3. Southern Italy was then called Magna Grecia, and was occupied by a population originally Greek, among whom the Greek philosophy, language, and arts prevailed. Numbers from this country attended the games, and afterwards appeared among the suitors of Agarista, who thought themselves equally entitled with any Grecian to this illustrious alliance. Sybaris, which may be seen near the bay of Tarentum, was among the most opulent and powerful of the Greek cities in Italy, and so extremely luxurious were its inhabitants, that to call a man a Sybarite, became a proverbial expression to intimate one devoted solely to his own pleasures. Among such was Smindyrides, a rich and voluptuous Sybarite. He arrived at Sicyon in a galley of his own, and his retinue consisted of several hundred slaves, all of whom were devoted in some way or other to the gratification of their master's appetites, and the indulgence of his indolence. Of him it was said that he could not sleep if the rose leaves with which his bed was strewed were accidentally doubled. This extreme effeminacy is in fact such an excess of selfishness as makes a man despicable, and such a man could have small chance to gain the affections of any rational woman. Leocides, a prince of Argos, Laphanes of Arcadia, Magacles, a noble Athenian, Hippoclides, a native of the same city, distinguished by his wealth, his wit, and his beauty, and eight other Greeks, were the rivals of the Sybarite.

4. The court of Sicyon was wholly taken up with festivals for the entertainment of these guests, and every thing was devised that could exhibit

their respective talents. Clisthenes, during the time which he allotted to their probation, conversed frequently with all of them, and attentively studied their characters. He secretly preferred the Athenian, Hippoclides. The day in which the decision of the father was to be made known, for the choice of the daughter seems to have been little regarded, a whole hetacomb, that is, an hundred oxen, was offered in sacrifice, and a sumptuous banquet followed, which the whole court and all the visitors attended.

5. The company talked at the feast upon music, and such other subjects as such gay occasions usually suggest. The vivacity of Hippoclides never tired, and the charms of his conversation fixed the attachment of the king of Sicyon, till a flute player striking up a certain air, Hippoclides began a licentious dance, and performed first the dances of Lacedæmon, and then those of Athens, and from this proceeded to extravagances which so shocked Clisthenes, that he cried out, "Son of Tisander, you have danced the rupture of your marriage." Then commanding silence, Clisthenes thanked the competitors, begged each of them to accept a talent of silver, and declared that he bestowed his daughter on Megacles, the son of Alemæon. From this marriage the celebrated Pericles was descended.

17

ACHAIA.

1. Was a province of Peloponnesus. It lay on the Corinthian Gulf, and was bounded by Ar cadia and Elis. The Achaians were poor, and so attached to peace that they did not join the Greeks against the Persian invaders. Helice was once the principal city of Achaia, but it was destroyed by an earthquake, 373 B. C. Egium was thenceforth the chief town. Achaia, from the earliest times, was divided into twelve cities, and their dependent territory, and deputies assembled yearly at Egium, to transact the public affairs.

2. Achaia, if not the most glorious, was perhaps the happiest state of Greece. The inhabi tants were almost without commerce, they lived upon the product of their soil, and were strangers to the desire of conquest; they were not rich enough to invite the rapacity of other nations, and the love of liberty lingered among them after the haughty necks of more powerful states were submitted to the yoke of the invader. All their cities had the same laws and the same magistracy, they formed one body and one state, and an undisturbed union prevailed among the different classes of the citizens.

THE ACHAIAN LEAGUE.

1 From the battle of Chæronea, &c. to the taking of Corinth, 189 years, the states of Greece did not tamely submit to the Macedonian tyranny. Several Greek cities of Achaia united about fifty years after to preserve their liberty; Corinth and some other cities joined the Achaians, and their confederacy was called the Achaian league. The Achaian league carried on wars to assert their independence: Aratus of Sicyon was made their general more than 200 B. C.: he drove the Macedonians from Athens and Corinth; but when the Etolians attacked the Achaians, Aratus was obliged to accept aid from the king of Macedon. A dispute afterwards arose between them and the Macedonian monarch, which caused Aratus to be poisoned. He is reckoned among the last defenders of Greek liberty.

2. The next celebrated general of the Achaian league was Philopomen, a native of Magalopolis, in Arcadia. The Spartans acted in open hostility to the Achaians, and Philopomen turned his arms against them; he took Sparta, B. C. 188.

3. The Messenians had been members of the Achaian league, they revolted, and Philopomen undertook to punish them, but he unfortunately fell into their hands, and they condemned him to the fate of Aratus. He perished thus in his seventieth year, B. C. 183, after he had spent forty of those years to defend the ancient liberties of Greece. He is often called, the last of the Greeks.

ATHENIAN EDUCATION..

When a child was born in Athens, the happy occasion was indicated by a crown of olive hung over the door, if the infant was a boy, and by a lock of wool, if it was a girl. This practice began when the people were in the earliest stage of civilization; when agriculture was the chief occupation of the men, and domestic manufactures of the women.

2. The law permitted the father of a child to determine whether it should live or die: if a new born infant was deformed, or showed any marks of an infirm constitution, the father averted his eyes when the child was first presented to him. This was a sentence of death to the poor child, which was immediately after executed.

3. The Nurse of an infant was cherished and honoured by his parents, and almost always retained in their family. The nurses took the principal care of children among the Athenians, till they were sent to school, at six years of age. The inhabitants of Athens were divided into ten tribes, and these into three curia; and each curia was subdivided into thirty classes. A class then was the ninetieth part of a tribe. The families of the same curiæ considered one another as brothers, and were associated in their festivals which were of a religious import, in their sacrifices, and in their public worship.

4. A child was recorded by his name in a pub. lic register, as belonging to one of the curiæ, before he had reached his seventh year. The solemnity of admitting the children, in this manner, to be ci