his titles, and surrounded by all his conquests, even if considered in a military light, when compared to those heroes, who were truly great, and worthy their exalted reputation! SECT. XX.

Reflections on the Persians, Greeks, and Macedonians, by Monsieur Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux.

The reader will not be displeased with my inserting here part of the admirable reflections of the Bishop of Meaux, on the character and government of the Persians, Greeks, and Macedonians, with whose history we have been engaged.

The Greek nations, several of whom had, at first, lived under a monarchical form of government, having studied the arts of civil polity, imagined they were able to govern themselves, and most of their cities formed themselves into commonwealths. But the wise legislators, who arose in every country, as a Thales, a Pythagoras, a Pittacus, a Lycurgus, a Solon, and many others mentioned in history, prevented liberty from degenerating into licentiousness. Laws, drawn up with great simplicity, and few in number, awed the people, held them in their duty, and made them all conspire to the general good of the country.

The idea of liberty, which such a conduct inspired, was wonderful. For the liberty, which the Greeks figured to themselves was subject to the law, that is, to reason itself, acknowledged as such by the whole nation. They would not let men rise to power among them. Magistrates who were feared during their office, became afterwards private men, and had no authority but what their experience gave them. The law was considered as their sovereign; it was she who appointed magistrates, prescribed the limits of their power, and punished their mal-administration. The advantage of this government was, the citizens bore so much the greater love to their country, as all shared in the government of it; and as every individual was capable of attaining its highest dignities.

The advantages which accrued to Greece from philosophy with regard to the preservation of its form of government, is incredible. The greater freedom these nations enjoyed, the greater necessity there was to settle the laws relating to manners, and those of society, agreeably to reason and good sense. From Pythagoras, Thales, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Archytas, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and a multitude more, the Greeks received their noble precepts.

But why should we mention philosophers only? The writings of even the poets, which were in every body's hands, amused them very much, but instructed them still more. a Discourse on universal history. Part in. chap. 4.

The most renowned of conquerors considered Homer as a master who taught him to govern wisely. This great poet instructed people no less happily in obedience and the duties of a good citizen.

When the Greeks, thus educated, saw the delicacy of the Asiatics, their dress and beauty, emulating that of women, they held them in the utmost contempt. But their form of government, that had no other rule than their prince's will, which took place of all laws, not excepting the most sacred, inspired them with horror; and the Barbarians were the most hateful of objects to Greece.

The Greeks had imbibed this hatred in the most early times, and it was become almost natural to them. A circumstance which made these nations delight so much in Homer's poems, was his celebrating the advantages and victories of Greece over Asia. On the side of Asia was Venus, that is to say, the pleasures, the idle loves, and effeminacy: on that of Greece was Juno, or, in other words, gravity, with conjugal affection, Mercury with eloquence, and Jupiter with wise policy. With the Asiatics was Mars, an impetuous and brutal deity, that is to say, war carried on with fury with the Greeks Pallas, or, in other words, the science of war and valour, conducted by reason. The Grecians, from this time, had ever imagined, that understanding and true bravery were natural as well as peculiar to them. They could not bear the thoughts of Asia's design to conquer them; and, in bowing to this yoke, they would have thought they had subjected virtue to pleasure, the mind to the body, and true courage to brutal strength, which consisted merely in numbers.

The Greeks were strongly inspired with these sentiments, when Darius, son of Hystaspes, and Xerxes invaded them with armies so prodigiously numerous as exceeds all belief. The Persians found often, to their cost, the great advantage which discipline has over multitudes and confusion; and how greatly superior courage (when conducted by skill) is to a blind ímpetuosity.

Persia, after having been so often conquered by the Greeks, had nothing to do but to sow divisions among them; and the height to which conquests had raised the latter facilitated their efforts. As fear held them in the bands of union, victory and security dissolved them. Having always been used to fight and conquer, they no sooner believed that they had no longer any thing to fear from the power of the Persians, than they turned their arms against each other.

Among the several republics, of which Greece was composed, Athens and Lacedæmon were, undoubtedly, the chief: & Plat. de Leg. 1. iii.

a Isocrates in Panegyr.

These two great commonwealths, whose manners and conduct were directly opposite, perplexed and incommoded one another, in the common design they had of subjecting all Greece: so that they were eternally at variance, and this more from a contrariety of interests than an opposition of tempers and dispositions.

The Grecian cities would not subject themselves to either: for, besides that every one of them desired to live free and independant, they were not pleased with the government of either of those two commonwealths. We have shown, in the course of this history, that the Peloponnesian and other wars were either owing to, or supported by, the reciprocal jealousy of Lacedæmon and Athens. But, at the same time, that this jealousy disturbed, it supported, Greece in some measure, and kept it from being dependant on either of those republics.

The Persians soon perceived this state and condition of Greece; after which, the whole secret of their politics was to keep up these jealousies, and foment these divisions. Lacedæmon, being the most ambitious, was the first that made them engage in the Grecian quarrels. The Persians took part in them, with a view of subjecting the whole nation; and, industrious to make the Greeks weaken one another, they only waited for the favourable instant to crush them altogether. And now the cities of Greece considered, in their wars, only the king of Persia; whom they called the great king, or the king, by way of eminence, as if they already thought themselves his subjects. However, when Greece was upon the brink of slavery, and ready to fall into the hands of the Barbarians, it was impossible for the genius, the ancient spirit, of the country not to rouse and take the alarm. Agesilaus, king of Lacedæmonia, made the Persians tremble in Asia Minor, and showed that they might be humbled. Their weakness was still more evident, by the glorious retreat of the 10,000 Greeks, who had followed the younger Cyrus.

It was then that all Greece saw more plainly than ever, that it possessed an invincible body of soldiery, which was able to subdue all nations; and that nothing but its feuds and divisions could subject it to an enemy, who was too weak to resist it when united.

Philip, of Macedon, a prince, whose abilities were equal to his valour, took so great advantage of the divisions which reigned between the various cities and commonwealths, that, though his kingdom was but small, yet, as it was united, and his power absolute, he, at last, partly by artifice and partly by strength, rose to greater power than any of the Grecian

a Plat. de Leg. 1. iij. Isocrat in Paneg

states, and obliged them all to march, under his standards, against the common enemy. This was the state of Greece, when Philip lost his life, and Alexander, his son, succeeded to his kingdom, and to the designs he had projected.

The Macedonians, at his accession, were not only well disciplined and inured to toils, but triumphant; and become, by so many successes, almost as much superior to the other Greeks, in valour and discipline, as the rest of the Greeks were superior to the Persians, and to such nations as resembled them.

Darius, who reigned over Persia in Alexander's time, was a just, brave, and generous, prince; was beloved by his subjects, and wanted neither good sense nor vigour for the execution of his designs. But, if we compare them, if we oppose the genius of Darius, to the penetrating, sublime, one of Alexander; the valour of the former to the mighty invincible courage (which obstacles animated) of the latter; with that boundless desire of Alexander of augmenting his glory, and his entire belief that all things ought to bow the neck to him, as being formed by Providence superior to the rest of mortals; a belief with which he inspired not only his generals, but the meanest of his soldiers, who, thereby, rose above difficulties, and even above themselves; the reader will easily judge which of the monarchs was to be victorious.

If to these considerations we add the advantages which the Greeks and Macedonians had over their enemies, it must be confessed, that it was impossible for the Persian empire to subsist any longer, when invaded by so great a hero, and by such invincible armies. And thus we discover, at one and the same time, the circumstance which ruined the empire of the Persians and raised that of Alexander.

To smooth his way to victory, the Persians happened to lose the only general who was able to make head against the Greeks, and this was Memnon, of Rhodes. So long as Alexander fought against this illustrious warrior, he might glory in having vanquished an enemy worthy of himself. But, in the very infancy of a diversion, which began already to divide Greece, Memnon died, after which Alexander obliged all things to give way before him.

This prince made his entrance into Babylon with a splendour and magnificence which had never been seen before; and, after having revenged Greece, after subduing, with incredible swiftness, all the nations subject to Persia, to secure his new empire on every side, or rather to satiate his ambition, and render his name more famous than that of Bacchus, he marched into India, and there extended his conquests farther than that celebrated conqueror had done. But the monarch, whose impetuous career neither deserts, rivers, nor

mountains, could stop, was obliged to yield to the murmurs of his soldiers, who called aloud for ease and repose.

Alexander returned to Babylon, dreaded and respected, not as a conqueror but as a god. Nevertheless, the formidable empire he had acquired subsisted no longer than his life, which was but short. At 33 years of age, in the midst of the grandest designs that ever man formed, and flushed with the surest hopes of success, he died before he had leisure to settle his affairs on a solid foundation; leaving behind him a weak brother, and children very young, all incapable of supporting the weight of such a power.

But the circumstance which proved most fatal to his family and empire was his having taught the generals who survived him to breathe nothing but ambition and war. He foresaw the prodigious lengths they would go after his death. To curb their ambitious views, and for fear of mistaking in his conjectures, he did not dare to name his successor, or the guardian of his children. He only foretold, that his friends would solemnize his obsequies with bloody battles; and he expired in the flower of his age, full of the sad images of the confusion which would follow his death.

And, indeed, Macedonia, the kingdom he inherited, which his ancestors had governed during so many ages, was invaded on all sides, as a succession that was become vacant; and after being long exposed a prey to the strongest, was, t last, possessed by another family. Thus this great conqueror, the most renowned the world ever saw, was the last king of his family. Had he lived peaceably in Macedon, the vast bounds of his empire would not have proved a temptation to his generals, and he would have left to his children the kingdom he inherited from his ancestors. But, rising to too exalted an height of power, he proved the destruction of his posterity; and such was the glorious fruit of all his conquests.