For his sympathy with Sparta, and possibly for sharing the opinions of his beloved teacher Socrates, Xenophon was banished from Athens; but he was recompensed by the Lacedæmonians with a house and piece of land in E’lis. Here, amid lovely meadows and woodlands, he built a temple to the goddess Diana in fulfilment of a vow he had made when encircled by dangers in Asia. Here, free from the cares of public life, he passed many years, happy in the society of his wife, children, and friends, dividing his time among his farm, his hunting-parks, and his study. He died at the age of ninety.—Of his two sons, one fell on the field of Mantinea, after dealing the great Epaminondas his death-blow. Besides the “Anabasis” and “Hellenica,” Xenophon wrote the “Cy’ropædi’a” (_education of Cyrus_—the elder Cyrus, king of Persia), a semi-didactic, semi-historical fiction, illustrating a model system of education and setting forth his ideal of government—a perfect monarchy. He is also the author of several works written in defence of Socrates or as expositions of his philosophy, of which the “Memorabilia” (_memoirs_) is particularly interesting, teeming as it does with sayings and anecdotes of the sage. In addition to his merits as an historian, Xenophon may justly claim the distinction of having been the first essayist: we have from his pen essays on the Policy of Lacedæmon, on the Chase, Horsemanship, and Cavalry Tactics, not to mention several political treatises ascribed to him. A creditable representative of elegant Attic prose, Xenophon has been called _the Attic Muse_. =Ctesias=, a Greek physician attached to the Persian court, who dressed the wounds of Artaxerxes after the battle of Cunaxa, compiled a history of Persia in twenty-three books, a description of India, and a variety of other works. Of his writings, which were in the Ionic dialect, little has survived. =Theopompus= (probably 378-304 B.C.) is also worthy of mention as an historian. He wrote a History of Greece from 411 to 394 B.C., and “Philippica,” in fifty-eight books, in which he sketched the character of Philip of Macedon. Of the latter work numerous fragments remain. Ancient critics give him credit for general accuracy, though he took rather too rose-colored views of his hero Philip as the promoter of Grecian civilization. PHILOSOPHY. The earliest philosophical investigations were made by Ionians, and THALES of Miletus is recognized as the founder of Greek philosophy. To him and to Pythagoras the various systems may all be traced. =The Ionic School= of Thales, devoted to physical science, rapidly developed, theory after theory being brought forward to explain the universe and the nature of Deity. One philosopher made the Supreme Being an all-pervading, divine air; another, Heracli’tus “the Obscure,” represented God as a subtile flame, and reduced the universe to an eternal fire.