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this monarch out of Europe ; have been too often the theme of 

 admiring historians and enraptured poets to be dwelt on in these 

 pages, with which they are only collaterally connected. These 

 events, however, mark the beginning and gradual progress of that 

 desperate contest for sovereignty, which could only be terminated 

 by the utter destruction of the one or the other powers at variance. 

 It exceeds belief that the innumerable army and fleet of Xerxes, 

 the collected force of exhausted Asia, could be intended to act 

 solely against the petty sovereignties of Greece, for the utter 

 extermination of which a fourth part might have been well deemed 

 amply sufficient. Herodotus is of opinion that a more extensive 

 project of conquest in the western regions of the world was in the 

 contemplation of Xerxes ; and thus, perhaps, the resolute resistance 

 of Leonidas and his brave three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae 

 might have proved the means of saving Italy and farthest Europe 

 from ravage and desolation. It is deserving of notice, that when- 

 soever the overbearing power of their Asiatic foes more severely 

 pressed upon the Greeks, the connecting ties between the con- 

 federated republics became more firm and binding ; but, when that 

 danger was removed, the leading states were agitated with incessant 

 feuds, and particularly the great cities of Athens and Lacedaemon, 

 who were involved in everlasting contests for superiority of domi- 

 nion ; and, while they themselves spurned the oppressive yoke of 

 Persia, in the true democratic spirit, were continually labouring to 

 fix their own yoke on the neck of their weaker neighbours. Without 

 this powerful incentive to union, perhaps the Grecian states would 

 have continued for ever in their original insignificance and im- 

 becility, the result of that distraction ; and thus, in some measure, 

 Persia may be said to have created the very power that afterwards 

 annihilated herself. 



It is impossible for any circumstance more strongly to evince 



Z 2 



