entreated them to spare the vanquished. They obeyed his voice; and,
after having chased them beyond the utmost boundaries of Lebanon,
returned in triumph amid the praises and acclamations of their joyful
families, whom they had preserved from slavery by their valour. They
then examined the field of battle, and collecting all who had any
remains of life, they treated them with the greatest humanity, binding
up their wounds, and administering to all their necessities.

"Among the thickest dead was found the breathless body of Tigranes,
miserably shattered and disfigured, but still exhibiting evident marks
of passion and ferocity. Sophron could not behold, without compassion,
the friend of his early years, and the companion of his youthful sports.
'Unhappy man,' said he, 'thou hast at length paid the price of thy
ungovernable ambition! How much better would it have been to have tended
thy flocks upon the mountains, than to have blazed an angry meteor, and
set for ever amid the curses of thy country.' He then covered the body
with a military vest, and ordered it to be honourably burned upon a
mighty funeral-pile which was prepared for all the dead.

"The next day an immense quantity of spoil was collected, that had been
abandoned by the troops of Tigranes in their flight. The simple
inhabitants of Lebanon, the greater part of whom had never been beyond
the limits of their mountains, were astonished at such a display of
luxury and magnificence. Already the secret poison of sensuality and
avarice began to inflame their hearts, as they gazed on costly hangings,
enriched with gold and silver, on Persian carpets, and drinking-vessels
of the most exquisite workmanship; already had they begun to differ
about the division of these splendid trifles, when Sophron, who marked
the growing mischief, and remembered the fatal effects which Chares had
described in his travels, rose, and proposed to his countrymen that the
arms of their conquered enemies should be carefully preserved for the
public defence, but that all the rest of the spoil should be consumed
upon the funeral-pile prepared for the dead, lest the simplicity of the
inhabitants of Lebanon should be corrupted, and the happy equality and
union, which had hitherto prevailed among them, be interrupted. This
proposal was instantly applauded by all the older and wiser part of the
assembly, who rejoiced in seeing the evils averted which they had so
much reason to apprehend; nor di