INTRODUCTION. -33 



ness and effeminacy of the successors of Ninus, whose lives afford- 

 ed no events worthy of narration. Wars and commotions are the 

 great themes of the historian, while the gentle and happy reigns 

 of wise princes, pass unobserved and unrecorded. Sesostris, a 

 prince of wonderful abilities, is supposed to have succeeded 

 Ameophis, who was swallowed up in the Red Sea about the year 

 before Christ 1892. By his assiduity and attention, the civil and 

 military establishments ol the Egyptians received very considerable 

 improvements. Egypt, in the time of Sesostris and his immediate 

 successors, was, in all probability, the most powerful kingdom upon 

 earth, and is estimated to have contained 27 millions of inhabitants. 

 J5ut ancient history often excites, without gratifying, our curiosity; 

 for, from the reign of Sesostris to that of Bocchoris, in the year 

 before Christ 1781, we have little knowledge of even the names 

 of the -intermediate princes. Egypt, however, continued to pour 

 forth her colonies into distant nations. Athens, that seat of learn- 

 ing and politeness, that school for all who aspired to wisdom, „ ^ 

 owed its foundation to Cecrops, who landed in Greece with an . ' " 

 Egyptian colony, and endeavoured to civilize the rough man- 

 ners of the original inhabitants. From the institutions which Ce- 

 crops established among the Athenians, it is easy to infer in what 

 a condition they must have lived before his arrival. The laws of 

 marriage, which few nations are so barbarous as to be altogether 

 unacquainted with, were not known in Greece. Mankind, like the 

 beasts oi the field, were propagated by accidental connexions, t, q 

 and with little knowledge of those to whom they owed their ' & 

 birth. Cranaiis, who succeeded Cecrops in the kingdom of 

 Attica, pursued the same beneficial plan, and endeavoured, by wise 

 institutions, to bridle the keen passions of a rude people. 



Whilst these princes used their endeavours for civilizing this 

 corner of Greece, the other kingdoms into which this country, by 

 the natural boundaries of rocks, mountains, and rivers, was divided, 

 and which had been already peopled by colonies from Egypt and 

 the East, began to assume some appearance of form and „ p 

 regularity. Amphictyon conceived the idea of uniting in one ,^ gfi " 

 confederacy the several independent kingdoms of Greece, and 

 thereby delivering them from those intestine divisions which must 

 render them a prey to each other, or to the first enemy who might 

 think proper to invade them. This plan he communicated to the 

 kings or leaders in the different territories, and by his eloquence 

 and address engaged twelve cities to unite together for their com- 

 mon preservation. Two deputies from each of those cities assem- 

 bled twice a-year at Thermopylae, and formed what, after the name 

 of its founder, was called the Amphictyonic Council. In this 

 assembly, whatever related to the general interest of the confe- 

 deracy was discussed and finally determined. Amphictyon like- 

 wise, sensible that those political connexions are the most lasting 

 which are strengthened by religion, committed to the Amphictyons 

 the care of the Temple at Delphi, and of the riches which, from 

 the dedications of those who consulted the oracle, had been amassed 

 in it. This assembly was the great spring of action in Greece, 

 while that country preserved its independence ; and, by the union 

 which it inspired among the Greeks, enabled them to defend their 

 liberties against all the force of the Persian empire. Considering 

 the circumstances of the age in which it was instituted, the Amphic- 



Vol. I. F 



