and jealousy of a prince, by whose hand such venerable ruins
were destroyed.

Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of Ionia
and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the patrimony of a
city, whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand males, condensed, within
the period of a single life, the genius of ages and millions. Our sense
of the dignity of human nature is exalted by the simple recollection,
that Isocrates [143] was the companion of Plato and Xenophon; that
he assisted, perhaps with the historian Thucydides, at the first
representation of the Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of
Euripides; and that his pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for
the crown of patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of
Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic
and Epicurean sects. [144] The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed the
benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated without
envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard the lessons of
Theophrastus; [145] the schools of rhetoric must have been still more
populous than those of philosophy; and a rapid succession of students
diffused the fame of their teachers as far as the utmost limits of the
Grecian language and name. Those limits were enlarged by the victories
of Alexander; the arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and
the Greek colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered
over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship the
Muses in their favorite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The Latin
conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of their subjects
and captives; the names of Cicero and Horace were enrolled in the
schools of Athens; and after the perfect settlement of the Roman empire,
the natives of Italy, of Africa, and of Britain, conversed in the groves
of the academy with their fellow-students of the East. The studies
of philosophy and eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which
encourages the freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of
persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of speaking
was the powerful engine of patriotism or ambition; and the schools of
rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and legislators. When the
liberty of public debate was suppressed, the orator, in the honorable
profession of an advocate, might plead the cause of innocence and
justice; he might abuse his