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ma's themselves had decreed, by the vows and Darius prayers which they made in his favour. Whilst all Nothus. the Eumolpides and Ceryces were employed in revoking those imprecations, Theodorus, the principal of them, had the courage to say: But for me, I have · not cursed him, if he has done no evil to his country; insinuating by that bold expression, that the maledictions, being conditional, could not fall upon the head of the innocent, nor be averted from the guilty.

In the midst of this glory and shining prosperity of Alcibiades, the majority of the people could not help being concerned, when they considered the time of his return. For it happened precisely upon the day when the Athenians celebrated the feast in honour of Minerva, adored under the name of Agraulis. The priests took off all the ornaments from the goddess's statue to wash it, from whence that feast was called Пungia, and afterwards covered it; and that day was accounted one of the most ominous and unfortunate. It was the 25th of the month Thargelion, which answers to the 2d of July. This circumstance displeased that supersitious people, because it seemed to imply, that the goddess, patroness, and protectress of Athens, did not receive Alcibiades agreeably, and with a benign aspect, since she covered and concealed herself, as if she would keep him off, and remove him from her.

P All things having however succeeded according to his wish, and the hundred ships he was to command being ready, he deferred his departure out of a laudable ambition to celebrate the great mysteries; for from the time the Lacedæmonians had fortified Decelia, and taken possession of all the ways from Athens to Eleusina, the feast had not been solemnized in all its pomp, and the procession had been obliged to go by sea. The particular ceremonies of this solemnity may be seen in the beginning of the next volume.

Darius

Alcibiades believed it would be a most glorious Nothus. action, and attract the blessings of the gods, and the praises of men, if he restored all its lustre and solemnity to this feast, in making the procession go by land under the convoy of his troops, to defend it against the attacks of the enemy. For either Agis would suffer it to pass quietly, notwithstanding the numerous troops he had at Decelia, which would considerably lessen the reputation of that king, and be a blot in his glory; or, if he should chuse to attack it, and oppose the march, he should then have the satisfaction to fight a sacred battle; a battle grateful to the gods, for the greatest and most venerable of all their mysteries, in the sight of his country and citizens, who would be witnesses of his valour, and regard for religion. It is very likely, that by this publick and ostentatious act of piety, which struck the people's view in so sensible a manner, and was so extremely to his taste, Alcibiades's principal design was to efface entirely from their minds the suspicions of impiety, to which the mutilation of sta tues, and prophanation of mysteries, had given birth.

Having taken that resolution, he gave notice to the Eumolpides and Ceryces to hold themselves in readiness, posted centinels upon the hills, sent out runners at the break of day, and taking with him the priests, the initiated, and the probationers, with those who initiated them, he covered them with his army, and disposed the whole pomp with wonderful order, and profound silence. Never was shew, says Plutarch, more august, nor more worthy the ma jesty of the gods, than this warlike procession, and religious expedition; in which even those, who en vied the glory of Alcibiades, were obliged to own, that he was no less happy in discharging the func tions of an high-priest, than those of a general. No enemy dared to appear, or disturb that pompous march, and Alcibiades re-conducted the sacred troops to Athens with entire safety. This success gave him new courage, and raised the valour and boldness of

his army to such a degree, that they looked upon Darius themselves as invincible, whilst he commanded Nothus them.

He acquired the affection of the poor, and the lower sort of people so much, that they most ardently desired to have him for their king. Many of them openly declared themselves to that effect; and there were some who addressed themselves to him, and exhorted him to set himself above envy, and not to trouble himself about laws, decrees, or suffrages; to put down those wordy and impertinents that disturbed the state with their vain harangues, to make himself master of affairs, and to govern with entire authority without fearing accusers. For him, what his thoughts of the tyranny and his designs were, are unknown; but the most powerful citizens, apprehending the breaking out of a fire, of which they aiready saw the sparks, pressed him to depart without delay; granting whatever he demanded, and giving him for colleagues the generals most agreeable to him. He set sail accordingly with an hundred ships, and steered for the island of Andros, that had revolted. His high reputation, and the good fortune which had attended him in all his enterprizes, made nothing but what was great and extraordinary to be expected from him.

SECT. IV. The Lacedæmonians appoint Lysander admiral. He becomes very powerful with young Cyrus, who commanded in Asia. He beats the Athenian fleet near Ephesus in the absence of Alcibiades, who is deprived of the command. Ten generals are chosen in bis stead. Callicratidas succeeds Lysander.

THE Lacedæmonians, justly alarmed at the re

turn and success of Alcibiades, conceived that such an enemy made it necessary to oppose him with an Plut. in Lysand.

4 Xenoph. Hellen. 1. xi. p. 440-442. p. 434, 435. Diod. 1. xiii. P. 192-197.

Darius able general, capable of making head against him. Nothus. For this reason they made choice of Lysander, and gave him the command of the fleet.

When he ar

rived at Ephesus, he found the city very well disposed in his favour, and well affected to Sparta; but otherwise in a very unhappy situation. For it was in danger of becoming barbarous, by assuming the manners and customs of the Persians, who had great commerce with it, as well from the neighbourhood of Lydia, as because the king's generals commonly took up their winter-quarters there. An idle and voluptuous life, filled up with luxury and empty shew, could not fail of disgusting infinitely a man like Lysander, who had been bred from his birth in the simplicity, poverty, and severe discipline of Sparta. Having brought his army to Ephesus, he gave orders for assembling ships of burthen there from all parts, erected an arsenal for building of gallies, made the ports free for merchants, gave the publick places to artificers, put all arts in motion, and held them in honour; and by these means filled the city with riches, and laid the foundations of that grandeur and magnificence, to which it afterwards attained. So great a change can the application and ability of a single person occasion in a state!

Whilst he was making these dispositions, he re ceived advice, that Cyrus, the king's youngest son, was arrived at Sardis. That prince could not be above sixteen years old at that time, being born after his father's accession to the crown in the seventeenth year of his reign. Parysatis, his mother, loved him to idolatry, and had the entire ascendant of her husband. It was she that occasioned his having the supreme government of all the provinces of Asia minor given him; a command that subjected all the provincial governors of the most important part of the empire to his authority. The view of Parysatis was, without doubt, to put the young prince into a condition to dispute the throne with his brother after the king's death; as we shall see he does to some effect. One of the principal instructions, given him

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by his father upon sending him to his government, Darius was to give effectual aid to the Lacedæmonians Nothus. against Athens; an order very contrary to the measures observed till then by Tissaphernes, and the other governors of those provinces. It had always been their maxim, sometimes to assist one party, sometimes the other, in order to hold their power in such a balance, that the one might never be able to crush the other entirely: From whence it followed, that both parties were kept weak by the war, and neither in condition to form any enterprizes against the Persian empire.

Upon Lysander's being apprized, therefore, of the arrival of Cyrus at Sardis, he set out from Ephesus to make him a visit, and to complain of the delays and breach of faith of Tissaphernes, who, notwithstanding the orders he had received to support the Lacedæmonians, and to drive the Athenians out of the sea, had always covertly favoured the latter, out of regard for Alcibiades, whose measures he entirely gave into, and had been the sole cause of the loss of the fleet, by not supplying it with the necessary quantity of provisions. This discourse pleased Cyrus, who looked upon Tissaphernes as a very bad man, and his particular enemy; and he answered, that the king had given him orders to support the Lacedæmonians powerfully, and that he had received five hundred talents for that purpose. Lysander, contrary to the common character of the Spartans, was submissive and condescending, full of compla cency for the grandees, always ready to pay his court to them, and supporting, for the good of the service, all the weight of their haughtiness and vanity with incredible patience; in which behaviour some people make the whole address and merit of a courtier consist.

He did not forget himself on this occasion, and setting at work all that the industry and art of a

Five hundred thousand crowns, about 112,500. sterling.