translated by Xenophon. The reader will observe, that this forced style was in fashion among the French in Balzac's time, that is, in the infancy of their taste: the writers of that age seem to have imposed an obligation upon themselves of being for ever witty; they were often so, but that was not enough; this eternal straining after wit obliged them many times to have recourse to forced turns of thought, and, sometimes, to what their language calls Phoebús, that is, shining expressions that seem to signify something. After the reader has compared the passages I have taken the liberty to censure in D'Ablancourt with the original, he will be able to judge how far he has surpassed Xenophon in the elegance of his style, and how far, according to the supposition of Balzac, his works might deserve to be translated by Xenophon. But there is an old English translation of the Expedition of Cyrus by John Bingham, printed in 1623, and dedicated to the Right Worshipful the Artillery Company. The first notice I had of this translation was by a note of Hutchinson about the middle of the last book; he also mentions it towards the end of the same book, where Xenophon says Gongylus marched out to the assistance of the Greeks Big rus Mnrgos, upon which occasion, Hutchinson says, vis phraseos omnino latuit versionis Anglicanæ authorem; and, indeed, he had great reason to say so; for, upon looking into Bingham's translation, I find he has rendered that passage, "by compulsion of his mother," whereas he should have said, "against his mother's will," in which sense all the other translators have rendered it. I do not remember that Hutchinson has taken any notice of this translation but upon these two occasions. Finding, therefore, by Hutchinson's note before-mentioned, when I had not more than half the last book remaining to complete my translation, that there was an old English version of the Expedition, I employed several of the most eminent booksellers in town to get it for me, but all in vain; for none of them could find it, neither would they be persuaded there was any such book extant, till I referred them to that note of Hutchinson: however, at last I got a sight of it from a public library. Upon comparing it with the original, I found the author was a man of some learning, from whence I conclude that he must have made use of some very faulty edition, otherwise, it is not possible that a man of learning (for such he really seems to have been) should ever have been guilty of so many mistakes, as are to be met with through the whole course of his translation: as to his style, it seems to be, at least, a century older than that in which he writ. There is, in the fourth book, a conversation between Xenophon and Cheirisophus, in which they rally one another upon the art of stealing, so much practised by their respective countries; the foundation of which raillery is the advice given by Xenophon to steal a march to some part of a mountain they were to pass. As the spirit of raillery is, of all others, the most likely to be lost in a translation, for that reason, raillery itself is the last thing one would choose to translate, if it did not necessarily come in one's way; upon this occasion, therefore, I was in hopes of receiving some assistance from the old English translation, which I should both have made use of, and acknowledged very readily; but, upon examination, I found this passage translated in the following manner, "it seemeth to me not impossible to steal some part or other of the hill." After this, I dare say, it will easily be concluded that I could entertain no great hopes of any assistance from that quarter. Many ancient authors, both Greek and Latin, and particularly those who were themselves fine writers, as well as judicious critics, such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Tully, have celebrated the beauty of our author's style, his perspicuity and peculiar sweetness in his composition, which made his writings be called the language of the muses: the latter goes so far as to say that Lucullus, being sent to make war upon Mithridates, which was no easy province, and being

unacquainted with the duty of a general, acquired, by reading the Expedition of Cyrus, so great a knowledge in the art of war, as to owe his victories against that prince to the information he received from it. However this may be, we find, by the Commentaries of Cæsar, that he often made use of the same dispositions against the Gauls, which Xenophon had employed, with so great success, against the Persians: but, what is much more for the credit of our author, it is obvious that the Expedition of Cyrus was the model of these Commentaries; the same elegance, the same clearness of expression, the same unaffected grace, are the distinguishing characters of both; and, possibly, the Greek and Latin languages have nothing in their kind more perfect than these two admirable performances. I am sensible that all commendations bestowed upon the original, tend to expose the translation to censure, which I ought not, in prudence, wantonly to solicit: but I was willing, if I could not do justice to Xenophon by translating him, to endeavour to do it, at least, by commending him: this may be thought a small amends for the former however, the determination of this question must be left to the voice of the people, who are still sovereigns in this; and who, as they were formerly remarkable for their justice in deciding the fate of mankind, are still not less so in determining that of their productions; so that, to use the words of my ancestor,* in the preface to his Glossary, I submit my labours and errors to the public.

Sir Harry Spelman, who was great great-grandfather to the author.

AN ACCOUNT

OF

XENOPHON.

XENOPHON was an Athenian; his father's name was Gryllus. All that we know of him till he attended Cyrus in his expedition, is, that he was a disciple of Socrates. If, to have been a disciple of that great man was an instance of his good fortune, the improvement he made of that education is an instance of his merit; and, indeed, nothing less than the happiest disposition, the best education, and the greatest improvement of both, could render Xenophon that universal man we find him in his writings; his Cyropædia shows him to have possessed, in a sovereign degree, the art of government; his Expedition of Cyrus shows him a complete general; his History, an entertaining, an instructive, and a faithful historian; his Panegyric of Agesilaus, an orator; and his Treatise of Hunting, a sportsman; his Apology for Socrates, and the account he gives of his manner of conversing, show that he was both a friend, and a philosopher; and all of them, that he was a good man. This appears remarkably in his preserving Byzantium from being plundered by his soldiers, who having gained no other reward of the dangerous expedition they had been engaged in, but their preservation, were not only strongly tempted to plunder that town by the hope of making their fortunes, but justly provoked to it by the disingenuous behaviour of the Lacedæmonian governor; yet these two lawless passions, avarice and revenge, the authority and eloquence of Xenophon quite subdued.

As Cyrus had assisted the Lacedæmonians in their war against the Athenians, the latter looked upon Xenophon's attachment to that prince as criminal, and banished him for engaging in his service. After this, Xenophon attended Agesilaus, when he was sent for by the Lacedæmonians with his army from Asia; where the success of his arms gave something more than uneasiness to Artaxerxes, who, not without cause, began to fear the same fate from Agesilaus, which his successor, Darius, afterwards found from Alexander; but the former, by corrupting the Greek cities, and, by that means, engaging them to make war upon the Lacedæmonians, suspended the fate of Persia for a time: but, in all evils, relief, obtained by corruption, is only a respite, not a cure; for, when Alexander invaded Persia, the same low arts were again practised by Darius to recall him from Asia by a diversion in Greece; but these proving ineffectual, the Persians, by trusting more to the vices of their enemies, than to their own virtue, became an easy conquest. Agesilaus soon after he returned, fought the battle of Coronea, where, though wounded,

he defeated the Thebans and their allies: at this battle Xenophon was present. After that, he retired to Scilus, where he passed his time in reading, the conversation of his friends, sporting, and writing history. But this place being over-run by the Eleans, in whose neighbourhood it was, Xenophon went to Corinth, where he lived till the first year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad, when he died in the ninety-first year of his age: so that, he must have been about fifty years of age at the time of the expedition of Cyrus, which was the fourth year of the ninety-fourth Olympiad, just forty years before. I am sensible some learned men are of opinion that he was not so old at the time of the expedition, though I see no reason to disbelieve Lucian in this particular, who says that Xenophon was above ninety years of age when he died. However, this is beyond all dispute, that he lived till after the battle of Mantinea, which, according to Diodorus Siculus, was in the second year of the hundred and fourth Olympiad, because he closes his History of the Affairs of Greece with the account of that battle: in which account it is very extraordinary that he should say nothing more of the most remarkable incident in it, I mean the death of Epaminondas, than that he fell in the action; but this may be accounted for by that modesty, which was the distinguishing character of our author, because it is well known that Epaminondas fell by the hand of Gryllus, the son of Xenophon, who was sent by his father to the assistance of the Athenians. It will easily be imagined that a general, at the head of a victorious army, then pursuing his victory, could not be attacked, much less slain, without manifest danger to the daring enemy, who should attempt it. This Gryllus found, for he had no sooner lanced the fatal dart, which deprived Thebes of the greatest general of that age, but he was cut to pieces by the friends of Epaminondas. When the news of his death was brought to Xenophon, he said no more than that he knew he was mortal.

INTRODUCTION.

NOTHING Seems to contribute more to the forming a clear idea of any transaction in history than a previous knowledge both of the persons and things that gave birth to it; for when the reader is once acquainted with the characters and views of the principal actors, and with what has been done in consequence of both, the scene unfolds in so natural a manner, that the most extraordinary events in history are looked upon in the same light as the most surprising phenomena in philosophy; that is, like these, they are found to be the necessary result of such principles as the all-wise Creator has thought fit to establish; and, like these, are as little to be wondered at, and as easy to be accounted for. In order, therefore, to enable the reader to view the consequences in their principles, and contemplate the embryo plant in its seed, I shall lay before him a short account of the most remarkable transactions that seem to have had an immediate influence upon that which Xenophon has chosen for the subject of his history. The affairs of the Athenians and Lacedæmonians had been, for some time before the expedition of Cyrus, so much interwoven with those of Persia, that all three seemed to have had a share in every remarkable event that happened to each of them. Thus the supplies of money with which Lysander, the Lacedæmonian general, was furnished by Cyrus, enabled him to carry on the war against the Athenians with advantage, and, at last, to give them a decisive blow at Ægos Potamos, which ended in the taking of Athens; and, on the other side, the assistance which Cyrus received from the Lacedæmonians, both by sea and land, in return, encouraged him to an attempt of no less moment than the dethroning his brother ArtaThe several steps which led to this enterprise equally great, unfortunate, and unwarrantable, shall be taken notice of in the order of time in which they happened. In this short survey, I shall avoid entering into any chronological discussions, which often puzzle, seldom inform, and never entertain, but confine myself almost entirely to Diodorus Siculus, who, besides the character he has deservedly obtained for fidelity and exactness, had the advantage of living many centuries nearer the transactions he recounts, than those who differ from him in chronology, as well as that of consulting many authors, whose works are unfortunately lost to modern ages. Neither shall I go further back than the taking of Athens by the Lacedæmonians, which happened in the fourth year of the ninety-third Olympiad, and put an end to the Peloponnesian war, after it had lasted twenty-seven years. The same year died Darius Ochus, king of Persia, after a reign of nineteen years, and left his kingdom to his eldest son Artaxerxes, who was born before he was king. Parysatis, his queen, the most artful of all women, and mother both to Artaxerxes and Cyrus, tried the power of every practice to engage Darius to imitate his predecessor, Darius Hystaspes, who preferred his son Xerxes, born after his accession, to Artobazanes, who was born before it; but all her efforts proved ineffectual, and Artaxerxes succeeded his father without opposition. If the arts of Parysatis could not

¡ Xerxes.

X