, which Tennyson
+has thus charmingly rendered into English:
+
+  "As when in heaven the stars about the moon
+  Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
+  And every height comes out, and jutting peak
+  And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
+  Break open to their highest, and all the stars
+  Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart;
+  So, many a fire between the ships and stream
+  Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,
+  A thousand on the plain; and close by each
+  Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire;
+  And, champing golden grain, the horses stood
+  Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn."
+
+Affairs had grown perilous for the Greeks. Patroclus, the bosom friend
+of Achilles, begged him to come to their aid. This the sulking hero
+would not do, but he lent Patroclus his armor, and permitted him to
+lead his troops, the Myrmidons, to the field. Patroclus was himself a
+gallant and famous warrior, and his aid turned the next day's battle
+against the Trojans, who were driven back with great slaughter. But,
+unfortunately for this hero of the fight, a greater than he was in the
+field. Hector met him in the full tide of his success, engaged him in
+battle, killed him, and captured from his body the armor of Achilles.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.]
+
+The slaughter of his friend at length aroused the sullen Achilles to
+action. Rage against the Trojans succeeded his anger against Agamemnon.
+His lost armor was replaced by new armor forged for him by Vulcan, the
+celestial smith,--who fashioned him the most wonderful of shields and
+most formidable of spears. Thus armed, he mounted his chariot and drove
+at the head of his Myrmidons to the field, where he made such frightful
+slaughter of the Trojans that the river Scamander was choked with their
+corpses; and, indignant at being thus treated, sought to drown the hero
+for his offence. Finally he met Hector, engaged him in battle, and
+killed him with a thrust of his mighty spear. Then, fastening the corpse
+of the Trojan hero to his chariot, he dragged it furiously over the
+blood-soaked plain and around the city walls. Homer's story ends with
+the funeral obsequies of the slain Patroclus and the burial by the
+Trojans of Hector's recovered body.
+
+Other writers tell us how the war went on. Hector was replaced by
+Penthesileia, the beautiful and warlike queen of the Amazons, who came
+to the aid of the Trojans, and drove the Greeks from the field. But,
+alas! she too was slain by the invincible Achilles. Removing her
+helmet, the victor was deeply affected to find that it was a beautiful
+woman he had slain.
+
+The mighty Memnon, son of godlike parents, now made his appearance in
+the Trojan ranks, at the head of a band of black Ethiopians, with whom
+he wrought havoc among the Greeks. At length Achilles encountered this
+hero also, and a terrible battle ensued, whose result was long in doubt.
+In the end Achilles triumphed and Memnon fell. But he died to become
+immortal, for his goddess mother prayed for and obtained for him the
+gift of immortal life.
+
+Such triumphs were easy for Achilles, whose flesh no weapon could
+pierce; but no one was invulnerable to the poets, and his end came at
+last. He had routed the Trojans and driven them within their gates, when
+Paris, aided by Apollo, the divine archer, shot an arrow at the hero
+which struck him in his one pregnable spot, the heel. The fear of Thetis
+was realized, her son died from the wound, and a fierce battle took
+place for the possession of his body. This Ajax and Ulysses succeeded in
+carrying off to the Grecian camp, where it was burned on a magnificent
+funeral pile. Achilles, like his victim Memnon, was made immortal by the
+favor of the gods. His armor was offered as a prize to the most
+distinguished Grecian hero, and was adjudged to Ulysses, whereupon Ajax,
+his close contestant for the prize, slew himself in despair.
+
+We cannot follow all the incidents of the campaign. It will suffice to
+say that Paris was himself slain by an arrow, that Neoptolemus, the son
+of Achilles, took his place in the field, and that the Trojans suffered
+so severely at his hands that they took shelter behind their walls,
+whence they never again emerged to meet the Greeks in the field.
+
+But Troy was safe from capture while the Palladium, a statue which
+Jupiter himself had given to Dardanus, the ancestor of the Trojans,
+remained in the citadel of that city. Ulysses overcame this difficulty.
+He entered Troy in the disguise of a wounded and ragged fugitive, and
+managed to steal the Palladium from the citadel. Then, as the walls of
+Troy still defied their assailants, a further and extraordinary
+stratagem was employed to gain access to the city. It seems a ridiculous
+one to us, but was accepted as satisfactory by the writers of Greece.
+This stratagem was the following:
+
+A great hollow wooden horse, large enough to contain one hundred armed
+men, was constructed, and in its interior the leading Grecian heroes
+concealed themselves. Then the army set fire to its tents, took to its
+ships, and sailed away to the island of Tenedos, as if it had abandoned
+the siege. Only the great horse was left on the long-contested
+battle-field.
+
+The Trojans, filled with joy at the sight of their departing foes, came
+streaming out into the plain, women as well as warriors, and gazed with
+astonishment at the strange monster which their enemies had left. Many
+of them wanted to take it into the city, and dedicate it to the gods as
+a mark of gratitude for their deliverance. The more cautious ones
+doubted if it was wise to accept an enemy's gift. Laocoon, the priest of
+Neptune, struck the side of the horse with his spear. A hollow sound
+came from its interior, but this did not suffice to warn the indiscreet
+Trojans. And a terrible spectacle now filled them with superstitious
+dread. Two great serpents appeared far out at sea and came swimming
+inward over the waves. Reaching the shore, they glided over the land to
+where stood the unfortunate Laocoon, whose body they encircled with
+their folds. His son, who came to his rescue, was caught in the same
+dreadful coils, and the two perished miserably before the eyes of their
+dismayed countrymen.
+
+There was no longer any talk of rejecting the fatal gift. The gods had
+given their decision. A breach was made in the walls of Troy, and the
+great horse was dragged with exultation within the stronghold that for
+ten long years had defied its foe.
+
+Riotous joy and festivity followed in Troy. It extended into the night.
+While this went on Sinon, a seeming renegade who had been left behind by
+the Greeks, and who had helped to deceive the Trojans by lying tales,
+lighted a fire-signal for the fleet, and loosened the bolts of the
+wooden horse, from whose hollow depths the hundred weary warriors
+hastened to descend.
+
+And now the triumph of the Trojans was changed to sudden woe and dire
+lamentation. Death followed close upon their festivity. The hundred
+warriors attacked them at their banquets, the returned fleet disgorged
+its thousands, who poured through the open gates, and death held
+fearful carnival within the captured city. Priam was slain at the altar
+by Neoptolemus. All his sons fell in death. The city was sacked and
+destroyed. Its people were slain or taken captive. Few escaped, but
+among these was Æneas, the traditional ancestor of Rome. As regards
+Helen, the cause of the war, she was recovered by Menelaus, and gladly
+accompanied him back to Sparta. There she lived for years afterwards in
+dignity and happiness, and finally died to become happily immortal in
+the Elysian fields.
+
+But our story is not yet at an end. The Greeks had still to return to
+their homes, from which they had been ten years removed. And though
+Paris had crossed the intervening seas in three days, it took Ulysses
+ten years to return, while some of his late companions failed to reach
+their homes at all. Many, indeed, were the adventures which these
+home-sailing heroes were destined to encounter.
+
+Some of the Greek warriors reached home speedily and were met with
+welcome, but others perished by the way, while Agamemnon, their leader,
+returned to find that his wife had been false to him, and perished by
+her treacherous hand. Menelaus wandered long through Egypt, Cyprus, and
+elsewhere before he reached his native land. Nestor and several others
+went to Italy, where they founded cities. Diomedes also became a founder
+of cities, and various others seem to have busied themselves in this
+same useful occupation. Neoptolemus made his way to Epirus, where he
+became king of the Molossians. Æneas, the Trojan hero, sought Carthage,
+whose queen Dido died for love of him. Thence he sailed to Italy, where
+he fought battles and won victories, and finally founded the city of
+Rome. His story is given by Virgil, in the poem of the "Æneid." Much
+more might be told of the adventures of the returning heroes, but the
+chief of them all is that related of the much wandering Ulysses, as
+given by Homer in his epic poem the "Odyssey."
+
+The story of the "Odyssey" might serve us for a tale in itself, but as
+it is in no sense historical we give it here in epitome.
+
+We are told that during the wanderings of Ulysses his island kingdom of
+Ithaca had been invaded by a throng of insolent suitors of his wife
+Penelope, who occupied his castle and wasted his substance in riotous
+living. His son Telemachus, indignant at this, set sail in search of his
+father, whom he knew to be somewhere upon the seas. Landing at Sparta,
+he found Menelaus living with Helen in a magnificent castle, richly
+ornamented with gold, silver, and bronze, and learned from him that his
+father was then in the island of Ogygia, where he had been long detained
+by the nymph Calypso.
+
+The wanderer had experienced numerous adventures. He had encountered the
+one-eyed giant Polyphemus, who feasted on the fattest of the Greeks,
+while the others escaped by boring out his single eye. He had passed the
+land of the Lotus-Eaters, to whose magic some of the Greeks succumbed.
+In the island of Circe some of his followers were turned into swine. But
+the hero overcame this enchantress, and while in her land visited the
+realm of the departed and had interviews with the shades of the dead.
+He afterwards passed in safety through the frightful gulf of Scylla and
+Charybdis, and visited the wind-god Æolus, who gave him a fair wind
+home, and all the foul winds tied up in a bag. But the curious Greeks
+untied the bag, and the ship was blown far from her course. His
+followers afterwards killed the sacred oxen of the sun, for which they
+were punished by being wrecked. All were lost except Ulysses, who
+floated on a mast to the island of Calypso. With this charming nymph he
+dwelt for seven years.
+
+Finally, at the command of the gods, Calypso set her willing captive
+adrift on a raft of trees. This raft was shattered in a storm, but
+Ulysses swam to the island of Phæacia, where he was rescued by Nausicaa,
+the king's daughter, and brought to the palace. Thence, in a Phæacian
+ship, he finally reached Ithaca.
+
+Here new adventures awaited him. He sought his palace disguised as an
+old beggar, so that of all there, only his old dog knew him. The
+faithful animal staggered to his feet, feebly expressed his joy, and
+fell dead. Telemachus had now returned, and led his disguised father
+into the palace, where the suitors were at their revels. Penelope,
+instructed what to do, now brought forth the bow of Ulysses, and offered
+her hand to any one of the suitors who could bend it. It was tried by
+them all, but tried in vain. Then the seeming beggar took in his hand
+the stout, ashen bow, bent it with ease, and with wonderful skill sent
+an arrow hurtling through the rings of twelve axes set up in line. This
+done, he turned the terrible bow upon the suitors, sending its
+death-dealing arrows whizzing through their midst. Telemachus and
+Eumæus, his swine-keeper, aided him in this work of death, and a
+frightful scene of carnage ensued, from which not one of the suitors
+escaped with his life.
+
+In the end the hero, freed from his ragged attire, made himself known to
+his faithful wife, defeated the friends of the suitors, and recovered
+his kingdom from his foes. And thus ends the final episode of the famous
+tale of Troy.
+
+
+
+
+_THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS._
+
+
+We are forced to approach the historical period of Greece through a
+cloud-land of legend, in which atones of the gods are mingled with those
+of men, and the most marvellous of incidents are introduced as if they
+were everyday occurrences. The Argonautic expedition belongs to this age
+of myth, the vague vestibule of history. It embraces, as does the tale
+of the wanderings of Ulysses, very ancient ideas of geography, and many
+able men have treated it as the record of an actual voyage, one of the
+earliest ventures of the Greeks upon the unknown seas. However this be,
+this much is certain, the story is full of romantic and supernatural
+elements, and it was largely through these that it became so celebrated
+in ancient times.
+
+The story of the voyage of the ship Argo is a tragedy. Pelias, king of
+Ioleus, had consulted an oracle concerning the safety of his dominions,
+and was warned to beware of the man with one sandal. Soon afterwards
+Jason (a descendant of Æolus, the wind god) appeared before him with one
+foot unsandalled. He had lost his sandal while crossing a swollen
+stream. Pelias, anxious to rid himself of this visitor, against whom the
+oracle had warned him, gave to Jason the desperate task of bringing
+back to Locus the Golden Fleece (the fleece of a speaking ram which had
+borne Phryxus and Helle through the air from Greece, and had reached
+Colchis in Asia Minor, where it was dedicated to Mars, the god of war).
+
+Jason, young and daring, accepted without hesitation the perilous task,
+and induced a number of the noblest youth of Greece to accompany him in
+the enterprise. Among these adventurers were Hercules, Theseus, Castor,
+Pollux, and many others of the heroes of legend. The way to Colchis lay
+over the sea, and a ship was built for the adventurers named the Argo,
+in whose prow was inserted a piece of timber cut from the celebrated
+speaking oak of Dodona.
+
+The voyage of the Argo was as full of strange incidents as those which
+Ulysses encountered in his journey home from Troy. Land was first
+reached on the island of Lemnos. Here no men were found. It was an
+island of women only. All the men had been put to death by the women in
+revenge for ill-treatment, and they held the island as their own. But
+these warlike matrons, who had perhaps grown tired of seeing only each
+other's faces, received the Argonauts with much friendship, and made
+their stay so agreeable that they remained there for several months.
+
+Leaving Lemnos, they sailed along the coast of Thrace, and up the
+Hellespont (a strait which had received its name from Helle, who, while
+riding on the golden ram in the air above it, had fallen and been
+drowned in its waters). Thence they sailed along the Propontis and the
+coast of Mysia, not, as we may be sure, without adventures. In the
+country of the Bebrycians the giant king Amycus challenged any of them
+to box with him. Pollux accepted the challenge, and killed the giant
+with a blow. Next they reached Bithynia, where dwelt the blind prophet
+Phineus, to whom their coming proved a blessing.
+
+Phineus had been blinded by Neptune, as a punishment for having shown
+Phryxus the way to Colchis. He was also tormented by the harpies,
+frightful winged monsters, who flew down from the clouds whenever he
+attempted to eat, snatched the food from his lips, and left on it such a
+vile odor that no man could come near it. He, being a prophet, knew that
+the Argonauts would free him from this curse. There were with them Zetes
+and Calias, winged sons of Boreas, the god of the north winds; and when
+the harpies descended again to spoil the prophet's meal, these winged
+warriors not only drove them away, but pursued them through the air.
+They could not overtake them, but the harpies were forbidden by Jupiter
+to molest Phineus any longer.
+
+The blind prophet, grateful for this deliverance, told the voyagers how
+they might escape a dreadful danger which lay in their onward way. This
+came from the Symplegades, two rocks between which their ships must
+pass, and which continually opened and closed, with a violent collision,
+and so swiftly that even a bird could scarce fly through the opening in
+safety. When the Argo reached the dangerous spot, at the suggestion of
+Phineus, a dove was let loose. It flew with all speed through the
+opening, but the rocks clashed together so quickly behind it that it
+lost a few feathers of its tail. Now was their opportunity. The rowers
+dashed their ready oars into the water, shot forward with rapid speed,
+and passed safely through, only losing the ornaments at the stern of
+their ship. Their escape, however, they owed to the goddess Minerva,
+whose strong hand held the rocks asunder during the brief interval of
+their passage. It had been decreed by the gods that if any ship escaped
+these dreadful rocks they should forever cease to move. The escape of
+the Argo fulfilled this decree, and the Symplegades have ever since
+remained immovable.
+
+Onward went the daring voyagers, passing in their journey Mount
+Caucasus, on whose bare rock Prometheus, for the crime of giving fire to
+mankind, was chained, while an eagle devoured his liver. The adventurers
+saw this dread eagle and heard the groans of the sufferer himself.
+Helpless to release him whom the gods had condemned, they rowed rapidly
+away.
+
+Finally Colchis was reached, a land then ruled over by King Æetes, from
+whom the heroes demanded the golden fleece, stating that they had been
+sent thither by the gods themselves. Æetes heard their request with
+anger, and told them that if they wanted the fleece they could have it
+on one condition only. He possessed two fierce and tameless bulls, with
+brazen feet and fire-breathing nostrils. These had been the gift of the
+god Vulcan. Jason was told that if he wished to prove his descent from
+the gods and their sanction of his voyage, he must harness these
+terrible animals, plough with them a large field, and sow it with
+dragons' teeth.
+
+Perilous as this task seemed, each of the heroes was eager to undertake
+it, but Jason, as the leader of the expedition, took it upon himself.
+Fortune favored him in the desperate undertaking. Medea, the daughter of
+Æetes, who knew all the arts of magic, had seen the handsome youth and
+fallen in love with him at sight. She now came to his aid with all her
+magic. Gathering an herb which had grown where the blood of Prometheus
+had fallen, she prepared from it a magical ointment which, when rubbed
+on Jason's body, made him invulnerable either to fire or weapons of war.
+Thus prepared, he fearlessly approached the fire-breathing bulls, yoked
+them unharmed, and ploughed the field, in whose furrows he then sowed
+the dragons' teeth. Instantly from the latter sprang up a crop of armed
+men, who turned their weapons against the hero. But Jason, who had been
+further instructed by Medea, flung a great stone in their midst, upon
+which they began to fight each other, and he easily subdued them all.
+
+Jason had accomplished his task, but Æetes proved unfaithful to his
+words. He not only withheld the prize, but took steps to kill the
+Argonauts and burn their vessel. They were invited to a banquet, and
+armed men were prepared to murder them during the night after the feast.
+Fortunately, sleep overcame the treacherous king, and the adventurers
+warned of their danger, made ready to fly. But not without the golden
+fleece. This was guarded by a dragon, but Medea prepared a potion that
+put this perilous sentinel to sleep, seized the fleece, and accompanied
+Jason in his flight, taking with her on the Argo Absyrtus, her youthful
+brother.
+
+The Argonauts, seizing their oars, rowed with all haste from the dreaded
+locality. Æetes, on awakening, learned with fury of the loss of the
+fleece and his children, hastily collected an armed force, and pursued
+with such energy that the flying vessel was soon nearly overtaken. The
+safety of the adventurers was again due to Medea, who secured it by a
+terrible stratagem. This was, to kill her young brother, cut his body to
+pieces, and fling the bleeding fragments into the sea. Æetes, on
+reaching the scene of this tragedy, recognized these as the remains of
+his murdered son, and sorrowfully stopped to collect them for interment.
+While he was thus engaged the Argonauts escaped.
+
+But such a wicked deed was not suffered to go unpunished. Jupiter beheld
+it with deep indignation, and in requital condemned the Argonauts to a
+long and perilous voyage, full of hardship and adventure. They were
+forced to sail over all the watery world of waters, so far as then
+known. Up the river Phasis they rowed until it entered the ocean which
+flows round the earth. This vast sea or stream was then followed to the
+source of the Nile, down which great river they made their way into the
+land of Egypt.
+
+Here, for some reason unknown, they did not follow the Nile to the
+Mediterranean, but were forced to take the ship Argo on their shoulders
+and carry it by a long overland journey to Lake Tritonis, in Libya. Here
+they were overcome by want and exhaustion, but Triton, the god of the
+region, proved hospitable, and supplied them with the much-needed food
+and rest. Thus refreshed, they launched their ship once more on the
+Mediterranean and proceeded hopefully on their homeward way.
+
+Stopping at the island of Ææa, its queen Circe--she who had transformed
+the companions of Ulysses into swine--purified Medea from the crime of
+murder; and at Corcyra, which they next reached, the marriage of Jason
+and Medea took place. The cavern in that island where the wedding was
+solemnized was still pointed out in historical times.
+
+After leaving Corcyra a fierce storm threatened the navigators with
+shipwreck, from which they were miraculously saved by the celestial aid
+of the god Apollo. An arrow shot from his golden bow crossed the billows
+like a track of light, and where it pierced the waves an island sprang
+up, on whose shores the imperilled mariners found a port of refuge. On
+this island, Anaphe by name, the grateful Argonauts built an altar to
+Apollo and instituted sacrifices in his honor.
+
+Another adventure awaited them on the coast of Crete. This island was
+protected by a brazen sentinel, named Talos, wrought by Vulcan, and
+presented by him to King Minos to protect his realm. This living man of
+brass hurled great rocks at the vessel, and destruction would have
+overwhelmed the voyagers but for Medea. Talos, like all the
+invulnerable men of legend, had his one weak point. This her magic art
+enabled her to discover, and, as Paris had wounded Achilles in the heel,
+Medea killed this vigilant sentinel by striking him in his vulnerable
+spot.
+
+The Argonauts now landed and refreshed themselves. In the island of
+Ægina they had to fight to procure water. Then they sailed along the
+coasts of Euboea and Locris, and finally entered the gulf of Pagasæ
+and dropped anchor at Iolceus, their starting-point.
+
+As to what became of the ship Argo there are two stories. One is that
+Jason consecrated his vessel to Neptune on the isthmus of Corinth.
+Another is that Minerva translated it to the stars, where it became a
+constellation.
+
+So ends the story of this earliest of recorded voyages, whose possible
+substratum of fact is overlaid deeply with fiction, and whose geography
+is similarly a strange mixture of fact and fancy. Yet though the voyage
+is at an end, our story is not. We have said that it was a tragedy, and
+the denouement of the tragedy remains to be given.
+
+Pelias, who had sent Jason on this long voyage to escape the fate
+decreed for him by the oracle, took courage from his protracted absence,
+and put to death his father and mother and his infant brother. On
+learning of this murderous act Jason determined on revenge. But Pelias
+was too strong to be attacked openly, so the hero employed a strange
+stratagem, suggested by the cunning magician Medea. He and his
+companions halted at some distance from Iolcus, while Medea entered the
+town alone, pretending that she was a fugitive from the ill-treatment of
+Jason.
+
+Here she was entertained by the daughters of Pelias, over whom she
+gained great influence by showing them certain magical wonders. In the
+end she selected an old ram from the king's flocks, cut him up and
+boiled him in a caldron with herbs of magic power. In the end the animal
+emerged from the caldron as a young and vigorous lamb. The enchantress
+now told her dupes that their old father could in the same way be made
+young again. Fully believing her, the daughters cut the old man to
+pieces in the same manner, and threw his limbs into the caldron,
+trusting to Medea to restore him to life as she had the ram.
+
+Leaving them for the assumed purpose of invoking the moon, as a part of
+the ceremony, Medea ascended to the roof of the palace. Here she lighted
+a fire-signal to the waiting Argonauts, who instantly burst into and
+took possession of the town.
+
+Having thus revenged himself, Jason yielded the crown of Iolcus to the
+son of Pelias, and withdrew with Medea to Corinth, where they resided
+together for ten years. And here the final act in the tragedy was
+played.
+
+After these ten years of happy married life, during which several
+children were born, Jason ceased to love his wife, and fixed his
+affections on Glauce, the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. The king
+showed himself willing to give Jason his daughter in marriage, upon
+which the faithless hero divorced Medea, who was ordered to leave
+Corinth. He should have known better with whom he had to deal. The
+enchantress, indignant at such treatment, determined on revenge.
+Pretending to be reconciled to the coming marriage, she prepared a
+poisoned robe, which she sent as a wedding-present to the hapless
+Glauce. No sooner had the luckless bride put on this perilous gift than
+the robe burst into flames, and she was consumed; while her father, who
+sought to tear from her the fatal garment, met with the same fate.
+
+Medea escaped by means of a chariot drawn by winged serpents, sent her
+by her grandfather Helios (the sun). As the story is told by Euripides,
+she killed her children before taking to flight, leaving their dead
+bodies to blast the sight of their horror-stricken father. The legend,
+however, tells a different tale. It says that she left them for safety
+before the altar in the temple of Juno; and that the Corinthians,
+furious at the death of their king, dragged the children from the altar
+and put them to death. As for the unhappy Jason, the story goes that he
+fell asleep under the ship Argo, which had been hauled ashore according
+to the custom of the ancients, and that a fragment of this ship fell
+upon and killed him.
+
+The flight of Medea took her to Athens, where she found a protector and
+second husband in Ægeus, the ruler of that city, and father of Theseus,
+the great legendary hero of Athens.
+
+
+
+
+_THESEUS AND ARIADNE._
+
+
+Minos, king of Crete in the age of legend, made war against Athens in
+revenge for the death of his son. This son, Androgeos by name, had shown
+such strength and skill in the Panathenaic festival that Ægeus, the
+Athenian king, sent him to fight with the flame-spitting bull of
+Marathon, a monstrous creature that was ravaging the plains of Attica.
+The bull killed the valiant youth, and Minos, furious at the death of
+his son, laid siege to Athens.
+
+As he proved unable to capture the city, he prayed for aid to his father
+Zeus (for, like all the heroes of legend, he was a son of the gods).
+Zeus sent pestilence and famine on Athens, and so bitter grew the lot of
+the Athenians that they applied to the oracles of the gods for advice in
+their sore strait, and were bidden to submit to any terms which Minos
+might impose. The terms offered by the offended king of Crete were
+severe ones. He demanded that the Athenians should, at fixed periods,
+send to Crete seven youths and seven maidens, as victims to the
+insatiable appetite of the Minotaur.
+
+This fabulous creature was one of those destructive monsters of which
+many ravaged Greece in the age of fable. It had the body of a man and
+the head of a bull, and so great was the havoc it wrought among the
+Cretans that Minos engaged the great artist Dædalus to construct a den
+from which it could not escape. Dædalus built for this purpose the
+Labyrinth, a far-extending edifice, in which were countless passages, so
+winding and intertwining that no person confined in it could ever find
+his way out again. It was like the catacombs of Rome, in which one who
+is lost is said to wander helplessly till death ends his sorrowful
+career. In this intricate puzzle of a building the Minotaur was
+confined.
+
+Every ninth year the fourteen unfortunate youths and maidens had to be
+sent from Athens to be devoured by this insatiate beast. We are not told
+on what food it was fed in the interval, or why Minos did not end the
+trouble by allowing it to starve in its inextricable den. As the story
+goes, the living tribute was twice sent, and the third period came duly
+round. The youths and maidens to be devoured were selected by lot from
+the people of Athens, and left their city amid tears and woe. But on
+this occasion Theseus, the king's son and the great hero of Athens,
+volunteered to be one of the band, and vowed either to slay the terrible
+beast or die in the attempt.
+
+There seem to have been few great events in those early days of Greece
+in which Theseus did not take part. Among his feats was the carrying off
+of Helen, the famous beauty, while still a girl. He then took part in a
+journey to the under-world,--the realm of ghosts,--during which Castor
+and Pollux, the brothers of Helen, rescued and brought her home. He was
+also one of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition and of an expedition
+against the Amazons, or nation of women warriors; he fought with and
+killed a series of famous robbers; and he rid the world of a number of
+ravaging beasts,--the Calydonian boar, the Crommyonian sow, and the
+Marathonian bull, the monster which had slain the son of Minos. He was,
+in truth, the Hercules of ancient Athens, and he now proposed to add to
+his exploits a battle for life or death with the perilous Minotaur.
+
+The hero knew that he had before him the most desperate task of his
+life. Even should he slay the monster, he would still be in the
+intricate depths of the Labyrinth, from which escape was deemed
+impossible, and in whose endless passages he and his companions might
+wander until they died of weariness and starvation. He prayed,
+therefore, to Neptune for help, and received a message from the oracle
+at Delphi to the effect that Aphrodite (or Venus) would aid and rescue
+him.
+
+The ship conveying the victims sailed sadly from Athens, and at length
+reached Crete at the port of Knossus, the residence of King Minos. Here
+the woful hostages were led through the streets to the prison in which
+they were to be confined till the next day, when they were to be
+delivered to death. As they passed along the people looked with sympathy
+upon their fair young faces, and deeply lamented their coming fate. And,
+as Venus willed, among the spectators were Minos and his fair daughter
+Ariadne, who stood at the palace door to see them pass.
+
+The eyes of the young princess fell upon the face of Theseus, the
+Athenian prince, and her heart throbbed with a feeling she had never
+before known. Never had she gazed upon a man who seemed to her half so
+brave and handsome as this princely youth. All that night thoughts of
+him drove slumber from her eyes. In the early morning, moved by a
+new-born love, she sought the prison, and, through her privilege as the
+king's daughter, was admitted to see the prisoners. Venus was doing the
+work which the oracle had promised.
+
+Calling Theseus aside, the blushing maiden told him of her sudden love,
+and that she ardently longed to save him. If he would follow her
+directions he would escape. She gave him a sword, which she had taken
+from her father's armory and concealed beneath her cloak, that he might
+be armed against the devouring beast. And she provided him besides with
+a ball of thread, bidding him to fasten the end of it to the entrance of
+the Labyrinth, and unwind it as he went in, that it might serve him as a
+clue to find his way out again.
+
+As may well be believed, Theseus warmly thanked his lovely visitor, told
+her that he was a king's son, and that he returned her love, and begged
+her, in case he escaped, to return with him to Athens and be his bride.
+Ariadne willingly consented, and left the prison before the guards came
+to conduct the victims to their fate. It was like the story of Jason and
+Medea retold.
+
+With hidden sword and clue Theseus followed the guards, in the midst of
+his fellow-prisoners. They were led into the depths of the Labyrinth
+and there left to their fate. But the guards had failed to observe that
+Theseus had fastened his thread at the entrance and was unwinding the
+ball as he went. And now, in this dire den, for hours the hapless
+victims awaited their destiny. Mid-day came, and with it a distant roar
+from the monster reverberated frightfully through the long passages.
+Nearer came the blood-thirsty brute, his bellowing growing louder as he
+scented human beings. The trembling victims waited with but a single
+hope, and that was in the sword of their valiant prince. At length the
+creature appeared, in form a man of giant stature, but with the horned
+head and huge mouth of a bull.
+
+Battle at once began between the prince and the brute. It soon ended.
+Springing agilely behind the ravening monster, Theseus, with a swinging
+stroke of his blade, cut off one of its legs at the knee. As the
+man-brute fell prone, and lay bellowing with pain, a thrust through the
+back reached its heart, and all peril from the Minotaur was at an end.
+
+This victory gained, the task of Theseus was easy. The thread led back
+to the entrance. By aid of this clue the door of escape was quickly
+gained. Waiting until night, the hostages left the dreaded Labyrinth
+under cover of the darkness. Ariadne was in waiting, the ship was
+secretly gained, and the rescued Athenians with their fair companion
+sailed away, unknown to the king.
+
+But Theseus proved false to the maiden to whom he owed his life.
+Stopping at the island of Naxos, which was sacred to Dionysus (or
+Bacchus), the god of wine, he had a dream in which the god bade him to
+desert Ariadne and sail away. This the faithless swain did, leaving the
+weeping maiden deserted on the island. Legend goes on to tell us that
+the despair of the lamenting maiden ended in the sleep of exhaustion,
+and that while sleeping Dionysus found her, and made her his wife. As
+for the dream of Theseus, it was one of those convenient excuses which
+traitors to love never lack.
+
+Meanwhile, Theseus and his companions sailed on over the summer sea.
+Reaching the isle of Delos, he offered a sacrifice to Apollo in
+gratitude for his escape, and there he, and the merry youths and maidens
+with him, danced a dance called the Geranus, whose mazy twists and turns
+imitated those of the Labyrinth.
+
+But the faithless swain was not to escape punishment for his base
+desertion of Ariadne. He had arranged with his father Ægeus that if he
+escaped the Minotaur he would hoist white sails in the ship on his
+return. If he failed, the ship would still wear the black canvas with
+which she had set out on her errand of woe.
+
+The aged king awaited the returning ship on a high rock that overlooked
+the sea. At length it hove in sight, the sails appeared, but--they were
+black. With broken heart the father cast himself from the rock into the
+sea,--which ever since has been called, from his name, the Ægean Sea.
+Theseus, absorbed perhaps in thoughts of the abandoned Ariadne, perhaps
+of new adventures, had forgotten to make the promised change. And thus
+was the deserted maiden avenged on the treacherous youth who owed to
+her his life.
+
+The ship--or what was believed to be the ship--of Theseus and the
+hostages was carefully preserved at Athens, down to the time of the
+Macedonian conquest, being constantly repaired with new timbers, till
+little of the original ship remained. Every year it was sent to Delos
+with envoys to sacrifice to Apollo. Before the ship left port the priest
+of Apollo decorated her stern with garlands, and during her absence no
+public act of impurity was permitted to take place in the city.
+Therefore no one could be put to death, and Socrates, who was condemned
+at this period of the year, was permitted to live for thirty days until
+the return of the sacred ship.
+
+There is another legend connected with this story worth telling.
+Dædalus, the builder of the Labyrinth, at length fell under the
+displeasure of Minos, and was confined within the windings of his own
+edifice. He had no clue like Theseus, but he had resources in his
+inventive skill. Making wings for himself and his son Icarus, the two
+flew away from the Labyrinth and their foe. The father safely reached
+Sicily; but the son, who refused to be governed by his father's wise
+advice, flew so high in his ambitious folly that the sun melted the wax
+of which his wings were made, and he fell into the sea near the island
+of Samos. This from him was named the Icarian Sea.
+
+There is a political as well as a legendary history of Theseus,--perhaps
+one no more to be depended upon than the other. It is said that when he
+became king he made Athens supreme over Attica, putting an end to the
+separate powers of the tribes which had before prevailed. He is also
+said to have abolished the monarchy, and replaced it by a government of
+the people, whom he divided into the three classes of nobles,
+husbandmen, and artisans. He died at length in the island of Scyrus,
+where he fell or was thrown from the cliffs. Ages later, after the
+Persian war, the Delphic oracle bade the Athenians to bring back the
+bones of Theseus from Scyrus, and bury them splendidly in Attic soil.
+Cimon, the son of Miltiades, found--or pretended to find--the hero's
+tomb, and returned with the famous bones. They were buried in the heart
+of Athens, and over them was erected the monument called the Theseium,
+which became afterwards a place of sanctuary for slaves escaping from
+cruel treatment and for all persons in peril. Theseus, who had been the
+champion of the oppressed during life, thus became their refuge after
+death.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES._
+
+
+Among the legendary tales of Greece, none of which are strictly, though
+several are perhaps partly, historical, none--after that of Troy--was
+more popular with the ancients than the story of the two sieges of
+Thebes. This tale had probably in it an historical element, though
+deeply overlaid with myth, and it was the greatest enterprise of Grecian
+war, after that of Troy, during what is called the age of the Heroes.
+And in it is included one of the most pathetic episodes in the story of
+Greece, that of the sisterly affection and tragic fate of Antigone,
+whose story gave rise to noble dramas by the tragedians Æschylus and
+Sophocles, and is still a favorite with lovers of pathetic lore.
+
+As a prelude to our story we must glance at the mythical history of
+OEdipus, which, like that of his noble daughter, has been celebrated
+in ancient drama. An oracle had declared that he should kill his father,
+the king of Thebes. He was, in consequence, brought up in ignorance of
+his parentage, yet this led to the accomplishment of the oracle, for as
+a youth he, during a roadside squabble, killed his father not knowing
+him. For this crime, which had been one of their own devising, the gods,
+with their usual inconsistency, punished the land of Thebes; afflicting
+that hapless country with a terrible monster called the Sphinx, which
+had the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the body of a lion.
+This strangely made-up creature proposed a riddle to the Thebans, whose
+solution they were forced to try and give; and on every failure to give
+the correct answer she seized and devoured the unhappy aspirant.
+OEdipus arrived, in ignorance of the fact that he was the son of the
+late king. He quickly solved the riddle of the Sphinx, whereupon that
+monster committed suicide, and he was made king. He then married the
+queen,--not knowing that she was his own mother.
+
+[Illustration: OEDIPUS AND ANTIGONE.]
+
+This celebrated riddle of the Sphinx was not a very difficult one. It
+was as follows: "A being with four feet has two feet and three feet; but
+its feet vary, and when it has most it is weakest."
+
+The answer, as given by OEdipus, was "Man," who
+
+ "First as a babe four-footed creeps on his way,
+ Then, when full age cometh on, and the burden of years weighs full heavy,
+ Bending his shoulders and neck, as a third foot useth his staff."
+
+When the truth became known--as truth was apt to become known when too
+late in old stories--the queen, Jocasta, mad with anguish, hanged
+herself, and OEdipus, in wild despair, put out his eyes. The gods who
+had led him blindly into crime, now handed him over to punishment by the
+Furies,--the ancient goddesses of vengeance, whose mission it was to
+pursue the criminal with stinging whips.
+
+The tragic events which followed arose from the curse of the afflicted
+OEdipus. He had two sons, Polynikes and Eteocles, who twice offended
+him without intention, and whom he, frenzied by his troubles, twice
+bitterly cursed, praying to the gods that they might perish by each
+other's hands. OEdipus afterwards obtained the pardon of the gods for
+his involuntary crime, and died in exile, leaving Creon, the brother of
+Jocasta, on the throne. But though he was dead, his curse kept alive,
+and brought on new matter of dire moment.
+
+It began its work in a quarrel between the two sons as to who should
+succeed their uncle as king of Thebes. Polynikes was in the wrong, and
+was forced to leave Thebes, while Eteocles remained. The exiled prince
+sought the court of Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him his daughter
+in marriage, and agreed to assist in restoring him to his native
+country.
+
+Most of the Argive chiefs joined in the proposed expedition. But the
+most distinguished of them all, Amphiaraüs, opposed it as unjust and
+against the will of the gods. He concealed himself, lest he should be
+forced into the enterprise. But the other chiefs deemed his aid
+indispensable, and bribed his wife, with a costly present, to reveal his
+hiding-place. Amphiaraüs was thus forced to join the expedition, but his
+prophetic power taught him that it would end in disaster to all and
+death to himself, and as a measure of revenge he commanded his son
+Alkmæon to kill the faithless woman who had betrayed him, and after his
+death to organize a second expedition against Thebes.
+
+Seven chiefs led the army, one to assail each of the seven celebrated
+gates of Thebes. Onward they marched against that strong city, heedless
+of the hostile portents which they met on their way. The Thebans also
+sought the oracle of the gods, and were told that they should be
+victorious, but only on the dread condition that Creon's son,
+Menoeceus, should sacrifice himself to Mars. The devoted youth, on
+learning that the safety of his country depended on his life, forthwith
+killed himself before the city gates,--thus securing by innocent blood
+the powerful aid of the god of war.
+
+Long and strenuous was the contest that succeeded, each of the heroes
+fiercely attacking the gate adjudged to him. But the gods were on the
+side of the Thebans and every assault proved in vain. Parthenopæus, one
+of the seven, was killed by a stone, and another, Capaneus, while
+furiously mounting the walls from a scaling-ladder, was slain by a
+thunderbolt cast by Jupiter, and fell dead to the earth.
+
+The assailants, terrified by this portent, drew back, and were pursued
+by the Thebans, who issued from their gates. But the battle that was
+about to take place on the open plain was stopped by Eteocles, who
+proposed to settle it by a single combat with his brother Polynikes, the
+victory to be given to the side whose champion succeeded in this mortal
+duel. Polynikes, filled with hatred of his brother, eagerly accepted
+this challenge. Adrastus, the leader of the assailing army, assented,
+and the unholy combat began.
+
+Never was a more furious combat than that between the hostile brothers.
+Each was exasperated to bitter hatred of the other, and they fought with
+a violence and desperation that could end only in the death of one of
+the combatants. As it proved, the curse of OEdipus was in the keeping
+of the gods, and both fell dead,--the fate for which their aged father
+had prayed. But the duel had decided nothing, and the two armies renewed
+the battle.
+
+And now death and bloodshed ran riot; men fell by hundreds; deeds of
+heroic valor were achieved on either side; feats of individual daring
+were displayed like those which Homer sings in the story of Troy. But
+the battle ended in the defeat of the assailants. Of the seven leaders
+only two survived, and one of these, Amphiaraüs, was about to suffer the
+fate he had foretold, when Jupiter rescued him from death by a miracle.
+The earth opened beneath him, and he, with his chariot and horses, was
+received unhurt into her bosom. Rendered immortal by the king of the
+gods, he was afterwards worshipped as a god himself.
+
+Adrastus, the only remaining chief, was forced to fly, and was preserved
+by the matchless speed of his horse. He reached Argos in safety, but
+brought with him nothing but "his garment of woe and his black-maned
+steed."
+
+Thus ended, in defeat and disaster to the assailants, the first of the
+celebrated sieges of Thebes. It was followed by a tragic episode which
+remains to be told, that of the sisterly fidelity of Antigone and her
+sorrowful fate. Her story, which the dramatists have made immortal, is
+thus told in the legend.
+
+After the repulse of his foes, King Creon caused the body of Eteocles
+to be buried with the highest honors; but that of Polynikes was cast
+outside the gates as the corpse of a traitor, and death was threatened
+to any one who should dare to give it burial. This cruel edict, which no
+one else ventured to ignore, was set aside by Antigone, the sister of
+Polynikes. This brave maiden, with warm filial affection, had
+accompanied her blind father during his exile to Attica, and was now
+returned to Thebes to perform another holy duty. Funeral rites were held
+by the Greeks to be essential to the repose of the dead, and Antigone,
+despite Creon's edict, determined that her brother's body should not be
+left to the dogs and vultures. Her sister, though in sympathy with her
+purpose, proved too timid to help her. No other assistance was to be
+had. But not deterred by this, she determined to perform the act alone,
+and to bury the body with her own hands.
+
+In this act of holy devotion Antigone succeeded; Polynikes was buried.
+But the sentinels whom Creon had posted detected her in the act, and she
+was seized and dragged before the tribunal of the tyrant. Here she
+defended her action with an earnestness and dignity that should have
+gained her release, but Creon was inflexible in his anger. She had set
+at naught his edict, and should suffer the penalty for her crime. He
+condemned her to be buried alive.
+
+Sophocles, the dramatist, puts noble words into the mouth of Antigone.
+This is her protest against the tyranny of the king:
+
+  "No ordinance of man shall override
+  The settled laws of Nature and of God;
+  Not written these in pages of a book,
+  Nor were they framed to-day, nor yesterday;
+  We know not whence they are; but this we know,
+  That they from all eternity have been,
+  And shall to all eternity endure."
+
+And when asked by Creon why she had dared disobey the laws, she nobly
+replied,--
+
+                "Not through fear
+  Of any man's resolve was I prepared
+  Before the gods to bear the penalty
+  Of sinning against these. That I should die
+  I knew (how should I not?) though thy decree
+  Had never spoken. And before my time
+  If I shall die, I reckon this a gain;
+  For whoso lives, as I, in many woes,
+  How can it be but he shall gain by death?"
+
+At the king's command the unhappy maiden was taken from his presence and
+thrust into a sepulchre, where she was condemned to perish in hunger and
+loneliness. But Antigone was not without her advocate. She had a
+lover,--almost the only one in Greek literature. Hæmon, the son of
+Creon, to whom her hand had been promised in marriage, and who loved her
+dearly, appeared before his father and earnestly interceded for her
+life. Not on the plea of his love,--such a plea would have had no weight
+with a Greek tribunal,--but on those of mercy and justice. His plea was
+vain; Creon was obdurate: the unhappy lover left his presence and sought
+Antigone's living tomb, where he slew himself at the feet of his love,
+already dead. His mother, on learning of his fatal act, also killed
+herself by her own hand, and Creon was left alone to suffer the
+consequences of his unnatural act.
+
+The story goes on to relate that Adrastus, with the disconsolate mothers
+of the fallen chieftains, sought the hero Theseus at Athens, and begged
+his aid in procuring the privilege of interment for the slain warriors
+whose bodies lay on the plain of Thebes. The Thebans persisting in their
+refusal to permit burial, Theseus at length led an army against them,
+defeated them in the field, and forced them to consent that their fallen
+foes should be interred, that last privilege of the dead which was
+deemed so essential by all pious Greeks. The tomb of the chieftains was
+shown near Eleusis within late historical times.
+
+But the Thebans were to suffer another reverse. The sons of the slain
+chieftains raised an army, which they placed under the leadership of
+Adrastus, and demanded to be led against Thebes. Alkmæon, the son of
+Amphiaraüs, who had been commanded to revenge him, played the most
+prominent part in the succeeding war. As this new expedition marched,
+the gods, which had opposed the former with hostile signs, now showed
+their approval with favorable portents. Adherents joined them on their
+march. At the river Glisas they were met by a Theban army, and a battle
+was fought, which ended in a complete victory over the Theban foe. A
+prophet now declared to the Thebans that the gods were against them, and
+advised them to surrender the city. This they did, flying themselves,
+with their wives and children, to the country of the Illyrians, and
+leaving their city empty to the triumphant foe. The Epigoni, as the
+youthful victors were called, marched in at the head of their forces,
+took possession, and placed Thersander, the son of Polynikes, on the
+throne. And thus ends the famous old legend of the two sieges of Thebes.
+
+
+
+
+_LYCURGUS AND THE SPARTAN LAWS._
+
+
+Of the many nations between which the small peninsula of Greece was
+divided, much the most interesting were those whose chief cities were
+Athens and Sparta. These are the states with whose doings history is
+full, and without which the history of ancient Greece would be little
+more interesting to us than the history of ancient China and Japan. No
+two cities could have been more opposite in character and institutions
+than these, and they were rivals of each other for the dominant power
+through centuries of Grecian history. In Athens freedom of thought and
+freedom of action prevailed. Such complete political equality of the
+citizens has scarcely been known elsewhere upon the earth, and the
+intellectual activity of these citizens stands unequalled. In Sparta
+freedom of thought and action were both suppressed to a degree rarely
+known, the most rigid institutions existed, and the only activity was a
+warlike one. All thought and all education had war for their object, and
+the state and city became a compact military machine. This condition was
+the result of a remarkable code of laws by which Sparta was governed,
+the most peculiar and surprising code which any nation has ever
+possessed. It is this code, and Lycurgus, to whom Sparta owed it, with
+which we are now concerned.
+
+First, who was Lycurgus and in what age did he live? Neither of these
+questions can be closely answered. Though his laws are historical, his
+biography is legendary. He is believed to have lived somewhere about 800
+or 900 B.C., that age of legend and fable in which Homer lived, and what
+we know about him is little more to be trusted than what we know about
+the great poet. The Greeks had stories of their celebrated men of this
+remote age, but they were stories with which imagination often had more
+to do than fact, and though we may enjoy them, it is never quite safe to
+believe them.
+
+As for the very uncertain personage named Lycurgus, we are told by
+Herodotus, the Greek historian, that when he was born the Spartans were
+the most lawless of the Greeks. Every man was a law unto himself, and
+confusion, tumult, and injustice everywhere prevailed. Lycurgus, a noble
+Spartan, sad at heart for the misery of his country, applied to the
+oracle at Delphi, and received instructions as to how he should act to
+bring about a better state of affairs.
+
+Plutarch, who tells so many charming stories about the ancient Greeks
+and Romans, gives us the following account. According to him the brother
+of Lycurgus was king of Sparta. When he died Lycurgus was offered the
+throne, but he declined the honor and made his infant nephew, Charilaus,
+king. Then he left Sparta, and travelled through Crete, Ionia, Egypt,
+and several more remote countries, everywhere studying the laws and
+customs which he found prevailing. In Ionia he obtained a copy of the
+poems of Homer, and is said by some to have met and conversed with Homer
+himself. If, as is supposed, the Greeks of that age had not the art of
+writing, he must have carried this copy in his memory.
+
+On his return home from this long journey Lycurgus found his country in
+a worse state than before. Sparta, it may be well here to say, had
+always two kings; but it found, as might have been expected, that two
+kings were worse than one, and that this odd device in government never
+worked well. At any rate, Lycurgus found that law had nearly vanished,
+and that disorder had taken its place. He now consulted the oracle at
+Delphi, and was told that the gods would support him in what he proposed
+to do.
+
+Coming back to Sparta, he secretly gathered a body-guard of thirty armed
+men from among the noblest citizens, and then presented himself in the
+Agora, or place of public assembly, announcing that he had come to end
+the disorders of his native land. King Charilaus at first heard of this
+with terror, but on learning what his uncle intended, he offered his
+support. Most of the leading men of Sparta did the same. Lycurgus was to
+them a descendant of the great hero Hercules, he was the most learned
+and travelled of their people, and the reforms he proposed were sadly
+needed in that unhappy land.
+
+These reforms were of two kinds. He desired to reform both the
+government and society. We shall deal first with the new government
+which he instituted. The two kings were left unchanged. But under them
+was formed a senate of twenty-eight members, to whom the kings were
+joined, making thirty in all. The people also were given their
+assemblies, but they could not debate any subject, all the power they
+had was to accept or reject what the senate had decreed. At a later date
+five men, called ephors, were selected from the people, into whose hands
+fell nearly all the civil power, so that the kings had little more to do
+than to command the army and lead it to war. The kings, however, were at
+the head of the religious establishment of the country, and were
+respected by the people as descendants of the gods.
+
+The government of Sparta thus became an aristocracy or oligarchy. The
+ephors came from the people, and were appointed in their interest, but
+they came to rule the state so completely that neither the kings, the
+senate, nor the assembly had much voice in the government. Such was the
+outgrowth of the governmental institutions of Lycurgus.
+
+It is the civil laws made by Lycurgus, however, which are of most
+interest, and in which Sparta differed from all other states. The people
+of Laconia, the country of which Sparta was the capital, were composed
+of two classes. That country had originally been conquered by the
+Spartans, and the ancient inhabitants, who were known as Helots, were
+held as slaves by their Spartan conquerors. They tilled the ground to
+raise food for the citizens, who were all soldiers, and whose whole life
+and thought were given to keeping the Helots in slavery and to warlike
+activity. That they might make the better soldiers, Lycurgus formed laws
+to do away with all luxury and inequality of conditions, and to train up
+the young under a rigid system of discipline to the use of weapons and
+the arts of war. The Helots, also, were often employed as light-armed
+soldiers, and there was always danger that they might revolt against
+their oppressors, a fact which made constant discipline and vigilance
+necessary to the Spartan citizens.
+
+Lycurgus found great inequality in the state. A few owned all the land,
+and the remainder were poor. The rich lived in luxury; the poor were
+reduced to misery and want. He divided the whole territory of Sparta
+into nine thousand equal lots, one of which was given to each citizen.
+The territory of the remainder of Laconia was divided into thirty
+thousand equal lots, one of which was given to each Perioecus. (The
+Perioeci were the freemen of the country outside of the Spartan city
+and district, and did not possess the full rights of citizenship.)
+
+This measure served to equalize wealth. But further to prevent luxury,
+Lycurgus banished all gold and silver from the country, and forced the
+people to use iron money,--each piece so heavy that none would care to
+carry it. He also forbade the citizens to have anything to do with
+commerce or industry. They were to be soldiers only, and the Helots were
+to supply them with food. As for commerce, since no other state would
+accept their iron money, they had to depend on themselves for
+everything they needed. The industries of Laconia were kept strictly at
+home.
+
+To these provisions Lycurgus added another of remarkable character. No
+one was allowed to take his meals at home. Public tables were provided,
+at which all must eat, every citizen being forced to belong to some
+special public mess. Each had to supply his quota of food, such as
+barley, wine, cheese, and figs from his land, game obtained by hunting,
+or the meat of the animals killed for sacrifices. At these tables all
+shared alike. The kings and the humblest citizens were on an equality.
+No distinction was permitted except to those who had rendered some
+signal service to the state.
+
+This public mess was not accepted without protest. Those who were used
+to luxurious living were not ready to be brought down to such simple
+fare, and a number of these attacked Lycurgus in the market-place, and
+would have stoned him to death had he not run briskly for his life. As
+it was, one of his pursuers knocked out his eye. But, such was his
+content at his success, that he dedicated his last eye to the gods,
+building a temple to the goddess Athené of the Eye. At these public
+tables black broth was the most valued dish, the elder men eating it in
+preference, and leaving the meat to their younger messmates.
+
+The houses of the Spartans were as plain as they could well be made, and
+as simple in furniture as possible, while no lights were permitted at
+bedtime, it being designed that every one should become accustomed to
+walking boldly in the dark. This, however, was but a minor portion of
+the Spartan discipline. Throughout life, from boyhood to old age, every
+one was subjected to the most rigorous training. From seven years of age
+the drill continued, and everyone was constantly being trained or seeing
+others under training. The day was passed in public exercises and public
+meals, the nights in public barracks. Married Spartans rarely saw their
+wives--during the first years of marriage--and had very little to do
+with their children; their whole lives were given to the state, and the
+slavery of the Helots to them was not more complete than their slavery
+to military discipline.
+
+They were not only drilled in the complicated military movements which
+taught a body of Spartan soldiers to act as one man, but also had
+incessant gymnastic training, so as to make them active, strong, and
+enduring. They were taught to bear severe pain unmoved, to endure heat
+and cold, hunger and thirst, to walk barefoot on rugged ground, to wear
+the same garment summer and winter, to suppress all display of feeling,
+and in public to remain silent and motionless until action was called
+for.
+
+Two companies were often matched against each other, and these contests
+were carried on with fury, fists and feet taking the place of arms.
+Hunting in the woods and mountains was encouraged, that they might learn
+to bear fatigue. The boys were kept half fed, that they might be forced
+to provide for themselves by hunting or stealing. The latter was
+designed to make them cunning and skilful, and if detected in the act
+they were severely punished. The story is told that one boy who had
+stolen a fox and hidden it under his garment, permitted the animal to
+tear him open with claws and teeth, and died rather than reveal his
+theft.
+
+One might say that he would rather have been born a girl than a boy in
+Sparta; but the girls were trained almost as severely as the boys. They
+were forced to contend with each other in running, wrestling, and
+boxing, and to go through other gymnastic exercises calculated to make
+them strong and healthy. They marched in the religious processions, sung
+and danced at festivals, and were present at the exercises of the
+youths. Thus boys and girls were continually mingled, and the praise or
+reproach of the latter did much to stimulate their brothers and friends
+to the utmost exertion.
+
+As a result of all this the Spartans became strong, vigorous, and
+handsome in form and face. The beauty of their women was everywhere
+celebrated. The men became unequalled for soldierly qualities, able to
+bear the greatest fatigue and privation, and to march great distances in
+a brief time, while on the field of battle they were taught to conquer
+or to die, a display of cowardice or flight from the field being a
+lifelong disgrace.
+
+Such were the main features of the most singular set of laws any nation
+ever had, the best fitted to make a nation of soldiers, and also to
+prevent intellectual progress in any other direction than the single one
+of war-making. Even eloquence in speech was discouraged, and a brief or
+laconic manner sedulously cultivated. But while all this had its
+advantages, it had its defects. The number of citizens decreased instead
+of increasing. At the time of the Persian war there were eight thousand
+of them. At a late date there were but seven hundred, of whom one
+hundred possessed most of the land. Whether Lycurgus really divided the
+land equally or not is doubtful. At any rate, in time the land fell into
+a few hands, the poor increased in number, and the people steadily died
+out; while the public mess, so far as the rich were concerned, became a
+mere form.
+
+But we need not deal with these late events, and must go back to the
+story told of Lycurgus. It is said that when he had completed his code
+of laws, he called together an assembly of the people, told them that he
+was going on a journey, and asked them to swear that they would obey his
+laws till he returned. This they agreed to do, the kings, the senate,
+and the people all taking the oath.
+
+Then the law-giver went to Delphi, where he offered a sacrifice to
+Apollo, and asked the oracle if the laws he had made were good. The
+oracle answered that they were excellent, and would bring the people the
+greatest fame. This answer he had put into writing and sent to Sparta,
+for he had resolved to make his oath binding for all time by never
+returning. So the old man starved himself to death.
+
+The Spartans kept their oath. For five hundred years their city
+continued one of the chief cities of Greece, and their army the most
+warlike and dreaded of the armies of the earth. As for Lycurgus, his
+countrymen worshipped him as a god, and imputed to him all that was
+noble in their institutions and excellent in their laws. But time brings
+its inevitable changes, and these famous institutions in time decayed,
+while the people perished from over-strict discipline or other causes
+till but a small troop of Spartans remained, too weak in numbers fairly
+to control the Helots of their fields.
+
+In truth, the laws of Lycurgus were unnatural, and in the end could but
+fail. They were framed to make one-sided men, and only whole men can
+long succeed. Human nature will have its way, and luxury and corruption
+crept into Sparta despite these laws. Nor did the Spartans prove braver
+or more successful in war than the Athenians, whose whole nature was
+developed, and who were alike great in literature, art, and war.
+
+
+
+
+_ARISTOMENES, THE HERO OF MESSENIA._
+
+
+We have told by what means the Spartans grew to be famous warriors. We
+have now to tell one of the ancient stories of how they used their
+warlike prowess to extend their dominions. Laconia, their country, was
+situated in the southeast section of the Peloponnesus, that southern
+peninsula which is attached to the remainder of Greece by the narrow
+neck of land known as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their capital city was
+anciently called Lacedæmon; it was later known as Sparta. In consequence
+they are called in history both Spartans and Lacedæmonians.
+
+In the early history of the Spartans they did not trouble themselves
+about Northern Greece. They had enough to occupy them in the
+Peloponnesus. As the Romans, in after-time, spent their early centuries
+in conquering the small nations immediately around them, so did the
+Spartans. And the first wars of this nation of soldiers seem to have
+been with Messenia, a small country west of Laconia, and extending like
+it southward into the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+There were two wars with the Messenians, both full of stories of daring
+and disaster, but it is the second of these with which we are specially
+concerned, that in which the hero Aristomenes won his fame. We shall
+not ask our readers to believe all that is told about this ancient
+champion. Much of it is very doubtful. But the war in which he took part
+was historical, and the conquest of Messenia was the first great event
+in Spartan history.
+
+Now for the story itself. In the first Messenian war, which was fought
+more than seven hundred years B.C., the leader of the Messenians was
+named Aristodemus. A quarrel had arisen between the two nations during
+some sacrifices on their border lands. The Spartans had laid a snare for
+their neighbors by dressing some youths as maidens and arming them with
+daggers. They attacked the Messenians, but were defeated, and the
+Spartan king was slain.
+
+In the war that ensued the Messenians in time found themselves in severe
+straits, and followed the plan that seems to have been common throughout
+Grecian history. They sent to Delphi to ask aid and advice from the
+oracle of Apollo. And the oracle gave them one of its often cruel and
+always uncertain answers; saying that if they would be successful a
+virgin of the house of Æpytus must die for her country. To fulfil this
+cruel behest Aristodemus, who was of that ancient house, killed his
+daughter with his own hand,--much as Agamemnon had sacrificed his
+daughter before sailing for Troy.
+
+Aristodemus afterwards became king, and had a stirring and tragic
+history, which was full of portents and prodigies. Thus an old blind
+prophet suddenly recovered his sight,--which the Messenians looked upon
+to mean something, though it is not clear what. A statue of Artemis (or
+Diana) let fall its brazen shield; which meant something more,--probably
+that the fastenings had given way; but the ancients looked on it as a
+portent. Then the ghost of his murdered daughter appeared to
+Aristodemus, pointed to her wounded side, stripped off his armor, placed
+on his head a crown of gold and on his body a white robe,--a sign of
+death. So, as it seemed evident that he had mistaken the oracle, and
+killed his daughter without saving his country, he did the only thing
+that remained for him: he went to her grave and killed himself. And with
+this tragedy ends all we need to tell about the first champion of
+Messenia.
+
+The war ended in the conquest of Messenia by the Spartans. The conquered
+people were very harshly treated by the conquerors, being forced to pay
+as tribute half the produce of their fields, and to humble themselves
+before their haughty masters. As a result, about fifty years afterwards,
+they broke out into rebellion, and a second Messenian war began.
+
+This war lasted for many years, the Messenians being led by a valiant
+hero named Aristomenes, who performed startling exploits and made
+marvellous escapes. Three great battles took place, with various results
+and three times Aristomenes made a remarkable sacrifice to the king of
+the gods. This was called the Hekatomphonia, and could only be offered
+by one who had slain, with his own hands, one hundred enemies in battle.
+
+But great battles were not all. There were years of guerilla warfare.
+At the head of a band of brave followers Aristomenes made his way more
+than once to the very heart of Laconia, surprised two of its cities, and
+on one occasion ventured into Sparta itself by night. Here he boldly
+entered the temple of Athené of the Brazen House and hung up his shield
+there as a mark of defiance to his enemies, placing on it an inscription
+which said that Aristomenes presented it as an offering from Spartan
+spoil.
+
+The Messenian maidens crowned their hero with garlands, and danced
+around him, singing a war strain in honor of his victories over his
+foes. Yet he found the Spartans vigorous and persistent enemies, and in
+spite of all his victories was forced at length to take refuge in the
+mountain fastnesses, where he held out against his foes for eleven
+years.
+
+We do not know all the adventures of this famous champion, but are told
+that he was taken prisoner three times by his enemies. Twice he made
+marvellous escapes while they were conveying him to Sparta. On the third
+occasion he was less fortunate. His foes bore him in triumph to their
+capital city, and here he was condemned to be cast from Mount Taygetus
+into the Keadas, a deep rock cavity into which they flung their
+criminals.
+
+Fifty Messenian prisoners suffered the same fate and were all killed;
+but the gods, so we are told, came to their leader's aid. The legend
+says that an eagle took Aristomenes on its outspread wings, and landed
+him safely in the bottom of the pit. More likely the bodies of the
+former victims broke his fall. Seeing no possible way out from the deep
+cavity, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and resigned himself to die.
+But, while thus lying, he saw a fox prowling among the dead bodies, and
+questioned himself how it had found its way into the pit. When it came
+near him he grasped its tail, defending himself from its bites by means
+of his cloak. Holding fast, he followed the fox to the aperture by which
+it had entered, enlarged it so that he could creep out, and soon
+appeared alive again in the field, to the surprise of his friends and
+the consternation of his foes.
+
+Being seized again by some Cretan bowmen, he was rescued by a maiden,
+who dreamed that wolves had brought into the city a chained lion, bereft
+of its claws, and that she had given it claws and set it free. When she
+saw Aristomenes among his captors, she believed that her dream had come
+true, and that the gods desired her to set him free. This she did by
+making his captors drunk, and giving him a dagger with which he cut his
+bonds. The indiscreet bowmen were killed by the warrior, while the
+escaped hero rewarded the maiden by making her the wife of his son.
+
+But Messenia was doomed by the gods, and no man could avert its fate.
+The oracle of Delphi declared that if the he-goat (Tragos) should drink
+the waters of the Neda, the god could no longer defend that fated
+country. And now a fig-tree sprang up on the banks of the Neda, and,
+instead of spreading its branches aloft, let them droop till they
+touched the waters of the stream. This a seer announced as the
+fulfillment of the oracle, for in the Messenian language the fig-tree
+was called _Tragos_.
+
+Aristomenes now, discouraged by the decree of the gods, and finding
+himself surrounded, through treachery, by his enemies in his mountain
+stronghold, decided to give up the hopeless struggle. He broke fiercely
+through the ranks of his assailants with his sons and followers, and
+left his country to the doom which the gods had decreed.
+
+The end of his career, like its earlier events, was, according to the
+legend, under the control of the deities. Damagetes, the king of the
+island of Rhodes, had been told by an oracle that he must marry the
+bravest of the Hellenes (or Greeks). Believing that Aristomenes had the
+best claim to this proud title, he asked him for the hand of his
+daughter in marriage, and offered him a home in his island realm.
+Aristomenes consented, and spent the remainder of his days in Rhodes.
+From his daughter descended the illustrious family of the Diagoridæ.
+
+This romantic story of the far past resembles those of King Alfred of
+England, of Wallace and Bruce of Scotland, and of other heroes who have
+defended their countries single-handed against a powerful foe. But we
+are not done with it yet. There is another singular and interesting
+episode to be told,--a legend, no doubt, but one which has almost passed
+into history.
+
+The story goes that the Spartans, losing heart at the success of the
+Messenians in the early years of the war, took the usual method then
+adopted, and sent to the oracle at Delphi for advice. The oracle told
+them to apply to Athens for a leader. They did so, sending an embassy to
+that city; and in response to the oracle the Athenians sent them a lame
+schoolmaster named Tyrtæus. They did not dare to resist the command of
+the god, but they had no desire to render any actual aid to the
+Spartans.
+
+However, Apollo seems to have been wiser than the Athenians. The lame
+schoolmaster was an able poet as well, and on reaching Sparta he
+composed a series of war-songs which so inspirited the army that they
+marched away to victory. Tyrtæus was probably not only an able poet;
+very likely he also gave the Spartans good advice in the conduct of the
+war, and though he did not lead their armies, he animated them by his
+songs and aided them with his advice until victory followed their career
+of defeat.
+
+For many years afterwards the war-songs of Tyrtæus remained highly
+popular at Sparta, and some of them have come down to our own days. As
+for the actual history of this war, most of what we know seems to have
+been written by Tyrtæus, who was thus not only the poet but the
+historian of the Messenian wars.
+
+
+
+
+_SOLON, THE LAW-GIVER OF ATHENS._
+
+
+We have told how Sparta came to have an aristocratic government, under
+the laws of Lycurgus. We have now to tell how Athens came to have a
+democratic government, under the laws of Solon. These formed the types
+of government for later Greece, some of whose nations became
+aristocracies, following the example of Sparta; others became
+democracies, and formed their governments on the model of that of
+Athens.
+
+As before Lycurgus the Spartan commonwealth was largely without law, so
+was Athens before Solon. In those days the people of Attica--of which
+Athens was the capital city--were divided into three factions,--the
+rich, the middle class, and the poor. As for the poor, they were in a
+condition of misery, being loaded down with debt, and many of them in a
+state of slavery to the rich, who owned nearly all the land.
+
+At that period what law existed was very severe against debtors. The
+debtor became the slave of his creditor, and was held in this state
+until he could pay his debt, either in money or in labor. And not only
+he, but his younger sons and his unmarried daughters and sisters, were
+reduced to slavery. Through the action of this severe law many of the
+poor of Attica were owned as slaves, many had been sold as slaves, some
+had kept their freedom only by selling their own children, and some had
+fled from the country to escape slavery. And this, too, had arisen in
+many cases through injustice in the courts and corruption of the judges.
+
+In the time of Solon the misery and oppression from these laws became so
+great that there was a general mutiny of the poor against the rich. They
+refused to submit to the unjust enactments of their rulers, and the
+state fell into such frightful disorder that the governing class, no
+longer able to control the people, were obliged to call Solon to their
+aid.
+
+Solon did not belong to the rich men of Athens, though he was of noble
+birth, and, like so many of the older Greeks, traced his family line
+back to the gods. Neptune, the ocean deity, was fabled to be his far-off
+ancestor. He was born about 638 B.C. His father had spent most of his
+money, largely in kind deeds to others, and the son found himself
+obliged to become a merchant. In this pursuit he travelled in many parts
+of Greece and Asia, and in his journeys paid more heed to the gaining of
+knowledge than of money, so that when he came back his mind was fuller
+than his purse. Men who seek wisdom rarely succeed in gaining much
+money, but Solon's story goes to show that wisdom is far the better of
+the two, and that a rich mind is of more value than a rich purse. When
+he returned to Attica he gained such fame as a poet and a man of
+learning and wisdom that he has ever since been classed as one of the
+Seven Wise Men of Greece.
+
+Of these wise men the following story is told. Some fishermen of Cos
+cast their net into the sea, and brought up in its meshes a golden
+tripod, which the renowned Helen had thrown into the sea during her
+return from Troy. A dispute arose as to whom the tripod should belong
+to. Several cities were ready to go to war about it. To prevent
+bloodshed the oracle of Apollo was applied to, and answered that it
+should be sent to the wisest man that could be found.
+
+It was at first sent to Thales of Miletus, a man famous for wisdom. But
+he decided that Bias of Priene was wiser than he, and sent it to him.
+And thus it went the round of the seven wise men,--Solon among them, so
+we are told,--and finally came back to Thales. He refused to keep it,
+and placed it in the temple of Apollo at Thebes.
+
+An evidence alike of Solon's wisdom, shrewdness, and political skill
+arose in the war for the island of Salamis, which adjoined the two
+states of Megara and Attica, and for whose possession they were at war.
+After the Athenians had been at great loss of men and money in this
+conflict, Megara gained the island, and the people of Athens became so
+disgusted with the whole affair that a law was passed declaring that any
+man who spoke or wrote again about the subject should be put to death.
+
+This Solon held to be a stain on the honor of Athens. He did not care to
+lose his life by breaking the law, but was not content that his country
+should rest under the stigma of defeat, and should yield so valuable a
+prize. He accordingly had it given out that he had gone mad; and in
+pretended insanity he rushed into the public square, mounted the
+herald's stone, and repeated a poem he had composed for the occasion,
+recalling vividly to the people the disgrace of their late defeat. His
+stirring appeal so wrought upon their feelings that the law was
+repealed, war was declared, and Solon was placed in command of the army.
+
+Megara sent out a ship to watch the proceedings, but this was seized by
+Solon's fleet and manned by part of his force. The remainder of his men
+were landed and marched towards the city of Salamis, on which they made
+an assault. While this was going on, Solon sailed up with the ship he
+had captured. The Megarians, thinking it to be their own ship, permitted
+it to enter the port, and the city was taken by surprise. Salamis, thus
+won, continued to belong to Athens till those late days when Philip of
+Macedon conquered Greece.
+
+To Solon, now acknowledged to be the wisest and most famous of the
+Athenians, the tyrants who had long misruled Athens turned, when they
+found the people in rebellion against their authority. In the year 594
+B.C. he was chosen archon, or ruler of the state, and was given full
+power to take such measures as were needed to put an end to the
+disorders. Probably these autocrats supposed that he would help them to
+continue in power; but, if so, they did not know the man with whom they
+had to deal.
+
+Solon might easily have made himself a despot, if he had chosen,--all
+the states of Greece being then under the rule of despots or of
+tyrannical aristocrats. But he was too honest and too wise for this. He
+set himself earnestly to overcome the difficulties which lay before him.
+And he did this with a radical hand. In truth, the people were in no
+mood for any but radical measures.
+
+The enslaved debtors were at once set free. All contracts in which the
+person or the land of the debtor had been given as security were
+cancelled. No future contract under which a citizen could be enslaved or
+imprisoned for debt was permitted. All past claims against the land of
+Attica were cancelled, and the mortgage pillars removed. (These pillars
+were set up at the boundaries of the land, and had the lender's name and
+the amount of the debt cut into the stone.)
+
+But as many of the creditors were themselves in debt to richer men, and
+as Solon's laws left them poor, he adopted a measure for their relief.
+This was to lower the value of the money of the state. The old silver
+drachmas were replaced by new drachmas, of which seventy-three equalled
+one hundred of the old. Debtors were thus able to pay their debts at a
+discount of twenty-seven per cent., and the great loss fell on the rich;
+and justly so, for most of them had gained their wealth through
+dishonesty and oppression. Lastly, Solon made full citizens of all from
+whom political rights had been taken, except those who had been
+condemned for murder or treason.
+
+This was a bold measure. And, like such bold measures generally, it did
+injustice to many. But the evil was temporary, the good permanent. It
+put an end to much injustice, and no such condition as had prevailed
+ever again arose in Athens. The government of the aristocracy came to an
+end under Solon's laws. From that time forward Athens grew more and more
+a government of the people.
+
+The old assembly of the people existed then, but all its power had been
+taken from it. Solon gave back to it the right of voting and of passing
+laws. But he established a council of four hundred men, elected annually
+by the people, whose duty it was to consider the business upon which the
+assembly was to act. And the assembly could only deal with business that
+was brought before it by this council.
+
+The assemblies of the people took place on the Pnyx, a hill that
+overlooked the city, and from which could be seen the distant sea. At
+its right stood the Acropolis, that famous hill on which the noblest of
+temples were afterwards built. Between these two hills rose the
+Areopagus, on which the Athenian supreme court held its sessions. The
+Athenians loved to do their business in the open air, and, while
+discussing questions of law and justice, delighted in the broad view
+before them of the temples, the streets, and the crowded marts of trade
+of the city, and the shining sea, with its white-sailed craft, afar in
+the sunny distance.
+
+Solon's laws went further than we have said. He divided the people into
+four ranks or divisions, according to their wealth in land. The richer
+men were, the more power they were given in the state. But at the same
+time they had to pay heavier taxes, so that their greater authority was
+not an unmixed blessing. The lowest class, composed of the poorest
+citizens, had no taxes at all to pay, and no power in the state, other
+than the right to vote in the assembly. When called out as soldiers arms
+were furnished them, while the other classes had to buy their own arms.
+
+Various other laws were made by Solon. The old law against crime,
+established long before by Draco, had made death the penalty for every
+crime, from murder to petty theft. This severe law was repealed, and the
+punishment made to agree with the crime. Minor laws were these: The
+living could not speak evil of the dead. No person could draw more than
+a fixed quantity of water daily from the public wells. People who raised
+bees must not have their hives too near those of their neighbors. It was
+fixed how women should dress, and they were forbidden to scratch or tear
+themselves at funerals. They had to carry baskets of a fixed size when
+they went abroad. A dog that bit anybody had to be delivered up with a
+log four feet and a half long tied to its neck. Such were some of the
+laws which the council swore to maintain, each member vowing that if he
+broke any of them he would dedicate a golden statue as large as himself
+to Apollo, at Delphi.
+
+Having founded his laws, Solon, fearing that he would be forced to make
+changes in them, left Athens, having bound the people by oath to keep
+them for ten years, during which time he proposed to be absent.
+
+From Athens he set sail for Egypt, and in that ancient realm talked long
+with two learned priests about the old history of the land. Among the
+stories they told him was a curious one about a great island named
+Atlantis, far in the western ocean, against which Athens had waged war
+nine thousand years before, and which had afterwards sunk under the
+Atlantic's waves. It was one of those fanciful legends of which the past
+had so great a store.
+
+From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he dwelt long and made useful
+changes. He is also said to have visited, at Sardis, Croesus, the king
+of Lydia, a monarch famous for his wealth and good fortune. About this
+visit a pretty moral story is told. It is probably not true, being a
+fiction of the ancient story-tellers, but, fiction or not, it is well
+worth the telling.
+
+Croesus had been so fortunate in war that he had made his kingdom
+great and prosperous, while he was esteemed the richest monarch of his
+times. He lodged Solon in his palace and had his servants show him all
+the treasures which he had gained. He then, conversing with his visitor,
+praised him for his wisdom, and asked him whom he deemed to be the
+happiest of men.
+
+He expected an answer flattering to his vanity, but Solon simply
+replied,--
+
+"Tellus, of Athens."
+
+"And why do you deem Tellus the happiest?" demanded Croesus.
+
+Solon gave as his reason that Tellus lived in comfort and had good and
+beautiful sons, who also had good children; and that he died in gallant
+defence of his country, and was buried by his countrymen with the
+highest honors.
+
+"And whom do you give the second place in happiness?" asked Croesus.
+
+"Cleobis and Bito," answered Solon. "These were men of the Argive race,
+who had fortune enough for their wants, and were so strong as to gain
+prizes at the Games."
+
+"But their special title to happiness was," continued Solon, "that in a
+festival to the goddess Juno, at Argos, their mother wished to go in a
+car. As the oxen did not return in time from the fields, the youths,
+fearing to be late, yoked themselves to the car, and drew their mother
+to the temple, forty-five furlongs away. This filial deed gained them
+the highest praise from the people, while their mother prayed the
+goddess to bestow upon them the highest blessing to which mortals can
+attain. After her prayer, the youths offered sacrifices, partook of the
+holy banquet, and fell asleep in the temple. They never woke again! This
+was the blessing of the goddess."
+
+"What," cried Croesus, angrily, "is my happiness, then, of so little
+value to you that you put me on a level with private men like these?"
+
+"You are very rich, Croesus," answered Solon, "and are lord of many
+nations. But remember that you have many days yet to live, and that any
+single day in a man's life may yield events that will change all his
+fortune. As to whether you are supremely happy and fortunate, then, I
+have no answer to make. I cannot speak for your happiness till I know if
+your life has a happy _ending_."[1]
+
+Solon, having completed his travels, returned to Athens to find it in
+turmoil. Pisistratus, a political adventurer and a favorite with the
+people, had gained despotic power by a cunning trick. He wounded
+himself, and declared that he had been attacked and wounded by his
+political enemies. He asked, therefore, for a body-guard for his
+protection. This was granted him by the popular assembly, which was
+strongly on his side. With its aid he seized the Acropolis and made
+himself master of the city, while his opponents were forced to fly for
+their lives.
+
+This revolutionary movement was strenuously opposed by Solon, but in
+vain. Pisistratus had made himself so popular with the people that they
+treated their old law-giver like a man who had lost his senses. As a
+last appeal he put on his armor and placed himself before the door of
+his house, as if on guard as a sentinel over the liberties of his
+country! This appeal was also in vain.
+
+"I have done my duty!" he exclaimed; "I have sustained to the best of my
+power my country and the laws."
+
+He refused to fly, saying, when asked on what he relied for protection,
+"On my old age."
+
+Pisistratus--who proved a very mild despot--left his aged opponent
+unharmed, and in the next year Solon died, being then eighty years of
+age.
+
+His laws lived after him, despite the despotism which ruled over Athens
+for the succeeding fifty years.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FORTUNE OF CROESUS._
+
+
+The land of the Hellenes, or Greeks, was not confined to the small
+peninsula now known as Greece. Hellenic colonies spread far to the east
+and the west, to Italy and Sicily on the one hand, to Asia Minor and the
+shores of the Black Sea on the other. The story of the Argonauts
+probably arose from colonizing expeditions to the Black Sea. That of
+Croesus has to do with the colonies in Asia Minor.
+
+These colonies clung to the coast. Inland lay other nations, to some
+extent of Hellenic origin. One of these was the kingdom of Lydia, whose
+history is of the highest importance to us, since the conflicts between
+Lydia and the coast colonies were the first steps towards the invasion
+of Greece by the Persians, that most important event in early Grecian
+history.
+
+These conflicts began in the reign of Croesus, an ambitious king of
+Lydia in the sixth century before Christ. What gave rise to the war
+between Lydia and the Greek settlements of Ionia and Æolia we do not
+very well know. An ambitious despot does not need much pretext for war.
+He wills the war, and the pretext follows. It will suffice to say that,
+on one excuse or another, Croesus made war on every Ionian and Æolian
+state, and conquered them one after the other.
+
+First the great and prosperous city of Ephesus fell. Then, one by one,
+others followed, till, by the year 550 B.C., Croesus had become lord
+and master of every one of those formerly free and wealthy cities and
+states. Then, having placed all the colonies on the mainland under
+tribute, he designed to conquer the islands as well, and proposed to
+build ships for that purpose. He was checked in this plan by the shrewd
+answer of one of the seven wise men of Greece, either Bias or Pittacus,
+who had visited Sardis, the capital of Lydia.
+
+"What news bring you from Greece?" asked King Croesus of his wise
+visitor.
+
+"I am told that the islanders are gathering ten thousand horse, with the
+purpose of attacking you and your capital," was the answer.
+
+"What!" cried Croesus. "Have the gods given these shipmen such an idea
+as to fight the Lydians with cavalry?"
+
+"I fancy, O king," answered the Greek, "that nothing would please you
+better than to catch these islanders here on horseback. But do you not
+think that they would like nothing better than to catch you at sea on
+shipboard? Would they not avenge on you the misfortunes of their
+conquered brethren?"
+
+This shrewd suggestion taught Croesus a lesson. Instead of fighting
+the islanders, he made a treaty of peace and friendship with them. But
+he continued his conquests on the mainland till in the end all Asia
+Minor was under his sway, and Lydia had become one of the great
+kingdoms of the earth. Such wealth came to Croesus as a result of his
+conquests and unchanging good fortune that he became accounted the
+richest monarch upon the earth, while Sardis grew marvellous for its
+splendor and prosperity. At an earlier date there had come thither
+another of the seven wise men of Greece, Solon, the law-giver of Athens.
+What passed between this far-seeing visitor and the proud monarch of
+Lydia we have already told.
+
+The misfortunes which Solon told the king were liable to come upon any
+man befell Croesus during the remainder of his life. Herodotus, the
+historian, tells us the romantic story of how the gods sent misery to
+him who had boasted overmuch of his happiness. We give briefly this
+interesting account.
+
+Croeus had two sons, one of whom was deaf and dumb, the other, Atys by
+name, gifted with the highest qualities which nature has to bestow. The
+king loved his bright and handsome son as dearly as he loved his wealth,
+and when a dream came to him that Atys would die by the blow of an iron
+weapon, he was deeply disturbed in his mind.
+
+How should he prevent such a misfortune? In alarm, he forbade his son to
+take part in military forays, to which he had before encouraged him;
+and, to solace him for this deprivation, bade him to take a wife. Then,
+lest any of the warlike weapons which hung upon the walls of his
+apartments might fall and wound him, the king had them all removed, and
+stored away in the part of the palace devoted to the women.
+
+But fate had decreed that all such precautions should be in vain. At
+Mount Olympus, in Mysia, had appeared a monster boar, that ravaged the
+fields of the lowlands and defied pursuit into his mountain retreat.
+Hunting parties were sent against him, but the great boar came off
+unscathed, while the hunters always suffered from his frightful tusks.
+At length ambassadors were sent to Croesus, begging him to send his
+son, with other daring youths and with hunting hounds, to aid them rid
+their country of this destructive brute.
+
+"That cannot be," answered Croesus, still in terror from his dream.
+"My son is just married, and cannot so soon leave his bride. But I will
+send you a picked band of hunters, and bid them use all zeal to kill
+this foe of your harvests."
+
+With this promise the Mysians were quite content, but Atys, who
+overheard it, was not.
+
+"Why, my father," he demanded, "do you now keep me from the wars and the
+chase, when you formerly encouraged me to take part in them, and win
+glory for myself and you? Have I ever shown cowardice or lack of manly
+spirit? What must the citizens or my young bride think of me? With what
+face can I show myself in the forum? Either you must let me go to the
+chase of this boar, or give a reason why you keep me at home."
+
+In reply Croesus told the indignant youth of his vision, and the alarm
+with which it had inspired him.
+
+"Ah!" cried Atys, "then I cannot blame you for keeping this tender watch
+over me. But, father, do you not wrongly interpret the dream? It said I
+was to die stricken by an iron weapon. A boar wields no such weapon.
+Had the dream said I was to die pierced by a tusk, then you might well
+be alarmed; but it said a weapon. We do not propose now to fight men,
+but to hunt a wild beast I pray you, therefore, let me go with the
+party."
+
+"You have the best of me there," said Croesus. "Your interpretation of
+the dream is better than mine. You may go, my son."
+
+At that time there was at the king's court a Phrygian named Adrastus,
+who had unwittingly slain his own brother and had fled to Sardis, where
+he was purified according to the customs of the country, and courteously
+received by the king. Croesus sent for this stranger and asked him to
+go with the hunting party, and keep especial watch over his son, in case
+of an attack by some daring band of robbers.
+
+Adrastus consented, though against his will, his misfortune having taken
+from him all desire for scenes of bloodshed. However, he would do his
+utmost to guard the king's son against harm.
+
+The party set out accordingly, reached Olympus without adventure, and
+scattered in pursuit of the animal, which the dogs soon roused from its
+lair. Closing in a circle around the brute, the hunters drew near and
+hurled their weapons at it. Not the least eager among the hunters was
+Adrastus, who likewise hurled his spear; but, through a frightful
+chance, the hurtling weapon went astray, and struck and killed Atys, his
+youthful charge. Thus was the dream fulfilled: an iron weapon had slain
+the king's favorite son.
+
+The news of this misfortune plunged Croesus into the deepest misery
+of grief. As for Adrastus, he begged to be sacrificed at the grave of
+his unfortunate victim. This Croesus, despite his grief, refused,
+saying,--
+
+"Some god is the author of my misfortune, not you. I was forewarned of
+it long ago."
+
+But Adrastus was not to be thus prevented. Deeming himself the most
+unfortunate of men, he slew himself on the tomb of the hapless youth.
+And for two years Croesus abandoned himself to grief.
+
+And now we must go on to tell how Croesus met with a greater
+misfortune still, and brought the Persians to the gates of Greece.
+Cyrus, son of Cambyses, king of Persia, had conquered the neighboring
+kingdom of Media, and, inspired by ambition, had set out on a career of
+wide-spread conquest and dominion. He had grown steadily more powerful,
+and now threatened the great kingdom which Croesus had gained.
+
+The Lydian king, seeing this danger approaching, sought advice from the
+oracles. But wishing first to know which of them could best be trusted,
+he sent to six of them demanding a statement of what he was doing at a
+certain moment. The oracle of Delphi alone gave a correct answer.
+
+Thereupon Croesus offered up a vast sacrifice to the Delphian deity.
+Three thousand oxen were slain, and a great sacrificial pile was built,
+on which were placed splendid robes and tunics of purple, with couches
+and censers of gold and silver, all to be committed to the flames. To
+Delphi he sent presents befitting the wealthiest of kings,--ingots,
+statues, bowls, jugs, etc., of gold and silver, of great weight. These
+Herodotus himself saw with astonishment a century afterwards at Delphi.
+The envoys who bore these gifts asked the oracle whether Croesus
+should undertake an expedition against the Persians, and should solicit
+allies.
+
+He was bidden, in reply, to seek alliance with the most powerful nations
+of Greece. He was also told that if he fought with the Persians he would
+overturn a "mighty empire." Croesus accepted this as a promise of
+success, not thinking to ask whose empire was to be overturned. He sent
+again to the oracle, which now replied, "When a mule shall become king
+of the Medes, then thou must run away,--be not ashamed." Here was
+another enigma of the oracle. Cyrus--son of a royal Median mother and a
+Persian father of different race and lower position--was the mule
+indicated, though Croesus did not know this. In truth, the oracles of
+Greece seem usually to have borne a double meaning, so that whatever
+happened the priestess could claim that her word was true, the fault was
+in the interpretation.
+
+Croesus, accepting the oracles as favorable, made an alliance with
+Sparta, and marched his army into Media, where he inflicted much damage.
+Cyrus met him with a larger army, and a battle ensued. Neither party
+could claim a victory, but Croesus returned to Sardis, to collect more
+men and obtain aid from his allies. He might have been successful had
+Cyrus waited till his preparations were complete. But the Persian king
+followed him to his capital, defeated him in a battle near Sardis, and
+besieged him in that city.
+
+Sardis was considered impregnable, and Croesus could easily have held
+out till his allies arrived had it not been for one of those unfortunate
+incidents of which war has so many to tell. Sardis was strongly
+fortified on every side but one. Here the rocky height on which it was
+built was so steep as to be deemed inaccessible, and walls were thought
+unnecessary. Yet a soldier of the garrison made his way down this
+precipice to pick up his helmet, which had fallen. A Persian soldier saw
+him, tried to climb up, and found it possible. Others followed him, and
+the garrison, to their consternation, found the enemy within their
+walls. The gates were opened to the army without, and the whole city was
+speedily taken by storm.
+
+Croesus would have been killed but for a miracle. His deaf and dumb
+son, seeing a Persian about to strike him down, burst into speech
+through the agony of terror, crying out, "Man, do not kill Croesus!"
+The story goes that he ever afterwards retained the power of speech.
+
+Cyrus had given orders that the life of Croesus should be spared, and
+the unhappy captive was brought before him. But the cruel Persian had a
+different death in view. He proposed to burn the captive king, together
+with fourteen Lydian youths, on a great pile of wood which he had
+constructed. We give what followed as told by Herodotus, though its
+truth cannot be vouched for at this late day.
+
+As Croesus lay in fetters on the already kindled pile and thought of
+this terrible ending to his boasted happiness, he groaned bitterly, and
+cried in tones of anguish, "Solon! Solon! Solon!"
+
+"What does he mean?" asked Cyrus of the interpreters. They questioned
+Croesus, and learned from him what Solon had said. Cyrus heard this
+story not without alarm. His own life was yet to end; might not a like
+fate come to him? He ordered that the fire should be extinguished, but
+would have been too late had not a timely downpour of rain just then
+come to the aid of the captive king,--sent by Apollo, in gratitude for
+the gifts to his temple, suggests Herodotus. Croesus was afterwards
+made the confidential friend and adviser of the Persian king, whose
+dominions, through this victory, had been extended over the whole Lydian
+empire, and now reached to the ocean outposts of Greece.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SUITORS OF AGARISTÉ._
+
+
+Sicyon, the smallest country of the Peloponnesus, lay on the Gulf of
+Corinth, adjoining the isthmus which connects the peninsula with the
+rest of Greece. In this small country--as in many larger ones--the
+nobles held rule, the people were subjects. The rich and proud rulers
+dwelt on the hill slopes, the poor and humble people lived on the
+sea-shore and along the river Asopus. But in course of time many of the
+people became well off, through success in fisheries and commerce, to
+which their country was well adapted. Weary of the oppression of the
+nobles, they finally rose in rebellion and overthrew the government.
+Orthagoras, once a cook, but now leader of the rebels, became master of
+the state, and he and his descendants ruled it for a hundred years. The
+last of this dynasty was Cleisthenes, a just and moderate ruler,
+concerning whom we have a story to tell.
+
+These lords of the state were called tyrants; but this word did not mean
+in Greece what it means to us. The tyrants of Greece were popular
+leaders who had overthrown the old governments and laws, and ruled
+largely through force and under laws of their own making. But they were
+not necessarily tyrannical. The tyrants of Athens were mild and just in
+their dealings with the people, and so proved to be those of Sicyon.
+
+[Illustration: GRECIAN LADIES AT HOME.]
+
+Cleisthenes, who became the most eminent of the tyrants of Sicyon, had a
+beautiful daughter, named Agaristé, whom he thought worthy of the
+noblest of husbands, and decided that she should be married to the
+worthiest youth who could be found in all the land of Greece. To select
+such a husband he took unusual steps.
+
+When the fair Agaristé had reached marriageable age, her father attended
+the Olympic games, at which there were used to gather men of wealth and
+eminence from all the Grecian states. Here he won the prize in the
+chariot race, and then bade the heralds to make the following
+proclamation:
+
+"Whoever among the Greeks deems himself worthy to be the son-in-law of
+Cleisthenes, let him come, within sixty days, to Sicyon. Within a year
+from that time Cleisthenes will decide, from among those who present
+themselves, on the one whom he deems fitting to possess the hand of his
+daughter."
+
+This proclamation, as was natural, roused warm hopes in many youthful
+breasts, and within the sixty days there had gathered at Sicyon thirteen
+noble claimants for the charming prize. From the city of Sybaris in
+Italy came Smindyrides, and from Siris came Damasus. Amphimnestus and
+Males made their way to Sicyon from the cities of the Ionian Gulf. The
+Peloponnesus sent Leocedes from Argos, Amiantus from Arcadia, Laphanes
+from Pæus, and Onomastus from Elis. From Euboea came Lysanias; from
+Thessaly, Diactorides; from Molossia, Alcon; and from Attica, Megacles
+and Hippoclides. Of the last two, Megacles was the son of the renowned
+Alkmæon, while Hippoclides was accounted the handsomest and wealthiest
+of the Athenians.
+
+At the end of the sixty days, when all the suitors had arrived,
+Cleisthenes asked each of them whence he came and to what family he
+belonged. Then, during the succeeding year, he put them to every test
+that could prove their powers. He had had a foot-course and a
+wrestling-ground made ready to test their comparative strength and
+agility, and took every available means to discover their courage,
+vigor, and skill.
+
+But this was not all that the sensible monarch demanded in his desired
+son-in-law. He wished to ascertain their mental and moral as well as
+their physical powers, and for this purpose kept them under close
+observation for a year, carefully noting their manliness, their temper
+and disposition, their accomplishments and powers of intellect. Now he
+conversed with each separately; now he brought them together and
+considered their comparative powers. At the gymnasium, in the council
+chamber, in all the situations of thought and activity, he tested their
+abilities. But he particularly considered their behavior at the
+banquet-table. From first to last they were sumptuously entertained, and
+their demeanor over the trencher-board and the wine-cup was closely
+observed.
+
+In this story, as told us by garrulous old Herodotus, nothing is said of
+Agaristé herself. In a modern romance of this sort the lady would have
+had a voice in the decision and a place in the narrative. There would
+have been episodes of love, jealousy, and malice, and the one whom the
+lady blessed with her love would in some way--in the eternal fitness of
+things--have become victor in the contest and carried off the prize. But
+they did things differently in Greece. The preference of the maiden had
+little to do with the matter; the suitor exerted himself to please the
+father, not the daughter; maiden hands were given rather in barter and
+sale than in trust and affection; in truth, almost the only lovers we
+meet with in Grecian history are Hæmon and Antigone, of whom we have
+spoken in the tale of the "Seven against Thebes."
+
+And thus it was in the present instance. It was the father the suitors
+courted, not the daughter. They proved their love over the
+banquet-table, not at the trysting-place. It was by speed of foot and
+skill in council, not by whispered words of devotion, that they
+contended for the maidenly prize. Or, if lovers' meetings took place and
+lovers' vows were passed, they were matters of the strictest secrecy,
+and not for Greek historians to put on paper or Greek ears to hear.
+
+But the year of probation came in due time to its end, and among all the
+suitors the two from Athens most won the favor of Cleisthenes. And of
+the two he preferred Hippoclides. It was not alone for his handsome face
+and person and manly bearing that this favored youth was chosen, but
+also because he was descended from a noble family of Corinth which
+Cleisthenes esteemed. Yet "there is many a slip between the cup and the
+lip," an adage whose truth Hippoclides was to learn.
+
+When the day came on which the choice of the father was to be made, and
+the wedding take place, Cleisthenes held a great festival in honor of
+the occasion. First, to gain the favor of the gods, he offered a hundred
+oxen in sacrifice. Then, not only the suitors, but all the people of the
+city were invited to a grand banquet and festival, at the end of which
+the choice of Cleisthenes was to be declared. What torments of love and
+fear Agaristé suffered during this slow-moving feast the historian does
+not say. Yet it may be that she was the power behind the throne, and
+that the proposed choice of the handsome Hippoclides was due as much to
+her secret influence as to her father's judgment.
+
+However this be, the feast went on to its end, and was followed by a
+contest between the suitors in music and oratory, with all the people to
+decide. As the drinking which followed went on, Hippoclides, who had
+surpassed all the others as yet, shouted to the flute-player, bidding
+him to play a dancing air, as he proposed to show his powers in the
+dance.
+
+The wine was in his weak head, and what he considered marvellously fine
+dancing did not appear so to Cleisthenes, who was closely watching his
+proposed son-in-law. Hippoclides, however, in a mood to show all his
+accomplishments, now bade an attendant to bring in a table. This being
+brought, he leaped upon it, and danced some Laconian steps, which he
+followed by certain Attic ones. Finally, to show his utmost powers of
+performance, he stood on his head on the table, and began to dance with
+his legs in empty air.
+
+This was too much for Cleisthenes. He had changed his opinion of
+Hippoclides during his light and undignified exhibition, but restrained
+himself from speaking to avoid any outbreak or ill feeling. But on
+seeing him tossing his legs in this shameless manner in the air, the
+indignant monarch cried out,--
+
+"Son of Tisander, you have danced your wife away."
+
+"What does Hippoclides care?" was the reply of the tipsy youth.
+
+And for centuries afterwards "What does Hippoclides care?" was a common
+saying in Greece, to indicate reckless folly and lightness of mind.
+
+Cleisthenes now commanded silence, and spoke as follows to the assembly:
+
+"Suitors of my daughter, well pleased am I with you all, and right
+willingly, if it were possible, would I content you all, and not, by
+making choice of one, appear to put a slight upon the rest. But as it is
+out of my power, seeing that I have only one daughter, to grant to all
+their wishes, I will present to each of you whom I must needs dismiss a
+talent of silver[2] for the honor that you have done in seeking to ally
+yourselves with my house, and for your long absence from your homes. But
+my daughter Agaristé I betroth to Megacles, the son of Alkmæon, to be
+his wife, according to the usage and wont of Athens."
+
+Megacles gladly accepted the honor thus offered him, the marriage was
+solemnized with all possible state, and the suitors dispersed,--twelve
+of them happy with their silver talents, one of them happier with his
+charming bride.
+
+We have but further to say that Cleisthenes of Athens--a great leader
+and law-giver, whose laws gave origin to the democratic government of
+that city--was the son of Megacles and Agaristé, and that his grandson
+was the famous Pericles, the foremost name in Athenian history.
+
+
+
+
+_THE TYRANTS OF CORINTH._
+
+
+We have already told what the word "tyrant" meant in Greece,--a despot
+who set aside the law and ruled at his own pleasure, but who might be
+mild and gentle in his rule. Such were the tyrants of Sicyon, spoken of
+in our last tale. The tyrants of Corinth, the state adjoining Sicyon,
+were of a harsher character. Herodotus, the gossiping old historian
+tells some stories about these severe despots which seem worth telling
+again.
+
+The government of Corinth, like most of the governments of Greece, was
+in early days an oligarchy,--that is, it was ruled by a number of
+powerful aristocrats instead of by a single king. In Corinth these
+belonged to a single family, named the Bacchiadæ (or legendary
+descendants of the god Bacchus), who constantly intermarried, and kept
+all power to themselves.
+
+But one of this family, Amphion by name, had a daughter, named Labda,
+whom none of the Bacchiadæ would marry, as she had the misfortune to be
+lame. So she married outside the family, her husband being named Aëtion,
+and a man of noble descent. Having no children, Aëtion applied to the
+Delphian oracle, and was told that a son would soon be borne to him,
+and that this son "would, like a rock, fall on the kingly race and right
+the city of Corinth."
+
+The Bacchiadæ heard of this oracle, and likewise knew of an earlier one
+that had the same significance. Forewarned is forearmed. They remained
+quiet, waiting until Aëtion's child should be born, and proposing then
+to take steps for their own safety.
+
+When, therefore, they heard that Labda had borne a son, they sent ten of
+their followers to Petra (the _rock_), where Aëtion dwelt, with
+instructions to kill the child. These assassins entered Aëtion's house,
+and, with murder in their hearts, asked Labda, with assumed
+friendliness, if they might see her child. She, looking upon them as
+friends of her husband, whom kindly feeling had brought thither, gladly
+complied, and, bringing the infant, laid it in the arms of one of the
+ruffianly band.
+
+It had been agreed between them that whoever first laid hold of the
+child should dash it to the ground. But as the innocent intended victim
+lay in the murderer's arms, it smiled in his face so confidingly that he
+had not the heart to do the treacherous deed. He passed the child,
+therefore, on to another, who passed it to a third, and so it went the
+rounds of the ten, disarming them all by its happy and trusting smile
+from performing the vile deed for which they had come. In the end they
+handed the babe back to its mother, and left the house.
+
+Halting just outside the door, a hot dispute arose between them, each
+blaming the others, and nine of them severely accusing the one whose
+task it had been to do the cruel deed. He defended himself, saying that
+no man with a heart in his breast could have done harm to that smiling
+babe,--certainly not he. In the end they decided to go into the house
+again, and all take part in the murder.
+
+But they had talked somewhat too long and too loud. Labda had overheard
+them and divined their dread intent. Filled with fear, lest they should
+return and murder her child, she seized the infant, and, looking eagerly
+about for some place in which she might conceal it, chose a _cypsel_, or
+corn-bin, as the place least likely to be searched.
+
+Her choice proved a wise one. The men returned, and, as she refused to
+tell them where the child was, searched the house in vain,--none of them
+thinking of looking for an infant in a corn-bin. At length they went
+away, deciding to report that they had done as they were bidden, and
+that the child of Aëtion was slain.
+
+The boy, in memory of his escape, was named _Cypselus_, after the
+corn-bin. He grew up without further molestation, and on coming to man's
+estate did what so many of the ancients seemed to have considered
+necessary, went to Delphi to consult the oracle.
+
+The pythoness, or priestess of Apollo, at his approach, hailed him as
+king of Corinth. "He and his children, but not his children's children."
+And the oracle, as was often the case, produced its own accomplishment,
+for it encouraged Cypselus to head a rebellion against the oligarchy, by
+which it was overthrown and he made king. For thirty years thereafter he
+reigned as tyrant of Corinth, with a prosperous but harsh rule. Many of
+the Corinthians were put to death by him, others robbed of their
+fortunes, and others banished the state. Then he died and left the
+government to his son Periander.
+
+Periander began his reign in a mild spirit. But his manner changed after
+he had sent a herald to Thrasybúlus, the tyrant of Miletus, asking his
+advice how he could best rule with honor and fortune. Thrasybúlus led
+the messenger outside the city and through a field of corn, questioning
+him as they walked, while, whenever he came to an ear of corn that
+overtopped its fellows, he broke it off and threw it aside. Thus his
+path through the field was marked by the downfall of all the tallest
+stems and ears. Then, returning to the city, he sent the messenger back
+without a word of answer to his petition.
+
+Periander, on his herald's return, asked him what counsel he brought.
+"None," was the answer; "not a word. King Thrasybúlus acted in the
+strangest way, destroying his corn as he led me through the field, and
+sending me away without a word." He proceeded to tell how the monarch
+had acted.
+
+Periander was quick to gather his brother tyrant's meaning. If he would
+rule in safety he must cut off the loftiest heads,--signified by the
+tall ears of corn. He took the advice thus suggested, and from that time
+on treated his subjects with the greatest cruelty. Many of those whom
+Cypselus had spared he put to death or banished, and acted the tyrant in
+the fullest sense of the word.
+
+He even killed his wife Melissa; just why, we do not know. But we are
+told that she afterwards appeared to him in a dream and said that she
+was cold, being destitute of clothes. The garments he had buried with
+her were of no use to her spirit, since they had not been burned.
+Periander took his own way to quiet and clothe the restless ghost. He
+proclaimed that all the wives of Corinth should go to the temple of
+Juno. This they did, dressed in their best, deeming it a festival. When
+they were all within he closed the doors, and had them stripped of their
+rich robes and ornaments, which he threw into a pit and set on fire,
+calling on the name of Melissa as they burned. And in this way the
+demand of the shivering ghost was satisfied.
+
+Periander had two sons,--the elder a dunce, the younger, Lycophron (or
+wolf-heart), a youth of noble nature and fine intellect. He sent them on
+a visit to Proclus, their mother's father, and from him the boys
+learned, what they had not known before, that their father was their
+mother's murderer.
+
+This story did not trouble the dull-brained elder, but Lycophron was so
+affected by it that on his return home he refused to speak to his
+father, and acted so surlily that Periander in anger turned him out of
+his house. The tyrant, learning from his elder son the cause of
+Lycophron's strange behavior, grew still more incensed. He sent orders
+to those who had given shelter to his son that they should cease to
+harbor him, And he continued to drive him from shelter to shelter, till
+in the end he proclaimed that whoever dared to harbor, or even speak to,
+his rebellious son, should pay a heavy fine to Apollo.
+
+Thus, driven from every house, Lycophron took lodging in the public
+porticos, where he dwelt without shelter and almost without food. Seeing
+his wretched state, Periander took pity on him and bade him come home
+and no longer indulge in such foolish and unfilial behavior.
+
+[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS.]
+
+Lycophron's only reply was that his father had broken his own edict by
+coming and talking with him, and therefore himself owed the penalty to
+Apollo.
+
+Periander, seeing that the boy was uncontrollable in his indignation,
+and troubled at heart by the piteous spectacle, now sent him by ship to
+the island of Corcyra, a colony of Corinth. As for Proclus, the tyrant
+made war upon him for his indiscreet revelation, robbed him of his
+kingdom, Epidaurus, and carried him captive to Corinth.
+
+And the years went on, and Periander grew old and unable properly to
+handle his affairs. His elder son was incapable of taking his place, so
+he sent to Corcyra and asked Lycophron to come to Corinth and take the
+kingship of that fair land.
+
+Lycophron, whose indignation time had not cooled, refused even to answer
+the message. Then Periander sent his daughter, the sister of Lycophron,
+hoping that she might be able to persuade him. She made a strong appeal,
+begging him not to let the power pass away from their family and their
+father's wealth fall into strange hands, and reminding him that mercy
+was a higher virtue than justice.
+
+Her appeal was in vain. Lycophron refused to go back to Corinth as long
+as his father remained alive.
+
+Then the desperate old man, at his wits' end through Lycophron's
+obstinacy, sent a herald, saying that he would himself come to Corcyra,
+and let his son take his place in Corinth as king. To these terms
+Lycophron agreed. But there were others to deal with, for, when the
+terrified Corcyrians heard that the terrible old tyrant was coming to
+dwell in their island, they rose in a tumult and put Lycophron to death.
+
+And thus ended the dynasty of Cypselus, as the oracle had foretold.
+Though Periander revenged himself on the Corcyrians, he could not bring
+his son to life again, and the children's children of Cypselus did not
+come to the throne.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RING OF POLYCRATES._
+
+
+Near the coast of Asia Minor lies the bright and beautiful island of
+Samos, one of the choicest gems of the Ægean archipelago. This island
+was, somewhere about the year 530 B.C., seized by a political adventurer
+named Polycrates. He accomplished this by the aid of his two brothers,
+but of these he afterwards killed one and banished the other,--Syloson
+by name,--so that he became sole ruler and despot of the island.
+
+This island kingdom of Polycrates was a small one, about eighty miles in
+circumference, but it was richly fertile, and had the honor of being the
+birthplace of many illustrious Greeks, among whom we may name
+Pythagoras, the famous philosopher. The city of Samos became, under
+Polycrates, "the first of all cities, Greek or barbarian." It was
+adorned with magnificent buildings and costly works of art; was supplied
+with water by a great aqueduct, tunnelled for nearly a mile through a
+mountain; had a great breakwater to protect the harbor, and a vast and
+magnificent temple to Juno: all of which seem to have been partly or
+wholly constructed by Polycrates.
+
+But this despot did not content himself with ruling the island and
+adorning the city which he had seized. He was ambitious and
+unscrupulous, and aspired to become master of all the islands of the
+Ægean Sea, and of Ionia in Asia Minor. He conquered several of these
+islands and a number of towns in the mainland, defeated the Lesbian
+fleet that came against him during his war with Miletus, got together a
+hundred armed ships and hired a thousand bowmen, and went forward with
+his designs with a fortune that never seemed to desert him. His naval
+power became the greatest in the world of Greece, and it seemed as if he
+would succeed in all his ambitious designs. But a dreadful fate awaited
+the tyrant. Like Croesus, he was to learn that good fortune is apt to
+be followed by disaster. The remainder of his story is part history and
+part legend, and we give it as told by old Herodotus, who has preserved
+so many interesting tales of ancient Greece.
+
+At, that time Persia, whose king Cyrus had overcome Croesus, was the
+greatest empire in the world. All western Asia lay in its grasp; Asia
+Minor was overrun; and Cambyses, the king who had succeeded Cyrus, was
+about to invade the ancient land of Egypt. The king of this country,
+Amasis by name, was in alliance with Polycrates, rich gifts had passed
+between them, and they seemed the best of friends. But Amasis had his
+superstitions, and the constant good fortune of Polycrates seemed to him
+so different from the ordinary lot of kings that he feared that some
+misfortune must follow it. He perhaps had heard the story of Solon and
+Croesus. Amasis accordingly wrote a warning letter to his friend.
+
+The great prosperity of his friend and ally, he said, caused him
+foreboding instead of joy, for he knew that the gods were envious, and
+he desired for those he loved alternate good and ill fortune. He had
+never heard of any one who was successful in all his enterprises that
+did not meet with calamity in the end. He therefore counselled
+Polycrates to do what the gods had not yet done, and bring some
+misfortune on himself. His advice was that he should select the treasure
+he most valued and could least bear to part with, and throw it away so
+that it should never be seen again. By this voluntary sacrifice he might
+avert involuntary loss and suffering.
+
+This advice seemed wise to the despot, and he began to consider which of
+his possessions he could least bear to lose. He settled at length on his
+signet-ring, an emerald set in gold, which he highly valued. This he
+determined to throw away where it could never be recovered. So, having
+one of his fifty-oared vessels manned, he put to sea, and when he had
+gone a long distance from the coast he took the ring from his finger
+and, in the presence of all the sailors, tossed it into the waters.
+
+This was not done without deep grief to Polycrates. He valued the ring
+more highly than ever, now that it lay on the bottom of the sea,
+irretrievably lost to him, as he thought; and he grieved for days
+thereafter, feeling that he had endured a real misfortune, which he
+hoped the gods might accept as a compensation for his good luck.
+
+But destiny is not so easily to be disarmed. Several days afterwards a
+Samian fisherman had the fortune to catch a fish so large and beautiful
+that he esteemed it worthy to be offered as a present to the king. He
+accordingly went with it to the palace gates and asked to see
+Polycrates. The guards, learning his purpose, admitted him. On coming
+into the king's presence, the fisherman said that, though he was a poor
+man who lived by his labor, he could not let himself offer such a prize
+in the public market.
+
+"I said to myself," he continued, "'It is worthy of Polycrates and his
+greatness;' and so I brought it here to give it to you."
+
+The compliment and the gift so pleased the tyrant that he not only
+thanked the fisherman warmly, but invited him to sup with him on the
+fish.
+
+But a wonder happened in the king's kitchen. On the cook's cutting open
+the fish to prepare it for the table, to his surprise he found within it
+_the signet-ring of the king_. With joy he hastened to Polycrates with
+his strangely recovered treasure, the story of whose loss had gone
+abroad, and told in what a remarkable way it had been restored.
+
+As for Polycrates, the return of the ring brought him some joy but more
+grief. The fates, it appeared, were not so lightly to be appeased. He
+wrote to Amasis, telling what he had done and with what result. The
+letter came to the Egyptian king like a prognostic of evil. That there
+would be an ill end to the career of Polycrates he now felt sure; and,
+not wishing to be involved in it himself, he sent a herald to Samos and
+informed his late friend and ally that the alliance between them was at
+an end.
+
+It cannot be said that Amasis profited much by this act. Soon afterwards
+his own country was overrun and conquered by Cambyses, the Persian king,
+and his reign came to a disastrous termination.
+
+Whether there is any historical basis for this story of the ring may be
+questioned. But this we do know, that the friendship between Amasis and
+Polycrates was broken, and that Polycrates offered to help Cambyses in
+his invasion, and sent forty ships to the Nile for this purpose. On
+these were some Samians whom the tyrant wished to get rid of, and whom
+he secretly asked the Persian king not to let return.
+
+These exiles, however, suspecting what was in store for them, managed in
+some way to escape, and returned to Samos, where they made an attack on
+Polycrates. Being driven off by him, they went to Sparta and asked for
+assistance, telling so long a story of their misfortunes and sufferings
+that the Spartans, who could not bear long speeches, curtly answered,
+"We have forgotten the first part of your speech, and the last part we
+do not understand." This answer taught the Samians a lesson. The next
+day they met the Spartans with an empty wallet, saying, "Our wallet has
+no meal in it." "Your wallet is superfluous," said the Spartans; meaning
+that the words would have served without it. The aid which the Spartans
+thereupon granted the exiles proved of no effect, for it was against
+Polycrates, the fortunate. They sent an expedition to Samos, and
+besieged the city forty days, but were forced to retire without success.
+Then the exiles, thus made homeless, became pirates. They attacked the
+weak but rich island of Siphnos, which they ravaged, and forced the
+inhabitants to buy them off at a cost of one hundred talents. With this
+fund they purchased the island of Hydrea, but in the end went to Crete,
+where they captured the city of Cydonia. After they had held this city
+for five years the Cretans recaptured it, and the Samian exiles ended
+their career by being sold into slavery.
+
+Meanwhile the good fortune of Polycrates continued, and Samos flourished
+under his rule. In addition to his great buildings and works of
+engineering he became interested in stock-raising, and introduced into
+the island the finest breeds of sheep, goats, and pigs. By high wages he
+attracted the ablest artisans of Greece to the city, and added to his
+popularity by lending his rich hangings and costly plate to those who
+wanted them for a wedding feast or a sumptuous banquet. And that none of
+his subjects might betray him while he was off upon an extended
+expedition, he had the wives and children of all whom he suspected shut
+up in the sheds built to shelter his ships, with orders that these
+should be burned in case of any rebellious outbreak.
+
+Yet the misfortune that the return of the ring had indicated came at
+length. The warning which Solon had given Croesus applied to
+Polycrates as well. The prosperous despot had a bitter enemy, Oroetes
+by name, the Persian governor of Sardis. As to why he hated Polycrates
+two stories are told, but as neither of them is certain we shall not
+repeat them. It is enough to say that he hated Polycrates bitterly and
+desired his destruction, which he laid a plan to bring about.
+
+Oroetes, residing then at Magnesia, on the Mæander River, in the
+vicinity of Samos, and being aware of the ambitious designs of
+Polycrates, sent him a message to the effect that he knew that while he
+desired to become lord of the isles, he had not the means to carry out
+his ambitious project. As for himself, he was aware that Cambyses was
+bent on his destruction. He therefore invited Polycrates to come and
+take him, with his wealth, offering for his protection gold sufficient
+to make him master of the whole of Greece, so far as money would serve
+for this.
+
+This welcome offer filled Polycrates with joy. He knew nothing of the
+hatred of Oroetes, and at once sent his secretary to Magnesia to see
+the Persian and report upon the offer. What he principally wished to
+know was in regard to the money offered, and Oroetes prepared to
+satisfy him in this particular. He had eight large chests prepared,
+filled nearly full of stones, upon which gold was spread. These were
+corded, as if ready for instant removal.
+
+This seeming store of gold was shown to the secretary, who hastened back
+to Polycrates with a glowing description of the treasure he had seen.
+Polycrates, on hearing this story, decided to go at once and bring
+Oroetes and his chests of gold to Samos.
+
+Against this action his friends protested, while the soothsayers found
+the portents unfavorable. His daughter, also, had a significant dream.
+She saw her father hanging high in the air, washed by Zeus, the king of
+the gods, and anointed by the sun. Yet in spite of all this the
+infatuated king persisted in going. His daughter followed him on the
+ship, still begging him to return. His only answer was that if he
+returned successfully he would keep her an old maid for years.
+
+"Oh that you may perform your threat!" she answered. "It is far better
+for me to be an old maid than to lose my father."
+
+Yet the infatuated king went, despite all warnings and advice, taking
+with him a considerable suite. On his arrival at Magnesia grief instead
+of gold proved his portion. His enemy seized him, put him to a miserable
+death, and hung his dead body on a cross to the mercy of the sun and the
+rains. Thus his daughter's dream was fulfilled, for, in the old belief,
+to be washed by the rain was to be washed by Zeus, while the sun
+anointed him by causing the fat to exude from his body.
+
+A year or two after the death of Polycrates, his banished brother
+Syloson came to the throne in a singular way. During his exile he found
+himself at Memphis, in Egypt, while Cambyses was there with his
+conquering army. Among the guards of the king was Darius, the future
+king of Persia, but then a soldier of little note. Syloson wore a
+scarlet cloak to which Darius took a fancy and proposed to buy it. By a
+sudden impulse Syloson replied, "I cannot for any price sell it; but I
+give it you for nothing, if it must be yours."
+
+Darius thanked him for the cloak, and that ended the matter there and
+then,--Syloson afterwards holding himself as silly for the impulsive
+good nature of his gift.
+
+But at length he learned with surprise that the simple Persian soldier
+whom he had benefited was now king of the great Persian empire. He went
+to Susa, the capital, and told who he was. Darius had forgotten his
+face, but he remembered the incident of the cloak, and offered to pay a
+kingly price for the small favor of his humbler days, tendering gold and
+silver in profusion to his visitor. Syloson rejected these, but asked
+the aid of Darius to make him king of Samos. This the grateful monarch
+granted, and sent Syloson an army, with whose aid the island quickly and
+quietly fell into his hands.
+
+Yet calamity followed this peaceful conquest. Charilaus, a hot-tempered
+and half-mad Samian, who had been given charge of the acropolis, broke
+from it at the head of the guards, and murdered many of the Persian
+officers who were scattered unguarded throughout the town. The reprisal
+was dreadful. The Persian army fell in fury on the Samians and
+slaughtered every man and boy in the island, handing over to Syloson a
+kingdom of women and infants. Some time afterwards, however, the island
+was repeopled by men from without, and Syloson completed his reign in
+peace, leaving the sceptre of Samos to his son.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ADVENTURES OF DEMOCEDES._
+
+
+When Pythagoras, the celebrated Greek philosopher, settled in the
+ancient Italian city of Crotona (between 550 and 520 B.C.) there was
+living in that town a youthful surgeon who was destined to have a
+remarkable history. Democedes by name, the son of a Crotonian named
+Calliphon, he strongly inclined while still a mere boy to the study of
+medicine and surgery, for which arts that city had then a reputation
+higher than any part of Greece.
+
+The boy had two things to contend with, the hard study in his chosen
+profession and the high temper of his father. The latter at length grew
+unbearable, and the youthful surgeon ran away from home, making his way
+to the Greek island of Ægina. Here he began to practise what he had
+learned at home, and, though he was very poorly equipped with the
+instruments of his profession, he proved far abler and more successful
+than the surgeons whom he found in that island. So rapid, indeed, was
+his progress that his first year's service brought him an offer from the
+citizens of Ægina to remain with them for one year, at a salary of one
+talent,--the Æginetan talent being nearly equal to two thousand dollars.
+The next year he spent at Athens, whose people had offered him one and
+two-thirds talents. In the following year Polycrates of Samos bid higher
+still, offering him two talents, and the young surgeon repaired to that
+charming island.
+
+Thus far the career of Democedes had been one of steady progress. But,
+as Solon told Croesus, a man cannot count himself sure of happiness
+while he lives. The good fortune which had attended the runaway surgeon
+was about to be followed by a period of ill luck and degradation,
+following those of his new patron. In the constant wars of Greece a free
+citizen could never be sure how soon he might be reduced to slavery, and
+such was the fate of Democedes.
+
+We have already told how Polycrates was treacherously seized and
+murdered by the Persian satrap Oroetes. Democedes had accompanied him
+to the court of the traitor, and was, with the other attendants of
+Polycrates, seized and left to languish in neglect and imprisonment.
+Soon afterwards Oroetes received the just retribution for his
+treachery, being himself slain. And now a third turn came to the career
+of Democedes. He was classed among the slaves of Oroetes, and sent
+with them in chains to Susa, the capital of Darius, the great Persian
+king.
+
+But here the wheel of fortune suddenly took an upward turn. Darius, the
+king, leaping one day from his horse in the chase, sprained his foot so
+badly that he had to be carried home in violent pain. The surgeons of
+the Persian court were Egyptians, who were claimed to be the first men
+in their profession. But, though they used all their skill in treating
+the foot of the king, they did him no good. Indeed, they only made the
+pain more severe. For seven days and nights the mighty king was taught
+that he was a man as well as a monarch, and could suffer as severely as
+the poorest peasant in his kingdom. The foot gave him such torture that
+all sleep fled from his eyelids, and he and those around him were in
+despair.
+
+At length it came to the memory of one who had come from the court of
+Oroetes, at Sardis, that report had spoken of a Greek surgeon among
+the slaves of the slain satrap. He mentioned this, and the king, to whom
+any hope of relief was welcome, gave orders that this man should be
+sought and brought before him. It was a miserable object that was soon
+ushered into the royal presence, a poor creature in rags, with fetters
+on his hands, and deep lines of suffering upon his face; a picture of
+misery, in fact.
+
+He was asked if he understood surgery. "No," he replied; saying that he
+was a slave, not a surgeon. Darius did not believe him; these Greeks
+were artful; but there were ways of getting at the truth. He ordered
+that the scourge and the pricking instruments of torture should be
+brought. Democedes, who was probably playing a shrewd game, now admitted
+that he did have some little skill, but feared to practise his small art
+on so great a patient. He was bidden to do what he could, and went to
+work on the royal foot.
+
+The little skill of the Greek soon distanced the great skill of the
+Egyptians. He succeeded perfectly in alleviating the pain, and soon had
+his patient in a deep and refreshing sleep. In a short time the foot
+was sound again, and Darius could once more stand without a twinge of
+pain.
+
+The king, who had grown hopeless of a cure, was filled with joy, and set
+no bounds to his gratitude. Democedes had come before him in iron
+chains. As a first reward the king presented him with two sets of chains
+of solid gold. He next sent him to receive the thanks of his wives.
+Being introduced into the harem, Democedes was presented to the sultanas
+as the man who had saved the king's life, and whom their lord and master
+delighted to honor. Each of the fair and grateful women, in reward for
+his great deed, gave him a saucer-full of golden coins, which were so
+many, and heaped so high, that the slave who followed him grew rich by
+merely picking up the pieces that dropped on the floor.
+
+Nor did the generosity of Darius stop here. He gave Democedes a splendid
+house and furniture, made him eat at his own table, and showed him every
+favor at his command. As for the unlucky Egyptian surgeons, they would
+all have been crucified for their lack of skill had not Democedes begged
+for their lives. He might safely have told Darius that if he began to
+crucify men for ignorance and assurance he would soon have few subjects
+left.
+
+But with all the favors which Darius granted, there was one which he
+steadily refused to grant. And it was one on which Democedes had set his
+heart. He wanted to return to Greece. Splendor in Persia was very well
+in its way, but to his patriotic heart a crust in Greece was better than
+a loaf in this land of strangers. Ask as he might, however, Darius
+would not consent. A sprain or other harm might come to him again. What
+would he then do without Democedes? He could not let him go.
+
+As asking had proved useless, the wily Greek next tried artifice.
+Atossa, the favorite wife of the king, had a tumor to form on her
+breast. She said nothing of it for a time, but at length it grew so bad
+that she was forced to speak to the surgeon. He examined the tumor, and
+told her he could cure it, and would do so if she would solemnly swear
+to do in return whatever he might ask. As she agreed to this, he cured
+the tumor, and then told her that the reward he wished was liberty to
+return to Greece. But he told Atossa that the king would not grant that
+favor even to her, and that it could only be had by stratagem. He
+advised her how she should act.
+
+When next in conversation with the king, Atossa told him that the
+Persians expected him to do something for the glory and power of the
+empire. He must add to it by conquest.
+
+"So I propose," he replied. "I have in view an expedition against the
+Scythians of the north."
+
+"Better lead one against the Greeks of the west," she replied. "I have
+heard much about the beauty of the maidens of Sparta, Athens, Argos, and
+Corinth, and I want to have some of these fair barbarians to serve me as
+slaves. And if you wish to know more about these Greek people, you have
+near you the best person possible to give you information,--the Greek
+who cured your foot."
+
+The suggestion seemed to Darius one worth considering. He would
+certainly like to know more about this land of Greece. In the end,
+after conversing with his surgeon, he decided to send some confidential
+agents there to gain information, with Democedes as their guide. Fifteen
+such persons were chosen, with orders to observe closely the coasts and
+cities of Greece, obeying the suggestions and leadership of Democedes.
+They were to bring back what information they could,--and on peril of
+their lives to bring back Democedes. If they returned without him it
+would be a sorry home-coming for them.
+
+The king then sent for Democedes, told him of the proposed expedition
+and what part he was to take in it, but imperatively bade him to return
+as soon as his errand was finished. He was bidden to take with him the
+wealth he had received, as presents for his father and brothers. He
+would not suffer from its loss, since as much, and more, would be given
+him on his return. Lastly, orders were given that a store-ship, "filled
+with all manner of good things," should be taken with the expedition.
+
+Democedes heard all this with the aspect of one to whom it was new
+tidings. Come back? Of course he would. He wished ardently to see
+Greece, but for a steady place of residence he much preferred Susa and
+the palace of his king. As for the gold which had been given him, he
+would not take it away. He wanted to find his house and property on his
+return. The store-ship would answer for all the presents he cared to
+make.
+
+His shrewd reply left no shadow of doubt in the heart of the king. The
+envoys proceeded to Sidon, in Phoenicia, where two armed triremes and
+a large store-ship were got ready by their orders. In these they sailed
+to the coast of Greece, which they fully surveyed, and even went as far
+as Italy. The cities were also visited, and the story of all they had
+seen was carefully written down.
+
+At length they arrived at Tarentum, in Italy, not far from Crotona, the
+native place of Democedes. Here, at the secret suggestion of the wily
+surgeon, the king seized the Persians as spies, and, to prevent their
+escape, took away the rudders of their ships. Their treacherous leader
+took the opportunity to make his way to Crotona, and here the Persians,
+who had been released and given back their ships, found him on their
+arrival. They seized him in the market-place, but he was rescued from
+them by his fellow-citizens in spite of the remonstrances and threats of
+the envoys. The Crotonians even took from them the store-ship, and
+forced them to leave the harbor in their triremes.
+
+On their way home the unlucky envoys suffered a second misfortune; they
+were shipwrecked and made slaves,--as was the cruel way of dealing with
+unfortunates in those days. An exile from Tarentum, named Gillis, paid
+their ransom, and took them to Susa,--for which service Darius offered
+him any reward he chose to ask. Like Democedes, all he wanted was to go
+home. But this reward he did not obtain. Darius brought to bear on
+Tarentum all the influence he could wield, but in vain. The Tarentines
+were obdurate, and would not have their exile back again. And Gillis was
+more honorable than Democedes. He did not lay plans to bring a Persian
+invasion upon Greece through his selfish wish to get back to his native
+land.
+
+A few words more will tell all else we know about Democedes. His last
+words to his Persian companions bade them tell Darius that he was about
+to marry the daughter of Milo of Crotona, famed as the greatest wrestler
+of his time. Darius knew well the reputation of Milo. He had probably
+learned it from Democedes himself. And a Persian king was more likely to
+admire a muscular than a mental giant. Milo meant more to him than Homer
+or any hero of the pen. Democedes did marry Milo's daughter, paying a
+high price for the honor, for the sole purpose, so far as we know, of
+sending back this boastful message to his friend, the king. And thus
+ends all we know of the story of the surgeon of Crotona.
+
+
+
+
+_DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS._
+
+
+The conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus and his Persian army was the first
+step towards that invasion of Greece by the Persians which proved such a
+vital element in the history of the Hellenic people. The next step was
+taken in the reign of Darius, the first of Asiatic monarchs to invade
+Europe. This ambitious warrior attempted to win fame by conquering the
+country of the Scythian barbarians,--now Southern Russia,--and was
+taught such a lesson that for centuries thereafter the perilous
+enterprise was not repeated.
+
+It was about the year 516 B.C. that the Persian king, with the
+ostensible purpose--invented to excuse his invasion--of punishing the
+Scythians for a raid into Asia a century before, but really moved only
+by the thirst for conquest, reached the Bosphorus, the strait that here
+divides Europe from Asia. He had with him an army said to have numbered
+seven hundred thousand men, and on the seas was a fleet of six hundred
+ships. A bridge of boats was thrown across this arm of the sea,--on
+which Constantinople now stands,--and the great Persian host reached
+European soil in the country of Thrace.
+
+Happy was it for Greece that the ambitious Persian did not then seek
+its conquest, as Democedes, his physician, had suggested. The Athenians,
+then under the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus, were not the free and
+bold people they afterwards became, and had Darius sought their conquest
+at that time, the land of Greece would probably have become a part of
+the overgrown Persian empire. Fortunately, he was bent on conquering the
+barbarians of the north, and left Greece to grow in valor and
+patriotism.
+
+While the army marched from Asia into Europe across its bridge of boats,
+the fleet was sent into the Euxine, or Black Sea, with orders to sail
+for two days up the Danube River, which empties into that sea, and build
+there also a bridge of boats. When Darius with his army reached the
+Danube, he found the bridge ready, and on its swaying length crossed
+what was then believed to be the greatest river on the earth. Reaching
+the northern bank, he marched onward into the unknown country of the
+barbarous Scythians, with visions of conquest and glory in his mind.
+
+What happened to the great Persian army and its ambitious leader in
+Scythia we do not very well know. Two historians tell us the story, but
+probably their history is more imagination than fact. Ctesias tells the
+fairy-tale that Darius marched northward for fifteen days, that he then
+exchanged bows with the Scythian king, and that, finding the Scythian
+bow to be the largest, he fled back in terror to the bridge, which he
+hastily crossed, having left a tenth of his army as a sacrifice to his
+mad ambition.
+
+The story told by Herodotus is probably as much a product of the
+imagination as that of Ctesias, though it reads more like actual
+history. He says that the Scythians retreated northward, sending their
+wives and children before them in wagons, and destroying the wells and
+ruining the harvests as they went, so that little was left for the
+invaders to eat and drink. On what the vast host lived we do not know,
+nor how they crossed the various rivers in their route. With such
+trifling considerations as these the historians of that day did not
+concern themselves. There were skirmishes and combats of horsemen, but
+the Scythian king took care to avoid any general battle. Darius sent him
+a herald and taunted him with cowardice, but King Idanthyrsus sent word
+back that if the Persians should come and destroy the tombs of the
+forefathers of the Scythians they would learn whether they were cowards
+or not.
+
+Day by day the monster Persian army advanced, and day by day its
+difficulties increased, until its situation grew serious indeed. The
+Scythians declined battle still, but Idanthyrsus sent to his distressed
+foe the present of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. This
+signified, according to the historian, "Unless you take to the air, like
+a bird; to the earth, like a mouse; or to the water, like a frog, you
+will become the victim of the Scythian arrows."
+
+This warning frightened Darius. In truth, he was in a desperate strait.
+Leaving the sick and weak part of his army encamped with the asses he
+had brought,--animals unknown to the Scythians, who were alarmed by
+their braying,--he began a hasty retreat towards his bridge of boats.
+But rapidly as he could march, the swifter Scythians reached the bridge
+before him, and counselled with the Ionian Greeks, who had been left in
+charge, and who were conquered subjects of the Persian king, to break
+down the bridge and leave Darius and his army to their fate.
+
+And now we get back into real history again. The story of what happened
+in Scythia is all romance. All we really know is that the expedition
+failed, and what was left of the army came back to the Danube in hasty
+retreat. And here comes in an interesting part of the narrative. The
+fleet of Darius was largely made up of the ships of the Ionians of Asia
+Minor, who had long been Persian subjects. It was they who had bridged
+the Danube, and who were left to guard the bridge. After Darius had
+crossed the bridge, on his march north, he ordered the Ionians to break
+it down and follow him into Scythia, leaving only the rowers and seamen
+in the ships. But one of his Greek generals advised him to let the
+bridge stand under guard of its builders, saying that evil fortune might
+come to the king's army through the guile and shrewdness of the
+Scythians.
+
+Darius found this advice good, and promised to reward its giver after
+his return. He then took a cord and tied sixty knots in it. This he left
+with the Ionians. "Take this cord," he said. "Untie one of the knots in
+it each day after my advance from the Danube into Scythia. Remain here
+and guard the bridge until you shall have untied all the knots; but if
+by that time I shall not have returned, then depart and sail home."
+
+Such were the methods of counting which then prevailed. And the
+knowledge of geography was not more advanced. Darius had it in view to
+march round the Black Sea and return to Persia along its eastern
+side,--with the wild idea that sixty days would suffice for this great
+march.
+
+Fortunately for him, as the story goes, the Ionians did not obey orders,
+but remained on guard after the knots were all untied. Then, to their
+surprise, Scythians instead of Persians appeared. These told the Ionians
+that the Persian army was in the greatest distress, was retreating with
+all speed, and that its escape from utter ruin depended on the safety of
+the bridge. They urged the Greeks to break the bridge and retire. If
+they should do so the Persians would all be destroyed, and Ionia would
+regain its freedom.
+
+This was wise advice. Had it been taken it might have saved Greece from
+the danger of Persian invasion. The Ionians were at first in favor of
+it, and Miltiades, one of their leaders, and afterwards one of the
+heroes of Greek history, warmly advised that it should be done. But
+Histiæus, the despot of Miletus, advised the other Ionian princes that
+they would lose their power if their countries became free, since the
+Persians alone supported them, while the people everywhere were against
+them. They determined, therefore, to maintain the bridge.
+
+But, to rid themselves of the Scythians, they pretended to take their
+advice, and destroyed the bridge for the length of a bow-shot from the
+northern shore of the stream. The Scythians, thinking that they now had
+their enemies at their mercy, departed in search of their foes. That
+night the Persian army, in a state of the greatest distress and
+privation, reached the Danube, the Scythians having missed them and
+failed to check their march. To the horror of Darius and his starving
+and terror-stricken men, the bridge, in the darkness, appeared to be
+gone. An Egyptian herald, with a voice like a trumpet, was ordered to
+call for Histiæus, the Milesian. He did so, an answer came through the
+darkness, and the hopes of the fleeing king were restored. The bridge
+was speedily made complete again, and the Persian army hastily crossed,
+reaching the opposite bank before the Scythians, who had lost their
+track, reappeared in pursuit.
+
+Thus ended in disaster the first Persian invasion of Europe. It was to
+be followed by others in later years, equally disastrous to the
+invaders. As for the despots of Ionia, who had through selfishness lost
+the chance of freeing their native land, they were to live to see,
+before many years, Ionia desolated by the Persian tyrant whom they had
+saved from irretrievable ruin. We shall tell how this came about, as a
+sequel to the story of the invasion of Scythia.
+
+Histiæus, despot of Miletus, whose advice had saved the bridge for
+Darius, was richly rewarded for his service, and attended Darius on his
+return to Susa, the Persian capital, leaving his son-in-law Aristagoras
+in command at Miletus. Some ten years afterwards this regent of Miletus
+made an attempt, with Persian aid, to capture the island of Naxos. The
+effort failed, and Aristagoras, against whom the Persians were incensed
+by their defeat and their losses, was threatened with ruin. He began to
+think of a revolt from Persian rule.
+
+While thus mentally engaged, he received a strangely-sent message from
+Histiæus, who was still detained at Susa, and who eagerly desired to get
+away from dancing attendance at court and return to his kingdom.
+Histiæus advised his regent to revolt. But as this message was far too
+dangerous to be sent by any ordinary channels, he adopted an
+extraordinary method to insure its secrecy. Selecting one of his most
+trusty slaves, Histiæus had his head shaved, and then pricked or
+tattooed upon the bare scalp the message he wished to send. Keeping the
+slave in seclusion until his hair had grown again, he sent him to
+Miletus, where he was instructed simply to tell Aristagoras to shave and
+examine his head. Aristagoras did so, read the tattooed message, and
+immediately took steps to obey.
+
+Word of the proposed revolt was sent by him to the other cities along
+the coast, and all were found ready to join in the attempt to secure
+freedom. Not only the coast settlements, but the island of Cyprus,
+joined in the revolt. At the appointed time all the coast region of Asia
+Minor suddenly burst into a flame of war.
+
+Aristagoras hurried to Greece for aid, seeking it first at Sparta.
+Finding no help there, he went to Athens, which city lent him twenty
+ships,--a gift for which it was to pay dearly in later years. Hurrying
+back with this small reinforcement, he quickly organized an expedition
+to assail the Persians at the centre of their power.
+
+Marching hastily to Sardis, the capital of Asia Minor, the revolted
+Ionians took and burned that city. But the Persians, gathering in
+numbers, defeated and drove them back to the coast, where the Athenians,
+weary of the enterprise, took to their ships and hastened home.
+
+When word of this raid, and the burning of Sardis by the Athenians and
+Ionians, came to the ears of Darius at his far-off capital city, he
+asked in wonder, "The Athenians!--who are they?" The name of this
+distant and insignificant Greek city had not yet reached his kingly
+ears.
+
+He was told who the Athenians were, and, calling for his bow, he shot an
+arrow high into the air, at the same time calling to the Greek deity,
+"Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on those Athenians."
+
+And he bade one of his servants to repeat to him three times daily, when
+he sat down to his mid-day meal, "Master, remember the Athenians!"
+
+The invaders had been easily repulsed from Sardis, but the revolt
+continued, and proved a serious and stubborn one, which it took the
+Persians years to overcome. The smaller cities were conquered one by
+one, but the Persians were four years in preparing for the siege of
+Miletus. Resistance here was fierce and bitter, but in the end the city
+fell. The Persians now took a savage revenge for the burning of Sardis,
+killing most of the men of this important city, dragging into captivity
+the women and children, and burning the temples to the ground. The other
+cities which still held out were quickly taken, and visited like
+Miletus, with the same fate of fire and bloodshed. It was now 495 B.C.,
+more than twenty years after the invasion of Scythia.
+
+As for Histiæus, he was at first blamed by Darius for the revolt. But as
+he earnestly declared his innocence, and asserted that he could soon
+bring it to an end, Darius permitted him to depart. Reaching Miletus, he
+applied at the gates for admission, saying that he had come to the
+city's aid. But Aristagoras was no longer there, and the Milesians had
+no use for their former tyrant. They refused him admission, and even
+wounded him when he tried to force his way in at night. He then went to
+Lesbos, obtained there some ships, occupied the city of Byzantium, and
+began a life of piracy, which he kept up till his death, pillaging the
+Ionian merchant ships as they passed into and out of the Euxine Sea.
+Thus ended the career of this treacherous and worthless despot, to whom
+Darius owed his escape from Scythia.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ATHENIANS AT MARATHON._
+
+
+The time came when Darius of Persia did not need the bidding of a slave
+to make him "Remember the Athenians." He was taught a lesson on the
+battle-field of Marathon that made it impossible for him ever to forget
+the Athenian name. Having dismally failed in his expedition against the
+Scythians, he invaded Greece and failed as dismally. It is the story of
+this important event which we have next to tell.
+
+And here it may be well to remark what terrible consequences to mankind
+the ambition of a single man may cause. The invasion of Greece, and all
+that came from it, can be traced in a direct line of events from the
+deeds of Histiæus, tyrant of Miletus, who first saved Darius from
+annihilation by the Scythians, then roused the Ionians to rebellion,
+and, finally, through the medium of Aristagoras, induced the Athenians
+to come to their aid and take part in the burning of Sardis. This roused
+Darius, who had dwelt at Susa for many years in peace, to a thirst for
+revenge on Athens, and gave rise to that series of invasions which
+ravaged Greece for many years, and whose fitting sequel was the invasion
+and conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, a century and a half
+later.
+
+And now, with this preliminary statement, we may proceed with our tale.
+No sooner had the Ionian revolt been brought to an end, and the Ionians
+punished for their daring, than the angry Oriental despot prepared to
+visit upon Athens the vengeance he had vowed. His preparations for this
+enterprise were great. His experience in Scythia had taught him that the
+Western barbarians--as he doubtless considered them--were not to be
+despised. For two years, in every part of his vast empire, the note of
+war was sounded, and men and munitions of war were actively gathered. On
+the coast of Asia Minor a great fleet, numbering six hundred armed
+triremes and many transports for men and horses, was prepared. The
+Ionian and Æolian Greeks largely manned this fleet, and were forced to
+aid their late foe in the effort to destroy their kinsmen beyond the
+archipelago of the Ægean Sea.
+
+An Athenian traitor accompanied the Persians, and guided their leader in
+the advance against his native city. We have elsewhere spoken of
+Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, whose treason Solon had in vain
+endeavored to prevent. After his death, his sons Hipparchus and Hippias
+succeeded him in the tyranny. Hipparchus was killed in 514 B.C., and in
+511 Hippias, who had shown himself a cruel despot, was banished from
+Athens. He repaired to the court of King Darius, where he dwelt many
+years. Now he came back, as guide and counsellor to the Persians,
+hoping, perhaps, to become again a despot of Athens; but only, as the
+fates decreed, to find a grave on the fatal field of Marathon.
+
+The assault on Greece was a twofold one. The first was defeated by
+nature, the second by man. A land expedition, led by the Persian general
+Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont in the year 493 B.C., proposing to
+march to Athens along the coast, and with orders to bring all that were
+left alive of its inhabitants as captives to the great king. On marched
+the great host, nothing doubting that Greece would fall an easy prey to
+their arms. And as they marched along the land, the fleet followed them
+along the adjoining sea, until the stormy and perilous promontory of
+Mount Athos was reached.
+
+No doubt the Greeks viewed with deep alarm this formidable progress.
+They had never yet directly measured arms with the Persians, and dreaded
+them more than, as was afterwards shown, they had reason to. But at
+Mount Athos the deities of the winds came to their aid. As the fleet was
+rounding that promontory, often fatal to mariners, a frightful hurricane
+swooped upon it, and destroyed three hundred of its ships, while no less
+than twenty thousand men became victims of the waves. Some of the crews
+reached the shores, but of these many died of cold, and others were
+slain and devoured by wild beasts, which roamed in numbers on that
+uninhabited point of land. The land army, too, lost heavily from the
+hurricane; and Mardonius, fearing to advance farther after this
+disaster, ingloriously made his way back to the Hellespont. So ended the
+first invasion of Greece.
+
+Three years afterwards another was made. Darius, indeed, first sent
+heralds to Greece, demanding _earth and water_ in token of submission to
+his will. To this demand some of the cities cowardly yielded; but
+Athens, Sparta, and others sent back the heralds with no more earth than
+clung to the soles of their shoes. And so, as Greece was not to be
+subdued through terror of his name, the great king prepared to make it
+feel his power and wrath, incited thereto by his hatred of Athens, which
+Hippias took care to keep alive. Another expedition was prepared, and
+put under the command of another general, Datis by name.
+
+The army was now sent by a new route. Darius himself had led his army
+across the Bosphorus, where Constantinople now stands, and where
+Byzantium then stood. Mardonius conveyed his across the southern strait,
+the Hellespont. The third expedition was sent on shipboard directly
+across the sea, landing and capturing the islands of the Ægean as it
+advanced. Landing at length on the large island of Euboea, near the
+coast of Attica, Datis stormed and captured the city of Eretria, burnt
+its temples, and dragged its people into captivity. Then, putting his
+army on shipboard again, he sailed across the narrow strait between
+Euboea and Attica, and landed on Attic soil, in the ever-memorable Bay
+of Marathon.
+
+It seemed now, truly, as if Darius was about to gain his wish and
+revenge himself on Athens. The plain of Marathon, where the great
+Persian army had landed and lay encamped, is but twenty-two miles from
+Athens by the nearest road,--scarcely a day's march. The plain is about
+six miles long, and from a mile and a half to three miles in width,
+extending back from the sea-shore to the rugged hills and mountains
+which rise to bind it in. A brook flows across it to the sea, and
+marshes occupy its ends. Such was the field on which one of the decisive
+battles of the world was about to be fought.
+
+[Illustration: RUINS OF THE PARTHENON.]
+
+The coming of the Persians had naturally filled the Athenians and all
+the neighboring nations of Greece with alarm. Yet if any Athenian had a
+thought of submission without fighting, he was wise enough to keep it to
+himself. The Athenians of that day were a very different people from
+what they had been fifty years before, when they tamely submitted to the
+tyranny of Pisistratus. They had gained new laws, and with them a new
+spirit. They were the freest people upon the earth,--a democracy in
+which every man was the equal of every other, and in which each had a
+full voice in the government of the state. They had their political
+leaders, it is true, but these were their fellow-citizens, who ruled
+through intellect, not through despotism.
+
+There were now three such men in Athens,--men who have won an enduring
+fame. One of these was that Miltiades who had counselled the destruction
+of Darius's bridge of boats. The others were named Themistocles and
+Aristides, concerning whom we shall have more to say. These three were
+among the ten generals who commanded the army of Athens, and each of
+whom, according to the new laws, was to have command for a day. It was
+fortunate for the Athenians that they had the wit to set aside this law
+on this important occasion, since such a divided generalship must surely
+have led to defeat and disaster.
+
+But before telling what action was taken there is an important episode
+to relate. Athens--as was common with the Greek cities when
+threatened--did not fail to send to Sparta for aid. When the Persians
+landed at Marathon, a swift courier, Phidippides by name, was sent to
+that city for assistance, and so fleet of foot was he that he performed
+the journey, of one hundred and fifty miles, in forty-eight hours' time.
+
+The Spartans, who knew that the fall of Athens would soon be followed by
+that of their own city, promised aid without hesitation. But
+superstition stood in their way. It was, unfortunately, only the ninth
+day of the moon. Ancient custom forbade them to march until the moon had
+passed its full. This would be five days yet,--five days which might
+cause the ruin of Greece. But old laws and observances held dominion at
+Sparta, and, whatever came from it, the moon must pass its full before
+the army could march.
+
+When this decision was brought back by the courier to Athens it greatly
+disturbed the public mind. Of the ten generals, five strongly counselled
+that they should wait for Spartan help. The other five were in favor of
+immediate action. Delay was dangerous with an enemy at their door and
+many timid and doubtless some treacherous citizens within their walls.
+
+Fortunately, there was an eleventh general, Callimachus, the war archon,
+or polemarch, who had a casting vote in the council of generals, and
+who, under persuasion of Miltiades, cast his vote for an immediate march
+to Marathon. The other generals who favored this action gave up to
+Miltiades their days of command, making him sole leader for that length
+of time. Herodotus says that he refused to fight till his own day came
+regularly round,--but we can scarcely believe that a general of his
+ability would risk defeat on such a childish point of honor. If so, he
+should have been a Spartan, and waited for the passing of the full moon.
+
+To Marathon, then, the men of Athens marched, and from its surrounding
+hills looked down on the great Persian army that lay encamped beneath,
+and on the fleet which seemed to fill the sea. Of those brave men there
+were no more than ten thousand. And from all Greece but one small band
+came to join them, a thousand men from the little town of Platæa. The
+numbers of the foe we do not know. They may have been two hundred
+thousand in all, though how many of these landed and took part in the
+battle no one can tell. Doubtless they outnumbered the Athenians more
+than ten to one.
+
+Far along the plain stretched the lines of the Persians, with their
+fleet behind them, extended along the beach. On the high ground in the
+rear were marshalled the Greeks, spread out so long that their line was
+perilously thin. The space of a mile separated the two armies.
+
+And now, at the command of Miltiades, the valiant Athenians crossed this
+dividing space at a full run, sounding their pæan or war-cry as they
+advanced. Miltiades was bent on coming to close quarters at once, so as
+to prevent the enemy from getting their bowmen and cavalry at work.
+
+The Persians, on seeing this seeming handful of men, without archers or
+horsemen, advancing at a run upon their great array, deemed at first
+that the Greeks had gone mad and were rushing wildly to destruction. The
+ringing war-cry astounded them,--a Greek pæan was new music to their
+ears. And when the hoplites of Athens and Platæa broke upon their ranks,
+thrusting and hewing with spear and sword, and with the strength gained
+from exercises in the gymnasium, dread of these courageous and furious
+warriors filled their souls. On both wings the Persian lines broke and
+fled for their ships. But in the centre, where Datis had placed his best
+men, and where the Athenian line was thinnest, the Greeks, breathless
+from their long run, were broken and driven back. Seeing this, Miltiades
+brought up his victorious wings, attacked the centre with his entire
+force, and soon had the whole Persian army in full flight for its ships.
+
+The marshes swallowed up many of the fleeing host. Hundreds fell before
+the arms of the victors. Into the ships poured in terror those who had
+escaped, followed hotly by the victorious Greeks, who made strenuous
+efforts to set the ships on fire and destroy the entire host. In this
+they failed. The Persians, made desperate by their peril, drove them
+back. The fleet hastily set sail, leaving few prisoners, but abandoning
+a rich harvest of tents and equipments to the victorious Greeks. Of the
+Persian host, some sixty-four hundred lay dead on the field, the ships
+having saved them from further slaughter. The Greek loss in dead was
+only one hundred and ninety-two.
+
+Yet, despite this signal victory, Greece was still in imminent danger.
+Athens was undefended. The fleeing fleet might reach and capture it
+before the army could return. In truth, the ships had sailed in this
+direction, and from the top of a lofty hill Miltiades saw the polished
+surface of a shield flash in the sunlight, and quickly guessed what it
+meant. It was a signal made by some traitor to the Persian fleet.
+Putting his army at once under march, despite the weariness of the
+victors, he hastened back over the long twenty-two miles at all possible
+speed, and the worn-out troops reached Athens barely in time to save it
+from the approaching fleet.
+
+The triumph of Miltiades was complete. Only for his quickness in
+guessing the meaning of the flashing shield, and the rapidity of his
+march, all the results of his great victory would have been lost, and
+Athens fallen helpless into Persian arms. But Datis, finding the city
+amply garrisoned, and baffled at every point, turned his ships and
+sailed in defeat away, leaving the Athenians masters of city and field.
+
+And now the Spartans--to whom the full moon had come too late--appeared,
+two thousand strong, only in time to congratulate the victors and view
+the dead Persians on the field. They had marched the whole distance in
+less than three days. As for the Athenian dead, they were buried with
+great ceremony on the plain where they fell, and the great mound which
+covers them is visible there to this day.
+
+
+
+
+_XERXES AND HIS ARMY._
+
+
+The defeat of the Persian army at Marathon redoubled the wrath of King
+Darius against the Athenians. He resolved in his autocratic mind to
+sweep that pestilent city and all whom it contained from the face of the
+earth. And he perhaps would have done so had he not met a more terrible
+foe even than Miltiades and his army,--the all-conqueror Death, to whose
+might the greatest monarchs must succumb. Burning with fury, Darius
+ordered the levy of a mighty army, and for three years busy preparations
+for war went on throughout the vast empire of Persia. But, just as the
+mustering was done and he was about to march, that grisly foe Death
+struck him down in the midst of his schemes of conquest, and Greece was
+saved,--the great Darius was no more.
+
+Xerxes, son of Darius, succeeded him on the throne. This new monarch was
+the handsomest and stateliest man in all his army. But his fair outside
+covered a weak nature; timid, faint-hearted, vain, conceited, he was not
+the man to conquer Greece, small as it was and great as was the empire
+under his control; and the death of Darius was in all probability the
+salvation of Greece.
+
+Xerxes succeeded not only to the throne of Persia, but also to the vast
+army which his father had brought together. He succeeded, moreover, to a
+war, for Egypt was in revolt. But this did not last long; the army was
+at once set in motion, Egypt was quickly subdued, and the Egyptians
+found themselves under a worse tyranny than before.
+
+Greece remained to conquer, and for that enterprise the timid Persian
+king was not eager. Marathon could not be forgotten. Those fierce
+Athenians who had defeated his father's great host were not to be dealt
+with so easily as the unwarlike Egyptians. He held back irresolute, now
+persuaded to war by one councillor, now to peace by another, and
+finally--so we are told--driven to war by a dream, in which a tall,
+stately man appeared to him and with angry countenance commanded him not
+to abandon the enterprise which his father had designed. This dream came
+to him again the succeeding night, and when Artabanus, his uncle, and
+the advocate of peace, was made to sit on his throne and sleep in his
+bed, the same figure appeared to him, and threatened to burn out his
+eyes if he still opposed the war. Artabanus, stricken with terror, now
+counselled war, and Xerxes determined on the invasion of Greece.
+
+This story we are told by Herodotus, who told many things which it is
+not very safe to believe. What we really know is that Xerxes began the
+most stupendous preparations for war that had ever been known, and added
+to the army left by his father until he had got together the greatest
+host the world had yet beheld. For four years those preparations, to
+which Darius had already given three years of time, were actively
+continued. Horsemen and foot-soldiers, ships of war, transports,
+provisions, and supplies of all kinds were collected far and near, the
+vanity of Xerxes probably inciting him to astonish the world by the
+greatness of his army.
+
+In the autumn of the year 481 B.C. this vast army, marching from all
+parts of the mighty empire, reached Lydia and gathered in and around the
+city of Sardis, the old capital of Croesus. Besides the land army, a
+fleet of twelve hundred and seven ships of war, and numerous other
+vessels, were collected, and large magazines of provisions were formed
+at points along the whole line of march. For years flour and other food,
+from Asia and Egypt, had been stored in cities on the route, that the
+fatal enemy starvation might not attack the mighty host.
+
+Two important questions occupied the mind of Xerxes. How was he to get
+his vast army on European soil, and how escape those dangers from storm
+which had wrecked his father's fleet? He might cross the sea in ships,
+as Datis had done,--and be like him defeated. Xerxes thought it safest
+to keep on solid land, and decided to build a bridge of boats across the
+Hellespont, that ocean river now known as the Dardanelles, the first of
+the two straits which connect the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. As
+for the other trouble, that of storms at sea, he remembered the great
+gale which had wrecked the fleet of Mardonius off the stormy cape of
+Mount Athos, and determined to avoid this danger. A narrow neck of land
+connects Mount Athos with the mainland. Xerxes ordered that a ship-canal
+should be cut through this isthmus, wide and deep enough to allow two
+triremes--war-ships with three ranks of oars--to sail abreast.
+
+This work was done by the Phoenicians, the ablest engineers at that
+time in the world. A canal was made through which his whole fleet could
+sail, and thus the stormy winds and waves which hovered about Mount
+Athos be avoided.
+
+This work was successfully done, but not so the bridge of boats. Hardly
+had the latter been completed, when there came so violent a storm that
+the cables were snapped like pack-thread and the bridge swept away. With
+the weakness of a man of small mind, on hearing of this disaster Xerxes
+burst into a fit of insane rage. He ordered that the heads of the chief
+engineers should be cut off, but this was far from satisfying his anger.
+The elements had risen against his might, and the elements themselves
+must be punished. The Hellespont should be scourged for its temerity,
+and three hundred lashes were actually given the water, while a set of
+fetters were cast into its depths. It is further said that the water was
+branded with hot irons, but it is hard to believe that even Xerxes was
+such a fool as this would make him.
+
+The rebellious water thus punished, Xerxes regained his wits, and
+ordered that the bridge should be rebuilt more strongly than before.
+Huge cables were made, some of flax, some of papyrus fibre, to anchor
+the ships in the channel and to bind them to the shore. Two bridges were
+constructed, composed of large ships laid side by side in the water,
+while over each of them stretched six great cables, to moor them to the
+land and to support the wooden causeway. In one of these bridges no less
+than three hundred and sixty ships were employed.
+
+And now, everything being ready, the mighty army began its march. It
+presented a grand spectacle as it made its way from Sardis to the sea.
+First of all came the baggage, borne on thousands of camels and other
+beasts of burden. Then came one-half the infantry. The other half
+marched in the rear, while between them were Xerxes and his great
+body-guard, which is thus described by the Greek historian:
+
+First came a thousand Persian cavalry and as many spearmen, each of the
+latter having a golden pomegranate on the rear end of his spear, which
+was carried in the air, the point being turned downward. Then came ten
+sacred horses, splendidly caparisoned, and following them rolled the
+sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses. This was succeeded
+by the chariot of Xerxes himself, who was immediately attended by a
+thousand horse-guards, the choicest troops of the kingdom, of whose
+spears the ends glittered with golden apples. Then came detachments of
+one thousand horse, ten thousand foot, and ten thousand horse. These
+foot-soldiers, called the Immortals, because their number was always
+maintained, had pomegranates of silver on their spears, with the
+exception of one thousand, who marched in front and rear and on the
+sides, and bore pomegranates of gold. After these household troops
+followed the vast remaining host.
+
+The army of Xerxes was, as we have said, superior in numbers to any the
+world had ever seen. Forty-six nations had sent their quotas to the
+host, each with its different costume, arms, mode of march, and system
+of fighting. Only those from Asia Minor bore such arms as the Greeks
+were used to fight with. Most of the others were armed with javelins or
+other light weapons, and bore slight shields or none at all. Some came
+armed only with daggers and a lasso like that used on the American
+plains. The Ethiopians from the Upper Nile had their bodies painted half
+red and half white, wore lion-and panther-skins, and carried javelins
+and bows. Few of the whole army bore the heavy weapons or displayed the
+solid fighting phalanx of those whom they had come to meet in war.
+
+As to the number of men thus brought together from half the continent of
+Asia we cannot be sure. Xerxes, after reaching Europe, took an odd way
+of counting his army. Ten thousand men were counted and packed close
+together. Then a line was drawn around them, and a wall built about the
+space. The whole army was then marched in successive detachments into
+this walled enclosure. Herodotus tells us that there were one hundred
+and seventy of these divisions, which would make the whole army one
+million seven hundred thousand foot. In addition there were eighty
+thousand horse, many war-chariots, and a fleet of twelve hundred and
+seven triremes and three thousand smaller vessels. According to
+Herodotus, the whole host, soldiers and sailors, numbered two million
+six hundred and forty thousand men, and there were as many or more
+camp-followers, so that the whole number present, according to this
+estimate, was over five million men. It is not easy to believe that such
+a marching host as this could be fed, and it has probably been much
+exaggerated; yet there is no doubt that the host was vast enough almost
+to blow away all the armies of Greece with the wind of its coming.
+
+On leaving Sardis a frightful spectacle was provided by Xerxes: the army
+found itself marching between two halves of a slaughtered man. Pythius,
+an old Phrygian of great riches, had entertained Xerxes with much
+hospitality, and offered him all his wealth, amounting to two thousand
+talents of silver and nearly four million darics of gold. This generous
+offer Xerxes declined, and gave Pythius enough gold to make up his
+darics to an even four millions. Then, when the army was about to march,
+the old man told Xerxes that he had five sons in the army, and begged
+that one of them, the eldest, might be left with him as a stay to his
+declining years. Instantly the despot burst into a rage. The request of
+exemption from military service was in Persia an unpardonable offence.
+The hospitality of Pythius was forgotten, and Xerxes ordered that his
+son should be slain, and half the body hung on each side of the army,
+probably as a salutary warning to all who should have the temerity to
+question the despot's arbitrary will.
+
+On marched the great army. It crossed the plain of Troy, and here
+Xerxes offered libations in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, the
+story of which was told him. Reaching the Hellespont, he had a marble
+throne erected, from which to view the passage of his troops. The
+bridges--which the scourged and branded waters had now spared--were
+perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs, and, as the
+march began, Xerxes offered prayers to the sun, and made libations to
+the sea with a golden censer, which he then flung into the water,
+together with a golden bowl and a Persian scimitar, perhaps to repay the
+Hellespont for the stripes he had inflicted upon it.
+
+At the first moment of sunrise the passage began, the troops marching
+across one bridge, the baggage and attendants crossing the other. All
+day the march continued, and all night long, the whip being used to
+accelerate the troops; yet so vast was the host that for seven days and
+nights, without cessation, the army moved on, and a week was at its end
+before the last man of the great Persian host set foot on European soil.
+
+Then down through the Grecian peninsula Xerxes marched, doubtless
+inflated with pride at the greatness of his host and the might of the
+fleet which sailed down the neighboring seas and through the canal which
+he had cut to baffle stormy Athos. One regret alone seemed to come into
+his mind, and that was that in a hundred years not one man of that vast
+army would be alive. It did not occur to him that in less than one year
+few of them might be alive, for all thought of any peril to his army
+and fleet from the insignificant numbers of the Greeks must have been
+dismissed with scorn from his mind.
+
+Like locusts the army marched southward through Thrace, eating up the
+cities as it advanced, for each was required to provide a day's meals
+for the mighty host. For months those cities had been engaged in
+providing the food which this army consumed in a day. Many of the cities
+were brought to the verge of ruin, and all of them were glad to see the
+army march on. At length Xerxes saw before him Mount Olympus, on the
+northern boundary of the land of Hellas or Greece. This was the end of
+his own dominions. He was now about to enter the territory of his foes.
+With what fortune he did so must be left for later tales.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW THE SPARTANS DIED AT THERMOPYLÆ._
+
+
+When Xerxes, as his father had done before him, sent to the Grecian
+cities to demand earth and water in token of submission, no heralds were
+sent to Athens or Sparta. These truculent cities had flung the heralds
+of Darius into deep pits, bidding them to take earth and water from
+there and carry it to the great king. This act called for revenge, and
+whatever mercy he might show to the rest of Greece, Athens and Sparta
+were doomed in his mind to be swept from the face of the earth. How they
+escaped this dismal fate is what we have next to tell.
+
+As one of the great men of Athens, Miltiades, had saved his native land
+in the former Persian invasion, so a second patriotic citizen,
+Themistocles, proved her savior in the dread peril which now threatened
+her. But the work of Themistocles was not done in a single great battle,
+as at Marathon, but in years of preparation. And a war between Athens
+and the neighboring island of Ægina had much to do with this escape from
+ruin.
+
+To make war upon an island a land army was of no avail. A fleet was
+necessary. The Athenians were accustomed to a commercial, though not to
+a warlike, life upon the sea. Many of them were active, daring, and
+skilful sailors, and when Themistocles urged that they should build a
+powerful fleet he found approving listeners. Longer of sight than his
+fellow-citizens, he warned them of the coming peril from Persia. The
+conflict with the small island of Ægina was a small matter compared with
+that threatened by the great kingdom of Persia. But to prepare against
+one was to prepare against both. And Athens was just then rich. It
+possessed valuable silver-mines at Laurium, in Attica, from which much
+wealth came to the state. This money Themistocles urged the citizens to
+use in building ships, and they were wise enough to take his advice, two
+hundred ships of war being built. These ships, as it happened, were not
+used for the purpose originally intended, that of the war with Ægina.
+But they proved of inestimable service to Athens in the Persian war.
+
+[Illustration: THE PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIANS.]
+
+The vast preparations of Xerxes were not beheld without deep terror in
+Greece. Spies were sent into Persia to discover what was being done.
+They were captured and condemned to death, but Xerxes ordered that they
+should be shown his total army and fleet, and then sent home to report
+what they had seen. He hoped thus to double the terror of the Grecian
+states.
+
+At home two things were done. Athens and Sparta called a congress of all
+the states of Greece on the Isthmus of Corinth, and urged them to lay
+aside all petty feuds and combine for defence against the common foe. It
+was the greatest and most successful congress that Greece had ever yet
+held. All wars came to an end. That between Athens and Ægina ceased,
+and the fleet which Athens had built was laid aside for a greater need.
+The other thing was that step always taken in Greece in times of peril,
+to send to the temple at Delphi and obtain from the oracle the sacred
+advice which was deemed so indispensable.
+
+The reply received by Athens was terrifying. "Quit your land and city
+and flee afar!" cried the prophetess. "Fire and sword, in the train of
+the Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you. Get ye away from the sanctuary,
+with your souls steeped in sorrow."
+
+The envoys feared to carry back such a sentence to Athens. They implored
+the priestess for a more comforting reply, and were given the following
+enigma to solve: "This assurance I will give you, firm as adamant. When
+everything else in the land of Cecrops shall be taken, Zeus grants to
+Athené that the wooden wall alone shall remain unconquered, to defend
+you and your children. Stand not to await the assailing horse and foot
+from the continent, but turn your backs and retire; you shall yet live
+to fight another day. O divine Salamis, thou too shalt destroy the
+children of women, either at the seed-time or at the harvest."
+
+Here was some hope, though small. "The wooden wall"? What could it be
+but the fleet? This was the general opinion of the Athenians. But should
+they fight? Should they not rather abandon Attica forever, take to their
+wooden walls, and seek a new home afar? Salamis was to destroy the
+children of women! Did not this portend disaster in case of a naval
+battle?
+
+The fate of Athens now hung upon a thread. Had its people fled to a
+distant land, one of the greatest chapters in the history of the world
+would never have been written. But now Themistocles, to whom Athens owed
+its fleet, came forward as its savior. If the oracle, he declared, had
+meant that the Greeks should be destroyed, it would have called Salamis,
+where the battle was to be fought, "wretched Salamis." But it had said
+"divine Salamis." What did this mean but that it was not the Greeks, but
+the enemies of Greece, who were to be destroyed? He begged his
+countrymen not to desert their country, but to fight boldly for its
+safety. Fortunately for Athens, his solution of the riddle was accepted,
+and the city set itself diligently to building more ships, that they
+might have as powerful a fleet as possible when the Persians came.
+
+But not only Athens was to be defended; all Greece was in peril; the
+invaders must be met by land as well as by sea. Greece is traversed by
+mountain ranges, which cross from sea to sea, leaving only difficult
+mountain paths and narrow seaside passes. One of these was the long and
+winding defile to Tempé, between Mounts Olympus and Ossa, on the
+northern boundary of Greece. There a few men could keep back a numerous
+host, and thither at first marched the small army which dared to oppose
+the Persian millions, a little band of ten thousand men, under the
+command of a Spartan general.
+
+But they did not remain there. The Persians were still distant, and
+while the Greeks awaited their approach new counsels prevailed. There
+was another pass by which the mountains might be crossed,--which pass,
+in fact, the Persians took. Also the fleet might land thousands of men
+in their rear. On the whole it was deemed best to retreat to another
+pass, much farther south, the famous pass of Thermopylæ. Here was a road
+a mile in width, where were warm springs; and at each end were narrow
+passes, called gates,--the name Thermopylæ meaning "hot gates."
+Adjoining was a narrow strait, between the mainland and the island of
+Euboea, where the Greek fleet might keep back the Persian host of
+ships. There was an old wall across the pass, now in ruins. This the
+Greeks rebuilt, and there the devoted band, now not more than seven
+thousand in all, waited the coming of the mighty Persian host.
+
+It was in late June, of the year 480 B.C., that the Grecian army, led by
+Leonidas, king of Sparta, marched to this defile. There were but three
+hundred Spartans[3] in his force, with small bodies of men from the
+other states of Greece. The fleet, less than three hundred ships in all,
+took post beside them in the strait. And here they waited while day by
+day the Persian hordes marched southward over the land.
+
+The first conflict took place between some vessels of the fleets,
+whereupon the Grecian admirals, filled with sudden fright, sailed
+southward and left the army to the mercy of the Persian ships.
+Fortunately for Greece, thus deserted in her need, a strong ally now
+came to the rescue. The gods of the winds had been implored with prayer.
+The answer came in the form of a frightful hurricane, which struck the
+great fleet while it lay at anchor, and hurled hundreds of ships on the
+rocky shore. For three days the storm continued, and when it ended more
+than four hundred ships of war, with a multitude of transports and
+provision craft, were wrecked, while the loss of life had been immense.
+The Greek fleet had escaped this disaster, and now, with renewed
+courage, came sailing back to the post it had abandoned, and so quickly
+as to capture fifteen vessels of the Persian fleet.
+
+While this gale prevailed Xerxes and his army lay encamped before
+Thermopylæ, the king in terror for his fleet, which he was told had been
+all destroyed. As for the Greeks, he laughed them to scorn. He was told
+that a handful of Spartans and other Greeks were posted in the pass, and
+sent a horseman to tell him what was to be seen. The horseman rode near
+the pass, and saw there the wall and outside it the small Spartan force,
+some of whom were engaged in gymnastic exercises, while others were
+combing their long hair.
+
+The great king was astonished and puzzled at this news. He waited
+expecting the few Greeks to disperse and leave the pass open to his
+army. The fourth day came and went, and they were still there. Then
+Xerxes bade the Median and Kissian divisions of his army to advance,
+seize these insolent fellows, and bring them to him as prisoners of war.
+Forward went his troops, and entered the throat of the narrow pass,
+where their bows and arrows were of little use, and they must fight the
+Greeks hand to hand. And now the Spartan arms and discipline told. With
+their long spears, spreading shields, steady ranks, and rigid
+discipline, the Greeks were far more than a match for the light weapons,
+slight shields, and open ranks of their foes. The latter had only their
+numbers, and numbers there were of little avail. They fell by hundreds,
+while the Greeks met with little loss. For two days the combat
+continued, fresh defenders constantly replacing the weary ones, and a
+wall of Persian dead being heaped up outside the wall of stone.
+
+Then, as a last resort, the Immortals,--the Persian guard of ten
+thousand,--with other choice troops, were sent; and these were driven
+back with the same slaughter as the rest. The fleet in the strait
+doubtless warmly cheered on the brave hoplites in the pass; but as for
+Xerxes, "Thrice," says Herodotus, "did he spring from his throne, in
+agony for his army."
+
+The deed of a traitor rendered useless this noble defence. A recreant
+Greek, Ephialtes by name, sought Xerxes and told him of a mountain pass
+over which he could guide a band to attack the defenders of Thermopylæ
+in the rear. A strong Persian detachment was ordered to cross the pass,
+and did so under shelter of the night. At daybreak they reached the
+summit, where a thousand Greeks from Phocis had been stationed as a
+guard. These men, surprised, and overwhelmed with a shower of arrows,
+fled up the mountain-side, and left the way open to the Persians, who
+pursued their course down the mountain, and at mid-day reached the rear
+of the pass of Thermopylæ.
+
+Leonidas had heard of their coming. Scouts had brought him word. The
+defence of the pass was at an end. They must fly or be crushed. A
+council was hastily called, and it was decided to retreat. But this
+decision was not joined in by Leonidas and his gallant three hundred.
+The honor of Sparta would not permit her king to yield a pass which he
+had been sent to defend. The laws of his country required that he should
+conquer or die at his post. It was too late to conquer; but he could
+still die. With him and his three hundred remained the Thespians and
+Thebans, seven hundred of the former and about four hundred of the
+latter. The remainder of the army withdrew.
+
+Xerxes had arranged to wait till noon, at which hour the defenders of
+the pass were to be attacked in front and rear. But Leonidas did not
+wait. All he and his men had now to do was to sell their lives as dearly
+as possible, so they marched outside the pass, attacked the front of the
+Persian host, drove them back, and killed them in multitudes, many of
+them being driven to perish in the sea and the morass. The Persian
+officers kept their men to the deadly work by threats and the liberal
+use of the whip.
+
+But one by one the Spartans fell. Their spears were broken, and they
+fought with their swords. Leonidas sank in death, but his men fought on
+more fiercely still, to keep the foe back from his body. Here many of
+the Persian chiefs perished, among them two brothers of Xerxes. It was
+like a combat of the Iliad rather than a contest in actual war. Finally
+the Greeks, worn out, reduced in numbers, their best weapons gone, fell
+back behind the wall, bearing the body of their chief. Here they still
+fought, with daggers, with their unarmed hands, even with their mouths,
+until the last man fell dead.
+
+The Thebans alone yielded themselves as prisoners, saying that they had
+been kept in the pass against their will. Of the thousand Spartans and
+Thespians, not a man remained alive.
+
+Meanwhile the fleets had been engaged, to the advantage of the Greeks,
+while another storm that suddenly rose wrecked two hundred more of the
+Persian ships on Euboea's rocky coast. When word came that Thermopylæ
+had fallen the Grecian fleet withdrew, sailed round the Attic coast, and
+stopped not again until the island of Salamis was reached.
+
+As for Leonidas and his Spartans, they had died, but had won
+imperishable fame. The same should be said for the Thespians as well,
+but history has largely ignored their share in the glorious deed. In
+after-days an inscription was set up which gave all glory to the
+Peloponnesian heroes without a word for the noble Thespian band. Another
+celebrated inscription honored the Spartans alone:
+
+  "Go, stranger, and to Lacedæmon tell
+  That here, obeying her behests, we fell,"
+
+or, in plain prose, "Stranger, tell the Lacedæmonians that we lie here,
+in obedience to their orders."
+
+On the hillock where the last of the faithful band died was erected a
+monument with a marble lion in honor of Leonidas, while on it was carved
+the following epitaph, written by the poet Simonides:
+
+  "In dark Thermopylæ they lie.
+  Oh, death of glory, thus to die!
+  Their tomb an altar is, their name
+  A mighty heritage of fame.
+  Their dirge is triumph; cankering rust,
+  And time, that turneth all to dust,
+  That tomb shall never waste nor hide,--
+  The tomb of warriors true and tried.
+  The full-voiced praise of Greece around
+  Lies buried in this sacred mound;
+  Where Sparta's king, Leonidas,
+  In death eternal glory has!"
+
+
+
+
+_THE WOODEN WALLS OF ATHENS._
+
+
+The slaughter of the defenders of Thermopylæ exposed Athens to the
+onslaught of the vast Persian army, which would soon be on the soil of
+Attica. A few days' march would bring the invaders to its capital city,
+which they would overwhelm as a flight of locusts destroys a cultivated
+field. The states of the Peloponnesus, with a selfish regard for their
+own safety, had withdrawn all their soldiers within the peninsula, and
+began hastily to build a wall across the isthmus of Corinth with the
+hope of keeping back the invading army. Athens was left to care for
+itself. It was thus that Greece usually let itself be devoured
+piecemeal.
+
+There was but one thing for the Athenians to do, to obey the oracle and
+fly from their native soil. In a few days the Persians would be in
+Athens, and there was not an hour to lose. The old men, the women and
+children, with such property as could be moved, were hastily taken on
+shipboard and carried to Salamis, Ægina, Troezen, and other
+neighboring islands. The men of fighting age took to their ships of war,
+to fight on the sea for what they had lost on land. A few of the old and
+the poverty-stricken remained, and took possession of the hill of the
+Acropolis, whose wooden fence they fondly fancied might be the wooden
+wall which the oracle had meant. Apart from these few the city was
+deserted, and Athens had embarked upon the seas. Not only Athens, but
+all Attica, was left desolate, and in the whole state Xerxes made only
+five hundred prisoners of war.
+
+Onward came the great Persian host, destroying all that could be
+destroyed on Attic soil, and sending out detachments to ravage other
+parts of Greece. The towns that submitted were spared. Those that
+resisted, or whose inhabitants fled, were pillaged and burnt. A body of
+troops was sent to plunder Delphi, the reputed great wealth of whose
+temple promised a rich reward. The story of what happened there is a
+curious one, and well worth relating.
+
+The frightened Delphians prepared to fly, but first asked the oracle of
+Apollo whether they should take with them the sacred treasures or bury
+them in secret places. The oracle bade them not to touch these
+treasures, saying that the god would protect his own. With this
+admonition the people of Delphi fled, sixty only of their number
+remaining to guard the holy shrine.
+
+These faithful few were soon encouraged by a prodigy. The sacred arms,
+kept in the temple's inmost cell, and which no mortal hand dared touch,
+were seen lying before the temple door, as if Apollo was prepared
+himself to use them. As the Persians advanced by a rugged path under the
+steep cliffs of Mount Parnassus, and reached the temple of Athené
+Pronæa, a dreadful peal of thunder rolled above their affrighted heads,
+and two great crags, torn from the mountain's flank, came rushing down
+with deafening sound, and buried many of them beneath their weight. At
+the same time, from the temple of Athené, came the Greek shout of war.
+
+In a panic the invaders turned and fled, hotly pursued by the few
+Delphians, and, so the story goes, by two armed men of superhuman size,
+whose destructive arms wrought dire havoc in the fleeing host. And thus,
+as we are told, did the god preserve his temple and his wealth.
+
+But no god guarded the road to Athens, and at length Xerxes and his army
+reached that city,--four months after they had crossed the Hellespont.
+It was an empty city they found. The few defenders of the Acropolis--a
+craggy hill about one hundred and fifty feet high--made a vigorous
+defence, for a time keeping the whole Persian army at bay. But some
+Persians crept up a steep and unguarded part of the wall, entered the
+citadel, and soon all its defenders were dead, and its temples and
+buildings in flames.
+
+While all this was going on, the Grecian fleet lay but a few miles away,
+in the narrow strait between the isle of Salamis and the Attic coast,
+occupying the little bay before the town of Salamis, from which narrow
+channels at each end led into the Bay of Eleusis to the north and the
+open sea to the south. In front rose the craggy heights of Mount
+Ægaleos, over which, only five miles away, could be seen ascending the
+lurid smoke of blazing Athens. It was a spectacle calculated to
+infuriate the Athenians, though not one to inspire them with courage
+and hope.
+
+The fleet of Greece consisted of three hundred and sixty-six ships in
+all, of which Athens supplied two hundred, while the remainder came in
+small numbers from the various Grecian states. The Persian fleet,
+despite its losses by storm, far outnumbered that of Greece, and came
+sweeping down the Attic coast, confident of victory, while the great
+army marched southward over Attic land.
+
+And now two councils of war were held,--one by the Persian leaders, one
+by the Greeks. The fleet of Xerxes, probably still a thousand ships
+strong, lay in the Bay of Phalerum, a few miles from Athens; and hither
+the king, having wrought his will on that proud and insolent city, came
+to the coast to inspect his ships of war and take counsel as to what
+should next be done.
+
+Here, before his royal throne, were seated the kings of Tyre and Sidon,
+and the rulers of the many other nations represented in his army. One by
+one they were asked what should be done. "Fight," was the general reply;
+"fight without delay." Only one voice gave different advice, that of
+Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus. She advised Xerxes to march to the
+isthmus of Corinth, saying that then all the ships of the Peloponnesus
+would fly to defend their own homes, and the fleet of Greece would thus
+be dispersed. Xerxes heard her with calmness, but declined to take her
+prudent advice. The voice of the others and his own confidence
+prevailed, and orders were given for the fleet to make its attack the
+next day.
+
+The almost unanimous decision of this council, over which ruled the
+will of an autocratic king, was very different from that which was
+reached by the Greeks, in whose council all who spoke had equal
+authority. The fleet had come to Salamis to aid the flight of the
+Athenians. This done, it was necessary to decide where it was best to
+meet the Persian fleet. Only the Athenians, under the leadership of
+Themistocles, favored remaining where they were. The others perceived
+that if they were defeated here, escape would be impossible. Most of
+them wished to sail to the isthmus of Corinth, to aid the land army of
+the Peloponnesians, while various other plans were urged.
+
+While the chiefs thus debated news came that Athens and the Acropolis
+were in flames. At once some of the captains left the council in alarm,
+and began hastily to hoist sail for flight. Those that remained voted to
+remove to the isthmus, but not to start till the morning of the next
+day.
+
+Themistocles, who had done his utmost to prevent this fatal decision,
+which he knew would end in the dispersal of the fleet and the triumph of
+Persia, returned to his own ship sad of heart. Many of the women and
+children of Athens were on the island of Salamis, and if the fleet
+sailed they, too, must be removed.
+
+"What has the council decided?" asked his friend Mnesiphilus.
+
+Themistocles gloomily told him.
+
+"This will be ruinous!" burst out Mnesiphilus. "Soon there will be no
+allied fleet, nor any cause or country to fight for. You must have the
+council meet again; this vote must be set aside; if it be carried out
+the liberty of Greece is at an end."
+
+So strongly did he insist upon this that Themistocles was inspired to
+make another effort. He went at once to the ship of Eurybiades, the
+Spartan who had been chosen admiral of the fleet, and represented the
+case so earnestly to him that Eurybiades was partly convinced, and
+consented to call the council together again.
+
+Here Themistocles was so excitedly eager that he sought to win the
+chiefs over to his views even before Eurybiades had formally opened the
+meeting and explained its object. For this he was chided by the
+Corinthian Adeimantus, who said,--
+
+"Themistocles, those who in the public festivals rise up before the
+proper signal are scourged."
+
+"True," said Themistocles; "but those who lag behind the signal win no
+crowns."
+
+When the debate was formally opened, Themistocles was doubly urgent in
+his views, and continued his arguments until Adeimantus burst out in a
+rage, bidding him, a man who had no city, to be silent.
+
+This attack drew a bitter answer from the insulted Athenian. If he had
+no city, he said, he had around him two hundred ships, with which he
+could win a city and country better than Corinth. Then he turned to
+Eurybiades, and said,--
+
+"If you will stay and fight bravely here, all will be well. If you
+refuse to stay, you will bring all Greece to ruin. If you will not stay,
+we Athenians will migrate with our ships and families. Then, chiefs,
+when you lose an ally like us, you will remember what I say, and regret
+what you have done."
+
+[Illustration: THE VICTORS AT SALAMIS.]
+
+These words convinced Eurybiades. Without the Athenian ships the fleet
+would indeed be powerless. He asked for no vote, but gave the word that
+they should stay and fight, and bade the captains to make ready for
+battle. Thus it was that at dawn of day the fleet, instead of being in
+full flight, remained drawn up in battle array in the Bay of Salamis.
+The Peloponnesian chiefs, however, were not content. They held a secret
+council, and resolved to steal secretly away. This treacherous purpose
+came to the ears of Themistocles, and to prevent it he took a desperate
+course. He sent a secret message to Xerxes, telling him that the Greek
+fleet was about to fly, and that if he wished to capture it he must at
+once close up both ends of the strait, so that flight would be
+impossible.
+
+He cunningly represented himself as a secret friend of the Persian king,
+who lost no time in taking the advice. When the next day's dawn was at
+hand the discontented chiefs were about to fly, as they had secretly
+resolved, when a startling message came to their ears. Aristides, a
+noble Athenian who had been banished, but had now returned, came on the
+fleet from Salamis and told them that only battle was left, that the
+Persians had cooped them in like birds in a cage, and that there was
+nothing to do but to fight or surrender.
+
+This disturbing message was not at first believed. But it was quickly
+confirmed. Persian ships appeared at both ends of the strait.
+Themistocles had won. Escape was impossible. They must do battle like
+heroes or live as Persian slaves. There was but one decision,--to fight.
+The dawn of day found the Greeks actively preparing for the most famous
+naval battle of ancient times.
+
+The combat about to be fought had the largest audience of any naval
+battle the world has ever known. For the vast army of Persia was drawn
+up as spectators on the verge of the narrow strait which held the
+warring fleets, and Xerxes himself sat on a lofty throne erected at a
+point which closely overlooked the liquid plain. His presence, he felt
+sure, would fill his seamen with valor, while by his side stood scribes
+prepared to write down the names alike of the valorous and the backward
+combatants. On the other hand, the people of Athens and Attica looked
+with hope and fear on the scene from the island of Salamis. It was a
+unique preparation for a battle at sea, such as was never known before
+or since that day.
+
+The fleet of Persia outnumbered that of Greece three to one. But the
+Persian seamen had been busy all night long in carrying out the plan to
+entrap the Greeks, and were weary with labor. The Greeks had risen fresh
+and vigorous from their night's rest. And different spirits animated the
+two hosts. The Persians were moved solely by the desire for glory; the
+Greeks by the stern alternatives of victory, slavery, or death. These
+differences in strength and motive went far to negative the difference
+in numbers; and the Greeks, caught like lions in a snare, dashed into
+the combat with the single feeling that they must now fight or die.
+
+History tells us that the Greeks hesitated at first; but soon the ship
+of Ameinias, an Athenian captain, dashed against a Phoenician trireme
+with such fury that the two became closely entangled. While their crews
+fought vigorously with spear and javelin, other ships from both sides
+dashed to their aid, and soon numbers of the war triremes were fiercely
+engaged.
+
+The battle that followed was hot and furious, the ships becoming mingled
+in so confused a mass that no eye could follow their evolutions. Soon
+the waters of the Bay of Salamis ran red with blood. Broken oars, fallen
+spars, shattered vessels, filled the strait. Hundreds were hurled into
+the waters,--the Persians, few of whom could swim, to sink; the Greeks,
+who were skilful swimmers, to seek the shore of Salamis or some friendly
+deck.
+
+From the start the advantage lay with the Greeks. The narrowness of the
+strait rendered the great numbers of the Persians of no avail. The
+superior discipline of the Greeks gave them a further advantage. The
+want of concert in the Persian allies was another aid to the Greeks.
+They were ready to run one another down in the wild desire to escape.
+Soon the Persian fleet became a disorderly mass of flying ships, the
+Greek fleet a well-ordered array of furious pursuers. In panic the
+Persians fled; in exultation the Greeks pursued. One trireme of Naxos
+captured five Persian ships. A brother of Xerxes was slain by an
+Athenian spear. Great numbers of distinguished Persians and Medes shared
+his fate. Before the day was old the battle on the Persian side had
+become a frantic effort to escape, while some of the choicest troops of
+Persia, who had been landed before the battle on the island of
+Psyttaleia, were attacked by Aristides at the head of an Athenian troop,
+and put to death to a man.
+
+The confident hope of victory with which Xerxes saw the battle begin
+changed to wrath and terror when he saw his ships in disorderly flight
+and the Greeks in hot pursuit. The gallant behavior of Queen Artemisia
+alone gave him satisfaction, and when he saw her in the flight run into
+and sink an opposing vessel, he cried out, "My men have become women;
+and my women, men." He was not aware that the ship she had sunk, with
+all on board, was one of his own fleet.
+
+The mad flight of his ships utterly distracted the mind of the
+faint-hearted king. His army still vastly outnumbered that of Greece.
+With all its losses, his fleet was still much the stronger. An ounce of
+courage in his soul would have left Greece at his mercy. But that was
+wanting, and in panic fear that the Greeks would destroy the bridge over
+the Hellespont, he ordered his fleet to hasten there to guard it, and
+put his army in rapid retreat for the safe Asiatic shores.
+
+He had some reason to fear the loss of his bridge. Themistocles and the
+Athenians had it in view to hasten to the Hellespont and break it down.
+But Eurybiades, the Spartan leader, opposed this, saying that it was
+dangerous to keep Xerxes in Greece. They had best give him every chance
+to fly.
+
+Themistocles, who saw the wisdom of this advice, not only accepted it,
+but sent a message to Xerxes--as to a friend--advising him to make all
+haste, and saying that he would do his best to hold back the Greeks, who
+were eager to burn the bridge.
+
+The frightened monarch was not slow in taking this advice. Leaving a
+strong force in Greece, under the command of his general Mardonius, he
+marched with the speed of fear for the bridge. But he had nearly
+exhausted the country of food in his advance, and starvation and plague
+attended his retreat, many of the men being obliged to eat leaves,
+grass, and the bark of trees, and great numbers of them dying before the
+Hellespont was reached.
+
+Here he found the bridge gone. A storm had destroyed it. He was forced
+to have his army taken across in ships. Not till Asia Minor was reached
+did the starving troops obtain sufficient food,--and there gorged
+themselves to such an extent that many of them died from repletion. In
+the end Xerxes entered Sardis with a broken army and a sad heart, eight
+months after he had left it with the proud expectation of conquering the
+western world.
+
+
+
+
+_PLATÆA'S FAMOUS DAY._
+
+
+On a certain day, destined to be thereafter famous, two strong armies
+faced each other on the plain north of the little Boeotian town of
+Platæa. Greece had gathered the greatest army it had ever yet put into
+the field, in all numbering one hundred and ten thousand men, of whom
+nearly forty thousand were hoplites, or heavy-armed troops, the
+remainder light-armed or unarmed. Of these Sparta supplied five thousand
+hoplites and thirty-five thousand light-armed Helots, the greatest army
+that warlike city had ever brought into action. The remainder of Laconia
+furnished five thousand hoplites and five thousand Helot attendants.
+Athens sent eight thousand hoplites, and the remainder of the army came
+from various states of Greece. This host was in strange contrast to the
+few thousand warriors with whom Greece had met the vast array of Xerxes
+at Thermopylæ.
+
+Opposed to this force was the army which Xerxes had left behind him on
+his flight from Greece, three hundred thousand of his choicest troops,
+under the command of his trusted general Mardonius. This host was not a
+mob of armed men, like that which Xerxes had led. It embraced the best
+of the Persian forces and Greek auxiliaries, and the hopes of Greece
+still seemed but slight, thus outnumbered three to one. But the Greeks
+fought for liberty, and were inspired with the spirit of their recent
+victories; the Persians were disheartened and disunited: this difference
+of feeling went far to equalize the hosts.
+
+And now, before bringing the waiting armies to battle, we must tell what
+led to their meeting on the Platæan plain. After the battle of Salamis a
+vote was taken by the chiefs to decide who among them should be awarded
+the prize of valor on that glorious day. Each cast two ballots, and when
+these were counted each chief was found to have cast his first vote
+for--himself! But the second votes were nearly all for Themistocles, and
+all Greece hailed him as its preserver. The Spartans crowned him with
+olive, and presented him with a kingly chariot, and when he left their
+city they escorted him with the honors due to royalty.
+
+Meanwhile Mardonius, who was wintering with his army in Thessaly, sent
+to Athens to ask if its people still proposed the madness of opposing
+the power of Xerxes the king. "Yes," was the answer; "while the sun
+lights the sky we will never join in alliance with barbarians against
+Greeks."
+
+On receiving this answer Mardonius broke up his winter camp and marched
+again to Athens, which he found once more empty of inhabitants. Its
+people had withdrawn as before to Salamis, and left the shell of their
+nation to the foe.
+
+The Athenians sent for aid to Sparta, but the people of that city,
+learning that Athens had defied Mardonius, selfishly withheld their
+assistance, and the completion of the wall across the isthmus was
+diligently pushed. Fortunately for Greece, this selfish policy came to a
+sudden end. "What will your wall be worth if Athens joins with Persia
+and gives the foe the aid of her fleet?" was asked the Spartan kings;
+and so abruptly did they change their opinion that during that same
+night five thousand Spartan hoplites, each man with seven Helot
+attendants, marched for the isthmus, with Pausanias, a cousin of
+Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylæ, at their head.
+
+On learning of this movement, Mardonius set fire to what of Athens
+remained, and fell back on the city of Thebes, in Boeotia, as a more
+favorable field for the battle which now seemed sure to come. Here his
+numerous cavalry could be brought into play, the country was allied with
+him, the friendly city of Thebes lay behind him, and food for his great
+army was to be had. Here, then, he awaited the coming of the Greeks, and
+built for his army a fortified camp, surrounded with walls and towers of
+wood.
+
+Yet his men and officers alike lacked heart. At a splendid banquet given
+to Mardonius by the Thebans, one of the Persians said to his Theban
+neighbor,--
+
+"Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left
+yonder encamped near the river? Yet a little while, and out of all these
+thou shalt behold but a few surviving."
+
+"If you feel thus," said the Theban, "thou art surely bound to reveal it
+to Mardonius."
+
+"My friend," answered the Persian, "man cannot avert what God has
+decreed. No one will believe the revelation, sure though it be. Many of
+us Persians know this well, and are here serving only under the bond of
+necessity. And truly this is the most hateful of all human sufferings,
+to be full of knowledge, and at the same time to have no power over any
+result."
+
+Not long had the lukewarm Persians to wait for their foes. Soon the army
+of Greece appeared, and, seeing their enemy encamped along the little
+river Asopus in the plain, took post on the mountain declivity above.
+Here they were not suffered to rest in peace. The powerful Persian
+cavalry, led by Masistius, the most distinguished officer in the army,
+broke like a thunderbolt on the Grecian ranks. The Athenians and
+Megarians met them, and a sharp and doubtful contest ensued. At length
+Masistius fell from his wounded horse and was slain as he lay on the
+ground. The Persians fought with fury to recover his body, but were
+finally driven back, leaving the corpse of their general in the hands of
+the Greeks.
+
+This event had a great effect on both armies. Grief assailed the army of
+Mardonius at the loss of their favorite general. Loud wailings filled
+the camp, and the hair of men, horses, and cattle was cut in sign of
+mourning. The Greeks, on the contrary, were full of joy. The body of
+Masistius, a man of great stature, and clad in showy armor, was placed
+in a cart and paraded around the camp, that all might see it and
+rejoice. Such was their confidence at this defeat of the cavalry, which
+they had sorely feared, that Pausanias broke up his hill camp and
+marched into the plain below, where he took station in front of the
+Persian host, only the little stream of the Asopus dividing the two
+hostile armies.
+
+And here for days they lay, both sides offering sacrifices, and both
+obtaining the same oracle,--that the side which attacked would lose the
+battle, the side which resisted would win. Under such circumstances
+neither side cared to attack, and for ten days the armies lay, the
+Greeks much annoyed by the Persian cavalry, and having their convoys of
+provisions cut off, yet still waiting with unyielding faith in the
+decision of the gods.
+
+Mardonius at length grew impatient. He asked his officers if they knew
+of any prophecy saying that the Persians would be destroyed in Greece.
+They were all silent, though many of them knew of such prophecies.
+
+"Since you either do not know or will not tell," he at length said, "I
+well know of one. There is an oracle which declares that Persian
+invaders shall plunder the temple of Delphi, and shall afterwards all be
+destroyed. Now we shall not go against that temple, so on that ground we
+shall not be destroyed. Doubt not, then, but rejoice, for we shall get
+the better of the Greeks." And he gave orders to prepare for battle on
+the morrow, without waiting longer on the sacrifices.
+
+That night Alexander of Macedon, who was in the Persian army, rode up to
+the Greek outposts and gave warning of the coming attack. "I am of Greek
+descent," he said, "and ask you to free me from the Persian yoke. I
+cannot endure to see Greece enslaved."
+
+During the night Pausanias withdrew his army to a new position in front
+of the town of Platæa, water being wanting where they were. One Spartan
+leader, indeed, refused to move, and when told that there had been a
+general vote of the officers, he picked up a huge stone and cast it at
+the feet of Pausanias, crying, "This is _my_ pebble. With it I give my
+vote not to run away from the strangers."
+
+Dawn was at hand, and the Spartans still held their ground, their leader
+disputing in vain with the obstinate captain. At length he gave the
+order to march, it being fatal to stay, since the rest of the army had
+gone. Amompharetus, the obstinate captain, seeing that his general had
+really gone, now lost his scruples and followed.
+
+When day dawned the Persians saw with surprise that their foes had
+disappeared. The Spartans alone, detained by the obstinacy of
+Amompharetus, were still in sight. Filled with extravagant confidence at
+this seeming flight. Mardonius gave orders for hasty pursuit, crying to
+a Greek ally, "There go your boasted Spartans, showing, by a barefaced
+flight, what they are really worth."
+
+Crossing the shallow stream, the Persians ran after the Greeks at full
+speed, without a thought of order or discipline. The foe seemed to them
+in full retreat, and shouts of victory rang from their lips as they
+rushed pell-mell across the plain.
+
+The Spartans were quickly overtaken, and found themselves hotly
+assailed. They sent in haste to the Athenians for aid. The Athenians
+rushed forward, but soon found themselves confronted by the Greek allies
+of Persia, and with enough to do to defend themselves. The remainder of
+the Greek army had retreated to Platæa and took no part in the battle.
+
+The Persians, thrusting the spiked extremities of their long shields in
+the ground, formed a breastwork from which they poured showers of arrows
+on the Spartan ranks, by which many were wounded or slain. Yet, despite
+their distress, Pausanias would not give the order to charge. He was at
+the old work again, offering sacrifices while his men fell around him.
+The responses were unfavorable, and he would not fight.
+
+At length the victims showed favorable signs. "Charge!" was the word.
+With the fury of unchained lions the impatient hoplites sprang forward,
+and like an avalanche the serried Spartan line fell on the foe.
+
+Down went the breastwork of shields. Down went hundreds of Persians
+before the close array and the long spears of the Spartans. Broken and
+disordered, the Persians fought bravely, doing their utmost to get to
+close quarters with their foes. Mardonius, mounted on a white horse, and
+attended by a body-guard of a thousand select troops, was among the
+foremost warriors, and his followers distinguished themselves by their
+courage.
+
+At length the spear of Aeimnestus, a distinguished Spartan, brought
+Mardonius dead to the ground. His guards fell in multitudes around his
+body. The other Persians, worn out with the hopeless effort to break
+the Spartan phalanx, and losing heart at the death of their general,
+turned and fled to their fortified camp. At the same time the Theban
+allies of Persia, whom the Athenians had been fighting, gave ground, and
+began a retreat, which was not ended till they reached the walls of
+Thebes.
+
+On rushed the victorious Spartans to the Persian camp, which they at
+once assailed. Here they had no success till the Athenians came to their
+aid, when the walls were stormed and the defenders slain in such hosts
+that, if we can believe Herodotus, only three thousand out of the three
+hundred thousand of the army of Mardonius remained alive. It is true
+that one body of forty thousand men, under Artabazus, had been too late
+on the field to take part in the fight. The Persians were already
+defeated when these troops came in sight, and they turned and marched
+away for the Hellespont, leaving the defeated host to shift for itself.
+Of the Greeks, Plutarch tells us that the total loss in the battle was
+thirteen hundred and sixty men.
+
+The spoil found in the Persian camp was rich and varied. It included
+money and ornaments of gold and silver, carpets, splendid arms and
+clothing, horses, camels, and other valuable materials. This was divided
+among the victors, a tenth of the golden spoil being reserved for the
+Delphian shrine, and wrought into a golden tripod, which was placed on a
+column formed of three twisted bronze serpents. This defeat was the
+salvation of Greece. No Persian army ever again set foot on European
+soil. And, by a striking coincidence, on the same day that the battle
+of Platæa was fought, the Grecian fleet won a brilliant victory at
+Mycale, in Asia Minor, and freed the Ionian cities from Persian rule. In
+Greece, Thebes was punished for aiding the Persians. Byzantium (now
+Constantinople) was captured by Pausanias, and the great cables of the
+bridge of Xerxes were brought home in triumph by the Greeks.
+
+We have but one more incident to tell. The war tent of Xerxes had been
+left to Mardonius, and on taking the Persian camp Pausanias saw it with
+its colored hangings and its gold and silver adornments, and gave orders
+to the cooks that they should prepare him such a feast as they were used
+to do for their lord. On seeing the splendid banquet, he ordered that a
+Spartan supper should be prepared. With a hearty laugh at the contrast
+he said to the Greek leaders, for whom he had sent, "Behold, O Greeks,
+the folly of this Median captain, who, when he enjoyed such fare as
+this, must needs come here to rob us of our penury."
+
+
+
+
+_FOUR FAMOUS MEN OF ATHENS._
+
+
+In the days of Croesus, the wealthiest of ancient kings, a citizen of
+Athens, Alkmæon by name, kindly lent his aid to the messengers sent by
+the Lydian monarch to consult the Delphian oracle, before his war with
+King Cyrus of Persia, This generous aid was richly rewarded by
+Croesus, who sent for Alkmæon to visit him at Sardis, richly
+entertained him, and when ready to depart made him a present of as much
+gold as he could carry from the treasury.
+
+This offer the visitor, who seemed to possess his fair share of the
+perennial thirst for gold, determined to make the most of. He went to
+the treasure-chamber dressed in his loosest tunic and wearing on his
+feet wide-legged buskins, both of which he filled bursting full with
+gold. Not yet satisfied, he powdered his hair thickly with gold-dust,
+and filled his mouth with this precious but indigestible food. Thus
+laden, he waddled as well as he could from the chamber, presenting so
+ludicrous a spectacle that the good-natured monarch burst into a loud
+laugh on seeing him.
+
+Croesus not only let him keep all he had taken, but doubled its value
+by other presents, so that Alkmæon returned to Athens as one of its
+wealthiest men. Megacles, the son of this rich Athenian, was he who won
+the prize of fair Agaristé of Sicyon, in the contest which we have
+elsewhere described. The son of Megacles and Agaristé was named
+Cleisthenes, and it is he who comes first in the list of famous men whom
+we have here to describe.
+
+It was Cleisthenes who made Attica a democratic state; and thus it came
+about. The laws of Solon--which favored the aristocracy--were set aside
+by despots before Solon died. After Hippias, the last of those despots,
+was expelled from the state, the people rose under the leadership of
+Cleisthenes, and, probably for the first time in the history of mankind,
+a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" was
+established in a civilized state. The laws of Solon were abrogated, and
+a new code of laws formed by Cleisthenes, which lasted till the
+independence of Athens came to an end.
+
+Before that time the clan system had prevailed in Greece. The people
+were divided into family groups, each of which claimed to be descended
+from a single ancestor,--often a supposed deity. These clans held all
+the power of the state; not only in the early days, when they formed the
+whole people, but later, when Athens became a prosperous city with many
+merchant ships, and when numerous strangers had come from afar to settle
+within its walls.
+
+None of these strangers were given the rights of citizenship. The clans
+remained in power, and the new people had no voice in the government.
+But in time the strangers grew to be so numerous, rich, and important
+that their claim to equal rights could no longer be set aside. They took
+part in the revolution by which the despots were expelled, and in the
+new constitution that was formed their demand to be made citizens of the
+state had to be granted.
+
+Cleisthenes, the leader of the people against the aristocratic faction,
+made this new code of laws. By a system never before adopted he broke up
+the old conditions. Before that time the people were the basis on which
+governments were organized. He made the land the basis, and from that
+time to this land has continued the basis of political divisions.
+
+Setting aside the old division of the Attic people into tribes and
+clans, founded on birth or descent, he separated the people into ten new
+tribes, founded on land. Attica was divided by him into districts or
+parishes, like modern townships and wards, which were called Demes, and
+each tribe was made up of several demes at a distance from each other.
+Every man became a citizen of the deme in which he lived, without regard
+to his clan, the new people were made citizens, and thus every freeborn
+inhabitant of Attica gained full rights of suffrage and citizenship, and
+the old clan aristocracy was at an end. The clans kept up their ancient
+organization and religious ceremonies, but they lost their political
+control. It must be said here, however, that many of the people of
+Attica were slaves, and that the new commonwealth of freemen was very
+far from including the whole population.
+
+One of the most curious of the new laws made by Cleisthenes was that
+known as "ostracism," by which any citizen who showed himself dangerous
+to the state could be banished for ten years if six thousand votes were
+cast against him. This was intended as a means of preventing the rise of
+future despots.
+
+The people of Athens developed wonderfully in public spirit under their
+new constitution. Each of them had now become the equal politically of
+the richest and noblest in the state, and all took a more vital interest
+in their country than had ever been felt before. It was this that made
+them so earnest and patriotic in the Persian war. The poorest citizen
+fought as bravely as the richest for the freedom of his beloved state.
+
+Each tribe, under the new laws, chose its own war-leader, or general, so
+that there were ten generals of equal power, and in war each of these
+was given command of the army for a day; and one of the archons, or
+civil heads of the state, was made general of the state, or war archon,
+so that there were eleven generals in all.
+
+The leading man in each tribe was usually chosen its general, and of
+these we have the stories of three to tell,--Miltiades, the hero of
+Marathon; Themistocles, who saved Greece at Salamis; and Aristides,
+known as "the Just."
+
+We have already told how two of these men gained great glory. We have
+now to tell how they gained great disgrace. Ambition, the bane of the
+leaders of states, led them both to ruin.
+
+Miltiades was of noble birth, and succeeded his uncle as ruler of the
+Chersonese country, in Thrace. Here he fell under the dominion of
+Persia, and here, when Darius was in Scythia, he advised that the bridge
+over the Danube should be destroyed. When Darius returned Miltiades had
+to fly for his life. He afterwards took part in the Ionic revolt, and
+captured from the Persians the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. But when
+the Ionians were once more conquered Miltiades had again to fly for his
+life. Darius hated him bitterly, and had given special orders for his
+capture. He fled with five ships, and was pursued so closely that one of
+them was taken. He reached Athens in safety with the rest.
+
+Not long afterwards Miltiades revenged himself on Darius for this
+pursuit by his great victory at Marathon, which for the time made him
+the idol of the state and the most admired man in all Greece.
+
+But the glory of Miltiades was quickly followed by disgrace, and the end
+of his career was near at hand. He was of the true soldierly
+temperament, stirring, ambitious, not content to rest and rust, and as a
+result his credit with the fickle Athenians quickly disappeared. His
+head seems to have been turned by his success, and he soon after asked
+for a fleet of seventy ships of war, to be placed under his command. He
+did not say where he proposed to go, but stated only that whoever should
+come with him would be rewarded plentifully with gold.
+
+The victor at Marathon had but to ask to obtain. The people put
+boundless confidence in him, and gave him the fleet without a question.
+And the golden prize promised brought him numbers of eager volunteers,
+not one of whom knew where he was going or what he was expected to do.
+Miltiades was in command, and where Miltiades chose to lead who could
+hesitate to follow?
+
+The purpose of the admiral of the fleet was soon revealed. He sailed to
+the island of Paros, besieged the capital, and demanded a tribute of one
+hundred talents. He based this claim on the pretence that the Parians
+had furnished a ship to the Persian fleet, but it is known that his real
+motive was hatred of a citizen of Paros.
+
+As it happened, the Parians were not the sort of people to submit easily
+to a piratical demand. They kept their foe amused by cunning diplomacy
+till they had repaired the city walls, then openly defied him to do his
+worst. Miltiades at once began the assault, and kept it up for
+twenty-six days in vain. The island was ravaged, but the town stood
+intact. Despairing of winning by force, he next attempted to win by
+fraud. A woman of Paros promised to reveal to him a secret which would
+place the town in his power, and induced him to visit her at night in a
+temple to which only women were admitted. Miltiades accepted the offer,
+leaped over the outer fence, and approached the temple. But at that
+moment a panic of superstitious fear overcame him. Doubtless fancying
+that the deity of the temple would punish him terribly for this
+desecration, he ran away in the wildest terror, and sprang back over the
+fence in such haste that he badly sprained his thigh. In this state he
+was found and carried on board ship, and, the siege being raised, the
+fleet returned to Athens.
+
+Here Miltiades found the late favor of the citizens changed to violent
+indignation, in which his recent followers took part. He was accused of
+deceiving the people, and of committing a crime against the state worthy
+of death. The dangerous condition of his wound prevented him from saying
+a word in his own defence. In truth, there was no defence to make; the
+utmost his friends could do was to recall his service at Marathon. No
+Athenian tribunal could adjudge to death, however great the offence, the
+conqueror of Lemnos and victor at Marathon. But neither could
+forgiveness be adjudged, and Miltiades was fined fifty talents, perhaps
+to repay the city the expense of fitting out the fleet.
+
+This fine he did not live to pay. His wounded thigh mortified and he
+died, leaving his son Cimon to pay the penalty incurred through his
+ambition and personal grudge. Some writers say that he was put in prison
+and died there, but this is not probable, considering his disabled
+state.
+
+Miltiades had belonged to the old order of things, being a born
+aristocrat, and for a time a despot. Themistocles and Aristides were
+children of the new state, democrats born, and reared to the new order
+of things. They were not the equals of Miltiades in birth, both being
+born of parents of no distinction. But, aside from this similarity, they
+differed essentially, alike in character and in their life records;
+Themistocles being aspiring and ambitious, Aristides, his political
+opponent, quiet and patriotic; the one considering most largely his own
+advancement, the other devoting his whole life to the good of his native
+city.
+
+Themistocles displayed his nature strongly while still a boy. Idleness
+and play were not to his taste, and no occasion was lost by him to
+improve his mind and develop his powers in oratory. He cared nothing for
+accomplishments, but gave ardent attention to the philosophy and
+learning of his day. "It is true I cannot play on a flute, or bring
+music from the lute," he afterwards said; "all I can do is, if a small
+and obscure city were put into my hands, to make it great and glorious."
+
+[Illustration: THE ANCIENT ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM, ATHENS.]
+
+Of commanding figure, handsome face, keen eyes, proud and erect posture,
+sprightly and intellectual aspect, he was one to attract attention in
+any community, while his developed powers of oratory gave him the
+greatest influence over the speech-loving Athenians. In his eagerness to
+win distinction and gain a high place in the state, he cared not what
+enemies he might make so that he won a strong party to his support. So
+great was his thirst for distinction that the victory of Miltiades at
+Marathon threw him into a state of great depression, in which he said,
+"The glory of Miltiades will not let me sleep."
+
+Themistocles was not alone ambitious and declamatory. He was far-sighted
+as well; and through his power of foreseeing the future he was enabled
+to serve Athens even more signally than Miltiades had done. Many there
+were who said that there was no need to dread the Persians further, that
+the victory at Marathon would end the war. "It is only the beginning of
+the war," said Themistocles; "new and greater conflicts will come; if
+Athens is to be saved, it must prepare."
+
+We have elsewhere told how he induced the Athenians to build a fleet,
+and how this fleet, under his shrewd management, defeated the great
+flotilla of Xerxes and saved Greece from ruin and subjection. All that
+Themistocles did before and during this war it is not necessary to
+state. It will suffice here to say that he had no longer occasion to
+lose sleep on account of the glory of Miltiades. He had won a higher
+glory of his own; and in the end ambition ruined him, as it had his
+great predecessor.
+
+To complete the tale of Themistocles we must take up that of another of
+the heroes of Greece, the Spartan Pausanias, the leader of the
+victorious army at Platæa. He, too, allowed ambition to destroy him.
+After taking the city of Byzantium, he fell in love with Oriental luxury
+and grew to despise the humble fare and rigid discipline of Sparta. He
+offered to bring all Greece under the domain of Persia if Xerxes would
+give him his daughter for wife, and displayed such pompous folly and
+extravagance that the Spartans ordered him home, where he was tried for
+treason, but not condemned.
+
+He afterwards conspired with some of the states of Asia Minor, and when
+again brought home formed a plot with the Helots to overthrow the
+government. His treason was discovered, and he fled to a temple for
+safety, where he was kept till he starved to death.
+
+Thus ambition ended the careers of two of the heroes of the Persian war.
+A third, Themistocles, ended his career in similar disgrace. In fact,
+he grew so arrogant and unjust that the people of Athens found him
+unfit to live with. They suspected him also of joining with Pausanias in
+his schemes. So they banished him by ostracism, and he went to Argos to
+live. While there it was proved that he really had taken part in the
+treason of Pausanias, and he was obliged to fly for his life.
+
+The fugitive had many adventures in this flight. He was pursued by
+envoys from Athens, and made more than one narrow escape. While on
+shipboard he was driven by storm to the island of Naxos, then besieged
+by an Athenian fleet, and escaped only by promising a large reward to
+the captain if he would not land. Finally, after other adventures, he
+reached Susa, the capital of Persia, where he found that Xerxes was
+dead, and his son Artaxerxes was reigning in his stead.
+
+He was well received by the new king, to whom he declared that he had
+been friendly to his father Xerxes, and that he proposed now to use his
+powers for the good of Persia. He formed schemes by which Persia might
+conquer Greece, and gained such favor with the new monarch that he gave
+him a Persian wife and rich presents, sent him to Magnesia, near the
+Ionian coast, and granted him the revenues of the surrounding district.
+Here Themistocles died, at the age of sixty-five, without having kept
+one of his alluring promises to the Persian king.
+
+And thus, through greed and ambition, the three great leaders of Greece
+in the Persian war ended their careers in disgrace and death. We have
+now the story of a fourth great Athenian to tell, who through honor and
+virtue won a higher distinction than the others had gained through
+warlike fame.
+
+Throughout the whole career of the brilliant Themistocles he had a
+persistent opponent, Aristides, a man, like him, born of undistinguished
+parents, but who by moral strength and innate power of intellect won the
+esteem and admiration of his fellow-citizens. He became the leader of
+the aristocratic section of the people, as Themistocles did of the
+democratic, and for years the city was divided between their adherents.
+But the brilliancy of Themistocles was replaced in Aristides by a staid
+and quiet disposition. He was natively austere, taciturn, and
+deep-revolving, winning influence by silent methods, and retaining it by
+the strictest honor and justice and a hatred of all forms of falsehood
+or political deceit.
+
+For years these two men divided the political power of Athens between
+them, until in the end Aristides said that the city would have no peace
+until it threw the pair of them into the pit kept for condemned
+criminals. So just was Aristides that, on one of his enemies being
+condemned by the court without a hearing, he rose in his seat and begged
+the court not to impose sentence without giving the accused an
+opportunity for defence.
+
+Aristides was one of the generals at Marathon, and was left to guard the
+spoils on the field of battle after the defeat of the Persians. At a
+later date, by dint of false reports, Themistocles succeeded in having
+him ostracized, obtaining the votes of the rabble against him. One of
+these, not knowing Aristides, asked him to write his own name on the
+tile used as a voting tablet. He did so, but first inquired, "Has
+Aristides done you an injury?" "No," was the answer; "I do not even know
+him, but I am tired of hearing him always called 'Aristides the Just.'"
+On leaving the city Aristides prayed that the people should never have
+any occasion to regret their action.
+
+This occasion quickly came. In less than three years he was recalled to
+aid his country in the Persian invasion. Landing at Salamis, he served
+Athens in the manner we have already told. The command of the army which
+Aristides surrendered to Miltiades at the battle of Marathon fell to
+himself in the battle of Platæa, for on that great day he led the
+Athenians and played an important part in the victory that followed. He
+commanded the Athenian forces in a later war, and by his prudence and
+mildness won for Athens the supremacy in the Greek confederation that
+was afterwards formed.
+
+At a later date, leader of the aristocrats as he was, to avert a
+revolution he proposed a change in the constitution that made Athens
+completely democratic, and enabled the lowliest citizen to rise to the
+highest office of the state. In 468 B.C. died this great and noble
+citizen of Athens, one of the most illustrious of ancient statesmen and
+patriots, and one of the most virtuous public men of any age or nation.
+He died so poor that it is said he did not leave enough money to pay his
+funeral expenses, and for several generations his descendants were kept
+at the charge of the state.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW ATHENS ROSE FROM ITS ASHES._
+
+
+The torch of Xerxes and Mardonius left Athens a heap of ashes. But, like
+the new birth of the fabled phoenix, there rose out of these ashes a
+city that became the wonder of the world, and whose time-worn ruins are
+still worshipped by the pilgrims of art. We cannot proceed with our work
+without pausing awhile to contemplate this remarkable spectacle.
+
+The old Athens bore to the new much the same relation that the chrysalis
+bears to the butterfly. It was little more than an ordinary country
+town, the capital of a district comparable in size to a modern county.
+Pisistratus and his sons had built some temples, and had completed a
+part of the Dionysiac theatre, but the city itself was simply a cluster
+of villages surrounded by a wall; while the citadel had for defence
+nothing stronger than a wooden rampart. The giving of this city to the
+torch was no serious loss; in reality it was a gain, since it cleared
+the ground for the far nobler city of later days.
+
+It is not often that a whole nation removes from its home, and its
+possessions are completely swept away. But such had been the case with
+the Attic state. For a time all Attica was afloat, the people of city
+and country alike taking to their ships; while a locust flight of
+Persians passed over their lands, ravaging and destroying all before
+them, and leaving nothing but the bare soil. Such was what remained to
+the people of Attica on their return from Salamis and the adjacent
+isles.
+
+Athens lay before them a heap of ashes and ruin, its walls flung down,
+its dwellings vanished, its gardens destroyed, its temples burned. The
+city itself, and the citadel and sacred structures of its Acropolis,
+were swept away, and the business of life on that ravaged soil had to be
+begun afresh.
+
+Yet Attica as a state was greater than ever before. It was a victor on
+land and sea, the recognized savior of Greece; and the people of Athens
+returned to the ashes of their city not in woe and dismay, but in pride
+and exultation. They were victors over the greatest empire then on the
+face of the earth, the admired of the nations, the leading power in
+Greece, and their small loss weighed but lightly against their great
+glory.
+
+The Athens that rose in place of the old city was a marvel of beauty and
+art, adorned with hall and temple, court and gymnasium, colonnade and
+theatre, while under the active labors of its sculptors it became so
+filled with marble inmates that they almost equalled in numbers its
+living inhabitants. Such sculptors as Phidias and such painters as
+Zeuxis adorned the city with the noblest products of their art. The
+great theatre of Dionysus was completed, and to it was added a new one,
+called the Odeon, for musical and poetical representations. On the
+Acropolis rose the Parthenon, the splendid temple to Minerva, or
+Athené, the patron goddess of the city, whose ruins are still the
+greatest marvel of architectural art. Other temples adorned the
+Acropolis, and the costly Propylæa, or portals, through which passed the
+solemn processions on festival days, were erected at the western side of
+the hill. The Acropolis was further adorned with three splendid statues
+of Minerva, all the work of Phidias, one of ivory in the Parthenon,
+forty-seven feet high, the others of bronze, one being of such colossal
+height that it could be seen from afar by mariners at sea.
+
+The city itself was built upon a scale to correspond with this richness
+of architectural and artistic adornment, and such was its encouragement
+to the development of thought and art, that poets, artists, and
+philosophers flocked thither from all quarters, and for many years
+Athens stood before the world as the focal point of the human intellect.
+
+Not the least remarkable feature in this great growth was the celerity
+with which it was achieved. The period between the Persian and the
+Peloponnesian war was only sixty years in duration. Yet in that brief
+space of time the great growth we have chronicled took place, and the
+architectural splendor of the city was consummated. The devastation of
+the unhappy Peloponnesian war put an end to this external growth, and
+left the Athens of old frozen into marble, a thing of beauty forever.
+But the intellectual growth went on, and for centuries afterwards Athens
+continued the centre of ancient thought.
+
+And now the question in point is how all this came about, and what made
+Athens great and glorious among the cities of Greece. It all flowed
+naturally from her eminence in the Persian war. During that war there
+had been a league of the states of Greece, with Sparta as its accepted
+leader. After the war the need of being on the alert against Persia
+continued, and Greece became in great part divided into two
+leagues,--one composed of Sparta and most of the Peloponnesian states,
+the other of Athens, the islands of the archipelago, and many of the
+towns of Asia Minor and Thrace. This latter was called the League of
+Delos, since its deputies met and its treasure was kept in the temple of
+Apollo on that island.
+
+This League of Delos developed in time to what has been called the
+Athenian Empire, and in this manner. Each city of the league pledged
+itself to make an annual contribution of a certain number of ships or a
+fixed sum of money, to be used in war against Persia or for the defence
+of members of the league. The amount assessed against each was fixed by
+Aristides, in whose justice every one trusted. In time the money payment
+was considered preferable to that of ships, and most of the states of
+the league contributed money, leaving Athens to provide the fleet.
+
+In this way all the power fell into the hands of Athens, and the other
+cities of the league became virtually payers of tribute. This was shown
+later on when some of the island cities declined to pay. Athens sent a
+fleet, made conquest of the islands, and reduced them to the state of
+real tribute payers. Thus the league began to change into an Athenian
+dominion.
+
+In 459 B.C. the treasure was removed from Delos to Athens. And in the
+end Chios, Samoa, and Lesbos were the only free allies of Athens. All
+the other members of the league had been reduced to subjection. Several
+of the states of Greece also became subject to Athens, and the Athenian
+Empire grew into a wealthy, powerful, and extended state.
+
+[Illustration: A REUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA.]
+
+The treasure laid up at Athens in time became great. The payments
+amounted to about six hundred talents yearly, and at one time the
+treasury of Athens held the great sum of nine thousand seven hundred
+talents, equal to over eleven million dollars,--a sum which meant far
+more then than the equivalent amount would now.
+
+It was this money that made Athens great. It proved to be more than was
+necessary for defensive war against Persia, or even for the aggressive
+war which was carried on in Asia Minor and Egypt. It also more than
+sufficed for sending out the colonies which Athens founded in Italy and
+elsewhere. The remainder of the fund was used in Athens, part of it in
+building great structures and in producing splendid works of art, part
+for purposes of fortification. The Piræus, the port of Athens, was
+surrounded by strong walls, and a double wall--the famous "Long
+Walls"--was constructed from the city to the port, a distance of four
+miles. These walls, some two hundred yards apart, left a grand highway
+between, the channel of a steady traffic which flowed from the sea to
+the city, and which for years enabled Athens to defy the cutting off its
+resources by attack from without. Through this broad avenue not only
+provisions and merchandise, but men in multitudes, made their way into
+Athens, until that city became fuller of bustle, energy, political and
+scholarly activity, and incessant industry than any of the other cities
+of the ancient world.
+
+In a city like this, free and equal as were its citizens, and democratic
+as were its institutions, some men were sure to rise to the surface and
+gain controlling influence. In the period in question there were two
+such men, Cimon and Pericles, men of such eminence that we cannot pass
+them by unconsidered. Cimon was the son of Miltiades, the hero of
+Marathon, and became the leader of aristocratic Athens. Pericles was the
+great-grandson of Cleisthenes, the democratic law-giver, and, though of
+the most aristocratic descent, became the leader of the popular party of
+his native city.
+
+The struggle for precedence between these two men resembled that between
+Themistocles and Aristides. Cimon was a strong advocate of an alliance
+with Sparta, which Pericles opposed. He was brilliant as a soldier,
+gained important victories against Persia, but was finally ostracized as
+a result of his friendship for Sparta. He came back to Athens
+afterwards, but his influence could not be regained.
+
+It is, however, of Pericles that we desire particularly to
+speak,--Pericles, who found Athens poor and made her magnificent, found
+her weak and made her glorious. This celebrated statesman had not the
+dashing qualities of his rival. He was by nature quiet but deep, serene
+but profound, the most eloquent orator of his day, and one of the most
+learned and able of men. He was dignified and composed in manner,
+possessed of a self-possession which no interruption could destroy, and
+gifted with a luminous intelligence that gave him a controlling
+influence over the thoughtful and critical Athenians of his day.
+
+Pericles was too wise and shrewd to keep himself constantly before the
+people, or to haunt the assembly. He sedulously remained in the
+background until he had something of importance to say, but he then
+delivered his message with a skill, force, and animation that carried
+all his hearers irresistibly away. His logic, wit, and sarcasm, his
+clear voice, flashing eyes, and vigorous power of declamation, used only
+when the occasion was important, gave him in time almost absolute
+control in Athens, and had he sought to make himself a despot he might
+have done so with a word; but happily he was honest and patriotic enough
+to content himself with being the First Citizen of the State.
+
+To make the people happy, and to keep Athens in a condition of serene
+content, seem to have been leading aims with Pericles. He entertained
+them with quickly succeeding theatrical and other entertainments, solemn
+banquets, splendid shows and processions, and everything likely to add
+to their enjoyment. Every year he sent out eighty galleys on a six
+months' cruise, filled with citizens who were to learn the art of
+maritime war, and who were paid for their services. The citizens were
+likewise paid for attending the public assembly, and allowances were
+made them for the time given to theatrical representations, so that it
+has been said that Pericles converted the sober and thrifty Athenians
+into an idle, pleasure-loving, and extravagant populace. At the same
+time, that things might be kept quiet in Athens, the discontented
+overflow of the people were sent out as colonists, to build up daughter
+cities of Attica in many distant lands.
+
+Thus it was that Athens developed from the quiet country town of the old
+régime into the wealthiest, gayest, and most progressive of Grecian
+cities, the capital of an empire, the centre of a great commerce, and
+the home of a busy and thronging populace, among whom the ablest
+artists, poets, and philosophers of that age of the world were included.
+Here gathered the great writers of tragedy, beginning with Æschylus,
+whose noble works were performed at the expense of the state in the
+great open-air theatre of Dionysus. Here the comedians, the chief of
+whom was Aristophanes, moved hosts of spectators to inextinguishable
+laughter. Here the choicest lyric poets of Greece awoke admiration with
+their unequalled songs, at their head the noble Pindar, the laureate of
+the Olympic and Pythian games. Here the sophists and philosophers argued
+and lectured, and Socrates walked like a king at the head of the
+aristocracy of thought. Here the sculptors, headed by Phidias, filled
+temples, porticos, colonnades, and public places with the most exquisite
+creations in marble, and the painters with their marvellous
+reproductions of nature. Here, indeed, seemed gathered all that was best
+and worthiest in art, entertainment, and thought, and for half a century
+and more Athens remained a city without a rival in the history of the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+_THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS._
+
+
+During the period after the Persian war two great powers arose in
+Greece, which were destined to come into close and virulent conflict.
+These were the league of Delos, which developed into the empire of
+Athens, and the Peloponnesian confederacy, under the leadership of
+Sparta. The first of these was mainly an island empire, the second a
+mainland league; the first a group of democratic, the second one of
+aristocratic, states; the first a power with dominion over the seas, the
+second a power whose strength lay in its army. Such were the two rival
+confederacies into which Greece gradually divided, and between which
+hostile sentiment grew stronger year after year.
+
+It became apparent as the years went on that a struggle was coming for
+supremacy in Greece. Outbreaks of active hostility between the rival
+powers from time to time took place. At length the situation grew so
+strained that a general conflict began, that devastating Peloponnesian
+war which for nearly thirty years desolated Greece, and which ended in
+the ruin of Athens, the home of poetry and art, and the supremacy of
+Sparta, the native school of war. The first great conflict of the
+Hellenic people, the Persian war, had made Greece powerful and
+glorious. The second great conflict, the Peloponnesian war, brought
+Greece to the verge of ruin, and destroyed that Athenian supremacy in
+which lay the true path of progress for that fair land.
+
+In 431 B.C. the war broke out. Sparta and her allies declared war
+against Athens on the ground that that city was growing too great and
+grasping, and an army marched from the Peloponnesus northward to invade
+the Attic state. Meanwhile the Athenians, under the shrewd advice of
+Pericles, adopted a wise policy. It was with her fleet that Athens had
+defeated Persia, and her wise statesman advised that she should devote
+herself to the dominion of the sea, and leave to Sparta that of the
+land. Their walls would protect her people, their ships would bring them
+food from afar, they were not a fair match for Sparta on land, and could
+safely leave to that city of warriors the temporary dominion of Attic
+soil.
+
+This advice was taken. When the Spartan army came near Attica all its
+people left their fields and homes and sought refuge, as once before,
+within the walls of their capacious capital city. Over the Attic plain
+marched the invaders, destroying the summer crops, burning the farmers'
+homesteads, yet recoiling in helpless rage before those strong walls
+behind which lay the whole population of the state. From the city, as we
+know, long and high walls stretched away to the sea and invested the
+seaport town of Piræus, within whose harbor lay the powerful Athenian
+fleet. And in the treasury of the city rested an abundant supply of
+money,--the sinews of war,--with whose aid food and supplies could be
+brought from over the seas. In vain, then, did Sparta ravage the fields
+of Attica. The people of that desolated realm defied them from behind
+their city walls.
+
+When winter came the invaders retired and the farmers went back to their
+fields. In the spring they ploughed and sowed as of yore, and watched in
+hope the growing crops. But with the summer the Spartans came again, to
+destroy their hopes of a harvest, and the country people once more fled
+for safety to their great city's defiant walls.
+
+It was a strange spectacle, that of a powerful invading army wreaking
+their wrath year after year on deserted fields, and gnashing their teeth
+in impotent rage before lofty and well-defended walls and ramparts,
+behind which lay their foes, little the worse for all that their malice
+could perform.
+
+Athens felt secure, and laughed her enemy to scorn. Unhappily for her, a
+new enemy was at hand, against whom the mightiest walls were of no
+avail. Sparta gained an unthought-of ally, and death stalked at large in
+the Athenian streets, silent and implacable, without clash of weapon or
+shout of war, yet more fatal and merciless than would have been the
+strongest army in the field.
+
+Athens was crowded. The country people filled all available space. There
+was little attention to drainage or sanitary regulations. An open
+invitation was given to pestilence, and the invited enemy came. For some
+years before the plague had been at its deadly work in Egypt and Libya,
+and in parts of Persian Asia. Then it made its appearance in some of the
+Grecian islands. Finally its wings of destruction were folded over
+Athens, and it settled down in terrific form upon that devoted city.
+
+The seeds of death found there fertile soil. Families were crowded
+together in close cabins and temporary shelters, to which they had been
+driven in multitudes from their ravaged fields. The plague first
+appeared in mid-April in the Piræus,--brought, perhaps, by
+merchant-ships,--but soon spread to Athens, and as the heat of summer
+came on the inhabitants of that thronged city fell victims to it in
+appalling multitudes.
+
+The plague, they called it. The disease seems to have been something
+like the small-pox, though not quite the same. Its victims were seized
+suddenly, suffered the greatest agonies, and most of them died on the
+seventh or the ninth day. Even when the patients recovered, some had
+lost their memory, others the use of their eyes, hands, feet, or some
+other member of the body. No remedy could be found. The physicians died
+as rapidly as their patients. As for the charms and incantations which
+many used, we can scarcely imagine that they saved any lives. Some said
+that their enemies had poisoned the water-cisterns, others that the gods
+were angry, and vain processions were made to the temples, to implore
+the mercy of the deities.
+
+When nothing availed to stay the pestilence, Athens fell into deep
+despondency and despair. The sick lost courage, and lay down inertly to
+await death. Those who waited on the sick were themselves stricken
+down, and so great grew the terror that the patients were deserted and
+left to die alone. Fortunately the disease rarely attacked any one
+twice, and those who had been sick and recovered became the only nurses
+of the new victims of the disease.
+
+So dread became the pestilence that the dead and the dying lay
+everywhere, in houses and streets, and even in the temples; half-dead
+sufferers gathered around the springs, tortured by violent thirst; the
+very dogs that meddled with the corpses died of the disease; vultures
+and other carrion birds avoided the city as if by instinct. Many bodies
+were burnt or buried with unseemly haste, many doubtless left to fester
+where they lay. Misery, terror, despair, overwhelmed all within the
+walls, while the foe without drew back in equal terror, lest the
+pestilence should leap the walls and assail them in their camps.
+
+Nor have we yet told all. Other evils followed that of the plague. Law
+was forgotten, morality ignored. Men hesitated not at crime or the
+indulgence of evil passions, having no fear of punishment. Many gave
+themselves up to riot and luxurious living, with the hope of snatching
+an interval of enjoyment before yielding to death. The story we here
+tell is no new one. It has been realized again and again in the flight
+of the centuries, when pestilence has made its home in some crowded
+city. Human nature is everywhere the same, and the bonds of law and
+morality are loosened when death stalks abroad.
+
+For two years this dread calamity continued to desolate Athens. Then,
+after a period of a year and a half, it came again, and raged for
+another year as furiously as before. The losses were frightful. Of the
+armed men of the state nearly five thousand were swept away. Of the
+poorer people the loss was beyond computation. Nothing the human enemy
+was capable of could have done so much to ruin Athens as this frightful
+visitation, and to the end of the war that city felt its weakening
+effects.
+
+But perhaps the greatest of the losses of Athens was the death of
+Pericles. In him Athens lost its wisest man and ablest statesman. The
+strong hand which had so long held the rudder of the state was gone, and
+the subsequent misfortunes of Athens were due more to the loss of this
+wise counsellor than to the efforts of her foes.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ENVOYS OF LIFE AND DEATH._
+
+
+Near the coast of Asia Minor lies the beautiful island of Lesbos, the
+birthplace of the poets Sappho, Alcæus, and Terpander, and of other
+famous writers and sages of the past. Here were green valleys and
+verdure-clad mountains, here charming rural scenes and richly-yielding
+fields, here all that seems necessary to make life serene and happy. But
+here also dwelt uneasy man, and hither came devastating war, bringing
+with it the shadow of a frightful tragedy from which the people of
+Lesbos barely escaped.
+
+Lesbos was one of the islands that entered into alliance with Athens,
+and formed part of the empire that arose from the league of Delos. In
+428 B.C. this island, and its capital, Mitylene, revolted from Athens,
+and struck for the freedom they had formerly enjoyed. Mitylene had never
+become tributary to Athens. It was simply an ally; and it retained its
+fleet, its walls, and its government; its only obligations being those
+common to all members of the League.
+
+Yet even these seemed to have been galling to the proud Mitylenians.
+Athens was then at war with Sparta. It seemed a good time to throw off
+all bonds, and the political leaders of the Lesbians declared
+themselves absolved from all allegiance to the league.
+
+The news greatly disturbed the Athenians. They had their hands full of
+war. But Mitylene had asked aid from Sparta, and unless brought under
+subjection to Athens it would become an ally of her enemy. No time was
+therefore to be lost. A fleet was sent in haste to the revolted city,
+hoping to take it by surprise. This failing, the city was blockaded by
+sea and land, and the siege kept up until starvation threatened the
+people within the walls. Until now hope of Spartan aid had been
+entertained. But the Spartans came not, the provisions were gone, death
+or surrender became inevitable, and the city was given up. About a
+thousand prisoners were sent to Athens, and Mitylene was held till the
+pleasure of its conquerors should be known.
+
+This pleasure was a tragic one. The Athenians were deeply incensed
+against Mitylene, and full of thirst for revenge. Their anger was
+increased by the violent speeches of Cleon, a new political leader who
+had recently risen from among the ranks of trade, and whose virulent
+tongue gave him controlling influence over the Athenians at that period
+of public wrath. When the fate of Mitylene and its people was considered
+by the Athenian assembly this demagogue took the lead in the discussion,
+wrought the people up to the most violent passion by his acrimonious
+tongue, and proposed that the whole male population of the conquered
+city should be put to death, and the women and children sold as slaves.
+This frightful sentence was in accord with the feeling of the assembly.
+They voted death to all Mitylenians old enough to bear arms, and a
+trireme was sent to Lesbos, bearing orders to the Athenian admiral to
+carry this tragical decision into effect.
+
+Slaughter like this would to-day expose its authors to the universal
+execration of mankind. In those days it was not uncommon, and the
+quality of mercy was sadly wanting in the human heart. Yet such cruelty
+was hardly in accord with the advanced civilization of Athens, and when
+the members of the assembly descended to the streets, and their anger
+somewhat cooled, it began to appear to them that they had sent forth a
+decree of frightful cruelty. Even the captain and seamen of the trireme
+that was sent with the order to Mitylene left the port with heavy
+hearts, and would have gladly welcomed a recall. But the assembly of
+Athens was the ruling power and from its decision there was no appeal.
+
+Though it was illegal, the friends of Mitylene called a fresh meeting of
+the assembly for the next day. In this they were supported by the
+people, whose feeling had quickly and greatly changed. Yet at this new
+meeting it appeared at first as if Cleon would again win a fatal
+verdict, so vigorously did he again seek to stir up the public wrath.
+Diodotus, his opponent, followed with a strong appeal for mercy, and
+while willing that the leaders of the revolt, who had been sent to
+Athens, should be put to death, argued strongly in favor of pardoning
+the rest. When at length the assembly voted, mercy prevailed, but by so
+small a majority that for a time the decision was in doubt.
+
+And now came a vital question. The trireme bearing the fatal order had
+left port twenty-four hours before. It was now far at sea, carrying its
+message of cold-blooded slaughter. Could it possibly be overtaken and
+the message of mercy made to fly more swiftly across the sea than that
+of death? As may well be imagined, no time was lost. A second trireme
+was got ready with all haste, and amply provisioned by the envoys from
+Mitylene then in Athens, those envoys promising large rewards to the
+crew if they should arrive in time.
+
+The offers of reward were not needed. The seamen were as eager as those
+of the former trireme had been despondent. Across the sea rushed the
+trireme, with such speed as trireme never made before nor since. By good
+fortune the sea was calm; no storm arose to thwart the rowers' good
+intent; not for an instant were their oars relaxed; they took turns for
+short intervals of rest, while barley meal, steeped in wine and oil, was
+served to them for refreshment upon their seats.
+
+Yet they strove against fearful odds. A start of twenty-four hours, upon
+so brief a journey, was almost fatal. Fortunately, the rowers of the
+first trireme had no spirit for their work. They were as slow and
+dilatory as the others were eager and persistent. And thus time moved
+slowly on, and the fate of Mitylene hung desperately in the balance. An
+hour more or less in this vital journey would make or mar a frightful
+episode in the history of mankind.
+
+Fortune proved to be on the side of mercy. The envoys of life were in
+time; but barely in time. Those who bore the message of death had
+reached port and placed their dread order in the hands of the Athenian
+commander, and he was already taking steps for the fearful massacre,
+when the second trireme dashed into the waters of that island harbor,
+and the cheers of exultation of its rowers met the ears of the
+imperilled populace.
+
+So near was Mitylene to destruction that the breaking of an oar would
+have been enough to doom six thousand men to death. So near as this was
+Athens to winning the execration of mankind, by the perpetration of an
+enormity which barbarians might safely have performed, but for which
+Athens could never have been forgiven. The thousand prisoners sent to
+Athens--the leading spirits of the revolt--were, it is true, put to
+death, but this merciless cruelty, as it would be deemed to-day, has
+been condoned in view of the far greater slaughter of the innocent from
+which Athens so narrowly escaped.
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEFENCE OF PLATÆA._
+
+
+At the foot of Mount Cithæron, one of the most beautiful of the
+mountains of Greece, winds the small river Asopus, and between, on a
+slope of the mountain, may to-day be seen the ruins of Platæa, one of
+the most memorable of the cities of ancient Greece. This city had its
+day of glory and its day of woe. Here, in the year 479 B.C., was fought
+that famous battle which drove the Persians forever from Greece. And
+here Pausanias declared that the territory on which the battle was
+fought should forever be sacred ground to all of Grecian birth. Forever
+is seldom a very long period in human history. In this case it lasted
+just fifty years.
+
+War had broken out between Sparta and its allies and Athens and its
+dominion, and all Greece was in turmoil. Of the two leading cities of
+Boeotia, Thebes was an ally of the Lacedæmonians, Platæa of the
+Athenians. The war broke out by an attack of the Thebans upon Platæa.
+Two years afterwards, in the year 429 B.C., Archidamus, the Spartan
+king, led his whole force against this ally of Athens. In his army
+marched the Thebans, men of a city but two hours' journey from Platæa,
+and citizens of the same state, yet its bitterest foes. The Platæans
+were summoned to surrender, to consent to remain neutral, or to leave
+their city and go where they would; all of which alternatives they
+declined. Thereupon the Spartan force invested the city, and prepared to
+take it by dint of arms. And thus Sparta kept the pledge of Platæan
+sacredness made by her king Pausanias half a century before.
+
+Platæa was a small place, probably not very strongly fortified, and
+contained a garrison of only four hundred and eighty men, of whom eighty
+were Athenians. Fortunately, all the women and children had been sent to
+Athens, the only women remaining in the town being about a hundred
+slaves, who served as cooks. Around this small place gathered the entire
+army of Sparta and her allies, a force against which it seemed as if the
+few defenders could not hold out a week. But these faithful few were
+brave and resolute, and for a year and more they defied every effort of
+their foes.
+
+The story of this siege is of interest as showing how the ancients
+assailed a fortified town. Defences which in our times would not stand a
+day, in those times took months and years to overcome. The army of
+Sparta, defied by the brave garrison, at first took steps to enclose the
+town. If the defenders would not let them in, they would not let the
+defenders out. They laid waste the cultivated land, cut down the
+fruit-trees, and used these to build a strong palisade around the entire
+city, with the determination that not a Platæan should escape. This
+done, they began to erect a great mound of wood, stones, and earth
+against the city wall, forming an inclined plane up which they proposed
+to rush and take the city by assault. The sides of this mound were
+enclosed by cross-beams of wood, so as to hold its materials in place.
+
+For seventy days and nights the whole army worked busily at this sloping
+mound, and at the end of this time it had reached nearly the height of
+the wall. But the Platæans had not been idle while their foes were thus
+at work. They raised the height of their old wall at this point by an
+additional wall of wood, backed up by brickwork, which they tore down
+houses to obtain. In front of this they suspended hides, so as to
+prevent fire-bearing arrows from setting the wood on fire. Then they
+made a hole through the lower part of the town wall, and through it
+pulled the earth from the bottom of the mound, so that the top fell in.
+
+The besiegers now let down quantities of stiff clay rolled up in wattled
+reeds, which could not be thus pulled away. Yet their mound continued to
+sink, in spite of the new materials they heaped on top, and they could
+not tell why. In fact, the Platæans had dug an underground passage from
+within the town, and through this carried away the foundations of the
+mound. And thus for more than two months the besiegers built and the
+garrison destroyed their works.
+
+Not content with this, the Platæans built a new portion of wall within
+the town, joining the old wall on both sides of the mound, so that if
+the besiegers should complete their mound and rush up it in assault,
+they would find a new wall staring them in the face, and all their labor
+lost.
+
+This was not all that was done. Battering engines were used against the
+walls to break them down. These the defenders caught by long ropes,
+pulling the heads of the engines upward or sideways. They also fixed
+heavy wooden beams in such a manner that when the head of an engine came
+near the wall they could drop a beam suddenly upon it, and break off its
+projecting beak.
+
+In these rude ways the attack and defence went on, until three months
+had passed, and Archidamus and his army found themselves where they had
+begun, and the garrison still safe and defiant. The besiegers next tried
+to destroy the town by fire. From the top of the mound they hurled
+fagots as far as they could within the walls. They then threw in pitch
+and other quick-burning material, and finally set the whole on fire. In
+a brief time the flames burst out hotly, and burnt with so fierce a
+conflagration that the whole town was in imminent danger of destruction.
+Nothing could have saved it had the wind favored the flames. There is a
+story also that a thunder-storm came up to extinguish the fire,--but
+such opportune rains seem somewhat too common in ancient history. As it
+was, part of the town was destroyed, but the most of it remained, and
+the brave inmates continued defiant of their foes.
+
+Archidamus was almost in despair. Was this small town, with its few
+hundred men, to defy and defeat his large army? He had tried the various
+ancient ways of attack in vain. The Spartans, with all their prowess in
+the field, lacked skill in the assault of walled towns, and were rarely
+successful in the art of siege. The Platæans had proved more than their
+match, and there only remained to be tried the wearisome and costly
+process of blockade and famine.
+
+Determined that Platæa should not escape, this plan was in the end
+adopted, and a wall built round the entire city, to prevent escape or
+the entrance of aid from without. In fact, two walls were built, sixteen
+feet apart, and these were covered in on top, so that they looked like
+one very thick wall. There were also two ditches, from which the bricks
+of the wall had been dug, one on the inside, and one without to prevent
+relief by a foreign force. The covered space within the walls served as
+quarters for the troops left on guard, its top as a convenient place for
+sentry duty. This done, the main army marched away. It needed no great
+host to keep the few Platæans within their walls until they should
+consume all their food and yield to famine, a slower but more
+irresistible foe than all the Lacedæmonian power.
+
+Fortunately for the besieged, they were well provisioned, and for more
+than a year remained in peace within their city, not attacked by their
+foes and receiving no aid from friends. Besides the eighty Athenians
+within the walls no help came to the Platæans during the long siege. At
+length provisions began to fail. It was evident that they must die like
+rats in a cage, surrender to their foes, or make a desperate break for
+freedom.
+
+The last expedient was proposed by their general. It was daring, and
+seemed desperate, to seek to escape over the blockading wall with its
+armed guards. So desperate did it appear that half the garrison feared
+to attempt it, deeming that it would end in certain death. The other
+half, more than two hundred in number, decided that it was better to
+dare death in the field than to meet death in the streets.
+
+The wall was furnished with frequent battlements and occasional towers,
+and its whole circuit was kept under watch day and night. But as time
+went on the besiegers grew more lax in discipline, and on wet nights
+sought the shelter of the towers, leaving the spaces between without
+guards. This left a chance for escape which the Platæans determined to
+embrace.
+
+By counting the layers of bricks in the blockading wall they were able
+to estimate its height, and prepared ladders long enough to reach its
+top. Then they waited for a suitable time. At length it came, a cold,
+dark, stormy December night, with a roaring wind, and showers of rain
+and sleet.
+
+The shivering guards cowered within their sheltering towers. Out from
+their gates marched the Platæans, lightly armed, and, to avoid any
+sound, with the right foot naked. The left was shod, that it might have
+firmer hold on the muddy ground. Moving with the wind in their faces,
+and so far apart that their arms could not strike and clatter, they
+reached and crossed the ditch and lifted their ladders against the wall.
+Eleven men, armed only with sword and breastplate, mounted first. Others
+bearing spears followed, leaving their shields for their comrades below
+to carry up and hand to them. This first company was to attack and
+master the two towers right and left. This they did, surprising and
+slaying the guards without the alarm having spread. Then the others
+rapidly mounted the wall.
+
+At this critical moment one of them struck a loose tile with his foot
+and sent it clattering down the wall. This unlucky accident gave the
+alarm. In an instant shouts came from the towers, and the garrison below
+sprang to arms and hurried to the top of the wall. But they knew not
+where to seek the foe, and their perplexity was increased by the
+garrison within the city, which made a false attack on the other side.
+
+Not knowing what to do or where to go, the blockaders remained at their
+posts, except a body of three hundred men, who were kept in readiness to
+patrol the outside of the outer ditch. Fire-signals were raised to warn
+their allies in Thebes, but the garrison in the town also kindled
+fire-signals so as to destroy the meaning of those of the besiegers.
+
+Meanwhile the escaping warriors were actively engaged. Some held with
+spear and javelin the towers they had captured. Others drew up the
+ladders and planted them against the outer wall. Then down the ladders
+they hurried, waded across the outer ditch, and reached level ground
+beyond. Each man, as he gained this space, stood ready with his weapons
+to repel assault from without. When all the others were down, the men
+who had held the towers fled to the ladders and safely descended.
+
+The outer ditch was nearly full of water from the rain and covered with
+thin ice. Yet they scrambled through it, and when the three hundred of
+the outer guard approached with torches, they suddenly found themselves
+assailed with arrows and javelins from a foe invisible in the darkness.
+They were thus kept back till the last Platæan had crossed the ditch,
+when the bold fugitives marched speedily away, leaving but one of their
+number a prisoner in the hands of the foe.
+
+They first marched towards Thebes, while their pursuers took the
+opposite direction. Then they turned, struck eastward, entered the
+mountains, and finally--two hundred and twelve in number--made their way
+safely to Athens, to tell their families and allies the thrilling story
+of their escape.
+
+A few who lost heart returned from the inner wall to the town, and told
+those within that the whole band had perished. The truth was only
+learned within the town when on the next morning a herald was sent out
+to solicit a truce for burial of the dead bodies. The herald brought
+back the glad tidings that there were no dead to bury, that the whole
+bold band had escaped.
+
+Happy had it been for the remaining garrison had they also fled, even at
+the risk of death. With the provisions left they held out till the next
+summer, when they were forced to yield. In the end, after the form of a
+trial, they were all slaughtered by their foes, and the city itself was
+razed to the ground by its Theban enemies, only the Heræum, or temple of
+Here, being left. Such was the fate of a city to which eternal
+sacredness had been pledged.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW THE LONG WALLS WENT DOWN._
+
+
+The retreat of the Persians from Athens left that city without a wall or
+a home. On the return of the Athenians, and the rebuilding of their
+ruined homes, a new wall became a necessity, and, under the wise advice
+of Themistocles, the citizens determined that the new wall should be
+much larger in circuit than the old,--wide enough to hold all Attica in
+case of war.
+
+[Illustration: PIRÆUS, THE PORT OF ATHENS.]
+
+But no sooner was this begun than a protest arose from rival states. The
+Spartans in particular raised such a clamor on the subject that
+Themistocles went to that city and denied that he was fortifying Athens.
+If they did not believe him, they might send there and see. They did so,
+and the Spartan ambassadors, on arriving there, found the walls
+completed and themselves held as hostages for the safe return of
+Themistocles. Not only Athens was thus fortified, but a still stronger
+wall was built around Piræus, the port, four miles away.
+
+Years afterwards, when Athens was in a position to defy the protest of
+Sparta, her famous Long Walls were built, extending from the city to the
+port, and forming a great artery through which the food and products
+brought in ships from distant lands could flow to the city from the sea,
+in defiance of foes. These walls it was that enabled Athens to survive
+and flourish when all the soil of Attica lay in the hands of the Spartan
+enemy. But the time came when these walls were to fall, and Athens to
+lie helpless in the hands of her mortal foe.
+
+The Peloponnesian war was full of incident, victories and defeats,
+marches and countermarches, making and breaking of truces, loss of
+provinces and fleets, triumphs of one side and the other, and still the
+years rolled on, and neither party became supreme. Athens had its
+ill-advisers, who kept it at war when it could have won far more by
+concluding peace, and who induced it to forget the advice of Pericles
+and make war on land when its great strength lay in its fleet.
+
+Its great error, however, was an attempt at foreign conquest, when it
+had quite enough to occupy it at home. War broke out between Athens and
+Sicily, and a strong fleet was sent to blockade and seek to capture the
+city of Syracuse. This expedition fatally sapped the strength of the
+Athenian empire. Ships and men were supplied in profusion to take part
+in a series of military blunders, of which the last were irreparable.
+The fleet, with all on board, was finally blocked up in the harbor of
+Syracuse, defeated in battle, and forced to yield, while of forty
+thousand Athenian troops but a miserable remnant survived to end their
+lives as slaves in Syracusan quarries. It was a disaster such as Athens
+in its whole career had not endured, and whose consequences were
+inevitable. From that time on the supremacy of Athens was at an end.
+
+Yet for nine years more the war continued, with much the same
+succession of varying events as before. But during this period Sparta
+was learning an important lesson. If she would defeat Athens, she must
+learn how to win victories on sea as well as on land. After every defeat
+of a fleet she built and equipped another, and gradually grew stronger
+in ships, and her seamen more skilful and expert, until the old
+difference between Athenian and Spartan seamen ceased to exist. Persia
+also came to the aid of Sparta, supplied her with money, and enabled her
+to replace her lost ships with ever new ones, while the ship-building
+power of Athens declined.
+
+In 405 B.C. the crisis came. Athens was forced to depend solely for
+subsistence on her fleet. That gone, all would be gone. In the autumn of
+that year she had a fleet of one hundred and eighty triremes in the
+Hellespont, in the close vicinity of a Spartan fleet of about the same
+force, under an able admiral named Lysander. Ægospotami, or Goat's River
+(a name of fatal sound to all later Athenians), was the station of the
+Athenian fleet. That of Sparta lay opposite, across the strait, nearly
+two miles away.
+
+And now an interesting scene began. Every day the Athenian fleet crossed
+the strait and offered battle to the Spartans, daring them to come out
+from their sheltered position. And every day, when the Spartans had
+refused, it would go back to the opposite shore, where many of the men
+were permitted to land. Day by day this challenge was repeated, the
+Athenians growing daily more confident and more careless, and the crews
+dispersing in search of food or amusement as soon as they reached the
+shore. Lysander, meanwhile, fox-like, was on the watch. A scout-ship
+followed the enemy daily. At length, on the fifth day, when the Athenian
+ships had anchored, and the sailors had, as usual, dispersed, the
+scout-ship hoisted a bright shield as a signal. In an instant the fleet
+of Lysander, which was all ready, dashed out of its harbor, and rowed
+with the utmost speed across the strait. The Athenian commanders,
+perceiving too late their mistake, did their utmost to recall the
+scattered crews, but in vain. The Spartan ships dashed in among those of
+Athens, found some of them entirely deserted, others nearly so, and
+wrought with such energy that of the whole fleet only twelve ships
+escaped. Nearly all the men ashore were also taken, while this great
+victory was won not only without the loss of a ship, but hardly of a
+man. The prisoners, three or four thousand in number, in the cruel
+manner of the time, were put to death.
+
+This defeat, so disgraceful to the Athenian commanders, so complete and
+thorough, was a death-blow to the dominion of Athens. That city was left
+at the mercy of its foes. When news of the disaster reached the city,
+such a night of wailing and woe, of fear and misery, came upon the
+Athenians as few cities had ever before gone through. Their fleet gone,
+all was gone. On it depended their food. Their land-supplies had long
+been cut off. No corn-ships could now reach them from the Euxine Sea,
+and few from other quarters. They might fight still, but the end was
+sure. The victor at Salamis would soon be a prisoner within her own
+walls.
+
+Lysander was in no hurry to sail to Athens. That city could wait. He
+employed himself in visiting the islands and cities in alliance with or
+dependent upon Athens, and inducing them to ally themselves with Sparta.
+The Athenian garrisons were sent home. Lysander shrewdly calculated that
+the more men the walls of Athens held, the sooner must their food-supply
+be exhausted and the end come. At length, in November of 405 B.C.,
+Lysander sailed with his fleet to Piræus and blockaded its harbor, while
+the land army of the Peloponnesus marched into Attica and encamped at
+the gates of Athens.
+
+That great and proud city was now peopled with despair. The plague which
+had desolated it twenty-five years before now threatened to be succeeded
+by a still more fatal plague, that of famine. Yet pride and resolution
+remained. The walls had been strengthened; their defenders could hold
+out while any food was left; not until men actually began to die of
+hunger did they ask for peace.
+
+The envoys sent to Sparta were refused a hearing. Athens wished to
+preserve her walls. Sparta sent word that there could be no peace until
+the Long Walls were levelled with the earth. These terms Athens proudly
+refused. Suffering and privation went on.
+
+For three months longer the siege continued. Though famine dwelt within
+every house, and numbers died of starvation, the Athenians held out with
+heroic endurance, and refused to surrender on humiliating terms. But
+there could be only one end. Where famine commands man must obey. Peace
+must be had at any price, or death would end all, and an envoy was sent
+out with power to make peace on any terms he could obtain.
+
+It was pitiable that glorious Athens should be brought to this sad pass.
+She was so cordially hated by many of the states of Greece that they
+voted for her annihilation, demanding that the entire population should
+be sold as slaves, and the city and the very name of Athens be utterly
+swept from the earth.
+
+At this dread moment the greatest foe of Athens became almost her only
+friend. Sparta declared that she would never consent to such a fate for
+the city which had been the savior of Greece in the Persian war. In the
+end peace was offered on the following terms: The Long Walls and the
+defences of Piræus should be destroyed; the Athenians should give up all
+foreign possessions and confine themselves to Attica; they should
+surrender all their ships-of-war; they should admit all their exiles;
+they should become allies of Sparta, be friends of her friends and foes
+of her foes, and follow her leadership on sea and land.
+
+When the envoy, bearing this ultimatum, returned to Athens, a pitiable
+spectacle met his eyes. A despairing crowd faced him with beseeching
+eyes, in terror lest he brought only a message of death or despair.
+Thousands there were who could not meet him, victims of the increasing
+famine. Peace at any price had become a valued boon. Nevertheless, when
+the terms were read in the assembly, there were those there who would
+have refused them, and who preferred death by starvation to such
+disgrace. The great majority, however, voted to accept them, and word
+was sent to Lysander that Athens yielded to the inevitable.
+
+And now into the harbor of the Piræus sailed the triumphant Lacedæmonian
+fleet, just twenty-seven years after the war had begun. With them came
+the Athenian exiles, some of whom had served with their city's foes. The
+ships building in the dock-yards were burned and the arsenals ruined,
+there being left to Athens only twelve ships-of-war. And then, amid the
+joyful shouts of the conquerors, to the music of flutes played by women
+and the sportive movements of dancers crowned with wreaths, the Long
+Walls of Athens began to fall.
+
+The conquerors themselves lent a hand to this work at first, but its
+completion was left to the Athenians, who with sore hearts and bowed
+heads for many days worked at the demolition of what so long had been
+their city's strength and pride.
+
+What followed may be briefly told. Athens had, some time before, fallen
+under the power of a Committee of Four Hundred, aristocrats who
+overthrew the constitution and reigned supreme until the people rose in
+their might and brought their despotism to an end. Now a new oligarchy,
+called "The Thirty," and mostly composed of the returned exiles, came
+into despotic power, and the ancient constitution was once more ignored.
+
+The reign of The Thirty was one of blood, confiscation, and death.
+Supported by a Spartan garrison, they tyrannized at their own cruel
+will, murdering, confiscating, exiling, until they converted Athens into
+a prototype of Paris during the French Revolution.
+
+At length the saturnalia of crime came to an end. Even the enemies of
+Athens began to pity her sad state. Those who had been exiled by these
+new tyrants returned to Attica, and war between them and The Thirty
+began. In the end Sparta withdrew her support from the tyrants, those of
+them who had not perished fled, and after nearly a year of terrible
+anarchy the democracy of Athens was restored, and peace once more spread
+its wings over that frightfully afflicted city.
+
+We may conclude this tale with an episode that took place eleven years
+after the Long Walls had fallen. As they had gone down to music, they
+rose to music again. In these eleven years despotic Sparta had lost many
+of her allies, and the Persians, who had become friends of Athens, now
+lent a fleet and supplied money to aid in rebuilding the walls. Some
+even of those who had danced for joy when the walls went down now gave
+their cheerful aid to raise them up again, so greatly had Spartan
+tyranny changed the tide of feeling. The completion of the walls was
+celebrated by a splendid sacrifice and festival banquet, and joy came
+back to Athens again. A new era had begun for the city, not one of
+dominion and empire, but one marked by some share of her old dignity and
+importance in Greece.
+
+
+
+
+_SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES._
+
+
+During the period of the Peloponnesian war two men became strikingly
+prominent in Athens, a statesman and a philosopher, as unlike each other
+in character, appearance, aims, and methods as two persons could well
+be, yet the most intimate of friends, and long dividing between them the
+admiration of the Athenians. These were the historically famous
+Alcibiades and Socrates. Alcibiades was a leader in action, Socrates a
+leader in thought; thus they controlled the two great dominions of human
+affairs.
+
+Of these two, Socrates was vastly the nobler and higher, Alcibiades much
+the more specious and popular. Democratic Athens was never long without
+its aristocratic leader. For many years it had been Pericles. It now
+became Alcibiades, a man whose career and character were much more like
+those of Themistocles of old than of the sedate and patriotic Pericles.
+
+Alcibiades was the Adonis of Athens, noted for his beauty, the charm of
+his manner, his winning personality, qualities which made all men his
+willing captives. He was of high birth, great wealth, and luxurious and
+pleasure-loving disposition, yet with a remarkable power of
+accommodating himself to circumstances, and becoming all things to all
+men. While numbers of high-born Athenians admired him for his
+extraordinary beauty of person, Socrates saw in him admirable qualities
+of mind, and loved him with a warm affection, which Alcibiades as warmly
+returned. The philosopher gained the greatest influence over his
+youthful friend, taught him to despise affectation and revere virtue,
+and did much to develop in him noble qualities of thought and
+aspiration.
+
+Yet nature had made Alcibiades, and nature's work is hard to undo. He
+was a man of hasty impulse and violent temper, a man destitute of the
+spirit of patriotism, and in very great measure it was to this brilliant
+son of Athens that that city owed its lamentable fate.
+
+No greater contrast could be imagined than was shown by these almost
+inseparable friends. Alcibiades was tall, shapely, remarkably handsome,
+fond of showy attire and luxurious surroundings, full of animal spirits,
+rapid and animated in speech, and aristocratic in sentiment; Socrates
+short, thick-set, remarkably ugly, careless in attire, destitute of all
+courtly graces, democratic in the highest degree, and despising-utterly
+those arts and aims, loves and luxuries, which appealed so strongly to
+the soul of his ardent friend. Yet the genius, the intellectual
+acuteness, the lofty aims, and wonderful conversational power of
+Socrates overcame all his natural defects, attracted Alcibiades
+irresistibly, and welded the two together in an intellectual sympathy
+that set aside all differences of form and character.
+
+The philosopher and the politician owed to each other their lives. They
+served as soldiers together at Potidæa, lodged in the same tent, and
+stood side by side in the ranks. Alcibiades was wounded in the battle,
+but was defended and rescued by his friend, who afterwards persuaded the
+generals to award to him the prize for valor. Later, at the battle of
+Delium, Alcibiades protected and saved Socrates. These personal services
+brought them into still closer relations, while their friendship was
+perhaps the stronger from their almost complete diversity of character.
+
+Unluckily for Athens, Socrates was not able to instil strong principles
+of virtue into the mind of the versatile Alcibiades. This ardent
+pleasure lover was moved by ambition, desire of admiration, love of
+display, and fondness for luxurious living, and indulged in excesses
+that it was not easy for the more frugal citizens to forgive. He sent
+seven chariots to the Olympic Games, from which he carried off the
+first, second, and fourth prizes. He gave splendid shows, distributed
+money freely, and in spite of his wanton follies retained numbers of
+friends among the Athenian people.
+
+It was to this engaging and ambitious politician that the ruinous
+Sicilian expedition was due. He persuaded the Athenians to engage in it,
+in spite of wiser advice, and was one of those placed in command. But
+the night before the fleet set sail a dreadful sacrilege took place. All
+the statues of the god Hermes in the city were mutilated by unknown
+parties,--an outrage which caused almost a panic among the
+superstitious people. Among those accused of this sacrilege was
+Alcibiades. There was no evidence against him, and he was permitted to
+proceed. But after he had reached Sicily he was sent for to return, on a
+new charge of sacrilege. He refused to do so, fearing the schemes of his
+enemies, and, when told that the assembly had voted sentence of death
+against him, he said, bitterly, "I will make them feel that I _live_!"
+
+He did so. To him Athens was indebted for the ruin of its costly
+expedition. He fled to Sparta and advised the Spartans to send to
+Syracuse the able general to whom the Athenians owed their fatal defeat.
+He also advised his new friends to seize and fortify a town in Attica.
+By this they cut off all the land supply of food from Athens, and did
+much to force the final submission of that city.
+
+Alcibiades now put on a new guise. He affected to be enraptured with
+Spartan manners, cropped his hair, lived on black broth, exercised
+diligently, and by his fluent tongue made himself a favorite in that
+austere city. But at length, by an idle boast, he roused Spartan enmity,
+and had to fly again. Now he sought Asia Minor, became a friend of
+Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, adopted the excesses of Persian
+luxury, and sought to break the alliance between Persia and Sparta,
+which he had before sustained.
+
+Next, moved by a desire to see his old home, he offered the leading
+citizens of Athens to induce Tissaphernes to come to their aid, on the
+condition that he might be permitted to return. But he declared that he
+would not come while the democracy was in power, and it was by his
+influence that the tyrannical Committee of Four Hundred was formed.
+Afterwards, falling out with these tyrants, Alcibiades turned democrat
+again, was made admiral of the fleet, and wrought the ruin of the
+oligarchy which he had raised to power.
+
+And now this brilliant and fickle son of Athens worked as actively and
+ably for his native city as he had before sought her ruin. Under his
+command the fleet gained several important victories, and conquered
+Byzantium and other cities. The ruinous defeat at Ægospotami would not
+have occurred had the admiral of the fleet listened to his timely
+warning. After the fall of Athens, and during the tyranny of the Thirty,
+he retired to Asia Minor, where he was honorably received by the satrap
+Pharnabazus. And here the end came to his versatile career. One night
+the house in which he slept was surrounded by a body of armed men and
+set on fire. He rushed out, sword in hand, but a shower of darts and
+arrows quickly robbed him of life. Through whose enmity he died is not
+known. Thus perished, at less than fifty years of age, one of the most
+brilliant and able of all the Athenians,--one who, had he lived, would
+doubtless have added fresh and striking chapters to the history of his
+native land, though whether to her advantage or injury cannot now be
+told.
+
+The career of Socrates was wonderfully different from that of his
+brilliant but unprincipled friend. While Alcibiades was seeking to
+dazzle and control, Socrates was seeking to convince and improve
+mankind. A striking picture is given us of the physical qualities of
+this great moral philosopher. His ugliness of face was matter of jest in
+Athens. He had the flat nose, thick lips, and prominent eyes of a satyr.
+Yet he was as strong as he was ugly. Few Athenians could equal him in
+endurance. While serving as a soldier, he was able to endure heat and
+cold, hunger and fatigue, in a manner that astonished his companions. He
+went barefoot in all weather, and wore the same clothing winter and
+summer. His diet was of the simplest, but in religious festivals, when
+all were expected to indulge, Socrates could drink more wine than any
+person present, without a sign of intoxication. Yet it was his constant
+aim to limit his wants and to avoid all excess.
+
+To these qualities of body Socrates added the highest and noblest
+qualities of mind. Naturally he had a violent temper, but he held it
+under severe control, though he could not always avoid a display of
+anger under circumstances of great provocation. But his depth of
+thought, his remarkable powers of argument, his earnest desire for human
+amendment, his incessant moral lessons to the Athenians, place him in
+the very first rank of the teachers of mankind.
+
+Socrates was of humble birth. He was born 469 B.C. and lived for seventy
+years. His father was a sculptor, and he followed the same profession.
+He married, and his wife Xanthippe has become famous for the acidity of
+her temper. There is little doubt that Socrates, whose life was spent in
+arguing and conversing, and who paid little attention to filling the
+larder, gave the poor housewife abundant provocation. We know very
+little about the events of his life, except that he served as a soldier
+in three campaigns, that he strictly obeyed the laws, performed all his
+religious duties, and once, when acting as judge, refused, at the peril
+of his life, to perform an unjust action.
+
+Of the daily life of Socrates we have graphic pictures, drawn by his
+friends and followers Xenophon and Plato. From morning to night he might
+be seen in the streets and public places, engaged in endless
+talk,--prattling, his enemies called it. In the early morning, his
+sturdy figure, shabbily dressed, and his pale and ill-featured face,
+were familiar visions in the public walks, the gymnasia, and the
+schools. At the hour when the market-place was most crowded, Socrates
+would be there, walking about among the booths and tables, and talking
+to every one whom he could induce to listen. Thus was his whole day
+spent. He was ready to talk with any one, old or young, rich or poor,
+being in no sense a respecter of persons. He conversed with artisans,
+philosophers, students, soldiers, politicians,--all classes of men. He
+visited everywhere, was known to all persons of distinction, and was a
+special friend of Aspasia, the brilliant woman companion of Pericles.
+
+His conversational powers must have been extraordinary, for none seemed
+to tire of hearing him, and many sought him in his haunts, eager to hear
+his engaging and instructive talk. Many, indeed, in his later years,
+came from other cities of Greece, drawn to Athens by his fame, and
+anxious to hear this wonderful conversationalist and teacher. These
+became known as his scholars or disciples, though he claimed nothing
+resembling a school, and received no reward for his teachings.
+
+The talk of Socrates was never idle or meaningless chat. He felt that he
+had a special mission to fulfil, that in a sense he was an envoy to man
+from the gods, and declared that, from childhood on, a divine voice had
+spoken to him, unheard by others, warning and restraining him from
+unwise acts or sayings. It forbade him to enter public life, controlled
+him day by day, and was frequently mentioned by him to his disciples.
+This guardian voice has become known as the dæmon or genius of Socrates.
+
+The oracle at Delphi said that no man was wiser than Socrates. To learn
+if this was true and he really was wiser than other men, he questioned
+everybody everywhere, seeking to learn what they knew, and leading them
+on by question after question till he usually found that they knew very
+little of what they professed.
+
+As to what Socrates taught, we can only say here that he was the first
+great ethical philosopher. The philosophers before him had sought to
+explain the mystery of the universe. He declared that all this was
+useless and profitless. Man's mind was superior to all matter, and he
+led men to look within, study their own souls, consider the question of
+human duty, the obligations of man to man, and all that leads towards
+virtue and the moral development of human society.
+
+It is not surprising that Xanthippe scolded her idle husband, who
+supplied so much food for the souls of others, but quite ignored the
+demands of food for the bodies of his wife and children. His teachings
+were but vaporing talk to her small mind and to those of many of the
+people. And the keen questions with which he convicted so many of
+ignorance, and the sarcastic irony with which he wounded their
+self-love, certainly did not make him friends among this class. In
+truth, he made many enemies. One of these was Aristophanes, the
+dramatist, who wrote a comedy in which he sought to make Socrates
+ridiculous. This turned many of the audiences at the theatres against
+him.
+
+[Illustration: PRISON OF SOCRATES, ATHENS.]
+
+All this went on until the year 399 B.C., when some of his enemies
+accused him of impiety, declaring that he did not worship the old gods,
+but introduced new ones and corrupted the minds of the young. "The
+penalty due," they said, "is death."
+
+It had taken them some thirty years to find this out, for Socrates had
+been teaching the same things for that length of time. In fact, no
+ancient city but Athens would have listened to his radical talk for so
+many years without some such charge. But he had now so many enemies that
+the accusation was dangerous. He made it worse by his carelessness in
+his defence. He said things that provoked his judges. He could have been
+acquitted if he wished, for in the final vote only a majority of five or
+six out of nearly six hundred brought him in guilty.
+
+Socrates seemingly did not care what verdict they brought. He had no
+fear of death, and would not trouble himself to say a word to preserve
+his life. The divine voice, he declared, would not permit him. He was
+sentenced to drink the poison of hemlock, and was imprisoned for thirty
+days, during which he conversed in his old calm manner with his friends.
+
+Some of his disciples arranged a plan for his escape, but he refused to
+fly. If his fellow-citizens wished to take his life he would not oppose
+their wills. On the last day he drank the hemlock as calmly as though it
+were his usual beverage, and talked on quietly till death sealed his
+tongue.
+
+Thus died the first and one of the greatest of ethical philosophers, and
+a man without a parallel, in his peculiar field, in all the history of
+mankind. Greece produced none like him, and this homely and humble
+personage, who wrote not a line, has been unsurpassed in fame and
+influence upon mankind by any of the host of illustrious writers who
+have made famous the Hellenic lands.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND._
+
+
+We have now to tell of one of the most remarkable events in Grecian
+history, to describe how ten thousand Greeks, who found themselves in
+the heart of the great Persian empire, without a leader and almost
+without food, marched through the land of their foes, over rugged
+mountains swarming with enemies, and across lofty plains covered deep
+with snow, until finally they reached once more their native land.
+Xenophon, their chosen leader, has told the story of this wonderful
+march in a book called the "Anabasis," and from this book we take what
+we have here to say.
+
+First, how came these Greeks so far away from their home and friends? We
+have told elsewhere how the Persians several times invaded Greece. We
+have now to tell how the Greeks first invaded Persia. It happened many
+years afterwards. The Persian king Xerxes had long since been dead, and
+succeeded by his son Artaxerxes, who reigned over Persia for nearly
+forty years. Then came Darius Nothus, whose reign lasted nineteen years.
+This king had two sons, Artaxerxes and Cyrus. On his death he bequeathed
+the throne to Artaxerxes, while Cyrus was left satrap of a large
+province in Asia Minor.
+
+Of these two sons, the new king was timid and incompetent; Cyrus was
+remarkably shrewd and able, and was filled with a consuming ambition. He
+wanted the Persian throne and knew the best means of obtaining it. He
+was well aware of the military ability of the Greeks. It was he who
+supplied the money which enabled Sparta to overthrow Athens. He now
+secretly enlisted a body of about thirteen thousand Greeks, promising
+them high pay if they would enter his service; and with these, and one
+hundred thousand Asiatics, he marched against his brother.
+
+But Cyrus was too shrewd to let his purpose be known. He gave out that
+he was going to put down some brigand mountaineers. Then when he had got
+his army far eastward, he threw off the mask and started on the long
+march across the desert to Babylonia. The Greeks had been deceived. At
+first they refused to follow him on so perilous an errand, and to such a
+distance from home. But by liberal promises he overcame their
+objections, and they marched on till the heart of Babylonia was reached.
+
+The army was now in the wonderfully fertile country between the rivers
+Euphrates and Tigris, that rich Mesopotamian region which had been part
+of the Persian empire since the great cities of Nineveh and Babylon were
+taken by the Persians a century before. And in all this long march no
+enemy had been met. But now Cyrus and his followers found themselves
+suddenly confronted by a great Persian army, led by Artaxerxes, the
+king.
+
+First a great cloud of white dust was seen in the distance. Then under
+it appeared on the earth a broad dark spot, which widened and deepened
+as it came nearer, until at length armor began to shine and spear-heads
+to glitter, and dense masses of troops appeared beneath the cloud. Here
+were great troops of cavalry, wearing white cuirasses; here a vast array
+of bowmen with wicker shields, spiked so that they could thrust their
+points into the ground and send their arrows from behind them; there a
+dark mass of Egyptian infantry, with long wooden shields that covered
+the whole body; in front of all was a row of chariots, with scythes
+stretching outward from the wheels, so as to mow down the ranks through
+which they were driven.
+
+These scythed chariots faced the Greeks, whose ranks they were intended
+to break. But when the battle-shout was given, and the dense mass of
+Greeks rushed forward at a rapid pace, the Persians before them broke
+into a sudden panic and fled, the drivers of the chariots leaping wildly
+to the ground and joining in the flight. The horses, left to themselves,
+and scared by the tumult, rushed in all directions, many of them
+hurtling with their scythed chariots through the flying host, others
+coming against the Greeks, who opened their ranks to let them pass. In
+that part of the field the battle was won without a blow being struck or
+a man killed. The very presence of the Greeks had brought victory.
+
+The great Persian army would soon have been all in flight but for an
+unlooked-for event. Artaxerxes, in the centre of his army, was
+surrounded by a body-guard of six thousand horse. Against these Cyrus,
+followed by six hundred horse, made an impetuous charge. So fierce was
+the onset that the body-guard were soon in full flight, Cyrus killing
+their general with his own hand. The six hundred hotly pursued their
+flying foe, leaving Cyrus almost alone. And now before him appeared his
+brother Artaxerxes, exposed by the flight of his guard.
+
+Between these two men brotherly affection did not exist. They viewed
+each other as bitter enemies. So fiercely did Cyrus hate his brother
+that on seeing him he burst into a paroxysm of rage which robbed him of
+all the prudence and judgment he had so far shown. "I see the man!" he
+cried in tones of fury, and rushed hotly forward, followed only by the
+few companions who remained with him, against Artaxerxes and the strong
+force still with him. As Cyrus came near the king he cast his javelin so
+truly, and with such force, that it pierced the cuirass of Artaxerxes,
+and wounded him in the breast. Yet the assault of Cyrus was a mad one,
+and it met the end of madness. He was struck below the eye by a javelin,
+hurled from his horse and instantly slain; his few followers quickly
+sharing his fate.
+
+The head and right hand of the slain prince were immediately cut off and
+held up to the view of all within sight, and the contest was proclaimed
+at an end. The Asiatic army of Cyrus, on learning of the fatal disaster,
+turned and fled. The Greeks held their own and repulsed all that came
+against them, in ignorance of the death of Cyrus, of which they did not
+hear till the next morning. The news then filled them with sorrow and
+dismay.
+
+What followed must be briefly told. The position of the Greeks, much
+more than a thousand miles from their country, in the heart of an empire
+filled with foes, and in the presence of a vast hostile army, seemed
+hopeless. Yet they refused to surrender at the demand of the king. They
+were victors, not defeated men; why should they surrender? "If the king
+wants our arms, let him come and try to take them," they said. "Our arms
+are all the treasure we have left; we shall not be fools enough to hand
+them over to you, but shall use them to fight for your treasure."
+
+This challenge King Artaxerxes showed no inclination to accept. Both he
+and his army feared the Greeks. As for the latter, they immediately
+began their retreat. They could not go back over the desert by which
+they had come, that was impossible; they therefore chose a longer road,
+but with more chance of food, leading up the left bank of the Tigris
+River and proceeding to the Euxine, or Black Sea. It was in dread and
+hopelessness that the solitary band began this long and perilous march,
+through a country of which they knew nothing, amid hosts of foes, and
+with the winter at hand. But they were soon to experience a new
+misfortune and be left in a still more hopeless state.
+
+Their boldness had so intimidated King Artaxerxes that he sent heralds
+to them to treat for a truce. "Go tell the king," their general replied,
+"that our first business must be to fight. We have nothing to eat, and
+no man should talk to Greeks about a truce without first providing them
+with a dinner."
+
+The result of this bold answer was that food was provided, a truce
+declared, and Tissaphernes, a Persian satrap, with a body of troops,
+undertook to conduct the Greeks out of the country. Crossing the Tigris,
+they marched for fifteen days up its east side, until the Great Zab
+River, in the country of Media, was reached. Here the treachery which
+Tissaphernes had all along intended was consummated. He invited
+Clearchus, the Greek leader, and the other generals to a conference with
+him in his tent,--three miles from their camp. They incautiously
+accepted, and on arriving there were immediately seized, the captains
+and soldiers who had accompanied them cut down, and the generals sent in
+chains to the king, who ordered them all to be put to death.
+
+This loss of their leaders threw the Greeks into despair. Ruin appeared
+inevitable. In the midst of a hostile country, more than a thousand
+miles from Grecian soil, surrounded by enemies, blocked up by deep
+rivers and almost impassable mountains, without guides, without
+provisions, without cavalry, without generals to give orders, what were
+they to do? A stupor of helplessness seized upon them. Few came to the
+evening muster; few lighted fires to cook their suppers; every man lay
+down to rest where he was; yet fear, anguish, and yearning for home
+drove sleep from every eye. The expectation of the Persians that they
+would now surrender seemed likely to be realized, for without a guiding
+head and hand there seemed to many of the disheartened host nothing else
+to do.
+
+Yet they were not all in that mood. One among them, a volunteer, with
+no rank in the army, but with ample courage, brought back by brave words
+hope to their souls. This man, an Athenian, Xenophon by name, and one of
+the disciples of Socrates the philosopher, had an encouraging dream in
+the night, and at once rose, called into council the captains of the
+host, and advised them to select new generals to take the place of the
+four who had been seized. This was done, Xenophon being one of the new
+leaders. At daybreak the soldiers were called together, told what had
+been done in the night, and asked to confirm the action of their
+captains. This they did.
+
+Xenophon, the orator of the army, now made them a stirring speech. He
+told them that they need not fear the Persians, who were cowards and
+traitors, as they knew. If provisions were no longer furnished them,
+they could take them for themselves. If rivers were to be crossed, they
+could march up their course and wade them where not deep. "Let us burn
+our baggage-wagons and tents, and carry only what is strictly needful.
+Above all, let us maintain discipline and obedience to commanders. Now
+is the time for action. If any man has anything better to suggest, let
+him state it. We all have but one object,--the common safety."
+
+No one had anything better to suggest; the soldiers enthusiastically
+accepted Xenophon's plan of action, and soon were on the march again,
+with Tissaphernes, their late guide, now their open foe. They marched in
+a hollow oblong body, with the baggage in the centre. Here also walked
+the women, of whom many had accompanied the army through all its career.
+
+Crossing the Great Zab River, the Greeks continued their march, though
+surrounded by enemies, many of them horsemen, who cast javelins and
+arrows into their ranks, and fled when pursued. That night they reached
+some villages, bearing their wounded, who were many, and deeply
+discouraged. During the night the Greeks organized a small body of
+cavalry and two hundred Rhodian slingers, who threw leaden bullets
+instead of stones. The next day they were attacked by a body of four
+thousand confident Persians, who expected an easy victory. Yet when the
+few horsemen and slingers of the Greeks attacked them they fled in
+dismay, and many of them were killed in a ravine which they were forced
+to traverse.
+
+On went the fugitives, day by day, still assailed, still repelling their
+foes. On the fifth day they saw a palace, around which lay many
+villages. To reach it they had high hills to pass, and here their
+enemies appeared on the summits, showering down arrows, darts, and
+stones. The Greeks finally dislodged them by mounting to higher points,
+and by night had fought their way to the villages, where they found
+abundance of food and wine, and where they rested for three days.
+
+On starting again the troops of Tissaphernes annoyed them as before.
+They now adopted a new plan. Whenever the enemy came up they halted at
+some village and fought them from their camp. Each night the Persians
+withdrew about ten miles, lest they might be surprised when their
+horses were shackled and they unarmed. This custom the Greeks now took
+advantage of. As soon as the enemy had withdrawn to their nightly camp
+the march was resumed and continued for some ten miles. The distance
+gained gave the Greeks two days of peaceful progress before their foes
+came up again.
+
+On the fourth day the Greeks saw before them a lofty hill, which must be
+passed, and which their enemies occupied, having got past them in the
+night. Their march seemed at an end, for the path that must be taken was
+completely commanded by the weapons of the foe. What was to be done? A
+conference took place between Xenophon and the Spartan Cheirisophus, his
+principal colleague. Xenophon perceived that from the top of a mountain
+near the army the hill held by the enemy might be reached.
+
+"The best thing we can do is to gain the top of this mountain with all
+haste," he said; "if we are once masters of that the enemy cannot
+maintain themselves on the hill. You stay with the army, if you think
+fit, and I will go up the hill. Or you go, if you desire, and I will
+stay here."
+
+"I give you your choice," answered Cheirisophus.
+
+"Then I will go, as I am the younger man," said Xenophon.
+
+Taking a strong force from the van of the army, Xenophon at once began
+to climb the hill. The enemy, seeing this movement, hastily detached a
+force for the same purpose. Both sides shouted encouragement to their
+men, and Xenophon, riding beside his troop, spurred them to exertion by
+reminding them of their wives and children at home. And here took place
+one of those occurrences which gave this leader so much influence over
+his men.
+
+"We are not upon equal terms, Xenophon," said Soteridas, a soldier from
+Sicyon, "for you are on horseback, while I am weary from carrying my
+shield."
+
+Instantly Xenophon sprang from his horse, took the man's shield from his
+arm, and thrust him out of the ranks, taking his place. The horseman's
+corselet which he wore, added to by the weight of the shield, gave him
+much annoyance. But he called out bravely to the men to hasten their
+pace.
+
+On this the other soldiers began to abuse and stone Soteridas, making it
+so unpleasant for him that he was glad to ask for his shield again.
+Xenophon now remounted and rode as far as his horse could go, then
+sprang down and hastened onward on foot. Such was the speed made that
+they reached the summit before the foe, whereupon the enemy fled,
+leaving the road open to the Greeks. That evening they reached the plain
+beyond, where they found a village abounding in food; and in this plain,
+near the Tigris, many other villages were found, well filled with all
+sorts of provisions.
+
+Finding it impossible to cross the Tigris in the face of the enemy, who
+lined its western bank, the Greeks were obliged to continue their course
+up its eastern side. This would bring them to the elevated table land of
+Armenia, but first they would have to cross the rugged Carduchian
+Mountains, inhabited by a tribe so fierce that they had hitherto defied
+all the power of Persia, and had once destroyed a Persian army of one
+hundred and twenty thousand men. These mountains must be crossed, but
+the mountaineers proved fiercely hostile. Seven days were occupied in
+the task, and these were days of constant battle and loss. At one pass
+the Carduchians rolled down such incessant masses of rocks that progress
+was impossible, and the Greeks were almost in despair. Fortunately a
+prisoner showed them a pass by which they could get above these
+defenders, who, on seeing themselves thus exposed, took to their heels,
+and left the way open to the main body of the Greek army. Glad enough
+were the disheartened adventurers to see once more a plain, and find
+themselves past these dreaded hills and on the banks of an Armenian
+river.
+
+But they now had the Persians again in their front, with the Carduchians
+in their rear, and it was with no small difficulty that they reached the
+north side of this stream. In Armenia they had new perils to encounter.
+The winter was upon them, and the country covered with snow. Reaching at
+length the head-waters of the Euphrates, they waded across, and there
+found themselves in such deep snow and facing such fierce winds that
+many slaves and draught-horses died of cold, together with about thirty
+soldiers. Some of the men lost their sight from the snow-glare; others
+had their feet badly frosted; food was very scarce; the foe was in their
+rear. It was a miserable and woe-begone army that at length gladly
+reached, on the summit of some hills, a number of villages well stored
+with food.
+
+In the country of the Taochians, which the fugitives next reached, the
+people carried off all their food into mountain strongholds, and
+starvation threatened the Greeks. One of these strongholds was reached,
+a lofty place surrounded by precipices, where great numbers of men and
+women, with their cattle, had assembled. Yet, strong as it was, it must
+be taken, or the army would be starved.
+
+As they sought to ascend, stones came down in showers, breaking the legs
+and ribs of the unlucky climbers. By stratagem, however, the Greeks
+induced the defenders to exhaust their ammunition of stones, the
+soldiers pretending to advance, and then running back behind trees as
+the stones came crashing down. Finally several bold men made a dash for
+the top, others followed, and the place was won. Then came a dreadful
+scene. The women threw their children down the precipice, and then
+leaped after them. The men did the same. Æneas, a captain, seeing a
+richly-dressed barbarian about to throw himself down the height, caught
+hold of him. It was a fatal impulse of cupidity. The Taochian seized him
+in a fierce grasp and sprang with him over the brink, both being dashed
+to pieces below. Very few prisoners were made, but, what was more to the
+purpose of the Greeks, a large number of oxen, asses, and sheep were
+obtained.
+
+At another point, where a mountain-pass had to be crossed, which could
+only be done by ascending the mountain by stealth at night, and so
+turning the position of the enemy, an amusing piece of badinage took
+place between Xenophon, the Athenian, and Cheirisophus, the Spartan.
+
+"Stealing a march upon the enemy is more your trade than mine," said
+Xenophon. "For I understand that you, the full citizens and peers at
+Sparta, practise stealing from your boyhood upward, and that it is held
+no way base, but even honorable, to steal such things as the law does
+not distinctly forbid. And to the end that you may steal with the
+greatest effect, and take pains to do it in secret, the custom is to
+flog you if you are found out. Here, then, you have an excellent
+opportunity to display your training. Take good care that we be not
+found out in stealing an occupation of the mountain now before us; for
+if we _are_ found out, we shall be well beaten."
+
+"Why, as to that," retorted Cheirisophus, good-humoredly, "you Athenians
+also, as I learn, are capital hands at stealing the public money, and
+that, too, in spite of prodigious peril to the thief. Nay, your most
+powerful men steal most of all, at least if it be the most powerful men
+among you who are raised to official command. So this is a time for
+_you_ to exhibit your training, as well as for me to exhibit mine."
+
+Leaving the land of the Taochi, the Greeks entered that of the Chalybes,
+which they were seven days in passing through. All the food here was
+carried off, and they had to live on the cattle they had recently won.
+Then came the country of the Skythini, where they found villages and
+food. Four days more brought them to a large and flourishing city named
+Gymnias. They were now evidently drawing near to the sea and
+civilization.
+
+In feet, the chief of this city told them that the sea was but five
+days' journey away, and gave them a guide who in that time would conduct
+them to a hill from which they could see the Euxine's distant waves. On
+they went, and at length, while Xenophon was driving off some natives
+that had attacked the rear of the column, he heard loud shouts in front.
+Thinking that the van had been assailed, he rode hastily forward at the
+head of his few cavalry, the noise increasing as he approached.
+
+At length the sounds took shape in words. "_Thalatta! Thalatta!_" ("The
+sea! The sea!") cried the Greeks, in tones of exultation and ecstasy.
+All, excited by the sound, came hurrying up to the summit, and burst
+into simultaneous shouts of joy as they saw, far in the distance, the
+gleaming waters of the long-prayed-for sea. Tears, embraces, cries of
+wild delight, manifested their intense feeling, and for the time being
+the whole army went mad with joy. The terrors of their march were at an
+end; they were on the verge of Grecian territory again; and with pride
+they felt that they had achieved an enterprise such as the world had
+never known before.
+
+A few words will suffice to complete their tale. Reaching the city of
+Trebizond, they took ship for home. Fifteen months had passed since they
+set out with the army of Cyrus. After various further adventures,
+Xenophon led them on a pillaging expedition against the Persians of Asia
+Minor, paid them all richly from the plunder, and gained himself
+sufficient wealth to enrich him for the remainder of his days.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RESCUE OF THEBES._
+
+
+On a certain cold and wet evening, in the month of December of the year
+379 B.C., seven men, dressed as rustics or hunters, and to all
+appearance unarmed, though each man had a dagger concealed beneath his
+clothes, appeared at the gate of Thebes, the principal city of the
+Boeotian confederacy. They had come that day from Athens, making their
+way afoot across Mount Cithæron, which lay between. It was now just
+nightfall and most of the farmers had come into the city from the
+fields, but some late ones were still returning. Mingling with these,
+the seven strangers entered the gates, unnoticed by the guards, and were
+quickly lost to sight in the city streets. Quietly as they had come, the
+noise of their coming was soon to resound throughout Greece, for the
+arrival of those seven men was the first step in a revolution that was
+destined to overturn all the existing conditions of Grecian states.
+
+We should like to go straight on with their story; but to make it clear
+to our readers we must go back and offer a short extract from earlier
+history. Hitherto the history of Greece had been largely the history of
+two cities, Athens and Sparta. The other cities had all played second or
+third parts to these great and proud municipalities. But now a third
+city, Thebes, was about to come forward, and assume a leading place in
+the history of Greece. And of the two men who were to guide it in this
+proud career, one was among the seven who entered the gates of the city
+in rustic garb that rainy December night.
+
+Of the earlier history of Thebes little need be said. It played its part
+in the legendary story of Greece, as may be seen in our story of the
+"Seven against Thebes." During the Persian invasion Thebes proved false
+to its country, assisted the invaders, and after their repulse was
+punished for its treasonable acts. Later on it came again into prominent
+notice. During the Peloponnesian war it was a strong ally of Sparta.
+Another city, only six miles away, Platæa, was as strong an ally of
+Athens. And the inhabitants of these two cities hated each other with
+the bitterest animosity. It is a striking example of the isolated
+character of Greek communities, and one that it is difficult to
+understand in modern times, that two cities of one small state, so near
+together that an easy two hours' walk would take a traveller from the
+gates of one to those of the other, could be the bitterest of enemies,
+sworn allies of two hostile states, and the inhabitants ready to cut
+each other's throats at any opportunity. Certainly the sentiment of
+human brotherhood has vastly widened since then. There are no two cities
+in the civilized world to-day that feel to each other as did Platæa and
+Thebes, only six miles apart, in that famous era of Grecian
+enlightenment.
+
+We have told how Platæa was taken and destroyed, and its defenders
+murdered, by a Spartan army. But it is well to say here that Thebans
+formed the most fiercely hostile part of that army, and that it was the
+Thebans who demanded and obtained the murder in cold blood of the
+hapless prisoners.
+
+And now we pass on to a date less than fifty years later to find a
+remarkable change in the state of affairs. Athens has fallen from her
+high estate. Sparta is now the lord and master of the Grecian world. And
+a harsh master has she proved, with her controlling agents in every
+city, her voice the arbiter in all political concerns.
+
+Thebes is now the friend of Athens and the foe of Sparta, the chief
+among those cities which oppose the new order of things. Yet Thebes in
+379 B.C. lies hard and fast within the Spartan clutch. How she got there
+is now for us to tell.
+
+It was an act of treason, some three years before, that handed this city
+over to the tender mercies of her old ally, her present foe. There was a
+party in Thebes favorable to Sparta, at whose head was a man named
+Leontiades. And at this time Sparta was at war with Olynthus, a city far
+to the north. One Spartan army had marched to Olynthus. Another, led by
+a general named Phoebidas, was on its march thither, and had halted
+for a period of rest near the gymnasium, a short distance outside the
+walls of Thebes. There is good reason to believe that Phoebidas well
+knew what Leontiades designed, and was quite ready to play his part in
+the treacherous scheme.
+
+It was the day of the Thesmophoria, a religious festival celebrated by
+women only, no men being admitted. The Cadmeia, or citadel, had been
+given to their use, and was now occupied by women alone. It was a warm
+summer's day. The heat of noon had driven the people from the streets.
+The Senate of the city was in session in the portico of the agora, or
+forum, but their deliberations were drowsily conducted and the whole
+city seemed taking a noontide siesta.
+
+Phoebidas chose this warm noontide to put his army in march again,
+rounding the walls of Thebes. As the van passed the gates Leontiades,
+who had stolen away from the Senate and hastened on horseback through
+the deserted streets, rode up to the Spartan commander, and bade him
+turn and march inward through the gate which lay invitingly open before
+him. Through the deserted streets Phoebidas and his men rapidly made
+their way, following the traitor Theban, to the gates of the Cadmeia,
+which, like those of the town, were thrown open to his order as
+polemarch, or war governor; and the Spartans, pouring in, soon were
+masters not only of the citadel, but of the wives and daughters of the
+leading Theban citizens as well.
+
+The news got abroad only when it was too late to remedy the treacherous
+act. The Senate heard with consternation that their acropolis was in the
+hands of their enemies, their wives captives, their city at the mercy of
+the foe. Leontiades returned to his seat and at once gave orders for the
+arrest of his chief opponent Ismenias. He had a party armed and ready.
+The Senate was helpless. Ismenias was seized and conveyed to Sparta,
+where he was basely put to death. The other senators hurried home, glad
+to escape with their lives. Three hundred of them left the city in
+haste, and made their way as exiles to Athens. The other citizens, whose
+wives and daughters were in Spartan hands, felt obliged to submit.
+"Order reigned" in Thebes; such was the message which Leontiades bore to
+Sparta.
+
+Thus it was that Sparta gained possession of one of her greatest
+opponents. Leontiades and his fellows, backed by a Spartan general,
+ruled the city harshly. The rich were robbed, the prisons were filled,
+many more citizens fled into exile. Thebes was in the condition of a
+conquered city; the people, helpless and indignant, waited impatiently
+the slow revolution of the wheel of destiny which should once more set
+them free.
+
+As for the exiles at Athens, they sought in vain to obtain Athenian aid
+to recover their city from the foe. Athens was by no means in love with
+Sparta, but peace had been declared, and all they could agree to do was
+to give the fugitives a place of refuge. Evidently the city, which had
+been won by treason, was not to be recovered by open war. If set free at
+all it must be by secret measures. And with this intent a conspiracy was
+formed between the leaders of the exiles and certain citizens of Thebes
+for the overthrow of Leontiades and his colleagues and the expulsion of
+the Spartan garrison from the citadel. And this it was that brought the
+seven men to Thebes,--seven exiles, armed with hidden daggers, with
+which they were to win a city and start a revolution which in the end
+would destroy the power of Sparta the imperial.
+
+Of the seven exiles who thus returned, under cover of night and
+disguise, to their native city, the chief was Pelopidas, a rich and
+patriotic Theban, who was yet to prove himself one of the great men of
+Greece. Entering the gates, they proceeded quietly through the streets,
+and soon found an abiding-place in the house of Charon, an earnest
+patriot. This was their appointed rendezvous.
+
+And now we have a curious incident to tell, showing on what small
+accidents great events may hinge. Among the Thebans who had been let
+into the secret of the conspiracy was a faint-hearted man named
+Hipposthenidas. As the time for action drew near this timid fellow grew
+more and more frightened, and at length took upon himself, unknown to
+the rest, to stop the coming of the exiled patriots. He ordered Chlidon,
+a faithful slave of one of the seven, to ride in haste from Thebes, meet
+his master on the road, and bid him and his companions to go back to
+Athens, as circumstances had arisen which made their coming dangerous
+and their project impracticable.
+
+Chlidon, ready to obey orders, went home for his bridle, but failed to
+find it in its usual place. He asked his wife where it was. She
+pretended at first to help him look for it, but at last, in a tone of
+contrition, acknowledged that she had lent it, without asking him, to a
+neighbor. Chlidon, in a burst of anger at the delay to his journey,
+entered into a loud altercation with the woman, who grew angry on her
+part and wished him ill luck on his journey. Word led to word, both
+sides grew more angry and abusive, and at length he began to beat his
+wife, and continued his ill treatment until her cries brought neighbors
+in to separate them. But all this caused a loss of time, the bridle was
+not in this way to be had, and in the end Chlidon's journey was stopped,
+and the message he had been asked to bear never reached the conspirators
+on their way. Accidents of this kind often frustrate the best-laid
+plans. In this case the accident was providential to the conspiracy.
+
+And now, what were these seven men to do? Four men--Leontiades, Archias,
+Philippus, and Hypates--had the city under their control. But they were
+supported in their tyranny by a garrison of fifteen hundred Spartans and
+allies in the Cadmeia, and Lacedæmonian posts in the other cities
+around. These four men were to be dealt with, and for that purpose the
+seven had come. On the evening of the next day Archias and Philippus
+designed to have a banquet. Phyllidas, their secretary, but secretly one
+of the patriots, had been ordered to prepare the banquet for them, and
+had promised to introduce into their society on that occasion some women
+of remarkable beauty and of the best families in Thebes. He did not hint
+to them that these women would wear beards and carry daggers under their
+robes.
+
+We have told, in a previous tale, the story of the "Seven against
+Thebes." The one with which we are now concerned might be properly
+entitled the "Seven for Thebes." That night and the following day the
+devoted seven lay concealed. Evening came on. The hour when they were to
+play their parts had nearly arrived. They were in that state of strained
+expectation that brings the nerves to the surface, and started in sudden
+dread when a loud knock came upon the door. They were still more
+startled on hearing its purpose. A messenger had come to bid Charon
+instantly to come to the presence of the two feasting polemarchs.
+
+What did it mean? Had the plot been divulged? Had the timid
+Hipposthenidas betrayed them? At any rate, there was but one thing to
+do; Charon must go at once. But he, faithful soul, was most in dread
+that his friends should suspect him of treachery. He therefore brought
+his son, a highly promising youth of fifteen, and put him in the hands
+of Pelopidas as a hostage for his fidelity.
+
+"This is folly!" cried they all. "No one doubts you. Take the boy away.
+It is enough for us to face the danger; do not seek to bring the boy
+into the same peril."
+
+Charon would not listen to their remonstrances, but insisted on leaving
+the youth in their hands, and hastened away to the house of the
+polemarchs. He found them at the feast, already half intoxicated. Word
+had been sent them from Athens that some plot, they knew not what, was
+afloat. He was known to be a friend of the exiles. He must tell them
+what he knew about it.
+
+Fortunately, the pair were too nearly drunk to be acute. Their
+suspicions were very vague. Charon, aided by Phyllidas, had little
+trouble in satisfying them that the report was false. Eager to get back
+to their wine they dismissed him, very glad indeed to get away. Hardly
+had he gone before a fresh message, and a far more dangerous one, was
+brought to Archias, sent by a namesake of his at Athens. This gave a
+full account of the scheme and the names of those who were to carry it
+out. "It relates to a very serious matter," said the messenger who bore
+it.
+
+"Serious matters for to-morrow," cried Archias, with a drunken laugh, as
+he put the unopened despatch under the pillow of his couch and took up
+the wine-cup again.
+
+"Those whom the gods mean to destroy they first make mad," says an
+apposite Grecian proverb. These men were foredoomed.
+
+"A truce to all this disturbance," cried the two polemarchs to
+Phyllidas. "Where are the women whom you promised us? Let us see these
+famous high-born beauties."
+
+Phyllidas at once retired, and quickly returned with the seven
+conspirators, clothed in female attire. Leaving them in an adjoining
+chamber, he entered the banquet-room, and told the feasters that the
+women refused to come in unless all the domestics were first dismissed.
+
+"Let it be so," said Archias, and at the command of Phyllidas the
+domestics sought the house of one of their number, where the astute
+secretary had well supplied them with wine.
+
+The two polemarchs, with one or two friends, alone remained, all half
+intoxicated, and the only armed one being Cabeirichus, the archon, who
+was obliged by law to keep always with him the consecrated spear of
+office.
+
+And now the supposed and eagerly expected women were brought in,--three
+of them attired as ladies of distinction, the four others dressed as
+attendants. Their long veils and ample robes completely disguised them,
+and they sat down beside the polemarchs without a suspicion being
+entertained. Not till their drunken companions lifted their veils did
+the truth appear. But the lifting of the veils was the signal for quick
+and deep dagger thrusts, and Archias and Philippus, with scarcely a
+movement of resistance, fell dead from their seats. No harm was meant to
+the others, but the drunken archon rushed on the conspirators with his
+spear, and in consequence perished with his friends.
+
+There were two more of the tyrants to deal with. Phyllidas led three of
+the conspirators to the house of Leontiades, into which he was admitted
+as the bearer of an order from the polemarchs. Leontiades was reclining
+after supper, with his wife spinning wool by his side, when his foes
+entered his chamber, dagger in hand. A bold and strong man, he instantly
+sprang up, seized his sword, and with a thrust mortally wounded the
+first of the three. Then a desperate struggle took place in the doorway
+between him and Pelopidas, the place being too narrow for the third to
+approach. In the end Pelopidas dealt him a mortal blow. Then,
+threatening the wife with death if she gave the alarm, and closing the
+door with stern commands that it should not be opened again, the two
+patriots left the house and sought that of Hypates. He took the alarm
+and fled, and was pursued to the roof, where he was killed as he was
+trying to escape over the house-tops.
+
+This work done, and no alarm yet given, the conspirators proceeded to
+the prison, whose doors they ordered to be opened. The jailer hesitated,
+and was slain by a spear-thrust, the patriots rushing over his body into
+the prison, from whose cells the tenants were soon released. These, one
+hundred and fifty in number, sufferers for their patriotic sentiments,
+were quickly armed from battle-spoils kept near by, and drawn up in
+battle array. And now, for the first time, did the daring conspirators
+feel assurance of success.
+
+[Illustration: GATE OF THE AGORA OR OIL MARKET, ATHENS.]
+
+The tidings of what had been done by this time got abroad, and ran like
+wildfire through the city. Citizens poured excitedly into the streets.
+Epaminondas, who was afterwards to become the great leader of the
+Thebans, joined with some friends the small array of patriots.
+Proclamation was made throughout the city by heralds that the despots
+were slain and Thebes was free, and all Thebans who valued liberty were
+bidden to muster in arms in the market-place. All the trumpeters in the
+city were bidden to blow with might and main, from street to street, and
+thus excite the people to take arms to secure their liberty.
+
+While night lasted surprise and doubt continued, many of the citizens
+not knowing what to do. But with day-dawn came a wild outburst of joy
+and enthusiasm. Horsemen and footmen hastened in arms to the agora.
+Here a formal assembly of the Theban people was convened, before whom
+Pelopidas and his fellows appeared to tell what they had done. The
+priests crowned them with wreaths, while the people hailed them with
+joyful acclamations. With a single voice they nominated Pelopidas,
+Mellon, and Charon as Boeotarchs,--a Theban title of authority which
+had for a number of years been dropped.
+
+Such was the hatred which the long oppression had aroused, that the very
+women trod underfoot the slain jailer, and spat upon his corpse. In that
+city, where women rarely showed themselves in public, this outburst
+strongly indicated the general public rage against the overthrown
+despots. Messengers hastened to Attica to carry to the exiles the glad
+tidings, and soon they, with a body of Athenian volunteers, were in
+joyful march for the city.
+
+Meanwhile, the Spartans in the citadel were in a state of distraction
+and alarm. All night long the flashing of lights, the blare of trumpets,
+the shouts of excited patriots, the sound of hurrying feet in the city,
+had disturbed their troubled souls, and when affrighted partisans of the
+defeated party came hurrying for safety into the Cadmeia, with tidings
+of the tragic event, they were filled with confusion and dismay.
+Accustomed to look to the polemarchs for orders, the garrison did not
+know whom to trust or consult. They hastily sent out messengers to
+Thespiæ and Platæa for aid, but the forces which came to their help from
+these cities were charged upon by the Thebans and driven back with loss.
+
+What to do the Spartan commander knew not. The citizens were swarming
+in the streets, and gathering in force around the citadel. That they
+intended to storm it before aid could come from Sparta was evident. In
+fact, they were already rushing to the assault,--large rewards being
+offered those who should first force their way in,--when a flag of truce
+from the garrison stopped them in mid-career. The commander proposed to
+capitulate.
+
+All he asked was liberty to march out of Thebes with the honors of war.
+This was granted him, under oath. At once the foreign garrison filed out
+from the citadel and marched to one of the gates, accompanied by the
+Theban refugees who had sought shelter with them. These latter had not
+been granted the honors of war. Among them were some of the prominent
+oppressors of the people. In a burst of ungovernable rage these were
+torn from the Spartan ranks by the people and put to death; even the
+children of some of them being slain. Few of the refugees would have
+escaped but for the Athenians present, who generously helped to get them
+safely through the gates and out of sight and reach of their infuriated
+townsmen.
+
+And thus, almost without a blow, in a night's and a morning's work, the
+city of Thebes, which for several years had lain helpless in the hands
+of its foes, regained its liberty. As for the Spartan harmosts, or
+leaders, who had capitulated without an attempt at defence, two of them
+were put to death on reaching home, the third was heavily fined and
+banished. Sparta had no mercy and no room for beaten men.
+
+Thebes was free! The news spread like an electric shock through the
+Grecian world. A few men, taking a desperate risk, had in an hour
+overthrown a government that seemed beyond assault. The empire of
+Sparta, the day before undisputed and nearly universal over Greece, had
+received a serious blow. Throughout all Greece men breathed easier,
+while the spirit of patriotism suddenly flamed again. The first blow in
+a coming revolution had been struck.
+
+
+
+
+_THE HUMILIATION OF SPARTA._
+
+
+Thebes was free! But would she stay free? Sparta was against
+her,--Sparta, the lord of Greece. Could a single city, however
+liberty-loving and devoted its people, maintain itself against that
+engine of war which had humbled mighty Athens and now lorded it over the
+world of Greece? This is the question we have to answer; how in a brief
+space the dominion of Sparta was lost, and Thebes, so long insignificant
+and almost despised, rose to take the foremost place in Greece.
+
+Two men did this work. As seven men had restored Thebes to freedom, two
+men lifted her almost into empire. One of these was Pelopidas, the
+leading spirit of the seven. The other was Epaminondas, whose name was
+simply mentioned in the tale of the patriotic seven, yet who in the
+coming years was to prove himself one of the greatest men Greece ever
+produced.
+
+Pelopidas belonged to one of the richest and highest families of Thebes.
+He was one of the youngest of the exiles, yet a man of earnest
+patriotism and unbounded daring. It was his ardent spirit that gave life
+to the conspiracy, and his boldness and enterprise that led it forward
+to success. And it was the death of Leontiades by his hand that freed
+Thebes.
+
+Epaminondas was a man of different character and position. Though of
+ancient and honorable family, he was poor, while Pelopidas was very
+rich; middle-aged, while Pelopidas was young; quiet, patient, and
+thoughtful, while Pelopidas was bold, active, and energetic. In the wars
+that followed he was the brain, while Pelopidas was the right hand, of
+Thebes. Epaminondas had been an earnest student of philosophy and music,
+and was an adept in gymnastic training. He was a listener, not a talker,
+yet no Theban equalled him in eloquence in time when speech was needful.
+He loved knowledge, yet he cared little for power, and nothing for
+money, and he remained contentedly poor till the end of his days, not
+leaving enough wealth to pay his funeral expenses. He did not love
+bloodshed, even to gain liberty. He had objected to the conspiracy,
+since freedom was to be gained through murder. Yet this was the man who
+was to save Thebes and degrade her great enemy, Sparta.
+
+Like Socrates and Alcibiades, these two men were the warmest friends.
+Their friendship, like that of the two great Athenians, had been
+cemented in battle. Standing side by side as hoplites (or heavy armed
+soldiers), on an embattled field, Pelopidas had fallen wounded, and
+Epaminondas had saved his life at the greatest danger to himself,
+receiving several wounds while bearing his helpless friend to a place of
+safety. To the end of their lives they continued intimate friends, each
+recognizing the peculiar powers of the other, and the two working like
+one man for Theban independence.
+
+Epaminondas proved himself a thinker of the highest military genius,
+Pelopidas a leader of the greatest military vigor. The work of the
+latter was largely performed with the Sacred Band, a warlike association
+of three hundred youthful Thebans, sworn to defend the citadel until
+death, bound by bonds of warm friendship, and trained into the highest
+military efficiency. Pelopidas was the captain of this noble band, which
+was never overcome until the fatal battle of Chæronea, and then only by
+death, the Three Hundred lying dead in their ranks as they had stood.
+
+For the events with which we have now to deal we must leap over seven
+years from the freeing of Thebes. It will suffice to say that for two
+years of that time Sparta fought fiercely against that city, but could
+not bring it under subjection again. Then wars arose elsewhere and drew
+her armies away. Thebes now took the opportunity to extend her power
+over the other cities of Boeotia, and of one of these cities there is
+something of interest to tell.
+
+We have told in an earlier tale how Sparta and Thebes captured Platæa
+and swept it from the face of the earth. Recently Sparta had rebuilt the
+city, recalled its exiled citizens, and placed it as a Spartan outpost
+against Thebes. But now, when the armies of Sparta had withdrawn, the
+Thebans deemed it a good opportunity to conquer it again. One day, when
+the Platæan men were at work in their fields, and unbroken peace
+prevailed, a Theban force suddenly took the city by surprise, and forced
+the Platæans to surrender at discretion. Poor Platæa was again levelled
+with the ground, her people were once more sent into exile, and her soil
+was added to that of Thebes. It may be well to say here that most of the
+Grecian cities consisted of the walled town and sufficient surrounding
+land to raise food for the inhabitants within, and that the farmers went
+out each morning to cultivate their fields, and returned each night
+within the shelter of their walls. It was this habit that gave Thebes
+its treacherous opportunity.
+
+During the seven years mentioned we hear nothing of Epaminondas, yet we
+know that he made himself felt within the walls of Thebes; for when, in
+371 B.C., the cities of Greece, satisfied that it was high time to stop
+cutting each other's throats, held a congress at Sparta to conclude
+peace, we find him there as the representative of Thebes.
+
+The terms of peace demanded by Athens, and agreed to by most of the
+delegates, were that each city, small or large, should possess autonomy,
+or self-government. Sparta and Athens were to become mutual guarantees,
+dividing the headship of Greece between them. As for Thebes and her
+claim to the headship of Boeotia, her demand was set aside.
+
+This conclusion reached, the cities one after another took oath to keep
+the terms of peace, each city swearing for itself except Sparta, which
+took the oath for itself and its allies. When it came to the turn of
+Thebes there was a break in this love-feast. Sparta had sworn for all
+the cities of Laconia; Epaminondas, as the representative of Thebes,
+insisted on swearing not for Thebes alone, but for Thebes as president
+of all Boeotia. He made a vigorous speech, asking why Sparta was
+granted rights from which other leading cities were debarred.
+
+This was a new question. No Greek had ever asked it openly before. To
+Sparta it seemed the extreme of insolence and insult. What daring
+stranger was this who presumed to question her right to absolute control
+of Laconia? No speech was made in her defence. Spartans never made
+speeches. They prided themselves on their few words and quick
+deeds,--_laconic_ utterances, as they have since been called. The
+Spartan king sprang indignantly from his seat.
+
+"Speak plainly," he scornfully demanded. "Will you, or will you not,
+leave to each of the Boeotian cities its separate autonomy?"
+
+"Will _you_ leave each of the Laconian towns its separate autonomy?"
+demanded Epaminondas.
+
+Not another word was said. Agesilaus, the Spartan king, who was also
+president of the congress, caused the name of Thebes to be stricken from
+the roll, and proclaimed that city to be excluded from the treaty of
+peace.
+
+It was a bold move on the part of Epaminondas, for it meant war with all
+the power of Sparta, relieved of all other enemies by the peace. Sparta
+had conquered and humbled Athens. It had conquered many other cities,
+forcing some of them to throw down their walls and go back again to
+their old state of villages. What upstart was this that dared defy its
+wrath and power? Thebes could hope for no allies, and seemed feeble
+against Spartan strength. How dared, then, this insolent delegate to
+fling defiance in the teeth of the lord of Greece?
+
+Fortunately Thebes needed no allies. It had two men of warlike genius,
+Epaminondas and Pelopidas. These were to prove in themselves worth a
+host of allies. The citizens were with them. Great as was the danger,
+the Thebans sustained Epaminondas in his bold action, and made him
+general of their army. He at once marched to occupy a pass by which it
+was expected the Spartans would come. Sparta at that moment had a strong
+army under Cleombrotus, one of its two kings, in Phocis, on the frontier
+of Boeotia. This was at once ordered to march against defiant Thebes.
+
+Cleombrotus lost no time, and with a military skill which Spartans
+rarely showed he evaded the pass which Epaminondas held, followed a
+narrow mountain-track, captured Creusis, the port of Thebes, with twelve
+war-ships in the harbor, and then marched to a place called Leuctra,
+within an easy march of Thebes, yet which left open communication with
+Sparta by sea, by means of the captured port.
+
+The Thebans had been outgeneralled, and were dismayed by the result. The
+Spartans and their king were full of confidence and joy. All the
+eloquence of Epaminondas and the boldness of Pelopidas were needed to
+keep the courage of their countrymen alive and induce them to march
+against their foes. And it was with much more of despair than of hope
+that they took up at length a position on the hilly ground opposite the
+Spartan camp.
+
+The two armies were not long in coming to blows. The Spartans and their
+allies much exceeded the Thebans in numbers. But Epaminondas prepared to
+make the most of his small force by drawing it up in a new array, never
+before seen in Greece.
+
+Instead of forming the narrow line of battle always before the rule in
+Greek armies, he placed in front of his left wing Pelopidas and the
+Sacred Band, and behind them arranged a mass of men fifty shields deep,
+a prodigious depth for a Grecian host. The centre and right were drawn
+up in the usual thin lines, but were kept back on the defensive, so that
+the deep column might join battle first.
+
+Thus arrayed, the army of Thebes marched to meet its foe, in the valley
+between the two declivities on which the hostile camps were placed. The
+cavalry met first, and the Theban horsemen soon put the Spartan troop to
+flight. Then the footmen came together with a terrible shock. Pelopidas
+and his Sacred Band, and behind them the weight of the fifty shields,
+proved more than the Spartans, with all their courage and discipline,
+could endure. Both sides fought bravely, hand to hand; but soon
+Cleombrotus fell, mortally hurt, and was with difficulty carried off
+alive. Around him fell others of the Spartan leaders. The resistance was
+obstinate, the slaughter terrible; but at last the Spartan right wing,
+overborne by the heavy Theban mass and utterly beaten, was driven back
+to its camp on the hill-side above. Meanwhile the left wing, made up of
+allies, did little fighting, and quickly followed the Spartans back to
+the camp.
+
+It was a crushing defeat. Of seven hundred Spartans who had marched in
+confidence from the camp, only three hundred returned thither in dismay.
+A thousand and more Lacedæmonians besides were left dead upon the field.
+Not since the day of Thermopylæ had Sparta lost a king in battle. The
+loss of the Theban army was not more than three hundred men. Only twenty
+days had elapsed since Epaminondas left Sparta, spurned by the scorn of
+one of her kings; and now he stood victor over Sparta at Leuctra, with
+her second king dead in his camp of refuge. It is not surprising that to
+Greece, which had felt sure of the speedy overthrow of Thebes, these
+tidings came like a thunderbolt. Sparta on land had been thought
+irresistible. But here on equal ground, and with nearly double force,
+she had been beaten by insignificant Thebes.
+
+We must hasten to the end of this campaign. Sparta, wrought to
+desperation by her defeat, sent all the men she could spare in
+reinforcement. Thebes, too, sought allies, and found a powerful one in
+Jason of Pheræ, a city of Thessaly. The Theban leaders, flushed with
+victory, were eager to attack the enemy in his camp, but Jason gave them
+wiser advice.
+
+"Be content," he said, "with the great victory you have gained. Do not
+risk its loss by attacking the Lacedæmonians driven to despair in their
+camp. You yourselves were in despair a few days ago. Remember that the
+gods take pleasure in bringing about sudden changes of fortune."
+
+This advice taken, Jason offered the enemy the opportunity to retreat in
+safety from their dangerous position. This they gladly accepted, and
+marched in haste away. On their journey home they met a second army
+coming to their relief. This was no longer needed, and the whole baffled
+force returned home.
+
+The military prestige held by Sparta met with a serious blow from this
+signal defeat. The prestige of Thebes suddenly rose into supremacy, and
+her control of Boeotia became complete. But the humiliation of Sparta
+was not yet near its end. Epaminondas was not the man to do things by
+halves. In November of 370 B.C. he marched an army into Arcadia (a
+country adjoining Laconia on the north), probably the largest hostile
+force that had ever been seen in the Peloponnesus. With its Arcadian and
+other allies it amounted to forty thousand, or, as some say, to seventy
+thousand, men, and among these the Thebans formed a body of splendidly
+drilled and disciplined troops, not surpassed by those of Sparta
+herself. The enthusiasm arising from victory, the ardor of Pelopidas,
+and the military genius of Epaminondas had made a wonderful change in
+the hoplites of Thebes in a year's time.
+
+And now a new event in the history of the Spartan commonwealth was seen.
+For centuries the Spartans had done their fighting abroad, marching at
+will through all parts of Greece. They were now obliged to fight on
+their own soil, in defence of their own hearths and homes. Dividing his
+army into four portions, Epaminondas marched into rock-bounded Laconia
+by four passes.
+
+The Arcadians had often felt the hard hand of their warlike neighbors.
+Only a snort time before one of their principal cities, Mantinea, had
+been robbed of its walls and converted into open villages. Since the
+battle of Leuctra the villagers had rebuilt their walls and defied a
+Spartan army. Now the Arcadians proved even more daring than the
+Thebans. They met a Spartan force and annihilated it.
+
+Into the country of Laconia pushed the invaders. The city of Sellasia
+was taken and burned. The river Eurotas was forded. Sparta lay before
+Epaminondas and his men.
+
+It lay before them without a wall or tower. Through its whole history no
+foreign army had come so near it. It trusted for defence not to walls,
+but to Spartan hearts and hands. Yet now consternation reigned. Sparta
+the inviolate, Sparta the unassailable, was in imminent peril of
+suffering the same fate it had often meted out freely to its foes.
+
+But the Spartans had not been idle. Allies had sent aid in all haste to
+the city. Even six thousand of the Helots were armed as hoplites, though
+to see such a body of their slaves in heavy armor alarmed the Spartans
+almost as much as to behold their foes so near at hand. In fact, many of
+the Helots and country people joined the Theban army, while others
+refused to come to the aid of the imperilled city.
+
+Epaminondas marched on until he was in sight of the city. He did not
+attempt to storm it. Though without walls, Sparta had strong natural
+defences, and heaps of earth and stones had been hastily thrown up on
+the most open roads. A strong army had been gathered. The Spartans would
+fight to death for their homes. To attack them in their stronghold
+might be to lose all that had been gained. Repulse here would be ruin.
+Content with having faced the lion in his den, Epaminondas turned and
+marched down the Eurotas, his army wasting, plundering, and burning as
+it went, while the Spartans, though in an agony of shame and wounded
+honor, were held back by their king from the peril of meeting their
+enemy in the field.
+
+In the end, his supplies growing scarce, his soldiers loaded with
+plunder, Epaminondas led his army back to Arcadia, having accomplished
+far more than any foe of Sparta had ever done before, and destroyed the
+warlike reputation of Sparta throughout Greece.
+
+But the great Theban did not end here. He had two other important
+objects in view. One was to consolidate the Arcadians by building them a
+great central city, to be called Megalopolis (Great City), and inhabited
+by people from all parts of the state. This was done, thick and lofty
+walls, more than five miles and a half in circumference, being built
+round the new stronghold.
+
+His other purpose was to restore the country of Messenia. We have
+already told how this country had been conquered by the Spartans
+centuries before, and its people exiled or enslaved. Their descendants
+were now to regain their liberty and their homes. A new city, to be
+named Messenia, was ordered by Epaminondas to be built, and this, at the
+request of the Messenians, was erected on Mount Ithome, where the
+gallant hero Aristomenes had made his last stand against his country's
+invaders.
+
+The city was built, the walls rising to the music of Argeian and
+Boeotian flutes. The best architects and masons of Greece were invited
+to lay out the plans of streets and houses and of the sacred edifices.
+The walls were made so strong and solid that they became the admiration
+of after-ages. The surrounding people, who had been slaves of Sparta,
+were made freemen and citizens of the reorganized state. A wide area of
+land was taken from Laconia and given to the new communities which
+Epaminondas had formed. Then, in triumph, he marched back to Thebes,
+having utterly destroyed the power and prestige of Sparta in Greece.
+
+Reaching home, he was put on trial by certain enemies. He had broken the
+law by keeping command of the army four months beyond the allotted time.
+He appealed to the people, with what result we can readily understand.
+He was acquitted by acclamation, and he and Pelopidas were immediately
+re-elected Boeotarchs (or generals) for the coming year.
+
+
+
+
+_TIMOLEON, THE FAVORITE OF FORTUNE._
+
+
+In the city of Corinth dwelt two brothers; one of whom, named Timoleon,
+was distinguished alike for his courage, gentleness, patriotism, lack of
+ambition, and hatred of despots and traitors; the other, named
+Timophanes, was noted for bravery and enterprise, but also for
+unprincipled ambition and lack of patriotism. Timophanes, being a
+valiant soldier, had gained high rank in the army of Corinth. Timoleon
+loved his unworthy brother and sought to screen his faults. He did more:
+he saved his life at frightful peril to himself. During a battle between
+the army of Corinth and that of some neighboring state, Timophanes, who
+commanded the cavalry, was thrown from his wounded horse very near to
+the enemy. The cavalry fled, leaving him to what seemed certain death.
+But Timoleon, who was serving with the infantry, rushed from the ranks
+and covered his brother with his shield just as the enemy were about to
+pierce him. They turned in numbers on the defender, with spears and
+darts, but he warded off their blows, and protected his fallen brother
+at the cost of several wounds to himself, until others rushed to the
+rescue and drove back the foe.
+
+The whole city was full of admiration of Timoleon for this act of
+devotion. Timophanes also was raised in public estimation through his
+brother's deed, and was placed in an important post. Corinth was
+governed by an aristocracy, who, just then, brought in a garrison of
+four hundred foreign soldiers and placed them in the citadel. Timophanes
+was given command of this garrison and control of the stronghold.
+
+The governors of the city did not know their man. Here was an
+opportunity for the unlimited ambition of the new commander. Gaining
+some armed partisans among the poorer citizens, and availing himself of
+the control of fort and garrison, Timophanes soon made himself master of
+the city, and seized and put to death all who opposed him among the
+chief citizens. Unwittingly the Corinthian aristocrats had put over
+themselves a cruel despot.
+
+But they found also a defender. The crimes of his brother at first
+filled Timoleon with shame and sorrow. He went to the citadel and begged
+Timophanes, by all he held sacred, to renounce his ambitious projects.
+The new despot repelled his appeal with contempt. Timoleon went again,
+this time with three friends, but with no better effect. Timophanes
+laughed them to scorn, and as they continued their pleading he grew
+angry and refused to hear more. Then the three friends drew their swords
+and killed the tyrant on the spot, while Timoleon stood aside, with his
+face hidden and his eyes bathed in tears.
+
+He who had saved his brother's life at the risk of his own had now
+consented to his death to save his country. But personally, although all
+Corinth warmly applauded his patriotic act, he was thrown into the most
+violent grief and remorse. This was the greater from the fact that his
+mother viewed his deed with horror and execration, invoked curses on his
+head, and refused even to see him despite his earnest supplications.
+
+The gratitude of the city was overcome in his mind by grief for his
+brother, and he was attacked by the bitterest pangs of remorse. The
+killing of the tyrant he had felt to be a righteous and necessary act.
+The murder of his brother afflicted him with despair. For a time he
+refused food, resolving to end his odious life by starvation. Only the
+prayers of his friends made him change this resolution. Then, like one
+pursued by the furies, he fled from the city, hid himself in solitude,
+and kept aloof from the eyes and voices of men. For several years he
+thus dwelt in self-afflicting solitude, and when at length time reduced
+his grief and he returned to the city, he shunned all prominent
+positions, and lived in humility and retirement. Thus time went on until
+twenty years had passed, Timoleon still, in spite of the affection and
+sympathy of his fellow-citizens, refusing any office or place of
+authority.
+
+But now an event occurred which was to make this grieving patriot famous
+through all time, as the favored of the gods and one of the noblest of
+men,--the Washington of the far past. To tell how this came about we
+must go back some distance in time. Corinth, though it played no leading
+part in the wars of Greece, like Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, was still
+a city of much importance, its situation on the isthmus between the
+Peloponnesus and northern Greece being excellent for commerce and
+maritime enterprise. Many years before it had sent out a colony which
+founded the city of Syracuse, in Sicily. It was in aid of this city of
+Syracuse that Timoleon was called upon to act.
+
+We have already told how Athens sought to capture this city and ruined
+herself in the enterprise. After that time of triumph Syracuse passed
+through several decades of terror and woe. Tyrants set their feet on her
+fair neck, and almost crushed her into the earth. One of these,
+Dionysius by name, had made his power felt by far-off Greece and nearer
+Carthage, and for years ruled over Sicily with a rod of iron. His
+successor, Dion, a friend and pupil of the philosopher Plato, became an
+oppressor when he came into power. Then another Dionysius gained the
+throne, a cowardly and drunken wretch, who repeated the acts of his
+tyrannical father.
+
+Such was the state of affairs in Sicily when Timoleon was dwelling
+quietly at home in Corinth, a man of fifty, with no ambitious thought
+and no ruling desire except to reach the end of his sorrow-laden life.
+So odious now had the tyranny of Dionysius become that the despairing
+Syracusans sent a pathetic appeal to Corinth, their mother city, praying
+for aid against this brutal despot and the Carthaginians, who had
+invaded the island of Sicily in force.
+
+Corinth just then, fortunately, had no war on hand,--a somewhat
+uncommon condition for a Greek city at that day. The citizens voted at
+once to send the aid asked for. But who should be the leader? There were
+danger and difficulty in the enterprise, with little hope for profit,
+and none of the Corinthian generals or politicians seemed eager to lead
+this forlorn hope. The archons called out their names one by one, but
+each in succession declined. The archons had come nearly to their wits'
+end whom to choose, when from an unknown voice in the assembly came the
+name "Timoleon." The archons seized eagerly on the suggestion, hastily
+chose Timoleon for the post which all the leading men declined, and the
+assembly adjourned.
+
+Timoleon, who sadly needed some active exertion to relieve him from the
+weight of eating thought, accepted the thankless enterprise, heedless
+probably of the result. He at once began to gather ships and soldiers.
+But he found the Corinthians more ready to select a commander than to
+provide him with means and men. Little money was forthcoming; few men
+seemed ready to enlist; Timoleon had no great means of his own. In the
+end he only got together seven triremes and one thousand men,--the most
+of them mere mercenaries. Three more ships and two hundred men were
+afterwards added.
+
+And thus, with this small force, Timoleon set out to conquer a city and
+kingdom on whose conquest Athens, years before, had lavished hundreds of
+ships and tens of thousands of men in vain. The effort seemed utterly
+puerile. Was the handful of Corinthians to succeed where all the
+imperial power of Athens had failed? Yet the gods fought with Timoleon.
+
+In truth, from the day he left Corinth, those presages of fortune, on
+which the Greeks so greatly depended, gathered about his path across the
+seas. The signs and tokens were all favorable. While he was at Delphi,
+seeking the favor of Apollo, a fillet with wreaths and symbols of
+victory fell from a statue upon his head, and the goddess Persephone
+told her priestess in a dream that she was about to sail with Timoleon
+to Sicily, her favorite island. He took, therefore, a special trireme,
+sacred to the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, both of whom were to
+accompany him. While at sea this sacred trireme was illumined by a light
+from heaven, while a burning torch on high seemed to guide the fleet to
+a safe harbor. All these portents filled the adventurers with hope and
+joy.
+
+But Timoleon had himself to depend on as well as the gods. At the
+Italian port of Rhegium he found Hicetas, the despot of a Sicilian city,
+who had invited him to Sicily, but was now allied with the
+Carthaginians. He had there twenty of the war-ships of Carthage, double
+the force of Timoleon. Yet the shrewd Corinthian played with and tricked
+him, set him to talking and the people of Rhegium to talking with him,
+and slipped slyly out of the harbor with his ships while the
+interminable talk went on.
+
+This successful stratagem redoubled the spirit of his followers. Landing
+at a small town on the Sicilian coast, a new enterprise presented
+itself. Forty miles inland lay the town of Adranum, sacred to the god
+Adranus, a deity worshipped throughout Sicily. There were two parties in
+Adranum, one of which invited Timoleon, the other Hicetas. The latter at
+once started thither, with a force of five thousand men, an army with
+which that of Timoleon seemed too small to cope. But heedless of this
+discrepancy Timoleon hastened thither, and on arriving near the town
+perceived that the opposing army had outstripped him in speed. Hicetas,
+not aware of the approach of a foe, had encamped, and his men were
+disarmed and at their suppers.
+
+The small army of Timoleon, worn out with their long and rapid march,
+and in sight of an enemy four times their number, were loath to move
+farther; but their leader, who knew that his only chance for victory lay
+in a surprise, urged them forward, seized his shield and placed himself
+at their head, and led them so suddenly on the foe that the latter,
+completely surprised, fled in utter panic. Three hundred were killed,
+six hundred taken, and the rest, abandoning their camp, hastened at all
+speed back to Syracuse.
+
+Again the gods spoke in favor of Timoleon. Just as the battle began the
+gates of the temple of Adranus burst open, and the god himself appeared
+with brandished spear and perspiring face. So said the awe-struck
+Adranians, and there was no one to contradict their testimony.
+
+Superstition came here to the adventurer's aid. The report of the god's
+doings did as much as the victory to add to the fame of Timoleon.
+Reinforcements flocked to his ranks, and several towns sought alliance
+with him. He now, with a large and confident army, marched to Syracuse,
+and defied his foe to meet him in the field.
+
+Hicetas was master of all Syracuse except the stronghold of Ortygia,
+which was held by Dionysius, and which Hicetas had blockaded by sea and
+land. Timoleon had no means of capturing it, and as the enemy would not
+come out from behind its walls, he would soon have had to retire had not
+fortune again helped her favorite son, and this time in an extraordinary
+manner.
+
+As it happened, Dionysius was growing short of provisions, was beginning
+to despair of holding Ortygia, and was withal a man of indolent and
+drunken habits, without a tithe of his father's spirit and energy. He
+was like a fox driven to bay, and having heard of the victory of
+Timoleon, it occurred to him that he would be better off in yielding the
+city to these Corinthians than losing it to his Sicilian foe. All he
+wished was the promise of a safe asylum and comfortable maintenance in
+the future. He therefore agreed with Timoleon to surrender the city,
+with the sole proviso that he should be taken safely with his property
+to Corinth and given freedom of residence in that city. This Timoleon
+instantly and gladly granted, the city was yielded, and Dionysius passed
+into Timoleon's camp with a few companions.
+
+We can imagine the astonishment of the people of Corinth when a trireme
+came into their harbor with tidings of the remarkable success of their
+townsman, and bearing as striking evidence the person of the late
+tyrant of Sicily. Only fifty days had passed since he left their city
+with his thousand men, and already he had this extraordinary prize to
+show. At once they voted him a reinforcement of two thousand hoplites
+and five hundred cavalry, and willingly granted the dethroned king a
+safe residence in their city. In after years, so report says, Dionysius
+opened a school there for teaching boys to read, and instructed the
+public singers in their art. Certainly this was an innocent use to put a
+tyrant to.
+
+Ortygia contained a garrison of two thousand soldiers and vast
+quantities of military stores. Timoleon, after taking possession,
+returned to Adranum, leaving his lieutenant Neon in command. Soon
+after--Hicetas having left Syracuse for the purpose of cutting off
+Neon's source of provisions--a sudden sally was made, the blockading
+army taken by surprise and driven back with loss, and another large
+section of the city was added to Timoleon's gains.
+
+This success was quickly followed by another. The reinforcement from
+Corinth had landed at Thurii, on the east coast of Italy. The
+Carthaginian admiral, thinking that they could not easily get away from
+that place, sailed to Ortygia, where he displayed Grecian shields and
+had his seamen crowned with wreaths. He fancied that by these signs of
+victory he would frighten the garrison into surrender. But the garrison
+were not so easily scared; and meanwhile the Corinthian troops, tired of
+Thurii, and not able to get away by sea, had left their ships and
+marched rapidly overland to the narrow strait of Messina, that
+separated Italy from Sicily. They found this unguarded,--the
+Carthaginian ships being away on their mission of alarm to Ortygia. And,
+by good fortune, several days of stormy weather had been followed by a
+sudden and complete calm, so that the Corinthians were enabled to cross
+in fishing and other boats and reach Sicily in safety. Thus by a new
+favor of fortune Timoleon gained this valuable addition to his small
+army.
+
+Timoleon now marched against Syracuse, where fortune once more came to
+his aid. For Magon, the Carthaginian admiral, had begun to doubt
+Hicetas. He doubted him the more when he saw the men of Timoleon and
+those of Hicetas engaged in fishing for eels together in the marshy
+grounds between the armies, and seemingly on very friendly terms.
+Thinking he was betrayed, he put all his troops on board ship and sailed
+away for Africa.
+
+It may well be imagined that Timoleon and his men saw with surprise and
+joy this sudden flight of the Carthaginian ships. With shouts of
+encouragement they attacked the city on all sides. To their
+astonishment, scarcely any defence was made. In fact, the army of
+Hicetas, many of them Greeks, were largely in favor of Timoleon, while
+the talk of the eel catching soldiers in the marshes had won many more
+over. As a result, Timoleon took the great city of Syracuse, on which
+the Athenians had vainly sacrificed hundreds of ships and thousands of
+men, without the loss of a single man, killed or wounded.
+
+Such a succession of astonishing favors of fortune has rarely been seen
+in the world's history. The news flew through Sicily, Italy, and Greece,
+and awakened wonder and admiration everywhere. Only a few months had
+passed since Timoleon left Corinth, and already, with very little loss,
+he was master of Syracuse and of much of Sicily, and had sent the
+dreaded Sicilian tyrant to dwell as a common citizen in Corinth. His
+ability seemed remarkable, his fortune superhuman, and men believed that
+the gods themselves had taken him under their especial care.
+
+And now came the temptation of power, to which so many great men have
+fallen victims. Timoleon had but to say the word and he would be despot
+of Syracuse. Everybody looked for this as the next move. In Ortygia rose
+the massive citadel within which Dionysius had defied revolt or
+disaffection. Timoleon had but to establish himself there, and his word
+would be the law throughout Syracuse, if not throughout Sicily. What
+would he do?
+
+What he proposed to do was quickly shown. He proclaimed that this
+stronghold of tyranny should be destroyed, and invited every Syracusan
+that loved liberty to come with crowbar and hammer and join in the work
+of levelling to the ground the home and citadel of Dionysius. The
+astounded citizens could scarcely believe their ears. What! destroy the
+tyrant's stronghold! Set Syracuse free! What manner of man was this?
+With joyous acclaim they gathered, and heaved and tugged until the
+massive walls were torn stone from stone, and the vast edifice levelled
+with the ground, while the time passed like a holiday, and songs of joy
+and triumph made their work light.
+
+The Bastile of Syracuse down, Timoleon ordered that the materials should
+be used to build courts of justice,--for justice was henceforth to
+replace despotism in that tyrant-ridden city. But he had more to do. So
+long had oppression and suffering lasted that the city was half deserted
+and the very market-place turned into a horse pasture. The same was the
+case with other cities of Sicily. Even the fields were but half
+cultivated. Ruin had swept over that fertile island far and wide.
+
+Timoleon now sent invitations everywhere, inviting exiles to return and
+new colonists to come and people the island. To make them sure that they
+would not be oppressed, a new constitution was formed, giving all the
+power to the people. The invitation was accepted. From all quarters
+colonists came, while ten thousand exiles and others sailed from
+Corinth. In the end no fewer than sixty thousand new citizens were added
+to Syracuse.
+
+Meanwhile Timoleon put down the other despots of Sicily and set the
+cities free. Hicetas, his old enemy, was forced to give up his control
+of Leontini, to which he had retired on the loss of Syracuse. But the
+snake retained his venom. The Carthaginians were furious at the flight
+of their fleet. Hicetas stirred them up to another invasion of the
+liberated island.
+
+How long they were in preparing for this expedition we do not know, but
+it was made on a large scale. An army of seventy thousand men landed on
+the western corner of the island, brought thither by a fleet of two
+hundred triremes and one thousand transports. In the army were ten
+thousand heavy-armed Carthaginians, who carried white shields and wore
+elaborate breastplates. Among these were many of the rich men of
+Carthage, who brought with them costly baggage and rich articles of gold
+and silver. Twenty-five hundred of them were called the Sacred Band of
+Carthage. That great city had rarely before made such a determined
+effort at conquest.
+
+Timoleon was not idle in the face of this great invasion. But the whole
+army he could muster was but twelve thousand strong, a pitiable total to
+meet so powerful a foe. And as he marched to meet the enemy distrust and
+fear marched in his ranks. Such was the dread that one division of the
+army, one thousand strong, mutinied and deserted, and it needed all his
+personal influence to keep the rest together.
+
+Yet Timoleon had in him the spirit that commands success. He pushed on
+with his disheartened force until near the river Crimesus, beyond which
+was encamped the great army of Carthage. Some mules laden with parsley
+met the Corinthians on the road. Parsley was used for the wreaths laid
+on tombstones. It seemed a fatal omen. But Timoleon, with the quickness
+of genius, seized some of it, wove a wreath for his head, and cried,
+"This is our Corinthian symbol of victory: it is the sacred herb with
+which we decorate the victors at the Isthmian festival. Its coming
+signifies success." With these encouraging words he restored the
+spirits of the army, and led them on to the top of the hill overlooking
+the Crimesus.
+
+It was a misty May morning. Nothing could be seen; but from the valley a
+loud noise and clatter arose. The Carthaginians were on the march, and
+had begun to cross the stream. Soon the mist rose and the formidable
+host was seen. A multitude of war-chariots, each drawn by four horses,
+had already crossed. The ten thousand native Carthaginians, bearing
+their white shields, were partly across. The main body of the host was
+hastening in disorderly march to the rugged banks of the stream.
+
+Fortune had favored Timoleon again. If he hoped for success this was the
+moment to attack. The enemy was divided and in disorder. With cheery
+words he bade his men to charge. The cavalry dashed on in front. Seizing
+a shield, Timoleon sprang to the front and led on his footmen, rousing
+them to activity by exultant words and bidding the trumpets to sound.
+Rushing down the hill and through the line of chariots, the charging
+mass poured on the Carthaginian infantry. These fought bravely and
+defied the Grecian spears with the strength of their armor. The
+assailants had to take to their swords, and try and hew their way
+through the dense ranks of the foe.
+
+The result was in serious doubt, when once more the gods--as it
+seemed--came to Timoleon's aid. A violent storm suddenly arose. Darkness
+shrouded the hill-tops. The wind blew a hurricane. Rain and hail poured
+down in torrents, while the clouds flashed with lightning and roared
+with thunder. And all this was on the backs of the Greeks; in the faces
+of the Carthaginians. They could not hear the orders of their officers.
+The ground became so muddy that many of them slipped and fell: and once
+down their heavy armor would not let them rise again. The Greeks, driven
+forward by the wind, attacked their foes with double energy. At length,
+blinded by the driving storm, distracted by the furious assault, and
+four hundred of their front ranks fallen, the white shield battalion
+turned and fled.
+
+But flight was not easy. They met their own troops coming up. The stream
+had become suddenly swollen with the rain. In the confused flight
+numbers were drowned. The panic spread from rank to rank until the whole
+host was in total rout, flying wildly over the hills, leaving their camp
+and baggage to the victors, who pursued and slaughtered them in
+thousands as they fled.
+
+Such a complete victory had rarely been won. Ten thousand Carthaginians
+were killed and fifteen thousand made prisoners, their war chariots were
+captured, and the spoil found in the camp and on the track of the flying
+army was prodigiously great. As for the Sacred Band, it was annihilated.
+The story is told that it was slain to a man. The broken remnants of the
+flying army hastened to their ships, which they were half afraid to
+enter, for fear the gods that helped Timoleon would destroy them on the
+seas. And thus was Sicily freed.
+
+The thousand deserters who had left Timoleon's army on its march were
+ordered by him to leave the island at once. They did so, crossed the
+Strait of Messina, and took possession of a site in southern Italy,
+where they were attacked by the people and every man of them slain. As
+regards the concluding events of our story, it will suffice to say that
+Timoleon had other fighting to do, with Carthaginians and despots; but
+his wonderful fortune continued throughout, and before long Sicily held
+not an enemy in arms.
+
+And now came the greatest triumph of the Corinthian victor. One master
+alone remained in Sicily,--himself. Despotic power was his had he said
+the word. The people warmly requested him to retain his control. But no;
+he had come to free them from tyranny, and free they should be. He laid
+down at once all his power, gave up the command of the army, and went to
+live as a private citizen of Syracuse, without office or power.
+
+A single dominion yet remained to him,--that of affection. The people
+worshipped him. His voice was law. As he grew older his sight failed,
+until he became totally blind. Yet still, when any difficult question
+arose, the people trusted to their sightless benefactor to tell them
+what to do. On such occasions Timoleon would be brought in his car,
+drawn by mules across the market-place, and then by attendants into the
+hall of assembly. Here, still seated in his car, he would listen to the
+debate, and in the end give his own opinion, which was usually accepted
+by nearly the whole assembly. This done, the car would be drawn out
+again amid shouts and cheers, and the blind "father of his country"
+return to his modest home.
+
+Such liberty and prosperity as now ruled in Sicily had not for a
+century been known, and when, three or four years after the great
+victory of the Crimesus, Timoleon suddenly died, the grief of the people
+was universal and profound. His funeral obsequies were splendidly
+celebrated at the public cost, his body was burned on a vast funeral
+pile, and as the flames flashed upward a herald proclaimed,--
+
+"The Syracusan people solemnize, at the cost of two hundred minæ, the
+funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They
+have passed a vote to honor him for all future time with festival
+matches in music, horse and chariot races, and gymnastics; because,
+after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and
+recolonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the
+Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws."
+
+And thus died one of the noblest and most successful men the world has
+ever known. The fratricide of his earlier years was for the good of
+mankind, and his whole life was consecrated to the cause of human
+liberty, while not a thought of self-aggrandizement seems to have ever
+disturbed his noble soul.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SACRED WAR._
+
+
+There were two places in Greece which had been set aside as
+sacred,--Platæa, the scene of the final defeat of the Persian invaders,
+and Delphi, the seat of the great temple of Apollo, in whose oracles all
+Greece placed faith. We have already seen how little the sacredness of
+Platæa protected it from ruin. We have next to see how the sacredness of
+Delphi was condemned, and how all Greece suffered in consequence.
+
+The temple of Apollo at Delphi had long been held so inviolate that it
+became a rich reservoir of treasures, gathered throughout the centuries.
+Croesus, the rich king of Lydia, sent thither the overflow of his
+wealth, and hundreds of others paid liberally for the promises of the
+priestess, until the treasures of Delphi became a by-word in Greece.
+This vast wealth was felt to be safe. The god would protect his own.
+Men's voices were deep with awe when they told how the wrath of Apollo
+had overthrown the Persian robbers who sought to rifle his holy fane.
+And yet the time came when a horde of bandit Greeks made the temple
+their prey and the hand of the god was not lifted in its defence, nor
+did outraged Greece rise to punish the sacrilegious robbers. This is the
+tale that we have next to tell, that of the so-called Sacred War, with
+all it meant to Greece.
+
+There was a great Greek council, centuries old, called the
+Amphictyonic. It met twice every year, usually for religious purposes,
+rarely for political. But in the time we have now reached this
+Amphictyonic Council ventured to meddle in politics, and made mischief
+of the direst character. Its first political act was to fine Sparta five
+hundred talents for seizing the citadel of Thebes in times of peace. The
+fine was to be doubled if not paid within a certain time. But as Sparta
+sneered at the fine, and neither paid it nor its double, the action of
+the council proved of little avail.
+
+[Illustration: BED OF THE RIVER KLADEOS.]
+
+This was of small importance; it was to the next act of the council that
+the mischief was due. The people of the small state of Phocis, adjoining
+Delphi, had been accused of cultivating a part of the Cirrhæan plain,
+which was consecrated to Apollo. This charge, like the former, was
+brought by Thebes, and the Amphictyonic Council, having fined Sparta,
+now, under Theban influence, laid a fine on the Phocians so heavy that
+it was far beyond their means of payment. But Sparta had not paid; why
+should they? The sentence troubled them little.
+
+At the next meeting of the council severer measures were taken. Sparta
+was strong; Phocis weak. It was resolved to seize all its territory and
+consecrate it to Apollo. This unjust sentence roused the Phocians. A
+bold citizen, Philomelus by name, told them that they must now face war
+or ruin. The district of Delphi had once been theirs, and had been taken
+from them wrongfully. "Let us assert our lost rights and seize the
+temple," he said. "The Thebans want it; let us anticipate them and take
+back our own."
+
+His words took fire. A strong force was raised, the town and temple were
+attacked, and both, being practically undefended, were quickly captured.
+Phocis had regained her own, for Delphi had been taken from her during
+an older "Sacred War."
+
+Philomelus now announced that the temple and its oracles would not be
+meddled with. Its treasures would be safe. Visitors would be free to
+come and go. He would give any security that Greece required that the
+wealth of Apollo should be safe and all go on as before. But he
+fortified the town, and invited mercenary soldiers till he had an army
+of five thousand men. As for the priestess of Apollo, from whose lips
+the oracles came, he demanded that she should continue to be inspired as
+before, and should give an oracle in his favor. The priestess refused;
+whereupon he seized her and sought to drag her to the holy tripod on
+which she was accustomed to sit. The woman, scared by his violence,
+cried out, "You may do what you choose!"
+
+Philomelus at once proclaimed this as an oracle in his favor, and
+published it widely. And it is interesting to learn that many of the
+superstitious Greeks took his word for it. He certainly took the word of
+the priestess,--for he did what he chose.
+
+War at once began. Many of the Greek states rose at the call of the
+condemned Amphictyonic Council. The Phocians were in imminent peril.
+They were far from strong enough for the war they had invoked. Mercenary
+troops--"soldiers of fortune"--must be hired; and to hire them money
+must be had. The citizens of Delphi had already been taxed; the Phocian
+treasury was empty; where was money to be obtained?
+
+Philomelus settled this question by _borrowing_, with great reluctance,
+a sum from the temple treasures,--to be paid back as soon as possible.
+But as the war went on and more money was needed, he borrowed again and
+again,--now without reluctance. And the practice of robbery once
+started, he not only paid his troops, but enriched his friends and
+adorned his wife from Apollo's hoarded wealth.
+
+By this means Philomelus got together an army of ten thousand
+men,--reckless, dissolute characters, the impious scum of Greece, for no
+pious Greek would enlist in such a cause. The war was ferocious. The
+allies put their prisoners to death. Philomelus followed their example.
+This was a losing game, and both sides gave it up. At length Philomelus
+and his army were caught in an awkward position, the army was dispersed,
+and he driven to the verge of a precipice, where he must choose between
+captivity or death. He chose the latter and leaped from the beetling
+crags.
+
+The Thebans and their allies foolishly believed that with the death of
+Philomelus the war was at an end, and marched for their homes.
+Onomarchus, another Phocian leader, took the opportunity thus afforded
+to gather the scattered army together again, seized the temple once
+more, and stood in defiance of all his foes.
+
+In addition to gold and silver, the treasury contained many gifts in
+brass and iron. The precious metals were melted and converted into
+money; of the baser metals arms were made. Onomarchus went farther than
+Philomelus; he not only paid his troops with the treasure, but bribed
+the leaders of Grecian states, and thus gained powerful friends. He was
+soon successfully at war, drove back his foes, and pressed his conquests
+till he had captured Thermopylæ and invaded Thessaly.
+
+Here the Phocians came into contact with a foe dangerous to themselves
+and to all Greece. This foe was the celebrated Philip of Macedonia, a
+famous soldier who was to play a leading part in the subsequent game. He
+had long been paving the way to the conquest of Greece, and the Sacred
+War gave him just the opportunity he wanted.
+
+Macedonia lay north of Greece. Its people were not Greeks, nor like
+Greeks in their customs. They lived in the country, not in cities, and
+had little or none of the culture of Greece. But they were the stuff
+from which good soldiers are made. Hitherto this country had been hardly
+thought of as an element in the Grecian problem. Its kings were despots
+who had been kept busy with their foes at home. But now a king had
+arisen of wider views and larger mould. Philip had spent his youth in
+Thebes, where he had learned the art of war under Epaminondas. On coming
+to the throne he quickly proved himself a great soldier and a keen and
+cunning politician. By dint of war and trickery he rapidly spread his
+dominions until all his home foes were subdued, Macedonia was greatly
+extended, and Thessaly, the most northern state of Greece, was overrun.
+
+Therefore the invasion of Thessaly by the Phocians brought them into
+contact with the Macedonians. At first Onomarchus was successful. He won
+two battles and drove Philip back to his native state. But another large
+army was quickly in the field, and this time the army of Onomarchus was
+utterly beaten and himself slain. As for Philip, although he probably
+cared not an iota for the Delphian god, he shrewdly professed to be on a
+crusade against the impious Phocians, and drowned all his prisoners as
+guilty of sacrilege.
+
+A third leader, Phayllus by name, now took command of the Phocians, and
+the temple of Apollo was rifled still more freely than before. The
+splendid gifts of King Croesus had not yet been touched. They were
+held too precious to be meddled with. But Phayllus did not hesitate to
+turn these into money. One hundred and seventeen ingots of gold and
+three hundred and sixty golden goblets went to the melting-pot, and with
+them a golden statue three cubits high and a lion of the same precious
+metal. And what added to the horror of pious Greece was that much of the
+proceeds of these precious treasures was lavished on favorites. The
+necklaces of Helen and Eriphyle were given to dissolute women, and a
+woman flute-player received a silver cup and a golden wreath from the
+temple hoard.
+
+All this gave Philip of Macedonia the desired pretence. He marched
+against the Phocians, who held Thermopylæ, while keeping his Athenian
+enemies quiet by lies and bribes. The leader of the Phocian garrison,
+finding that no aid came from the Athenian fleet, surrendered to
+Philip, and that astute monarch won what he had long schemed for, the
+Pass of Thermopylæ, the Key of Greece.
+
+The Sacred War was at an end, and with it virtually the independence of
+Greece. Phocis was in the hands of Philip, who professed more than ever
+to be the defender and guardian of Apollo. All the towns in Phocis were
+broken up into villages, and the inhabitants were ordered to be fined
+ten talents annually till they had paid back all they had stolen from
+the temple. Philip gave back the temple to the Delphians, and was
+himself voted into membership in the Amphictyonic assembly in place of
+the discarded Phocians. And all this took place while a treaty of peace
+tied the hands of the Greeks. The Sacred War had served as a splendid
+pretext to carry out the ambitious plans of the Macedonian king.
+
+We have now a long story to tell in a few words. Another people, the
+Locrians, had also made an invasion on Delphian territory. The
+Amphictyonic Council called on Philip to punish them, He at once marched
+southward, but, instead of meddling with the Locrians, seized and
+fortified a town in Phocis. At once Athens, full of alarm, declared war,
+and Philip was as quick to declare war in return. Both sides sought the
+support of Thebes, and Athens gained it. In August, 338 B.C., the
+Grecian and Macedonian armies met and fought a decisive battle near
+Chæronea, a Boeotian town. In this great contest Alexander the Great
+took part.
+
+It was a hotly-contested fight, but in the end Philip triumphed, and
+Greece was lost. Thebes was forced to yield. Athens, to regain the
+prisoners held by Philip, acknowledged him to be the head of Greece. All
+the other states did the same except Sparta, which defied him. He
+ravaged Laconia, but left the city untouched.
+
+Two years afterwards Philip, lord and master of Greece, was assassinated
+at the marriage feast of his daughter. His son Alexander succeeded him.
+Here seemed an opportunity for Greece to regain her freedom. This
+untried young man could surely not retain what his able father had won.
+Demosthenes, the celebrated orator, stirred up Athens to revolt. Thebes
+sprang to arms and attacked the Macedonian garrison in the citadel.
+
+They did not know the man with whom they had to deal. Alexander came
+upon Thebes like an avalanche, took it by assault, and sold into slavery
+all the inhabitants not slain in the assault. The city was razed to the
+ground. This terrible example dismayed the rest of Greece.
+Submission--with the exception of that of Sparta--was universal. The
+independence of Greece was at an end. More than two thousand years were
+to pass before that country would again be free.
+
+
+
+
+_ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND DARIUS._
+
+
+In the citadel of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was
+preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure.
+Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius
+and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and
+chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which
+attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the
+bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted and entangled
+that it seemed as if the fingers of the gods themselves must have tied
+it, so intricate was it and so impossible, seemingly, to untie.
+
+An oracle had declared that the man who should untie this famous knot
+would become lord and monarch of all Asia. As may well be imagined, many
+ambitious men sought to perform the task, but all in vain. The Gordian
+knot remained tied and Asia unconquered in the year 333 B.C., when
+Alexander of Macedon, who the year before had invaded Asia, and so far
+had swept all before him, entered Gordium with his victorious army. As
+may be surmised, it was not long before he sought the citadel to view
+this ancient relic, which contained within itself the promise of what he
+had set out to accomplish. Numbers followed him, Phrygians and
+Macedonians, curious to see if the subtle knot would yield to his
+conquering hand, the Macedonians with hope, the Phrygians with doubt.
+
+While the multitude stood in silent and curious expectation, Alexander
+closely examined the knot, looking in vain for some beginning or end to
+its complexity. The thing perplexed him. Was he who had never yet failed
+in any undertaking to be baffled by this piece of rope, this twisted
+obstacle in the way of success? At length, with that angry impatience
+which was a leading element in his character, he drew his sword, and
+with one vigorous stroke severed the cord in two.
+
+At once a shout went up. The problem was solved; the knot was severed;
+the genius of Alexander had led him to the only means. He had made good
+his title to the empire of Asia, and was hailed as predestined conqueror
+by his admiring followers. That night came a storm of thunder and
+lightning which confirmed the belief, the superstitious Macedonians
+taking it as the testimony of the gods that the oracle was fulfilled.
+
+Had there been no Gordian knot and no oracle, Alexander would probably
+have become lord of the empire of Asia all the same, and this not only
+because he was the best general of his time and one of the best generals
+of all time, but for two other excellent reasons. One was that his
+father, Philip, had bequeathed to him the best army of the age. The
+Greeks had proved, nearly two centuries before, that their military
+organization and skill were far superior to those of the Persians.
+During the interval there had been no progress in the army of Persia,
+while Epaminondas had greatly improved the military art in Greece, and
+Philip of Macedon, his pupil, had made of the Macedonian army a fighting
+machine such as the world had never before known. This was the army
+which, with still further improvements, Alexander was leading into Asia
+to meet the multitudinous but poorly armed and disciplined Persian host.
+
+The second reason was that Alexander, while the best captain of his age,
+had opposed to him the worst. It was the misfortune of Persia that a new
+king, Darius Codomannus by name, had just come to the throne, and was to
+prove himself utterly incapable of leading an army, unless it was to
+lead it in flight. It was not only Alexander's great ability, but his
+marvellous good fortune, which led to his immense success.
+
+The Persians had had a good general in Asia Minor,--Memnon, a Greek of
+the island of Rhodes. But just at this time this able leader died, and
+Darius took the command on himself. He could hardly have selected a man
+from his ranks who would not have made a better commander-in-chief.
+
+Gathering a vast army from his wide-spread dominions, a host six hundred
+thousand strong, the Persian king marched to meet his foe. He brought
+with him an enormous weight of baggage, there being enough gold and
+silver alone to load six hundred mules and three hundred camels; and so
+confident was he of success that he also brought his mother, wife, and
+children, and his whole harem, that they might witness his triumph over
+the insolent Macedonian.
+
+Darius took no steps to guard any of the passes of Asia Minor. Why
+should he seek to keep back this foe, who was marching blindly to his
+fate? But instead of waiting for Alexander on the plain, where he could
+have made use of his vast force, he marched into the defile of Issus,
+where there was only a mile and a half of open ground between the
+mountains and the sea, and where his vanguard alone could be brought
+into action. In this defile the two armies met, the fighting part of
+each being, through the folly of the Persian king, not greatly different
+in numbers.
+
+The blunder of Darius was soon made fatal by his abject cowardice. The
+Macedonians having made a sudden assault on the Persian left wing, it
+gave way and fled. Darius, who was in his chariot in the centre, seeing
+himself in danger from this flight, suddenly lost his over-confidence,
+and in a panic of terror turned his chariot and fled with wild haste
+from the field. When he reached ground over which the chariot could not
+pass, he mounted hastily on horseback, flung from him his bow, shield,
+and royal mantle, and rode in mortal terror away, not having given a
+single order or made the slightest effort to rally his flying troops.
+
+Darius had been sole commander. His flight left the great army without a
+leader. Not a man remained who could give a general order. Those who saw
+him flying were infected with his terror and turned to flee also. The
+vast host in the rear trampled one another down in their wild haste to
+get beyond the enemy's reach. The Macedonians must have looked on in
+amazement. The battle--or what ought to have been a battle--was over
+before it had fairly begun. The Persian right wing, in which was a body
+of Greeks, made a hard fight; but these Greeks, on finding that the king
+had fled, marched in good order away. The Persian cavalry, also, fought
+bravely until they heard that the king had disappeared, when they also
+turned to fly. Never had so great a host been so quickly routed, and all
+through the cowardice of a man who was better fitted by nature to turn a
+spit than to command an army.
+
+[Illustration: THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.]
+
+But Alexander was not the man to let his enemy escape unscathed. His
+pursuit was vigorous. The slaughter of the fugitives was frightful.
+Thousands were trodden to death in the narrow and broken pass. The camp
+and the family of Darius were taken, together with a great treasure in
+coin. The slain in all numbered more than one hundred thousand.
+
+The panic flight of Darius and his utter lack of ability did more than
+lose him a battle: it lost him an empire. Never was there a battle with
+more complete and great results. During the next two years Alexander
+went to work to conquer western Persia. Most of the cities yielded to
+him. Tyre resisted, and was taken and destroyed. Gaza, another strong
+city, was captured and its defenders slain. These two cities, which it
+took nine months to capture, gave Alexander the hardest fighting he
+ever had. He marched from Gaza to Egypt, which fell without resistance
+into his hands, and where he built the great city of Alexandria, the
+only existing memento of his name and deeds. Thence he marched to the
+Euphrates, wondering where Darius was and what he meant to do. Nearly
+two years had passed since the battle of Issus, and the kingly poltroon
+had apparently contented himself with writing letters begging Alexander
+to restore his family. But Alexander knew too well what a treasure he
+held to consent. If Darius would acknowledge him as his lord and master
+he could have back his wife and children, but not otherwise.
+
+Finding that all this was useless, Darius began to collect another army.
+He now got together a vaster host than before. It was said to contain
+one million infantry, forty thousand cavalry, and two hundred chariots,
+each of which had a projecting pole with a sharp point, while three
+sword-blades stood out from the yoke on either side, and scythes
+projected from the naves of the wheels. Darius probably expected to mow
+down the Macedonians in swaths with these formidable implements of war.
+
+The army which Alexander marched against this mighty host consisted of
+forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. It looked like the extreme
+of foolhardiness, like a pigmy advancing against a giant; yet Darius
+commanded one army, Alexander the other, and Issus had not been
+forgotten.
+
+The affair, in fact, proved but a repetition of that at Issus. The
+chariots, on which Darius had counted to break the enemy's line, proved
+useless. Some of the horses were killed; others refused to face the
+Macedonian pikes; some were scared by the noise and turned back; the few
+that reached the Greek lines found the ranks opened to let them pass.
+
+The chariots thus disposed of, the whole Macedonian line charged.
+Alexander, at the head of his cavalry, pushed straight for the person of
+Darius. He could not get near the king, who was well protected, but he
+got near enough to fill his dastard soul with terror. The sight of the
+serried ranks of the Macedonian phalanx, the terrific noise of their
+war-cries, the failure of the chariots, all combined to destroy his late
+confidence and replace it by dread. As at Issus, he suddenly had his
+chariot turned round and rushed from the field in full flight.
+
+His attendants followed. The troops around him, the best in the army,
+gave way. Soon the field was dense with fugitives. So thick was the
+cloud of dust raised by the flying multitude that nothing could be seen.
+Amid the darkness were heard a wild clamor of voices and the noise of
+the whips of the charioteers as they urged their horses to speed. The
+cloud of dust alone saved Darius from capture by the pursuing horsemen.
+The left of the Persian army fought bravely, but at length it too gave
+way. Everything was captured,--camp, treasure, the king's equipage,
+everything but the king himself. How many were killed and taken is not
+known, but the army, as an army, ceased to exist. As at Issus, so at
+Arbela, it was so miserably managed that three-fourths of it had nothing
+whatever to do with the battle. Its dispersal ended the Persian
+resistance; the empire was surrendered to Alexander almost without
+another blow.
+
+Great a soldier as Alexander unquestionably was, he was remarkably
+favored by fortune, and won the greatest empire the world had up to that
+time known with hardly an effort, and with less loss of men than often
+takes place in a single battle. The treasure gained was immense. Darius
+seemed to have been heaping up wealth for his conqueror. Babylon and
+Susa, the two great capitals of the Persian empire, contained vast
+accumulations of money, part of which was used to enrich the soldiers of
+the victorious army. At Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, a
+still greater treasure was found, amounting to one hundred and twenty
+thousand talents in gold and silver, or about one hundred and
+twenty-five million dollars. It took five thousand camels and a host of
+mules to transport the treasure away. The cruel conqueror rewarded the
+Persians for this immense gift, kept through generations for his hands,
+by burning the city and slaughtering its inhabitants, in revenge, as he
+declared, for the harm which Xerxes had done to Greece a century and a
+half before.
+
+What followed must be told in a few words. The conqueror did not feel
+that his work was finished while Darius remained free. The dethroned
+king was flying eastward to Bactria. Alexander pursued him with such
+speed that many of his men and animals fell dead on the road. He
+overtook him at last, but did not capture him, as the companions of the
+Persian king killed him and left only his dead body to the victor's
+hands.
+
+For years afterwards Alexander was occupied in war, subduing the eastern
+part of the empire, and marching into India, where he conquered all
+before him. War, incessant war, was all he cared for. No tribe or nation
+he met was able to stand against his army. In all his career he never
+met a reverse in the field. He was as daring as Darius had been
+cowardly, exposed his life freely, and was more than once seriously
+wounded, but recovered quickly from his hurts.
+
+At length, after eleven years of almost incessant war, the conqueror
+returned to Babylon, and here, while preparing for new wars in Arabia
+and elsewhere, indulged with reckless freedom in that intoxication which
+was his principal form of relaxation from warlike schemes and duties. As
+a result he was seized with fever, and in a week's time died, just at
+the time he had fixed to set out with army and fleet on another great
+career of conquest. It was in June, 323 B.C., in his thirty-third year.
+He had reigned only twelve years and eight months.
+
+
+
+
+_THE WORLD'S GREATEST ORATOR._
+
+
+During the days of the decline of Athens, the centre of thought to
+Greece, there roamed about the streets of that city a delicate, sickly
+lad, so feeble in frame that, at his mother's wish, he kept away from
+the gymnasium, lest the severe exercises there required should do him
+more harm than good. His delicate clothing and effeminate habits were
+derided by his playmates, who nicknamed him Batalus, after, we are told,
+a spindle-shanked flute-player. We do not know, however, just what
+Batalus means.
+
+As the boy was not fit for vigorous exercise, and never likely to make a
+hardy soldier or sailor, it became a question for what he was best
+fitted. If the body could not be exercised, the mind might be. At that
+time Athens had its famous schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and the
+art of oratory was diligently cultivated. It is interesting to know that
+outside of Athens Greece produced no orators, if we except Epaminondas
+of Thebes. The Boeotians, who dwelt north of Attica, were looked upon
+as dull-brained and thick-witted. The Spartans prided themselves on
+their few words and hard blows.
+
+The Athenians, on the contrary, were enthusiastically fond of oratory,
+and ardently cultivated fluency of speech. It was by this art that
+Themistocles kept the fleet together for the great battle of Salamis. It
+was by this art that Pericles so long held control of Athens. The
+sophists, the philosophers, the leaders of the assembly, were all adepts
+in the art of convincing by eloquence and argument, and oratory
+progressed until, in the later days of Grecian freedom, Athens possessed
+a group of public speakers who have never been surpassed, if equalled,
+in the history of the world.
+
+It was the orators who particularly attracted the weakly lad, whose mind
+was as active as his body was feeble. He studied grammar and rhetoric,
+as did the sons of wealthy Athenians in general. And while still a mere
+boy he begged his tutors to take him to hear Callistratus, an able
+public speaker, who was to deliver an oration on some weighty political
+subject. The speech, delivered with all the eloquence of manner and
+logic of thought which marked the leading orators of that day, deeply
+impressed the susceptible mind of the eager lad, who went away doubtless
+determining in his own mind that he would one day, too, move the world
+with eloquent and convincing speech.
+
+As he grew older there arose a special reason why he should become able
+to speak for himself. His father, who was also named Demosthenes, had
+been a rich man. He was a manufacturer of swords or knives, in which he
+employed thirty-two slaves; and also had a couch or bed factory,
+employing twenty more. His mother was the daughter of a rich
+corn-dealer of the Bosphorus.
+
+The father died when his son was seven years old, leaving his estate in
+the care of three guardians. These were rich men, and relatives and
+friends, whom he thought he could safely trust; the more so as he left
+them legacies in his will. Yet they proved rogues, and when Demosthenes
+became sixteen years of age--which made him a man under the civil law of
+Athens--he found that the guardians had made way with nearly the whole
+of his estate. Of fourteen talents bequeathed him there were less than
+two left. The boy complained and remonstrated in vain. The guardians
+declared that the will was lost; their accounts were plainly fraudulent;
+they evidently proposed to rob their ward of his patrimony.
+
+This may seem to us to have been a great misfortune. It was, on the
+contrary, the greatest good fortune. It forced Demosthenes to become an
+orator. Though he never recovered his estate, he gained a fame that was
+of infinitely greater value. The law of Athens required that every
+plaintiff should plead his own cause, either in person or by a deputy
+speaking his words. Demosthenes felt that he must bring suit or consent
+to be robbed. That art of oratory, towards which he had so strong an
+inclination, now became doubly important. He must learn how to plead
+eloquently before the courts, or remain the poor victim of a party of
+rogues. This determined the young student of rhetoric. He would make
+himself an orator.
+
+He at once began an energetic course of study. There were then two
+famous teachers of oratory in Athens, Isocrates and Isæus. The school of
+Isocrates was famous, and his prices very high. The young man, with whom
+money was scarce, offered him a fifth of his price for a fifth of his
+course, but Isocrates replied that his art, like a good fish, must be
+sold entire. He then turned to Isæus, who was the greatest legal pleader
+of the period, and studied under him until he felt competent to plead
+his own case before the courts.
+
+Demosthenes soon found that he had mistaken his powers. His argument was
+formal and long-winded. His uncouth style roused the ridicule of his
+hearers. His voice was weak, his breath short, his manner disconnected,
+his utterance confused. His pronunciation was stammering and
+ineffective, and in the end he withdrew from the court, hopeless and
+disheartened.
+
+Fortunately, his feeble effort had been heard by a friend who was a
+distinguished actor, and was able to tell Demosthenes what he lacked.
+"You must study the art of graceful gesture and clear and distinct
+utterance," he said. In illustration, he asked the would-be orator to
+speak some passages from the poets Sophocles and Euripides, and then
+recited them himself, to show how they should be spoken. He succeeded in
+this way in arousing the boy to new and greater efforts. Nature,
+Demosthenes felt, had not meant him for an orator. But art can sometimes
+overcome nature. Energy, perseverance, determination, were necessary.
+These he had. He went earnestly to work; and the story of how he worked
+and what he achieved should be a lesson for all future students of art
+or science.
+
+There were two things to do. He must both write well and speak well.
+Delivery is only half the art. Something worth delivering is equally
+necessary. He read the works of Thucydides, the great historian, so
+carefully that he was able to write them all out from memory after an
+accident had destroyed the manuscript. Some say he wrote them out eight
+separate times. He attended the teachings of Plato, the celebrated
+philosopher. The repulse of Isocrates did not keep the ardent student
+from his classes. His naturally capable mind became filled with all that
+Greece had to give in the line of logical and rhetorical thought. He not
+only read but wrote. He prepared orations for delivery in the law courts
+for the use of others, and in this way eked out his small income.
+
+In these ways he cultivated his mind. That was the lightest task. He had
+a great mind to begin with. But he had a weak and incapable body. If he
+would succeed that must be cultivated too. There was his lisping and
+stammering voice, his short breath, his low tones, his ungraceful
+gesture,--all to be overcome. How he did it is a remarkable example of
+what may be done in self-education.
+
+To overcome his stammering utterance he accustomed himself to speak with
+pebbles in his mouth. His lack of vocal strength he overcame by running
+with open mouth, thus expanding his lungs. To cure his shortness of
+breath he practised the uttering of long sentences while walking
+rapidly up-hill. That he might be able to make himself heard above the
+noise of the assembly, he would stand in stormy weather on the sea-shore
+at Phalerum, and declaim against the roar of the waves. For two or three
+months together he practised writing and speaking, day and night, in an
+underground chamber; and that he might not be tempted to go abroad and
+neglect his studies he shaved the hair from one side of his head. Dread
+of ridicule kept him in till his hair had grown again. To gain a
+graceful action, he would practise for hours before a tall mirror,
+watching all his movements, and constantly seeking to improve them.
+
+Several years passed away in this hard and persistent labor. He tried
+public speaking again and again, each time discouraged, but each time
+improving,--and finally gained complete success. His voice became strong
+and clear, his manner graceful, his delivery emphatic and decisive, the
+language of his orations full of clear logic, strong statement, cutting
+irony, and vigorous declamation, fluent, earnest, and convincing. In
+brief, it may be said that he made himself the greatest orator of
+Greece, which is equal to saying the greatest orator of the world.
+
+It was not only in delivery that he was great. His speeches were as
+convincing when read as when spoken. Fortunately, the great orators of
+those days prepared their speeches very carefully before delivery, and
+so it is that some of the best of the speeches of Demosthenes have come
+down to us and can be read by ourselves. The voice of the whole world
+pronounces these orations admirable, and they have been studied by every
+great orator since that day.
+
+Demosthenes had a great theme for his orations. He entered public life
+at a critical period. The states of Greece had become miserably weak and
+divided by their jealousies and intrigues. Philip of Macedon, the
+craftiest and ablest leader of his time, was seeking to make Greece his
+prey, and using gold, artifice, and violence alike to enable him to
+succeed in this design. Against this man Demosthenes raised his voice,
+thundering his unequalled denunciations before the assembly of Athens,
+and doing his utmost to rouse the people to the defence of their
+liberties. Philip had as his advocate an orator only second to
+Demosthenes in power, Æschines by name, whom he had secretly bribed, and
+who opposed his great rival by every means in his power. For years the
+strife of oratory and diplomacy went on. Demosthenes, with remarkable
+clearness of vision, saw the meaning of every movement of the cunning
+Macedonian, and warned the Athenians in orations that should have moved
+any liberty-loving people to instant and decisive action. But he talked
+to a weak audience. Athens had lost its old energy and public virtue. It
+could still listen with lapsed breath to the earnest appeals of the
+orator, but had grown slow and vacillating in action. Æschines had a
+strong party at his back, and Athens procrastinated until it was too
+late and the liberties of ancient Greece fell, never to rise again, on
+the fatal field of Chæronea.
+
+"If Philip is the friend of Greece we are doing wrong," Demosthenes had
+cried. "If he is the enemy of Greece we are doing right. Which is he? I
+hold him to be our enemy, because everything he has hitherto done has
+benefited him and hurt us."
+
+The fall of Greece before the sword of its foe taught the Athenians that
+their orator was right. They at length learned to esteem Demosthenes at
+his full worth, and Ctesiphon, a leading Athenian, proposed that he
+should receive a golden crown from the state, and that his extraordinary
+merit and patriotism should be proclaimed in the theatre at the great
+festival of Dionysus.
+
+Æschines declared that this was unconstitutional, and that he would
+bring action against Ctesiphon for breaking the laws. For six years the
+case remained untried, and then Æschines was forced to bring his suit.
+He did so in a powerful speech, in which he made a bitter attack on the
+whole public life of Demosthenes. When he ceased, Demosthenes rose, and
+in a speech which is looked upon as the most splendid master-piece of
+oratory ever produced, completely overwhelmed his life long opponent,
+who left Athens in disgust. The golden crown, which Demosthenes had so
+nobly won, was his, and was doubly deserved by the immortal oration to
+which it gave birth, the grand burst of eloquence "For the Crown."
+
+In 323 B.C. Alexander the Great died. Then like a trumpet rang out the
+voice of Demosthenes, calling Greece to arms. Greece obeyed him and
+rose. If she would be free, now or never was the time. The war known as
+the Lamian war began. It ended disastrously in August, 322, and Greece
+was again a Macedonian slave. Demosthenes and others of the patriots
+were condemned to death as traitors. They fled for their lives.
+Demosthenes sought the island of Calauri, where he took refuge in a
+temple sacred to Poseidon, or Neptune. Thither his foes, led by Archias,
+formerly a tragic actor, followed him.
+
+Archias was not the man to hesitate about sacrilege. But the temple in
+which Demosthenes had taken refuge was so ancient and venerable that
+even he hesitated, and begged him to come out, saying that there was no
+doubt that he would be pardoned.
+
+Demosthenes sat in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground. At length, as
+Archias continued his appeals, in his most persuasive accents, the
+orator looked up and said,----
+
+"Archias, you never moved me by your acting. You will not move me now by
+your promises."
+
+At this Archias lost his temper, and broke into threats.
+
+"Now you speak like a real Macedonian oracle," said Demosthenes, calmly.
+"Before you were acting. Wait a moment, then, till I write to my
+friends."
+
+With these words Demosthenes rose and walked back to the inner part of
+the temple, though he was still visible from the front. Here he took out
+a roll of paper and a quill pen, which he put in his mouth and bit, as
+he was in the habit of doing when composing. Then he threw his head back
+and drew his cloak over it.
+
+The Thracian soldiers, who followed Archias, began to gibe at his
+cowardice on seeing this movement. Archias went in, renewed his
+persuasions, and begged him to rise, as there was no doubt that he would
+be well treated. Demosthenes sat in silence until he felt in his veins
+the working of the poison he had sucked from the pen. Then he drew the
+cloak from his face and looked at Archias with steady eyes.
+
+"Now," he said, "you can play the part of Creon in the tragedy as soon
+as you like, and cast forth my body unburied. But I, O gracious
+Poseidon, quit thy temple while I yet live. Antipater and his
+Macedonians have done what they could to pollute it."
+
+He walked towards the door, calling on those surrounding to support his
+steps, which tottered with weakness. He had just passed the altar of the
+god, when, with a groan, he fell, and died in the presence of his foes.
+
+So died, when sixty-two years of age, the greatest orator, and one of
+the greatest patriots and statesmen, of ancient times,--a man whose fame
+as an orator is as great as that of Homer as a poet, while in foresight,
+judgment, and political skill he had not his equal in the Greece of his
+day. Had Athens possessed any of its old vitality he would certainly
+have awakened it to a new career of glory. As it was, even one as great
+as he was unable to give new life to that corpse of a nation which his
+country had become.
+
+
+
+
+_THE OLYMPIC GAMES._
+
+
+The recent activity of athletic sports in this country is in a large
+sense a regrowth from the ancient devotion to out-door exercises. In
+this direction Greece, as also in its republican institutions, served as
+a model for the United States. The close relations between the athletics
+of ancient and modern times was gracefully called to attention by the
+reproduction of the Olympic Games at Athens in 1896, for which purpose
+the long abandoned and ruined Stadion, or foot-race course, of that city
+was restored, and races and other athletic events were conducted on the
+ground made classic by the Athenian athletes, and within a marble-seated
+amphitheatre in which the plaudits of Athens in its days of glory might
+in fancy still be heard.
+
+These modern games, however, differ in character from those of the past,
+and are attended with none of the deeply religious sentiment which
+attached to the latter. The games of ancient Greece were national in
+character, were looked upon as occasions of the highest importance, and
+were invested with a solemnity largely due to their ancient institution
+and long-continued observance. Their purpose was not alone friendly
+rivalry, as in modern times, but was largely that of preparation for
+war, bodily activity and endurance being highly essential in the hand
+to hand conflicts of the ancient world. They were designed to cultivate
+courage and create a martial spirit, to promote contempt for pain and
+fearlessness in danger, to develop patriotism and public spirit, and in
+every way to prepare the contestants for the wars which were, unhappily,
+far too common in ancient Greece.
+
+[Illustration: THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES IN THE STADIUM.]
+
+Each city had its costly edifices devoted to this purpose. The Stadion
+at Athens, within whose restored walls the modern games took place, was
+about six hundred and fifty feet long and one hundred and twenty-five
+wide, the race-course itself being six hundred Greek feet--a trifle
+shorter than English feet--in length. Other cities were similarly
+provided, and gymnastic exercises were absolute requirements of the
+youth of Greece,--particularly so in the case of Sparta, in which city
+athletic exercises formed almost the sole occupation of the male
+population.
+
+But the Olympic Games meant more than this. They were not national, but
+international festivals, at whose celebration gathered multitudes from
+all the countries of Greece, those who desired being free to come to and
+depart from Olympia, however fiercely war might be raging between the
+leading nations of the land. When the Olympic Games began is not known.
+Their origin lay far back in the shadows of time. Several peoples of
+Greece claimed to have instituted such games, but those which in later
+times became famous were held at Olympia, a town of the small country of
+Elis, in the Peloponnesian peninsula. Here, in the fertile valley of
+the Alpheus, shut in by the Messenian hills and by Mount Cronion, was
+erected the ancient Stadion, and in its vicinity stood a great
+gymnasium, a palæstra (for wrestling and boxing exercises), a hippodrome
+(for the later chariot races), a council hall, and several temples,
+notably that of the Olympian Zeus, where the victors received the olive
+wreaths which were the highly valued prizes for the contests.
+
+This temple held the famous colossal statue of Zeus, the noblest
+production of Greek art, and looked upon as one of the wonders of the
+world. It was the work of Phidias, the greatest of Grecian sculptors,
+and was a seated statue of gold and ivory, over forty feet in height.
+The throne of the king of the gods was mostly of ebony and ivory, inlaid
+with precious stones, and richly sculptured in relief. In the figure,
+the flesh was of ivory, the drapery of gold richly adorned with flowers
+and figures in enamel. The right hand of the god held aloft a figure of
+victory, the left hand rested on a sceptre, on which an eagle was
+perched, while an olive wreath crowned the head. On the countenance
+dwelt a calm and serious majesty which it needed the genius of a Phidias
+to produce, and which the visitors to the temple beheld with awe.
+
+The Olympic festival, whose date of origin, as has been said, is
+unknown, was revived in the year 884 B.C., and continued until the year
+394 A.D., when it was finally abolished, only to be revived at the city
+of Athens fifteen hundred years later. The games were celebrated after
+the completion of every fourth year, this four year period being called
+an "Olympiad," and used as the basis of the chronology of Greece, the
+first Olympiad dating from the revival of the games in 884 B.C.
+
+These games at first lasted but a single day, but were extended until
+they occupied five days. Of these the first day was devoted to
+sacrifices, the three following days to the contests, and the last day
+to sacrifices, processions, and banquets. For a long period single
+foot-races satisfied the desires of the Eleans and their visitors. Then
+the double foot-race was added. Wrestling and other athletic exercises
+were introduced in the eighth century before Christ. Then followed
+boxing. This was a brutal and dangerous exercise, the combatants' hands
+being bound with heavy leather thongs which were made more rigid by
+pieces of metal. The four-horse chariot-race came later; afterwards the
+pancratium (wrestling and boxing, without the leaded thongs); boys'
+races and wrestling and boxing matches; foot-races in a full suit of
+armor; and in the fifth century, two-horse chariot-races. Nero, in the
+year 68 A.D., introduced musical contests, and the games were finally
+abolished by Theodosius, the Christian emperor, in the year 394 A.D.
+
+Olympia was not a city or town. It was simply a plain in the district of
+Pisatis. But it was so surrounded with magnificent temples and other
+structures, so adorned with statues, and so abundantly provided with the
+edifices necessary to the games, that it in time grew into a locality of
+remarkable architectural beauty and grandeur. Here was the sacred grove
+of Altis, where grew the wild olive which furnished the wreaths for the
+victors, a simple olive wreath forming the ordinary prize of victory; in
+the four great games the victor was presented with a palm branch, which
+he carried in his right hand. Near this grove was the Hippodrome, where
+the chariot-races took place. The great Stadion stood outside the temple
+enclosure, where lay the most advantageous stretch of ground.
+
+The training required for participants in these sacred games was severe.
+No one was allowed to take part unless he had trained in the gymnasium
+for ten months in advance. No criminal, nor person with any blood
+impurity, could compete, a mere pimple on the body being sufficient to
+rule a man out. In short, only perfect and completely trained specimens
+of manhood were admitted to the lists, while the fathers and relatives
+of a contestant were required to swear that they would use no artifice
+or unfair means to aid their relative to a victory. The greatest care
+was also taken to select judges whose character was above even the
+possibility of bribery.
+
+Women were not permitted to appear at the games, and whoever disobeyed
+this law was to be thrown from a rock. On certain occasions, however,
+their presence was permitted, and there were a series of games and races
+in which young girls took part. In time it became the custom to
+diversify the games with dramas, and to exhibit the works of artists,
+while poets recited their latest odes, and other writers read their
+works. Here Herodotus read his famous history to the vast assemblage.
+
+Victory in these contests was esteemed the highest of honors. When the
+victor was crowned, the heralds loudly proclaimed his name, with those
+of his father and his city or native land. He was also privileged to
+erect a statue in honor of his triumph at a particular place in the
+sacred Altis. This was done by many of the richer victors, while the
+winners in the chariot-races often had not only their own figures, but
+those of their chariots and horses, reproduced in bronze.
+
+In addition to the Olympic, Greece possessed other games, which, like
+the former, were of great popularity, and attracted crowds from all
+parts of the country. The principal among these were the Pythian,
+Nemean, and Isthmian games, though there were various others of less
+importance. Of them all, however, the Olympic games were much the oldest
+and most venerated, and in the laws of Solon every Athenian who won an
+Olympic prize was given the large reward of five hundred drachmas, while
+an Isthmian prize brought but one hundred drachmas.
+
+On several occasions the Olympic games became occasions of great
+historical interest. One of these was the ninetieth Olympiad, of 420
+B.C., which took place during the peace between Athens and Sparta,--in
+the Peloponnesian war Athens having been excluded from the two preceding
+ones. It was supposed that the impoverishment of Athens would prevent
+her from appearing with any splendor at this festival, but that city
+astonished Greece by her ample show of golden ewers, censers, etc., in
+the sacrifice and procession, while in the chariot-races Alcibiades far
+distanced all competitors. One well-equipped chariot and four usually
+satisfied the thirst for display of a rich Greek, but he appeared with
+no less than seven, while his horses were of so superior power that one
+of his chariots won a first, another a second, and another a fourth
+prize, and he had the honor of being twice crowned with olive. In the
+banquet with which he celebrated his triumph he surpassed the richest of
+his competitors by the richness and splendor of the display.
+
+On the occasion of the one hundred and fourth Olympiad, war existing
+between Arcadia and Elis, a combat took place in the sacred ground
+itself, an unholy struggle which dishonored the sanctuary of Panhellenic
+brotherhood, and caused the great temple of Zeus to be turned into a
+fortress against the assailants. During this war the Arcadians plundered
+the treasures of these holy temples, as those of the temple at Delphi
+were plundered at a later date.
+
+Another occasion of interest in the Olympic games occurred in the
+ninety-ninth Olympiad, when Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, sent his
+legation to the sacrifice, dressed in the richest garments, abundantly
+furnished with gold and silver plate, and lodged in splendid tents.
+Several chariots contended for him in the races, while a number of
+trained reciters and chorists were sent to exhibit his poetical
+compositions before those who would listen to them. His chariots were
+magnificent, his horses of the rarest excellence, the delivery of his
+poems eloquently performed; but among those present were many of the
+sufferers by his tyranny, and the display ended in the plundering of
+his gold and purple tent, and the disgraceful lack of success of his
+chariots, some of which were overturned and broken to pieces. As for the
+poems, they were received with a ridicule which caused the deepest
+humiliation and shame to their proud composer.
+
+[Illustration: THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS, ATHENS.]
+
+The people of Greece, and particularly those of Athens, did not,
+however, restrict their public enjoyments to athletic exercises.
+Abundant provision for intellectual enjoyment was afforded. They were
+not readers. Books were beyond the reach of the multitude. But the loss
+was largely made up to them by the public recitals of poetry and
+history, the speeches of the great orators, and in particular the
+dramatic performances, which were annually exhibited before all the
+citizens of Athens who chose to attend.
+
+The stage on which these dramas were performed, at first a mere
+platform, then a wooden edifice, became finally a splendid theatre,
+wrought in the sloping side of the Acropolis, and presenting a vast
+semicircle of seats, cut into the solid rock, rising tier above tier,
+and capable of accommodating thirty thousand spectators. At first no
+charge was made for admission, and when, later, the crowd became so
+great that a charge had to be made, every citizen of Athens who desired
+to attend, and could not afford to pay, was presented from the public
+treasury with the price of one of the less desirable seats.
+
+Annually, at the festivals of Dionysus, or Bacchus, and particularly at
+the great Dionysia, held at the of March and beginning of April, great
+tragic contests were held, lasting for two days, during which the
+immense theatre was filled with crowds of eager spectators. A play
+seldom lasted more than an hour and a half, but three on the same
+general subject, called a trilogy, were often presented in succession,
+and were frequently followed by a comic piece from the same poet. That
+the actors might be heard by the vast open-air audiences, some means of
+increasing the power of the voice was employed, while masks were worn to
+increase the apparent size of the head, and thick-soled shoes to add to
+the height.
+
+The chorus was a distinctive feature of these dramas,--tragedies and
+comedies alike. As there were never more than three actors upon the
+stage, the chorus--twelve to fifteen in number--represented other
+characters, and often took part in the action of the play, though their
+duty was usually to diversify the movement of the play by hymns and
+dirges, appropriate dances, and the music of flutes. For centuries these
+dramatic representations continued at Athens, and formed the basis of
+those which proved so attractive to Roman audiences, and which in turn
+became the foundation-stones of the modern drama.
+
+
+
+
+_PYRRHUS AND THE ROMANS._
+
+
+Seven years after the death of Alexander, the Macedonian conqueror,
+there was born in Epirus, a country of Greece, a warrior who might have
+rivalled Alexander's fortune and fame had he, like him, fought against
+Persians. But he had the misfortune to fight against Romans, and his
+story became different. He was the greatest general of his time.
+Hannibal has said that he was the greatest of any age. But Rome was not
+Persia, and a Roman army was not to be dealt with like a Persian horde.
+Had Alexander marched west instead of east, he would probably not have
+won the title of "Great."
+
+Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, claimed descent from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles.
+While still an infant a rebellion broke out in Epirus. His father was
+absent, and the rebel chiefs sought to kill him, but he was hurried away
+in his nurse's arms, and his life saved. When he was ten years old,
+Glaucius, king of Illyria, who had brought him up among his own
+children, conquered Epirus and placed him on the throne. Seven years
+afterwards rebellion broke out again, and Pyrrhus had once more to fly
+for his life. He now fought in some great battles, married the daughter
+of the king of Egypt, returned with an army, and again became king of
+Epirus. He afterwards conquered all Macedonia, and, like Alexander the
+Great, whose fame he envied, looked about him for other worlds to
+conquer.
+
+During the years over which our tales have passed a series of foreign
+powers had threatened Greece. First, in the days of legend, it had found
+a foreign enemy in Troy. Next came the great empire of Persia, with
+which it had for centuries to deal. Then rose Macedonia, the first
+conqueror of Greece. Meanwhile, in the west, a new enemy had been slowly
+growing in power and thirst for conquest, that of Rome, before whose
+mighty arm Greece was destined to fall and vanish from view as one of
+the powers of the earth. And the first of the Greeks to come in warlike
+contact with the Romans was Pyrrhus. How this came about, and what arose
+from it, we have now to tell.
+
+Step by step the ambitious Romans had been extending their power over
+Italy. They were now at war with Tarentum, a city of Greek origin on the
+south Italian coast. The Tarentines, being hard pressed by their
+vigorous foes, sent an embassy to Greece, and asked Pyrrhus, then the
+most famous warrior of the Grecian race, to come to their aid against
+their enemy. This was in the year 281 B.C.
+
+Pyrrhus had been for some years at peace, building himself a new capital
+city, which he profusely adorned with pictures and statues. But peace
+was not to his taste. Consumed by ambition, restless in temperament, and
+anxious to make himself a rival in fame of Alexander the Great, he was
+ready enough to accept this request, and measure his strength in battle
+against the most warlike nation of the West.
+
+His wise counsellor, Cineas, asked him what he would do next, if he
+should overcome the Romans, who were said to be great warriors and
+conquerors of many peoples.
+
+"The Romans once overcome," he said, proudly, "no city, Greek or
+barbarian, would dare to oppose me, and I should be master of all
+Italy."
+
+"Well," said Cineas, "if you conquer Italy, what next?"
+
+"Greater victories would follow. There are Libya and Carthage to be
+won."
+
+"And then?" asked Cineas.
+
+"Then I should be able to master all Greece."
+
+"And then?" continued the counsellor.
+
+"Then," said Pyrrhus, "I would live at ease, eat and drink all day, and
+enjoy pleasant conversation."
+
+"And what hinders you from taking your ease now, without all this peril
+and bloodshed?"
+
+Pyrrhus had no answer to this. But thirst for fame drove him on, and the
+days of ease never came.
+
+In the following year Pyrrhus crossed to Italy with an army of about
+twenty-five thousand men, and with a number of elephants, animals which
+the Romans had never seen, and with which he hoped to frighten them from
+the battle-field. He had been promised the aid of all southern Italy,
+and an army of three hundred and fifty thousand infantry and twenty
+thousand cavalry. In this he was destined to disappointment. He found
+the people of Tarentum given up to frivolous pleasure, enjoying their
+theatres and festivals, and expecting that he would do their fighting
+while they spent their time in amusement.
+
+They found, however, that they had gained a master instead of a servant.
+Frivolity was not the idea of war held by Pyrrhus. He at once shut up
+the theatre, the gymnasia, and the public walks, stopped all feasting
+and revelry throughout the city, closed the clubs or brotherhoods, and
+kept the citizens under arms all day. Some of them, in disgust at this
+stern discipline, left the city. Pyrrhus thereupon closed the gates, and
+would let none out without permission. He even went so far as to put to
+death some of the demagogues, and to send others into exile. By these
+means he succeeded in making something like soldiers of the
+pleasure-loving Tarentines.
+
+Thus passed the winter. Meanwhile, the Romans had been as active as
+their enemies. They made the most energetic preparations for war, and
+with the opening of the spring were in the field. Pyrrhus, who had
+failed to receive the great army promised him, did not feel strong
+enough to meet the Roman force. He offered peace and arbitration, but
+his offers were scornfully rejected. He then sent spies to the Roman
+camp. One of these was caught and permitted to observe the whole army on
+parade. He was then sent back to Pyrrhus, with the message that if he
+wanted to see the Roman army he had better come himself in open day,
+instead of sending spies by night.
+
+The two armies met at length on the banks of the river Siris, where
+Rome fought its first great battle with a foreign foe. The Romans were
+the stronger, but the Greeks had the advantage in arms and discipline.
+The conflict that followed was very different from the one fought by
+Alexander at Issus. So courageous and unyielding were the contestants
+that each army seven times drove back its foes.
+
+"Beware," said an officer to Pyrrhus, as he charged at the head of his
+cavalry, "of that barbarian on the black horse with white feet. He has
+marked you for his prey."
+
+"What is fated no man can avoid," said the king, heroically. "But
+neither this man nor the stoutest soldier in Italy shall encounter me
+for nothing."
+
+At that instant the Italian rode at him with levelled lance and killed
+his horse. But his own was killed at the same instant, and while Pyrrhus
+was remounting his daring foe was surrounded and slain.
+
+On this field, for the first time, the Greek spear encountered the Roman
+sword. The Macedonian phalanx with its long pikes was met by the Roman
+legion with its heavy blades. The pike of the phalanx had hitherto
+conquered the world. The sword of the legion was hereafter to take its
+place. But now neither seemed able to overcome the other. In vain the
+Romans sought to hew a way with their swords through the forest of
+pikes, and as a last resort the Roman general brought up a chosen body
+of cavalry, which he had held in reserve. These came on in fierce
+charge, but Pyrrhus met them with a more formidable reserve,--his
+elephants.
+
+On beholding these strange monsters, terrible alike to horse and rider,
+the Roman cavalry fell back in confusion. The horses could not be
+brought to face their huge opponents. Their disorder broke the ranks of
+the infantry. Pyrrhus charged them with his Thessalian cavalry, and the
+Roman army was soon in total rout, leaving its camp to the mercy of its
+foes.
+
+During the battle Pyrrhus, knowing that the safety of his army depended
+on his own life, exchanged his arms, helmet, and scarlet cloak for the
+armor of Megacles, one of his officers. The borrowed splendor proved
+fatal to Megacles. The Romans made him their mark. Every one struck at
+him. He was at last struck down and slain, and his helmet and cloak were
+carried to Lavinus, the Roman commander, who had them borne in triumph
+along his ranks. Pyrrhus, fearing that this mistake might prove fatal,
+at once threw off his helmet and rode bareheaded along his own line, to
+let his soldiers see that he was still alive, and that a scarlet cloak
+was not a king.
+
+The battle over, Pyrrhus surveyed the field, strewn thickly with the
+dead of both armies, his valiant soul moved to a new respect for his
+foes.
+
+"If I had such soldiers," he cried, "I could conquer the world." Then,
+noting the numbers of his own dead, he added, "Another such victory,
+and I must return to Epirus alone."
+
+He sent Cineas, his wise counsellor, to Rome to offer terms of peace.
+Nearly four thousand of his army had fallen, and these largely Greeks;
+the weather was unfavorable for an advance; alliance with these brave
+foes might be wiser than war. Many of the Romans, too, thought the same;
+but while they were debating in the Forum there was borne into this
+building the famous censor Appius Claudius, once a leader in Rome, now
+totally blind and in extreme old age. His advent was like that of blind
+Timoleon to the Syracusan senate. The senators listened in deepest
+silence when the old man rose to speak. What he said we do not know, but
+his voice was for war, and the senate, moved by his impassioned appeal,
+voted that there should be no peace with Pyrrhus while he remained in
+Italy, and ordered Cineas to leave Rome, with this ultimatum, that very
+day.
+
+Peace refused, Pyrrhus advanced against Rome. He marched through a
+territory which for years had been free from the ravages of war, and was
+in a state of flourishing prosperity. It was plundered by his soldiers
+without mercy. On he came until Rome itself lay visible to his eyes from
+an elevation but eighteen miles away. Another day's march would have
+brought him to its walls. But a strong Roman army was in his front;
+another army hung upon his rear; his own army was weakened by
+dissensions between the Greeks and Italians; he deemed it prudent to
+retreat with the plunder he had gained.
+
+Another winter passed. Pyrrhus had many prisoners, whom he would not
+exchange or ransom unless the Romans would accept peace. But he treated
+them well, and even allowed them to return to Rome to enjoy the winter
+holiday of the Saturnalia, on their solemn promise that they would
+return if peace was still refused. The senate was still firm for war,
+and the prisoners returned after the holidays, the sturdy Romans having
+passed an edict that any prisoner who should linger in Rome after the
+day fixed for the return should suffer death.
+
+In the following spring another battle was fought near Asculum, on the
+plains of Apulia. Once more the Roman sword was pitted against the
+Macedonian pike. The nature of the ground was such that the Romans were
+forced to attack their enemy in front, and they hewed in vain with their
+swords upon the wall of pikes, which they even grasped with their hands
+and tried to break. The Greeks kept their line intact, and the Romans
+were slaughtered without giving a wound in return. At length they gave
+way. Then the elephants charged, and the repulse became a rout. But this
+time the Romans fled only to their camp, which was close at hand. They
+had lost six thousand men. Pyrrhus had lost three thousand five hundred
+of his light-armed troops. The heavy-armed infantry was almost unharmed.
+
+Here was another battle that proved almost as bad as a defeat. Pyrrhus
+had lost many of the men he had brought from Epirus. He was not in
+condition to take the field again, and no more soldiers could just then
+be had from Greece. The Romans were now willing to make a truce, and
+Pyrrhus crossed soon after to Sicily, to aid the Greeks of that island
+against their Carthaginian foes, He remained there two years, fighting
+with varied success and defeat. Then he returned to Tarentum, which
+again needed his aid against its persistent Roman enemies.
+
+On his way there Pyrrhus passed through Locri. Here was a famous temple
+of Proserpine, in whose vaults was a large treasure, which had been
+buried for an unknown period, and on which no mortal eye was permitted
+to gaze. Pyrrhus took bad advice and plundered the temple of the sacred
+treasure, placing it on board his ships. A storm arose and wrecked the
+ships, and the stolen treasure was cast back on the Locrian coast.
+Pyrrhus now ordered it to be restored, and offered sacrifices to appease
+the offended goddess. She gave no signs of accepting them. He then put
+to death the three men who had advised the sacrilege, but his mind
+continued haunted with dread of divine vengeance. Proserpine, who was
+seemingly deeply offended, might bring upon him ruin and defeat, and the
+hearts of his soldiers were weakened by dread of impending evils.
+
+Once more Pyrrhus met the Romans in the field, but no longer with
+success. One of his elephants was wounded, and ran wildly into his
+ranks, throwing them into disorder. Eight of these animals were driven
+into ground from which there was no escape. They were captured by the
+Romans. As the battle continued one wing of the Roman army was repulsed;
+but they assailed the elephants with such a shower of light weapons that
+these huge brutes turned and fled through the ranks of the phalanx,
+throwing it into disorder. On their heels came the Romans. The Greek
+line once broken, the swords of the Romans gave them a great advantage
+over the long spears of the enemy. Cut down in numbers, the Greeks were
+thrown into confusion, and were soon flying in panic, hotly pursued by
+their foes. How many were slain is not known, but the defeat was
+decisive. Retreating to Tarentum, Pyrrhus resolved to leave Italy,
+disgusted with his failure and with the supineness of his allies, and
+disappointed in his ambitious hopes. He reached Epirus again with little
+more than eight thousand troops, and without money enough to maintain
+even these. Thus ended the first meeting of Greeks and Romans in war.
+
+The remainder of the story of Pyrrhus may be soon told. He had counted
+on living in ease after his wars, but ease was not for him. His
+remaining life was spent in war. He invaded and conquered Macedonia. He
+engaged in war against the Spartans, and was repulsed from their capital
+city. At last, in his attack on Argos, while forcing his way through its
+streets, he fell by a woman's hand. A tile was cast from a house on his
+head, which hurled him stunned from his horse, and he was killed in the
+street. Thus ignobly perished the greatest general of his age.
+
+
+
+
+_PHILOPOEMEN AND THE FALL OF SPARTA._
+
+
+The history of Greece may well seem remarkable to modern readers, since
+it brings us in contact with conditions which have ceased to exist
+anywhere upon the earth. To gain some idea of its character, we should
+have to imagine each of the counties of one of our American States to be
+an independent nation, with its separate government, finances, and
+history, its treaties of peace and declarations of war, and its frequent
+fierce conflicts with some neighboring county. Each of these counties
+would have its central city, surrounded by high walls, and its citizens
+ready at any moment to take arms against some other city and march to
+battle against foes of their own race and blood. In some cases a single
+county would have three or four cities, each hostile to the others, like
+the cities of Thebes, Platæa, Thespiæ, and Orchomenos, in Boeotia;
+standing ready, like fierce dogs each in its separate kennel, to fall
+upon one another with teeth and claws. It may further be said that of
+the population of these counties five out of every six were slaves, and
+that these slaves were white men, most of them of Greek descent. The
+general custom in those days was either to slay prisoners in cold blood,
+or sell them to spend the remainder of their lives in slavery.
+
+This state of affairs was not confined to Greece. It existed in Italy
+until Rome conquered all its small neighbor states. It existed in Asia
+until the great Babylonian and Persian empires conquered all the smaller
+communities. It was the first form of a civilized nation, that of a city
+surrounded by enough farming territory to supply its citizens with food,
+each city ready to break into war with any other, and each race of
+people viewing all beyond its borders as strangers and barbarians, to be
+dealt with almost as if they were beasts of prey instead of men and
+brothers.
+
+The cities of Greece were not only thus isolated, but each had its
+separate manners, customs, government, and grade of civilization. Athens
+was famous for its intellectual cultivation; Thebes had a reputation for
+the heavy-headed dulness of its people; Sparta was a rigid war school,
+and so on with others. In short, the world has gone so far beyond the
+political and social conditions of that period that it is by no means
+easy for us to comprehend the Grecian state.
+
+Among those cities Sparta stood in one sense alone. While the others
+were enclosed in strong walls, Sparta remained open and free,--its only
+wall being the valorous hearts and strong arms of its inhabitants. While
+other cities were from time to time captured and occasionally destroyed,
+no foeman had set foot within Sparta's streets. Not until the days of
+Epaminondas was Laconia invaded by a powerful foe; and even then Sparta
+remained free from the foeman's tread. Neither Philip of Macedon, nor
+his son Alexander, entered this proud city, and it was not until the
+troublous later times that the people of Sparta, feeling that their
+ancient warlike virtue was gone, built around their city a wall of
+defence.
+
+But the humiliation of that proud city was at hand. It was to be entered
+by a foeman; the laws of Lycurgus, under which it had risen to such
+might, were to come to an end; and lordly Sparta was to sink into
+insignificance, and its glory remain but a memory to man.
+
+About the year 252 B.C. was born Philopoemen, the last of the great
+generals of Greece. He was the son of Craugis, a citizen of Megalopolis,
+the great city which Epaminondas had built in Arcadia. Here he was
+thoroughly educated in philosophy and the other learning of the time;
+but his natural inclination was towards the life of a soldier, and he
+made a thorough study of the use of arms and the management of horses,
+while sedulously seeking the full development of his bodily powers.
+Epaminondas was the example he set himself, and he came little behind
+that great warrior in activity, sagacity, and integrity, though he
+differed from him in being possessed of a hot, contentious temper, which
+often carried him beyond the bounds of judgment.
+
+Philopoemen was marked by plain manners and a genial disposition, in
+proof of which Plutarch tells an amusing story. In his later years, when
+he was general of a great Grecian confederation, word was brought to a
+lady of Megara that Philopoemen was coming to her house to await the
+return of her husband, who was absent. The good lady, all in a tremor,
+set herself hurriedly to prepare a supper worthy of her guest. While she
+was thus engaged a man entered dressed in a shabby cloak, and with no
+mark of distinction. Taking him for one of the general's train who had
+been sent on in advance, the housewife called on him to help her prepare
+for his master's visit. Nothing loath, the visitor threw off his cloak,
+seized the axe she offered him, and fell lustily to work in cutting up
+fire-wood.
+
+While he was thus engaged, the husband returned, and at once recognized
+in his wife's lackey the expected visitor.
+
+"What does this mean, Philopoemen?" he cried, in surprise.
+
+"Nothing," replied the general, "except that I am paying the penalty of
+my ugly looks."
+
+Philopoemen had abundant practice in the art of war. Between Arcadia
+and Laconia hostility was the normal condition, and he took part in many
+plundering incursions into the neighboring state. In these he always
+went in first and came out last. When there was no fighting to be done
+he would go every evening to an estate he owned several miles from town,
+would throw himself on the first mattress in his way and sleep like a
+common laborer, and rising at break of day would go to work in the
+vineyard or at the plough. Then returning to the town, he would employ
+himself in public business or in friendly intercourse during the
+remainder of the day.
+
+When Philopoemen was thirty years old, Cleomenes, the Spartan king,
+one night attacked Megalopolis, forced the guards, broke in, and seized
+the market-place. The citizens sprang to arms, Philopoemen at their
+head, and a desperate conflict ensued in the streets. But their efforts
+were in vain, the enemy held their ground. Then Philopoemen set
+himself to aid the escape of the citizens, making head against the foe
+while his fellow-townsmen left the city. At last, after losing his horse
+and receiving several wounds, he fought his way out through the gate,
+being the last man to retreat. Cleomenes, finding that the citizens
+would not listen to his fair offers for their return, and tired of
+guarding empty houses, left the place after pillaging it and destroying
+all he readily could.
+
+The next year Philopoemen took part in a battle between King Antigonus
+of Macedonia and the Spartans, in which the victory was due to his
+charging the enemy at the head of the cavalry against the king's orders.
+
+"How came it," asked the king after the battle, "that the horse charged
+without waiting for the signal?"
+
+"We were forced into it against our wills by a young man of
+Megalopolis," was the reply.
+
+"That young man," said Antigonus, with a smile, "acted like an
+experienced commander."
+
+During this battle a javelin, flung by a strong hand, passed through
+both his thighs, the head coming out on the other side. "There he stood
+awhile," says Plutarch, "as if he had been shackled, unable to move. The
+fastening which joined the thong to the javelin made it difficult to
+get it drawn out, nor would any one about him venture to do it. But the
+fight being now at its hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he was
+transported with the desire of partaking in it, and struggled and
+strained so violently, setting one leg forward, the other back, that at
+last he broke the shaft in two; and thus got the pieces pulled out.
+Being in this manner set at liberty, he caught up his sword, and running
+through the midst of those who were fighting in the first ranks,
+animated his men, and set them afire with emulation."
+
+As may be imagined, a man of such indomitable courage could not fail to
+make his mark. Antigonus wished to engage him in his service, but
+Philopoemen refused, as he knew his temper would not let him serve
+under others. His thirst for war took him to Crete, where he brought the
+cavalry of that island to a state of perfection never before known in
+Greece.
+
+And now a new step in political progress took place in the Peloponnesus.
+The cities of Achæa joined into a league for common aid and defence.
+Other cities joined them, until it was hoped that all Peloponnesus would
+be induced to combine into one commonwealth. There had been leagues
+before in Greece, but they had all been dominated by some one powerful
+city. The Achæan League was the first that was truly a federal republic
+in organization, each city being an equal member of the confederacy.
+
+Philopoemen, whose name had grown to stand highest among the soldiers
+of Greece, was chosen as general of the cavalry, and at once set
+himself to reform its discipline and improve its tactics. By his example
+he roused a strong warlike fervor among the people, inducing them to
+give up all display and exercise but those needed in war. "Nothing then
+was to be seen in the shops but plate breaking up or melting down,
+gilding of breastplates, and studding buckles and bits with silver;
+nothing in the places of exercise but horses managing and young men
+exercising their arms; nothing in the hands of the women but helmets and
+crests of feathers to be dyed, and the military cloaks and riding frocks
+to be embroidered.... Their arms becoming light and easy to them with
+constant use, they longed for nothing more than to try them with an
+enemy, and fight in earnest."
+
+Two years afterwards, in 208 B.C., Philopoemen was elected
+_strategus_, or general in-chief, of the Achæan league. The martial
+ardor of the army he had organized was not long left unsatisfied. It was
+with his old enemy, the Spartans, that he was first concerned.
+Machanidas, the Spartan king, having attacked the city of Mantinea,
+Philopoemen marched against him, and soon gave him other work to do. A
+part of the Achæan army flying, Machanidas hotly pursued. Philopoemen
+held back his main body until the enemy had become scattered in pursuit,
+when he charged upon them with such energy that they were repulsed, and
+over four thousand were killed. Machanidas returning in haste, strove to
+cross a deep ditch between him and his foe; but as he was struggling up
+its side, Philopoemen transfixed him with his javelin, and hurled him
+back dead into the muddy ditch.
+
+This victory greatly enhanced the fame of the Arcadian general. Some
+time afterwards he and a party of his young soldiers entered the theatre
+during the Nemean games, just as the actor was speaking the opening
+words of the play called "The Persians:"
+
+  "Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free."
+
+The whole audience at once turned towards Philopoemen, and clapped
+their hands with delight. It seemed to them that in this valiant warrior
+the ancient glory of Greece had returned, and for the time some of the
+old-time spirit came back. But, despite this momentary glow, the sun of
+Grecian freedom and glory was near its setting. A more dangerous enemy
+than Macedonia had arisen. Rome, which Pyrrhus had gone to Italy to
+seek, had its armies now in Greece itself, and the independence of that
+country would soon be no more.
+
+The next exploit of Philopoemen had to do with Messenia. Nabis, the
+new Spartan king, had taken that city at a time when Philopoemen was
+out of command, the generalship of the League not being permanent. He
+tried to persuade Lysippus, then general of the Achæans, to go to the
+relief of Messenia, but he refused, saying that it was lost beyond hope.
+Thereupon Philopoemen set out himself, followed by such of his fellow
+citizens as deemed him their general by nature's commission. The very
+wind of his coming won the town. Nabis, hearing that Philopoemen was
+near at hand, slipped hastily out of the city by the opposite gates,
+glad to get away in safety. He escaped, but Messenia was recovered. The
+martial spirit of Philopoemen next took him to Crete, where fighting
+was to be had to his taste. Yet he left his native city of Megalopolis
+so pressed by the enemy that its people were forced to sow grain in
+their very streets. However, he came back at length, met Nabis in the
+field, rescued the army from a dangerous situation, and put the enemy to
+flight. Soon after he made peace with Sparta, and achieved a remarkable
+triumph in inducing that great and famous city to join the Achæan
+League. In truth, the nobles of Sparta, glad to have so important an
+ally, sent Philopoemen a valuable present. But such was his reputation
+for honor that for a time no man could be found who dared offer it to
+him; and when at length the offer was made he went to Sparta himself,
+and advised its nobles, if they wanted any one to bribe, to let it not
+be good men, but those ill citizens whose seditious voices needed to be
+silenced.
+
+In the end Sparta was destined to suffer at the hands of its
+incorruptible ally, it having revolted from the League. Philopoemen
+marched into Laconia, led his army unopposed to Sparta, and took
+possession of that famous seat of Mars, within which no hostile foot had
+hitherto been set. He razed its walls to the ground, put to death those
+who had stirred the city to rebellion, and took away a great part of its
+territory, which he gave to Megalopolis. Those who had been made
+citizens of Sparta by tyrants he drove from the country, and three
+thousand who refused to go he sold into slavery; and, as a further
+insult, with the money received from their sale he built a colonnade at
+Megalopolis.
+
+Finally, as a death-blow to Spartan power, he abolished the time-honored
+laws of Lycurgus, under which that city had for centuries been so great,
+and forced the people to educate their children and live in the same
+manner as the Achæans. Thus ended the glory of Sparta. Some time
+afterwards its citizens resumed their old laws and customs, but the city
+had sunk from its high estate, and from that time forward vanished from
+history.
+
+At length, being then seventy years of age, misfortune came to this
+great warrior and ended his warlike career. An enemy of his had induced
+the Messenians to revolt from the Achæan League. At once the old
+soldier, though lying sick with a fever at Argos, rose from his bed, and
+reached Megalopolis, fifty miles away, in a day. Putting himself at the
+head of an army, he marched to meet the foe. In the fight that followed
+his force was driven back, and he became separated from his men in his
+efforts to protect the rear. Unluckily his horse stumbled in a stony
+place, and he was thrown to the ground and stunned. The enemy, who were
+following closely, at once made him prisoner, and carried him, with
+insult and contumely, and with loud shouts of triumph, to the city
+gates, through which the very tidings of his coming had once driven a
+triumphant foe.
+
+The Messenians rapidly turned from anger to pity for their noble foe,
+and would probably have in the end released him, had time been given
+them. But Dinocrates, their general and his enemy, resolved that
+Philopoemen should not escape from his hands. He confined him in a
+close prison, and, learning that his army had returned and were
+determined upon his rescue, decided that that night should be
+Philopoemen's last.
+
+The prisoner lay--not sleeping, but oppressed with grief and trouble--in
+his prison cell, when a man entered bearing poison in a cup.
+Philopoemen sat up, and, taking the cup, asked the man if he had heard
+anything of the Achæan horsemen.
+
+"The most of them got off safe," said the man.
+
+"It is well," said Philopoemen, with a cheerful look, "that we have
+not been in every way unfortunate."
+
+Then, without a word more, he drank the poison and lay down again. As he
+was old and weak from his fall, he was quickly dead.
+
+The news of his death filled all Achæa with lamentation and thirst for
+revenge. Messenia was ravaged with fire and sword till it submitted.
+Dinocrates and all who had voted for Philopoemen's death killed
+themselves to escape death by torture. All Achæa mourned at his funeral,
+statues were erected to his memory, and the highest honors decreed to
+him in many cities. In the words of Pausanias, a late Greek writer,
+"Miltiades was the first, and Philopoemen the last, benefactor to the
+whole of Greece."
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF GREECE._
+
+
+Greece learned too late the art of combining for self-defence. In the
+war against the vast power of Persia, Athens stood almost alone. What
+aid she got from the rest of Greece was given grudgingly. Themistocles
+had to gain the aid of the Grecian fleet at Salamis by a trick. Philip
+of Macedonia conquered Greece by dividing it and fighting it piecemeal.
+Only after the close of the Macedonian power and the beginning of that
+of Rome did Greece begin to learn the art of unity, and then the lesson
+came too late. The Achæan League, which combined the nations of the
+Peloponnesus into a federal republic, was in its early days kept busy in
+forcing its members to remain true to their pledge. If it had survived
+for a century it would probably have brought all Greece into the League,
+and have produced a nation capable of self-defence. But Rome already had
+her hand on the throat of Greece, and political wisdom came to that land
+too late to avail.
+
+[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, CORINTH.]
+
+We have come, indeed, to the end of the story of Grecian liberty. Twice
+Greece rose in arms against the power of Rome, but in the end she fell
+hopelessly into the fetters forged for the world by that lord of
+conquest. Of the celebrated cities of Greece two had already fallen.
+Thebes had been swept from the face of the earth in the wind of
+Alexander's wrath. Sparta had been reduced to a feeble village by the
+anger of Philopoemen. Corinth, now the largest and richest city of
+Greece, was to be razed to the ground for daring to defy Rome; and
+Athens was to be plundered and humiliated by a conquering Roman army.
+
+It will not take long to tell how all this came about. The story is a
+short one, but full of vital consequences. Philopoemen, the great
+general of the Achæan League, died of poison 183 B.C. In the same year
+died in exile Hannibal, the greatest foe Rome ever knew, and Scipio, one
+of its ablest generals. Rome was already master of Greece. But the Roman
+senate feared trouble from the growth of the Achæan League, and, to
+weaken it, took a thousand of its noblest citizens, under various
+charges, and sent them as hostages to Rome. Among them was the
+celebrated historian Polybius, who wrote the history of Hannibal's wars.
+
+These exiles were not brought to trial on the weak charges made against
+them, but they were detained in Italy for seventeen years. By the end of
+that time many of them had died, and Rome at last did what it was not in
+the habit of doing, it took pity on those who were left and let them
+return home.
+
+Roman pity in this case proved disastrous to Greece. Many of the exiles
+were exasperated by their treatment, and were no sooner at home than
+they began to stir up the people to revolt. Polybius held them back for
+a time, but during his absence the spirit of sedition grew. It was
+intensified by the action of Rome, which, to weaken Greece, resolved to
+dissolve the Achæan League, or to take from it its strongest cities.
+Roman ambassadors carried this edict to Corinth, the great city of the
+League. When their errand become known the people rose in riot, insulted
+the ambassadors, and vowed that they were not and would not be the
+slaves of Rome.
+
+If they had shown the strength and spirit to sustain their vow they
+might have had some warrant for it. But the fanatics who stirred the
+country to revolt against the advice of its wisest citizens proved
+incapable in war. Their army was finally put to rout in the year 146
+B.C. by a Roman army under the leadership of Lucius Mummius, consul of
+Rome.
+
+This Roman victory was won in the vicinity of Corinth. The routed army
+did not seek to defend itself in that city, but fled past its open
+gates, and left it to the mercy of the Roman general. The gates still
+stood open. No defence was made. But Mummius, fearing some trick, waited
+a day or two before entering. On doing so he found the city nearly
+deserted. The bulk of the population had fled. The greatest and richest
+city which Greece then possessed had fallen without a blow struck in its
+defence.
+
+Yet Mummius chose to consider it as a city taken by storm. All the men
+who remained were put to the sword; the women and children were kept to
+be sold as slaves; the town was mercilessly plundered of its wealth and
+treasures of art.
+
+But this degree of vengeance did not satisfy Rome. Her ambassadors had
+been insulted,--by a mob, it is true; but in those days the law-abiding
+had often to suffer for the deeds of the mob. The Achæan League, with
+Corinth at its head, had dared to resist the might and majesty of Rome.
+A lesson must be given that would not be easily forgotten. Corinth must
+be utterly destroyed.
+
+Such was the deliberate decision of the Roman senate; such the order
+sent to Mummius. At his command the plundering of the city was
+completed. It was fabulously rich in works of art. Many of these were
+sent to Rome. Many of them were destroyed. The Romans were ignorant of
+their value. Their leader himself was as incompetent and ignorant as any
+Roman general could well be. He had but one thought, to obey the orders
+of the senate. The plundered city was thereupon set on fire and burned
+to the ground, its walls were pulled down, the spot where it had stood
+was cursed, its territory was declared the property of the Roman people.
+No more complete destruction of a city had ever taken place. A century
+afterwards Corinth was rebuilt by order of Julius Cæsar, but it never
+became again the Corinth of old.
+
+As for the destruction of works of priceless value, it was pitiable.
+When Polybius returned and saw the ruins, he found common soldiers
+playing dice on paintings of the most celebrated artists of Greece.
+Mummius, who was as honest as he was dull-witted, strictly obeyed orders
+in sending the choicest of the spoil to Rome, and made himself forever
+famous as a marvel of stupidity by a remark to those who were charged
+with the conveyance of some of the noblest of Grecian statues.
+
+"Take good care that you do not lose these on the way," he said; "for if
+you do you shall be made to replace them by others of equal value."
+
+Rome could conquer the world, but honest Mummius had set a task which
+Rome throughout its whole history was not able to perform.
+
+Thus ended the death-struggle of Greece. The chiefs of the party of
+revolt were put to death; the inhabitants of Corinth who had fled were
+taken and sold as slaves. The walls of all the cities which had resisted
+Rome were levelled to the ground. An annual tribute was laid on them by
+the conquerors. Self-government was left to the states of Greece, but
+they were deprived of their old privilege of making war.
+
+Yet Greece might have flourished under the new conditions, for peace
+heals the wounds made by war, had its states not been too much weakened
+by their previous conflicts, and had not a new war arisen just when they
+were beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of peace.
+
+This war, which broke out sixty years later, had its origin in Asia.
+Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, had made himself master of all
+Asia Minor, where he ordered that all the Romans found should be killed.
+It is said that eighty thousand were slaughtered. Then he sent an army
+into Greece, under his general Archelaus, and there found the people
+ready and willing to join him, in the hope of gaining their freedom by
+his aid. Rome just then seemed weak, and they deemed it a good season to
+rebel.
+
+Archelaus took possession of Athens and the Piræus, from which all the
+friends of Rome were driven into exile. Meanwhile, Rome was distracted
+by the struggle between the two great leaders Marius and Sulla. But
+leaving Rome to take care of itself, Sulla marched an army against
+Mithridates, entered Greece, and laid siege to Athens.
+
+This was in the year 87 B.C. The siege that followed was a long one.
+Archelaus lay in Piræus, with abundance of food, and had command of the
+sea. But the long walls that led to Athens had long since vanished. Food
+could not be conveyed from the port to the city, as of old. Hunger came
+to the aid of Rome. Resistance having almost ceased, Sulla broke into
+the famous old city March 1, 86 B.C., and gave it up to rapine and
+pillage by his soldiers.
+
+Yet Athens was not destroyed as Corinth had been. Sulla had some respect
+for art and antiquity, and carefully preserved the old monuments of the
+city, while such of its people as had not been massacred were restored
+to their civil rights as subjects of Rome. Soon the Asiatics were driven
+from Greece and Roman dominion was once more restored. Thus ended the
+last struggle for liberty in Greece. Nineteen hundred years were to pass
+away before another blow for freedom would be struck on Grecian soil.
+
+
+
+
+_ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS._
+
+
+Among the most famous of the women of ancient days must be named
+Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the East, and who claimed
+to be descended from the kings whom the conquests of Alexander left over
+Egypt, the Ptolemies, among whose descendants was included the still
+more celebrated Cleopatra. Zenobia was the most lovely as well as the
+most heroic of her sex, no woman of Asiatic birth ever having equalled
+her in striking evidence of valor and ability, and none surpassed her in
+beauty. We are told that while of a dark complexion, her smile revealed
+teeth of pearly whiteness, while her large black eyes sparkled with an
+uncommon brightness that was softened by the most attractive sweetness.
+She possessed a strong and melodious voice, and, in short, had all the
+charms of womanly beauty.
+
+Her mind was as well stored as her body was attractive. She was familiar
+with the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages, and was an adept
+also in Latin, then the political language of the civilized world. She
+was an earnest student of Oriental history, of which she herself drew up
+an epitome, while she was fully conversant with Homer and Plato, and the
+other great writers of Greece.
+
+This lovely and accomplished woman gave her hand in marriage to
+Odenathus, who from a private station had gained by his valor the empire
+of the East. He made Syria his by courage and ability, and twice pursued
+the Persian king to the gates of Ctesiphon. Of this hero Zenobia became
+the companion and adviser. In hunting, of which he was passionately
+fond, she emulated him, pursuing the lions, panthers, and other wild
+beasts of the desert with an ardor equal to his own, and a fortitude and
+endurance which his did not surpass. Inured to fatigue, she usually
+appeared on horseback in a military habit, and at times marched on foot
+at the head of the troops. Odenathus owed his success largely to the
+prudence and fortitude of his incomparable wife.
+
+In the midst of his successes in war, Odenathus was cut off in 250 A.D.
+by assassination. He had punished his nephew, who killed him in return.
+Zenobia at once succeeded to the vacant throne, and by her ability
+governed Palmyra, Syria, and the East. In this task, in which no man
+could have surpassed her in courage and judgment, she was aided by the
+counsels of one of the ablest Greeks who had appeared since the days of
+the famous writers of the classical age. Longinus, who had been her
+preceptor in the language and literature of Greece, and who, on her
+ascending the throne, became her secretary and chief counsellor in state
+affairs, was a literary critic and philosopher whose lucid intellect
+seemed to belong to the brightest days of Greece. He was probably a
+native of Syria, born some time after 200 A.D., and had studied
+literature and philosophy at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, under the
+ablest teachers of the age. His learning was immense, and he is the
+first man to whom was applied the expression "a living library," or, to
+give it its modern form, "a walking encyclopædia." His writings were
+lively and penetrating, showing at once taste, judgment, and learning.
+We have only fragments of them, except the celebrated "Treatise on the
+Sublime," which is one of the most notable of ancient critical
+productions.
+
+Under the advice of this distinguished counsellor, Zenobia entered upon
+a career which brought her disaster, but has also brought her fame. Her
+husband Odenathus had avenged Valerian, the Roman emperor, who had been
+taken prisoner and shamefully treated by the Persian king. For this
+service he was confirmed in his authority by the senate of Rome. But
+after his death the senate refused to grant this authority to his widow,
+and called on her to deliver her dominion over to Rome. Under the advice
+of Longinus the martial queen refused, defied the power of Rome, and
+determined to maintain her empire in despite of the senate and army of
+the proud "master of the world."
+
+War at once broke out. A Roman army invaded Syria, but was met by
+Zenobia with such warlike energy and skill that it was hurled back in
+defeat, and its commanding general, having lost his army, was driven
+back to Europe in disgrace. This success gave Zenobia the highest fame
+and power in the world of the Orient. The states of Arabia, Armenia,
+and Persia, in dread of her enmity, solicited alliance with her. To her
+dominions, which extended from the Euphrates over much of Asia Minor and
+to the borders of Arabia, she added the populous kingdom of Egypt, the
+inheritance of her claimed ancestors. The Roman emperor Claudius
+acknowledged her authority and left her unmolested. Assuming the
+splendid title of Queen of the East, she established at her court the
+stately power of the courts of Asia, exacted from her subjects the
+adoration shown to the Persian king, and, while strict in her economy,
+at times displayed the greatest liberality and magnificence.
+
+But a new emperor came to the throne in Rome, and a new period in the
+history of Zenobia began. Aurelian, a fierce and vigorous soldier,
+marched at the head of the Roman legions against this valiant queen, who
+had built herself up an empire of great extent, and demanded that she
+should submit to the power of his arms. Asia Minor was quickly restored
+to Rome, Antioch fell into the hands of Aurelian, and the Romans still
+advanced, to meet the army of the Syrian queen. Meeting near Antioch, a
+great battle was fought. Zabdas, who had conquered Egypt for Zenobia,
+led her army, but the valiant queen animated her soldiers by her
+presence, and exhorted them to the utmost exertions. Her troops, great
+in number, were mainly composed of light-armed archers and of cavalry
+clothed in complete steel. These Asiatic warriors proved incapable of
+enduring the charge of the veteran legions of Rome. The army of Zenobia
+met with defeat, and at a subsequent battle, near Emesa, met with a
+second disastrous repulse.
+
+Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. Most of the nations
+under her control had submitted to the conqueror. Egypt was invaded by a
+Roman army. Out of her lately great empire only her capital, Palmyra,
+remained. Here she retired, made preparations for a vigorous defence,
+and declared that her reign and life should only end together.
+
+Palmyra was then one of the most splendid cities of the world. A
+halting-place for the caravans which conveyed to Europe the rich
+products of India and the East, it had grown into a great and opulent
+city, whose former magnificence is shown by the ruins of temples,
+palaces, and porticos of Grecian architecture, which now extend over a
+district of several miles. In this city, surrounded with strong walls,
+Zenobia had gathered the various military engines which in those days
+were used in siege and defence, and, woman though she was, was prepared
+to make the most vigorous resistance to the armies of Rome.
+
+Aurelian had before him no light task. In his march over the desert the
+Arabs harassed him perpetually. The siege proved difficult, and the
+emperor, leading the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart.
+Aurelian, finding that he had undertaken no trifling task, prudently
+offered excellent terms to the besieged, but they were rejected with
+insulting language. Zenobia hoped that famine would come to her aid to
+defeat her foe, and had reason to expect that Persia would send an army
+to her relief. Neither happened. The Persian king had just died.
+Convoys of food crossed the desert in safety. Despairing at length of
+success, Zenobia mounted her fleetest dromedary and fled across the
+desert to the Euphrates. Here she was overtaken and brought back a
+captive to the emperor's feet.
+
+Soon afterwards Palmyra surrendered. The emperor treated it with lenity,
+but a great treasure in gold, silver, silk, and precious stones fell
+into his hands, with all the animals and arms. Zenobia being brought
+into his presence, he sternly asked her how she had dared to take arms
+against the emperors of Rome. She answered, with respectful prudence,
+"Because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a
+Gallienus. You alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign."
+
+Her fortitude, however, did not last. The soldiers, with angry clamor,
+demanded her immediate execution, and the unhappy queen, losing for the
+first time the courage which had so long sustained her, gave way to
+terror, and declared that her resistance was not due to herself, but had
+arisen from the counsels of Longinus and her other advisers. It was the
+one base act in the woman's life. She had purchased a brief period of
+existence at the expense of honor and fame. Aurelian, a fierce soldier,
+to whom the learning of Longinus made no appeal, at once ordered his
+execution. The scholar died like a philosopher. He uttered no complaint.
+He pitied, but did not blame, his mistress. He comforted his afflicted
+friends. With the calm fortitude of Socrates he followed the
+executioner, and died like one for whom death had no terrors. The
+ignorant emperor, in seizing the treasures of Palmyra, did not know that
+he had lost its choicest treasure in setting free the soul of Longinus
+the scholar.
+
+What followed may be more briefly told. Marching back with his spoils
+from Palmyra, Aurelian had already reached Europe when word came to him
+that the Palmyrians whom he had spared had risen in revolt and massacred
+his garrison. Instantly turning, he marched back, his soul filled with
+thirst for revenge. Reaching Palmyra with great celerity, his wrath fell
+with murderous fury on that devoted city. Not only armed rebels, but
+women and children, were massacred, and the city was almost levelled
+with the earth. The greatness of Palmyra was at an end. It never
+recovered from this dreadful blow. It sunk, step by step, into the
+miserable village, in the midst of stately ruins, into which it has now
+declined.
+
+On his return Aurelian celebrated his victories and conquests with a
+magnificent triumph, one of the most ostentatious that any Roman emperor
+had ever given. His conquests had been great, both in the West and the
+East, and no emperor had better deserved a triumphant return to the
+imperial city, the mistress of the world.
+
+All day long, from morning to night, the grand procession wound on. At
+its head were twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and about two hundred
+of the most curious and interesting animals of the North, South, and
+East. Sixteen hundred gladiators followed, destined for the cruel sports
+to be held in the amphitheatre. Then came a display of the wealth of
+Palmyra, the magnificent plate and wardrobe of Zenobia, the arms and
+ensigns of numerous conquered nations. Embassadors from the most remote
+regions of the civilized earth,--from Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, India,
+and China,--attired in rich and singular dresses, attested the fame of
+the Roman emperor, while his power was shown by the many presents he had
+received, among them a great number of crowns of gold, which had been
+given him by grateful cities.
+
+[Illustration: THE RUINS OF PALMYRA.]
+
+A long train of captives next declared his triumph, among them Goths,
+Vandals, Franks, Gauls, Germans, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each people was
+distinguished by its peculiar inscription, the title of Amazons being
+given to ten Gothic heroines who had been taken in arms. But in this
+great crowd of unhappy captives one above all attracted the attention of
+the host of spectators, the beauteous figure of the Queen of the East.
+Zenobia was so laden with jewels as almost to faint under their weight.
+Her limbs bore fetters of gold, while the golden chain that encircled
+her neck was of such weight that it had to be supported by a slave. She
+walked along the streets of Rome, preceding the magnificent chariot in
+which she had indulged hopes of riding in triumph through those grand
+avenues. Behind it came two other chariots, still more sumptuous, those
+of Odenathus and the Persian monarch. The triumphal car of Aurelian,
+which followed, was one which had formerly been used by a Gothic king,
+and was drawn by four stags or four elephants, we are not sure which.
+The most illustrious of the senate, the people, and the army closed this
+grand procession, which was gazed upon with joy and wonder by the vast
+population of Rome.
+
+So extended was the pompous parade that though it began with the dawn of
+day, the ninth hour had arrived when it ascended to the Capitol, and
+night had fallen when the emperor returned to his palace. Then followed
+theatrical representations, games in the circus, gladiatorial combats,
+wild-beast shows, and naval engagements. Not for generations had Rome
+seen such a festival. Of the rich spoils a considerable portion was
+dedicated to the gods of Rome, the temples glittered with golden
+offerings, and the Temple of the Sun, a magnificent structure erected by
+Aurelian, was enriched with more than fifteen thousand pounds of gold.
+
+To Zenobia the victor behaved with a generous clemency such as the
+conquering emperors of Rome rarely indulged in. He presented her with an
+elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the imperial
+city; and here, surrounded by luxury, she who had played so imperial a
+_rôle_ in history sank into the humbler state of a Roman matron. Her
+daughters married into noble families, and the descendants of the once
+Queen of the East were still known in Rome in the fifth century of the
+Christian era.
+
+
+
+
+_THE LITERARY GLORY OF GREECE._
+
+
+Shall we now leave the domain of historic events, of which the land of
+Greece presents so large and varied a store, and consider that other
+feature of national life and development which has made Greece the most
+notable of lands--the intellectual growth of its people, the splendor of
+art and literature which gave it a glory that glows unfading still?
+
+In the whole history of mankind there is nothing elsewhere to compare
+with the achievements of the Greek intellect during the few centuries in
+which freedom and thought flourished on that rocky peninsula, and the
+names and works handed down to us are among the noblest in the grand
+republic of thought. Just when this remarkable era of literature began
+we do not know. So far as any remains of it are concerned, it began as
+the sun begins its daily career in the heavens, with a lustre not
+surpassed in any part of its course. For the oldest of Greek writings
+which we possess are among the most brilliant, comprising the poems of
+Homer, the model of all later works in the epic field, and which light
+up and illustrate a broad period of human history as no works in
+different vein could do. They shine out in a realm of darkness, and
+show us what men were doing and thinking and how they were living and
+striving at a time which but for them would be buried in impenetrable
+darkness.
+
+This was the epoch of the wandering minstrel, when the bard sang his
+stirring lays of warlike scenes and heroic deeds in castle and court.
+But the mind of Greece was then awakening in other fields, and it is of
+great interest to find that Homer was quickly followed by an epic writer
+of markedly different vein, Hesiod, the poet of peace and rural labors,
+of the home and the field. While Homer paints for us the warlike life of
+his day, Hesiod paints the peaceful labors of the husbandman, the
+holiness of domestic life, the duty of economy, the education of youth,
+and the details of commerce and politics. He also collects the flying
+threads of mythological legend and lays down for us the story of the
+gods in a work of great value as the earliest exposition of this
+picturesque phase of religious belief. The veil is lifted from the face
+of youthful Greece by these two famous writers, and we are shown the
+land and its people in full detail at a period of whose conditions we
+otherwise would be in total ignorance.
+
+Such was the earliest phase of Greek literature, so far as any remains
+of it exist. It took on a different form when Athens rose to political
+supremacy and became a capital of art and the chief centre of Hellenic
+thought, its productions being received with admiration throughout
+Greece, while the ripened judgment and taste of its citizens became the
+arbiters of literary excellence for many centuries to follow. The
+earliest notable literature, however, came from the Ionians of Asia
+Minor and the adjacent islands. In the soft and mild climate and
+productive valleys of this region and under the warm suns and beside the
+limpid seas of the smiling islands, the mobile Ionic spirit found
+inspiration and blossomed into song while yet the rocky Attic soil was
+barren of literary growth. But with the conquering inroads of the
+Persians literature fled from this field to find a new home among "those
+busy Athenians, who are never at rest themselves nor are willing to let
+any one else be."
+
+[Illustration: ALONG THE COAST OF GREECE.]
+
+The day of the epic poet had now passed and the lyric took its place,
+making its first appearance, like the epic, in Ionia and the Ægean
+islands, but finding its most appreciative audience and enthusiastic
+support in Athens, the coming home of the muse. Song became the
+prevailing literary demand, and was supplied abundantly by such choice
+singers as Sappho, Alcæus, Anacreon, Simonides, and others of the soft
+and cheerful vein, the biting satires of Archilochus, the noble odes of
+Pindar, the war anthems of Tyrtæus, and the productions of many of
+lesser fame.
+
+This flourishing period of song sank away when a new form of literature,
+that of the drama, suddenly came into being and attained immediate
+popularity. For a century earlier it had been slowly taking form in the
+rural districts of Attica, beginning in the odes addressed to Dionysus,
+the god of wine, the Bacchus of Roman mythology. These odes were sung
+at the public festivals of the vintage season, were accompanied by
+gesture and action and in time by dialogue, and the day came when groups
+of amateur actors travelled in carts from place to place to present
+their rude dramatic scenes, then mainly composed of song and dance, rude
+jests, and dialogues. In this way the drama slowly came into being,
+comedy from the jovial by-play of the rustic actors, tragedy from their
+crude efforts to reproduce the serious side of mythologic story. A great
+tragic artist and poet, the far-famed Æschylus, lifted these primitive
+attempts into the field of the true drama. He was quickly followed by
+two other great artists in the same field, Sophocles and Euripides,
+while the efforts of the earlier comedians were succeeded by the
+fun-distilling productions of Aristophanes, the greatest of ancient
+artists in this field.
+
+This blossoming age of poetry and the drama came after the desperate
+struggles of the Persian War, which had left Athens a heap of ruins. In
+the new Athens which rose under the fostering care of Pericles, not only
+literature flourished but art reached its culmination, temple and hall,
+colonnade and theatre showing the artistic beauty and grandeur of the
+new architecture, while such sculptors as Phidias and such painters as
+Zeuxis adorned the city with the noblest products of art. During these
+busy years Athens became a marvel of beauty and art, the resort of
+strangers from all quarters, the ablest workers in marble and metal,
+the noblest artists, poets, and philosophers, until for more than a
+century that city was the recognized centre of the loftiest products of
+the human intellect.
+
+Prose came later than poetry, but was soon flourishing as luxuriantly.
+The early historians quickly yielded Herodotus, the delightful old
+storyteller, with his poetic prose; Xenophon, with his lucid and flowing
+narrative; and Thucydides, the greatest of ancient historians and the
+first to give philosophic depth to the annals of mankind. The advent of
+history was accompanied by that of oratory, which among the Greeks
+developed into one of the choicest forms of literature, especially in
+the case of the greatest of the world's orators, Demosthenes, whose
+orations were inspired by the noblest of themes, that of a patriotic
+effort to preserve the independence of Greece against the ambitious
+designs of Philip of Macedon.
+
+Philosophy, the third great form of Greek prose literature, was as
+diligently cultivated, and has left as many examples for modern perusal.
+The works of the earlier philosophers were in verse, while Socrates, the
+first of the moral philosophers, left no writings, doing his work with
+tongue instead of pen, though he forms the leading character in Plato's
+philosophic dialogues. In Plato we have the most famous of the world's
+philosophers, and a writer of the ablest skill, in whose works the
+imagination of the poet is happily blended with the reasoning of the
+philosopher, his productions constituting a form of philosophic drama,
+in which the character of each speaker is closely preserved, Socrates
+being usually the chief personage introduced.
+
+Following Plato came Aristotle, his equal in fame though not in literary
+merit. His name will long survive as that of one of the ablest thinkers
+the world has produced, a reasoner of exceptional ability, whose scope
+of research covered all fields and whose discoveries in practical
+science formed the first true introduction to mankind of this great
+field of human study, to-day the greatest of them all.
+
+We have named here only the leaders in Greek literature, the whole array
+being far too great to cover in brief space. Following the older form of
+the drama, with its archaic character, came two later forms, the Middle
+and the New Comedy, in the latter of which Menander was the most famous
+writer, making in his plays some approach to the modern form. Philosophy
+left later exponents in Zeno, Epicurus, and many others, and history in
+Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch, Arrian, and others of note. Science, as
+developed by Aristotle and Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was
+carried forward by many others, including Theophrastus, the able
+successor of Aristotle; Euclid, the first great geometer; Eratosthenes
+and Hipparchus, the astronomers; and, latest of ancient scientists,
+Ptolemy, whose works on astronomy and geography became the text-books of
+the middle-age schools.
+
+Long before these later writers came into the field the centres of
+literary effort had shifted to new localities. Sicily became the field
+of the choicest lyric poetry, giving us Theocritus, with his charming
+"Idyls," or scenes of rural life, and his songful dialogues, with their
+fine description and delightful humor. Following him came Bion and
+Moschus, two other bucolic poets, whose finest productions are elegies
+of unsurpassed beauty.
+
+Syracuse was the home of this new field of lyric poetry, but there were
+other centres in which literature flourished, especially Pergamus,
+Antiochia, Pella, and above all Alexandria, the city founded by
+Alexander the Great in Egypt, and which under the fostering care of the
+Ptolemies, Alexander's successors in this quarter, developed into a
+remarkable centre of intellectual effort.
+
+The first Ptolemy made Alexandria his capital and founded there a great
+state institution which became famous as the Museum, and to which
+philosophers, scholars, and students flocked from all parts of the
+world. Here learned men could find a retreat from the bustle of the
+great metropolis which Alexandria became, and pursue their studies or
+teach their pupils in peace within its walls, and it is said that at one
+time fourteen thousand students gathered within its classic shades.
+
+Here grew up two great libraries, said to number seven hundred thousand
+volumes, and embracing all that was worthy of study or preservation in
+the writings of ancient days. Of these, one was burned during the siege
+of the city by Julius Cæsar, but it was replaced by Marc Antony, who
+robbed Pergamus of its splendid library of two hundred thousand volumes
+and sent it to Alexandria as a present to Cleopatra.
+
+In this secure retreat, amply supported by the liberality of the
+Ptolemies, philosophers and scholars spent their days in mental culture
+and learned lectures and debates. The scientific studies inaugurated by
+Aristotle were here continued by a succession of great astronomers,
+geometers, chemists, and physicians, for whose use were furnished a
+botanical garden, a menagerie of animals, and facilities for human
+dissection, the first school of anatomy ever known.
+
+In the heart of the great library, battening on books, flourished a
+circle of learned literary critics, engaged in the study of Homer and
+the other already classical writers of Greece and supplying new and
+revised editions of their works. Here philosophy was ardently pursued,
+the works of Plato and his great rivals being diligently studied, while
+in a later age the innovation of Neoplatonism was abundantly debated and
+taught. A new school of poetry also arose, most of its followers being
+mechanical versifiers, though the idyllic poets of Sicily sought these
+favoring halls. Most famous among the philosophers of Alexandria was the
+maiden Hypatia, who had studied in the still active schools of Athens,
+and taught the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle and the then popular
+tenets of Neoplatonism--her fame being chiefly due to her violent and
+terrible death at the hands of fanatical opponents of her teachings.
+
+The dynasty of the Ptolemies vanished with the death of Cleopatra, and
+during the wars and struggles that followed the library disappeared and
+the supremacy of Alexandria as a centre of mental culture passed away.
+The literary culture of Athens, whose schools of philosophy long
+survived its downfall as the capital of an independent state, also
+disappeared after being plundered of many of its works of art by Sulla,
+the Roman tyrant, and in later years for the adornment of
+Constantinople; its schools were closed by order of the Emperor
+Justinian in 529 A.D.; and with them the light of science and learning,
+which had been shining for many centuries, though very dimly at the
+last, was extinguished, and the final vestige of the glory of Athens and
+the artistic and literary supremacy of Greece vanished from the land of
+their birth.
+
+  THE END.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The sequel to this episode will be found in the tale entitled "The
+Fortune of Croesus."
+
+[2] Equal to about one thousand dollars.
+
+[3] The army of Sparta, which before had stayed at home to await the
+full of the moon, did so now to complete certain religious ceremonies,
+sparing but this handful of men for the vital need of Greece.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL 10 (OF 15) ***
+
+***** This file should be named 25642-8.txt or 25642-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/4/25642/
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/25642-8.zip b/25642-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e92ec58
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-8.zip
diff --git a/25642-h.zip b/25642-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e3cc3a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h.zip
diff --git a/25642-h/25642-h.htm b/25642-h/25642-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8dd0129
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/25642-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,9977 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Historical Tales, Volume 10, by Charles Morris.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         text-indent: 1.25em;
+         }
+    p.old {font-family: "Old English Text MT"; text-align: center;
+           text-indent: 0em;}
+    p.t1 {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-size: 120%;
+          margin-top: -2em;}
+    p.t2 {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-size: 150%;}
+    p.t3 {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-size: 90%;
+          letter-spacing: 2px;}
+    p.t4 {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-size: 120%}
+    p.old2 {font-family: "Old English Text MT"; text-align: center;
+           text-indent: 0em; font-size: 130%;}
+
+    h1 {letter-spacing: 4px; text-align: center; clear: both;
+        font-size: 350%; font-weight: normal;}
+    h2 {letter-spacing: 2px; text-align: center; clear: both;
+        font-weight: normal; margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+    h3 {text-align: center; clear: both; letter-spacing: 2px;}
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+    hr.short {width: 15%;}
+
+    table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+    .td1  {text-align: left; padding-right: 3em;}
+    .td2  {text-align: right;}
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    a {text-decoration: none;}
+    .pagenum  {display: inline;	font-size: 0.6em; text-align: right;
+               position: absolute; right: 2%; text-indent: 0em;
+               padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal;
+               font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;
+               color: #444; background-color: #FF99CC;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+    .ampm     {text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .caption  {font-weight: normal; font-size: 110%;}
+
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+    .footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+    .footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
+
+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-indent: 0em;}
+
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15)
+       The Romance of Reality
+
+Author: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008 [EBook #25642]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL 10 (OF 15) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a name="OLYMPIA" id="OLYMPIA"></a>
+<img src="images/front.jpg" width="600" height="411" alt="A GREEK SHEPHERD, OLYMPIA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A GREEK SHEPHERD, OLYMPIA.</span>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+
+<p class="old">&Eacute;dition d'&Eacute;lite</p>
+
+
+<h1>Historical Tales</h1>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="t1">The Romance of Reality<br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">By</p>
+
+<p class="t2">CHARLES MORRIS</p>
+
+<p class="center"><small><i>Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
+Dramatists," etc.</i></small><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="t3">IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES</p>
+
+<p class="t4">Volume X<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="old2">Greek</p>
+
+<p class="t2">J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
+</p>
+<hr />
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><small>
+Copyright, 1896, by <span class="smcap">J.B. Lippincott Company.</span><br />
+Copyright, 1904, by <span class="smcap">J.B. Lippincott Company.</span><br />
+Copyright, 1908, by <span class="smcap">J.B. Lippincott Company.</span><br />
+</small></p>
+<hr />
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC">
+<tr><td class="td1">&nbsp;</td><td class="td2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">How Troy Was Taken</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Voyage of the Argonauts</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Theseus and Ariadne</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Seven Against Thebes</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Lycurgus and the Spartan Laws</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Aristomenes, the Hero of Messenia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Solon, the Law-Giver of Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Fortune of Cr&#339;sus</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Suitors of Agarist&eacute;</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Tyrants of Corinth</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Ring of Polycrates</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Adventures of Democedes</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Darius and the Scythians</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Athenians at Marathon</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Xerxes and His Army</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">How the Spartans Died at Thermopyl&aelig;</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Wooden Walls of Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Plat&aelig;a's Famous Day</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Four Famous Men of Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">How Athens Rose From its Ashes</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Plague at Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Envoys of Life and Death</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Defence of Plat&aelig;a</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">How the Long Walls Went Down</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Socrates and Alcibiades</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Retreat of the Ten Thousand</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Rescue of Thebes</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Humiliation of Sparta</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Timoleon, the Favorite of Fortune</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Sacred War</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Alexander the Great and Darius</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The World's Greatest Orator</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Olympic Games</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Pyrrhus and the Romans</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Philop&#339;men and the Fall of Sparta</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Death-Struggle of Greece</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_345">345</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Zenobia and Longinus</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_351">351</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Literary Glory of Greece</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_360">360</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="center"><big>GREEK.</big></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td class="td1">&nbsp;</td><td class="td2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">A Greek Shepherd, Olympia</span></td><td class="td2"><i><a href="#OLYMPIA">Frontispiece.</a></i></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Parting of Hector and Andromache</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">&#338;dipus and Antigone</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Grecian Ladies at Home</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Acropolis of Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Ruins of the Parthenon</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Place of Assembly of the Athenians</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Victors at Salamis</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Ancient Entrance To the Stadium, Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">A Reunion at the House of Aspasia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Pir&aelig;us, the Port of Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Prison of Socrates, Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Gate of the Agora, or Oil Market, Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Bed of the River Kladeos</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Death of Alexander the Great</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Modern Olympic Games in the Stadium</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_316">316</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Theatre of Bacchus, Athens</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_322">322</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Remains of the Temple of Minerva, Corinth</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_345">345</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Ruins of Palmyra</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_358">358</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Along the Coast of Greece</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_362">362</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>HOW TROY WAS TAKEN.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> far-famed Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, was the most
+beautiful woman in the world. And from her beauty and faithlessness came
+the most celebrated of ancient wars, with death and disaster to numbers
+of famous heroes and the final ruin of the ancient city of Troy. The
+story of these striking events has been told only in poetry. We propose
+to tell it again in sober prose.</p>
+
+<p>But warning must first be given that Helen and the heroes of the Trojan
+war dwelt in the mist-land of legend and tradition, that cloud-realm
+from which history only slowly emerged. The facts with which we are here
+concerned are those of the poet, not those of the historian. It is far
+from sure that Helen ever lived. It is far from sure that there ever was
+a Trojan war. Many people doubt the whole story. Yet the ancient Greeks
+accepted it as history, and as we are telling their story, we may fairly
+include it among the historical tales of Greece. The heroes concerned
+are certainly fully alive in Homer's great poem, the "Iliad," and we can
+do no better than follow the story of this stirring poem, while adding
+details from other sources.</p>
+
+<p>Mythology tells us that, once upon a time, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> three goddesses, Venus,
+Juno, and Minerva, had a contest as to which was the most beautiful, and
+left the decision to Paris, then a shepherd on Mount Ida, though really
+the son of King Priam of Troy. The princely shepherd decided in favor of
+Venus, who had promised him in reward the love of the most beautiful of
+living women, the Spartan Helen, daughter of the great deity Zeus (or
+Jupiter). Accordingly the handsome and favored youth set sail for
+Sparta, bringing with him rich gifts for its beautiful queen. Menelaus
+received his Trojan guest with much hospitality, but, unluckily, was
+soon obliged to make a journey to Crete, leaving Helen to entertain the
+princely visitor. The result was as Venus had foreseen. Love arose
+between the handsome youth and the beautiful woman, and an elopement
+followed, Paris stealing away with both the wife and the money of his
+confiding host. He set sail, had a prosperous voyage, and arrived safely
+at Troy with his prize on the third day. This was a fortune very
+different from that of Ulysses, who on his return from Troy took ten
+years to accomplish a similar voyage.</p>
+
+<p>As might naturally be imagined, this elopement excited indignation not
+only in the hearts of Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon, but among the
+Greek chieftains generally, who sympathized with the husband in his
+grief and shared his anger against Troy. War was declared against that
+faithless city, and most of the chiefs pledged themselves to take part
+in it, and to lend their aid until Helen was recovered or restored. Had
+they known all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> that was before them they might have hesitated, since it
+took ten long years to equip the expedition, for ten years more the war
+continued, and some of the leaders spent ten years in their return. But
+in those old days time does not seem to have counted for much, and
+besides, many of the chieftains had been suitors for the hand of Helen,
+and were doubtless moved by their old love in pledging themselves to her
+recovery.</p>
+
+<p>Some of them, however, were anything but eager to take part. Achilles
+and Ulysses, the two most important in the subsequent war, endeavored to
+escape this necessity. Achilles was the son of the sea-nymph Thetis, who
+had dipped him when an infant in the river Styx, the waters of which
+magic stream rendered him invulnerable to any weapon except in one
+spot,&mdash;the heel by which his mother had held him. But her love for her
+son made her anxious to guard him against every danger, and when the
+chieftains came to seek his aid in the expedition, she concealed him,
+dressed as a girl, among the maidens of the court. But the crafty
+Ulysses, who accompanied them, soon exposed this trick. Disguised as a
+pedler, he spread his goods, a shield and a spear among them, before the
+maidens. Then an alarm of danger being sounded, the girls fled in
+affright, but the disguised youth, with impulsive valor, seized the
+weapons and prepared to defend himself. His identity was thus revealed.</p>
+
+<p>Ulysses himself, one of the wisest and shrewdest of men, had also sought
+to escape the dangerous expedition. To do so he feigned madness, and
+when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the messenger chiefs came to seek him they found him attempting to
+plough with an ox and a horse yoked together, while he sowed the field
+with salt. One of them, however, took Telemachus, the young son of
+Ulysses, and laid him in the furrow before the plough. Ulysses turned
+the plough aside, and thus showed that there was more method than
+madness in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>And thus, in time, a great force of men and a great fleet of ships were
+gathered, there being in all eleven hundred and eighty-six ships and
+more than one hundred thousand men. The kings and chieftains of Greece
+led their followers from all parts of the land to Aulis, in B&#339;otia,
+whence they were to set sail for the opposite coast of Asia Minor, on
+which stood the city of Troy. Agamemnon, who brought one hundred ships,
+was chosen leader of the army, which included all the heroes of the age,
+among them the distinguished warriors Ajax and Diomedes, the wise old
+Nestor, and many others of valor and fame.</p>
+
+<p>The fleet at length set sail; but Troy was not easily reached. The
+leaders of the army did not even know where Troy was, and landed in the
+wrong locality, where they had a battle with the people. Embarking
+again, they were driven by a storm back to Greece. Adverse winds now
+kept them at Aulis until Agamemnon appeased the hostile gods by
+sacrificing to them his daughter Iphigenia,&mdash;one of the ways which those
+old heathens had of obtaining fair weather. Then the winds changed, and
+the fleet made its way to the island of Tenedos, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> vicinity of
+Troy. From here Ulysses and Menelaus were sent to that city as envoys to
+demand a return of Helen and the stolen property.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Trojans, well aware of what was in store for them, had
+made abundant preparations, and gathered an army of allies from various
+parts of Thrace and Asia Minor. They received the two Greek envoys
+hospitably, paid them every attention, but sustained the villany of
+Paris, and refused to deliver Helen and the treasure. When this word was
+brought back to the fleet the chiefs decided on immediate war, and sail
+was made for the neighboring shores of the Trojan realm.</p>
+
+<p>Of the long-drawn-out war that followed we know little more than what
+Homer has told us, though something may be learned from other ancient
+poems. The first Greek to land fell by the hand of Hector, the Trojan
+hero,&mdash;as the gods had foretold. But in vain the Trojans sought to
+prevent the landing; they were quickly put to rout, and Cycnus, one of
+their greatest warriors and son of the god Neptune, was slain by
+Achilles. He was invulnerable to iron, but was choked to death by the
+hero and changed into a swan. The Trojans were driven within their city
+walls, and the invulnerable Achilles, with what seems a safe valor,
+stormed and sacked numerous towns in the neighborhood, killed one of
+King Priam's sons, captured and sold as slaves several others, drove off
+the oxen of the celebrated warrior &AElig;neas, and came near to killing that
+hero himself. He also captured and kept as his own prize a beautiful
+maiden named Briseis, and was even granted, through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> the favor of the
+gods, an interview with the divine Helen herself.</p>
+
+<p>This is about all we know of the doings of the first nine years of the
+war. What the Greeks were at during that long time neither history nor
+legend tells. The only other event of importance was the death of
+Palamedes, one of the ablest Grecian chiefs. It was he who had detected
+the feigned madness of Ulysses, and tradition relates that he owed his
+death to the revengeful anger of that cunning schemer, who had not
+forgiven him for being made to take part in this endless and useless
+war.</p>
+
+<p>Thus nine years of warfare passed, and Troy remained untaken and
+seemingly unshaken. How the two hosts managed to live in the mean time
+the tellers of the story do not say. Thucydides, the historian, thinks
+it likely that the Greeks had to farm the neighboring lands for food.
+How the Trojans and their allies contrived to survive so long within
+their walls we are left to surmise, unless they farmed their streets.
+And thus we reach the opening of the tenth year and of Homer's "Iliad."</p>
+
+<p>Homer's story is too long for us to tell in detail, and too full of war
+and bloodshed for modern taste. We can only give it in epitome.</p>
+
+<p>Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, robs Achilles of his beautiful
+captive Briseis, and the invulnerable hero, furious at the insult,
+retires in sullen rage to his ships, forbids his troops to take part in
+the war, and sulks in anger while battle after battle is fought.
+Deprived of his mighty aid, the Greeks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> find the Trojans quite their
+match, and the fortunes of the warring hosts vary day by day.</p>
+
+<p>On a watch-tower in Troy sits Helen the beautiful, gazing out on the
+field of conflict, and naming for old Priam, who sits beside her, the
+Grecian leaders as they appear at the head of their hosts on the plain
+below. On this plain meet in fierce combat Paris the abductor and
+Menelaus the indignant husband. Vengeance lends double weight to the
+spear of the latter, and Paris is so fiercely assailed that Venus has to
+come to his aid to save him from death. Meanwhile a Trojan archer wounds
+Menelaus with an arrow, and a general battle ensues.</p>
+
+<p>The conflict is a fierce one, and many warriors on both sides are slain.
+Diomedes, a bold Grecian chieftain, is the hero of the day. Trojans fall
+by scores before his mighty spear, he rages in fury from side to side of
+the field, and at length meets the great &AElig;neas, whose thigh he breaks
+with a huge stone. But &AElig;neas is the son of the goddess Venus, who flies
+to his aid and bears him from the field. The furious Greek daringly
+pursues the flying divinity, and even succeeds in wounding the goddess
+of love with his impious spear. At this sad outcome Venus, to whom
+physical pain is a new sensation, flies in dismay to Olympus, the home
+of the deities, and hides her weeping face in the lap of Father Jove,
+while her lady enemies taunt her with biting sarcasms. The whole scene
+is an amusing example of the childish folly of mythology.</p>
+
+<p>In the next scene a new hero appears upon the field, Hector, the warlike
+son of Priam, and next to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Achilles the greatest warrior of the war. He
+arms himself inside the walls, and takes an affectionate leave of his
+wife Andromache and his infant son, the child crying with terror at his
+glittering helmet and nodding plume. This mild demeanor of the warrior
+changes to warlike ardor when he appears upon the field. His coming
+turns the tide of battle. The victorious Greeks are driven back before
+his shining spear, many of them are slain, and the whole host is driven
+to its ships and almost forced to take flight by sea from the victorious
+onset of Hector and his triumphant followers. While the Greeks cower in
+their ships the Trojans spend the night in bivouac upon the field. Homer
+gives us a picturesque description of this night-watch, which Tennyson
+has thus charmingly rendered into English:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"As when in heaven the stars about the moon<br />
+Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,<br />
+And every height comes out, and jutting peak<br />
+And valley, and the immeasurable heavens<br />
+Break open to their highest, and all the stars<br />
+Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart;<br />
+So, many a fire between the ships and stream<br />
+Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,<br />
+A thousand on the plain; and close by each<br />
+Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire;<br />
+And, champing golden grain, the horses stood<br />
+Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Affairs had grown perilous for the Greeks. Patroclus, the bosom friend
+of Achilles, begged him to come to their aid. This the sulking hero
+would not do, but he lent Patroclus his armor, and permitted him to
+lead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> his troops, the Myrmidons, to the field. Patroclus was himself a
+gallant and famous warrior, and his aid turned the next day's battle
+against the Trojans, who were driven back with great slaughter. But,
+unfortunately for this hero of the fight, a greater than he was in the
+field. Hector met him in the full tide of his success, engaged him in
+battle, killed him, and captured from his body the armor of Achilles.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image1.jpg" width="600" height="389" alt="THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The slaughter of his friend at length aroused the sullen Achilles to
+action. Rage against the Trojans succeeded his anger against Agamemnon.
+His lost armor was replaced by new armor forged for him by Vulcan, the
+celestial smith,&mdash;who fashioned him the most wonderful of shields and
+most formidable of spears. Thus armed, he mounted his chariot and drove
+at the head of his Myrmidons to the field, where he made such frightful
+slaughter of the Trojans that the river Scamander was choked with their
+corpses; and, indignant at being thus treated, sought to drown the hero
+for his offence. Finally he met Hector, engaged him in battle, and
+killed him with a thrust of his mighty spear. Then, fastening the corpse
+of the Trojan hero to his chariot, he dragged it furiously over the
+blood-soaked plain and around the city walls. Homer's story ends with
+the funeral obsequies of the slain Patroclus and the burial by the
+Trojans of Hector's recovered body.</p>
+
+<p>Other writers tell us how the war went on. Hector was replaced by
+Penthesileia, the beautiful and warlike queen of the Amazons, who came
+to the aid of the Trojans, and drove the Greeks from the field. But,
+alas! she too was slain by the invincible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> Achilles. Removing her
+helmet, the victor was deeply affected to find that it was a beautiful
+woman he had slain.</p>
+
+<p>The mighty Memnon, son of godlike parents, now made his appearance in
+the Trojan ranks, at the head of a band of black Ethiopians, with whom
+he wrought havoc among the Greeks. At length Achilles encountered this
+hero also, and a terrible battle ensued, whose result was long in doubt.
+In the end Achilles triumphed and Memnon fell. But he died to become
+immortal, for his goddess mother prayed for and obtained for him the
+gift of immortal life.</p>
+
+<p>Such triumphs were easy for Achilles, whose flesh no weapon could
+pierce; but no one was invulnerable to the poets, and his end came at
+last. He had routed the Trojans and driven them within their gates, when
+Paris, aided by Apollo, the divine archer, shot an arrow at the hero
+which struck him in his one pregnable spot, the heel. The fear of Thetis
+was realized, her son died from the wound, and a fierce battle took
+place for the possession of his body. This Ajax and Ulysses succeeded in
+carrying off to the Grecian camp, where it was burned on a magnificent
+funeral pile. Achilles, like his victim Memnon, was made immortal by the
+favor of the gods. His armor was offered as a prize to the most
+distinguished Grecian hero, and was adjudged to Ulysses, whereupon Ajax,
+his close contestant for the prize, slew himself in despair.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot follow all the incidents of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>campaign. It will suffice to
+say that Paris was himself slain by an arrow, that Neoptolemus, the son
+of Achilles, took his place in the field, and that the Trojans suffered
+so severely at his hands that they took shelter behind their walls,
+whence they never again emerged to meet the Greeks in the field.</p>
+
+<p>But Troy was safe from capture while the Palladium, a statue which
+Jupiter himself had given to Dardanus, the ancestor of the Trojans,
+remained in the citadel of that city. Ulysses overcame this difficulty.
+He entered Troy in the disguise of a wounded and ragged fugitive, and
+managed to steal the Palladium from the citadel. Then, as the walls of
+Troy still defied their assailants, a further and extraordinary
+stratagem was employed to gain access to the city. It seems a ridiculous
+one to us, but was accepted as satisfactory by the writers of Greece.
+This stratagem was the following:</p>
+
+<p>A great hollow wooden horse, large enough to contain one hundred armed
+men, was constructed, and in its interior the leading Grecian heroes
+concealed themselves. Then the army set fire to its tents, took to its
+ships, and sailed away to the island of Tenedos, as if it had abandoned
+the siege. Only the great horse was left on the long-contested
+battle-field.</p>
+
+<p>The Trojans, filled with joy at the sight of their departing foes, came
+streaming out into the plain, women as well as warriors, and gazed with
+astonishment at the strange monster which their enemies had left. Many
+of them wanted to take it into the city, and dedicate it to the gods as
+a mark of gratitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> for their deliverance. The more cautious ones
+doubted if it was wise to accept an enemy's gift. Laocoon, the priest of
+Neptune, struck the side of the horse with his spear. A hollow sound
+came from its interior, but this did not suffice to warn the indiscreet
+Trojans. And a terrible spectacle now filled them with superstitious
+dread. Two great serpents appeared far out at sea and came swimming
+inward over the waves. Reaching the shore, they glided over the land to
+where stood the unfortunate Laocoon, whose body they encircled with
+their folds. His son, who came to his rescue, was caught in the same
+dreadful coils, and the two perished miserably before the eyes of their
+dismayed countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>There was no longer any talk of rejecting the fatal gift. The gods had
+given their decision. A breach was made in the walls of Troy, and the
+great horse was dragged with exultation within the stronghold that for
+ten long years had defied its foe.</p>
+
+<p>Riotous joy and festivity followed in Troy. It extended into the night.
+While this went on Sinon, a seeming renegade who had been left behind by
+the Greeks, and who had helped to deceive the Trojans by lying tales,
+lighted a fire-signal for the fleet, and loosened the bolts of the
+wooden horse, from whose hollow depths the hundred weary warriors
+hastened to descend.</p>
+
+<p>And now the triumph of the Trojans was changed to sudden woe and dire
+lamentation. Death followed close upon their festivity. The hundred
+warriors attacked them at their banquets, the returned fleet disgorged
+its thousands, who poured through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the open gates, and death held
+fearful carnival within the captured city. Priam was slain at the altar
+by Neoptolemus. All his sons fell in death. The city was sacked and
+destroyed. Its people were slain or taken captive. Few escaped, but
+among these was &AElig;neas, the traditional ancestor of Rome. As regards
+Helen, the cause of the war, she was recovered by Menelaus, and gladly
+accompanied him back to Sparta. There she lived for years afterwards in
+dignity and happiness, and finally died to become happily immortal in
+the Elysian fields.</p>
+
+<p>But our story is not yet at an end. The Greeks had still to return to
+their homes, from which they had been ten years removed. And though
+Paris had crossed the intervening seas in three days, it took Ulysses
+ten years to return, while some of his late companions failed to reach
+their homes at all. Many, indeed, were the adventures which these
+home-sailing heroes were destined to encounter.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the Greek warriors reached home speedily and were met with
+welcome, but others perished by the way, while Agamemnon, their leader,
+returned to find that his wife had been false to him, and perished by
+her treacherous hand. Menelaus wandered long through Egypt, Cyprus, and
+elsewhere before he reached his native land. Nestor and several others
+went to Italy, where they founded cities. Diomedes also became a founder
+of cities, and various others seem to have busied themselves in this
+same useful occupation. Neoptolemus made his way to Epirus, where he
+became king of the Molossians. &AElig;neas, the Trojan hero, sought Carthage,
+whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> queen Dido died for love of him. Thence he sailed to Italy, where
+he fought battles and won victories, and finally founded the city of
+Rome. His story is given by Virgil, in the poem of the "&AElig;neid." Much
+more might be told of the adventures of the returning heroes, but the
+chief of them all is that related of the much wandering Ulysses, as
+given by Homer in his epic poem the "Odyssey."</p>
+
+<p>The story of the "Odyssey" might serve us for a tale in itself, but as
+it is in no sense historical we give it here in epitome.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that during the wanderings of Ulysses his island kingdom of
+Ithaca had been invaded by a throng of insolent suitors of his wife
+Penelope, who occupied his castle and wasted his substance in riotous
+living. His son Telemachus, indignant at this, set sail in search of his
+father, whom he knew to be somewhere upon the seas. Landing at Sparta,
+he found Menelaus living with Helen in a magnificent castle, richly
+ornamented with gold, silver, and bronze, and learned from him that his
+father was then in the island of Ogygia, where he had been long detained
+by the nymph Calypso.</p>
+
+<p>The wanderer had experienced numerous adventures. He had encountered the
+one-eyed giant Polyphemus, who feasted on the fattest of the Greeks,
+while the others escaped by boring out his single eye. He had passed the
+land of the Lotus-Eaters, to whose magic some of the Greeks succumbed.
+In the island of Circe some of his followers were turned into swine. But
+the hero overcame this enchantress, and while in her land visited the
+realm of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>departed and had interviews with the shades of the dead.
+He afterwards passed in safety through the frightful gulf of Scylla and
+Charybdis, and visited the wind-god &AElig;olus, who gave him a fair wind
+home, and all the foul winds tied up in a bag. But the curious Greeks
+untied the bag, and the ship was blown far from her course. His
+followers afterwards killed the sacred oxen of the sun, for which they
+were punished by being wrecked. All were lost except Ulysses, who
+floated on a mast to the island of Calypso. With this charming nymph he
+dwelt for seven years.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, at the command of the gods, Calypso set her willing captive
+adrift on a raft of trees. This raft was shattered in a storm, but
+Ulysses swam to the island of Ph&aelig;acia, where he was rescued by Nausicaa,
+the king's daughter, and brought to the palace. Thence, in a Ph&aelig;acian
+ship, he finally reached Ithaca.</p>
+
+<p>Here new adventures awaited him. He sought his palace disguised as an
+old beggar, so that of all there, only his old dog knew him. The
+faithful animal staggered to his feet, feebly expressed his joy, and
+fell dead. Telemachus had now returned, and led his disguised father
+into the palace, where the suitors were at their revels. Penelope,
+instructed what to do, now brought forth the bow of Ulysses, and offered
+her hand to any one of the suitors who could bend it. It was tried by
+them all, but tried in vain. Then the seeming beggar took in his hand
+the stout, ashen bow, bent it with ease, and with wonderful skill sent
+an arrow hurtling through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> rings of twelve axes set up in line. This
+done, he turned the terrible bow upon the suitors, sending its
+death-dealing arrows whizzing through their midst. Telemachus and
+Eum&aelig;us, his swine-keeper, aided him in this work of death, and a
+frightful scene of carnage ensued, from which not one of the suitors
+escaped with his life.</p>
+
+<p>In the end the hero, freed from his ragged attire, made himself known to
+his faithful wife, defeated the friends of the suitors, and recovered
+his kingdom from his foes. And thus ends the final episode of the famous
+tale of Troy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> are forced to approach the historical period of Greece through a
+cloud-land of legend, in which atones of the gods are mingled with those
+of men, and the most marvellous of incidents are introduced as if they
+were everyday occurrences. The Argonautic expedition belongs to this age
+of myth, the vague vestibule of history. It embraces, as does the tale
+of the wanderings of Ulysses, very ancient ideas of geography, and many
+able men have treated it as the record of an actual voyage, one of the
+earliest ventures of the Greeks upon the unknown seas. However this be,
+this much is certain, the story is full of romantic and supernatural
+elements, and it was largely through these that it became so celebrated
+in ancient times.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the voyage of the ship Argo is a tragedy. Pelias, king of
+Ioleus, had consulted an oracle concerning the safety of his dominions,
+and was warned to beware of the man with one sandal. Soon afterwards
+Jason (a descendant of &AElig;olus, the wind god) appeared before him with one
+foot unsandalled. He had lost his sandal while crossing a swollen
+stream. Pelias, anxious to rid himself of this visitor, against whom the
+oracle had warned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> him, gave to Jason the desperate task of bringing
+back to Locus the Golden Fleece (the fleece of a speaking ram which had
+borne Phryxus and Helle through the air from Greece, and had reached
+Colchis in Asia Minor, where it was dedicated to Mars, the god of war).</p>
+
+<p>Jason, young and daring, accepted without hesitation the perilous task,
+and induced a number of the noblest youth of Greece to accompany him in
+the enterprise. Among these adventurers were Hercules, Theseus, Castor,
+Pollux, and many others of the heroes of legend. The way to Colchis lay
+over the sea, and a ship was built for the adventurers named the Argo,
+in whose prow was inserted a piece of timber cut from the celebrated
+speaking oak of Dodona.</p>
+
+<p>The voyage of the Argo was as full of strange incidents as those which
+Ulysses encountered in his journey home from Troy. Land was first
+reached on the island of Lemnos. Here no men were found. It was an
+island of women only. All the men had been put to death by the women in
+revenge for ill-treatment, and they held the island as their own. But
+these warlike matrons, who had perhaps grown tired of seeing only each
+other's faces, received the Argonauts with much friendship, and made
+their stay so agreeable that they remained there for several months.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Lemnos, they sailed along the coast of Thrace, and up the
+Hellespont (a strait which had received its name from Helle, who, while
+riding on the golden ram in the air above it, had fallen and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> been
+drowned in its waters). Thence they sailed along the Propontis and the
+coast of Mysia, not, as we may be sure, without adventures. In the
+country of the Bebrycians the giant king Amycus challenged any of them
+to box with him. Pollux accepted the challenge, and killed the giant
+with a blow. Next they reached Bithynia, where dwelt the blind prophet
+Phineus, to whom their coming proved a blessing.</p>
+
+<p>Phineus had been blinded by Neptune, as a punishment for having shown
+Phryxus the way to Colchis. He was also tormented by the harpies,
+frightful winged monsters, who flew down from the clouds whenever he
+attempted to eat, snatched the food from his lips, and left on it such a
+vile odor that no man could come near it. He, being a prophet, knew that
+the Argonauts would free him from this curse. There were with them Zetes
+and Calias, winged sons of Boreas, the god of the north winds; and when
+the harpies descended again to spoil the prophet's meal, these winged
+warriors not only drove them away, but pursued them through the air.
+They could not overtake them, but the harpies were forbidden by Jupiter
+to molest Phineus any longer.</p>
+
+<p>The blind prophet, grateful for this deliverance, told the voyagers how
+they might escape a dreadful danger which lay in their onward way. This
+came from the Symplegades, two rocks between which their ships must
+pass, and which continually opened and closed, with a violent collision,
+and so swiftly that even a bird could scarce fly through the opening in
+safety. When the Argo reached the dangerous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> spot, at the suggestion of
+Phineus, a dove was let loose. It flew with all speed through the
+opening, but the rocks clashed together so quickly behind it that it
+lost a few feathers of its tail. Now was their opportunity. The rowers
+dashed their ready oars into the water, shot forward with rapid speed,
+and passed safely through, only losing the ornaments at the stern of
+their ship. Their escape, however, they owed to the goddess Minerva,
+whose strong hand held the rocks asunder during the brief interval of
+their passage. It had been decreed by the gods that if any ship escaped
+these dreadful rocks they should forever cease to move. The escape of
+the Argo fulfilled this decree, and the Symplegades have ever since
+remained immovable.</p>
+
+<p>Onward went the daring voyagers, passing in their journey Mount
+Caucasus, on whose bare rock Prometheus, for the crime of giving fire to
+mankind, was chained, while an eagle devoured his liver. The adventurers
+saw this dread eagle and heard the groans of the sufferer himself.
+Helpless to release him whom the gods had condemned, they rowed rapidly
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Colchis was reached, a land then ruled over by King &AElig;etes, from
+whom the heroes demanded the golden fleece, stating that they had been
+sent thither by the gods themselves. &AElig;etes heard their request with
+anger, and told them that if they wanted the fleece they could have it
+on one condition only. He possessed two fierce and tameless bulls, with
+brazen feet and fire-breathing nostrils. These had been the gift of the
+god Vulcan. Jason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> was told that if he wished to prove his descent from
+the gods and their sanction of his voyage, he must harness these
+terrible animals, plough with them a large field, and sow it with
+dragons' teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Perilous as this task seemed, each of the heroes was eager to undertake
+it, but Jason, as the leader of the expedition, took it upon himself.
+Fortune favored him in the desperate undertaking. Medea, the daughter of
+&AElig;etes, who knew all the arts of magic, had seen the handsome youth and
+fallen in love with him at sight. She now came to his aid with all her
+magic. Gathering an herb which had grown where the blood of Prometheus
+had fallen, she prepared from it a magical ointment which, when rubbed
+on Jason's body, made him invulnerable either to fire or weapons of war.
+Thus prepared, he fearlessly approached the fire-breathing bulls, yoked
+them unharmed, and ploughed the field, in whose furrows he then sowed
+the dragons' teeth. Instantly from the latter sprang up a crop of armed
+men, who turned their weapons against the hero. But Jason, who had been
+further instructed by Medea, flung a great stone in their midst, upon
+which they began to fight each other, and he easily subdued them all.</p>
+
+<p>Jason had accomplished his task, but &AElig;etes proved unfaithful to his
+words. He not only withheld the prize, but took steps to kill the
+Argonauts and burn their vessel. They were invited to a banquet, and
+armed men were prepared to murder them during the night after the feast.
+Fortunately, sleep overcame <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>the treacherous king, and the adventurers
+warned of their danger, made ready to fly. But not without the golden
+fleece. This was guarded by a dragon, but Medea prepared a potion that
+put this perilous sentinel to sleep, seized the fleece, and accompanied
+Jason in his flight, taking with her on the Argo Absyrtus, her youthful
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>The Argonauts, seizing their oars, rowed with all haste from the dreaded
+locality. &AElig;etes, on awakening, learned with fury of the loss of the
+fleece and his children, hastily collected an armed force, and pursued
+with such energy that the flying vessel was soon nearly overtaken. The
+safety of the adventurers was again due to Medea, who secured it by a
+terrible stratagem. This was, to kill her young brother, cut his body to
+pieces, and fling the bleeding fragments into the sea. &AElig;etes, on
+reaching the scene of this tragedy, recognized these as the remains of
+his murdered son, and sorrowfully stopped to collect them for interment.
+While he was thus engaged the Argonauts escaped.</p>
+
+<p>But such a wicked deed was not suffered to go unpunished. Jupiter beheld
+it with deep indignation, and in requital condemned the Argonauts to a
+long and perilous voyage, full of hardship and adventure. They were
+forced to sail over all the watery world of waters, so far as then
+known. Up the river Phasis they rowed until it entered the ocean which
+flows round the earth. This vast sea or stream was then followed to the
+source of the Nile, down which great river they made their way into the
+land of Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>Here, for some reason unknown, they did not follow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the Nile to the
+Mediterranean, but were forced to take the ship Argo on their shoulders
+and carry it by a long overland journey to Lake Tritonis, in Libya. Here
+they were overcome by want and exhaustion, but Triton, the god of the
+region, proved hospitable, and supplied them with the much-needed food
+and rest. Thus refreshed, they launched their ship once more on the
+Mediterranean and proceeded hopefully on their homeward way.</p>
+
+<p>Stopping at the island of &AElig;&aelig;a, its queen Circe&mdash;she who had transformed
+the companions of Ulysses into swine&mdash;purified Medea from the crime of
+murder; and at Corcyra, which they next reached, the marriage of Jason
+and Medea took place. The cavern in that island where the wedding was
+solemnized was still pointed out in historical times.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Corcyra a fierce storm threatened the navigators with
+shipwreck, from which they were miraculously saved by the celestial aid
+of the god Apollo. An arrow shot from his golden bow crossed the billows
+like a track of light, and where it pierced the waves an island sprang
+up, on whose shores the imperilled mariners found a port of refuge. On
+this island, Anaphe by name, the grateful Argonauts built an altar to
+Apollo and instituted sacrifices in his honor.</p>
+
+<p>Another adventure awaited them on the coast of Crete. This island was
+protected by a brazen sentinel, named Talos, wrought by Vulcan, and
+presented by him to King Minos to protect his realm. This living man of
+brass hurled great rocks at the vessel, and destruction would have
+overwhelmed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> voyagers but for Medea. Talos, like all the
+invulnerable men of legend, had his one weak point. This her magic art
+enabled her to discover, and, as Paris had wounded Achilles in the heel,
+Medea killed this vigilant sentinel by striking him in his vulnerable
+spot.</p>
+
+<p>The Argonauts now landed and refreshed themselves. In the island of
+&AElig;gina they had to fight to procure water. Then they sailed along the
+coasts of Eub&#339;a and Locris, and finally entered the gulf of Pagas&aelig;
+and dropped anchor at Iolceus, their starting-point.</p>
+
+<p>As to what became of the ship Argo there are two stories. One is that
+Jason consecrated his vessel to Neptune on the isthmus of Corinth.
+Another is that Minerva translated it to the stars, where it became a
+constellation.</p>
+
+<p>So ends the story of this earliest of recorded voyages, whose possible
+substratum of fact is overlaid deeply with fiction, and whose geography
+is similarly a strange mixture of fact and fancy. Yet though the voyage
+is at an end, our story is not. We have said that it was a tragedy, and
+the denouement of the tragedy remains to be given.</p>
+
+<p>Pelias, who had sent Jason on this long voyage to escape the fate
+decreed for him by the oracle, took courage from his protracted absence,
+and put to death his father and mother and his infant brother. On
+learning of this murderous act Jason determined on revenge. But Pelias
+was too strong to be attacked openly, so the hero employed a strange
+stratagem, suggested by the cunning magician Medea. He and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> his
+companions halted at some distance from Iolcus, while Medea entered the
+town alone, pretending that she was a fugitive from the ill-treatment of
+Jason.</p>
+
+<p>Here she was entertained by the daughters of Pelias, over whom she
+gained great influence by showing them certain magical wonders. In the
+end she selected an old ram from the king's flocks, cut him up and
+boiled him in a caldron with herbs of magic power. In the end the animal
+emerged from the caldron as a young and vigorous lamb. The enchantress
+now told her dupes that their old father could in the same way be made
+young again. Fully believing her, the daughters cut the old man to
+pieces in the same manner, and threw his limbs into the caldron,
+trusting to Medea to restore him to life as she had the ram.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving them for the assumed purpose of invoking the moon, as a part of
+the ceremony, Medea ascended to the roof of the palace. Here she lighted
+a fire-signal to the waiting Argonauts, who instantly burst into and
+took possession of the town.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus revenged himself, Jason yielded the crown of Iolcus to the
+son of Pelias, and withdrew with Medea to Corinth, where they resided
+together for ten years. And here the final act in the tragedy was
+played.</p>
+
+<p>After these ten years of happy married life, during which several
+children were born, Jason ceased to love his wife, and fixed his
+affections on Glauce, the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. The king<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+showed himself willing to give Jason his daughter in marriage, upon
+which the faithless hero divorced Medea, who was ordered to leave
+Corinth. He should have known better with whom he had to deal. The
+enchantress, indignant at such treatment, determined on revenge.
+Pretending to be reconciled to the coming marriage, she prepared a
+poisoned robe, which she sent as a wedding-present to the hapless
+Glauce. No sooner had the luckless bride put on this perilous gift than
+the robe burst into flames, and she was consumed; while her father, who
+sought to tear from her the fatal garment, met with the same fate.</p>
+
+<p>Medea escaped by means of a chariot drawn by winged serpents, sent her
+by her grandfather Helios (the sun). As the story is told by Euripides,
+she killed her children before taking to flight, leaving their dead
+bodies to blast the sight of their horror-stricken father. The legend,
+however, tells a different tale. It says that she left them for safety
+before the altar in the temple of Juno; and that the Corinthians,
+furious at the death of their king, dragged the children from the altar
+and put them to death. As for the unhappy Jason, the story goes that he
+fell asleep under the ship Argo, which had been hauled ashore according
+to the custom of the ancients, and that a fragment of this ship fell
+upon and killed him.</p>
+
+<p>The flight of Medea took her to Athens, where she found a protector and
+second husband in &AElig;geus, the ruler of that city, and father of Theseus,
+the great legendary hero of Athens.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THESEUS AND ARIADNE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Minos</span>, king of Crete in the age of legend, made war against Athens in
+revenge for the death of his son. This son, Androgeos by name, had shown
+such strength and skill in the Panathenaic festival that &AElig;geus, the
+Athenian king, sent him to fight with the flame-spitting bull of
+Marathon, a monstrous creature that was ravaging the plains of Attica.
+The bull killed the valiant youth, and Minos, furious at the death of
+his son, laid siege to Athens.</p>
+
+<p>As he proved unable to capture the city, he prayed for aid to his father
+Zeus (for, like all the heroes of legend, he was a son of the gods).
+Zeus sent pestilence and famine on Athens, and so bitter grew the lot of
+the Athenians that they applied to the oracles of the gods for advice in
+their sore strait, and were bidden to submit to any terms which Minos
+might impose. The terms offered by the offended king of Crete were
+severe ones. He demanded that the Athenians should, at fixed periods,
+send to Crete seven youths and seven maidens, as victims to the
+insatiable appetite of the Minotaur.</p>
+
+<p>This fabulous creature was one of those destructive monsters of which
+many ravaged Greece in the age<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> of fable. It had the body of a man and
+the head of a bull, and so great was the havoc it wrought among the
+Cretans that Minos engaged the great artist D&aelig;dalus to construct a den
+from which it could not escape. D&aelig;dalus built for this purpose the
+Labyrinth, a far-extending edifice, in which were countless passages, so
+winding and intertwining that no person confined in it could ever find
+his way out again. It was like the catacombs of Rome, in which one who
+is lost is said to wander helplessly till death ends his sorrowful
+career. In this intricate puzzle of a building the Minotaur was
+confined.</p>
+
+<p>Every ninth year the fourteen unfortunate youths and maidens had to be
+sent from Athens to be devoured by this insatiate beast. We are not told
+on what food it was fed in the interval, or why Minos did not end the
+trouble by allowing it to starve in its inextricable den. As the story
+goes, the living tribute was twice sent, and the third period came duly
+round. The youths and maidens to be devoured were selected by lot from
+the people of Athens, and left their city amid tears and woe. But on
+this occasion Theseus, the king's son and the great hero of Athens,
+volunteered to be one of the band, and vowed either to slay the terrible
+beast or die in the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>There seem to have been few great events in those early days of Greece
+in which Theseus did not take part. Among his feats was the carrying off
+of Helen, the famous beauty, while still a girl. He then took part in a
+journey to the under-world,&mdash;the realm of ghosts,&mdash;during which Castor
+and Pollux, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> brothers of Helen, rescued and brought her home. He was
+also one of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition and of an expedition
+against the Amazons, or nation of women warriors; he fought with and
+killed a series of famous robbers; and he rid the world of a number of
+ravaging beasts,&mdash;the Calydonian boar, the Crommyonian sow, and the
+Marathonian bull, the monster which had slain the son of Minos. He was,
+in truth, the Hercules of ancient Athens, and he now proposed to add to
+his exploits a battle for life or death with the perilous Minotaur.</p>
+
+<p>The hero knew that he had before him the most desperate task of his
+life. Even should he slay the monster, he would still be in the
+intricate depths of the Labyrinth, from which escape was deemed
+impossible, and in whose endless passages he and his companions might
+wander until they died of weariness and starvation. He prayed,
+therefore, to Neptune for help, and received a message from the oracle
+at Delphi to the effect that Aphrodite (or Venus) would aid and rescue
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The ship conveying the victims sailed sadly from Athens, and at length
+reached Crete at the port of Knossus, the residence of King Minos. Here
+the woful hostages were led through the streets to the prison in which
+they were to be confined till the next day, when they were to be
+delivered to death. As they passed along the people looked with sympathy
+upon their fair young faces, and deeply lamented their coming fate. And,
+as Venus willed, among the spectators were Minos and his fair daughter
+Ariadne, who stood at the palace door to see them pass.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p><p>The eyes of the young princess fell upon the face of Theseus, the
+Athenian prince, and her heart throbbed with a feeling she had never
+before known. Never had she gazed upon a man who seemed to her half so
+brave and handsome as this princely youth. All that night thoughts of
+him drove slumber from her eyes. In the early morning, moved by a
+new-born love, she sought the prison, and, through her privilege as the
+king's daughter, was admitted to see the prisoners. Venus was doing the
+work which the oracle had promised.</p>
+
+<p>Calling Theseus aside, the blushing maiden told him of her sudden love,
+and that she ardently longed to save him. If he would follow her
+directions he would escape. She gave him a sword, which she had taken
+from her father's armory and concealed beneath her cloak, that he might
+be armed against the devouring beast. And she provided him besides with
+a ball of thread, bidding him to fasten the end of it to the entrance of
+the Labyrinth, and unwind it as he went in, that it might serve him as a
+clue to find his way out again.</p>
+
+<p>As may well be believed, Theseus warmly thanked his lovely visitor, told
+her that he was a king's son, and that he returned her love, and begged
+her, in case he escaped, to return with him to Athens and be his bride.
+Ariadne willingly consented, and left the prison before the guards came
+to conduct the victims to their fate. It was like the story of Jason and
+Medea retold.</p>
+
+<p>With hidden sword and clue Theseus followed the guards, in the midst of
+his fellow-prisoners. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> were led into the depths of the Labyrinth
+and there left to their fate. But the guards had failed to observe that
+Theseus had fastened his thread at the entrance and was unwinding the
+ball as he went. And now, in this dire den, for hours the hapless
+victims awaited their destiny. Mid-day came, and with it a distant roar
+from the monster reverberated frightfully through the long passages.
+Nearer came the blood-thirsty brute, his bellowing growing louder as he
+scented human beings. The trembling victims waited with but a single
+hope, and that was in the sword of their valiant prince. At length the
+creature appeared, in form a man of giant stature, but with the horned
+head and huge mouth of a bull.</p>
+
+<p>Battle at once began between the prince and the brute. It soon ended.
+Springing agilely behind the ravening monster, Theseus, with a swinging
+stroke of his blade, cut off one of its legs at the knee. As the
+man-brute fell prone, and lay bellowing with pain, a thrust through the
+back reached its heart, and all peril from the Minotaur was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>This victory gained, the task of Theseus was easy. The thread led back
+to the entrance. By aid of this clue the door of escape was quickly
+gained. Waiting until night, the hostages left the dreaded Labyrinth
+under cover of the darkness. Ariadne was in waiting, the ship was
+secretly gained, and the rescued Athenians with their fair companion
+sailed away, unknown to the king.</p>
+
+<p>But Theseus proved false to the maiden to whom he owed his life.
+Stopping at the island of Naxos, which was sacred to Dionysus (or
+Bacchus), the god<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> of wine, he had a dream in which the god bade him to
+desert Ariadne and sail away. This the faithless swain did, leaving the
+weeping maiden deserted on the island. Legend goes on to tell us that
+the despair of the lamenting maiden ended in the sleep of exhaustion,
+and that while sleeping Dionysus found her, and made her his wife. As
+for the dream of Theseus, it was one of those convenient excuses which
+traitors to love never lack.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Theseus and his companions sailed on over the summer sea.
+Reaching the isle of Delos, he offered a sacrifice to Apollo in
+gratitude for his escape, and there he, and the merry youths and maidens
+with him, danced a dance called the Geranus, whose mazy twists and turns
+imitated those of the Labyrinth.</p>
+
+<p>But the faithless swain was not to escape punishment for his base
+desertion of Ariadne. He had arranged with his father &AElig;geus that if he
+escaped the Minotaur he would hoist white sails in the ship on his
+return. If he failed, the ship would still wear the black canvas with
+which she had set out on her errand of woe.</p>
+
+<p>The aged king awaited the returning ship on a high rock that overlooked
+the sea. At length it hove in sight, the sails appeared, but&mdash;they were
+black. With broken heart the father cast himself from the rock into the
+sea,&mdash;which ever since has been called, from his name, the &AElig;gean Sea.
+Theseus, absorbed perhaps in thoughts of the abandoned Ariadne, perhaps
+of new adventures, had forgotten to make the promised change. And thus
+was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> deserted maiden avenged on the treacherous youth who owed to
+her his life.</p>
+
+<p>The ship&mdash;or what was believed to be the ship&mdash;of Theseus and the
+hostages was carefully preserved at Athens, down to the time of the
+Macedonian conquest, being constantly repaired with new timbers, till
+little of the original ship remained. Every year it was sent to Delos
+with envoys to sacrifice to Apollo. Before the ship left port the priest
+of Apollo decorated her stern with garlands, and during her absence no
+public act of impurity was permitted to take place in the city.
+Therefore no one could be put to death, and Socrates, who was condemned
+at this period of the year, was permitted to live for thirty days until
+the return of the sacred ship.</p>
+
+<p>There is another legend connected with this story worth telling.
+D&aelig;dalus, the builder of the Labyrinth, at length fell under the
+displeasure of Minos, and was confined within the windings of his own
+edifice. He had no clue like Theseus, but he had resources in his
+inventive skill. Making wings for himself and his son Icarus, the two
+flew away from the Labyrinth and their foe. The father safely reached
+Sicily; but the son, who refused to be governed by his father's wise
+advice, flew so high in his ambitious folly that the sun melted the wax
+of which his wings were made, and he fell into the sea near the island
+of Samos. This from him was named the Icarian Sea.</p>
+
+<p>There is a political as well as a legendary history of Theseus,&mdash;perhaps
+one no more to be depended upon than the other. It is said that when he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>became king he made Athens supreme over Attica, putting an end to the
+separate powers of the tribes which had before prevailed. He is also
+said to have abolished the monarchy, and replaced it by a government of
+the people, whom he divided into the three classes of nobles,
+husbandmen, and artisans. He died at length in the island of Scyrus,
+where he fell or was thrown from the cliffs. Ages later, after the
+Persian war, the Delphic oracle bade the Athenians to bring back the
+bones of Theseus from Scyrus, and bury them splendidly in Attic soil.
+Cimon, the son of Miltiades, found&mdash;or pretended to find&mdash;the hero's
+tomb, and returned with the famous bones. They were buried in the heart
+of Athens, and over them was erected the monument called the Theseium,
+which became afterwards a place of sanctuary for slaves escaping from
+cruel treatment and for all persons in peril. Theseus, who had been the
+champion of the oppressed during life, thus became their refuge after
+death.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> the legendary tales of Greece, none of which are strictly, though
+several are perhaps partly, historical, none&mdash;after that of Troy&mdash;was
+more popular with the ancients than the story of the two sieges of
+Thebes. This tale had probably in it an historical element, though
+deeply overlaid with myth, and it was the greatest enterprise of Grecian
+war, after that of Troy, during what is called the age of the Heroes.
+And in it is included one of the most pathetic episodes in the story of
+Greece, that of the sisterly affection and tragic fate of Antigone,
+whose story gave rise to noble dramas by the tragedians &AElig;schylus and
+Sophocles, and is still a favorite with lovers of pathetic lore.</p>
+
+<p>As a prelude to our story we must glance at the mythical history of
+&#338;dipus, which, like that of his noble daughter, has been celebrated
+in ancient drama. An oracle had declared that he should kill his father,
+the king of Thebes. He was, in consequence, brought up in ignorance of
+his parentage, yet this led to the accomplishment of the oracle, for as
+a youth he, during a roadside squabble, killed his father not knowing
+him. For this crime, which had been one of their own devising, the gods,
+with their usual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> inconsistency, punished the land of Thebes; afflicting
+that hapless country with a terrible monster called the Sphinx, which
+had the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the body of a lion.
+This strangely made-up creature proposed a riddle to the Thebans, whose
+solution they were forced to try and give; and on every failure to give
+the correct answer she seized and devoured the unhappy aspirant.
+&#338;dipus arrived, in ignorance of the fact that he was the son of the
+late king. He quickly solved the riddle of the Sphinx, whereupon that
+monster committed suicide, and he was made king. He then married the
+queen,&mdash;not knowing that she was his own mother.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image2.jpg" width="400" height="546" alt="OEDIPUS AND ANTIGONE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">&#338;DIPUS AND ANTIGONE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>This celebrated riddle of the Sphinx was not a very difficult one. It
+was as follows: "A being with four feet has two feet and three feet; but
+its feet vary, and when it has most it is weakest."</p>
+
+<p>The answer, as given by &#338;dipus, was "Man," who</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"First as a babe four-footed creeps on his way,<br />
+Then, when full age cometh on, and the burden of years weighs full heavy,<br />
+Bending his shoulders and neck, as a third foot useth his staff."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>When the truth became known&mdash;as truth was apt to become known when too
+late in old stories&mdash;the queen, Jocasta, mad with anguish, hanged
+herself, and &#338;dipus, in wild despair, put out his eyes. The gods who
+had led him blindly into crime, now handed him over to punishment by the
+Furies,&mdash;the ancient goddesses of vengeance, whose mission it was to
+pursue the criminal with stinging whips.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p><p>The tragic events which followed arose from the curse of the afflicted
+&#338;dipus. He had two sons, Polynikes and Eteocles, who twice offended
+him without intention, and whom he, frenzied by his troubles, twice
+bitterly cursed, praying to the gods that they might perish by each
+other's hands. &#338;dipus afterwards obtained the pardon of the gods for
+his involuntary crime, and died in exile, leaving Creon, the brother of
+Jocasta, on the throne. But though he was dead, his curse kept alive,
+and brought on new matter of dire moment.</p>
+
+<p>It began its work in a quarrel between the two sons as to who should
+succeed their uncle as king of Thebes. Polynikes was in the wrong, and
+was forced to leave Thebes, while Eteocles remained. The exiled prince
+sought the court of Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him his daughter
+in marriage, and agreed to assist in restoring him to his native
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the Argive chiefs joined in the proposed expedition. But the
+most distinguished of them all, Amphiara&uuml;s, opposed it as unjust and
+against the will of the gods. He concealed himself, lest he should be
+forced into the enterprise. But the other chiefs deemed his aid
+indispensable, and bribed his wife, with a costly present, to reveal his
+hiding-place. Amphiara&uuml;s was thus forced to join the expedition, but his
+prophetic power taught him that it would end in disaster to all and
+death to himself, and as a measure of revenge he commanded his son
+Alkm&aelig;on to kill the faithless woman who had betrayed him, and after his
+death to organize a second expedition against Thebes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p><p>Seven chiefs led the army, one to assail each of the seven celebrated
+gates of Thebes. Onward they marched against that strong city, heedless
+of the hostile portents which they met on their way. The Thebans also
+sought the oracle of the gods, and were told that they should be
+victorious, but only on the dread condition that Creon's son,
+Men&#339;ceus, should sacrifice himself to Mars. The devoted youth, on
+learning that the safety of his country depended on his life, forthwith
+killed himself before the city gates,&mdash;thus securing by innocent blood
+the powerful aid of the god of war.</p>
+
+<p>Long and strenuous was the contest that succeeded, each of the heroes
+fiercely attacking the gate adjudged to him. But the gods were on the
+side of the Thebans and every assault proved in vain. Parthenop&aelig;us, one
+of the seven, was killed by a stone, and another, Capaneus, while
+furiously mounting the walls from a scaling-ladder, was slain by a
+thunderbolt cast by Jupiter, and fell dead to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The assailants, terrified by this portent, drew back, and were pursued
+by the Thebans, who issued from their gates. But the battle that was
+about to take place on the open plain was stopped by Eteocles, who
+proposed to settle it by a single combat with his brother Polynikes, the
+victory to be given to the side whose champion succeeded in this mortal
+duel. Polynikes, filled with hatred of his brother, eagerly accepted
+this challenge. Adrastus, the leader of the assailing army, assented,
+and the unholy combat began.</p>
+
+<p>Never was a more furious combat than that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>between the hostile brothers.
+Each was exasperated to bitter hatred of the other, and they fought with
+a violence and desperation that could end only in the death of one of
+the combatants. As it proved, the curse of &#338;dipus was in the keeping
+of the gods, and both fell dead,&mdash;the fate for which their aged father
+had prayed. But the duel had decided nothing, and the two armies renewed
+the battle.</p>
+
+<p>And now death and bloodshed ran riot; men fell by hundreds; deeds of
+heroic valor were achieved on either side; feats of individual daring
+were displayed like those which Homer sings in the story of Troy. But
+the battle ended in the defeat of the assailants. Of the seven leaders
+only two survived, and one of these, Amphiara&uuml;s, was about to suffer the
+fate he had foretold, when Jupiter rescued him from death by a miracle.
+The earth opened beneath him, and he, with his chariot and horses, was
+received unhurt into her bosom. Rendered immortal by the king of the
+gods, he was afterwards worshipped as a god himself.</p>
+
+<p>Adrastus, the only remaining chief, was forced to fly, and was preserved
+by the matchless speed of his horse. He reached Argos in safety, but
+brought with him nothing but "his garment of woe and his black-maned
+steed."</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended, in defeat and disaster to the assailants, the first of the
+celebrated sieges of Thebes. It was followed by a tragic episode which
+remains to be told, that of the sisterly fidelity of Antigone and her
+sorrowful fate. Her story, which the dramatists have made immortal, is
+thus told in the legend.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>After the repulse of his foes, King Creon caused the body of Eteocles
+to be buried with the highest honors; but that of Polynikes was cast
+outside the gates as the corpse of a traitor, and death was threatened
+to any one who should dare to give it burial. This cruel edict, which no
+one else ventured to ignore, was set aside by Antigone, the sister of
+Polynikes. This brave maiden, with warm filial affection, had
+accompanied her blind father during his exile to Attica, and was now
+returned to Thebes to perform another holy duty. Funeral rites were held
+by the Greeks to be essential to the repose of the dead, and Antigone,
+despite Creon's edict, determined that her brother's body should not be
+left to the dogs and vultures. Her sister, though in sympathy with her
+purpose, proved too timid to help her. No other assistance was to be
+had. But not deterred by this, she determined to perform the act alone,
+and to bury the body with her own hands.</p>
+
+<p>In this act of holy devotion Antigone succeeded; Polynikes was buried.
+But the sentinels whom Creon had posted detected her in the act, and she
+was seized and dragged before the tribunal of the tyrant. Here she
+defended her action with an earnestness and dignity that should have
+gained her release, but Creon was inflexible in his anger. She had set
+at naught his edict, and should suffer the penalty for her crime. He
+condemned her to be buried alive.</p>
+
+<p>Sophocles, the dramatist, puts noble words into the mouth of Antigone.
+This is her protest against the tyranny of the king:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>"No ordinance of man shall override<br />
+The settled laws of Nature and of God;<br />
+Not written these in pages of a book,<br />
+Nor were they framed to-day, nor yesterday;<br />
+We know not whence they are; but this we know,<br />
+That they from all eternity have been,<br />
+And shall to all eternity endure."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And when asked by Creon why she had dared disobey the laws, she nobly
+replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">"Not through fear</span><br />
+Of any man's resolve was I prepared<br />
+Before the gods to bear the penalty<br />
+Of sinning against these. That I should die<br />
+I knew (how should I not?) though thy decree<br />
+Had never spoken. And before my time<br />
+If I shall die, I reckon this a gain;<br />
+For whoso lives, as I, in many woes,<br />
+How can it be but he shall gain by death?"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>At the king's command the unhappy maiden was taken from his presence and
+thrust into a sepulchre, where she was condemned to perish in hunger and
+loneliness. But Antigone was not without her advocate. She had a
+lover,&mdash;almost the only one in Greek literature. H&aelig;mon, the son of
+Creon, to whom her hand had been promised in marriage, and who loved her
+dearly, appeared before his father and earnestly interceded for her
+life. Not on the plea of his love,&mdash;such a plea would have had no weight
+with a Greek tribunal,&mdash;but on those of mercy and justice. His plea was
+vain; Creon was obdurate: the unhappy lover left his presence and sought
+Antigone's living tomb, where he slew himself at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the feet of his love,
+already dead. His mother, on learning of his fatal act, also killed
+herself by her own hand, and Creon was left alone to suffer the
+consequences of his unnatural act.</p>
+
+<p>The story goes on to relate that Adrastus, with the disconsolate mothers
+of the fallen chieftains, sought the hero Theseus at Athens, and begged
+his aid in procuring the privilege of interment for the slain warriors
+whose bodies lay on the plain of Thebes. The Thebans persisting in their
+refusal to permit burial, Theseus at length led an army against them,
+defeated them in the field, and forced them to consent that their fallen
+foes should be interred, that last privilege of the dead which was
+deemed so essential by all pious Greeks. The tomb of the chieftains was
+shown near Eleusis within late historical times.</p>
+
+<p>But the Thebans were to suffer another reverse. The sons of the slain
+chieftains raised an army, which they placed under the leadership of
+Adrastus, and demanded to be led against Thebes. Alkm&aelig;on, the son of
+Amphiara&uuml;s, who had been commanded to revenge him, played the most
+prominent part in the succeeding war. As this new expedition marched,
+the gods, which had opposed the former with hostile signs, now showed
+their approval with favorable portents. Adherents joined them on their
+march. At the river Glisas they were met by a Theban army, and a battle
+was fought, which ended in a complete victory over the Theban foe. A
+prophet now declared to the Thebans that the gods were against them, and
+advised them to surrender the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> city. This they did, flying themselves,
+with their wives and children, to the country of the Illyrians, and
+leaving their city empty to the triumphant foe. The Epigoni, as the
+youthful victors were called, marched in at the head of their forces,
+took possession, and placed Thersander, the son of Polynikes, on the
+throne. And thus ends the famous old legend of the two sieges of Thebes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>LYCURGUS AND THE SPARTAN LAWS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> the many nations between which the small peninsula of Greece was
+divided, much the most interesting were those whose chief cities were
+Athens and Sparta. These are the states with whose doings history is
+full, and without which the history of ancient Greece would be little
+more interesting to us than the history of ancient China and Japan. No
+two cities could have been more opposite in character and institutions
+than these, and they were rivals of each other for the dominant power
+through centuries of Grecian history. In Athens freedom of thought and
+freedom of action prevailed. Such complete political equality of the
+citizens has scarcely been known elsewhere upon the earth, and the
+intellectual activity of these citizens stands unequalled. In Sparta
+freedom of thought and action were both suppressed to a degree rarely
+known, the most rigid institutions existed, and the only activity was a
+warlike one. All thought and all education had war for their object, and
+the state and city became a compact military machine. This condition was
+the result of a remarkable code of laws by which Sparta was governed,
+the most peculiar and surprising code which any nation has ever
+possessed. It is this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> code, and Lycurgus, to whom Sparta owed it, with
+which we are now concerned.</p>
+
+<p>First, who was Lycurgus and in what age did he live? Neither of these
+questions can be closely answered. Though his laws are historical, his
+biography is legendary. He is believed to have lived somewhere about 800
+or 900 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, that age of legend and fable in which Homer lived, and what
+we know about him is little more to be trusted than what we know about
+the great poet. The Greeks had stories of their celebrated men of this
+remote age, but they were stories with which imagination often had more
+to do than fact, and though we may enjoy them, it is never quite safe to
+believe them.</p>
+
+<p>As for the very uncertain personage named Lycurgus, we are told by
+Herodotus, the Greek historian, that when he was born the Spartans were
+the most lawless of the Greeks. Every man was a law unto himself, and
+confusion, tumult, and injustice everywhere prevailed. Lycurgus, a noble
+Spartan, sad at heart for the misery of his country, applied to the
+oracle at Delphi, and received instructions as to how he should act to
+bring about a better state of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Plutarch, who tells so many charming stories about the ancient Greeks
+and Romans, gives us the following account. According to him the brother
+of Lycurgus was king of Sparta. When he died Lycurgus was offered the
+throne, but he declined the honor and made his infant nephew, Charilaus,
+king. Then he left Sparta, and travelled through Crete, Ionia, Egypt,
+and several more remote <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>countries, everywhere studying the laws and
+customs which he found prevailing. In Ionia he obtained a copy of the
+poems of Homer, and is said by some to have met and conversed with Homer
+himself. If, as is supposed, the Greeks of that age had not the art of
+writing, he must have carried this copy in his memory.</p>
+
+<p>On his return home from this long journey Lycurgus found his country in
+a worse state than before. Sparta, it may be well here to say, had
+always two kings; but it found, as might have been expected, that two
+kings were worse than one, and that this odd device in government never
+worked well. At any rate, Lycurgus found that law had nearly vanished,
+and that disorder had taken its place. He now consulted the oracle at
+Delphi, and was told that the gods would support him in what he proposed
+to do.</p>
+
+<p>Coming back to Sparta, he secretly gathered a body-guard of thirty armed
+men from among the noblest citizens, and then presented himself in the
+Agora, or place of public assembly, announcing that he had come to end
+the disorders of his native land. King Charilaus at first heard of this
+with terror, but on learning what his uncle intended, he offered his
+support. Most of the leading men of Sparta did the same. Lycurgus was to
+them a descendant of the great hero Hercules, he was the most learned
+and travelled of their people, and the reforms he proposed were sadly
+needed in that unhappy land.</p>
+
+<p>These reforms were of two kinds. He desired to reform both the
+government and society. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> shall deal first with the new government
+which he instituted. The two kings were left unchanged. But under them
+was formed a senate of twenty-eight members, to whom the kings were
+joined, making thirty in all. The people also were given their
+assemblies, but they could not debate any subject, all the power they
+had was to accept or reject what the senate had decreed. At a later date
+five men, called ephors, were selected from the people, into whose hands
+fell nearly all the civil power, so that the kings had little more to do
+than to command the army and lead it to war. The kings, however, were at
+the head of the religious establishment of the country, and were
+respected by the people as descendants of the gods.</p>
+
+<p>The government of Sparta thus became an aristocracy or oligarchy. The
+ephors came from the people, and were appointed in their interest, but
+they came to rule the state so completely that neither the kings, the
+senate, nor the assembly had much voice in the government. Such was the
+outgrowth of the governmental institutions of Lycurgus.</p>
+
+<p>It is the civil laws made by Lycurgus, however, which are of most
+interest, and in which Sparta differed from all other states. The people
+of Laconia, the country of which Sparta was the capital, were composed
+of two classes. That country had originally been conquered by the
+Spartans, and the ancient inhabitants, who were known as Helots, were
+held as slaves by their Spartan conquerors. They tilled the ground to
+raise food for the citizens, who were all soldiers, and whose whole life
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> thought were given to keeping the Helots in slavery and to warlike
+activity. That they might make the better soldiers, Lycurgus formed laws
+to do away with all luxury and inequality of conditions, and to train up
+the young under a rigid system of discipline to the use of weapons and
+the arts of war. The Helots, also, were often employed as light-armed
+soldiers, and there was always danger that they might revolt against
+their oppressors, a fact which made constant discipline and vigilance
+necessary to the Spartan citizens.</p>
+
+<p>Lycurgus found great inequality in the state. A few owned all the land,
+and the remainder were poor. The rich lived in luxury; the poor were
+reduced to misery and want. He divided the whole territory of Sparta
+into nine thousand equal lots, one of which was given to each citizen.
+The territory of the remainder of Laconia was divided into thirty
+thousand equal lots, one of which was given to each Peri&#339;cus. (The
+Peri&#339;ci were the freemen of the country outside of the Spartan city
+and district, and did not possess the full rights of citizenship.)</p>
+
+<p>This measure served to equalize wealth. But further to prevent luxury,
+Lycurgus banished all gold and silver from the country, and forced the
+people to use iron money,&mdash;each piece so heavy that none would care to
+carry it. He also forbade the citizens to have anything to do with
+commerce or industry. They were to be soldiers only, and the Helots were
+to supply them with food. As for commerce, since no other state would
+accept their iron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> money, they had to depend on themselves for
+everything they needed. The industries of Laconia were kept strictly at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>To these provisions Lycurgus added another of remarkable character. No
+one was allowed to take his meals at home. Public tables were provided,
+at which all must eat, every citizen being forced to belong to some
+special public mess. Each had to supply his quota of food, such as
+barley, wine, cheese, and figs from his land, game obtained by hunting,
+or the meat of the animals killed for sacrifices. At these tables all
+shared alike. The kings and the humblest citizens were on an equality.
+No distinction was permitted except to those who had rendered some
+signal service to the state.</p>
+
+<p>This public mess was not accepted without protest. Those who were used
+to luxurious living were not ready to be brought down to such simple
+fare, and a number of these attacked Lycurgus in the market-place, and
+would have stoned him to death had he not run briskly for his life. As
+it was, one of his pursuers knocked out his eye. But, such was his
+content at his success, that he dedicated his last eye to the gods,
+building a temple to the goddess Athen&eacute; of the Eye. At these public
+tables black broth was the most valued dish, the elder men eating it in
+preference, and leaving the meat to their younger messmates.</p>
+
+<p>The houses of the Spartans were as plain as they could well be made, and
+as simple in furniture as possible, while no lights were permitted at
+bedtime, it being designed that every one should become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>accustomed to
+walking boldly in the dark. This, however, was but a minor portion of
+the Spartan discipline. Throughout life, from boyhood to old age, every
+one was subjected to the most rigorous training. From seven years of age
+the drill continued, and everyone was constantly being trained or seeing
+others under training. The day was passed in public exercises and public
+meals, the nights in public barracks. Married Spartans rarely saw their
+wives&mdash;during the first years of marriage&mdash;and had very little to do
+with their children; their whole lives were given to the state, and the
+slavery of the Helots to them was not more complete than their slavery
+to military discipline.</p>
+
+<p>They were not only drilled in the complicated military movements which
+taught a body of Spartan soldiers to act as one man, but also had
+incessant gymnastic training, so as to make them active, strong, and
+enduring. They were taught to bear severe pain unmoved, to endure heat
+and cold, hunger and thirst, to walk barefoot on rugged ground, to wear
+the same garment summer and winter, to suppress all display of feeling,
+and in public to remain silent and motionless until action was called
+for.</p>
+
+<p>Two companies were often matched against each other, and these contests
+were carried on with fury, fists and feet taking the place of arms.
+Hunting in the woods and mountains was encouraged, that they might learn
+to bear fatigue. The boys were kept half fed, that they might be forced
+to provide for themselves by hunting or stealing. The latter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> was
+designed to make them cunning and skilful, and if detected in the act
+they were severely punished. The story is told that one boy who had
+stolen a fox and hidden it under his garment, permitted the animal to
+tear him open with claws and teeth, and died rather than reveal his
+theft.</p>
+
+<p>One might say that he would rather have been born a girl than a boy in
+Sparta; but the girls were trained almost as severely as the boys. They
+were forced to contend with each other in running, wrestling, and
+boxing, and to go through other gymnastic exercises calculated to make
+them strong and healthy. They marched in the religious processions, sung
+and danced at festivals, and were present at the exercises of the
+youths. Thus boys and girls were continually mingled, and the praise or
+reproach of the latter did much to stimulate their brothers and friends
+to the utmost exertion.</p>
+
+<p>As a result of all this the Spartans became strong, vigorous, and
+handsome in form and face. The beauty of their women was everywhere
+celebrated. The men became unequalled for soldierly qualities, able to
+bear the greatest fatigue and privation, and to march great distances in
+a brief time, while on the field of battle they were taught to conquer
+or to die, a display of cowardice or flight from the field being a
+lifelong disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the main features of the most singular set of laws any nation
+ever had, the best fitted to make a nation of soldiers, and also to
+prevent intellectual progress in any other direction than the single one
+of war-making. Even eloquence in speech<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> was discouraged, and a brief or
+laconic manner sedulously cultivated. But while all this had its
+advantages, it had its defects. The number of citizens decreased instead
+of increasing. At the time of the Persian war there were eight thousand
+of them. At a late date there were but seven hundred, of whom one
+hundred possessed most of the land. Whether Lycurgus really divided the
+land equally or not is doubtful. At any rate, in time the land fell into
+a few hands, the poor increased in number, and the people steadily died
+out; while the public mess, so far as the rich were concerned, became a
+mere form.</p>
+
+<p>But we need not deal with these late events, and must go back to the
+story told of Lycurgus. It is said that when he had completed his code
+of laws, he called together an assembly of the people, told them that he
+was going on a journey, and asked them to swear that they would obey his
+laws till he returned. This they agreed to do, the kings, the senate,
+and the people all taking the oath.</p>
+
+<p>Then the law-giver went to Delphi, where he offered a sacrifice to
+Apollo, and asked the oracle if the laws he had made were good. The
+oracle answered that they were excellent, and would bring the people the
+greatest fame. This answer he had put into writing and sent to Sparta,
+for he had resolved to make his oath binding for all time by never
+returning. So the old man starved himself to death.</p>
+
+<p>The Spartans kept their oath. For five hundred years their city
+continued one of the chief cities of Greece, and their army the most
+warlike and dreaded of the armies of the earth. As for Lycurgus, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+countrymen worshipped him as a god, and imputed to him all that was
+noble in their institutions and excellent in their laws. But time brings
+its inevitable changes, and these famous institutions in time decayed,
+while the people perished from over-strict discipline or other causes
+till but a small troop of Spartans remained, too weak in numbers fairly
+to control the Helots of their fields.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the laws of Lycurgus were unnatural, and in the end could but
+fail. They were framed to make one-sided men, and only whole men can
+long succeed. Human nature will have its way, and luxury and corruption
+crept into Sparta despite these laws. Nor did the Spartans prove braver
+or more successful in war than the Athenians, whose whole nature was
+developed, and who were alike great in literature, art, and war.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>ARISTOMENES, THE HERO OF MESSENIA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have told by what means the Spartans grew to be famous warriors. We
+have now to tell one of the ancient stories of how they used their
+warlike prowess to extend their dominions. Laconia, their country, was
+situated in the southeast section of the Peloponnesus, that southern
+peninsula which is attached to the remainder of Greece by the narrow
+neck of land known as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their capital city was
+anciently called Laced&aelig;mon; it was later known as Sparta. In consequence
+they are called in history both Spartans and Laced&aelig;monians.</p>
+
+<p>In the early history of the Spartans they did not trouble themselves
+about Northern Greece. They had enough to occupy them in the
+Peloponnesus. As the Romans, in after-time, spent their early centuries
+in conquering the small nations immediately around them, so did the
+Spartans. And the first wars of this nation of soldiers seem to have
+been with Messenia, a small country west of Laconia, and extending like
+it southward into the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.</p>
+
+<p>There were two wars with the Messenians, both full of stories of daring
+and disaster, but it is the second of these with which we are specially
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>concerned, that in which the hero Aristomenes won his fame. We shall
+not ask our readers to believe all that is told about this ancient
+champion. Much of it is very doubtful. But the war in which he took part
+was historical, and the conquest of Messenia was the first great event
+in Spartan history.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the story itself. In the first Messenian war, which was fought
+more than seven hundred years <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, the leader of the Messenians was
+named Aristodemus. A quarrel had arisen between the two nations during
+some sacrifices on their border lands. The Spartans had laid a snare for
+their neighbors by dressing some youths as maidens and arming them with
+daggers. They attacked the Messenians, but were defeated, and the
+Spartan king was slain.</p>
+
+<p>In the war that ensued the Messenians in time found themselves in severe
+straits, and followed the plan that seems to have been common throughout
+Grecian history. They sent to Delphi to ask aid and advice from the
+oracle of Apollo. And the oracle gave them one of its often cruel and
+always uncertain answers; saying that if they would be successful a
+virgin of the house of &AElig;pytus must die for her country. To fulfil this
+cruel behest Aristodemus, who was of that ancient house, killed his
+daughter with his own hand,&mdash;much as Agamemnon had sacrificed his
+daughter before sailing for Troy.</p>
+
+<p>Aristodemus afterwards became king, and had a stirring and tragic
+history, which was full of portents and prodigies. Thus an old blind
+prophet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>suddenly recovered his sight,&mdash;which the Messenians looked upon
+to mean something, though it is not clear what. A statue of Artemis (or
+Diana) let fall its brazen shield; which meant something more,&mdash;probably
+that the fastenings had given way; but the ancients looked on it as a
+portent. Then the ghost of his murdered daughter appeared to
+Aristodemus, pointed to her wounded side, stripped off his armor, placed
+on his head a crown of gold and on his body a white robe,&mdash;a sign of
+death. So, as it seemed evident that he had mistaken the oracle, and
+killed his daughter without saving his country, he did the only thing
+that remained for him: he went to her grave and killed himself. And with
+this tragedy ends all we need to tell about the first champion of
+Messenia.</p>
+
+<p>The war ended in the conquest of Messenia by the Spartans. The conquered
+people were very harshly treated by the conquerors, being forced to pay
+as tribute half the produce of their fields, and to humble themselves
+before their haughty masters. As a result, about fifty years afterwards,
+they broke out into rebellion, and a second Messenian war began.</p>
+
+<p>This war lasted for many years, the Messenians being led by a valiant
+hero named Aristomenes, who performed startling exploits and made
+marvellous escapes. Three great battles took place, with various results
+and three times Aristomenes made a remarkable sacrifice to the king of
+the gods. This was called the Hekatomphonia, and could only be offered
+by one who had slain, with his own hands, one hundred enemies in battle.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>But great battles were not all. There were years of guerilla warfare.
+At the head of a band of brave followers Aristomenes made his way more
+than once to the very heart of Laconia, surprised two of its cities, and
+on one occasion ventured into Sparta itself by night. Here he boldly
+entered the temple of Athen&eacute; of the Brazen House and hung up his shield
+there as a mark of defiance to his enemies, placing on it an inscription
+which said that Aristomenes presented it as an offering from Spartan
+spoil.</p>
+
+<p>The Messenian maidens crowned their hero with garlands, and danced
+around him, singing a war strain in honor of his victories over his
+foes. Yet he found the Spartans vigorous and persistent enemies, and in
+spite of all his victories was forced at length to take refuge in the
+mountain fastnesses, where he held out against his foes for eleven
+years.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know all the adventures of this famous champion, but are told
+that he was taken prisoner three times by his enemies. Twice he made
+marvellous escapes while they were conveying him to Sparta. On the third
+occasion he was less fortunate. His foes bore him in triumph to their
+capital city, and here he was condemned to be cast from Mount Taygetus
+into the Keadas, a deep rock cavity into which they flung their
+criminals.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty Messenian prisoners suffered the same fate and were all killed;
+but the gods, so we are told, came to their leader's aid. The legend
+says that an eagle took Aristomenes on its outspread wings, and landed
+him safely in the bottom of the pit. More<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> likely the bodies of the
+former victims broke his fall. Seeing no possible way out from the deep
+cavity, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and resigned himself to die.
+But, while thus lying, he saw a fox prowling among the dead bodies, and
+questioned himself how it had found its way into the pit. When it came
+near him he grasped its tail, defending himself from its bites by means
+of his cloak. Holding fast, he followed the fox to the aperture by which
+it had entered, enlarged it so that he could creep out, and soon
+appeared alive again in the field, to the surprise of his friends and
+the consternation of his foes.</p>
+
+<p>Being seized again by some Cretan bowmen, he was rescued by a maiden,
+who dreamed that wolves had brought into the city a chained lion, bereft
+of its claws, and that she had given it claws and set it free. When she
+saw Aristomenes among his captors, she believed that her dream had come
+true, and that the gods desired her to set him free. This she did by
+making his captors drunk, and giving him a dagger with which he cut his
+bonds. The indiscreet bowmen were killed by the warrior, while the
+escaped hero rewarded the maiden by making her the wife of his son.</p>
+
+<p>But Messenia was doomed by the gods, and no man could avert its fate.
+The oracle of Delphi declared that if the he-goat (Tragos) should drink
+the waters of the Neda, the god could no longer defend that fated
+country. And now a fig-tree sprang up on the banks of the Neda, and,
+instead of spreading its branches aloft, let them droop till they
+touched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> the waters of the stream. This a seer announced as the
+fulfillment of the oracle, for in the Messenian language the fig-tree
+was called <i>Tragos</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Aristomenes now, discouraged by the decree of the gods, and finding
+himself surrounded, through treachery, by his enemies in his mountain
+stronghold, decided to give up the hopeless struggle. He broke fiercely
+through the ranks of his assailants with his sons and followers, and
+left his country to the doom which the gods had decreed.</p>
+
+<p>The end of his career, like its earlier events, was, according to the
+legend, under the control of the deities. Damagetes, the king of the
+island of Rhodes, had been told by an oracle that he must marry the
+bravest of the Hellenes (or Greeks). Believing that Aristomenes had the
+best claim to this proud title, he asked him for the hand of his
+daughter in marriage, and offered him a home in his island realm.
+Aristomenes consented, and spent the remainder of his days in Rhodes.
+From his daughter descended the illustrious family of the Diagorid&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>This romantic story of the far past resembles those of King Alfred of
+England, of Wallace and Bruce of Scotland, and of other heroes who have
+defended their countries single-handed against a powerful foe. But we
+are not done with it yet. There is another singular and interesting
+episode to be told,&mdash;a legend, no doubt, but one which has almost passed
+into history.</p>
+
+<p>The story goes that the Spartans, losing heart at the success of the
+Messenians in the early years of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the war, took the usual method then
+adopted, and sent to the oracle at Delphi for advice. The oracle told
+them to apply to Athens for a leader. They did so, sending an embassy to
+that city; and in response to the oracle the Athenians sent them a lame
+schoolmaster named Tyrt&aelig;us. They did not dare to resist the command of
+the god, but they had no desire to render any actual aid to the
+Spartans.</p>
+
+<p>However, Apollo seems to have been wiser than the Athenians. The lame
+schoolmaster was an able poet as well, and on reaching Sparta he
+composed a series of war-songs which so inspirited the army that they
+marched away to victory. Tyrt&aelig;us was probably not only an able poet;
+very likely he also gave the Spartans good advice in the conduct of the
+war, and though he did not lead their armies, he animated them by his
+songs and aided them with his advice until victory followed their career
+of defeat.</p>
+
+<p>For many years afterwards the war-songs of Tyrt&aelig;us remained highly
+popular at Sparta, and some of them have come down to our own days. As
+for the actual history of this war, most of what we know seems to have
+been written by Tyrt&aelig;us, who was thus not only the poet but the
+historian of the Messenian wars.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>SOLON, THE LAW-GIVER OF ATHENS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have told how Sparta came to have an aristocratic government, under
+the laws of Lycurgus. We have now to tell how Athens came to have a
+democratic government, under the laws of Solon. These formed the types
+of government for later Greece, some of whose nations became
+aristocracies, following the example of Sparta; others became
+democracies, and formed their governments on the model of that of
+Athens.</p>
+
+<p>As before Lycurgus the Spartan commonwealth was largely without law, so
+was Athens before Solon. In those days the people of Attica&mdash;of which
+Athens was the capital city&mdash;were divided into three factions,&mdash;the
+rich, the middle class, and the poor. As for the poor, they were in a
+condition of misery, being loaded down with debt, and many of them in a
+state of slavery to the rich, who owned nearly all the land.</p>
+
+<p>At that period what law existed was very severe against debtors. The
+debtor became the slave of his creditor, and was held in this state
+until he could pay his debt, either in money or in labor. And not only
+he, but his younger sons and his unmarried daughters and sisters, were
+reduced to slavery. Through the action of this severe law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> many of the
+poor of Attica were owned as slaves, many had been sold as slaves, some
+had kept their freedom only by selling their own children, and some had
+fled from the country to escape slavery. And this, too, had arisen in
+many cases through injustice in the courts and corruption of the judges.</p>
+
+<p>In the time of Solon the misery and oppression from these laws became so
+great that there was a general mutiny of the poor against the rich. They
+refused to submit to the unjust enactments of their rulers, and the
+state fell into such frightful disorder that the governing class, no
+longer able to control the people, were obliged to call Solon to their
+aid.</p>
+
+<p>Solon did not belong to the rich men of Athens, though he was of noble
+birth, and, like so many of the older Greeks, traced his family line
+back to the gods. Neptune, the ocean deity, was fabled to be his far-off
+ancestor. He was born about 638 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> His father had spent most of his
+money, largely in kind deeds to others, and the son found himself
+obliged to become a merchant. In this pursuit he travelled in many parts
+of Greece and Asia, and in his journeys paid more heed to the gaining of
+knowledge than of money, so that when he came back his mind was fuller
+than his purse. Men who seek wisdom rarely succeed in gaining much
+money, but Solon's story goes to show that wisdom is far the better of
+the two, and that a rich mind is of more value than a rich purse. When
+he returned to Attica he gained such fame as a poet and a man of
+learning and wisdom that he has ever since been classed as one of the
+Seven Wise Men of Greece.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>Of these wise men the following story is told. Some fishermen of Cos
+cast their net into the sea, and brought up in its meshes a golden
+tripod, which the renowned Helen had thrown into the sea during her
+return from Troy. A dispute arose as to whom the tripod should belong
+to. Several cities were ready to go to war about it. To prevent
+bloodshed the oracle of Apollo was applied to, and answered that it
+should be sent to the wisest man that could be found.</p>
+
+<p>It was at first sent to Thales of Miletus, a man famous for wisdom. But
+he decided that Bias of Priene was wiser than he, and sent it to him.
+And thus it went the round of the seven wise men,&mdash;Solon among them, so
+we are told,&mdash;and finally came back to Thales. He refused to keep it,
+and placed it in the temple of Apollo at Thebes.</p>
+
+<p>An evidence alike of Solon's wisdom, shrewdness, and political skill
+arose in the war for the island of Salamis, which adjoined the two
+states of Megara and Attica, and for whose possession they were at war.
+After the Athenians had been at great loss of men and money in this
+conflict, Megara gained the island, and the people of Athens became so
+disgusted with the whole affair that a law was passed declaring that any
+man who spoke or wrote again about the subject should be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>This Solon held to be a stain on the honor of Athens. He did not care to
+lose his life by breaking the law, but was not content that his country
+should rest under the stigma of defeat, and should yield so valuable a
+prize. He accordingly had it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> given out that he had gone mad; and in
+pretended insanity he rushed into the public square, mounted the
+herald's stone, and repeated a poem he had composed for the occasion,
+recalling vividly to the people the disgrace of their late defeat. His
+stirring appeal so wrought upon their feelings that the law was
+repealed, war was declared, and Solon was placed in command of the army.</p>
+
+<p>Megara sent out a ship to watch the proceedings, but this was seized by
+Solon's fleet and manned by part of his force. The remainder of his men
+were landed and marched towards the city of Salamis, on which they made
+an assault. While this was going on, Solon sailed up with the ship he
+had captured. The Megarians, thinking it to be their own ship, permitted
+it to enter the port, and the city was taken by surprise. Salamis, thus
+won, continued to belong to Athens till those late days when Philip of
+Macedon conquered Greece.</p>
+
+<p>To Solon, now acknowledged to be the wisest and most famous of the
+Athenians, the tyrants who had long misruled Athens turned, when they
+found the people in rebellion against their authority. In the year 594
+<span class="ampm">B.C.</span> he was chosen archon, or ruler of the state, and was given full
+power to take such measures as were needed to put an end to the
+disorders. Probably these autocrats supposed that he would help them to
+continue in power; but, if so, they did not know the man with whom they
+had to deal.</p>
+
+<p>Solon might easily have made himself a despot, if he had chosen,&mdash;all
+the states of Greece being then under the rule of despots or of
+tyrannical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>aristocrats. But he was too honest and too wise for this. He
+set himself earnestly to overcome the difficulties which lay before him.
+And he did this with a radical hand. In truth, the people were in no
+mood for any but radical measures.</p>
+
+<p>The enslaved debtors were at once set free. All contracts in which the
+person or the land of the debtor had been given as security were
+cancelled. No future contract under which a citizen could be enslaved or
+imprisoned for debt was permitted. All past claims against the land of
+Attica were cancelled, and the mortgage pillars removed. (These pillars
+were set up at the boundaries of the land, and had the lender's name and
+the amount of the debt cut into the stone.)</p>
+
+<p>But as many of the creditors were themselves in debt to richer men, and
+as Solon's laws left them poor, he adopted a measure for their relief.
+This was to lower the value of the money of the state. The old silver
+drachmas were replaced by new drachmas, of which seventy-three equalled
+one hundred of the old. Debtors were thus able to pay their debts at a
+discount of twenty-seven per cent., and the great loss fell on the rich;
+and justly so, for most of them had gained their wealth through
+dishonesty and oppression. Lastly, Solon made full citizens of all from
+whom political rights had been taken, except those who had been
+condemned for murder or treason.</p>
+
+<p>This was a bold measure. And, like such bold measures generally, it did
+injustice to many. But the evil was temporary, the good permanent. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+put an end to much injustice, and no such condition as had prevailed
+ever again arose in Athens. The government of the aristocracy came to an
+end under Solon's laws. From that time forward Athens grew more and more
+a government of the people.</p>
+
+<p>The old assembly of the people existed then, but all its power had been
+taken from it. Solon gave back to it the right of voting and of passing
+laws. But he established a council of four hundred men, elected annually
+by the people, whose duty it was to consider the business upon which the
+assembly was to act. And the assembly could only deal with business that
+was brought before it by this council.</p>
+
+<p>The assemblies of the people took place on the Pnyx, a hill that
+overlooked the city, and from which could be seen the distant sea. At
+its right stood the Acropolis, that famous hill on which the noblest of
+temples were afterwards built. Between these two hills rose the
+Areopagus, on which the Athenian supreme court held its sessions. The
+Athenians loved to do their business in the open air, and, while
+discussing questions of law and justice, delighted in the broad view
+before them of the temples, the streets, and the crowded marts of trade
+of the city, and the shining sea, with its white-sailed craft, afar in
+the sunny distance.</p>
+
+<p>Solon's laws went further than we have said. He divided the people into
+four ranks or divisions, according to their wealth in land. The richer
+men were, the more power they were given in the state. But at the same
+time they had to pay heavier taxes, so that their greater authority was
+not an unmixed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> blessing. The lowest class, composed of the poorest
+citizens, had no taxes at all to pay, and no power in the state, other
+than the right to vote in the assembly. When called out as soldiers arms
+were furnished them, while the other classes had to buy their own arms.</p>
+
+<p>Various other laws were made by Solon. The old law against crime,
+established long before by Draco, had made death the penalty for every
+crime, from murder to petty theft. This severe law was repealed, and the
+punishment made to agree with the crime. Minor laws were these: The
+living could not speak evil of the dead. No person could draw more than
+a fixed quantity of water daily from the public wells. People who raised
+bees must not have their hives too near those of their neighbors. It was
+fixed how women should dress, and they were forbidden to scratch or tear
+themselves at funerals. They had to carry baskets of a fixed size when
+they went abroad. A dog that bit anybody had to be delivered up with a
+log four feet and a half long tied to its neck. Such were some of the
+laws which the council swore to maintain, each member vowing that if he
+broke any of them he would dedicate a golden statue as large as himself
+to Apollo, at Delphi.</p>
+
+<p>Having founded his laws, Solon, fearing that he would be forced to make
+changes in them, left Athens, having bound the people by oath to keep
+them for ten years, during which time he proposed to be absent.</p>
+
+<p>From Athens he set sail for Egypt, and in that ancient realm talked long
+with two learned priests<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> about the old history of the land. Among the
+stories they told him was a curious one about a great island named
+Atlantis, far in the western ocean, against which Athens had waged war
+nine thousand years before, and which had afterwards sunk under the
+Atlantic's waves. It was one of those fanciful legends of which the past
+had so great a store.</p>
+
+<p>From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he dwelt long and made useful
+changes. He is also said to have visited, at Sardis, Cr&#339;sus, the king
+of Lydia, a monarch famous for his wealth and good fortune. About this
+visit a pretty moral story is told. It is probably not true, being a
+fiction of the ancient story-tellers, but, fiction or not, it is well
+worth the telling.</p>
+
+<p>Cr&#339;sus had been so fortunate in war that he had made his kingdom
+great and prosperous, while he was esteemed the richest monarch of his
+times. He lodged Solon in his palace and had his servants show him all
+the treasures which he had gained. He then, conversing with his visitor,
+praised him for his wisdom, and asked him whom he deemed to be the
+happiest of men.</p>
+
+<p>He expected an answer flattering to his vanity, but Solon simply
+replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tellus, of Athens."</p>
+
+<p>"And why do you deem Tellus the happiest?" demanded Cr&#339;sus.</p>
+
+<p>Solon gave as his reason that Tellus lived in comfort and had good and
+beautiful sons, who also had good children; and that he died in gallant
+defence of his country, and was buried by his countrymen with the
+highest honors.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p><p>"And whom do you give the second place in happiness?" asked Cr&#339;sus.</p>
+
+<p>"Cleobis and Bito," answered Solon. "These were men of the Argive race,
+who had fortune enough for their wants, and were so strong as to gain
+prizes at the Games."</p>
+
+<p>"But their special title to happiness was," continued Solon, "that in a
+festival to the goddess Juno, at Argos, their mother wished to go in a
+car. As the oxen did not return in time from the fields, the youths,
+fearing to be late, yoked themselves to the car, and drew their mother
+to the temple, forty-five furlongs away. This filial deed gained them
+the highest praise from the people, while their mother prayed the
+goddess to bestow upon them the highest blessing to which mortals can
+attain. After her prayer, the youths offered sacrifices, partook of the
+holy banquet, and fell asleep in the temple. They never woke again! This
+was the blessing of the goddess."</p>
+
+<p>"What," cried Cr&#339;sus, angrily, "is my happiness, then, of so little
+value to you that you put me on a level with private men like these?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are very rich, Cr&#339;sus," answered Solon, "and are lord of many
+nations. But remember that you have many days yet to live, and that any
+single day in a man's life may yield events that will change all his
+fortune. As to whether you are supremely happy and fortunate, then, I
+have no answer to make. I cannot speak for your happiness till I know if
+your life has a happy <i>ending</i>."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p><p>Solon, having completed his travels, returned to Athens to find it in
+turmoil. Pisistratus, a political adventurer and a favorite with the
+people, had gained despotic power by a cunning trick. He wounded
+himself, and declared that he had been attacked and wounded by his
+political enemies. He asked, therefore, for a body-guard for his
+protection. This was granted him by the popular assembly, which was
+strongly on his side. With its aid he seized the Acropolis and made
+himself master of the city, while his opponents were forced to fly for
+their lives.</p>
+
+<p>This revolutionary movement was strenuously opposed by Solon, but in
+vain. Pisistratus had made himself so popular with the people that they
+treated their old law-giver like a man who had lost his senses. As a
+last appeal he put on his armor and placed himself before the door of
+his house, as if on guard as a sentinel over the liberties of his
+country! This appeal was also in vain.</p>
+
+<p>"I have done my duty!" he exclaimed; "I have sustained to the best of my
+power my country and the laws."</p>
+
+<p>He refused to fly, saying, when asked on what he relied for protection,
+"On my old age."</p>
+
+<p>Pisistratus&mdash;who proved a very mild despot&mdash;left his aged opponent
+unharmed, and in the next year Solon died, being then eighty years of
+age.</p>
+
+<p>His laws lived after him, despite the despotism which ruled over Athens
+for the succeeding fifty years.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE FORTUNE OF CR&#338;SUS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> land of the Hellenes, or Greeks, was not confined to the small
+peninsula now known as Greece. Hellenic colonies spread far to the east
+and the west, to Italy and Sicily on the one hand, to Asia Minor and the
+shores of the Black Sea on the other. The story of the Argonauts
+probably arose from colonizing expeditions to the Black Sea. That of
+Cr&#339;sus has to do with the colonies in Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<p>These colonies clung to the coast. Inland lay other nations, to some
+extent of Hellenic origin. One of these was the kingdom of Lydia, whose
+history is of the highest importance to us, since the conflicts between
+Lydia and the coast colonies were the first steps towards the invasion
+of Greece by the Persians, that most important event in early Grecian
+history.</p>
+
+<p>These conflicts began in the reign of Cr&#339;sus, an ambitious king of
+Lydia in the sixth century before Christ. What gave rise to the war
+between Lydia and the Greek settlements of Ionia and &AElig;olia we do not
+very well know. An ambitious despot does not need much pretext for war.
+He wills the war, and the pretext follows. It will suffice to say that,
+on one excuse or another, Cr&#339;sus made war on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> every Ionian and &AElig;olian
+state, and conquered them one after the other.</p>
+
+<p>First the great and prosperous city of Ephesus fell. Then, one by one,
+others followed, till, by the year 550 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, Cr&#339;sus had become lord
+and master of every one of those formerly free and wealthy cities and
+states. Then, having placed all the colonies on the mainland under
+tribute, he designed to conquer the islands as well, and proposed to
+build ships for that purpose. He was checked in this plan by the shrewd
+answer of one of the seven wise men of Greece, either Bias or Pittacus,
+who had visited Sardis, the capital of Lydia.</p>
+
+<p>"What news bring you from Greece?" asked King Cr&#339;sus of his wise
+visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"I am told that the islanders are gathering ten thousand horse, with the
+purpose of attacking you and your capital," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Cr&#339;sus. "Have the gods given these shipmen such an idea
+as to fight the Lydians with cavalry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy, O king," answered the Greek, "that nothing would please you
+better than to catch these islanders here on horseback. But do you not
+think that they would like nothing better than to catch you at sea on
+shipboard? Would they not avenge on you the misfortunes of their
+conquered brethren?"</p>
+
+<p>This shrewd suggestion taught Cr&#339;sus a lesson. Instead of fighting
+the islanders, he made a treaty of peace and friendship with them. But
+he continued his conquests on the mainland till in the end all Asia
+Minor was under his sway, and Lydia had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> become one of the great
+kingdoms of the earth. Such wealth came to Cr&#339;sus as a result of his
+conquests and unchanging good fortune that he became accounted the
+richest monarch upon the earth, while Sardis grew marvellous for its
+splendor and prosperity. At an earlier date there had come thither
+another of the seven wise men of Greece, Solon, the law-giver of Athens.
+What passed between this far-seeing visitor and the proud monarch of
+Lydia we have already told.</p>
+
+<p>The misfortunes which Solon told the king were liable to come upon any
+man befell Cr&#339;sus during the remainder of his life. Herodotus, the
+historian, tells us the romantic story of how the gods sent misery to
+him who had boasted overmuch of his happiness. We give briefly this
+interesting account.</p>
+
+<p>Cr&#339;us had two sons, one of whom was deaf and dumb, the other, Atys by
+name, gifted with the highest qualities which nature has to bestow. The
+king loved his bright and handsome son as dearly as he loved his wealth,
+and when a dream came to him that Atys would die by the blow of an iron
+weapon, he was deeply disturbed in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>How should he prevent such a misfortune? In alarm, he forbade his son to
+take part in military forays, to which he had before encouraged him;
+and, to solace him for this deprivation, bade him to take a wife. Then,
+lest any of the warlike weapons which hung upon the walls of his
+apartments might fall and wound him, the king had them all removed, and
+stored away in the part of the palace devoted to the women.</p>
+
+<p>But fate had decreed that all such precautions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> should be in vain. At
+Mount Olympus, in Mysia, had appeared a monster boar, that ravaged the
+fields of the lowlands and defied pursuit into his mountain retreat.
+Hunting parties were sent against him, but the great boar came off
+unscathed, while the hunters always suffered from his frightful tusks.
+At length ambassadors were sent to Cr&#339;sus, begging him to send his
+son, with other daring youths and with hunting hounds, to aid them rid
+their country of this destructive brute.</p>
+
+<p>"That cannot be," answered Cr&#339;sus, still in terror from his dream.
+"My son is just married, and cannot so soon leave his bride. But I will
+send you a picked band of hunters, and bid them use all zeal to kill
+this foe of your harvests."</p>
+
+<p>With this promise the Mysians were quite content, but Atys, who
+overheard it, was not.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my father," he demanded, "do you now keep me from the wars and the
+chase, when you formerly encouraged me to take part in them, and win
+glory for myself and you? Have I ever shown cowardice or lack of manly
+spirit? What must the citizens or my young bride think of me? With what
+face can I show myself in the forum? Either you must let me go to the
+chase of this boar, or give a reason why you keep me at home."</p>
+
+<p>In reply Cr&#339;sus told the indignant youth of his vision, and the alarm
+with which it had inspired him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried Atys, "then I cannot blame you for keeping this tender watch
+over me. But, father, do you not wrongly interpret the dream? It said I
+was to die stricken by an iron weapon. A boar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> wields no such weapon.
+Had the dream said I was to die pierced by a tusk, then you might well
+be alarmed; but it said a weapon. We do not propose now to fight men,
+but to hunt a wild beast I pray you, therefore, let me go with the
+party."</p>
+
+<p>"You have the best of me there," said Cr&#339;sus. "Your interpretation of
+the dream is better than mine. You may go, my son."</p>
+
+<p>At that time there was at the king's court a Phrygian named Adrastus,
+who had unwittingly slain his own brother and had fled to Sardis, where
+he was purified according to the customs of the country, and courteously
+received by the king. Cr&#339;sus sent for this stranger and asked him to
+go with the hunting party, and keep especial watch over his son, in case
+of an attack by some daring band of robbers.</p>
+
+<p>Adrastus consented, though against his will, his misfortune having taken
+from him all desire for scenes of bloodshed. However, he would do his
+utmost to guard the king's son against harm.</p>
+
+<p>The party set out accordingly, reached Olympus without adventure, and
+scattered in pursuit of the animal, which the dogs soon roused from its
+lair. Closing in a circle around the brute, the hunters drew near and
+hurled their weapons at it. Not the least eager among the hunters was
+Adrastus, who likewise hurled his spear; but, through a frightful
+chance, the hurtling weapon went astray, and struck and killed Atys, his
+youthful charge. Thus was the dream fulfilled: an iron weapon had slain
+the king's favorite son.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p><p>The news of this misfortune plunged Cr&#339;sus into the deepest misery
+of grief. As for Adrastus, he begged to be sacrificed at the grave of
+his unfortunate victim. This Cr&#339;sus, despite his grief, refused,
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Some god is the author of my misfortune, not you. I was forewarned of
+it long ago."</p>
+
+<p>But Adrastus was not to be thus prevented. Deeming himself the most
+unfortunate of men, he slew himself on the tomb of the hapless youth.
+And for two years Cr&#339;sus abandoned himself to grief.</p>
+
+<p>And now we must go on to tell how Cr&#339;sus met with a greater
+misfortune still, and brought the Persians to the gates of Greece.
+Cyrus, son of Cambyses, king of Persia, had conquered the neighboring
+kingdom of Media, and, inspired by ambition, had set out on a career of
+wide-spread conquest and dominion. He had grown steadily more powerful,
+and now threatened the great kingdom which Cr&#339;sus had gained.</p>
+
+<p>The Lydian king, seeing this danger approaching, sought advice from the
+oracles. But wishing first to know which of them could best be trusted,
+he sent to six of them demanding a statement of what he was doing at a
+certain moment. The oracle of Delphi alone gave a correct answer.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Cr&#339;sus offered up a vast sacrifice to the Delphian deity.
+Three thousand oxen were slain, and a great sacrificial pile was built,
+on which were placed splendid robes and tunics of purple, with couches
+and censers of gold and silver, all to be committed to the flames. To
+Delphi he sent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> presents befitting the wealthiest of kings,&mdash;ingots,
+statues, bowls, jugs, etc., of gold and silver, of great weight. These
+Herodotus himself saw with astonishment a century afterwards at Delphi.
+The envoys who bore these gifts asked the oracle whether Cr&#339;sus
+should undertake an expedition against the Persians, and should solicit
+allies.</p>
+
+<p>He was bidden, in reply, to seek alliance with the most powerful nations
+of Greece. He was also told that if he fought with the Persians he would
+overturn a "mighty empire." Cr&#339;sus accepted this as a promise of
+success, not thinking to ask whose empire was to be overturned. He sent
+again to the oracle, which now replied, "When a mule shall become king
+of the Medes, then thou must run away,&mdash;be not ashamed." Here was
+another enigma of the oracle. Cyrus&mdash;son of a royal Median mother and a
+Persian father of different race and lower position&mdash;was the mule
+indicated, though Cr&#339;sus did not know this. In truth, the oracles of
+Greece seem usually to have borne a double meaning, so that whatever
+happened the priestess could claim that her word was true, the fault was
+in the interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>Cr&#339;sus, accepting the oracles as favorable, made an alliance with
+Sparta, and marched his army into Media, where he inflicted much damage.
+Cyrus met him with a larger army, and a battle ensued. Neither party
+could claim a victory, but Cr&#339;sus returned to Sardis, to collect more
+men and obtain aid from his allies. He might have been successful had
+Cyrus waited till his preparations were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>complete. But the Persian king
+followed him to his capital, defeated him in a battle near Sardis, and
+besieged him in that city.</p>
+
+<p>Sardis was considered impregnable, and Cr&#339;sus could easily have held
+out till his allies arrived had it not been for one of those unfortunate
+incidents of which war has so many to tell. Sardis was strongly
+fortified on every side but one. Here the rocky height on which it was
+built was so steep as to be deemed inaccessible, and walls were thought
+unnecessary. Yet a soldier of the garrison made his way down this
+precipice to pick up his helmet, which had fallen. A Persian soldier saw
+him, tried to climb up, and found it possible. Others followed him, and
+the garrison, to their consternation, found the enemy within their
+walls. The gates were opened to the army without, and the whole city was
+speedily taken by storm.</p>
+
+<p>Cr&#339;sus would have been killed but for a miracle. His deaf and dumb
+son, seeing a Persian about to strike him down, burst into speech
+through the agony of terror, crying out, "Man, do not kill Cr&#339;sus!"
+The story goes that he ever afterwards retained the power of speech.</p>
+
+<p>Cyrus had given orders that the life of Cr&#339;sus should be spared, and
+the unhappy captive was brought before him. But the cruel Persian had a
+different death in view. He proposed to burn the captive king, together
+with fourteen Lydian youths, on a great pile of wood which he had
+constructed. We give what followed as told by Herodotus, though its
+truth cannot be vouched for at this late day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p><p>As Cr&#339;sus lay in fetters on the already kindled pile and thought of
+this terrible ending to his boasted happiness, he groaned bitterly, and
+cried in tones of anguish, "Solon! Solon! Solon!"</p>
+
+<p>"What does he mean?" asked Cyrus of the interpreters. They questioned
+Cr&#339;sus, and learned from him what Solon had said. Cyrus heard this
+story not without alarm. His own life was yet to end; might not a like
+fate come to him? He ordered that the fire should be extinguished, but
+would have been too late had not a timely downpour of rain just then
+come to the aid of the captive king,&mdash;sent by Apollo, in gratitude for
+the gifts to his temple, suggests Herodotus. Cr&#339;sus was afterwards
+made the confidential friend and adviser of the Persian king, whose
+dominions, through this victory, had been extended over the whole Lydian
+empire, and now reached to the ocean outposts of Greece.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE SUITORS OF AGARIST&Eacute;.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sicyon</span>, the smallest country of the Peloponnesus, lay on the Gulf of
+Corinth, adjoining the isthmus which connects the peninsula with the
+rest of Greece. In this small country&mdash;as in many larger ones&mdash;the
+nobles held rule, the people were subjects. The rich and proud rulers
+dwelt on the hill slopes, the poor and humble people lived on the
+sea-shore and along the river Asopus. But in course of time many of the
+people became well off, through success in fisheries and commerce, to
+which their country was well adapted. Weary of the oppression of the
+nobles, they finally rose in rebellion and overthrew the government.
+Orthagoras, once a cook, but now leader of the rebels, became master of
+the state, and he and his descendants ruled it for a hundred years. The
+last of this dynasty was Cleisthenes, a just and moderate ruler,
+concerning whom we have a story to tell.</p>
+
+<p>These lords of the state were called tyrants; but this word did not mean
+in Greece what it means to us. The tyrants of Greece were popular
+leaders who had overthrown the old governments and laws, and ruled
+largely through force and under laws of their own making. But they were
+not necessarily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>tyrannical. The tyrants of Athens were mild and just in
+their dealings with the people, and so proved to be those of Sicyon.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image3.jpg" width="600" height="361" alt="GRECIAN LADIES AT HOME." title="" />
+<span class="caption">GRECIAN LADIES AT HOME.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Cleisthenes, who became the most eminent of the tyrants of Sicyon, had a
+beautiful daughter, named Agarist&eacute;, whom he thought worthy of the
+noblest of husbands, and decided that she should be married to the
+worthiest youth who could be found in all the land of Greece. To select
+such a husband he took unusual steps.</p>
+
+<p>When the fair Agarist&eacute; had reached marriageable age, her father attended
+the Olympic games, at which there were used to gather men of wealth and
+eminence from all the Grecian states. Here he won the prize in the
+chariot race, and then bade the heralds to make the following
+proclamation:</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever among the Greeks deems himself worthy to be the son-in-law of
+Cleisthenes, let him come, within sixty days, to Sicyon. Within a year
+from that time Cleisthenes will decide, from among those who present
+themselves, on the one whom he deems fitting to possess the hand of his
+daughter."</p>
+
+<p>This proclamation, as was natural, roused warm hopes in many youthful
+breasts, and within the sixty days there had gathered at Sicyon thirteen
+noble claimants for the charming prize. From the city of Sybaris in
+Italy came Smindyrides, and from Siris came Damasus. Amphimnestus and
+Males made their way to Sicyon from the cities of the Ionian Gulf. The
+Peloponnesus sent Leocedes from Argos, Amiantus from Arcadia, Laphanes
+from P&aelig;us, and Onomastus from Elis. From Eub&#339;a came Lysanias;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> from
+Thessaly, Diactorides; from Molossia, Alcon; and from Attica, Megacles
+and Hippoclides. Of the last two, Megacles was the son of the renowned
+Alkm&aelig;on, while Hippoclides was accounted the handsomest and wealthiest
+of the Athenians.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the sixty days, when all the suitors had arrived,
+Cleisthenes asked each of them whence he came and to what family he
+belonged. Then, during the succeeding year, he put them to every test
+that could prove their powers. He had had a foot-course and a
+wrestling-ground made ready to test their comparative strength and
+agility, and took every available means to discover their courage,
+vigor, and skill.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not all that the sensible monarch demanded in his desired
+son-in-law. He wished to ascertain their mental and moral as well as
+their physical powers, and for this purpose kept them under close
+observation for a year, carefully noting their manliness, their temper
+and disposition, their accomplishments and powers of intellect. Now he
+conversed with each separately; now he brought them together and
+considered their comparative powers. At the gymnasium, in the council
+chamber, in all the situations of thought and activity, he tested their
+abilities. But he particularly considered their behavior at the
+banquet-table. From first to last they were sumptuously entertained, and
+their demeanor over the trencher-board and the wine-cup was closely
+observed.</p>
+
+<p>In this story, as told us by garrulous old Herodotus, nothing is said of
+Agarist&eacute; herself. In a modern <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>romance of this sort the lady would have
+had a voice in the decision and a place in the narrative. There would
+have been episodes of love, jealousy, and malice, and the one whom the
+lady blessed with her love would in some way&mdash;in the eternal fitness of
+things&mdash;have become victor in the contest and carried off the prize. But
+they did things differently in Greece. The preference of the maiden had
+little to do with the matter; the suitor exerted himself to please the
+father, not the daughter; maiden hands were given rather in barter and
+sale than in trust and affection; in truth, almost the only lovers we
+meet with in Grecian history are H&aelig;mon and Antigone, of whom we have
+spoken in the tale of the "Seven against Thebes."</p>
+
+<p>And thus it was in the present instance. It was the father the suitors
+courted, not the daughter. They proved their love over the
+banquet-table, not at the trysting-place. It was by speed of foot and
+skill in council, not by whispered words of devotion, that they
+contended for the maidenly prize. Or, if lovers' meetings took place and
+lovers' vows were passed, they were matters of the strictest secrecy,
+and not for Greek historians to put on paper or Greek ears to hear.</p>
+
+<p>But the year of probation came in due time to its end, and among all the
+suitors the two from Athens most won the favor of Cleisthenes. And of
+the two he preferred Hippoclides. It was not alone for his handsome face
+and person and manly bearing that this favored youth was chosen, but
+also because he was descended from a noble family of Corinth which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+Cleisthenes esteemed. Yet "there is many a slip between the cup and the
+lip," an adage whose truth Hippoclides was to learn.</p>
+
+<p>When the day came on which the choice of the father was to be made, and
+the wedding take place, Cleisthenes held a great festival in honor of
+the occasion. First, to gain the favor of the gods, he offered a hundred
+oxen in sacrifice. Then, not only the suitors, but all the people of the
+city were invited to a grand banquet and festival, at the end of which
+the choice of Cleisthenes was to be declared. What torments of love and
+fear Agarist&eacute; suffered during this slow-moving feast the historian does
+not say. Yet it may be that she was the power behind the throne, and
+that the proposed choice of the handsome Hippoclides was due as much to
+her secret influence as to her father's judgment.</p>
+
+<p>However this be, the feast went on to its end, and was followed by a
+contest between the suitors in music and oratory, with all the people to
+decide. As the drinking which followed went on, Hippoclides, who had
+surpassed all the others as yet, shouted to the flute-player, bidding
+him to play a dancing air, as he proposed to show his powers in the
+dance.</p>
+
+<p>The wine was in his weak head, and what he considered marvellously fine
+dancing did not appear so to Cleisthenes, who was closely watching his
+proposed son-in-law. Hippoclides, however, in a mood to show all his
+accomplishments, now bade an attendant to bring in a table. This being
+brought, he leaped upon it, and danced some Laconian steps,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> which he
+followed by certain Attic ones. Finally, to show his utmost powers of
+performance, he stood on his head on the table, and began to dance with
+his legs in empty air.</p>
+
+<p>This was too much for Cleisthenes. He had changed his opinion of
+Hippoclides during his light and undignified exhibition, but restrained
+himself from speaking to avoid any outbreak or ill feeling. But on
+seeing him tossing his legs in this shameless manner in the air, the
+indignant monarch cried out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Son of Tisander, you have danced your wife away."</p>
+
+<p>"What does Hippoclides care?" was the reply of the tipsy youth.</p>
+
+<p>And for centuries afterwards "What does Hippoclides care?" was a common
+saying in Greece, to indicate reckless folly and lightness of mind.</p>
+
+<p>Cleisthenes now commanded silence, and spoke as follows to the assembly:</p>
+
+<p>"Suitors of my daughter, well pleased am I with you all, and right
+willingly, if it were possible, would I content you all, and not, by
+making choice of one, appear to put a slight upon the rest. But as it is
+out of my power, seeing that I have only one daughter, to grant to all
+their wishes, I will present to each of you whom I must needs dismiss a
+talent of silver<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> for the honor that you have done in seeking to ally
+yourselves with my house, and for your long absence from your homes. But
+my daughter Agarist&eacute; I betroth to Megacles, the son of Alkm&aelig;on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> to be
+his wife, according to the usage and wont of Athens."</p>
+
+<p>Megacles gladly accepted the honor thus offered him, the marriage was
+solemnized with all possible state, and the suitors dispersed,&mdash;twelve
+of them happy with their silver talents, one of them happier with his
+charming bride.</p>
+
+<p>We have but further to say that Cleisthenes of Athens&mdash;a great leader
+and law-giver, whose laws gave origin to the democratic government of
+that city&mdash;was the son of Megacles and Agarist&eacute;, and that his grandson
+was the famous Pericles, the foremost name in Athenian history.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE TYRANTS OF CORINTH.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have already told what the word "tyrant" meant in Greece,&mdash;a despot
+who set aside the law and ruled at his own pleasure, but who might be
+mild and gentle in his rule. Such were the tyrants of Sicyon, spoken of
+in our last tale. The tyrants of Corinth, the state adjoining Sicyon,
+were of a harsher character. Herodotus, the gossiping old historian
+tells some stories about these severe despots which seem worth telling
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The government of Corinth, like most of the governments of Greece, was
+in early days an oligarchy,&mdash;that is, it was ruled by a number of
+powerful aristocrats instead of by a single king. In Corinth these
+belonged to a single family, named the Bacchiad&aelig; (or legendary
+descendants of the god Bacchus), who constantly intermarried, and kept
+all power to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But one of this family, Amphion by name, had a daughter, named Labda,
+whom none of the Bacchiad&aelig; would marry, as she had the misfortune to be
+lame. So she married outside the family, her husband being named A&euml;tion,
+and a man of noble descent. Having no children, A&euml;tion applied to the
+Delphian oracle, and was told that a son would soon be borne to him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+and that this son "would, like a rock, fall on the kingly race and right
+the city of Corinth."</p>
+
+<p>The Bacchiad&aelig; heard of this oracle, and likewise knew of an earlier one
+that had the same significance. Forewarned is forearmed. They remained
+quiet, waiting until A&euml;tion's child should be born, and proposing then
+to take steps for their own safety.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, they heard that Labda had borne a son, they sent ten of
+their followers to Petra (the <i>rock</i>), where A&euml;tion dwelt, with
+instructions to kill the child. These assassins entered A&euml;tion's house,
+and, with murder in their hearts, asked Labda, with assumed
+friendliness, if they might see her child. She, looking upon them as
+friends of her husband, whom kindly feeling had brought thither, gladly
+complied, and, bringing the infant, laid it in the arms of one of the
+ruffianly band.</p>
+
+<p>It had been agreed between them that whoever first laid hold of the
+child should dash it to the ground. But as the innocent intended victim
+lay in the murderer's arms, it smiled in his face so confidingly that he
+had not the heart to do the treacherous deed. He passed the child,
+therefore, on to another, who passed it to a third, and so it went the
+rounds of the ten, disarming them all by its happy and trusting smile
+from performing the vile deed for which they had come. In the end they
+handed the babe back to its mother, and left the house.</p>
+
+<p>Halting just outside the door, a hot dispute arose between them, each
+blaming the others, and nine of them severely accusing the one whose
+task it had been to do the cruel deed. He defended himself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> saying that
+no man with a heart in his breast could have done harm to that smiling
+babe,&mdash;certainly not he. In the end they decided to go into the house
+again, and all take part in the murder.</p>
+
+<p>But they had talked somewhat too long and too loud. Labda had overheard
+them and divined their dread intent. Filled with fear, lest they should
+return and murder her child, she seized the infant, and, looking eagerly
+about for some place in which she might conceal it, chose a <i>cypsel</i>, or
+corn-bin, as the place least likely to be searched.</p>
+
+<p>Her choice proved a wise one. The men returned, and, as she refused to
+tell them where the child was, searched the house in vain,&mdash;none of them
+thinking of looking for an infant in a corn-bin. At length they went
+away, deciding to report that they had done as they were bidden, and
+that the child of A&euml;tion was slain.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, in memory of his escape, was named <i>Cypselus</i>, after the
+corn-bin. He grew up without further molestation, and on coming to man's
+estate did what so many of the ancients seemed to have considered
+necessary, went to Delphi to consult the oracle.</p>
+
+<p>The pythoness, or priestess of Apollo, at his approach, hailed him as
+king of Corinth. "He and his children, but not his children's children."
+And the oracle, as was often the case, produced its own accomplishment,
+for it encouraged Cypselus to head a rebellion against the oligarchy, by
+which it was overthrown and he made king. For thirty years thereafter he
+reigned as tyrant of Corinth, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> prosperous but harsh rule. Many of
+the Corinthians were put to death by him, others robbed of their
+fortunes, and others banished the state. Then he died and left the
+government to his son Periander.</p>
+
+<p>Periander began his reign in a mild spirit. But his manner changed after
+he had sent a herald to Thrasyb&uacute;lus, the tyrant of Miletus, asking his
+advice how he could best rule with honor and fortune. Thrasyb&uacute;lus led
+the messenger outside the city and through a field of corn, questioning
+him as they walked, while, whenever he came to an ear of corn that
+overtopped its fellows, he broke it off and threw it aside. Thus his
+path through the field was marked by the downfall of all the tallest
+stems and ears. Then, returning to the city, he sent the messenger back
+without a word of answer to his petition.</p>
+
+<p>Periander, on his herald's return, asked him what counsel he brought.
+"None," was the answer; "not a word. King Thrasyb&uacute;lus acted in the
+strangest way, destroying his corn as he led me through the field, and
+sending me away without a word." He proceeded to tell how the monarch
+had acted.</p>
+
+<p>Periander was quick to gather his brother tyrant's meaning. If he would
+rule in safety he must cut off the loftiest heads,&mdash;signified by the
+tall ears of corn. He took the advice thus suggested, and from that time
+on treated his subjects with the greatest cruelty. Many of those whom
+Cypselus had spared he put to death or banished, and acted the tyrant in
+the fullest sense of the word.</p>
+
+<p>He even killed his wife Melissa; just why, we do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> not know. But we are
+told that she afterwards appeared to him in a dream and said that she
+was cold, being destitute of clothes. The garments he had buried with
+her were of no use to her spirit, since they had not been burned.
+Periander took his own way to quiet and clothe the restless ghost. He
+proclaimed that all the wives of Corinth should go to the temple of
+Juno. This they did, dressed in their best, deeming it a festival. When
+they were all within he closed the doors, and had them stripped of their
+rich robes and ornaments, which he threw into a pit and set on fire,
+calling on the name of Melissa as they burned. And in this way the
+demand of the shivering ghost was satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Periander had two sons,&mdash;the elder a dunce, the younger, Lycophron (or
+wolf-heart), a youth of noble nature and fine intellect. He sent them on
+a visit to Proclus, their mother's father, and from him the boys
+learned, what they had not known before, that their father was their
+mother's murderer.</p>
+
+<p>This story did not trouble the dull-brained elder, but Lycophron was so
+affected by it that on his return home he refused to speak to his
+father, and acted so surlily that Periander in anger turned him out of
+his house. The tyrant, learning from his elder son the cause of
+Lycophron's strange behavior, grew still more incensed. He sent orders
+to those who had given shelter to his son that they should cease to
+harbor him, And he continued to drive him from shelter to shelter, till
+in the end he proclaimed that whoever dared to harbor, or even speak to,
+his rebellious son, should pay a heavy fine to Apollo.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p><p>Thus, driven from every house, Lycophron took lodging in the public
+porticos, where he dwelt without shelter and almost without food. Seeing
+his wretched state, Periander took pity on him and bade him come home
+and no longer indulge in such foolish and unfilial behavior.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image4.jpg" width="600" height="341" alt="THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Lycophron's only reply was that his father had broken his own edict by
+coming and talking with him, and therefore himself owed the penalty to
+Apollo.</p>
+
+<p>Periander, seeing that the boy was uncontrollable in his indignation,
+and troubled at heart by the piteous spectacle, now sent him by ship to
+the island of Corcyra, a colony of Corinth. As for Proclus, the tyrant
+made war upon him for his indiscreet revelation, robbed him of his
+kingdom, Epidaurus, and carried him captive to Corinth.</p>
+
+<p>And the years went on, and Periander grew old and unable properly to
+handle his affairs. His elder son was incapable of taking his place, so
+he sent to Corcyra and asked Lycophron to come to Corinth and take the
+kingship of that fair land.</p>
+
+<p>Lycophron, whose indignation time had not cooled, refused even to answer
+the message. Then Periander sent his daughter, the sister of Lycophron,
+hoping that she might be able to persuade him. She made a strong appeal,
+begging him not to let the power pass away from their family and their
+father's wealth fall into strange hands, and reminding him that mercy
+was a higher virtue than justice.</p>
+
+<p>Her appeal was in vain. Lycophron refused to go back to Corinth as long
+as his father remained alive.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p><p>Then the desperate old man, at his wits' end through Lycophron's
+obstinacy, sent a herald, saying that he would himself come to Corcyra,
+and let his son take his place in Corinth as king. To these terms
+Lycophron agreed. But there were others to deal with, for, when the
+terrified Corcyrians heard that the terrible old tyrant was coming to
+dwell in their island, they rose in a tumult and put Lycophron to death.</p>
+
+<p>And thus ended the dynasty of Cypselus, as the oracle had foretold.
+Though Periander revenged himself on the Corcyrians, he could not bring
+his son to life again, and the children's children of Cypselus did not
+come to the throne.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE RING OF POLYCRATES.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Near</span> the coast of Asia Minor lies the bright and beautiful island of
+Samos, one of the choicest gems of the &AElig;gean archipelago. This island
+was, somewhere about the year 530 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, seized by a political adventurer
+named Polycrates. He accomplished this by the aid of his two brothers,
+but of these he afterwards killed one and banished the other,&mdash;Syloson
+by name,&mdash;so that he became sole ruler and despot of the island.</p>
+
+<p>This island kingdom of Polycrates was a small one, about eighty miles in
+circumference, but it was richly fertile, and had the honor of being the
+birthplace of many illustrious Greeks, among whom we may name
+Pythagoras, the famous philosopher. The city of Samos became, under
+Polycrates, "the first of all cities, Greek or barbarian." It was
+adorned with magnificent buildings and costly works of art; was supplied
+with water by a great aqueduct, tunnelled for nearly a mile through a
+mountain; had a great breakwater to protect the harbor, and a vast and
+magnificent temple to Juno: all of which seem to have been partly or
+wholly constructed by Polycrates.</p>
+
+<p>But this despot did not content himself with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> ruling the island and
+adorning the city which he had seized. He was ambitious and
+unscrupulous, and aspired to become master of all the islands of the
+&AElig;gean Sea, and of Ionia in Asia Minor. He conquered several of these
+islands and a number of towns in the mainland, defeated the Lesbian
+fleet that came against him during his war with Miletus, got together a
+hundred armed ships and hired a thousand bowmen, and went forward with
+his designs with a fortune that never seemed to desert him. His naval
+power became the greatest in the world of Greece, and it seemed as if he
+would succeed in all his ambitious designs. But a dreadful fate awaited
+the tyrant. Like Cr&#339;sus, he was to learn that good fortune is apt to
+be followed by disaster. The remainder of his story is part history and
+part legend, and we give it as told by old Herodotus, who has preserved
+so many interesting tales of ancient Greece.</p>
+
+<p>At, that time Persia, whose king Cyrus had overcome Cr&#339;sus, was the
+greatest empire in the world. All western Asia lay in its grasp; Asia
+Minor was overrun; and Cambyses, the king who had succeeded Cyrus, was
+about to invade the ancient land of Egypt. The king of this country,
+Amasis by name, was in alliance with Polycrates, rich gifts had passed
+between them, and they seemed the best of friends. But Amasis had his
+superstitions, and the constant good fortune of Polycrates seemed to him
+so different from the ordinary lot of kings that he feared that some
+misfortune must follow it. He perhaps had heard the story of Solon and
+Cr&#339;sus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> Amasis accordingly wrote a warning letter to his friend.</p>
+
+<p>The great prosperity of his friend and ally, he said, caused him
+foreboding instead of joy, for he knew that the gods were envious, and
+he desired for those he loved alternate good and ill fortune. He had
+never heard of any one who was successful in all his enterprises that
+did not meet with calamity in the end. He therefore counselled
+Polycrates to do what the gods had not yet done, and bring some
+misfortune on himself. His advice was that he should select the treasure
+he most valued and could least bear to part with, and throw it away so
+that it should never be seen again. By this voluntary sacrifice he might
+avert involuntary loss and suffering.</p>
+
+<p>This advice seemed wise to the despot, and he began to consider which of
+his possessions he could least bear to lose. He settled at length on his
+signet-ring, an emerald set in gold, which he highly valued. This he
+determined to throw away where it could never be recovered. So, having
+one of his fifty-oared vessels manned, he put to sea, and when he had
+gone a long distance from the coast he took the ring from his finger
+and, in the presence of all the sailors, tossed it into the waters.</p>
+
+<p>This was not done without deep grief to Polycrates. He valued the ring
+more highly than ever, now that it lay on the bottom of the sea,
+irretrievably lost to him, as he thought; and he grieved for days
+thereafter, feeling that he had endured a real misfortune, which he
+hoped the gods might accept as a compensation for his good luck.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p><p>But destiny is not so easily to be disarmed. Several days afterwards a
+Samian fisherman had the fortune to catch a fish so large and beautiful
+that he esteemed it worthy to be offered as a present to the king. He
+accordingly went with it to the palace gates and asked to see
+Polycrates. The guards, learning his purpose, admitted him. On coming
+into the king's presence, the fisherman said that, though he was a poor
+man who lived by his labor, he could not let himself offer such a prize
+in the public market.</p>
+
+<p>"I said to myself," he continued, "'It is worthy of Polycrates and his
+greatness;' and so I brought it here to give it to you."</p>
+
+<p>The compliment and the gift so pleased the tyrant that he not only
+thanked the fisherman warmly, but invited him to sup with him on the
+fish.</p>
+
+<p>But a wonder happened in the king's kitchen. On the cook's cutting open
+the fish to prepare it for the table, to his surprise he found within it
+<i>the signet-ring of the king</i>. With joy he hastened to Polycrates with
+his strangely recovered treasure, the story of whose loss had gone
+abroad, and told in what a remarkable way it had been restored.</p>
+
+<p>As for Polycrates, the return of the ring brought him some joy but more
+grief. The fates, it appeared, were not so lightly to be appeased. He
+wrote to Amasis, telling what he had done and with what result. The
+letter came to the Egyptian king like a prognostic of evil. That there
+would be an ill end to the career of Polycrates he now felt sure; and,
+not wishing to be involved in it himself, he sent a herald to Samos and
+informed his late friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> and ally that the alliance between them was at
+an end.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be said that Amasis profited much by this act. Soon afterwards
+his own country was overrun and conquered by Cambyses, the Persian king,
+and his reign came to a disastrous termination.</p>
+
+<p>Whether there is any historical basis for this story of the ring may be
+questioned. But this we do know, that the friendship between Amasis and
+Polycrates was broken, and that Polycrates offered to help Cambyses in
+his invasion, and sent forty ships to the Nile for this purpose. On
+these were some Samians whom the tyrant wished to get rid of, and whom
+he secretly asked the Persian king not to let return.</p>
+
+<p>These exiles, however, suspecting what was in store for them, managed in
+some way to escape, and returned to Samos, where they made an attack on
+Polycrates. Being driven off by him, they went to Sparta and asked for
+assistance, telling so long a story of their misfortunes and sufferings
+that the Spartans, who could not bear long speeches, curtly answered,
+"We have forgotten the first part of your speech, and the last part we
+do not understand." This answer taught the Samians a lesson. The next
+day they met the Spartans with an empty wallet, saying, "Our wallet has
+no meal in it." "Your wallet is superfluous," said the Spartans; meaning
+that the words would have served without it. The aid which the Spartans
+thereupon granted the exiles proved of no effect, for it was against
+Polycrates, the fortunate. They sent an expedition to Samos,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> and
+besieged the city forty days, but were forced to retire without success.
+Then the exiles, thus made homeless, became pirates. They attacked the
+weak but rich island of Siphnos, which they ravaged, and forced the
+inhabitants to buy them off at a cost of one hundred talents. With this
+fund they purchased the island of Hydrea, but in the end went to Crete,
+where they captured the city of Cydonia. After they had held this city
+for five years the Cretans recaptured it, and the Samian exiles ended
+their career by being sold into slavery.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the good fortune of Polycrates continued, and Samos flourished
+under his rule. In addition to his great buildings and works of
+engineering he became interested in stock-raising, and introduced into
+the island the finest breeds of sheep, goats, and pigs. By high wages he
+attracted the ablest artisans of Greece to the city, and added to his
+popularity by lending his rich hangings and costly plate to those who
+wanted them for a wedding feast or a sumptuous banquet. And that none of
+his subjects might betray him while he was off upon an extended
+expedition, he had the wives and children of all whom he suspected shut
+up in the sheds built to shelter his ships, with orders that these
+should be burned in case of any rebellious outbreak.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the misfortune that the return of the ring had indicated came at
+length. The warning which Solon had given Cr&#339;sus applied to
+Polycrates as well. The prosperous despot had a bitter enemy, Or&#339;tes
+by name, the Persian governor of Sardis. As to why he hated Polycrates
+two stories are told,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> but as neither of them is certain we shall not
+repeat them. It is enough to say that he hated Polycrates bitterly and
+desired his destruction, which he laid a plan to bring about.</p>
+
+<p>Or&#339;tes, residing then at Magnesia, on the M&aelig;ander River, in the
+vicinity of Samos, and being aware of the ambitious designs of
+Polycrates, sent him a message to the effect that he knew that while he
+desired to become lord of the isles, he had not the means to carry out
+his ambitious project. As for himself, he was aware that Cambyses was
+bent on his destruction. He therefore invited Polycrates to come and
+take him, with his wealth, offering for his protection gold sufficient
+to make him master of the whole of Greece, so far as money would serve
+for this.</p>
+
+<p>This welcome offer filled Polycrates with joy. He knew nothing of the
+hatred of Or&#339;tes, and at once sent his secretary to Magnesia to see
+the Persian and report upon the offer. What he principally wished to
+know was in regard to the money offered, and Or&#339;tes prepared to
+satisfy him in this particular. He had eight large chests prepared,
+filled nearly full of stones, upon which gold was spread. These were
+corded, as if ready for instant removal.</p>
+
+<p>This seeming store of gold was shown to the secretary, who hastened back
+to Polycrates with a glowing description of the treasure he had seen.
+Polycrates, on hearing this story, decided to go at once and bring
+Or&#339;tes and his chests of gold to Samos.</p>
+
+<p>Against this action his friends protested, while the soothsayers found
+the portents unfavorable. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> daughter, also, had a significant dream.
+She saw her father hanging high in the air, washed by Zeus, the king of
+the gods, and anointed by the sun. Yet in spite of all this the
+infatuated king persisted in going. His daughter followed him on the
+ship, still begging him to return. His only answer was that if he
+returned successfully he would keep her an old maid for years.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh that you may perform your threat!" she answered. "It is far better
+for me to be an old maid than to lose my father."</p>
+
+<p>Yet the infatuated king went, despite all warnings and advice, taking
+with him a considerable suite. On his arrival at Magnesia grief instead
+of gold proved his portion. His enemy seized him, put him to a miserable
+death, and hung his dead body on a cross to the mercy of the sun and the
+rains. Thus his daughter's dream was fulfilled, for, in the old belief,
+to be washed by the rain was to be washed by Zeus, while the sun
+anointed him by causing the fat to exude from his body.</p>
+
+<p>A year or two after the death of Polycrates, his banished brother
+Syloson came to the throne in a singular way. During his exile he found
+himself at Memphis, in Egypt, while Cambyses was there with his
+conquering army. Among the guards of the king was Darius, the future
+king of Persia, but then a soldier of little note. Syloson wore a
+scarlet cloak to which Darius took a fancy and proposed to buy it. By a
+sudden impulse Syloson replied, "I cannot for any price sell it; but I
+give it you for nothing, if it must be yours."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>Darius thanked him for the cloak, and that ended the matter there and
+then,&mdash;Syloson afterwards holding himself as silly for the impulsive
+good nature of his gift.</p>
+
+<p>But at length he learned with surprise that the simple Persian soldier
+whom he had benefited was now king of the great Persian empire. He went
+to Susa, the capital, and told who he was. Darius had forgotten his
+face, but he remembered the incident of the cloak, and offered to pay a
+kingly price for the small favor of his humbler days, tendering gold and
+silver in profusion to his visitor. Syloson rejected these, but asked
+the aid of Darius to make him king of Samos. This the grateful monarch
+granted, and sent Syloson an army, with whose aid the island quickly and
+quietly fell into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Yet calamity followed this peaceful conquest. Charilaus, a hot-tempered
+and half-mad Samian, who had been given charge of the acropolis, broke
+from it at the head of the guards, and murdered many of the Persian
+officers who were scattered unguarded throughout the town. The reprisal
+was dreadful. The Persian army fell in fury on the Samians and
+slaughtered every man and boy in the island, handing over to Syloson a
+kingdom of women and infants. Some time afterwards, however, the island
+was repeopled by men from without, and Syloson completed his reign in
+peace, leaving the sceptre of Samos to his son.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE ADVENTURES OF DEMOCEDES.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Pythagoras, the celebrated Greek philosopher, settled in the
+ancient Italian city of Crotona (between 550 and 520 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>) there was
+living in that town a youthful surgeon who was destined to have a
+remarkable history. Democedes by name, the son of a Crotonian named
+Calliphon, he strongly inclined while still a mere boy to the study of
+medicine and surgery, for which arts that city had then a reputation
+higher than any part of Greece.</p>
+
+<p>The boy had two things to contend with, the hard study in his chosen
+profession and the high temper of his father. The latter at length grew
+unbearable, and the youthful surgeon ran away from home, making his way
+to the Greek island of &AElig;gina. Here he began to practise what he had
+learned at home, and, though he was very poorly equipped with the
+instruments of his profession, he proved far abler and more successful
+than the surgeons whom he found in that island. So rapid, indeed, was
+his progress that his first year's service brought him an offer from the
+citizens of &AElig;gina to remain with them for one year, at a salary of one
+talent,&mdash;the &AElig;ginetan talent being nearly equal to two thousand dollars.
+The next year he spent at Athens, whose people had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> offered him one and
+two-thirds talents. In the following year Polycrates of Samos bid higher
+still, offering him two talents, and the young surgeon repaired to that
+charming island.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far the career of Democedes had been one of steady progress. But,
+as Solon told Cr&#339;sus, a man cannot count himself sure of happiness
+while he lives. The good fortune which had attended the runaway surgeon
+was about to be followed by a period of ill luck and degradation,
+following those of his new patron. In the constant wars of Greece a free
+citizen could never be sure how soon he might be reduced to slavery, and
+such was the fate of Democedes.</p>
+
+<p>We have already told how Polycrates was treacherously seized and
+murdered by the Persian satrap Or&#339;tes. Democedes had accompanied him
+to the court of the traitor, and was, with the other attendants of
+Polycrates, seized and left to languish in neglect and imprisonment.
+Soon afterwards Or&#339;tes received the just retribution for his
+treachery, being himself slain. And now a third turn came to the career
+of Democedes. He was classed among the slaves of Or&#339;tes, and sent
+with them in chains to Susa, the capital of Darius, the great Persian
+king.</p>
+
+<p>But here the wheel of fortune suddenly took an upward turn. Darius, the
+king, leaping one day from his horse in the chase, sprained his foot so
+badly that he had to be carried home in violent pain. The surgeons of
+the Persian court were Egyptians, who were claimed to be the first men
+in their profession. But, though they used all their skill in treating
+the foot of the king, they did him no good.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> Indeed, they only made the
+pain more severe. For seven days and nights the mighty king was taught
+that he was a man as well as a monarch, and could suffer as severely as
+the poorest peasant in his kingdom. The foot gave him such torture that
+all sleep fled from his eyelids, and he and those around him were in
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>At length it came to the memory of one who had come from the court of
+Or&#339;tes, at Sardis, that report had spoken of a Greek surgeon among
+the slaves of the slain satrap. He mentioned this, and the king, to whom
+any hope of relief was welcome, gave orders that this man should be
+sought and brought before him. It was a miserable object that was soon
+ushered into the royal presence, a poor creature in rags, with fetters
+on his hands, and deep lines of suffering upon his face; a picture of
+misery, in fact.</p>
+
+<p>He was asked if he understood surgery. "No," he replied; saying that he
+was a slave, not a surgeon. Darius did not believe him; these Greeks
+were artful; but there were ways of getting at the truth. He ordered
+that the scourge and the pricking instruments of torture should be
+brought. Democedes, who was probably playing a shrewd game, now admitted
+that he did have some little skill, but feared to practise his small art
+on so great a patient. He was bidden to do what he could, and went to
+work on the royal foot.</p>
+
+<p>The little skill of the Greek soon distanced the great skill of the
+Egyptians. He succeeded perfectly in alleviating the pain, and soon had
+his patient in a deep and refreshing sleep. In a short time the foot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+was sound again, and Darius could once more stand without a twinge of
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>The king, who had grown hopeless of a cure, was filled with joy, and set
+no bounds to his gratitude. Democedes had come before him in iron
+chains. As a first reward the king presented him with two sets of chains
+of solid gold. He next sent him to receive the thanks of his wives.
+Being introduced into the harem, Democedes was presented to the sultanas
+as the man who had saved the king's life, and whom their lord and master
+delighted to honor. Each of the fair and grateful women, in reward for
+his great deed, gave him a saucer-full of golden coins, which were so
+many, and heaped so high, that the slave who followed him grew rich by
+merely picking up the pieces that dropped on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did the generosity of Darius stop here. He gave Democedes a splendid
+house and furniture, made him eat at his own table, and showed him every
+favor at his command. As for the unlucky Egyptian surgeons, they would
+all have been crucified for their lack of skill had not Democedes begged
+for their lives. He might safely have told Darius that if he began to
+crucify men for ignorance and assurance he would soon have few subjects
+left.</p>
+
+<p>But with all the favors which Darius granted, there was one which he
+steadily refused to grant. And it was one on which Democedes had set his
+heart. He wanted to return to Greece. Splendor in Persia was very well
+in its way, but to his patriotic heart a crust in Greece was better than
+a loaf in this land of strangers. Ask as he might, however, Darius
+would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> not consent. A sprain or other harm might come to him again. What
+would he then do without Democedes? He could not let him go.</p>
+
+<p>As asking had proved useless, the wily Greek next tried artifice.
+Atossa, the favorite wife of the king, had a tumor to form on her
+breast. She said nothing of it for a time, but at length it grew so bad
+that she was forced to speak to the surgeon. He examined the tumor, and
+told her he could cure it, and would do so if she would solemnly swear
+to do in return whatever he might ask. As she agreed to this, he cured
+the tumor, and then told her that the reward he wished was liberty to
+return to Greece. But he told Atossa that the king would not grant that
+favor even to her, and that it could only be had by stratagem. He
+advised her how she should act.</p>
+
+<p>When next in conversation with the king, Atossa told him that the
+Persians expected him to do something for the glory and power of the
+empire. He must add to it by conquest.</p>
+
+<p>"So I propose," he replied. "I have in view an expedition against the
+Scythians of the north."</p>
+
+<p>"Better lead one against the Greeks of the west," she replied. "I have
+heard much about the beauty of the maidens of Sparta, Athens, Argos, and
+Corinth, and I want to have some of these fair barbarians to serve me as
+slaves. And if you wish to know more about these Greek people, you have
+near you the best person possible to give you information,&mdash;the Greek
+who cured your foot."</p>
+
+<p>The suggestion seemed to Darius one worth considering. He would
+certainly like to know more about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> this land of Greece. In the end,
+after conversing with his surgeon, he decided to send some confidential
+agents there to gain information, with Democedes as their guide. Fifteen
+such persons were chosen, with orders to observe closely the coasts and
+cities of Greece, obeying the suggestions and leadership of Democedes.
+They were to bring back what information they could,&mdash;and on peril of
+their lives to bring back Democedes. If they returned without him it
+would be a sorry home-coming for them.</p>
+
+<p>The king then sent for Democedes, told him of the proposed expedition
+and what part he was to take in it, but imperatively bade him to return
+as soon as his errand was finished. He was bidden to take with him the
+wealth he had received, as presents for his father and brothers. He
+would not suffer from its loss, since as much, and more, would be given
+him on his return. Lastly, orders were given that a store-ship, "filled
+with all manner of good things," should be taken with the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Democedes heard all this with the aspect of one to whom it was new
+tidings. Come back? Of course he would. He wished ardently to see
+Greece, but for a steady place of residence he much preferred Susa and
+the palace of his king. As for the gold which had been given him, he
+would not take it away. He wanted to find his house and property on his
+return. The store-ship would answer for all the presents he cared to
+make.</p>
+
+<p>His shrewd reply left no shadow of doubt in the heart of the king. The
+envoys proceeded to Sidon, in Ph&#339;nicia, where two armed triremes and
+a large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> store-ship were got ready by their orders. In these they sailed
+to the coast of Greece, which they fully surveyed, and even went as far
+as Italy. The cities were also visited, and the story of all they had
+seen was carefully written down.</p>
+
+<p>At length they arrived at Tarentum, in Italy, not far from Crotona, the
+native place of Democedes. Here, at the secret suggestion of the wily
+surgeon, the king seized the Persians as spies, and, to prevent their
+escape, took away the rudders of their ships. Their treacherous leader
+took the opportunity to make his way to Crotona, and here the Persians,
+who had been released and given back their ships, found him on their
+arrival. They seized him in the market-place, but he was rescued from
+them by his fellow-citizens in spite of the remonstrances and threats of
+the envoys. The Crotonians even took from them the store-ship, and
+forced them to leave the harbor in their triremes.</p>
+
+<p>On their way home the unlucky envoys suffered a second misfortune; they
+were shipwrecked and made slaves,&mdash;as was the cruel way of dealing with
+unfortunates in those days. An exile from Tarentum, named Gillis, paid
+their ransom, and took them to Susa,&mdash;for which service Darius offered
+him any reward he chose to ask. Like Democedes, all he wanted was to go
+home. But this reward he did not obtain. Darius brought to bear on
+Tarentum all the influence he could wield, but in vain. The Tarentines
+were obdurate, and would not have their exile back again. And Gillis was
+more honorable than Democedes. He did not lay plans to bring a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> Persian
+invasion upon Greece through his selfish wish to get back to his native
+land.</p>
+
+<p>A few words more will tell all else we know about Democedes. His last
+words to his Persian companions bade them tell Darius that he was about
+to marry the daughter of Milo of Crotona, famed as the greatest wrestler
+of his time. Darius knew well the reputation of Milo. He had probably
+learned it from Democedes himself. And a Persian king was more likely to
+admire a muscular than a mental giant. Milo meant more to him than Homer
+or any hero of the pen. Democedes did marry Milo's daughter, paying a
+high price for the honor, for the sole purpose, so far as we know, of
+sending back this boastful message to his friend, the king. And thus
+ends all we know of the story of the surgeon of Crotona.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus and his Persian army was the first
+step towards that invasion of Greece by the Persians which proved such a
+vital element in the history of the Hellenic people. The next step was
+taken in the reign of Darius, the first of Asiatic monarchs to invade
+Europe. This ambitious warrior attempted to win fame by conquering the
+country of the Scythian barbarians,&mdash;now Southern Russia,&mdash;and was
+taught such a lesson that for centuries thereafter the perilous
+enterprise was not repeated.</p>
+
+<p>It was about the year 516 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> that the Persian king, with the
+ostensible purpose&mdash;invented to excuse his invasion&mdash;of punishing the
+Scythians for a raid into Asia a century before, but really moved only
+by the thirst for conquest, reached the Bosphorus, the strait that here
+divides Europe from Asia. He had with him an army said to have numbered
+seven hundred thousand men, and on the seas was a fleet of six hundred
+ships. A bridge of boats was thrown across this arm of the sea,&mdash;on
+which Constantinople now stands,&mdash;and the great Persian host reached
+European soil in the country of Thrace.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p><p>Happy was it for Greece that the ambitious Persian did not then seek
+its conquest, as Democedes, his physician, had suggested. The Athenians,
+then under the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus, were not the free and
+bold people they afterwards became, and had Darius sought their conquest
+at that time, the land of Greece would probably have become a part of
+the overgrown Persian empire. Fortunately, he was bent on conquering the
+barbarians of the north, and left Greece to grow in valor and
+patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>While the army marched from Asia into Europe across its bridge of boats,
+the fleet was sent into the Euxine, or Black Sea, with orders to sail
+for two days up the Danube River, which empties into that sea, and build
+there also a bridge of boats. When Darius with his army reached the
+Danube, he found the bridge ready, and on its swaying length crossed
+what was then believed to be the greatest river on the earth. Reaching
+the northern bank, he marched onward into the unknown country of the
+barbarous Scythians, with visions of conquest and glory in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>What happened to the great Persian army and its ambitious leader in
+Scythia we do not very well know. Two historians tell us the story, but
+probably their history is more imagination than fact. Ctesias tells the
+fairy-tale that Darius marched northward for fifteen days, that he then
+exchanged bows with the Scythian king, and that, finding the Scythian
+bow to be the largest, he fled back in terror to the bridge, which he
+hastily crossed, having left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> a tenth of his army as a sacrifice to his
+mad ambition.</p>
+
+<p>The story told by Herodotus is probably as much a product of the
+imagination as that of Ctesias, though it reads more like actual
+history. He says that the Scythians retreated northward, sending their
+wives and children before them in wagons, and destroying the wells and
+ruining the harvests as they went, so that little was left for the
+invaders to eat and drink. On what the vast host lived we do not know,
+nor how they crossed the various rivers in their route. With such
+trifling considerations as these the historians of that day did not
+concern themselves. There were skirmishes and combats of horsemen, but
+the Scythian king took care to avoid any general battle. Darius sent him
+a herald and taunted him with cowardice, but King Idanthyrsus sent word
+back that if the Persians should come and destroy the tombs of the
+forefathers of the Scythians they would learn whether they were cowards
+or not.</p>
+
+<p>Day by day the monster Persian army advanced, and day by day its
+difficulties increased, until its situation grew serious indeed. The
+Scythians declined battle still, but Idanthyrsus sent to his distressed
+foe the present of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. This
+signified, according to the historian, "Unless you take to the air, like
+a bird; to the earth, like a mouse; or to the water, like a frog, you
+will become the victim of the Scythian arrows."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>This warning frightened Darius. In truth, he was in a desperate strait.
+Leaving the sick and weak part of his army encamped with the asses he
+had brought,&mdash;animals unknown to the Scythians, who were alarmed by
+their braying,&mdash;he began a hasty retreat towards his bridge of boats.
+But rapidly as he could march, the swifter Scythians reached the bridge
+before him, and counselled with the Ionian Greeks, who had been left in
+charge, and who were conquered subjects of the Persian king, to break
+down the bridge and leave Darius and his army to their fate.</p>
+
+<p>And now we get back into real history again. The story of what happened
+in Scythia is all romance. All we really know is that the expedition
+failed, and what was left of the army came back to the Danube in hasty
+retreat. And here comes in an interesting part of the narrative. The
+fleet of Darius was largely made up of the ships of the Ionians of Asia
+Minor, who had long been Persian subjects. It was they who had bridged
+the Danube, and who were left to guard the bridge. After Darius had
+crossed the bridge, on his march north, he ordered the Ionians to break
+it down and follow him into Scythia, leaving only the rowers and seamen
+in the ships. But one of his Greek generals advised him to let the
+bridge stand under guard of its builders, saying that evil fortune might
+come to the king's army through the guile and shrewdness of the
+Scythians.</p>
+
+<p>Darius found this advice good, and promised to reward its giver after
+his return. He then took a cord and tied sixty knots in it. This he left
+with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> the Ionians. "Take this cord," he said. "Untie one of the knots in
+it each day after my advance from the Danube into Scythia. Remain here
+and guard the bridge until you shall have untied all the knots; but if
+by that time I shall not have returned, then depart and sail home."</p>
+
+<p>Such were the methods of counting which then prevailed. And the
+knowledge of geography was not more advanced. Darius had it in view to
+march round the Black Sea and return to Persia along its eastern
+side,&mdash;with the wild idea that sixty days would suffice for this great
+march.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for him, as the story goes, the Ionians did not obey orders,
+but remained on guard after the knots were all untied. Then, to their
+surprise, Scythians instead of Persians appeared. These told the Ionians
+that the Persian army was in the greatest distress, was retreating with
+all speed, and that its escape from utter ruin depended on the safety of
+the bridge. They urged the Greeks to break the bridge and retire. If
+they should do so the Persians would all be destroyed, and Ionia would
+regain its freedom.</p>
+
+<p>This was wise advice. Had it been taken it might have saved Greece from
+the danger of Persian invasion. The Ionians were at first in favor of
+it, and Miltiades, one of their leaders, and afterwards one of the
+heroes of Greek history, warmly advised that it should be done. But
+Histi&aelig;us, the despot of Miletus, advised the other Ionian princes that
+they would lose their power if their countries became free, since the
+Persians alone supported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> them, while the people everywhere were against
+them. They determined, therefore, to maintain the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>But, to rid themselves of the Scythians, they pretended to take their
+advice, and destroyed the bridge for the length of a bow-shot from the
+northern shore of the stream. The Scythians, thinking that they now had
+their enemies at their mercy, departed in search of their foes. That
+night the Persian army, in a state of the greatest distress and
+privation, reached the Danube, the Scythians having missed them and
+failed to check their march. To the horror of Darius and his starving
+and terror-stricken men, the bridge, in the darkness, appeared to be
+gone. An Egyptian herald, with a voice like a trumpet, was ordered to
+call for Histi&aelig;us, the Milesian. He did so, an answer came through the
+darkness, and the hopes of the fleeing king were restored. The bridge
+was speedily made complete again, and the Persian army hastily crossed,
+reaching the opposite bank before the Scythians, who had lost their
+track, reappeared in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended in disaster the first Persian invasion of Europe. It was to
+be followed by others in later years, equally disastrous to the
+invaders. As for the despots of Ionia, who had through selfishness lost
+the chance of freeing their native land, they were to live to see,
+before many years, Ionia desolated by the Persian tyrant whom they had
+saved from irretrievable ruin. We shall tell how this came about, as a
+sequel to the story of the invasion of Scythia.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p><p>Histi&aelig;us, despot of Miletus, whose advice had saved the bridge for
+Darius, was richly rewarded for his service, and attended Darius on his
+return to Susa, the Persian capital, leaving his son-in-law Aristagoras
+in command at Miletus. Some ten years afterwards this regent of Miletus
+made an attempt, with Persian aid, to capture the island of Naxos. The
+effort failed, and Aristagoras, against whom the Persians were incensed
+by their defeat and their losses, was threatened with ruin. He began to
+think of a revolt from Persian rule.</p>
+
+<p>While thus mentally engaged, he received a strangely-sent message from
+Histi&aelig;us, who was still detained at Susa, and who eagerly desired to get
+away from dancing attendance at court and return to his kingdom.
+Histi&aelig;us advised his regent to revolt. But as this message was far too
+dangerous to be sent by any ordinary channels, he adopted an
+extraordinary method to insure its secrecy. Selecting one of his most
+trusty slaves, Histi&aelig;us had his head shaved, and then pricked or
+tattooed upon the bare scalp the message he wished to send. Keeping the
+slave in seclusion until his hair had grown again, he sent him to
+Miletus, where he was instructed simply to tell Aristagoras to shave and
+examine his head. Aristagoras did so, read the tattooed message, and
+immediately took steps to obey.</p>
+
+<p>Word of the proposed revolt was sent by him to the other cities along
+the coast, and all were found ready to join in the attempt to secure
+freedom. Not only the coast settlements, but the island of Cyprus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+joined in the revolt. At the appointed time all the coast region of Asia
+Minor suddenly burst into a flame of war.</p>
+
+<p>Aristagoras hurried to Greece for aid, seeking it first at Sparta.
+Finding no help there, he went to Athens, which city lent him twenty
+ships,&mdash;a gift for which it was to pay dearly in later years. Hurrying
+back with this small reinforcement, he quickly organized an expedition
+to assail the Persians at the centre of their power.</p>
+
+<p>Marching hastily to Sardis, the capital of Asia Minor, the revolted
+Ionians took and burned that city. But the Persians, gathering in
+numbers, defeated and drove them back to the coast, where the Athenians,
+weary of the enterprise, took to their ships and hastened home.</p>
+
+<p>When word of this raid, and the burning of Sardis by the Athenians and
+Ionians, came to the ears of Darius at his far-off capital city, he
+asked in wonder, "The Athenians!&mdash;who are they?" The name of this
+distant and insignificant Greek city had not yet reached his kingly
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>He was told who the Athenians were, and, calling for his bow, he shot an
+arrow high into the air, at the same time calling to the Greek deity,
+"Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on those Athenians."</p>
+
+<p>And he bade one of his servants to repeat to him three times daily, when
+he sat down to his mid-day meal, "Master, remember the Athenians!"</p>
+
+<p>The invaders had been easily repulsed from Sardis, but the revolt
+continued, and proved a serious and stubborn one, which it took the
+Persians years to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> overcome. The smaller cities were conquered one by
+one, but the Persians were four years in preparing for the siege of
+Miletus. Resistance here was fierce and bitter, but in the end the city
+fell. The Persians now took a savage revenge for the burning of Sardis,
+killing most of the men of this important city, dragging into captivity
+the women and children, and burning the temples to the ground. The other
+cities which still held out were quickly taken, and visited like
+Miletus, with the same fate of fire and bloodshed. It was now 495 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>,
+more than twenty years after the invasion of Scythia.</p>
+
+<p>As for Histi&aelig;us, he was at first blamed by Darius for the revolt. But as
+he earnestly declared his innocence, and asserted that he could soon
+bring it to an end, Darius permitted him to depart. Reaching Miletus, he
+applied at the gates for admission, saying that he had come to the
+city's aid. But Aristagoras was no longer there, and the Milesians had
+no use for their former tyrant. They refused him admission, and even
+wounded him when he tried to force his way in at night. He then went to
+Lesbos, obtained there some ships, occupied the city of Byzantium, and
+began a life of piracy, which he kept up till his death, pillaging the
+Ionian merchant ships as they passed into and out of the Euxine Sea.
+Thus ended the career of this treacherous and worthless despot, to whom
+Darius owed his escape from Scythia.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE ATHENIANS AT MARATHON.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> time came when Darius of Persia did not need the bidding of a slave
+to make him "Remember the Athenians." He was taught a lesson on the
+battle-field of Marathon that made it impossible for him ever to forget
+the Athenian name. Having dismally failed in his expedition against the
+Scythians, he invaded Greece and failed as dismally. It is the story of
+this important event which we have next to tell.</p>
+
+<p>And here it may be well to remark what terrible consequences to mankind
+the ambition of a single man may cause. The invasion of Greece, and all
+that came from it, can be traced in a direct line of events from the
+deeds of Histi&aelig;us, tyrant of Miletus, who first saved Darius from
+annihilation by the Scythians, then roused the Ionians to rebellion,
+and, finally, through the medium of Aristagoras, induced the Athenians
+to come to their aid and take part in the burning of Sardis. This roused
+Darius, who had dwelt at Susa for many years in peace, to a thirst for
+revenge on Athens, and gave rise to that series of invasions which
+ravaged Greece for many years, and whose fitting sequel was the invasion
+and conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, a century and a half
+later.</p>
+
+<p>And now, with this preliminary statement, we may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> proceed with our tale.
+No sooner had the Ionian revolt been brought to an end, and the Ionians
+punished for their daring, than the angry Oriental despot prepared to
+visit upon Athens the vengeance he had vowed. His preparations for this
+enterprise were great. His experience in Scythia had taught him that the
+Western barbarians&mdash;as he doubtless considered them&mdash;were not to be
+despised. For two years, in every part of his vast empire, the note of
+war was sounded, and men and munitions of war were actively gathered. On
+the coast of Asia Minor a great fleet, numbering six hundred armed
+triremes and many transports for men and horses, was prepared. The
+Ionian and &AElig;olian Greeks largely manned this fleet, and were forced to
+aid their late foe in the effort to destroy their kinsmen beyond the
+archipelago of the &AElig;gean Sea.</p>
+
+<p>An Athenian traitor accompanied the Persians, and guided their leader in
+the advance against his native city. We have elsewhere spoken of
+Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, whose treason Solon had in vain
+endeavored to prevent. After his death, his sons Hipparchus and Hippias
+succeeded him in the tyranny. Hipparchus was killed in 514 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, and in
+511 Hippias, who had shown himself a cruel despot, was banished from
+Athens. He repaired to the court of King Darius, where he dwelt many
+years. Now he came back, as guide and counsellor to the Persians,
+hoping, perhaps, to become again a despot of Athens; but only, as the
+fates decreed, to find a grave on the fatal field of Marathon.</p>
+
+<p>The assault on Greece was a twofold one. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> first was defeated by
+nature, the second by man. A land expedition, led by the Persian general
+Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont in the year 493 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, proposing to
+march to Athens along the coast, and with orders to bring all that were
+left alive of its inhabitants as captives to the great king. On marched
+the great host, nothing doubting that Greece would fall an easy prey to
+their arms. And as they marched along the land, the fleet followed them
+along the adjoining sea, until the stormy and perilous promontory of
+Mount Athos was reached.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the Greeks viewed with deep alarm this formidable progress.
+They had never yet directly measured arms with the Persians, and dreaded
+them more than, as was afterwards shown, they had reason to. But at
+Mount Athos the deities of the winds came to their aid. As the fleet was
+rounding that promontory, often fatal to mariners, a frightful hurricane
+swooped upon it, and destroyed three hundred of its ships, while no less
+than twenty thousand men became victims of the waves. Some of the crews
+reached the shores, but of these many died of cold, and others were
+slain and devoured by wild beasts, which roamed in numbers on that
+uninhabited point of land. The land army, too, lost heavily from the
+hurricane; and Mardonius, fearing to advance farther after this
+disaster, ingloriously made his way back to the Hellespont. So ended the
+first invasion of Greece.</p>
+
+<p>Three years afterwards another was made. Darius, indeed, first sent
+heralds to Greece, demanding <i>earth and water</i> in token of submission to
+his will.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> To this demand some of the cities cowardly yielded; but
+Athens, Sparta, and others sent back the heralds with no more earth than
+clung to the soles of their shoes. And so, as Greece was not to be
+subdued through terror of his name, the great king prepared to make it
+feel his power and wrath, incited thereto by his hatred of Athens, which
+Hippias took care to keep alive. Another expedition was prepared, and
+put under the command of another general, Datis by name.</p>
+
+<p>The army was now sent by a new route. Darius himself had led his army
+across the Bosphorus, where Constantinople now stands, and where
+Byzantium then stood. Mardonius conveyed his across the southern strait,
+the Hellespont. The third expedition was sent on shipboard directly
+across the sea, landing and capturing the islands of the &AElig;gean as it
+advanced. Landing at length on the large island of Eub&#339;a, near the
+coast of Attica, Datis stormed and captured the city of Eretria, burnt
+its temples, and dragged its people into captivity. Then, putting his
+army on shipboard again, he sailed across the narrow strait between
+Eub&#339;a and Attica, and landed on Attic soil, in the ever-memorable Bay
+of Marathon.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed now, truly, as if Darius was about to gain his wish and
+revenge himself on Athens. The plain of Marathon, where the great
+Persian army had landed and lay encamped, is but twenty-two miles from
+Athens by the nearest road,&mdash;scarcely a day's march. The plain is about
+six miles long, and from a mile and a half to three miles in width,
+extending back from the sea-shore to the rugged hills and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> mountains
+which rise to bind it in. A brook flows across it to the sea, and
+marshes occupy its ends. Such was the field on which one of the decisive
+battles of the world was about to be fought.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image5.jpg" width="600" height="378" alt="RUINS OF THE PARTHENON." title="" />
+<span class="caption">RUINS OF THE PARTHENON.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The coming of the Persians had naturally filled the Athenians and all
+the neighboring nations of Greece with alarm. Yet if any Athenian had a
+thought of submission without fighting, he was wise enough to keep it to
+himself. The Athenians of that day were a very different people from
+what they had been fifty years before, when they tamely submitted to the
+tyranny of Pisistratus. They had gained new laws, and with them a new
+spirit. They were the freest people upon the earth,&mdash;a democracy in
+which every man was the equal of every other, and in which each had a
+full voice in the government of the state. They had their political
+leaders, it is true, but these were their fellow-citizens, who ruled
+through intellect, not through despotism.</p>
+
+<p>There were now three such men in Athens,&mdash;men who have won an enduring
+fame. One of these was that Miltiades who had counselled the destruction
+of Darius's bridge of boats. The others were named Themistocles and
+Aristides, concerning whom we shall have more to say. These three were
+among the ten generals who commanded the army of Athens, and each of
+whom, according to the new laws, was to have command for a day. It was
+fortunate for the Athenians that they had the wit to set aside this law
+on this important occasion, since such a divided generalship must surely
+have led to defeat and disaster.</p>
+
+<p>But before telling what action was taken there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> an important episode
+to relate. Athens&mdash;as was common with the Greek cities when
+threatened&mdash;did not fail to send to Sparta for aid. When the Persians
+landed at Marathon, a swift courier, Phidippides by name, was sent to
+that city for assistance, and so fleet of foot was he that he performed
+the journey, of one hundred and fifty miles, in forty-eight hours' time.</p>
+
+<p>The Spartans, who knew that the fall of Athens would soon be followed by
+that of their own city, promised aid without hesitation. But
+superstition stood in their way. It was, unfortunately, only the ninth
+day of the moon. Ancient custom forbade them to march until the moon had
+passed its full. This would be five days yet,&mdash;five days which might
+cause the ruin of Greece. But old laws and observances held dominion at
+Sparta, and, whatever came from it, the moon must pass its full before
+the army could march.</p>
+
+<p>When this decision was brought back by the courier to Athens it greatly
+disturbed the public mind. Of the ten generals, five strongly counselled
+that they should wait for Spartan help. The other five were in favor of
+immediate action. Delay was dangerous with an enemy at their door and
+many timid and doubtless some treacherous citizens within their walls.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, there was an eleventh general, Callimachus, the war archon,
+or polemarch, who had a casting vote in the council of generals, and
+who, under persuasion of Miltiades, cast his vote for an immediate march
+to Marathon. The other generals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> who favored this action gave up to
+Miltiades their days of command, making him sole leader for that length
+of time. Herodotus says that he refused to fight till his own day came
+regularly round,&mdash;but we can scarcely believe that a general of his
+ability would risk defeat on such a childish point of honor. If so, he
+should have been a Spartan, and waited for the passing of the full moon.</p>
+
+<p>To Marathon, then, the men of Athens marched, and from its surrounding
+hills looked down on the great Persian army that lay encamped beneath,
+and on the fleet which seemed to fill the sea. Of those brave men there
+were no more than ten thousand. And from all Greece but one small band
+came to join them, a thousand men from the little town of Plat&aelig;a. The
+numbers of the foe we do not know. They may have been two hundred
+thousand in all, though how many of these landed and took part in the
+battle no one can tell. Doubtless they outnumbered the Athenians more
+than ten to one.</p>
+
+<p>Far along the plain stretched the lines of the Persians, with their
+fleet behind them, extended along the beach. On the high ground in the
+rear were marshalled the Greeks, spread out so long that their line was
+perilously thin. The space of a mile separated the two armies.</p>
+
+<p>And now, at the command of Miltiades, the valiant Athenians crossed this
+dividing space at a full run, sounding their p&aelig;an or war-cry as they
+advanced. Miltiades was bent on coming to close quarters at once, so as
+to prevent the enemy from getting their bowmen and cavalry at work.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p><p>The Persians, on seeing this seeming handful of men, without archers or
+horsemen, advancing at a run upon their great array, deemed at first
+that the Greeks had gone mad and were rushing wildly to destruction. The
+ringing war-cry astounded them,&mdash;a Greek p&aelig;an was new music to their
+ears. And when the hoplites of Athens and Plat&aelig;a broke upon their ranks,
+thrusting and hewing with spear and sword, and with the strength gained
+from exercises in the gymnasium, dread of these courageous and furious
+warriors filled their souls. On both wings the Persian lines broke and
+fled for their ships. But in the centre, where Datis had placed his best
+men, and where the Athenian line was thinnest, the Greeks, breathless
+from their long run, were broken and driven back. Seeing this, Miltiades
+brought up his victorious wings, attacked the centre with his entire
+force, and soon had the whole Persian army in full flight for its ships.</p>
+
+<p>The marshes swallowed up many of the fleeing host. Hundreds fell before
+the arms of the victors. Into the ships poured in terror those who had
+escaped, followed hotly by the victorious Greeks, who made strenuous
+efforts to set the ships on fire and destroy the entire host. In this
+they failed. The Persians, made desperate by their peril, drove them
+back. The fleet hastily set sail, leaving few prisoners, but abandoning
+a rich harvest of tents and equipments to the victorious Greeks. Of the
+Persian host, some sixty-four hundred lay dead on the field, the ships
+having saved them from further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> slaughter. The Greek loss in dead was
+only one hundred and ninety-two.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, despite this signal victory, Greece was still in imminent danger.
+Athens was undefended. The fleeing fleet might reach and capture it
+before the army could return. In truth, the ships had sailed in this
+direction, and from the top of a lofty hill Miltiades saw the polished
+surface of a shield flash in the sunlight, and quickly guessed what it
+meant. It was a signal made by some traitor to the Persian fleet.
+Putting his army at once under march, despite the weariness of the
+victors, he hastened back over the long twenty-two miles at all possible
+speed, and the worn-out troops reached Athens barely in time to save it
+from the approaching fleet.</p>
+
+<p>The triumph of Miltiades was complete. Only for his quickness in
+guessing the meaning of the flashing shield, and the rapidity of his
+march, all the results of his great victory would have been lost, and
+Athens fallen helpless into Persian arms. But Datis, finding the city
+amply garrisoned, and baffled at every point, turned his ships and
+sailed in defeat away, leaving the Athenians masters of city and field.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Spartans&mdash;to whom the full moon had come too late&mdash;appeared,
+two thousand strong, only in time to congratulate the victors and view
+the dead Persians on the field. They had marched the whole distance in
+less than three days. As for the Athenian dead, they were buried with
+great ceremony on the plain where they fell, and the great mound which
+covers them is visible there to this day.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>XERXES AND HIS ARMY.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> defeat of the Persian army at Marathon redoubled the wrath of King
+Darius against the Athenians. He resolved in his autocratic mind to
+sweep that pestilent city and all whom it contained from the face of the
+earth. And he perhaps would have done so had he not met a more terrible
+foe even than Miltiades and his army,&mdash;the all-conqueror Death, to whose
+might the greatest monarchs must succumb. Burning with fury, Darius
+ordered the levy of a mighty army, and for three years busy preparations
+for war went on throughout the vast empire of Persia. But, just as the
+mustering was done and he was about to march, that grisly foe Death
+struck him down in the midst of his schemes of conquest, and Greece was
+saved,&mdash;the great Darius was no more.</p>
+
+<p>Xerxes, son of Darius, succeeded him on the throne. This new monarch was
+the handsomest and stateliest man in all his army. But his fair outside
+covered a weak nature; timid, faint-hearted, vain, conceited, he was not
+the man to conquer Greece, small as it was and great as was the empire
+under his control; and the death of Darius was in all probability the
+salvation of Greece.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p><p>Xerxes succeeded not only to the throne of Persia, but also to the vast
+army which his father had brought together. He succeeded, moreover, to a
+war, for Egypt was in revolt. But this did not last long; the army was
+at once set in motion, Egypt was quickly subdued, and the Egyptians
+found themselves under a worse tyranny than before.</p>
+
+<p>Greece remained to conquer, and for that enterprise the timid Persian
+king was not eager. Marathon could not be forgotten. Those fierce
+Athenians who had defeated his father's great host were not to be dealt
+with so easily as the unwarlike Egyptians. He held back irresolute, now
+persuaded to war by one councillor, now to peace by another, and
+finally&mdash;so we are told&mdash;driven to war by a dream, in which a tall,
+stately man appeared to him and with angry countenance commanded him not
+to abandon the enterprise which his father had designed. This dream came
+to him again the succeeding night, and when Artabanus, his uncle, and
+the advocate of peace, was made to sit on his throne and sleep in his
+bed, the same figure appeared to him, and threatened to burn out his
+eyes if he still opposed the war. Artabanus, stricken with terror, now
+counselled war, and Xerxes determined on the invasion of Greece.</p>
+
+<p>This story we are told by Herodotus, who told many things which it is
+not very safe to believe. What we really know is that Xerxes began the
+most stupendous preparations for war that had ever been known, and added
+to the army left by his father until he had got together the greatest
+host<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> the world had yet beheld. For four years those preparations, to
+which Darius had already given three years of time, were actively
+continued. Horsemen and foot-soldiers, ships of war, transports,
+provisions, and supplies of all kinds were collected far and near, the
+vanity of Xerxes probably inciting him to astonish the world by the
+greatness of his army.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of the year 481 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> this vast army, marching from all
+parts of the mighty empire, reached Lydia and gathered in and around the
+city of Sardis, the old capital of Cr&#339;sus. Besides the land army, a
+fleet of twelve hundred and seven ships of war, and numerous other
+vessels, were collected, and large magazines of provisions were formed
+at points along the whole line of march. For years flour and other food,
+from Asia and Egypt, had been stored in cities on the route, that the
+fatal enemy starvation might not attack the mighty host.</p>
+
+<p>Two important questions occupied the mind of Xerxes. How was he to get
+his vast army on European soil, and how escape those dangers from storm
+which had wrecked his father's fleet? He might cross the sea in ships,
+as Datis had done,&mdash;and be like him defeated. Xerxes thought it safest
+to keep on solid land, and decided to build a bridge of boats across the
+Hellespont, that ocean river now known as the Dardanelles, the first of
+the two straits which connect the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. As
+for the other trouble, that of storms at sea, he remembered the great
+gale which had wrecked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> the fleet of Mardonius off the stormy cape of
+Mount Athos, and determined to avoid this danger. A narrow neck of land
+connects Mount Athos with the mainland. Xerxes ordered that a ship-canal
+should be cut through this isthmus, wide and deep enough to allow two
+triremes&mdash;war-ships with three ranks of oars&mdash;to sail abreast.</p>
+
+<p>This work was done by the Ph&#339;nicians, the ablest engineers at that
+time in the world. A canal was made through which his whole fleet could
+sail, and thus the stormy winds and waves which hovered about Mount
+Athos be avoided.</p>
+
+<p>This work was successfully done, but not so the bridge of boats. Hardly
+had the latter been completed, when there came so violent a storm that
+the cables were snapped like pack-thread and the bridge swept away. With
+the weakness of a man of small mind, on hearing of this disaster Xerxes
+burst into a fit of insane rage. He ordered that the heads of the chief
+engineers should be cut off, but this was far from satisfying his anger.
+The elements had risen against his might, and the elements themselves
+must be punished. The Hellespont should be scourged for its temerity,
+and three hundred lashes were actually given the water, while a set of
+fetters were cast into its depths. It is further said that the water was
+branded with hot irons, but it is hard to believe that even Xerxes was
+such a fool as this would make him.</p>
+
+<p>The rebellious water thus punished, Xerxes regained his wits, and
+ordered that the bridge should be rebuilt more strongly than before.
+Huge cables were made, some of flax, some of papyrus fibre, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> anchor
+the ships in the channel and to bind them to the shore. Two bridges were
+constructed, composed of large ships laid side by side in the water,
+while over each of them stretched six great cables, to moor them to the
+land and to support the wooden causeway. In one of these bridges no less
+than three hundred and sixty ships were employed.</p>
+
+<p>And now, everything being ready, the mighty army began its march. It
+presented a grand spectacle as it made its way from Sardis to the sea.
+First of all came the baggage, borne on thousands of camels and other
+beasts of burden. Then came one-half the infantry. The other half
+marched in the rear, while between them were Xerxes and his great
+body-guard, which is thus described by the Greek historian:</p>
+
+<p>First came a thousand Persian cavalry and as many spearmen, each of the
+latter having a golden pomegranate on the rear end of his spear, which
+was carried in the air, the point being turned downward. Then came ten
+sacred horses, splendidly caparisoned, and following them rolled the
+sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses. This was succeeded
+by the chariot of Xerxes himself, who was immediately attended by a
+thousand horse-guards, the choicest troops of the kingdom, of whose
+spears the ends glittered with golden apples. Then came detachments of
+one thousand horse, ten thousand foot, and ten thousand horse. These
+foot-soldiers, called the Immortals, because their number was always
+maintained, had pomegranates of silver on their spears, with the
+exception of one thousand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> who marched in front and rear and on the
+sides, and bore pomegranates of gold. After these household troops
+followed the vast remaining host.</p>
+
+<p>The army of Xerxes was, as we have said, superior in numbers to any the
+world had ever seen. Forty-six nations had sent their quotas to the
+host, each with its different costume, arms, mode of march, and system
+of fighting. Only those from Asia Minor bore such arms as the Greeks
+were used to fight with. Most of the others were armed with javelins or
+other light weapons, and bore slight shields or none at all. Some came
+armed only with daggers and a lasso like that used on the American
+plains. The Ethiopians from the Upper Nile had their bodies painted half
+red and half white, wore lion-and panther-skins, and carried javelins
+and bows. Few of the whole army bore the heavy weapons or displayed the
+solid fighting phalanx of those whom they had come to meet in war.</p>
+
+<p>As to the number of men thus brought together from half the continent of
+Asia we cannot be sure. Xerxes, after reaching Europe, took an odd way
+of counting his army. Ten thousand men were counted and packed close
+together. Then a line was drawn around them, and a wall built about the
+space. The whole army was then marched in successive detachments into
+this walled enclosure. Herodotus tells us that there were one hundred
+and seventy of these divisions, which would make the whole army one
+million seven hundred thousand foot. In addition there were eighty
+thousand horse, many war-chariots, and a fleet of twelve hundred and
+seven triremes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> and three thousand smaller vessels. According to
+Herodotus, the whole host, soldiers and sailors, numbered two million
+six hundred and forty thousand men, and there were as many or more
+camp-followers, so that the whole number present, according to this
+estimate, was over five million men. It is not easy to believe that such
+a marching host as this could be fed, and it has probably been much
+exaggerated; yet there is no doubt that the host was vast enough almost
+to blow away all the armies of Greece with the wind of its coming.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving Sardis a frightful spectacle was provided by Xerxes: the army
+found itself marching between two halves of a slaughtered man. Pythius,
+an old Phrygian of great riches, had entertained Xerxes with much
+hospitality, and offered him all his wealth, amounting to two thousand
+talents of silver and nearly four million darics of gold. This generous
+offer Xerxes declined, and gave Pythius enough gold to make up his
+darics to an even four millions. Then, when the army was about to march,
+the old man told Xerxes that he had five sons in the army, and begged
+that one of them, the eldest, might be left with him as a stay to his
+declining years. Instantly the despot burst into a rage. The request of
+exemption from military service was in Persia an unpardonable offence.
+The hospitality of Pythius was forgotten, and Xerxes ordered that his
+son should be slain, and half the body hung on each side of the army,
+probably as a salutary warning to all who should have the temerity to
+question the despot's arbitrary will.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p><p>On marched the great army. It crossed the plain of Troy, and here
+Xerxes offered libations in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, the
+story of which was told him. Reaching the Hellespont, he had a marble
+throne erected, from which to view the passage of his troops. The
+bridges&mdash;which the scourged and branded waters had now spared&mdash;were
+perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs, and, as the
+march began, Xerxes offered prayers to the sun, and made libations to
+the sea with a golden censer, which he then flung into the water,
+together with a golden bowl and a Persian scimitar, perhaps to repay the
+Hellespont for the stripes he had inflicted upon it.</p>
+
+<p>At the first moment of sunrise the passage began, the troops marching
+across one bridge, the baggage and attendants crossing the other. All
+day the march continued, and all night long, the whip being used to
+accelerate the troops; yet so vast was the host that for seven days and
+nights, without cessation, the army moved on, and a week was at its end
+before the last man of the great Persian host set foot on European soil.</p>
+
+<p>Then down through the Grecian peninsula Xerxes marched, doubtless
+inflated with pride at the greatness of his host and the might of the
+fleet which sailed down the neighboring seas and through the canal which
+he had cut to baffle stormy Athos. One regret alone seemed to come into
+his mind, and that was that in a hundred years not one man of that vast
+army would be alive. It did not occur to him that in less than one year
+few of them might be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> alive, for all thought of any peril to his army
+and fleet from the insignificant numbers of the Greeks must have been
+dismissed with scorn from his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Like locusts the army marched southward through Thrace, eating up the
+cities as it advanced, for each was required to provide a day's meals
+for the mighty host. For months those cities had been engaged in
+providing the food which this army consumed in a day. Many of the cities
+were brought to the verge of ruin, and all of them were glad to see the
+army march on. At length Xerxes saw before him Mount Olympus, on the
+northern boundary of the land of Hellas or Greece. This was the end of
+his own dominions. He was now about to enter the territory of his foes.
+With what fortune he did so must be left for later tales.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>HOW THE SPARTANS DIED AT THERMOPYL&AElig;.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Xerxes, as his father had done before him, sent to the Grecian
+cities to demand earth and water in token of submission, no heralds were
+sent to Athens or Sparta. These truculent cities had flung the heralds
+of Darius into deep pits, bidding them to take earth and water from
+there and carry it to the great king. This act called for revenge, and
+whatever mercy he might show to the rest of Greece, Athens and Sparta
+were doomed in his mind to be swept from the face of the earth. How they
+escaped this dismal fate is what we have next to tell.</p>
+
+<p>As one of the great men of Athens, Miltiades, had saved his native land
+in the former Persian invasion, so a second patriotic citizen,
+Themistocles, proved her savior in the dread peril which now threatened
+her. But the work of Themistocles was not done in a single great battle,
+as at Marathon, but in years of preparation. And a war between Athens
+and the neighboring island of &AElig;gina had much to do with this escape from
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>To make war upon an island a land army was of no avail. A fleet was
+necessary. The Athenians were accustomed to a commercial, though not to
+a warlike, life upon the sea. Many of them were active,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> daring, and
+skilful sailors, and when Themistocles urged that they should build a
+powerful fleet he found approving listeners. Longer of sight than his
+fellow-citizens, he warned them of the coming peril from Persia. The
+conflict with the small island of &AElig;gina was a small matter compared with
+that threatened by the great kingdom of Persia. But to prepare against
+one was to prepare against both. And Athens was just then rich. It
+possessed valuable silver-mines at Laurium, in Attica, from which much
+wealth came to the state. This money Themistocles urged the citizens to
+use in building ships, and they were wise enough to take his advice, two
+hundred ships of war being built. These ships, as it happened, were not
+used for the purpose originally intended, that of the war with &AElig;gina.
+But they proved of inestimable service to Athens in the Persian war.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image6.jpg" width="600" height="366" alt="THE PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIANS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIANS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The vast preparations of Xerxes were not beheld without deep terror in
+Greece. Spies were sent into Persia to discover what was being done.
+They were captured and condemned to death, but Xerxes ordered that they
+should be shown his total army and fleet, and then sent home to report
+what they had seen. He hoped thus to double the terror of the Grecian
+states.</p>
+
+<p>At home two things were done. Athens and Sparta called a congress of all
+the states of Greece on the Isthmus of Corinth, and urged them to lay
+aside all petty feuds and combine for defence against the common foe. It
+was the greatest and most successful congress that Greece had ever yet
+held. All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> wars came to an end. That between Athens and &AElig;gina ceased,
+and the fleet which Athens had built was laid aside for a greater need.
+The other thing was that step always taken in Greece in times of peril,
+to send to the temple at Delphi and obtain from the oracle the sacred
+advice which was deemed so indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>The reply received by Athens was terrifying. "Quit your land and city
+and flee afar!" cried the prophetess. "Fire and sword, in the train of
+the Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you. Get ye away from the sanctuary,
+with your souls steeped in sorrow."</p>
+
+<p>The envoys feared to carry back such a sentence to Athens. They implored
+the priestess for a more comforting reply, and were given the following
+enigma to solve: "This assurance I will give you, firm as adamant. When
+everything else in the land of Cecrops shall be taken, Zeus grants to
+Athen&eacute; that the wooden wall alone shall remain unconquered, to defend
+you and your children. Stand not to await the assailing horse and foot
+from the continent, but turn your backs and retire; you shall yet live
+to fight another day. O divine Salamis, thou too shalt destroy the
+children of women, either at the seed-time or at the harvest."</p>
+
+<p>Here was some hope, though small. "The wooden wall"? What could it be
+but the fleet? This was the general opinion of the Athenians. But should
+they fight? Should they not rather abandon Attica forever, take to their
+wooden walls, and seek a new home afar? Salamis was to destroy the
+children of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> women! Did not this portend disaster in case of a naval
+battle?</p>
+
+<p>The fate of Athens now hung upon a thread. Had its people fled to a
+distant land, one of the greatest chapters in the history of the world
+would never have been written. But now Themistocles, to whom Athens owed
+its fleet, came forward as its savior. If the oracle, he declared, had
+meant that the Greeks should be destroyed, it would have called Salamis,
+where the battle was to be fought, "wretched Salamis." But it had said
+"divine Salamis." What did this mean but that it was not the Greeks, but
+the enemies of Greece, who were to be destroyed? He begged his
+countrymen not to desert their country, but to fight boldly for its
+safety. Fortunately for Athens, his solution of the riddle was accepted,
+and the city set itself diligently to building more ships, that they
+might have as powerful a fleet as possible when the Persians came.</p>
+
+<p>But not only Athens was to be defended; all Greece was in peril; the
+invaders must be met by land as well as by sea. Greece is traversed by
+mountain ranges, which cross from sea to sea, leaving only difficult
+mountain paths and narrow seaside passes. One of these was the long and
+winding defile to Temp&eacute;, between Mounts Olympus and Ossa, on the
+northern boundary of Greece. There a few men could keep back a numerous
+host, and thither at first marched the small army which dared to oppose
+the Persian millions, a little band of ten thousand men, under the
+command of a Spartan general.</p>
+
+<p>But they did not remain there. The Persians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> were still distant, and
+while the Greeks awaited their approach new counsels prevailed. There
+was another pass by which the mountains might be crossed,&mdash;which pass,
+in fact, the Persians took. Also the fleet might land thousands of men
+in their rear. On the whole it was deemed best to retreat to another
+pass, much farther south, the famous pass of Thermopyl&aelig;. Here was a road
+a mile in width, where were warm springs; and at each end were narrow
+passes, called gates,&mdash;the name Thermopyl&aelig; meaning "hot gates."
+Adjoining was a narrow strait, between the mainland and the island of
+Eub&#339;a, where the Greek fleet might keep back the Persian host of
+ships. There was an old wall across the pass, now in ruins. This the
+Greeks rebuilt, and there the devoted band, now not more than seven
+thousand in all, waited the coming of the mighty Persian host.</p>
+
+<p>It was in late June, of the year 480 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, that the Grecian army, led by
+Leonidas, king of Sparta, marched to this defile. There were but three
+hundred Spartans<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> in his force, with small bodies of men from the
+other states of Greece. The fleet, less than three hundred ships in all,
+took post beside them in the strait. And here they waited while day by
+day the Persian hordes marched southward over the land.</p>
+
+<p>The first conflict took place between some vessels of the fleets,
+whereupon the Grecian admirals, filled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> with sudden fright, sailed
+southward and left the army to the mercy of the Persian ships.
+Fortunately for Greece, thus deserted in her need, a strong ally now
+came to the rescue. The gods of the winds had been implored with prayer.
+The answer came in the form of a frightful hurricane, which struck the
+great fleet while it lay at anchor, and hurled hundreds of ships on the
+rocky shore. For three days the storm continued, and when it ended more
+than four hundred ships of war, with a multitude of transports and
+provision craft, were wrecked, while the loss of life had been immense.
+The Greek fleet had escaped this disaster, and now, with renewed
+courage, came sailing back to the post it had abandoned, and so quickly
+as to capture fifteen vessels of the Persian fleet.</p>
+
+<p>While this gale prevailed Xerxes and his army lay encamped before
+Thermopyl&aelig;, the king in terror for his fleet, which he was told had been
+all destroyed. As for the Greeks, he laughed them to scorn. He was told
+that a handful of Spartans and other Greeks were posted in the pass, and
+sent a horseman to tell him what was to be seen. The horseman rode near
+the pass, and saw there the wall and outside it the small Spartan force,
+some of whom were engaged in gymnastic exercises, while others were
+combing their long hair.</p>
+
+<p>The great king was astonished and puzzled at this news. He waited
+expecting the few Greeks to disperse and leave the pass open to his
+army. The fourth day came and went, and they were still there. Then
+Xerxes bade the Median and Kissian divisions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> of his army to advance,
+seize these insolent fellows, and bring them to him as prisoners of war.
+Forward went his troops, and entered the throat of the narrow pass,
+where their bows and arrows were of little use, and they must fight the
+Greeks hand to hand. And now the Spartan arms and discipline told. With
+their long spears, spreading shields, steady ranks, and rigid
+discipline, the Greeks were far more than a match for the light weapons,
+slight shields, and open ranks of their foes. The latter had only their
+numbers, and numbers there were of little avail. They fell by hundreds,
+while the Greeks met with little loss. For two days the combat
+continued, fresh defenders constantly replacing the weary ones, and a
+wall of Persian dead being heaped up outside the wall of stone.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as a last resort, the Immortals,&mdash;the Persian guard of ten
+thousand,&mdash;with other choice troops, were sent; and these were driven
+back with the same slaughter as the rest. The fleet in the strait
+doubtless warmly cheered on the brave hoplites in the pass; but as for
+Xerxes, "Thrice," says Herodotus, "did he spring from his throne, in
+agony for his army."</p>
+
+<p>The deed of a traitor rendered useless this noble defence. A recreant
+Greek, Ephialtes by name, sought Xerxes and told him of a mountain pass
+over which he could guide a band to attack the defenders of Thermopyl&aelig;
+in the rear. A strong Persian detachment was ordered to cross the pass,
+and did so under shelter of the night. At daybreak they reached the
+summit, where a thousand Greeks from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> Phocis had been stationed as a
+guard. These men, surprised, and overwhelmed with a shower of arrows,
+fled up the mountain-side, and left the way open to the Persians, who
+pursued their course down the mountain, and at mid-day reached the rear
+of the pass of Thermopyl&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>Leonidas had heard of their coming. Scouts had brought him word. The
+defence of the pass was at an end. They must fly or be crushed. A
+council was hastily called, and it was decided to retreat. But this
+decision was not joined in by Leonidas and his gallant three hundred.
+The honor of Sparta would not permit her king to yield a pass which he
+had been sent to defend. The laws of his country required that he should
+conquer or die at his post. It was too late to conquer; but he could
+still die. With him and his three hundred remained the Thespians and
+Thebans, seven hundred of the former and about four hundred of the
+latter. The remainder of the army withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>Xerxes had arranged to wait till noon, at which hour the defenders of
+the pass were to be attacked in front and rear. But Leonidas did not
+wait. All he and his men had now to do was to sell their lives as dearly
+as possible, so they marched outside the pass, attacked the front of the
+Persian host, drove them back, and killed them in multitudes, many of
+them being driven to perish in the sea and the morass. The Persian
+officers kept their men to the deadly work by threats and the liberal
+use of the whip.</p>
+
+<p>But one by one the Spartans fell. Their spears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> were broken, and they
+fought with their swords. Leonidas sank in death, but his men fought on
+more fiercely still, to keep the foe back from his body. Here many of
+the Persian chiefs perished, among them two brothers of Xerxes. It was
+like a combat of the Iliad rather than a contest in actual war. Finally
+the Greeks, worn out, reduced in numbers, their best weapons gone, fell
+back behind the wall, bearing the body of their chief. Here they still
+fought, with daggers, with their unarmed hands, even with their mouths,
+until the last man fell dead.</p>
+
+<p>The Thebans alone yielded themselves as prisoners, saying that they had
+been kept in the pass against their will. Of the thousand Spartans and
+Thespians, not a man remained alive.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the fleets had been engaged, to the advantage of the Greeks,
+while another storm that suddenly rose wrecked two hundred more of the
+Persian ships on Eub&#339;a's rocky coast. When word came that Thermopyl&aelig;
+had fallen the Grecian fleet withdrew, sailed round the Attic coast, and
+stopped not again until the island of Salamis was reached.</p>
+
+<p>As for Leonidas and his Spartans, they had died, but had won
+imperishable fame. The same should be said for the Thespians as well,
+but history has largely ignored their share in the glorious deed. In
+after-days an inscription was set up which gave all glory to the
+Peloponnesian heroes without a word for the noble Thespian band. Another
+celebrated inscription honored the Spartans alone:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"Go, stranger, and to Laced&aelig;mon tell<br />
+That here, obeying her behests, we fell,"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>or, in plain prose, "Stranger, tell the Laced&aelig;monians that we lie here,
+in obedience to their orders."</p>
+
+<p>On the hillock where the last of the faithful band died was erected a
+monument with a marble lion in honor of Leonidas, while on it was carved
+the following epitaph, written by the poet Simonides:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"In dark Thermopyl&aelig; they lie.<br />
+Oh, death of glory, thus to die!<br />
+Their tomb an altar is, their name<br />
+A mighty heritage of fame.<br />
+Their dirge is triumph; cankering rust,<br />
+And time, that turneth all to dust,<br />
+That tomb shall never waste nor hide,&mdash;<br />
+The tomb of warriors true and tried.<br />
+The full-voiced praise of Greece around<br />
+Lies buried in this sacred mound;<br />
+Where Sparta's king, Leonidas,<br />
+In death eternal glory has!"<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE WOODEN WALLS OF ATHENS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> slaughter of the defenders of Thermopyl&aelig; exposed Athens to the
+onslaught of the vast Persian army, which would soon be on the soil of
+Attica. A few days' march would bring the invaders to its capital city,
+which they would overwhelm as a flight of locusts destroys a cultivated
+field. The states of the Peloponnesus, with a selfish regard for their
+own safety, had withdrawn all their soldiers within the peninsula, and
+began hastily to build a wall across the isthmus of Corinth with the
+hope of keeping back the invading army. Athens was left to care for
+itself. It was thus that Greece usually let itself be devoured
+piecemeal.</p>
+
+<p>There was but one thing for the Athenians to do, to obey the oracle and
+fly from their native soil. In a few days the Persians would be in
+Athens, and there was not an hour to lose. The old men, the women and
+children, with such property as could be moved, were hastily taken on
+shipboard and carried to Salamis, &AElig;gina, Tr&#339;zen, and other
+neighboring islands. The men of fighting age took to their ships of war,
+to fight on the sea for what they had lost on land. A few of the old and
+the poverty-stricken remained, and took possession of the hill of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+Acropolis, whose wooden fence they fondly fancied might be the wooden
+wall which the oracle had meant. Apart from these few the city was
+deserted, and Athens had embarked upon the seas. Not only Athens, but
+all Attica, was left desolate, and in the whole state Xerxes made only
+five hundred prisoners of war.</p>
+
+<p>Onward came the great Persian host, destroying all that could be
+destroyed on Attic soil, and sending out detachments to ravage other
+parts of Greece. The towns that submitted were spared. Those that
+resisted, or whose inhabitants fled, were pillaged and burnt. A body of
+troops was sent to plunder Delphi, the reputed great wealth of whose
+temple promised a rich reward. The story of what happened there is a
+curious one, and well worth relating.</p>
+
+<p>The frightened Delphians prepared to fly, but first asked the oracle of
+Apollo whether they should take with them the sacred treasures or bury
+them in secret places. The oracle bade them not to touch these
+treasures, saying that the god would protect his own. With this
+admonition the people of Delphi fled, sixty only of their number
+remaining to guard the holy shrine.</p>
+
+<p>These faithful few were soon encouraged by a prodigy. The sacred arms,
+kept in the temple's inmost cell, and which no mortal hand dared touch,
+were seen lying before the temple door, as if Apollo was prepared
+himself to use them. As the Persians advanced by a rugged path under the
+steep cliffs of Mount Parnassus, and reached the temple of Athen&eacute;
+Pron&aelig;a, a dreadful peal of thunder rolled above<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> their affrighted heads,
+and two great crags, torn from the mountain's flank, came rushing down
+with deafening sound, and buried many of them beneath their weight. At
+the same time, from the temple of Athen&eacute;, came the Greek shout of war.</p>
+
+<p>In a panic the invaders turned and fled, hotly pursued by the few
+Delphians, and, so the story goes, by two armed men of superhuman size,
+whose destructive arms wrought dire havoc in the fleeing host. And thus,
+as we are told, did the god preserve his temple and his wealth.</p>
+
+<p>But no god guarded the road to Athens, and at length Xerxes and his army
+reached that city,&mdash;four months after they had crossed the Hellespont.
+It was an empty city they found. The few defenders of the Acropolis&mdash;a
+craggy hill about one hundred and fifty feet high&mdash;made a vigorous
+defence, for a time keeping the whole Persian army at bay. But some
+Persians crept up a steep and unguarded part of the wall, entered the
+citadel, and soon all its defenders were dead, and its temples and
+buildings in flames.</p>
+
+<p>While all this was going on, the Grecian fleet lay but a few miles away,
+in the narrow strait between the isle of Salamis and the Attic coast,
+occupying the little bay before the town of Salamis, from which narrow
+channels at each end led into the Bay of Eleusis to the north and the
+open sea to the south. In front rose the craggy heights of Mount
+&AElig;galeos, over which, only five miles away, could be seen ascending the
+lurid smoke of blazing Athens. It was a spectacle calculated to
+infuriate the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>Athenians, though not one to inspire them with courage
+and hope.</p>
+
+<p>The fleet of Greece consisted of three hundred and sixty-six ships in
+all, of which Athens supplied two hundred, while the remainder came in
+small numbers from the various Grecian states. The Persian fleet,
+despite its losses by storm, far outnumbered that of Greece, and came
+sweeping down the Attic coast, confident of victory, while the great
+army marched southward over Attic land.</p>
+
+<p>And now two councils of war were held,&mdash;one by the Persian leaders, one
+by the Greeks. The fleet of Xerxes, probably still a thousand ships
+strong, lay in the Bay of Phalerum, a few miles from Athens; and hither
+the king, having wrought his will on that proud and insolent city, came
+to the coast to inspect his ships of war and take counsel as to what
+should next be done.</p>
+
+<p>Here, before his royal throne, were seated the kings of Tyre and Sidon,
+and the rulers of the many other nations represented in his army. One by
+one they were asked what should be done. "Fight," was the general reply;
+"fight without delay." Only one voice gave different advice, that of
+Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus. She advised Xerxes to march to the
+isthmus of Corinth, saying that then all the ships of the Peloponnesus
+would fly to defend their own homes, and the fleet of Greece would thus
+be dispersed. Xerxes heard her with calmness, but declined to take her
+prudent advice. The voice of the others and his own confidence
+prevailed, and orders were given for the fleet to make its attack the
+next day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>The almost unanimous decision of this council, over which ruled the
+will of an autocratic king, was very different from that which was
+reached by the Greeks, in whose council all who spoke had equal
+authority. The fleet had come to Salamis to aid the flight of the
+Athenians. This done, it was necessary to decide where it was best to
+meet the Persian fleet. Only the Athenians, under the leadership of
+Themistocles, favored remaining where they were. The others perceived
+that if they were defeated here, escape would be impossible. Most of
+them wished to sail to the isthmus of Corinth, to aid the land army of
+the Peloponnesians, while various other plans were urged.</p>
+
+<p>While the chiefs thus debated news came that Athens and the Acropolis
+were in flames. At once some of the captains left the council in alarm,
+and began hastily to hoist sail for flight. Those that remained voted to
+remove to the isthmus, but not to start till the morning of the next
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Themistocles, who had done his utmost to prevent this fatal decision,
+which he knew would end in the dispersal of the fleet and the triumph of
+Persia, returned to his own ship sad of heart. Many of the women and
+children of Athens were on the island of Salamis, and if the fleet
+sailed they, too, must be removed.</p>
+
+<p>"What has the council decided?" asked his friend Mnesiphilus.</p>
+
+<p>Themistocles gloomily told him.</p>
+
+<p>"This will be ruinous!" burst out Mnesiphilus. "Soon there will be no
+allied fleet, nor any cause or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> country to fight for. You must have the
+council meet again; this vote must be set aside; if it be carried out
+the liberty of Greece is at an end."</p>
+
+<p>So strongly did he insist upon this that Themistocles was inspired to
+make another effort. He went at once to the ship of Eurybiades, the
+Spartan who had been chosen admiral of the fleet, and represented the
+case so earnestly to him that Eurybiades was partly convinced, and
+consented to call the council together again.</p>
+
+<p>Here Themistocles was so excitedly eager that he sought to win the
+chiefs over to his views even before Eurybiades had formally opened the
+meeting and explained its object. For this he was chided by the
+Corinthian Adeimantus, who said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Themistocles, those who in the public festivals rise up before the
+proper signal are scourged."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Themistocles; "but those who lag behind the signal win no
+crowns."</p>
+
+<p>When the debate was formally opened, Themistocles was doubly urgent in
+his views, and continued his arguments until Adeimantus burst out in a
+rage, bidding him, a man who had no city, to be silent.</p>
+
+<p>This attack drew a bitter answer from the insulted Athenian. If he had
+no city, he said, he had around him two hundred ships, with which he
+could win a city and country better than Corinth. Then he turned to
+Eurybiades, and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you will stay and fight bravely here, all will be well. If you
+refuse to stay, you will bring all Greece to ruin. If you will not stay,
+we Athenians will migrate with our ships and families. Then, chiefs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+when you lose an ally like us, you will remember what I say, and regret
+what you have done."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image7.jpg" width="600" height="377" alt="THE VICTORS AT SALAMIS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE VICTORS AT SALAMIS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>These words convinced Eurybiades. Without the Athenian ships the fleet
+would indeed be powerless. He asked for no vote, but gave the word that
+they should stay and fight, and bade the captains to make ready for
+battle. Thus it was that at dawn of day the fleet, instead of being in
+full flight, remained drawn up in battle array in the Bay of Salamis.
+The Peloponnesian chiefs, however, were not content. They held a secret
+council, and resolved to steal secretly away. This treacherous purpose
+came to the ears of Themistocles, and to prevent it he took a desperate
+course. He sent a secret message to Xerxes, telling him that the Greek
+fleet was about to fly, and that if he wished to capture it he must at
+once close up both ends of the strait, so that flight would be
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>He cunningly represented himself as a secret friend of the Persian king,
+who lost no time in taking the advice. When the next day's dawn was at
+hand the discontented chiefs were about to fly, as they had secretly
+resolved, when a startling message came to their ears. Aristides, a
+noble Athenian who had been banished, but had now returned, came on the
+fleet from Salamis and told them that only battle was left, that the
+Persians had cooped them in like birds in a cage, and that there was
+nothing to do but to fight or surrender.</p>
+
+<p>This disturbing message was not at first believed. But it was quickly
+confirmed. Persian ships appeared at both ends of the strait.
+Themistocles had won.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> Escape was impossible. They must do battle like
+heroes or live as Persian slaves. There was but one decision,&mdash;to fight.
+The dawn of day found the Greeks actively preparing for the most famous
+naval battle of ancient times.</p>
+
+<p>The combat about to be fought had the largest audience of any naval
+battle the world has ever known. For the vast army of Persia was drawn
+up as spectators on the verge of the narrow strait which held the
+warring fleets, and Xerxes himself sat on a lofty throne erected at a
+point which closely overlooked the liquid plain. His presence, he felt
+sure, would fill his seamen with valor, while by his side stood scribes
+prepared to write down the names alike of the valorous and the backward
+combatants. On the other hand, the people of Athens and Attica looked
+with hope and fear on the scene from the island of Salamis. It was a
+unique preparation for a battle at sea, such as was never known before
+or since that day.</p>
+
+<p>The fleet of Persia outnumbered that of Greece three to one. But the
+Persian seamen had been busy all night long in carrying out the plan to
+entrap the Greeks, and were weary with labor. The Greeks had risen fresh
+and vigorous from their night's rest. And different spirits animated the
+two hosts. The Persians were moved solely by the desire for glory; the
+Greeks by the stern alternatives of victory, slavery, or death. These
+differences in strength and motive went far to negative the difference
+in numbers; and the Greeks, caught like lions in a snare, dashed into
+the combat with the single feeling that they must now fight or die.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p><p>History tells us that the Greeks hesitated at first; but soon the ship
+of Ameinias, an Athenian captain, dashed against a Ph&#339;nician trireme
+with such fury that the two became closely entangled. While their crews
+fought vigorously with spear and javelin, other ships from both sides
+dashed to their aid, and soon numbers of the war triremes were fiercely
+engaged.</p>
+
+<p>The battle that followed was hot and furious, the ships becoming mingled
+in so confused a mass that no eye could follow their evolutions. Soon
+the waters of the Bay of Salamis ran red with blood. Broken oars, fallen
+spars, shattered vessels, filled the strait. Hundreds were hurled into
+the waters,&mdash;the Persians, few of whom could swim, to sink; the Greeks,
+who were skilful swimmers, to seek the shore of Salamis or some friendly
+deck.</p>
+
+<p>From the start the advantage lay with the Greeks. The narrowness of the
+strait rendered the great numbers of the Persians of no avail. The
+superior discipline of the Greeks gave them a further advantage. The
+want of concert in the Persian allies was another aid to the Greeks.
+They were ready to run one another down in the wild desire to escape.
+Soon the Persian fleet became a disorderly mass of flying ships, the
+Greek fleet a well-ordered array of furious pursuers. In panic the
+Persians fled; in exultation the Greeks pursued. One trireme of Naxos
+captured five Persian ships. A brother of Xerxes was slain by an
+Athenian spear. Great numbers of distinguished Persians and Medes shared
+his fate. Before the day was old the battle on the Persian side had
+become a frantic effort to escape, while some of the choicest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> troops of
+Persia, who had been landed before the battle on the island of
+Psyttaleia, were attacked by Aristides at the head of an Athenian troop,
+and put to death to a man.</p>
+
+<p>The confident hope of victory with which Xerxes saw the battle begin
+changed to wrath and terror when he saw his ships in disorderly flight
+and the Greeks in hot pursuit. The gallant behavior of Queen Artemisia
+alone gave him satisfaction, and when he saw her in the flight run into
+and sink an opposing vessel, he cried out, "My men have become women;
+and my women, men." He was not aware that the ship she had sunk, with
+all on board, was one of his own fleet.</p>
+
+<p>The mad flight of his ships utterly distracted the mind of the
+faint-hearted king. His army still vastly outnumbered that of Greece.
+With all its losses, his fleet was still much the stronger. An ounce of
+courage in his soul would have left Greece at his mercy. But that was
+wanting, and in panic fear that the Greeks would destroy the bridge over
+the Hellespont, he ordered his fleet to hasten there to guard it, and
+put his army in rapid retreat for the safe Asiatic shores.</p>
+
+<p>He had some reason to fear the loss of his bridge. Themistocles and the
+Athenians had it in view to hasten to the Hellespont and break it down.
+But Eurybiades, the Spartan leader, opposed this, saying that it was
+dangerous to keep Xerxes in Greece. They had best give him every chance
+to fly.</p>
+
+<p>Themistocles, who saw the wisdom of this advice, not only accepted it,
+but sent a message to Xerxes&mdash;as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> to a friend&mdash;advising him to make all
+haste, and saying that he would do his best to hold back the Greeks, who
+were eager to burn the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>The frightened monarch was not slow in taking this advice. Leaving a
+strong force in Greece, under the command of his general Mardonius, he
+marched with the speed of fear for the bridge. But he had nearly
+exhausted the country of food in his advance, and starvation and plague
+attended his retreat, many of the men being obliged to eat leaves,
+grass, and the bark of trees, and great numbers of them dying before the
+Hellespont was reached.</p>
+
+<p>Here he found the bridge gone. A storm had destroyed it. He was forced
+to have his army taken across in ships. Not till Asia Minor was reached
+did the starving troops obtain sufficient food,&mdash;and there gorged
+themselves to such an extent that many of them died from repletion. In
+the end Xerxes entered Sardis with a broken army and a sad heart, eight
+months after he had left it with the proud expectation of conquering the
+western world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>PLAT&AElig;A'S FAMOUS DAY.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> a certain day, destined to be thereafter famous, two strong armies
+faced each other on the plain north of the little B&#339;otian town of
+Plat&aelig;a. Greece had gathered the greatest army it had ever yet put into
+the field, in all numbering one hundred and ten thousand men, of whom
+nearly forty thousand were hoplites, or heavy-armed troops, the
+remainder light-armed or unarmed. Of these Sparta supplied five thousand
+hoplites and thirty-five thousand light-armed Helots, the greatest army
+that warlike city had ever brought into action. The remainder of Laconia
+furnished five thousand hoplites and five thousand Helot attendants.
+Athens sent eight thousand hoplites, and the remainder of the army came
+from various states of Greece. This host was in strange contrast to the
+few thousand warriors with whom Greece had met the vast array of Xerxes
+at Thermopyl&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>Opposed to this force was the army which Xerxes had left behind him on
+his flight from Greece, three hundred thousand of his choicest troops,
+under the command of his trusted general Mardonius. This host was not a
+mob of armed men, like that which Xerxes had led. It embraced the best
+of the Persian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> forces and Greek auxiliaries, and the hopes of Greece
+still seemed but slight, thus outnumbered three to one. But the Greeks
+fought for liberty, and were inspired with the spirit of their recent
+victories; the Persians were disheartened and disunited: this difference
+of feeling went far to equalize the hosts.</p>
+
+<p>And now, before bringing the waiting armies to battle, we must tell what
+led to their meeting on the Plat&aelig;an plain. After the battle of Salamis a
+vote was taken by the chiefs to decide who among them should be awarded
+the prize of valor on that glorious day. Each cast two ballots, and when
+these were counted each chief was found to have cast his first vote
+for&mdash;himself! But the second votes were nearly all for Themistocles, and
+all Greece hailed him as its preserver. The Spartans crowned him with
+olive, and presented him with a kingly chariot, and when he left their
+city they escorted him with the honors due to royalty.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Mardonius, who was wintering with his army in Thessaly, sent
+to Athens to ask if its people still proposed the madness of opposing
+the power of Xerxes the king. "Yes," was the answer; "while the sun
+lights the sky we will never join in alliance with barbarians against
+Greeks."</p>
+
+<p>On receiving this answer Mardonius broke up his winter camp and marched
+again to Athens, which he found once more empty of inhabitants. Its
+people had withdrawn as before to Salamis, and left the shell of their
+nation to the foe.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenians sent for aid to Sparta, but the people of that city,
+learning that Athens had defied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> Mardonius, selfishly withheld their
+assistance, and the completion of the wall across the isthmus was
+diligently pushed. Fortunately for Greece, this selfish policy came to a
+sudden end. "What will your wall be worth if Athens joins with Persia
+and gives the foe the aid of her fleet?" was asked the Spartan kings;
+and so abruptly did they change their opinion that during that same
+night five thousand Spartan hoplites, each man with seven Helot
+attendants, marched for the isthmus, with Pausanias, a cousin of
+Leonidas, the hero of Thermopyl&aelig;, at their head.</p>
+
+<p>On learning of this movement, Mardonius set fire to what of Athens
+remained, and fell back on the city of Thebes, in B&#339;otia, as a more
+favorable field for the battle which now seemed sure to come. Here his
+numerous cavalry could be brought into play, the country was allied with
+him, the friendly city of Thebes lay behind him, and food for his great
+army was to be had. Here, then, he awaited the coming of the Greeks, and
+built for his army a fortified camp, surrounded with walls and towers of
+wood.</p>
+
+<p>Yet his men and officers alike lacked heart. At a splendid banquet given
+to Mardonius by the Thebans, one of the Persians said to his Theban
+neighbor,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left
+yonder encamped near the river? Yet a little while, and out of all these
+thou shalt behold but a few surviving."</p>
+
+<p>"If you feel thus," said the Theban, "thou art surely bound to reveal it
+to Mardonius."</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," answered the Persian, "man cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> avert what God has
+decreed. No one will believe the revelation, sure though it be. Many of
+us Persians know this well, and are here serving only under the bond of
+necessity. And truly this is the most hateful of all human sufferings,
+to be full of knowledge, and at the same time to have no power over any
+result."</p>
+
+<p>Not long had the lukewarm Persians to wait for their foes. Soon the army
+of Greece appeared, and, seeing their enemy encamped along the little
+river Asopus in the plain, took post on the mountain declivity above.
+Here they were not suffered to rest in peace. The powerful Persian
+cavalry, led by Masistius, the most distinguished officer in the army,
+broke like a thunderbolt on the Grecian ranks. The Athenians and
+Megarians met them, and a sharp and doubtful contest ensued. At length
+Masistius fell from his wounded horse and was slain as he lay on the
+ground. The Persians fought with fury to recover his body, but were
+finally driven back, leaving the corpse of their general in the hands of
+the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>This event had a great effect on both armies. Grief assailed the army of
+Mardonius at the loss of their favorite general. Loud wailings filled
+the camp, and the hair of men, horses, and cattle was cut in sign of
+mourning. The Greeks, on the contrary, were full of joy. The body of
+Masistius, a man of great stature, and clad in showy armor, was placed
+in a cart and paraded around the camp, that all might see it and
+rejoice. Such was their confidence at this defeat of the cavalry, which
+they had sorely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> feared, that Pausanias broke up his hill camp and
+marched into the plain below, where he took station in front of the
+Persian host, only the little stream of the Asopus dividing the two
+hostile armies.</p>
+
+<p>And here for days they lay, both sides offering sacrifices, and both
+obtaining the same oracle,&mdash;that the side which attacked would lose the
+battle, the side which resisted would win. Under such circumstances
+neither side cared to attack, and for ten days the armies lay, the
+Greeks much annoyed by the Persian cavalry, and having their convoys of
+provisions cut off, yet still waiting with unyielding faith in the
+decision of the gods.</p>
+
+<p>Mardonius at length grew impatient. He asked his officers if they knew
+of any prophecy saying that the Persians would be destroyed in Greece.
+They were all silent, though many of them knew of such prophecies.</p>
+
+<p>"Since you either do not know or will not tell," he at length said, "I
+well know of one. There is an oracle which declares that Persian
+invaders shall plunder the temple of Delphi, and shall afterwards all be
+destroyed. Now we shall not go against that temple, so on that ground we
+shall not be destroyed. Doubt not, then, but rejoice, for we shall get
+the better of the Greeks." And he gave orders to prepare for battle on
+the morrow, without waiting longer on the sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p>That night Alexander of Macedon, who was in the Persian army, rode up to
+the Greek outposts and gave warning of the coming attack. "I am of Greek
+descent," he said, "and ask you to free me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> from the Persian yoke. I
+cannot endure to see Greece enslaved."</p>
+
+<p>During the night Pausanias withdrew his army to a new position in front
+of the town of Plat&aelig;a, water being wanting where they were. One Spartan
+leader, indeed, refused to move, and when told that there had been a
+general vote of the officers, he picked up a huge stone and cast it at
+the feet of Pausanias, crying, "This is <i>my</i> pebble. With it I give my
+vote not to run away from the strangers."</p>
+
+<p>Dawn was at hand, and the Spartans still held their ground, their leader
+disputing in vain with the obstinate captain. At length he gave the
+order to march, it being fatal to stay, since the rest of the army had
+gone. Amompharetus, the obstinate captain, seeing that his general had
+really gone, now lost his scruples and followed.</p>
+
+<p>When day dawned the Persians saw with surprise that their foes had
+disappeared. The Spartans alone, detained by the obstinacy of
+Amompharetus, were still in sight. Filled with extravagant confidence at
+this seeming flight. Mardonius gave orders for hasty pursuit, crying to
+a Greek ally, "There go your boasted Spartans, showing, by a barefaced
+flight, what they are really worth."</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the shallow stream, the Persians ran after the Greeks at full
+speed, without a thought of order or discipline. The foe seemed to them
+in full retreat, and shouts of victory rang from their lips as they
+rushed pell-mell across the plain.</p>
+
+<p>The Spartans were quickly overtaken, and found themselves hotly
+assailed. They sent in haste to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> the Athenians for aid. The Athenians
+rushed forward, but soon found themselves confronted by the Greek allies
+of Persia, and with enough to do to defend themselves. The remainder of
+the Greek army had retreated to Plat&aelig;a and took no part in the battle.</p>
+
+<p>The Persians, thrusting the spiked extremities of their long shields in
+the ground, formed a breastwork from which they poured showers of arrows
+on the Spartan ranks, by which many were wounded or slain. Yet, despite
+their distress, Pausanias would not give the order to charge. He was at
+the old work again, offering sacrifices while his men fell around him.
+The responses were unfavorable, and he would not fight.</p>
+
+<p>At length the victims showed favorable signs. "Charge!" was the word.
+With the fury of unchained lions the impatient hoplites sprang forward,
+and like an avalanche the serried Spartan line fell on the foe.</p>
+
+<p>Down went the breastwork of shields. Down went hundreds of Persians
+before the close array and the long spears of the Spartans. Broken and
+disordered, the Persians fought bravely, doing their utmost to get to
+close quarters with their foes. Mardonius, mounted on a white horse, and
+attended by a body-guard of a thousand select troops, was among the
+foremost warriors, and his followers distinguished themselves by their
+courage.</p>
+
+<p>At length the spear of Aeimnestus, a distinguished Spartan, brought
+Mardonius dead to the ground. His guards fell in multitudes around his
+body. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> other Persians, worn out with the hopeless effort to break
+the Spartan phalanx, and losing heart at the death of their general,
+turned and fled to their fortified camp. At the same time the Theban
+allies of Persia, whom the Athenians had been fighting, gave ground, and
+began a retreat, which was not ended till they reached the walls of
+Thebes.</p>
+
+<p>On rushed the victorious Spartans to the Persian camp, which they at
+once assailed. Here they had no success till the Athenians came to their
+aid, when the walls were stormed and the defenders slain in such hosts
+that, if we can believe Herodotus, only three thousand out of the three
+hundred thousand of the army of Mardonius remained alive. It is true
+that one body of forty thousand men, under Artabazus, had been too late
+on the field to take part in the fight. The Persians were already
+defeated when these troops came in sight, and they turned and marched
+away for the Hellespont, leaving the defeated host to shift for itself.
+Of the Greeks, Plutarch tells us that the total loss in the battle was
+thirteen hundred and sixty men.</p>
+
+<p>The spoil found in the Persian camp was rich and varied. It included
+money and ornaments of gold and silver, carpets, splendid arms and
+clothing, horses, camels, and other valuable materials. This was divided
+among the victors, a tenth of the golden spoil being reserved for the
+Delphian shrine, and wrought into a golden tripod, which was placed on a
+column formed of three twisted bronze serpents. This defeat was the
+salvation of Greece. No Persian army ever again set foot on European
+soil. And,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> by a striking coincidence, on the same day that the battle
+of Plat&aelig;a was fought, the Grecian fleet won a brilliant victory at
+Mycale, in Asia Minor, and freed the Ionian cities from Persian rule. In
+Greece, Thebes was punished for aiding the Persians. Byzantium (now
+Constantinople) was captured by Pausanias, and the great cables of the
+bridge of Xerxes were brought home in triumph by the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>We have but one more incident to tell. The war tent of Xerxes had been
+left to Mardonius, and on taking the Persian camp Pausanias saw it with
+its colored hangings and its gold and silver adornments, and gave orders
+to the cooks that they should prepare him such a feast as they were used
+to do for their lord. On seeing the splendid banquet, he ordered that a
+Spartan supper should be prepared. With a hearty laugh at the contrast
+he said to the Greek leaders, for whom he had sent, "Behold, O Greeks,
+the folly of this Median captain, who, when he enjoyed such fare as
+this, must needs come here to rob us of our penury."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>FOUR FAMOUS MEN OF ATHENS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the days of Cr&#339;sus, the wealthiest of ancient kings, a citizen of
+Athens, Alkm&aelig;on by name, kindly lent his aid to the messengers sent by
+the Lydian monarch to consult the Delphian oracle, before his war with
+King Cyrus of Persia, This generous aid was richly rewarded by
+Cr&#339;sus, who sent for Alkm&aelig;on to visit him at Sardis, richly
+entertained him, and when ready to depart made him a present of as much
+gold as he could carry from the treasury.</p>
+
+<p>This offer the visitor, who seemed to possess his fair share of the
+perennial thirst for gold, determined to make the most of. He went to
+the treasure-chamber dressed in his loosest tunic and wearing on his
+feet wide-legged buskins, both of which he filled bursting full with
+gold. Not yet satisfied, he powdered his hair thickly with gold-dust,
+and filled his mouth with this precious but indigestible food. Thus
+laden, he waddled as well as he could from the chamber, presenting so
+ludicrous a spectacle that the good-natured monarch burst into a loud
+laugh on seeing him.</p>
+
+<p>Cr&#339;sus not only let him keep all he had taken, but doubled its value
+by other presents, so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> Alkm&aelig;on returned to Athens as one of its
+wealthiest men. Megacles, the son of this rich Athenian, was he who won
+the prize of fair Agarist&eacute; of Sicyon, in the contest which we have
+elsewhere described. The son of Megacles and Agarist&eacute; was named
+Cleisthenes, and it is he who comes first in the list of famous men whom
+we have here to describe.</p>
+
+<p>It was Cleisthenes who made Attica a democratic state; and thus it came
+about. The laws of Solon&mdash;which favored the aristocracy&mdash;were set aside
+by despots before Solon died. After Hippias, the last of those despots,
+was expelled from the state, the people rose under the leadership of
+Cleisthenes, and, probably for the first time in the history of mankind,
+a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" was
+established in a civilized state. The laws of Solon were abrogated, and
+a new code of laws formed by Cleisthenes, which lasted till the
+independence of Athens came to an end.</p>
+
+<p>Before that time the clan system had prevailed in Greece. The people
+were divided into family groups, each of which claimed to be descended
+from a single ancestor,&mdash;often a supposed deity. These clans held all
+the power of the state; not only in the early days, when they formed the
+whole people, but later, when Athens became a prosperous city with many
+merchant ships, and when numerous strangers had come from afar to settle
+within its walls.</p>
+
+<p>None of these strangers were given the rights of citizenship. The clans
+remained in power, and the new people had no voice in the government.
+But in time the strangers grew to be so numerous, rich,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> and important
+that their claim to equal rights could no longer be set aside. They took
+part in the revolution by which the despots were expelled, and in the
+new constitution that was formed their demand to be made citizens of the
+state had to be granted.</p>
+
+<p>Cleisthenes, the leader of the people against the aristocratic faction,
+made this new code of laws. By a system never before adopted he broke up
+the old conditions. Before that time the people were the basis on which
+governments were organized. He made the land the basis, and from that
+time to this land has continued the basis of political divisions.</p>
+
+<p>Setting aside the old division of the Attic people into tribes and
+clans, founded on birth or descent, he separated the people into ten new
+tribes, founded on land. Attica was divided by him into districts or
+parishes, like modern townships and wards, which were called Demes, and
+each tribe was made up of several demes at a distance from each other.
+Every man became a citizen of the deme in which he lived, without regard
+to his clan, the new people were made citizens, and thus every freeborn
+inhabitant of Attica gained full rights of suffrage and citizenship, and
+the old clan aristocracy was at an end. The clans kept up their ancient
+organization and religious ceremonies, but they lost their political
+control. It must be said here, however, that many of the people of
+Attica were slaves, and that the new commonwealth of freemen was very
+far from including the whole population.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most curious of the new laws made by Cleisthenes was that
+known as "ostracism," by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> which any citizen who showed himself dangerous
+to the state could be banished for ten years if six thousand votes were
+cast against him. This was intended as a means of preventing the rise of
+future despots.</p>
+
+<p>The people of Athens developed wonderfully in public spirit under their
+new constitution. Each of them had now become the equal politically of
+the richest and noblest in the state, and all took a more vital interest
+in their country than had ever been felt before. It was this that made
+them so earnest and patriotic in the Persian war. The poorest citizen
+fought as bravely as the richest for the freedom of his beloved state.</p>
+
+<p>Each tribe, under the new laws, chose its own war-leader, or general, so
+that there were ten generals of equal power, and in war each of these
+was given command of the army for a day; and one of the archons, or
+civil heads of the state, was made general of the state, or war archon,
+so that there were eleven generals in all.</p>
+
+<p>The leading man in each tribe was usually chosen its general, and of
+these we have the stories of three to tell,&mdash;Miltiades, the hero of
+Marathon; Themistocles, who saved Greece at Salamis; and Aristides,
+known as "the Just."</p>
+
+<p>We have already told how two of these men gained great glory. We have
+now to tell how they gained great disgrace. Ambition, the bane of the
+leaders of states, led them both to ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Miltiades was of noble birth, and succeeded his uncle as ruler of the
+Chersonese country, in Thrace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> Here he fell under the dominion of
+Persia, and here, when Darius was in Scythia, he advised that the bridge
+over the Danube should be destroyed. When Darius returned Miltiades had
+to fly for his life. He afterwards took part in the Ionic revolt, and
+captured from the Persians the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. But when
+the Ionians were once more conquered Miltiades had again to fly for his
+life. Darius hated him bitterly, and had given special orders for his
+capture. He fled with five ships, and was pursued so closely that one of
+them was taken. He reached Athens in safety with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Not long afterwards Miltiades revenged himself on Darius for this
+pursuit by his great victory at Marathon, which for the time made him
+the idol of the state and the most admired man in all Greece.</p>
+
+<p>But the glory of Miltiades was quickly followed by disgrace, and the end
+of his career was near at hand. He was of the true soldierly
+temperament, stirring, ambitious, not content to rest and rust, and as a
+result his credit with the fickle Athenians quickly disappeared. His
+head seems to have been turned by his success, and he soon after asked
+for a fleet of seventy ships of war, to be placed under his command. He
+did not say where he proposed to go, but stated only that whoever should
+come with him would be rewarded plentifully with gold.</p>
+
+<p>The victor at Marathon had but to ask to obtain. The people put
+boundless confidence in him, and gave him the fleet without a question.
+And the golden prize promised brought him numbers of eager volunteers,
+not one of whom knew where he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> was going or what he was expected to do.
+Miltiades was in command, and where Miltiades chose to lead who could
+hesitate to follow?</p>
+
+<p>The purpose of the admiral of the fleet was soon revealed. He sailed to
+the island of Paros, besieged the capital, and demanded a tribute of one
+hundred talents. He based this claim on the pretence that the Parians
+had furnished a ship to the Persian fleet, but it is known that his real
+motive was hatred of a citizen of Paros.</p>
+
+<p>As it happened, the Parians were not the sort of people to submit easily
+to a piratical demand. They kept their foe amused by cunning diplomacy
+till they had repaired the city walls, then openly defied him to do his
+worst. Miltiades at once began the assault, and kept it up for
+twenty-six days in vain. The island was ravaged, but the town stood
+intact. Despairing of winning by force, he next attempted to win by
+fraud. A woman of Paros promised to reveal to him a secret which would
+place the town in his power, and induced him to visit her at night in a
+temple to which only women were admitted. Miltiades accepted the offer,
+leaped over the outer fence, and approached the temple. But at that
+moment a panic of superstitious fear overcame him. Doubtless fancying
+that the deity of the temple would punish him terribly for this
+desecration, he ran away in the wildest terror, and sprang back over the
+fence in such haste that he badly sprained his thigh. In this state he
+was found and carried on board ship, and, the siege being raised, the
+fleet returned to Athens.</p>
+
+<p>Here Miltiades found the late favor of the citizens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> changed to violent
+indignation, in which his recent followers took part. He was accused of
+deceiving the people, and of committing a crime against the state worthy
+of death. The dangerous condition of his wound prevented him from saying
+a word in his own defence. In truth, there was no defence to make; the
+utmost his friends could do was to recall his service at Marathon. No
+Athenian tribunal could adjudge to death, however great the offence, the
+conqueror of Lemnos and victor at Marathon. But neither could
+forgiveness be adjudged, and Miltiades was fined fifty talents, perhaps
+to repay the city the expense of fitting out the fleet.</p>
+
+<p>This fine he did not live to pay. His wounded thigh mortified and he
+died, leaving his son Cimon to pay the penalty incurred through his
+ambition and personal grudge. Some writers say that he was put in prison
+and died there, but this is not probable, considering his disabled
+state.</p>
+
+<p>Miltiades had belonged to the old order of things, being a born
+aristocrat, and for a time a despot. Themistocles and Aristides were
+children of the new state, democrats born, and reared to the new order
+of things. They were not the equals of Miltiades in birth, both being
+born of parents of no distinction. But, aside from this similarity, they
+differed essentially, alike in character and in their life records;
+Themistocles being aspiring and ambitious, Aristides, his political
+opponent, quiet and patriotic; the one considering most largely his own
+advancement, the other devoting his whole life to the good of his native
+city.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p><p>Themistocles displayed his nature strongly while still a boy. Idleness
+and play were not to his taste, and no occasion was lost by him to
+improve his mind and develop his powers in oratory. He cared nothing for
+accomplishments, but gave ardent attention to the philosophy and
+learning of his day. "It is true I cannot play on a flute, or bring
+music from the lute," he afterwards said; "all I can do is, if a small
+and obscure city were put into my hands, to make it great and glorious."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image8.jpg" width="600" height="366" alt="THE ANCIENT ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM, ATHENS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE ANCIENT ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM, ATHENS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of commanding figure, handsome face, keen eyes, proud and erect posture,
+sprightly and intellectual aspect, he was one to attract attention in
+any community, while his developed powers of oratory gave him the
+greatest influence over the speech-loving Athenians. In his eagerness to
+win distinction and gain a high place in the state, he cared not what
+enemies he might make so that he won a strong party to his support. So
+great was his thirst for distinction that the victory of Miltiades at
+Marathon threw him into a state of great depression, in which he said,
+"The glory of Miltiades will not let me sleep."</p>
+
+<p>Themistocles was not alone ambitious and declamatory. He was far-sighted
+as well; and through his power of foreseeing the future he was enabled
+to serve Athens even more signally than Miltiades had done. Many there
+were who said that there was no need to dread the Persians further, that
+the victory at Marathon would end the war. "It is only the beginning of
+the war," said Themistocles; "new and greater conflicts will come; if
+Athens is to be saved, it must prepare."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p><p>We have elsewhere told how he induced the Athenians to build a fleet,
+and how this fleet, under his shrewd management, defeated the great
+flotilla of Xerxes and saved Greece from ruin and subjection. All that
+Themistocles did before and during this war it is not necessary to
+state. It will suffice here to say that he had no longer occasion to
+lose sleep on account of the glory of Miltiades. He had won a higher
+glory of his own; and in the end ambition ruined him, as it had his
+great predecessor.</p>
+
+<p>To complete the tale of Themistocles we must take up that of another of
+the heroes of Greece, the Spartan Pausanias, the leader of the
+victorious army at Plat&aelig;a. He, too, allowed ambition to destroy him.
+After taking the city of Byzantium, he fell in love with Oriental luxury
+and grew to despise the humble fare and rigid discipline of Sparta. He
+offered to bring all Greece under the domain of Persia if Xerxes would
+give him his daughter for wife, and displayed such pompous folly and
+extravagance that the Spartans ordered him home, where he was tried for
+treason, but not condemned.</p>
+
+<p>He afterwards conspired with some of the states of Asia Minor, and when
+again brought home formed a plot with the Helots to overthrow the
+government. His treason was discovered, and he fled to a temple for
+safety, where he was kept till he starved to death.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ambition ended the careers of two of the heroes of the Persian war.
+A third, Themistocles, ended his career in similar disgrace. In fact,
+he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> grew so arrogant and unjust that the people of Athens found him
+unfit to live with. They suspected him also of joining with Pausanias in
+his schemes. So they banished him by ostracism, and he went to Argos to
+live. While there it was proved that he really had taken part in the
+treason of Pausanias, and he was obliged to fly for his life.</p>
+
+<p>The fugitive had many adventures in this flight. He was pursued by
+envoys from Athens, and made more than one narrow escape. While on
+shipboard he was driven by storm to the island of Naxos, then besieged
+by an Athenian fleet, and escaped only by promising a large reward to
+the captain if he would not land. Finally, after other adventures, he
+reached Susa, the capital of Persia, where he found that Xerxes was
+dead, and his son Artaxerxes was reigning in his stead.</p>
+
+<p>He was well received by the new king, to whom he declared that he had
+been friendly to his father Xerxes, and that he proposed now to use his
+powers for the good of Persia. He formed schemes by which Persia might
+conquer Greece, and gained such favor with the new monarch that he gave
+him a Persian wife and rich presents, sent him to Magnesia, near the
+Ionian coast, and granted him the revenues of the surrounding district.
+Here Themistocles died, at the age of sixty-five, without having kept
+one of his alluring promises to the Persian king.</p>
+
+<p>And thus, through greed and ambition, the three great leaders of Greece
+in the Persian war ended their careers in disgrace and death. We have
+now the story of a fourth great Athenian to tell, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> through honor and
+virtue won a higher distinction than the others had gained through
+warlike fame.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole career of the brilliant Themistocles he had a
+persistent opponent, Aristides, a man, like him, born of undistinguished
+parents, but who by moral strength and innate power of intellect won the
+esteem and admiration of his fellow-citizens. He became the leader of
+the aristocratic section of the people, as Themistocles did of the
+democratic, and for years the city was divided between their adherents.
+But the brilliancy of Themistocles was replaced in Aristides by a staid
+and quiet disposition. He was natively austere, taciturn, and
+deep-revolving, winning influence by silent methods, and retaining it by
+the strictest honor and justice and a hatred of all forms of falsehood
+or political deceit.</p>
+
+<p>For years these two men divided the political power of Athens between
+them, until in the end Aristides said that the city would have no peace
+until it threw the pair of them into the pit kept for condemned
+criminals. So just was Aristides that, on one of his enemies being
+condemned by the court without a hearing, he rose in his seat and begged
+the court not to impose sentence without giving the accused an
+opportunity for defence.</p>
+
+<p>Aristides was one of the generals at Marathon, and was left to guard the
+spoils on the field of battle after the defeat of the Persians. At a
+later date, by dint of false reports, Themistocles succeeded in having
+him ostracized, obtaining the votes of the rabble against him. One of
+these, not knowing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> Aristides, asked him to write his own name on the
+tile used as a voting tablet. He did so, but first inquired, "Has
+Aristides done you an injury?" "No," was the answer; "I do not even know
+him, but I am tired of hearing him always called 'Aristides the Just.'"
+On leaving the city Aristides prayed that the people should never have
+any occasion to regret their action.</p>
+
+<p>This occasion quickly came. In less than three years he was recalled to
+aid his country in the Persian invasion. Landing at Salamis, he served
+Athens in the manner we have already told. The command of the army which
+Aristides surrendered to Miltiades at the battle of Marathon fell to
+himself in the battle of Plat&aelig;a, for on that great day he led the
+Athenians and played an important part in the victory that followed. He
+commanded the Athenian forces in a later war, and by his prudence and
+mildness won for Athens the supremacy in the Greek confederation that
+was afterwards formed.</p>
+
+<p>At a later date, leader of the aristocrats as he was, to avert a
+revolution he proposed a change in the constitution that made Athens
+completely democratic, and enabled the lowliest citizen to rise to the
+highest office of the state. In 468 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> died this great and noble
+citizen of Athens, one of the most illustrious of ancient statesmen and
+patriots, and one of the most virtuous public men of any age or nation.
+He died so poor that it is said he did not leave enough money to pay his
+funeral expenses, and for several generations his descendants were kept
+at the charge of the state.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>HOW ATHENS ROSE FROM ITS ASHES.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> torch of Xerxes and Mardonius left Athens a heap of ashes. But, like
+the new birth of the fabled ph&#339;nix, there rose out of these ashes a
+city that became the wonder of the world, and whose time-worn ruins are
+still worshipped by the pilgrims of art. We cannot proceed with our work
+without pausing awhile to contemplate this remarkable spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>The old Athens bore to the new much the same relation that the chrysalis
+bears to the butterfly. It was little more than an ordinary country
+town, the capital of a district comparable in size to a modern county.
+Pisistratus and his sons had built some temples, and had completed a
+part of the Dionysiac theatre, but the city itself was simply a cluster
+of villages surrounded by a wall; while the citadel had for defence
+nothing stronger than a wooden rampart. The giving of this city to the
+torch was no serious loss; in reality it was a gain, since it cleared
+the ground for the far nobler city of later days.</p>
+
+<p>It is not often that a whole nation removes from its home, and its
+possessions are completely swept away. But such had been the case with
+the Attic state. For a time all Attica was afloat, the people of city
+and country alike taking to their ships; while a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> locust flight of
+Persians passed over their lands, ravaging and destroying all before
+them, and leaving nothing but the bare soil. Such was what remained to
+the people of Attica on their return from Salamis and the adjacent
+isles.</p>
+
+<p>Athens lay before them a heap of ashes and ruin, its walls flung down,
+its dwellings vanished, its gardens destroyed, its temples burned. The
+city itself, and the citadel and sacred structures of its Acropolis,
+were swept away, and the business of life on that ravaged soil had to be
+begun afresh.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Attica as a state was greater than ever before. It was a victor on
+land and sea, the recognized savior of Greece; and the people of Athens
+returned to the ashes of their city not in woe and dismay, but in pride
+and exultation. They were victors over the greatest empire then on the
+face of the earth, the admired of the nations, the leading power in
+Greece, and their small loss weighed but lightly against their great
+glory.</p>
+
+<p>The Athens that rose in place of the old city was a marvel of beauty and
+art, adorned with hall and temple, court and gymnasium, colonnade and
+theatre, while under the active labors of its sculptors it became so
+filled with marble inmates that they almost equalled in numbers its
+living inhabitants. Such sculptors as Phidias and such painters as
+Zeuxis adorned the city with the noblest products of their art. The
+great theatre of Dionysus was completed, and to it was added a new one,
+called the Odeon, for musical and poetical representations. On the
+Acropolis rose the Parthenon, the splendid temple to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> Minerva, or
+Athen&eacute;, the patron goddess of the city, whose ruins are still the
+greatest marvel of architectural art. Other temples adorned the
+Acropolis, and the costly Propyl&aelig;a, or portals, through which passed the
+solemn processions on festival days, were erected at the western side of
+the hill. The Acropolis was further adorned with three splendid statues
+of Minerva, all the work of Phidias, one of ivory in the Parthenon,
+forty-seven feet high, the others of bronze, one being of such colossal
+height that it could be seen from afar by mariners at sea.</p>
+
+<p>The city itself was built upon a scale to correspond with this richness
+of architectural and artistic adornment, and such was its encouragement
+to the development of thought and art, that poets, artists, and
+philosophers flocked thither from all quarters, and for many years
+Athens stood before the world as the focal point of the human intellect.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least remarkable feature in this great growth was the celerity
+with which it was achieved. The period between the Persian and the
+Peloponnesian war was only sixty years in duration. Yet in that brief
+space of time the great growth we have chronicled took place, and the
+architectural splendor of the city was consummated. The devastation of
+the unhappy Peloponnesian war put an end to this external growth, and
+left the Athens of old frozen into marble, a thing of beauty forever.
+But the intellectual growth went on, and for centuries afterwards Athens
+continued the centre of ancient thought.</p>
+
+<p>And now the question in point is how all this came about, and what made
+Athens great and glorious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> among the cities of Greece. It all flowed
+naturally from her eminence in the Persian war. During that war there
+had been a league of the states of Greece, with Sparta as its accepted
+leader. After the war the need of being on the alert against Persia
+continued, and Greece became in great part divided into two
+leagues,&mdash;one composed of Sparta and most of the Peloponnesian states,
+the other of Athens, the islands of the archipelago, and many of the
+towns of Asia Minor and Thrace. This latter was called the League of
+Delos, since its deputies met and its treasure was kept in the temple of
+Apollo on that island.</p>
+
+<p>This League of Delos developed in time to what has been called the
+Athenian Empire, and in this manner. Each city of the league pledged
+itself to make an annual contribution of a certain number of ships or a
+fixed sum of money, to be used in war against Persia or for the defence
+of members of the league. The amount assessed against each was fixed by
+Aristides, in whose justice every one trusted. In time the money payment
+was considered preferable to that of ships, and most of the states of
+the league contributed money, leaving Athens to provide the fleet.</p>
+
+<p>In this way all the power fell into the hands of Athens, and the other
+cities of the league became virtually payers of tribute. This was shown
+later on when some of the island cities declined to pay. Athens sent a
+fleet, made conquest of the islands, and reduced them to the state of
+real tribute payers. Thus the league began to change into an Athenian
+dominion.</p>
+
+<p>In 459 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> the treasure was removed from Delos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> to Athens. And in the
+end Chios, Samoa, and Lesbos were the only free allies of Athens. All
+the other members of the league had been reduced to subjection. Several
+of the states of Greece also became subject to Athens, and the Athenian
+Empire grew into a wealthy, powerful, and extended state.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image9.jpg" width="600" height="408" alt="A REUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A REUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The treasure laid up at Athens in time became great. The payments
+amounted to about six hundred talents yearly, and at one time the
+treasury of Athens held the great sum of nine thousand seven hundred
+talents, equal to over eleven million dollars,&mdash;a sum which meant far
+more then than the equivalent amount would now.</p>
+
+<p>It was this money that made Athens great. It proved to be more than was
+necessary for defensive war against Persia, or even for the aggressive
+war which was carried on in Asia Minor and Egypt. It also more than
+sufficed for sending out the colonies which Athens founded in Italy and
+elsewhere. The remainder of the fund was used in Athens, part of it in
+building great structures and in producing splendid works of art, part
+for purposes of fortification. The Pir&aelig;us, the port of Athens, was
+surrounded by strong walls, and a double wall&mdash;the famous "Long
+Walls"&mdash;was constructed from the city to the port, a distance of four
+miles. These walls, some two hundred yards apart, left a grand highway
+between, the channel of a steady traffic which flowed from the sea to
+the city, and which for years enabled Athens to defy the cutting off its
+resources by attack from without. Through this broad avenue not only
+provisions and merchandise, but men in multitudes, made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> their way into
+Athens, until that city became fuller of bustle, energy, political and
+scholarly activity, and incessant industry than any of the other cities
+of the ancient world.</p>
+
+<p>In a city like this, free and equal as were its citizens, and democratic
+as were its institutions, some men were sure to rise to the surface and
+gain controlling influence. In the period in question there were two
+such men, Cimon and Pericles, men of such eminence that we cannot pass
+them by unconsidered. Cimon was the son of Miltiades, the hero of
+Marathon, and became the leader of aristocratic Athens. Pericles was the
+great-grandson of Cleisthenes, the democratic law-giver, and, though of
+the most aristocratic descent, became the leader of the popular party of
+his native city.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle for precedence between these two men resembled that between
+Themistocles and Aristides. Cimon was a strong advocate of an alliance
+with Sparta, which Pericles opposed. He was brilliant as a soldier,
+gained important victories against Persia, but was finally ostracized as
+a result of his friendship for Sparta. He came back to Athens
+afterwards, but his influence could not be regained.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, of Pericles that we desire particularly to
+speak,&mdash;Pericles, who found Athens poor and made her magnificent, found
+her weak and made her glorious. This celebrated statesman had not the
+dashing qualities of his rival. He was by nature quiet but deep, serene
+but profound, the most eloquent orator of his day, and one of the most
+learned and able of men. He was dignified and composed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> manner,
+possessed of a self-possession which no interruption could destroy, and
+gifted with a luminous intelligence that gave him a controlling
+influence over the thoughtful and critical Athenians of his day.</p>
+
+<p>Pericles was too wise and shrewd to keep himself constantly before the
+people, or to haunt the assembly. He sedulously remained in the
+background until he had something of importance to say, but he then
+delivered his message with a skill, force, and animation that carried
+all his hearers irresistibly away. His logic, wit, and sarcasm, his
+clear voice, flashing eyes, and vigorous power of declamation, used only
+when the occasion was important, gave him in time almost absolute
+control in Athens, and had he sought to make himself a despot he might
+have done so with a word; but happily he was honest and patriotic enough
+to content himself with being the First Citizen of the State.</p>
+
+<p>To make the people happy, and to keep Athens in a condition of serene
+content, seem to have been leading aims with Pericles. He entertained
+them with quickly succeeding theatrical and other entertainments, solemn
+banquets, splendid shows and processions, and everything likely to add
+to their enjoyment. Every year he sent out eighty galleys on a six
+months' cruise, filled with citizens who were to learn the art of
+maritime war, and who were paid for their services. The citizens were
+likewise paid for attending the public assembly, and allowances were
+made them for the time given to theatrical representations, so that it
+has been said that Pericles converted the sober and thrifty Athenians
+into an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> idle, pleasure-loving, and extravagant populace. At the same
+time, that things might be kept quiet in Athens, the discontented
+overflow of the people were sent out as colonists, to build up daughter
+cities of Attica in many distant lands.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that Athens developed from the quiet country town of the old
+r&eacute;gime into the wealthiest, gayest, and most progressive of Grecian
+cities, the capital of an empire, the centre of a great commerce, and
+the home of a busy and thronging populace, among whom the ablest
+artists, poets, and philosophers of that age of the world were included.
+Here gathered the great writers of tragedy, beginning with &AElig;schylus,
+whose noble works were performed at the expense of the state in the
+great open-air theatre of Dionysus. Here the comedians, the chief of
+whom was Aristophanes, moved hosts of spectators to inextinguishable
+laughter. Here the choicest lyric poets of Greece awoke admiration with
+their unequalled songs, at their head the noble Pindar, the laureate of
+the Olympic and Pythian games. Here the sophists and philosophers argued
+and lectured, and Socrates walked like a king at the head of the
+aristocracy of thought. Here the sculptors, headed by Phidias, filled
+temples, porticos, colonnades, and public places with the most exquisite
+creations in marble, and the painters with their marvellous
+reproductions of nature. Here, indeed, seemed gathered all that was best
+and worthiest in art, entertainment, and thought, and for half a century
+and more Athens remained a city without a rival in the history of the
+world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_PLAGUE_AT_ATHENS" id="THE_PLAGUE_AT_ATHENS"></a><i>THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the period after the Persian war two great powers arose in
+Greece, which were destined to come into close and virulent conflict.
+These were the league of Delos, which developed into the empire of
+Athens, and the Peloponnesian confederacy, under the leadership of
+Sparta. The first of these was mainly an island empire, the second a
+mainland league; the first a group of democratic, the second one of
+aristocratic, states; the first a power with dominion over the seas, the
+second a power whose strength lay in its army. Such were the two rival
+confederacies into which Greece gradually divided, and between which
+hostile sentiment grew stronger year after year.</p>
+
+<p>It became apparent as the years went on that a struggle was coming for
+supremacy in Greece. Outbreaks of active hostility between the rival
+powers from time to time took place. At length the situation grew so
+strained that a general conflict began, that devastating Peloponnesian
+war which for nearly thirty years desolated Greece, and which ended in
+the ruin of Athens, the home of poetry and art, and the supremacy of
+Sparta, the native school of war. The first great conflict of the
+Hellenic people, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> Persian war, had made Greece powerful and
+glorious. The second great conflict, the Peloponnesian war, brought
+Greece to the verge of ruin, and destroyed that Athenian supremacy in
+which lay the true path of progress for that fair land.</p>
+
+<p>In 431 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> the war broke out. Sparta and her allies declared war
+against Athens on the ground that that city was growing too great and
+grasping, and an army marched from the Peloponnesus northward to invade
+the Attic state. Meanwhile the Athenians, under the shrewd advice of
+Pericles, adopted a wise policy. It was with her fleet that Athens had
+defeated Persia, and her wise statesman advised that she should devote
+herself to the dominion of the sea, and leave to Sparta that of the
+land. Their walls would protect her people, their ships would bring them
+food from afar, they were not a fair match for Sparta on land, and could
+safely leave to that city of warriors the temporary dominion of Attic
+soil.</p>
+
+<p>This advice was taken. When the Spartan army came near Attica all its
+people left their fields and homes and sought refuge, as once before,
+within the walls of their capacious capital city. Over the Attic plain
+marched the invaders, destroying the summer crops, burning the farmers'
+homesteads, yet recoiling in helpless rage before those strong walls
+behind which lay the whole population of the state. From the city, as we
+know, long and high walls stretched away to the sea and invested the
+seaport town of Pir&aelig;us, within whose harbor lay the powerful Athenian
+fleet. And in the treasury of the city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> rested an abundant supply of
+money,&mdash;the sinews of war,&mdash;with whose aid food and supplies could be
+brought from over the seas. In vain, then, did Sparta ravage the fields
+of Attica. The people of that desolated realm defied them from behind
+their city walls.</p>
+
+<p>When winter came the invaders retired and the farmers went back to their
+fields. In the spring they ploughed and sowed as of yore, and watched in
+hope the growing crops. But with the summer the Spartans came again, to
+destroy their hopes of a harvest, and the country people once more fled
+for safety to their great city's defiant walls.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange spectacle, that of a powerful invading army wreaking
+their wrath year after year on deserted fields, and gnashing their teeth
+in impotent rage before lofty and well-defended walls and ramparts,
+behind which lay their foes, little the worse for all that their malice
+could perform.</p>
+
+<p>Athens felt secure, and laughed her enemy to scorn. Unhappily for her, a
+new enemy was at hand, against whom the mightiest walls were of no
+avail. Sparta gained an unthought-of ally, and death stalked at large in
+the Athenian streets, silent and implacable, without clash of weapon or
+shout of war, yet more fatal and merciless than would have been the
+strongest army in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Athens was crowded. The country people filled all available space. There
+was little attention to drainage or sanitary regulations. An open
+invitation was given to pestilence, and the invited enemy came. For some
+years before the plague had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> at its deadly work in Egypt and Libya,
+and in parts of Persian Asia. Then it made its appearance in some of the
+Grecian islands. Finally its wings of destruction were folded over
+Athens, and it settled down in terrific form upon that devoted city.</p>
+
+<p>The seeds of death found there fertile soil. Families were crowded
+together in close cabins and temporary shelters, to which they had been
+driven in multitudes from their ravaged fields. The plague first
+appeared in mid-April in the Pir&aelig;us,&mdash;brought, perhaps, by
+merchant-ships,&mdash;but soon spread to Athens, and as the heat of summer
+came on the inhabitants of that thronged city fell victims to it in
+appalling multitudes.</p>
+
+<p>The plague, they called it. The disease seems to have been something
+like the small-pox, though not quite the same. Its victims were seized
+suddenly, suffered the greatest agonies, and most of them died on the
+seventh or the ninth day. Even when the patients recovered, some had
+lost their memory, others the use of their eyes, hands, feet, or some
+other member of the body. No remedy could be found. The physicians died
+as rapidly as their patients. As for the charms and incantations which
+many used, we can scarcely imagine that they saved any lives. Some said
+that their enemies had poisoned the water-cisterns, others that the gods
+were angry, and vain processions were made to the temples, to implore
+the mercy of the deities.</p>
+
+<p>When nothing availed to stay the pestilence, Athens fell into deep
+despondency and despair. The sick lost courage, and lay down inertly to
+await<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> death. Those who waited on the sick were themselves stricken
+down, and so great grew the terror that the patients were deserted and
+left to die alone. Fortunately the disease rarely attacked any one
+twice, and those who had been sick and recovered became the only nurses
+of the new victims of the disease.</p>
+
+<p>So dread became the pestilence that the dead and the dying lay
+everywhere, in houses and streets, and even in the temples; half-dead
+sufferers gathered around the springs, tortured by violent thirst; the
+very dogs that meddled with the corpses died of the disease; vultures
+and other carrion birds avoided the city as if by instinct. Many bodies
+were burnt or buried with unseemly haste, many doubtless left to fester
+where they lay. Misery, terror, despair, overwhelmed all within the
+walls, while the foe without drew back in equal terror, lest the
+pestilence should leap the walls and assail them in their camps.</p>
+
+<p>Nor have we yet told all. Other evils followed that of the plague. Law
+was forgotten, morality ignored. Men hesitated not at crime or the
+indulgence of evil passions, having no fear of punishment. Many gave
+themselves up to riot and luxurious living, with the hope of snatching
+an interval of enjoyment before yielding to death. The story we here
+tell is no new one. It has been realized again and again in the flight
+of the centuries, when pestilence has made its home in some crowded
+city. Human nature is everywhere the same, and the bonds of law and
+morality are loosened when death stalks abroad.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p><p>For two years this dread calamity continued to desolate Athens. Then,
+after a period of a year and a half, it came again, and raged for
+another year as furiously as before. The losses were frightful. Of the
+armed men of the state nearly five thousand were swept away. Of the
+poorer people the loss was beyond computation. Nothing the human enemy
+was capable of could have done so much to ruin Athens as this frightful
+visitation, and to the end of the war that city felt its weakening
+effects.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps the greatest of the losses of Athens was the death of
+Pericles. In him Athens lost its wisest man and ablest statesman. The
+strong hand which had so long held the rudder of the state was gone, and
+the subsequent misfortunes of Athens were due more to the loss of this
+wise counsellor than to the efforts of her foes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE ENVOYS OF LIFE AND DEATH.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Near</span> the coast of Asia Minor lies the beautiful island of Lesbos, the
+birthplace of the poets Sappho, Alc&aelig;us, and Terpander, and of other
+famous writers and sages of the past. Here were green valleys and
+verdure-clad mountains, here charming rural scenes and richly-yielding
+fields, here all that seems necessary to make life serene and happy. But
+here also dwelt uneasy man, and hither came devastating war, bringing
+with it the shadow of a frightful tragedy from which the people of
+Lesbos barely escaped.</p>
+
+<p>Lesbos was one of the islands that entered into alliance with Athens,
+and formed part of the empire that arose from the league of Delos. In
+428 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> this island, and its capital, Mitylene, revolted from Athens,
+and struck for the freedom they had formerly enjoyed. Mitylene had never
+become tributary to Athens. It was simply an ally; and it retained its
+fleet, its walls, and its government; its only obligations being those
+common to all members of the League.</p>
+
+<p>Yet even these seemed to have been galling to the proud Mitylenians.
+Athens was then at war with Sparta. It seemed a good time to throw off
+all bonds, and the political leaders of the Lesbians <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>declared
+themselves absolved from all allegiance to the league.</p>
+
+<p>The news greatly disturbed the Athenians. They had their hands full of
+war. But Mitylene had asked aid from Sparta, and unless brought under
+subjection to Athens it would become an ally of her enemy. No time was
+therefore to be lost. A fleet was sent in haste to the revolted city,
+hoping to take it by surprise. This failing, the city was blockaded by
+sea and land, and the siege kept up until starvation threatened the
+people within the walls. Until now hope of Spartan aid had been
+entertained. But the Spartans came not, the provisions were gone, death
+or surrender became inevitable, and the city was given up. About a
+thousand prisoners were sent to Athens, and Mitylene was held till the
+pleasure of its conquerors should be known.</p>
+
+<p>This pleasure was a tragic one. The Athenians were deeply incensed
+against Mitylene, and full of thirst for revenge. Their anger was
+increased by the violent speeches of Cleon, a new political leader who
+had recently risen from among the ranks of trade, and whose virulent
+tongue gave him controlling influence over the Athenians at that period
+of public wrath. When the fate of Mitylene and its people was considered
+by the Athenian assembly this demagogue took the lead in the discussion,
+wrought the people up to the most violent passion by his acrimonious
+tongue, and proposed that the whole male population of the conquered
+city should be put to death, and the women and children sold as slaves.
+This frightful sentence was in accord with the feeling of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> the assembly.
+They voted death to all Mitylenians old enough to bear arms, and a
+trireme was sent to Lesbos, bearing orders to the Athenian admiral to
+carry this tragical decision into effect.</p>
+
+<p>Slaughter like this would to-day expose its authors to the universal
+execration of mankind. In those days it was not uncommon, and the
+quality of mercy was sadly wanting in the human heart. Yet such cruelty
+was hardly in accord with the advanced civilization of Athens, and when
+the members of the assembly descended to the streets, and their anger
+somewhat cooled, it began to appear to them that they had sent forth a
+decree of frightful cruelty. Even the captain and seamen of the trireme
+that was sent with the order to Mitylene left the port with heavy
+hearts, and would have gladly welcomed a recall. But the assembly of
+Athens was the ruling power and from its decision there was no appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Though it was illegal, the friends of Mitylene called a fresh meeting of
+the assembly for the next day. In this they were supported by the
+people, whose feeling had quickly and greatly changed. Yet at this new
+meeting it appeared at first as if Cleon would again win a fatal
+verdict, so vigorously did he again seek to stir up the public wrath.
+Diodotus, his opponent, followed with a strong appeal for mercy, and
+while willing that the leaders of the revolt, who had been sent to
+Athens, should be put to death, argued strongly in favor of pardoning
+the rest. When at length the assembly voted, mercy prevailed, but by so
+small a majority that for a time the decision was in doubt.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p><p>And now came a vital question. The trireme bearing the fatal order had
+left port twenty-four hours before. It was now far at sea, carrying its
+message of cold-blooded slaughter. Could it possibly be overtaken and
+the message of mercy made to fly more swiftly across the sea than that
+of death? As may well be imagined, no time was lost. A second trireme
+was got ready with all haste, and amply provisioned by the envoys from
+Mitylene then in Athens, those envoys promising large rewards to the
+crew if they should arrive in time.</p>
+
+<p>The offers of reward were not needed. The seamen were as eager as those
+of the former trireme had been despondent. Across the sea rushed the
+trireme, with such speed as trireme never made before nor since. By good
+fortune the sea was calm; no storm arose to thwart the rowers' good
+intent; not for an instant were their oars relaxed; they took turns for
+short intervals of rest, while barley meal, steeped in wine and oil, was
+served to them for refreshment upon their seats.</p>
+
+<p>Yet they strove against fearful odds. A start of twenty-four hours, upon
+so brief a journey, was almost fatal. Fortunately, the rowers of the
+first trireme had no spirit for their work. They were as slow and
+dilatory as the others were eager and persistent. And thus time moved
+slowly on, and the fate of Mitylene hung desperately in the balance. An
+hour more or less in this vital journey would make or mar a frightful
+episode in the history of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Fortune proved to be on the side of mercy. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> envoys of life were in
+time; but barely in time. Those who bore the message of death had
+reached port and placed their dread order in the hands of the Athenian
+commander, and he was already taking steps for the fearful massacre,
+when the second trireme dashed into the waters of that island harbor,
+and the cheers of exultation of its rowers met the ears of the
+imperilled populace.</p>
+
+<p>So near was Mitylene to destruction that the breaking of an oar would
+have been enough to doom six thousand men to death. So near as this was
+Athens to winning the execration of mankind, by the perpetration of an
+enormity which barbarians might safely have performed, but for which
+Athens could never have been forgiven. The thousand prisoners sent to
+Athens&mdash;the leading spirits of the revolt&mdash;were, it is true, put to
+death, but this merciless cruelty, as it would be deemed to-day, has
+been condoned in view of the far greater slaughter of the innocent from
+which Athens so narrowly escaped.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE DEFENCE OF PLAT&AElig;A.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> the foot of Mount Cith&aelig;ron, one of the most beautiful of the
+mountains of Greece, winds the small river Asopus, and between, on a
+slope of the mountain, may to-day be seen the ruins of Plat&aelig;a, one of
+the most memorable of the cities of ancient Greece. This city had its
+day of glory and its day of woe. Here, in the year 479 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, was fought
+that famous battle which drove the Persians forever from Greece. And
+here Pausanias declared that the territory on which the battle was
+fought should forever be sacred ground to all of Grecian birth. Forever
+is seldom a very long period in human history. In this case it lasted
+just fifty years.</p>
+
+<p>War had broken out between Sparta and its allies and Athens and its
+dominion, and all Greece was in turmoil. Of the two leading cities of
+B&#339;otia, Thebes was an ally of the Laced&aelig;monians, Plat&aelig;a of the
+Athenians. The war broke out by an attack of the Thebans upon Plat&aelig;a.
+Two years afterwards, in the year 429 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, Archidamus, the Spartan
+king, led his whole force against this ally of Athens. In his army
+marched the Thebans, men of a city but two hours' journey from Plat&aelig;a,
+and citizens of the same state, yet its bitterest foes. The Plat&aelig;ans
+were summoned to surrender, to consent to remain neutral,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> or to leave
+their city and go where they would; all of which alternatives they
+declined. Thereupon the Spartan force invested the city, and prepared to
+take it by dint of arms. And thus Sparta kept the pledge of Plat&aelig;an
+sacredness made by her king Pausanias half a century before.</p>
+
+<p>Plat&aelig;a was a small place, probably not very strongly fortified, and
+contained a garrison of only four hundred and eighty men, of whom eighty
+were Athenians. Fortunately, all the women and children had been sent to
+Athens, the only women remaining in the town being about a hundred
+slaves, who served as cooks. Around this small place gathered the entire
+army of Sparta and her allies, a force against which it seemed as if the
+few defenders could not hold out a week. But these faithful few were
+brave and resolute, and for a year and more they defied every effort of
+their foes.</p>
+
+<p>The story of this siege is of interest as showing how the ancients
+assailed a fortified town. Defences which in our times would not stand a
+day, in those times took months and years to overcome. The army of
+Sparta, defied by the brave garrison, at first took steps to enclose the
+town. If the defenders would not let them in, they would not let the
+defenders out. They laid waste the cultivated land, cut down the
+fruit-trees, and used these to build a strong palisade around the entire
+city, with the determination that not a Plat&aelig;an should escape. This
+done, they began to erect a great mound of wood, stones, and earth
+against the city wall, forming an inclined plane up which they proposed
+to rush and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> take the city by assault. The sides of this mound were
+enclosed by cross-beams of wood, so as to hold its materials in place.</p>
+
+<p>For seventy days and nights the whole army worked busily at this sloping
+mound, and at the end of this time it had reached nearly the height of
+the wall. But the Plat&aelig;ans had not been idle while their foes were thus
+at work. They raised the height of their old wall at this point by an
+additional wall of wood, backed up by brickwork, which they tore down
+houses to obtain. In front of this they suspended hides, so as to
+prevent fire-bearing arrows from setting the wood on fire. Then they
+made a hole through the lower part of the town wall, and through it
+pulled the earth from the bottom of the mound, so that the top fell in.</p>
+
+<p>The besiegers now let down quantities of stiff clay rolled up in wattled
+reeds, which could not be thus pulled away. Yet their mound continued to
+sink, in spite of the new materials they heaped on top, and they could
+not tell why. In fact, the Plat&aelig;ans had dug an underground passage from
+within the town, and through this carried away the foundations of the
+mound. And thus for more than two months the besiegers built and the
+garrison destroyed their works.</p>
+
+<p>Not content with this, the Plat&aelig;ans built a new portion of wall within
+the town, joining the old wall on both sides of the mound, so that if
+the besiegers should complete their mound and rush up it in assault,
+they would find a new wall staring them in the face, and all their labor
+lost.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p><p>This was not all that was done. Battering engines were used against the
+walls to break them down. These the defenders caught by long ropes,
+pulling the heads of the engines upward or sideways. They also fixed
+heavy wooden beams in such a manner that when the head of an engine came
+near the wall they could drop a beam suddenly upon it, and break off its
+projecting beak.</p>
+
+<p>In these rude ways the attack and defence went on, until three months
+had passed, and Archidamus and his army found themselves where they had
+begun, and the garrison still safe and defiant. The besiegers next tried
+to destroy the town by fire. From the top of the mound they hurled
+fagots as far as they could within the walls. They then threw in pitch
+and other quick-burning material, and finally set the whole on fire. In
+a brief time the flames burst out hotly, and burnt with so fierce a
+conflagration that the whole town was in imminent danger of destruction.
+Nothing could have saved it had the wind favored the flames. There is a
+story also that a thunder-storm came up to extinguish the fire,&mdash;but
+such opportune rains seem somewhat too common in ancient history. As it
+was, part of the town was destroyed, but the most of it remained, and
+the brave inmates continued defiant of their foes.</p>
+
+<p>Archidamus was almost in despair. Was this small town, with its few
+hundred men, to defy and defeat his large army? He had tried the various
+ancient ways of attack in vain. The Spartans, with all their prowess in
+the field, lacked skill in the assault of walled towns, and were rarely
+successful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> in the art of siege. The Plat&aelig;ans had proved more than their
+match, and there only remained to be tried the wearisome and costly
+process of blockade and famine.</p>
+
+<p>Determined that Plat&aelig;a should not escape, this plan was in the end
+adopted, and a wall built round the entire city, to prevent escape or
+the entrance of aid from without. In fact, two walls were built, sixteen
+feet apart, and these were covered in on top, so that they looked like
+one very thick wall. There were also two ditches, from which the bricks
+of the wall had been dug, one on the inside, and one without to prevent
+relief by a foreign force. The covered space within the walls served as
+quarters for the troops left on guard, its top as a convenient place for
+sentry duty. This done, the main army marched away. It needed no great
+host to keep the few Plat&aelig;ans within their walls until they should
+consume all their food and yield to famine, a slower but more
+irresistible foe than all the Laced&aelig;monian power.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for the besieged, they were well provisioned, and for more
+than a year remained in peace within their city, not attacked by their
+foes and receiving no aid from friends. Besides the eighty Athenians
+within the walls no help came to the Plat&aelig;ans during the long siege. At
+length provisions began to fail. It was evident that they must die like
+rats in a cage, surrender to their foes, or make a desperate break for
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The last expedient was proposed by their general. It was daring, and
+seemed desperate, to seek to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> escape over the blockading wall with its
+armed guards. So desperate did it appear that half the garrison feared
+to attempt it, deeming that it would end in certain death. The other
+half, more than two hundred in number, decided that it was better to
+dare death in the field than to meet death in the streets.</p>
+
+<p>The wall was furnished with frequent battlements and occasional towers,
+and its whole circuit was kept under watch day and night. But as time
+went on the besiegers grew more lax in discipline, and on wet nights
+sought the shelter of the towers, leaving the spaces between without
+guards. This left a chance for escape which the Plat&aelig;ans determined to
+embrace.</p>
+
+<p>By counting the layers of bricks in the blockading wall they were able
+to estimate its height, and prepared ladders long enough to reach its
+top. Then they waited for a suitable time. At length it came, a cold,
+dark, stormy December night, with a roaring wind, and showers of rain
+and sleet.</p>
+
+<p>The shivering guards cowered within their sheltering towers. Out from
+their gates marched the Plat&aelig;ans, lightly armed, and, to avoid any
+sound, with the right foot naked. The left was shod, that it might have
+firmer hold on the muddy ground. Moving with the wind in their faces,
+and so far apart that their arms could not strike and clatter, they
+reached and crossed the ditch and lifted their ladders against the wall.
+Eleven men, armed only with sword and breastplate, mounted first. Others
+bearing spears followed, leaving their shields for their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> comrades below
+to carry up and hand to them. This first company was to attack and
+master the two towers right and left. This they did, surprising and
+slaying the guards without the alarm having spread. Then the others
+rapidly mounted the wall.</p>
+
+<p>At this critical moment one of them struck a loose tile with his foot
+and sent it clattering down the wall. This unlucky accident gave the
+alarm. In an instant shouts came from the towers, and the garrison below
+sprang to arms and hurried to the top of the wall. But they knew not
+where to seek the foe, and their perplexity was increased by the
+garrison within the city, which made a false attack on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>Not knowing what to do or where to go, the blockaders remained at their
+posts, except a body of three hundred men, who were kept in readiness to
+patrol the outside of the outer ditch. Fire-signals were raised to warn
+their allies in Thebes, but the garrison in the town also kindled
+fire-signals so as to destroy the meaning of those of the besiegers.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the escaping warriors were actively engaged. Some held with
+spear and javelin the towers they had captured. Others drew up the
+ladders and planted them against the outer wall. Then down the ladders
+they hurried, waded across the outer ditch, and reached level ground
+beyond. Each man, as he gained this space, stood ready with his weapons
+to repel assault from without. When all the others were down, the men
+who had held the towers fled to the ladders and safely descended.</p>
+
+<p>The outer ditch was nearly full of water from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> rain and covered with
+thin ice. Yet they scrambled through it, and when the three hundred of
+the outer guard approached with torches, they suddenly found themselves
+assailed with arrows and javelins from a foe invisible in the darkness.
+They were thus kept back till the last Plat&aelig;an had crossed the ditch,
+when the bold fugitives marched speedily away, leaving but one of their
+number a prisoner in the hands of the foe.</p>
+
+<p>They first marched towards Thebes, while their pursuers took the
+opposite direction. Then they turned, struck eastward, entered the
+mountains, and finally&mdash;two hundred and twelve in number&mdash;made their way
+safely to Athens, to tell their families and allies the thrilling story
+of their escape.</p>
+
+<p>A few who lost heart returned from the inner wall to the town, and told
+those within that the whole band had perished. The truth was only
+learned within the town when on the next morning a herald was sent out
+to solicit a truce for burial of the dead bodies. The herald brought
+back the glad tidings that there were no dead to bury, that the whole
+bold band had escaped.</p>
+
+<p>Happy had it been for the remaining garrison had they also fled, even at
+the risk of death. With the provisions left they held out till the next
+summer, when they were forced to yield. In the end, after the form of a
+trial, they were all slaughtered by their foes, and the city itself was
+razed to the ground by its Theban enemies, only the Her&aelig;um, or temple of
+Here, being left. Such was the fate of a city to which eternal
+sacredness had been pledged.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>HOW THE LONG WALLS WENT DOWN.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> retreat of the Persians from Athens left that city without a wall or
+a home. On the return of the Athenians, and the rebuilding of their
+ruined homes, a new wall became a necessity, and, under the wise advice
+of Themistocles, the citizens determined that the new wall should be
+much larger in circuit than the old,&mdash;wide enough to hold all Attica in
+case of war.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image10.jpg" width="600" height="427" alt="PIR&AElig;US, THE PORT OF ATHENS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">PIR&AElig;US, THE PORT OF ATHENS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But no sooner was this begun than a protest arose from rival states. The
+Spartans in particular raised such a clamor on the subject that
+Themistocles went to that city and denied that he was fortifying Athens.
+If they did not believe him, they might send there and see. They did so,
+and the Spartan ambassadors, on arriving there, found the walls
+completed and themselves held as hostages for the safe return of
+Themistocles. Not only Athens was thus fortified, but a still stronger
+wall was built around Pir&aelig;us, the port, four miles away.</p>
+
+<p>Years afterwards, when Athens was in a position to defy the protest of
+Sparta, her famous Long Walls were built, extending from the city to the
+port, and forming a great artery through which the food and products
+brought in ships from distant lands could flow to the city from the sea,
+in defiance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> of foes. These walls it was that enabled Athens to survive
+and flourish when all the soil of Attica lay in the hands of the Spartan
+enemy. But the time came when these walls were to fall, and Athens to
+lie helpless in the hands of her mortal foe.</p>
+
+<p>The Peloponnesian war was full of incident, victories and defeats,
+marches and countermarches, making and breaking of truces, loss of
+provinces and fleets, triumphs of one side and the other, and still the
+years rolled on, and neither party became supreme. Athens had its
+ill-advisers, who kept it at war when it could have won far more by
+concluding peace, and who induced it to forget the advice of Pericles
+and make war on land when its great strength lay in its fleet.</p>
+
+<p>Its great error, however, was an attempt at foreign conquest, when it
+had quite enough to occupy it at home. War broke out between Athens and
+Sicily, and a strong fleet was sent to blockade and seek to capture the
+city of Syracuse. This expedition fatally sapped the strength of the
+Athenian empire. Ships and men were supplied in profusion to take part
+in a series of military blunders, of which the last were irreparable.
+The fleet, with all on board, was finally blocked up in the harbor of
+Syracuse, defeated in battle, and forced to yield, while of forty
+thousand Athenian troops but a miserable remnant survived to end their
+lives as slaves in Syracusan quarries. It was a disaster such as Athens
+in its whole career had not endured, and whose consequences were
+inevitable. From that time on the supremacy of Athens was at an end.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p><p>Yet for nine years more the war continued, with much the same
+succession of varying events as before. But during this period Sparta
+was learning an important lesson. If she would defeat Athens, she must
+learn how to win victories on sea as well as on land. After every defeat
+of a fleet she built and equipped another, and gradually grew stronger
+in ships, and her seamen more skilful and expert, until the old
+difference between Athenian and Spartan seamen ceased to exist. Persia
+also came to the aid of Sparta, supplied her with money, and enabled her
+to replace her lost ships with ever new ones, while the ship-building
+power of Athens declined.</p>
+
+<p>In 405 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> the crisis came. Athens was forced to depend solely for
+subsistence on her fleet. That gone, all would be gone. In the autumn of
+that year she had a fleet of one hundred and eighty triremes in the
+Hellespont, in the close vicinity of a Spartan fleet of about the same
+force, under an able admiral named Lysander. &AElig;gospotami, or Goat's River
+(a name of fatal sound to all later Athenians), was the station of the
+Athenian fleet. That of Sparta lay opposite, across the strait, nearly
+two miles away.</p>
+
+<p>And now an interesting scene began. Every day the Athenian fleet crossed
+the strait and offered battle to the Spartans, daring them to come out
+from their sheltered position. And every day, when the Spartans had
+refused, it would go back to the opposite shore, where many of the men
+were permitted to land. Day by day this challenge was repeated, the
+Athenians growing daily more confident<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> and more careless, and the crews
+dispersing in search of food or amusement as soon as they reached the
+shore. Lysander, meanwhile, fox-like, was on the watch. A scout-ship
+followed the enemy daily. At length, on the fifth day, when the Athenian
+ships had anchored, and the sailors had, as usual, dispersed, the
+scout-ship hoisted a bright shield as a signal. In an instant the fleet
+of Lysander, which was all ready, dashed out of its harbor, and rowed
+with the utmost speed across the strait. The Athenian commanders,
+perceiving too late their mistake, did their utmost to recall the
+scattered crews, but in vain. The Spartan ships dashed in among those of
+Athens, found some of them entirely deserted, others nearly so, and
+wrought with such energy that of the whole fleet only twelve ships
+escaped. Nearly all the men ashore were also taken, while this great
+victory was won not only without the loss of a ship, but hardly of a
+man. The prisoners, three or four thousand in number, in the cruel
+manner of the time, were put to death.</p>
+
+<p>This defeat, so disgraceful to the Athenian commanders, so complete and
+thorough, was a death-blow to the dominion of Athens. That city was left
+at the mercy of its foes. When news of the disaster reached the city,
+such a night of wailing and woe, of fear and misery, came upon the
+Athenians as few cities had ever before gone through. Their fleet gone,
+all was gone. On it depended their food. Their land-supplies had long
+been cut off. No corn-ships could now reach them from the Euxine Sea,
+and few from other quarters. They might fight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> still, but the end was
+sure. The victor at Salamis would soon be a prisoner within her own
+walls.</p>
+
+<p>Lysander was in no hurry to sail to Athens. That city could wait. He
+employed himself in visiting the islands and cities in alliance with or
+dependent upon Athens, and inducing them to ally themselves with Sparta.
+The Athenian garrisons were sent home. Lysander shrewdly calculated that
+the more men the walls of Athens held, the sooner must their food-supply
+be exhausted and the end come. At length, in November of 405 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>,
+Lysander sailed with his fleet to Pir&aelig;us and blockaded its harbor, while
+the land army of the Peloponnesus marched into Attica and encamped at
+the gates of Athens.</p>
+
+<p>That great and proud city was now peopled with despair. The plague which
+had desolated it twenty-five years before now threatened to be succeeded
+by a still more fatal plague, that of famine. Yet pride and resolution
+remained. The walls had been strengthened; their defenders could hold
+out while any food was left; not until men actually began to die of
+hunger did they ask for peace.</p>
+
+<p>The envoys sent to Sparta were refused a hearing. Athens wished to
+preserve her walls. Sparta sent word that there could be no peace until
+the Long Walls were levelled with the earth. These terms Athens proudly
+refused. Suffering and privation went on.</p>
+
+<p>For three months longer the siege continued. Though famine dwelt within
+every house, and numbers died of starvation, the Athenians held out with
+heroic endurance, and refused to surrender on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>humiliating terms. But
+there could be only one end. Where famine commands man must obey. Peace
+must be had at any price, or death would end all, and an envoy was sent
+out with power to make peace on any terms he could obtain.</p>
+
+<p>It was pitiable that glorious Athens should be brought to this sad pass.
+She was so cordially hated by many of the states of Greece that they
+voted for her annihilation, demanding that the entire population should
+be sold as slaves, and the city and the very name of Athens be utterly
+swept from the earth.</p>
+
+<p>At this dread moment the greatest foe of Athens became almost her only
+friend. Sparta declared that she would never consent to such a fate for
+the city which had been the savior of Greece in the Persian war. In the
+end peace was offered on the following terms: The Long Walls and the
+defences of Pir&aelig;us should be destroyed; the Athenians should give up all
+foreign possessions and confine themselves to Attica; they should
+surrender all their ships-of-war; they should admit all their exiles;
+they should become allies of Sparta, be friends of her friends and foes
+of her foes, and follow her leadership on sea and land.</p>
+
+<p>When the envoy, bearing this ultimatum, returned to Athens, a pitiable
+spectacle met his eyes. A despairing crowd faced him with beseeching
+eyes, in terror lest he brought only a message of death or despair.
+Thousands there were who could not meet him, victims of the increasing
+famine. Peace at any price had become a valued boon. Nevertheless, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+the terms were read in the assembly, there were those there who would
+have refused them, and who preferred death by starvation to such
+disgrace. The great majority, however, voted to accept them, and word
+was sent to Lysander that Athens yielded to the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>And now into the harbor of the Pir&aelig;us sailed the triumphant Laced&aelig;monian
+fleet, just twenty-seven years after the war had begun. With them came
+the Athenian exiles, some of whom had served with their city's foes. The
+ships building in the dock-yards were burned and the arsenals ruined,
+there being left to Athens only twelve ships-of-war. And then, amid the
+joyful shouts of the conquerors, to the music of flutes played by women
+and the sportive movements of dancers crowned with wreaths, the Long
+Walls of Athens began to fall.</p>
+
+<p>The conquerors themselves lent a hand to this work at first, but its
+completion was left to the Athenians, who with sore hearts and bowed
+heads for many days worked at the demolition of what so long had been
+their city's strength and pride.</p>
+
+<p>What followed may be briefly told. Athens had, some time before, fallen
+under the power of a Committee of Four Hundred, aristocrats who
+overthrew the constitution and reigned supreme until the people rose in
+their might and brought their despotism to an end. Now a new oligarchy,
+called "The Thirty," and mostly composed of the returned exiles, came
+into despotic power, and the ancient constitution was once more ignored.</p>
+
+<p>The reign of The Thirty was one of blood, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>confiscation, and death.
+Supported by a Spartan garrison, they tyrannized at their own cruel
+will, murdering, confiscating, exiling, until they converted Athens into
+a prototype of Paris during the French Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>At length the saturnalia of crime came to an end. Even the enemies of
+Athens began to pity her sad state. Those who had been exiled by these
+new tyrants returned to Attica, and war between them and The Thirty
+began. In the end Sparta withdrew her support from the tyrants, those of
+them who had not perished fled, and after nearly a year of terrible
+anarchy the democracy of Athens was restored, and peace once more spread
+its wings over that frightfully afflicted city.</p>
+
+<p>We may conclude this tale with an episode that took place eleven years
+after the Long Walls had fallen. As they had gone down to music, they
+rose to music again. In these eleven years despotic Sparta had lost many
+of her allies, and the Persians, who had become friends of Athens, now
+lent a fleet and supplied money to aid in rebuilding the walls. Some
+even of those who had danced for joy when the walls went down now gave
+their cheerful aid to raise them up again, so greatly had Spartan
+tyranny changed the tide of feeling. The completion of the walls was
+celebrated by a splendid sacrifice and festival banquet, and joy came
+back to Athens again. A new era had begun for the city, not one of
+dominion and empire, but one marked by some share of her old dignity and
+importance in Greece.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the period of the Peloponnesian war two men became strikingly
+prominent in Athens, a statesman and a philosopher, as unlike each other
+in character, appearance, aims, and methods as two persons could well
+be, yet the most intimate of friends, and long dividing between them the
+admiration of the Athenians. These were the historically famous
+Alcibiades and Socrates. Alcibiades was a leader in action, Socrates a
+leader in thought; thus they controlled the two great dominions of human
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Of these two, Socrates was vastly the nobler and higher, Alcibiades much
+the more specious and popular. Democratic Athens was never long without
+its aristocratic leader. For many years it had been Pericles. It now
+became Alcibiades, a man whose career and character were much more like
+those of Themistocles of old than of the sedate and patriotic Pericles.</p>
+
+<p>Alcibiades was the Adonis of Athens, noted for his beauty, the charm of
+his manner, his winning personality, qualities which made all men his
+willing captives. He was of high birth, great wealth, and luxurious and
+pleasure-loving disposition, yet with a remarkable power of
+accommodating himself to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>circumstances, and becoming all things to all
+men. While numbers of high-born Athenians admired him for his
+extraordinary beauty of person, Socrates saw in him admirable qualities
+of mind, and loved him with a warm affection, which Alcibiades as warmly
+returned. The philosopher gained the greatest influence over his
+youthful friend, taught him to despise affectation and revere virtue,
+and did much to develop in him noble qualities of thought and
+aspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Yet nature had made Alcibiades, and nature's work is hard to undo. He
+was a man of hasty impulse and violent temper, a man destitute of the
+spirit of patriotism, and in very great measure it was to this brilliant
+son of Athens that that city owed its lamentable fate.</p>
+
+<p>No greater contrast could be imagined than was shown by these almost
+inseparable friends. Alcibiades was tall, shapely, remarkably handsome,
+fond of showy attire and luxurious surroundings, full of animal spirits,
+rapid and animated in speech, and aristocratic in sentiment; Socrates
+short, thick-set, remarkably ugly, careless in attire, destitute of all
+courtly graces, democratic in the highest degree, and despising-utterly
+those arts and aims, loves and luxuries, which appealed so strongly to
+the soul of his ardent friend. Yet the genius, the intellectual
+acuteness, the lofty aims, and wonderful conversational power of
+Socrates overcame all his natural defects, attracted Alcibiades
+irresistibly, and welded the two together in an intellectual sympathy
+that set aside all differences of form and character.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p><p>The philosopher and the politician owed to each other their lives. They
+served as soldiers together at Potid&aelig;a, lodged in the same tent, and
+stood side by side in the ranks. Alcibiades was wounded in the battle,
+but was defended and rescued by his friend, who afterwards persuaded the
+generals to award to him the prize for valor. Later, at the battle of
+Delium, Alcibiades protected and saved Socrates. These personal services
+brought them into still closer relations, while their friendship was
+perhaps the stronger from their almost complete diversity of character.</p>
+
+<p>Unluckily for Athens, Socrates was not able to instil strong principles
+of virtue into the mind of the versatile Alcibiades. This ardent
+pleasure lover was moved by ambition, desire of admiration, love of
+display, and fondness for luxurious living, and indulged in excesses
+that it was not easy for the more frugal citizens to forgive. He sent
+seven chariots to the Olympic Games, from which he carried off the
+first, second, and fourth prizes. He gave splendid shows, distributed
+money freely, and in spite of his wanton follies retained numbers of
+friends among the Athenian people.</p>
+
+<p>It was to this engaging and ambitious politician that the ruinous
+Sicilian expedition was due. He persuaded the Athenians to engage in it,
+in spite of wiser advice, and was one of those placed in command. But
+the night before the fleet set sail a dreadful sacrilege took place. All
+the statues of the god Hermes in the city were mutilated by unknown
+parties,&mdash;an outrage which caused almost a panic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> among the
+superstitious people. Among those accused of this sacrilege was
+Alcibiades. There was no evidence against him, and he was permitted to
+proceed. But after he had reached Sicily he was sent for to return, on a
+new charge of sacrilege. He refused to do so, fearing the schemes of his
+enemies, and, when told that the assembly had voted sentence of death
+against him, he said, bitterly, "I will make them feel that I <i>live</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>He did so. To him Athens was indebted for the ruin of its costly
+expedition. He fled to Sparta and advised the Spartans to send to
+Syracuse the able general to whom the Athenians owed their fatal defeat.
+He also advised his new friends to seize and fortify a town in Attica.
+By this they cut off all the land supply of food from Athens, and did
+much to force the final submission of that city.</p>
+
+<p>Alcibiades now put on a new guise. He affected to be enraptured with
+Spartan manners, cropped his hair, lived on black broth, exercised
+diligently, and by his fluent tongue made himself a favorite in that
+austere city. But at length, by an idle boast, he roused Spartan enmity,
+and had to fly again. Now he sought Asia Minor, became a friend of
+Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, adopted the excesses of Persian
+luxury, and sought to break the alliance between Persia and Sparta,
+which he had before sustained.</p>
+
+<p>Next, moved by a desire to see his old home, he offered the leading
+citizens of Athens to induce Tissaphernes to come to their aid, on the
+condition that he might be permitted to return. But he declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> that he
+would not come while the democracy was in power, and it was by his
+influence that the tyrannical Committee of Four Hundred was formed.
+Afterwards, falling out with these tyrants, Alcibiades turned democrat
+again, was made admiral of the fleet, and wrought the ruin of the
+oligarchy which he had raised to power.</p>
+
+<p>And now this brilliant and fickle son of Athens worked as actively and
+ably for his native city as he had before sought her ruin. Under his
+command the fleet gained several important victories, and conquered
+Byzantium and other cities. The ruinous defeat at &AElig;gospotami would not
+have occurred had the admiral of the fleet listened to his timely
+warning. After the fall of Athens, and during the tyranny of the Thirty,
+he retired to Asia Minor, where he was honorably received by the satrap
+Pharnabazus. And here the end came to his versatile career. One night
+the house in which he slept was surrounded by a body of armed men and
+set on fire. He rushed out, sword in hand, but a shower of darts and
+arrows quickly robbed him of life. Through whose enmity he died is not
+known. Thus perished, at less than fifty years of age, one of the most
+brilliant and able of all the Athenians,&mdash;one who, had he lived, would
+doubtless have added fresh and striking chapters to the history of his
+native land, though whether to her advantage or injury cannot now be
+told.</p>
+
+<p>The career of Socrates was wonderfully different from that of his
+brilliant but unprincipled friend. While Alcibiades was seeking to
+dazzle and control, Socrates was seeking to convince and improve
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>mankind. A striking picture is given us of the physical qualities of
+this great moral philosopher. His ugliness of face was matter of jest in
+Athens. He had the flat nose, thick lips, and prominent eyes of a satyr.
+Yet he was as strong as he was ugly. Few Athenians could equal him in
+endurance. While serving as a soldier, he was able to endure heat and
+cold, hunger and fatigue, in a manner that astonished his companions. He
+went barefoot in all weather, and wore the same clothing winter and
+summer. His diet was of the simplest, but in religious festivals, when
+all were expected to indulge, Socrates could drink more wine than any
+person present, without a sign of intoxication. Yet it was his constant
+aim to limit his wants and to avoid all excess.</p>
+
+<p>To these qualities of body Socrates added the highest and noblest
+qualities of mind. Naturally he had a violent temper, but he held it
+under severe control, though he could not always avoid a display of
+anger under circumstances of great provocation. But his depth of
+thought, his remarkable powers of argument, his earnest desire for human
+amendment, his incessant moral lessons to the Athenians, place him in
+the very first rank of the teachers of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates was of humble birth. He was born 469 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> and lived for seventy
+years. His father was a sculptor, and he followed the same profession.
+He married, and his wife Xanthippe has become famous for the acidity of
+her temper. There is little doubt that Socrates, whose life was spent in
+arguing and conversing, and who paid little attention to filling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> the
+larder, gave the poor housewife abundant provocation. We know very
+little about the events of his life, except that he served as a soldier
+in three campaigns, that he strictly obeyed the laws, performed all his
+religious duties, and once, when acting as judge, refused, at the peril
+of his life, to perform an unjust action.</p>
+
+<p>Of the daily life of Socrates we have graphic pictures, drawn by his
+friends and followers Xenophon and Plato. From morning to night he might
+be seen in the streets and public places, engaged in endless
+talk,&mdash;prattling, his enemies called it. In the early morning, his
+sturdy figure, shabbily dressed, and his pale and ill-featured face,
+were familiar visions in the public walks, the gymnasia, and the
+schools. At the hour when the market-place was most crowded, Socrates
+would be there, walking about among the booths and tables, and talking
+to every one whom he could induce to listen. Thus was his whole day
+spent. He was ready to talk with any one, old or young, rich or poor,
+being in no sense a respecter of persons. He conversed with artisans,
+philosophers, students, soldiers, politicians,&mdash;all classes of men. He
+visited everywhere, was known to all persons of distinction, and was a
+special friend of Aspasia, the brilliant woman companion of Pericles.</p>
+
+<p>His conversational powers must have been extraordinary, for none seemed
+to tire of hearing him, and many sought him in his haunts, eager to hear
+his engaging and instructive talk. Many, indeed, in his later years,
+came from other cities of Greece,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> drawn to Athens by his fame, and
+anxious to hear this wonderful conversationalist and teacher. These
+became known as his scholars or disciples, though he claimed nothing
+resembling a school, and received no reward for his teachings.</p>
+
+<p>The talk of Socrates was never idle or meaningless chat. He felt that he
+had a special mission to fulfil, that in a sense he was an envoy to man
+from the gods, and declared that, from childhood on, a divine voice had
+spoken to him, unheard by others, warning and restraining him from
+unwise acts or sayings. It forbade him to enter public life, controlled
+him day by day, and was frequently mentioned by him to his disciples.
+This guardian voice has become known as the d&aelig;mon or genius of Socrates.</p>
+
+<p>The oracle at Delphi said that no man was wiser than Socrates. To learn
+if this was true and he really was wiser than other men, he questioned
+everybody everywhere, seeking to learn what they knew, and leading them
+on by question after question till he usually found that they knew very
+little of what they professed.</p>
+
+<p>As to what Socrates taught, we can only say here that he was the first
+great ethical philosopher. The philosophers before him had sought to
+explain the mystery of the universe. He declared that all this was
+useless and profitless. Man's mind was superior to all matter, and he
+led men to look within, study their own souls, consider the question of
+human duty, the obligations of man to man, and all that leads towards
+virtue and the moral development of human society.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p><p>It is not surprising that Xanthippe scolded her idle husband, who
+supplied so much food for the souls of others, but quite ignored the
+demands of food for the bodies of his wife and children. His teachings
+were but vaporing talk to her small mind and to those of many of the
+people. And the keen questions with which he convicted so many of
+ignorance, and the sarcastic irony with which he wounded their
+self-love, certainly did not make him friends among this class. In
+truth, he made many enemies. One of these was Aristophanes, the
+dramatist, who wrote a comedy in which he sought to make Socrates
+ridiculous. This turned many of the audiences at the theatres against
+him.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image11.jpg" width="600" height="366" alt="PRISON OF SOCRATES, ATHENS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">PRISON OF SOCRATES, ATHENS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>All this went on until the year 399 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, when some of his enemies
+accused him of impiety, declaring that he did not worship the old gods,
+but introduced new ones and corrupted the minds of the young. "The
+penalty due," they said, "is death."</p>
+
+<p>It had taken them some thirty years to find this out, for Socrates had
+been teaching the same things for that length of time. In fact, no
+ancient city but Athens would have listened to his radical talk for so
+many years without some such charge. But he had now so many enemies that
+the accusation was dangerous. He made it worse by his carelessness in
+his defence. He said things that provoked his judges. He could have been
+acquitted if he wished, for in the final vote only a majority of five or
+six out of nearly six hundred brought him in guilty.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates seemingly did not care what verdict they brought. He had no
+fear of death, and would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> trouble himself to say a word to preserve
+his life. The divine voice, he declared, would not permit him. He was
+sentenced to drink the poison of hemlock, and was imprisoned for thirty
+days, during which he conversed in his old calm manner with his friends.</p>
+
+<p>Some of his disciples arranged a plan for his escape, but he refused to
+fly. If his fellow-citizens wished to take his life he would not oppose
+their wills. On the last day he drank the hemlock as calmly as though it
+were his usual beverage, and talked on quietly till death sealed his
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Thus died the first and one of the greatest of ethical philosophers, and
+a man without a parallel, in his peculiar field, in all the history of
+mankind. Greece produced none like him, and this homely and humble
+personage, who wrote not a line, has been unsurpassed in fame and
+influence upon mankind by any of the host of illustrious writers who
+have made famous the Hellenic lands.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have now to tell of one of the most remarkable events in Grecian
+history, to describe how ten thousand Greeks, who found themselves in
+the heart of the great Persian empire, without a leader and almost
+without food, marched through the land of their foes, over rugged
+mountains swarming with enemies, and across lofty plains covered deep
+with snow, until finally they reached once more their native land.
+Xenophon, their chosen leader, has told the story of this wonderful
+march in a book called the "Anabasis," and from this book we take what
+we have here to say.</p>
+
+<p>First, how came these Greeks so far away from their home and friends? We
+have told elsewhere how the Persians several times invaded Greece. We
+have now to tell how the Greeks first invaded Persia. It happened many
+years afterwards. The Persian king Xerxes had long since been dead, and
+succeeded by his son Artaxerxes, who reigned over Persia for nearly
+forty years. Then came Darius Nothus, whose reign lasted nineteen years.
+This king had two sons, Artaxerxes and Cyrus. On his death he bequeathed
+the throne to Artaxerxes, while Cyrus was left satrap of a large
+province in Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p><p>Of these two sons, the new king was timid and incompetent; Cyrus was
+remarkably shrewd and able, and was filled with a consuming ambition. He
+wanted the Persian throne and knew the best means of obtaining it. He
+was well aware of the military ability of the Greeks. It was he who
+supplied the money which enabled Sparta to overthrow Athens. He now
+secretly enlisted a body of about thirteen thousand Greeks, promising
+them high pay if they would enter his service; and with these, and one
+hundred thousand Asiatics, he marched against his brother.</p>
+
+<p>But Cyrus was too shrewd to let his purpose be known. He gave out that
+he was going to put down some brigand mountaineers. Then when he had got
+his army far eastward, he threw off the mask and started on the long
+march across the desert to Babylonia. The Greeks had been deceived. At
+first they refused to follow him on so perilous an errand, and to such a
+distance from home. But by liberal promises he overcame their
+objections, and they marched on till the heart of Babylonia was reached.</p>
+
+<p>The army was now in the wonderfully fertile country between the rivers
+Euphrates and Tigris, that rich Mesopotamian region which had been part
+of the Persian empire since the great cities of Nineveh and Babylon were
+taken by the Persians a century before. And in all this long march no
+enemy had been met. But now Cyrus and his followers found themselves
+suddenly confronted by a great Persian army, led by Artaxerxes, the
+king.</p>
+
+<p>First a great cloud of white dust was seen in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> distance. Then under
+it appeared on the earth a broad dark spot, which widened and deepened
+as it came nearer, until at length armor began to shine and spear-heads
+to glitter, and dense masses of troops appeared beneath the cloud. Here
+were great troops of cavalry, wearing white cuirasses; here a vast array
+of bowmen with wicker shields, spiked so that they could thrust their
+points into the ground and send their arrows from behind them; there a
+dark mass of Egyptian infantry, with long wooden shields that covered
+the whole body; in front of all was a row of chariots, with scythes
+stretching outward from the wheels, so as to mow down the ranks through
+which they were driven.</p>
+
+<p>These scythed chariots faced the Greeks, whose ranks they were intended
+to break. But when the battle-shout was given, and the dense mass of
+Greeks rushed forward at a rapid pace, the Persians before them broke
+into a sudden panic and fled, the drivers of the chariots leaping wildly
+to the ground and joining in the flight. The horses, left to themselves,
+and scared by the tumult, rushed in all directions, many of them
+hurtling with their scythed chariots through the flying host, others
+coming against the Greeks, who opened their ranks to let them pass. In
+that part of the field the battle was won without a blow being struck or
+a man killed. The very presence of the Greeks had brought victory.</p>
+
+<p>The great Persian army would soon have been all in flight but for an
+unlooked-for event. Artaxerxes, in the centre of his army, was
+surrounded by a body-guard of six thousand horse. Against these Cyrus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+followed by six hundred horse, made an impetuous charge. So fierce was
+the onset that the body-guard were soon in full flight, Cyrus killing
+their general with his own hand. The six hundred hotly pursued their
+flying foe, leaving Cyrus almost alone. And now before him appeared his
+brother Artaxerxes, exposed by the flight of his guard.</p>
+
+<p>Between these two men brotherly affection did not exist. They viewed
+each other as bitter enemies. So fiercely did Cyrus hate his brother
+that on seeing him he burst into a paroxysm of rage which robbed him of
+all the prudence and judgment he had so far shown. "I see the man!" he
+cried in tones of fury, and rushed hotly forward, followed only by the
+few companions who remained with him, against Artaxerxes and the strong
+force still with him. As Cyrus came near the king he cast his javelin so
+truly, and with such force, that it pierced the cuirass of Artaxerxes,
+and wounded him in the breast. Yet the assault of Cyrus was a mad one,
+and it met the end of madness. He was struck below the eye by a javelin,
+hurled from his horse and instantly slain; his few followers quickly
+sharing his fate.</p>
+
+<p>The head and right hand of the slain prince were immediately cut off and
+held up to the view of all within sight, and the contest was proclaimed
+at an end. The Asiatic army of Cyrus, on learning of the fatal disaster,
+turned and fled. The Greeks held their own and repulsed all that came
+against them, in ignorance of the death of Cyrus, of which they did not
+hear till the next morning. The news then filled them with sorrow and
+dismay.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p><p>What followed must be briefly told. The position of the Greeks, much
+more than a thousand miles from their country, in the heart of an empire
+filled with foes, and in the presence of a vast hostile army, seemed
+hopeless. Yet they refused to surrender at the demand of the king. They
+were victors, not defeated men; why should they surrender? "If the king
+wants our arms, let him come and try to take them," they said. "Our arms
+are all the treasure we have left; we shall not be fools enough to hand
+them over to you, but shall use them to fight for your treasure."</p>
+
+<p>This challenge King Artaxerxes showed no inclination to accept. Both he
+and his army feared the Greeks. As for the latter, they immediately
+began their retreat. They could not go back over the desert by which
+they had come, that was impossible; they therefore chose a longer road,
+but with more chance of food, leading up the left bank of the Tigris
+River and proceeding to the Euxine, or Black Sea. It was in dread and
+hopelessness that the solitary band began this long and perilous march,
+through a country of which they knew nothing, amid hosts of foes, and
+with the winter at hand. But they were soon to experience a new
+misfortune and be left in a still more hopeless state.</p>
+
+<p>Their boldness had so intimidated King Artaxerxes that he sent heralds
+to them to treat for a truce. "Go tell the king," their general replied,
+"that our first business must be to fight. We have nothing to eat, and
+no man should talk to Greeks about a truce without first providing them
+with a dinner."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>The result of this bold answer was that food was provided, a truce
+declared, and Tissaphernes, a Persian satrap, with a body of troops,
+undertook to conduct the Greeks out of the country. Crossing the Tigris,
+they marched for fifteen days up its east side, until the Great Zab
+River, in the country of Media, was reached. Here the treachery which
+Tissaphernes had all along intended was consummated. He invited
+Clearchus, the Greek leader, and the other generals to a conference with
+him in his tent,&mdash;three miles from their camp. They incautiously
+accepted, and on arriving there were immediately seized, the captains
+and soldiers who had accompanied them cut down, and the generals sent in
+chains to the king, who ordered them all to be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>This loss of their leaders threw the Greeks into despair. Ruin appeared
+inevitable. In the midst of a hostile country, more than a thousand
+miles from Grecian soil, surrounded by enemies, blocked up by deep
+rivers and almost impassable mountains, without guides, without
+provisions, without cavalry, without generals to give orders, what were
+they to do? A stupor of helplessness seized upon them. Few came to the
+evening muster; few lighted fires to cook their suppers; every man lay
+down to rest where he was; yet fear, anguish, and yearning for home
+drove sleep from every eye. The expectation of the Persians that they
+would now surrender seemed likely to be realized, for without a guiding
+head and hand there seemed to many of the disheartened host nothing else
+to do.</p>
+
+<p>Yet they were not all in that mood. One among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> them, a volunteer, with
+no rank in the army, but with ample courage, brought back by brave words
+hope to their souls. This man, an Athenian, Xenophon by name, and one of
+the disciples of Socrates the philosopher, had an encouraging dream in
+the night, and at once rose, called into council the captains of the
+host, and advised them to select new generals to take the place of the
+four who had been seized. This was done, Xenophon being one of the new
+leaders. At daybreak the soldiers were called together, told what had
+been done in the night, and asked to confirm the action of their
+captains. This they did.</p>
+
+<p>Xenophon, the orator of the army, now made them a stirring speech. He
+told them that they need not fear the Persians, who were cowards and
+traitors, as they knew. If provisions were no longer furnished them,
+they could take them for themselves. If rivers were to be crossed, they
+could march up their course and wade them where not deep. "Let us burn
+our baggage-wagons and tents, and carry only what is strictly needful.
+Above all, let us maintain discipline and obedience to commanders. Now
+is the time for action. If any man has anything better to suggest, let
+him state it. We all have but one object,&mdash;the common safety."</p>
+
+<p>No one had anything better to suggest; the soldiers enthusiastically
+accepted Xenophon's plan of action, and soon were on the march again,
+with Tissaphernes, their late guide, now their open foe. They marched in
+a hollow oblong body, with the baggage <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>in the centre. Here also walked
+the women, of whom many had accompanied the army through all its career.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the Great Zab River, the Greeks continued their march, though
+surrounded by enemies, many of them horsemen, who cast javelins and
+arrows into their ranks, and fled when pursued. That night they reached
+some villages, bearing their wounded, who were many, and deeply
+discouraged. During the night the Greeks organized a small body of
+cavalry and two hundred Rhodian slingers, who threw leaden bullets
+instead of stones. The next day they were attacked by a body of four
+thousand confident Persians, who expected an easy victory. Yet when the
+few horsemen and slingers of the Greeks attacked them they fled in
+dismay, and many of them were killed in a ravine which they were forced
+to traverse.</p>
+
+<p>On went the fugitives, day by day, still assailed, still repelling their
+foes. On the fifth day they saw a palace, around which lay many
+villages. To reach it they had high hills to pass, and here their
+enemies appeared on the summits, showering down arrows, darts, and
+stones. The Greeks finally dislodged them by mounting to higher points,
+and by night had fought their way to the villages, where they found
+abundance of food and wine, and where they rested for three days.</p>
+
+<p>On starting again the troops of Tissaphernes annoyed them as before.
+They now adopted a new plan. Whenever the enemy came up they halted at
+some village and fought them from their camp. Each night the Persians
+withdrew about ten miles,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> lest they might be surprised when their
+horses were shackled and they unarmed. This custom the Greeks now took
+advantage of. As soon as the enemy had withdrawn to their nightly camp
+the march was resumed and continued for some ten miles. The distance
+gained gave the Greeks two days of peaceful progress before their foes
+came up again.</p>
+
+<p>On the fourth day the Greeks saw before them a lofty hill, which must be
+passed, and which their enemies occupied, having got past them in the
+night. Their march seemed at an end, for the path that must be taken was
+completely commanded by the weapons of the foe. What was to be done? A
+conference took place between Xenophon and the Spartan Cheirisophus, his
+principal colleague. Xenophon perceived that from the top of a mountain
+near the army the hill held by the enemy might be reached.</p>
+
+<p>"The best thing we can do is to gain the top of this mountain with all
+haste," he said; "if we are once masters of that the enemy cannot
+maintain themselves on the hill. You stay with the army, if you think
+fit, and I will go up the hill. Or you go, if you desire, and I will
+stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"I give you your choice," answered Cheirisophus.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will go, as I am the younger man," said Xenophon.</p>
+
+<p>Taking a strong force from the van of the army, Xenophon at once began
+to climb the hill. The enemy, seeing this movement, hastily detached a
+force for the same purpose. Both sides shouted encouragement to their
+men, and Xenophon, riding beside his troop, spurred them to exertion by
+reminding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> them of their wives and children at home. And here took place
+one of those occurrences which gave this leader so much influence over
+his men.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not upon equal terms, Xenophon," said Soteridas, a soldier from
+Sicyon, "for you are on horseback, while I am weary from carrying my
+shield."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Xenophon sprang from his horse, took the man's shield from his
+arm, and thrust him out of the ranks, taking his place. The horseman's
+corselet which he wore, added to by the weight of the shield, gave him
+much annoyance. But he called out bravely to the men to hasten their
+pace.</p>
+
+<p>On this the other soldiers began to abuse and stone Soteridas, making it
+so unpleasant for him that he was glad to ask for his shield again.
+Xenophon now remounted and rode as far as his horse could go, then
+sprang down and hastened onward on foot. Such was the speed made that
+they reached the summit before the foe, whereupon the enemy fled,
+leaving the road open to the Greeks. That evening they reached the plain
+beyond, where they found a village abounding in food; and in this plain,
+near the Tigris, many other villages were found, well filled with all
+sorts of provisions.</p>
+
+<p>Finding it impossible to cross the Tigris in the face of the enemy, who
+lined its western bank, the Greeks were obliged to continue their course
+up its eastern side. This would bring them to the elevated table land of
+Armenia, but first they would have to cross the rugged Carduchian
+Mountains, inhabited by a tribe so fierce that they had hitherto defied
+all the power of Persia, and had once destroyed a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>Persian army of one
+hundred and twenty thousand men. These mountains must be crossed, but
+the mountaineers proved fiercely hostile. Seven days were occupied in
+the task, and these were days of constant battle and loss. At one pass
+the Carduchians rolled down such incessant masses of rocks that progress
+was impossible, and the Greeks were almost in despair. Fortunately a
+prisoner showed them a pass by which they could get above these
+defenders, who, on seeing themselves thus exposed, took to their heels,
+and left the way open to the main body of the Greek army. Glad enough
+were the disheartened adventurers to see once more a plain, and find
+themselves past these dreaded hills and on the banks of an Armenian
+river.</p>
+
+<p>But they now had the Persians again in their front, with the Carduchians
+in their rear, and it was with no small difficulty that they reached the
+north side of this stream. In Armenia they had new perils to encounter.
+The winter was upon them, and the country covered with snow. Reaching at
+length the head-waters of the Euphrates, they waded across, and there
+found themselves in such deep snow and facing such fierce winds that
+many slaves and draught-horses died of cold, together with about thirty
+soldiers. Some of the men lost their sight from the snow-glare; others
+had their feet badly frosted; food was very scarce; the foe was in their
+rear. It was a miserable and woe-begone army that at length gladly
+reached, on the summit of some hills, a number of villages well stored
+with food.</p>
+
+<p>In the country of the Taochians, which the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>fugitives next reached, the
+people carried off all their food into mountain strongholds, and
+starvation threatened the Greeks. One of these strongholds was reached,
+a lofty place surrounded by precipices, where great numbers of men and
+women, with their cattle, had assembled. Yet, strong as it was, it must
+be taken, or the army would be starved.</p>
+
+<p>As they sought to ascend, stones came down in showers, breaking the legs
+and ribs of the unlucky climbers. By stratagem, however, the Greeks
+induced the defenders to exhaust their ammunition of stones, the
+soldiers pretending to advance, and then running back behind trees as
+the stones came crashing down. Finally several bold men made a dash for
+the top, others followed, and the place was won. Then came a dreadful
+scene. The women threw their children down the precipice, and then
+leaped after them. The men did the same. &AElig;neas, a captain, seeing a
+richly-dressed barbarian about to throw himself down the height, caught
+hold of him. It was a fatal impulse of cupidity. The Taochian seized him
+in a fierce grasp and sprang with him over the brink, both being dashed
+to pieces below. Very few prisoners were made, but, what was more to the
+purpose of the Greeks, a large number of oxen, asses, and sheep were
+obtained.</p>
+
+<p>At another point, where a mountain-pass had to be crossed, which could
+only be done by ascending the mountain by stealth at night, and so
+turning the position of the enemy, an amusing piece of badinage took
+place between Xenophon, the Athenian, and Cheirisophus, the Spartan.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p><p>"Stealing a march upon the enemy is more your trade than mine," said
+Xenophon. "For I understand that you, the full citizens and peers at
+Sparta, practise stealing from your boyhood upward, and that it is held
+no way base, but even honorable, to steal such things as the law does
+not distinctly forbid. And to the end that you may steal with the
+greatest effect, and take pains to do it in secret, the custom is to
+flog you if you are found out. Here, then, you have an excellent
+opportunity to display your training. Take good care that we be not
+found out in stealing an occupation of the mountain now before us; for
+if we <i>are</i> found out, we shall be well beaten."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, as to that," retorted Cheirisophus, good-humoredly, "you Athenians
+also, as I learn, are capital hands at stealing the public money, and
+that, too, in spite of prodigious peril to the thief. Nay, your most
+powerful men steal most of all, at least if it be the most powerful men
+among you who are raised to official command. So this is a time for
+<i>you</i> to exhibit your training, as well as for me to exhibit mine."</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the land of the Taochi, the Greeks entered that of the Chalybes,
+which they were seven days in passing through. All the food here was
+carried off, and they had to live on the cattle they had recently won.
+Then came the country of the Skythini, where they found villages and
+food. Four days more brought them to a large and flourishing city named
+Gymnias. They were now evidently drawing near to the sea and
+civilization.</p>
+
+<p>In feet, the chief of this city told them that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> sea was but five
+days' journey away, and gave them a guide who in that time would conduct
+them to a hill from which they could see the Euxine's distant waves. On
+they went, and at length, while Xenophon was driving off some natives
+that had attacked the rear of the column, he heard loud shouts in front.
+Thinking that the van had been assailed, he rode hastily forward at the
+head of his few cavalry, the noise increasing as he approached.</p>
+
+<p>At length the sounds took shape in words. "<i>Thalatta! Thalatta!</i>" ("The
+sea! The sea!") cried the Greeks, in tones of exultation and ecstasy.
+All, excited by the sound, came hurrying up to the summit, and burst
+into simultaneous shouts of joy as they saw, far in the distance, the
+gleaming waters of the long-prayed-for sea. Tears, embraces, cries of
+wild delight, manifested their intense feeling, and for the time being
+the whole army went mad with joy. The terrors of their march were at an
+end; they were on the verge of Grecian territory again; and with pride
+they felt that they had achieved an enterprise such as the world had
+never known before.</p>
+
+<p>A few words will suffice to complete their tale. Reaching the city of
+Trebizond, they took ship for home. Fifteen months had passed since they
+set out with the army of Cyrus. After various further adventures,
+Xenophon led them on a pillaging expedition against the Persians of Asia
+Minor, paid them all richly from the plunder, and gained himself
+sufficient wealth to enrich him for the remainder of his days.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE RESCUE OF THEBES.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> a certain cold and wet evening, in the month of December of the year
+379 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, seven men, dressed as rustics or hunters, and to all
+appearance unarmed, though each man had a dagger concealed beneath his
+clothes, appeared at the gate of Thebes, the principal city of the
+B&#339;otian confederacy. They had come that day from Athens, making their
+way afoot across Mount Cith&aelig;ron, which lay between. It was now just
+nightfall and most of the farmers had come into the city from the
+fields, but some late ones were still returning. Mingling with these,
+the seven strangers entered the gates, unnoticed by the guards, and were
+quickly lost to sight in the city streets. Quietly as they had come, the
+noise of their coming was soon to resound throughout Greece, for the
+arrival of those seven men was the first step in a revolution that was
+destined to overturn all the existing conditions of Grecian states.</p>
+
+<p>We should like to go straight on with their story; but to make it clear
+to our readers we must go back and offer a short extract from earlier
+history. Hitherto the history of Greece had been largely the history of
+two cities, Athens and Sparta. The other cities had all played second or
+third parts to these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> great and proud municipalities. But now a third
+city, Thebes, was about to come forward, and assume a leading place in
+the history of Greece. And of the two men who were to guide it in this
+proud career, one was among the seven who entered the gates of the city
+in rustic garb that rainy December night.</p>
+
+<p>Of the earlier history of Thebes little need be said. It played its part
+in the legendary story of Greece, as may be seen in our story of the
+"Seven against Thebes." During the Persian invasion Thebes proved false
+to its country, assisted the invaders, and after their repulse was
+punished for its treasonable acts. Later on it came again into prominent
+notice. During the Peloponnesian war it was a strong ally of Sparta.
+Another city, only six miles away, Plat&aelig;a, was as strong an ally of
+Athens. And the inhabitants of these two cities hated each other with
+the bitterest animosity. It is a striking example of the isolated
+character of Greek communities, and one that it is difficult to
+understand in modern times, that two cities of one small state, so near
+together that an easy two hours' walk would take a traveller from the
+gates of one to those of the other, could be the bitterest of enemies,
+sworn allies of two hostile states, and the inhabitants ready to cut
+each other's throats at any opportunity. Certainly the sentiment of
+human brotherhood has vastly widened since then. There are no two cities
+in the civilized world to-day that feel to each other as did Plat&aelig;a and
+Thebes, only six miles apart, in that famous era of Grecian
+enlightenment.</p>
+
+<p>We have told how Plat&aelig;a was taken and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>destroyed, and its defenders
+murdered, by a Spartan army. But it is well to say here that Thebans
+formed the most fiercely hostile part of that army, and that it was the
+Thebans who demanded and obtained the murder in cold blood of the
+hapless prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>And now we pass on to a date less than fifty years later to find a
+remarkable change in the state of affairs. Athens has fallen from her
+high estate. Sparta is now the lord and master of the Grecian world. And
+a harsh master has she proved, with her controlling agents in every
+city, her voice the arbiter in all political concerns.</p>
+
+<p>Thebes is now the friend of Athens and the foe of Sparta, the chief
+among those cities which oppose the new order of things. Yet Thebes in
+379 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> lies hard and fast within the Spartan clutch. How she got there
+is now for us to tell.</p>
+
+<p>It was an act of treason, some three years before, that handed this city
+over to the tender mercies of her old ally, her present foe. There was a
+party in Thebes favorable to Sparta, at whose head was a man named
+Leontiades. And at this time Sparta was at war with Olynthus, a city far
+to the north. One Spartan army had marched to Olynthus. Another, led by
+a general named Ph&#339;bidas, was on its march thither, and had halted
+for a period of rest near the gymnasium, a short distance outside the
+walls of Thebes. There is good reason to believe that Ph&#339;bidas well
+knew what Leontiades designed, and was quite ready to play his part in
+the treacherous scheme.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>It was the day of the Thesmophoria, a religious festival celebrated by
+women only, no men being admitted. The Cadmeia, or citadel, had been
+given to their use, and was now occupied by women alone. It was a warm
+summer's day. The heat of noon had driven the people from the streets.
+The Senate of the city was in session in the portico of the agora, or
+forum, but their deliberations were drowsily conducted and the whole
+city seemed taking a noontide siesta.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;bidas chose this warm noontide to put his army in march again,
+rounding the walls of Thebes. As the van passed the gates Leontiades,
+who had stolen away from the Senate and hastened on horseback through
+the deserted streets, rode up to the Spartan commander, and bade him
+turn and march inward through the gate which lay invitingly open before
+him. Through the deserted streets Ph&#339;bidas and his men rapidly made
+their way, following the traitor Theban, to the gates of the Cadmeia,
+which, like those of the town, were thrown open to his order as
+polemarch, or war governor; and the Spartans, pouring in, soon were
+masters not only of the citadel, but of the wives and daughters of the
+leading Theban citizens as well.</p>
+
+<p>The news got abroad only when it was too late to remedy the treacherous
+act. The Senate heard with consternation that their acropolis was in the
+hands of their enemies, their wives captives, their city at the mercy of
+the foe. Leontiades returned to his seat and at once gave orders for the
+arrest of his chief opponent Ismenias. He had a party armed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> ready.
+The Senate was helpless. Ismenias was seized and conveyed to Sparta,
+where he was basely put to death. The other senators hurried home, glad
+to escape with their lives. Three hundred of them left the city in
+haste, and made their way as exiles to Athens. The other citizens, whose
+wives and daughters were in Spartan hands, felt obliged to submit.
+"Order reigned" in Thebes; such was the message which Leontiades bore to
+Sparta.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that Sparta gained possession of one of her greatest
+opponents. Leontiades and his fellows, backed by a Spartan general,
+ruled the city harshly. The rich were robbed, the prisons were filled,
+many more citizens fled into exile. Thebes was in the condition of a
+conquered city; the people, helpless and indignant, waited impatiently
+the slow revolution of the wheel of destiny which should once more set
+them free.</p>
+
+<p>As for the exiles at Athens, they sought in vain to obtain Athenian aid
+to recover their city from the foe. Athens was by no means in love with
+Sparta, but peace had been declared, and all they could agree to do was
+to give the fugitives a place of refuge. Evidently the city, which had
+been won by treason, was not to be recovered by open war. If set free at
+all it must be by secret measures. And with this intent a conspiracy was
+formed between the leaders of the exiles and certain citizens of Thebes
+for the overthrow of Leontiades and his colleagues and the expulsion of
+the Spartan garrison from the citadel. And this it was that brought the
+seven men to Thebes,&mdash;seven exiles, armed with hidden daggers, with
+which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> were to win a city and start a revolution which in the end
+would destroy the power of Sparta the imperial.</p>
+
+<p>Of the seven exiles who thus returned, under cover of night and
+disguise, to their native city, the chief was Pelopidas, a rich and
+patriotic Theban, who was yet to prove himself one of the great men of
+Greece. Entering the gates, they proceeded quietly through the streets,
+and soon found an abiding-place in the house of Charon, an earnest
+patriot. This was their appointed rendezvous.</p>
+
+<p>And now we have a curious incident to tell, showing on what small
+accidents great events may hinge. Among the Thebans who had been let
+into the secret of the conspiracy was a faint-hearted man named
+Hipposthenidas. As the time for action drew near this timid fellow grew
+more and more frightened, and at length took upon himself, unknown to
+the rest, to stop the coming of the exiled patriots. He ordered Chlidon,
+a faithful slave of one of the seven, to ride in haste from Thebes, meet
+his master on the road, and bid him and his companions to go back to
+Athens, as circumstances had arisen which made their coming dangerous
+and their project impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>Chlidon, ready to obey orders, went home for his bridle, but failed to
+find it in its usual place. He asked his wife where it was. She
+pretended at first to help him look for it, but at last, in a tone of
+contrition, acknowledged that she had lent it, without asking him, to a
+neighbor. Chlidon, in a burst of anger at the delay to his journey,
+entered into a loud altercation with the woman, who grew angry on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+part and wished him ill luck on his journey. Word led to word, both
+sides grew more angry and abusive, and at length he began to beat his
+wife, and continued his ill treatment until her cries brought neighbors
+in to separate them. But all this caused a loss of time, the bridle was
+not in this way to be had, and in the end Chlidon's journey was stopped,
+and the message he had been asked to bear never reached the conspirators
+on their way. Accidents of this kind often frustrate the best-laid
+plans. In this case the accident was providential to the conspiracy.</p>
+
+<p>And now, what were these seven men to do? Four men&mdash;Leontiades, Archias,
+Philippus, and Hypates&mdash;had the city under their control. But they were
+supported in their tyranny by a garrison of fifteen hundred Spartans and
+allies in the Cadmeia, and Laced&aelig;monian posts in the other cities
+around. These four men were to be dealt with, and for that purpose the
+seven had come. On the evening of the next day Archias and Philippus
+designed to have a banquet. Phyllidas, their secretary, but secretly one
+of the patriots, had been ordered to prepare the banquet for them, and
+had promised to introduce into their society on that occasion some women
+of remarkable beauty and of the best families in Thebes. He did not hint
+to them that these women would wear beards and carry daggers under their
+robes.</p>
+
+<p>We have told, in a previous tale, the story of the "Seven against
+Thebes." The one with which we are now concerned might be properly
+entitled the "Seven for Thebes." That night and the following<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> day the
+devoted seven lay concealed. Evening came on. The hour when they were to
+play their parts had nearly arrived. They were in that state of strained
+expectation that brings the nerves to the surface, and started in sudden
+dread when a loud knock came upon the door. They were still more
+startled on hearing its purpose. A messenger had come to bid Charon
+instantly to come to the presence of the two feasting polemarchs.</p>
+
+<p>What did it mean? Had the plot been divulged? Had the timid
+Hipposthenidas betrayed them? At any rate, there was but one thing to
+do; Charon must go at once. But he, faithful soul, was most in dread
+that his friends should suspect him of treachery. He therefore brought
+his son, a highly promising youth of fifteen, and put him in the hands
+of Pelopidas as a hostage for his fidelity.</p>
+
+<p>"This is folly!" cried they all. "No one doubts you. Take the boy away.
+It is enough for us to face the danger; do not seek to bring the boy
+into the same peril."</p>
+
+<p>Charon would not listen to their remonstrances, but insisted on leaving
+the youth in their hands, and hastened away to the house of the
+polemarchs. He found them at the feast, already half intoxicated. Word
+had been sent them from Athens that some plot, they knew not what, was
+afloat. He was known to be a friend of the exiles. He must tell them
+what he knew about it.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, the pair were too nearly drunk to be acute. Their
+suspicions were very vague. Charon, aided by Phyllidas, had little
+trouble in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>satisfying them that the report was false. Eager to get back
+to their wine they dismissed him, very glad indeed to get away. Hardly
+had he gone before a fresh message, and a far more dangerous one, was
+brought to Archias, sent by a namesake of his at Athens. This gave a
+full account of the scheme and the names of those who were to carry it
+out. "It relates to a very serious matter," said the messenger who bore
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Serious matters for to-morrow," cried Archias, with a drunken laugh, as
+he put the unopened despatch under the pillow of his couch and took up
+the wine-cup again.</p>
+
+<p>"Those whom the gods mean to destroy they first make mad," says an
+apposite Grecian proverb. These men were foredoomed.</p>
+
+<p>"A truce to all this disturbance," cried the two polemarchs to
+Phyllidas. "Where are the women whom you promised us? Let us see these
+famous high-born beauties."</p>
+
+<p>Phyllidas at once retired, and quickly returned with the seven
+conspirators, clothed in female attire. Leaving them in an adjoining
+chamber, he entered the banquet-room, and told the feasters that the
+women refused to come in unless all the domestics were first dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>"Let it be so," said Archias, and at the command of Phyllidas the
+domestics sought the house of one of their number, where the astute
+secretary had well supplied them with wine.</p>
+
+<p>The two polemarchs, with one or two friends, alone remained, all half
+intoxicated, and the only armed one being Cabeirichus, the archon, who
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> obliged by law to keep always with him the consecrated spear of
+office.</p>
+
+<p>And now the supposed and eagerly expected women were brought in,&mdash;three
+of them attired as ladies of distinction, the four others dressed as
+attendants. Their long veils and ample robes completely disguised them,
+and they sat down beside the polemarchs without a suspicion being
+entertained. Not till their drunken companions lifted their veils did
+the truth appear. But the lifting of the veils was the signal for quick
+and deep dagger thrusts, and Archias and Philippus, with scarcely a
+movement of resistance, fell dead from their seats. No harm was meant to
+the others, but the drunken archon rushed on the conspirators with his
+spear, and in consequence perished with his friends.</p>
+
+<p>There were two more of the tyrants to deal with. Phyllidas led three of
+the conspirators to the house of Leontiades, into which he was admitted
+as the bearer of an order from the polemarchs. Leontiades was reclining
+after supper, with his wife spinning wool by his side, when his foes
+entered his chamber, dagger in hand. A bold and strong man, he instantly
+sprang up, seized his sword, and with a thrust mortally wounded the
+first of the three. Then a desperate struggle took place in the doorway
+between him and Pelopidas, the place being too narrow for the third to
+approach. In the end Pelopidas dealt him a mortal blow. Then,
+threatening the wife with death if she gave the alarm, and closing the
+door with stern commands that it should not be opened again, the two
+patriots left the house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> and sought that of Hypates. He took the alarm
+and fled, and was pursued to the roof, where he was killed as he was
+trying to escape over the house-tops.</p>
+
+<p>This work done, and no alarm yet given, the conspirators proceeded to
+the prison, whose doors they ordered to be opened. The jailer hesitated,
+and was slain by a spear-thrust, the patriots rushing over his body into
+the prison, from whose cells the tenants were soon released. These, one
+hundred and fifty in number, sufferers for their patriotic sentiments,
+were quickly armed from battle-spoils kept near by, and drawn up in
+battle array. And now, for the first time, did the daring conspirators
+feel assurance of success.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image12.jpg" width="600" height="484" alt="GATE OF THE AGORA OR OIL MARKET, ATHENS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">GATE OF THE AGORA OR OIL MARKET, ATHENS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The tidings of what had been done by this time got abroad, and ran like
+wildfire through the city. Citizens poured excitedly into the streets.
+Epaminondas, who was afterwards to become the great leader of the
+Thebans, joined with some friends the small array of patriots.
+Proclamation was made throughout the city by heralds that the despots
+were slain and Thebes was free, and all Thebans who valued liberty were
+bidden to muster in arms in the market-place. All the trumpeters in the
+city were bidden to blow with might and main, from street to street, and
+thus excite the people to take arms to secure their liberty.</p>
+
+<p>While night lasted surprise and doubt continued, many of the citizens
+not knowing what to do. But with day-dawn came a wild outburst of joy
+and enthusiasm. Horsemen and footmen hastened in arms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> to the agora.
+Here a formal assembly of the Theban people was convened, before whom
+Pelopidas and his fellows appeared to tell what they had done. The
+priests crowned them with wreaths, while the people hailed them with
+joyful acclamations. With a single voice they nominated Pelopidas,
+Mellon, and Charon as B&#339;otarchs,&mdash;a Theban title of authority which
+had for a number of years been dropped.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the hatred which the long oppression had aroused, that the very
+women trod underfoot the slain jailer, and spat upon his corpse. In that
+city, where women rarely showed themselves in public, this outburst
+strongly indicated the general public rage against the overthrown
+despots. Messengers hastened to Attica to carry to the exiles the glad
+tidings, and soon they, with a body of Athenian volunteers, were in
+joyful march for the city.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the Spartans in the citadel were in a state of distraction
+and alarm. All night long the flashing of lights, the blare of trumpets,
+the shouts of excited patriots, the sound of hurrying feet in the city,
+had disturbed their troubled souls, and when affrighted partisans of the
+defeated party came hurrying for safety into the Cadmeia, with tidings
+of the tragic event, they were filled with confusion and dismay.
+Accustomed to look to the polemarchs for orders, the garrison did not
+know whom to trust or consult. They hastily sent out messengers to
+Thespi&aelig; and Plat&aelig;a for aid, but the forces which came to their help from
+these cities were charged upon by the Thebans and driven back with loss.</p>
+
+<p>What to do the Spartan commander knew not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> The citizens were swarming
+in the streets, and gathering in force around the citadel. That they
+intended to storm it before aid could come from Sparta was evident. In
+fact, they were already rushing to the assault,&mdash;large rewards being
+offered those who should first force their way in,&mdash;when a flag of truce
+from the garrison stopped them in mid-career. The commander proposed to
+capitulate.</p>
+
+<p>All he asked was liberty to march out of Thebes with the honors of war.
+This was granted him, under oath. At once the foreign garrison filed out
+from the citadel and marched to one of the gates, accompanied by the
+Theban refugees who had sought shelter with them. These latter had not
+been granted the honors of war. Among them were some of the prominent
+oppressors of the people. In a burst of ungovernable rage these were
+torn from the Spartan ranks by the people and put to death; even the
+children of some of them being slain. Few of the refugees would have
+escaped but for the Athenians present, who generously helped to get them
+safely through the gates and out of sight and reach of their infuriated
+townsmen.</p>
+
+<p>And thus, almost without a blow, in a night's and a morning's work, the
+city of Thebes, which for several years had lain helpless in the hands
+of its foes, regained its liberty. As for the Spartan harmosts, or
+leaders, who had capitulated without an attempt at defence, two of them
+were put to death on reaching home, the third was heavily fined and
+banished. Sparta had no mercy and no room for beaten men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thebes was free! The news spread like an electric shock through the
+Grecian world. A few men, taking a desperate risk, had in an hour
+overthrown a government that seemed beyond assault. The empire of
+Sparta, the day before undisputed and nearly universal over Greece, had
+received a serious blow. Throughout all Greece men breathed easier,
+while the spirit of patriotism suddenly flamed again. The first blow in
+a coming revolution had been struck.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE HUMILIATION OF SPARTA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thebes</span> was free! But would she stay free? Sparta was against
+her,&mdash;Sparta, the lord of Greece. Could a single city, however
+liberty-loving and devoted its people, maintain itself against that
+engine of war which had humbled mighty Athens and now lorded it over the
+world of Greece? This is the question we have to answer; how in a brief
+space the dominion of Sparta was lost, and Thebes, so long insignificant
+and almost despised, rose to take the foremost place in Greece.</p>
+
+<p>Two men did this work. As seven men had restored Thebes to freedom, two
+men lifted her almost into empire. One of these was Pelopidas, the
+leading spirit of the seven. The other was Epaminondas, whose name was
+simply mentioned in the tale of the patriotic seven, yet who in the
+coming years was to prove himself one of the greatest men Greece ever
+produced.</p>
+
+<p>Pelopidas belonged to one of the richest and highest families of Thebes.
+He was one of the youngest of the exiles, yet a man of earnest
+patriotism and unbounded daring. It was his ardent spirit that gave life
+to the conspiracy, and his boldness and enterprise that led it forward
+to success. And it was the death of Leontiades by his hand that freed
+Thebes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p><p>Epaminondas was a man of different character and position. Though of
+ancient and honorable family, he was poor, while Pelopidas was very
+rich; middle-aged, while Pelopidas was young; quiet, patient, and
+thoughtful, while Pelopidas was bold, active, and energetic. In the wars
+that followed he was the brain, while Pelopidas was the right hand, of
+Thebes. Epaminondas had been an earnest student of philosophy and music,
+and was an adept in gymnastic training. He was a listener, not a talker,
+yet no Theban equalled him in eloquence in time when speech was needful.
+He loved knowledge, yet he cared little for power, and nothing for
+money, and he remained contentedly poor till the end of his days, not
+leaving enough wealth to pay his funeral expenses. He did not love
+bloodshed, even to gain liberty. He had objected to the conspiracy,
+since freedom was to be gained through murder. Yet this was the man who
+was to save Thebes and degrade her great enemy, Sparta.</p>
+
+<p>Like Socrates and Alcibiades, these two men were the warmest friends.
+Their friendship, like that of the two great Athenians, had been
+cemented in battle. Standing side by side as hoplites (or heavy armed
+soldiers), on an embattled field, Pelopidas had fallen wounded, and
+Epaminondas had saved his life at the greatest danger to himself,
+receiving several wounds while bearing his helpless friend to a place of
+safety. To the end of their lives they continued intimate friends, each
+recognizing the peculiar powers of the other, and the two working like
+one man for Theban independence.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p><p>Epaminondas proved himself a thinker of the highest military genius,
+Pelopidas a leader of the greatest military vigor. The work of the
+latter was largely performed with the Sacred Band, a warlike association
+of three hundred youthful Thebans, sworn to defend the citadel until
+death, bound by bonds of warm friendship, and trained into the highest
+military efficiency. Pelopidas was the captain of this noble band, which
+was never overcome until the fatal battle of Ch&aelig;ronea, and then only by
+death, the Three Hundred lying dead in their ranks as they had stood.</p>
+
+<p>For the events with which we have now to deal we must leap over seven
+years from the freeing of Thebes. It will suffice to say that for two
+years of that time Sparta fought fiercely against that city, but could
+not bring it under subjection again. Then wars arose elsewhere and drew
+her armies away. Thebes now took the opportunity to extend her power
+over the other cities of B&#339;otia, and of one of these cities there is
+something of interest to tell.</p>
+
+<p>We have told in an earlier tale how Sparta and Thebes captured Plat&aelig;a
+and swept it from the face of the earth. Recently Sparta had rebuilt the
+city, recalled its exiled citizens, and placed it as a Spartan outpost
+against Thebes. But now, when the armies of Sparta had withdrawn, the
+Thebans deemed it a good opportunity to conquer it again. One day, when
+the Plat&aelig;an men were at work in their fields, and unbroken peace
+prevailed, a Theban force suddenly took the city by surprise, and forced
+the Plat&aelig;ans to surrender at discretion. Poor Plat&aelig;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> was again levelled
+with the ground, her people were once more sent into exile, and her soil
+was added to that of Thebes. It may be well to say here that most of the
+Grecian cities consisted of the walled town and sufficient surrounding
+land to raise food for the inhabitants within, and that the farmers went
+out each morning to cultivate their fields, and returned each night
+within the shelter of their walls. It was this habit that gave Thebes
+its treacherous opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>During the seven years mentioned we hear nothing of Epaminondas, yet we
+know that he made himself felt within the walls of Thebes; for when, in
+371 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, the cities of Greece, satisfied that it was high time to stop
+cutting each other's throats, held a congress at Sparta to conclude
+peace, we find him there as the representative of Thebes.</p>
+
+<p>The terms of peace demanded by Athens, and agreed to by most of the
+delegates, were that each city, small or large, should possess autonomy,
+or self-government. Sparta and Athens were to become mutual guarantees,
+dividing the headship of Greece between them. As for Thebes and her
+claim to the headship of B&#339;otia, her demand was set aside.</p>
+
+<p>This conclusion reached, the cities one after another took oath to keep
+the terms of peace, each city swearing for itself except Sparta, which
+took the oath for itself and its allies. When it came to the turn of
+Thebes there was a break in this love-feast. Sparta had sworn for all
+the cities of Laconia; Epaminondas, as the representative of Thebes,
+insisted on swearing not for Thebes alone, but for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> Thebes as president
+of all B&#339;otia. He made a vigorous speech, asking why Sparta was
+granted rights from which other leading cities were debarred.</p>
+
+<p>This was a new question. No Greek had ever asked it openly before. To
+Sparta it seemed the extreme of insolence and insult. What daring
+stranger was this who presumed to question her right to absolute control
+of Laconia? No speech was made in her defence. Spartans never made
+speeches. They prided themselves on their few words and quick
+deeds,&mdash;<i>laconic</i> utterances, as they have since been called. The
+Spartan king sprang indignantly from his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak plainly," he scornfully demanded. "Will you, or will you not,
+leave to each of the B&#339;otian cities its separate autonomy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will <i>you</i> leave each of the Laconian towns its separate autonomy?"
+demanded Epaminondas.</p>
+
+<p>Not another word was said. Agesilaus, the Spartan king, who was also
+president of the congress, caused the name of Thebes to be stricken from
+the roll, and proclaimed that city to be excluded from the treaty of
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bold move on the part of Epaminondas, for it meant war with all
+the power of Sparta, relieved of all other enemies by the peace. Sparta
+had conquered and humbled Athens. It had conquered many other cities,
+forcing some of them to throw down their walls and go back again to
+their old state of villages. What upstart was this that dared defy its
+wrath and power? Thebes could hope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> for no allies, and seemed feeble
+against Spartan strength. How dared, then, this insolent delegate to
+fling defiance in the teeth of the lord of Greece?</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately Thebes needed no allies. It had two men of warlike genius,
+Epaminondas and Pelopidas. These were to prove in themselves worth a
+host of allies. The citizens were with them. Great as was the danger,
+the Thebans sustained Epaminondas in his bold action, and made him
+general of their army. He at once marched to occupy a pass by which it
+was expected the Spartans would come. Sparta at that moment had a strong
+army under Cleombrotus, one of its two kings, in Phocis, on the frontier
+of B&#339;otia. This was at once ordered to march against defiant Thebes.</p>
+
+<p>Cleombrotus lost no time, and with a military skill which Spartans
+rarely showed he evaded the pass which Epaminondas held, followed a
+narrow mountain-track, captured Creusis, the port of Thebes, with twelve
+war-ships in the harbor, and then marched to a place called Leuctra,
+within an easy march of Thebes, yet which left open communication with
+Sparta by sea, by means of the captured port.</p>
+
+<p>The Thebans had been outgeneralled, and were dismayed by the result. The
+Spartans and their king were full of confidence and joy. All the
+eloquence of Epaminondas and the boldness of Pelopidas were needed to
+keep the courage of their countrymen alive and induce them to march
+against their foes. And it was with much more of despair than of hope
+that they took up at length a position on the hilly ground opposite the
+Spartan camp.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p><p>The two armies were not long in coming to blows. The Spartans and their
+allies much exceeded the Thebans in numbers. But Epaminondas prepared to
+make the most of his small force by drawing it up in a new array, never
+before seen in Greece.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of forming the narrow line of battle always before the rule in
+Greek armies, he placed in front of his left wing Pelopidas and the
+Sacred Band, and behind them arranged a mass of men fifty shields deep,
+a prodigious depth for a Grecian host. The centre and right were drawn
+up in the usual thin lines, but were kept back on the defensive, so that
+the deep column might join battle first.</p>
+
+<p>Thus arrayed, the army of Thebes marched to meet its foe, in the valley
+between the two declivities on which the hostile camps were placed. The
+cavalry met first, and the Theban horsemen soon put the Spartan troop to
+flight. Then the footmen came together with a terrible shock. Pelopidas
+and his Sacred Band, and behind them the weight of the fifty shields,
+proved more than the Spartans, with all their courage and discipline,
+could endure. Both sides fought bravely, hand to hand; but soon
+Cleombrotus fell, mortally hurt, and was with difficulty carried off
+alive. Around him fell others of the Spartan leaders. The resistance was
+obstinate, the slaughter terrible; but at last the Spartan right wing,
+overborne by the heavy Theban mass and utterly beaten, was driven back
+to its camp on the hill-side above. Meanwhile the left wing, made up of
+allies, did little fighting, and quickly followed the Spartans back to
+the camp.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p><p>It was a crushing defeat. Of seven hundred Spartans who had marched in
+confidence from the camp, only three hundred returned thither in dismay.
+A thousand and more Laced&aelig;monians besides were left dead upon the field.
+Not since the day of Thermopyl&aelig; had Sparta lost a king in battle. The
+loss of the Theban army was not more than three hundred men. Only twenty
+days had elapsed since Epaminondas left Sparta, spurned by the scorn of
+one of her kings; and now he stood victor over Sparta at Leuctra, with
+her second king dead in his camp of refuge. It is not surprising that to
+Greece, which had felt sure of the speedy overthrow of Thebes, these
+tidings came like a thunderbolt. Sparta on land had been thought
+irresistible. But here on equal ground, and with nearly double force,
+she had been beaten by insignificant Thebes.</p>
+
+<p>We must hasten to the end of this campaign. Sparta, wrought to
+desperation by her defeat, sent all the men she could spare in
+reinforcement. Thebes, too, sought allies, and found a powerful one in
+Jason of Pher&aelig;, a city of Thessaly. The Theban leaders, flushed with
+victory, were eager to attack the enemy in his camp, but Jason gave them
+wiser advice.</p>
+
+<p>"Be content," he said, "with the great victory you have gained. Do not
+risk its loss by attacking the Laced&aelig;monians driven to despair in their
+camp. You yourselves were in despair a few days ago. Remember that the
+gods take pleasure in bringing about sudden changes of fortune."</p>
+
+<p>This advice taken, Jason offered the enemy the opportunity to retreat in
+safety from their dangerous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> position. This they gladly accepted, and
+marched in haste away. On their journey home they met a second army
+coming to their relief. This was no longer needed, and the whole baffled
+force returned home.</p>
+
+<p>The military prestige held by Sparta met with a serious blow from this
+signal defeat. The prestige of Thebes suddenly rose into supremacy, and
+her control of B&#339;otia became complete. But the humiliation of Sparta
+was not yet near its end. Epaminondas was not the man to do things by
+halves. In November of 370 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> he marched an army into Arcadia (a
+country adjoining Laconia on the north), probably the largest hostile
+force that had ever been seen in the Peloponnesus. With its Arcadian and
+other allies it amounted to forty thousand, or, as some say, to seventy
+thousand, men, and among these the Thebans formed a body of splendidly
+drilled and disciplined troops, not surpassed by those of Sparta
+herself. The enthusiasm arising from victory, the ardor of Pelopidas,
+and the military genius of Epaminondas had made a wonderful change in
+the hoplites of Thebes in a year's time.</p>
+
+<p>And now a new event in the history of the Spartan commonwealth was seen.
+For centuries the Spartans had done their fighting abroad, marching at
+will through all parts of Greece. They were now obliged to fight on
+their own soil, in defence of their own hearths and homes. Dividing his
+army into four portions, Epaminondas marched into rock-bounded Laconia
+by four passes.</p>
+
+<p>The Arcadians had often felt the hard hand of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> their warlike neighbors.
+Only a snort time before one of their principal cities, Mantinea, had
+been robbed of its walls and converted into open villages. Since the
+battle of Leuctra the villagers had rebuilt their walls and defied a
+Spartan army. Now the Arcadians proved even more daring than the
+Thebans. They met a Spartan force and annihilated it.</p>
+
+<p>Into the country of Laconia pushed the invaders. The city of Sellasia
+was taken and burned. The river Eurotas was forded. Sparta lay before
+Epaminondas and his men.</p>
+
+<p>It lay before them without a wall or tower. Through its whole history no
+foreign army had come so near it. It trusted for defence not to walls,
+but to Spartan hearts and hands. Yet now consternation reigned. Sparta
+the inviolate, Sparta the unassailable, was in imminent peril of
+suffering the same fate it had often meted out freely to its foes.</p>
+
+<p>But the Spartans had not been idle. Allies had sent aid in all haste to
+the city. Even six thousand of the Helots were armed as hoplites, though
+to see such a body of their slaves in heavy armor alarmed the Spartans
+almost as much as to behold their foes so near at hand. In fact, many of
+the Helots and country people joined the Theban army, while others
+refused to come to the aid of the imperilled city.</p>
+
+<p>Epaminondas marched on until he was in sight of the city. He did not
+attempt to storm it. Though without walls, Sparta had strong natural
+defences, and heaps of earth and stones had been hastily thrown up on
+the most open roads. A strong army had been gathered. The Spartans would
+fight to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> death for their homes. To attack them in their stronghold
+might be to lose all that had been gained. Repulse here would be ruin.
+Content with having faced the lion in his den, Epaminondas turned and
+marched down the Eurotas, his army wasting, plundering, and burning as
+it went, while the Spartans, though in an agony of shame and wounded
+honor, were held back by their king from the peril of meeting their
+enemy in the field.</p>
+
+<p>In the end, his supplies growing scarce, his soldiers loaded with
+plunder, Epaminondas led his army back to Arcadia, having accomplished
+far more than any foe of Sparta had ever done before, and destroyed the
+warlike reputation of Sparta throughout Greece.</p>
+
+<p>But the great Theban did not end here. He had two other important
+objects in view. One was to consolidate the Arcadians by building them a
+great central city, to be called Megalopolis (Great City), and inhabited
+by people from all parts of the state. This was done, thick and lofty
+walls, more than five miles and a half in circumference, being built
+round the new stronghold.</p>
+
+<p>His other purpose was to restore the country of Messenia. We have
+already told how this country had been conquered by the Spartans
+centuries before, and its people exiled or enslaved. Their descendants
+were now to regain their liberty and their homes. A new city, to be
+named Messenia, was ordered by Epaminondas to be built, and this, at the
+request of the Messenians, was erected on Mount Ithome, where the
+gallant hero Aristomenes had made his last stand against his country's
+invaders.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p><p>The city was built, the walls rising to the music of Argeian and
+B&#339;otian flutes. The best architects and masons of Greece were invited
+to lay out the plans of streets and houses and of the sacred edifices.
+The walls were made so strong and solid that they became the admiration
+of after-ages. The surrounding people, who had been slaves of Sparta,
+were made freemen and citizens of the reorganized state. A wide area of
+land was taken from Laconia and given to the new communities which
+Epaminondas had formed. Then, in triumph, he marched back to Thebes,
+having utterly destroyed the power and prestige of Sparta in Greece.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching home, he was put on trial by certain enemies. He had broken the
+law by keeping command of the army four months beyond the allotted time.
+He appealed to the people, with what result we can readily understand.
+He was acquitted by acclamation, and he and Pelopidas were immediately
+re-elected B&#339;otarchs (or generals) for the coming year.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>TIMOLEON, THE FAVORITE OF FORTUNE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the city of Corinth dwelt two brothers; one of whom, named Timoleon,
+was distinguished alike for his courage, gentleness, patriotism, lack of
+ambition, and hatred of despots and traitors; the other, named
+Timophanes, was noted for bravery and enterprise, but also for
+unprincipled ambition and lack of patriotism. Timophanes, being a
+valiant soldier, had gained high rank in the army of Corinth. Timoleon
+loved his unworthy brother and sought to screen his faults. He did more:
+he saved his life at frightful peril to himself. During a battle between
+the army of Corinth and that of some neighboring state, Timophanes, who
+commanded the cavalry, was thrown from his wounded horse very near to
+the enemy. The cavalry fled, leaving him to what seemed certain death.
+But Timoleon, who was serving with the infantry, rushed from the ranks
+and covered his brother with his shield just as the enemy were about to
+pierce him. They turned in numbers on the defender, with spears and
+darts, but he warded off their blows, and protected his fallen brother
+at the cost of several wounds to himself, until others rushed to the
+rescue and drove back the foe.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p><p>The whole city was full of admiration of Timoleon for this act of
+devotion. Timophanes also was raised in public estimation through his
+brother's deed, and was placed in an important post. Corinth was
+governed by an aristocracy, who, just then, brought in a garrison of
+four hundred foreign soldiers and placed them in the citadel. Timophanes
+was given command of this garrison and control of the stronghold.</p>
+
+<p>The governors of the city did not know their man. Here was an
+opportunity for the unlimited ambition of the new commander. Gaining
+some armed partisans among the poorer citizens, and availing himself of
+the control of fort and garrison, Timophanes soon made himself master of
+the city, and seized and put to death all who opposed him among the
+chief citizens. Unwittingly the Corinthian aristocrats had put over
+themselves a cruel despot.</p>
+
+<p>But they found also a defender. The crimes of his brother at first
+filled Timoleon with shame and sorrow. He went to the citadel and begged
+Timophanes, by all he held sacred, to renounce his ambitious projects.
+The new despot repelled his appeal with contempt. Timoleon went again,
+this time with three friends, but with no better effect. Timophanes
+laughed them to scorn, and as they continued their pleading he grew
+angry and refused to hear more. Then the three friends drew their swords
+and killed the tyrant on the spot, while Timoleon stood aside, with his
+face hidden and his eyes bathed in tears.</p>
+
+<p>He who had saved his brother's life at the risk of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> his own had now
+consented to his death to save his country. But personally, although all
+Corinth warmly applauded his patriotic act, he was thrown into the most
+violent grief and remorse. This was the greater from the fact that his
+mother viewed his deed with horror and execration, invoked curses on his
+head, and refused even to see him despite his earnest supplications.</p>
+
+<p>The gratitude of the city was overcome in his mind by grief for his
+brother, and he was attacked by the bitterest pangs of remorse. The
+killing of the tyrant he had felt to be a righteous and necessary act.
+The murder of his brother afflicted him with despair. For a time he
+refused food, resolving to end his odious life by starvation. Only the
+prayers of his friends made him change this resolution. Then, like one
+pursued by the furies, he fled from the city, hid himself in solitude,
+and kept aloof from the eyes and voices of men. For several years he
+thus dwelt in self-afflicting solitude, and when at length time reduced
+his grief and he returned to the city, he shunned all prominent
+positions, and lived in humility and retirement. Thus time went on until
+twenty years had passed, Timoleon still, in spite of the affection and
+sympathy of his fellow-citizens, refusing any office or place of
+authority.</p>
+
+<p>But now an event occurred which was to make this grieving patriot famous
+through all time, as the favored of the gods and one of the noblest of
+men,&mdash;the Washington of the far past. To tell how this came about we
+must go back some distance in time. Corinth, though it played no leading
+part in the wars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> of Greece, like Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, was still
+a city of much importance, its situation on the isthmus between the
+Peloponnesus and northern Greece being excellent for commerce and
+maritime enterprise. Many years before it had sent out a colony which
+founded the city of Syracuse, in Sicily. It was in aid of this city of
+Syracuse that Timoleon was called upon to act.</p>
+
+<p>We have already told how Athens sought to capture this city and ruined
+herself in the enterprise. After that time of triumph Syracuse passed
+through several decades of terror and woe. Tyrants set their feet on her
+fair neck, and almost crushed her into the earth. One of these,
+Dionysius by name, had made his power felt by far-off Greece and nearer
+Carthage, and for years ruled over Sicily with a rod of iron. His
+successor, Dion, a friend and pupil of the philosopher Plato, became an
+oppressor when he came into power. Then another Dionysius gained the
+throne, a cowardly and drunken wretch, who repeated the acts of his
+tyrannical father.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of affairs in Sicily when Timoleon was dwelling
+quietly at home in Corinth, a man of fifty, with no ambitious thought
+and no ruling desire except to reach the end of his sorrow-laden life.
+So odious now had the tyranny of Dionysius become that the despairing
+Syracusans sent a pathetic appeal to Corinth, their mother city, praying
+for aid against this brutal despot and the Carthaginians, who had
+invaded the island of Sicily in force.</p>
+
+<p>Corinth just then, fortunately, had no war on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> hand,&mdash;a somewhat
+uncommon condition for a Greek city at that day. The citizens voted at
+once to send the aid asked for. But who should be the leader? There were
+danger and difficulty in the enterprise, with little hope for profit,
+and none of the Corinthian generals or politicians seemed eager to lead
+this forlorn hope. The archons called out their names one by one, but
+each in succession declined. The archons had come nearly to their wits'
+end whom to choose, when from an unknown voice in the assembly came the
+name "Timoleon." The archons seized eagerly on the suggestion, hastily
+chose Timoleon for the post which all the leading men declined, and the
+assembly adjourned.</p>
+
+<p>Timoleon, who sadly needed some active exertion to relieve him from the
+weight of eating thought, accepted the thankless enterprise, heedless
+probably of the result. He at once began to gather ships and soldiers.
+But he found the Corinthians more ready to select a commander than to
+provide him with means and men. Little money was forthcoming; few men
+seemed ready to enlist; Timoleon had no great means of his own. In the
+end he only got together seven triremes and one thousand men,&mdash;the most
+of them mere mercenaries. Three more ships and two hundred men were
+afterwards added.</p>
+
+<p>And thus, with this small force, Timoleon set out to conquer a city and
+kingdom on whose conquest Athens, years before, had lavished hundreds of
+ships and tens of thousands of men in vain. The effort seemed utterly
+puerile. Was the handful of Corinthians to succeed where all the
+imperial power of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> Athens had failed? Yet the gods fought with Timoleon.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, from the day he left Corinth, those presages of fortune, on
+which the Greeks so greatly depended, gathered about his path across the
+seas. The signs and tokens were all favorable. While he was at Delphi,
+seeking the favor of Apollo, a fillet with wreaths and symbols of
+victory fell from a statue upon his head, and the goddess Persephone
+told her priestess in a dream that she was about to sail with Timoleon
+to Sicily, her favorite island. He took, therefore, a special trireme,
+sacred to the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, both of whom were to
+accompany him. While at sea this sacred trireme was illumined by a light
+from heaven, while a burning torch on high seemed to guide the fleet to
+a safe harbor. All these portents filled the adventurers with hope and
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>But Timoleon had himself to depend on as well as the gods. At the
+Italian port of Rhegium he found Hicetas, the despot of a Sicilian city,
+who had invited him to Sicily, but was now allied with the
+Carthaginians. He had there twenty of the war-ships of Carthage, double
+the force of Timoleon. Yet the shrewd Corinthian played with and tricked
+him, set him to talking and the people of Rhegium to talking with him,
+and slipped slyly out of the harbor with his ships while the
+interminable talk went on.</p>
+
+<p>This successful stratagem redoubled the spirit of his followers. Landing
+at a small town on the Sicilian coast, a new enterprise presented
+itself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> Forty miles inland lay the town of Adranum, sacred to the god
+Adranus, a deity worshipped throughout Sicily. There were two parties in
+Adranum, one of which invited Timoleon, the other Hicetas. The latter at
+once started thither, with a force of five thousand men, an army with
+which that of Timoleon seemed too small to cope. But heedless of this
+discrepancy Timoleon hastened thither, and on arriving near the town
+perceived that the opposing army had outstripped him in speed. Hicetas,
+not aware of the approach of a foe, had encamped, and his men were
+disarmed and at their suppers.</p>
+
+<p>The small army of Timoleon, worn out with their long and rapid march,
+and in sight of an enemy four times their number, were loath to move
+farther; but their leader, who knew that his only chance for victory lay
+in a surprise, urged them forward, seized his shield and placed himself
+at their head, and led them so suddenly on the foe that the latter,
+completely surprised, fled in utter panic. Three hundred were killed,
+six hundred taken, and the rest, abandoning their camp, hastened at all
+speed back to Syracuse.</p>
+
+<p>Again the gods spoke in favor of Timoleon. Just as the battle began the
+gates of the temple of Adranus burst open, and the god himself appeared
+with brandished spear and perspiring face. So said the awe-struck
+Adranians, and there was no one to contradict their testimony.</p>
+
+<p>Superstition came here to the adventurer's aid. The report of the god's
+doings did as much as the victory to add to the fame of Timoleon.
+Reinforcements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> flocked to his ranks, and several towns sought alliance
+with him. He now, with a large and confident army, marched to Syracuse,
+and defied his foe to meet him in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Hicetas was master of all Syracuse except the stronghold of Ortygia,
+which was held by Dionysius, and which Hicetas had blockaded by sea and
+land. Timoleon had no means of capturing it, and as the enemy would not
+come out from behind its walls, he would soon have had to retire had not
+fortune again helped her favorite son, and this time in an extraordinary
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>As it happened, Dionysius was growing short of provisions, was beginning
+to despair of holding Ortygia, and was withal a man of indolent and
+drunken habits, without a tithe of his father's spirit and energy. He
+was like a fox driven to bay, and having heard of the victory of
+Timoleon, it occurred to him that he would be better off in yielding the
+city to these Corinthians than losing it to his Sicilian foe. All he
+wished was the promise of a safe asylum and comfortable maintenance in
+the future. He therefore agreed with Timoleon to surrender the city,
+with the sole proviso that he should be taken safely with his property
+to Corinth and given freedom of residence in that city. This Timoleon
+instantly and gladly granted, the city was yielded, and Dionysius passed
+into Timoleon's camp with a few companions.</p>
+
+<p>We can imagine the astonishment of the people of Corinth when a trireme
+came into their harbor with tidings of the remarkable success of their
+townsman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> and bearing as striking evidence the person of the late
+tyrant of Sicily. Only fifty days had passed since he left their city
+with his thousand men, and already he had this extraordinary prize to
+show. At once they voted him a reinforcement of two thousand hoplites
+and five hundred cavalry, and willingly granted the dethroned king a
+safe residence in their city. In after years, so report says, Dionysius
+opened a school there for teaching boys to read, and instructed the
+public singers in their art. Certainly this was an innocent use to put a
+tyrant to.</p>
+
+<p>Ortygia contained a garrison of two thousand soldiers and vast
+quantities of military stores. Timoleon, after taking possession,
+returned to Adranum, leaving his lieutenant Neon in command. Soon
+after&mdash;Hicetas having left Syracuse for the purpose of cutting off
+Neon's source of provisions&mdash;a sudden sally was made, the blockading
+army taken by surprise and driven back with loss, and another large
+section of the city was added to Timoleon's gains.</p>
+
+<p>This success was quickly followed by another. The reinforcement from
+Corinth had landed at Thurii, on the east coast of Italy. The
+Carthaginian admiral, thinking that they could not easily get away from
+that place, sailed to Ortygia, where he displayed Grecian shields and
+had his seamen crowned with wreaths. He fancied that by these signs of
+victory he would frighten the garrison into surrender. But the garrison
+were not so easily scared; and meanwhile the Corinthian troops, tired of
+Thurii, and not able to get away by sea, had left their ships and
+marched rapidly overland to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> narrow strait of Messina, that
+separated Italy from Sicily. They found this unguarded,&mdash;the
+Carthaginian ships being away on their mission of alarm to Ortygia. And,
+by good fortune, several days of stormy weather had been followed by a
+sudden and complete calm, so that the Corinthians were enabled to cross
+in fishing and other boats and reach Sicily in safety. Thus by a new
+favor of fortune Timoleon gained this valuable addition to his small
+army.</p>
+
+<p>Timoleon now marched against Syracuse, where fortune once more came to
+his aid. For Magon, the Carthaginian admiral, had begun to doubt
+Hicetas. He doubted him the more when he saw the men of Timoleon and
+those of Hicetas engaged in fishing for eels together in the marshy
+grounds between the armies, and seemingly on very friendly terms.
+Thinking he was betrayed, he put all his troops on board ship and sailed
+away for Africa.</p>
+
+<p>It may well be imagined that Timoleon and his men saw with surprise and
+joy this sudden flight of the Carthaginian ships. With shouts of
+encouragement they attacked the city on all sides. To their
+astonishment, scarcely any defence was made. In fact, the army of
+Hicetas, many of them Greeks, were largely in favor of Timoleon, while
+the talk of the eel catching soldiers in the marshes had won many more
+over. As a result, Timoleon took the great city of Syracuse, on which
+the Athenians had vainly sacrificed hundreds of ships and thousands of
+men, without the loss of a single man, killed or wounded.</p>
+
+<p>Such a succession of astonishing favors of fortune<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> has rarely been seen
+in the world's history. The news flew through Sicily, Italy, and Greece,
+and awakened wonder and admiration everywhere. Only a few months had
+passed since Timoleon left Corinth, and already, with very little loss,
+he was master of Syracuse and of much of Sicily, and had sent the
+dreaded Sicilian tyrant to dwell as a common citizen in Corinth. His
+ability seemed remarkable, his fortune superhuman, and men believed that
+the gods themselves had taken him under their especial care.</p>
+
+<p>And now came the temptation of power, to which so many great men have
+fallen victims. Timoleon had but to say the word and he would be despot
+of Syracuse. Everybody looked for this as the next move. In Ortygia rose
+the massive citadel within which Dionysius had defied revolt or
+disaffection. Timoleon had but to establish himself there, and his word
+would be the law throughout Syracuse, if not throughout Sicily. What
+would he do?</p>
+
+<p>What he proposed to do was quickly shown. He proclaimed that this
+stronghold of tyranny should be destroyed, and invited every Syracusan
+that loved liberty to come with crowbar and hammer and join in the work
+of levelling to the ground the home and citadel of Dionysius. The
+astounded citizens could scarcely believe their ears. What! destroy the
+tyrant's stronghold! Set Syracuse free! What manner of man was this?
+With joyous acclaim they gathered, and heaved and tugged until the
+massive walls were torn stone from stone, and the vast edifice levelled
+with the ground, while the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> passed like a holiday, and songs of joy
+and triumph made their work light.</p>
+
+<p>The Bastile of Syracuse down, Timoleon ordered that the materials should
+be used to build courts of justice,&mdash;for justice was henceforth to
+replace despotism in that tyrant-ridden city. But he had more to do. So
+long had oppression and suffering lasted that the city was half deserted
+and the very market-place turned into a horse pasture. The same was the
+case with other cities of Sicily. Even the fields were but half
+cultivated. Ruin had swept over that fertile island far and wide.</p>
+
+<p>Timoleon now sent invitations everywhere, inviting exiles to return and
+new colonists to come and people the island. To make them sure that they
+would not be oppressed, a new constitution was formed, giving all the
+power to the people. The invitation was accepted. From all quarters
+colonists came, while ten thousand exiles and others sailed from
+Corinth. In the end no fewer than sixty thousand new citizens were added
+to Syracuse.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Timoleon put down the other despots of Sicily and set the
+cities free. Hicetas, his old enemy, was forced to give up his control
+of Leontini, to which he had retired on the loss of Syracuse. But the
+snake retained his venom. The Carthaginians were furious at the flight
+of their fleet. Hicetas stirred them up to another invasion of the
+liberated island.</p>
+
+<p>How long they were in preparing for this expedition we do not know, but
+it was made on a large <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>scale. An army of seventy thousand men landed on
+the western corner of the island, brought thither by a fleet of two
+hundred triremes and one thousand transports. In the army were ten
+thousand heavy-armed Carthaginians, who carried white shields and wore
+elaborate breastplates. Among these were many of the rich men of
+Carthage, who brought with them costly baggage and rich articles of gold
+and silver. Twenty-five hundred of them were called the Sacred Band of
+Carthage. That great city had rarely before made such a determined
+effort at conquest.</p>
+
+<p>Timoleon was not idle in the face of this great invasion. But the whole
+army he could muster was but twelve thousand strong, a pitiable total to
+meet so powerful a foe. And as he marched to meet the enemy distrust and
+fear marched in his ranks. Such was the dread that one division of the
+army, one thousand strong, mutinied and deserted, and it needed all his
+personal influence to keep the rest together.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Timoleon had in him the spirit that commands success. He pushed on
+with his disheartened force until near the river Crimesus, beyond which
+was encamped the great army of Carthage. Some mules laden with parsley
+met the Corinthians on the road. Parsley was used for the wreaths laid
+on tombstones. It seemed a fatal omen. But Timoleon, with the quickness
+of genius, seized some of it, wove a wreath for his head, and cried,
+"This is our Corinthian symbol of victory: it is the sacred herb with
+which we decorate the victors at the Isthmian festival. Its coming
+signifies success." With these encouraging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> words he restored the
+spirits of the army, and led them on to the top of the hill overlooking
+the Crimesus.</p>
+
+<p>It was a misty May morning. Nothing could be seen; but from the valley a
+loud noise and clatter arose. The Carthaginians were on the march, and
+had begun to cross the stream. Soon the mist rose and the formidable
+host was seen. A multitude of war-chariots, each drawn by four horses,
+had already crossed. The ten thousand native Carthaginians, bearing
+their white shields, were partly across. The main body of the host was
+hastening in disorderly march to the rugged banks of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>Fortune had favored Timoleon again. If he hoped for success this was the
+moment to attack. The enemy was divided and in disorder. With cheery
+words he bade his men to charge. The cavalry dashed on in front. Seizing
+a shield, Timoleon sprang to the front and led on his footmen, rousing
+them to activity by exultant words and bidding the trumpets to sound.
+Rushing down the hill and through the line of chariots, the charging
+mass poured on the Carthaginian infantry. These fought bravely and
+defied the Grecian spears with the strength of their armor. The
+assailants had to take to their swords, and try and hew their way
+through the dense ranks of the foe.</p>
+
+<p>The result was in serious doubt, when once more the gods&mdash;as it
+seemed&mdash;came to Timoleon's aid. A violent storm suddenly arose. Darkness
+shrouded the hill-tops. The wind blew a hurricane. Rain and hail poured
+down in torrents, while the clouds flashed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> with lightning and roared
+with thunder. And all this was on the backs of the Greeks; in the faces
+of the Carthaginians. They could not hear the orders of their officers.
+The ground became so muddy that many of them slipped and fell: and once
+down their heavy armor would not let them rise again. The Greeks, driven
+forward by the wind, attacked their foes with double energy. At length,
+blinded by the driving storm, distracted by the furious assault, and
+four hundred of their front ranks fallen, the white shield battalion
+turned and fled.</p>
+
+<p>But flight was not easy. They met their own troops coming up. The stream
+had become suddenly swollen with the rain. In the confused flight
+numbers were drowned. The panic spread from rank to rank until the whole
+host was in total rout, flying wildly over the hills, leaving their camp
+and baggage to the victors, who pursued and slaughtered them in
+thousands as they fled.</p>
+
+<p>Such a complete victory had rarely been won. Ten thousand Carthaginians
+were killed and fifteen thousand made prisoners, their war chariots were
+captured, and the spoil found in the camp and on the track of the flying
+army was prodigiously great. As for the Sacred Band, it was annihilated.
+The story is told that it was slain to a man. The broken remnants of the
+flying army hastened to their ships, which they were half afraid to
+enter, for fear the gods that helped Timoleon would destroy them on the
+seas. And thus was Sicily freed.</p>
+
+<p>The thousand deserters who had left Timoleon's army on its march were
+ordered by him to leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> the island at once. They did so, crossed the
+Strait of Messina, and took possession of a site in southern Italy,
+where they were attacked by the people and every man of them slain. As
+regards the concluding events of our story, it will suffice to say that
+Timoleon had other fighting to do, with Carthaginians and despots; but
+his wonderful fortune continued throughout, and before long Sicily held
+not an enemy in arms.</p>
+
+<p>And now came the greatest triumph of the Corinthian victor. One master
+alone remained in Sicily,&mdash;himself. Despotic power was his had he said
+the word. The people warmly requested him to retain his control. But no;
+he had come to free them from tyranny, and free they should be. He laid
+down at once all his power, gave up the command of the army, and went to
+live as a private citizen of Syracuse, without office or power.</p>
+
+<p>A single dominion yet remained to him,&mdash;that of affection. The people
+worshipped him. His voice was law. As he grew older his sight failed,
+until he became totally blind. Yet still, when any difficult question
+arose, the people trusted to their sightless benefactor to tell them
+what to do. On such occasions Timoleon would be brought in his car,
+drawn by mules across the market-place, and then by attendants into the
+hall of assembly. Here, still seated in his car, he would listen to the
+debate, and in the end give his own opinion, which was usually accepted
+by nearly the whole assembly. This done, the car would be drawn out
+again amid shouts and cheers, and the blind "father of his country"
+return to his modest home.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p><p>Such liberty and prosperity as now ruled in Sicily had not for a
+century been known, and when, three or four years after the great
+victory of the Crimesus, Timoleon suddenly died, the grief of the people
+was universal and profound. His funeral obsequies were splendidly
+celebrated at the public cost, his body was burned on a vast funeral
+pile, and as the flames flashed upward a herald proclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Syracusan people solemnize, at the cost of two hundred min&aelig;, the
+funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They
+have passed a vote to honor him for all future time with festival
+matches in music, horse and chariot races, and gymnastics; because,
+after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and
+recolonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the
+Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws."</p>
+
+<p>And thus died one of the noblest and most successful men the world has
+ever known. The fratricide of his earlier years was for the good of
+mankind, and his whole life was consecrated to the cause of human
+liberty, while not a thought of self-aggrandizement seems to have ever
+disturbed his noble soul.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE SACRED WAR.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> were two places in Greece which had been set aside as
+sacred,&mdash;Plat&aelig;a, the scene of the final defeat of the Persian invaders,
+and Delphi, the seat of the great temple of Apollo, in whose oracles all
+Greece placed faith. We have already seen how little the sacredness of
+Plat&aelig;a protected it from ruin. We have next to see how the sacredness of
+Delphi was condemned, and how all Greece suffered in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>The temple of Apollo at Delphi had long been held so inviolate that it
+became a rich reservoir of treasures, gathered throughout the centuries.
+Cr&#339;sus, the rich king of Lydia, sent thither the overflow of his
+wealth, and hundreds of others paid liberally for the promises of the
+priestess, until the treasures of Delphi became a by-word in Greece.
+This vast wealth was felt to be safe. The god would protect his own.
+Men's voices were deep with awe when they told how the wrath of Apollo
+had overthrown the Persian robbers who sought to rifle his holy fane.
+And yet the time came when a horde of bandit Greeks made the temple
+their prey and the hand of the god was not lifted in its defence, nor
+did outraged Greece rise to punish the sacrilegious robbers. This is the
+tale that we have next to tell, that of the so-called Sacred War, with
+all it meant to Greece.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p><p>There was a great Greek council, centuries old, called the
+Amphictyonic. It met twice every year, usually for religious purposes,
+rarely for political. But in the time we have now reached this
+Amphictyonic Council ventured to meddle in politics, and made mischief
+of the direst character. Its first political act was to fine Sparta five
+hundred talents for seizing the citadel of Thebes in times of peace. The
+fine was to be doubled if not paid within a certain time. But as Sparta
+sneered at the fine, and neither paid it nor its double, the action of
+the council proved of little avail.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image13.jpg" width="600" height="364" alt="BED OF THE RIVER KLADEOS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">BED OF THE RIVER KLADEOS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>This was of small importance; it was to the next act of the council that
+the mischief was due. The people of the small state of Phocis, adjoining
+Delphi, had been accused of cultivating a part of the Cirrh&aelig;an plain,
+which was consecrated to Apollo. This charge, like the former, was
+brought by Thebes, and the Amphictyonic Council, having fined Sparta,
+now, under Theban influence, laid a fine on the Phocians so heavy that
+it was far beyond their means of payment. But Sparta had not paid; why
+should they? The sentence troubled them little.</p>
+
+<p>At the next meeting of the council severer measures were taken. Sparta
+was strong; Phocis weak. It was resolved to seize all its territory and
+consecrate it to Apollo. This unjust sentence roused the Phocians. A
+bold citizen, Philomelus by name, told them that they must now face war
+or ruin. The district of Delphi had once been theirs, and had been taken
+from them wrongfully. "Let us assert our lost rights and seize the
+temple," he said. "The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> Thebans want it; let us anticipate them and take
+back our own."</p>
+
+<p>His words took fire. A strong force was raised, the town and temple were
+attacked, and both, being practically undefended, were quickly captured.
+Phocis had regained her own, for Delphi had been taken from her during
+an older "Sacred War."</p>
+
+<p>Philomelus now announced that the temple and its oracles would not be
+meddled with. Its treasures would be safe. Visitors would be free to
+come and go. He would give any security that Greece required that the
+wealth of Apollo should be safe and all go on as before. But he
+fortified the town, and invited mercenary soldiers till he had an army
+of five thousand men. As for the priestess of Apollo, from whose lips
+the oracles came, he demanded that she should continue to be inspired as
+before, and should give an oracle in his favor. The priestess refused;
+whereupon he seized her and sought to drag her to the holy tripod on
+which she was accustomed to sit. The woman, scared by his violence,
+cried out, "You may do what you choose!"</p>
+
+<p>Philomelus at once proclaimed this as an oracle in his favor, and
+published it widely. And it is interesting to learn that many of the
+superstitious Greeks took his word for it. He certainly took the word of
+the priestess,&mdash;for he did what he chose.</p>
+
+<p>War at once began. Many of the Greek states rose at the call of the
+condemned Amphictyonic Council. The Phocians were in imminent peril.
+They were far from strong enough for the war they had invoked. Mercenary
+troops&mdash;"soldiers of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>fortune"&mdash;must be hired; and to hire them money
+must be had. The citizens of Delphi had already been taxed; the Phocian
+treasury was empty; where was money to be obtained?</p>
+
+<p>Philomelus settled this question by <i>borrowing</i>, with great reluctance,
+a sum from the temple treasures,&mdash;to be paid back as soon as possible.
+But as the war went on and more money was needed, he borrowed again and
+again,&mdash;now without reluctance. And the practice of robbery once
+started, he not only paid his troops, but enriched his friends and
+adorned his wife from Apollo's hoarded wealth.</p>
+
+<p>By this means Philomelus got together an army of ten thousand
+men,&mdash;reckless, dissolute characters, the impious scum of Greece, for no
+pious Greek would enlist in such a cause. The war was ferocious. The
+allies put their prisoners to death. Philomelus followed their example.
+This was a losing game, and both sides gave it up. At length Philomelus
+and his army were caught in an awkward position, the army was dispersed,
+and he driven to the verge of a precipice, where he must choose between
+captivity or death. He chose the latter and leaped from the beetling
+crags.</p>
+
+<p>The Thebans and their allies foolishly believed that with the death of
+Philomelus the war was at an end, and marched for their homes.
+Onomarchus, another Phocian leader, took the opportunity thus afforded
+to gather the scattered army together again, seized the temple once
+more, and stood in defiance of all his foes.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to gold and silver, the treasury contained many gifts in
+brass and iron. The precious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> metals were melted and converted into
+money; of the baser metals arms were made. Onomarchus went farther than
+Philomelus; he not only paid his troops with the treasure, but bribed
+the leaders of Grecian states, and thus gained powerful friends. He was
+soon successfully at war, drove back his foes, and pressed his conquests
+till he had captured Thermopyl&aelig; and invaded Thessaly.</p>
+
+<p>Here the Phocians came into contact with a foe dangerous to themselves
+and to all Greece. This foe was the celebrated Philip of Macedonia, a
+famous soldier who was to play a leading part in the subsequent game. He
+had long been paving the way to the conquest of Greece, and the Sacred
+War gave him just the opportunity he wanted.</p>
+
+<p>Macedonia lay north of Greece. Its people were not Greeks, nor like
+Greeks in their customs. They lived in the country, not in cities, and
+had little or none of the culture of Greece. But they were the stuff
+from which good soldiers are made. Hitherto this country had been hardly
+thought of as an element in the Grecian problem. Its kings were despots
+who had been kept busy with their foes at home. But now a king had
+arisen of wider views and larger mould. Philip had spent his youth in
+Thebes, where he had learned the art of war under Epaminondas. On coming
+to the throne he quickly proved himself a great soldier and a keen and
+cunning politician. By dint of war and trickery he rapidly spread his
+dominions until all his home foes were subdued, Macedonia was greatly
+extended, and Thessaly, the most northern state of Greece, was overrun.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p><p>Therefore the invasion of Thessaly by the Phocians brought them into
+contact with the Macedonians. At first Onomarchus was successful. He won
+two battles and drove Philip back to his native state. But another large
+army was quickly in the field, and this time the army of Onomarchus was
+utterly beaten and himself slain. As for Philip, although he probably
+cared not an iota for the Delphian god, he shrewdly professed to be on a
+crusade against the impious Phocians, and drowned all his prisoners as
+guilty of sacrilege.</p>
+
+<p>A third leader, Phayllus by name, now took command of the Phocians, and
+the temple of Apollo was rifled still more freely than before. The
+splendid gifts of King Cr&#339;sus had not yet been touched. They were
+held too precious to be meddled with. But Phayllus did not hesitate to
+turn these into money. One hundred and seventeen ingots of gold and
+three hundred and sixty golden goblets went to the melting-pot, and with
+them a golden statue three cubits high and a lion of the same precious
+metal. And what added to the horror of pious Greece was that much of the
+proceeds of these precious treasures was lavished on favorites. The
+necklaces of Helen and Eriphyle were given to dissolute women, and a
+woman flute-player received a silver cup and a golden wreath from the
+temple hoard.</p>
+
+<p>All this gave Philip of Macedonia the desired pretence. He marched
+against the Phocians, who held Thermopyl&aelig;, while keeping his Athenian
+enemies quiet by lies and bribes. The leader of the Phocian garrison,
+finding that no aid came from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> the Athenian fleet, surrendered to
+Philip, and that astute monarch won what he had long schemed for, the
+Pass of Thermopyl&aelig;, the Key of Greece.</p>
+
+<p>The Sacred War was at an end, and with it virtually the independence of
+Greece. Phocis was in the hands of Philip, who professed more than ever
+to be the defender and guardian of Apollo. All the towns in Phocis were
+broken up into villages, and the inhabitants were ordered to be fined
+ten talents annually till they had paid back all they had stolen from
+the temple. Philip gave back the temple to the Delphians, and was
+himself voted into membership in the Amphictyonic assembly in place of
+the discarded Phocians. And all this took place while a treaty of peace
+tied the hands of the Greeks. The Sacred War had served as a splendid
+pretext to carry out the ambitious plans of the Macedonian king.</p>
+
+<p>We have now a long story to tell in a few words. Another people, the
+Locrians, had also made an invasion on Delphian territory. The
+Amphictyonic Council called on Philip to punish them, He at once marched
+southward, but, instead of meddling with the Locrians, seized and
+fortified a town in Phocis. At once Athens, full of alarm, declared war,
+and Philip was as quick to declare war in return. Both sides sought the
+support of Thebes, and Athens gained it. In August, 338 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, the
+Grecian and Macedonian armies met and fought a decisive battle near
+Ch&aelig;ronea, a B&#339;otian town. In this great contest Alexander the Great
+took part.</p>
+
+<p>It was a hotly-contested fight, but in the end Philip triumphed, and
+Greece was lost. Thebes was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> forced to yield. Athens, to regain the
+prisoners held by Philip, acknowledged him to be the head of Greece. All
+the other states did the same except Sparta, which defied him. He
+ravaged Laconia, but left the city untouched.</p>
+
+<p>Two years afterwards Philip, lord and master of Greece, was assassinated
+at the marriage feast of his daughter. His son Alexander succeeded him.
+Here seemed an opportunity for Greece to regain her freedom. This
+untried young man could surely not retain what his able father had won.
+Demosthenes, the celebrated orator, stirred up Athens to revolt. Thebes
+sprang to arms and attacked the Macedonian garrison in the citadel.</p>
+
+<p>They did not know the man with whom they had to deal. Alexander came
+upon Thebes like an avalanche, took it by assault, and sold into slavery
+all the inhabitants not slain in the assault. The city was razed to the
+ground. This terrible example dismayed the rest of Greece.
+Submission&mdash;with the exception of that of Sparta&mdash;was universal. The
+independence of Greece was at an end. More than two thousand years were
+to pass before that country would again be free.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND DARIUS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the citadel of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was
+preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure.
+Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius
+and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and
+chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which
+attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the
+bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted and entangled
+that it seemed as if the fingers of the gods themselves must have tied
+it, so intricate was it and so impossible, seemingly, to untie.</p>
+
+<p>An oracle had declared that the man who should untie this famous knot
+would become lord and monarch of all Asia. As may well be imagined, many
+ambitious men sought to perform the task, but all in vain. The Gordian
+knot remained tied and Asia unconquered in the year 333 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, when
+Alexander of Macedon, who the year before had invaded Asia, and so far
+had swept all before him, entered Gordium with his victorious army. As
+may be surmised, it was not long before he sought the citadel to view
+this ancient relic, which contained within itself the promise of what he
+had set out to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> accomplish. Numbers followed him, Phrygians and
+Macedonians, curious to see if the subtle knot would yield to his
+conquering hand, the Macedonians with hope, the Phrygians with doubt.</p>
+
+<p>While the multitude stood in silent and curious expectation, Alexander
+closely examined the knot, looking in vain for some beginning or end to
+its complexity. The thing perplexed him. Was he who had never yet failed
+in any undertaking to be baffled by this piece of rope, this twisted
+obstacle in the way of success? At length, with that angry impatience
+which was a leading element in his character, he drew his sword, and
+with one vigorous stroke severed the cord in two.</p>
+
+<p>At once a shout went up. The problem was solved; the knot was severed;
+the genius of Alexander had led him to the only means. He had made good
+his title to the empire of Asia, and was hailed as predestined conqueror
+by his admiring followers. That night came a storm of thunder and
+lightning which confirmed the belief, the superstitious Macedonians
+taking it as the testimony of the gods that the oracle was fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>Had there been no Gordian knot and no oracle, Alexander would probably
+have become lord of the empire of Asia all the same, and this not only
+because he was the best general of his time and one of the best generals
+of all time, but for two other excellent reasons. One was that his
+father, Philip, had bequeathed to him the best army of the age. The
+Greeks had proved, nearly two centuries before, that their military
+organization and skill were far superior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> to those of the Persians.
+During the interval there had been no progress in the army of Persia,
+while Epaminondas had greatly improved the military art in Greece, and
+Philip of Macedon, his pupil, had made of the Macedonian army a fighting
+machine such as the world had never before known. This was the army
+which, with still further improvements, Alexander was leading into Asia
+to meet the multitudinous but poorly armed and disciplined Persian host.</p>
+
+<p>The second reason was that Alexander, while the best captain of his age,
+had opposed to him the worst. It was the misfortune of Persia that a new
+king, Darius Codomannus by name, had just come to the throne, and was to
+prove himself utterly incapable of leading an army, unless it was to
+lead it in flight. It was not only Alexander's great ability, but his
+marvellous good fortune, which led to his immense success.</p>
+
+<p>The Persians had had a good general in Asia Minor,&mdash;Memnon, a Greek of
+the island of Rhodes. But just at this time this able leader died, and
+Darius took the command on himself. He could hardly have selected a man
+from his ranks who would not have made a better commander-in-chief.</p>
+
+<p>Gathering a vast army from his wide-spread dominions, a host six hundred
+thousand strong, the Persian king marched to meet his foe. He brought
+with him an enormous weight of baggage, there being enough gold and
+silver alone to load six hundred mules and three hundred camels; and so
+confident was he of success that he also brought his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> mother, wife, and
+children, and his whole harem, that they might witness his triumph over
+the insolent Macedonian.</p>
+
+<p>Darius took no steps to guard any of the passes of Asia Minor. Why
+should he seek to keep back this foe, who was marching blindly to his
+fate? But instead of waiting for Alexander on the plain, where he could
+have made use of his vast force, he marched into the defile of Issus,
+where there was only a mile and a half of open ground between the
+mountains and the sea, and where his vanguard alone could be brought
+into action. In this defile the two armies met, the fighting part of
+each being, through the folly of the Persian king, not greatly different
+in numbers.</p>
+
+<p>The blunder of Darius was soon made fatal by his abject cowardice. The
+Macedonians having made a sudden assault on the Persian left wing, it
+gave way and fled. Darius, who was in his chariot in the centre, seeing
+himself in danger from this flight, suddenly lost his over-confidence,
+and in a panic of terror turned his chariot and fled with wild haste
+from the field. When he reached ground over which the chariot could not
+pass, he mounted hastily on horseback, flung from him his bow, shield,
+and royal mantle, and rode in mortal terror away, not having given a
+single order or made the slightest effort to rally his flying troops.</p>
+
+<p>Darius had been sole commander. His flight left the great army without a
+leader. Not a man remained who could give a general order. Those who saw
+him flying were infected with his terror and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> turned to flee also. The
+vast host in the rear trampled one another down in their wild haste to
+get beyond the enemy's reach. The Macedonians must have looked on in
+amazement. The battle&mdash;or what ought to have been a battle&mdash;was over
+before it had fairly begun. The Persian right wing, in which was a body
+of Greeks, made a hard fight; but these Greeks, on finding that the king
+had fled, marched in good order away. The Persian cavalry, also, fought
+bravely until they heard that the king had disappeared, when they also
+turned to fly. Never had so great a host been so quickly routed, and all
+through the cowardice of a man who was better fitted by nature to turn a
+spit than to command an army.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image14.jpg" width="600" height="365" alt="THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Alexander was not the man to let his enemy escape unscathed. His
+pursuit was vigorous. The slaughter of the fugitives was frightful.
+Thousands were trodden to death in the narrow and broken pass. The camp
+and the family of Darius were taken, together with a great treasure in
+coin. The slain in all numbered more than one hundred thousand.</p>
+
+<p>The panic flight of Darius and his utter lack of ability did more than
+lose him a battle: it lost him an empire. Never was there a battle with
+more complete and great results. During the next two years Alexander
+went to work to conquer western Persia. Most of the cities yielded to
+him. Tyre resisted, and was taken and destroyed. Gaza, another strong
+city, was captured and its defenders slain. These two cities, which it
+took nine months to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>capture, gave Alexander the hardest fighting he
+ever had. He marched from Gaza to Egypt, which fell without resistance
+into his hands, and where he built the great city of Alexandria, the
+only existing memento of his name and deeds. Thence he marched to the
+Euphrates, wondering where Darius was and what he meant to do. Nearly
+two years had passed since the battle of Issus, and the kingly poltroon
+had apparently contented himself with writing letters begging Alexander
+to restore his family. But Alexander knew too well what a treasure he
+held to consent. If Darius would acknowledge him as his lord and master
+he could have back his wife and children, but not otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>Finding that all this was useless, Darius began to collect another army.
+He now got together a vaster host than before. It was said to contain
+one million infantry, forty thousand cavalry, and two hundred chariots,
+each of which had a projecting pole with a sharp point, while three
+sword-blades stood out from the yoke on either side, and scythes
+projected from the naves of the wheels. Darius probably expected to mow
+down the Macedonians in swaths with these formidable implements of war.</p>
+
+<p>The army which Alexander marched against this mighty host consisted of
+forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. It looked like the extreme
+of foolhardiness, like a pigmy advancing against a giant; yet Darius
+commanded one army, Alexander the other, and Issus had not been
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>The affair, in fact, proved but a repetition of that at Issus. The
+chariots, on which Darius had counted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> to break the enemy's line, proved
+useless. Some of the horses were killed; others refused to face the
+Macedonian pikes; some were scared by the noise and turned back; the few
+that reached the Greek lines found the ranks opened to let them pass.</p>
+
+<p>The chariots thus disposed of, the whole Macedonian line charged.
+Alexander, at the head of his cavalry, pushed straight for the person of
+Darius. He could not get near the king, who was well protected, but he
+got near enough to fill his dastard soul with terror. The sight of the
+serried ranks of the Macedonian phalanx, the terrific noise of their
+war-cries, the failure of the chariots, all combined to destroy his late
+confidence and replace it by dread. As at Issus, he suddenly had his
+chariot turned round and rushed from the field in full flight.</p>
+
+<p>His attendants followed. The troops around him, the best in the army,
+gave way. Soon the field was dense with fugitives. So thick was the
+cloud of dust raised by the flying multitude that nothing could be seen.
+Amid the darkness were heard a wild clamor of voices and the noise of
+the whips of the charioteers as they urged their horses to speed. The
+cloud of dust alone saved Darius from capture by the pursuing horsemen.
+The left of the Persian army fought bravely, but at length it too gave
+way. Everything was captured,&mdash;camp, treasure, the king's equipage,
+everything but the king himself. How many were killed and taken is not
+known, but the army, as an army, ceased to exist. As at Issus, so at
+Arbela, it was so miserably managed that three-fourths of it had nothing
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>whatever to do with the battle. Its dispersal ended the Persian
+resistance; the empire was surrendered to Alexander almost without
+another blow.</p>
+
+<p>Great a soldier as Alexander unquestionably was, he was remarkably
+favored by fortune, and won the greatest empire the world had up to that
+time known with hardly an effort, and with less loss of men than often
+takes place in a single battle. The treasure gained was immense. Darius
+seemed to have been heaping up wealth for his conqueror. Babylon and
+Susa, the two great capitals of the Persian empire, contained vast
+accumulations of money, part of which was used to enrich the soldiers of
+the victorious army. At Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, a
+still greater treasure was found, amounting to one hundred and twenty
+thousand talents in gold and silver, or about one hundred and
+twenty-five million dollars. It took five thousand camels and a host of
+mules to transport the treasure away. The cruel conqueror rewarded the
+Persians for this immense gift, kept through generations for his hands,
+by burning the city and slaughtering its inhabitants, in revenge, as he
+declared, for the harm which Xerxes had done to Greece a century and a
+half before.</p>
+
+<p>What followed must be told in a few words. The conqueror did not feel
+that his work was finished while Darius remained free. The dethroned
+king was flying eastward to Bactria. Alexander pursued him with such
+speed that many of his men and animals fell dead on the road. He
+overtook him at last, but did not capture him, as the companions of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+Persian king killed him and left only his dead body to the victor's
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>For years afterwards Alexander was occupied in war, subduing the eastern
+part of the empire, and marching into India, where he conquered all
+before him. War, incessant war, was all he cared for. No tribe or nation
+he met was able to stand against his army. In all his career he never
+met a reverse in the field. He was as daring as Darius had been
+cowardly, exposed his life freely, and was more than once seriously
+wounded, but recovered quickly from his hurts.</p>
+
+<p>At length, after eleven years of almost incessant war, the conqueror
+returned to Babylon, and here, while preparing for new wars in Arabia
+and elsewhere, indulged with reckless freedom in that intoxication which
+was his principal form of relaxation from warlike schemes and duties. As
+a result he was seized with fever, and in a week's time died, just at
+the time he had fixed to set out with army and fleet on another great
+career of conquest. It was in June, 323 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, in his thirty-third year.
+He had reigned only twelve years and eight months.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE WORLD'S GREATEST ORATOR.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the days of the decline of Athens, the centre of thought to
+Greece, there roamed about the streets of that city a delicate, sickly
+lad, so feeble in frame that, at his mother's wish, he kept away from
+the gymnasium, lest the severe exercises there required should do him
+more harm than good. His delicate clothing and effeminate habits were
+derided by his playmates, who nicknamed him Batalus, after, we are told,
+a spindle-shanked flute-player. We do not know, however, just what
+Batalus means.</p>
+
+<p>As the boy was not fit for vigorous exercise, and never likely to make a
+hardy soldier or sailor, it became a question for what he was best
+fitted. If the body could not be exercised, the mind might be. At that
+time Athens had its famous schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and the
+art of oratory was diligently cultivated. It is interesting to know that
+outside of Athens Greece produced no orators, if we except Epaminondas
+of Thebes. The B&#339;otians, who dwelt north of Attica, were looked upon
+as dull-brained and thick-witted. The Spartans prided themselves on
+their few words and hard blows.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p><p>The Athenians, on the contrary, were enthusiastically fond of oratory,
+and ardently cultivated fluency of speech. It was by this art that
+Themistocles kept the fleet together for the great battle of Salamis. It
+was by this art that Pericles so long held control of Athens. The
+sophists, the philosophers, the leaders of the assembly, were all adepts
+in the art of convincing by eloquence and argument, and oratory
+progressed until, in the later days of Grecian freedom, Athens possessed
+a group of public speakers who have never been surpassed, if equalled,
+in the history of the world.</p>
+
+<p>It was the orators who particularly attracted the weakly lad, whose mind
+was as active as his body was feeble. He studied grammar and rhetoric,
+as did the sons of wealthy Athenians in general. And while still a mere
+boy he begged his tutors to take him to hear Callistratus, an able
+public speaker, who was to deliver an oration on some weighty political
+subject. The speech, delivered with all the eloquence of manner and
+logic of thought which marked the leading orators of that day, deeply
+impressed the susceptible mind of the eager lad, who went away doubtless
+determining in his own mind that he would one day, too, move the world
+with eloquent and convincing speech.</p>
+
+<p>As he grew older there arose a special reason why he should become able
+to speak for himself. His father, who was also named Demosthenes, had
+been a rich man. He was a manufacturer of swords or knives, in which he
+employed thirty-two slaves; and also had a couch or bed factory,
+employing twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> more. His mother was the daughter of a rich
+corn-dealer of the Bosphorus.</p>
+
+<p>The father died when his son was seven years old, leaving his estate in
+the care of three guardians. These were rich men, and relatives and
+friends, whom he thought he could safely trust; the more so as he left
+them legacies in his will. Yet they proved rogues, and when Demosthenes
+became sixteen years of age&mdash;which made him a man under the civil law of
+Athens&mdash;he found that the guardians had made way with nearly the whole
+of his estate. Of fourteen talents bequeathed him there were less than
+two left. The boy complained and remonstrated in vain. The guardians
+declared that the will was lost; their accounts were plainly fraudulent;
+they evidently proposed to rob their ward of his patrimony.</p>
+
+<p>This may seem to us to have been a great misfortune. It was, on the
+contrary, the greatest good fortune. It forced Demosthenes to become an
+orator. Though he never recovered his estate, he gained a fame that was
+of infinitely greater value. The law of Athens required that every
+plaintiff should plead his own cause, either in person or by a deputy
+speaking his words. Demosthenes felt that he must bring suit or consent
+to be robbed. That art of oratory, towards which he had so strong an
+inclination, now became doubly important. He must learn how to plead
+eloquently before the courts, or remain the poor victim of a party of
+rogues. This determined the young student of rhetoric. He would make
+himself an orator.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p><p>He at once began an energetic course of study. There were then two
+famous teachers of oratory in Athens, Isocrates and Is&aelig;us. The school of
+Isocrates was famous, and his prices very high. The young man, with whom
+money was scarce, offered him a fifth of his price for a fifth of his
+course, but Isocrates replied that his art, like a good fish, must be
+sold entire. He then turned to Is&aelig;us, who was the greatest legal pleader
+of the period, and studied under him until he felt competent to plead
+his own case before the courts.</p>
+
+<p>Demosthenes soon found that he had mistaken his powers. His argument was
+formal and long-winded. His uncouth style roused the ridicule of his
+hearers. His voice was weak, his breath short, his manner disconnected,
+his utterance confused. His pronunciation was stammering and
+ineffective, and in the end he withdrew from the court, hopeless and
+disheartened.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, his feeble effort had been heard by a friend who was a
+distinguished actor, and was able to tell Demosthenes what he lacked.
+"You must study the art of graceful gesture and clear and distinct
+utterance," he said. In illustration, he asked the would-be orator to
+speak some passages from the poets Sophocles and Euripides, and then
+recited them himself, to show how they should be spoken. He succeeded in
+this way in arousing the boy to new and greater efforts. Nature,
+Demosthenes felt, had not meant him for an orator. But art can sometimes
+overcome nature. Energy, perseverance, determination, were necessary.
+These he had. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> went earnestly to work; and the story of how he worked
+and what he achieved should be a lesson for all future students of art
+or science.</p>
+
+<p>There were two things to do. He must both write well and speak well.
+Delivery is only half the art. Something worth delivering is equally
+necessary. He read the works of Thucydides, the great historian, so
+carefully that he was able to write them all out from memory after an
+accident had destroyed the manuscript. Some say he wrote them out eight
+separate times. He attended the teachings of Plato, the celebrated
+philosopher. The repulse of Isocrates did not keep the ardent student
+from his classes. His naturally capable mind became filled with all that
+Greece had to give in the line of logical and rhetorical thought. He not
+only read but wrote. He prepared orations for delivery in the law courts
+for the use of others, and in this way eked out his small income.</p>
+
+<p>In these ways he cultivated his mind. That was the lightest task. He had
+a great mind to begin with. But he had a weak and incapable body. If he
+would succeed that must be cultivated too. There was his lisping and
+stammering voice, his short breath, his low tones, his ungraceful
+gesture,&mdash;all to be overcome. How he did it is a remarkable example of
+what may be done in self-education.</p>
+
+<p>To overcome his stammering utterance he accustomed himself to speak with
+pebbles in his mouth. His lack of vocal strength he overcame by running
+with open mouth, thus expanding his lungs. To cure his shortness of
+breath he practised the uttering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> of long sentences while walking
+rapidly up-hill. That he might be able to make himself heard above the
+noise of the assembly, he would stand in stormy weather on the sea-shore
+at Phalerum, and declaim against the roar of the waves. For two or three
+months together he practised writing and speaking, day and night, in an
+underground chamber; and that he might not be tempted to go abroad and
+neglect his studies he shaved the hair from one side of his head. Dread
+of ridicule kept him in till his hair had grown again. To gain a
+graceful action, he would practise for hours before a tall mirror,
+watching all his movements, and constantly seeking to improve them.</p>
+
+<p>Several years passed away in this hard and persistent labor. He tried
+public speaking again and again, each time discouraged, but each time
+improving,&mdash;and finally gained complete success. His voice became strong
+and clear, his manner graceful, his delivery emphatic and decisive, the
+language of his orations full of clear logic, strong statement, cutting
+irony, and vigorous declamation, fluent, earnest, and convincing. In
+brief, it may be said that he made himself the greatest orator of
+Greece, which is equal to saying the greatest orator of the world.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only in delivery that he was great. His speeches were as
+convincing when read as when spoken. Fortunately, the great orators of
+those days prepared their speeches very carefully before delivery, and
+so it is that some of the best of the speeches of Demosthenes have come
+down to us and can be read by ourselves. The voice of the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> world
+pronounces these orations admirable, and they have been studied by every
+great orator since that day.</p>
+
+<p>Demosthenes had a great theme for his orations. He entered public life
+at a critical period. The states of Greece had become miserably weak and
+divided by their jealousies and intrigues. Philip of Macedon, the
+craftiest and ablest leader of his time, was seeking to make Greece his
+prey, and using gold, artifice, and violence alike to enable him to
+succeed in this design. Against this man Demosthenes raised his voice,
+thundering his unequalled denunciations before the assembly of Athens,
+and doing his utmost to rouse the people to the defence of their
+liberties. Philip had as his advocate an orator only second to
+Demosthenes in power, &AElig;schines by name, whom he had secretly bribed, and
+who opposed his great rival by every means in his power. For years the
+strife of oratory and diplomacy went on. Demosthenes, with remarkable
+clearness of vision, saw the meaning of every movement of the cunning
+Macedonian, and warned the Athenians in orations that should have moved
+any liberty-loving people to instant and decisive action. But he talked
+to a weak audience. Athens had lost its old energy and public virtue. It
+could still listen with lapsed breath to the earnest appeals of the
+orator, but had grown slow and vacillating in action. &AElig;schines had a
+strong party at his back, and Athens procrastinated until it was too
+late and the liberties of ancient Greece fell, never to rise again, on
+the fatal field of Ch&aelig;ronea.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p><p>"If Philip is the friend of Greece we are doing wrong," Demosthenes had
+cried. "If he is the enemy of Greece we are doing right. Which is he? I
+hold him to be our enemy, because everything he has hitherto done has
+benefited him and hurt us."</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Greece before the sword of its foe taught the Athenians that
+their orator was right. They at length learned to esteem Demosthenes at
+his full worth, and Ctesiphon, a leading Athenian, proposed that he
+should receive a golden crown from the state, and that his extraordinary
+merit and patriotism should be proclaimed in the theatre at the great
+festival of Dionysus.</p>
+
+<p>&AElig;schines declared that this was unconstitutional, and that he would
+bring action against Ctesiphon for breaking the laws. For six years the
+case remained untried, and then &AElig;schines was forced to bring his suit.
+He did so in a powerful speech, in which he made a bitter attack on the
+whole public life of Demosthenes. When he ceased, Demosthenes rose, and
+in a speech which is looked upon as the most splendid master-piece of
+oratory ever produced, completely overwhelmed his life long opponent,
+who left Athens in disgust. The golden crown, which Demosthenes had so
+nobly won, was his, and was doubly deserved by the immortal oration to
+which it gave birth, the grand burst of eloquence "For the Crown."</p>
+
+<p>In 323 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> Alexander the Great died. Then like a trumpet rang out the
+voice of Demosthenes, calling Greece to arms. Greece obeyed him and
+rose. If she would be free, now or never was the time. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> war known as
+the Lamian war began. It ended disastrously in August, 322, and Greece
+was again a Macedonian slave. Demosthenes and others of the patriots
+were condemned to death as traitors. They fled for their lives.
+Demosthenes sought the island of Calauri, where he took refuge in a
+temple sacred to Poseidon, or Neptune. Thither his foes, led by Archias,
+formerly a tragic actor, followed him.</p>
+
+<p>Archias was not the man to hesitate about sacrilege. But the temple in
+which Demosthenes had taken refuge was so ancient and venerable that
+even he hesitated, and begged him to come out, saying that there was no
+doubt that he would be pardoned.</p>
+
+<p>Demosthenes sat in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground. At length, as
+Archias continued his appeals, in his most persuasive accents, the
+orator looked up and said,&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Archias, you never moved me by your acting. You will not move me now by
+your promises."</p>
+
+<p>At this Archias lost his temper, and broke into threats.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you speak like a real Macedonian oracle," said Demosthenes, calmly.
+"Before you were acting. Wait a moment, then, till I write to my
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>With these words Demosthenes rose and walked back to the inner part of
+the temple, though he was still visible from the front. Here he took out
+a roll of paper and a quill pen, which he put in his mouth and bit, as
+he was in the habit of doing when composing. Then he threw his head back
+and drew his cloak over it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p><p>The Thracian soldiers, who followed Archias, began to gibe at his
+cowardice on seeing this movement. Archias went in, renewed his
+persuasions, and begged him to rise, as there was no doubt that he would
+be well treated. Demosthenes sat in silence until he felt in his veins
+the working of the poison he had sucked from the pen. Then he drew the
+cloak from his face and looked at Archias with steady eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, "you can play the part of Creon in the tragedy as soon
+as you like, and cast forth my body unburied. But I, O gracious
+Poseidon, quit thy temple while I yet live. Antipater and his
+Macedonians have done what they could to pollute it."</p>
+
+<p>He walked towards the door, calling on those surrounding to support his
+steps, which tottered with weakness. He had just passed the altar of the
+god, when, with a groan, he fell, and died in the presence of his foes.</p>
+
+<p>So died, when sixty-two years of age, the greatest orator, and one of
+the greatest patriots and statesmen, of ancient times,&mdash;a man whose fame
+as an orator is as great as that of Homer as a poet, while in foresight,
+judgment, and political skill he had not his equal in the Greece of his
+day. Had Athens possessed any of its old vitality he would certainly
+have awakened it to a new career of glory. As it was, even one as great
+as he was unable to give new life to that corpse of a nation which his
+country had become.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE OLYMPIC GAMES.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> recent activity of athletic sports in this country is in a large
+sense a regrowth from the ancient devotion to out-door exercises. In
+this direction Greece, as also in its republican institutions, served as
+a model for the United States. The close relations between the athletics
+of ancient and modern times was gracefully called to attention by the
+reproduction of the Olympic Games at Athens in 1896, for which purpose
+the long abandoned and ruined Stadion, or foot-race course, of that city
+was restored, and races and other athletic events were conducted on the
+ground made classic by the Athenian athletes, and within a marble-seated
+amphitheatre in which the plaudits of Athens in its days of glory might
+in fancy still be heard.</p>
+
+<p>These modern games, however, differ in character from those of the past,
+and are attended with none of the deeply religious sentiment which
+attached to the latter. The games of ancient Greece were national in
+character, were looked upon as occasions of the highest importance, and
+were invested with a solemnity largely due to their ancient institution
+and long-continued observance. Their purpose was not alone friendly
+rivalry, as in modern times, but was largely that of preparation for
+war, bodily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>activity and endurance being highly essential in the hand
+to hand conflicts of the ancient world. They were designed to cultivate
+courage and create a martial spirit, to promote contempt for pain and
+fearlessness in danger, to develop patriotism and public spirit, and in
+every way to prepare the contestants for the wars which were, unhappily,
+far too common in ancient Greece.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image15.jpg" width="600" height="370" alt="THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES IN THE STADIUM." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES IN THE STADIUM.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Each city had its costly edifices devoted to this purpose. The Stadion
+at Athens, within whose restored walls the modern games took place, was
+about six hundred and fifty feet long and one hundred and twenty-five
+wide, the race-course itself being six hundred Greek feet&mdash;a trifle
+shorter than English feet&mdash;in length. Other cities were similarly
+provided, and gymnastic exercises were absolute requirements of the
+youth of Greece,&mdash;particularly so in the case of Sparta, in which city
+athletic exercises formed almost the sole occupation of the male
+population.</p>
+
+<p>But the Olympic Games meant more than this. They were not national, but
+international festivals, at whose celebration gathered multitudes from
+all the countries of Greece, those who desired being free to come to and
+depart from Olympia, however fiercely war might be raging between the
+leading nations of the land. When the Olympic Games began is not known.
+Their origin lay far back in the shadows of time. Several peoples of
+Greece claimed to have instituted such games, but those which in later
+times became famous were held at Olympia, a town of the small country of
+Elis, in the Peloponnesian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> peninsula. Here, in the fertile valley of
+the Alpheus, shut in by the Messenian hills and by Mount Cronion, was
+erected the ancient Stadion, and in its vicinity stood a great
+gymnasium, a pal&aelig;stra (for wrestling and boxing exercises), a hippodrome
+(for the later chariot races), a council hall, and several temples,
+notably that of the Olympian Zeus, where the victors received the olive
+wreaths which were the highly valued prizes for the contests.</p>
+
+<p>This temple held the famous colossal statue of Zeus, the noblest
+production of Greek art, and looked upon as one of the wonders of the
+world. It was the work of Phidias, the greatest of Grecian sculptors,
+and was a seated statue of gold and ivory, over forty feet in height.
+The throne of the king of the gods was mostly of ebony and ivory, inlaid
+with precious stones, and richly sculptured in relief. In the figure,
+the flesh was of ivory, the drapery of gold richly adorned with flowers
+and figures in enamel. The right hand of the god held aloft a figure of
+victory, the left hand rested on a sceptre, on which an eagle was
+perched, while an olive wreath crowned the head. On the countenance
+dwelt a calm and serious majesty which it needed the genius of a Phidias
+to produce, and which the visitors to the temple beheld with awe.</p>
+
+<p>The Olympic festival, whose date of origin, as has been said, is
+unknown, was revived in the year 884 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, and continued until the year
+394 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span>, when it was finally abolished, only to be revived at the city
+of Athens fifteen hundred years later. The games were celebrated after
+the completion of every fourth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> year, this four year period being called
+an "Olympiad," and used as the basis of the chronology of Greece, the
+first Olympiad dating from the revival of the games in 884 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span></p>
+
+<p>These games at first lasted but a single day, but were extended until
+they occupied five days. Of these the first day was devoted to
+sacrifices, the three following days to the contests, and the last day
+to sacrifices, processions, and banquets. For a long period single
+foot-races satisfied the desires of the Eleans and their visitors. Then
+the double foot-race was added. Wrestling and other athletic exercises
+were introduced in the eighth century before Christ. Then followed
+boxing. This was a brutal and dangerous exercise, the combatants' hands
+being bound with heavy leather thongs which were made more rigid by
+pieces of metal. The four-horse chariot-race came later; afterwards the
+pancratium (wrestling and boxing, without the leaded thongs); boys'
+races and wrestling and boxing matches; foot-races in a full suit of
+armor; and in the fifth century, two-horse chariot-races. Nero, in the
+year 68 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span>, introduced musical contests, and the games were finally
+abolished by Theodosius, the Christian emperor, in the year 394 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span></p>
+
+<p>Olympia was not a city or town. It was simply a plain in the district of
+Pisatis. But it was so surrounded with magnificent temples and other
+structures, so adorned with statues, and so abundantly provided with the
+edifices necessary to the games, that it in time grew into a locality of
+remarkable architectural beauty and grandeur. Here was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> the sacred grove
+of Altis, where grew the wild olive which furnished the wreaths for the
+victors, a simple olive wreath forming the ordinary prize of victory; in
+the four great games the victor was presented with a palm branch, which
+he carried in his right hand. Near this grove was the Hippodrome, where
+the chariot-races took place. The great Stadion stood outside the temple
+enclosure, where lay the most advantageous stretch of ground.</p>
+
+<p>The training required for participants in these sacred games was severe.
+No one was allowed to take part unless he had trained in the gymnasium
+for ten months in advance. No criminal, nor person with any blood
+impurity, could compete, a mere pimple on the body being sufficient to
+rule a man out. In short, only perfect and completely trained specimens
+of manhood were admitted to the lists, while the fathers and relatives
+of a contestant were required to swear that they would use no artifice
+or unfair means to aid their relative to a victory. The greatest care
+was also taken to select judges whose character was above even the
+possibility of bribery.</p>
+
+<p>Women were not permitted to appear at the games, and whoever disobeyed
+this law was to be thrown from a rock. On certain occasions, however,
+their presence was permitted, and there were a series of games and races
+in which young girls took part. In time it became the custom to
+diversify the games with dramas, and to exhibit the works of artists,
+while poets recited their latest odes, and other writers read their
+works. Here Herodotus read his famous history to the vast assemblage.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p><p>Victory in these contests was esteemed the highest of honors. When the
+victor was crowned, the heralds loudly proclaimed his name, with those
+of his father and his city or native land. He was also privileged to
+erect a statue in honor of his triumph at a particular place in the
+sacred Altis. This was done by many of the richer victors, while the
+winners in the chariot-races often had not only their own figures, but
+those of their chariots and horses, reproduced in bronze.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the Olympic, Greece possessed other games, which, like
+the former, were of great popularity, and attracted crowds from all
+parts of the country. The principal among these were the Pythian,
+Nemean, and Isthmian games, though there were various others of less
+importance. Of them all, however, the Olympic games were much the oldest
+and most venerated, and in the laws of Solon every Athenian who won an
+Olympic prize was given the large reward of five hundred drachmas, while
+an Isthmian prize brought but one hundred drachmas.</p>
+
+<p>On several occasions the Olympic games became occasions of great
+historical interest. One of these was the ninetieth Olympiad, of 420
+<span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, which took place during the peace between Athens and Sparta,&mdash;in
+the Peloponnesian war Athens having been excluded from the two preceding
+ones. It was supposed that the impoverishment of Athens would prevent
+her from appearing with any splendor at this festival, but that city
+astonished Greece by her ample show of golden ewers, censers, etc., in
+the sacrifice and procession, while in the chariot-races<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> Alcibiades far
+distanced all competitors. One well-equipped chariot and four usually
+satisfied the thirst for display of a rich Greek, but he appeared with
+no less than seven, while his horses were of so superior power that one
+of his chariots won a first, another a second, and another a fourth
+prize, and he had the honor of being twice crowned with olive. In the
+banquet with which he celebrated his triumph he surpassed the richest of
+his competitors by the richness and splendor of the display.</p>
+
+<p>On the occasion of the one hundred and fourth Olympiad, war existing
+between Arcadia and Elis, a combat took place in the sacred ground
+itself, an unholy struggle which dishonored the sanctuary of Panhellenic
+brotherhood, and caused the great temple of Zeus to be turned into a
+fortress against the assailants. During this war the Arcadians plundered
+the treasures of these holy temples, as those of the temple at Delphi
+were plundered at a later date.</p>
+
+<p>Another occasion of interest in the Olympic games occurred in the
+ninety-ninth Olympiad, when Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, sent his
+legation to the sacrifice, dressed in the richest garments, abundantly
+furnished with gold and silver plate, and lodged in splendid tents.
+Several chariots contended for him in the races, while a number of
+trained reciters and chorists were sent to exhibit his poetical
+compositions before those who would listen to them. His chariots were
+magnificent, his horses of the rarest excellence, the delivery of his
+poems eloquently performed; but among those present were many of the
+sufferers by his tyranny, and the display ended in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> the plundering of
+his gold and purple tent, and the disgraceful lack of success of his
+chariots, some of which were overturned and broken to pieces. As for the
+poems, they were received with a ridicule which caused the deepest
+humiliation and shame to their proud composer.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image16.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt="THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS, ATHENS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS, ATHENS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The people of Greece, and particularly those of Athens, did not,
+however, restrict their public enjoyments to athletic exercises.
+Abundant provision for intellectual enjoyment was afforded. They were
+not readers. Books were beyond the reach of the multitude. But the loss
+was largely made up to them by the public recitals of poetry and
+history, the speeches of the great orators, and in particular the
+dramatic performances, which were annually exhibited before all the
+citizens of Athens who chose to attend.</p>
+
+<p>The stage on which these dramas were performed, at first a mere
+platform, then a wooden edifice, became finally a splendid theatre,
+wrought in the sloping side of the Acropolis, and presenting a vast
+semicircle of seats, cut into the solid rock, rising tier above tier,
+and capable of accommodating thirty thousand spectators. At first no
+charge was made for admission, and when, later, the crowd became so
+great that a charge had to be made, every citizen of Athens who desired
+to attend, and could not afford to pay, was presented from the public
+treasury with the price of one of the less desirable seats.</p>
+
+<p>Annually, at the festivals of Dionysus, or Bacchus, and particularly at
+the great Dionysia, held at the of March and beginning of April, great
+tragic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> contests were held, lasting for two days, during which the
+immense theatre was filled with crowds of eager spectators. A play
+seldom lasted more than an hour and a half, but three on the same
+general subject, called a trilogy, were often presented in succession,
+and were frequently followed by a comic piece from the same poet. That
+the actors might be heard by the vast open-air audiences, some means of
+increasing the power of the voice was employed, while masks were worn to
+increase the apparent size of the head, and thick-soled shoes to add to
+the height.</p>
+
+<p>The chorus was a distinctive feature of these dramas,&mdash;tragedies and
+comedies alike. As there were never more than three actors upon the
+stage, the chorus&mdash;twelve to fifteen in number&mdash;represented other
+characters, and often took part in the action of the play, though their
+duty was usually to diversify the movement of the play by hymns and
+dirges, appropriate dances, and the music of flutes. For centuries these
+dramatic representations continued at Athens, and formed the basis of
+those which proved so attractive to Roman audiences, and which in turn
+became the foundation-stones of the modern drama.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>PYRRHUS AND THE ROMANS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Seven</span> years after the death of Alexander, the Macedonian conqueror,
+there was born in Epirus, a country of Greece, a warrior who might have
+rivalled Alexander's fortune and fame had he, like him, fought against
+Persians. But he had the misfortune to fight against Romans, and his
+story became different. He was the greatest general of his time.
+Hannibal has said that he was the greatest of any age. But Rome was not
+Persia, and a Roman army was not to be dealt with like a Persian horde.
+Had Alexander marched west instead of east, he would probably not have
+won the title of "Great."</p>
+
+<p>Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, claimed descent from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles.
+While still an infant a rebellion broke out in Epirus. His father was
+absent, and the rebel chiefs sought to kill him, but he was hurried away
+in his nurse's arms, and his life saved. When he was ten years old,
+Glaucius, king of Illyria, who had brought him up among his own
+children, conquered Epirus and placed him on the throne. Seven years
+afterwards rebellion broke out again, and Pyrrhus had once more to fly
+for his life. He now fought in some great battles, married the daughter
+of the king of Egypt, returned with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> army, and again became king of
+Epirus. He afterwards conquered all Macedonia, and, like Alexander the
+Great, whose fame he envied, looked about him for other worlds to
+conquer.</p>
+
+<p>During the years over which our tales have passed a series of foreign
+powers had threatened Greece. First, in the days of legend, it had found
+a foreign enemy in Troy. Next came the great empire of Persia, with
+which it had for centuries to deal. Then rose Macedonia, the first
+conqueror of Greece. Meanwhile, in the west, a new enemy had been slowly
+growing in power and thirst for conquest, that of Rome, before whose
+mighty arm Greece was destined to fall and vanish from view as one of
+the powers of the earth. And the first of the Greeks to come in warlike
+contact with the Romans was Pyrrhus. How this came about, and what arose
+from it, we have now to tell.</p>
+
+<p>Step by step the ambitious Romans had been extending their power over
+Italy. They were now at war with Tarentum, a city of Greek origin on the
+south Italian coast. The Tarentines, being hard pressed by their
+vigorous foes, sent an embassy to Greece, and asked Pyrrhus, then the
+most famous warrior of the Grecian race, to come to their aid against
+their enemy. This was in the year 281 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span></p>
+
+<p>Pyrrhus had been for some years at peace, building himself a new capital
+city, which he profusely adorned with pictures and statues. But peace
+was not to his taste. Consumed by ambition, restless in temperament, and
+anxious to make himself a rival in fame of Alexander the Great, he was
+ready enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> to accept this request, and measure his strength in battle
+against the most warlike nation of the West.</p>
+
+<p>His wise counsellor, Cineas, asked him what he would do next, if he
+should overcome the Romans, who were said to be great warriors and
+conquerors of many peoples.</p>
+
+<p>"The Romans once overcome," he said, proudly, "no city, Greek or
+barbarian, would dare to oppose me, and I should be master of all
+Italy."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Cineas, "if you conquer Italy, what next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Greater victories would follow. There are Libya and Carthage to be
+won."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" asked Cineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I should be able to master all Greece."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" continued the counsellor.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Pyrrhus, "I would live at ease, eat and drink all day, and
+enjoy pleasant conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"And what hinders you from taking your ease now, without all this peril
+and bloodshed?"</p>
+
+<p>Pyrrhus had no answer to this. But thirst for fame drove him on, and the
+days of ease never came.</p>
+
+<p>In the following year Pyrrhus crossed to Italy with an army of about
+twenty-five thousand men, and with a number of elephants, animals which
+the Romans had never seen, and with which he hoped to frighten them from
+the battle-field. He had been promised the aid of all southern Italy,
+and an army of three hundred and fifty thousand infantry and twenty
+thousand cavalry. In this he was destined to disappointment. He found
+the people of Tarentum given up to frivolous pleasure, enjoying their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+theatres and festivals, and expecting that he would do their fighting
+while they spent their time in amusement.</p>
+
+<p>They found, however, that they had gained a master instead of a servant.
+Frivolity was not the idea of war held by Pyrrhus. He at once shut up
+the theatre, the gymnasia, and the public walks, stopped all feasting
+and revelry throughout the city, closed the clubs or brotherhoods, and
+kept the citizens under arms all day. Some of them, in disgust at this
+stern discipline, left the city. Pyrrhus thereupon closed the gates, and
+would let none out without permission. He even went so far as to put to
+death some of the demagogues, and to send others into exile. By these
+means he succeeded in making something like soldiers of the
+pleasure-loving Tarentines.</p>
+
+<p>Thus passed the winter. Meanwhile, the Romans had been as active as
+their enemies. They made the most energetic preparations for war, and
+with the opening of the spring were in the field. Pyrrhus, who had
+failed to receive the great army promised him, did not feel strong
+enough to meet the Roman force. He offered peace and arbitration, but
+his offers were scornfully rejected. He then sent spies to the Roman
+camp. One of these was caught and permitted to observe the whole army on
+parade. He was then sent back to Pyrrhus, with the message that if he
+wanted to see the Roman army he had better come himself in open day,
+instead of sending spies by night.</p>
+
+<p>The two armies met at length on the banks of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> river Siris, where
+Rome fought its first great battle with a foreign foe. The Romans were
+the stronger, but the Greeks had the advantage in arms and discipline.
+The conflict that followed was very different from the one fought by
+Alexander at Issus. So courageous and unyielding were the contestants
+that each army seven times drove back its foes.</p>
+
+<p>"Beware," said an officer to Pyrrhus, as he charged at the head of his
+cavalry, "of that barbarian on the black horse with white feet. He has
+marked you for his prey."</p>
+
+<p>"What is fated no man can avoid," said the king, heroically. "But
+neither this man nor the stoutest soldier in Italy shall encounter me
+for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>At that instant the Italian rode at him with levelled lance and killed
+his horse. But his own was killed at the same instant, and while Pyrrhus
+was remounting his daring foe was surrounded and slain.</p>
+
+<p>On this field, for the first time, the Greek spear encountered the Roman
+sword. The Macedonian phalanx with its long pikes was met by the Roman
+legion with its heavy blades. The pike of the phalanx had hitherto
+conquered the world. The sword of the legion was hereafter to take its
+place. But now neither seemed able to overcome the other. In vain the
+Romans sought to hew a way with their swords through the forest of
+pikes, and as a last resort the Roman general brought up a chosen body
+of cavalry, which he had held in reserve. These came on in fierce
+charge, but Pyrrhus met them with a more formidable reserve,&mdash;his
+elephants.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p><p>On beholding these strange monsters, terrible alike to horse and rider,
+the Roman cavalry fell back in confusion. The horses could not be
+brought to face their huge opponents. Their disorder broke the ranks of
+the infantry. Pyrrhus charged them with his Thessalian cavalry, and the
+Roman army was soon in total rout, leaving its camp to the mercy of its
+foes.</p>
+
+<p>During the battle Pyrrhus, knowing that the safety of his army depended
+on his own life, exchanged his arms, helmet, and scarlet cloak for the
+armor of Megacles, one of his officers. The borrowed splendor proved
+fatal to Megacles. The Romans made him their mark. Every one struck at
+him. He was at last struck down and slain, and his helmet and cloak were
+carried to Lavinus, the Roman commander, who had them borne in triumph
+along his ranks. Pyrrhus, fearing that this mistake might prove fatal,
+at once threw off his helmet and rode bareheaded along his own line, to
+let his soldiers see that he was still alive, and that a scarlet cloak
+was not a king.</p>
+
+<p>The battle over, Pyrrhus surveyed the field, strewn thickly with the
+dead of both armies, his valiant soul moved to a new respect for his
+foes.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had such soldiers," he cried, "I could conquer the world." Then,
+noting the numbers of his own dead, he added, "Another such victory,
+and I must return to Epirus alone."</p>
+
+<p>He sent Cineas, his wise counsellor, to Rome to offer terms of peace.
+Nearly four thousand of his army had fallen, and these largely Greeks;
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> weather was unfavorable for an advance; alliance with these brave
+foes might be wiser than war. Many of the Romans, too, thought the same;
+but while they were debating in the Forum there was borne into this
+building the famous censor Appius Claudius, once a leader in Rome, now
+totally blind and in extreme old age. His advent was like that of blind
+Timoleon to the Syracusan senate. The senators listened in deepest
+silence when the old man rose to speak. What he said we do not know, but
+his voice was for war, and the senate, moved by his impassioned appeal,
+voted that there should be no peace with Pyrrhus while he remained in
+Italy, and ordered Cineas to leave Rome, with this ultimatum, that very
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Peace refused, Pyrrhus advanced against Rome. He marched through a
+territory which for years had been free from the ravages of war, and was
+in a state of flourishing prosperity. It was plundered by his soldiers
+without mercy. On he came until Rome itself lay visible to his eyes from
+an elevation but eighteen miles away. Another day's march would have
+brought him to its walls. But a strong Roman army was in his front;
+another army hung upon his rear; his own army was weakened by
+dissensions between the Greeks and Italians; he deemed it prudent to
+retreat with the plunder he had gained.</p>
+
+<p>Another winter passed. Pyrrhus had many prisoners, whom he would not
+exchange or ransom unless the Romans would accept peace. But he treated
+them well, and even allowed them to return to Rome to enjoy the winter
+holiday of the Saturnalia, on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> their solemn promise that they would
+return if peace was still refused. The senate was still firm for war,
+and the prisoners returned after the holidays, the sturdy Romans having
+passed an edict that any prisoner who should linger in Rome after the
+day fixed for the return should suffer death.</p>
+
+<p>In the following spring another battle was fought near Asculum, on the
+plains of Apulia. Once more the Roman sword was pitted against the
+Macedonian pike. The nature of the ground was such that the Romans were
+forced to attack their enemy in front, and they hewed in vain with their
+swords upon the wall of pikes, which they even grasped with their hands
+and tried to break. The Greeks kept their line intact, and the Romans
+were slaughtered without giving a wound in return. At length they gave
+way. Then the elephants charged, and the repulse became a rout. But this
+time the Romans fled only to their camp, which was close at hand. They
+had lost six thousand men. Pyrrhus had lost three thousand five hundred
+of his light-armed troops. The heavy-armed infantry was almost unharmed.</p>
+
+<p>Here was another battle that proved almost as bad as a defeat. Pyrrhus
+had lost many of the men he had brought from Epirus. He was not in
+condition to take the field again, and no more soldiers could just then
+be had from Greece. The Romans were now willing to make a truce, and
+Pyrrhus crossed soon after to Sicily, to aid the Greeks of that island
+against their Carthaginian foes, He remained there two years, fighting
+with varied success and defeat. Then he returned to Tarentum, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
+again needed his aid against its persistent Roman enemies.</p>
+
+<p>On his way there Pyrrhus passed through Locri. Here was a famous temple
+of Proserpine, in whose vaults was a large treasure, which had been
+buried for an unknown period, and on which no mortal eye was permitted
+to gaze. Pyrrhus took bad advice and plundered the temple of the sacred
+treasure, placing it on board his ships. A storm arose and wrecked the
+ships, and the stolen treasure was cast back on the Locrian coast.
+Pyrrhus now ordered it to be restored, and offered sacrifices to appease
+the offended goddess. She gave no signs of accepting them. He then put
+to death the three men who had advised the sacrilege, but his mind
+continued haunted with dread of divine vengeance. Proserpine, who was
+seemingly deeply offended, might bring upon him ruin and defeat, and the
+hearts of his soldiers were weakened by dread of impending evils.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Pyrrhus met the Romans in the field, but no longer with
+success. One of his elephants was wounded, and ran wildly into his
+ranks, throwing them into disorder. Eight of these animals were driven
+into ground from which there was no escape. They were captured by the
+Romans. As the battle continued one wing of the Roman army was repulsed;
+but they assailed the elephants with such a shower of light weapons that
+these huge brutes turned and fled through the ranks of the phalanx,
+throwing it into disorder. On their heels came the Romans. The Greek
+line once broken, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> swords of the Romans gave them a great advantage
+over the long spears of the enemy. Cut down in numbers, the Greeks were
+thrown into confusion, and were soon flying in panic, hotly pursued by
+their foes. How many were slain is not known, but the defeat was
+decisive. Retreating to Tarentum, Pyrrhus resolved to leave Italy,
+disgusted with his failure and with the supineness of his allies, and
+disappointed in his ambitious hopes. He reached Epirus again with little
+more than eight thousand troops, and without money enough to maintain
+even these. Thus ended the first meeting of Greeks and Romans in war.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the story of Pyrrhus may be soon told. He had counted
+on living in ease after his wars, but ease was not for him. His
+remaining life was spent in war. He invaded and conquered Macedonia. He
+engaged in war against the Spartans, and was repulsed from their capital
+city. At last, in his attack on Argos, while forcing his way through its
+streets, he fell by a woman's hand. A tile was cast from a house on his
+head, which hurled him stunned from his horse, and he was killed in the
+street. Thus ignobly perished the greatest general of his age.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>PHILOP&#338;MEN AND THE FALL OF SPARTA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> history of Greece may well seem remarkable to modern readers, since
+it brings us in contact with conditions which have ceased to exist
+anywhere upon the earth. To gain some idea of its character, we should
+have to imagine each of the counties of one of our American States to be
+an independent nation, with its separate government, finances, and
+history, its treaties of peace and declarations of war, and its frequent
+fierce conflicts with some neighboring county. Each of these counties
+would have its central city, surrounded by high walls, and its citizens
+ready at any moment to take arms against some other city and march to
+battle against foes of their own race and blood. In some cases a single
+county would have three or four cities, each hostile to the others, like
+the cities of Thebes, Plat&aelig;a, Thespi&aelig;, and Orchomenos, in B&#339;otia;
+standing ready, like fierce dogs each in its separate kennel, to fall
+upon one another with teeth and claws. It may further be said that of
+the population of these counties five out of every six were slaves, and
+that these slaves were white men, most of them of Greek descent. The
+general custom in those days was either to slay prisoners in cold blood,
+or sell them to spend the remainder of their lives in slavery.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p><p>This state of affairs was not confined to Greece. It existed in Italy
+until Rome conquered all its small neighbor states. It existed in Asia
+until the great Babylonian and Persian empires conquered all the smaller
+communities. It was the first form of a civilized nation, that of a city
+surrounded by enough farming territory to supply its citizens with food,
+each city ready to break into war with any other, and each race of
+people viewing all beyond its borders as strangers and barbarians, to be
+dealt with almost as if they were beasts of prey instead of men and
+brothers.</p>
+
+<p>The cities of Greece were not only thus isolated, but each had its
+separate manners, customs, government, and grade of civilization. Athens
+was famous for its intellectual cultivation; Thebes had a reputation for
+the heavy-headed dulness of its people; Sparta was a rigid war school,
+and so on with others. In short, the world has gone so far beyond the
+political and social conditions of that period that it is by no means
+easy for us to comprehend the Grecian state.</p>
+
+<p>Among those cities Sparta stood in one sense alone. While the others
+were enclosed in strong walls, Sparta remained open and free,&mdash;its only
+wall being the valorous hearts and strong arms of its inhabitants. While
+other cities were from time to time captured and occasionally destroyed,
+no foeman had set foot within Sparta's streets. Not until the days of
+Epaminondas was Laconia invaded by a powerful foe; and even then Sparta
+remained free from the foeman's tread. Neither Philip of Macedon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> nor
+his son Alexander, entered this proud city, and it was not until the
+troublous later times that the people of Sparta, feeling that their
+ancient warlike virtue was gone, built around their city a wall of
+defence.</p>
+
+<p>But the humiliation of that proud city was at hand. It was to be entered
+by a foeman; the laws of Lycurgus, under which it had risen to such
+might, were to come to an end; and lordly Sparta was to sink into
+insignificance, and its glory remain but a memory to man.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 252 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> was born Philop&#339;men, the last of the great
+generals of Greece. He was the son of Craugis, a citizen of Megalopolis,
+the great city which Epaminondas had built in Arcadia. Here he was
+thoroughly educated in philosophy and the other learning of the time;
+but his natural inclination was towards the life of a soldier, and he
+made a thorough study of the use of arms and the management of horses,
+while sedulously seeking the full development of his bodily powers.
+Epaminondas was the example he set himself, and he came little behind
+that great warrior in activity, sagacity, and integrity, though he
+differed from him in being possessed of a hot, contentious temper, which
+often carried him beyond the bounds of judgment.</p>
+
+<p>Philop&#339;men was marked by plain manners and a genial disposition, in
+proof of which Plutarch tells an amusing story. In his later years, when
+he was general of a great Grecian confederation, word was brought to a
+lady of Megara that Philop&#339;men was coming to her house to await the
+return of her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>husband, who was absent. The good lady, all in a tremor,
+set herself hurriedly to prepare a supper worthy of her guest. While she
+was thus engaged a man entered dressed in a shabby cloak, and with no
+mark of distinction. Taking him for one of the general's train who had
+been sent on in advance, the housewife called on him to help her prepare
+for his master's visit. Nothing loath, the visitor threw off his cloak,
+seized the axe she offered him, and fell lustily to work in cutting up
+fire-wood.</p>
+
+<p>While he was thus engaged, the husband returned, and at once recognized
+in his wife's lackey the expected visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"What does this mean, Philop&#339;men?" he cried, in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," replied the general, "except that I am paying the penalty of
+my ugly looks."</p>
+
+<p>Philop&#339;men had abundant practice in the art of war. Between Arcadia
+and Laconia hostility was the normal condition, and he took part in many
+plundering incursions into the neighboring state. In these he always
+went in first and came out last. When there was no fighting to be done
+he would go every evening to an estate he owned several miles from town,
+would throw himself on the first mattress in his way and sleep like a
+common laborer, and rising at break of day would go to work in the
+vineyard or at the plough. Then returning to the town, he would employ
+himself in public business or in friendly intercourse during the
+remainder of the day.</p>
+
+<p>When Philop&#339;men was thirty years old, Cleomenes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> the Spartan king,
+one night attacked Megalopolis, forced the guards, broke in, and seized
+the market-place. The citizens sprang to arms, Philop&#339;men at their
+head, and a desperate conflict ensued in the streets. But their efforts
+were in vain, the enemy held their ground. Then Philop&#339;men set
+himself to aid the escape of the citizens, making head against the foe
+while his fellow-townsmen left the city. At last, after losing his horse
+and receiving several wounds, he fought his way out through the gate,
+being the last man to retreat. Cleomenes, finding that the citizens
+would not listen to his fair offers for their return, and tired of
+guarding empty houses, left the place after pillaging it and destroying
+all he readily could.</p>
+
+<p>The next year Philop&#339;men took part in a battle between King Antigonus
+of Macedonia and the Spartans, in which the victory was due to his
+charging the enemy at the head of the cavalry against the king's orders.</p>
+
+<p>"How came it," asked the king after the battle, "that the horse charged
+without waiting for the signal?"</p>
+
+<p>"We were forced into it against our wills by a young man of
+Megalopolis," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"That young man," said Antigonus, with a smile, "acted like an
+experienced commander."</p>
+
+<p>During this battle a javelin, flung by a strong hand, passed through
+both his thighs, the head coming out on the other side. "There he stood
+awhile," says Plutarch, "as if he had been shackled, unable to move. The
+fastening which joined the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> thong to the javelin made it difficult to
+get it drawn out, nor would any one about him venture to do it. But the
+fight being now at its hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he was
+transported with the desire of partaking in it, and struggled and
+strained so violently, setting one leg forward, the other back, that at
+last he broke the shaft in two; and thus got the pieces pulled out.
+Being in this manner set at liberty, he caught up his sword, and running
+through the midst of those who were fighting in the first ranks,
+animated his men, and set them afire with emulation."</p>
+
+<p>As may be imagined, a man of such indomitable courage could not fail to
+make his mark. Antigonus wished to engage him in his service, but
+Philop&#339;men refused, as he knew his temper would not let him serve
+under others. His thirst for war took him to Crete, where he brought the
+cavalry of that island to a state of perfection never before known in
+Greece.</p>
+
+<p>And now a new step in political progress took place in the Peloponnesus.
+The cities of Ach&aelig;a joined into a league for common aid and defence.
+Other cities joined them, until it was hoped that all Peloponnesus would
+be induced to combine into one commonwealth. There had been leagues
+before in Greece, but they had all been dominated by some one powerful
+city. The Ach&aelig;an League was the first that was truly a federal republic
+in organization, each city being an equal member of the confederacy.</p>
+
+<p>Philop&#339;men, whose name had grown to stand highest among the soldiers
+of Greece, was chosen as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> general of the cavalry, and at once set
+himself to reform its discipline and improve its tactics. By his example
+he roused a strong warlike fervor among the people, inducing them to
+give up all display and exercise but those needed in war. "Nothing then
+was to be seen in the shops but plate breaking up or melting down,
+gilding of breastplates, and studding buckles and bits with silver;
+nothing in the places of exercise but horses managing and young men
+exercising their arms; nothing in the hands of the women but helmets and
+crests of feathers to be dyed, and the military cloaks and riding frocks
+to be embroidered.... Their arms becoming light and easy to them with
+constant use, they longed for nothing more than to try them with an
+enemy, and fight in earnest."</p>
+
+<p>Two years afterwards, in 208 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, Philop&#339;men was elected
+<i>strategus</i>, or general in-chief, of the Ach&aelig;an league. The martial
+ardor of the army he had organized was not long left unsatisfied. It was
+with his old enemy, the Spartans, that he was first concerned.
+Machanidas, the Spartan king, having attacked the city of Mantinea,
+Philop&#339;men marched against him, and soon gave him other work to do. A
+part of the Ach&aelig;an army flying, Machanidas hotly pursued. Philop&#339;men
+held back his main body until the enemy had become scattered in pursuit,
+when he charged upon them with such energy that they were repulsed, and
+over four thousand were killed. Machanidas returning in haste, strove to
+cross a deep ditch between him and his foe; but as he was struggling up
+its side, Philop&#339;men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>transfixed him with his javelin, and hurled him
+back dead into the muddy ditch.</p>
+
+<p>This victory greatly enhanced the fame of the Arcadian general. Some
+time afterwards he and a party of his young soldiers entered the theatre
+during the Nemean games, just as the actor was speaking the opening
+words of the play called "The Persians:"</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The whole audience at once turned towards Philop&#339;men, and clapped
+their hands with delight. It seemed to them that in this valiant warrior
+the ancient glory of Greece had returned, and for the time some of the
+old-time spirit came back. But, despite this momentary glow, the sun of
+Grecian freedom and glory was near its setting. A more dangerous enemy
+than Macedonia had arisen. Rome, which Pyrrhus had gone to Italy to
+seek, had its armies now in Greece itself, and the independence of that
+country would soon be no more.</p>
+
+<p>The next exploit of Philop&#339;men had to do with Messenia. Nabis, the
+new Spartan king, had taken that city at a time when Philop&#339;men was
+out of command, the generalship of the League not being permanent. He
+tried to persuade Lysippus, then general of the Ach&aelig;ans, to go to the
+relief of Messenia, but he refused, saying that it was lost beyond hope.
+Thereupon Philop&#339;men set out himself, followed by such of his fellow
+citizens as deemed him their general by nature's commission. The very
+wind of his coming won the town. Nabis, hearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> that Philop&#339;men was
+near at hand, slipped hastily out of the city by the opposite gates,
+glad to get away in safety. He escaped, but Messenia was recovered. The
+martial spirit of Philop&#339;men next took him to Crete, where fighting
+was to be had to his taste. Yet he left his native city of Megalopolis
+so pressed by the enemy that its people were forced to sow grain in
+their very streets. However, he came back at length, met Nabis in the
+field, rescued the army from a dangerous situation, and put the enemy to
+flight. Soon after he made peace with Sparta, and achieved a remarkable
+triumph in inducing that great and famous city to join the Ach&aelig;an
+League. In truth, the nobles of Sparta, glad to have so important an
+ally, sent Philop&#339;men a valuable present. But such was his reputation
+for honor that for a time no man could be found who dared offer it to
+him; and when at length the offer was made he went to Sparta himself,
+and advised its nobles, if they wanted any one to bribe, to let it not
+be good men, but those ill citizens whose seditious voices needed to be
+silenced.</p>
+
+<p>In the end Sparta was destined to suffer at the hands of its
+incorruptible ally, it having revolted from the League. Philop&#339;men
+marched into Laconia, led his army unopposed to Sparta, and took
+possession of that famous seat of Mars, within which no hostile foot had
+hitherto been set. He razed its walls to the ground, put to death those
+who had stirred the city to rebellion, and took away a great part of its
+territory, which he gave to Megalopolis. Those who had been made
+citizens of Sparta by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> tyrants he drove from the country, and three
+thousand who refused to go he sold into slavery; and, as a further
+insult, with the money received from their sale he built a colonnade at
+Megalopolis.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, as a death-blow to Spartan power, he abolished the time-honored
+laws of Lycurgus, under which that city had for centuries been so great,
+and forced the people to educate their children and live in the same
+manner as the Ach&aelig;ans. Thus ended the glory of Sparta. Some time
+afterwards its citizens resumed their old laws and customs, but the city
+had sunk from its high estate, and from that time forward vanished from
+history.</p>
+
+<p>At length, being then seventy years of age, misfortune came to this
+great warrior and ended his warlike career. An enemy of his had induced
+the Messenians to revolt from the Ach&aelig;an League. At once the old
+soldier, though lying sick with a fever at Argos, rose from his bed, and
+reached Megalopolis, fifty miles away, in a day. Putting himself at the
+head of an army, he marched to meet the foe. In the fight that followed
+his force was driven back, and he became separated from his men in his
+efforts to protect the rear. Unluckily his horse stumbled in a stony
+place, and he was thrown to the ground and stunned. The enemy, who were
+following closely, at once made him prisoner, and carried him, with
+insult and contumely, and with loud shouts of triumph, to the city
+gates, through which the very tidings of his coming had once driven a
+triumphant foe.</p>
+
+<p>The Messenians rapidly turned from anger to pity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> for their noble foe,
+and would probably have in the end released him, had time been given
+them. But Dinocrates, their general and his enemy, resolved that
+Philop&#339;men should not escape from his hands. He confined him in a
+close prison, and, learning that his army had returned and were
+determined upon his rescue, decided that that night should be
+Philop&#339;men's last.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner lay&mdash;not sleeping, but oppressed with grief and trouble&mdash;in
+his prison cell, when a man entered bearing poison in a cup.
+Philop&#339;men sat up, and, taking the cup, asked the man if he had heard
+anything of the Ach&aelig;an horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>"The most of them got off safe," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well," said Philop&#339;men, with a cheerful look, "that we have
+not been in every way unfortunate."</p>
+
+<p>Then, without a word more, he drank the poison and lay down again. As he
+was old and weak from his fall, he was quickly dead.</p>
+
+<p>The news of his death filled all Ach&aelig;a with lamentation and thirst for
+revenge. Messenia was ravaged with fire and sword till it submitted.
+Dinocrates and all who had voted for Philop&#339;men's death killed
+themselves to escape death by torture. All Ach&aelig;a mourned at his funeral,
+statues were erected to his memory, and the highest honors decreed to
+him in many cities. In the words of Pausanias, a late Greek writer,
+"Miltiades was the first, and Philop&#339;men the last, benefactor to the
+whole of Greece."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF GREECE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Greece</span> learned too late the art of combining for self-defence. In the
+war against the vast power of Persia, Athens stood almost alone. What
+aid she got from the rest of Greece was given grudgingly. Themistocles
+had to gain the aid of the Grecian fleet at Salamis by a trick. Philip
+of Macedonia conquered Greece by dividing it and fighting it piecemeal.
+Only after the close of the Macedonian power and the beginning of that
+of Rome did Greece begin to learn the art of unity, and then the lesson
+came too late. The Ach&aelig;an League, which combined the nations of the
+Peloponnesus into a federal republic, was in its early days kept busy in
+forcing its members to remain true to their pledge. If it had survived
+for a century it would probably have brought all Greece into the League,
+and have produced a nation capable of self-defence. But Rome already had
+her hand on the throat of Greece, and political wisdom came to that land
+too late to avail.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image17.jpg" width="600" height="449" alt="REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, CORINTH." title="" />
+<span class="caption">REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, CORINTH.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We have come, indeed, to the end of the story of Grecian liberty. Twice
+Greece rose in arms against the power of Rome, but in the end she fell
+hopelessly into the fetters forged for the world by that lord of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>
+conquest. Of the celebrated cities of Greece two had already fallen.
+Thebes had been swept from the face of the earth in the wind of
+Alexander's wrath. Sparta had been reduced to a feeble village by the
+anger of Philop&#339;men. Corinth, now the largest and richest city of
+Greece, was to be razed to the ground for daring to defy Rome; and
+Athens was to be plundered and humiliated by a conquering Roman army.</p>
+
+<p>It will not take long to tell how all this came about. The story is a
+short one, but full of vital consequences. Philop&#339;men, the great
+general of the Ach&aelig;an League, died of poison 183 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> In the same year
+died in exile Hannibal, the greatest foe Rome ever knew, and Scipio, one
+of its ablest generals. Rome was already master of Greece. But the Roman
+senate feared trouble from the growth of the Ach&aelig;an League, and, to
+weaken it, took a thousand of its noblest citizens, under various
+charges, and sent them as hostages to Rome. Among them was the
+celebrated historian Polybius, who wrote the history of Hannibal's wars.</p>
+
+<p>These exiles were not brought to trial on the weak charges made against
+them, but they were detained in Italy for seventeen years. By the end of
+that time many of them had died, and Rome at last did what it was not in
+the habit of doing, it took pity on those who were left and let them
+return home.</p>
+
+<p>Roman pity in this case proved disastrous to Greece. Many of the exiles
+were exasperated by their treatment, and were no sooner at home than
+they began to stir up the people to revolt. Polybius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> held them back for
+a time, but during his absence the spirit of sedition grew. It was
+intensified by the action of Rome, which, to weaken Greece, resolved to
+dissolve the Ach&aelig;an League, or to take from it its strongest cities.
+Roman ambassadors carried this edict to Corinth, the great city of the
+League. When their errand become known the people rose in riot, insulted
+the ambassadors, and vowed that they were not and would not be the
+slaves of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>If they had shown the strength and spirit to sustain their vow they
+might have had some warrant for it. But the fanatics who stirred the
+country to revolt against the advice of its wisest citizens proved
+incapable in war. Their army was finally put to rout in the year 146
+<span class="ampm">B.C.</span> by a Roman army under the leadership of Lucius Mummius, consul of
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>This Roman victory was won in the vicinity of Corinth. The routed army
+did not seek to defend itself in that city, but fled past its open
+gates, and left it to the mercy of the Roman general. The gates still
+stood open. No defence was made. But Mummius, fearing some trick, waited
+a day or two before entering. On doing so he found the city nearly
+deserted. The bulk of the population had fled. The greatest and richest
+city which Greece then possessed had fallen without a blow struck in its
+defence.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Mummius chose to consider it as a city taken by storm. All the men
+who remained were put to the sword; the women and children were kept to
+be sold as slaves; the town was mercilessly plundered of its wealth and
+treasures of art.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p><p>But this degree of vengeance did not satisfy Rome. Her ambassadors had
+been insulted,&mdash;by a mob, it is true; but in those days the law-abiding
+had often to suffer for the deeds of the mob. The Ach&aelig;an League, with
+Corinth at its head, had dared to resist the might and majesty of Rome.
+A lesson must be given that would not be easily forgotten. Corinth must
+be utterly destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the deliberate decision of the Roman senate; such the order
+sent to Mummius. At his command the plundering of the city was
+completed. It was fabulously rich in works of art. Many of these were
+sent to Rome. Many of them were destroyed. The Romans were ignorant of
+their value. Their leader himself was as incompetent and ignorant as any
+Roman general could well be. He had but one thought, to obey the orders
+of the senate. The plundered city was thereupon set on fire and burned
+to the ground, its walls were pulled down, the spot where it had stood
+was cursed, its territory was declared the property of the Roman people.
+No more complete destruction of a city had ever taken place. A century
+afterwards Corinth was rebuilt by order of Julius C&aelig;sar, but it never
+became again the Corinth of old.</p>
+
+<p>As for the destruction of works of priceless value, it was pitiable.
+When Polybius returned and saw the ruins, he found common soldiers
+playing dice on paintings of the most celebrated artists of Greece.
+Mummius, who was as honest as he was dull-witted, strictly obeyed orders
+in sending the choicest of the spoil to Rome, and made himself forever
+famous as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> marvel of stupidity by a remark to those who were charged
+with the conveyance of some of the noblest of Grecian statues.</p>
+
+<p>"Take good care that you do not lose these on the way," he said; "for if
+you do you shall be made to replace them by others of equal value."</p>
+
+<p>Rome could conquer the world, but honest Mummius had set a task which
+Rome throughout its whole history was not able to perform.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended the death-struggle of Greece. The chiefs of the party of
+revolt were put to death; the inhabitants of Corinth who had fled were
+taken and sold as slaves. The walls of all the cities which had resisted
+Rome were levelled to the ground. An annual tribute was laid on them by
+the conquerors. Self-government was left to the states of Greece, but
+they were deprived of their old privilege of making war.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Greece might have flourished under the new conditions, for peace
+heals the wounds made by war, had its states not been too much weakened
+by their previous conflicts, and had not a new war arisen just when they
+were beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of peace.</p>
+
+<p>This war, which broke out sixty years later, had its origin in Asia.
+Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, had made himself master of all
+Asia Minor, where he ordered that all the Romans found should be killed.
+It is said that eighty thousand were slaughtered. Then he sent an army
+into Greece, under his general Archelaus, and there found the people
+ready and willing to join him, in the hope of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> gaining their freedom by
+his aid. Rome just then seemed weak, and they deemed it a good season to
+rebel.</p>
+
+<p>Archelaus took possession of Athens and the Pir&aelig;us, from which all the
+friends of Rome were driven into exile. Meanwhile, Rome was distracted
+by the struggle between the two great leaders Marius and Sulla. But
+leaving Rome to take care of itself, Sulla marched an army against
+Mithridates, entered Greece, and laid siege to Athens.</p>
+
+<p>This was in the year 87 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> The siege that followed was a long one.
+Archelaus lay in Pir&aelig;us, with abundance of food, and had command of the
+sea. But the long walls that led to Athens had long since vanished. Food
+could not be conveyed from the port to the city, as of old. Hunger came
+to the aid of Rome. Resistance having almost ceased, Sulla broke into
+the famous old city March 1, 86 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, and gave it up to rapine and
+pillage by his soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Athens was not destroyed as Corinth had been. Sulla had some respect
+for art and antiquity, and carefully preserved the old monuments of the
+city, while such of its people as had not been massacred were restored
+to their civil rights as subjects of Rome. Soon the Asiatics were driven
+from Greece and Roman dominion was once more restored. Thus ended the
+last struggle for liberty in Greece. Nineteen hundred years were to pass
+away before another blow for freedom would be struck on Grecian soil.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> the most famous of the women of ancient days must be named
+Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the East, and who claimed
+to be descended from the kings whom the conquests of Alexander left over
+Egypt, the Ptolemies, among whose descendants was included the still
+more celebrated Cleopatra. Zenobia was the most lovely as well as the
+most heroic of her sex, no woman of Asiatic birth ever having equalled
+her in striking evidence of valor and ability, and none surpassed her in
+beauty. We are told that while of a dark complexion, her smile revealed
+teeth of pearly whiteness, while her large black eyes sparkled with an
+uncommon brightness that was softened by the most attractive sweetness.
+She possessed a strong and melodious voice, and, in short, had all the
+charms of womanly beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Her mind was as well stored as her body was attractive. She was familiar
+with the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages, and was an adept
+also in Latin, then the political language of the civilized world. She
+was an earnest student of Oriental history, of which she herself drew up
+an epitome, while she was fully conversant with Homer and Plato, and the
+other great writers of Greece.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p><p>This lovely and accomplished woman gave her hand in marriage to
+Odenathus, who from a private station had gained by his valor the empire
+of the East. He made Syria his by courage and ability, and twice pursued
+the Persian king to the gates of Ctesiphon. Of this hero Zenobia became
+the companion and adviser. In hunting, of which he was passionately
+fond, she emulated him, pursuing the lions, panthers, and other wild
+beasts of the desert with an ardor equal to his own, and a fortitude and
+endurance which his did not surpass. Inured to fatigue, she usually
+appeared on horseback in a military habit, and at times marched on foot
+at the head of the troops. Odenathus owed his success largely to the
+prudence and fortitude of his incomparable wife.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of his successes in war, Odenathus was cut off in 250 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span>
+by assassination. He had punished his nephew, who killed him in return.
+Zenobia at once succeeded to the vacant throne, and by her ability
+governed Palmyra, Syria, and the East. In this task, in which no man
+could have surpassed her in courage and judgment, she was aided by the
+counsels of one of the ablest Greeks who had appeared since the days of
+the famous writers of the classical age. Longinus, who had been her
+preceptor in the language and literature of Greece, and who, on her
+ascending the throne, became her secretary and chief counsellor in state
+affairs, was a literary critic and philosopher whose lucid intellect
+seemed to belong to the brightest days of Greece. He was probably a
+native of Syria,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> born some time after 200 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span>, and had studied
+literature and philosophy at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, under the
+ablest teachers of the age. His learning was immense, and he is the
+first man to whom was applied the expression "a living library," or, to
+give it its modern form, "a walking encyclop&aelig;dia." His writings were
+lively and penetrating, showing at once taste, judgment, and learning.
+We have only fragments of them, except the celebrated "Treatise on the
+Sublime," which is one of the most notable of ancient critical
+productions.</p>
+
+<p>Under the advice of this distinguished counsellor, Zenobia entered upon
+a career which brought her disaster, but has also brought her fame. Her
+husband Odenathus had avenged Valerian, the Roman emperor, who had been
+taken prisoner and shamefully treated by the Persian king. For this
+service he was confirmed in his authority by the senate of Rome. But
+after his death the senate refused to grant this authority to his widow,
+and called on her to deliver her dominion over to Rome. Under the advice
+of Longinus the martial queen refused, defied the power of Rome, and
+determined to maintain her empire in despite of the senate and army of
+the proud "master of the world."</p>
+
+<p>War at once broke out. A Roman army invaded Syria, but was met by
+Zenobia with such warlike energy and skill that it was hurled back in
+defeat, and its commanding general, having lost his army, was driven
+back to Europe in disgrace. This success gave Zenobia the highest fame
+and power in the world of the Orient. The states of Arabia, Armenia,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+and Persia, in dread of her enmity, solicited alliance with her. To her
+dominions, which extended from the Euphrates over much of Asia Minor and
+to the borders of Arabia, she added the populous kingdom of Egypt, the
+inheritance of her claimed ancestors. The Roman emperor Claudius
+acknowledged her authority and left her unmolested. Assuming the
+splendid title of Queen of the East, she established at her court the
+stately power of the courts of Asia, exacted from her subjects the
+adoration shown to the Persian king, and, while strict in her economy,
+at times displayed the greatest liberality and magnificence.</p>
+
+<p>But a new emperor came to the throne in Rome, and a new period in the
+history of Zenobia began. Aurelian, a fierce and vigorous soldier,
+marched at the head of the Roman legions against this valiant queen, who
+had built herself up an empire of great extent, and demanded that she
+should submit to the power of his arms. Asia Minor was quickly restored
+to Rome, Antioch fell into the hands of Aurelian, and the Romans still
+advanced, to meet the army of the Syrian queen. Meeting near Antioch, a
+great battle was fought. Zabdas, who had conquered Egypt for Zenobia,
+led her army, but the valiant queen animated her soldiers by her
+presence, and exhorted them to the utmost exertions. Her troops, great
+in number, were mainly composed of light-armed archers and of cavalry
+clothed in complete steel. These Asiatic warriors proved incapable of
+enduring the charge of the veteran legions of Rome. The army of Zenobia
+met with defeat, and at a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>subsequent battle, near Emesa, met with a
+second disastrous repulse.</p>
+
+<p>Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. Most of the nations
+under her control had submitted to the conqueror. Egypt was invaded by a
+Roman army. Out of her lately great empire only her capital, Palmyra,
+remained. Here she retired, made preparations for a vigorous defence,
+and declared that her reign and life should only end together.</p>
+
+<p>Palmyra was then one of the most splendid cities of the world. A
+halting-place for the caravans which conveyed to Europe the rich
+products of India and the East, it had grown into a great and opulent
+city, whose former magnificence is shown by the ruins of temples,
+palaces, and porticos of Grecian architecture, which now extend over a
+district of several miles. In this city, surrounded with strong walls,
+Zenobia had gathered the various military engines which in those days
+were used in siege and defence, and, woman though she was, was prepared
+to make the most vigorous resistance to the armies of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Aurelian had before him no light task. In his march over the desert the
+Arabs harassed him perpetually. The siege proved difficult, and the
+emperor, leading the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart.
+Aurelian, finding that he had undertaken no trifling task, prudently
+offered excellent terms to the besieged, but they were rejected with
+insulting language. Zenobia hoped that famine would come to her aid to
+defeat her foe, and had reason to expect that Persia would send an army
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> her relief. Neither happened. The Persian king had just died.
+Convoys of food crossed the desert in safety. Despairing at length of
+success, Zenobia mounted her fleetest dromedary and fled across the
+desert to the Euphrates. Here she was overtaken and brought back a
+captive to the emperor's feet.</p>
+
+<p>Soon afterwards Palmyra surrendered. The emperor treated it with lenity,
+but a great treasure in gold, silver, silk, and precious stones fell
+into his hands, with all the animals and arms. Zenobia being brought
+into his presence, he sternly asked her how she had dared to take arms
+against the emperors of Rome. She answered, with respectful prudence,
+"Because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a
+Gallienus. You alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign."</p>
+
+<p>Her fortitude, however, did not last. The soldiers, with angry clamor,
+demanded her immediate execution, and the unhappy queen, losing for the
+first time the courage which had so long sustained her, gave way to
+terror, and declared that her resistance was not due to herself, but had
+arisen from the counsels of Longinus and her other advisers. It was the
+one base act in the woman's life. She had purchased a brief period of
+existence at the expense of honor and fame. Aurelian, a fierce soldier,
+to whom the learning of Longinus made no appeal, at once ordered his
+execution. The scholar died like a philosopher. He uttered no complaint.
+He pitied, but did not blame, his mistress. He comforted his afflicted
+friends. With the calm fortitude of Socrates he followed the
+executioner, and died like one for whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> death had no terrors. The
+ignorant emperor, in seizing the treasures of Palmyra, did not know that
+he had lost its choicest treasure in setting free the soul of Longinus
+the scholar.</p>
+
+<p>What followed may be more briefly told. Marching back with his spoils
+from Palmyra, Aurelian had already reached Europe when word came to him
+that the Palmyrians whom he had spared had risen in revolt and massacred
+his garrison. Instantly turning, he marched back, his soul filled with
+thirst for revenge. Reaching Palmyra with great celerity, his wrath fell
+with murderous fury on that devoted city. Not only armed rebels, but
+women and children, were massacred, and the city was almost levelled
+with the earth. The greatness of Palmyra was at an end. It never
+recovered from this dreadful blow. It sunk, step by step, into the
+miserable village, in the midst of stately ruins, into which it has now
+declined.</p>
+
+<p>On his return Aurelian celebrated his victories and conquests with a
+magnificent triumph, one of the most ostentatious that any Roman emperor
+had ever given. His conquests had been great, both in the West and the
+East, and no emperor had better deserved a triumphant return to the
+imperial city, the mistress of the world.</p>
+
+<p>All day long, from morning to night, the grand procession wound on. At
+its head were twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and about two hundred
+of the most curious and interesting animals of the North, South, and
+East. Sixteen hundred gladiators followed, destined for the cruel sports
+to be held in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> the amphitheatre. Then came a display of the wealth of
+Palmyra, the magnificent plate and wardrobe of Zenobia, the arms and
+ensigns of numerous conquered nations. Embassadors from the most remote
+regions of the civilized earth,&mdash;from Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, India,
+and China,&mdash;attired in rich and singular dresses, attested the fame of
+the Roman emperor, while his power was shown by the many presents he had
+received, among them a great number of crowns of gold, which had been
+given him by grateful cities.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image18.jpg" width="600" height="413" alt="THE RUINS OF PALMYRA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE RUINS OF PALMYRA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>A long train of captives next declared his triumph, among them Goths,
+Vandals, Franks, Gauls, Germans, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each people was
+distinguished by its peculiar inscription, the title of Amazons being
+given to ten Gothic heroines who had been taken in arms. But in this
+great crowd of unhappy captives one above all attracted the attention of
+the host of spectators, the beauteous figure of the Queen of the East.
+Zenobia was so laden with jewels as almost to faint under their weight.
+Her limbs bore fetters of gold, while the golden chain that encircled
+her neck was of such weight that it had to be supported by a slave. She
+walked along the streets of Rome, preceding the magnificent chariot in
+which she had indulged hopes of riding in triumph through those grand
+avenues. Behind it came two other chariots, still more sumptuous, those
+of Odenathus and the Persian monarch. The triumphal car of Aurelian,
+which followed, was one which had formerly been used by a Gothic king,
+and was drawn by four stags or four elephants, we are not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> sure which.
+The most illustrious of the senate, the people, and the army closed this
+grand procession, which was gazed upon with joy and wonder by the vast
+population of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>So extended was the pompous parade that though it began with the dawn of
+day, the ninth hour had arrived when it ascended to the Capitol, and
+night had fallen when the emperor returned to his palace. Then followed
+theatrical representations, games in the circus, gladiatorial combats,
+wild-beast shows, and naval engagements. Not for generations had Rome
+seen such a festival. Of the rich spoils a considerable portion was
+dedicated to the gods of Rome, the temples glittered with golden
+offerings, and the Temple of the Sun, a magnificent structure erected by
+Aurelian, was enriched with more than fifteen thousand pounds of gold.</p>
+
+<p>To Zenobia the victor behaved with a generous clemency such as the
+conquering emperors of Rome rarely indulged in. He presented her with an
+elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the imperial
+city; and here, surrounded by luxury, she who had played so imperial a
+<i>r&ocirc;le</i> in history sank into the humbler state of a Roman matron. Her
+daughters married into noble families, and the descendants of the once
+Queen of the East were still known in Rome in the fifth century of the
+Christian era.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE LITERARY GLORY OF GREECE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Shall</span> we now leave the domain of historic events, of which the land of
+Greece presents so large and varied a store, and consider that other
+feature of national life and development which has made Greece the most
+notable of lands&mdash;the intellectual growth of its people, the splendor of
+art and literature which gave it a glory that glows unfading still?</p>
+
+<p>In the whole history of mankind there is nothing elsewhere to compare
+with the achievements of the Greek intellect during the few centuries in
+which freedom and thought flourished on that rocky peninsula, and the
+names and works handed down to us are among the noblest in the grand
+republic of thought. Just when this remarkable era of literature began
+we do not know. So far as any remains of it are concerned, it began as
+the sun begins its daily career in the heavens, with a lustre not
+surpassed in any part of its course. For the oldest of Greek writings
+which we possess are among the most brilliant, comprising the poems of
+Homer, the model of all later works in the epic field, and which light
+up and illustrate a broad period of human history as no works in
+different vein could do. They shine out in a realm of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> darkness, and
+show us what men were doing and thinking and how they were living and
+striving at a time which but for them would be buried in impenetrable
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>This was the epoch of the wandering minstrel, when the bard sang his
+stirring lays of warlike scenes and heroic deeds in castle and court.
+But the mind of Greece was then awakening in other fields, and it is of
+great interest to find that Homer was quickly followed by an epic writer
+of markedly different vein, Hesiod, the poet of peace and rural labors,
+of the home and the field. While Homer paints for us the warlike life of
+his day, Hesiod paints the peaceful labors of the husbandman, the
+holiness of domestic life, the duty of economy, the education of youth,
+and the details of commerce and politics. He also collects the flying
+threads of mythological legend and lays down for us the story of the
+gods in a work of great value as the earliest exposition of this
+picturesque phase of religious belief. The veil is lifted from the face
+of youthful Greece by these two famous writers, and we are shown the
+land and its people in full detail at a period of whose conditions we
+otherwise would be in total ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the earliest phase of Greek literature, so far as any remains
+of it exist. It took on a different form when Athens rose to political
+supremacy and became a capital of art and the chief centre of Hellenic
+thought, its productions being received with admiration throughout
+Greece, while the ripened judgment and taste of its citizens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> became the
+arbiters of literary excellence for many centuries to follow. The
+earliest notable literature, however, came from the Ionians of Asia
+Minor and the adjacent islands. In the soft and mild climate and
+productive valleys of this region and under the warm suns and beside the
+limpid seas of the smiling islands, the mobile Ionic spirit found
+inspiration and blossomed into song while yet the rocky Attic soil was
+barren of literary growth. But with the conquering inroads of the
+Persians literature fled from this field to find a new home among "those
+busy Athenians, who are never at rest themselves nor are willing to let
+any one else be."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image19.jpg" width="600" height="364" alt="ALONG THE COAST OF GREECE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ALONG THE COAST OF GREECE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The day of the epic poet had now passed and the lyric took its place,
+making its first appearance, like the epic, in Ionia and the &AElig;gean
+islands, but finding its most appreciative audience and enthusiastic
+support in Athens, the coming home of the muse. Song became the
+prevailing literary demand, and was supplied abundantly by such choice
+singers as Sappho, Alc&aelig;us, Anacreon, Simonides, and others of the soft
+and cheerful vein, the biting satires of Archilochus, the noble odes of
+Pindar, the war anthems of Tyrt&aelig;us, and the productions of many of
+lesser fame.</p>
+
+<p>This flourishing period of song sank away when a new form of literature,
+that of the drama, suddenly came into being and attained immediate
+popularity. For a century earlier it had been slowly taking form in the
+rural districts of Attica, beginning in the odes addressed to Dionysus,
+the god of wine, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> Bacchus of Roman mythology. These odes were sung
+at the public festivals of the vintage season, were accompanied by
+gesture and action and in time by dialogue, and the day came when groups
+of amateur actors travelled in carts from place to place to present
+their rude dramatic scenes, then mainly composed of song and dance, rude
+jests, and dialogues. In this way the drama slowly came into being,
+comedy from the jovial by-play of the rustic actors, tragedy from their
+crude efforts to reproduce the serious side of mythologic story. A great
+tragic artist and poet, the far-famed &AElig;schylus, lifted these primitive
+attempts into the field of the true drama. He was quickly followed by
+two other great artists in the same field, Sophocles and Euripides,
+while the efforts of the earlier comedians were succeeded by the
+fun-distilling productions of Aristophanes, the greatest of ancient
+artists in this field.</p>
+
+<p>This blossoming age of poetry and the drama came after the desperate
+struggles of the Persian War, which had left Athens a heap of ruins. In
+the new Athens which rose under the fostering care of Pericles, not only
+literature flourished but art reached its culmination, temple and hall,
+colonnade and theatre showing the artistic beauty and grandeur of the
+new architecture, while such sculptors as Phidias and such painters as
+Zeuxis adorned the city with the noblest products of art. During these
+busy years Athens became a marvel of beauty and art, the resort of
+strangers from all quarters, the ablest workers in marble and metal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>
+the noblest artists, poets, and philosophers, until for more than a
+century that city was the recognized centre of the loftiest products of
+the human intellect.</p>
+
+<p>Prose came later than poetry, but was soon flourishing as luxuriantly.
+The early historians quickly yielded Herodotus, the delightful old
+storyteller, with his poetic prose; Xenophon, with his lucid and flowing
+narrative; and Thucydides, the greatest of ancient historians and the
+first to give philosophic depth to the annals of mankind. The advent of
+history was accompanied by that of oratory, which among the Greeks
+developed into one of the choicest forms of literature, especially in
+the case of the greatest of the world's orators, Demosthenes, whose
+orations were inspired by the noblest of themes, that of a patriotic
+effort to preserve the independence of Greece against the ambitious
+designs of Philip of Macedon.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophy, the third great form of Greek prose literature, was as
+diligently cultivated, and has left as many examples for modern perusal.
+The works of the earlier philosophers were in verse, while Socrates, the
+first of the moral philosophers, left no writings, doing his work with
+tongue instead of pen, though he forms the leading character in Plato's
+philosophic dialogues. In Plato we have the most famous of the world's
+philosophers, and a writer of the ablest skill, in whose works the
+imagination of the poet is happily blended with the reasoning of the
+philosopher, his productions constituting a form of philosophic drama,
+in which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> character of each speaker is closely preserved, Socrates
+being usually the chief personage introduced.</p>
+
+<p>Following Plato came Aristotle, his equal in fame though not in literary
+merit. His name will long survive as that of one of the ablest thinkers
+the world has produced, a reasoner of exceptional ability, whose scope
+of research covered all fields and whose discoveries in practical
+science formed the first true introduction to mankind of this great
+field of human study, to-day the greatest of them all.</p>
+
+<p>We have named here only the leaders in Greek literature, the whole array
+being far too great to cover in brief space. Following the older form of
+the drama, with its archaic character, came two later forms, the Middle
+and the New Comedy, in the latter of which Menander was the most famous
+writer, making in his plays some approach to the modern form. Philosophy
+left later exponents in Zeno, Epicurus, and many others, and history in
+Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch, Arrian, and others of note. Science, as
+developed by Aristotle and Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was
+carried forward by many others, including Theophrastus, the able
+successor of Aristotle; Euclid, the first great geometer; Eratosthenes
+and Hipparchus, the astronomers; and, latest of ancient scientists,
+Ptolemy, whose works on astronomy and geography became the text-books of
+the middle-age schools.</p>
+
+<p>Long before these later writers came into the field the centres of
+literary effort had shifted to new localities. Sicily became the field
+of the choicest lyric poetry, giving us Theocritus, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> his charming
+"Idyls," or scenes of rural life, and his songful dialogues, with their
+fine description and delightful humor. Following him came Bion and
+Moschus, two other bucolic poets, whose finest productions are elegies
+of unsurpassed beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Syracuse was the home of this new field of lyric poetry, but there were
+other centres in which literature flourished, especially Pergamus,
+Antiochia, Pella, and above all Alexandria, the city founded by
+Alexander the Great in Egypt, and which under the fostering care of the
+Ptolemies, Alexander's successors in this quarter, developed into a
+remarkable centre of intellectual effort.</p>
+
+<p>The first Ptolemy made Alexandria his capital and founded there a great
+state institution which became famous as the Museum, and to which
+philosophers, scholars, and students flocked from all parts of the
+world. Here learned men could find a retreat from the bustle of the
+great metropolis which Alexandria became, and pursue their studies or
+teach their pupils in peace within its walls, and it is said that at one
+time fourteen thousand students gathered within its classic shades.</p>
+
+<p>Here grew up two great libraries, said to number seven hundred thousand
+volumes, and embracing all that was worthy of study or preservation in
+the writings of ancient days. Of these, one was burned during the siege
+of the city by Julius C&aelig;sar, but it was replaced by Marc Antony, who
+robbed Pergamus of its splendid library of two hundred thousand volumes
+and sent it to Alexandria as a present to Cleopatra.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p><p>In this secure retreat, amply supported by the liberality of the
+Ptolemies, philosophers and scholars spent their days in mental culture
+and learned lectures and debates. The scientific studies inaugurated by
+Aristotle were here continued by a succession of great astronomers,
+geometers, chemists, and physicians, for whose use were furnished a
+botanical garden, a menagerie of animals, and facilities for human
+dissection, the first school of anatomy ever known.</p>
+
+<p>In the heart of the great library, battening on books, flourished a
+circle of learned literary critics, engaged in the study of Homer and
+the other already classical writers of Greece and supplying new and
+revised editions of their works. Here philosophy was ardently pursued,
+the works of Plato and his great rivals being diligently studied, while
+in a later age the innovation of Neoplatonism was abundantly debated and
+taught. A new school of poetry also arose, most of its followers being
+mechanical versifiers, though the idyllic poets of Sicily sought these
+favoring halls. Most famous among the philosophers of Alexandria was the
+maiden Hypatia, who had studied in the still active schools of Athens,
+and taught the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle and the then popular
+tenets of Neoplatonism&mdash;her fame being chiefly due to her violent and
+terrible death at the hands of fanatical opponents of her teachings.</p>
+
+<p>The dynasty of the Ptolemies vanished with the death of Cleopatra, and
+during the wars and struggles that followed the library disappeared and
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> supremacy of Alexandria as a centre of mental culture passed away.
+The literary culture of Athens, whose schools of philosophy long
+survived its downfall as the capital of an independent state, also
+disappeared after being plundered of many of its works of art by Sulla,
+the Roman tyrant, and in later years for the adornment of
+Constantinople; its schools were closed by order of the Emperor
+Justinian in 529 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span>; and with them the light of science and learning,
+which had been shining for many centuries, though very dimly at the
+last, was extinguished, and the final vestige of the glory of Athens and
+the artistic and literary supremacy of Greece vanished from the land of
+their birth.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<big>THE END.<br />
+</big><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The sequel to this episode will be found in the tale
+entitled "The Fortune of Cr&#339;sus."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Equal to about one thousand dollars.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The army of Sparta, which before had stayed at home to
+await the full of the moon, did so now to complete certain religious
+ceremonies, sparing but this handful of men for the vital need of
+Greece.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL 10 (OF 15) ***
+
+***** This file should be named 25642-h.htm or 25642-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/4/25642/
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/25642-h/images/front.jpg b/25642-h/images/front.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..337b69b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/front.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image1.jpg b/25642-h/images/image1.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..10662a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image1.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image10.jpg b/25642-h/images/image10.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87020ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image10.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image11.jpg b/25642-h/images/image11.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45455b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image11.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image12.jpg b/25642-h/images/image12.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..961ab15
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image12.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image13.jpg b/25642-h/images/image13.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b9f134a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image13.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image14.jpg b/25642-h/images/image14.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c901ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image14.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image15.jpg b/25642-h/images/image15.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f0b1bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image15.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image16.jpg b/25642-h/images/image16.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..822a8e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image16.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image17.jpg b/25642-h/images/image17.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c029ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image17.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image18.jpg b/25642-h/images/image18.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..357dfdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image18.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image19.jpg b/25642-h/images/image19.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f9fde9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image19.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image2.jpg b/25642-h/images/image2.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2afdcbf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image2.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image3.jpg b/25642-h/images/image3.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3627d42
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image3.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image4.jpg b/25642-h/images/image4.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5930a20
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image4.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image5.jpg b/25642-h/images/image5.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0a1b1d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image5.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image6.jpg b/25642-h/images/image6.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e36d94e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image6.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image7.jpg b/25642-h/images/image7.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a04c14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image7.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image8.jpg b/25642-h/images/image8.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7010e41
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image8.jpg
diff --git a/25642-h/images/image9.jpg b/25642-h/images/image9.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a5729e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-h/images/image9.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/f0001.jpg b/25642-page-images/f0001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9168b9c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/f0001.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/f0002.png b/25642-page-images/f0002.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c2fb256
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/f0002.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/f0003.png b/25642-page-images/f0003.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..99d4df7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/f0003.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0003.png b/25642-page-images/p0003.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6b48cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0003.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0004.png b/25642-page-images/p0004.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a0fee28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0004.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0005.png b/25642-page-images/p0005.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a22a0cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0005.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0006-blank.png b/25642-page-images/p0006-blank.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b148e69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0006-blank.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0007.png b/25642-page-images/p0007.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8e7837a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0007.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0008.png b/25642-page-images/p0008.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2d610db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0008.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0009.png b/25642-page-images/p0009.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d233269
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0009.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0010.png b/25642-page-images/p0010.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83a19e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0010.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0011.png b/25642-page-images/p0011.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d2f0e08
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0011.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0012.png b/25642-page-images/p0012.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5338ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0012.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0013.png b/25642-page-images/p0013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b18f85
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0013.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0014-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0014-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa978da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0014-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0014.png b/25642-page-images/p0014.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7d1d91c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0014.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0015.png b/25642-page-images/p0015.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e22863
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0015.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0016.png b/25642-page-images/p0016.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aaac8b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0016.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0017.png b/25642-page-images/p0017.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c45d70e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0017.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0018.png b/25642-page-images/p0018.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e113cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0018.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0019.png b/25642-page-images/p0019.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b670e98
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0019.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0020.png b/25642-page-images/p0020.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9745c9e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0020.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0021.png b/25642-page-images/p0021.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72d844d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0021.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0022.png b/25642-page-images/p0022.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..020f16b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0022.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0023.png b/25642-page-images/p0023.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2df25bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0023.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0024.png b/25642-page-images/p0024.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3c2c1ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0024.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0025.png b/25642-page-images/p0025.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1bef5f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0025.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0026.png b/25642-page-images/p0026.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e2b78f7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0026.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0027.png b/25642-page-images/p0027.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..92e2847
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0027.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0028.png b/25642-page-images/p0028.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b963bca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0028.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0029.png b/25642-page-images/p0029.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f4fdb0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0029.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0030.png b/25642-page-images/p0030.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fd5b631
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0030.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0031.png b/25642-page-images/p0031.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..31cc839
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0031.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0032.png b/25642-page-images/p0032.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..144f3e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0032.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0033.png b/25642-page-images/p0033.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4c9f300
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0033.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0034.png b/25642-page-images/p0034.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6bc6332
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0034.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0035.png b/25642-page-images/p0035.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..db2634f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0035.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0036.png b/25642-page-images/p0036.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4b899ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0036.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0037.png b/25642-page-images/p0037.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f91331
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0037.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0038.png b/25642-page-images/p0038.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..50f4688
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0038.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0039.png b/25642-page-images/p0039.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b3dc113
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0039.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0040.png b/25642-page-images/p0040.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dcb0b63
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0040.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0041.png b/25642-page-images/p0041.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cfdda1e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0041.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0042-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0042-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de4b797
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0042-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0042.png b/25642-page-images/p0042.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..511d281
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0042.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0043.png b/25642-page-images/p0043.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..68ecd5c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0043.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0044.png b/25642-page-images/p0044.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..65aafe2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0044.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0045.png b/25642-page-images/p0045.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6d8932
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0045.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0046.png b/25642-page-images/p0046.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a9d580d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0046.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0047.png b/25642-page-images/p0047.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cadbf02
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0047.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0048.png b/25642-page-images/p0048.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e401c69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0048.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0049.png b/25642-page-images/p0049.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7da7772
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0049.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0050.png b/25642-page-images/p0050.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fc8855
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0050.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0051.png b/25642-page-images/p0051.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c3c1338
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0051.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0052.png b/25642-page-images/p0052.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4be1ba5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0052.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0053.png b/25642-page-images/p0053.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..028ba16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0053.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0054.png b/25642-page-images/p0054.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..047c2b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0054.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0055.png b/25642-page-images/p0055.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b754236
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0055.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0056.png b/25642-page-images/p0056.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b8ff0d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0056.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0057.png b/25642-page-images/p0057.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de6fd2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0057.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0058.png b/25642-page-images/p0058.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a9570e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0058.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0059.png b/25642-page-images/p0059.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..03ed7d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0059.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0060.png b/25642-page-images/p0060.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0d335b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0060.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0061.png b/25642-page-images/p0061.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..79d1cda
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0061.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0062.png b/25642-page-images/p0062.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26a6d01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0062.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0063.png b/25642-page-images/p0063.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..048b36d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0063.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0064.png b/25642-page-images/p0064.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a6d7803
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0064.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0065.png b/25642-page-images/p0065.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..905bc0b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0065.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0066.png b/25642-page-images/p0066.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..88d7c40
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0066.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0067.png b/25642-page-images/p0067.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c3a1e02
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0067.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0068.png b/25642-page-images/p0068.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e25de7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0068.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0069.png b/25642-page-images/p0069.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a385996
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0069.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0070.png b/25642-page-images/p0070.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c1bc892
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0070.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0071.png b/25642-page-images/p0071.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..03257df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0071.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0072.png b/25642-page-images/p0072.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b296be2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0072.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0073.png b/25642-page-images/p0073.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..57b416a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0073.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0074.png b/25642-page-images/p0074.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4038fed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0074.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0075.png b/25642-page-images/p0075.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d1fea14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0075.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0076.png b/25642-page-images/p0076.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8900baa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0076.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0077.png b/25642-page-images/p0077.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1610b53
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0077.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0078.png b/25642-page-images/p0078.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..091674d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0078.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0079.png b/25642-page-images/p0079.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..29865b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0079.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0080.png b/25642-page-images/p0080.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b4305a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0080.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0081.png b/25642-page-images/p0081.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..75c8ed5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0081.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0082.png b/25642-page-images/p0082.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cad5aef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0082.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0083.png b/25642-page-images/p0083.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3f1769f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0083.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0084.png b/25642-page-images/p0084.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6c60236
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0084.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0085.png b/25642-page-images/p0085.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d5f3c70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0085.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0086-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0086-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c9b6939
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0086-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0086.png b/25642-page-images/p0086.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..493d41d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0086.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0087.png b/25642-page-images/p0087.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f2c67da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0087.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0088.png b/25642-page-images/p0088.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..05d850a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0088.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0089.png b/25642-page-images/p0089.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7ed234f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0089.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0090.png b/25642-page-images/p0090.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..700beb5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0090.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0091.png b/25642-page-images/p0091.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b3e9f4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0091.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0092.png b/25642-page-images/p0092.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..111f266
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0092.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0093.png b/25642-page-images/p0093.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d6fa6b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0093.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0094.png b/25642-page-images/p0094.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e88cc42
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0094.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0095.png b/25642-page-images/p0095.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..803234e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0095.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0096.png b/25642-page-images/p0096.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a049c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0096.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0097.png b/25642-page-images/p0097.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ddc65fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0097.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0098-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0098-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e0502da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0098-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0098.png b/25642-page-images/p0098.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..568b4db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0098.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0099.png b/25642-page-images/p0099.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..669caa2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0099.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0100.png b/25642-page-images/p0100.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ece302
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0100.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0101.png b/25642-page-images/p0101.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f4cd78
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0101.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0102.png b/25642-page-images/p0102.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5484ae6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0102.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0103.png b/25642-page-images/p0103.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a37de0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0103.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0104.png b/25642-page-images/p0104.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ddd12c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0104.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0105.png b/25642-page-images/p0105.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41f8b17
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0105.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0106.png b/25642-page-images/p0106.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..30fb409
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0106.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0107.png b/25642-page-images/p0107.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..82da4b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0107.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0108.png b/25642-page-images/p0108.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9327ae4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0108.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0109.png b/25642-page-images/p0109.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5511754
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0109.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0110.png b/25642-page-images/p0110.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..36746aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0110.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0111.png b/25642-page-images/p0111.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..add4283
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0111.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0112.png b/25642-page-images/p0112.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae34899
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0112.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0113.png b/25642-page-images/p0113.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56ab2ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0113.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0114.png b/25642-page-images/p0114.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..deb3476
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0114.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0115.png b/25642-page-images/p0115.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b1e94c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0115.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0116.png b/25642-page-images/p0116.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f318408
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0116.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0117.png b/25642-page-images/p0117.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1c96c18
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0117.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0118.png b/25642-page-images/p0118.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0448bb3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0118.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0119.png b/25642-page-images/p0119.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56ffcd4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0119.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0120.png b/25642-page-images/p0120.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7bafda3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0120.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0121.png b/25642-page-images/p0121.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b5de203
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0121.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0122.png b/25642-page-images/p0122.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d93c679
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0122.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0123.png b/25642-page-images/p0123.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fbef455
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0123.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0124.png b/25642-page-images/p0124.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43cd185
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0124.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0125.png b/25642-page-images/p0125.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca40813
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0125.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0126.png b/25642-page-images/p0126.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e1c7ff8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0126.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0127.png b/25642-page-images/p0127.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b3347f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0127.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0128.png b/25642-page-images/p0128.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..df075be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0128.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0129.png b/25642-page-images/p0129.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fef7b07
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0129.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0130-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0130-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e11d7ca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0130-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0130.png b/25642-page-images/p0130.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed5c62d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0130.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0131.png b/25642-page-images/p0131.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa1ed95
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0131.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0132.png b/25642-page-images/p0132.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c129e92
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0132.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0133.png b/25642-page-images/p0133.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8797d20
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0133.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0134.png b/25642-page-images/p0134.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..041237a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0134.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0135.png b/25642-page-images/p0135.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f0b9d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0135.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0136.png b/25642-page-images/p0136.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7d3a055
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0136.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0137.png b/25642-page-images/p0137.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8d820a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0137.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0138.png b/25642-page-images/p0138.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e450bc2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0138.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0139.png b/25642-page-images/p0139.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b8743a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0139.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0140.png b/25642-page-images/p0140.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c94ffdc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0140.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0141.png b/25642-page-images/p0141.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..93bf0cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0141.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0142.png b/25642-page-images/p0142.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f7794c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0142.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0143.png b/25642-page-images/p0143.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cb49b1b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0143.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0144-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0144-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..daa959e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0144-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0144.png b/25642-page-images/p0144.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..948e5b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0144.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0145.png b/25642-page-images/p0145.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..452ac2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0145.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0146.png b/25642-page-images/p0146.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d3a2f68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0146.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0147.png b/25642-page-images/p0147.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c7c5de0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0147.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0148.png b/25642-page-images/p0148.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eaa319a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0148.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0149.png b/25642-page-images/p0149.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2115c1c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0149.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0150.png b/25642-page-images/p0150.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63f174b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0150.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0151.png b/25642-page-images/p0151.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5276fc4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0151.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0152.png b/25642-page-images/p0152.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f3ae49d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0152.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0153.png b/25642-page-images/p0153.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b514344
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0153.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0154.png b/25642-page-images/p0154.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3bc02a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0154.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0155.png b/25642-page-images/p0155.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..95e42cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0155.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0156.png b/25642-page-images/p0156.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a17ac1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0156.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0157.png b/25642-page-images/p0157.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..16c7bf5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0157.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0158.png b/25642-page-images/p0158.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b7a69c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0158.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0159.png b/25642-page-images/p0159.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d65f7d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0159.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0160-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0160-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9b842b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0160-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0160.png b/25642-page-images/p0160.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..107d5ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0160.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0161.png b/25642-page-images/p0161.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..21267bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0161.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0162.png b/25642-page-images/p0162.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b1b360b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0162.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0163.png b/25642-page-images/p0163.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7944764
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0163.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0164.png b/25642-page-images/p0164.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e4abb9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0164.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0165.png b/25642-page-images/p0165.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6986260
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0165.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0166.png b/25642-page-images/p0166.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8461334
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0166.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0167.png b/25642-page-images/p0167.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c166ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0167.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0168.png b/25642-page-images/p0168.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..01fa2cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0168.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0169.png b/25642-page-images/p0169.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3162456
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0169.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0170.png b/25642-page-images/p0170.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..75d886a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0170.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0171.png b/25642-page-images/p0171.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..57a26da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0171.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0172.png b/25642-page-images/p0172.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a7f533
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0172.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0173.png b/25642-page-images/p0173.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1b3f33a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0173.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0174.png b/25642-page-images/p0174.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0a2d84d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0174.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0175.png b/25642-page-images/p0175.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..37197d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0175.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0176.png b/25642-page-images/p0176.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5eb92c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0176.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0177.png b/25642-page-images/p0177.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6adc21a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0177.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0178.png b/25642-page-images/p0178.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3edfec1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0178.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0179.png b/25642-page-images/p0179.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..39f94f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0179.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0180-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0180-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c4d93f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0180-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0180.png b/25642-page-images/p0180.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0ab5ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0180.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0181.png b/25642-page-images/p0181.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b7da437
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0181.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0182.png b/25642-page-images/p0182.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..932775c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0182.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0183.png b/25642-page-images/p0183.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3a5b1cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0183.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0184.png b/25642-page-images/p0184.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..91c5c40
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0184.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0185.png b/25642-page-images/p0185.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5fbd03
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0185.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0186.png b/25642-page-images/p0186.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..508fbb8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0186.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0187.png b/25642-page-images/p0187.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2f5d566
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0187.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0188.png b/25642-page-images/p0188.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce6f7b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0188.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0189.png b/25642-page-images/p0189.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..90414e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0189.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0190-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0190-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc3f271
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0190-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0190.png b/25642-page-images/p0190.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63dc9ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0190.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0191.png b/25642-page-images/p0191.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae7b8b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0191.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0192.png b/25642-page-images/p0192.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f4db669
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0192.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0193.png b/25642-page-images/p0193.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..76caff5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0193.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0194.png b/25642-page-images/p0194.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..145df1d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0194.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0195.png b/25642-page-images/p0195.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cab94dc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0195.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0196.png b/25642-page-images/p0196.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5bdd0cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0196.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0197.png b/25642-page-images/p0197.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b486f8d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0197.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0198.png b/25642-page-images/p0198.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..34f124f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0198.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0199.png b/25642-page-images/p0199.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ef46dc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0199.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0200.png b/25642-page-images/p0200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d969766
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0200.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0201.png b/25642-page-images/p0201.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..666a43f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0201.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0202.png b/25642-page-images/p0202.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..898eb0a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0202.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0203.png b/25642-page-images/p0203.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c5be6d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0203.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0204.png b/25642-page-images/p0204.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..375ed7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0204.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0205.png b/25642-page-images/p0205.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb61d46
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0205.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0206.png b/25642-page-images/p0206.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..695d00e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0206.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0207.png b/25642-page-images/p0207.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..46ed517
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0207.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0208.png b/25642-page-images/p0208.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..05e64ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0208.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0209.png b/25642-page-images/p0209.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26d3cdb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0209.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0210.png b/25642-page-images/p0210.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..95caad5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0210.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0211.png b/25642-page-images/p0211.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b22d706
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0211.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0212-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0212-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..374c0df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0212-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0212.png b/25642-page-images/p0212.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..94887ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0212.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0213.png b/25642-page-images/p0213.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b169c97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0213.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0214.png b/25642-page-images/p0214.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0850a46
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0214.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0215.png b/25642-page-images/p0215.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d893990
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0215.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0216.png b/25642-page-images/p0216.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..90cd920
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0216.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0217.png b/25642-page-images/p0217.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..46aa26e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0217.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0218.png b/25642-page-images/p0218.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..65c4ca2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0218.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0219.png b/25642-page-images/p0219.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..785abcd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0219.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0220.png b/25642-page-images/p0220.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6597763
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0220.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0221.png b/25642-page-images/p0221.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..96fa973
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0221.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0222.png b/25642-page-images/p0222.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2048c32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0222.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0223.png b/25642-page-images/p0223.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..707f3c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0223.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0224.png b/25642-page-images/p0224.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..116bc5a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0224.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0225.png b/25642-page-images/p0225.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..21c0338
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0225.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0226.png b/25642-page-images/p0226.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a824c28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0226.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0227.png b/25642-page-images/p0227.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f5feeaf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0227.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0228-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0228-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..84d045f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0228-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0228.png b/25642-page-images/p0228.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb734a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0228.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0229.png b/25642-page-images/p0229.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee98081
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0229.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0230.png b/25642-page-images/p0230.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..46933c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0230.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0231.png b/25642-page-images/p0231.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6d2dfab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0231.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0232.png b/25642-page-images/p0232.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b873824
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0232.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0233.png b/25642-page-images/p0233.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..493818b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0233.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0234.png b/25642-page-images/p0234.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e0c4210
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0234.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0235.png b/25642-page-images/p0235.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..88c09e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0235.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0236.png b/25642-page-images/p0236.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2447a2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0236.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0237.png b/25642-page-images/p0237.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aca4283
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0237.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0238.png b/25642-page-images/p0238.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0dda388
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0238.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0239.png b/25642-page-images/p0239.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..245bb01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0239.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0240.png b/25642-page-images/p0240.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..17c68b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0240.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0241.png b/25642-page-images/p0241.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..85a1e9c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0241.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0242.png b/25642-page-images/p0242.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b01be4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0242.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0243.png b/25642-page-images/p0243.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e16c629
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0243.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0244.png b/25642-page-images/p0244.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..51c8079
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0244.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0245.png b/25642-page-images/p0245.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5064037
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0245.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0246.png b/25642-page-images/p0246.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..55adb13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0246.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0247.png b/25642-page-images/p0247.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b61ea3b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0247.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0248.png b/25642-page-images/p0248.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d23a09f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0248.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0249.png b/25642-page-images/p0249.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72c049c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0249.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0250.png b/25642-page-images/p0250.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..da1fb74
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0250.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0251.png b/25642-page-images/p0251.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ad049a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0251.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0252.png b/25642-page-images/p0252.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ac8b854
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0252.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0253.png b/25642-page-images/p0253.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d55fdb7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0253.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0254-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0254-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8d5cd5a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0254-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0254.png b/25642-page-images/p0254.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a16ff2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0254.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0255.png b/25642-page-images/p0255.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d37dcd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0255.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0256.png b/25642-page-images/p0256.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4fc44e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0256.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0257.png b/25642-page-images/p0257.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8cac6f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0257.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0258.png b/25642-page-images/p0258.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..572ae49
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0258.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0259.png b/25642-page-images/p0259.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a32a3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0259.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0260.png b/25642-page-images/p0260.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2a57b79
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0260.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0261.png b/25642-page-images/p0261.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b0d7f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0261.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0262.png b/25642-page-images/p0262.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..891cd80
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0262.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0263.png b/25642-page-images/p0263.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b6ae85
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0263.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0264.png b/25642-page-images/p0264.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..659127a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0264.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0265.png b/25642-page-images/p0265.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..da5f4c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0265.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0266.png b/25642-page-images/p0266.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..104748a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0266.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0267.png b/25642-page-images/p0267.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b1228bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0267.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0268.png b/25642-page-images/p0268.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c56cccf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0268.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0269.png b/25642-page-images/p0269.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b184ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0269.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0270.png b/25642-page-images/p0270.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d7afe4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0270.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0271.png b/25642-page-images/p0271.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ac2ba88
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0271.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0272.png b/25642-page-images/p0272.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc13285
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0272.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0273.png b/25642-page-images/p0273.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..986998c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0273.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0274.png b/25642-page-images/p0274.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..defef02
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0274.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0275.png b/25642-page-images/p0275.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4b2efa2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0275.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0276.png b/25642-page-images/p0276.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9b7a841
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0276.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0277.png b/25642-page-images/p0277.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87f1875
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0277.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0278.png b/25642-page-images/p0278.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e8cae2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0278.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0279.png b/25642-page-images/p0279.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e540514
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0279.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0280.png b/25642-page-images/p0280.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..20d5847
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0280.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0281.png b/25642-page-images/p0281.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0daba1a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0281.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0282.png b/25642-page-images/p0282.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bcaa0d9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0282.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0283.png b/25642-page-images/p0283.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed34db2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0283.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0284.png b/25642-page-images/p0284.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..60fe59b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0284.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0285.png b/25642-page-images/p0285.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0fd807e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0285.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0286.png b/25642-page-images/p0286.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c3580f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0286.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0287.png b/25642-page-images/p0287.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b9c85bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0287.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0288-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0288-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e14849a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0288-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0288.png b/25642-page-images/p0288.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..75d57bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0288.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0289.png b/25642-page-images/p0289.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c42c7a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0289.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0290.png b/25642-page-images/p0290.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aff96c7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0290.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0291.png b/25642-page-images/p0291.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2571d91
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0291.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0292.png b/25642-page-images/p0292.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e1a7660
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0292.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0293.png b/25642-page-images/p0293.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8d1b5dc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0293.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0294.png b/25642-page-images/p0294.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3a57ba3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0294.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0295.png b/25642-page-images/p0295.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..314d5d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0295.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0296.png b/25642-page-images/p0296.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d61c436
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0296.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0297.png b/25642-page-images/p0297.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8cc47f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0297.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0298.png b/25642-page-images/p0298.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a46c54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0298.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0299.png b/25642-page-images/p0299.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b999fb8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0299.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0300-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0300-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a7a17cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0300-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0300.png b/25642-page-images/p0300.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f4a3fda
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0300.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0301.png b/25642-page-images/p0301.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a3e9a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0301.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0302.png b/25642-page-images/p0302.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4cbb68c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0302.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0303.png b/25642-page-images/p0303.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae37aa0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0303.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0304.png b/25642-page-images/p0304.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5549b67
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0304.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0305.png b/25642-page-images/p0305.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..91f2bd1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0305.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0306.png b/25642-page-images/p0306.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..73c1ca6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0306.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0307.png b/25642-page-images/p0307.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e623282
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0307.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0308.png b/25642-page-images/p0308.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5e5191
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0308.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0309.png b/25642-page-images/p0309.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..23a986c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0309.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0310.png b/25642-page-images/p0310.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ea7d4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0310.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0311.png b/25642-page-images/p0311.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2fa6ddd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0311.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0312.png b/25642-page-images/p0312.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7520e35
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0312.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0313.png b/25642-page-images/p0313.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c2b62f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0313.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0314.png b/25642-page-images/p0314.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..65e5eff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0314.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0315.png b/25642-page-images/p0315.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..38fa364
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0315.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0316-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0316-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..59679f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0316-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0316.png b/25642-page-images/p0316.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fea979
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0316.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0317.png b/25642-page-images/p0317.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0fcb86c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0317.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0318.png b/25642-page-images/p0318.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4f1b46
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0318.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0319.png b/25642-page-images/p0319.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..695ecbc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0319.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0320.png b/25642-page-images/p0320.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c175a5d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0320.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0321.png b/25642-page-images/p0321.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ac4e37e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0321.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0322-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0322-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..977b394
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0322-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0322.png b/25642-page-images/p0322.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..28349b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0322.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0323.png b/25642-page-images/p0323.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ced5ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0323.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0324.png b/25642-page-images/p0324.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..998aef8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0324.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0325.png b/25642-page-images/p0325.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf0b5ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0325.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0326.png b/25642-page-images/p0326.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5efe732
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0326.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0327.png b/25642-page-images/p0327.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9fbd0a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0327.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0328.png b/25642-page-images/p0328.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77f48ca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0328.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0329.png b/25642-page-images/p0329.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5a1c6e6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0329.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0330.png b/25642-page-images/p0330.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e3d31fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0330.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0331.png b/25642-page-images/p0331.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed6e9eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0331.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0332.png b/25642-page-images/p0332.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b8887a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0332.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0333.png b/25642-page-images/p0333.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..242f12f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0333.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0334.png b/25642-page-images/p0334.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..510a31a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0334.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0335.png b/25642-page-images/p0335.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..60a73d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0335.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0336.png b/25642-page-images/p0336.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..adcafa5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0336.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0337.png b/25642-page-images/p0337.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7eff490
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0337.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0338.png b/25642-page-images/p0338.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49c99c2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0338.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0339.png b/25642-page-images/p0339.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc496d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0339.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0340.png b/25642-page-images/p0340.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..959febb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0340.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0341.png b/25642-page-images/p0341.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bfcca5f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0341.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0342.png b/25642-page-images/p0342.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..51cf31c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0342.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0343.png b/25642-page-images/p0343.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d1405bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0343.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0344-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0344-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6952ef5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0344-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0344.png b/25642-page-images/p0344.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c15a5e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0344.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0345.png b/25642-page-images/p0345.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a812b4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0345.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0346.png b/25642-page-images/p0346.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..176d054
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0346.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0347.png b/25642-page-images/p0347.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9232795
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0347.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0348.png b/25642-page-images/p0348.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..be368bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0348.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0349.png b/25642-page-images/p0349.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..179072a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0349.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0350.png b/25642-page-images/p0350.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..196f708
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0350.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0351.png b/25642-page-images/p0351.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9917a23
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0351.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0352.png b/25642-page-images/p0352.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5d400fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0352.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0353.png b/25642-page-images/p0353.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8dce1eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0353.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0354.png b/25642-page-images/p0354.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a65e67
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0354.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0355.png b/25642-page-images/p0355.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2328e79
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0355.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0356.png b/25642-page-images/p0356.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6e3d3cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0356.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0357.png b/25642-page-images/p0357.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..88be438
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0357.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0358-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0358-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ef9dc5b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0358-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0358.png b/25642-page-images/p0358.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..876fc69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0358.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0359.png b/25642-page-images/p0359.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1753c2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0359.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0360.png b/25642-page-images/p0360.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4f74e9d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0360.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0361.png b/25642-page-images/p0361.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..857ab40
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0361.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0362-insert.jpg b/25642-page-images/p0362-insert.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca1600b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0362-insert.jpg
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0362.png b/25642-page-images/p0362.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ef63903
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0362.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0363.png b/25642-page-images/p0363.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..275d312
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0363.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0364.png b/25642-page-images/p0364.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e32efcd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0364.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0365.png b/25642-page-images/p0365.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1d1e7fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0365.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0366.png b/25642-page-images/p0366.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d4119a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0366.png
diff --git a/25642-page-images/p0367.png b/25642-page-images/p0367.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..78a5ab4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642-page-images/p0367.png
diff --git a/25642.txt b/25642.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..94b1401
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9851 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15)
+       The Romance of Reality
+
+Author: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008 [EBook #25642]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL 10 (OF 15) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A GREEK SHEPHERD, OLYMPIA.]
+
+
+
+
+  Edition d'Elite
+
+  Historical Tales
+
+  The Romance of Reality
+
+  By
+
+  CHARLES MORRIS
+
+  _Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
+  Dramatists," etc._
+
+  IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES
+
+  Volume X
+
+  Greek
+
+  J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+  PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1896, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1904, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1908, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                          PAGE
+
+  HOW TROY WAS TAKEN                         7
+
+  THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS               28
+
+  THESEUS AND ARIADNE                       33
+
+  THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES                  41
+
+  LYCURGUS AND THE SPARTAN LAWS             50
+
+  ARISTOMENES, THE HERO OF MESSENIA         60
+
+  SOLON, THE LAW-GIVER OF ATHENS            67
+
+  THE FORTUNE OF CROESUS                    77
+
+  THE SUITORS OF AGARISTE                   86
+
+  THE TYRANTS OF CORINTH                    93
+
+  THE RING OF POLYCRATES                   100
+
+  THE ADVENTURES OF DEMOCEDES              109
+
+  DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS                 117
+
+  THE ATHENIANS AT MARATHON                126
+
+  XERXES AND HIS ARMY                      135
+
+  HOW THE SPARTANS DIED AT THERMOPYLAE      144
+
+  THE WOODEN WALLS OF ATHENS               154
+
+  PLATAEA'S FAMOUS DAY                      165
+
+  FOUR FAMOUS MEN OF ATHENS                174
+
+  HOW ATHENS ROSE FROM ITS ASHES           186
+
+  THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS                     194
+
+  THE ENVOYS OF LIFE AND DEATH             200
+
+  THE DEFENCE OF PLATAEA                    205
+
+  HOW THE LONG WALLS WENT DOWN             213
+
+  SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES                  221
+
+  THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND          231
+
+  THE RESCUE OF THEBES                     245
+
+  THE HUMILIATION OF SPARTA                259
+
+  TIMOLEON, THE FAVORITE OF FORTUNE        271
+
+  THE SACRED WAR                           288
+
+  ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND DARIUS           296
+
+  THE WORLD'S GREATEST ORATOR              305
+
+  THE OLYMPIC GAMES                        315
+
+  PYRRHUS AND THE ROMANS                   324
+
+  PHILOPOEMEN AND THE FALL OF SPARTA       334
+
+  THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF GREECE             345
+
+  ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS                     351
+
+  THE LITERARY GLORY OF GREECE             360
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+GREEK.
+
+                                                PAGE
+
+  A GREEK SHEPHERD, OLYMPIA            _Frontispiece_.
+
+  PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE                15
+
+  OEDIPUS AND ANTIGONE                            42
+
+  GRECIAN LADIES AT HOME                          87
+
+  THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS                         98
+
+  RUINS OF THE PARTHENON                         130
+
+  THE PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIANS         145
+
+  THE VICTORS AT SALAMIS                         160
+
+  ANCIENT ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM, ATHENS        181
+
+  A REUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA              190
+
+  PIRAEUS, THE PORT OF ATHENS                     213
+
+  PRISON OF SOCRATES, ATHENS                     229
+
+  GATE OF THE AGORA, OR OIL MARKET, ATHENS       255
+
+  BED OF THE RIVER KLADEOS                       289
+
+  THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT               300
+
+  THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES IN THE STADIUM        316
+
+  THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS, ATHENS                 322
+
+  REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, CORINTH      345
+
+  THE RUINS OF PALMYRA                           358
+
+  ALONG THE COAST OF GREECE                      362
+
+
+
+
+_HOW TROY WAS TAKEN._
+
+
+The far-famed Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, was the most
+beautiful woman in the world. And from her beauty and faithlessness came
+the most celebrated of ancient wars, with death and disaster to numbers
+of famous heroes and the final ruin of the ancient city of Troy. The
+story of these striking events has been told only in poetry. We propose
+to tell it again in sober prose.
+
+But warning must first be given that Helen and the heroes of the Trojan
+war dwelt in the mist-land of legend and tradition, that cloud-realm
+from which history only slowly emerged. The facts with which we are here
+concerned are those of the poet, not those of the historian. It is far
+from sure that Helen ever lived. It is far from sure that there ever was
+a Trojan war. Many people doubt the whole story. Yet the ancient Greeks
+accepted it as history, and as we are telling their story, we may fairly
+include it among the historical tales of Greece. The heroes concerned
+are certainly fully alive in Homer's great poem, the "Iliad," and we can
+do no better than follow the story of this stirring poem, while adding
+details from other sources.
+
+Mythology tells us that, once upon a time, the three goddesses, Venus,
+Juno, and Minerva, had a contest as to which was the most beautiful, and
+left the decision to Paris, then a shepherd on Mount Ida, though really
+the son of King Priam of Troy. The princely shepherd decided in favor of
+Venus, who had promised him in reward the love of the most beautiful of
+living women, the Spartan Helen, daughter of the great deity Zeus (or
+Jupiter). Accordingly the handsome and favored youth set sail for
+Sparta, bringing with him rich gifts for its beautiful queen. Menelaus
+received his Trojan guest with much hospitality, but, unluckily, was
+soon obliged to make a journey to Crete, leaving Helen to entertain the
+princely visitor. The result was as Venus had foreseen. Love arose
+between the handsome youth and the beautiful woman, and an elopement
+followed, Paris stealing away with both the wife and the money of his
+confiding host. He set sail, had a prosperous voyage, and arrived safely
+at Troy with his prize on the third day. This was a fortune very
+different from that of Ulysses, who on his return from Troy took ten
+years to accomplish a similar voyage.
+
+As might naturally be imagined, this elopement excited indignation not
+only in the hearts of Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon, but among the
+Greek chieftains generally, who sympathized with the husband in his
+grief and shared his anger against Troy. War was declared against that
+faithless city, and most of the chiefs pledged themselves to take part
+in it, and to lend their aid until Helen was recovered or restored. Had
+they known all that was before them they might have hesitated, since it
+took ten long years to equip the expedition, for ten years more the war
+continued, and some of the leaders spent ten years in their return. But
+in those old days time does not seem to have counted for much, and
+besides, many of the chieftains had been suitors for the hand of Helen,
+and were doubtless moved by their old love in pledging themselves to her
+recovery.
+
+Some of them, however, were anything but eager to take part. Achilles
+and Ulysses, the two most important in the subsequent war, endeavored to
+escape this necessity. Achilles was the son of the sea-nymph Thetis, who
+had dipped him when an infant in the river Styx, the waters of which
+magic stream rendered him invulnerable to any weapon except in one
+spot,--the heel by which his mother had held him. But her love for her
+son made her anxious to guard him against every danger, and when the
+chieftains came to seek his aid in the expedition, she concealed him,
+dressed as a girl, among the maidens of the court. But the crafty
+Ulysses, who accompanied them, soon exposed this trick. Disguised as a
+pedler, he spread his goods, a shield and a spear among them, before the
+maidens. Then an alarm of danger being sounded, the girls fled in
+affright, but the disguised youth, with impulsive valor, seized the
+weapons and prepared to defend himself. His identity was thus revealed.
+
+Ulysses himself, one of the wisest and shrewdest of men, had also sought
+to escape the dangerous expedition. To do so he feigned madness, and
+when the messenger chiefs came to seek him they found him attempting to
+plough with an ox and a horse yoked together, while he sowed the field
+with salt. One of them, however, took Telemachus, the young son of
+Ulysses, and laid him in the furrow before the plough. Ulysses turned
+the plough aside, and thus showed that there was more method than
+madness in his mind.
+
+And thus, in time, a great force of men and a great fleet of ships were
+gathered, there being in all eleven hundred and eighty-six ships and
+more than one hundred thousand men. The kings and chieftains of Greece
+led their followers from all parts of the land to Aulis, in Boeotia,
+whence they were to set sail for the opposite coast of Asia Minor, on
+which stood the city of Troy. Agamemnon, who brought one hundred ships,
+was chosen leader of the army, which included all the heroes of the age,
+among them the distinguished warriors Ajax and Diomedes, the wise old
+Nestor, and many others of valor and fame.
+
+The fleet at length set sail; but Troy was not easily reached. The
+leaders of the army did not even know where Troy was, and landed in the
+wrong locality, where they had a battle with the people. Embarking
+again, they were driven by a storm back to Greece. Adverse winds now
+kept them at Aulis until Agamemnon appeased the hostile gods by
+sacrificing to them his daughter Iphigenia,--one of the ways which those
+old heathens had of obtaining fair weather. Then the winds changed, and
+the fleet made its way to the island of Tenedos, in the vicinity of
+Troy. From here Ulysses and Menelaus were sent to that city as envoys to
+demand a return of Helen and the stolen property.
+
+Meanwhile the Trojans, well aware of what was in store for them, had
+made abundant preparations, and gathered an army of allies from various
+parts of Thrace and Asia Minor. They received the two Greek envoys
+hospitably, paid them every attention, but sustained the villany of
+Paris, and refused to deliver Helen and the treasure. When this word was
+brought back to the fleet the chiefs decided on immediate war, and sail
+was made for the neighboring shores of the Trojan realm.
+
+Of the long-drawn-out war that followed we know little more than what
+Homer has told us, though something may be learned from other ancient
+poems. The first Greek to land fell by the hand of Hector, the Trojan
+hero,--as the gods had foretold. But in vain the Trojans sought to
+prevent the landing; they were quickly put to rout, and Cycnus, one of
+their greatest warriors and son of the god Neptune, was slain by
+Achilles. He was invulnerable to iron, but was choked to death by the
+hero and changed into a swan. The Trojans were driven within their city
+walls, and the invulnerable Achilles, with what seems a safe valor,
+stormed and sacked numerous towns in the neighborhood, killed one of
+King Priam's sons, captured and sold as slaves several others, drove off
+the oxen of the celebrated warrior AEneas, and came near to killing that
+hero himself. He also captured and kept as his own prize a beautiful
+maiden named Briseis, and was even granted, through the favor of the
+gods, an interview with the divine Helen herself.
+
+This is about all we know of the doings of the first nine years of the
+war. What the Greeks were at during that long time neither history nor
+legend tells. The only other event of importance was the death of
+Palamedes, one of the ablest Grecian chiefs. It was he who had detected
+the feigned madness of Ulysses, and tradition relates that he owed his
+death to the revengeful anger of that cunning schemer, who had not
+forgiven him for being made to take part in this endless and useless
+war.
+
+Thus nine years of warfare passed, and Troy remained untaken and
+seemingly unshaken. How the two hosts managed to live in the mean time
+the tellers of the story do not say. Thucydides, the historian, thinks
+it likely that the Greeks had to farm the neighboring lands for food.
+How the Trojans and their allies contrived to survive so long within
+their walls we are left to surmise, unless they farmed their streets.
+And thus we reach the opening of the tenth year and of Homer's "Iliad."
+
+Homer's story is too long for us to tell in detail, and too full of war
+and bloodshed for modern taste. We can only give it in epitome.
+
+Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, robs Achilles of his beautiful
+captive Briseis, and the invulnerable hero, furious at the insult,
+retires in sullen rage to his ships, forbids his troops to take part in
+the war, and sulks in anger while battle after battle is fought.
+Deprived of his mighty aid, the Greeks find the Trojans quite their
+match, and the fortunes of the warring hosts vary day by day.
+
+On a watch-tower in Troy sits Helen the beautiful, gazing out on the
+field of conflict, and naming for old Priam, who sits beside her, the
+Grecian leaders as they appear at the head of their hosts on the plain
+below. On this plain meet in fierce combat Paris the abductor and
+Menelaus the indignant husband. Vengeance lends double weight to the
+spear of the latter, and Paris is so fiercely assailed that Venus has to
+come to his aid to save him from death. Meanwhile a Trojan archer wounds
+Menelaus with an arrow, and a general battle ensues.
+
+The conflict is a fierce one, and many warriors on both sides are slain.
+Diomedes, a bold Grecian chieftain, is the hero of the day. Trojans fall
+by scores before his mighty spear, he rages in fury from side to side of
+the field, and at length meets the great AEneas, whose thigh he breaks
+with a huge stone. But AEneas is the son of the goddess Venus, who flies
+to his aid and bears him from the field. The furious Greek daringly
+pursues the flying divinity, and even succeeds in wounding the goddess
+of love with his impious spear. At this sad outcome Venus, to whom
+physical pain is a new sensation, flies in dismay to Olympus, the home
+of the deities, and hides her weeping face in the lap of Father Jove,
+while her lady enemies taunt her with biting sarcasms. The whole scene
+is an amusing example of the childish folly of mythology.
+
+In the next scene a new hero appears upon the field, Hector, the warlike
+son of Priam, and next to Achilles the greatest warrior of the war. He
+arms himself inside the walls, and takes an affectionate leave of his
+wife Andromache and his infant son, the child crying with terror at his
+glittering helmet and nodding plume. This mild demeanor of the warrior
+changes to warlike ardor when he appears upon the field. His coming
+turns the tide of battle. The victorious Greeks are driven back before
+his shining spear, many of them are slain, and the whole host is driven
+to its ships and almost forced to take flight by sea from the victorious
+onset of Hector and his triumphant followers. While the Greeks cower in
+their ships the Trojans spend the night in bivouac upon the field. Homer
+gives us a picturesque description of this night-watch, which Tennyson
+has thus charmingly rendered into English:
+
+  "As when in heaven the stars about the moon
+  Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
+  And every height comes out, and jutting peak
+  And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
+  Break open to their highest, and all the stars
+  Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart;
+  So, many a fire between the ships and stream
+  Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,
+  A thousand on the plain; and close by each
+  Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire;
+  And, champing golden grain, the horses stood
+  Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn."
+
+Affairs had grown perilous for the Greeks. Patroclus, the bosom friend
+of Achilles, begged him to come to their aid. This the sulking hero
+would not do, but he lent Patroclus his armor, and permitted him to
+lead his troops, the Myrmidons, to the field. Patroclus was himself a
+gallant and famous warrior, and his aid turned the next day's battle
+against the Trojans, who were driven back with great slaughter. But,
+unfortunately for this hero of the fight, a greater than he was in the
+field. Hector met him in the full tide of his success, engaged him in
+battle, killed him, and captured from his body the armor of Achilles.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.]
+
+The slaughter of his friend at length aroused the sullen Achilles to
+action. Rage against the Trojans succeeded his anger against Agamemnon.
+His lost armor was replaced by new armor forged for him by Vulcan, the
+celestial smith,--who fashioned him the most wonderful of shields and
+most formidable of spears. Thus armed, he mounted his chariot and drove
+at the head of his Myrmidons to the field, where he made such frightful
+slaughter of the Trojans that the river Scamander was choked with their
+corpses; and, indignant at being thus treated, sought to drown the hero
+for his offence. Finally he met Hector, engaged him in battle, and
+killed him with a thrust of his mighty spear. Then, fastening the corpse
+of the Trojan hero to his chariot, he dragged it furiously over the
+blood-soaked plain and around the city walls. Homer's story ends with
+the funeral obsequies of the slain Patroclus and the burial by the
+Trojans of Hector's recovered body.
+
+Other writers tell us how the war went on. Hector was replaced by
+Penthesileia, the beautiful and warlike queen of the Amazons, who came
+to the aid of the Trojans, and drove the Greeks from the field. But,
+alas! she too was slain by the invincible Achilles. Removing her
+helmet, the victor was deeply affected to find that it was a beautiful
+woman he had slain.
+
+The mighty Memnon, son of godlike parents, now made his appearance in
+the Trojan ranks, at the head of a band of black Ethiopians, with whom
+he wrought havoc among the Greeks. At length Achilles encountered this
+hero also, and a terrible battle ensued, whose result was long in doubt.
+In the end Achilles triumphed and Memnon fell. But he died to become
+immortal, for his goddess mother prayed for and obtained for him the
+gift of immortal life.
+
+Such triumphs were easy for Achilles, whose flesh no weapon could
+pierce; but no one was invulnerable to the poets, and his end came at
+last. He had routed the Trojans and driven them within their gates, when
+Paris, aided by Apollo, the divine archer, shot an arrow at the hero
+which struck him in his one pregnable spot, the heel. The fear of Thetis
+was realized, her son died from the wound, and a fierce battle took
+place for the possession of his body. This Ajax and Ulysses succeeded in
+carrying off to the Grecian camp, where it was burned on a magnificent
+funeral pile. Achilles, like his victim Memnon, was made immortal by the
+favor of the gods. His armor was offered as a prize to the most
+distinguished Grecian hero, and was adjudged to Ulysses, whereupon Ajax,
+his close contestant for the prize, slew himself in despair.
+
+We cannot follow all the incidents of the campaign. It will suffice to
+say that Paris was himself slain by an arrow, that Neoptolemus, the son
+of Achilles, took his place in the field, and that the Trojans suffered
+so severely at his hands that they took shelter behind their walls,
+whence they never again emerged to meet the Greeks in the field.
+
+But Troy was safe from capture while the Palladium, a statue which
+Jupiter himself had given to Dardanus, the ancestor of the Trojans,
+remained in the citadel of that city. Ulysses overcame this difficulty.
+He entered Troy in the disguise of a wounded and ragged fugitive, and
+managed to steal the Palladium from the citadel. Then, as the walls of
+Troy still defied their assailants, a further and extraordinary
+stratagem was employed to gain access to the city. It seems a ridiculous
+one to us, but was accepted as satisfactory by the writers of Greece.
+This stratagem was the following:
+
+A great hollow wooden horse, large enough to contain one hundred armed
+men, was constructed, and in its interior the leading Grecian heroes
+concealed themselves. Then the army set fire to its tents, took to its
+ships, and sailed away to the island of Tenedos, as if it had abandoned
+the siege. Only the great horse was left on the long-contested
+battle-field.
+
+The Trojans, filled with joy at the sight of their departing foes, came
+streaming out into the plain, women as well as warriors, and gazed with
+astonishment at the strange monster which their enemies had left. Many
+of them wanted to take it into the city, and dedicate it to the gods as
+a mark of gratitude for their deliverance. The more cautious ones
+doubted if it was wise to accept an enemy's gift. Laocoon, the priest of
+Neptune, struck the side of the horse with his spear. A hollow sound
+came from its interior, but this did not suffice to warn the indiscreet
+Trojans. And a terrible spectacle now filled them with superstitious
+dread. Two great serpents appeared far out at sea and came swimming
+inward over the waves. Reaching the shore, they glided over the land to
+where stood the unfortunate Laocoon, whose body they encircled with
+their folds. His son, who came to his rescue, was caught in the same
+dreadful coils, and the two perished miserably before the eyes of their
+dismayed countrymen.
+
+There was no longer any talk of rejecting the fatal gift. The gods had
+given their decision. A breach was made in the walls of Troy, and the
+great horse was dragged with exultation within the stronghold that for
+ten long years had defied its foe.
+
+Riotous joy and festivity followed in Troy. It extended into the night.
+While this went on Sinon, a seeming renegade who had been left behind by
+the Greeks, and who had helped to deceive the Trojans by lying tales,
+lighted a fire-signal for the fleet, and loosened the bolts of the
+wooden horse, from whose hollow depths the hundred weary warriors
+hastened to descend.
+
+And now the triumph of the Trojans was changed to sudden woe and dire
+lamentation. Death followed close upon their festivity. The hundred
+warriors attacked them at their banquets, the returned fleet disgorged
+its thousands, who poured through the open gates, and death held
+fearful carnival within the captured city. Priam was slain at the altar
+by Neoptolemus. All his sons fell in death. The city was sacked and
+destroyed. Its people were slain or taken captive. Few escaped, but
+among these was AEneas, the traditional ancestor of Rome. As regards
+Helen, the cause of the war, she was recovered by Menelaus, and gladly
+accompanied him back to Sparta. There she lived for years afterwards in
+dignity and happiness, and finally died to become happily immortal in
+the Elysian fields.
+
+But our story is not yet at an end. The Greeks had still to return to
+their homes, from which they had been ten years removed. And though
+Paris had crossed the intervening seas in three days, it took Ulysses
+ten years to return, while some of his late companions failed to reach
+their homes at all. Many, indeed, were the adventures which these
+home-sailing heroes were destined to encounter.
+
+Some of the Greek warriors reached home speedily and were met with
+welcome, but others perished by the way, while Agamemnon, their leader,
+returned to find that his wife had been false to him, and perished by
+her treacherous hand. Menelaus wandered long through Egypt, Cyprus, and
+elsewhere before he reached his native land. Nestor and several others
+went to Italy, where they founded cities. Diomedes also became a founder
+of cities, and various others seem to have busied themselves in this
+same useful occupation. Neoptolemus made his way to Epirus, where he
+became king of the Molossians. AEneas, the Trojan hero, sought Carthage,
+whose queen Dido died for love of him. Thence he sailed to Italy, where
+he fought battles and won victories, and finally founded the city of
+Rome. His story is given by Virgil, in the poem of the "AEneid." Much
+more might be told of the adventures of the returning heroes, but the
+chief of them all is that related of the much wandering Ulysses, as
+given by Homer in his epic poem the "Odyssey."
+
+The story of the "Odyssey" might serve us for a tale in itself, but as
+it is in no sense historical we give it here in epitome.
+
+We are told that during the wanderings of Ulysses his island kingdom of
+Ithaca had been invaded by a throng of insolent suitors of his wife
+Penelope, who occupied his castle and wasted his substance in riotous
+living. His son Telemachus, indignant at this, set sail in search of his
+father, whom he knew to be somewhere upon the seas. Landing at Sparta,
+he found Menelaus living with Helen in a magnificent castle, richly
+ornamented with gold, silver, and bronze, and learned from him that his
+father was then in the island of Ogygia, where he had been long detained
+by the nymph Calypso.
+
+The wanderer had experienced numerous adventures. He had encountered the
+one-eyed giant Polyphemus, who feasted on the fattest of the Greeks,
+while the others escaped by boring out his single eye. He had passed the
+land of the Lotus-Eaters, to whose magic some of the Greeks succumbed.
+In the island of Circe some of his followers were turned into swine. But
+the hero overcame this enchantress, and while in her land visited the
+realm of the departed and had interviews with the shades of the dead.
+He afterwards passed in safety through the frightful gulf of Scylla and
+Charybdis, and visited the wind-god AEolus, who gave him a fair wind
+home, and all the foul winds tied up in a bag. But the curious Greeks
+untied the bag, and the ship was blown far from her course. His
+followers afterwards killed the sacred oxen of the sun, for which they
+were punished by being wrecked. All were lost except Ulysses, who
+floated on a mast to the island of Calypso. With this charming nymph he
+dwelt for seven years.
+
+Finally, at the command of the gods, Calypso set her willing captive
+adrift on a raft of trees. This raft was shattered in a storm, but
+Ulysses swam to the island of Phaeacia, where he was rescued by Nausicaa,
+the king's daughter, and brought to the palace. Thence, in a Phaeacian
+ship, he finally reached Ithaca.
+
+Here new adventures awaited him. He sought his palace disguised as an
+old beggar, so that of all there, only his old dog knew him. The
+faithful animal staggered to his feet, feebly expressed his joy, and
+fell dead. Telemachus had now returned, and led his disguised father
+into the palace, where the suitors were at their revels. Penelope,
+instructed what to do, now brought forth the bow of Ulysses, and offered
+her hand to any one of the suitors who could bend it. It was tried by
+them all, but tried in vain. Then the seeming beggar took in his hand
+the stout, ashen bow, bent it with ease, and with wonderful skill sent
+an arrow hurtling through the rings of twelve axes set up in line. This
+done, he turned the terrible bow upon the suitors, sending its
+death-dealing arrows whizzing through their midst. Telemachus and
+Eumaeus, his swine-keeper, aided him in this work of death, and a
+frightful scene of carnage ensued, from which not one of the suitors
+escaped with his life.
+
+In the end the hero, freed from his ragged attire, made himself known to
+his faithful wife, defeated the friends of the suitors, and recovered
+his kingdom from his foes. And thus ends the final episode of the famous
+tale of Troy.
+
+
+
+
+_THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS._
+
+
+We are forced to approach the historical period of Greece through a
+cloud-land of legend, in which atones of the gods are mingled with those
+of men, and the most marvellous of incidents are introduced as if they
+were everyday occurrences. The Argonautic expedition belongs to this age
+of myth, the vague vestibule of history. It embraces, as does the tale
+of the wanderings of Ulysses, very ancient ideas of geography, and many
+able men have treated it as the record of an actual voyage, one of the
+earliest ventures of the Greeks upon the unknown seas. However this be,
+this much is certain, the story is full of romantic and supernatural
+elements, and it was largely through these that it became so celebrated
+in ancient times.
+
+The story of the voyage of the ship Argo is a tragedy. Pelias, king of
+Ioleus, had consulted an oracle concerning the safety of his dominions,
+and was warned to beware of the man with one sandal. Soon afterwards
+Jason (a descendant of AEolus, the wind god) appeared before him with one
+foot unsandalled. He had lost his sandal while crossing a swollen
+stream. Pelias, anxious to rid himself of this visitor, against whom the
+oracle had warned him, gave to Jason the desperate task of bringing
+back to Locus the Golden Fleece (the fleece of a speaking ram which had
+borne Phryxus and Helle through the air from Greece, and had reached
+Colchis in Asia Minor, where it was dedicated to Mars, the god of war).
+
+Jason, young and daring, accepted without hesitation the perilous task,
+and induced a number of the noblest youth of Greece to accompany him in
+the enterprise. Among these adventurers were Hercules, Theseus, Castor,
+Pollux, and many others of the heroes of legend. The way to Colchis lay
+over the sea, and a ship was built for the adventurers named the Argo,
+in whose prow was inserted a piece of timber cut from the celebrated
+speaking oak of Dodona.
+
+The voyage of the Argo was as full of strange incidents as those which
+Ulysses encountered in his journey home from Troy. Land was first
+reached on the island of Lemnos. Here no men were found. It was an
+island of women only. All the men had been put to death by the women in
+revenge for ill-treatment, and they held the island as their own. But
+these warlike matrons, who had perhaps grown tired of seeing only each
+other's faces, received the Argonauts with much friendship, and made
+their stay so agreeable that they remained there for several months.
+
+Leaving Lemnos, they sailed along the coast of Thrace, and up the
+Hellespont (a strait which had received its name from Helle, who, while
+riding on the golden ram in the air above it, had fallen and been
+drowned in its waters). Thence they sailed along the Propontis and the
+coast of Mysia, not, as we may be sure, without adventures. In the
+country of the Bebrycians the giant king Amycus challenged any of them
+to box with him. Pollux accepted the challenge, and killed the giant
+with a blow. Next they reached Bithynia, where dwelt the blind prophet
+Phineus, to whom their coming proved a blessing.
+
+Phineus had been blinded by Neptune, as a punishment for having shown
+Phryxus the way to Colchis. He was also tormented by the harpies,
+frightful winged monsters, who flew down from the clouds whenever he
+attempted to eat, snatched the food from his lips, and left on it such a
+vile odor that no man could come near it. He, being a prophet, knew that
+the Argonauts would free him from this curse. There were with them Zetes
+and Calias, winged sons of Boreas, the god of the north winds; and when
+the harpies descended again to spoil the prophet's meal, these winged
+warriors not only drove them away, but pursued them through the air.
+They could not overtake them, but the harpies were forbidden by Jupiter
+to molest Phineus any longer.
+
+The blind prophet, grateful for this deliverance, told the voyagers how
+they might escape a dreadful danger which lay in their onward way. This
+came from the Symplegades, two rocks between which their ships must
+pass, and which continually opened and closed, with a violent collision,
+and so swiftly that even a bird could scarce fly through the opening in
+safety. When the Argo reached the dangerous spot, at the suggestion of
+Phineus, a dove was let loose. It flew with all speed through the
+opening, but the rocks clashed together so quickly behind it that it
+lost a few feathers of its tail. Now was their opportunity. The rowers
+dashed their ready oars into the water, shot forward with rapid speed,
+and passed safely through, only losing the ornaments at the stern of
+their ship. Their escape, however, they owed to the goddess Minerva,
+whose strong hand held the rocks asunder during the brief interval of
+their passage. It had been decreed by the gods that if any ship escaped
+these dreadful rocks they should forever cease to move. The escape of
+the Argo fulfilled this decree, and the Symplegades have ever since
+remained immovable.
+
+Onward went the daring voyagers, passing in their journey Mount
+Caucasus, on whose bare rock Prometheus, for the crime of giving fire to
+mankind, was chained, while an eagle devoured his liver. The adventurers
+saw this dread eagle and heard the groans of the sufferer himself.
+Helpless to release him whom the gods had condemned, they rowed rapidly
+away.
+
+Finally Colchis was reached, a land then ruled over by King AEetes, from
+whom the heroes demanded the golden fleece, stating that they had been
+sent thither by the gods themselves. AEetes heard their request with
+anger, and told them that if they wanted the fleece they could have it
+on one condition only. He possessed two fierce and tameless bulls, with
+brazen feet and fire-breathing nostrils. These had been the gift of the
+god Vulcan. Jason was told that if he wished to prove his descent from
+the gods and their sanction of his voyage, he must harness these
+terrible animals, plough with them a large field, and sow it with
+dragons' teeth.
+
+Perilous as this task seemed, each of the heroes was eager to undertake
+it, but Jason, as the leader of the expedition, took it upon himself.
+Fortune favored him in the desperate undertaking. Medea, the daughter of
+AEetes, who knew all the arts of magic, had seen the handsome youth and
+fallen in love with him at sight. She now came to his aid with all her
+magic. Gathering an herb which had grown where the blood of Prometheus
+had fallen, she prepared from it a magical ointment which, when rubbed
+on Jason's body, made him invulnerable either to fire or weapons of war.
+Thus prepared, he fearlessly approached the fire-breathing bulls, yoked
+them unharmed, and ploughed the field, in whose furrows he then sowed
+the dragons' teeth. Instantly from the latter sprang up a crop of armed
+men, who turned their weapons against the hero. But Jason, who had been
+further instructed by Medea, flung a great stone in their midst, upon
+which they began to fight each other, and he easily subdued them all.
+
+Jason had accomplished his task, but AEetes proved unfaithful to his
+words. He not only withheld the prize, but took steps to kill the
+Argonauts and burn their vessel. They were invited to a banquet, and
+armed men were prepared to murder them during the night after the feast.
+Fortunately, sleep overcame the treacherous king, and the adventurers
+warned of their danger, made ready to fly. But not without the golden
+fleece. This was guarded by a dragon, but Medea prepared a potion that
+put this perilous sentinel to sleep, seized the fleece, and accompanied
+Jason in his flight, taking with her on the Argo Absyrtus, her youthful
+brother.
+
+The Argonauts, seizing their oars, rowed with all haste from the dreaded
+locality. AEetes, on awakening, learned with fury of the loss of the
+fleece and his children, hastily collected an armed force, and pursued
+with such energy that the flying vessel was soon nearly overtaken. The
+safety of the adventurers was again due to Medea, who secured it by a
+terrible stratagem. This was, to kill her young brother, cut his body to
+pieces, and fling the bleeding fragments into the sea. AEetes, on
+reaching the scene of this tragedy, recognized these as the remains of
+his murdered son, and sorrowfully stopped to collect them for interment.
+While he was thus engaged the Argonauts escaped.
+
+But such a wicked deed was not suffered to go unpunished. Jupiter beheld
+it with deep indignation, and in requital condemned the Argonauts to a
+long and perilous voyage, full of hardship and adventure. They were
+forced to sail over all the watery world of waters, so far as then
+known. Up the river Phasis they rowed until it entered the ocean which
+flows round the earth. This vast sea or stream was then followed to the
+source of the Nile, down which great river they made their way into the
+land of Egypt.
+
+Here, for some reason unknown, they did not follow the Nile to the
+Mediterranean, but were forced to take the ship Argo on their shoulders
+and carry it by a long overland journey to Lake Tritonis, in Libya. Here
+they were overcome by want and exhaustion, but Triton, the god of the
+region, proved hospitable, and supplied them with the much-needed food
+and rest. Thus refreshed, they launched their ship once more on the
+Mediterranean and proceeded hopefully on their homeward way.
+
+Stopping at the island of AEaea, its queen Circe--she who had transformed
+the companions of Ulysses into swine--purified Medea from the crime of
+murder; and at Corcyra, which they next reached, the marriage of Jason
+and Medea took place. The cavern in that island where the wedding was
+solemnized was still pointed out in historical times.
+
+After leaving Corcyra a fierce storm threatened the navigators with
+shipwreck, from which they were miraculously saved by the celestial aid
+of the god Apollo. An arrow shot from his golden bow crossed the billows
+like a track of light, and where it pierced the waves an island sprang
+up, on whose shores the imperilled mariners found a port of refuge. On
+this island, Anaphe by name, the grateful Argonauts built an altar to
+Apollo and instituted sacrifices in his honor.
+
+Another adventure awaited them on the coast of Crete. This island was
+protected by a brazen sentinel, named Talos, wrought by Vulcan, and
+presented by him to King Minos to protect his realm. This living man of
+brass hurled great rocks at the vessel, and destruction would have
+overwhelmed the voyagers but for Medea. Talos, like all the
+invulnerable men of legend, had his one weak point. This her magic art
+enabled her to discover, and, as Paris had wounded Achilles in the heel,
+Medea killed this vigilant sentinel by striking him in his vulnerable
+spot.
+
+The Argonauts now landed and refreshed themselves. In the island of
+AEgina they had to fight to procure water. Then they sailed along the
+coasts of Euboea and Locris, and finally entered the gulf of Pagasae
+and dropped anchor at Iolceus, their starting-point.
+
+As to what became of the ship Argo there are two stories. One is that
+Jason consecrated his vessel to Neptune on the isthmus of Corinth.
+Another is that Minerva translated it to the stars, where it became a
+constellation.
+
+So ends the story of this earliest of recorded voyages, whose possible
+substratum of fact is overlaid deeply with fiction, and whose geography
+is similarly a strange mixture of fact and fancy. Yet though the voyage
+is at an end, our story is not. We have said that it was a tragedy, and
+the denouement of the tragedy remains to be given.
+
+Pelias, who had sent Jason on this long voyage to escape the fate
+decreed for him by the oracle, took courage from his protracted absence,
+and put to death his father and mother and his infant brother. On
+learning of this murderous act Jason determined on revenge. But Pelias
+was too strong to be attacked openly, so the hero employed a strange
+stratagem, suggested by the cunning magician Medea. He and his
+companions halted at some distance from Iolcus, while Medea entered the
+town alone, pretending that she was a fugitive from the ill-treatment of
+Jason.
+
+Here she was entertained by the daughters of Pelias, over whom she
+gained great influence by showing them certain magical wonders. In the
+end she selected an old ram from the king's flocks, cut him up and
+boiled him in a caldron with herbs of magic power. In the end the animal
+emerged from the caldron as a young and vigorous lamb. The enchantress
+now told her dupes that their old father could in the same way be made
+young again. Fully believing her, the daughters cut the old man to
+pieces in the same manner, and threw his limbs into the caldron,
+trusting to Medea to restore him to life as she had the ram.
+
+Leaving them for the assumed purpose of invoking the moon, as a part of
+the ceremony, Medea ascended to the roof of the palace. Here she lighted
+a fire-signal to the waiting Argonauts, who instantly burst into and
+took possession of the town.
+
+Having thus revenged himself, Jason yielded the crown of Iolcus to the
+son of Pelias, and withdrew with Medea to Corinth, where they resided
+together for ten years. And here the final act in the tragedy was
+played.
+
+After these ten years of happy married life, during which several
+children were born, Jason ceased to love his wife, and fixed his
+affections on Glauce, the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. The king
+showed himself willing to give Jason his daughter in marriage, upon
+which the faithless hero divorced Medea, who was ordered to leave
+Corinth. He should have known better with whom he had to deal. The
+enchantress, indignant at such treatment, determined on revenge.
+Pretending to be reconciled to the coming marriage, she prepared a
+poisoned robe, which she sent as a wedding-present to the hapless
+Glauce. No sooner had the luckless bride put on this perilous gift than
+the robe burst into flames, and she was consumed; while her father, who
+sought to tear from her the fatal garment, met with the same fate.
+
+Medea escaped by means of a chariot drawn by winged serpents, sent her
+by her grandfather Helios (the sun). As the story is told by Euripides,
+she killed her children before taking to flight, leaving their dead
+bodies to blast the sight of their horror-stricken father. The legend,
+however, tells a different tale. It says that she left them for safety
+before the altar in the temple of Juno; and that the Corinthians,
+furious at the death of their king, dragged the children from the altar
+and put them to death. As for the unhappy Jason, the story goes that he
+fell asleep under the ship Argo, which had been hauled ashore according
+to the custom of the ancients, and that a fragment of this ship fell
+upon and killed him.
+
+The flight of Medea took her to Athens, where she found a protector and
+second husband in AEgeus, the ruler of that city, and father of Theseus,
+the great legendary hero of Athens.
+
+
+
+
+_THESEUS AND ARIADNE._
+
+
+Minos, king of Crete in the age of legend, made war against Athens in
+revenge for the death of his son. This son, Androgeos by name, had shown
+such strength and skill in the Panathenaic festival that AEgeus, the
+Athenian king, sent him to fight with the flame-spitting bull of
+Marathon, a monstrous creature that was ravaging the plains of Attica.
+The bull killed the valiant youth, and Minos, furious at the death of
+his son, laid siege to Athens.
+
+As he proved unable to capture the city, he prayed for aid to his father
+Zeus (for, like all the heroes of legend, he was a son of the gods).
+Zeus sent pestilence and famine on Athens, and so bitter grew the lot of
+the Athenians that they applied to the oracles of the gods for advice in
+their sore strait, and were bidden to submit to any terms which Minos
+might impose. The terms offered by the offended king of Crete were
+severe ones. He demanded that the Athenians should, at fixed periods,
+send to Crete seven youths and seven maidens, as victims to the
+insatiable appetite of the Minotaur.
+
+This fabulous creature was one of those destructive monsters of which
+many ravaged Greece in the age of fable. It had the body of a man and
+the head of a bull, and so great was the havoc it wrought among the
+Cretans that Minos engaged the great artist Daedalus to construct a den
+from which it could not escape. Daedalus built for this purpose the
+Labyrinth, a far-extending edifice, in which were countless passages, so
+winding and intertwining that no person confined in it could ever find
+his way out again. It was like the catacombs of Rome, in which one who
+is lost is said to wander helplessly till death ends his sorrowful
+career. In this intricate puzzle of a building the Minotaur was
+confined.
+
+Every ninth year the fourteen unfortunate youths and maidens had to be
+sent from Athens to be devoured by this insatiate beast. We are not told
+on what food it was fed in the interval, or why Minos did not end the
+trouble by allowing it to starve in its inextricable den. As the story
+goes, the living tribute was twice sent, and the third period came duly
+round. The youths and maidens to be devoured were selected by lot from
+the people of Athens, and left their city amid tears and woe. But on
+this occasion Theseus, the king's son and the great hero of Athens,
+volunteered to be one of the band, and vowed either to slay the terrible
+beast or die in the attempt.
+
+There seem to have been few great events in those early days of Greece
+in which Theseus did not take part. Among his feats was the carrying off
+of Helen, the famous beauty, while still a girl. He then took part in a
+journey to the under-world,--the realm of ghosts,--during which Castor
+and Pollux, the brothers of Helen, rescued and brought her home. He was
+also one of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition and of an expedition
+against the Amazons, or nation of women warriors; he fought with and
+killed a series of famous robbers; and he rid the world of a number of
+ravaging beasts,--the Calydonian boar, the Crommyonian sow, and the
+Marathonian bull, the monster which had slain the son of Minos. He was,
+in truth, the Hercules of ancient Athens, and he now proposed to add to
+his exploits a battle for life or death with the perilous Minotaur.
+
+The hero knew that he had before him the most desperate task of his
+life. Even should he slay the monster, he would still be in the
+intricate depths of the Labyrinth, from which escape was deemed
+impossible, and in whose endless passages he and his companions might
+wander until they died of weariness and starvation. He prayed,
+therefore, to Neptune for help, and received a message from the oracle
+at Delphi to the effect that Aphrodite (or Venus) would aid and rescue
+him.
+
+The ship conveying the victims sailed sadly from Athens, and at length
+reached Crete at the port of Knossus, the residence of King Minos. Here
+the woful hostages were led through the streets to the prison in which
+they were to be confined till the next day, when they were to be
+delivered to death. As they passed along the people looked with sympathy
+upon their fair young faces, and deeply lamented their coming fate. And,
+as Venus willed, among the spectators were Minos and his fair daughter
+Ariadne, who stood at the palace door to see them pass.
+
+The eyes of the young princess fell upon the face of Theseus, the
+Athenian prince, and her heart throbbed with a feeling she had never
+before known. Never had she gazed upon a man who seemed to her half so
+brave and handsome as this princely youth. All that night thoughts of
+him drove slumber from her eyes. In the early morning, moved by a
+new-born love, she sought the prison, and, through her privilege as the
+king's daughter, was admitted to see the prisoners. Venus was doing the
+work which the oracle had promised.
+
+Calling Theseus aside, the blushing maiden told him of her sudden love,
+and that she ardently longed to save him. If he would follow her
+directions he would escape. She gave him a sword, which she had taken
+from her father's armory and concealed beneath her cloak, that he might
+be armed against the devouring beast. And she provided him besides with
+a ball of thread, bidding him to fasten the end of it to the entrance of
+the Labyrinth, and unwind it as he went in, that it might serve him as a
+clue to find his way out again.
+
+As may well be believed, Theseus warmly thanked his lovely visitor, told
+her that he was a king's son, and that he returned her love, and begged
+her, in case he escaped, to return with him to Athens and be his bride.
+Ariadne willingly consented, and left the prison before the guards came
+to conduct the victims to their fate. It was like the story of Jason and
+Medea retold.
+
+With hidden sword and clue Theseus followed the guards, in the midst of
+his fellow-prisoners. They were led into the depths of the Labyrinth
+and there left to their fate. But the guards had failed to observe that
+Theseus had fastened his thread at the entrance and was unwinding the
+ball as he went. And now, in this dire den, for hours the hapless
+victims awaited their destiny. Mid-day came, and with it a distant roar
+from the monster reverberated frightfully through the long passages.
+Nearer came the blood-thirsty brute, his bellowing growing louder as he
+scented human beings. The trembling victims waited with but a single
+hope, and that was in the sword of their valiant prince. At length the
+creature appeared, in form a man of giant stature, but with the horned
+head and huge mouth of a bull.
+
+Battle at once began between the prince and the brute. It soon ended.
+Springing agilely behind the ravening monster, Theseus, with a swinging
+stroke of his blade, cut off one of its legs at the knee. As the
+man-brute fell prone, and lay bellowing with pain, a thrust through the
+back reached its heart, and all peril from the Minotaur was at an end.
+
+This victory gained, the task of Theseus was easy. The thread led back
+to the entrance. By aid of this clue the door of escape was quickly
+gained. Waiting until night, the hostages left the dreaded Labyrinth
+under cover of the darkness. Ariadne was in waiting, the ship was
+secretly gained, and the rescued Athenians with their fair companion
+sailed away, unknown to the king.
+
+But Theseus proved false to the maiden to whom he owed his life.
+Stopping at the island of Naxos, which was sacred to Dionysus (or
+Bacchus), the god of wine, he had a dream in which the god bade him to
+desert Ariadne and sail away. This the faithless swain did, leaving the
+weeping maiden deserted on the island. Legend goes on to tell us that
+the despair of the lamenting maiden ended in the sleep of exhaustion,
+and that while sleeping Dionysus found her, and made her his wife. As
+for the dream of Theseus, it was one of those convenient excuses which
+traitors to love never lack.
+
+Meanwhile, Theseus and his companions sailed on over the summer sea.
+Reaching the isle of Delos, he offered a sacrifice to Apollo in
+gratitude for his escape, and there he, and the merry youths and maidens
+with him, danced a dance called the Geranus, whose mazy twists and turns
+imitated those of the Labyrinth.
+
+But the faithless swain was not to escape punishment for his base
+desertion of Ariadne. He had arranged with his father AEgeus that if he
+escaped the Minotaur he would hoist white sails in the ship on his
+return. If he failed, the ship would still wear the black canvas with
+which she had set out on her errand of woe.
+
+The aged king awaited the returning ship on a high rock that overlooked
+the sea. At length it hove in sight, the sails appeared, but--they were
+black. With broken heart the father cast himself from the rock into the
+sea,--which ever since has been called, from his name, the AEgean Sea.
+Theseus, absorbed perhaps in thoughts of the abandoned Ariadne, perhaps
+of new adventures, had forgotten to make the promised change. And thus
+was the deserted maiden avenged on the treacherous youth who owed to
+her his life.
+
+The ship--or what was believed to be the ship--of Theseus and the
+hostages was carefully preserved at Athens, down to the time of the
+Macedonian conquest, being constantly repaired with new timbers, till
+little of the original ship remained. Every year it was sent to Delos
+with envoys to sacrifice to Apollo. Before the ship left port the priest
+of Apollo decorated her stern with garlands, and during her absence no
+public act of impurity was permitted to take place in the city.
+Therefore no one could be put to death, and Socrates, who was condemned
+at this period of the year, was permitted to live for thirty days until
+the return of the sacred ship.
+
+There is another legend connected with this story worth telling.
+Daedalus, the builder of the Labyrinth, at length fell under the
+displeasure of Minos, and was confined within the windings of his own
+edifice. He had no clue like Theseus, but he had resources in his
+inventive skill. Making wings for himself and his son Icarus, the two
+flew away from the Labyrinth and their foe. The father safely reached
+Sicily; but the son, who refused to be governed by his father's wise
+advice, flew so high in his ambitious folly that the sun melted the wax
+of which his wings were made, and he fell into the sea near the island
+of Samos. This from him was named the Icarian Sea.
+
+There is a political as well as a legendary history of Theseus,--perhaps
+one no more to be depended upon than the other. It is said that when he
+became king he made Athens supreme over Attica, putting an end to the
+separate powers of the tribes which had before prevailed. He is also
+said to have abolished the monarchy, and replaced it by a government of
+the people, whom he divided into the three classes of nobles,
+husbandmen, and artisans. He died at length in the island of Scyrus,
+where he fell or was thrown from the cliffs. Ages later, after the
+Persian war, the Delphic oracle bade the Athenians to bring back the
+bones of Theseus from Scyrus, and bury them splendidly in Attic soil.
+Cimon, the son of Miltiades, found--or pretended to find--the hero's
+tomb, and returned with the famous bones. They were buried in the heart
+of Athens, and over them was erected the monument called the Theseium,
+which became afterwards a place of sanctuary for slaves escaping from
+cruel treatment and for all persons in peril. Theseus, who had been the
+champion of the oppressed during life, thus became their refuge after
+death.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES._
+
+
+Among the legendary tales of Greece, none of which are strictly, though
+several are perhaps partly, historical, none--after that of Troy--was
+more popular with the ancients than the story of the two sieges of
+Thebes. This tale had probably in it an historical element, though
+deeply overlaid with myth, and it was the greatest enterprise of Grecian
+war, after that of Troy, during what is called the age of the Heroes.
+And in it is included one of the most pathetic episodes in the story of
+Greece, that of the sisterly affection and tragic fate of Antigone,
+whose story gave rise to noble dramas by the tragedians AEschylus and
+Sophocles, and is still a favorite with lovers of pathetic lore.
+
+As a prelude to our story we must glance at the mythical history of
+OEdipus, which, like that of his noble daughter, has been celebrated
+in ancient drama. An oracle had declared that he should kill his father,
+the king of Thebes. He was, in consequence, brought up in ignorance of
+his parentage, yet this led to the accomplishment of the oracle, for as
+a youth he, during a roadside squabble, killed his father not knowing
+him. For this crime, which had been one of their own devising, the gods,
+with their usual inconsistency, punished the land of Thebes; afflicting
+that hapless country with a terrible monster called the Sphinx, which
+had the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the body of a lion.
+This strangely made-up creature proposed a riddle to the Thebans, whose
+solution they were forced to try and give; and on every failure to give
+the correct answer she seized and devoured the unhappy aspirant.
+OEdipus arrived, in ignorance of the fact that he was the son of the
+late king. He quickly solved the riddle of the Sphinx, whereupon that
+monster committed suicide, and he was made king. He then married the
+queen,--not knowing that she was his own mother.
+
+[Illustration: OEDIPUS AND ANTIGONE.]
+
+This celebrated riddle of the Sphinx was not a very difficult one. It
+was as follows: "A being with four feet has two feet and three feet; but
+its feet vary, and when it has most it is weakest."
+
+The answer, as given by OEdipus, was "Man," who
+
+ "First as a babe four-footed creeps on his way,
+ Then, when full age cometh on, and the burden of years weighs full heavy,
+ Bending his shoulders and neck, as a third foot useth his staff."
+
+When the truth became known--as truth was apt to become known when too
+late in old stories--the queen, Jocasta, mad with anguish, hanged
+herself, and OEdipus, in wild despair, put out his eyes. The gods who
+had led him blindly into crime, now handed him over to punishment by the
+Furies,--the ancient goddesses of vengeance, whose mission it was to
+pursue the criminal with stinging whips.
+
+The tragic events which followed arose from the curse of the afflicted
+OEdipus. He had two sons, Polynikes and Eteocles, who twice offended
+him without intention, and whom he, frenzied by his troubles, twice
+bitterly cursed, praying to the gods that they might perish by each
+other's hands. OEdipus afterwards obtained the pardon of the gods for
+his involuntary crime, and died in exile, leaving Creon, the brother of
+Jocasta, on the throne. But though he was dead, his curse kept alive,
+and brought on new matter of dire moment.
+
+It began its work in a quarrel between the two sons as to who should
+succeed their uncle as king of Thebes. Polynikes was in the wrong, and
+was forced to leave Thebes, while Eteocles remained. The exiled prince
+sought the court of Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him his daughter
+in marriage, and agreed to assist in restoring him to his native
+country.
+
+Most of the Argive chiefs joined in the proposed expedition. But the
+most distinguished of them all, Amphiaraues, opposed it as unjust and
+against the will of the gods. He concealed himself, lest he should be
+forced into the enterprise. But the other chiefs deemed his aid
+indispensable, and bribed his wife, with a costly present, to reveal his
+hiding-place. Amphiaraues was thus forced to join the expedition, but his
+prophetic power taught him that it would end in disaster to all and
+death to himself, and as a measure of revenge he commanded his son
+Alkmaeon to kill the faithless woman who had betrayed him, and after his
+death to organize a second expedition against Thebes.
+
+Seven chiefs led the army, one to assail each of the seven celebrated
+gates of Thebes. Onward they marched against that strong city, heedless
+of the hostile portents which they met on their way. The Thebans also
+sought the oracle of the gods, and were told that they should be
+victorious, but only on the dread condition that Creon's son,
+Menoeceus, should sacrifice himself to Mars. The devoted youth, on
+learning that the safety of his country depended on his life, forthwith
+killed himself before the city gates,--thus securing by innocent blood
+the powerful aid of the god of war.
+
+Long and strenuous was the contest that succeeded, each of the heroes
+fiercely attacking the gate adjudged to him. But the gods were on the
+side of the Thebans and every assault proved in vain. Parthenopaeus, one
+of the seven, was killed by a stone, and another, Capaneus, while
+furiously mounting the walls from a scaling-ladder, was slain by a
+thunderbolt cast by Jupiter, and fell dead to the earth.
+
+The assailants, terrified by this portent, drew back, and were pursued
+by the Thebans, who issued from their gates. But the battle that was
+about to take place on the open plain was stopped by Eteocles, who
+proposed to settle it by a single combat with his brother Polynikes, the
+victory to be given to the side whose champion succeeded in this mortal
+duel. Polynikes, filled with hatred of his brother, eagerly accepted
+this challenge. Adrastus, the leader of the assailing army, assented,
+and the unholy combat began.
+
+Never was a more furious combat than that between the hostile brothers.
+Each was exasperated to bitter hatred of the other, and they fought with
+a violence and desperation that could end only in the death of one of
+the combatants. As it proved, the curse of OEdipus was in the keeping
+of the gods, and both fell dead,--the fate for which their aged father
+had prayed. But the duel had decided nothing, and the two armies renewed
+the battle.
+
+And now death and bloodshed ran riot; men fell by hundreds; deeds of
+heroic valor were achieved on either side; feats of individual daring
+were displayed like those which Homer sings in the story of Troy. But
+the battle ended in the defeat of the assailants. Of the seven leaders
+only two survived, and one of these, Amphiaraues, was about to suffer the
+fate he had foretold, when Jupiter rescued him from death by a miracle.
+The earth opened beneath him, and he, with his chariot and horses, was
+received unhurt into her bosom. Rendered immortal by the king of the
+gods, he was afterwards worshipped as a god himself.
+
+Adrastus, the only remaining chief, was forced to fly, and was preserved
+by the matchless speed of his horse. He reached Argos in safety, but
+brought with him nothing but "his garment of woe and his black-maned
+steed."
+
+Thus ended, in defeat and disaster to the assailants, the first of the
+celebrated sieges of Thebes. It was followed by a tragic episode which
+remains to be told, that of the sisterly fidelity of Antigone and her
+sorrowful fate. Her story, which the dramatists have made immortal, is
+thus told in the legend.
+
+After the repulse of his foes, King Creon caused the body of Eteocles
+to be buried with the highest honors; but that of Polynikes was cast
+outside the gates as the corpse of a traitor, and death was threatened
+to any one who should dare to give it burial. This cruel edict, which no
+one else ventured to ignore, was set aside by Antigone, the sister of
+Polynikes. This brave maiden, with warm filial affection, had
+accompanied her blind father during his exile to Attica, and was now
+returned to Thebes to perform another holy duty. Funeral rites were held
+by the Greeks to be essential to the repose of the dead, and Antigone,
+despite Creon's edict, determined that her brother's body should not be
+left to the dogs and vultures. Her sister, though in sympathy with her
+purpose, proved too timid to help her. No other assistance was to be
+had. But not deterred by this, she determined to perform the act alone,
+and to bury the body with her own hands.
+
+In this act of holy devotion Antigone succeeded; Polynikes was buried.
+But the sentinels whom Creon had posted detected her in the act, and she
+was seized and dragged before the tribunal of the tyrant. Here she
+defended her action with an earnestness and dignity that should have
+gained her release, but Creon was inflexible in his anger. She had set
+at naught his edict, and should suffer the penalty for her crime. He
+condemned her to be buried alive.
+
+Sophocles, the dramatist, puts noble words into the mouth of Antigone.
+This is her protest against the tyranny of the king:
+
+  "No ordinance of man shall override
+  The settled laws of Nature and of God;
+  Not written these in pages of a book,
+  Nor were they framed to-day, nor yesterday;
+  We know not whence they are; but this we know,
+  That they from all eternity have been,
+  And shall to all eternity endure."
+
+And when asked by Creon why she had dared disobey the laws, she nobly
+replied,--
+
+                "Not through fear
+  Of any man's resolve was I prepared
+  Before the gods to bear the penalty
+  Of sinning against these. That I should die
+  I knew (how should I not?) though thy decree
+  Had never spoken. And before my time
+  If I shall die, I reckon this a gain;
+  For whoso lives, as I, in many woes,
+  How can it be but he shall gain by death?"
+
+At the king's command the unhappy maiden was taken from his presence and
+thrust into a sepulchre, where she was condemned to perish in hunger and
+loneliness. But Antigone was not without her advocate. She had a
+lover,--almost the only one in Greek literature. Haemon, the son of
+Creon, to whom her hand had been promised in marriage, and who loved her
+dearly, appeared before his father and earnestly interceded for her
+life. Not on the plea of his love,--such a plea would have had no weight
+with a Greek tribunal,--but on those of mercy and justice. His plea was
+vain; Creon was obdurate: the unhappy lover left his presence and sought
+Antigone's living tomb, where he slew himself at the feet of his love,
+already dead. His mother, on learning of his fatal act, also killed
+herself by her own hand, and Creon was left alone to suffer the
+consequences of his unnatural act.
+
+The story goes on to relate that Adrastus, with the disconsolate mothers
+of the fallen chieftains, sought the hero Theseus at Athens, and begged
+his aid in procuring the privilege of interment for the slain warriors
+whose bodies lay on the plain of Thebes. The Thebans persisting in their
+refusal to permit burial, Theseus at length led an army against them,
+defeated them in the field, and forced them to consent that their fallen
+foes should be interred, that last privilege of the dead which was
+deemed so essential by all pious Greeks. The tomb of the chieftains was
+shown near Eleusis within late historical times.
+
+But the Thebans were to suffer another reverse. The sons of the slain
+chieftains raised an army, which they placed under the leadership of
+Adrastus, and demanded to be led against Thebes. Alkmaeon, the son of
+Amphiaraues, who had been commanded to revenge him, played the most
+prominent part in the succeeding war. As this new expedition marched,
+the gods, which had opposed the former with hostile signs, now showed
+their approval with favorable portents. Adherents joined them on their
+march. At the river Glisas they were met by a Theban army, and a battle
+was fought, which ended in a complete victory over the Theban foe. A
+prophet now declared to the Thebans that the gods were against them, and
+advised them to surrender the city. This they did, flying themselves,
+with their wives and children, to the country of the Illyrians, and
+leaving their city empty to the triumphant foe. The Epigoni, as the
+youthful victors were called, marched in at the head of their forces,
+took possession, and placed Thersander, the son of Polynikes, on the
+throne. And thus ends the famous old legend of the two sieges of Thebes.
+
+
+
+
+_LYCURGUS AND THE SPARTAN LAWS._
+
+
+Of the many nations between which the small peninsula of Greece was
+divided, much the most interesting were those whose chief cities were
+Athens and Sparta. These are the states with whose doings history is
+full, and without which the history of ancient Greece would be little
+more interesting to us than the history of ancient China and Japan. No
+two cities could have been more opposite in character and institutions
+than these, and they were rivals of each other for the dominant power
+through centuries of Grecian history. In Athens freedom of thought and
+freedom of action prevailed. Such complete political equality of the
+citizens has scarcely been known elsewhere upon the earth, and the
+intellectual activity of these citizens stands unequalled. In Sparta
+freedom of thought and action were both suppressed to a degree rarely
+known, the most rigid institutions existed, and the only activity was a
+warlike one. All thought and all education had war for their object, and
+the state and city became a compact military machine. This condition was
+the result of a remarkable code of laws by which Sparta was governed,
+the most peculiar and surprising code which any nation has ever
+possessed. It is this code, and Lycurgus, to whom Sparta owed it, with
+which we are now concerned.
+
+First, who was Lycurgus and in what age did he live? Neither of these
+questions can be closely answered. Though his laws are historical, his
+biography is legendary. He is believed to have lived somewhere about 800
+or 900 B.C., that age of legend and fable in which Homer lived, and what
+we know about him is little more to be trusted than what we know about
+the great poet. The Greeks had stories of their celebrated men of this
+remote age, but they were stories with which imagination often had more
+to do than fact, and though we may enjoy them, it is never quite safe to
+believe them.
+
+As for the very uncertain personage named Lycurgus, we are told by
+Herodotus, the Greek historian, that when he was born the Spartans were
+the most lawless of the Greeks. Every man was a law unto himself, and
+confusion, tumult, and injustice everywhere prevailed. Lycurgus, a noble
+Spartan, sad at heart for the misery of his country, applied to the
+oracle at Delphi, and received instructions as to how he should act to
+bring about a better state of affairs.
+
+Plutarch, who tells so many charming stories about the ancient Greeks
+and Romans, gives us the following account. According to him the brother
+of Lycurgus was king of Sparta. When he died Lycurgus was offered the
+throne, but he declined the honor and made his infant nephew, Charilaus,
+king. Then he left Sparta, and travelled through Crete, Ionia, Egypt,
+and several more remote countries, everywhere studying the laws and
+customs which he found prevailing. In Ionia he obtained a copy of the
+poems of Homer, and is said by some to have met and conversed with Homer
+himself. If, as is supposed, the Greeks of that age had not the art of
+writing, he must have carried this copy in his memory.
+
+On his return home from this long journey Lycurgus found his country in
+a worse state than before. Sparta, it may be well here to say, had
+always two kings; but it found, as might have been expected, that two
+kings were worse than one, and that this odd device in government never
+worked well. At any rate, Lycurgus found that law had nearly vanished,
+and that disorder had taken its place. He now consulted the oracle at
+Delphi, and was told that the gods would support him in what he proposed
+to do.
+
+Coming back to Sparta, he secretly gathered a body-guard of thirty armed
+men from among the noblest citizens, and then presented himself in the
+Agora, or place of public assembly, announcing that he had come to end
+the disorders of his native land. King Charilaus at first heard of this
+with terror, but on learning what his uncle intended, he offered his
+support. Most of the leading men of Sparta did the same. Lycurgus was to
+them a descendant of the great hero Hercules, he was the most learned
+and travelled of their people, and the reforms he proposed were sadly
+needed in that unhappy land.
+
+These reforms were of two kinds. He desired to reform both the
+government and society. We shall deal first with the new government
+which he instituted. The two kings were left unchanged. But under them
+was formed a senate of twenty-eight members, to whom the kings were
+joined, making thirty in all. The people also were given their
+assemblies, but they could not debate any subject, all the power they
+had was to accept or reject what the senate had decreed. At a later date
+five men, called ephors, were selected from the people, into whose hands
+fell nearly all the civil power, so that the kings had little more to do
+than to command the army and lead it to war. The kings, however, were at
+the head of the religious establishment of the country, and were
+respected by the people as descendants of the gods.
+
+The government of Sparta thus became an aristocracy or oligarchy. The
+ephors came from the people, and were appointed in their interest, but
+they came to rule the state so completely that neither the kings, the
+senate, nor the assembly had much voice in the government. Such was the
+outgrowth of the governmental institutions of Lycurgus.
+
+It is the civil laws made by Lycurgus, however, which are of most
+interest, and in which Sparta differed from all other states. The people
+of Laconia, the country of which Sparta was the capital, were composed
+of two classes. That country had originally been conquered by the
+Spartans, and the ancient inhabitants, who were known as Helots, were
+held as slaves by their Spartan conquerors. They tilled the ground to
+raise food for the citizens, who were all soldiers, and whose whole life
+and thought were given to keeping the Helots in slavery and to warlike
+activity. That they might make the better soldiers, Lycurgus formed laws
+to do away with all luxury and inequality of conditions, and to train up
+the young under a rigid system of discipline to the use of weapons and
+the arts of war. The Helots, also, were often employed as light-armed
+soldiers, and there was always danger that they might revolt against
+their oppressors, a fact which made constant discipline and vigilance
+necessary to the Spartan citizens.
+
+Lycurgus found great inequality in the state. A few owned all the land,
+and the remainder were poor. The rich lived in luxury; the poor were
+reduced to misery and want. He divided the whole territory of Sparta
+into nine thousand equal lots, one of which was given to each citizen.
+The territory of the remainder of Laconia was divided into thirty
+thousand equal lots, one of which was given to each Perioecus. (The
+Perioeci were the freemen of the country outside of the Spartan city
+and district, and did not possess the full rights of citizenship.)
+
+This measure served to equalize wealth. But further to prevent luxury,
+Lycurgus banished all gold and silver from the country, and forced the
+people to use iron money,--each piece so heavy that none would care to
+carry it. He also forbade the citizens to have anything to do with
+commerce or industry. They were to be soldiers only, and the Helots were
+to supply them with food. As for commerce, since no other state would
+accept their iron money, they had to depend on themselves for
+everything they needed. The industries of Laconia were kept strictly at
+home.
+
+To these provisions Lycurgus added another of remarkable character. No
+one was allowed to take his meals at home. Public tables were provided,
+at which all must eat, every citizen being forced to belong to some
+special public mess. Each had to supply his quota of food, such as
+barley, wine, cheese, and figs from his land, game obtained by hunting,
+or the meat of the animals killed for sacrifices. At these tables all
+shared alike. The kings and the humblest citizens were on an equality.
+No distinction was permitted except to those who had rendered some
+signal service to the state.
+
+This public mess was not accepted without protest. Those who were used
+to luxurious living were not ready to be brought down to such simple
+fare, and a number of these attacked Lycurgus in the market-place, and
+would have stoned him to death had he not run briskly for his life. As
+it was, one of his pursuers knocked out his eye. But, such was his
+content at his success, that he dedicated his last eye to the gods,
+building a temple to the goddess Athene of the Eye. At these public
+tables black broth was the most valued dish, the elder men eating it in
+preference, and leaving the meat to their younger messmates.
+
+The houses of the Spartans were as plain as they could well be made, and
+as simple in furniture as possible, while no lights were permitted at
+bedtime, it being designed that every one should become accustomed to
+walking boldly in the dark. This, however, was but a minor portion of
+the Spartan discipline. Throughout life, from boyhood to old age, every
+one was subjected to the most rigorous training. From seven years of age
+the drill continued, and everyone was constantly being trained or seeing
+others under training. The day was passed in public exercises and public
+meals, the nights in public barracks. Married Spartans rarely saw their
+wives--during the first years of marriage--and had very little to do
+with their children; their whole lives were given to the state, and the
+slavery of the Helots to them was not more complete than their slavery
+to military discipline.
+
+They were not only drilled in the complicated military movements which
+taught a body of Spartan soldiers to act as one man, but also had
+incessant gymnastic training, so as to make them active, strong, and
+enduring. They were taught to bear severe pain unmoved, to endure heat
+and cold, hunger and thirst, to walk barefoot on rugged ground, to wear
+the same garment summer and winter, to suppress all display of feeling,
+and in public to remain silent and motionless until action was called
+for.
+
+Two companies were often matched against each other, and these contests
+were carried on with fury, fists and feet taking the place of arms.
+Hunting in the woods and mountains was encouraged, that they might learn
+to bear fatigue. The boys were kept half fed, that they might be forced
+to provide for themselves by hunting or stealing. The latter was
+designed to make them cunning and skilful, and if detected in the act
+they were severely punished. The story is told that one boy who had
+stolen a fox and hidden it under his garment, permitted the animal to
+tear him open with claws and teeth, and died rather than reveal his
+theft.
+
+One might say that he would rather have been born a girl than a boy in
+Sparta; but the girls were trained almost as severely as the boys. They
+were forced to contend with each other in running, wrestling, and
+boxing, and to go through other gymnastic exercises calculated to make
+them strong and healthy. They marched in the religious processions, sung
+and danced at festivals, and were present at the exercises of the
+youths. Thus boys and girls were continually mingled, and the praise or
+reproach of the latter did much to stimulate their brothers and friends
+to the utmost exertion.
+
+As a result of all this the Spartans became strong, vigorous, and
+handsome in form and face. The beauty of their women was everywhere
+celebrated. The men became unequalled for soldierly qualities, able to
+bear the greatest fatigue and privation, and to march great distances in
+a brief time, while on the field of battle they were taught to conquer
+or to die, a display of cowardice or flight from the field being a
+lifelong disgrace.
+
+Such were the main features of the most singular set of laws any nation
+ever had, the best fitted to make a nation of soldiers, and also to
+prevent intellectual progress in any other direction than the single one
+of war-making. Even eloquence in speech was discouraged, and a brief or
+laconic manner sedulously cultivated. But while all this had its
+advantages, it had its defects. The number of citizens decreased instead
+of increasing. At the time of the Persian war there were eight thousand
+of them. At a late date there were but seven hundred, of whom one
+hundred possessed most of the land. Whether Lycurgus really divided the
+land equally or not is doubtful. At any rate, in time the land fell into
+a few hands, the poor increased in number, and the people steadily died
+out; while the public mess, so far as the rich were concerned, became a
+mere form.
+
+But we need not deal with these late events, and must go back to the
+story told of Lycurgus. It is said that when he had completed his code
+of laws, he called together an assembly of the people, told them that he
+was going on a journey, and asked them to swear that they would obey his
+laws till he returned. This they agreed to do, the kings, the senate,
+and the people all taking the oath.
+
+Then the law-giver went to Delphi, where he offered a sacrifice to
+Apollo, and asked the oracle if the laws he had made were good. The
+oracle answered that they were excellent, and would bring the people the
+greatest fame. This answer he had put into writing and sent to Sparta,
+for he had resolved to make his oath binding for all time by never
+returning. So the old man starved himself to death.
+
+The Spartans kept their oath. For five hundred years their city
+continued one of the chief cities of Greece, and their army the most
+warlike and dreaded of the armies of the earth. As for Lycurgus, his
+countrymen worshipped him as a god, and imputed to him all that was
+noble in their institutions and excellent in their laws. But time brings
+its inevitable changes, and these famous institutions in time decayed,
+while the people perished from over-strict discipline or other causes
+till but a small troop of Spartans remained, too weak in numbers fairly
+to control the Helots of their fields.
+
+In truth, the laws of Lycurgus were unnatural, and in the end could but
+fail. They were framed to make one-sided men, and only whole men can
+long succeed. Human nature will have its way, and luxury and corruption
+crept into Sparta despite these laws. Nor did the Spartans prove braver
+or more successful in war than the Athenians, whose whole nature was
+developed, and who were alike great in literature, art, and war.
+
+
+
+
+_ARISTOMENES, THE HERO OF MESSENIA._
+
+
+We have told by what means the Spartans grew to be famous warriors. We
+have now to tell one of the ancient stories of how they used their
+warlike prowess to extend their dominions. Laconia, their country, was
+situated in the southeast section of the Peloponnesus, that southern
+peninsula which is attached to the remainder of Greece by the narrow
+neck of land known as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their capital city was
+anciently called Lacedaemon; it was later known as Sparta. In consequence
+they are called in history both Spartans and Lacedaemonians.
+
+In the early history of the Spartans they did not trouble themselves
+about Northern Greece. They had enough to occupy them in the
+Peloponnesus. As the Romans, in after-time, spent their early centuries
+in conquering the small nations immediately around them, so did the
+Spartans. And the first wars of this nation of soldiers seem to have
+been with Messenia, a small country west of Laconia, and extending like
+it southward into the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+There were two wars with the Messenians, both full of stories of daring
+and disaster, but it is the second of these with which we are specially
+concerned, that in which the hero Aristomenes won his fame. We shall
+not ask our readers to believe all that is told about this ancient
+champion. Much of it is very doubtful. But the war in which he took part
+was historical, and the conquest of Messenia was the first great event
+in Spartan history.
+
+Now for the story itself. In the first Messenian war, which was fought
+more than seven hundred years B.C., the leader of the Messenians was
+named Aristodemus. A quarrel had arisen between the two nations during
+some sacrifices on their border lands. The Spartans had laid a snare for
+their neighbors by dressing some youths as maidens and arming them with
+daggers. They attacked the Messenians, but were defeated, and the
+Spartan king was slain.
+
+In the war that ensued the Messenians in time found themselves in severe
+straits, and followed the plan that seems to have been common throughout
+Grecian history. They sent to Delphi to ask aid and advice from the
+oracle of Apollo. And the oracle gave them one of its often cruel and
+always uncertain answers; saying that if they would be successful a
+virgin of the house of AEpytus must die for her country. To fulfil this
+cruel behest Aristodemus, who was of that ancient house, killed his
+daughter with his own hand,--much as Agamemnon had sacrificed his
+daughter before sailing for Troy.
+
+Aristodemus afterwards became king, and had a stirring and tragic
+history, which was full of portents and prodigies. Thus an old blind
+prophet suddenly recovered his sight,--which the Messenians looked upon
+to mean something, though it is not clear what. A statue of Artemis (or
+Diana) let fall its brazen shield; which meant something more,--probably
+that the fastenings had given way; but the ancients looked on it as a
+portent. Then the ghost of his murdered daughter appeared to
+Aristodemus, pointed to her wounded side, stripped off his armor, placed
+on his head a crown of gold and on his body a white robe,--a sign of
+death. So, as it seemed evident that he had mistaken the oracle, and
+killed his daughter without saving his country, he did the only thing
+that remained for him: he went to her grave and killed himself. And with
+this tragedy ends all we need to tell about the first champion of
+Messenia.
+
+The war ended in the conquest of Messenia by the Spartans. The conquered
+people were very harshly treated by the conquerors, being forced to pay
+as tribute half the produce of their fields, and to humble themselves
+before their haughty masters. As a result, about fifty years afterwards,
+they broke out into rebellion, and a second Messenian war began.
+
+This war lasted for many years, the Messenians being led by a valiant
+hero named Aristomenes, who performed startling exploits and made
+marvellous escapes. Three great battles took place, with various results
+and three times Aristomenes made a remarkable sacrifice to the king of
+the gods. This was called the Hekatomphonia, and could only be offered
+by one who had slain, with his own hands, one hundred enemies in battle.
+
+But great battles were not all. There were years of guerilla warfare.
+At the head of a band of brave followers Aristomenes made his way more
+than once to the very heart of Laconia, surprised two of its cities, and
+on one occasion ventured into Sparta itself by night. Here he boldly
+entered the temple of Athene of the Brazen House and hung up his shield
+there as a mark of defiance to his enemies, placing on it an inscription
+which said that Aristomenes presented it as an offering from Spartan
+spoil.
+
+The Messenian maidens crowned their hero with garlands, and danced
+around him, singing a war strain in honor of his victories over his
+foes. Yet he found the Spartans vigorous and persistent enemies, and in
+spite of all his victories was forced at length to take refuge in the
+mountain fastnesses, where he held out against his foes for eleven
+years.
+
+We do not know all the adventures of this famous champion, but are told
+that he was taken prisoner three times by his enemies. Twice he made
+marvellous escapes while they were conveying him to Sparta. On the third
+occasion he was less fortunate. His foes bore him in triumph to their
+capital city, and here he was condemned to be cast from Mount Taygetus
+into the Keadas, a deep rock cavity into which they flung their
+criminals.
+
+Fifty Messenian prisoners suffered the same fate and were all killed;
+but the gods, so we are told, came to their leader's aid. The legend
+says that an eagle took Aristomenes on its outspread wings, and landed
+him safely in the bottom of the pit. More likely the bodies of the
+former victims broke his fall. Seeing no possible way out from the deep
+cavity, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and resigned himself to die.
+But, while thus lying, he saw a fox prowling among the dead bodies, and
+questioned himself how it had found its way into the pit. When it came
+near him he grasped its tail, defending himself from its bites by means
+of his cloak. Holding fast, he followed the fox to the aperture by which
+it had entered, enlarged it so that he could creep out, and soon
+appeared alive again in the field, to the surprise of his friends and
+the consternation of his foes.
+
+Being seized again by some Cretan bowmen, he was rescued by a maiden,
+who dreamed that wolves had brought into the city a chained lion, bereft
+of its claws, and that she had given it claws and set it free. When she
+saw Aristomenes among his captors, she believed that her dream had come
+true, and that the gods desired her to set him free. This she did by
+making his captors drunk, and giving him a dagger with which he cut his
+bonds. The indiscreet bowmen were killed by the warrior, while the
+escaped hero rewarded the maiden by making her the wife of his son.
+
+But Messenia was doomed by the gods, and no man could avert its fate.
+The oracle of Delphi declared that if the he-goat (Tragos) should drink
+the waters of the Neda, the god could no longer defend that fated
+country. And now a fig-tree sprang up on the banks of the Neda, and,
+instead of spreading its branches aloft, let them droop till they
+touched the waters of the stream. This a seer announced as the
+fulfillment of the oracle, for in the Messenian language the fig-tree
+was called _Tragos_.
+
+Aristomenes now, discouraged by the decree of the gods, and finding
+himself surrounded, through treachery, by his enemies in his mountain
+stronghold, decided to give up the hopeless struggle. He broke fiercely
+through the ranks of his assailants with his sons and followers, and
+left his country to the doom which the gods had decreed.
+
+The end of his career, like its earlier events, was, according to the
+legend, under the control of the deities. Damagetes, the king of the
+island of Rhodes, had been told by an oracle that he must marry the
+bravest of the Hellenes (or Greeks). Believing that Aristomenes had the
+best claim to this proud title, he asked him for the hand of his
+daughter in marriage, and offered him a home in his island realm.
+Aristomenes consented, and spent the remainder of his days in Rhodes.
+From his daughter descended the illustrious family of the Diagoridae.
+
+This romantic story of the far past resembles those of King Alfred of
+England, of Wallace and Bruce of Scotland, and of other heroes who have
+defended their countries single-handed against a powerful foe. But we
+are not done with it yet. There is another singular and interesting
+episode to be told,--a legend, no doubt, but one which has almost passed
+into history.
+
+The story goes that the Spartans, losing heart at the success of the
+Messenians in the early years of the war, took the usual method then
+adopted, and sent to the oracle at Delphi for advice. The oracle told
+them to apply to Athens for a leader. They did so, sending an embassy to
+that city; and in response to the oracle the Athenians sent them a lame
+schoolmaster named Tyrtaeus. They did not dare to resist the command of
+the god, but they had no desire to render any actual aid to the
+Spartans.
+
+However, Apollo seems to have been wiser than the Athenians. The lame
+schoolmaster was an able poet as well, and on reaching Sparta he
+composed a series of war-songs which so inspirited the army that they
+marched away to victory. Tyrtaeus was probably not only an able poet;
+very likely he also gave the Spartans good advice in the conduct of the
+war, and though he did not lead their armies, he animated them by his
+songs and aided them with his advice until victory followed their career
+of defeat.
+
+For many years afterwards the war-songs of Tyrtaeus remained highly
+popular at Sparta, and some of them have come down to our own days. As
+for the actual history of this war, most of what we know seems to have
+been written by Tyrtaeus, who was thus not only the poet but the
+historian of the Messenian wars.
+
+
+
+
+_SOLON, THE LAW-GIVER OF ATHENS._
+
+
+We have told how Sparta came to have an aristocratic government, under
+the laws of Lycurgus. We have now to tell how Athens came to have a
+democratic government, under the laws of Solon. These formed the types
+of government for later Greece, some of whose nations became
+aristocracies, following the example of Sparta; others became
+democracies, and formed their governments on the model of that of
+Athens.
+
+As before Lycurgus the Spartan commonwealth was largely without law, so
+was Athens before Solon. In those days the people of Attica--of which
+Athens was the capital city--were divided into three factions,--the
+rich, the middle class, and the poor. As for the poor, they were in a
+condition of misery, being loaded down with debt, and many of them in a
+state of slavery to the rich, who owned nearly all the land.
+
+At that period what law existed was very severe against debtors. The
+debtor became the slave of his creditor, and was held in this state
+until he could pay his debt, either in money or in labor. And not only
+he, but his younger sons and his unmarried daughters and sisters, were
+reduced to slavery. Through the action of this severe law many of the
+poor of Attica were owned as slaves, many had been sold as slaves, some
+had kept their freedom only by selling their own children, and some had
+fled from the country to escape slavery. And this, too, had arisen in
+many cases through injustice in the courts and corruption of the judges.
+
+In the time of Solon the misery and oppression from these laws became so
+great that there was a general mutiny of the poor against the rich. They
+refused to submit to the unjust enactments of their rulers, and the
+state fell into such frightful disorder that the governing class, no
+longer able to control the people, were obliged to call Solon to their
+aid.
+
+Solon did not belong to the rich men of Athens, though he was of noble
+birth, and, like so many of the older Greeks, traced his family line
+back to the gods. Neptune, the ocean deity, was fabled to be his far-off
+ancestor. He was born about 638 B.C. His father had spent most of his
+money, largely in kind deeds to others, and the son found himself
+obliged to become a merchant. In this pursuit he travelled in many parts
+of Greece and Asia, and in his journeys paid more heed to the gaining of
+knowledge than of money, so that when he came back his mind was fuller
+than his purse. Men who seek wisdom rarely succeed in gaining much
+money, but Solon's story goes to show that wisdom is far the better of
+the two, and that a rich mind is of more value than a rich purse. When
+he returned to Attica he gained such fame as a poet and a man of
+learning and wisdom that he has ever since been classed as one of the
+Seven Wise Men of Greece.
+
+Of these wise men the following story is told. Some fishermen of Cos
+cast their net into the sea, and brought up in its meshes a golden
+tripod, which the renowned Helen had thrown into the sea during her
+return from Troy. A dispute arose as to whom the tripod should belong
+to. Several cities were ready to go to war about it. To prevent
+bloodshed the oracle of Apollo was applied to, and answered that it
+should be sent to the wisest man that could be found.
+
+It was at first sent to Thales of Miletus, a man famous for wisdom. But
+he decided that Bias of Priene was wiser than he, and sent it to him.
+And thus it went the round of the seven wise men,--Solon among them, so
+we are told,--and finally came back to Thales. He refused to keep it,
+and placed it in the temple of Apollo at Thebes.
+
+An evidence alike of Solon's wisdom, shrewdness, and political skill
+arose in the war for the island of Salamis, which adjoined the two
+states of Megara and Attica, and for whose possession they were at war.
+After the Athenians had been at great loss of men and money in this
+conflict, Megara gained the island, and the people of Athens became so
+disgusted with the whole affair that a law was passed declaring that any
+man who spoke or wrote again about the subject should be put to death.
+
+This Solon held to be a stain on the honor of Athens. He did not care to
+lose his life by breaking the law, but was not content that his country
+should rest under the stigma of defeat, and should yield so valuable a
+prize. He accordingly had it given out that he had gone mad; and in
+pretended insanity he rushed into the public square, mounted the
+herald's stone, and repeated a poem he had composed for the occasion,
+recalling vividly to the people the disgrace of their late defeat. His
+stirring appeal so wrought upon their feelings that the law was
+repealed, war was declared, and Solon was placed in command of the army.
+
+Megara sent out a ship to watch the proceedings, but this was seized by
+Solon's fleet and manned by part of his force. The remainder of his men
+were landed and marched towards the city of Salamis, on which they made
+an assault. While this was going on, Solon sailed up with the ship he
+had captured. The Megarians, thinking it to be their own ship, permitted
+it to enter the port, and the city was taken by surprise. Salamis, thus
+won, continued to belong to Athens till those late days when Philip of
+Macedon conquered Greece.
+
+To Solon, now acknowledged to be the wisest and most famous of the
+Athenians, the tyrants who had long misruled Athens turned, when they
+found the people in rebellion against their authority. In the year 594
+B.C. he was chosen archon, or ruler of the state, and was given full
+power to take such measures as were needed to put an end to the
+disorders. Probably these autocrats supposed that he would help them to
+continue in power; but, if so, they did not know the man with whom they
+had to deal.
+
+Solon might easily have made himself a despot, if he had chosen,--all
+the states of Greece being then under the rule of despots or of
+tyrannical aristocrats. But he was too honest and too wise for this. He
+set himself earnestly to overcome the difficulties which lay before him.
+And he did this with a radical hand. In truth, the people were in no
+mood for any but radical measures.
+
+The enslaved debtors were at once set free. All contracts in which the
+person or the land of the debtor had been given as security were
+cancelled. No future contract under which a citizen could be enslaved or
+imprisoned for debt was permitted. All past claims against the land of
+Attica were cancelled, and the mortgage pillars removed. (These pillars
+were set up at the boundaries of the land, and had the lender's name and
+the amount of the debt cut into the stone.)
+
+But as many of the creditors were themselves in debt to richer men, and
+as Solon's laws left them poor, he adopted a measure for their relief.
+This was to lower the value of the money of the state. The old silver
+drachmas were replaced by new drachmas, of which seventy-three equalled
+one hundred of the old. Debtors were thus able to pay their debts at a
+discount of twenty-seven per cent., and the great loss fell on the rich;
+and justly so, for most of them had gained their wealth through
+dishonesty and oppression. Lastly, Solon made full citizens of all from
+whom political rights had been taken, except those who had been
+condemned for murder or treason.
+
+This was a bold measure. And, like such bold measures generally, it did
+injustice to many. But the evil was temporary, the good permanent. It
+put an end to much injustice, and no such condition as had prevailed
+ever again arose in Athens. The government of the aristocracy came to an
+end under Solon's laws. From that time forward Athens grew more and more
+a government of the people.
+
+The old assembly of the people existed then, but all its power had been
+taken from it. Solon gave back to it the right of voting and of passing
+laws. But he established a council of four hundred men, elected annually
+by the people, whose duty it was to consider the business upon which the
+assembly was to act. And the assembly could only deal with business that
+was brought before it by this council.
+
+The assemblies of the people took place on the Pnyx, a hill that
+overlooked the city, and from which could be seen the distant sea. At
+its right stood the Acropolis, that famous hill on which the noblest of
+temples were afterwards built. Between these two hills rose the
+Areopagus, on which the Athenian supreme court held its sessions. The
+Athenians loved to do their business in the open air, and, while
+discussing questions of law and justice, delighted in the broad view
+before them of the temples, the streets, and the crowded marts of trade
+of the city, and the shining sea, with its white-sailed craft, afar in
+the sunny distance.
+
+Solon's laws went further than we have said. He divided the people into
+four ranks or divisions, according to their wealth in land. The richer
+men were, the more power they were given in the state. But at the same
+time they had to pay heavier taxes, so that their greater authority was
+not an unmixed blessing. The lowest class, composed of the poorest
+citizens, had no taxes at all to pay, and no power in the state, other
+than the right to vote in the assembly. When called out as soldiers arms
+were furnished them, while the other classes had to buy their own arms.
+
+Various other laws were made by Solon. The old law against crime,
+established long before by Draco, had made death the penalty for every
+crime, from murder to petty theft. This severe law was repealed, and the
+punishment made to agree with the crime. Minor laws were these: The
+living could not speak evil of the dead. No person could draw more than
+a fixed quantity of water daily from the public wells. People who raised
+bees must not have their hives too near those of their neighbors. It was
+fixed how women should dress, and they were forbidden to scratch or tear
+themselves at funerals. They had to carry baskets of a fixed size when
+they went abroad. A dog that bit anybody had to be delivered up with a
+log four feet and a half long tied to its neck. Such were some of the
+laws which the council swore to maintain, each member vowing that if he
+broke any of them he would dedicate a golden statue as large as himself
+to Apollo, at Delphi.
+
+Having founded his laws, Solon, fearing that he would be forced to make
+changes in them, left Athens, having bound the people by oath to keep
+them for ten years, during which time he proposed to be absent.
+
+From Athens he set sail for Egypt, and in that ancient realm talked long
+with two learned priests about the old history of the land. Among the
+stories they told him was a curious one about a great island named
+Atlantis, far in the western ocean, against which Athens had waged war
+nine thousand years before, and which had afterwards sunk under the
+Atlantic's waves. It was one of those fanciful legends of which the past
+had so great a store.
+
+From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he dwelt long and made useful
+changes. He is also said to have visited, at Sardis, Croesus, the king
+of Lydia, a monarch famous for his wealth and good fortune. About this
+visit a pretty moral story is told. It is probably not true, being a
+fiction of the ancient story-tellers, but, fiction or not, it is well
+worth the telling.
+
+Croesus had been so fortunate in war that he had made his kingdom
+great and prosperous, while he was esteemed the richest monarch of his
+times. He lodged Solon in his palace and had his servants show him all
+the treasures which he had gained. He then, conversing with his visitor,
+praised him for his wisdom, and asked him whom he deemed to be the
+happiest of men.
+
+He expected an answer flattering to his vanity, but Solon simply
+replied,--
+
+"Tellus, of Athens."
+
+"And why do you deem Tellus the happiest?" demanded Croesus.
+
+Solon gave as his reason that Tellus lived in comfort and had good and
+beautiful sons, who also had good children; and that he died in gallant
+defence of his country, and was buried by his countrymen with the
+highest honors.
+
+"And whom do you give the second place in happiness?" asked Croesus.
+
+"Cleobis and Bito," answered Solon. "These were men of the Argive race,
+who had fortune enough for their wants, and were so strong as to gain
+prizes at the Games."
+
+"But their special title to happiness was," continued Solon, "that in a
+festival to the goddess Juno, at Argos, their mother wished to go in a
+car. As the oxen did not return in time from the fields, the youths,
+fearing to be late, yoked themselves to the car, and drew their mother
+to the temple, forty-five furlongs away. This filial deed gained them
+the highest praise from the people, while their mother prayed the
+goddess to bestow upon them the highest blessing to which mortals can
+attain. After her prayer, the youths offered sacrifices, partook of the
+holy banquet, and fell asleep in the temple. They never woke again! This
+was the blessing of the goddess."
+
+"What," cried Croesus, angrily, "is my happiness, then, of so little
+value to you that you put me on a level with private men like these?"
+
+"You are very rich, Croesus," answered Solon, "and are lord of many
+nations. But remember that you have many days yet to live, and that any
+single day in a man's life may yield events that will change all his
+fortune. As to whether you are supremely happy and fortunate, then, I
+have no answer to make. I cannot speak for your happiness till I know if
+your life has a happy _ending_."[1]
+
+Solon, having completed his travels, returned to Athens to find it in
+turmoil. Pisistratus, a political adventurer and a favorite with the
+people, had gained despotic power by a cunning trick. He wounded
+himself, and declared that he had been attacked and wounded by his
+political enemies. He asked, therefore, for a body-guard for his
+protection. This was granted him by the popular assembly, which was
+strongly on his side. With its aid he seized the Acropolis and made
+himself master of the city, while his opponents were forced to fly for
+their lives.
+
+This revolutionary movement was strenuously opposed by Solon, but in
+vain. Pisistratus had made himself so popular with the people that they
+treated their old law-giver like a man who had lost his senses. As a
+last appeal he put on his armor and placed himself before the door of
+his house, as if on guard as a sentinel over the liberties of his
+country! This appeal was also in vain.
+
+"I have done my duty!" he exclaimed; "I have sustained to the best of my
+power my country and the laws."
+
+He refused to fly, saying, when asked on what he relied for protection,
+"On my old age."
+
+Pisistratus--who proved a very mild despot--left his aged opponent
+unharmed, and in the next year Solon died, being then eighty years of
+age.
+
+His laws lived after him, despite the despotism which ruled over Athens
+for the succeeding fifty years.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FORTUNE OF CROESUS._
+
+
+The land of the Hellenes, or Greeks, was not confined to the small
+peninsula now known as Greece. Hellenic colonies spread far to the east
+and the west, to Italy and Sicily on the one hand, to Asia Minor and the
+shores of the Black Sea on the other. The story of the Argonauts
+probably arose from colonizing expeditions to the Black Sea. That of
+Croesus has to do with the colonies in Asia Minor.
+
+These colonies clung to the coast. Inland lay other nations, to some
+extent of Hellenic origin. One of these was the kingdom of Lydia, whose
+history is of the highest importance to us, since the conflicts between
+Lydia and the coast colonies were the first steps towards the invasion
+of Greece by the Persians, that most important event in early Grecian
+history.
+
+These conflicts began in the reign of Croesus, an ambitious king of
+Lydia in the sixth century before Christ. What gave rise to the war
+between Lydia and the Greek settlements of Ionia and AEolia we do not
+very well know. An ambitious despot does not need much pretext for war.
+He wills the war, and the pretext follows. It will suffice to say that,
+on one excuse or another, Croesus made war on every Ionian and AEolian
+state, and conquered them one after the other.
+
+First the great and prosperous city of Ephesus fell. Then, one by one,
+others followed, till, by the year 550 B.C., Croesus had become lord
+and master of every one of those formerly free and wealthy cities and
+states. Then, having placed all the colonies on the mainland under
+tribute, he designed to conquer the islands as well, and proposed to
+build ships for that purpose. He was checked in this plan by the shrewd
+answer of one of the seven wise men of Greece, either Bias or Pittacus,
+who had visited Sardis, the capital of Lydia.
+
+"What news bring you from Greece?" asked King Croesus of his wise
+visitor.
+
+"I am told that the islanders are gathering ten thousand horse, with the
+purpose of attacking you and your capital," was the answer.
+
+"What!" cried Croesus. "Have the gods given these shipmen such an idea
+as to fight the Lydians with cavalry?"
+
+"I fancy, O king," answered the Greek, "that nothing would please you
+better than to catch these islanders here on horseback. But do you not
+think that they would like nothing better than to catch you at sea on
+shipboard? Would they not avenge on you the misfortunes of their
+conquered brethren?"
+
+This shrewd suggestion taught Croesus a lesson. Instead of fighting
+the islanders, he made a treaty of peace and friendship with them. But
+he continued his conquests on the mainland till in the end all Asia
+Minor was under his sway, and Lydia had become one of the great
+kingdoms of the earth. Such wealth came to Croesus as a result of his
+conquests and unchanging good fortune that he became accounted the
+richest monarch upon the earth, while Sardis grew marvellous for its
+splendor and prosperity. At an earlier date there had come thither
+another of the seven wise men of Greece, Solon, the law-giver of Athens.
+What passed between this far-seeing visitor and the proud monarch of
+Lydia we have already told.
+
+The misfortunes which Solon told the king were liable to come upon any
+man befell Croesus during the remainder of his life. Herodotus, the
+historian, tells us the romantic story of how the gods sent misery to
+him who had boasted overmuch of his happiness. We give briefly this
+interesting account.
+
+Croeus had two sons, one of whom was deaf and dumb, the other, Atys by
+name, gifted with the highest qualities which nature has to bestow. The
+king loved his bright and handsome son as dearly as he loved his wealth,
+and when a dream came to him that Atys would die by the blow of an iron
+weapon, he was deeply disturbed in his mind.
+
+How should he prevent such a misfortune? In alarm, he forbade his son to
+take part in military forays, to which he had before encouraged him;
+and, to solace him for this deprivation, bade him to take a wife. Then,
+lest any of the warlike weapons which hung upon the walls of his
+apartments might fall and wound him, the king had them all removed, and
+stored away in the part of the palace devoted to the women.
+
+But fate had decreed that all such precautions should be in vain. At
+Mount Olympus, in Mysia, had appeared a monster boar, that ravaged the
+fields of the lowlands and defied pursuit into his mountain retreat.
+Hunting parties were sent against him, but the great boar came off
+unscathed, while the hunters always suffered from his frightful tusks.
+At length ambassadors were sent to Croesus, begging him to send his
+son, with other daring youths and with hunting hounds, to aid them rid
+their country of this destructive brute.
+
+"That cannot be," answered Croesus, still in terror from his dream.
+"My son is just married, and cannot so soon leave his bride. But I will
+send you a picked band of hunters, and bid them use all zeal to kill
+this foe of your harvests."
+
+With this promise the Mysians were quite content, but Atys, who
+overheard it, was not.
+
+"Why, my father," he demanded, "do you now keep me from the wars and the
+chase, when you formerly encouraged me to take part in them, and win
+glory for myself and you? Have I ever shown cowardice or lack of manly
+spirit? What must the citizens or my young bride think of me? With what
+face can I show myself in the forum? Either you must let me go to the
+chase of this boar, or give a reason why you keep me at home."
+
+In reply Croesus told the indignant youth of his vision, and the alarm
+with which it had inspired him.
+
+"Ah!" cried Atys, "then I cannot blame you for keeping this tender watch
+over me. But, father, do you not wrongly interpret the dream? It said I
+was to die stricken by an iron weapon. A boar wields no such weapon.
+Had the dream said I was to die pierced by a tusk, then you might well
+be alarmed; but it said a weapon. We do not propose now to fight men,
+but to hunt a wild beast I pray you, therefore, let me go with the
+party."
+
+"You have the best of me there," said Croesus. "Your interpretation of
+the dream is better than mine. You may go, my son."
+
+At that time there was at the king's court a Phrygian named Adrastus,
+who had unwittingly slain his own brother and had fled to Sardis, where
+he was purified according to the customs of the country, and courteously
+received by the king. Croesus sent for this stranger and asked him to
+go with the hunting party, and keep especial watch over his son, in case
+of an attack by some daring band of robbers.
+
+Adrastus consented, though against his will, his misfortune having taken
+from him all desire for scenes of bloodshed. However, he would do his
+utmost to guard the king's son against harm.
+
+The party set out accordingly, reached Olympus without adventure, and
+scattered in pursuit of the animal, which the dogs soon roused from its
+lair. Closing in a circle around the brute, the hunters drew near and
+hurled their weapons at it. Not the least eager among the hunters was
+Adrastus, who likewise hurled his spear; but, through a frightful
+chance, the hurtling weapon went astray, and struck and killed Atys, his
+youthful charge. Thus was the dream fulfilled: an iron weapon had slain
+the king's favorite son.
+
+The news of this misfortune plunged Croesus into the deepest misery
+of grief. As for Adrastus, he begged to be sacrificed at the grave of
+his unfortunate victim. This Croesus, despite his grief, refused,
+saying,--
+
+"Some god is the author of my misfortune, not you. I was forewarned of
+it long ago."
+
+But Adrastus was not to be thus prevented. Deeming himself the most
+unfortunate of men, he slew himself on the tomb of the hapless youth.
+And for two years Croesus abandoned himself to grief.
+
+And now we must go on to tell how Croesus met with a greater
+misfortune still, and brought the Persians to the gates of Greece.
+Cyrus, son of Cambyses, king of Persia, had conquered the neighboring
+kingdom of Media, and, inspired by ambition, had set out on a career of
+wide-spread conquest and dominion. He had grown steadily more powerful,
+and now threatened the great kingdom which Croesus had gained.
+
+The Lydian king, seeing this danger approaching, sought advice from the
+oracles. But wishing first to know which of them could best be trusted,
+he sent to six of them demanding a statement of what he was doing at a
+certain moment. The oracle of Delphi alone gave a correct answer.
+
+Thereupon Croesus offered up a vast sacrifice to the Delphian deity.
+Three thousand oxen were slain, and a great sacrificial pile was built,
+on which were placed splendid robes and tunics of purple, with couches
+and censers of gold and silver, all to be committed to the flames. To
+Delphi he sent presents befitting the wealthiest of kings,--ingots,
+statues, bowls, jugs, etc., of gold and silver, of great weight. These
+Herodotus himself saw with astonishment a century afterwards at Delphi.
+The envoys who bore these gifts asked the oracle whether Croesus
+should undertake an expedition against the Persians, and should solicit
+allies.
+
+He was bidden, in reply, to seek alliance with the most powerful nations
+of Greece. He was also told that if he fought with the Persians he would
+overturn a "mighty empire." Croesus accepted this as a promise of
+success, not thinking to ask whose empire was to be overturned. He sent
+again to the oracle, which now replied, "When a mule shall become king
+of the Medes, then thou must run away,--be not ashamed." Here was
+another enigma of the oracle. Cyrus--son of a royal Median mother and a
+Persian father of different race and lower position--was the mule
+indicated, though Croesus did not know this. In truth, the oracles of
+Greece seem usually to have borne a double meaning, so that whatever
+happened the priestess could claim that her word was true, the fault was
+in the interpretation.
+
+Croesus, accepting the oracles as favorable, made an alliance with
+Sparta, and marched his army into Media, where he inflicted much damage.
+Cyrus met him with a larger army, and a battle ensued. Neither party
+could claim a victory, but Croesus returned to Sardis, to collect more
+men and obtain aid from his allies. He might have been successful had
+Cyrus waited till his preparations were complete. But the Persian king
+followed him to his capital, defeated him in a battle near Sardis, and
+besieged him in that city.
+
+Sardis was considered impregnable, and Croesus could easily have held
+out till his allies arrived had it not been for one of those unfortunate
+incidents of which war has so many to tell. Sardis was strongly
+fortified on every side but one. Here the rocky height on which it was
+built was so steep as to be deemed inaccessible, and walls were thought
+unnecessary. Yet a soldier of the garrison made his way down this
+precipice to pick up his helmet, which had fallen. A Persian soldier saw
+him, tried to climb up, and found it possible. Others followed him, and
+the garrison, to their consternation, found the enemy within their
+walls. The gates were opened to the army without, and the whole city was
+speedily taken by storm.
+
+Croesus would have been killed but for a miracle. His deaf and dumb
+son, seeing a Persian about to strike him down, burst into speech
+through the agony of terror, crying out, "Man, do not kill Croesus!"
+The story goes that he ever afterwards retained the power of speech.
+
+Cyrus had given orders that the life of Croesus should be spared, and
+the unhappy captive was brought before him. But the cruel Persian had a
+different death in view. He proposed to burn the captive king, together
+with fourteen Lydian youths, on a great pile of wood which he had
+constructed. We give what followed as told by Herodotus, though its
+truth cannot be vouched for at this late day.
+
+As Croesus lay in fetters on the already kindled pile and thought of
+this terrible ending to his boasted happiness, he groaned bitterly, and
+cried in tones of anguish, "Solon! Solon! Solon!"
+
+"What does he mean?" asked Cyrus of the interpreters. They questioned
+Croesus, and learned from him what Solon had said. Cyrus heard this
+story not without alarm. His own life was yet to end; might not a like
+fate come to him? He ordered that the fire should be extinguished, but
+would have been too late had not a timely downpour of rain just then
+come to the aid of the captive king,--sent by Apollo, in gratitude for
+the gifts to his temple, suggests Herodotus. Croesus was afterwards
+made the confidential friend and adviser of the Persian king, whose
+dominions, through this victory, had been extended over the whole Lydian
+empire, and now reached to the ocean outposts of Greece.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SUITORS OF AGARISTE._
+
+
+Sicyon, the smallest country of the Peloponnesus, lay on the Gulf of
+Corinth, adjoining the isthmus which connects the peninsula with the
+rest of Greece. In this small country--as in many larger ones--the
+nobles held rule, the people were subjects. The rich and proud rulers
+dwelt on the hill slopes, the poor and humble people lived on the
+sea-shore and along the river Asopus. But in course of time many of the
+people became well off, through success in fisheries and commerce, to
+which their country was well adapted. Weary of the oppression of the
+nobles, they finally rose in rebellion and overthrew the government.
+Orthagoras, once a cook, but now leader of the rebels, became master of
+the state, and he and his descendants ruled it for a hundred years. The
+last of this dynasty was Cleisthenes, a just and moderate ruler,
+concerning whom we have a story to tell.
+
+These lords of the state were called tyrants; but this word did not mean
+in Greece what it means to us. The tyrants of Greece were popular
+leaders who had overthrown the old governments and laws, and ruled
+largely through force and under laws of their own making. But they were
+not necessarily tyrannical. The tyrants of Athens were mild and just in
+their dealings with the people, and so proved to be those of Sicyon.
+
+[Illustration: GRECIAN LADIES AT HOME.]
+
+Cleisthenes, who became the most eminent of the tyrants of Sicyon, had a
+beautiful daughter, named Agariste, whom he thought worthy of the
+noblest of husbands, and decided that she should be married to the
+worthiest youth who could be found in all the land of Greece. To select
+such a husband he took unusual steps.
+
+When the fair Agariste had reached marriageable age, her father attended
+the Olympic games, at which there were used to gather men of wealth and
+eminence from all the Grecian states. Here he won the prize in the
+chariot race, and then bade the heralds to make the following
+proclamation:
+
+"Whoever among the Greeks deems himself worthy to be the son-in-law of
+Cleisthenes, let him come, within sixty days, to Sicyon. Within a year
+from that time Cleisthenes will decide, from among those who present
+themselves, on the one whom he deems fitting to possess the hand of his
+daughter."
+
+This proclamation, as was natural, roused warm hopes in many youthful
+breasts, and within the sixty days there had gathered at Sicyon thirteen
+noble claimants for the charming prize. From the city of Sybaris in
+Italy came Smindyrides, and from Siris came Damasus. Amphimnestus and
+Males made their way to Sicyon from the cities of the Ionian Gulf. The
+Peloponnesus sent Leocedes from Argos, Amiantus from Arcadia, Laphanes
+from Paeus, and Onomastus from Elis. From Euboea came Lysanias; from
+Thessaly, Diactorides; from Molossia, Alcon; and from Attica, Megacles
+and Hippoclides. Of the last two, Megacles was the son of the renowned
+Alkmaeon, while Hippoclides was accounted the handsomest and wealthiest
+of the Athenians.
+
+At the end of the sixty days, when all the suitors had arrived,
+Cleisthenes asked each of them whence he came and to what family he
+belonged. Then, during the succeeding year, he put them to every test
+that could prove their powers. He had had a foot-course and a
+wrestling-ground made ready to test their comparative strength and
+agility, and took every available means to discover their courage,
+vigor, and skill.
+
+But this was not all that the sensible monarch demanded in his desired
+son-in-law. He wished to ascertain their mental and moral as well as
+their physical powers, and for this purpose kept them under close
+observation for a year, carefully noting their manliness, their temper
+and disposition, their accomplishments and powers of intellect. Now he
+conversed with each separately; now he brought them together and
+considered their comparative powers. At the gymnasium, in the council
+chamber, in all the situations of thought and activity, he tested their
+abilities. But he particularly considered their behavior at the
+banquet-table. From first to last they were sumptuously entertained, and
+their demeanor over the trencher-board and the wine-cup was closely
+observed.
+
+In this story, as told us by garrulous old Herodotus, nothing is said of
+Agariste herself. In a modern romance of this sort the lady would have
+had a voice in the decision and a place in the narrative. There would
+have been episodes of love, jealousy, and malice, and the one whom the
+lady blessed with her love would in some way--in the eternal fitness of
+things--have become victor in the contest and carried off the prize. But
+they did things differently in Greece. The preference of the maiden had
+little to do with the matter; the suitor exerted himself to please the
+father, not the daughter; maiden hands were given rather in barter and
+sale than in trust and affection; in truth, almost the only lovers we
+meet with in Grecian history are Haemon and Antigone, of whom we have
+spoken in the tale of the "Seven against Thebes."
+
+And thus it was in the present instance. It was the father the suitors
+courted, not the daughter. They proved their love over the
+banquet-table, not at the trysting-place. It was by speed of foot and
+skill in council, not by whispered words of devotion, that they
+contended for the maidenly prize. Or, if lovers' meetings took place and
+lovers' vows were passed, they were matters of the strictest secrecy,
+and not for Greek historians to put on paper or Greek ears to hear.
+
+But the year of probation came in due time to its end, and among all the
+suitors the two from Athens most won the favor of Cleisthenes. And of
+the two he preferred Hippoclides. It was not alone for his handsome face
+and person and manly bearing that this favored youth was chosen, but
+also because he was descended from a noble family of Corinth which
+Cleisthenes esteemed. Yet "there is many a slip between the cup and the
+lip," an adage whose truth Hippoclides was to learn.
+
+When the day came on which the choice of the father was to be made, and
+the wedding take place, Cleisthenes held a great festival in honor of
+the occasion. First, to gain the favor of the gods, he offered a hundred
+oxen in sacrifice. Then, not only the suitors, but all the people of the
+city were invited to a grand banquet and festival, at the end of which
+the choice of Cleisthenes was to be declared. What torments of love and
+fear Agariste suffered during this slow-moving feast the historian does
+not say. Yet it may be that she was the power behind the throne, and
+that the proposed choice of the handsome Hippoclides was due as much to
+her secret influence as to her father's judgment.
+
+However this be, the feast went on to its end, and was followed by a
+contest between the suitors in music and oratory, with all the people to
+decide. As the drinking which followed went on, Hippoclides, who had
+surpassed all the others as yet, shouted to the flute-player, bidding
+him to play a dancing air, as he proposed to show his powers in the
+dance.
+
+The wine was in his weak head, and what he considered marvellously fine
+dancing did not appear so to Cleisthenes, who was closely watching his
+proposed son-in-law. Hippoclides, however, in a mood to show all his
+accomplishments, now bade an attendant to bring in a table. This being
+brought, he leaped upon it, and danced some Laconian steps, which he
+followed by certain Attic ones. Finally, to show his utmost powers of
+performance, he stood on his head on the table, and began to dance with
+his legs in empty air.
+
+This was too much for Cleisthenes. He had changed his opinion of
+Hippoclides during his light and undignified exhibition, but restrained
+himself from speaking to avoid any outbreak or ill feeling. But on
+seeing him tossing his legs in this shameless manner in the air, the
+indignant monarch cried out,--
+
+"Son of Tisander, you have danced your wife away."
+
+"What does Hippoclides care?" was the reply of the tipsy youth.
+
+And for centuries afterwards "What does Hippoclides care?" was a common
+saying in Greece, to indicate reckless folly and lightness of mind.
+
+Cleisthenes now commanded silence, and spoke as follows to the assembly:
+
+"Suitors of my daughter, well pleased am I with you all, and right
+willingly, if it were possible, would I content you all, and not, by
+making choice of one, appear to put a slight upon the rest. But as it is
+out of my power, seeing that I have only one daughter, to grant to all
+their wishes, I will present to each of you whom I must needs dismiss a
+talent of silver[2] for the honor that you have done in seeking to ally
+yourselves with my house, and for your long absence from your homes. But
+my daughter Agariste I betroth to Megacles, the son of Alkmaeon, to be
+his wife, according to the usage and wont of Athens."
+
+Megacles gladly accepted the honor thus offered him, the marriage was
+solemnized with all possible state, and the suitors dispersed,--twelve
+of them happy with their silver talents, one of them happier with his
+charming bride.
+
+We have but further to say that Cleisthenes of Athens--a great leader
+and law-giver, whose laws gave origin to the democratic government of
+that city--was the son of Megacles and Agariste, and that his grandson
+was the famous Pericles, the foremost name in Athenian history.
+
+
+
+
+_THE TYRANTS OF CORINTH._
+
+
+We have already told what the word "tyrant" meant in Greece,--a despot
+who set aside the law and ruled at his own pleasure, but who might be
+mild and gentle in his rule. Such were the tyrants of Sicyon, spoken of
+in our last tale. The tyrants of Corinth, the state adjoining Sicyon,
+were of a harsher character. Herodotus, the gossiping old historian
+tells some stories about these severe despots which seem worth telling
+again.
+
+The government of Corinth, like most of the governments of Greece, was
+in early days an oligarchy,--that is, it was ruled by a number of
+powerful aristocrats instead of by a single king. In Corinth these
+belonged to a single family, named the Bacchiadae (or legendary
+descendants of the god Bacchus), who constantly intermarried, and kept
+all power to themselves.
+
+But one of this family, Amphion by name, had a daughter, named Labda,
+whom none of the Bacchiadae would marry, as she had the misfortune to be
+lame. So she married outside the family, her husband being named Aetion,
+and a man of noble descent. Having no children, Aetion applied to the
+Delphian oracle, and was told that a son would soon be borne to him,
+and that this son "would, like a rock, fall on the kingly race and right
+the city of Corinth."
+
+The Bacchiadae heard of this oracle, and likewise knew of an earlier one
+that had the same significance. Forewarned is forearmed. They remained
+quiet, waiting until Aetion's child should be born, and proposing then
+to take steps for their own safety.
+
+When, therefore, they heard that Labda had borne a son, they sent ten of
+their followers to Petra (the _rock_), where Aetion dwelt, with
+instructions to kill the child. These assassins entered Aetion's house,
+and, with murder in their hearts, asked Labda, with assumed
+friendliness, if they might see her child. She, looking upon them as
+friends of her husband, whom kindly feeling had brought thither, gladly
+complied, and, bringing the infant, laid it in the arms of one of the
+ruffianly band.
+
+It had been agreed between them that whoever first laid hold of the
+child should dash it to the ground. But as the innocent intended victim
+lay in the murderer's arms, it smiled in his face so confidingly that he
+had not the heart to do the treacherous deed. He passed the child,
+therefore, on to another, who passed it to a third, and so it went the
+rounds of the ten, disarming them all by its happy and trusting smile
+from performing the vile deed for which they had come. In the end they
+handed the babe back to its mother, and left the house.
+
+Halting just outside the door, a hot dispute arose between them, each
+blaming the others, and nine of them severely accusing the one whose
+task it had been to do the cruel deed. He defended himself, saying that
+no man with a heart in his breast could have done harm to that smiling
+babe,--certainly not he. In the end they decided to go into the house
+again, and all take part in the murder.
+
+But they had talked somewhat too long and too loud. Labda had overheard
+them and divined their dread intent. Filled with fear, lest they should
+return and murder her child, she seized the infant, and, looking eagerly
+about for some place in which she might conceal it, chose a _cypsel_, or
+corn-bin, as the place least likely to be searched.
+
+Her choice proved a wise one. The men returned, and, as she refused to
+tell them where the child was, searched the house in vain,--none of them
+thinking of looking for an infant in a corn-bin. At length they went
+away, deciding to report that they had done as they were bidden, and
+that the child of Aetion was slain.
+
+The boy, in memory of his escape, was named _Cypselus_, after the
+corn-bin. He grew up without further molestation, and on coming to man's
+estate did what so many of the ancients seemed to have considered
+necessary, went to Delphi to consult the oracle.
+
+The pythoness, or priestess of Apollo, at his approach, hailed him as
+king of Corinth. "He and his children, but not his children's children."
+And the oracle, as was often the case, produced its own accomplishment,
+for it encouraged Cypselus to head a rebellion against the oligarchy, by
+which it was overthrown and he made king. For thirty years thereafter he
+reigned as tyrant of Corinth, with a prosperous but harsh rule. Many of
+the Corinthians were put to death by him, others robbed of their
+fortunes, and others banished the state. Then he died and left the
+government to his son Periander.
+
+Periander began his reign in a mild spirit. But his manner changed after
+he had sent a herald to Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, asking his
+advice how he could best rule with honor and fortune. Thrasybulus led
+the messenger outside the city and through a field of corn, questioning
+him as they walked, while, whenever he came to an ear of corn that
+overtopped its fellows, he broke it off and threw it aside. Thus his
+path through the field was marked by the downfall of all the tallest
+stems and ears. Then, returning to the city, he sent the messenger back
+without a word of answer to his petition.
+
+Periander, on his herald's return, asked him what counsel he brought.
+"None," was the answer; "not a word. King Thrasybulus acted in the
+strangest way, destroying his corn as he led me through the field, and
+sending me away without a word." He proceeded to tell how the monarch
+had acted.
+
+Periander was quick to gather his brother tyrant's meaning. If he would
+rule in safety he must cut off the loftiest heads,--signified by the
+tall ears of corn. He took the advice thus suggested, and from that time
+on treated his subjects with the greatest cruelty. Many of those whom
+Cypselus had spared he put to death or banished, and acted the tyrant in
+the fullest sense of the word.
+
+He even killed his wife Melissa; just why, we do not know. But we are
+told that she afterwards appeared to him in a dream and said that she
+was cold, being destitute of clothes. The garments he had buried with
+her were of no use to her spirit, since they had not been burned.
+Periander took his own way to quiet and clothe the restless ghost. He
+proclaimed that all the wives of Corinth should go to the temple of
+Juno. This they did, dressed in their best, deeming it a festival. When
+they were all within he closed the doors, and had them stripped of their
+rich robes and ornaments, which he threw into a pit and set on fire,
+calling on the name of Melissa as they burned. And in this way the
+demand of the shivering ghost was satisfied.
+
+Periander had two sons,--the elder a dunce, the younger, Lycophron (or
+wolf-heart), a youth of noble nature and fine intellect. He sent them on
+a visit to Proclus, their mother's father, and from him the boys
+learned, what they had not known before, that their father was their
+mother's murderer.
+
+This story did not trouble the dull-brained elder, but Lycophron was so
+affected by it that on his return home he refused to speak to his
+father, and acted so surlily that Periander in anger turned him out of
+his house. The tyrant, learning from his elder son the cause of
+Lycophron's strange behavior, grew still more incensed. He sent orders
+to those who had given shelter to his son that they should cease to
+harbor him, And he continued to drive him from shelter to shelter, till
+in the end he proclaimed that whoever dared to harbor, or even speak to,
+his rebellious son, should pay a heavy fine to Apollo.
+
+Thus, driven from every house, Lycophron took lodging in the public
+porticos, where he dwelt without shelter and almost without food. Seeing
+his wretched state, Periander took pity on him and bade him come home
+and no longer indulge in such foolish and unfilial behavior.
+
+[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS.]
+
+Lycophron's only reply was that his father had broken his own edict by
+coming and talking with him, and therefore himself owed the penalty to
+Apollo.
+
+Periander, seeing that the boy was uncontrollable in his indignation,
+and troubled at heart by the piteous spectacle, now sent him by ship to
+the island of Corcyra, a colony of Corinth. As for Proclus, the tyrant
+made war upon him for his indiscreet revelation, robbed him of his
+kingdom, Epidaurus, and carried him captive to Corinth.
+
+And the years went on, and Periander grew old and unable properly to
+handle his affairs. His elder son was incapable of taking his place, so
+he sent to Corcyra and asked Lycophron to come to Corinth and take the
+kingship of that fair land.
+
+Lycophron, whose indignation time had not cooled, refused even to answer
+the message. Then Periander sent his daughter, the sister of Lycophron,
+hoping that she might be able to persuade him. She made a strong appeal,
+begging him not to let the power pass away from their family and their
+father's wealth fall into strange hands, and reminding him that mercy
+was a higher virtue than justice.
+
+Her appeal was in vain. Lycophron refused to go back to Corinth as long
+as his father remained alive.
+
+Then the desperate old man, at his wits' end through Lycophron's
+obstinacy, sent a herald, saying that he would himself come to Corcyra,
+and let his son take his place in Corinth as king. To these terms
+Lycophron agreed. But there were others to deal with, for, when the
+terrified Corcyrians heard that the terrible old tyrant was coming to
+dwell in their island, they rose in a tumult and put Lycophron to death.
+
+And thus ended the dynasty of Cypselus, as the oracle had foretold.
+Though Periander revenged himself on the Corcyrians, he could not bring
+his son to life again, and the children's children of Cypselus did not
+come to the throne.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RING OF POLYCRATES._
+
+
+Near the coast of Asia Minor lies the bright and beautiful island of
+Samos, one of the choicest gems of the AEgean archipelago. This island
+was, somewhere about the year 530 B.C., seized by a political adventurer
+named Polycrates. He accomplished this by the aid of his two brothers,
+but of these he afterwards killed one and banished the other,--Syloson
+by name,--so that he became sole ruler and despot of the island.
+
+This island kingdom of Polycrates was a small one, about eighty miles in
+circumference, but it was richly fertile, and had the honor of being the
+birthplace of many illustrious Greeks, among whom we may name
+Pythagoras, the famous philosopher. The city of Samos became, under
+Polycrates, "the first of all cities, Greek or barbarian." It was
+adorned with magnificent buildings and costly works of art; was supplied
+with water by a great aqueduct, tunnelled for nearly a mile through a
+mountain; had a great breakwater to protect the harbor, and a vast and
+magnificent temple to Juno: all of which seem to have been partly or
+wholly constructed by Polycrates.
+
+But this despot did not content himself with ruling the island and
+adorning the city which he had seized. He was ambitious and
+unscrupulous, and aspired to become master of all the islands of the
+AEgean Sea, and of Ionia in Asia Minor. He conquered several of these
+islands and a number of towns in the mainland, defeated the Lesbian
+fleet that came against him during his war with Miletus, got together a
+hundred armed ships and hired a thousand bowmen, and went forward with
+his designs with a fortune that never seemed to desert him. His naval
+power became the greatest in the world of Greece, and it seemed as if he
+would succeed in all his ambitious designs. But a dreadful fate awaited
+the tyrant. Like Croesus, he was to learn that good fortune is apt to
+be followed by disaster. The remainder of his story is part history and
+part legend, and we give it as told by old Herodotus, who has preserved
+so many interesting tales of ancient Greece.
+
+At, that time Persia, whose king Cyrus had overcome Croesus, was the
+greatest empire in the world. All western Asia lay in its grasp; Asia
+Minor was overrun; and Cambyses, the king who had succeeded Cyrus, was
+about to invade the ancient land of Egypt. The king of this country,
+Amasis by name, was in alliance with Polycrates, rich gifts had passed
+between them, and they seemed the best of friends. But Amasis had his
+superstitions, and the constant good fortune of Polycrates seemed to him
+so different from the ordinary lot of kings that he feared that some
+misfortune must follow it. He perhaps had heard the story of Solon and
+Croesus. Amasis accordingly wrote a warning letter to his friend.
+
+The great prosperity of his friend and ally, he said, caused him
+foreboding instead of joy, for he knew that the gods were envious, and
+he desired for those he loved alternate good and ill fortune. He had
+never heard of any one who was successful in all his enterprises that
+did not meet with calamity in the end. He therefore counselled
+Polycrates to do what the gods had not yet done, and bring some
+misfortune on himself. His advice was that he should select the treasure
+he most valued and could least bear to part with, and throw it away so
+that it should never be seen again. By this voluntary sacrifice he might
+avert involuntary loss and suffering.
+
+This advice seemed wise to the despot, and he began to consider which of
+his possessions he could least bear to lose. He settled at length on his
+signet-ring, an emerald set in gold, which he highly valued. This he
+determined to throw away where it could never be recovered. So, having
+one of his fifty-oared vessels manned, he put to sea, and when he had
+gone a long distance from the coast he took the ring from his finger
+and, in the presence of all the sailors, tossed it into the waters.
+
+This was not done without deep grief to Polycrates. He valued the ring
+more highly than ever, now that it lay on the bottom of the sea,
+irretrievably lost to him, as he thought; and he grieved for days
+thereafter, feeling that he had endured a real misfortune, which he
+hoped the gods might accept as a compensation for his good luck.
+
+But destiny is not so easily to be disarmed. Several days afterwards a
+Samian fisherman had the fortune to catch a fish so large and beautiful
+that he esteemed it worthy to be offered as a present to the king. He
+accordingly went with it to the palace gates and asked to see
+Polycrates. The guards, learning his purpose, admitted him. On coming
+into the king's presence, the fisherman said that, though he was a poor
+man who lived by his labor, he could not let himself offer such a prize
+in the public market.
+
+"I said to myself," he continued, "'It is worthy of Polycrates and his
+greatness;' and so I brought it here to give it to you."
+
+The compliment and the gift so pleased the tyrant that he not only
+thanked the fisherman warmly, but invited him to sup with him on the
+fish.
+
+But a wonder happened in the king's kitchen. On the cook's cutting open
+the fish to prepare it for the table, to his surprise he found within it
+_the signet-ring of the king_. With joy he hastened to Polycrates with
+his strangely recovered treasure, the story of whose loss had gone
+abroad, and told in what a remarkable way it had been restored.
+
+As for Polycrates, the return of the ring brought him some joy but more
+grief. The fates, it appeared, were not so lightly to be appeased. He
+wrote to Amasis, telling what he had done and with what result. The
+letter came to the Egyptian king like a prognostic of evil. That there
+would be an ill end to the career of Polycrates he now felt sure; and,
+not wishing to be involved in it himself, he sent a herald to Samos and
+informed his late friend and ally that the alliance between them was at
+an end.
+
+It cannot be said that Amasis profited much by this act. Soon afterwards
+his own country was overrun and conquered by Cambyses, the Persian king,
+and his reign came to a disastrous termination.
+
+Whether there is any historical basis for this story of the ring may be
+questioned. But this we do know, that the friendship between Amasis and
+Polycrates was broken, and that Polycrates offered to help Cambyses in
+his invasion, and sent forty ships to the Nile for this purpose. On
+these were some Samians whom the tyrant wished to get rid of, and whom
+he secretly asked the Persian king not to let return.
+
+These exiles, however, suspecting what was in store for them, managed in
+some way to escape, and returned to Samos, where they made an attack on
+Polycrates. Being driven off by him, they went to Sparta and asked for
+assistance, telling so long a story of their misfortunes and sufferings
+that the Spartans, who could not bear long speeches, curtly answered,
+"We have forgotten the first part of your speech, and the last part we
+do not understand." This answer taught the Samians a lesson. The next
+day they met the Spartans with an empty wallet, saying, "Our wallet has
+no meal in it." "Your wallet is superfluous," said the Spartans; meaning
+that the words would have served without it. The aid which the Spartans
+thereupon granted the exiles proved of no effect, for it was against
+Polycrates, the fortunate. They sent an expedition to Samos, and
+besieged the city forty days, but were forced to retire without success.
+Then the exiles, thus made homeless, became pirates. They attacked the
+weak but rich island of Siphnos, which they ravaged, and forced the
+inhabitants to buy them off at a cost of one hundred talents. With this
+fund they purchased the island of Hydrea, but in the end went to Crete,
+where they captured the city of Cydonia. After they had held this city
+for five years the Cretans recaptured it, and the Samian exiles ended
+their career by being sold into slavery.
+
+Meanwhile the good fortune of Polycrates continued, and Samos flourished
+under his rule. In addition to his great buildings and works of
+engineering he became interested in stock-raising, and introduced into
+the island the finest breeds of sheep, goats, and pigs. By high wages he
+attracted the ablest artisans of Greece to the city, and added to his
+popularity by lending his rich hangings and costly plate to those who
+wanted them for a wedding feast or a sumptuous banquet. And that none of
+his subjects might betray him while he was off upon an extended
+expedition, he had the wives and children of all whom he suspected shut
+up in the sheds built to shelter his ships, with orders that these
+should be burned in case of any rebellious outbreak.
+
+Yet the misfortune that the return of the ring had indicated came at
+length. The warning which Solon had given Croesus applied to
+Polycrates as well. The prosperous despot had a bitter enemy, Oroetes
+by name, the Persian governor of Sardis. As to why he hated Polycrates
+two stories are told, but as neither of them is certain we shall not
+repeat them. It is enough to say that he hated Polycrates bitterly and
+desired his destruction, which he laid a plan to bring about.
+
+Oroetes, residing then at Magnesia, on the Maeander River, in the
+vicinity of Samos, and being aware of the ambitious designs of
+Polycrates, sent him a message to the effect that he knew that while he
+desired to become lord of the isles, he had not the means to carry out
+his ambitious project. As for himself, he was aware that Cambyses was
+bent on his destruction. He therefore invited Polycrates to come and
+take him, with his wealth, offering for his protection gold sufficient
+to make him master of the whole of Greece, so far as money would serve
+for this.
+
+This welcome offer filled Polycrates with joy. He knew nothing of the
+hatred of Oroetes, and at once sent his secretary to Magnesia to see
+the Persian and report upon the offer. What he principally wished to
+know was in regard to the money offered, and Oroetes prepared to
+satisfy him in this particular. He had eight large chests prepared,
+filled nearly full of stones, upon which gold was spread. These were
+corded, as if ready for instant removal.
+
+This seeming store of gold was shown to the secretary, who hastened back
+to Polycrates with a glowing description of the treasure he had seen.
+Polycrates, on hearing this story, decided to go at once and bring
+Oroetes and his chests of gold to Samos.
+
+Against this action his friends protested, while the soothsayers found
+the portents unfavorable. His daughter, also, had a significant dream.
+She saw her father hanging high in the air, washed by Zeus, the king of
+the gods, and anointed by the sun. Yet in spite of all this the
+infatuated king persisted in going. His daughter followed him on the
+ship, still begging him to return. His only answer was that if he
+returned successfully he would keep her an old maid for years.
+
+"Oh that you may perform your threat!" she answered. "It is far better
+for me to be an old maid than to lose my father."
+
+Yet the infatuated king went, despite all warnings and advice, taking
+with him a considerable suite. On his arrival at Magnesia grief instead
+of gold proved his portion. His enemy seized him, put him to a miserable
+death, and hung his dead body on a cross to the mercy of the sun and the
+rains. Thus his daughter's dream was fulfilled, for, in the old belief,
+to be washed by the rain was to be washed by Zeus, while the sun
+anointed him by causing the fat to exude from his body.
+
+A year or two after the death of Polycrates, his banished brother
+Syloson came to the throne in a singular way. During his exile he found
+himself at Memphis, in Egypt, while Cambyses was there with his
+conquering army. Among the guards of the king was Darius, the future
+king of Persia, but then a soldier of little note. Syloson wore a
+scarlet cloak to which Darius took a fancy and proposed to buy it. By a
+sudden impulse Syloson replied, "I cannot for any price sell it; but I
+give it you for nothing, if it must be yours."
+
+Darius thanked him for the cloak, and that ended the matter there and
+then,--Syloson afterwards holding himself as silly for the impulsive
+good nature of his gift.
+
+But at length he learned with surprise that the simple Persian soldier
+whom he had benefited was now king of the great Persian empire. He went
+to Susa, the capital, and told who he was. Darius had forgotten his
+face, but he remembered the incident of the cloak, and offered to pay a
+kingly price for the small favor of his humbler days, tendering gold and
+silver in profusion to his visitor. Syloson rejected these, but asked
+the aid of Darius to make him king of Samos. This the grateful monarch
+granted, and sent Syloson an army, with whose aid the island quickly and
+quietly fell into his hands.
+
+Yet calamity followed this peaceful conquest. Charilaus, a hot-tempered
+and half-mad Samian, who had been given charge of the acropolis, broke
+from it at the head of the guards, and murdered many of the Persian
+officers who were scattered unguarded throughout the town. The reprisal
+was dreadful. The Persian army fell in fury on the Samians and
+slaughtered every man and boy in the island, handing over to Syloson a
+kingdom of women and infants. Some time afterwards, however, the island
+was repeopled by men from without, and Syloson completed his reign in
+peace, leaving the sceptre of Samos to his son.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ADVENTURES OF DEMOCEDES._
+
+
+When Pythagoras, the celebrated Greek philosopher, settled in the
+ancient Italian city of Crotona (between 550 and 520 B.C.) there was
+living in that town a youthful surgeon who was destined to have a
+remarkable history. Democedes by name, the son of a Crotonian named
+Calliphon, he strongly inclined while still a mere boy to the study of
+medicine and surgery, for which arts that city had then a reputation
+higher than any part of Greece.
+
+The boy had two things to contend with, the hard study in his chosen
+profession and the high temper of his father. The latter at length grew
+unbearable, and the youthful surgeon ran away from home, making his way
+to the Greek island of AEgina. Here he began to practise what he had
+learned at home, and, though he was very poorly equipped with the
+instruments of his profession, he proved far abler and more successful
+than the surgeons whom he found in that island. So rapid, indeed, was
+his progress that his first year's service brought him an offer from the
+citizens of AEgina to remain with them for one year, at a salary of one
+talent,--the AEginetan talent being nearly equal to two thousand dollars.
+The next year he spent at Athens, whose people had offered him one and
+two-thirds talents. In the following year Polycrates of Samos bid higher
+still, offering him two talents, and the young surgeon repaired to that
+charming island.
+
+Thus far the career of Democedes had been one of steady progress. But,
+as Solon told Croesus, a man cannot count himself sure of happiness
+while he lives. The good fortune which had attended the runaway surgeon
+was about to be followed by a period of ill luck and degradation,
+following those of his new patron. In the constant wars of Greece a free
+citizen could never be sure how soon he might be reduced to slavery, and
+such was the fate of Democedes.
+
+We have already told how Polycrates was treacherously seized and
+murdered by the Persian satrap Oroetes. Democedes had accompanied him
+to the court of the traitor, and was, with the other attendants of
+Polycrates, seized and left to languish in neglect and imprisonment.
+Soon afterwards Oroetes received the just retribution for his
+treachery, being himself slain. And now a third turn came to the career
+of Democedes. He was classed among the slaves of Oroetes, and sent
+with them in chains to Susa, the capital of Darius, the great Persian
+king.
+
+But here the wheel of fortune suddenly took an upward turn. Darius, the
+king, leaping one day from his horse in the chase, sprained his foot so
+badly that he had to be carried home in violent pain. The surgeons of
+the Persian court were Egyptians, who were claimed to be the first men
+in their profession. But, though they used all their skill in treating
+the foot of the king, they did him no good. Indeed, they only made the
+pain more severe. For seven days and nights the mighty king was taught
+that he was a man as well as a monarch, and could suffer as severely as
+the poorest peasant in his kingdom. The foot gave him such torture that
+all sleep fled from his eyelids, and he and those around him were in
+despair.
+
+At length it came to the memory of one who had come from the court of
+Oroetes, at Sardis, that report had spoken of a Greek surgeon among
+the slaves of the slain satrap. He mentioned this, and the king, to whom
+any hope of relief was welcome, gave orders that this man should be
+sought and brought before him. It was a miserable object that was soon
+ushered into the royal presence, a poor creature in rags, with fetters
+on his hands, and deep lines of suffering upon his face; a picture of
+misery, in fact.
+
+He was asked if he understood surgery. "No," he replied; saying that he
+was a slave, not a surgeon. Darius did not believe him; these Greeks
+were artful; but there were ways of getting at the truth. He ordered
+that the scourge and the pricking instruments of torture should be
+brought. Democedes, who was probably playing a shrewd game, now admitted
+that he did have some little skill, but feared to practise his small art
+on so great a patient. He was bidden to do what he could, and went to
+work on the royal foot.
+
+The little skill of the Greek soon distanced the great skill of the
+Egyptians. He succeeded perfectly in alleviating the pain, and soon had
+his patient in a deep and refreshing sleep. In a short time the foot
+was sound again, and Darius could once more stand without a twinge of
+pain.
+
+The king, who had grown hopeless of a cure, was filled with joy, and set
+no bounds to his gratitude. Democedes had come before him in iron
+chains. As a first reward the king presented him with two sets of chains
+of solid gold. He next sent him to receive the thanks of his wives.
+Being introduced into the harem, Democedes was presented to the sultanas
+as the man who had saved the king's life, and whom their lord and master
+delighted to honor. Each of the fair and grateful women, in reward for
+his great deed, gave him a saucer-full of golden coins, which were so
+many, and heaped so high, that the slave who followed him grew rich by
+merely picking up the pieces that dropped on the floor.
+
+Nor did the generosity of Darius stop here. He gave Democedes a splendid
+house and furniture, made him eat at his own table, and showed him every
+favor at his command. As for the unlucky Egyptian surgeons, they would
+all have been crucified for their lack of skill had not Democedes begged
+for their lives. He might safely have told Darius that if he began to
+crucify men for ignorance and assurance he would soon have few subjects
+left.
+
+But with all the favors which Darius granted, there was one which he
+steadily refused to grant. And it was one on which Democedes had set his
+heart. He wanted to return to Greece. Splendor in Persia was very well
+in its way, but to his patriotic heart a crust in Greece was better than
+a loaf in this land of strangers. Ask as he might, however, Darius
+would not consent. A sprain or other harm might come to him again. What
+would he then do without Democedes? He could not let him go.
+
+As asking had proved useless, the wily Greek next tried artifice.
+Atossa, the favorite wife of the king, had a tumor to form on her
+breast. She said nothing of it for a time, but at length it grew so bad
+that she was forced to speak to the surgeon. He examined the tumor, and
+told her he could cure it, and would do so if she would solemnly swear
+to do in return whatever he might ask. As she agreed to this, he cured
+the tumor, and then told her that the reward he wished was liberty to
+return to Greece. But he told Atossa that the king would not grant that
+favor even to her, and that it could only be had by stratagem. He
+advised her how she should act.
+
+When next in conversation with the king, Atossa told him that the
+Persians expected him to do something for the glory and power of the
+empire. He must add to it by conquest.
+
+"So I propose," he replied. "I have in view an expedition against the
+Scythians of the north."
+
+"Better lead one against the Greeks of the west," she replied. "I have
+heard much about the beauty of the maidens of Sparta, Athens, Argos, and
+Corinth, and I want to have some of these fair barbarians to serve me as
+slaves. And if you wish to know more about these Greek people, you have
+near you the best person possible to give you information,--the Greek
+who cured your foot."
+
+The suggestion seemed to Darius one worth considering. He would
+certainly like to know more about this land of Greece. In the end,
+after conversing with his surgeon, he decided to send some confidential
+agents there to gain information, with Democedes as their guide. Fifteen
+such persons were chosen, with orders to observe closely the coasts and
+cities of Greece, obeying the suggestions and leadership of Democedes.
+They were to bring back what information they could,--and on peril of
+their lives to bring back Democedes. If they returned without him it
+would be a sorry home-coming for them.
+
+The king then sent for Democedes, told him of the proposed expedition
+and what part he was to take in it, but imperatively bade him to return
+as soon as his errand was finished. He was bidden to take with him the
+wealth he had received, as presents for his father and brothers. He
+would not suffer from its loss, since as much, and more, would be given
+him on his return. Lastly, orders were given that a store-ship, "filled
+with all manner of good things," should be taken with the expedition.
+
+Democedes heard all this with the aspect of one to whom it was new
+tidings. Come back? Of course he would. He wished ardently to see
+Greece, but for a steady place of residence he much preferred Susa and
+the palace of his king. As for the gold which had been given him, he
+would not take it away. He wanted to find his house and property on his
+return. The store-ship would answer for all the presents he cared to
+make.
+
+His shrewd reply left no shadow of doubt in the heart of the king. The
+envoys proceeded to Sidon, in Phoenicia, where two armed triremes and
+a large store-ship were got ready by their orders. In these they sailed
+to the coast of Greece, which they fully surveyed, and even went as far
+as Italy. The cities were also visited, and the story of all they had
+seen was carefully written down.
+
+At length they arrived at Tarentum, in Italy, not far from Crotona, the
+native place of Democedes. Here, at the secret suggestion of the wily
+surgeon, the king seized the Persians as spies, and, to prevent their
+escape, took away the rudders of their ships. Their treacherous leader
+took the opportunity to make his way to Crotona, and here the Persians,
+who had been released and given back their ships, found him on their
+arrival. They seized him in the market-place, but he was rescued from
+them by his fellow-citizens in spite of the remonstrances and threats of
+the envoys. The Crotonians even took from them the store-ship, and
+forced them to leave the harbor in their triremes.
+
+On their way home the unlucky envoys suffered a second misfortune; they
+were shipwrecked and made slaves,--as was the cruel way of dealing with
+unfortunates in those days. An exile from Tarentum, named Gillis, paid
+their ransom, and took them to Susa,--for which service Darius offered
+him any reward he chose to ask. Like Democedes, all he wanted was to go
+home. But this reward he did not obtain. Darius brought to bear on
+Tarentum all the influence he could wield, but in vain. The Tarentines
+were obdurate, and would not have their exile back again. And Gillis was
+more honorable than Democedes. He did not lay plans to bring a Persian
+invasion upon Greece through his selfish wish to get back to his native
+land.
+
+A few words more will tell all else we know about Democedes. His last
+words to his Persian companions bade them tell Darius that he was about
+to marry the daughter of Milo of Crotona, famed as the greatest wrestler
+of his time. Darius knew well the reputation of Milo. He had probably
+learned it from Democedes himself. And a Persian king was more likely to
+admire a muscular than a mental giant. Milo meant more to him than Homer
+or any hero of the pen. Democedes did marry Milo's daughter, paying a
+high price for the honor, for the sole purpose, so far as we know, of
+sending back this boastful message to his friend, the king. And thus
+ends all we know of the story of the surgeon of Crotona.
+
+
+
+
+_DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS._
+
+
+The conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus and his Persian army was the first
+step towards that invasion of Greece by the Persians which proved such a
+vital element in the history of the Hellenic people. The next step was
+taken in the reign of Darius, the first of Asiatic monarchs to invade
+Europe. This ambitious warrior attempted to win fame by conquering the
+country of the Scythian barbarians,--now Southern Russia,--and was
+taught such a lesson that for centuries thereafter the perilous
+enterprise was not repeated.
+
+It was about the year 516 B.C. that the Persian king, with the
+ostensible purpose--invented to excuse his invasion--of punishing the
+Scythians for a raid into Asia a century before, but really moved only
+by the thirst for conquest, reached the Bosphorus, the strait that here
+divides Europe from Asia. He had with him an army said to have numbered
+seven hundred thousand men, and on the seas was a fleet of six hundred
+ships. A bridge of boats was thrown across this arm of the sea,--on
+which Constantinople now stands,--and the great Persian host reached
+European soil in the country of Thrace.
+
+Happy was it for Greece that the ambitious Persian did not then seek
+its conquest, as Democedes, his physician, had suggested. The Athenians,
+then under the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus, were not the free and
+bold people they afterwards became, and had Darius sought their conquest
+at that time, the land of Greece would probably have become a part of
+the overgrown Persian empire. Fortunately, he was bent on conquering the
+barbarians of the north, and left Greece to grow in valor and
+patriotism.
+
+While the army marched from Asia into Europe across its bridge of boats,
+the fleet was sent into the Euxine, or Black Sea, with orders to sail
+for two days up the Danube River, which empties into that sea, and build
+there also a bridge of boats. When Darius with his army reached the
+Danube, he found the bridge ready, and on its swaying length crossed
+what was then believed to be the greatest river on the earth. Reaching
+the northern bank, he marched onward into the unknown country of the
+barbarous Scythians, with visions of conquest and glory in his mind.
+
+What happened to the great Persian army and its ambitious leader in
+Scythia we do not very well know. Two historians tell us the story, but
+probably their history is more imagination than fact. Ctesias tells the
+fairy-tale that Darius marched northward for fifteen days, that he then
+exchanged bows with the Scythian king, and that, finding the Scythian
+bow to be the largest, he fled back in terror to the bridge, which he
+hastily crossed, having left a tenth of his army as a sacrifice to his
+mad ambition.
+
+The story told by Herodotus is probably as much a product of the
+imagination as that of Ctesias, though it reads more like actual
+history. He says that the Scythians retreated northward, sending their
+wives and children before them in wagons, and destroying the wells and
+ruining the harvests as they went, so that little was left for the
+invaders to eat and drink. On what the vast host lived we do not know,
+nor how they crossed the various rivers in their route. With such
+trifling considerations as these the historians of that day did not
+concern themselves. There were skirmishes and combats of horsemen, but
+the Scythian king took care to avoid any general battle. Darius sent him
+a herald and taunted him with cowardice, but King Idanthyrsus sent word
+back that if the Persians should come and destroy the tombs of the
+forefathers of the Scythians they would learn whether they were cowards
+or not.
+
+Day by day the monster Persian army advanced, and day by day its
+difficulties increased, until its situation grew serious indeed. The
+Scythians declined battle still, but Idanthyrsus sent to his distressed
+foe the present of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. This
+signified, according to the historian, "Unless you take to the air, like
+a bird; to the earth, like a mouse; or to the water, like a frog, you
+will become the victim of the Scythian arrows."
+
+This warning frightened Darius. In truth, he was in a desperate strait.
+Leaving the sick and weak part of his army encamped with the asses he
+had brought,--animals unknown to the Scythians, who were alarmed by
+their braying,--he began a hasty retreat towards his bridge of boats.
+But rapidly as he could march, the swifter Scythians reached the bridge
+before him, and counselled with the Ionian Greeks, who had been left in
+charge, and who were conquered subjects of the Persian king, to break
+down the bridge and leave Darius and his army to their fate.
+
+And now we get back into real history again. The story of what happened
+in Scythia is all romance. All we really know is that the expedition
+failed, and what was left of the army came back to the Danube in hasty
+retreat. And here comes in an interesting part of the narrative. The
+fleet of Darius was largely made up of the ships of the Ionians of Asia
+Minor, who had long been Persian subjects. It was they who had bridged
+the Danube, and who were left to guard the bridge. After Darius had
+crossed the bridge, on his march north, he ordered the Ionians to break
+it down and follow him into Scythia, leaving only the rowers and seamen
+in the ships. But one of his Greek generals advised him to let the
+bridge stand under guard of its builders, saying that evil fortune might
+come to the king's army through the guile and shrewdness of the
+Scythians.
+
+Darius found this advice good, and promised to reward its giver after
+his return. He then took a cord and tied sixty knots in it. This he left
+with the Ionians. "Take this cord," he said. "Untie one of the knots in
+it each day after my advance from the Danube into Scythia. Remain here
+and guard the bridge until you shall have untied all the knots; but if
+by that time I shall not have returned, then depart and sail home."
+
+Such were the methods of counting which then prevailed. And the
+knowledge of geography was not more advanced. Darius had it in view to
+march round the Black Sea and return to Persia along its eastern
+side,--with the wild idea that sixty days would suffice for this great
+march.
+
+Fortunately for him, as the story goes, the Ionians did not obey orders,
+but remained on guard after the knots were all untied. Then, to their
+surprise, Scythians instead of Persians appeared. These told the Ionians
+that the Persian army was in the greatest distress, was retreating with
+all speed, and that its escape from utter ruin depended on the safety of
+the bridge. They urged the Greeks to break the bridge and retire. If
+they should do so the Persians would all be destroyed, and Ionia would
+regain its freedom.
+
+This was wise advice. Had it been taken it might have saved Greece from
+the danger of Persian invasion. The Ionians were at first in favor of
+it, and Miltiades, one of their leaders, and afterwards one of the
+heroes of Greek history, warmly advised that it should be done. But
+Histiaeus, the despot of Miletus, advised the other Ionian princes that
+they would lose their power if their countries became free, since the
+Persians alone supported them, while the people everywhere were against
+them. They determined, therefore, to maintain the bridge.
+
+But, to rid themselves of the Scythians, they pretended to take their
+advice, and destroyed the bridge for the length of a bow-shot from the
+northern shore of the stream. The Scythians, thinking that they now had
+their enemies at their mercy, departed in search of their foes. That
+night the Persian army, in a state of the greatest distress and
+privation, reached the Danube, the Scythians having missed them and
+failed to check their march. To the horror of Darius and his starving
+and terror-stricken men, the bridge, in the darkness, appeared to be
+gone. An Egyptian herald, with a voice like a trumpet, was ordered to
+call for Histiaeus, the Milesian. He did so, an answer came through the
+darkness, and the hopes of the fleeing king were restored. The bridge
+was speedily made complete again, and the Persian army hastily crossed,
+reaching the opposite bank before the Scythians, who had lost their
+track, reappeared in pursuit.
+
+Thus ended in disaster the first Persian invasion of Europe. It was to
+be followed by others in later years, equally disastrous to the
+invaders. As for the despots of Ionia, who had through selfishness lost
+the chance of freeing their native land, they were to live to see,
+before many years, Ionia desolated by the Persian tyrant whom they had
+saved from irretrievable ruin. We shall tell how this came about, as a
+sequel to the story of the invasion of Scythia.
+
+Histiaeus, despot of Miletus, whose advice had saved the bridge for
+Darius, was richly rewarded for his service, and attended Darius on his
+return to Susa, the Persian capital, leaving his son-in-law Aristagoras
+in command at Miletus. Some ten years afterwards this regent of Miletus
+made an attempt, with Persian aid, to capture the island of Naxos. The
+effort failed, and Aristagoras, against whom the Persians were incensed
+by their defeat and their losses, was threatened with ruin. He began to
+think of a revolt from Persian rule.
+
+While thus mentally engaged, he received a strangely-sent message from
+Histiaeus, who was still detained at Susa, and who eagerly desired to get
+away from dancing attendance at court and return to his kingdom.
+Histiaeus advised his regent to revolt. But as this message was far too
+dangerous to be sent by any ordinary channels, he adopted an
+extraordinary method to insure its secrecy. Selecting one of his most
+trusty slaves, Histiaeus had his head shaved, and then pricked or
+tattooed upon the bare scalp the message he wished to send. Keeping the
+slave in seclusion until his hair had grown again, he sent him to
+Miletus, where he was instructed simply to tell Aristagoras to shave and
+examine his head. Aristagoras did so, read the tattooed message, and
+immediately took steps to obey.
+
+Word of the proposed revolt was sent by him to the other cities along
+the coast, and all were found ready to join in the attempt to secure
+freedom. Not only the coast settlements, but the island of Cyprus,
+joined in the revolt. At the appointed time all the coast region of Asia
+Minor suddenly burst into a flame of war.
+
+Aristagoras hurried to Greece for aid, seeking it first at Sparta.
+Finding no help there, he went to Athens, which city lent him twenty
+ships,--a gift for which it was to pay dearly in later years. Hurrying
+back with this small reinforcement, he quickly organized an expedition
+to assail the Persians at the centre of their power.
+
+Marching hastily to Sardis, the capital of Asia Minor, the revolted
+Ionians took and burned that city. But the Persians, gathering in
+numbers, defeated and drove them back to the coast, where the Athenians,
+weary of the enterprise, took to their ships and hastened home.
+
+When word of this raid, and the burning of Sardis by the Athenians and
+Ionians, came to the ears of Darius at his far-off capital city, he
+asked in wonder, "The Athenians!--who are they?" The name of this
+distant and insignificant Greek city had not yet reached his kingly
+ears.
+
+He was told who the Athenians were, and, calling for his bow, he shot an
+arrow high into the air, at the same time calling to the Greek deity,
+"Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on those Athenians."
+
+And he bade one of his servants to repeat to him three times daily, when
+he sat down to his mid-day meal, "Master, remember the Athenians!"
+
+The invaders had been easily repulsed from Sardis, but the revolt
+continued, and proved a serious and stubborn one, which it took the
+Persians years to overcome. The smaller cities were conquered one by
+one, but the Persians were four years in preparing for the siege of
+Miletus. Resistance here was fierce and bitter, but in the end the city
+fell. The Persians now took a savage revenge for the burning of Sardis,
+killing most of the men of this important city, dragging into captivity
+the women and children, and burning the temples to the ground. The other
+cities which still held out were quickly taken, and visited like
+Miletus, with the same fate of fire and bloodshed. It was now 495 B.C.,
+more than twenty years after the invasion of Scythia.
+
+As for Histiaeus, he was at first blamed by Darius for the revolt. But as
+he earnestly declared his innocence, and asserted that he could soon
+bring it to an end, Darius permitted him to depart. Reaching Miletus, he
+applied at the gates for admission, saying that he had come to the
+city's aid. But Aristagoras was no longer there, and the Milesians had
+no use for their former tyrant. They refused him admission, and even
+wounded him when he tried to force his way in at night. He then went to
+Lesbos, obtained there some ships, occupied the city of Byzantium, and
+began a life of piracy, which he kept up till his death, pillaging the
+Ionian merchant ships as they passed into and out of the Euxine Sea.
+Thus ended the career of this treacherous and worthless despot, to whom
+Darius owed his escape from Scythia.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ATHENIANS AT MARATHON._
+
+
+The time came when Darius of Persia did not need the bidding of a slave
+to make him "Remember the Athenians." He was taught a lesson on the
+battle-field of Marathon that made it impossible for him ever to forget
+the Athenian name. Having dismally failed in his expedition against the
+Scythians, he invaded Greece and failed as dismally. It is the story of
+this important event which we have next to tell.
+
+And here it may be well to remark what terrible consequences to mankind
+the ambition of a single man may cause. The invasion of Greece, and all
+that came from it, can be traced in a direct line of events from the
+deeds of Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, who first saved Darius from
+annihilation by the Scythians, then roused the Ionians to rebellion,
+and, finally, through the medium of Aristagoras, induced the Athenians
+to come to their aid and take part in the burning of Sardis. This roused
+Darius, who had dwelt at Susa for many years in peace, to a thirst for
+revenge on Athens, and gave rise to that series of invasions which
+ravaged Greece for many years, and whose fitting sequel was the invasion
+and conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, a century and a half
+later.
+
+And now, with this preliminary statement, we may proceed with our tale.
+No sooner had the Ionian revolt been brought to an end, and the Ionians
+punished for their daring, than the angry Oriental despot prepared to
+visit upon Athens the vengeance he had vowed. His preparations for this
+enterprise were great. His experience in Scythia had taught him that the
+Western barbarians--as he doubtless considered them--were not to be
+despised. For two years, in every part of his vast empire, the note of
+war was sounded, and men and munitions of war were actively gathered. On
+the coast of Asia Minor a great fleet, numbering six hundred armed
+triremes and many transports for men and horses, was prepared. The
+Ionian and AEolian Greeks largely manned this fleet, and were forced to
+aid their late foe in the effort to destroy their kinsmen beyond the
+archipelago of the AEgean Sea.
+
+An Athenian traitor accompanied the Persians, and guided their leader in
+the advance against his native city. We have elsewhere spoken of
+Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, whose treason Solon had in vain
+endeavored to prevent. After his death, his sons Hipparchus and Hippias
+succeeded him in the tyranny. Hipparchus was killed in 514 B.C., and in
+511 Hippias, who had shown himself a cruel despot, was banished from
+Athens. He repaired to the court of King Darius, where he dwelt many
+years. Now he came back, as guide and counsellor to the Persians,
+hoping, perhaps, to become again a despot of Athens; but only, as the
+fates decreed, to find a grave on the fatal field of Marathon.
+
+The assault on Greece was a twofold one. The first was defeated by
+nature, the second by man. A land expedition, led by the Persian general
+Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont in the year 493 B.C., proposing to
+march to Athens along the coast, and with orders to bring all that were
+left alive of its inhabitants as captives to the great king. On marched
+the great host, nothing doubting that Greece would fall an easy prey to
+their arms. And as they marched along the land, the fleet followed them
+along the adjoining sea, until the stormy and perilous promontory of
+Mount Athos was reached.
+
+No doubt the Greeks viewed with deep alarm this formidable progress.
+They had never yet directly measured arms with the Persians, and dreaded
+them more than, as was afterwards shown, they had reason to. But at
+Mount Athos the deities of the winds came to their aid. As the fleet was
+rounding that promontory, often fatal to mariners, a frightful hurricane
+swooped upon it, and destroyed three hundred of its ships, while no less
+than twenty thousand men became victims of the waves. Some of the crews
+reached the shores, but of these many died of cold, and others were
+slain and devoured by wild beasts, which roamed in numbers on that
+uninhabited point of land. The land army, too, lost heavily from the
+hurricane; and Mardonius, fearing to advance farther after this
+disaster, ingloriously made his way back to the Hellespont. So ended the
+first invasion of Greece.
+
+Three years afterwards another was made. Darius, indeed, first sent
+heralds to Greece, demanding _earth and water_ in token of submission to
+his will. To this demand some of the cities cowardly yielded; but
+Athens, Sparta, and others sent back the heralds with no more earth than
+clung to the soles of their shoes. And so, as Greece was not to be
+subdued through terror of his name, the great king prepared to make it
+feel his power and wrath, incited thereto by his hatred of Athens, which
+Hippias took care to keep alive. Another expedition was prepared, and
+put under the command of another general, Datis by name.
+
+The army was now sent by a new route. Darius himself had led his army
+across the Bosphorus, where Constantinople now stands, and where
+Byzantium then stood. Mardonius conveyed his across the southern strait,
+the Hellespont. The third expedition was sent on shipboard directly
+across the sea, landing and capturing the islands of the AEgean as it
+advanced. Landing at length on the large island of Euboea, near the
+coast of Attica, Datis stormed and captured the city of Eretria, burnt
+its temples, and dragged its people into captivity. Then, putting his
+army on shipboard again, he sailed across the narrow strait between
+Euboea and Attica, and landed on Attic soil, in the ever-memorable Bay
+of Marathon.
+
+It seemed now, truly, as if Darius was about to gain his wish and
+revenge himself on Athens. The plain of Marathon, where the great
+Persian army had landed and lay encamped, is but twenty-two miles from
+Athens by the nearest road,--scarcely a day's march. The plain is about
+six miles long, and from a mile and a half to three miles in width,
+extending back from the sea-shore to the rugged hills and mountains
+which rise to bind it in. A brook flows across it to the sea, and
+marshes occupy its ends. Such was the field on which one of the decisive
+battles of the world was about to be fought.
+
+[Illustration: RUINS OF THE PARTHENON.]
+
+The coming of the Persians had naturally filled the Athenians and all
+the neighboring nations of Greece with alarm. Yet if any Athenian had a
+thought of submission without fighting, he was wise enough to keep it to
+himself. The Athenians of that day were a very different people from
+what they had been fifty years before, when they tamely submitted to the
+tyranny of Pisistratus. They had gained new laws, and with them a new
+spirit. They were the freest people upon the earth,--a democracy in
+which every man was the equal of every other, and in which each had a
+full voice in the government of the state. They had their political
+leaders, it is true, but these were their fellow-citizens, who ruled
+through intellect, not through despotism.
+
+There were now three such men in Athens,--men who have won an enduring
+fame. One of these was that Miltiades who had counselled the destruction
+of Darius's bridge of boats. The others were named Themistocles and
+Aristides, concerning whom we shall have more to say. These three were
+among the ten generals who commanded the army of Athens, and each of
+whom, according to the new laws, was to have command for a day. It was
+fortunate for the Athenians that they had the wit to set aside this law
+on this important occasion, since such a divided generalship must surely
+have led to defeat and disaster.
+
+But before telling what action was taken there is an important episode
+to relate. Athens--as was common with the Greek cities when
+threatened--did not fail to send to Sparta for aid. When the Persians
+landed at Marathon, a swift courier, Phidippides by name, was sent to
+that city for assistance, and so fleet of foot was he that he performed
+the journey, of one hundred and fifty miles, in forty-eight hours' time.
+
+The Spartans, who knew that the fall of Athens would soon be followed by
+that of their own city, promised aid without hesitation. But
+superstition stood in their way. It was, unfortunately, only the ninth
+day of the moon. Ancient custom forbade them to march until the moon had
+passed its full. This would be five days yet,--five days which might
+cause the ruin of Greece. But old laws and observances held dominion at
+Sparta, and, whatever came from it, the moon must pass its full before
+the army could march.
+
+When this decision was brought back by the courier to Athens it greatly
+disturbed the public mind. Of the ten generals, five strongly counselled
+that they should wait for Spartan help. The other five were in favor of
+immediate action. Delay was dangerous with an enemy at their door and
+many timid and doubtless some treacherous citizens within their walls.
+
+Fortunately, there was an eleventh general, Callimachus, the war archon,
+or polemarch, who had a casting vote in the council of generals, and
+who, under persuasion of Miltiades, cast his vote for an immediate march
+to Marathon. The other generals who favored this action gave up to
+Miltiades their days of command, making him sole leader for that length
+of time. Herodotus says that he refused to fight till his own day came
+regularly round,--but we can scarcely believe that a general of his
+ability would risk defeat on such a childish point of honor. If so, he
+should have been a Spartan, and waited for the passing of the full moon.
+
+To Marathon, then, the men of Athens marched, and from its surrounding
+hills looked down on the great Persian army that lay encamped beneath,
+and on the fleet which seemed to fill the sea. Of those brave men there
+were no more than ten thousand. And from all Greece but one small band
+came to join them, a thousand men from the little town of Plataea. The
+numbers of the foe we do not know. They may have been two hundred
+thousand in all, though how many of these landed and took part in the
+battle no one can tell. Doubtless they outnumbered the Athenians more
+than ten to one.
+
+Far along the plain stretched the lines of the Persians, with their
+fleet behind them, extended along the beach. On the high ground in the
+rear were marshalled the Greeks, spread out so long that their line was
+perilously thin. The space of a mile separated the two armies.
+
+And now, at the command of Miltiades, the valiant Athenians crossed this
+dividing space at a full run, sounding their paean or war-cry as they
+advanced. Miltiades was bent on coming to close quarters at once, so as
+to prevent the enemy from getting their bowmen and cavalry at work.
+
+The Persians, on seeing this seeming handful of men, without archers or
+horsemen, advancing at a run upon their great array, deemed at first
+that the Greeks had gone mad and were rushing wildly to destruction. The
+ringing war-cry astounded them,--a Greek paean was new music to their
+ears. And when the hoplites of Athens and Plataea broke upon their ranks,
+thrusting and hewing with spear and sword, and with the strength gained
+from exercises in the gymnasium, dread of these courageous and furious
+warriors filled their souls. On both wings the Persian lines broke and
+fled for their ships. But in the centre, where Datis had placed his best
+men, and where the Athenian line was thinnest, the Greeks, breathless
+from their long run, were broken and driven back. Seeing this, Miltiades
+brought up his victorious wings, attacked the centre with his entire
+force, and soon had the whole Persian army in full flight for its ships.
+
+The marshes swallowed up many of the fleeing host. Hundreds fell before
+the arms of the victors. Into the ships poured in terror those who had
+escaped, followed hotly by the victorious Greeks, who made strenuous
+efforts to set the ships on fire and destroy the entire host. In this
+they failed. The Persians, made desperate by their peril, drove them
+back. The fleet hastily set sail, leaving few prisoners, but abandoning
+a rich harvest of tents and equipments to the victorious Greeks. Of the
+Persian host, some sixty-four hundred lay dead on the field, the ships
+having saved them from further slaughter. The Greek loss in dead was
+only one hundred and ninety-two.
+
+Yet, despite this signal victory, Greece was still in imminent danger.
+Athens was undefended. The fleeing fleet might reach and capture it
+before the army could return. In truth, the ships had sailed in this
+direction, and from the top of a lofty hill Miltiades saw the polished
+surface of a shield flash in the sunlight, and quickly guessed what it
+meant. It was a signal made by some traitor to the Persian fleet.
+Putting his army at once under march, despite the weariness of the
+victors, he hastened back over the long twenty-two miles at all possible
+speed, and the worn-out troops reached Athens barely in time to save it
+from the approaching fleet.
+
+The triumph of Miltiades was complete. Only for his quickness in
+guessing the meaning of the flashing shield, and the rapidity of his
+march, all the results of his great victory would have been lost, and
+Athens fallen helpless into Persian arms. But Datis, finding the city
+amply garrisoned, and baffled at every point, turned his ships and
+sailed in defeat away, leaving the Athenians masters of city and field.
+
+And now the Spartans--to whom the full moon had come too late--appeared,
+two thousand strong, only in time to congratulate the victors and view
+the dead Persians on the field. They had marched the whole distance in
+less than three days. As for the Athenian dead, they were buried with
+great ceremony on the plain where they fell, and the great mound which
+covers them is visible there to this day.
+
+
+
+
+_XERXES AND HIS ARMY._
+
+
+The defeat of the Persian army at Marathon redoubled the wrath of King
+Darius against the Athenians. He resolved in his autocratic mind to
+sweep that pestilent city and all whom it contained from the face of the
+earth. And he perhaps would have done so had he not met a more terrible
+foe even than Miltiades and his army,--the all-conqueror Death, to whose
+might the greatest monarchs must succumb. Burning with fury, Darius
+ordered the levy of a mighty army, and for three years busy preparations
+for war went on throughout the vast empire of Persia. But, just as the
+mustering was done and he was about to march, that grisly foe Death
+struck him down in the midst of his schemes of conquest, and Greece was
+saved,--the great Darius was no more.
+
+Xerxes, son of Darius, succeeded him on the throne. This new monarch was
+the handsomest and stateliest man in all his army. But his fair outside
+covered a weak nature; timid, faint-hearted, vain, conceited, he was not
+the man to conquer Greece, small as it was and great as was the empire
+under his control; and the death of Darius was in all probability the
+salvation of Greece.
+
+Xerxes succeeded not only to the throne of Persia, but also to the vast
+army which his father had brought together. He succeeded, moreover, to a
+war, for Egypt was in revolt. But this did not last long; the army was
+at once set in motion, Egypt was quickly subdued, and the Egyptians
+found themselves under a worse tyranny than before.
+
+Greece remained to conquer, and for that enterprise the timid Persian
+king was not eager. Marathon could not be forgotten. Those fierce
+Athenians who had defeated his father's great host were not to be dealt
+with so easily as the unwarlike Egyptians. He held back irresolute, now
+persuaded to war by one councillor, now to peace by another, and
+finally--so we are told--driven to war by a dream, in which a tall,
+stately man appeared to him and with angry countenance commanded him not
+to abandon the enterprise which his father had designed. This dream came
+to him again the succeeding night, and when Artabanus, his uncle, and
+the advocate of peace, was made to sit on his throne and sleep in his
+bed, the same figure appeared to him, and threatened to burn out his
+eyes if he still opposed the war. Artabanus, stricken with terror, now
+counselled war, and Xerxes determined on the invasion of Greece.
+
+This story we are told by Herodotus, who told many things which it is
+not very safe to believe. What we really know is that Xerxes began the
+most stupendous preparations for war that had ever been known, and added
+to the army left by his father until he had got together the greatest
+host the world had yet beheld. For four years those preparations, to
+which Darius had already given three years of time, were actively
+continued. Horsemen and foot-soldiers, ships of war, transports,
+provisions, and supplies of all kinds were collected far and near, the
+vanity of Xerxes probably inciting him to astonish the world by the
+greatness of his army.
+
+In the autumn of the year 481 B.C. this vast army, marching from all
+parts of the mighty empire, reached Lydia and gathered in and around the
+city of Sardis, the old capital of Croesus. Besides the land army, a
+fleet of twelve hundred and seven ships of war, and numerous other
+vessels, were collected, and large magazines of provisions were formed
+at points along the whole line of march. For years flour and other food,
+from Asia and Egypt, had been stored in cities on the route, that the
+fatal enemy starvation might not attack the mighty host.
+
+Two important questions occupied the mind of Xerxes. How was he to get
+his vast army on European soil, and how escape those dangers from storm
+which had wrecked his father's fleet? He might cross the sea in ships,
+as Datis had done,--and be like him defeated. Xerxes thought it safest
+to keep on solid land, and decided to build a bridge of boats across the
+Hellespont, that ocean river now known as the Dardanelles, the first of
+the two straits which connect the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. As
+for the other trouble, that of storms at sea, he remembered the great
+gale which had wrecked the fleet of Mardonius off the stormy cape of
+Mount Athos, and determined to avoid this danger. A narrow neck of land
+connects Mount Athos with the mainland. Xerxes ordered that a ship-canal
+should be cut through this isthmus, wide and deep enough to allow two
+triremes--war-ships with three ranks of oars--to sail abreast.
+
+This work was done by the Phoenicians, the ablest engineers at that
+time in the world. A canal was made through which his whole fleet could
+sail, and thus the stormy winds and waves which hovered about Mount
+Athos be avoided.
+
+This work was successfully done, but not so the bridge of boats. Hardly
+had the latter been completed, when there came so violent a storm that
+the cables were snapped like pack-thread and the bridge swept away. With
+the weakness of a man of small mind, on hearing of this disaster Xerxes
+burst into a fit of insane rage. He ordered that the heads of the chief
+engineers should be cut off, but this was far from satisfying his anger.
+The elements had risen against his might, and the elements themselves
+must be punished. The Hellespont should be scourged for its temerity,
+and three hundred lashes were actually given the water, while a set of
+fetters were cast into its depths. It is further said that the water was
+branded with hot irons, but it is hard to believe that even Xerxes was
+such a fool as this would make him.
+
+The rebellious water thus punished, Xerxes regained his wits, and
+ordered that the bridge should be rebuilt more strongly than before.
+Huge cables were made, some of flax, some of papyrus fibre, to anchor
+the ships in the channel and to bind them to the shore. Two bridges were
+constructed, composed of large ships laid side by side in the water,
+while over each of them stretched six great cables, to moor them to the
+land and to support the wooden causeway. In one of these bridges no less
+than three hundred and sixty ships were employed.
+
+And now, everything being ready, the mighty army began its march. It
+presented a grand spectacle as it made its way from Sardis to the sea.
+First of all came the baggage, borne on thousands of camels and other
+beasts of burden. Then came one-half the infantry. The other half
+marched in the rear, while between them were Xerxes and his great
+body-guard, which is thus described by the Greek historian:
+
+First came a thousand Persian cavalry and as many spearmen, each of the
+latter having a golden pomegranate on the rear end of his spear, which
+was carried in the air, the point being turned downward. Then came ten
+sacred horses, splendidly caparisoned, and following them rolled the
+sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses. This was succeeded
+by the chariot of Xerxes himself, who was immediately attended by a
+thousand horse-guards, the choicest troops of the kingdom, of whose
+spears the ends glittered with golden apples. Then came detachments of
+one thousand horse, ten thousand foot, and ten thousand horse. These
+foot-soldiers, called the Immortals, because their number was always
+maintained, had pomegranates of silver on their spears, with the
+exception of one thousand, who marched in front and rear and on the
+sides, and bore pomegranates of gold. After these household troops
+followed the vast remaining host.
+
+The army of Xerxes was, as we have said, superior in numbers to any the
+world had ever seen. Forty-six nations had sent their quotas to the
+host, each with its different costume, arms, mode of march, and system
+of fighting. Only those from Asia Minor bore such arms as the Greeks
+were used to fight with. Most of the others were armed with javelins or
+other light weapons, and bore slight shields or none at all. Some came
+armed only with daggers and a lasso like that used on the American
+plains. The Ethiopians from the Upper Nile had their bodies painted half
+red and half white, wore lion-and panther-skins, and carried javelins
+and bows. Few of the whole army bore the heavy weapons or displayed the
+solid fighting phalanx of those whom they had come to meet in war.
+
+As to the number of men thus brought together from half the continent of
+Asia we cannot be sure. Xerxes, after reaching Europe, took an odd way
+of counting his army. Ten thousand men were counted and packed close
+together. Then a line was drawn around them, and a wall built about the
+space. The whole army was then marched in successive detachments into
+this walled enclosure. Herodotus tells us that there were one hundred
+and seventy of these divisions, which would make the whole army one
+million seven hundred thousand foot. In addition there were eighty
+thousand horse, many war-chariots, and a fleet of twelve hundred and
+seven triremes and three thousand smaller vessels. According to
+Herodotus, the whole host, soldiers and sailors, numbered two million
+six hundred and forty thousand men, and there were as many or more
+camp-followers, so that the whole number present, according to this
+estimate, was over five million men. It is not easy to believe that such
+a marching host as this could be fed, and it has probably been much
+exaggerated; yet there is no doubt that the host was vast enough almost
+to blow away all the armies of Greece with the wind of its coming.
+
+On leaving Sardis a frightful spectacle was provided by Xerxes: the army
+found itself marching between two halves of a slaughtered man. Pythius,
+an old Phrygian of great riches, had entertained Xerxes with much
+hospitality, and offered him all his wealth, amounting to two thousand
+talents of silver and nearly four million darics of gold. This generous
+offer Xerxes declined, and gave Pythius enough gold to make up his
+darics to an even four millions. Then, when the army was about to march,
+the old man told Xerxes that he had five sons in the army, and begged
+that one of them, the eldest, might be left with him as a stay to his
+declining years. Instantly the despot burst into a rage. The request of
+exemption from military service was in Persia an unpardonable offence.
+The hospitality of Pythius was forgotten, and Xerxes ordered that his
+son should be slain, and half the body hung on each side of the army,
+probably as a salutary warning to all who should have the temerity to
+question the despot's arbitrary will.
+
+On marched the great army. It crossed the plain of Troy, and here
+Xerxes offered libations in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, the
+story of which was told him. Reaching the Hellespont, he had a marble
+throne erected, from which to view the passage of his troops. The
+bridges--which the scourged and branded waters had now spared--were
+perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs, and, as the
+march began, Xerxes offered prayers to the sun, and made libations to
+the sea with a golden censer, which he then flung into the water,
+together with a golden bowl and a Persian scimitar, perhaps to repay the
+Hellespont for the stripes he had inflicted upon it.
+
+At the first moment of sunrise the passage began, the troops marching
+across one bridge, the baggage and attendants crossing the other. All
+day the march continued, and all night long, the whip being used to
+accelerate the troops; yet so vast was the host that for seven days and
+nights, without cessation, the army moved on, and a week was at its end
+before the last man of the great Persian host set foot on European soil.
+
+Then down through the Grecian peninsula Xerxes marched, doubtless
+inflated with pride at the greatness of his host and the might of the
+fleet which sailed down the neighboring seas and through the canal which
+he had cut to baffle stormy Athos. One regret alone seemed to come into
+his mind, and that was that in a hundred years not one man of that vast
+army would be alive. It did not occur to him that in less than one year
+few of them might be alive, for all thought of any peril to his army
+and fleet from the insignificant numbers of the Greeks must have been
+dismissed with scorn from his mind.
+
+Like locusts the army marched southward through Thrace, eating up the
+cities as it advanced, for each was required to provide a day's meals
+for the mighty host. For months those cities had been engaged in
+providing the food which this army consumed in a day. Many of the cities
+were brought to the verge of ruin, and all of them were glad to see the
+army march on. At length Xerxes saw before him Mount Olympus, on the
+northern boundary of the land of Hellas or Greece. This was the end of
+his own dominions. He was now about to enter the territory of his foes.
+With what fortune he did so must be left for later tales.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW THE SPARTANS DIED AT THERMOPYLAE._
+
+
+When Xerxes, as his father had done before him, sent to the Grecian
+cities to demand earth and water in token of submission, no heralds were
+sent to Athens or Sparta. These truculent cities had flung the heralds
+of Darius into deep pits, bidding them to take earth and water from
+there and carry it to the great king. This act called for revenge, and
+whatever mercy he might show to the rest of Greece, Athens and Sparta
+were doomed in his mind to be swept from the face of the earth. How they
+escaped this dismal fate is what we have next to tell.
+
+As one of the great men of Athens, Miltiades, had saved his native land
+in the former Persian invasion, so a second patriotic citizen,
+Themistocles, proved her savior in the dread peril which now threatened
+her. But the work of Themistocles was not done in a single great battle,
+as at Marathon, but in years of preparation. And a war between Athens
+and the neighboring island of AEgina had much to do with this escape from
+ruin.
+
+To make war upon an island a land army was of no avail. A fleet was
+necessary. The Athenians were accustomed to a commercial, though not to
+a warlike, life upon the sea. Many of them were active, daring, and
+skilful sailors, and when Themistocles urged that they should build a
+powerful fleet he found approving listeners. Longer of sight than his
+fellow-citizens, he warned them of the coming peril from Persia. The
+conflict with the small island of AEgina was a small matter compared with
+that threatened by the great kingdom of Persia. But to prepare against
+one was to prepare against both. And Athens was just then rich. It
+possessed valuable silver-mines at Laurium, in Attica, from which much
+wealth came to the state. This money Themistocles urged the citizens to
+use in building ships, and they were wise enough to take his advice, two
+hundred ships of war being built. These ships, as it happened, were not
+used for the purpose originally intended, that of the war with AEgina.
+But they proved of inestimable service to Athens in the Persian war.
+
+[Illustration: THE PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIANS.]
+
+The vast preparations of Xerxes were not beheld without deep terror in
+Greece. Spies were sent into Persia to discover what was being done.
+They were captured and condemned to death, but Xerxes ordered that they
+should be shown his total army and fleet, and then sent home to report
+what they had seen. He hoped thus to double the terror of the Grecian
+states.
+
+At home two things were done. Athens and Sparta called a congress of all
+the states of Greece on the Isthmus of Corinth, and urged them to lay
+aside all petty feuds and combine for defence against the common foe. It
+was the greatest and most successful congress that Greece had ever yet
+held. All wars came to an end. That between Athens and AEgina ceased,
+and the fleet which Athens had built was laid aside for a greater need.
+The other thing was that step always taken in Greece in times of peril,
+to send to the temple at Delphi and obtain from the oracle the sacred
+advice which was deemed so indispensable.
+
+The reply received by Athens was terrifying. "Quit your land and city
+and flee afar!" cried the prophetess. "Fire and sword, in the train of
+the Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you. Get ye away from the sanctuary,
+with your souls steeped in sorrow."
+
+The envoys feared to carry back such a sentence to Athens. They implored
+the priestess for a more comforting reply, and were given the following
+enigma to solve: "This assurance I will give you, firm as adamant. When
+everything else in the land of Cecrops shall be taken, Zeus grants to
+Athene that the wooden wall alone shall remain unconquered, to defend
+you and your children. Stand not to await the assailing horse and foot
+from the continent, but turn your backs and retire; you shall yet live
+to fight another day. O divine Salamis, thou too shalt destroy the
+children of women, either at the seed-time or at the harvest."
+
+Here was some hope, though small. "The wooden wall"? What could it be
+but the fleet? This was the general opinion of the Athenians. But should
+they fight? Should they not rather abandon Attica forever, take to their
+wooden walls, and seek a new home afar? Salamis was to destroy the
+children of women! Did not this portend disaster in case of a naval
+battle?
+
+The fate of Athens now hung upon a thread. Had its people fled to a
+distant land, one of the greatest chapters in the history of the world
+would never have been written. But now Themistocles, to whom Athens owed
+its fleet, came forward as its savior. If the oracle, he declared, had
+meant that the Greeks should be destroyed, it would have called Salamis,
+where the battle was to be fought, "wretched Salamis." But it had said
+"divine Salamis." What did this mean but that it was not the Greeks, but
+the enemies of Greece, who were to be destroyed? He begged his
+countrymen not to desert their country, but to fight boldly for its
+safety. Fortunately for Athens, his solution of the riddle was accepted,
+and the city set itself diligently to building more ships, that they
+might have as powerful a fleet as possible when the Persians came.
+
+But not only Athens was to be defended; all Greece was in peril; the
+invaders must be met by land as well as by sea. Greece is traversed by
+mountain ranges, which cross from sea to sea, leaving only difficult
+mountain paths and narrow seaside passes. One of these was the long and
+winding defile to Tempe, between Mounts Olympus and Ossa, on the
+northern boundary of Greece. There a few men could keep back a numerous
+host, and thither at first marched the small army which dared to oppose
+the Persian millions, a little band of ten thousand men, under the
+command of a Spartan general.
+
+But they did not remain there. The Persians were still distant, and
+while the Greeks awaited their approach new counsels prevailed. There
+was another pass by which the mountains might be crossed,--which pass,
+in fact, the Persians took. Also the fleet might land thousands of men
+in their rear. On the whole it was deemed best to retreat to another
+pass, much farther south, the famous pass of Thermopylae. Here was a road
+a mile in width, where were warm springs; and at each end were narrow
+passes, called gates,--the name Thermopylae meaning "hot gates."
+Adjoining was a narrow strait, between the mainland and the island of
+Euboea, where the Greek fleet might keep back the Persian host of
+ships. There was an old wall across the pass, now in ruins. This the
+Greeks rebuilt, and there the devoted band, now not more than seven
+thousand in all, waited the coming of the mighty Persian host.
+
+It was in late June, of the year 480 B.C., that the Grecian army, led by
+Leonidas, king of Sparta, marched to this defile. There were but three
+hundred Spartans[3] in his force, with small bodies of men from the
+other states of Greece. The fleet, less than three hundred ships in all,
+took post beside them in the strait. And here they waited while day by
+day the Persian hordes marched southward over the land.
+
+The first conflict took place between some vessels of the fleets,
+whereupon the Grecian admirals, filled with sudden fright, sailed
+southward and left the army to the mercy of the Persian ships.
+Fortunately for Greece, thus deserted in her need, a strong ally now
+came to the rescue. The gods of the winds had been implored with prayer.
+The answer came in the form of a frightful hurricane, which struck the
+great fleet while it lay at anchor, and hurled hundreds of ships on the
+rocky shore. For three days the storm continued, and when it ended more
+than four hundred ships of war, with a multitude of transports and
+provision craft, were wrecked, while the loss of life had been immense.
+The Greek fleet had escaped this disaster, and now, with renewed
+courage, came sailing back to the post it had abandoned, and so quickly
+as to capture fifteen vessels of the Persian fleet.
+
+While this gale prevailed Xerxes and his army lay encamped before
+Thermopylae, the king in terror for his fleet, which he was told had been
+all destroyed. As for the Greeks, he laughed them to scorn. He was told
+that a handful of Spartans and other Greeks were posted in the pass, and
+sent a horseman to tell him what was to be seen. The horseman rode near
+the pass, and saw there the wall and outside it the small Spartan force,
+some of whom were engaged in gymnastic exercises, while others were
+combing their long hair.
+
+The great king was astonished and puzzled at this news. He waited
+expecting the few Greeks to disperse and leave the pass open to his
+army. The fourth day came and went, and they were still there. Then
+Xerxes bade the Median and Kissian divisions of his army to advance,
+seize these insolent fellows, and bring them to him as prisoners of war.
+Forward went his troops, and entered the throat of the narrow pass,
+where their bows and arrows were of little use, and they must fight the
+Greeks hand to hand. And now the Spartan arms and discipline told. With
+their long spears, spreading shields, steady ranks, and rigid
+discipline, the Greeks were far more than a match for the light weapons,
+slight shields, and open ranks of their foes. The latter had only their
+numbers, and numbers there were of little avail. They fell by hundreds,
+while the Greeks met with little loss. For two days the combat
+continued, fresh defenders constantly replacing the weary ones, and a
+wall of Persian dead being heaped up outside the wall of stone.
+
+Then, as a last resort, the Immortals,--the Persian guard of ten
+thousand,--with other choice troops, were sent; and these were driven
+back with the same slaughter as the rest. The fleet in the strait
+doubtless warmly cheered on the brave hoplites in the pass; but as for
+Xerxes, "Thrice," says Herodotus, "did he spring from his throne, in
+agony for his army."
+
+The deed of a traitor rendered useless this noble defence. A recreant
+Greek, Ephialtes by name, sought Xerxes and told him of a mountain pass
+over which he could guide a band to attack the defenders of Thermopylae
+in the rear. A strong Persian detachment was ordered to cross the pass,
+and did so under shelter of the night. At daybreak they reached the
+summit, where a thousand Greeks from Phocis had been stationed as a
+guard. These men, surprised, and overwhelmed with a shower of arrows,
+fled up the mountain-side, and left the way open to the Persians, who
+pursued their course down the mountain, and at mid-day reached the rear
+of the pass of Thermopylae.
+
+Leonidas had heard of their coming. Scouts had brought him word. The
+defence of the pass was at an end. They must fly or be crushed. A
+council was hastily called, and it was decided to retreat. But this
+decision was not joined in by Leonidas and his gallant three hundred.
+The honor of Sparta would not permit her king to yield a pass which he
+had been sent to defend. The laws of his country required that he should
+conquer or die at his post. It was too late to conquer; but he could
+still die. With him and his three hundred remained the Thespians and
+Thebans, seven hundred of the former and about four hundred of the
+latter. The remainder of the army withdrew.
+
+Xerxes had arranged to wait till noon, at which hour the defenders of
+the pass were to be attacked in front and rear. But Leonidas did not
+wait. All he and his men had now to do was to sell their lives as dearly
+as possible, so they marched outside the pass, attacked the front of the
+Persian host, drove them back, and killed them in multitudes, many of
+them being driven to perish in the sea and the morass. The Persian
+officers kept their men to the deadly work by threats and the liberal
+use of the whip.
+
+But one by one the Spartans fell. Their spears were broken, and they
+fought with their swords. Leonidas sank in death, but his men fought on
+more fiercely still, to keep the foe back from his body. Here many of
+the Persian chiefs perished, among them two brothers of Xerxes. It was
+like a combat of the Iliad rather than a contest in actual war. Finally
+the Greeks, worn out, reduced in numbers, their best weapons gone, fell
+back behind the wall, bearing the body of their chief. Here they still
+fought, with daggers, with their unarmed hands, even with their mouths,
+until the last man fell dead.
+
+The Thebans alone yielded themselves as prisoners, saying that they had
+been kept in the pass against their will. Of the thousand Spartans and
+Thespians, not a man remained alive.
+
+Meanwhile the fleets had been engaged, to the advantage of the Greeks,
+while another storm that suddenly rose wrecked two hundred more of the
+Persian ships on Euboea's rocky coast. When word came that Thermopylae
+had fallen the Grecian fleet withdrew, sailed round the Attic coast, and
+stopped not again until the island of Salamis was reached.
+
+As for Leonidas and his Spartans, they had died, but had won
+imperishable fame. The same should be said for the Thespians as well,
+but history has largely ignored their share in the glorious deed. In
+after-days an inscription was set up which gave all glory to the
+Peloponnesian heroes without a word for the noble Thespian band. Another
+celebrated inscription honored the Spartans alone:
+
+  "Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell
+  That here, obeying her behests, we fell,"
+
+or, in plain prose, "Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here,
+in obedience to their orders."
+
+On the hillock where the last of the faithful band died was erected a
+monument with a marble lion in honor of Leonidas, while on it was carved
+the following epitaph, written by the poet Simonides:
+
+  "In dark Thermopylae they lie.
+  Oh, death of glory, thus to die!
+  Their tomb an altar is, their name
+  A mighty heritage of fame.
+  Their dirge is triumph; cankering rust,
+  And time, that turneth all to dust,
+  That tomb shall never waste nor hide,--
+  The tomb of warriors true and tried.
+  The full-voiced praise of Greece around
+  Lies buried in this sacred mound;
+  Where Sparta's king, Leonidas,
+  In death eternal glory has!"
+
+
+
+
+_THE WOODEN WALLS OF ATHENS._
+
+
+The slaughter of the defenders of Thermopylae exposed Athens to the
+onslaught of the vast Persian army, which would soon be on the soil of
+Attica. A few days' march would bring the invaders to its capital city,
+which they would overwhelm as a flight of locusts destroys a cultivated
+field. The states of the Peloponnesus, with a selfish regard for their
+own safety, had withdrawn all their soldiers within the peninsula, and
+began hastily to build a wall across the isthmus of Corinth with the
+hope of keeping back the invading army. Athens was left to care for
+itself. It was thus that Greece usually let itself be devoured
+piecemeal.
+
+There was but one thing for the Athenians to do, to obey the oracle and
+fly from their native soil. In a few days the Persians would be in
+Athens, and there was not an hour to lose. The old men, the women and
+children, with such property as could be moved, were hastily taken on
+shipboard and carried to Salamis, AEgina, Troezen, and other
+neighboring islands. The men of fighting age took to their ships of war,
+to fight on the sea for what they had lost on land. A few of the old and
+the poverty-stricken remained, and took possession of the hill of the
+Acropolis, whose wooden fence they fondly fancied might be the wooden
+wall which the oracle had meant. Apart from these few the city was
+deserted, and Athens had embarked upon the seas. Not only Athens, but
+all Attica, was left desolate, and in the whole state Xerxes made only
+five hundred prisoners of war.
+
+Onward came the great Persian host, destroying all that could be
+destroyed on Attic soil, and sending out detachments to ravage other
+parts of Greece. The towns that submitted were spared. Those that
+resisted, or whose inhabitants fled, were pillaged and burnt. A body of
+troops was sent to plunder Delphi, the reputed great wealth of whose
+temple promised a rich reward. The story of what happened there is a
+curious one, and well worth relating.
+
+The frightened Delphians prepared to fly, but first asked the oracle of
+Apollo whether they should take with them the sacred treasures or bury
+them in secret places. The oracle bade them not to touch these
+treasures, saying that the god would protect his own. With this
+admonition the people of Delphi fled, sixty only of their number
+remaining to guard the holy shrine.
+
+These faithful few were soon encouraged by a prodigy. The sacred arms,
+kept in the temple's inmost cell, and which no mortal hand dared touch,
+were seen lying before the temple door, as if Apollo was prepared
+himself to use them. As the Persians advanced by a rugged path under the
+steep cliffs of Mount Parnassus, and reached the temple of Athene
+Pronaea, a dreadful peal of thunder rolled above their affrighted heads,
+and two great crags, torn from the mountain's flank, came rushing down
+with deafening sound, and buried many of them beneath their weight. At
+the same time, from the temple of Athene, came the Greek shout of war.
+
+In a panic the invaders turned and fled, hotly pursued by the few
+Delphians, and, so the story goes, by two armed men of superhuman size,
+whose destructive arms wrought dire havoc in the fleeing host. And thus,
+as we are told, did the god preserve his temple and his wealth.
+
+But no god guarded the road to Athens, and at length Xerxes and his army
+reached that city,--four months after they had crossed the Hellespont.
+It was an empty city they found. The few defenders of the Acropolis--a
+craggy hill about one hundred and fifty feet high--made a vigorous
+defence, for a time keeping the whole Persian army at bay. But some
+Persians crept up a steep and unguarded part of the wall, entered the
+citadel, and soon all its defenders were dead, and its temples and
+buildings in flames.
+
+While all this was going on, the Grecian fleet lay but a few miles away,
+in the narrow strait between the isle of Salamis and the Attic coast,
+occupying the little bay before the town of Salamis, from which narrow
+channels at each end led into the Bay of Eleusis to the north and the
+open sea to the south. In front rose the craggy heights of Mount
+AEgaleos, over which, only five miles away, could be seen ascending the
+lurid smoke of blazing Athens. It was a spectacle calculated to
+infuriate the Athenians, though not one to inspire them with courage
+and hope.
+
+The fleet of Greece consisted of three hundred and sixty-six ships in
+all, of which Athens supplied two hundred, while the remainder came in
+small numbers from the various Grecian states. The Persian fleet,
+despite its losses by storm, far outnumbered that of Greece, and came
+sweeping down the Attic coast, confident of victory, while the great
+army marched southward over Attic land.
+
+And now two councils of war were held,--one by the Persian leaders, one
+by the Greeks. The fleet of Xerxes, probably still a thousand ships
+strong, lay in the Bay of Phalerum, a few miles from Athens; and hither
+the king, having wrought his will on that proud and insolent city, came
+to the coast to inspect his ships of war and take counsel as to what
+should next be done.
+
+Here, before his royal throne, were seated the kings of Tyre and Sidon,
+and the rulers of the many other nations represented in his army. One by
+one they were asked what should be done. "Fight," was the general reply;
+"fight without delay." Only one voice gave different advice, that of
+Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus. She advised Xerxes to march to the
+isthmus of Corinth, saying that then all the ships of the Peloponnesus
+would fly to defend their own homes, and the fleet of Greece would thus
+be dispersed. Xerxes heard her with calmness, but declined to take her
+prudent advice. The voice of the others and his own confidence
+prevailed, and orders were given for the fleet to make its attack the
+next day.
+
+The almost unanimous decision of this council, over which ruled the
+will of an autocratic king, was very different from that which was
+reached by the Greeks, in whose council all who spoke had equal
+authority. The fleet had come to Salamis to aid the flight of the
+Athenians. This done, it was necessary to decide where it was best to
+meet the Persian fleet. Only the Athenians, under the leadership of
+Themistocles, favored remaining where they were. The others perceived
+that if they were defeated here, escape would be impossible. Most of
+them wished to sail to the isthmus of Corinth, to aid the land army of
+the Peloponnesians, while various other plans were urged.
+
+While the chiefs thus debated news came that Athens and the Acropolis
+were in flames. At once some of the captains left the council in alarm,
+and began hastily to hoist sail for flight. Those that remained voted to
+remove to the isthmus, but not to start till the morning of the next
+day.
+
+Themistocles, who had done his utmost to prevent this fatal decision,
+which he knew would end in the dispersal of the fleet and the triumph of
+Persia, returned to his own ship sad of heart. Many of the women and
+children of Athens were on the island of Salamis, and if the fleet
+sailed they, too, must be removed.
+
+"What has the council decided?" asked his friend Mnesiphilus.
+
+Themistocles gloomily told him.
+
+"This will be ruinous!" burst out Mnesiphilus. "Soon there will be no
+allied fleet, nor any cause or country to fight for. You must have the
+council meet again; this vote must be set aside; if it be carried out
+the liberty of Greece is at an end."
+
+So strongly did he insist upon this that Themistocles was inspired to
+make another effort. He went at once to the ship of Eurybiades, the
+Spartan who had been chosen admiral of the fleet, and represented the
+case so earnestly to him that Eurybiades was partly convinced, and
+consented to call the council together again.
+
+Here Themistocles was so excitedly eager that he sought to win the
+chiefs over to his views even before Eurybiades had formally opened the
+meeting and explained its object. For this he was chided by the
+Corinthian Adeimantus, who said,--
+
+"Themistocles, those who in the public festivals rise up before the
+proper signal are scourged."
+
+"True," said Themistocles; "but those who lag behind the signal win no
+crowns."
+
+When the debate was formally opened, Themistocles was doubly urgent in
+his views, and continued his arguments until Adeimantus burst out in a
+rage, bidding him, a man who had no city, to be silent.
+
+This attack drew a bitter answer from the insulted Athenian. If he had
+no city, he said, he had around him two hundred ships, with which he
+could win a city and country better than Corinth. Then he turned to
+Eurybiades, and said,--
+
+"If you will stay and fight bravely here, all will be well. If you
+refuse to stay, you will bring all Greece to ruin. If you will not stay,
+we Athenians will migrate with our ships and families. Then, chiefs,
+when you lose an ally like us, you will remember what I say, and regret
+what you have done."
+
+[Illustration: THE VICTORS AT SALAMIS.]
+
+These words convinced Eurybiades. Without the Athenian ships the fleet
+would indeed be powerless. He asked for no vote, but gave the word that
+they should stay and fight, and bade the captains to make ready for
+battle. Thus it was that at dawn of day the fleet, instead of being in
+full flight, remained drawn up in battle array in the Bay of Salamis.
+The Peloponnesian chiefs, however, were not content. They held a secret
+council, and resolved to steal secretly away. This treacherous purpose
+came to the ears of Themistocles, and to prevent it he took a desperate
+course. He sent a secret message to Xerxes, telling him that the Greek
+fleet was about to fly, and that if he wished to capture it he must at
+once close up both ends of the strait, so that flight would be
+impossible.
+
+He cunningly represented himself as a secret friend of the Persian king,
+who lost no time in taking the advice. When the next day's dawn was at
+hand the discontented chiefs were about to fly, as they had secretly
+resolved, when a startling message came to their ears. Aristides, a
+noble Athenian who had been banished, but had now returned, came on the
+fleet from Salamis and told them that only battle was left, that the
+Persians had cooped them in like birds in a cage, and that there was
+nothing to do but to fight or surrender.
+
+This disturbing message was not at first believed. But it was quickly
+confirmed. Persian ships appeared at both ends of the strait.
+Themistocles had won. Escape was impossible. They must do battle like
+heroes or live as Persian slaves. There was but one decision,--to fight.
+The dawn of day found the Greeks actively preparing for the most famous
+naval battle of ancient times.
+
+The combat about to be fought had the largest audience of any naval
+battle the world has ever known. For the vast army of Persia was drawn
+up as spectators on the verge of the narrow strait which held the
+warring fleets, and Xerxes himself sat on a lofty throne erected at a
+point which closely overlooked the liquid plain. His presence, he felt
+sure, would fill his seamen with valor, while by his side stood scribes
+prepared to write down the names alike of the valorous and the backward
+combatants. On the other hand, the people of Athens and Attica looked
+with hope and fear on the scene from the island of Salamis. It was a
+unique preparation for a battle at sea, such as was never known before
+or since that day.
+
+The fleet of Persia outnumbered that of Greece three to one. But the
+Persian seamen had been busy all night long in carrying out the plan to
+entrap the Greeks, and were weary with labor. The Greeks had risen fresh
+and vigorous from their night's rest. And different spirits animated the
+two hosts. The Persians were moved solely by the desire for glory; the
+Greeks by the stern alternatives of victory, slavery, or death. These
+differences in strength and motive went far to negative the difference
+in numbers; and the Greeks, caught like lions in a snare, dashed into
+the combat with the single feeling that they must now fight or die.
+
+History tells us that the Greeks hesitated at first; but soon the ship
+of Ameinias, an Athenian captain, dashed against a Phoenician trireme
+with such fury that the two became closely entangled. While their crews
+fought vigorously with spear and javelin, other ships from both sides
+dashed to their aid, and soon numbers of the war triremes were fiercely
+engaged.
+
+The battle that followed was hot and furious, the ships becoming mingled
+in so confused a mass that no eye could follow their evolutions. Soon
+the waters of the Bay of Salamis ran red with blood. Broken oars, fallen
+spars, shattered vessels, filled the strait. Hundreds were hurled into
+the waters,--the Persians, few of whom could swim, to sink; the Greeks,
+who were skilful swimmers, to seek the shore of Salamis or some friendly
+deck.
+
+From the start the advantage lay with the Greeks. The narrowness of the
+strait rendered the great numbers of the Persians of no avail. The
+superior discipline of the Greeks gave them a further advantage. The
+want of concert in the Persian allies was another aid to the Greeks.
+They were ready to run one another down in the wild desire to escape.
+Soon the Persian fleet became a disorderly mass of flying ships, the
+Greek fleet a well-ordered array of furious pursuers. In panic the
+Persians fled; in exultation the Greeks pursued. One trireme of Naxos
+captured five Persian ships. A brother of Xerxes was slain by an
+Athenian spear. Great numbers of distinguished Persians and Medes shared
+his fate. Before the day was old the battle on the Persian side had
+become a frantic effort to escape, while some of the choicest troops of
+Persia, who had been landed before the battle on the island of
+Psyttaleia, were attacked by Aristides at the head of an Athenian troop,
+and put to death to a man.
+
+The confident hope of victory with which Xerxes saw the battle begin
+changed to wrath and terror when he saw his ships in disorderly flight
+and the Greeks in hot pursuit. The gallant behavior of Queen Artemisia
+alone gave him satisfaction, and when he saw her in the flight run into
+and sink an opposing vessel, he cried out, "My men have become women;
+and my women, men." He was not aware that the ship she had sunk, with
+all on board, was one of his own fleet.
+
+The mad flight of his ships utterly distracted the mind of the
+faint-hearted king. His army still vastly outnumbered that of Greece.
+With all its losses, his fleet was still much the stronger. An ounce of
+courage in his soul would have left Greece at his mercy. But that was
+wanting, and in panic fear that the Greeks would destroy the bridge over
+the Hellespont, he ordered his fleet to hasten there to guard it, and
+put his army in rapid retreat for the safe Asiatic shores.
+
+He had some reason to fear the loss of his bridge. Themistocles and the
+Athenians had it in view to hasten to the Hellespont and break it down.
+But Eurybiades, the Spartan leader, opposed this, saying that it was
+dangerous to keep Xerxes in Greece. They had best give him every chance
+to fly.
+
+Themistocles, who saw the wisdom of this advice, not only accepted it,
+but sent a message to Xerxes--as to a friend--advising him to make all
+haste, and saying that he would do his best to hold back the Greeks, who
+were eager to burn the bridge.
+
+The frightened monarch was not slow in taking this advice. Leaving a
+strong force in Greece, under the command of his general Mardonius, he
+marched with the speed of fear for the bridge. But he had nearly
+exhausted the country of food in his advance, and starvation and plague
+attended his retreat, many of the men being obliged to eat leaves,
+grass, and the bark of trees, and great numbers of them dying before the
+Hellespont was reached.
+
+Here he found the bridge gone. A storm had destroyed it. He was forced
+to have his army taken across in ships. Not till Asia Minor was reached
+did the starving troops obtain sufficient food,--and there gorged
+themselves to such an extent that many of them died from repletion. In
+the end Xerxes entered Sardis with a broken army and a sad heart, eight
+months after he had left it with the proud expectation of conquering the
+western world.
+
+
+
+
+_PLATAEA'S FAMOUS DAY._
+
+
+On a certain day, destined to be thereafter famous, two strong armies
+faced each other on the plain north of the little Boeotian town of
+Plataea. Greece had gathered the greatest army it had ever yet put into
+the field, in all numbering one hundred and ten thousand men, of whom
+nearly forty thousand were hoplites, or heavy-armed troops, the
+remainder light-armed or unarmed. Of these Sparta supplied five thousand
+hoplites and thirty-five thousand light-armed Helots, the greatest army
+that warlike city had ever brought into action. The remainder of Laconia
+furnished five thousand hoplites and five thousand Helot attendants.
+Athens sent eight thousand hoplites, and the remainder of the army came
+from various states of Greece. This host was in strange contrast to the
+few thousand warriors with whom Greece had met the vast array of Xerxes
+at Thermopylae.
+
+Opposed to this force was the army which Xerxes had left behind him on
+his flight from Greece, three hundred thousand of his choicest troops,
+under the command of his trusted general Mardonius. This host was not a
+mob of armed men, like that which Xerxes had led. It embraced the best
+of the Persian forces and Greek auxiliaries, and the hopes of Greece
+still seemed but slight, thus outnumbered three to one. But the Greeks
+fought for liberty, and were inspired with the spirit of their recent
+victories; the Persians were disheartened and disunited: this difference
+of feeling went far to equalize the hosts.
+
+And now, before bringing the waiting armies to battle, we must tell what
+led to their meeting on the Plataean plain. After the battle of Salamis a
+vote was taken by the chiefs to decide who among them should be awarded
+the prize of valor on that glorious day. Each cast two ballots, and when
+these were counted each chief was found to have cast his first vote
+for--himself! But the second votes were nearly all for Themistocles, and
+all Greece hailed him as its preserver. The Spartans crowned him with
+olive, and presented him with a kingly chariot, and when he left their
+city they escorted him with the honors due to royalty.
+
+Meanwhile Mardonius, who was wintering with his army in Thessaly, sent
+to Athens to ask if its people still proposed the madness of opposing
+the power of Xerxes the king. "Yes," was the answer; "while the sun
+lights the sky we will never join in alliance with barbarians against
+Greeks."
+
+On receiving this answer Mardonius broke up his winter camp and marched
+again to Athens, which he found once more empty of inhabitants. Its
+people had withdrawn as before to Salamis, and left the shell of their
+nation to the foe.
+
+The Athenians sent for aid to Sparta, but the people of that city,
+learning that Athens had defied Mardonius, selfishly withheld their
+assistance, and the completion of the wall across the isthmus was
+diligently pushed. Fortunately for Greece, this selfish policy came to a
+sudden end. "What will your wall be worth if Athens joins with Persia
+and gives the foe the aid of her fleet?" was asked the Spartan kings;
+and so abruptly did they change their opinion that during that same
+night five thousand Spartan hoplites, each man with seven Helot
+attendants, marched for the isthmus, with Pausanias, a cousin of
+Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae, at their head.
+
+On learning of this movement, Mardonius set fire to what of Athens
+remained, and fell back on the city of Thebes, in Boeotia, as a more
+favorable field for the battle which now seemed sure to come. Here his
+numerous cavalry could be brought into play, the country was allied with
+him, the friendly city of Thebes lay behind him, and food for his great
+army was to be had. Here, then, he awaited the coming of the Greeks, and
+built for his army a fortified camp, surrounded with walls and towers of
+wood.
+
+Yet his men and officers alike lacked heart. At a splendid banquet given
+to Mardonius by the Thebans, one of the Persians said to his Theban
+neighbor,--
+
+"Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left
+yonder encamped near the river? Yet a little while, and out of all these
+thou shalt behold but a few surviving."
+
+"If you feel thus," said the Theban, "thou art surely bound to reveal it
+to Mardonius."
+
+"My friend," answered the Persian, "man cannot avert what God has
+decreed. No one will believe the revelation, sure though it be. Many of
+us Persians know this well, and are here serving only under the bond of
+necessity. And truly this is the most hateful of all human sufferings,
+to be full of knowledge, and at the same time to have no power over any
+result."
+
+Not long had the lukewarm Persians to wait for their foes. Soon the army
+of Greece appeared, and, seeing their enemy encamped along the little
+river Asopus in the plain, took post on the mountain declivity above.
+Here they were not suffered to rest in peace. The powerful Persian
+cavalry, led by Masistius, the most distinguished officer in the army,
+broke like a thunderbolt on the Grecian ranks. The Athenians and
+Megarians met them, and a sharp and doubtful contest ensued. At length
+Masistius fell from his wounded horse and was slain as he lay on the
+ground. The Persians fought with fury to recover his body, but were
+finally driven back, leaving the corpse of their general in the hands of
+the Greeks.
+
+This event had a great effect on both armies. Grief assailed the army of
+Mardonius at the loss of their favorite general. Loud wailings filled
+the camp, and the hair of men, horses, and cattle was cut in sign of
+mourning. The Greeks, on the contrary, were full of joy. The body of
+Masistius, a man of great stature, and clad in showy armor, was placed
+in a cart and paraded around the camp, that all might see it and
+rejoice. Such was their confidence at this defeat of the cavalry, which
+they had sorely feared, that Pausanias broke up his hill camp and
+marched into the plain below, where he took station in front of the
+Persian host, only the little stream of the Asopus dividing the two
+hostile armies.
+
+And here for days they lay, both sides offering sacrifices, and both
+obtaining the same oracle,--that the side which attacked would lose the
+battle, the side which resisted would win. Under such circumstances
+neither side cared to attack, and for ten days the armies lay, the
+Greeks much annoyed by the Persian cavalry, and having their convoys of
+provisions cut off, yet still waiting with unyielding faith in the
+decision of the gods.
+
+Mardonius at length grew impatient. He asked his officers if they knew
+of any prophecy saying that the Persians would be destroyed in Greece.
+They were all silent, though many of them knew of such prophecies.
+
+"Since you either do not know or will not tell," he at length said, "I
+well know of one. There is an oracle which declares that Persian
+invaders shall plunder the temple of Delphi, and shall afterwards all be
+destroyed. Now we shall not go against that temple, so on that ground we
+shall not be destroyed. Doubt not, then, but rejoice, for we shall get
+the better of the Greeks." And he gave orders to prepare for battle on
+the morrow, without waiting longer on the sacrifices.
+
+That night Alexander of Macedon, who was in the Persian army, rode up to
+the Greek outposts and gave warning of the coming attack. "I am of Greek
+descent," he said, "and ask you to free me from the Persian yoke. I
+cannot endure to see Greece enslaved."
+
+During the night Pausanias withdrew his army to a new position in front
+of the town of Plataea, water being wanting where they were. One Spartan
+leader, indeed, refused to move, and when told that there had been a
+general vote of the officers, he picked up a huge stone and cast it at
+the feet of Pausanias, crying, "This is _my_ pebble. With it I give my
+vote not to run away from the strangers."
+
+Dawn was at hand, and the Spartans still held their ground, their leader
+disputing in vain with the obstinate captain. At length he gave the
+order to march, it being fatal to stay, since the rest of the army had
+gone. Amompharetus, the obstinate captain, seeing that his general had
+really gone, now lost his scruples and followed.
+
+When day dawned the Persians saw with surprise that their foes had
+disappeared. The Spartans alone, detained by the obstinacy of
+Amompharetus, were still in sight. Filled with extravagant confidence at
+this seeming flight. Mardonius gave orders for hasty pursuit, crying to
+a Greek ally, "There go your boasted Spartans, showing, by a barefaced
+flight, what they are really worth."
+
+Crossing the shallow stream, the Persians ran after the Greeks at full
+speed, without a thought of order or discipline. The foe seemed to them
+in full retreat, and shouts of victory rang from their lips as they
+rushed pell-mell across the plain.
+
+The Spartans were quickly overtaken, and found themselves hotly
+assailed. They sent in haste to the Athenians for aid. The Athenians
+rushed forward, but soon found themselves confronted by the Greek allies
+of Persia, and with enough to do to defend themselves. The remainder of
+the Greek army had retreated to Plataea and took no part in the battle.
+
+The Persians, thrusting the spiked extremities of their long shields in
+the ground, formed a breastwork from which they poured showers of arrows
+on the Spartan ranks, by which many were wounded or slain. Yet, despite
+their distress, Pausanias would not give the order to charge. He was at
+the old work again, offering sacrifices while his men fell around him.
+The responses were unfavorable, and he would not fight.
+
+At length the victims showed favorable signs. "Charge!" was the word.
+With the fury of unchained lions the impatient hoplites sprang forward,
+and like an avalanche the serried Spartan line fell on the foe.
+
+Down went the breastwork of shields. Down went hundreds of Persians
+before the close array and the long spears of the Spartans. Broken and
+disordered, the Persians fought bravely, doing their utmost to get to
+close quarters with their foes. Mardonius, mounted on a white horse, and
+attended by a body-guard of a thousand select troops, was among the
+foremost warriors, and his followers distinguished themselves by their
+courage.
+
+At length the spear of Aeimnestus, a distinguished Spartan, brought
+Mardonius dead to the ground. His guards fell in multitudes around his
+body. The other Persians, worn out with the hopeless effort to break
+the Spartan phalanx, and losing heart at the death of their general,
+turned and fled to their fortified camp. At the same time the Theban
+allies of Persia, whom the Athenians had been fighting, gave ground, and
+began a retreat, which was not ended till they reached the walls of
+Thebes.
+
+On rushed the victorious Spartans to the Persian camp, which they at
+once assailed. Here they had no success till the Athenians came to their
+aid, when the walls were stormed and the defenders slain in such hosts
+that, if we can believe Herodotus, only three thousand out of the three
+hundred thousand of the army of Mardonius remained alive. It is true
+that one body of forty thousand men, under Artabazus, had been too late
+on the field to take part in the fight. The Persians were already
+defeated when these troops came in sight, and they turned and marched
+away for the Hellespont, leaving the defeated host to shift for itself.
+Of the Greeks, Plutarch tells us that the total loss in the battle was
+thirteen hundred and sixty men.
+
+The spoil found in the Persian camp was rich and varied. It included
+money and ornaments of gold and silver, carpets, splendid arms and
+clothing, horses, camels, and other valuable materials. This was divided
+among the victors, a tenth of the golden spoil being reserved for the
+Delphian shrine, and wrought into a golden tripod, which was placed on a
+column formed of three twisted bronze serpents. This defeat was the
+salvation of Greece. No Persian army ever again set foot on European
+soil. And, by a striking coincidence, on the same day that the battle
+of Plataea was fought, the Grecian fleet won a brilliant victory at
+Mycale, in Asia Minor, and freed the Ionian cities from Persian rule. In
+Greece, Thebes was punished for aiding the Persians. Byzantium (now
+Constantinople) was captured by Pausanias, and the great cables of the
+bridge of Xerxes were brought home in triumph by the Greeks.
+
+We have but one more incident to tell. The war tent of Xerxes had been
+left to Mardonius, and on taking the Persian camp Pausanias saw it with
+its colored hangings and its gold and silver adornments, and gave orders
+to the cooks that they should prepare him such a feast as they were used
+to do for their lord. On seeing the splendid banquet, he ordered that a
+Spartan supper should be prepared. With a hearty laugh at the contrast
+he said to the Greek leaders, for whom he had sent, "Behold, O Greeks,
+the folly of this Median captain, who, when he enjoyed such fare as
+this, must needs come here to rob us of our penury."
+
+
+
+
+_FOUR FAMOUS MEN OF ATHENS._
+
+
+In the days of Croesus, the wealthiest of ancient kings, a citizen of
+Athens, Alkmaeon by name, kindly lent his aid to the messengers sent by
+the Lydian monarch to consult the Delphian oracle, before his war with
+King Cyrus of Persia, This generous aid was richly rewarded by
+Croesus, who sent for Alkmaeon to visit him at Sardis, richly
+entertained him, and when ready to depart made him a present of as much
+gold as he could carry from the treasury.
+
+This offer the visitor, who seemed to possess his fair share of the
+perennial thirst for gold, determined to make the most of. He went to
+the treasure-chamber dressed in his loosest tunic and wearing on his
+feet wide-legged buskins, both of which he filled bursting full with
+gold. Not yet satisfied, he powdered his hair thickly with gold-dust,
+and filled his mouth with this precious but indigestible food. Thus
+laden, he waddled as well as he could from the chamber, presenting so
+ludicrous a spectacle that the good-natured monarch burst into a loud
+laugh on seeing him.
+
+Croesus not only let him keep all he had taken, but doubled its value
+by other presents, so that Alkmaeon returned to Athens as one of its
+wealthiest men. Megacles, the son of this rich Athenian, was he who won
+the prize of fair Agariste of Sicyon, in the contest which we have
+elsewhere described. The son of Megacles and Agariste was named
+Cleisthenes, and it is he who comes first in the list of famous men whom
+we have here to describe.
+
+It was Cleisthenes who made Attica a democratic state; and thus it came
+about. The laws of Solon--which favored the aristocracy--were set aside
+by despots before Solon died. After Hippias, the last of those despots,
+was expelled from the state, the people rose under the leadership of
+Cleisthenes, and, probably for the first time in the history of mankind,
+a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" was
+established in a civilized state. The laws of Solon were abrogated, and
+a new code of laws formed by Cleisthenes, which lasted till the
+independence of Athens came to an end.
+
+Before that time the clan system had prevailed in Greece. The people
+were divided into family groups, each of which claimed to be descended
+from a single ancestor,--often a supposed deity. These clans held all
+the power of the state; not only in the early days, when they formed the
+whole people, but later, when Athens became a prosperous city with many
+merchant ships, and when numerous strangers had come from afar to settle
+within its walls.
+
+None of these strangers were given the rights of citizenship. The clans
+remained in power, and the new people had no voice in the government.
+But in time the strangers grew to be so numerous, rich, and important
+that their claim to equal rights could no longer be set aside. They took
+part in the revolution by which the despots were expelled, and in the
+new constitution that was formed their demand to be made citizens of the
+state had to be granted.
+
+Cleisthenes, the leader of the people against the aristocratic faction,
+made this new code of laws. By a system never before adopted he broke up
+the old conditions. Before that time the people were the basis on which
+governments were organized. He made the land the basis, and from that
+time to this land has continued the basis of political divisions.
+
+Setting aside the old division of the Attic people into tribes and
+clans, founded on birth or descent, he separated the people into ten new
+tribes, founded on land. Attica was divided by him into districts or
+parishes, like modern townships and wards, which were called Demes, and
+each tribe was made up of several demes at a distance from each other.
+Every man became a citizen of the deme in which he lived, without regard
+to his clan, the new people were made citizens, and thus every freeborn
+inhabitant of Attica gained full rights of suffrage and citizenship, and
+the old clan aristocracy was at an end. The clans kept up their ancient
+organization and religious ceremonies, but they lost their political
+control. It must be said here, however, that many of the people of
+Attica were slaves, and that the new commonwealth of freemen was very
+far from including the whole population.
+
+One of the most curious of the new laws made by Cleisthenes was that
+known as "ostracism," by which any citizen who showed himself dangerous
+to the state could be banished for ten years if six thousand votes were
+cast against him. This was intended as a means of preventing the rise of
+future despots.
+
+The people of Athens developed wonderfully in public spirit under their
+new constitution. Each of them had now become the equal politically of
+the richest and noblest in the state, and all took a more vital interest
+in their country than had ever been felt before. It was this that made
+them so earnest and patriotic in the Persian war. The poorest citizen
+fought as bravely as the richest for the freedom of his beloved state.
+
+Each tribe, under the new laws, chose its own war-leader, or general, so
+that there were ten generals of equal power, and in war each of these
+was given command of the army for a day; and one of the archons, or
+civil heads of the state, was made general of the state, or war archon,
+so that there were eleven generals in all.
+
+The leading man in each tribe was usually chosen its general, and of
+these we have the stories of three to tell,--Miltiades, the hero of
+Marathon; Themistocles, who saved Greece at Salamis; and Aristides,
+known as "the Just."
+
+We have already told how two of these men gained great glory. We have
+now to tell how they gained great disgrace. Ambition, the bane of the
+leaders of states, led them both to ruin.
+
+Miltiades was of noble birth, and succeeded his uncle as ruler of the
+Chersonese country, in Thrace. Here he fell under the dominion of
+Persia, and here, when Darius was in Scythia, he advised that the bridge
+over the Danube should be destroyed. When Darius returned Miltiades had
+to fly for his life. He afterwards took part in the Ionic revolt, and
+captured from the Persians the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. But when
+the Ionians were once more conquered Miltiades had again to fly for his
+life. Darius hated him bitterly, and had given special orders for his
+capture. He fled with five ships, and was pursued so closely that one of
+them was taken. He reached Athens in safety with the rest.
+
+Not long afterwards Miltiades revenged himself on Darius for this
+pursuit by his great victory at Marathon, which for the time made him
+the idol of the state and the most admired man in all Greece.
+
+But the glory of Miltiades was quickly followed by disgrace, and the end
+of his career was near at hand. He was of the true soldierly
+temperament, stirring, ambitious, not content to rest and rust, and as a
+result his credit with the fickle Athenians quickly disappeared. His
+head seems to have been turned by his success, and he soon after asked
+for a fleet of seventy ships of war, to be placed under his command. He
+did not say where he proposed to go, but stated only that whoever should
+come with him would be rewarded plentifully with gold.
+
+The victor at Marathon had but to ask to obtain. The people put
+boundless confidence in him, and gave him the fleet without a question.
+And the golden prize promised brought him numbers of eager volunteers,
+not one of whom knew where he was going or what he was expected to do.
+Miltiades was in command, and where Miltiades chose to lead who could
+hesitate to follow?
+
+The purpose of the admiral of the fleet was soon revealed. He sailed to
+the island of Paros, besieged the capital, and demanded a tribute of one
+hundred talents. He based this claim on the pretence that the Parians
+had furnished a ship to the Persian fleet, but it is known that his real
+motive was hatred of a citizen of Paros.
+
+As it happened, the Parians were not the sort of people to submit easily
+to a piratical demand. They kept their foe amused by cunning diplomacy
+till they had repaired the city walls, then openly defied him to do his
+worst. Miltiades at once began the assault, and kept it up for
+twenty-six days in vain. The island was ravaged, but the town stood
+intact. Despairing of winning by force, he next attempted to win by
+fraud. A woman of Paros promised to reveal to him a secret which would
+place the town in his power, and induced him to visit her at night in a
+temple to which only women were admitted. Miltiades accepted the offer,
+leaped over the outer fence, and approached the temple. But at that
+moment a panic of superstitious fear overcame him. Doubtless fancying
+that the deity of the temple would punish him terribly for this
+desecration, he ran away in the wildest terror, and sprang back over the
+fence in such haste that he badly sprained his thigh. In this state he
+was found and carried on board ship, and, the siege being raised, the
+fleet returned to Athens.
+
+Here Miltiades found the late favor of the citizens changed to violent
+indignation, in which his recent followers took part. He was accused of
+deceiving the people, and of committing a crime against the state worthy
+of death. The dangerous condition of his wound prevented him from saying
+a word in his own defence. In truth, there was no defence to make; the
+utmost his friends could do was to recall his service at Marathon. No
+Athenian tribunal could adjudge to death, however great the offence, the
+conqueror of Lemnos and victor at Marathon. But neither could
+forgiveness be adjudged, and Miltiades was fined fifty talents, perhaps
+to repay the city the expense of fitting out the fleet.
+
+This fine he did not live to pay. His wounded thigh mortified and he
+died, leaving his son Cimon to pay the penalty incurred through his
+ambition and personal grudge. Some writers say that he was put in prison
+and died there, but this is not probable, considering his disabled
+state.
+
+Miltiades had belonged to the old order of things, being a born
+aristocrat, and for a time a despot. Themistocles and Aristides were
+children of the new state, democrats born, and reared to the new order
+of things. They were not the equals of Miltiades in birth, both being
+born of parents of no distinction. But, aside from this similarity, they
+differed essentially, alike in character and in their life records;
+Themistocles being aspiring and ambitious, Aristides, his political
+opponent, quiet and patriotic; the one considering most largely his own
+advancement, the other devoting his whole life to the good of his native
+city.
+
+Themistocles displayed his nature strongly while still a boy. Idleness
+and play were not to his taste, and no occasion was lost by him to
+improve his mind and develop his powers in oratory. He cared nothing for
+accomplishments, but gave ardent attention to the philosophy and
+learning of his day. "It is true I cannot play on a flute, or bring
+music from the lute," he afterwards said; "all I can do is, if a small
+and obscure city were put into my hands, to make it great and glorious."
+
+[Illustration: THE ANCIENT ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM, ATHENS.]
+
+Of commanding figure, handsome face, keen eyes, proud and erect posture,
+sprightly and intellectual aspect, he was one to attract attention in
+any community, while his developed powers of oratory gave him the
+greatest influence over the speech-loving Athenians. In his eagerness to
+win distinction and gain a high place in the state, he cared not what
+enemies he might make so that he won a strong party to his support. So
+great was his thirst for distinction that the victory of Miltiades at
+Marathon threw him into a state of great depression, in which he said,
+"The glory of Miltiades will not let me sleep."
+
+Themistocles was not alone ambitious and declamatory. He was far-sighted
+as well; and through his power of foreseeing the future he was enabled
+to serve Athens even more signally than Miltiades had done. Many there
+were who said that there was no need to dread the Persians further, that
+the victory at Marathon would end the war. "It is only the beginning of
+the war," said Themistocles; "new and greater conflicts will come; if
+Athens is to be saved, it must prepare."
+
+We have elsewhere told how he induced the Athenians to build a fleet,
+and how this fleet, under his shrewd management, defeated the great
+flotilla of Xerxes and saved Greece from ruin and subjection. All that
+Themistocles did before and during this war it is not necessary to
+state. It will suffice here to say that he had no longer occasion to
+lose sleep on account of the glory of Miltiades. He had won a higher
+glory of his own; and in the end ambition ruined him, as it had his
+great predecessor.
+
+To complete the tale of Themistocles we must take up that of another of
+the heroes of Greece, the Spartan Pausanias, the leader of the
+victorious army at Plataea. He, too, allowed ambition to destroy him.
+After taking the city of Byzantium, he fell in love with Oriental luxury
+and grew to despise the humble fare and rigid discipline of Sparta. He
+offered to bring all Greece under the domain of Persia if Xerxes would
+give him his daughter for wife, and displayed such pompous folly and
+extravagance that the Spartans ordered him home, where he was tried for
+treason, but not condemned.
+
+He afterwards conspired with some of the states of Asia Minor, and when
+again brought home formed a plot with the Helots to overthrow the
+government. His treason was discovered, and he fled to a temple for
+safety, where he was kept till he starved to death.
+
+Thus ambition ended the careers of two of the heroes of the Persian war.
+A third, Themistocles, ended his career in similar disgrace. In fact,
+he grew so arrogant and unjust that the people of Athens found him
+unfit to live with. They suspected him also of joining with Pausanias in
+his schemes. So they banished him by ostracism, and he went to Argos to
+live. While there it was proved that he really had taken part in the
+treason of Pausanias, and he was obliged to fly for his life.
+
+The fugitive had many adventures in this flight. He was pursued by
+envoys from Athens, and made more than one narrow escape. While on
+shipboard he was driven by storm to the island of Naxos, then besieged
+by an Athenian fleet, and escaped only by promising a large reward to
+the captain if he would not land. Finally, after other adventures, he
+reached Susa, the capital of Persia, where he found that Xerxes was
+dead, and his son Artaxerxes was reigning in his stead.
+
+He was well received by the new king, to whom he declared that he had
+been friendly to his father Xerxes, and that he proposed now to use his
+powers for the good of Persia. He formed schemes by which Persia might
+conquer Greece, and gained such favor with the new monarch that he gave
+him a Persian wife and rich presents, sent him to Magnesia, near the
+Ionian coast, and granted him the revenues of the surrounding district.
+Here Themistocles died, at the age of sixty-five, without having kept
+one of his alluring promises to the Persian king.
+
+And thus, through greed and ambition, the three great leaders of Greece
+in the Persian war ended their careers in disgrace and death. We have
+now the story of a fourth great Athenian to tell, who through honor and
+virtue won a higher distinction than the others had gained through
+warlike fame.
+
+Throughout the whole career of the brilliant Themistocles he had a
+persistent opponent, Aristides, a man, like him, born of undistinguished
+parents, but who by moral strength and innate power of intellect won the
+esteem and admiration of his fellow-citizens. He became the leader of
+the aristocratic section of the people, as Themistocles did of the
+democratic, and for years the city was divided between their adherents.
+But the brilliancy of Themistocles was replaced in Aristides by a staid
+and quiet disposition. He was natively austere, taciturn, and
+deep-revolving, winning influence by silent methods, and retaining it by
+the strictest honor and justice and a hatred of all forms of falsehood
+or political deceit.
+
+For years these two men divided the political power of Athens between
+them, until in the end Aristides said that the city would have no peace
+until it threw the pair of them into the pit kept for condemned
+criminals. So just was Aristides that, on one of his enemies being
+condemned by the court without a hearing, he rose in his seat and begged
+the court not to impose sentence without giving the accused an
+opportunity for defence.
+
+Aristides was one of the generals at Marathon, and was left to guard the
+spoils on the field of battle after the defeat of the Persians. At a
+later date, by dint of false reports, Themistocles succeeded in having
+him ostracized, obtaining the votes of the rabble against him. One of
+these, not knowing Aristides, asked him to write his own name on the
+tile used as a voting tablet. He did so, but first inquired, "Has
+Aristides done you an injury?" "No," was the answer; "I do not even know
+him, but I am tired of hearing him always called 'Aristides the Just.'"
+On leaving the city Aristides prayed that the people should never have
+any occasion to regret their action.
+
+This occasion quickly came. In less than three years he was recalled to
+aid his country in the Persian invasion. Landing at Salamis, he served
+Athens in the manner we have already told. The command of the army which
+Aristides surrendered to Miltiades at the battle of Marathon fell to
+himself in the battle of Plataea, for on that great day he led the
+Athenians and played an important part in the victory that followed. He
+commanded the Athenian forces in a later war, and by his prudence and
+mildness won for Athens the supremacy in the Greek confederation that
+was afterwards formed.
+
+At a later date, leader of the aristocrats as he was, to avert a
+revolution he proposed a change in the constitution that made Athens
+completely democratic, and enabled the lowliest citizen to rise to the
+highest office of the state. In 468 B.C. died this great and noble
+citizen of Athens, one of the most illustrious of ancient statesmen and
+patriots, and one of the most virtuous public men of any age or nation.
+He died so poor that it is said he did not leave enough money to pay his
+funeral expenses, and for several generations his descendants were kept
+at the charge of the state.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW ATHENS ROSE FROM ITS ASHES._
+
+
+The torch of Xerxes and Mardonius left Athens a heap of ashes. But, like
+the new birth of the fabled phoenix, there rose out of these ashes a
+city that became the wonder of the world, and whose time-worn ruins are
+still worshipped by the pilgrims of art. We cannot proceed with our work
+without pausing awhile to contemplate this remarkable spectacle.
+
+The old Athens bore to the new much the same relation that the chrysalis
+bears to the butterfly. It was little more than an ordinary country
+town, the capital of a district comparable in size to a modern county.
+Pisistratus and his sons had built some temples, and had completed a
+part of the Dionysiac theatre, but the city itself was simply a cluster
+of villages surrounded by a wall; while the citadel had for defence
+nothing stronger than a wooden rampart. The giving of this city to the
+torch was no serious loss; in reality it was a gain, since it cleared
+the ground for the far nobler city of later days.
+
+It is not often that a whole nation removes from its home, and its
+possessions are completely swept away. But such had been the case with
+the Attic state. For a time all Attica was afloat, the people of city
+and country alike taking to their ships; while a locust flight of
+Persians passed over their lands, ravaging and destroying all before
+them, and leaving nothing but the bare soil. Such was what remained to
+the people of Attica on their return from Salamis and the adjacent
+isles.
+
+Athens lay before them a heap of ashes and ruin, its walls flung down,
+its dwellings vanished, its gardens destroyed, its temples burned. The
+city itself, and the citadel and sacred structures of its Acropolis,
+were swept away, and the business of life on that ravaged soil had to be
+begun afresh.
+
+Yet Attica as a state was greater than ever before. It was a victor on
+land and sea, the recognized savior of Greece; and the people of Athens
+returned to the ashes of their city not in woe and dismay, but in pride
+and exultation. They were victors over the greatest empire then on the
+face of the earth, the admired of the nations, the leading power in
+Greece, and their small loss weighed but lightly against their great
+glory.
+
+The Athens that rose in place of the old city was a marvel of beauty and
+art, adorned with hall and temple, court and gymnasium, colonnade and
+theatre, while under the active labors of its sculptors it became so
+filled with marble inmates that they almost equalled in numbers its
+living inhabitants. Such sculptors as Phidias and such painters as
+Zeuxis adorned the city with the noblest products of their art. The
+great theatre of Dionysus was completed, and to it was added a new one,
+called the Odeon, for musical and poetical representations. On the
+Acropolis rose the Parthenon, the splendid temple to Minerva, or
+Athene, the patron goddess of the city, whose ruins are still the
+greatest marvel of architectural art. Other temples adorned the
+Acropolis, and the costly Propylaea, or portals, through which passed the
+solemn processions on festival days, were erected at the western side of
+the hill. The Acropolis was further adorned with three splendid statues
+of Minerva, all the work of Phidias, one of ivory in the Parthenon,
+forty-seven feet high, the others of bronze, one being of such colossal
+height that it could be seen from afar by mariners at sea.
+
+The city itself was built upon a scale to correspond with this richness
+of architectural and artistic adornment, and such was its encouragement
+to the development of thought and art, that poets, artists, and
+philosophers flocked thither from all quarters, and for many years
+Athens stood before the world as the focal point of the human intellect.
+
+Not the least remarkable feature in this great growth was the celerity
+with which it was achieved. The period between the Persian and the
+Peloponnesian war was only sixty years in duration. Yet in that brief
+space of time the great growth we have chronicled took place, and the
+architectural splendor of the city was consummated. The devastation of
+the unhappy Peloponnesian war put an end to this external growth, and
+left the Athens of old frozen into marble, a thing of beauty forever.
+But the intellectual growth went on, and for centuries afterwards Athens
+continued the centre of ancient thought.
+
+And now the question in point is how all this came about, and what made
+Athens great and glorious among the cities of Greece. It all flowed
+naturally from her eminence in the Persian war. During that war there
+had been a league of the states of Greece, with Sparta as its accepted
+leader. After the war the need of being on the alert against Persia
+continued, and Greece became in great part divided into two
+leagues,--one composed of Sparta and most of the Peloponnesian states,
+the other of Athens, the islands of the archipelago, and many of the
+towns of Asia Minor and Thrace. This latter was called the League of
+Delos, since its deputies met and its treasure was kept in the temple of
+Apollo on that island.
+
+This League of Delos developed in time to what has been called the
+Athenian Empire, and in this manner. Each city of the league pledged
+itself to make an annual contribution of a certain number of ships or a
+fixed sum of money, to be used in war against Persia or for the defence
+of members of the league. The amount assessed against each was fixed by
+Aristides, in whose justice every one trusted. In time the money payment
+was considered preferable to that of ships, and most of the states of
+the league contributed money, leaving Athens to provide the fleet.
+
+In this way all the power fell into the hands of Athens, and the other
+cities of the league became virtually payers of tribute. This was shown
+later on when some of the island cities declined to pay. Athens sent a
+fleet, made conquest of the islands, and reduced them to the state of
+real tribute payers. Thus the league began to change into an Athenian
+dominion.
+
+In 459 B.C. the treasure was removed from Delos to Athens. And in the
+end Chios, Samoa, and Lesbos were the only free allies of Athens. All
+the other members of the league had been reduced to subjection. Several
+of the states of Greece also became subject to Athens, and the Athenian
+Empire grew into a wealthy, powerful, and extended state.
+
+[Illustration: A REUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA.]
+
+The treasure laid up at Athens in time became great. The payments
+amounted to about six hundred talents yearly, and at one time the
+treasury of Athens held the great sum of nine thousand seven hundred
+talents, equal to over eleven million dollars,--a sum which meant far
+more then than the equivalent amount would now.
+
+It was this money that made Athens great. It proved to be more than was
+necessary for defensive war against Persia, or even for the aggressive
+war which was carried on in Asia Minor and Egypt. It also more than
+sufficed for sending out the colonies which Athens founded in Italy and
+elsewhere. The remainder of the fund was used in Athens, part of it in
+building great structures and in producing splendid works of art, part
+for purposes of fortification. The Piraeus, the port of Athens, was
+surrounded by strong walls, and a double wall--the famous "Long
+Walls"--was constructed from the city to the port, a distance of four
+miles. These walls, some two hundred yards apart, left a grand highway
+between, the channel of a steady traffic which flowed from the sea to
+the city, and which for years enabled Athens to defy the cutting off its
+resources by attack from without. Through this broad avenue not only
+provisions and merchandise, but men in multitudes, made their way into
+Athens, until that city became fuller of bustle, energy, political and
+scholarly activity, and incessant industry than any of the other cities
+of the ancient world.
+
+In a city like this, free and equal as were its citizens, and democratic
+as were its institutions, some men were sure to rise to the surface and
+gain controlling influence. In the period in question there were two
+such men, Cimon and Pericles, men of such eminence that we cannot pass
+them by unconsidered. Cimon was the son of Miltiades, the hero of
+Marathon, and became the leader of aristocratic Athens. Pericles was the
+great-grandson of Cleisthenes, the democratic law-giver, and, though of
+the most aristocratic descent, became the leader of the popular party of
+his native city.
+
+The struggle for precedence between these two men resembled that between
+Themistocles and Aristides. Cimon was a strong advocate of an alliance
+with Sparta, which Pericles opposed. He was brilliant as a soldier,
+gained important victories against Persia, but was finally ostracized as
+a result of his friendship for Sparta. He came back to Athens
+afterwards, but his influence could not be regained.
+
+It is, however, of Pericles that we desire particularly to
+speak,--Pericles, who found Athens poor and made her magnificent, found
+her weak and made her glorious. This celebrated statesman had not the
+dashing qualities of his rival. He was by nature quiet but deep, serene
+but profound, the most eloquent orator of his day, and one of the most
+learned and able of men. He was dignified and composed in manner,
+possessed of a self-possession which no interruption could destroy, and
+gifted with a luminous intelligence that gave him a controlling
+influence over the thoughtful and critical Athenians of his day.
+
+Pericles was too wise and shrewd to keep himself constantly before the
+people, or to haunt the assembly. He sedulously remained in the
+background until he had something of importance to say, but he then
+delivered his message with a skill, force, and animation that carried
+all his hearers irresistibly away. His logic, wit, and sarcasm, his
+clear voice, flashing eyes, and vigorous power of declamation, used only
+when the occasion was important, gave him in time almost absolute
+control in Athens, and had he sought to make himself a despot he might
+have done so with a word; but happily he was honest and patriotic enough
+to content himself with being the First Citizen of the State.
+
+To make the people happy, and to keep Athens in a condition of serene
+content, seem to have been leading aims with Pericles. He entertained
+them with quickly succeeding theatrical and other entertainments, solemn
+banquets, splendid shows and processions, and everything likely to add
+to their enjoyment. Every year he sent out eighty galleys on a six
+months' cruise, filled with citizens who were to learn the art of
+maritime war, and who were paid for their services. The citizens were
+likewise paid for attending the public assembly, and allowances were
+made them for the time given to theatrical representations, so that it
+has been said that Pericles converted the sober and thrifty Athenians
+into an idle, pleasure-loving, and extravagant populace. At the same
+time, that things might be kept quiet in Athens, the discontented
+overflow of the people were sent out as colonists, to build up daughter
+cities of Attica in many distant lands.
+
+Thus it was that Athens developed from the quiet country town of the old
+regime into the wealthiest, gayest, and most progressive of Grecian
+cities, the capital of an empire, the centre of a great commerce, and
+the home of a busy and thronging populace, among whom the ablest
+artists, poets, and philosophers of that age of the world were included.
+Here gathered the great writers of tragedy, beginning with AEschylus,
+whose noble works were performed at the expense of the state in the
+great open-air theatre of Dionysus. Here the comedians, the chief of
+whom was Aristophanes, moved hosts of spectators to inextinguishable
+laughter. Here the choicest lyric poets of Greece awoke admiration with
+their unequalled songs, at their head the noble Pindar, the laureate of
+the Olympic and Pythian games. Here the sophists and philosophers argued
+and lectured, and Socrates walked like a king at the head of the
+aristocracy of thought. Here the sculptors, headed by Phidias, filled
+temples, porticos, colonnades, and public places with the most exquisite
+creations in marble, and the painters with their marvellous
+reproductions of nature. Here, indeed, seemed gathered all that was best
+and worthiest in art, entertainment, and thought, and for half a century
+and more Athens remained a city without a rival in the history of the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+_THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS._
+
+
+During the period after the Persian war two great powers arose in
+Greece, which were destined to come into close and virulent conflict.
+These were the league of Delos, which developed into the empire of
+Athens, and the Peloponnesian confederacy, under the leadership of
+Sparta. The first of these was mainly an island empire, the second a
+mainland league; the first a group of democratic, the second one of
+aristocratic, states; the first a power with dominion over the seas, the
+second a power whose strength lay in its army. Such were the two rival
+confederacies into which Greece gradually divided, and between which
+hostile sentiment grew stronger year after year.
+
+It became apparent as the years went on that a struggle was coming for
+supremacy in Greece. Outbreaks of active hostility between the rival
+powers from time to time took place. At length the situation grew so
+strained that a general conflict began, that devastating Peloponnesian
+war which for nearly thirty years desolated Greece, and which ended in
+the ruin of Athens, the home of poetry and art, and the supremacy of
+Sparta, the native school of war. The first great conflict of the
+Hellenic people, the Persian war, had made Greece powerful and
+glorious. The second great conflict, the Peloponnesian war, brought
+Greece to the verge of ruin, and destroyed that Athenian supremacy in
+which lay the true path of progress for that fair land.
+
+In 431 B.C. the war broke out. Sparta and her allies declared war
+against Athens on the ground that that city was growing too great and
+grasping, and an army marched from the Peloponnesus northward to invade
+the Attic state. Meanwhile the Athenians, under the shrewd advice of
+Pericles, adopted a wise policy. It was with her fleet that Athens had
+defeated Persia, and her wise statesman advised that she should devote
+herself to the dominion of the sea, and leave to Sparta that of the
+land. Their walls would protect her people, their ships would bring them
+food from afar, they were not a fair match for Sparta on land, and could
+safely leave to that city of warriors the temporary dominion of Attic
+soil.
+
+This advice was taken. When the Spartan army came near Attica all its
+people left their fields and homes and sought refuge, as once before,
+within the walls of their capacious capital city. Over the Attic plain
+marched the invaders, destroying the summer crops, burning the farmers'
+homesteads, yet recoiling in helpless rage before those strong walls
+behind which lay the whole population of the state. From the city, as we
+know, long and high walls stretched away to the sea and invested the
+seaport town of Piraeus, within whose harbor lay the powerful Athenian
+fleet. And in the treasury of the city rested an abundant supply of
+money,--the sinews of war,--with whose aid food and supplies could be
+brought from over the seas. In vain, then, did Sparta ravage the fields
+of Attica. The people of that desolated realm defied them from behind
+their city walls.
+
+When winter came the invaders retired and the farmers went back to their
+fields. In the spring they ploughed and sowed as of yore, and watched in
+hope the growing crops. But with the summer the Spartans came again, to
+destroy their hopes of a harvest, and the country people once more fled
+for safety to their great city's defiant walls.
+
+It was a strange spectacle, that of a powerful invading army wreaking
+their wrath year after year on deserted fields, and gnashing their teeth
+in impotent rage before lofty and well-defended walls and ramparts,
+behind which lay their foes, little the worse for all that their malice
+could perform.
+
+Athens felt secure, and laughed her enemy to scorn. Unhappily for her, a
+new enemy was at hand, against whom the mightiest walls were of no
+avail. Sparta gained an unthought-of ally, and death stalked at large in
+the Athenian streets, silent and implacable, without clash of weapon or
+shout of war, yet more fatal and merciless than would have been the
+strongest army in the field.
+
+Athens was crowded. The country people filled all available space. There
+was little attention to drainage or sanitary regulations. An open
+invitation was given to pestilence, and the invited enemy came. For some
+years before the plague had been at its deadly work in Egypt and Libya,
+and in parts of Persian Asia. Then it made its appearance in some of the
+Grecian islands. Finally its wings of destruction were folded over
+Athens, and it settled down in terrific form upon that devoted city.
+
+The seeds of death found there fertile soil. Families were crowded
+together in close cabins and temporary shelters, to which they had been
+driven in multitudes from their ravaged fields. The plague first
+appeared in mid-April in the Piraeus,--brought, perhaps, by
+merchant-ships,--but soon spread to Athens, and as the heat of summer
+came on the inhabitants of that thronged city fell victims to it in
+appalling multitudes.
+
+The plague, they called it. The disease seems to have been something
+like the small-pox, though not quite the same. Its victims were seized
+suddenly, suffered the greatest agonies, and most of them died on the
+seventh or the ninth day. Even when the patients recovered, some had
+lost their memory, others the use of their eyes, hands, feet, or some
+other member of the body. No remedy could be found. The physicians died
+as rapidly as their patients. As for the charms and incantations which
+many used, we can scarcely imagine that they saved any lives. Some said
+that their enemies had poisoned the water-cisterns, others that the gods
+were angry, and vain processions were made to the temples, to implore
+the mercy of the deities.
+
+When nothing availed to stay the pestilence, Athens fell into deep
+despondency and despair. The sick lost courage, and lay down inertly to
+await death. Those who waited on the sick were themselves stricken
+down, and so great grew the terror that the patients were deserted and
+left to die alone. Fortunately the disease rarely attacked any one
+twice, and those who had been sick and recovered became the only nurses
+of the new victims of the disease.
+
+So dread became the pestilence that the dead and the dying lay
+everywhere, in houses and streets, and even in the temples; half-dead
+sufferers gathered around the springs, tortured by violent thirst; the
+very dogs that meddled with the corpses died of the disease; vultures
+and other carrion birds avoided the city as if by instinct. Many bodies
+were burnt or buried with unseemly haste, many doubtless left to fester
+where they lay. Misery, terror, despair, overwhelmed all within the
+walls, while the foe without drew back in equal terror, lest the
+pestilence should leap the walls and assail them in their camps.
+
+Nor have we yet told all. Other evils followed that of the plague. Law
+was forgotten, morality ignored. Men hesitated not at crime or the
+indulgence of evil passions, having no fear of punishment. Many gave
+themselves up to riot and luxurious living, with the hope of snatching
+an interval of enjoyment before yielding to death. The story we here
+tell is no new one. It has been realized again and again in the flight
+of the centuries, when pestilence has made its home in some crowded
+city. Human nature is everywhere the same, and the bonds of law and
+morality are loosened when death stalks abroad.
+
+For two years this dread calamity continued to desolate Athens. Then,
+after a period of a year and a half, it came again, and raged for
+another year as furiously as before. The losses were frightful. Of the
+armed men of the state nearly five thousand were swept away. Of the
+poorer people the loss was beyond computation. Nothing the human enemy
+was capable of could have done so much to ruin Athens as this frightful
+visitation, and to the end of the war that city felt its weakening
+effects.
+
+But perhaps the greatest of the losses of Athens was the death of
+Pericles. In him Athens lost its wisest man and ablest statesman. The
+strong hand which had so long held the rudder of the state was gone, and
+the subsequent misfortunes of Athens were due more to the loss of this
+wise counsellor than to the efforts of her foes.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ENVOYS OF LIFE AND DEATH._
+
+
+Near the coast of Asia Minor lies the beautiful island of Lesbos, the
+birthplace of the poets Sappho, Alcaeus, and Terpander, and of other
+famous writers and sages of the past. Here were green valleys and
+verdure-clad mountains, here charming rural scenes and richly-yielding
+fields, here all that seems necessary to make life serene and happy. But
+here also dwelt uneasy man, and hither came devastating war, bringing
+with it the shadow of a frightful tragedy from which the people of
+Lesbos barely escaped.
+
+Lesbos was one of the islands that entered into alliance with Athens,
+and formed part of the empire that arose from the league of Delos. In
+428 B.C. this island, and its capital, Mitylene, revolted from Athens,
+and struck for the freedom they had formerly enjoyed. Mitylene had never
+become tributary to Athens. It was simply an ally; and it retained its
+fleet, its walls, and its government; its only obligations being those
+common to all members of the League.
+
+Yet even these seemed to have been galling to the proud Mitylenians.
+Athens was then at war with Sparta. It seemed a good time to throw off
+all bonds, and the political leaders of the Lesbians declared
+themselves absolved from all allegiance to the league.
+
+The news greatly disturbed the Athenians. They had their hands full of
+war. But Mitylene had asked aid from Sparta, and unless brought under
+subjection to Athens it would become an ally of her enemy. No time was
+therefore to be lost. A fleet was sent in haste to the revolted city,
+hoping to take it by surprise. This failing, the city was blockaded by
+sea and land, and the siege kept up until starvation threatened the
+people within the walls. Until now hope of Spartan aid had been
+entertained. But the Spartans came not, the provisions were gone, death
+or surrender became inevitable, and the city was given up. About a
+thousand prisoners were sent to Athens, and Mitylene was held till the
+pleasure of its conquerors should be known.
+
+This pleasure was a tragic one. The Athenians were deeply incensed
+against Mitylene, and full of thirst for revenge. Their anger was
+increased by the violent speeches of Cleon, a new political leader who
+had recently risen from among the ranks of trade, and whose virulent
+tongue gave him controlling influence over the Athenians at that period
+of public wrath. When the fate of Mitylene and its people was considered
+by the Athenian assembly this demagogue took the lead in the discussion,
+wrought the people up to the most violent passion by his acrimonious
+tongue, and proposed that the whole male population of the conquered
+city should be put to death, and the women and children sold as slaves.
+This frightful sentence was in accord with the feeling of the assembly.
+They voted death to all Mitylenians old enough to bear arms, and a
+trireme was sent to Lesbos, bearing orders to the Athenian admiral to
+carry this tragical decision into effect.
+
+Slaughter like this would to-day expose its authors to the universal
+execration of mankind. In those days it was not uncommon, and the
+quality of mercy was sadly wanting in the human heart. Yet such cruelty
+was hardly in accord with the advanced civilization of Athens, and when
+the members of the assembly descended to the streets, and their anger
+somewhat cooled, it began to appear to them that they had sent forth a
+decree of frightful cruelty. Even the captain and seamen of the trireme
+that was sent with the order to Mitylene left the port with heavy
+hearts, and would have gladly welcomed a recall. But the assembly of
+Athens was the ruling power and from its decision there was no appeal.
+
+Though it was illegal, the friends of Mitylene called a fresh meeting of
+the assembly for the next day. In this they were supported by the
+people, whose feeling had quickly and greatly changed. Yet at this new
+meeting it appeared at first as if Cleon would again win a fatal
+verdict, so vigorously did he again seek to stir up the public wrath.
+Diodotus, his opponent, followed with a strong appeal for mercy, and
+while willing that the leaders of the revolt, who had been sent to
+Athens, should be put to death, argued strongly in favor of pardoning
+the rest. When at length the assembly voted, mercy prevailed, but by so
+small a majority that for a time the decision was in doubt.
+
+And now came a vital question. The trireme bearing the fatal order had
+left port twenty-four hours before. It was now far at sea, carrying its
+message of cold-blooded slaughter. Could it possibly be overtaken and
+the message of mercy made to fly more swiftly across the sea than that
+of death? As may well be imagined, no time was lost. A second trireme
+was got ready with all haste, and amply provisioned by the envoys from
+Mitylene then in Athens, those envoys promising large rewards to the
+crew if they should arrive in time.
+
+The offers of reward were not needed. The seamen were as eager as those
+of the former trireme had been despondent. Across the sea rushed the
+trireme, with such speed as trireme never made before nor since. By good
+fortune the sea was calm; no storm arose to thwart the rowers' good
+intent; not for an instant were their oars relaxed; they took turns for
+short intervals of rest, while barley meal, steeped in wine and oil, was
+served to them for refreshment upon their seats.
+
+Yet they strove against fearful odds. A start of twenty-four hours, upon
+so brief a journey, was almost fatal. Fortunately, the rowers of the
+first trireme had no spirit for their work. They were as slow and
+dilatory as the others were eager and persistent. And thus time moved
+slowly on, and the fate of Mitylene hung desperately in the balance. An
+hour more or less in this vital journey would make or mar a frightful
+episode in the history of mankind.
+
+Fortune proved to be on the side of mercy. The envoys of life were in
+time; but barely in time. Those who bore the message of death had
+reached port and placed their dread order in the hands of the Athenian
+commander, and he was already taking steps for the fearful massacre,
+when the second trireme dashed into the waters of that island harbor,
+and the cheers of exultation of its rowers met the ears of the
+imperilled populace.
+
+So near was Mitylene to destruction that the breaking of an oar would
+have been enough to doom six thousand men to death. So near as this was
+Athens to winning the execration of mankind, by the perpetration of an
+enormity which barbarians might safely have performed, but for which
+Athens could never have been forgiven. The thousand prisoners sent to
+Athens--the leading spirits of the revolt--were, it is true, put to
+death, but this merciless cruelty, as it would be deemed to-day, has
+been condoned in view of the far greater slaughter of the innocent from
+which Athens so narrowly escaped.
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEFENCE OF PLATAEA._
+
+
+At the foot of Mount Cithaeron, one of the most beautiful of the
+mountains of Greece, winds the small river Asopus, and between, on a
+slope of the mountain, may to-day be seen the ruins of Plataea, one of
+the most memorable of the cities of ancient Greece. This city had its
+day of glory and its day of woe. Here, in the year 479 B.C., was fought
+that famous battle which drove the Persians forever from Greece. And
+here Pausanias declared that the territory on which the battle was
+fought should forever be sacred ground to all of Grecian birth. Forever
+is seldom a very long period in human history. In this case it lasted
+just fifty years.
+
+War had broken out between Sparta and its allies and Athens and its
+dominion, and all Greece was in turmoil. Of the two leading cities of
+Boeotia, Thebes was an ally of the Lacedaemonians, Plataea of the
+Athenians. The war broke out by an attack of the Thebans upon Plataea.
+Two years afterwards, in the year 429 B.C., Archidamus, the Spartan
+king, led his whole force against this ally of Athens. In his army
+marched the Thebans, men of a city but two hours' journey from Plataea,
+and citizens of the same state, yet its bitterest foes. The Plataeans
+were summoned to surrender, to consent to remain neutral, or to leave
+their city and go where they would; all of which alternatives they
+declined. Thereupon the Spartan force invested the city, and prepared to
+take it by dint of arms. And thus Sparta kept the pledge of Plataean
+sacredness made by her king Pausanias half a century before.
+
+Plataea was a small place, probably not very strongly fortified, and
+contained a garrison of only four hundred and eighty men, of whom eighty
+were Athenians. Fortunately, all the women and children had been sent to
+Athens, the only women remaining in the town being about a hundred
+slaves, who served as cooks. Around this small place gathered the entire
+army of Sparta and her allies, a force against which it seemed as if the
+few defenders could not hold out a week. But these faithful few were
+brave and resolute, and for a year and more they defied every effort of
+their foes.
+
+The story of this siege is of interest as showing how the ancients
+assailed a fortified town. Defences which in our times would not stand a
+day, in those times took months and years to overcome. The army of
+Sparta, defied by the brave garrison, at first took steps to enclose the
+town. If the defenders would not let them in, they would not let the
+defenders out. They laid waste the cultivated land, cut down the
+fruit-trees, and used these to build a strong palisade around the entire
+city, with the determination that not a Plataean should escape. This
+done, they began to erect a great mound of wood, stones, and earth
+against the city wall, forming an inclined plane up which they proposed
+to rush and take the city by assault. The sides of this mound were
+enclosed by cross-beams of wood, so as to hold its materials in place.
+
+For seventy days and nights the whole army worked busily at this sloping
+mound, and at the end of this time it had reached nearly the height of
+the wall. But the Plataeans had not been idle while their foes were thus
+at work. They raised the height of their old wall at this point by an
+additional wall of wood, backed up by brickwork, which they tore down
+houses to obtain. In front of this they suspended hides, so as to
+prevent fire-bearing arrows from setting the wood on fire. Then they
+made a hole through the lower part of the town wall, and through it
+pulled the earth from the bottom of the mound, so that the top fell in.
+
+The besiegers now let down quantities of stiff clay rolled up in wattled
+reeds, which could not be thus pulled away. Yet their mound continued to
+sink, in spite of the new materials they heaped on top, and they could
+not tell why. In fact, the Plataeans had dug an underground passage from
+within the town, and through this carried away the foundations of the
+mound. And thus for more than two months the besiegers built and the
+garrison destroyed their works.
+
+Not content with this, the Plataeans built a new portion of wall within
+the town, joining the old wall on both sides of the mound, so that if
+the besiegers should complete their mound and rush up it in assault,
+they would find a new wall staring them in the face, and all their labor
+lost.
+
+This was not all that was done. Battering engines were used against the
+walls to break them down. These the defenders caught by long ropes,
+pulling the heads of the engines upward or sideways. They also fixed
+heavy wooden beams in such a manner that when the head of an engine came
+near the wall they could drop a beam suddenly upon it, and break off its
+projecting beak.
+
+In these rude ways the attack and defence went on, until three months
+had passed, and Archidamus and his army found themselves where they had
+begun, and the garrison still safe and defiant. The besiegers next tried
+to destroy the town by fire. From the top of the mound they hurled
+fagots as far as they could within the walls. They then threw in pitch
+and other quick-burning material, and finally set the whole on fire. In
+a brief time the flames burst out hotly, and burnt with so fierce a
+conflagration that the whole town was in imminent danger of destruction.
+Nothing could have saved it had the wind favored the flames. There is a
+story also that a thunder-storm came up to extinguish the fire,--but
+such opportune rains seem somewhat too common in ancient history. As it
+was, part of the town was destroyed, but the most of it remained, and
+the brave inmates continued defiant of their foes.
+
+Archidamus was almost in despair. Was this small town, with its few
+hundred men, to defy and defeat his large army? He had tried the various
+ancient ways of attack in vain. The Spartans, with all their prowess in
+the field, lacked skill in the assault of walled towns, and were rarely
+successful in the art of siege. The Plataeans had proved more than their
+match, and there only remained to be tried the wearisome and costly
+process of blockade and famine.
+
+Determined that Plataea should not escape, this plan was in the end
+adopted, and a wall built round the entire city, to prevent escape or
+the entrance of aid from without. In fact, two walls were built, sixteen
+feet apart, and these were covered in on top, so that they looked like
+one very thick wall. There were also two ditches, from which the bricks
+of the wall had been dug, one on the inside, and one without to prevent
+relief by a foreign force. The covered space within the walls served as
+quarters for the troops left on guard, its top as a convenient place for
+sentry duty. This done, the main army marched away. It needed no great
+host to keep the few Plataeans within their walls until they should
+consume all their food and yield to famine, a slower but more
+irresistible foe than all the Lacedaemonian power.
+
+Fortunately for the besieged, they were well provisioned, and for more
+than a year remained in peace within their city, not attacked by their
+foes and receiving no aid from friends. Besides the eighty Athenians
+within the walls no help came to the Plataeans during the long siege. At
+length provisions began to fail. It was evident that they must die like
+rats in a cage, surrender to their foes, or make a desperate break for
+freedom.
+
+The last expedient was proposed by their general. It was daring, and
+seemed desperate, to seek to escape over the blockading wall with its
+armed guards. So desperate did it appear that half the garrison feared
+to attempt it, deeming that it would end in certain death. The other
+half, more than two hundred in number, decided that it was better to
+dare death in the field than to meet death in the streets.
+
+The wall was furnished with frequent battlements and occasional towers,
+and its whole circuit was kept under watch day and night. But as time
+went on the besiegers grew more lax in discipline, and on wet nights
+sought the shelter of the towers, leaving the spaces between without
+guards. This left a chance for escape which the Plataeans determined to
+embrace.
+
+By counting the layers of bricks in the blockading wall they were able
+to estimate its height, and prepared ladders long enough to reach its
+top. Then they waited for a suitable time. At length it came, a cold,
+dark, stormy December night, with a roaring wind, and showers of rain
+and sleet.
+
+The shivering guards cowered within their sheltering towers. Out from
+their gates marched the Plataeans, lightly armed, and, to avoid any
+sound, with the right foot naked. The left was shod, that it might have
+firmer hold on the muddy ground. Moving with the wind in their faces,
+and so far apart that their arms could not strike and clatter, they
+reached and crossed the ditch and lifted their ladders against the wall.
+Eleven men, armed only with sword and breastplate, mounted first. Others
+bearing spears followed, leaving their shields for their comrades below
+to carry up and hand to them. This first company was to attack and
+master the two towers right and left. This they did, surprising and
+slaying the guards without the alarm having spread. Then the others
+rapidly mounted the wall.
+
+At this critical moment one of them struck a loose tile with his foot
+and sent it clattering down the wall. This unlucky accident gave the
+alarm. In an instant shouts came from the towers, and the garrison below
+sprang to arms and hurried to the top of the wall. But they knew not
+where to seek the foe, and their perplexity was increased by the
+garrison within the city, which made a false attack on the other side.
+
+Not knowing what to do or where to go, the blockaders remained at their
+posts, except a body of three hundred men, who were kept in readiness to
+patrol the outside of the outer ditch. Fire-signals were raised to warn
+their allies in Thebes, but the garrison in the town also kindled
+fire-signals so as to destroy the meaning of those of the besiegers.
+
+Meanwhile the escaping warriors were actively engaged. Some held with
+spear and javelin the towers they had captured. Others drew up the
+ladders and planted them against the outer wall. Then down the ladders
+they hurried, waded across the outer ditch, and reached level ground
+beyond. Each man, as he gained this space, stood ready with his weapons
+to repel assault from without. When all the others were down, the men
+who had held the towers fled to the ladders and safely descended.
+
+The outer ditch was nearly full of water from the rain and covered with
+thin ice. Yet they scrambled through it, and when the three hundred of
+the outer guard approached with torches, they suddenly found themselves
+assailed with arrows and javelins from a foe invisible in the darkness.
+They were thus kept back till the last Plataean had crossed the ditch,
+when the bold fugitives marched speedily away, leaving but one of their
+number a prisoner in the hands of the foe.
+
+They first marched towards Thebes, while their pursuers took the
+opposite direction. Then they turned, struck eastward, entered the
+mountains, and finally--two hundred and twelve in number--made their way
+safely to Athens, to tell their families and allies the thrilling story
+of their escape.
+
+A few who lost heart returned from the inner wall to the town, and told
+those within that the whole band had perished. The truth was only
+learned within the town when on the next morning a herald was sent out
+to solicit a truce for burial of the dead bodies. The herald brought
+back the glad tidings that there were no dead to bury, that the whole
+bold band had escaped.
+
+Happy had it been for the remaining garrison had they also fled, even at
+the risk of death. With the provisions left they held out till the next
+summer, when they were forced to yield. In the end, after the form of a
+trial, they were all slaughtered by their foes, and the city itself was
+razed to the ground by its Theban enemies, only the Heraeum, or temple of
+Here, being left. Such was the fate of a city to which eternal
+sacredness had been pledged.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW THE LONG WALLS WENT DOWN._
+
+
+The retreat of the Persians from Athens left that city without a wall or
+a home. On the return of the Athenians, and the rebuilding of their
+ruined homes, a new wall became a necessity, and, under the wise advice
+of Themistocles, the citizens determined that the new wall should be
+much larger in circuit than the old,--wide enough to hold all Attica in
+case of war.
+
+[Illustration: PIRAEUS, THE PORT OF ATHENS.]
+
+But no sooner was this begun than a protest arose from rival states. The
+Spartans in particular raised such a clamor on the subject that
+Themistocles went to that city and denied that he was fortifying Athens.
+If they did not believe him, they might send there and see. They did so,
+and the Spartan ambassadors, on arriving there, found the walls
+completed and themselves held as hostages for the safe return of
+Themistocles. Not only Athens was thus fortified, but a still stronger
+wall was built around Piraeus, the port, four miles away.
+
+Years afterwards, when Athens was in a position to defy the protest of
+Sparta, her famous Long Walls were built, extending from the city to the
+port, and forming a great artery through which the food and products
+brought in ships from distant lands could flow to the city from the sea,
+in defiance of foes. These walls it was that enabled Athens to survive
+and flourish when all the soil of Attica lay in the hands of the Spartan
+enemy. But the time came when these walls were to fall, and Athens to
+lie helpless in the hands of her mortal foe.
+
+The Peloponnesian war was full of incident, victories and defeats,
+marches and countermarches, making and breaking of truces, loss of
+provinces and fleets, triumphs of one side and the other, and still the
+years rolled on, and neither party became supreme. Athens had its
+ill-advisers, who kept it at war when it could have won far more by
+concluding peace, and who induced it to forget the advice of Pericles
+and make war on land when its great strength lay in its fleet.
+
+Its great error, however, was an attempt at foreign conquest, when it
+had quite enough to occupy it at home. War broke out between Athens and
+Sicily, and a strong fleet was sent to blockade and seek to capture the
+city of Syracuse. This expedition fatally sapped the strength of the
+Athenian empire. Ships and men were supplied in profusion to take part
+in a series of military blunders, of which the last were irreparable.
+The fleet, with all on board, was finally blocked up in the harbor of
+Syracuse, defeated in battle, and forced to yield, while of forty
+thousand Athenian troops but a miserable remnant survived to end their
+lives as slaves in Syracusan quarries. It was a disaster such as Athens
+in its whole career had not endured, and whose consequences were
+inevitable. From that time on the supremacy of Athens was at an end.
+
+Yet for nine years more the war continued, with much the same
+succession of varying events as before. But during this period Sparta
+was learning an important lesson. If she would defeat Athens, she must
+learn how to win victories on sea as well as on land. After every defeat
+of a fleet she built and equipped another, and gradually grew stronger
+in ships, and her seamen more skilful and expert, until the old
+difference between Athenian and Spartan seamen ceased to exist. Persia
+also came to the aid of Sparta, supplied her with money, and enabled her
+to replace her lost ships with ever new ones, while the ship-building
+power of Athens declined.
+
+In 405 B.C. the crisis came. Athens was forced to depend solely for
+subsistence on her fleet. That gone, all would be gone. In the autumn of
+that year she had a fleet of one hundred and eighty triremes in the
+Hellespont, in the close vicinity of a Spartan fleet of about the same
+force, under an able admiral named Lysander. AEgospotami, or Goat's River
+(a name of fatal sound to all later Athenians), was the station of the
+Athenian fleet. That of Sparta lay opposite, across the strait, nearly
+two miles away.
+
+And now an interesting scene began. Every day the Athenian fleet crossed
+the strait and offered battle to the Spartans, daring them to come out
+from their sheltered position. And every day, when the Spartans had
+refused, it would go back to the opposite shore, where many of the men
+were permitted to land. Day by day this challenge was repeated, the
+Athenians growing daily more confident and more careless, and the crews
+dispersing in search of food or amusement as soon as they reached the
+shore. Lysander, meanwhile, fox-like, was on the watch. A scout-ship
+followed the enemy daily. At length, on the fifth day, when the Athenian
+ships had anchored, and the sailors had, as usual, dispersed, the
+scout-ship hoisted a bright shield as a signal. In an instant the fleet
+of Lysander, which was all ready, dashed out of its harbor, and rowed
+with the utmost speed across the strait. The Athenian commanders,
+perceiving too late their mistake, did their utmost to recall the
+scattered crews, but in vain. The Spartan ships dashed in among those of
+Athens, found some of them entirely deserted, others nearly so, and
+wrought with such energy that of the whole fleet only twelve ships
+escaped. Nearly all the men ashore were also taken, while this great
+victory was won not only without the loss of a ship, but hardly of a
+man. The prisoners, three or four thousand in number, in the cruel
+manner of the time, were put to death.
+
+This defeat, so disgraceful to the Athenian commanders, so complete and
+thorough, was a death-blow to the dominion of Athens. That city was left
+at the mercy of its foes. When news of the disaster reached the city,
+such a night of wailing and woe, of fear and misery, came upon the
+Athenians as few cities had ever before gone through. Their fleet gone,
+all was gone. On it depended their food. Their land-supplies had long
+been cut off. No corn-ships could now reach them from the Euxine Sea,
+and few from other quarters. They might fight still, but the end was
+sure. The victor at Salamis would soon be a prisoner within her own
+walls.
+
+Lysander was in no hurry to sail to Athens. That city could wait. He
+employed himself in visiting the islands and cities in alliance with or
+dependent upon Athens, and inducing them to ally themselves with Sparta.
+The Athenian garrisons were sent home. Lysander shrewdly calculated that
+the more men the walls of Athens held, the sooner must their food-supply
+be exhausted and the end come. At length, in November of 405 B.C.,
+Lysander sailed with his fleet to Piraeus and blockaded its harbor, while
+the land army of the Peloponnesus marched into Attica and encamped at
+the gates of Athens.
+
+That great and proud city was now peopled with despair. The plague which
+had desolated it twenty-five years before now threatened to be succeeded
+by a still more fatal plague, that of famine. Yet pride and resolution
+remained. The walls had been strengthened; their defenders could hold
+out while any food was left; not until men actually began to die of
+hunger did they ask for peace.
+
+The envoys sent to Sparta were refused a hearing. Athens wished to
+preserve her walls. Sparta sent word that there could be no peace until
+the Long Walls were levelled with the earth. These terms Athens proudly
+refused. Suffering and privation went on.
+
+For three months longer the siege continued. Though famine dwelt within
+every house, and numbers died of starvation, the Athenians held out with
+heroic endurance, and refused to surrender on humiliating terms. But
+there could be only one end. Where famine commands man must obey. Peace
+must be had at any price, or death would end all, and an envoy was sent
+out with power to make peace on any terms he could obtain.
+
+It was pitiable that glorious Athens should be brought to this sad pass.
+She was so cordially hated by many of the states of Greece that they
+voted for her annihilation, demanding that the entire population should
+be sold as slaves, and the city and the very name of Athens be utterly
+swept from the earth.
+
+At this dread moment the greatest foe of Athens became almost her only
+friend. Sparta declared that she would never consent to such a fate for
+the city which had been the savior of Greece in the Persian war. In the
+end peace was offered on the following terms: The Long Walls and the
+defences of Piraeus should be destroyed; the Athenians should give up all
+foreign possessions and confine themselves to Attica; they should
+surrender all their ships-of-war; they should admit all their exiles;
+they should become allies of Sparta, be friends of her friends and foes
+of her foes, and follow her leadership on sea and land.
+
+When the envoy, bearing this ultimatum, returned to Athens, a pitiable
+spectacle met his eyes. A despairing crowd faced him with beseeching
+eyes, in terror lest he brought only a message of death or despair.
+Thousands there were who could not meet him, victims of the increasing
+famine. Peace at any price had become a valued boon. Nevertheless, when
+the terms were read in the assembly, there were those there who would
+have refused them, and who preferred death by starvation to such
+disgrace. The great majority, however, voted to accept them, and word
+was sent to Lysander that Athens yielded to the inevitable.
+
+And now into the harbor of the Piraeus sailed the triumphant Lacedaemonian
+fleet, just twenty-seven years after the war had begun. With them came
+the Athenian exiles, some of whom had served with their city's foes. The
+ships building in the dock-yards were burned and the arsenals ruined,
+there being left to Athens only twelve ships-of-war. And then, amid the
+joyful shouts of the conquerors, to the music of flutes played by women
+and the sportive movements of dancers crowned with wreaths, the Long
+Walls of Athens began to fall.
+
+The conquerors themselves lent a hand to this work at first, but its
+completion was left to the Athenians, who with sore hearts and bowed
+heads for many days worked at the demolition of what so long had been
+their city's strength and pride.
+
+What followed may be briefly told. Athens had, some time before, fallen
+under the power of a Committee of Four Hundred, aristocrats who
+overthrew the constitution and reigned supreme until the people rose in
+their might and brought their despotism to an end. Now a new oligarchy,
+called "The Thirty," and mostly composed of the returned exiles, came
+into despotic power, and the ancient constitution was once more ignored.
+
+The reign of The Thirty was one of blood, confiscation, and death.
+Supported by a Spartan garrison, they tyrannized at their own cruel
+will, murdering, confiscating, exiling, until they converted Athens into
+a prototype of Paris during the French Revolution.
+
+At length the saturnalia of crime came to an end. Even the enemies of
+Athens began to pity her sad state. Those who had been exiled by these
+new tyrants returned to Attica, and war between them and The Thirty
+began. In the end Sparta withdrew her support from the tyrants, those of
+them who had not perished fled, and after nearly a year of terrible
+anarchy the democracy of Athens was restored, and peace once more spread
+its wings over that frightfully afflicted city.
+
+We may conclude this tale with an episode that took place eleven years
+after the Long Walls had fallen. As they had gone down to music, they
+rose to music again. In these eleven years despotic Sparta had lost many
+of her allies, and the Persians, who had become friends of Athens, now
+lent a fleet and supplied money to aid in rebuilding the walls. Some
+even of those who had danced for joy when the walls went down now gave
+their cheerful aid to raise them up again, so greatly had Spartan
+tyranny changed the tide of feeling. The completion of the walls was
+celebrated by a splendid sacrifice and festival banquet, and joy came
+back to Athens again. A new era had begun for the city, not one of
+dominion and empire, but one marked by some share of her old dignity and
+importance in Greece.
+
+
+
+
+_SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES._
+
+
+During the period of the Peloponnesian war two men became strikingly
+prominent in Athens, a statesman and a philosopher, as unlike each other
+in character, appearance, aims, and methods as two persons could well
+be, yet the most intimate of friends, and long dividing between them the
+admiration of the Athenians. These were the historically famous
+Alcibiades and Socrates. Alcibiades was a leader in action, Socrates a
+leader in thought; thus they controlled the two great dominions of human
+affairs.
+
+Of these two, Socrates was vastly the nobler and higher, Alcibiades much
+the more specious and popular. Democratic Athens was never long without
+its aristocratic leader. For many years it had been Pericles. It now
+became Alcibiades, a man whose career and character were much more like
+those of Themistocles of old than of the sedate and patriotic Pericles.
+
+Alcibiades was the Adonis of Athens, noted for his beauty, the charm of
+his manner, his winning personality, qualities which made all men his
+willing captives. He was of high birth, great wealth, and luxurious and
+pleasure-loving disposition, yet with a remarkable power of
+accommodating himself to circumstances, and becoming all things to all
+men. While numbers of high-born Athenians admired him for his
+extraordinary beauty of person, Socrates saw in him admirable qualities
+of mind, and loved him with a warm affection, which Alcibiades as warmly
+returned. The philosopher gained the greatest influence over his
+youthful friend, taught him to despise affectation and revere virtue,
+and did much to develop in him noble qualities of thought and
+aspiration.
+
+Yet nature had made Alcibiades, and nature's work is hard to undo. He
+was a man of hasty impulse and violent temper, a man destitute of the
+spirit of patriotism, and in very great measure it was to this brilliant
+son of Athens that that city owed its lamentable fate.
+
+No greater contrast could be imagined than was shown by these almost
+inseparable friends. Alcibiades was tall, shapely, remarkably handsome,
+fond of showy attire and luxurious surroundings, full of animal spirits,
+rapid and animated in speech, and aristocratic in sentiment; Socrates
+short, thick-set, remarkably ugly, careless in attire, destitute of all
+courtly graces, democratic in the highest degree, and despising-utterly
+those arts and aims, loves and luxuries, which appealed so strongly to
+the soul of his ardent friend. Yet the genius, the intellectual
+acuteness, the lofty aims, and wonderful conversational power of
+Socrates overcame all his natural defects, attracted Alcibiades
+irresistibly, and welded the two together in an intellectual sympathy
+that set aside all differences of form and character.
+
+The philosopher and the politician owed to each other their lives. They
+served as soldiers together at Potidaea, lodged in the same tent, and
+stood side by side in the ranks. Alcibiades was wounded in the battle,
+but was defended and rescued by his friend, who afterwards persuaded the
+generals to award to him the prize for valor. Later, at the battle of
+Delium, Alcibiades protected and saved Socrates. These personal services
+brought them into still closer relations, while their friendship was
+perhaps the stronger from their almost complete diversity of character.
+
+Unluckily for Athens, Socrates was not able to instil strong principles
+of virtue into the mind of the versatile Alcibiades. This ardent
+pleasure lover was moved by ambition, desire of admiration, love of
+display, and fondness for luxurious living, and indulged in excesses
+that it was not easy for the more frugal citizens to forgive. He sent
+seven chariots to the Olympic Games, from which he carried off the
+first, second, and fourth prizes. He gave splendid shows, distributed
+money freely, and in spite of his wanton follies retained numbers of
+friends among the Athenian people.
+
+It was to this engaging and ambitious politician that the ruinous
+Sicilian expedition was due. He persuaded the Athenians to engage in it,
+in spite of wiser advice, and was one of those placed in command. But
+the night before the fleet set sail a dreadful sacrilege took place. All
+the statues of the god Hermes in the city were mutilated by unknown
+parties,--an outrage which caused almost a panic among the
+superstitious people. Among those accused of this sacrilege was
+Alcibiades. There was no evidence against him, and he was permitted to
+proceed. But after he had reached Sicily he was sent for to return, on a
+new charge of sacrilege. He refused to do so, fearing the schemes of his
+enemies, and, when told that the assembly had voted sentence of death
+against him, he said, bitterly, "I will make them feel that I _live_!"
+
+He did so. To him Athens was indebted for the ruin of its costly
+expedition. He fled to Sparta and advised the Spartans to send to
+Syracuse the able general to whom the Athenians owed their fatal defeat.
+He also advised his new friends to seize and fortify a town in Attica.
+By this they cut off all the land supply of food from Athens, and did
+much to force the final submission of that city.
+
+Alcibiades now put on a new guise. He affected to be enraptured with
+Spartan manners, cropped his hair, lived on black broth, exercised
+diligently, and by his fluent tongue made himself a favorite in that
+austere city. But at length, by an idle boast, he roused Spartan enmity,
+and had to fly again. Now he sought Asia Minor, became a friend of
+Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, adopted the excesses of Persian
+luxury, and sought to break the alliance between Persia and Sparta,
+which he had before sustained.
+
+Next, moved by a desire to see his old home, he offered the leading
+citizens of Athens to induce Tissaphernes to come to their aid, on the
+condition that he might be permitted to return. But he declared that he
+would not come while the democracy was in power, and it was by his
+influence that the tyrannical Committee of Four Hundred was formed.
+Afterwards, falling out with these tyrants, Alcibiades turned democrat
+again, was made admiral of the fleet, and wrought the ruin of the
+oligarchy which he had raised to power.
+
+And now this brilliant and fickle son of Athens worked as actively and
+ably for his native city as he had before sought her ruin. Under his
+command the fleet gained several important victories, and conquered
+Byzantium and other cities. The ruinous defeat at AEgospotami would not
+have occurred had the admiral of the fleet listened to his timely
+warning. After the fall of Athens, and during the tyranny of the Thirty,
+he retired to Asia Minor, where he was honorably received by the satrap
+Pharnabazus. And here the end came to his versatile career. One night
+the house in which he slept was surrounded by a body of armed men and
+set on fire. He rushed out, sword in hand, but a shower of darts and
+arrows quickly robbed him of life. Through whose enmity he died is not
+known. Thus perished, at less than fifty years of age, one of the most
+brilliant and able of all the Athenians,--one who, had he lived, would
+doubtless have added fresh and striking chapters to the history of his
+native land, though whether to her advantage or injury cannot now be
+told.
+
+The career of Socrates was wonderfully different from that of his
+brilliant but unprincipled friend. While Alcibiades was seeking to
+dazzle and control, Socrates was seeking to convince and improve
+mankind. A striking picture is given us of the physical qualities of
+this great moral philosopher. His ugliness of face was matter of jest in
+Athens. He had the flat nose, thick lips, and prominent eyes of a satyr.
+Yet he was as strong as he was ugly. Few Athenians could equal him in
+endurance. While serving as a soldier, he was able to endure heat and
+cold, hunger and fatigue, in a manner that astonished his companions. He
+went barefoot in all weather, and wore the same clothing winter and
+summer. His diet was of the simplest, but in religious festivals, when
+all were expected to indulge, Socrates could drink more wine than any
+person present, without a sign of intoxication. Yet it was his constant
+aim to limit his wants and to avoid all excess.
+
+To these qualities of body Socrates added the highest and noblest
+qualities of mind. Naturally he had a violent temper, but he held it
+under severe control, though he could not always avoid a display of
+anger under circumstances of great provocation. But his depth of
+thought, his remarkable powers of argument, his earnest desire for human
+amendment, his incessant moral lessons to the Athenians, place him in
+the very first rank of the teachers of mankind.
+
+Socrates was of humble birth. He was born 469 B.C. and lived for seventy
+years. His father was a sculptor, and he followed the same profession.
+He married, and his wife Xanthippe has become famous for the acidity of
+her temper. There is little doubt that Socrates, whose life was spent in
+arguing and conversing, and who paid little attention to filling the
+larder, gave the poor housewife abundant provocation. We know very
+little about the events of his life, except that he served as a soldier
+in three campaigns, that he strictly obeyed the laws, performed all his
+religious duties, and once, when acting as judge, refused, at the peril
+of his life, to perform an unjust action.
+
+Of the daily life of Socrates we have graphic pictures, drawn by his
+friends and followers Xenophon and Plato. From morning to night he might
+be seen in the streets and public places, engaged in endless
+talk,--prattling, his enemies called it. In the early morning, his
+sturdy figure, shabbily dressed, and his pale and ill-featured face,
+were familiar visions in the public walks, the gymnasia, and the
+schools. At the hour when the market-place was most crowded, Socrates
+would be there, walking about among the booths and tables, and talking
+to every one whom he could induce to listen. Thus was his whole day
+spent. He was ready to talk with any one, old or young, rich or poor,
+being in no sense a respecter of persons. He conversed with artisans,
+philosophers, students, soldiers, politicians,--all classes of men. He
+visited everywhere, was known to all persons of distinction, and was a
+special friend of Aspasia, the brilliant woman companion of Pericles.
+
+His conversational powers must have been extraordinary, for none seemed
+to tire of hearing him, and many sought him in his haunts, eager to hear
+his engaging and instructive talk. Many, indeed, in his later years,
+came from other cities of Greece, drawn to Athens by his fame, and
+anxious to hear this wonderful conversationalist and teacher. These
+became known as his scholars or disciples, though he claimed nothing
+resembling a school, and received no reward for his teachings.
+
+The talk of Socrates was never idle or meaningless chat. He felt that he
+had a special mission to fulfil, that in a sense he was an envoy to man
+from the gods, and declared that, from childhood on, a divine voice had
+spoken to him, unheard by others, warning and restraining him from
+unwise acts or sayings. It forbade him to enter public life, controlled
+him day by day, and was frequently mentioned by him to his disciples.
+This guardian voice has become known as the daemon or genius of Socrates.
+
+The oracle at Delphi said that no man was wiser than Socrates. To learn
+if this was true and he really was wiser than other men, he questioned
+everybody everywhere, seeking to learn what they knew, and leading them
+on by question after question till he usually found that they knew very
+little of what they professed.
+
+As to what Socrates taught, we can only say here that he was the first
+great ethical philosopher. The philosophers before him had sought to
+explain the mystery of the universe. He declared that all this was
+useless and profitless. Man's mind was superior to all matter, and he
+led men to look within, study their own souls, consider the question of
+human duty, the obligations of man to man, and all that leads towards
+virtue and the moral development of human society.
+
+It is not surprising that Xanthippe scolded her idle husband, who
+supplied so much food for the souls of others, but quite ignored the
+demands of food for the bodies of his wife and children. His teachings
+were but vaporing talk to her small mind and to those of many of the
+people. And the keen questions with which he convicted so many of
+ignorance, and the sarcastic irony with which he wounded their
+self-love, certainly did not make him friends among this class. In
+truth, he made many enemies. One of these was Aristophanes, the
+dramatist, who wrote a comedy in which he sought to make Socrates
+ridiculous. This turned many of the audiences at the theatres against
+him.
+
+[Illustration: PRISON OF SOCRATES, ATHENS.]
+
+All this went on until the year 399 B.C., when some of his enemies
+accused him of impiety, declaring that he did not worship the old gods,
+but introduced new ones and corrupted the minds of the young. "The
+penalty due," they said, "is death."
+
+It had taken them some thirty years to find this out, for Socrates had
+been teaching the same things for that length of time. In fact, no
+ancient city but Athens would have listened to his radical talk for so
+many years without some such charge. But he had now so many enemies that
+the accusation was dangerous. He made it worse by his carelessness in
+his defence. He said things that provoked his judges. He could have been
+acquitted if he wished, for in the final vote only a majority of five or
+six out of nearly six hundred brought him in guilty.
+
+Socrates seemingly did not care what verdict they brought. He had no
+fear of death, and would not trouble himself to say a word to preserve
+his life. The divine voice, he declared, would not permit him. He was
+sentenced to drink the poison of hemlock, and was imprisoned for thirty
+days, during which he conversed in his old calm manner with his friends.
+
+Some of his disciples arranged a plan for his escape, but he refused to
+fly. If his fellow-citizens wished to take his life he would not oppose
+their wills. On the last day he drank the hemlock as calmly as though it
+were his usual beverage, and talked on quietly till death sealed his
+tongue.
+
+Thus died the first and one of the greatest of ethical philosophers, and
+a man without a parallel, in his peculiar field, in all the history of
+mankind. Greece produced none like him, and this homely and humble
+personage, who wrote not a line, has been unsurpassed in fame and
+influence upon mankind by any of the host of illustrious writers who
+have made famous the Hellenic lands.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND._
+
+
+We have now to tell of one of the most remarkable events in Grecian
+history, to describe how ten thousand Greeks, who found themselves in
+the heart of the great Persian empire, without a leader and almost
+without food, marched through the land of their foes, over rugged
+mountains swarming with enemies, and across lofty plains covered deep
+with snow, until finally they reached once more their native land.
+Xenophon, their chosen leader, has told the story of this wonderful
+march in a book called the "Anabasis," and from this book we take what
+we have here to say.
+
+First, how came these Greeks so far away from their home and friends? We
+have told elsewhere how the Persians several times invaded Greece. We
+have now to tell how the Greeks first invaded Persia. It happened many
+years afterwards. The Persian king Xerxes had long since been dead, and
+succeeded by his son Artaxerxes, who reigned over Persia for nearly
+forty years. Then came Darius Nothus, whose reign lasted nineteen years.
+This king had two sons, Artaxerxes and Cyrus. On his death he bequeathed
+the throne to Artaxerxes, while Cyrus was left satrap of a large
+province in Asia Minor.
+
+Of these two sons, the new king was timid and incompetent; Cyrus was
+remarkably shrewd and able, and was filled with a consuming ambition. He
+wanted the Persian throne and knew the best means of obtaining it. He
+was well aware of the military ability of the Greeks. It was he who
+supplied the money which enabled Sparta to overthrow Athens. He now
+secretly enlisted a body of about thirteen thousand Greeks, promising
+them high pay if they would enter his service; and with these, and one
+hundred thousand Asiatics, he marched against his brother.
+
+But Cyrus was too shrewd to let his purpose be known. He gave out that
+he was going to put down some brigand mountaineers. Then when he had got
+his army far eastward, he threw off the mask and started on the long
+march across the desert to Babylonia. The Greeks had been deceived. At
+first they refused to follow him on so perilous an errand, and to such a
+distance from home. But by liberal promises he overcame their
+objections, and they marched on till the heart of Babylonia was reached.
+
+The army was now in the wonderfully fertile country between the rivers
+Euphrates and Tigris, that rich Mesopotamian region which had been part
+of the Persian empire since the great cities of Nineveh and Babylon were
+taken by the Persians a century before. And in all this long march no
+enemy had been met. But now Cyrus and his followers found themselves
+suddenly confronted by a great Persian army, led by Artaxerxes, the
+king.
+
+First a great cloud of white dust was seen in the distance. Then under
+it appeared on the earth a broad dark spot, which widened and deepened
+as it came nearer, until at length armor began to shine and spear-heads
+to glitter, and dense masses of troops appeared beneath the cloud. Here
+were great troops of cavalry, wearing white cuirasses; here a vast array
+of bowmen with wicker shields, spiked so that they could thrust their
+points into the ground and send their arrows from behind them; there a
+dark mass of Egyptian infantry, with long wooden shields that covered
+the whole body; in front of all was a row of chariots, with scythes
+stretching outward from the wheels, so as to mow down the ranks through
+which they were driven.
+
+These scythed chariots faced the Greeks, whose ranks they were intended
+to break. But when the battle-shout was given, and the dense mass of
+Greeks rushed forward at a rapid pace, the Persians before them broke
+into a sudden panic and fled, the drivers of the chariots leaping wildly
+to the ground and joining in the flight. The horses, left to themselves,
+and scared by the tumult, rushed in all directions, many of them
+hurtling with their scythed chariots through the flying host, others
+coming against the Greeks, who opened their ranks to let them pass. In
+that part of the field the battle was won without a blow being struck or
+a man killed. The very presence of the Greeks had brought victory.
+
+The great Persian army would soon have been all in flight but for an
+unlooked-for event. Artaxerxes, in the centre of his army, was
+surrounded by a body-guard of six thousand horse. Against these Cyrus,
+followed by six hundred horse, made an impetuous charge. So fierce was
+the onset that the body-guard were soon in full flight, Cyrus killing
+their general with his own hand. The six hundred hotly pursued their
+flying foe, leaving Cyrus almost alone. And now before him appeared his
+brother Artaxerxes, exposed by the flight of his guard.
+
+Between these two men brotherly affection did not exist. They viewed
+each other as bitter enemies. So fiercely did Cyrus hate his brother
+that on seeing him he burst into a paroxysm of rage which robbed him of
+all the prudence and judgment he had so far shown. "I see the man!" he
+cried in tones of fury, and rushed hotly forward, followed only by the
+few companions who remained with him, against Artaxerxes and the strong
+force still with him. As Cyrus came near the king he cast his javelin so
+truly, and with such force, that it pierced the cuirass of Artaxerxes,
+and wounded him in the breast. Yet the assault of Cyrus was a mad one,
+and it met the end of madness. He was struck below the eye by a javelin,
+hurled from his horse and instantly slain; his few followers quickly
+sharing his fate.
+
+The head and right hand of the slain prince were immediately cut off and
+held up to the view of all within sight, and the contest was proclaimed
+at an end. The Asiatic army of Cyrus, on learning of the fatal disaster,
+turned and fled. The Greeks held their own and repulsed all that came
+against them, in ignorance of the death of Cyrus, of which they did not
+hear till the next morning. The news then filled them with sorrow and
+dismay.
+
+What followed must be briefly told. The position of the Greeks, much
+more than a thousand miles from their country, in the heart of an empire
+filled with foes, and in the presence of a vast hostile army, seemed
+hopeless. Yet they refused to surrender at the demand of the king. They
+were victors, not defeated men; why should they surrender? "If the king
+wants our arms, let him come and try to take them," they said. "Our arms
+are all the treasure we have left; we shall not be fools enough to hand
+them over to you, but shall use them to fight for your treasure."
+
+This challenge King Artaxerxes showed no inclination to accept. Both he
+and his army feared the Greeks. As for the latter, they immediately
+began their retreat. They could not go back over the desert by which
+they had come, that was impossible; they therefore chose a longer road,
+but with more chance of food, leading up the left bank of the Tigris
+River and proceeding to the Euxine, or Black Sea. It was in dread and
+hopelessness that the solitary band began this long and perilous march,
+through a country of which they knew nothing, amid hosts of foes, and
+with the winter at hand. But they were soon to experience a new
+misfortune and be left in a still more hopeless state.
+
+Their boldness had so intimidated King Artaxerxes that he sent heralds
+to them to treat for a truce. "Go tell the king," their general replied,
+"that our first business must be to fight. We have nothing to eat, and
+no man should talk to Greeks about a truce without first providing them
+with a dinner."
+
+The result of this bold answer was that food was provided, a truce
+declared, and Tissaphernes, a Persian satrap, with a body of troops,
+undertook to conduct the Greeks out of the country. Crossing the Tigris,
+they marched for fifteen days up its east side, until the Great Zab
+River, in the country of Media, was reached. Here the treachery which
+Tissaphernes had all along intended was consummated. He invited
+Clearchus, the Greek leader, and the other generals to a conference with
+him in his tent,--three miles from their camp. They incautiously
+accepted, and on arriving there were immediately seized, the captains
+and soldiers who had accompanied them cut down, and the generals sent in
+chains to the king, who ordered them all to be put to death.
+
+This loss of their leaders threw the Greeks into despair. Ruin appeared
+inevitable. In the midst of a hostile country, more than a thousand
+miles from Grecian soil, surrounded by enemies, blocked up by deep
+rivers and almost impassable mountains, without guides, without
+provisions, without cavalry, without generals to give orders, what were
+they to do? A stupor of helplessness seized upon them. Few came to the
+evening muster; few lighted fires to cook their suppers; every man lay
+down to rest where he was; yet fear, anguish, and yearning for home
+drove sleep from every eye. The expectation of the Persians that they
+would now surrender seemed likely to be realized, for without a guiding
+head and hand there seemed to many of the disheartened host nothing else
+to do.
+
+Yet they were not all in that mood. One among them, a volunteer, with
+no rank in the army, but with ample courage, brought back by brave words
+hope to their souls. This man, an Athenian, Xenophon by name, and one of
+the disciples of Socrates the philosopher, had an encouraging dream in
+the night, and at once rose, called into council the captains of the
+host, and advised them to select new generals to take the place of the
+four who had been seized. This was done, Xenophon being one of the new
+leaders. At daybreak the soldiers were called together, told what had
+been done in the night, and asked to confirm the action of their
+captains. This they did.
+
+Xenophon, the orator of the army, now made them a stirring speech. He
+told them that they need not fear the Persians, who were cowards and
+traitors, as they knew. If provisions were no longer furnished them,
+they could take them for themselves. If rivers were to be crossed, they
+could march up their course and wade them where not deep. "Let us burn
+our baggage-wagons and tents, and carry only what is strictly needful.
+Above all, let us maintain discipline and obedience to commanders. Now
+is the time for action. If any man has anything better to suggest, let
+him state it. We all have but one object,--the common safety."
+
+No one had anything better to suggest; the soldiers enthusiastically
+accepted Xenophon's plan of action, and soon were on the march again,
+with Tissaphernes, their late guide, now their open foe. They marched in
+a hollow oblong body, with the baggage in the centre. Here also walked
+the women, of whom many had accompanied the army through all its career.
+
+Crossing the Great Zab River, the Greeks continued their march, though
+surrounded by enemies, many of them horsemen, who cast javelins and
+arrows into their ranks, and fled when pursued. That night they reached
+some villages, bearing their wounded, who were many, and deeply
+discouraged. During the night the Greeks organized a small body of
+cavalry and two hundred Rhodian slingers, who threw leaden bullets
+instead of stones. The next day they were attacked by a body of four
+thousand confident Persians, who expected an easy victory. Yet when the
+few horsemen and slingers of the Greeks attacked them they fled in
+dismay, and many of them were killed in a ravine which they were forced
+to traverse.
+
+On went the fugitives, day by day, still assailed, still repelling their
+foes. On the fifth day they saw a palace, around which lay many
+villages. To reach it they had high hills to pass, and here their
+enemies appeared on the summits, showering down arrows, darts, and
+stones. The Greeks finally dislodged them by mounting to higher points,
+and by night had fought their way to the villages, where they found
+abundance of food and wine, and where they rested for three days.
+
+On starting again the troops of Tissaphernes annoyed them as before.
+They now adopted a new plan. Whenever the enemy came up they halted at
+some village and fought them from their camp. Each night the Persians
+withdrew about ten miles, lest they might be surprised when their
+horses were shackled and they unarmed. This custom the Greeks now took
+advantage of. As soon as the enemy had withdrawn to their nightly camp
+the march was resumed and continued for some ten miles. The distance
+gained gave the Greeks two days of peaceful progress before their foes
+came up again.
+
+On the fourth day the Greeks saw before them a lofty hill, which must be
+passed, and which their enemies occupied, having got past them in the
+night. Their march seemed at an end, for the path that must be taken was
+completely commanded by the weapons of the foe. What was to be done? A
+conference took place between Xenophon and the Spartan Cheirisophus, his
+principal colleague. Xenophon perceived that from the top of a mountain
+near the army the hill held by the enemy might be reached.
+
+"The best thing we can do is to gain the top of this mountain with all
+haste," he said; "if we are once masters of that the enemy cannot
+maintain themselves on the hill. You stay with the army, if you think
+fit, and I will go up the hill. Or you go, if you desire, and I will
+stay here."
+
+"I give you your choice," answered Cheirisophus.
+
+"Then I will go, as I am the younger man," said Xenophon.
+
+Taking a strong force from the van of the army, Xenophon at once began
+to climb the hill. The enemy, seeing this movement, hastily detached a
+force for the same purpose. Both sides shouted encouragement to their
+men, and Xenophon, riding beside his troop, spurred them to exertion by
+reminding them of their wives and children at home. And here took place
+one of those occurrences which gave this leader so much influence over
+his men.
+
+"We are not upon equal terms, Xenophon," said Soteridas, a soldier from
+Sicyon, "for you are on horseback, while I am weary from carrying my
+shield."
+
+Instantly Xenophon sprang from his horse, took the man's shield from his
+arm, and thrust him out of the ranks, taking his place. The horseman's
+corselet which he wore, added to by the weight of the shield, gave him
+much annoyance. But he called out bravely to the men to hasten their
+pace.
+
+On this the other soldiers began to abuse and stone Soteridas, making it
+so unpleasant for him that he was glad to ask for his shield again.
+Xenophon now remounted and rode as far as his horse could go, then
+sprang down and hastened onward on foot. Such was the speed made that
+they reached the summit before the foe, whereupon the enemy fled,
+leaving the road open to the Greeks. That evening they reached the plain
+beyond, where they found a village abounding in food; and in this plain,
+near the Tigris, many other villages were found, well filled with all
+sorts of provisions.
+
+Finding it impossible to cross the Tigris in the face of the enemy, who
+lined its western bank, the Greeks were obliged to continue their course
+up its eastern side. This would bring them to the elevated table land of
+Armenia, but first they would have to cross the rugged Carduchian
+Mountains, inhabited by a tribe so fierce that they had hitherto defied
+all the power of Persia, and had once destroyed a Persian army of one
+hundred and twenty thousand men. These mountains must be crossed, but
+the mountaineers proved fiercely hostile. Seven days were occupied in
+the task, and these were days of constant battle and loss. At one pass
+the Carduchians rolled down such incessant masses of rocks that progress
+was impossible, and the Greeks were almost in despair. Fortunately a
+prisoner showed them a pass by which they could get above these
+defenders, who, on seeing themselves thus exposed, took to their heels,
+and left the way open to the main body of the Greek army. Glad enough
+were the disheartened adventurers to see once more a plain, and find
+themselves past these dreaded hills and on the banks of an Armenian
+river.
+
+But they now had the Persians again in their front, with the Carduchians
+in their rear, and it was with no small difficulty that they reached the
+north side of this stream. In Armenia they had new perils to encounter.
+The winter was upon them, and the country covered with snow. Reaching at
+length the head-waters of the Euphrates, they waded across, and there
+found themselves in such deep snow and facing such fierce winds that
+many slaves and draught-horses died of cold, together with about thirty
+soldiers. Some of the men lost their sight from the snow-glare; others
+had their feet badly frosted; food was very scarce; the foe was in their
+rear. It was a miserable and woe-begone army that at length gladly
+reached, on the summit of some hills, a number of villages well stored
+with food.
+
+In the country of the Taochians, which the fugitives next reached, the
+people carried off all their food into mountain strongholds, and
+starvation threatened the Greeks. One of these strongholds was reached,
+a lofty place surrounded by precipices, where great numbers of men and
+women, with their cattle, had assembled. Yet, strong as it was, it must
+be taken, or the army would be starved.
+
+As they sought to ascend, stones came down in showers, breaking the legs
+and ribs of the unlucky climbers. By stratagem, however, the Greeks
+induced the defenders to exhaust their ammunition of stones, the
+soldiers pretending to advance, and then running back behind trees as
+the stones came crashing down. Finally several bold men made a dash for
+the top, others followed, and the place was won. Then came a dreadful
+scene. The women threw their children down the precipice, and then
+leaped after them. The men did the same. AEneas, a captain, seeing a
+richly-dressed barbarian about to throw himself down the height, caught
+hold of him. It was a fatal impulse of cupidity. The Taochian seized him
+in a fierce grasp and sprang with him over the brink, both being dashed
+to pieces below. Very few prisoners were made, but, what was more to the
+purpose of the Greeks, a large number of oxen, asses, and sheep were
+obtained.
+
+At another point, where a mountain-pass had to be crossed, which could
+only be done by ascending the mountain by stealth at night, and so
+turning the position of the enemy, an amusing piece of badinage took
+place between Xenophon, the Athenian, and Cheirisophus, the Spartan.
+
+"Stealing a march upon the enemy is more your trade than mine," said
+Xenophon. "For I understand that you, the full citizens and peers at
+Sparta, practise stealing from your boyhood upward, and that it is held
+no way base, but even honorable, to steal such things as the law does
+not distinctly forbid. And to the end that you may steal with the
+greatest effect, and take pains to do it in secret, the custom is to
+flog you if you are found out. Here, then, you have an excellent
+opportunity to display your training. Take good care that we be not
+found out in stealing an occupation of the mountain now before us; for
+if we _are_ found out, we shall be well beaten."
+
+"Why, as to that," retorted Cheirisophus, good-humoredly, "you Athenians
+also, as I learn, are capital hands at stealing the public money, and
+that, too, in spite of prodigious peril to the thief. Nay, your most
+powerful men steal most of all, at least if it be the most powerful men
+among you who are raised to official command. So this is a time for
+_you_ to exhibit your training, as well as for me to exhibit mine."
+
+Leaving the land of the Taochi, the Greeks entered that of the Chalybes,
+which they were seven days in passing through. All the food here was
+carried off, and they had to live on the cattle they had recently won.
+Then came the country of the Skythini, where they found villages and
+food. Four days more brought them to a large and flourishing city named
+Gymnias. They were now evidently drawing near to the sea and
+civilization.
+
+In feet, the chief of this city told them that the sea was but five
+days' journey away, and gave them a guide who in that time would conduct
+them to a hill from which they could see the Euxine's distant waves. On
+they went, and at length, while Xenophon was driving off some natives
+that had attacked the rear of the column, he heard loud shouts in front.
+Thinking that the van had been assailed, he rode hastily forward at the
+head of his few cavalry, the noise increasing as he approached.
+
+At length the sounds took shape in words. "_Thalatta! Thalatta!_" ("The
+sea! The sea!") cried the Greeks, in tones of exultation and ecstasy.
+All, excited by the sound, came hurrying up to the summit, and burst
+into simultaneous shouts of joy as they saw, far in the distance, the
+gleaming waters of the long-prayed-for sea. Tears, embraces, cries of
+wild delight, manifested their intense feeling, and for the time being
+the whole army went mad with joy. The terrors of their march were at an
+end; they were on the verge of Grecian territory again; and with pride
+they felt that they had achieved an enterprise such as the world had
+never known before.
+
+A few words will suffice to complete their tale. Reaching the city of
+Trebizond, they took ship for home. Fifteen months had passed since they
+set out with the army of Cyrus. After various further adventures,
+Xenophon led them on a pillaging expedition against the Persians of Asia
+Minor, paid them all richly from the plunder, and gained himself
+sufficient wealth to enrich him for the remainder of his days.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RESCUE OF THEBES._
+
+
+On a certain cold and wet evening, in the month of December of the year
+379 B.C., seven men, dressed as rustics or hunters, and to all
+appearance unarmed, though each man had a dagger concealed beneath his
+clothes, appeared at the gate of Thebes, the principal city of the
+Boeotian confederacy. They had come that day from Athens, making their
+way afoot across Mount Cithaeron, which lay between. It was now just
+nightfall and most of the farmers had come into the city from the
+fields, but some late ones were still returning. Mingling with these,
+the seven strangers entered the gates, unnoticed by the guards, and were
+quickly lost to sight in the city streets. Quietly as they had come, the
+noise of their coming was soon to resound throughout Greece, for the
+arrival of those seven men was the first step in a revolution that was
+destined to overturn all the existing conditions of Grecian states.
+
+We should like to go straight on with their story; but to make it clear
+to our readers we must go back and offer a short extract from earlier
+history. Hitherto the history of Greece had been largely the history of
+two cities, Athens and Sparta. The other cities had all played second or
+third parts to these great and proud municipalities. But now a third
+city, Thebes, was about to come forward, and assume a leading place in
+the history of Greece. And of the two men who were to guide it in this
+proud career, one was among the seven who entered the gates of the city
+in rustic garb that rainy December night.
+
+Of the earlier history of Thebes little need be said. It played its part
+in the legendary story of Greece, as may be seen in our story of the
+"Seven against Thebes." During the Persian invasion Thebes proved false
+to its country, assisted the invaders, and after their repulse was
+punished for its treasonable acts. Later on it came again into prominent
+notice. During the Peloponnesian war it was a strong ally of Sparta.
+Another city, only six miles away, Plataea, was as strong an ally of
+Athens. And the inhabitants of these two cities hated each other with
+the bitterest animosity. It is a striking example of the isolated
+character of Greek communities, and one that it is difficult to
+understand in modern times, that two cities of one small state, so near
+together that an easy two hours' walk would take a traveller from the
+gates of one to those of the other, could be the bitterest of enemies,
+sworn allies of two hostile states, and the inhabitants ready to cut
+each other's throats at any opportunity. Certainly the sentiment of
+human brotherhood has vastly widened since then. There are no two cities
+in the civilized world to-day that feel to each other as did Plataea and
+Thebes, only six miles apart, in that famous era of Grecian
+enlightenment.
+
+We have told how Plataea was taken and destroyed, and its defenders
+murdered, by a Spartan army. But it is well to say here that Thebans
+formed the most fiercely hostile part of that army, and that it was the
+Thebans who demanded and obtained the murder in cold blood of the
+hapless prisoners.
+
+And now we pass on to a date less than fifty years later to find a
+remarkable change in the state of affairs. Athens has fallen from her
+high estate. Sparta is now the lord and master of the Grecian world. And
+a harsh master has she proved, with her controlling agents in every
+city, her voice the arbiter in all political concerns.
+
+Thebes is now the friend of Athens and the foe of Sparta, the chief
+among those cities which oppose the new order of things. Yet Thebes in
+379 B.C. lies hard and fast within the Spartan clutch. How she got there
+is now for us to tell.
+
+It was an act of treason, some three years before, that handed this city
+over to the tender mercies of her old ally, her present foe. There was a
+party in Thebes favorable to Sparta, at whose head was a man named
+Leontiades. And at this time Sparta was at war with Olynthus, a city far
+to the north. One Spartan army had marched to Olynthus. Another, led by
+a general named Phoebidas, was on its march thither, and had halted
+for a period of rest near the gymnasium, a short distance outside the
+walls of Thebes. There is good reason to believe that Phoebidas well
+knew what Leontiades designed, and was quite ready to play his part in
+the treacherous scheme.
+
+It was the day of the Thesmophoria, a religious festival celebrated by
+women only, no men being admitted. The Cadmeia, or citadel, had been
+given to their use, and was now occupied by women alone. It was a warm
+summer's day. The heat of noon had driven the people from the streets.
+The Senate of the city was in session in the portico of the agora, or
+forum, but their deliberations were drowsily conducted and the whole
+city seemed taking a noontide siesta.
+
+Phoebidas chose this warm noontide to put his army in march again,
+rounding the walls of Thebes. As the van passed the gates Leontiades,
+who had stolen away from the Senate and hastened on horseback through
+the deserted streets, rode up to the Spartan commander, and bade him
+turn and march inward through the gate which lay invitingly open before
+him. Through the deserted streets Phoebidas and his men rapidly made
+their way, following the traitor Theban, to the gates of the Cadmeia,
+which, like those of the town, were thrown open to his order as
+polemarch, or war governor; and the Spartans, pouring in, soon were
+masters not only of the citadel, but of the wives and daughters of the
+leading Theban citizens as well.
+
+The news got abroad only when it was too late to remedy the treacherous
+act. The Senate heard with consternation that their acropolis was in the
+hands of their enemies, their wives captives, their city at the mercy of
+the foe. Leontiades returned to his seat and at once gave orders for the
+arrest of his chief opponent Ismenias. He had a party armed and ready.
+The Senate was helpless. Ismenias was seized and conveyed to Sparta,
+where he was basely put to death. The other senators hurried home, glad
+to escape with their lives. Three hundred of them left the city in
+haste, and made their way as exiles to Athens. The other citizens, whose
+wives and daughters were in Spartan hands, felt obliged to submit.
+"Order reigned" in Thebes; such was the message which Leontiades bore to
+Sparta.
+
+Thus it was that Sparta gained possession of one of her greatest
+opponents. Leontiades and his fellows, backed by a Spartan general,
+ruled the city harshly. The rich were robbed, the prisons were filled,
+many more citizens fled into exile. Thebes was in the condition of a
+conquered city; the people, helpless and indignant, waited impatiently
+the slow revolution of the wheel of destiny which should once more set
+them free.
+
+As for the exiles at Athens, they sought in vain to obtain Athenian aid
+to recover their city from the foe. Athens was by no means in love with
+Sparta, but peace had been declared, and all they could agree to do was
+to give the fugitives a place of refuge. Evidently the city, which had
+been won by treason, was not to be recovered by open war. If set free at
+all it must be by secret measures. And with this intent a conspiracy was
+formed between the leaders of the exiles and certain citizens of Thebes
+for the overthrow of Leontiades and his colleagues and the expulsion of
+the Spartan garrison from the citadel. And this it was that brought the
+seven men to Thebes,--seven exiles, armed with hidden daggers, with
+which they were to win a city and start a revolution which in the end
+would destroy the power of Sparta the imperial.
+
+Of the seven exiles who thus returned, under cover of night and
+disguise, to their native city, the chief was Pelopidas, a rich and
+patriotic Theban, who was yet to prove himself one of the great men of
+Greece. Entering the gates, they proceeded quietly through the streets,
+and soon found an abiding-place in the house of Charon, an earnest
+patriot. This was their appointed rendezvous.
+
+And now we have a curious incident to tell, showing on what small
+accidents great events may hinge. Among the Thebans who had been let
+into the secret of the conspiracy was a faint-hearted man named
+Hipposthenidas. As the time for action drew near this timid fellow grew
+more and more frightened, and at length took upon himself, unknown to
+the rest, to stop the coming of the exiled patriots. He ordered Chlidon,
+a faithful slave of one of the seven, to ride in haste from Thebes, meet
+his master on the road, and bid him and his companions to go back to
+Athens, as circumstances had arisen which made their coming dangerous
+and their project impracticable.
+
+Chlidon, ready to obey orders, went home for his bridle, but failed to
+find it in its usual place. He asked his wife where it was. She
+pretended at first to help him look for it, but at last, in a tone of
+contrition, acknowledged that she had lent it, without asking him, to a
+neighbor. Chlidon, in a burst of anger at the delay to his journey,
+entered into a loud altercation with the woman, who grew angry on her
+part and wished him ill luck on his journey. Word led to word, both
+sides grew more angry and abusive, and at length he began to beat his
+wife, and continued his ill treatment until her cries brought neighbors
+in to separate them. But all this caused a loss of time, the bridle was
+not in this way to be had, and in the end Chlidon's journey was stopped,
+and the message he had been asked to bear never reached the conspirators
+on their way. Accidents of this kind often frustrate the best-laid
+plans. In this case the accident was providential to the conspiracy.
+
+And now, what were these seven men to do? Four men--Leontiades, Archias,
+Philippus, and Hypates--had the city under their control. But they were
+supported in their tyranny by a garrison of fifteen hundred Spartans and
+allies in the Cadmeia, and Lacedaemonian posts in the other cities
+around. These four men were to be dealt with, and for that purpose the
+seven had come. On the evening of the next day Archias and Philippus
+designed to have a banquet. Phyllidas, their secretary, but secretly one
+of the patriots, had been ordered to prepare the banquet for them, and
+had promised to introduce into their society on that occasion some women
+of remarkable beauty and of the best families in Thebes. He did not hint
+to them that these women would wear beards and carry daggers under their
+robes.
+
+We have told, in a previous tale, the story of the "Seven against
+Thebes." The one with which we are now concerned might be properly
+entitled the "Seven for Thebes." That night and the following day the
+devoted seven lay concealed. Evening came on. The hour when they were to
+play their parts had nearly arrived. They were in that state of strained
+expectation that brings the nerves to the surface, and started in sudden
+dread when a loud knock came upon the door. They were still more
+startled on hearing its purpose. A messenger had come to bid Charon
+instantly to come to the presence of the two feasting polemarchs.
+
+What did it mean? Had the plot been divulged? Had the timid
+Hipposthenidas betrayed them? At any rate, there was but one thing to
+do; Charon must go at once. But he, faithful soul, was most in dread
+that his friends should suspect him of treachery. He therefore brought
+his son, a highly promising youth of fifteen, and put him in the hands
+of Pelopidas as a hostage for his fidelity.
+
+"This is folly!" cried they all. "No one doubts you. Take the boy away.
+It is enough for us to face the danger; do not seek to bring the boy
+into the same peril."
+
+Charon would not listen to their remonstrances, but insisted on leaving
+the youth in their hands, and hastened away to the house of the
+polemarchs. He found them at the feast, already half intoxicated. Word
+had been sent them from Athens that some plot, they knew not what, was
+afloat. He was known to be a friend of the exiles. He must tell them
+what he knew about it.
+
+Fortunately, the pair were too nearly drunk to be acute. Their
+suspicions were very vague. Charon, aided by Phyllidas, had little
+trouble in satisfying them that the report was false. Eager to get back
+to their wine they dismissed him, very glad indeed to get away. Hardly
+had he gone before a fresh message, and a far more dangerous one, was
+brought to Archias, sent by a namesake of his at Athens. This gave a
+full account of the scheme and the names of those who were to carry it
+out. "It relates to a very serious matter," said the messenger who bore
+it.
+
+"Serious matters for to-morrow," cried Archias, with a drunken laugh, as
+he put the unopened despatch under the pillow of his couch and took up
+the wine-cup again.
+
+"Those whom the gods mean to destroy they first make mad," says an
+apposite Grecian proverb. These men were foredoomed.
+
+"A truce to all this disturbance," cried the two polemarchs to
+Phyllidas. "Where are the women whom you promised us? Let us see these
+famous high-born beauties."
+
+Phyllidas at once retired, and quickly returned with the seven
+conspirators, clothed in female attire. Leaving them in an adjoining
+chamber, he entered the banquet-room, and told the feasters that the
+women refused to come in unless all the domestics were first dismissed.
+
+"Let it be so," said Archias, and at the command of Phyllidas the
+domestics sought the house of one of their number, where the astute
+secretary had well supplied them with wine.
+
+The two polemarchs, with one or two friends, alone remained, all half
+intoxicated, and the only armed one being Cabeirichus, the archon, who
+was obliged by law to keep always with him the consecrated spear of
+office.
+
+And now the supposed and eagerly expected women were brought in,--three
+of them attired as ladies of distinction, the four others dressed as
+attendants. Their long veils and ample robes completely disguised them,
+and they sat down beside the polemarchs without a suspicion being
+entertained. Not till their drunken companions lifted their veils did
+the truth appear. But the lifting of the veils was the signal for quick
+and deep dagger thrusts, and Archias and Philippus, with scarcely a
+movement of resistance, fell dead from their seats. No harm was meant to
+the others, but the drunken archon rushed on the conspirators with his
+spear, and in consequence perished with his friends.
+
+There were two more of the tyrants to deal with. Phyllidas led three of
+the conspirators to the house of Leontiades, into which he was admitted
+as the bearer of an order from the polemarchs. Leontiades was reclining
+after supper, with his wife spinning wool by his side, when his foes
+entered his chamber, dagger in hand. A bold and strong man, he instantly
+sprang up, seized his sword, and with a thrust mortally wounded the
+first of the three. Then a desperate struggle took place in the doorway
+between him and Pelopidas, the place being too narrow for the third to
+approach. In the end Pelopidas dealt him a mortal blow. Then,
+threatening the wife with death if she gave the alarm, and closing the
+door with stern commands that it should not be opened again, the two
+patriots left the house and sought that of Hypates. He took the alarm
+and fled, and was pursued to the roof, where he was killed as he was
+trying to escape over the house-tops.
+
+This work done, and no alarm yet given, the conspirators proceeded to
+the prison, whose doors they ordered to be opened. The jailer hesitated,
+and was slain by a spear-thrust, the patriots rushing over his body into
+the prison, from whose cells the tenants were soon released. These, one
+hundred and fifty in number, sufferers for their patriotic sentiments,
+were quickly armed from battle-spoils kept near by, and drawn up in
+battle array. And now, for the first time, did the daring conspirators
+feel assurance of success.
+
+[Illustration: GATE OF THE AGORA OR OIL MARKET, ATHENS.]
+
+The tidings of what had been done by this time got abroad, and ran like
+wildfire through the city. Citizens poured excitedly into the streets.
+Epaminondas, who was afterwards to become the great leader of the
+Thebans, joined with some friends the small array of patriots.
+Proclamation was made throughout the city by heralds that the despots
+were slain and Thebes was free, and all Thebans who valued liberty were
+bidden to muster in arms in the market-place. All the trumpeters in the
+city were bidden to blow with might and main, from street to street, and
+thus excite the people to take arms to secure their liberty.
+
+While night lasted surprise and doubt continued, many of the citizens
+not knowing what to do. But with day-dawn came a wild outburst of joy
+and enthusiasm. Horsemen and footmen hastened in arms to the agora.
+Here a formal assembly of the Theban people was convened, before whom
+Pelopidas and his fellows appeared to tell what they had done. The
+priests crowned them with wreaths, while the people hailed them with
+joyful acclamations. With a single voice they nominated Pelopidas,
+Mellon, and Charon as Boeotarchs,--a Theban title of authority which
+had for a number of years been dropped.
+
+Such was the hatred which the long oppression had aroused, that the very
+women trod underfoot the slain jailer, and spat upon his corpse. In that
+city, where women rarely showed themselves in public, this outburst
+strongly indicated the general public rage against the overthrown
+despots. Messengers hastened to Attica to carry to the exiles the glad
+tidings, and soon they, with a body of Athenian volunteers, were in
+joyful march for the city.
+
+Meanwhile, the Spartans in the citadel were in a state of distraction
+and alarm. All night long the flashing of lights, the blare of trumpets,
+the shouts of excited patriots, the sound of hurrying feet in the city,
+had disturbed their troubled souls, and when affrighted partisans of the
+defeated party came hurrying for safety into the Cadmeia, with tidings
+of the tragic event, they were filled with confusion and dismay.
+Accustomed to look to the polemarchs for orders, the garrison did not
+know whom to trust or consult. They hastily sent out messengers to
+Thespiae and Plataea for aid, but the forces which came to their help from
+these cities were charged upon by the Thebans and driven back with loss.
+
+What to do the Spartan commander knew not. The citizens were swarming
+in the streets, and gathering in force around the citadel. That they
+intended to storm it before aid could come from Sparta was evident. In
+fact, they were already rushing to the assault,--large rewards being
+offered those who should first force their way in,--when a flag of truce
+from the garrison stopped them in mid-career. The commander proposed to
+capitulate.
+
+All he asked was liberty to march out of Thebes with the honors of war.
+This was granted him, under oath. At once the foreign garrison filed out
+from the citadel and marched to one of the gates, accompanied by the
+Theban refugees who had sought shelter with them. These latter had not
+been granted the honors of war. Among them were some of the prominent
+oppressors of the people. In a burst of ungovernable rage these were
+torn from the Spartan ranks by the people and put to death; even the
+children of some of them being slain. Few of the refugees would have
+escaped but for the Athenians present, who generously helped to get them
+safely through the gates and out of sight and reach of their infuriated
+townsmen.
+
+And thus, almost without a blow, in a night's and a morning's work, the
+city of Thebes, which for several years had lain helpless in the hands
+of its foes, regained its liberty. As for the Spartan harmosts, or
+leaders, who had capitulated without an attempt at defence, two of them
+were put to death on reaching home, the third was heavily fined and
+banished. Sparta had no mercy and no room for beaten men.
+
+Thebes was free! The news spread like an electric shock through the
+Grecian world. A few men, taking a desperate risk, had in an hour
+overthrown a government that seemed beyond assault. The empire of
+Sparta, the day before undisputed and nearly universal over Greece, had
+received a serious blow. Throughout all Greece men breathed easier,
+while the spirit of patriotism suddenly flamed again. The first blow in
+a coming revolution had been struck.
+
+
+
+
+_THE HUMILIATION OF SPARTA._
+
+
+Thebes was free! But would she stay free? Sparta was against
+her,--Sparta, the lord of Greece. Could a single city, however
+liberty-loving and devoted its people, maintain itself against that
+engine of war which had humbled mighty Athens and now lorded it over the
+world of Greece? This is the question we have to answer; how in a brief
+space the dominion of Sparta was lost, and Thebes, so long insignificant
+and almost despised, rose to take the foremost place in Greece.
+
+Two men did this work. As seven men had restored Thebes to freedom, two
+men lifted her almost into empire. One of these was Pelopidas, the
+leading spirit of the seven. The other was Epaminondas, whose name was
+simply mentioned in the tale of the patriotic seven, yet who in the
+coming years was to prove himself one of the greatest men Greece ever
+produced.
+
+Pelopidas belonged to one of the richest and highest families of Thebes.
+He was one of the youngest of the exiles, yet a man of earnest
+patriotism and unbounded daring. It was his ardent spirit that gave life
+to the conspiracy, and his boldness and enterprise that led it forward
+to success. And it was the death of Leontiades by his hand that freed
+Thebes.
+
+Epaminondas was a man of different character and position. Though of
+ancient and honorable family, he was poor, while Pelopidas was very
+rich; middle-aged, while Pelopidas was young; quiet, patient, and
+thoughtful, while Pelopidas was bold, active, and energetic. In the wars
+that followed he was the brain, while Pelopidas was the right hand, of
+Thebes. Epaminondas had been an earnest student of philosophy and music,
+and was an adept in gymnastic training. He was a listener, not a talker,
+yet no Theban equalled him in eloquence in time when speech was needful.
+He loved knowledge, yet he cared little for power, and nothing for
+money, and he remained contentedly poor till the end of his days, not
+leaving enough wealth to pay his funeral expenses. He did not love
+bloodshed, even to gain liberty. He had objected to the conspiracy,
+since freedom was to be gained through murder. Yet this was the man who
+was to save Thebes and degrade her great enemy, Sparta.
+
+Like Socrates and Alcibiades, these two men were the warmest friends.
+Their friendship, like that of the two great Athenians, had been
+cemented in battle. Standing side by side as hoplites (or heavy armed
+soldiers), on an embattled field, Pelopidas had fallen wounded, and
+Epaminondas had saved his life at the greatest danger to himself,
+receiving several wounds while bearing his helpless friend to a place of
+safety. To the end of their lives they continued intimate friends, each
+recognizing the peculiar powers of the other, and the two working like
+one man for Theban independence.
+
+Epaminondas proved himself a thinker of the highest military genius,
+Pelopidas a leader of the greatest military vigor. The work of the
+latter was largely performed with the Sacred Band, a warlike association
+of three hundred youthful Thebans, sworn to defend the citadel until
+death, bound by bonds of warm friendship, and trained into the highest
+military efficiency. Pelopidas was the captain of this noble band, which
+was never overcome until the fatal battle of Chaeronea, and then only by
+death, the Three Hundred lying dead in their ranks as they had stood.
+
+For the events with which we have now to deal we must leap over seven
+years from the freeing of Thebes. It will suffice to say that for two
+years of that time Sparta fought fiercely against that city, but could
+not bring it under subjection again. Then wars arose elsewhere and drew
+her armies away. Thebes now took the opportunity to extend her power
+over the other cities of Boeotia, and of one of these cities there is
+something of interest to tell.
+
+We have told in an earlier tale how Sparta and Thebes captured Plataea
+and swept it from the face of the earth. Recently Sparta had rebuilt the
+city, recalled its exiled citizens, and placed it as a Spartan outpost
+against Thebes. But now, when the armies of Sparta had withdrawn, the
+Thebans deemed it a good opportunity to conquer it again. One day, when
+the Plataean men were at work in their fields, and unbroken peace
+prevailed, a Theban force suddenly took the city by surprise, and forced
+the Plataeans to surrender at discretion. Poor Plataea was again levelled
+with the ground, her people were once more sent into exile, and her soil
+was added to that of Thebes. It may be well to say here that most of the
+Grecian cities consisted of the walled town and sufficient surrounding
+land to raise food for the inhabitants within, and that the farmers went
+out each morning to cultivate their fields, and returned each night
+within the shelter of their walls. It was this habit that gave Thebes
+its treacherous opportunity.
+
+During the seven years mentioned we hear nothing of Epaminondas, yet we
+know that he made himself felt within the walls of Thebes; for when, in
+371 B.C., the cities of Greece, satisfied that it was high time to stop
+cutting each other's throats, held a congress at Sparta to conclude
+peace, we find him there as the representative of Thebes.
+
+The terms of peace demanded by Athens, and agreed to by most of the
+delegates, were that each city, small or large, should possess autonomy,
+or self-government. Sparta and Athens were to become mutual guarantees,
+dividing the headship of Greece between them. As for Thebes and her
+claim to the headship of Boeotia, her demand was set aside.
+
+This conclusion reached, the cities one after another took oath to keep
+the terms of peace, each city swearing for itself except Sparta, which
+took the oath for itself and its allies. When it came to the turn of
+Thebes there was a break in this love-feast. Sparta had sworn for all
+the cities of Laconia; Epaminondas, as the representative of Thebes,
+insisted on swearing not for Thebes alone, but for Thebes as president
+of all Boeotia. He made a vigorous speech, asking why Sparta was
+granted rights from which other leading cities were debarred.
+
+This was a new question. No Greek had ever asked it openly before. To
+Sparta it seemed the extreme of insolence and insult. What daring
+stranger was this who presumed to question her right to absolute control
+of Laconia? No speech was made in her defence. Spartans never made
+speeches. They prided themselves on their few words and quick
+deeds,--_laconic_ utterances, as they have since been called. The
+Spartan king sprang indignantly from his seat.
+
+"Speak plainly," he scornfully demanded. "Will you, or will you not,
+leave to each of the Boeotian cities its separate autonomy?"
+
+"Will _you_ leave each of the Laconian towns its separate autonomy?"
+demanded Epaminondas.
+
+Not another word was said. Agesilaus, the Spartan king, who was also
+president of the congress, caused the name of Thebes to be stricken from
+the roll, and proclaimed that city to be excluded from the treaty of
+peace.
+
+It was a bold move on the part of Epaminondas, for it meant war with all
+the power of Sparta, relieved of all other enemies by the peace. Sparta
+had conquered and humbled Athens. It had conquered many other cities,
+forcing some of them to throw down their walls and go back again to
+their old state of villages. What upstart was this that dared defy its
+wrath and power? Thebes could hope for no allies, and seemed feeble
+against Spartan strength. How dared, then, this insolent delegate to
+fling defiance in the teeth of the lord of Greece?
+
+Fortunately Thebes needed no allies. It had two men of warlike genius,
+Epaminondas and Pelopidas. These were to prove in themselves worth a
+host of allies. The citizens were with them. Great as was the danger,
+the Thebans sustained Epaminondas in his bold action, and made him
+general of their army. He at once marched to occupy a pass by which it
+was expected the Spartans would come. Sparta at that moment had a strong
+army under Cleombrotus, one of its two kings, in Phocis, on the frontier
+of Boeotia. This was at once ordered to march against defiant Thebes.
+
+Cleombrotus lost no time, and with a military skill which Spartans
+rarely showed he evaded the pass which Epaminondas held, followed a
+narrow mountain-track, captured Creusis, the port of Thebes, with twelve
+war-ships in the harbor, and then marched to a place called Leuctra,
+within an easy march of Thebes, yet which left open communication with
+Sparta by sea, by means of the captured port.
+
+The Thebans had been outgeneralled, and were dismayed by the result. The
+Spartans and their king were full of confidence and joy. All the
+eloquence of Epaminondas and the boldness of Pelopidas were needed to
+keep the courage of their countrymen alive and induce them to march
+against their foes. And it was with much more of despair than of hope
+that they took up at length a position on the hilly ground opposite the
+Spartan camp.
+
+The two armies were not long in coming to blows. The Spartans and their
+allies much exceeded the Thebans in numbers. But Epaminondas prepared to
+make the most of his small force by drawing it up in a new array, never
+before seen in Greece.
+
+Instead of forming the narrow line of battle always before the rule in
+Greek armies, he placed in front of his left wing Pelopidas and the
+Sacred Band, and behind them arranged a mass of men fifty shields deep,
+a prodigious depth for a Grecian host. The centre and right were drawn
+up in the usual thin lines, but were kept back on the defensive, so that
+the deep column might join battle first.
+
+Thus arrayed, the army of Thebes marched to meet its foe, in the valley
+between the two declivities on which the hostile camps were placed. The
+cavalry met first, and the Theban horsemen soon put the Spartan troop to
+flight. Then the footmen came together with a terrible shock. Pelopidas
+and his Sacred Band, and behind them the weight of the fifty shields,
+proved more than the Spartans, with all their courage and discipline,
+could endure. Both sides fought bravely, hand to hand; but soon
+Cleombrotus fell, mortally hurt, and was with difficulty carried off
+alive. Around him fell others of the Spartan leaders. The resistance was
+obstinate, the slaughter terrible; but at last the Spartan right wing,
+overborne by the heavy Theban mass and utterly beaten, was driven back
+to its camp on the hill-side above. Meanwhile the left wing, made up of
+allies, did little fighting, and quickly followed the Spartans back to
+the camp.
+
+It was a crushing defeat. Of seven hundred Spartans who had marched in
+confidence from the camp, only three hundred returned thither in dismay.
+A thousand and more Lacedaemonians besides were left dead upon the field.
+Not since the day of Thermopylae had Sparta lost a king in battle. The
+loss of the Theban army was not more than three hundred men. Only twenty
+days had elapsed since Epaminondas left Sparta, spurned by the scorn of
+one of her kings; and now he stood victor over Sparta at Leuctra, with
+her second king dead in his camp of refuge. It is not surprising that to
+Greece, which had felt sure of the speedy overthrow of Thebes, these
+tidings came like a thunderbolt. Sparta on land had been thought
+irresistible. But here on equal ground, and with nearly double force,
+she had been beaten by insignificant Thebes.
+
+We must hasten to the end of this campaign. Sparta, wrought to
+desperation by her defeat, sent all the men she could spare in
+reinforcement. Thebes, too, sought allies, and found a powerful one in
+Jason of Pherae, a city of Thessaly. The Theban leaders, flushed with
+victory, were eager to attack the enemy in his camp, but Jason gave them
+wiser advice.
+
+"Be content," he said, "with the great victory you have gained. Do not
+risk its loss by attacking the Lacedaemonians driven to despair in their
+camp. You yourselves were in despair a few days ago. Remember that the
+gods take pleasure in bringing about sudden changes of fortune."
+
+This advice taken, Jason offered the enemy the opportunity to retreat in
+safety from their dangerous position. This they gladly accepted, and
+marched in haste away. On their journey home they met a second army
+coming to their relief. This was no longer needed, and the whole baffled
+force returned home.
+
+The military prestige held by Sparta met with a serious blow from this
+signal defeat. The prestige of Thebes suddenly rose into supremacy, and
+her control of Boeotia became complete. But the humiliation of Sparta
+was not yet near its end. Epaminondas was not the man to do things by
+halves. In November of 370 B.C. he marched an army into Arcadia (a
+country adjoining Laconia on the north), probably the largest hostile
+force that had ever been seen in the Peloponnesus. With its Arcadian and
+other allies it amounted to forty thousand, or, as some say, to seventy
+thousand, men, and among these the Thebans formed a body of splendidly
+drilled and disciplined troops, not surpassed by those of Sparta
+herself. The enthusiasm arising from victory, the ardor of Pelopidas,
+and the military genius of Epaminondas had made a wonderful change in
+the hoplites of Thebes in a year's time.
+
+And now a new event in the history of the Spartan commonwealth was seen.
+For centuries the Spartans had done their fighting abroad, marching at
+will through all parts of Greece. They were now obliged to fight on
+their own soil, in defence of their own hearths and homes. Dividing his
+army into four portions, Epaminondas marched into rock-bounded Laconia
+by four passes.
+
+The Arcadians had often felt the hard hand of their warlike neighbors.
+Only a snort time before one of their principal cities, Mantinea, had
+been robbed of its walls and converted into open villages. Since the
+battle of Leuctra the villagers had rebuilt their walls and defied a
+Spartan army. Now the Arcadians proved even more daring than the
+Thebans. They met a Spartan force and annihilated it.
+
+Into the country of Laconia pushed the invaders. The city of Sellasia
+was taken and burned. The river Eurotas was forded. Sparta lay before
+Epaminondas and his men.
+
+It lay before them without a wall or tower. Through its whole history no
+foreign army had come so near it. It trusted for defence not to walls,
+but to Spartan hearts and hands. Yet now consternation reigned. Sparta
+the inviolate, Sparta the unassailable, was in imminent peril of
+suffering the same fate it had often meted out freely to its foes.
+
+But the Spartans had not been idle. Allies had sent aid in all haste to
+the city. Even six thousand of the Helots were armed as hoplites, though
+to see such a body of their slaves in heavy armor alarmed the Spartans
+almost as much as to behold their foes so near at hand. In fact, many of
+the Helots and country people joined the Theban army, while others
+refused to come to the aid of the imperilled city.
+
+Epaminondas marched on until he was in sight of the city. He did not
+attempt to storm it. Though without walls, Sparta had strong natural
+defences, and heaps of earth and stones had been hastily thrown up on
+the most open roads. A strong army had been gathered. The Spartans would
+fight to death for their homes. To attack them in their stronghold
+might be to lose all that had been gained. Repulse here would be ruin.
+Content with having faced the lion in his den, Epaminondas turned and
+marched down the Eurotas, his army wasting, plundering, and burning as
+it went, while the Spartans, though in an agony of shame and wounded
+honor, were held back by their king from the peril of meeting their
+enemy in the field.
+
+In the end, his supplies growing scarce, his soldiers loaded with
+plunder, Epaminondas led his army back to Arcadia, having accomplished
+far more than any foe of Sparta had ever done before, and destroyed the
+warlike reputation of Sparta throughout Greece.
+
+But the great Theban did not end here. He had two other important
+objects in view. One was to consolidate the Arcadians by building them a
+great central city, to be called Megalopolis (Great City), and inhabited
+by people from all parts of the state. This was done, thick and lofty
+walls, more than five miles and a half in circumference, being built
+round the new stronghold.
+
+His other purpose was to restore the country of Messenia. We have
+already told how this country had been conquered by the Spartans
+centuries before, and its people exiled or enslaved. Their descendants
+were now to regain their liberty and their homes. A new city, to be
+named Messenia, was ordered by Epaminondas to be built, and this, at the
+request of the Messenians, was erected on Mount Ithome, where the
+gallant hero Aristomenes had made his last stand against his country's
+invaders.
+
+The city was built, the walls rising to the music of Argeian and
+Boeotian flutes. The best architects and masons of Greece were invited
+to lay out the plans of streets and houses and of the sacred edifices.
+The walls were made so strong and solid that they became the admiration
+of after-ages. The surrounding people, who had been slaves of Sparta,
+were made freemen and citizens of the reorganized state. A wide area of
+land was taken from Laconia and given to the new communities which
+Epaminondas had formed. Then, in triumph, he marched back to Thebes,
+having utterly destroyed the power and prestige of Sparta in Greece.
+
+Reaching home, he was put on trial by certain enemies. He had broken the
+law by keeping command of the army four months beyond the allotted time.
+He appealed to the people, with what result we can readily understand.
+He was acquitted by acclamation, and he and Pelopidas were immediately
+re-elected Boeotarchs (or generals) for the coming year.
+
+
+
+
+_TIMOLEON, THE FAVORITE OF FORTUNE._
+
+
+In the city of Corinth dwelt two brothers; one of whom, named Timoleon,
+was distinguished alike for his courage, gentleness, patriotism, lack of
+ambition, and hatred of despots and traitors; the other, named
+Timophanes, was noted for bravery and enterprise, but also for
+unprincipled ambition and lack of patriotism. Timophanes, being a
+valiant soldier, had gained high rank in the army of Corinth. Timoleon
+loved his unworthy brother and sought to screen his faults. He did more:
+he saved his life at frightful peril to himself. During a battle between
+the army of Corinth and that of some neighboring state, Timophanes, who
+commanded the cavalry, was thrown from his wounded horse very near to
+the enemy. The cavalry fled, leaving him to what seemed certain death.
+But Timoleon, who was serving with the infantry, rushed from the ranks
+and covered his brother with his shield just as the enemy were about to
+pierce him. They turned in numbers on the defender, with spears and
+darts, but he warded off their blows, and protected his fallen brother
+at the cost of several wounds to himself, until others rushed to the
+rescue and drove back the foe.
+
+The whole city was full of admiration of Timoleon for this act of
+devotion. Timophanes also was raised in public estimation through his
+brother's deed, and was placed in an important post. Corinth was
+governed by an aristocracy, who, just then, brought in a garrison of
+four hundred foreign soldiers and placed them in the citadel. Timophanes
+was given command of this garrison and control of the stronghold.
+
+The governors of the city did not know their man. Here was an
+opportunity for the unlimited ambition of the new commander. Gaining
+some armed partisans among the poorer citizens, and availing himself of
+the control of fort and garrison, Timophanes soon made himself master of
+the city, and seized and put to death all who opposed him among the
+chief citizens. Unwittingly the Corinthian aristocrats had put over
+themselves a cruel despot.
+
+But they found also a defender. The crimes of his brother at first
+filled Timoleon with shame and sorrow. He went to the citadel and begged
+Timophanes, by all he held sacred, to renounce his ambitious projects.
+The new despot repelled his appeal with contempt. Timoleon went again,
+this time with three friends, but with no better effect. Timophanes
+laughed them to scorn, and as they continued their pleading he grew
+angry and refused to hear more. Then the three friends drew their swords
+and killed the tyrant on the spot, while Timoleon stood aside, with his
+face hidden and his eyes bathed in tears.
+
+He who had saved his brother's life at the risk of his own had now
+consented to his death to save his country. But personally, although all
+Corinth warmly applauded his patriotic act, he was thrown into the most
+violent grief and remorse. This was the greater from the fact that his
+mother viewed his deed with horror and execration, invoked curses on his
+head, and refused even to see him despite his earnest supplications.
+
+The gratitude of the city was overcome in his mind by grief for his
+brother, and he was attacked by the bitterest pangs of remorse. The
+killing of the tyrant he had felt to be a righteous and necessary act.
+The murder of his brother afflicted him with despair. For a time he
+refused food, resolving to end his odious life by starvation. Only the
+prayers of his friends made him change this resolution. Then, like one
+pursued by the furies, he fled from the city, hid himself in solitude,
+and kept aloof from the eyes and voices of men. For several years he
+thus dwelt in self-afflicting solitude, and when at length time reduced
+his grief and he returned to the city, he shunned all prominent
+positions, and lived in humility and retirement. Thus time went on until
+twenty years had passed, Timoleon still, in spite of the affection and
+sympathy of his fellow-citizens, refusing any office or place of
+authority.
+
+But now an event occurred which was to make this grieving patriot famous
+through all time, as the favored of the gods and one of the noblest of
+men,--the Washington of the far past. To tell how this came about we
+must go back some distance in time. Corinth, though it played no leading
+part in the wars of Greece, like Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, was still
+a city of much importance, its situation on the isthmus between the
+Peloponnesus and northern Greece being excellent for commerce and
+maritime enterprise. Many years before it had sent out a colony which
+founded the city of Syracuse, in Sicily. It was in aid of this city of
+Syracuse that Timoleon was called upon to act.
+
+We have already told how Athens sought to capture this city and ruined
+herself in the enterprise. After that time of triumph Syracuse passed
+through several decades of terror and woe. Tyrants set their feet on her
+fair neck, and almost crushed her into the earth. One of these,
+Dionysius by name, had made his power felt by far-off Greece and nearer
+Carthage, and for years ruled over Sicily with a rod of iron. His
+successor, Dion, a friend and pupil of the philosopher Plato, became an
+oppressor when he came into power. Then another Dionysius gained the
+throne, a cowardly and drunken wretch, who repeated the acts of his
+tyrannical father.
+
+Such was the state of affairs in Sicily when Timoleon was dwelling
+quietly at home in Corinth, a man of fifty, with no ambitious thought
+and no ruling desire except to reach the end of his sorrow-laden life.
+So odious now had the tyranny of Dionysius become that the despairing
+Syracusans sent a pathetic appeal to Corinth, their mother city, praying
+for aid against this brutal despot and the Carthaginians, who had
+invaded the island of Sicily in force.
+
+Corinth just then, fortunately, had no war on hand,--a somewhat
+uncommon condition for a Greek city at that day. The citizens voted at
+once to send the aid asked for. But who should be the leader? There were
+danger and difficulty in the enterprise, with little hope for profit,
+and none of the Corinthian generals or politicians seemed eager to lead
+this forlorn hope. The archons called out their names one by one, but
+each in succession declined. The archons had come nearly to their wits'
+end whom to choose, when from an unknown voice in the assembly came the
+name "Timoleon." The archons seized eagerly on the suggestion, hastily
+chose Timoleon for the post which all the leading men declined, and the
+assembly adjourned.
+
+Timoleon, who sadly needed some active exertion to relieve him from the
+weight of eating thought, accepted the thankless enterprise, heedless
+probably of the result. He at once began to gather ships and soldiers.
+But he found the Corinthians more ready to select a commander than to
+provide him with means and men. Little money was forthcoming; few men
+seemed ready to enlist; Timoleon had no great means of his own. In the
+end he only got together seven triremes and one thousand men,--the most
+of them mere mercenaries. Three more ships and two hundred men were
+afterwards added.
+
+And thus, with this small force, Timoleon set out to conquer a city and
+kingdom on whose conquest Athens, years before, had lavished hundreds of
+ships and tens of thousands of men in vain. The effort seemed utterly
+puerile. Was the handful of Corinthians to succeed where all the
+imperial power of Athens had failed? Yet the gods fought with Timoleon.
+
+In truth, from the day he left Corinth, those presages of fortune, on
+which the Greeks so greatly depended, gathered about his path across the
+seas. The signs and tokens were all favorable. While he was at Delphi,
+seeking the favor of Apollo, a fillet with wreaths and symbols of
+victory fell from a statue upon his head, and the goddess Persephone
+told her priestess in a dream that she was about to sail with Timoleon
+to Sicily, her favorite island. He took, therefore, a special trireme,
+sacred to the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, both of whom were to
+accompany him. While at sea this sacred trireme was illumined by a light
+from heaven, while a burning torch on high seemed to guide the fleet to
+a safe harbor. All these portents filled the adventurers with hope and
+joy.
+
+But Timoleon had himself to depend on as well as the gods. At the
+Italian port of Rhegium he found Hicetas, the despot of a Sicilian city,
+who had invited him to Sicily, but was now allied with the
+Carthaginians. He had there twenty of the war-ships of Carthage, double
+the force of Timoleon. Yet the shrewd Corinthian played with and tricked
+him, set him to talking and the people of Rhegium to talking with him,
+and slipped slyly out of the harbor with his ships while the
+interminable talk went on.
+
+This successful stratagem redoubled the spirit of his followers. Landing
+at a small town on the Sicilian coast, a new enterprise presented
+itself. Forty miles inland lay the town of Adranum, sacred to the god
+Adranus, a deity worshipped throughout Sicily. There were two parties in
+Adranum, one of which invited Timoleon, the other Hicetas. The latter at
+once started thither, with a force of five thousand men, an army with
+which that of Timoleon seemed too small to cope. But heedless of this
+discrepancy Timoleon hastened thither, and on arriving near the town
+perceived that the opposing army had outstripped him in speed. Hicetas,
+not aware of the approach of a foe, had encamped, and his men were
+disarmed and at their suppers.
+
+The small army of Timoleon, worn out with their long and rapid march,
+and in sight of an enemy four times their number, were loath to move
+farther; but their leader, who knew that his only chance for victory lay
+in a surprise, urged them forward, seized his shield and placed himself
+at their head, and led them so suddenly on the foe that the latter,
+completely surprised, fled in utter panic. Three hundred were killed,
+six hundred taken, and the rest, abandoning their camp, hastened at all
+speed back to Syracuse.
+
+Again the gods spoke in favor of Timoleon. Just as the battle began the
+gates of the temple of Adranus burst open, and the god himself appeared
+with brandished spear and perspiring face. So said the awe-struck
+Adranians, and there was no one to contradict their testimony.
+
+Superstition came here to the adventurer's aid. The report of the god's
+doings did as much as the victory to add to the fame of Timoleon.
+Reinforcements flocked to his ranks, and several towns sought alliance
+with him. He now, with a large and confident army, marched to Syracuse,
+and defied his foe to meet him in the field.
+
+Hicetas was master of all Syracuse except the stronghold of Ortygia,
+which was held by Dionysius, and which Hicetas had blockaded by sea and
+land. Timoleon had no means of capturing it, and as the enemy would not
+come out from behind its walls, he would soon have had to retire had not
+fortune again helped her favorite son, and this time in an extraordinary
+manner.
+
+As it happened, Dionysius was growing short of provisions, was beginning
+to despair of holding Ortygia, and was withal a man of indolent and
+drunken habits, without a tithe of his father's spirit and energy. He
+was like a fox driven to bay, and having heard of the victory of
+Timoleon, it occurred to him that he would be better off in yielding the
+city to these Corinthians than losing it to his Sicilian foe. All he
+wished was the promise of a safe asylum and comfortable maintenance in
+the future. He therefore agreed with Timoleon to surrender the city,
+with the sole proviso that he should be taken safely with his property
+to Corinth and given freedom of residence in that city. This Timoleon
+instantly and gladly granted, the city was yielded, and Dionysius passed
+into Timoleon's camp with a few companions.
+
+We can imagine the astonishment of the people of Corinth when a trireme
+came into their harbor with tidings of the remarkable success of their
+townsman, and bearing as striking evidence the person of the late
+tyrant of Sicily. Only fifty days had passed since he left their city
+with his thousand men, and already he had this extraordinary prize to
+show. At once they voted him a reinforcement of two thousand hoplites
+and five hundred cavalry, and willingly granted the dethroned king a
+safe residence in their city. In after years, so report says, Dionysius
+opened a school there for teaching boys to read, and instructed the
+public singers in their art. Certainly this was an innocent use to put a
+tyrant to.
+
+Ortygia contained a garrison of two thousand soldiers and vast
+quantities of military stores. Timoleon, after taking possession,
+returned to Adranum, leaving his lieutenant Neon in command. Soon
+after--Hicetas having left Syracuse for the purpose of cutting off
+Neon's source of provisions--a sudden sally was made, the blockading
+army taken by surprise and driven back with loss, and another large
+section of the city was added to Timoleon's gains.
+
+This success was quickly followed by another. The reinforcement from
+Corinth had landed at Thurii, on the east coast of Italy. The
+Carthaginian admiral, thinking that they could not easily get away from
+that place, sailed to Ortygia, where he displayed Grecian shields and
+had his seamen crowned with wreaths. He fancied that by these signs of
+victory he would frighten the garrison into surrender. But the garrison
+were not so easily scared; and meanwhile the Corinthian troops, tired of
+Thurii, and not able to get away by sea, had left their ships and
+marched rapidly overland to the narrow strait of Messina, that
+separated Italy from Sicily. They found this unguarded,--the
+Carthaginian ships being away on their mission of alarm to Ortygia. And,
+by good fortune, several days of stormy weather had been followed by a
+sudden and complete calm, so that the Corinthians were enabled to cross
+in fishing and other boats and reach Sicily in safety. Thus by a new
+favor of fortune Timoleon gained this valuable addition to his small
+army.
+
+Timoleon now marched against Syracuse, where fortune once more came to
+his aid. For Magon, the Carthaginian admiral, had begun to doubt
+Hicetas. He doubted him the more when he saw the men of Timoleon and
+those of Hicetas engaged in fishing for eels together in the marshy
+grounds between the armies, and seemingly on very friendly terms.
+Thinking he was betrayed, he put all his troops on board ship and sailed
+away for Africa.
+
+It may well be imagined that Timoleon and his men saw with surprise and
+joy this sudden flight of the Carthaginian ships. With shouts of
+encouragement they attacked the city on all sides. To their
+astonishment, scarcely any defence was made. In fact, the army of
+Hicetas, many of them Greeks, were largely in favor of Timoleon, while
+the talk of the eel catching soldiers in the marshes had won many more
+over. As a result, Timoleon took the great city of Syracuse, on which
+the Athenians had vainly sacrificed hundreds of ships and thousands of
+men, without the loss of a single man, killed or wounded.
+
+Such a succession of astonishing favors of fortune has rarely been seen
+in the world's history. The news flew through Sicily, Italy, and Greece,
+and awakened wonder and admiration everywhere. Only a few months had
+passed since Timoleon left Corinth, and already, with very little loss,
+he was master of Syracuse and of much of Sicily, and had sent the
+dreaded Sicilian tyrant to dwell as a common citizen in Corinth. His
+ability seemed remarkable, his fortune superhuman, and men believed that
+the gods themselves had taken him under their especial care.
+
+And now came the temptation of power, to which so many great men have
+fallen victims. Timoleon had but to say the word and he would be despot
+of Syracuse. Everybody looked for this as the next move. In Ortygia rose
+the massive citadel within which Dionysius had defied revolt or
+disaffection. Timoleon had but to establish himself there, and his word
+would be the law throughout Syracuse, if not throughout Sicily. What
+would he do?
+
+What he proposed to do was quickly shown. He proclaimed that this
+stronghold of tyranny should be destroyed, and invited every Syracusan
+that loved liberty to come with crowbar and hammer and join in the work
+of levelling to the ground the home and citadel of Dionysius. The
+astounded citizens could scarcely believe their ears. What! destroy the
+tyrant's stronghold! Set Syracuse free! What manner of man was this?
+With joyous acclaim they gathered, and heaved and tugged until the
+massive walls were torn stone from stone, and the vast edifice levelled
+with the ground, while the time passed like a holiday, and songs of joy
+and triumph made their work light.
+
+The Bastile of Syracuse down, Timoleon ordered that the materials should
+be used to build courts of justice,--for justice was henceforth to
+replace despotism in that tyrant-ridden city. But he had more to do. So
+long had oppression and suffering lasted that the city was half deserted
+and the very market-place turned into a horse pasture. The same was the
+case with other cities of Sicily. Even the fields were but half
+cultivated. Ruin had swept over that fertile island far and wide.
+
+Timoleon now sent invitations everywhere, inviting exiles to return and
+new colonists to come and people the island. To make them sure that they
+would not be oppressed, a new constitution was formed, giving all the
+power to the people. The invitation was accepted. From all quarters
+colonists came, while ten thousand exiles and others sailed from
+Corinth. In the end no fewer than sixty thousand new citizens were added
+to Syracuse.
+
+Meanwhile Timoleon put down the other despots of Sicily and set the
+cities free. Hicetas, his old enemy, was forced to give up his control
+of Leontini, to which he had retired on the loss of Syracuse. But the
+snake retained his venom. The Carthaginians were furious at the flight
+of their fleet. Hicetas stirred them up to another invasion of the
+liberated island.
+
+How long they were in preparing for this expedition we do not know, but
+it was made on a large scale. An army of seventy thousand men landed on
+the western corner of the island, brought thither by a fleet of two
+hundred triremes and one thousand transports. In the army were ten
+thousand heavy-armed Carthaginians, who carried white shields and wore
+elaborate breastplates. Among these were many of the rich men of
+Carthage, who brought with them costly baggage and rich articles of gold
+and silver. Twenty-five hundred of them were called the Sacred Band of
+Carthage. That great city had rarely before made such a determined
+effort at conquest.
+
+Timoleon was not idle in the face of this great invasion. But the whole
+army he could muster was but twelve thousand strong, a pitiable total to
+meet so powerful a foe. And as he marched to meet the enemy distrust and
+fear marched in his ranks. Such was the dread that one division of the
+army, one thousand strong, mutinied and deserted, and it needed all his
+personal influence to keep the rest together.
+
+Yet Timoleon had in him the spirit that commands success. He pushed on
+with his disheartened force until near the river Crimesus, beyond which
+was encamped the great army of Carthage. Some mules laden with parsley
+met the Corinthians on the road. Parsley was used for the wreaths laid
+on tombstones. It seemed a fatal omen. But Timoleon, with the quickness
+of genius, seized some of it, wove a wreath for his head, and cried,
+"This is our Corinthian symbol of victory: it is the sacred herb with
+which we decorate the victors at the Isthmian festival. Its coming
+signifies success." With these encouraging words he restored the
+spirits of the army, and led them on to the top of the hill overlooking
+the Crimesus.
+
+It was a misty May morning. Nothing could be seen; but from the valley a
+loud noise and clatter arose. The Carthaginians were on the march, and
+had begun to cross the stream. Soon the mist rose and the formidable
+host was seen. A multitude of war-chariots, each drawn by four horses,
+had already crossed. The ten thousand native Carthaginians, bearing
+their white shields, were partly across. The main body of the host was
+hastening in disorderly march to the rugged banks of the stream.
+
+Fortune had favored Timoleon again. If he hoped for success this was the
+moment to attack. The enemy was divided and in disorder. With cheery
+words he bade his men to charge. The cavalry dashed on in front. Seizing
+a shield, Timoleon sprang to the front and led on his footmen, rousing
+them to activity by exultant words and bidding the trumpets to sound.
+Rushing down the hill and through the line of chariots, the charging
+mass poured on the Carthaginian infantry. These fought bravely and
+defied the Grecian spears with the strength of their armor. The
+assailants had to take to their swords, and try and hew their way
+through the dense ranks of the foe.
+
+The result was in serious doubt, when once more the gods--as it
+seemed--came to Timoleon's aid. A violent storm suddenly arose. Darkness
+shrouded the hill-tops. The wind blew a hurricane. Rain and hail poured
+down in torrents, while the clouds flashed with lightning and roared
+with thunder. And all this was on the backs of the Greeks; in the faces
+of the Carthaginians. They could not hear the orders of their officers.
+The ground became so muddy that many of them slipped and fell: and once
+down their heavy armor would not let them rise again. The Greeks, driven
+forward by the wind, attacked their foes with double energy. At length,
+blinded by the driving storm, distracted by the furious assault, and
+four hundred of their front ranks fallen, the white shield battalion
+turned and fled.
+
+But flight was not easy. They met their own troops coming up. The stream
+had become suddenly swollen with the rain. In the confused flight
+numbers were drowned. The panic spread from rank to rank until the whole
+host was in total rout, flying wildly over the hills, leaving their camp
+and baggage to the victors, who pursued and slaughtered them in
+thousands as they fled.
+
+Such a complete victory had rarely been won. Ten thousand Carthaginians
+were killed and fifteen thousand made prisoners, their war chariots were
+captured, and the spoil found in the camp and on the track of the flying
+army was prodigiously great. As for the Sacred Band, it was annihilated.
+The story is told that it was slain to a man. The broken remnants of the
+flying army hastened to their ships, which they were half afraid to
+enter, for fear the gods that helped Timoleon would destroy them on the
+seas. And thus was Sicily freed.
+
+The thousand deserters who had left Timoleon's army on its march were
+ordered by him to leave the island at once. They did so, crossed the
+Strait of Messina, and took possession of a site in southern Italy,
+where they were attacked by the people and every man of them slain. As
+regards the concluding events of our story, it will suffice to say that
+Timoleon had other fighting to do, with Carthaginians and despots; but
+his wonderful fortune continued throughout, and before long Sicily held
+not an enemy in arms.
+
+And now came the greatest triumph of the Corinthian victor. One master
+alone remained in Sicily,--himself. Despotic power was his had he said
+the word. The people warmly requested him to retain his control. But no;
+he had come to free them from tyranny, and free they should be. He laid
+down at once all his power, gave up the command of the army, and went to
+live as a private citizen of Syracuse, without office or power.
+
+A single dominion yet remained to him,--that of affection. The people
+worshipped him. His voice was law. As he grew older his sight failed,
+until he became totally blind. Yet still, when any difficult question
+arose, the people trusted to their sightless benefactor to tell them
+what to do. On such occasions Timoleon would be brought in his car,
+drawn by mules across the market-place, and then by attendants into the
+hall of assembly. Here, still seated in his car, he would listen to the
+debate, and in the end give his own opinion, which was usually accepted
+by nearly the whole assembly. This done, the car would be drawn out
+again amid shouts and cheers, and the blind "father of his country"
+return to his modest home.
+
+Such liberty and prosperity as now ruled in Sicily had not for a
+century been known, and when, three or four years after the great
+victory of the Crimesus, Timoleon suddenly died, the grief of the people
+was universal and profound. His funeral obsequies were splendidly
+celebrated at the public cost, his body was burned on a vast funeral
+pile, and as the flames flashed upward a herald proclaimed,--
+
+"The Syracusan people solemnize, at the cost of two hundred minae, the
+funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They
+have passed a vote to honor him for all future time with festival
+matches in music, horse and chariot races, and gymnastics; because,
+after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and
+recolonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the
+Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws."
+
+And thus died one of the noblest and most successful men the world has
+ever known. The fratricide of his earlier years was for the good of
+mankind, and his whole life was consecrated to the cause of human
+liberty, while not a thought of self-aggrandizement seems to have ever
+disturbed his noble soul.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SACRED WAR._
+
+
+There were two places in Greece which had been set aside as
+sacred,--Plataea, the scene of the final defeat of the Persian invaders,
+and Delphi, the seat of the great temple of Apollo, in whose oracles all
+Greece placed faith. We have already seen how little the sacredness of
+Plataea protected it from ruin. We have next to see how the sacredness of
+Delphi was condemned, and how all Greece suffered in consequence.
+
+The temple of Apollo at Delphi had long been held so inviolate that it
+became a rich reservoir of treasures, gathered throughout the centuries.
+Croesus, the rich king of Lydia, sent thither the overflow of his
+wealth, and hundreds of others paid liberally for the promises of the
+priestess, until the treasures of Delphi became a by-word in Greece.
+This vast wealth was felt to be safe. The god would protect his own.
+Men's voices were deep with awe when they told how the wrath of Apollo
+had overthrown the Persian robbers who sought to rifle his holy fane.
+And yet the time came when a horde of bandit Greeks made the temple
+their prey and the hand of the god was not lifted in its defence, nor
+did outraged Greece rise to punish the sacrilegious robbers. This is the
+tale that we have next to tell, that of the so-called Sacred War, with
+all it meant to Greece.
+
+There was a great Greek council, centuries old, called the
+Amphictyonic. It met twice every year, usually for religious purposes,
+rarely for political. But in the time we have now reached this
+Amphictyonic Council ventured to meddle in politics, and made mischief
+of the direst character. Its first political act was to fine Sparta five
+hundred talents for seizing the citadel of Thebes in times of peace. The
+fine was to be doubled if not paid within a certain time. But as Sparta
+sneered at the fine, and neither paid it nor its double, the action of
+the council proved of little avail.
+
+[Illustration: BED OF THE RIVER KLADEOS.]
+
+This was of small importance; it was to the next act of the council that
+the mischief was due. The people of the small state of Phocis, adjoining
+Delphi, had been accused of cultivating a part of the Cirrhaean plain,
+which was consecrated to Apollo. This charge, like the former, was
+brought by Thebes, and the Amphictyonic Council, having fined Sparta,
+now, under Theban influence, laid a fine on the Phocians so heavy that
+it was far beyond their means of payment. But Sparta had not paid; why
+should they? The sentence troubled them little.
+
+At the next meeting of the council severer measures were taken. Sparta
+was strong; Phocis weak. It was resolved to seize all its territory and
+consecrate it to Apollo. This unjust sentence roused the Phocians. A
+bold citizen, Philomelus by name, told them that they must now face war
+or ruin. The district of Delphi had once been theirs, and had been taken
+from them wrongfully. "Let us assert our lost rights and seize the
+temple," he said. "The Thebans want it; let us anticipate them and take
+back our own."
+
+His words took fire. A strong force was raised, the town and temple were
+attacked, and both, being practically undefended, were quickly captured.
+Phocis had regained her own, for Delphi had been taken from her during
+an older "Sacred War."
+
+Philomelus now announced that the temple and its oracles would not be
+meddled with. Its treasures would be safe. Visitors would be free to
+come and go. He would give any security that Greece required that the
+wealth of Apollo should be safe and all go on as before. But he
+fortified the town, and invited mercenary soldiers till he had an army
+of five thousand men. As for the priestess of Apollo, from whose lips
+the oracles came, he demanded that she should continue to be inspired as
+before, and should give an oracle in his favor. The priestess refused;
+whereupon he seized her and sought to drag her to the holy tripod on
+which she was accustomed to sit. The woman, scared by his violence,
+cried out, "You may do what you choose!"
+
+Philomelus at once proclaimed this as an oracle in his favor, and
+published it widely. And it is interesting to learn that many of the
+superstitious Greeks took his word for it. He certainly took the word of
+the priestess,--for he did what he chose.
+
+War at once began. Many of the Greek states rose at the call of the
+condemned Amphictyonic Council. The Phocians were in imminent peril.
+They were far from strong enough for the war they had invoked. Mercenary
+troops--"soldiers of fortune"--must be hired; and to hire them money
+must be had. The citizens of Delphi had already been taxed; the Phocian
+treasury was empty; where was money to be obtained?
+
+Philomelus settled this question by _borrowing_, with great reluctance,
+a sum from the temple treasures,--to be paid back as soon as possible.
+But as the war went on and more money was needed, he borrowed again and
+again,--now without reluctance. And the practice of robbery once
+started, he not only paid his troops, but enriched his friends and
+adorned his wife from Apollo's hoarded wealth.
+
+By this means Philomelus got together an army of ten thousand
+men,--reckless, dissolute characters, the impious scum of Greece, for no
+pious Greek would enlist in such a cause. The war was ferocious. The
+allies put their prisoners to death. Philomelus followed their example.
+This was a losing game, and both sides gave it up. At length Philomelus
+and his army were caught in an awkward position, the army was dispersed,
+and he driven to the verge of a precipice, where he must choose between
+captivity or death. He chose the latter and leaped from the beetling
+crags.
+
+The Thebans and their allies foolishly believed that with the death of
+Philomelus the war was at an end, and marched for their homes.
+Onomarchus, another Phocian leader, took the opportunity thus afforded
+to gather the scattered army together again, seized the temple once
+more, and stood in defiance of all his foes.
+
+In addition to gold and silver, the treasury contained many gifts in
+brass and iron. The precious metals were melted and converted into
+money; of the baser metals arms were made. Onomarchus went farther than
+Philomelus; he not only paid his troops with the treasure, but bribed
+the leaders of Grecian states, and thus gained powerful friends. He was
+soon successfully at war, drove back his foes, and pressed his conquests
+till he had captured Thermopylae and invaded Thessaly.
+
+Here the Phocians came into contact with a foe dangerous to themselves
+and to all Greece. This foe was the celebrated Philip of Macedonia, a
+famous soldier who was to play a leading part in the subsequent game. He
+had long been paving the way to the conquest of Greece, and the Sacred
+War gave him just the opportunity he wanted.
+
+Macedonia lay north of Greece. Its people were not Greeks, nor like
+Greeks in their customs. They lived in the country, not in cities, and
+had little or none of the culture of Greece. But they were the stuff
+from which good soldiers are made. Hitherto this country had been hardly
+thought of as an element in the Grecian problem. Its kings were despots
+who had been kept busy with their foes at home. But now a king had
+arisen of wider views and larger mould. Philip had spent his youth in
+Thebes, where he had learned the art of war under Epaminondas. On coming
+to the throne he quickly proved himself a great soldier and a keen and
+cunning politician. By dint of war and trickery he rapidly spread his
+dominions until all his home foes were subdued, Macedonia was greatly
+extended, and Thessaly, the most northern state of Greece, was overrun.
+
+Therefore the invasion of Thessaly by the Phocians brought them into
+contact with the Macedonians. At first Onomarchus was successful. He won
+two battles and drove Philip back to his native state. But another large
+army was quickly in the field, and this time the army of Onomarchus was
+utterly beaten and himself slain. As for Philip, although he probably
+cared not an iota for the Delphian god, he shrewdly professed to be on a
+crusade against the impious Phocians, and drowned all his prisoners as
+guilty of sacrilege.
+
+A third leader, Phayllus by name, now took command of the Phocians, and
+the temple of Apollo was rifled still more freely than before. The
+splendid gifts of King Croesus had not yet been touched. They were
+held too precious to be meddled with. But Phayllus did not hesitate to
+turn these into money. One hundred and seventeen ingots of gold and
+three hundred and sixty golden goblets went to the melting-pot, and with
+them a golden statue three cubits high and a lion of the same precious
+metal. And what added to the horror of pious Greece was that much of the
+proceeds of these precious treasures was lavished on favorites. The
+necklaces of Helen and Eriphyle were given to dissolute women, and a
+woman flute-player received a silver cup and a golden wreath from the
+temple hoard.
+
+All this gave Philip of Macedonia the desired pretence. He marched
+against the Phocians, who held Thermopylae, while keeping his Athenian
+enemies quiet by lies and bribes. The leader of the Phocian garrison,
+finding that no aid came from the Athenian fleet, surrendered to
+Philip, and that astute monarch won what he had long schemed for, the
+Pass of Thermopylae, the Key of Greece.
+
+The Sacred War was at an end, and with it virtually the independence of
+Greece. Phocis was in the hands of Philip, who professed more than ever
+to be the defender and guardian of Apollo. All the towns in Phocis were
+broken up into villages, and the inhabitants were ordered to be fined
+ten talents annually till they had paid back all they had stolen from
+the temple. Philip gave back the temple to the Delphians, and was
+himself voted into membership in the Amphictyonic assembly in place of
+the discarded Phocians. And all this took place while a treaty of peace
+tied the hands of the Greeks. The Sacred War had served as a splendid
+pretext to carry out the ambitious plans of the Macedonian king.
+
+We have now a long story to tell in a few words. Another people, the
+Locrians, had also made an invasion on Delphian territory. The
+Amphictyonic Council called on Philip to punish them, He at once marched
+southward, but, instead of meddling with the Locrians, seized and
+fortified a town in Phocis. At once Athens, full of alarm, declared war,
+and Philip was as quick to declare war in return. Both sides sought the
+support of Thebes, and Athens gained it. In August, 338 B.C., the
+Grecian and Macedonian armies met and fought a decisive battle near
+Chaeronea, a Boeotian town. In this great contest Alexander the Great
+took part.
+
+It was a hotly-contested fight, but in the end Philip triumphed, and
+Greece was lost. Thebes was forced to yield. Athens, to regain the
+prisoners held by Philip, acknowledged him to be the head of Greece. All
+the other states did the same except Sparta, which defied him. He
+ravaged Laconia, but left the city untouched.
+
+Two years afterwards Philip, lord and master of Greece, was assassinated
+at the marriage feast of his daughter. His son Alexander succeeded him.
+Here seemed an opportunity for Greece to regain her freedom. This
+untried young man could surely not retain what his able father had won.
+Demosthenes, the celebrated orator, stirred up Athens to revolt. Thebes
+sprang to arms and attacked the Macedonian garrison in the citadel.
+
+They did not know the man with whom they had to deal. Alexander came
+upon Thebes like an avalanche, took it by assault, and sold into slavery
+all the inhabitants not slain in the assault. The city was razed to the
+ground. This terrible example dismayed the rest of Greece.
+Submission--with the exception of that of Sparta--was universal. The
+independence of Greece was at an end. More than two thousand years were
+to pass before that country would again be free.
+
+
+
+
+_ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND DARIUS._
+
+
+In the citadel of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was
+preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure.
+Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius
+and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and
+chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which
+attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the
+bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted and entangled
+that it seemed as if the fingers of the gods themselves must have tied
+it, so intricate was it and so impossible, seemingly, to untie.
+
+An oracle had declared that the man who should untie this famous knot
+would become lord and monarch of all Asia. As may well be imagined, many
+ambitious men sought to perform the task, but all in vain. The Gordian
+knot remained tied and Asia unconquered in the year 333 B.C., when
+Alexander of Macedon, who the year before had invaded Asia, and so far
+had swept all before him, entered Gordium with his victorious army. As
+may be surmised, it was not long before he sought the citadel to view
+this ancient relic, which contained within itself the promise of what he
+had set out to accomplish. Numbers followed him, Phrygians and
+Macedonians, curious to see if the subtle knot would yield to his
+conquering hand, the Macedonians with hope, the Phrygians with doubt.
+
+While the multitude stood in silent and curious expectation, Alexander
+closely examined the knot, looking in vain for some beginning or end to
+its complexity. The thing perplexed him. Was he who had never yet failed
+in any undertaking to be baffled by this piece of rope, this twisted
+obstacle in the way of success? At length, with that angry impatience
+which was a leading element in his character, he drew his sword, and
+with one vigorous stroke severed the cord in two.
+
+At once a shout went up. The problem was solved; the knot was severed;
+the genius of Alexander had led him to the only means. He had made good
+his title to the empire of Asia, and was hailed as predestined conqueror
+by his admiring followers. That night came a storm of thunder and
+lightning which confirmed the belief, the superstitious Macedonians
+taking it as the testimony of the gods that the oracle was fulfilled.
+
+Had there been no Gordian knot and no oracle, Alexander would probably
+have become lord of the empire of Asia all the same, and this not only
+because he was the best general of his time and one of the best generals
+of all time, but for two other excellent reasons. One was that his
+father, Philip, had bequeathed to him the best army of the age. The
+Greeks had proved, nearly two centuries before, that their military
+organization and skill were far superior to those of the Persians.
+During the interval there had been no progress in the army of Persia,
+while Epaminondas had greatly improved the military art in Greece, and
+Philip of Macedon, his pupil, had made of the Macedonian army a fighting
+machine such as the world had never before known. This was the army
+which, with still further improvements, Alexander was leading into Asia
+to meet the multitudinous but poorly armed and disciplined Persian host.
+
+The second reason was that Alexander, while the best captain of his age,
+had opposed to him the worst. It was the misfortune of Persia that a new
+king, Darius Codomannus by name, had just come to the throne, and was to
+prove himself utterly incapable of leading an army, unless it was to
+lead it in flight. It was not only Alexander's great ability, but his
+marvellous good fortune, which led to his immense success.
+
+The Persians had had a good general in Asia Minor,--Memnon, a Greek of
+the island of Rhodes. But just at this time this able leader died, and
+Darius took the command on himself. He could hardly have selected a man
+from his ranks who would not have made a better commander-in-chief.
+
+Gathering a vast army from his wide-spread dominions, a host six hundred
+thousand strong, the Persian king marched to meet his foe. He brought
+with him an enormous weight of baggage, there being enough gold and
+silver alone to load six hundred mules and three hundred camels; and so
+confident was he of success that he also brought his mother, wife, and
+children, and his whole harem, that they might witness his triumph over
+the insolent Macedonian.
+
+Darius took no steps to guard any of the passes of Asia Minor. Why
+should he seek to keep back this foe, who was marching blindly to his
+fate? But instead of waiting for Alexander on the plain, where he could
+have made use of his vast force, he marched into the defile of Issus,
+where there was only a mile and a half of open ground between the
+mountains and the sea, and where his vanguard alone could be brought
+into action. In this defile the two armies met, the fighting part of
+each being, through the folly of the Persian king, not greatly different
+in numbers.
+
+The blunder of Darius was soon made fatal by his abject cowardice. The
+Macedonians having made a sudden assault on the Persian left wing, it
+gave way and fled. Darius, who was in his chariot in the centre, seeing
+himself in danger from this flight, suddenly lost his over-confidence,
+and in a panic of terror turned his chariot and fled with wild haste
+from the field. When he reached ground over which the chariot could not
+pass, he mounted hastily on horseback, flung from him his bow, shield,
+and royal mantle, and rode in mortal terror away, not having given a
+single order or made the slightest effort to rally his flying troops.
+
+Darius had been sole commander. His flight left the great army without a
+leader. Not a man remained who could give a general order. Those who saw
+him flying were infected with his terror and turned to flee also. The
+vast host in the rear trampled one another down in their wild haste to
+get beyond the enemy's reach. The Macedonians must have looked on in
+amazement. The battle--or what ought to have been a battle--was over
+before it had fairly begun. The Persian right wing, in which was a body
+of Greeks, made a hard fight; but these Greeks, on finding that the king
+had fled, marched in good order away. The Persian cavalry, also, fought
+bravely until they heard that the king had disappeared, when they also
+turned to fly. Never had so great a host been so quickly routed, and all
+through the cowardice of a man who was better fitted by nature to turn a
+spit than to command an army.
+
+[Illustration: THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.]
+
+But Alexander was not the man to let his enemy escape unscathed. His
+pursuit was vigorous. The slaughter of the fugitives was frightful.
+Thousands were trodden to death in the narrow and broken pass. The camp
+and the family of Darius were taken, together with a great treasure in
+coin. The slain in all numbered more than one hundred thousand.
+
+The panic flight of Darius and his utter lack of ability did more than
+lose him a battle: it lost him an empire. Never was there a battle with
+more complete and great results. During the next two years Alexander
+went to work to conquer western Persia. Most of the cities yielded to
+him. Tyre resisted, and was taken and destroyed. Gaza, another strong
+city, was captured and its defenders slain. These two cities, which it
+took nine months to capture, gave Alexander the hardest fighting he
+ever had. He marched from Gaza to Egypt, which fell without resistance
+into his hands, and where he built the great city of Alexandria, the
+only existing memento of his name and deeds. Thence he marched to the
+Euphrates, wondering where Darius was and what he meant to do. Nearly
+two years had passed since the battle of Issus, and the kingly poltroon
+had apparently contented himself with writing letters begging Alexander
+to restore his family. But Alexander knew too well what a treasure he
+held to consent. If Darius would acknowledge him as his lord and master
+he could have back his wife and children, but not otherwise.
+
+Finding that all this was useless, Darius began to collect another army.
+He now got together a vaster host than before. It was said to contain
+one million infantry, forty thousand cavalry, and two hundred chariots,
+each of which had a projecting pole with a sharp point, while three
+sword-blades stood out from the yoke on either side, and scythes
+projected from the naves of the wheels. Darius probably expected to mow
+down the Macedonians in swaths with these formidable implements of war.
+
+The army which Alexander marched against this mighty host consisted of
+forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. It looked like the extreme
+of foolhardiness, like a pigmy advancing against a giant; yet Darius
+commanded one army, Alexander the other, and Issus had not been
+forgotten.
+
+The affair, in fact, proved but a repetition of that at Issus. The
+chariots, on which Darius had counted to break the enemy's line, proved
+useless. Some of the horses were killed; others refused to face the
+Macedonian pikes; some were scared by the noise and turned back; the few
+that reached the Greek lines found the ranks opened to let them pass.
+
+The chariots thus disposed of, the whole Macedonian line charged.
+Alexander, at the head of his cavalry, pushed straight for the person of
+Darius. He could not get near the king, who was well protected, but he
+got near enough to fill his dastard soul with terror. The sight of the
+serried ranks of the Macedonian phalanx, the terrific noise of their
+war-cries, the failure of the chariots, all combined to destroy his late
+confidence and replace it by dread. As at Issus, he suddenly had his
+chariot turned round and rushed from the field in full flight.
+
+His attendants followed. The troops around him, the best in the army,
+gave way. Soon the field was dense with fugitives. So thick was the
+cloud of dust raised by the flying multitude that nothing could be seen.
+Amid the darkness were heard a wild clamor of voices and the noise of
+the whips of the charioteers as they urged their horses to speed. The
+cloud of dust alone saved Darius from capture by the pursuing horsemen.
+The left of the Persian army fought bravely, but at length it too gave
+way. Everything was captured,--camp, treasure, the king's equipage,
+everything but the king himself. How many were killed and taken is not
+known, but the army, as an army, ceased to exist. As at Issus, so at
+Arbela, it was so miserably managed that three-fourths of it had nothing
+whatever to do with the battle. Its dispersal ended the Persian
+resistance; the empire was surrendered to Alexander almost without
+another blow.
+
+Great a soldier as Alexander unquestionably was, he was remarkably
+favored by fortune, and won the greatest empire the world had up to that
+time known with hardly an effort, and with less loss of men than often
+takes place in a single battle. The treasure gained was immense. Darius
+seemed to have been heaping up wealth for his conqueror. Babylon and
+Susa, the two great capitals of the Persian empire, contained vast
+accumulations of money, part of which was used to enrich the soldiers of
+the victorious army. At Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, a
+still greater treasure was found, amounting to one hundred and twenty
+thousand talents in gold and silver, or about one hundred and
+twenty-five million dollars. It took five thousand camels and a host of
+mules to transport the treasure away. The cruel conqueror rewarded the
+Persians for this immense gift, kept through generations for his hands,
+by burning the city and slaughtering its inhabitants, in revenge, as he
+declared, for the harm which Xerxes had done to Greece a century and a
+half before.
+
+What followed must be told in a few words. The conqueror did not feel
+that his work was finished while Darius remained free. The dethroned
+king was flying eastward to Bactria. Alexander pursued him with such
+speed that many of his men and animals fell dead on the road. He
+overtook him at last, but did not capture him, as the companions of the
+Persian king killed him and left only his dead body to the victor's
+hands.
+
+For years afterwards Alexander was occupied in war, subduing the eastern
+part of the empire, and marching into India, where he conquered all
+before him. War, incessant war, was all he cared for. No tribe or nation
+he met was able to stand against his army. In all his career he never
+met a reverse in the field. He was as daring as Darius had been
+cowardly, exposed his life freely, and was more than once seriously
+wounded, but recovered quickly from his hurts.
+
+At length, after eleven years of almost incessant war, the conqueror
+returned to Babylon, and here, while preparing for new wars in Arabia
+and elsewhere, indulged with reckless freedom in that intoxication which
+was his principal form of relaxation from warlike schemes and duties. As
+a result he was seized with fever, and in a week's time died, just at
+the time he had fixed to set out with army and fleet on another great
+career of conquest. It was in June, 323 B.C., in his thirty-third year.
+He had reigned only twelve years and eight months.
+
+
+
+
+_THE WORLD'S GREATEST ORATOR._
+
+
+During the days of the decline of Athens, the centre of thought to
+Greece, there roamed about the streets of that city a delicate, sickly
+lad, so feeble in frame that, at his mother's wish, he kept away from
+the gymnasium, lest the severe exercises there required should do him
+more harm than good. His delicate clothing and effeminate habits were
+derided by his playmates, who nicknamed him Batalus, after, we are told,
+a spindle-shanked flute-player. We do not know, however, just what
+Batalus means.
+
+As the boy was not fit for vigorous exercise, and never likely to make a
+hardy soldier or sailor, it became a question for what he was best
+fitted. If the body could not be exercised, the mind might be. At that
+time Athens had its famous schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and the
+art of oratory was diligently cultivated. It is interesting to know that
+outside of Athens Greece produced no orators, if we except Epaminondas
+of Thebes. The Boeotians, who dwelt north of Attica, were looked upon
+as dull-brained and thick-witted. The Spartans prided themselves on
+their few words and hard blows.
+
+The Athenians, on the contrary, were enthusiastically fond of oratory,
+and ardently cultivated fluency of speech. It was by this art that
+Themistocles kept the fleet together for the great battle of Salamis. It
+was by this art that Pericles so long held control of Athens. The
+sophists, the philosophers, the leaders of the assembly, were all adepts
+in the art of convincing by eloquence and argument, and oratory
+progressed until, in the later days of Grecian freedom, Athens possessed
+a group of public speakers who have never been surpassed, if equalled,
+in the history of the world.
+
+It was the orators who particularly attracted the weakly lad, whose mind
+was as active as his body was feeble. He studied grammar and rhetoric,
+as did the sons of wealthy Athenians in general. And while still a mere
+boy he begged his tutors to take him to hear Callistratus, an able
+public speaker, who was to deliver an oration on some weighty political
+subject. The speech, delivered with all the eloquence of manner and
+logic of thought which marked the leading orators of that day, deeply
+impressed the susceptible mind of the eager lad, who went away doubtless
+determining in his own mind that he would one day, too, move the world
+with eloquent and convincing speech.
+
+As he grew older there arose a special reason why he should become able
+to speak for himself. His father, who was also named Demosthenes, had
+been a rich man. He was a manufacturer of swords or knives, in which he
+employed thirty-two slaves; and also had a couch or bed factory,
+employing twenty more. His mother was the daughter of a rich
+corn-dealer of the Bosphorus.
+
+The father died when his son was seven years old, leaving his estate in
+the care of three guardians. These were rich men, and relatives and
+friends, whom he thought he could safely trust; the more so as he left
+them legacies in his will. Yet they proved rogues, and when Demosthenes
+became sixteen years of age--which made him a man under the civil law of
+Athens--he found that the guardians had made way with nearly the whole
+of his estate. Of fourteen talents bequeathed him there were less than
+two left. The boy complained and remonstrated in vain. The guardians
+declared that the will was lost; their accounts were plainly fraudulent;
+they evidently proposed to rob their ward of his patrimony.
+
+This may seem to us to have been a great misfortune. It was, on the
+contrary, the greatest good fortune. It forced Demosthenes to become an
+orator. Though he never recovered his estate, he gained a fame that was
+of infinitely greater value. The law of Athens required that every
+plaintiff should plead his own cause, either in person or by a deputy
+speaking his words. Demosthenes felt that he must bring suit or consent
+to be robbed. That art of oratory, towards which he had so strong an
+inclination, now became doubly important. He must learn how to plead
+eloquently before the courts, or remain the poor victim of a party of
+rogues. This determined the young student of rhetoric. He would make
+himself an orator.
+
+He at once began an energetic course of study. There were then two
+famous teachers of oratory in Athens, Isocrates and Isaeus. The school of
+Isocrates was famous, and his prices very high. The young man, with whom
+money was scarce, offered him a fifth of his price for a fifth of his
+course, but Isocrates replied that his art, like a good fish, must be
+sold entire. He then turned to Isaeus, who was the greatest legal pleader
+of the period, and studied under him until he felt competent to plead
+his own case before the courts.
+
+Demosthenes soon found that he had mistaken his powers. His argument was
+formal and long-winded. His uncouth style roused the ridicule of his
+hearers. His voice was weak, his breath short, his manner disconnected,
+his utterance confused. His pronunciation was stammering and
+ineffective, and in the end he withdrew from the court, hopeless and
+disheartened.
+
+Fortunately, his feeble effort had been heard by a friend who was a
+distinguished actor, and was able to tell Demosthenes what he lacked.
+"You must study the art of graceful gesture and clear and distinct
+utterance," he said. In illustration, he asked the would-be orator to
+speak some passages from the poets Sophocles and Euripides, and then
+recited them himself, to show how they should be spoken. He succeeded in
+this way in arousing the boy to new and greater efforts. Nature,
+Demosthenes felt, had not meant him for an orator. But art can sometimes
+overcome nature. Energy, perseverance, determination, were necessary.
+These he had. He went earnestly to work; and the story of how he worked
+and what he achieved should be a lesson for all future students of art
+or science.
+
+There were two things to do. He must both write well and speak well.
+Delivery is only half the art. Something worth delivering is equally
+necessary. He read the works of Thucydides, the great historian, so
+carefully that he was able to write them all out from memory after an
+accident had destroyed the manuscript. Some say he wrote them out eight
+separate times. He attended the teachings of Plato, the celebrated
+philosopher. The repulse of Isocrates did not keep the ardent student
+from his classes. His naturally capable mind became filled with all that
+Greece had to give in the line of logical and rhetorical thought. He not
+only read but wrote. He prepared orations for delivery in the law courts
+for the use of others, and in this way eked out his small income.
+
+In these ways he cultivated his mind. That was the lightest task. He had
+a great mind to begin with. But he had a weak and incapable body. If he
+would succeed that must be cultivated too. There was his lisping and
+stammering voice, his short breath, his low tones, his ungraceful
+gesture,--all to be overcome. How he did it is a remarkable example of
+what may be done in self-education.
+
+To overcome his stammering utterance he accustomed himself to speak with
+pebbles in his mouth. His lack of vocal strength he overcame by running
+with open mouth, thus expanding his lungs. To cure his shortness of
+breath he practised the uttering of long sentences while walking
+rapidly up-hill. That he might be able to make himself heard above the
+noise of the assembly, he would stand in stormy weather on the sea-shore
+at Phalerum, and declaim against the roar of the waves. For two or three
+months together he practised writing and speaking, day and night, in an
+underground chamber; and that he might not be tempted to go abroad and
+neglect his studies he shaved the hair from one side of his head. Dread
+of ridicule kept him in till his hair had grown again. To gain a
+graceful action, he would practise for hours before a tall mirror,
+watching all his movements, and constantly seeking to improve them.
+
+Several years passed away in this hard and persistent labor. He tried
+public speaking again and again, each time discouraged, but each time
+improving,--and finally gained complete success. His voice became strong
+and clear, his manner graceful, his delivery emphatic and decisive, the
+language of his orations full of clear logic, strong statement, cutting
+irony, and vigorous declamation, fluent, earnest, and convincing. In
+brief, it may be said that he made himself the greatest orator of
+Greece, which is equal to saying the greatest orator of the world.
+
+It was not only in delivery that he was great. His speeches were as
+convincing when read as when spoken. Fortunately, the great orators of
+those days prepared their speeches very carefully before delivery, and
+so it is that some of the best of the speeches of Demosthenes have come
+down to us and can be read by ourselves. The voice of the whole world
+pronounces these orations admirable, and they have been studied by every
+great orator since that day.
+
+Demosthenes had a great theme for his orations. He entered public life
+at a critical period. The states of Greece had become miserably weak and
+divided by their jealousies and intrigues. Philip of Macedon, the
+craftiest and ablest leader of his time, was seeking to make Greece his
+prey, and using gold, artifice, and violence alike to enable him to
+succeed in this design. Against this man Demosthenes raised his voice,
+thundering his unequalled denunciations before the assembly of Athens,
+and doing his utmost to rouse the people to the defence of their
+liberties. Philip had as his advocate an orator only second to
+Demosthenes in power, AEschines by name, whom he had secretly bribed, and
+who opposed his great rival by every means in his power. For years the
+strife of oratory and diplomacy went on. Demosthenes, with remarkable
+clearness of vision, saw the meaning of every movement of the cunning
+Macedonian, and warned the Athenians in orations that should have moved
+any liberty-loving people to instant and decisive action. But he talked
+to a weak audience. Athens had lost its old energy and public virtue. It
+could still listen with lapsed breath to the earnest appeals of the
+orator, but had grown slow and vacillating in action. AEschines had a
+strong party at his back, and Athens procrastinated until it was too
+late and the liberties of ancient Greece fell, never to rise again, on
+the fatal field of Chaeronea.
+
+"If Philip is the friend of Greece we are doing wrong," Demosthenes had
+cried. "If he is the enemy of Greece we are doing right. Which is he? I
+hold him to be our enemy, because everything he has hitherto done has
+benefited him and hurt us."
+
+The fall of Greece before the sword of its foe taught the Athenians that
+their orator was right. They at length learned to esteem Demosthenes at
+his full worth, and Ctesiphon, a leading Athenian, proposed that he
+should receive a golden crown from the state, and that his extraordinary
+merit and patriotism should be proclaimed in the theatre at the great
+festival of Dionysus.
+
+AEschines declared that this was unconstitutional, and that he would
+bring action against Ctesiphon for breaking the laws. For six years the
+case remained untried, and then AEschines was forced to bring his suit.
+He did so in a powerful speech, in which he made a bitter attack on the
+whole public life of Demosthenes. When he ceased, Demosthenes rose, and
+in a speech which is looked upon as the most splendid master-piece of
+oratory ever produced, completely overwhelmed his life long opponent,
+who left Athens in disgust. The golden crown, which Demosthenes had so
+nobly won, was his, and was doubly deserved by the immortal oration to
+which it gave birth, the grand burst of eloquence "For the Crown."
+
+In 323 B.C. Alexander the Great died. Then like a trumpet rang out the
+voice of Demosthenes, calling Greece to arms. Greece obeyed him and
+rose. If she would be free, now or never was the time. The war known as
+the Lamian war began. It ended disastrously in August, 322, and Greece
+was again a Macedonian slave. Demosthenes and others of the patriots
+were condemned to death as traitors. They fled for their lives.
+Demosthenes sought the island of Calauri, where he took refuge in a
+temple sacred to Poseidon, or Neptune. Thither his foes, led by Archias,
+formerly a tragic actor, followed him.
+
+Archias was not the man to hesitate about sacrilege. But the temple in
+which Demosthenes had taken refuge was so ancient and venerable that
+even he hesitated, and begged him to come out, saying that there was no
+doubt that he would be pardoned.
+
+Demosthenes sat in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground. At length, as
+Archias continued his appeals, in his most persuasive accents, the
+orator looked up and said,----
+
+"Archias, you never moved me by your acting. You will not move me now by
+your promises."
+
+At this Archias lost his temper, and broke into threats.
+
+"Now you speak like a real Macedonian oracle," said Demosthenes, calmly.
+"Before you were acting. Wait a moment, then, till I write to my
+friends."
+
+With these words Demosthenes rose and walked back to the inner part of
+the temple, though he was still visible from the front. Here he took out
+a roll of paper and a quill pen, which he put in his mouth and bit, as
+he was in the habit of doing when composing. Then he threw his head back
+and drew his cloak over it.
+
+The Thracian soldiers, who followed Archias, began to gibe at his
+cowardice on seeing this movement. Archias went in, renewed his
+persuasions, and begged him to rise, as there was no doubt that he would
+be well treated. Demosthenes sat in silence until he felt in his veins
+the working of the poison he had sucked from the pen. Then he drew the
+cloak from his face and looked at Archias with steady eyes.
+
+"Now," he said, "you can play the part of Creon in the tragedy as soon
+as you like, and cast forth my body unburied. But I, O gracious
+Poseidon, quit thy temple while I yet live. Antipater and his
+Macedonians have done what they could to pollute it."
+
+He walked towards the door, calling on those surrounding to support his
+steps, which tottered with weakness. He had just passed the altar of the
+god, when, with a groan, he fell, and died in the presence of his foes.
+
+So died, when sixty-two years of age, the greatest orator, and one of
+the greatest patriots and statesmen, of ancient times,--a man whose fame
+as an orator is as great as that of Homer as a poet, while in foresight,
+judgment, and political skill he had not his equal in the Greece of his
+day. Had Athens possessed any of its old vitality he would certainly
+have awakened it to a new career of glory. As it was, even one as great
+as he was unable to give new life to that corpse of a nation which his
+country had become.
+
+
+
+
+_THE OLYMPIC GAMES._
+
+
+The recent activity of athletic sports in this country is in a large
+sense a regrowth from the ancient devotion to out-door exercises. In
+this direction Greece, as also in its republican institutions, served as
+a model for the United States. The close relations between the athletics
+of ancient and modern times was gracefully called to attention by the
+reproduction of the Olympic Games at Athens in 1896, for which purpose
+the long abandoned and ruined Stadion, or foot-race course, of that city
+was restored, and races and other athletic events were conducted on the
+ground made classic by the Athenian athletes, and within a marble-seated
+amphitheatre in which the plaudits of Athens in its days of glory might
+in fancy still be heard.
+
+These modern games, however, differ in character from those of the past,
+and are attended with none of the deeply religious sentiment which
+attached to the latter. The games of ancient Greece were national in
+character, were looked upon as occasions of the highest importance, and
+were invested with a solemnity largely due to their ancient institution
+and long-continued observance. Their purpose was not alone friendly
+rivalry, as in modern times, but was largely that of preparation for
+war, bodily activity and endurance being highly essential in the hand
+to hand conflicts of the ancient world. They were designed to cultivate
+courage and create a martial spirit, to promote contempt for pain and
+fearlessness in danger, to develop patriotism and public spirit, and in
+every way to prepare the contestants for the wars which were, unhappily,
+far too common in ancient Greece.
+
+[Illustration: THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES IN THE STADIUM.]
+
+Each city had its costly edifices devoted to this purpose. The Stadion
+at Athens, within whose restored walls the modern games took place, was
+about six hundred and fifty feet long and one hundred and twenty-five
+wide, the race-course itself being six hundred Greek feet--a trifle
+shorter than English feet--in length. Other cities were similarly
+provided, and gymnastic exercises were absolute requirements of the
+youth of Greece,--particularly so in the case of Sparta, in which city
+athletic exercises formed almost the sole occupation of the male
+population.
+
+But the Olympic Games meant more than this. They were not national, but
+international festivals, at whose celebration gathered multitudes from
+all the countries of Greece, those who desired being free to come to and
+depart from Olympia, however fiercely war might be raging between the
+leading nations of the land. When the Olympic Games began is not known.
+Their origin lay far back in the shadows of time. Several peoples of
+Greece claimed to have instituted such games, but those which in later
+times became famous were held at Olympia, a town of the small country of
+Elis, in the Peloponnesian peninsula. Here, in the fertile valley of
+the Alpheus, shut in by the Messenian hills and by Mount Cronion, was
+erected the ancient Stadion, and in its vicinity stood a great
+gymnasium, a palaestra (for wrestling and boxing exercises), a hippodrome
+(for the later chariot races), a council hall, and several temples,
+notably that of the Olympian Zeus, where the victors received the olive
+wreaths which were the highly valued prizes for the contests.
+
+This temple held the famous colossal statue of Zeus, the noblest
+production of Greek art, and looked upon as one of the wonders of the
+world. It was the work of Phidias, the greatest of Grecian sculptors,
+and was a seated statue of gold and ivory, over forty feet in height.
+The throne of the king of the gods was mostly of ebony and ivory, inlaid
+with precious stones, and richly sculptured in relief. In the figure,
+the flesh was of ivory, the drapery of gold richly adorned with flowers
+and figures in enamel. The right hand of the god held aloft a figure of
+victory, the left hand rested on a sceptre, on which an eagle was
+perched, while an olive wreath crowned the head. On the countenance
+dwelt a calm and serious majesty which it needed the genius of a Phidias
+to produce, and which the visitors to the temple beheld with awe.
+
+The Olympic festival, whose date of origin, as has been said, is
+unknown, was revived in the year 884 B.C., and continued until the year
+394 A.D., when it was finally abolished, only to be revived at the city
+of Athens fifteen hundred years later. The games were celebrated after
+the completion of every fourth year, this four year period being called
+an "Olympiad," and used as the basis of the chronology of Greece, the
+first Olympiad dating from the revival of the games in 884 B.C.
+
+These games at first lasted but a single day, but were extended until
+they occupied five days. Of these the first day was devoted to
+sacrifices, the three following days to the contests, and the last day
+to sacrifices, processions, and banquets. For a long period single
+foot-races satisfied the desires of the Eleans and their visitors. Then
+the double foot-race was added. Wrestling and other athletic exercises
+were introduced in the eighth century before Christ. Then followed
+boxing. This was a brutal and dangerous exercise, the combatants' hands
+being bound with heavy leather thongs which were made more rigid by
+pieces of metal. The four-horse chariot-race came later; afterwards the
+pancratium (wrestling and boxing, without the leaded thongs); boys'
+races and wrestling and boxing matches; foot-races in a full suit of
+armor; and in the fifth century, two-horse chariot-races. Nero, in the
+year 68 A.D., introduced musical contests, and the games were finally
+abolished by Theodosius, the Christian emperor, in the year 394 A.D.
+
+Olympia was not a city or town. It was simply a plain in the district of
+Pisatis. But it was so surrounded with magnificent temples and other
+structures, so adorned with statues, and so abundantly provided with the
+edifices necessary to the games, that it in time grew into a locality of
+remarkable architectural beauty and grandeur. Here was the sacred grove
+of Altis, where grew the wild olive which furnished the wreaths for the
+victors, a simple olive wreath forming the ordinary prize of victory; in
+the four great games the victor was presented with a palm branch, which
+he carried in his right hand. Near this grove was the Hippodrome, where
+the chariot-races took place. The great Stadion stood outside the temple
+enclosure, where lay the most advantageous stretch of ground.
+
+The training required for participants in these sacred games was severe.
+No one was allowed to take part unless he had trained in the gymnasium
+for ten months in advance. No criminal, nor person with any blood
+impurity, could compete, a mere pimple on the body being sufficient to
+rule a man out. In short, only perfect and completely trained specimens
+of manhood were admitted to the lists, while the fathers and relatives
+of a contestant were required to swear that they would use no artifice
+or unfair means to aid their relative to a victory. The greatest care
+was also taken to select judges whose character was above even the
+possibility of bribery.
+
+Women were not permitted to appear at the games, and whoever disobeyed
+this law was to be thrown from a rock. On certain occasions, however,
+their presence was permitted, and there were a series of games and races
+in which young girls took part. In time it became the custom to
+diversify the games with dramas, and to exhibit the works of artists,
+while poets recited their latest odes, and other writers read their
+works. Here Herodotus read his famous history to the vast assemblage.
+
+Victory in these contests was esteemed the highest of honors. When the
+victor was crowned, the heralds loudly proclaimed his name, with those
+of his father and his city or native land. He was also privileged to
+erect a statue in honor of his triumph at a particular place in the
+sacred Altis. This was done by many of the richer victors, while the
+winners in the chariot-races often had not only their own figures, but
+those of their chariots and horses, reproduced in bronze.
+
+In addition to the Olympic, Greece possessed other games, which, like
+the former, were of great popularity, and attracted crowds from all
+parts of the country. The principal among these were the Pythian,
+Nemean, and Isthmian games, though there were various others of less
+importance. Of them all, however, the Olympic games were much the oldest
+and most venerated, and in the laws of Solon every Athenian who won an
+Olympic prize was given the large reward of five hundred drachmas, while
+an Isthmian prize brought but one hundred drachmas.
+
+On several occasions the Olympic games became occasions of great
+historical interest. One of these was the ninetieth Olympiad, of 420
+B.C., which took place during the peace between Athens and Sparta,--in
+the Peloponnesian war Athens having been excluded from the two preceding
+ones. It was supposed that the impoverishment of Athens would prevent
+her from appearing with any splendor at this festival, but that city
+astonished Greece by her ample show of golden ewers, censers, etc., in
+the sacrifice and procession, while in the chariot-races Alcibiades far
+distanced all competitors. One well-equipped chariot and four usually
+satisfied the thirst for display of a rich Greek, but he appeared with
+no less than seven, while his horses were of so superior power that one
+of his chariots won a first, another a second, and another a fourth
+prize, and he had the honor of being twice crowned with olive. In the
+banquet with which he celebrated his triumph he surpassed the richest of
+his competitors by the richness and splendor of the display.
+
+On the occasion of the one hundred and fourth Olympiad, war existing
+between Arcadia and Elis, a combat took place in the sacred ground
+itself, an unholy struggle which dishonored the sanctuary of Panhellenic
+brotherhood, and caused the great temple of Zeus to be turned into a
+fortress against the assailants. During this war the Arcadians plundered
+the treasures of these holy temples, as those of the temple at Delphi
+were plundered at a later date.
+
+Another occasion of interest in the Olympic games occurred in the
+ninety-ninth Olympiad, when Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, sent his
+legation to the sacrifice, dressed in the richest garments, abundantly
+furnished with gold and silver plate, and lodged in splendid tents.
+Several chariots contended for him in the races, while a number of
+trained reciters and chorists were sent to exhibit his poetical
+compositions before those who would listen to them. His chariots were
+magnificent, his horses of the rarest excellence, the delivery of his
+poems eloquently performed; but among those present were many of the
+sufferers by his tyranny, and the display ended in the plundering of
+his gold and purple tent, and the disgraceful lack of success of his
+chariots, some of which were overturned and broken to pieces. As for the
+poems, they were received with a ridicule which caused the deepest
+humiliation and shame to their proud composer.
+
+[Illustration: THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS, ATHENS.]
+
+The people of Greece, and particularly those of Athens, did not,
+however, restrict their public enjoyments to athletic exercises.
+Abundant provision for intellectual enjoyment was afforded. They were
+not readers. Books were beyond the reach of the multitude. But the loss
+was largely made up to them by the public recitals of poetry and
+history, the speeches of the great orators, and in particular the
+dramatic performances, which were annually exhibited before all the
+citizens of Athens who chose to attend.
+
+The stage on which these dramas were performed, at first a mere
+platform, then a wooden edifice, became finally a splendid theatre,
+wrought in the sloping side of the Acropolis, and presenting a vast
+semicircle of seats, cut into the solid rock, rising tier above tier,
+and capable of accommodating thirty thousand spectators. At first no
+charge was made for admission, and when, later, the crowd became so
+great that a charge had to be made, every citizen of Athens who desired
+to attend, and could not afford to pay, was presented from the public
+treasury with the price of one of the less desirable seats.
+
+Annually, at the festivals of Dionysus, or Bacchus, and particularly at
+the great Dionysia, held at the of March and beginning of April, great
+tragic contests were held, lasting for two days, during which the
+immense theatre was filled with crowds of eager spectators. A play
+seldom lasted more than an hour and a half, but three on the same
+general subject, called a trilogy, were often presented in succession,
+and were frequently followed by a comic piece from the same poet. That
+the actors might be heard by the vast open-air audiences, some means of
+increasing the power of the voice was employed, while masks were worn to
+increase the apparent size of the head, and thick-soled shoes to add to
+the height.
+
+The chorus was a distinctive feature of these dramas,--tragedies and
+comedies alike. As there were never more than three actors upon the
+stage, the chorus--twelve to fifteen in number--represented other
+characters, and often took part in the action of the play, though their
+duty was usually to diversify the movement of the play by hymns and
+dirges, appropriate dances, and the music of flutes. For centuries these
+dramatic representations continued at Athens, and formed the basis of
+those which proved so attractive to Roman audiences, and which in turn
+became the foundation-stones of the modern drama.
+
+
+
+
+_PYRRHUS AND THE ROMANS._
+
+
+Seven years after the death of Alexander, the Macedonian conqueror,
+there was born in Epirus, a country of Greece, a warrior who might have
+rivalled Alexander's fortune and fame had he, like him, fought against
+Persians. But he had the misfortune to fight against Romans, and his
+story became different. He was the greatest general of his time.
+Hannibal has said that he was the greatest of any age. But Rome was not
+Persia, and a Roman army was not to be dealt with like a Persian horde.
+Had Alexander marched west instead of east, he would probably not have
+won the title of "Great."
+
+Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, claimed descent from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles.
+While still an infant a rebellion broke out in Epirus. His father was
+absent, and the rebel chiefs sought to kill him, but he was hurried away
+in his nurse's arms, and his life saved. When he was ten years old,
+Glaucius, king of Illyria, who had brought him up among his own
+children, conquered Epirus and placed him on the throne. Seven years
+afterwards rebellion broke out again, and Pyrrhus had once more to fly
+for his life. He now fought in some great battles, married the daughter
+of the king of Egypt, returned with an army, and again became king of
+Epirus. He afterwards conquered all Macedonia, and, like Alexander the
+Great, whose fame he envied, looked about him for other worlds to
+conquer.
+
+During the years over which our tales have passed a series of foreign
+powers had threatened Greece. First, in the days of legend, it had found
+a foreign enemy in Troy. Next came the great empire of Persia, with
+which it had for centuries to deal. Then rose Macedonia, the first
+conqueror of Greece. Meanwhile, in the west, a new enemy had been slowly
+growing in power and thirst for conquest, that of Rome, before whose
+mighty arm Greece was destined to fall and vanish from view as one of
+the powers of the earth. And the first of the Greeks to come in warlike
+contact with the Romans was Pyrrhus. How this came about, and what arose
+from it, we have now to tell.
+
+Step by step the ambitious Romans had been extending their power over
+Italy. They were now at war with Tarentum, a city of Greek origin on the
+south Italian coast. The Tarentines, being hard pressed by their
+vigorous foes, sent an embassy to Greece, and asked Pyrrhus, then the
+most famous warrior of the Grecian race, to come to their aid against
+their enemy. This was in the year 281 B.C.
+
+Pyrrhus had been for some years at peace, building himself a new capital
+city, which he profusely adorned with pictures and statues. But peace
+was not to his taste. Consumed by ambition, restless in temperament, and
+anxious to make himself a rival in fame of Alexander the Great, he was
+ready enough to accept this request, and measure his strength in battle
+against the most warlike nation of the West.
+
+His wise counsellor, Cineas, asked him what he would do next, if he
+should overcome the Romans, who were said to be great warriors and
+conquerors of many peoples.
+
+"The Romans once overcome," he said, proudly, "no city, Greek or
+barbarian, would dare to oppose me, and I should be master of all
+Italy."
+
+"Well," said Cineas, "if you conquer Italy, what next?"
+
+"Greater victories would follow. There are Libya and Carthage to be
+won."
+
+"And then?" asked Cineas.
+
+"Then I should be able to master all Greece."
+
+"And then?" continued the counsellor.
+
+"Then," said Pyrrhus, "I would live at ease, eat and drink all day, and
+enjoy pleasant conversation."
+
+"And what hinders you from taking your ease now, without all this peril
+and bloodshed?"
+
+Pyrrhus had no answer to this. But thirst for fame drove him on, and the
+days of ease never came.
+
+In the following year Pyrrhus crossed to Italy with an army of about
+twenty-five thousand men, and with a number of elephants, animals which
+the Romans had never seen, and with which he hoped to frighten them from
+the battle-field. He had been promised the aid of all southern Italy,
+and an army of three hundred and fifty thousand infantry and twenty
+thousand cavalry. In this he was destined to disappointment. He found
+the people of Tarentum given up to frivolous pleasure, enjoying their
+theatres and festivals, and expecting that he would do their fighting
+while they spent their time in amusement.
+
+They found, however, that they had gained a master instead of a servant.
+Frivolity was not the idea of war held by Pyrrhus. He at once shut up
+the theatre, the gymnasia, and the public walks, stopped all feasting
+and revelry throughout the city, closed the clubs or brotherhoods, and
+kept the citizens under arms all day. Some of them, in disgust at this
+stern discipline, left the city. Pyrrhus thereupon closed the gates, and
+would let none out without permission. He even went so far as to put to
+death some of the demagogues, and to send others into exile. By these
+means he succeeded in making something like soldiers of the
+pleasure-loving Tarentines.
+
+Thus passed the winter. Meanwhile, the Romans had been as active as
+their enemies. They made the most energetic preparations for war, and
+with the opening of the spring were in the field. Pyrrhus, who had
+failed to receive the great army promised him, did not feel strong
+enough to meet the Roman force. He offered peace and arbitration, but
+his offers were scornfully rejected. He then sent spies to the Roman
+camp. One of these was caught and permitted to observe the whole army on
+parade. He was then sent back to Pyrrhus, with the message that if he
+wanted to see the Roman army he had better come himself in open day,
+instead of sending spies by night.
+
+The two armies met at length on the banks of the river Siris, where
+Rome fought its first great battle with a foreign foe. The Romans were
+the stronger, but the Greeks had the advantage in arms and discipline.
+The conflict that followed was very different from the one fought by
+Alexander at Issus. So courageous and unyielding were the contestants
+that each army seven times drove back its foes.
+
+"Beware," said an officer to Pyrrhus, as he charged at the head of his
+cavalry, "of that barbarian on the black horse with white feet. He has
+marked you for his prey."
+
+"What is fated no man can avoid," said the king, heroically. "But
+neither this man nor the stoutest soldier in Italy shall encounter me
+for nothing."
+
+At that instant the Italian rode at him with levelled lance and killed
+his horse. But his own was killed at the same instant, and while Pyrrhus
+was remounting his daring foe was surrounded and slain.
+
+On this field, for the first time, the Greek spear encountered the Roman
+sword. The Macedonian phalanx with its long pikes was met by the Roman
+legion with its heavy blades. The pike of the phalanx had hitherto
+conquered the world. The sword of the legion was hereafter to take its
+place. But now neither seemed able to overcome the other. In vain the
+Romans sought to hew a way with their swords through the forest of
+pikes, and as a last resort the Roman general brought up a chosen body
+of cavalry, which he had held in reserve. These came on in fierce
+charge, but Pyrrhus met them with a more formidable reserve,--his
+elephants.
+
+On beholding these strange monsters, terrible alike to horse and rider,
+the Roman cavalry fell back in confusion. The horses could not be
+brought to face their huge opponents. Their disorder broke the ranks of
+the infantry. Pyrrhus charged them with his Thessalian cavalry, and the
+Roman army was soon in total rout, leaving its camp to the mercy of its
+foes.
+
+During the battle Pyrrhus, knowing that the safety of his army depended
+on his own life, exchanged his arms, helmet, and scarlet cloak for the
+armor of Megacles, one of his officers. The borrowed splendor proved
+fatal to Megacles. The Romans made him their mark. Every one struck at
+him. He was at last struck down and slain, and his helmet and cloak were
+carried to Lavinus, the Roman commander, who had them borne in triumph
+along his ranks. Pyrrhus, fearing that this mistake might prove fatal,
+at once threw off his helmet and rode bareheaded along his own line, to
+let his soldiers see that he was still alive, and that a scarlet cloak
+was not a king.
+
+The battle over, Pyrrhus surveyed the field, strewn thickly with the
+dead of both armies, his valiant soul moved to a new respect for his
+foes.
+
+"If I had such soldiers," he cried, "I could conquer the world." Then,
+noting the numbers of his own dead, he added, "Another such victory,
+and I must return to Epirus alone."
+
+He sent Cineas, his wise counsellor, to Rome to offer terms of peace.
+Nearly four thousand of his army had fallen, and these largely Greeks;
+the weather was unfavorable for an advance; alliance with these brave
+foes might be wiser than war. Many of the Romans, too, thought the same;
+but while they were debating in the Forum there was borne into this
+building the famous censor Appius Claudius, once a leader in Rome, now
+totally blind and in extreme old age. His advent was like that of blind
+Timoleon to the Syracusan senate. The senators listened in deepest
+silence when the old man rose to speak. What he said we do not know, but
+his voice was for war, and the senate, moved by his impassioned appeal,
+voted that there should be no peace with Pyrrhus while he remained in
+Italy, and ordered Cineas to leave Rome, with this ultimatum, that very
+day.
+
+Peace refused, Pyrrhus advanced against Rome. He marched through a
+territory which for years had been free from the ravages of war, and was
+in a state of flourishing prosperity. It was plundered by his soldiers
+without mercy. On he came until Rome itself lay visible to his eyes from
+an elevation but eighteen miles away. Another day's march would have
+brought him to its walls. But a strong Roman army was in his front;
+another army hung upon his rear; his own army was weakened by
+dissensions between the Greeks and Italians; he deemed it prudent to
+retreat with the plunder he had gained.
+
+Another winter passed. Pyrrhus had many prisoners, whom he would not
+exchange or ransom unless the Romans would accept peace. But he treated
+them well, and even allowed them to return to Rome to enjoy the winter
+holiday of the Saturnalia, on their solemn promise that they would
+return if peace was still refused. The senate was still firm for war,
+and the prisoners returned after the holidays, the sturdy Romans having
+passed an edict that any prisoner who should linger in Rome after the
+day fixed for the return should suffer death.
+
+In the following spring another battle was fought near Asculum, on the
+plains of Apulia. Once more the Roman sword was pitted against the
+Macedonian pike. The nature of the ground was such that the Romans were
+forced to attack their enemy in front, and they hewed in vain with their
+swords upon the wall of pikes, which they even grasped with their hands
+and tried to break. The Greeks kept their line intact, and the Romans
+were slaughtered without giving a wound in return. At length they gave
+way. Then the elephants charged, and the repulse became a rout. But this
+time the Romans fled only to their camp, which was close at hand. They
+had lost six thousand men. Pyrrhus had lost three thousand five hundred
+of his light-armed troops. The heavy-armed infantry was almost unharmed.
+
+Here was another battle that proved almost as bad as a defeat. Pyrrhus
+had lost many of the men he had brought from Epirus. He was not in
+condition to take the field again, and no more soldiers could just then
+be had from Greece. The Romans were now willing to make a truce, and
+Pyrrhus crossed soon after to Sicily, to aid the Greeks of that island
+against their Carthaginian foes, He remained there two years, fighting
+with varied success and defeat. Then he returned to Tarentum, which
+again needed his aid against its persistent Roman enemies.
+
+On his way there Pyrrhus passed through Locri. Here was a famous temple
+of Proserpine, in whose vaults was a large treasure, which had been
+buried for an unknown period, and on which no mortal eye was permitted
+to gaze. Pyrrhus took bad advice and plundered the temple of the sacred
+treasure, placing it on board his ships. A storm arose and wrecked the
+ships, and the stolen treasure was cast back on the Locrian coast.
+Pyrrhus now ordered it to be restored, and offered sacrifices to appease
+the offended goddess. She gave no signs of accepting them. He then put
+to death the three men who had advised the sacrilege, but his mind
+continued haunted with dread of divine vengeance. Proserpine, who was
+seemingly deeply offended, might bring upon him ruin and defeat, and the
+hearts of his soldiers were weakened by dread of impending evils.
+
+Once more Pyrrhus met the Romans in the field, but no longer with
+success. One of his elephants was wounded, and ran wildly into his
+ranks, throwing them into disorder. Eight of these animals were driven
+into ground from which there was no escape. They were captured by the
+Romans. As the battle continued one wing of the Roman army was repulsed;
+but they assailed the elephants with such a shower of light weapons that
+these huge brutes turned and fled through the ranks of the phalanx,
+throwing it into disorder. On their heels came the Romans. The Greek
+line once broken, the swords of the Romans gave them a great advantage
+over the long spears of the enemy. Cut down in numbers, the Greeks were
+thrown into confusion, and were soon flying in panic, hotly pursued by
+their foes. How many were slain is not known, but the defeat was
+decisive. Retreating to Tarentum, Pyrrhus resolved to leave Italy,
+disgusted with his failure and with the supineness of his allies, and
+disappointed in his ambitious hopes. He reached Epirus again with little
+more than eight thousand troops, and without money enough to maintain
+even these. Thus ended the first meeting of Greeks and Romans in war.
+
+The remainder of the story of Pyrrhus may be soon told. He had counted
+on living in ease after his wars, but ease was not for him. His
+remaining life was spent in war. He invaded and conquered Macedonia. He
+engaged in war against the Spartans, and was repulsed from their capital
+city. At last, in his attack on Argos, while forcing his way through its
+streets, he fell by a woman's hand. A tile was cast from a house on his
+head, which hurled him stunned from his horse, and he was killed in the
+street. Thus ignobly perished the greatest general of his age.
+
+
+
+
+_PHILOPOEMEN AND THE FALL OF SPARTA._
+
+
+The history of Greece may well seem remarkable to modern readers, since
+it brings us in contact with conditions which have ceased to exist
+anywhere upon the earth. To gain some idea of its character, we should
+have to imagine each of the counties of one of our American States to be
+an independent nation, with its separate government, finances, and
+history, its treaties of peace and declarations of war, and its frequent
+fierce conflicts with some neighboring county. Each of these counties
+would have its central city, surrounded by high walls, and its citizens
+ready at any moment to take arms against some other city and march to
+battle against foes of their own race and blood. In some cases a single
+county would have three or four cities, each hostile to the others, like
+the cities of Thebes, Plataea, Thespiae, and Orchomenos, in Boeotia;
+standing ready, like fierce dogs each in its separate kennel, to fall
+upon one another with teeth and claws. It may further be said that of
+the population of these counties five out of every six were slaves, and
+that these slaves were white men, most of them of Greek descent. The
+general custom in those days was either to slay prisoners in cold blood,
+or sell them to spend the remainder of their lives in slavery.
+
+This state of affairs was not confined to Greece. It existed in Italy
+until Rome conquered all its small neighbor states. It existed in Asia
+until the great Babylonian and Persian empires conquered all the smaller
+communities. It was the first form of a civilized nation, that of a city
+surrounded by enough farming territory to supply its citizens with food,
+each city ready to break into war with any other, and each race of
+people viewing all beyond its borders as strangers and barbarians, to be
+dealt with almost as if they were beasts of prey instead of men and
+brothers.
+
+The cities of Greece were not only thus isolated, but each had its
+separate manners, customs, government, and grade of civilization. Athens
+was famous for its intellectual cultivation; Thebes had a reputation for
+the heavy-headed dulness of its people; Sparta was a rigid war school,
+and so on with others. In short, the world has gone so far beyond the
+political and social conditions of that period that it is by no means
+easy for us to comprehend the Grecian state.
+
+Among those cities Sparta stood in one sense alone. While the others
+were enclosed in strong walls, Sparta remained open and free,--its only
+wall being the valorous hearts and strong arms of its inhabitants. While
+other cities were from time to time captured and occasionally destroyed,
+no foeman had set foot within Sparta's streets. Not until the days of
+Epaminondas was Laconia invaded by a powerful foe; and even then Sparta
+remained free from the foeman's tread. Neither Philip of Macedon, nor
+his son Alexander, entered this proud city, and it was not until the
+troublous later times that the people of Sparta, feeling that their
+ancient warlike virtue was gone, built around their city a wall of
+defence.
+
+But the humiliation of that proud city was at hand. It was to be entered
+by a foeman; the laws of Lycurgus, under which it had risen to such
+might, were to come to an end; and lordly Sparta was to sink into
+insignificance, and its glory remain but a memory to man.
+
+About the year 252 B.C. was born Philopoemen, the last of the great
+generals of Greece. He was the son of Craugis, a citizen of Megalopolis,
+the great city which Epaminondas had built in Arcadia. Here he was
+thoroughly educated in philosophy and the other learning of the time;
+but his natural inclination was towards the life of a soldier, and he
+made a thorough study of the use of arms and the management of horses,
+while sedulously seeking the full development of his bodily powers.
+Epaminondas was the example he set himself, and he came little behind
+that great warrior in activity, sagacity, and integrity, though he
+differed from him in being possessed of a hot, contentious temper, which
+often carried him beyond the bounds of judgment.
+
+Philopoemen was marked by plain manners and a genial disposition, in
+proof of which Plutarch tells an amusing story. In his later years, when
+he was general of a great Grecian confederation, word was brought to a
+lady of Megara that Philopoemen was coming to her house to await the
+return of her husband, who was absent. The good lady, all in a tremor,
+set herself hurriedly to prepare a supper worthy of her guest. While she
+was thus engaged a man entered dressed in a shabby cloak, and with no
+mark of distinction. Taking him for one of the general's train who had
+been sent on in advance, the housewife called on him to help her prepare
+for his master's visit. Nothing loath, the visitor threw off his cloak,
+seized the axe she offered him, and fell lustily to work in cutting up
+fire-wood.
+
+While he was thus engaged, the husband returned, and at once recognized
+in his wife's lackey the expected visitor.
+
+"What does this mean, Philopoemen?" he cried, in surprise.
+
+"Nothing," replied the general, "except that I am paying the penalty of
+my ugly looks."
+
+Philopoemen had abundant practice in the art of war. Between Arcadia
+and Laconia hostility was the normal condition, and he took part in many
+plundering incursions into the neighboring state. In these he always
+went in first and came out last. When there was no fighting to be done
+he would go every evening to an estate he owned several miles from town,
+would throw himself on the first mattress in his way and sleep like a
+common laborer, and rising at break of day would go to work in the
+vineyard or at the plough. Then returning to the town, he would employ
+himself in public business or in friendly intercourse during the
+remainder of the day.
+
+When Philopoemen was thirty years old, Cleomenes, the Spartan king,
+one night attacked Megalopolis, forced the guards, broke in, and seized
+the market-place. The citizens sprang to arms, Philopoemen at their
+head, and a desperate conflict ensued in the streets. But their efforts
+were in vain, the enemy held their ground. Then Philopoemen set
+himself to aid the escape of the citizens, making head against the foe
+while his fellow-townsmen left the city. At last, after losing his horse
+and receiving several wounds, he fought his way out through the gate,
+being the last man to retreat. Cleomenes, finding that the citizens
+would not listen to his fair offers for their return, and tired of
+guarding empty houses, left the place after pillaging it and destroying
+all he readily could.
+
+The next year Philopoemen took part in a battle between King Antigonus
+of Macedonia and the Spartans, in which the victory was due to his
+charging the enemy at the head of the cavalry against the king's orders.
+
+"How came it," asked the king after the battle, "that the horse charged
+without waiting for the signal?"
+
+"We were forced into it against our wills by a young man of
+Megalopolis," was the reply.
+
+"That young man," said Antigonus, with a smile, "acted like an
+experienced commander."
+
+During this battle a javelin, flung by a strong hand, passed through
+both his thighs, the head coming out on the other side. "There he stood
+awhile," says Plutarch, "as if he had been shackled, unable to move. The
+fastening which joined the thong to the javelin made it difficult to
+get it drawn out, nor would any one about him venture to do it. But the
+fight being now at its hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he was
+transported with the desire of partaking in it, and struggled and
+strained so violently, setting one leg forward, the other back, that at
+last he broke the shaft in two; and thus got the pieces pulled out.
+Being in this manner set at liberty, he caught up his sword, and running
+through the midst of those who were fighting in the first ranks,
+animated his men, and set them afire with emulation."
+
+As may be imagined, a man of such indomitable courage could not fail to
+make his mark. Antigonus wished to engage him in his service, but
+Philopoemen refused, as he knew his temper would not let him serve
+under others. His thirst for war took him to Crete, where he brought the
+cavalry of that island to a state of perfection never before known in
+Greece.
+
+And now a new step in political progress took place in the Peloponnesus.
+The cities of Achaea joined into a league for common aid and defence.
+Other cities joined them, until it was hoped that all Peloponnesus would
+be induced to combine into one commonwealth. There had been leagues
+before in Greece, but they had all been dominated by some one powerful
+city. The Achaean League was the first that was truly a federal republic
+in organization, each city being an equal member of the confederacy.
+
+Philopoemen, whose name had grown to stand highest among the soldiers
+of Greece, was chosen as general of the cavalry, and at once set
+himself to reform its discipline and improve its tactics. By his example
+he roused a strong warlike fervor among the people, inducing them to
+give up all display and exercise but those needed in war. "Nothing then
+was to be seen in the shops but plate breaking up or melting down,
+gilding of breastplates, and studding buckles and bits with silver;
+nothing in the places of exercise but horses managing and young men
+exercising their arms; nothing in the hands of the women but helmets and
+crests of feathers to be dyed, and the military cloaks and riding frocks
+to be embroidered.... Their arms becoming light and easy to them with
+constant use, they longed for nothing more than to try them with an
+enemy, and fight in earnest."
+
+Two years afterwards, in 208 B.C., Philopoemen was elected
+_strategus_, or general in-chief, of the Achaean league. The martial
+ardor of the army he had organized was not long left unsatisfied. It was
+with his old enemy, the Spartans, that he was first concerned.
+Machanidas, the Spartan king, having attacked the city of Mantinea,
+Philopoemen marched against him, and soon gave him other work to do. A
+part of the Achaean army flying, Machanidas hotly pursued. Philopoemen
+held back his main body until the enemy had become scattered in pursuit,
+when he charged upon them with such energy that they were repulsed, and
+over four thousand were killed. Machanidas returning in haste, strove to
+cross a deep ditch between him and his foe; but as he was struggling up
+its side, Philopoemen transfixed him with his javelin, and hurled him
+back dead into the muddy ditch.
+
+This victory greatly enhanced the fame of the Arcadian general. Some
+time afterwards he and a party of his young soldiers entered the theatre
+during the Nemean games, just as the actor was speaking the opening
+words of the play called "The Persians:"
+
+  "Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free."
+
+The whole audience at once turned towards Philopoemen, and clapped
+their hands with delight. It seemed to them that in this valiant warrior
+the ancient glory of Greece had returned, and for the time some of the
+old-time spirit came back. But, despite this momentary glow, the sun of
+Grecian freedom and glory was near its setting. A more dangerous enemy
+than Macedonia had arisen. Rome, which Pyrrhus had gone to Italy to
+seek, had its armies now in Greece itself, and the independence of that
+country would soon be no more.
+
+The next exploit of Philopoemen had to do with Messenia. Nabis, the
+new Spartan king, had taken that city at a time when Philopoemen was
+out of command, the generalship of the League not being permanent. He
+tried to persuade Lysippus, then general of the Achaeans, to go to the
+relief of Messenia, but he refused, saying that it was lost beyond hope.
+Thereupon Philopoemen set out himself, followed by such of his fellow
+citizens as deemed him their general by nature's commission. The very
+wind of his coming won the town. Nabis, hearing that Philopoemen was
+near at hand, slipped hastily out of the city by the opposite gates,
+glad to get away in safety. He escaped, but Messenia was recovered. The
+martial spirit of Philopoemen next took him to Crete, where fighting
+was to be had to his taste. Yet he left his native city of Megalopolis
+so pressed by the enemy that its people were forced to sow grain in
+their very streets. However, he came back at length, met Nabis in the
+field, rescued the army from a dangerous situation, and put the enemy to
+flight. Soon after he made peace with Sparta, and achieved a remarkable
+triumph in inducing that great and famous city to join the Achaean
+League. In truth, the nobles of Sparta, glad to have so important an
+ally, sent Philopoemen a valuable present. But such was his reputation
+for honor that for a time no man could be found who dared offer it to
+him; and when at length the offer was made he went to Sparta himself,
+and advised its nobles, if they wanted any one to bribe, to let it not
+be good men, but those ill citizens whose seditious voices needed to be
+silenced.
+
+In the end Sparta was destined to suffer at the hands of its
+incorruptible ally, it having revolted from the League. Philopoemen
+marched into Laconia, led his army unopposed to Sparta, and took
+possession of that famous seat of Mars, within which no hostile foot had
+hitherto been set. He razed its walls to the ground, put to death those
+who had stirred the city to rebellion, and took away a great part of its
+territory, which he gave to Megalopolis. Those who had been made
+citizens of Sparta by tyrants he drove from the country, and three
+thousand who refused to go he sold into slavery; and, as a further
+insult, with the money received from their sale he built a colonnade at
+Megalopolis.
+
+Finally, as a death-blow to Spartan power, he abolished the time-honored
+laws of Lycurgus, under which that city had for centuries been so great,
+and forced the people to educate their children and live in the same
+manner as the Achaeans. Thus ended the glory of Sparta. Some time
+afterwards its citizens resumed their old laws and customs, but the city
+had sunk from its high estate, and from that time forward vanished from
+history.
+
+At length, being then seventy years of age, misfortune came to this
+great warrior and ended his warlike career. An enemy of his had induced
+the Messenians to revolt from the Achaean League. At once the old
+soldier, though lying sick with a fever at Argos, rose from his bed, and
+reached Megalopolis, fifty miles away, in a day. Putting himself at the
+head of an army, he marched to meet the foe. In the fight that followed
+his force was driven back, and he became separated from his men in his
+efforts to protect the rear. Unluckily his horse stumbled in a stony
+place, and he was thrown to the ground and stunned. The enemy, who were
+following closely, at once made him prisoner, and carried him, with
+insult and contumely, and with loud shouts of triumph, to the city
+gates, through which the very tidings of his coming had once driven a
+triumphant foe.
+
+The Messenians rapidly turned from anger to pity for their noble foe,
+and would probably have in the end released him, had time been given
+them. But Dinocrates, their general and his enemy, resolved that
+Philopoemen should not escape from his hands. He confined him in a
+close prison, and, learning that his army had returned and were
+determined upon his rescue, decided that that night should be
+Philopoemen's last.
+
+The prisoner lay--not sleeping, but oppressed with grief and trouble--in
+his prison cell, when a man entered bearing poison in a cup.
+Philopoemen sat up, and, taking the cup, asked the man if he had heard
+anything of the Achaean horsemen.
+
+"The most of them got off safe," said the man.
+
+"It is well," said Philopoemen, with a cheerful look, "that we have
+not been in every way unfortunate."
+
+Then, without a word more, he drank the poison and lay down again. As he
+was old and weak from his fall, he was quickly dead.
+
+The news of his death filled all Achaea with lamentation and thirst for
+revenge. Messenia was ravaged with fire and sword till it submitted.
+Dinocrates and all who had voted for Philopoemen's death killed
+themselves to escape death by torture. All Achaea mourned at his funeral,
+statues were erected to his memory, and the highest honors decreed to
+him in many cities. In the words of Pausanias, a late Greek writer,
+"Miltiades was the first, and Philopoemen the last, benefactor to the
+whole of Greece."
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF GREECE._
+
+
+Greece learned too late the art of combining for self-defence. In the
+war against the vast power of Persia, Athens stood almost alone. What
+aid she got from the rest of Greece was given grudgingly. Themistocles
+had to gain the aid of the Grecian fleet at Salamis by a trick. Philip
+of Macedonia conquered Greece by dividing it and fighting it piecemeal.
+Only after the close of the Macedonian power and the beginning of that
+of Rome did Greece begin to learn the art of unity, and then the lesson
+came too late. The Achaean League, which combined the nations of the
+Peloponnesus into a federal republic, was in its early days kept busy in
+forcing its members to remain true to their pledge. If it had survived
+for a century it would probably have brought all Greece into the League,
+and have produced a nation capable of self-defence. But Rome already had
+her hand on the throat of Greece, and political wisdom came to that land
+too late to avail.
+
+[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, CORINTH.]
+
+We have come, indeed, to the end of the story of Grecian liberty. Twice
+Greece rose in arms against the power of Rome, but in the end she fell
+hopelessly into the fetters forged for the world by that lord of
+conquest. Of the celebrated cities of Greece two had already fallen.
+Thebes had been swept from the face of the earth in the wind of
+Alexander's wrath. Sparta had been reduced to a feeble village by the
+anger of Philopoemen. Corinth, now the largest and richest city of
+Greece, was to be razed to the ground for daring to defy Rome; and
+Athens was to be plundered and humiliated by a conquering Roman army.
+
+It will not take long to tell how all this came about. The story is a
+short one, but full of vital consequences. Philopoemen, the great
+general of the Achaean League, died of poison 183 B.C. In the same year
+died in exile Hannibal, the greatest foe Rome ever knew, and Scipio, one
+of its ablest generals. Rome was already master of Greece. But the Roman
+senate feared trouble from the growth of the Achaean League, and, to
+weaken it, took a thousand of its noblest citizens, under various
+charges, and sent them as hostages to Rome. Among them was the
+celebrated historian Polybius, who wrote the history of Hannibal's wars.
+
+These exiles were not brought to trial on the weak charges made against
+them, but they were detained in Italy for seventeen years. By the end of
+that time many of them had died, and Rome at last did what it was not in
+the habit of doing, it took pity on those who were left and let them
+return home.
+
+Roman pity in this case proved disastrous to Greece. Many of the exiles
+were exasperated by their treatment, and were no sooner at home than
+they began to stir up the people to revolt. Polybius held them back for
+a time, but during his absence the spirit of sedition grew. It was
+intensified by the action of Rome, which, to weaken Greece, resolved to
+dissolve the Achaean League, or to take from it its strongest cities.
+Roman ambassadors carried this edict to Corinth, the great city of the
+League. When their errand become known the people rose in riot, insulted
+the ambassadors, and vowed that they were not and would not be the
+slaves of Rome.
+
+If they had shown the strength and spirit to sustain their vow they
+might have had some warrant for it. But the fanatics who stirred the
+country to revolt against the advice of its wisest citizens proved
+incapable in war. Their army was finally put to rout in the year 146
+B.C. by a Roman army under the leadership of Lucius Mummius, consul of
+Rome.
+
+This Roman victory was won in the vicinity of Corinth. The routed army
+did not seek to defend itself in that city, but fled past its open
+gates, and left it to the mercy of the Roman general. The gates still
+stood open. No defence was made. But Mummius, fearing some trick, waited
+a day or two before entering. On doing so he found the city nearly
+deserted. The bulk of the population had fled. The greatest and richest
+city which Greece then possessed had fallen without a blow struck in its
+defence.
+
+Yet Mummius chose to consider it as a city taken by storm. All the men
+who remained were put to the sword; the women and children were kept to
+be sold as slaves; the town was mercilessly plundered of its wealth and
+treasures of art.
+
+But this degree of vengeance did not satisfy Rome. Her ambassadors had
+been insulted,--by a mob, it is true; but in those days the law-abiding
+had often to suffer for the deeds of the mob. The Achaean League, with
+Corinth at its head, had dared to resist the might and majesty of Rome.
+A lesson must be given that would not be easily forgotten. Corinth must
+be utterly destroyed.
+
+Such was the deliberate decision of the Roman senate; such the order
+sent to Mummius. At his command the plundering of the city was
+completed. It was fabulously rich in works of art. Many of these were
+sent to Rome. Many of them were destroyed. The Romans were ignorant of
+their value. Their leader himself was as incompetent and ignorant as any
+Roman general could well be. He had but one thought, to obey the orders
+of the senate. The plundered city was thereupon set on fire and burned
+to the ground, its walls were pulled down, the spot where it had stood
+was cursed, its territory was declared the property of the Roman people.
+No more complete destruction of a city had ever taken place. A century
+afterwards Corinth was rebuilt by order of Julius Caesar, but it never
+became again the Corinth of old.
+
+As for the destruction of works of priceless value, it was pitiable.
+When Polybius returned and saw the ruins, he found common soldiers
+playing dice on paintings of the most celebrated artists of Greece.
+Mummius, who was as honest as he was dull-witted, strictly obeyed orders
+in sending the choicest of the spoil to Rome, and made himself forever
+famous as a marvel of stupidity by a remark to those who were charged
+with the conveyance of some of the noblest of Grecian statues.
+
+"Take good care that you do not lose these on the way," he said; "for if
+you do you shall be made to replace them by others of equal value."
+
+Rome could conquer the world, but honest Mummius had set a task which
+Rome throughout its whole history was not able to perform.
+
+Thus ended the death-struggle of Greece. The chiefs of the party of
+revolt were put to death; the inhabitants of Corinth who had fled were
+taken and sold as slaves. The walls of all the cities which had resisted
+Rome were levelled to the ground. An annual tribute was laid on them by
+the conquerors. Self-government was left to the states of Greece, but
+they were deprived of their old privilege of making war.
+
+Yet Greece might have flourished under the new conditions, for peace
+heals the wounds made by war, had its states not been too much weakened
+by their previous conflicts, and had not a new war arisen just when they
+were beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of peace.
+
+This war, which broke out sixty years later, had its origin in Asia.
+Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, had made himself master of all
+Asia Minor, where he ordered that all the Romans found should be killed.
+It is said that eighty thousand were slaughtered. Then he sent an army
+into Greece, under his general Archelaus, and there found the people
+ready and willing to join him, in the hope of gaining their freedom by
+his aid. Rome just then seemed weak, and they deemed it a good season to
+rebel.
+
+Archelaus took possession of Athens and the Piraeus, from which all the
+friends of Rome were driven into exile. Meanwhile, Rome was distracted
+by the struggle between the two great leaders Marius and Sulla. But
+leaving Rome to take care of itself, Sulla marched an army against
+Mithridates, entered Greece, and laid siege to Athens.
+
+This was in the year 87 B.C. The siege that followed was a long one.
+Archelaus lay in Piraeus, with abundance of food, and had command of the
+sea. But the long walls that led to Athens had long since vanished. Food
+could not be conveyed from the port to the city, as of old. Hunger came
+to the aid of Rome. Resistance having almost ceased, Sulla broke into
+the famous old city March 1, 86 B.C., and gave it up to rapine and
+pillage by his soldiers.
+
+Yet Athens was not destroyed as Corinth had been. Sulla had some respect
+for art and antiquity, and carefully preserved the old monuments of the
+city, while such of its people as had not been massacred were restored
+to their civil rights as subjects of Rome. Soon the Asiatics were driven
+from Greece and Roman dominion was once more restored. Thus ended the
+last struggle for liberty in Greece. Nineteen hundred years were to pass
+away before another blow for freedom would be struck on Grecian soil.
+
+
+
+
+_ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS._
+
+
+Among the most famous of the women of ancient days must be named
+Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the East, and who claimed
+to be descended from the kings whom the conquests of Alexander left over
+Egypt, the Ptolemies, among whose descendants was included the still
+more celebrated Cleopatra. Zenobia was the most lovely as well as the
+most heroic of her sex, no woman of Asiatic birth ever having equalled
+her in striking evidence of valor and ability, and none surpassed her in
+beauty. We are told that while of a dark complexion, her smile revealed
+teeth of pearly whiteness, while her large black eyes sparkled with an
+uncommon brightness that was softened by the most attractive sweetness.
+She possessed a strong and melodious voice, and, in short, had all the
+charms of womanly beauty.
+
+Her mind was as well stored as her body was attractive. She was familiar
+with the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages, and was an adept
+also in Latin, then the political language of the civilized world. She
+was an earnest student of Oriental history, of which she herself drew up
+an epitome, while she was fully conversant with Homer and Plato, and the
+other great writers of Greece.
+
+This lovely and accomplished woman gave her hand in marriage to
+Odenathus, who from a private station had gained by his valor the empire
+of the East. He made Syria his by courage and ability, and twice pursued
+the Persian king to the gates of Ctesiphon. Of this hero Zenobia became
+the companion and adviser. In hunting, of which he was passionately
+fond, she emulated him, pursuing the lions, panthers, and other wild
+beasts of the desert with an ardor equal to his own, and a fortitude and
+endurance which his did not surpass. Inured to fatigue, she usually
+appeared on horseback in a military habit, and at times marched on foot
+at the head of the troops. Odenathus owed his success largely to the
+prudence and fortitude of his incomparable wife.
+
+In the midst of his successes in war, Odenathus was cut off in 250 A.D.
+by assassination. He had punished his nephew, who killed him in return.
+Zenobia at once succeeded to the vacant throne, and by her ability
+governed Palmyra, Syria, and the East. In this task, in which no man
+could have surpassed her in courage and judgment, she was aided by the
+counsels of one of the ablest Greeks who had appeared since the days of
+the famous writers of the classical age. Longinus, who had been her
+preceptor in the language and literature of Greece, and who, on her
+ascending the throne, became her secretary and chief counsellor in state
+affairs, was a literary critic and philosopher whose lucid intellect
+seemed to belong to the brightest days of Greece. He was probably a
+native of Syria, born some time after 200 A.D., and had studied
+literature and philosophy at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, under the
+ablest teachers of the age. His learning was immense, and he is the
+first man to whom was applied the expression "a living library," or, to
+give it its modern form, "a walking encyclopaedia." His writings were
+lively and penetrating, showing at once taste, judgment, and learning.
+We have only fragments of them, except the celebrated "Treatise on the
+Sublime," which is one of the most notable of ancient critical
+productions.
+
+Under the advice of this distinguished counsellor, Zenobia entered upon
+a career which brought her disaster, but has also brought her fame. Her
+husband Odenathus had avenged Valerian, the Roman emperor, who had been
+taken prisoner and shamefully treated by the Persian king. For this
+service he was confirmed in his authority by the senate of Rome. But
+after his death the senate refused to grant this authority to his widow,
+and called on her to deliver her dominion over to Rome. Under the advice
+of Longinus the martial queen refused, defied the power of Rome, and
+determined to maintain her empire in despite of the senate and army of
+the proud "master of the world."
+
+War at once broke out. A Roman army invaded Syria, but was met by
+Zenobia with such warlike energy and skill that it was hurled back in
+defeat, and its commanding general, having lost his army, was driven
+back to Europe in disgrace. This success gave Zenobia the highest fame
+and power in the world of the Orient. The states of Arabia, Armenia,
+and Persia, in dread of her enmity, solicited alliance with her. To her
+dominions, which extended from the Euphrates over much of Asia Minor and
+to the borders of Arabia, she added the populous kingdom of Egypt, the
+inheritance of her claimed ancestors. The Roman emperor Claudius
+acknowledged her authority and left her unmolested. Assuming the
+splendid title of Queen of the East, she established at her court the
+stately power of the courts of Asia, exacted from her subjects the
+adoration shown to the Persian king, and, while strict in her economy,
+at times displayed the greatest liberality and magnificence.
+
+But a new emperor came to the throne in Rome, and a new period in the
+history of Zenobia began. Aurelian, a fierce and vigorous soldier,
+marched at the head of the Roman legions against this valiant queen, who
+had built herself up an empire of great extent, and demanded that she
+should submit to the power of his arms. Asia Minor was quickly restored
+to Rome, Antioch fell into the hands of Aurelian, and the Romans still
+advanced, to meet the army of the Syrian queen. Meeting near Antioch, a
+great battle was fought. Zabdas, who had conquered Egypt for Zenobia,
+led her army, but the valiant queen animated her soldiers by her
+presence, and exhorted them to the utmost exertions. Her troops, great
+in number, were mainly composed of light-armed archers and of cavalry
+clothed in complete steel. These Asiatic warriors proved incapable of
+enduring the charge of the veteran legions of Rome. The army of Zenobia
+met with defeat, and at a subsequent battle, near Emesa, met with a
+second disastrous repulse.
+
+Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. Most of the nations
+under her control had submitted to the conqueror. Egypt was invaded by a
+Roman army. Out of her lately great empire only her capital, Palmyra,
+remained. Here she retired, made preparations for a vigorous defence,
+and declared that her reign and life should only end together.
+
+Palmyra was then one of the most splendid cities of the world. A
+halting-place for the caravans which conveyed to Europe the rich
+products of India and the East, it had grown into a great and opulent
+city, whose former magnificence is shown by the ruins of temples,
+palaces, and porticos of Grecian architecture, which now extend over a
+district of several miles. In this city, surrounded with strong walls,
+Zenobia had gathered the various military engines which in those days
+were used in siege and defence, and, woman though she was, was prepared
+to make the most vigorous resistance to the armies of Rome.
+
+Aurelian had before him no light task. In his march over the desert the
+Arabs harassed him perpetually. The siege proved difficult, and the
+emperor, leading the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart.
+Aurelian, finding that he had undertaken no trifling task, prudently
+offered excellent terms to the besieged, but they were rejected with
+insulting language. Zenobia hoped that famine would come to her aid to
+defeat her foe, and had reason to expect that Persia would send an army
+to her relief. Neither happened. The Persian king had just died.
+Convoys of food crossed the desert in safety. Despairing at length of
+success, Zenobia mounted her fleetest dromedary and fled across the
+desert to the Euphrates. Here she was overtaken and brought back a
+captive to the emperor's feet.
+
+Soon afterwards Palmyra surrendered. The emperor treated it with lenity,
+but a great treasure in gold, silver, silk, and precious stones fell
+into his hands, with all the animals and arms. Zenobia being brought
+into his presence, he sternly asked her how she had dared to take arms
+against the emperors of Rome. She answered, with respectful prudence,
+"Because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a
+Gallienus. You alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign."
+
+Her fortitude, however, did not last. The soldiers, with angry clamor,
+demanded her immediate execution, and the unhappy queen, losing for the
+first time the courage which had so long sustained her, gave way to
+terror, and declared that her resistance was not due to herself, but had
+arisen from the counsels of Longinus and her other advisers. It was the
+one base act in the woman's life. She had purchased a brief period of
+existence at the expense of honor and fame. Aurelian, a fierce soldier,
+to whom the learning of Longinus made no appeal, at once ordered his
+execution. The scholar died like a philosopher. He uttered no complaint.
+He pitied, but did not blame, his mistress. He comforted his afflicted
+friends. With the calm fortitude of Socrates he followed the
+executioner, and died like one for whom death had no terrors. The
+ignorant emperor, in seizing the treasures of Palmyra, did not know that
+he had lost its choicest treasure in setting free the soul of Longinus
+the scholar.
+
+What followed may be more briefly told. Marching back with his spoils
+from Palmyra, Aurelian had already reached Europe when word came to him
+that the Palmyrians whom he had spared had risen in revolt and massacred
+his garrison. Instantly turning, he marched back, his soul filled with
+thirst for revenge. Reaching Palmyra with great celerity, his wrath fell
+with murderous fury on that devoted city. Not only armed rebels, but
+women and children, were massacred, and the city was almost levelled
+with the earth. The greatness of Palmyra was at an end. It never
+recovered from this dreadful blow. It sunk, step by step, into the
+miserable village, in the midst of stately ruins, into which it has now
+declined.
+
+On his return Aurelian celebrated his victories and conquests with a
+magnificent triumph, one of the most ostentatious that any Roman emperor
+had ever given. His conquests had been great, both in the West and the
+East, and no emperor had better deserved a triumphant return to the
+imperial city, the mistress of the world.
+
+All day long, from morning to night, the grand procession wound on. At
+its head were twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and about two hundred
+of the most curious and interesting animals of the North, South, and
+East. Sixteen hundred gladiators followed, destined for the cruel sports
+to be held in the amphitheatre. Then came a display of the wealth of
+Palmyra, the magnificent plate and wardrobe of Zenobia, the arms and
+ensigns of numerous conquered nations. Embassadors from the most remote
+regions of the civilized earth,--from Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, India,
+and China,--attired in rich and singular dresses, attested the fame of
+the Roman emperor, while his power was shown by the many presents he had
+received, among them a great number of crowns of gold, which had been
+given him by grateful cities.
+
+[Illustration: THE RUINS OF PALMYRA.]
+
+A long train of captives next declared his triumph, among them Goths,
+Vandals, Franks, Gauls, Germans, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each people was
+distinguished by its peculiar inscription, the title of Amazons being
+given to ten Gothic heroines who had been taken in arms. But in this
+great crowd of unhappy captives one above all attracted the attention of
+the host of spectators, the beauteous figure of the Queen of the East.
+Zenobia was so laden with jewels as almost to faint under their weight.
+Her limbs bore fetters of gold, while the golden chain that encircled
+her neck was of such weight that it had to be supported by a slave. She
+walked along the streets of Rome, preceding the magnificent chariot in
+which she had indulged hopes of riding in triumph through those grand
+avenues. Behind it came two other chariots, still more sumptuous, those
+of Odenathus and the Persian monarch. The triumphal car of Aurelian,
+which followed, was one which had formerly been used by a Gothic king,
+and was drawn by four stags or four elephants, we are not sure which.
+The most illustrious of the senate, the people, and the army closed this
+grand procession, which was gazed upon with joy and wonder by the vast
+population of Rome.
+
+So extended was the pompous parade that though it began with the dawn of
+day, the ninth hour had arrived when it ascended to the Capitol, and
+night had fallen when the emperor returned to his palace. Then followed
+theatrical representations, games in the circus, gladiatorial combats,
+wild-beast shows, and naval engagements. Not for generations had Rome
+seen such a festival. Of the rich spoils a considerable portion was
+dedicated to the gods of Rome, the temples glittered with golden
+offerings, and the Temple of the Sun, a magnificent structure erected by
+Aurelian, was enriched with more than fifteen thousand pounds of gold.
+
+To Zenobia the victor behaved with a generous clemency such as the
+conquering emperors of Rome rarely indulged in. He presented her with an
+elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the imperial
+city; and here, surrounded by luxury, she who had played so imperial a
+_role_ in history sank into the humbler state of a Roman matron. Her
+daughters married into noble families, and the descendants of the once
+Queen of the East were still known in Rome in the fifth century of the
+Christian era.
+
+
+
+
+_THE LITERARY GLORY OF GREECE._
+
+
+Shall we now leave the domain of historic events, of which the land of
+Greece presents so large and varied a store, and consider that other
+feature of national life and development which has made Greece the most
+notable of lands--the intellectual growth of its people, the splendor of
+art and literature which gave it a glory that glows unfading still?
+
+In the whole history of mankind there is nothing elsewhere to compare
+with the achievements of the Greek intellect during the few centuries in
+which freedom and thought flourished on that rocky peninsula, and the
+names and works handed down to us are among the noblest in the grand
+republic of thought. Just when this remarkable era of literature began
+we do not know. So far as any remains of it are concerned, it began as
+the sun begins its daily career in the heavens, with a lustre not
+surpassed in any part of its course. For the oldest of Greek writings
+which we possess are among the most brilliant, comprising the poems of
+Homer, the model of all later works in the epic field, and which light
+up and illustrate a broad period of human history as no works in
+different vein could do. They shine out in a realm of darkness, and
+show us what men were doing and thinking and how they were living and
+striving at a time which but for them would be buried in impenetrable
+darkness.
+
+This was the epoch of the wandering minstrel, when the bard sang his
+stirring lays of warlike scenes and heroic deeds in castle and court.
+But the mind of Greece was then awakening in other fields, and it is of
+great interest to find that Homer was quickly followed by an epic writer
+of markedly different vein, Hesiod, the poet of peace and rural labors,
+of the home and the field. While Homer paints for us the warlike life of
+his day, Hesiod paints the peaceful labors of the husbandman, the
+holiness of domestic life, the duty of economy, the education of youth,
+and the details of commerce and politics. He also collects the flying
+threads of mythological legend and lays down for us the story of the
+gods in a work of great value as the earliest exposition of this
+picturesque phase of religious belief. The veil is lifted from the face
+of youthful Greece by these two famous writers, and we are shown the
+land and its people in full detail at a period of whose conditions we
+otherwise would be in total ignorance.
+
+Such was the earliest phase of Greek literature, so far as any remains
+of it exist. It took on a different form when Athens rose to political
+supremacy and became a capital of art and the chief centre of Hellenic
+thought, its productions being received with admiration throughout
+Greece, while the ripened judgment and taste of its citizens became the
+arbiters of literary excellence for many centuries to follow. The
+earliest notable literature, however, came from the Ionians of Asia
+Minor and the adjacent islands. In the soft and mild climate and
+productive valleys of this region and under the warm suns and beside the
+limpid seas of the smiling islands, the mobile Ionic spirit found
+inspiration and blossomed into song while yet the rocky Attic soil was
+barren of literary growth. But with the conquering inroads of the
+Persians literature fled from this field to find a new home among "those
+busy Athenians, who are never at rest themselves nor are willing to let
+any one else be."
+
+[Illustration: ALONG THE COAST OF GREECE.]
+
+The day of the epic poet had now passed and the lyric took its place,
+making its first appearance, like the epic, in Ionia and the AEgean
+islands, but finding its most appreciative audience and enthusiastic
+support in Athens, the coming home of the muse. Song became the
+prevailing literary demand, and was supplied abundantly by such choice
+singers as Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Simonides, and others of the soft
+and cheerful vein, the biting satires of Archilochus, the noble odes of
+Pindar, the war anthems of Tyrtaeus, and the productions of many of
+lesser fame.
+
+This flourishing period of song sank away when a new form of literature,
+that of the drama, suddenly came into being and attained immediate
+popularity. For a century earlier it had been slowly taking form in the
+rural districts of Attica, beginning in the odes addressed to Dionysus,
+the god of wine, the Bacchus of Roman mythology. These odes were sung
+at the public festivals of the vintage season, were accompanied by
+gesture and action and in time by dialogue, and the day came when groups
+of amateur actors travelled in carts from place to place to present
+their rude dramatic scenes, then mainly composed of song and dance, rude
+jests, and dialogues. In this way the drama slowly came into being,
+comedy from the jovial by-play of the rustic actors, tragedy from their
+crude efforts to reproduce the serious side of mythologic story. A great
+tragic artist and poet, the far-famed AEschylus, lifted these primitive
+attempts into the field of the true drama. He was quickly followed by
+two other great artists in the same field, Sophocles and Euripides,
+while the efforts of the earlier comedians were succeeded by the
+fun-distilling productions of Aristophanes, the greatest of ancient
+artists in this field.
+
+This blossoming age of poetry and the drama came after the desperate
+struggles of the Persian War, which had left Athens a heap of ruins. In
+the new Athens which rose under the fostering care of Pericles, not only
+literature flourished but art reached its culmination, temple and hall,
+colonnade and theatre showing the artistic beauty and grandeur of the
+new architecture, while such sculptors as Phidias and such painters as
+Zeuxis adorned the city with the noblest products of art. During these
+busy years Athens became a marvel of beauty and art, the resort of
+strangers from all quarters, the ablest workers in marble and metal,
+the noblest artists, poets, and philosophers, until for more than a
+century that city was the recognized centre of the loftiest products of
+the human intellect.
+
+Prose came later than poetry, but was soon flourishing as luxuriantly.
+The early historians quickly yielded Herodotus, the delightful old
+storyteller, with his poetic prose; Xenophon, with his lucid and flowing
+narrative; and Thucydides, the greatest of ancient historians and the
+first to give philosophic depth to the annals of mankind. The advent of
+history was accompanied by that of oratory, which among the Greeks
+developed into one of the choicest forms of literature, especially in
+the case of the greatest of the world's orators, Demosthenes, whose
+orations were inspired by the noblest of themes, that of a patriotic
+effort to preserve the independence of Greece against the ambitious
+designs of Philip of Macedon.
+
+Philosophy, the third great form of Greek prose literature, was as
+diligently cultivated, and has left as many examples for modern perusal.
+The works of the earlier philosophers were in verse, while Socrates, the
+first of the moral philosophers, left no writings, doing his work with
+tongue instead of pen, though he forms the leading character in Plato's
+philosophic dialogues. In Plato we have the most famous of the world's
+philosophers, and a writer of the ablest skill, in whose works the
+imagination of the poet is happily blended with the reasoning of the
+philosopher, his productions constituting a form of philosophic drama,
+in which the character of each speaker is closely preserved, Socrates
+being usually the chief personage introduced.
+
+Following Plato came Aristotle, his equal in fame though not in literary
+merit. His name will long survive as that of one of the ablest thinkers
+the world has produced, a reasoner of exceptional ability, whose scope
+of research covered all fields and whose discoveries in practical
+science formed the first true introduction to mankind of this great
+field of human study, to-day the greatest of them all.
+
+We have named here only the leaders in Greek literature, the whole array
+being far too great to cover in brief space. Following the older form of
+the drama, with its archaic character, came two later forms, the Middle
+and the New Comedy, in the latter of which Menander was the most famous
+writer, making in his plays some approach to the modern form. Philosophy
+left later exponents in Zeno, Epicurus, and many others, and history in
+Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch, Arrian, and others of note. Science, as
+developed by Aristotle and Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was
+carried forward by many others, including Theophrastus, the able
+successor of Aristotle; Euclid, the first great geometer; Eratosthenes
+and Hipparchus, the astronomers; and, latest of ancient scientists,
+Ptolemy, whose works on astronomy and geography became the text-books of
+the middle-age schools.
+
+Long before these later writers came into the field the centres of
+literary effort had shifted to new localities. Sicily became the field
+of the choicest lyric poetry, giving us Theocritus, with his charming
+"Idyls," or scenes of rural life, and his songful dialogues, with their
+fine description and delightful humor. Following him came Bion and
+Moschus, two other bucolic poets, whose finest productions are elegies
+of unsurpassed beauty.
+
+Syracuse was the home of this new field of lyric poetry, but there were
+other centres in which literature flourished, especially Pergamus,
+Antiochia, Pella, and above all Alexandria, the city founded by
+Alexander the Great in Egypt, and which under the fostering care of the
+Ptolemies, Alexander's successors in this quarter, developed into a
+remarkable centre of intellectual effort.
+
+The first Ptolemy made Alexandria his capital and founded there a great
+state institution which became famous as the Museum, and to which
+philosophers, scholars, and students flocked from all parts of the
+world. Here learned men could find a retreat from the bustle of the
+great metropolis which Alexandria became, and pursue their studies or
+teach their pupils in peace within its walls, and it is said that at one
+time fourteen thousand students gathered within its classic shades.
+
+Here grew up two great libraries, said to number seven hundred thousand
+volumes, and embracing all that was worthy of study or preservation in
+the writings of ancient days. Of these, one was burned during the siege
+of the city by Julius Caesar, but it was replaced by Marc Antony, who
+robbed Pergamus of its splendid library of two hundred thousand volumes
+and sent it to Alexandria as a present to Cleopatra.
+
+In this secure retreat, amply supported by the liberality of the
+Ptolemies, philosophers and scholars spent their days in mental culture
+and learned lectures and debates. The scientific studies inaugurated by
+Aristotle were here continued by a succession of great astronomers,
+geometers, chemists, and physicians, for whose use were furnished a
+botanical garden, a menagerie of animals, and facilities for human
+dissection, the first school of anatomy ever known.
+
+In the heart of the great library, battening on books, flourished a
+circle of learned literary critics, engaged in the study of Homer and
+the other already classical writers of Greece and supplying new and
+revised editions of their works. Here philosophy was ardently pursued,
+the works of Plato and his great rivals being diligently studied, while
+in a later age the innovation of Neoplatonism was abundantly debated and
+taught. A new school of poetry also arose, most of its followers being
+mechanical versifiers, though the idyllic poets of Sicily sought these
+favoring halls. Most famous among the philosophers of Alexandria was the
+maiden Hypatia, who had studied in the still active schools of Athens,
+and taught the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle and the then popular
+tenets of Neoplatonism--her fame being chiefly due to her violent and
+terrible death at the hands of fanatical opponents of her teachings.
+
+The dynasty of the Ptolemies vanished with the death of Cleopatra, and
+during the wars and struggles that followed the library disappeared and
+the supremacy of Alexandria as a centre of mental culture passed away.
+The literary culture of Athens, whose schools of philosophy long
+survived its downfall as the capital of an independent state, also
+disappeared after being plundered of many of its works of art by Sulla,
+the Roman tyrant, and in later years for the adornment of
+Constantinople; its schools were closed by order of the Emperor
+Justinian in 529 A.D.; and with them the light of science and learning,
+which had been shining for many centuries, though very dimly at the
+last, was extinguished, and the final vestige of the glory of Athens and
+the artistic and literary supremacy of Greece vanished from the land of
+their birth.
+
+  THE END.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The sequel to this episode will be found in the tale entitled "The
+Fortune of Croesus."
+
+[2] Equal to about one thousand dollars.
+
+[3] The army of Sparta, which before had stayed at home to await the
+full of the moon, did so now to complete certain religious ceremonies,
+sparing but this handful of men for the vital need of Greece.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL 10 (OF 15) ***
+
+***** This file should be named 25642.txt or 25642.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/4/25642/
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/25642.zip b/25642.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..585edfd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25642.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08dc6bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #25642 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25642)