voidance of immodesty of style. Beaumont and Fletcher, Rochester,
Dean Swift, wrote under monarchies--their pruriencies are not excelled
by any republican authors of ancient times. What ancient authors
equal in indelicacy the French romances from the time of the Regent of
Orleans to Louis XVI.? By all accounts, the despotism of China is the
very sink of indecencies, whether in pictures or books. Still more,
what can we think of a writer who says, that "the ancients have not
left us one piece of pleasantry that is excellent, unless one may
except the Banquet of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Lucian?" What!
has he forgotten Aristophanes? Has he forgotten Plautus! No--but
their pleasantry is not excellent to his taste; and he tacitly agrees
with Horace in censuring the "coarse railleries and cold jests" of the
Great Original of Moliere!

[100] Which forbade the concentration of power necessary to great
conquests. Phoenicia was not one state, it was a confederacy of
states; so, for the same reason, Greece, admirably calculated to
resist, was ill fitted to invade.

[101] For the dates of these migrations, see Fast. Hell., vol. i.

[102] To a much later period in the progress of this work I reserve a
somewhat elaborate view of the history of Sicily.

[103] Pausanias, in corroboration of this fact, observes, that
Periboea, the daughter of Alcathous, was sent with Theseus with
tribute into Crete.

[104] When, according to Pausanias, it changed its manners and its
language.

[105] In length fifty-two geographical miles, and about twenty-eight
to thirty-two broad.

[106] A council of five presided over the business of the oracle,
composed of families who traced their descent from Deucalion.

[107] Great grandson to Antiochus, son of Hercules.--Pausanias, l. 2,
c. 4.

[108] But at Argos, at least, the name, though not the substance, of
the kingly government was extant as late as the Persian war.

[109] Those who meant to take part in the athletic exercises were
required to attend at Olympia thirty days previous to the games, for
preparation and practice.

[110] It would appear by some Etruscan vases found at Veii, that the
Etruscans practised all the Greek games--leaping, running,
cudgel-playing, etc., and were not restricted, as Niebuhr supposes,
to boxing and chariot-races.

[111] It however diminishes the real honour of the chariot-race, that
the owner of horses usually won by proxy.

[112]