V. THE PERSIANS…

V. THE PERSIANS

In the western part of the plateau of Iran, which extends from the Suleiman Mountains to the plains of Mesopotamia, were the Medes. On the southern border of the same plateau, along the Persian Gulf, were the Persians. Both were offshoots of the Aryan family, and had migrated westward from the region of the upper Oxus, from Bactria, the original seat of their religion.

RELIGION.--The ancient religion of the Iranians, including the Medes and Persians, was reduced to a system by the Bactrian sage, Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), who, in the absence of authentic knowledge respecting him, may be conjecturally placed at about 1000 B.C. The Zendavesta, the sacred book of the Parsees, the adherents of this religion, is composed of parts belonging to very different dates. It is the fragment of a more extensive literature no longer extant. The Bactrian religion differed from that of their Sanskrit-speaking kindred on the Indus, in being a form of dualism. It grew out of a belief in good demons or spirits, and in evil spirits, making up two hosts perpetually in conflict with each other. At the head of the host of good spirits, in the Zoroastrian creed, was Ormuzd, the creator, and the god of light; at the head of the evil host, was Ahriman, the god of darkness. The one made the world good, the other laid in it all that is evil. The one is disposed to bless man, the other to do him harm. The conflict of virtue and vice in man is a contest for control on the part of these antagonistic powers. In order to keep off the spirits of evil, one must avoid what is morally or ceremonially unclean. He who lived pure, went up at death to the spirits of light. The evil soul departed to consort with evil spirits in the region of darkness. Mithra, the sun-god in the Zoroastrian system, is the equal, though the creature, of Ormuzd. Mithra is the conqueror of darkness, and so the enemy of falsehood. The Medes and Persians were fire-worshipers. To the good spirits, they ascribed life, the fruitful earth, the refreshing waters, fountains and rivers, the tilled ground, pastures and trees, the lustrous metals, also truth and the pure deed. To the evil spirits belonged darkness, disease, death, the desert, cold, filth, sin, and falsehood. The animals were divided between the two realms. All that live in holes, all that hurt the trees and the crops, rats and mice, reptiles of all sorts, turtles, lizards, vermin, and noxious insects, were hateful creatures of Ahriman. To kill any of these was a merit. The dog was held sacred; as was also the cock, who announces the break of day. In the system of worship, sacrifices were less prominent than in India. Prayers, and the iteration of prayers, were of great moment.

THE MAGI.--The Zoroastrian religion was not the same at all times and in every place. The primitive Iranian emigrants were monotheistic in their tendencies. In their western abodes, they came into contact with worshipers of the elements,--fire, air, earth, and water. It is thought by many scholars, that the Magian system, with its more defined dualism and sacerdotal sway, was ingrafted on the native religion of the Iranians through the influence of tribes with whom they mingled in Media. The Magi, according to one account, were charged by Darius with corrupting the Zoroastrian faith and worship. Whatever may have been their origin, they became the leaders in worship, and privy-counselors to the sovereign. They were likewise astrologers, and interpreters of dreams. They were not so distinct a class as the priests in India. A hereditary order, they might still bring new members into their ranks. From the Medes, they were introduced among the Persians.

PERSIAN RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS.--Peculiar customs existed among the Medes in disposing of the dead. They were not to be cast into the fire or the water, or buried in the earth, for this would bring pollution to what was sacred; but their bodies were to be exposed in the high rocks, where the beasts and birds could devour them. Sacrifices were offered on hill-tops. Salutations of homage were made to the rising sun. On some occasions, boys were buried alive, as an offering to the divinities. In early times, there were no images of the gods. As far as they were introduced in later times, it was through the influence of surrounding nations. In the supremacy and the final victory, which, in the later form of Zoroastrianism, were accorded to Ormuzd, there was again an approach to monotheism. Hostility to deception of all sorts, and thus to stealing, was a Persian trait. Herodotus says that the Persians taught their children to ride, to shoot the bow, and to speak the truth. To prize the pursuits of agriculture and horticulture, was a part of their religion. They allowed a plurality of wives, and concubines with them; but there was one wife to whom precedence belonged. Voluntary celibacy in man or woman was counted a flagrant sin.

HISTORY.--The first authentic notice that we have of the MEDES shows them under Assyrian power. This is in the time of Shalmaneser II., 840 B.C. Their rise is coincident with the fall of Assyria. Phraortes (647-625 B.C.) began the Median struggle for independence; although the name of Deioces is given by Herodotus as a previous king, and the builder of Ecbatana the capital. It was reserved for Cyaxares (625-585 B.C.), having delivered his land from the Scythian marauders (p. 47), to complete, in conjunction with the Babylonian king, Nabopolassar, the work of breaking down the Assyrian empire (p. 48). He brought under his rule the Bactrians, and the Persians about Pasargadæ and Persepolis, and made the Halys, dividing Asia Minor, the limit of his kingdom. His effeminate son, Astyages, lost what his father had won. The Persian branch of the Iranians gained the supremacy. Cyrus, the leader of the Persian revolt, by whom Astyages was defeated, is described as related to him; but this story, as well as the account of his being rescued from death and brought up among shepherds, is probably a fiction.

CYRUS.--In the sixth century B.C., this famous ruler and conqueror became the founder of an empire which comprised nearly all the civilized nations of Asia. During his reign of thirty years (559-530 B.C.), he annexed to his kingdom the two principal states, LYDIA and BABYLON. The king of Lydia was Croesus, whose story, embellished with romantic details, was long familiar as a signal example of the mutations of fortune. Doomed to be burned after the capture of Sardis, his capital, he was heard, just when the fire was to be kindled, to say something about Solon. In answer to the inquiry of Cyrus, whose curiosity was excited, he related how that Grecian sage, after beholding his treasures, had refused to call him the most fortunate of men, on the ground that "no man can be called happy before his death," because none can tell what disasters may befall him. Cyrus, according to the narrative, touched by the tale, delivered Croesus from death, and thereafter bestowed on him honor and confidence.

There is another form of the tradition, which is deemed by some more probable. Croesus is said to have stood on a pyre, intending to offer himself in the flames, to propitiate the god Sandon, that his people might be saved from destruction; but he was prevented, it is said, by unfavorable auguries.

The subjection of the Greek colonies on the Asia-Minor coast followed upon the subjugation of Lydia. From these colonies, the Phocoeans went forth, and founded Elea in Lower Italy, and Massilia (Marseilles) in Gaul. The Asian Greek cities were each allowed its own municipal rulers, but paid tribute to the Persian master. The conquest of Babylon (538 B.C.), as it opened the way for the return to Jerusalem of the Jewish exiles, enabled Cyrus to establish a friendly people in Judaea, as a help in fortifying his sway in Syria, and in opening a path to Egypt. But in 529 he lost his life in a war which he was waging against the Massagetae, a tribe on the Caspian, allied in blood to the Scythians.

There was a tradition that the barbarian queen, Tomyris, enraged that Cyrus had overcome her son by deceit, dipped the slain king's head in a skin-bag of blood, exclaiming, "Drink thy fill of blood, of which thou couldst not have enough in thy lifetime!"

CAMBYSES.--The successor of Cyrus, a man not less warlike than he, but more violent in his passions, reigned but seven years (529-522 B.C.). His most conspicuous achievement was the conquest of EGYPT. One ground or pretext of his hostility, according to the tale of Herodotus, was the fact that Amasis, the predecessor of Psammeticus III., not daring to refuse the demand of his daughter as a wife, to be second in rank to the Persian queen, had fraudulently sent, either to Cambyses, or, before his time, to Cyrus, Nitetis, the daughter of the king who preceded him, Apries. Defeated at Pelusium, and compelled to yield up Memphis after a siege, it is said that Psammeticus, the Psammenitus of Herodotus, the unfortunate successor of the powerful Pharaohs, was obliged to look on the spectacle of his daughters in the garb of working-women, bearing water, and to see his sons, with the principal young nobles, ordered to execution. But this tale lacks confirmation. His cruelties were probably of a later date, and were provoked by the chagrin he felt, and the satisfaction manifested by the people, at the failure of great expeditions which he sent southward for the conquest of Meroe, and westward against the Oasis of Ammon. His armies perished in the Lybian deserts. Even the story of his stabbing the sacred steer (Apis), after these events, although it may be true, is not sanctioned by the Egyptian inscriptions. His attack upon Ammon probably arose, in part at least, from a desire to possess himself of whatever lay between Egypt and the Carthaginian territory. But the Phoenician sailors who manned his fleet refused to sail against their brethren in Carthage. Cambyses assumed the title and character of an Egyptian sovereign. The story of his madness is an invention of the Egyptian priests.

DARIUS (521-485 B.C.).--For a short time, a pretender, a Magian, who called himself Smerdis, and professed to be the brother of Cambyses, usurped the throne. Cambyses is said to have put an end to his own life. After a reign of seven months, during which he kept himself for the most part hidden from view, Smerdis was destroyed by a rising of the leading Persian families. Darius, the son of Hystaspes, of the royal race of the Achaemenidae, succeeded. He married Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus. The countries which composed an Oriental empire were so loosely held together that the death of a despot or the change of a dynasty was very likely to call forth a general insurrection. Darius showed his military prowess in conquering anew various countries, including Babylon, which had revolted. He made Arabia tributary, and spread the bounds of his vast empire as far as India and in North Africa. A mighty expedition which he organized against the Scythians on the Lower Danube failed of the results that were hoped from it. The barbarians wasted their own fields, filled up their wells, drove off their cattle, and fled as the army of Darius advanced. He returned, however, with the bulk of his army intact, although with a loss of prestige, and enrolled "the Scyths beyond the sea" among the subjects of his empire. His armies conquered the tribes of Thrace, so that he pushed his boundaries to the frontiers of Macedonia. The rebellion of the Greek cities on the Asia-Minor coast he suppressed, and harshly avenged. Of his further conflicts with the Greeks on the mainland, more is to be said hereafter. He had built Persepolis, but his principal seat of government appears to have been Susa. He did a great work in organizing his imperial system. The division into satrapies--large districts, each under a satrap, or viceroy--was a part of this work. He thus introduced a more efficient and methodical administration into his empire,--an empire four times as large as the empire of Assyria, which it had swallowed up.

GOVERNMENT.--Persia proper corresponded nearly to the modern province of Farsistan or Fars. The Persian Empire stretched from east to west for a distance of about three thousand miles, and was from five hundred to fifteen hundred miles in width. It was more than half as large as modern Europe. It comprised not less than two millions of square miles. Its population under Darius may have been seventy or eighty millions. He brought in uniformity of administration. In each satrapy, besides the satrap himself, who was a despot within his own dominion, there was at first a commander of the troops, and a secretary, whose business it was to make reports to the GREAT KING. These three officers were really watchmen over one another. It was through spies ("eyes" and "ears") of the king that he was kept informed of what was taking place in every part of the empire. At length it was found necessary to give the satraps the command of the troops, which took away one important check upon their power. There was a regular system of taxation, but to this were added extraordinary and oppressive levies. Darius introduced a uniform coinage. The name of the coin, "daric," is probably not derived from his name, however. Notwithstanding the government by satraps, local laws and usages were left, to a large extent, undisturbed. Great roads, and postal communication for the exclusive use of the government, connected the capital with the distant provinces. In this point the Persians set an example which was followed by the Romans. From Susa to Sardis, a distance of about seventeen hundred English miles, stretched a road, along which, at proper intervals, were caravansaries, and over which the fleet couriers of the king rode in six or seven days. The king was an absolute lord and master, who disposed of the lives and property of his subjects without restraint. To him the most servile homage was paid. He lived mostly in seclusion in his palace. On great occasions he sat at banquet with his nobles. His throne was made of gold, silver, and ivory. All who approached him kissed the earth. His ordinary dress was probably of the richest silk. He took his meals mostly by himself. His fare was made up of the choicest delicacies. His seraglio, guarded by eunuchs, contained a multitude of inmates, brought together by his arbitrary command, over whom, in a certain way, the queen-mother presided. His chief diversions were playing at dice within doors, and hunting without. Paradises, or parks, walled in, planted with trees and shrubbery, and furnished with refreshing fountains and streams, were his hunting-ground. Such inclosures were the delight of all Persians. In war he was attended with various officers in close attendance on his person,--the stool-bearer, the bow-bearer, etc. In peace, there was another set, among whom was "the parasol-bearer,"--for to be sheltered by the parasol was an exclusive privilege of the king,--the fan-bearer, etc. There were certain privileged families,--six besides the royal clan of the Achæmenidæ, the chiefs of all of which were his counselors, and from whom he was bound to choose his legitimate wives. When the monarch traveled, even on military expeditions, he was accompanied by the whole varied apparatus of luxury which ministered to his pleasures in the court,--costly furniture, a vast retinue of attendants, of inmates of the harem, etc.

ARMY AND NAVY.--The arms of the footman were a sword, a spear, and a bow. Persian bowmen were skillful. Persian cavalry, both heavy and light, were their most effective arm. The military leaders depended on the celerity of their horsemen and the weight of their numbers. It is doubtful whether they employed military engines. They were not wholly ignorant of strategy. Their troops were marshaled by nations, each in its own costume, the commander of the whole being in the center of the line of battle. The body-guard of the king was "the Immortals," a body of ten thousand picked footmen, the number being always kept intact. The enemies of the Persians, except in the case of rebels, were not treated with inhumanity. In this regard the Persians are in marked contrast with the Semitic ferocity of the Assyrians. Their navies were drawn from the subject-peoples. The trireme, with its projecting prow shod with iron, and its crew of two hundred men, was the principal, but not the only vessel used in sea-fights.

LITERATURE AND ART.--A Persian youth was ordinarily taught to read, but there was little intellectual culture. Boys were trained in athletic exercises. It was a discipline in hardy and temperate habits. Etiquette, in all ranks of the people, was highly esteemed. The Persians, as a nation, were bright-minded, and not deficient in fancy and imagination. But they contributed little to science. Their religious ideas were an heirloom from remote ancestors. The celebrated Persian poet, Firdousí, lived in the tenth century of our era. His great poem, the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, is a storehouse of ancient traditions. It is probable that the ancient poetry of the Persians, like this production, was of moderate merit. Of the Persian architecture and sculpture, we derive our knowledge from the massive ruins of Persepolis, which was burned by Alexander the Great, and from the remains of other cities. They had learned from Assyria and Babylon, but they display no high degree of artistic talent. They were not an intellectual people: they were soldiers and rulers.

LITERATURE--Works mentioned on pp 16, 42; Encycl. Brit., Art. Persia; Vaux, Persia from the Monuments (1876); Nöldeke, Aufsdtze zur persischen Geschichte (1887); Justi, Geschichte trans (1900); Markham, _General Sketch of the History of Persia_ (1874).

RETROSPECT.

In Eastern Asia the Chinese nation was built up, the principal achievement of the Mongolian race. Its influence was restricted to neighboring peoples of kindred blood. Its civilization, having once attained to a certain stage of progress, remained for the most part stationary. China, in its isolation, exerted no power upon the general course of history. Not until a late age, when the civilization of the Caucasian race should be developed, was the culture of China to produce, in the mingling of the European and Asiatic peoples, its full fruits, even for China herself. India--although the home of a Caucasian immigrant people, a people of the Aryan family too--was cut off by special causes from playing an effective part, either actively or passively, in the general historic movement.

Egypt, from 1500 to 1300 B.C., was the leading community of the ancient world. But civilization in Egypt, at an early date, crystallized in an unchanging form. The aim was to preserve unaltered what the past had brought out. The bandaged mummy, the result of the effort to preserve even the material body of man for all future time, is a type of the leaden conservatism which pervaded Egyptian life. The pre-eminence of Egypt was lost by the rise of the Semitic states to increasing power. Semitic arms and culture were in the ascendant for six centuries (1300 to 700 B.C.). Babylonia shares with Egypt the distinction of being one of the two chief fountains of culture. From Babylonia, astronomy, writing, and other useful arts were disseminated among the other Semitic peoples. It was a strong state even before 2000 B.C. Babylon was a hive of industry, and was active in trade, a link of intercourse between the East and the West. But this function of an intermediate was discharged still more effectively by the Phoenicians, the first great commercial and naval power of antiquity. Tyre reached the acme of its prosperity under Hiram, the contemporary of Solomon, about 1000 B.C. Meantime, among the Hebrew people, the foundations of the true religion had been laid,--that religion of monotheism which in future ages was to leaven the nations. Contemporaneously, the Assyrian Monarchy was rising to importance on the banks of the Tigris. The appearance, "in the first half of the ninth century B.C., of a power advancing from the heart of Asia towards the West, is an event of immeasurable importance in the history of the world." The Israelites were divided. About the middle of the eighth century B.C., both of their kingdoms lost their independence. Assyria was vigorous in war, but had no deep foundation of national life. "Its religion was not rooted in the soil, like that of Egypt, nor based on the observation of the sky and stars, like that of Babylon." "Its gods were gods of war, manifesting themselves in the prowess of ruling princes." The main instrument in effecting the downfall of Assyria was the Medo-Persian power. Through the Medes and Persians, the Aryan race comes forward into conspicuity and control. One branch of the Iranians of Bactria, entering India, through the agency of climate and other physical influences converted their religion into a mystical and speculative pantheism, and their social organization into a caste-system under the rule of a priesthood. The Medes and Persians, under other circumstances, in contact with tribes about them, turned their religion into a dualism, yet with a monotheistic drift that was not wholly extinguished. The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus annihilated Semitic power. The fall of Lydia, the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, and the victories of Darius, brought the world into subjection to Persian rule.

The dates of some of the most important historical events in this Section are as follow Menes, the first historic king of Egypt....... about 4000 B.C. Accession of Ramses II. to the Egyptian throne...... 1340 B.C. Rise of the Babylonian kingdom................ about 4000 B.C. Reign of Hiram at Tyre, and of Solomon........ about 950 B.C. Assyrian captivity: downfall of Israel............... 722 B.C. Fall of Nineveh...................................... 606 B.C. Babylonian captivity: downfall of Judah.............. 586 B.C. Reign of Cyrus begins................................ 559 B.C. Fall of Lydia: capture of Sardis..................... 546 B.C. Fall of Babylon...................................... 538 B.C. Reign of Darius begins............................... 521 B.C.

BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION.--In the history of Western Asia we discern the beginnings of civilization and of the true religion. In the room of useless and destructive tribal warfare, great numbers are banded together under despotic rule. CITIES were built, where property and life could be protected, and within whose massive walls of vast circumference the useful arts and the rudiments of science could spring up. Trade and commerce, by land and sea, naturally followed. Thus nations came to know one another. Aggressive war and subjugation had a part in the same result. The power of the peoples of western Asia, the guardians of infant civilization, availed to keep back the hordes of barbarians on the north, or, as in the case of the great Scythian invasion (p. 47), to drive them back to their own abodes.

DEFECTS OF ASIATIC CIVILIZATION.--But the civilization of the Asiatic empires had radical and fatal defects. The development of human nature was in some one direction, to the exclusion of other forms of human activity. As to knowledge, it was confined within a limit beyond which progress was slow. The geometry of Egypt and the astronomy of Babylon remained where the necessity of the pyramid-builders and the superstition of the astrologers had carried them. Even the art of war was in a rudimental stage. In battle, huge multitudes were precipitated upon one another. There are some evidences of strategy, when we reach the campaigns of Cyrus. But war was full of barbarities,--the destruction of cities, the expatriation of masses of people, the pitiless treatment of captives. Architecture exhibits magnitude without elegance. Temples, palaces, and tombs are monuments of labor rather than creations of art. They impress oftener by their size than by their beauty. Statuary is inert and massive, and appears inseparable from the buildings to which it is attached. Literature, with the exception of the Hebrew, is hardly less monotonous than art. The religion of the Semitic nations, the Hebrews excepted, so far from containing in it a purifying element, tended to degrade its votaries by feeding the flame of sensual and revengeful passion. What but debasement could come from the worship of Astarte and the Phoenician El?

The great empires did not assimilate the nations which they comprised. They were bound, but not in the least fused, together. Persia went farther than any other empire in creating a uniform administration, but even the Persian Empire remained a conglomerate of distinct peoples.

ORIENTAL GOVERNMENT.--The government of the Oriental nations was a despotism. It was not a government of laws, but the will of the one master was omnipotent. The counterpart of tyranny in the ruler was cringing, abject servility in the subject. Humanity could not thrive, man could not grow to his full stature, under such a system. It was on the soil of Europe and among the Greeks that a better type of manhood and a true idea of liberty were to spring up.

DIVISION II. EUROPE.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.--The Alps, continued on the west by the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian mountains, and carried eastward to the Black Sea by the Balkan range, form an irregular line, that separates the three peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and Greece from the great plain of central Europe. On the north of this plain, there is a corresponding system of peninsulas and islands, where the Baltic answers in a measure to the Mediterranean. This midland sea, which at once unites and separates the three continents, is connected with the Atlantic by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar, and on the east is continued in the Aegean Sea, or the Archipelago, which leads into the Hellespont, or the Strait of the Dardanelles, thence onward into the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, and through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoff beyond. From the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean the Mediterranean is parted by a space which is now traversed by a canal. The irregularity of the coast-line is one of the characteristic features of the European continent. Especially are the northern shores of the Mediterranean indented by arms of the sea; and this, along with the numerous islands, marks out the whole region as remarkably adapted to maritime life and commercial intercourse.

ITS INHABITANTS.--Europe was early inhabited by branches of the Aryan race. The cradle or primitive seat of the Aryan family --from which its two main divisions, the European and the Asiatic, went forth--is not known. It is a matter of theory and debate. We find the Graeco-Latin peoples on the south, the more central nations of Celtic speech, the more northern Teutons, and in the north-east the Slavonians. But how all these Aryan branches are mutually related, and of the order and path of their prehistoric migrations, little is definitely known. The Celts were evidently preceded by non-Aryan inhabitants, of whom the Basques in Spain and France are a relic. The Celtiberians in Spain, as the name implies, were a mixture of the Celts with the native non-Aryan Iberians. The Greeks and the Italians had a common ancestry, as we know by their languages; but of that common ancestry neither Greeks nor Latins in the historic period retained any recollection; nor can we safely affirm, that, of that earlier stock, they alone were the offspring.

"All the known Indo-European languages," writes Professor Whitney, "are descended from a single dialect, which must have been spoken at some time in the past by a single limited community, by the spread and emigration of which--not, certainly, without incorporating also bodies of other races than that to which itself belonged by origin--it has reached its present wide distribution." "Of course, it would be a matter of the highest interest to determine the place and period of this important community, were there any means of doing so; but that is not the case, at least at present." "The condition of these languages is reconcilable with any possible theory as to the original site of the family." "One point is established, that 'the separation of the five European branches must have been later than their common separation from the two Asiatic branches,' the Iranians and Indians." (Whitney's The Life and Growth of Language, pp. 191, 193.)

SECTION I. GRECIAN HISTORY.

THE LAND.--"Greeks" is not a name which the people who bore it applied to themselves. It was a name given them by their kinsfolk, the Romans. They called themselves Hellenes, and their land they called Hellas. Hellas, or Greece proper, included the southern portion of the peninsula of which it is a part, the portion bounded on the north by Olympus and the Cambunian Mountains, and extending south to the Mediterranean. Its shores were washed on the east by the Aegean, on the west by the Adriatic, or Ionian Gulf. The length of Hellas was about two hundred and fifty English miles: its greatest width, measured on the northern frontier, or from Attica on a line westward, was about a hundred and eighty miles. It is somewhat smaller than Portugal.

Along its coast are many deep bays. Long and narrow promontories run out into the sea. Thus a great length is given to the sea-coast, which abounds in commodious harbors. The tideless waters are safe for navigators. Scattered within easy distance of the shore are numerous islands of great fertility and beauty. So high and rugged are the mountains that communication between different places is commonly easier by water than by land. A branch of the Alps at the forty-second parallel of latitude turns to the south-east, and descends to Toenarum, the southern promontory. On either side, lateral branches are sent off, at short intervals, to the east and the west. From these in turn, branches, especially on the east, are thrown out in the same direction as the main ridge; that is, from north to south. Little room is left for plains of much extent. Thessaly, with its single river, the Peneus, was such a plain. There were no navigable rivers. Most of the streams were nothing more than winter-torrents, whose beds were nearly or quite dry in the summer. They often groped their way to the sea through underground channels, either beneath lakes or in passages which the streams themselves bored through limestone. The physical features of the country fitted it for the development of small states, distinct from one another, yet, owing especially to the relations of the land to the sea, full of life and movement.

THE GRECIAN STATES.--The territory of Greece included (1) Northern Greece, comprising all north of the Malian (Zeitoum) and Ambracian (Arta) gulfs; (2) Central Greece, extending thence to the Gulf of Corinth; (3) the peninsula of Peloponnesus (Morea) to the south of the isthmus. The country was occupied, in the flourishing days of Greece, by not less than seventeen states.

Northern Greece contained two principal countries, Thessaly and Epirus, separated from one another by the Pindus. Thessaly was the largest and most fertile of the Grecian states. The Peneus, into which poured the mountain streams, passed to the sea through a narrow gorge, the famous Vale of Tempe. In the mountainous region of Epirus were numerous streams flowing through the valleys. Within it was the ancient Dodona, the seat of the oracle. Magnesia, east of Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of Ossa and Pelion. Central Greece contained eleven states. Malis had on its eastern edge the pass of Thermopylae. In Phocis, on the southern slope of Mount Parnassus, was Delphi. Boeotia was distinguished for the number and size of its cities, the chief of which was Thebes. Attica projected from Boeotia to the south-east, its length being seventy miles, and its greatest width thirty miles. Its area was only about seven hundred and twenty square miles. It was thus only a little more than half as large as the State of Rhode Island, which has an area of thirteen hundred and six square miles. Its only important town was Athens. Its rivers, the Ilissus and the two Cephissusses, were nothing more than torrent courses. In Southern Greece were eleven countries. The territory of Corinth embraced most of the isthmus, and a large tract in Peloponnesus. It had but one considerable city, Corinth, which had two ports,--one on the Corinthian Gulf, Lechoeum, and the other on the Saronic Gulf, Cenchreae. Arcadia, the central mountain country, has been called the Switzerland of Peloponnesus. It comprised numerous important towns, as Mantinea, Orchomenus, and, in later times, Megalopolis. In the south-east was Laconia, with an area of about nineteen hundred square miles. It consisted mainly of the valley of the Eurotas, which lay between the lofty mountain ranges of Parnon and Taygetus. "Hollow Lacedaemon" was a phrase descriptive of its situation. Sparta, the capital, was on the Eurotas, twenty miles from the sea. It had no other important city. Argolis, projecting into the sea, eastward of Arcadia, had within it the ancient towns of Mycenae and Argos.

THE ISLANDS.--It must be remembered that the waters between Europe and Asia were not a separating barrier, but a close bond of connection. There is scarcely a single point "where, in clear weather, a mariner would feel himself left in a solitude between sky and water; the eye reaches from island to island, and easy voyages of a day lead from bay to bay." Greek towns, including very ancient places, were scattered along the western coast of Asia Minor, between the mountains and the shore. The Aegean was studded with Greek islands. These, together with the islands in the Ionian Sea, on the west, formed a part of Greek territory.

The principal island near Greece was Euboea, stretching for a hundred miles along the east coast of Attica, Boeotia, and Locris. On the opposite side of the peninsula, west of Epirus, was the smaller but yet large island of Corcyra (Corfu). On the west, besides, were Ithaca, Cephallenia, and Zacynthus (Zante); on the south, the Oenussae Islands and Cythera; on the east, Aegina, Salamis, etc. From the south-eastern shores of Euboea and Attica, the Cyclades and Sporades extended in a continuous series, "like a set of stepping-stones," across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor. From Corcyra and the Acroceraunian promontory, one could descry, in clear weather, the Italian coast. These were all littoral islands. Besides these, there were other islands in the northern and central Aegean, such as Lemnos, Samothrace, Delos, Naxos, etc.; and in the southern Aegean, Crete, an island mountainous but fertile, a hundred and fifty miles in length from east to west, and about fifteen in breadth, and containing more than two thousand square miles. The Greek race was still more widely diffused through the settlements in and about the western Mediterranean.

THE BOND OF RACE.--The Greeks, or Hellenes, were not so much a nation as a united race. Politically divided, they were conscious of a fraternal bond that connected them, wherever they might be found, and parted them from the rest of mankind. Their sense of brotherhood is implied in the fabulous belief in a common ancestor named Hellen. Together with a fellowship in blood, there was a community in language, notwithstanding minor differences in dialect. Moreover, there was a common religion. They worshiped the same gods. They had the same ritual, and cherished in common the same beliefs respecting things supernatural. In connection with these ties of blood, of language, and of religion, they celebrated together great national festivals, like the Olympic games, in which Greeks from all parts of the world might take part, and into which they entered with a peculiar enthusiasm. As the Jews, following the impulses of a holier faith, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate as one family their sacred rites; so the Greeks repaired to hallowed shrines of Zeus or Apollo, assembling from afar on the plain of Olympia and at the foot of Parnassus.

DIVISIONS OF GREEK HISTORY.

Greek history embraces three general periods. The first is the formative period, and extends to the Persian wars, 500 B.C. The second period covers the flourishing era of Greece, from 500 B.C. to 359 B.C. The third is the Macedonian period, when the freedom of Greece was lost,--the era of Philip and Alexander, and of Alexander's successors.

PERIOD I. is divided into (1) the mythical or prehistoric age, extending to 776 B.C.; (2) the age of the formation of the principal states. PERIOD II. includes (1) the Persian wars, 502-479 B.C.; (2) the period of Athenian supremacy, 478-431 B.C.; (3) the Peloponnesian war, 431-404 B.C., with the Spartan, followed by the Theban ascendency, 404-362 B.C. PERIOD III. includes (1) the reigns of Philip and Alexander, 359-323 B.C.; (2) the kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander was divided.

PERIOD I. GREECE PRIOR TO THE PERSIAN WARS.

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I. THE PREHISTORIC AGE

ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS--Before the Hellenes parted from their Aryan ancestry, they had words for "father," "mother," "brother," "son," and "daughter," as well as for certain connections by marriage. They lived in houses, pastured flocks and herds, possessed dogs and horses. They had for weapons, the sword and the bow. "They knew how to work gold, silver, and copper; they could count up to a hundred; they reckoned time by the lunar month; they spoke of the sky as the 'heaven-father.'" The differences between the Greek and the Latin languages prove, also, that the Greeks and Italians, after their common progenitors broke off from the primitive Aryan stock, had long dwelt apart. The Greeks, when they first become known to us in historical times, consist of two great branches, the Dorians and Ionians, together with a less distinct branch, the Aeolians, which differs less, perhaps, from the parent Hellenes than do the two divisions just named.

It is a probable opinion of scholars, that the halting-place of the Hellenes, whence, in successive waves, they passed over into Greece, was Phrygia, in the north-west of Asia Minor. Preceding the Greeks both in northern Greece and in Peloponnesus, and spread over the coasts and islands of the Archipelago, was a people of whom they had an indistinct knowledge, whom they called Pelasgians. They were husbandmen or herdsmen. Their national sanctuary was at Dodona, in Epirus. The "Cyclopean" ruins, composed of huge polygonal blocks of stone, which they left behind in various places, are the remnant of their walls and fortifications. The Greeks looked back on these Pelasgian predecessors as different from themselves. Yet no reminiscences existed of any hostility towards them. It is plausibly conjectured that this prehistoric people were emigrants from the region of Phrygia at a more ancient date, and that the Hellenes, a more energetic and gifted branch of the same stock, followed them, and, without force or conflict, became the founders and leaders of a new historic movement, in which the Pelasgians disappeared from view. In this second migration, the ancestors of the Ionians went down from Phrygia to the coast of Asia Minor, and began the career which made them a maritime and commercial people. The Dorians crossed over to the highlands of northern Greece, where they became hardy mountaineers, not addicted to the sea. The one tribe were to be eventually the founders of Athens; the other, of Sparta. Besides these two main tribes, the Aeolians occupied Thessaly, Boeotia, Aetolia, and other districts. To them the Achaeans, who were supreme in Peloponnesus in the days of Homer, were allied.

FOREIGN INFLUENCES.--Besides Phrygia, the legends of the Greeks bear traces of a foreign influence from Phoenicia and Egypt. The Phoenicians were unquestionably early connected with the Greeks, first by commercial visits to Greek ports, to which they brought foreign merchandise. The story of Cadmus, who is said to have founded Thebes, and to have brought in the Phoenician alphabet, is fabulous. But it is probable, that, as early as the close of the ninth century B.C., the alphabet was introduced by Phoenicians, and diffused over Greece. Another legend is that of Cecrops, conceived of later as an Egyptian, who is said to have built a citadel at Athens, and to have imported the seeds of civilization and religion. Danaus, another emigrant from Egypt, coming with his fifty daughters, is said to have built the citadel of Argos. In the later times, the Greeks were fond of tracing their knowledge of the arts to Egyptian sources. It is remarkable that the agents by whom germs of civilization were said to have been imported from abroad, though foreign, are nevertheless depicted as thoroughly Greek in their character. Whatever the Greeks may have owed to Egypt, it is probable was mainly derived from Ionians who had previously planted themselves in that country.

THE DORIAN EMIGRATION.--It was in the prehistoric time that the Dorians left their homes in northern Greece, and migrated into Peloponnesus, where they proved themselves stronger than the Ionians and the Achaeans dwelling there. They left the Achaeans on the south coast of the Corinthian Gulf, in the district called Achaia. Nor did they conquer Arcadia. But of most of Peloponnesus they became masters. This is the portion of historic truth contained in the myth of the Return of the Heraclidae, the descendants of Hercules, to the old kingdom of their ancestor.

MIGRATIONS TO ASIA MINOR.--The Dorian conquest is said to have been the cause of three distinct migrations to Asia Minor. The Achaeans, with their Aeolic kinsmen on the north, established themselves on the north-west coast of Asia Minor, Lesbos and Cyme being their strongholds, and by degrees got control in Mysia and the Troad. Ionic emigrants from Attica joined their brethren on the same coast. The Dorians settled on the south-west coast; they also settled Cos and Rhodes, and at length subdued Crete. The Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, and the migrations just spoken of, were slow in their progress, and possibly stretched over centuries.

CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.--Originality is a distinguishing trait of the Greeks. Whatever they borrowed from others they made their own, and reproduced in a form peculiar to themselves. They were never servile copyists. All the products of the Greek mind, whether in government, art, literature, or in whatever province of human activity, wear a peculiar stamp. When we leave Asiatic ground, and come into contact with the Greeks, we find ourselves in another atmosphere. A spirit of humanity, in the broad sense of the term, pervades their life. A regard for reason, a sense of order, a disposition to keep every thing within measure, is a marked characteristic. Their sense of form--including a perception of beauty, and of harmony and proportion--made them in politics and letters the leaders of mankind. "Do nothing in excess," was their favorite maxim. They hated every thing that was out of proportion. Their language, without a rival in flexibility and symmetry and in perfection of sound, is itself, though a spontaneous creation, a work of art. "The whole language resembles the body of an artistically trained athlete, in which every muscle, every sinew, is developed into full play, where there is no trace of tumidity or of inert matter, and all is power and life." The great variety of the spiritual gifts of this people, the severest formulas of science, the loftiest flights of imagination, the keenest play of wit and humor, were capable of precise and effective expression in this language "as in ductile play." The use of the language, so lucid and so nice in its discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them the principal source of modern culture. Their moral traits are not so admirable. As a race they were less truthful, and less marked for their courage and loyalty, than some other peoples below them in intellect.

RELIGION.--In the early days, when Greece was open to foreign influences, the simple religion of the Aryan fathers was enlarged by new elements from abroad. The Tyrian deity, Melkart, appears at Corinth as Melicertes. Astarte becomes Aphrodite (Venus), who springs from the sea. The myth of Dionysus and the worship of Demeter (Ceres) may be of foreign origin. Poseidon (Neptune), the god of the sea, and Apollo, the god of light and of healing, whose worship carried in it cheer and comfort, though they were brought into Greece, were previously known to the lonians. By Homer and Hesiod, the great poets of the prehistoric age, the gods in these successive dynasties, their offices and mutual relations, were depicted. In Hesiod they stand in a connected scheme or theogony.

1. There are the twelve great gods and goddesses of Olympus, who were named by the Greeks,--Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Arês, Hêphaestos, Hermês, Hêrê, Athênê, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia, Dêmêtêr. 2. Numerous other divinities, not included among the Olympic, but some not less important than the twelve. Such are Hadês, Hêlíos, Dionysus, the Charites, the Muses, the Nereids, the Nymphs, etc. 3. Deities who perform special service to the greater gods,--Iris, Hêbe, the Horae;, etc. 4. Deities whose personality is less distinct,--Atê, Eris, Thanatos, Hypnos, etc. 5. Monsters, progeny of the gods,--the Harpies, the Gorgons, Pegasus, Chimaera, Cerberus, Scylla and Charybdis, the Centaurs, the Sphinx. Below the gods are the demigods or heroes.

LEGENDS OF HEROES.--The space which precedes the beginning of authentic records, the Greeks filled up with mythical tales, in which gods and heroes are the central figures. The heroes are partly of divine parentage. They are in near intercourse with the deities. Their deeds are superhuman, and embody those ideals of character and of achievement which the early Greeks cherished. The production of a lively imagination, before the dawn of the critical faculty or the growth of reflection, these tales may yet include a nucleus of historical incident or vague reminiscences of historical relations and changes. To attempt to extract these from the fictitious form in which they are embodied, is for the most part hopeless.

The exploits of Heracles (Hercules) have a prominent place in the legends. This hero of Argos submitted to serve a cruel tyrant, but, by prodigious labors (twelve in number), delivered men from dangerous beasts,--the Lernaean hydra, the Nemean lion, etc.,--and performed other miraculous services. Theseus, the national hero of Attica, cleared the roads of savage robbers, and delivered his country from bondage. Minos, the mythical legislator of Crete, cleared the sea of pirates, and founded a maritime state. Of the legendary stories, three of the most famous are The Seven against Thebes The Argonautic Expedition, and The Trojan War. I. Laius, king of Thebes, was told by an oracle that he should be killed by his son. He exposed him, therefore, as soon as he was born, on Mount Cithaeron. Saved by a herdsman, Oedipus was brought up by Polybus, king of Corinth, as his own son. Warned by the oracle that he should kill his father, and marry his mother, the son forsook Corinth, and made his abode at Thebes. Meeting Laius in a narrow pass, and provoked by his attendants, he slew them and him. At Thebes there was a female monster, the Sphinx, who propounded a riddle, and each day devoured a man until it should be solved. Oedipus won the prize which the Queen Jocaste had offered; namely, the crown and her own hand to whomsoever should free the city. When his two sons and daughters had grown up, a pestilence broke out; and the oracle demanded that the murderer of Laius should be banished. Oedipus, in spite of the warnings of the blind priest, Tiresias, finds out the truth. He puts out his eyes, and is driven into exile by his sons, whom he curses. Under the guidance of his daughter Antigone, he finds a resting-place at Colonus, a suburb of Athens, in a grove of the Eumenides, whose function it was to avenge such crimes as his. He received expiation at the hands of Theseus, and died in a calm and peaceful way. This legend was the basis of some of the finest of the Greek dramas, "Oedipus Tyrannus," and the "Oedipus at Colonus" of Sophocles, and "The Seven against Thebes" of Aeschylus. The curse of Oedipus still rested on his sons. The story of Antigone, defying the tyrant Creon, and burying her slain brother, Polynices, is the foundation of the drama of Sophocles, bearing her name. Finally, the Epigoni, descendants of the Seven who had fought Thebes, captured and destroyed that city.

2. Argonauts were described as a band of heroes, who, through perilous and unknown seas, sailed from Iolcos in Thessaly, in the ship "Argo," to Colchis, whence they brought away the golden fleece which had been stolen, and which they found nailed to an oak, and guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason, the leader, was accompanied on his return by the enchantress, Medea, who had aided him. She, in order to delay their pursuers, killed her brother Absyrtus, and threw his body, piece by piece, into the sea. Her subsequent story involves various other tragic events.

3. The most noted of the legends is the story of the Trojan war. The deeds of the heroes of this war are the subject of the Iliad. Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilios (Troy), in Asia Minor, carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. To recover her, the Greeks united in an expedition against Troy, which they took after a siege of ten years. Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus (Ulysses), Ajax son of Telamon, and Ajax son of Oileus, Diomedes, and Nestor were among the chiefs on the Greek side. Troy had its allies. The "Odyssey" relates to the long journey of Odysseus on his return to Ithaca, his home. That there was an ancient city, Troy, is certain. A conflict between the Greeks and a kindred people there, is probable. Not unlikely, there was a military expedition of Grecian tribes. Every thing beyond this is either plainly myth, or incapable of verification.

UNIONS OF TRIBES.--During the period when the Greek population was dispersing itself in the districts which its different fractions occupied in the historic ages, there arose unions among tribes near one another, for religious purposes. They preceded treaties and alliances of the ordinary kind. Such tribes agreed to celebrate, in common, certain solemn festivals. Deputies of these tribes met at stated intervals to look after the temple and the lands pertaining to it. Out of these unions, there grew stipulations relative to the mode of conducting war and other matters of common interest. Treaties of peace and of mutual defense might follow. Thus arose combinations of states, in which one state, the strongest, would have the hegemony, or lead. This became an established characteristic of Greek political life. It was a system of federal unions under the headship of the most powerful member of the confederacy. When such a union was formed, it established a common worship or festival.

THE DELPHIC AMPHICTYONY.--In the north of Greece, there was formed, in early times, a great religious union. It was composed of twelve tribes banded together for the worship of Apollo at Delphi, and to guard his temple. It was called the Delphic Amphictyony, or "League of Neighbors." The members of this body agreed not to destroy one another's towns in war, and not to cut off running water from a town which they were besieging.

THE DELPHIC ORACLE.--The sanctuary at Delphi, where the Amphictyonic Council met, became the most famous temple in Greece. Here the oracle of Apollo gave answers to those who came to consult that divinity. The priests who managed the temple kept themselves well informed in regard to occurrences in distant places. Their answers were often discreet and wholesome, but not unfrequently obscure and ambiguous, and thus misleading. In early times their moral influence in the nation promoted justice and fraternal feeling. In later times they lost their reputation for honesty and impartiality. In civil wars the priests were sometimes bribed to support one of the contending parties.

THE HOMERIC POEMS.--Within the last century, there has been much discussion about the authorship of the two poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The place where they were composed, whether among the Ionians in Greece proper or in Asia Minor, is still a matter of debate. It was probably Asia Minor. Seven places contended for the honor of having given birth to the blind bard. But nothing is known of Homer's birthplace or history. It is doubtful whether the art of writing was much, if at all, in use among the Greeks at the time of the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey. We know that the custom existed of repeating poems orally by minstrels or rhapsodists at popular festivals. This may have been the mode in which for a time the Homeric poems were preserved and transmitted. The Odyssey has more unity than the Iliad, and seems to be of a somewhat later date. The nucleus of the Iliad is thought by some scholars to be embedded in the group of poems which, it is supposed, constitute the work at present; but there is no evidence making it possible to identify any portion as the work of Homer. Whatever may be the truth on these questions, the Iliad and Odyssey present an invaluable picture of Greek life in the period when they were composed, which was probably as early as 900 B.C.

SOCIAL LIFE IN THE HOMERIC AGE.--(1) Government. In the Homeric portraiture of Greek life, there are towns; but the tribe is predominant over the town. The tribe is ruled by a king, who is not like an Eastern despot, but has about him a council of chiefs, and is bound by the themistes, the traditional customs. There is, besides, the agora, or popular assembly, where debates take place among the chiefs, and to which their decisions, or rather the decision of the king, on whom it devolves finally to determine every thing, are communicated. Public speaking, it is seen, is practiced in the infancy of Greek society. (2) Customs. People live in hill-villages, surrounded by walls. Life is patriarchal, and, as regards the domestic circle, humane. Polygamy, the plague of Oriental society, does not exist. Women are held in high regard. Slavery is everywhere established. Side by side with piracy and constant war, and the supreme honor given to military prowess, there is a fine and bountiful hospitality which is held to be a religious duty. In the Homeric poems, there is often exhibited a noble refinement of thought and sentiment, and a gentle courtesy. (3) Arts and Industry. In war, the chariot is the engine: cavalry are unknown. The useful arts are in a rudimental stage. Spinning and weaving are the constant occupation of women. All garments are made at home: noble women join with their slaves in washing them in the river. The condition of the common freeman who took one temporary job after another, was miserable. Of the condition of those who pursued special occupations,--as the carpenter, the leather-dresser, the fisherman, etc.,--we have no adequate information. The principal metals were in use, and the art of forging them. There was no coined money: payment was made in oxen. But there is hereditary individual property in land, cultivated vineyards, temples of the gods, and splendid palaces of the chiefs. (4) Geographical Knowledge. In Homer, there is a knowledge of Greece, of the neighboring islands, and western Asia Minor. References to other lands are vague. The earth is a sort of flat oval, with the River Oceanus flowing round it. Hesiod is better informed about places: he knows something of the Nile and of the Scythians, and of some places as far west as Syracuse.

RELIGION IN THE HOMERIC AGE.--The Homeric poems give us a full idea of the early religious ideas and practices, (I) The Nature of the Gods.--The gods in Homer are human beings with greatly magnified powers. Their dwelling is in the sky above us: their special abode is Mount Olympus. They experience hunger, but feed on ambrosia and nectar. They travel with miraculous speed. Their prime blessing is exemption from mortality. Among themselves they are often discordant and deceitful. (2) Relation of the Gods to Men. They are the rulers and guides of nations. Though they act often from mere caprice or favoritism, their sway is, on the whole, promotive of justice. Zeus is supreme: none can contend with him successfully. The gods hold communication with men. They also make known their will and intentions by signs and portents,--such as thunder and lightning, or the sudden passing of a great bird of prey. They teach men through dreams. (3) Service of the Gods. Sacrifice and supplication are the chief forms of devotion. There is no dominant hierarchy. The temple has its priest, but the father is priest in his own household. (4) Morals and Religion. Morality is interwoven with religion. Above all, oaths are sacred, and oath-breakers abhorred by gods as well as by men. In the conduct of the divinities, there are found abundant examples of unbridled anger and savage retaliation. Yet gentle sentiments, counsels to forbearance and mercy, are not wanting. The wrath of the gods is most provoked by lawless self-assertion and insolence. (5) Propitiation: the Dead. The sense of sin leads to the appeasing of the deities by offerings, attended with prayer. The offerings are gifts to the god, tokens of the honor due to him. The dead live as flitting shadows in Hades. Achilles is made to say that he would rather be a miserable laborer on earth than to reign over all the dead in the abodes below.

GREEK LITERATURE.--The chief types, both of poetry and of prose, originated with the Greeks. Their writings are the fountainhead of the literature of Europe. They prized simplicity: they always had an intense disrelish for obscurity and bombast. The earliest poetry of the Greeks consisted of hymns to the gods. It was lyrical, an outpouring of personal feeling. The lyrical type was followed by the epic, where heroic deeds, or other events of thrilling interest, are the theme of song, and the personal emotion of the bard is out of sight through his absorption in the subject. Description flows on, the narrator himself being in the background. This epic poetry culminates in the Iliad and Odyssey (900-700 B.C.). Their verse is the hexameter. These poems move on in a swift current, yet without abruptness or monotony. They are marked by a simplicity and a nobleness, a refinement and a pathos, which have charmed all subsequent ages. Homer, far more than any other author, was the educator of the Greeks. There was a class called Homeridae, in Chios; but whether they were themselves poets, or reciters of Homer, or what else may have been their peculiar work, is not ascertained. There was, however, a class of Cyclic poets, who took up the legends of Troy, and carried out farther the Homeric tales. Hesiod was the founder of a more didactic sort of poetry. He is about a century later than the Iliad. Besides the Theogony, which treats of the origin of the gods and of nature, his Works and Days relates to the works which a farmer has to do, and the lucky or unlucky days for doing them. It contains doctrines and precepts relative to agriculture, navigation, civil and family life. Hesiod was the first of a Boeotian school of poets. He lacks the poetic genius of Homer, and the vivacity and cheerfulness which pervade the Iliad and the Odyssey.

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II. THE FORMATION OF THE PRINCIPAL STATES

ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.--The early kings were obeyed as much for their personal qualities, such as valor and strength of body, as for their hereditary title. By degrees the noble families about the king took control, and the kingship thus gave way to the rule of an aristocracy. The priestly office, which required special knowledge, remained in particular families, as the _Eumolpidae_e at Athens,--families to whom was ascribed the gift of the seer, and to whom were known the Eleusinian mysteries. The nobles were landholders, with dependent farmers who paid rent. The nobles held sway over tillers of the soil, artisans and seamen, who constituted the people (the "demos"), and who had no share in political power. This state of things continued until the lower class gained more property and more knowledge; and the example of the colonial settlements, where there was greater equality, re-acted on the parent state. The struggle of the lower ranks for freedom was of long continuance. In all Greek cities, there were Metoeci, or resident foreigners without political rights, and also slaves from abroad. Free-born Greeks busied themselves with occupations connected with the fine arts, or with trade and commerce on an extended scale. They commonly eschewed all other employments, and especially menial labor.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LYCURGUS.--According to the legend, disorders in Sparta following the Dorian conquest, and strife between the victors and the conquered, moved Lycurgus, a man of regal descent, to retire to Crete, where the old Dorian customs were still observed. On his return he gave to the citizens a constitution, which was held in reverence by the generations after him. To him, also, laws and customs which were really of later date, came to be ascribed. The Spartan population consisted (1) of the Spartiatæ, who had full rights, and those of less means,--both comprising the Dorian conquerors. They were divided into three Phylæ, or tribes, each composed of ten divisions (Obæ); (2) the Periæci, Achaeans who paid tribute on the land which they held, were bound to military service, but had no political rights; (3) the Helots, serfs of the State, who were divided among the Spartiatæ by lot, and cultivated their lands, paying to them a certain fraction of the harvest. The form of government established by Lycurgus was an aristocratic republic. The Council of Elders, twenty-eight in number, chosen for life by the Phylæ, were presided over by two hereditary kings, who had little power in time of peace, but unlimited command of the forces in war. The popular assembly, composed of all Spartiatæ of thirty years of age or upwards, could only decide questions without debate. Five Ephors, chosen yearly by the Phylæ, acquired more and more authority. Lycurgus is said to have divided the land into nine thousand equal lots for the families of the Spartiatæ, and thirty thousand for the Periceci. To keep down the helots required constant vigilance, and often occasioned measures of extreme cruelty. The Crypteia was an organized guard of young Spartans, whose business it was to prevent insurrection.

LAWS AND CUSTOMS.--The Spartan state was thus aristocratic and military. It took into its own hands the education of the young. Weak and deformed children were left to perish in a ravine of Taygetus, or thrust down among the Periceci. Healthy children at the age of seven were taken from their homes, to be reared under the supervision of the State. They had some literary instruction, but their chief training was in gymnastics. They were exercised in hunting and in drills; took their meals together in the syssitia (the public mess), where the fare was rough and scanty; slept in dormitories together; and by every means were disciplined for a soldier's life. The Spartan men likewise fed at public tables, and slept in barracks, only making occasional visits to their own houses. No money was in circulation except iron: no one was permitted to possess gold or silver. Girls were separately drilled in gymnastic exercises and made to be as hardy as boys. Marriage was regulated by the State. There was more purity, and women had a higher standing, in Sparta than in other parts of Greece. The strength of the Spartan army was in the hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry. In battle, messmates stood together. Cowardice was treated with the utmost contempt. The rigorous subordination of the young to their elders was maintained in war as in peace. The legend held, that after this constitution of Lycurgus had been approved by the Delphian oracle, he made the citizens swear to observe it until he should return from a projected journey. He then went to Crete, and stayed there until his death.

HEGEMONY OF SPARTA.--Having thus organized the body politic, Sparta took the steps which gave it the hegemony in Peloponnesus and over all Greece. First, it conquered the neighboring state of Messenia in two great wars, the first ending about 725 B.C., and the second about 650 B.C. In the first of these wars, the Messenians submitted to become tributary to Sparta, after their citadel, Ithome, had been captured, and their defeated hero, Aristodemus, had slain himself. Many of the vanquished Messenians escaped from their country to Arcadia and Argolis. Some of them fled farther, and founded Rhegium in Lower Italy. In the second war, the Messenians revolted against the tyrannical rule of Sparta, and at first, under Aristomenes, were successful, but were afterwards defeated by the Spartans, who were inspirited for the conflict by the war-songs of the Athenian poet, Tyrtaeus. Aristomenes fled to Rhodes. Most of his people were made helots. The Arcadians, after long resistance, succumbed, and came under the Spartan hegemony (about 600 B.C.). Argos, too, was obliged to renounce its claim to this position in favor of its Spartan antagonist, after its defeat by Cleomenes, the Lacedaemonian king, at Thyrea (549 B.C.). The Argive League was dissolved, and Sparta gained the right to command in every war that should be waged in common by the Peloponnesian states, the right, also, to determine the contingent of troops which each should furnish, and to preside in the council of the confederacy. She now began to spread her power beyond Peloponnesus, entered into negotiations with Lydia (555 B.C.), and actually sent an expedition to the coast of Asia (525 B.C.). Moreover as early as 510 B.C., by interfering in the affairs of the states north of the Corinthian isthmus, and with Attica in particular, she sowed among the Athenians the seeds of a lasting enmity.

GOVERNMENT IN ATHENS: DRACO.--According to the legend, Codrus, who died about 1068 B.C., was the last of the Athenian kings. The Eupatrids, the noble families, abolished monarchy, and substituted for the king an Archon, chosen for life by them out of the family of Codrus. The Eupatrids stood in a sort of patriarchal relation to the common people. The inhabitants were divided into four tribes. These were subdivided, first into Brotherhoods and Clans, and secondly, into classes based on consanguinity, and classes arranged for taxation, military service, etc. The entire community comprised the Nobles,--in whose hands the political power was lodged,--the Farmers, and the Artisans. The farmers and the artisans might gather in the Agora, and express assent to public measures, or dissent. In process of time the archons came to be chosen not from the family of Codrus exclusively, but from the Eupatrids generally. From 682 B.C. they were nine in number, and they served but for one year. The administration of justice was in the hands of the nobles, who were not restrained by a body of written laws. The archon Draco, about 621 B.C., in order to check this evil, framed a code which seemed harsh, though milder than the laws previously enforced. Later it was said of his laws that they were written in blood. This legislation was a concession to which the nobles were driven by an uprising. Their hard treatment of debtors, many of whom were deprived of their liberty, had stirred up a serious conflict between the people and their masters. A rebellion, led by Cylon, one of the Eupatrids, was put down, and punished by means involving treachery and sacrilege. The insurgents were slain clinging to the altars of the gods, where they had taken refuge. Not long after it became necessary to introduce other reforms at the advice of Solon, one of "the seven wise men of Greece." He had acquired popularity by recovering Salamis from the Megarians, and in a sacred war against towns which had robbed the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

LEGISLATION OF SOLON--The design of Solon was to substitute a better system for the tyrannical oligarchy, but, at the same time, to keep power mainly in the hands of the upper class. He divided the people into four classes, according to the amount of their income. To the richest of these the archonship, and admission into the Areopagus, were confined. A new council was established, which had the right to initiate legislation, composed of one hundred from each of the four old tribes, and annually elected by the body of the citizens. The Ecclesia, or assembly of the whole people, having the right to choose the archons and councilors, was revived. Courts of Appeal, with jury trials, were instituted. The old council of the Areopagus was clothed with high judicial and executive powers. There were laws to relieve a portion of the debtors from their burdens, and to abolish servitude for debt. Every father was required to teach his son a handicraft.

PARTIES IN ATHENS.--The legislation of Solon was a measure of compromise. It satisfied neither party. After journeys abroad, he passed his old age in Athens, and was a spectator of the rising contests between the discordant factions, which his constitution was only able for a time to curb. There were three parties,--a re-actionary party under Lycurgus, a progressive party led by Pisistratus, and a moderate or middle party under Megacles.

THE TYRANTS.--At this time, in almost all of the Grecian states, monarchy had given place to aristocracy. The reign of an oligarchy, the unbridled sway of a few, was commonly the next step. Against this the people in different states,--the demos,--rose in revolt. The popular leader, or "demagogue," was some conspicuous and wealthy noble, who thus acquired supreme authority. In this way, in the seventh and sixth centuries, most of the states were ruled by "tyrants,"--a term signifying absolute rulers, whether their administration was unjust and cruel, or fair and mild. They endeavored to fortify their rule by collecting poets, artists, and musicians about them, for their own pleasure and for the diversion of the populace. Occasionally they gave the people employment in the erection of costly buildings. They formed alliances with one another and with foreign kings. Not unfrequently they practiced violence and extortion. The oligarchies sought to dethrone them. Their overthrow often had for its result the introduction of popular sovereignty. Among the most noted tyrants were Periander of Corinth (625-585 B.C.), Pittacus in Lesbos (589-579 B.C.), and Polycrates in Samos (535-522 B.C.).

The PISISTRATIDS.--The government of Athens, framed by Solon, was in effect a "timocracy," or rule of the rich. At the head of the popular party stood Pisistratus, a rich nobleman of high descent. He succeeded, by means of his armed guard, in making himself master of the citadel. Twice driven out of the city, he at length returned (538 B.C.), and gained permanent control by force of arms. He managed his government with shrewdness and energy. Industry and trade flourished. He decorated Athens with buildings and statues. Religious festivals he caused to be celebrated with splendor. He ruled under the legal forms by having archons chosen to suit him. He died 527 B.C. Hippias, his son, governed with mildness until his younger brother and colleague in power, Hipparchus, was slain by the two friends, Harmodius and Aristogiton. Then he gave the rein to revengeful passion, and laid upon the people burdensome taxes. Hippias was driven out of the city by the Alcmaeonidae and other exiled nobles, assisted by the Spartan king, Cleomenes (510 B.C.). He fled to Asia Minor in order to secure Persian help.

THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY.--Clisthenes, a brilliant man, the head of the Alcmaeonid family, connected himself with the popular party, and introduced such changes in the constitution as to render him the founder of the Athenian Democracy. The power of the archons was reduced. All of the free inhabitants of Attica were admitted to citizenship. New tribes, ten in number, each comprising ten denes, or hamlets, with their adjacent districts, superseded the old tribes. A council of five hundred, fifty from each tribe, supplanted Solon's council of four hundred. The courts of law were newly organized. The Ostracism was introduced; that is, the prerogative of the popular assembly to decree by secret ballot, without trial, the banishment of a person who should be deemed to be dangerous to the public weal. Certain officers were designated by lot. Ten Strategi, one from each tribe, by turns, took the place of the archon polemarchus in command of the army.

EFFECT OF DEMOCRACY.--Under this system of free government, the energy of the Athenian people was developed with amazing rapidity. The spirit of patriotism, of zeal for the honor and welfare of Athens, rose to a high pitch. The power and resources of the city increased in a proportionate degree. Culture kept pace with prosperity.

LYRICAL POETRY.--In the eighth century, when monarchy was declining, and the tendency to democracy began to manifest itself, a new style of poetry, different from the epic, arose. The narrative poems of minstrels were heard at the great religious festivals. But there was a craving for the expression of individual feeling. Hence, lyrical poetry re-appeared, not in the shape of religious songs, as in the old time, but in a form to touch all the chords of sentiment. Two new types of verse appeared,--the Elegiac and the Iambic. At first the elegy was probably a lament for the dead. It was accompanied by the soft music of the Lydian flute. The instruments which the Greeks had used were string-instruments. The early Greek elegies related to a variety of themes,--as war, love, preceptive wisdom. The iambic meter was first used in satire. Its earliest master of distinction was Arckilochus of Paros (670 B.C.). It was employed, however, in fables, and elsewhere when pointed or intense expression was craved. The earliest of the Greek elegists, Callinus and Tyrtaus, composed war-songs. Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Simonides of Ceos, are among the most famous elegists. Music developed in connection with lyric poetry. The Greeks at first used the four-stringed lyre. Terpander made an epoch (660 B.C.) by adding three strings. Olympus and Thaletas made further improvements. Greek lyric poetry flourished, especially from 670 to 440 B.C. The Aeolian lyrists of Lesbos founded a school of their own. The two great representatives are Alcaus, who sang of war and of love, and Sappho, who sang of love. "Probably no poet ever surpassed Sappho as an interpreter of passion in exquisitely subtle harmonies of form and sound." Anacreon, an Ionian, resembled in his style the Aeolian lyrists. He was most often referred to by the ancients as the poet of sensuous feeling of every sort. The Dorian lyric poetry was mostly choral and historic in its topics. Greek lyric poetry reaches the climax in Simonides and Pindar. The latter was a Boeotian, but of Dorian descent. Simonides was tender and polished; Pindar, fervid and sublime The extant works of Pindar are the Epinicia, or odes of victory.

HISTORICAL WRITING.--This age witnesses the beginnings of historical writing. But the logographers, as they were called, only wrote prose epics. They told the story of the foundation of families and cities, reconciling as best they could the myths, so far as they clashed with one another.

PHILOSOPHY: THE IONIAN SCHOOL.--The Greeks were the first to investigate rationally the causes of things, and to try to comprehend the world as a complete system. The earliest phase of this movement was on the side of physics, or natural philosophy. Homer and Hesiod had accounted for the operations of nature by referring them to the direct personal action of different divinities. The earliest philosophers brought in the conception of some kind of matter as the foundation and source of all things. The Ionian School led the way in this direction. Thales of Miletus (about 600 B.C.) made this primary substance to be water. Anaximander (611-? B.C.) made all things spring out of a primitive stuff, without definite qualities, and without bounds. He taught that the earth is round, invented the sun-dial, engraved a map on a brass tablet, and made some astronomical calculations. Anaximenes (first half, 6th C.) derived all things from air, which he made to be eternal and infinite.

THE ELEATIC SCHOOL.--The Eleatic School conceived of the world as one in substance, and held that the natural phenomena which we behold, in all their variety and change, are unreal. Xenophanes (who flourished from 572 to 478 B.C.) asserted this. Parmenides (504-460 B.C.) taught that succession, change, the manifold forms of things, are only relative; that is, are only our way of regarding the one universal essence. Zeno sought to vindicate this theory logically by disproving the possibility of motion.

OTHER PHILOSOPHERS.--Another set of philosophers attempted definitely to explain the appearances of things, the changing phenomena, which had been called unreal. Heraclitus made the world to be nothing but these: There is no substratum of things: there is only an endless flux, a cycle. All things begin and end in fire, the symbol of what is real. Empedocles ascribed all things to fire, air, earth, and water, which are wrought into different bodies by "love" and "hate;" or, as we should say, attraction and repulsion. Democritus was the founder of the Atomists, who made all things spring out of the motions and combinations of primitive atoms. Anaxagoras brought in intelligence, or reason, as giving the start to the development of matter,--this principle doing nothing more, however, and being inherent in matter itself.

PYTHAGORAS.--A different spirit in philosophy belonged to Pythagoras (580-500 B.C.), who was born in Samos, traveled extensively, and settled in Croton, in southern Italy. His theory was, that the inner substance of all things is number. Discipline of character was a prime object. Pythagoras was sparing in his diet, promoted an earnest culture, in which music was prominent, and gave rise to a mystical school, in which moral reform and religious fueling were connected with an ascetic method of living.

COLONIES.--It was during the era of the oligarchies and tyrannies that the colonizing spirit was most active among the Greeks. Most of the colonies were established between 800 and 550 B.C. Their names alone would make a very long catalogue. They were of two classes: first, independent communities, connected, however, with the parent city by close ties of friendship; and secondly, kleruchies, which were of the nature of garrisons, where the settlers retained their former rights as citizens, and the mother city its full authority over them. In Sicily, on the eastern side, were the Ionian communities,--Naxos, Catana, etc. Syracuse (founded by Corinth 734 B.C.), Gela, and Agrigentum, which were among the chief Dorian settlements, lay on the south-eastern and south-western coasts. The oldest Greek town in Italy was Cumae (not far from Naples), said to have been founded in 1050 B.C. Tarentum (Dorian), Sybaris, and Croton (Aeolic) were settled in the latter part of the eighth century. Locri (Aeolic) and Rhegium (Ionic) were on the south. The south-western portion of Italy was termed Magna Graecia. Massilia (Marseilles) was founded by the Phocaean Ionians (about 600 B.C.). In the western Mediterranean the Greeks were hindered from making their settlements as numerous as they would have done, by the fact that Carthage and her colonies stood in the way. Cyrene, on the coast of Africa, was a Dorian colony (630 B.C.), planted from Thera, an earlier Spartan settlement. Cyrene founded Barca. Corcyra was colonized by Corinth (about 700 B.C.). Along the coast of Epirus were other Corinthian and Corcyrasan settlements. Chalcis planted towns in the peninsula of Chalcidice, and from thence to Selymbria (or Byzantium), which was founded by Megara (657 B.C.). The northern shores of the Ægean and the Propontis, and the whole coast of the Euxine were strewn with Greek settlements. The Greek towns, especially Miletus, on the western coast of Asia Minor, themselves sent out colonies,--as Cyzicus and Sinope, south of the Propontis and the Euxine. The foregoing statements give only a general idea of the wide extent of Greek colonization.

An exhaustive statement of the Greek colonies is given in Rawlinson's Manual of Ancient History, p. 148 seq. See also Abbott, A History of Greece, I. 333 seq.

PERIOD II. THE FLOURISHING ERA OF GREECE.

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I. THE PERSIAN WARS

THE IONIAN REVOLT.--Hardly were the Greeks in possession of liberty when they were compelled to measure their strength with the mighty Persian Empire. The cities of Asia Minor groaned under the tyranny of their Persian rulers, and sighed for freedom. At length, under propitious circumstances, Miletus rose in revolt under the lead of Aristagoras. Alone of the Grecian cities, Athens, and Eretria on the island of Euboea, sent help. The insurrection was extinguished in blood: its leaders perished. Miletus was destroyed by the enemy 495 B.C.; and the Ionian towns were again brought under the Persian yoke, which was made heavier than before. The Persian monarch, Darius, swore vengeance upon those who had aided the rebellion.

THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.--Mardonius, the son-in-law of Darius, moved with a fleet and an army along the Ægean coast. A storm shattered the fleet upon the rocky promontory of Athos, and the land force was partly destroyed by the Thracians. Mardonius retreated homeward. The heralds who came to demand, according to the Persian custom, "water and earth" of Athens and Sparta, were put to death. Enraged at these events, Darius sent a stronger fleet under Datis and Artaphernes. They forced Naxos and the other Cyclades to submission, captured and destroyed Eretria, and sent off its inhabitants as slaves to the interior of Asia. Guided on their path of destruction by the Athenian refugee, Hippias, the Persians landed on the coast of Attica, and encamped on the shore adjacent to the plain of Marathon. The Athenians sent Philippides, one of the swiftest of couriers, to Sparta for assistance, who reached that city, a hundred and thirty-five or a hundred and forty miles distant, the next day after he started. He brought back for answer that the Spartans were deterred by religious scruples from marching to war before the full moon, which would be ten days later. There was a Greek, as well as a Judaic, Pharisaism. Left to themselves, the Athenians were fortunate in having for their leader Miltiades, an able and experienced soldier, who had been with the Persians in the Scythian campaign. At the head of the Athenian infantry, ten thousand in number, whose hearts were cheered before the onset by the arrival of a re-inforcement of one thousand men, comprising the whole fighting population of the little town of Platæa, Miltiades attacked the Persian army, ten times as large as his own. The Athenians ran down the gentle slope at Marathon, shouting their war-cry, or pæan, and, after a fierce conflict, drove the Persians back to their ships, capturing their camp with all its treasures (Sept. 12, 490 B.C.). This brilliant victory was not the end of danger. The Greek watchmen saw a treacherous signal, a glistening shield, on Mount Pentelicus, put there to signify to the Persians that Athens was open to their attack. In that direction, round Cape Sunium, the Persian fleet sailed. But Miltiades, by a rapid march of twenty-three miles, reached the city in season to prevent the landing. Datis and Artaphernes sailed away. The traitor, Hippias, died on the return voyage. The patriotic exultation of the Athenians was well warranted. Never did they look back upon that victory without a thrill of joyful pride. It proved what a united free people were capable of achieving. More than that, MARATHON was one of the decisive battles which form turning-points in the world's history. It was a mortal conflict between the East and the West, between Asia and Europe,--the coarse despotism under which individual energy is stifled, and the dawning liberty which was to furnish the atmosphere required for the full development and culture of the human mind.

ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES.--Miltiades subsequently failed in an attempt against Paros, one of the Ægean islands which had submitted to the Persians, and which he sought to conquer. Accused of making false promises to the people, he was fined fifty talents, but died before the sum could be collected (489 B.C.). His son Cimon paid the fine. The two leading men in Athens at that time were Aristides and Themistocles. The former, from his uprightness, was styled "the just." Themistocles was a man of genius, of an ambitious spirit, whom the laurels of Miltiades robbed of sleep. Devoted to Athens, he was not scrupulous in regard to the means of advancing her prosperity and glory. Duplicity and intrigue were weapons in the use of which he was not less willing than expert. He aspired to make Athens a great naval and maritime power. Aristides believed that the strength of the country lay in the landholders and in the land forces. In the attainment of public ends, he would not deviate from a straightforward course. Themistocles was by far the more captivating of the two men; and, in 484 B.C., Aristides was ostracised. Themistocles was thus left free to build up a powerful fleet.

THE WAR WITH XERXES: THERMOPYLÆ.--Darius died while he was preparing another grand expedition against Greece. He left his successor, Xerxes (485 B.C.), to complete and carry out the plan. This proud monarch drew together from his immense dominions an army which tradition, as given in Herodotus, made to number one million seven hundred thousand men and a fleet of twelve hundred large vessels. He had for a counselor, Demaratus, a fugitive king of Sparta. The vast array of troops was assembled near Sardes, and thence marched to the Hellespont. Seven days were spent by this mighty gathering of nations in passing over the two bridges of boats. They marched through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, the Persian fleet proceeding along the coast. Bæotia and several smaller states yielded without resistance. The most of the other Greek states, inspired by Themistocles, joined hands for defense under the hegemony of Sparta. In July, 480, the Persian army arrived at the narrow pass of Thermopylæ. There the Lacedæemonian king, Leonidas, with his three hundred Spartans and some thousands of allies, had taken his stand, to stem the vast current that was pouring down to overwhelm Greece. To the Persian command to give up their weapons, the "laconic" reply was given by Leonidas, "Come and get them." For several days the band of Spartans defended the pass, beating back the Persians, thousands of whom were slain, and repulsing, even, the ten thousand "immortals," who constituted the royal guard. At length a treacherous Greek showed the enemy a by-path, which enabled them to fall on the rear of the gallant troops, every one of whom fell, bravely fighting, with his weapon in his hand. A lion made of iron was afterwards placed on the spot where the heroes had died, "obedient to the commands of Sparta." The Persians pushed forward to Athens, and burned the city. All citizens capable of bearing arms were on board the fleet: the women, children, and movable property had been conveyed to Salamis, Ægina, and Træzcne.

SALAMIS.--The Greek fleet, under the Spartan Eurybiades, had come from victory at Artemisium into the Gulf of Salamis. By means of a device of Themistocles, the Spartans were prevented from withdrawing their forces to the Corinthian isthmus, where they had built a wall for their own protection; and a sea-fight was brought on, of which the Athenians in Salamis, and Xerxes himself from a hill on the mainland, were anxious spectators (Sept. 27, 480). Once more the cause of civilization was staked on the issue of a conflict. The Greeks were completely victorious, and their land was saved. Xerxes hastily marched towards home, thousands of his army perishing on the way from hunger, cold, and fatigue. The Spartiatæ gave to Eurybiades the prize of valor, to Themistocles an olive crown for his wisdom and sagacity.

PLATÆA: MYCALE: EURYMEDON.--Xerxes left three hundred thousand men behind in Thessaly, under the command of Mardonius. In the spring, incensed at the proud rejection of his overtures, he marched to Athens, whose people again took refuge in Salamis. In the great battle of Platæa (479 B.C.), the Greeks, led by the Spartan Pausanias, inflicted on him such a defeat that only forty thousand Persians escaped to the Hellespont. On the same day at Mycale, the Persian fleet was vanquished in a sharp encounter where a Spartan commanded, but where the Athenians were the most efficient combatants. Sestos, Lemnos, Imbros, and Byzantium were taken by the Greeks; and a double victory of Cimon, the son of Miltiades, at the Pamphylian river, Eurymedon, over both the land and naval forces of the Persians, brought the war to an end (467 B.C.).

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II. THE ASCENDENCY OF ATHENS

PAUSANIAS AND THEMISTOCLES.--Both of the generals by whom the Persians had been overcome, fell under the displeasure of the states to which they belonged. Pausanias was so far misled by ambition as to engage in a negotiation with the Persians for the elevation of himself, by their aid, to supreme power in Greece. His plots were discovered, and he was compelled by his countrymen to starve to death in a temple to which he had fled for refuge. Themistocles caused Athens to be surrounded by a wall, and built long walls from the city to the Piræus. This provoked the hatred of the Spartans, so jealous were they of the power of Athens. In conjunction with his Athenian enemies, they contrived to procure his banishment for ten years (471 B.C.). Themistocles fled to Persia, where he was treated with honor and favor. Artaxerxes I. gave him a princely domain in Asia Minor where he died (458 B.C.). Grave as his faults were, Themistocles was the founder of the historical greatness of Athens.

CONFEDERACY OF DELOS.--It was through the influence of Aristides that the confederacy of Delos was formed, in which the Grecian islands and seaports combined with Athens, and under her leadership, for the further prosecution of the war. By this means, the Athenians, already so efficient on the sea, were enabled still more to strengthen their fleet, and gradually to bring the Ægean islands and smaller maritime states under their sway. Cimon rendered great service as a naval commander. He drove the Persians out of Thrace altogether, and he conquered Scyros. He wrested the Chersonese from the Persians, and freed the Greek cities on the coast. In the single battle on the Eurymedon, he sunk or captured two hundred galleys (467 B.C.).

TO THE PEACE OF PERICLES.--Under the leadership of such men, the Athenian Republic became more and more powerful. Ægina, a rich and prosperous island, was conquered, and planted with Athenian colonists. Megara became a dependency of Athens. Sparta, partly in consequence of a struggle with Argos, a state friendly to the Persians, and still more on account of an earthquake which laid the most of the city in ruins (465 B.C.), was so crippled as not to be able to check the progress of the rival community. She was even obliged to invoke Athenian help against the revolting Messenians and helots; but after the troops of Athens had joined them, the Spartans, jealous and afraid of what they might do, sent them back. This indignity led to the banishment of Cimon, who had favored the sending of the force, and to the granting of aid to the Spartans. The Spartans now did their best to reduce the strength and dominion of Athens by raising Thebes to the hegemony over the Boeotian cities. Everywhere, in all the conflicts, Sparta was the champion of the aristocratic form of government; Athens, of the democratic. The Athenians were defeated at Tanagra (457 B.C.). This induced them to recall Cimon, a great general and a worthy citizen. Two months after her victory, Sparta was defeated by Myronides; and the Athenians became masters of Phocis, Locris, and Boeotia. Cimon brought about a truce between Athens and Sparta. He left his country on a high pinnacle of power and dominion. Nearly all the allies in the confederacy of Delos had fallen into the position of tributaries, whose heavy contributions were carried no longer to the sanctuary at Delos, but to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis, and who had no power to decide on questions of peace and war. The nobles, however, who were driven into exile in all conquered places, were the mortal enemies of Athens. At Coronea (447 B.C.), the Boeotian refugees and aristocrats were so strong that the Athenians experienced a disastrous defeat. The peril of the situation moved Pericles to secure, by astute management, a peace with Sparta, the terms of which were that each of the two cities was to maintain its hegemony within its own circle, and the several states were to attach themselves at their option to either confederacy. In market and harbor, there was to be a free intercourse of trade (445 B.C.).

THE AGE OF PERICLES.--Pericles belonged to one of the principal Athenian families, but was democratic in his politics, and made himself a popular leader. By his influence the Areopagus was stripped of high prerogatives that had belonged to it. He caused it to be enacted, that every citizen, when engaged in the public service, even in attending the popular assembly, should receive a stipend. For fifteen years, as the first citizen of Athens, with none of the trappings of power, he virtually ruled the commonwealth. One of his works was the building the third of the long walls which protected the Piræus and the neighboring ports on the land side, and connected them with Athens. His patriotism was as sincere as his talents were versatile and brilliant. He was at once a soldier, an orator, a statesman of consummate ability, and a man imbued with the best appreciation of letters and of art. In his hospitable house, where Aspasia from Miletus, a beautiful and cultured woman, was his companion, men of genius found a welcome. Under him, Athens became the metropolis of literature, philosophy, and art for the whole Hellenic race, and, considering the influence of Athens, it might almost be said for mankind in all ages. Magnificent buildings--of which the Parthenon, the temple of Athena that crowned the Acropolis, whose ruins are the model of architectural perfection, was one--gave to the city an unrivaled beauty. Sculpture vied with architecture in this work of adornment. Phidias, who wrought the frieze of the Parthenon, counted among his wonderful creations the colossal sitting statue of Zeus at Olympia. It was the blossoming season of the Greek intellect, as regards literature and the fine arts. The drama reached its perfection in the masterly tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and in the comedies of Aristophanes. The Athenian community, through its political eminence, its intellectual character, so original and diversified, its culture,--such that almost every citizen was qualified for civil office,--has no parallel in history. It is the elevation, not of a select class of the citizens, but of the whole society, which gives to Athens its unique distinction. Public spirit and enterprise, which made her navy dominant in the Aegean and over the sea-coast of Asia Minor, went hand in hand with delight in eloquence and in the creations of genius. There was not, however, as some have affirmed, in the prevalent absorption in the affairs of state, a neglect of the labors of agriculture and of mechanical industry.

THE ACROPOLIS--It was customary for a Greek town to be built about an acropolis,--an eminence by which it was commanded, and on which stood the citadel. On the acropolis at Athens were the buildings and statues in which the glory of Athenian art was impressively displayed. There were three edifices which excelled all the rest in splendor. On the south side of the elevated area was the Parthenon, built of Pentelic marble, two hundred and twenty-eight feet in length, and of faultless proportions. On the northern edge was the Erechtheum, an Ionic temple of extraordinary beauty. The Propylcea, approached by sixty marble steps, was a noble gateway: it stood on the western end of the acropolis, which it magnificently adorned.

ATHENS--No other description of Athens, in the age of Pericles, equals his own in the Funeral Oration (431 B.C.), as given by Thucydides, for those who had fallen in the war. It shows how an Athenian looked upon his city.

"It is true that we are called a democracy; for the administration is in the hands of the many, and not of the few. But while the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a bar; but a man may benefit his country, whatever be the obscurity of his condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life; and in our private intercourse we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes: we do not put on sour looks at him, which, though harmless, are not pleasant. While we are thus unconstrained in our private intercourse, a spirit of reverence pervades our public acts: we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for authority and the laws, having an especial regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the injured, as well as to those unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment.

"And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many relaxations from toil. We have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year. At home the style of our life is refined, and the delight which we daily feel in all these things helps to banish melancholy. Because of the greatness of our city, the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as of our own.

"Then, again, our military training is in many respects superior to that of our adversaries. Our city is thrown open to the world; and we never expel a foreigner, or prevent him from seeing or learning any thing of which the secret, if revealed to an enemy, might profit him. We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. And in the matter of education, whereas they from early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live at ease, and yet are equally ready to face the perils which they face. And here is the proof,--the Lacedaemonians come into Attica, not by themselves, but with their whole confederacy following; we go alone into a neighbor's country; and, although our opponents are fighting for their homes, and we are on a foreign soil, we have seldom any difficulty in overcoming them. Our enemies have never yet felt our united strength. The care of a navy divides our attention, and on land we are obliged to send our own citizens everywhere. But they, if they meet and defeat a part of our army, are as proud as if they had routed us all; and, when defeated, they pretend to have been vanquished by us all.

"If, then, we prefer to meet danger with a light heart, but without laborious training, and with a courage which is gained by habit, and not enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers? since we do not anticipate the pain, although, when the hour comes, we can be as brave as those who never allow themselves to rest. And thus, too, our city is equally admirable in peace and war; for we are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there is real use for it. To avow poverty with us is no disgrace: the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the State because he takes care of his own household, and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as harmless, but as a useless character; and, if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of policy. The great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting too; whereas other men are courageous from ignorance, but hesitate upon reflection. And they are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger. In doing good, again, we are unlike others: we make our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favors. Now, he who confers a favor is the firmer friend, because he would fain by kindness keep alive the memory of an obligation; but the recipient is colder in his feelings, because he knows that in requiting another's generosity he will not be winning gratitude, but only paying a debt. We alone do good to our neighbors, not upon a calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom, and in a frank and fearless spirit. To sum up, I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the State. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city: no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power, which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages. We shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist, whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day; for we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valor, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died: they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them, and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf."

RELIGION.--We find in Sophocles a much purer tone of moral and religious feeling than in Homer. Greek thought upon divine things is expanded and purified, (i) Higher Conception of the Gods. The gods are still conceived of as in bodily form. Their images abide in their temples. Take them away, and the god leaves his abode. The divinities need not be present, as in Homer, in order to exert their power. The monotheistic tendency is manifest. The "gods" are referred to as if a single agency were in the writer's mind. The regal sway of Zeus is emphasized. He is less subject to Fate. (2) Divine Government. The gods, especially Zeus, are the fountain of law. The righteousness of the divine government is especially evinced in the punishment of evil-doers. Transgressors generally, and not those of the worst class alone, as in Homer, are punished in Hades. Pride and insolence call down the vengeance of the gods. Unsleeping justice pursues the criminal. The theory of Nemesis, which pursues the prosperous, if they are proud, to their hurt and ruin, is held. (3) Number of the Gods. The number of divinities is multiplied as time advances. The worship of the heroes, children of the gods or goddesses, grows in importance. (4) Revelation. There was direct revelation, it was believed, by prophecy, uttered now in an ecstatic, and now in a tranquil, mood. Oracles acquired a new and vast importance. (5) Rites. Visible objects of devotion were multiplied; religious ceremonies ramified in all directions; sacred processions, festivals, amusements involving religious observances, abounded. (6) Morality. Moral excellence centered in moderation and self-government, through which the individual keeps both his own nature as to its parts, and himself in relation to others, within due limits. This spirit includes temperance and justice. The stern spirit of law prevails: the requital of injuries is approved. Yet feelings of compassion find a beautiful expression. At Athens, there was public provision for orphans and for the help of the poor. (7) Domestic Life: Patriotism. The wife lived in retirement, and in submission to her husband. When he entertained friends at his table, she was absent; yet domestic affection was evidently strong. Every other duty merged in patriotism. The Greek placed a great gulf between himself and the "barbarian." He was conscious of higher intellectual gifts, superior culture, better customs. (8) Sin. The Future Life. There was a deeper sense of sin than in the Homeric era. There was a pathetic consciousness of the trouble and sorrow that beset human life. Hades was regarded as a scene of trial and judgment, and of rewards as well as sufferings. The soul was not so closely identified with the body. Death was an object of gloomy anticipation. Pericles, in his funeral oration for the fallen patriots, is silent as to a future life. In the tragic poets, it is only the select few whose lot is blessed. As concerns the mass of the people, it is probable that the Homeric notions respecting the state of the dead still prevailed. Generally speaking, we are not warranted in ascribing the more elevated views of religion entertained by the best minds to the mass of the people.

THE TRAGIC DRAMA.--The songs which were sung in the worship of Dionysus (dithyrambs) were accompanied with dance and pantomime. The custom followed of mingling speeches and dramatic action with these lyrics. The change is ascribed to Thespis (about 536 B.C.), a little later than Solon. Thespis is said to have brought in the stage for the performers. The Greek theaters were large, open to the sky, and sometimes on sites which commanded fine views. There was the amphitheater, with graded seats for spectators, and the stage, together with the orchestra where the choir in song or musical recitation reflected the sympathies and views of the spectators of the play. At first there was only one actor, and, of course, a monologue. Aeschylus is said to have brought in a second actor, and Sophocles a third. These, with Euripides, were the three great dramatists of Greece. The choral song, which had been the chief thing, was made secondary to the dialogue. Aeschylus, at the age of forty-five, fought in the battle of Salamis; Sophocles, then fifteen years old, took part in the festival in honor of the victory; and Euripides was born, it was supposed, on the very day of the battle. These three brought the tragic drama to perfection. Of the productions of Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), seven remain. They are inspired with the heroic and elevated mood which was engendered by the great struggle against the Persians. Of the numerous plays of Sophocles (495-406 B.C.), the number of those extant is also seven. They so combine vigor and force with refinement of thought and style that they are surpassed, if indeed they are equaled, by the literary products of no age or country. In Euripides (480-406 B.C.), while there is an insight into the workings of the heart, and the antique nobleness of sentiment, there is less simplicity, and there is manifest the less earnest and believing tone of the later day. In the dramas, the "unities" of time, place, and action are observed. The acts together seldom stretch over a single day.

COMEDY--Comedy, in which Aristophanes (452-388 B.C.), a great poet as well as a great wit, was the principal author, dealt largely in satire. Conspicuous men, and those active in public affairs, were represented on the stage in satirical pieces, so that they were at once identified. The spirit of the "old comedy" was patriotic, although it might be unjust, as in the case of Socrates, who was a target for the wit of Aristophanes. The "middle comedy" was nothing really distinct from the "new comedy." The "new comedy," in which Menander (342-290 B.C.) was an eminent author, ceased to present actual persons, and dealt with imaginary characters alone. Among the Greeks in Lower Italy and Sicily, mimes were much in vogue.

GREEK ART: ARCHITECTURE--The Greeks more and more broke away in a free and joyous spirit from the stiff and conventional styles of Egyptian and Oriental art. In the room of the somber, massive edifices of Egypt, they combined symmetry and beauty with grandeur in the temples which they erected. The temples were originally colored within and without. Three styles were developed,--the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. In the Doric, the column and entablature have the most solid and simple form. The column has no other base than the common platform on which the pillars rest, and the capital that surmounts it is a plain slab.

In the Ionic style, the column has a distinct base, is more tall and slender, and its capital has two volutes, or spiral moldings. The capital of the Corinthian column is peculiar, representing flower calices and leaves, "pointing upwards, and curving like natural plants." The acanthus, on account of its graceful form, was generally copied. The most ancient Doric temples, of a date prior to the Persian war, of which the ruined temple of Neptune at Paestum is one, are, in comparison with later edifices, of a severe and massive style. In the period extending from the Persian war to the Macedonian rule, the stern simplicity of the Doric is modified by the softer and more graceful character of the Ionic. The temple of Theseus at Athens is an example. The Parthenon was the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, which has appropriated the grace of the Ionic column without losing its own distinctive character. In the later period, after freedom was lost, there was much more ornamentation. It was then that the more decorated Corinthian style flourished.

SCULPTURE.--Before the Persian wars, in the earliest sculpture the restraint of Egyptian and Oriental styles is perceptible in the sculptors, of whom Daedalus is the mythical representative. The oldest statues were of wood, which was subsequently covered with gold and ivory, or painted. The lofty style of Phidias (488-432 B.C.), and of Polycletus of Argos, became prevalent in the flourishing period of Greek liberty. Myron, to whom we owe the Discobolus (Disk-Thrower), belongs to the school of Aegina. Statues were now made in brass and marble. They were everywhere to be seen. The pediments and friezes of the temples were covered with exquisitely wrought sculptures. The most beautiful sculptures that have come down from antiquity are the marbles of the Parthenon. The Greeks appreciated to the full the beauty of nature. They gave to their gods ideal human forms, in which were blended every attribute of majesty and grace which are conceived to belong to perfected humanity. Sculpture in Greece, as elsewhere, was ally to religion; "but whilst the religion of the Egyptians was a religion of the tomb, and their ideal world a gloomy spot peopled by sleeping lions, dreamy sphinxes, or weird unearthly monsters, the mythology of the Greeks, rightly understood, is an exquisite poem, the joint creation of the master-minds of infant Greece; and their art is a translation of that poem into visible forms of beauty." In the third period, which may be made to terminate with the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.), there were masters in sculpture, among whom Praxiteles and Scopas are at the head. More and more, as we come down to the Roman period, while extraordinary technical perfection is still manifested, the loftier qualities of art tend to disappear.

PAINTING.--In Greece, painting first ceased to be subordinate to architecture, and became independent. In early days, there was skill in the ornamentation of vases and in mural painting. Yet, with much spirit and feeling, there was a conventional treatment. The earliest artist of whom we know much is Polygnotus (about 420 B.C.), whose groups of profile figures were described as remarkable for their life-like character and fine coloring. Apollodorus of Athens was distinguished, but Zeuxis of Heraclea is said to have been the first to paint movable pictures. He is famed for his marvelous power of imitation: the birds pecked at a bunch of grapes which he painted. But even he was outdone by Parrhasius. Zeuxis, however, had far higher qualities than those of a literal copyist. The most successful of the Greek painters was Apelles. Among his masterpieces was a painting of Venus rising from the waves, and a portrait of Alexander the Great. We have not in painting, as in sculpture, a store of monuments of Greek art; but the skill of the Greeks in painting fell behind their unequaled genius in molding the human form in bronze and marble.

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III. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

I. TO THE PEACE OF NICIAS (421 B.C.).

TO THE DEATH OF PERICLES.--Wonderful as was the growth of Athens under Pericles, it is obvious that she stood exposed to two principal sources of danger. Her allies and dependants, the stay of that naval power in which her strength lay, were discontented with her spirit of domination and of extortion. The Peloponnesian Alliance, which was led by Sparta, the bulwark of the aristocratic interest, comprised, with the Dorian, most of the Aeolian states,--as Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, etc. Its military strength lay mainly in its heavy-armed infantry. Thus Sparta had the advantage of strong allies. The motive at the bottom of this alliance was what Thucydides tells was the real cause of the Peloponnesian war,--the jealousy which the growth of Athens excited in other states. This feeling really involved a conviction of the need of maintaining in Greece that which in modern times is called a "balance of power." When Greece was no longer one, as in the best days of the wars with Persia, but was divided into two opposite camps, watchful and jealous of one another, an occasion of conflict could not fail to arise. It was complained that Athens gave help to Corcyra in a war with Corinth, its mother city, made war upon Potidaea in Macedonia, a Corinthian colony, and also shut out Megara from the harbors of Attica.

The demands made by Sparta, which included the granting of independence to Aegina, were rejected. Attica was ravaged by Spartan troops, and the coast of Peloponnesus by the Athenian fleet (431 B.C.). This desolating warfare was kept up until a frightful pestilence broke out at Athens,--a plague having its origin in Egypt, and passing thence over Asia and the Greek islands. Two of the sons of Pericles died, and an accumulation of public burdens and private sorrows brought on his own death (Sept., 429).

THE PESTILENCE.--The horrors of the pestilence are thus described in a celebrated passage of the best of the Greek historians, Thucydides: "The crowding of the people out of the country into the city aggravated the misery, and the newly arrived suffered most. For, haying no houses of their own, but inhabiting, in the height of summer, stifling huts, the mortality among them was dreadful, and they perished in wild disorder. The dead lay as they had died, one upon another; while others, hardly alive, wallowed in the streets, and crawled about every fountain, craving for water. The temples in which they lodged were full of the corpses of those who died in them; for the violence of the calamity was such that men, not knowing where to turn, grew reckless of all law, human and divine. The customs which had hitherto been observed at funerals were universally violated, and they buried their dead, each one as best he could. Many, having no proper appliances, because the deaths in their household had been so frequent, made no scruple of using the burial-place of others. When one man had raised a funeral-pile, others would come, and, throwing on their dead first, set fire to it; or, when some other corpse was already burning, before they could be stopped, would throw their own dead upon it, and depart.

"There were other and worse forms of lawlessness which the plague introduced at Athens. Men who had hitherto concealed their indulgence in pleasure, now grew bolder. For, seeing the sudden change,--how the rich died in a moment, and those who had nothing, immediately inherited their property,--they reflected that life and riches were alike transitory, and they resolved to enjoy themselves while they could, and to think only of pleasure. Who would be willing to sacrifice himself to the law of honor when he knew not whether he would ever live to be held in honor? The pleasure of the moment, and any sort of thing which conduced to it, took the place both of honor and of expediency: no fear of God or law of man deterred a criminal. Those who saw all perishing alike, thought that the worship or neglect of the gods made no difference. For offenses against human law, no punishment was to be feared: no one would live long enough to be called to account. Already a far heavier sentence had been passed, and was hanging over a man's head: before that fell, why should he not take a little pleasure?"

TO THE TRUCE WITH SPARTA.--The loss of Pericles, coupled with the terrible calamities which had befallen Athens, let loose the winds of party passion. New leaders of the democracy, of whom Cleon was the most noted, who lacked the refinement and self-restraint of Pericles, took his place. The Athenians were not able to save Plataea, to which they owed so much, from destruction at the hands of the Spartans and Boeotians (427 B.C.); but Lesbos they recovered, and captured Mytilene, the bulk of whose citizens, against the will of Cleon, they spared. To the cruelties of war, which the revengeful temper of the Spartans promoted, there was added another plague at Athens, besides an earthquake, and tremendous rain-storms, alternating with drought.

Demosthenes, a brave and enterprising Athenian general, took possession of Pylos in Messenia. The Spartans, under Brasidas, were on the island of Sphacteria opposite; and their retreat was cut off by the fleet under Nicias, who was the leader of the more aristocratic faction at Athens. Cleon, made strategus in the room of Nicias, took Sphacteria by storm, contrary to general expectation, and brought home nearly three hundred Spartan prisoners. Athens had other successes; but when her forces had been defeated by the Boeotians at Delium, and Brasidas had captured Amphipolis, and when in a battle there (422 B.C.) Brasidas was victorious over Cleon, who fell during the flight, the aristocratic party, which was desirous of peace, gained the upper hand. Nicias concluded a truce with Sparta for fifty years. Each party was to restore its conquests and prisoners.

II. THE INFLUENCE OF ALCIBIADES.

THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION.--From this time, Alcibiades, a relative of Pericles, but lacking his sobriety and disinterested spirit, plays an active part. Beautiful in person, rich, a graceful and effective orator, but restless and ambitious, he quickly acquired great influence. Three years after the peace of Nicias, he persuaded Athens to join a league of disaffected Peloponnesian allies of Sparta; but in the battle of Mantinea (418 B.C.) the Spartans regained their supremacy. It was at the suggestion of Alcibiades that the Athenians undertook the great Sicilian Expedition, which resulted in the worst disasters they ever suffered. This expedition was aimed at the Dorian city of Syracuse, and the hope was that all Sicily might be conquered. It consisted of about forty thousand men, besides the sailors. The commanders were Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus. Alcibiades was recalled to answer a charge of sacrilege. At Thurii he managed to escape and went over to the side of Sparta. Gylippus went with a small Spartan fleet to aid Syracuse. The Athenians were repulsed in their attack on the city. Although re-inforced by land and naval forces under a gallant and worthy general, Demosthenes, they fought under great disadvantages, so that their fleet was destroyed in the Syracusan harbor. Their retreating forces on land were cut to pieces or captured. Nicias and Demosthenes died either at the hands of the executioner or by a self-inflicted death.

NAVAL CONTESTS.--No such calamity had ever overtaken a Grecian army. The news of it brought anguish into almost every family in Athens. The Spartans had fortified the village of Decelea in Attica, and sought on the sea, with Persian help, to annihilate the Athenian navy. The allies of Athens, Chios, Miletus, etc., revolted. The oligarchs at Athens overthrew the democratic constitution, and placed the Government in the hands of a Council of Four Hundred. The popular assembly was limited to five thousand members, and was never called together. The object was to make peace with Sparta. But the army before Samos, of which Thrasybulus, a patriotic man, was the leader, refused to accept this change of government. Alcibiades, who had left the Spartans out of anger on account of their treatment of him, was recalled, and assumed command. The oligarchical rule was overturned in four months after its establishment, and the democracy restored,--the assembly being still limited, however, to five thousand citizens. Three brilliant naval victories, the last at Cyzicus (410 B.C.), were won over the Spartans by Alcibiades who came back to Athens in triumph (408 B.C.). Lysander was the commander of the Spartan fleet on the coast of Asia Minor, and (407 B.C.) gained a victory over the Athenian ships during a temporary absence of Alcibiades. Alcibiades was not reëlected general. He now withdrew, and, three years later, died. The new Spartan admiral, Callicratidas, surrounded the Athenian fleet under Conon at Mitylene. By very strenuous exertions of the Athenians, a new fleet was dispatched to the help of Conon; and in the battle of Arginusæ (406 B.C.), the Peloponnesians were completely vanquished. The public spirit of Athens and the resources of a free people were never more impressively shown than in the prodigious efforts made by the Athenians to rise from the effect of the crushing disaster which befell the Sicilian expedition on which their hopes were centered. But these exertions only availed to furnish to coming generations an example of the heroic energy and love of country which are possible under free government.

III. THE FALL OF ATHENS.

Lysander once more took command of the Spartan fleet. Shrewd in diplomacy, as well as skillful in battle, he strengthened his naval force by the aid of Cyrus the Younger, the Persian governor in Asia Minor. Watching his opportunity, he attacked the Athenians at Ægospotami, opposite Lampsacus, when soldiers and sailors were off their guard (405 B.C.). Three thousand of them, who had not been slain in the assault, were slaughtered after they had been taken captive. Conon escaped to Cyprus with only eight ships. One fast-sailing trireme carried the news of the overwhelming defeat to Athens. Lysander followed up his success cautiously, but with energy. Islands and seaports surrendered to him, and in them he established the aristocratic rule. The Athenians were shut in by land and by sea. A treacherous aristocratic faction within the walls was working in the interest of the Spartans. Famine conspired with other agencies to destroy the multitude of homeless and destitute people who had crowded into the city. Starvation compelled a surrender to the Spartan general. The long walls and fortifications were demolished by the ruthless conqueror, the work of destruction being carried on to the sound of the flute. All but twelve vessels were given up to the captors. The democratic system was subverted, and thirty men--the "Thirty Tyrants"--of the oligarchical party were established in power, with Critias, a depraved and passionate, though able, man, at their head (404-403 B.C.). They put a Spartan garrison in the citadel, and sought to confirm their authority by murdering or banishing all whom they suspected of opposition. Thrasybulus, a patriot, collected the democratic fugitives at Phyle, defeated the Thirty, and seized the Piraeus. Critias was slain. Ten oligarchs of a more moderate temper were installed in power. In co-operation with the Spartan king, Pausanias, the two parties at Athens were reconciled. An amnesty was proclaimed, and democracy in a moderate form was restored, with a revision of the laws, under the archonship of Euclides (403 B.C.). It was shortly after this change that the trial and death of Socrates occurred, the wisest and most virtuous man of ancient times (399 B.C.).

PHILOSOPHY: SOCRATES.--At the head of the Greek philosophers is the illustrious name of Socrates. He was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and was born 469 B.C., just as Pericles was assuming the leadership at Athens. Socrates was the founder of moral philosophy. He was original, being indebted for his ideas to no previous school. He was as sound in body as in mind. His appearance was unique. His forehead was massive, but his flat nose gave to his countenance an aspect quite at variance with the Greek ideal of beauty. He looked, it was said, like a satyr. He taught, in opposition to the Sophists, a class of men (including Gorgias, Protagoras, and others) who instructed young men in logic and grammar, taking fees,--which was contrary to the custom of the Greek philosophers,--and cultivating intellectual keenness and dexterity, often at the expense of depth and sincerity. Their work as thinkers was negative, being confined mainly to pointing out fallacies in existing systems, but providing nothing positive in the room of them. Socrates had been called by the oracle at Delphi the wisest of men. He could only account for this by the fact, that, in contrast with others, he did not erroneously deem himself to be knowing. "Know thyself" was his maxim. His daily occupation was to converse with different classes, especially young men, on subjects of highest moment to the individual and to the state. By a method of quiet cross-examination, the "Socratic irony," he made them aware of their lack of clear ideas and tenable, consistent opinions, and endeavored to guide them aright. The soul and its moral improvement was his principal subject. He asserted Theism and the spiritual nature and obligations of religion, without calling in question the existence of the various divinities. He taught the doctrine of a universal Providence. Absolute loyalty to conscience, the preference of virtue to any possible advantage without it, he solemnly inculcated. He believed, perhaps not without a mingling of doubt, in the immortality of the soul. Taking no part in public affairs, he devoted his time to this kind of familiar instruction,--to teaching by dialogue, in compliance with what he believed to be an inward call of God. An impulse within him, which he called a divine "voice," checked him when he was about to take a wrong step. He was charged with corrupting the youth by his teaching, and with heresy in religion. His rebukes of the shallow and the self-seeking had stung them, and had made him many enemies. Such men as Alcibiades and Critias, who had been among his hearers, but for whose misconduct he was really not in the least responsible, added to his unpopularity. The Apology, as given by Plato, contains the substance of his most impressive defense before his judges. He took no pains to placate them or his accusers, or to escape after he was convicted. Conversing with his disciples in the same genial, tranquil tone which he had always maintained, he drank the cup of hemlock, and expired (May, 399 B.C.). An account of his teaching and of his method of life is given by his loving scholar, Xenophon, in the Memorabilia. The dialogues of Plato, in which Socrates is the principal interlocutor, mingle with the master's doctrine the pupil's own thoughts and speculations.

PLATO.--Plato (427-347 B.C.), the foremost of the disciples of Socrates, founded the philosophical school known as the Academy from the place where his pupils were wont to meet him. One of his prominent tenets was the doctrine of ideas which he regarded as spiritual realities, intermediate between God and the world, of which all visible things are the manifestation. They are the shadow, so to speak, of which ideas are the substance. He defined virtue in man to be resemblance to God according to the measure of our ability. In the Republic, he sets forth his political views, and sketches the ideal state. More speculative than Socrates, Plato, from the wide range of his discussions, from their poetic spirit as well as their depth of thought, not less than their beauty of style, is one of the most inspiring and instructive of all authors. No other heathen writer presents so many points of affinity with Christian teaching.

ARISTOTLE.--Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) studied under Plato, but elaborated a system of his own, which was on some points dissonant from that of his instructor. His investigations extended over the field of material nature, as well as over the field of mind and morals. With less of poetry and of lofty sentiment than Plato, he has never been excelled in intellectual clearness and grasp. He was possessed of a wonderful power to observe facts, and an equally wonderful talent for systemizing them, and reasoning upon them. He is the founder of the science of Logic. His treatises on Rhetoric and on Ethics have been hardly less important in their influence. His Politics is a masterly discussion of political science, based on a diligent examination of the various systems of government. In truth, in all departments of research he exhibits the same capacity for scientific observation and discussion. In religion he was a theist; but he is less spiritual in his vein of thought, and more reserved in his utterances on this theme, than Plato. The names of these two philosophers have been very frequently coupled. Their influence, like their fame, is imperishable.

LATER SCHOOLS: THE CYNICS.--The impulse given by Socrates gave rise to still other schools of philosophers. Aristippus of Cyrene (about 380 B.C.) founded a sect which held that happiness is the chief end, the goal of rational effort. Antisthenes, who was born 422 B.C., and especially Diogenes, went to the opposite extreme, and founded the school of Cynics, who looked with disdain, not only on luxuries, but on the ordinary comforts of life, and inured themselves to do without them. Their manners were often as savage as their mode of living.

HISTORICAL WRITINGS.--The three principal historical writers were Herodotus (c. 484-0.425 B.C.), the charming but uncritical chronicler of what he heard and saw, by whom the interference of the gods in human affairs is devoutly credited; Thucydides, who himself took part in the Peloponnesian war, the history of which he wrote with a candor, a profound perception of character, an insight into the causes of events, a skill in arrangement, and a condensation and eloquence of style, which are truly admirable; and Xenophon, an author characterized by naturalness, simplicity, and a religious spirit.

GREEK LIFE.--It will be convenient to bring together here some features of Greek life, (1) Public Buildings and Dwellings. The Greeks almost always preferred to live in cities. These grew up about an Acropolis, which was a fort on a hill, generally a steep crag. This was a place of refuge, and the site of the oldest temple. It became often, therefore, a sacred place from which private dwellings were excluded. At the nearest harbor, there would be a seaport town. The Piraeus was more than four miles from Athens,--a mile farther than the nearest shore, but was chosen as being an excellent harbor. Sparta, alone, had no citadel,--the access from the plain being easily defended,--and no walls. The attractive buildings in a Greek town were the public edifices. Private houses, as to the exterior, were very plain, with flat roofs, with few stories, and low. Towards the street "the house looked like a dead wall with a strong door in it," It was built round an open court: in the case of the best houses, round two courts,--one bordered by apartments for the men, the other with the rooms for women. Bedrooms and sitting-rooms were small, admitting but little light. Fresco-painting on the walls and ceilings came to be common. The furniture of the house was plain and simple, but graceful and elegant in form. The poorer classes slept on skins; the richer, on woolen mattresses laid on girths. The Greeks lived so much in the open air that they took less pains with their dwellings. The public buildings were costly and substantially built. (2) Meals, Gymnastics, etc. The Greeks rose early. There are no notices of a morning bath. The first meal was light. It was succeeded, as was the custom at Rome, by calls on friends. Business might follow until noon, the hour of the dèjeuner, or breakfast, which, in the case of the rich, was a substantial meal. Later in the day, males went to the practice of gymnastics, which were followed, in later times, by a warm bath. Towards sunset came the principal meal of the day. Conversation and music, or the attending of a feast with friends, took up the evening; if there was a festal company, often the whole night. At the dinner-table, the Greeks reclined on couches. Ladies, if allowed to be present, and children, were required to sit. Spoons, sometimes knives, but never forks, were used. (3) Costume: Use of Wine. The dress of the Greeks, both of men and women, was simple and graceful. The men were generally bareheaded in the streets. In bad weather they wore close-fitting caps, and, in traveling, broad-brimmed hats. In Athens and Sparta they always carried walking-sticks. The use of wine was universal. It was always mixed with water. (4) Slaves. Slaves were regarded as chattels. No one objected to slavery as wrong. Slaves were better treated at Athens than elsewhere, but even at Athens they were tortured when their testimony was required. They were let out, sometimes by thousands, to work in pestiferous mines. (5) Women and Children. In Athens, the wife had seldom learned any thing but to spin and to cook. She lived in seclusion in her dwelling, and was not present with her husband at social entertainments, either at home or elsewhere. She had few if any legal rights, although at Athens she might bring a suit against her husband for ill-treatment. Concubinage was not condemned by public opinion. There was no law against exposing infants whom the parents did not wish to bring up,--that is, leaving them where they would perish. When found and brought up, they were the slaves of the person finding them. This cruelty was frequent in the case of daughters, or of offspring weak or deformed. There were toys and games for children. Archytas, a philosopher, was said to have invented the child's rattle. Dolls, hoops, balls, etc., were common playthings. Boys and girls played hide and seek, blind man's buff, hunt the slipper, etc. Older people played ball, and gambled with dice. (6) Education. The education of boys was careful; that of girls was neglected. The boy went to or from school under the care of a slave, called pedagogue, or leader. Teachers were of different social grades, from the low class which taught small children, to the professors of rhetoric and philosophy. It is needless to say how much stress was laid on gymnastic and aesthetic training. Boys read Homer and other authors at an early age, committing much of them to memory. They were taught to play on the harp or the flute, and to sing. Lyric poems they learned by heart. Music held a very high place in the esteem of the Greeks for its general influence on the mind. Running, wrestling, throwing the dart, etc., the games practiced at the public contests, were early taught. Boys at sixteen or eighteen came of age, and were enrolled as citizens. (7) Musical Instruments: the Dance. Instrumental music was common among the Greeks at games and meals, and in battle. They used no bows on the stringed instruments, but either the fingers or the plectrum,--a stick of wood, ivory, or metal. There were three sorts of stringed instruments, the lyre, the cithara (or zithern), and the harp. The wind-instruments were the pipe, the clarionet, and the trumpet. Besides these, there were clanging instruments which were used chiefly in religious ceremonies: such were castanets, the cymbal, and the tambourine. Dancing was originally connected with religious worship. Mimetic dances were a favorite diversion at feasts. There were warlike dances by men in armor, who went through the movements of attack and defense. In mimetic dances the hands and arms played a part. There were peaceful dances or choral dances, marked by rhythmic grace. Sometimes these were slow and measured, and sometimes more lively. Specially brisk were the dances at the festivals of Dionysus (Bacchus). Symbolic dances of a religious character, these Bacchic dances were the germ of the drama. Recitations were first introduced between hymns that attended the choric dances. Then, later, followed the dialogue. (8) Weddings and Funerals. Marriage was attended by a religious ceremonial. There was a solemn sacrifice and a wedding-feast. The bride was conveyed to her husband's house, accompanied on the way with music and song. When a person died, his body was laid out for one day, during which the relatives and hired mourners uttered laments round the bier. Burial was at the dawn of day. In later times, a coin was put into the mouth of the corpse, with which to pay his passage to the world below. There was a funeral procession, and at the tomb a solemn farewell was addressed to the deceased by name. There was then a funeral-feast. Mourning garments were worn for a short period. The dead were buried in the suburbs of the cities, generally on both sides of a highway. In the tomb many little presents, as trinkets and vases, were deposited. (9) Courts of Law. At law men pleaded their own causes, but might take advice or have their speeches composed for them by others. In some cases, friends were allowed to speak in behalf of a litigant. Men like Demosthenes received large fees for services of this kind. There being no public prosecutor, informers were more numerous. They became odious under the name of sycophants, which is supposed to have been first applied to those who informed against breakers of an old law forbidding the exportation of figs from Athens.

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IV. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA.--THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN HEGEMONY

THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND.--The Anabasis, the principal work of Xenophon, describes the retreat from the Tigris to the coast of Asia Minor, of a body of ten thousand mercenary Greek troops,--a retreat effected under his own masterly leadership. The Persian Empire, now in a process of decay, was torn with civil strife. Xerxes and his eldest son had been murdered (465 B.C.). The story of several reigns which follow is full of tales of treason and fratricide. On the death of Darius II. (Darius Nothus) (423-404 B.C.), the younger Cyrus undertook to dethrone his brother Artaxerxes II., and for that purpose organized, in Asia Minor, a military expedition, made up largely of hired Greek troops. At Cunaxa, not far from Babylon, Cyrus fell in the combat with his brother. The Persians enticed the Greek generals to come into their camp, and slew them. Xenophon, an Athenian volunteer who had accompanied the army, conducted the retreat of his countrymen, with whom he encountered incredible hardships in the slow and toilsome journey through Armenia to Trapezus (Trebizond), and thence to Byzantium. The story of this march, through snow, over rugged mountains, and across rapid currents, is told in the Anabasis. A very striking passage is the description of the joy of the Greeks when from a hilltop they first descried the Black Sea. The soldiers shouted, "The sea! the sea!" and embraced one another and their officers.

THE CORINTHIAN WAR AND THE PEACE OF ANTALCIDAS.--Tissaphernes, the antagonist and successor of the younger Cyrus, was Persian governor in Asia Minor, and set out to bring under the yoke the Ionic cities which had espoused the cause of Cyrus. Sparta came to their aid, and King Agesilaus defeated the Persians near the Pactolus (395 B.C.). The Persians stirred up an enemy nearer home, by the use of gold, and the Boeotians, Corinthians, and Argives, jealous of Sparta, and resentful at the tyranny of her governors (harmosts), and joined by Athens, took up arms against the Lacedaemonians. Lysander fell in battle with the allies (395 B.C.). The course of the war in which Conon, the Athenian commander, destroyed the Spartan fleet at Cnidus, made it necessary to recall Agesilaus. His victory at Coronea (394 B.C.) did not avail to turn the tide in favor of Sparta. Conon rebuilt the long walls at Athens with the assistance of Persian money. The issue of the conflict was the Peace of Antalcidas with Persia (387 B.C.). The Grecian cities of Asia Minor were given up to the Persians, as were the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus. With the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which the Athenians were to control, all of the other states and islands were to be free and independent. This was a great concession to Persia. Greek union was broken up: each state was left to take care of itself as it best could. Antalcidas cared little for his country: his treaty was the natural result of Spartan aggressiveness and selfishness.

CONTEST OF THEBES AND SPARTA.--The Spartans had fallen away from the old rules of life ascribed to Lycurgus. They were possessed by a greed for gold. There were extremes of wealth and poverty among them. After the treaty of Antalcidas, they still lorded it over other states, and were bent on governing in Peloponnesus. At length they were involved in a contest with Thebes. This was caused by the seizure of the Cadmeia, the Theban citadel, by the Spartan Phoebidas acting in conjunction with an aristocratic party in Thebes (383 B.C.). The Theban democrats, who, under Pelopidas, made Athens their place of rendezvous, liberated Thebes, and expelled the Spartans from the Cadmeia. Hostile attempts of Sparta against Athens induced the Athenians to form a new confederacy (or symmachy) composed of seventy communities (378 B.C.); and, after they had gained repeated successes on the sea, the two states concluded peace. Athens had become alarmed at the increased power of Thebes, and was ready to go over to the side of Sparta, her old enemy. It was a feeling in favor of a balance of power like that which had prompted Sparta at the close of the Peloponnesian war, to refuse to consent to the destruction of Athens, which Thebes and Corinth had desired. Cleombrotus, king of Sparta, again invaded Boeotia. The principal Boeotian leader was Epaminondas, one of the noblest patriots in all Grecian history,--in his disinterested spirit and self-government resembling Washington. The Spartan king was defeated by him in the great battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.), and was there slain. At this time the rage of party knew no bounds. The wholesale massacre of political antagonists in a city was no uncommon occurrence.

THEBAN HEGEMONY.--The victory of Leuctra gave the hegemony to Thebes. Three times the Boeotians invaded the Spartan territory. They founded Megalopolis in Arcadia, to strengthen the Arcadians against their Lacedæmonian assailants (370 B.C.). They also revived the Messenian power, recalled the Messenians who had long been in exile, and founded the city of Messene. In the battle of Mantinea (362 B.C.), Epaminondas, though victorious against the Spartans and their allies, was slain. Peace followed among the Grecian states, Sparta alone refusing to be a party to it. In the course of this intestine war, the Thebans had broken up the new maritime sway gained by them.

PERIOD III. THE MACEDONIAN ERA.

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I. PHILIP AND ALEXANDER

THE MACEDONIANS.--The Greeks, exhausted by long-continued war with one another, were just in a condition to fall under the dominion of Macedonia, the kingdom on the north which had been ambitious to extend its power. The Macedonians were a mixed race, partly Greek and partly Illyrian. Although they were not acknowledged to be Greeks, their kings claimed to be of Greek descent, and were allowed to take part in the Olympian games. At first an inland community, living in the country, rough and uncultivated, made up mostly of farmers and hunters, they had been growing more civilized by the efforts of their kings to introduce Greek customs. Archelaus (413-399 B.C.) had even attracted Greek artists and poets to his court. At the same time they were exerting themselves to extend their power to the sea. The people were hardy and brave. When Epaminondas died, Philip (359-336 B.C.) was on the Macedonian throne. He had lived three years at Thebes, and had learned much from Epaminondas, the best strategist and tactician of his day. The decline of public spirit in Greece had led the states to rely very much on mercenary troops, whose trade was war. Philip had a well-drilled standing army. Every thing was favorable to the gratification of his wish to make himself master of Greece. First he aimed to get possession of Greek cities in Chalcidice, of which Olynthus was the chief. The Athenians had towns in that region, besides Amphipolis, which was formerly theirs. Philip contrived to make the Olynthians his allies; and then, crossing the river Strymon, he conquered the western part of Thrace, where there were rich gold mines. There, for purposes of defense, he founded the city of Philippi.

THE SACRED WAR.--A pretext for interfering in the affairs of Greece, Philip found in the Sacred War in behalf of the temple of Delphi, which had been forced to loan money to the Phocians during a war waged by them against Thebes, to throw off the Theban supremacy. Athens and Sparta joined the Phocians. The Thessalian nobles sided with Philip. He gained the victory in his character of champion of the Amphictyonic Council, and took his place in that body, in the room of the Phocians (346 B.C.). But this was not accomplished until he had made peace with the Athenians, so that there was no Athenian force at the pass of Thermopylae to resist his progress.

DEMOSTHENES.--The Athenians had placed themselves at the head of an Aegean League, and, had they managed with more spirit and prudence, they might have checked Philip. There was one man, worthy of the best days of Greece, who penetrated the designs of Philip, and exerted his great powers to stimulate his countrymen to a timely resistance. This was Demosthenes (385-322 B.C.). He was the prince of the school of orators who had sprung up in these troublous times. Overcoming natural obstacles, he had trained himself with such assiduity that a place at the head of all orators, ancient and modern, is generally conceded to him. He was a great statesman, moved by a patriotic spirit: his speeches were for the welfare and salvation of the state. In 358 B.C., a war broke out between Athens and its maritime allies, in which Athens was unsuccessful. It was on the conquest of Thessaly by Philip, that Demosthenes made against him the first of that series of famous speeches known as Philippics (351 B.C.). In vain he urged the Athenians to rescue Olynthus. The inefficiency of the aid rendered, enabled Philip to conquer and destroy that city, and to sell its inhabitants as slaves (348 B.C.). Thirty cities he destroyed, and annexed all Chalcidice to Macedon. A Macedonian party was formed at Athens, the foremost leader of which was Aeschines, not a good citizen, but an orator only second in rank to Demosthenes. They contended that it was futile to resist the advance of the Macedonian power. Demosthenes went at the head of an embassy to the Peloponnesian states which had taken sides with Philip, but his efforts to dissuade them from this suicidal policy were unavailing. What he wanted was a union of all Greeks against the common enemy, who was bent on robbing them of their liberty. He gathered, at length, a strong party about him at Athens. The overtures of peace from Philip, who was prosecuting his conquests in Thrace, were rejected. Athenian forces obliged the king to give up the siege of Byzantium (341 B.C.). The consequent enlarged influence of Demosthenes was used by him to secure an increase of the fund for carrying on the war. But Philip had his paid supporters in all the Greek states. Aeschines at Athens proved an efficient helper. A deputy at the Amphictyonic Council, in 338 B.C., he contrived to bring about another "holy war" against Amphissa in Locris, the end being to give Philip the command. Philip seized Elatea, in the east of Phocis, which commanded the entrance to Boeotia and Attica. Dismay spread through Greece. Demosthenes roused the Athenian assembly, where all were silent through fear, to confront Philip boldly, and himself went to Thebes, which he induced to form an alliance with Athens. But the allies were defeated at the fatal battle of Chaeronea (August, 338 B.C.), where Alexander, Philip's youthful son, decided the fortune of the day by vanquishing the Theban "sacred band." Philip treated the Thebans with great severity. He placed a garrison in the Cadmeia. To Athens he granted favorable terms. Marching into Peloponnesus, he took from Sparta a large part of its territory, and apportioned it to the Messenians, Argives, and Arcadians. At a national assembly at Corinth, from which the Spartans were absent, Philip caused himself to be created leader of the Grecian forces against Persia, with the powers of a dictator. Each of the Greek states was to retain its autonomy; and a congress, to meet at Corinth, was to settle differences among them. Two years after the battle of Chaeronea, at the marriage festival of his daughter with the king of Epirus, Philip was assassinated by means of a conspiracy, in which his queen is thought to have been a partner.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT.--Alexander was twenty years old when his father died. His bodily health and vigor qualified him for combats and toils which few soldiers in his army could endure. His energy, rapidity, and military skill lift him to a level with Hannibal and the foremost commanders of any age. He was not without a generous appreciation of art and literature. The great philosopher, Aristotle, was one of his tutors. For the eminent authors and artists of Greece he cherished a warm admiration. But his temper was passionate and imperious. Homer was his delight, and in Homer he took Agamemnon for his model; but the direst act of cruelty done by Achilles--that of dragging Hector after his chariot--he exceeded when he dragged Batis, a general who had opposed him, at the tail of his chariot through the streets of Gaza. Especially when his passions were inflamed by strong drink,--as at banquets, occasions where Macedonian princes before him had been wont to drink to excess,--he was capable of savage deeds.

ALEXANDER IN GREECE: HIS ARMY.--At a congress in Corinth, Alexander was recognized as the leader and general of Greece. In the spring of 335 B.C., he made a campaign against the barbarous peoples north of Macedonia,--the Thracians, the Getae, and the Illyrians. A false report of his death led to an uprising of the Greeks. Quickly returning, he took vengeance on the Thebans by razing their city to the ground, sparing only the temples and Pindar's house, and by selling its thirty thousand inhabitants into slavery. Athens prayed for pardon, which was granted, even the demand for the surrender of Demosthenes and other leaders being revoked. All resistance in Greece was over. Alexander's hands were free to complete his preparations for the task of conquering the Persian Empire. His army was strong through its valor and discipline rather than its numbers. The Macedonian phalanx was the most effective force which had hitherto been used in war. It was made up of foot soldiers drawn up in ranks, three feet apart, with spears twenty-one feet in length, held fifteen feet from the point. The length of the spears and the projection of so many in front of the first rank, gave to the phalanx a great advantage, although such a body of troops could be turned around with difficulty. Alexander began his battles with other troops, and used the phalanx for the decisive charge. Only native Macedonians served in the phalanx. This was the case, also, with the Guard, a body of infantry, and with two divisions of cavalry, one clad in heavy armor, and one in light. With these troops were Greek and barbarian soldiers, infantry and cavalry, and a division for hurling stones, which was used not only in sieges, but also in battles. There was a band of young Macedonian soldiers called pages, also a body-guard selected from these by promotion; and out of this the king chose his generals. The army consisted of not more than forty thousand men, but it was so organized as to be completely under the control of Alexander; and he was a military genius of the first order.

THE CAMPAIGN OF ALEXANDER: TO THE BATTLE OF ISSUS.--In the spring of 334 B.C., Alexander crossed the Hellespont at Abydos. At Ilium (Troy) he performed various rites in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, his romantic sympathy with whom was the principal tie between him and the Greeks. A Persian army disputed the passage of the Granicus. He was the first to enter the river, and in the battle displayed the utmost personal valor. His decisive victory caused nearly the whole of Asia Minor to submit to him. Halicarnassus, and the few other towns that held out, were taken by storm. At Tarsus he was cured by his physician, Philip, of a dangerous fever, brought on by a bath in the chilly waters of the river Cydnus. Darius III., the king of Persia, with a large army, approaching from the Euphrates, encountered him in a valley near Issus, in Cilicia. There (333 B.C.) was fought the memorable battle which settled the fate of the Persian Empire. The host of Darius was defeated with great slaughter; and his camp, with his treasures and his family, fell into the hands of the victor.

TO THE BATTLE OF ARBELA.--After the victory of Issus, Syria and Phoenicia submitted, except Tyre, which was captured after a siege of seven months. Two thousand of the inhabitants were hung on the walls, and thirty thousand were sold into slavery. Gaza resisted, and there Alexander was severely wounded. After it was taken, he entered Egypt, and founded the city of ALEXANDRIA, in its consequences one of the most memorable acts of his life. He marched through Lybia to the temple of Jupiter Ammon (331 B.C.). Having thus subdued the lands on the west, he passed through Palestine and Syria by way of Damascus, crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris, and met the Persian army in the plains of Gaugamela, near Arbela,--an army more than twenty times as large as his own (October, 331 B.C.). After a hotly contested battle, the Persians were routed, and their empire destroyed.

TO THE INVASION OF INDIA.--Babylon and Susa with all their treasures, and, afterwards, Persepolis and Pasargadae, fell into the conqueror's hands. He set fire to Persepolis, and sold its male inhabitants into slavery. He pursued Darius into Media, Hyrcania, and Parthia, where the flying king was murdered by Bessus, one of his own nobles, that he might not give himself up to Alexander. He then marched east and south through Persia and the modern Afghanistan. He tarried at Prophthasia (Furrah) for two months. Here it was that he charged Philotas, one of his best officers, with a conspiracy against his life, and put him to death; and after this he ordered the murder of Parmenio, his best general, who had been a companion in arms of King Philip. Founding cities in different places as he advanced, he crossed the Oxus, marched through Sogdiana, and crossed the Jaxartes (Sir-Daria). While at Samarcand, in a drunken revel, he slew Clitus, the friend who had saved his life in the battle of the Granicus. In a fit of remorse he went without food or drink for three days. In Bactra, the capital of Bactria, he married Roxana, a princess of the country. By this time his head was turned by his unexampled victories, conquests and power. He began to demand of his followers the cringing adulation that was paid to Oriental monarchs, and when it was denied was ready to inflict summary vengeance.

TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER.--Crossing the eastern Caucasus (the Hindu-Kush), Alexander moved down the right bank of the Indus, subduing the tribes whom he met in his path. On the further side of the Hydaspes, he met the Indian prince Porus, whom he defeated and captured, and converted into an ally. He continued his marches and his line of victories as far as the river Hyphasis. Here the Macedonian troops would go no farther. Alexander turned back (327 B.C.), and with his army and fleet moved down the Hydaspes to the Indus, and down the Indus to the sea. Nearchus, his admiral, sailed along the shore to the west, while Alexander conducted the rest of the army amid infinite hardships through the desert, and finally met him on the coast. In the beginning of the year 325, he reached Susa. Here he plainly manifested his purpose of combining Macedonia and Greece with the East in one great empire. He adopted the Persian costume and ceremonial, and married both the daughter of Darius III. and the sister of Artaxerxes III. He prevailed on eighty of his Macedonian officers and ten thousand Macedonian soldiers to take Persian wives. For himself he exacted the homage paid to a divinity. These measures, looking to the amalgamation of Macedon and Greece with the East on terms of equality, were most offensive to the old comrades and subjects of Alexander. He was obliged to quell a mutiny, which he accomplished with consummate address and courage (July, 324 B.C.). In the marshes about Babylon, a place which he intended to make his capital, he contracted a fever, which was aggravated by daily revels, and which terminated his life (323 B.C.), after a reign of twelve years and eight months.

INFLUENCE OF ALEXANDER.--The Persian Empire, when it was attacked by Alexander, was a gigantic body without much vitality. Yet to overcome it, there was requisite not only the wonderful military talents of the conqueror, but the vigilance and painstaking which equally characterized him. He has been called "an adventurer." To fight and to conquer, and to spread his dominion wherever there were countries to subdue, seems to have been his absorbing purpose. The most substantial result of his exploits, which read more like fable than authentic history, was to spread Hellenism,--to diffuse at least a tincture of Greek civilization, together with some acquaintance with the Greek language, over the lands of the East. This was a most important work in its bearing on the subsequent history of antiquity, and more remotely on the history of all subsequent times.

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II. THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER

DIVISIONS OF THE EMPIRE.--Alexander left no legitimate children. The child of Roxana, Alexander the Younger, was born after his father's death. The empire naturally fell to his principal generals, of whom Perdiccas, having command of the great army of Asia, had the chief power. He was obliged to content his military colleagues, which he did by giving to them provinces. The principal regents, or guardians, were soon reduced to three,--Antipater and Craterus in Europe, and Perdiccas. The government was carried on in the name of Roxana's son, and of Arrhidaeus, the half-brother of Alexander. But Perdiccas soon found that each general was disposed to be in fact a king in his own dominion. He formed the plan of seizing the empire for himself. This combined the satraps against him. Perdiccas was supported by his friend Eumenes, but had against him Antipater and Craterus, the other regents, and the powerful governors, Ptolemy Lagi in Egypt, and Antigonus in Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphilia (322 B.C.). There followed a series of wars lasting for twenty-two years, involving numerous changes of sovereignty, and fresh partitions of territory. The rebellious satraps triumphed over the royalists, whose aim was to keep the empire intact for the family of Alexander. The ambition of Antigonus to make himself the sole ruler, led to a league against him (315 B.C.). In a treaty of peace, Cassander, the son of Antipater, was to retain the government of Macedonia. By him Roxana and the young Alexander were put to death. In a second war against Antigonus, in which, as before, he was supported by his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, they were completely defeated in the battle of Ipsus, in Phrygia (301 B.C.). Antigonus was slain: Demetrius fled to Greece. The result of this protracted contest was, that the Macedonian empire was broken into three principal states,--Macedonia under the Antigonidae, the descendants of Antigonus; Egypt under the Ptolemies; Syria under the Seleucidae. Besides these, there were the smaller kingdoms of Pergamon and of Bithynia. Other states broke off from the Syrian realm of the Seleucidae.

I. THE KINGDOM OF THE PTOLEMIES.

PTOLEMY LAGI (323-285 B.C.).--When Alexander transferred the seat of power in Egypt from Memphis to Alexandria, he accomplished results which he could not at all foresee. The Greek element became predominant in Egyptian affairs. A great stimulus was given to commerce and to foreign intercourse. The Egyptians themselves entered zealously into industrial pursuits. Ptolemy Lagi (Soter), the first of the new sovereigns, was wise enough to guard his own territory, and even to establish his rule in Palestine, Phoenicia, and Coele-Syria, but to avoid extensive schemes of conquest. Cyrenaica, on the west of Egypt, and the intermediate Lybian tribes, he subdued. Ptolemy was an absolute monarch, but he retained prominent features in the old Egyptian administrative system, gave offices to Egyptians, and protected their religion. The most important civil stations and all military offices were reserved for Graeco-Macedonians: Alexandria was a Greek city. From the beginning he fostered learning and science. He set to work to collect a great library in a building connected with his palace. He founded the Museum, which was a college of professors. It attracted a great body of students, and became the university of the eastern world. Under the patronage of Ptolemy, mathematicians, poets, and critics of high repute flourished. Among the structures raised by him were the lighthouse of vast height on the island of Pharos, which was connected with the shore by a mole, or causeway, a mile in length; the Soma, or mausoleum, containing the body of Alexander; the Temple of Serapis, completed by his son; and the Hippodrome.

PTOLEMY PHILADELPHIA.--Ptolemy II., surnamed Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), with less talent for war than his father, did much to encourage commerce, and was especially active in his patronage of learning. In this last province he did a greater work than his father. He greatly enlarged the library. He drew learned men to his court from all directions. In his time the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, in the version called the Septuagint. Under his auspices Manetho composed his History of Egypt.

PTOLEMY EUERGETES.--Ptolemy III. (247-222 B.C.), surnamed Euergetes (the benefactor), was the most enterprising and aggressive of this line of monarchs. Most of his conquests were not permanent, but some of them were. He was a patron of art and of literature. He raised Egypt to the highest pitch of prosperity that she ever enjoyed. The first three Ptolemies whose reigns had covered a century, were followed by a series of incompetent and depraved kings, nine in number.

Ptolemy IV. (Philopator) (222-205 B.C.) was a weak and dissolute prince. In war with Antiochus III. (the Great) of Syria, he saved his kingdom; but his own subjects were rebellious and disaffected. Ptolemy VI. (Philometor) (181-148 B.C.) was a boy at his accession. His guardians engaged in war with Syria, which would have conquered Egypt but for the interposition of the Romans in his behalf (170 B.C.).

II. MACEDON AND GREECE.

When Alexander was in the far East, the Spartan king, Agis III. (330 B.C.), headed a revolt against Antipater; but Agis was vanquished and slain. The death of Alexander kindled the hope of regaining liberty among patriotic Greeks. Athens, under Demosthenes and Hyperides, led the way. A large confederacy was formed. Leosthenes, the Greek commander, defeated Antipater, and shut him up within the walls of Lamia (in Thessaly). But the Greeks were finally beaten at Crannon. Favorable terms were granted to their cities, except Athens and Aetolia. Twenty-one thousand citizens were deported from Athens to Thrace, Italy, and other places. The nine thousand richest citizens, with Phocion at their head, the anti-democratic party, had all power left in their hands. Demosthenes, Hyperides, and other democratic leaders, were proscribed. Demosthenes took refuge in the temple of Neptune, on the little island of Calaurea. Finding himself pursued by Archias, the officer of Antipater, he took poison, which he had kept by him in a quill, and died. Thus closed the life of an intrepid statesman who had served the cause of liberty and of his country through the direst perils and trials with unfaltering constancy. The democracy again acquired power temporarily, and Phocion was condemned to death.

Cassander, excluded from the Macedonian throne by his father, Antipater, supplanted Polysperchon, the regent (316 B.C.). He placed Demetrius of Phaleron in power at Athens over a democracy with restricted prerogatives. He was driven out by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who was helped by Athens to possess himself of Macedonia and of the most of Greece, but was compelled (287 B.C.) to give up his throne, which, however, was gained by his son, Antigonus Gonatas (277 B.C.).

THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE.--In 279 B.C., there occurred an irruption of the Gauls into Greece, "one of those vast waves of migration which from time to time sweep over the world." The Macedonian king, Ptolemy Ceraunus, was defeated by them in a great battle, captured, and put to death. It was two years before these marauders were driven out, and Macedonia acquired a settled government. This episode in history favored the growth of two leagues--the Achaean League and the Aetolian League. In these leagues the several cities gave up to the central council much more power than Greek cities had been in the habit of granting in former unions. The Achaean League was at first made up of ten Achaean cities. About 240 B.C. Aratus of Sicyon, who had brought Sicyon into the league, delivered Corinth from the Macedonians. To free Greek cities from subjection to them, was long a great object of the league. Peloponnesus, except Sparta, with Athens and Aegina, joined it.

THE AETOLIAN LEAGUE: WAR OF THE LEAGUES.--The rough Aetolians north of the Corinthian Gulf, semi-barbarous in their mode of life, formed another league, and got command of Phocis, Locris, and Boeotia. A praiseworthy attempt at reform was made in Sparta by the king, Agis IV. (240 B.C.), who was opposed by the rich, and put to death. Cleomenes, his successor, who had the same spirit as Agis, engaged in conflict with the Achaean League, which then called in Macedonian help (223 B.C.). It had to give up to Macedon the Corinthian citadel. Sparta was overthrown. Soon a war between the two leagues broke out, when the Achaeans again called on the Macedonians for aid. These conflicts were followed by the interference of the Romans.

THE EVIL OF FACTION.--The bane of Greece, from the beginning to the end of its history, was the suicidal spirit of disunion. Her power was splintered at many crises, when, if united, it might have saved the land from foreign tyranny. Her resources were drained, generation after generation, by needless local contests. She owed her downfall to the desolating influence of faction.

III. THE SYRIAN KINGDOM.

Seleucus I. (Nicator) (312-280 B.C.) was the founder of the Syrian kingdom. From Babylon he extended his dominion to the Black Sea, to the Jaxartes, and even to the Ganges, so far as to make the Indian prince, Sandracottus, acknowledge him as suzerain. From Babylon he removed his capital to Antioch on the Orontes, which he founded,--a city destined to be the rival of Alexandria among the cities of the East. The effect of this removal, however, was to loosen his hold upon the Eastern provinces of his empire. Seleucia, on the west bank of the Tigris, he likewise founded, which became a great commercial city, but was outstripped later by the Parthian city opposite, Ctesiphon. The provinces beyond the Euphrates he committed to his son, Antiochus. With him (Antiochus I.) begins the decline of the empire through the influence of Oriental luxury and vice. Under him Syria lost the eastern part of Asia Minor through the invading Gauls, who converted northern Phrygia into Galatia, while north-western Lydia became the kingdom of Pergamon. Antiochus II. (261-246 B.C.) could not hold the provinces in subjection. The Parthian and Bactrian kingdoms began under his reign. Antiochus III. (the Great) (223-1876.0.) checked the Parthians and Bactrians, and expelled the Egyptians from Asia, but prepared for the downfall of the Syrian Empire by provoking the hostility of the Romans.

BACTRIA, PARTHIA, PERGAMON, GALATIA.--Bactria, after it broke off from Syria, was under Greek princes until, having been weakened by the Parthians, it was conquered by the Scythians (134 B.C.). The Parthians issued, as marauders, from the north border of Iran (256 B.C.), under the Arsacidae. They gradually acquired civilization from contact with Greek culture, especially after they established the trading-city of Ctesiphon. About 200 B.C. the rulers of Pontus made the Greek city of Sinope their residence, and attained to a high degree of strength under Mithridates VI. (the Great). Pergamon became a flourishing state under the Greek rule of Attalus I. (241 B.C.). It was famed for its wealth and its trade. Eumenes II. (197-159 B.C.) founded the library at Pergamon. For him parchment was improved, if not invented, the Egyptians having forbidden the exportation of papyrus. Galatia was so named from the swarm of Gallic invaders (about 279 B.C.), who, after incursions in the East, which were continued for forty years, settled there, and by degrees yielded to the influences of Greek culture.

PALESTINE: THE MACCABEES: THE IDUMAEAN PRINCES.--Palestine fared comparatively well in the times when the Ptolemies had control. Not so after it fell under the permanent sway of Syria. The Jews were surrounded and invaded by Gentilism. On three sides, there were Greek cities. The perils to which their religion was exposed by the heathen without, and by a lukewarm party within, made earnest Jews, the bulk of the people, more inflexible in their adherence to their law and customs. The party of the Pharisees grew out of the intensity of the loyal and patriotic feeling which was engendered in the periods following the exile. The synagogues, centers of worship and of instruction scattered over the land, acted as a bulwark against the intrusion of heathen doctrine and heathen practices. The resistance to these dreaded evils came to a head when the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, embittered by his failures in conflict with Egypt, resolved to break down religious barriers among his subjects, and, for this end, to exterminate Jewish worship. In 168 B.C. he set up an altar to Jupiter in the temple at Jerusalem, and even compelled Jewish priests to immolate swine. Then the revolt broke out in which the family of Maccabees were the heroic leaders. Judas Maccabees recovered the temple, but fell in battle (160. B.C.). Under his brother Simon, victory was achieved, and the independence of the nation secured. The chief power remained in the hands of this family, the Asmonaean princes, until their degeneracy paved the way for Roman intervention under Pompeius. His adviser was the Idumeaean, Antipater, a Jewish proselyte, whose son Herod was made king (39 B.C.).

PHILOSOPHY: THE STOICS AND THE EPICUREANS.--In the Greek world the progress of investigation and reflection tended to produce disbelief in the old mythological system. Social confusion and degeneracy tended to undermine all religious faith. Pyrrho (about 330 B.C.) brought forward the skeptical doctrine, that the highest wisdom is to doubt every thing. Euhemrus (315 B.C.) interpreted the whole mythology as an exaggeration, by imagination and invention, of historical events which form its slender nucleus. With the loss of liberty and the downfall of the Greek states, philosophy became, so to speak, more cosmopolitan. It no longer exalted, in the same narrow spirit, the Greek above the barbarian. It looked at mankind more as one community. This was a feature of the first of the two principal sects, the Stoics, of whom Zeno (about 330 B.C.), and Chrysippus (280-207 B.C.) were the founders. They taught that virtue is the only good; that is consists in living according to nature; that reason should be dominant, and tranquillity of spirit be maintained by the complete subjugation of feeling. The emotions are to be kept down by the force of and iron will. This is the Stoic apathy. The world is wisely ordered: whatever is, is right; yet the cause of all things is not personal. Mankind form on great community, "one city." The Epicureans, the second of the prominent sects,--so called from Epicurus, their founder (342-370 B.C.),--made pleasure the chief good, which is to be secured by prudence, or such a regulation of our desires as will yield, on the whole, the largest fruit of happiness. They believed that the gods exist, but denied Providence.

CULTURE.--In the Greek cities which were founded by the Macedonians, the political life and independence which Greece had enjoued did not exist. The "Hellenistic" literature and culture, as it is called, which followed, lacked the spontaneous energy and original spirit of the old time. The civilization was that of people not exclusively Greek in blood. Alexandria was its chief seat. Poetry languished. It was prose--and prose in the form of learned inquiries, criticism, and science--that flourished. The path was the same as that marked out by Aristotle. Theocritus, born in Syracuse, or Cos, under Ptolemy I. (about 320 B.C.), had distinction as a pastoral or bucolic poet. Euclid, under Ptolemy Soter, systemized geometry. Archimedes, who died in 212 B.C., is said to have invented the screw, and was skillful in mechanics. Eratosthenes founded descriptive astronomy and scientific chronology. "The Alexandrian age busied itself with literary or scientific research, and with setting in order what the Greek mind had done in its creative time." After Greece became subject to Rome (146 B.C.) the Graeco Roman period in Greek literature begins. The Greek historian Polybius stands on the border between the Alexandrian age and this next era. He was born about 210 B.C., and died about 128 B.C.

LITERATURE.--Works mentioned on p. 16: Histories of Greece by GROTE (12 vols.) (democratic in his sympathies), E. CURTIUS (5 vols.), THIRLWALL (8 vols.), W. Smith (1 vol.), G. W. Cox. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte; Fyffe, History of Greece (primer); Duncker, History of Greece [separately published]; Abbott (2 vols.); Holm (4 vols.); Bury; Oman.

On special periods: The writings of the ancient authors,--Herodotus (Rawlinson's translation, 4 vols.), Xenophon, THUCYDIDES (Jowett's translation, 2 vols.), Polybius, Plutarch's Lives. Schäfer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit (3 vols.); DROYSEN, Geschichte des Hellenismus (3 vols.); E. A. FREEMAN, History of Federal Government (vol. i.); FINLAY, History of Greece from the Conquest of the Romans (7 vols.); G. W. Cox, History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the End of the Persian War (2 vols.), and Lives of Greek Statesmen (1 vol.); Freeman, History of Sicily (4 vols.).

On special topics: BOECKH, The Public Economy of Athens; Coulanges, The Ancient City, etc.: Gõll, _Kulturbilder aus Hellas und Rom_ (3 vols.); Guhl and Koner, _The Life of the Greeks and Romans_, etc.; Green, _Greece and Greek Antiquities_ (primer); J. P. Mahaffy, _Social Life in Greece_, also Rambles in Greece, Old Greek Education, and History of Greek Literature (2 vols.); Becker, Charicles (a story illustrative of Greek life); F. A. Paley, Greek Wit (2 vols.); Church, Stories from Homer; Black, The Wise Men of Greece; Neares, Greek Anthology [in Ancient Classics for English Readers], _Chief Ancient Philosophies_ [Stoicism, etc.] (1 vol., 1880); Müller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (3 vols.); Mure, _A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece_ (5 vols.); Jebb, Attic Orators (2 vols.); Symonds, The Greek Poets (2 vols.); G. F. Schömann, The Antiquities of Greece; Gladstone, _Studies on the Homeric Age_ and Homer; Lübke, _Outlines of the History of Art_; FERGUSSON, History of Architecture; D'Anvers, Elementary History of Art; Botsford, _Development of the Athenian Constitution_; W. W. Fowler, _The City-State of the Greeks and Romans_; Gilbert, _Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens_; Greenidge, _Handbook of Greek Constitutional History_; H. N. Fowler, _History of Greek Literature_; Marshall, Short History of Greek Philosophy; Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture; Tarbell, History of Greek Art_; Tozer, Primer of Classical Geography; Kiepert, Atlas Antiquus; Cunningham, Western Civilization (vol. 1); Smith (Wayte & Marindin), _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_ (2 vols., 1890); Seyffert (Nettleship and Sandys), Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.

MACEDONIAN ROYAL HOUSES

A.--House of Alexander the Great.

(1) AMYNTAS II. | +--(4) PHILIP, m. | 1, Olympias; | | | +--ALEXANDER THE GREAT, m. | 1, Roxana; | | | +--(7) ALEXANDER. | | 2, Concubines. | | | +--Hercules. | | 2, Cleopatra; | | 3, Concubines. | | | +--(6) PHILIP ARRHIDAEUS, m. Eurydicé. | | | +--Thessalonica, m. Cassander. | | | +--Cynané m. Amyntas. | +--(2) ALEXANDER II. | +--(3) PERDICCAS III. | +--Amyntas, m. Cynané | +--Eurydicé, m. Philip Arrhidaeus.

B.--House of Antipater.

ANTIPATER. | +--(8) CASSANDER, m. Thessalonica. | | | +--(9) PHILIP II. | | | +--(10) ANTIPATER II. | | | +--(11) ALEXANDER. | | +--Philip. | +--Eurydicé, m. Ptolemy Lagi, | +--Phila, m. | 1, Craterus; | 2, Demetrius Poliorcetes. | +--Nicaea, m. Perdiccas.

C.--House of Antigonus.

Antigonus I. | | +--(12) DEMETRIUS I (Poliorcetes), m. | Phila, daughter of Antipater. | | | +--(13) Antigonus II (Gonatas), m. | | Phila, daughter of Seleucus Nicator. | | | | | +--(14) Demetrius II, m. | | 1, Stratonice; | | | | | +--(16) PHILIP III. | | | | | | | +--(17) PERSEUS, m. | | | | Laodicé, daughter of Seleucus Philopator. | | | | | | | +--Demetrius | | | | | +--Apama. | | | | 2, Phthia. | | | +--Craterus. | | | | | +--Alexander | | | +--Demetrius the Handsome. | | | | | +--Antigonus III (Doson), m. | | | Phthia, widow of Demetrius II | | | | | +--Echecrates, | | | | | +--Antigonus. | | | +--Stratonice, m. | | 1, Seleucus Nicator; | | 2, Antiochus Theus. | | | +--Phila. | +--Philip.

[From Rawlinson's Manual of Ancient History.]

SECTION II. ROMAN HISTORY.

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Introduction

PLACE OF ROME IN HISTORY.--Rome is the bridge which unites, while it separates, the ancient and the modern world. The history of Rome is the narrative of the building up of a single City, whose dominion gradually spread until it comprised all the countries about the Mediterranean, or what were then the civilized nations. "In this great empire was gathered up the sum total that remained of the religions, laws, customs, languages, letters, arts, and sciences of all the nations of antiquity which had successively held sway or predominance." Under the system of Roman government and Roman law they were combined in one ordered community. It was out of the wreck of the ancient Roman Empire that the modern European nations were formed. Their likeness to one another, their bond of fellowship, is due to the heritage of laws, customs, letters, religion, which they have received in common from Rome.

THE INHABITANTS OF ANCIENT ITALY.--Until a late period in Roman history, the Apennines, and not the Alps, were the northern boundary of Italy. The most of the region between the Alpine range and the Apennines, on both sides of the Po, was inhabited by Gauls, akin to the Celts of the same name north of the Alps. On the west of Gallia were the Ligurians, a rough people of unknown extraction. People thought to be of the same race as the Ligurians dwelt in Sardinia and in Corsica, and in a part of Sicily. On the east of Gallia were the Venetians, whose lineage is not ascertained. The Apennines branch off from the Alps in a southeasterly direction until they near the Adriatic, when they turn to the south, and descend to the extreme point of the peninsula, thus forming the backbone of Italy. On the west, in the central portion of the peninsula, is the hilly district called by the ancients, Etruria (now Tuscany), and the plains of Latium and Campania. What is now termed Campania, the district about Rome, is a part of ancient Latium. The Etrurians differed widely, both in appearance and in language, from the Romans. They were not improbably Aryans, but nothing more is known of their descent. In the east, in what is now Calabria, and in Apulia, there was another people, the Iapygians, whose origin is not certain, but who were not so far removed from the Greeks as from the Latins. The southern and south-eastern portions of the peninsula were the seat of the Greek settlements, and the country was early designated Great Greece. Leaving out the Etrurians, Iapygians, and Greeks, Italy, south of Gallia, was inhabited by nations allied to one another, and more remotely akin to the Greeks. These Italian nations were divided into an eastern and a western stock. The western stock, the Latins, whose home was in Latium, were much nearer of kin to the Greeks than were the eastern. The eastern stock comprised the Umbrians and the Oscans. It included the Sabines, Samnites, and Lucanians.

We are certain, that, "from the common cradle of peoples and languages, there issued a stock which embraced in common the ancestors of the Greeks and the Italians; that from this, at a subsequent period, the Italians branched off; and that these divided again into the western and eastern stocks, while, at a still later date, the eastern became subdivided into Umbrians and Oscans." (Mommsen's History of Rome, vol. i., p. 36.)

ITALY AND GREECE.--In two important points, Italy is geographically distinguished from Greece. The sea-coast of Italy is more uniform, not being broken by bays and harbors; and it is not cut up, like Greece, by chains of mountains, into small cantons. The Romans had not the same inducement to become a sea-faring people; there were fewer cities; there was an opportunity for closer and more extended leagues. It is remarkable that the outlets of Greece were towards the east; those of Italy towards the west. The two nations were thus averted from one another: they were, so to speak, back to back.

THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.--The Greeks and Romans, although sprung from a common ancestry, and preserving common features in their language, and to some extent in their religion, were very diverse in their natural traits. The Greeks had more genius: the Romans more stability. In art and letters the Romans had little originality. In these provinces they were copyists of the Greeks: they lacked ideality. They had, also, far less delicacy of perception, flexibility, and native refinement of manners. But they had more sobriety of character and more endurance. They were a disciplined people; and in their capacity for discipline lay the secret of their supremacy in arms and of their ability to give law to the world. If they produced a much less number of great men than the Greeks, there was more widely diffused among Roman citizens a conscious dignity and strength. The Roman was naturally grave: the fault of the Greek was levity. Versatility belonged to the Greek: virility to the Roman. Above all, the sense of right and of justice was stronger among the Romans. They had, in an eminent degree, the political instinct, the capacity for governing, and for building up a political system on a firm basis. This trait was connected with their innate reverence for authority, and their habit of obedience. The noblest product of the Latin mind is the Roman law, which is the foundation of almost all modern codes. With all their discernment of justice and love of order, the Romans, however, were too often hard and cruel. Their history is stained here and there with acts of unexampled atrocity. In private life, too, when the rigor of self-control gave way, they sunk into extremes of vulgar sensuality. If, compared with the Greeks, they stood morally at a greater height, they might fall to a lower depth.

THE ROMAN RELIGION.--The difference between the Greek and Roman mind was manifest in the sphere of religion. Before their separation from one another they had brought from the common hearthstone elements of worship which both retained. Jupiter, like Zeus, was the old Aryan god of the shining sky. But the Greek conception, even of the chief deity, differed from the Roman. When the Romans came into intercourse with the Greeks, they identified the Greek divinities with their own, and more and more appropriated the tales of the Greek mythology, linking them to their own deities. Of the early worship peculiar to the Romans, we know but little. But certain traits always belonged to the Roman religion. Their mood was too prosaic to invent a theogony, to originate stories of the births, loves, and romantic adventures of the gods, such as the Greek fancy devised. The Roman myths were heroic, not religious: they related to the deeds of valiant men. Their deities were, in the first place, much more abstract, less vividly conceived, less endowed with distinct personal characteristics. And, secondly, their service to the gods was more punctilious and methodical. It was regulated, down to the minutiæ, by fixed rules. Worship was according to law, was something due to the gods, and was discharged, like any other debt, exactly, and at the proper time. The Roman took advantage of technicalities in dealing with his gods: he was legal to the core. The word religion had the same root as obligation. It denoted the bondage or service owed by man to the gods in return for their protection and favor; and hence the anxiety, or scrupulous watchfulness against the omission of what is required to avert the displeasure of the powers above.

ORIGIN OF THE ROMANS.--The Romans attributed their origin to the mythical Æneas, who fled, with a band of fugitives, from the flames of Troy, and whose son, Ascanius, or Iulus, settled in Alba Longa, in Latium. What is known of the foundation of Rome is, that it was a settlement of Latin farmers and traders on the group of hills, seven in number, near the border of Latium, on the Tiber. It was the head of navigation for small vessels, and Rome was at first, it would seem, the trading-village for the exchange of the products of the farming-district in which it was placed. Such an outpost would be useful to guard Latium against the Etrurians across the river. Of the three townships, or clans, which united to form Rome,--the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres,--the first and third were Latin. The second, which was Sabine, blended with the Roman element, as the language proves. The clans, or tribes, in Latium together formed a league, the central meeting-place of which was at first Alba Longa. There is some reason to think that the Sabines were from Cures near Rome. Certain it is that Rome, even at the outset, derived its strength from a combination of tribes.

PERIOD I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS AND THE PATRICIANS. (753-304 B.C.)

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I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS (753-509 B.C.)

CHARACTER OF THE LEGENDS.--There is no doubt that the Romans lived for a time under the rule of kings. These were not like the Greek kings, hereditary rulers, nor were they chosen from a single family. But the stories told in later times respecting the kings, their names and doings, are quite unworthy of credit. They rest upon no contemporary evidence or sure tradition. To say nothing of the miraculous elements that enter into the narratives, they are laden with other improbabilities, which prove them to be the fruit of imagination. They contain impossibilities in chronology. They ascribe laws, institutions, and religion, which were of slow growth, to particular individuals, apportioning to each his own part in an artificial way. Many of the stories are borrowed from the Greeks, and were originally told by them about other matters. In short, the Roman legends, including dates, such as are recorded in this chapter, are fabrications to fill up a void in regard to which there was no authentic information, and to account for beliefs and customs the origin of which no one knew. They are of service, however, in helping us to ascertain the character of the Roman constitution, and something about its growth, in the prehistoric age.

THE LEGENDARY TALES.--Romulus and Remus, so the legend runs, were sons of the god Mars by Rhea Silvia, a priestess of Vesta, whose father, Numitor, had been slain by his wicked brother, Amulius, who thereby made himself king of Alba Longa. The twins, by his command, were put into a basket, and thrown into the Tiber. The cradle was caught by the roots of a fig-tree: a she-wolf came out, and suckled them, and Faustulus, a shepherd, brought them up as his own children. Romulus grew up, and slew the usurper, Amulius. The two brothers founded a city on the banks of the Tiber where they had been rescued (753 B.C.). In a quarrel, the elder killed the younger, and called the city after himself, Roma. Romulus, to increase the number of the people, founded an asylum on the Capitoline Hill, which gave welcome to robbers and fugitives of all kinds. There was a lack of women; but, by a cunning trick, the Romans seized on a large number of Sabine women, who had been decoyed to Rome, with their fathers and brothers, to see the games. The angry Sabines invaded Rome. Tarpeia, the daughter of the Roman captain, left open for them a gate into the Capitoline citadel, and so they won the Capitol. In the war that followed, by the intervention of the Sabine women, the Romans and Sabines agreed to live peaceably together as citizens of one town, under Romulus and the Sabine, Tatius. After the death of Tatius, Romulus reigned alone, and framed laws for the two peoples. During a thunder-storm he was translated to the skies, and worshiped as the god Quirinus (716 B.C.). After a year Numa Pompilius, a Sabine, was elected king (715-673 B.C.). He stood in close intercourse with the gods, was full of wisdom and of the spirit of peace. He framed the religious system, with its various offices and rites. The gates of the temple of Janus, closed only in peace, were shut during his mild reign. He died of old age, without illness or pain. The peaceful king was followed by the warlike king, Tullus Hostilius (673-641 B.C.). War breaks out with Alba. The two armies face each other, and the contest is decided by the single combat of the three Horatii, champions of the Romans, and the three Curiatii, champions of Alba. One Roman, the victor and sole survivor, is led to Rome in triumph. Thus Alba became subject to Rome. Afterwards Alba was destroyed, but the Albans became Roman citizens. The fourth king, Ancus Marcius (641-616 B.C.), loved peace, but could not avoid war. He fought against four Latin towns, brought their inhabitants to Rome, and planted them on the Aventine hill. He fortified the hill Janiculum, on the right bank of the Tiber, and connected it by a wooden bridge with the town. The next king was by birth an Etruscan. Lucumo and his wife, Tanaquil, emigrated to Rome. Lucumo took the name of Lucius Tarquinius, was stout, valiant, and wise, a counselor of Ancus, and chosen after him, instead of one of the sons of Ancus, whose guardian he was. Tarquinius Priscus (616-578 B.C.)--for so he was called--waged successful wars with the Sabines, Latins, and Etruscans. The Etruscans owned him for their king, and sent a crown of gold, a scepter, an ivory chair, an embroidered tunic, a purple toga, and twelve axes in as many bundles of rods. He made a reform of the laws. He built the temple of Jupiter, or the Capitol, laid out the forum for a market-place, made a great sewer to drain the lower valleys of the city, leveled a race-course between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and introduced games like those of the Etruscans. Tarquinius was killed by the sons of Ancus; and Servius Tullius (578-534 B.C.), the son of Ocrisia, a slave-woman, and of a god, was made king through the devices of Tanaquil. He united the seven hills, and built the wall of Rome. He remodeled the constitution by the census and the division of the centuries. Under him Rome joined the Latin league. He was murdered by his flagitious son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 B.C.)--Tarquin the Proud. He ruled as a despot, surrounding himself with a bodyguard, and, upon false accusation, inflicting death on citizens whose property he coveted. By a treacherous scheme, he got possession of the town of Gabii. He waged war against the Volscians, a powerful people on the south of Latium. He adorned Rome with many buildings, and lived in pomp and extravagance, while the people were impoverished and helpless. The inspired Sibyl of Cumae offered him, through a messenger, nine books of prophecies. The price required excited his scorn, whereupon the woman who brought them destroyed three. She came back with the remaining six, which she offered at the same price. On being refused in the same manner, she destroyed another three. This led Tarquin to pay the price when she appeared the third time with the books that were left. They were carefully preserved to the end, that in times of danger the will of the gods might be learned. Another story told of the haughty king was, that, when he had grown old, and was frightened by dreams and omens, he sent his two sons to consult the oracle at Delphi. With them went his sister's son, Junius, who was called Brutus on account of his supposed silliness, which was really feigned to deceive the tyrant. The offering which he brought to the Delphian god was a simple staff. His cousins, who laughed at him, did not know that it was stuffed with gold. The god, in answer to a question, said that he would reign at Rome who should first kiss his mother. Brutus divined the sense of the oracle, pretended to stumble, and kissed the mother earth. The cruel outrage of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, of which Lucretia, the wife of their cousin, was the pure and innocent victim, caused the expulsion of the house of Tarquin, and the abolishing of regal government. Her father and husband, with Brutus and the noble Publius Valerius Poplicola, to whom she related "the deed of shame" wrought by Sextus, swore, at her request, to avenge her wrong. She herself plunged a dagger into her heart, and expired. Brutus roused the people, and drove out the Tarquins. Two consuls were appointed in the room of the king, who should rule for one year. Brutus was one. When it was ascertained that his own sons had taken part in a conspiracy of the higher class to restore Tarquinius, the stern Roman gave orders to the lictors to scourge them, and to cut off their heads with the ax. Now the senate and people decreed that the whole race of Tarquinius should be banished for ever. Tarquinius went among the Etruscans, and secured the aid of the people of Tarquinii, and of Veii. In a battle, Aruns, the son of Tarquinius, and Brutus, both mounted, ran upon one another, and were slain. Each army marched to its home. Tarquinius then obtained the help of Porsena, king of the Etruscans, with a strong army. They took Janiculum; but Horatius Cocles, with two companions, posted himself at the entrance of the bridge, and kept the place, Horatius remaining until the bridge had been torn away behind him. He then, with his armor on, leaped into the river, and swam back to the shore. The town was hard pressed by the enemy and by famine. Mucius Scaevola went into Porsena's camp, resolved to kill him. But he slew another whom he mistook for the king. When threatened with death, he thrust his right hand into the fire, to show that he had no fear. Porsena, admiring his courage, gave him his freedom; and, on being informed that three hundred young Romans were sworn to undertake the same deed which Mucius had come to perform, Porsena made peace without requiring the restoration of Tarquinius. Tarquinius, not despairing, persuaded the Tusculans and other Latins to begin war against Rome. The Romans appointed a dictator to meet the exigency, Marcus Valerius. In a battle near Lake Regillus, when the Romans began to give way, the dictator invoked Castor and Pollux, vowing to dedicate a temple to them in case he was victorious. Two young men on white chargers appeared at the head of the Roman troops, and led them to victory. Tarquinius now gave up his effort, and went to Cumae to the tyrant Aristodemus, where he lived until his death.

TRUTH IN THE LEGENDS.--There are certain facts which are embedded in the legends. Alba was at one time the head of the Latin confederacy. The Sabines invaded Latium, settled on some of the hills of Rome, allied themselves with the Romans, and the two peoples were resolved into one federal state. This last change was a very important step. The tradition of a doubling of the senate and of two kings, Romulus and Taiius, although not in literal form historical, is believed to be a reminiscence of this union. It is thought that the earliest royalty was priestly in its character, and that this was superseded by a military kingship. It is probable that the Etruscans who had made much progress in civilization, in the arts and in manufactures, gained the upper hand in Latium. The insignia of the Roman kings were Etruscan. The Etruscan kings were driven out. There were advances in civilization under them, the division of the people into classes took place, and at that period structures like the "Servian" wall were built.

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS.--The Romans from the beginning were divided into the upper class, the Patricians, and the common people, or Plebeians, who were free, but, like the perioeci and metoeci in Greece, had no political rights. The plebeians, as they included the conquered class, were not all poor. A part of them, who were under the special protection of citizens, their Patrons, were called Clients. The patricians were the descendants of the first settlers and proprietors. Under the old constitution, ascribed in the legends to Romulus, the patricians alone formed the military force, and were styled the Populus. They were divided into curiae (districts or wards), at first ten in number, and, after the union of the Romans with the Tities and Luceres, thirty. Each curia was divided into ten families, or gentes. The assembly of the citizens was called the Comitia Curiata. The Comitia chose the King. The Senate was a council of elders representing in some way the gentes.

The clan, or gens, was always of great consequence among the Romans. Its name was a part of the proper name of every citizen. The particular or individual names in vogue were not numerous. The name of the gens was placed between the personal name, or the praenomen, and the designation of the special family (included in the gens). Thus in the case of Caius Julius Caesar, "Julius" was the designation of the gens, "Caesar," of the family, while "Caius" was the personal name.

THE EARLY CONSTITUTION.--The "Servian constitution" made all land-owners, whether patrician or plebeian, subject to taxation, and obliged to do military service. The cavalry--the Equites, or knights,--was made up, by adding to the six patrician companies already existing, double the number from both classes. The infantry were organized without reference to rank, but were graded according to their property. The whole people were divided thus into five classes, and, when assembled, formed the Comitia Centuriata,--as being made up of the companies called "centuries," or "hundreds." At first this body was only consulted by the king in regard to offensive wars. Gradually it drew away more and more power from the Comitia Curiata, which consisted solely of patricians. Those who had no land were now distinguished from the land-owning plebeians. For the purposes of conscription, the city was divided into four Tribes, or wards. Every four years a census was to be taken.

MAGISTRATES.--When the kingship was abolished, and under the system that followed, the two Consuls were to be patricians. They exercised regal power during their term of office. They appointed the senators and the two Quaestors, who came to have charge of the treasury, under consular supervision. The consuls were attended by twelve Lictors, who carried the fasces--bundles of rods fastened around an ax,--which symbolized the power of the magistrate to flog or to behead offenders. The Comitia Centuriata acquired the right to elect the consuls, to hear appeals in capital cases from their verdicts, and to accept or reject bills laid before it. This was a great gain for the plebeians. Yet the patricians were strong enough in this assembly to control its action. On occasions of extraordinary peril, a Dictator might be selected by one of the consuls, who was to have absolute authority for the time. The Senate commonly had an important part, however, in the selection of this officer. There was a Master of Horse to command the knights under him. He was appointed by the dictator.

RELIGION.--Worship in families was conducted by the head of the household, the paterfamilias, who offered the regular sacrifices. But, as regards the whole people, worship was under the direction of the pontiffs, with the chief pontiff, the Pontifex Maximus, at their head, and in the hands of the priests. These were all officers of the state, elected to their places, and entirely subordinate to the civil magistrates. The pontiffs were not so much priests as they were guardians and interpreters of divine law. They were masters of sacred lore. They looked out that the numberless and complex rules in respect to religious observances should be strictly complied with. At the same time they had enough knowledge of astronomy to enable them to fix the days suitable for the transaction of business, public or private. They had the control of the calendar. The Augurs consulted the will of the gods as disclosed in omens. The augur, his eyes raised to the sky, with his staff marked off the heavens into four quarters, and then watched for the passage of birds, from which he took the auspices. In early times, there was an implicit faith in these supposed indications of the will of the divinities; but this credulity passed away, and the auguries became a political instrument for helping forward the schemes of some person or party. Besides the college of pontiffs and the college of augurs, there was the college of Fetiales, who were the guardians of the public faith in relation to other peoples, and performed the rites attending the declaration of war or the conclusion of peace. The Soothsayers (haruspices) were of Etruscan origin. They ascertained the will of the gods by inspecting the entrails of the slaughtered victims. The Flamens were the priests having charge of the worship of particular divinities. The Vestals were virgin priestesses of Vesta, who ministered in her temple, and kept the sacred fire from being extinguished.

The chief gods worshiped by the Romans were Jupiter, god of the sky; his wife, Juno, the goddess of maternity; Minerva, the goddess of wisdom; Apollo, the god of augury and the arts; Diana, the goddess of the chase and archery; Mars, the god of war; Bellona, the goddess of war; Vesta, patron of the Roman state and of the national hearthstone; Ceres, the goddess of agriculture; Saturnus, the patron of husbandry; Hercules, the Greek god, early naturalized in Italy as the god of gain and of mercantile contracts; Mercury, the god of trade; Neptune god of the sea. Venus was an old Roman goddess, who presided over gardens, but gradually was identified with the Grecian Aphrodite. Lares and Penates were household divinities, guardians of the family.

The Romans assigned a spirit to almost every thing. Each individual had his own protecting genius. Janus was the god of beginnings, Terminus was the god of the boundary, Silvanus of the forest, Vertumnus of the circling year. The farmer, in each part of his labor,--in harrowing, plowing, sowing, etc.,--invoked a spirit. So marriage, birth, and every natural event had each a sacred life of its own. Not less than forty-three distinct divinities are spoken of by name as having to do with the actions of a child. Thus the number of divinities was countless. Gods were great or small, according to the department of nature or of life where they severally were present and active.

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II. ROME UNDER THE PATRICIANS (509-304 B.C.)

RIVALRY OF CLASSES.--The abolishing of royalty left Rome as "a house divided against itself." The power granted to the Comitia Centuriata did not suffice to produce contentment. The patricians still decided every thing, and used their strength in an oppressive way. Besides the standing contest between the patricians and plebeians, there was great suffering on the side of the poorer class of plebeians. Many were obliged to incur debts; and their creditors enforced the rigorous law against them, loading them with chains, and driving their families from their homes. A great and constant grievance was the taking by the patricians of the public lands which had been obtained by conquest, for a moderate rent, which might not be paid at all. If they granted a share in this privilege to some rich plebeian houses, this afforded no help to the mass of the people, who were more and more deprived of the opportunity to till the smaller holdings in consequence of the employment of slaves. Yet the plebeians had to bear the burden of military service. At length they rose in a body, probably in returning from some victory, and encamped on a hill, the Sacred Mount, three miles from Rome, where they threatened to stay, and found another town. This bold movement led to an agreement. It was stipulated that they should elect magistrates from their own class, to be called Tribunes of the People, who should have the right to interpose an absolute veto upon any legal or administrative measure. This right each consul already had in relation to his colleague. To secure the commons in this new right, the tribunes were declared to be inviolable. Whoever used violence against them was to be an outlaw. The power of the tribunes at first was merely protective. But their power grew until it became controlling. One point where their authority was apt to be exerted was in the conscription, or military enrollment. This, if it were undertaken in an unfair way, they could stop altogether, and thus compel a change.

THE PLEBEIAN ASSEMBLY.--Not far from this time, there was instituted a new assembly, the Comitia of Tribes, or Comitia Tributa. There was a new division of the people into tribes or wards,--first twenty, then twenty-one, and, later, thirty-five. In this comitia, the plebeians were at the outset, if not always, the exclusive voters. The patricians had their assembly, the Comitia Curiata. The Comitia of the Tribes, which was then controlled by the plebeians, chose the tribunes. By degrees, both the other assemblies lost their importance. The plebeian body more and more extended its prerogatives. Besides the tribunes, the Aediles, two in number, who were assistants of the tribunes, and superintended the business of the markets, were chosen by the Comitia Tributa.

THE LAW OF CASSIUS.--The anxiety of the plebeians to be rid of the restrictions upon the holding and enjoyment of land, led to the proposal of a law for their relief by the consul Spurius Cassius (486 B.C.). Of the terms of the law, we have no precise knowledge. We only know, that, when he retired from office, he was condemned and put to death by the ruling class.

WAR WITH THE AEQUIANS AND THE VOLSCIANS.--About this time Rome concluded a league with the Latins, and soon after with another people, the Hernicans, who lived farther eastward, between the, Aequians and Volscians. It was a defensive alliance, in which Rome had the leading place. Then follow the wars with the Aequians and Volscians, where the traditional accounts are mingled with many fictitious occurrences. There are two stories of special note,--the story of Coriolanus, and the story of Cincinnatus. It is related that a brave patrician, Caius Marcius Coriolanus, at a time when grain was scarce, and was procured with difficulty from Etruria and Sicily for the relief of the famishing, proposed that it should be withheld from the plebeians unless they would give up the tribunate. The anger of this class, and the contempt which he showed for it, caused him to be banished. Thereupon he went to the Volscians, and led an army against Rome,--an army too strong to be resisted. One deputation after another went out of the city to placate him, but in vain. At length Veturia, his mother, and Volumnia, his wife, at the head of a company of matrons, went to his camp, and entreated him. Their prayer he could not deny, but exclaimed, "O my mother! Rome thou hast saved, but thou hast lost thy son." He died among the Volscians (491 B.C.). The tale, certainly in most of its parts, is fictitious. For example, he is said to have been called Coriolanus, from having previously conquered Corioli; but such designations were not given among the Romans until centuries later. The story of Cincinnatus in essential particulars is probably true. At a time when the Romans were hard pressed by the Æquians, the messengers of the Senate waited on Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, formerly a senator and a consul of renown in peace and war, and asked him to become dictator. They found him plowing in his field. He accepted the post, by his prudence and vigor delivered the state, and on the sixteenth day laid down his office, and went back to his farm. The time required by the hero for his task was doubtless much longer than the legend allows.

There is an authentic tradition of a war with the Etruscans, who had retained certain towns on the Roman side of the Tiber. The Romans established a fort on the Cremera, not far from Veii, which was one of them. In the course of this struggle, it is said that all the Fabii,--a distinguished Roman family,--except one boy, were perfidiously slain. This is an exaggerated tale. A truce was concluded with Veii-in 474 B.C. for forty years, which left Rome free to fight her enemies on the east and south.

THE DECEMVIRS.--The internal conflict of the patricians against the commons in Rome went on. In 471 B.C. the Publilian Law was passed to establish fully the right of the plebeians alone to elect their tribunes, or to exclude the upper class from their comitia. The claims of the plebeians, who formed the greater part of the fighting men, rose. They demanded first, however, that they should have the same private rights as the patricians, and that the laws should be made more efficient for their protection by being reduced to a code. This was the object of the Terentilian Law, proposed in 462. The result was a great dispute. Some concessions failed to satisfy the plebeians. Finally it was agreed that ten men, Decemvirs, should be chosen indiscriminately from both classes to frame a code, they, meantime, to supersede the consuls and tribunes in the exercise of the government (451 B.C.). They were to equalize the laws, and to write them down. The story of the mission to Athens for the study of the laws of Solon, is not worthy of credit. There is no doubt, however, that many obstacles were put in the way of the project by the conservative patricians, and that one of their order, Appius Claudius, took a prominent part, probably on the side of the people.

VIRGINIUS.--Here comes in the story of Virginia. It is related that Appius Claudius was an ambitious and bad man, who, being one of the decemvirs, wished to hold on to power. He conceived a base passion for the daughter of Virginius, a brave plebeian centurion, and claimed her on the pretense that she was the daughter of one of his slaves. Standing at his judgment-seat, Virginius, seeing that he could do nothing to save his child from the clutch of the villainous judge, plunged his dagger in her heart. This was the signal for another revolt of the people, which extorted the consent of the upper class to the sacred laws and the restoration of the tribuneship. It is a plausible theory that Appius Claudius favored the plebeian claims, and that the tale told above is a later invention to his discredit.

POLITICAL EQUALITY.--The laws of the twelve tables lay at the basis of all subsequent legislation in Rome, and were always held in reverence. The plebeians soon gained further advantages. In 449 B.C., it was ordained, under the consuls Horatius and Valerius, that the plebeian assembly of tribes should be a sovereign assembly, whose enactments should be binding on the whole Roman people. In 445 B.C., the law of Canuleius legalized marriage between the plebeians and patricians. This was an important step towards the closer union of the two classes. The executive power was still in the hands of the patricians. But in 444 a new office, that of military tribunes with consular power, to be chosen from the plebeians, was established. By way of offset to this great concession, a new patrician office, that of Censor, was created. The function of the two censors, who were to be chosen by the Comitia Centuriata, was to take the census at short intervals, to make out the tax-lists, to appoint senators and knights, to manage the collection of taxes, to superintend public buildings, and, finally, to exercise an indefinite supervision over public manners and morals. These were very great powers. We find that considerable time elapsed before the plebeians actually realized the advantage which they had legally won in this compromise. About the year 400, they succeeded in electing several military tribunes. As early as 410 B.C. three out of the four treasurers, or paymasters (quæstors), were plebeians. About forty years after (367 B.C.), they obtained, by the Licinian Laws, the political equality for which they had so long contended.

WAR WITH THE ETRUSCANS.--But before this result should be reached, other events of much consequence were to occur. The Etruscans, who were not only proficients in the arts, but were also active in trade and commerce, had been defeated at sea by the Greeks, in 474 B.C. But on the north they had a more formidable foe in the Gauls, by whom their power was weakened. The Romans took advantage of the situation to lay siege to Veii, which, after ten years, was captured by their general, Marcus Furius Camillus. The capture of other towns followed.

It was told of Camillus that Falerii surrendered to him of its own accord, for his magnanimity in sending back a treacherous schoolmaster who had taken out to his camp the sons of the chief citizens. Camillas tied his hands behind him, and ordered the boys to flog him back into the city. Camillus was sent into exile, it was related, on a charge of injustice in dividing the booty obtained at Veii.

INVASION OF THE GAULS.--But the Romans joined with the Etruscans in the attempt to drive back a dreaded enemy of both, the Gauls. In the battle of the Allia, a brook eleven miles north of Rome, on the 18th of July, 390 B.C., the Roman army was routed by them, and Rome left without the means of defense. All the people fled, except a few brave men, who shut themselves up in the Capitol, and, according to the tradition, some aged patricians, who, in their robes of state, waited for the enemy. The Gauls, under Brennus, rushed in, and plundered and burned the city. In later times the story was told, that, when the Gauls were climbing up to the Capitol secretly by night, the cackling of the geese awoke Marcus Manlius, and so the enemy was repulsed. There was another story, that, when the Romans were paying the ransom required by Brennus, and complained of false weight, the insolent Gaul threw his sword into the scale, exclaiming, "Woe to the conquered!" and that just then Camillus appeared, and drove the Gauls out of the city. This is certain, that the Gauls retired of their own free will from their occupation of the city. The destruction of the temples involved the loss of early chronicles, which would have given us better information as to the times preceding. The city was rebuilt without much delay.

THE LICINIAN LAWS.--The agitation for political reform soon commenced again. The Licinian Laws, which make an epoch in the controversy of parties, were proposed in 376, but were not passed until 367. Besides provisions for the relief of debtors and for limiting the number of acres of public lands to be held by an individual, it was enacted that the military tribuneship should be given up, and that at least one of the two consuls must be chosen from the plebeians. A new patrician office, the praetorship, was founded, the holders of which were to govern in the absence of the consuls. The patricians did not at once cease from the effort to keep the reins in their hands. Several times they broke the law, and put in two patrician consuls. They yielded at last, however; and, as early as the year 300, all Roman offices were open to all Roman citizens. The patrician order became a social, not a legal, distinction. A new sort of nobility, made up of both patricians and plebeians, whose families had longest held public offices, gradually arose. These were the optimates. The Senate became the principal executive body. It was recruited by the censors, principally from those who had held high stations and were upwards of thirty years old. One censor was required to be a plebeian. The condition of the people was improved by other enactments, one of which (in 326 or 313) secured to the debtor his personal freedom in case he should transfer his property to the creditor. At about this time, there was a change in the constitution of the army. The sort of arms assigned was no longer to depend on property qualifications. There were to be three lines in battle,--the first two to carry a short spear (pilum), and the third the long lance (hasta).

INFULENCE OF PARTY CONFLICTS.--The long contest of parties in Rome was an invaluable political education. It was attended with little bloodshed. It involved discussion on questions of justice and right, and on the best civil constitution. It was not unlike party conflicts in English history. It trained the Romans in a habit of judicious compromise, of perseverance in asserting just claims, and of yielding to just demands.

PERIOD II. TO THE UNION OF ITALY. (304-264 B.C.)

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