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tions: "That the fortifications of the Piræus, with Darius "the long wall that joined that port to the city, Nothus. "should be demolished; that the Athenians should "deliver up all their gallies, 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 recall their "exiles, and make a league offensive and defensive "with the Lacedæmonians, 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 negotiation; 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 oblig ed to capitulate. After having established its ancient inhabitants in it, he proposed to return to Sparta with the Lacedæmonian gallies, those of the Piræus, and the beaks of those he had taken,

Darius Nothus.

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 Lacedæmon. The money, without reckon. ing the innumerable crowns of gold, given him by the cities, amounted to fifteen hundred talents, that is to say, fifteen hundred thousand crowns *. _Gy, lippus, 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 up in each bag, discovered him. To avoid punishment, he banished himself from his country, carrying along with him in all places the disgrace 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 distinguishing of the Spartans, apprehending the allpowerful effects of money, which enslaved not only the vulgar, but even the greatest of men, extremely blamed Lysander 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 all that gold and silver from the republick, and to lay the heaviest of curses and im precations upon it, as the fatal bane of all other states, introduced only to corrupt the wholesome constitution of the Spartan government, which had sup ported itself for so many ages with vigour and prosperity. The Ephori immediately passed a decree to

* About 337,0001. sterling.

* Αποδιοπομπεῖσθαι πᾶν τὸ ἀργύριον καὶ τὸ χρυσίον, ὥσπερ κῆρας ἐπαγωγικές.

proscribe that money, and ordained that none should Darius be current, except the usual pieces of iron. But Ly-Nothus. sander's friends opposed this decree, and sparing no pains to retain the gold and silver in Sparta, the affair was referred to farther 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 chuse the mean betwixt the vicious extremes of too much rigour and too much neglect. It was therefore resolved, that the new coin of gold and silver should be solely employed by the publick treasury; that it should only pass in the occasions and uses of the state; and that every private person, in whose possession it should be found, should be immediately put to death.

A strange expedient, says Plutarch! As if Lycur gus 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 pos session of it, than enflamed by permitting the state to amass and make use of it for the service of the publick. For it was impossible, whilst that money was in honour and esteem with the publick, that it should be despised in private as useless, and that people should look upon that, as of no value in their domestick 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 pub-lick, being a thousand times more dangerous to particulars, than the vices of particulars to the publick. The Lacedæmonians 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

Darius entering the house: They left the hearts of their ciNothus. tizens 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.

A. M

404.

It was about the end of the Peloponnesian war, 3600. that Darius Nothus king of Persia died, after a reign Ant. J.C. of nineteen years. Cyrus had arrived at the court before his death, and Parysatis his mother, whose idol he 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 gave 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 Arsicas, and bequeathed only to Cyrus the provinces he had already.

THE

HISTORY

OF THE

PERSIANS AND GRECIANS;

CONTINUED,

During the first fifteen years of the reign of
Artaxerxes Mnemon.

CHAP. I.

SECT. I. Coronation of Artaxerxes Mnemon. Cyrus attempts to assassinate his brother, and is sent into Asia minor. Cruel revenge of Statira, wife of Artaxerxes, upon the authors and accomplices in the murder of her brother. Death of Alcibiades. character.

a

His

Artax.

Mnemon.

404.

ARSACES, upon ascending the throne, assumed the name of Artaxerxes, the same to whom the A. M. Greeks gave the surname of MNEMON, from 3600. his prodigious memory. Being near his father's Ant.J.C. bed when he was dying, he asked him, a few moments before he expired, what had been the rule of his conduct during so long and happy a reign as his, that he might make it his example. It has been, replied he, to do always what justice and religion required of me. Words of deep sense, and well worthy of being set up in letters of gold in the palaces of kings, to keep them perpetually in mind of what ought to be the guide and rule of all their actions. It is not uncommon for princes to give excellent instructions

a Athen. 1. xii. p. 548.

Which word signifies in the Greek, one of a good memory.

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