times. To rule was her passion. She was not wanting in intelligence, but it was the homely prudence of common life, the skill to adapt means to ends. Of all the nations, she was the first to carry organization into every part of her government, and conduct everything by inexorable system and order. If Rome was resolved to rule others, she was no less resolved to rule herself. The mission of Greece was in the domain of thought, to develop the intellectual capabilities of mankind. That of Rome also required intelligence, but of a lower and more material kind. She was to teach mankind to follow an orderly development, to introduce system, to prevent ruinous clashing of interests, to teach respect for law. Greece taught the world to think to purpose; Rome to goverp with effect. Each served an important purpose. Without either the world was not prepared for Christianity, which added moral order, nor for true science, which was the mature fruit of these three, and prepared the perfect civilization which was to be developed to its conclusion in a New World.

4. Rome commenced, not with the king, but with the Senatee-a body of experienced men, who made the laws and appointed a king to administer them. The king, except in time of war, was only the executive, the chief magistrate. The later kings were restive under this restraint and sought to place themselves above law, and the Romans at once dismissed them, appointing various officers to fill their place. The fundamental principles of government were not changed at all, or very little, except by the subsequent course of development. The Romans knew how to adapt their invincible spirit of order to all changing circumstances, and when external changes arose corresponding changes were developed, in a regular manner, within.

Thus the Roman spirit was constant under the regal government, throughout the republic, and to the close of the empire, and had then become so thoroughly established in laws and institutions as to govern the development of the new

states that rose out of its ruins and produced modern civilization.

At first the Roman government consisted only of the Senate and the king. The Senate was chosen from the body of citizens, and represented them. In the course of time the descendants of the first people became the aristocracy, called patricians, who enjoyed great privileges. A class was gradually formed called the plebs, or common people, who, for some time, had no share in the government. The patricians alone could hold office, and marriage between them and plebians was illegal. But, says an able writer, "the Roman commons were the greatest commons the world ever saw, except the commons of England and America." In the course of time, by wise and prudent management, and taking advantage of favoring circumstances, resulting from the fact that they supplied the body of soldiers to the state, without revolution, breaking the laws, or violating the ancient constitution, they obtained changes or additions to it, one after another, until they had acquired a due influence in the conduct of affairs and became fully a match for the patricians. It was a new lesson to mankind, and one that has had great influence on the good order of society in all later times.

5. The religious system of that great people was conducted with as much worldly prudence as all their other affairs. Their religious ceremonies were, in great part, derived from the Etruscans. They were conducted with much pomp by state officers, appointed for the purpose, embodying all the superstitions of the time, and embracing comparatively little of the lofty sentiment that was so prominent in Greece. Their religion was an affair of state, and intimately connected with the political working of the government. The gravest public business was made to depend on the flight of birds, on omens and accidents, and on the appearance of the entrails of the animals offered in the sacrifices. An artful use of these circumstances enabled the officers in power to compass many political ends. Their original gods were those of Greece,

adapted to their purposes and national character; but they readily adopted the divinities of all the nations they conquered. Their religion was in a high degree cool and calculating.

The preceding observations apply especially to the periods of Greece and Rome when their peculiarities were most fully developed in the days of their greatest glory. Though always more or less characteristic, in later times they melted more or less into one another, or were toned down and transformed by decay and a rising spirit of innovation. Especially were they displaced by Christianity.

SECTION VII.

GREECE AND ROME.

1. We are now prepared to return to the year 500 B. C.-and follow events in chronological order, with a fair appreciation of their import. Just before the close of the last century, Darius Hystaspes, the king of • Persia, sent an army into Europe, to the north of Greece, to chastise the Scythians, and it conquered Thrace. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor, which had been recently added to the Persian empire, became restive under foreign control, and when the Persian army returned home,

500-organized a rebellion and took and burned the city of Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia. They were assisted by the European Greeks; but the vast resources of Persia soon enabled Darius to take vengeance on them, and Miletus was besieged and destroyed. Darius summoned the Grecian states to offer their submission, but Athens and Sparta sent back a defiance. Darius thereupon gathered a large armament and prepared to invade 495-Greece, which he commenced by the conquest of Macedon. But a tempest destroyed his ships and 20,000 men, and the expedition returned to Persia. In the

same year the Roman plebeians obtained their first success against the patricians, by which the debts of the poor plebeians to the wealthy patricians were cancelled and Tribunes of the People appointed.

490 This year the glory of Greece broke forth. Darius having sent another and larger army into Greece, it advanced on Athens and encamped at Marathon, within twenty-two miles of the city. The Persian host was said to number from 100,000 to 200,000 men. The Athenians had but 10,000 citizens, but armed 20,000 slaves, and the city of Platæa sent them 1,000 troops. Miltiades, the very able Athenian general, marched out and, taking a good position, offered battle. It was the 20th of September. The little army of the Greeks obtained a complete victory and the Persians returned home in confusion. The great services of Miltiades were rewarded with imprisonment, on a frivolous charge, and he died there of his wounds.

-

485 Darius Hystaspes, the Persian king, died while preparing a still larger armament for the invasion of Greece. 484 An insurrection in Egypt completely subdued by the Persians.

480-Xerxes, king of Persia, invaded Greece with a million soldiers. The battle at the pass of Thermopylae was fought by a thousand Spartans under Leonidas, their king, and all but one slain. The Persian fleet was beaten the same day by Themistocles, the Athenian admiral. Xerxes soon advanced on Athens, which was abandoned by its inhabitants and burned by the Persians. Soon after, Themistocles fought the Persian navy again at Salamis and totally destroyed it. Xerxes, leaving a large army in Greece, returned to Asia.

479-The battle of Platea ended the Persian invasion. The allied Greek army numbered 70,000, under Pausanias, the Spartan king; the Persians 300,000. The Persians. are said to have had 200,000 slain, and their army was

totally routed. Another victory was gained on the coast of Asia Minor the same day, and the last remnants of the Persian fleet destroyed.

478 Athens was rebuilt and surrounded with walls from the treasures of the conquered Persians. This was the age of great men in Greece. Phidias, her greatest sculptor, flourished at this time. The Persians, at the time of their first invasion, brought a piece of marble to commemorate the victory of which they were confident. The Greeks caused Phidias to produce out of it a statue of Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, and set it up on the field of Marathon.

478

Themistocles died in banishment about this time, and Aristides of old age. Both were leading statesmen and generals of Athens during the Persian war.

470 Socrates, the most eminent philosopher of all ancient times, was born this year.

The death of Xerxes by assassination occurred this year. 466-Cimon, son of Miltiades, was now the great man of

Athens. He was soon superseded by Pericles. From 480 B. C. to 430 was the golden period of Athens. She was pre-eminent politically, conducting the war of the Grecian allies against Persian supremacy on the western shores of Asia and in the Mediterranean sea. Republican liberty was everywhere predominant. The greatest writers, painters and sculptors lived in this period or immediately after it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, philosophers; Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, tragic poets; Zeuxis and Apelles, painters; and Phidias in sculpture, were a few among the many great names which are found in or immediately following this period. 457 - Cincinnatus was made dictator at Rome. During this period the Romans laid the foundation of their dominion over all Italy by waging successful war with the Etruscans and Samnites, the most vigorous and powerful of their opponents.