strongly impelled, from the fact that they were not content to enjoy their own liberty, but were ever ready liberally to support every nation that laboured for emancipation from the yoke of Persia; and they had caused their power to be more dreaded by constantly retaining in their service a great body of Grecians, under the command of Chabrias, a celebrated Athenian.

Two years were spent in preparations for the invasion of Egypt. In order to augment his army with tried troops, Artaxerxes used every means to conciliate the states of Greece, that he might, with safety, withdraw the soldiers who were garrisoned in the principal cities to overawe them. Greece exulted in the unrestrained liberty granted them to live according to their own laws. The Thebans alone refused to be dictated to by the great king, for they ardently aspired to the sovereignty of Greece; and this object seemed at this time attainable from the great celebrity of their generals, Pelopidas and Epaminondas, particularly the latter, one of the greatest generals that ever appeared in Greece. Ptolemais or Acre was the place appointed for the assembling of the invading army, which was found to consist of two hundred thousand Persians, under the command of Pharnabasus, and twenty thousand Greeks under Iphicrates. Their forces at sea were in proportion to those at land; their fleet consisting of three hundred galleys, besides two hundred vessels of thirty oars, and a prodigious number of barks to transport the necessary provisions for the fleet and army. Both commanders were eminently fitted to conduct the troops to victory; but the Persians declined to follow the advice of the Greeks lest the success, of which they had no doubt, should be wholly ascribed to the Greeks. This occasioned at first a delay in the prosecuting of the war, which left time for the Egyptians to recover from the panic which had seized them on the appearance of such a formidable enemy; and it appears to have ultimately proved the chief cause of the utter failure of the enterprise. The Nile at that time fell into the sea by seven streams, and each was defended at its entrance by a fortress. The Mendesian, which was the weakest, was carried sword in hand, and the garrison put to death, Iphicrates proposed to advance instantly to Memphis, the metropolis; but Pharnabasus insisted that it was necessary to wait till the largest division of the army should arrive. In the meantime the Egyptian army had assembled under their able king Nectanebus, in such numbers as to harass the enemy

and arrest their progress, till the time of the inundation of the river arrived, they spread over the country, and compelled the enemy to retire to Phenicia. The subjugation of Egypt occupied the attention of Artaxerxes' remaining years; but he ventured no more to invade it. On the contrary, he had to defend Phenicia from an attack by Tachos, who succeeded Nectanebus, to the throne of Egypt. In his absence from his kingdom, a relation also named Nectanebus, seized his throne, in which he was some time maintained by the able direction of Agesilaus, one of the kings of Sparta, who with a number of his subjects had gone to Egypt to strengthen Tachos against the Persians. The latter soon afterwards went to the Persian court, where he found favour, and was appointed to command troops to reduce his rebellious subjects to obedience. Thus the Jews continued many years, if not overrun by an enemy, surrounded by troops, from whose depredations they most probably suffered much, and doubtless longed to be rescued from the tyrannical. rule of Persia. It is not therefore surprising if they joined the great revolt, as it is supposed they did, which happened towards the end of the life of Artaxerxes. This memorable event may be traced to the degeneracy of that monarch in his old age. He indulged in sloth and luxury, and left his people to the government of persons who betrayed their trust, and cruelly oppressed the provinces, so that the Persian yoke became insupportable. Universal discontent prevailed; Asia Minor, Syria, Phenicia, and indeed the greatest part of the provinces, nearly at the same time, resorted to arms, to liberate themselves from their oppressors. From want of union, this general insurrection, which brought the empire to the brink of ruin, was speedily suppressed, or dissolved of itself; but it was ominous of the final overthrow of the third great power which upheld the dominion of moral darkness on the earth.

A Persian king had only one wife, but his concubines were numerous, and his children not uncommonly brought his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. The sanguinary ambition of the sons of Artaxerxes, drenched his court with the blood of his own race, and in grief unspeakable he closed his eyes for ever. He had declared his eldest son Darius his successor, but that unprincipled man was impatient to ascend the throne. Following the counsel of Tiribaus, whom the king had offended, he conspired to assassinate his father. Of one hundred and fifty sons of Artaxerxes by his concubines, not less then fifty consented to be the accomplices of their bro

her in this dreadful crime. Their scheme was revealed to the king, and he permitted all the conspirators to enter the royal chamber, when they were instantly seized and slain. Arispus and Ochus, the brothers of Darius by the queen, and Arsanes, a son of a concubine, now struggled for the throne. Ochus, by the craft of his emissaries, wrought on the timid nature of his maternal brother, so to terrify him by imaginary or apparent evils that he poisoned himself; and he prevailed on the son of Tiribasus to assassinate the other rival. These things are believed to have hastened the death of the king, and permitted Ochus silently to exercise the sovereign power.

CHAPTER VII.

THE REIGN OF ARTAXERXES OCHUS.

THE unnatural, treacherous, and cruel actions of this prince rendered him universally hated and hateful; and, conscious of this, to secure the throne he concealed the death of his father ten months, during which period he governed in his name. By a decree in his father's name, he caused himself to be proclaimed king throughout the whole empire. On publicly ascending the throne, he assumed the name of Artaxerxes, and quickly removed by death all the members of his family and court whom he suspected to be his enemies. Eighty of his brothers were murdered by him in one day; he caused his sister Ocha, whose daughter he had married, to be buried alive; and one of his uncles, with a hundred of his sons and grandsons, he put to death by arrows. These rare

ly paralleled crimes were not calculated to establish his throne; wherever he was known he was hated and feared, and the announcement of the death of the aged and generally esteemed king, B. c. 356, was the signal of revolt in several of the provinces.

In Asia Minor, Artabasus, one of its governors, raised the standard of independence; and, assisted first by the Athenians and next by the Thebans, he thrice defeated the large army sent against him; but these allies having deserted him, he was soon overcome, and fled for refuge to Philip, king of Macedon. The Phenicians avowed their determination to be free; Nectabanus, king of Egypt, gladly supported them, for he hoped by this to arrest the progress of the armies of Persia, destined to reduce his kingdom. He had many Greeks in his service, and of these he sent four thousand under the command of Mentor, a Rhodian, justly deemed one of the ablest warriors and statesmen of the age. Led on by him, the Phenicians overthrew the armies which the governors of Syria and Cilicia brought against them, and expelled the Per

sians from Phenicia. Their example was eagerly followed by all the chiefs or kings of Cyprus; they formed an alliance with Egypt, but they quickly discovered how hopeless it was to contend with the Persian troops. The Persian king appointed Idrieus king of Caria, to command the land army, and Phocian the Athenian accompanied by Evagoras, to be admiral of the fleet, with eight thousand Greeks. Evagoras had perfect knowledge of the island, for it is believed that he was the son of Nicocles, and succeeded him to the throne of Salamis, which, on account of his tyrannical rule, he had been obliged to abdicate. The nine kings of Cyprus submitted on favourable terms, which were the more willingly granted them by Artaxerxes from his extreme solicitude to recover Egypt and Phenicia. He ascribed the failure of his plans to accomplish these most important and desirable objects to the misconduct of his generals, and he therefore purposed to place himself at the head of his army. This idea he had entertained for some time, and had made immense preparations for the campaign, and in particular had strenuously endeavoured to prevail on the States of Greece to unite in the bond of peace, and permit him to raise a large band of Grecians; for he relied more on a small body of Greeks than on a large army of Persians. He conducted to Phenicia three hundred thousand foot and thirty thousand horse, and was afterwards joined by ten thousand Greeks. Mentor, who had defended Egypt and delivered Phenicia, was in Sidon with his Grecian troops when the king reached that city. The Rhodian, on viewing the army, concluded that resistance would be in vain. He secretly corresponded with Artaxerxes, and, apparently with the consent of Tennes, the Sidonian prince, offered to surrender Sidon, and serve him in Egypt. The citizens, thus betrayed by their natural defenders, were worthy of a happier destiny; for on the approach of the enemy they had set fire to their ships, that, hope of escape being cut off, all might resolutely defend their ancient and noble city; and when they found themselves sacrificed-the invaders without the walls-and that there was no possibility of escaping either by sea or land in the despair of their condition, they shut themselves up in their houses, and set them on fire. Forty thousand men without reckoning women and children, perished in this manner. The fate of Tennes their king was no better. Ochus, seeing himself master of Sidon, and having to further occasion for him, caused him to be put to death,a just reward of his treason, and an evident proof that Ochus did not yield to him in perfidy,