its eloquence and its strict adherence to facts.


The Earthquake at Sparta and the Revolt of the Helots.

"An earthquake, unprecedented in its violence, occurred in Sparta.
In many places throughout Laconia the rocky soil was rent asunder.
From Mount Ta-yg'e-tus, which overhung the city, and on which
the women of Lacedaemon were wont to hold their bacchanalian orgies,
huge fragments rolled into the suburbs. The greater portion of
the city was absolutely overthrown; and it is said, probably
with exaggeration, that only five houses wholly escaped disaster
from the shock. This terrible calamity did not cease suddenly as
it came; its concussions were repeated; it buried alike men and
treasure: could we credit Diodorus, no less than twenty thousand
persons perished in the shock. Thus depopulated, impoverished, and
distressed, the enemies whom the cruelty of Sparta nursed within
her bosom resolved to seize the moment to execute their vengeance
and consummate her destruction. Under Pausanias the Helots were
ready for revolt; and the death of that conspirator checked, but
did not crush, their designs of freedom. Now was the moment,
when Sparta lay in ruins--now was the moment to realize their
dreams. From field to field, from village to village, the news
of the earthquake became the watchword of revolt. Up rose the
Helots--they armed themselves, they poured on--a wild and gathering
and relentless multitude resolved to slay, by the wrath of man,
all whom that of nature had yet spared. The earthquake that leveled
Sparta rent their chains; nor did the shock create one chasm so
dark and wide as that between the master and the slave.