GREECE THE STORY OF THE NATIONS i. Rome. By ARTHUR OILMAN, M.A. a. The Jews. By Prof. J. K. HOSMER. 3. Germany. By Rev. S. BARING- GOULD, M.A. 4. Oarthag-e. By Prof. ALFRED ]. CHURCH. 5. Alexander** Empire. By Prof. J. P. MAHAFFY. 6. The Xeori in Spun. By STANLEY LANE-POOLE. 7. Ancient Egypt. By Prof. GEORGE RAWLINSON. 8. Hungary By Prof. ARMINIUS VAMB^RY. 9. The Saracens. By ARTHUR GIL- MAN, M.A. 10. Ireland. By the Hon. EMILY LAWLESS. 11. OhaUea. By ZENAIDE A. RAGOZIN. 12. The Oothi. By HENRY BRADLEY. 13. Assyria. By Z'ENATDF. A. RAGOZIN. 14. Turkey. By STANLEY LANE-POOLE. 15. Holland. By Prof. J. E. THOROLD ROGERS. 16. Mediaeval France. By GUSTAVE MASSON. 17. Persia. By S. G. W. BENJAMIN. 18. Phoenicia. By Prof. G. RAWLINSON. i v. Media. By ZENAIDE A. RAGOZIN. 20. The Hania Towni. By HELEN ZIMMF.RN. 21. Early Britain. By Prof. ALFRED J. CHURCH. 22. The Barbary Certain. By STANLEY LANE-POOLE. 23. Russia. By W. R. MORFILL, M.A. 24. The Jews under the Romans. By W. D. MORRISON. 25. Scotland. By JOHN MACKINTOSH, LL.D. 26. Switzerland. By Mrs. LlNA HUG and R. STEAD. 27. Mexico. By SUSAN HALE. 28. Portugal. By H. MORSE STEPHENS. 29. The Normans. By SARAH ORME JEWETT. 30. The Byzantine Empire. By C. \V. C. OMAN. 31. Sicily : Phoenician, Greek and Roman. By the Prof. E. A. FREEMAN. 32. The Tuscan Republics, By BELLA DUFFY. 33. Poland. By W. R. MORFILL, M.A. 34. Parthia. By Prof. GEORGE RAW- LINSON. 35. The Australian Commonwealth. By GREVUAR TKKGAKTHEN. 36. Spain. By H. E. WATTS. 37. Japan. By DAVID MURRAY, Ph.D. 38. South Africa. By GEORGE M. THEAL. 39. Venice. By ALKTHEA WIEL. 40. The Crusades. By T. A. ARCHKF and C. L. KINGSFORD. 41. Vedio India. By Z. A. RAGOZIN. 42. The West Indies and the Spanish Main. By JAMES RODWAY. 43. Bohemia. By C. EDMUND MAURICE. 44. The Balkans. By W. MILLER. M.A. 45. Canada. By Sir J. G. BOURINOT, LL.D. 46. British India. By R. W. FRAZER. LL.B. 47. Modern France. By ANDRE LE BON. 48. The Franks. By LEWIS SER- GEANT. 49. Austria. By SIDNEY WHITMAN. 50. Modern England. Before the Re- form Bill. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 51. China, By Prof. R.K. DOUGLAS. 52. Modern England. From the Reform Bill to the Present Time. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 53. Modern Spain. By MARTIN A. S. HUME. 54. Modern Italy. By PIETRO ORSI. 55. Norway. By H. H. BOYESEN. 56. Wales. Bv O. M. EDWARDS. 57. Mediaeval Rome. By W. MILLER, M.A. 58. The Papal Monarchy. By WILLIAM BARRY, D.D. 59. Mediaeval India under Mohamme- dan Rule. By STANLEY LANE- POOLE. 60. Buddhist India. By Prof. T. W. RHYS-DAVIDS. 61. Parliamentary England. By ED- %VARD JENKS. M.A. 62. Mediaeval England. By MARY BATBSON. 63. The Coming of Parliament. By L CECIL JANE. 64. The Story of Greece. From the Earliest Times to A.D. 14. By E. S. SHUCKBURGH. 65. The Story of the Roman Empire. (B.C. 29 to A.D. 476.) By H. STUART JONES. 66. Denmark and Sweden, with Ice- land and Finland. By JON STEFANSSON, Ph.D. 67. Belgium. By EMII.E CAMMAERTS. LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD., i ADELPHI TERRACE GREECE FROM THE COMING OF THE HELLENES TO A.D. 14 By E S. SHUCKBURGH LlTT.D. T. FISHER UNWIN LTD LONDON : ADELPHI TERRACE First Edition .'.... 7905 Second Impression . . . ign Third Impression .... 1922 COPYRIGHT BY T. FISHER UXWIN, 1905 (For Great Britain) COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 1905 (For the United States of America). PREFACE THE " Stories of the Nations " could not be complete without that of Greece. This is one excuse for adding to the number of short Greek Histories. Another is that it was a necessary preface to a second volume designed to sketch the fortunes of Greece after its period of greatness, the interest of which could hardly be intelligible without some account of the life and genius of its people when at their best. I have tried throughout to lay stress upon the political, intellectual, and artistic achievements of the Greeks, rather than on the history of military operations. The latter of course could not be ignored or neglected, but they have not been made the chief feature in the book. My plan was to notice the literary movement in each period as it arose ; it was thought better however that a chapter con- taining a more continuous account of extant Greek literature should be added. It therefore necessarily contains some repetition of what had been said in previous chapters. The amount however of such Vlll PREFACE repetition is not very serious, and may perhaps be compensated by the convenience to students of having the information together. For the specimens of the various poets which are there given the writer is, except in one instance, himself responsible. June, 1905. CONTENTS I. PAGE THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD . 1-36 The meaning of Hellas The Athenian supremacy from B.C. 478 to B.C. 404, followed by the Spartan and Theban supremacies B.C. 404-362 The Macedonian (B.C. 338-197) and Roman (B.C. 197 to the end) supremacies increase the separation of states The predecessors of the Hellenes : (i) The Cretan kingdom ; (2) the Pelasgians ; (3) The Achaeans or Mycenaeans Homer and the Achaeans Development of Greek religion Political science Literature: (i) Homer and the cyclic poets ; (2) The lyric, iambic, and elegiac poets ; (3) Prose literature The drama Greek art. II. EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK STATES . 37-79 The Hellenes ^Eolians, lonians, and Dorians Greek colonisation The Oracles and greatsgames First Olympiad, B.C. 776 Objections raised to the games The Amphicity- onic League The Peloponnesus from B.C. 776 The tyrants of Corinth, Sicyon, and Argos Sparta Lycurgus Spartan education The Spartan mode of life First Messenian war, 745-720 Second Messenian war, B.C. 685-660 Arcadia, Elis, Achaia Central Greece Athens The Synoikismos of Theseus Draco Solon The Seisachtheia of Solon Pisistratus The reforms of Cleisthenes Literary movement at Athens Island Greece. X CONTENTS III. PAGH THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS . 80-97 The Lydian kings and the Ionian cities Croesus of Lydia Cyrus and the Persians The Ionian revolt, B.C. 501-495 Darius, B.C. 522-485 Results of the Scythian expedition Submission of Thrace and Macedonia to the Persian king The Ionian revolt following the affair of Naxos. IV. THE PERSIAN INVASIONS . . . 98-133 Failure of the first invasion under Mardonius, B.C. 492 The Medizing States in Greece Quarrel of Athens with Mgina., B.C. 491 Second Persian invasion, B.C. 490 Capture of Eretria Battle of Marathon Effects of the battle The Athenians build a fleet, B.C. 490-480 The coming inva- sion Artemisium Thermopylae The Greek fleet retire to the bay of Salamis Will the Greeks fight at Salamis? Disappearance of the Persian fleet The Campaign of B.C. 479-^Battle of Mykale The League of Samos, Chios, and Lesbos The Confederacy of Delos Aristides Effect of the Confederacy of Delos The battles of the Eurymedon, B.C. 466 Western Hellas The continued rise of Athens. V. ATHENIAN SUPREMACY (B.C. 466 B.C. 431) . 134-167 The success of Athens The war between Sparta and Ihe Messenian helots, B.C. 464-454 The policy of Pericles The continental empire of Athens The Five Years' Truce with Sparta, and the peace of Callias with Persia, B.C. 450-449 Fall of Athenian land supremacy Bceotia separates from the Athenian alliance Eubcea and Megara revolt, B.C. 446 The Thirty Years' Peace, B.C. 445 Athens and the members of the Delian Confederacy The adornment of Athens under Pericles Athens becoming the home of literature and the drama Opposition to Pericles and the new culture Discontent \in the confederacy The affair of Corcyra and the beginning of the Peloponnesian war Revoh CONTENTS Xl^ PAGE of Potidsea The Athenians denounced at Sparta The Peloponnesian war General outline First period, B.C. 431-424 Second period, B.C. 421-415 Third and final period, B.C. 415-404. VI. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY . . 168-225, The beginning of the Peloponnesian wars, B.C. 431 Revolt of Lesbos Disorders in Corcyra and Athenian interference in Sicily Demosthenes in ^Etolia Capture of Pylus, B.C. 425 Battle of Delium, B.C. 424 The campaign of Brasidas in the North and the gradual failure of Athens The truce of B.C. 423 The Peace of Nicias, B.C. 421 Greek politics from B.C. 421 to B.C. 45 Fresh provocations to Sparta The Sicilian Expedition, B.C. 415 Alleged profanation of the mysteries Mutilation of the Hermae The difficulties of the expedition Siege of Syracuse begun B.C. 414 The Spartans intervene Failure of the re-inforced Athenian army and navy Final defeat of the Athenians and death of Nicias and Demosthenes Effect on the prestige and authority of Athens The Athenians resist the dissolution of their confederacy The operations of the restored Alcibiades Cyrus and Lysander The battle of Notium, B.C. 407 Battle of Arginusse, B.C. 406, and of ^Egospotami, B.C. 405. The occupation of Athens and the destruction of her fortifications and constitution The Thirty Thrasybulus restores the democracy, B.C. 405-4^6 Sophists in Athens- Condemnation and death of Socrates, B.C. 399 Sparta supreme in Greece, B.C. 403-371 Sparta's efforts to free Asiatic Greeks after the death of Cyrus Leagues against Sparta, B.C. 396-390 Peace of Antalcidas, B.C. 387 Dis- credit of the Spartans New Athenian confederacy, B.C. 378-355 Battle of Leuctra, and beginning of Theban- hegemony, B.C. 371 Rise of the Macedonian kingdom Reign of Philip II. from B.C. 359 to the peace of Philocrates, B.C. 346 Active encroachments of Philip II. Opposition to Philip organised by Demosthenes, but ended by the battle- of Chaeroneia, B.C. 338 Macedonian supremacy secured. Xll CONTENTS VII. PAGE THE GREATER HELLENISM . . . 226-267 Death of King Philip II. Accession of Alexander the Great, B.C. 336 Effect of Alexander's Eastern campaigns Battle of the Granicus and the settlement of Asia Minor Syria and Egypt B.C. 334-3 In Central Asia, B.C. 331-323 Effect of the death of Alexander, B.C. 323 Formation of independent kingdoms Consequences to the Greeks- Spartan resistance to Alexander, B.C. 333 The Lamian war and subjection of Greece, B.C. 323-2 The new settlement of Greece Athens under the successors of Alexander Determination in Greece The Celtic invasion, B.C. 280-279 The Greeks in Italy The Greeks in Sicily Timoleon in Sicily Agathocles of Syracuse, B.C. 317-289 Pyrrhus in Sicily, B.C. 278 The Romans in Sicily, B.C. 262-242 The whole of Sicily a Roman province, B.C. 212 Literature in Sicily. VIII. THE ROMAN CONQUEST .... 268-312 Gradual formation of kingdoms after the death of Alexander Five kings, B.C. 306 Four kingdoms, B.C. 301 Three kingdoms Macedonia, Syria and Egypt, B.C. 281 The three kingdoms from B.C. 280 to B.C. 220 Greece and the Macedonians The ^Etolian League The Achasan League The Kings of Macedonia and the Achaean League War between Sparta and the Achaean league The " Cleomenic War," B.C. 224-222 Philip V. of Macedonia, B.C. 220-179 A state of general warfare, B.C. 220-217 The position of Athens Ascendency of Philip V. He joins Hannibal against Rome The disturbed state of Greece in B.C. 211 to B.C. 200 Philip's agreement with Antiochus to partition the outlying dominions of Egypt, B.C. 205-200 Combination in Greece against Philip, B.C. 200 The Romans intervene Roman troops in Epirus T. Quinctius Flamininus in Greece, B.C. 198 Effects of the Battle of Cynoscephalae, B.C. 197 The Roman settlement of Greece Disturbing elements in Greece The ^Etolians invite the interference of Antiochus Antiochus comes to Greece Antiochus is disappointed as to support in Greece ^Etolian war, B.C. 191-189 Battle of Magnesia, B.C. 190 Settlement of Asia after the defeat of CONTENTS xiii PAGE Antiochus, B.C. 189 The kingdom of Pergamus Subjection of ^Etolia, B.C. 187 The Achaean League and Rome General unrest in Greece The accession and policy of Perseus, B.C. 179-168 General movement in Greece against Rome, B.C. 171-170 Severe treatment of Greek states by the Romans Dissolution of the Achaean League, B.C. 146-5 Decadence of Greece under the Romans. IX. GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME TO A.D. 14 . 313-347" Peaceful state of Greece after B.C. 146 Decay and poverty Piracy in Greek waters The kingdom of Pergamus becomes the Roman province of Asia, B.C. 131 The prosperity of the Asiatic Greeks in spite of extortionate Roman magistrates The disadvantages of the Roman rule The merits of the Roman rule Mithradates Eupator Many Greeks join Mithradates, B.C. 88 European Greece joins the movement against Rome, and Athens accepts the authority of Mithra- dates Campaign of Sulla in Attica and the capture of Athens, B.C. 87-6 Sulla's campaign in Bceotia, B.C. 86 Greek cities in Asia return to their allegiance to Rome The sufferings of the Greeks in Asia Reforms of Lucullus in the Greek cities of Asia Pompey's suppression of pirates and settlement of Asia The Greeks during the civil wars of B.C. 49 to 32 Julius Caesar's management of Greece Athens adheres to M. Brutus, and afterwards to M. Antonius The Greeks in Sicily Augustus and Greece The Greek dynasty in Egypt comes to an end, B.C. 30 The second arrangement of Greece by Augustus, B.C. 21-19 Improved position of the provinces under the Emperor. X. THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE . . 348-403. Greek education Grammar, music, and gymnastics The Sophists The philosophical schools Literature Epic, lyric and dramatic poetry Alexandrine poets, epic and bucolic History Oratory. INDEX ...... 4S THESEUS WITH DOUBLE AXE ATTACKING THE GIANT PROCRUSTES From a vase painted by Athcnodotus. THE STORY OF GREECE THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD The meaning of Hellas The Athenian supremacy from B.C. 478 to B.C. 404, followed by the Spartan and Theban supremacies B.C. 404-362 The Macedonian (B.C. 338-197) and Roman (B.C. 197 to the end) supremacies increase the separation of states The predecessors of the Hellenes: (i) The Cretan kingdom; (2) the Pelasgians ; (3) the Achseans or Mycenaeans Homer and the Achreans Development of Greek religion Political science Literature: (i) Homer and the cyclic poets; (2) The lyric, iambic, and elegiac poets ; (3) Prose literature The drama Greek art. THE Greeks, who called themselves Hellenes, were a race rather than a nation. Though they were the predominant people in certain parts of Europe and 2 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD Asia, and though they gave their name to the land which still retains it, there was, in fact, no one country with a capital and seat of government which we can speak of as Hellas, as we might of France or Spain. The Balkan peninsula, indeed, and the islands of the .^igean still called Hellas were their principal home. But they had numerous settlements on the coast of Italy, Sicily, Thrace, and Asia Minor, and some in more distant parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. These all came to be included under the general name of Hellas, and the Hellenes, wherever they lived, recognised ties of blood, religion, and common principles of conduct. A system of small states was a characteristic mark of this Hellenism. Each city, with a narrow territory attached, aimed at complete independence. Com- binations of cities to form one state, except within limited districts such as Laconia, Argolis, or Attica, were generally short-lived ; and when the inhabi- tants of one district forcibly subjected to their rule the people of another, as the Spartans did the Messenians, the latter were always restless and discontented, watching every opportunity for breaking away. There was indeed generally one state which exercised a commanding influence among the others, and was tacitly acknowledged as holding a kind of supremacy. But this supremacy did not imply inter- ference in ordinary domestic politics. Its nature was undefined, and it only became conspicuous when combined military operations were needed. In the period before the Persian invasions Sparta occupied this position, principally because its military organi- SUPREMACY AMONG GREEK STATES 3 sation and training gave it a natural superiority in war, in which it was expected to take the first place. It occupied a similar position again for about twenty- five years after the Peloponnesian war, with some- what higher pretensions and a wider sphere of influence. For about ten years Thebes held a like supremacy in Central Greece and a part of Pelo- ponnese. A similar precedency in Sicily was at times attributed to Syracuse, and in Magna Graecia, that is, in the Greek cities of Italy, to Croton or Tarentum. The nearest approach, however, to an Empire was the position held by Athens between the Persian wars and the end of the Peloponnesian war [B.C. 478-404]. The Confederacy of Delos was formed for a special purpose to put down piracy and to exclude the Persian fleets from the ALgean, and thus secure the independence of the Greek states of Asia Minor. It was meant to be a federation of free and independent states, but did become in practice something like an Athenian Empire. Athens claimed the right ot forcing members to remain in the League, to main- tain a democratic form of government, to admit in certain circumstances an Athenian garrison and " resident," and to refer certain controversies to the Athenian courts. But this combination never embraced Central Greece or Peloponnese ; it was almost entirely confined to islands and to towns in Thrace and Asia, and was finally dissolved by the result of the Peloponnesian war. The universal control afterwards exercised first by the Macedonian and then by the Roman Government, so far from promoting unity, made the separation of 4 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD the states more complete. Both powers discouraged, and the latter forbade, all combinations. So that along with a loss of real freedom the " liberty " of each separate state, or rather its isolation, became still more pronounced, it was, in fact, the passion for separate existence, rendering effective or enduring union impossible, that greatly accounts for the ease with which the subjugation of the whole race was accomplished by those two powers. It also much restricted the material influence of the Greeks on the course of the world's history. Their great achieve- ment was to prevent the extension of the Persian power into Europe ; but they can only claim a very subordinate part in the forward movement of Alexander. Yet they possessed a genius which has conquered the world. Their very passion for separa- tism gave birth to political science : while in philo- sophy, in the study of nature, in art, and literature, in nearly everything that affects our spiritual or physical well-being, the Hellenes did work of supreme excellence. In some of these things what they achieved was final, and has never been surpassed. In others, though their conclusions have been super- seded by fuller knowledge and wider experience, they yet laid the foundation of a more enduring edifice. It is true that modern discoveries have shown that in many of the arts they had predecessors who lived in the same lands ; yet this ancient civilisation at some unknown period met with disaster and dis- appeared. For us it was the Hellenes who took the first steps on the road which has led to the successes of modern thought and science. ARCHAIC STATUE OF ATIIKNA. PREHISTORIC REMAINS 7 Of the people who lived of old in the lands after- wards occupied by the Hellenes we have no literary record. The spade of the excavator is our only resource. Arms, ornaments, painted pottery, sculp- tured stone, and mason's work are thus brought to light which reveal something of the habits and skill of an ancient people and its connection with races GALLERY AT TIKYNS. living in other countries. We learn something of the t> metals which they used, of the houses or fortresses which they built, of their methods of disposing of the dead, and of what they thought of the life after death. As the most numerous examples of such things have been discovered at Mycenae and Tiryns in Argolis, it has been agreed to speak of this stage of civilisation 8 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD in Greece as the Mycenaean Age. But the recent discoveries in Crete have pushed things still further back, and show that for many centuries before the " Mycenaeans " there were people living in Greek lands who had attained to great skill in building, in the artistic treatment of bronze, stone, and clay, as well as in the art of painting. These people also possessed a script, or written character, as well as a system of pictography or writing by pictures and symbols. Neither script nor pictography has as yet been interpreted, but the latter (with other indications) points to a connection with Egypt. But whatever remains to be learnt from them, enough has been discovered to point to a very remote antiquity for this civilisation, and to some great catastrophe which overwhelmed it. Among other things, the remains of the immense palace or labyrinth at Cnossus confirms the literary tradition that Crete was once the seat of a rich and powerful kingdom, and illus- trates the statement of Thucydicles that King Minos was the first to construct a great fleet, with which he put down piracy in the v^gean Sea ; while the specimens of the statuary's art found there throw light upon the tradition of the cunning of Daedalus, who first " made statues walk." Nor should we forget how legend spoke of a tribute of boys and girls from Athens to Crete, from which the Athenians were only delivered by their hero Theseus, who slew the monstrous Minotaur. Contemporary with this Cretan civilisation whether connected with it in race or not was an early occupation of Greece itself by a people who ARCHAIC HEAD. THE PELASGIANS AND ACH&ANS II are spoken of by various names, such as Minyae and Leleges, but whom Herodotus and Thucydides agree in describing under a general name of Pelasgoi. This name, however, disappears as a general appella- tion before the dawn of written records, and Achaioi and Argeioi became the general names for the inhabitants of Greece. How this occurred we do not know. It may have been simply that these names represent branches of the Pelasgoi which became so powerful that their names prevailed over others ; or it may be that the Achaioi were invaders from the North, who brought a new name to the land, as the Angli did to Britain. It is generally held that the remains of what we have called the Mycenaean Age belong to the period of these Achaeans, though some may belong to the earlier or Pelasgic stage, especially these buildings of selected and unworked stones known as Cyclopean walls. The men who produced this civilisation not only worked gold and bronze, and made vessels and ornaments of great beauty, but they had attained to a high standard of skill in representing living figures, both of men and animals, and built great palaces and fortifications. This civilisation culminated towards the end of the Bronze Age that is, before iron had come into common use, and arms and other imple- ments were still made of a mixture of copper and tin. The first dawn of literature opens upon this Achaean Age. In the Iliad and Odyssey the Pelas- gians are no longer the dominant people. Pelasgic Argos now means only a district in Thessaly. The Leleges and Pelasgoi are among the allies, not of the 12 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD Greeks, but of the Trojans, and come from Larisa, near Cyme, in Asia Minor. They are, again, only one of four divisions of the inhabitants of Crete, and their name only lingers as an epithet of Zeus in the ancient oracle of Dodona. But though the Greeks are no longer Pelasgoi, neither are they as yet Hellenes. To Homer the Hellenes are only a small tribe in Thessaly. He calls the Greeks Achaioi or Argeioi or Danaoi. But when Hesiod wrote Greece was Hellas, and the Greeks Hellenes. It would seem, then, that the Homeric poems were composed in the interval between the time when the Achaeans superseded the Pelasgians as the dominant people, and the time when the Hellenes in like manner superseded the Achaeans. Yet Homer was Hellenic in many points : in his language, which was understood throughout Greece, and remained more intelligible to a man of the age of Pericles than Chaucer to an Englishman of the eighteenth century ; in the form of government which he implies, with king, council, and a rudimentary assembly which reappear in most Greek states. The Homeric Greece, on the other hand, differs widely from what we know of it under the Hellenes. The greater divisions of the country seem not to have obtained the names by which they were known in after times. There is no general name for the Peloponnese, unless it be " Argos " in the Odyssey. Thessaly, Epirus, Acar- nania, Macedonia, are unknown names. Sparta and Athens occur, but not Lacedaemon or Attica. None of the Greek towns in Asia are mentioned except Miletus. Sicily is not known to the Iliad, THE HOMERIC POEMS I 5 and only as the semi-fabulous Thrinakia to the Odyssey. Italy has no name in either Iliad or Odyssey, though in the latter it may be referred to as a distant and unknown land in the West. Turning East and South we find the /Ethiopians described as the most distant of men. Egypt, unknown to the Iliad, is familiar to the Odyssey. The Phoenicians SO-CALLED TOMB OF CLYTEMNESTRA, MYCENyE. are mentioned in the Iliad as famous workers in metal ; in the Odyssey principally as pirates. The great empires of Central Asia are wholly unknown. But while Homeric thus differs from Hellenic Greece, it presents certain important differences also from the Mycenaean or Ach.nean Greece, especially in the use of iron and the form of arms and armour, and the 1 6 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD mode of disposing of the dead. In Homer, dead bodies are burnt (though burial is also mentioned), the " Mycenaean " custom apparently was to bury them. The theology of Homer also seems to represent a period of transition. The Pelasgoi were probably monotheists. Their one god was Zeus. The Cretans from very early times claimed to show the place of his birth, and even of his tomb. In the ancient oracle of Dodona it is Zeus alone who speaks and not his prophetes Apollo. For the Hellenes as we know them not only had Olympus become peopled with other gods and goddesses, of whom Zeus was the father and chief, but their numbers had been increased by the addition of deities represent- ing celestial bodies, and good or bad qualities the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Rivers, Youth, Love, Death, Wisdom, Folly, Justice, and the Avengers of Sin. Moreover, the ranks of the immortals were continually being swelled by the addition of deified men or Heroes, whose services to their fellow-men earned this reward, and were commemorated by a special kind of worship in some Heroon in nearly every part of Greece. In Homer this deification of men is rare, perhaps the only instance is Heracles. But his gods are brought nearer to men. Though they possess immortality and superhuman powers, they are subject to human frailties, to passion, appetite, pain, and pleasure, and like men are subordinated to overruling fate. They are eager partisans in human contests ; they are influenced by jealousy, THEOLOGY OF HOMER IJ love, and hatred ; and yet, on the whole, support the eternal laws of right and wrong. The goddess of justice is the assessor of Zeus. It is from him that kings rule and righteousness is maintained in the world. Though men sin they cannot charge God with their sins, which arise from their own blind presumption, "to act justly is in every man's power." The Hellenes, then learnt from Homer, from Hesiod, from a body of " hymns," which, though probably much later, were always called Homeric, thus to think of the gods. They governed and directed the world, and therefore men sought to learn their will by oracles or portents, or from the lips of those who had received the mantic art, either from the gods themselves, or from the tradi- tions of immemorial antiquity. These gods must be propitiated also by prayer and sacrifice, by festival and song. It is possible that much of the ritual which thus arose was originally intended to avert evil rather than to express gladness or festivity. But though there lingered in the rites practised by the Hellenes many traces of this idea, yet the practical result was that the religious festivals celebrated in historical times were for the most part cheerful. There were indeed times of fasting and mourning as well as of feasting and rejoicing. Certain days were set apart to honour or propitiate the dead, as in the Anthesteria at Athens. Neverthe- less the prevailing feature in Greek worship Was festivity. The cult of a particular god was con- nected with vintage or harvest, with athletic or musical contests, or with the celebration of national 3 1 8 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD events : the foundation of cities, the union of peoples, the establishment of liberty, or the victory over enemies. Yet it may be that these cheerful festivals were in part but one means of escaping from sad thoughts. The Greek view of life and death was not cheerful. Life was short and its pains predominated over its pleasures ; the future was vague and uncertain. For a few exceptional heroes there was heaven ; for a few outrageous sinners such as Tantalus and Ixion an eternity of pain ; but for the ruck of mankind, if there was a future life at all, it was wrapt in mist and gloom. These views tended to lower the value set upon human life. Though a certain refinement of taste shrank from the brutalities of the arena, and gladiators were not butchered to make a Greek, as a Roman, holiday, yet the laws in most Greek states were extremely severe in the infliction of the death penalty, and wholesale executions of prisoners or rebels, of opponents in civil dissensions, were of frequent occurrence in various parts of Greece. Yet the Greek refinement was very real, and in nearly everything that concerns our thoughts and tastes we owe an incalculable debt to Greek thinkers and artists. First, the number of the states that made up Hellas, and the variety in their consti- tutions gave rise to political science. The defects and want of permanence in these constitutions not only caused frequent experiments in practice, and the existence of professional constitution-makers, but gave rise to the formation of ideal constitu- tions, and to speculations in the principles of justice FORMS OF GREEK CONSTITUTIONS 21 and liberty, which have influenced life and thought ever since. The Greek polls and politeia showed a great advance on the Oriental monarchy, under which all power was in the hands of one man, and govern- ment was carried on by his agents. In Greece a tyrannis the rule of one man not recognised by law was not regarded as a form of constitution, but as the negation of constitutional government The three forms recognised were: (i) basileia, the rule of a basileus or constitutional king, which survived in a peculiar form in Sparta till near the Roman period ; (2) oligarchy, in which the right to office was confined to certain families or classes among the citizens ; and (3) democracy, in which, in its most complete form, all offices were open to all citizens, and all questions were decided by their votes. The last was the popular ideal, though seldom com- pletely attained, and the philosophers did not find it difficult to point out its weaknesses and defects. They usually urged that the right form of govern- ment was an aristocracy that is, when the best men governed. In theory, perhaps, all democrats would say that they held the same view ; where they differed was in defining the "best" men and in the plans for selecting them. At any rate these political differences and changes gave rise to political specula- tions, which have survived in the treatises of Xeno- phon, in the ideal Laws and Republic of Plato, and in the Politics of Aristotle books which have influenced political thinkers ever since. In literature generally they were no less original, and have exercised a no less permanent influence. 22 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD Neither writing, nor sculpture, nor painting, nor the art of modelling in clay began in Greek lands with the Hellenic world. The discoveries in the Troad, at Mycenae and Tiryns, and in Crete, already referred to, show that these arts existed many centuries before the dwellers in Greece were the Hellenes. But litera- ture begins with them. The author, or authors, of the Iliad and Odyssey, indeed, wrote or recited before the Greeks began to speak of themselves generally as Hellenes ; but the language of the poems was that which the Hellenes always used, and they do not appear ever to have been written in any other than the Ionic alphabet, which, in part at least, was derived from the Phoenicians. It is difficult to overestimate the influence of this great body of heroic legend, of divine tradition and moral doctrine, upon the national character, emphasising its unity of origin, and holding up a common standard of conduct and religious belief. The Hellenic poems and those of Hesiod, whatever their origin or date, continued to be regarded by the Hellenes as their chief source of theology and early history. They were followed by the poems of what are called the "Cyclic" poets, because they dealt with other parts of the "cycle" of Trojan legends, supplementing and extending the tale of the Iliad and Odyssey ; and adding to them another cycle of legends connected with Thebes. None of these are now extant, but they supplied the Greek dramatists with many of their plots and fables. The first period of Greek literature independent of the Homeric Epic began about the year B.C. 700, and was for some time wholly poetical. A number of GREEK POETRY 2$ poets, chiefly in Lesbos and the islands, wrote songs to be sung to music, and therefore called " lyrical." Those of Sappho were mostly on the subject of love ; but others, such as those of Alcaeus, were filled with political passion reflecting the unrest which about that time (between B.C. 700 and 600) fell upon the Greek cities in the East, where a wave of resistance to monarchical or oligarchic government was carrying all before it. Another school of poets, of which the chief representative was Archilochus, employed the Iambic metre as a vehicle for fierce invective and personal satire. A third class of poets consisted of the writers of Elegiac verse. This was used, like oratory in a later age, to enforce political or moral doctrines, as in the case of Solon of Athens and Theognis of Megara ; or to incite young men to patriotism and gallantry in war, as did Alcman and Tyrtaeus in Sparta. Of the lyric poets, the direct descendants in the next age were the writers of choric songs, encomia, dirges, and epinikia, or songs celebrating victory in the games, the most eminent of whom were Pindar and Baccylides (about B.C. 521-442). The elegiac tradition was kept up by Simonides of Ceos, whose epigrams on fallen patriots or heroes were widely popular just after the period of the Persian wars. It is to be observed that these poets came from all parts of Greece. Athens was not yet the natural headquarters of literature, as she was from about B.C. 450 to 320 ; and as, after the latter date, Alexandria became, where the poetical tradition was kept up to the fourth century of the Chris- tian era. Between B.C. 300 and 200 we have hymns 24 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD from Callimachus, an astronomical poem from Aratus, and pastorals from Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus ; and in the next century an epic from Apollonius of Rhodes. In the first century A.D. lived Babrius, the fabulist ; in the next, Oppian, the writer of poems on fishing and hunting; and in the fifth century, Nonnus, the author of the huge epic called " Dionysiaca " ; Quintus of Smyrna, who wrote a kind of continua- tion of Homer ; and Musaeus, who produced some pretty verse, especially the poem on Hero and Leander. Greek poetry, therefore, which was the earliest form of literature, continued with no radical variation for more than a thousand years. Prose composition was later in coming into use, for even some of the early philosophers, such as Xenophanes and Parmenides (about B.C. 530-495), enunciated their doctrines in verse. Prose literature began with the Ionic school of historians, Hecataeus of Miletus in the sixth century and Hellanicus in the fifth. Next to them came the first of the prose writers whose work has been preserved, Herodotus of Halicarnassus (B.C. 485-425), followed by Thucydides (B.C. 471-401) and Xenophon (B.C. 431-354), the Athenians. About contemporary with Herodotus was Hippocrates, the famous physician, whose works, or those reputed his, are still extant. Thus begun, Greek prose literature continued almost uninterrup- tedly till the twelfth century after Christ. In the second century B.C. the historical series is continued by Polybius of Megalopolis (B.C. 203-121), with many others whose works are lost ; in the last cen- tury B.C. by Diodorus of Sicily and Dionysius of CONTINUITY OF GREEK PROSE LITERATURE 2$ Halicarnassus, and in the first century after Christ by the geographer Strabo, the Jewish historians Josephus and Nicolas of Damascus, and the bio- grapher Plutarch the Boeotian. The ecclesiastical and the Byzantine historians keep up the tradition to the end. Meanwhile the varied interests of free states had given birth to oratory, which flourished at Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. We possess orations of ten Attic orators, the most famous of whom was Demosthenes (B.C. 384-322). With the loss of freedom oratory lost some of its significance, but it was taught and practised as an art in various parts of Hellas, especially in Rhodes and the Greek cities of Asia. And though we possess few specimens for the next five centuries the orations of Dion Chrysostom in the first, and of the Emperor Julian in the third century A.D., being the most important yet it was taken up again by the Christian Fathers of the fourth and fifth cen- turies A.D., and thus had an unbroken tradition to the end. It was this popular use of Greek prose that produced the " common dialect," formed on the Attic use, which prevailed over the Greek world, and was adopted by writers in other departments, such as Lucian in his dialogues ; Appian and Arrian in their histories, in the second century, and the romance writers in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. The fact that Athens was the chief home of philo- sophy from the fourth century B.C., also determined the fact that Attic in some form or another was to be the language of philosophers. From Plato (B.C. 427-347) and Aristotle (B.C. 384-324) to the 26 THE GREEKS AND THEIR WORK IN THE WORLD fifth century after Christ there is a chain of writers of philosophy or on the history of philosophy and philosophers. The early philosophers, who mostly engaged in speculations as to the physical universe, lived in various parts of Greece Ionia, Magna Grsecia, and Sicily but in the fifth century we find that all teachers have a tendency to drift to Athens, and when about B.C. 300 and onward literature found a centre rather in Alexandria, Athens still main- tained its prestige as the home of philosophy. It was there that the four great schools Academics, Peripatetics, Stoics, and Epicureans through all their later developments had their headquarters, and attracted the best intellects of Greece and Rome. But the most characteristic literature in Greece is the dramatic. The exhibition of plays may have begun, as some think, in village festivals of harvest or vintage, and the story of Thespis, the first exhi- bitor of them in Athens, travelling round the country with his theatrical properties in a cart, may be true. But their literary shape seems certainly a develop- ment from the Comus, or revel-song, and especially from that part of it called a dithyramb, or hymn in honour of Bacchus. It was chiefly in use among Dorian peoples, and accordingly the employment of the Dorian dialect in the choric songs of later days became traditional. To this song was added a dialogue between the leader of the chorus and an " answerer " (t/TnrKpi'rrjc 1 ), and as the plot or fable became more important and intricate a second and third actor was added to carry on the dialogues. But whatever their origin these exhibitions rapidly GREEK DRAMA 2$ spread over Greece, in which hardly any city of importance was without a theatre. Nowhere else did it form so much a part of the life of the people ; and though the composition of plays did not last so long as some other forms of literature, the Greeks in this as in other things set an example which has never ceased to exercise decisive influence. In this again Athens took the lead. There was built the first permanent theatre, and there the great masters of tragedy were born. But of the mass of such compo- sitions that once existed, we have only plays of three tragedians and one comedian, ^schylus (B.C. 525- 456) represents the religious mind of Greece in the early fifth century, Sophocles (B.C. 495-403) the age of art, and Euripides (B.C. 480-406) the unrest of awakened curiosity and inevitable scepticism. Some thirty-eight names of writers of tragedies are known, but after the first decade of the fourth century (circ. B.C. 390) there seems to have been a cessation of original dramatic writing. The old plays were acted again and again, or were supplanted by music and recitations of poetry. Some few authors of tragedies lived in Alexandria in the time of the Second Ptolemy (B.C. 285-247), but nothing survives except their names. Along with Tragedy grew Comedy. It bore still stronger traces of its origin from village revels or festivals. Instead of dealing with human passions and crimes, and the mysteries of the divine order, its dialogue introduced every kind of ludicrous incident and personal satire, while the choric songs were either parodies of serious poetry, or wild extrava- 3'//iara), accord- ing to their wealth, the first class, consisting of those who possessed wealth equal to 500 medimni of corn, being alone eligible to the archonship. He also established popular courts, in which the office of dicast, or juryman, was open to all classes, even the lowest, or Thctes. The details of his constitutional measures will be better seen in connection with the reforms of Cleisthenes. The constitution as he left it was still oligarchical in that certain offices were not open to all ; but all men were on an equal footing as far as the power of obtaining redress in the law courts was concerned, of voting in the assembly, and PUBLIC SERVICES OF SOLON 6/ of serving on juries. Solon had had before his mind the problem which continually presented itself in Greek States, how to restrain the selfishness of a noble class and grant the largest liberty to the people, while still keeping up the safeguards against tyranny ; for the tyrannus constantly took advantage of popular anger against the nobles to establish his power. But it was as the champion of the rights of the state, and still more as a benefactor of the poorer citizens, that Solon was best remembered. He had come to the aid of the state on three occasions. First, in prosecuting successfully the Athenian claim to the island of Salamis against Megara. Secondly, in promoting a sacred war which secured freedom of access to Delphi ; and, thirdly, in suggesting a means to relieve the people from a curse (070?) brought upon them by the family called Alcmaeonidae in sup- pressing the conspiracy of Cylon (B.C. 612). The conspirators whatever their object had occupied the Acropolis, and being in danger of starvation had come down under promise of their lives, but had been put to death by the archon Megacles, who was one of this family. Solon suggested the constitution of a court, by whose decision the whole family were exiled. These , achievements, and, perhaps, the absence of the Alcma^onidae, gave Solon the first place in the regard of his fellow- citizens, and he was able to crown his public services by a measure of relief for the impoverished farmers of Attica. They were overburdened with debt, their lands were mortgaged, and if the produce was insufficient for the discharge of their liabilities 68 EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK STATES they might be forced to sell their families into slavery and eventually to become slaves them- selves. The debts which Solon wished to wipe out were these land mortgages. His Seisachtheia, or "shaking off of burdens," either entirely removed them or so lightened them by deducting the interest already paid that they quickly disappeared ; and, at any rate, the power of the creditor to enslave his debtor was abolished. These various measures seem to have been established from about B.C. 594 onward, and he made the mistake common to reformers of thinking that he had arrived at finality. Causing magistrates and dicasts to take an oath not to introduce changes for ten years, he went upon his travels to avoid appeals for explanations or new measures. But in fact the contest between the classes was not ended, and Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates a relation of Solon about twenty years later took advantage of these quarrels to establish himself as tyrant. He began with the common device of asking for a bodyguard to protect him from the enemies of himself and the people. He was twice expelled once for five years (B.C. 5 5 3-549), and again for ten years (B.C. 547-537)- But with these intervals he and his son maintained their government from B.C. 560 to B.C. 510. It is true that he showed himself a reasonable and just ruler, allowing the laws and customs of the city to remain in force, doing much to adorn it, to foster literature, and to strengthen the State. Still it was "tyranny," which the nobles hated worse than a democracy ; and though after his second restoration RISE AND FALL OF PISISTKATUS AND HIS SONS "Jl Pisistratus retained power till his death in B.C. 527, he found it necessary to disarm the citizens. His son, Hippias, carried on for some years the tradition of good government. But his brother, Hipparchus, who seems to have acted as his second in command, was assassinated as he was marshalling the Panathenaic procession by Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Owing to a private grievance Hipparchus, who seems to have been haughty as well as dissolute, had inflicted a public insult on Harmodius by rejecting his sister from the chorus of maidens who formed part of the procession. Aristogeiton adopted his friend's quarrel, and both joined in the assassination (B.C. 514). Both lost their lives, but were regarded throughout Athenian history as the martyrs of liberty. Their statues stood in the agora among those of the national heroes, and their descendants enjoyed perpetual exemption from State burdens. This event changed the character of Hippias. He grew suspicious of all around him, and not only put many of the citizens to death on various pretexts, but surrounded himself with armed guards, and looked out for support from abroad, hiring mercenary troops, and making personal alliances with other tyrants, and probably with the Persian Satraps in Asia. He regarded Sigeium the one Asiatic posses- sion of Athens as the private property of his family, and placed one of his brothers in command of it. These measures, and especially the hiring of troops, must have involved fresh taxation and confiscations, which added to the resentment of the people, who had already been annoyed by the insolence of 72 EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK STATES Hipparchus and other members of the family. The banished Alcmaeonidae seized the opportunity. They had secured the support of the oracle at Delphi by their liberality in rebuilding the temple, which they had faced with marble, though they had only con- tracted to use the cheaper stone of the neighbourhood. This helped them to obtain aid from Sparta, always closely connected with Delphi and opposed to tyrannies. The Alcmaeonidae, with their Spartan allies, entered Athens and besieged Hippias, who had taken refuge on the Acropolis, and after a time compelled him to consent to go into exile with all his family (B.C. 510). The Athenians were thus left at peace to recon- stitute their government. Cleisthenes, one of the Alcmaeonidae, became head of the reforming party, and having at length overcome his opponent Isagoras who had obtained help from Cleomenes, of Sparta, and for a time held the chief power he at length succeeded in carrying his measures. They went a long way towards securing an absolute democracy. The assembly, or ecclesia, in which every citizen of eighteen years of age could vote, had always been nominally supreme, but under the tyrants had no doubt been seldom summoned, and had exercised little practical control. It was henceforth called at stated times and business of all kinds, having first been prepared by the Boule, was brought before it. The cardinal point of Solon's constitution had been the division of the citizens into classes, according to the amount of their rateable property. The Archons and Strategi could only be selected from the first or REFORMS OF CLEISTHENES 73 Pentacosiomedirnni. Lower offices were open to the next two classes, the Hippeis and Zeugitae, while the lowest class, the Thetes, could hold no office at all. For sixteen years after Cleisthenes the rule as to the Archonship remained in force, but for every other purpose the assessments were neglected. For selection of officials by lot or merit, for payment of taxes or performance of military duty, the whole people were divided into ten tribes, each containing a certain number of demes, or townships, not necessarily con- tiguous. Each tribe furnished (whether by lot or election) one of the nine archons or their secretary, one of the ten strategi, fifty members of the Boule (which was thus raised to five hundred), and its quota of soldiers when an army was required all this (except for a time in the case of the archons) without distinction as to wealth or position. The orte thing a man had to show before exercising civil rights was citizenship. This was secured by the council of each deme registering every boy when he came to the age of sixteen. It was the duty of the demesmen to see that he was properly a citizen by birth, and they were liable to be fined by the Boule if they made a wrong entry. Once entered on this register a man's name could only be removed by a "suit of alienation " (Suoj Ztvia^. The only restric- tions as to eligibility to office were age (thirty years) and the necessity of passing a preliminary examina- tion, or dokimasia, at which any one was at liberty to allege against a man any disqualification, either of birth, neglect of duties, or dishonourable conduct. Every holder of an office was also subject to an audit 74 EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK STATES at the end of his year, at which any one was entitled to allege against him a breach of the laws. From the tribes also were selected six thousand dicasts each year five thousand to serve in the law courts, as established by Solon, and one thousand kept in reserve to review the laws from time to time. The Boule acted as a restraint upon hasty legislation. The representatives sent by the several tribes took their turn for a month in acting as presidents of the assembly, and properly no measure could be pre- sented to it until it had been first passed by the Boule, which saw that it was correct in form and did not contradict existing laws. It was then called a proboleuma, and when passed by the ecclesia became a binding decree or law. Another safeguard established by Cleisthenes was the institution of ostracism, which was meant to prevent dangers arising from fierce party contests or rivalries between statesmen. If there appeared to be such a danger any one might move in the Assembly that there should be an ostracism. If the answer was in the affirmative, a day was fixed on which each citizen might write on a shell or piece of a pottery (orrpajcoi/) the name of the statesman whom he thought ought to leave the city. If six thousand voted, the man whose name appeared the oftenest had to leave Attica for ten years, though he did not forfeit his citizenship or his property. It was an institution which, under other names, is found else- where. Cleisthenes is said to have suffered under this law himself. We know hardly anything else about his life or the time of his death, though he was THE USE OF OSTRACISM 75 looked back to as the real founder of Athenian democracy. He crosses the page of Greek history in this transaction and disappears. Under this changed constitution Athens rapidly increased in activity and importance. Though as yet she was inferior as a sea-power to both ^igina or Corinth, we find her appealed to a few years later by the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor as, next to OSTRAKA, USED IN A VOTE OF OSTRACISM. Sparta, the strongest and most authoritative state in Greece. She had not shown as yet many signs of that literary and artistic supremacy which afterwards marked her out above all other states. As yet the art of oratory was undeveloped, and those who desired to persuade the people resorted rather to poetry, as we have seen that Solon did. Her supremacy in the dramatic art, indeed, was foreshadowed by the im- 76 EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK STATES provements of Thespis, Phrynichus, and ^Eschylus, dating from the time of the Peisistratidse ; but it was not till after the Persian invasions that the heightened position of Athens began to attract men of letters and philosophers to her as the natural home of literature and art, while the beauty of her buildings and the wealth of ornament which glorified them roused the admiration of foreigners, and made a marked impres- sion on the character of her own citizens. Her great period in literature and art corresponded with the growth of her material power ; and though they declined with it also, she remained still the chosen home of philosophy and humanism long after the disasters which wrecked her political importance. Meanwhile, the islands of the ^Egean had been thoroughly Hellenised (B.C. 800-700), and had developed in their own way. Eubcea had in Chalcis one city at least which had risen to high importance as a commercial and colonising state ; but its constant quarrels with Eretria had weakened it, and it was soon to find itself united to Athens. The Cyclades for the most part were as yet thinly inhabited and poor, though the islands nearer the Asiatic coast as Samos, Chios, and Lesbos were the seats of a con- siderable trade in wine and pottery, and were beginning to acquire importance from their naval strength. Delos was the central place of the worship of Apollo and the common assembly of lonians, and Thera was a stepping-stone between Crete and the mainland, just as Crete itself had helped to facilitate the passage of Phoenician and Egyptian influence into Greece. But by this time Crete was no longer THE ISLANDS AND ASIATIC GREECE 79 the powerful state which excavations have proved her once to have been, and the constant quarrels between the independent cities of the island were rapidly making it a byword for lawlessness and misery. The Greek cities of Asia had attained to considerable prosperity, and it was in them and the adjacent islands, as we have seen, that the earliest post-Homeric literature flourished. But this progress was checked by the loss of political independence, without which nothing ever seemed to flourish among Greeks. How this came about will be the subject of the next chapter. In the fifth century B.C. the real life of Greece was in Europe, and it was there that she entered upon her glorious inheritance of genius. A WOiMAN S GOLD TIARA, MYCENAE. Ill THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS The Lydian kings and the Ionian cities Croesus of Lydia Cyrus and the Persians The Ionian revolt, B.C. 501-495 Darius, B.C. 522-485 Results of the Scythian expedition Submission of Thrace and Macedonia to the Persian king The Ionian revolt following the affair of Naxos. THE first interruption to the independent develop- ment of Hellenic life occurred in Asia Minor, and as it led to the chief political service of the European Greeks the rolling back of the invasions from the East and greatly changed the mutual relations of the Hellenic states themselves, it is necessary to get a clear view of this event. We have seen in the seventh century B.C. that it was in the Greek cities of Asia the ^olian colonies of the north-west and the Ionian colonies of the south-west that Hellenic life seemed most active and vigorous. This was shown by the extraordinary activity in sending out fresh colonies, in the outburst of literature, and in the frequency of political move- ment and change. It was in these cities, it seemed at one time, that the Greeks were to work out their so LYDIA AND THF. IONIAN CITIES 8 1 destiny. But this development was checked, in the first instance, by the rise of the Lydian kingdom, with a capital at Sarclis. The inhabitants of Lydia once called Paeonians, had in some way, probably by con- quest, been so far absorbed by another race as to adopt their name. Whether the conquerors were called Lydians, or were led by a Lydus, we do not know. All we can tell is that at some period subsequent to the Homeric poems the change of name took place. The Lydians first became important under a dynasty founded by Gyges about B.C. 727. He and his suc- cessors made repeated efforts to get possession of the Ionian and other Greek towns on the coast, and this was finally effected by Crcesus, who reigned from B.C. 560 to B.C. 546. The Ionian cities thus conquered consisted of twelve states three in Caria, seven in Lydia, and two islands. 1 Of these the most populous and power- ful were Ephesus and Miletus, and the latter had made such a strenuous resistance to Crcesus and his predecessors that it obtained specially favourable terms upon its submission. Though never politically powerful, the lonians of Asia had been an adven- turous, busy, and thriving mercantile people. Their colonists had fringed the coasts of the Propontis and Euxine ; their seamen had made their way to Italy and Spain ; and to them and the yEolians, as we have seen, belong most of the great names in literature before B.C. 550, and among them had been the earliest 1 In Caria, Miletus, Myus, Priene ; in Lydia, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomcnce, Phocaea, Ery three ; the islands of Samos and Chios. 7 82 THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS political movements in the direction of democracy which were felt afterwards in most other parts of Greece. Their submission to a foreign power, therefore, was a great blow to Greek independence and Greek civilisation. The catastrophe was partly brought about by the passion for local autonomy, which is the chief characteristic of Greek politics. The mutual jealousy of these small states prevented them from combining even in the face of a common enemy. Again and again Miletus was abandoned by the others, and left to fight alone for a freedom which was thus steadily suppressed. The last of the Lydian monarchs Croesus asserted his power over all the Greek cities in Asia, and forced them to pay him tribute. He began to reign in B.C. 560, and became renowned for his wealth and power. His treasure- houses were bursting with gold, all Asia west of the Halys, except Lycia and Cilicia, acknowledged his supremacy ; and having obtained command of the coast, he wished to add the islands of the ^Lgean to his dominions. He was a man of some generosity of nature, and was interested, if he did not share, in Greek culture. Herodotus has preserved romantic tales of his career, and especially of the visit of Solon, the Athenian lawgiver to his court, which, whether true or, as chronologists will have it, impossible, yet gives a striking view of the Greek feeling as to great success and wealth. We are told that Solon was received by him with great distinction, and shown over his treasury with its vast accumulation of gold, and then asked by Crcesus, whom he regarded as the happiest of man- CR(ESUS AND SOLON 83 kind. To his surprise Solon first mentioned a private Athenian named Tellus, who had enjoyed a pros- perous life, with fair sons and grandsons, and had died fighting for his country in the very moment of victory ; and secondly, two Argives, called Cleobis and Biton, who at the feast of Hera dragged the waggon carrying their mother to the temple, because the oxen were late in coming, and for whom their mother then prayed the goddess to give them in reward the greatest blessing possible for man. The two youths after the banquet fell asleep in the temple, and never woke again. On Croesus showing wonder and mortification, Solon addressed to him the famous warning that no one could be called happy till his death. The legend went on to tell how this warning was justified soon afterwards by the accidental death of his son at the hands of Adrastus, whom Croesus had received and purified from the pollution of a former involuntary homicide. But Croesus had soon after this last calamity reason to fear for his own life and kingdom. The danger now threatening him was from the encroaching policy of Cyrus, founder of the Medo- Persian Empire. The great Assyrian Empire had broken up into two kingdoms, that of the Medes with Ecbatana for its capital, and that of the Baby- lonians. About B.C. 559, Cyrus led down a mountain tribe of Persae, seized Ecbatana and dethroned the last Median king, Astyages, and thus became lord of a large part of Upper Asia. His only rival was the King of Babylon, whom he also conquered in B.C. 538. But in the meantime his energy was directed to 84 THE ORIGIN OP THE PERSIAN INVASIONS securing the seaboard of Asia Minor. When he had been reigning about ten years he had pushed on his conquest to the west as far as Cappadocia, and there only remained between him and the shore of the Mediterranean, the kingdom of Lydia. Croesus, conscious of his danger, doubted for some time whether it would be best to await the attack at home or to cross the Halys into Cappadocia and, securing that district against the encroaching Cyrus, meet and defeat him there. He tried to strengthen himself with alliances with Labynetus of Babylon and Amasis, King of Egypt, whose interest it was that Cyrus should be weakened. He also turned his eyes to European Greece, and showed his knowledge of Greek feeling by beginning at Delphi. Having, it is said, convinced himself by a strange test that the oracle of Delphi was the one most to be depended upon, he sent presents of extraordinary magnificence to the temple. Other seats of Greek oracles were propitiated by his gifts, but those sent to Delphi surpassed all others in splendour. His envoys con- sulted the Pythia, and received in answer to their question, the enigmatic response that if Crcesus attacked the Persians he would destroy a great empire. She added the advice that he should seek an alliance with the most powerful state in Greece. There was at this time no doubt of Sparta occupying that position as a military power, though it seems probable that for the king's purposes the absence of naval strength made their alliance of little value. But the Pythia had reasons for supporting the prestige of Sparta, and the king's choice of that CYRUS CONQUERS LYDIA 85 state may very likely have been suggested at Delphi. At any rate the offer was made and gladly accepted by the Spartan magistrates. Thus encouraged, Crcesus resolved upon the invasion of Cappadocia. At first he carried all before him, but before long he was met by an army hastily raised 'by Cyrus. A fierce battle gave no decided result, but Crcesus did not renew the struggle. He marched back to Sardis, intending to strengthen himself by means of the alliances he had made, and to renew the war in the spring with enlarged forces. On reaching Sardis he dispersed his army into winter quarters, intending to devote the season to his preparations for the next year's campaign. But Cyrus did not wait his convenience. Crcesus had scarcely completed these arrangements when news came that the Persians were advancing on Sardis. He had only time to arm some of the Sardians and secure himself in the citadel, which was believed to be impregnable. But when the open town had been occupied for a short time by the enemy, the citadel was not long in sharing the same fate, and Crcesus fell into the hands of the conqueror (who treated him with humanity), and the whole kingdom of Lydia was added to the dominions of the Persian king (B.C. 546). The subjection of the Greek cities in Asia, and of the islands close to the coast, followed, in spite of a fitful resistance offered to the two Persian commanders left or sent by Cyrus to subdue them Pactyas and Harpagus. The conquest was gradually extended to Caria and the Dorian Hexapolis, and before 86 THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS B.C. 540 all the Greek states in Asia, yEolian, Ionian, and Dorian alike were tributary to the great king, and their citizens liable to serve in his armies. The change to these cities was not great ; they had been tributary to Croesus, they were now tributary to the King of Persia. Under Croesus they had enjoyed an internal independence and the administration of their own laws, under Cyrus they had the same privileges. But the Persian satraps at Sardis insisted as often as they could on the establishment of single rulers or tyrants in the several cities, who being chiefly dependent on Persian support for the main- tenance of their authority, would be subservient to the Persian court. In other respects the substitution of Persian for Lydian supremacy does not appear to have been inimical to the prosperity of the cities. Miletus was still strong and more independent than the others, and Ephesus was rendered prosperous, and on the whole content, by being the starting-place of the great road which the Persians constructed to Ecbatana. The islands felt the yoke less than the towns on the mainland, and one of them at least rose to considerable power. This was Samos under Polycrates (535-522), who for a brief time main- tained a powerful fleet and made foreign alliances, as with Amasis of Egypt. But his fate is an example of Persian policy. In B.C. 525, Cyrus had been dead three "years (having ten years before added the Babylonian kingdom to his empire), and his son Cambyses (B.C. 528-521) had secured Phoenicia with its naval resources and was invading Egypt. Poly- crates duly sent his contingent to aid Cambyses in RISE AND FALL OF POLYCRATES S/ Egypt ; but showed his insecurity at home by sending to Egypt those who were discontented at his rule. These men returned and endeavoured vainly to dethrone him, and he seemed safer than ever. But by this time the Persian satrap at Sardis, Orcetes, had made up his mind that Polycrates must be got rid of. He was accordingly lured over to Asia by a pretended offer of Oroetes to join him in revolting from the king and seizing the treasures at Sardis ; and was arrested on his way and put to death. His brother, who was willing to be subservient to Persia, was put in his place. In this way the Persian power over the Greek states was steadily strengthened, and was now becoming continually more formidable. The conquest of Phoenicia had put in the king's hand a numerous and enterprising navy. The possession of Egypt and Cyprus seemed to give him another starting-place against Southern Greece. The inevitable attack, however, was delayed for many years, partly by domestic troubles and partly by the difficulty of securing Egypt. Cambyses's death in B.C. 522 was followed by the usurpation of the Pseudo-Smerdis, and by a counter revolution which put Darius, son of Hystaspes on the throne. For the first eight or nine years of his reign, he seems to have devoted himself, with two inter- ruptions caused by revolts in Babylon, to the organi- sation of his empire, which he divided into twenty satrapies, of which the first embraced the Greek cities in Asia Minor, the seat of government being Sardis. But he had married Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, and he was expected to follow in the steps of his father- 88 THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS in-law, by undertaking some great military enterprise. The conquest of Greece was suggested to him, and he appointed a commission to make inquiries and report to him on the state of the country. But meanwhile his attention was distracted in another direction. For some hundred years, beginning about B.C. 650, Asia had suffered from invasions of northern races, Cimmerians and Scythians. The former ravaged the country from north to south, and even when defeated as they were by the Cilicians maintained themselves in mountain fastnesses from which they continued their devastations. The last invasion of Scythians, who were said to be pursuing the Cim- merians, had lasted twenty-eight years from about B.C. 585 to 557 and it was uncertain when the danger might recur. Darius therefore determined to take the offensive and invade the country to the north of the Black Sea. This is one motive assigned to the "Scythian expedition," and it is not certainly disproved by showing that the invaders of Asia were not those whom he attacked. The Persians would have no certain knowledge of the difference between Scythian tribes. Their object would be to show their power in these northern regions from which they were reported to have come. But another object, no doubt, was as shown in the sequel to prevent help coming from European Greeks across the Hellespont to his Greek subjects in northern Asia Minor. The story of this expedition (between B.C. 5 1 5-509) is given by Herodotus, probably from accounts which he found current in the northern Greek colonies. He may have learnt something also from the speech DARIUS ON THE DANUBE 89 of Miltiades, when defending himself on the charge of " tyranny " after his retirement to Athens. We cannot be sure of these things, and it is not necessary here to discuss how much he knew of the geography of the lands beyond the Danube. It is what happened on the left bank of that river that affected the Greeks. Darius crossed the Thracian Bosporus and marched north to the Danube, on which a bridge of ships had been prepared. In his army were contingents from many Greek states under their respective tyrants. He seems to have been fully aware of the difficulties in the way of his design, which, according to Herodotus, was to march round the head of the Euxine and re-enter Asia through Colchis along its eastern shore. In the absence of all certain knowledge of the country, the rivers, the wild tribes to be en- countered, he wisely resolved to keep a retreat open by maintaining the bridge of ships across the Danube. It shows some confidence in the Greek character, or in the hold he had upon the men themselves, that he entrusted the maintenance and defence of this bridge to the tyrants of the Greek towns with some of their own troops. Herodotus says that this was suggested by Goes, the commander of the contingent from Mitylene, in Lesbos. It is such an obvious pre- caution that he must be held likely to have thought of it himself. The selection of the Greek tyrants for the service may have been due to Goes. His direction to them was to wait sixty days, to be reckoned by the daily untying of a knot in a leathern thong, and if he had not returned by that time, to break up the bridge and sail home. The sixty days passed, and, gO THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS instead of the reappearance of the king, a strong body of Scythian horsemen rode up to the bank of the Danube, where the Greek ships formed the end of the bridge. They affirmed that Darius was so completely surrounded that he must perish ; and they exhorted the Greeks to unfasten their vessels and sail away. The Greek rulers thereupon held council, and Miltiades, the tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese, 1 who was destined hereafter to be the victor at Marathon, advised that they should do as the Scythians suggested, and thus restore Ionia and the other Greek cities to freedom. But another of the tyrants, Histiaeus of Miletus, argued against this counsel on the ground that they depended for their authority in their several states upon Persian support. This argument prevailed, and thus when Darius returned the ships, which had been loosened from their moorings, were ready to complete the bridge once more, and he crossed in safety. The king himself hastened to the Thracian Cher- sonese and crossed to Asia from Lesbos and took up his abode for some time at Sard is. Perhaps the march beyond the Danube had only been meant as a kind of military demonstration. At any rate nothing had been accomplished. Still the expedition was not sterile south of the river. He left Megabazus and a strong force with orders to subdue the Greek towns on the coast of Thrace and the kingdom of Macedonia. The Thracian cities were forced to submit ; the flourishing and industrious Paeonians 1 His uncle, also named Miltiades, had been invited from Athens to hold this office, in which this Miltiades succeeded him. EXTENSION OF PERSIAN POWER IN GREECE 9 1 were transferred bodily to Asia ; and Otanes, the successor of Megabazus, extended these conquests to Antandros, Lemnos, Imbros, Calchedon, and Byzantium. Tokens of submission were then de- manded from the King of Macedonia, and, though the Persian envoys behaved with such insolence that they were assassinated by order of the king's son, these tokens were given. The operations thus briefly noticed seem to have occupied several years, during most of which Darius was far away at Susa, while his half-brothei Arta- phernes was the Satrap at Sardis in charge of all that concerned the Greek towns. The supremacy of Persia does not seem to have been exercised with harshness, and accordingly there was a brief period of comparative repose. Nevertheless the position of the Persians in the North, and especially their command of the Helles- pont and Bosporus, must have seemed a menace to Greek freedom, and was especially annoying to Athens, which depended greatly for its supply of corn upon the trade from the coasts of the Propontis and Black Sea. Accordingly we find that the Athenians, after trying to make terms with Artaphernes, made up their minds to adopt a steadily hostile attitude to Persia. Their first attempts at negotiation were met by the rigid demand for " earth and water," as a necessary condition of any alliance. Though the recent expulsion of Hippias (B.C. 510) had involved them in conflicts with Sparta, the Athenians would not purchase the Satrap's assistance at this price. Later on (B.C. 505) they were further angered by a direct 92 THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS order from Artaphernes to readmit Hippias (who had retired to Sigeium and thence visited Sardis) "if they wished to be safe." This determined the Athenians to hold no terms with him, but openly to oppose the Persians everywhere. They soon had an opportunity of giving a practical exhibition of this policy. For about five years (B.C. 507-562) after the Persian power had been asserted in the Greek cities of Thrace, and in the northern islands, the period of unfamiliar calm remained unbroken by alarms of war or revolution. But that there was smouldering discontent was shown by the rapidity with which the flame of rebellion spread when once the spark was put to the material. The jealousy of the Persian government was easily aroused. Histiaeus of Miletus had been rewarded for his services in keeping up the bridge over the Danube by a grant of land at Myrkinos, near what was afterwards Amphipolis. There he settled, leaving the govern- ment of Miletus to his son-in-law Aristogaras. But before long his activity in his new home woke the distrust of the Persian commander Otanes, and in consequence of his report Histiaeus was summoned to join the king on the honourable pretext of the need of his counsel, and was taken off by him in his train to Susa. Meanwhile affairs seemed sroine O O smoothly in Ionia without any sign of an outbreak. But this peaceful state of things came to an end in B.C. 502 with a revolution in the island of Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades. The Persians as yet had no hold on the Cyclades, though Arta- NAXOS AND THE IONIAN REVOLT 93 phernes was always on the lookout to obtain one. The island of Naxos, which had been colonised by lonians from Athens, had gone through many political changes. Finally it had been conquered by the Athenian Pisistratus, who set up or re- stored Lygclamis as its tyrant. About B.C. 525 his government had been replaced by an oligarchy. But the democratic party was able, in B.C. 503, to expel a number of the oligarchs and establish a free constitution. The banished men retired to Miletus and appealed for help to Aristagoras, with whom they had ties of friendship (ti/a). Aristagoras listened to the appeal and undertook to apply to Artaphernes, the Satrap at Sardis, for the necessary naval support. Artaphernes readily caught at a chance of establishing Persian influence in the Cyclades. There was some delay from the neces- sity of sending to Susa for the king's permission, and for collecting and manning two hundred ships. But the royal consent was duly obtained, and the fleet was ready in the spring of B.C. 501, under the joint command of Aristagoras and the king's cousin Megabates. The secret had been kept from the Naxians, who were made to believe that the fleet was destined for the Hellespont. But a violent quarrel arose between Megabates and Aristagoras as to the punishment of a Carian captain, and Mega- bates in revenge sent secret information to Naxos of the real object of the expedition. When the fleet arrived, therefore, the town of Naxos was found in a state of defence and prepared to stand a long siege. There was neither money nor adequate provision for 94 THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS such an operation, and after spending large sums of his own property Aristagoras found it impossible to take Naxos, and was, therefore, unable to fulfil his promise to Artaphernes that the expedition should bring in enough to pay its cost. He felt certain that this ill-success would involve the loss of his governor- ship of Miletus and, perhaps, of his life. His only chance seemed to be to cover his failure by insti- gating some general movement in Ionia sufficient to distract the attention of Artaphernes. In the midst of his perplexity he received a mes- sage from Histiaeus, who, wearied of his detention at Susa, hoped that a movement in Ionia would secure his being sent down to deal with it. According to the well-known story the message was conveyed by two words tattooed on a slave's heac " raise Ionia " ('Iwvt'av avaoriJCTOv). This chimed in A^ell with his own views, and steps were at once taken. An agree- ment was come to whereby the tyrants of the severa 1 Greek towns were persuaded or forced to abdicate, and tK: Paeonians were advised to quit the district in which they had been placed by Darius and return to their own lands. Aristagoras then set sail for European Greece in the hope of getting support from Sparta or Athens. His proposal was rejected by the Spartan king, Cleomenes, who, besides the national objection to distant expeditions, was intent about this time upon crushing Argos. At Athens he found a readier welcome. The Athenians were just entering on their upward career ; they had got rid of their tyrants, and were ready to act as champions of freedom everywhere. They were SPREAD OF THE IONIAN REVOLT 95 specially irritated with Artaphernes, as we have seen by his support of the banished tyrant Hippias. They were glad of an opportunity to show him that their enmity was formidable. A fleet of twenty ships was prepared, and accompanied by five triremes from Eretria in Eubcea started for Ephesus in the spring of B.C. 500. The preparations for a general rising had made considerable progress. The co-operation of the other Ionian and /Eolian. states was secured by deposing the tyrants, Aristagoras himself ostensibly laying down his power, though he kept it under another name. The fleet that had been collected for the attack on Naxos was next secured and increased by ships from various states. These measures Aristagoras had taken before he went on his mission to Greece. On his return, encouraged by his success at Athens, he took the first open step in the revolt from Persia by securing the removal of the Paeonians. Soon after this the Athenian and Eretrian force arrived at Ephesus. The men landed there, and being joined by some lonians, marched upon Sardis. The town was easily taken, and apparently by an accident set on fire. But they could not take the citadel, and they soon heard that a large army, hastily summoned by the order of Artaphernes, was advancing on Sardis. They hastily retreated, but were overtaken and severely defeated near Ephesus. The leader of the Eretrians was killed, but the Athenians seem to have got on board their ships and sailed home. The revolt was now in full swing, and though the 96 THE ORIGIN OF THE PERSIAN INVASIONS attack on Sardis had failed, the Ionian fleet was as yet untouched. Some time was required by the Persians to bring ships from Phoenicia capable of contending with the rebel fleet, which accordingly coasted along as far as Byzantium, successfully persuading the towns to join the revolt, and then returned southwards as far as Caria and Cyprus. The revolt thus begun lasted till B.C. 494. But after two years (500-498) it became chiefly a question of naval supremacy. The Persians having in the past two years recovered Cyprus and Caria, in spite of several disasters, left the fleet of the lonians and their allies alone for a time and proceeded steadily to reduce the various towns, keeping up all the time a somewhat loose siege of Miletus. Aristagoras lost heart and fled to Myrcinus in Thrace, where he perished in combat with the natives. When Histiaeus came down to the coast, having persuaded Darius to send him to quiet the outbreak, he found that his part in promoting it was well known to Arta- phernes, and that it was already almost hopeless of success. Finally, being refused admission to his own Miletus, he escaped to the Hellespont, where he maintained himself for some years and did not perish till the end of the revolt had come. That end was now inevitable. The lonians in the allied fleet were ill-disciplined and averse to hardships, and though for a time they combined and submitted to the orders of an elected general, Dionysius of Phocsea, they soon resented his strictness and broke up into squadrons which went where they pleased. The Persians had now collected a fleet of 600 vessels, END OF THE IONIAN REVOLT 97 and though no state but the Samians consented to surrender, in the battle of Lade (B.C. 495) the allies were utterly defeated and scattered. This destruction of their sea power was followed by the fall of Miletus (B.C. 494), and then all hope of resistance was at an end. Histiaeus, who had taken refuge at Byzantium, endeavoured to escape, but was captured and put to death. The Persians followed up their success in B.C. 493 by re-occupying Byzantium, the Thracian Chersonese, and the islands and states which had joined in, or sympathised with, the revolt. Artaphernes seems to have made an attempt at a more permanent settlement of Ionia, establishing courts of arbitration to prevent the continual bickering and fighting between the states, and making such divisions of the towns that the burden of taxation might be more equally distributed and less felt. But the Persian court had now resolved on a still more important movement, the results of which will be described in the next chapter. IV THE PERSIAN INVASIONS Failure of the first invasion under Mardonius, B.C. 492 The Medizing States in Greece Quarrel of Athens with JEgina, B.C. 491 Second Persian invasion, B.C. 490 Capture of Eretria Battle of Marathon Effects of the battle The Athenians build a fleet, B.C. 490 480 The coming invasion Artemisium Thermopylae The Greek fleet retire to the bay of Salamis Will the Greeks fight at Salamis ? Disappearance of the Persian fleet The Cam- paign of B.C. 479 Battle of Mykale The League of Samos, Chios, and Lesbos The Confederacy of Delos Aristides Effect of the Confederacy of Delos The battles of the Eurymedon, B.C. 466 Western Hellas The continued rise of Athens. IN the great contest of East and West the first struggle had ended in favour of the East. When the Ionian revolt had flickered out the king determined to assert his authority in Greece by inflicting signal punishment upon Eretria and Athens for the aid given to the lonians. But first he tried to secure the allegiance of the Hellenic towns in Asia. His nephew and son-in-law Mardonius was sent down to Lower Asia in B.C. 492 with a double commission. He was to conciliate the Greek states by deposing the tyrants and establishing democracy as their form of home government ; and, secondly, he was to lead an expedi- 98 THE GREAT KING DEMANDS SUBAf/SSION 99 tion against Greece. He performed the first part of his commission, but in attempting to carry out the second he met with a terrible shipwreck whilst rounding the promontory of Nymphaeum (at the foot of Mount Athos) in which the greater part of his fleet and more than twenty thousand men were lost. The expedition, however, was not entirely fruitless, for the king's authority in Thrace was strengthened, and the island of Thasos was deprived of its fleet and fortifications. Thus secured in the North, the king in the following year (B.C. 491) sent envoys into Greece to demand earth and water the symbols of submission from all the principal states. Many of the continental cities complied, especially those in Thessaly and Bceotia (except Platnsa), as well as Argos in Peloponnese. Athens and Sparta almost alone of the greater cities refused, and even put the envoys to death. The islands of the ^Egean, how- ever, reluctantly complied, for the fleets which the possession of Phoenicia now put into the king's hand gave him supremacy at sea. The Athenians were specially indignant that -rEgina, almost in sight of the Piraeus, should have yielded to the king's command. It was too good an opportunity of humiliating an old rival to be lost, and a formal complaint was promptly lodged at Sparta, as the acknowledged head of Greece. The kings of Sparta at that time were Demaratus and Cleomenes. The latter was half crazed, but always ready to assert Spartan supremacy over neighbours. Demaratus was inclined to support the yEginetans, TOO THE PERSIAN INVASIONS but he was got rid of by the help of an oracle from Delphi (obtained by bribery) which cast a doubt on his legitimacy. He fled to the Persian court and Leotychides was made king in his place. The ^Eginetans were speedily compelled to give hostages for their loyalty, who were detained at Athens. Presently on the madness and death of Cleomenes the Spartans repented of their action and sent Leotychides to Athens to demand the restoration of the hostages. The refusal of the Athenians led to acts of retaliation on the part of ^igina, resulting in a state of open war, which seemed likely to enlist other states on one side or the other. The quarrel, however, was suspended next year (B.C. 490) by the approach of a great danger. In the spring of that year a large fleet had mustered by the king's order on the coast of Cilicia under the com- mand of Datis and Artaphernes. This time it took the Island route across the ^gean. It first touched at Naxos, where the city and temples were burnt and those of the inhabitants who did not escape to the mountains were captured. It next touched at Delos, where, however, no damage was done, from reverence to the sacredness of the place, an outrage upon which might have alienated even the King's partisans in Greece. From Delos the fleet proceeded to Carystus on the south of Eubcea. The Eretrians now recognised their danger. They sent urgent messages to Athens for help, but there was, as usual, a party within their own walls who welcomed the invader ; and on the seventh day after the arrival of the fleet the town was surrendered, and such of its inhabitants THE PERSIANS LAND AT MARATHON IOI as had not escaped to the interior were removed to the island of Styra to await transport to Asia. And now came the crowning event of the invasion which has made the name of one man and of one small spot of earth immortal. In the Persian fleet was Hippias, once tyrant of Athens, now old and weary, but still set upon recovering his power. It was at his suggestion that the Persian commanders selected the shore of the Bay of Marathon as the place of landing upon Attic soil. The original inten- tion had probably been to sail round Sunium and blockade Phalerum. But Hippias knew the advan- tages of Marathon, for he had once before landed there with his father Pisistratus, when he, too, came to capture Athens. The Persians, moreover, had brought a considerable body of horsemen, and skirt- ing the bay of Marathon was a plain six miles in- length and about a mile and a half in depth which would be more convenient for cavalry than the ground round the city. Meanwhile, at Athens there had been a division of opinion. One party had wished to await the attack of the Persians at home, whether they came by sea to Phalerum or overland from Oropus or its neighbour- hood ; the other wished to march out of the city and meet them on the road which they believed the Persians intended to take. Miltiades, who had returned to Athens as a private citizen, after having been tyrant of the Chersonese, and was now one of the strategi,had all along been in favour of the latter course, and the news that the enemy had actually landed at Marathon seems to have settled the doubt. With IO2 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS nine thousand men the generals and the Polemarch Callimachus, after sending a swift runner to Sparta for help, marched out to Marathon and occupied the precinct of Hercules on the slope of a mountain near which the road to Athens passed, whence they could see the enemy encamped on the plain below. There was again a division of opinion as to whether they should attack at once. The votes of the ten generals were equally divided, and the casting vote therefore being with Callimachus, he was persuaded by Miltiades to give it in favour of attacking. The four generals who were on the same side gave up their days of command to Miltiades, whose object seems to have been not so much to make an immediate attack as to have the power of attacking whenever he thought the moment had come. The famous battle was, in fact, fought on his own day of command, and seems to have been decided upon owing to information signalled to Miltiades by some lonians in the Persian army to the effect that the Persian cavalry had been re-embarked. For a treasonable party in Athens had communicated to the enemy perhaps by the signal of a flashing shield that the fighting force had left Athens ; and the Persian generals seem thereupon to have taken measures at once to sail round Sunium, hoping to find the city defenceless. With Eretria in their hands, commanding the Attic coast, this would pro- bably have been their wisest course in any case. Their large fleet would easily have closed the harbour of Phalerum or Pironis. Athens was an open town ; there were as yet no long walls joining it to its GREEK FIGHTING MEN. (From llie monument of Dexileos of Athens, who fell in war with t/ie Corinthians, B.C. 394-) THE VICTORY AT MARATHON IO5 harbour, and though the Acropolis might have held out, the king's object of removing the bulk of the inhabitants would probably have been accomplished. Miltiades saw that his chance had come, when the hurry and bustle of re-embarkation neutralised 'the advantage of numbers. Shortly after arriving at the Heracleum he had been reinforced by a thousand Platajans, always eager to show their adherence to Athens and their difference with Thebes. The whole Greek force, therefore, consisted of ten thousand men They had the advantage of advancing down hill ; but their centre was too weak, their line having been widely extended to prevent being outflanked ; for the Persian embarkation was covered by a considerably superior force. The Athenian centre, therefore, was driven back, while on the two wings they were successful in turning the enemy's line. Instead of pursuing, however, the two wings closed in and restored the battle in the centre ; and before long the Persian covering force was a helpless mob. Some were driven upon the marsh which bounds the eastern side of the plain of Marathon, and were there cut to pieces. The rest attempted to get on board the ships and push out to sea. The Athenians only .succeeded in preventing seven of the ships from being got afloat, though they pressed the men hard and killed a large number in the struggle. The Persian loss was estimated at 6,400, that of the Athenians at 192, including the Polemarch. The Persian fleet was thus but slightly diminished and might still have easily, it would seem, have blockaded the Athenian harbours. But though it appeared off Phalerum on IO6 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS the next or following day, no attempt to blockade or to land -was made. One story is that Datis was killed and that Artaphernes was unwilling to act on his own responsibility. A still stronger reason is that they found an unresisted landing no longer possible. The victorious Athenian army had marched home on the morning after the battle and was in waiting to receive them. Their partisans in the city, therefore, could not venture to invite them to land. Whatever the motive, they turned homewards, only stopping to take the Eretrians from Styra. The battle of Marathon was only the first act in the struggle, but its moral effect in Greece was very great." It taught the Greeks that the forces of the king were not invincible in spite of their numbers, and it rilled them with national pride and a sanguine patriotism. Above all, it raised Athens in public estimation and gave the Athenians high ideas as to their power and destiny. Sentiment counts for much in national life, and the heroes of Marathon were not only a pride but an inspiration. The victory was wholly Athenian. The Spartans had been slow to send aid, and their men only arrived on the day after the battle and could claim no part in it, and some- thing of their acknowledged primacy passed to the Athenians. The ten years of freedom from Persian attack which followed were years of steady growth for Athens, especially as a sea-power. There was more than one reason for this. Events made it evident that ships of war were a necessity to the state ; in Themistocles it had a far seeing statesman GROWTH OF ATHENIAN NAVY IOJ capable of carrying out such a policy ; while a development of the silver mines at Laurium supplied the requisite funds. The renewal of the quarrel with ygina after B.C. 490 made an increase in the war fleet necessary, and Herodotus remarks that the ships built for this purpose proved the salvation of Greece. But the fleet had been gradually increased before. In the ^Egenitan war of B.C. 492-1 the Athenians had been obliged to borrow or hire triremes from Corinth, but in the year after the battle they were able to furnish Miltiades w r ith seventy when he asked for a commission to exact money from the islanders who had favoured the Persians, and before B.C. 484 the state was able to maintain at least two hundred. The possession of triremes, indeed, was becoming general in the maritime states, and Corinth, which had been the earliest to use them, still had a respectable number, while in the west Corcyra and Syracuse each possessed formidable fleets. But no state seems to have made such a rapid advance in this period as Athens. The credit is chiefly due to Themistocles who continually urged the policy upon his fellow-citizens, persuading them to devote the royalties from the mines to shipbuild- ing instead of distributing the money among them- selves. It was fortunate that he had his way in this, for the Persian danger was not over, as some thought, with the victory of Marathon. It had as Themistocles always maintained only begun. Darius had no mind to accept his defeat. For three years Asia was in all the hurry and bustle of preparation for a 108 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS new invasion of Greece with still more formidable numbers. But in B.C. 486 a revolt in Egypt dis- tracted the attention of the king, and before it was put down Darius died (B.C. 485). His successor, Xerxes, was engaged for the first two years in Egypt in necessary preparations for the suppression of the revolt there. But even when he returned from his successful campaign he seems, in spite of gran- diloquent language, to have hesitated as to renewing the invasion of Greece, which was not desired by a large number of his Council and of his subjects. Yet when he finally resolved upon it preparations on a vast scale were at once begun and continued for more than three years (B.C. 484-481). More than half a million of fighting men, drawn from innumerable tribes, were mustered in Cappadocia, and in the autumn of B.C. 481 marched to Sardis, where the King himself met and wintered with them. At the same time a fleet of twelve hundred triremes, besides a vast number of smaller vessels, from Phoenicia, Egypt, Cyprus, Cilicia, and many other places, was ordered to proceed to the Hellespont, and thence to coast along as nearly as possible parallel with the land forces. To facilitate the passage of this great army a bridge composed of vessels lashed together was constructed across the Hellespont, and Herodotus delights to tell, as an illustration of Persian insolence, how, when the first bridge was broken up by a storm, the king ordered the waves to be scourged and fetters thrown into the sea. A second and stronger bridge was then constructed. The Strymon was also bridged near the site of what was afterwards Amphipolis ; Photo} [Erogi TIIEMISTOCLES, C. B.C. 514-449. ( Vatican Museum.) DIVISIONS IN GREECE III while to save the fleet one great danger a canal was cut across the isthmus of Mount Athos. The march began early in B.C. 480 ; the Hellespont was safely crossed, and the advance through Macedonia went steadily on, while the fleet made its way to Therma (Thessalonica). The preparation of such a vast armament could not, of course, be unknown in Greece. A congress of representatives from the southern states met at Corinth in the autumn of B.C. 481. Their first measure was to send spies to Sard is to see whether the report was true. They were captured, but allowed by the king to see everything and return safe, in hope that their report might terrify the Greeks' and prevent resis- tance. The congress had, indeed, a formidable state of things to face. Greece was disunited, and there was a powerful party in nearly all the country north of Attica which was prepared from fear or disaffection to welcome the invaders. The seaboard of Thrace and Macedonia was already subject to the king ; most of the islands of the yEgean had been com- pelled to submit and even to furnish him with ships. In Thessaly the powerful clan of the Aleuadae of Larisa had invited the invasion, and though there was a loyal party in Thessaly, it was too weak to resist. Only two states in Bceotia stood out Plataea and Thespiae, while the Phocians were divided and useless. Nor did the congress succeed in getting support elsewhere. The Argives refused all help. The Cretans evaded a direct promise by a reference to Delphi. In the West, Gelo of Syracuse, the most powerful sovereign in Sicily, would only help on con- 112 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS dition of commanding by sea or land ; while the next most powerful sea power in the west, Corcyra, pro- mised help but gave none. In B.C. 480, therefore, when Xerxes was already on the march, there was no army ready to resist him. A fleet, however, of about 270 triremes, of which the Athenians contri- buted half, had been collected and was ready for action under the command of the Spartan Eurybiades. It took up its position at Artemisium, on the north of Euboea. On the request of some loyal Thessalians, an expedition had earlier in the year been sent to the vale of Tempe, the men being landed at Halus, on the Pegasaean Gulf, but it found the pass indefen- sible and had hastily returned. As the Persian army and fleet approached, the Spartans were at length induced to send a small force under their king Leonidas to guard the narrow defile of Thermopylae. It consisted of 300 Spartan hoplites, each accom- panied by seven helots, and some allies from other states. At these two points, therefore, Thermopylae and Artemisium, the first resistance was to be made. The Greek fleet was a composite one, and though the Athenians, who supplied the greater part, were under the influence of Themistocles, who was eager to encounter the Persian fleet and prevent its further progress south, many of the other captains were for retreating to the Peloponnese, and separating to their various states, or at any rate for making a stand only when nearer to what seemed a place of safety. When the Persian ships were approaching the coast of Magnesia, opposite Artemisium, the alarm was so ARTEMISIUM AND THERMOPYLAE 113 great that Themistocles could no longer restrain the Greek captains, and the fleet sailed to Chalcis, on the Euripus, the narrowest point between Eubcea and the mainland. But when the Persians, who were in an exposed position, had suffered severely from a great storm, the Greeks mustered courage to return to Artemisium, and there for three days the two fleets were engaged. On the first day the result was rather in favour of the Greeks, and the success was confirmed by another violent storm during the night, in which the Persians, being still in the more exposed position, suffered much more than the Greeks. On the second day nothing of importance was done, though the Greek fleet was reinforced by a new Athenian squadron. On the third day a more deter- mined effort was made by the Persians, and though nightfall prevented a victory on either side, the Greek fleet suffered very severely. And now the news reached them that the Spartan army at Thermopylae was destroyed and the country open for the advance of Xerxes upon Attica and the Peloponnese. The story of Thermopylae is one of the most famous in history. At that time between Mount CEta and the sea for about a mile there was a narrow road scarcely wide enough for two waggons to pass each other, and at one point defended by a wall built by the Phocians to keep off Thessalian marauders. Here Leonidas, with his small army, had established himself. The king could not believe that such a puny force would venture to withstand the grand army, though warned by Demaratus, the exiled Spartan king, that the Spartans would never 9 I 14 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS yield their ground. After waiting four days in vain expectation of some sign of submission, he launched some of his best troops at the foolhardy opponents, with orders to clear the way. But two days of fierce fighting left the Greeks unconquered and the pass still closed to the invaders. But on the evening of the second clay a Malian named Ephialtes demanded an audience of the king, and offered to guide a force over the height on the land side of the pass (afterwards called Callidromos) by a path only used by shep- herds, which would lead them to the rear of the Greeks. Xerxes, who had watched the failure of his troops with signs of violent emotion and anxiety, eagerly accepted the offer. At nightfall, just as the watch-fires were being lit, ten thousand of the finest troops, called the " Immortals," started under the gui- dance of Ephialtes to cross the height. By daybreak they were approaching the summit. Just below the crest a thousand Phocians had been stationed to guard against this danger, for Leonidas was aware of the existence of this path. The hill was thickly covered with oak forest, and no view of the coming enemy was possible, though there was a bright moon. But in the clear morning air the sound of their trampling through the brushwood reached the ears of the Phocians. Yet their warning was brief; the Per- sians seemed to start suddenly into sight, surprised themselves to see men hastily getting under arms where they had expected a bare mountain top. They fancied that they were the dreaded Spartans who had repulsed them the day before, but being reassured by learning the truth from Ephialtes, they PALL OF LEON/DAS 1 15 began pouring in volleys of arrows. The Phocians retired hastily to the crest of the hill, and the Persians, following the winding path which avoided the summit, descended with all speed on the other side. News had come early to the Greeks at Thermopylae that they were betrayed. The sacrifices were un- favourable, and deserters bringing in the intelligence were soon followed by their own scouts conveying the same news. The allies immediately decided to depart, or were dismissed by Leonidas, that no more Greeks should be lost. For him and his three hundred retreat was intolerable. A Spartan was bound to die at his post; it was undying disgrace to quit it. The Theban and Thespian contingents alone remained. The Thespians, like the Spartans, preferred death to desert their post, while the Thebans, being known to medise, \vere retained as hostages by Leonidas, but took the first opportunity of deserting. At sunrise Xerxes poured libations to his god, and a few hours later started for the pass. The Spartans, knowing themselves to be surrounded, determined to die fighting in the open. They quitted their shelter behind the Phocian wall and advanced into the wider part of the plain. A desperate hand-to-hand fight followed. Two of the king's brothers fell ; many of the Persians were driven into the sea or were trodden under the feet of their own men. Presently Leonidas fell, and an obstinate battle raged round his corpse. But in the midst of it the Spartans found the ten thousand " Immortals " on their rear. They made one more desperate charge, forced their way back Il6 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS to the wall, and thence to a piece of elevated ground, where for some time they defended themselves gal- lantly with swords, hands, and teeth, till, becoming completely surrounded, they were overwhelmed with missiles and perished to a man. Only one soldier, who happened not to be engaged that day, survived of the three hundred. But so strong was the Spartan senti- ment on the disgrace of such survival that his life was a burden to him, and he courted and found death next year at Plataea. The result of this famous battle was to leave the way clear for the advance of Xerxes into Attica. On the frontier of Boeotia he divided his forces into two columns, one of which, led by the king himself, marched towards Athens, the other moved upon Delphi, only to be frightened there by earthquake and miracle. When this disaster was known at Artemisium it was no longer possible to restrain officers or men. They thought that while they were warring in the north the irresistible army of Xerxes would be overrunning the land, and they would soon have no country for which to fight. Themistocles could not persuade them to remain, and the whole fleet rowed through the Euripus, rounded Sunium, and took up a position in the bay of Salamis. The Athenians had now a very difficult part to play. The Peloponnesian states were for abandon- ing all north of the Isthmus of Corinth, and trusting to a wall which they had for some time been building across the isthmus to keep back the invaders. The Oracle of Delphi, which was always under the influence of Sparta, had seemed to THEMISTOCLES AND THE GREAT FLEET II 7 favour that policy and to predict destruction to Athens. But Themistocles saw that the final result rested with the fleet. The wall across the isthmus would be of little service to the Peloponnesian states, if the huge flotilla of the king was free to sail round the coast and make descents wherever the leaders chose. If this fleet, however, was beaten or dispersed the land army would before long be crippled. The failure of provisions, the terror of being so far from home without the means of return afforded by the ships, he felt sure, would bring the invasion to an end. He therefore resolved to stake all on the navy, leav- ing an empty city on which the enemy might wreak his wrath ; while he employed the Athenian ships in transporting the inhabitants of Athens to the Salami's, Trcezen, and other neighbouring towns. The king's army duly occupied and destroyed the abandoned city, without any resistance except from a handful of men on the Acropolis, and his fleet arrived along the Attic coast, and could be seen stretching from Pha- lerum to Sunium. But this sacrifice would be all in vain if Themistocles could not persuade the Greek captains to keep the fleet together and engage the enemy where the confined space and narrow seas would deprive him of the advantage of his superior number of vessels. In fact it was by a trick that Themistocles finally secured that the battle should be fought where it was. At his instigation a secret message was sent to the king informing him that the Greek captains meant to elude him by sailing along the north of Salamis, through the narrow waters between that Il8 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS island and the coast of the Megarid. He therefore ordered one part of his fleet to be moved up so as to block the southern channel and occupy the island of Psysttaleia, while another part sailed round the island and blocked up the narrows in the west. News of this movement of the Persian ships was brought to Themistocles, just as a council of Greek captains, in which he had in vain urged them to stay and fight, had broken up in anger. It was brought by Aristides, who had been residing in ^Egina, under the sentence of ostracism which had been passed on him two years before. A decree had since been passed recalling exiles, and he was on his way home to offer his ser- vices once more. As he sailed towards the Piraeus he had observed the movement of the ships, which he immediately communicated to Themistocles. The fact was soon afterwards confirmed by the captain of a Tenian ship who had deserted the enemy and came to offer his services to the Greeks. The council hastily reassembled and could not but consent to fight. The battle began early the next morning. It cannot be described in any general phrase. It began with a charge made by an Athenian upon a Phoenician ship. Following this there was a series of engagements between single ships, or between a single ship and several charging it at the same time, till the vast fleet of the enemy, harassed by repeated attacks of the Greek craft, which if smaller in size were more skilfully worked, and had the advantage of being less crowded, became a confused mob of vessels which damaged each other as much as they were damaged by the Greeks. yEschylus, who was THE BATTLE OF SAL A MIS 119 present, will give the liveliest and most correct idea of the scene. He represents the messenger in the Persce as thus describing the fight : " The hour was come, and straightway ship on ship Dashed brazen beak, and first to strike a blow Some Grecian craft break all the forward gear Of a Phoenician bark. Then here and there Right on some foe each drave his armed prow. At first the long stream of the Persian host Held out and brake not. But when as the swarm Of countless ships, cramped in the narrow seas, Crashed each on each entangled in a maze Where none could aid his fellow friend on friend Struck with their brazen beaks ; and banks of oars Were splintered in the rowers' hands ; and still The Grecian ships watchful to miss no chance Rowed round them and charged : then many a hull Keel uppermost went drifting ; the wide sea Was hidden with the wreckage and slain men ; And all the jutting headlands and the rocks Were choked with corpses." Xerxes, sitting upon a throne which commanded a view of the bay of Salamis, watched with extreme agitation the issue of these combats, in nearly all of which the Greek ships were successful. The number of his ships made the confusion more disastrous when they attempted to retreat, for the retiring ships frequently crashed in upon those that were still rowing up to join in the struggle. The loss of life on the Persian side was the greater from the fact that they had less facilities than the Greeks for escaping to land. The small island of Psysttaleia had been occupied by some Persian troops for the purpose of securing a refuge for men whose ships I2O THE PERSIAN INVASIONS were disabled or sunk, but Aristides landed on the islet and put these men to the sword : while some of the disengaged ships of the Greeks were employed in pursuing and drowning those of the enemy who tried to escape by swimming. Towards evening the bay was covered with floating wrecks, and corpses were washed ashore all along the coast. The work of destruction was only stopped by nightfall. The losses on the Greek side were small, while on the side of the Persians, though their fleet was by no means annihilated, they were very great, and included many men of high position, among them a brother of the king. Next morning the Greeks were prepared to renew the fight. Their experience at Artemisium warned them not to expect that one day's contest would account for the whole or greater part of such an arma- ment. But to their surprise no movement was made by the enemy and none of their ships hove in sight. It soon became evident that most of those that were still seaworthy had already started on their homeward voyage. The Greeks followed in pursuit, but after going as far as the island of Andros without over- taking them, the Spartan Eurybiades insisted on returning home in spite of the advice of Themistocles, who wished to sail to the Hellespont and break down the bridge. " They should rather, 1 ' said Eurybiades, " build the Persians a bridge to get them out of Europe." Themistocles yielded, but took means to have the affair so represented to the king that he might suppose the stopping of the pursuit to have been his work. EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE OF SALAM1S 121 An important effect of the battle, however, was to frighten Xerxes and to make him resolve to return home. His chief officers humoured what they knew to be their master's intention, and perhaps thought that they were really better without him, for his courage was questionable and he was at any rate excitable and irresolute. Mardonius, therefore, after escorting him for some distance on his return, was left with the flower of the army to renew the invasion in the next year. The king, after much suffering and loss, reached the Hellespont, and thence crossed to Asia and reached Sardis in safety ; while Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, who had distinguished herself in the battle, and had remained afterwards, was entrusted with the royal family and household, whom she conveyed safely back to Asia. Next year (B.C. 479) the fighting was on land, and the result of the invasion was settled by the great battle of Plataea. Early in the spring Mardonius, who had wintered in Thessaly, marched south and again occupied Athens. But he found the country ill-suited for cavalry, in which his chief strength lay ; and hearing that a strong force had been collected in the Peloponnese and was on its way to attack him, after some indecision he left Attica for Bceotia. There he could count on the assistance of Thebes, and could find more suitable ground for his opera- tions in the valley of the Asopus. He constructed a great camp of refuge on the bank of this river, and there awaited the arrival of the Greek forces. The Greeks presently appeared on the slopes of Mount Cithoiron, and for twelve days the two armies faced 122 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS each other. The Greeks were afraid to descend into the valley because of the Persian cavalry, while Mardonius could do little but harass them and cut off their convoys by daily cavalry excursions. For want of water the Greeks had more than once to shift their position, gradually edging towards Plata^a. It was during the last of these moves that the engagement was brought on. The Athenians, taking the lower road, became engaged with some Theban cavalry. The rest of the allies had moved somewhat further than was intended, and had taken up a posi- tion close to the temple of Here, outside the walls of Plataea. But the Spartans and Tegeans, moving along upon higher ground, were sighted by Mar- donius and forced to give battle near a lonely temple of Demeter, about a mile to the east of Plataea. That the Spartans had thus been overtaken is accounted for partially, according to Herodotus, by the obstinacy of a captain named Amompharetos, who for many hours refused to join in a retreat. But when brought to bay the Spartans justified their reputation. For some time the omens remained unsatisfactory, and their commander, Pausanias, did not venture to charge. The Persians, fixing their long wicker shields in the ground, poured in volleys of arrows from behind them. After a while Pau- sanias is represented as lifting his eyes to the temple of Here in the distance and uttering a prayer to the goddess. Suddenly the omens became favourable, and the Tegeans began the charge. The whole force was soon engaged, and the better discipline and longer spears of the Greeks presently gave them the VICTORY OF PLAT/EA 123 advantage. The Persians fought valiantly until Mardonius fell, with the flower of his troops round him. The rest of the panic-stricken crowd fled in great confusion to the camp of refuge on the Asopus. Here they were followed by the Spartans, who attempted to pull down the wooden palisade and enter the camp. They were never so good at such operations as at fighting in the open, and according to Herodotus it was not till the Athenians arrived that the camp was taken. Then the unhappy and disheartened crowd were slaughtered like sheep, with hardly a show of resistance. The only part of the Persian army that escaped was a division of forty thousand men led by Artabazos. That cautious commander seems to have felt a sure foreboding of the result of the battle, and had therefore purposely loitered behind when Mardonius marched out of camp on that fatal morning. He was met by the first fugitives from the field, and promptly wheeling round, he hastened along the shortest road that led to the north. By persuading the Thessalians and Macedonians that he was only leading an advanced guard of a victorious army, he obtained a safe and honourable passage through the country ; and though in this forced march he lost many men from disease and from the attacks of Thracian tribes, he arrived safely with the rest at Byzantium, and thence took ship for Asia. This was the end of the Persian invasion. The grand army was annihilated, and there was no fear of further molestation. The Athenians returned to their devastated country and dismantled city, and set 124 THB PERSIAN INVASIONS about their task of restoration. The conference once more assembled at Corinth and passed sentence on the medizing party at Thebes and other cities, and the rest, after dividing the spoil and deciding on the prize of valour, dispersed to their several homes. One question which helped to keep Greece divided was thus settled. But the honour of those states which had stood for Greek freedom was perpetuated by the inscription on a bronze stand of twisted serpents, on which once stood a golden tripod, placed by Pausanias at Delphi, and still existing at Constantinople, to which it was transferred seven hundred years later by Constantine the Great. It contains the names of thirty-one states, which include not only those who fought at Plataea, but those who had taken any part in the war by land or sea. For it was not only continental Greece that was saved. The benefit reached the islanders and the Greek cities in Asia. Early in the spring of B.C. 479 the Greek fleet of 1 10 ships mustered at ^Egina, and in response to an urgent request from Samos started for the coast of Asia. For some time it remained at Delos, not venturing for some time to approach a district which, though it contained many Greek cities, had for twenty years been regarded as under the undisputed sway of the great king. The Cyclades were indeed securely Greek, and had only suffered a passing visitation of the Persian fleet ; but to attack the islands off the Asiatic shore, and Asia itself, seemed too venturesome. At the same time the Persian fleet mustered at Samos, but feared to go PERSIANS nr.FEATED AT MYKAl.E 125 westward to encounter once more those who had beaten them the year before. Therefore, through the spring and summer months these two forces, whose collision was destined to put a finishing touch to the war, remained at a safe distance from each other. But the Samians longed to be delivered from the presence of the enemy, and again sent messages to Leotychides, who was commanding the combined fleet at Delos, begging him to come to their aid. 1 Some time towards the end of August, accordingly, the Greek fleet sailed to Samos and anchored off the Heraeum of the capital city. The battle which ensued was fought on land, not at sea. The Persian admirals distrusted their power to fight the Greek fleet. They had therefore dragged their ships on shore at Mykale and entrenched a kind of naval camp. Accordingly the Greeks also disembarked, and the battle which ensued had many features in common with that at Plataea, which according to tradition took place on the same day. In both there were two distinct struggles, one in the open and one in the fortified camp, to which the beaten enemy retreated. At Plataea, however, it was the Spartans who almost alone won the battle in the field. At Mykale the line of their march brought them on to the field only in time to strike a last blow. It was the Athenians, Corinthians, and Sicyo- nians who turned the enemy in the field and were 1 According to the story in Herodotus the envoy of the Samians was named Hegesistratos (Army-leader), and Leotychides accepted the omen of the name. No doubt he had other reasons, but we need not wholly reiect the story. Such chance omens had great weight with Greeks, and gave confidence to an army. 126 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS the first to storm the camp. As at Plataea, the battle fought like the latter near a temple of Demeter and the fight at the camp resulted in the practical annihilation of the Persian army. Even a division stationed on the high ground of Mykale as a reserve were betrayed and misled by Milesian guides, and perished with the rest. A curious story is told by Herodotus in regard to this battle. On the morning of the day a herald's staff was washed on shore, and a report spread of the victory gained at Plataea. Whether historians are mistaken in placing the battles on the same day, or whether (as later writers assume) the Greek generals deliberately spread the report to encourage their men, we cannot tell. In times of excitement such rumours will spread among men. Whatever their origin, their effect is often decisive, and the Greeks naturally attributed them to divine influence. This victory freed many Ionian states from Persia, and made all the other Hellenic states in Asia ready to strike for freedom. In order to secure this a beginning of what was afterwards a much larger league was made by Samos, Chios, and Lesbos, whose citizens bound themselves by an oath con- firmed by dropping leaden tablets into the sea to furnish ships and men to resist the Persians. In fact, measures were at once begun. The Greek fleet sailed to the Chersonese, and freed the cities there, expelling the royal garrisons, the last to hold out being Sestos, which fell in the course of the winter. In the spring of the next year (B.C. 478), the Greek fleet again returned to the ^Egean, and in the CONFEDERACY OF DELOS BEGUN 129 course of that and the following year the confederacy was extended to nearly all the islands and Asiatic Greek states. It was called the confederacy of Delos, because the money of the confederacy was to be deposited there, as a neutral place, and its object was to keep the Persian fleets from the ^igean, to put down piracy, and to set free every Greek state. This was to be secured by each state according to its means agreeing to supply ships, or an equivalent in money, for the maintenance of a fleet of seventy triremes. This confederacy was a league of free states and did not in theory imply any loss of independence, nor a special superiority of any one state. That it gradually came to be regarded as a kind of empire in which Athens exercised the supreme authority was partly due to accident, partly to natural development. The combined fleet sent out in B.C. 478 to con- tinue the liberation of Greek states from Persian garrisons was under the command of Pausanias of Sparta, uncle and guardian of the young king, the son of Leonidas. His position was the result of the traditional primacy of Sparta. But recent events had raised the prestige of Athens, and Aristides, the commander of the Athenian squadron, was a man to win respect and confidence from all. In his own city he had been generally in opposition to the forward and astute policy of Themistocles ; but though for a time the people preferred his rival, they had come back to him, and now trusted him beyond all others. His name of "the Just," according to the common story, had become so stale that some voted 10 130 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS for his ostracism because they were tired of hearing it. But it was well deserved, and his character now stood the Athenians in good stead. The allies. soon had occasion to show their appreciation of him. Pausanias had been extremely elated by his victory at Plataea, and now offended the allies by his pride and arrogant behaviour, and aroused their suspicions and those of his own government by holding communications with the Persian court, under pretence of negotiating the return of certain Persian prisoners captured in the siege of Byzantium. He was therefore recalled, and when his successor arrived he found that the allies had elected Aristides as commander. The Spartan contingent accordingly returned home, and the extended confederation was made under Athenian influence. Aristides arranged with each state the amount of their contribution (^opoe) to the common fund ; and a kind of presidency was assigned to Athens on the proposal of the people of Chios. It is true that there was no notion at first of Athens exercising control over the other states. But this soon came to be practically the fact. It was under- stood that each state was to have a democratic government more or less after the model of the Athenian. Payment of the contribution would at times have to be enforced, and Athens would have to do this as representing the whole body ; additions to the confederacy were usually made by the power or influence of Athens. From the first the states were unwilling to supply ships, and preferred a money payment ; and thus it soon came to be the regular thing for Athens to find the seventy ships, while the ATHENS AND THE CONFEDERACY \$\ Athenians looked upon it as their right, not only to enforce payment, but to prevent any secession from the confederacy. Such a case did not arise for ten years, when Naxos attempted to break off and was forcibly reduced by Athens. But it was inevitable, that the relations between Athens and the other members should gradually change. That change led to the next great disruption in Greece, brought about by the Peloponnesian war, and will be better considered in connection with it. For the present we may conclude our study of the Persian wars by considering how far the confederacy put an end to them. The confederate fleet was engaged more or less for eleven years in carrying out the great object of freeing all Greek states from the supremacy of the Persians. The work was carried on systematically, for the most part under the direction of Cimon, son of Miltiades. First, the Thraceward cities were freed, with the island of Scyros, and the work was com- pleted by two great victories, one at the mouth of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia over a large Phrenician fleet, and another by land near Aspendus (B.C. 466). From that time the Persian king seems to have agreed not to send ships of war into the ^Egean, and not to interfere with Greek towns on the coast. By this time or soon afterwards the heroes of the second Persian war had disappeared. Pausanias had been convicted of treason and put to death (B.C. 471). Themistocles had been ostracised in B.C. 471, and then being accused of having shared in the treason of Pausanias, had fled to Persia (B.C. 466-5), and at 132 THE PERSIAN INVASIONS about the same time Aristides died. A new age was beginning with new men. Greece for about a hundred years was freed from foreign interference, and free to develop in her own way in various parts of the world. For it was not only Greece proper to which relief from danger had come at this time. In the West a like deliverance had been wrought by Gelo of Syracuse, who, about the same time as the battle of Salamis (Sept. B.C. 480), won a great victory over the Carthaginians at Himera ; and in B.C. 474 his successor Hiero conquered the Etruscans at Cumae, the rivals of the Carthaginians for naval supremacy in the Western Mediterranean. It was in this Western or Italian Hellas that, up to this time, the new intellectual movement in Greece had been most prominent. Pythagoras of Samos (fl. B.C. 530-510) had spent most of his later life at Croton, where he founded a school ; Xenophanes of Colophon in Sicily and Italy was teaching purer doctrines as to the gods ; and a school of philosophers arose at Elea or Velia in Italy, beginning with Parmenides (fl. B.C. 495) and Empedocles (fl. B.C. 455), whose speculations on nature, reason, and ethics had an abiding effect on Greek thought. But the centre of the intellectual as well as the political life of Hellas was not to be in these outlying parts; for the next hundred years it was to be in Central Greece, and, above all, in Athens. The achievements and heroes of the Persian wars were already finding worthy record in the songs and epigrams of Simonides (d. about B.C. 459), while GREECE FREELY DEVELOPING 133 Pindar (B.C. 521-442), without distinction of city or people, was celebrating all that was vigorous and active in his own day, and all that was noble and stirring in the traditions of the past. Simonides was an islander, and Pindar was a Boeotian, and the most noteworthy of their contemporaries came from other islands or states, while Herodotus, the historian of the Persian wars, was a native of Caria. But in the writings of them all we see emerging the glory of Athens, and in the next period it is her poets, historians, and orators that have left the most enduring monuments of the Greek genius. ATHENIAN SUPREMACY B.C. 466 B.C. 431. The success of Athens The war between Sparta and the Messenian helots, B.C. 464-454 The policy of Pericles The continental empire of Athens The Five Years' Truce with Sparta, and the peace of Callias with Persia, B.C. 450-449 Fall of Athenian land supremacy Boeotia separates from the Athenian alliance Euboea and Megara revolt, B.C. 446 The Thirty Years' Peace, B.C. 445 Athens and the members of the Delian Confederacy The adorn- ment of Athens under Pericles Athens becoming the home ot literature and the drama Opposition to Pericles and the new culture Discontent in the confederacy The affair of Corcyra and the beginning of the Peloponnesian war Revolt of Potidaea The Athenians denounced at Sparta The Peloponnesian war General outline First period, B.C. 431-424 Second period, B.C. 421-415 Third and final period, B.C. 415-404. THOUGH the intellectual supremacy of Athens lasted far into the fourth century B.C., her political supremacy fell, never to be restored, with the ruinous disasters of the Peloponnesian war. But in this chapter we shall be concerned with the happier period of her material and artistic success. We have seen that the development of the Con- federacy of Delos led to the assumption by Athens FORTIFICATION OF ATHENS AND PIR/EUS 135 of an almost imperial position. That she should have taken the lead in the confederacy was the natural result of her great services in the Persian war ; and that she was strong enough to seize the opportunity was owing, above all, to the brilliant abilities of Themistocles, and the high character of Aristides. To Themistocles it was chiefly due that she had become a strong naval power ; it was due to his sagacity and gallantry that she had played so important a part in repelling the Persian invasion and to his vigorous exertions that, after that event, she had become a fortified town, with harbours suitable for her expanding trade and growing power. It was at his suggestion in B.C. 477 that the city walls were hastily constructed in spite of the jealous remonstrances of Sparta, and that the Piraeus was also encircled for a distance of seven miles, by the immense double wall which secured -it for more than three centuries. And when the policy of Themistocles in exacting contributions from the islands, as a penalty for their involuntary medizing, seemed likely to discredit the state in the eyes of the Greeks, it was the moderation and equity of Aristides that renewed public confidence in its leadership, and caused it to be regarded as the natural head of the new confederacy. This was confirmed by the voluntary withdrawal of the Spartans, who, content with an acknowledged primacy in the Peloponnese and in land warfare generally, allowed the maritime leadership to fall into the hands of Athens, ap- parently at first without foreseeing the consequences. When, again, the confederacy, after thirteen years 136 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY of existence, began to show signs of disruption, and the Thasians, wishing to break off from it, appealed for aid to Sparta (B.C. 465), the Spartans were pre- vented from giving it, by a great disaster at home. A severe earthquake in that year caused much loss of life and damage to property and buildings ; and the helots smarting under years of forced labour and oppression were in rebellion, both in Laconia and Messenia. Repulsed by King Archidamus in their attempt to take Sparta itself the helots collected on Mount Ithome, where they maintained themselves for ten years. During that time all the energies of Sparta and her allies were devoted to the siege. The Athenians, therefore, during these years had nothing to fear from Spartan interference, though it was well known that jealousy of her powers in the ^Egean was growing rapidly in Sparta. This was emphasised by an incident connected with the siege of Ithome. Among other requests for aid the Spartan had sent one to Athens. Cimon, who had done such brilliant service for the Delian confederacy, was head of the party at Athens which desired a close alliance with Sparta. He persuaded the people to send the aid requested under his own leadership. But when he arrived, the Spartan generals, who had either not approved of the invitation to Athens or had repented of it, dismissed him with scant courtesy. The feeling aroused at Athens by this rebuff was sufficiently violent to cause the ostracism of Cimon (B.C. 461). This event began a new era with the advent to supreme influence of Pericles, who had for some time PERICLES, OB. B.C. 429. (British Museum.) RISE OP PERICLES 139 been Cimon's rival. Pericles was in character and tastes the reverse of a demagogue, for he maintained a somewhat haughty reserve, mingled little in general society, and only spoke in the assembly on important occasions. Yet his eloquence was so persuasive that for many years it made him almost autocratic. The constitutional changes that can be with certainty attributed to him are not numerous or striking. Yet they are all in the direction of more complete democracy. He is said to have been the first to propose a small payment for those who sat as jurors in law courts, thus making it possible for all classes to give their time to this duty. In conjunction with Ephialtes, the most advanced demagogue of the time, he assisted in reducing the power of the Areopagus to that of a court of law for trying certain cases of homicide. The council of the Areopagus con- sisted of ex-archons. They were members for life, and the council had by a kind of prescription exer- cised a certain superintendence over magistrates and people. We do not know exactly how far it was able to withstand votes passed by the assembly, or to oppose acts of magistrates, but it certainly possessed some powers which were held to be inconsistent with pure democracy ; and of these Ephialtes and Pericles deprived it. He also established the theoric fund, from which the entrance fee to the theatre was to be paid for such citizens as applied for it, and the enjoyment of the festivals generally to be made free to all. But the chief interest attaching to him in the story of the Greeks is connected with the two objects 140 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY which he set before himself in the earlier period of his influence the formation of a continental empire or supremacy for Athens, and the beautifying of the city itself, that it might become the chosen home of art and literature. In the latter object he succeeded beyond all comparison. In the former, after a brief success, he failed entirely. His policy in this respect brought upon Athens the enmity of Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes. It led to almost perpetual war, and to a growing discontent among the members of the confederacy of Delos, who saw their contributions being used for the selfish aggrandisement of one city. To it may be traced the train of disasters which eventually destroyed the political power and influence of Athens in Greece. The first' step in this attempt was the formation of an alliance with Argos, to which the adhesion of Megara and Thessaly was presently obtained. The primary object was to form a counterpoise to the supreme influence of Sparta in the Peloponnese. It did not involve immediate war with the Spartans, who were too much engaged with the revolted helots to resent it actively : but it roused the jealous alarms of those powers whose first interest it was to have free passage for their ships or an unfettered communi- cation with the Peloponnese, Corinth, Epidauros, and ygina, who accordingly combined to attack the new confederacy (B.C. 458-456). The Athenians had some successes in this struggle, especially at sea, which enabled them to reduce yEgina to subjection and force it to join the Delian confederacy. On the other hand, they were defeated at Tanagra (B.C. 457) THE POWER OF ATHENS ON LAND l^l by a Spartan" army, which, on its way home from assisting Doris against the Locrians, took the oppor- tunity of being in Bceotia to make a demonstration against the Attic frontier. But next year an Athe- nian army entered Bceotia and won a victory over the Boeotians and their allies at CEnophyta, after which Bceotia, Phocis, and Opuntian Locris were compelled to join the Athenian alliance. The victory of the Spartans at Tanagra had led to no important result, but it emphasised the fact that the Spartans con- sidered themselves as at war with the Athenians, and were resolved to withstand the expansion of their supremacy. After the end of the struggle with their helots, who in B.C. 455 capitulated at Mount Ithome on condition of being allowed to leave the country, the Spartans would be at less disadvantage in this controversy. Just about the same time an Athenian fleet and army was destroyed in Egypt. They had been sent five years before to assist the Libyan Inaros to rebel against the Persian king, and their destruction was a blow to the prestige of Athens as champion of Greece against Persia. Still, on the whole, up to B.C. 449 the successes obtained by Athens in prosecuting the policy of Pericles, as well as in other directions, were considerable. In B.C. 456 Athens was still further secured by the long walls which joined the city to the Piraeus and to Phale- rum ; one of her admirals (Tolmides) sailed round the Peloponnese, burnt Gytheium, the port of Sparta, took Naupactus (where the defeated Messenians were now allowed to settle), and caused the western islands of Zacynthus and Cephallenia to join the Athenian 142 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY alliance. Next year Pericles himself led an expedition in the Corinthian Gulf and secured the adhesion of Achaia. But this was the end of Athenian successes. Cimon, after the battle of Tanagra, had been re- called, and now induced Athens to agree to a five years' truce with Sparta (B.C. 450), and once more to devote her energies to further measures against Persia ; while at the same time a thirty years' peace was effected between Argos and Sparta, which practically put an end to the attempt to form a powerful counterpoise to Sparta in the Peloponnese. A year of successful war with the Persians at Cyprus followed (B.C. 449), in the course of which Cimon died, and an understanding was come to that the Persian fleets were not to sail into the ^Egean, and that the king was to acknowledge the independence of all Hellenic towns. Whether this was secured by a formal treaty negotiated by Callias is not certain. But for the time it represents the practical state of affairs. Callias was a cousin of Aristides, and is generally referred to by later writers as having negotiated this peace. He at any rate seems to have been about this time on some mission to the Persian court. But that the king should have formally accepted such humiliating terms has been thought improbable. Immediately afterwards, however, the Athenian supremacy on land, which the policy of Pericles had secured, began to melt away. In B.C. 448 a quarrel as to the management of the temple and Oracle at Delphi produced another outbreak of hostilities DECAY OF ATHENIAN LAND POWER 143 between Sparta and Athens : the former supporting the claims of the inhabitants of Delphi to the exclu- sive care of the temple, the latter supporting the Phocians, who had forcibly asserted their right to a share in it. The importance of such a controversy is to be measured by the influence of the Oracle on Greek politics. Both sides professed a care for the impartiality of the Oracle ; but in fact both wished to secure its support for themselves ; and the special influence which Sparta had long had over the Delphians the Athenians tried to minimise by causing the management of the Oracle to be shared by the other Phocians. This did not lead to any actual encounter between Athenian and Spartan troops ; but in the next year (n.C. 447) an attempt of the Athenians to interfere in the political troubles of a Boeotian town, Chaero- neia, brought upon them so serious a defeat on their way home at Coroneia, that in order to recover their prisoners they surrendered all authority in the other towns of Bceotia. In these towns the aristocratic party immediately regained power, and renounced not only the authority but even the alliance of Athens. This was the first break in the continental supremacy acquired by Pericles. It was followed in the next year by a similar revolt of Megara (so important as commanding the road into the Pelopon- nese) and of Euboea, which, though an island, was practically a part of Attica. The disadvantage of having again incurred the enmity of Sparta was now shown by the support at once given to Megara. A Spartan army under King Pleistoanax invaded the 144 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY Attic territory ; and though it retired without doing any damage, owing, it was believed, to the king having been bribed by Pericles, this did not save Athenian influence at Megara. The revolt had begun by the massacre of an Athenian garrison stationed there, and it now definitely broke off from the Athenian alliance. Pericles, who had been recalled from an expedition against Eubcea by the invasion of Pleistoanax, did succeed next year (B.C. 444) in reducing that island to obedience. But the measures of suppression were severe, including the removal of all the inhabitants of Histiaea, and all the aristocratic party at Chalcis, and the division of their lands among a thousand cleruchs, that is, Athenian citizens holding allotments of land. Such a policy has been tried many times in Ireland, but has never been permanently successful. Eubcea remained Athenian, but restless and discon- tented, and a favourite point of attack for her enemies in aftertimes. With this exception the land confederacy laboriously contrived by Pericles was now broken up. Thessaly had withdrawn some years before, though without formal breach ; Argos, by making terms with Sparta, had practically renounced alliance with Athens ; Megara and Bceotia had broken away ; and now in negotiating a thirty years' peace with Sparta (B.C. 445) the Athenians were obliged to withdraw from Achaia, to surrender Niscxa and Pagae, the two ports of Megara, as well as Trcezen in Argolis. In fact, Athenian supremacy on the mainland was gone. In spite of this failure Pericles was more powerful SUCCESS OF PERICLES AT SEA 145 in Athens than ever, and it is a remarkable fact that the man who had led the opposition to him since the disappearance of Cimon, Thucydides, son of Milesias, was ostracised the next year. Thus Pericles remained active and powerful. He was promoting colonies at Thurii in Italy (B.C. 444) and at Amphipolis in Thrace (B.C. 437), the former as a means of securing trade with Italy, the latter to maintain Athenian influence in the rich gold-mining district of Pangaeus. He also interfered with such effect in a quarrel which had arisen between Samos and Miletus (B.C. 440) that after a nine months' siege the Samians were compelled to surrender their free status in the Confederacy of Delos, and to become an acknowledged subject of Athens, as did Byzantium also, which had joined the Samian movement. The only really free allies were now the Chians and Lesbians, and the altered position of Athens had been emphasised some ten years before by the removal of the treasury from Delos to Athens. The money, therefore, came more and more to be regarded as Athenian revenue, in return for which Athens was bound to maintain a fleet in the ^Egean, but was not bound to render any account of it other- wise. The amount of the phoros had steadily in- creased, either by the adhesion of new members or by the readjustment of the contributions, so that it was greater by about a third than the original sum obtained. The right of Athens to enforce payment, and, if necessary, to place an overseer or resident with a garrison in any of the subject states, was gradually asserted, and contributed to her imperial pretensions. II 146 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY The policy which thus turned what was meant to be a confederacy of free states into a kind of empire broke down eventually, but for the present it seemed successful and permanent. In another direction Pericles successfully carried out his ideal of Athens as a centre of art and learning, to which rnen of letters and artists should naturally come. As a first con- dition the city was to be supremely beautiful. Buildings, accordingly, of unsurpassed grace and splendour were either begun or completed under his influence. The. famous Pheidias (d. about B.C. 430) acted somewhat in the capacity of Minister of Fine Art, and had the general superintendence of the works undertaken at his motion. Various archi- tects were employed, but Pheidias and his assistants added the crown to the glory of the buildings by statues, or by the figures in relief in the pediments, frieze, and metopes of temples. It was not, indeed, at Athens alone that this outburst of building occurred, nor was the activity of Pheidias confined to Athens. In all parts of Hellas, in Sicily, Southern Italy, Corinth, ^Egina, and Arcadia, remains of splen- did temples still attest the supremacy of Greek genius, and it was at Olympia in Elis that one of his most famous works, the statue of Zeus, in ivory and gold, was completed and dedicated. But the Acropolis at Athens possessed the largest number of his works. The figures in the pediments of the Parthenon and in the frieze and metopes were the creation of his own hands or of those of his school working under his direction. His, too, was the colossal bronze figure of Athena Promachos, holding THE GREAT BUILDINGS AT ATHENS 149 shield and spear, and with its pedestal rising seventy feet. The Theseium near the Cerameicus was of rather an earlier date, and the Propylaea the stairs and entrance gateway on to the Acropolis was begun towards the end of this period (B.C. 437). The Erechtheium, the double temple which took its name from the mythical King Erechtheus and contained many objects of time-honoured sanctity, was also begun in this period, but not finished. These buildings represent the restoration that followed the destruction wrought by the Persians in B.C. 481-479. To the same age probably belong the Odeum, or Music Hall, with conical roof in imitation of the tent of Xerxes, the temple of Athena Nike (Nike Apteros), and the Theseium. The auditorium of the Dionysian Theatre, hollowed out of the southern rock of the Acropolis, went through various stages of construction, and probably did not attain its ultimate form for more than a hundred years later. The vast temple of Olympian Zeus had been begun by Peisistratus a century before this period, but was on such a scale that the Athenian state was never rich enough to complete it. That was reserved for the Emperor Hadrian. Besides these buildings streets and colonnades (trroat) were gradually filled with monuments of various sorts. A whole street, for instance, leading from the Dionysian Theatre to the town was adorned by monuments raised by men who had supplied the choruses for plays which had gained a prize. Of these only one is extant of the year B.C. 335, in the shape of a circular-domed temple with engaged columns of the Corinthian order I5O ATHENIAN SUPREMACY of architecture and made of Pentelic marble, known as the choragic monument of Lysicrates. Other streets and colonnades were adorned with Hermse, square blocks or posts of marble, of which the upper part represented the head and bust of the god Hermes, or of Dionysius, or often two heads looking opposite ways. The art of painting contributed much in this period to beautifying the city. The chief artist who at this time was employed on public work at Athens generally under the direction and patronage of Cimpn was Polygnotus of Thasos. Paintings of his in Athens besides many in other places are mentioned in the Stoa poikile, where many episodes in Athenian history were represented, ending with a vivid presentment of the battle of Marathon in the Theseium, the Propylaea, the temple of the Dioscuri, and elsewhere. Parts of the same paintings were by his pupil, Mikon. We, of course, have not the same means of judging of the painter's art as we have of that of the sculptors and builders of this age, but it seems that the character- istic feature of both branches of art was increased power of representing the human form naturally and gracefully, whether in repose or movement, free from the conventionality and stiffness of more archaic art. The difficulty of representing attitudes, dress, hair, and eyes had been overcome. Groupings of men and horses in procession or contest were produced, and created a vivid illusion of life and movement. Though Athens excelled other Greek states in the number and splendour of these treasures of art, the artistic progress was by no means confined to her. A CARYATID OF THE ERECHTHEIUM, ABOUT B.C. 380. (British Museum.) ART AND LITERATURE 153 Most of the chief states of Hellas possessed works of great beauty. The most perfect, perhaps, of all that has been preserved the Venus of the Louvre came from the island of Melos. The leading artists were of various nationality, and were willing to work for any state that would employ them. The great temples, especially those which were the seats of oracles, were filled with the offerings of expectant or grateful worshippers, some, no doubt, more remarkable for their costliness than their artistic merit, but many the work of the greatest artists of the present or the past. Other influences which were modifying the Greek character were literature and philosophy. These did not find their earliest homes in Athens. The earliest poets, as we have seen, were mostly from Asia and the islands ; the earliest historians from Miletus ; the earliest philosophers from Ionia, Sicily, and Italy. Even in the Periclean age the chief seat of mental philosophy was Elea in Italy, and the leaders of a new physical philosophy came from Thrace or Asia. Simonides, the greatest writer of hymns and epigrams, was a native of Ceos ; Pindar, the greatest lyric poet, was a Boeotian ; and Herodotus, the first great writer of literary history, was a native of Halicar- nassus, in Caria. Yet this age saw the beginning of the movement which was to make Athens for a long time the intellectual capital of Greece. Though his speculations on the nature and origin of the universe alarmed the people and caused his expulsion from the city, Anaxagoras spent some years in Athens and profoundly affected Pericles 154 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY and his generation. Herodotus visited Athens more than once, and spent the last years of his life in Thurii, which was in great part an Athenian colony, while his successor in the art of history was a pure Athenian, Thucyclides, son of Olorus. The three great masters of tragedy were also Athenians, and in their different ways profoundly influenced the Greeks of this age and turned men's eyes still more decisively upon Athens, ^schylus, the poet of lofty religion and heroic passion, died in B.C. 456 ; Sophocles, the clear-eyed pourtrayer of the whole range of human emotion, lived from B.C. 495 to B.G 405 ; and Euripides, the master of pathos and the bold questioner of received beliefs, though fifteen years his junior, survived him only by a year. These artistic and literary triumphs helped to make Athens and the Athenians what they were. Constant association with noble words and beautiful sights had the same effect on their minds, says Plato, as living in a healthy spot has on their bodies. " From beautiful works of art there smites upon eyes and ears as it were a breeze from a healthful region, o * leading them insensibly from childhood to a con- formity and harmony with the good and a love of it." This gave a peculiar distinction to that supre- macy of Athens in the Hellas of that age, which the activity and enterprise of her sons, the wealth obtained from her subject allies, and her pre-eminent naval power had secured and consolidated. Yet there were not wanting signs of opposition to Pericles, both at home and among the members of the confederacy. His great opponent, Cimon, died in CONVICTION AND DEATH OF PHEIDIAS 157 B.C. 449, but another leader of the opposition sur- vived in Thucydides, son of Milesias, who inveighed against the expense incurred by the splendid works promoted by Pericles. Though he was got rid of by ostracism in B.C. 445, all opposition was not silenced. It showed itself at Athens in attacks upon the friends of Pericles. Pheidias was accused both of peculation and of impiety. The former he disproved by remov- ing the gold from the statue of Zeus, and showing that it was of the just weight. On the latter charge (founded on the introduction of his own likeness and that of Pericles among the warriors fighting the Amazons), he was, it seems, convicted and died in prison. Anaxagoras again was expelled for impiety, while Aspasia (mistress and friend of Pericles) was only saved by the utmost exertion of his influence. Amongst the allies the causes of discontent were accumulating. The transference of the League treasury from Delos to Athens, though approved by some allies, was offensive to others, and made the im- perial pretensions of the Athenians more conspicuous. The placing of an Athenian resident (IwiaKowo^) and garrison in some of the states, the insistence upon a democratic form of government, the periodical re- adjustment of the tribute or phoros, the high-handed treatment of Eubcea, ^Egina, Samos, and other states wishing to break off all indicated pretensions to despotic power, offensive to that passion for local autonomy which was the strongest political feeling among the Greeks. Pericles had also used more widely than ever the system of cleruckies, that is, of allotments of lands to Athenian citizens in Euboea 158 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY and other islands, which was also offensive to the ideas and habits of the Greeks, who understood the sending of colonists to unoccupied lands, there to form a new and independent state ; but neither under- stood nor liked the idea of the citizens of one state having lands assigned them by their own government in the territories of another. The subject allies were also annoyed at being obliged to go to Athens for the decision of certain suits by the Attic courts, which was the cause both of delay and expense. In the continent a standing grievance was a decree passed, it was alleged, owing to a private grievance of Pericles or Aspasia forbidding the people of Megara the use of the harbour and markets in Attica and its dependencies. It only required a spark to set the smouldering disloyalty of her allies and the growing envy and dislike of her neighbours on fire. This spark was supplied by a quarrel with Corinth. In B.C. 435 one of the ordinary revolutions occurred at Epi- damnus (Dyrrachium). The nobles were expelled by the popular party, and tried to effect their destruction by enlisting neighbouring barbarians. In their terror the popular party of Epidamnus applied for help to their mother state, Corcyra, and were refused. They then applied to Corinth, the mother city of Corcyra. The Corinthians sent a fleet which was defeated off Actium by the Corcyreans, who then forced Epidam- nus to surrender. The Corinthians resolved to renew the war and spent nearly two years in making preparations. Meanwhile both they and the Corcy- reans applied to Athens for aid. Under the influence REVOLT OF POTIDAEA l6l of Pericles the Athenians decided on an alliance with Corcyra, principally because of the advantage it pre- sented for ships sailing to Italy or Sicily, on which the eyes of the Athenians had long been fixed, as offering great opportunities for trade and settlements for their citizens. Accordingly, when the war between Corinth and Corcyra was renewed in B.C. 433, the Corinthians were prevented from taking advantage of a naval victory off the Sybota Islands by an Athenian squadron. The Corinthians, therefore, were anxious to find some means of retaliating upon Athens, and this was afforded them in the following year (B.C. 432), by the revolt of Potidaea, which was a colony of their own, from the Athenian alliance. The revolt had been originally instigated by the king of Macedonia, who wished to get control over the Chalcidian peninsula. The people of Potidaea applied to Corinth for help, which was readily given, and still more effective aid promised. But the Athenians were too quick for them, and the town was soon com- pletely blockaded by a strong Athenian force of men and ships, though it managed to hold out till the winter of B.C. 430. The Corinthians now sent envoys to Sparta denouncing the ambition and tyranny of Athens. The Spartans summoned a conference of their allies, and after long deliberation war with Athens was resolved upon. It was not begun at once. Em- bassies went backwards and forwards, and various demands were made, partly with a view of putting Athens in the wrong, partly in order to gain time 12 1 62 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY for preparation. The final demand that Athens should acknowledge the independence of all her allies was practically a declaration of war. The most eager for this had been the Megarians, owing to their exclusion from the Athenian markets ; the Corinthians, owing to affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea ; and the ^Eginetans, because they had been forced to join the confederacy of Delos and had been deprived of their autonomy. But the final cause which induced the Spartans to proclaim war was really dread of Athenian expansion. Athens had more power, than, according to Greek ideas, it was safe for any one state to possess. The war which followed is called the Pelopon- nesian war, because Sparta dominated the Pelopon- nese, which, with the exception of Argolis and Achaia, was mainly on her side ; but in fact nearly all continental Greece was hostile to Athens, who relied on her maritime and Asiatic allies. It was, therefore, a contest for the most part between a land and a sea power. It was also a contest between two political ideals oligarchy and democracy and to a certain extent racial, between Dorian and Ionian. It lasted with a brief interval till B.C. 404, and its result was the destruction of Athens as an imperial state, and almost as a political force at all in Greece. But the old ideal of perfectly autonomous states was not restored. Spartans took the place of Athenians with still greater odium and less success. The only one to profit was the king of Persia, whose satraps again interfered in Hellenic politics and reimposed his yoke upon the Asiatic Greeks. The PERIODS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR 163 ten years of Theban supremacy only succeeded in breaking up such union as existed, and Greece was left helpless and divided, to fall under the control of the kings of Macedonia. The war, therefore, has with some justice been called " The Suicide of Hellas." It may be divided into three periods. First, from B.C. 431 to B.C. 424, in which Athens was, on the whole, eminently successful till the defeat of an Athenian army at Delium, balancing the disaster of the previous year sustained by the Spartans at Sphacteria (B.C. 425), induced the two chief com- batants to make a truce for a year. Then followed a kind of interlude, B.C. 423-421, when there was neither open war nor real peace, for in B.C. 422 the war went on in Thrace, though there were no operations in Greece. In B.C., 421 Nicias, who had always been on the side of caution, negotiated a fifty years' peace. Secondly, B.C. 421-415. During the next six years Athens and Sparta were at peace, but the allies of neither were satisfied. New combinations were made by various states and met by counter- combinations which eventually produced a war between Sparta and Argos, in which Athenian troops took part with Argos, though the peace with Sparta nominally remained. The prominent Athenian statesman in this period is Alcibiades. Thirdly, B.C. 415-404. This period opens with nominal peace in Greece. The Athenians had the year before suppressed and cruelly punished an attempted revolt in Melos, and her supremacy in the ygean seemed safe. Her financial position had 1 64 ATHENIAN SUPREMACY also much improved. Nicias and the conservative part of the citizens were for peace and moderate counsels ; but Alcibiades instigated the people to return to an old dream of an empire in the West. The Greek cities in Sicily and Italy were to be made subject, and perhaps even the kingdom of Carthage. With that they would be able to revenge themselves on the Peloponnese, and once more be supreme in Greece. A quarrel between two Sicilian cities gave a pretext for the fatal expedition to Syracuse. The Spartans again took sides against Athens. Attica was not only again invaded, but permanently occupied. And though in the years which followed the destruc- tion of their armament at Syracuse, B.C. 413 to B.C. 404, they made a gallant struggle against the revolt which Sparta stirred up amongst their subject allies, one by one they were all wrested from her even Oropus and Euboea ; and when in B.C. 405 her last fleet was destroyed by Lysander at Aegospotami, there only remained a few months before Athens herself was compelled to surrender and allow her fortifications to be dismantled. It is to be remembered that this period of constant war and fierce controversy is also the great period of Athenian literature. Sophocles and Euripides were exhibiting their plays while Athenian fleets were conquering or being conquered. Aristophanes found the themes for his most brilliant comedies in the politicians of the day or the burning question of peace or war. Socrates was wandering through the streets, not uninterested in the events of the time, and being called upon more than once to take his share PAoto] [Alinari. THUCYDIDES, SON OF OLORUS, C. B.C. 471-401. (Capitoline Museum.') INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY DURING THE WAR 1 67 in military disaster or political peril, and yet never resting in that constant criticism of life, thought, and morals which laid the foundation of so much of the philosophy of the future. Thucydides, again, was actually engaged in the wars, and suffered, as he believed unjustly, from the rancour of the dema- gogues ; but he, too, worked on through the time of storm and stress to build up the " eternal possession " which he has bequeathed to posterity. It was when the days of strife were over and Athens had found peace without honour that the intellectual sceptre departed from her and found a place for a time in the Greek city of Alexander on the Nile. Peace may nurture genius, but does not seem to produce it. Nine of the ten orators might, perhaps, have lived in any age of Athenian history ; but it required a time of fierce strife and desperate struggle for freedom to make a Demosthenes. VI THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY The beginning of the Peloponnesian wars, B.C. 431 Revolt of Lesbos Disorders in Corcyra and Athenian interference in Sicily Demosthenes in ^Etolia Capture of Pylus, B.C. 425 Battle of Delium, B.C. 424 The campaign of Brasidas in the North and the gradual failure of Athens The truce of B.C. 423 The Peace of Nicias, B.C. 421 Greek politics from B.C. 421 to B.C. 45 Fresh provocations to Sparta The Sicilian Expedition, B.C. 415 Alleged profanation of the mysteries Mutilation of the Hermae The difficulties of the expedition Siege of Syracuse begun B.C. 414 The Spartans intervene Failure of the re-inforced Athenian army and navy Final defeat of the Athenians and death of Nicias and Demosthenes Effect on the prestige and authority of Athens The Athenians resist the dissolution of their confederacy The operations of the restored Alcibiades Cyrus and Lysander The battle of Notium, B.C. 407 Battle ot Arginusse, B.C. 406, and of /Egospotami, B.C. 405 The occupation of Athens and the destruction of her fortifications and constitution The Thirty Thrasybulus restores the democracy, B.C. 405-4 The Sophists in Athens Condemnation and death of Socrates, B.C. 399 Sparta supreme in Greece, B.C. 403-371 Sparta's efforts to free Asiatic Greeks after the death of Cyrus Leagues against Sparta, B.C. 396-390 Peace of Antalcidas, B.C. 387 Discredit of the Spartans New Athenian confederacy, B.C. 378-355 Battle of Leuctra, and beginning of Theban hegemony, B.C. 371 Rise of the Macedonian kingdom Reign of Philip II. from B.C. 359 to the peace of Philocrates, B.C. 346 Active encroachments of 1 68 BEGINNING OF THE WAR 1 69 Philip II. Opposition to Philip organised by Demosthenes, but ended by the battle of Chaeroneia, B.C. 338 Macedonian supremacy secured. THE war began with an attack upon Plataea by the Thebans 6.0.431. The three hundred Thebans who surprised the town were overpowered and killed. But the Plataeans knew that this would lead to their being besieged, and obtained a reinforcement for their garrison from Athens. The siege went on till B.C. 427. That was one point of permanent war ; but the Peloponnesian forces did not join the Thebans in the siege till the beginning of B.C. 429. Mean- while Athens was engaged at two points, first in the siege of Potidaea, which did not surrender till the autumn of B.C. 430 ; and secondly, in sustaining invasions of their own territory. These invasions were regularly repeated in B.C. 431, 430, 428, 427. In B.C. 429 and 426 they were omitted, in the former, owing to the Spartans being engaged at Plataea, in the latter owing to earthquakes. The policy recommended by Pericles in regard to these invasions was for the people to remove into the city with all they could bring with them and leave the invaders to do their worst with the country. Meanwhile the Athenian fleets were to harry the coasts of the Peloponnese, and carry the arms of Athens into Western Greece and the Islands of the Ionian Sea. Thus in B.C. 431 Cephallenia was reduced, and in B.C. 429 Acarnania was successfully defended against a combined attack of Peloponnesians and Ambra- ciots. In this same year Phormio twice defeated the Peloponnesian fleet, which in the second battle I/O THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR was commanded by Brasidas, one of the most able commanders produced by Sparta in the early years of the war, who failed, however, in an attack on the Piraeus. These years were a time of great distress in Athens owing to an outbreak of plague, which caused the death of many thousands, and demoralised the survivors by the constant peril, and the relaxation of all the usual restraints which it produced. The people turned fiercely upon Pericles, whom they regarded as the origin of their sufferings, both as having caused the war and induced them to crowd the city with countrymen and cattle. He was fined and deposed from his office of Strategus. And though the people shortly repented, and finding that they could not do without him, reinstated him in power, within a twelvemonth he himself fell a victim to the pestilence (B.C. 429). The next two years (B.C. 428-427) were marked by the revolt of Lesbos, which compelled the Athenians to maintain a blockade of Mitylene through the winter, and involved them in heavy expenses. The Peloponnesians, however, failed to take advantage of this difficulty in time. Before their fleet reached Lesbos in the following spring an uprising of the democratic party in Mitylene had compelled a surrender of the town to the Athenians. The Athenians were particularly exasperated by this outbreak at Lesbos. Up to this time their fleets had been employed, on the whole with success, in the West. This revolt forced them to maintain the conflict in two directions at once. They therefore determined to make a signal example, and a decree REVOLT AND RUIN OF MITYLENE I/I was actually passed for the execution of all the inhabitants of Mitylene. Next day, indeed, the people repented, and the decree was reversed, in spite of the strenuous opposition of Cleon, a demagogue who had risen into power since the death of Pericles. Still, about a thousand of the men who had been ringleaders in the revolt were executed, and their lands divided among Athenian cleruchs. Freed from this danger, the Athenian fleets were again employed in the west to support the democrats of Corcyra, who, after violent civil wars and terrible massacres, had expelled the aristocrats. Here, as at Lesbos, the dilatoriness or cowardice of the Spartan commander gave the Athenians the advantage. But though the aristocrats were compelled to leave the island, some of them shortly afterwards returned, and the civil disorders thus renewed prevented Corcyra from counting for anything henceforth in the war. The Athenians, however, still had their eyes directed westward, and this year saw the first of these interferences in the affairs of Sicily, which were several times repeated with the vain hope of establishing an Athenian supremacy there, and gain- ing a new vantage-ground for attacks upon the Peloponnese. The Greek cities in Sicily, like those in other parts, were perpetually at feud, Ionian against Dorian, and there would seldom be wanting some pretext for Athenian intervention. But it was necessary first to secure Western Greece, and in B.C. 426 Demosthenes led an army into ^Etolia. But the ^itolians, though living in 172 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR scattered villages without walled towns, were an active and gallant people, and knowing every part of the country, harassed and defeated Demosthenes, and followed up their success by an attack upon Naupactus, in which the Athenians had settled the vanquished Messenians, valuing their possession of it highly as commanding the entrance to the gulf of Corinth. But a peace formed between Acarnania and Ambracia at the close of this year put an end to these operations in the West, and though the Athenians continued to send ships and men to Sicily on various pretexts, nothing of importance occurred there, and a general pacification effected between the Sicilian cities in B.C. 424 closed that field for Athenian energies also. The interest of the struggle in B.C. 425 and 424 is rather in Greece itself. In B.C. 425 the accidental occupation of Pylos, in Messenia, by Demosthenes, who was on his way to Sicily with general orders to operate on the coast of the Peloponnese in the course of his voyage in any way that seemed good to him, caused great alarm at Sparta. A party of Spartan soldiers were placed on Sphacteria, a small island opposite Pylos, and stretching across the bay, who in their turn were blockaded by the Athenian fleet, and after holding out for some time were captured by Cleon, who, accusing the generals of backwardness, was sent personally to take the command. A Messenian garrison was then placed in Pylos to carry on a constant warfare of plunder on Lacedaemonian ter- ritory. The Spartans were now eager for peace and the recovery of their men who were prisoners at The Sieges of PYLOS & SPHACTEIUA a. Prehistoric Wall round the top of Mt. Ella. b. The hollow c. Point at which the Messenians landed to climb into th e hollow _^_ J d. Probable landing place of the A thenians Reproduced from Air. Hill's " Illustrations of School Classics." (By permission of Messrs. Mactnillan & 1 Co.) CHANGE AFTER THE SUCCESS AT PYLOS l?$ Athens. But the Athenians were too triumphant to listen, and the unexpected success of Cleon, who had, as he promised, taken the Spartans in Sphacteria within twenty days, had given him great influence in the assembly, and induced the people to follow his policy, which was to continue the war at all hazards, rather than that of the cautious and respectable Nicias, who was for making peace. They won a victory over the Corinthians in the autumn of B.C. 425 ; in the next year they occupied the island of Cythera, off the southern shore of Lacedaemonia, as well as other places on the mainland ; they seized Nisaea, the harbour-town of Megara ; and finally they were inspired with hopes of securing Bceotia, where a democratic party, envious of Thebes, was inviting their presence. A double invasion was planned, but owing to some mistake, the two armies failed to unite, and the Athenians sustained a severe defeat at Delium. The same year also the war was transferred by Brasidas to the Thraceward towns. Among other places he successfully attacked Amphipolis, which the historian Thucydides, commanding a small fleet at Thasus, failed to relieve. The Athenians were par- ticularly sensitive as to the loss of these towns owing to their corn and timber trade with them, and the countries round the Black Sea, which necessitated making voyages along the northern shores. Accordingly in B.C. 423 they concluded a year's truce with a view of a more permanent settlement. Nevertheless the year was not free from war. A revolt of two cities in the Chalcidian peninsula, 1/6 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR Mende and Scione, gave Brasidas an opportunity of seizing them, on the pretext that the revolt preceded the truce ; and the expedition sent by the Athenians to recover them was therefore in fact, if not in theory, a kind of war against Spartan forces. At the expiration of the truce (B.C. 422) an expedition was sent to recover Amphipolis and Torone, and the war went on in those parts with disastrous results to the Athenians, who were defeated in a battle near Amphipolis, in which both Brasidas and Cleon fell. The winter was employed in negotiations for peace. One difficulty was, that though both Athens and Sparta, from mutual disappointment at the result of the war, were anxious to make terms, the chief allies of Sparta Bceotia, Corinth, Elis Megara were unwilling to join. Another difficulty was, that though one of the terms of the peace was a mutual restitution of conquered states, this restitution was not always possible. Amphipolis refused to be handed back, and the Thebans declined to restore Plataea ; con- sequently, though the Athenians made a separate peace for forty years with Sparta, and handed back the Sphacterian prisoners, they retained Nisaea (the port of Megara) and Pylos. The interval of professed peace, therefore, did not promise well for a lasting settlement. In fact, intrigues were at once set on foot to establish a new confederacy independent of both Athens and Sparta, of which Argos was to be the head. It was joined by Corinth, Mantinea (in Arcadia), Elis, and the towns of the Chalcidic peninsula. The Boeotians did not join, and shortly afterwards made a separate ALCIBIADES AND ARGOS \"J"J treaty with Sparta. But in B.C. 420 Alcibiades, a young and reckless but very able statesman, who now first appears in public business, induced the Athenians to join the Argive confederacy, which, thus strengthened, began warlike operations against other towns in the Peloponnese to compel their adherence ; while the Athenians placed escaped helots and Messenians in Pylos with a view of fomenting fresh plundering expeditions upon Spartan territory (B.C. 419). The Spartans could not view these measures with indifference. They declared war on Argos (B.C. 418) and defeated the allied army at Mantinea. Not only was Mantinea compelled to submit, but a revolution took place at Argos itself, which put the oligarchical party in power, which at once made a treaty with Sparta. It is true that next year (B.C. 417) a counter revolu- tion restored the democrats, who rejoined Athens, but the battle of Mantinea practically put an end to efficient opposition to Sparta in the Peloponnese and broke up the conspiracy. Athens was still nominally at peace with Sparta. But a series of offensive acts on her part led to the open renunciation of that peace. Pylos was a stand- ing ground of quarrel. Athenian troops had fought at Mantinea on the side of Argos ; in B.C. 416 an Athenian fleet blockaded the island of Melos (a colony of Sparta) to compel its Dorian inhabitants to be contributors to the Athenian confederacy. At the beginning of the war they had contributed to the Spartan war fund though professing to take neither side. This had brought upon them an attack from 13 iyS THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR Athens in B.C. 426, and though Thucydides says that they stoutly refused to yield, their name appears on the list of the Athenian confederacy of the next year (B.C. 425) for fifteen talents. This is a large sum (more like a fine than an ordinary contribution), and it was perhaps their omitting to pay it that brought the Athenian fleet upon them again in B.C. 416. At any rate, the Spartans failed to assist them, and after several months blockade of their chief city they were forced to surrender. The Athenians put all men of military age to death, and sold the women and children into slavery, dividing their lands among seven hundred of their own settlers. Encouraged by the indifference shown by the Spartans to this cruel deed and their failure to stir up Perdiccas of Macedonia and the Chalicidians, the Athenians began schemes of greater importance. As before, their eyes turned to the West ; and ad- vantage of a quarrel between two Sicilian cities, Egesta and Selinus, was taken to aim at the conquest of all Sicily. Ambassadors were sent to Egesta to find out whether that city was wealthy and likely to contribute what it had promised when applying for aid. In the spring of B.C. 415 they returned with a favourable report, having been themselves deceived by a show of wealth. 1 Nicias was, as usual, cautious, and tried to dissuade the people from such an enterprise ; but Alcibiades * The story is that they were constantly entertained at banquets at which there was always a splendid display of gold and silver plate, but that they did not notice that it was the same plate passed on from house to house. Photo'] ALCIBIADES, C. B.C. 450-404. (Uffizi Gallery, Florence.) [Alinari. ALC1BIADES ACCUSED OF IMPIETY l8l carried the day against him without difficulty, because he was for the moment appealing to what had long been a cherished hope of the people. Nicias was appointed general with two others Alcibiades and Lamachus. The former, brilliant, versatile, and unscrupulous, had always been his political opponent and must have been a most un- welcome colleague. The latter was a good soldier and honest man, but from lack of position and wealth could exercise little influence. Nicias tried in vain to damp the popular ardour by the mag- nitude of his demands as to ships, men, and money. But everything was voted without a murmur, so great was the wealth expected from the spoil or trade of the island. The aristocratic party, who supported Nicias, then tried to discredit Alcibiades in other ways. Rumours were set afloat of daring acts of profanity committed by him and some other of his friends and boon com- panions. They were alleged to have repeatedly performed the ceremonies of the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries in private houses. During many years of the war the plain lying between the city and Eleusis had been so open to attacks of the enemy that the usual procession to Eleusis had been impossible. It had been, therefore, alto- gether omitted, and the worshippers, if they went at all, went by sea. This may have suggested the performance of these rites by Alcibiades and his friends. Still the publication of them to the un- initiated was regarded as a profanation which would place the perpetrators under the curse of 1 82 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR the Eumolpidae, or priests of Demeter, only to be expiated by their death. It would certainly unfit them for any public employment. But just before the sailing of the expedition another outrage in the city roused still more both the religious and political fears of the people. The Hermae stone pillars surmounted by busts of Hermes stood in great numbers in the streets and colonnades. These were nearly all found to have been mutilated in one night. In addition to the shock given to the religious ideas of the people by this piece of vandalism, there was the uneasy feeling with which any concerted and secret action was always regarded, as indicating revolu- tionary plots, almost certain to be for the establish- ment of a tyranny. The peace party pointed to Alcibiades as the ringleader in the mischief, though not long afterwards Andocides confessed his guilt and named his accomplices. It seems unlikely that as he was starting on an expedition which he ardently desired, and from which he expected such great advantages, he should have so wantonly done what he must have known would thwart his own plans. It is more probable that it was a mere freak of dissipation, or deliberately contrived by his enemies to discredit him. He urged that he should be put on his trial at once, and not sent out in com- mand while labouring under such a suspicion. The people, however, were too eager for the expedition, and too much convinced of his military abilities to grant the request His enemies supported this vote, for they thought that they could attack him with a better Photo] SATYR AND CHILD, AS A HERM. (Lateran Museum.) START OF THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION 185 hope of success when the people were not under the spell of his eloquence and charm. The fleet, therefore, left the Piraeus after solemn prayer and libation, and amidst the cheers and encouragement of the people who crowded down to the har- bour. The armament was on an unusual scale of magnificence. There were a hundred Athenian triremes, with fifty from Lesbos and Chos, four thousand Athenian hoplites with three hundred cavalry, besides many more from the allied states. The crews were picked men, and the troops selected with special care, while great sums of money had been lavished on the equipment and ornamentation of the ships as well as of the men. The fleet was accompanied by a large number of transports and private trading vessels whose owners hoped to find opportunities for profitable traffic in Sicily. The whole armament made for Corcyra, where large forces of the allies of Athens were ordered to meet them. But from the first moment that this great arma- ment left Corcyra for lapygia, in the south of Italy, one ominous difficulty after another seemed to predict failure. The cities on the Italian coast till they reached Rhegium refused to furnish supplies ; and at Rhegium, though allowed to purchase what they needed, they could get no intelligence that any Sicilian cities were prepared to welcome them, nor could the three commanders agree on the plan of operations. Nicias was for attempting nothing beyond the professed object of the expedition the settlement of the quarrel between Egesta and Selinus. Lamachus and Alcibiades were for 1 86 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR carrying out its real object the conquest of Sicily. But even they differed as to the means. Lamachus was for sailing direct to Syracuse, Alcibiades for first making an attempt to win over other Sicilian towns and native Sicels to their side. But when the plan of Alcibiades was finally accepted and the armament moved to Catana which had been induced almost by accident to admit them at was met by a trireme sent by the Athenians to recall Alcibiades to stand his trial for impiety. His enemies had succeeded in his absence in stirring up the popular feeling against him, and thus the ablest of the generals was lost to the expedition, and a most dangerous enemy was secured for Athens. For Alcibiades sailing, with others recalled with him, on his own private trireme (which his family had for some time past maintained) eluded his escort at Thurii. Waiting till it had departed for home in despair of finding him, he crossed to the Peloponnese. There he instigated the Spartans to take up the cause of the Syracusans, and especially to effect a diversion by permanently occupying a post in Attica. Meanwhile at Catana nothing was done for some months. When at last the Syracusan forces were tempted towards Catana, and the Athenian com- manders taking advantage of this movement made a descent upon Syracuse by sea, though they defeated a Syracusan army, they found it too late in the year to begin a regular siege. Next spring (B.C. 414), however, active operations were begun. The Athenians landed at Thapsus, surprised the high ground above Syracuse, called SIEGE OF SYRACUSE 1 8? Epipolae, and began constructing lines intended to extend from shore to shore, while their ships block- aded the harbour. For a brief space all seemed going well ; the Syracusans were frequently repulsed in sallies against these lines (though Lamachus was killed in one of them) ; and in their despair they deposed their generals, Hermocrates and his colleagues, and began treating with Nicias for a surrender. The rapid reversal of these fair pros- pects is one of the most dramatic incidents in military history, and may be directly traced to Alcibiades. It was by his advice that the Spartans resolved upon taking an active part in a war, which in itself did not concern them or justify a breach of the fifty years' peace. That justification was, however, easily found in a plundering expedition on the part of the Athenians on the coast of Laconia. Gylippus was despatched from Sparta with a small force and arrived at Tarentum when the fortunes of the Athenians seemed at their highest point. He might even now have been intercepted, but Nicias regarded the smallness of his force with contempt, and made no effort to prevent his sailing through the straits. He therefore coasted along the northern shore of Sicily and landed at Himera. Here he collected large numbers both of Greeks and native Sicels and marched to Syracuse, pene- trating the Athenian lines at a point where they were incomplete and weakly guarded. His arrival turned the scale completely. A cross-wall was built which for ever prevented the completion of the circumvallation by the besiegers, and Nicias for 1 88 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR the rest of the season had to remain on the de- fensive. In the winter he sent home a despatch detailing the difficulties of his position, the deteriora- tion of his ships, and the diminution of his forces by losses on the field, sickness, and desertion. He begged to be recalled, as being broken in health, and he demanded at any rate to be reinforced by a second armament on the same scale as that originally sent. The people refused to relieve him of his command, but voted a large reinforcement, which sailed in the spring of B.C. 413, under Demos- thenes and Eurymedon. But it was too late. Nicias had lost Epipolae : he was encamped on the low ground south of the town open to attacks from the Syracusan cavalry at the Olympieium, though protected on the seaboard by his ships. The Athenians still dominated the Great Harbour ; but Gylippus used his successes on land to encourage the Syracusans to send their ships out of their own inner harbour to try conclusions with the Athenian fleet. At first they met with reverses, but these were made up for by the capture of Athenian stores and magazines on Plemmyrium, the headland forming the southern shore of the Great Harbour. They were also strongly reinforced by troops from most of the Sicilian towns. Lastly, just before the arrival of the relieving squadron from Athens the Syracusans, who had now learnt to remedy defects in their ships, gained an important victory at sea. Nicias was therefore in a very dangerous position. For a brief period the spirits of the Athenians were revived bv the arrival of their new armament. FINAL BATTLE IN THE GREAT HARBOUR 189 But everything went wrong. An attempt to recover Epipolae was repulsed with great loss, and when Demosthenes and Eurymedon therefore wished to take the whole force home, Nicias refused on the ground that the people would resent it. Yet they would probably have prevailed had it not been for an eclipse of the moon, after which the seers forbade any movement for a month, and Nicias was firm in refusing to disobey the warning. The result was that the Syracusans again attacked them by land and sea. The land attack was repulsed, but the defeat of the fleet was so complete that all idea of any further offensive movement had to be abandoned. The best they could hope would be to escape in safety. But the Syracusans blocked the mouth of the Great Harbour, and therefore escape could only be effected by a naval success in the harbour itself. Eurymedon had fallen in the previous engage- ment, but Demosthenes now took command at sea, while Nicias, who was displaying great energy, remained with the land forces, to protect those crews which were forced ashore. The fight was long and desperate, but in the end the Athenian ships were disastrously defeated ; such of them as were not captured or sunk were run ashore near the Athenian camp into which the crews fled for safety. Nothing now remained but to retreat by land into the centre of the island where friendly Sicels might aid or protect them. But even now their evil destiny pursued them. Instead of retreating at once, as was the first impulse of Nicias and Demosthenes, they were induced by a cunning message of Hermocrates, THE PELOPONNRSIAN WAR purporting to come from friends within the "city, to delay the start to the second night. This gave the enemy time to block the roads, and make preparation for harassing their march. Accordingly, on the next day both Demosthenes and Nicias, who were each commanding a column, were overtaken and com- pelled to surrender. In spite of the protest of .Gylippus, both were put to the sword ; while the captured Athenians were sold as slaves or confined in the quarries near Syracuse, where large numbers perished. In grateful contrast to this cruelty stories were told of some who gained the favour of their masters and ultimately their freedom by being able to recite passages from the plays of Euripides. Seldom had the destruction of so large and splendid a force been so complete. The disaster affected a very large part of Greece. Thucydides gives us the names of about thirty-eight states from which a certain number of citizens were serving in the Athenian force. They include towns or peoples of all parts of Hellas, Sicily, Italy, Ionia, the ygean islands and Asiatic Greece. The defeat of this great armament, therefore, must have caused mourning all over Greece, and a keen sense of the weakened prestige of Athens ; which was farther hampered by the permanent occupation of Decelea, only about fifteen miles from the city, by a Peloponnesian force commanded by a Spartan king. Accordingly there was a widely-spread inclination to revolt among the subject allies. The Persian satraps in Asia Minor, Pharnabazus and Tissa- phernes, saw their opportunity of reasserting their PERSIAN PRETENSIONS REVIVE 19 1 master's authority over the Greek cities in Asia, and his influence in Greece generally. Very early in the Peloponnesian war there had been communications between the Spartans and the Persian court, and now (B.C. 412-411) a regular agreement was come to with Tissaphernes. At first he demanded that the king should recover all that his predecessors had held, but as this might have been interpreted to include the islands, and perhaps all Greece as far south as Boeotia, the Spartans recoiled from such a betrayal, but finally agreed that he should be acknowledged as lord over all the cities in Asia. A large number of these cities had already been instigated to break off from the Athenian confederacy as well as the islands of Euboea, Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes ; while the border town of Oropus was seized by the Boeotians. It was, in fact, a breaking up of the confederacy which the Spartans were prepared to purchase at the price of the enslavement of the Greek towns in Asia and something more. In return for this Tissaphernes was to supply money for the pay of Peloponnesian soldiers and sailors. The Athenians, however, were not prepared to submit, in spite of their recent loss and the perpetual irritation and distress caused by the occupation of Decelea. By immense exertions they got a fleet of more than a hundred triremes afloat ; and as the J democrats in Samos just then revolted and expelled the oligarchs that island became more closely allied than ever to Athens, and was the headquarters of its fleet throughout this period. Detachments of this fleet reduced several of the revolting states on the 1 92 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR coast of Asia, and besieged the island of Chios. The situation was further complicated by the action of Alcibiades, who, finding his position in Sparta wearisome or dangerous, joined Tissaphernes, and persuaded him for a time to be somewhat less liberal in his support of the Spartans, arguing that it was not for the king's interest that any one Greek state should be too powerful. Taking advantage of the influence which he had or professed to have over Tissaphernes, he now negotiated with the commanders of the Athenian fleet at Samos for his own restora- tion. The majority of the naval commanders sent Peisander to Athens to effect a revolution in the democratical constitution and to secure the recall of Alcibiades. By the help of Antiphon, Phrynichus, Theramenes, the revolution, already prepared by numerous assassinations under the auspices of the political clubs, was brought about. The chief power was put in the hands of a council of 400 (instead of the council of 500), and the right of voting in the Ecclesia was to be confined to 5,000 selected persons. This constitution lasted a very short time, ') partly because the Spartans were not ready to make terms with the new government (for they expected to subdue Athens shortly by their own superior power), and partly because the revolutionaries were divided among themselves. Theramenes, especially, j from vaccillation or moderation (according as we < interpret his character with favour or dislike r ) 1 Theramenes, who now first comes into notice, got the nickname of "the buskin" (cothurnus] which would fit either foot. The truer explanation is perhaps that he sincerely entertained a philosophical ideal which suited neither extreme. FALL OF THE FOUR HUNDRED 193 wished to make the assembly of 5,000 " best men " a reality, while others only wished to keep power in their own hands. Moreover, the fleet at Samos, now under the command of Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus strong democrats declined to recognise the new government. Lastly, it lacked the merit of success. The Spartans secured the revolt of Eubcea and defeated an Athenian force sent to recover it ; and the mortification and terror of the Athenian people were increased by seeing a new fort being erected at the entrance of the harbour of the Piraeus, which they believed to be intended to overawe them and protect Peloponnesian invaders. A counter revolution, therefore, quickly took place, "and the restored ecclesia voted the recall of Alcibiades (as the commanders at Samos wished) and even elected him Strategus. For more than two years (B.C. 410-408) the genius of Alcibiades seemed to promise a return of the old supremacy of Athens. The Spartan fleet leaving Miletus and southern Asia Minor, from mistrust of Tissaphernes, removed towards the end of B.C. 41 1 to the Hellespont, where their admiral Dercylidas hoped to be more loyally supported by the Satrap of Phrygia, Pharnabazus. There it was twice defeated off Cynossema (B.C. 41 1) by Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus, and practically annihilated next year (B.C. 410) off Cyzicus by Alcibiades. As a result the Athenians once more occupied Byzantium and Chalcedon, and were again masters of the Northern ^Egean Sea (B.C. 408). After a pause of a year in any warlike movements of importance, during which Alcibiades visited 14 194 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR Athens and had a great reception, operations began again in the South. A new element in the struggle now appeared. Cyrus, the younger son of Darius II. of whose abilities anH character }Cenophon has left us a very attractive picture I came down to the coast with powers over the whole of Lower Asia, superior to the two satraps. The Lacedaemonian admiral was now Lysander, a man of low origin but possessed of remafklfbTe' talents as a statesman, diplomatist, and soldier. An intimate friendship sprang^ip Between him and Cyrus, partly owing to his personal qualities, partly because the prince had made up his mind to support Sparta as being most inclined to acknowledge the Persian rule of the Asiatic Greek states. From that time there was renewed activity in the Spartan fleet, materially promoted by the regular payment of the men which the liberality of Cyrus made possible. In the next campaign, which was thus rendered inevitable, the good fortune of the last three years once more failed the Athenians. Their defeat off Notium was brought about by the second in command (Antiochus) pro- voking the fleet of Lysander, then at Ephcsus, to give him battle. Alcibiades, who had gone to con- sult Thrasybulus, then besieging Phocaea, had expressly forbidden him to fight ; but he had to , bear the wrath of the people caused by the dis- obedience and incompetence of his subordinate. He was deposed from his command and retired to a castle which he owned on the Chersonese. The command was transferred to a board of ten generals, one of whom was Conon, ARGINUS& AND ^.GOSPOTAMI 195 Nothing went right with the Athenian fleet after this. Though the Spartan fleet was also under a com- mander much inferior to Lysander, it defeated Conon, shut him up in Mitylene, and seized Mythymna. The other Athenian generals did indeed win a naval victory at Arginusae (B.C. 406), but it was at a con- siderable sacrifice of life, made more signal by their failure to rescue a number of men who were cling- ing to wrecked vessels .after the battle. It seems that a storm made it impossible, but the generals were denounced at home, recalled, and six of them were tried and put to_death. It was on this occasion that Socrates, who happened to be one of the pry- fanes, or presidents of the ecclesia, showed his courage and respect for law by refusing to put the resolution, condemning the generals, to the vote, because it was illegal to condemn men together by a single decree. Next year (B.C. 405), Lysander again took the command of the Peloponnesian fleet. 1 He once more removed the scene of the war to the point at which Athens was most sensitive the Hellespont. He seized Lampsacus, and, waiting his opportunity, sailed across to attack the Athenian fleet on the opposite coast at ^gospotami, when the men were mostly on shore al breakfast, destroyed their ships, and captured and put to death about 3,000 men. The sacred ship, the paralus, escaped and took the news to Athens, while Conon, with eight ships made his way to 1 It was illegal at Sparta for a man to be twice elected naval com- mander (navarchus) ; he was therefore appointed "chief secretary" (efistoleits), but practically with chief authority. 196 THE PELOPONNES1AN WAR Cyprus and remained under the protection of King Evagoras. 1 The Athenians were now helpless. They had no more ships of war, ancl orfland they were still effectually" kept in check by the Spartan garrison at Decelea. Lysander was so sure of his prey that he macTe"~no haste to sail to the Piraeus. He busied himself for some months in taking over towns once in alliance with or subject to Athens, expelling the Athenian garrisons, but granting them safe-conducts to Athens, that the number of mouths in the doomed city might be increased. He was not opposed any- where, the whole Athenian empire crumbled away as if by magic, and none of the allies maintained their allegiance but Samos. The Spartan army at Decelea was reinforced un3er the second King Pausanias, and the Academy, just outside the walls, was occupied. The city was to be starved out. Theramenes as likely to be a persona grata at Sparta was com- missioned to go to Lysander and make terms, but remained nearly three months away ; and when he returned the people were ready to submit to "anything. Some of the allies, such as the Corinthians and Thebans, wished to destroy Athens altogether. But the Spartans, to their honour, rejected the proposal ; and at length peace was granted on condition of 1 Philoclcs, the commander, was put to death on the ground of having executed certain Corinthians and Andrians by hurling them from a cliff, and a proposal to cut off the right hands of all prisoners was alleged as an excuse for putting the others to death. In fact the war had lasted so long that exasperation was blinding both sides to Hellenic principles. THE THIRTY AT ATHENS 197 Athens renouncing all authority over other states, pos- sessing only twelve ships of war, recalling oligarchical exiles, pulling down the long walls, and dismantling the Piraeus (Spring of B.C. 404). Lysander sailed into the Piraeus and superintended the destruction of the long walls and the fortifications of the harbour. He then withdrew, leaving the oligarchical party now in the ascendent to arrange a revolution in the constitution. After a short time he returned, and under his influence and in obedience to a threatening speech, the Assembly voted the appointment of Thirty Com- missioners, who were to draw up a new constitution and meanwhile to conduct the government The city was then relieved, not only of the presence of Lysander, but of the army of occupation at Decelea and in the Academy. Athens was left free from actual foreign control, but a shadow of its former self. The Thirty governed tyrannically, filled their coffers with the confiscated property of their opponents, whom they either drove into exile or put to death, and in a few months had rendered themselves hateful to all classes. Theramenes, who was one of them, incurred the enmity 01 nis colleagues by counselling moderation and opposing the proposition that the New Assembly should consist of a definite number (3,000). He argued that it should be composed of all citizens of good character, and that the arbitrary execution of respectable men should cease. Critias, however, who took the lead among the Thirfy, had no difficulty in getting rid of him. In a meeting of the Council he struck his name off the list of the 198 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR privileged citizens, and delivered him to the Eleven for execution. After his death the tyranny went on for some months unchecked. However, the numerous citizens living in exile found safe refuge in Thebes and other towns, which from jealousy of Sparta, refused to deliver them up. It was from them that relief at length came. In September (B.C. 404) Thrasybulus, living in exile at Thebes, suddenly left that city with about seventy followers and seized Phyle, a fortress commanding a pass over Mount Parries! Thither flocked refugees from all quarters. An attack made upon them by the forces of the Thirty failed ; and though the Thirty were able to seize Eleusis, Thrasybulus re- taliated by occupying the peninsula of the~~Piraeus, finally fixing his headquarters at Munychia. In the battle which followed with the army of the Thirty he was completely victorious. Critias himself fell, as well as another of the Thirty, and a conference being held between the leading men of either side, it was agreed to depose the Thirty and appoint a Com- mission of Ten to treat with Thrasybulus. The Ten, however, proved unwilling to agree to a complete restoration of the constitution and appealed for help to Sparta. The Spartan king Pausanias was sent with an army, and Lysander was appointed harmost (Spartan governor) of Athens. But, as often happened in these Spartan expeditions, internal jealousy pre- vented effective action. Pausanias did not wish to see Lysander too powerful, and after making a show of assaulting the Piraeus he gave a hint that he was willing to receive ambassadors. The matter was RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY 1 99 referred to the Spartan government at home and an amnesty and general restitution of property was agreed upon. The old constitution seems to have at once revived, and, as it was now about June (B.C. 403), the Boule of 500 and the Archons were appointed in the usual way the Archon Eponymous being Euclides. All legal decisions made before the year of "anarchy " (B.C. 404-3) were to be held good, but a commission was appointed to redraft the laws founded on those of Solon, and this code was to be henceforth authoritative. The amnesty could be pleaded in bar of all proceedings against any citizen for what had been done in the year of anarchy. The end of the Peloponnesian war and the year of anarchy that followed it saw other changes in Athens. The national character seems little to have changed. There still remained more than half a century during which the Athenians showed wonder- ful energy and a vigorous national life. But in some respects it coincided with the end of other things, especially in art and literature. Her three great tragedians were dead and had no worthy successors. Aristophanes was still alive and was still exhibiting comedies, but they lacked the old boldness in criti- cising public men and measures. As an historian Xenophon was a poor successor of Thucydides, thcmgh probably in general culture he was his superior. The Sophists, or Lecturers, who had visited Athens from time to time, had principally promoted the study of oratory or literature. They seldom pro- fessed to teach physical science, and in their instruc- tions Ethics were generally treated as a branch of 2OO THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR Politics the art of social life. The leading names among them were Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leontini, Polus of Agrigentum, Hippias of Elis, Pro- dicus of Ceos. The apologue called " The Choice of Heracles," by the last named, has been preserved by Xenophon, and has been copied and translated every- where. It is a plea for the strenuous life of virtue against the charms of pleasure and self-indulgence. The Sophists all differed in their views and methods and ought to be judged separately. They have, how- ever, frequently been spoken of as a class, as if the tendency of their teaching was identical. Perhaps this view is not confined to moderns. The ordinary Athenian was apt to have the same idea of them, just as in our day men of business dismiss certain views and opinions with the contemptuous epithet of "academic." That this was in part at any rate the case is evident from the fact that when Aristophanes wished to attack them he selected as their represen- tative the well-known figure of Socrates. In the " Clouds " there are attributed to Socrates many opinions and studies from which he was specially averse. The Satire is not even a parody of his teaching; it is quite beside the mark. But it showed what a certain sort of Athenians in the professional class thought of what we should call the " higher education." And the fate that shortly afterwards befel Socrates is connected with the popular view as to the evil tendency of sophistic teaching. Socrates was born about B.C. 469, was brought up as a sculptor, and duly served his turn in the army at Potidaia, Delium, and Amphipolis. But he very Photo'] SOCRATES, B.C. 469-399. ( Vatican Museum^) \Krogi. LIFE AND TEACHING OF SOCRATES 2O3 early abandoned his profession and avoided as far as he could any more active participation in public business. He devoted himself to philosophy and applied himself to listen to everybody of eminence who might assist his studies. He soon gave up physics as leading to nothing and being beyond human powers and devoted his whole mind to ethics and mental philosophy. He spent his time in the gymnasia especially the Lyceum and was ever ready to discuss questions on these subjects with any and everybody, especially with the young men, who, having learnt what was to be learnt at school, were seeking more advanced training. He charged no fee, and his conversation and company were open to all. It would be impossible in a short space to discuss the positive side of his teaching, so far as there was any. But a few words may show why he was likely to make enemies. He did not lecture but conversed, and his method was to apply his elenchos or refutation in such a way as to show his hearers that they did not know what they thought they knew. Thus men would glibly use the words "justice," " right and wrong," " holiness," " virtue," " wisdom," and the like. He would show them that they had no clear idea of what these words indicated, and therefore on what principles they were conducting their life or choosing one line of action and rejecting another. The same process would show men that their views and conceptions of the gods were hopelessly vague and uncertain. Such demonstrations could easily be represented as sapping the foundations of religion and morality. The prejudice which was roused by them 2O4 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR was confirmed by the fact that some of the youths who frequented his society had turned out bad and mis- chievous citizens such as Alcibiades the traitor, and Critias the most abhorred of the Thirty. After the restoration of B.C. 403 there was perhaps a more than usually strong feeling that such teaching had been bad for the youths, and might in part be accountable for the disasters of recent years. Yet Socrates had always been tolerated. When he refused to put the vote for the condemnation of the six generals after Arginusae, though howled at and threatened, he had departed unharmed. When during the tyranny of the Thirty he had refused to take part in one of their illegal arrests he had received no further harm than threatening words. His face and figure, his endless talk, his constant humiliation of wordy and preten- tious people, had provoked nothing more alarming than a laugh or a petulant retort. But, suddenly in B.C. 399, three men were found representing the classes which had felt most annoyance at his argu- ments and methods Meletus, a poet, Lycon, an orator, and Anytus, a man of business, determined to prosecute. It was difficult to name the charge. It had to be classed under the general word aSiKti " he wrongs" i.e., the people, by disbelieving the gods of the country and introducing new gods, and by corrupting the youths. Socrates was condemned by a small majority, and his prosecutors assessed the punishment at death. Socrates had the right to make a counter assessment, and would probably have been able to name a fine sufficiently large to be accepted. But he all along took the line that instead CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SOCRATES 2O5 of wronging the people he had been their greatest benefactor, and if he deserved anything it was to be maintained free of cost in the Prytaneum the highest honour bestowed by the state as a mis- sionary of virtue, and as having been sent by Provi- dence expressly to rouse and stimulate the Athenians. The jurors regarded this as defiance and a contempt of their court. They accordingly voted for the pro- secutor's proposal of death. Execution usually followed the next day, but the festival of Delos was then in progress, and it was the custom that no execution should take place till the return of the sacred galley sent by Athens to the island on such occasions. Socrates therefore had another month of life, during which his escape might easily have been secured by wealthy friends. But he refused to break the law by quitting the prison, and remained to die. This is one of those crimes of which popular govern- ments seem little less capable than tyrannies. It can be explained but not defended. Among other things it was useless. Socrates had done his work, and had given the impetus which made the philosophy of which Athens was the home for the next century. He recognised this himself, and knew that the time had come to depart, before age and decrepitude had weakened his influence. He had no fear for the future it was to be either a dreamless sleep or the companionship of the just. The five hundred Athe- nian patriots who formed the jury have to share with Pontius Pilate the eternity of ill-fame gained by their j spirited "vindication of the law." After the disasters of B.C. 505-303 Athens stands 2O6 AFTER THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR aside for a time. We have now to contemplate a Spartan Greece a Greece, that is, in which any combined action that might be undertaken must be approved and led by the Spartans, and in which Sparta will claim the right of placing a resident or Jiarmost and a garrison in any of the states formerly belonging to the Athenian alliance in which it seemed necessary. These residents speedily became more odious than the Athenian officers had ever been, and before many years had passed revolts were frequent and often successful. But the prime duty of a state occupying the position now held by Sparta was to champion Greek freedom against the unceasing intrigues of the Persian satraps. Her ultimate failure to do this was consummated by the Peace of Antalcidas (B.C. 387), which surrendered to the king all that it had been the object of the hundred years' opposition to prevent. At first Sparta seemed inclined to undertake the duty with some vigour, and with the freer hand because of the disappearance of her great supporter and patron, Cyrus, in B.C. 401. That prince in the previous year had collected a large army, including a contingent of 10,000 Greeks, under the pretext of crushing the predatory Pisidians, but really to depose his brother Artaxerxes, who had just succeeded his father, Darius II. All went well on the march, and he found his brother in force near Cunaxa, on the Euphrates, some fifty miles north of Babylon. But though in the battle which followed the Greek con- tingent won a victory, Cyrus himself was killed, and THE SPARTAN POLICY IN ASIA 2O? the whole enterprise came to nothing. The romantic story of the retreat of the Greeks to the shores of the Kuxine has been immortalised by Xenophon. They reached the sea at Trapezus, and thence made their way, some by land and some by sea, to Byzantium, and on to the Thracian Chersonese. But they found that the effects of the expedition of Cyrus were not over with their escape. The king had been warned of the intentions of Cyrus by Tissaphernes, and rewarded him with the satrapies once held by that prince. Tissaphernes came down with the determination to reduce the Greek cities to obedience. They in their terror had begged help from Sparta, and Thimbron had been despatched with five thousand men to their aid. He was joined by the greater part of the Greeks who had survived the expedition of Cyrus, and having made some progress in his opposition to Tissaphernes, then marched south to Ephesus. There he was superseded by Dercylidas (B.C. 399), who in that and the following year gained further successes in yEolis, Bithynia, and the Thracian Chersonese. In B.C. 397 he returned to Caria, but there arranged an armistice with the Persian satraps. These operations were continued on a larger scale in B.C. 396 to B.C. 394 by the Spartan king, Agesilaus, who succeeded to the throne in B.C. 398. He overran Lydia and Phrygia, and in B.C. 395, inflicted so severe a defeat upon the Persian cavalry in Lydia that Tissaphernes was recalled and Tithraustes sent to take over his satrapy. But this was the end of the effec- tive service of Agesilaus. Tithraustes outwitted him in diplomacy, and having induced him to sign an 2O8 AFTER THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR armistice for six months, took advantage of the inter- val to send an agent into Greece to bribe Thebes, Corinth, and Argos to stir up war against Sparta. Then followed a period of distraction in Greece full of petty wars, of combinations formed and dissolved, and of internal dissensions in many of the chief towns. The only gainer was Persia, whose alliance was sought by various parties alternately. Thus in B.C. 395 a dis- pute as to frontiers broke out between the Phocians and Locrians, and Sparta and Thebes took opposite sides. This cost Lysander his life, who was defeated and killed near HaTiartus, in Boeotia. Next year a combined army of Thebans, Athenians, Corinthians, and Argives was defeated by the Spartans near Corinth. Then the Persian Pharnabazus resolved to crush Sparta, and, collecting a fleet, put Conon still living in Cyprus at the head of the Greek part of it The Spartan fleet having been defeated and almost annihilated off Cnidus (B.C. 394), Conon, after expelling the Spartan harmosts from" Trie islands, next year (B.C. 393), sailed to Athens, and restored the long walls and the fortifications of the Piraeus. The victory led to a renewal of the com- bination against Sparta, and the hasty recall of Agesilaus from Asia. He defeated the allies at Coronela, but the war went on with Corinth as the base. The Corinthians themselves, however, were fiercely divided, and the party in favour of Sparta admitted Agesilaus into the space between the long walls connecting Corinth and Lechaiiim, where he again defeated the allied forces (B.C. 392), and in the course of the next year established Spartan's THE PEACE OF ANTALC1DAS 2O9 supremacy in Corinth and Northern Peloponnesus generally. Then came a check to the success of Sparta by the military genius of the Athenian Iphicrates, who, with a force specially trained and more Tightly armed than the regular hoplites, cut to pieces a company or mora of Spartans (B.C. 390). This made a great impression in Greece generally, and seems to have influenced the Spartans once more to obtain the support of Persia. There had been meanwhile various operations at sea, in which suc- cesses had been gained on both sides, without any very decisive result, as far north as Byzantium and as far south as Rhodes. But when in B.C. 387 the Spartan ambassador, Antalcidas, returned from the Persian court with a royal decree announcing that he would war against any state that attempted tci violate two conditions (i) the possession by the king of the Greek states in Asia, (2) the autonomy of all other states (except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which were to belong to Athens) the Greeks in general were obliged to submit, because with the assistance of the Persians, Antalcidas had collected a fleet of eighty vessels, and no state was strong enough to resist him. The Spartan supremacy had thus a new lease of life. But in the sixteen years which followed (B.C. 387-371) a series of violent and oppressive proceedings on the part of the Spartan government and officers gave rise to renewed war, which made the king's rescript a dead letter, except that the loss of freedom on the part of the Asiatic cities remained. But there was only the briefest interval of peace 15 2IO AFTER THE PELOPONNES1AN WAR among the Greeks themselves. In B.C. 385, on the flimsiest pretext of disaffection, the Spartans besieged Mantinea, and forced its inhabitants to dismantle their town and live in open villages. Three years later (B.C. 382) they attacked Olynthus, whose neighbours were jealous of its growing" power and appealed for help to Sparta. Olynthus was not reduced till B.C. 379, after the Spartans had suffered more than one disaster. In the same year Phlius, in the north of Argolis, was also reduced and forced to submit to its oligarchical rulers. But a less justifiable proceeding than any of these took place in B.C. 381, when Phoebidas, while on the march to reinforce the army attacking Olynthus, was admitted by treachery into the Kadmeia or citadel of Thebes and held it by force. Though the Spartan government disavowed re- sponsibility for his action, the garrison remained in occupation till B.C. 378. But though this year witnessed the success of the Spartans at Olynthus and Phlius, it really proved the turning-point in the struggle and the beginning of the fall of the Spartan supremacy. For in the winter of B.C. 379-8 a number of young Thebans (among whom was Pelopidas) suddenly assaulted and killed the ring- leaders of the Spartan party in Thebes, got possession of the city, and next day stormed the Kadmeia and forced the Spartan garrison to surrender on condition of being allowed to depart uninjured. This was followed by many years of war between Sparta and Thebes, in which the Spartans three times invaded Theban territory with small success. But the chief importance of the war was that it began with an NEW ATHENIAN CONFEDERACY 211 alliance between Athens and "Wiebes against Sparta, in consequence of which Athens once more gained a leading position on the sea and was able again to form a confederacy (B.C. 378). The professed object of this new league (the terms of which are preserved on an existing stele) was to compel " the Lacedaemonians to allow the allies to be autonomous and to enjoy their own territory in safety." It was to be open to all states and islands not subject to the Persian king a provision which avoided opening the question of the Asiatic cities, whose status had been fixed by the peace of Antalcidas. Each state was to maintain whatever constitution it pleased, without admitting an Athenian garrison, or resident, or paying a phoros or tax. The Athenians undertook in case of all states joining the confederacy to surrender all cleruchies held by Athenian citizens or by the state, and to settle no more cleruchs in them. There was to be a board of commissioners (o-vvcSpoi) to decide all cases of dispute under this clause. The Athenians further covenanted to give aid by land or sea to any of the allies who were attacked. The confederate states were to pay a contribution to a common fund, as appears from other inscriptions, though it is not mentioned in this stele. It was to be called a syntaxis instead of the now invidious phoros. The alliance seems first to have consisted of Chios, Tenedos, Mitylene and Mythymna in Lesbos, Byzantium and Rhodes, but it was quickly joined by others until it reached the number of about seventy. The adhesion of Thebes marked its antago- nism to Sparta, and that of Acarnania, Cephallenia, and Zakynthus three years later secured Athenian 212 AFTER THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR supremacy in the Ionian sea. The renewed activity of Athens brought out a new generation of generals and admirals as able and successful as those~who served her in the last century. Thus Chabrias won a victory over a fleet of sixty Lacedaemonian ships off Naxos, and relieved the coasts and seas of Attica (B.C. 376) ; Timotheos, son of Conon, defeated another Lacedaemonfan fleet at Corcyra, thus enabling the Corcyrseans to join the alliance (B.C. 375) ; and two years later (B.C. 375) Iphicrates again relieved Corcyra from the attack of another powerful Spartan fleet. The only success won by Sparta in this period was the thwarting of an invasion of Phocis by the Thebans in B.C. 374. Weariness of such continuous and futile warfare now began to be generally felt. A peace, which only lasted a few months, had been patched up between Athens and Sparta in B.C. 374, but three years later a general pacification was arranged, Sparta covenanting to withdraw her harmosts from the cities, and to disband her land and sea forces, and, in fact, to abandon her position of militant supremacy (B.C. 371). This, therefore, was the end of the Spartan hege- mony, but it did not bring actual and complete peace toTrreece. It was the beginning of a new period, in which Thebes took her place with evil results to the unity and prosperity of Greece. In the pacification of B.C. 371 the TRebans took no "share, for they claimed to sign on behalf of all the Boeotian cities, which was against the spirit of the agreement. Accordingly the Spartan king, Cleombrotus, invaded Boeotia. but was defeated at Leuctra by the Theban EPAMINONDAS AND THEBAN SUPREMACY 21$ Epaminondas, who had taken the lead during the congress in supporting the claims of Thebes. He was a man of unusually high character, and had many of the most important qualifications of a great general. He had introduced the system of the phalanx, and had brought the army ot Thebes to *~a high state of perfection. Still, he had to direct or carry out the policy of his country, which was narrow and mischievous, though some of the worst acts of the Thebans during their supremacy were done against his will. His policy was to carry the war into the enemy's country, to set up in the Peloponnese a power great enough to counter- balance that of Sparta. Fifty-five years earlier this had been the policy of Alcibiades, who looked to Argos as best supplying what was needed. Now Epa- rriinbndas, or his agents selected Arcadia. Mantineia was" restored, the Arcadian cities were induced to form a league, and a new town, to be called Mega- clopolis, was founded, to be the capital and seat of government. This measure alarmed both Sparta and Athens. We therefore have a new combination these two ancient enemies joining to resist^ the ambition of Thebes. The war went on. Epami- nondas four times invaded the Peloponnese : once almost surprising Sparta itself. The quarrel was complicated by another between the Arcadians and Elis, and by the Corinthians and Phliasians making terms with Thebes, and trying to put force upon Sparta to acknowledge the independence of Messenia (B.C. 366). Both sides also endeavoured to enlist the support of the king of Persia. But the Thebans 214 AFTER THE PELOPONNES1AN WAR attempted too much. At one time they thought of wresting the naval supremacy from Athens, and Epa- minondas, who went on a kind of tentative expedition to Byzantium, was said to have threatened to remove the ornaments of the Acropolis to Thebes. They also undertook to champion the Thessalians against the tyranny of Alexander of Pherae. Pelopidas, the bosom friend of Epaminondas, who rTacTlaken the lead in expelling the Spartan garrison from the Kadmeia, was three times sent into Thessaly, and on the third occasion was defeated and killed (B.C. 363). They had, moreover, inspired the Arca- dians with so much confidence in themselves that some of their cities began to be restive under the Theban supremacy. The schism was increased by a quarrel over the management of Olympia and the use to be made of its treasures. In this dispute some appealed to Athens and Sparta and others to Thebes. Mantineia was the leading state on the Spartan side, and the primary object of Epami- nondas in his fourth invasion of the Peloponnese was to reduce that town. After only just failing to surprise Sparta he gave the allied troops battle at Mantineia, where he won a great victory but lost his own life (B.C. 362). Peace was then made between all the warring states, from which, however, Sparta stood aloof. There was no more fighting for four years, but the general result of the ten years of Theban supremacy was weakness and disunion everywhere, the isolation of Sparta, and a renewed bitterness of feeling between Thebes and Athens, which were still the two strongest states. THE RISE OF MACEDONIA 21$ But while Greece was thus squandering her strength in unprofitable quarrels, a power was growing up close by destined to absorb her and permanently destroy independent political life in her divided states. This was Macedonia. The dynasty ruling in Macedonia claimed to be of Hellenic origin, descended from the Temenidae of Argos, and its sovereigns from time to time emphasised this claim by dteaming the right to enter as competitors at Olympia. The country originally included under the name was an inland district between the range of Mount Pindus and the river Axius, with a capital at Fella. The aim of its kings had ever been to extend their dominions to the sea, and enlarge and strengthen their frontiers by conquering the sur- rounding tribes of barbarians. At the time of the Persian invasion the Macedonian king was obliged to submit to the superior powers of the invaders, but Alexander, "the Philhellene," who was reigning in B.C. 480, was eager for the success of the Greeks, and, according to Herodotus, risked his life to warn them of the coming attack at Platasa. Later kings, however, had become unfriendly to Athens, because they found her inclined to resist the extension of their empire along the shores of the Thermaic gulf. The Athenian influence in the Chalcidic peninsula was a continual bar to their southward extension, and Athenian jealousy was easily roused at any idea of their advance eastwards towards the Strymon. In B.C. 359 the eighteenth king of the dynasty, Philip II., son of Amyntas, took possession of the throne in place of an infant nephew. He was 2l6 AFTER THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR twenty-three years old, and had spent some years at Thebes in the house of the father of Epaminondas, as a hostage or because he had been brought there for safety by Pelopidas. On his accession he promptly showed his energy and ability by suppress- ing two pretenders to the throne, and conquering the Paeonians on his northern frontier, as well as the Illyrians, those constant enemies in battle with whom his brother had fallen. He at the same time disarmed Athenian opposition by withdrawing the Macedonian garrison from Amphipolis and acknow- ledging its autonomy. The Athenians were also engaged in recovering Eubcea, which had for some years been a member of the Theban confederacy (B.C. 358), and were for the time less interested in affairs of the North. Philip availed himself of the opportunity to seize Pydna, on the coast of Pieria, thus securing a port oh the Thermaic gulf, and again occupied Amphipolis on the Strymon, while by making an alliance with Olynthus he secured himself against opposition from CRalcidice. These proceed- ings would naturally have aroused enmity in Greece. But Sparta, weakened and humiliated, held aloof for some years while she was engaged in trying to recover her hegemony in the Peloponnese ; while Thebes and Athens were now effectually weakened by two wars : the former by the " Sacred. War," which was undertaken at the order of tKe~ Amphictyonic Council to punish the Phocians for encroaching upon the sacred territory of Delphi, and lasted nearly nine years (B.C. 357-346); the latter by the "Social War" (B.C. 35/-35S) caused by the defection ofCKios ENCROACHMENTS OF KING PHILIP 2 1/ and Byzantium, Rhodes and Cos from the league of B.C. 378. The pretexts alleged were that the Athe- nians had broken the covenant by sending out fresh cleruchs, and that their generals commanding mer- cenary forces (now constantly employed by Athens) not receiving sufficient pay from home, harassed the allies with requisitions beyond the stipulated contribution or syntaxis. The war ended in the acknowledgment of the independence^ pt the revolting states, and, worse~still, ln~thlTcleath or the discredit and ruin of the last great generals serving Athens, Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheos. The state was also impoverished by the loss of contributions, and disabled from offering effectual opposition to Philip. In these circumstances the king was able to secure one advantage after another. In B.C. 356 he seized Potidaea, expelled Athenian cleruchs, and soTcT most of the inhabitants into slavery, while his general, Parmenion, defeated the Illyrians in the West. He next enriched himself by occupying the district of Mount Pangaeus with its gold-mines, and founded the city of Philippi to secure it (B.C. 356-353). As the Athenians~hacl been too late to relieve Potidaea, so now they were too late to prevent his seizing Methone in Magnesia ; after which he began to inter- fere at every point of disturbance in Greece. Now it was in Thessaly, to assist the Thessalian cities to resist the tyrants of Pherae (B.C. 356) ; now it was in Phocis, as champion of the god of Delphi, where, after sustaining two defeats, he eventually destroyed the Phocian army with its leader, Onomarchus. 2l8 AFTER THE PELOPONNES1AN WAR Presently he appeared at Thermopylae as though he would subdue Bceotia and Athens. And though the Athenians were at length roused to send a fleet which prevented his corning through the pass, he secured Pagasae and Magnesia, and instigated the Euboeans once more to throw off the rule of Athens (B.C. 350). In the next two years (B.C. 349-348) he turned upon his allies, the Olynthians, who had come to some secret understanding" with Athens, and after a lengthened siege took and destroyed the town. The Athenians once more came too late to relieve it, in spite of the vehement exhortations of Demosthenes, who henceforth threw his whole energies into organising an opposition to Philip. But nothing seriously hindered his victorious career or the fulfilment of his ambition to secure supremacy in Greece. In B.C. 346, on the invitation of Thebes, he again interfered in the sacred war, which he brought to an end by overrunning Phocis, and thereby obtained admission~~~to The' Amphictyonic league as an Hellenic power. The same year was concluded the peace with Athens, called from the chief of the embassy the Peace of Philocrates. It- was on this embassy that Demosthenes and his rival /Eschines served, who afterwards vehemently accused each other of misconducting it. For seven years (B.C. 345-338) this peace was nomi- nally maintained. But Philip did not rest. He was busy in strengthening his hold on Thessaly, in aiding the Messenians, Argives and Achaeans to break down the supremacy of Sparta, in establishing his partisans as tyrants in the cities of Eubcea, as well as in Photo} [Brogi. DEMOSTHENES, B.C. 384-322. (Vatican Museum) DEMOSTHENES OPPOSES PHILIP 221 securing himself against the surrounding tribes of Epirus and Thrace. By the exertions of Demosthenes who was throwing all the weight of his eloquence into the opposition to Philip a number of states, from Byzan- tium and Perinthus in the East to Corcyra in the West, had allied themselves with Athens to resist his further aggrandisement, and the Persian satraps had been induced to give their aid. 1 For a brief space there seemed some hope, for Philip failed in his attack both on Perinthus and Byzantium. But in B.C. 337 the Amphictyons proclaimed another "sacred war" against the Locrians of Amphissa on the old charge of cultivating the sacred Cirrhaean plain, and summoned Philip to assist. He snatched at the opportunity, and in the winter of B.C. 339-338 marched southward. But instead of proceeding to Amphissa he seized Elateia, which commanded the plain of Boeotia. This produced such a feel- ing of alarm throughout Greece that Demosthenes was able to induce Thebes to join the alliance, and a mercenary army of some fifteen thousand men was got together besides forces sent from Athens and other towns. The details of the campaign that followed are not known, except that Demosthenes says that the Greeks won two battles. But the upshot was that about August ist, B.C. 338, Philip, having already taken Amphissa and annihiliated a large force of mercenaries, won a decisive victory 1 The states persuaded by Demosthenes to join were By/antium, Abydos, Euboea, Megara, Corinth, Achaia, Acarnania, Leucadia, Corcyra. 222 AFTER THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR over the Greeks near Chaeroneia, in which the Theban sacred band was cut to 'pieces, a thousand Athenians were killed, and two thousand made prisoners. All resistance to Philip was at end. He hence- forth took a greater position in Greece than had hitherto been occupied by any supreme ruler or state. Macedonian garrisons were placed in Thebes and other cities, territories were assigned to or taken from certain states at the king's pleasure, and each state was compelled to be satisfied with its own territory without exercising any control over others. Thus all her maritime possessions were taken from Athens^ while, on the other hand, her own frontiers were rectified so as to include Oropus, of which the Thebans had deprived her ; and as a special mark of the king's favour the 2,000 prisoners were restored without ransom. Philip then marched into the Peloponnese, where every state submitted but Sparta. The Spartans stood sullenly aloof, but their supremacy in the Peloponnese was gone ; they were independent but isolated, with a territory cur- tailed in every direction, and impoverished by the ravages of the Macedonian troops. Philip, indeed, gave a certain air of legalty to the new arrangements by summoning a conference at Corinth at which they were confirmed, and he himself was elected General (/,-yEjuwv) of all Greece. But the prosaic fact was that all combinations were dissolved, garrisons were placed in all important towns, and his word was law. This was a state of things in which Greece seemed unable to thrive, and a period of general decadence soon set in industry, population, literature, all alik/" FEMALE FIGURES, FOURTH CENTURY 8.C, MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY ESTABLISHED 22$ being on the decline. On the other hand, Macedonian supremacy for a time secured the cessation of internal strife, and the wars of state with state, while it brought into existence a larger conception of Hel- lenism, and secured a wider field for its development. 16 VII THE GREATER HELLENISM Death of King Philip II. Accession of Alexander the Great, B.C. 336 Effect of Alexander's Eastern campaigns Battle of the Granicus and the settlement of Asia Minor Syria and Egypt B.C. 334-3 In Central Asia, B.C. 331-323 Effect of the death of Alexander, B.C. 323 Formation of independent kingdoms Con- sequences to the Greeks Spartan resistance to Alexander, B.C. 333 The Lamian war and subjection of Greece, B.C. 323-2 The new settlement of Greece Athens under the successors of Alexander Determination in Greece The Celtic invasion, B.C. 280-279 The Greeks in Italy The Greeks in Sicily Timoleon in Sicily Agathocles of Syracuse, B.C. 317-289 Pyrrhus in Sicily, B.C. 278 The Romans in Sicily, B.C. 262-242 The whole of Sicily a Roman province, B.C. 212 Literature in Sicily. TilE meaning of Philip's triumph as interpreted by those friendly to him is expressed in the letter addressed to the king by the aged Athenian orator, Isocrates. He had pacified the states, united the nation, and was a great Panhellenic sovereign. Isocrates therefore exhorted him to make it his aim to crush Persia, the hereditary enemy of Greece. Philip had already let it be known that this was his purpose, and by his nomination as " general with absolute power " (d-paTtijoQ avTOKparwp') by the con- ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER 22J gress at Corinth the Greeks formally adopted that policy. His head was somewhat turned by success ; he assumed the airs and designation of a god as Zeus Philippus. Nothing seemed too hard for him to do, and the answer given him by the Pythia at Delphi was regarded as favourable (" The bull is crowned, the end is come: the slayer is at hand"), though the tragedy which soon followed served to give it a different interpretation. For though he was encouraged to push on with this national undertaking, and actually despatched Attalus and Parmenio into Asia with orders to free the Greek cities, he was not destined to fight another campaign. Early the next year (B.C. 336) he was assassinated at a wedding feast by one of his own guards. His work was taken up by his son and successor, Alexander, whose mother, Olympias, was suspected of having been privy to the crime. Alexander was just twenty years old, and before he could enter upon what was to be his great work he was obliged to secure his power at home against the partisans of his father's second wife, and against the Illyrian tribe of the Triballi. The news of Philip's death had also incited the Greeks, at the instigation of Demosthenes, to strike for freedom. The appearance of Alexander at the head of an army repressed the movement, and he was elected " General with full powers," like his father. Next year, however, he was obliged to go to Amphipolis, and thence to the Danube, to suppress renewed risings of the barbarians ; and a false rumour having reached Greece that he had fallen, an insurrection 228 THE GREATER HELLENISM broke out at Thebes, as well as in ^Etolia, Elis, and Arcadia. But Alexander marched rapidly south- wards. He besieged and took Thebes, which was destroyed, and its inhabitants for the most part sold into slavery. In the rest of Greece the rebellion immediately died out ; and next year (B.C. 334) Alexander started on his expedition against Darius. The marvellous conquests of Alexander, achieved in little more than ten years (B.C. 334-323), were the beginning of a new and more extensive Hellenism, which, however, was not to have its chief home in Greece, but in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. For more than a thousand years Europe was no longer to fear invasion from the East ; and though Greece was to be no more really free, the next great empire to which it was to belong would absorb its ideas and give them a world-wide influence. Alexander's campaigns must be only briefly sum- marised here, and the general plan indicated. His army consisted of about 40,000 men of various nationalities. His phalanx infantry trained to charge sixteen deep, and armed with long spears, or sarissa consisted principally of 12,000 Mace- donians. He did not strike straight at the heart of the Persian Empire at the capitals on the Euphrates or Tigris. His plan was first to secure Asia Minor and all the lands held by the Persian king bordering on the Mediterranean. This was clone in three years. Crossing early in the spring of B.C. 334 from Sestos to Abydos, and first visiting Ilium, he won a deci- sive victory in a cavalry engagement at the River Granicus (May), and then captured in rapid succes- ALEXANDER THE GREAT, B.C. 356-323. (British Museum.) CAMPAIGNS OF ALEXANDER 2^1 sion Sardis important as the place from which the great roads branched off Ephesus, Magnesia, Miletus, and, in fact, all the Greek towns in Asia Minor. He hardly met with any resistance except at Ephesus and Halicarnassus where he was assisted by his fleet. The immediate effect upon the Greek towns was the establishment of a democratic form of government, of course in subordination to the Macedonian monarch. They were free from the Persian satraps, and from the tyrants which the satraps constantly set up. Those cities which submitted quietly received specially favourable treatment ; inscriptions are ex- tant recording remissions of contribution (syntaxis\ restoration of temples, and the law against tyrants, in virtue of which they are deposed and declared outlaws. The settlement of Alexander was in some places, as in Lesbos, upset for a time by the Persian fleet under Memnon, and those who succeeded him after his death in B.C. 333 ; but in the next year Hegelochus, the com- mander of the Macedonian fleet, drove away the governors replaced by the Persians, and from that time the will of Alexander was supreme in Asia Minor and the islands. In these transactions he acted as the head of Hellas and encouraged Hellenic restorations. Thus he is said to have contributed largely to the expense of rebuilding the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, burnt the year of his birth. He rebuilt a temple to Athena at Pirene, and an inscription remains recording the dedication by one of his officers of a statue at Olympia. When sufficient time had elapsed to heal the feuds occasioned by the changes of dynasty one of the last acts of Alexander's 232 THE GREATER HELLENISM life was to proclaim the return of all exiles, the Macedonian power after his marvellous victories being held sufficient to prevent party contests in the cities, which were to have no policy but his own. After the settlement of Asiatic Hellas, Alexander continued his conquests in Syria, Phoenicia, Pales- tine, and Egypt, thus securing his hold upon the western part of the Persian Empire, and making himself still more completely master of the Eastern Mediterranean. Darius was beaten and driven into headlong flight at the battle of Issus (B:C. 333), and while Alexander was engaged on the siege of Tyre (B.C. 332) offered to cede everything west of the Euphrates. But Alexander, though giving Darius ample time to reconstruct his shattered forces while he was himself engaged in completing these more western conquests, had not relinquished his plan of pushing his invasion into the very heart of the Persian Empire. No peace, therefore, was made ; and he went on with the siege of Tyre, which occupied him seven months, and then entered Palestine, where the only resistance experienced was at Gaza. 1 On the surrender of Gaza he proceeded by sea to Pelusium in the Delta of the Nile, and the Persian satrap at once surrendered. The Egyptians always disliked the Persians, who plundered and insulted their temples, while Alexander, as in Greece, was careful to show respect to the national religion. Landing at Pelusium he went up the river 1 Josephus alone tells a story ot his having advanced upon Jerusalem to punish it for help given to Gaza, and having been turned aside by the appearance of the High Priest. CAMPAIGNS OF ALEXANDER 233 bank to Memphis, where he sacrificed to Apis and held a festival of gymnastics and music. He even went several days' journey in the desert to visit the shrine and oracle of Ammon. He then went to the Canobic mouth and sailed round the Maeotic Lake. While there he was struck by the advantages of the strip of land opposite the island of Pharus, as a site for a town, and marked out a circuit of ten miles for the walls of what was called Alexandria after him, and very quickly rose to be one of the most impor- tant cities of the ancient world. Here, too, he was careful to respect the feelings of the natives, and to provide for a joint occupation of it ; while his plan embraced a temple to Isis as well as to the gods of Greece. With the immense prestige gained by his trium- phant march through Asia Minor to Egypt, and enriched by enormous treasures which he seized in Damascus and wherever the Persian Government had been centred, Alexander in the following year began his wonderful march into the interior of Asia, the heart of the Persian Empire. Darius had gathered a great host to meet him, and was en- camped on the Upper Tigris at Gaugamela, more than twenty miles from Arbela, which has given its name to the battle, and in which Darius had left his baggage and treasure. The victory of Alexander (September, B.C. 331), was again complete, and Darius fled into Media. All resistance at once collapsed ; there was no holding out of strong towns as at Tyre or Gaza. The Persian Empire passed to Alexander at one blow, with all its immense accumu- 234 THE GREATER HELLENISM lations of treasure at Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis. Next year was taken up with the pursuit of Darius, and \vhen he was assassinated by Bessus, in attack- ing Bessus himself, who had escaped to Bactria and there had himself crowned as " Artaxerxes, King of Asia." Bessus was quickly taken prisoner, muti- lated, and sent for execution to Ecbatana. Alex- ander now assumed the royal dress, ornaments, and power of the Persian kings. The enormous wealth found in the royal cities enriched both himself and his army, and, believing himself invincible, he em- barked on the most ambitious designs. " When he had conquered Sogdiana and Bactriana, he found himself stopped by the lofty mountain chain of the Hindu-kush ; and, to the south, he heard of the great waters of the Indus and the Deccan. Beyond were great peoples, with elephants and chariots, with a new culture and language, and a religion unknown even to report. But neither mountains nor rivers were able to resist him. He passed over the Hindu- kush with his whole army a task hardly any modern general would attempt ; he forced the Koord, Kabul, and Kyber Passes ; he crossed the Indus, the Hydaspes, in the face of a great hostile army ; he conquered his new enemy and all his elephants with a skill not inferior to any yet shown ; the whole Punjaub was in his hands ; he was on the point of passing into India when his troops his Macedonian troops refused to go further " (B.C. 329-325). 1 Alexander returned from the Indus partly by ship, and took up his residence at the various royal towns, 1 J. P. Mahafify in Alexander's Empire, DEATH OF ALEXANDER 235 finally at Babylon. His object was now to make a great European-Asiatic Empire, as far as possible uniform in administration, and with inhabitants of mixed race. He sent home a large number of vete- rans who had mutinied in the Punjaub, he married a daughter of Darius, having already married a beautiful Bactrian named Roxana, and encouraged Macedonian officers to marry Persian wives. He also filled up the places of the veterans sent home with Persian recruits. He was planning further conquests in Arabia, and issuing orders as to the internal affairs of Greece, when all his schemes were cut short by a fever, to which he succumbed on the nth of June, B.C. 323. The death of Alexander was the signal for universal disruption. It did not come at once, or professedly as a consequence of his death. His half-r brother, Philip Arrhidseus, was declared King of Macedonia, with a reservation of the right of the child of Roxana by Alexander, if it should prove to be a boy, and meanwhile Pejrdiccas (to whom Alex- ander is said to have given his signet-ring) was to be guardian and chief director of the Empire, with the title of Chiliarch. Nevertheless the ultimate division of the Empire into separate and independent king- doms was foreshadowed by the division of the pro- vinces among the chief generals of Alexander, who were not likely long to submit to any one chief, or to act together. In fact, from this time to B.C. 301 there was a constant succession of wars the result of which was the formation of four considerable kingdoms : Macedonia, Syria, Egypt, and Thrace. 236 THE GREATER HELLENISM These kingdoms were reduced to three on the death of Lysimachus, King of Thrace, in B.C. 281, whose dominions were divided between the kings of Egypt and Syria. Siibordinate kingdoms or what became such ^in Asia, which afterwards grew to some import- ance, were those of Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Pergamus. All these, though containing a large majority of non-Hellenic subjects, retained much of the Hellenic civilisation introduced or strengthened by Alexander. But the more eastern parts of his conquests lapsed quickly back to Orientalism, and before the middle of the next century the Parthians were winning nearly all that the Persian kingsTiad held east of the Euphrates ; and Armenia, which first asserted and then lost its independence, never ceased to struggle till, in the second century B.C., it regained its national life. In one sense the formation of these kingdoms shattered the ideal of Hellenism local autonomy and free constitutions. The miseries caused by the con- stant wars between such free constitutions had caused a widespread revulsion in favour of monarchies and strong states. The only alternative that of leagues or alliances had failed in the case of the two Athenian leagues of B.C. 476 and B.C. 378. An alliance of sea-powers, Byzantium, Chios, and Rhodes, had some temporary success, but was not strong enough to hold out against the united power of Rome. The experiment of a closer league was again made in the Peloponnese and ^Etolia, and we shall have hereafter to consider its brief success and final failure. ONE BLOW FOR FREEDOM 237 To the Greeks of the day, however, the death of Alexander seemed to promise them a renewal of freedom. They had never heartily acquiesced in his supremacy. Sparta, indeed, had never yielded to Philip, and had continued to play the part of pro- tector of Greek freedom. In B.C. 338 one of its kings, Archedamus III., had crossed to Italy to assist the Lacedaemonian colony of Tarentum in its struggles witn surrounding barbarians, and had fallen on the same day, it is said, as that of the battle of Chaproneia. His son and successor, Agis III., made afT alliance . ' COINS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, B.C. 356-323. with the Persian satraps in B.C. 333, and being sup- plied by them with money and ships, occupied the greater part of Crete, while Alexander was engaged in Thrace and Bceotia. In B.C. 331, when he had crossed to Asia, Agis induced the Eleians, Achseans and Arcadians to join in an open rebellion, and began the war by besieging Megalopolis, which refused to join him. But this short-lived revolt was sternly suppressed by Antipater, whom Alexander had left in charge of Macedonia. More than 5,000 Lacedae- monians are said to have fallen, and this seems to 238 THE GREATER HELLENISM have been a fatal blow to Spartan power and activity, for Sparta took no part in the rising which followed on the news of Alexander's death. But nearly all the rest of Greece did join this movement. It was warmly promoted by Demos- thenes, who had been living in banishment at ^Egina since B.C. 324, for having accepted a bribe from Harpalus, a dishonest officer' of Alexander's who had flecl tcTAthens. He was now recalled, and threw himself eagerly into the task of persuading the Greek states to join. They had recently been made still more disaffected by the decree of Alexander for the restoration of exiles, and there seems to have been little hesitation anywhere. A body of men who had served in Alexander's army as mercenaries, and had been sent home by his order, were stationed in Tsenarum, and an energetic leader named Leos- thenes having been secured, these men, with con- tingents from all parts of Greece, were mustered at Thermopylae, as though once more to make a stand there for freedom. The war has been called the LAMIAN WAR (B.C. 323-322), because it began by a siege of Antipatcr in Lamia, some twenty-five miles north of Thermopylae. Unfortunately Leos- thenes fell during the siege, and his successor, Antiphilus, though he won one battle against the Macedonian Leonnatus, was defeated by the com- bined forces of Antipater and Craterus at Crannon, in Thessaly (August, B.C. 322). Though the Greeks lost heavily in the battle, the defeat was r>ot so decisive as to account in itself for a complete col- lapse. But shortly before this a fleet of 170 vessels, THE LAM f AN WAR 2 39 under an Athenian commander, which had been operating among the Ionian islands, sustained two severe defeats off the Echinadae a group of islands on the south coast of Acarnania and the Mace- donians were left in complete command of the sea. The Greek states had therefore no option : they were obliged to submit. They did indeed try to bargain that terms should be made with them en bloc, but the Macedonian generals would not admit of this, and insisted on each state being treated with sepa- rately. They enforced their view by storming the Thessalian cities, and before long the whole country submitted. Some states received more indulgent treatment than others, but the general result was that they had to admit a Macedonian garrison, and to submit to such changes of constitution as the Macedonian government thought necessary to secure that the party favouring the Macedonians should have the chief power in the several states. In the Peloponnesian cities this seems to have been effected generally by establishing oligarchies or tyrants ; in Athens, while a Macedonian garrison was to be stationed in Munychia, the franchise was to be restricted to men possessing property to the value of two thousand drachmae, and the greater part of those below this standard were compelled to emigrate, principally to Thrace, only about 9,000 full citizens being left. The surrender of the orators who had taken part against Macedonia was also demanded, and Demosthenes poisoned himself rather than fall into their hands. The Athenians were also required to withdraw their cleruchs from Samos, and 240 THE GREATER HELLENISM to give up all authority there. It is true that in the struggles that ensued between the governors, who had divided the Empire among themselves, the free- dom of Greece and the independence of its cities was more than once proclaimed as in B.C. 318 by Poly- perchon, the successor of Antipater as regent, in B.C. 314 by Antigonus in order to drive out Cassan- der, Antipater's son, and in B.C. 311, when these governors made formal peace with each other. But this declaration only served as an excuse for fresh war between these princes under pretext of freeing Greek towns, which suffered sieges and devastations from both sides alternately. The constant quarrels between the Diadochi, however especially the dis- putes as to the regency, and then the throne, of Macedonia did allow the Greek cities in Europe gradually to assert a kind of independence. There were Macedonian garrisons in some towns, but not in all, and banished democrats found their way back from time to time and restored some sort of free government. Athens underwent more changes of fortune, per- haps, than any other state. After the Lamian war (B.C. 322) twelve thousand citizens had been banished. In B.C. 318, Cassander, son of the late regent Antipater, having only the office of Chiliarch, tried to secure his position against the regent Polyperchon by making himself master of Athens with the conni- vance of the oligarchical party headed by Phocion, the old opponent of Demosthenes. The Athenian democrats, seeing an opportunity, sided with Poly- perchon, who had proclaimed the independence of DECADENCE OF ATHENS 243 Greek cities, and the recall of exiles. Phocion was condemned to death, and the democracy fancied itself restored. But Cassander was too strong to be ousted. Retaining his hold on Munychia and Piraeus, he placed Athens under the rule of Demetrius of Phalerum, a poet, orator, and man of letters, under whose mild sway the city had ten years of peace and content (B.C. 317307), though without the old strenuous life and activity. Participation in public affairs became unfashionable, and few were willing to bear state burdens. Yet its ancient repu- tation as a seat of literature and philosophy did not disappear at once. The poets of the New Comedy were either Athenians or lived for many years in Athens, as being the place where they could obtain and enjoy the widest fame and the most favourable opportunities. The greatest of them all Menander (B.C. 342-290) was a native Athenian. Philemon of Syracuse (B.C. 388-292) was early in life granted citizenship at Athens, where he lived for the greater part of his long life ; and of the other twenty or twenty-four poets of the New Comedy quoted or named by later writers, the majority were Athenians or residents at Athens. But Comedy was no longer political and personal, statesmen were no longer worth attacking, or it was no longer safe to touch on public affairs. It was a comedy of manners, and its characters were intriguing youths, girls virtuous or the reverse, cunning slaves, greedy parasites, stern or indulgent fathers. The society represented was that pictured in the " Characters " of Theophrastus, the successor of Aristotle (B.C. 372-287) a society of 244 THE GREATER HELLENISM petty ambitions and narrow interests. Nor was oratory what it had been, when the interests concerned were greater and the issues more por- tentous. It came to be used as the vehicle of literary or social criticism rather than as the art of persuasion. And the most flourishing schools of rhetoric were found rather in other parts of Hellas in Rhodes and the Asiatic cities. Philo- sophy, however, continued to find its chief home in Athens. Plato, who died in B.C. 347, and Aristotle in B.C. 322, had successors in their Schools of adequate abilities, though of far inferior influence. But Epicurus an Athenian, though born in Samos coming to Athens in B.C. 307, drew numerous pupils to his quiet garden to listen to doctrines which were to have an influence beyond the Hellenic world; and Zeno about the same time made the Stoa, in which he taught the fountain head of an elevated philosophy which attracted many of the best minds for many centuries after his death. It is true that there was an opposition which in B.C. 305 carried a decree banishing all philosophers, but this was repealed in the next year, and Athens gradually became a place of study and a university, though its fortifications, especially at the harbour, were still sufficiently formidable to make it a place of arms if the same spirit had still inspired its citizens. Yet it never again played a serious part in Greek politics, and practical men like Polybius were apt to sneer even at its philosophical schools as encouraging useless and sophistical speculations rather than sound learning. Photo] [Anderson. VENUS, BY PRAXITELES. ( Vatican Museum.) GENERAL DECLINE IN GREECE 247 The decay of other parts of Greece was still more marked. ~ Thessaly was practically incorporated with Macedonia, and though for a time it seems to have enjoyed a quiet kind of prosperity, it suffered much in after-times as the battle-ground of Macedonia and Rome. In Sparta the true Spartans were steadily dwindling, the land was passing into the hands of a few families, the institutions which had created a nation of soldiers were falling into neglect, and the government was becoming more and more oligar- chical. A small class of wealthy persons were living in a nation for the most part idle and needy a "Laconian" no longer suggested the idea of a brave and simple soldier so much as of a needy buffoon. Here, however, as in Thessaly and in the Lacedaemo- nian colony at Tarentum, there was still a military class, which probably included the most e icrgetic portion of the citizens, who were highly valued by other states or sovereigns as mercenary soldiers. The decadence of Bceotia was perhaps more marked than that of the other parts of Greece. Cassander restored Thebes in B.C. 315 (it had ahvays retained some of its inhabitants, and the temples had not been destroyed), but it did not recover political power or influence. The two cities of Bceotia which did retain a certain prosperity were Thespiae and Tanagra, where a fine kind of pottery ware was pro- duced. In the rest of Bceotia a rather vulgar luxury and ostentation took the place of political activity. Polybius says that the decline became rapid after a war with the /Ktolians in B.C. 245, but asserts that it began much earlier. With this political decline 248 THE GREATER HELLENISM came not only a decline in literature and art, but a change in their central home to such places as Pergamus, Alexandria, or Syracuse. Yet in spite of this decline in vigour, the Greeks showed in the presence of the next great national danger that they had not quite forgotten their ancient valour. In B.C. 280 a horde of Celts (Gauls), number- ing, say the historians (with no doubt some exaggera- tion), 300,000 souls, crossed the Alps into Pannonia, and there divided into two hosts for the invasion of Macedonia and Greece. The next year Macedonia and Thrace were overrun, the king (Ptolemy Ceraunus) killed, and the country everywhere ravaged and plundered. These Celts appear to have gone back home for the winter, but the next year a horde of over 150,000 foot and 20,000 horse entered Greece. The danger called forth almost for the last time a combined movement of Greek states in defence of freedom. The Barbarians marched down to Thermo- pylae, which was being held by a combined army of Athenians, Boeotians, Phocians, Megarians, and yEtolians, supported by a fleet off the shore. The Gauls discovered the path over Mount Callidromus by which Leonidas had of old been surrounded ; but the Greeks defended themselves with courage, and were able to get on board their ships in safety. The Gauls, however, had won the pass, and thence, like one column of Xerxes' army, made for Delphi, attracted by the report of the immense wealth stored there. The repulse which they met with at Delphi was attributed, like that of the troops of Xerxes, to the direct interposition of the god and the appear- REPULSE OF THE GAULS 25! ance of the local heroes. There is the same earth- quake, and the fall of an immense rock from Parnassus. But a more rationalistic explanation is that which speaks of the weariness of the Gauls and their intemperance. The oracle had bidden the country people not to take their food and wine from their houses, and the Gauls as was their wont revelled in the booty which they found ready to their hands. Delphi had also been put into a state of defence, and allies had mustered there from ^Etolia and all the surrounding cities. A great number of the Gauls fell in battle, and, according to one story, a still greater number by mutual slaughter the fol- lowing evening, in consequence of a mysterious panic that fell upon them. At any rate, they passed away northward, pursued and harassed by Athenians and other peoples, and crossed over to Asia, where after various fortunes they were finally driven further inland by the rulers of Pergamus and gave their name to Galatia, or enlisted as mercenaries in various services in Asia and Europe. They had been turned towards Macedonia and Greece because the growing power of Rome had prevented further immigrations into Italy after the victory at Sentinum in Umbria (B.C. 295), and their repulse at Delphi was the last successful movement of united Hellas against a foreign invader. Meanwhile the Greek world in the West had been passing through vicissitudes, in some respect like those in Greece itself, which led eventually to a more complete decadence. We know little of the early history of the Greek cities in Southern Italy, THE GREATER HELLENISM but they seem to have resembled their parent cities in the constant quarrels and wars which they waged with each other. Such combinations and leagues as were from time to time formed arose from the necessity of repelling common enemies Lucani, Messapii, or Samnites. As in Greece, too, some one city possessed or claimed hegemony among the rest, in which it was opposed by some other which differed from it in origin, constitution, or habits. In early times this primacy seems to have been held by Sybaris afterwards a byeword, perhaps unjustly, for wealth and luxury whose rival was Croton. The people of Croton, an Achaean colony, prided themselves on a healthier and more manly way of life. They zealously practised athletics, won a great many prizes at Olympia, and rewarded those of their citizens who were victors with the highest honours and commands. In a war with Sybaris (about B.C. 510) they utterly destroyed that city. But they did not long enjoy the primacy they secured, for not many years later they sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of the people of Locri Epizypherii and Rhegium. In common with other towns of South Italy, they suffered much in the fifth century from a series of democratic revolutions brought on by popular risings against the followers of the philosopher Pythagoras, who settled in Croton about B.C. 530. His followers in after-years formed societies or clubs, which among other things supported oligarchical ideas. Nevertheless, when Dionysius of Syracuse crossed over to attack Magna Graecia (B.C. 389), Croton was the head of the league FIGURINE FROM TANAGRA. (British Museum.) DECLINE OF THE WESTERN GREEKS 255 formed to repel him. Fifty years later, Tarentum a colony of Sparta began to claim the hegemony. But as far as it did exercise this leadership, Tarentum guided the Greek cities to their ruin. The Taren- tines adopted the policy, which had so often proved mischievous, of invoking foreign help against the surrounding natives first from Sparta, in B.C. 338, when King Archidamus came to their aid, only to fall in battle with the Barbarians ; next from Epirus in B.C. 333, when Alexander, King of the Molossi, and brother-in-law of Alexander the Great, came with great ideas of making an empire in the West like that of his namesake in the East. The result was that the Tarentines drew back, and he tried to establish a new Hellenic league to meet at Thurii. He lost his life, however, in the midst of his career by the treachery of a Lucanian native in his own bodyguard (B.C. 331). Finally it was the Tarentines who in- vited Pyrrhus in B.C. 280, not now against Samnite or Lucanian, but against Rome, with whom they had been strong enough some fifty years before to make an advantageous treaty. The defeat of Pyrrhus (B.C. 275) and the capture of Tarentum by the Romans (B.C. 272) were the sure prelude to the loss of freedom for all the Greek cities. They had to join the Roman system, some on better terms than others, but all in some sort as subjects. For a time this seems to have secured a spell of security and pros- perity for some of them a relief, perhaps, from the attacks of surrounding nations. In B.C. 264 it was to the Greek Tarentum, Locri, Elea, and Naples, that the Romans had to go for ships to meet the 256 THE GREATER HELLENISM Carthaginians in Sicily; and in B.C. 217, after the first disasters in the Second Punic War, Naples, Paestum, and Syracuse were foremost in the offers of help and encouragement to Rome. But the Italian campaigns of Hannibal were fatal to most of them, and in the next century all but Tarentum, Naples, and Rhegium lost not only material prosperity, but almost all traces of Hellenic life. In Sicily that life lasted longer. The Greek cities there (about twenty) had from early times to contend with the encroaching power of the Carthaginians as well as with mutual jealousies and quarrels. They had, however, enjoyed a considerable period of pros- perity. Letters and art had flourished ; stately temples and other public buildings had attracted universal admiration, and the fertility of the soil gained them wealth and luxury. The most powerful of the cities were Agrigentum and Syracuse. But it was the latter which was the chief champion of freedom against the Carthaginians, and after the victory of its tyrant Gelo over them in B.C. 480 the Greek cities enjoyed about seventy years' im- munity from this danger. After the destruction of the Athenian armament in B.C. 413 Syracusan ships had even been sent eastward to co-operate with the Spartans, as though Syracuse were now one of the great Hellenic powers. But after the Carthaginian invasions of B.C. 409-6, under the usual pretext of assisting one city against another, Agrigentum suf- fered so severely as to cease for many years to be of any importance. Henceforth the hegemony belonged to Syracuse without dispute. In Syracuse, Photo'} El'ICURUS, B.C. 342-270. DIONYSIUS OF SYRACUSE as in Agrigentum and other cities, there had been many changes of government. Troublous times had generally resulted in the establishment of some despot. Gelo (B.C. 485-476) and Hiero (B.C. 478- 467) had not only repulsed Carthaginians, but had raised the power and prestige of the city to a great height. The democracy which followed the expul- sion of its last despot Thrasybulus (B.C. 466) was overthrown by Dionysius in B.C. 405. He retained power till his death in B.C. 367. After a struggle of fourteen years he was able to make a treaty which confined the Carthaginians to the part of the island west of the River Halycus (B.C. 383). His reign was a period of great glory for Syracuse. He possessed a powerful fleet ; the city was adorned with splendid buildings ; he encouraged literature an/d art, and wel- comed philosophers and men of learning to his court Yet it was not a happy time for Western Greece. Dionysius and his fleets, indeed, were able to suppress Etruscan and Illyrian pirates, and to keep safe both the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas ; but he used them also to force the cities of Southern Italy to submit to him. The special object of his enmity was Rhegium, against which he supported Locri as a centre of his influence. This, and the constant danger from the neighbouring Lucanians, forced the Greek cities in Italy to combine against him. But he won a great victory over their united forces, and thenceforth, though they were not annexed, his will was para- mount among them. Perhaps this might have had the same counterbalancing advantages, in securing peace and rest, as in some way made up to cities 26O THE GREATER HELLENISM in Greece for the loss of their independence under Macedonian rule. But whatever advantages were thus gained disappeared under the troubled reign of his son (B.C. 367-344), twice interrupted as it was by revolutions. The other cities in Sicily shook off the supremacy of Syracuse, but generally fell under the rule of incompetent tyrants. The Cartha- ginians reappeared and even got possession of the greater part of the city of Syracuse (B.C. 345). The state of the island was exceedingly miserable, when Timoleon of Corinth arrived in B.C. 345 with the express purpose of putting down tyranny in the cities and checking the encroachments of the Cartha- ginians. He came in answer to a petition from Syracuse and in a spirit of knight-errantry which makes the story read like a romance. He was eagerly welcomed at Rhegium as well as by the Sicilian cities. The Carthaginians were driven from Syracuse, the tyrants were deposed in the cities, and the Carthaginian side of the island even was invaded and their army crushed in a great battle on the banks of the Cremisus (B.C. 340). Unlike other so-called deliverers, Timoleon did not use his suc- cess to establish power for himself, but lived in Syracuse as a private citizen, beloved and honoured till his death in B.C. 336. Free institutions now prevailed in the Greek cities and a few years of prosperity followed ; deserted cities became populous again, and the land which had been lying fallow was once more cultivated. The cities were also once more adorned with splendid buildings and fine works of art Agathocles, whom the necessity of fighting the PYRRHUS IN SICILY 26 1 Carthaginians again raised to supreme power in B.C. 317, seems not to have impaired this prosperity. On the contrary, he secured a period of peace to Sicily by carrying the war into Carthaginian territory in Africa and stirring up the African cities to rebel- lion against Carthage. But after his death (B.C. 298) some Italian mercenaries called Mamertini, "Sons of Mamers," or " Mars " whom he had employed, seized on Messene, expelled or put to death the male inhabitants, and took possession of the city, lands, women, and children. They made their stolen home the vantage-ground for plundering expeditions upon other cities, and thus one Greek city not only ceased to be Hellenic, but became a danger to other Hellenic cities, who now had two enemies instead of one to combat. Syracuse itself was torn by internal factions, and was held in spite of its nominal free government by one military adventurer after another and could do nothing against either the Carthaginians or the Mamertines. Ten years of great misery were the consequence ; and it was to heal these disorders that Pyrrhus, who had married a daughter of Agathocles, was invited to leave his campaign in Italy and come to Sicily (B.C. 278). But though Pyrrhus another knight- errant had for a time as great a success as Timo- leon, he did not, like him, retain the confidence of the Sicilians. He restored some sort of order at Syracuse, cut off marauding parties of the Mamer- tines, drove the Carthaginian garrison from Agri- gentum and Eryx, Hercte and Panormus, and seemed on the point of expelling them altogether 262 THE GREATER HELLENISM from Sicily and thus anticipating the result of the First Punic War. But one Carthaginian stronghold held out Lilybaeum ; and this he failed after a lengthy siege to take. This failure ruined his posi- tion in Sicily. In Syracuse plots were made against him ; in the other cities murmurs arose that he aimed at making himself tyrant, that he was granting lands to his friends, and putting men in places of trust who tampered with justice. In the latter part of B.C. 276, therefore, he left Sicily and went back to meet disaster in Italy. The old state of disorder immediately revived. The Carthaginians recovered their territory west of the Halycus, reoccupied Agrigentum, and again began intriguing to assert their authority throughout the island. Syracuse, with its subordinate towns, naturally fell once more under the power of a military despot, this time happily an able and moderate man, Hiero II. (B.C. 270-216). By his prudence the kingdom of Syracuse remained inde- pendent, when the rest of Sicily became Roman in B.C. 242. The effect of the first Punic war was that the Roman government took over the supremacy exercised by Carthage, and the cities paid their tenths of corn and other produce to the Roman exchequer. Each city was to enjoy its own laws and courts, but an appeal would lie from them to that of the praetor sent annually from Rome. Some few towns were excused the tenths, as having served the Roman cause, but even they were bound to supply ships and sailors or soldiers to serve in the Roman army and navy. Rome protected them and maintained peace, but SICILY BECOMES ROMAN 263 they lost the right to maintain an army or to go to war, in fact to have any foreign policy. The kingdom of Syracuse came to an end after the capture of the city by Marcellus in B.C. 214, and was added to the rest of the island as one Roman province. This is the permanent subjection of another once important and flourishing portion of Hellas, preceded, if not caused, by a long series of intestine disorders and appeals for outside help as in Greece itself. It is a kind of epitome of Greek history. It is difficult to decide exactly what the effect of the Roman occupation was. The cities retained much of Hellenic habits and aspect, and in spite of the immense robberies of Marcellus and others, many works of Greek art as well as the stately temples which beautified them. But besides large districts such as the Leontine plain which were made ager publicus, the lands fell for the most part into the hands of Roman speculators who worked them by slave labour. The slaves were in many cases the Sicilians themselves, Greek by origin, whose fathers, at any rate, had once owned the lands on which they laboured. Others, perhaps, were imported from Africa or the East. The stewards and agents of the Italian landowners no doubt found the country pleasant enough, but those Greeks who retained property and freedom had much to suffer at the hands of corrupt governors and oppressive tax- collectors. The miserable state of the slaves again was shown by the two dreadful servile wars of B.C. 134 and 103. Its history, however, henceforth follows that of Rome rather than of Greece. 264 THE GREATER HELLENISM The Greek towns in Sicily had had an intellectual life by no means unimportant in the general sum of Greek culture. Stesichorus of Himera flourished about B.C. 600 and was one of the earliest writers of lyrical as well as other poetry. Comedy seems to have been brought to Hyblaean Megara from Megara in Greece, and Epicharmus of Cos, one of its earliest authors, spent the greater part of his life there (fl. about B.C. 4/5). The court of Hiero I. (B.C. 478-467) was frequented by the greatest writers ^Eschylus, Pindar, Bacchylides, Simonides, and the poet-philosopher Xenophanes. Leontini was the home of the famous Sophist Gorgias ; Agrigentum of Empedocles (fl. B.C. 445). Philistus, the his- torian of Sicily and other countries, was a native of Syracuse (Jl. B.C. 395), Xenarchus, the mimograph, resided at the court of Dionysius, Apollodorus, a comic poet, was a native of Gela (fl. B.C. 340). Dionysius the elder was himself a writer in various styles and encouraged the presence of philosophers and men of letters ; and the most famous of ancient mathematicians, Archimedes, was born at Syracuse about B.C. 287. But the poet of Sicily, whose fame has been most abiding, is Theocritus of Syracuse (fl. about B.C. 284-270). There must still have been peaceful and quiet scenes of country life to be found in Sicily, in spite of wars and revolutions, to inspire his sweet pastoral muse. Like other poets of his day, he spent some of his time in Alexandria under the patronage of the second Ptolemy (Philadelphus), but his idyll on the Adonis feast a dialogue between two Syracusan women has nothing of town life LITERATURE IN SICILY 267 about it ; the women are country women and go sight-seeing with all the freshness and naivete of country folk. Nearly contemporary with Theocritus was Moschus, also born at Syracuse, from whom we have four surviving pastorals, one of them a lament for the death of Bion of Smyrna, who had himself come to Sicily to cultivate the bucolic muse. VIII THE ROMAN CONQUEST Gradual formation of kingdoms after the death of Alexander Five kings, B.C. 306 Four kingdoms, B.C. 301 Three kingdoms Macedonia, Syria and Egypt, B.C. 281 The three kingdoms from B.C. 280 to B.C. 220 Greece and the Macedonians The /Etolian League The Achaean League The Kings of Macedonia and the Achaean League War between Sparta and the Achaean League The " Cleomenic War," B.C. 224-222 Philip V. of Macedonia, B.C. 220-179 A state of general warfare, B.C. 220-217 The position of Athens Ascendency of Philip V. He joins Hannibal against Rome The disturbed state of Greece in B.C. 211 to B.C. 200 Philip's agreement' with Antiochus to partition the outlying dominions of Egypt, B.C. 205-200 Combination in Greece against Philip, B.C. 200 The Romans intervene Roman troops in Epirus T. Quinctius Flamininus in Greece, B.C. 198 Effects of the Battle of Cynos- cephalae, B.C. 197 The Roman settlement of Greece Disturbing elements in Greece The ^Etolians invite the interference of Antiochus Antiochus conies to Greece Antiochus is disappointed as to support in Greece ^itolian war, B.C. 191-189 Battle of Magnesia, B.C. 190 Settlement of Asia after the defeat of Antiochus, B.C. 189 The kingdom of Pergamus Subjection of /Etolia, B.C. 187 The Achaean League and Rome General unrest in Greece The accession and policy of Perseus, B.C. 179-168 General movement in Greece against Rome, B.C. 171-170 Severe treatment of Greek states by the Romans Dissolution of the Achaean League, B.C. 146 5 Decadence of Greece under the Romans. 268 THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER 269 THE struggles between the generals, who divided among themselves the world of Alexander, went through five stages before things settled down into the state in which we find them in the last period of Greek nominal independence. In the first two of these, B.C. 323 and 321, the empire is still professedly united under the two kings, Philip Arrhidaeus (half- brother of Alexander, the Great) and Alexander IV., his posthumous child by Roxana. In the third (B.C. 312) Philip has disappeared (murdered by Olympias in B.C. 317), and though Alexander is still nominally COIN OF PTOLEMY, KING OF EGYPT, OB. B.C. 285. king, four great satraps are really exercising inde- pendent power Ptolemy, son of Lagos, in Egypt ; Lysimachus, in Thrace ; Antigonus, in Asia ; Seleucus in Babylonia. In B.C. 311 Alexander and Roxana were murdered by "the order of Cassander. Then followed fresh quarrels, ended at last by a naval victory of Demetrius, son of Antigonus, over Ptolemy (B.C. 306). After this the Diadochi assumed the title of king, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus of Syria and Asia Minor, Seleucus of Upper Asia (Babylonia), Lysima- 2/O THE ROMAN CONQUEST chus of Thrace, Cassander (son of Anti pater the second regent) of Macedonia. There is now no pretence of unity ; Alexander's Empire has been resolved into its component parts. Then followed five more years of quarrel, caused partly by the con- flicting claims of Lysimachus and Antigonus upon Asia Minor, partly by the question whether Ccele- Syria and Palestine are to belong to the kingdom of Egypt or to that of Antigonus in Upper Asia. This was ended by the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia (B.C. 301), in which Antigonus and his son Demetrius COIN OF SELEUCUS, KING OF SYRIA, OB. B.C. 280. the Besieger were defeated by the three kings, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, and Antigonus was killed. This led to the fifth re-arrangement. There were now four great kingdoms Egypt, Syria," Thrace with part of Asia Minor, Macedonia. Besides these Demetrius the Besieger had assumed the title of king, though he had no regular kingdom. He was, how- ever, possessed of a strong fleet, and dominated Cyprus, Tyre and Sidon, and soon after the death of Cassander (B.C. 295) became King of Macedonia for THE THREE KINGDOMS 2/1 two years, having just before asserted his power over Athens and Greece. He lost the kingdom of Mace- donia in B.C. 287, and died a prisoner in Asia in B.C. 283. The succession to the Macedonian throne was a matter of dispute until it was secured by Antigonus Gonatas, son of Demetrius, in B.C. 277. By that time a sixth rearrangement had been made. For a short time Lysimachus of Thrace had held Macedonia (B.C. 289-281), part of the time in conjunction with Pyrrhus, but on his defeat and death (B.C. 281) the kingdom of Thrace disappeared. COIN OF LYSIMACHUS, OB. B.C. 28l. His dominions in Asia Minor were taken over by the King of Syria, and the islands with the cities on the Thracian Chersonese by the King of Egypt. In the sixty years which elapsed between these events and the first political contact between Greece and Rome (B.C. 280-220) the three kingdoms had developed under the dynasties thus established. The Macedonian kings had been engaged in main- taining and extending their power in Greece ; the Ptolemies had made Alexandria a centre of intellec- tual life and the richest city in the world ; the Seleucids had at any rate kept back the tribes of the interior 272 THE ROMAN CONQUEST from Syria and Asia Minor, though a new monarchy had arisen beyond the Euphrates under the Parthian Arsaces (B.C. 350), one day to be a terror to the West. The minor kingdoms of Pergamus, Pontus, and Bithynia had come into existence, and the con- federacy of the sea-powers Byzantium, Chios, and Rhodes was still an important element in the political situation. Greece Proper, meanwhile, though political inde- pendence was lost, in spite of proclamations of its freedom by various Macedonian pretenders, had enjoyed a good deal of practical liberty amidst the quarrels that distracted and weakened Macedonia. There was an aftermath of literature and art, and at no period was the credit of philosophers higher or the influence of their teaching more marked. But what- ever freedom the Greeks possessed it was not generally political. The active and energetic men in the various cities adopted the profession of arms and served in the armies of the various sovereigns in Europe, Asia or Egypt. Those who remained at home devoted themselves either to country life, or, if in cities, to letters and philosophy of a kind. The most active gave themselves up to training for the games, a pursuit, however, which had been spoiled for ordinary people by professionalism, the athletes forming a well-defined class to which it required special aptitude and most elaborate training to aspire. All political vigour, however, had not died out in Greece. We have seen how the Greeks in B.C. 280-279 were once more able to unite and repel the THE sETOLIANS 2/3 invading Celts. In one quarter once the least con- sidered in Greece freedom had never been lost. The ytolians a rugged people living in open villages in a mountainous country had repelled invasions of Athenians during the Peloponnesian war and of the Macedonians both in the time of Philip and Alexander, and in that of his successors. They had taken the chief part in the repulse of the Celts, and were gradually forming a league of cities outside their own borders, in the Peloponnese, Thessaly, and the Islands. They were, as a nation, much addicted to plundering and piracy, and their acknowledged principle was that where spoils were going they would take a share without any declara- tion of war (ay6fv \dvpov awb \a^>vpwv^. Their yearly elected Strategus seems to have had the right to go to war on his own authority, and their constant raids upon Elis, above all, are attested by many writers. They were, however, making a great posi- tion for themselves in Greece. About B.C. 240 they appear to have got the management of the Temple at Delphi into their hands, monopolising the Am- phictyonic Assembly, and excluding for a time the deputies from other places, thus making themselves, in a way, the mouthpiece of Greece and the arbiters in questions as to the laws of war. However, it seems to have been thought by certain states that an union with the ^Etolian League was advantageous, while in other cases their adhesion was more or less compulsory. The terms on which they joined survive in an inscrip- tion containing their treaty with the island of Ceos, which had some traditional connection with them as 19 274 THE ROMAN CONQUEST a colony from Naupactus, a town which had been presented to them by Philip II. in 6.0.341. These terms are that the yEtolians are to abstain from pillaging the Ceans by land and sea ; are not to summon them before the Amphictyonic Council (which only had jurisdiction between two foreign states) ; complaints of pillage on the part of Ceans are to go before the Strategus and courts of ^Etolia. A state conducted on these principles was likely to rouse enmity in every direction, and in B.C. 220 a war was declared against them by many states in Greece, COIN OF &TOLIAN LEAGUE. which is sometimes called the " Social War," and lasted till July, B.C. 217 with the usual effect of bringing foreign intervention. Thecentreoftheoppositiontothe^rolians.however, was another league which had become by this time the best~organised body in Greece. The ACH^ANS had always enjoyed a reputation for moderation and honesty, and from very early times formed a league of twelve cities. During the troubles of the Pelo- ponnesian war they had been forced to join Athens and Sparta alternately ; but at its end regained some THE ACH&AN LEAGUE sort of independence. In the Macedonian period (about B.C. 359-285) the League was dissolved and the several cities were garrisoned by Macedonian troops, or fell under the power of some tyrant in the Macedonian interest, the jealousy of Sparta often co-operating with their oppressors. But the time of Macedonia's greatest weakness (B.C. 284-280) was COIN OF ACHAEAN LEAGUE. seized upon by four towns to renew the League. They were shortly joined by three others, and this league of seven cities existed quietly till B.C. 255. The general nature of the tie was a common system of coinage, of weights and measures, a common assembly which elected two Strategi to command a joint army in case of attack. After B.C. 255 there 2/6 THE ROMAN CONQUEST was only one Strategus with a vice-president or hypo-Strategus, a hipparch to command the cavalry, and a navarch to command a squadron often ships which was maintained by the League. The next step in the history of the League was the adhesion of Sicyon under the influence of Aratus, who may be regarded almost as its second foun d er (B.C. 251-245). One after another the chief towns in the Peloponnese were freed from their Macedonian garrisons, or their pro-Macedonian tyrants, and by B.C. 229 the League included two-thirds of the Peloponnese Laconia, Messenia, and Elis standing aside. The most determined opponent was Sparta, under its reforming king Cleomenes III. ; for the ascendency of the Achaeans was not only a blow to Spartan prestige, but it prevented the recovery of its seaports. The ^Etolians were on the side of Sparta, because they hoped to share in the spoil if the League were broken up. They were accused by Polybius of intrigue with Antigonus Gonatas, King of Macedonia (B.C. 277-239) and with Antigonus Doson (B.C. 229-220) to secure their interference in the affairs of the Peloponnese against the Achaeans. But after all it was the Achaean Aratus himself who brought the Macedonian arms into the fray. It had hitherto been the policy of Aratus to seek help rather from Egypt. About B.C. 250 Ptolemy II. had supplied him with 150 talents ; and in B.C. 240 Ptolemy III. was nominated " General of the Achaean League by land and sea," and apparently assisted in the maintenance of the League fleet. When, there- fore, a series of mutual provocations issued in a war THE CLEOMENIC WAR 277 with Cleomenes of Sparta (B.C. 227-222), it was a reversal of all his previous policy for Aratus to ask the aid of Antigonus Doson. It alienated King Ptolemy (Euergetes), who began sending help to Cleomenes, and it, in the end, riveted the Macedonian yoke once more upon Greece, till it was superseded by that of Rome. The war thus began was a cause of much misery in the Peloponnese, and was at first wholly favourable to Cleomenes. But the complexion of affairs was changed, when Antigonus Doson arrived on the scene and was allowed to occupy the Acrocorinthus as his base (B.C. 224). From that time things went steadily wrong with Cleomenes, till after his defeat at Sellasia (B.C. 222) he fled to Alexandria and dis- appears from Greek history. But the effect of the policy of Aratus was altogether evil. Antigonus, indeed, " restored " the ancient constitution at Sparta, but it lasted only two years, and was succeeded by a series of tyrannies, which hampered progress much more than the opposition of the Spartan constitu- tional kings. The Achaean League, too, had had to concede the "permanent occupation of the Acrocorinthus one of the " fetters" of Greece and of Orchomenus, in Arcadia, by Macedonian garrisons, and to agree not to apply for aid to any other sovereign. The fatal result of this policy was shown under the next Macedonian king. . Antigonus was succeeded in B.C. 220, by Philip V. (of wfionTTie had been rightfully only guard iany a young man who soon showed that his ambition was not to be satisfied by anything less than complete 278 THE ROMAN CONQUEST ascendency in Greece, and whose policy was the direct cause of the advent of the Romans. The districts of Greece which had, during the Cleomenic war, formed some kind of alliance, were Achaia, Epirus, Phocis, Bceotia, Acarnania, Thessaly under the hegemony, that is, of Macedonia. It was, indeed, not a measure of Greek unity, but of Macedonian influence. They, with the addition of the King of Bithynia, are still found to form the Macedonian alliance, when in B.C. 205 Philip was compelled to sign the armistice with Rome at Phcenice. All these states now had grievances against the ^Etolians, which culminated in a joint declaration of war at Corinth, after Aratus, who was an able statesman but a poor military commander, had sustained a severe reverse at Caphyae. The professed object of the war was to restore to the several allies what had been violently taken from them by the ^Etolians ; to free those states which had been forcibly united to the vEtolian League, and to restore their free constitu- tions ; and lastly, to emancipate the temple of Delphi and the Amphictyonic Council from ^Etolian monopoly. This "social war" lasted till B.C. 217, and its beginning synchronised with disturbances at many points in the Hellenic world. A revolution at Sparta gave Lycurgus the opportunity of getting rid of his king-colleague and securing the sole power for him- self, in which he and his successors maintained the policy of bitter hostility to the Achseans. A war for the possession of Palestine was on the point of breaking out between Antiochus III. (of Syria) and r THE DIVISION OF GREEK STATES 28 1 Ptolemy IV. of Egypt ; and a brief naval war did actually begin between Rhodes and Byzantium on account of the heavy dues imposed upon the corn ships at the Bosporus by the latter. Future com- binations were foreshadowed by the grouping of allies in this war. Byzantium was joined by Attalus of Pergamus and Achaeus a cousin of Antiochus, and properly Satrap of Asia Minor, who had assumed the title of king and set up his court at Sardis. The Rhodians were assisted by Prusias, King of Bithynia, whose position gave him the power of blocking one end of the Bosporus and of invading territories of Byzantium in Mysia. Rhodes was thus acting as a champion of the interests of Greek commerce as Athens had done in old days. Her help was asked in two other directions about the same period in Crete where violent dissensions were raging which ended in the destruction of the town of Lyttos ; and in Sinope, which was threatened by Mithradates IV. of Pontus. This was the beginning of the extension of the kingdom of Pontus, and the design was con- summated by the next King Pharnaces seizing Sinope and making it his capital. This same year (B.C. 219) witnessed the beginning of the second struggle between Rome and Carthage, one of the far-reaching effects of which was to bring the Romans to Greece and Asia Minor. It was then a critical period for Greece in many directions. The one important state which was standing aloof from these disturbances, and joined neither ^tolian nor Achaean, was Athens, which a few years before had regained its freedom, 282 THE ROMAN CONQUEST had got rid of its Macedonian garrison, and was enjoying a brief period of prosperity, its harbour once more secured, and its walls rebuilt. It had made an unsuccessful but gallant attempt to secure this freedom from Antigonus Gonatas in B.C. 263 (the Chremonidean war), but in B.C. 229, on the death of Demetrius II., Diogenes, the commander of the Macedonian garrison, gave up the forts to the citizens, and was commemorated as a benefactor for many centuries his name still surviving on one of the seats in the theatre, while a gymnasium, called TO Atoyevetoi/, was frequented till quite late times. According to one story, Aratus supplied the money which was paid to Diogenes ; and Athens, though it did not join the Achaean League, took no part against it in the social war. But in the troubles that followed Athens looked to Attalus of Pergamus as offering the most profitable alliance, and therefore though not displaying much activity she is found among those states opposed to Achaia and Macedonia, which looked for protection to Rome. The social war (B.C. 220-217), though it witnessed no great actions and settled no questions had the result of giving Philip of Macedonia a decisive ascendency in Greece. In B.C. 217 he hastily patched up a peace on hearing of the Roman defeat at lake Trasimene, because he hoped that in alliance with Hannibal, and with the aid of Illyrian seamen, he might invade Italy and revive the old dream of a Western Empire. This involved a war with Rome, which lasted in a desultory way for ten years (B.C. 215-205), and created a division in the MACEDONIA VERSUS ROME 283 Hellenic world. Philip, up to the end of the social war, though receiving his own interests, had kept the confidence of the Greeks generally, or at any rate of the Achaean League. But after that time he had lost that confidence, was believed to have got rid ol Aratus by poison, and had committed various out- rages in Messenia and Elis. However, when it came to be a question of siding with Macedonia or Rome, as it did in B.C. 211, when the ^Etolians made a treaty of alliance with the Romans, the Achaean League stood by Macedonia, and were followed by the Boeotians, Phocians, Locrians, and Euboeans, and by the Western peoples of Epirus and Acarnania, and certain Illyrian princes. So in the East, Prusias of Bithynia stood by his relative, Philip, while Attalus of Pergamus joined the Roman alliance (B.C. 211). In the years that followed this arrangement Philip was not by any means always unsuccessful. He more than once defeated the ^Etolians ; once even repulsed a detachment of Roman troops near Sicyon ; foiled Attalus, King of Pergamus, in an attack upon Euboea ; and by instigating Prusias to attack Per- gamene territory, forced Attalus to abstain from the naval operations which he was carrying on in con- junction with Roman ships, using ^gina, which he had purchased, as his base. The details of the next two years of fighting (B.C. 207-6) are obscure. We find the sea-powers, Rhodes, Byzantium and Chios, more than once vainly attempting to intervene and make peace, in which they were sometimes joined with Egypt. These offered mediations are an indication of how annoying and ruinous to peaceful trade the 284 THE ROMAN CONQUEST disturbed state of Greece was kept up by the fears of the Achaean League (now managed chiefly by Philopcemen) of attacks by the tyrants of Sparta or the hostile ^Etolians, and cunningly fomented by Philip of Macedonia. To the Egyptians it was the cause of great financial loss. They had for some time seen the advantage of securing the corn trade with Italy. In B.C. 274, soon after the failure of the invasion of Pyrrhus, Ptolemy the Second had sent an embassy to Rome offering his friendship, which was COIN OF PHILIP V., KING OF MACEDONIA, B.C. 22O-I79- eagerly accepted, with the result that in the First Punic War the Egyptian Government remained neutral and refused to supply the Carthaginians with corn. So now (B.C. 210-9) the Romans, when the Hannibalian invasion had nearly produced a famine in Italy, applied to the court of Egypt for corn, as being almost the only country in which war was not raging. Thus the eyes of all were turned to the West, and the wise saw that from Italy would come the final decision of all their disputes. But Greece was not of one mind. As of old, while some PHILIP V. AND ANT10CHUS THE GREAT 285 thought that by uniting with a strong quasi-Hellenic power like Macedonia the " cloud from the West " might be kept off, others preferred their local autonomies and precarious alliances. The result was again the same that all fell alike under a great united power. Peace, indeed, was made in B.C. 205 ; but it only gave Philip opportunity for fresh encroachments and provocations, and his policy brought into the arena another sovereign Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, who had secured complete control of all Asia this side Taurus in B.C. 214 by the capture and death of his cousin Achaeus, and since then had been on a seven years' expedition into Upper Asia, beyond the Hindu-Kush, and had reduced to obedience the satraps of a vast region (B.C. 212- 205). Foiled for a time in his ambitions in Greece and the West, Philip turned his eyes to the East, and made an agreement with Antiochus to partition the outlying dominions of the infant King of Egypt, Ptolemy V., who had just succeeded. In pursuance of this agreement Antiochus at once occupied Pales- tine, long a bone of contention between the Syrian and Egyptian sovereigns ; defeated Scopas, the ^Etolian general in the service of Egypt, at Panium, near the sources of the Jordan ; and contemplated the subjection of Cyrene and Egypt itself. Philip, for his part, proceeded to occupy those Egyptian dominions which had been taken over by Ptolemy at the division of the Thracian kingdom at the death of Lysimachus in B.C. 281 that is, the Thracian Chersonese, certain cities in Asia Minor, and the 286 THE ROMAN CONQUEST islands of the ^Egean Sea. He went in person to the Chersonese and Asia, while he sent Dicaearchus with a fleet to seize the Cyclades, and an agent, named Heracleides, to prevent the interference of the Rhoclians by inciting the Cretans to make war on them, and by treacherously setting fire to their arsenal and ships. These proceedings brought on him the enmity of Attains of Pergamus, Rhodes, and Athens, and enraged the yEtolians, with whom he had shortly before come to some understanding, because three of the towns he first seized Lysi- macheia, at the head of the Chersonese, Chalcedon, and Cius, in Bithynia were members of their league. Rhodes had vainly tried to save Cius, and Attalus had watched the movement with great apprehension, and in B.C. 201, as he was extending his conquests southward, both proclaimed war with Philip. Though he promptly invaded Pergamene territory, and his ships were partly successful off Chios and Lade, and he himself penetrated to Caria, thus threatening the Rhodian Peraea, yet the repaired fleets of Attalus, Byzantium, and Rhodes were able to shut him off from returning to Macedonia during the ensuing winter, as the news of dangers at home made him anxious to do. He managed, however, to evade the hostile ships in the spring of B.C. 200. But the Nemesis was at hand. Attalus from /Egina went to Athens, where he was received with the greatest enthusiasm ; an alliance with him and Rhodes was voted by acclamation, and certain Roman commissioners who happened to be at Athens took advantage of the popular feeling to Photo} ANTIOCHUS in. (THE GREAT), REIGNED B.C. 223-187. (f.otivre.) ROME ATTACKS MACEDONIA 289 enrol Athens among the " friends of Rome." This was again and again the first step to a Roman pro- tectorate, merging in Roman annexation. And, in fact, the Roman government had resolved to inter- vene. The disorders in the Greek world were regarded as a danger to their commerce in the Mediterranean, and a kind of Philhellenism became the fashion at Rome, never standing in the way of active measures of suppression or extension, yet never quite insin- cere. A free Egypt, as a free Greece, seemed now of supreme importance, and the Roman government promptly answered to the appeal from Alexandria for help against Antiochus, and from the Greek states for aid against Philip. War was resolved upon against the king of Macedonia early in B.C. 200. At first this only led to fresh miseries in Greece. Philip sent a strong force into Attica, overran in person the Chersonese, and, crossing the Hellespont, laid siege to Abydos. Here he was met with the Roman ultimatum demanding that he should refrain from attacking any Greek city or any place belonging to Ptolemy, and submit to arbi- tration the indemnity claimed by Attalus and the Rhodians. But though the Roman commissioners travelled through Greece assuring the towns that joined the Roman alliance that they would be protected, and though a Roman consul and a consular army landed in Epirus in the autumn of B.C. 200, for two years little was done to redeem this promise. Philip went on his way unchecked : reduced Abydos, twice invaded and ravaged Attica (though prevented by 20 2QO THE ROMAN CONQUEST a Roman squadron from taking the Piraeus and city), and passed into the Peloponnese to secure the loyalty of the Achaean League ; and next year sur- prised and defeated an ^tolian force which was invading Thessaly under Roman auspices. Among the islands of the ^Egean, however, the presence of the combined Roman and Pergamene fleet, sta- tioned at ^Egina, did give substantial protection, and forced the expulsion of many Macedonian garri- sons. Still, there seemed some paralysing influence upon the Roman force in Epirus. A second consul succeeded the first, and ambassadors from various states crowded the Roman camp with complaints and anxious questions. It was not until the arrival of T. Quinctius Flamininus, in the spring of B.C. igS^that the king's^ position on the Aous was turned, and the Roman army was marching on the heels of Philip as he fled through Thessaly to Tempe. Flamininus, however, presently turned south, and marched through Boeotia, receiving or taking town after town, and ex- pelling Macedonian garrisons. As he lay before Elateia he received the adhesion of the Achaean League, and by the time he went into winter quarters Argos and Corinth were almost the only places of importance in the south that still held by Philip and retained their Macedonian garrisons, while Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, was waiting to see which side it would serve him best to join. But in Central Greece Demetrias and Chalcis were still in the king's hands. All these, however, were lost to him next year (B.C. 197), when, after long conferences and FLAMININUS IN GREECE 29 1 a fruitless appeal to the Senate, the war was renewed, and Philip was utterly beaten in the autumn at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly. The battle was decisive, and it was not an isolated event. In other parts of Greece, about the same time, the Macedonian cause had received a series of blows. The Rhodians had re-possessed themselves of their Peraea in Caria ; the troops of the Achaeans had defeated the Macedonian commander at Acro- corinthus ; and the Acarnanians had been forced to submit by a Roman fleet. The question for Greeks was whether the victory at Cynoscephala:: meant recovered freedom or a change of masters. There had been Greeks fighting on both sides, as usual, and to neither was the answer clear. One state quickly showed its dissatisfaction. The ^Etolians gave themselves annoying airs over their part in the victory, and had shown great cupidity in appro- priating plunder. When Philip, recognising his position, had agreed to evacuate all Greek towns, the ^Etolians claimed the restoration of those in Thessaly and elsewhere which had once belonged to their league ; but Flamininus laid down the prin- ciple that towns which had voluntarily surrendered to Rome were under the protection of the Senate, and could only be disposed of by it. Only those which had resisted and had been captured were, accord- ing to the terms of the treaty of B.C. 211, to pass back to the ^tolians. This confirmed their discon- tent, which had already been roused by the terms granted to Philip. They had hoped for the dismembering of Macedonia, and the consequent 2Q2 THE ROMAN CONQUEST extension of their own dominions in Acarnania and Epirus. At present, however, the Roman view was to maintain the kingdom of Macedonia as a buffer- state against surrounding barbarians, though it was to be confined to its natural frontiers. The Senate decided that, generally speaking, all Greek cities in Europe or Asia were to be free and autonomous Those in Asia, still occupied by Philip, were to be set free at once. Those in Europe were to be handed over before the next Isthmian Games (July) to the ten commissioners, who were sent to Greece and were to determine their status. This distinction was made because the Senate did not mean at present to have any responsibility in Asia, while in Greece it would be a question for the commissioners to decide whether the cities should or should not have a Roman garrison, especially the three " fetters " Demetrias, Chalcis, and Acrocorinthus. It was the decision of this point that was awaited with such anxiety and received with such enthusiasm at the next Isthmian Games. This first plan drawn up by Roman officials (no doubt much inspired by Flamininus) for the settlement of Greece deserves to be carefully studied. It was honestly intended, with- out any thought of annexation, and was founded on the principle of respecting existing combinations when they corresponded with natural divisions, but discouraging the government of isolated towns in one district by another and distant state. It related only to those parts of Greece which had been held by Macedonia either in full sovereignty or by garri- sons professedly stationed in them for their pro- PROCLAMATION AT THE ISTHMIAN GAMES 2$$ tection. Of the rest of Greece the Achaean and the JEtolian Leagues, Athens, Sparta there was no question in this particular award. But as to the districts which had been in possession of Philip and had now come into that of Rome, the future was uncertain, and therefore the crowd attending the games waited in breathless expectation for the herald's proclamation, made by order of Flamininus. It declared, in the name of the Senate and the Pro- consul, " the following people free, in full enjoyment of the laws of their respective countries : Corinthians, Phocians, Locrians, Eubceans, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Magnesians, Thessalians, Perrhaebians." The ex- citable people in their joy almost crushed Flamininus to death in trying to grasp his hands and cover him with garlands. But, after all, this proclamation only announced a general principle ; the commissioners still had details to settle. Phocis and Locris were allowed to rejoin the ^itolian League, and certain towns in the Peloponnese the Achaean League. Thessaly was to consist of four confederations one called Thessaly, the others Perrhaebians, Dolopes, and Magnesians. Finally, some rectifications of the western frontier of Macedonia were made in favour of certain Illyrian princes who had stood by Rome. The settlement was completed next year by a joint attack upon Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, in which Eumenes, the King of Pergamus, the Rhodians, and King Philip took part. The harbour town of Gytheium was taken, and Nabis was obliged to evacuate Argos, surrender his ships, restore exiles, abandon all claims to govern towns outside Laconia, 294 THE ROMAN CONQUEST and pay a large war indemnity. At the following Nemaean Games, Argos was proclaimed free and re- joined the Achaean League. Finally, Flamininus, on his return to Italy, in B.C. 194, put a finishing touch upon his work of liberation by withdrawing the Roman garrisons from Demetrias, Chalcis, and Acro- corinthus. The settlement seemed an equitable one and likely to be lasting, because it was founded on natural divi- sions and a respect for established facts, and involved no interference with local institutions. But from the very first there were two points of danger and dis- content Sparta and ^Etolia. The tyrant of Sparta naturally resented the loss of all access to the sea ; and the ^Etolians were annoyed by not being allowed to reunite distant league states, especially Leucadia and Pharsalus, and at not having been commissioned to put down Nabis, and thus re-possess themselves of their larger towns in Arcadia. A disturbance in Boeotia, which had Macedonian sym- pathies, issuing in the murder of Roman soldiers and consequent severities by Flamininus, and the pre- sence of Roman commissioners in Thessaly, where the details of settlement occupied some years, gave them a pretext for saying that Greece had only gained a change of masters. They were, in fact, determined upon the usual policy of discontented states in Greece to call in the help of a foreign power. They selected Antiochus of Syria, whom we heard of last as having occupied Palestine as his share of the dominions of Egypt which he and Philip had agreed to partition. Since then he had ANTIOCHUS INVITED BY THE &TOLIANS 2()$ taken up some of the work which Philip had been obliged to abandon, and had occupied the Egyptian protectorates in Caria and the Thracian Chersonese. He then gave his daughter Cleopatra in marriage to Ptolemy, with the revenues of Ccele-Syria and Palestine as her dower. He thus had established a kind of right to the cities of Caria and the Chersonese, and at any rate had prevented the fear of an appeal from Egypt to Rome against him. Nevertheless the Romans had remonstrated against his encroachment upon the Chersonese, and had told him at last that, if he did not quit Europe, they would free the Greek cities in Asia from him (B.C. 193). But Antiochus had many reasons for not yielding to these threats. First, he had received the applica- tion of the ^tolians, who assured him that if he would come to Greece there would be a rising in the Peloponnese, headed by Nabis, in Bceotia, and other parts of Central Greece, and that Philip of Mace- donia would gladly seize the opportunity of shaking off the supremacy of Rome. Again, there had just arrived in Ephesus the greatest general of the day and the most implacable enemy of Rome, Hannibal the Carthaginian, driven into exile by the unworthy jealousy of the Roman government. Hannibal held out an alluring prospect of inducing his fellow- countrymen to renew the war when the Romans were hampered by the rising in the East. Lastly, his past successes in Central Asia and Palestine had given Antiochus confidence in his power and fortune. Nor was it only as a victor that he had gained men's good word. He had known how to conciliate as well 2Q6 THE ROMAN CONQUEST as to conquer, had respected Jewish laws and cus- toms, and had assured Greek cities that he would issue no orders that were contrary to their laws. Therefore, though appeals went to Rome from some cities, such as Smyrna, Alexandria Troas, and Lampsacus, there does not seem to have been any widespread dissatisfaction with his rule in the cities of Asiatic Hellas. When at last, however, he did cross to Greece and land at Demetrias, he found none of the fair hopes which had been held out to him in the way of fulfil- ment. The Carthaginians, even if they wished it, were prevented from stirring by the ever-present hostility of Massanasa, who could always reckon on the support of Rome. Nabis of Sparta had fallen by the treachery of the ^tolians, whose help he had asked against the Achaean League, and Sparta had been added to the League by Philopoemen. The ^tolians, indeed, had prepared for the coming of Antiochus by seizing Demetrias, and, summoning a conference at Lamia, got him proclaimed "general" of the League. But the expected rising did not take place. The Boeotians hesitated, the Achaeans re- jected his proposals, and almost the only people who openly joined him were the insignificant Athamanes. So far from joining Antiochus, Philip of Macedonia, who was threatened by a pretender in the person of a brother-in-law of the king of the Athamanes, was actively assisting the Romans. It is true that after his capture of Chalcis there seemed for a brief space some hope. In the winter of B.C. 192-191 messages of sympathy, and sometimes active adhesion came ANTIOCHUS BEATEN AT THERMOPYLAE from Elis, Epirus, and Bceotia. In the latter the king was received personally with enthusiasm, and commissioners from some of the towns in Thessaly attended a conference with him at Demetrias. But the friendly states more often had need of help from him than ability to furnish any ; and on the whole he must have felt that the idea of leading a united Greece was hopeless. Such alliances as he had been able to form collapsed next spring (B.C. 191) when a Roman army marched through Thessaly, receiving the submission of city after city. Antiochushad spent the winter at Chalcis, and now tried to block the famous pass of Thermopylae against the Roman advance ; but being utterly defeated there, he escaped by sea to Ephesus and never returned. His intervention had been useless to Greece, and was in the near future to prove disastrous to himself. All parts of Greece relapsed into their former submissiveness, and hardly any severities were employed by the consul Acilius to the states which had favoured Antiochus. But the ^Etolians would not give in. An ^Etolian force stood a long siege at Heracleia, just north of Thermopylae, and their main army was strongly posted at Naupactus, A year went by with indeci- sive sieges and protracted negotiations, during which the only gainer was Philip of Macedon, who was entrusted with the reduction of revolted cities in Thessaly, and was rewarded by the remission of his war indemnity and the restoration of his supremacy in part, at any rate, of that district. The Romans felt sure of being able to settle the yEtolian question 298 THE ROMAN CONQUEST whenever they chose, and gave all their energies for the present to crush Antiochus, whose high talk of a second expedition into Greece was partly responsible for the obstinacy of the ^Etolian resistance. The king's fleet was defeated in the autumn of B.C. 191 off Phocaea, but in the spring of the next year it gained a victory over the Rhodians, while the Roman fleet was detained some time with the blockade of Abydos. Things seemed promising for the king at first, his son Seleucus carried all before him in ^Eolis, and he himself, at the head of a large army, occupied the territory of Pergamus. But a Roman army was on its way, commanded by L. Scipio, assisted by his famous brother Afri- canus ; and whilst waiting to fight this army the king's fortune at sea went from bad to worse. Hannibal, with a Phoenician fleet, was defeated by the Rhodians ; his own fleet was beaten with great loss in the bay of Teos ; Phocaea was captured by the Roman ships ; and there was no chance of pre- venting the Scipios from crossing the Hellespont. The battle of Magnesia, late in B.C. 190, ended all his hopes. His army was cut to pieces, and he and his son with difficulty escaped to Sardis. He was obliged to submit to any terms the Romans chose to demand. They included an immense war indem- nity and the abandonment of his authority in Asia this side of Taurus. It was a repetition of the so- called treaty of Callias in B.C. 452 : Asiatic Greece was no longer to be under an Eastern sovereign. But times were changed, and the restoration of complete and separate independence to the cities proved to ROMAN SETTLEMENT OF ASIA MINOR 299 be impracticable, though that seems to have been the first idea of the Romans, and was suggested by Rhodian envoys. Eventually the usual commission of ten senators arrived, and after listening to various claimants made their award : (i) Those parts of Asia Minor which had belonged to Antiochus in full sovereignty were to belong to Eumenes of Pergamus, except Lycia and Caria south of the Maeander, which were to belong to Rhodes. (2) Of Greek cities such as had formerly paid tribute to the king of Pergamus and had been wrested from him were to pay their tribute as before ; those that had been originally inde- pendent but had been subjected by Antiochus were to recover their independence, and such as had been independent of either king throughout were to con- tinue independent Thus the historic cities on the coast such as Miletus, Cyme, Clazomenae, Smyrna, and islands such as Chios, became independent ; Rhodes recovered the Peraea in Caria, and had added to it Lycia in full sovereignty. But the greatest gainer was King Eumenes of Pergamus, who became sovereign of the Thracian Chersonese, of Phrygia, Mysia, Lycaonia, and Lydia, besides the rich trad- ing city of Ephesus, with Tralles and Telmessus. Pergamus thus became a strong and wealthy king- dom, and rivalled Alexandria as a centre of Greek letters and art. Eumenes II., who had succeeded his father in B.C. 197, continued his work in beautify- ing the city with splendid buildings and the best sculptures to be obtained. Some of the finest remains of ancient art that have survived were 30O THE ROMAN CONQUEST brought to Rome from Pergamus, such as the dying Gaul (called "the Dying Gladiator)," and the Belvi- dere Apollo. Eumenes also began the great library which contained 200,000 volumes, and was eventually transferred by Antony to Alexandria as a gift to Cleopatra after a great part of the Alexandrian library had been destroyed by fire. The sovereigns of Pergamus were enlightened men and apparently excellent rulers, and Asiatic Greece now enjoyed a brief period of peace and increasing wealth. European Greece was not so fortunate. The y^tolians were still in arms, nor did they give in until their capital, Ambracia, had stood a long and memorable siege. They then had to submit to be deprived of all annexations, to surrender all right to make additions to their League either by war or negotiation, and, in fact, to be a dependency of Rome without the right of having a foreign policy, though for internal purposes they retained their constitution (B.C. 187). ^tolia ceases to count in Greek history from this time. Its population decreased, and its narrow territory now bounded on the west by the River Achelous seemed to lapse into barbarism. In Western Greece Ambracia and Acarnania were declared free states, but Corcyra was governed by a Roman praefectus, and the freedom of these states, as of the commonwealth of Epirus, was really on sufferance and at the mercy of Rome. Nor was the freedom of Southern Greece in much better case. The great achievement of Philopcemen, the last great soldier of the Achaean League, had been to compel Sparta to join the League, and so to make TROUBLES IN THE PELOPONNESUS 30 1 the term Achaia applicable to the whole Pelopon- nesus (B.C. 192). But Sparta was always an unwilling member, and its adhesion had been at the cost of more than one bloody revolution, in the course of which now one and now another party had been exiled. These exiles 'were always clamouring for restitution ; and at least four classes of them appeared by their representatives in Rome in B.C. 184. Philo- poemen was murdered in B.C. 183, and Lycortas, the father of Polybius, became the most influential man in the League. His policy was to maintain inde- pendence by strictly adhering to the terms of their treaty with Rome, and thus to avoid the interference of Roman commissioners. But this implied internal union and loyalty and the observance of the rule laid down in the treaty that only legates from the Central League government were to go to Rome ; individual states were not to send any. But with members of the League discontented such embassies were sure to be sent covertly, if not openly ; and when the Senate saw reason to be displeased with the League these separate embassies were encouraged. Moreover, the party opposed to Lycortas was led by a certain Callicrates, whose policy was to promote the Roman interests and to make the control of Rome more complete. It was to him, then, that the Spartan exiles looked for help, and a statue-base exists at Olympia in which they record their grati- tude for his success in securing their recall, which could only be done by appeal to the Roman Senate. Achaia was a house divided against itself. Elsewhere in Greece there were also many signs of 3O2 THE ROMAN CONQUEST restlessness. In Thessaly Philip's hold on certain cities, connived at by Rome, was being resisted. In Boeotia, as in Sparta, there were disputes about the recall of exiles and signs that the Boeotian League preferred Macedonia to Rome. In the East the Lycians resented being subjects, when they believed that they were meant by the Roman award to be allies, of Rhodes, and were more than once in armed rebellion. These troubles led to constant and weari- some appeals to the Roman Senate, and eventually the renewal of war with Macedonia put an end to the farce of Greek independence, with its endless bicker- ings. This war had become inevitable. King Philip was extending his power in Thrace, sometimes by acts of great cruelty, thus coming into collision with the King of Pergamus, who governed the Thracian Chersonese ; he was interfering in the affairs of the Illyrian princes, and was endeavouring once more to make a party for himself in Greece. These pro- ceedings were jealously watched in Rome, and the king was irritated by frequent commissioners that visited Macedonia or parts of Greece and Thrace, where he was believed to be intriguing. His younger son Demetrius, who had visited Rome as his father's agent, was so ostentatiously patronised by them that Perseus was able, by false representations, so to inflame his father's suspicions that he at last con- sented to his death. The unhappy man never held up his head again ; and though he continued working against the Roman influence, he died in B.C. 179, before an outbreak actually occurred. But his son Perseus succeeded to his policy as well as to the POLICY AND DEFEAT OF PERSEUS 303 wealth and warlike stores which his father had accumulated. Very soon after the accession of Perseus rumours spread through Greece of a change for the better in the government of Macedonia, from which advantages might be hoped. A young and vigorous sovereign had mounted the throne, who, while renewing his father's treaty with Rome, yet let it be understood that he wished to identify himself with Greek interests and Greek ideas. He at once made advances to the Achaeans for the removal of the mutual prohibition of the citizens of the one country visiting the territory of the other. As time went on instances of attempts to assert his power by force or favour in Thessaly and other parts of Greece accumulated. A civil contest broke out in Bceotia, in which the leaders of the Romanising party were killed (B.C. 171) ; in the previous year (B.C. 172), Eumenes, King of Pergamus, had visited Rome and had reported in strong terms on the progress which Perseus was making in Bceotia, ./Etolia, and Thrace, and his life was attempted on his way home. The usual despatch of commissioners followed with irritating frequency, whose presence was resented by Perseus, and whose reports caused great uneasiness at Rome, till at length war was declared in B.C. 175 and was only ended by the battle of Pydna in B.C. 168, the capture of the king and the division of Macedonia into four districts, in which the inhabitants had no right of residence or ownership in any but their own division. And though these districts were nominally independent, they were fettered by so many conditions and prohibitions, as, 304 THE ROMAN CONQUEST for instance, in regard to working mines or felling timber for ships, that they were in effect in a worse position than any province. They were subjects without a subject's privileges. But the effects of this war with Perseus on the Greek world were scarcely less disastrous. In the first year Perseus had gained some substantial successes in cavalry skirmishes on the Peneus. All the states which recently cherished a wish for a revived Macedonia as a counterpoise to Rome, were tempted by these successes to show their colours. The movement, says Polybius, " spread like a fire." It was specially strong in Boeotia, ./Etolia, and Epirus ; but even some of Rome's most trusted allies were suspected as Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and the Rhodians ; and though the Achaean Government had not committed itself to any breach of its treaty with Rome, there was a strong nationalist party in the League, whom the Romans chose to regard with suspicion. On the defeat of Perseus, therefore, the hand of Rome fell heavily upon many parts of Greece. Eumenes, in paying a visit of congratulation, was abruptly told to quit Italy, and his brother Attalus was ostentatiously promoted and honoured, while Prusias of Bithynia was instigated to annoy him by frontier disputes. But the royal family of Pergamus was distinguished by family affection, and Eumenes seems to have survived till B.C. 157, without any quarrel with his brother and successor. A more practical punishment was inflicted on Rhodes, its dependencies in Caria and Lycia being declared free, PUNISHMENT OF RHODES AND EPIRUS 305 while its finances were injured by the recognition of Delos as a free port. This diverted the passage of ships between Greece and Asia, and at once seriously diminished the harbour dues, on which the revenue of the Rhodians had greatly depended. In Greece proper, though no Roman province was created, yet the whole country was made to feel its sub- ordination. Epirus, as having openly favoured Perseus suffered worst. Not only was the League govern- ment dissolved, but all its cities were stripped of COIN OF PERSES, KING OF MACEDONIA, B.C. 179-168. their wealth and fortifications. More than 150,000 persons are said to have been sold into slavery, and whole districts were left desolate and uncultivated. The Boeotian League was also dissolved, and some of the most disaffected cities practically demolished. The Achaean League was not formally dissolved, but complaints against it by Sparta or other dis- contented members were encouraged, and 1,000 members of the nationalist party were ordered to go to Italy and await trial. The same was done in other parts of Greece. These men were detained in 21 3O6 THE ROMAN CONQUES7 various cities in Italy and never brought to trial till their numbers had diminished to about 300, when they were allowed to return as no longer dangerous (B.C. 151). Their return, however, presently involved the entire dissolution of the League. For one of the restored exiles named Diaeus was elected Strategus for B.C. 150-149, and by an ill-judged quarrel with Sparta brought upon the League first the loss of Sparta and then that of Corinth, Argos, and Orchomenus in Arcadia, by the order of Roman com- missioners. The Strategus of that year (B.C. 147), Critolaus, was a violent anti-Romanist, and persuaded the cities of the League to resist this order and to enrol troops. In the spring of B.C. 146, he was able to occupy Thermopylae in considerable force. But there was a Roman consul and army in Macedonia which, after the defeat of various pre- tenders, was being reduced to the form of a single Roman province, the quadruple division being abolished. Metellus, who was in command of this army in Macedonia, marched quietly down the country and defeated Critolaus, who perished in some unknown way after the battle. His predecessor, Diaeus, according to the League law, became at once Strategus, and he determined to continue the resist- ance, fortifying himself in Corinth. There he was so utterly defeated by the successor of Metellus, L. Mummius, that he fled to Megalopolis and took poison, while Corinth was given up to pillage and fire. Its treasures of art which were saved from the flames or the ignorant destruction of the soldiers END OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 307 were transported to Rome, and the town itself was reduced to ruins and remained a mere village till recolonised by Julius Caesar. This was the end of Greek independence ; but Greece was not as yet made into a Roman province. The system pursued was to abolish all leagues and to treat each city and its immediate territory as a separate and distinct entity with a local constitution of its own. Ten Commissioners visited the Pelo- ponnese, now often called Achaia, and drew up a lex or charter for each city, assisted by Polybius the historian and son of Lycortas, who was commissioned to explain to each city the terms granted to it. So in other parts of Greece as in Attica and the islands. Greece was in effect not one but many provinces, and Cicero enumerates among the " pro- vinces " of the Roman people, Achaia, Thessalia, Bceotia, Lacedaemonii, Athenienses. Some cities were in a better position than others such as Athens, Sparta, Sicyon which did not pay tribute. Their status depended on former treaties made with them as sovereign states. But all alike were under the direction of Rome in regard to external relations and the right of going to war : and for certain purposes all alike were subject to the governors of Macedonia, who could levy soldiers in them. In Northern Greece the greater part of Epirus and Thessaly were united to the province of Macedonia. yEtolia was desolate and neglected, but in most of the districts large tracts of lands were made ager publicus ; that is, the property of the Roman people, who received a regular rent from their occupiers. This 308 THE ROMAN CONQUEST was the case with all Euboea and Bceotia, and the territory of Corinth ; some of which last, however, was granted to Sicyon on condition of keeping up the Isthmian games. Some of the smaller states were for special reason excused the payment of tribute, but as a general rule every community recognised as a state paid a fixed sum to the Roman exchequer. Thus Greece, which the course of events since the death of Alexander had brought into line with the Hellenistic kingdoms of Egypt, Syria, Perga- mus, and Macedonia was now joined to the Roman system, destined before long to absorb the first three of these as it had already done the last Greece cannot be said to have flourished in this new position. Population went down ; what had once been im- portant cities became mere villages, and most of the active and vigorous men who survived sought em- ployment elsewhere, either as soldiers, or physicians, or teachers, or artists. Hellenism flourished at Pergamus, Antioch, and above all at Alexandria, rather than in Greece ; and though Greek culture survived and deeply affected the conquering race, the Greeks themselves ceased to be regarded as of weight in the political history of the world. Still, some of the characteristic features of Greek life survived. The great games were still largely attended, though the Romans rather despised them ; the Amphictyonic League still existed, though with much diminished importance, and the oracles were still consulted. Athens not only retained the glamour of its great past, but was still a well-fortified GREECE UNDER ROME 309 city and the home of philosophic schools, maintained in part by legacies from the original founders or subsequent masters, and was attended by young men of rank or wealth from all parts of the Empire. Certain towns attained or recovered some prosperity from being places of call in journeys between Italy and the East, such as Dyrrachium and Apollonia in Epirus, Patrae in the Peloponnese, Athens itself, and some of the islands, as Corcyra and Samos. Artisti- cally Greece suffered much from the Roman conquests. An immense amount of the finest works of art were transferred to Rome either by conquering generals or private collectors. Whole towns were stripped, as Syracuse and Tarentum, Corinth and Chalcis, Ambracia and all the cities of Epirus. But besides these and other wholesale robberies a steady drain went on as wealth got more into the hands of the Romans. Yet, as the remains still testify, much was left, and the traveller Pausanias (in the second century of our era) found enough in most parts of Greece to fill many pages of mere enumeration. Wherever the Roman power extended there was on the whole peace and a reign of law. Administra- tion of law involves the art of oratory, and accord- ingly we find both in European and Asiatic Greek this art still cultivated and in high repute, especially at Rhodes and in some cities in Asia Minor. Both Caesar and Cicero visited Rhodes to study in the rhetorical schools, and Cicero went to Asia Minor for the same purpose. There was thought to be a marked difference of style between the two. That of Rhodes was the purer and more classical, the 3IO THE ROMAN CONQUEST oratory of Asiatic Greece was more elaborate and artificial ; but at any rate in this respect Greece was still the teacher ; and though material prosperity was diminished or destroyed, she still drew to her a large part of those who cared for art, science, or letters. Photo] [Meurdem. Al'HROniTE OF MEI.OS (VENUS OF MILO IN THE LOUVRE). IX GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME TO A.D. 14 Peaceful state of Greece after B.C. 146 Decay and poverty Piracy in Greek waters The kingdom of Pergamus becomes the Roman province of Asia, B.C. 131 The prosperity of the Asiatic Greeks in spite of extortionate Roman magistrates The disadvantages of the Roman rule The merits of the Roman rule Mithradates Eupator Many Greeks join Mithradates, B.C. 88 European Greece joins the movement against Rome, and Athens accepts the authority of Mithradates Campaign of Sulla in Attica and the capture of Athens, B.C. 87-6 Sulla's campaign in Boeotia, B.C. 86 Greek cities in Asia return to their allegiance to Rome The sufferings of the Greeks in Asia Reforms of Lucullus in the Greek cities of Asia Pompey's suppression of pirates and settlement of Asia The Greeks during the civil wars of B.C. 49 to 32 Julius Caesar's management of Greece Athens adheres to M. Brutus, and after- wards to M. Antonius The Greeks in Sicily Augustus and Greece The Greek dynasty in Egypt comes to an end, B.C. 30 The second arrangement of Greece by Augustus, B.C. 21-19 Improved position of the provinces under the Emperor. AFTER the settlement which followed the fall of Corinth in B.C. 146, Greece for the most part remained quietly obedient to its new masters. But the settle- ment itself was not the work of a day. The details involved long investigation and patient consideration. For some years to come there are traces in sur- viving inscriptions of awards made in regard to 313 314 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME particular towns. Nor are there wanting indications of active resistance, especially to the limitation of the franchise which seems to have been every- where required, even in states nominally free. For instance, an inscription exists giving a copy of a despatch from the proconsul of Macedonia to the magistrates and people of Dyme in Achaia con- demning to death two men who had tried to abolish this property qualification, and, in order to secure that end, had set fire to the public records and registers. But such outbreaks were rare ; there was doubtless a period of peace such as the country had not known before. Even those states which were numerically free could only use troops in the service of Rome or subject to an appeal to Rome. Thus a few years before (B.C. 152) the Athenians had ventured to make a raid on the territory of Oropus. The people of Oropus promptly appealed to the Roman Senate, and the Senate commissioned the government of Sicyon to assess the damages, and when the amount assessed proved to be beyond their means, the Athenians had to send commissioners to plead before the Senate for its reduction. It was on this occasion that they were represented by the heads of the three chief philo- sophical schools, Carneades of the new Academy, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Diogenes the Stoic a significant fact as showing the importance of the literary class in the city. But though there was peace, it was in many cases the quiet of decay. Population, as already remarked, was dwindling, cities sank into villages, and poverty THE PORT OF DELOS 315 was everywhere apparent. Exceptions were generally those places which were on the line of route from West to East, such as Dyrrachium, Apollonia,Corcyra, and Patrae. Above all, the destruction of Corinth and the assignment of Delos to Athens as a free port, gave the Athenians considerable wealth and importance for a time. A series of inscriptions discovered at Delos by French archaeologists has disclosed a curious hisrory of the commercial impor- tance and activity of Delos. It was especially known for its market of slaves and bronzes. It was peopled by Athenian clerucks, and the " Commissioner of Delos" (fTTfMfXj'/rrjc) w'as the most important official at Athens, and had the best residence in the Piraeus. But the profits earned at Delos and the still existing mines at Laurium were the only source of revenue. The harbour of the Piraeus was empty, and though there was a war minister (arpaT^ybg ETTI ra o?rXa) it was with difficulty that troops were collected to suppress a rising of slaves in Attica and Delos about B.C. 132, brought about probably, as the nearly contemporary rising in Sicily, by the poverty as much as by the harshness of masters. Another hindrance to Hellenic prosperity was piracy. This had always existed in the Mediter- ranean even before the time of Homer. One of the professed purposes of the Confederacy of Delos of B.C. 476 had been to prevent its practice in the vEgean, and as long as the Athenian naval supre- macy lasted it was kept in check. Its subsequent reappearance is testified by inscriptions recording thanks to those sovereigns or generals who had done 316 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME anything to suppress it. The fleets of the kings of Pergamus, of Syria, the ships maintained by a sort of island confederation which was renewed in Delos after the death of Alexander, and those of Rhodes and her allies, all did something to abate this nuisance. But the fatal weakening of all these naval powers by the Roman policy after B.C. 146 had allowed piracy to break out again in an aggra- vated form. The number of the piratical ships constituted a formidable fleet, which swept round the coasts unhindered. Their chief haunts were, in the West, the islands fringing the Illyrian coast and the Balearic Islands ; in the East, Crete and the coast of Cilicia. As years went on, and poverty in Greece became more marked, it seems that many Greeks who in earlier and better times would have been in the active service of their state drifted into this way of life. In spite of the mischief and loss which they caused, the profession was regarded with a curious tolerance as something hardly in itself dis- honourable, and the various sovereigns were at times glad to avail themselves of the services of the pirates. It was not until well into the first century B.C. that the Romans seemed to wake to their responsibilities in regard to them, and to see that having practically taken over Greece in Europe and Asia it was their interest as well as their duty to put down this lawless trade. In the West, indeed, they had done something; the war with Queen Teuta and other princes (B.C. 229) had stopped for a time the Illyrian pirates; and in B.C. 123 the Balearic Islands were annexed on the ground of their giving shelter PIRACY IN ASIATIC HELLAS 317 to piratical vessels. In the East for a long time the Romans did nothing, but their responsibilities were accumulating and could not be neglected. The next great change in the status of a large district in the Hellenic world occurred in B.C. 133, when Attalus III. the last sovereign of Pergamus died after a brief and not very distinguished reign, leaving a will in which he bequeathed, as Roman writers put it briefly, his kingdom to the Romans. It is a natural reflection that a sovereign has no such power of transferring a people to another ruler. He cannot, except in special circumstances, even name his successor. Yet it is not more outrageous than the transference of whole nations from one sovereign to another by treaty without the people so trans- ferred being consulted, as has often happened in modern Europe. We must remember, however, that the larger part of the kingdom of Pergamus had been taken by the Romans bodily from King Antiochus and annexed to Pergamus, equally with- out any regard to national sentiment. To most of the cities, which were administered by their own laws, it meant little more than a change of the exchequers into which their taxes were to be paid, and the occasional obligation of serving in a Roman rather than a Pergamene army. There would also be from time to time appeals to a Roman tribunal instead of to the Royal Court at Pergamus. But this would little affect the bulk of the people. An inscription found on the site of Pergamus, however, puts a some- what different complexion upon this will. What Attalus did leave to the Romans was his personal 318 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME property, including domain lands, factories, and slaves. This legacy was of immense value, because it seems that nearly all manufactories were in the king's hands. As for the people of Pergamus itself, he not only regarded it as remaining free, but left it the terri- tories which he had won from hostile peoples. The object seems to have been to induce the Roman government in return to respect the liberty of the demos of Pergamus. This the Romans at first did, but they assumed that the tribute paid by the dis- tricts which they had annexed to Pergamus would now be paid to them and they collected it at once, though on a lower scale than had been paid to the King of Pergamus. And this arrangement would probably have gone on, and the Greek cities would have enjoyed internal independence, while paying a tax to the Roman exchequer. But the appearance of a pretender in the person of Aristonicus (a natural son of Attalus), who claimed the whole inheritance, upset this arrangement. He held out for three years and inflicted more than one defeat upon Roman commanders. When at length he was suppressed, the whole of the Per- gamene territory, as well as the annexed districts of Mysia, Lydia, Phrygia, and Caria, were formed into one province of " Asia." Thus a large number of Greek cities, each with a local history and con- stitution of its own, were placed in a position like that of the cities of European Greece. Some of them were made liberae dvitates for special reasons, but the greater part were like cities in other pro- vinces with local institutions, but subject to a PERGAMUS BEQUEATHED TO ROME 319 tributum and to the jurisdiction of the pro- praetorial court. The change does not seem to have interfered with their prosperity. Pergamus itself, from which branched the principal roads to other parts of Asia, remained rich and flourishing, and was the central city of the new as of the old government. The whole province contributed to the Roman exchequer by a tithe on produce, port dues or customs, and a payment for grazing on domain land. The burden of taxation, if fairly distributed and honestly col- lected, was probably less than in the times of Attalus. But the Roman governor and his retinue of legati, praefecti, and the rest, were expensive luxuries. They levied contributions for entertain- ment, cartage, forage, and other expenses, and exacted various percentages, some of them sanc- tioned perhaps by custom, but many of them absolutely illegal. Moreover, in their anxiety to propitiate their rulers, a sort of epidemic of servility seemed to set in upon the Hellenic world laudatory inscriptions (which were cheap) were continually set up, as well as temples erected and complimentary embassies sent to Rome (which were both costly) testifying to the virtues and purity of governors who had probably already mercilessly fleeced the cities. Some cities also sent "voluntary" contribu- tions to the aediles at Rome to defray the expenses of the games. Above all, after B.C. 123 the tithe and other dues were collected by companies of publicani, who purchased the contract from the censors at Rome. The purchase was effected by a com- 32O GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME petition between rival companies, who often there- fore paid a heavy sum to the Exchequer, and consequently had, in order to avoid bankruptcy, to exact the last farthing from the taxpayers. The attempt to appeal against extortionate acts on the part of these publicani was seldom successful. The governor was often himself implicated by the taking of percentages, and the jury before whom such cases came in Rome were themselves equites (to which order all the publicani belonged), and in- terested either actually or potentially in maintaining the system. The expenses of a prosecution, with the necessary journey of witnesses, would be enormous, and the prospect of redress slight. There were instances, of course, of good and honest men as governors, but they ran the risk of political ruin at the hands of the equites if they interfered with the publicani. A notorious case was that of P. Rupilius Rufus, who was a legate of Q. Mucius Scsevola in B.C. 95. The rule of Scaevola himself was long remembered by the Asiatic Greeks, not only for its integrity, but for its encouragement of local rights and privileges. He seems to have been out of the reach of the equites, but his legate Rupilius, who had distinguished himself by repressing the extortion of the publicani, was prosecuted and condemned, and passed the rest of his life in exile. The system, however, lasted on till B.C. 48, and it involved besides its direct hardships the presence in the country of numerous Italian money-lenders and of bankers who found their opportunity in the necessities of states and individuals alike. ROMAN VIEW OF GREEKS $21 If we turn from material grievances to those of sentiment, we must note that the Roman and the Greek did not easily amalgamate in Greek lands. The Greek in Rome was both useful and agreeable, and most of the leading men found it convenient and pleasant to have educated Greeks as members of their household, not only to educate their children, but to supply themselves with the society they needed, to be friend, secretary, and the companion of leisure hours. We hear of this as early as the third century B.C., and with the increased interest in philosophy and art it became even more common. Nevertheless the average Roman despised the average Greek, and thought him shifty, supple, or false. And when he went into the Greek's own lands he felt it due to his dignity not to be on too familiar terms with the " inferior people." Even Cicero, writing to his brother Ouintus, who was governing Asia (B.C. 60), says : "Among the Greeks themselves you must be on your guard against admitting close intimacies, except in the case of the very few, if such are to be found, who are worthy of ancient Greece. As things now stand, indeed, too many of them are untrustworthy, false, and schooled by long servitude in the arts of extravagant adulation. My advice is that these men should all be entertained with courtesy, but that close ties of hospitality or friendship should only be formed with the best of them : excessive intimacies with them are not very safe for they do not venture to oppose our wishes and they are not only jealous of our countrymen but of their own as well." We seem to hear an elderly Indian civilian dis- 22 322 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME coursing to a junior in the service. Another extract from the same letter will show generally both the evils in the province and the sort of benefits that the Roman rule might confer if honestly ad- ministered. He is enumerating the good points in his brother's rule: " No new debt is being contracted by the states, while many have been relieved by you from a heavy and long- standing one. Several cities that had become dilapidated and almost deserted, of which one was the most famous state in Ionia, the other in Caria Samos and Halicarnassus have been given a new life by you. There is no party fight- ing, no civil strife in the towns: you take care that the government of the states is administered by the best class of citizens ; brigandage is abolished in Mysia ; murder sup- pressed in many districts; peace is established throughout the province ; and not only the robberies usual on highways and in country places, but those more numerous and more serious ones in towns and temples, have been completely stopped ; the fame, fortunes, and repose of the rich have been relieved of that most oppressive instrument of praetorial rapacity vexatious prosecution : the expenses and tribute of the states are made to fall with equal weight on all who live in the territories of those states : access to you is as easy as possible : your ears are open to the complaints of all : no man's want of means or want of friends excludes him, I don't say from access to you in public or on the tribunal, but even from your house and chamber : in a word, through- out your government there is no harshness or cruelty every- where clemency, mildness, and kindness reign supreme." This ideal picture of the pax Romano, is probably very unlike the real state of things under Ouintus Cicero or any one else. It rather serves to show us clearly what the evils of the system were. A lurid TREATMENT OF HELLENIC PROVINCES 323 example of quite a different state of things is the anecdote which Cicero tells Atticus in regard to his own province of Cilicia in B.C. 51 [ad Att. v. 21 ; vi. i]. When he arrived he found that a certain Scaptius, a praefectus under his predecessor Claudius, had been at Salamis in Cyprus with a squadron of cavalry, which he had employed to coerce the town councillors to pay a large sum of money which they had borrowed with interest at 48 per cent. He had shut them up in their council chamber so long that some had actually died of starvation. Cicero re- called Scaptius, refused to reappoint him as a praefectus, and when the case came before him refused to decree any payment beyond 12 per cent. But he found to his surprise that the real creditor was M. Brutus. Very strong pressure was put upon Cicero himself to secure the payment of the money, which he appears to have resisted as far as the heavy interest was concerned, but as he expected to be succeeded by a man connected with Brutus he expressed some doubt as to what would happen under a new regime. The instances of extortion and cruelty might be multiplied from the speeches against Verres, the plunderer of Sicily, and against Piso of Macedonia. It is well perhaps to notice what may be said on the other side in favour of Roman administration. The first and most obvious is that the Romans did maintain peace, and that, except in cases of revenue and where the personal advantage of the proconsul came in, the administration of justice in the Roman courts was more equitable than that in the native or 324 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME Greek tribunals. We even hear in regard to tax- collecting of some of the states assigned by Sulla to Rhodes petitioning the Senate that they might pay to Roman rather than Rhodian collectors. This, however, was an exception ; and while, generally speaking, in the Greek towns the trading class was in favour of the Roman sway, the feelings of the majority was seen only too clearly when in B.C. 88 Mithradates, King of Pontus, suddenly called upon the Greeks in Asia to strike a blow at the Roman domination. Mithradates VI., Eupator, held a kingdom origin- ally (between B.C. 313 280) carved out of Cappadocia. It had been extended by the successors of the founder partly by conquest, partly by Roman favour. He himself (B.C. 118-62) had pushed his power westward round the shores of the Black Sea, from Sinope on the south coast to the Crimea on the north, and eastward to the Euphrates. He was a man of considerable culture, and had made alliances with Greeks, especially with Athens, as controlling Delos and thereby the island confederacy, and surrounded himself with Greek officers. In B.C. 105 he began preparations for further annexa- tions by a tour of inspection through Asia Minor, and presently made an arrangement with Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, for a joint invasion of Paphlagonia. This was the first of a series of encroachments and intrigues during the next seventeen years in which he was constantly thwarted by Roman officers or legates who ordered him to relinquish one plan after another. At last, towards the end of B.C. 89, the MASSACRE OF ROMANS IN ASIATIC HELLAS 325 Roman government declared war. During the year B.C. 88 fortune was almost uniformly in favour of Mithradates, and two Roman imperators were being led about as prisoners in the king's train. Immediately there was a movement throughout all the Greek cities, with some insignificant excep- tions, in his favour ; and later in the same year, B.C. 88, he issued instructions to the cities now mostly controlled by his own officers, that all Latin- speaking residents should be put to death on a fixed day. The order was almost universally obeyed, and a massacre took place of almost unexampled horror, no respect being shown to sex, age, or character, or the protection of altar or sanctuary. From the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, of Asclepius at Pergamus, of Hestia at Caunes, of Concord at Tralles, the suppliants were torn away and slain. At Caunes children were killed in the presence of their mothers, wives in that of their husbands. At Adrymittium in Mysia, they were driven into the sea and drowned, at Tralles a Paphlagonian captain and soldiers were hired to carry out the order of death. The massacre, in fact, was an outburst of deadly vengeance for wrongs long silently borne and an indulgence of the long-pent-up anger of an oppressed people. In a few places the right of sanctuary was respected for a time, and some Italians managed to escape to Rhodes, which almost alone of the states in or near Asia held aloof from Mithradates, though it had many grievances against Rome. The loss of its Peraea (or territory on the mainland) and the diminution of its trade by the opening of Delos as 326 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME a free port had been serious misfortunes, but the extension of its Italian trade had partly made up for these things, and at any rate the Rhodians did not feel sufficiently certain of the ultimate success of Mithradates or of any benefit likely to accrue to them from it. Their successful resistance to the blockade of the royal fleet did something towards saving the situation. For the movement was not confined to Asia. Athens which had been dis- tinguished by Roman favour, and had been allowed to retain some of its island empire had yet been for some time past looking to Mithradates as a possible restorer of Hellenic independence. It had been on friendly terms with his ancestors and with the king himself decreeing to him the usual honours of statues, gymnasia, and votive offerings. The Athe- nians were now instigated to join him by Aristion, a philosophic demagogue, who, being commissioned to visit Mithradates at Ephesus, sent home such glowing descriptions of the abilities, resources, and successes of the king, that when he returned accompanied by numerous slaves laden with gold, and wearing a ring engraved with a portrait of the king (who had a famous collection of gems), he was received as though he were a victorious general. His speech, dwelling on the oppressions of Rome, roused such enthusiasm that he was elected commander-in-chief, the friendship of Rome was renounced, and the abolition of the limited franchise decreed. It was the old mistake of hoping for freedom from foreign intervention ; and this policy, adopted with such levity by the Athenians, was followed by the MITHRADATES SUPREME IN GREECE 327 cities of the Peloponnese, Boeotia, and many other parts of Greece. Delos, that owed its commercial existence to Rome and was full of Italian men of business, almost alone held out, and was accordingly overrun by Archelaus, the general of Mithradates, who put Delians and Italians to the sword indis- criminately, sold women and children into slavery, and plundered the temples, which, as in other places, were used as banks. The Athenians were gratified by having half the spoil and seeing their "general " Aristion treated as an equal of the king's general. Nevertheless, they had to admit a royal garrison into the Piraeus, and at the beginning of B.C. 87 Mithradates was elected general-in-chief, after the precedent of Philip and Alexander. Athens, there- fore, practically became subject to the King of Pontus. The rest of Southern Greece submitted ; Chalcis was forcibly occupied, which involved the submission of all Eubcea. Thespiae was the only state in Bceotia which did not follow the lead of Thebes ; and the Mithradatic fleet sailed among the islands without meeting with any resistance. Once more Greece had found a champion of her liberties. The nemesis was not long delayed. Sulla entered Greece with an army in the summer of B.C. 87, when the Pontic forces by sea and land had already sus- tained a check at the hand of the pro quaestor, Bruttius Sura, off Sciathus and in Bceotia. But Athens was now the headquarters of Pontic power in Greece, and upon Athens Sulla directed his attack. Southern Greece generally was let alone, as sure to fall to the power that commanded the pass of 328 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME Thermopylae and held Athens. But a Pontic army overran Macedonia, which was almost denuded of troops, and was prepared, like Persian and Mace- donian invaders of old, to march thence upon the Peloponnese. Meanwhile Athens was closely in- vested, and when it fell in the spring of B.C. 86, after many months of great suffering, the recupera- tion of seventy years was all undone. By Sulla's order a great part of its inhabitants was put to the sword ; and though the rest were spared and the buildings left uninjured, 1 the ancient inhabitants were so much reduced and the new ones introduced were of such heterogeneous quality that the Athenian character was permanently modified, and much that was characteristic disappeared. The fall of the city was followed by that of the Piraeus, and in this case Sulla spared nothing. The docks and magazines were burnt, the fortifications were entirely destroyed ; and from this the place never recovered. The famous letter of consolation to Cicero written by Sulpicius in B.C. 45 forms an eloquent comment upon the permanence of the ruin wrought by Sulla. " On my return voyage from Asia, while sailing from yEgina towards Megara, I began surveying the adjacent regions. Behind me was yEgina, in front Megara ; on my right the Piraeus, on my left Corinth. All these towns were once upon a time eminently prosperous : they now lie before my eyes mere heaps of ruins." 2 This was not the end of the sufferings of Greece. 1 The Ocleion was burnt, hut apparently by Aristion, not by Sulla. 2 Cic. Ep. ed.fam. iv. 5. SULLA RECOVERS GREECE 329 Archelaus, the general of Mithradates, was in oc- cupation of Phocis and Boeotia, and in the summer of B.C. 86 was defeated with great slaughter at Chaeroneia. He still, however, had command of the sea, and retreating to Chalcis carried on a series of piratical descents upon the coast of the Pelopon- nese and the western islands. It was not till Sulla's legate, Lucullus, had collected a fleet from Egypt, Rhodes, Cyprus, and other islands that the Romans were able to stop these piracies. Mean- while Greece had to endure both them and the severities of Sulla, who not only punished those Athenian citizens who had remained during the Pontic occupation, but mulcted many other states. Half the territory which had been left to Thebes was now devoted to repay the treasures he had taken from the temples at Delphi, Olympia, and Epidaurus. Oropus taken from Athens was assigned in similar payment to the oracle of Amphiaraus in Boeotia, and works of art from many places were shipped to Rome. Among other valuables it is specially recorded that Sulla seized the library of Apellicon, containing the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. The cowed inhabitants tried to propitiate him by paying him honours as a benefactor, and he left the Hellenic world full of his statues, his trophies, and his devastations. The swift change of front on the part of the Greek cities in Asia was no less sudden and complete. The king made one more attempt to retain Greece. He sent an army of seventy thousand men under Dorilaus into Bosotia later in the same year (B.C. 86) 33O GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME which was defeated by Sulla at Orchomenus with such immense slaughter that the hold of Mithradates in Greece was completely destroyed. The effect in Asia was immediate. The Greek cities expelled their Pontic garrisons and declared for Rome. The movement had begun after the battle at Chaeroneia, for the yoke of Mithradates had been found to be no lighter than that of Rome. If he remitted taxes, he enforced military service, and incurred the resent- ment of the mercantile classes by a partial abolition of debts and the enfranchisement of slaves who had betrayed their masters. These measures, joined to some instances of severity, such as the deportation of the inhabitants of Chios, turned the feelings of the Greeks from him, and we have a series of in- scriptions in Ephesus and elsewhere renouncing his authority and striving by representing that they had acted under compulsion to ingratiate them- selves once more with Rome. The campaign or march of Flaccus and Fimbria, sent out to supersede Sulla, cleared Macedonia and Thrace as far as Byzantium of the enemy and carried victory into Bithynia (B.C. 85-4). The appearance of the fleet collected by Lucullus then enabled Sulla (who declined to be superseded) to negotiate with Mithradates, who, by the treaty of Delium (B.C. 84), agreed to evacuate Roman Asia and to restore the inhabitants whom he had removed from Chios and Macedonia. The results to Asiatic Greece were deplorable. Sulla treated the province with great severity, especially, of course, those states which had been SULLA'S SEVERITIES TO ASIATIC GREEKS 331 prominent in joining Mithradates. Some few were rewarded for loyalty by being granted " freedom " such as Ilium, Chios, Lycia, Salonike, Magnesia ad Sipylum, and Rhodes. But not only were some of the rest given up to pillage, as lasos, Samos, and Clazomense, but in all of them Roman garrisons were stationed, and any sign of resistance led to the destruction of walls and the massacre or enslavement of the inhabitants. Upon all alike was imposed a fine equal to the taxation of five years. " The cities," says Appian, " oppressed by poverty, borrowed the money at high rates of interest or mortgaged their theatres, gymnasiums, walls, harbours, and every other kind of public property, being pressed for pay- ment by the soldiers." Moreover, the withdrawal of Sulla's main army and fleet left them a prey to the pirates, who had been fostered and employed by Mithradates, and now grew bolder and more outrageous than ever, not confining their attacks to ships, but seizing harbours, forts, and cities, overrunning islands and plundering temples. Sulla therefore, left Greece and Asia in a pitiable plight, though once more obedient. The only place that had not given in was Mitylene, which did not surrender till five years later (B.C. 79), when it was taken and plundered by Thermus. Nothing effective was done to put down piracy for nearly twenty years, and meanwhile the question of the government of Bithynia, whose last sovereign Nicomedes on his death (B.C. 79) left the Romans his heirs, gave rise to another war with Mithradates (B.C. 74-63), which, however, did not much affect 332 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME Hellenic Asia, except the cities on the Propontis and Euxine, and especially Cyzicus, which had to stand a long siege. Lucullus, who commanded in this war, spent the winter of B.C. 71-70 in Ephesus in re- organising the finances of many of the Greek cities, now overburdened with debt, by cutting down the interest to 12 per cent, which, according to the edict of several praetors, was the highest rate that the Roman courts would recognise. He also prevented debtors from being deprived of the whole of their property. These measures were doubtless a great relief, but their necessity shows how quickly the Roman moneylender had regained his footing in the province. Careful governors mitigated the evil by refusing to nominate any man engaged in business in the province {negotiator) as a praefectus. But others were less scrupulous, and the deplorable result has been already illustrated in the case of Salamis in Cyprus. The next event of importance to the Greek world was Pompey's suppression of the pirates (B.C. 67-66) and his settlement of the East after the death of Mithradates (B.C. 63). These two things contributed largely to make European and Asiatic Greece what they were when the Empire began. Some partial attempts to check piracy in the Mediterranean had been already made by P. Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia B.C. 74, and by Q. Caecilius Metellus when praetor in Sicily, B.C. 71-70. But C. Anton ius had failed (apparently from corruption) in Crete (B.C. 74), and when Metellus undertook the task in B.C. 68-7 he seems to have, to a great extent, depopulated the SUPPJRESSJOiV OF PIRACY 333 island, which henceforth was held as a Roman province, either separately or in conjunction with Greece. In B.C. 67 Pompey received a wide com- mission, giving him absolute power for three years over the Mediterranean and 50 miles inland, with 24 legates, 500 ships, and the right of raising 1 20,000 men as soldiers or sailors, with 500 horsemen, for the express purpose of destroying piracy. He performed his mission with marvellous rapidity. It may be, as has been said, that he was too lenient, and that the evil was only in abeyance after his six months' campaign. He certainly treated the pirates not as mere ruffians beyond the pale of law, but rather as a population driven to this way of life by want, and, accordingly, found settlements and lands for them at Dyme in Achaia and in Cilicia. But for the time, at any rate, the success was so complete and the relief so clearly marked by the fall in the price of provisions that he was not only regarded by the Roman people as their greatest and most indispensable general, but was looked up to in Greece as the greatest of the Romans, and honoured as a benefactor, and in some cases as a second founder. 1 This was the case in an increased degree at the end of the Mithradatic war, to which he was appointed in B.C. 66, with the absolute power of settling affairs in Phrygia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Colchis, and Armenia. These districts, though including some Hellenic or 1 For instance, an inscription on a base of a statue at Mitylene describes him as ffwrj/pt icai KT'KJTQ, for in honour of his friend Theophanes he restored Mitylene to the status of a libcra civitas after the Mithradatic war. 334 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME semi-Hellenic cities, cannot be reckoned as Greece. But his settlement of affairs in Asia generally affected the interests of many Greeks, especially in the reduc- tion of Syria to the form of a province. His plan was not to destroy, but rather to strengthen existing liberties or privileges. He, however, assessed the tribute with greater care, so as to include many cities which up to this time, from one cause or another, had escaped ; and he surrounded the Greek communities in Asia as a whole with a number of subordinate sovereigns, who owed their position to Rome, and were really forced in many ways to act in obedience to Roman magistrates. It is significant that though Pompey deservedly had a high character for honour and disinterestedness, yet he had vast sums of money invested in loans to many of these subordi- nate sovereigns, whose establishment was to depend upon his recommendation to the Senate and upon the Senate's confirmation of his acta. It is as though a governor-general of India were to make private advances to a Rajah whom he was supporting in his royalty by British forces. Nor under Pompey did the flow of gold and works of art from Greece into Italy cease. Yet the general result of his five years in the East was beneficial to Greece, and some states had particular causes of gratitude to him. Thus, besides restoring Mitylene to freedom, he presented Athens with fifty talents for the restoration of the city ; visited Rhodes and confirmed its privileges ; and did so much for the merchants at Delos that they formed a club Pompeiastae to keep alive the memory of his victories and his services. Pompey's THE GREEKS SIDE WITH POMPEY 335 personal integrity, the mildness and equity of his administration of justice, helped, with his success in arms, to make his name favourably known in Asia and Greece, just as we are told that it was respected among the Sicilian Greeks in B.C. 82. " He was one," says Cicero, " by whose valour the Roman people were more dreaded among foreign nations, by whose justice were more beloved." It was no wonder, then, that in the next occasion of the Greeks taking active part in military affairs (the civil war of B.C. 49-48) they were generally found on the side of Pompey rather than of Caesar. The former obtained recruits from Ionia, Macedonia, Boeotia, Athens, Sparta, and other parts of the Peloponnese, and many cities in Greece were occupied by his troops. Consequently while Caesar was person- ally engaged with Pompey in the early part of B.C. 48, his officers had to undertake a kind of conquest of Greece. It was accomplished apparently for the most part without bloodshed and with little serious resistance, ^tolia, Acarnania, and Amphilochia gave in their adherence at once, as did Delphi, Thebes, and Orchomenus. In Thessaly there was a division of opinion, for Pompey's father-in-law, Metellus Scipio, coming from Syria with troops, occupied Larisa and the line of the Via Egnatia, which the Romans had constructed from Apollonia on the west coast to Thessalonika on the east. The Peloponnesians blocked the Isthmus of Corinth against Caesar's legate, Fufius Calenus,- and Athens closed her gates. But the Piraeus now an open town was occupied in Caesar's interest. After the 336 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME victory of Pharsalia, however (September, B.C. 48), there was a sudden change. Megara, indeed, held out and was taken by force, and many of its citizens slaughtered or sold into slavery. But the Athenians at once submitted, and sent envoys to seek for pardon, which Caesar granted easily, with the remark : " How often is the glory of your ancestors to save you ? " and the humbled people were fain to erect his statue as their " saviour and benefactor." x Calenus then went to Patrae, which made no resistance, and the whole of the Peloponnese fell into his hands. He remained in military occupation till Caesar's return from Alexandria in the autumn of B.C. 47, when Greece was put as a separate province under the rule of an eminent lawyer, Servius Sulpicius Rufus. This arrangement, as we shall see, was at first only temporary, but the appointment of Sulpicius seems to have been meant to be a measure of conciliation. He had been an anti-Caesarian, but probably had not actually been engaged in the war, having retired to Samos, while his son was actually serving on Caesar's staff. He was a man of learning, and would have some sympathy with Greek ideas, while his legal training would incline him to follow the precedent of Scaevola in Asia by respecting the local laws and rights of jurisdiction in the cities. The end of the Alexandrine war, which left Caesar practically master of Egypt, though it was still nominally independent, was followed by a visitation of Greek cities in Asia. The fervour of their new 1 Dittenb. Sylloge, 346, o o/;/io Taiov 'lovXiov Kaicrapa dp\u.f>ia KOI diKra-upa riv iaurov auiriipa jcai tiit^jtrjyv. . GREECE AND JULIUS C^SAR 337 allegiance or servility is again illustrated by inscrip- tions. At Ephesus, in the name of council and people " and the other Greek cities of Asia," he is styled "descendant of Ares and Aphrodite, a glorious god and common saviour of human life." Even the people of Mitylene who so lately had styled Pompey their benefactor and founder were fain to seek Caesar's friendship and favour. 1 Caesar had already in his first consulship (B.C. 59) benefited the provinces by passing a law to limit the amount of requisition to be made by a governor and his staff: his actual benefits now were rather in the restoration of order and peace than in more palpable ways. But in Asia he abolished the system of farming the revenue by Roman publicani, fixing the amount to be paid by each state, and leaving it to be levied by native or Greek collectors. He also placed a colony of veterans in Corinth, which quickly regained something of its old prosperity, and he projected the cutting of a canal across the isthmus a work which, started a hundred years later by Nero, has only been accomplished within the last few years. The liberties and privileges of the cities he seems to have left much as he found them. But just before his death he seems to have arranged that Greece should be for three years at least united to Macedonia, under the rule of Marcus Brutus, at any rate, so far as it had always been under the pro-consul of Macedonia. In the renewed civil war of B.C. 43-2 Athens and other parts of Greece once more committed them- selves to the losing side, It was from Athens that Marcus Brutus started to take over his Macedonian 1 Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscript. 347, 349. 23 338 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF HOME province, and from which he drew many recruits. But when, after the battles of Pbilippi (B.C. 42, November) Antony took over the eastern part of the Empire, he visited Greece without apparently inflicting any punishment. He affected the fashion- able philhellenism, attended Greek games and literary competitions, was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, singled Athens out for special bounties, as well as restoring to her ^Egina and other islands, and contributed liberally to the temple at Delphi. Greece as a province was reunited to Macedonia and placed under the government of L. Censorinus. When Antony crossed from Greece to Asia he was received with extravagant compliments and every kind of adulation and entertainment, the Greek states once more trying to excuse themselves for the assistance which they had rendered to the beaten party. Though the states now suffered severely in money, for Antony exacted a second tributum for the year, Brutus and Cassius having already collected one, he seems to have been willing to listen to remonstrances and not to have been harsh in exacting the tax. Nor did his rearrangements in Asia show any jealousy of Greek nationalities. The Lycian confederacy was relieved of tribute; Rhodes was strengthened by the attribution of Andros, Tenos, and Naxos, and some territory in Caria ; Laodicea and Tarsus were made free cities. Later on, however, when his infatuation with Cleopatra and his quarrel with Octavian had turned his thoughts to the establishment of an Eastern Empire, with Alexandria as its Rome, he began the practice of robbing Greek towns and temples in Asia M. ANTON1US AND AUGUSTUS IN GREECE 339 for the adornment of Alexandria, removing among other things the famous library at Pergamus to make up for the partial destruction by fire of the Alexan- drian books during Caesar's occupation. Yet on the whole, during Antony's Eastern im- perium (B.C. 42-32) Greece itself enjoyed complete repose. The outlying semi-hellenistic countries Syria and Ccele-Syria, Cyprus, Cilicia, and Cyrene were treated by him as at his disposal to be parcelled out into kingdoms for his or Cleopatra's children, or his own partisans. It was the Western Hellas of Sicily that suffered most, being held for several years by Sextus Bompeius half-sovereign, half-pirate and becoming the scene of many military operations. After the treaty of Misenum (B.C. 39) the Peloponnese was to be handed over to Pompeius, though it seems never to have really passed into his hands ; but until his final defeat in B.C. 36 its coasts, like those of Italy itself, were constantly subject to attacks from his piratical fleets. In the last scene of the civil war, the struggle between Augustus and Antony, which ended at Actium B.C. 31, Greece was again for the most part on the losing side, and again suffered as an enemy's country. Previous to Actium many coast towns had been forcibly occupied by Agrippa ; but after the victory of Augustus the Greeks everywhere hastened to pay court to the conqueror. A temple in his honour was erected at Pergamus, statues set up at Olympia (a/alriK: t'vcKtv KOI swvome) and in other places ; and there are traces during his residence at Samos in the winter of B.C. 31 and again in B.C. 30 34O GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME of his having taken various measures for restoring order and prosperity in the Greek towns of Asia. Certain cities in Crete were rewarded by being made free. He restored the monuments in Ephesus, Samos, and elsewhere, which had been taken away by Antony and Cleopatra, and he is said generally to have l '~ ordered things " in Greece, though few details can be ascertained. He seems to have meditated establishing new centres of Greek life, though he visited Athens without any sign of disfavour and was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. The new colonies were to be Nicopolis, near Actium, to which he compelled various people in the neighbourhood to migrate, insisting that it should be admitted to the Amphictyonic League ; and Patrae, with which also he united several townships in the same district. This policy of founding colonies in the provinces was extended to other parts of the Hellenic world, to Macedonia (as Philippi and Dyrrachium), to Asia (as Alexandrea Troas), to Syria (as Berytum), to Pisidia (as Antioch). It was not, however, till the division of the provinces in B.C. 27 between Augustus and the Senate that Greece seems to have become definitely a separate province (Senatorial) under the official title of Achaia. This name has had a variety of signification at one time confined to the district on the north of Peloponnesus, then embracing the whole of the Peloponnesus, and then again confined to the territories of the Achaean League, after Sparta and Corinth had been separated from it. From this time it means the Roman Province, which included all of what we call Greece, except parts of Epirus THE ARRANGEMENTS OF AUGUSTUS- 34! and Thessaly, which were included in Macedonia, and it was governed by a propraetor (called also proconsul), whose official residence was Corinth. 1 With the reduction of Egypt into the form of a Roman province (though with peculiar conditions that made it almost a private domain of the Em- peror) disappeared the last of the semi-hellenic dynasties bordering on the Mediterranean, which in the previous century had been an actual Greek Power, controlling the Thracian Chersonese and the Cyclades. One more centre of Hellenic culture was to have its destinies shaped by Western influences. The second visit of Augustus to the East (B.C. 21-19) was f somewhat more importance to Greece. Beginning with Sicily, he strengthened Syracuse and other cities by colonies of veterans, which, how- ever, must have done much to lessen their Hellenic character. In Greece proper, besides his colonies of Nicopolis and Patrae, which he was anxious to foster, he showed favour to Sparta rather than to Athens. This had also been the policy of Julius, and ac- cordingly there was at Sparta a temple to Julius and an altar to Augustus. It had had a short season of prosperity under its prince or hegemon Eurycles who had erected some fine buildings both in it and in Corinth. But though Augustus restored Cythera to Sparta, in recognition, it was thought of hospitality 1 Nevertheless the term was still sometimes applied in a narrower sense to that union of Achcean towns which was allowed to revive after the dissolution of B.C. 146 for certain purposes. Thus an inscription in honour of Augustus between the years B.C. 40 and B.C. 27 speaks of -o KOIVW TWV 'A\aiMV [Dittenb. 351]. 342 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME shown to Livia when she fled there with her former husband, it was still debarred from the harbour town of Gytheium, and remained quite insignificant. Athens was, on the other hand, deliberately depressed as far as political interests were concerned, for it was deprived of yEgina and Eretria and of one of the few sources of revenue still left it the sale of its citizen- ship. The next year was spent by Augustus in regulating the Asiatic provinces, especially Bithynia. From henceforth these countries shared in the advantages which the imperial regime created by the increased check upon the tyranny and rapacity of provincial governors, the facility of appeal to the Emperor, and the greater security that their com- plaints would be fairly considered. To the provincials the Emperor was not the despot which he appeared to certain classes at Rome, but their protector and support. Honours are therefore everywhere paid to him, or his family, or his responsible ministers. To this inscriptions give witness in every direction, as at Ilium to Agrippa, at Delos to Caesar's daughter Julia, at Hypata in Thessaly to his adopted son, Gaius. The one condition of favour, however, was order and loyalty. Samos was granted libertas in honour of his long residence in the island, but Cyzicus was deprived of the same privilege for having beaten and executed certain Roman citizens, as Tyre and Sidon incurred the same penalty by political disorders. The alarm of the magistrates at Philippi when told that St. Paul was a Roman citizen, and of the town clerk of Ephesus when there was an uproar in the theatre, vividly illustrate this cardinal THE PAX ROMANA 343 principle of the Imperial rule local institutions and jurisdictions were respected, but there must be order and peace and obedience to law. In every state whether free or provincial the Emperor represents a law which pervades all and is above all, and to him every citizen of any state within the Empire, what- ever its theoretical status, can, in the last resort, look for justice, can, as we should say, change the venue of his cause, if he had good reason to doubt getting justice in his own country. The case of St. Paul would naturally occur to the mind, but a stronger one is contained in a still existing letter of Augustus to the people of Cnidus, which was a libera civitas, not under a provincial governor. It concerns a case of homicide, in which the accused were evidently unpopular in their native town, and who, there- fore, " appealed to Caesar." His answer in a Greek translation still exists engraven on a stone tablet: " Imperator Caesar, son of the deified one, Augustus, twelve times consul, in the i8th year of his tribunician power [i.e., B.C. 6], to the magistrates, senate, and people of the Cnidians, greeting : "Your ambassadors, Dionysius and Dionysius son of Dionysius, appeared before me at Rome, and delivered the decree accusing Eubulus son of Anaxandridas, now dead, and his wife Truphera, who was present, concerning the death of Eubulus son of Chrysippus. Whereupon I having ordered my friend Asinius Gallus to examine the slaves by torture who were implicated in the charge ascer- tained that Philinus son of Chrysippus came three nights in succession to the house of Eubulus and Truphera with violence and intent to break into it, and that on the third night he brought with him his brother Eubulus : that the 344 GREECE UNDER THE RULE OF ROME householders Eubulus and Truphera, as they could get no security in their own house either by parleying with Philinus or barricading themselves against his attack, ordered one 01 their slaves not to kill them barbarously, as one might not unjustly have been tempted by anger to do, but to keep them off by throwing the contents of the close-stool upon them : but that the slave, whether intentionally or uninten- tionally for he persisted in denying intention let the vessel slip with ils contents, so that Eubulus was knocked down, though he better deserved to have escaped than his brother. " I send you the actual depositions. And I should have wondered how it came about that the defendants were so much afraid of the examination of the slaves being held in your courts, had it not been that you seemed to me to have been much irritated with them and to have shown a perverted indignation not against those who deserved every kind of punishment for coming to attack another man's house by night with force and violence three distinct times, to the common danger of you all, but against those who have met with an accident while acting in self-defence, but have done no wrong. " But now you will in my opinion be acting rightly if, in accordance with my decision on this matter, you make the entry in your public records also to agree therewith." Asinius Gallus, who was commissioned by Augustus to take the depositions of the slaves, was at the time proconsul of Asia, bat he does not act in that capacity because Cnidus is a free state, not under the jurisdiction of the provincial governor. He acts as Caesar's legatus, and sends the depositions to Rome, where they are considered by Augustus him- self, who acquits the accused and orders the decree passed against then in Cnidus to be erased. Thus the personal authority of the Emperor is felt in every part of the Empire, and no one, however EFFECTS OF ROMAN RULE 347 humble, but is conscious of an authority to which he may look in the last resort for justice. This is the good side of the Empire as it affected the provinces. Still it remains true that Greece itself withered under the regime. There was no national life and no great men. For great men seem only to rise at the call of duty and patriotism, and are not, it appears, produced except at times of strife or danger, at some crisis which demands them. X THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE Greek education Grammar, music and gymnastics The Sophists The philosophical schools Literature Epic, lyric and dramatic poetry Alexandrine poets, epic and bucolic History Oratory. THE value attached by the Greeks to education is manifested in many ways. There was no duty which was regarded as of more sacred obligation in a parent than to provide for the education of his children. In some states, such as Sparta, it was taken out of his hands and made the care of the whole community. In others there were laws inflicting penalties and disabilities on those who neglected it, while in others the absence of such laws was made up for by the force of public opinion. When the Athenian population was removed en masse before the battle of Salamis, we are told that the people of Trcezen, among other acts of kindness, provided school fees for the children who had taken refuge with them, so that not even that crisis should be allowed to interrupt the training proper to their age. More than three hundred years later Polybius still speaks of the payment of school fees for one's children as the last to be omitted amidst financial 348 VALUE ATTACHED TO EDUCATION 349 difficulties. The sentiment was, therefore, strong and permanent. The result seems to have been that the number of those who grow up without at any rate the rudiments of letters and arithmetic was everywhere very small. The professed object of this education, however, was not technical, but moral. It was to make good men and useful citizens. Technical instruction, the teaching of a trade or an art, was regarded also as incumbent upon all parents, except, perhaps, the wealthiest. But this was not education. The object of education was something higher and more universal to familiarise the soul with what was great and noble, and to train the body to be the effective servant and agent of the soul. This educa- tion was simple and uniform as compared with that of our day. It did not include the study of any foreign language, nor, at any rate directly, such studies as geography, history, or theology, though these were in a manner involved in it. The first principles of morality and religion were the business of the mother, nurse, or paidagogos the slave who, in most houses, was especially attached to the service of the children, taking them to school and guarding them from evil company. The two subjects of primary education were music and gymnastics. But by " music " the Greeks understood all intellectual subjects. Educa- tion began with reading and writing, and for the poorer children, whose stay at the school was necessarily short, it went, perhaps, little beyond that. But for the average child, and above all for the rich, it 35O THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE included learning by heart and reciting passages from the poets, selected for the lessons in virtue or know- ledge which they conveyed. The next step was music, in the modern acceptation of the term. All boys were taught to play the lyre or flute, and to sing to it, as far as they were capable of learning. The greatest importance was attached to this branch of education. Music was believed to soften and humanise the soul, as well as to inspire it with noble and lofty emotions, and in the representations of the interior of schools which survive on pottery, no scene is more frequent than that of boys practising on a lyre or flute with a master facing them and giving them instructions. This view of education is put by Plato into the mouth of a great teacher Protagoras : " When children have learnt to read and under- stand the written, as well as they do the spoken word, schoolmasters set before them for reading aloud poems of good writers, and compel them to learn them by heart. These poems contain much moral instruction, many narratives, panegyrics, and encomiums upon brave men of old, that the child may be roused to emulation of their virtues and yearn to become like them. . . . Besides, when they have learnt to play on the lyre, their masters teach them the songs of another class of poets the lyrical, setting their songs to the music. Thus compelling the principles of rhythm and harmony to sink into their souls, that the children may be more cultivated, and becoming imbued with the principles of true rhythm and harmony, may be effective in speech and action alike. For a man's life needs always to OBJECTS OF EDUCATION 351 be rhythmical and harmonious. Next they send the children to the trainer's, that they may have sound bodies in the service of sound minds, and may not be compelled to play the coward whether in war or any other activity by the bad state of their bodies." Though we cannot suppose that ordinary people would reason with such refinement upon the effect of education, it was some such theory that unconsciously influenced the Greek view of its significance. But for the boys who looked forward to playing an important part in public life generally the sons of wealthier parents there was something else needed. In a democracy like that of Athens and in varying degrees in other states the only method of attaining power was to persuade the people, and to do that there was need of eloquence, the faculty of putting a case clearly and attractively. Even without aiming at political influence a citizen of Athens was always liable to plead before a law court. The courts were miniature popular assemblies, the jurors numbering about five hundred, and plaintiffs and defendants had to appear in person and deliver their speeches themselves, though in course of time they were often written for them by professional orators. The need of training in rhetoric was therefore very general. This was supplied by a class of teachers who made it their business to instruct young men after they had left school. They came from various parts of Greece, and lectured in various cities, but Athens attracted those of greatest eminence, and their lecture-rooms to a certain extent filled the place of a university. Though rhetoric was the 352 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE most prominent subject of their teaching, some of them professed to give instruction in ethics and politics also, and they were known generally by the name of Sophists, or Professors of Wisdom. In a certain sense Socrates may be looked upon as the most eminent Sophist at Athens, though he dis- claimed the title, and would not give formal lectures, or receive fees. Still, some of the ablest young men frequented his company with the view of getting from his conversation and arguments something of the same instruction as that offered by the formal discourses of other Sophists. Of these travelling professors who became known at Athens the most prominent were : (i) Protagoras of Abdera, born about B.C. 480, who was in Athens about B.C. 411, from which city he was banished for the supposed atheistical tendency of his teaching. (2) Gorgias of Leontini, in Sicily, who, born about the same time as Protagoras, is said to have lived more than a hundred years. He visited Athens in B.C. 427 as an ambas- sador from his native town. He was a rhetorician rather than a Sophist or philosopher, and it is as such that Plato treats him. (3) Polus of Agrigentum, who was also a professional rhetorician, and seems to have been at Athens about the same time as Gorgias. (4) Hippias of Elis, about the same time, was a man of many accomplishments and seems to have lectured on many subjects rhetoric, politics, ethics, mathematics, and art. He, too, served his country as an ambassador to Sparta. A man who professed such encyclopaedic knowledge was pretty certain not to have gone very deeply into any. Yet THE SOPHISTS 353 he enjoyed a great reputation, and gained much money as he travelled from city to city. (5) Prodicus of Ceos, who is said to have exercised much influence upon Socrates in early life. He was best known for certain apologues or fables bearing upon morals and right conduct. The well-known fable of the "Choice of Hercules," in which virtue and vice describe to the young hero the two paths of life which they alternately urge him to take, is preserved in the Memorabilia of Xenophon. As these Sophists depended for their living on the power to draw large classes of young men in the various cities which they visited, they had not only to embellish their discourses with such attractive episodes, but to study to make their style and language striking, novel, or ornate. It would be impossible for them to treat philosophical questions profoundly or in an over-technical spirit. They had to be popular, but their teaching seems to have been suggestive, and on the whole on the side of right. The sort of sensation which they wished to create among the young men of ability in the various cities visited, has been well illustrated by Plato's account of the arrival of Protagoras in Athens. He makes Socrates describe how he was roused before day- break one morning by an enthusiastic friend, an- nouncing in a state of violent excitement that Protagoras had arrived, the wisest man and most accomplished speaker in the world. He insists on Socrates rising at once and accompanying him to the house of Callias where Protagoras is staying When they arrived they were roughly repulsed 24 354 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE by the porter, irritated by the crowd of visitors, and were with difficulty admitted. When they got in they found Protagoras walking round the cloistered court, with a number of the most dis- tinguished young Athenians walking in line with him on either hand, while a crowd of other young men followed respectfully behind, whom the charm of his eloquence had drawn from the several cities he had visited to follow him. Socrates was amused to notice how neatly the crowd managed never to get in front of him. When he turned it opened to let him pass and then fell in again behind. In other parts of the same court were Hippias and Prodicus, each with his band of admirers, but Pro- tagoras is the chief centre of attraction, and to him Socrates addresses himself with a politeness which, though tinged with irony, is yet reverential in tone and manner. The scene is dramatic, yet it doubtless represents in its main features the sort of thing which occurred when famous Sophists visited a Greek city. The welcome that philosophers found at Athens tempered by peremptory expulsion if their tenets were regarded as dangerous tended to make it the natural home of philosophy and gradually to become a kind of university, to which young men resorted to complete their education. There they found a variety of schools to suit their particular tastes and needs, founded and endowed with houses and other property by their original teachers or subsequent adherents. Thus Plato (B.C. 427-347) taught for many years in the gymna- sium outside the walls called Academeia, whence Photo'] PLATO, B.C. 427-347- From the Her mat, Berlin. [Bruckmann. PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 357 the school of philosophy as developed by his successors took its name. Of all the philosophers Plato is the greatest man of letters and master of style. His philosophy, though it inspired and still inspires many men of genius or special aptitude, was too purely ideal and critical to have much influence on ordinary people, and his successors while pro- fessing to found themselves on him reached in time a position of almost complete scepticism, which is never popular with the masses who desire, above all things, from their teachers something clear and definite. Nor did he, like the Sophists, give what was needed for practical life ; for he neither professed nor taught the art of rhetoric. His pupil Aristotle the next founder of a school was born at Stageiros, but passed much of his time at Athens, first in his early youth, and later on (after having been for four years tutor to Alexander the Great) during another thirteen years (B.C. 335-322). His followers and successors were called " peripatetics," from the peripatos or covered walk in the Lyceium, where, for a time at any rate, he met his pupils. The prominent feature in the Peri- patetic philosophy is the abandonment of the " ideal " theories of Plato as to the origin of knowledge, and the adoption of the '* inductive " method the collec- tion of facts from which knowledge is derived by reason. Aristotle himself was encyclopaedic in his range of knowledge and interest. He wrote treatises on nearly every subject on ethics, rhetoric, poetry, politics, metaphysics, and many branches of physics. These treatises have formed the basis of modern THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE advances in philosophy and science, and have there- fore profoundly influenced the best intellects of all ages. Still this school did not immediately affect society in the same way as the two next schools founded at Athens, which long retained their head- quarters there the Epicureans and the Stoics. The doctrines of Epicurus (B.C. 342-270) radically changed the views of a large number of people in the two points which concern men most obviously religion and morals. In regard to the former, though Epicurus did not deny the existence of gods, he regarded them as unconcerned with the world and men, living apart in endless bliss, not interfering in the world which they did not create and would not guide. The origin of the universe he explained as the earlier philosophers, Leucippus, Anaxagoras, and Democritus, had done by the theory of innumerable atoms combining by natural or accidental causes in infinite space. By this doctrine he claimed to have freed mankind from the long tyranny of superstition and fear. The soul was a function of the body and with the body dissolved at death. In death, there- fore, there were no terrors, " for as long as we are death is not with us, and when death comes then we are riot." Lucretius, whose poem interpreted Epicurus to the Romans, dwells on this point, as Tennyson makes him say "'Till that hour My golden work in which I told a truth That stays the rolling Ixionian wheel, And numbs the Fury's ringlet-snake, and plucks The mortal soul from out immortal hell Shall stand !" Photo] ARISTOTLE, B.C. 384-322. (Spada Palace.} [Anderson. EPICURUS AND ZENO 361 As to the ethical end, or summum bonum, he affirmed it to be pleasure (rfavfi) ; it is for this that we cultivate the virtues and wisdom itself. This doctrine was liable to be misunderstood by those who failed to take into account the life-teaching of Epicurus, which enforced the truth that many immediate pleasures were to be avoided in order to attain true pleasure. This at once gave room and motive for the practice of virtue. On the other hand, as the highest pleasures are to be found in freedom from agitation, the Epicurean was exhorted to seek a life of retirement and to avoid public business. Such a philosophy was easily misinterpreted and became the creed of the rich and idle, or at best of the learned and cultured in Greece and Rome, rather than of the multitude or of the more strenuous and active members of the governing class. Stoicism, on the other hand, inspired some of the best and finest natures for many centuries. It was founded about B.C. 300 by Zeno, and got its name from the Stoa Poikile at Athens, where he taught. In Ethics it held up a higher ideal than Epicureanism. Happiness (tuSeu/^ovia), not pleasure (jJSov*?), was, according to the Stoics, the end of action, or summum bonum ; but that is equivalent to living in harmony with Nature, and that again is equivalent to virtue. It is virtue, therefore, which is alone choice-worthy for its own sake and without regard to fear or hope or anything external to itself. Virtue again is one ; wisdom, self-control, justice, courage are only various exhibitions of it. The contraries to these are all included in vice, which, like virtue, is one. There is 362 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE no middle term. An action is good or bad. All other things affecting men are indifferent (a$taopa), such as life and death, honour and dishonour, labour and pleasure, wealth and poverty, health and sickness. The perfectly wise man (and he alone) is perfectly virtuous and perfectly happy without regard to any of these external circumstances. Though the equality of all breaches of duty would seem to make social and political institutions useless, yet Stoics were encouraged to enter into ordinary life and business, for they alone are capable of true brotherhood and the highest social life. The religion of Stoicism contained practically the doctrine of Monotheism. One God, of infinite purity, was the origin of all things, existing independently, and furnishing the vital principle which quickened dead matter. In another point of view it is a doctrine of Pantheism God is everything and everything is God. Providence is not idle, but watches over and directs the universe according to fixed laws and destiny. The human soul, connected with the world-soul, is infused into the body, has a distinct existence and form, and is separated from the body by death. These doctrines commended the Stoic system, with its lofty rules of conduct and reverential views of Nature, to many of the best minds in antiquity ; and that Athens should have been the city in which all these philosophies flourished side by side gave her for many centuries a unique place in the admiration and regard of mankind. The highest flight of Stoic views on God and Nature may be here partially illustrated by an extract from a hymn or prayer composed by STOICISM AND RELIGION 363 Cleanthes, who succeeded Zeno as head of the school in B.C. 263 : " Hail ! most glorious of immortal beings, of many names, almighty for ever, Zeus, lord of Nature, that guidest all things by law ! To thee all mortals may make their prayer : for of thee are we sprung, having alone of mortal things which live and move upon the earth been dowered with a likeness of thy voice. Therefore of thee will I sing and ever hymn thy might. Thee all this heavenly frame, rolling round the earth, obeys, by whatever path thou leadest it, and owns thee for its lord. . . . King art thou, supreme, for ever ! Nothing is wrought on earth apart from thee, oh God, nor in the realm of air divine nor in the sea, save what the wicked work by their own lack of wisdom. But thou knovvest to make the crooked straight, to bring order out of chaos, to atone strife. For so hast thou yoked together evil with good that order ariseth therefrom, one, eternal. But the wicked will have none of it. Miserable men ! they ever yearn to possess the good, yet look not on the impartial law of God, nor hearken thereto, which, if they would obey it, would give them good life. Whereas of their own act they rush upon evil, one with another, some seeking glory with ill-starred rivalry, some set on gain heedless of right or wrong, some given over to loose living and the pleasures of the body. . . . But, oh Zeus, that givest all, oh God of the dark cloud and the vivid lightning, save thou men from folly that beareth bitter fruit ! Scatter it from our soul, oh Father, and grant that we attain unto wisdom, whereby thou 364 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE rulest all things aright, that so being honoured, we may requite thee with honour, hymning thy works for ever, as beseemeth a mortal man : for to none on earth is there nobler task, nor to those in heaven, than rightfully to hymn the Universal Law ! " The earliest literature which formed the staple of the education described above consisted of the Homeric poems and the Epic cycle, which not only served later poets as an inexhaustible store-house of legend and myth, but was regarded by the Greeks generally as the source of their knowledge of the antiquities and early history of their country, and the most authoritative exposition of religion. Of the great mass of this ballad literature there have sur- vived only the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Hymns. The rest the Cypria, the Aethiopica, the Sack of Troy, the Little Iliad, the Returns, the Thebais and Epigoni (the two last not connected with Troy, but Thebes) were known rather to the literary class than to the people generally from the sixth century B.C. It was the Iliad and Odyssey, as collected and edited under Peisistratus for the Athenians, and by others for other states, which formed the Bible of Greece : quoted to settle questions of state boundaries and other historical claims, and examined for teaching in morals and theology. It is true that in the fifth and fourth centuries Socrates and Plato, and perhaps other philosophers, objected to the attribution of human passions, disputes, and violent quarrels to the gods which is found in Homer, and wished to forbid these poems and others like them being used in the education of the young. But this was not the view HOMER AS A SUBJECT OF EDUCATION 365 of the ordinary man. They were widely known and received with simple acquiescence. Though written copies were few, yet professional reciters, or Rhap- sodes, travelled from town to town, and in the halls of princes or on village greens charmed their hearers with the familiar tale, set out in the stately hexameter, than which no metre ever devised is more musical and simple. Most of the listeners had learnt long portions of it at school and knew the characters of the chief heroes and their fortunes, had been stirred to terror or pity by the wrath of Achilles and his passionate sorrow for Patroclus, by the parting of Hector and Andromache, or the pathetic courage of the aged Priam venturing into the Greek camp to ransom the body of his heroic son from the hand that had slain him. They learnt, as they listened, how an overmastering Fate bound the gods them- selves, how Zeus ruled with Justice as his assessor, and how all that sustained or concerned mortals was divine or divinely directed the air they breathed, the ocean that surrounded the world, the fire that ministered to their needs, the sun, moon, and stars that gave them light, the earth that nurtured and fed them, the wisdom that guided their steps aright, and the folly that bred presumption and involved men in ruin. In the Iliad they found the first elements of ordered government, the necessity of approaching the gods by prayer and sacrifice, the discipline of a camp, the earliest form of those athletic contests which played so large a part in their own lives, and the funeral rites due to the gallant dead. The Odyssey is different. It is a tale 366 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE of travel and adventure, with pictures ever and again of still life. To sea-going folk like the Greeks, who for many generations had been sending off swarms of their kindred in search of fresh homes in distant lands, its recitation must have stirred the imagination and roused curiosity in a hundred ways ; and the descent of the hero to Hades is the earliest view we have of the vague terror of the hereafter, which has inevitably been encountered sooner or later by all peoples whose minds have in any way been roused to speculate on the mystery of life and death. Connected with this there seems to have been at one time a considerable mass of poetry which may be classed as " Orphic," from Orpheus, the chief reputed author. It dealt generally with the mystic interpretation of the received theology, and treated of the rites of initiation and symbolic cleansing that atoned for sin or gave hopes of a life to come. Thus initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries was said "to cause those who shared in them to have sweeter hopes concerning the end of life and all eternity." " Happy he," says Pindar, " who has seen these mysteries before he goes below the earth ! He knows the end of life, and knows its divinely-given beginning." But though traces of these doctrines or imaginings may perhaps be found in most extant Greek poetry, the original poems of this class are lost. Those that now go under the name are of very late origin. Greek country life, however, has its epic in the " Works and Days " of Hesiod (of uncer- tain date), which contains a kind of manual of the THE LYRIC AND ELEGIAC POETS 367 life and work of a Boeotian farmer set in a mass of homely maxims or proverbs, presenting a curious mixture of shrewd worldly wisdom and primitive religion. The next class of Greek literature, of which we have any considerable fragments, is that of the Lyric and Elegiac poets from the seventh century. Lyrical poetry is poetry meant to be sung to music, and it is naturally more personal and fervent than other kinds of verse. But this fervour was of two kinds that of passion, and that of political excite- ment. To the former class belong the poems of SAPPHO of Lesbos (about B.C. 610), of whom, besides some less important, there remain two con- siderable fragments which are marvellously beautiful both in language and in the passion that inspires them. ALC/EUS (about 610-580 B.C.) was also of Lesbos, and took an active part in the political struggles in the island, first on the side of the nobles against the democrats, and then against Pittacus when (about B.C. 606) he became tyrant or dictator. We have much less of his poetry left, but such short fragments as remain, along with the imitations of Horace, let us see that his muse was inspired by his own activities and controversies, varied by the usual praises of wine as the true consoler. Love he seems not to have cared for. He coined one phrase at least which was copied in various shapes by many Greek writers after him " Brave men are a city's real tower of strength," and perhaps another when he said that " Wine was a mirror to mankind," or again, " Wine, dear boy, and 368 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE truth." From a later Lyric poet Simonides of Ceos (B.C. 556-468) we have again some valuable remains, especially one beautiful hymn or dirge describing Danae afloat in the wooden chest with her infant son ; and also a stanza of nine brilliant lines on the dead at Thermopylae "Whose winding-sheet is fame, which no decay Nor all-subduing time shall fret away." But the lyric art was carried to its highest perfection by Pindar (about B.C. 521-442), of whose work, how- ever, we have only that part which consisted of hymns of Victory, that is, odes celebrating victors in the great games. Though a Boeotian, and residing at Thebes, Pindar was employed to write these odes by men of all states, and his plan was to say little about the individual victor, but to dilate upon the legends concerned, sometimes only remotely, with his native country or supposed ancestry. 1 The influence of these poems was national just because of this detach- ment from a personal or local view of things. The legends were the common heritage of Greece, handed down from heroic times, and representing the highest aspirations of the people. They are also so repre- sented as to soften or explain away those stories which attributed immoral or unjust actions to the 1 Other Lyric poets were of the ^Eolian school, with Sappho Alczeus, Anacreon (fire, B.C. 530) ; of the Dorian school, Alcman, Stesichorus, Arion, Ibycus (B.C. 660-540) ; contemporary with Pindar, and writing in somewhat the same style, Bacchylides of Ceos, and four women, Myrtis and Corinna of Boeotia, Telesilla of Argos, and Fraxilla of Sicyon. PINDAR'S VIEW OF LIFE 369 gods. He shows himself now and again in touch with the great military events of his age, as when he speaks of Artemisium, " where the sons of the Athenians laid a brilliant foundation of liberty." But he is not fond of war, and in later times Polybius censured him for his support of his countrymen in their non-resistance to the Persians, as a peace-at- any-price man. And, indeed, peace is dear to him she is a " kindly " goddess, a " daughter of Justice," " holding the keys of counsel and war." His views on a future life were mostly expressed in his Threnoi, or dirgies, of which only a few fragments remain. He describes the sun which makes the lower world light to its inhabitants, the meadows with their bright flowers and golden fruits, and the spirits engaged in the games or exercises in which they took pleasure on earth, cheered by music, rich banquets, fragrant odours, and burnt sacrifices. Death in his view is a relief from toil, especially happy for those who have been initiated in the mysteries. Still, there is a distinction between the good and the bad. To some favoured souls there is the hope that after due purification they may be restored to the upper air, and animate the bodies of the great and wise. Elegiac poetry was used chiefly as a means of exhortation and encouragement to bravery in war, or to set out certain views as to politics and social conduct, or, lastly, to furnish epitaphs for those who fell in war. The earliest writer known to us is Callinus of Ephesus (about B.C. 700), the one frag- ment of whose work of any length is a kind of address 25 37O THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE by a general to his soldiers exhorting them not to fear death : "With dying hand still hurl the quivering spear! Death takes the brave and those no less who fear. The coward flies the field to find his fate Crouching to slay him at his father's gate. He falls with few to mourn and none to praise, And crowns with shameful death inglorious days." TVRT.EUS (about B.C. 685-668) migrated from Athens to Sparta, and wrote marching songs and stirring exhortations to the Spartans to fight to the death against the Messenians, as well as a poem named Eunomia, meant to allay party conflicts in Sparta. One tradition represented him as a lame schoolmaster, whom the Athenians contemptuously sent to Sparta in answer to an appeal for help, and who turned out to be the greatest benefit they could have sent for the spirit which his verses inspired in the Spartan youth. The poems either aim at making the Spartans proud of their country and its customs, or exhort the young men to gallantry. " The most desirable death is that which comes in the forefront of the fight, if the youth wishes to be praised of men and loved of women. He dies, but lives for ever : he is mourned and honoured by old and young. If he plays the coward, shame covers him, and life is a misery : he must wander forth a beggar with wife and child, loathed and contemned by all." The poems of SOLON (c. B.C. 620-560) are more peaceful and political, though the earliest is an exhortation to the Athenians to secure by arms the ELEGIAC POETS 3/1 island of Salami's. In the later ones, however, his chief themes are the beauty and advantage of good order and government, and the problem of reconciling them with freedom, the danger of wealth and cor- ruption, the superiority of virtue to vice, of modera- tion to pride and presumption. There are reflections also on the various problems of life the prosperity of the wicked, the mysterious ways of providence, as well as certain details of his own personal habits and thoughts ; and a description of the ten stages of a man's life in periods of seven years. The most com- plete extant work of the Elegiac poets is that of THEOGNIS of Megara (B.C. 540 about). It consists of a series of short poems, varying, as a rule, from four to eight lines (though some are longer) addressed to a certain Cyrnus. They contain a curious medley of practical observations and precepts adapted to the life of the Dorian nobles with whom he lived. Some- times he is cynical, sometimes practical and acute, but he is never very poetical or interesting. The Elegiacs of Simonides, whose lyrics have been already noticed, are mostly epitaphs on those fallen in the war, or on men with whom he had some special tie of interest. A specimen in a lighter vein, almost " let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," will show a different side of his genius : " ' Nothing human that will hold/ Sang the Chian bard of old. 'As the leaves are so are we, Yet how few to hear are free, And to store within their heart Lessons that the wise impart ! 372 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE Hope is stronger far than truth, While the blood is warm with youth, While the bloom is on the cheek Passion strong and wisdom weak Age, disease, and death are dim To the sound in wind and limb. Blind and thoughtless ! lo, for man, Youth and life how short their span ! Knowing, then, how quick time flies, Snatch all pleasures as they rise.' " Numerous epigrams in Elegiac metre * have been preserved in the Anthology, some of them attributed to writers famous in other departments of literature, as, for instance, Plato. One exquisite stanza, rightly or wrongly attributed to him, may be quoted : " Thou gazest on the stars, my star ! Oh would I were the skies. That I might look on thee afar With all those myriad eyes ! '' ARCHILOCHUS is said to have first used the Iambic metre in personal satire, " rage armed Archi- 1 Other Elegiac and Iambic poets are Archilochus (about B.C. 670), who was also known best for his Iambics ; Simonides of Amorgos (about B.C. 660); Phocylides of Miletus (about B.C. 540), who also wrote Hexameters; Xenophanes of Colophon (about B.C. 510), the Eleatic philosopher ; Hipponax of Ephesus (about B.C. 540), wrote Scazons, i.e., Iambics with a spondee in the last foot, copied afterwards by Callimachus (about B.C. 240) and Babrius, the fabulist (about A.D. 40). The Planudean Anthology was collected by Planudes Maximus, a monk of Constantinople (about A.D. 1330). There were other Antho- logies : the most important is that called the Palatine Anthology, made by Constantinus Cephalus in the tenth century A.D., and rediscovered in Heidelberg in the library of the Palatine electors in 1606, by Salmasius. This is now the standard Greek Anthology. ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC PQETS 373 lochus with his own Iambic," says Horace ; and the story is told how he drove the daughters of Lycambes to hang themselves by the bitterness of his attacks. There is little in the fragments that remain to explain such a story, though there is a truculent tone and a suggestion of personal attack in most of the lines : " One great lesson I have learnt, to retaliate on those who use me ill with a sharp return of evil." Yet he is the earliest to enunciate one generous sentiment which has become proverbial : " Tis no noble thing to malign the dead." SlMONlDES of Amorgos (about B.C. 660) seems to have taken a melancholy view of men and things. One of the two considerable extracts that survive contains a catalogue of the miseries of man his helplessness in the presence of fate, his baffled hopes, the brevity of his life and the various accidents that bring it to an end. The other is a curious satire on women whose bad qualities he deduces from the several beasts of which they are compounded ; yet in another short fragment he can say : "A man can find no better prize in life Than a good woman ; than an evil one No greater torment." The shortness of life and the endlessness of death he perhaps thought balanced each other : " Death, were we wise, would seem but one long day." "The time for being dead for man is long, But few and evil are the days we live." 374 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE This melancholy, indeed, finds expression very early in Greek literature, and can be traced through many generations of it, as perhaps of all literatures, taking the form of resignation or despair, angry protest against providence, or faith in an unseen power, according to the character of the individual or his age. The fifth century saw the rise of the Athenian Drama. Of this literature once so copious we have only plays remaining from three Tragic poets, yEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (between B.C. 525 and 405). The foundation of a Greek Play was the Choric Song, which being for the most part of Dorian origin, continued by a literary convention to be written in the Doric dialect, though with considerable modifications. The first step towards a play was the employment of an actor to hold a dialogue with the leader of the chorus. ^Eschylus (B.C. 525456) added a second actor and perhaps a third and thus the drama, as we have it, became possible. In the tragedies of ^Eschylus the chorus plays a much more conspicuous part than in those of Sophocles, and still more so than in Euripides. In form, however, the plays are, roughly, on the same model, but the poets differ considerably in style and in their view of life, of duty, and provi- dence. Yet there are certain characteristics common to all three arising chiefly from the peculiar circum- stances of their age. Thus they are all affected by the rising need and use of oratory. In every play speeches delivered either by the persons chiefly affected, or by some messenger describing the catas- \ Photo] AESCHYLUS, B.C. 525-426. (Capitoline Museum.} [Anderson. THE ATTIC DRAMA 377 trophe, are prominent, and are composed with great skill, though with increasing indication of rhetorical training as time goes on. Again, they have all three been affected by philosophical specula- tion. It has had a very different influence on each, as we shall see, but still it is there. Thirdly, they all take occasion to glorify Athens, either directly or by implication. Again, all alike found their plots on legends or myths already known from Homer or the Cyclic poets or by common tradition. They were, therefore, familiar to their audiences. The originality of the poets was shown in delinea- tion of character displayed in circumstances already known, or in the rearrangement of details so as to bring about the catastrophe demanded by the dramatic situation. Euripides was distinguished from the other two by the freedom with which he treated his material, and the more human and less heroic traits of his characters. Their point of view in regard to the deeper problems of life was also different. yEschylus looked at things principally from the religious side. The eternal laws of God, the punishment of sin, reaching through generations, the inevitable doom waiting not only blood-guiltiness, but also impious presumption and contempt of justice. It is these doctrines rather than the delineation of character on which he is intent. Thus in the "Suppliant Women," in which Danaus and his daughters fly to Argos to avoid marriage with their cousins, the sons of ^Egyptus, the women and their father are almost lay figures, the King of THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE Argos (not named) merely represents the sovereign conscious of his duty to suppliants. The reason of the women's objection to the marriage is hardly expressed, but force is wrong, the abandonment of suppliants is a breach of religion, and the Divine punishment of both is certain : " Nay, not though he be dead and in the Unseen Will he escape the worker of such deeds. E'en there, they say, among the shades there sits Another Zeus to render final doom On sin that man commits." In the Persians, again, which represents the horror with which news of 4;he defeat of Xerxes at Salamis is received in Persia, what the poet cares for most is to show the punishment of pride and presumption, and of the sacrilege committed by burning the temples in Greece. Xerxes, though a mortal, expected to be able to defy the gods. He put chains upon the sea the divine Hellespont : his army coming to Hellas scrupled not to burn the images and the temples of the gods and to overturn their altars. Thence came his fall : " 111 fares the man whose heart is swollen with pride, High pride that breaking into flower gives forth A deadly crop- -a harvest all of tears." In the Seven against Thebes it is the effect of a father's curse and the inevitable and abiding con- sequences of sin that the poet is illustrating. When CEdipus blinded himself in horror at his involuntary crime his sons Eteocles and Polynices imprisoned AESCHYLUS AND THEOLOGY 379 him and agreed to share his kingdom. He curses them, and presently the curse is fulfilled. Eteocles expels Polynices, who, with six other heroes, comes to take Thebes. The brothers fall by mutual slaughter. " Since they have fallen by each other's deadly hands and the dust has the black blood of murder, who shall bring purifications ? Who shall wash them clean ? A new curse upon the house has become involved with an old taint, an old sin swift to bring its penalty, and abiding to the third generation." At the end of the play Antigone announces her intention to defy the order of the State and to bury her brother. The consequences are not brought out in this play : her words stand as a declaration of sisterly affection, and a protest against the breach of divine law involved in the refusal of funeral rites to the dead. In the Trilogy Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides ^Eschylus returns to the cycle of the Trojan legend. Here, again, we have a curse abiding to the third generation, but it is made clear how human presumption and sin co-operate with it It can only be stayed by divine interposition. Still Zeus is not the author of sin, but the establisher of an immutable law which makes sorrow its certain sequel (Ag. 167) : "He will be wise who from his heart proclaims Zeus lord of all and conqueror, Who unto wisdom leadeth men by pain Pain yoked to learning by his changeless law. It is not God, but the incalculable capacity of men 380 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE and women for passion and its consequences that is accountable for such horrors as have haunted the house of Atreus (Choeph. 576) : "Many the forms of woe and fear And shuddering pain the earth doth bear ; And in the ocean's wide embrace Swarm myriad shapes of monstrous race. With warnings close to dazzled eyes Dread meteors shoot athwart the skies : Foreboding birds and beasts can speak What wrath the hurricanes will wreak. But who can tell what heights of crime Man's hardened soul will dare to climb, Or passion in a woman's breast By no controlling awe suppressed, Passion that, harbouring still with pain, Brings all things deadly in her train ? '' The man that in the pride of his heart spurns the dictates of justice and righteousness, vainly calls on the gods, whom he neglected in his day of prosper- ous wickedness. They will laugh when his trouble cometh (Eum. 528) : " Caught in the racing current, which no skill Or force avails to stem, Loud are his cries to those who will not hear, Or hearing answer them. Hot-headed fool ! the headland's deadly point He thought with ease to clear ! God laughs to see him in the grip of fate, In woe he did not fear. Upon the reef of Justice strikes his keel, His long-stored wealth is gone ; Sudden he passes to the eternal night Unseen, unwept, alone." AESCHYLUS AND THE LAWS OF FATE 381 Though the Eumenides, from which this last extract is taken, had a narrower and more local object, namely, to support the prestige and authority of the Areopagus, it contains, like the other plays of the Trilogy, reiterated statements of a lofty faith in the justice of providence, in the punishment of sin and presumptuous pride, and in the eternal laws of right and wrong. It is the Prometheus that shows us the poet touched by the philosophic or rationalistic movement. Prometheus represents humanity strug- gling with the inequalities and injustice of the divine rule of the world. He suffers because he endowed men with " the knowledge of good and evil," and with the resources which tended to make them more equal to the gods, or, at any rate, less dependent upon them. The gift of fire which he brought them was the origin of all the arts and sciences which ameliorate life and make man self-sufficing, and the superiority of Zeus less marked. He is the martyr of humanity, and suffers because he defied a tyrannical and jealous power. He looks for consola- tion in converse with all the powers of nature, and claims fellowship with all those who had experienced the injustice of the gods. How can a man serve humanity nobly and unselfishly and yet be offensive to Heaven ? That is the problem which ^Eschylus has suggested, but has not solved. Prometheus is left in the full horror of his punishment, amidst the loud artillery of Heaven's wrath, still defying it and protesting against its injustice. As a specimen of the narrative style of ^schylus, the following extract from the account of the battle 382 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF GREECE of Salamis, put in the mouth of a Persian messenger may perhaps serve (Per. 384) : " So all night long the masters of the ships Held all their folk to labour at the oar, Thridding the narrow seas ; and night waned fast Yet never did the Hellenes raise a sail Or seek to make a secret way of flight. But when the white car of the risen day Held all the earth with the sweet rays of dawn, First rang there forth from the Hellenic host A loud clear note, like to some joyous hymn ; And sharp and clear from rock and island came An answering echo. Cold on Persian hearts Struck sudden fear : for other than we deemed The tale that paean told ! Not as for flight This solemn strain issued from Grecian lips, But as of men with hearts of high resolve Eager for battle. Then rang shrill and clear A clarion, filling all the bay with sound : And straight with even stroke of dashing oars, That fell responsive to the master's voice, They smote the yielding bosom of the deep, And in brief space stood out before our eyes Full plain to see. The right wing led the way In order fair ; and following hard astern The whole long fleet streamed on, not silently, But with shouts manifold and plain to hear ; ' Sons of the Greeks arise ! your country free ! Free home, and wife, and child, your grandsires' tombs, And all the seats loved of your fathers' gods ! ' Nor were we silent : Persian lips gave back Challenge for challenge. And now the hour was come." In SOPHOCLES (B.C. 495-405) we find less insist- ence on the religious aspect of life, though little rebellion against Providence. To him the highest study of mankind is man. Human passions, Photo} [Anderson. SOPHOCLES, B C. 495-405. (Lateran Museum.) THE PLAYS OF SOPHOCLES 385 pride, wounded honour, remorse, jealousy, and self- will are traced remorselessly to their inevitable results. Yet the outlook is not all black ; the picture is relieved by instances of noble courage and loyal devotion. QEdipus passes from unreasoning confidence to equally unreasoning despair. In his misery and self-inflicted blindness he still retains the hard inflexible temper towards his disloyal sons, which no amount of personal failure or horror for an unwitting sin has served to soften. Ajax is driven to madness by wounded self-love. Philoctetes is weak in everything but resentment. Clytemnestra is a woman whose wickedness is unredeemed by any touch of tenderness or natural feeling. But Electra is a noble nature, though placed in circumstances too difficult for her strength. Antigone is altogether great .m affection and courage ; Tecmessa shows touching loyalty and devotion to her husband ; and Neoptolemus, though persuaded by the cunning of Odysseus to enter upon an ungenerous intrigue, in the end retrieves his good name and proves the real nobility of his nature. Of love scenes in the modern sense there is little or nothing in the tragedians. Nearest to the picture of a lover, as we regard him, is perhaps Haemon in the Antigone of Sophocles. But though he kills himself upon Antigone's death, it is more from horror than love. It leaves us cold after all. The love (t'/owc) of the tragedians is mostly a baneful passion irresistible, it is true, and divine, but almost always harmful in its effects rather a heaven-sent plague than a divine blessing. In the famous invocation to " invincible love " in the Anti- 26 386 gone, Sophocles dwells after all as much upon its baleful influence as upon its charm. EURIPIDES (B.C. 480-406), nearly contemporary with Sophocles, represents a different development of the drama. He is less confined to well-known and familiar subjects of mythology. His language is more careless of the conventional tragic style. He shows clearer signs of having been influenced by philosophical speculations in physics, religion, and morals, as well as by the fashionable study of rhetoric. His critics accused him of weakening the reverence for the gods, of dangerous moral teaching, of lowering the dignity of tragedy by representing heroic figures in mean or sordid circumstances, and particularly of maligning the character of women. Notably Aristophanes attacks him fiercely as a mere sophist, miserable as an artist, and harmful as a moralist, the apostle of modern scepticism, patron of quibbling and disingenuous arguments. Notwith- standing such attacks it seems certain that Euripides was the most popular of the three dramatists, that his plays and their choric songs were widely known and loved. Still Euripides was an innovator in many respects, and had to bear the fate of those who swerve from recognised paths. His heroes and heroines are human, their language is the language of common life, and the choruses in many cases do not form constituent parts of the play. They become as it were interludes between the scenes, and might sometimes be omitted without loss to the develop- ment of the plot At one period of his life he was doubtless fond of putting in the mouth of his EURIPIDES, B.C. 4?0-4t6. (Louvre.) [Girandon. EURIPIDES AND HIS CRITICS 389 characters words thatreflected upon the received belief in the gods, and on the providential government of the universe. But, in the first place, it is dangerous to attribute to the poet all that he represents as the reflections of characters in a drama ; and, in the second place, if they are to be taken as the expres- sions of the poet's own sentiments, we cannot but sympathise with a spirit which felt the weight of the unsolved riddle of life, and rejected as impossible many of the solutions which were so easily admitted. by his contemporaries. One of these speculations, ridiculed by Aristophanes, seems to show a profound insight into the supreme difficulty " Who knows whether our life is not a death, our death a life ? " Tt'e The other sentence so often brought up against him, once even in a law court, to show that his oath could not be trusted rj yXiovcr ofj,wfjLo\ ?j St ' history of, 169, 199 Peloponnesus assigned to Sext. Pompeius, 339 Pelusium, 232 Pericles, rise of, 136-7 ; reforms of, 139-40 ; foreign policy of, 140-3 ; advancement of Athens by, 146 ; policy of in Pelopon- nesian war, 169-70 Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, 178 Perdiccas, officer of Alexander and Chiliarch, 235 Pergamus, kingdom of, 236, 248, 272, 299; fleet of, 316; bequeathed to Rome, 317 ; temple of Asclepius at, 325 ; Library at, 300 pericekoi in Laconia, 53 Perses, king of Macedonia, 302-3 Persians, 83-95 ; Persian inva- sions of Greece, 98-123 ; de- feated at Mykale, 125-6 ; recover control of Greek States in Asia, 209 ; con- quered by Alexander, 228-34 Phalerum, harbour of Athens, 65 Pharnabazus, 190, 193 Pharnaces, king of Pontus, 281 Pharsalia, battle of, 336 Pharsalus, 294 Pharus, 233 Pheidias, 33, 146-7 ; condemna- tion and death of, 157 Pherae, 217 Philemon, 243 Philip II., king of Macedonia, 215-29, 226-7 Philip Arrhidseus, successor of Alexander, 235, 269 Philip V., king of Macedonia, 277, 282-6, 291, 295-6, 302, 340 Philippi, 217 ; battle of, 338 ; Roman colony at, 340 Philistus, 264 Philocles, Athenian commander at ^Egospotami, 196 Philocrates, peace of, 218 Philopcemon, 296, 300-1 Phlius, 210, 213 Phocaea, battle off, 293 Phocion, Athenian statesman, 240, 243 Phocis, 57 ; Phocian wall at Thermopylae, 113 ; Phocians claim share in management of Delphi, 143 ; sacred war against, 216-17 ; declared free by Romans, 293 Phocylides, 372 Phcebidas,2io Phoenice, peace of, 278 Phoenicians, 15 ; alphabet of, 22 ; subjected to Persia, 87 Phormio, Athenian admiral, 169 pharos, increase of, 145, 211 Phrygia, 299 Phrynichus, orator, 192 Phyle, 198 Pindar, 23, 133, 264, 368-9 piracy, 8, 129, 259, 315-6, 331-3 Piraeus, 65, 135, 193, 197 ; de- serted state of, 315 ; occupied for Mithradates, 327 ; dis- mantled by Sulla, 328 ; occu- pied for Caesar, 335 Pisa in Elis, 56 Pisistratus, 68-71, 93 Piso, 323 Plataea refuses earth and water, 99 ; sends 1,000 men to Mara- thon, 105 ; loyalty of, in ; battle of, 121-3 5 siege of, 169 Plato, 356-7 ; Laws and Republic of, 21 ; philosophy of, 25-6 ; successors of, 244 Pleistoanax, king of Sparta, invades Attica, 143-4 Plutarch, 25 414 INDEX Polus, a Sophist, 200, 352 Polybius, historian, 24, 244, 301, 304, 307, 369, 399 Polycleitos, 33 Polycrates of Samos, 86-7 Polygnotus, painter, 150 Polyperchon, 240 Pompeiastce, 334 Pompey(Gn. Pompeius Magnus) puts down the pirates, 333 ; his settlement of Asiatic Greece, 333-5 ; his benefac- tions to Athens, Rhodes, Delos, 334 ; Sext. Pompeius, 339 Pontus, kingdom of, 236, 272, 281 Potidaea, 161 ; siege of, 169, 200 ; seized by Philip II., 217 Praxilla, poetess, 368 Praxiteles, sculptor, 33 Prodicus, sophist, 353 Propontis, the, 41 Protagoras, 200, 350, 352-4 Prusias, king of Bithynia, 281, 283, 304 Psyttaleia, 118 Ptolemy I., king of Egypt, 269 ; Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), 29, 264, 284 ; Ptolemy III. (Euergetes), 277 ; Ptolemy IV. (Philopator), 281 ; Pto- lemy V. (Epiphanes), 285 publicani in Asia, 319, 320, 337 Punic wars, 284 Pydna, 216 ; battle of, 303 Pylagoras, 46 Pylos, 172, 176-7 Pyrrhus, 255, 261, 284 Pythagoras, 132, 252 Pythia, the, 42, 84 Q Quintus of Smyrna, 24 R Rhegium, 185, 256, 259 Rhodes joins Athenian con- federacy, 211 ; breaks off, 217 ; sea-power of, 236, 272 ; School of Oratory at, 309, 344 ; war of with Byzantium, 281 ; joins Byzantium and Chios in ad- vising peace, 283, 299, 304; suspected by Romans, 304; its fleet against pirates, 316 ; subject to Rome, 324-6, 331, 334, 338 Roman government of Greece, 3, 236, 262, 289, 313-347; Roman army in Epirus, 290 ; Roman policy towards Mace- donia, 292 ; movement in Greece against, 304 Roxana, wife of Alexander, 235, 269 Rupilius Rufus, 320 Sacred wars, 67, 216 Salamis, bay of, 116 ; battle of, 118-20 Salamis in Cyprus, 323 Salonike, 331 Samos, 86-7 ; Persian fleet at, 124 ; makes league with Chios and Lemnos, 126 ; Athenian, fleet at, 191-2, 196 ; under Romans 322, 331 ; Augustus at, 339-40, 342 Sappho, 23, 367 Sardis, 81, 87 ; Persian army at, in Scaptius, 323 Sciathus, 327 Scipio Africanus, 298 Scopas, ^Etolian general, 285 Scythians in Asia, 88 ; invaded by Darius, 89 Seleucus, king of Babylonia and then of Syria, 269-72 Seleucus, son of Antiochus the Great, 298 Selinus, 178, 185 Sellasia, battle of, 277 Sentinum, battle at, 251 Servilius Isauricus, P., 332 Sestos, siege of, 126 Sicily, 12, 171-2, 178 ; Athenian expedition to, 184-90, 256 ; Roman settlement of, 205 ; INDEX 415 held by Sext. Pompeius, 339 ; Greek poets in, 266 Sicyon, tyrants of, 49 ; Roman troops defeated near, 283 ; Roman province of, 307 ; to keep up Isthmian games, 308 ; arbitrates between Athens and Oropus, 314 Sidon, 342 Sigeium occupied by Athenians, 65, 7.L 92 Simonides of Ceos, 23, 132, 269, 368, 371-2 Simonides of Amorgus, 372-3 Sinope, capital of Pontus, 281 Slavery, 52 Smyrna, 295, 299 Social wars, of Athenian allies, 216 ; against ^Etolia, 274, 278, 282 Socrates, 164, 195, 200-5, 354~5 Solon, 23 ; legislation of, 66-8 ; visit of to Crcesus,82-3 ; poetry of, 370-1 Sophists, the, 199, 351-3 Sophocles, 29, 154, 164, 382-6 Sparta, early supremacy of, 2, 206-12 ; constitution of, 51- 56 ; loss of prestige of alter Persian wars, 135 ; earthquake at, 136 ; conference at to de- nounce Athens, 161-2 ; deal- ings of with Persian satraps, 191 ; end of supremacy of, 212 ; defeated by Antip'ater, 237 ; decadence of, 277 ; forced to join Archaean League, 300-1, 305 ; separated from the League, 306 ; a Roman province, 307 ; sides with Pompey, 335 ; favoured by Augustus, 341 Sphacteria, 172, 176 Stesichorus, 264 Stoa poekile, the, 150, 361 Stoics, the, 26, 361-4 Strabo, 25 Strymbn R., 108, 216 Sulla in Greece, 327-31 Ser. Sulpicius Rufus, 328 ; gover- nor of Greece by Caesar, 336 Susa, 92-4 Sussitia at Sparta, 54 Sybaris, 252 Syntaxis, 211, 231 Syracuse, 3, 164, 186-90, 252, 256, 265, 309, 341 Syria, kingdom of, 235, 330 Tagus of Thessaly, 57 Tanagra, battle of, 140-1 ; pot- tery works at, 247 Tantalus, 18 Tarentum, 32, 237, 247, 255-6, 309 Tarsus, 338 Tegeans at Plataea, 122 Tempe, vale of, 112 Telesilla, poetess, 368 Temenus of Argos, 49 ; Temeni- dae, 215 Tenedos, 211 Tenos, 338 Teuta, Queen of Illyria, 316 Thapsus, 186 Theatre, the, 149 Thebes, rise of, 57 ; legends of. 22 ; punished after Persian war, 124 ; supremacy of, 3 212-4 i invaded by Spartans 210 ; allied with Athens, 211 and opposed to Philip, 221 destroyed by Alexander, 228 restored by Cassander, 247 submits to Mithradates, 327 submits to Caesar, 335 Themistocles. 106, 107, 112-13 ', atArtemisium,ii5-i6 ; activity of at Salamis, 117-18 ; ostra- cised, 131 ; services of to Athens, 135 Theocritus, 24, 264, 397-8 Theognis, 23, 371 Theophanes, 333 Theophrastus, 243, 329 Theoric Fund, the, 139 Theramenes, 192, 196-8 Therma (Thessalonika), m Thermopylae, meeting of Amphi- ctyons at, 46 ; Persians at, 112- 16, Philip II. at, 218 ; muster INDEX at after Alexander's death, 238 ; Gauls (Celts) at, 248 ; Antiochus at, 297 ; Achaeans at, 306 Thermus takes Mitylene, 331 Theseus kills the Minotaur, 8 ; combines the Attic towns, 58- 9 ; temple of, 149 Thespise in Boeotia, in ; Thes- pians stand by Leonidas, 115 ; resist Mithradates, 327 Thespis, 26 Thessalonika, 335 Thessaly, 12, 57, 99 ; declared free by Romans, 293 ; a Roman province, 307, 341 Thimbron, Spartan general, 207 Thirty at Athens, the, 197-9 Thrace, kingdom of, 235-6, 270- i ; Philip V. in, 302 ; troops of Mithradates in, 330 Thrasybulus of Syracuse, 259 Thrasybulus, Athenian general, 193-4, 198 Thrasyllus, 193 Thrinakia, 15 Thucydides, son of Milesias, opponent of Pericles, 145, 157 Thucydides, son of Olorus, the historian, 24, 154, 167, 175, 39879 Thurii, colony at, 145, 186, 255 Timoleon of Corinth, 260 Timotheos, Athenian general, 212, 217 Tiryns, 22 Tissaphernes, 190-2, 207 Tithraustes, 207 Tolmides, Athenian gene-al, 141 Torone, 176 Tralles, 299, 325 Trasimene Lake, battle of, 282 Tyrants in Peloponnese, 49-51 ; in Asiatic Greece, 86 ; with Darius on the Danube, 89 ; in Sicily, 262-3 5 m Sparta, 278 Tyre, taken by Alexander, 232 ; punished by Augustus, 342 Tyrtaeus, 23, 370 Verres, 323 Via Egnatia, 335 X Xenarchus, 264 Xenophanesof Colophus, teacher in Sicily, 132, 264, 372 ; on athletes, 45 Xenophon, 24, 199, 200, 207, 399 Xerxes, king of Persia, deter- mines to invade Greece, 108 ; at Thermopylae, 114-5 ; in Attica, 116-21 Zacynthus (Zante) allied with Athens, 141, 211 Zeus, 34, 244, 361-2 ; of Dodona, 16 ; temple of at Athens, 149 Printed in Great Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE OBESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKINQ UCSB LIBKAKl - 3H08 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000544161 3