towards the State. In the best of oligarchies, however, though the council of nobles will exert its energies for the public good, yet strong private feuds will spring up amongst its members. Thus factions will arise, and factions will bring on murders; and this dreadful state of things can only be terminated by some one seizing the supreme power and establishing a monarchy, which alone proves it to be the better government. Last of all, we come to a democracy; and, under the indiscriminate government of the people, it is impossible but that many evils should spring up. These evils, however, do not so much arise from the private animosities of the evil-disposed, as from the powerful combinations of party; and these party struggles continue until some one of the people stands forward and puts them down; and on this very account the people will admire him and make him their king. This termination again proves that a monarchy is the best government that can be adopted. But, to sum up everything, let me ask this question:- Whence came the freedom of Persia from the Median yoke? Who gave it? Was it a democracy, or an oligarchy, or a monarchy? I need scarcely remind you that we obtained our freedom through our just and great king Cyrus. It is therefore my opinion, that, as we were made free by a monarch, so we ought to preserve a monarchical government; and that we ought, on no account, to subvert the righteous institutions of our great and glorious ancestors.' "Darius, the son of Hystaspes, having thus spoken, four out of the seven declared themselves to be of his opinion; and thus the Persian monarchy was preserved, and Darius was shortly afterwards invested with the sovereignty." "That is a wise book," said Herodotus, when the slave had finished reading; "I should like to study it alone.” "Take it, by all means," responded Euphorion; "I freely make you a present of it." Herodotus took it from the hand of the slave, and what was his surprise to see that it was written in the wellknown handwriting of his own father, Lyxes. He could scarcely believe his eyes. "What," he cried, "did you mean by saying that this book was written by a good Athenian democrat?" "You have already, I see, discovered the author," said Euphorion. "Your father desired me to deliver it into your hands; but I had a mind to hear whether you had become too good a democrat to admire it. It is all sophistry, and some day we will go over its arguments together. What say you now to a walk along the banks of the Ilissus, or a stroll into the agora?" "Oh, the walk through the groves near the Ilissus, by all means," said Herodotus. And the two left the house, and wandered forth in company. 328 CHAP. XXII. ATHENS (CONTINUED), B. C. 460, 459. PURSUITS AND AMUSEMENTS OF HERODOTUS. ΤΟ SPARTAN ATHENIAN PARTIALITY FOR JEALOUSY. EXCURSION ΤΟ FOREIGNERS, AS OPPOSED HERODOTUS resided at Athens for several weeks in the house of Euphorion, during which he every day made himself more and more acquainted with her citizens and her institutions. He found, indeed, that the manners of the people accorded exceedingly well with his own tastes. He would rise early in the morning, soon after sunrise, and take his light breakfast of bread and wine in his own room; then he would walk to the agora and hear the news, and stroll along the banks of the Ilissus with Euphorion or some of his friends; and generally once a day he paid a visit to the gymnasium. Not unfrequently, also, he walked to the Piræus and saw if any ships came in; and he called more than once at the house of the father-in-law of his friend Phylarchus, and soon had the pleasure of seeing the worthy captain, and the wife which had occasioned so much trouble with the oracles. Of this quiet Athenian damsel we have nothing to record. Of course she was many years younger than Phylarchus, and perhaps young enough to be his daughter; but he certainly had no reason to doubt his own felicity. She was ATHENIAN PARTIALITY FOR FOREIGNERS. 329 evidently as attached to him as he was devoted to her; and as navigation was considered to be far too dangerous an occupation for the winter season, it may be readily supposed that Phylarchus spent a few months with his young wife in a state of unalloyed happiness. It is hardly to be expected that Herodotus should see much of his seafaring friend during this, his first visit to Athens. Their occupations were essentially different. Whilst Phylarchus was squaring the accounts of his last voyage, and preparing for a new expedition, Herodotus was looking on at a dicastery or attending a public assembly, or, in short, doing anything by which he could become better acquainted with the trade of Athens, her laws, or her democracy. Indeed, the democratic usages and institutions of Athens made a very great impression upon Herodotus, as they were sure to do upon a young foreigner who had been brought up under monarchical institutions. At Sparta, the modesty of the young men and the veneration paid to old age were carried to the extreme; and Herodotus being both young and a foreigner, had found himself for a long time but little more regarded than a Helot. At Athens, however, the younger citizens considered themselves as important as their fathers; and swaggered through the agora, speechified in the pnyx, or shouted in the dicastery with as much consequence as a citizen of twenty years' standing. Moreover, the younger men at Athens were far less under the control of their elders than those at Sparta, or at any other Greek city which Herodotus had as yet visited. Those with whom he came into contact were tolerably well supplied with money and indulged in amusements equally as expensive, though, perhaps, more manly than those of the Corinthian gallants. Horse-racing, chariot-driving, hunting, cock and quail fighting, with an occasional rattle at the dice-box, would sometimes clear out a young Athenian just when he wanted to buy a handsome suit of armour to join the garrison at Megara, or procure a respectable outfit for the Ægean fleet. Herodotus liked this free and independent kind of life. He had obtained his money from Phylarchus, and had no objection to amusement, so long as it was unaccompanied by vice. A merry symposium, or a rapid drive through the rural demes, were very enjoyable; though the unevenness of the soil of Attica occasioned perpetual accidents. But at Athens, as well as in other learned cities of modern times, there were a set of reckless stupid fellows yclept triballi, who thought there could be no fun without mischief, and were consequently carefully avoided by all young men of sense and reputation. Indeed, the triballi would get stupidly intoxicated early in the day; quarrel and fight over their horses, dogs, cocks, or quails; pitch into the fortunate winners at astragali or dice; or lie in wait and frightfully ill-use any one, slave or free citizen, who chanced to offend them. There was another circumstance which rendered our traveller's residence at Athens exceedingly agreeable. The Spartans hated foreigners, whilst the Athenians were by no means averse to them. At Sparta, therefore, he had not unfrequently been insulted during the early part of his stay in that jealous and severe city; but at Athens the curious and open-hearted citizens received him with the greatest cordiality from the very fact of his having come from the opposite shores of the Ægean. Euphorion especially took pleasure in the society of his guest, and kindly used every endeavour to promote his amusement. Day after day passed away, and Herodotus still continued to live in the house of his entertainer; though he very rarely saw the wife of Euphorion, and never had a single glimpse of the face of the daughter. He offered more than once to remove to some other house, but Euphorion pressed him to remain where he was, at least until the spring; and |