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former war, amounting to an absolute renunciation on the side of 

 that monarch of every claim on any part of the Grecian territory, 

 had secured permanent tranquillity to Greece from that once- 

 dreaded quarter*. But the unceasing jealousy and contest for power 

 which agitated those turbulent republics, and particularly the two 

 leading states, unfortunately gave birth, as was before observed, to 

 the Peloponnesian war, in which the strength of the contending 

 parties becoming at length nearly exhausted, each of those states, 

 with a policy as narrow as the meanness was despicable, made 

 urgent applications to Persia for warlike assistance against the other. 

 It does not appear, however, that the Persians were at all anxious 

 to renew their connection with a people from whom they had 

 already suffered so severely. That war was considerably advanced 

 before any attention was shewn to the application ; it was almost 

 finished before any effectual assistance was sent ; and then it was sent, 

 not to Athens, the ancient determined foe of Persia, but to Sparta, 

 her ambitious rival. In the mean time Ardeshir, or the first Artax- 

 erxes, dying, Darab, or Darius Nothos, that is, the Bastard, suc- 

 ceeded to the vacant throne. This was the son of the Queen 

 Homai, a word in Persian signifying the bird of Paradise, who is 

 said by the Persian writers to have reigned during his minority, 

 which he is said to have passed in exile from her and her court, 

 having been exposed, as soon as born, in consequence of the 

 predictions of the seers, who calculated his nativity, that he should 

 bring an infinity of evils on his country. '* The Eastern writers tell 

 us," says Sir William Jones, " that he was exposed by his mother, 

 like the Hebrew law-giver, on a river, which, by its rapid current, 

 carried him to the habitation of a dyer, who knew him to be a child 

 of high birth by the trinkets which adorned his cradle ; that he was 



* Thucydides, lib. i. p. 96. Plutarch iu Vita Cymon. 



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