poorer class, more numerous than all the other three, had an equal right of suffrage with them, in the public assembly, where all laws were framed, and measures of state decreed. Consequently, the weight of the latter decided every question.

The popular assemblies received, indeed, a check from the authority of the senate and the areopagus. But, as the ultimate right of decision lay with the people, it was always in the power of ambitious demagogues to sway the public measures to the worst of purposes. Continual factions divided the people; and corruption pervaded every department of the state. The public measures were often equally absurd as profligate; and Athens not unfrequently saw her best patriots, the wisest and most virtuous of her citizens, shamefully sacrificed to the most depraved and most abandoned.

7. Government and manners of the ancient Persians.

The government of Persia was an absolute monarchy. The will of the sovereign was subject to no control; and his person was revered as sacred. The education, however, which was bestowed by those monarchs on their children, was calculated to inspire every valuable quality of a sovereign. Indeed, the ancient Persians, in general, bestowed the utmost attention on the education of youth. Children were at the age of five years, committed to the care of the Magi, for the improvement of their minds and morals.

They were trained, at the same time, to every manly exercise. The sacred books of the Zendavesta promised to every worthy parent the imputed merit and reward of all the good actions of his children.

Luxurious as they were in after times, the Persians were, in their early history, distinguished for temperance, bravery, and virtuous simplicity of manners. They were all trained to the use of arms, and displayed great intrepidity in war, The custom of women following their armies into the field, a custom which has been erroneously attributed to effeminacy, was, in fact, a remnant of barbarous manners.

The kingdom of Persia was divided into several provinces, each under a governor or satrap, who was accountable to the sovereign for the whole of his conduct. The prince, at stated times, visited his provinces in person, correcting all abuses, easing the burdens of the oppressed, and encouraging agriculture and the practice of the useful arts.

8. The invasion of Greece by Darius.

THE ambition of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, heightened by the passion of revenge, gave rise to the project of that monarch for the invasion of Greece. The Athenians had aided the people of Ionia in an attempt to throw off the yoke of Persia, and had burned and ravaged Sardis, the capital of Lydia. Darius speedily reduced the Ionians to submission, and then turned his arms against the Greeks, their allies; the exile Hippias eagerly prompting the expedition.

After an insolent demand of submission, which the Greeks scornfully refused, Darius began a hostile attack, both by sea and land. The first Persian fleet was lost in doubling the promontory of Athos; a second, of six hundred sail, ravaged the Grecian islands; while an immense army, fanding in Eubea, poured down on Attica. The Athenians met the Persian forces on the plain of Marathon, and, headed by Miltiades, defeated them with prodigious slaughter. The loss of the Persians, in this battle, was 6300, that of the Athenians, 190.

The merit of Miltiades, so signally displayed in this great battle, was repaid by his country with the most shocking ingratitude. Accused of treason, for an unsuccessful attack on the isle of Paros, his sentence of death was commuted into a fine of fifty talents, a sum which he was unable to pay. Being, on this account, thrown into prison, he there died of the wounds which he had received in the attack on Paros.

9. The invasion of Greece by Xerxes.

On the death of Darius, his son Xerxes succeeded to the throne of Persia. This prince proved himself the heir of his father's ambition, but not of his virtues and abilities. He armed, as is said, five millions of men, for the conquest of Greece, twelve hundred ships of war, and three thousand ships of burden. Landing in Thessaly, he proceeded by rapid marches

cus.

to Thermopyle, a narrow defile on the Sinus MaliaThe Athenians and Spartans, aided only by the Thespians, Plateans, and Eginetes, determined to withstand the invader. Leonidas, king of Sparta, was chosen to defend this important pass, with six thousand men. Xerxes, after a weak attempt to corrupt him, imperiously summoned him to lay down his arms. "Let him come," said Leonidas, " and take them." For two days, the Persians strove, in vain, to force their way, and were frequently repulsed with great slaughter. An unguarded track being at length discovered, the defence of the path became fruitless. Leonidas, foreseeing certain destruction, commanded all, but three hundred of his countrymen, to retire. His motive was to give the Persians a just idea of the spirit of that foe whom they had to encounter. He and his brave Spartans were cut off to a man. A monument, erected on the spot, bore this noble inscription, written by Simonides: "0 stranger, tell it at Lacedemon, that we died here in obedience to her laws."

10. Philip of Macedon.

THIS prince ascended the throne of Macedonia by popular choice, in violation of the natural rights of the nearer heirs to the crown; and he secured his power by the success of his arms against the Illyrians, Peonians, and Athenians, who had espoused the interest of his competitors. Uniting to great military talents

the most consummute artifice and address, he had his pensionaries in all the states of Greece, who directed to his advantage every public measure. The miserable policy of these states, which embroiled them in perpetual quarrels, co-operated with his designs. A sacrilegious attempt of the Phocians to plunder the temple of Delphi, excited the sacred war, in which almost all the republics took a part. Philip's aid being courted by the Thebans and Thessalians, he began hostilities by invading Phocis, the key to the territory of Attica.

Eschines the orator, bribed to the interest of the Macedonian monarch, attempted to quiet the alarms of the Athenians, by ascribing to Philip nothing but the design of punishing sacrilege, and vindicating the honour of Apollo. But Demosthenes, in the spirit of true patriotism, exposed the artful designs of the invader, and, with the most animated eloquence, roused his countrymen to a vigorous effort for the preservation of their liberties. The battle of Cheronea, fought 337 B. C., decided the fate of Greece, and subjected all the states to the dominion of the king of Macedon. But it was not his policy to treat them as a conquered people. They retained their separate and independent governments; while he controlled and directed all the national measures.

At a general council of the states, Philip was appointed commander in chief of the forces of the nation; and he laid before them his project for the