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conquest of Persia, appointing each republic to furnish its proportion of subsidies. On the eve of this great enterprise, Philip was assassinated by Pausanias, a captain of his guards.

11. Alexander the Great.

ALEXANDER, the son of Philip, succeeded, at the age of twenty, to the throne of Macedon, and, after a few successful battles against the revolted states, to the command of Greece. Assembling at Corinth the deputies of the nation, he communicated to them his resolution of prosecuting the designs of his father "for the conquest of Persia.

With an army of 30,000 foot, and 5000 horse, the sum of 70 talents, and provisions for a single month, he crossed the Hellespont, and, in traversing Phrygia, visited the tomb of Achilles. Darius Codomannus, resolving to crush, at once, this inconsiderate youth, met him on the banks of the Granicus with 100,000 foot, and 10,000 horse. The Greeks, preceded by their king, swam the river, and attacking the astonished Persians, put their whole army to flight, and left 20,000 dead on the field. Drawing from his first victory, a presage of continued success, Alexander now sent home his fleet, leaving to his army the sole alternative that they must subdue Asia, or perish. The Greeks, for a while, prosecuted their course without resistance, but were afterwards attacked by the Persians in a narrow valley of Cilicia, near the

the town of Issus. The Persian host amounted to 400,000; but their situation was such, that only a small part could come into action; and they were defeated with prodigious slaughter. The loss of the Persians in this battle, is said to have been 110,000: that of the Greeks, according to some historians, only 450.

The generosity of Alexander was displayed after the battle of Issus, in his attention to his noble prisoners, the mother, the wife, and the whole family of Darius. To the credit of Alexander, it must be owned, that humane feeling, though often overpowered and sometimes extinguished by his passions, was certainly a part of his natural character.

12. Subsequent victories, conduct, and death of Alexander.

men.

AFTER the fall of Tyre, and the taking of Gaza, Alexander directed his course towards Egypt; and the whole country submitted without opposition. Returning from Egypt, he traversed Assyria, and was met at Arbela by Darius, with a force of 700,000 The Persian monarch had proffered peace, consenting to yield the whole country from the Euphrates to the Hellespont, and to give Alexander his daughter in marriage, with the immense sum of 10,000 talents. But these terms were haughtily rejected; and peace was offered on no other condition, than the unqualified submission of his enemy.

The Persians were defeated at Arbela, with the loss of 300,000 men. Darius fled from province to province. At length, betrayed by Bessus, one of his own satraps, he was cruelly murdered; and the Persian empire, which had subsisted for two hundred and six years from the time of Cyrus the great, submitted to the conqueror, 330 B. C.

Alexander now projected the conquest of India, firmly persuaded that the gods had decreed him the sovereignty of the whole habitable globe. He penetrated to the Ganges, and would have proceeded to the eastern ocean, if the spirit of his army had kept pace with his ambition. But his troops, seeing no end to their toils, refused to proceed. He returned to the Indus, whence, sending his fleet under Nearchus to the Persian gulf, he marched his army across the desert to Persepolis.

Indignant that he had found a limit to his conquests, he abandoned himself to every excess of luxury and debauchery. The arrogance of his nature, and the ardor of his passions, heightened by continual intemperance, broke out into the most outrageous excesses of cruelty, for which, in the few intervals of sober reflection, his ingenuous mind suffered the keenest remorse. From Persepolis he returned to Babylon, and there died in a fit of debauch, in the thirty-third year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.

13. Political reflections on ancient Greece.

THE oppression which the states of Greece suffered under their ancient despots, was a most justifiable motive for their establishing a new form of government, which promised them a greater political freedom. It is believed too, that these new forms of government were formed by virtuous lesgislators, in the true spirit of patriotism. But as to the real merits of these political fabrics, it is certain that they were very far from corresponding in practice with what was expected from them in theory. We seek in vain, either in the history of Athens or of Lacedemon, for the beautiful idea of a well ordered commonwealth. The revolutions of government, which they were ever experiencing, the factions with which they were constantly embroiled, plainly demonstrate that there was a radical defect in the structure of their political machine, which precluded the possibility of regular motion. The condition of the people, under such forms of government, partook more of servitude and oppression, than that of the subjects of the most despotic monarchs. In all the states of Greece, the slaves formed the actual majority of the inhabitants. To this class of the people the free citizens were rigorous bond-masters. As freemen were liable to bondage when they had contracted debts which they were unable to pay, many citizens of this class were also ranked among the unhappy victims of tyrannical control. Nor were the richer classes in the actual

enjoyment of independence. They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked themselves under the banners of the contending chiefs of the republic. These parties were kept together solely by corruption. The whole system was servile and debasing in its tendency: it left nothing independent in the condition of individuals, and nothing ennobling to human nature in the character of public and political life.

14. The Socratic and Cynic schools of philosophy.

THE reasonings of Socrates were chiefly directed against the sophists. The logic of these philosophers was displayed in a set of general arguments, applicable to all manner of questions; so that they could, with an appearance of plausibility, maintain either side of any proposition. Socrates always brought his antagonist to particulars, beginning with a simple and undeniable position, which being granted, another equally undeniable followed; till the disputant was gradually conducted, by his own concessions, to that side of the question on which lay the truth. His rivals lost all credit as philosophers; although they still had influence to procure the destruction of the man who had exposed them. The doctrines of Socrates have been handed down to us by Plato and Xenophon; and from these writers we learn that he taught the belief of a First Cause, whose beneficence is equal to his power, and who is the Creator and Ruler of the uni

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