land than in their vessels, that he should be able, by the aid of the king of Thrace, to drive them from the shore, and compel them either to fight under great disadvantages, or to sue for peace. With these views he went to the Athenian camp, communicated his wishes, and warned the generals of their danger. They, however treated his person and his councils with a fatal disdain, which compelled him to retire without performing his proffered services. Too soon they felt the justice of his warnings. Lysander fell on them, when they were wholly un- Athenian prepared to receive him, with such violence and success, that he destroyed and Athens the whole fleet, with the exception of six galleys, which escaped with taken. Conon. This blow put an end to the long and ruinous contest. Athens had neither means nor spirit left to resist her foes. Lysander proceeded from this victory to the capture of Athens; burnt the shipping which lay in the harbour; razed the long walls to their foundations; and imposed thirty tyrants on the state which had been the cradle, and was now the sepulchre of Grecian freedom. fleet defeated by the seek the Persia. Alcibiades was now the sole object of hope to which the minds of his Alcibiades misguided countrymen were directed. They still had some confidence in suspected his love for the country which had twice rewarded him with disgraceful Spartans. exile, and could scarcely believe, that while he lived the cause of freedom was desperate. In the estimate of his undying patriotism their Lacedæmonian oppressors unhappily coincided, and felt that his death alone could secure their mastery over Athens. The feelings of both parties Alcibiades respecting him were well founded. Although he had been received prepares to with great cordiality by Pharnabazus, whose protection he had sought, king of and had been assigned a territory, from which he derived a considerable revenue, he was unable to enjoy a luxurious repose while his country groaned beneath intolerable oppressions. He saw the only hope of effecting its deliverance rested in procuring the aid of the king of Persia. This he did not despair of obtaining, especially as he perceived, with his usual political sagacity, that Cyrus, brother of the reigning sovereign, was about to make war against him, with the assistance of the Spartans. If he could disclose this to the monarch, he believed that he should not only lay him under obligation, which must conciliate his favour, but induce him, for his own security, to assist the Athenian cause against those who would soon appear as his own enemies. He, therefore, entreated Pharnabazus to suffer him to proceed to the king, with the design, like Themistocles, of offering his services; yet for the purpose of raising not of destroying the state which had driven him from his efforts to avert its downfal. Alcibiades. But before he could execute his patriotic design, Lysander, incited Death of by the representations of Critias and the other tyrants, whom he had placed over Athens, entreated Pharnabazus to destroy him. He threatened that unless Alcibiades were delivered up, alive or dead, the Lacedæmonians would break off their alliance with his master. This threat induced the satrap to take immediate measures for destroying the fugitive whom he had protected. The victim of his treachery was, Character of Alcibiades. at this time, in Phrygia, with Timandra, his mistress, preparing for his journey to the capital. Thither Pharnabazus despatched Sysamithres and Bagoas to murder him. But when they arrived at the place of his residence they durst not approach him, but surrounded the house with their band, and set it on fire. On perceiving the danger, Alcibiadēs threw clothes on the flames, and, seizing a sword, rushed through the fire without injury. He was now perceived by the barbarian troop, who, from a distance, threw their darts at him till he fell lifeless. Timandra then wrapped her vestments about his body and burned it in the flames of the house, as on a funeral pile. The assassins retired, without interrupting her in this last sad office of affection to the mighty dead. Thus fell Alcibiades, having scarcely passed the fortieth year of a most eventful life. Nature seemed to have lavished her bounties upon him. A noble origin-singular personal beauty-grace of mannerimmense patrimonial riches eloquence the most persuasive-acuteness the most penetrating-bravery the most undaunted-Pericles for his guardian, and Socrates for his friend and adviser—all seemed to mark him out as destined for a happy and glorious career. Never, perhaps, was so fair a prospect dashed so early with clouds, and so soon overspread with total gloom. Yet he can scarcely be said to have owed his ruin to the absolute preponderance of his vices. He possessed, throughout life, many virtues, to which even the plots of his adversaries bore witness. His love for his country, amidst all the injuries he received from her, was his ruling passion to the last. A second time an exile from her shores, after conferring numberless benefits on her, he died a martyr to his unshaken desire to effect her ransom. His public lifeif we except the devious methods by which he sometimes proceeded to effect good designs, and his offer of advice to the Spartans after his first exile-was full of patriotism, forbearance, and wisdom. His great want was that of principle, and by that want he was undone. He acted from impulses which he had never learned to restrain. His love towards his country, though his strongest impulse, was essentially a personal feeling, and very different from a calm sense of duty or earnest desire for the general welfare. He had nothing within which could enable him to become master over himself, and direct his faculties by honourable courses to noble ends. He often, indeed, adapted his manners with astonishing facility to those of his associates; he was the most patient in Lacedæmon, the most robust at Thebes, the most jovial among the Thracians, and the most splendid and luxurious among the Persians; but, in none of his changes, was he actuated by any principle either false or true, but simply by a desire to surpass his colleagues in all which they esteemed most noble or dazzling. There was no common centre round which his mighty powers and vehement impulses could revolve. He gratified all his feelings of insolence, luxury, or pride, without regard to times or seasons, except when some strong passion gave him a short-lived consistency of character. Never did any one, to whom in Alcibiades. terests so mighty were committed, suffer himself to be so often influenced Character of by momentary fancies that destroyed the measures on which his dearest hopes were dependent. He was a partisan without revenge, and a victor without cruelty; but these excellences availed him little, because he had not singleness of heart, nor directness of purpose, to render them effectual for his country's salvation. The constitution of his mind was oriental rather than Grecian. His personal character, and not that of his cause, predominated in all his actions. His sense of pleasure was too keen, and his pride too great, to allow of that absorption of himself into a state which alone could fit him for the subject, much less for the preserver of a republic. He could assume a thousand shapes, but in all he was an actor. The abstraction of spirit, which made an ancient patriot lose the sense of personal identity, as a public character, in the idea of forming a part in a great whole-which caused him to live only in the triumphs, and die with the fall of the body politic-was totally averse from his nature. He would have risked his life a thousand times for his native city, but he would never have rejoiced with the Spartan that it contained three hundred worthier than himself to govern. Hence he was unfitted to rouse the slumbering energies of a state in the cause of freedom. The bands which joined him were always actuated by regard to him as an individual, not by any general spirit inspired by his cause. His fortunes were strangely linked with those of a state, which, by casting him the first time from the summit of greatness, brought herself to the verge of ruin; and, after madly repeating the injustice, when his arm had raised her from the dust, sunk almost without a struggle. In his death, which she had once formally decreed, and at last remotely occasioned, she saw and felt her last hope expire. If he was not altogether worthy to be the preserver of the Athenian greatness, he merited the honour of casting the last rays of glory over it, and of having his fall for ever identified with its destruction. Preparations of Xerxes for an invasion of Greece. B. C. CHAPTER XII. RECAPITULATION OF THE HISTORY OF GREECE, FROM THE BATTLE B. C. 490 TO B. C. 404. IN the lives of Themistocles, Aristīdēs, Periclēs, and Alcibiades, we have taken occasion to describe, with considerable minuteness, those events which their genius directed, and which form a very large part of the brightest portion of Grecian history. We have now to supply THE OUTLINE BY WHICH THOSE INDIVIDUAL PICTURES WILL BE CON NECTED; passing lightly over those circumstances which have been described in connection with them, and dilating on those parts of national history which our plan has induced us hitherto to omit, or to which it has enabled us only briefly to allude. Xerxes, having succeeded Darius on the throne of Persia, resolved to avenge the stain which had been thrown on the arms of his country, at Marathon. It is even probable that his views extended beyond the conquest of Greece, and that he regarded this extension of his dominions 483-480. but as opening the way to the subjugation of regions still further to the westward, in which his young ambition anticipated a series of victories. Incited by the exiled party of the family of Peisistratus, he sent heralds to all the cities of Greece, demanding earth and water, in token of their submission, with the exception of Athens and Lacede mon, where the Persian envoys had, in the reign of Darius, been put to death. With this demand, many of the smaller states thought it prudent to comply. The mighty preparations of the great king proceeded on a scale the most appalling. To a superficial observer the fate of Greece must have appeared to be absolutely decided. Even the small force which its united republics could have opposed to the invasion, was divided against itself; many of the states had yielded; Ægina had been at war with Athens; the resolutions of Argos, Corcyra, and Syracuse, were doubtful. Minds, however, were happily found B. c. 483. with energies equal to the danger. Themistocles had already provided Athens with a naval force, which effected, ultimately, the deliverance of Greece, and raised that state to the highest glory and power. (See ARISTĪDĒS and THEMISTOCLES.) Peace was immediately concluded between Ægina and Athens; but Crete and Argos declined uniting in the general cause. A meeting of deputies from the confederated states, to deliberate upon the best means of resistance, was summoned to assemble at Corinth. Thessaly, The stupendous forces of Xerxes (which we have described in a Army preceding chapter) now passed the Hellespont, and advanced to sent into attack Thessaly. A body of infantry, under the command of Themis- but retires. tocles and Evanætus, was instantly sent to dispute the passes, which accordingly took its position in the vale of Tempē, between the mountains of Ossa and Olympus. Here they were joined by the Thessalian cavalry, and constituted a force adequate to the defence of the road between the natural fortresses by which the boundary was protected. But they were induced to retreat, by intelligence derived from Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedon, that there was another passage by which the Persians might enter Thessaly from Upper Macedonia; and that unless they retired, they must be surrounded and cut to pieces. They left Thessaly, therefore, to the mercy of the invaders; and the people of that region, thinking themselves forsaken by their allies, received the army of Xerxes with open arms, and exerted themselves to the utmost in his favour. The force of the Greeks was now concentrated within their narrow Defence of boundaries, which were defended almost in every part by the sea or Thermopyla resolved on. the mountains. The ridge of Eta, extending from sea to sea across B. C. 480. the southern limit of Thessaly, now become their frontier, was accessible only by one narrow road, scarcely wide enough to admit a chariot, and defended by a wall, and an inundation from the neighbouring hot baths, which gave it the name of Thermopyla, by which it has since been remembered with associations so deep and inspiring. Near this most advantageous position was a bay where the fleet could anchor in safety. Here, then, it was resolved by the confederates, that the first strenuous resistance should be made to the progress of the invader. Greeks. But small, indeed, were the numbers which Greece could arouse to Forces of the assist in the cause of freedom. Most of the states which professed to unite in the league, were either paralyzed by terror, or deterred by jealousies, from putting forth their utmost energies. Thebes contributed only four hundred, Corinth four hundred, and Sparta three hundred soldiers. The force of Athens was necessarily employed on board her fleet, so that the great body of the troops was composed of Locrians, Phocians, Arcadians, and the citizens of the smaller republics. Land forces These, with Leonidas, king of Lacedæmon, at their head, took their take the station near the pass of Thermopyla, while the fleet was drawn up Thermopyla. at Artemisium, in order to assist them. But on the approach of ten station of |