It is recorded of Justin Martyr, that he preached in the tribonium, to which he had been admitted before his conversion. Some monks also, whom the Gentiles termed impostors, assumed it, uniting, with spiritual pride and consummate vanity, an affectation of singular humility and of indifference to worldly show. But the emperor Jovian commanding the temples to be shut, and prohibiting sacrifice, the prudent philosopher then concealed his profession, and relinquished his cloak for the common dress. The order was treated with severity by Valens, his successor, because some of them, to animate their party, had foretold that the next emperor would be a Gentile. They were addicted to divination and magic, and it was pretended, had partly discovered his name. The habit was not wholly laid aside. In the next reign, a sedition happened at Alexandria, when Olympius, a philosopher, wearing the cloak, was exceedingly active, urging the Gentiles to repel the reformers, and not to remit of their zeal, or be disheartened, because they were dispossessed of their idols; for the powers, which had inhabited them, were, he asserted, flown away into heaven. The heathen philosophers gradually disappeared; but the Christian, their successors, are not yet extinct, still flourishing in catholic countries, and differing not less than the ancient sects, in dress, tenets, and rules of living.

The decline of philosophy must have deeply affected the prosperity of Athens. A gradual desertion of the place followed. Minerva could no longer protect her city. Its beauty was violated by the proconsul, who stripped Poecile of its precious paintings. It was forsaken by good fortune, and would

have lingered in decay, but the barbarians interposed, and suddenly completed its downfall. When the Goths were in possession of it in the time of Claudius, two hundred and sixty-nine years after Christ, they amassed all the books, intending, it is related, to burn them; but desisted, on a representation that the Greeks were diverted by the amusements of study from military pursuits. Alaric, under Arcadius and Honorius, was not afraid of their becoming soldiers. The city was pillaged, and the libraries were consumed. Devastation then reigned within, and solitude without its walls. The sweet sirens, the vocal nightingales, as the sophists are fondly styled, were heard no more. Philosophy and eloquence were exiled, and their ancient seat occupied by ignorant honey-factors of mount Hymettus.

CHAP. XXV.

OF THE PEOPLE OF ATHENS-THE TURKISH GOVERNMENTTHE TURKS-THE GREEKS-THE ALBANIANS THE ARCHBISHOP CHARACTER OF THE ATHENIANS.

ATHENS, after it was abandoned by the Goths, continued, it is likely, for ages to preserve the race of its remaining inhabitants unchanged, and uniform in language and manners. History is silent of its suffering from later incursions, from wars and massacres. Plenty, and the prospect of advantage, produces new settlers; but, where no trade exists, employment will be wanting, and Attica was never celebrated for fertility. The plague has not been, as at Smyrna, a frequent visitant; because the intercourse subsisting with the islands and other places

has been small, and the port is at a distance. The plague described by Thucydides began in the Piræus, and the Athenians at first believed that the enemy had poisoned the wells. If, from inadvertency, the infection be now admitted into the town, the Turks as well as the Greeks have the prudence to retire to their houses in the country, or to the monasteries, and it seldom prevails either so long or so terribly as in cities on the coast.

A colony of new proprietors was introduced into Athens by Mahomet the Second; but the people secured some privileges by their capitulation, and have since obtained more by address or money. The Turk has favoured the spot, and bestowed on it a milder tyranny. The kislar aga, or chief of the black eunuchs at Constantinople, is their patron; and by him the Turkish magistrates are appointed. The vaiwode purchases his government yearly, but circumspection and moderation are requisite in exacting the revenue, and the usual concomitants of his station are uneasiness, apprehension, and danger. The impatience of oppression, when general, begets public vengeance. The Turks and their vassals have united, seized, and cut their tyrants in pieces, or forced them to seek refuge in the mountains or in the Acropolis. An insurrection had happened not many years before we arrived, and the distress, which followed from want of water in the fortress, was described to us as extreme.

The Turks of Athens are in general more polite, social, and affable, than is common in that stately race; living on more equal terms with their fellowcitizens, and partaking, in some degree, of the Greek character. The same intermixture which has soft

ened their austerity, has corrupted their temperance; and many have foregone the national abstinence from wine, drinking freely, except during their Ramazan, or Lent. Some too after a long lapse have reassumed, and rigidly adhere to it, as suiting the gravity of a beard, and the decorum of paternal authority. Several of the families date their settlement from the taking of the city. They are reckoned at about three hundred. Their number, though comparatively small, is more than sufficient to keep the Christians fully sensible of their mastery. The Turks possess from their childhood an habitual superiority, and awe with a look the loftiest vassal. Their deportment is often stern and haughty. Many in private life are distinguished by strict honour, by punctuality, and uprightness in their dealings; and almost all by external sanctity of manners. If they are narrow minded in the extreme, it is the result of a confined education; and an avaricious temper is a natural consequence of their rapacious government.

The Greeks may be regarded as the representatives of the old Athenians. We have related, that, on our arrival in the Piræus, an archon came from the city to receive us. The learned reader was perhaps touched by that respectable title, and annexed to it some portion of its classical importance; but the archons are now mere names, except a tall fur cap, and a fuller and better dress than is worn by the inferior classes. Some have shops in the bazar, some are merchants, or farmers of the public revenue. The families, styled archontic, are eight or ten in

They are reckoned at about three hundred] They are near one third of the inhabitants, which may be reckoned about five or six thousand. R.

number; mostly on the decline. The person who met us was of one reckoned very ancient, which by his account had been settled at Athens about three hundred years, or after Mahomet the Second. His patrimony had suffered from the extortions of a tyrannical vaiwode, but he had repaired the loss by trade, and by renting petty governments. The ordinary habit of the meaner citizens is a red skull-cap, a jacket, and a sash round the middle, loose breeches or trowsers, which tie with a large knot before, and a long vest, which they hang on their shoulders, lined with wool or fur for cold weather. By following the lower occupations, they procure, not without difficulty, a pittance of profit to subsist them, to pay their tribute-money, and to purchase garments for the festivals, when they mutually vie in appearing well-clothed, their pride even exceeding their poverty.

The lordly Turk and lively Greek neglecting pasturage and agriculture, that province, which in Asia Minor is occupied by the Turcomans, has been obtained in Europe by the Albanians or Albanese. These are a people remote from their original country, which was by the Caspian sea a, spreading over and cultivating alien lands, and, as of old, addicted to universal husbandry and to migration. chiefly their business to plough, sow, and reap; dig, fence, plant, and prune the vineyard; attend the watering of the olive-tree; and gather in the har

It is

a Caspian sea] This is certainly a mistake. They came from Albania, and speak the Illyric language. Some few of them have spread themselves into the islands of the Archipelago, bordering upon the Grecian coasts, particularly Hydra, which is peopled by them. R.