noised at Rome; and (which is most remarkable) the victory obtained against Lucius Antonius, who was rebel to Domitian the emperor. This Lucius Antonius, being lieutenant of the higher Germany, had corrupted his army with gifts and promises, drawing the barbarous people to follow him, with great hope to make himself emperor; which news much troubling the city of Rome with fear of a dangerous war, it was suddenly reported that Antonius was slain, and his army defeated.

Hereupon many did offer sacrifice to the gods, and shew all manner of public joy, as in such cases was accustomed. But when better inquiry was made, and the author of these tidings could not be found, the emperor Domitian betook himself to his journey against the rebel; and being with his army in march, he received advertisement by post of the victory obtained, and the death of Antonius; whereupon remembering the rumour noised before in Rome, of the selfsame victory, he found that the report and victory were born upon one day, though twenty thousand furlongs (which make about two thousand five hundred miles) asunder. It is truly said of Plutarch, that this last example gives credit unto many the like. And indeed it were very strange, if among so many rumours, begotten by forgery or mistakings, and fostered by credulous imagination, there should not be found (as happens in dreams among many thousand vain and frivolous) a few precisely true. Howbeit we may find, that God himself doth sometimes use to terrify those who presume upon their own strength, by these light means of tumultuous noises; as he raised the siege of Samaria, by causing a sound of horses and chariots to affright the Aramites; and as he threatened Sennacherib, saying, b Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a noise, and return to his own land. Wherefore may well have been true, that God was pleased by such a mean as this to animate the Greeks; who (as Herodotus notes) went towards the enemies with heavy hearts, being in great fear lest their own adventure should by no means b Isaiah xxxyii. 7.

it

fall out well; considering in what danger they had left their country of Greece, which was ready to be subdued by Mardonius, whilst they went wandering to seek out enemies afar off, upon the coast of Asia. But the fame of the battle fought at Platææ being noised among them, every man desired that his own valour in the present fight might be some help to work out the full deliverance of Greece. In this alacrity of spirit they divided themselves into two battalions, whereof the Athenians led the one, by the way of the plain, directly towards the enemy's camp; the Lacedæmonians conducted the other, by the mountains and strait passages, to win the higher ground. The Athenians did first set upon the camp, (ere the Lacedæmonians could arrive on the other part,) and being desirous to get all the honour of the day to themselves, did so forcibly assault it, that they brake way through the palisadoes and gabions, and made themselves masters of the place, slaying all that could not save themselves by flight. In this fight the Samians did good service, as is formerly mentioned.

But the Milesians, who, upon the like jealousy, were placed by the Persians on the tops of Mycale to defend the passages, did now (as if they had been set on purpose to keep them from running away) put as many to the sword as fell into their hands, letting none escape, except a very few that fled through by-paths. The Lacedæmonians that day did little service, for the business was despatched ere they came in; only they broke such companies as retired in whole troops; making them fly dispersed in very much disorder, whereby the Milesians were enabled to do the greater execution upon them. This was the last fight of that huge army levied against Greece, which was now utterly broken, and had no means left to make offensive war.

SECT. XI.

Of the barbarous quality of Xerxes; with a transition from the Persian affairs to matters of Greece, which from this time grew more worthy of regard.

XERXES lay at Sardis, not far from the place of this

battle; but little mind had he to revenge either this or other his great losses, being wholly given over to the love of his brother's wife; with whom, when he could not prevail by entreaty, nor would obtain his desire by force, because he respected much his brother her husband, he thought it best to make a match between his own son Darius and the daughter of this woman, hoping by that means to find occasion of such familiarity as might work out his desire. But whether it were so, that the chastity of the mother did still reject him, or the beauty of her daughter allure him, he soon after fell in love with his own son's wife, being a vicious prince, and as ill able to govern himself in peace as to guide his army in war. This young lady having once desired the king to give her the garment which he then wore, being wrought by his own wife, it caused the queen thereby to perceive her husband's conversation with her, which she imputed, not so much to the beauty of her daughter-in-law, as to the, cunning of the mother, against whom thereupon she conceived extreme hatred. Therefore at a royal feast, wherein the custom was that the king should grant every request, she craved that the wife of Masistes, her husband's brother, the young lady's mother, might be given into her disposition. The barbarous king, who might either have reformed the abuse of such a custom, or have deluded the importunate cruelty of his wife, by threatening herself with the like to whatsoever she should inflict upon the innocent lady, granted the request, and sending for his brother, persuaded him to put away the wife which he had, and take one of his daughters in her stead. Hereby it seems that he understood how villainously that poor lady should be entreated, whom he knew to be virtuous, and whom himself had loved. Masistes refused to put her away, alleging his own love, her deserving, and their common children, one of which was married to the king's son, as reasons important to move him to keep her. But in most wicked manner Xerxes reviled him, saying, That he now should neither keep the wife which he had, nor have his daughter whom he had promised unto him.

Masistes was much grieved with these words, but much more when returning home he found his wife most butcherly mangled by the queen Amestris, who had caused her nose, lips, ears, and tongue to be cut off, and her breasts in like manner, which were cast unto dogs. Masistes, enraged with this villainy, took his way with his children, and some friends, towards Bactria, of which province he was governor, intending to rebel and avenge himself. But Xerxes, understanding his purpose, caused an army to be levied, which cut him off by the way, putting him and all his company to the sword. Such was the tyrannical condition of the Persian government; and such are generally the effects of luxury when it is joined with absolute power.

Yet of Xerxes it is noted, that he was a prince of much virtue and therefore Alexander the Great, finding an image of his overthrown, and lying upon the ground, said, that he doubted, whether in regard of his virtue he should again erect it, or, for the mischief done by him to Greece, should let it lie. But surely whatsoever his other good qualities were, he was foolish, and was a coward, and consequently merciless.

Therefore we may firmly believe, that the virtue of Cyrus was very great, upon which the foundation of the Persian empire was so surely laid, that all the wickedness and vanities of Xerxes, and other worse princes, could not overthrow it, until it was broken by a virtue almost equal to that which did establish it. In wars against the Egyptians, the fortune of Xerxes did continue, as at the first it had been, very good; but against the general estate of Greece, neither he nor any of his posterity did ever make offensive war, but received many losses in Asia, to which the last at Mycale served but as an introduction; teaching the Greeks, and especially the Athenians, that the Persian was no better soldier at his own doors than in a foreign country; whereof good trial was made forthwith, and much better proof, as soon as the affairs of Athens were quietly settled and assured.

From this time forward I will therefore pursue the his

tory of Greece, taking in the matters of Persia, as also the estate of other countries, collaterally, when the order of time shall present them. True it is, that the Persian estate continued in her greatness many ages following, in such wise, that the known parts of the world had no other kingdom representing the majesty of a great empire.

But this greatness depended only upon the riches and power that had formerly been acquired, yielding few actions or none that were worthy of remembrance, excepting some tragedies of the court, and examples of that excessive luxury, wherewith both it and all or the most of empires that ever were, have been enervated, made unwieldy, and (as it were) fattened for the hungry swords of poor and hardy enemies. Hereby it came to pass that Xerxes and his successors were fain to defend their crowns with money and base policies; very seldom or never (unless it were with great advantage) daring to adventure the trial of plain battle with that little nation of Greece, which would soon have ruined the foundations laid by Cyrus, had not private malice and jealousy urged every city to envy the height of her neighbour's walls, and thereby diverted the swords of the Greeks into their own bowels, which after the departure of Xerxes began very well, and might better have continued, to hew out the way of conquest on the side of Asia.

CHAP. VII.

Of things that passed in Greece from the end of the Persian war to the beginning of the Peloponnesian.

SECT. I.

How Athens was rebuilt and fortified.

AFTER that the Medes and Persians had received their last blow, and were utterly beaten at Mycale, Leotychides, who then commanded the Grecian army, leaving the pur