Athenian Theseus, the events of the Argonautic expedition; of the Théban and Ar' golic war of the Seven Captains; and of the succeeding war of the Epig' onoi, or descendants of the survivors, in

pletely armed him for the undertaking.

He had received a sword from Mer' cury, a bow from Apol' lo, a golden breastplate from Vul' can, horses from Nep' tune, a robe from Miner' va and he himself cut his club from the Némean wood. We have merely room to enumerate his twelve labors, without describing them.

1st. He strangled the Nemean lion, which ravaged the country near Mycénæ, and ever after Acthed himself with its skin. 2d. He destroyed the Lernean hydra, a water-serpent, which had nine heads, eight of them mortal, and one immortal. 3d. He brought into the presence of Eurys' theus a stag, famous for its incredible swiftness and golden horns. 4th. He brought to Mycena the wild boar of Eryman' thus, and during this expedition slew two of the Centaurs monsters who were half men and half horses. 5th. He cleansed the Augean stables in one day, by changing the courses of the rivers Al' pheus and Péneus. ("To cleanse the Augean stables" has become a common proverb, and is applied to any undertaking where the object is to remove a mass of moral corruption, the accumulation of which renders the task almost Impossible.") 6th. He destroyed the carnivorous birds which ravaged the country near the Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia. 7. He brought alive into Peloponnésus a prodigious wild buli which ravaged the island of Crete. 8th. He brought from Thrace the mares of Dioméde, which fed on human flesh. 9th. He obtained the famous girdle of Hippol' yta, queen of the Amazons. 10th. He killed, in an island of the Atlantic, the monster Géryon, who had the bodies of three 11th. He obtained from the garden of the men united, and brought away his purple oxen. Hesper' ides the golden apples, and slew the dragon which guarded them. 12th. He went down to the lower regions, and brought upon earth the three-headed dog Cer' berus.

1. To Theseus, who is stated to have become king of Athens, are attributed many exploits similar to those performed by Her' cules, and he even shared in some of the enterprises of the latter. By his wise laws Théseus is said to have laid the principal foundation of Athenian greatness; but his name, which signifies the Orderer, or Regulator, seems to indicate a period in Grecian history, rather than an individual.

2. The Argonautic Expedition is said, in the popular legend, to have been undertaken by Jason and fifty-four of the most renowned heroes of Greece, among whom were Theseus and Her' cules, for the recovery of a golden fleece which had been deposited in the capital of Coi'. chis, a province of Asia Minor, bordering on the eastern extremity of the Euxine. The adven turers sailed from lol' cos in the ship Ar' go, and during the voyage met with many adventures. Having arrived at Col' chis, they would have been unsuccessful in the object of their expedi tion had not the king's daughter, Medea, who was an enchantress, fallen in love with Jason, and defeated the plans of her father for his destruction. After a long return voyage, filled with marvellous adventures, most of the Argonauts reached Greece in safety, where Her' cules, in honor of the expedition, instituted the Olym' pic games.

Some have supposed this to have been a piratical expedition; others, that it was undertaken for the purpose of discovery, or to secure some commercial establishment on the shores of the Euxine, while others have regarded the legend as wholly fabulous. Says Grote, "I repeat the opinion long ago expressed, that the process of dissecting the story, in search of a basis of fact, Bone altogether fruitless."-Grote's Hist. of Greece, i. 243.

3. The following are said to have been the circumstances of the Théban and Ar' golic war After the death of E' dipus, king of Thebes, it was agreed between his two sons, Etéocles ané Polynices, that they should reign alternately, each a year. Etéocles, however, the elder, after his first year had expired, refused to give up the crown to his brother, when the latter, leeing to Ar' gos, induced Adras' tus, king of that place, to espouse his cause. Adras' tus marched an army against Thebes led by himself and seven captains; but all the leaders were slain before the city, and the war ended by a single combat between Etéocles and Polynices, in which both brothers fell. This is said to have happened twenty-seven years before the Trojan war. Ten ears later the war was renewed by the Epig' onoi, descendants of those who were killed in the first Théban war. Some of the Grecian states espoused the cause of the Ar' gives, and others aided the Thébans; but in the end Thebes was abandoned by its inhabit ants, and plundered by the Ar' gives.

which Thebes is said to have been plundered by the confederate Greeks.

22. Of these events, the Argonautic expedition has usually been thought of more importance than the rest, as having been conducted against a distant country, and as presenting some valid claims to our belief in its historical reality. But we incline to the opinion, that both the hero and the heroine of the legend are purely ideal personages connected with Grecian mythology,—that Jason was per haps no other than the Samothrácian' god or hero Jásion,a the pro tector of mariners, and that the fable of the expedition itself is a poetic fiction which represented the commercial and piratical voyages that began to be made, about this period, to the eastern shores of the Euxine. It is not improbable that voyages similar to that represented to have been made by the Argonauts, or, perhaps, naval expeditions like those attributed to Mínos, the Crétan prince and lawgiver, may first have led to hostile rivalries between the inhabitants of the Asiatic and Grecian coasts, and thus have been the occasion of the first conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans.b

23. The Trojan war, rendered so celebrated in early Grecian his

1. Samothrace (the Thracian Sámos, now Samothraki,) is an island in the northern part of the Æ' gean Sea, about thirty miles south of the Thracian coast. It was celebrated for the mys teries of the goddess Cyb' ele, whose priests ran about with dreadful cries and howlings, boating on timbrels, clashing cymbals, and cutting their flesh wita knives. (See Map No. III.)

2. The Euxine (Pon'tus Euxinus) is now called the Black Sea. It lies between the southwestern provinces of Russia in Europe, and Asia Minor. Its greatest length, from east to west, is upwards of 700 miles, and its greatest breadth about 400 miles. Its waters are only about one-seventh part less salt than the Atlantic-a fact attributable to the saline nature of the bot tom, and of the northern coast. The Euxine is deep, and singularly free from rocks and shoals (See Map No. V.)

3. Minos is said, in the Grecian legends, to have been a son of Júpiter, from whom he learned those laws which he delivered unto men. It is said that he was the first among the Greeks who possessed a navy, and that he conquered and colonized severa. islande, and finally perished in an expedition against Sicily. Some regard Minos simply as the concentration of that spirit of order, which, about his time, began to exhibit, in the island of Créte, a regular system of laws and government. He seems to be intermediate between the periods of mythol ogy and history, combining, in his person, the characteristics of both.

4. Créte (now called Candia) is a large mountainous island in the Mediterranean Sea, 80 miles south-east from Cape Matapan in Greece-160 miles in length from east to west, with a breadth averaging about 20 miles. Créte was the reputed birth-place of Júpiter, "king of gods and men." The laws of Minos are said to have served as a model for those of Lycur' gus; and the wealth, number, and flourishing condition of the Crétan cities, are repeatedly referred to by Homer. (See Map No. III.)

a. Thirwall's Greece, i. 77-79.

b. According to Herod' otus, i. 2, 3, the abduction of Hel' en, the cause of the Trojan war, wɔɛ In retaliation of the abduction of Medea by Jason in the Argonautic expedition. Bu. Herod'. tus goes farther back, and attributes to the Phoenicians the first cause of contention between be Asiatics and the Grecians, in carrying away from Ar' gos, lo, a priestess of Júno.

tory by the poems of Homer,' is represented to have been undertaken about the year 1173 before the Christian era, by the confed erate princes of Greece, against the city and kingdom of Troy," situated on the western coast.of Asia Minor. The alleged causes of this war, according to the Grecian legend, were the following: Hel' en, the most beautiful woman of her age, and daughter of Tyn'. darus, king of Lacedæ'mon, was sought in marriage by all the princes of Greece; when Tyn' darus, perplexed with the difficulty of choosing one without displeasing all the rest, being advised by the sago Ulys' ses, bound the suitors by an oath that they would approve of the uninfluenced choice of Hel' en, and would unite together to defend her person and character, if ever any attempts were made to carry her off from her husband. Menelaus became the choice of Hel' en, and soon after, on the death of Tyn' darus, succeeded to the vacant throne of Lacedæ' mon."

24. After three years, Paris, son of Priam king of Troy, visited the court of Menelaus, and taking advantage of the temporary absence of the latter, he corrupted the fidelity of Hel' en, whom he induced to flee with him to Troy. Meneláus, returning, prepared to avenge the outrage. He assembled the princes of Greece, who, combining their forces under the command of Agamem' non, brother of Menelaus, sailed with a great armament to Troy, and after a siege of ten years finally took the city by stratagem, and razed it to the ground. (1183 B. C.) Most of the inhabitants were slain or taken prisoners, and the rest were forced to become exiles in distant lands.

1. Homer, the greatest and earliest of the poets, often styled the father of poetry was prob ably au Asiatic Greek, although seven Grecian cities contended for the honor of his birth. No circumstans of his life are known with any certainty, except that he was a wandering poet, and blind. The principal works of Homer are the Iliad and the Odyssey, the former of which relates the circumstances of the Trojan war; and the latter, the history and wanderings of Ulys' ses after the fall of Troy.

2. Troy, the scene of the battles described in the Iliad, stood on a rising ground between the small river Simois (now the Dumbrek) and the Scaman' der, (now the Mendere,) on the cast of Asia Minor, near the entrance to the Hel' lespont. New Ilium was afterwards built on the spot now believed to be the site of the ancient city, about three miles from the sea. (See Map No. III. and No. IV.)

3. Lacedæmon, or Spar' ta, the ancient capital of Lacónia, was situated in a plain of con siderable extent, embracing the greater part of Lacónia, bounded on the west by the mountain chain of Taygétus, and on the east by the less elevated ridge of mount Thornax, between which flows the Eurótas, on the east side of the town. In early times Spar' ta was without walls, Lyeur' gus having inspired his countrymen with the idea, that the real defence of a town consisted Bolely in the valor of its citizens; but fortifications were erected after Sparta became subject to despotic rulers. The remains of Spar' ta are about two miles nor h-east of the modern town :f Mistro. (See Map No. I.)

25. Such is, in brief, the commonly-received acccunt of the Trojan war, stripped of the incredible but glowing fictions with which the poetic genius of Homer has adorned it. But although the reality of some such war as this can hardly be questioned, yet the causes which led to it, the manner in which it was conducted, and its issue, being gathered, even by Homer himself, only from traditional legends, which served as the basis of other compositions besides the Iliad, are involved in an obscurity which we cannot hope to penetrate. The accounts of Hel' en are various and contradictory and so connected with fabulous beings—with gods and goddesses—as clearly to assign her to the department of mythology; while the real events of the war, if such ever occurred, can hardly be separated from the fictions with which they are interwoven.'

26. But although little confidence can be placed in the reality of the persons and events mentioned in Homer's poetic account of the siege of Troy, yet there is one kind of truth from which the poet can hardly have deviated, or his writings would not have been so acceptable as they appear to have been to his cotemporaries;—and that is, a faithful portraiture of the government, usages, religious notions, institutions, manners, and general condition of Grecian society, during the heroic age.a

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1. Thus the most ancient account of Hel' en is, that she was a daughter of the god Ja piter, hatched from the egg of a swan; and Homer speaks of her in the Iliad as begotten of Jupiter." When only seven years of age, such were her personal attractions, that Théseus, king of Athens, having become enamored of her, carried her off from a festival at which he saw her dancing; but her brothers recovered her by force of arms, and restored her to her family. After her marriage with Menelaus, it is said that Júpiter, plotting a war for the pur pose of ridding the earth of a portion of its overstocked inhabitants, contrived that the beauty of Hel' en should involve the Greeks and Trojans in hostilities. At a banquet of the gods, Dis cord, by the direction of Júpiter, threw into the assembly a golden apple, on which was inscribed, "The apple for the Fair one,” (Tỹ κaλã rò μnλov,) or, as in Virgil, Pulcherrima me habeto, "Let the most beautiful have me." The goddesses Júno, Miner' va, and Venus, claiming it, Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, was made the arbiter. He awarded the prize to Venus, who had promised him the beautiful Hel' en in marriage, if he would decide in her favor. Venus (the goddess of love and beauty) caused Paris and Hel' en to become mutually enamored, and afterwards aided the Trojans in the war that followed. Homer represents the heroes as performing prodigies of valor, shielded and aided by the gods; and the gods them selves as mingling in the strife, and taking part with the combatants. The goddess Miner' va an unsuccessful competitor for the prize which Paris awarded to her rival Venus, planned the tratagem of the wooden horse, which concealed within its side a band of Greeks, who, borne with it into the city, were thus enabled to open the gates to their confederates without.

a. "Homer was regarded even by the ancients as of historical authority."-"Truth was his object in his accounts and descriptions, as far as it can be the object of a poet, and even in a greater degree than was necessary, when he distinguishes the earlier and later times or ages. Ha Is the best source of information respecting the heroic age."--Heeren's Pics of Greece, p. 82

COTEMPORARY HISTORY

1. During the period of early Grecian history which we have passed over in the present chapter, our knowledge of the cotemporary history of other nations is exceedingly limited. Rome had not yet a beginning -all Europe, except the little Grecian peninsula, was in the darkness of barbarism: in Central Western Asia we in deed suppose there existed, at this time, large cities, and the flour ishing empires of Assyria and Babylon; but from them we can gather no reliable historic annals. In north-eastern Africa, indeed. the Egyptian empire had already attained the meridian of its glory; but of the chronological detail of Egyptian history during this period we know comparatively nothing. What is known relates principally to the conquests of the renowned Sesos' tris, an Egyptian monarch, who, as nearly as can be ascertained, was cotemporary with Oth' niel, the first judge of Israel, and with Cécrops, the sup nosed founder of Athens, although some modern authors place his reign a hundred years later. This monarch is said to have achieved many brilliant conquests as the lieutenant of his father. After he came to the throne he made vast preparations for the conquest of the world, and raised an army which is said to have numbered six hun dred thousand foot and twenty-four thousand horse, besides twentyseven thousand armed chariots. He conquered Lib' ya' and Ethiopia,' after which, entering Asia, he overran Arabia, subdued the Assyrians and Medes, and even led his victorious hosts beyond the Ganges:

1. Lib' ya is the name which the Greek and Roman poets gave to Africa. In a more restricted sense, however, the name was applied to that part of Africa, bordering on the Mediter ranean, which lies between Egypt on the east and Tripoli on the west,-the most important part of which territory is embra ed in the present Barca.

2. Ancient Ethiopia comprised, principally, the present countries of Nubia and Abyssinia, south of Egypt.

3. The Ganges, the sacred river of the Hindoos, flowing south-east through the northa. The era of the accession of Sesos' tris, may be placed at 1565 B. C.; that of Oth'niel a 1564; and the supposed founding of Athens at 1558,-the latter two in accordance with Dr. Hales. In Rollin the date for Segos' tris is 1491; Hereen "about 1500"; Russell's Egypt, 1308 Mure, "between 1400 and 1410"; Gliddon's Egypt, 1565; and Champolion Figeac (making Besos' tris the same as Ramses IV., at the head of the 19th dynasty), 1473. Eusebius, followed by Usher and Playfair, supposes that Sesos' tris was the immediate successor of the Pharaoh who was drowned in the Red Sea; while Marsham, followed by Newton, atten pts to identify him with the Shishak of Scripture who invaded Judea-a difference, according to various systems of chronology, of from 500 to 800 years. Mr. Bryant endeavors to prove that no such person ever existed.

Since the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, however, the principal ground of dispute on this subject among the learned, appears to be, whether the Sesos' tris so renowned in history was he same as Ramses III., the fourteenth king of the 18th dynasty, or the same as Ramses IV, the first king of the 19th dynasty, there being a difference between the two of about a huprizod nasre