dered persons to take care of transporting many of the paintings and statues of the most excellent masters to Rome. Never would loss have been so irreparable, as that of such a deposit, consisting of the master-pieces of those rare artists, who contributed, almost as much as the great captains, to the rendering of their age glorious to posterity. Mummius, however, in recommending the care of that precious collection to those to whom he confided them, threatened them very seriously, that if the statues, paintings, and other things, with which he entrusted them, should be either lost, or spoiled upon the way, he would oblige them to find others at their own cost and charges.

Were it not to be wished, says an historian, who has preserved to us this fact, that this happy ignorance still subsisted; and would not such grossness be infinitely preferable, in regard to the public good, to the extreme delicacy of taste of the present age for such sort of rarities? He spoke at a time when that taste for excellent paintings amongst the magistrates, was the occasion of their committing all manner of frauds and robberies in the provinces.

I have said that Polybius, on returning into Peloponnesus, had the affliction to see the destruction and burning of Corinth, and his country reduced into a province of the Roman empire. If any thing was capable of giving him consolation in so mournful a conjuncture, it was the opportunity of defending the memory of Philopomen, his master in the science of war. I have already observed, that a Roman, having taken it into his head to have the statues, erected to that hero, taken down, had the impudence to prosecute him criminally, as if he had been

Polyb. in Excerpt. p. 190-192.

caret, juberet prædici conducentibus, si eas perdidissent, novas eos reddituros Non tamen puto dubites, Vinici, quin magis pro republică fuerit, manere adhuc rudem Corinthiorum intellectum, quàm in tantum ea intelligi; & quin hac prudentiá illa imprudentia decori pubticafucrit convenientior, VELL. PATERC. li. n. 13.

still alive, and to accuse him before Mummius, of having been an enemy to the Romans, and of having always opposed their designs to the utmost of his power. The accusation was extravagant, but had some colour in it, and was not entirely without foundation. Polybius boldly took upon him his defence. He represented Philopomen as the greatest captain Greece had produced in the latter times: that he might, perhaps, have occasionally carried his zeal for the liberty of his country a little too far; but that he had rendered the Roman people considerable services upon several occasions; as in their wars against Antiochus and the Ætolians. The commissioners, before whom he pleaded so noble a cause, moved with his reasons, and still more with his gratitude for his master, decreed that the statues of Philopomen should continue as they were in every city where they had been erected. Polybius, taking the advantage of Mummius's good disposition, demanded also the statues of Aratus and Achæus; which were granted him, though they had already been carried out of Peloponnesus into Acarnania. The Achæans were so charmed with the zeal which Polybius had expressed upon this occasion for the honour of the great men of his country, that they erected a statue of marble to himself.

He gave at the same time a proof of his disinterestedness, which did him as much honour amongst his citizens, as his defence of the memory of Philopomen. After the destruction of Corinth, it was thought proper to punish the authors of the insult offered to the Roman ambassadors, and their estates and effects were sold by auction. When those of Diæus were put up, who had been the principal in that affront, the ten commissioners ordered the quæstor who sold them, to let Polybius select whatever he thought fit out of them, without taking any thing from him upon that account. He refused that offer, as advantageous as it appeared, and would have thought himself in some measure an accomplice of that wretch's crimes, had he accepted any part of

his effects; beside which, he believed it infamous to enrich himself out of the spoils of his fellowcitizen. He would not only accept nothing himself, but exhorted his friends not to desire any thing of what had appertained to Diæus; and all that followed his example were extremely applauded.

This action made the commissioners conceive so high an esteem for Polybius,, that upon their leaving Greece, they desired him to go to all the cities which had been lately conquered, and to accommodate their differences, till time had accustomed them to the change which had been made, and to the new laws prescribed them. Polybius discharged that honourable commission with so much mildness, justice, and prudence, that no farther contests arose in Achaia, either in regard to the government in general, or the affairs of private persons. In gratitude for so great a benefit, statues were erected to him in different places; upon the base of one of which was this inscription: "That Greece would have been guilty of no errors, if she had hearkened from the first to the counsels of Polybius; but, that after she had committed these errors, he alone had been her deliverer."

Polybius, after having established order and tran quillity in his country, returned to join Scipio at Rome, from whence he accompanied him to Numantia, at the siege of which he was present. When Scipio was dead, he returned into Greece; and having enjoyed there the esteem, gratitude, and affec tion of his beloved citizens, he died at the age of fourscore and two years, of a wound he received by a fall from his horse.

Metellus, upon his return to Rome, was honoured with a triumph, as conqueror of Macedonia and Achaia, and surnamed Macedonicus. The false king, Andriscus, was led before his chariot. Amongst the spoils, he caused what was called the troop of Alexander the Great, to be carried in the procession. *Polyb. in Excerpt. p. 190, &c. a Lucian in Macrob.

p. 142.

That prince, at the battle of the Granicus, having lost five-and-twenty of his friends, ordered Lysippus, the most excellent artist in that way, to make in hohour of each of them an equestrian statue, to which he added his own. These statues were set up in Dium, a city of Macedonia. Metellus caused them to be transported to Rome, and adorned his triumph with them.

Mummius obtained also the honour of a triumph, and, in consequence of having conquered Achaia, was surnamed Achaicus. He exhibited a great number of statues and paintings in his triumph, which were afterwards the ornaments of the public buildings at Rome, and of several other cities of Italy; but not one of them entered the conqueror's own house.

SECT. V. Reflections upon the causes of the grandeur, declension, and ruin of Greece.

AFTER having seen the final ruin of Greece, which has supplied us through a series of so many ages with such fine examples of heroic virtues and memorable events, we may be permitted to retrace our steps, and consider succinctly, and at one view, its rise, progress, and declension. The whole time of its duration may be divided into four ages.

The first and second ages of Greece.

I shall not dwell upon the ancient origin of the Greeks, nor the fabulous times before the Trojan war, which make the first age, and constitute, if may so say, the infancy of Greece.

I

The second age, which extends from the taking of Troy, to the reign of Darius I. king of Persia, was in a manner its youth, in which it formed, forti

fied, and prepared itself for those great things which it was afterwards to perform, and laid the foundations of that power and glory, which at length rose so high, and became the admiration of all future ages.

b

The Greeks, as Monsieur Bossuet observes, whose mental faculties were naturally vigorous, had been cultivated by kings and colonies which came from Egypt, who, settling in several parts of the country, spread universally the excellent polity of the Egyptians. It was from them they learned the exercises of the body, wrestling, the horse, foot, and chariot races, and the other combats, which they carried to their highest perfection, by means of the glorious crowns given to the victors in the Olympic games. But the best thing taught them by the Egyptians, was to be docile and obedient, and to suffer themselves to be formed by laws for the good of the public. They were not private persons, who regard nothing but their own interests and concerns, and have no sense of the calamities of the state, but as they suffer themselves, or as the repose of their own family is involved in them the Greeks were taught to consider themselves and their families as part of a greater body, which was that of the state. The fathers brought up their children in this opinion; and the children were taught from their cradle, to look upon their country as their common mother, to whom they more strictly appertained than to their parents.

The Greeks, disciplined thus by degrees, believed they were capable of governing for themselves, and most of the cities formed themselves into republics, under different forms of government, which had all of them liberty for their vital principle; but that liberty was wise, reasonable, and subservient to the laws. The advantage of this government was, that the citizens loved their country the better from transacting

Universal History.