preserve peace and unity in society, by enjoining the individuals of it not to make their hatred and dissensions perpetual, which would argue an unsociable and savage disposition, but to treat their enemies as men who would soon be their friends. This is carrying morality to as great a perfection as could be expected from heathens. With regard to the duty of judges and magistrates, after representing to them, that in pronouncing sentence, they ought never to suffer themselves to be biassed by friendship, hatred, or any other passion; he only exhorts them not to behave with the least haughtiness or severity towards the parties engaged in law, since such are but too unhappy, in being obliged to undergo all the toils and fatigues inseparable from lawsuits. The office, indeed, of judges, how laborious soever it may be, is far from giving them a right to use the contending parties with ill nature; the very form and essence of their employment requiring them to behave with impartiality, and to do justice on all occasions; and when they distribute this even with mildness and humanity, it is only a debt they pay, and not a favour they grant. To banish luxury from his republic, which he looked upon as the certain destruction of a government, he did not follow the practice established in some nations, where it is thought sufficient, for the restraining it, to punish, pecuniary mulcts, such as infringe the laws made on that occasion; but he acted, says the historian, in a more artful and ingenious, and at the same time more effectual manner. He prohibited women from wearing rich and costly stuffs, embroid by ered robes, precious stones, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, gold rings, and such like ornaments; excepting none from this law but common prostitutes. He enacted a like law with regard to the men; excepting, in the same manner, from the observance of it, such only as were willing to pass for debauchees and infamous wretches. By these regulations he easily, and without violence, preserved the citizens from the least approaches to luxury and effeminacy; for no person was so abandoned to all sense of honour, as to be willing to wear the badges of his shame, under the eye, as it were, of all the citizens, since this would make him the public laughingstock, and reflect eternal infamy on his family. V. MILO, the champion. We have seen him at the head of an army obtain a great victory. However, he was still more renowned for his athletic strength than for his military bravery. He was surnamed Crotoniensis, from Croton, the place of his birth. It was his daughter whom, as was before related, Democedes the famous physician, and Milo's coutrymen, married, after he had fled from Darius's court to Greece, his native country. 'Pausanias relates, that Milo, when but a child, was seven times victorious in one day at the Pythian games; that he won six victories at wrestling in the Olympic games, one of which was also gained in his childhood; and that challenging a seventh time in Olympia, any person to wrestle with him, he could not engage for want of an opponent. He would hold a 4 More inter veteres recepto, qui satis pœnarum adversus impudicas in ipsa professione flagitii credebant. Tacit. Annal. 1. ii. c. 85. pomegranate in such a manner, that without breaking it, he would grasp it so fast in his hand, that no force could possibly wrest it from him. He would stand so firm on a discus,' which had been oiled to make it the more slippery, that it was impossible to move him on these occasions. He would bind his head with a cord, after which holding his breath strongly, the veins of his head would swell so prodigiously as to break the rope. When Milo, fixing his elbow on his side, stretched forth his right hand quite open, with his fingers held close one to the other, his thumb excepted, which he raised, the utmost strength of man could not separate his little finger from the other three. All this was only a vain and puerile ostentation of his strength. Chance, however, gave him an opportunity of making a much more laudable use of it. One day as he was attending the lectures of Pythagoras, for he was one of his most constant disciples, the pillar which supported the cieling of the school in which the pupils were assembled, being shaken by some accident, Milo supported it by his single strength, gave the auditors time to get away, and afterwards escaped himself. What is related of the voracious appetite of the Athlete is almost incredible. "Milo's appetite was scarce satiated with twenty mina, pounds of meat, the same quantity of bread, and three "congii" of wine every day. Atheneus relates, that this champion having run the whole length of the stadium, with This discus was a kind of quoit, flat and round. * Strab. 1. vi. p. 263. a bull of four years old on his shoulders, he afterwards knocked him down with one stroke of his fist, and eat the whole beast that very day. I will take it for granted that all the other particulars related of Milo are true; but is it probable that one man could devour a whole ox in so short a time? W We are told that Milo, when advanced to a very great age, seeing the rest of the champions wrestling, and gazing upon his own arms, which once were so vigorous and robust, but were then very much enfeebled by time, he burst into tears, and cried, "Alas! these arms are now dead." X And yet he either forgot or concealed his weakness from himself; the strong persuasion he entertained of his own strength, and which he preserved to the last, proving fatal to him. Happening to meet, as he was travelling, an old oak, which had been opened by some wedges that were forced into it, he undertook to split it in two by his bare strength: but after forcing out the wedges, his arms were catched in the trunk of the tree, by the violence with which it closed; so that being unable to dissengage his hands, he was devoured by wolves. ▾ An author has judiciously observed, that this surprisingly robust champion, who prided himself so much in his bodily strength was the weakest of men with regard to a passion which often subdues and captivates the strongest; a courtezan having gained so great an ascendant over Milo, that she tyrannized over him in the most imperious manner and made him obey whatever commands she laid upon him. Cic. de Senec. n. 27. * Pausan. 1. vi. p. 370. Ælian. I. ii. c. 24. CHAPTER III. THE WAR OF PELOPONNESUS. THE Peloponnesian war, which I am now entering upon, began about the end of the first year of the eighty seventh Olympiad, and lasted twenty seven years. Thucydides has written the history of it to the twenty first year inclusively. He gives us an accurate account of the several transactions of every year, which he divides into campaigns and winter quarters. However, I shall not be so minute, and shall only extract such parts of it as appear most entertaining and instructive. Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus will also be of great assistance to me on this occasion. SECTION I. THE SIEGE OF PLATEA BY THE THEBANS, &c. &c. a THE first act of hostility by which the war began, was committed by the Thebans, who besieged Platea, a city of Beotia, in alliance with Athens. They were introduced into it by treachery; but the citizens falling upon them in the night, killed them, about two hundred excepted, who were taken prisoners, and who a little after were put to death. The Athenians, as soon as the news was brought of the action at Platea, sent succours and provisions thither, and cleared the city of all persons who were incapable of bearing arms. a * A. M. 3573. Ant. J. C. 431. Thucyd. I. ii. p. 99—122. Diod. 1. xii. p. 97-100. Plut. in Pericl P. 170. |
