ways recourse in times of revolt, and without whom they were in no condition to form any great enterprises.* When Ochus had taken all his measures, and made the necessary preparations, he repaired to the frontiers of Phoenicia, where he had an army of 300,000 foot, and 30,000 horse, and put himself at the head of it. Mentor was at Sidon with the Grecian troops. The approach of so great an army staggered him, and he sent secretly to Ochus, to make him offers, not only of surrendering Sidon to him, but of serving him in Egypt, where he was well acquainted with the country, and might be very useful to him. Ochus agreed entirely to the proposal, upon which he engaged Tennes, king of Sidon, in the same treason, and they surrendered the place in concert to Ochus. The Sidonians had set fire to their ships upon the approach of the king's troops, in order to lay the people under the necessity of making a good defence, by removing all hope of any other security. When they saw ner. themselves betrayed, that the enemy were masters of the city, and that there was no possibility of escaping either by sea or land, in the despair of their condition, they shut themselves up in their houses, and set them on fire. 40,000 men, without reckoning women and children, perished in this manThe fate of Tennes, their king was no better. Ochus seeing himself master of Sidon, and having no further occasion for him, caused him to be put to death, a just reward for his treason, and an evident proof that Ochus did not yield to him in perfidy. At the time this misfortune happened, Sidon was immensely rich. The fire having melted the gold and silver, Ochus sold the cinders for a considerable sum of money. The dreadful ruin of this city cast so great a terror into the rest of Phonicia, that it submitted and obtained conditions reasonable enough from the king. Ochus made no great difficulty in complying with their demands, because he would not lose the time there he had so much occasion for in the execution of his projects against Egypt. Before he began his march to enter it, he was joined by a body of 10,000 Greeks. From the beginning of this expedition, he had demanded troops in Greece. The Athenians and Lacedæmonians had excused themselves from furnishing him any at that time; it being impossible for them to do it, whatever desire they might have, as they said, to cultivate a good correspondence with the king. The Thebans sent him 1000 men under the command of Dachares: the Argives 3000 under Nicostratus. The rest came from the cities of Asia. All these troops joined him immediately after the the taking of Sidon. The Jews must have had some share in this war of the Phoenicians against Persia; for Sidon was no sooner taken, than Ochus entered Judea, and besieged the city of Jericho which he took. Besides which, it appears that he carried a great number of Jewish captives into Egypt, and sent many others into Hyrcania, where he settled them along the coast of the Caspian sea. Ochus also put an end to the war with Cyprus at the same time. That of Egypt so entirely engrossed his attention, that in order to have nothing to divert him from it, he was satisfied to come to an accommodation with the nine kings of Cyprus, who submitted to him upon certain conditions, and were all continued in their little states. Evagoras demanded to be reinstated in the kingdom of Salamin. It was evidently proved, *Diod. l. xvi. p. 441-443. + Solin. c. xxxv. Euseb. in Chron. &c. Diod. I. xvi. p. 443. that he had committed the most flagrant oppressions during his reign, and that he had not been unjustly dethroned. Protagoras was therefore confirmed in the kingdom of Salamin, and the king gave Evagoras a remote government, He behaved no better in that, and was again expelled. He afterwards returned to Salamin, and was seized and put to death. Surprising difference between Nicocles and his son Evagoras! * After the reduction of the isle of Cyprus, and the province of Phœnicia, Ochus advanced at length towards Egypt. Upon his arrival, he encamped before Pelusium, from whence he detached three bodies of his troops, each of them commanded by a Greek and a Persian with equal authority. The first was under Lachares the Theban, and Rosaces, governour of Lydia and Ionia. The second was given to Nicostratus the Argive, and Aristazanes, one of the great officers of the crown. The third had Mentor the Rhodian, and Bagoas, one of Ochus' eunuchs at the head of it. Each detachment had its particular orders. The king remained with the main body of the army in the camp he had made choice of at first, to wait events and to be ready to support those troops in case of ill success, or to improve the advantages they might have. Nectanebis had long expected this invasion, the preparations for which had made so much noise. He had 100,000 men on foot, 20,000 of whom were Greeks, 20,000 Lybians, and the rest were Egyptian troops. Part of them he bestowed in the places upon the frontiers, and posted himself with the rest in the passes, to dispute the enemy's entrance into Egypt. Ochus' first detachment was sent against Pelusium, where there was a garrison of 5000 Greeks. Lachares besieged the place. That under Nicostratus, on board of 24 ships of the Persian fleet, entered one of the mouths of the Nile at the same time, and sailed into the heart of Egypt, where they landed and fortified themselves well in a camp, of which the situation was very advantageous. All the Egyptian troops in these parts were immediately drawn together under Clinias, a Greek of the isle of Cos, and prepared to repel the enemy. A very warm action ensued, in which Clinias, with 5000 of his troops were killed, and the rest entirely broke and dispersed. This action decided the success of the war. Nectanebis apprehending that Nicostratus after this victory would embark again upon the Nile, and take Memphis, the capital of the kingdom, made all the haste he could to defend it, and abandoned the passes, which it was of the last importance to secure, to prevent the entrance of the enemy. When the Greeks that defended Pelusium, were apprised of this precipitate retreat, they believed all lost, and capitulated with Lachares upon condition of being sent back into Greece with all that belonged to them, and without suffering any injury in their persons or effects. Mentor who commanded the third detachment, finding the passes clear and unguarded, entered the country and made himself master of it without any opposition: for, after having caused a report to be spread throughout his camp, that Ochus had ordered all those who would submit, to be treated with favour, and that such as made resistance should be destroyed as the Sidoniaus had been; he let all his prisoners escape, that they might earry the news into the country round about. Those poor people reported in their towns and villages what they had heard in the enemy's camp. The brutality of Ochus seemed to confirm it; and the terror was so great * Diod. I. xvi. p. 444 et 450. that the garrisons, as well Greeks as Egyptians, strove which should be the foremost in making their submission. * Nectanebis, having lost all hope of being able to defend himself, escaped with his treasures and best effects into Æthiopia, from whence he never returned. He was the last king of Egypt of the Egyptian race, since whom it has always continued under a foreign yoke, according to the prediction of Ezekiel.+ Ochus, having entirely conquered Egypt in this manner, dismantled the cities, pillaged the temples, and returned in triumph to Babylon, laden with spoils, and especially with gold and silver, of which he carried away immense sums. He left the government of it to Pherendates, a Persian of the first quality. Here Manethon finishes his commentaries, or history of Egypt. He. was a priest of Heliopolis in that country, and had written the history of its different dynasties from the commencement of the nation to the times we now treat of. His book is often cited by Josephus, Eusebius, Plutarch, Porphyry, and several others. This historian lived in the reign of Ptolemæus Philadelphus, king of Egypt, to whom he dedicates his work, of which | Syncellus has preserved us the abridgment. Nectanebis lost the crown by his too good opinion of himself. He' had been placed upon the throne by Agesilaus, and afterwards supported in it by the valour and counsels of Diophantes the Athenian, and Lamius the Lacedæmonian, who, whilst they had the command of his troops, and the direction of the war, had rendered his arms victorious over the Persians in all the enterprises they had formed against him. It is a pity we have no account of them, and that Diodorus is silent upon this head. That prince, vain from so many successes, imagined, in consequence, that he was become sufficiently capable of conducting his own affairs in person, and dismissed them to whom he was indebted for all those advantages. He had time enough to repent his error, and to discover that the power does not confer the merit of a king. Ochus rewarded very liberally the service which Mentor the Rhodian had rendered him in the reduction of Phoenicia, and the conquest of Egypt. Before he left that kingdom, he dismissed the other Greeks laden with his presents. As for Mentor, to whom' the whole success of the expedition was principally owing, he not only made him a present of 100¶ talents in money, besides many jewels of great value, but gave him the government of all the coast of Asia, with the direction of the war against some provinces, which had revolted in the beginning of his reign, and declared him generalissimo of all his armies on that side. Mentor made use of his interest to reconcile the king with his brother Mnemon, and Artabasus, who had married their sister. Both of them had been in arms against Ochus. We have already related the revolt of Artabasus, and the victories he obtained over the king's troops. He was, however, overpowered at last, and reduced to take refuge with Philip, king of Macedon; and Mnemon, who had borne a part in his wars, had also a share in his banishment. After this reconciliation, they rendered Ochus * A. M. 3654. Ant. J. C. 350. + Ezek. xxix. 14, 15. Syncel. p. 256. Voss. de hist. Græc. l. i. c. 14. George, a monk of Constantinople, so called from his being Syncellus, or vicar to the Patriarch Tarasus, towards the end of the ninth century. A. M. 3655. Ant. J. C. 349. 100,000 crowns. and his successors signal services; especially Mnemon, who was one of the most valiant men of his times, and no less excellent in the art of war. Neither did Mentor want his great merits, nor deceive the king in the confidence he had reposed in him; for he had scarce taken possession of his government, when he re-established every where the king's authority, and reduced those who had revolted in his neighbourhood to return to their obedience; some he brought over by his address and stratagems, and others by force of arms. In a word, he knew so well how to take his advantages, that at length he subjected them all to the yoke, and reinstated the king's affairs in those provinces. * In the first year of the 108th Olympiad died Plato, the famous Athenian philosopher. I shall defer speaking of him at present, that I may not interrupt the chain of the history. OCHUS, † after the conquest of Egypt, and reduction of the revolted provinces of his empire, abandoned himself to pleasure and luxurious ease during the rest of his life, and left the care of affairs entirely to bis ministers. The two principal of them were the eunuch Bagoas, and Mentor the Rhodian, who divided all power between them, so that the first had all the provinces of the Upper, and the latter, all those of the Lower Asia under him, After having reigned 23 years, Ochus died of poison given him by Bagoas. That eunuch, who was by birth an Egyptian, had always retained a love for his country, and a zeal for its religion. When his master conquered it, he flattered himself, that it would have been in his power to have softened the destiny of the one, and protected the other from insult. But he could not restrain the brutality of his prince, who acted a thousand things in regard to both, which the eunuch saw with extreme sorrow, and always violently resented in his heart. Ochus, not contented with having dismantled the cities, and pillaged the houses and temples, as has been said, had besides taken away all the archives of the kingdom, which were deposited and kept with religious care in the temples of the Egyptians; and in || derision of their worship, he had caused the god Apis to be killed, that is, the sacred bull which they adored under that name. What gave occasion for this last action was, that Ochus being as lazy and heavy as he was cruel, the Egyptians, from the first of those qualities, had given him the shocking surname of the stupid animal they found he resembled. Violently enraged at this affront, Ochus said that he would make them sensible that he was not an ass, but a lion, and that the ass whom they despised so much should eat their ox. Accordingly he ordered Apis to be dragged out of his temple, and sacrificed to an ass. After which he made his cooks dress, and serve him up to the officers of his household. This piece of wit incensed Bagoas. As for the archives, he redeemed them afterwards, and sent them back to the places where it was the custom to keep them: but the af *A. M. 3656. Ant. J. C. 348. Diod. I. xvi. p. 490. † A. M 5666. Ant. J. C. 338. Plut, de Isid, et Osir. p. 363. Ælian. 1. iv. c. 8. front which had been done to his religion was irreparable; and it is believed that was the real occasion of his master's death. * His revenge did not stop there. He caused another body to be interred instead of the king's, and to avenge his having made the officers of the house eat the god Apis, he made cats eat his dead body, which he gave them cut in small pieces; and for his bones, those he turned into handles for knives and swords, the natural symbols of his cruelty. It is very probable, that some new cause had awakened in the heart of this monster his ancient resentment; without which, it is not to be conceived, that he could carry his barbarity so far in regard to his master and benefactor. After the death of Ochus, Bagoas, in whose hands all power was at that time, placed Arses upon the throne, the youngest of all the late king's sons, and put the rest to death, in order to possess with better security, and without a rival, the authority he had usurped. He gave Arses only the name of king, whilst he reserved to himself the whole power of the sovereignty. But perceiving that the young prince began to discover his wickedness, and took measures to punish it, he prevented him by having him assassinated, and destroyed his whole family with him. Bagoas, after having rendered the throne vacant by the murder of Arses, placed Darius upon it, the third of that name who reigned in Persia. His true name was Codomanus, of whom much will be said hereafter. We see here in a full light the sad effect of the ill policy of the kings of Persia, who, to ease themselves of the weight of public business, abandoned their whole authority to an eunuch. Bagoas might have more address and understanding than the rest, and thereby merit some distinction. It is the duty of a wise prince to distinguish merit; but it is as consistent for him to continue always the entire master, judge, and arbiter of his affairs. A prince like Ochus, who had made the greatest crimes his steps for ascending the throne, and who had supported himself in it by the same measures, deserved to have such a minister as Bagoas, who vied with his master in perfidy and cruelty. Ochus experienced their first effects. Had he desired to have nothing to fear from him, he should not have been so imprudent as to render him formidable, by giving him an unlimited power. SECTION VI. ABRIDGMENT OF THE LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES. AS Demosthenes will have a great part in the history of Philip and Alexander, which will be the subject of the ensuing volume, it is necessary to give the reader some previous idea of him, and to let him know by what means he cultivated, and to what a degree of perfection he carried his talent of eloquence; which made him more awful to Philip and Alexander, and enabled him to render greater services to his country, than the highest military virtue could have done. That orator, born † two years before Philip, and 280 before Cicero, was not the son of a dirty smoaky blacksmith, as Juvenal would seem *Elian. J. vi. c. 3. † A. M. 3623. Ant. J. C. 381. Plut. in Demost. p. 847-489. The fourth year of the 99th Olympiad. Juv. 1. ir. sat. 10. |