ject to it, so that it was, "alone, able to raise an army of 300, 000 men. The opulence of Sybaris was soon followed by luxury, and such a dissoluteness as is scarcely credible. The citizens employed themselves in nothing but banquets, games, shows, parties of pleasure and carousals. Public rewards and marks of distinction were bestowed on those who gave the most magnificent entertainments, and even to such cooks as were best skilled in the important art of making new discoveries in dressing dishes, and invented new refinements to please the palate. The Sybarites carried their delicacy and effeminacy to such a height, that they carefully removed from their city all such artificers whose work was noisy; and would not suffer any cocks in it, lest their shrill piercing crow should disturb their balmy slumbers.

"All these evils were heightened by dissension and discord, which at last proved their ruin. Five hundred of the wealthiest persons in the city having been expelled by the faction of one Telys, fled to Crotona. Telys demanded to have them surrendered to him; and, on the refusal of the Crotonians to deliver them up, (who were prompted to this generous resolution by Pythagoras, who then lived among them) war was declared. The Sybarites marched 300,000 men into the field, and the Crotonians only 100,000; but then they were headed by Milo, the famous champion, (of whom we shall soon have occasion to speak) over whose shoulders a lion's skin was thrown, and himself armed with a club, like another Hercules. The latter gained a complete victory, and made a dreadful havoc of those who fled, so that very few escaped, and their city was depopulated. About threescore years after, some Thessalians came and settled in it; however, they did not long enjoy peace, being driven out by the Crotonians. Being thus reduced to the most fatal extremity, they implored the succour of the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. The latter moved to compassion at their deplorable condition, after causing proclamation to be made in Peloponnesus, that all who were willing to join that colony were at liberty to do it, sent the Sybarites a fleet of 10 ships, under the command of Lampon and Xenocrates.

They built a city near the ancient Sybaris, and called it Thurium. Two men, greatly renowned for their learning, the one an orator, and the other an historian, settled in this colony. The first was Lycias, at that time but fifteen years of age. He lived in Thurium, till the ill fate which befel the Athenians in Sicily, and then went to Athens. The Second was Herodotus. Though he was born in Halicarnas Diod. 1. xxi. p. 76-95.

a A M. 3474. Ant. J. C. 530. A. M. 3560. Ant. J. C. 444. 1. xiv. p. 656.

Dionys. Halicarn, in vit. Lys. p. 82. Strab

sus, a city of Caria, he was, however, considered as a native of Thurium, because he settled there with that colony. I shall speak more largely of him hereafter.

Divisions soon broke out in the city, on occasion of the new inhabitants, whom the rest were desirous to exclude from all public employments and privileges. But as these were much more numerous, they expelled all the ancient Sybarites, and got the sole possession of the city. Being supported by the alliance they made with the people of Crotona, they soon grew vastly powerful; and having settled a popular form of government in their city, they divided the citizens into ten tribes, which they called by the names of the different nations whence they sprung.

3. CHARONDAS, THE LEGISLATOR.

They now bent their whole thoughts to the strengthening of their government by wholesome laws, for which purpose they made choice of Charondas, who had been educated in Pythagoras's school, to digest and draw them up. I shall quote some of them in this place.

1. He excluded from the senate, and all public employments, all such as should marry a second wife, in case any children by their first wife were living; being persuaded, that a man who was so regardless of his children's interest, would be equally so of his country's, and be as worthless a magistrate as he had been a father.

2. He sentenced all false accusers to be carried through every part of the city crowned with heath or broom, as the vilest of men; an ignominy which most of them were not able to survive. The city thus delivered from those pests of society, was restored to its former tranquillity. And indeed, a from calumniators generally arise all feuds and contests, whether of a public or private nature; and yet, according to Tacitus's observation, they are too much tolerated in most governments.

3. He enacted a new kind of law against another species of pests, which in a state generally first occasions depravity of manners; by suffering all those to be prosecuted who should form a correspondence, or contract a friendship with wicked men, and by laying a heavy fine upon them.

4. He required all the children of the citizens to be educated in polite literature; the effect of which is to soften and civilize the minds of men, inspiring them with gentleness of manners and inclining them to virtue; all which constitute the felicity of a state, and are equally necessary to citizens of all conditions. In this view he appointed salaries (paid a Delatores, genus hominum publico exitio repertum, & pœnis quidem nun quam satis coercitum. Tacit. Annal. 1. iv, c. 30.

by the state) for masters and preceptors; in order that learning, by being communicated gratuitously, might be acquired by all. He considered ignorance as the greatest of evils, and the source whence all vices flowed.

5. He made a law with respect to orphans which appears sufficiently judicious, by intrusting the care of their education to their relations by the mother's side, as their lives would not be in danger from them; and the management of their estates to their paternal relations, it being the interest of the latter to make the greatest advantage of them, since they would inherit them, in case of the demise of their wards,

6. Instead of putting deserters to death, and those who quitted their ranks and fled in battle, he only sentenced them to make their appearance during three days in the city, drest in the habit of women, imagining, that the dread of so ignominious a punishment would be equally efficacious with putting to death; and being, at the same time, desirous of giving such cowardly citizens an opportunity of atoning for their fault.

7. To prevent his laws from being too rashly or easily abrogated, he imposed a very severe and hazardous condition on all persons who should propose to alter or amend them in any manner. They were to appear in the public assembly with a halter about their necks; and, in case the alteration proposed did not pass, hey were to be immediately strangled. There were but three amendments ever proposed, and all of them admitted.

Charondas did not long survive his own laws. Returning one day from pursuing some thieves, and finding a tumult in the city, he came armed into the assembly, though he himself had prohibited this by an express law. A certain person objected to him in severe terms, that he violated his own laws; "I do not violate them," says he, "but thus seal them with my blood;" ;" saying which he plunged his sword into his bosom, and expired.

4. ZALEUCUS, ANOTHER LAWGIVER.

a At the same time there arose among the Locrians another famous legislator, Zaleucus by name, who, as well as Charondas, had been Pythagoras's disciple. There is now scarce any thing extant of his, except a kind of preamble to his laws, which gives a most advantageous idea of them. He require, above all things, of the citizens, to believe and be firmly persuaded, that there are gods; and adds, that the bare casting up our eyes to the heavens, and contemplating their order and beauty, are sufficient to convince us, that it

a Diod. l. xii. p. 79–85

is impossible so wonderful a fabric could have been formed by mere chance or human power. As the natural consequence of this belief, he exhorts men to honour and revere the gods, as the authors of whatever is good and just among mortals; and to honour them, not merely by sacrifices and splendid gifts, but by a circumspect conduct, and by purity and innocence of manners; these being infinitely more grateful to the deities than all the sacrifices than can be offered.

After this exordium, so pregnant with religion and piety, in which he describes the Supreme Being as the source whence all laws flow, as the chief authority which commands obedience to them, as the most powerful motive for our faithful observance of them, and as the perfect model to which mankind ought to conform; he descends to the particulars of those duties which men owe to one another; and lays down a precept which is very well adapted to preserve peace and unity in society, by enjoining the individuals who compose it not to make their hatred and dissensions perpetual, which would argue an unsociable and savage disposition: but to treat their enemies as men who would soon be their friends. This is carrying morality to as great a perfection as could be expected from heathens.

With regard to the duty of judges and magistrates, after representing to them, that in pronouncing sentence, they ought never to suffer themselves to be biassed by friendship, hatred, or any other passion; he only exhorts them not to behave with the least haughtiness or severity towards the parties engaged in law, since such are but too unhappy in being obliged to undergo all the toils and fatigues inseparable from lawsuits. The office indeed of judges, how laborious soever it may be, is far from giving them a right to use the contending parties with ill-nature; the very form and essence of their employment requiring them to behave with impartiality, and to do justice on all occasions; and when they distribute this, even with mildness and humanity, it is only a debt they pay, and not a favour they grant.

To banish luxury from his republic, which he looked upon. as the certain destruction of a government, he did not follow the practice established in some nations, where it is thought sufficient, for the restraining it, to punish, by pecuniary mulcts, such as infringe the laws; but he acted, says the historian, in a more artful and ingenious, and at the same time more effectual manner. He prohibited women from wearing rich and costly stuffs, embroidered robes, jewels, ear-rings, necklaces, bracelets, gold rings, and such like ornaments; excepting none from this law but common prostitutes. He enacted a similar law with regard to the men; excepting, in the same manner, from the observance of it, such only as

were willing to pass for debauchees and infamous wretches. By these regulations he easily, and without violence, preserved the citizens from the least approaches to luxury and effeminacy a. For no person was so lost to all sense of honour, as to be willing to wear the badges of his shame, under the eye, as it were, of all the citizens, since this would make him the public laughing-stock and reflect eternal infamy on his family.

5. MILO, THE CHAMPION.

We have seen him at the head of an army obtain a great victory. However, he was still more renowned for his athletic strength, than for his military bravery. He was surnamed the Crotonian, from Crotona, the place of his birth. It was his daughter whom as was before related, Democedes the famous physician, and Milo's country-man, married, after he had escaped from Darius's court to Greece, his native country.

Pausanias relates, that Milo was seven times victorious at the Pythian games,once when a child; that he won six victories (at wrestling) in the Olympic games, one of which was also gained in his childhood; and that challenging a seventh time (in Olympia) any person to wrestle with him, he could not engage for want of an opponent. He would hold a pomegranate in such a manner, that without breaking it, he would grasp it so fast in his hand, that no one, however strong, could possibly wrest it from him. He would stand so firm on a discus, which had been oiled to make it the more slippery, that it was impossible to push him off. He would bind his head with a cord, after which holding his breath strongly, the veins of his head would swell so prodigiously as to break the rope. When Milo, fixing his elbow on his side, stretched forth his right hand quite open, with his fingers held close one to the other, his thumb excepted, which he raised, the utmost strength of man could not separate his little finger from the other three.

All this was only a vain and puerile ostentation of his strength. Chance, however, gave him an opportunity of making a much more laudable use of it. One day as he was attending the lectures of Pythagoras, (for he was one of his most constant disciples) the pillar which supported the ceiling of the school in which the pupils were assembled, being shaken by some accident, Milo supported it by his single

a More inter veteres recepto, qui satis pœnarum adversus impudicas in ipsa professione flagitii credebant. Tacit. Annal 1. in c. 85.

b Lab. vi. p 369, 370.

e This discus was a kind of quoit, flat and round.

d Strab. I. vi. p.263.