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was named Sybaris. Here stood the ancient city of Sybaris, founded,
about the time of Romulus or Numa Pompilius, by a colony from Greece.
For two hundred years and more,--almost as long, dear Atlantic, as your
beloved Boston has subsisted,--Sybaris flourished, and was the Rome of
that region, ruling it from sea to sea.

It was the capital of four states,--a sort of New England, if you will
observe,--and could send three hundred thousand armed men into the
field. The walls of the city were six miles in circumference, while the
suburbs covered the banks of the Crathis for a space of seven miles. At
last the neighboring state of Crotona, under the lead of Milon the
Athlete (he of the calf and ox and split log), the Heenan or John
Morrissey of his day, vanquished the more refined Sybarites, turned the
waters of the Crathis upon their prosperous city, and destroyed it. But
the Sybarites had had that thing happen too often to be discouraged.
Five times, say the historians, had Sybaris been destroyed, and five
times they built it up again. This time the Athenians sent ten vessels,
with men to help them, under Lampon and Xenocritus. And they, with those
who stood by the wreck, gave their new city the name of Thurii. Among
the new colonists were Herodotus, and Lysias the orator, who was then a
boy. The spirit that had given Sybaris its comfort and its immense
population appeared in the legislation of the new state. It received its
laws from CHARONDAS, one of the noblest legislators of the world. Study
these laws and you will see that in the young Sybaris the individual had
his rights, which the public preserved for him, though he were wholly in
a minority. There is an evident determination that a man shall live
while he lives, and that, too, in no sensual interpretation of the
words.

Of the laws made by Charondas for the new Sybaris a few are preserved.

1. A calumniator was marched round the city in disgrace, crowned with
tamarisk. "In consequence," says the Scholiast, "they all left the
city." O for such a result, from whatever legislation, in our modern
Pedlingtons, great or little!

2. All persons were forbidden to associate with the bad.

3. "He made another law, better than these, and neglected by the older
legislators. For he enacted that all the sons of the citizens should be
instructed in letters, the city paying the salaries of the teachers. For
he held that the poor, not being able to pay their teachers from t