laws against the plebeians, and, protected by a strong body-guard, tyrannized also over the patricians; he nevertheless upheld the dignity of the Roman state, and all Latium acknowledged its supremacy. He built a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, on the summit of the Capitoline hill, in which were deposited the sacred treasures with the mysterious books of the Sibyl. The unbridled passions of his son Sextus caused the expulsion of the dynasty and the abolition of the kingly power, at about the same period in which the Pisistratida were driven from Athens, 509 B. C.

NOTE.-The history of the last Tarquin is by no means free from difficulty, The story of Lucretia's misfortune, and the consequent expulsion of the royal family, is not confirmed by other facts in history, and is in direct opposition to the account of the Treaty of the first Consuls with Carthage. The circum. stances attending the change of government at Athens, on the death of Codrus, may throw some light on the present events. The list of Roman kings is evidently imperfect. It is not likely that seven kings, four of whom met with a violent death, should reign on an average more than thirty-four years. Romulus and Numa are probably mythical; the five others, the remnants of a longer list, presenting the most remarkable names. The stupendous sewers still existing in their pristine strength, "and the building of the Capitol, attest with unquestionable evidence, that the Rome of the later kings was the chief of a great state."

Consult Niebuhr's Roman History, vol. i.

CONSTITUTION OF ROME.

The municipal constitution of Rome was doubtless copied from the mother city. The senate was a deliberative body of 300, the heads of the ten gentes (houses) into which each of the thirty curie was divided. The patricians were a hereditary nobility, who alone had the privilege of administering the sacred affairs, and who formed a strong political party in opposition to the plebeians, not unlike the state of freemen and ordinary residents in a close city. Besides the original division into tribes and curie, another, according to property, was subsequently introduced, the classes and centuries, out of which arose the two assemblies (comitia) called acuriata and centuriata. The religious institutions were closely connected with the state, and few important undertakings were ever begun without first having the sanction of the gods. The discipline and subordination so remarkable in the Roman people, partly originated in the mutual relations of patron and client, a mitigated form of feudalism; in the regulations about marriage; and in the unlimited authority of the parent. To these things, and to the spirit which they generated, they were indebted for ali the glories which they subsequently obtained.

Consult: Heeren's Manual of Ancient History.

CHINA.

CONFUCIUS OF CON-FU-TSEE was born about 550 B. c.; and from this celebrated man was descended the only hereditary Chinese nobility. He successively passed through all the ranks and honours of the state, and was not less celebrated as a reformer than as a philosopher. He supposed that men were naturally good.and possessed of celestial reason, but that its place, when lost, was supplied by a worldly substitute. Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Confucius, flourished at nearly the same period.

FIFTH CENTURY.

JUDEA.-457, Ezra.-445, Nehemiah.-420, Malachi, d.

PERSIA. 499, Sardis burnt.-401, Retreat of the Ten Thousand. GREECE.-490, Marathon.-480, Salamis.-471, Themistocles exiled.-466 Victory at the Eurymedon.-449, Pericles.-440, Samian War; 431, Peloponnesian War. -429, The Plague; Death of Pericles.-415, Sicilian Expedition.-405, Victory at Egos-Potamos.-404, Death of Alcibiades.403, Thrasybulus.

ROME.-509, Consuls.-498, Dictator, Titus Lartius. -493, Tribunes of the People.-486, Agrarian Law.-452, Decemvirs-Laws of the Twelve Tables -Volscian and Veintine Wars.

CARTHAGE.-509, Treaty with Rome.-480, Defeat at Himera.-410, Sicilian Wars.

LITERATURE.-490, Pindar; 480, Eschylus and Sophocles; 444, Euripides, Herodotus; 429, Hippocrates, Lysias, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Socrates. DISCOVERIES.-479, Mnemonics by Simonides; 441, Catapult, &c.; 437, Anatomy and Medicine by Hippocrates.

JUDEA.

EZRA. The affairs of the Jews were still in a perplexed state. The rebuilding of the temple was completed under Darius Hystaspes, but the Samaritans and others persevered in their opposition to the restoration of the city walls, during the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. In the seventh year of the reign of the latter prince, 457, Ezra was sent to Jerusalem, with full civil and ecclesiastical powers, and in 445 Nehemiah was appointed governor. During his twelve years' administration, the walls were completed, and the feast of Tabernacles again celebrated. With Malachi, who died 420 B. c., closes the prophetic roll of the Old Testament, the canon of the history terminating with the death of Nehemiah. Bossuet says, that "God owed it to the majesty of his Son to silence the voices of the prophets during the next 400 years, that the nations might hold themselves in expectation of him who was to be the fullfilment of all oracles.

Judæa was governed by a Persian satrap, but by slow degrees the high priests became the virtual rulers of the nation.

GREECE.

PERSIAN INVASION.-The revolt of the Ionian colonies under Histiæus was supported by the Athenians, and the flames of Sardis (499) gave rise to the great war. Having subdued the rebellious colonists, Darius, at the instigation of the fugitive Hippias, sent into Greece a powerful army of 120,000 men. The invaders were met at MARATHON, a small town of Attica, immortalized by a battle in which the Athenians, almost unassisted, routed the Persian host, 29th September, 490 B. c. A long high barrow covers the remains of those who fell, and the peasant still fancies he hears their spectral cavalry sweeping by night across the plain. Miltiades, on whom his fellow-generals had conferred the

supreme command, was wounded, and Hippias is by some reported to have perished.

By this victory the power of Miltiades was raised to its height. He directed the Athenian arms against Paros, having formed the design of rendering his country the mistress of the sea; and on the failure of his expedition, he was capitally impeached by Xantippus, the chief of the Alemæonid faction. His principal defence and answer were the names of Marathon and Lemnos; but he was found guilty, and being unable to pay the fine of fifty talents, was thrown into prison, where he died.

THERMOPYLE AND SALAMIS.-The history of Athens now becomes, in some measure, that of individuals. Themistocles and Aristides took the reins of government, and were the real authors of the power and glory of the Athenian republic. The former, connected with noble families, united in a remarkable degree all the most brilliant qualities of a statesman; the latter, of distinguished birth, was proverbial for integrity. During the administration of these two great men, a more formidable invasion was headed by Xerxes, the successor of Darius, in person. This monarch, with his numerous host, which had gradually swelled to two millions and a half of warriors, met with no check until he reached the celebrated pass of Thermopylæ, where, about 12,000 men were collected under the Spartan king, Leonidas. After two days' successful fighting, patriotism was overcome by treason. A Greek named Ephialtes led the Persians across a mountain-path, by which they got to the rear of the opposing army. Dismissing the greater part of his troops, that they might not uselessly perish, he retained only 300 Spartans, 400 volunteer Thespians, 100 Thebans, and 80 warriors from Mycena. These with the Helots, as at Platæa, raised the number to about 2000. All this determined band, save the Thebans, were cut to pieces-non victi sed vincendo fatigati—and the victor marched to Athens, which he plundered and burnt (B.c. 480), the inhabitants, by advice of Themistocles, having taken refuge in the adjoining islands. From the top of a lofty cliff, the Persian ruler had the mortification of beholding his numerous fleet of 1000 galleys, each carrying 230 men, defeated by the Greeks with only 380 sail, between the mainland and Salamis. Xerxes fled hastily, leaving Mardonius behind with an army of 300,000 men, which was routed the next year at Platæa, by the allied Greeks under Pausanias and Aristides. On the same day (20th October), the remnant of the Persian fleet was utterly destroyed off Mycale, in Asia Minor. The day of Thermopyla (4th August) had also been rendered doubly illustrious by a seafight with the same enemy, near Artemisium, a promontory of Euboea. It is a pithy remark made by the historian Justin, that the troops of the eastern king wanted nothing but a leader.

The victory of Salamis operated an entire change in the position of the Greeks, both abroad and at home. From being attacked, they became the assailants, and the liberation of their Asiatic compatriots was the motive or the pretext by which they justified the continuance of an advantageous war, in which Sparta preserved the administration. But the treason and fall of Pausanias, who died of famine in the temple to which he had fled for refuge, changed the situation of affairs. The supreme influence passed from the Spartans to the Athenians, who profited by it to form a kind of military confederation of the inferior states. From this epoch dates the jealousy of the two republic., previous to which the numerous petty governments were incessantly armed teach other. Separated thus by mistaken interests, they could perform

nothing great, and external pressure was necessary to develop their forces in behalf of the common safety of Greece. The Persian wars laid the foundation of Grecian, and particularly of Athenian grandeur. While Athens was rising to an ascendancy over her neighbours, she was extending a silent but more certain and beneficial influence by her literary men. Eschylus fought at Salamis; Euripides was born on the very day of the battle, and Sophocles was seventeen years old.

EXILE OF THEMISTOCLES.-Themistocles, vanquisher of the Persians at Salamis, used his influence to persuade the Athenians of the necessity of maintaining their superiority by means of a powerful navy. In spite of the jealous opposition of the Spartans, the walls of Athens were raised, the Piræus was built, and funds were voted for the yearly construction of new vessels. These services of the patriotic leader were badly requited. He was accused of participating in the conspiracy of Pausanias; and although nothing was proved against him, he was, by the popular ballot, condemned to exile, in 471. He took refuge at the court of Artaxerxes Longimanus, where he died, whether by poison or disease is uncertain.

CIMON, the son of Miltiades, now became the prominent actor in the affairs of Greece. This great man was said to unite the courage of his father with the prudence of Themistocles and the integrity of Aristides. He had already acquired renown by his conquests in Thrace, and his successes over the Persians in Asia Minor. At the battles of the Eurymedon, in 466, he utterly defeated the troops of Artaxerxes, both by land and sea; whereby he struck such a blow at the power of that sovereign, that a treaty was concluded, by which the freedom of the Ionian cities was guarantied, and no Persian horseman allowed to approach within a day's journey of the sea. In a subsequent expedition, Cimon recovered the Thracian Chersonese; and by the surrender of Thasos in 463, the Athenians obtained the gold-mines on the opposite coasts of Thrace.

PERICLES, Son of Xantippus, the conqueror at Mycale, now appeared on the stage of Athenian politics. He joined the popular faction in order to oppose Cimon, who was at the head of the aristocracy; and the third Messenian war, which led to the exile of that chief, left him without a rival, 461. Thebes and Argos, which, during the struggle with Persia, had deserted and betrayed the Greek party, became the cause of a severe contest between Athens and Sparta; the latter declaring for the Thebans, the former for the Argives. On the field of Tanagra, in Boeotia, victory favoured the Spartans (457), but the successes of Myronides shortly after turned the scale. Nearly all the states of Boeotia were revolutionized, and garrisons of friends everywhere established. Faction was not, however, quieted, and to preserve the state from ruin, Pericles himself solicited the recall of the banished Cimon, 456. By his intercession, the two republics were united in a common expedition against Persia, during which this pacificator died, though not until he had seen the conclusion of the war, 449 B. C.

REVOLT OF THE HELOTS-THIRD MESSENIAN WAR.-While Athens was steadily pursuing her career of aggrandizement, Sparta was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake, unequalled in horrors, except by that of Lisbon in 1755 A. D. The earth opened into immense chasms, the tops of mountains were cleft, and enormous fragments rolled down

into the plains, destroying every thing in their course. In the city, five houses only were left standing, and 20,000 of its inhabitants perished in the ruins, 464 B. C. The Helots, taking advantage of this awful catastrophe, rose in rebellion, hoping to emancipate themselves and avenge their wrongs. The prudence of king Archidamus saved Lacedæmon; the Helots were gradually dispersed, and at last blockaded in Ithomé, the capital of Messene, which they had fortified. From this circumstance the insurrection is known by the name of the third Messenian war. At the outbreak of the revolt, the assistance of Athens was solicited, and granted at the suggestion of Cimon, for which act he was afterwards banished.

ADMINISTRATION OF PERICLES.-After the death of Cimon, Pericles became the leading man at Athens. Bold and artful, eloquent and rich, he managed the fickle populace at his will, and principally by flattering them that each individual knew something of the affairs of the state. Abroad he was everywhere triumphant, particularly in the Samian war, 440; and Athens became the Queen of the Sea. During forty years he governed with kingly power, and his reign was one of the most brilliant epochs in the history of civilisation. The arts and sciences, with commerce, made rapid advances; schools of philosophers and orators were formed; and to express one's thoughts with elegance and perspicuity became an enviable distinction. It is to the patronage of Pericles that Athens owes the glory of being the country of literature and the arts. How great the contrast offered by Lacedæmon, where grossness of manners and severe laws prevented all moral development! At Sparta, it was said, men learn to die for their country; at Athens, to live for it. War became inevitable between the rival states.

PELOPONNESIAN WAR.-The assistance furnished by the Athenians to the Corcyreans, who were at war with Corinth the mother city, was the pretext of a war which lasted twenty-seven years. The real cause was the mutual dislike of the Athenian democracy and the Spartan aristocracy. Fortune alternately favoured each party; Athens, the mistress of the sea, was supported by tributary confederates, whom fear attached to her, while Sparta, as a land-power, and seconded by the greater part of Greece, seemed to represent the cause of liberty. Thus the whole nation was divided into two parties-the Lacedæmonian and Athenian, or the Doric and Ionian.

The great events of this war are:- -The devastation of Attica; the battle of Arginusa; the defence of Platea; the Sicilian expedition; the battle of Egos-Potamos; the siege and taking of Athens.