Herodotus gave fimplicity and elegance to profaic writing, Ifocrates gave it cadence and harmony, but it was left to Thucydides and Demofthenes to discover the full force of the Greek tongue.

Greece produced alfo the most famous artifts in Architecture and Painting. Ctefiphon was an eminent architect, and made the model of the famous temple of Diana at Ephefus. He built part of it himself, and the reft was finifhed by his fon Metagenes, and other architects. Phidias was an excellent Greek ftatuary. He made the ftatue of Minerva to fo great perfection, that the ancients boafted of it, and confidered it as the mafter-piece of art. He placed it in the citadel of Athens. Being afterwards banifhed from Athens, he retired into the province of Elis, where he finifhed a ftatue of Jupiter. This he placed in the temple of Olympia, and it paffed for one of the wonders of the world. He is faid to have been killed at Elis. Myron was a famous ftatuary. The figure of a brazen cow made by him, gained him great reputation, and was the occafion of many fine epigrams in Greek. Zeuxis was esteemed the most skilful of all the ancients in the difpofal of the colours. The Helena which he painted for the town of Cortona in Italy, gained him great reputation. He died of a fit of laughter at the fight of an old woman's picture which he had drawn.

Apelles was the most famous painter of antiquity, born at Cos, an inland in the Egean fea. He painted many pieces mentioned by the ancients with admiration, particularly two. portraits of Venus iffuing out of the fea. His picture of Alexander, grafping a thunderbolt, was fold to the temple of Ephefian Diana for four thousand pounds. His Venus Anadyomené was damaged by accident. None would venture to restore the parts that had been effaced; fo that the injury of the picture contributed to the glory of the artist. The model of this Venus was the beautiful Campafpé, the favourite mistress of Alexander. The fenfibility of Apelles was too deeply penetrated with the charms, which he fo fuccefs fully expreffed. Alexander was no fooner acquainted with his paffion, than, in the language of Pliny, he made him a prefent, not only of Campafpé, but of his own affection, too little refpecting the feelings of the beloved object, at her degradation from being the miftrefs of a king, to become the poffeffion of a painter.

This celebrated artift, however, who enjoyed other ftriking marks of his master's partiality and friendship, lived on good terms with his brethren. With the frankness of his age VOL. I.

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and nation, he affumed the merit which belonged to him, and freely afferted, that none of his competitors could imitate the gracefulness of his attitudes and figures *. But in fome other branches of the art, he acknowledged himself inferior to feveral of his contemporaries.

The defire of feeing the works of Protogenes carried him to Rhodes. He there found a rival not altogether unworthy to alarm his jealousy. But inftead of yielding to the dictates of that unworthy paffion, he drew Protogenes from obfcurity; raised the price of his pictures; and taught the Rhodians who undervalued the fame talents in their fellow citizen, which they admired in a stranger,, to acknowledge and refpect his merit.

Greece too produced the celebrated Hippocrates, father of Phyfic, who was born at Cos, in the year before Chrift 430. He drew his original from Hercules and Æfculapius, and was the first that gave established precepts in phyfic, whereby he became fo famous, that the Grecians honoured him as a God: And it is faid of him, that he neither knew how to deceive, or to be deceived. The Greeks excelled in oratory. Eloquence flourishes moft in popular Governments. There the public fpeaker has the most proper incitements and opportunities to difplay his oratorical powers, and to acquire perfection in the art of fpeaking. The Athenian Government was favourable to eloquence. It could not fail to thrive in a city, where popular applaufe was the road to fame and to fortune. True eloquence is the art of convincing by reafon; it interefts our paffions and perfuades, by fpeaking to the feelings and judgment of men. In Greece oratory was taught like other fciences; the orator not only declaimed in the fchools, but early accustomed himself to speak in public.

The Sophifts, who fet up to be public teachers, corrupted the Grecian eloquence. They wandered from the road of truth and nature, taught their fcholars to alter the appearance of things, to give the varnish of truth to falfehood, to dazzle rather than convince their hearers, and to take either fide of the question.

Pericles reftored true eloquence at Athens, and Demofthenes carried it to perfection. Nature had not formed Demofthenes an orator; his voice was weak, his pronunciation defective; he could not pronounce the letter R: these defects occafioned his being hiffed the first time he attempted to fpeak in public. A comedian, to whom he lamented his misfortune,

told him, he might take comfort, for his cafe was not defperate; there was a remedy for his defects, and a way to attain to the powers of oratory. The player made him rehearse fome verfes, which he afterwards repeated with such grace and energy, that Demofthenes found they had quite a different effect. This convinced the orator, that his fuccefs depended on action. To acquire it, he built himself a little cell, where he used to practise for months together. To accuftom himself to the noife of a tumultuous affembly, he would fometimes declaim on the fea fhore; at other times, to help him to pronounce well, he would fpeak with fmall ftones in his mouth, while walking or climbing up a hill. Perfeverance and ambition to excel, can overcome the greatest difficulties. Demofthenes, conquered nature, and, by the power of his eloquence, ruled the Athenians as he pleafed. The most famous orators fell before him. Philip of Macedon used to say, that he dreaded the thunder of Demofthenes's eloquence more than the fleets and armies of Greece. He bids fare to excel as an orator, who carefully forms himself upon the ancients; whereas, to neglect the imitation of Demofthenes and Cicero, thefe great masters of oratory, is the fure way never to make a figure as a public speaker.

It was not, however, in the fine arts alone that the Greeks excelled. Every fpecies of philofophy was cultivated among them with the utmoft fuccefs. Not to mention the divine Socrates, the virtues of whofe life, and the excellence of whofe philofophy, juftly entitled him to a very high degree of veneration; his three difciples, Plato, Ariftotle, and Xenophon, may, for ftrength of reasoning, juftnefs of fentiment, and propriety of expreffion, be put on a footing with the writers of any age or country. Experience, indeed, in a long courfe of years, has taught us many fecrets in nature with which thefe philofophers were unacquainted, and which no strength of genius could divine. But whatever fome vain empirics in learning may pretend, the moft learned and ingenious men both in France and England, have acknowleded the fuperiority of the Greek philofophers; and have accounted themfelves happy in catching their turn of thinking, and manner of expreffion. But the Greeks were not lefs diftinguished for their active than for their speculative talents. It would be endless to recount the names of their famous statesmen and warriors, and it is impoffible to mention a few without doing injuftice to a greater number. War was firft reduced into a science by the Greeks. Their foldiers fought from an affection to their country, and an ardor for glory, and not from a

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dread of their fuperiors. We have feen the effects of this military virtue in their wars against the Perfians. The caufe of it was the wife laws which Amphictyon, Solon, and Lycurgus had established in Greece.

CHA P. XXI.

Rome under the Kings.

TALY is a Peninfula, washed by the fea on every fide,

ITA

except where a chain of the Alps joins it to the Continent. It was peopled before the art of navigation was known; and, of confequence, the first inhabitants entered by land.

Three paffages prefent themselves in the Alps; one to the north, another to the south, and the third through the Straits of Tirol and Trentin. The Illyrians bordered on the first; the Iberians, or Spaniards, on the fecond; and the Celta, on the third. By these nations, therefore, Italy was at first peopled*.

At that time Italy prefented the appearance, which we beheld in early Greece. No kings, nor nations, nor cities,. existed. Wandering tribes began to fettle from neceffity or choice, and to cultivate the ground when its natural fertility failed.

The Etrufcans, and the Aborigines of Latium, are the only Italian nations, concerning whom hiftory or tradition has furnished us with any particulars worthy of mentioning, till after the building of Rome. The Etrufcans appear to have been in poffeffion of the greater part of Italy, and lords of the neighbouring feas, as early as the time of the Argonautic expeditiont. How long their empire remained unbroken, is uncertain. We only know, that during feveral centuries fubfequent to the Trojan war, they continued to be the moft powerful and civilized nation in the Italian Peninfula, and fuccefsfully cultivated the Arts of Defign, before they could be faid to have taken root in Greecet. Yet a

*Academ. Infcript. et Bell. Lett. tom. 18. + Diodorus Siculus. Univerfal History.

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celebrated

celebrated antiquarian, who admits this early proficiency, conjectures, from the remains of their sculpture and painting, that the Etrufcans must have been indebted for the principles of these arts, and alfo for those of their literature, to Grecian Emigrants*.

About fixty years before the Trojan war, and during the reign of Faunus, king of the Aborigines, a band of Grecian adventurers from Arcadia, under Evander their leader, arrived in that part of Italy, afterwards known by the name of Latium.

In the reign of Latinus, the fon and fucceffor of Faunus, Eneas and a body of Trojans, who had efcaped in the general flaughter of their countrymen, on the fubverfion of the kingdom of Priam, and the deftruction of Troy by the Greeks, landed at Laurentium, on the coaft of the Aborigines, in the year before Chrift 1184; and having obtained permiffion to form a fettlement, they built a city on a hill, near the mouth of the Tiber To that city the Trojan prince gave the name of Lavinium, in grateful expreffion of his affection for Lavinia, the king's daughter, and only child, who had been granted to him in marriaget.

The good fortune of Æneas attended his followers. The Trojans were generally able to form marriages with the women of Latium; and foon became fo perfectly incorporated with the principal farmilies, that both they and the Aborigines took the common name of Latines, in honour of Latinus, who had fhewed the example of alliance, and formed, with his daughter's hand, the great bond of their union.

Upon the death of Æneas, his fon Afcanius, built a new city on Mount Albanus, which, from its fituation, was named Alba Longa. From the kings of Alba were defcended Romulus and Remus, the founders of the Roman empire. Romulus and Remus were twin brothers, the reputed fons of Rhea Sylvia by Mars, who, as hiftory relates, carried on a fecret correfpondence with this veftal, the daughter of Numitor, the laft king of Alba. The infants were no fooner born, than by order of Amulius, brother of Numitor, and his competitor for the throne, they were exposed in the river Tiber; but were preferved by Fauftulus, the king's fhepherd; who, ignorant of any defign against their lives, carried them home, and his wife nurfed them as their children.

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