conduct, however, proved no better than that of their predecessors. 16. Though the government was thus altered, and the thirty deprived of their power, they still had hopes of being reinstated in their former authority, and sent deputies to Sparta to demand aid. Lysan'der was for granting it; but Pausa'nias, who then reigned in Sparta, moved with compassion at the deplorable condition of the Athenians, favoured them in private, and obtained a peace for them': it was sealed with the blood of the tyrants, who, having taken arms to restore themselves to power, were put to the sword, and Athens left in full possession of its liberty. (B. C. 403.) 17. Thrasyb'ulus then proposed an amnesty, by which the citizens engaged upon oath that all past actions should be buried in oblivion. The government was re-established upon its ancient footing, the laws recovered their former vigour, the magistrates were elected with the usual ceremonies, and democracy was once more restored to this unfortunate people. These events took place in the Archonship of Eucli'des, and hence the phrase, "before Eucli'des," became a proverbial expression for events beyond the time of legal memory. Questions. 1. How did the Lacedæmonians treat the Athenians? 5. How was Alcibiades slain? 6. Did the tyrants share their power with any portion of the people? 7 Why did Theramenes incur the hatred of his associates ? 8. Does any circumstance diminish our pity for his fate? 1 Pausanias, it is probable, was more actuated by envy of Lysander than by compassion for the Athenians, in his opposition to the plans of that general. Whatever might be his motive, however, Athens owed to him that she was not annexed to the dominions of Sparta. 9. How did Socrates prove his courage and love of justice? 10. Did the tyrants persevere in cruelty ? 11. How did the Lacedæmonians act? 12. Did any of the Grecian states shelter the Athenians? 13. Who attempted the liberation of Athens ? 14. Did the enterprise succeed? 15. By what prudent conduct did Thrasybulus engage the army to dethrone the tyrants? 16. On whom did the tyrants depend for succour ? 17. How was the state of Athens finally settled? 1. THE many revolutions which had lately taken place in the Athenian form of government, and the gross injustice with which trials involving party feeling had been conducted, produced a very injurious effect on the minds of the people, and made them the easy dupes of orators, who flattered their vanity, and inflamed their passions. This was fatally experienced by Socrates, the wisest and best of the Athenian philosophers, who found that neither the innocence of his life, nor his abstinence from public affairs, could protect him from the envy and malice of his enemies. 2. He had been originally the son of a sculptor, and is said to have worked as a statuary in his early life; but he deserted this occupation for the study of philosophy, and avoiding the idle disquisitions of his contemporaries, aimed at forming such a system of morals as might best contribute to the happiness of individuals, and the security of the state. 3. There were then in Athens a number of public lecturers called Sophists, who professed to instruct youth in eloquence and reasoning; they regarded truth as a matter of indifference, and declared themselves ready to maintain any assertion, however false or absurd, by their skill in argument. Such men could not fail of procuring a great number of followers in a popular state like Athens, where every thing was decided in the public assemblies. 4. In consequence a great laxity of principle became every where apparent, for nothing is more pernicious than the habit of defending falsehood; and the profligacy of the public men at Athens, in attacking innocence and screening guilt, was as notorious as it was abominable. 5. Socrates was a formidable antagonist of the Sophists, whose quibbles he overthrew by his strong common sense; but he thus raised up against himself a body of powerful enemies, eager to destroy one who thus curtailed their profitable employment, and very unscrupulous in the use of means by which their object might be effected. 6. Though he always abstained as much as possible from interfering in the affairs of state, we find him coming forward on two memorable occasions, to prevent his countrymen from committing great crimes; he defended the admirals for their pretended misconduct at Arginu'sæ against the infuriate violence of the populace; and he boldly protested against the illegal murder of Therame'nes by the thirty tyrants. His intrepidity was exhibited in vain, and he provoked on both occasions the hostility of a great number, who eagerly sought an opportunity for his destruction. 7. At length three rhetoricians or teachers of oratory, Meli'tus, Any'tus, and Ly'con, accused Socrates, before the people, of introducing strange gods, and of corrupting the youth. (B. C. 400.) 8. This charge should legally have been heard before the court of Areiopagus, but the accusers contrived that it should be tried in the Heli'æa, a court composed of about five hundred judges, selected indifferently from the great body of the people. 9. The friends and disciples of Socrates were greatly alarmed at the danger to which he was exposed, but he himself remained perfectly unmoved; he rejected the elaborate defence which had been prepared for him by Ly'sias, and replied to the charges of his accusers with a firmness which enraged his judges, who were accustomed to see criminals solicit their mercy. 10. He was found guilty by a majority of three voices. On being asked, according to the strange custom of Athens, to name his punishment, he demanded to be maintained in the Prytanei'um at the public expense. This completed the indignation of the judges, and they immediately sentenced him to drink hemlock, the usual manner of executing state criminals. 11. It happened that the day before his trial, the high priest had crowned the stern of the vessel sent annually to Delos to commemorate the liberation of Athens by Theseus; from the performance of this ceremony until the return of the vessel, it was unlawful to execute any criminal in Athens. Socrates employed this long interval in delivering to his pupils those beautiful moral lessons which form the principal charm of the dialogues of Pla'to. During these thirty days, several plans of escape were projected, but he steadily spurned such offers, and when at length the fatal vessel returned, he submitted to the unjust sentence with the greatest firmness and resignation. The persecution raised against the philosopher extended also to his disciples, who were forced to seek safety in exile; but in a few years tardy justice was done to his memory; the Athenians, too late perceiving their error, turned their anger against those by whom they had been instigated to commit such a crime. 12. Of those who brought about the condemnation of Socrates, some were executed, others ba nished, and many unable to bear the popular odium, committed suicide; while the Athenian people, passing from one extreme to the other, erected a chapel to Socrates, and superstitiously honoured him as a god whom they had unjustly condemned as a criminal. 13. While these events took place in Athens, Asia was the scene of a brief but glorious struggle, which greatly raised the character of the Greeks for valour and conduct. Cy'rus, the younger son of Dari'us No'thus, the Persian king, had from his infancy shown far superior powers of thought and action to those of his elder brother Artaxerxes; his mother, Parysa'tis, had vainly laboured to persuade Darius to change the order of succession in his favour; but the old king steadily refusing, she only succeeded in stimulating the ambition of one son, and awakening the jealousy of the other. 14. Soon after the death of Dari'us, Artaxerxes, at the instigation of Tissapher'nes, threw Cyrus into prison, and would have put him to death, but for the intercession of his mother. At her request, he was not only pardoned, but restored to the government of Lesser Asia, which he had held in the lifetime of his father. 15. As during his former administration, he had been of the most essential service to the Spartans, and was indeed the principal cause of their great success, he found it easy to renew his alliance with that people, while at the same time he conciliated the Asiatic Greeks by the justice and mildness of his administration. But the memory of the insult he had suffered, and the danger he had escaped, still rankled in the bosom of Cyrus ; he resolved to dethrone his brother, and for this purpose obtained from the Lacedæmonians permission to enlist soldiers in Greece, while he silently assembled an army in Asia. 16. The desired leave was granted: a body amounting to about thirteen thousand was collected, under the command of Clear'chus, from the different states of Greece; several young men of rank joined as volunteers, amongst whom was Xen'ophon, |