use of it, than to suggest or excite the most vicious passions, soon corrupted an art, which might have been of some advantage, had it been regulated by Plato's opinion. Music underwent a like change; and perhaps the corruption of this did not a little contribute to the perversion of dancing. Voluptuousness and sensual pleasure were the sole arbiters consulted in the uses made of both; and the theatre became a school of every kind of vice. Plutarch in lamenting that the art of dancing was so degenerate from the merit which rendered it estimable to the great men of antiquity, does not omit to observe, that it was corrupted by a vicious kind of poetry, and a soft effeminate music, with which it was ill united, and which had taken place of the ancient poetry and music, that had something noble, majestic, and even religious and heavenly in them. He adds, that being made subservient to low taste and sensuality, by their aid, it exercised a kind of tyrannical power in the theatres, which were become the public schools of criminal passions and gross vices, wherein no regard was had to reason.* The reader will, without doubt, readily apply this passage of Plutarch to the sort of music which engrosses our theatres at this day, and which, by its effeminate and wanton airs, has given the last wound to the little manly force and virtue that remained among us. Quintilian describes the music of the times in these terms: "Quæ nunc in scenis effeminata, et impudicis modis fracta, non ex parte minima, si quid in nobis virilis roboris manebat, excidit."t II. OF THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE BODY. THE young Athenians, and in general all the Greeks, were very attentive to forming themselves to all the exercises of the body, and to go through their lessons regularly with the masters of the palæstræ. They called the places allotted for these exercises, palæstræ or gymnasia, which in a degree resembles our academies. Plato, in his book of laws, after having shown of what importance it was in war to cultivate the hands and feet, adus, that, far from banishing from a well regulated republic the profession of the athletæ, prizes should on the contrary, be proposed for all exercises that conduce to the improvement of military virtue, such as those which render the body more active, and fitter for the race, more hard, robust, and supple, more capable of supporting great fatigues, and effecting great enterprises. We must remember, that there was no Åthenian who ought not to have been capable of handling the oar in the largest galleys. The citizens themselves performed this labour, which was not left to slaves and criminals, as in these days. They were all brought up to the art of war, and often obliged to wear arms of iron from head to foot, of a great weight. For this reason, Plato and all the ancients, looked upon the exercises of the body as highly useful, and even absolutely necessary to the good of the public; and therefore this philosopher excluded from them only those who were incapable of service in war. There were also masters, who taught the youth to ride, and to handle their arms or fence; and others whose business it was to instruct them in all that was necessary to be known, in order to excel in the military art, and to become good commanders. The whole science of the latter consisted in what the ancients called the tactics, that is to say, the art of drawing up troops in battle, and of performing military evolutions. That science was useful, but did not suffice. Xenophon shows its defect, in producing a young man lately come from such a school, in which he imagined he had learned every thing, though in reality he had only acquired a foolish esteem for himself, accompanied with profound ignorance. He gives him, by the mouth of Socrates, admirable precepts upon the business of a soldier, and very proper to form an excellent officer. Hunting was also considered by the ancients as a fit exercise for forming youth to the stratagems and fatigues of war. It was for this reason that Xenophon, who was a great general as well as a great philosopher, did not Sympos. 1. ix. qu. 15. P. 748. † Quintil. I. i. c. 1. Lib. viii. de Leg. p. 832, 833. Memorab. 1. iii. p. 761, &c. VOL. II. 23 354 think it beneath him to write a treatise expressly upon hunting, in which he descends to the lowest particular; and animadverts upon the considerable advantages derived from it, from being inured to suffer hunger, thirst, heat, and cold, without being discouraged either by the length of the chase, the difficulty of the clefts and thickets through which it is often necessary to press, or the small success of the long and painful fatigues which they often undergo to no purpose. He adds, that this innocent pleasure removes others equally shameful and criminal; but that a wise and moderate man would not, however, abandon himself so far to it as to neglect the care of his domestic affairs.* The same author, in the Cyropædia, frequently praises hunting, which he looks upon as a real exercise of war, and shows, in the example of his young hero, the good use that may be made of it. III. OF THE EXERCISES OF THE MIND. ATHENS, to speak properly, was the school and abode of polite learning, arts, and sciences. The study of poesy, eloquence, philosophy, and mathematics, were in great vogue there, and much cultivated by the youth. The young people were sent first to learn grammar under masters, who taught them regularly, and upon proper principles, their own language; by which they attained a knowledge of all its beauty, energy, number, and cadence. Hence proceeded the universal fine taste of Athens, where, as history informs us, a simple herb-woman distinguished Theophrastus to be a stranger, from the affectation of a single word in expressing himself. And from the same cause, the orators were greatly apprehensive of letting fall the least injudicious expression, for fear of offending so refined and delicate an audience. It was very common for the young people to get the tragedies represented upon the stage by heart. We have seen, that after the defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, many of them, who had been taken prisoners and made slaves, softened their slavery by reciting the works of Euripides to their masters, who, extremely delighted with hearing such sublime verses, treated them from thenceforth with kindness and humanity. The composi tions of the other poets had no doubt the same effect and Plutarch tells us, that Alcibiades, when very young, having entered a school in which there was not a Homer, gave the master a box on the ear as an ignorant fellow, and one who dishonoured his profession.§ As for eloquence, it is no wonder that it was particularly studied at Athens, as it opened the way to the highest offices, reigned absolute in the assemblies, decided the most important affairs of state, and gave an almost unlimited power to those who had the talent of speaking in an eminent degree. This therefore was the great employment of the young citizens of Athens, especially of those who aspired to the highest employments. To the study of rhetoric they annexed that of philosophy: I comprise under the latter, all the sciences, which are either parts of, or relate to it. The persons known to antiquity under the name of sophists, had acquired a great reputation at Athens, especially in the time of Socrates. These teachers, who were as preSumptuous as avaricious, set themselves up for universal scholars. Their whole art lay in philosophy and eloquence; both of which they corrupted by the false taste and wrong principles which they instilled into their disciples I have observed in the life of Socrates, that philosopher's endeavours and success in discrediting them. * De Venat one. Cyrop. I. i. p. 5, 6. et. l. ii. p. 59, 60. In Alcib. p. 19%; Cic. in Brut. n. 172-Quintil. 1. viii. c. 1.-Plut. in Peric. p. 156. 355 CHAPTER I. OF WAR. SECTION 1. PEOPLE OF GREECE IN ALL TIMES VERY WARLIKE. No people of antiquity, except the Romans, could dispute the glory of arms and military virtue with the Greeks. During the Trojan war, Greece signalized her valour in battle, and acquired immortal fame by the bravery of her captains sent thither. This expedition was however, properly speaking, nc more than the cradle of her infant glory; and the great exploits, by which she distinguished herself there, were only her first essays, and apprenticeship in the art of war. There were in Greece at that time several small republics, neighbours to one another by their situation, but extremely remote in their customs, laws, characters, and particularly in their interests. This difference of manners and interests was a continual source and occasion of divisions among them. Every city dissatisfied with its own dominion, was studious to aggrandize itself at the expense of its next neighbours, according as they lay most commodious for it. Hence all these little states, either out of ambition, and to extend their conquests, or the necessity of a just defence, were always under arms, and by that continual exercise of war, formed in the people a martial spirit, and an intrepidity which made them invincible in the field, as appeared when the united forces of the east came to invade Greece, and made her sensible of what she was, and of what she was capable. Two cities distinguished themselves above the rest, and held indisputably the first rank; these were Sparta and Athens: In consequence of which, those cities, either successively or together, had the empire of Greece, and maintained themselves through a long series of ages in a power, which their superiority of merit, universally acknowledged by all the other states, had acquired them. This merit consisted principally in their military knowledge and martial virtue; the most glorious proofs of which they had given in the war against the Persians. Thebes disputed this honour with them for some years, by surprising actions of valour, which had something of prodigy in them; this however, was but a momentary blaze, which after having shone out with exceeding splendour, soon disappeared, and left that city in its original obscurity. Sparta and Athens will therefore be the only objects of our reflections as to what relates to war; and we shall join them together in order to be the better. able to distinguish their characters, as well in what they resemble, as in what they differ from each other. SECTION II.-ORIGIN AND CAUSE OF THE VALOUR AND MILITARY VIRTUE OF THE LACEDÆMONIANS AND ATHENIANS. ALL the laws of Sparta and institutions of Lycurgus seem to have had no other object than war, and tended solely to the making the subjects of that republic a body of soldiers. All other employments, all other exercises, were prohibited among them. Arts, polite learning, sciences, trades, even husbandry itself, had no share in their application, and seemed in their eyes unworthy of them. From their earliest infancy, no other taste was instilled into them but for arms; and indeed the Spartan education was wonderfully adapted to that end. To go barefoot, to lie hard, to be satisfied with little meat and drink, to suffer heat and cold, to exercise continually in hunting, wrestling, running on foot and horseback, to be inured to blows and wounds without venting either complaint or groan; these were the rudiments of the Spartan youth with regard to war, and enabled them to support all its fatigues, and to confront all its dangers. The habit of obeying, contracted from their infancy, respect for the magistrates and elders, a perfect submission to the laws, from which no age nor con 356 dition was exempted, prepared them amazingly for military discipline, which is in a manner the soul of war, and the principle of success in all great enterprises. One of these laws was, to conquer or die, and never to surrender to the enemy. Leonidas, with his three hundred Spartans, was an illustrious example of this; and his intrepid valour, extolled in all ages with the highest applauses, and proposed as a model to all posterity, had given the same spirit to the nation, and traced out for them the plan they were to follow. The disgrace and infamy annexed to the violation of this law, and to such as quitted their arms in battle, confirmed the observance of it, and rendered it in a manner inviolable. The mothers recommended to their sons, when they set out for the field, to return either with or upon their bucklers. They did not weep for those who died with their arms in their hands, but for those who preserved themselves by flight. Can we be surprised after this, that a small body of such soldiers, with such principles, should put an innumerable army of barbarians to a stand? The Athenians were not bred up so roughly as the people of Sparta, but possessed equal valour. The taste of the two people was quite different in regard to education and employment; but they attained the same end, though by different means. The Spartans knew only how to use their arms, and were no more than soldiers: but among the Athenians, and we must say as much of the other people of Greece, arts, trades, husbandry, commerce, and navigation, were held in honour, and thought no disgrace to any one. These occupations were no obstacles to the valour and knowledge necessary in war; they disqualified none for rising to the greatest commands and first dignities of the republic. Plutarch observes, that Solon, seeing that the territory of Attica was barren, applied himself to turning the industry of his citizens, upon arts, trades, and commerce, in order to supply his country thereby with what it wanted in fertility. This taste became one of the maxims of the government and fundamental laws of the state, and perpetuated itself among the people, but without diminishing in the least their ardour for war. The ancient glory of the nation, which had always distinguished itself by military bravery, was a powerful motive for not degenerating from the reputation of their ancestors. The famous battle of Marathon, wherein they had sustained alone the shock of the barbarians, and gained a signal victory over them, infinitely heightened their courage; and the battle of Salamin, in the success of which they had the greatest share, raised them to the highest pitch of glory, and rendered them capable of the greatest enterprises. A noble emulation not to give place in point of merit to Sparta, the rival of Athens, and a lively jealousy of their glory, which during the war with the Persians contained itself within due bounds, were another strong incentive to the Athenians, who every day made new efforts to surpass themselves, and sustain their reputation. The rewards and honours granted to those who had distinguished themselves in battle; the monuments erected in memory of the citizens who had died in defence of their country; the funeral orations publicly pronounced in the midst of the most august religious ceremonies, to render their names im mortal; all conspired infinitely to eternize the valour of both nations, and particularly of the Athenians, and to make fortitude a kind of law and indispensible necessity with them. There was a law at Athens, by which it was ordained that those who had been maimed in war, should be maintained at the public expense. The same favour was granted to the fathers and mothers, as well as the children, of such as had fallen in battle, and left their families poor, and not in a condition to maintain themselves. The republic, like a good mother, generously took them into her care, and, with great regard to them, supplied all the duties, and procured all the relief, they could have expected from those whose loss they deplored.* ⚫ Plut. in Solon. p. 96.-Idem, in Menex. p. 248, 249.--Diog. Laert. in Solon. P. 37. This exalted the courage of the Athenians, and rendered their troops invincible, though not very numerous. In the battle of Platææ, where the army of the barbarians, commanded by Mardonius, consisted of no less than three hundred thousand men, and the united forces of the Greeks, of only one hundred and eight thousand two hundred men; there were in the latter only ten thousand Lacedæmonians, one half of whom were Spartans, that is to say, inhabitants of Sparta, and eight thousand Athenians. It is true, each Spartan brought with him seven helots, amounting to thirty-five thousand men; but they were scarcely ever reckoned as soldiers. This great merit in point of martial valour, generally acknowledged by the other states and people, did not suppress in their minds all sentiments of envy and jealosy, as appeared once in relation to the Lacedæmonians. The allies, who were very far superior to them in number, were mortified to see themselves subjected to their orders, and murmured against it in secret. Agesilaus, king of Sparta, without seeming to have any knowledge of their disgust, assembled the whole army, and after having made all the allies sit down on one side, and the Lacedæmonians by themselves on the other, he caused proclamation to be made by a herald, that all smiths, masons, carpenters, and so on, through the other trades, should rise up. Almost all the allies did so, and not one of the Lacedæmonians, to whom all trades were prohibited. Agesilaus then smiling, " You see," said he, "how many more soldiers Sparta furnishes, than all the rest of the allies together;" thereby intimating, that to be a good soldier, it was necessary to be only a soldier; that trades diverted the artisan from applying himself wholly to the profession of arms and the science of war, and prevented his succeeding so well in it as those who made it their sole business and exercise. But Agesilaus spoke and acted in that manner from the prejudice of his opinion in favour of Lacedæmonian education; for indeed those whom he was for having considered only as simple artisans, had well demonstrated in the glorious victories they had gained over the Persians, and even Sparta itself, that they were by no means inferior to the Lacedæmonians, entirely soldiers as they were, either in valour or military knowledge. SECTION III.-OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF TROOPS WHICH COMPOSED THE ARMIES OF THE LACEDEMONIANS AND ATHENIANS. THE armies both of Sparta and Athens were composed of four sorts of troops; citizens, allies, mercenaries, and slaves. The soldiers were sometimes marked in the hand, to distinguish them from the slaves, who had that character impressed upon their forehead. Interpreters believe, that in allusion to this double manner of marking, it is said in the Revelation, that all were obliged "to receive the mark of the beast in their right hand, or in their foreheads;"* and that St. Paul says of himself, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."† The citizens of Lacedæmon were of two sorts, either those who inhabited Sparta itself, and who for that reason were called Spartans, or those who lived in the country. In the time of Lycurgus, the Spartans amounted to nine thousand, and the others to thirty thousand. This number seems to have been somewhat diminished in the time of Xerxes, as Demaratus, speaking to him of the Lacedæmonian troops, computes only eight thousand Spartans. The latter were the flower of the nation; and we may judge of the value they set upon them, by the anxiety the republic expressed for three or four hundred, besieged by the Athenians in the small island of Sphacteria, where they were taken prisoners. The Lacedæmonians generally spared the troops of their country very much, and sent only a few of them into the armies. When a Lacedæmonian general was asked, how many Spartans there were in the army? he answered, "As many as are necessary to repulse the enemy." They served the state at their own expense, and it was not till after a length of time that they received pay from the public. Rev. xiii. 16. Gal. vi. 17. |