TO

#. M. W* tbt l^ximt of aealtg.

SIR,

X HE History of Thiicydides hath been studiously read and admired by the greatest Princes, and may therefore presume to lay some claim to the protection of Your Royal Highness. Great Britain, of the States now existing in the world, most nearly resembleth what Alliens was at the time when the War, which is the Subject of it, broke out in Greece. A love of Liberty, which hath erroneously been supposed to thrive and flou- rish best in a Democratical Government, was then warm and active in every Athenian. Athens, it is true, had tlius been raised to a great height of power, and was become a very formidable State ; But Faction disjointed a noble Plan, and at length brought on the loss of her Sovereignty at Sea. The Athenians soon ceased to be great, when they devi- ated from those salutary maxims, which their wor- thiest Patriots and most consummate Statesmen had recommended to their constant observance.

DEDICATION.

The Maritime Power of Great Britain is more substantially founded, and hath ever been more steadily supported than was that of Athens. The most complete and most lasting Form of Govern- ment, that man can invent, happily subsists in this Realm under Your Royal Grandfather. The British Constitution hath long been, and may it long continue to be the envy of other Nations ! For the future support of it, the public hopes and ex- pectations are fixed upon Your Royal Highness. JLong may His MAJESTY, Your Royal Grand- father, live to secure the freedom and happiness of his People, that Your Royal Highness may be- come equal, in every respect, to the same great and glorious Charge !

I have a heart duly sensible of the great honour conferred upon me, by being thus permitted to profess myself.

Your Royal Highness's

most devoted

and most humble Servant,

WILLIAM SMITH.

London, 1753.

PREFACE.

It was not from a private choice, hut in deference to what was deemed a public call, that tlie following translation of Thucydides was first undertaken. To explain the motive more largely, might perhaps incur the imputation of impertinence or vanity. The performance, upon the whole, must justify the undertaking. In what manner it is done, and not why it was done, will be the f>oint of public arbitration.

It will be also needless to tell the English Reader, how many versions have been made of Thucydides into Latin. Their design was to bring the author more under the observation of what is generally stiled the learned world ; as the translations of him into modern languages have aimed at introducing him into general acquaintance, as an historian capable of innocently amusing most ranks of men, but of usefully instructing the persons, who from duty and from passion would guard the rights or secure the welfare of public communities. The grand business of History is to make men wiser in themselves and better members of society. For this purpose it recals past ages to their view ; aud thus opens a more extensive scope to reflection than any personal experience can offer. To be well versed in a similarity of cases prepares men better for counsel or action on present contingencies. The statesman, the palriot, the friend to liberty and reason will be better enabled to plan and regulate his own measures, when he can see the tendency and consequence of such as were followed on parallel occasions, and adjust the degrees, in which they were either prejudicial or serviceable to public good.

All men have neither the turn of mind, nor the leisure, to make themselves proficients in the dead and learned languages. Such as have are certainly honestly, perhaps beneficiently employed, in holding out light to others. The Greek historians, as they take a precedency in time, lay further a strong claiut to precedency in merit. Thucydides is the most instructive of these; and, since the restoration of letters in the western world, each nation, that hath piqued itself at all about humanity or politeness, as his manner was soon found to be excellent, have given thanks to those who have endeavoured to iuveati- gate his matter, and lay it open to public view.

It is to the honour of the French that they took the lead. The first trans- lation of Thucydides into French, published at Paris in 1527, was that of Claude de Seyssel bishop of Marseilles. However performed, it went withiu the space of little more than thirty years through four impressions. It is said to have been done at the command of Francis 1. king of France ; and to have been carried about with him in his wars, and diligently studied by the Em- peror Charles V. The Germans had also a translation of him soon afterwards, in the year 1533. In 1545 Francis di Soldo Strozzi published an Italian trans- lation dedicated to Cosmo di Medicis. The first English translation made its appearance in London in 1550; but, in fact, was only the translation of a traus- |atioD J since it was intitled a versiou from the French of Claude de Sej ssel, h\

VI PREFACE.

1364 lie was published in Spanish. A second French translation by Louis Jon- saud d'Usez, was publisliedat Geneva in 1600. The second into English, by the famous Mr. Hobbes of MaJmsbury, was first pubHshed in the year 1628, about whicli it will be necessary immediately to enlarge. A third Frenc|i translation, by the Sieiir d'Ablancourt, was published at Paris in I662, and hath since gone through four editions. There is a Danish translation, which closeth the list given of them in the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius.

Mr. Hobbes declares in his Preface, that " the virtues of this author so took *' his affection, that they begot iu him a desire to communicate him further." He considered also, that " he was exceedingly esteemed of the Italian and " French in their own tongues, notwithstanding that he be not very much be- " hold ing for it to his interpreters." He says afterwards, that, by the first trans- lation of Nicholls from the French of Seysse!, " he became at length tra- *' duced rather than translated into our language j" alluding perhaps to the Italian sarcasm on translators, Tradnttore traditore. He then resolved himself ** to take him immediately from the Greek — "knowing, that when with dili- *• gence and leisure I should have done it, though some errors might remain, *' yet they would be errors but of one descent ; of which nevertheless (say» he) I can discover none, and hope they be not many."

Mr. Hobbes, however sorry and mischievous a philosopher, was undoubtedly a very learned man. He hath shewn it beyond a doubt in his translation of Thucydides. He is an excellent help, for any one who consults him, to find out the meaning and adjust the sense. But though his translation hath now passed through three editions, and hath profitably been read by many, yet (I speak not from my own private judgnient) he cannot now be read with any competent degree of pleasure. He is faithful, but most servilely so, to the let- ter of his author. Even in the orations, he merely acts the interpreter, and hath qufte forgot the orator. He translates literally throughout, and numbers rather than weighs the words of Thucydides. By this moans the construction is very often intricate and confused, the thoughts pregnant with sense are not sufficiently opened, nor the glowing ideas of the author or his orators trans- fused with proper degrees of warmth and light. Too scrupulous an attachment to the letter of the original hath made the copy quite flat and heavy, the spirit is evaporated, the lofly and majestic air hath intircly disappeared. Too many low and vulgar expressions are used, which Thucydides ever studiously avoided. Such frequently occur in the midst of some grand circnmstance, which they throw into a kind of burlesque, ami may excite a reader's laughter. The English language hath gone through a great variation, hath been highly polished, since Mr. Hobbes wrote. Hence, though his terms be in general very intelligible, yet they have not that neatness, precision, and dignity, to which the polite and refined writers within the last century liavc habituated our ears. And, after all, I am inclined to think, that Mr. Hobbes cither rxe- cuted in great haste, or performed his revisals in a very cursory anil negligent manner. I am inclined to think so from the very many pas.Nages, necessary and eniphatical periods, nay sometimes in the very speeches, which to my great surprise Hiavc found omitted in his translution. A particle, an epithet, or even a comma, may with the greati.-at attention sometimes be dropped in a long vork. But tli(! omissions in Mr. Hobbes are loo nunurous and important to be excused in any tolerable consistence, with rep«'alc<l care an<lcircun»spcctk>n.

Monsieur Bayle hath ascribed the translation of Tiiucjdides by Mr. Hobbes to a motive of which he hath not left Uie least hint himself iu his preface :— »

PREFACE. Ttt

•* ID order to shew the English, in the history of the Athenians, the disorders *' and confusions of a democratical government." Mr. Hobbes could not p>os- sibi}', so iong before they happened, foresee the strange revolutions that were aoon to take place in the government of his country. The very actors in them could not possibly discern the consequences of tlieir own embroilments. Some violent incroachments had indeed been made on the liberty and property of Englishmen, and a spirit of discontent began to spread throughout the nation. But it cannot be supposed, that the plan of a commonwealth was formed at that time, or for several years after. The history of Thucydides abundantly •hews, how dangerous and destructive is faction in a state ; that severe or wan- ton power may make men desperate; and that liberty abused may make them insolent and mutinous. It detects and exposeth venal orators and false patriots; but it exhibits men, who are studious and eloquent in behalf of public welfare* and active in support of liberty and honest power, in full beauty and propor- tion. And his lessons lie not so apposite and ready for the application of any ■tate now existing in the world, as for that of Great-Britain.

The reader may by this time have caught a glimpse of several reasons, for which the present translation of Thucycides was finished, and is now made public. No care hath been omitted to make it as correct as possible- It hath been attentively reviewed; the narrative part, more than once ; the oratnrial part, with repeated endeavours to reach the spirit and energy of the original. In the former, the author hath been followed step by step : bold deviations here might imperceptibly have misrepresented or distorted the facts, and quite banished the peculiar stile and manner of the author. In the latter, it halh been often judged necessary to dilate the expression, in order fully to include the primary idea; though, where it seemed possible, the studied conciseness of the author hath been imitated, provided the thought could be clearly ex- pressed, and the sententious maxim adequately conveyed. The turns and figures of expression have been every where diligently noted, and an endea- vour constantly made at imitation. This was judged a point of duty; or a point at least, where though something may be permitted to a translator's dis- cretion, or to the genius of a modem language, yet he must not indulge him- self in too wide a scope, lest, when what ought to be a copy is exhibited, the prime distinctions of the original be lost, and little or no resemblance be left behind.

It is very just and true what Mr. Hobbes hath observed, that " thii^ <* author socarrieth with him his own light throughont, that the reader may «' continually see his way before him, and by that which goeth before expect «' what is to follow." And he, who applies to any commentator but Thu- cydides himself for an explanation of his own meaning, must exceedingly often get quite wide of the sense. The writers of Scholia and the notes of verbal critics put us frequently on a wrong scent, and niore frequently leave us utterly in the dark. But, if we will be patient at a dead lift, something will soon occur in the author himself to help us out, the obscurity will vanish, and light beam in upon us. Though sometimes we may be forced to divine* his meaning, since in many places it is vain to apply to the aids of grammar to develope tlie construction, yet the context at length will shew w hether we have succeeded, or help us to ascertain the sense. This however demands repeated and attentive revisals. The present translator hath not been frugal of his time or labour in these points. And whether he hath generally suc- ceeded in ascertaining the thought, and properly expressing it in another

Tiii PREFACE.

language, must l>e left to the decision, not of raen of no learning nor of mere learning, but to that class of judges, who are well acquainted with the state of Athens at the time of the history, and are really Attic both in taste and judgment. This class, it may be thought, will be but small : it is larger, how- ever, and higher sealed in this our community, than the generality have either opportunity enough to discover or goodnature enough to own.

The complaints so often made by the most able translators are, indeed, alarming. Their performances (they say) may very much disgrace, but can never commend them. The praise of all that is clear, and bright, and pleasing, and nistructive, is reflected back upon tlie original author ; but every appear- ance of a different nature is laid with severity of censure at the door of the translator. If it be so, we know the terms beforehand on which, either able or unable, we engage, and must patiently acquiesce in the issue. But candour is always expected, nay ever will be had from persons of good sense and sound judgment. Few but such may be pleased with Thucydides, either in his old native Greek, or in a modern English garb ; and, if such confer the honour of their applause, the clamour of some will not terrify, nor the silence of others mortify at all. The bookseller, it is true, forms his own judgment, and then dictates to the judgment of others from the sale. And it must be owned, that every original writer, as well as every copyist, is heartily glad to receive that mark of public approbation.

The notes in the present work are only designed for the English reader, to give him light into that antiquity, with which he may be little acquainted : and therefore the first time that any thing relating to the constitution or forms of the Athenian republic, or peculiar to their fleets and land armies occurs, I have endeavoured in a note to give him a competent perception of it. I have done the same in regard to the characters ot the chief personages in the his- tory, which seemed to need a further opening than what Thucydides hath given them. The persons were well known when he wrote : but a modern reader may not be displeased to be regularly introduced, and early to be made acquainted with the characters of the principal agents in these busy and im- portant scenes. In no/e* of verbal criticism, or mere learning, 1 have been very sparing, judging they would never be read with patience.

Of the preliminary Discourses, the two Jirst were due, by the rules of de- corum observed by editors and translators, to the author. In the last, 1 have thrown into one continued discourse what might have been broke into pieces, and interspersed occasionally by way of notes. The method observed appeared most eligible, as it will give the reader a clear pros|K.H;t of the whole history; preparing him for or inciting him to a close and attentive i)erusal of it ; or, enabling him, after ho hath perused it, to recollect the most instructive pas- sages and most material occurrences. By this means also, a more lively and succinct account could be given of the speakers and the speeches, than could have Ix'cn done l>y way of set and furinul argiuncnts.

I think the English reader can want nothing more, to enable him to read Thucydides \«ith pleasure and profit ; eN|K>('ially if he be at all acquainted with the (>rc< ian history, of which few that ever read can now be ignorant, since Mr. Stanyan's f/itlorif ofdretce and the Universal Historic are in so many hands. I diitniiss the work with some ho|>c, Init more terror altout it* •ucccu. That hope i>> eniouragcd niid«up|tortcd by the liM of my suixicribers. There are namcH that do me huimur indeed; and which, whether the work may suit the generality or not, will preserve me from ever repenting that I have bestowed so much time on trausJating THUCYDIDES.

SOME ACCOUNT

OF THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DR. SMITH,

BY

THE REV. THOMAS CRASE, OF CHESTER.

William smith, son of the Rev. Richard Smith, Rector of the Church of All Saints, and Minister of St Andrew's, in tlie cit% of Worcester, was bom in the parish of St. Peter's Church in that city, on the 30th day of May, in the year 1711. He was educated in grammar-learning at the College- School in his native city, where he had made great proficiency in his studies. In January 1725 6, it pleased God to deprive him of his father. On the £7th day of November, 1728, he was matriculated at New College in Oxford, where betook the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June 1732; and that of Master ia July 1737.

Soon after he had taken his Bachelor's degree, his merit caused him to bd recommended to the Right Hon. .Tames Earl of Derby, that great Patron of arts and sciences : and he was retained three years in his lordship's house, in the office of reader to his lordship. His connections with my Lord of Derby introduced him to the honour of being known to several other persons of for- tune and quality ; which was of singular service to him io his progress through life.

A gentleman by birth, blessed with an excellent capacity and, education, and having ready and easy intercourse with the great and good, it is no wonder that he was adorned with manners most polite, with literary accomplishments most splendid and solid, and with morals becoming a faithful servant of the holy Jesus. Well qualified for the work of the ministry, he took Deacon's orders at Grosvienor chapel in Westminster, on Sunday the first of June 1733, from Ben- jamin Bishop of Winchester. On the 10th of September following, he was pre- sented by his Patron, James Earl of Derby, to the Rectory of Trinity Chiirch in Chester. On the 14th of the same month he took Priest's orders in the Cathedral Church of Chester, from Samuel the Bishop of that See ; was in- stituted the same day, and inducted the next.

Cor. Hist. Grec. y'o. 4«>. b

X SOME ACCOUNTT OF DR. SMITH.

Mr. Smith's first publication was* "Dionysius Longinus on the Sub- lime ; translated from the Greek, with Notes and Observations, and some Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author :" in one volume 8vo. inscribed to the Rijjht Hon. the Earl of Macclesfield. The anonymous Author of" the History of the Works of the Learned," for May, 1739. says of this work : — " The Translation of Longinus is, according to the most impartial "judgment I can frame of it, after a comparison with others, the most elegant *' version that has been made of that Author into the English tongue. The " preliminary Discourse excels that of the celebrated Boileau, which he has ** prefixed to his edition." Father Philips in " A Letter to a Student at a foreign University," published 1756, recommending, among other books, Lori' pinut on the Sublime, says: — " A late English Translation of the Greek Critic, ** with Notes and Observations by Mr. Smith, is a credit to the Author, and *' reflects a lustre on Longinus himself. As conversant as you are in the original *' language, you cannot but be highly pleased with this jierformance." In the *' Weekly Miscellany," by Richard Hooker, of the Temple, Esq. No. 363, dated Saturday, December 8, 1739, we read : " Mr. Smith, Rector of Trinity in Ches- ** ter, justly deserves the notice and thanks of the public for his version of Zon- *' ginus on the Sublime. Though the learned will not be satisfied without tast- " ing the beauties of the original, which cannot be translated in all their per- " fection, yet they may reap benefit and pleasure from the judicious sentiments " and ingenuity of the Translator, in his account of his Author, and from the *' notes which help to illustrate the text, and discover the excellency of the ** rules. To the unlearned also it may be of use, and give pleasure. It will •* enable him to read with more satisfaction, when he can read with more judg- " ment, and distinguish the perfections apd faults of a writer. He will be the *' better able to bear his part in a rational conversation, and appear with credit, ** when his observations are just and natural. Such compositions, while thejr *' form the understauding to a true taste, kindle an inclination to literature, ** and excite an emulation in mankind to distinguish themselves by such excel- " lencies as distinguish men from brutes. Athens and Rome were even the *' glory of the whole world, when they were universities of the world ; and " those were reckoned the most accomplished gentlemen, who were the greatest «' scholars, the deepest philosophers, the most eloquent orators, aiid the best ** moralists. In England — would I could go on without reproaching my •* country." Mr. Hooker sent a copy of this Miscellany to Mr. Smith, witU the following letter :

" Rev. Sir,

" THorcM 1 have not the happiness of being known to you, yet as I •* perceive, by your public writings, that you are a gentleman of learning and

• Thr^/WnrfA is the lie.il edition of Longinus. The Dcnn corrected txvo copies of the tliird edition-, the one fur the Printer to fullow, the other for himself to keep; the Dean'i copy 1 pot«eii«. I thewt-d the Drun Mr. Tuup't cTi7iri>m of hit Traasla* lion. The Dean knowing Toup to be in the wron^, thought him not worth answer* inf : he said, " I followed Prarrr, and Fearre ip the brit. I shall take no notice of Toup." Tlie frontinpieie to Lnnginut dc*cribe« the power of eloquence : It was d«-linentrd, not by • prufested limner, but bj Dr. W»U of WorCMter, an cmi* BCDt pliy»ician.

SOME ACCOUNT OF DR. SMITH. xi

*• parts, I take the liberty of desiring your assistance in the public design * •• committed to my care. Though it is the common concern of every one ** who wishes well to Religion and the Church of England, yet I find the ob- ** serration strictly verified, that what is every body's business is nobody's busi- « ness; and whilst it is generally presumed that I have a great deal of help, I *• have in fact little or none, though I stand much in need of it I hope you ** will excuse the notice I have taken of you in my paper. In hopes of your « correspondence, I am, Sir, with respect, your very humble servant,

"R, Hooker."

On a state fast, the 4th cf February, 1740, our Author preached in Trinity Church on Prov. xiv. 34. " Righteousness exaltetli a nation, but sin is a re- " proach to any people." This Sermon was printed at the request of his parishioners, and inscribed to them. The Rij^ht Hon. Edward Earl of Derby had succeeded that uobleman who presented Mr. Smith to Trinity Church:, but Mr. Smith still continued to be esteemed at Knowsley, notwithstanding Knowsley had changed its master. He, who had been long considered as the Earl of Derby's Chaplain, was constituted in form, by letters patent, the 2d day of August, 1743. Ou the 31st of July, 1746, our Autiior preached an Assize Sermon at Lancaster, on St. John viii. 32. " Ye shall know the truth ** and the truth shall make you free." This .Sermon is inscribed to the High SheriflF and Grand Jury, being " published at their command."

In the year 1748, the Grammar-School of Brentwood, in the parish of South Weald, in the county of Essex, being vacant, was suffered by Lord and Lady Strange to lapse to the Bishop of Loudon, who, at their recommendation, appointed Mr. Smith Schoolmaster therefor life, by letters patent bearing date the 1.5th day of February, and by licence dated the 17th of the same month. He held this school only one year, as he did in no wise relish the laborious life of a schoolmaster. On the 8th of June, 1753, he was licensed as one of the Ministers of St George's Church in Liverpool, on the nomination of the Corporation there.

In the year 1753, Mr. Smitli published, in two volumes, 4to. dedicated to his Royal, Highness the Prince of Wales, " The History of the Peloponsesiajt "'War, translated from the Greek of Thuc^'dides." The Translator has added three preliminary Discourses ; on the Life of Thncydides ; on his Qiiali- Jications 3S an Historian: and i Surrey o( his History. In these Discourses, as well as in the Life of Longinut, he has abundantly proved his own excel- lence in original composition. This work has been several times reprinted ia 8vo. and was highly recommended by the Reviewers and others ou its first publication, and since that period.

In January, 1758, the Deanry of Chester became vacant by the decease of tlie Rev. Thomas Brooke, LL. D. There were many candidates for this dig- nity : but Mr. Smith was so well supported by several of his illustrious friends, especially by his noble patron the Earl of Derby, whose interest was powerful at Court, and who prevailed on the Right Hon. Earl Grenville, then Lord President of the Council, and on his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, to unite with him in recommending Mr. Smith, that his Majesty King George the Second presented him to the Deanry. He now took the Degree of Doctor in Divinity. On the 2Sth of July, Doctor Smith received institution, and was

* Mr. Smith did not comply with this request respecting the Weekly Miscellauy.

xii SOME ACCOUNT OF DR. SMITH.

installed tJie same day by that learned and accomplished preacher, the Rer. Mr. Mapletoft, Vicedeau. On the 30th day of April, 1706, tJie Dean was in- stituted to the Rectory of Handlcy near Chester, ou the presentation of the Dean and Chapter.

Doctor Smith li;id, since he left the University, if we except short excursions, chiefly resided first with my Lord of Derby, afterwards at the Rectory of Trinity in Chester, then one year in Essex, and of late at St. George's in Livefpool, from whence he went occasionally to Chester Cathedral. But about the beginning of the year 17Q7, he resolved to resign St. George's Church, and wrote a letter to that effect to the body corporate: which letter produced the following resolution.

" At a Council held this fourth day of Fcbniari/, I767. *• On Mr. Dean Smith's Letter this day to the Council, intimating his desire *' of resigning his Chaplainship of St. George's Church into the hands of the ** Commott Council ; therefore it is ordered, that this Council do immediately *' after such his resignation make him a compliment of one hundred and fifty " guineas, for his eminent and good services in the said Church."

In July the same year, he came to the Deanry-house in Chester, with intent to pass the rest of his days there. The favourable reception of his Thucydidks induced the Dean, in this healthy and pleasant retreat, to finish his Translation of " Xenophon's History of the Affairs Of Greece :" which he pub- lished in one volume 4to. in the year 1770 : this Translation appeared without any dedication. To form a judgment of its merit we may only quote the words of the title page, that it is " by the Translator of TntcYDiDES."

When the Dean retired within the precincts of his Cathedral, he had re- signed St George's and held with the Dcanry the parish churches of Handley and Trinity only : till the Rectory of West Kirkby, in the hundred of Wirrall in Cheshire, became vacant by the decease of that excellent magistrate and persuasive preacher, the Rev. Mr. Main waring. Prebendary of Chester, The Dean was instituted to this Rectory on the 4th of October, 1780. This is a valuable living in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter. At this time the Dean resigned the Rectory of "trinity.

Doctor Smith was now Dean of Chester, Rector of Haudley, and West Kirkby; but his best parochial preferment happened late in life 3 he was ad- vanced into his seventieth year, and began to feel the infirmities e\cr attendant on age and a delicate constitution. He had hitherto been a constant and power- ful preacher : he began now to preach less frequently, as every exertion fa- tigued him exceedingly. But when he could no longer preach from the pul- pit, he preached from the press, by publishing in tivo. ** Nine Discourses ON THE Beatitudes," in the year 1782 *.

From this time, the Dean's friends saw, with infinite concern, his health gradually declining. In the year 1786, lie was exceedingly iudis|)osctU In November, he was confined to his room j in Decemlier, to his — IkhI.

* Tli« );ood nut] Icarnrd DDCtor Lowth, lute Bi«liopof London, highly rummendii Ihrsc Srrmuti*, in « Irtirr lii the Dian, datnl at rulliaro, July 8th, 178.3. Rithop I^wth and IVan Smith wrrr conlctnporarira at Oxford; whrrr an intimate frirnd- ship rommrnrrd hrlwrrn thrm, whirh runtinurd till that yrar in which these two Inmmarica of the Church of Chriit were **sastchcd— «o Heavea Uccrttd!— «w«y.*'

SOME ACCOUNT OF DR, SMITH. xir

About elglit, on Friday morniog, the 12th of January, 1787, the Dean meekly resigned his spirit into the hands of a merciful Redeemer. On the Friday following, the funeral- procession passed the nearest way to the Cathe- dral : the Bishop and five Prebendaries were pall-bearers. The body reposeth on the south side of the holy table. The Dean's name appears over his grave.

In the broad aisle, at the great pillar on your right hand, as you retire from the choir, an elegant and cosily Monument* is erected to his memory by Mrs. Smith, who was a Miss Heber of Essex. He only once married.

The Dean never was a stipendiary curate. The moment he was ordained a Priest, he became a Rector; and enjoyed ever after an income which far ex- ceeded his expenses. An enemy to ostentatious legacies, he bequeathed the chief of his fortune, which was very considerable, to his widow and his nephew, for he had no children. He gave one hundred pounds to the Chester Infirmary, and one hundred pmunds to the fund for widows of clergymen in the archdea- conry of Chester: these he esteemed useful charities.

The Dean was tail and genteel : his voice was strong, clear, and melodious. He spoke Latin fluently, and was complete master not only of the Greek, but Hebrew language. His mind was so replete with knowledge, that he was a Jiving library. His manner of address was graceful, engaging, delightful. His Sermons were pleasing, informing, convincing. His memory, even in age, %vas wonderfully retentive : and his conversation was polite, atfable, and io the highest degree improving.

•SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

WILLIAM S31ITH, D.B.

DEAK OF THIS CATHEDRAL, AND

RECTOR OF WEST KIRKBY AND HAXDLEY IN THIS COVNTY,

WHO DIED THE Xllth. OF JANVARY M,DCC,LXXXVII,

IN THE LXXVlth. YEAR OF HIS AGE.

AS A SCHOLAR, HIS REPTTATION IS PERPETVATED

BY HIS VALVABLE PVBLIC ATION9,

PARTICVLARLY HIS CORRECT AND ELEGANT

TRANSLATIONS OF LONGINTS, THVCYDIDES AND XENOPHON.

AS A PREACHER, HE WAS ADMIRED AND

ESTEEMED BY HIS RESPECTIVE AVDITORIES.

AND AS A MAN, HIS MEMORY REMAINS INSCRIBED

ON THE HEARTS OF HIS FRIENDS.

THIS MONVMENT WAS ERECTED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE WIDOW.

THREE

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSES.

I. On the Life of Thucydides.

II. On his Qualifications as an Historian.

III. A Survey of his History.

DISCOURSE I. ON THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES.

J-T is a natural piece of curiosity, either when we have read a book we like, or hear one commended, to enquire after the author. We acquiesce not in his bare name ; we immediately seek farther informations. The stranger shews an inclination to form some acquaintance with him ; the reader to improve what he already hath. We at length grow inquisitive about all that concerns him, and are eager to be let into the particulars.

Some claim of this kind will no doubt be made in regard to Thucydides. He who endeavours to introduce him to general notice, ought at least to have something to say about him, and something rather tending perhaps to give favourable impressions. All his editors and translators have reckoned this a point of duty incumbent upon them : But, it hath been generally performed in a very imperfect and slovenly manner. His life wrote by Marcellinus, a crude incoherent morse!, hath been prefixed to -all the Greek editions. That by Suidas is an unsatisfactory mere dictionary account. A third in Greek by an anonymous author is also but a very slight and shapeless sketch, and seems the work of a grammarian, who hath read indeed but very superficially read his history. Some incidental escapes from his own pen are the marks which should be always kept in view by him, ^yho would give any tolerable account of Thucydides. Writers of a better age and class will contribute now and then a little assistance. And the laborious care of a late • author, in adjusting the chronology and clearing away rubbish,!will enable one now to give at least a coherent, though by no means an accurate, account of him.

Thucydides, an Athenian, by borough an Halymusian, was born in tJie year before Christ, four hundred seventy-one: twenty-five years after Hellanicus, thirteen after Herodotus, according to Aulus Gellius; and about three years before Socrates, as the birth of the latter is settled by Laertius. He was des- cended of a very splendid and noble family, though perhaps not so honourable as many others, since it was not purely Attic. Its splendour can no longer be doubted, when it is known to be the family of Miltiades. Miltiades the elder, born a citizen of Athens, had reigned over the Dolonci, a people in Thrace; and left vast possessions in that country to his descendants: And Miltiades the younger had married Hegesipyle the daughter of Olorus aThnician kingf. Yet foreign blood, though royal, was always thought to debase the Athenian. The firm republicans of Athens, had an hereditary aversion to every circumstance of royalty ; and the polite inhabitants of it abhorred all connexion with Barbarians, the scornful title they gave to all the rest of the world, except their country- men of Greece. Iphicrates, a famous Athenian in later times, was the son of an Athenian shoemaker and a Thracian princess. Yet, I>eiug asked to which of his parents he thought himself most obliged ? he replied haughtily — " To

* Vitae Tbacydidis Synopsis cbronolo^ca, ab Henrico Dodweil.

■\ Herodotus in Erato.

Cor. Hitt. Grec. No. 40. c

xviii ON THE LIFE OF TIIUCYDIDES.

*• my mother. She did all. she could to make me an Athenian ; my father *• would have made me a Barbarian." The younger Miltiadcs, whom wars had obliged to quit his liold in Thrace, commanded the troops of Athens in the famous field of Marathon. He died afterwards in a jail, unable to pay a large fine set upon him by the people of Athens. His son Cimon contrived after- wards to pay it. The family for a time had been in poverty and distress, but emerged again in Cimon. Cimon the same day gained a victory both by land and sea over the Persians at Mycale. By his conduct he very much enlarged the power of Athens, and put it in a train of much greater advancements. In civil aflfairs he clashed with Pericles, who was leader of the popular party: Cimon alwajs sided >>ith the noble or tlie fewj as were the party-distinctious in vogue at Athens.

The proofs that Thucydides was of this f^imily are strong and convincing, Plutarch directly asserts it in the life of Cimon. His father, in grateful at least if not honourable remembrance of the Thracian king, whose daughter Mil- tiades had married, bore the name of Olorus. His mother also was another Hegesipyle. He iidierited rich possessions in Thrace; particularly some mines of gold. A monument of him was to be seen for many ages after, in the Coele at Athens, amongst the Cimonian, or those belonging to the family of Cimon; and stood next, according to Plutarch, to that of Elpi- nice, Cimon's own sister. His father's name in the inscription on this monument, at least some later grammarians have averred it, was Orolus. Thucydides himself, in the fourth book of his history, calls it Olorus. ■ Cau we want stronger authority ? Whether any stress ought to be laid on the varia- tion, or whence the mistake, though a very minute one, might proceed, are points too obscure and trifling to take upon any attention.

Such was the family of which Thucydides was descended. His pedigree might be fetched from the gods; since that of Miltiades is traced down from ^acus. But, like my author, I should choose to keep as clear of the fabulous as possible. C^icero says of him, " Though he had never written an history, *' his name would still have been extant, he was so honourable and noble *.'* I quote this, merely as a testimony to the splendor of his birth, since it may be questioned whether the historian, in the present instance, hath not iutirely preserved his memory, and .been solely instrumental in ennobliug and perpe- tuating the man.

His education, no doubt, was such as might be expected from the splendor of his birth, the opulence of his family, and the good taste then prevailing iti Athens, the politest city that then existed, or ever yet existed in the world. It is imjwssible, however, to give any detail of it. The very little to be found about it in writers of any class whatever, seems merely of a presumptive tliougU probable kind. It is said Anaxagoras wnshis preceptor in philosophy, because the name of Anaxagoras was great at this period of time. Anaxagoras, the pre- ceptor of Euripides, of Pericles, and of Socrates, is named also by Marcel- linus for the preceptor of Thucydides. And he adds, quoting Antyllus for au evidence, that " it was whispered about that Thucydides was athei<>tical, b«- " cause he was so fond of the theory of Anuxagoras, who was generally re- "puted and stiled an atheist." The solution of an eclipse from natural causes, nccounting for appearances from the laws of motion, and investigating the courte of nature, were suffideut proofs of atheism amongst a people so super^

• lu the Orator.

DISCOURSE I. x\x

stitious as the Athenians. Thucydides, possibly, might be well acquainted ■with the philosophy of Anaxagoras, without having personally attended his lectures. However that be, his own history abundantly shews that he was no atheist: it nisly be added, and no poh/theUt. By his manner of speaking of the oracles and predictions tossed about in his own time, it is plain he looked upon them as equivocal, or rather insinuates them to be mere forgeries. " And <* yet," says Mr. Hobbes*, " he confirms an assertion of his own, touching the " time this war lasted, by the oracle's prediction." The passage occurs in the fifth book of this history. But whoever considers it will find it ouly an art/it' ftientum ad homitiem, to stop the mouths of such as believed in oracles from contesting his own computation of the whole time the Peloponnesian war lasted. 1 can only say, that he was undoubtedly a serious man, »nd of a large fund of solid sense, which deriving originally from the bounty of Bftluref he had most certainly improved by a regular and sound education.

For a reason of much less weight, Antiplio is assigned for his master in Rhetoric, because he speaks handsomely of him in the eighth book. He there indeed pays due acknowledgment to tl»e merit of AutipJio as a speaker; but it cannot be inferred from hence, that he had ev«r any connexion with him- Others have made Autipho a scholar ofThucydides*, with full as little reason. Thucvdides certainly was never a teacher by profession It is pity to waste so much time on uncertainties. It is certain Thucydides had a liberal education, though the particular progress of it cannot now be traced.

But, to shew the peculiar bent of his genius, and a remarkable prognostic what sort of person he would prove, the following story is recorded by several authors, and dated by Mr. Dodwell in the fifteenth year of his age. — His father carried him to the Olympic games. He there heard Herodotus read his history to the great crowd of Grecians assembled at that solemnity. He heard hira with fixed attention-, and, at length, burst out into tears. " Tears, childish in- *• deed 1" it hath been remarked : but however such as few children would have shed, and bighly expressive of his inward spirit. The active aspiring mind of Themistocles was not stronger shewn, when the trophy of Miltiades would not let him be at rest ; nor the genius of the lad at Westminster school, when he could not sleep for tbe colours in Westminster-hall. Herodotus is said to have observed it, and to have complimented Olorus on his having a son that had so violent a bent to letters. A similar passage in any person's life would always be calle<l to mind, when he was the subject of conversation.

In about two years more, Thucydides was obliged by the laws to take his exercise in the study of arms, and to begin to share in the defence of his country. Every citizeu of .Athens was also a soldier. They served at first within the walls, or on great emergencies marched, though to no great distance from home. As years and skill advanced, they were called upon to join in more distant and foreign expeditions. We are quite in tlie dark about the particular services in -which he might thus be employed. We are sure at least he much improved in the theory of arms. He qualified himself for the great trust of heading the forces of the state j and, in the sequel, we shall see him invested with a command.

The anonymous author of his life relates, that Thucydides was one of the {lumber whom the Athenians sent to found a colony at Thuria in Italy. Lanip«»

* or the Life and History of Thocydides. t Plutarch's Lives of the tea Oratur*.

XX ON THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES.

and Xenocritns tverethe leaders of tliis colony, and Herodotus is said to bave been associated in it. If Tliucj dides went the voyage (and the strange iuron- sistencics of him who relates it render his whole acconnt suspicious), he must have been about twenty-seven years of age. One thing is pretty certain; his stay atThuria could have been of no very long continuance. This is not to be inferred from the ostracism, whicii the same writer says he soon after suf. fered; a mistake incurred, it is highly probable, by contbunding him with Thucydides the son of Milesias, who was of the same family, and being a leader in the oligarchical party at Athens, had the ostj-acisni thrown upon him by the interest and popularity of Pericles. But, the quarrel between the Corcyreans and Corinthians about Epidamnus broke out soon after this. The enemies of Athens were now scheming the demolition of its growing power. Thucydides writes all the preparatory transactions, marks ail the defensive measures of the Athenians, as a person who was privy to every one of them. And there should be very stronj; and very positive proofs of the contrary, be- fore any reader of his history doubts of his having been all the time at Athens.

His own Introduction, of itself, in a great measure establisheth the fact H^i perceived thestorm was gathering; he knew the jealousies of the iVtofe* which composed the Lacedaemonian league, he also knew the real strength of Athens, and heard all the preventive measures recommended by Pericles to put his countrymen in a proper posture of defence. lie himself seems to have been alert for the contention, and ready both with lance and pen, not only to bear his share in the events, but also to perpetuate the memory of them. His own words (f A.7rf oruT and rsKfiatpof^iiyo'^) seem to denote the great earnestness and attention of his mind to the wide field of matter, which was now going to be opened. He longed to become an historian ; he saw a fine subject for history fast approaching; he immediately set about noting all occurrences, began at once to collect materials; and was resolved to write the History of The Pelo- po7inesian War before it was actually on foot.

Can we doubt then of his residence during this portion of time at Athens ? He was arrived, at the breaking out of this war, to the full vigour and ripeness of his years and understanding, according to his chronologist (Mr. Dodwell) was just forty years old. We learn from l»imself*, that he knew personally the whole series of things; he was ever present at the transactions of one or other of the contending parties; more, after his exile, at those of the Pelopon- nesians ; and consequently, before his exile, at those of the Athenians. He speaks of Pericles, as one who was an eye-witness of his conduct; as one who heard him harangue in the assembly of the people, convincing that a war there would necessarily be, and for that reason they ought not to weaken themselves by ill-judged concessions, but gallantly to exert that naval power, which had made Athens envied and dreaded, and which alone, as it had made, could keep her great. He must regularly have taken his post upon the walls, and seen the Peloponnesians, in the first year of the war, lay all the adjacent country l¥aste. He must have marched under Pericles to retaliate on the territories of Mcgara, since the whole force of the State was obliged to take the field on this occasion. He must have assisted at the public funeral solemnized in the winter for the first victims of this war, and lieard Pericles speak in honour of the dead and the living, and make his countrymen enamoured of their own laws and

• Book tbe fiQb.

DISCOURSE L xsi

Constitution. The phffue broke out immediately after this ; we are absolutely certain he was then in Athens. He himself assures us of it. He was au e\e- witness to all that horrid scene. He had the plague himself; and hath given a circumstantial detail of it.

The war proceeds with vigor, and through a great variety of events. Thu- cydides must have borne his share in the service; the particulars he hath not recorded. No man was ever less guilty of egotism ; he never mentions himself but when it is absolutely necessary. His uext six years were certainly era- ployed in fighting and in writing ; the latter was his passion, and the former his duty. In the forty-seventh year of his age, he was joned in the command of an Athenian squadron and land-force on the coasts of Thrace. He might be assign- ed to this particular station, on account of his possessions and interest in this part of the world. It was judged at Athens, that he was best qualified to serve his country in this department The Lacedaemonian commander in Thrace dreaded his opposition. Let us wait a little for the event: It is the most im- portant passage in the Zi/e of Thucydides.

It wa» intirdy on the authority of Plutarch, that Thucydides was asserted above to be a descendant from Miltiades, and in the mode of consanguinity to have inherited his fine estate in this part of the world. MarceUinus, who is for ever jumbling and confounding facts, hath also made him marry a Thracian lady, who brought him bis gold-mines for her fortune. Mr. Hobbes is willing to recoucile the facts, and solves all the difficulty in a very plausible manner. "In Thrace," says he, "lay also the possessions of Thucydides and his wealthy "mines of gold, as he himself professeth in his fourth book. And although "those riches might come to him by a wife (as is also by some affirmed) which "he married in Scapte-Hyle a city of Thrace; yet even by that marriage it "appeareth, that his affairs had a relation to that country, aud that his nobility "was not there unknown." I cannot believe, that Thucydides ever married a lady that was not purely Attic. He seems to have been high-spirited in this respect, aud proud of his country. Miltiades indeed had married a Thraciaa princess; and nothing, but the vast estate brought into the family by this match could have made his descendants easy with such a blemish in their pedigree: For a blemish undoubtedly it must have been thought at Athens. Let us see how Thucydides himself drops his sentiment of such another match. The passage I have in view occurs in the sixth book. He is speal^ing of Hippias the son of Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens. " To .Eantidas the son of Hippoclus "tyrant of Lampsacus — to a Lampsacene though he himself was an Atiieniaa " — he married his daughter Archedice." I cannot think, that he, who let such a sarcasm fail from his own serious pen, could ever condesceud to marry a Barbarian, let her fortune be never so great. The reader, if it be worth his while to think at all about it, may determine for himself. — ^This digression was caused by the express mention Thucydides hath made of his mines, the very moment he is going to enter the lists against the most gallant and active com- mander at this time in the armies of the Lacedaemouiau league.

It was Brasidas the Spartan, who was now at the head of the Peloponncsian troops in Thrace. He had made a forced march thither through Thessaly and Macedonia. By his fine deportment aud his persuasive address joined to uncommon vigilance and activity, he had hitherto carried all before him. He at length endeavoured to get possession by surprise of the important city of Amphipolis : He bad very nearly succeeded, Eucles commanded there for

xxii ON THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES.

the Athenians. Thucydides was at this time in the isle of Thasns, abont half a day's sail from Amphipolis. A messenger was dispatched to him, to hasten him up for the defence of that city. lie put to sea immediately with a small squadron of seven ships. Brasidas, knowing he was coming, opened a nego- tiation with the Amphipolitans, and gained admission for his troops. Thucy- dides stood up the Strymon in the evening, but too late, since Brasidas had got .fast possession of Amphipolis. The city of Eion is situated also upon the river Strymon lower down, and about two miles and a half from Amphipolis. Thucy- dides put in here, and secured the place. " Brasidas, (in his own words*) had "designed that very night to seize Eion also. And, unless this squadron had " come in this critically to its defence, at break of day it had been lost." Thu- cydides, without losing a moment, provided for its defence. Brasidas, with armed boats, fell down the river from Amphipolis, and made two attempts upon it, but was repulsed in both: l^pon which, lie gave up tlie scheme, and returned back.

One would imagine that Thucydides had done all that could be done on this occasion, and deserved to be thanked instead of punished. The people of Athens made a different determination. Cleon was now the demagogue of greatest influence there, and is generally supposed to have exasperated them against the man, who had not wrought impossibilities in saving their valuable town of Amphipolis. It is certain their fury rose so high against him, that they stripped Thucydides of his command, and passed the sentence of banishment upon him. It is himself who tells usf, " It was his lot to sutler a twenty years' "exUe from his country after the affair of Amphipolis."

We have thus lost Thucydides the co»i»jandcr to secure more fast Thucydides the historiati. Though sadly treated, he scorned to be angry with his country. His complexion was not at all choleric or resentful ; there appears not the least sign of any gall in his cotistitution. Discharged of all duties, and free from all public avocations, he was left without any attachments but to simple truth, and proceeded to qualify himself for commemorating exploits, in which he could have no share. He was now eight and forty years old, and iutirely at leisure to attend to the grand point of his ambition, that of writing the history of the present war; a calm spectator of facts, and dispassionate observer of the events he was determined to record.

To judge of him from his history, (and we have no other help to form our ophiion about him,) he was so nobly complexioned as to be all judgment and no passion. No murmur nor complaint hath escaped him upon account of his severe undeserved treatment from his country, tireat souls are congenial; their thoughts are always of a similar cast.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Whicli, like the toad, ut;ly and venetnous,

Wears yet a precious jewel id liis bead.

Shakespeare hath thus expressed what Thucydides, as it is highly probable, must have thought, " Exile," according to Plutanh J, " was a blessing which "the Muses bestowed upon their favourites. By this means they enabled them "to complcat their most beautiful and noble compositions." He then quotes our autlior for the first proof of his observation — "Thucydides the Athenian com<

* Book the foartb. t Book the fifth. % Of Banishment

DISCOURSE I. xxiii

piled his History of the Peloponnesian War at Scaptesyle in Thrace." At that place he fixed his residence. It lay coDveaient for taking care of his private affairs, and overlooking his mines : They lay not within the dominions of Athens ; for they would have been forfeited to the State. Hence he made ex- ■cursions at proper seasons to observe transactions, and pick up intelligence. He was now more conversant in person on the Peloponnesian side. Some priv ate correspondences he might still carrj- on with Athenians. And he had money to purchase all proper materials, was ready, and knew how to lay it out. This was his employment until the very end of the war; and it is certain he had collected materials for carrying down his history to tliat period of time " when ** (in his own words*) the Lacedaemonians and their allies put an end to the ** empire of Athens, and became masters of the Long-w alls and the Piraeus.'* But whoever reads it, will be inclined to think, that he drew it not up in that accurate and elaborate manner in which it now appears, until the war was finished. He might keep every thing by him in the form of annals; he might go on altering or correcting, as he saw better reason or gained more light. His compleat well connected history, though the first thing in his intention, was the last in executiou.

His exile lasted twenty years. It commenced in the eighth year of the war, in the year before Christ four hundred twenty-three. Cons(;queutly, he was re- stored the year before Christ four hundred and three, being at that time sixty- eight years old. In that very year an amnesty was published at Athens, iu the archonsbip of Euclides, after the demolition of the thirty tyrants by Thnisybulus.

Thucydides was now at liberty, if he pleased, to return and pass the re- mainder of his days at Athens. Whether he did so or not, is left quite in the dark. He lived twelve years after, and died in the year before Christ three hundred ninety-one, being then about fourscore years old. He was constantly employed in giving coherence and dignity to this History; — with what accu- racy, what severity, what toil, the reader may judge, since he will find that after all he left it imperfect. The first sevea books are indeed fully and exactly finished. The eighth moulded into due form, hath plainly not had a final re- visa), and breaks off abruptly. The whole work is said to have fallen into Xenophon's possession, who, at the time of the death of Thucydides, wa.<i exiled from Athens : And Xenophon is also said to have made it public This carries a great air of probability with it, since Xenophon became the conti- uuator of Thucydides, not in so lofty and majestic, but in a sweeter and more popular stile. There is a chasm indeed between the time the History of Thu- cydides breaks off, and the Grecian History of Xenophon begins. There is no accounting for this but by conjecture. May I venture to offer one, I belie\e entirely new, but which, for that reason, I shall readily give up to the first person of judgment, who thinks it hath no foundation ? It is this — ^That Thu- cydides left somewhat more behind him than now appears. How it came to be suppressed or lost, I will not pretend to guess. It is natural to imagine, that his acknowledged continuator resumed the subject at the very spot where his predecessor had left off. Nearly two years are however wanting, iu Mhich several important incidents took place. It is pity, but we have no redress. General historians are by other means enabled to supply the deficiency; but the loss of any thing from so masterly a, hand is still to be regretted.

* Book the fifth.

xxk ON THE LIFE OF THUCYDIDES.

The place of the death and interment of Thucydides was most probably Scaptesyle in Thrace. Long habitude might have made him fond of a spot, where he had passed so many years in studious and calm retirement. The hurry and bustle and engagements of Athens coukl not have been much to the relish of so grave, and now so old a man. His monument there among the Cimonian confirms this opinion, since most writers agree, it had the mark upon it which shewed it to be a cenotaph, and the words. Here lieth, were not in the inscription *. I have nothing to add about his family. It is said he left a son, but the very name of that son is merely conjectural. I have collected every thing that carries any consistency with it about the Man; I shall pro- ceed with more pleasure to view him in a clearer and more steady light, and mark the character, in which it was his ambition to be distinguished, that of an Historian.

* Marcellinus.

y'

DISCOURSE II.

ON HIS QUALIFICATIONS AS AN HISTORIAN.

AT is now to be considered, how well qualified Thucydides was, to undertake that nice and arduous task of writing History. No one certainly was ever better fitted for it by outward circumstances ; and very few sa enabled to per- form it well by the inward abilities of genius and understanding.

Lucian, in his celebrated treatise " How a History ought to be written," is generally supposed to have had his eye fixed on Thucydides. And every per- son of judgment, who loves a sincere relation of things, would be glad, if it ■were possible, to have the writer of them abstracted froai all kind of connectioa with persons or things that are the subject-matter; to be of no country, no party; clear of all passions; independent in every light; intirely unconcerned who is pleased or displeased with what be writes ; the servant only of reason and truth.

Sift Thucydides carefully, and we shall find his qualifications in all these re- spects very nearly, if not quite, compleat.

No connection with, no favouring or malevolent bias towards any one person in the world can be fixed upon him. Never man so intirely detadied, or pro- ceeded so far (if I may use the expression) in annihilating himself. He had a father indeed, whose name was Oiorus; he was ^n Athenian born ; — But, who are his relations? who were his associates? what rival or competitor doth he sneer ? what friend doth he commend ? or, what enemy doth he reproach ? — Brasidas was the immediate occasion of his disgrace and exi!e. Yet, how doth he describe him? He makes the most candid acknowledgineub of his personal merit, and doth justice to all his shining and superior abilities. Cleon is ge- nerally supposed to have irritated the people against him, and to have got him most severely punished, when he merited much better returns from his country. Doth he shew the least grudge or resentment agninst this Cleon ? He repre- sents him indeed in his real character of a factious demagogue, an incendiary, a bully, and of course an arrant coward. And how do all other writers ? how doth Aristophanes paint this worthless man,thisfalse bellowing patriot? I would never call Aristophanes for an evidence to character, but in cases where every other writer accorded fully with him, on the same foundation of truth, though not with the same superstructure of bitterness and abuse. Ele should not be a voucher in regard to Socrates, or Pericles ; but certainly may be heard about an Hyper- bolus or a Cleon. Thucydides never mentions himself as opposed to any man but Brasidas ; and never so much as drops an insinuation that he was hurt by Cleon. And thus, by geueral consent, he had gained immortal honour by giving fair and true representations of men, whom he never felt to be such, but whom succeeding writere have assured us to have actually been his enemies. As to things ; though in the first seven years of the war he must in some mea- sure have had employment, yet he was soon disentangled from all bnsiuess whatever, in a manner which bore hard upon his reputation. He hath stated Cor. Hist. Grec. .Yo.49. d

xxvi ON HIS QUALIFICATION.^ AS AN HISTORIAN.

the fact ; and then, with the greatest calmness and unconcern, he hath left the decision to posterity.

He was henceforth of no country at all. Cnt off from the republic of Athens, he never sought after or desired a naturalization in any other State of Greece. He was now only to choose out and fix a proper spot of observation, from whence, like a person securely' posted on a promontory, he could look calmly on the storm that was raging, or the battle that was figh'ing below, could note every incident, distinguish every turn, and with a philosophical tranquility enjoy it ail. In short, he now was, and continued all the rest of the Pelo- ponnesian War, a citizen of the world at large, as much as any man ever actually was.

But before this separation from the community, whilst yet he continued at Athens,' where liberty opened the field to all passionate chaces after power, where consequently competitions were ever fermenting, and party was always alive and active — can we find him associated with any particular set of men? can we find him dabbling in political intrigue? a leader of, or led by any party? or, can we assuredly find out his principles? or even guess at his real thoughts about the form of goverment under which he had lived ? His bio- graphers indeed, though ever parading his candor and impartiality, are often tracing out signs and marks of party-zeal and personal prejudices from the very characters in his history. Marcellinus says, " he described Cleon as a madman "because he hated him j" forgetful what Cleon really was, and of the concuf- rent testimonies to the truth of this character. The anoni/mous writer says, " he "opposed Pericles at Athens, got the better of him, and became the first man in «' the republic. " A ridiculous story! void of all manner of support. Accord- ing to this writer's way of arguing in other places, who says, " he cajoled the " Lacedfemonians, and inveighed against the tyrannic all-grasping temper of the ** Athenians, in his history, because he had no opportunity to rail at them in any " other shape," he should have left a far different character of Pericles behind him, than he hath actually left. But these are strange compilers of patch- work, and deserve no regard. From what the former hath said about him, a reader might be tempted to judge \nm of the oliffarchical : from what the latter hath siiid of him, ofihe democratical \yr\ncip\c. Mr. Hobbes imagines he hath dived to the bottom of his real principles, and avere him a tight and sound royalist. He is sure, that he least of all liked the democracy; as sure, he was not at all fond of an oligarchy. He founds this assurance on a passage in the eighth book — " They decreed the supreme power to be vested in the five " thousand, which numl)er to consist of all such citizens as were enrolled for *'the heavy armour, and that no one should receive a salary," — Thucydides just after pronouncetli this, in his own opinion," a good modelling of their govern- - "ment, a fine temper between the few and the many, and which enabled "Athens from the low estate into which her affairs were plunged to re-erect "her head." If this passage proves any thing of the author's principles, it cer- tainly proves them in a pretty strong degree republican. Mr. Mobbes however sets out from hence to prove him a royalist. " For (says he) he commendeth "the goverment cf Athens more, both when Pisistratus reigned (saving that it ••was an usurped power;, and wlien in ^he beginning of this war it was de- "mocratical in name, but in effect monarchical under Pericles." He praiseth, it is true, the administration at both these periods; and he also praiseth the good eflects resulting from an administration lodged in the hands of five thousand mcu. Under Pericles it was lodged iu more, but the extraordinary

DISCOURSE II. xxTil

abilities and influence of the man had taught all their voices to follow the dictates of bis heart. Yet, Pericles was all the time a strong repiibliian. and owned his masters. Plutarch says, he never harangued them without praying beforehand, that, " not a word might slip out of his mouth, that was not per- *'tinent to the business in handj" and that he never put on his armour to lead them out into the field without saving to himself — " Remember, Ptricles, you " are going to command free men and Greciaiis." I leave it to the reader, whe- ther the principles of Thucyc'ides can thus be discovered. It appears only, that he was always candid to a good administration, and might possibly tbiuk of governments, as Mr. Pope hath wrote:

For modrt of sorernnient let fools rontest. That which is best admiuistered is best.

That studied obscurity, in whi(!h he hath veiled himself, will not let us die- cover, whether on instant and critical occasions he ever suffered himself to be actuated by any of the darker passions, or too fondly indulged those of a brighter cast. But it cannot be found from what he writes, that he hath praised any man from fondness, or even from gratitude, degraded any one through envy, or reproached any one with malice and ill-nature. The same will hold in regard to States or whole communities. Doth he ever censure the Athenians m the w rong place ? or commend the Lacedaemonians but in the right? Were his nime expunged from the beginning of the whole work and the conclusions of the years, could any one guess to what State he had ever belonged, whether he was a Lacedaemonian, a' Corinthian, an .\theuian, or a Sicilian, except from the purity of the Attic dialect in which he writes ' in that dialect he wascradled ; he could nut possibly swerve from it; without it he could neither write nor speak. Could he have thought, that this might yield suspicion of an im|)as- sioned or prejudiced spirit, he might perhaps have endeavoured to write iu the Doric or Ionic idiom.

Inde{)endent, further, he certainly must have been, since he had no great man to cajole, and no prince to dread or flatter. The powers of Greece or the mon- arch of Perisia could affect him no more, than the Germanic body or the grand monarch of France the quiet and contented refugee, who lives on the sunny side of a hill in Switzerland. The circumjacent powers had no more, perhap* not so much, influence at Scaptesyle, than the neighlwuring kingdoms caa have at Lausanne. The States of Greece had garrisons on the coasts, but were not mnsters of Thrrtce. Thrace was full of little communities and petty prin- cipalities. Thucydides had credit enough amongst them to insure his personal safety and guard his retirement, [le could disoblige those iibout whom he wrote, without fear of their resentment, and could praise without being iu the reach of a requital. Human nature will not admit of a stric-ter independence.

His unconcern about the opinions of a pn-sent generation, is strong and clear. It looks as if he thought they would scarce give him a reading, so little care had he taken to soothe or to amuse them. He had a greater aim than to be the author in vogue for a year. He hated contention, and scorned short-lived temporary applause. He threw himself on posterity. He appealed to the future world for the value of the present he had made them. The judgment of suc- ceeding ages hath approved the compliment he thus made to their under- standings. So lonjj as there are truly great princes, able statesmen, sound po- liticians, politicians that do not rend asunder politics from good order and the

xxviii ON HIS QUALinCATIONS AS AN HISTORIAN.

general happiness, he will meet with candid and grateful acknowledgments of Iiis merit.

Other historians have sooner pleased, have more diffusively entertained. They have aimed more directly at the passions, have more artificially and suc- cessfully struck at the imagination. Truth in its severity, and Reason in its robust and manly state, are all the Muses and Graces to which Thucjdides hath done obeisance. Can vte wonder, that he hath not been more generally read and admired? or, could we wonder, if he had not been so much ? A great work planned under such circumstances and with such qualifications as I have been describing, cool serious judgment will always commend as a noble design, even though executed it may prove too chearless to the more lively passions, its relish not sufficiently quick for the popular taste, or piquant enough to keep the appetite sharp and eager.

But to proceed. Thucydides hath been censured in regard to the choice of his subject. It hath occasioned the solidity of his judgment and excellence of his taste to be called in question. Dionysius of Halicarnassus hath exerted himself much on this account; hath tried him by laws, which have poetry rather than history for their object; and censures him for not delighting, when his profession was only to instruct. Mr. Hobbes hath gallantly defended his author, and shewn all the arguments of Dionysius to be impertinent, and to proceed from partiality and envy. I shall not repeat, it will suffice to refer the curious reader to what Mr. Hobbes hath written upon this topic. Homer had celebrated the Trojan war, and intermingled in his poems all the historic strokes of that and of preceding ages, enlivening and exalting every thing he touched. That splendid part of the Grecian history, in which his countrymen resisted and triumphed over the very formidable arms of the Persian monarch, , had already been recorded by Herodotus. Should Thucydides plunge back into dark and fabulous ages, and turn a mere legendary and romantic writer? He had, he could have no subject equal to his ambition and his abilities, but the war, which broke out in his own days, which he foresaw would prove exten- sive and important, when the efforts of her enemies would be vigorously exert- ed to pull down the power of Athens, to demolish that naval strength which gave her the sovereignty of the sea, and made her the dread and envy of her neighbours. Coolly therefore with my reason as an examiner of things, and ■warmly with my passion as an Englishman, I cannot but applaud his choice who hath projected the soundest and best system of English politics, so long heforethe constitution had existence; and hath left us fine lesson, such as his factious countrymc!! would not observe, how to support that dominion of the sea, on which our glory is built, and on which our welfare intirely depends. In this light it is a most instructive and interesting history, and we may felicitate ourselves on the choice of Thucydides. I must not anticipate : Thucydides would have his readers pick out their own instructions. I can only add, that Thucydides is a favourite historian with the statesmen and patriots of Great- Britain: This fits him also to be an Historian for the people. Other nations have admired him, and 1 hope will continue to admire him gratis: We arc bound to thank him, and never to lose sight of that grand political scheme, formed by a Themistocles, and warmly and successfully pursued by an Aristides, aCimon, and a Pericles: the swerving from which at Athens drew after it the loss of the sovereignty at sea, then sunk her into a petty State, and made her end at last iu a mere academy, though most excellent in its kind.

DISCOURSE II. X3dx

From such considerations it will also follow, that the history of Thucvdides is more useful than that of Livy; at least, that we Ijave more reason to applaud the choice of the former. I design no comparison between these two histori- ans. The performance of the Jesuit Rapin on that point is in general reading. Livy's history is certainly more august, more splendid, more amazing: I only insist that it is not more useful. And, though lAvy be happier in his subject, this ought not to degrade Thucvdides, who seized tl}e only fine subject that could offer itself to him : In regard to him, it was either this or none at alt. The parallel should be only drawn in regard to execution, where much hath been said on both sides, and the superiority still remains undecided.

This brings me to the inward abilities of genius and understanding, which capacitated my author to execute his work. His genius was certainly of the highest order : It was truly sublime. Here the critics unanimously applaud. In the arrangement of his matter he emulated flomer. In the grandeur uf his thoughts and loftiness of his sense he copied Pindar. He is ever stately and majestic ; his statelincss perhaps too formal, his majesty too severe. He wrote, as be thought, far beyond an ordinary person. He thinks faster than he can utter : His sentences are full-stored with meaning : And his very words are sentences Hence his obscurity. Where pure thought is the object, he connects too fast, nor is enough dilated for common apprehension. But this is not the case with the narrative part of his history, which is pith}-, nervous and succinct, yet plain, striking, and manly. He never flourisheth, never plays upon words, never sinks into puerihties, never swells into bombast. It is a relation from the mouth of a very great man, whose chief characteristic is gravity. Others talk more in- genuously; others utter themselves with a more chearful air : yet, every one must attend to Thucvdides, must hearken with serious and fixed attention, lest they lose a word, a weighty and i.-nportant word, by which the whole story would be spoiled. It is in his Orations, tliat he is most remarkably obscure- He might not be so in so high a degree to the apprehensions of mankind, when bis history was first made public. The world was then used to hear continual harangues: No business of a public nature could be carried on without them. In his time, the speakers aimed intircly at strength and brevity. If they were not exceeding quick, the apprehensions of the Athenians would outstrip, or at least affect to outstrip, their utterance. They must think much, and yet leave much of what they had thought to the ready conception of the audience. An orator in the following history * calls them " Spectators of speeches." They affected to discern at the first glance, and without waiting for formal deduction and solemn inference, to be masters of the point as it were by intuition. The more copions and diffusive eloquence was tlie improvement of the next genera- tion. But the most forcible orator that even Athens ever yet boasted improved, if he did not quite learn, his peculiar manner from Thucvdides. It was Demos- thenes who copied him in the close energy of his sentences, and the abrupt ra- pidity of his thoughts Demosthenes is said to have transcribed him eight times over with his own hand : so diligently did he persevere to form an intimate ac- quaintance with him, and habituate himself to his quick manner of conception, and to his close and rapid delivery. Cicero says however t, that " no rhetori- « cian of Greece ever drew any thing from Thucydides. He hath indeed been " praised by all; I own it ; but, as a man who was an explainer of facts with * prudence, severity, and gravity : Not as a speaker at the bar, but an historical

* Cleon's speech in book the third. f In the Orator.

XXX ON HIS QUALIFICATIONS AS AN HISTORIAN.

" relator of wars. And therefore he was never numbered amongst the oratbrs." Cicero learned notlung from him: he could not, neither in his own word* " would he if he could." His talents were diifereiit ; he was quite in all res[>ects accomplished ; he was eloquence itself. But Demosthenes — and can there be higher praise? — Demosthenes certainly loved and studied Thucydides; for ■whose perfection I am not arguing; I would only establish his character of lof- tiness and sublimity. Longinus * proposelh him, iis the model of true grandfuir and exaltation in writing history.

And now I have mentioned this princely and most judicious critic, let u» call Thucydides to take a trial at his bar, and see whether he hath all the genuine constituents of the true sublime — For elevation of thought, for his power in alarming and interesting the passions, for his bold and frequent use of figures, his character will soon be established. Even Dionysius of Halicar- iiassus bears testimony here, who loved him not, and would have been glad to degrade him. Plutarch calls him the most pathetic, and a writer of the greatest energy and variety that ever was. The scenes in his history are strong and most expressive paintings. He makes the past to be present; he make* hearing sight. In the very words of Plutarchf — " His readers are thrown into *' the same astonishment and hurry of passion, as the eye-witnesses to every " scene must have felt. Demosthenes drawing up his men on the craggy shore " of Pylus — Brasidas calling out on his pilot to run the vessel ashore, getting " himself on the stairs, then wounded, fainting, falling down on the gunnel ; " here, the Spartans fighting a land battle from the water, the Athenians a " naval battle from the shore; — and again, in the Sicilian war, the land armies " of both parties on the beach, whilst a naval engagement is \et under decision " on the water, sympathising in all the coiitest, adjusting themselves to all the " various turns of battle, by new attitudes, quick coutorsions of the body ; — ** All these things are set before the readers in actual representation, in all the *' disposition, all the expression, and pers[)icuity of picture." Through the whole course of the history, a battle either at land or sea is au object clear and distinct. The writer is never confounded himself, nor throws confusion on his reader. That reader sees the whole, from the paean of attack to the erecting of the tro{)liy ; he discerns the whole train of fight, and beholds ex- actly the loss or gain of the victory. He further assists at the assemblies of the people and all important consultations. He learns the state of atfairs from the managers themselves ; he hears the debates, is let into the tempers of the assembly, pries into all the politics, and preconceives the resolution. Where the politics are bad, he will own no other could be expected from those who recommend them. Where they are sound and good, nor wilfully severed from duty to their country, and in moral consistence with the welfare of their fellow- creatures, the reader will applaud, and think he hath been himself discovering the fine maxims which the author halh been teaching, who never appears in person, never puffs his own integrity and discernment, and without digressing into comments or setting up for a politician, is found upon rtfiexion the best of the kind that ever wrote.

To quote passages for the proof of his sublime thought or his pathetic ad- dress, would be to traiiscril)e the greater part of the following history. They will be observed in the orations of these two different casts, and the incidcnta of the work. His figures are thick set; the figures, that regard both thCk

* On the Sublime, Section u. f De gluria Atheaiensiijm.

DISCOURSE IL xxti

sentiment and the diction. His metaphors are strong and uncommon j his hyperboles far but not overstretched, the tone is still preserved, they flow out from a warm pathetic in the midst of some grand circumstance. The figures, in which he most dehghts, are the Interrogation; the change of number and time ; tlie Hyperbaton, or transposing and inverting the order of things which aeem naturally united and inseparable; and atx>ve all, the Antithesis. This last he hath fondly used, almost to satiety. Term is not only opposed to term, but thought to thought, sentence to sentence, and sometimes whole orations to one another, even w here the latter speaker cannot possibly be supposed to have heard the former. A constant adherence to this method carries with it the danger of glutting the reader. 1 am sensible there should have been more variety to make the whole quite beautiful and graceful. ,

As to the fourth constituent of sublimity, which according to Longinus is noble and graceful expression, our author's claim cannot tie so well established. Koble undoubtedly he is, but as for the graceful — the reader may wish he had been more careful in this particular, and I am sure his translator wishes it from his heart. For fear of being vulgar he is too set and solemn ; and from the passion to be alwajs grent, he hath lost the air of ease and genteelness. Diony- sius of Halicarnassus says he studiously affected hard and obsolete words. But yet the same writer sets him up as the standard of Attic purity ; nay, hath frequently strengthened his own stile by using the hard and obsolete words of Thucydides. However this be, it is certain Thucydides hath in this respect fallen half-way short : And more so, in the fifth constituent of sublimity, com- position or structure of his periods. He hath no harmony, hath given little or no proof of having a good ear. He is rough, austere ; his periods are some> times a mile long, in which he labours himself both out of tune and time. I acknowledge his imperfections, and he^ the reader would weigh them and set them in the balance with his excellencies: He may then judge if the latter do not greatly preponderate. He thinks nobly ; affects surprisingly; liis expres- sion is noble, but not graceful ; his final colouring is neither bright nor chear- ful. But, though his pieces are not so sompletely finished as to stand every test, yet they are certainly high-wrought in his own peculiar stile,'and for greatness of design and strength of expression are beyond every other hand.

I think no fair comparison tan be madeof him, except with the Historians who are his countrymen, who like himself are original in their own way, and the first in their manner. These are only two, Herodotus and Xenophon. In point of life, Thucydides was junior a little to the former, and senior to the latter. In stateliness, grandeur, and majesty, he far surpasseth them both. The man- ner of Herodotus is graceful and'manly ; his address is engaging; he loves to tell a story ; and, however trifling and fabulous tiiat story, he will I)e heard with pleasure. The course of his Hi>tory is clear and smooth, and yields a most chearful prospect: That of Thucydides is deep, rapid, impetuous, and therefore very apt to be rough and muddy. You may ciearly perceive the bottom of the one : But it is very hard to dive to the bottom of the other. He- rodotus, like a master on the horn, can wind a lofty air, and without any harsh- ness sink down into the lowest aud mellowest notes. Thucydides sounds the trumpet; his blasts are sonorus and piercing, and they are all of the martial strain*. Xenophon never pretends to grandeur: his character is a beautiful simplicity ; he is sweeter than honey ; he charms every ear ; the Muses them-

* Canit quodammodo bellicvm. Cicero in the Orator.

xxxii ON HIS QUALIFICATIONS XS AN HISTORIAN.

selves could not sing sweeter than he hath wrote. Each beats and is beaten by the other in some particular points. Each hath his particular excellence : That of Herodotus is gracefulness ; that of Thucydides, grandeur; that of Xe- nophon, sweetness itself. If generals and admirals and statesmen were to award the first rank, it would undoubtedly be given for Thucydides ; if the calmer and more polite gentry, it would go for Herodotus ; if all in general who can read or hear, Xenophon hath it all to nothing.

As to the Roman Historians, who saw what these mighty originals had done before them, I cannot judge it fair to form decisive parallels. Time had ena- bled them to judge maturely about the defects and excellencies of their Greek predecessors. Yet every Roman Historian shews plainly he is a Roman him- self; he stood not so aloof from his subject as Thucydides. The loss of a Pelo- ' ponnesian writer is never regretted in regard to the latter ; the loss of Cartha- ginian and historians of other nationsis highly regretted in regard to the former. National impartiality will admit no comparison here ; though excellence of composition may admit a great deal. Salust is the only one whe seems to have had our author ever in his eye, and to have been his professed imitator. Salust frequently translates his political maxims, copies him exactly in the conciseness and laboured energy of his phrase; and Salust, for that reason, is like him very often obscure. It is entirely in his manner that he draws up his orations, con- trasts his speakers, and fights his battles. Salust hath many, hath deservedly many admirers : and I hope, if 1 am so fortunate as to bring Thucydides into more general acquaintance, that the admirers of the one will bestow regard upon the other, and pay due honour to his historic progenitor.

I shall wind up this essay upon Thucydides as an- Historian with a passage from the Critic on the Sublime*, only desiring the reader to keep Thucydides in remembrance, as Longiuus extended his view to writers both in poetry and prose-^

" I readily allow, that writers of a lofty and towering genius are by no means " pure and correct, since whatever'is neat and accurate throughout, must be ex- " ceedingly liable to flatness. In the Sublime, as in great afHuence of fortune, " some minuter articles will unavoidably escape observation. But it is almost " impossible for a low and groveling genius to beguilty of error, since he never " endangers liimself by soaring on high, or aiming at eminence, but still goes " on in the same uniform secure tract, whilst its very height and grandeur ex- " pose the Subh me to sudden falls. Nor am I ignorant indeed of another " thing, which will no doubt be urged, that in passing our judgment upon the " works of an author, we always muster his imperfections, so that the retnem- " brance of his faults sticks indelibly fast in the mind, whereas that of his ex- " cellencits is quickly worn out. For my part, I have taken notice of no in- " considerable number of faults in Homer, and some other of the greatest au- " thors, and cannot by any means be blind or partial to them ; however, I "judge them not to be voluntary faults, so much as accidental slips incurred "through inadvertence; such as, when the mind is intent upon things of " a higher nature, will creep insensibly into compositions. And for this rea- " son I give it as my real opinion, that the great and nobic ilights, though they " cannot every where boast an equality of perfection, yet ought to carry off the " prize by the sole nierit of their own intrinsic grandeur." -

* LongiDus, Section 33.

DISCOURSE HI. A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

In the preceding discourse we have examined into the capacity and qualifi- cations of our author for writing history, aud settled his character. Let us now take a view of the work itself; first casting our eyes upon aud noting the ge- neral disposition of the whole ; and tlien surveying it more distinctly iu its parts.

The disposition of the whole is most elaborately exacL Order is scrupulously observed; and every incident so faithfully arranged in its proper time, that some have doubted whether annals were not a more proper title for it than history. If we should call it annals, it must be owned at the same time that annals were never composed with so much majesty and spirit, and never was history more accurately distinguished by the punctuality of dates so nicely interwove. Thucydides states every occurence in^just place and time. But Ire is forced for this purpose to make frequent trausitions, and to drop a particular uarration, perhaps the very moment a reader's attention may be most fixed up- on and most eager for the event. If they cannot bear a disappointment here, the remedy is ready at hand. By turning over a few leaves, they will find it regularly resumed in due place and time: and they at once may satisfy their own curiosity, without disarranging the author's scheme, or perplexing that work which he was determined to keep quite clear and unembarrassed. They w ill afterwards forgive, perhaps applaud him, for his great care to prevent confusion, and to give a neat and precise conception of all that passeth. He constantly gives notice, when he is necessitated, by the method he laid down for himself, to make such transitions: And, when we have been amused with what looks like a ramble from an engaging part of history, but is really a coincidence of events not i)ast unheeded : when we have been so long at it, that we are convinced it lies in the road, and is no excursion at all ; yet we are glad to see him re-connect, and land us on a spot, where we are already well acquainted. He shews a steady and inviolable attachment to chronology, a necessary atten- dant upon history. But the chronology of Thucydides is like a herald, that exactly marshals a long stately procession, adjusts the rank, clears the way,and preserves every step distinct and unincumbered.

No writer had done this before him. No settled .Cra was yet in use, not even the famous one of the Olympiad. The several States of Greece computed time by a method of their own. It was not easy to make those methods coin- cide with one another. The Athenians reckoned by their annnal archotu ; the L.acedaemonians by their t/jAor* ; the Argives by the yea.rs of the priestess o{ Juno. The seasons of the year when the two former entered on their offices, were fixed, but did not suit together in point of time ; the beginning of the years of the latter was variable, since it depended on the de:ith or removal of a predecessor. Thucydides, to avoid confusion, left all these artificial jarring rules, and adhered to the course of nature. He divided the natural year into two halves, into a summer and winter. His summer includes the spring, and reacheth from the vernal to the autumnal equinox ; the other half-year is com- Cor. Hilt. Grec. No. 40. e

xxxiv A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

prehended in his winter. He always records eclipses, as strange events, and proper concomitants for the horrors of this war. I must not be so sanguine a» to imagine, that he supposed such appearances might some time or other be reduced to exact calculation, and Astronomy be made the faithful guide of Chronology.

Book I. The First Book of Thucydides is introductory to the rest. It is a comprehensive elaborate work of itself. It clears away rubbish, opens a vie\r from the earliest ages, strikes out light from obscurity, and truth from fable, that the reader may enter upon the Peloponnesian War with a perfect insight into the state of Greece, and the schemes, interest, and strength of the con- tending pa dies. The author unfolds his design in writing, magnifies his sub- ject, complains of the ignorance and credulity of mankind, rectifies their mis- takes, removes all prejudice, and furnishes us with the knowledge of every thing proper to be known, to enable us to look at the contention with judgment and discernment, when the point contended for is no less than the sovereignty of the sea, which that of the land must necessarily follow.

He begins at the source, and traces the original of the Greek communities from certain and indisputable facts ; and the growth of Attica in particular, from the natural barrenness of the soil, which tempted no invasions ; and from the shelter its inhabitants gave to all who would settle amongst them, and share their polity. — He shews the invention of shipping to have been exceed- ingly mischievous at first. It filled the sea with pirates, to whom it gave » ready conveyance from coast to coast, enabling them suddenly to seize, and at leisure to carry off and secure their booty. No considerable commerce, or ra- ther none at all, could be carried on, till the shore was cleared of such annoy- ance. And when few dared venture to settle on the coasts, no marts could be opened for traffic, and no ports were yet secure. A ship was merely the in- strument of ready conveyance from place to place ; it was not yet become an engine of attack and defence on the water. Minos, king of Crete, made the first attempt with success to obtain a naval strength *, by which he cleared the isles of the pirates, who had settled upon them to set out readier from thence on their plundering excursions. — The grand fleet, that parried such a numerous army to Troy, was a mere collection of transports. Thucydides gives us a just and clear idea of that famous expedition. After this celebrated aeraf, the Corinthians were the first people of Greece, who became in reality a maritime power. Their peculiar situation gave them an inclination and an opportunity for commerce ; and commerce must have strength to guard and support it. They first improved a vessel of burden into a ship of war J, and set power afloat as well as wealth.

Their neighbours in the isle of Corcyra soon followed their example, and, though originally a colony of their own, became a rival power at sea. They fought on their own darling element for superiority §. This was the most an- cient sea-fight, but it was not decisive. They continued for two centuries more to be rival and jarring powers; till a third, that of Athens, grew up, which politically joined with one to gain the ascendant over them both, and to assert the empire of the sea for itself.

The claim both of Corcyra and Corinth to the town of Epidamnus had oc- casioned their most recent cmbroilment||, and a hot war, in which the Cor- «yreans applied for the alliance and aid of Athens. On this was afterwards

• Years before Christ 1006. t B.C. 904. JB.C.tJo?. ^B.C.657. l|B.C.43»w

DISCOURSE m. xxxr

grounded tliefirft pretext for the Peloponnesian war, and therefore onr Author opens the atfair at large. Athens held the balance of power in her hands : How •he came to be possessed of it, will soon gire room for as pertinent a digression as Thucydides could have wished. Ambassadors from both parties are soon at Athens; one, to negotiate alliance and aid ; the other, to traverse their ne- gotiation. The people of Athens, in whom the supreme power was vested, admit them both to audience, and orations of course must follow. Our grave Historian is now retired, to make way for statesmen and orators to mount th« stage, who are very well worth hearing.

The Corcyreans, who take the lead, recognize " the necessity of alliances, « which, though sometimes intanglements, are generally security and defence. •* Wronged as they now are, fhey sue for alliance as the means of redress. In •• granting it to them, the .Athenians would shew honour and virtue, and at the

• same time promote their own private interest. The accession of the naval " strength of Corcyra to their own was very well worth the gaining ; in the •• end, it might preserve their State. — They open the nature of colonies, shew *• the original contract between them and the mother-country ; obedience an<) •* protection are reciprocal and imply one another. — They prove that Athen« •* may grant them alliance, in consistence with all other engagements ; by do- •• ing it, may secure herself in time against the eovy and attack of the Pelo- •• pouncsians; since the naval strength of Corinth, joined to all the efforts of ** the latter in a future war, will be weak and ineffectual against the combined ** fleets of Corcyra and Athens."

The Corinthians, in their answer, inveigh highly against the Corcyrean*. *• They describe them as a very designing iniquitous set of men, and a colony io « the highest degree undutiful to its mother-state. They endeavour to prove « it unjust, and ungrateful too, in the Athenians, to take them into alliance,

* and abet their criminal behaviour. They maintain, that true honour point* ** out another conduct ; and schemes of interest should never supersede the - laws of equity and good-faith. What may happen should be less regarded, •♦ than what on present occasions is strii tly right. They intreat at last, though "with a menacing air; and close, with warmly adjuring the Athenians, t« •* stand neutral in the quarrel."

The Athenians however resolve to enter into a defensive alliance with Cor- cyra. The war is renewetl ; and the Athenians send the Corcyreans a petty aid, which they afterwards reinforce. Corcyra is secured, and all the project* of the Corinthians are baffled, who are highly exasj>erdted against the Aiheni- ftos, and never will forgive them.

Another aflair soon happens, to embroil them more, and to make the second pretext for a general war. Potidiea, a town in the Isthmus of the Pallene, was a Corinthian colony, but at this »ime tributary to the Athenians, Its situa- tion between two bays, and amongst the Athenian colonies on the coast of Thrace and Macedonia, would enable it to gall the Athenians sorely io case of

rapture. T<iey order it therefore to be dismantled. Tl^e Potidjeaus refuse obedience, and revolt. A war ensues. The Athenians attempt to reduce Po- tida;a ; and the Corinthians to sup|)ort the revolt. It is at length besieged by the former. The siege runs out into a great length of time, aqd at last becomes one of the considerable events of the Peloponnesian War.

The Corinthians, aAer this repeated provoc-atiou, are full of resentments, and leave no stone unturned to stir up a general war in Greece. They were par-, ties themselves in the Peloiwunesian league, of which the Laced^cmouiaus wer^-

xxxvi A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

the head. The Corinthians never set up for a leading State. They were ever content with the secondary rank, though the first in that rank. Their turn was always more to commerce than war. Commerce had long since made them rich ; riches had made them luxurious; and, though they often produced great and excellent soldiers, yet they never piqued themselves on being a mar- tial or formidable people. Athens indeed they hated : Athens had rivalled them in trade, and very much abridged the extent of their commerce. One of the gulfs on which Corinth is seated, that of Sarone, was how intirely in the jurisdiction of the Athenians, who had also begun to curb and straiten them much in the gulf of Crissa. They were consequently bent on the demolition of this all-grasping rival, but were unable to effect it by their own strength. They solicit all the confederates to repair to Lacedacmon, all full of complaint and remonstrance against the Athenians. The Corinthians reserve lhemselve$ for the finishing charge; and our author repeats (or makes for them) their most inveigling and alarming speech nppn this occasion.

"They address the Lacedaemonians with an artful mixture of commendation *' and reproach ; of commendation for their strict adherence to good faith ; of ** reproach for their indolence and sloth. They had suffered the State of *' Athens to grow too mighty for her neighbours. Though the acknowledged " deliverers of Greece, they had now for a length of time taken no notice of •' the incroachuients of the Athenians ; but, through wilful ignorance and ha- *' bitual supineness, had let them grow too big, and able now to enslave them " all. — They do all they can to irritate and provoke them. They draw an ad- *• mirable parallel between them and the Athenians ; invidious and reproach- *' ful, but directly tending to exasperate those m horn they want to exasperate. *• — Then they warmly renew their applications to the pride of the Lacedoe- " monians ; they alarm their fears; they flatter and reproach their foibles. " They even threaten to abandon their league, unless they exert themselves in " defence of their- friends ; they endeavour to prove the necessity of active and *• vigorous measures; and end with a very artful stroke of insinuating and per- *• suasive address."

An Athenian embassy, now residing at Lacedsemon, being informed of these loud and bitter outcries against their masters, beg an immediate audience. Accordingly, they are admitted ; not indeed to plead before Lacedtemonians, as their judges or superiors— Athenians scorn such self-debasement; but, to vindicate their state from misrepresentation, to clear her reputation, and justify her power. ,

" With this view, they run over the great services they had done to Greece, " in the time of the Persian invasions : they had ever been the most strenuous, " most disiuterested, and most gallant champions for liberty. They pompously " detail their battles of Marathon and Salamis; their evacuating Athens on the " last occasion ; and, when they had no polity of their own subsisting, fighting " ardently and successfully for the other communities of Greece. Their *' power had been nobly earned ; and, must they forego it, because it was en- *' vied ? They had honourably gained, and justly used it ; much more justly " th;in the Laceda'monians had it either in will or ability to have done. They << are calumniated merely from that spite and discontent so common to man- *' kind, who ever hate and abuse their superiors, and ever repine at subjection,

*' though to the most gentle masters Lacedaemonians have neither skill nor

"judgment for large command, and though most eagerly grasping after it, " are unable to mauagc it with auy meaiiure of dexterity and address. Tliey

DISCOURSE III. xxxvii

** should reflect again and again, before they ventured upon war : it mizhtlast *♦ longer, and involve them in more calamities, than they seemed willing to **, apprehend. They had better submit their complaints to fair arbitration : if " not, the Athenians invoke the gods to witness their readiness to defend them- •* selves, whenever and however their enemies shall attack them."

All parties now withdraw ; and the Lacedaemonians go to council amongst themselves. Exasperated by the Corinthians, and mortified by the speech of the Athenians, the majority are for an immediate declaratiou of war. Archi- damus, one of their kings, rose up to temper their fury. And the speech of his Spartan majesty on this occasion carries all the marks of a good king, an able statesman, and a thorough patriot: it does honour both to his heart and head. A Spartan king never made a royal figure but at the head of an armyj then he reigned indeed. And yet, Archidamus retains no selfish considerations ; they are lost in his regard for the public welfare.

He tells them, " he is not fond of war himself; raw, unexperienced youth ** alone is liable to such weakness. The war note under consideration is a most " important point : it may run Out into a great length of time. It is against *' Athenians — a remote people — a naval power — abounding in wealth — exceU *' lently provided in all respects. He demands, in every single article, whether *' they can presume to become a match for such antagonists > They should re- " member tlie high spirit, the habits of activity and perseverance so natural to *' these Athenians, who are not to be dejected at the first loss, nor frightened " at big words or haughty threats. Insults indeed must not be brooked ; hut *' adequate preparations should be made to avenge them, and time be gained to ** make such preparations. It would be most prudent to begin a negociation, ** to spin it out into length. If aifairs can be amicably adjusted, it would de- " serve their choice ; — if not, when they are competently enabled, it will be ** soon enough to act offensively. He dreads not war himself, yet war c-annot " be carried on without money. Ample funds must be provided — a work of "time and deliberation. Circumsi>cction is no real reproach; precipitation *• draws positive mischiefs after it. Lacedaemonians are used to be calm and "considerate; they should not now be cajoled or exasperated out of their "judgment. The Athenians are a wise and dextrous people. The I^cedae- •♦ monians should keep that in remembrance, and support their own cha- " racters of calmness of spirit and true manly resolution : they should begin " with caution, proceed with temper, and end all things amicably if they can ; " if not, when duly prepared aud adequately provided, they might trust the " decision of arms."

The Kings of Sparta were ever justled on tlieir thrones by the haughty over- bearing Ephori. Stheneluidas, one of that college, answers Archidamus in a short, blunt, properly Laconic speech. " He is severe upon the Athenians, ♦' sneers Archidamus, and avers that J^cedie monians should not deliberate " upon, but instantly take the field and avenge their wrongs." He then put the question — Whether the i)eace was broke ? — divided the council; told the votes ; and declared, in the English stile, that the A\es had it.

The confederates were now called in, and acquainted with the resolution. Yet, it seems the advice of Archidamus had carried some wci<rht, and actual war was to be deferred, till all the parties in the Lacedaemonian league had ripened their measures, and were ready to act with unanimity and vigour.

Here the author again makes his appearance, and assures us the true motive of the determiaation for a war at Sparta was a Jealousy of the Athenian power.

xxxviii A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

now very great, and a dread of its more extensive growth ; thclaffer of which they were determined to prevent, and to reduce the former within less dis- tasteful and terrific bounds.

Tiien follows a most pertinent Digression, in whicli Thucydides points out the steps by which the Athenians Jiad so highly exalted their State. In a dose and succinct manner he runs over the history of Athens for fifty years, from the invasion of Xerxes to the breaking out of the Peloponuesian war. He ar- ranges all the incidents in due ])lace and time. Herodotus hath related the splendid passages of the Grecian history during that invasion ; hath exhibited Themislocles in all the lustre of his command at the battle of Salamis, where the Athenians, who had abandoned their all, fought, and through the address of Theniistocles obliged all parties to fight for liberty against Xerxes. On this day they earned a greater title than that of Citizens of Athens ; they were afterwards acknowledged the sovereigns of the sea. The Lacedajmonians became mortified at it ; but the Athenians had gloriously deserved it. Tbe- mistocles was the very life and soul of Greece on this occasion. In the midst of difficulties he formed a most extensive plan for his beloved Athens, which he began to execute at once. Thucydides describes his address and foresight. He soon sets the city beyond the reach of envy and jealousy : and though soon after he lost his country, through the malice of his personal enemies and the enemies of his country in conjunction with them, yet the statesmen and pa- triots left behind pursued his plan of naval power ; and the steps of its progress and advancement are minutely traced out by our historian.

Theniistocles had made all safe and secure at home. The long walls were built j the Piraeus, a spacious harbour, opened and fortified, a magazine for traffic, and an arsenal for war. Aristides, as true a patriot as ever lived, made all secure abroad. Through his honest management, all Greece submitted to an aimual tax, for the guard of their common liberty against future invasions; and the leaders at sea were made collectors and treasurers of this naval fund. The isleof Uelos was the place, at first, of lodging this fund; but it was soon after removed to Athens, — a shrewd political stej), yet capable, however, of an ample if not full justification. The war is briskly carried on against the Per- sian monarch ; the isles and seas are cleared of the common enemy ; the cities on the coast are regained or conquered. Cimon also performs his part nobly ; he earns two vit^tories the same day, by sea and land, on the coast of Ionia, from the Persians. He completed a negotiation with the petty maritime states, con- federate with Athens, who were tired of incessant warfare, for accepting sums of money instead of ships and personal attendance. By this means the shipping of those slates soon mouldered away, and their money was, by their own agreement, sent thither, to increase and strengthen the maritime power of Athens. In spite of all the opposition which the Corinthians and Boeotians gave them at home, whose rancour to them was never to be appeased, in the course of no large number of years, they had established a very extensive and formidable empire indeed. The isles and coasts of the /Egean sea were mostly their own. The hay of Sarone was entirely in their own jurisdiction ; and, by being masters of Naupactus, they considerably awed the bay of Crissa. Their squadrons cruized round, and cjuite awed the coasts of Pclo|>onnesus. 'J'heir interest at Cephaliene, and the new alliance which gained them the ac- cession of the naval strength of Corey ra, rendered them masters of the Ionian, and they had colonies to extend their Iraitic and influence both in Italy and Sicily.

DISCOURSE III. xxxis

These poiuts are opeoed step by step id this Digression by Thucydides, till jealousy in the Lacedemonians and malice in the Corinthians irritated all the Peloponnesian states and their allies against them, and ended in the deter- mination for war. The Corinthians had noiv carried their point, and soon hoped to gratify all their resentments. Accordingly, at the second grand con- gress at Sparta, when all the rest of the states bad declared their minds, they warmly encourage them to enter at once upon an oiTensive war, in a very studied and elabornle speech.

•* They set oHt with handsome compliments to the Lacedaemonians. Tliey " animate the landed states of Peloponnesus to join effectually with those on " the coasts. A firm and lasting peace can only be obtained by a vigorous " war ; and the powers of Athens must needs be reduced. — They open a plan •* for establishing funds — for weakening the marine of Athens, and conse- ** quently for improving and strengthening the marine of her enemies — for ** effectuating the revolts of her dependents — and raising fortifications in At- " tica itself. Independence can never be earned at too great a price ; it rosts •• as much to be voluntary and obedient sla%-es. A single state should never b« •* suffered to play the tyrant ia Greece. Their own reputation, their dignity, •* their liberty, their welfare, a most righteous cause, nay the very gods them- "selves summon them to action. They close with a very warm and pathetic •• recapitulation, sounding as it were the alarm for the destruction of Athens."

Now war is a second time resolved upon by ballot. All are ordered to get ready, with the utmost dispatch, to begin its operations. In the mean time, the Athenians are to be amused with embassies and negociations, merely to gain time and save appearances. Frivolous they really are, but our author minutely details them, as they give him an opportunity of introducing some notable passages relating to Cylon, Pausanias, and Themistocles. He then shifls the scene to Athens, and intrcHluces Pericles, the most commanding orator, the greatest general, the most consummate statesman, and at this time prime minister of the republic — introduces Pericles, I say, iu the assembly of the people, to give them an insight into the schemes of their enemies, and a plan for their own conduct; to encourage them to a brave and steady resist- ance, in strict adherence to such methods, as in the end will infoiiibly not barely secure, but aggrandise their state.

The thoughts in this speech of Pericles are so grand, so nerrons, so empha- tically and concisely just, that if the reader be not immediately struck into au adequate conception of them, I know no method of opening his eyes or en- larging his understanding. He says but httle, but says every thing in that little. He demolisheth all the assertions of the Corinthians in their last speech at Sparta, as if he had heard them speak. Perhaps Thucydides here hath not sufficiently concealed his art in writing. But the speech is entirely in character, completely suited to the heart and head and nioiilh of Pericles. Pericles, I observe it with pleasure, is an Englishman both in heart and judgment. England hath adhered and will adhere to the lessons which Athens neglected and forgot "Of vast consequence, indeed,' says this enlightened statesman, " is the dominion of the sea. But consider it with attention : for, " were we seated on an island," as the force of his argument evidently im- plies, « we could never be subdued. And now you ought to tiiink, that our " present situation is nearly as possible the same, and so to evacuate vour *• houses and lands in Attica, and confine your defence to the sea." If this can need a comment, Xenophon will give it iu his Politv of the Athenians —

rf A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

" In one point (says lie) the Athenians are deficient : for if, beside their being ** sovereigns of the sea, they were seated on an island it would be ever in •* their power to ravage others at pleasure, and yet they could not be ravaged ** themselves so long as they held the mastery at sea ; their lands could never ** be laid waste, no enemy could post themselves upon them. But now, the ** occupiers of lauds and the wealthy Athenians fly before invaders j whilst the *• people in general, conscious they have nothing to be burnt and nothing to ** be plundered, live exempt from fear, nor fly before an invader. The ex- ** pedient used on such occasions is, that the former deposit their most valu- *' able effects in the isles, and trusting to their superiority at sea, slight all the *' devastations an enemy can make in Attica." England is compleat where Athens was deficient. And how fond must both Pericles and Xenophon have been of the island and maritime power of Great-Britain ? I will not pretend to anticipate the reader's pleasure by descending into more particularities. It may suffice to add, that the final answer of the Athenians is drawn up by the advice of Pericles, that "they will do nothing by command ; they had already *' offered to refer all disputes to a fair judicial decision} so far only, but no *' farther, compliance must be expected from Athens." — Here all negociatioa comes to an end ; and the war will very soon commence.

Thus I have endeavoured to give some idea of the first book of Thucydides. It is a grand piece of work beyond all deuial. But Rapin thinks our author hath overdone it "out of a desire of prefixing a too stately portal to his history." Could the portal have been thought too stately, if the whole fabric had been completely finished? To form a right judgment, here, we should examine the design and not the execution : The latter is imperfect, is troke off. So, look at it from the park, the Banqueting-house at Whitehall i.^ too big and towering for what stands near it. But hath it that appearance in the original plan of Inigo Jones for the magnificent palace once designed to be erected ? Some- thing of this nature may justly be pleaded in favour of Thucydides, and teach us not to judge too hastily of a whole, when we cai.not survey all theparts, be- cause they never were finished. Moved by decorum, I would gladly justify my author, but I by no means pretend to decide the point. ^ Book II. The Second Book opens with the first act of hostility. The The- bans march by night, and enter by surprise the city of Plataea This city and petty state, though just within Bceotia, was not comprised in the union, of which all the other cities of Bceotia were constituents, with Thebes at their head, but had ever been firmly attached, even in the woi*st of times, to the common liberty of Greece, an J was under the protection of and in fast alliance with Athens. This snr|)rise of Platoea our author describes in all its turns, till its enemies are driven out or slaughtered, and a place is secured for the Athenians.

A rupture hath now been made, and the war is going to be general. Thu- cydides sounds the charge in all the disposition and spirit of Homer. He cata- logues the allies on both sides. He awakens our expectation ) and fast engages our attention. All mankind are concerned in the important point now going to be decided. Endeavours are made to disclose futurity. Heaven itself is interested in the dispute. The earth totters, and nature seems to labour with the great event. This is /»'« solemn .and sublime manner of setting out. Thus he magnifies a war between two, as Hapin stiles them, petty states; and thus he artfully supports a little subject by treating it in a great and noble method.

DISCOURSE III. xli

Writers who have been long contemplating the vast gigantic size of the ^oman empire, if they cast their eyes on the state of Athens, even at the present juncture, are apt to form a low idea of it. Athens, it is true, was at this time in the highest meridian of her power. Yet, why ever to be pitching upon the most disadvantageous and incongruous parallels ? His subject was certainly the greatest that to this day had occurred in the world : and, ought Thucydides to be degraded, or even lessened at all, because he was not born in the same age with Livy? As much amusement at least accompanies, and as much instruction flows from reading carefully the history of Athens, as from that of Rome. Wonder may be more raised by the latter, and the wonder may end in detestation of a people, who became enormously great by the miseries and destruction of their fellow-creatures. The Romans were but brute- like men : they were not tolerably humanised till they had conquered Greece. Greece re-conquered them, and established a belter and more lasting triumph over mind, than the others over body.

Grxcia capta ferum victorem cepit.— //or.

Who then best deserve the applause of the heart, the citizens of Athen», or the citizens of Rome? I am not at all in doubt, how men of a calm and considerate spirit will decide tjie question. Or, let such as judge only by numbers, con- sider a little more sedately, whether Athens at this time was that diminutive and petty state, which could be magnified and ennobled only by artificer The first army that invaded her territories in this war, consisted (according to Plutarch) of sixty thousand men. This is an object big enough to fill the eye. The state of her revenue, when the value of money is adjusted, will turn out by no means trifling. They were possessed, at the breaking out of the war, of three hundred triremes fit for sea. Two hundred and fifty of them were at one time in commission, in the fourth year of the war: consequently, at two hundred men a ship, the number of seamen employed must have been fifty thousand. If the reader be not yet convinced that Athens was not a petty state, nothing can get the better of his prejudices. It would be pity any one should sit down to Thucydides with such low prepossessions against his subject. The confederate army of Peloponnesi:jus is now assembled, and ready to march into Attica, under the command of Archidamus. Like an able and cautious general, he harangues his troops, " encourages them with a sight of their " own numbers, but guards them from catching at that sight a contempt of " their foes. The strict observation of discipline is always necessary to armies, •• be they never so large. No enemy ought ever to be despised, much less •' Athenians. Though an enemy, he speaks in high commendation of the " latter, and establishes the dignity of their characters. He ends with an ex- " hortation to his troops, to observe rules, conform to discipline, and bravely *' to execute orders ; and. Spartan-like, concludes with an encomium on the *• beauty and strength of strict military obedienc^.

He then sends a messenger to Athens, to try if a war were yet to be avoided. The Athenians are as determined as ever to make no submissions. The mes- senger is conducted out of their territories, and parts from his escort with a pa- thetic prediction of the miseries in which all Greece is going to he involved. Attica soon after is invaded. The mischief done by the invaders is described ; and the sense at Athens of their sufferings and distresses represe;itcd at large. The reader, on this o<;casion, will be let into the form and constitution of the Athenian polity. He will see how they began to be moulded iuto one com

Cor. Hist. Grec. Xo. 49. f

Klii A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

munity by the prudence of Theseus, one of their earliest kings. Other his^ toriaiis expatiate ou tlie method by which, from being under a regal, they had varied gradually iuto a purely republican form. 1 shall only mention an ob- servatioH *, that, contrary to most other nations, they had abolished the regal government, not from distaste, but reverence to kings, Codrus, the last of their kuigs, had devoted himself for his country, and was so worthy a man, that they resolved no mortal should afterwards wear that title amongst them. They declared Jupiter king of Athens, about the same time that the Jews re- belled against Meocrac?/, and would have a man to reign over them. Archons for life succeeded, whose term was afterwards abridged to tai years j then, to a single year. All general histories point out the variations, till they came to the popular form which now prevailed.

The enemy, after heavy depredations, at length evacuated Attica } and the Athenians take the field to retaliate upon them. Their squadron had been all the time at sea, cruizing upon and infesting the coasts of Peloponnesus : but, in the winter, we are called to Athens to see the public funeral of those who were killed in the first campaign. Here, the first time it occurs, our author describes this solemnity, and Pericles makes the funeral oration.

I shall mnke no reflections on this celebrated performance. Should the reader not think it deserving of its high reputation, I fear the translator will be sadly to blame. It is hard to give such noble ideas their proper energy, and such refined ones their due exactness. The great orators of Athens were always glad to display their abilities on the same occasion. Plato hath entered the lists with a high spirit of emulation, and with a high degree of success; and a great master t this way hath lately made him English. If Thucydides suffers by a comparison, which now the unlearned but judicious reader is im- powered to make, the latter must be intreated to observe, that the eloquence of Plato was bevond dispute more smooth and fluent, more accomplished in all that is beautiful and sweet than the eloquence of Thucydides, but an adjudged inferiority in any other respect must be laid at the door of his translator.

After such an exhilarating and enlivening piece, for such it must have been to ail who heard it, and must have determined every Athenian to suffer any thing with intrepidity and patience in the cause of his country, a very mourn- ful scene immediately succeeds, which lays them under such a load of affliction and distress as no arguments, no philosophy can alleviate. The plague breaks out at Athens ; and the reader must be ready to feel very sharp emotions in behalf of his fellow-creatures, and in behalf of morality and virtue too. Amidst their accumulated distresses, Pericles is the only support of the com- munity ; and, like the greatest benefactors to ungrateful men, is cursed for being their support, and reproached for being steadily wise and in the right. At last he convenes them, and addresses them with such an air of ingenuity, such spirit, and conscious dignity, and firm reliance on a good cause, as only two orators that I know of have ever equalled on parallel occasions. Those I mean are Demosthenes and St. Paul. All the world of letters and good taste are well acquainted with the oration of the former against /Eschines about the crown -J and every class of readers is surely well versed in the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. I can but hint these resemblances, since now I must attend on Pericles, m ho sooths or thunders his countrymen out of all their dis- content and malice, and sends them home convinced and ashamed. But domestic

* TourreiPs Preface Historiiur. \ Mr. West

DISCOURSE m. xliu

distress soon eftaceth any other impressions; their passions are again inflamed by inwardly corroding anguish, and Pericles after all must be 6ned, and turned out of his employments. Yet people are not always mad ; good sense and conviction return upon them ; and he is begged, because most worthy, agaia to accept the sole administration. He enjojs it but a little time, before he is carried off by the plague. Atliens then lost her ablest, honesiest statesman. He was able to have sat at the helm of government, to have steered the repub- lic safe through every storm, and to have insured her not bare security but open triumph. His successors were very alert at catching hold of that helm ; but none of them could hold it long; and the vessel, through their mutual quarrels, must needs run aground or founder at last.

But the next remarkable passage in the history is the march of the Pelopon- nesians to invest Plataea, and the solemn parley held at their approach. Archi- damus is at the head of this ungenerous enterprise. The malice of the The- bans must be gratified, since the alliance of Bceotia in this war is of mighty consequence, and to be purchased at any rate. Archidamus indeed struggles hard for the Plataeans ; he would fain spare them, could he persuade them to a neutrality. But the Plataeans have too much honour and gratitude to be neutral, when Athens, their faithful guardian and ally, is principally struck at They remonstrate in vain from the topics of honour, justice, gratitude, tlie glory and sanction of the great progenitors on either side. The siege is formed, and strenuously plied, though without success. Oar author always shines in exact description : no method of annoyance or defence is oniitted. It is at length turned into a blockade ; and a sufficient lx)dy of trooiis left be- hind to carry it on, when the main army marchetb ofif.

The war grows warm in more remote quarters; in Thrace, and in Acarna- nia. An AUienian squadron, stationed at Naupactus in the bay of Crissa, awed all the motions of the Corinthians and allies on their own coasts; and it waa determined to clear away this annoyance. Accordingly, they launch out against it with ryore than double the number of vessels. The Athenians, at one exertion of skill, drive them all on a heap, defeat them, and make prizes of twelve. The Lacedaemonians, excellent landmen but very awkward seamen, think this an unaccountable event. They send down their most active com- manders to refit and reinforce the fleet, and to try their fortune again at sea. Much artifice is. employed on both sides. The short harangues of the admi- rals let us into all the views and designs of either party. Phormio at length is snared; the enemy blunders; then Phormio extricates himself, and gives them a second defeat The reader sees every tack, and the motion of every vessel.

Disconcerted here, they form a bold project indeed to surprise the Piraeus by night, and to finish -the war in a moment The project is described, and the probability of success established. But the very grandeur of the attempt deters the undertakers, Athens indeed is alarmed, and thrown into a great consternation ; but the project totally miscarries, and the Pirteus is better se- cured for the future.

All Thrace is now arming under Sitalces against Perdiccas king of Macedo- nia. A vast array of Barbarians is assembled, marches over a great length of country, strikes a general panic, eflTectuates no real service, and soon disperses ar moulders away. Such bulky unwieldy armies make an awkward figure, compared with the regularity, exact discipline, and personal bravery of the dimiuutire armies of Greece.

xliv A SURVEY OF THE fllSTORY.

, Tlmcydides gives us once more a sight of Phortnioand his gallant squadron; and then doselh the book, and the history of the third year of the war. *' Never history (says Rapiii) comprised so much matter in so little room, nor *' so much action in so few words. If any thing can be found fault with, it is " that tlie exploits are too closely crowded with one another, so that the co- " herence seems somewhat intricate and confused, and the multipljing of ob- jects tends only to dissipate the attention of the reader." An historian, how- ever, is to take liis incidents in their natural order, as they subsist in fact. He is not so much to dispose, as to describe them. If he does the latter perti- nently, accurately, and with a due attention to their importance, he hath ac- <|uitted himself of his duty. The poet or writer of fiction must pick out and heighten his incideiits, with a view to fill up properly, and give to every dis- tinct object its ripedful splendor : he is to exert his choice, and by exerting it judiciously to gain applause. The historian is not to pick, but to make the best use of his materials. He may give them indeed all possible lustre; but if they crowd too thick upon one another, >tlie reader may be embarrassed with the number, yet nobody can be justly blamed.

Book III. The Third Book is no less full of matter than the preceding. The incidents crowd fast upon one another, and politics and oratory are in full em- ploy., '^ihe revolt at Lesbos is the first occurrence of importance. The people of "that isle had been long in the Athenian league : but the members of this league were depeudeats rather than confederates. Thucydides always cm- ploys \h<^. same Greek word for the members of either league: the idea it gives is that of companions in war. But there is great difference be- tween siicli as accompany because they chuse it, and such as accompany because they are summoned and camiot help it. The former was in ge- neral the case of those who sided with Sparta; the latter, of those who sided with Athens. The least thought, of compulsion is grating to any state which thinks it ought, and is able, to be quite independent. This was the case with the Lesbians, a people considerable in many respects, but especially for their naval strength. It was well worth the while of the Lace- daemonians to gain such confederates ; it must be a sad blow to the Atheni- ans to lose such dependents. The fact was, all the cities of Lesbos, except Methymne, declare a revolt. The Athenians lose no time, but are at once with a powerful squadron before Mitylene, and block it up. The Mitylencans liad sent ambassadors to beg immediate aid from the Lacedamonians. They had an audience from them and the rest of their league at Olympia, so soon as the games were ended. The speech they make on this occasion is very art- ful, very insinuating, and nicely adapted to carry their point.

" They open the li.'ture of a revolt, and the cases in which it merits pro- ** tection and succour from others. They have been ill used by the Athe- " hians ; have been made their tools in inslaving their compatriots of Greece ; " have been long caressed indeed, but are well assured what their own fate " would sopn have been. Every state hath a natural right to take preventive " me;.sures against the loss of their liberty and to stand on their defence. They "had revolted sooner, would the Lacedirmonians have countenanced the " measure : they had declared it on the first invitation of the Boeotians. It " wa.s a noble revolt;- it had disengaged them from a combination to inslave "the rest of Greece; it had associated them in the cause of honour and "liberty. It had been made indeed with too much precipitation ; but this "should make others more zealous and active in their protection, who

DISCOURSE m. xU

** would reap a great accession of strength by it; an accession of maritime " strength ; whilst the Athenians would be weakened in point of shipping, •* and in point of revenue. It would be a signal of revolt to others, and " assurance to them that they might do it safely. It would reflect abuu- •• dant honour on the Lacedaemonians to succour the distressed, to save *• men whose preservation would give them glorj and strength, and prove " them those hearty friends to liberty, which all Greece with united praises *' acknowledged them to be."'

Interest without rhetoric was strong enongh io ensure their success. But the latter helped to gain them a prompt reception from the Lacedaemonians, who resolve on sending them a succour, and making diversions on the Athe- nians, in order lo oblige them to raise the siege of Mitylene.

The blockade of Plataea by the Peloponnesians still continuing, our autiior relates the bold project, and bold execution of the project, of a party of Pla- taeans, in making their escape over all the works of the besiegers. It is a most circumstantial, and a most clear and intelligible relation.

Mitjlene is now forced to surrender at discretion. The principal agents in the late revolt are sent prisoners to Athens, where the people vote that " not *' they only, but all the Mityleneans in general be put to death ;" and an order is immediately dispatched to their commander at Mitylene to execute his part of the sentence. This blootly decree was carried bj-' Cleon, a furious dema- gogue. It was he who worked up the people of Athens to such a pitch of in- humanity ; which, however, instantly subsided. They are struck with horror at their own resolution, and will have it again debated. We shall hear.the two speakers on each side of the question, Cleonand Diodotus.

" Cleon sets out withall the fury and tire of a man who hath a bad heart. *' He hath abjured humanity to shew himself a most zealous patriot. Elo- " quent he is acknowledged to have been, and so appears in his invectives •* against his own masters and his own tools, the people, for their foolish com- " miseration, for their being the eternal dupes of orators, of subtle and venal " speakers. For his own part, he loves his country, and hates her enemies. ** Guilt shall never find an advocate in him ; he calls out for vengeance on the •'Mityleneans; uoncibut their pensioners, none but men who are bribed and " corrupted can offer a plea in their behalf. He bids his audience throw away " all foolish pity, all womanish forbearance; to fix their attention on the crimes "of the guilty, and not on the horrors of their punishment; and give this *• proof to their dependents, that death shall inevitably be the portion of all *' revolters, that their arms may be henceforth employed in <5pposing their " public enemies, and not in chastising their own subjects."

Diodotus replies in a speech that shews him a real patriot, and a man who thought good-manners, a calm considerate temper, and a regard to Iinmanity, to be very consistent with the true patriot-spirit "He therefore defends the " re-committing of their former resolution, since repeated consultations cannot ** be prejudicial to the public welfare. It is a base and odious method to lavish " the charge of ignorance and venality on men who differ in sentiment; it robs " the public of its ablest counsellors and si nee rest friends. Strict justice, in " the present instance, may be with Cleon ; but the future and lasting welfare " of their country- is the object now to be kept in view. The punishment of " death hath never effectually awed the tempers of mankind. To make mcu " desperate is very impolitic ; to extirpate their dependents is lopping off *• their own limbs, and ruining their own revenue. Nlen should be retained

xlvi A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

*• in their duty by mild discretionary precautions; severe and sanguinary pro- «• ceedings never answer the purpose. And, vvliat cruelty to doom a whole *' people to destruction ! to involve the innocent with the guilty 1 to murder ** even such as had been their friends and benefactors ! He advises them not ** to give too large a scope to mercy, but to punish the guilty, and the guilty " alone. This will sufficiently intimidate others ; will secure their interest ii» " Lesbos belter for the future ; and convince the world how soundly Athe- •* nians can deliberate upon all their concerns."

Diodotus carries his point. The Athenians, cruel only in the fit of choler but habitually humane, repeal the bloody sentence ; and dispatch a vessel with all haste to stop execution, which arrives at Mitylene but just time enough to prevent the massacre.

The next event of importance contrasts the Lacedaemonian character with that of the Athenians. The author takes no pains to point it out ; but it lies too ready and obvious to pass unobserved — Plata;a, after a tedious blockade, is obliged by famine to surrender. They surrender however to the Lacedae- monians, on condition of being brought to a judicial trial, and only, if found guilty of unjust behaviour, to be put to death. Some delegates arrive from Sparta to preside in this court of mere inquisition, since the whole process is confined to a single question — " Whether they had done any positive service ** to the Lacedeemonians and allies" — that is, to their declared and determined enemies — " in the present war ?" The question plainly manifested a deliberate resolution to put thera all to death. x\nd all the favour they obtain is, to be suffered to make a kind of dying speech before men, who were stiled indeed judges but in fact were butchers. It was a case of great commiseration, and the speaker lays it open with all that natural eloquence which flows from au inward and keen sensibility. If men were not deaf to persuasion, it must have persuaded. The cause was most alarming, and a more pathetic plea hath never been exhibited.

*' They insist that on a fair and explicit condition they had surrendered ** to the Lacedajmonians, whereas now they were prejudged and precon- ** demncd to gratify their unrelenting foes the Thebans. The insidious ques- ** tion left them no plea at all. They could not answer it, and must not be " silent. Since life is at stake, something must be said even by men who " despair of persuading. Their quarrel with the Thebans had been just and "honourable; quarrel with the Lacedaemonians they never had any. Nay *' merely at the desire of the latter, had they cultivated Athenian friendship, " that unpardonable crime, for which they were now doomed to destruction. •• They expatiate with truth and energy on the great services they had donq ** to the liberty of Greece. All Greece was bound in honour, in gratitude, in ** deference to positive and solemn oaths, to preserve the Plataeans. Ought ** every tie to be rent asunder, generosity to be quite expunged, and all benc- •* volence thrown aside, to serve a private turn ? Ought Plataeans to be thus •* basely reduced, as they really had been, either to be starved or to be butcher- •* ed ? The Lacedaomonians should intreat the Thebans for them, should beg •* them to save the lives of friends and benefactors ; at least, sliould replace *• them within their walls, and leave them to the fate of war. They apply to *' their generosity, to their humanity ; they strive to give them some emotions *' of pity ; they represent the liablcness of mankind to calamity ; how brutal " it is to be deliberately hard-hearted ; how sinful it is to be resolutely ungrate- " ful ! They call upon heaven and earth to interpose in tlieir behalf; they run

DISCOURSE III. xlvii

^** over every pathetic and persuasive topic ; until they can atld no more, and •* yet dare not end ; and, again intreat the Lacedaemonians to save those worthy ** patriots, to whom all Greece is indebted for her liberty and independence."

The Thebans, who were afraid the Lacedsemonians liad a higher sense of honour and gratitude than they really had, demand also to be heard.

In the speech they make ou this occasion, " they first accuse the Plataeaiis •• of slander and invective. They endeavour to palliate the reproach on them- «* selves, for deserting the cause of'liberty and joining the arms of Persia. ** The Plataeans had l>een active ever since to betray it to the Athenians ; that *♦ wicked scheme, which with all their power the Thebans had ever opposed. *' By such iniquitous conduct the Plataeans had extinguished their former glory, ** had effaced all their former merits. Nobody was bound to redress or pity " them, but their friends the Athenians. Their temper had been always bad ; •* always bent ou violence and mischief j always addicted to set up tyranny iu ** Greece, provided Athenians were the tyrants. They then endeavour to tlirow " an anti-pathetic into their own representations. They paint the death of their ** countrymen slain at the surprise of Plataea in a mournful light, as put to •* death contrary to every law, and murdered iu the very act of stretching out ** their hands and pleading a promise of life. The lires therefore of such "butchers are forfeited to justice; and I hey insist the forfeit shall be taken t " The Lacedaemonians are bound in honour to take it They beg them there- " fore to be deaf to vain complaints and intreaties, to revenge the injured, and to ** punish the guilty ; to regard what bad men have done, and not what they "have said; to defy eloquence, and heed only simple unsophisticated truth j ** by which alone men, who preside iu judgment, can satisfy their conscience " and their duty."

An alliance with Thebes is necessary in this war to the Lacedaemonians, and they purchase it at a mighty price indeed. The wretched Platseans, by all mankind abandoned, are butchered one aAer another, to the number of two hun- dred ; their wives are sold for slaves ; their city is rooted up from its foundations. Thucydides soon after describes the sedition of Corcyra, the horrors of which are scarcely to be paralleled in story'. He paints all the dreadful consequences of faction in a community. And what pity it is, that a warm, generous, and innate love of liberty, when carried to excess, should be the source of so much misery to reasonable creatures! Our author, contrary to his custom, runs out here into many grave and judicious reflexions, in the interest of no party, a champion for no particular form, but as a frieud to man, and a friend to virtue. It is the lust of power, that throws embroilments and confusions into all com- munities. In governments strictly republican, the ambitious are eager to ob- tain more than an equal share. In an oligarchical form, the few in power want ever to ret:iiu and often to enlarge their share; aiid the cry of liberty is shouted loudest by those who want most to overthrow it. But yet, was the matter ever mended, or the miseries of mankind prevented by setting up a single tyrant ? Communities have suffered more, for the caprice, for the sup- port of the nominal glory of such a head, than they have done by a number of popular seditions. The reader v. ill certainly all along reflect on the fine model of government established in his own country ; and own, that a com- munity may be governed and yet be happy, that the power of the one and of the yea? and of the many may be tempered into an apt and lasting consistence ; and, as it hath been for ages in a train of improvement, keep it but unhurt by iptestine faction, may last to the dissolution of this great globe itself.

xlviii A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

After this tragical business of Corcyra, Tiiucydides enters upon the affairs of Sioily. The seeds of war are sowing iu that island, which will afterwards grow into a mighty harvest. — He relates other incidents, until he comes to a remarkable scene of war in ^Etolia, where Demosthenes the Athenian com- mander is totally defeated. — He describes the purification of the isle of Delos by the Athenians ; and liath found the art to make it a chearful and entertain- ing piece, for the relief of the reader, after he hath been engaged in so many scenes of horror and destruction, and is soon going to be engaged in more. — The battles of OIpe and Idomene are sufficiently stored with slaughter, to glut any reader who delights in blood. The armies in this history have been often thought not to be sufficiently numerous. Tiiey make no havoc ; they do not knock one another on the head fast enough to preserve attention. But these old Greeks were men and not brutes. And it is pity, thai the history of men should be so much a history of the destruction of the human species.

Book IV. In the Fourth Book, the Athenians and Lacedscmonians, princi- pals in the war, are matched directly against one another. Demosthenes, a wise and brave commander had seized and fortified Pylus in the territories of the latter, had placed such a garrison in it as annoyed the vyhole country, and in the end might wound the very vitals of that State. The Lacedaemonians slight it at first, as if thejr bare appearance would remedy all. But upon trial, their land-armies and their squadrons are unable to dislodge the enemy. It is with the true martial^ spirit of an experienced and gallaut commander, that Demosthenes harangues his small body of Athenians, when he draws them up on the beach of the sea, to beat off the ships of the enemy. Thucydides shines on these occasions; in him the addresses are always made, and pertinently made, to the soldiers who are present ; they interest and animate, but never run out into declamation and common-place. — The turns of war at Pylus are sudden, and engage attention. They fight by laiul, and fight by sea ; nay, what is more, land-battles are fought from the water, and naval battles fought from off the shore. The eye will distinctly view these strange occurrences ; they are painted strong; the groupesare not mere heaps of confusion, and the prin- cipal figures are eminently distinguished. The body of Spartans intercepted in the isle of Sphacteria, who must either starve, or what to Laccdoemoniana is full as bad, must surrender their persons and their arms, is a point that ex- ceedingly alarms that martial community. Things had long since gone against them; but now, their hereditary honour and military glory, on which and which alone they piqued themselves, are in danger of being miserably tarnished. Their proud spirits condescend to beg a truce, that they may send an embassy to Athens to solicit an accommodation.

It must have aflforded a high degree of spiteful joy at Athens, to find the Lacedaemonians lengthening their monosyllables and petitioning for peace. It is curious to hear in what manner they solicit, when admitted to audience. They declare themselves sent, " in behalf of their countrymen, to propose an •' expedient very much for the honour of Athena, and which would extricate " themselves from difficulties that now bore hard upon them." Athens never ** had so fine an opportunity of rjising her credit, securing her acquisitions, and " carrying her glory to the highest pitch. They should not be pnfl'ed up, but *' reflect on the strange vicissitude of human affairs. Who could expect the " Lacedcemqnians shoidd ever be sunk so low, as to sue for peace ? Yet what *• was the lot of Sparta might possibly become, some time or other, the lot of "Athens. The latter should be moderate now, should accept of offered friend-

DISCOURSE m. xlix

** ship, should chearfully receive a submission, made only to prevent despe- " ration in great and gallant souls, and open a field for mutual beRevoleiice. *♦ The rival States may now be reconciled ; and only now, before things are •* brought to extremities, and disgrace bath rendered one party desperate. At ** this crisis, the Athenians may confer on Greece the blessing of a firm and •• lasting peace, and reap all the honour and advantage of it, since all the credit " of it will be their own. Lacedaemonians may be obliged, but will not be ** compelled. At length, they propose their exjiedient, not expiicitly but ** with a shrewGinsinuation, that would the Athenians strike up a bargain with ** them, they might jointly \(ytd it over Greece for tlie future, beyond coutroul."

Had Pericles been now alive, we may easily gtiess, how readily he would have laid hold on this opportunity to end a burthensome and distressful war, which on the side of Athens had at first been necessitated and merely defensive. But success had elevated Athens quite too high ; and no real friend to the State had at present so much influence asCleon, that loud and boisterous demagogue. Hence it comes, that such terms are insisted upon as the Laceddemonians can- not in honour accept. The truce expires ; and all the attention of Greeie Is fixed on the important scene of contention at Pylus.

The author here interposeth an account of what was now doing in Sicilv, and then returns to Pylus. The Spartans in the isle seem as far ofl' a surrender as ever. The i^eople of Athens murmur at the slowness of their troops, and begin to think that after all they shall not carry the point. Cleou amuses them with lies, and exasperates Ihem by slanders: In short, though quite unde- signing it, he bullies himself into the command ; and, at the head of a rein- forcement, joins Demosthenes at Pylus. The author describes the event with so much state and dignity, that he raises it into another Thermopvlae. There three hundred Spartans stopped for a long time the whole numerous armv of Xerxes, and perished in the service. About the same number of them struo-gle here as long as they can against the troops of Alliens; but, to the disappoint- ment of all Greece, they at last surrender prisoners of war, and are carried, nay are carried by Cleon, in triumph to Athens.

The territories of Corinth are invaded soon after by the Athenians under Nicias, the consequence of which is the battle of Solygia. We are then re- called to view the last acts of the tragical sedition at Corcyra, quite of a piece with, or rather in cruelty and horror transcending the precetling.

In the eighth year of the war, the Atlieniaus proceed with success. The conquest of the isle of Cjthera by Nicias is another sad blow to the I^cedse- monians. They are quite dispirited ; and dare no longer face in the field these active and lively, and now more so because successful, enemies.

Our author repasseth to Sicily. The Athenians had been hovering with a squadron on that coast, on pretence of aiding the Egesteans, but in fact to ex- cite a war and embroil the States of tliat island. Syracuse, the leadin? State, perceived all their schemes, and endeavoured to present them. They first obtain a suspeirsion of arms amongst all the parties at war ; and prevail on the Sicilians to hold a general congress at Gela, for the amicable adjustment of all their quarrels and a perfect reunion against foreign enemies. Hermocrates, the plenipotentiary from Syracuse, opens the true interest of Sicily on this oc- casion. The warrior must now give place to the politican, who shews himself a master in the business.

** He i? here (he tells them) as representative of the greatest of the Siciliaa

C»r. Hist. Gitc. .Ve. 49. g •

1 A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

States. As such, he cannot speak from pusillanimity or a sense of fear, though " he declares himself averse to war. It is difficult to enlighten ignorance, and *' difficult to check ambition. But there is a prudence, which all ought t» " learn ; a prudence, which points out the proper season for every pursuit. It ** was separate interest, that first kindled the flames of war in Sicily ; but se- " parate ii'terests should always be hushed, when the general welfare is at ** stake. The Athenians have been busy amongst them, to inflame their mu- '• tual resentments, to note their indiscretions, and turn them to their own ad- " vantage ; that, when the Sicilians have warred one another down, they may " seize the whole island for themselves. The great passion of these Athenians *• is conquest; they regard no ties of consanguinity; they aim at acquiring vas- *' sals, no matter who. He blames them not ; he can never blame men, who •' are desirous of command; but he must blame such as are ready and wilhng " to put on their chains. The Athenians have no strength in Sicily, but in ** the division of its States. Let those States but once re-unite, and Athenians *' must get them gone ; and may depart with a face of success, as if they had " united whom they really wanted to disunite, and had eflfectually re-settled *' pence, when their latent design was war." — He toucheth every topic in a suc- cinct but masterly manner. He hath recourse often to figures; renders his ad- dresses emphatical, by making his own community speak from his mouth. He applies the first person and the singular number with great energy and weight, lie useth those figures in the same manner as Saint Paul does in the Epistle to the Romans. He presseth harmony and cordial re-union amongst them in a manner best fitted to persuade. The whole speech, in a word, is a very inte- resting and persuasive piece of oratory.

The consequence is, a peace is settled in Sicily to general satisfaction ; and the Athenian commanders are obliged to return to Athens with their squadron, to be punished there for what they could not possibly prevent.

The war continues hot through the remainder of this book. The Athenians take their furn in being checked and vanquished. Their attempt on Megarais related at large ; and this piece of narration, is by far the most intricate of the kind to be met with in Thucydides. The matter is quite too much crowded, when he endeavours to comprehend in a few terms the various incidents of this struggle for Megara, the fluctuation of events, the views and motives of the parties engaged. Brasidas at last secures the city, and quite disconcerts the main project of the Athenians. — The latter also had another great scheme in agitation for a total revolution in Boeotia. Arms and intrigues were at once to act, both without and within. The whole force of Athens takes the field on this occasion, under the command of Hippocrates. The famous battle of De- lium ensues, before which the generals harangue their troops. Pagondas the Tlieban is an excellent speaker on this occasion. The Bceotians are not re- presented in this history, as that gross and stupid people, which was their cha- racter from the succeeding wits of Athens. The Athenian general begins also to harangue his troops, but is cut short by the attack of the enemy. The bat- tle is finely described, and the dispute afterwards about the dead. The Athe- nians have received a dreadful blow, which will soon make them begin to accuse their own judgments, in refusing the accommodation lately offered from Spirta.

In other quarters also, the balance of war begins to incline in favour of the enemy. Brasidas, that active and accomplished Spartan, had now compleated

DISCOURSE in. ti

a march, at the head of a small army, through Thessaly and Macedonia into Chalcidic Thrace. His bravery prevails much, but bis conduct more. He disjoins Perdiccas king of Macedonia from the Athenian league. Whenever he fights, he conquers; and whenever he harangues, he effectually persuades. His speech to the Acanthians is strong, pertinent. Laconic. He says all that can be said in favour of his countrymen, in recommendation of the cause of liberty. There is that air of sincerity and good-faith it it, which were con- stantly approved and verified by his personal department. The towns revolt to him as fast as he hath oppwrt unities to address them. The reader will follow him with pleasure through his many and great exploits, and acknowledge he wears his laurels deservedly, and with peculiar grace.

Book V. In Book the Fifth, Cleon appears again upon the stage to stop the rapid conquests of Brasidas. The former had been laughed into a general, and is now grown so conceited that he wants to enter the lists against that truly heroic Spartan. He accordingly arrives in Thrace, at the head of a squadron and a fine body of land-forces. He retakes a town or two; is confident he shall soon recover the important city of Amphipolis; and, though contemned by his own soldiers, he endeavours to brave the enemy. Brasidas, having ha- rangued his men with his usual spirit, throws open the gates, sallies out of Amphipolis, and routs him in an instant Cleon falls a victim to his own cow-> ardice, and Brasidas also drops a victim to his own valour. The latter lives long enough to know his own side had conquered, and then expires, admired by ail that knew him, and most highly regretted by the allies of his country.

Their riddance from Cleoa diminished the loss of Athens in this defeat, !iid the Lacedaemonians had dearly purchased the victory with the loss of their hero. As the principal States were now pretty nearly balanced, and sadly tired of the war, a truce is concluded for a year, and a peace soon after settled by the management chiefly of Nicias. Thucydides hath given us the forms of ne- gotiating and drawing up treaties. They are curious morse's of antiquity, and the reader will see with admiration, how solemn, how concise, and yet how guarded they are. The peace turns out to he merely nominal. The Cor- inthians, who cannot relish it at all, set their iuveution to work in order to embroil Greece afresh, and to re-kindle a general war. SevenI wars break out, in which the Athenians and Lacedemonians are concerned as auxiliaries. And another State in Greece, which hitherto had been neutral and saving its strength entire, endeavours now to seize the primacy of Greece for itsetf. We shall be made privy to all her negotiations for carrying on the plan, aud see it all blasted by one battle at Mantinea. This State was the republic of Artjos iu Peloponnesus, which had been in long alliance with but iu no dependence at all upon Athens, and had been for a long time also at peace with Sparta, by means of truces for thirty years. Young Alcibiades doth all he can to promote the quarrel, till at length the troops of Sparta and Argos come to an engage- ment near the city of Mantinea- Thucydides introduceth the battle with all the spirit and precision of Homer. The auxiliaries are marshalleil, aud ani- mated by such exhortations, as are best suited to the peculiar circumstances of each. The Spartans are exhibited at last in all tlieir glory. Trained up for a camp and the day of battle, we shall view them in their dis« ipline and actual exertion of their personal bravery. They were excellent combatants indeed ; and the reader will judge, whether Thucydides did not love good soldiers, aad take a pleasure iu doing them justice. It was the greatest bat-

lii A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

tie, -which for many years had been fought in Greece. The Spartans, on this occasion, wiped off all the im[)utatious that had lately been thrown on their bravery, because they had not been always successful : And the aspiring State of Argos is compelled to acquiesce in her usual rank, and still leave the con- tention for supremacy to the leading States of Athens and Sparta.

This book affords but one incident more, of consequence enough to be par- ticularly distinguished ; and th^tis the cousequest of the isle of Melos by the Athenians, which fell out in the sixteenth year of the war. When the Athe- nians were landed and encamped on that island, they summon theMelians to a conference, of which Thucydides hath drawn out the particulars. It is really an uncommon one, and liadsadly puzzled the critics, whether they should praise or condemn it. But, is th^re any thing more unnatural in reciting what was said at it, than in holding a conference? It is my business only to look at the management of it, and not draw a.veil over the Athenian politics, as they are avowed on this occasion, since my author was too impartial to do it. Nothing could tenif't him to make paliiatiiig representations, or to ^uppress the truth.

"The Afhciiians, on this occasion, avow without a blush that principle on ** which conquerors and tyrants have always acted, and yet have been ashamed *'to own ; they are ever hunting for colourings and pretexts, and would fain *■ give to greedy power a little of the air of equity : but here, without the least " shi'nse or remorse, the Athenians assert their right to inslave another com- *• munity, because it suits their own interest, and because they have power to "doit. This is the principle from which they argue; and, how scandalous *' soever it be, they argue strongly from it. They represent the politics of " their state, of the Lacedaemonian state, nay of all mankind, as incroaching, *' oppressive, rapacious, and totally estranged from humanity, good-faith, and " the, least tincture of morality. The whole conference yields perhaps a just " representation of human nature in the gross ; but then, the representatioa is *' distasteful to a mind that is cool and disengaged. Such a mind must interest *' itself on the side of the Melians, and be sorry that the Athenians have not ** more equity and honour to qualify their power; or, that the Melians, with " the regard they shew to honour and justice, should not have had more " power, or been able to interest at least one ally in defence "of their liberties or *' rights. In short, through the whole course of this history, the Athenians *' never make so scandalous a figure as on this occasion."

Booii VI. In the sixth Book, a spacious theatre is opened for a renewal of the war. The scene is going to shift from Greece to Sicily. The Athenians, who have so bravely resisted all their enemies in Greect?, are now going to do for those enemies what they e;ou!d not do themselves. No patriot, no states- man, no orator is able to dissuade them from lavishing their strength on the projects of sanguine ambition and foreign conquests. Their enemies, in the mean time, are at leisure, to note their indiscretions, and improve them all to their own advantage, till the great name of Athens is quite eclipsed, and an cud IS put to that empire of the s^a, which she had maintained for seventy years with great lustre and reputation.

The Sicilian war, which some critics * are inclined to think has no connex- ion with the subject of Thucydides and to bemeredigi-ession, whatever it may appear at first, the reader will at length be satisfled was an essential part of the

* See Rapio's Comparison of Thucydides and Livy.

DISCOURSE III. m

Peloponnesian war, and hasteued its decision. But, supposing it remote from the principal subject, it must however be acknowledged, that it is the history of a war nobly related, well connected, very closely followed, and full of inci- dents to engage attention, to alarm and interest the pa^ious. Thucydides ia the course of it, which takes up the two following books, will display the ex- cellencies of the Poet and the Painter, as well as of the Historian. Let his merit be re<'ulated from this jwrtion of his m ork, it is presumed that, without a uega- t*e, he will be allowed the Master of History.

He begins with describing the theatre on which two mighty states are going to enter the lists. — ^The geography and antiquities of Sicily could not in their nature be rery entertaining, and therefore they are drawn up iu the concisest

manner. ^The soaring enterprising genius of Alcibiades hath formed a superb

plan for the aggrandisement of himself and his country. Alcibiades could plan with all the magnificence and wild ambition of an Alexander •, but a citizen of Athens could not have the means of executing in so imperial a manner as the Monarch of Macedonia and Captain-General of Greece. He was able soon to convince the younger and more numerous part of J he Athenian community, that the enterprise was most inviting, and carried with it such a probability of success as over-balanced all expence and hazard. It was long tiie subject of general conversation ; it gradually inflamed tlie public ardour; and at length ingrossed all their hopes and wishes. In a word, the expedition to Sicily is for- mally proposed and decreed in the assembly of the people. A second assembly is convened on ways and means. On this occasion a grand debate ensued, the managers of i^hich are Nicias and Alcibiades.

Nidas declares himself " totally averse to the expedition, but doth it with ** that diffideuce, which was a principal foible in his character. The honour " conferred upon himself, iu his nomination to the command, shall not suppreaa • his real sentiments. He is neither fond nor prodigal of his life : ^ut he loves •' his country, and would advise them to give up the expedition. — He next runs ** over the political topics, and shews it to be in every light an undesireable ** and ill-judged project. And then, without naming him, strikes at Alcihia- '^des; proves him not qualified in any respect for so important a command ; " he reflects with some severity on his life atjd behaviour ; and, though owning " himself afraid he should be out-voted, yet would fain have the question put " again, whether the expedition shall proceed r"

Beside all the natural vivacity and fire of his temper, Alcibiades was now provoked by the personalities that Nicias had thrown out against him. He had been a constant opposer of the latter, who was beloved at Athens for his ami- able qualities. For, though Nicias had not spirit enough to lead the people, yet he had influence enough oftentimes to check and restrain the aspiring busy Alcibiades. The reply he makes on this occasion strongly marks the charac- ter and complexion of Alcibiades ; and delivered with that life and grace, and pretty lisp for which he was remarkable, must have engaged all the attention of his hearers, and drawn their approbation j>erhaps in spite of their judgment.

** Censured and provoked by Nicias, he begins with a vindication of himself. " He maintains his right to the command. He hints at the splendor of his "birth, his public spirit, the generosity of -iiis heart. He recites, with an " haughty and exulting air, his victories at the Olympic games, his magnifi- "cence at home, and his capacity for political intrigue already and successfully " exerted. He then justifies the wisdom of the decree for the Sicilian expedition.

Hv A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

" He shews all the political topics in a different light from Nicias. He insitra- •*ates the advice of the latter to proceed from indolence and a desire to sow •' dissentions amongst them. He exhorts to union, and to the observation of *• order. So Athens rose ; so Athens may be much higher exalted. The fire •* of youth, the temper of the middle-aged, and the experience of the old, should ** ever duly accord and act together. Sloth ruins a community; practice en- " ables it to go through every conflict, and to triumph over all opposition."

Such an address could not but affect, such arguments could not but be per- suasive with the people ot Athens: the expedition must go forwards. Bat Nicias makes a second effort, if possible, to divert them from it.

He begins with " a prayer for its success ; and a desire that the preparations *' may be adequate to the ends proposed. He states the nature,, the power, and •* strength of the people they are going to invade. He then, in general terms, " gives in a bulky roll of necessary articles for those who invade them. He ** hopes to frighten and deter his audience, by the vast expence, which he shews *' must neressarily he incurred on this occasion. The Athenians must provide *' every thing themselves, and trust for nothing to the care and fidelity of their ** Sicilian allies. The public welfare, and the safety of all, who are to be em- ** ployed in this expedition, demand all manner of previous foresight and care."

This speech had a different effect from what Nicias designed. Instead of 1 discouraging, it animated his countrymen more than ever for execution. Ac- cordingly, a decree was soon passed, investing him and his collegues, who were Alcibiades and Lamachus, with full power to provide every thing needful for the service.

All hands now were soon at work. The quotas from the dependents were de- manded; the fleet was equipped and manned; the levies went on briskly, since all men came into the service with alacrity ; every thing was soon ready for the expedition.

At this juncture, some drunken frolics, in which Alcibiades was engaged, threw Athens into consternation. They were soon construed by his enemies into a plot to bring about a revolution in the government. Informers came in, and he was directly accused of being a party. He avowed his innocence,' insisted on an immediate trial, which he was sure would end in his justifica- tion. The plot, which in fact was a plot against Alcibiades, was not yet ripe enough to ruin him ; and therefore, by a strange preposterous stroke of cun.- ning, he is ordered to proceed in the expedition, and take his trial at his return.

Our author next describes the departure of the grand armament in all it» solemnity, and with all the medley of hopes and fears shewn by the wlwle peo- ple of Athens on this occasion. He lays open to our view the very hearts of the spectators. The |)rime flower of their strength, nay Athens itself is now sailing out of the Piraeus, never again to return. They make Ihe best of their way to Corey ra, where they are left for a time, that we may be made privy to the consultations and defensive measures of Sicily. The scene is now re- moved to Syracuse, the most powerful state in that island, inhabited by Gre- cians, and if indeed inferior, yet second at this time to no other state in Greece but Athens alone. It had frequently been harassed by seditions, had offem been plagued with tyrants, but was at present under a democratic constitution.

Advice had been received there of the intended invasion. The people are convened about it. Harangues are made j aud the temper of maukiud, when

DISCOURSE III. Iv

party is ffermeBting, justly exemplified. Some are incredulous ; others magis- terially pronounce it all a falsehowl. At lengtli Hermocrates r'lseth up, aud gives them his own sense of the affair.

He assures them, " his country is eminently endangered, and neither incre- ** dulity nor ridi.^ ule shall awe him into silence. To his certain knowledge the *' Athenians are already at sea, fully bent on the conquest of Sicily. The Syra- " cusans ought to believe it, and to prepare for their defence. Fear will unite ** all Sicily against the invaders. Athens will only reap disgrace, but Syracuse *' abundant glory on this occasion. Large armaments are seldom successful ; " they moulder away for want of supplies, or are ruined for want of conduct. "They should tlierefore prepare for gallant resistance, by geltiug every thiu|^ •' in readiness at home, and strengthening themselves by foreign alliances. " They sliould do more ; they should at once put out to sea, and diitpute their *' very pissage with the enemy. A defeat, or even delay thus given them, ** might oblige them to give up the project. He supports his advice by many " strong and judicious arguments ; and ends with warm exhortations to his *' coiuitrymen to be lively and active, by no means to despise the enemy ex- •' cept in action, but vigorously aud with all their foresight to prepare forre- *' sistance, since their enemies are undoubtedly at sea, aud only not arrived on " their coasts."

.Such advice was now given to the people of Syracuse by Hermocrates. That community, it is evident, was full of cabal and faction, since this worthy patriot was regarded as a party-tool and a public incendiary. Athenagoras, the blustering demagogue who replies, treats him in this light. His virulence shews, that he regarded Hermocrates as one who wanted, by any means what- ever, to force himself into employment. He seems more alarmed for the lucrative posts of the state than for the welfare of his country. He throws out a deal of good-sense, but in a very impertinent and scurrilous manner. Such are the persons, who study popularity more than duty, and sacrifice all their talents to ambition or private lucre.

He affirms, that " none but cowards and traitors wish fhe Athenians might * not invade them, and so infallibly meet their destruction : but the whole *• account is a glaring falsehood, the forgery of a factious cabal. He appeals " to his audience whether it carries the least probabiiit) with it. Athenians ** invade them ! The Athenians esteem themselves happy they are not in- " vaded by the Syracusaus. Yet, supposing them so mad, nothing but their •• own disgrace and ruin can be the consequence. But it is all a fiction j a ** scheme to di^ihearten the friends of the people, and seize the government of " the state. Some men have ever been, and ever will be dabbling in such *• vile machinations. But let them not hope to escape detection. The intention ** is plain already, and ought to be punished like open treason. He then ex- *• horts the people or the many to support their friends, and entirely to disarm ^^ the malice of their domestic foes ; and inveighs severely against the few, or .•* the party whom he supposeth to be bent on the overthrow of the democracy *i at Syracuse."

This speech of Athenagoras was so full of ill-timed choler and party animo- sity, that, had the debate proceeded, dissensions might have. run very high at a season w hen umnimity was so needful in all the members of that commu- nity. A general of great eminence and weight thinks it high time to inter- pose ; who, in a short speech, reprimands Arthenagoras, recals the jjeueral

hi A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

altention to their own preservation from the imminent danger, and adjourns tlie assembly.

The grand fleet of Athens is now putting to sea from Corcyra. The his- torian takes a review of the whole, and gives a short account of its numbers and strength. They arrive on the coast of Italy, where they are refused a re- ception. Every thing yields them a discouraging and gloomy aspect. TJiey goon find they had been grossly deluded by their Sicilian friends, who insti- gated them chiefly to the expedition. The trick which the Egesteans had put on their ambassadors is particularly recited. The commanders, at a council of war, differ highly in opinion, and at last come to no sound resolution. They hover about the coast of Sicily, and parade in sight of Syracuse. Alcibiades endeavours to persuade the Cataneans to join with and receive them, but a mere accident accomplishes what his eloquence could not. The command of Alcibiades here came to an end. One of the State-vessels arrives, and summons him to Athens, to take his trial for the late frolics and irregularities committed there. That city, ever since the departure of the fleet, had been filled with con- fusion and horror. A plot there was, or rather it was determined there must be, to set up a tyrant, that most horrid sound to Attic ears. Recollection of the dismal things they had heard about the tyranny of the Pisistratidae increased their fears, and drove them into furious and desperate proceedings. Thucy- dides here digresseth to settle some facts relating to that set of tyrants, and their demolition; particularly, the affair of Harmodius and Aristogiton, one of the most famous incidents in the annals of Athens. He differs indeed from most other writers, and the moderns have not thought proper to rest the pouit upon his authority, great as it is; or though no man ever traced out facts, or made his inquiries with more sedateness and impartiality.

But to return to Alcibiades : he was obliged to quit the command, and he seemed quietly to submit to the orders of the state. But, determined not, to face his countrymen in their present mood nor to hazard a trial, he gave them who were sent for him the slip, and sheltered himself in Peloponnesus.'' He became instantly a most violent and dangerous enemy to his country. He is gone to pave the way for the ruin of Athens — of Athens which he loved bet- ter than any thing, except the parade of his own personal importance, and the gratification of his private caprice.

Nicias and Lamachus, who now remained in the command of the fleet, by help of a stratagem, land at Syracuse without opposition, and seize a strong post for their encampment. The Syracusans determine on a battle to dis- lodge them. Both sides form in order. Nicias encourages his men by a shorty but spirited and forcible, harangue. Thucydides paints the battle with the exactness, perspicuitj% and ardour of Homer. The Athenians had the better; yet not so decisively, as to think proper to continue in their post, since they re-embark, and sail back to Catana.

The winter, it is true, was approaching, which both sides spend in nego* ciations for the acquisition of allies. That at Camarina, where ambassadors from both the warring parties are at the same time admitted to an audience, is particularly recited. Hermocratcs, in behalf of Syracuse, makes the first address. " It is masterly, like all that Hermocrates performs. It is designed *' to convince the Camarincans how insidious and how vile the schemes of the «* Athenians had pver been, and still continue to be. He arraigns all their *' politic*, and all their conduct since the Persian invasion ; and gives that

DISCOURSE UL Irii

** artful turn to his remarks, which might well deter others from entering into " any connexion of alliance with them. His strokes are severe and cutting* " He makes use of the figures which give force and energy to discourse. No " person better understood the common welfare of Sicily j^ and no persoD " could better explain it. FJe anfolds the political scheme at present in agi- " tation ; declares the cousequence in case the Athenians prevail, to alarm the •• concern of the Camarineans for their country, and further to alarm their " fears for themselves. He even threatens them with a severe revenge, in case *♦ the Syracusans, without their aid, get the better of the invaders." In short, if the Camarineans had been good Sicilians, his arguments must have prevailed.

Euphemes, who is the mouth of the Alheiiian embassy on this occasion, makes a bold and spirited defence for his country. " He at once briskly al- " tacks Hermocrates for the bitter imputations he had cast upon Athens. He ** asserts her fair reputation, and justifies her series of politics ever since the " invasion of Xerxes Liberty had been the object of all her care and ail her "conduct. The Athenians had guarded, had established it in Greece, and " were come to support and secure it in Sicily. He throws back the charge ** of inslaving projects on the Syracusans, who now are eager to deprive the ** rest of Sicily of their best defence, by raising distaste towards the Athe- ** nians. He spares no artifice, omits no topic that is likely to affect. He " proves a notable advocate for his Athens, pompously celebrates her passion " and her care for libeity, and most ingeniously strives to conceal her pre- *' sent ambition under a veil of most gererous and disinterested principles."

The issue is, that th? orators have just counterpoised one another's argu- ments, and the Camarineans declare a neutrality.

The embassies from Syracuse succeed muc:h better in Peloponnesus. Tlie Corinthians are zealous and active in their b«;half; and they have now got au advocate to rouse up and inflame the phlegmatic Spartans, who was bom to be of every party, and to be the best support of whatever party he by times espoused. It is the exiled Alcibiades who pleads most effectually in their be- half at a grand consultation at Sparta. His speech on this occasion is a mastei)- piece. ** He insinuates himself into the favour and confidence of men who had " feared and hated him. Whilst he is making his own personal justification, " he praiseth and magnifieth himself. He betrays all the schemes of Athens, *' discloseth all her plan, points out her weak and ungruarded parts, directs " towards them the attack of her foes, and, full as he is of resentment against, " and skilful to annoy her, she totters while he speaks." Syracuse and Sparta are now to grow famous by the debasement of this mighty and imperial re- public. Her glory hath reached its summit 3 it immediately will begin to sink, and her laurels will fade away apace.

In the summer of the eighteenth year of this war, the Athenians stand away from Catana, and laud by night at Syracuse. They instantly march, and seize Epipolrc, a strong post that commanded the city. The Syracusans fight, but without success, to beat them from it. The siege now commenceth in form. It is clearly represented in the whole of its progress, in all its forms. Every skirmish is a distinct and lively picture. In one of them old Laniachus is killed, and Niciis of course left singly in the whole command. He carries on the siege with vigour and success for a short space of time ; but Gylippua from Sparta, and the Peloponnesian aids, are now only not arrived.

C«r. Hist. Giac. AV4y. h

fviii A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

Book VII. " If you would read truly great things," said a Spartan to An-, gustus Caesar, "read the Seventh Book of Thucydides." Thither we have now brought this cursory survey. The reader of it will undoubtedly own, that no historian ever executed so closely, so strongly, so clearly and so pa- thetically, as Thucydides. " No fleet but that of the Athenians," it is the ob- servation of Cicero*, " was ever able to enter the harbour of Syracuse. The *' fleet was only able to achieve it by the mighty force and number of three *' hundred ships. But here first was the power of Athens defeated, lessened, ** depressed. In this harbour the fame, the empire, the glory of Athens are "judged to have suffered a total wreck." Schemes projected and actions con- ducted by Hermocrates and Gylippus the Spartan, prove too hard for Nicias, whose phlegm and natural diffidence are too much against such vigilance and activity. The besieging party soon becomes as it were the besieged. The letter of Nicias to the people of Athens represents all the difficulties to which he finds himself reduced. No man ever wrote so precisely and perspicuously about military affairs. The reader of it wants no light, no dictionary of arts, or an adept in war to explain the terms ; and can judge, as could the meanest citizen of Athens to whom it was read, what was proper to be done. Secure in the consciousness of his own iategrity, he neatly reprimands his country- men for the great foible in their behaviour, justifies his own conduct, and begs to be recalled. In short, Nicias is finely characterized by his own pen in this epistle.

The Athenians are too high-spirited to recal their troops, and have too good an opinion of Nicias to dismiss him from the command. Though Attica was now invaded by the Peloponnesians, and a fortress raised by them within sight of Athens itself for their lasting annoyance, they send a powerful reinforce- ment to Nicias, under the command of Demosthenes. They empty Athens of the residue of her strength, so highly wanted for domestic support. The Syracusans, when advised of this reinforcement, redouble their alacrity, and hope to finish the war before it could arrive. They had had a career of suc- cess against Nicias, had just beat him both by land and sea, when Demosthenes entered into the harbour of Syracuse. The sight caused a strange alternative of elevating hope and dreadful apprehensions in the contending parties. The Syracusans again become the besieged ; and Demosthenes is intent to put an end to the siege, if possible, by vigorous and daring measures.

His attempt to re-take Epipolse is, in our author's description of it, as fine a hight-piece as can possibly be drawn, and no pencil could express it stronger. The moon just shines bright enough to shew us the Athenians gaining the as- cent, and to give a glimpse of the approaches of the armies, and their first struggles with one another. The whole soon becomes gloomy, confusion, and horrid tumult. What a medley of singing their pagans, of conflict, of flight, of pursuit! friends and countrymen routing one another, till numbers come tumbling down the precipices, and perish in the fall ! The hope of the Athe- nians is blasted : Syracuse erects her trophies fast.

Demosthenes is now convinced the most prudent step they could take is to raise the siege, and Nicias at last comi)Iics. The very moment they are going to embark their troops, the moon is eclipsed. Who but must pity the weak- ness of Nicias at so daugerous a crisis ? who but be sorry, indeed, tkat so good

♦ Oral, qiiiata iii Verreni.

DISCOURSE III. lis

dnd amiable a man should stop an army from a principle of superstition, and detain them for so long a time on a spot of ground, where nothing but ruin and destruction could befal ? Men so dispirited can make but faint opposition against an alwavs high-minded and now successful enemy. They soon lose another battle, and the decisive engagement is fast approaching.

But before it is fought, Thucydides, animated with more than hbtoric spirit, emulates his admired Homer, reviews the parties concerned, and cata- logues the troops now warring against and in defence of Syracuse. This cata- logue is far from being a mere muster-roll of names. It is full of such strokes as must imprint many useful and moral reOertions in the mind. His little in- cidental sketches represent mankind in a true light, as Homer's do the world of nature. Homer paints the soil, and Thucydides the people.

The mouth of the harbour is now barred up by the enemy. The Athenians must 6ght their vr&y out ; or, bum all their ships, and march off by land. It is determined to attempt the former: and the consequence is the battle within the harbour of Syracuse. A more striking, more astonishing battle- piece was never exhibited ; and a masterly pencil, though none but a masterly one, might exactly delineate it from this description. The present temper of the combatants on both sides is strongly marked in the harangues before the engagement. Nicias then said all, and the Athenians in action did their best ; but all was unavailing. I shall say no more about it, since the reader hath nothing to do but to turn his eye towards it, and distinctly view it through the whole of its process, till the Syracusaus sail in triumph to their city, and raise the most glorious of all their trophies.

The wretched perplexities of the Athenians, the raising of the siege, the mournful decampment, the good heart of Nicias sympathising in all their dis- tress, and endeavouring to chear a little their desponding minds, their labo- rious marches whilst the enemy is harassing them both in front and in rear, and on all sides, the surrender of the column under Demosthenes, the carnage in the river Asinarus of the troops under Nicias, his surrender too, the butchery of the generals, and the miseries of the captivated residue of once so flourishing and galliuit an army, — these are the several incidents of the book, for which an attentive reader will give the highest commendation to the historian, when he hath read them through : he will have no leisure until then ta think of Thucydides.

Book VIII. The catastrophe hath now taken place in this history, and the reader is assured how all will end. The wings of this soaring republic of Athens arc now clipped, ne«er to reach their full growth again: yet, like aa eagle in the same situation, she will stniggle hard along time (as it were), with l)eak and talons, and would yet repulse her assailants, djd she not grow sick at heart. Intestine faction will assist her enemies to finish her ruin, as a state imperial and commercial. A regular deduction of such incidents as these is the subject of the Eighth and last Book of Thucydides. As a writer, he now performs in a more faint and less engaging manner, compared with what hath gone before. He hath but drawn his lines, but just sketched his pieces: but the drawings and sketches will still manifest the master's hand. We will give them a cursory view : the reader will give tliem a more exact and de- liberate perusal.

He sets out in his usual grave and solemn manner, to describe the people of Atheus, dispirited and distressed as they are by the overthrow ia Sicily. All

Ix A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY.

the passions and emotions of the human nature take tlieir train. They are in- credulous; they are angry ; they are convinced; and then, they despond; they pluck up their spirits again, and are resolved to stand it out, nor abandon their own preservation. They now cast their thoughts towards every resource, and prepare again for war with spirit and resolution. All the rest of Greece is ready to concur with the victorious party ; all are eagerly running in to share the glory and the spoil. Their own dependents are meditating revolts, and . some make them at once without pre-meditation. The J^acedaemonians, amidst the many applications made to tliem, are puzzled which of the revolting States they shall first countenance and assist, Alribiades is busy at Sparta, advising proper measures, and guiding their counsels. Even the Persian monarch, by his lieutenants, enters into league ag:iinst them; and some of their finest is- lands are immediately rent asunder from subjection to the Athenians.

The various turns of the war at Chios, and on the coast of Ionia, are dis- tinctly but concisely related, until Alcibiades appears in action, and exerts his busy and intriguing genius. Suspected at length and hated by the Lacedaemo- nians, he became again their enemy, and turned all his projects on accomplish- ing his return to Athens, and saving his country from impending ruin. His pa r- tizans, in the fleet and troops of Athens now lying at Samos, cabal in his fa- vour. A change of government is judged a necessary measure to bring about his recalment. It is the scheme of Alcibiades himself; but it is opposed, and disconcerted by Phrynichus ; by Phrynichus, who soon after turns out a ■violent enemy to the democracy, whilst Alcibadcs is active and zealous in its support.

None but our author's pen could have so clearly unfolded that series of ca- ballings, that fluctuation both in principle and conduct, and that horrid em- broilment of the leading members of the Athenian State amongst themselves, which brought on seditions amongst the troops al^road, and a revolution of government in the city of Athens. The democracy is at length overturned ; and an oligarchy, consisting of four hundred persons, erected in its stead. The Athenians at Samos, where the project was first laid, declare against the Athe- nians at Athens. Alcibiades is grown again a hearty republican ; and Thrasy- bulus alone manifests throughout a sincere love and regard for his country. Parties newly formed are broke again into divisions; and Athens was indebted to nothing but the indolence of the Lacedaemonians, that she did not fall im- mediately into their hands, through the violence of her own intestine seditions. But the new administration proved of short continuance; the democracy, though on a model somewhat varied, is again established; and Athens thus obtains a respite.

Full of matter as this part of the history is, Thucydides hath kept his narra- tion clear and unembarrassed. But then, it is a simple unadorned narration, and never received the finishing hand. There are scattered occasionally throughout it some short accounts, in what manner the principal agents delivered their sentiments at important junctures. They seem to have been memorials, laid down as the ground-work, for regular and full orations. The reader will be sorry the author was hindered, by what accidents can only be guessed, from drawing out some of them at least into full proportion ; particularly that of tlie deputation from the army at Samos to Athens, in which " the people are per- •' suaded to part with their darling democracy;" of Thrasybulus to the troops at Samos, when they mutiny in favour of the democracy, in which, " he must

i

DISCOURSE in. Hi

*< pathetically have expatiated on the revolt of Athens from liberty and her *♦ choicest patriots, who might now form another Athens at Sainos, and pre- •' serve her empire, though they had lost the city ; that of Alcibiades further, when on his recalment he harairgues the army at Samos which recalled him, where " he deplores the malignity of his fate, magnifies his ability yet to *• serve his country, and again shines in the character of an able statesman, a ** subtle politician, and a zealous patriot."

Upon the whole. One poirit more must be particularly distinguished in honour of the Athenians. The characters of them and of the Lacedaemo- nians are strongly contrnsted through the whole course of this history, and highly to the credit of the former. Their spirits rise with difficulties, and patriotism starts out of mutiny and factiou. The Lacedaemonians are indolent in success, and shew neither alacrity nor address in promoting that cause of liberty, which was the grand pretext of engaging in this destructive war. They seem at last more intent on pocketing the royal subsidies, than doiu^ their duty as leaders and champions of Greece. They have not yet learned to make a figure at sea. The last view we have of them is at the battle of Cynos-sema, where they receive a signal defeat from those verj' men whose ruin they judged was well uigh compleated. When Athens is totally to be vanquished, as her doom is fast approaching, she must aid her own conqueron and tyrants, in demolishing her own trophies, and tramphng under foot her liberties and rights. Her own factions will help to accomplish, what, without them, no foreign enemy could have done. Whatever is human must decay. The best constituted state in the world may be undermined by its own meiu> bers, when they could not be conquered, and at leugth be rendered an easy prey to foreign powers. May GREAT BRITAIN" prove an exception to tUi* aiiiecting but ju;st observation.

THE

PELOPONNESIAN WAR

BOOK I.

ThUCYCIDES, an Athenian, hath compiled the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, as managed by each of the contending parties. He began to write upon its first breaking out, from an expectation that it would prove im- portant, and the most deser\'ing regard of any that had ever hap- pened. He grounded his conjecture on the earnestness of both the flourishing parties to make all necessary preparations for it ; and he saw that all the rest of Gi^eece was engaged on one side or the other, some joining immediately, and others intending soon to do it ; for this was the greatest commotion that ever happened amongst the Grecians, since in it some Barbarians, and it may be said the greatest part of mankind were concerned. The actions of an earlier date, and those still more ancient, cannot possibly, through length of time, be adequately known ; yet, from all the lights which a research into the remotest time aft'orded me, I can- not think they were of any great importance, either in regard to the wars themselves, or any other considerations.

It is certain, that the region now known by the name of Greece was not formerly possessed by any fixed inhabitants, but was subject to frequent transmigrations, as constantly every distinct people easily yielded up their seats to the violence of a larger su- pervening number. For, as to commerce there was none, and mutual fear prevented intercourse both by sea and land; as then the only view of culture was to earn a penurious subsistence, and superfluous wealth was a thing unknown, as planting was not their employment, it being uncertain how soon an invader might

2 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. [Book I.

come and dislodge them from their unfortified habitations, and as they thought they might every where find their daily necessary support, they hesitated but little about shifting their seats ; and for this reason they never Nourished in the greatness of their cities, or any other circumstance of power. But the richest tracts of country ever were more particularly liable to this frequent change of inhabitants, such as that which is now called Thessaly, and Boeotia, and Peloponnesus mostly except Arcadia, and in ge- neral eveiy the most fertile part of Greece. For the natural wealth of their soil increasing the power of some amongst them, that power raised civil dissentions, which ended in their ruin, and at the same time exposed them more to foreign attacks. It was only the barrenness of the soil that preserved Attica, through the longest space of time, quiet and undisturbed, in one uninter- rupted series of possessors. One, and not the least convincing proof of this is, that other parts of Greece, because of the fluctu- ating condition of the inhabitants, could by no means in their gi'owth keep pace with Attica. The most powerful of those, wlio were driven from the other parts of Greece by war or se- aition, betook themselves to the Athenians for secure refuge, and as they obtained the privileges of citizens*, have constantly, from remotest time, continued to enlarge that city with fresh accessions of inhabitants, insomuch that at last, Attica being insufficient to support the number, they sent over colonies into Ionia.

There is another, and to me a most convincing proof of the weakness of the ancients. Before the affairs of Troy, it doth not appear that Greece (or Hellas) was ever united in one common undertaking ; nor had the whole country that one general appel- lation : nor indeed did the siame subsist at all before the time of Hellen, the son of Deucalion ; the several nations taking their dis- tinguishing names from their ownselves, and Pelasgicum being that of the greatest tract. But when Hellen and his sons had ac- quired power in Pthiotis, and led out their dependants by way of aid to other cities, conversation made the use of this name become much more frequent among the several people, though it was

• They were admitted to the same privileges, with free-born native Atheni- ans. But this was practised only in the iiifaiKfy and early growth of that state. It was afterwards an honour very seldom and with difficulty jijranted. Those who came from other places to settle at Athens are distinp;uished from citizens, by the name of sojourners, who had taken up their residence and cohabited with them. They performed several duties as subjects to the state which gave them protection, but never became Atlienians, or citizens of Athens, in theemphatical sense of the terms. The English reader will please to remem- ber this, as the distinction often occurs in the sequel of our history.

Book I.] THE PELOPONXESIAN AVAR. 3

long before it so prevailed as to become the general appellation of them all. For this Homer is my principal authorit)% who, though bom a long time after the Trojan war, hath no where mentioned them all in this general stile, but hath appropriated it to those who came with Achilles from Pthiotis, and were the first that bore this name of Grecians (or Hellenes). In his poems Danaans and Argives and Achaeans are their distinguishing titles. Nor hath he farther once mentioned the Barbarians, for this plain reason, in my opinion, because Grecians were not yet distinguished by this one comprehensive name in contra-distinction to that other. These Grecians, therefore, whatever, whether so apart in their different cities, or united by mutual converse, or at length comprehended in one general name, for want of strength and cor- respondence, never acted together in joint confederacy before the war of Troy: nor was it till the use of the sea had opened free communication amongst them that they engaged together in that expedition.

For Minos is the earliest person whom we know from tradition to have been master of a navy, and to have been chiefly lord of the sea which is called the Grecian. To him were the isles of the Cyclades subject; nay, most of them he planted himself with colo* nies, having expelled the Carlans, and substituted his own sons in their different commands. And then of course he exerted his utmost power to clear that sea of pirates, for the more secure conveyance of his own tributes.

The Grecians formerly, as well as those Barbarians who, though seated on the continent, lived upon the coast, and all the islanders, when once they had learned the method of passing to and fro in their vessels, soon took up the business of piracy un- der the command of persons of the greatest ability amongst them, for the sake of enriching such adventurers and subsisting their poor. They landed, and plundered by surprise unfortified places and scattered villages, and from hence they principally gained a subsistence. This was by no means at that time an employment of reproach, but rather an instrument of glory. Some people of the continent are even to this day a proof of this, who still attri- bute honour to such exploits if * genteely performed : so also are the ancient poets, in whom those that sail along the coasts are every where equally accosted with this question. Whether they are pirates ? as if neither they to whom the question was put

* " With due respect, with humanity," as the scholiast explains it. For then they never made booty of, or carried away b\ stealth the labouriti)^ cattle: they never made their attacks by night, nor couiinitled any murder. Cor. Hist. Grec, No. 4P. B

4 THE PFXOPONNESIAN WAR. [Book T.

would disown the employment, nor they who are desirous to be informed would reproach them with it. The people of the con- tinent also exercised robberies upon one another ; and to this very day many people of Greece are supported by the same practices ; for instance, the Ozolian Locrians, and^tolians, and Acarnanians, and their neighbours on the continent ; and the custom of wearing their weapons, introduced by this old life of rapine, is still re- tained amongst them.

The custom of wearing weapons once prevailed all over Greece, as their houses had no manner of defence, as travelling was full of hazard, and their whole lives were passed in armour, like Bar- barians. A proof of this is the continuance still in some parts of Greece of those manners, which were once with uniformity gene- ral to all. The Athenians were the first who discontinued the custom of wearing their swords, and who passed from the disso- lute life into more polite and elegant manners. And it is not a long time since those amongst the rich, who were advanced in years and studied their ease, left off wearing their linen garments and fastening the hair of their head behind with grasshoppers * of gold ; though the aged amongst the lonians have constantly per- severed in the use of these ornaments as marks of their affniity. That modest uniformity of dress, which is still in vogue, was first introduced by the Lacedaemonians ; amongst whom in other points also there was the greatest equality of dress and diet ob- served, both in the highest and the meanest ranks. They also were the first who performed their exercises naked, stripping themselves in public, and anointing with oil before they entered the lists ; though, before, the custom had prevailed at the Olym- pic games for the champions to wear scarfs about their loins; and it is only a few years since these were quite disused f. But even yet, amongst some Barbarians, more especially those of Asia, where the matches of boxing and wrestling are in repute, the combatants engage with scarfs round their loins. Many other arguments might with ease be alledged to prove that ancient Greece had forms and modes of living quite similar to those of the present Barbarian world.

As for cities, so many as are of a later foundation, and better placed for the increase of wealth, since the improvement of naval

* To intimate their b<;iiij;- the original possessors and pure natives of the soil, as much as the wry j^nisslioppers, which they supposed to be a natural and spontaneous production of the earth. They regarded themselves as cotetupd- Tary with the insects.

t See Mr. West's Dissertation on the Olympic Games, p. 50>

Book I.] THE PELOPONXESIAN WAR. 5

skill ; all these have been built on the sea shore, and walletl about, and are situated upon necks of land jutting out into the sea, for the sake of traffic and greater security from the insults of neigh- bouring people. But those of an earlier date, having been more subject to piratical depredations, are situated at a great distance from the sea, not only on islands but also upon the main. For even those who lived upon the coast, though inexpert at sea, were used to make excursions up into the country for the sake of plunder : and such inland settlements are discernible to this very day.

But the people of the islands, that is the Carians and the Phoe- nicians, were by much the most expert at these piratical adven- tures: for by them the greatest part of the isles was inhabited. This is proved from the expiation solemnized at Delos in the course of this war; on which occasion all the sepulchres of the dead in that island being broke open, more than half of the num- ber appeared to be Carians, known to be such from the weapons found in their graves, and a particularity of interment * still used amongst them. It was not till after the equipment of fleets by Minos, that a communication was opened at sea. For by him the mischievous banditti was ejected from the islands, and many co- lonies of his own planted there in their stead. And from this period it was that the maritime people, grown more intent on the acquisition of wealth, became also more fond of settled habita- tions : and such of them as then surpassed in wealth strengthened their settlements by walling them about And this their passion for gain continuing to increase, the poorer hired out their 8er%'ice8 to those who had affluence; and the great, who had all needful supplies at hand, reduced less powerful cities into their own sub- jection. And their power by these methods gradually advancing, they were enabled in process of time to undertake the Trojan expedition. ^

It is farther my opinion, that the assemblage of that armament by Agamemnon was not owing so much to the attendance of the suitors of Helen in pursuance of the oaths they had sworn to Tyndarus, as to his own superior power. It is related by those who received from their ancestors the most certain memorials of

• Tlie Carians first invented Ihe^ boss of shields and the crest of helmets. In remembrance of this, a small shield and a crest were ahvays buried with them. By this means were the Carians known. The Phoenicians were distinguished by the manner of their interment. For, whereas other nations laid the faces of tlieir dead towards the east, the Phoenicians reversed the posture, and laid them to the west. Scholiatt.

6^ THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. [Book I.

the Peloponnesian affairs, that Pelops, Arriving there from Asia with abundance of wealth, soon gained so great an influence over those needy people, that, though a foreigner, he had the honour to have the country called after his own name ; and that the power thus gaijied by him was successively enlarged by his posterity. Eurystheus indeed, whose mother was the sister of Atreus, perished in Attica by means of the Heraclidae ; and Eurystheus, when he departed on that expedition, left the government of My- cenifi and his kingdom, because of his affinity, in the care of Atreus who then resided with him, having fled from his father upon the murder of Chrysippus. When therefore the return of Eurystheus was prevented by death, and the Myceneans from a dread of the Heraclidae were well inclined to Atreus, as a person of great abilities and deep in the affections of the people, he easily obtained the kindgdom of Mycenae and all the territories which had belonged to Eurystheus ; and from hence the family of Pelops quite overpowered the family of Perseus, To these enlargements of power Agamemnon succeeding, and being also superior to the rest of his countrymen in naval strength, he was enabled, in my opinion, to form that expedition more from awe than favour. It is plain that he equipped out the largest number of ships him- self, besides those he lent to the Arcadians. Homer is my wit- ness here, if his testimony have any force ; who hath farther, at the delivery of the sceptre, Stiled him,

** Of many isles, and of ail Argos king."

And a king who lived upon the continent could not possibly be lord of islands, except such as were adjacent, the number of which must needs be small, unless he had a competent strength at sea : but, from this armament we have good light afforded to 1/ guess at the preceding.

What though Mycenae was a small city, or though any place at that time remarkable appear at present inconsiderable to us ; yet no one ought on these motives prematurely to imagine that arma- ment to have been less considerable than it is described by the poets and reported by tradition. Supposing the city of Lacedae- mon to be now in a ruinated condition, nothing left but the temples and the pavements of the mass, I fancy, in process of time, posterity could not easily be induced to believe that their power had ever been proportioned to their glory. Of the five * divi- sions of Peloponnesus they are actually possessed of two, have the

• These were Lacoriia, Arcadia, Argolica, Mrssenia, and Elis. The Lacf ■ demonians were possessed of Lacouia and Mcssciiia. Scholiast.

Book I.] THE PELOPOXXESIAN WAR. r

command of the whole, and of many confederate states without ; yet as the city is neither closely built, as the temples and public edifices are by no means sumptuous, and the houses detached from one another after the old mode of Greece, it would suffer disparagement from such a view. If we farther suppose the Athenians in the same reverse of fortune, from the view the city then would afford, it might be guessed that once it had double the strength which it really hath. We ought not therefore to be incredulous, nor so much to regard the appearance of cities as their power ; and of course, to conclude the armament against Troy to have been greater than ever was known before, but in- ferior to those of our age. And whatever credit be given to the poetr}^ of Homer in this respect, who no doubt as a poet hath set it off with all possible enlargement, yet even according to his ac- count it appeareth inferior : for he hath made it to consist of twelve hundred ships ; those of the Boeotians canying each one hundred and twenty men, those of Philoctetes fifty; pointing out, as I imagine, the largest and the smallest rates ; for of the rate of other ships he hath not made the least mention in Jiis catalogue, though he hath expressly informed us, that every person of the crews belonging to the ships of Philoctetes were both mariners and soldiers, since he hath made all who plyed at the oar to be expert at the bow. It is not probable that any ships carried su- pernumeraries, excepting kings or pei-sons in command, especially as their point was a mere transportation with all the necessary habiliments of war, and as their ships were not decked, but built entirely in the fashion of the old piratical cruizers. If therefore a mean be taken between the largest and smallest rates, the num- ber of the whole will turn out * of small account for quotas sent in general from the whole of Greece. The reason of this was not so much a scarcity of men as want of money. They adjusted the number of men to the slender store of provisions they already had, and the probability of procuring a competent subsistence in the course of the war. On their first landing they got the better in fight ; the proof is, that they could not otherwise have fortified their camp with a wall. Neither doth it appear that they exerted all their strength at once, numbers being detached for supplies of provisions, to till the Chersonesus, and to forage at large. Thus divided as they were, the Trojans were better able to make a ten

* Thucydides makes it of small account, in regard to the war which is his subject. But the number of men employed in the expedition against Troy was 302,000, For the mean between liO and 50 is 85, and 85 X by 1200= 109000,

8 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. [Book L

years' resistance, being equal in force to those who were at any time left to carry on the siege. For had the stores of provision at the first landing been ample enough fbr the whole number of men they brought, and had they been able to prosecute the war free from the avocations of foraging and tillage, their superiority in the field must have given them an easy and expeditious conquest. But in fact they did not ply the work with all their number, but only with a part constantly reserved for the purpose. Had they formed the siege with their whole force, in less time and with less difficulty they must have taken Troy. Through want of money it was that expeditions prior to this, and even this, the most cele- brated of all that ever happened, are plainly found to have been less in reality than they are in fame or current estimation at present through poetical assistance.

Nor did the prosperous event of the Trojan expedition put an end to the unsettled and fluctuating state of Greece, or secure that tranquility so necessary to advancement. The return of the Gre- cians from Ilium, after so long an absence, gave rise to many inno- vations. Seditions were excited in almost every city; and those who were forced to withdraw, built cities for themselves in other places. The present Boeotians, for instance, being driven out of Arne by the Thessalians, sixty years after the taking of Troy, planted themselves in the country now called BoEotia, though be- fore that time Cadmeis : but a body of them had already seated themselves there, of whom were those who went in the exj>edition against Troy : and eighty years after it, the Dorians, with the Heraclidge, took possession of Peloponnesus. It was not without much ado and length of time, that Greece, quiet and settled at home, had opportunity to send colonies abroad. Then the Athe- nians planted Ionia and most of the islands ; the Peloponnesians the greatest part of Italy and Sicily, and even some colonies in the different tracts of Greece. But all these transactions are of a later date than the Trojan war.

But when once the state of Greece was grown more robust, and increase of wealth became their study more than ever before, as the public revenues grew apace, in many places tyrannies started up : for before this, kingdoms were hereditary, and with limited authority. Now Greece throughout was employed in building navies, and became addicted to naval affairs with unusupl applica- tion. The Corinthians are said to have been the first, who, by varying the make of their ships, brought them to that model which is now in use, and Corinth to be the first place of Greece

Book I.] THE PELOPOXNESIAN WAR. 9^

where triremes* were built. It is a known fact, that Ami- nocles, a ship-carpenter from Corinth, built four ships for the Sa- mians : now, from the arrival of Aminocles at Samos to the con- clusion of the war which is now my subject, there passed at most but three ^hundred years. The oldest sea-fight we know any thing of, was that of the Corinthians against the Corcyreans : but the distance between that and the