proud and aspiring mountain, that liftest up thy head unto the heavens, I advise thee not to be so audacious, as to put rocks and stones, which cannot be cut, in the way of my workmen. If thou givest them that opposition, I shall cut thee entirely down, and throw thee headlong into the sea." "At the same time, he ordered his labourers to be whipped, in order to make them carry on the work the faster. A traveller, who lived in the time of Francis the first, and who wrote a book in latin concerning the singular and remarkable things he had seen in his travels, doubts the truth of this fact, and takes notice, that as he passed near mount Athos, he could perceive no traces or footsteps of the work we have been speaking of. y Xerxes, as we have already related, advanced to. wards Sardis. Having left Cappadocia, and passed the river Halys, he came to Cylene, a city of Phrygia, near which is the source of the Meander. Pythius, a Lydian, had his residence in this city, and next to Xerxes was the most opulent prince of those times. He entertained Xerxes and his whole army with an incredible magnificence, and made him an offer of all his wealth towards defraying the expenses of his expedition. Xerxes, surprised and charmed at so generous an offer, had the curiosity to inquire to what sum his riches amounted. Pythius made answer, that having the design of offering them to his service, he had taken an exact account of them, and that the silver he had by him amounted to two thousand talents, which make six millions French money; and the gold to four millions of darics wanting w Plut. de anim. tranq. p. 470. * Bellon. singul. rer. observ. p. 78. y Herod. 1. vii. c. 26-29. 2 About 255,0001. sterling. =$.1,133,000. * About 1,700,0001. Sterling. $.9,222,000. seven thousand, (that is to say, to forty millions of livres, wanting seventy thousand, reckoning ten livres French money to the daric.) All this money he offered him, telling him, that his revenues were sufficient for the support of his household. Xerxes made him very hearty acknowledgments, entered into a particular friendship with him, and that he might not be outdone in generosity, instead of accepting his offers, obliged him to accept of a present of the seven thousand darics which were wanting to make up his gold to a round sum of four millions. After such a conduct as this, who would not think that Pythius's peculiar character and particular virtue had been generosity and a noble contempt of riches? And yet he was one of the most penurious princes in the world, and who, besides his sordid avarice with regard to himself, was extremely cruel and inhuman to his subjects, whom he kept continually employed in hard and fruitless labour, always digging in the gold and silver mines which he had in his territories. When he was absent from home, all his subjects went with tears in their eyes to the princess his wife, laid their complaints before her, and implored her assistance. Commiserating their condition, she made use of a very extraordinary method to work upon her husband, and to give him a clear sense and a kind of palpable demonstration of the folly and injustice of his conduct. On his return home, she ordered an entertainment to be prepared for him, very magnificent in appearance, but which, in reality, was no entertainment. All the courses and services were of gold and ▸ Plutarch calls him Pythis. Plut, de virt. mulier. p. 262. silver, and the prince, in the midst of all these rich dishes and splendid rarities, could not satisfy his hunger. He easily divined the meaning of this enigma, and began to consider, that the end of gold and silver was not merely to be looked upon, but to be employed and made use of; and that to neglect, as he had done, the business of husbandry and the tilling of lands, by employing all his people in digging and working of mines, was the direct way to bring a famine both upon himself and his country. For the future, therefore, he only reserved a fifth part of his people for the business of mining. Plutarch has preserved this fact in a treatise, wherein he has col. lected a great many others, to prove the ability and industry of ladies. We have the same disposition of mind designed in fabulous story, in the example of a prince who reigned in this very country, for whom every thing that he touched was immediately turned into gold, according to the request which he himself had made to the gods, and who by that means was in danger of perishing with hunger, The same prince, who had made such obliging offers to Xerxes, having desired as a favour of him some time afterwards, that out of his five sons who served in his army, he would be pleased to leave him the eldest, in order to be a support and comfort to him in his old age; the king was so enraged at the proposal, though so reasonable in itself, that he caused the eldest son to be killed before the eyes of his father; giving the latter to understand, that it was a favour he spared him and the rest of his children; and then causing the dead body to be cut in two, and one part to be placed on • Midas, king of Phrygia. Herod. 1. vii. c. 38, 39. Sen. de ira, 1. iii. c. 17. the right, and the other on the left, he made the whole army pass between them, as if he meant to purge and purify it by such a sacrifice. What a monster in nature is a prince of this kind! How is it possible to have any dependence upon the friendship of the great, or to rely upon their warmest professions and protestations of gratitude and service? • From Phrygia Xerxes marched, and arrived at Sardis, where he spent the winter. From hence he sent heralds to all the cities of Greece, except Athens and Lacedemon, to require them to give him earth and water, which, as we have taken notice before, was the way of exacting and acknowledging submission. As soon as the spring of the year came on, he left Sardis, and directed his march towards the Hellespont. Being arrived there, he was desirous to see a naval engagement for his curiosity and diversion. To this end, a throne was erected for him upon an eminence; and, in that situation, seeing all the sea crowded with his vessels, and the land covered with his troops, he at first felt a secret joy diffuse itself through his soul, in surveying with his own eyes the vast extent of his power, and considering himself as the most happy of mortals; but reflecting soon afterwards, that of so many thousands, in an hundred years time there would not be one living soul remaining, his joy was turned into grief, and he could not forbear weeping at the uncertainty and instability of human things. He might have found another subject of reflection, which would have more justly merited his tears and affliction, had he turned his thoughts upon himself, and considered the Herod. 1. vii, c. 30—32. f Ibid. c. 44 et 46. reproaches he deserved for being the instrument of shortening that fatal term to millions of people, whom his cruel ambition was going to sacrifice in an unjust and unnecessary war. Artabanes, who neglected no opportunity of making himself useful to the young prince, and of instilling into him sentiments of goodness for his people, laid hold of this moment, in which he found him touched with a sense of tenderness and humanity, and led him into further reflections upon the miseries with which the lives of most men are attended, and which render them so painful and unhappy, endeavouring, at the same time, to make him sensible of the duty and obligation of princes, who, not being able to prolong the natural life of their subjects, ought at least to do all that lies in their power to alleviate the pains and allay the bitterness of it. In the same conversation, Xerxes asked his uncle, if he still persisted in his first opinion, and if he would still advise him not to make war against Greece, supposing he had not seen the vision, which occasioned him to change his sentiments. Artabanes owned he still had his fears, and that he was very uneasy concerning two things. What are those two things? replied Xerxes. The land and the sea, says Artabanes: the land, because there is no country that can feed and maintain so numerous an army; the sea, because there are no ports capable of receiving such a multitude of vessels. The king was very sensible of the strength of this reasoning; but, as it was now too late to go back, he made answer, that in great undertakings men ought not so narrowly to examine all the inconveniences that may attend them; that if they did, no signal enterprises |