all sides, and dejected through fatigue and despair, they began to give way; but the Athenians seized on all the passes to cut off their retreat. to cut off their retreat. Cleon and De mosthenes, finding that should the battle continue, not a man of them would escape, and being desirous of carrying them alive to Athens, they commanded their soldiers to desist, and caused proclamation to be made by a herald, for them to lay down their arms, and surrender at discretion. At these words, the greatest part lowered their shields, and clapped their hands in token of approbation. A kind of suspension of arms was agreed upon, and their commander desired leave might be granted him to dispatch a messenger to the camp, to know the resolusion of the generals. This was not allowed, but they called heralds from the coast, and after several messages, a Lacedemonian advanced forward, and cried aloud, that they were permitted to treat with the enemy, provided they did not submit to dishonourable terms. Upon this they held a conference, after which they surrendered at discretion, and were kept till the next day. The Athenians then raising a trophy, and restoring the Lacedemonians their dead, embarked for their own country, after distributing the prisoners among the several ships, and committing the guard of them to the captain of the galleys. In this battle one hundred and twenty eight Lacedemonians fell, out of four hundred and twenty, which was their number at first; so that there survived not quite three hundred, one hundred and twenty of whom were Spartans, that is, inhabitants of the city of Sparta. The siege of the island, to compute from the beginning of it, including the time employed in the truce, had lasted seventy two days. They all now left Pylus; and Cleon's promise, though so vain and rash, was found literally true. But the most surprising circumstance was the capitulation that had been made; for it was believed that the Lacedemonians, so far from surrendering their arms, would die sword in hand. Being come to Athens, they were ordered to remain prisoners till a peace should be concluded, provided the Lacedemonians did not make any incursions into their country, for that then they should all be put to death. They left a garrison in Pylus. The Messenians of Naupactus, who had formerly possessed it, sent thither the flower of their youth, who very much infested the Lacedemonians by their incursions; and as these Messenians spoke the language of the country, they prevailed with a great number of slaves to join them. The Lacedemonians, dreading a greater evil, sent several deputations to Athens, but to no purpose; the Athenians being too much elated with their pros. perity, and especially their late success, to listen to any terms. * In the seventh year of the Peloponnesian war, Artaxerxes sent to the Lacedemonians an ambassador named Artaphernes, with a letter written in the Assyrian language, in which he said, that he had received many embassies from them, but the purport of them all differed so widely, that he could not comprehend in any manner what it was they requested; * Thucyd. 1. iv. p. 285, 286. that in this uncertainty, he had thought proper to send a Persian, to acquaint them, that if they had any proposal to make, they should send a person in whom they could confide along with him, from whom he might be exactly informed in what they desired. This ambassador, arriving at Eion on the river Strymon in Thrace, was there taken prisoner, about the close of this year, by one of the admirals of the Athenian fleet, who sent him to Athens. He was treated with the utmost civility and respect; the Athenians being extremely desirous of recovering the favour of the king his master. The year following, as soon as the season would permit the Athenians to put to sea, they sent the ambassador back in one of their ships at the public expense; and appointed some of their citizens to wait upon him to the court of Persia, in quality of ambassadors. Upon landing at Ephesus, they were informed that Artaxerxes was dead; whereupon the Athenian ambassadors, thinking it not advisable to proceed farther after this news, took leave of Artaphernes, and returned to their own country. BOOK EIGHTH. THE HISTORY OF THE PERSIANS AND GRECIANS. CHAPTER I. THIS chapter contains thirteen years of the Pelo ponnesian war, to the nineteenth inclusively. SECTION I. THE VERY SHORT REIGNS OF XERXES II. AND SOGDIANUS, &c. ARTAXERXES died about the beginning of the forty ninth year of his reign. Xerxes, who succeeded him, was the only son which the queen his wife brought him: but he had seventeen others by his concubines, among whom were Sogdianus, (who is called Secondianus by Ctesias,) Ochus, and Arsites. Sogdianus, in concert with Pharnacias, one of Xerxes's eunuchs, came insidiously, one festival day, to the new king, who, after drinking too immoderately, was retired to his chamber, in order to give the fumes of the wine he had drank time to evaporate; where he killed him * A, M. 3579. Ant. J. C. 425 Ctes. c. xlvii-li. A. M. 3580. Ant. J. C. 424. Diod. l. xii. p. 115. without any difficulty, after he had reigned but forty five days; and was declared king in his stead. He was scarce on the throne, but he put to death Bagorazus, the most faithful of all his father's eunuchs. It was he who had been appointed to superintend the interment of Artaxerxes, and of the queen, Xerxes's mother, who died the same day with her royal consort. After having deposited the two bodies in the mausoleum, where the kings of Persia were interred, he found, at his return, Sogdianus on the throne, who did not receive him favourably, upon account of some difference with him in the lifetime of his father. But the new king did not stop here; not long after he took an opportunity to quarrel with him, on some trifling circumstance relating to the obsequies of his father, and caused him to be stoned. By those two murders, that of his brother Xerxes and of Bagorazus, he became the horror of the army and nobility, so that he did not think himself safe on a throne, to which he had forced his way by such horrid murders. He suspected that his brothers harboured the like design; and Ochus, to whom his father had left the government of Hyrcania, was the chief object of his suspicion. Accordingly he sent for him, with the intention of getting him murdered as soon as he arrived. However Ochus, who saw through his design, delayed coming upon various pretences; which he continued till he advanced at the head of a strong army, which he openly declared he would employ, to revenge the death of his brother Xerxes. This declaration brought over to him a great number of the nobility, and several governors of the provinces, they being justly dissatisfied |