a condition in which they can enjoy, together with you, all the honors of a free people; concur with you in bestowing, and partake with you in receiving, the rewards which are due to such eminent services as you are now engaged to perform.

CAIUS CASSIUS.

12. THE DEGENERACY OF ATHENS.

(B. C. 322.)

DEMOSTHENES, the greatest of Grecian orators, and born about the year 380 B. C., commenced the study of oratory at the age of seventeen, although having weak lungs, imperfect articulation, and awkward gestures. He is reported to have trained his voice by declamation near the seashore, with pebbles in his mouth, so as to gain mastery of his voice, and increase its distinctness and compass. His patriotic appeals against the encroachments of King Philip are among the most memorable examples of patriotic eloquence; and the purity, welfare, and independence of his countrymen were the burden of his life. He died at the age of sixty years, B. c. 320.

CONTRAST, O men of Athens, your conduct with that of your ancestors. Loyal towards the people of Greece, religious towards the gods, faithful to the rule of civic equality, they mounted by a sure path to the summit of prosperity. What is your condition under your present complaisant rulers? Has it in any respect changed? In how many?

I confine myself to this simple statement: Sparta prostrate; Thebes occupied elsewhere; able, in fact, in the peaceable possession of our domain, to be the umpire of other nations, what have we done? We have lost our own provinces, and dissipated with no good result more than fifteen hundred talents. The allies which we have gained by war, your counsellors have deprived us of by peace, and we have trained up to power our formidable foe. Whoever denies this, let him stand forth and tell

me where has this Philip drawn his strength, if not from the very bosom of Athens?

Ah, but surely, if abroad we have been weakened, our interior administration is more flourishing.

And what are the evidences of this? A few whitewashed ramparts, repaired roads, fountains, - mere trifles, bagatelles ! Turn, turn your eyes upon the functionaries to whom we owe these vanities. One of them has passed from misery to opulence; one, from obscurity to splendor; and another has had built for him sumptuous palaces which look down upon the edifices of State. Indeed, the more our public fortunes have declined, the more have theirs ascended. Tell us the meaning of these contrasts! Why is it that formerly all prospered, while now all is in jeopardy! It is because formerly the people itself, daring to wage war, was master of its officials, the sovereign dispenser of all favors. It is because individual citizens were then glad to receive from the people honors, magistracies, benefits. How are times changed! All favors are in the gift of our officials; everything is under their control; while you, you, the people! - enervated in your habits, mutilated in your means, and weakened in your allies, stand like so many supernumeraries and lackeys, too happy if your worthy chiefs distribute to you the fund for the theatre, if they throw to you a meagre pittance!

And, last degree of baseness, you kiss the hand which thus makes largess to you of your own! Do they not imprison you within your own walls, beguile you to your own ruin, tame you and fashion you to their yoke? Never, oh, never, can a manly pride and noble courage impel men subjected to vile and unworthy actions! The life is necessarily the image of the heart. And your degeneracy — by Heaven, I should not be surprised, if I, in charging it home upon you, exposed myself, rather than those who

brought you to it, to your resentment! To be candid, frankness of speech does not every day gain the entrance of your ears; and that you suffer it now, may well be matter of astonishment.

DEMOSTHENES.

13. VIRTUE UNCORRUPTED BY

FORTUNE.

THE incident mentioned by the eminent historian Quintus Curtius is also described by both Justinian and Diodorus. A Macedonian by the name of Hephestion was so intimate with Alexander the Great that, when he died, special honors were paid to his memory, and the physician who attended him was put to death, upon the claim that he had been negligent in his medical attendance, about 325 B. C.

THE city of Sidon having surrendered to Alexander, he ordered Hephestion to bestow the crown on him whom the Sidonians should think most worthy of that honor. Hephestion, living at the time with two men of distinction, offered them the crown. They declined the honor, as contrary to the law of that country, which excluded all but such as were related to the royal family from accepting such an honor.

Admiring their disinterested spirit, he requested them to name some person of the royal blood who should receive the crown at their hands. Overlooking many who would have been ambitious of the honor, they selected Abdalonimus, who was remotely related to the royal family, but had been reduced by misfortunes to the humble work of cultivating a small garden in the suburbs of the city, for a mere pittance in money.

While Abdalonimus was busily weeding his garden, the two friends of Hephestion approached him, bearing the crown of royalty, and saluted him as king. Repeating Alexander's instructions, they required him immediately

to exchange his rusty garb and utensils of industry for the regal robe and sceptre. All this only seemed to him like an illusion of the fancy, or a cruel, deliberate insult to his poverty. Persuaded of the sincerity of the proposition, he assumed office, being first enjoined not to forget the humble condition from which he had been raised, when he should occupy a throne with a nation in his power.

He had hardly taken possession of the government when the pride and envy of his enemies whispered murmurs of complaint in every sphere of society, until they reached the ears of Alexander himself. He at once commanded the newly-elected prince to be sent for, and abruptly inquired of him, not how he conducted his official duty, but with what temper of mind he had borne his previous life and its condition of poverty. "Would to Heaven," was the reply, "that I may be able to bear my crown with equal moderation! for when I possessed little, I wanted nothing. These hands supplied me with whatever I desired." From this answer, Alexander formed so high an opinion of his wisdom that he not only confirmed his title, but annexed a neighboring province to the government of Sidon.

QUINTUS CURTIUS.

14. MERIT BEFORE BIRTH.

THE promotion of Caius Marius to the command of the Roman army in the campaign against Jugurtha, the Numidian usurper, aroused desperate opposition on the part of the aristocracy, to which Marius replied in most emphatic terms.

You have committed to my conduct, O Romans, the war against Jugurtha. The Patricians take offence. They say, "Why, he has no family statues. He can point to no illustrious ancestors." What of that? Will dead

ancestors or motionless statues fight battles? Can your general appeal to them in the hour of extremest danger? How wise it would be, surely, to intrust your army to some untried person without a single scar, but with any number of ancestral statues, - who knows not the simplest rudiments of military service, but is very perfect in pedigree! I have known such holiday heroes, raised, because of family, to positions for which they had no fitness. But, then, in the moment of action they were obliged, in their ignorance and trepidation, to intrust every movement, even the most simple, to some subaltern, some despised plebeian.

What they have seen in books, I have seen written on battle-fields, with steel and blood. They sneer at my mean origin. Where, and may the gods bear witness,

where, but in the spirit of man, is nobility lodged? Tell these despicable railers that their haughty lineage cannot make them noble, nor will my humble birth make me base. I profess no indifference to noble descent; but when a descendant is dwarfed in the comparison, it should be a shame, and not a matter to boast of! I can show the standards, the armor, and the spoils which I have in person wrested from the vanquished. I can show the scars of many wounds received in combating the enemies of Rome. These are my statues! These are my honors, to boast of; not inherited by accident, but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valor, amid clouds of dust and seas of blood. Their very titles date from similar acts of their ancestors; but these detractors did not even dare to appear on the field as spectators. These are my credentials! These, O Romans, are my titles of nobility! Tell me, are they not as respectable, are they not as valid, are they not as deserving of your confidence and reward as those of which any patrician of them all can boast?

Trans. from Sallust.