LXV. THE KINGDOM OF THE SELEUCIDÆ…

LXV. THE KINGDOM OF THE SELEUCIDÆ

[Sidenote: [323-312 B.C.]]

In the final tripartite division of Alexander’s empire, the largest part, geographically speaking, fell to Seleucus, known as Nicator, or the Conqueror, who gave his name to the kingdom which was destined for many generations to play a more or less important part in Asiatic history. Seleucus had his capital first at Babylon and re-established the power of Grecian or Macedonian arms over a large part of the Asiatic territory of Alexander’s empire. Subsequently the seat of the kingdom was shifted to the newly founded city of Antioch on the coast of Asia Minor, which became one of the most important capitals in the world, at times almost rivalling Alexandria. The territory and power of the Seleucidæ were early curtailed owing to the advance of outlying nations, notably the Parthians, and gradually disintegrated rather by slow stages than by the sudden shock of a single conquest. Chiefly because of the shifting of progress far to the west, it was not destined to play any really important part in the building of world history. In name, at least, the kingdom continued in independent existence long after Greece proper had been overthrown; but the Parthians and Sassanians in turn had largely shorn it of its glory, and it was these powers, rather than the Seleucidæ proper, that came into rivalry and conflict with the Roman might when that new mistress of the world extended her influence to the eastward. We must think therefore of the kingdom of the Seleucidæ rather as a link in time and place between great powers, than as a thing of really intrinsic importance. A brief summary of its history is, therefore, all that need detain us. Here again for the sake of clearness--if clearness be possible in this chaotic period--some repetition is unavoidable.[a]

The kingdom of Syria was not confined to that country alone, but also comprehended those vast and fertile provinces of upper Asia, which formed the Persian empire; being, in its full extent, bounded by the Mediterranean on one side, and the river Indus on the other. These wide-spreading dominions are commonly called the kingdom of Syria, because Seleucus, the first of the Syro-Macedonian kings, having built the city of Antioch in that province, chose it, as did likewise his successors, for the usual place of his residence. Here his descendants, from him styled Seleucidæ, reigned, according to Eusebius, for the space of 251 years, that is, from the 117th Olympiad, when Seleucus recovered Babylon, to the third year of the 180th, when Antiochus Asiaticus, the last of the race of Seleucus, was driven out by Pompey, and Syria reduced to a Roman province. Before we proceed to the history of the Seleucidæ, we shall exhibit a series of the kings of that race, with the years of their respective reigns.

A TABLE OF THE KINGS OF SYRIA, FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THAT MONARCHY TO ITS BEING REDUCED BY THE ROMANS, WITH THE YEARS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE REIGNS.

YEARS

Seleucus Nicator 32 Antiochus Soter 19 Antiochus Theos 15 Seleucus Callinicus 20 Seleucus Ceraunus 3 Antiochus the Great 36 Seleucus Philopator 11 Antiochus Epiphanes 11 Antiochus Eupator 12 Demetrius Soter 12 Alexander Balas 5 Demetrius Nicator 6 Antiochus Theos 3 Tryphon 4 Antiochus Sidetes 11 Alexander Zebina 13 Antiochus Grypus 19 Antiochus Cyzicenus 21 Seleucus Epiphanes 7 months Antiochus Eusebes 1 Demetrius Eucærus 2 Philip 3 Antiochus Epiphanes 4 Antiochus Dionysus 7 Tigranes 14 Antiochus Asiaticus 4

Seleucus, the founder of the Syro-Macedonian empire, was the son of Antiochus, one of the chief captains of Philip, the father of Alexander. He served under Alexander from his tender years, attended him in his expedition into Asia, and was by him honoured with the chief command of the elephants, a commission of great trust and reputation. After the death of that conqueror, Perdiccas, whom the officers had unanimously appointed regent of the empire, placed Seleucus at the head of the cavalry of the allies; in which command he acquitted himself with such reputation that Antipater, who succeeded Perdiccas in his regency, raised him to the government of Babylon and its territory.

SELEUCUS

In this post he was tempted, by the example of the other captains of Alexander, who aspired to the supreme power in their respective allotments, to betray his trust, and entertain thoughts of setting up for himself; whence, when Eumenes, on his march into Susiana, pressed him to join the governors of the upper provinces against Antigonus, who had openly revolted, he not only refused to lend them any assistance, but even attempted to destroy both Eumenes and his army, by cutting the sluices of the Euphrates, and laying the whole plain where they were encamped under water. Eumenes, however, though thus surprised, reached an eminence with his troops, before the waters rose to any height, and the next day, by diverting their course, found means to escape the danger, without the loss of a single man. Seleucus made a truce with Eumenes, granting him a free passage through his province. But when Antigonus demanded an account of the revenues of his government, the answer he gave him so exasperated Antigonus that he thought it advisable to abandon his province, and put himself under the protection of Ptolemy, governor of Egypt.

[Sidenote: [312-300 B.C.]]

Seleucus meeting with a friendly reception from Ptolemy, in Egypt, represented so effectually to that prince, as also to Lysimachus and Cassander, the formidable power and ambitious views of Antigonus, that he engaged them all three in a league against him. This war put an end both to the life and reign of Antigonus. After the victory which Ptolemy gained over Demetrius at Gaza, Seleucus, having obtained of the conqueror a thousand foot and two hundred horse, took his route towards Babylon, in order to attempt the recovery of that city. This undertaking was looked upon as a desperate enterprise, even by his friends, but was attended with all the success he wished for.

Seleucus being now master of the city and castle, judged it necessary to raise what forces he could, not doubting that Antigonus would soon send an army to drive him from these acquisitions. Accordingly, while he was busy in recruiting his army and disciplining his new-raised troops, news was brought him that Nicanor, governor of Media under Antigonus, was advancing against him, at the head of ten thousand foot, and seven thousand horse. Upon this intelligence Seleucus marched out to meet him with three thousand foot and four hundred horse only, and passing the Tigris, concealed his men, as the enemy drew near, in the fens hard by the river, with a design to attack Nicanor unexpectedly; who not having had any intelligence of Seleucus’ march, encamped in a disadvantageous post, where he was the following night surprised, and his army, after great slaughter, put to the rout. Such of the soldiers as survived the slaughter declared for Seleucus--a circumstance which enabled him to pursue his conquests, and reduce in a short time all Media and Susiana, with many of the adjacent provinces. Having, by this victory, established his interest and power in Babylon, he daily improved them by the clemency of his government, and by his justice, equity, and humanity, to such a degree that, from so low a beginning, he became, in a few years, the greatest and most powerful of all Alexander’s successors.

And now Seleucus, seeing himself in quiet possession of Babylon and its territory, advanced at the head of a considerable army into Media, where he engaged and slew with his own hand Nicanor, or, as others call him, Nicator, whom Antigonus had sent against him. Having reduced all Media, he pursued his march into Persia, Bactria, Hyrcania, etc., subjecting to his new empire these and all the other provinces on this side the Indus, which had been formerly conquered by Alexander. In the meantime Antigonus and Demetrius having assumed the title of king, Seleucus imitated their example, styling himself king of Babylon and Media.

Having therefore no enemy to fear on this side the Indus, he resolved to cross that river, and, by a sudden irruption, make himself master of those vast provinces which were known by the name of India. These Alexander had formerly subdued; but after his death, while his successors were engaged in mutual wars with each other, one Sandrocottus, or, as others call him, Androcottus, an Indian of mean extraction, under the specious pretence of delivering his country from the tyranny of foreigners, had raised a powerful army, and having driven out the Macedonians, seized the Indian provinces for himself. To recover these provinces Seleucus crossed the Indus: but finding that Sandrocottus had made himself absolute master of all India and drawn into the field an army of six hundred thousand men, with a prodigious number of elephants, he did not judge it advisable to provoke so great a power; and therefore entering into a treaty with him, he agreed to renounce all his pretensions to that country, provided Sandrocottus furnished him with five hundred elephants--which proposal the Indian prince willingly agreeing to, a peace was concluded between them.

Seleucus marching into the upper Syria, made himself master of that rich province, and built on the river Orontes the city of Antioch, which soon became, and continued to be for many ages, the metropolis of the East; for the Syrian kings, and afterwards the Roman governors, who presided over the affairs of the eastern provinces, chose it for their place of residence; and afterward in the Christian times, it was the see of the chief patriarch of Asia. Besides Antioch, Seleucus built in the same country several other cities of less importance.

[Sidenote: [283-273 B.C.]]

A few months after the decease of Demetrius, died also Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, so that two only of Alexander’s captains survived,--viz., Lysimachus and Seleucus. As they were each upwards of seventy, it was expected that they should have closed the scene of life in the union which had subsisted so long between them, for they had ever been closely united, and, to the utmost of their power, supported each other; but it happened quite otherwise; a war, which proved fatal to both, soon breaking out between them.

Seleucus was easily persuaded to engage in this war, being already sufficiently inclined to it on other accounts; but before he embarked in so great an undertaking, he not only resigned to his son Antiochus a considerable part of his empire, but also, by an unparalleled example, his favourite queen Stratonice. Seleucus having, without much difficulty, prevailed upon Stratonice to accept of a young prince for her husband instead of an old king, the nuptials were solemnised with the utmost pomp and magnificence; after which Antiochus and Stratonice were crowned king and queen of upper Asia, Seleucus willingly resigning to them all those provinces.

Seleucus advanced into Asia Minor, where he easily reduced all the places belonging to Lysimachus. The city of Sardis was soon obliged to capitulate. Lysimachus met the enemy at Corupedion in Phrygia. The engagement was very bloody, and the victory long doubtful; but at last Lysimachus, who had fought the whole time at the head of his troops with incredible bravery, being run through with a spear by Malacon of Heraclea, and killed on the spot, his soldiers betook themselves to flight, and left Seleucus master of the field and all their baggage. Thus died Lysimachus, after having seen the death of fifteen of his children; and as he was, to use the expression of Memnon, the last stone of his house to be pulled down, Seleucus, without opposition, made himself master of all his dominions.

What gave him most pleasure on this occasion was that he now was the only survivor of all the captains of Alexander; and that, by the event of this battle, he was become, as he styled himself, the Conqueror of Conquerors. This last victory, which he looked upon as the effect of a peculiar providence in his favour, gave him the best title to the name of Nicator, or conqueror, by which historians commonly distinguish him from other kings of the same name, who afterwards reigned in Syria.

His triumph on this occasion did not last long; for, seven months after, as he was marching into Macedon, to take possession of that kingdom, with a design to pass the remainder of his life in his native country, he was treacherously slain by Ptolemy Ceraunus, on whom he had conferred innumerable favours. Such was the end of Seleucus, the greatest general in the opinion of Arrian, and the most powerful prince, after Alexander, in the age he lived in. He died in the forty-third year after the death of Alexander, in the thirty-second of the Grecian or Seleucian era, and seventy-third or, as Justin will have it, seventy-eighth of his age.

ANTIOCHUS SOTER

On the death of Seleucus, Antiochus, surnamed Soter, his son by Apama, the daughter of Artabazus the Persian, took possession of the empire of Asia, and held it for the space of nineteen years.

[Sidenote: [277-261 B.C.]]

Sosthenes, who had reigned some years in Macedon, being dead, Antiochus Soter, and Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius, laid claim to that kingdom, their fathers having held it, one after the other; but Antigonus, who had already reigned ten years in Greece, being nearest, first took possession of those dominions; but neither daring to attack the other, the two kings came to an agreement; and Antigonus having married Phila, the daughter of Stratonice by Seleucus, Antiochus renounced his pretensions to the crown of Macedon. In consequence of this renunciation, Antigonus not only quietly enjoyed the kingdom of Macedon, but transmitted it to his posterity, who reigned there for several generations.

Antiochus now marched against the Gauls, who having, by the favour of Nicomedes, got settlements in Asia, harassed, with frequent incursions, the neighbouring princes. Antiochus defeated them with great slaughter, and delivered those provinces from their oppressions; and hence he acquired the title of Soter, or “saviour.”

Not long after this successful expedition against the Gauls, Antiochus, hearing of the death of Philetærus, prince of Pergamus, seized that opportunity to invade his territories, with a view to add them to his own dominions; but Eumenes, nephew and successor of the deceased prince, having raised a considerable army, encountered him near Sardis, overthrew him in battle, and thereby not only secured himself in the possession of what he had already enjoyed, but enlarged his dominions with several new acquisitions. After his defeat, Antiochus returning to Antioch there put to death one of his own sons for raising disturbances in his absence, and at the same time proclaimed the other, called also Antiochus, king of Syria. He died soon after, leaving his son in the sole possession of his dominions. The young prince was his son by Stratonice.

Antiochus, on his accession to the throne, assumed the surname of Theos,--that is, god; and by this he is distinguished from the other kings of Syria who bore the name of Antiochus.

In the third year of the reign of Antiochus Soter, a bloody war had broken out between him and Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. While Antiochus was thus engaged in a war with the king of Egypt, great commotions and revolts happened in the eastern provinces of his empire, which, as he was not at leisure to suppress them immediately, increased to such a degree that he could never afterwards re-establish quiet; by which means Antiochus lost all the provinces of his empire lying beyond the Euphrates.

[Sidenote: [261-223 B.C.]]

These troubles and commotions in the East made Antiochus Theos weary of his war with Ptolemy; a treaty of peace was therefore concluded on the following terms: that Antiochus should divorce his former wife Laodice, who was his own sister by the father, marry Berenice, the daughter of Ptolemy, and settle the crown upon the male issue of that marriage. Two years after this marriage Ptolemy Philadelphus died--an event which Antiochus Theos, his son-in-law, no sooner understood than he removed Berenice from his bed, and recalled Laodice, with her children Seleucus Callinicus, and Antiochus Hierax; but Laodice being well acquainted with his fickle temper, and fearing lest he might again abandon her and receive Berenice, resolved to improve the present opportunity and secure the succession to her son, for by the late treaty with Ptolemy, her children were disinherited and the crown settled on the son of Berenice. To effect this design, she caused Antiochus to be poisoned; when she saw him expiring, she ordered him to be privately conveyed away, and one Artemon, who greatly resembled him, as well in features as in the tone of his voice, to be placed in his bed. Artemon acted his part with great dexterity, and personating Antiochus, tenderly recommended his dear Laodice and her children to the lords that visited him. In the name of Antiochus, whom the people believed still alive, orders were issued, enjoining all his subjects to obey his beloved son Seleucus Callinicus, and acknowledge him for their lawful sovereign. The crown being by this infamous contrivance secured to Callinicus, the death of the king was publicly declared, and Callinicus without any opposition ascended the throne. Antiochus Hierax, the other son of Laodice, had at this time the government of the provinces of Asia Minor, where he commanded a considerable body of troops.[c]

Hardly had Seleucus to some extent recovered from the severe defeats inflicted upon him by Ptolemy the “benefactor” during the three years’ war of vengeance, when his younger brother Antiochus, surnamed “the hawk” (Hierax) on account of his rapacity, raised the standard of revolt in conjunction with Mithridates of Pontus, and (Seleucus having been routed by Galatian mercenaries in a terrible battle at Ancyra) made himself master of a large part of Asia Minor, but was forced to pay tribute for it to the hordes of Celtic robbers, who overran the provinces after their victory, ravaging and pillaging with impunity. Not until Seleucus had effected a reconciliation with his brother and made a peace by which he resigned to the latter his dominions in Asia Minor, was he able gradually to reunite the lost or rebellious provinces and to restore tranquillity and order in his kingdom. Both brothers were brave and energetic; but the sanguinary quarrels of their house, and the crimes which were handed down from generation to generation to beget fresh acts of revenge, had imbruted their minds. Alike in vigour, restlessness, and violence, they persecuted each other to the death. Antiochus died a fugitive in a Thracian city under the blows of Celtic assassins, and his royal brother fell in the following year in an unsuccessful fight with Attalus I, the conqueror of the Galatians and ruler of the kingdom of Pergamus.

[Sidenote: [223-196 B.C.]]

The son and successor of Seleucus, who bore the same name as his father with the surname of “the thunderbolt” (Ceraunus), entered on the heritage of the kingdom and the war with Attalus, but after a reign of three years met his death in battle at the hands of Nicanor and the Galatian captain Apaturius. The Syrian army then bestowed the crown upon his younger brother, Antiochus III. He, being occupied with the eastern provinces, delegated the conduct of the war in Asia Minor to his maternal uncle Achæus. They both fought with good fortune and success. While the king led an expedition into Media and Persia, defeated the rebellious satraps Molon and Alexander in the field and constrained them to commit suicide, and compelled the Bactrians, Parthians, and Indians to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Syrian king, Achæus drove his adversary Attalus back over the frontiers of his own principality, pressed hard upon him in his own capital, and, by a policy of mingled conciliation and coercion, prevailed upon the Greek cities of the western coast to submit to annexation. But, rendered presumptuous by success, he next attempted to set up an independent kingdom in Asia Minor, and thus again prevented the complete restoration of the Seleucid dominion. Antiochus, involved in a fresh war with Egypt, from which country he was scheming to wrest the intermediate Syrian territory of the Lebanon, was obliged to let his uncle have a free hand for a while. But he had hardly concluded peace with Ptolemy after the disastrous battle of Raphia in the ancient country of the Philistines, and abandoned his claim to the Syrian coast, before he took the field against the traitorous Achæus. The latter, deserted by most of his troops, took refuge in the fortified city of Sardis, where he was closely besieged by Antiochus, and, having been treacherously betrayed into his hands, was put to a painful death.

Antiochus, whom the flattery of contemporary historians styles “the great,” then conceived the design of restoring the empire of the Seleucids to its pristine expansion. For this purpose he undertook an adventurous campaign of several years’ duration in eastern Iran and India, constrained the revolting princes and states to do homage to him, and extorted a recognition (more apparent than real) of Syrian supremacy.

Just as Antiochus returned to Asia Minor the fourth Ptolemy, the voluptuous Philopator, died, and his son Ptolemy Epiphanes, a minor, succeeded to the kingdom. The consequent disorders, factions, and weakness of Egypt inspired the enterprising king of Syria with the hope that he might after all acquire the coast land of the Lebanon. Reinforced by a treaty of partition with Philip of Macedonia, who himself coveted the Egyptian possessions in Asia Minor, Thrace, and the islands, Antiochus invaded Judea with an army, overthrew the Ætolian leader, Scopas, commander of the Egyptian forces, at Paneas near the sources of the Jordan, and subjugated the coast, including the fortified town of Gaza. The inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea gladly welcomed the rule of Syria, which was at first mild and conciliatory, though it soon became even more oppressive than that of Egypt. The guardians of the Egyptian king hastened to prevent an attack upon Egypt itself by concluding a treaty of peace in which they renounced all claim to the conquered territory and betrothed their ward to Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus. Meanwhile Philip had been waging successful war in Asia Minor, the Hellespont, and the islands, though all his conquests were rendered nugatory by the disastrous fight with the Romans at Cynoscephalæ.

[Sidenote: [196-170 B.C.]]

Instead of manfully supporting his ally against the mighty adversary from the west, Antiochus endeavoured to turn the withdrawal of the Macedonian army to his own profit. He laid claim to all the territory west of the Taurus and on both shores of the Hellespont which his ancestor Seleucus had acquired by his victory over Lysimachus; and, not content with mastering the Greek cities on the Asiatic coast and the independent kings of Pergamus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Armenia, he crossed the Hellespont, occupied the city of Lysimachia which had been rebuilt, together with other places on the Thracian peninsula, and threatened Lampsacus, Byzantium, and Heraclea. Apprehensive for their independence, the princes and cities he menaced followed the example set by the rich and powerful commercial city of Rhodes, and placed themselves under the protection of the Romans. The latter, by repeated embassies, required “the great” king to desist from hostilities against their allies, and to liberate all the Greek cities in Asia and Europe. Antiochus haughtily declined Roman intermeddling with his affairs, saying that as he did not trouble himself about the concerns of Italy and the western world, so he forbade the Romans to curtail his prerogatives in Asia and Thrace, stigmatising their demands as contrary to justice and honour. [He also gave the Carthaginian Hannibal his protection and support against Rome.] Further negotiations by embassies and epistles delayed the outbreak of war for some years, but could not divert the fatal blow from the Syrian empire. The battle of Magnesia broke the might of the Seleucid kingdom for evermore; Syria made no second appeal to arms. Antiochus “the great” was slain at Elymais, south of the Caspian Sea, by the inhabitants of the city, while he was engaged in plundering the temple of Baal to fill his empty coffers with its treasures.[b]

SELEUCUS PHILOPATOR

He was succeeded by Seleucus, surnamed Philopator, or, as Josephus[d] styles him, Soter, which indeed was the surname of his son Demetrius. This prince reigned eleven years and some months; but made a very poor figure, by reason of the low state to which the Syrian empire had been reduced by the Romans, and the exorbitant sum of a thousand talents he was obliged to pay annually, by virtue of the treaty of peace between the king his father and that republic. It was under this prince that the famous accident happened concerning Heliodorus, which is mentioned in the second book of Maccabees, and described in the History of Israel. Later Heliodorus poisoned Seleucus and put the crown on his own head.

Antiochus, brother of Seleucus, being arrived at Athens on his return from Rome, received there the news of his brother’s death, and was at the same time told that Heliodorus had seized the crown and was supported by a strong party; but that another was forming in favour of Ptolemy, who claimed the kingdom of Syria, in right of his mother, the deceased king’s sister. Hereupon Antiochus had recourse to Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and to Attalus, the king’s brother, who conducted him into Syria, at the head of a powerful army, drove out the usurper, and seated him on the throne. On his being settled on the throne he assumed the name of Epiphanes, that is, “the illustrious,” which title was never worse applied. His odd and extravagant conduct made his subjects look upon him as a madman; whence, instead of Epiphanes, or “the illustrious,” they used to style him Epimanes, that is, “the madman.”

[Sidenote: [170-125 B.C.]]

Antiochus having, ever since the return of Apollonius from the Egyptian court, been making the necessary preparations for the war with Ptolemy, was met by the forces of Ptolemy, between Mount Casius and Pelusium. Hereupon an engagement ensued, in which the Egyptians were routed at the first onset. Antiochus, having spent the whole winter in making fresh preparations for a second expedition into Egypt, gained a second victory over the forces of Ptolemy, took Pelusium, and led his army into the very heart of the kingdom. In this last overthrow it was in his power to have cut off all the Egyptians to a man; but, instead of pursuing his advantage, he took care to put a stop to the slaughter, riding about the field in person, forbidding his men to put any more to death. This clemency gained him the hearts of the Egyptians so completely, that when he advanced into the country all the inhabitants voluntarily submitted to him; by which means he made himself master of Memphis, and all the rest of Egypt, except Alexandria, which still held out against him. In his second invasion Ptolemy fell into the hands of the conqueror; but whether he was taken prisoner, or surrendered himself voluntarily, is uncertain. It was at this time that Antiochus took Jerusalem, and profaned the temple.

The Alexandrians, seeing Ptolemy Philometor in the hands of Antiochus, whom he suffered to govern his kingdom as he pleased, looked upon him as lost to them, and therefore placed his younger brother on the throne, giving him the name of Euergetes, which was afterwards changed into that of Physcon, or “great-bellied,” his luxury and gluttony having made him remarkably corpulent, and by this name he is most commonly mentioned in history.

Antiochus, being informed of what was transacting in Egypt, took occasion from this to return a third time into that country, upon the specious pretence of restoring the deposed king; but in reality he made himself master of the kingdom. Having therefore defeated the Alexandrians in a sea-fight near Pelusium, he again entered that unhappy country at the head of a powerful army, and advanced directly to Alexandria to besiege it.

In this extremity Ptolemy Euergetes and Cleopatra his sister, who were in the city, sent ambassadors to Rome representing their situation, and imploring the assistance of that powerful republic. The Roman ambassadors obliged Antiochus to quit Egypt. On his return, being highly provoked to see himself thus obliged to quit a kingdom which he looked upon as his own, Antiochus vented his rage upon the city of Jerusalem, which had given him no offence. But the desolations he caused in Judea, and the bloody war which he carried on against the Jews, with the generous resistance made first by Mattathias, and afterwards by his son, the brave Judas Maccabæus, are recorded in the history of that people.[c]

On the death of Antiochus, his favourite Philip was left as regent during the minority of Antiochus Eupator. Philip was however put to death by a rival, Lysias. Meanwhile Demetrius, the son of Seleucus Philopator, who had been at Rome as hostage for many years, escaped and seized the throne, taking the surname of Soter, “saviour.” The Romans acknowledged him, but with so little enthusiasm that when an alleged impostor, Alexander Balas, claiming to be the son of Antiochus, appeared, the Romans favoured him, and he defeated Demetrius, who fell in battle 150 B.C. He left a son, also named Demetrius, who, with the aid of Ptolemy Philometor of Egypt, defeated Alexander Balas, and put him to death. Demetrius, called Nicator, was overthrown by a general named Tryphon acting for Antiochus, the son of Alexander Balas, who was crowned as Antiochus Theos, only to be put to death later by Tryphon, who claimed the crown. Tryphon was dispossessed by the brother of Demetrius Nicator, who took the name of Antiochus Sidetes, a monarch of many good qualities, and reigned nine years, winning praise even from the Jews who had suffered so much from Syrian kings. He was killed in battle with the Parthians, and Demetrius Nicator, who had remained in captivity all these nine years, recovered the throne, but was slain by a new pretender, Alexander Zebina, who was put to death by a son of Demetrius Nicator, called Antiochus Grypus, who is said to have made his mother Cleopatra--a past mistress of intrigue--drink a bowl of poison she had prepared for him.

[Sidenote: [125-65 B.C.]]

After a reign of eight years he was opposed by his half-brother, Antiochus Cyzicenus, who compelled him to share the kingdom. Grypus being assassinated, Syria was again made one under a Seleucus Epiphanes, who defeated Cyzicenus only to be expelled in seven months by Antiochus Eusebes, who in turn, after a year, fell before Grypus’ fourth son, Demetrius Eucærus. He was driven out by his own brother Philip, and Philip by a younger brother, Antiochus Dionysius.

By this time the kaleidoscopic feuds of the Seleucidæ had weakened Syria till it was ripe for a foreigner, and the Armenian king, Tigranes, made prey of it. A last claimant, Antiochus Asiaticus, held out for a time; then called in the Romans, who under Pompey absorbed Syria into the empire, and put an end to the race of Seleucus, which had ruled from about 312 B.C. to 65 B.C.[a]

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LXVI. THE KINGDOM OF THE PTOLEMIES

[Sidenote: [323-321 B.C.]]

When the empire of Alexander was parcelled out among his generals, the most desirable lot perhaps was that which fell to the share of Ptolemy. That astute general chose Egypt for his portion, and despite the efforts of his rivals, he was able, thanks in part to the isolated geographical position, to retain it, and ultimately to become its recognised sovereign and the founder of a dynasty of kings which was to hold unbroken sway there for the long period of three hundred years.

Ptolemy, besides being an excellent general, was evidently a man of rather wide culture and varied attainments. His capacities have been sometimes accounted for by the suggestion that he was probably in fact the half-brother of Alexander the Great, as his mother had been a concubine of Philip; though his royal paternity, if indeed a fact, was never officially recognised. Be that as it may, Ptolemy was a man of great ability as a ruler, and his general culture is evidenced by the fact that he wrote a history of the life and campaigns of Alexander, which work, as we have already seen, was one of the two chief sources from which the history of Arrian was compiled.

The first Ptolemy founded, and his successors enlarged and extended, the famous Alexandrian library, which came to be by far the most important collection of books that had probably been gathered together anywhere in the world up to that time, comprising, it is said, no fewer than half a million manuscripts. In connection with the library was an institution which was virtually a college, where the most distinguished scholars of the day studied and taught. The language and the entire official life thus transplanted into Old Egypt were of course Grecian. All official connection with the mother country was soon utterly broken; the kingdom of the Ptolemies, as a political factor, was a thing quite apart; but in the broader sense the new Egyptian power was essentially Greek. Alexandria, the new Athens, became the centre of Greek life, thought, and influence; it was there, rather than to Athens itself, that the youth flocked from the provinces to drink at that fount of Grecian culture which still maintained its influence in the world for generations after the original Hellas had been shattered in power and shorn of all political significance.

But the time came when the Egyptian empire also was to come in conflict with the Romans. The tragic romance of Cleopatra, the last daughter of the Ptolemies, is known to every one, though curiously enough the patent fact is often overlooked that this “daughter of the Nile” was in no proper sense an Egyptian, but to the last drop of her blood a Macedonian Greek, bearing the name even of one of the wives of the father of Alexander the Great. It was this Egyptian empire of the Ptolemies, then, which served as the direct channel of transit of the old Grecian culture to Rome, somewhat as Persia had been the channel of transit of Egyptian and Babylonian culture to Greece. It was a curious and interesting revival through which Egypt, which for some centuries had ceased to play an important part in the great game of the nations, came to be again the centre of culture of the entire world, even though this time it bore an exotic and not an indigenous culture.

But though this empire of the Ptolemies had thus a vastly greater importance than the other portions of Alexander’s dismembered empire, we shall treat its history somewhat briefly here, since we must necessarily return to some phases of it more in detail in pursuing the history of that Roman power by which the kingdom of the Ptolemies was finally overthrown.[a]

THE KINGDOM OF THE PTOLEMIES: THE THIRTY-THIRD EGYPTIAN DYNASTY[d]

YEARS BEGAN B.C.

Lagus or Soter reigned 38 323 Philadelphus 38 285 Euergetes 25 247 Philopator 17 222 Epiphanes 24 204 Philometor 35 181 Physcon or Euergetes II 29 146 Soter II or Lathyrus 10 117 Alexander I (Soter deposed) 18 107 Soter II restored 7 89 Berenice 6 months 81 Alexander II 6 months 80 Neus Dionysus or Auletes 14 80 Ptolemy the Elder 4 51 Ptolemy the Younger 3 48 Cleopatra 14 44 Egypt a Roman province 30

When Egypt was given to Ptolemy by the council of generals, Cleomenes was at the same time and by the same power made second in command, and he governed Egypt for one year before Ptolemy’s arrival, that being in name the first year of the reign of Philip Arrhidæus, or, according to the chronologer’s mode of dating, the first year after Alexander’s death. The first act of Ptolemy was to put Cleomenes to death.

[Sidenote: [321-316 B.C.]]

Perdiccas, in the death of Cleomenes and the seizure of the body of Alexander, had seen quite enough proof that Ptolemy, though too wise to take the name of king, had in reality grasped the power; and he now led the Macedonian army against Egypt, to enforce obedience and to punish the rebellious lieutenant.

Perdiccas attempted to cross the Nile at the deep fords below Memphis. Part of his army passed the first ford, though the water was up to the men’s breasts. But they could not pass the second ford in the face of Ptolemy’s army. After this check, whole bodies of men, headed by their generals, left their ranks; and among them Pithon, a general who had held the same rank under Alexander as Perdiccas himself, and who would no longer put up with his haughty commands. Upon this the disorder spread through the whole army, and Perdiccas soon fell by the hand of one of his own soldiers.

On the death of their leader, all cause of war ceased. Ptolemy sent corn and cattle into the camp of the invading army, which then asked for orders from him who the day before had been their enemy. The princes, Philip Arrhidæus and the young Alexander, both fell into his hands; and he might then, as guardian in their name, have sent his orders over the whole of Alexander’s conquests. But, by grasping at what was clearly out of his reach, he would have lost more friends and power than he would have gained; and when the Macedonian phalanx, whose voice was law to the rest of the army, asked his advice in the choice of a guardian for the two princes, he recommended to them Pithon and Arrhidæus; Pithon, who had just joined him, and had been the cause of the rout of the Macedonian army, and Arrhidæus, who had given up to him the body of Alexander.

The Macedonian army, accordingly, chose Pithon and Arrhidæus as guardians, and as rulers with unlimited power over the whole of Alexander’s conquests; but though none of the Greek generals who now held Asia Minor, Syria, Babylonia, Thrace, or Egypt, dared to acknowledge it to the soldiers, yet in reality the power of the guardians was limited to the little kingdom of Macedonia. With the death of Perdiccas, and the withdrawal of his army, Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria were left unguarded, and almost without a master; and Ptolemy, who had before been kept back by his wise forethought rather than by the moderation of his views, sent an army under the command of Nicanor, to conquer those countries. Jerusalem was the only place that held out against the Egyptian army; but Nicanor, says the historian Agatharchides, seeing that on every seventh day the garrison withdrew from the walls, chose that day for the assault, and thus gained the city. What used to be Egypt was an inland kingdom, bounded by the desert; but Egypt under Ptolemy was a country on the seacoast; and on the conquest of Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria he was master of the forests of Libanus and Antilibanus, and stretched his coast from Cyrene to Antioch, a distance of twelve hundred miles.

The wise and mild plans which were laid down by Alexander for the government of Egypt, when a province, were easily followed by Ptolemy when it became his own kingdom. The Greek soldiers lived in their garrisons or in Alexandria under the Macedonian laws; while the Egyptian laws were administered by their own priests, who were upheld in all the rights of their order and in their freedom from land tax.

While Egypt under Ptolemy was thus enjoying the advantages of its insulated position, and was thereby at leisure to cultivate the arts of peace, the other provinces were being harassed by the unceasing wars of Alexander’s generals, who were aiming like Ptolemy at raising their own power.

[Sidenote: [316-311 B.C.]]

Antigonus, in his ambitious efforts to stretch his power over the whole of the provinces, had by force or treachery driven Seleucus out of Babylon, and forced him to seek Egypt for safety, where Ptolemy received him with the kindness and good policy which had before gained so many friends. No arguments of Seleucus were wanting to persuade Ptolemy that Antigonus was aiming at universal conquest, and that his next attack would be upon Egypt. He therefore sent ambassadors to make treaties of alliance with Cassander and Lysimachus, who readily joined him against the common enemy.

Ptolemy crossed over to Cyprus to punish the kings of the little states on that island for having joined Antigonus; for now that the fate of empires was to be settled by naval battles the friendship of Cyprus became very important to the neighbouring states. He landed there with so large a force that he met with no resistance. He added Cyprus to the rest of his dominions. He banished the kings, and made Nicocreon governor of the whole island. From Cyprus, Ptolemy landed with his army in upper Syria, and then marching hastily into Asia Minor he took Mallus, a city of Cilicia. Having rewarded his soldiers with the booty there seized, he again embarked and returned to Alexandria. This inroad drew off the enemy from Cœle-Syria.

Ptolemy, on reaching Alexandria, set his army in motion towards Pelusium, on its way to Palestine. He was met at Gaza by the young Demetrius with an army of eleven thousand foot and twenty-three hundred horse, followed by forty-three elephants and a body of light-armed barbarians, who, like the Egyptians in the army of Ptolemy, were not counted. But the youthful courage of Demetrius was no match for the cool skill and larger army of Ptolemy; the elephants were easily stopped by iron hurdles, and the Egyptian army, after gaining a complete victory, entered Gaza, while Demetrius fled to Azotus. Ptolemy, in his victory, showed a generosity unknown in ancient warfare; he not only gave leave to the conquered army to bury their dead, but sent back the whole of the royal baggage which had fallen into his hands, and also those personal friends of Demetrius who were found among the prisoners. By this victory the whole of Phœnicia was again joined to Egypt, and Seleucus regained Babylonia.

When Antigonus, who was in Phrygia on the other side of his kingdom, heard that his son Demetrius had been beaten at Gaza, he marched with all his forces to give battle to Ptolemy. Ptolemy did not choose to risk his kingdom against the far larger forces of Antigonus. Therefore, with the advice of his council of generals, he levelled the fortifications of Acca, Joppa, Samaria, and Gaza, and withdrew his forces and treasure into Egypt, leaving the desert between himself and the army of Antigonus. Antigonus then led his army northward, leaving Egypt unattacked.

[Sidenote: [311-306 B.C.]]

This retreat was followed by a treaty of peace between these generals, by which it was agreed that each should keep the country that he then held; that Cassander should govern Macedonia until Alexander Ægus, the son of Alexander the Great, should be of age; that Lysimachus should keep Thrace, Ptolemy Egypt, and Antigonus Asia Minor and Palestine; and each wishing to be looked upon as the friend of the soldiers by whom his power was upheld and the whole of these wide conquests kept in awe, added the very unnecessary article that the Greeks living in each of these countries should be governed according to their own laws.

All the provinces held by these generals became more or less Greek kingdoms, yet in no one did so many Greeks settle as in Lower Egypt. Though the rest of Egypt was governed by Egyptian laws and judges, the city of Alexandria was under Macedonian law. It did not form part of the nome of Hermopolites in which it was built. It scarcely formed a part of Egypt, but was a Greek state in its neighbourhood, holding the Egyptians in a state of slavery. In that city no Egyptian could live without feeling himself of a conquered race. He was not admitted to the privileges of Macedonian citizenship; while they were at once granted to every Greek, and soon to every Jew, who would settle there.

By the treaty just spoken of, Ptolemy, in the thirteenth year after the death of Alexander, was left undisputed master of Egypt. During these years he had not only gained the love of the Egyptians and Alexandrians by his wise and just government, but had won their respect as a general by the skill with which he had kept the war at a distance. He had lost and won battles in Syria, in Asia Minor, in the island of Cyprus, and at sea; but since Perdiccas marched against him, before he had a force to defend himself with, no foreign army had drunk the sacred waters of the Nile.

The next year Ptolemy, finding that his troops could hardly keep their possessions in Cilicia, carried over an army in person to attack the forces of Antigonus in Lycia. He gained the whole southern coast of Asia Minor.

[Sidenote: [306-280 B.C.]]

While Ptolemy was busy in helping the Greek cities of Asia to gain their liberty, Menelaus, his brother and admiral, was almost driven out of Cyprus by Demetrius. On this Ptolemy got together his fleet, to the number of 140 long galleys and two hundred transports, manned with not less than ten thousand men, and sailed with them to the help of his brother. This fleet under the command of Menelaus was met by Demetrius with the fleet of Antigonus, consisting of 112 long galleys and a number of transports; and the Egyptian fleet, which had hitherto been master of the sea, was beaten near the city of Salamis in Cyprus by the smaller fleet of Demetrius. This was the heaviest loss that had ever befallen Ptolemy. Eighty long galleys were sunk, and forty long galleys with one hundred transports and eight thousand men were taken prisoners. He could no longer hope to keep Cyprus, and he sailed hastily back to Egypt, leaving to Demetrius the garrisons of the island as his prisoners, all of whom were enrolled in the army of Antigonus, to the number of sixteen thousand foot and six hundred horse.

This naval victory gave Demetrius the means of unburdening his proud mind of a debt of gratitude to his enemy; and accordingly, remembering what Ptolemy had done after the battle of Gaza, he sent back to Egypt, unasked for and unransomed, those prisoners who were of high rank, that is to say, the whole that had any choice about which side they fought for; and among them were Leontiscus the son, and Menelaus the brother of Ptolemy.

Antigonus was overjoyed with the news of his son’s victory. By lessening the power of Ptolemy, it had done much to smooth his own path to the sovereignty of Alexander’s empire, which was then left without an heir; and he immediately took the title of king, and gave the same title to his son Demetrius. In this he was followed by Ptolemy and the other generals, but with this difference--that while Antigonus called himself king of all the provinces, Ptolemy called himself king of Egypt; and while Antigonus gained Syria and Cyprus, Ptolemy gained the friendship of every other kingdom and of every free city in Greece; they all looked upon him as their best ally against Antigonus, the common enemy.

The next year Antigonus mustered his forces in Cœle-Syria, and got ready for a second attack upon Egypt. The pride of Antigonus would not let him follow the advice of the sailors, and wait eight days till the north winds of the spring equinox had passed; and by this haste many of his ships were wrecked on the coast, while others were driven into the Nile and fell into the hands of Ptolemy. Antigonus himself, marching with the land forces, found all the strong places well guarded by the Egyptian army; and, being driven back at every point, discouraged by the loss of his ships and by seeing whole bodies of his troops go over to Ptolemy, he at last took the advice of his officers and led back his army to Syria, while Ptolemy returned to Alexandria, to employ those powers of mind in the works of peace which he had so successfully used in war.

Antigonus then turned the weight of his mighty kingdom against the little island of Rhodes. The galleys of Ptolemy, though unable to keep at sea against the larger fleet of Demetrius, often forced their way into the harbour with the welcome supplies of corn. Month after month every stratagem and machine which the ingenuity of Demetrius could invent were tried and failed; and after the siege had lasted more than a year he was glad to find an excuse for withdrawing his troops; and the Rhodians in their joy hailed Ptolemy with the title of Soter or “saviour.” This name he ever afterwards kept, though by the Greek writers he is more often called Ptolemy the son of Lagus, or Ptolemy Lagus.

The next of Ptolemy’s conquests was Cœle-Syria; and soon after this the wars between these successors of Alexander were put an end to by the death of Antigonus, whose overtowering ambition was among the chief causes of quarrel. This happened at the great battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, where they all met, with above eighty thousand men in each army. Antigonus king of Asia Minor was accompanied by his son Demetrius, and by Pyrrhus king of Epirus; and he was defeated by Ptolemy king of Egypt, Seleucus king of Babylon, Lysimachus king of Thrace, and Cassander king of Macedonia; and the old man lost his life fighting bravely. After the battle, Demetrius fled to Cyprus, and yielded to the terms of peace which were imposed on him by the four allied sovereigns. He sent his friend Pyrrhus as a hostage to Alexandria; and there this young king of Epirus soon gained the friendship of Ptolemy and afterwards his step-daughter in marriage. Ptolemy was thus left master of the whole of the southern coast of Asia Minor and Syria--indeed of the whole coast of the eastern end of the Mediterranean, from the island of Cos on the north to Cyrene on the south.

During these formidable wars with Antigonus, Ptolemy had never been troubled with any serious rising of the conquered Egyptians; and perhaps the wars may not have been without their use in strengthening his throne.

[Sidenote: [304-285 B.C.]]

Ptolemy’s first children were by Thais the noted courtesan, but they were not thought legitimate. Leontiscus, the eldest, we afterwards hear of, fighting bravely against Demetrius; of the second, named Lagus after his grandfather, we hear nothing. He then married Eurydice the daughter of Antipater, by whom he had several children. The eldest son, Ptolemy, was named Ceraunus, “the thunderbolt,” and was banished by his father from Alexandria. In his distress he fled to Seleucus, by whom he was kindly received; but after the death of Ptolemy Soter he basely plotted against Seleucus and put him to death. He then defeated in battle Antigonus the son of Demetrius, and got possession of Macedonia for a short time. He married his half-sister Arsinoe, and put her children to death; he was soon afterwards put to death himself by the Gauls, who were either fighting against him or were mercenaries in his own army. His Macedonian coins, with the name of Ptolemy Ceraunus, prove that he took the name himself, and that it was not a nickname given to him for his ungovernable temper, as has been sometimes thought.

Another son of Ptolemy and Eurydice was put to death by Ptolemy Philadelphus, for plotting against his throne, to which, as the elder brother, he might have thought himself the best entitled. Their daughter Lysandra married Agathocles the son of Lysimachus; but when Agathocles was put to death by his father, she fled to Egypt with her children, and put herself under Ptolemy’s care. Next he married Berenice, a lady who had come into Egypt with Eurydice, and had formed part of her household. She was the widow of a man named Philip; and she had by her first husband a son named Magas, whom Ptolemy made governor of Cyrene, and a daughter, Antigone, whom Ptolemy gave in marriage to Pyrrhus, when that young king was living in Alexandria as hostage for Demetrius.

With Berenice Ptolemy spent the rest of his years without anything to trouble the happiness of his family. He saw their elder son Ptolemy, whom we must call by the name which he took late in life, Philadelphus, grow up everything that he could wish him to be; and, moved alike by his love for the mother and by the good qualities of the son, he chose him as his successor on the throne, instead of his eldest son Ptolemy Ceraunus, who had shown, by every act in his life, his unfitness for the trust. His daughter Arsinoe married Lysimachus in his old age, and urged him against his son Agathocles, the husband of her own sister. She afterwards married her half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus; and lastly we shall see her the wife of her brother Philadelphus. Argæus, the youngest son of Ptolemy, was put to death by Philadelphus, on a charge of treason. Of his youngest daughter Philotera we know nothing, except that her brother Philadelphus afterwards named a city on the coast of the Red Sea after her.

After the last battle with Demetrius, Ptolemy had regained the island of Cyprus and Cœle-Syria, including Judea; and his throne became stronger as his life drew to an end.

His last public act, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, was ordered by the same forbearance which had governed every part of his life. Feeling the weight of years press heavily upon him, that he was less able than formerly to bear the duties of his office, and wishing to see his son firmly seated on the throne, he laid aside his diadem and his title, and without consulting either the army or the capital, proclaimed Ptolemy, his son by Berenice, king, and contented himself with the modest rank of somatophylax, or satrap, to his successor.

PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS

[Sidenote: [285-245 B.C.]]

One of the chief troubles in the reign of Philadelphus was the revolt of Cyrene. The government of that part of Africa had been entrusted to Magas, the half-brother of the king, a son of Berenice by her former husband. Berenice, who had been successful in setting aside Ceraunus to make room for her son Philadelphus on the throne of Egypt, has even been said to have favoured the rebellious and ungrateful efforts of her elder son Magas to make himself king of Cyrene.

After the war between the brothers had lasted some years, Magas made an offer of peace, which was to be sealed by betrothing his only child Berenice to the son of Philadelphus. To this offer Philadelphus yielded; as by the death of Magas, who was already worn out by luxury and disease, Cyrene would then fall to his own son. Magas, indeed, died before the marriage took place; but, notwithstanding the efforts made by his widow to break the agreement, the treaty was kept, and on this marriage Cyrene again formed part of the kingdom of Egypt.

But the black spot upon the character of Philadelphus, which all the blaze of science and letters by which he was surrounded cannot make us overlook, is the death of two of his brothers.

Philadelphus had, when young, married Arsinoe the daughter of Lysimachus of Thrace, by whom he had three children--Ptolemy, who succeeded him, Lysimachus, and Berenice; but, having found that his wife was intriguing with Amyntas, and with his physician Chrysippus of Rhodes, he put these two to death, and banished the queen Arsinoe to Coptos in the Thebaid.

He then took Arsinoe his own sister as the partner of his throne. She had married first the old Lysimachus king of Thrace, and then Ceraunus her half-brother, when he was king of Macedonia. As they were not children of the same mother, this second marriage was neither illegal nor improper in Macedonia; but her third marriage, with Philadelphus, could only be justified by the laws of Egypt, their adopted country. They were both past the middle age, and whether Philadelphus looked upon her as his wife or not, at any rate they had no children. Her own children by Lysimachus had been put to death by Ceraunus, and she readily adopted those of her brother with all the kindness of a mother. This seeming marriage, however, between brother and sister did not escape blame with the Greeks of Alexandria. The poet Sotades, whose verses were as licentious as his life, wrote some coarse lines against the queen, for which he was forced to fly from Egypt, and being overtaken at sea he was wrapped up in lead and thrown overboard.

In the Egyptian inscriptions Ptolemy and Arsinoe are always called “the brother-gods”; on the coins they are called Adelphi, “the brothers”; and afterwards the king took the name of Philadelphus, or “sister-loving,” by which he is now usually known.

The wars between Philadelphus and his great neighbour Antiochus Theos seem not to have been carried on very actively, though they did not wholly cease till Philadelphus offered as a bribe his daughter Berenice, with a large sum of money under the name of a dower. Antiochus was already married to Laodice, whom he loved dearly, and by whom he had two children, Seleucus and Antiochus; but political ambition had deadened the feelings of his heart, and he agreed to declare this first marriage void and his two sons illegitimate, and that his children, if any should be born to him by Berenice, should inherit the throne of Babylon and the East. The peace between the two countries lasted as long as Philadelphus lived, and was strengthened by kindnesses which each did to the other.

Philadelphus was of a weak frame of body, and had delicate health; and though a lover of learning beyond other kings of his time, he also surpassed them in his unmeasured luxury and love of pleasure.

He reigned over Egypt, with the neighbouring parts of Arabia; also over Libya, Phœnicia, Cœle-Syria, part of Ethiopia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Lycia, Caria, Cyprus, and the isles of the Cyclades. The island of Rhodes and many of the cities of Greece were bound to him by the ties of friendship, for past help and for the hope of future. The wealthy cities of Tyre and Sidon did homage to him, as before to his father, by putting his crowned head upon their coins. The forces of Egypt reached the very large number of two hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse, two thousand chariots, four hundred Ethiopian elephants, fifteen hundred ships of war, and one thousand transports. Of this large force, it is not likely that even one-fourth should have been Greeks; the rest must have been Egyptians and Syrians, with some Gauls.

These large forces were maintained by a yearly income, equally large, of fourteen thousand eight hundred talents, or two millions and a quarter pounds sterling, besides the tax on corn, which was taken in kind, of a million and a half of artabas, or about five millions of bushels. To this we may add a mass of gold, silver, and other valuable stores in the treasury, which were boastfully reckoned at the unheard-of sum of seven hundred and forty thousand talents, or above one hundred million pounds sterling.

The trade down the Nile was larger than it had ever been before; the coasting trade on the Mediterranean was new; the people were rich and happy; justice was administered to the Egyptians according to their own laws, and to the Greeks of Alexander, according to the Macedonian laws; the navy commanded the whole of the eastern half of the Mediterranean; the schools and library had risen to a great height upon the wise plans of Ptolemy Soter; in every point of view Alexandria was the chief city in the world. Athens had no poets or other writers during this century equal in merit to those who ennobled the Museum. Philadelphus, by joining to the greatness and good government of his father the costly splendour and pomp of an eastern monarch, so drew the eyes of after ages upon his reign that his name passed into a proverb.

Needless to say, the civilisation of this time was essentially Greek. The main body of writers and scholars of the period naturally gave the stamp of this culture to the epoch. Yet the old civilisation of Egypt must have reacted upon the intruders in many ways.

Philadelphus died in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, leaving the kingdom as powerful and more wealthy than when it came to him from his father; and he had the happiness of having a son who would carry on, even for the third generation, the wise plans of the first Ptolemy.

PTOLEMY EUERGETES

Ptolemy, the eldest son of Philadelphus, succeeded his father on the throne of Egypt, and after a short time took the name of Euergetes. He began his reign with a Syrian war; for no sooner was Philadelphus dead than Antiochus, who had married Berenice only because it was one of the articles of the treaty with Egypt, sent her away together with her young son. Antiochus then recalled his first wife, Laodice, and she, distrusting her changeable husband, had him at once murdered to secure the throne to her own children. Seleucus, the eldest, seized the throne of Syria; and, urged on by his mother, sent a body of men after Berenice, with orders to put her to death, together with her son, who by the articles of marriage had been made heir to the throne.

[Sidenote: [245-222 B.C.]]

The cities of Asia Minor hastily sent help to the queen and her son, while Ptolemy Euergetes, her brother, who had just come to the throne of Egypt, marched without loss of time into Syria. But it was too late to save them; they were both put to death by the soldiers of Seleucus. Many of the cities, moved by hatred of their king’s cruelty, opened their gates to the army of Euergetes; and, had he not been recalled to Egypt by troubles at home, he would soon have been master of the whole of the kingdom of Seleucus. As it was, he had marched beyond the Euphrates, had left an Egyptian army in Seleucia the capital of Syria, and had gained a large part of Asia Minor. On his march homeward, he laid his gifts upon the altar in the temple of Jerusalem, and there returned thanks to heaven for his victories. He had been taught to bow the knee to the crowds of Greek and Egyptian gods; and, as Palestine was part of his kingdom, it seemed quite natural to add the god of the Jews to the list.

No sooner had Euergetes reached home than Seleucus, in his turn, marched upon Egypt, and sent for his brother Antiochus Hierax, to bring up his forces and to join him. But before Antiochus could come up the army of Seleucus was already beaten; and Antiochus, instead of helping his brother in his distress, strove to rob him of his crown. Instead of leading his army against Euergetes, he marched upon Seleucus, and by the help of his Gallic mercenaries beat him in battle. But the traitor was himself soon afterwards beaten by Eumenes, king of Bithynia, who had entered Syria in the hope that it would fall an easy prey into his hands after being torn to pieces by civil war. Antiochus, after the rout of his army, fled to Egypt, believing that he should meet with kinder treatment from Euergetes, his enemy, than after his late treachery he could hope for from his own brother. But he was ordered by Euergetes to be closely guarded, and when he afterwards made his escape he lost his life in his flight by the hands of Celtic assassins, as already related.

Euergetes, finding himself at peace with all his neighbours on the coasts of the Mediterranean, then turned his arms towards the south. He easily conquered the tribes of Ethiopia, whose wild courage was but a weak barrier to the arms and discipline of the Greeks; and made himself for the moment master of part of the highlands of Abyssinia, the country of the Hexumitæ.

Euergetes did not forget his allies in Greece, but continued the yearly payment to Aratus, the general of the Achæan League, to support a power which held the Macedonians in check; and when the Spartans under Cleomenes tried to overthrow the power of the Achæans, Euergetes would not help them. Euergetes had married his cousin Berenice, who, like the other queens of Egypt, is also called Cleopatra; by her he left two sons, Ptolemy and Magas, to the elder of whom he left his kingdom, after a reign of twenty-five years of unclouded prosperity. Egypt was during this reign at the very height of its power and wealth. It had seen three kings, who, though not equally great men, not equally fit to found a monarchy or to raise the literature of a people, were equally successful in the parts which they had undertaken. Euergetes left to his son a kingdom perhaps as large as the world had ever seen under one sceptre, and though many of his boasted victories were like letters written in the sand, of which the traces were soon lost, yet he was by far the greatest monarch of his day.

But here the bright pages in the history of the Ptolemies end. Though trade and agriculture still enriched the country, though arts and letters did not quit Alexandria, we have from this time forward to mark the growth of only vice and luxury, and to measure the wisdom of Ptolemy Soter by the length of time that his laws and institutions were able to bear up against the misrule and folly of his descendants.

PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR

[Sidenote: [222-216 B.C.]]

Nothing is known of the death of Ptolemy Euergetes, and there is no proof that it was by unfair means. But when his son began a cruel and wicked reign by putting to death his mother and brother, and by taking the name of Philopator, or father-loving, the world seems to have thought that he was the murderer of his father, and had taken this name to throw a cloak over the deed. Unfortunately history is not free from acts of successful wickedness. By this murder of his brother, and by the minority both of Antiochus king of Syria and of Philip king of Macedonia, Philopator found himself safe from enemies either at home or abroad, and he gave himself up to a life of thoughtlessness and pleasure. The army and fleet were left to go to ruin, and the foreign provinces, which had hitherto been looked upon as the bulwarks of Egypt, were only half guarded; but the throne rested on the virtues of his forefathers, and it was not till his death that it was found to have been undermined by his own vices.[c]

At the instigation of his minister, Sosibius, he caused his brother Magas to be murdered, lest he might endeavour to secure the kingdom to himself. The death of Cleomenes, the exiled king of Sparta, who had been protected and provided for by the preceding king, soon followed. Antiochus the Great, who at this time ruled in Syria, perceiving the disorder and licentiousness which prevailed in the court of Egypt, thought it a favourable time to declare war against that country. Ptolemy, who seems not to have lacked courage, roused himself for the emergency, collected a great army, and proceeded to meet the enemy. In the beginning of the war, Antiochus obtained some advantages over the Egyptian troops: but shortly after, in a great battle fought at Raphia near Gaza, he was completely defeated, with great loss; and Ptolemy obtained a large extension of influence in Palestine and Syria. Humbled by this defeat, and alarmed at the progress of Achæus in Asia Minor, Antiochus was anxious to make peace with Ptolemy; and the Egyptian king, although he had every inducement to prosecute the war, being equally anxious to return to his licentious pleasures, was ready to receive his overtures. A peace was in consequence concluded, by which Cœle-Syria and Palestine were confirmed as belonging to Egypt. This being done, Ptolemy went to Jerusalem, where he was well received, and treated the inhabitants kindly, until, having made a fruitless attempt to enter the inner sanctuary, he retired from the city threatening the whole nation of the Jews with extermination. It does not appear that he dared to assail the sacred city; but, on returning to Egypt, he published a decree which he caused to be engraved on a pillar erected at the gate of his palace, excluding all those who did not sacrifice to the gods whom he worshipped. By this means the Jews were virtually outlawed, being prevented from suing to him for justice, or from claiming his protection. But this was not the extent of his infliction. By another decree he reduced them from the first rank of citizens, to which they had been raised by the favour of Alexander, to the third rank. They were in consequence degraded so far as to be enrolled among the common people of Egypt.

[Sidenote: [216-170 B.C.]]

During this reign the Romans, being again at war with Carthage, sent ambassadors to Egypt, to renew their ancient friendship, who brought magnificent presents to Ptolemy and his queen.

EPIPHANES

At the death of Philopator, 204 B.C., Ptolemy Epiphanes, being then a child of five years old, ascended the throne. In the early part of his reign another Roman embassy visited Egypt, when the king’s counsellors took the opportunity of placing the young prince under the guardianship of the powerful republic. The senate of Rome accepted the charge, and sent Marcus Lepidus to act as guardian--a trust which, after a short stay in Egypt, he conferred upon Aristomenes, an Acarnanian, who discharged the duties of this important office with integrity and ability for several years, until the king had attained the age of fourteen, when, according to the usage of the country, he was entitled to take the administration of the kingdom into his own hands. The folly of investing a person so young with absolute power, was in this instance made fully apparent. The youth, who had been universally popular whilst under the direction of Aristomenes, was no sooner enthroned than he placed himself under the influence of worthless men, by whose advice he was led to the adoption of measures through which great disorders were introduced into every branch of the government; and at length his former able and honest minister was put to death.

Epiphanes married Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus the Great. This marriage appears to have taken place when the young king was about seventeen years old. It is generally supposed that he was taken off by poison, administered by his nobles, to prevent him from entering on a war with Syria to which he had committed himself, when the national finances were so low that they feared they should have to contribute largely towards the expenses of the contest. He left two sons, Philometor and Physcon; and a daughter, Cleopatra, who was successively married to her two brothers.

PHILOMETOR AND PHYSCON

[Sidenote: [170-146 B.C.]]

Philometor, the elder of the two sons, then but six years old, was placed on the throne under the guardianship of his mother Cleopatra, who for eight years conducted the affairs of the kingdom with great judgment and success. After her death, Lenæus, a nobleman of distinction, and Eulæus, a eunuch, were charged with the government of the country. One of their earliest measures was to insist on the restoration of Cœle-Syria and Palestine to Egypt,--these provinces having been wrested from the dominion of Egypt by the power of Antiochus the Great. This demand led to a violent contest, which tended more than any preceding event to demonstrate the rapid decline of Egyptian power, and the rising sway of Rome.

The Syrian army, under the command of Antiochus Epiphanes, prosecuted the war with such vigour and success that it penetrated to the walls of Alexandria, and actually secured the person of the Egyptian king. Whether he was taken in war, or placed himself willingly in the hands of the Syrian king, does not clearly appear. But, however this may be, the Syrian monarch gained little by his acquisition. For although he induced Philometor to enter into a treaty with him, this was instantly disallowed by the nation, who, regarding a sovereign in the power of an enemy as lost to his country, immediately raised Physcon, the king’s brother, to the throne. This led to a second Syrian invasion, which resulted in the expulsion of Physcon; Antiochus restoring Philometor to the government, but retaining Pelusium, the key to the country, in the possession of Syrian troops. From this and other indications of the Syrian king’s intentions, Philometor rightly judged that it was his design, by setting the two brothers in continued collision with each other, to retain Egypt virtually in his own power. Acting on this judgment, Philometor invited his brother to terms of reconciliation, which, by the aid of their sister Cleopatra, was happily effected.

The measures adopted by the two brothers to restore Egypt to an independent and prosperous condition, induced Antiochus again to march an army into that country. He was on this occasion, however, compelled, by the prompt and energetic interference of the Romans, to abandon the enterprise. By agreement between the two brothers, they were to reign jointly; but they were no sooner freed from the danger of foreign aggression, than they began to quarrel between themselves. This quickly produced an open rupture, in which Physcon succeeded in driving his brother out of the kingdom. He was, however, soon after restored by the power of Rome, which at the same time assigned Libya and Cyrene to Physcon. New disputes arose, and various contests took place between them, in all of which Rome regarded herself as entitled to act as the paramount ruler of Egypt, and to award the sovereignty according to her will.

Philometor was soon after provoked into a war with Alexander Balas, who had been raised to the throne of Syria mainly by his support. In the prosecution of this contest, the king of Egypt marched into Syria, where he completely routed the army of Alexander near Antioch, but died, a few days after, from wounds received in the battle. He left behind him a high reputation for wisdom and clemency. It was in his reign, and by his favour and that of his queen Cleopatra, that the Jews under Onias were permitted to build the famous Jewish temple at Heliopolis.

[Sidenote: [146-107 B.C.]]

On the death of her husband, Cleopatra endeavoured to secure the crown for their son; but some of the leading men inclined towards Physcon, and invited him from Cyrene, where he then reigned, into Egypt. The queen raised an army to oppose him, and a civil war was imminent, when an accommodation was arranged, through the mediation of Rome, by which Physcon married Cleopatra, who was his sister and his brother’s widow, on the understanding that they were to reign with joint authority, and that Cleopatra’s son by Philometor should be declared next heir to the crown. This agreement was no sooner completed than it was violated. On the day of his marriage Physcon murdered the son of Philometor in the arms of his mother, and commenced a career of iniquity and slaughter of which this was a fitting prelude. He indeed assumed the name of Euergetes, “benefactor,” which the Alexandrians changed into Kakergetes, “the evil-doer”--an epithet which he justly merited; for he was the most cruel and wicked, most despicable and vile, of all the Ptolemies. To the Jews he evinced unmitigated enmity and cruelty, because they had espoused the cause of Cleopatra. He then divorced Cleopatra, his wife, and married her daughter, of the same name, who was his own niece; but not before he had subjected the young princess to the vilest indignity.

Such conduct excited the disgust of his subjects, and, accompanied as it was with excessive cruelty, produced a revolt which drove him from the kingdom. He, however, succeeded in recovering his position, and at length died in the sixty-seventh year of his age, having reigned twenty-nine years.

It is a fact as singular as unaccountable, that this most licentious and bloody prince, whose name is infamous, as associated with almost every crime, is notwithstanding celebrated by the most respectable ancient writers as a great restorer of learning, a patron of learned men, and withal an author of some celebrity himself. Physcon left three sons--Apion, by a concubine, and Lathyrus and Alexander by his wife Cleopatra. By his will he left the kingdom of Cyrene to Apion, and the crown of Egypt to his widow in conjunction with either of her sons whom she should choose. In the exercise of this discretionary power the queen would have preferred Alexander, the younger son; but this was so distasteful to the people that she was compelled to admit Lathyrus to the joint sovereignty, and place Alexander in the kingdom of Cyprus. After reigning ten years, the former prince was obliged to leave Egypt, to which his brother immediately returned; Lathyrus repairing to Cyprus, and taking upon himself the government of that country. It was at this period that Lathyrus invaded Judea, then governed by Alexander Jannæus, and obtained such advantages over him that the Jewish state was only saved from ruin by the aid sent to it by Cleopatra from Egypt.

[Sidenote: [107-48 B.C.]]

In the meantime the younger brother, Alexander, having for nearly eighteen years, while bearing the name of “king,” submitted as a slave to the violent and capricious will of his mother, became quite weary of her intolerable tyranny, and put her to death. This fact being made public, he was driven from the throne, and Lathyrus, or Soter II, restored; he reigned seven years longer. During this period the ruin of Thebes took place. Lathyrus, freed from the power of his rival, undertook to restore the government of the kingdom to its former state. This led to an insurrection, of which Thebes was the centre. That ancient city not only refused to submit to the prescribed laws, but even struggled to regain its lost independence. The effort was vain. The king, having defeated the rebels in several battles, besieged Thebes, which, having held out for three years, was at length subdued, and so devastated that this noble capital was never afterwards repaired, and consequently sank into ruin.

ROMAN INTERFERENCE

Lathyrus was succeeded by his only legitimate child, Cleopatra, whose proper name was Berenice. This princess, however, had scarcely assumed the sovereignty, when she was called to submit to the dictation of Roman power. Sulla, then perpetual dictator of the imperial city, no sooner heard of the death of Lathyrus, than he conferred the crown of Egypt on Alexander, a son of the king of that name who had been driven out of the country for having murdered his mother. The Alexandrians succeeded in persuading Alexander to marry Berenice, and reign jointly with her. This he did, but in nineteen days afterwards caused her to be murdered. He, however, continued on the throne, and reigned fifteen years in a manner which might be expected from the atrocity of the commencement. At length the people, worn out by his exactions and goaded to desperation by his cruelties, rose with common consent, and drove him from the throne. He made some fruitless efforts to induce Pompey to aid him to recover his crown, but died a few months after his expulsion, in banishment at Tyre.

PTOLEMY AULETES; CLEOPATRA AND THE END

The Egyptians, having driven out this tyrant, selected a natural son of Ptolemy Lathyrus to fill the vacant throne. This prince, by a gift of six thousand talents (£1,200,000 or $6,000,000) to Julius Cæsar and Pompey, was recognised as king of Egypt in alliance with Rome. He was named Ptolemy Auletes, “the Flute-player”; but took on himself the title of Neus Dionysus, “the new Bacchus.” He was a fit representative of the fallen condition of the Egyptian state. More effeminate than any of his predecessors, priding himself on dancing in a female dress in religious processions, he was at the same time equal to his grandfather Physcon in the violence and viciousness of his conduct. After some time he was, like his predecessor, expelled from the throne. He succeeded, however, by immense gifts, in inducing Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria, to attempt his restoration, which was at length accomplished; Archelaus, who had been invested with the government, having been defeated and slain by the Romans. Auletes was thus restored to the throne, and died in peaceable possession of his dignity about four years after his restoration.

Auletes on his restoration had put to death his daughter Berenice; and at his demise left two daughters, Cleopatra and Arsinoe, and two sons. The first of these, Ptolemy the elder, otherwise called Dionysus II, was, according to his father’s will, married to his eldest sister, then about seventeen years old; and the juvenile couple were invested with the sovereignty of Egypt, under the protection of the Roman republic. It appears that this most celebrated Egyptian princess evinced considerable vigour and talent, even at that early age. So clever, indeed, was she, that the ministers who had been placed in charge of the national affairs were very anxious to get rid of her, and at length deprived her of her share in the sovereignty, and expelled her from the kingdom. Cleopatra, however, had a spirit equal to the occasion. She retired into Syria, raised an army, and in a short time marched upon Pelusium, prepared to dispute with her brother the sovereignty of the nation. It was while the hostile armies of the brother and sister lay within sight of each other, that Pompey, after the loss of the battle of Pharsalia, reached Egypt, expecting protection and support, but was put to death by the ministers of Ptolemy. Soon after this event, Julius Cæsar arrived in pursuit of his rival, and was presented with Pompey’s head and his ring.

[Sidenote: [48-30 B.C.]]

Cleopatra, whose licentiousness was quite equal to her talent and energy, caused herself to be secretly conveyed to Cæsar’s quarters, where she succeeded in captivating that mighty conqueror, and commenced an intimacy which resulted in the birth of a son, called, after his father, Neocæsar. The scandal of this conduct enabled Ptolemy and his ministers to rouse the public spirit of the Alexandrians, and of Lower Egypt generally, against the mighty Roman, to such an extent that he was placed in most imminent peril. Cæsar, however, disposed the handful of soldiers which he had with him in such a manner as to keep the Egyptians in check, until the arrival of Mithridates with large reinforcements, when he defeated the Egyptian forces with great slaughter. In the course of this conflict Ptolemy was drowned in the Nile.

Cæsar soon adjusted the affairs of Egypt to his own mind, placing Cleopatra on the throne. But as the Egyptians had a great antipathy to female sovereignty, he compelled Cleopatra to submit to the farce of marrying her younger brother, a lad eleven years old. She, however, held the power in her own hand until he reached the age of fourteen, when by the laws of the country he was entitled to enter upon the joint administration of affairs. She then caused him to be poisoned. Arsinoe, who had been carried to Rome by Julius Cæsar, and compelled to walk, bound in chains of gold, before his triumphal chariot, was also assassinated at the instigation of Cleopatra.

The death of Cæsar convulsed the whole empire of Rome and all its dependencies, and swept away the last feeble figment of Egyptian monarchy and independence. On this occasion Cleopatra instantly decided to support the triumvirs against the murderers of Julius. On a charge of being unfaithful to this purpose, she was summoned to appear before Antony at Tarsus. Confident in the power of her charms, she obeyed, and effectually seduced that great captain. In fact, so besotted was he by this intercourse, that he neglected his affairs, and at length was so completely ruined that, having inflicted on himself a mortal wound, he died in the arms of his wanton mistress. Cleopatra had two sons by Antony, and soon after his decease she shared the fate which she had brought on him. To avoid being made a spectacle at the triumph of Augustus, as he was proof against her seductive charms, she procured her own death in some unknown way; tradition says by the bite of an asp. Egypt then became a province of the Roman empire, and continued in this state until the birth of Christ, and long afterwards.[d]

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LXVII. SICILIAN AFFAIRS

AGATHOCLES

While Greece and Macedonia were torn by the disputes of Alexander’s successors, Sicily was a prey to a tyrant who for energy, audacity, and complete absence of moral sense, is worthy to be ranked amongst them. It was the age of adventurers and soldiers of fortune. Agathocles, the son of a working potter, became famous in his youth by his beauty, strength, and courage, and also by his immoral life. He enlisted as a soldier, and men were amazed by his height and the weight of his weapons. He obtained a command through the influence of a powerful citizen who liked him, and whose widow he married shortly after. This marriage brought him riches, but his ambition was not limited by wealth. He wished to gain the approval of the people by his eloquence, as he had obtained the affection of the soldiers by his daring.

Tyranny, the natural result of class antagonism in a city, had reappeared at Syracuse after the death of Timoleon. The tyrant, Sosistratus, was supported by the aristocrats; Agathocles became the advocate of the claims of the people. He had also a personal grievance against Sosistratus, who, after an expedition against the Bruttians, had refused him the prize for courage which he deserved. Being driven from Syracuse, he recruited an army among the exiles, whose number was always very great by reason of the continual revolutions of Sicily and Magna Græcia. He tried in vain to seize Croton, then served with the Tarentines, who, a short time after, drove him away because he wished to direct their government.

[Sidenote: [317-310 B.C.]]

Some time later, a revolution broke out at Syracuse. Sosistratus was exiled with six hundred men of his faction and asked help of the Carthaginians. Agathocles returned, distinguished himself in the war by his courage and skill, and became so popular that the Corinthian Acestorides, general of the republic, suspected him of aspiring to the tyranny and wished to have him murdered. He escaped the danger by changing clothes with a slave and soon after they heard that he was raising troops. Peace was made with the Carthaginians, who brought back Sosistratus and his partisans. Agathocles obtained permission to return also, and swore in the temple of Demeter to respect the constitution.

Soon after, the people, fascinated by his speeches, named him protector of peace, and charged him with the re-establishment of harmony between the factions. According to Justin, who seldom agrees with Diodorus, Agathocles’ usurpation was the result of a treaty with Hamilcar, the Carthaginian general, who supplied him with African soldiers. Whatever may be the truth in regard to this, the first use which he made of his power was to massacre the six hundred senators, their relatives, and friends. The town was given up to the soldiers, who pillaged the houses, carried off the women, and killed without discrimination. Those partisans of the oligarchy who succeeded in escaping the massacre, took refuge at Agrigentum. Then Agathocles called the people together and declared that his only wish had been to restore their freedom and that he now intended retiring to private life. His followers, especially those who had taken part in the pillage, begged him to remain in power. He consented, but on condition that he should govern alone, for the colleagues who might be given him would perhaps attempt to violate the laws, and he would not be responsible except for his own acts. Votes were taken, and as the rich were paralysed by fear, and he had promised the poor to cancel debts and divide lands, he obtained all the votes. But he took neither the crown nor any of the external signs of power: the reality sufficed; he would not even have a bodyguard. Having no further enemies to fear, he allowed himself the luxury of clemency, tactics imitated later by Augustus and recommended by Machiavelli. He then administered the finances, attended to the necessities of the army and the navy, and added to the dominion of Syracuse some of the towns and territory of the interior.

The Syracusan exiles who had taken refuge at Agrigentum stirred up the people to make war on Agathocles before his rule extended over the whole of Sicily. The Agrigentines recognised the danger, and joining with the inhabitants of Gela and Messana sent to Sparta to ask for a general, for they feared to entrust the command to one of their own citizens who might make use of it to usurp the tyranny. Acrotatus, son of King Cleomenes, was detested at Sparta; he seized the opportunity of fighting abroad. But when he came to Agrigentum, he made himself universally disliked on account of his insolence, his waste of public funds, his dissolute life, and his luxury more worthy of a Persian than a Lacedæmonian. He murdered Sosistratus, the chief of the Syracusan exiles, at a banquet. He was driven away, they even wished to stone him, but he escaped by night. The Agrigentines made peace with Agathocles who, having no further foreign hostility to fear, was able to strengthen and extend his authority. The Syracusan exiles, being forced to leave Agrigentum, took refuge at Messana, but the Messanians feared the anger of Agathocles; he offered to make alliance with them, and persuaded them to grant the freedom of the city to these exiles. Men were astonished by such noble sentiments, but some time later he found means to entice them from Messana, to the number of more than six hundred, and had them put to death. He succeeded in making his government recognised in most of the towns of Sicily, and on all sides he caused the death of all who inspired him with fear.

The ever increasing progress of Agathocles awoke the fears of the Carthaginians and they sent a large army into Sicily under the command of Hamilcar the son of Gisco. A battle took place near the river Himera between Gela and Agrigentum. It was said to have been on this spot that a former tyrant of Agrigentum, Phalaris, put his enemies to death by shutting them up in a bronze bull under which a fire was lighted; the hill on which Phalaris’ castle stood was still called Ecnomus. Agathocles seemed to have won the battle, when unexpected help came to the Carthaginians and gave them the victory. Then the towns which had accepted or suffered Syracusan suzerainty submitted successively to the Carthaginians, and Hamilcar, master of all the rest of Sicily, laid siege to Syracuse. Agathocles repaired the fortifications of the town and put it in a state of defence, but these precautions could only delay certain ruin, for no outside help could be expected. Agathocles then conceived a singularly daring plan: he resolved to carry the war into Africa. It was what Scipio did at a later date, but in less difficult circumstances, for in Agathocles’ case it was first necessary to leave a town besieged by land and sea.

[Sidenote: [310-307 B.C.]]

He had few soldiers; he set free and enlisted the slaves, and made them take an oath of fidelity. Although he had been pitiless towards his political adversaries, he knew that some were still alive, and that they were ready to capitulate with the enemy. He spoke of his plan to no one. He told the Syracusans that all he asked of them was a little patience, and that he had sure means of saving them. In the town he only left the soldiers requisite for its defence and embarked all the rest, being careful to take as hostages a member of each of the families which he mistrusted. He persuaded the rich to avoid the fatigues and privations of the siege by retiring to their estates, and when they were scattered he had them killed by his soldiers, and took their money. The port was blockaded by the Carthaginian fleet; but merchant vessels were seen bringing provisions to the besieged. The Carthaginians advanced to capture them. Agathocles seized the opportunity to leave the port, and the merchant vessels were able to enter while the Carthaginians pursued Agathocles’ fleet. He escaped by dint of hard rowing and landed with his army on the coast of Africa.

Then, having offered a sacrifice, he told his soldiers that he had made a vow if his vessels escaped the enemy to make torches of them for the principal goddesses of Sicily, Demeter and Core, and taking a brand from the altar he set fire to his fleet. The soldiers, losing all hope of return, had no other resource than victory. This act of temerity, which has become proverbial, was perhaps necessary. Agathocles had too few soldiers to employ some in protecting the fleet; it would have been taken by the Carthaginians, who were masters of the sea. They seized a pleasure town which Diodorus calls the Great Town and the White Tunis. Agathocles had not sufficient soldiers to leave garrisons; he razed it to the ground and encamped under the walls of Carthage.

The Carthaginians, seeing their country pillaged, thought that their army in Sicily had been destroyed. They had no time to collect mercenaries; they armed to the number of forty thousand and placed Hanno and Bomilcar at their head. These chiefs belonged to two rival families. The Carthaginians often took this precaution as a guarantee against usurpation. But this multitude of new and badly disciplined soldiers could not resist Agathocles’ little army. Hanno was killed, and Bomilcar, who aspired to the tyranny, led the troops back to the town. The terrified Carthaginians attributed their misfortune to the anger of the gods. For a long time they had sacrificed to Moloch only children whom they bought; they thought that he demanded more precious victims, and offered him two hundred children from the most wealthy families. Three hundred citizens offered themselves to complete the sacrifice. They were placed on the hands of the bronze statue, and a large fire was lighted; the victims fell into the burning flames. Diodorus believes that these human sacrifices, customary among Phœnician nations, possibly gave rise to the fable of Cronos devouring his children, for the Greeks identified their Cronos with the Phœnician Moloch.

The Carthaginians ordered Hamilcar to send them some of his troops; but not wishing to abandon Sicily, they announced the complete ruin of Agathocles and, as a proof, sent to Syracuse the beaks of his burnt vessels. Antander, Agathocles’ brother, wished to surrender; the Ætolian Eurymedon persuaded him not to despair, and a short time later they received news of the success of the Greeks. The courage of the besieged was renewed; Hamilcar wished to attempt an assault; he was taken, his head was cut off and sent to Agathocles, who threw it into the Carthaginian camp. His success won him the alliance of the Libyan and Numidian nations. He wrote to Ophellas, governor of Cyrene, who had fought under Alexander, entreating him to invade the Carthaginian territory, which should be shared after the victory; he would leave Africa to Ophellas, and would be content to keep Sicily. This plan tempted Ophellas; he was in communication with the Athenians, because he had married a descendant of Miltiades. He raised mercenaries in Greece and set out to cross the desert with a numerous army, carrying along with it women and children, for they hoped to found colonies. The army suffered much from the heat, from thirst, and from the bites of serpents. Agathocles received his allies warmly, gave them food, then murdered Ophellas and incorporated his soldiers in his own army; the women and children were sent to Sicily and perished in a tempest. Cyrene became part of the dominions of Ptolemy.

About the same time, the Carthaginians put Bomilcar to death for attempting to seize the tyranny. Agathocles might have profited by the confusion which this event caused in Carthage, but he had received alarming news. The Agrigentines had endeavoured to profit by Hamilcar’s death to free Sicily from both Carthaginian and Syracusan rule. Agathocles, leaving the command of his army to Archagathus, his eldest son, embarked on open boats which had been hastily built. On landing at Selinuntium, he was told that his officers had just defeated the Agrigentine army. He reduced to submission Heraclea, Thermæ, Centuripæ, Cephalœdium, and Apollonia. It was about this time that, following the example of the successors of Alexander, he took the title of king, and had it put on his coins (307). However, he wore no crown, and instead of imitating the mistrust of Dionysius the Elder, he went to the assembly without a guard. When he gave banquets, he was often served in an earthen bowl, and willingly recalled the time when he had begun life as a working potter. He was easy tempered and gay, so as to encourage his guests to talk freely, but he took note of all that he heard, and when, by this means, he had discovered which men were not to be trusted, he invited them separately and put them to death.

In Africa, his son Archagathus was at first successful; but he found his army weakened by desertions, in need of the necessities of life, and inclined to revolt. The soldiers complained of not being paid. He risked a battle and was defeated. Then he resolved to leave the army, as Bonaparte did in later times in Egypt. The soldiers, furious at finding themselves abandoned by their general, murdered his two sons and surrendered to the Carthaginians, who enrolled them in their army.

[Sidenote: [307-300 B.C.]]

On his return to Sicily, Agathocles first of all gave vent to his anger against Segesta, which had refused him subsidies. This expedition was marked, according to Diodorus, by atrocious cruelty: men were burned alive, pregnant women made to miscarry, young girls and children sold to the Bruttians, and the town of Segesta, peopled by new inhabitants, received the name of Dicæopolis--city of vengeance. At the same time Agathocles commanded his brother Antander to slay the parents, wives, and children of the soldiers of the African army, to revenge the murder of his sons. Diodorus adds that these savage executions produced such horror that Agathocles, despairing of keeping the power, proposed to Dinocrates, the general of the exiles, to re-establish the republic at Syracuse. But Dinocrates had no desire to do so; in the twenty years during which he had been leader of armed bands, he had acquired a taste for this kind of regal dignity. Unsuccessful in forming this alliance, Agathocles purchased Carthaginian help by yielding up certain towns to them, and beat Dinocrates whose troops surrendered. He had them massacred but spared Dinocrates, and as they were worthy of each other, he made him his lieutenant.

He undertook, following Dionysius’ example, the conquest of southern Italy. He began by seizing the Æolian Isles, in order to obtain the treasure consecrated to Core and to Hephæstus in the prytaneum of Lipara; then he prepared to cross into Italy. His preparations excited the fears of the Tarentines, who were already menaced in another direction by the native populations. They applied to the Spartans, whose king, Cleonymus, enrolled mercenaries at Cape Tænarum. He formed a considerable army by uniting with them the forces of Tarentum and the Messapians, with whom he made an alliance immediately on his arrival. The Lucanians in alarm made peace with Tarentum, and Cleonymus, not wishing to have come in vain, turned against Metapontum, which town, however, he had entered as an ally. He imposed on the town a tribute of six hundred talents, and took two hundred young girls as hostages, which caused him to be looked on with suspicion, for, although he was a Spartan, he had the reputation of a man of dissolute character; however, he was punished later on by the wicked behaviour of his wife Chelidonis. Then, instead of delivering Sicily from the tyranny of Agathocles, as he had announced the intention of doing, he attacked Corcyra, which appeared to him a convenient post for watching Greek affairs, raised a tribute, and established a garrison. Then, returning to Italy, without troubling either about the Tarentines who had summoned him, or about the Messapians whose alliance he had demanded, he began to fight and pillage indiscriminately, under pretext of punishing those whom he called rebels. He carried on this piratical war to the remotest part of the Adriatic Sea. The Italians killed some of his troops, a tempest destroyed part of his fleet, but he escaped and wound up his series of adventures by calling Pyrrhus against his country to avenge his matrimonial troubles.

[Sidenote: [300-289 B.C.]]

Agathocles conducted an expedition against Corcyra, in pursuit of Cleonymus, but found Cassander besieging the town by land and by sea. He burned the Macedonian fleet, and seized Corcyra, which he gave as a dowry to his daughter Lanassa, whom he married to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. On his return he found that a number of his mercenaries were in revolt against his grandson Archagathus, who had not given them their pay; he had two thousand of them killed. According to Diodorus, they were Ligurians and Etruscans, but it seems probable that there were Bruttians among them, for this punishment led to a war between the Bruttians and Agathocles. He was defeated and revenged himself on the inhabitants of Croton, who had done him no injury. He told them not to be troubled by his advance, he was only travelling through the country to take his daughter into Epirus. They made no preparations for defence; he took the town, sacked it, and massacred the inhabitants. Then he attacked Hipponium, which was in the hands of the Bruttians, took it, and placed a garrison there which was massacred a short time later.

In his old age he suffered from a very painful illness of the joints, and his son and grandson disputed his succession during his life-time. The latter caused him to be poisoned by his favourite, Mænon, by means of a corrosive placed in a toothpick. This Mænon was a Segestan and had become the tyrant’s slave; in this manner he avenged his country’s ruin. It is said that Agathocles, to put an end to the torture he was suffering, had himself placed, while still alive, on the funeral pyre; this was believed to be a punishment for the sacrilege which he had committed in the Æolian Isles in stealing the sacred treasure of Hephæstus.

After the death of Agathocles, his son and grandson were killed by Mænon, who tried to seize the power with the help of the Carthaginians. The Syracusans chose Hicetas for their general, and it was agreed that they should give hostages and recall the exiles. But at the first election of the magistrates Agathocles’ mercenaries claimed that they were wronged, the citizens armed, a fight was imminent; at last it was agreed that the mercenaries should leave Sicily. They were mostly Campanians, known by the name of Mamertines.

Agathocles had taken a great number into his pay. When it was agreed that they were to leave Sicily, they went to Messana to embark, and were hospitably received; but during the night they killed the inhabitants and seized their wives and possessions. This settlement of Mamertines at Messana was a fresh element of trouble for Sicily, and later on became the cause of the first war between the Romans and the Carthaginians.

PYRRHUS AND THE ROMANS

[Sidenote: [282-272 B.C.]]

The absence of federal union between the Greek cities of Italy made them incapable of resisting the native populations, the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians. They were therefore naturally induced to ask aid of the great Roman Republic, which alone was able to protect them. The earliest relations which Rome had with the Greek towns of Italy were friendly. Tarentum alone preferred having the Romans as enemies to having them as friends. By an act of mad provocation the Tarentines put themselves entirely in the wrong and caused war with Rome to become inevitable. Then, as was their custom, they called to their assistance a foreign prince, and although this time they chose the bravest and most skilful captain of the period, the struggle in which they engaged had as a consequence the final establishment of Roman government over all Italy.

The Lucanians and the Bruttians having attacked the town of Thurii, the ally of Rome, an army, commanded by the consul Fabricius was sent to its rescue, while at the same time a squadron of ten galleys cruised in the Gulf of Tarentum. The Tarentines, assembled in the theatre which overlooked the sea, perceived some of these vessels at the entrance of the port. Immediately an orator named Philochares, who was known by the name of the famous courtesan Thais because of his shameful immorality, exclaimed that the presence of these ships was an act of hostility, and that by the terms of a treaty, the Romans were not allowed to pass Cape Lacinium. The people hurried to the port, sank or captured the vessels, the duumvir who commanded them was killed, the rowers were reduced to slavery. The Roman senate sent an embassy to demand reparation. The ambassadors had scarcely entered the theatre where the people were assembled than they were greeted by insulting laughter. They wished to speak, but their pronunciation of Greek was ridiculed and they were driven out. A drunkard soiled the toga of the principal ambassador; the laughter increased. The Roman turned round and said: “Laugh! you will soon weep, for my robe shall be washed in your blood.”

They summoned Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, promising him the support of the Lucanians and Samnites. An account of his exploits and death has previously been given.

[Sidenote: [272-216 B.C.]]

All the natives of southern Italy who had greeted Pyrrhus as a saviour, were finally subdued to Roman rule. It was the rescue of the Greek towns which were still in existence, but they were only shadows of their former selves. Although free under the protection of Rome, they vanished obscurely from history. In the time of Strabo the name of Magna Græcia was already an ancient recollection, and the Greek language was only spoken at Naples, Rhegium, and Tarentum. For want of federal union between the autonomous cities, the Hellenic race with its brilliant civilisation had disappeared gradually from Italian soil. The Romans were about to reap its inheritance and transmit it to Gaul and Spain. They repeopled some of the former Greek colonies which had become barbarous, especially Posidonia and Hipponium, which had long been inhabited, the latter by the Campanians, the former by the Bruttians, and which had changed their Greek names for those of Pæstum and Vibo-Valentia.

The Roman peace did not restore to the Greek towns of Italy the glory which had radiated from their art and literature during the stormy period of their political independence. The innumerable painted vases which are admired in our museums, and the coins of infinite variety suffice to mark their place in the history of civilisation. Not rich Tarentum only, but towns of no importance, Terina, Velia, Metapontum, Heraclea in Lucania, made coins of inimitable perfection. The production of these works of art ceased abruptly with that communal autonomy of which the coin was the visible symbol. In 268, Rome, who, till then, had only had moulded copper coinage, for the first time made silver coins, and at the same time withdrew the right of coining from all her Italian subjects. Few laws have been more disastrous to art.

The beautiful iconic coins of King Hiero and his wife, Queen Philistis, mark the last period of Sicilian autonomy. After a victory gained over the Mamertines of Messana, Hiero was proclaimed king by the Syracusans who no longer felt capable of supporting the disturbances of freedom (269). On leaving Sicily Pyrrhus had said: “What a fine battle-field we leave the Romans and Carthaginians!” The fulfilment of this prophecy was not delayed, and the First Punic War, which broke out in 263, had Sicily for a stage. At the beginning Hiero, the ally of Carthage, was defeated by the Romans, and passed over to their side. His reign, a long and peaceful one, was a transition for the Syracusans between their stormy autonomy and the inevitable dominion of Rome.[b]

GREECE

Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land from plain to mountain-cave Was Freedom’s home or Glory’s grave! Shrine of the mighty! can it be That this is all remains of thee? Approach, thou craven, crouching slave; Say, is not this Thermopylæ? These waters blue that round you lave, O servile offspring of the free, Pronounce what sea, what shore is this? The gulf, the rock of Salamis! These scenes, their story not unknown, Arise and make again your own; Snatch from the ashes of your sires The embers of their former fires; And he who in the strife expires Will add to theirs a name of fear That Tyranny shall quake to hear, And leave his sons a hope, a fame, They too will rather die than shame; For Freedom’s battle once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft is ever won. Bear witness, Greece, thy living page, Attest it, many a deathless age: While kings, in dusty darkness hid, Have left a nameless pyramid, Thy heroes, though the general doom Have swept the column from their tomb, A mightier monument command, The mountains of their native land! There points thy muse to stranger’s eye The graves of those that cannot die! ’Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, Each step from splendour to disgrace: Enough,--no foreign foe could quell Thy soul, till from itself it fell; Yes! self-abasement paved the way To villain-bonds and despot sway.

--BYRON; The Giaour.

CONCLUDING SUMMARY

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HELLENIC SPIRIT

WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK

BY DR. ULRICH VON WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORFF

PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN, ETC.

Homer stands at the beginning of Greek history; nothing before him, nothing beside him, a great gulf fixed between him and everything after; yet there is nothing Greek on which his light or shadow does not fall. Homer is a world in himself, and what a world he is! In the eyes of many, even to this day, he stands for the sum total of the Greek spirit; in the eyes of some, for the whole body of poetry. What the two epics set before us is so complete, so individual, that in spite of all concessions in detail, the oneness of the poem and of the author is constantly obtruding itself upon our notice anew. Homer is so little antiquated that he seems to be of no age; we place him in a sunnier morning-time of mankind, that is all; but to range him in the sequence of history, to conceive of him as under conditions of time and place seems like profanation; this, like so much else, he has in common with the Old Testament. And yet to classify him thus is the first necessity of real comprehension. The Greeks themselves have not done much to help us. About the time of Socrates a school of æsthetic criticism restricted the sacred name of the poet Homer, certainly not without some show of reason, to the Iliad and the Odyssey; and thus these poems have come down to us, but the price we pay is the loss of all others of equally Homeric origin; and hence Homer stands more than ever alone. The last word of the philology of antiquity was that Homer ought to be explained only by himself. Modern philology seemed on the way to the same conclusion.

By the discoveries of the last generation the ban of this isolation has been broken. Only by wilful blindness can the Ilium of Homer be dissociated from the Ilium restored to light on Hissarlik, though the remains of the latter go far back beyond the time of Homer and Priam. Not the age of the Homeric poets alone, but the age of the Homeric heroes rises up before us from these strongholds and tombs. The links that bind it to the older civilisation of Asia and of Egypt lie revealed, positive chronological data already enable us to determine the certainty of this or that. From these actual remains we begin to gain some conception of the history and the peoples whose poetic reflection shines for us in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

On the shores of the Ægean Sea, in the second half of the second thousand years before Christ, there existed a sumptuous civilisation which had received impulses from the East and from the South, but in which we nevertheless recognise the spirit of the Greece immortalised in the Homeric poems; and in the Asiatic home of Homer the connecting threads do not break off short as we trace them back. In the mother-country, on the other hand, other savage Greek tribes, whom we name after the Dorians, forced their way in; they destroyed the ancient superior civilisation, reduced some of its representatives to slavery, and drove the rest over into Asia. There was another immigration into Asia, this time of the Phrygio-Thracian tribes, the ancestors of the Armenians; such of the earlier population as were not reduced to slavery being driven south. These tribes we are wont to call after the Carians. There was a time when they reached out towards Europe, and in a few islands they continued for centuries to struggle against the Hellenising influence to which in the long run they completely succumbed. But as the study of this long and important period is still in its infancy, our main object should still be the collection of material; it will be one of the principal tasks of the next generation to sift and elaborate what has been accumulated. At the present time it is more important than any amount of detail for us to understand what is the historic background both for the subject-matter of the Homeric epics and for the practice of this form of poetry and the existence of the poets who used it.

The Homeric poems are a legacy from the first great period of Greek history. We may approximately fix the year 800 B.C. as their latest possible date. The subject-matter of the Epos, the Heroic legend, is the deposit of historical reminiscences of that earlier time. It was wholly fit that men should see in the epic heroes the founders of their own nation and of their own civilisation; but in point of fact it was through Homer that the Greek nation first acquired consciousness of itself, of its individuality and of the common blood in its veins. Not in the time of the heroes alone, but in that of the poets of the Epos, the Greeks had no national unity and less than no national feeling, and the same holds good of their civilisation. The tales which Homer tells are laid to a great extent in Argos, Thebes, and Sparta; all the heroes come from the country which we call Hellas and distinguish from Asia as their mother-country. Nearly all the Homeric gods have their homes there likewise. But now gods and heroes, like Agamemnon’s Achæan host, are taken across to the northwestern angle of Asia. Achilles has conquered Lesbos; the descendants of Agamemnon rule in Mytilene and Cyme. Cyme, Smyrna, and Chios are the reputed birth-places of Homer. Here, where later the Æolian dialect comes into collision with the mightier Ionian, was perfected the artificial dialect of the epic,--a dialect spoken in this form at no time and in no place,--and the heroic verse that was at no time and in no place a really popular form, and was first imported into Lesbos itself by the Ionian Epos. Here, side by side with the ruling class which claimed descent from the Homeric gods and heroes, was evolved a class of professional bards, and amongst them arose the gifted poets whose names have been forgotten in the fame of the one and only Homer. Let us hope that the real Homer was worthy of this pre-eminence. By these Homerides the Epos, first sung to the lute, and then recited, was carried farther and farther among the islands and along the coast. The subject-matter awakened interest everywhere; being, as it were, national history, the form won for itself an ever widening circle of appreciation. Gradually in the mother-country there were found native bards who learned from wandering rhapsodists the art of making poetry in the Homeric style, that is to say, of using a foreign language and a foreign art-form, but to express new matter, which was nevertheless invariably linked in some fashion with the world of Homeric heroes. Accordingly, the production of epic poems, ever based upon Homeric legend, was maintained in the mother-country for centuries after it had died out in Ionia, continuing into the sixth century. It is through these circles, in the main, that Homer has been preserved.

The cardinal point was that, in the Homeric Epos, the Greeks acquired an organ of speech capable of expressing all that men could say and hear. It was a well-defined and yet highly elastic style, not by any means exclusively adapted to narrative; on the contrary they never abandoned the practice of casting instruction of all kinds into this form, which was popularised and made generally intelligible by the school from the time there were schools at all. It was also used in incantations, in monumental inscriptions, and in the fleeting jest. The most abstract philosophy, the description of the starry heavens, the dogmatic side of astrology, nay even the Psalms and the Gospel of St. John, have been clothed in Homeric garb. In like manner it is characteristic of the genius of Greece that it begins its evolution by creating such a mode of expression, and for a thousand years does not grow weary of it. The instinct for form and the adherence to a form once discovered are likewise Greek; their combination begets at first an unparalleled achievement, but for centuries long it has to drudge in the service of imitative facility and orthodox formalism.

Homer, moreover, created for the Greeks their heroic legend. The whole wealth of scattered and desultory reminiscence and tradition among the various tribes and families, combined with all that occupied the memory and imagination of man, was gathered together in one by the art of the Epic poets. Thus another and more beautiful domain was built up in the imaginations of men, from which a light fell on the present so brilliant that the present paled before it, while even as children men began to make themselves at home in that domain. Here it was that the Greeks found their common fatherland, proud and united, whilst they were still at daggers drawn with one another upon earth, and once more when they were all subject to foreign lords; to this day all those of us who have drunk a draught from Homer’s spring, feel at home in this region. Their gods the Greeks, likewise, received from Homer; not the faith by which the heart is made heavy and light, rendered contrite and redeemed, but the names and the histories, the relations and the amours of their celestial host--that is to say, their mythology.

The name itself implies how far it was from anything like divine revelation and holiness. The muse has much to say that is untrue but resembles truth. Homeric art, however, understood the secret of humanising the stories of the gods as effectually as the stories of tribes and kings. And this Homeric art took captive the fancy of the listeners, that is, the fancy of the whole nation as soon as it gave ear to the poetry of Homer. Homer gave to the Greek his gods, and all the Greek gods turned into men with the gift. He gives us a complete picture of nature too, he teaches us to see what surrounds us, and the sorrows and joys that condition our brief life under the sun. The roseate flush of dawn, the twinkling of the dog-star, the rush of the hurricane, the babble of the mountain stream, the tops of the fir trees in the highland forest, and the clumps of asphodel on untilled ground; the lions and wolves in the Asiatic mountain country, the horse and the hound, the companions of man, he sees everything, shows everything, loves everything; above all, the sea, eternal, ever new, that has become a home to the Ionian in lieu of mother-earth. In the light in which he viewed Nature and set her forth the Greeks accustomed themselves to look upon her. Not only so, but whole generations took pleasure in the reproduction of what had once been done, and turned their eyes aside from the contemplation of the Real, the infinitude whereof no Homer can exhaust.

In fine, the judgment passed upon Homer by Horace, who repeats the verdict of the stoics, contains a large measure of truth:

“Qui, quid sit pulcrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.”

He gives us a complete picture of the doings of man, shows us princes and beggars, old men and boys, the budding maiden and the perfection of dæmonic beauty. So rich is this completeness, so profound the poet’s knowledge of life, that the thing we most clearly realise is the utter preposterousness of any attempt to compare Homer with any popular poetry whatsoever. Rather does Plato rightly name him the grandsire of tragedy, and only one picture of the world can claim a birthright equal to that of Homer--the picture set forth on the stage of William Shakespeare.

In this Homeric delineation of mankind, which includes immortal men, to wit, the gods, and has the portrayal of nature for its complement, lies that specifically Homeric quality which casts a spell over every unspoilt mind, and which the finest art-critics of all times and nations never grow weary of praising. It bears witness to a high psychological culture in both poets and listeners. No state of primitive barbarism such as Tacitus depicts in the Germani, none but an old and richly developed civilisation, could lead up to this. The fresh observation of nature in the pictures of Knossos, the rigid stylistic convention of the cuttle-fish on the golden platter of Mycenæ, for example, the bold ornament on painted vessels, like the pitcher of Marseilles, the architecture of the beehive tombs, show the Homeric sense of art in other regions and at a pre-Homeric period.

This Homeric art is certainly in the main Hellenic. But for all that, it is only one side of the Hellenic spirit, which is not even remotely understood by those who identify it with Homer. A great danger is already threatening this form of art in the shape of conventionalism, of stereotyped beauty. It grows too easy to be a Homerides, and he who rests satisfied with such an achievement thereby renounces all aspiration to become a Homer. And the life depicted by Homer conceals beneath its brilliant surface much not only of hollowness but of evil. There is a total lack of national sentiment; there is no state; properly speaking there is no religion. These gods will vanish into thin air like vapours at the advent of a true god who wins men’s hearts to serve him. These men and women enjoy and suffer--to what end? To blossom and wither like the leaves of the woodland. What is the end of this brilliant world? The horrors of devastation for Ilium, and for the Achæans, returning home in their fleet--shipwreck.

The Ionians had just been torn from their native mountains and springs, from their ancestors and from their gods; in dire distress they had fought for and conquered new settlements on a foreign coast and among foreign races. They had been constrained to turn away from their mother-earth: the sea cannot take its place, for the earth alone is θεσμοφόρος. So it is that the legitimate heirs of the Homeric poets are the very men who shake off Homeric ideals--the Milesian merchant who traverses all seas, founds factories and cities, mingles with all nations, gathers information and wealth from all sides; the Ionian artist who abandons the excrescences of conventional style with the conventional Heroic legend, in his search for what is characteristic and individual; the subjective thinker of Ionia who seeks in his own breast the solution of the world’s enigma, and whether he discovers cosmic law there or in the contemplation of the heavens, ruthlessly thrusts away from him the fair illusions of Homer.

Meanwhile, in obscurity and gloom another Greece slowly arose in the mother-country. The immigrants, before whom the peoples of Agamemnon, Achilles, and Nestor--in so far as they were not enslaved by their rough masters--fled across the sea, had to begin from the beginning. The remains of the old civilisation stood in their midst, uncomprehended and mysterious as the Roman strongholds in the countries inundated by the flood of the Germani of the great migration. Where, as in Sparta, the forms of life fitted for migratory conditions were preserved in art, that primitive rudeness survived which (to take an instance) permitted the use of the axe only and not of the plane in the fashioning of a door-post. We recognise everywhere the oldest and lowest forms of religion--fetich-worship, totemism, a gloomy form of ancestor-worship; human sacrifice is frequent. Ornament has lost the sensuous delight in form proper to the Heroic period; it begins with lines and dots. The influence of the East must for a while have been totally arrested. How ill at ease an Asiatic Greek must have felt in this world is shown by Hesiod, who inveighs against his Heliconian village-home. He was the son of an immigrant Æolian. A large part of the country, not only the whole of the west coast, but also Thessaly the home of Hellen, i.e., of the whole nation, never again played an active part in civilisation. This, of course, had to come from the Greeks of Asia; and the cities of the eastern border in which the remains of the original population preponderated, Athens and Eubœa, to which the maritime city of Corinth was added from the Dorian cities, were the entrance gates to this civilisation. But the process of receiving and assimilating it was carried on in the main under the pressure of new modes of life, which we name after the Dorians. With regard to the older period we lack not direct evidence merely but credible information at almost every step: not till the beginning of the sixth century does it become possible to some extent to grasp this civilisation; but the institutions, their reflection in Heroic legend, and the character of the religion (not mere mythology) permit of a few inferences. The times were hard; for the most part a ruling class alone raised itself above the miserable, restless, joyless struggle for daily bread, and below it bondmen in many cases wore out a wretched existence. Not until the end of the period do men advance beyond the stage of primitive husbandry, and then not everywhere. Agriculture and cattle rearing remain the chief means of livelihood. The ruling class is warlike; where the mountains permit it, they pursue the sport of horse-racing, but for purposes of war horsemen are of little account. Highest in public esteem stands the physical exercise which in time of peace takes the place of military service; Greek gymnastics, of which Homer knows little, become hallowed by the competitive games which by degrees not only become the culminating moments of life but also evoke the first glimmer of public spirit.

The umpires at the Olympian games are the first to apply the name of Hellenes to the nation--more exactly speaking, to the class. For here it has come to pass that, though politically divided into numberless cantons, though involved in perpetual feuds and irreconcilable local animosities, the members of this class recognise one another, intermarry, call a truce for the festivals, and find a common interest in maintaining their class supremacy against the encroachments of the lower orders. The protection of the patriarchal organisation places Sparta at the head of a loose federation. The spirit of the age is masculine. The loin-cloth is laid aside at gymnastic exercises, the nude male form is the fairest of objects. The love of boys becomes not only a national institution but the sole province in which love claims the co-operation of the soul. Everything presents the sharpest contrast to Homer. Gymnastics require self-control and training; military service requires obedience; class supremacy is not favourable to the predominance of the individual man, but demands his subordination to the class. Thus, then, these men trained themselves strictly and austerely, and gained control over themselves, body and soul. They set up an ideal of the perfect man, who by training and obedience earns the right to be free and to rule. And they held out to him the prospect of becoming equal with the gods, even as Hercules entered heaven; but on earth they kept him within bounds by raising above him the other Greek ideal, that of the free self-governing community--the aggregate of equally worthy and therefore equally privileged free men. However much the reality may have altered, these two ideals remained inviolate, and they are the specifically European element which the Greeks have to show as against the East--the Greeks of the mother-country, be it understood, for Homer knows of nothing but an unbridled individualism; he does homage to the hero who, in good and evil alike, knows no bounds. These nobles are not licensed to aspire beyond the limits of their class nor do they wish to do so. They invented an ideal of happiness that could be realised on earth; all that was required was to keep within bounds. Hercules, the ideal hero of this society, had nothing but toil upon earth, but in return he made the step from human to divine by his own strength. This grand conception betrays the lengths to which Doric self-reliance believed itself able to go.

The free man has come into being; the power above him, which we call society or the state, has also come; at that time it was called Law or Custom--Nomos; and this power is sanctified by the existence of an exponent of the divine revelation, the god (i.e. the Apollo) of Delphi. The authority of this god, and of the oracles by which he answers through his priests, is undisputed. He addresses the mortal with the warning “Know thyself,” that is, as a creature that is mortal. He enjoins self-control and self-restraint; the numerous Greek adages recommending moderation, the praise of the mean and of equality, the encomiums on sophrosyne, belong to this period and to this world. No doubt, so much would not have been said of this virtue if it had not been so rare, but erroneous as it is to conceive of the Greeks as examples of the virtues they recommend, the establishment of this moral ideal is significant; a complement to their faith in the power of man to gain admittance into heaven by force. Under Apollo’s direction music takes its place by the side of gymnastics; music also masters the wild instincts; it includes every kind of intellectual culture known to this society. The boy learns to sing, to strike the lute, to keep time in the dance; and the consecration of worship rests upon it all. Harmony must reign in the deportment and movement of the body, and of the soul likewise. The piper takes his place in the column on the march; it marks an important advance that the line of battle now marches to meet the enemy in step and in serried ranks; it is thought a fit subject for the painter’s art, and not without justice. The ruling caste does not often produce a poet who is a musician at the same time; the poets are for the most part brought from the East: but the nobles must be able to sing the songs, to dance, and even to improvise a verse to a set tune over the wine. The female sex also takes its part in music; choirs of maidens are popular, and native poetesses occur more frequently than native poets. Side by side with solemn gravity we get, at stated times of the ceremonial year, the most unbridled enjoyment, ecstatic revelry, the grossest kind of burlesque; but this is curbed; it appeals more to the lower social strata, and does not find expression in art until a late period.

Like all institutions, this worship and the whole system of the cult of Apollo was not established without fierce struggles; and it incorporated into itself, and thus rendered innocuous, many things which it was unable to cast forth. This was true more particularly of ecstasy. There had been a time when the nation was thrilled by a mighty religious movement having its source in the Phrygio-Thracian religions; the great god Dionysus came, he who walks the earth demanding faith and followers, who possesses men with his spirit and enables a man to experience what he himself experienced, and is ever experiencing afresh--divine madness, death and resurrection. The movement naturally laid hold upon the Greeks of the East also, but it did not take souls captive there; the Homeric Greeks have no appreciation of mysticism. Here, on the contrary, within the religion that was gradually being Homerised, a counter-current set in, capable, indeed, of becoming a sub-current, but only if its course were directed into the bed of the official religion, and if Apollo effected a compromise with Dionysus. In narrower circles, outside the state religion, this doctrine and practice based upon the ecstasy, the redemption of man, have always held their own; the old religion of Demeter passed through similar crises, and the incorporation into the state cult of secret rites such as were practised at Eleusis, did not suffice to stifle the longing for an individual religion. But for the time the Apolline system is triumphant.

Doric architecture is now added to the solemn rendering of Doric music. The temple, the house of the image of the god, made, not for congregational worship, but for solemn procession or devout meditation, is the consummate expression of this piety. That the gods should take the form of men is an outcome of the Homeric temper; but Zeus as a naked man hurling lightning, Apollo as a naked youth, the calm, majestic matrons and maidens--these are the Doric ideal of divinity. In addition to these we get the statues of men, the male image (ἀνδριάς) and the virginal image (κόρη). The inspiration of these arts certainly came from the East, but what interests and delights us in archaic sculpture and in those very examples which seem to us typical, as so genuinely Greek, is the Doric element; it reveals itself to us not only in the Æginetæ and the statues of nude youths who are just as much gods as men, but also in the Idolino and the Delphic charioteer, the Hestia Giustiniani and the female prize-runner, in the works of Polyclitus and again in those of Myron; for Athens long shares in this culture, the chief prophet of which at the twelfth hour was the Theban Pindar, with his gift for showing us both its splendour and its remoteness from modern sentiment. To this day Homer and the Athenians produce a vivid impression on every unsophisticated mind; Pindar requires arduous historical study, like Virgil, Dante, and Calderon.

By its situation, and the close ties of consanguinity between its population and the Ionians, Athens was destined to unite the civilisations of East and West. The comparatively large peninsula of Attica, so shut off that it is almost insular, had already developed into a political unit at an earlier stage. Aristocratic rule had, it is true, reduced the less wealthy of the peasant population to a condition of servitude, but by introducing the olive it had made agriculture profitable; and, like the Dorians in Corinth, it had recognised trade as an occupation not derogatory to men of rank. Material conditions for amelioration were far more favourable than in the neighbouring island of Ægina, where commerce concerned only the ruling class, who farmed their lands with purchased slaves. But the rapid rise of Athens from obscurity to the first rank is due to one man, in whom the union of East and West was first consummated--the wise Solon. Of noble birth and in sympathy with Dorian modes of life, he had, for all that, travelled to distant shores as a merchant, had laid aside among the Ionians all prejudice, superstition, and mysticism; above all, had acquired the power of using poetry not only for political but also for moral exhortation. He was inspired by the fullest confidence in the might, wisdom, and justice of God, and in the goodness of human nature; all it needed was liberty to exercise itself without let or hindrance,--a need which found its complement in the social order,--that other men might likewise obtain the liberty that was their right. His people had faith in him, and placed the organisation of the state in his hands. He gave the power to the whole people, i.e., to the changing majority of free and upright Athenians, and he gave them all access to the national assembly, to the executive committee, the deliberative council, and the national court of justice. In principle, democracy was established. And the principle of freedom and of equality can be obscured neither by abuse nor by inadequate use; the only limitation to which it is subject is due to the higher principle which Solon himself placed above it, and which never disappears, at least, in theory, from the politics of the Greeks--the principle of justice. Whatever modification it underwent, with Solon there came into existence the municipal constitution, not of Athens alone, but of Greece, which endures as long as the Greek spirit can be traced in historical continuity--the free state of free men. At the time, as a matter of fact, freedom could not be maintained in Athens. But the struggles of the great families, which for another hundred years wrestled together for supremacy, only gave the city time to absorb the Ionian spirit more fully, to develop industry and trade side by side with agriculture, to exploit that economic freedom which was never again encroached upon, and so to accumulate strength in every direction for the decisive moment. This came with the question whether Europe was to be swallowed up in the despotic world-empire of Asia, to which Homeric Greece had already ingloriously succumbed. The issue was not a question of national differences, but simply one of freedom or servitude; a servitude, too, such as the wise man often accepts, because it does not seem to threaten individual liberty. But the free state or class, the democracy of Athens, no less than the Peloponnesian aristocracy, refused to brook it. The Athenian line of battle won the victory at Marathon--it was the triumph of the Doric element. The weapon for the maritime victory of Salamis had been rapidly forged by the genius of Themistocles, a modern Ionian in every sense of the word. In defiance of all human calculations, Xerxes was defeated and compelled to renounce his pretensions to the whole of Europe.

The spirit of Greece now became a national idea; the kinsmen of the Greeks in Asia not only came over, but they made Athens,--Sparta being so tardy,--the presidial centre of a confederation unprecedented in power and extent by anything Greek; the conception of a vast Greek empire in the future, a national confederation, seemed capable of realisation at that moment, since it was possible for the first thought of it to take shape. Politically, too, Athens seemed destined to unite the Greeks of the East and of the West; and if she did so, the Greeks were bound to possess the world.

Under the auspices of these great times Attic tragedy arose as the most perfect expression of the union of Western with Eastern Hellenism, stamped with the features of the great period of its birth; for not until Æschylus, the warrior of Marathon, took the Homeric Heroic legend for the groundwork of the ancient ecstatic Dionysian festivals; not until he substituted the solemn Doric chorus for the satyrs, and reduplicated the Ionian reciter, was the drama discovered which, sublime beyond the scope of mere humanity, and still remaining a part of the worship of the god, yet bore within it the germ of development into a picture of human life, making an appeal more direct and more effective than the narrative of the rhapsodist or the song of the bard. An abundance of talent turned to this new form, which remained Athenian even when the poets came from abroad, and became more and more Athenian, human, and modern. Yet no one ventured to abandon the Homeric subject-matter and go direct to contemporary life for material. And so it continued to be, although with the decay of the Attic empire and its great poets, tragedy (whether as Attic drama or as a part of worship), no longer had any intrinsic claim to the subject-matter of the Heroic legend. Here again the authority of a great achievement condemned posterity to the depths of imitation. The form of drama known at Athens as comedy was regarded as quite another thing; and it had certainly gone far from its source in the same masquerade and the same Dionysian ecstasy by the time it was cast into shape by witty Athenian poets, and promoted to be species of literature. Comedy became drama, and followed the lines of tragedy by centring about a definite action; it was no less wonderful than the latter so long as it served the purpose of the moment and of the necessarily circumscribed circle of Athenian society; but for this very reason it exercised no universal influence, and was destined to fall to pieces with the collapse of the political and social fabric. The last literary achievement of Athens was to transform it, about the time of Alexander, into a refined, purely recitative play which occupied exactly the same relation to contemporary life as later tragedy occupied to the Heroic legends. This new comedy deserved and received the same classic imprimatur as tragedy; but the same slavish subjection to a model ensued; the figures of Menander, so infinitely commonplace and provincial, alas! were doomed to make their appearance on the comic stage, like Medea and Orestes on the tragic, whether the play were written and acted in Rome or Alexandria. In this petrified and haphazard form the theory rather than the poetry of the drama was conveyed to the West. Aristotle, in particular, failed to advance from the chance illustration of actual performances to a formulated statement of the truth, and modern writers have still an unwholesome habit of tossing about the terms “tragedy” and “comedy,” at all events in theory. We have the will to admire and the capacity to understand both what has been achieved by the Athenians and the causes that led inevitably to that achievement: but the foundation of modern dramatic art is Shakespeare--or Plato, who recognised in theory that tragedians and comedians are anything but contradictory terms, and who, like Shakespeare, combined both in himself.

In the Athenian art of the fifth century, as in Æschylean tragedy, the elements of Eastern and Western Greece interpenetrate, and each heightens the effect of the other. The Parthenon is a Doric temple with an Ionic frieze. To Ionic monumental fresco painters is given the task of painting Homeric stories on the broad surfaces of Athenian and Delphic porticoes; the capacity to immortalise the deeds of contemporary life is its own contribution. From the devout spirit that inspires the poet of the Oresteia, Phidias, with all the wealth and all the art at his command, tries to create images of the gods that will satisfy the religious feeling of his time. To the Greeks they were the greatest for all time. Precisely as in the case of tragedy, such a high strain of endeavour lasts but a short time. Then the Ionic element becomes preponderant; the human, subjective aspect thrusts itself into prominence. It is inevitable, and the thing it created is worthy of admiration. But in the pathos and ethos of the divine types created by Praxiteles and Scopas there is nothing but the mythological character of Homer’s gods; they are immortal men, and no more; to Scopas and Praxiteles they were nothing higher than this. And it was right that it should be so; for in the meantime the comprehension of the truly divine had so far progressed that its circumscription in a person was merely symbolical, and implied no idea of physical incarnation.

Ionia’s greatest and most important contribution was that provided by the audacity of the great thinkers and observers of the sixth century, that indeed which, by setting the whole conception of the world on a new basis, was bound to destroy the fair illusion of gods in the form of men which Æschylus and Phidias might still have regarded as a truth. It was only on Ionian soil, on the soil of Homer, that man had courage and strength to fling aside all convention, all tradition, to step into the centre of the universe himself and say “Thou art naught but what I recognise as thee, thou signifiest what I discover in thee.” The idea was not at the outset formulated with this precision, but such is the spirit in which the Ionians early went to work--not the philosophers alone, but the reckless natures who in the world of action took themselves for the standard of conduct--men like Archilochus the poet, whose subjectivism combined with his brutal outspokenness and license aroused the delight and horror of his contemporaries and of posterity. A terrible moral danger lurked in this attitude, and Ionia, which changed nothing but its masters, brought an infection into the mother-country which neither the state nor society availed to overcome. But for strong natures it also provided the remedy, and the world, for its part, owes to this Ionic element the best of what the Greeks have bequeathed to her--science, philosophy, natural science, and history, though it is true that they had first to be ennobled by the Athenians. This is most easily seen in the case of history.

Historia is subjective inquiry; Herodotus, not a man of powerful intellect, gives us, as he himself says, the sum of his own investigations. This includes what he has seen, heard, read, and thought, all in close juxtaposition. The subjective mind determines how and what he can and may narrate. Thucydides, the Athenian, on the other hand, writes the war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians; here it is the object which is the determining factor. The writer renders both himself and the reader account of his subject and of his method, indicates the degree of credibility for his various statements and adds his own interpretations and conclusions for what they are worth; the scientific method has thus been reached. Man has not lost his independence, but he consciously places his whole strength at the service of an idea, in this case the idea of truth; and, clear as it is to him that he cannot reach the point of presenting it pure and complete, he has no doubt that an objective truth exists and is accessible to human knowledge.

Natural science had begun, at a stroke, to explain genesis (das Werden) in general and particular by a bold hypothesis. The investigator made the laws. Natural science, in its turn, came to test its laws by a thousand patient, minute, independent observations of nature, to accumulate the facts from which the rule might be deduced in its turn. Most important for this purpose is the cultivation of that domain in which pure abstraction permits of an unbroken series of proofs, the domain of numbers and geometrical concepts. Here we have a genuine process of learning from which, in time, mathematics takes its name; here the deceptive character of sensuous perceptions is as clear as the existence of knowable laws; here are revealed the necessity and possibility of many to collaborate and continue the work. It was not by means of his religious brotherhood, which, if it had lasted, would have ultimately become a sect, that Pythagoras exercised a beneficent influence, but by the methodical organisation of study, which became scientific in so far as it turned its attention to mathematics. At the same time, in spite of all premature hypotheses, medicine, the branch of observation most closely in touch with actual life, discovered by keen observation and continuous experiment the right way to gain a knowledge of the human body, its nature, its sufferings, how to keep it healthy, or if necessary how to cure it. In astronomy and medicine we have the difference between the East and Hellas most clearly manifest. Thousands of years before, the Babylonians had already observed the heavens; thousands of years before, the Egyptians had compounded prescriptions from all kinds of drugs and simples. But this was sorcery, and even the Greeks had to pay for allowing themselves to be imposed upon by it.

In the sphere of morals the breach with that Nomos of which we have spoken was a great danger: the whole edifice of the Apolline organisation fell to pieces. Democracy fairly challenged man to translate his theory into practice, and the mental attitude of the time was so political that people thought Anaxagoras a crank, because of his own free will he devoted himself to the vita contemplativa and refused to mingle in the political hurly-burly. They declined to believe in his good faith, and political suspicion allied with the principle of established authority, which always naturally opposes a tendency so novel, banished him from Athens. And from the very fact that, in all other fields, this principle was so strong among the Greeks, the age that dared express and pursue every thought that rose in the mind acquires its peculiar significance. The activity, inventiveness, and audacity of the period of the sophists, with its superabundance of talent, sowed seeds without number, many of which, unproductive at the time, have been left for the modern world rightly to appreciate. Thus a science of jurisprudence would have been developed, had not the fall of the empire destroyed the sphere in which alone a uniform system of law could prevail: the practice of the legal profession thus falling into the hands of pettifoggers, while the theory of jurisprudence was left to philosophers, who were honest in their quest of the principle of justice.

Modern speculation has gradually outgrown the tendency to regard the sophists through the eyes of Plato, and to impute to them moral and intellectual indifferentism. One thing, however, is incontestable: the whole movement, coming, as it does, from Ionia, is rationalistic through and through; the intellect will acknowledge nothing on a par with itself. A prophet like Empedocles, who was a doctor, a philosopher, and a poet to boot, besides cherishing the proud conviction of being as good a sophist as any other, could go about extolling his revelation in the Peloponnesus; in Athens he would have found no place. The port of Athens, on the other hand, was laid out by a Milesian diagrammatically in the dreary chess-board style then in vogue for buildings on new sites, although it can only be satisfactory on paper, inasmuch as it neither takes account of the character of the landscape nor consists with the artistic feeling of the Greeks. Rationalistic in his teaching, again, was the only Athenian whose sophist doctrines gave offence to his compatriots, especially because instead of making a fortune like the teachers of wisdom from abroad, he neglected his affairs. We, ourselves, should hardly except Socrates from the category of sophists on account of his merits as a dialectician, had not the reactionary democracy of the restoration executed him as a person dangerous to the common weal. He chose to die rather than do the least thing that ran counter to his consciousness of rectitude, his Logos, the belief in the reality of the Good which he was not able to demonstrate by rationalistic methods; and the moral grandeur of his death has reared for the faith of the human race an image which bears eternal witness that man is free and happy if he can but base his actions on belief in the Good; he needs no future world of punishment and reward. This eccentric Silenus-faced Athenian did not aspire to become a god like Hercules, he would have been more at home in a pedantic than a heroic atmosphere: he merely did nothing which he did not think right. The claim that the will obeys the reason--in most cases such a pitiful brag!--was a truth with him. Socrates was Athenian to the core, and therefore a loyal citizen of the democratic state; but, like Solon, he combines the Ionian and the Doric temperament; and, in common with the law-giver, he is devoid of feeling for mysticism and the whole sphere of the Unknown. His life is only intelligible as an outgrowth of the history of Athens; his death makes him a type of man as he can and should be. So long as the human race survives on our planet it will be a master experience of our moral education to live through the dying hours of this old and ugly plebeian.

That we can so do, that we can have Socrates as our master, we owe wholly and solely to the loyalty and poetic genius of the man (Plato) who set himself in the days of that agony to show that--hard as it may be to define uprightness, courage, piety and what other virtues there may be--the upright and courageous and therefore happy man has demonstrated in his own person the reality of these abstractions. This alone would have sufficed to make Plato a benefactor to mankind; but this is only a small part of his labours. With all that Socrates and the school of sophistry taught him, he combines mathematics and the mysticism of Pythagoras. He founded the school which was destined to serve the purposes of organised scientific work for nearly a thousand years, and which is the prototype of all such organisations. He lays down the fundamental lines of every philosophical science, constructing, and, where he thinks he has found a better way, demolishing the foundations he himself has laid. Many of his intuitions have only been verified after the lapse of centuries and tens of centuries; others still await verification. The force inherent in him is best proved by the energy of those who assure us that he has had his day. He has set Eros as the mediator between heaven and earth; this Eros has no worthier abode than the writings of Plato; through them, even to-day, Psyche is learning the road heavenwards. But Plato is a Greek in every fibre, he can only be understood through his people, and his people through him.

Plato was a poet; and though he fixed his mind wholly on the eternal type, unduly despising the individual phenomenon, and thrusting his own individuality completely into the background, yet this individuality with its poetic genius cast light and shade in bewildering alternation over every field of contemplation, like the full moon as she fleets over the mountains and plains of Attica.

Science needed the cool judgment and caution of the systematiser. She found it in the person of Aristotle, the master-builder among men (baumeisterlicher Mann), as Goethe calls him. At his hands science first received systematic treatment and method--the tools of her craft. The existence of the man and his work attest for all time the unnatural character of a division of the one and indivisible body of science though it be only into natural and abstract sciences. For even in the collection of material, he laboured for all branches alike. It is idle to inquire which were the greater, his personal achievements or those which owed their birth to his example. For his successors carried on the work in his spirit, even more truly when, often after vehement controversy, they advanced beyond him, than when they rested content with merely working out the plan of the master-builder. Sprung of a family of physicians, and endowed with the Ionian temperament, the natural science of Ionia is the most substantial contribution he made to the legacy bequeathed by Plato. But he had likewise made himself familiar with all the accepted tricks of oratory at Athens, he speaks with authority on logic, rhetoric, and poetry, and he is capable of treating all literary forms with the hand of a master. Yet he did not discover his own peculiar style until he combined the bald simplicity of Ionian scientific phraseology with Attic balance and Attic elegance. Thus he became the father of scientific prose, of the text-book no less than the lecture and the practical investigation. Even in halting translations he afforded nutriment to powerful intellects. His own words will have a modern ring to the end of time.

It is a characteristic distinction between the two philosophers that Plato, the incomparable artist in words, fiercely attacked rhetoric, while Aristotle made it a cardinal item in his programme of education. It was a power and he reckoned with it accordingly, not without yielding more to contemporary taste than we can approve. To the modern mind rhetoric is the least congenial element in the culture and literature of antiquity. We can understand that in the political agitation which pervaded the Attic empire, oratory, which was a daily necessity in parliamentary debate and in the law courts, was bound to develop into an art, and that a literature should have arisen corresponding to that of our daily press. So, too, we can understand that the manifold intellectual activity of the age of the sophists, and the tentative efforts of science, needed an organ which should not only convey practical information but have an eye to effect. That this prose should become Attic, in spite of the fact that the language of Athens had barely passed through its first phase of development in tragedy, was inevitable from the time when Athens took the lead in Greece. In the sphere of language, at all events, the country attained to national unity. But to us there is at first sight something monstrous in the fact that in the age of Pericles a set form of oratory should arise which not only consciously competes with poetry but seeks to supplant it--and which actually succeeded in preventing the development of any new poetic method. The whole classic world, including the Latins, devoted no trifling labour and skill to this art of eloquence, and its art-theory ended by making poetry a mere subdivision of it. We are now coming to recognise more and more how much modern poetry in particular owes to this prose-poetry and its methods: the modern connecting-link of the rhyme was discovered beyond all dispute by that Gorgias whom Plato attacked as the champion of rhetoric; the intermediate links lie before us in an unbroken chain. Our astonishment subsides, if we so far rid ourselves of prejudice as to realise how arbitrary is every line of demarcation between poetry and prose. Not only the poems of Walt Whitman, but a great many of Goethe’s finest poems would be regarded by every Greek art-critic as prose. Prose really implies that the language proceeds on foot; the reverse,--that it soars aloft by means of this device or that,--applies to every conventionalised form of speech; whether it is cast into a regular measure or not is irrelevant in comparison with the fact that it is informed by measure. The Hellenic bias towards style manifests itself here in the creation of a definite form, and we cannot question the fact that the development of the period demanded a new style and one unhampered by the laws of metre. For at such a high point of civilisation the poetic form does not suffice for what the world has to say and wishes to hear. Empty and conventional jingle, relying on tricks of style, undoubtedly attained a bad eminence in Greek and Latin oratory; but a similar spectacle has been afforded by poetry and the arts of chisel and brush. If a man had something to say, like Aristotle, Polybius, and Plutarch, it did him no harm to clothe his thoughts in a form, the effect of which we perceive agreeably even without understanding the art to which it is due. It is the same artistic conventionality which to this day lends to French prose, whether it be that of literature or of polite conversation, the charm which the Teuton does not possess in equal measure. And the French have attained to it by a rhetorical schooling traditionally derived from the method of antiquity. That elegance is not an inborn quality with them is shown by the formlessness of so great a writer as Rabelais. Were we in a position to read the laws of Solon we should perceive that Attic elegance was likewise no gift of heaven. An art which we find still dominant in the sermons and hagiography of the Byzantines is a power not to be despised, even apart from its historical value.

Again, it was not to these conventional tricks, in the first instance, that Plato was averse. He was logician enough to appreciate the high educational value of making thought move in regulated periods (a thing that many people overlook nowadays); but the heaven-born poet felt that this intellectual mechanism was antagonistic to the direct unconscious self-revelation of emotional experience. The thing that roused him to passionate protest was the claim laid by rhetoric to the formation of youth. This had to be begun on a fresh system, the old training in music and gymnastics being no longer adequate. The question was between a scientific and philosophical education (Plato was thinking particularly of mathematics, to which we also devote attention) and a conventional and mechanical training of the mind. There is no question that the rhetoricians provided the latter. It is rhetoric that our own schools desire to achieve by the practice of speaking and writing in the mother-tongue, and rhetoric that they formerly aimed at by speaking and writing in Latin. This Plato repudiated because it was no genuine knowledge, while the fact that the rhetorician took upon himself to talk of everything, irrespective of how much he knew of his subject, and never attempted to conceal that he aimed at effect and nothing else, appeared to the disciple of Socrates wantonly immoral. And when Isocrates, the most successful and systematic teacher of rhetoric, called his form of instruction philosophy, it must have sounded like mockery in the ears of the genuine philosopher. In youth, Plato had experienced in his own case that no poetic form was suited to portray what was to him the noblest of all visions--Socrates in converse with his pupils and with the sophists. He felt within himself the capacity to embody this vision directly by the reproductive power of imagination without any other stylistic conventionality than that of his own poetic fire. Thus in the divine madness of the poet, of which he speaks later in his Phædrus, he found the form to suit him. This form he perfected, and created, in the height of his power, works in which we find all the merits of all kinds of poetry and rhetoric, but which are, nevertheless, something utterly apart and unique. In his old age he probably felt that the form was no longer adequate to the substance; but he did not care to abandon it; and he who has glowed with enthusiasm with the youthful Plato, in his elder years willingly gives ear to the style of his old age, because the soul within has not grown old. Great writers like Aristotle and Cicero, having safely stored this characteristic form, which was natural to one period and one person alone, in the pigeon-holes of their æsthetic system, have indeed produced admirable dialogues. They are counterfeits none the less, and it is a wholly anti-Platonic classicism which holds or would hold the dialogue to be the true, or even a particularly good, method of scientific investigation and statement. Plato’s dialogue is a miracle which will edify the world to the end of time, like Athenian tragedy and the comedy of Aristophanes; but it is specifically Athenian. This is why Aristotle at his best abandoned dialogue in favour of a plain statement of ideas. Had the efforts of Aristotle been attended with success, the quarrel between rhetoric and philosophy would have been adjusted, inasmuch as rhetorical training would have received its proper and subordinate place in the philosophical education of youth. But the unforeseen expansion of Hellenic civilisation did not allow of such root-growth, and at a later period the power was wanting. In the dialogue De Oratore, that work which has most of the Platonic character, Marcus Cicero, though himself of the rhetorical school, renews the attempt to subordinate rhetoric to scientific training. In so doing he reproduced the ideas of his contemporaries, the successors of Plato in the Academy. The attempt succeeded neither in Rome nor in Greece. One of the strongest signs of decadence in the time of the empire is the fact that philosophy, except where it holds its own in narrow scholastic circles, has to yield precedence to rhetoric. Where the Latin language prevailed more especially, philosophy becomes no more than a part of general education; while rhetoric, thanks to an adherence to Attic models of style that grows ever closer and more difficult, becomes more and more an empty game of words that only serves to mask the internal decay which it precipitates. And yet the sight of the clinging ivy on the trunk of the dead oak is a fair one.

For centuries the great model of all rhetoricians was Demosthenes. His inimitable greatness is most plainly manifest in their imitations, even though they be those of Cicero. He, too, is intelligible only in connection with his age and his city, the only time and place which could have brought him forth as their natural fruit. The statesmen of the great epoch of Athens had wrought with the living word, prisoned in no written document--thus, Pericles. Gradually the political pamphlet began to make its way, choosing amongst other forms that of the δημηγορία, or parliamentary speech. The leading statesmen, indeed, wrote very seldom; but the literati, whom they made their mouthpiece, in time became a power in the formation of public opinion. Pre-eminent among these was Isocrates; he too made use of the form of the δημηγορία amongst others, his studied arts of speech giving it a character which must have formed a singular contrast to the words dictated by the passion of the moment in the Pnyx. It was a result of existing conditions that the speech in the law courts was sometimes suited to produce its effect as a pamphlet pretty much in the form in which it had been delivered. The popularity of rhetoric also preserved many speeches in the courts which had no particular tendency, and thus, curiously enough, special pleading made its way into literature. But Demosthenes was the first to rise to the position of a leading statesman by the publication of orations to the people or to the courts which he had either actually made or else had reduced to this form. Simultaneously his works took their place among the most distinguished classics of his nation. His only education had been that of an advocate, which included, it must be admitted, all the arts of speech; nothing that may even remotely be called science ever touched him. In our moral judgment of him we should apply no standard but that which he recognised; he took the license which had been taken by patriotic Athenian statesmen even in the days of Themistocles. Possibly this did not tally with the Platonic standard, but then, neither did the state of Athens. The charm of Demosthenes lies in his faith in the democratic imperialistic ideals of the Athens of Pericles. That these had long been past hope, was the key to his fate; he himself was ruined by the fact. That by the power of the spoken word and the faith that alone makes the word powerful, he almost succeeded in inspiring his worn-out and selfish nation with his own patriotism, and, that in spite of everything, Athens once again entered the arena to champion liberty against Philip with the lives of her citizens--therein lies his greatness. The tragic side of this greatness heightens its fascination for one who sees through the illusions of Demosthenes and perceives the better right, historically speaking, on the side of Philip; but the fire of the passion of Demosthenes will carry even such a one away. This is not the charm to which the rhetoricians were susceptible. What held them spell-bound is what at first alienates our sympathies. Hellenic art restrained all wildness and passion, reducing it to the smoothest, most harmonious form. Demosthenes did not speak like this, of that we are sure. As a writer he practises the art of conventionalisation with the soundest judgment and the most cautious intelligence--we discover that this speaker can do whatever he pleases, his power knows no bounds; but he himself defines the narrow limits consistent with the growth of harmonious beauty; beauty, if you will, of the style in which contemporary art adorned its mausoleums; for in the case of Scopas and Leochares, too, vast pathos slumbers beneath the sweep of the beautiful line.

Athenian independence and power and that Greek liberty in opposition to which Philip looked a barbarian and a tyrant in the eyes of Demosthenes, had in truth long been but a phantom. The attempt made by Athenian statesmen, from Aristides to Pericles, to transform into an Athenian empire the confederation of cities which the repulse of the Persians had called into existence, was the greatest act of the Hellenes in the sphere of politics. The concentration of their civilisation into a unit under the hegemony of Athens was achieved. But the issue which the young Thucydides foresaw when, at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, he determined to write his history, fell out otherwise than he perhaps anticipated or than was in all human probability to be anticipated. Athens had not strength to subdue the Peloponnesus; Sparta subdued Athens and destroyed the empire--but with the help of the Persians, who were the real victors. The result was not only the desolation and brutalisation incident to a long civil war, but a despair of any kind of favourable issue--indeed of any issue at all. The restoration of the Athenian democracy, the catastrophe of Sparta, which after Leuctra has as much as it can do in fighting for its own existence, the ephemeral rise of Thebes, due to the pre-eminence of a single man, all this has no further significance in the history of the nation except to emphasise the fact that none of these little cities could maintain a sovereignty either at home or over their neighbours; that they existed only in virtue of the general weakness. Even the Persian might, which imposes its will on the Greeks so frequently even without the aid of armed force, subsists only because no one attacks it. What this whole world lacks is a dominant will to coerce it to its own advantage. It lacks a master. Many are aware of this, many give voice to it; that state in particular,--founded in violence and yet powerful,--which Dionysius of Syracuse carved out for himself by overcoming the Carthaginians in the hour of their need, widely disseminated this feeling. The fall of his dynasty brought about a reaction, and the spirit of ancient municipal independence owed its power to the fact that the monarchy seemed to place even the personal freedom of the individual in jeopardy. How Philip would have solved the problem put in his hands on the day of Chæronea, it is idle to speculate. Long before that, the aged Isocrates had called upon him to take his place as general of the Hellenic confederacy against the Persians. And now it came to pass that his son was confronted with this same problem. He it was who solved it. He is and was the master of whom the Hellenic nation stood in need.

Demosthenes and all those who were pledged to the old ideals of sovereign cities, whether oligarchies or democracies, were naturally incapable of understanding the great king and his empire, but even Aristotle seems to have thought much as they did, although he had been Alexander’s tutor and saw clearly the need of reform in society and the petty states, and was strongly inclined to translate his political theories into practice. His historical compilations ignore the Macedonian monarchy, and his theories reveal no suspicion of what Alexander designed and executed. This ought not to astonish us, even if we see in Alexander the crowning figure of Hellenic civilisation. For all truly great men in history seem to the reflective eye of posterity like providential agents appearing at the right moment to accomplish what has long ago been augured as a need, prophesied and prepared for. As a matter of fact they accomplish the result in quite another fashion, a fashion of their own, often contrary to all anticipation, filled as they justly are with the sense that they are contributing something new and original. But contemporaries who have no power of reading history backwards from the event (even if their interpretation were likely to be sound), experience the clash of this novel contribution with all the more violence the higher they stand over the common herd, which after all only takes up the catchword, crying, “Hosannah!” on Sunday, and on Friday, “Crucify!” Even now it counts itself singularly sage for taking its catchword from Demosthenes or Aristotle for the condemnation of Alexander.

Alexander went to Asia with the intention of seizing upon the empire of the Persian king. This he accomplished, not in a wild orgy of victory but with the tenacious perseverance which took three years for the conquest and organisation of the Eastern provinces, but did not overleap itself by extravagant ambitions. It is only legend that makes him the conqueror of the world. He was a Macedonian, the hereditary king of a feudal state which the energy of his father had transformed into a military monarchy. He was a Greek in the sense which even the journalists had long since learned to express by saying that it was not race but education that made the Greek. But he was also recognised as the legitimate successor of the Achæmenides, and was himself willing to employ the Persians, side by side with Macedonians and Hellenes, in the service of the empire. His empire was accordingly not to be based on nationality, it was to rear itself over the heads of nations and states. He granted self-government in the widest interpretation of the term to kingdoms, half-civilised tribes, Hellenic and other towns; he not only respected all local peculiarities of manners and religion, he even went so far in this direction as to deliver peoples from a foreign yoke--as for instance in the case of the Egyptians. But his empire was to be more than a confederacy, it was to be an effective entity with the imperial rule supreme over all, with the imperial army a ready instrument of war in the hands of the sovereign, to compel the Universal Peace, as he called his empire, and with the king’s officers able to exercise sufficient authority for the protection, not only of the constituent parts of the empire against one another but also of the individual against the arbitrary action of the individual community. Finally, he realised the civilising mission of the state as fully as any prince has ever realised it; he took in hand the irrigation of Mesopotamia, founded cities, built harbours, and set about the scientific exploration of his newly discovered world in a style to which even the present furnishes few parallels.

The imperial government, like the imperial army, was centred, head and heart, in the king. On his person everything depended. Absolute monarchy was the only possible form for the empire. The founder of this empire, who bore as many wounds on his body as anyone among his veterans, who commanded in all battles in person, who himself, by ceaseless toil, carried on the business of administration, might well regard himself as the true king whose right to rule, even his master, Aristotle, did not dispute, though he questioned the possibility of such a man’s existence. But Alexander in no way regarded himself as a sovereign because he had the power. He regarded himself as a king by the grace of God, not in the sense of a more or less dubious legitimacy, which many great and petty sovereigns are apt to advance as sole proof of their title, but in the sense in which the genuine artist and the prophet may claim to be the depositaries of the divine spirit. It was the reverse of presumption when Alexander set the divine element in himself in the foreground. During his lifetime he exhibited the most scrupulous piety, and it is contemptible to tax him with hypocrisy; he had far more faith in miracles and oracles than we are willing to ascribe to the pupil of Aristotle, though we can readily understand it in the Macedonian and the soldier. To him it was a revelation from heaven when the Libyan god greeted him as his son. Had not his ancestor, Heracles, been the son of Zeus and of Amphitryon? For him personally it was the confirmation of his faith in his own mission, and the divinity of its ruler gave his empire a religious consecration. It was consistent with this idea that the worship of Alexander took its place above the innumerable special cults of tribes and towns, of families and communities, as the religion of the empire as a whole. There are many instances of the worship of the sovereign being assigned a place in the pantheon, side by side with that of the godhead figured under a thousand different names and shapes; for the worship of defunct monarchs, the ancient and hallowed practice of ancestor-worship offers a precedent. The adoration paid to Plato and Epicurus was of a precisely similar character. Thus, the abuses of which weaklings and miscreants on the throne, and flatterers and sycophants among subjects, have been guilty, must not be allowed to neutralise the historical and spiritual authority of the institution of the worship of the sovereign, which is inseparably bound up with the institution of the monarchy of Alexander. This monarchy is the highest phase of political and social organisation attained by antiquity. For the much-lauded Roman Empire is nothing else than this kind of monarchy, imperium et libertas. Cæsar actually grasped at the crown of the Greek king. So far as Italy and the West were concerned, Augustus certainly wished to be the first citizen and no more--the confidential agent of the sovereign people. But to the Greek half of his empire he was from the first both king and god, and he owed his victory not least to his own belief and that of others in the divinity of his adoptive father. From the time of Hadrian the Augustan theory was in the main exploded even in the West.

This Hellenistic state allowed Alexander’s scheme to drop; he would have granted the Persians full rights of citizenship. From henceforth these rights pertain only to the man who has been Hellenised--the legal stamp of such a condition being membership of an Hellenic community. This is clearly manifest in Egypt, where even the Roman emperor bestows Roman citizenship on no Egyptian who has not been adopted into one of the Greek cities of the country. (In this connection we may leave institutions specifically Roman out of account.) For the rest, the king strives to preserve the ideals of the elder age of Greece, the free man and the free state. Personal and economic liberty, legal redress, and liberty of emigration are for the most part secured, not only to the subjects of a single kingdom, but to all Greeks. In like manner the cities enjoy a very considerable liberty of action, in degrees ranging from nominal sovereignty down to the government by royal officials which is presently established in Alexandria. The ancient Greek municipalities of Asia, in particular, enjoyed as subjects much greater privileges than, for example, the cities of Latin countries at the present day. The country, on the contrary, was almost everywhere allotted to some municipal community; that tendency with which we are familiar in the Roman Empire, to convert nations which did not take kindly to town settlements (like the Celts, for instance) from tribes into towns, if only on paper, is equally perceptible in Syria. Egypt remained “the country,” Chora, but likewise remained barbarous and enslaved. One of the rocks on which the civilisation of antiquity made shipwreck was the fact that the farmer was kept in tutelage or even in bondage by the city, and that he lagged behind it in education. Slavery, as an institution, has to be reckoned with only in the western half of the empire; not in Egypt, Palestine, and large districts of Asia. A community which holds property of its own, imposes its own taxes, which has its own laws and law courts, its own constitution and elective magistrates, is free to all intents and purposes; the fact that it pays a fixed tribute to the king, and leaves to his decision or award all questions of peace and war, intercourse with foreign states, or even with communities of its own political status, and is in many respects practically subject to his control, does not materially detract from its liberty. The danger of such a situation lurks in the circumstance that it minimises interest in their own city among the most capable of its citizens. It offers no career for effective political action. Worse still, the citizen ceases to bear arms. The army consists of the royal troops, official rank goes by royal appointment, and the monarchy alone has great resources at its command. To this centre, and to courts and capitals, the stir of life and every kind of talent is drawn. Very few of the free cities, mainly those which still retained their sovereign rights, like Rhodes, remained centres of civilisation. Not one of the new settlements became such, unless it was a royal capital. Doubtless there can be no genuine patriotism when the citizen takes no part in public life either by counsel or act. Doubtless a government which rests entirely upon the capacity of the sovereign can neither he stable, nor in the long run endure. But, on the whole, we must confess that the Hellenes lived at ease under this kind of government. The ancient petty states alone chose rather to bleed to death than to forego the empty name of liberty. We may regard with sympathy the attempts at confederacies made by Crete, the Peloponnesus and Ætolia; but we cannot deny that politically they are of little importance; they are matters of no moment in the history of civilisation.

About the year 330 there were three men who stood forth as the representatives of the great ideals of life--Alexander, Aristotle, and Demosthenes. Demosthenes perishes; the time is gone by for his kind of Greek liberty and greatness; the future is for the heroes of the vita activa and the vita contemplativa, men of action who passionately assail the Doric ideal of the sophrosyne, as Alexander did in taking the Achilles of Homer for his model. In many cases they are inspired solely by personal ambition, and the lust of pleasure joins hands with the love of power. The end is contempt for man and the nausea of satiety. Of such are Demetrius, the conqueror of cities, and Pyrrhus. But not a few have learned from Aristotle and Alexander what the duty of a king is. The first sovereigns of the dynasties of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, Antigonus Gonatas and Hiero of Syracuse, devoted a lifetime of toil and pains to the high duty of sovereignty. Cleomenes of Sparta, the socialistic dreamer on the throne, perishes in the attempt to renew the youth of Sparta and the Peloponnesus.

The men of contemplative life vanish from public and often from social life; they make a habit of living celibate lives in small circles and communities; doctrine alone, and that often esoteric, takes its place side by side with research. Those who translate into action what they have learned from the masters generally contribute little to scientific inquiry. Philosophy is compelled to an inevitable step, the several sciences disengage themselves from her. What remains,--metaphysical and logical speculation,--nevertheless maintains its supreme ascendancy in virtue of the fact that from this time forward the active, effective potency of philosophy shines forth, the potency which she exercises as magistra vitæ, as the religion of the heart and the assurance of the intellect in life and conduct. This power extends its sway over ever widening circles even though it cannot reach down to the lower classes; and the gulf between the cultured and the illiterate grows broader and broader. Athens remains the capital city of this philosophy; this is its only title to distinction. Wide as are the differences between the schools, they are agreed in this, that their ideal is the sage, the man apart, who takes his stand not only above the world but outside it--the reverse of the kingly type. The historic continuity of the ancient ideals, Ionian no less than Dorian, is unmistakable.

The various sciences flourish where the necessary means are at their disposal, that is to say, at the courts. This does not make them courtly in character, although Eratosthenes and Aristarchus were tutors of princes; not mathematics alone but all serious learning knows no royal road for kings. The library, the observatory, the scientific collections, and the medical school of Alexandria, which far surpass all others, must be looked upon as directly due to the school of Aristotle; the first two Ptolemies honoured learning, and for that reason gave it nothing but means and liberty. In the second century, their unworthy successors banished the company of scholars, who then found liberty at least in Rhodes. By tracing the course of mathematics and astronomy we can see how the scholars of the few places where they laboured with enthusiasm keep in constant touch with one another by their writings; but splendid as is the progress made by individuals, the number of those who can really follow is very small, and we feel that a general stagnation must set in if this correspondence were to die out and the few scientific institutions perish. Without the study of pure science that of the applied sciences will never make progress; it will soon lose ground. Thus it was, even in the department in which observation and practice most go hand in hand, in medicine. From his geographical, botanical, and zoölogical survey, Alexander had left behind an enormous mass of material which was at first augmented by many additions. Eratosthenes, in his map of the world, could use some of the astronomical definitions of locality which had evidently been made for the purpose. This is the origin of the network of degrees with which the globe is overlaid, and one would have thought that other scholars would have hastened to verify and complete it by further measurements of shadows. Not so. True, Eratosthenes stands at the end of the third century, when the great period of advance is over, and the evil genius of Greece gathers strength to rest satisfied with the great things achieved and, by canonising them, to put a stop to further progress. The criticism of Hipparchus, well grounded as it was in the abstract, contributed something to this end by repudiating the good attained and setting hindrances in the way of a greater attainable good, for the sake of a greatest good that was unattainable. Every department of natural science presents much the same spectacle. What has been gained by the labours of the third century, is here and there carried farther by the few (in many cases, as was inevitable, by quantitative amplification), but in the main the scientific thinking had been done; and by no means all the old ideas were transmitted, even in this petrified form. It was left for the nineteenth century, which in its own strength has advanced to an incomparable height of knowledge, to look back and appreciate at its just value the achievements and intuitions of the earlier age.

In the department of abstract science the accumulation of material,--not only of the whole heritage of literature, but also of all that was preserved in the memory of man,--was taken in hand on a scale amazingly vast. The Ionians had already taken note of the traditions of barbarous nations; the study was prosecuted in the spirit of Alexander, and presently Hellenised barbarians, such as Manetho, Berosus, and Apollonius of Caria, took part in it. Grammar, with philology, lexicography, textual criticism, and minute exegesis, likewise becomes a genuine science, the importance of which, again, the nineteenth century has been the first to realise, when, in the pride of its own strength, it soared beyond the achievements of this early period. Towards a real science of history, however, no step had been taken, even in dealing with Homer, who constituted the centre and culminating point of these studies. Nor did the Greeks attempt to gain a scientific conception of any foreign language, not even of Latin. This one-sided view hampered their historical judgment. Not one of them tried to see from the point of view of another mind, and their philology and their science of history have therefore remained rationalistic.

The students in the sphere of language and literature were principally poets, men whose interest was æsthetic; and the poetry of the time, in so far as it has come down to us, is either actually erudite or has the airs and graces of erudition, in that it employs the art-forms of an earlier period, particularly those of the Ionic school. It displays a vast amount of taste and elegance; it twines about the stately life of the courts and the seats of learning, the quiet peristyles of the town houses and country villas by shore and stream; as rich and ornate as the grotesques of the loggias in the Vatican and the frescoes of the Farnesina, obtrusively magnificent as the allegories of the Doges’ palace and of the Luxembourg. But it no longer brought forth anything that fired the spirit of the whole nation, and spoke to all mankind. Moreover, it disdained to seek new forms, and soon prohibited the search for them. No doubt in the lower and numerically larger classes of society there continued to exist a poetry which satisfied their needs, a poetry which would probably have a powerful charm for us by reason of its popular character; but the fatal evil was that the nation was now altogether incapable of renewing its youth by the upspringing of fresh elements.

Prose was more national in character and more lucid. Our terminology is incommensurable with that of the period, and the works themselves have all fallen victims to the later tendencies of style, but when we see that the historical novel, the love-story, the roman comique, the romance of travel, and so forth, are Hellenic products, we suspect that intellectual activity was no less marked in this sphere than in others.

In the third century the bias towards mysticism seems to have been completely repressed, we find no trace of a popular religious movement that seizes upon the hearts of men and takes their senses captive. The Ionian spirit prevails throughout. The gorgeous ritual of worship, the temple-building and festivals, all bear the stamp of superficiality. Even the disciples of Plato hark back to Socratic criticism: the result being the most important scientific work of the age, though to the uninitiated it looks like pure scepticism. It has its complement, however, in Plato’s own writings and in the practical recognition of his moral idealism. The deficiency is none the less unmistakable. Even with the noblest representatives of active as of intellectual life we breathe a thin rationalistic air. In the second century mysticism begins to come slowly to the surface, frequently associated with the ancient name of Pythagoras, not seldom heralding the irruption of the barbarian element and barbarian religions. And astrology, with its vain superstitions, has already made its appearance, having tortured into its service a hideously shallow pseudo-science.

Even the man in whom the intellectual culture of the Hellenistic period as a whole is once more grandly embodied at its close does not escape the contagion of this false doctrine; I mean Posidonius, who, in the spirit of Aristotle, strove, by voyages of discovery, observations, and calculations of his own, to unite that side of philosophy which touched upon natural science with metaphysics and ethics, primarily and mainly on the basis of the old Stoic school, though strongly influenced by Plato and Aristotle. Apart from these merits, he was a brilliant portrayer of manners and chronicler of contemporary history, a loyal adherent of the Roman oligarchy, even though he preferred to live in Rhodes, the most independent of free cities. By his monotheism, which was a heart-felt religion with him, by the mixture of mysticism and reason, the abundance of his encyclopædic learning and his advocacy of encyclopædic education, he affected the succeeding age more powerfully than any other man; especially among the Romans, for Varro and Cicero, Sallust and Seneca are under his influence. For all our admiration we must confess that he himself is not free from gross superstition, and that scholarship with him is in danger of being attenuated to general culture. We can judge of the change when we remember that he was the pupil of Panætius, the shallow and shrewd-minded friend of Scipio Æmilianus, who drew up for the Romans a handbook of the Ciceronian doctrine of duty, afterwards compiled by Cicero in his Di Officiis, and who athetised the Phædo, because the doctrine of immortality appeared to him unworthy of the admired dialectician.

Posidonius came from Apamea in Syria, and countries in which the bulk of the population was Semitic furnish a large number of contemporary poets and writers of all sorts. But the best witness to the power of Hellenism is supplied by those circles which oppose it, in the front rank the Jews, concerning whom we have the fullest information. Their independence in matters of detail is of far less importance than their community of thought and feeling. In writings like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Wisdom, the influence of Greek thought is unmistakable. Before and during the Maccabæan reaction the subject-matter of the Old Testament was worked up by Greek methods into novels, epics, and dramas. Prophecy and apocalypse linked themselves with the poetic oracles of Greece, and the nationalist movement, the leaders of which soon became Hellenistic princes themselves, goes but a little way towards severing the threads of connection. In the early days of the empire, Philo is no less subject than Cicero to the influence of Posidonius and of Plato. The Pharisees of Jerusalem, and, still more, the populations of mixed districts, could not disown the Hellenistic atmosphere they breathed. Without Alexander, without Hellenism, we cannot imagine the Gospels coming into existence.

The great task of Hellenism was the education of the nation that ruled it. This was begun in times out of mind, when the Greek character and Greek weights and measures were adopted on the Tiber, and the first temples in the Greek style arose in Roman market-places to the gods of Greece. The Latins had nevertheless preserved their national characteristics and had tolerated no Greek settlement on their shores. Now the question was no longer one of ousting the Greek language, but rather of adopting the whole of Greek civilisation. Greek scholars, hearing Marcus Cicero speak, lamented that the last advantage of their nation had been taken from them, not without justice. And yet through the winning of this soul the West was won for Greek civilisation, even though it was no less determined that the Hellenes should one day be called Romæi.

It was of cardinal importance to the history of the world that the Hellenistic kingdoms were too weak to enter into the decisive struggle carried on between Rome and Carthage, first for Sicily, (which was utterly lost to the Greeks,) and then for the mastery of the West.

Rome had already banished Greek influence from Italy. This momentous fact of the weakness of Greece was the result of Alexander’s untimely death and of the impossibility of maintaining the unity of the empire, the struggle for which had lasted fifty years and allowed of the rise of three great powers which mutually held one another in check. By the time Rome had overcome Hannibal, Egypt had been so enfeebled by misgovernment that it put itself, ingloriously but prudently, under the protection of the Roman republic. Macedonia succumbed, not without honour. The king of Asia no longer had the power to extend his influence to Europe; he forfeited to Rome the countries to which he owed that title. But the fall of the empire, now called Syria, involved the strengthening of that nationality which Alexander, rightly estimating its value, had desired to gain over by a share in the government. With the Arsacid monarchy, Philhellenes though they called themselves, a foreign nationality and an intolerant religion flung Hellenism back beyond the Euphrates. The Roman senate undertook the government of the Greek provinces reluctantly, rightly thinking that the result would be as detrimental to their own people as to the subject provinces. It is none the less true that a more ruthless set of blood-suckers has hardly ever fallen upon a defenceless prey. Despair made the Asiatics see a deliverer even in that savage Cappadocian Mithridates, thus bringing disaster upon disaster. Rome herself was utterly out of joint, and finally Greece had to furnish a stage for the decisive struggles of the Roman revolution. Rhodes, the last city that had enjoyed some degree of immunity, was pillaged by the liberators who had murdered Cæsar. How hardened men were to such catastrophes we have recently learnt when it became known that, in the time of Sulla, northern barbarians burned the temple at Delphi; a thing that had been entirely forgotten in the traditions handed down to us. It has also come to light that probably at that time the whole amount of capital accumulated and secured in countless institutions was lost, the festivals of the gods, the games, the banquets all came to an end; the guilds collapsed, even those of the musicians and actors, who had provided themselves with charters from all the powers; wide stretches of the country lay desolate. Some few individuals acquired property which in the sequel became enormously valuable, and this fact in itself was a hindrance to any healthy revival.

Augustus was the deliverer who ultimately brought peace and order: and the Greeks did extravagant homage to their saviour. He deserved it, no doubt, but fresh sap could no longer rise in the decrepit and mutilated tree. Hellenism had seen everything perish that fire and sword could destroy; the sole thing left intact was the intellectual heritage of her forefathers. With them she took refuge, they proved themselves victorious even over the Romans, her lords. Thus was consummated the process which determined the future of the world, the process by which the nation not only resigned all political aspirations, but blotted out the whole of the last three centuries, insisted on speaking as Plato or Demosthenes spoke, or even like Herodotus and Lysias, forgot even the deeds of Alexander in contemplating Salamis and Marathon, and actually went so far as to dispute the possibility of progress in poetry and philosophy (inclusive of the several sciences) beyond that of the classic age, which it chose to conclude with the Attic period. Imitation was now the only safe way, the very principle of progress was challenged. This was the case even more in theory than in practice; the plastic arts, for example, still continued to do original work, because artists are seldom burdened with literary culture. But in the whole sphere of language the results could not fail to be disastrous, for the gulf between the educated classes,--who, by virtue of schooling and study, could twist their speech into the mode of three centuries ago and more,--and the populace,--whose speech, thus deprived of all ennobling influences, rapidly degenerated,--presently became so wide that they hardly attempted to arrive at a common understanding. The difficulty of artificial modes of speech made it necessary for rhetoric and the art of style to take the first place in the schools, and words gradually stifled ideas. Nor was novelty in the latter thought desirable, they were all the more welcome if they were as classic as the words. The whole object of life was really nothing more than a repetition of forms, and of substance (so far as there was any substance), hallowed by antique usage. Even so obsolete an institution as the gymnastic games was revived, the old religious worship was laboriously restored; in the second century after Christ, Apollo began once more to dispense oracles in verse. The authority of Homer was exalted to an extravagant pitch; every one knew him who had been to school at all. In extensive circles the use of Homeric phrases passed for poetry, the Homeric Olympus for religion, and now, for the first time, he took the place held to-day by the Old Testament among those who have no other book. This is most plainly manifest in Christian polemics.

Under the liberal and Philhellenic government of the dynasty that came to the throne with Nerva, the world prospered; in a material sense Asia has never been happier. The age could boast of orators who spoke like Demosthenes and Plato in one. A certain amount of philosophical training prevailed among educated men; lovable and able individuals are not lacking; such men as Plutarch, who paints that copy of real Hellenism which the heroes of the French revolution adopted instead of the original, and who transmits to Montaigne, for example, a large portion of the worldly wisdom of the Greeks. The work of compilation by which astronomy and geography are summed up by Ptolemy, grammar by Herodian, and medicine by Galen, is of the utmost value from the standpoint of history. A shallow Semitic pamphleteer like Lucian copies the graceful forms of antiquity with such skill, that in the Renaissance and the days of the Éclaircissement he passes for a leading representative of the Greek spirit. But the age is in its dotage for all that; there is natural science without experiment, abstract science without unbiassed examination, knowledge without philosophy. The deeper souls have reached a point at which their strength lies in resignation. Hope, the only treasure of all those in Pandora’s box to remain with man in the youth of the nation, has now fled. None have now a living faith save those who renounce the world. The Platonic Eros is no longer a force, and the Agape is known only to those to whom Paul has revealed it. Men’s souls are weary; presently their bodies too begin to sicken. Æsculapius is the only god of heaven whose worship flourishes side by side with that of the emperors, the gods of the empire; the feeble health of the individuals of whom we hear most becomes a disquieting factor; under Marcus Aurelius the first great wave of mortality sweeps over the empire. From this point the downward course is rapid, especially when, with Severus, the empire falls into the hands of barbarian generals. Nor must it be forgotten that Augustus greatly circumscribed the eastern half of the empire, which he permitted to remain Greek. He romanised the Danube provinces, Illyria, Africa, and even Sicily. Every year the East sent a strong contingent to the West, and though the fact contributed the largest share to the assimilation of Greek culture by the West (in Rome, for example, the language of the Christian congregations was Greek until some time after this), these emigrants were none the less permanently lost to the Greek nation. In the East the ancient nations were astir; as early as the second century an Aramaic literature begins, in Phrygia inscriptions appear in the vulgar tongue; in spite of Longinus, the Palmyra of Zenobia is not a Greek city any more; there is an alarming increase of spiritual force in barbarian religions; even in that which came across the frontier from the Parthians. In those circles into which Gnosis, so-called, leads us, which did not consist wholly of ignorant persons, the Greek element is only one of many. The imperial army becomes more and more a force that makes for barbarism. No wonder that civilisation collapses, with the empire out of joint, and the ravages of the Germans--whom the classicism of the age dubs Scythians, in the phrase of Herodotus--just beginning. By their misdeeds at this period the Goths and Vandals richly earned the secondary sense attached to their name, though it has been mistakenly associated with the devastation of Italy and Africa. They reduced Greece to a desert, they destroyed Olympia; worse still, they annihilated the prosperity of Asia. The athletic games which had taken the place of the gymnastic contests of antiquity, but had always retained something of the spirit of the latter, practically came to an end. All that peace had allowed to come into being--temples, monuments, and theatres--was destroyed to build inadequate walls. Far and wide the thin stratum of the educated classes that overlaid a people half estranged from civilisation perished entirely. Some sort of order was restored by Diocletian and Constantine, but the place of the Greek king had now been taken by the oriental sultan; the free man had died out. Then came the church, which presently forbade freedom of thought. Origen was a thinker and philological student almost without peer among his contemporaries. Eusebius had no equal among the scholars of his day. It was therefore not the fault of Christianity if these two men had no successors, but gave place to the purblind, and barely honest superstition of Athanasius and the vulgar abuse of Epiphanius. On the contrary, Christianity showed its affinity with Hellenic civilisation by the very fact that they withered together. Its earthly victory should dazzle the eyes of those least of all who believe in the kingdom of God that Jesus preached. Of this there is hardly a trace at the council of Nicæa.

The qualities that were at work in the decay of civilisation were essentially Greek--satisfaction in present achievement, and reverence for authority. The classicist movement allowed them to gain exclusive sway. Hand in hand with them went a fine sense of form; the imitative faculty has never attained greater triumphs. Christianity also submitted to the yoke of classicist rhetoric; the impressive sermons of the great Cappadocians bear witness to this, no less than the childish Symposium of the Virgins of Methodius. In league with the church, this formal culture has the great merit of having preserved a large portion of the literature of antiquity as an aid to education. The Greek faculty of abstract thought showed itself mighty for good and evil. In the midst of the terrible third century, it was able to take refuge in the purer air of immaterial conceptions, though at the cost of the delight in the visible world characteristic of the Ionic school.

There was little of Plato but his name and the mysticism of his old age in this last great philosophical movement which called itself after him; and it was never more alien to the Greek spirit than when it tried by fantastic necromancy to hold fast the ancient system of religion. The same mode of thought practically prevailed to the same extent on Christian soil, not only in the many circles which the church had repudiated; orthodox dogma is itself but one of these systems, though one that was canonised and preserved for centuries together with the whole body of classical civilisation. This torpor is naturally repellent to us, especially when we contrast it with the active progress of the Roman church which takes the task of civilising the West out of the hands of imperial Rome and surpasses all she has done. Nevertheless, there is a certain grandeur in the spectacle of this ancient and mummified civilisation preserving the Greek nation from utter wreck, in the face, ultimately, of enslavement to a barbarous race and a stern and aggressive religion. But if such a great political and intellectual future as we should wish them is ever to smile upon the Greeks, or rather, the Romæi, it will not come by way of the repristination of any obsolete form whatsoever, it will not be brought about directly by the spirit of antiquity, whether Greek or Christian; but the whole nation must become new by the assimilation of the modern culture of the West. The West, it must be borne in mind, did not imitate the Hellenes, it made a right use of its heritage from them to liberate itself and renew its youth. This service they still render, and will continue to render, to the individual man. By lifting their eyes to the glory of Greece, whether it be Homeric or Doric, Athenian or Hellenistic, men will evermore gain strength to be free and to enter willingly into the service of the Idea, and thus, if they have strayed from the right path, will learn to find their way back to nature and to God.

Politically the Greeks did not gain the mastery of the world, they did not even attain to national unity; but a homogeneous civilisation for the whole world, nevertheless, came into being through them. In such a civilisation for the future we too believe, and we labour to realise it because we desire and advocate the fellowship and concord of many nations, countries, and languages. But the civilisation of the world knows no stronger tie than the groundwork common to all genuine civilisations; and that is our heritage from Greece.

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter[a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]

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XXXVII. THE REIGN OF TERROR IN ATHENS

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, History of Greece.

[c] XENOPHON, Hellenics.

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XXXVIII. THE DEMOCRACY RESTORED

[b] GEORGE GROTE, History of Greece.

[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[d] ARISTOPHANES’ Plays.

[e] EURIPIDES’ Plays.

[f] LYSIAS’ Orations.

[g] THUCYDIDES, History of the Grecian War.

[h] PLUTARCH, Lives of Illustrious Men.

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XXXIX. SOCRATES AND THE SOPHISTS

[b] WILLIAM MITFORD, History of Greece.

[c] PLATO’S Phædo (translated by Henry Carey).

[d] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[e] XENOPHON, Memorabilia and Apologia Socrates.

[f] CLAUDIUS ÆLIANUS, Varia Historia (translated by A. Fleming).

[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, Historical Library.

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XL. THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND

[b] WILLIAM MITFORD, op. cit.

[c] XENOPHON, Anabasis and Catabasis.

[d] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[e] FRIEDRICH D. SCHLOSSER, Weltgeschichte.

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XLI. THE SPARTAN SUPREMACY

[b] KARL O. MÜLLER, The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race (translated by Tuffnell and Lewis).

[c] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[d] JOHN B. BURY, History of Greece.

[e] ARISTOTLE, Politics.

[f] VICTOR DURUY, Histoire des Grecs.

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XLII. SPARTA IN ASIA

[b] WILLIAM MITFORD, op. cit.

[c] XENOPHON, op. cit.

[d] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[e] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

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XLIII. THE CORINTHIAN WAR

[b] WILLIAM MITFORD, op. cit.

[c] XENOPHON, op. cit.

[d] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[e] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[f] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[g] GEORGE W. COX, The Athenian Empire.

[h] JOHN B. BURY, op. cit.

[i] BARTHOLD G. NIEBUHR, Lectures on Ancient History.

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XLIV. THE RISE OF THEBES

[b] ERNST VON STERN, Geschichte der Spartanischen und Thebanischen Hegemonie.

[c] XENOPHON, op. cit.

[d] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[e] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[f] JOHN GILLIES, History of Ancient Greece.

[g] JULIUS BELOCH, Griechische Geschichte.

[h] ADOLF HOLM, History of Greece.

[i] JOHN B. BURY, op. cit.

[j] GEORGE W. COX, op. cit.

[k] GEORG BUSOLT, Griechische Geschichte.

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XLV. THE DAY OF EPAMINONDAS

[b] BARTHOLD G. NIEBUHR, op. cit.

[c] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[d] GEORGE W. COX, op. cit.

[e] WILLIAM MITFORD, op. cit.

[f] ERNST CURTIUS, Griechische Geschichte.

[g] ERNST VON STERN, op. cit.

[h] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[i] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[j] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[k] XENOPHON, op. cit.

[l] PAUSANIAS, A general description of Greece.

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XLVI. WHEN THEBES WAS SUPREME

[b] GEORG WEBER, Weltgeschichte.

[c] XENOPHON, op. cit.

[d] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[e] ISOCRATES, Archidamus.

[f] CICERO, Tusculanarum Disputationum Libri V. and De Oratore.

[g] POLYBIUS, General History.

[h] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

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XLVII. THE TYRANTS IN SICILY

[b] LOUIS MÉNARD, Histoire des Grecs.

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XLVIII. THE RISE OF MACEDONIA

[b] JOHANN G. DROYSEN, Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen.

[c] L. MÉNARD, op. cit.

[d] DEMOSTHENES, Orations.

[e] HERODOTUS, History.

[f] THUCYDIDES, op. cit.

[g] ARRIAN, The Anabasis of Alexander.

[h] THEOPOMPUS, Philippica.

[i] TITUS LIVIUS, Annales.

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XLIX. THE TRIUMPHS OF PHILIP

[b] L. MÉNARD, op. cit.

[c] JOHN POTTER, Antiquities of Greece.

[d] L. A. PRÉVOST-PARADOL, Revue de l’histoire universelle.

[e] R. C. JEBB, in an article on “Demosthenes” in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

[f] J. B. BURY, op. cit.

[g] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[h] B. G. NIEBUHR, op. cit.

[i] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[j] WILHELM DRUMANN, Verfall der griechischen Staaten.

[k] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[l] PAUSANIAS, op. cit.

[m] XENOPHON, op. cit.

[n] GEORG WEBER, op. cit.

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L. ALEXANDER THE GREAT

[b] APPIANUS ALEXANDRINUS, The History of Appian of Alexandria (translated from the Greek by J. Dancer).

[d] JUSTIN, History of the World (the abridgment of the Philippic History of Trogus Pompeius).

[e] QUINTUS CURTIUS, The Wars of Alexander (translated by William Young, 1747).

[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[g] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[h] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[i] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[j] PTOLEMY LAGI, and ARISTOBULUS, as quoted by Arrian, Diodorus, etc.

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LI. ALEXANDER INVADES ASIA

[b] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[c] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[d] JURIEN DE LA GRAVIÉRE, Les campagnes d’Alexandre.

[e] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[f] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[g] PTOLEMY LAGI, ARISTOBULUS, ANAXIMENES, and CALLISTHENES, as quoted by Arrian, Diodorus, etc.

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LII. ISSUS AND TYRE

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[c] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[d] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

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LIII. FROM GAZA TO ARBELA

[b] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[c] QUINTUS CURTIUS, op. cit.

[d] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[e] GEORG H. A. EWALD, The History of Israel.

[f] HENRY H. MILMAN, The History of the Jews.

[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[h] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[i] WILLIAM MITFORD, op. cit.

[j] EDWARD S. CREASY, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.

[k] JOHN B. BURY, op. cit.

[l] ADOLF HOLM, op. cit.

[m] FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, Antiquities of the Jews.

[n] KARL RITTER, Afrika (in Die Erdkunde, etc.).

[o] LOUIS A. THIERS, Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire.

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LIV. THE FALL OF PERSIA

[b] QUINTUS CURTIUS, op. cit.

[c] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[d] JOHN B. BURY, op. cit.

[e] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[g] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

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LV. THE CONQUEST OF INDIA

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[c] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[d] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[e] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[f] QUINTUS CURTIUS, op. cit.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LVI. THE END OF ALEXANDER

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[c] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[d] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[e] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[f] BARTHOLD G. NIEBUHR, op. cit.

[g] HERODOTUS, op. cit.

[h] POLYBIUS, op. cit.

[i] ARISTOBULUS, quoted by Plutarch, Arrian, etc.

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LVII. VARIOUS ESTIMATES OF ALEXANDER

[b] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[c] CLAUDIUS ÆLIANUS, op. cit.

[d] TITUS LIVIUS, Roman History (translated 1686).

[e] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[f] GEORGE W. COX, op. cit.

[g] L. MÉNARD, op. cit.

[h] CHARLES ROLLIN, Ancient History.

[i] BARTHOLD G. NIEBUHR, op. cit.

[k] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[l] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[m] GEORG W. P. HEGEL, Philosophy of History.

[n] R. PÖHLMANN, in Müller’s Handbuch der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft.

[o] BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, Alexander the Great.

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LVIII. GREECE DURING THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER

[b] WILLIAM MITFORD, op. cit.

[c] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[d] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[e] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[f] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

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LIX. THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[c] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[d] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[e] JUSTIN, op. cit.

[f] ARRIAN, op. cit.

[g] B. G. NIEBUHR, op. cit.

[h] WILLIAM MITFORD, op. cit.

[i] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[j] PHOTIUS, Excerpts from Arrian’s Bithynica.

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LX. AFFAIRS IN GREECE PROPER AFTER ALEXANDER’S DEATH

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[c] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[d] J. G. DROYSEN, Geschichte des Hellenismus.

[e] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

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LXI. THE FAILURE OF GRECIAN FREEDOM

[b] GEORGE GROTE, op. cit.

[c] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[d] PAUSANIAS, op. cit.

[e] JUSTIN, op. cit.

[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[g] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[h] POLYBIUS, op. cit.

[i] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXII. THE EXPLOITS OF PYRRHUS

[b] L. MÉNARD, op. cit.

[c] TITUS LIVIUS, op. cit.

[d] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[e] Article on “Epirus,” in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

[f] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[g] JUSTIN, op. cit.

[h] PAUSANIAS, op. cit.

[i] POLYBIUS, op. cit.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXIII. THE LEAGUES AND THEIR WARS

[b] POLYBIUS, General History (translated by Sir H. Spears).

[c] W. SCHORN, Geschichte Griechenlands von der Entstehung des ätol. und achäischen Bundes bis auf die Zerstörung von Korinth.

[d] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[e] GEORG WEBER, op. cit.

[f] OLIVER GOLDSMITH, History of Greece.

[g] L. FLATHE, Geschichte Macedoniens und der Reiche welche von macedonischen Königen beherrscht wurden.

[h] PLUTARCH, op. cit.

[i] EDWARD A. FREEMAN, History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy (edited by John B. Bury).

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LXIV. THE FINAL DISASTERS

[b] BARTHOLD G. NIEBUHR, op. cit.

[c] POLYBIUS, op. cit.

[d] CONNOP THIRLWALL, op. cit.

[e] STRABO, Geographica.

[f] PAUSANIAS, op. cit.

[g] L. FLATHE, op. cit.

[h] W. SCHORN, op. cit.

[i] CONSTANTINE VII, PORPHYROGENITUS, Excerpts from POLYBIUS.

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LXV. THE KINGDOM OF THE SELEUCIDÆ

[b] GEORG WEBER, op. cit.

[c] An Universal History, compiled from original authors, 1799.

[d] FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, op. cit.

[e] DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.

[f] APPIAN, Roman History.

[g] JUSTIN, op. cit.

[h] ARRIAN, op. cit.

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LXVI. THE KINGDOM OF THE PTOLEMIES

[b] J. G. DROYSEN, op. cit.

[c] S. SHARPE, History of Egypt.

[d] G. SMITH, The Gentile Nations.--PAUSANIAS, op. cit.--DIODORUS SICULUS, op. cit.--JOSEPHUS, op. cit.--ARRIAN, op. cit.--PLUTARCH, op. cit.--JUSTIN, op. cit.--EUTROPIUS, Epitome of Roman History.

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