to their own grandeur, made answer, that they would never be reproached with having destroyed a city that had rendered such great services to all Greece, the remembrance of which ought to have much greater weight with the allies, than the resentment of private injuries received from it. The peace was therefore concluded under these conditions: "that the fortifications of the Pireus, with the long wall that joined that port to the city, should be demolished; that the Athenians should deliver up all their galleys, twelve only excepted; that they should abandon all the cities they had seized, and content themselves with their own lands and country; that they should recal their exiles, and make a league offensive and defensive with the Lacedemonians, under whom they should march wherever they thought fit to lead them."

The deputies on their return were surrounded with an innumerable throng of people, who apprehended that nothing had been concluded; for they were not able to hold out any longer, such multitudes dying every day of famine. The next day they reported the success of their negociation; the treaty was ratified, notwithstanding the opposition of some persons; and Lysander, followed by the exiles, entered the port. It was upon the very day the Athenians had formerly gained the famous naval battle of Salamin. He caused the walls to be demolished to the sound of flutes and trumpets, and with all the exterior marks of triumph and rejoicing, as if all Greece had that day regained its liberty. Thus ended the Peloponnesian war, after having continued during the space of twenty seven years.

Lysander, without giving the Athenians time to look about them, changed the form of their government entirely, established thirty archons, or rather tyrants, over the city, put a good garrison into the citadel, and left the Spartan Callibius harmostes, or governor. Agis dismissed his troops. Lysander, before he disbanded his, advanced against Samos, which he pressed so warmly, that it was at last obliged to capitulate. After having established its ancient inhabitants in it, he proposed to return to Sparta with the Lacedemonian galleys, those of the Pireus, and the beaks of those he had taken.

He had sent Gylippus, who had commanded the army in Sicily, before him, to carry the money and spoils which were the fruit of his glorious campaigns, to Lacedemon. The money, without reckoning the innumerable crowns of gold, given him by the cities, amounted to fifteen hundred talents, that is to say, one million five hundred thousand crowns, Gylippus, who carried this considerable sum, could not resist the temptation of converting some part of it to his own use. The bags were sealed up carefully, and did not seem to leave any room for theft. He unsewed them at the bottom, and after having taken out of each of them what money he thought fit, to the amount of three hundred talents, he sewed them up again very neatly, and thought himself perfectly safe; but when he arrived at Sparta, the accounts, which had been put in each bag, discovered him. To avoid punishment, he banished himself from his country, carrying along with him in all places the dis

grace of having sullied, by so base and sordid an avarice, the glory of all his great actions.

From this unhappy example, the wisest and most distinguished of the Spartans, apprehending the all powerful effects of money, which enslaved not only the vulgar, but even the greatest of men, extremely blamed Ly. sander for having acted so contradictorily to the fundamental laws of Sparta, and warmly represented to the Ephori, how incumbent it was upon them to banish 1all the gold and silver from the republic, and to lay the heaviest of curses and imprecations upon it, as the fatal bane of all other states, introduced only to corrupt the wholesome constitution of the Spartan government, which had supported itself for so many ages with vigor and prosperity. The Ephori immediately passed a decree to proscribe that money, and ordained that none should be current, except the usual pieces of iron. But Lysander's friends opposed this decree, and sparing no pains to retain the gold and silver in Sparta, the affair was referred for further deliberation. There naturally seemed only two methods to be considered, which were, either to make the gold and silver species current, or to cry them down and prohibit them absolutely. The men of address and policy found out a third expedient, which in their sense reconciled both the others with great success: this was wisely to choose the mean betwixt the vicious extremes of too much rigor and too much neglect. It was therefore resolved, that the new coin of gold and silver should be soiely employed by the public treasury; that it should only pass in the occasions and uses of the state; and

* Αποδιοπομπείσθαι και το αργύριον και το χρυσίον, ώσπερ πηρας επαγωγιμες:

that every private person in whose possession it should be found should be immediately put to death.

A strange expedient, says Plutarch! As if Lycurgus had feared the species of gold and silver, and not the avarice they occasion; an avarice, less to be extinguished by prohibiting to particulars the possession of it, than inflamed by permitting the state to amass and make use of it for the service of the public; for it was impossible, whilst that money was in honour and esteem with the public, that it should be despised in private as useless, and that people should look upon that as of no value in their domestic affairs, which the city prized, and were so much concerned to have for its occasions; bad usages, authorized by the practice and example of the public, being a thousand times more dangerous to particulars, than the vices of particulars to the public. The Lacedemonians therefore, continues Plutarch, in punishing those with death who should make use of the new money in private, were so blind and imprudent to imagine, that the placing of the law, and the terror of punishment as a guard at the door, was sufficient to prevent gold and silver from entering the house; they left the hearts of their citizens open to the desire and admiration of riches, and introduced themselves a violent passion for amassing treasure, in causing it to be deemed a great and honourable thing to become rich.

It was about the end of the Peloponnesian war, that Darius Nothus king of Persia died, after a reign of nineteen years. Cyrus had arrived at the court before his death, and Parysatis his mother, whose idol he

m A. M. 3600. Ant. J. C. 404.

was, not contented with having made his peace, notwithstanding the faults he had committed in his government, pressed the old king to declare him his successor also, after the example of Darius the first, who gavė Xerxes the preference before all his brothers, because born as Cyrus was, after his father's accession to the throne. But Darius did not carry his complaisance for her so far. He gave the crown to Arsaces, his eldest son by Parysatis also, whom Plutarch calls Arsi. cas, and bequeathed only to Cyrus the provinces he had already.