ATT 
againft tlie fuperiority of their talents; they often checked 
their boldnefs, and repreded their exuberant reputation 
and glory. That this was their temper, we are convinced 
by the oftracifm ; which was eftablilhed to reftraiu the 
ambition of thofe who had great talents and influence, and 
which fpared neither the greateft nor the belt men. The 
dctellation of tyranny and of tyrants, which was inherent 
in the Athenians, rendered them extremely jealous of their 
privileges, made them zealous and active in defence of 
their liberty, whenever they thought it was violated by 
men in power. As to their enemies, they did not treat 
them with rigour: they did not abufe victory by a brutal 
inhumanity to the vanquifhed. The a£t of amnefty, which 
they palTed after the ufurpation of the thirty tyrants, proves 
that they could eali^' forgive injuries. It was this mild- 
nels, this humanity of dilpofltion, which made the Athe¬ 
nians lb attentive to the rules of politenefs and decorum. 
In their war with Philip king of Macedon, having feized 
one of his couriers, they read all the letters lie bore, ex¬ 
cept one from Olympias to her hufband, which they fent 
back unopened. Such was their veneration of love and 
conjugal fecrecy ; thofe facred rights, which no enmity, 
no hoflility, warrants us to violate ! The views of con- 
qucft cherilhed by a fmall republic were extenfive and 
aftonilhing ; but this people, fo great, fo ambitious in 
their projects, were, in other refpedls, of a different cha- 
railer. In the expences of the table, in drefs, in furni¬ 
ture, in houfes, in Ihort, in private life, they were frugal, 
fimple, model!, poor; but fumptuous and magnificent 
whenever the honour of the Hate was concerned. Their 
conquefts, their victories, their riches, their connections 
with the inhabitants of Afia Minor, never reduced them 
to luxury, to riot, to pomp, to profulion. Xenophon re¬ 
marks, that a citizen was not diltinguilhed from a Have by 
his drefs. The wealthiell citizen, the mol! renowned ge¬ 
nera], was not afhamed to go himfelf to market. 
The tafte of the Athenians, for all the arts and fciences, 
is well known. When they had delivered themfelves from 
the tyranny of Piliffratus, and after they had defeated the 
val! efforts of the Perfians, they may be confidered as at 
the lummit of their national glory. For more than half a 
century afterwards they maintained, without controul, the 
fovereignty of Greece ; and that afcendant produced a fe- 
curity, which left their minds at eafe, and gave them 
leifure to cultivate every thing liberal or elegant. It was 
then that Pericles adorned the city with temples, theatres, 
and other beautiful public buildings. Phidias, the great 
fculptor, was employed as his architect, who, when he had 
ereCted edifices, adorned them himfelf, and added Hatues 
and balfo-relievos, the admiration of every beholder. It 
was then that Polignotus and Myro painted ; that Sopho¬ 
cles and Euripides wrote ; and, not long after, that they 
faw the divine Socrates. 
Human affairs are, by nature, prone to change ; and 
ftates, as well as individuals, are born to decay. Jealoufy 
and ambition infenlibly fomented wars, and fuccefs in thefe 
wars, as in others, was often various. The military lirength 
of the Athenians was firll impaired by the Lacedemonians ; 
after that, it was again humiliated, under Epaminondas, 
by the Thebans ; and lad of all it was wholly crullied by 
the Macedonian, Philip. Nor, when their political fove¬ 
reignty was loft, did their love of literature and arts fink 
along with it. Juf! at the clofe of their golden days of 
empire flourilhed Xenophon and Plato, the difciples of 
Socrates, and from Plato defcended that race of philofo- 
phers called the Old Academy. Ariftotle, who was Plato’s 
difciple, may be laid not to have invented a new philolo- 
phy, but rather to have tempered the fublime and raptu¬ 
rous mylieries of his mailer with method, order, and a 
flriCler mode of reafoning. Zeno, who was himfelf alfo 
educated in the principles of Platonifm, only differed from 
Plato in the comparative eftimate of things, allowing no¬ 
thing to be intrinfically good but virtue, nothing intrinfi- 
cally bad but vice, and confidering all other things to be 
in themfelves indifferent. He too and Arillotle accurate- 
Vql. II. No. 87, 
I C A. S 3 3 
ly cultivated logic, but in different ways ; for Ariftotle 
chiefly dwelt upon the fimple fyllogifm ; Zeno upon that 
which is derived out of it, the compound or hypothetic. 
Botli too, as well as other philofophers, cultivated rheto¬ 
ric along with logic ; holding a knowledge in both to be 
requifite for thofe who think of addrefling mankind with 
all the efficacy of perfuafion. Zeno elegantly illuffrated 
the force of thefe two powers by a fimile, taken from the 
hand: the clofe power of logic he compared to the fill, 
or hand comprefied ; the diffufe power of logic to the 
palm, or hand open. 
The new academy w r as founded by Arcefilas, and ably 
maintained by Carneades. From a miflaken imitation of 
the great parent of philofophy, Socrates, (particularly as 
He appears in the dialogues of Plato,) becauie Socrates 
doubted fome things, therefore Arceiilas and Carneades- 
doubted all. Epicurus drew from another fource; De¬ 
mocritus had taught him atoms and a void : by the for¬ 
tuitous concourfe of atoms he fancied he could form a 
world ; while by a feigned veneration he complimented 
away His gods, and totally denied their providential care, 
led the trouble of it lhould impair their uninterrupted 
Hate of blifs. Virtue be recommended, though not for 
the lake of virtue, but pleafure: pleafure, according to 
him, being our chief and fovereign good. Sec Auisto- 
ti.e, Epicurus, Plato, Socrates, &c. 
We have already mentioned the alliance between phi¬ 
lofophy and rhetoric. This cannot be thought wonder¬ 
ful, if rhetoric be the art by which men are perfuaded, 
and if men cannot be perfuaded without a knowledge of 
human nature: for what but philofophy can procure us 
this know ledge ? It was for this reafort the able!! Greek 
philofophers not only taught, but wrote alfo treatifes upon, 
rhetoric. They had a farther inducement, and that was 
the intrinfic beauty of their language, as it was then lpoken 
among the learned and polite. They would have been 
affiamed to have delivered philofophy, as it has been too 
often delivered fince, in compofitions as clumpy as the 
common dialed! of the vulgar. The fame love of elegance, 
which made them attend to their flyle, made them attend 
even to the places where their philofophy was taught. 
Plato delivered his leclures in a place fhaded with groves, 
on the banks of the river lliffus; and which, as it once 
belonged to a perfon named Academus, was called after his 
name, the Academy. Ariftotle chofe another fpot of a fi- 
milar character, where there were trees and Ihade ; a fpot 
called the Lyceum. Zeno taught in a portico or colonnade, 
diftinguilhed from other buildings of that fort (of which 
the Athenians had many) by the name of the Variegated 
Portico, the walls being decorated with various paintings 
of Polygnotus and Myro, two capital mailers of that tran- 
feendent period. Epicurus addrefted his hearers in thofe 
well-known gardens, called, after his own name, The gar. 
dens of Epicurus. Thefe places of public inftitution were 
called among the Greeks by the name of Gymnafa ; irt 
which, whatever that word might have originally meant, 
were taught all thofe exercifes, and all thofe arts, which 
tended to cultivate not only the body but the mind. As 
man was a being confifting of both, the Greeks could not 
confider that education as complete, in which both were 
not regarded, and both properly formed. Hence theic 
Gymnajia, with reference to this double end, were adorned, 
with two Hatues, thofe of Mercury and of Hercules; the 
corporeal accompliffiments being patronifed by the god 
of lirength, the mental accompliffiments by the god of 
ingenuity. 
It was for the cultivation of every liberal accompliffi- 
ment that Athens was celebrated during many centuries, 
long after her political influence was loft and at an end. 
She was the place of education, not only for Greeks but 
for Romans. It was hither that Horace was fent by his 
father; it was here that Cicero put his fon Marcus under 
Cratippus, one of the able!! philofophers then belonging to 
that city. The.fedls of philofophers which we have al¬ 
ready described, were ftill exifting when St. Paul came 
6 U thither. 
