The next picture represents the infancy of Cyrus, and the particular moment wherein he gave signs of that intolerable haughtiness, considered by the historians as the first sallies of a greatness of soul, which to display itself wants only great occasions. Cyrus, both by right of birth and right of conquest, united Assyria and Media to Persia, and was the founder of the largest empire that ever existed.
His successors still think their bounds too narrow: they send into Greece, which was then signalized in Europe, armies infinitely numerous, the which are destroyed: and the spirit of conquest had on that occasion the fate which unhappily it has not always.
The Greeks, freed from these powerful enemies, turn their arms against one another: they are animated by jealousy, inflamed by the warm and dangerous eloquence of their orators, and torn by civil wars. Persia falls into the same convulsions. And when perhaps every thing was tending to peace, Alexander appears, and all are embroiled worse than ever.
This picture shows him in that tender age wherein he lamented his father’s conquests, and saw with grief human blood shed by wounds, he had not made. Scarce was he on the throne when he carried desolation into Greece, Persia and India. The world did not suffice for his murdering progress, and his heart was still unsatisfied. That other picture represents his death. That destructive thunderbolt is at last extinguished, Alexander expires, and casting his dying eyes on the grand monarchy he is going to leave, nothing seems to comfort him but the prospect of the bloody tragedies of which his death is to be the signal.
Of all Alexander’s dominions, those to whom they belonged of right, had the least share. The empire was divided among his generals[[7]]. War was soon kindled amongst them, continued among their descendants, and ruined all the countries of which they had the rule.
Among so many warlike kings, Ptolemy Philadelphus appeared like a lily raised by chance in a field of thorns. See in that immense library, the monarch surrounded with old sages, who are giving him an account of the numberless volumes which are before his eyes. He was too great a lover of mankind to disturb their tranquillity; and held them in such estimation, that he collected from all countries the productions of their wit[[8]]. These kinds of riches seemed to him alone worthy his care. He saw them with the same eye that other kings behold those metals which they search for in the bowels of the earth, or which they fetch from the extremities of the world through rivulets of blood.
Whilst discord rages amongst Alexander’s successors and their descendants; already appeared in the center of Italy the first sparks of the flame that was to spread over the universe and consume all nations. Like those bodies of a vast weight, which, not being in their just position, swing themselves to and fro for some moments, and then fix themselves immoveably; Rome, subject successively to kings, consuls, decemvirs, military tribunes, settles a government and begins the conquest of the world.
This ambitious nation, direct at first their forces against their neighbours. In vain did the several Italian states struggle for five hundred years against the fate of Rome: one while in subjection, another while in rebellion: now conquerors, now conquered, they were all in the end forced to submit to the yoke.
Italy subdued and calmed, that is, reduced to the state of those robust bodies, which by being exhausted fall into a consumption and weakness, the Romans cross the seas, and go into Africa in search of fresh enemies and other spoils. Carthage as ambitious, perhaps as powerful, but more unfortunate than her rival, after a long and violent contest, is overcome and destroyed. Corinth and Numantia share the same fate.
About this time, Viriatus raised himself in the same manner as the Romans. In this picture, he is a huntsman; in that, a robber; in the third, a general of an army; and in the fourth, he mounts the throne of Lusitania. But he was only a victim crowned by fortune to be sacrificed to the ambition of the Romans[[9]].