14] w nence the poet Simomaes gives this city a magnificent epithet, implying that Sparta alone could tame the mind, and render men pliable and submissive to the laws, like horses that are curbed and brought under whilst they are very young. For this reason Agesilaus advised Xenophon to send his sons to Sparta, [7] that they might learn there the greatest and best of sciences, how to govern, and be governed. He had been well instructed in it himself, and knew the full value of it. Plutarch observes, that he did not attain the supreme command, [k] like the other kings, without having first perfectly learned to obey, and for this reason [7] he was the only one amongst all the Lacedæmonian kings, who had the refined art of agreeing entirely with his subjects, and uniting in his person with a greatness truly royal, and a natural nobleness of manners, that air of goodness, humanity, and popular affability, which he had derived from his education,

He afterwards gave the most memorable example of submission to the law and public authority to be found in history; and Xenophon and Plutarch justly prefer it to the most glorious of his other actions. After having gained very considerable victories over the Persians, all Asia being in commotion, and most of the provinces ready to revolt, he determined to fall upon the king of Persia in the heart of his dominions, and was preparing to set out for this great expedition. In the mean while a messenger arrives to tell him that Sparta was threatened with a terrible war, that the ephori recalled him to the assistance of his country.

[?] DaμaσíμSpor@ the tamer of

men.

[1] Μαθησομένους τῶν μαθημάτων τὸ κάλλισον, ἄρχεσθαι καὶ ἄρχειν

[*] At Sparta, the children designed for the throne were excused

[1] Διὸ καὶ πολὺ τῶν βασιλέων εὐαρμότατον αὐτὸν τοῖς ὑπηκόοις παρέσχε, τῷ φύσει ηγεμόνικα και βασιλικών προσκλησάμενα ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγωγῆς τὸ δημότικον καὶ φιλάνθρωπον.

abandon with so instant an obedience all the conquests he had made, and the future hopes of success, which were almost as certain as the past.

t

Princes, [m] says Plutarch, generally place their grandeur in commanding others, and being subject to nobody. They often affect an ignorance of their duty, lest the light of reason should subject themselves, and blunt the edge and force of an authority, to which they would willingly set no bounds. Who then, adds Plutarch, shall be the master of kings, who have no other? Why the law, that sovereign queen of gods and men, as Pindar calls it; a law, not written in tables, but engraven on the heart, which will constantly attend upon them, and never forsake them, but exercise a mild though absolute dominion over their minds. An officer stood by the king of Persia's bedside every morning, to say to him, Sir, remember you fulfil the ordinances of Oromasdes: he was the lawgiver of the Persians. The love of justice and the public good says as much to every understanding and sensible prince..

To give us a better notion of the character of the Lacedæmonians, and their perfect submission to the laws, I shall here quote a passage from Herodotus, which well deserves our notice. When Xerxes was upon the point of entering Greece, he asks Demaratus one of the Spartan kings, who had fled to court for refuge, if he thought the Greeks would dare to withstand him, and desired he would speak his sentiments sincerely." Since you require it, replies Demaratus, "truth shall speak to you by my mouth. [n] Greece "indeed has ever been bred up in poverty; but has the close of this article, with some remarks upon a difficult expression in it.

[m] Plut. ad Principem Indoc

tum.

[2] I shall insert the Greek text

66

OF PROFANE HISTORY.

"had virtue also, improved by wisdom, and sup-
ported by the vigour of the laws. And from the
"use she has made of this virtue, Greece has equally
"preserved herself from the inconveniences of pover-
ty, and the yoke of subjection. But to confine my-
"self to my own Lacedæmonians, be assured, that,
"born and nurtured as they are at liberty, they will
"never hearken to any proposal that tends to slavery.
"Were they forsaken by all the other Greeks, and re-
"duced to a troop of a thousand soldiers, or even a
"less number, they would make head against you, and
"never decline the battle." The king smiled at this
discourse, and as he could not comprehend, how men
so free and independent as the Lacedæmonians were
said to be, without any masters to controul them,
should be capable of exposing themselves in such a
manner to dangers and death; [o] "They are free
"and independent of every man, replies Demaratus,
"but they have a law above them by which they are
ruled, and they are more afraid of that law, than
your subjects are of you. Now this law forbids
"them ever to fly in battle from their enemies, how
great soever the number of them may be, and com-
"mands them to keep firm to their posts, and either
conquer or die.”
And it happened as Demara-
tus had foretold. Three hundred Lacedæmonians,
with Leonidas one of the Spartan kings at their head,
ventured to dispute the passage of Thermopyle with
the innumerable army of the Persians. And atlast, after
incredible efforts of valour, overpowered by numbers
rather than conquered, they all fell with their prince,
except one man who escaped to Lacedæmon, where
he was used like a coward, and a traitor to his coun-
try. A magnificent monument was afterwards raised
for those brave champions of Greece on the very spot
[ο] Ελέυθεροι γὰρ ἐόντες, οὗ πάνε
Τα ἐλέυθεροι εἶισι· ἔπεσε γὰρ σφι δεσα
πότης, νόμο, τὸν ὑποδειμαίνουσι

"

πολλῷ ἔτι μάλλον ἢ οἱ Γο Γε ποιώσι

αὐτὸ αἰεὶ, οὐκ ἐῶν φεύγειν οὐδὲν πγῆ
θα ἀνδρῶν ἐκ μάχης, ἀλλὰ μένοντας
ἐν τῇ τάξει, ἐπικρατέειν, ἢ ἀπόλλυσα

21

where they were slain, [p] with this inscription made by the poet Simonides:

Κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων πειθόμενοι νομίμοις.

i. e. Go traveller, and say at Lacedæmon, that we liè buried here for obeying her sacred laws. It may not be amiss upon this occasion to give the boys a hint of the simplicity of the old inscriptions.

CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS UPON A PASSAGE IN

HERODOTUS.

[9] Τῇ Ἑλλάδι πενίη μὲν αιεί κατε σύντροφός ἐτι· ἀρετὴ δὲ ἔπακιός ἐσι, ἀπότε (οφίης κατεργασμένη καὶ νόμε ἰσχυρές τῇ διαχρεωμένη ἡ Ἑλλὰς, τηλε πενίην απαμύνεται, καὶ καὶ τὴν δεσποσύνην.

Valla translates the passage thus, Grecia semper quidem alumna fuit paupertatis, hospesvirtutis, quam à sapientia accivit & à severâ disciplinâ: quam usurpans Græcia & paupertatem tuetur, & dominatum. Harry Stephens, instead of paupertatem tuetur, has put in the margin paupertatem propulsat, which agrees with the Greek text, τὴν πενίην απαμύνεται.

This passage has very much embarrassed me, and is certainly a very difficult one. It seems to imply an evident contradiction, in saying first, that poverty was always held honourable in Greece, and then that the same Greece rejected poverty and kept it at a distance, For which reason I was very much pleased with Valla's translation, and thought it gave a beautiful meaning to the passage. "Greece, said Demaratus to Xerxes "has hitherto always been the seat of poverty, and "the school of virtue. Instructed by the lectures o "her wise men, and supported by a strict observation "of her laws, she has hitherto always retained the lov "of poverty, and the honour of command, & pauperta "tem tuetur & dominatum." But in this case we mus

[] Pari animo Lacedæmonii in Thermopylis occiderunt, in quos Simonides:

Dic, hospes, Sparta, nos te hîc vidisse jacentes,

Dúm sanctis patriæ legibus ob

sequimur.

Cic. lib. 1. Tusc. Quæst. n. 10 [q] Herod. lib. 7. pag. 47 edit. Hen. Steph. Ann.1592.

have been of great assistance to me in this work; I shall here insert his answer, as it may be useful to young masters, in shewing them how to explain obscure and difficult passages.

I think, writes my friend, that I have discovered the true meaning of the passage in Herodotus. I will give the translation of it, after I have produced the reasons upon which I ground it.

The principal difficulty lies in the sense of the word ἀπαμύνεται. If there is an ambiguity in construing it with πενίην, it is taken away by δεσποσύνην which the same verb equally governs. Now decorún does not signify the honour of command, as you translate it.

1st then, To support this version, άmaμúvia must be changed into iraula without authority, and in opposition to all manuscripts and printed copies, which should never be admitted, unless the direct meaning of the text required it.

2. The peculiar character of the Greeks, especially in those early ages, was the love of liberty, independency, and freedom from every yoke, airovoμía, and not the desire of rule, and ambition to command, or the glory of conquests.

3. Let any one, if he can, instance not a whole nation, but a single city, over which the Greeks had then extended their empire, or affected the honour of command. Demaratus would therefore have made himself ridiculous, if he had boasted to Xerxes of the command of the Greeks, when he could not shew any one village, over which they exercised it.

4. Though we should grant for a moment, that this Lacedæmonian intended to exaggerate the jealousy of the Greeks for the honour of command, as capable of making them sacrifice every thing for the