Page:Light and truth.djvu/142

140 as to mitigate the ill, or extract any good from it, he was urging it always to acts of violence by a perpetual defiance; so that, with the best intentions in the world, he often did great harm to the republic. This was his general behavior; yet from some particular facts, it appears that his strength of mind was not always impregnable, but had its weak places of pride, ambition, and party zeal; which, when managed and flattered to a certain point, would betray him sometimes into measures contrary to his ordinary rule of right and truth. The last act of his life was agreeable to his nature and philosophy: when he could no longer he what he had been; or when the ills of life overbalanced the good, which, by the principles of his sect, was a just cause for dying; he put an end to his life with a spirit and resolution which would make one imagine, that he was glad to have found an occasion of dying in his proper character. On the whole, his life was rather admirable than amiable; fit to be praised, rather than imitated. [Middleton.]

3533 A.M., the Egyptians, to free themselves from a foreign yoke which was insupportable to them, revolted from Artaxerxes, and made Inarus, prince of the Libyans, their king. They demanded aid of the Athenians, who having at that time a fleet of two hundred ships at the island of Cyprus, accepted the invitation with pleasure, and immediately set sail for Egypt; judging this a very favorable opportunity to weaken the power of the Persians, by driving them out of so great a Kingdom.

Advice being brought Artaxerxes of this revolt, he raised an army of three hundred thousand men, and resolved to march in person against the rebels. But his friends advising him not to venture himself in that expedition, he gave the command of it to Achæmenes, one of his brothers. The latter being arrived in Egypt, encamped his great army on the banks of the Nile. During