Book IX. CALLIOPE.--Defeat of the Persians at Platæa--defeat at the

promontory of Mycale, and their complete retreat within their own

territories.

THE CROCODILE.

(_By Herodotus._)

The following are the peculiarities of the crocodile: During the

winter months they eat nothing; they are four-footed, and live

indifferently on land or in the water. The female lays and hatches her

eggs ashore, passing the greater portion of the day on dry land, but

at night retiring to the river, the water of which is warmer than the

night-air and the dew. Of all known animals this is the one which from

the smallest size grows to be the greatest, for the egg of the

crocodile is but little bigger than that of the goose, and the young

crocodile is in proportion to the egg, yet when it is full grown, the

animal measures frequently seventeen cubits, and even more. It has the

eyes of a pig, teeth large and tusk-like, of a size proportioned to

its frame; unlike any other animal, it is without a tongue; it can not

move its under-jaw, and in this respect, too, it is singular, being

the only animal in the world which moves the upper-jaw but not the

under. It has strong claws and a scaly skin, impenetrable upon the

back. In the water it is blind, but on land it is very keen of sight.

As it lives chiefly in the river, it has the inside of its mouth

constantly covered with leeches, hence it happens that, while all the

other birds and beasts avoid it, with the trochilus it lives at peace,

since it owes much to that bird, for the crocodile, when he leaves the

water and comes out upon the land, is in the habit of lying with his

mouth wide open, facing the western breeze; at such times the

trochilus goes into his mouth and devours the leeches. This benefits

the crocodile, who is pleased, and takes care not to hurt the

trochilus.

The crocodile is esteemed sacred by some of the Egyptians, by others

he is treated as an enemy. Those who live near Thebes, and those who

dwell around Lake Moeris, regard them with especial veneration. In

each of these places they keep one crocodile in particular, who is

taught to be tame and tractable. They adorn his ears with ear-rings of

molten stone or gold, and put bracelets on his fore-paws, giving him

daily a set portion of bread, with a certain number of victims; and,

after having thus treated him with the greatest possible attention

while alive, they embalm him when he dies and bury him in a sacred

repository. The people of Elephantine, on the other hand, are so far

from considering these animals as sacred that they even eat their

flesh.

The modes of catching the crocodile are many and various. I shall only

describe the one which seems to me most worthy of mention. They bait a

hook with a chine of pork and let the meat be carried out into the

middle of the stream, while the hunter upon the bank holds a living

pig, which he belabors. The crocodile hears its cries and, making for

the sound, encounters the pork, which he instantly swallows down. The

men on the shore haul, and when they have got him to land, the first

thing the hunter does is to plaster his eyes with mud. This once

accomplished, the animal is dispatched with ease, otherwise he gives

great trouble.

ARTABANUS DISSUADES XERXES.

(_By Herodotus._)

The other Persians were silent, for all feared to raise their voice

against the plan proposed to them. But Artabanus, the son of

Hystaspes, and uncle of Xerxes, trusting to his relationship, was bold

to speak: "O King," he said, "it is impossible, if no more than one

opinion is uttered, to make choice of the best; a man is forced then

to follow whatever advice may have been given him, but if opposite

speeches are delivered, then choice can be exercised. In like manner

pure gold is not recognized by itself, but when we test it along with

baser ore, we perceive which is the better. I counseled thy father,

Darius, who was my own brother, not to attack the Scyths, a race of

people who had no town in their own land. He thought, however, to

subdue those wandering tribes, and would not listen to me, but marched

an army against them, and ere he returned home lost many of his

bravest warriors. Thou art about, O King, to attack a people far

superior to the Scyths, a people distinguished above others both by

land and sea. 'Tis fit, therefore, that I should tell thee what danger

thou incurrest hereby. Thou sayest that thou wilt bridge the

Hellespont, and lead thy troops through Europe against Greece.

"Now, suppose some disaster befall thee by land or sea, or by both. It

may be even so, for the men are reputed valiant. Indeed one may

measure their prowess from what they have already done; for when Datis

and Artaphernes led their huge army against Attica, the Athenians

singly defeated them. But grant they are not successful on both

elements. Still, if they man their ships, and, defeating us by sea,

sail to the Hellespont, and there destroy our bridge--that, sire, were

a fearful hazard. And here 'tis not by my own mother wit alone that I

conjecture what will happen, but I remember how narrowly we escaped

disaster once, when thy father, after throwing bridges over the

Thracian Bosphorus and the Ister, marched against the Scythians, and

they tried every sort of prayer to induce the Ionians, who had charge

of the bridge over the Ister, to break the passage. On that day, if

Histiæus, the King of Miletus, had sided with the other princes, and

not set himself to oppose their views, the empire of the Persians

would have come to naught. Surely a dreadful thing is this even to

hear said, that the King's fortunes depended wholly on one man.

"Think, then, no more of incurring so great a danger when no need

presses, but follow the advice I tender. Break up this meeting, and

when thou hast well considered the matter with thyself, and settled

what thou wilt do, declare to us thy resolve. I know not of aught in

the world that so profits a man as taking good counsel with himself;

for even if things fall out against one's hopes, still one has

counseled well, though fortune has made the counsel of no effect:

whereas, if a man counsels ill and luck follows, he has gotten a

windfall, but his counsel is none the less silly. Seest thou how God

with His lightning smites alway the bigger animals, and will not

suffer them to wax insolent, while those of lesser bulk chafe Him not?

How likewise His bolts fall ever on the highest houses and the tallest

trees? So plainly does He love to bring down everything that exalts

itself. Thus oft-times a mighty host is discomfitted by a few men,

when God in His jealousy sends fear or storm from heaven, and they

perish in a way unworthy of them. For God allows no one to have high

thoughts but Himself. Again, hurry always brings about disasters, from

which huge sufferings are wont to arise; but in delay lie many

advantages, not apparent (it may be) at first sight, but such as in

the course of time are seen of all. Such, then, is my counsel to thee,

O King.

"And thou, Mardonius, son of Gobryas, forbear to speak foolishly

concerning the Greeks, who are men that ought not to be lightly

esteemed by us. For while thou revilest the Greeks, thou dost

encourage the King to lead his own troops against them; and this, as

it seems to me, is what thou art specially striving to accomplish.

Heaven send thou succeed not to thy wish! For slander is of all evils

the most terrible. In it two men do wrong, and one man has wrong done

to him. The slanderer does wrong, forasmuch as he abuses a man behind

his back; and the hearer, forasmuch as he believes what he has not

searched into thoroughly. The man slandered in his absence suffers

wrong at the hands of both; for one brings against him a false charge,

and the other thinks him an evil-doer. If, however, it must needs be

that we go to war with this people, at least allow the King to abide

at home in Persia. Then let thee and me both stake our children on the

issue, and do thou choose out thy men, and taking with thee whatever

number of troops thou likest, lead forth our armies to battle. If

things go well for the King, as thou sayest they will, let me and my

children be put to death; but if they fall out as I prophesy, let thy

children suffer, and thou, too, if thou shalt come back alive. But

shouldst thou refuse this wager, and still resolve to march an army

against Greece, sure I am that some of those whom thou leavest behind

thee will one day receive the sad tidings that Mardonius has brought a

great disaster upon the Persian people, and lies a prey to dogs and

birds somewhere in the land of the Athenians, or else in that of the

Lacedæmonians; unless, indeed, thou shalt have perished sooner by the

way, experiencing in thy own person the might of those men on whom

thou wouldst fain induce the King to make war."

SOCRATES.

Socrates was born at Athens about the middle or latter part of April,

469 B.C. He commanded more admiration and reverence than any other

individual of ancient or modern times. By his ability and purity he

emerged from a barbaric sophistry into the purest form of religion

that was ever invented by man, it was nearer like that of Christ than

was ever reached by mortal before. The object of his entire philosophy

was the attainment of correct ideas concerning moral and religious

obligations.

Although Socrates was the son of a sculptor of limited means, he was

educated according to the manner of the times. Music and poetry and

gymnastic exercises formed the principal part of the education of an

Athenian youth, and in these Socrates was instructed.

Through the influence of Crito, a wealthy Athenian who subsequently

became an intimate friend and disciple of our philosopher, he was

induced to rise into a higher sphere. He then began the study of

physics, mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy, etc.

Socrates, however, was unable to obtain any satisfactory knowledge

from the philosophers and teachers of his time. Dissatisfied with the

pretended wisdom of the Cosmologists and Sophists he entirely

abandoned all speculative subjects and devoted his entire attention to

human affairs, and his earnestness as a social reformer brought upon

him increasing odium from the "Conservatives" of the day, as well as

from that still larger class whose feelings of malice and revenge

towards those who expose their follies and their vices, their wicked

private customs and public institutions, can never be appeased but

with the death of their victim. Accordingly, prejudice, unpopularity

and hate finally prevailed, and two charges were brought against him,

one of not believing in the national deities and the other of

corrupting the youth. That he did not believe in the idols that most

of his contemporaries worshiped, is true; but that he corrupted the

youth was as absurd as false, for all his teachings tended ever to

purify them, and lead them in the paths of virtue and truth. He

defended himself, and his defense is a perfect whole, neither more nor

less than what it ought to have been. Proudly conscious of his

innocence, he sought not to move the pity of his judges, for he cared

not for acquittal, and "exhibited that union of humility and

high-mindedness which is observable in none, perhaps, with the

exception of St. Paul." His speech availed not, and he was condemned

to drink the hemlock. He continued in prison thirty days before the

sentence was executed, and to this interval we are indebted for that

sublime conversation on the immortality of the soul which Plato has

embodied in his Phædo.

[Illustration: SOCRATES DRINKING THE POISON (_From ancient Wall

Painting._)]

At length the fatal day arrived, when he had reached his full three

score years and ten. Refusing all means of escape to which his friends

continually and importunely urged him, he took the poisoned cup from

the hands of the boy who brought it to him in his prison-chamber,

drank it off calmly amid the tears and sobs of surrounding friends,

walked about till the draught had begun to take effect upon his

system, and then laid himself down upon his bed, and soon breathed his

last. Such was the life and such the death of this great man. It has

been felt as the greatest of all human examples, not only by his own

countrymen, but by the whole civilized world.

SOCRATES AND ARISTODEMUS.

(_By Socrates._)

We will now relate the manner in which Socrates discoursed with

Aristodemus, surnamed _the Little_, concerning the Deity. For,

observing that he neither prayed nor sacrificed to the gods nor yet

consulted any oracle, but, on the contrary, ridiculed and laughed at

those who did, he said to him:

"Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man whom you admire on account of

his merit?"

Aristodemus having answered, "_Many._"--"Name some of them, I pray

you."

"I admire," said Aristodemus, "Homer for his epic poetry, Melanippides

for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for tragedy, Polycletes for statuary,

and Xeuxis for painting."

"But which seems to you most worthy of admiration, Aristodemus--the

artist who forms images void of motion and intelligence, or one who

hath the skill to produce animals that are endued, not only with

activity, but understanding."

"The _latter_, there can be no doubt," replied Aristodemus, "provided

the production was not the effect of _chance_, but of wisdom and

contrivance."

"But since there are many things, some of which we can easily see the

_use_ of, while we can not say of others to what purpose they were

produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do you suppose the work of

wisdom?"

"It should seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose

fitness and utility is so evidently apparent."

"But it is evidently apparent, that He, who at the beginning made man,

endued him with senses _because_ they were _good_ for him; eyes,

wherewith to behold whatever was visible; and ears, to hear whatever

was to be heard. For say, Aristodemus, to what purpose should odors be

prepared, if the sense of smelling had been denied? Or why the

distinctions of bitter and sweet, of savory and unsavory, unless a

palate had been likewise given, conveniently placed, to arbitrate

between them, and declare the difference? Is not that Providence,

Aristodemus, in a most eminent manner conspicuous, which, because the

eye of man is so delicate in its contexture, hath therefore prepared

eyelids like doors, whereby to secure it; which extend of themselves

whenever it is needful, and again close when sleep approaches? Are not

these eyelids provided, as it were, with a fence on the edge of them,

to keep off the wind and guard the eye? Even the eyebrow itself is not

without office, but, as a penthouse, is prepared to turn off the

sweat, which, falling from the forehead, might enter and annoy that no

less _tender_ than _astonishing_ part of us! Is it not to be admired

that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and yet are not too

much filled by them? That the fore-teeth of the animal should be

formed in such a manner as evidently best suited for the cutting of

its food, and those on the side for grinding it in pieces? That the

mouth, through which this food is conveyed, should be placed so near

the nose and the eyes, as to prevent the passing, _unnoticed_,

whatever is unfit for nourishment; while Nature, on the contrary, hath

set at a distance, and concealed from the senses, all that might

disgust them? And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus! whether a

disposition of parts like _this_ should be the work of chance, or of

wisdom and contrivance?"

"I have no longer any doubt," replied Aristodemus; "and, indeed, the

more I consider it, the more evident it appears to me, that man must

be the _masterpiece_ of some great Artificer, carrying along with it

infinite marks of love and favor of Him who hath thus formed it."

"And what thinkest thou, Aristodemus, of that _desire_ in the

individual which leads to the continuance of the species? Of that

tenderness and affection in the female towards her young, so necessary

for its preservation? Of that unremitted love of life, and dread of

dissolution, which take such strong possession of us from the moment

we begin to be?"

"I think of them," answered Aristodemus, "as so many regular

operations of the same great and wise Artist, deliberately determining

to _preserve_ what He hath once made."

"But, farther (unless thou desirest to ask me questions), seeing,

Aristodemus, thou thyself art conscious of reason and intelligence,

supposest thou there is no intelligence elsewhere? Thou knowest thy

body to be a small part of that wide-extended earth which thou

everywhere beholdest; the moisture contained in it, thou also knowest

to be a small portion of that mighty mass of waters whereof seas

themselves are but a part, while the rest of the elements contribute,

out of their abundance, to thy formation. It is the soul, then, alone,

that intellectual part of us, which is come to _thee_ by some lucky

chance, from I know not where. If so be, there is indeed no

intelligence elsewhere; and we must be forced to confess, that this

stupendous universe, with all the various bodies contained

therein--equally amazing, whether we consider their magnitude or

number, whatever their use, whatever their order--_all_ have been

produced, not by _intelligence_, but _chance_!"

"It is with difficulty that I can suppose otherwise," returned

Aristodemus, "for I behold none of those gods, whom you speak of as

_making_ and _governing_ all things, whereas I see the artists when at

their work here among us."

"Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristodemus, which, however, most

assuredly _governs_ thy body: although it may well seem, by thy manner

of talking, that it is _chance_, and not _reason_, which governs

thee."

"I do not despise the gods," said Aristodemus; "on the contrary, I

conceive so highly of their excellence, as to suppose they stand in no

need of either me or of my services."

"Thou mistakest the matter, Aristodemus; the greater magnificence they

have shown in their care of _thee_, so much the more honor and service

thou owest them."

"Be assured," said Aristodemus, "if I once could be persuaded the gods

took care of man, I should want no monitor to remind me of my duty."

"And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man? Hath

not the glorious privilege of walking upright been _alone_ bestowed on

him, whereby he may, with the better advantage, survey what is around

him, contemplate, with more ease, those splendid objects which are

above, and avoid the numerous ills and inconveniences which would

otherwise befall him? Other animals, indeed, they have provided with

feet, by which they may remove from one place to another; but to _man_

they have also given _hands_, with which he can form many things for

his use, and make himself happier than creatures of any other kind. A

tongue hath been bestowed on every other animal, but what animal,

except man, hath the power of forming words with it, whereby to

explain his thoughts, and make them intelligible to others? And to

show that the gods have had regard to his very _pleasures_, they have

not limited them, like those of other animals, to _times_ and seasons,

but man is left to indulge in them whenever not hurtful to him.

"But it is not with respect to the body alone that the gods have shown

themselves thus bountiful to man! Their most excellent gift is that

_soul_ they have infused into him, which so far surpasses what is

elsewhere to be found. For, by what animal, except man, is even the

_existence_ of those gods discovered, who have _produced_, and still

_uphold_, in such regular order, this beautiful and stupendous frame

of the universe? What other species of creatures are to be found that

can serve, that can adore them? What other animal is able, like man,

to provide against the assaults of heat and cold, of thirst and

hunger? That can lay up remedies for the time of sickness and improve

the strength nature hath given by a well-proportioned exercise? That

can receive, like him, information and instruction, or so happily keep

in memory what he hath seen, and heard, and learnt? These things being

so, who seeth not that man is, as it were, _a god_ in the midst of

this visible creation; so far doth he surpass, whether in the

endowments of soul or body, all animals whatsoever that have been

produced therein! For, if the _body_ of the _ox_ had been joined to

the _mind_ of _man_, the acuteness of the latter would have stood him

in small stead, while unable to execute the well-designed plan; nor

would the _human_ form have been of more use to the brute, so long as

it remained destitute of understanding! But in thee, Aristodemus, hath

been joined to a wonderful _soul_, a body no less wonderful, and

sayest thou, after _this_, 'the gods take no thought for me!' What

wouldst thou, then, more to convince thee of their care?"

"I would they should send, and inform me," said Aristodemus, "what

things I _ought_ or _ought not_ to do in like manner as thou sayest

they frequently do to thee."

"And what then, Aristodemus! Supposest thou, that when the gods give

out some oracle to _all_ the Athenians, they mean it not for _thee_?

If, by their prodigies, they declare aloud to all Greece--to _all_

mankind--the things which shall befall them, are they dumb to _thee_

alone? And art _thou_ the only person whom they have placed beyond

their care? Believest thou they would have wrought into the mind of

man a persuasion of their being _able_ to make him happy or miserable,

if so be they had no such _power_? or would not even man himself, long

ere this, have seen through the gross delusion? How is it,

Aristodemus, thou rememberest, or remarkest not, that the kingdoms and

commonwealths most renowned as well for their _wisdom_ as antiquity,

are those whose piety and devotion hath been the most observable? And

why thinkest thou that the providence of God may not easily extend

itself throughout the whole universe? As, therefore, among men, we

make best trial of the affection and gratitude of our neighbor, by

showing him kindness, and discover his wisdom, by consulting him in

our distress; do thou, in like manner, behave towards the gods, and,

if thou wouldst experience what their wisdom, and what their love,

render thyself deserving the communication of some of those divine

secrets which may not be perpetrated by man, and are imparted to those

alone who consult, who adore, who obey the Deity. Then shalt thou, my

Aristodemus, understand there is a Being whose eye pierceth throughout

all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound; _extended_ to all

places; _extending_ through all time, and whose bounty and care can

know no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation!"

By this discourse, and others of the like nature, Socrates taught his

friends that they were not only to forbear whatever was impious,

unjust, or unbecoming before _men;_ but even, when alone, they ought

to have a regard to their actions; since the gods have their eyes

continually upon us, and none of our designs can be concealed from

them.

EURIPIDES.

Euripides flourished about 450 B.C.; was born 480 B.C. He spent his

youth in the highest mental and physical training. He was a native of

Athens, and enjoyed the most glorious days of her annals, being

brought in direct connection with Æschylus and Sophocles, and in his

older days was a pupil of Socrates.

In comparing Euripides and the other two masters in Grecian tragedy,

it may be said that he ranks first in tragic representation and

effect; Sophocles first in dramatic symmetry and ornament; Æschylus

first in poetic vigor and grandeur. Æschylus was the most sublime;

Sophocles the most beautiful; Euripides the most pathetic. The first

displays the lofty intellect; the second exercises the cultivated

taste; the third indulges the feeling heart. Each, as it were, shows a

fine piece of sculpture. In Æschylus, it is a naked hero, with all the

strength, boldness, and dignity of olden time. In Sophocles and

Euripides, it may be perhaps the same hero; but with the former, he

has put on the flowing robes, the elegant address, and the soft

urbanity of a polished age; with the latter, he is yielding to some

melancholy emotion, ever heedless of his posture or gait, and casting

his unvalued drapery negligently about him. They have been compared by

an illustration from another art: "The sublime and daring Æschylus

resembles some strong and impregnable castle situated on a rock, whose

martial grandeur awes the beholder--its battlements defended by

heroes, and its gates proudly hung with trophies." Sophocles appears

with splendid dignity, like some imperial palace of richest

architecture; the symmetry of the parts and the chaste magnificence of

the whole delight the eye and command the approbation of the judgment.

The pathetic and moral Euripides has the solemnity of a Gothic temple,

whose storied windows admit a dim religious light, enough to show its

high embowed roof, and the monuments of the dead which rise in every

part, impressing our minds with pity and terror as emblems of the

uncertain and short duration of human greatness, and with an awful

sense of our own mortality.

ARISTOPHANES.

Very little is known about the life of Aristophanes. He was born about

444 B.C., and devoted himself to comic poetry. He wrote fifty-four

plays, of which eleven are extant.

The comedies of Aristophanes are universally regarded as the standard

of Attic writing in its greatest purity. His genius was vast,

versatile, and original, and his knowledge of human nature surpassed

by Homer and Shakspeare alone.

The noble tone of morals, the elevated taste, the sound political

wisdom, the boldness and acuteness of the satire, the grand object,

which is seen throughout, of correcting the follies of the day, and

improving the condition of his country--all these are features in

Aristophanes, which, however disguised, as they intentionally are, by

coarseness and buffoonery, entitle him to the highest respect from

every reader of antiquity. He condescended, indeed, to play the part

of jester to the Athenian tyrant. But his jests were the vehicles for

telling to them the soundest truths. They were never without a far

higher aim than to raise a momentary laugh. He was no farce writer,

but a deep philosophical politician; grieved and ashamed at the

condition of his country, and through the stage, the favorite

amusement of Athenians, aiding to carry on the one great common work,

which Plato proposed in his dialogues, and in which all the better and

nobler spirits of the time seem to have concurred as by a

confederacy--the reformation of an atrocious democracy. There is as

much system in the comedies of Aristophanes as in the dialogues of

Plato. Every part of a vitiated public mind is exposed in its turn.

Its demagogues in the Knights, its courts of justice in the Wasps, its

foreign policy in the Acharnians, its tyranny over the allies in the

Birds, the state of female society in the Sysistrate and the

Ecclesiazusæ, and its corrupt poetical taste in the Frogs. No one play

is without its definite object; and the state of national education,

as the greatest cause of all, is laid open in the Clouds. Whatever

light is thrown, by that admirable play, upon the character of

Socrates, and the position which he occupies in the Platonic

Dialogues--a point, it may be remarked, on which the greatest mistakes

are daily made--it is chiefly valuable as exhibiting, in a short but

very complete analysis, and by a number of fine Rembrandt-like

strokes, not any of which must be overlooked, all the features of that

frightful school of sophistry, which at that time was engaged

systematically in corrupting the Athenian youth, and against which the

whole battery of Plato was pointedly directed.

PLATO.

Plato was born in the year 429 B.C., and died when he was eighty-two

years old, on his birthday. He was a pupil of Socrates, the first and

purest of moral philosophers. By the rare union of a brilliant

imagination with a fondness for severe mathematical studies and

profound metaphysical investigations; by extensive foreign travel; by

familiar intercourse with the most enlightened men of his time,

particularly Socrates, whose instructive conversations he attended for

eight years, as well as by the correspondence which he maintained with

the Pythagoreans of Magna Græcia, this great philosopher came to

surpass all others in the vastness and profoundness of his views, and

in the correctness and eloquence with which he expressed them; while

his pure moral character entitled him to take his place by the side of

Socrates. Socrates once said, "For what higher reward could a teacher

ask than to have such pupils as Xenophon and Plato?"

The object of Plato was evidently the noble one of placing before man

a high intellectual, and consequently, by implication, a high moral

standard as the end and object of his aspirations; to encourage his

efforts after the true, the pure, the beautiful, and the virtuous,

knowing that the character would be purified in the endeavor, and that

the consciousness of the progress made, step by step, would be of

itself a reward. The object of science was, as he taught, the true,

the eternal, the immutable, that which is; in one alone could these

attributes be found united--that is God. Man's duty, then, according

to the Platonic system is to know God and His attributes, and to aim

at being under the practical influence of this knowledge. This the

Christian is taught, but much more simply and plainly, to know God,

and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, and to propose to himself a

perfect standard, to be perfect even as his Father in heaven is

perfect, and to look forward, by that help which Plato had no warrant

to look for, to attain the perfect measure of the fulness of Christ.

Although Plato believed and taught that man ought to strive after and

devote himself to the contemplation of the One, the Eternal, the

Infinite, he was humbly conscious that no one could attain to the

perfection of such knowledge; that it is too wonderful and excellent

for human powers. Man's incapacity for apprehending this knowledge he

attributed to the soul, during his present state of existence, being

cramped and confined by its earthly tabernacle.

Plato defined virtue to be the imitation of God, or the free effort of

man to attain to a resemblance to his original, or, in other terms, a

unison and harmony of all our principles and actions according to

reason, whence results the highest degree of happiness. Evil is

opposed to this harmony as a disease of the soul. Virtue is _one_,

indeed, but compounded of four elements--_wisdom_, _courage_,

_temperance_, and _justice_. In his practical philosophy he blended a

rigid principle of moral obligation with a spirit of gentleness and

humanity; and education he described as a liberal cultivation and

moral discipline of the mind. Politics he defined to be the

application, on a great scale, of the laws of morality; for a society,

being composed of individuals, is under similar moral obligations, and

the end of politics to be liberty and concord. Beauty he considered to

be the sensible representation of moral and physical perfection;

consequently it is one with truth and goodness, and inspires love,

which leads to virtue.

Would that many so-called Christian legislators and Christian people

would go to this "heathen" philosopher and learn of him--learn that to

do right is always and ever the highest safety, the highest

expediency, the highest "conservatism," the highest good!

How beautifully Akenside expresses this:--

"Thus was beauty sent from heaven,

The lovely ministress of truth and good,

In this dark world: for TRUTH AND GOOD ARE ONE,

AND BEAUTY DWELLS IN THEM, AND THEY IN HER,

WITH LIKE PARTICIPATION. Wherefore, then,

O sons of earth! would ye dissolve the tie?

O wherefore, with a rash, impetuous aim,

Seek ye those flowery joys with which the hand

Of lavish fancy paints each flattering scene

Where beauty _seems_ to dwell, nor once inquire

Where is the sanction of eternal truth,

Or where the seal of undeceitful good,

To save your search from folly! wanting these,

Lo! beauty withers in your void embrace,

And with the glittering of an idiot's toy

Did fancy mock your vows."

THE PERFECT BEAUTY.

(_By Plato._)

"He who aspires to love rightly, ought from his earliest youth to seek

an intercourse with beautiful forms, and first to make a single form

the object of his love, and therein to generate intellectual

excellencies. He ought, then, to consider that beauty in whatever form

it resides is the brother of that beauty which subsists in another

form; and if he ought to pursue that which is beautiful in form, it

would be absurd to imagine that beauty is not one and the same thing

in all forms, and would therefore remit much of his ardent preference

towards one, through his perception of the multitude of claims upon

his love. In addition, he would consider the beauty which is in souls

more excellent than that which is in form. So that one endowed with an

admirable soul, even though the flower of the form were withered,

would suffice him as the object of his love and care, and the

companion with whom he might seek and produce such conclusions as tend

to the improvement of youth; so that it might be led to observe the

beauty and the conformity which there is in the observation of its

duties and the laws, and to esteem little the mere beauty of the

outward form. He would then conduct his pupil to science, so that he

might look upon the loveliness of wisdom; and that contemplating thus

the universal beauty, no longer would he unworthily and meanly enslave

himself to the attractions of one form in love, nor one subject of

discipline or science, but would turn towards the wide ocean of

intellectual beauty, and from the sight of the lovely and majestic

forms which it contains, would abundantly bring forth his conceptions

in philosophy; until, strengthened and confirmed, he should at length

steadily contemplate one science which is the science of this

universal beauty.

[Illustration: FROM ANCIENT SCULPTURING.]

"Attempt, I entreat you, to mark what I say with as keen an

observation as you can. He who has been disciplined to this point in

love, by contemplating beautiful objects gradually, and in their

order, now arriving at the end of all that concerns love, on a sudden

beholds a beauty wonderful in its nature. This is it, O Socrates, for

the sake of which all the former labors were endured. It is eternal,

unproduced, indestructible; neither subject to increase nor decay;

not, like other things, partly beautiful and partly deformed; not at

one time beautiful and at another time not; not beautiful in relation

to one thing and deformed in relation to another; not here beautiful

and there deformed; not beautiful in the estimation of one person and

deformed in that of another; nor can this supreme beauty be figured to

the imagination like a beautiful face, or beautiful hands, or any

portion of the body, nor like any discourse, nor any science. Nor does

it subsist in any other that lives or is, either in earth, or in

heaven, or in any other place; but it is eternally uniform and

consistent, and monoeidic with itself. All other things are beautiful

through a participation of it, with this condition, that although they

are subject to production and decay, it never becomes more or less, or

endures any change. When any one, ascending from a correct system of

love, begins to contemplate this supreme beauty, he already touches

the consummation of his labor. For such as discipline themselves upon

this system, or are conducted by another beginning to ascend through

these transitory objects which are beautiful, towards that which is

beauty itself, proceeding as on steps from the love of one form to

that of two, and from that of two, to that of all forms which are

beautiful; and from beautiful forms to beautiful habits and

institutions, and from institutions to beautiful doctrines; until,

from the meditation of many doctrines, they arrive at that which is

nothing else than the doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the

knowledge and contemplation of which at length they repose.

"Such a life as this, my dear Socrates," exclaimed the stranger

Prophetess, "spent in the contemplation of the beautiful, is the life

for men to live; which, if you chance ever to experience, you will

esteem far beyond gold and rich garments, and even those lovely

persons whom you and many others now gaze on with astonishment, and

are prepared neither to eat nor drink so that you may behold and live

forever with these objects of your love! What, then, shall we imagine

to be the aspect of the supreme beauty itself, simple, pure,

uncontaminated with the intermixture of human flesh and colors, and

all other idle and unreal shapes attendant on mortality; the divine,

the original, the supreme, the monoeidic beautiful itself? What must

be the life of him who dwells with and gazes on that which it becomes

us all to seek? Think you not that to him alone is accorded the

prerogative of bringing forth, not images and shadows of virtue, for

he is in contact not with a shadow but with reality; with virtue

itself, in the production and nourishment of which he becomes dear to

the gods, and if such a privilege is conceded to any human being,

himself immortal?"--_From the Banquet, translated by the poet

Shelley._

THE LAST HOURS OF SOCRATES.

(_By Plato._)

"When the dead arrive at the place to which their demon leads them

severally, first of all they are judged, as well those who have lived

well and piously, as those who have not. And those who appear to have

passed a middle kind of life, proceeding to Acheron, and embarking in

the vessels they have, on these arrive at the lake, and there dwell,

and when they are purified, and have suffered punishment for the

iniquities they may have committed, they are set free, and each

receives the reward of his good deeds, according to his deserts; but

those who appear to be incurable, through the magnitude of their

offences, either from having committed many and great sacrileges, or

many unjust and lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these a

suitable destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth.

But those who appear to have been guilty of curable, yet great

offences, such as those who through anger have committed any violence

against father or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life

in a state of penitence, or they who have become homicides in a

similar manner, these must fall into Tartarus, but after they have

fallen, and have been there for a year, the wave casts them forth, the

homicides into Cocytus, but the parricides and matricides into

Pyriphlegethon; but when, being borne along, they arrive at the

Acherusian lake, there they cry out to and invoke, some those whom

they slew, others those whom they injured, and invoking them, they

entreat and implore them to suffer them to go out into the lake, and

to receive them, and if they persuade them, they go out, and are freed

from their sufferings, but if not, they are borne back to Tartarus,

and thence again into the rivers, and they do not cease from suffering

this until they have persuaded those whom they have injured; for this

sentence was imposed upon them by the judges. But those who are found

to have lived an eminently holy life, these are they, who, being freed

and set at large from these regions in the earth, as from prison,

arrive at the pure abode above, and dwell on the upper parts of the

earth. And among these, they who have sufficiently purified themselves

by philosophy shall live without bodies, throughout all future time,

and shall arrive at habitations yet more beautiful than these, which

it is neither easy to describe, nor at present is there sufficient

time for the purpose.

"But for the sake of these things which we have described, we should

use every endeavor, Simmias, so as to acquire virtue and wisdom in

this life; for the reward is noble, and the hope great.

"To affirm positively, indeed, that these things are exactly as I have

described them, does not become a man of sense; that however either

this, or something of the kind, takes place with respect to our souls

and their habitations--since our soul is certainly immortal--this

appears to me most fitting to be believed, and worthy the hazard for

one who trusts in its reality; for the hazard is noble, and it is

right to allure ourselves with such things, as with enchantments; for

which reason I have prolonged my story to such a length. On account of

these things, then, a man ought to be confident about his soul, who

during this life has disregarded all the pleasures and ornaments of

the body as foreign from his nature, and who, having thought that they

do more harm than good, has zealously applied himself to the

acquirement of knowledge, and who having adorned his soul not with a

foreign but its own proper ornament, temperance, justice, fortitude,

freedom, and truth, thus waits for his passage to Hades, as one who is

ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him. You then," he

continued, "Simmias and Cebes, and the rest, will each of you depart

at some future time; but now destiny summons me, as a tragic writer

would say, and it is nearly time for me to betake myself to the bath;

for it appears to me to be better to drink the poison after I have

bathed myself, and not to trouble the women with washing my dead

body."

When he had thus spoken, Crito said, "So be it, Socrates; but what

commands have you to give to these or to me, either respecting your

children, or any other matter, in attending to which we can most

oblige you?"

"What I always say, Crito," he replied, "nothing new; that by taking

care of yourselves you will oblige both me and mine and yourselves,

whatever you do, though you should not now promise it; but if you

neglect yourselves, and will not live as it were in the footprints of

what has been now and formerly said, even though you should promise

much at present, and that earnestly, you will do no good at all."

"We will endeavor then so to do," he said; "but how shall we bury

you?"

"Just as you please," he said, "if only you can catch me, and I do not

escape from you." And at the same time smiling gently, and looking

round on us, he said, "I can not persuade Crito, my friends, that I am

that Socrates who is now conversing with you, and who methodizes each

part of the discourse; but he thinks that I am he whom he will shortly

behold dead, and asks how he should bury me. But that which I some

time since argued at length, that when I have drunk the poison I shall

no longer remain with you, but shall depart to some happy state of the

blessed, this I seem to have urged to him in vain, though I meant at

the same time to console both you and myself. Be ye, then, my sureties

to Crito," he said, "in an obligation contrary to that which he made

to the judges; for he undertook that I should remain; but do you be

sureties that, when I die, I shall not remain, but shall depart, that

Crito may more easily bear it, and when he sees my body either burned

or buried, may not be afflicted for me, as if I suffered some dreadful

thing, nor say at my interment that Socrates is laid out, or is

carried out, or is buried. For be well assured," he said, "most

excellent Crito, that to speak improperly is not only culpable as to

the thing itself, but likewise occasions some injury to our souls. You

must have a good courage, then, and say that you bury my body, and

bury it in such a manner as is pleasing to you, and as you think is

most agreeable to our laws."

When he had said this, he rose, and went into a chamber to bathe, and

Crito followed him, but he directed us to wait for him. We waited,

therefore, conversing among ourselves about what had been said, and

considering it again, and sometimes speaking about our calamity, how

severe it would be to us, sincerely thinking that, like those who are

deprived of a father, we should pass the rest of our lives as orphans.

When he had bathed, and his children were brought to him, for he had

two little sons and one grown up, and the women belonging to his

family were come, having conversed with them in the presence of Crito,

and giving them such injunctions as he wished, he directed the women

and children to go away, and then returned to us. And it was now near

sunset; for he spent a considerable time within. But when he came from

bathing he sat down, and did not speak much afterwards. Then the

officer of the Eleven came in, and, standing near him, said,

"Socrates, I shall not have to find that fault with you that I do with

others, that they are angry with me, and curse me, when, by order of

the archons, I bid them drink the poison. But you, on all other

occasions during the time you have been here, I have found to be the

most noble, meek, and excellent man of all that ever came into this

place; and, therefore, I am now well convinced that you will not be

angry with me, for you know who are to blame, but with them. Now,

then, for you know what I came to announce to you, farewell, and

endeavor to bear what is inevitable as easily as possible." And at the

same time, bursting into tears he turned away and withdrew.

And Socrates, looking after him, said, "And thou, too, farewell; we

will do as you direct." At the same time turning to us, he said, "How

courteous this man is; during the whole time I have been here he has

visited me, and conversed with me sometimes, and proved the worthiest

of men; and now how generously he weeps for me. But come, Crito, let

us obey him, and let some one bring the poison, if it is ready

pounded, but if not, let the man pound it."

Then Crito said, "But I think, Socrates, that the sun is still on the

mountains, and has not yet set. Besides, I know that others have drank

the poison very late, after it had been announced to them, and have

supped and drank freely. Do not hasten, then, for there is yet time."

Upon this Socrates replied, "These men whom you mention, Crito, do

these things with good reason, for they think they shall gain by so

doing, and I, too, with good reason shall not do so; for I think I

shall gain nothing by drinking a little later, except to become

ridiculous to myself, in being so fond of life, and sparing of it when

none any longer remains. Go, then," he said, "obey, and do not

resist."

Crito having heard this, nodded to the boy that stood near. And the

boy having gone out, and stayed for some time, came, bringing with him

the man that was to administer the poison, who brought it ready

pounded in a cup. And Socrates, on seeing the man, said, "Well, my

good friend, as you are skilled in these matters, what must I do?"

"Nothing else," he replied, "than, when you have drank it, walk about

until there is a heaviness in your legs, then lie down: thus it will

do its purpose." And at the same time he held out the cup to Socrates.

And he having received it very cheerfully, neither trembling, nor

changing at all in color or countenance, but, as he was wont, looking

steadfastly at the man, said, "What say you of this potion, with

respect to making a libation to any one, is it lawful or not?"

"We only pound so much, Socrates," he said, "as we think sufficient to

drink."

"I understand you," he said, "but it is certainly both lawful and

right to pray to the gods that my departure hence thither may be

happy; which therefore I pray, and so may it be." And as he said this

he drank it off readily and calmly. Thus far, most of us were with

difficulty able to restrain ourselves from weeping; but when we saw

him drinking, and having finished the draught, we could do so no

longer; but in spite of myself the tears came in full torrent, so

that, covering my face, I wept for myself, for I did not weep for him,

but for my own fortune, in being deprived of such a friend. But Crito,

even before me, when he could not restrain his tears, had risen up.

But Apollodorus even before this had not ceased weeping, and then

bursting into an agony of grief, weeping and lamenting, he pierced the

heart of every one present, except Socrates himself. But he said,

"What are you doing, my admirable friends? I indeed for this reason

chiefly, sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of

this kind. For I have heard that it is right to die with good omens.

Be quiet, therefore, and bear up."

When we heard this we were ashamed, and restrained our tears. But he,

having walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy,

laid down on his back; for the man so directed him. And at the same

time he who gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short

interval examined his feet and legs; and then having pressed his foot

hard, he asked if he felt it; he said that he did not. And after this

he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher, he showed us that he was

growing cold and stiff. Then Socrates touched himself, and said that

when the poison reached his heart he should then depart. But now the

parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when, uncovering

himself, for he had been covered over, he said, and they were his last

words, "Crito, we owe a cock to Æsculapius; pay it, therefore, and do

not neglect it."

"It shall be done," said Crito, "but consider whether you have any

thing else to say."

To this question he gave no reply, but shortly after he gave a

convulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed,

and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes.

This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend, a man, as we may say, the

best of all of his time that we have known, and, moreover, the most

wise and just.

DEMOSTHENES.

Demosthenes was born 382 B.C. and died 322 B.C., at the age of sixty.

His father died when he was but seven years old and left his son a

large estate, which was squandered by his guardians.

Demosthenes, most happily, was forced to depend upon the resources of

his own intellect, and determined to devote his life to oratory. He

chose Isæus for his master, and though having a weakly constitution,

and an impediment in his speech, yet by steady, persevering effort,

and daily practice, he brought himself to address without

embarrassment, and with complete success, the assembled multitudes of

the Athenian people. His first attempts at oratory were made to

vindicate his own claims, and recover the property which his guardians

had appropriated to themselves. In this he proved entirely successful.

After this, he displayed his ability as an orator on several public

occasions, and succeeded by the power of his eloquence in preventing

the Athenians from engaging in a war with Persia.

[Illustration: KING PHILIP (_of Macedon_).]

But most of the oratorical efforts of Demosthenes were directed to

rouse the Athenians from indolence, and to arm them against the

insidious designs and ambitious schemes of Philip, who, in the year

358 B.C., began the attack upon the northern maritime allies of

Athens.

In modern times, Lord Chatham's speech on American affairs, delivered

in the House of Lords, November 18, 1877; Edmund Burke's, on the

"Nabob of Arcot's Debts," delivered in the House of Commons, February

28, 1785; Fisher Ames', on the "British Treaty," delivered in our

House of Representatives, April 28, 1796; Daniel Webster's, on the

"Public Lands," delivered in the United States Senate, 1830, and

Charles Sumner's, on the infamous "Fugitive Slave Bill," delivered in

the Senate in 1852, will, for effective, brilliant, and logical

eloquence, rank side by side with the masterly efforts of Demosthenes.

PHILIP AND THE ATHENIANS.

(_Oration of Demosthenes._)

If any one of you, Athenians, think that Philip is hard to struggle

with, considering both the magnitude of the power already to his hand

and the fact that all the strong places are lost to our state--he

thinks rightly enough. But let him take this into account: that we

ourselves, Athenians, once held Pydna, and Potidæa, and Methone, and

all that country--as it were in our own home-circle; and many of the

states now under his sway were beginning to be self-ruled and free,

and preferred to hold friendly relations with us rather than with him.

Now, then, if Philip had harbored at that time the idea that it was

hard to struggle with the Athenians when they had such strongholds in

his country, while he was destitute of allies--he would have effected

none of those things which he has accomplished, nor would he have ever

acquired so great power. But he at least knew this well enough,

Athenians--that all these strongholds are prizes of war open to each

contestant, and that naturally the possessions of the absent fall to

those who are on the spot, and the opportunities of the careless are

seized by those willing to work and to risk. It has been so in his

case, for, possessed by such sentiments, he has thoroughly subdued and

now holds all places; some, as one might hold them in his grasp by

custom of war; others, by having made them allies and friends. No

wonder; for all are ready to give their heartfelt adherence to those

whom they see prepared and ready to do what necessity demands.

In like manner, if you, also, Athenians, are now ready to adopt the

same principle (since, alas! you were not before), and each one of

you, throwing away all dissimulation, is ready to show himself useful

to the state, as far as its necessity and his power extend; if each is

ready to _do_--the rich to contribute, those of serviceable age to

take the field; in a word, if you choose to be your own masters, and

each individual ceases to do nothing, hoping that his neighbor will do

all for him--you will both regain your possessions (with heaven's

permission) and recover your opportunities recklessly squandered; you

will take vengeance on HIM.

Do not suppose his present happy fortune immutable--immortal, like a

god's; on the other hand, some hate him, others fear him, Athenians,

and envy him, and that, too, in the number of those who seem on

intimate terms with him; for all those passions that rage in other

men, we may assume to be hidden in the bosoms of those also that

surround him. Now, however, all these passions have crouched before

him, having no escape on account of your laziness and indifference,

which, I repeat, you ought immediately to abandon. For you see the

state of things, Athenians, to what a pitch of arrogance he has

come--this man who gives you no choice to act or to remain quiet, but

brags about and talks words of overwhelming insolence, as they tell

us. He is not such a character as to rest with the possessions which

he has conquered, but is always compassing something else, and at

every point hedging us, dallying and supine, in narrower and narrower

circles. When, then, Athenians, when will you do what you ought? As

soon as something happens? As soon, great Jove! as necessity compels

you? Why, what does necessity compel you to think now of your deeds?

In my opinion, the most urgent necessity to freemen is the disgrace

attendant upon their public policy.

Or do you prefer--tell me, do you prefer to wander about here and

there, asking in the market-place, "What news? what news?" What can be

newer than that a Macedonian should crush Athenians in war and lord it

over all Greece? "Is Philip dead?" "No, by Jove, but he's sick." What

difference is it to you? what difference? For if anything should

happen to him, you would quickly raise up another Philip, if you

manage your public affairs as you now do. For not so much to his own

strength as to your laziness does he owe his present aggrandizement.

Yet even if anything should happen to him, and fortune begin to favor

us (for she has always cared for us more kindly than we for

ourselves); you know that by being nearer to them you could assert

_your_ power over all these disordered possessions, and could dictate

what terms you might choose; but as you now act, if some chance should

give you Amphipolis, you could not take it, so lacking are you in your

preparations and zeal.

MEASURES TO RESIST PHILIP.

(_Oration of Demosthenes._)

Let any one now come forward and tell me by whose contrivance but ours

Philip has grown strong. Well, sir, this looks bad, but things at home

are better. What proof can be adduced? The parapets that are

whitewashed? The roads that are repaired? fountains and fooleries?

Look at the men of whose statesmanship these are the fruits. They have

risen from beggary to opulence, or from obscurity to honor; some have

made their private houses more splendid than the public buildings, and

in proportion as the state has declined, their fortunes have been

exalted.

What has produced these results? How is it that all went prosperously

then, and now goes wrong? Because anciently the people, having the

courage to be soldiers, controlled the statesmen, and disposed of all

emoluments; any of the rest was happy to receive from the people his

share of honor, office, or advantage. Now, contrariwise, the statesmen

dispose of emoluments; through them everything is done; you, the

people, enervated, stripped of treasure and allies, are become as

underlings and hangers-on, happy if these persons dole you out

show-money or send you paltry beeves; and, the unmanliest part of all,

you are grateful for receiving your own. They, cooping you in the

city, lead you to your pleasures, and make you tame and submissive to

their hands. It is impossible, I say, to have a high and noble spirit,

while you are engaged in petty and mean employments; whatever be the

pursuits of men, their characters must be similar. By Ceres, I should

not wonder if I, for mentioning these things, suffered more from your

resentment than the men who have brought them to pass. For even

liberty of speech you allow not on all subjects; I marvel indeed you

have allowed it here.

Would you but even now, renouncing these practices, perform military

service and act worthily of yourselves; would you employ these

domestic superfluities as a means to gain advantage abroad; perhaps,

Athenians, perhaps you might gain some solid and important advantage,

and be rid of these perquisites, which are like the diet ordered by

physicians for the sick. As that neither imparts strength, nor

suffers the patient to die, so your allowances are not enough to be of

substantial benefit, nor yet permit you to reject them and turn to

something else. Thus do they increase the general apathy. What? I

shall be asked, mean you stipendiary service? Yes, and forthwith the

same arrangement for all, Athenians, that each, taking his dividend

from the public, may be what the state requires. Is peace to be had?

You are better at home, under no compulsion to act dishonorably from

indigence. Is there such an emergency as the present? Better to be a

soldier, as you ought, in your country's cause, maintained by those

very allowances. Is any one of you beyond the military age? What he

now irregularly takes without doing service, let him take by just

regulation, superintending and transacting needful business. Thus,

without derogating from or adding to our political system, only

removing some irregularity, I bring it into order, establishing a

uniform rule for receiving money, for serving in war, for sitting on

juries, for doing what each, according to his age, can do, and what

occasion requires. I never advise we should give to idlers the wages

of the diligent, or sit at leisure, passive and helpless, to hear that

such a one's mercenaries are victorious, as we now do. Not that I

blame any one who does you a service; I only call upon you, Athenians,

to perform upon your own account those duties for which you honor

strangers, and not to surrender that post of dignity which, won

through many glorious dangers, your ancestors have bequeathed.

I have said nearly all that I think necessary. I trust you will adopt

that course which is best for the country and yourselves.

FORMER ATHENIANS DESCRIBED.

(_By Demosthenes._)

I ask you, Athenians, to see how it was in the time of your ancestors;

for by domestic (not foreign) examples you may learn your lesson of

duty. Themistocles who commanded in the sea-fight at Salamis, and

Miltiades who led at Marathon, and many others, who performed services

unlike the generals of the present day--assuredly they were not set up

in brass nor overvalued by our forefathers, who honored them, but only

as persons on a level with themselves. Your forefathers, O my

countrymen, surrendered not their part to any of those glories. There

is no man who will attribute the victory of Salamis to Themistocles,

but to the Athenians; nor the battle of Marathon to Miltiades, but to

the republic. But now people say that Timotheus took Corcyra, and

Iphicrates cut off the Spartan division, and Chabrias won the naval

victory at Naxos; for you seem to resign the merit of these actions,

by the extravagance of the honors which you have bestowed on their

account upon each of the commanders.

So wisely did the Athenians of that day confer political rewards; so

improperly do you. But how the rewards of foreigners? To Menon the

Pharsalian, who gave twelve talents in money for the war at Eion by

Amphipolis, and assisted them with two hundred horsemen of his own

retainers, the Athenians then voted not the freedom of their city, but

only granted immunity from imposts. And in earlier times to Perdiccas,

who reigned in Macedonia during the invasion of the Barbarian--when he

had destroyed the Persians who retreated from Platæa after their

defeat, and completed the disaster of the King--they voted not the

freedom of their city, but only granted immunity from imposts;

doubtless esteeming their country to be of high value, honor, and

dignity, surpassing all possible obligation. But now, ye men of

Athens, ye adopt the vilest of mankind, menials and the sons of

menials, to be your citizens, receiving a price as for any other

salable commodity. And you have fallen into such a practice, not

because your natures are inferior to your ancestors, but because they

were in a condition to think highly of themselves, while from you, men

of Athens, this power is taken away. It can never be, methinks, that

your spirit is generous and noble, while you are engaged in petty and

mean employments; no more than you can be abject and mean-spirited,

while your actions are honorable and glorious. Whatever be the

pursuits of men their sentiments must necessarily be similar.

Mark what a summary view may be taken of the deeds performed by your

ancestors and by you. Possibly from such comparison you may rise

superior to yourselves. They for a period of five and forty years took

the lead of the Greeks by general consent, and carried up more than

ten thousand talents into the citadel; and many glorious trophies they

erected for victories by land and sea, wherein even yet we take a

pride. And remember, they erected these, not merely that we may survey

them with admiration, but, also, that we may emulate the virtues of

the dedicators. Such was their conduct; but for ours--fallen as we

have on a solitude manifest to you all--look if it bears any

resemblance. Have not more than fifteen hundred talents been lavished

ineffectually on the distressed people of Greece? Have not all private

fortunes, the revenues of the state, the contributions from our

allies, been squandered? Have not the allies, whom we gained in the

war, been lost recently in the peace? But forsooth, in these respects

only was it better anciently than now, in other respects worse. Very

far from that! Let us examine what instances you please. The edifices

which they left, the ornaments of the city in temples, harbors, and

the like, were so magnificent and beautiful, that room is not left

for any succeeding generation to surpass them; yonder gateway, the

Parthenon, docks, porticos, and others structures, which they adorned

the city withal and bequeathed to us. The private houses of the men in

power were so modest and in accordance with the name of the

constitution, that if any one knows the style of house which

Themistocles occupied, or Cimon, or Aristides, or Miltiades, and the

illustrious of that day, he perceives it to be no grander than that of

the neighbors. But now, ye men of Athens--as regards public

measures--our government is content to furnish roads, fountains,

whitewashing, and trumpery; not that I blame the authors of these

works; far otherwise; I blame you, if you suppose that such measures

are all you have to execute. As regards individual conduct--your men

in office have (some of them) made their private houses, not only more

ostentatious than the multitude, but more splendid than the public

buildings; others are farming land which they have purchased of such

an extent as once they never hoped for in a dream.

The cause of this difference is, that formerly the people were lords

and masters of all; any individual citizen was glad to receive from

them his share of honor, office, or profit. Now, on the contrary,

these persons are the disposers of emoluments; everything is done by

their agency; the people are treated as underlings and dependents, and

you are happy to take what these men allow you for your portion.

ORATION ON THE CROWN.

(_By Demosthenes._)

Let me begin, men of Athens, by imploring, of all the Heavenly Powers,

that the same kindly sentiments which I have, throughout my public

life, cherished towards this country and each one of you, may now by

you be shown towards me in the present contest! In two respects my

adversary plainly has the advantage of me. First, we have not the same

interests at stake; it is by no means the same thing for me to forfeit

your esteem, and for Æschines, an unprovoked volunteer, to fail in his

impeachment. My other disadvantage is, the natural proneness of men to

lend a pleased attention to invective and accusation, but to give

little heed to him whose theme is his own vindication. To my

adversary, therefore, falls the part which ministers to your

gratification, while to me there is only left that which, I may almost

say, is distasteful to all. And yet, if I do not speak of myself and

my own conduct, I shall appear defenseless against his charges, and

without proof that my honors were well earned. This, therefore, I must

do; but it shall be with moderation. And bear in mind that the blame

of my dwelling on personal topics must justly rest upon him who has

instituted this personal impeachment.

At least, my judges, you will admit that this question concerns me as

much as Ctesiphon, and justifies on my part an equal anxiety. To be

stripped of any possession, and more especially by an enemy, is

grievous to bear, but to be robbed of your confidence and esteem--of

all possessions the most precious--is indeed intolerable. Such, then,

being my stake in this cause, I conjure you all to give ear to my

defense against these charges, with that impartiality which the laws

enjoin--those laws first given by Solon, and which he fixed, not only

by engraving them on brazen tables, but by the sanction of the oaths

you take when sitting in judgment; because he perceived that, the

accuser being armed with the advantage of speaking first, the accused

can have no chance of resisting his charges, unless you, his judges,

keeping the oath sworn before Heaven, shall receive with favor the

defense which comes last, and, lending an equal ear to both parties,

shall thus make up your minds upon the whole of the case.

CICERO.

Cicero, taken all in all, for his eloquence, for his learning, for his

true patriotism, for the profound and ennobling views he has left us

in his critical, oratorical and philosophical writings, as well as for

his purity in all the domestic relations of life, in the midst of

almost universal profligacy, stands forth upon the page of history as

one of the very brightest names the ancients have left us. He was

probably distinguished most as an orator, in which character he is

most generally known, though as a general scholar and statesman he was

almost without a peer. He was born on the third of January, 106 B.C.

His father was a member of the Equestrian order, and lived in easy

circumstances near Arpinum, but afterwards removed to Rome for the

purpose of educating his sons, Marcus and Quintus. The very best

teachers were procured for them. Almost immediately after his

schooling he was promoted, and rose from one station of honor and

distinction to another.

It may be doubted whether any individual ever rose to power by more

virtuous and truly honorable conduct, and the integrity of his public

life was only equaled by the purity of his private morals. But as his

history is taught to our school boys and his orations read in their

original language, we will not lengthen our remarks. The following are

his works. They are numerous and diversified, but may be arranged

under five separate heads: 1. _Philosophical Works._ 2. _Speeches._ 3.

_Correspondence._ 4. _Poems._ 5. _Historical and Miscellaneous Works._

The following are the most important:

First, his _Philosophical Works_, 1. _De Inventione Rhetorica_, "On

the Rhetorical Art;" intended to exhibit, in a compendious form, all

that are most valuable in the works of the Grecian rhetoricians. 2.

_De Partitione Oratorio Dialogus_, "A Dialogue on the several

Divisions of Rhetoric," a sort of catechism of rhetoric. 3. _De

Oratore_, "On the True Orator," a systematic work on the art of

oratory. This is one of his most brilliant efforts, and so accurately

finished in its minute parts, that it may be regarded as a masterpiece

of skill in all that relates to the graces of style and composition.

4. _Brutus: de claris Oratoribus._ This is in the form of a dialogue,

and contains a complete critical history of Roman eloquence. 5.

_Orator_, "The Orator," addressed to Marcus Brutus, giving his views

as to what constitutes a perfect orator. 6. _De Republica_, "On the

Republic," in six books, designed to show the best form of government

and the duty of the citizen; but a considerable portion of this is

lost. 7. _De Officiis_; a treatise on moral obligations, viewed not so

much with reference to a metaphysical investigation of the basis on

which they rest, as to the practical business of the world, and the

intercourse of social and political life. This is one of his most

precious legacies. 8. _De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum_, "On the Ends of

Good and Evil," a series of dialogues dedicated to M. Brutus, in which

the opinions of the Grecian schools, especially of the Epicureans, the

Stoics, and the Peripatetics, on the Supreme Good, the _Summum Bonum_,

that is, the _finis_, "the end."

[Illustration: AUGUSTUS CÆSAR. (_Found at Pompeii._)]

INVECTIVE AGAINST CATILINE.

(_By Cicero._)

How long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shalt

thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what extreme wilt thou carry

thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch, posted to

secure the Palatium? Nothing, by the city guards! Nothing, by the

rally of all good citizens? Nothing, by the assembling of the senate

in this fortified place? Nothing, by the averted looks of all here

present? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed?--that thy

wretched conspiracy is laid bare to every man's knowledge, here in the

senate?--that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night; of

the night before; the place, of meeting, the company convoked, the

measures concerted? Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! The

senate understands all this. The Consul sees it. Yet the traitor

lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in council; takes part

in our deliberations; and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man

of us for slaughter! And we, all this while, strenuous that we are,

think we have amply discharged our duty to the state, if we but _shun_

this madman's sword and fury!

Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to

execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been

meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a

wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have

a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless

because forbearing. We have a decree--though it rests among our

archives like a sword in its scabbard--a decree by which thy life

would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order

thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt

whether all good men would not think it done rather too late, than any

man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow,

long since deserved. _Then_ will I doom thee, when no man is found so

lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was

justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But

thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized, by the

vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not

stir a foot against the Republic without my knowledge. There shall be

eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest

whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall

not cover thy treason--the walls of privacy shall not stifle its

voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as

noon-day, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire,

as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can

propose, nothing you can attempt which I shall not know, hear, and

promptly understand. Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more

active in providing for the preservation of the state than thou in

plotting its destruction!--_First Oration._

EXPULSION OF CATILINE FROM ROME.

(_By Cicero._)

At length, Romans, we are rid of Catiline! We have driven him forth,

drunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to revisit us with

fire and sword. He is gone; he is fled; he has escaped; he has broken

away. No longer, within the very walls of the city, shall he plot her

ruin. We have forced him from secret plots into open rebellion. The

bad citizen is now the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of

his treason! Would that his attendants had not been so few! Be speedy,

ye companions of his dissolute pleasures; be speedy, and you may

overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not languish,

deprived of your society. Haste to join the congenial crew that

compose his army; _his_ army, I say--for who doubts that the army

under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader? And such an army!

Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from debt; gamblers and felons;

miscreants, whose dreams are of rapine, murder, and conflagration!

Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O Romans,

your garrisons and armies; and first to that maimed and battered

gladiator oppose your consuls and generals; next, against that

miserable, outcast horde, lead forth the strength and flower of all

Italy! On the one side, chastity contends; on the other wantonness;

here purity, there pollution; here integrity, there treachery; here

piety, there profaneness; here constancy, there rage; here honesty,

there baseness; here continence, there lust; in short, equity,

temperance, fortitude, prudence, struggle with iniquity, luxury,

cowardice, rashness; every virtue with every vice; and, lastly, the

contest lies between well-grounded hope and absolute despair. In such

a conflict, were even human aid to fail, would not the immortal gods

empower such conspicuous virtue to triumph over such complicated

vice?--_Second Oration._

THE TYRANT PRÆTOR DENOUNCED.

(_By Cicero._)

An opinion has long prevailed, fathers, that, in public prosecutions,

men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. This

opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the state, is

now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before you who is rich,

and who hopes his riches will compass his acquittal, but whose life

and actions are sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all candid men.

I speak of Caius Verres, who, if he now receive not the sentence his

crimes deserve, it shall not be through the lack of a criminal or of a

prosecutor, but through the failure of the ministers of justice to do

their duty. Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth,

what does the quæstorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of

villainies? The public treasure squandered, a Consul stripped and

betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the

civil and religious rights of a people trampled on! But his

praætorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wickedness, and

completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His decisions have

violated all law, all precedent, all right. His extortions from the

industrious poor have been beyond computation. Our most faithful

allies have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like slaves,

been put to death with tortures. Men the most worthy have been

condemned and banished without a hearing, while the most atrocious

criminals have, with money, purchased exemption from the punishment

due to their guilt.

I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against these charges? Art

thou not the tyrant prætor, who, at no greater distance than Sicily,

within sight of the Italian coast, dared to put to an infamous death,

on the cross, that ill-fated and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius

Cosanus? And what was his offense? He had declared his intention of

appealing to the justice of his country against your brutal

persecutions! For this, when about to embark for home, he was seized,

brought before you, charged with being a spy, scourged and tortured.

In vain did he exclaim: "I am a Roman citizen! I have served under

Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and who will attest my

innocence!" Deaf to all remonstrance, remorseless, thirsting for

innocent blood, you ordered the savage punishment to be inflicted!

While the sacred words, "I am a Roman citizen," were on his

lips--words which, in the remotest regions, are a passport to

protection--you ordered him to death, to a death upon the cross!

O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred

privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred--now trampled on! Is it

come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate--a governor, who holds his

whole power of the Roman people--in a Roman province, within sight of

Italy, bind, scourge, torture, and put to an infamous death, a Roman

citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, the

tears of pitying spectators, the majesty of the Roman commonwealth,

nor the fear of the justice of this country, restrain the merciless

monster, who, in the confidence of his riches, strikes at the very

root of liberty, and sets mankind at defiance? And shall this man

escape? Fathers, it must not be! It must not be, unless you would

undermine the very foundations of social safety, strangle justice, and

call down anarchy, massacre and ruin on the commonwealth.--_Oration

against Verres._

ADVANTAGES OF AGE.

(_By Cicero._)

Indeed, old age is so far from being necessarily a state of languor

and inactivity, that it generally continues to exert itself in that

sort of occupation which was the favorite object of its pursuit in

more vigorous years. I will add, that instances might be produced of

men who, in this period of life, have successfully applied themselves

even to the acquisition of some art of science to which they were

before entirely strangers. Thus Solon in one of his poems, written

when he was advanced in years, glories that "he learned something

every day he lived." And old as I myself am, it is but lately that I

acquired a knowledge of the Greek language; to which I applied with

the more zeal and diligence, as I had long entertained an earnest

desire of becoming acquainted with the writings and characters of

those excellent men, to whose examples I have occasionally appealed in

the course of our present conversation. Thus, Socrates, too, in his

old age, learned to play upon the lyre, an art which the ancients did

not deem unworthy of their application. If I have not followed the

philosopher's example in this instance (which, indeed, I very much

regret), I have spared, however, no pains to make myself master of the

Greek language and learning.

Inestimable, too, are the advantages of old age, if we contemplate it

in another point of view; if we consider it as delivering us from the

tyranny of lust and ambition; from the angry and contentious passions;

from every inordinate and irrational desire; in a word, as teaching us

to retire within ourselves, and look for happiness in our own bosoms.

If to these moral benefits naturally resulting from length of days be

added that sweet food of the mind which is gathered in the fields of

science, I know not any season of life that is passed more agreeably

than the learned leisure of a virtuous old age.

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

(_By Cicero._)

And now, among the different sentiments of the philosophers concerning

the consequences of our final dissolution, may I not venture to

declare my own? and the rather, as the nearer death advances towards

me, the more clearly I seem to discern its real nature.

I am well convinced, then, that my dear departed friends, your two

illustrious fathers, are so far from having ceased to live, that the

state they now enjoy can alone with propriety be called _life_. The

soul, during her confinement within this prison of the body, is doomed

by fate to undergo a severe penance; for her native seat is in heaven,

and it is with reluctance that she is forced down from those celestial

mansions into these lower regions, where all is foreign and repugnant

to her divine nature. But the gods, I am persuaded, have thus widely

disseminated immortal spirits, and clothed them with human bodies,

that there might be a race of intelligent creatures, not only to have

dominion over this, our earth, but to contemplate the host of heaven,

and imitate in their moral conduct the same beautiful order and

uniformity so conspicuous in those splendid orbs. This opinion I am

induced to embrace, not only as agreeable to the best deductions of

reason, but in just deference, also, to the authority of the noblest

and most distinguished philosophers. And I am further confirmed in my

belief of the soul's immortality by the discourse which Socrates--whom

the oracle of Apollo pronounced to be the wisest of men--held upon

this subject just before his death. In a word, when I consider the

faculties with which the human mind is endued; its amazing celerity;

its wonderful power in recollecting past events, and sagacity in

discerning future; together with its numberless discoveries in the

several arts and sciences, I feel a conscious conviction that this

active, comprehensive principle can not possibly be of a mortal

nature. And as this unceasing activity of the soul derives its energy

from its own intrinsic and essential powers, without receiving it from

any foreign or external impulse, it necessarily follows (as it is

absurd to suppose the soul would desert itself) that this activity

must continue forever. But farther; as the soul is evidently a simple,

uncompounded substance, without any dissimilar parts or heterogeneous

mixture, it can not, therefore, be divided; consequently, it can not

perish. I might add, that the facility and expedition with which youth

are taught to acquire numberless very difficult arts, is a strong

presumption that the soul possessed a considerable portion of

knowledge before it entered into the human form, and that what seems

to be received from instruction is, in fact, no other than a

reminiscence or recollection of its former ideas. This, at least, is

the opinion of Plato.

JULIUS CAESAR.

Julius Cæsar was born on the 12th of July, 100 B.C. As to his

intellectual character, Cæsar was gifted by nature with the most

varied talents, and was distinguished by an extraordinary genius, and

by attainments in very diversified pursuits. He was, at one and the

same time, a general, a statesman, a lawgiver, a jurist, an orator, a

poet, an historian, a philologer, a mathematician, and an architect.

He seemed equally fitted to excel in all, and has given proofs that he

would surpass most men in any subject to which he should devote the

energies of his great mind; and Middleton says he was the only man in

Rome capable of rivaling Cicero as an orator. During his whole busy

life he found time for literary pursuits, and always took pleasure in

the society and conversation of men of learning.

Cæsar wrote many works on different subjects, but they are now all

lost but his "Commentaries." These relate the history of the first

seven years of the Gallic War in seven books, and the Civil War down

to the commencement of the Alexandrine in three books. The purity of

his Latin, and the clearness and beauty of his style have rendered his

"Commentaries" a most popular and desirable text book for students of

the Latin language.

A most important change was introduced by him in the reformation of

the calendar, which was not only of vast importance to his country and

to the civilized world, but its benefits have extended to the present

day. What consummate folly, then, to say nothing of the wickedness,

was displayed by the conspirators who put him to death; for instead of

the wise, the noble, the magnanimous, they exalted to supreme power

one of the basest men in all Rome--Augustus, who, as one of the

second Triumvirate, consented to the murder of his intimate and noble

friend, Cicero.

[Illustration: JULIUS CÆSAR. (_From an Ancient Sculpturing._)]

THE GERMANS.

(_By Julius Cæsar._)

The Germans differ much from these usages, for they have neither

Druids to preside over sacred offices, nor do they pay great regard to

sacrifices. They rank in the number of the gods those alone whom they

behold, and by whose instrumentality they are obviously benefited,

namely, the sun, fire, and the moon; they have not heard of the other

deities even by report. Their whole life is occupied in hunting and

in the pursuits of the military art; from childhood they devote

themselves to fatigue and hardships. Those who have remained chaste

for the longest time receive the greatest commendation among their

people; they think that by this the growth is promoted, by this the

physical powers are increased and the sinews are strengthened.

They do not pay much attention to agriculture, and a large portion of

their food consists in milk, cheese, and flesh; nor has any one a

fixed quantity of land or his own individual limits; but the

magistrates and the leading men each year apportion to the tribes and

families, who have united together, as much land as, and in the place

which, they think proper, and the year after compel them to remove

elsewhere. For this enactment they advance many reasons--lest seduced

by long-continued custom, they may exchange their ardor in the waging

of war for agriculture; lest they may be anxious to acquire extensive

estates, and the more powerful drive the weaker from their

possessions; lest they construct their houses with too great a desire

to avoid cold and heat; lest the desire of wealth spring up, from

which cause divisions and discords arise; and that they may keep the

common people in a contented state of mind, when each sees his own

means placed on an equality with those of the most powerful.

It is the greatest glory to the several states to have as wide deserts

as possible around them, their frontiers having been laid waste. They

consider this the real evidence of their prowess, that their neighbors

shall be driven out of their lands and abandon them, and that no one

dare settle near them; at the same time they think that they shall be

on that account the more secure, because they have removed the

apprehension of a sudden incursion. When a state either repels war

waged against it, or wages it against another, magistrates are chosen

to preside over that war with such authority that they have power of

life and death. In peace there is no common magistrate, but the

chiefs of provinces and cantons administer justice and determine

controversies among their own people. Robberies which are committed

beyond the boundaries of each state bear no infamy, and they avow that

these are committed for the purpose of disciplining their youth and of

preventing sloth. And when any of their chiefs has said in an assembly

"that he will be their leader, let those who are willing to follow

give in their names," they who approve of both the enterprise and the

man arise and promise their assistance and are applauded by the

people; such of them as have not followed him are accounted in the

number of deserters and traitors, and confidence in all matters is

afterwards refused them. To injure guests they regard as impious; they

defend from wrong those who have come to them for any purpose

whatever, and esteem them inviolable; to them the houses of all are

open and maintenance is freely supplied.

BATTLE OF PHARSALIA.

(_By Julius Cæsar._)

There was so much space left between the two lines as sufficed for the

onset of the hostile armies; but Pompey had ordered his soldiers to

await Cæsar's attack, and not to advance from their position, or

suffer their line to be put into disorder. And he is said to have done

this by the advice of Caius Triarius, that the impetuosity of the

charge of Cæsar's soldiers might be checked, and their line broken,

and that Pompey's troops, remaining in their ranks, might attack them

while in disorder; and he thought that the javelins would fall with

less force if the soldiers were kept in their ground, than if they met

them in their course; at the same time he trusted that Cæsar's

soldiers, after running over double the usual ground, would become

weary and exhausted by the fatigue. But to me Pompey seems to have

acted without sufficient reason; for there is a certain impetuosity of

spirit and an alacrity implanted by nature in the hearts of all men,

which is inflamed by a desire to meet the foe. This a general should

endeavor not to repress, but to increase; nor was it a vain

institution of our ancestors that the trumpets should sound on all

sides, and a general shout be raised; by which they imagined that the

enemy were struck with terror, and their own army inspired with

courage.

But our men, when the signal was given, rushed forward with their

javelins ready to be launched, but perceiving that Pompey's men did

not run to meet their charge, having acquired experience by custom,

and being practiced in former battles, they of their own accord

repressed their speed, and halted almost midway, that they might not

come up with the enemy when their strength was exhausted, and after a

short respite they again renewed their course, and threw their

javelins, and instantly drew their swords, as Cæsar had ordered them.

Nor did Pompey's men fail in this crisis, for they received our

javelins, stood our charge, and maintained their ranks; and having

launched their javelins, had recourse to their swords. At the same

time Pompey's horse, according to their orders, rushed out at once

from his left wing, and his whole host of archers poured after them.

Our cavalry did not withstand their charge, but gave ground a little,

upon which Pompey's horse pressed them more vigorously, and began to

file off in troops, and flank our army. When Cæsar perceived this, he

gave the signal to his fourth line, which he had formed of the six

cohorts. They instantly rushed forward and charged Pompey's horse with

such fury that not a man of them stood; but all wheeling about, not

only quitted their post, but galloped forward to seek a refuge in the

highest mountains. By their retreat the archers and slingers, being

left destitute and defenseless, were all cut to pieces. The cohorts,

pursuing their success, wheeled about upon Pompey's left wing, whilst

his infantry still continued to make battle, and attacked them in the

rear.

At the same time Cæsar ordered his third line to advance, which till

then had not been engaged, but had kept their post. Thus, new and

fresh troops having come to the assistance of the fatigued, and others

having made an attack on their rear, Pompey's men were not able to

maintain their ground, but all fled, nor was Cæsar deceived in his

opinion that the victory, as he had declared in his speech to his

soldiers, must have its beginning from those six cohorts, which he had

placed as a fourth line to oppose the horse. For by them the cavalry

were routed; by them the archers and slingers were cut to pieces; by

them the left wing of Pompey's army was surrounded, and obliged to be

the first to flee. But when Pompey saw his cavalry routed, and that

part of his army on which he reposed his greatest hopes thrown into

confusion, despairing of the rest, he quitted the field, and retreated

straightway on horseback to his camp, and calling to the centurions,

whom he had placed to guard the prætorian gate, with a loud voice,

that the soldiers might hear: "Secure the camp," says he; "defend it

with diligence, if any danger should threaten it; I will visit the

other gates, and encourage the guards of the camp." Having thus said,

he retired into his tent in utter despair, yet anxiously waiting the

issue.

Cæsar having forced the Pompeians to flee into their entrenchment, and

thinking that he ought not to allow them any respite to recover from

their fright, exhorted his soldiers to take advantage of fortune's

kindness, and to attack the camp. Though they were fatigued by the

intense heat, for the battle had continued till mid-day, yet, being

prepared to undergo any labor, they cheerfully obeyed his command. The

camp was bravely defended by the cohorts which had been left to guard

it, but with much more spirit by the Thracians and foreign

auxiliaries. For the soldiers who had fled for refuge to it from the

field of battle, affrighted and exhausted by fatigue, having thrown

away their arms and military standards, had their thoughts more

engaged on their further escape than on the defense of the camp. Nor

could the troops who were posted on the battlements long withstand the

immense number of our darts, but fainting under their wounds, quitted

the place, and under the conduct of their centurions and tribunes,

fled, without stopping, to the high mountains which joined the camp.

In Pompey's camp you might see arbors in which tables were laid; a

large quantity of plate set out; the floors of the tents covered with

fresh sods; the tents of Lucius Lentulus and others shaded with ivy;

and many other things which were proofs of excessive luxury, and a

confidence of victory; so that it might readily be inferred, that they

had no apprehensions of the issue of the day, as they indulged

themselves in unnecessary pleasures, and yet upbraided with luxury

Cæsar's army, distressed and suffering troops, who had always been in

want of common necessaries. Pompey, as soon as our men had forced the

trenches, mounting his horse, and stripping off his general's habit,

went hastily out of the back gate of the camp, and galloped with all

speed to Larissa. Nor did he stop there, but with the same dispatch,

collecting a few of his flying troops, and halting neither day nor

night, he arrived at the sea-side, attended by only thirty horses, and

went on board a victualing barque, often complaining, as we have been

told, that he had been so deceived in his expectation, that he was

almost persuaded that he had been betrayed by those from whom he had

expected victory, as they began the flight.

VIRGIL.

Virgil was born October 15, 70 B.C., and died 19 B.C. His father was

an opulent farmer, and gave his son a liberal Greek and Latin

education. His principal works were the _Georgica_ and the _Æneid_.

The _Georgica_ (Georgics), or "Agricultural Poems," is a didactic poem

in four books, dedicated to Mæcenas. In the first book he treats of

the cultivation of the soil; in the second, of fruit trees; in the

third, of horses and other cattle, and in the fourth, of bees. It

gives us the most finished specimen of the Latin hexameter which we

have. It is acknowledged by scholars to stand at the head of all

Virgil's works, and is certainly the most elaborate and extraordinary

instance of power in embellishing a most barren subject which human

genius has ever afforded. The commonest precepts of farming are

delivered with an elegance which could scarcely be attained by a poet

who should endeavor to clothe in verse the sublimest maxims of

philosophy.

At what time Virgil projected the _Æneid_ is uncertain, but from a

very early age he appears to have had a strong desire of composing an

epic poem which would be an enduring monument of his fame. And he has

succeeded, for this poem is ranked as one of the great epics of the

world. It is divided into twelve books, and originates from an old

Roman tradition that Æneas and his company of Trojans settled in

Italy, and founded the Roman nation.

PRAISE OF RURAL LIFE.

(_By Virgil._)

Thrice happy swains! whom genuine pleasures bless,

If they but knew and felt their happiness!

From wars and discord far, and public strife,

Earth with salubrious fruits supports their life;

Tho' high-arch'd domes, tho' marble halls they want,

And columns cased in gold and elephant,

In awful ranks where brazen statues stand,

The polish'd works of Grecia's skillful hand;

Nor dazzling palace view, whose portals proud

Each morning vomit out the cringing crowd;

Nor wear the tissu'd garment's cumb'rous pride,

Nor seek soft wool in Syrian purple dy'd,

Nor with fantastic luxury defile

The native sweetness of the liquid oil;

Yet calm content, secure from guilty cares,

Yet home-felt pleasure, peace, and rest, are theirs;

Leisure and ease, in groves, and cooling vales,

Grottoes, and bubbling brooks, and darksome dales;

The lowing oxen, and the bleating sheep,

And under branching trees delicious sleep!

There forests, lawns, and haunts of beasts abound,

There youth is temperate, and laborious found;

There altars and the righteous gods are fear'd,

And aged sires by duteous sons rever'd.

There Justice linger'd ere she fled mankind,

And left some traces of her reign behind!

_Georgics II. Warton._

EMPLOYMENTS OF THE BEE.

(_By Virgil._)

If all things with great we may compare,

Such are the bees, and such their busy care:

Studious of honey, each in his degree,

The youthful swain, the grave, experienced bee;

That in the field; this in affairs of state,

Employed at home, abides within the gate,

To fortify the combs, to build the wall,

To prop the ruins, lest the fabric fall:

But late at night, with weary pinions come

The laboring youth, and heavy laden home.

Plains, meads, and orchards, all the day he plies,

The gleans of yellow thyme distend his thighs:

He spoils the saffron flowers, he sips the blues

Of violets, wilding blooms, and willow dews.

Their toil is common, common is their sleep;

They shake their wings when morn begins to peep;

Rush through the city gates without delay,

Nor ends their work but with declining day:

Then, having spent the last remains of light,

They give their bodies due repose at night;

When hollow murmurs of their evening bells

Dismiss the sleepy swains, and toll them to their cells.

_Georgics IV. Dryden._

[Illustration: VIRGIL AND HORACE.]

PUNISHMENTS IN HELL.

(_By Virgil._)

Now to the left, Æneas darts his eyes,

Where lofty walls with tripple ramparts rise.

There rolls swift Phlegethon, with thund'ring sound,

His broken rocks, and whirls his surges round.

On mighty columns rais'd, sublime are hung

The massy gates, impenetrably strong.

In vain would men, in vain would gods essay,

To hew the beams of adamant away.

Here rose an iron tow'r; before the gate,

By night and day, a wakeful fury sate,

The pale Tisiphone; a robe she wore,

With all the pomp of horror, dy'd in gore.

Here the loud scourge and louder voice of pain,

The crashing fetter, and the ratt'ling chain.

Strike the great hero with the frightful sound,

The hoarse, rough, mingled din, that thunders round:

Oh! whence that peal of groans? what pains are those?

What crimes could merit such stupendous woes?

Thus she--brave guardian of the Trojan state,

None that are pure must pass that dreadful gate.

When plac'd by Hecat o'er Avernus' woods,

I learnt the secrets of those dire abodes,

With all the tortures of the vengeful gods.

Here Rhadamanthus holds his awful reign,

Hears and condemns the trembling impious train.

Those hidden crimes the wretch till death supprest,

With mingled joy and horror in his breast,

The stern dread judge commands him to display,

And lays the guilty secrets bare to-day;

Her lash Tisiphone that moment shakes;

The ghost she scourges with a thousand snakes;

Then to her aid, with many a thund'ring yell,

Calls her dire sisters from the gulfs of hell.

Near by the mighty Tityus I beheld,

Earth's mighty giant son, stretch'd o'er the infernal field;

He cover'd nine large acres as he lay,

While with fierce screams a vulture tore away

His liver for her food, and scoop'd the smoking prey;

Plunged deep her bloody beak, nor plung'd in vain,

For still the fruitful fibres spring again,

Swell, and renew th' enormous monster's pain,

She dwells forever in his roomy breast,

Nor gives the roaring fiend a moment's rest;

But still th' immortal prey supplies th' immortal feast.

Need I the Lapiths' horrid pains relate,

Ixion's torments, or Perithous' fate?

On high a tottering rocky fragment spreads,

Projects in air, and trembles o'er their heads.

Stretch'd on the couch, they see with longing eyes

In regal pomp successive banquets rise,

While lucid columns, glorious to behold,

Support th' imperial canopies of gold.

The queen of furies, a tremendous guest,

Sits by their side, and guards the tempting feast,

Which if they touch, her dreadful torch she rears,

Flames in their eyes, and thunders in their ears

They that on earth had low pursuits in view,

Their brethren hated, or their parents slew,

And, still more numerous, those who swelled their store,

But ne'er reliev'd their kindred or the poor;

Or in a cause unrighteous fought and bled;

Or perish'd in the foul adulterous bed;

Or broke the ties of faith with base deceit;

Imprison'd deep their destin'd torments wait.

But what their torments, seek not thou to know,

Or the dire sentence of their endless wo.

Some roll a stone, rebounding down the hill,

Some hang suspended on the whirling wheel;

There Theseus groans in pain that ne'er expire,

Chain'd down forever in a chair of fire.

There Phlegyas feels unutterable wo,

And roars incessant thro' the shades below;

Be just, ye mortals! by these torments aw'd,

These dreadful torments, not to scorn a god.

This wretch his country to a tyrant sold,

And barter'd glorious liberty for gold.

Laws for a bribe he past, but past in vain,

For those same laws a bribe repeal'd again.

To some enormous crimes they all aspir'd;

All feel the torments that those crimes requir'd!

Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,

A voice of brass, and adamantine lungs,

Not half the mighty scene could I disclose,

Repeat their crimes, or count their dreadful woes!

_Æneid VI. Pitt._

HORACE.

Horace was born 65 B.C. and died 8 B.C. His father gave him a good

education. About the age of seventeen he lost his father, and

afterwards his property was confiscated. He had to write for

bread--_Paupertas impulit audax ut versus facerem_--and in so doing

gained much reputation, and sufficient means to purchase the place of

scribe in the Quæstor's office. He now made his acquaintance with

Virgil and Varius, and by them was introduced to that munificent

patron of scholars, Mæcenas, who gave to our poet a place next to his

heart, while he, in return, is never weary of acknowledging how much

he owes to his illustrious friend.

The following happy remarks on the Roman Satirists are by Professor

Sanborn, formerly Professor of Latin in Dartmouth College, and now in

the University of St. Louis: "The principal Roman Satirists were

Horace, Juvenal and Persius. Horace is merry; Persius serious; Juvenal

indignant. Thus, wit, philosophy and lofty scorn mark their respective

pages. The satire of Horace was playful and good natured. His arrows

were always dipped in oil. He was a fine specimen of an accomplished

gentleman. His sentiments were evidently modified by his associates.

He was an Epicurean and a stoic by turns. He commended and ridiculed

both sects. He practiced economy and praised liberality. He lived

temperate, and sang the praises of festivity. He was the favorite of

the court and paid for its patronage in compliments and panegyrics,

unsurpassed in delicacy of sentiment and beauty of expression. Horace

is every man's companion. He has a word of advice and admonition for

all. His criticisms constitute most approved canons of the

rhetorician; his sage reflections adorn the page of the moralist; his

humor and wit give point and force to the satirist, and his graver

maxims are not despised by the Christian philosopher. Juvenal is

fierce and denunciatory. His characteristics are energy, force, and

indignation; his weapons are irony, wit and sarcasm; he is a decided

character, and you must yield and submit, or resist. His denunciations

of vice are startling. He hated the Greeks, the aristocracy and woman

with intense hatred. No author has written with such terrible

bitterness of the sex. Unlike other satirists, he never relents. His

arrow is ever on the string, and whatever wears the guise of woman is

his game. The most celebrated of the modern imitators of Horace and

Juvenal are Swift and Pope."

The Odes, Satires and Epistles are his chief productions.

TO LICINIUS.

(_By Horace._)

Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach

So shalt thou live beyond the reach

Of adverse Fortune's power;

Not always tempt the distant deep,

Nor always timorously creep

Along the treacherous shore.

He that holds fast the golden mean,

And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,

Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,

Embittering all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the power

Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tower

Comes heaviest to the ground;

The bolts that spare the mountain's side,

His cloud-capt eminence divide,

And spread the ruin round.

The well-inform'd philosopher

Rejoices with an wholesome fear,

And hopes, in spite of pain;

If Winter bellow from the north,

Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing forth,

And Nature laughs again.

What if thine heaven be overcast?

The dark appearance will not last;

Expect a brighter sky;

The god that strings the silver bow,

Awakes sometimes the Muses, too,

And lays his arrows by.