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likewise a great deal of curious historical matter relative to the antiquities of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks. The next five books are wanting. The eleventh book begins with the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, and continues the Grecian history, and that of the contemporary nations, down to the age of Alexander the Great. The author is particularly ample on the affairs of the Romans and Carthaginians. The work of Diodorus appears to have been in great esteem with the writers of antiquity. The elder Pliny is high in his commendation; Justin Martyr ranks him among the most illustrious of the Greek historians; and Eusebius places greater weight on his authority than that of any other writer. The modern writers have blamed him for chronological inaccuracy. It is not to be denied that the History of Diodorus is replete with valuable matter, and that his style, though not to be compared to that of Xenophon or Thucydides, is pure, perspicuous, and free from all affectation.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus deserves to be ranked among the most eminent of the Greek writers of history, both in regard to the importance of his matter and the merit of his style, which, though deficient in simplicity, is often extremely eloquent. Dionysius came to Rome in the reign of Augustus, and continuing to reside there twenty-two years, employed that time in the most diligent research into the ancient records, in conversation with the most learned men of that age, and in the perusal of the older writers, whence he collected the materials of that most valuable work which he composed in twenty books, entitled Roman Antiquities. Of these only the first eleven books have been preserved, in which the origin and foundation of the Roman state are treated with great amplitude, and the history of the republic brought down to the end of the decemvirate. He has been censured for dealing in the marvellous; but the censure applies equally to Livy, who has repeated the same stories, without, it is probable, either believing them himself or expecting his readers to do so. Those who write of the origin of nations have but scanty materials of genuine history, and are thus tempted to eke them out with the popular fables. And these it is sometimes important to know, as they have frequently given rise to ceremonies and customs both of a religious and civil nature, of which the origin may therefore be considered as belonging to authentic history. The point in which Dionysius is more justly to be blamed is his fondness for system, and the desire he has to persuade his readers of his own sagacity in discovering, as he imagines, a deep and refined policy in the founders of the Roman state, in all those constitutional regulations regarding the powers and rights of the

*He gives, in the Introduction to his work, an ample account of all the sources of information from which his history is compiled.

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different orders, the functions of the magistrates, &c., which in reality could only have arisen gradually and progressively, as cir cumstances pointed out and required them. Of this error of Dionysius, I shall have another occasion to take some notice.

There are few of the ancient historians who deserve a higher rank in the estimation of the moderns than Arrian, whose history of the expedition of Alexander is the most authentic narrative we have of the exploits of that great conqueror, as he is also the best expositor of the real motives and designs of that extraordinary man, of whose policy such opposite judgments have been formed. The narrative of Arrian, as he informs us in his preface, is founded on the accounts given by two of Alexander's principal officers, Aristobulus and Ptolemy Lagus, afterwards the sovereign of Egypt. No historical record, therefore, has a better claim to the public faith. The brief account of India by Arrian, which includes the curious journal of Nearchus's voyage, is likewise extremely interesting and instructive. The style of Arrian formed on that of Xenophon, is a very happy imitation of that author's simplicity, purity, and precision. Arrian's merits are not solely those of an accurate and able historian; he was likewise a profound philosopher. It is to his writings that we owe all our knowledge of the sublime morality of Epictetus, of whom he was the favorite disciple, and has diligently recorded the philosophical lessons and maxims of his master. The short treatise entitled the Enchiridion of Epictetus, which is a complete epitome of the stoical morality, was written by Arrian, and, from its beautiful precision, is perhaps on the whole a more valuable memorial of that great philosopher than the four books which Arrian has collected of his discourses.

The last author I shall mention of those properly to be classed among the Greek historians is Plutarch, and perhaps there is no writer of antiquity of equal value in point of important matter and useful information. Plutarch was a Boeotian by birth, a native of Charonea, a small state of which his father was chief magistrate, with the title of Archon. He was borne in the 48th year of the Christian era, under the reign of the emperor Claudius, In his youth he travelled into Egypt, and while in that country, studied under Ammonius, a celebrated teacher of philosophy at Alexandria. Returning thence into Greece, he visited all the schools of the philosophers in that country; and, finally, with a mind replete with useful knowledge and an extensive acquaintance with men and manners, he repaired to Rome, for the purpose of examining the public records and collecting materials for the lives of the illustrious men of Italy and Greece. The reputation he had acquired as a man of great erudition procured him the acquaintance, of all the learned, and introduced him to the notice of the emperor Trajan, who honored him with high marks of his favor and friendship, and conferred on him the proconsular government of Illyria. A public life, however, was irksome to Plutarch,

whose chief enjoyment lay in the pursuits of literature and philosophy. He returned, after the death of Trajan, to his native city of Cheronea, where he passed the remaining years of a long life in discharging the office of its chief magistrate, in the composition of his excellent writings, and in the continual practice of all the active and social virtues. The lives of Illustrious Men, written by Plutarch, must upon the whole be ranked among the most valuable works which remain to us of the ancients. He is the only author who introduces us to an intimate and familiar acquaintance with those great men, whose public exploits and political characters we find indeed in other historians, but of whose individual features as men, and of their manners in domestic, private, and social intercourse, we should be utterly ignorant, were it not for his descriptive paintings, and the truly characteristic anecdotes which he records of them. What, if at times the biographer is chargeable with a little garrulity, and a too scrupulous minuteness in the detail of cir cumstances not of the highest importance? So natural is the desire felt by the ingenious mind of knowing every thing that concerns a great and illustrious character, that we can much more easily forgive the writer who is cheerfully lavish of the information he has collected, and at times descends even to trifling particulars, than him who, from a proud feeling of the dignity of authorship, is fastidiously sparing of his stores, and disdains to be ranked among the collectors of anecdote.

A great charm of Plutarch's writings is the admirable vein of morality which pervades all his compositions. Every sentiment proceeds from the heart, and forcibly persuades the reader of the amiable candor, worth, and integrity of the writer. While his biographical details contain the most valuable part of the ancient history of Greece and Rome, his moral writings include the sum of all the ancient ethics. Perhaps it was no exaggerated estimate of his merits made by Theodore Gaza, when he declared that if every trace of ancient learning was to perish, and he had it in his power to preserve one single book from the works of the profane writers, his choice would fall upon Plutarch.

The style of this author, though, in the judgment of the best critics, neither polished nor pure, is at all times energetic; and, on those occasions when the subject demands it, rises frequently to great eloquence,

An ancient Greek epigram of Agathias records the high esteem which the Roman people entertained for this excellent writer, in erecting a statue to his honor.*

*The epigram is thus translated by Dryden :

"Boeotian Plutarch, to thy deathless praise

Does martial Rome this graceful statue raise;

Because both Greece and she thy fame have shared,
Their heroes written, and their lives compared.
But thou thyself could never write thy own;

Their lives have parallels, but thine has none.

CHAPTER IX.

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GREEK PHILOSOPHY-Ionic Sect-Thales--Anaximander-Anaximenes-Anax agoras-Italic Sect-Pythagoras-Empedocles, &c. Eleatic Sect-ZenoLeucippus-Democritus-Heraclitus-Socrates-Cyrenaic Sect-AristippusCynics-Diogenes- Megaric Sect-Plato-Peripatetics-Aristotle - Skeptics -Pyrrho-Stoics-Epicureans-Reflections.

I HAVE already remarked that one considerable effect of the public games and festivals of the Greeks was the propagation and advancement of the literary spirit. The Olympic and other solemn games of the Greeks were not only the field of martial and athletic exercises, but of the contests for the palm of literature. Those immense assemblies were the stated resort of the poets, the historians, the rhapsodists, and even the philosophers.

After the days of Homer and Hesiod, the increasing relish for poetical composition gave rise to a set of men termed rhapsodists, whose original employment was to travel from one city to another, frequenting public entertainments and solemn festivals, and reciting the works of the poets which they had committed to memory. As the early poets were the first teachers of the sciences, those rhapsodists became commentators on their works, and expositors of their doctrines. The youth, who resorted to them for instruction, dignified their masters with the title of Sophists or professors of wisdom, and these sophists soon became the founders of different sects or schools of philosophy.

The history of the ancient philosophy, if we consider how small a portion it embraced of useful knowledge, and yet how ardent the zeal of its teachers, and how keen the controversies of the different sects, affords on the whole a mortifying picture of the caprice and weakness of the human mind: but on these very accounts, no subject of contemplation is more fitted to subdue in man those arrogant ideas of his own abilities, and of the all-sufficiency of his intellectual powers to subject the whole phenomena both of the natural and moral. world to his limited reason and understanding.

The most ancient school of philosophy was that founded by Thales of Miletus, about 640 years before the Christian era, and termed the Ionic sect, from the country of its founder. Thales is said to have learned great part of his knowledge in Egypt, as the ancients were fond of attributing the rudiments of all wisdom to that happy quarter. He became celebrated for his knowledge in

geometry and astronomy; but the former of these sciences must be supposed to have been at that time in mere infancy, when one of Thales's discoveries is said to have been, that all right lines passing through the centre of a circle divide it into two equal parts. Yet Thales made some bold and fortunate conjectures in the science of astronomy. He conjectured this earth to be a sphere, and that it revolved round the sun. He believed the fixed stars to be so many suns encircled with other planets like our earth: he believed the moon's light to be a reflection of the sun's from a solid surface and if we may trust the testimony of ancient authors, he was able to calculate eclipses, and actually predicted that famous eclipse of the sun 601 years before the birth of Christ, which separated the armies of the Medes and Lydians at the moment of an engagement. The metaphysical opinions of Thales are but imperfectly known. He supposed the world to be framed by the Deity out of the original element of water, and animated by his essence as the body is by the soul; that the Deity therefore resided in every portion of space; and that this world was only a great temple, where the sight of every thing around him reminded man of that Great Being which inhabited and pervaded it.* As a specimen of the moral doctrines of Thales we have the following excellent opinions and precepts: "Neither the crimes of bad men, nor even their thoughts are concealed from the gods. Health of body, a moderate fortune, and a cultivated mind, are the chief ingredients of happiness. Parents may expect from. their children that obedience which they themselves paid to their parents. Stop the mouth of slander by prudence. Take care not to commit the same fault yourself, which you censure in others." t

The disciples of the ancient philosophers frequently made bold innovations on the doctrines of their masters. Anaximander, the disciple and successor of Thales, who first committed the tenets of the Ionic school to writing, taught that all things are in a state of continual change; that there is a constant succession of worlds: and that while some are daily tending to dissolution, others are forming. Anaximander is said to have been the first constructor of the sphere, to have delineated the limits of the earth and sea, and to have invented the gnomon for pointing the hours by the shadow on the sun-dial. His contemporary Anaximenes, of the same school, believed the Divinity to reside in the air, which he likewise made to be the original and constituent principle of all the other elements.

The most intelligible and rational opinions of any philosopher of

* Thales-homines existimare oportere, omnia quæ cernerent Deorum esse plena; fore enim omnes castiores, velutique in fanis essent, maximé religiosi.— Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 2.

Diog. Laert in Vita Thal.

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