



Produced by Giovanni Fini and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)







                         TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—This work is divided into three volumes, all of them available on PG;
 index is on third volume. It has been splitted replacing every item in
 the volume where they belong. A full version of index has been
 mantained at the end of third volume.




                              HISTORICAL

                              PARALLELS.


                           IN THREE VOLUMES.

                               VOL. II.


                                LONDON:

                 CHARLES KNIGHT & Co., LUDGATE STREET.

                                 1846.




           LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET




CONTENTS.


                                                                  Page

  CHAPTER VII.

  Marathon—Battle of Tours—Poema del Cid—Siege of Vienna by the
  Turks in 1683—Battle of Morgarten—Battle of Sempach                5


  CHAPTER VIII.

  Thermopylæ—Battle of St. Jacques, near Basle—Siege of Malta in
  1565—Destruction of the “Sacred Band” in the Greek
  Revolution—Roncesvalles                                           55


  CHAPTER IX.

  Salamis—Siege of Leyden—Spanish Armada                            86


  CHAPTER X.

  Sequel of the Life of Miltiades—of Aristides—of Themistocles     127


  CHAPTER XI.

  Prosecution of the Persian war—Rise of Athens to maritime
  empire and consequent undermining of the aristocratical
  interest—Administration of Cimon—of Pericles—Education of the
  Athenians—Commencement of the Peloponnesian war                  141

  CHAPTER XII.

  Historians of the Plague—Sketch of the four chief pestilences
  recorded—Origin of the disease—Plague of Athens—Of
  Constantinople—Of Florence—Of Milan—State of medical
  knowledge—Plague of London                                       164

  INDEX                                                            232




HISTORICAL PARALLELS.




CHAPTER VII.

[Illustration]

 Marathon—Battle of Tours—Poëma del Cid—Siege of Vienna by the Turks in
 1683—Battle of Morgarten—Battle of Sempach.


Upon the expulsion of Hippias the direction of Athenian politics
passed into the hands of Cleisthenes, son of Megacles, the head of
the Alemæonidæ. He soon found a rival in Isagoras, a man of noble
extraction, whose popularity with the rich and noble preponderated
over his own; and being in consequence driven to advocate the popular
cause, and thus recovering the ascendant, he introduced several changes
tending to make the constitution more democratical. Isagoras sought to
regain his advantage by foreign aid; and at his suggestion Cleomenes,
one of the kings of Sparta, required the expulsion of the Alemæonidæ,
as an atonement for the sacrilegious murder of Cylon’s partisans, in
which they had been the chief actors. Offensive as such an interference
appears, the religious feelings of Greece gave weight to the
requisition, which was besides backed by the whole power of Sparta: and
in obedience to it, Cleisthenes and his chief supporters withdrew. Not
content with this, the Spartan king went with a small force to Athens,
and proceeded to banish seven hundred families as concerned in the
sacrilege, to change the forms of the constitution, and place all power
in the hands of Isagoras and his friends. But he miscalculated the
forbearance of the Athenians. Fearful as they were of a rupture with
their powerful rival, they flew to arms, and besieged Cleomenes in the
citadel. On the third day he and his troops surrendered on condition
that they should be allowed to depart, and Cleisthenes, returning,
reassumed the direction of affairs.

His first object was to find some assistance in the war which appeared
inevitable; and as the Persian empire was now at its height, he sent
ambassadors to Sardis, where the satrap or governor of Lydia resided,
to request admission to the Persian alliance. The satrap inquired who
the Athenians were, and where they lived, and then scornfully answered,
that if they would give earth and water to King Darius, in token of
subjection, their request should be granted; otherwise they must
depart. The ambassadors complied, but on returning to Athens they were
strongly censured. This was the first public transaction between Greece
and Persia.

As was expected, the Lacedæmonians invaded Attica, but the Corinthians
refused to support them, and this attempt to procure the restoration
of Hippias failed. Thus baffled, they summoned a meeting of their
allies, at which the banished chief was invited to be present; but here
again their views were frustrated by the agency of the Corinthians.
Hippias returning to Sigeum went thence to Sardis, with the view of
persuading the satrap Artaphernes to reduce Athens, and replace him in
the monarchy, under vassalage to the Persian monarch. The Athenians on
receiving these tidings sent to request Artaphernes not to listen to
their banished subjects; but they were met by a peremptory command to
receive back Hippias as they wished to be safe. From this time they
considered themselves openly at war with Persia.

Under these circumstances, when an insurrection broke out among the
Asiatic Greeks of Ionia and Æolis, the Athenians readily gave their
assistance to the revolters. Twenty ships of theirs, with five of the
Eretrians, joined the Ionian fleet; the collective force disembarked
at Ephesus, marched sixty miles into the interior, took Sardis by
surprise, and burnt it. Returning, they were entirely defeated under
the walls of Ephesus, and the Athenians then withdrew their ships, and
took no further part in the war. These events took place B.C.
499.

After the Ionians were subdued, Darius bent himself to revenge the
destruction of Sardis upon the Athenians and Eretrians. In the year 492
Mardonius led an army against them through Macedonia, but it suffered
such severe losses by land and sea, that he returned to winter in
Asia, without having reached even the borders of Greece. The following
year heralds were sent into Greece to demand of every city earth and
water in token of submission. Many obeyed, but Lacedæmon and Athens
refused, and cruelly threw the heralds at the one place into a pit,
at the other into a well, bidding them take from thence earth and
water. In 490 Darius sent a second armament under command of Datis and
Artaphernes. They crossed the Ægean Sea, to avoid the tedious march
through Macedonia, landed in Eubœa, reduced and enslaved the Eretrians,
and thence under the guidance of Hippias sailed to Marathon, on the
north–east coast of Attica.

Athens was fortunate in numbering among her citizens, at this critical
period, men able, in the proud boast of Themistocles, to make a great
city of a small one. In the time of Pisistratus, the Dolonci, a tribe
of Thracians who lived in the Thracian Chersonese, being pressed in
war by the Apsinthii, sent to the Delphic oracle to request advice.
They were directed to invite him who should first admit them to his
hospitality, to become the founder of a colony in their country.
Departing, they passed through Phocis and Bœotia without being offered
entertainment by any person; then entering Attica, they passed the
house of Miltiades, son of Cypselus, an Athenian of the noblest
extraction, being descended from the heroes Æacus and the Salaminian
Ajax, whose son Philæus became an Athenian citizen, and founded the
family of which we speak. Miltiades was sitting in his porch, and
observing persons in a foreign dress pass by, bearing lances in their
hands, a practice long disused by the Athenians, he called to them,
and offered them refreshment and rest. Upon this they explained the
object of their mission, and entreated him to comply with the god’s
directions. Miltiades, discontented with the superiority assumed by
Pisistratus, was well inclined to accede