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ardour of the Athenians, and to wrest from his control the remainder of 

 the Greek cities and islands subject to his authority in Asia Minor 

 and Europe. With the united exertion of the confederated fleets, 

 under the command of Cymon, the son of the great Miltiades, a 

 soldier equally daring and discreet, in a series of brilliant successes 

 on both the Grecian and Phoenician coasts, this was effectually 

 performed ; and a large addition both of domain and of revenue 

 was thus obtained to Athens, the head of that confederacy. Their 

 posterity, unfortunately, as the page of Athenian history shews, did 

 not bear the gale of prosperity with the same noble equanimity with 

 which their fathers had braved the rude storm of adversity. They 

 soon grew haughty to their Greek allies and tyrannical to the con- 

 quered countries : hence sprang that eternal jealousy, between them 

 and their Spartan rivals, which kindled the dreadful Peloponnesian 

 war, and fully revenged Persia by deluging the cities of Greece with 

 the blood of her most illustrious progeny *. 



To return to Bahaman, or Ardeshir, in whose reign, doubtless, 

 that of the former monarch has been swallowed up, he is repre- 

 sented by Mirkhond as a prince remarkable for strict justice and 

 his zealous attachment to the Magian religion, as the reformer of 

 many abuses, and the repairer of many noble structures ruined by 

 the lapse of time or the violence of war. He was also remarkable 

 for his unbounded hospitality, constantly affirming that no door 

 ought to be shut in the palace of a princef-. He is said, by his 

 generals, to have made conquests in Syria and Palestine ; but not 

 a word occurs in Mirkhond concerning Greece ; except a remark 

 confirming the accounts of our western chronologers, that Hippo- 

 crates and Democritus, philosophers of that country, flourished in 

 this reign, and that their works, with those of Plato and Socrates, 



* Plutarch in Vita Aristid. t Mirkhond, p. 73. 



