confidential attendant of King Agesilaus, having, indeed, been banished from Athens on a vague charge of "Laconism." From this period he becomes altogether, both in local habitation and in political spirit, a Lacedæmonian, and appears with Agesilaus at the field of Coronea, 394 b.c., in which Athens, Thebes, and other Greek states contended unsuccessfully against the now dangerous dominancy of Sparta. After this date we do not find his name connected with any public event. He seems to have spent his time quietly and happily on his estate at Skillus in the Elean territory on the banks of the river Selinus, a few miles south of Olympia, engaged partly in the execution of literary works, partly in those occupations and amusements of a Greek country gentleman, which he has himself so gracefully described in several of his smaller works. He died at a good old age (Lucian says ninety years), such as his active habits and amiable disposition might naturally have been expected to produce; and his name finds a prominent place in that curious list of remarkable men of great longevity which has been preserved for us in a separate form by the satirist Lucian. As a writer, Xenophon does not rank with the first-class men of the brilliant age to which he belonged; but while his style and general tone exhibit what has been aptly termed only "the perfection of mediocrity," certain accidental circumstances have conspired to give two at least of his works a place among the most highly valued relics of classical antiquity. His "Anabasis, or Account of the Expedition of the Younger Cyrus," combines the excellences of a simple, natural, and polished style, and great variety of incident with a certain rare epic unity of story, not frequently to be found in so short a composition by a man of no extraordinary talent. His "Memoirs of Socrates," like Boswell's Life of Johnson, have a great moral and historical value, altogether independent of the writer. But Xenophon is not merely the faithful attendant of the wisest of Athenian wise men, but his intelligent admirer and emulous disciple. Of his other works, the most pleasant at once and the most instructive are his "Œconomics," and his treatises on hunting and horsemanship, which give the modern reader a significant peep into some interesting scenes of ancient Greek life, which do not appear on the great stage of more pretentious literature. His "Institution of Cyrus" has maintained the reputation only of a pleasing historical romance; a form of literary composition which commits the double mistake of trifling with history, which ought always to be sacred, and degrading philosophy, which can never be meretricious. His life of Agesilaus shows, indeed, an intense admiration of the virtues of his royal patron, but it has neither the skilful portraiture nor the tone of healthy impartiality which characterize the charming biographies of Plutarch. The same want of impartiality and incapacity to attain a point of view that might set him above his present personal relations, appears in his "Hellenica," or history of Greece, from the year 411 b.c., where Thucydides breaks off, to the year 362 b.c., the date of the battle of Mantinea, which overthrew Spartan domination in the Peloponnesus; a work which, besides being written generally in a meagre style, is in conception utterly destitute of that epic unity which marked the massive plan of Thucydides, and binds together the curiously rich variety of Herodotus. On the personal character of Xenophon, not a little discrepancy of opinion has been expressed by distinguished modern writers. On the whole, however, a dispassionate consideration of all the circumstances will lead to no unfavourable judgment. It is impossible to dip into his works without being sensible of the presence of a kindly, reverential, cheerful, sensible, judicious, well-rounded, and finely-harmonized human character. The principal charge that has been brought against him is that he was a bad citizen, and deserted his native country to serve in the ranks of its bitterest enemy. But it must be borne in mind that he was banished on what appears to have been a very slight cause; that having been thus compelled to abandon Athens, he must either have remained a cypher in the world or attached himself to some other country; that the whole tone and habit of his mind was from the beginning opposed to the turbulence of the Athenian democracy; "that no man," as Long remarks, "is under any obligation to like the government under which he is born; his duty is to conform to it or to withdraw;" and moreover that, while ceasing to be an Athenian, he did not cease to be a Greek. The nobility of his disposition is further shown by this, that he never indicates any bitterness of feeling towards the authors of his expatriation; and even according to Mure, one of his most severe judges, it is not Athens, but Thebes, that in his historical sketches is made to suffer from the tone of thorough Spartan advocacy with which his later compositions are affected. The works of Xenophon have been extensively edited and read. The most noted editions are those of Stephens, Weiske, Schneider, and Kruger. English translations of particular works are by Spelman, Wellwood, Graves, Bradley, Smith, Cowper, Fielding, Denham, Morris, Moyles, Watson.—J. S. B.
XERXES, the famous Persian monarch, was the son of Darius
and his queen Atossa, his second wife. He succeeded his father
about the beginning of the year 485 b.c., being preferred by Darius to Artabazanes, his eldest son by his first marriage. In the second year of his reign he subdued Egypt, which had risen in revolt against the Persian yoke, and left his brother Achæmenes as its governor. During the next four years he was closely occupied with his vast preparations against Greece; soldiers were collected from every region of the Persian empire, reaching from central Asia to the inner countries of Africa. A naval force was supplied from its maritime provinces. The appearance and arms of the various troops are minutely and graphically described by Herodotus. Prodigious stores had been for three years brought together and arranged at stations along the line of march. In 481 b.c. Xerxes wintered at Sardis, the Persian capital of Asia Minor. In spring he approached the Hellespont, and his army took seven days and seven nights to cross the strait by a bridge of boats at Abydos, the breadth being about a mile. The first bridge had been destroyed by a storm, and the principal engineers were beheaded by the enraged despot; nay, in his frenzy he commanded the unruly sea to be scourged, and that a pair of fetters should be thrown into it. The fleet did not sail into the Hellespont, but steered westward, rounding the southern promontory of the Thracian Chersonese. Army and navy joined near Doriscus, and here the king reviewed his enormous levies. The army consisted of one million seven hundred thousand infantry, and eighty thousand cavalry, with numerous chariots of war. The fleet was formed of twelve hundred and seven triremes, each trireme being furnished with two hundred rowers and thirty fighters, with three thousand vessels of inferior size; the number of men in all being five hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and ten. The men thus numbered two million six hundred and thirty-seven thousand and ten. The camp followers, cooks, and motley attendants are estimated by the Greek historian as more than the men equipped for battle, giving a sum total of beyond five millions. Such a number, however, appears incredible; yet, after making every allowable deduction, we must believe that the host by land and sea was immense; for it was a species of barbaric display, as well as a warlike levy from the whole empire, special regard being had to the imposing array of dense masses of men, and the conscription had been carried out with the utmost rigour in all the numerous provinces. It was an assemblage of nations launched against the little commonwealth, to overawe and then overrun it. After the review at Doriscus, Xerxes continued his march through Thrace by three different roads. On its arrival at Athos the fleet sailed through a canal a mile and a half in length, which had been dug across the isthmus from the Strymonic to the Toronaic gulf, and was of such breadth and depth that two triremes could move abreast in it. This gigantic work has given rise to much discussion. Many have denied its existence, like Niebuhr; and others, like Juvenal, have laughed to scorn the bare idea of it; yet Herodotus vouches for it, as if himself had seen it; and modern travellers assert that traces and remnants of it may be distinctly found at the present day. The fleet and army at length united at Thermæ. Macedonia submitted at once to the invader, and Thessaly, on account of its various passes, could not be defended. The first check which Xerxes met with was at Thermopylæ, where he was encountered by the brave band of Leonidas, all of whom fell for their country. On the same day the Greek fleet at Artemisium attacked the Persian ships, which also soon suffered from a severe storm. The Persian king laid waste Phocis and Boeotia, and at length arrived at Athens. His fleet, having entered the bay of Phalerum, was engaged by the Greek ships under Themistocles. From a height on the land that overlooked "sea-born Salamis," the scene of the battle, Xerxes was a spectator, and witnessed the defeat and dispersion of his great naval armament. This battle of Salamis, so picturesquely described by Æschylus, himself one of the combatants, put an end to his
