The Magian doctrine endeavoured to account for the existence of evil, by the notion (afterwards adopted by the Manichees) of two first causes, principles or gods, of Good and Evil. The name is derived from the Magi, a sacerdotal caste of the Medes, who introduced their peculiar opinions into Persia. This doctrine was reformed by Zoroaster or Zerdusht. Four persons of this name are mentioned by ancient authors; but the best known, and perhaps the only one who ever existed, was born in Media about the same time as Cyrus. Sent in early life to Judæa, he studied the books of Moses and Solomon, and became acquainted with the prophecies concerning Cyrus. Returning to his own country, he retired to a lonely cavern, in which he wrote the Avesta, or as it is generally called, the Zendavesta, from being written in the Zend language, the sacred dialect of the Parsees. In this work, which contains tenets of the highest wisdom and the purest morals, the Two Principles are reduced to the rank of subordinate angels, and the existence of one independent and self-existing deity is acknowledged, as also the salvation of man by faith from the power of Arimanes or Satan. These doctrines appear to have been adopted in Persia by the nobler tribes alone. The Magi preserved the sacred fire which Zoroaster brought to Media, and which he is said to have received from heaven. His favourite maxim was, that evil followed good, as the shadow the sub

stance.

EGYPT.

PSAMMETICHUS.-The period between the sixteenth and tenth centuries, although disturbed by anarchy, was the most prosperous in the history of this kingdom. In the Holy Scriptures we find a few scattered notices of Egyptian affairs, such as the marriage of Solomon with the king's daughter, and the invasion of Judæa by Shishak in 971 B. c. The tide of conquest now rolled down the Nile, the Ethiopians under Sabacus rose to great power, 770, and a dynasty of three kings reigned in succession on the united throne of Egypt and Ethiopia. Various revolutions followed, until Psammetichus of Sais obtained the supreme power, about 656 B. c. He had been a member of the dodecarchy, or government of twelve sovereign princes, among whom the country had been divided, 671. Quarrels springing up among them, they expelled him, but he soon after returned, and, aided by Greek mercenaries, put his rivals to flight. In consideration of the fidelity and military

services of the strangers who had helped him to his throne, he kept many of them about him as a standing army, and honoured them with his confidence. At this the warrior-caste took umbrage, and, to the number of 200,000, retired into Ethiopia. In his reign commerce flourished, and strangers were allowed freely to visit the Egyptian ports.

The accession of Psammetichus to the sole sovereignty of Egypt is an important epoch, and the termination of historical uncertainty. Greek writers now furnish us with a detailed history of the country, no longer founded on figurative inscriptions or allegorical traditions; and henceforward the Scriptures also give us the names and characters of the Egyptian princes, whom we easily recognise in the Greek narratives. In this reign the interpreters became a distinct class, alphabetical writing came into general use, and the science of hieroglyphics was gradually forgotten. Egypt now became and continued a single empire, with its seat of government at Memphis. Down to this time, no Egyptian king, with the exception of Sesostris, had appeared animated with a military spirit; but after Psammetichus, the various princes felt the necessity of becoming warriors and creating a maritime power. The enlightened administration of Psammetichus made Egypt flourish without overloading the people with taxes. He was partial to the Greeks, and formed an alliance with the Athenians. Although his subjects, blinded by prejudice, did not second his extended views, he is not the less one of the most estimable sovereigns that ever governed the nation.

PHARAOH-NECHо, 617-601.-The son and successor of Psammetichus would have been an extraordinary ruler in any age. He formed extensive plans of conquest; subdued all Asia, as far as the Euphrates; took Carchemish (Circesium), the key of Syria and Palestine, and placed in it a strong garrison (610). His march through Judah was opposed by Josiah, who was slain in battle, and his kingdom treated as a subject country. He attempted to join the Nile to the Red Sea by a canal, ninety-six miles in length; in which unsuccessful labour 120,000 workmen are said to have perished.* At his command a Phoenician fleet sailed from the Arabian Gulf, circumnavigated Africa, and returned in three years by the Straits of Gibraltar, twenty-one centuries before Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope (1497 a. D.). In 606, Nebuchadnezzar II. defeated and pursued the Egyptian monarch, when all his conquests beyond the frontiers were lost. Necho died after a reign of sixteen years, leaving the throne to his son Psammis, 601 B. C.

*This work was completed by the Persians, but turned out to be of little practical benefit. Many learned men have doubted the existence of a communication by water between the two seas; but the testimony of ancient writers is too positive against them. Attempts have been made, at various times, down to the present day, to clean out the bed of the canal, which is still visible.

GREECE.

DRACO.-The example of Sparta, and their own internal dissensions inspired the Athenians with a desire for a regular constitution, the framing of which was committed to the hands of Draco, chief archon that year (624), a man as rigidly severe as he was inflexibly just. The code he drew up was said to be written in blood, death being the penalty of the lowest as well as of the highest crimes. It naturally fell into contempt and desuetude, when at length the contests of the aristocratic parties, and the better regulation of the religious worship by the Cretan Epimenides, prepared the way for Solon. From the three classes, which existed in the time of Theseus, the nobles, labourers, and artisans, appear to have been derived the same number of political factions which now divided Athens. The mountaineers or Diacrians advocated an absolute democracy; the rich inhabitants of the plains, or Pedians, desired an aristocracy; while the Paralians who dwelt along the shores, favoured a mixed government, in which the people had the right of suffrage, and the executive power was placed in the hands of a few individuals. The intolerable abuses of the magistracy, and the rapacity of their own creditors, drove the people at last into insurrection. They elected a chief, threw open the prisons, and with arms in their hands demanded a partition of the land, the abolition of all debts, and a new order of government. Civil war was on the point of breaking out when Solon was chosen archon, and appointed supreme arbiter and legislator of the republic, 594 B. C.

MESSENIAN WARS.-A trifling quarrel between the Spartans and Messenians, who had been long at variance with each other, gave rise in 743 to the First War of twenty years, which ended to the disadvantage of the latter. Messenia, lying in the south-west of the Peloponnesus, was a fertile country with great maritime advantages. The wise Nestor is supposed to have ruled in one of its cities; and his descendants were driven from the throne by the Dorian followers of the Heraclidæ. The people were a simple, agricultural race, but not deficient in warlike virtues. In the year 773, an insult offered to a band of Spartan virgins by some Messenian youths, led to the first serious misunderstanding between the respective states. Hostilities did not break out until thirty years after, when Polychares, indignant that punishment had not been inflicted on the murderer of his son, in a wild spirit of retaliation killed

several Lacedæmonians, 743. In the early part of the war, fortune was on the side of Messenia, Aristodemus having restored the fainting spirits of his countrymen by the sacrifice of his daughter. Shortly after the battle of Ithomé, 730, he was elected to the vacant throne, and made frequent and destructive incursions into the Laconian territory. In 725, the Spartans prepared for a decisive struggle, but it was prolonged until 723, when Aristodemus had fallen by his own hand on the tomb of his immolated child. Ithomé was

taken and rased to the ground; the Messenians were condemned to a yearly tribute of half their crops, and to be present in deep mourning at the interment of the Spartan kings. For thirty-nine years they remained in subjection, when the Second War broke out, 685, under the conduct of the famous Aristomenes, whose adventures are so romantic as to throw doubt upon the whole history of his campaigns. The Spartans, headed by the lame Athenian schoolmaster Tyrtæus, and cheered by his songs, were eventually successful, after besieging the stronghold of Ira during eleven years; and the Messenians who did not abandon their country made a numerous addition to the Helots or Laconian slaves. Aristomenes escaped, and died at Rhodes. He was the worthy precursor of Epaminondas, and we can scarcely find in history two nobler and purer characters than these two great men. The Third Messenian war occurred in the fifth century B. C., and was terminated by the surrender of Ithomé.

Read: Bulwer's Athens, book i. chap. vi. § 16; and Travels of Anacharsis, ch. xl.

The colony of Tarentum in Italy was founded shortly after the first Messenian war, by the Parthenia from Sparta, 707, a mixed race of Spartan and Lacedæmonian blood, who had revolted because their legal illegitimacy excluded them from citizenship.

In Lacedæmon, during these wars, the Ephori had been created as vicegerents of the kings, and it is worthy of note, that while the sovereignties of Judah and Israel were falling into ruin, the states of Greece were gradually preparing for their glorious course of mental and physical greatness. At this time Massilia (Marseilles), Byzantium, and Cyrene, were founded; and the Gauls established themselves in Northern Italy.

ROME.

HORATII AND CURIATII, B. c. 667.-Numa was succeeded by Tullus Hostilius (672), who sought to rival the military

glory of Romulus. In a war against the Albans took place the celebrated combat between the champions of Rome and those of Alba, the three Horatii and the three Curiatii. The former were victorious, the city of Alba was laid waste, and the population transferred to Rome, which thus became the capital of the united nations. On the death of Hostilius, who perished by lightning, Ancus Martius was elected king, 640 B. C. He was the grandson of Numa, whose religious institutions he attempted to revive; and although not unsuccessful in war, he derived the title of "the Good" from his works of peace. He raised temples, instituted the fetial law, fortified the city, enlarged its territorial possessions, dug quarries, formed salt-works, built the port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, and laid the foundations of the Roman commerce and maritime power.

TARQUIN THE ELDER, or Priscus, 616 в. c., was an Etrurian of Greek extraction; and his genius, education, and wealth, were the cause of his election to the throne of Ancus. He defeated the Latins and Sabines, the inveterate enemies of early Rome, and first assumed the regal fasces and purple robe. He also increased the number of the senate to 300. Among his public works are the vast sewers, which exist uninjured to the present day. He laid out the Circus and the Forum, and began to surround the city with a wall of massy stones. The splendour with which he was invested at length raised the envy of the sons of the former monarch, who had for above thirty-seven years quietly submitted to his government. Two ruffians hired by them gained access to the king, under pretence that they came for justice, and struck him dead in his palace with a blow of an axe, 578 в. c. The murderers were immediately seized and put to death, while the instigators of the violence found safety in flight.

OBSERVATION.-Although the personal existence of Romulus may be rejected, and the history of Numa doubted, there are some things in that of Tullus Hostilius which bear the mark of truth, however disguised by their legendary form. Alba was destroyed by the Latins, with whom the Romans, as living in the Latin territory, may have been allied. The tribe Luceres was added to the patrician body, as distinct from the plebeian With Ancus, a new order of citizens, the Plebs, appears a class of men personally independent, but not sharing in the government.

estate.