Hydarnes was ordered to advance with that body which was called immortal, and consisted of 10,000 chosen men; but these succeeded no better than the former, being obliged to retire with great slaughter. The next day the Persians, reflecting on the small number of their enemies, and supposing so many of them to be wounded that they could not possibly maintain a second fight, resolved to make another attempt: but, instead of making the Greeks give way, they were themselves put to a shameful flight. The valor of the Greeks on this occasion was exerted in a manner so extraordinary that Xerxes dreaded the entire destruction of his army. Xerxes, finding the Greeks determined to conquer or die, was extremely perplexed what measures he should adopt; when one Ephialtes discovered a secret passage to the top of the hill which overlooked and commanded the Spartan forces. The king immediately ordered Hydarnes thither with his select body of 10,000 Persians; who, marching all night, arrived at break of day, and possessed themselves of that advantageous post. The Phocæans, who defended this pass, being overpowered by the enemy's numbers, retired with precipitation to the very top of the mountain, prepared to die gallantly. But Hydarnes, neglecting to pursue them, marched down the mountain with all possible expedition to attack those who defended the straits in the rear. Leonidas, being now apprised that it was impossible to bear up against the enemy, obliged the rest of his allies to retire: but he staid himself with the Thespians, Thebans, and 300 Lacedæmonians, all resolved to die with their leader; who, being told by the oracle that either Sparta should be destroyed or the king lose his life, determined, without the least hesitation, to sacrifice himself for his country. The Thebans indeed remained against their inclination, being detained by Leonidas as hostages; for they were suspected to favor the Persians. The Thespians, with their leader Demophilus, could not by any means be prevailed upon to abandon Leonidas and the Spartans. The augur Megistias, who had foretold the event of this enterprise, being pressed by Leonidas to retire, sent home his only son; but remained himself and died by Leonidas. Those who staid did not feed themselves with any hopes of conquering or escaping, but looked upon Thermopyle as their graves; and when Leonidas, exhorted them to take some nourishment, said that they should all sup together with Pluto, with one accord they set up a shout of joy, as if they had been invited to a banquet. Xerxes began to move at sun rise with the whole body of his army, as he had been advised by Ephialtes. Upon their approach Leonidas advanced to the broadest part of the passage, and fell upon the enemy with such undaunted courage and resolution that the Persian officers were obliged to stand behind the divisions they commanded to prevent the flight of their men. Great numbers of the enemy, falling into the sea, were drowned; others were trampled underfoot by their own men, and many killed by the Greeks; knowing they could not avoid death upon the arrival of those who were advancing to fall upon their rear, exerted their utmost efforts. In this

action fell the brave Leonidas; which Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, two brothers of Xerxes, observing, advanced with great resolution to seize his body, and carry it in triumph to Xerxes. But the Lacedæmonians, more eager to defend it than their own lives, repulsed the enemy four times, who, killed both the brothers of Xerxes, with many other commanders of distinction, and rescued the body of their beloved general out of the enemy's hands. But in the mean time the army that was led by the treacherous Ephialtes advancing to attack their rear, they retired to the narrowest place of the passage, and drawing altogether except the Thebans, posted themselves on a rising ground. In this place they made head against the Persians, who poured in upon them on all sides, till at length, not vanquished, but oppressed and overwhelmed by numbers, they all fell except one, who escaped to Sparta, where he was treated as a coward and traitor to his country; but afterwards made a glorious reparation in the battle of Platea, where he distinguished himself in an extraordinary manner. Some time after a magnificent monument was erected at Thermopylæ in honor of those brave defenders of Greece, with two inscriptions; the one general, and relating to' all those who died on this occasion, importing, that the Greeks of Peloponnesus, to the number only of 4000, made head against the Persian army consisting of 3,000,000. The other related to the Spartans in particular, and was composed by the poet Simonides, to this purport :- Go, passenger, and acquaint the Spartans that we died here in obedience to their just commands.' At those tombs a funeral oration was yearly pronounced in honor of the dead heroes, and public games performed with great solemnity, wherein none but the Lacedæmonians and Thespians had any share, to show that they alone were concerned in the glorious defence of Thermopyla.

At the end of the seventy-seventh Olympiad, a most dreadful earthquake happened at Sparta, in which, according to Diodorus, 20,000 persons lost their lives; and Plutarch tells us that only five houses were left standing in the whole city. On this occasion the Helotes or slaves, whom the Spartans had all along treated with the utmost cruelty, attempted to revenge themselves by taking up arms, and marching directly to the ruins of the city, in hopes of cutting off at once those who had escaped from the earthquake. But in this they were prevented by the prudence of the Spartan king Archidamus; for he, observing that the citizens were more desirous of preserving their effects than taking care of their own lives, caused an alarm to be sounded, as if he had known that an enemy was at hand. On this the citizens armed themselves with such weapons as they could come at; and, having marched a little way from the city, met the Helotes, whom they soon compelled to retire. The latter, however, knowing that they had now no mercy to expect from those who had already treated them with such cruelty, resolved to defend themselves to the last. Having therefore seized a sea-por town in Messenia, they thence made such incursions into the Spartan territories that they compelled those imperious masters to ask assistance from the Athenians. This was immediately

Vices.

granted; but, when the Spartans saw that the skill of the Athenians in besieging towns was much greater than their own, they became jealous, and dismissed their allies, telling them that they had now no farther occasion for their serOn this the Athenians left them in disgust; and as the Helotes and the Messenians did not choose to engage with a Spartan army in the field, but took shelter in their fortified places, the war was protracted for ten years and upwards. At last the Helotes were reduced to their former misery; and the Messenians were obliged to leave Peloponnesus, on pain of being made slaves also. These poor people were then received by the Athenians, who granted them Naupactus for their residence, and afterwards brought them back to a part of their own country, whence, in the course of the Peloponnesian war, they had driven the Spartans. In the year 431 B. C. the Peloponnesian war commenced. It ended most unfortunately for the Athenians; their city being taken and dismantled. Thus were the Spartans raised to the highest pitch of glory; and in the reign of Agesilaus II. they seemed to be on the point of subverting the Persian empire. But here their good fortune and their views of empire were suddenly checked. Agesilaus had carried on the war in Asia with the greatest success; and, as he would hearken to no terms of accommodation, a Persian governor named Tithrastes, having first attempted in vain to bribe the king, despatched Timocrates the Rhodian with fifty talents into Greece, in order to try whether he could there meet with any persons less incorruptible than the Spartan monarch. This agent found many who inclined to accept his offers; particularly in Thebes, Corinth, and Argos. By distributing the money properly he inflamed the inhabitants of these cities against the Spartans; and the Thebans came into his terms with the utmost readiness. But as they saw that their antagonists would not of their own accord break with any of the states of Greece, and did not choose to begin the war themselves, they persuaded the Locrians to invade a small district which lay in dispute betwixt the Phocians and themselves. On this the Phocians invaded Locris; the Locrians applied to the Thebans, and the Phocians to the Spartans. The latter were glad of an opportunity of breaking with the Thebans, but met with a much warmer reception than they expected. Their old general Lysander, who had reduced Athens, was defeated and killed, with the loss of 1000 men : on which disaster Agesilaus was recalled, and obliged to relinquish all hopes of conquering the Persians. His return changed the fortune of the war so much, that all the states began to grow weary of a contest from which nobody derived any advantage except the king of Persia. In a short time a treaty was concluded, known in history by the name of the peace of Antalcidas. The terms of this treaty were highly disadvantageous and dishonorable to the Greeks; for even the Spartans, though successful in Greece, had lost a battle at sea with the Persian fleet under Conon the Athenian, which entirely broke their power in Asia. Sce PERSIA.

By the peace of Antalcidas, the government of

Boeotia was taken from the Thebans, which they had long enjoyed; and by this they were so much provoked that at first they absolutely refused to accede to the treaty; but, as Agesilaus made great preparations to invade them, they thought proper at last to comply. However, a new war soon commenced, which threatened the total subversion of the Spartan state. As, by the peace of Antalcidas, the king of Persia had in a manner guaranteed the sovereignty of Greece to Sparta, this republic very soon began to exercise its power to the utmost extent. The Mantineans were the first who felt the weight of their resentment, although they had been their allies and confederates. To have a pretence for making war against them, they commanded them to quit their city, and to retire into five old villages which, they said, had served their forefathers, and where they would live in peace themselves, and give no umbrage to their neighbours. This being refused, an army was sent against them to besiege their city. The siege was continued through the summer with very little success on the part of the Spartans; but, having during the winter dammed up the river on which the city stood, the water rose to such a height as either to overflow or throw down the houses; which compelled the Mantineans to submit to the terms prescribed to them, and retire into the old villages. The Spartan vengeance fell next on the Philiasians and Olynthians, whom they forced to come into such measures as they thought proper. After this they fell on the Thebans; and, by attempting to seize on Piræum, drew the Athenians also into the quarrel. But here their career was stopped: the Thebans had been taught the art of war by Chabrias the Athenian; so that even Agesilaus himself took the command of the Spartan army in vain. At sea they were defeated by Timotheus the son of Conon; and by land the battle of Leuctra put an end to the superiority which Sparta had held over Greece for nearly 500 years. See LEUCTRA.

After this dreadful defeat, the Spartans had occasion to exert all their courage and resolution. The women and nearest relations of those who were killed in battle, instead of spending their time in lamentations, shook each other by the hand; while the relations of those who had escaped from the battle hid themselves among the women; or, if they were obliged to go abroad, they appeared in tattered clothes, with their arms folded, and their eyes fixed on the ground. It was a law among the Spartans that such as fled from battle should be degraded from their honors, should be constrained to appear in garments patched with divers colors, to wear their beards half shaved, and to suffer any to beat them who pleased, without resistance. On this occasion, however, this law was dispensed with; and Agesilaus, by his prudent conduct, kept up the spirits of the people, at the same time that by his skil in military affairs he checked the progress of the enemy. Yet, during the lifetime of Epaminondas the Theban general, the war went on greatly to the disadvantage of the Spartans; but he being killed, at the battle of Mantinea, all parties became quickly desirous of peace. Agesilaus did not long survive him; and with him,

we may say, perished the glory of Sparta. Soon after this all the states of Greece fell under the power of Alexander the Great ; and the Spartans, as well as the rest, having become corrupt, and lost their martial spirit, became a prey to domestic tyrants, and to foreign invaders. They maintained their ground, however, with great resolution against the celebrated Pyrrhus king of Epirus; whom they repulsed for three days successively, though not without assistance from one of the captains of Antigonus. Soon after this, king Agis III, perceiving the universal degene racy that had taken place, made an attempt to restore the laws and discipline of Lycurgus, by which he supposed the state would be restored to its former glory. But, though at first he met with some appearance of success, he was in a short time most iniquitously tried and condemned by the ephori as a traitor to his country. See AGIS III. Cleomenes III., however, accomplished the reformation which Agis had attempted in vain. He suppressed the ephori: cancelled all debts; divided the lands equally, as they had been in the time of Lycurgus; and put an end to the luxury which prevailed among the citizens. But at last he was overborne by the number of enemies which surrounded him; and, being defeated in battle by Antigonus, he fled to Egypt, where he and his family were kindly entertained by Ptolemy Euergetes; but upon his death Philopater put him in jail, on which the old king killed himself.

With Cleomenes fell every hope of retrieving the affairs of Sparta. The citizens indeed attempted a reform, by dethroning their two last kings, Lycurgus II. and Agesipolis III., abolishing the binarchy, and establishing a republic; but their new republic was very short-lived; the tyrant Machanidas seized the power and made it a monarchy once more, or rather an absolute despotism, about A.A. C. 210. Machanidas, like all tyrants, detesting every thing that favored of liberty, made war upon the Achæans, who were then joined in a league for the freedom of Greeee; and led a body of Spartans unwillingly against them; but Philopomen, coming up with him at the memorable town of Mantinea, rendered that place once more famous for a second defeat of the Spartans, and killed the tyrant Machanidas with his own hand in the battle, about A. A. C. 206. The death of this tyrant, however, did not give liberty to Sparta. Nabis, a tyrant who in barbarity exceeded all the monsters who had gone before him, assumed the despotism and held it for fourteen years. See NABIS. To strengthen himself, he formed an alliance with the Romans, and joined the forces of Flaminius against the Achæans; but, though he gained one naval victory over Philopomen at sea, that general soon after gave him a total overthrow by land; Nabis fell in the battle, and Philopomen demolished the walls of Sparta, A. A. C. 192. The Spartans, however, reckoned themselves so much indebted to Philopomen, for delivering them from their tyrant, that they sold Nabis's palace and furniture, made a present of the value 120 talents) to the Achæan general, and soon after joined the league, which their tyrants had hitherto compelled them to oppose. See PHILO

POMEN. With all their bravery, however, they fell under the Roman yoke, in common with the rest of Greece, after the destruction of Corinth, A. A. C. 147. And about A. C. 71 their country was reduced by Vespasian to the form of a Roman province. Upon the division of the empire, it naturally fell to the Greek emperors, under whom it was subjected to despots, honorably so called, who acknowledged the authority of the emperors, and often were their relations. The last of these was Thomas Palæologus, who was dispossessed by Mahomet II. in 1453. Sparta or Laconia, now called Misitra, was afterwards conquered by the Venetians in 1686; but the Turks recovered it in 1715.

As the character, manners, and customs, of the Spartans, were founded on the laws of Lycurgus, they may best be learned from a view of these laws. The institutions of Lycurgus were divided into twelve tables. These respected, I. Religion: II. The Division of Land: III. Citizens and their children: IV. Celibacy and Marriage: V. Education: VI. Diet, Clothing, &c.: VII. Obedience: VIII. Learning: IX. Exercises : X. Money: XI. Courts of Justice: XII. Military service. The laws respecting these we shall consider in our usual lexicographical order.

Celibacy in men was infamous, and punished in a most extraordinary manner; for the old bachelor was constrained to walk naked, in the depth of winter, through the market-place: while he did this, he was obliged to sing a song in disparagement of himself; and he had none of the honors paid him which otherwise belonged to old age, it being held unreasonable that the youth should venerate him who was resolved to leave none of his progeny behind him, to revere them when they grew old in their turn. The time of marriage was also fixed; and, if a man did not marry when he was of full age, he was liable to an action; as were such also as married above or below themselves. Such as had three children had great immunities; such as had four were free from all taxes whatsoever. Virgins were married without portions; because neither want should hinder a man, nor riches induce him, to marry contrary to his inclinations When a marriage was agreed on, the husband committed a kind of rape upon his bride. Husbands went for a long time, secretly and by stealth, to the beds of their wives, that their love might not be quickly and easily extinguished. Husbands were allowed to lend their wives; but the kings were forbidden to take this liberty. Some other laws of the like nature there were, which, as they were evidently against modesty, so they were far from producing the end for which Lycurgus designed them; since, though the men of Sparta were generally remarkable for their virtue, the Spartan women were as generally decried for their boldness and contempt of decency.

The citizens were to be neither more nor less than the number of city lots; and, if at any time there happened to be more, they were to be led out in colonies. As to children, their laws were equally harsh and unreasonable; for a father was directed to carry his new-born infant to a certain place, where the gravest men of his

tribe looked upon the infant; and, if they perceived its limbs straight, and thought it had a wholesome look, then they returned it to its parents to be educated; otherwise it was thrown into a deep cavern at the foot of the mountain Taygetus. This law seems to have had one very good effect, viz. making women very careful, when they were with child, of either eating, drinking, or exercising, to excess: it made them also excellent nurses; for which they were in mighty request throughout Greece. Strangers were not allowed to reside long in the city, that they might not corrupt the Spartans by teaching them new customs. Citizens were also forbidden to travel, for the same reason, unless the good of the state required it. Such as were not bred up in their youth according to the law, were not allowed the liberty of the city, because they held it unreasonable that one who had not submitted to the laws in his youth should receive the benefit of them when a man. They never preferred any stranger to a public office; but, if at any time they had occasion for a person not born a Spartan, they first made him a citizen, and then preferred him.

Such of the laws of Sparta as related to courts of justice may be brought under the eleventh table. Thirty years must have passed over the head of him who had a right to concern himself in juridical proceedings. Young men were thought unfit for them; and it was even held indecent, and of ill report, for a man to have any fondness for law-suits, or to be busying himself at the tribunals, when he had no affairs there of his own. By these rules Lycurgus thought to shut out litigiousness, and to prevent that multiplicity of suits which is always scandalous in a state. As young people were not permitted to enquire about the laws of other countries, and as they were hindered from hearing judicial proceedings in their courts, so they were likewise forbidden to ask any questions about, or to endeavour to discover, the reasons of the laws by which themselves were governed. Obedience was their duty; and to that alone they would have them kept. Men of abandoned characters, or who were notoriously of ill fame, lost all right of giving their votes in respect of public affairs, or of speaking in public assemblies; for they would not believe that an ill man in private life could mean his country better than he did his neighbour.

As the poor ate as well as the rich, so the rich could wear nothing better than the poor: they neither changed their fashion nor the materials of their garments; they were made for warmth and strength, not for gallantry and show: and to this custom even their kings conformed, who wore nothing gaudy in right of their dignity, but were contented that their virtue should distinguish them rather than their clothes. The youths wore a tunic till they were twelve years old; afterwards they had a cloak given them, which was to serve them a year: and their clothing was, in general, so thin, that a Lacedæmonian vest became proverbial. Boys were always used to go without shoes; but, when they grew up. they were indulged with them, if the manner of life they led required it; but they were always

inured to run without them, as also to climb up and slip down steep places with bare feet: nay, the very shoe they used was of a particular form, plain and strong. Boys were not permitted to wear their hair; but, when they arrived at the age of twenty, they suffered their hair and beard to grow. Baths and anointing were not much in use among the Lacedæmonians; the river Eurotas supplied the former, and exercise the latter. In the field, however, their sumptuary laws did not take place so strictly as in the city; for, when they went to war, they wore purple habits; they put on crowns when they were about to engage the enemy; they had also rings, but they were of iron; which metal was inost esteemed by this nation. Young women wore their vests or jerkins only to their knees, or, as some think, not quite so low; a custom which both Greek and Roman authors censure as indecent. Gold, precious stones, and other costly ornaments, were permitted only to common women; which permission was the strongest prohibition to women of virtue, or who affected to be thought virtuous. Virgins went abroad without veils, with which married women, on the contrary, were always covered. In certain public exercises, in which girls were admitted as well as boys, they were both obliged to perform naked. Plutarch apologises for this custom, urging, that there could be no danger from nakedness to the morals of youth whose minds were fortified and habituated to virtue. One of Lycurgus's principal views in his institutions was to eradicate the very seeds of civil dissension in his republic. Hence proceeded the equal division of estates enjoined by him; hence the contempt of wealth, and the neglect of other distinctions, as particularly birth, he considering the people of his whole state as one great family; distinctions which, in other commonwealths, frequently produce tumults and confusions that shake their very foundation.

Lycurgus divided all the country of Laconia into 30,000 equal shares: the city of Sparta be divided into 9000 as some say, into 6000 as others say; and, as a third party will have it, into 4500. The intent of the legislator was that property should be equally divided amongst his citizens, so that none might be powerful enough to oppress his fellows, or any be in such necessity, as to be therefrom in danger of corruption. With the same view he forbade the buying or selling these possessions. In this his views coincided entirely with the divine law given to the Israelites. If a stranger acquired a right to any of these shares, he might quietly enjoy it, provided he submitted to the laws of its republic. The city of Sparta was unwalled; Lycurgus trusting it rather to the virtue of its citizens than to the art of masons. As to the houses, they were very plain; for their ceilings could only be wrought by the axe, and their gates and doors only by the saw; and their utensils were to be of a like stamp, that luxury might have no instruments among them.

It was the care of Lycurgus that, from their very birth, the Lacedæmonians should be inured to conquer their appetites for this reason he directed that nurses should accustom their chil

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