learning with the study thereof, in the days of king Edward the Fourth, both athome and in foreign universities, He made so eloquent an oration in the vatican, in the presence of pope Pius the Second, (one of the most learned of his order), that his holiness was divided, betwixt weeping and wondering there at. 5. Demades was the son of Demæas, a mariner; and from a porter betook himself to the commonwealth, in the city of Athens: all men confess of him, that where he followed his own nature, he out-shined all others; and that the studied preparations of Demosthenes him self, were excelled by his extempore eloquence. Being sent ambassador to Antipater, who then lay dying, both he and is son were slain by Cassander, a tribune of the soldiers, as being found to to have sided with the enemy. 6. Demosthenes was the son of a cutler, or sword-smith, the scholar of 1sæus; whence he betook himself to the common-wealth and though he had a stammering tongue, and indecent motion of the shoulders, a weak hearing, and want of breath; yet he corrected all these imperfections, and by exercise at last surmounted them. He opposed king Philip in his orations; was the author of the league betwixt the Thebans and Athenians; and also the cause of the overthrow king Philip received at Charonea. This was that Demosthenes who brought unto the art of speaking all that nature and exercise, diligence and learning, was able to contribute to it. He excelled all his equals who pleaded in the forum, in a sinewy and strong way of speaking: in gravity and splendor he surpassed those that dealt in the demonstrative way of eloquence; as he also did the sophists in wit and art. When Antipater was become the prince of Greece, he demanded the ten orators by his ambassadors; whereupon Demosthenes Aed to Calauria, to the temple of Neptune; but fearing to be drawn thence by Archias, Antipater's ambassador, he sucked poison out of his ring where he had preserved it, to assist him in his last extremity; and so died in the eighty-second year of his age. 7. King Pyrrhus was so powerfully persuasive, that the Romans commanded their ambassadors not to speak with him but by an interpreter; having had expe rience that those whom they had formerly sent, returned his advocates. 8. Eschines the Athenian, was the son of Atrometus; at first an actor of plays, then a notary, and afterwards an orator; wherein he proved excellent, had a sweet, easy, and pleasant pronunciation: he intermixed the Doric with the Attic way; and was highly praised, for, that he first found out how to speak copiously extempore: indeed, when he spake in matters unpremeditated, he seemed to have a gift altogether divine. He heard Plato and Isocrates; but added much more to them by his own ingenuity. He had in his speaking much of perspicuity and orna ment, and with gravity a certain pleasantness; so that, as to the whole, the form of his orations was such, as was inimitable. Leaving Athens, he went to Rhodes; where, being advocate in a cause, he corrupted the judges; and thereupon, together with them, was cast into prison; where he drank poison and died. 9. Lysias, the son of Cephalus, a Syracusan, came to Athens by the persuasion of Pericles: of those orations that go under his name, two hundred and thirty were supposed to be genuine: his manner of speaking scems easy, and yet it is not easily imitated: none followed him in the purity of his words, save only Isocrates. He lived at Athens mostly, and died at the age of eighty-three years. Phavori nus used to say of Plato and him, "Take or change any word in an oration of Plato's, and you take from the eloquence; and the like will you do, if you take from or change a word in any sentence of Lysias." 10. Marcus Tullius Cicero was not only eloquent, but the miracle of eloquence; representing the vigour of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and (4.) Full. Eccles. Hist. in Dedic. to lib. 2. p. 48.-(5.) Plut in Demost. p. 850.-(6.) Plut. in Demost. p. 859, 860. Zuin. Theat. vol. 4. lib. 2. p. 1119.-(7.) Chet. Hist Coll. cent 1. p 11, 42-(8.) Zuin. Thea, vol. 4. l. 2. p. 1120.—(9.) Ibid. 3119. A Gell. I. 2. c. 5. p. 48, the the pleasantness of Isocrates, all at once. He not only attained (by his study) to all that was excellent in any; but by himself, he advanced and improved all that was great in them; brought forth by a peculiar gift of providence, as one in whom eloquence might make experiment of its utmost force. By the men of his time he was said to reign in causes; and by posterity so accounted of, that he is said to have profited well, who is highly pleased with his writings. He was slain by the command of Antonius. So fell he, whose eloquence Cæsar himself was not able to resist; but found Ligarius wrested out of his hands by his persuasive force, whom but just before he was resolved not to pardon. 11. Hyperides was one of the ten orators of Athens, the scholar of Plato and Isocrates. So great was he in this art, that he is by many preferred before Demosthenes. There are extant of his orations fifty-two, which are thought to be legitimate. King Antipater fetched him out of the temple of Ceres at Her moine, whither he had fled, by the means of Archias, whom he employed for that purpose. This man cut out the tongue of the orator, and slew him. His son, Glaucippus, disposed his bones into the monument of the family. 12 Isæus was born at Chalcis, whence he went to Athens, where he was assisted by Lysias: so that unless a man is well skilled in their forms, he knows not by which of the two the oration he reads was made, so like are they in the frame of words and things. He taught Demosthenes at the price of ten thousand drachms, for which he was famous. He left sixty-four orations, whereof there are but fifty that are verily thought to be his. 13. Dinarchus, a Corinthian, was a young man at such time as Alexander made his expedition into Asia. About that time he removed himself to Athens, with purpose to live there. He heard Theophrastus, who had taken up the school of Aristotle; was familiar with Demetrius Phalerius; contended with the best orators, not by public pleading, but making orations for their enemies. Siding with Antipater and Cassander, he was proscribed, and lived fifteen years in exile. 14. Cyneas, a Thessalian, was the hearer of Demosthenes, and ambassador of king Pyrrus. When he was seat to the cities, he thought with Euripides that a fine word might do as much as the sharp sword; and king Pyrrus used to profeess, "That more cities were subdued to him by the eloquence of Cyneas than by force of his own arms." 15. Scopelianus, when Domitianus the emperor had sat forth his edict, that no vines should be had in Asia (as supposing that plenty of wine incited them to sedi tion). This affair seemed to require a prudent, eloquent person, who might be publicly sent to deprecate the displeasure of the emperor. Scopelianus was he who was pitched upon by all men, and who, by the force of his eloquence, not only obtained what he went about, that men might plant vines there without offence to the government; but further, that such men should be punished who neglected to do it; and departed well rewarded. 16. Eustathius, a Cappadocian, was the scholar of Iamblicus, a man of great eloquence: he was sent ambas sador to king Sapores, of Persia, whom he so pleased at the feast, that little wanted but that Sapores had cast off his tiara and robe of state for the bishop's mitre. But his courtiers prevented him, saying: "That he was a mere impostor and enchanter, instead of an ambassador." All Greece made vows for his safe return from thence; but he never came back again. 17. C. Julius Cæsar learned of Appolonius Molon at Rhodes: he is said to be admirably fitted for the city eloquence, and had so improved his parts by his di ligence, that, without all question, he merited the second place in point of eloquence. The first he would not have, as one that intended rather to be the first in power and arms. Cicero himself writes to Brutus: "That he knew not any (10.) Cal. Rhod. 1. 25. c. 3. p. 1157. Plut. in Cicer. p. 881. - - (11.) Zuin. Theat. vol. 4. 1.2. p. 1120.- (12.) Ibid. p. 1119.—(13.) Ibid. p. 1120.- (14.) Ibid. p. 1121, — (15.) Cæl Rhod. 1. 20. 6. 11. p. 935.—(16.) Zuin, Theat, vol. 4. 1. 2. p. 1181, to to whom Cæsar should give place, as one that had an elegant, splendid, magnificent, and generous way of speaking:" and to Cornelius Nepos: "Whom," saith he, will you prefer before this man, even of those who have made oratory their business? who is more acute or frequent than he in sentences? who more ornamental or elegant in words?" He is said to have pronounced his orations with a sharp voice, and earnest motion and gesture, which yet was not without good effect. CHAP. VIII. his history the space of seventy years, that is, from the flight of Xerxes unto the twenty-first year of the Peloponnesian war: for although he professedly describes only that war betwixt the Athenians and Peloponnesians wherein himself was a general, yet, by way of digression, he hath inserted an account of those fifty years that are betwixt the end of Herodotus's history, and the beginning of this war. Here he explains affairs of cities, as the former had done of monarchies; and hath framed so illustrious and express an image of all those things that usually happen in the government of a commonwealth; hath so lively represented the miséries that attend upon war, especially a civil and intestine one; hath Of the most famous Greek and Latin His composed his many orations with that torians. By the singular providence of God, and his great goodness, it was, that where the prophetic history of the holy scriptures break off, there we should have an immediate supply from elsewhere: and we may almost say, that in the very moment where they have left, there it was that 1. Herodotus, the Harlicarnassian, began his history, who relates the acts of Cyrus, and the affairs of the Persian monarchy, even unto the war of Xerxes; the histories of the kingdoms of Lydia, Media, and especially of Egypt, are set down by him. An account he gives of the Ionians, the city of Athens, and the Spartan and Corinthian kings: excelling all profane writers of history, both in the antiquity of the things he treats of, the multitude of examples, and the purity and sweetness of his style. His history is continued for the series of two hundred and thirty years, from Gyges, the king of Lydia, the contemporary with Manasses, king of Judah, to the flight of Xerxes and the Persians out of Greece, which was in the year of the world 3485. Herodotus himself flou rished in the beginning of the Pelopponnesian war, which was about the year of the world 3540. 2. Thucydides, the Athenian, immediately succeeded him, who embraced in (17.) Sueton. 1. 1. c. 55. p. 34. artifice and care, that nothing can be thought more sinewy and agreeable, unto all times in the world, than his history. 3. Xenophon, the Attick Bee, whose unaffected sweetness and elegance of style is such, that antiquity, admiring it, said: "The graces had framed and directed his speech." He beginning at the end of Thucydides, hath in seven books comprehended the events of forty years wars betwixt the principal cities of Greece, as far as to the battle of Mantinea, and the year of the world 3600. 4. Diodorus Siculus hath set forth his Bibliotheque, or an universal history of almost all the habitable world, accurately distinguished by times and years, in forty books. In the five first of which he discourses of the original of the world; the Egyptian, Assyrian, Lybian, Greek antiquities, and the affairs of other nations, before the Trojan war. The other thirty-five contain a series of years, no less than 1138, from the Trojan war to Julius Cesar: of all these there are but fifteen books extant. His sixteenth book almost immediately follows Xenophon, in which he treats of Philip of Macedon, who began to reign anno mundi 3604. From thence he passes to Alexander and his successors: and in the end of his twentieth book, which is the last of his extant, he reaches to the year of the world 3664, which year fails directly into the tenth book of Livy: and upon the four hun Zuin. Theat. vol. 4. 1. 2. p. 1121, dred dred and fifty-second year from the build ing of Rome. 5. Titus Livius, born at Padua, was the prince of Latin historians, excelling all Latin writers in the admirable gravity, copiousness, and beauty of his speech. He hath written a continued history of seven hundred and forty-six years, from the building of Rome, in the year of the world 3212, to the fourth year before the birth of Christ, which was the thirty-seventh year of Augustus. Now, although of fourteen decades, or one hun dred and forty books of Livy, there are only three decades and balf a fifth left; yet the arguments of the rest of the books, and the series of the principal histories, may easily be observed from Florus's epitome. Livy died the twenty-first year after the birth of Christ. 6. Ctesias Gnidius, a famous historian of the Assyrian and Persian affairs, about the year of the world 3564, in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against his brother Artaxerxes, was taken prisoner; and for his skill in pyhsic was received into the king's house and family, where, out of the royal commentaries and records, he composed the ancient history of the kings of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, in twenty books, having brought it down from Ninus, as far as the seventh year after the taking of Athens by Lysander. 7. Plutarchus, of Cheronea, flourished about the year of our lord 100, the ample treasury of the Greek and Latin history: he wrote about fifty lives of the principal men amongst the Greeks and Romans, full of the best matter, wise sentences, and choice rules of life. The Greek lives he begins with Theseus, king of Atheos, and ends with Philopomenes, general of the Achæans, who died one hundred and eighty years before the birth of Christ. The Roman captains he describes from Romulus as far as to Galba and Otho, who contended for the empire in the seventeenth year after the birth of Christ. 8. Arrianus, of Nicomedia, flourished anno Christi 140; and in eight books wrote the life and acts of Alexander the Great: his affairs in India are handled most copiously by him of all others: the whole is wrote in a singular sweetness and elegance of style. 9. Dionysius Harlicarnassus wrote accurately the Roman history: the original of the city, magistracy, ceremonies, and laws, are faithfully related by hm; and his history continued to the begin ning of the first punic war, and the four hundred and eighty-ninth year from the building of the city. His first eleven books are all that are extant, in which he reaches to the two hundred and twelfth year of the city. He flourished in the time of Augustus Cæser, and is said to have lived in the family of M. Varro. 10. Polybius, of Megalopolis, was the master, counsel or, and dany companion of Scipio the younger, who, in the year of the world 3800, rased Carthage. He begins his Roman history from the first punic war: and of the Greek nation, the Achæans, from the fortieth year after the death of Alexander the Great: of forty books he wrote, only five are left; and the fragments of twelve others, in which he reaches to the battle at Cynoscephale, betwixt king Philip of Mace don, and the Romans. 11. Sallustius wrote many parts of the Roman history in a pure and elegant brevity; of all which little is left besides the conspiracy of Catiline, suppressed by the Consul Cicero sixty years before the birth of Christ and the war of Jugurtha, managed by C. Marius the Consul, in the forty-fourth year before the conspira cy aforesaid. : 12. Julius Cæsar hath wrote the history of his own acts in the gallick and civil wars, from the year 696 of Rome to 706, and comprised them in commens taries upon every year, in such a purity and beautiful propriety of expression, and such a native candour, that nothing is more polite, more useful and commodious for the framing a right and perspicious expression of ourselves in the Latin tongue. 13. Velleius Paterculus, in a pure and sweet language, hath composed an epi tome of the Roman history, and brought it down as far as the thirty-second year after the birth of Christ; that is, the sixteenth year of Tiberius, under whom he flourished, and was questor. 14. Cǝr, 14. Cornelius Tacitus, under Adrian the emperor, was præfect of the Bgic Gaul: he wrote a history from the death of Augustus to the reign of Trajan, in thirty books; of which the five first contain the history of Tiberius: the last cleven books, from the eleventh to the twenty-first, which are all that are extant, reach from the eighth year of Claudius to the beginning of Vespasian, and the besieging of Jerusalem by Titus, which was anno Domini 72. He hath comprised much in a little, is proper, neat, quick, and apposite in his style, and adoras his discourse with variety of sentences. 15. Suetonius, was secretary to Adrian the emperor, and (in a proper and concise style) hath wrote the Lives of the twelve first emperors, to the death of Domitian, and the ninety-eighth year of Christ. He hath therein exactly kept to that first and chief law of history, which is, that the historian should not dare to set down any thing that is false; and, on the other side, that he have courage enough to set down what is true. It is said of this historian, that he wrote the lives of those emperors with the same liberty as they lived. 16. Dion Cassius was born at Nice, in Bithynia: he wrote the history of nine hundred eighty-one years, from the building of Rome, to anno Domini 231; in which year he was consul with Alex ander Severus the emperor, and finished his history in eighty.books; of all which, scarce twenty-five books, from the thirtysixth to the sixty-first, and the beginning of Nero, are at this time extant. 17. Herodianus wrote the history of his own time, from the death of M. Antoninus the philosopher, or the year of Christ 181, to the murder of Gordiani in Africa, A. D. 211; which is rendered into pure Latin by Angelus Politianus. 18. Johannes Zonaras, of Byzantium, wrote a history from Augustus to his own times, and the year of our Lord 1117: the chief of the oriental affairs and emperors he hath digested in the second and third tomes of his annals; from whence Cuspinianus, and others, borrow almost all that they have. Zonaras is continued by Nicætas Gregorias, and he by Chalcondylas. VOL. II. 19. Eutropius wrote the Epitome of the Roman history, in ten books, to the death of Jovinian, A.D.368. He was present in the expedition of Julian into Persia, and flourished in the reign of Valens the emperor. 20. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Grecian by birth, warred many years under Julian in Gallia and Germany, and wrote the history of the Romans, in thirty-one books: the fourteenth to the thirty-first. are all that are extant; wherein at large, and handsomely, he describes the acts of Constantius, Julian, Jovinian, Valentinian, and Valens, the emperors, unto the year of Christ 382. 21. Jornandes, a Goth, hath wrote the history of the Original Eruptions, Families of their Kings, and principal Wars of the Goths, which he hath con tinued to his own time; that is, the year of our Lord 550. 22. Procopius, born at Cæsarea, in Palestine, and chancellor to Belisarius, the general to Justinian the emperor, being also his counsellor and constant companion, in seven books wrote the Wars of Belisarius with the Persians, Vandals, and Goths, wherein he also was present. 23. Agathias, of Smyrna, continues Procopius, from the twenty-seventh of Justinian, A. 1). 554, to the end of his reign, A. D. 566; the wars of Narses with the Goths and Franks; with the Persians at Colchis; wherein he recites the succession of the Persian kings from Artaxerxes, who, A. D. 230, seized on the Parthian empire, to the reign of Justinian, A. D. 530; and in the end treats of the irruption of the Huns into Thrace and Greece, and their repression by Belisarius, now grown old. 24. Paulus Diaconus, of Aquileia, chancellor to Desiderius, king of the Lombards, wrote the entire history of the Lombards, to A. D. 773; in which Charles the Great took Desiderius the last king, and brought Lombardy under his own power. 25. Haithonus, an Armenian, many years a soldier in his own country, after wards a monk at Cyprus, coming into France about the year of Christ 1307, was commanded by pope Clement the Fifth to write the history of the Empire of 2G |