THAT SLEEP IS THE BROTHER OF DEATH, AND OF GORGIAS DRAWING TO HIS END ORGIAS LEONTINUS looking towardes the end of his life and beeing wasted with the weaknes and wearysomenesse of drooping olde age, falling into sharp and sore sicknesse upon a time slumbered and slept upon his soft pillowe a little seaUnto whose chamber a familiar freend of his resorting to visit him in his sicknes demaunded how he felt himself affected in body. To whom Gorgias Leontinus made this pithy and plausible answeer, "Now Sleep beginneth to deliver me up into the jurisdiction of his brother-germane, Death." son. OF THE VOLUNTARY AND WILLING DEATH OF CALANUS procureth admiration; it is no less praiseworthy than it was worthy wonder. The manner, therefore, was thus. The within-named Calanus, being a sophister of India, when he had taken his long leave and last farewell of Alexander, King of Macedonia, and of his life in lyke manner, being willing, desirous, and earnest to set himselfe at lybertie from the cloggs, chaines, barres, boults, and fetters of the prison of the body, pyled up a bonnefire in the suburbs of Babylon of dry woodde and chosen sticks provided of purpose to give a sweete savour and an odoriferous smell in burning. The kindes of woodde which hee used to serve his turne in this case were these: Cedre, Rosemary, Cipres, Mirtle, and Laurell. These things duely ordered, he buckled himselfe to his accustomed exercise, namely, running and leaping into the middest of the wodstack he stoode bolte upright, having about his head a garlande made of the greene leaves of reedes, the sunne shining full in his face, as he stoode in the pile of stycks, whose glorious majesty, glittering with bright beams of amiable beuty, he adored and worshipped. Furthermore he gave a token and signe to the Macedonians to kindle the fire, which, when they had done accordingly, hee beeing compassed round about with flickering flames, stoode stoutly and valiauntly in one and the selfe same place, and dyd not shrincke one foote, until they gave up the ghost, whereat Alexander unvailyng, as at a rare strange, sight and worldes wonder, saide (as the voice goes) these words: -" "Calanus hath subdued, overcome, and vanquished stronger enemies than I. For Alexander made warre against Porus, Taxiles, and Darius. But Calanus did denounce and did battell to labor and fought fearcely and manfully with death." OF DELICATE DINNERS, SUMPTUOUS SUPPERS, AND PRODIGALL BANQUETING Τι IMOTHY, the son of Conon, captain of the Athenians, leaving his sumptuous fare and royall banqueting, beeing desired and intertained of Plato to a feast philosophicall, seasoned with contentation and musick, at his returning home from that supper of Plato, he said unto his familiar freends:-"They whiche suppe with Plato, this night, are not sick or out of temper the next day following;" and presently upon the enunciation of that speech, Timothy took occasion to finde fault with great dinners, suppers, feasts, and banquets, furnished with excessive fare, immoderate consuming of meats, delicates, dainties, toothsome junkets, and such like, which abridge the next dayes joy, gladnes, delight, mirth, and pleasantnes. Yea, that sentence is consonant and agreeable to the former, and importeth the same sense notwithstanding in words it hath a little difference. That the within named Timothy meeting the next day after with Plato said to him:-"You philosophers, freend Plato, sup better the day fol lowing than the night present.” OF BESTOWING TIME, AND HOW WALKING UP AND DOWNE WAS NOT ALLOWABLE AMONG THE LACEDÆMONIANS HE Lacedæmonians were of this judgment, that measureable Tspending of time was greatly to be esteemed, and therefore did they conforme and apply themselves to any kinde of laboure moste earnestly and painfully, not withdrawing their hands from works of much bodyly mooving, not permitting any particular person, beeing a citizen, to spend the time in idlenes, to waste. it in unthrifty gaming, to consume it in trifling, in vain toyes and lewd loytering, all whiche are at variance and enmity with vertue. Of this latter among many testimonyes, take this for one. When it was reported to the magistrates of the Lacedæmonians called Ephori, in manner of complaint, that the inhabitants of Deceleia used afternoone walkings, they sent unto them messengers with their commandmente, saying:-"Go not up and doune like loyterers, nor walke not abrode at your pleasure, pampering the wantonnes of your natures rather than accustoming yourself to exercises of activity. For it becometh the Lacedæmonians to regarde their health and to maintaine their safety not with walking to and fro, but with bodily labours." HOW SOCRATES SUPPRESSED THE PRYDE AND HAUTINESSE OF ALCIBIADES Soc OCRATES, seeing Alcibiades puft up with pryde and broyling in ambitious behavioure (because possessor of such great wealth and lorde of so large lands) brought him to a place where a table did hang containing a discription of the worlde universall. Then did Socrates will Alcibiades to seeke out the situation of Athens, which when he found Socrates proceeded further and willed him to point out that plot of ground where his lands and lordships lay. Alcibiades, having sought a long time and yet never the nearer, sayde to Socrates that his livings were not set forth in that table, nor any discription of his possession therein made evident. When Socrates, rebuked with this secret quip: "And art thou so arrogant (sayeth he) and so hautie in heart for that which is no parcell of the world?" PR OF CERTAINE WASTGOODES AND SPENDTHRIFTES RODIGALL lavishing of substance, unthrifty and wastifull spending, voluptuousness of life and palpable sensuality brought Pericles, Callias, the sonne of Hipponicus, and Nicias not only to necessitie, but to povertie and beggerie. Who, after their money waxed scant, and turned to a very lowe ebbe, they three drinking a poysoned potion one to another (which was the last cuppe that they kissed with their lippes) passed out of this life (as it were from a banquet) to the powers infernall. I-12 T ESCHINES (389-314 B. C.) HE life and oratory of Eschines fall fittingly into that period of Greek history when the free spirit of the people which had created the arts of Pindar and Sophocles, Pericles, Phidias, and Plato, was becoming the spirit of slaves and of savans, who sought to forget the freedom of their fathers in learning, luxury, and the formalism of deducers of rules. To this slavery Eschines himself contributed, both in action with Philip of Macedon and in speech. Philip had entered upon a career of conquest; a policy ESCHINES legitimate in itself and beneficial as judged by its larger fruits, but ruinous to the advanced civilization existing in the Greek City-States below, whose high culture was practically confiscated to spread out over a waste of semibarbarism and mix with alien cultures. Among his Greek sympathizers, Eschines was perhaps his chief support in the conquest of the Greek world that lay to the south within his reach. Eschines was born in 389 B. C., six years before his lifelong rival Demosthenes. If we may trust that rival's elaborate details of his early life, his father taught a primary school and his mother was overseer of certain initia tory rites, to both of which occupations Eschines gave his youthful hand and assistance. He became in time a third-rate actor, and the duties of clerk or scribe presently made him familiar with the executive and legislative affairs of Athens. Both vocations served as an apprenticeship to the public speaking toward which his ambition was turning. We hear of his serving as a heavy-armed soldier in various Athenian expeditions, and of his being privileged to carry to Athens, in 349 B. C., the first news of the victory of Tamynæ, in Euboea, in reward for the bravery he had shown in the battle. Two years afterward he was sent as an envoy into the Peloponnesus, with the object of forming a union of the Greeks against Philip for the defense of their liberties. But his mission was unsuccessful. Toward the end of the same year he served as one of the ten ambassadors sent to Philip to discuss terms of peace. The harangues of the Athenians at this meeting were followed in turn by a speech of Philip, whose openness of manner, pertinent arguments, and pretended desire for a settlement led to a second embassy, empowered to receive from him the oath of allegiance and peace. It was during this second embassy that Demothenes says he discovered the philippizing spirit and foul play of schines. Upon their return to Athens, Æschines rose before the assembly to assure the people that Philip had come to Thermopylæ as the friend and ally of Athens. "We, your envoys, have satisfied him," said Eschines. "You will hear of benefits still more direct which we have determined Philip to confer upon you, but which it would not be prudent as yet to specify." But the alarm of the Athenians at the presence of Philip within the gates was not allayed. The king, however, anxious to temporize with them until he could receive his army supplies by sea, suborned Eschines, who assured his countrymen of Philip's peaceful intentions. On another occasion, by an inflammatory speech at Delphi, he so played upon the susceptibilities of the rude Amphictyones that they rushed forth, uprooted their neighbors' harvest fields, and began a devastating war of Greek against Greek. Internal dissensions promised the shrewd Macedonian the conquest he sought. At length, in August, 338, came Philip's victory at Chæronea, and the complete prostration of Greek power. Eschines, who had hitherto disclaimed all connection with Philip, now boasted of his intimacy with the king. As Philip's friend, while yet an Athenian, he offered himself as ambassador to entreat leniency from the victor toward the unhappy citizens. The memorable defense of Demosthenes against the attack of Eschines was delivered in 330 B. C. Seven years before this, Ctesiphon had proposed to the Senate that the patriotic devotion and labors of Demosthenes should be acknowledged by the gift of a golden crown-a recognition willingly accorded. But as this decision, to be legal, must be confirmed by the Assembly, Æschines gave notice that he would proceed against Ctesiphon for proposing an unconstitutional measure. He managed to postpone action on the notice for six years. At last he seized a moment when the victories of Philip's son and successor, Alexander, were swaying popular feeling, to deliver a bitter harangue against the whole life and policy of his political opponent. Demosthenes answered in that magnificent oration called by the Latin writers 'De Corona.' Eschines was not upheld by the people's vote. He retired to Asia, and, it is said, opened a school of rhetoric at Rhodes. There is a legend that after he had one day delivered in his school the masterpiece of his enemy, his students broke into applause: "What," he exclaimed, "if you had heard the wild beast thunder it out himself!" The great Æschines was what we call nowadays a self-made man. faults of his life, his philippizing policy and his confessed corruption, |