inhumanly giving up their children, and annually depopulating their cities, by destroying the most vigorous of their youth, in obedience to the bloody dictates of their oracles and false gods. The victims were chosen without any regard to rank, sex, age, or condition. Such bloody executions were honoured with the name of sacrifices, and designed to make the gods propitious. "What greater evil," cries Lactantius, "could they inflict in their most "violent displeasure, than thus to deprive their "adorers of all sense of humanity, to make them "cut the throats of their own children, and pollute "their sacrilegious hands with such execrable "parricides!" A thousand frauds and impostures, openly detected at Delphi, and every where else, had not opened men's eyes, nor in the least diminished the credit of the oracles; which subsisted upwards of two thousand years, and was carried to an inconceivable height, even in the minds of the greatest men, the most profound philosophers, the most powerful princes, and generally among the most civilized nations, and such as valued themselves most upon their wisdom and policy. The estimation they were in, may be judged from the magnificence of the temple of Delphi, and the immense riches amassed in it through the superstitious credulity of nations and monarchs. The temple of Delphi having been burnt about the fifty-eighth Olympiad, the Amphictyons, those celebrated judges of Greece, took upon themselves the care of rebuilding it. They agreed with an architect for three hundred talents, which amounts to nine hundred thousand livres.* The suos amant, feritate superarent. O dementiam insanabilem! Quid illis isti dii ampliùs facere possent si essent iratissimi, quàm faciunt propitii? Cùm suos cultores parricidiis inquinant, orbi tatibus mactant, humanis sensibus spoliant. Lactant. 1. i. c. 21. e Herod. 1. ii. c. 180. and 1. v. c. 62. cities of Greece were to furnish that sum. The ́inhabitants of Delphi were taxed a fourth part of it, and collected contributions in all parts, even in foreign nations, for that service. Amasis, at that time king of Egypt, and the Grecian inhabitants of his country, contributed considerable sums towards it. The Alcmæonidæ, a potent family of Athens, took upon themselves the conduct of the building, and made it more magnificent, by considerable additions of their own, than had been proposed in the model. Gyges, king of Lydia, and Croesus, one of his successors, enriched the temple of Delphi with an incredible number of presents. Many other princes, cities, and private persons, by their example, in a kind of emulation of each other, had heaped up in it tripods, vases, tables, shields, crowns, chariots, and statues of gold and silver of all sizes, equally infinite in number and value. The presents of gold which Croesus alone made to this temple, amounted, according to Herodotus, fto upwards of 254 talents; that is, about 762,000 French livres; *and perhaps those of silver to as much. Most of these presents were in being in the time of Herodotus. Diodorus Siculus, adding those of other princes to them, makes their amount ten thousand talents, or thirty millions of livres. h Amongst the statues of gold, consecrated by Croesus in the temple of Delphi, was placed that of his female baker, the occasion of which was this. Alyattes, Croesus's father, having married a second wife, by whom he had children, she laid a plan to get rid of a son-in-law, that the crown might descend to her own issue. For this purpose she engaged the female baker to put poison into a loaf, that was to be served at the young prince's table. f Herod. 1. i. c. 50, 51. 8 Diod. 1. xvi. p. 453. † About 1,300,000l. all), The woman, who was struck with horror at the crime (in which she ought to have had no part at , gave Croesus notice of it. The poisoned loaf was served to the queen's own children, and their death secured the crown to the lawful successor. When he ascended the throne, in gratitude to his benefactress, he ordered a statue to her in the temple of Delphi. But, it may be said, could a person of so mean a condition deserve so great an honour? Plutarch answers in the affirmative; and with a much better title, he says, than many of the so-much-vaunted conquerors and heroes, who have acquired their fame only by murder and devastation. It is not to be wondered at, that such immense riches should have tempted the avarice of mankind, and exposed Delphi to being frequently pillaged. Without mentioning more ancient times, Xerxes, who invaded Greece with a million of men, endeavoured to seize upon the spoils of this temple. Above an hundred years after, the Phoceans, near neighbours of Delphi, plundered it at several times. The same rich booty was the sole motive of the irruption of the Gauls into Greece under Brennus. The guardian god of Delphi, if we may believe historians, sometimes defended this temple by surprising prodigies; and at others, either from impotence or want of presence of mind, suffered himself to be plundered. When Nero made this temple, so famous throughout the universe, a visit, and found in it five hundred brass statues of illustrious men and gods to his liking, which had been consecrated to Apollo (those of gold and silver having undoubtedly disappeared upon his approach), he ordered them to be taken down, and shipping them on board his vessels, carried them with him to Rome. Those who are desirous of more particular information concerning the oracles and riches of the temple of Delphi, may consult some dissertations upon this subject, printed in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, of which I have made good use, according to my custom. Of the Games and Combats. GAMES and combats made a part of the religion, and had a share in almost all the festivals of the ancients; and for that reason it is proper that they should find a place in this work. Whether we consider their origin, or the design of their institution, we shall not be surprised at their being so prevalent in the best-governed states. Hercules, Theseus, Castor, and Pollux, and the greatest heroes of antiquity, were not only the institutors and restorers of them, but thought it glorious to share in the exercise of them, and meritorious to succeed therein. These subduers of monsters, and of the common enemies of mankind, thought it no disgrace to them to aspire to the victories in these combats; nor that the new wreaths, with which their brows were encircled in the solemnization of these games, detracted from the lustre of those they had before acquired. Hence the most famous poets made these combats the subject of their verses; the beauty of whose poetry, whilst it immortalized themselves, seemed to promise an eternity of fame to those whose victories it celebrated. Hence arose that uncommon ardour which animated all Greece, to tread in the steps of those ancient heroes, and, like them, to signalize themselves in the public combats. A reason more solid, and originating in the very nature of these combats, and of the people who used them, may be given for their prevalence. The Greeks, by nature warlike, and equally intent upon forming the bodies and minds of their youth, introduced those exercises, and annexed honours to them, in order to prepare the younger sort for the i Vol. iii. profession of arms, to confirm their health, to render them stronger and more robust, to inure them to fatigues, and to make them intrepid in close fight, in which, the use of fire-arms being then unknown, strength of body generally decided the victory. These athletic exercises supplied the place of those in use amongst our nobility, as dancing, fencing, riding the great horse, &c.; but they did not confine themselves to a graceful mien, nor to the beauties of a shape and face; they were for joining strength to the charms of person. It is true, those exercises, so illustrious by their founders, and so useful in the ends at first proposed from them, introduced public masters, who taught them to young persons, and from practising them with success, made public show and ostentation of their skill. This sort of men applied themselves solely to the practice of this art, and carrying it to an excess, they formed it into a kind of science, by the addition of rules and refinements; often challenging each other out of a vain emulation, till at length they degenerated into a profession of people who, without any other employment of merit, exhibited themselves as a sight for the diversion of the public. Our dancing-masters are not unlike them in this respect, whose natural and original designation was to teach youth a graceful manner of walking, and a good address; but now we see them mount the stage, and perform ballets in the garb of comedians, capering, jumping, skipping, and making variety of strange unnatural motions. We shall see, in the sequel, what opinion the wiser among the ancients had of their professed combatants and wrestling-masters. There were four games solemnized in Greece. The Olympic, so called from Olympia, otherwise Pisa, a town of Elis in Peloponnesus, near which they were celebrated, after the expiration of every four years, in honour of Jupiter Olympicus. The |