shouting. And when Xenophon heard it, and they of the rear-guard, they
supposed that other enemies were ranged against them, for the men of the
land which had been ravaged were following behind; but when the clamour
grew louder and nearer, and the new arrivals doubled forward to where
the shouting was, so that it became greater and greater with the added
numbers, Xenophon thought this must be something of moment. Therefore,
taking Lycias and the horsemen, he rode forward at speed to give aid;
and then suddenly they were aware of the soldiers' shout, the word that
rang through the lines--"The sea! the sea!" Then every man raced,
rear-guard and all, urging horses and the very baggage-mules to the top
of their speed, and when they came to the top, they fell on each other's
necks, and the generals, and officers, too, with tears of delight. And
in a moment, whoever it was that passed the word, the men were gathering
stones, and there they reared a mighty column.
And as for the lucky guide, he betook himself home laden with presents.
Of what befell between this point and the actual arrival of the army on
the coast of the Black Sea at the Grecian colony of Trapezus [Trebizond]
the most curious incident was that of the soldiers lighting upon great
quantities of honey, which not only made them violently ill, but had an
intoxicating effect, attributed to the herbs frequented by the bees in
that district. This necessitated a halt of some days. The second day's
march thence brought them to Trapezus, where they made sacrificial
thank-offerings to the gods, and further celebrated the occasion by
holding athletic games.
_IV.--The End of the Expedition_
But Trapezus was not Greece, and the problem of transport was serious.
The men, sick of marching, were eager to accomplish the rest of their
journey by sea. Cheirisophus the general, as being a personal friend of
the Lacedæmonian admiral stationed at Byzantium, was commissioned to
obtain ships from him to take the Greeks home.
Cheirisophus departed. The army, which still numbered over ten thousand
persons, was willing enough to maintain its military organisation for
foraging and for self-defence; also to make such arrangements as were
practicable for collecting ships in case Cheirisophus should fail them;
but the men flatly refused to consider any further movement except by
water.
So they stayed where they were, maintaining their supplies by raids on
the natives; but time passed, and there were no tidings of Cheirisophus.
At last, they saw nothing for it but to put the sick and other
non-combatants aboard of the vessels which had been secured, send them
on by sea, and themselves march by the coast to Cerasus, another Greek
colony. Thence they continued their westward progress, in which they met
with considerable resistance from the natives, who were barbarians of a
primitive type, until they came to Cotyora.
This was another settlement from Sinope; but it received the Greeks very
inhospitably, so that the latter continued their practice of ravaging
the neighbouring territories. It was now eight months since the
expedition had started on its homeward march. Here a deputation arrived
from Sinope to protest against their proceedings; but Xenophon pointed
out that while they were perfectly willing to buy what they needed and
behave as friends, if they were not allowed to buy, self-preservation
compelled them to take by force. Ultimately, the deputation promised to
send ships from Sinope to convey them thither.
During the time of waiting there was some risk of the force breaking
itself up, and some inclination to make attacks on the officers,
including Xenophon. The formulation of charges, however, enabled him
amply to justify the acts complained of, and order generally was
restored. At last, however, a sufficient number of ships were collected
to convey the force to Sinope, where also Cheirisophus put in his
long-delayed appearance.
Cheirisophus came practically without ships and with nothing but vague
promises from the admiral at Byzantium. At this point it occurred to the
army that it would be better to have a single commander for the whole
than a committee of generals each in control of his own division. Hence
Xenophon was invited to accept the position. On consulting the omens he
declined, recommending that, since Cheirisophus was a Lacedæmonian, it
would be the proper thing to offer him the command, which was
accordingly done.
The force now sailed from Sinope as far as Heraclea. Here the
contingents from Arcadia and Archæa--more than half the force--insisted
on requisitioning large supplies of money from Heraclea. Cheirisophus,
supported by Xenophon, refused assent; the Arcadians and Achæans
consequently refused to serve under their command any more, and
appointed captains for themselves. The other half of the army was also
parted in two divisions, commanded by Cheirisophus and Xenophon
respectively.
From Calpe the Arcadians and Archæans made an expedition into the
interior, which fared so ill that Xenophon, hearing by accident of what
had happened, was obliged to march to their relief. To his satisfaction,
however, it was found that the enemy had already dispersed, and the
Greek column was overtaken on the way back to Calpe. The general effect
of the episode was to impress upon the Arcadians and Archæans that it
was commonsense for the whole force to remain united.
The usual operations were carried on for obtaining supplies, report
having arrived that Cleander, the Lacedæmonian governor of Byzantium,
was coming, which he presently did, with a couple of galleys but no
transports. From information received, Cleander was inclined to regard
the army as little better than a band of brigands; but this idea was
successfully dissipated by Xenophon. Cleander went back to Byzantium,
and the Greeks marched from Calpe to Chrysopolis, which faces Byzantium.
Here the whole force was at last carried over to the opposite shore, and
once more found itself on European soil, having received promises of pay
from the admiral Anaxibius. Suspicions of his real intentions were
aroused, and Xenophon had no little difficulty in preventing his
soldiery from breaking loose and sacking Byzantium itself.
Ultimately, the greater part of the force took service with the Thracian
king Seuthes. Seuthes, however, failed to carry out his promises as to
payments and rewards. But now the Lacedæmonians were engaged in a
quarrel with the western satraps, Tissaphernes and Artabazus; six
thousand veterans so experienced as those who had followed this famous
march into the heart of the Persian empire, had fought their way from
Cunaxa to Trapezus, and had supported themselves mainly by their
military prowess in getting from Trapezus to Europe, were a force by no
means to be neglected, and the bulk of the troops were not unwilling to
be incorporated in the Lacedæmonian armies. And so ends the story of the
Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks.
* * * * *
GEORGE GROTE
History of Greece
George Grote, born at Beckenham, England, Nov. 17, 1794,
entered the bank founded by his grandfather, from which he
withdrew in 1843. He joined the group of "philosophic
Radicals," among whom James Mill was a leader, and was a keen
politician and reformer, and an ardent advocate of the ballot.
His determination to write a sound "History of Greece" was
ensured, if it was not inspired, by Mitford's history, a work
full of anti-democratic fervour and very antagonistic to the
great Greek democratic state of Athens. In some respects his
work is a defence of the Athenian democracy, at least as
contrasted with Sparta; it appeared in twelve volumes between
1846 and 1856, and covered Greek history from the earliest
times "till the close of the generation contemporary with
Alexander the Great." It at once occupied, and still holds,
the field as the classic work on the subject as a whole,
though later research has modified many of his conclusions.
His methods were pre-eminently thorough, dispassionate, and
judicial; but he suffers from a lack of sympathetic
imagination. He died on June 18, 1871, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey.
_I.--Early History_
The divine myths constitute the earliest matter of Greek history. These
may be divided into those which belong to the gods and to the heroes
respectively; but most of them, in point of fact, present gods, heroes,
and men in juxtaposition. Every community sought to trace its origin to
some common divine, or semi-divine, progenitor; the establishment of a
pedigree was a necessity; and each pedigree contains at some, point
figures corresponding to some actual historical character, before whom
the pedigree is imaginary, but after whom, in the main, actual. The
precise point where the legend fades into the mythical, or consolidates
into the historical, is not usually ascertainable.
The legendary period culminates in the tale of Troy, which belongs to a
period prior to the Dorian conquest presented in the Herakleid legend;
the tale of Troy itself remaining the common heritage of the Greek
peoples, and having an actual basis in historical fact. The events,
however, are of less importance than the picture of an actual
historical, political, and social system, corresponding, not to the
supposed date of the Trojan war, but to the date of the composition of
the Homeric poems. Later ages regarded the myths themselves with a good
deal of scepticism, and were often disposed to rationalise them, or to
find for them an allegorical interpretation. The myths of other European
peoples have undergone a somewhat similar treatment.
Greece proper, that is, the European territory occupied by the Hellenic
peoples, has a very extensive coast-line, covers the islands of the
Ægean, and is so mountainous on the mainland that communication between
one point and another is not easy. This facilitated the system which
isolated communities, compelling each one to develop and perfect its own
separate organisation; so that Greece became, not a state, but a
congerie of single separate city states--small territories centering in
the city, although in some cases the village system was not centralised
into the city system. On the other hand, the Hellenes very definitely
recognised their common affinity, looked on themselves as a distinct
aggregate, and very emphatically differentiated that entire aggregate
from the non-Hellenes, whom they designated as "barbarians."
Of these states, the first to come into view--post-Homerically--is
Sparta, the head of the Dorian communities, governed under the laws and
discipline attributed to Lycurgus, with its special peculiarity of the
dual kingship designed to make a pure despotism impossible. The
government lay and remained in the hands of the conquering Spartan
race--as for a time with the Normans in England--which formed a close
oligarchy, while within the oligarchical body the organisation was
democratic and communistic. For Sparta, the eighth and seventh centuries
B.C. were characterised by the two Messenian wars; and we note that
while the Hellenes generally recognised her headship, Argos claimed a
titular right to that position. As a general rule, the primitive
monarchical system portrayed in the Homeric poems was displaced in the
Greek cities by an oligarchical government, which in turn was overthrown
by an irregular despotism called _tyrannis_, primarily established by a
professed popular leader, who maintained his supremacy by mercenary
troops. One after another these usurping dynasties were again ejected in
favour either of a restored oligarchy or of a democracy. Sparta, where
the power of the dual kingship was extremely limited, was the only state
where the legitimate kingship survived. Corinth attained her highest
power Under the despot Periander, son of Cypselus. Of the Ionian section
of Greek states, the supreme type is Athens. Her early history is
obscure. The kingship seems to have ended by being, so to speak, placed
in commission, the royal functions being discharged by an elected body
of Archons. Dissensions among the groups of citizens issued in the
democratic Solonian constitution, which remained the basis of Athenian
government, except during the despotism of the house of Pisistratus in
the latter half of the sixth century B.C. But outside of Greece proper
were the numerous Dorian and Ionian colonies, really independent cities,
planted in the coast districts of Asia Minor, at Cyrene and Barka in
Mediterranean Africa, in Epirus (Albania), Southern Italy, Sicily, and
even at Massilia in Gaul, and in Thrace beyond the proper Hellenic area.
These colonies brought the Greek world in touch with Lydia and its king,
Croesus, with the one sea-going Semitic power, the Phoenicians, with the
Egyptians, and more remotely with the wholly Oriental empires of Assyria
and Babylon, as well as with the outer barbarians of Scythia.
Between 560 and 510 B.C., Athens was generally under the rule of the
despot Pisistratus and his son Hippias. In 510, the Pisistratidæ were
expelled, and Athens became a pure democracy. Meanwhile, the Persian
Cyrus had seized the Median monarchy and overthrown every other
potentate in Western Asia; Egypt was added to the vast Persian dominion
by his son Cambyses. A new dynasty was established by Darius, the son of
Hystaspes, who organized the empire, but failed to extend it by an
incursion into European Scythia.
The revolt of the Ionic cities in Asia Minor against the governments
established by the "great king" brought him in contact with the
Athenians, who sent help to Ionia. Demands for "earth and water,"
_i.e.,_ the formal recognition of Persian sovereignty, sent to the
apparently insignificant Greek states were insolently rejected. Darius
sent an expedition to punish Athens in particular, and the Athenians
drove his army into the sea at the battle of Marathon.
Xerxes, son of Darius, organised an overwhelming force by land and sea
to eat up the Greeks. The invaders were met but hardly checked at
Thermopylæ, where Leonidas and the immortal three hundred fell; all
Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth was in their hands, including
Athens. But their fleet was shattered to pieces, chiefly by the
Athenians under Themistocles and Aristides at Salamis, and the
destruction of their land forces was completed by the united Greeks at
Platæa. A further disaster was inflicted on the same day at Mycale.
_II.--The Struggles of Athens and Sparta_
Meanwhile, the Sicilian Greeks, led by Gelo of Syracuse, successfully
resisted and overthrew the aggression of Carthage, the issue being
decided at the battle of Himera. The part played by Athens under the
guidance of Themistocles in the repulse of Persia gave her a new
position among the Greek states and an indisputable naval leadership. As
the maritime head of Hellas she was chief of the naval Delian League,
now formed ostensibly to carry on the war against Persia. But the
leaguers, who first contributed a quota of ships, soon began to
substitute money to provide ships, which in effect swelled the Athenian
navy, and turned the contributors into tributaries. Thus, almost
automatically, the Delian League converted itself into an Athenian
empire. In Athens itself an unparalleled personal ascendancy was
acquired by Pericles, who made the form of government and administration
more democratic than before. But this growing supremacy of Athens
aroused the jealous alarm of other Greek states. Sparta saw her own
titular hegemony threatened; the subject cities grew restive under the
Athenian yoke. Sparta came forward professedly as champion of the
liberties of Hellas; Athens, guided by Pericles, refused to submit to
Spartan dictation, and accepted the challenge which plunged Greece into
the Peloponnesian war.
The Athenians concentrated on the expansion of their naval armaments,
left the open country undefended and gathered within the city walls, and
landed forces at will on the Peloponnese. Platsea, almost their sole
ally on land, held out valiantly for some time, but was forced to
surrender; and Athens herself suffered frightfully from a visitation of
the plague. After the death of Pericles, Cleon became the most prominent
leader of the aggressive and democratic party, Nicias, of the
anti-democratic peace party. Over most of Greece in each state the
oligarchic faction favoured the Peloponnesian league, the democratic,
Athens. The general Demosthenes at Pylos effected the surrender of a
Lacedæmonian force, which temporarily shattered Sparta's military
prestige, a blow in some degree counteracted by the brilliant operations
of Brasidas in the north, where, however, both he and Cleon were killed.
Meanwhile, Athens was awakening to the possibilities of a great
sea-empire, in consequence of her intervention having been invited in
disputes among the Sicilian states. As the outcome, incited by the
brilliant young Alcibiades, she resolved on the fatal Sicilian
expedition. The expedition, planned under command of Alcibiades and
Nicias, was dispatched in spite of the startling mutilation of the
Hermæ, a sacrilegious performance attributed to Alcibiades. It had
hardly reached Sicily when he was recalled, but made his escape and
spent some years mainly in intriguing against Athens. The siege of
Syracuse was progressing favourably, when the Spartan Gylippus was
allowed to enter and put new life into the defence. Disaster followed on
disaster both by sea and land; finally, the whole Athenian force was
either cut to pieces or surrendered at discretion, to become the slaves
of the Syracusans, both Nicias and Demosthenes being put to death.
Meanwhile, the truce between Athens and Sparta had been ended, and war
again declared. Sparta occupied permanently a post of the Attic
territory, Deceleia, with merciless effect. The Sicilian disaster moved
the islanders, notably Chios, to revolt, by Spartan help, against
Athens. She, however, renovated her navy with unexpected vigour. But,
with her fleets away, Alcibiades inspired oligarchical intrigues in the
city; a _coup d'état_ gave the government to the leaders of a group of
400. The navy stood by the democratic constitution, the 400 were
overthrown, and an assembly, nominally of 5,000, assumed the government.
A great Athenian triumph at Arginusæ was followed later by a still more
overwhelming disaster at Ægos Potami.
The Spartan commander Lysander blockaded Athens; starvation forced her
to surrender. Lysander established the government known as that of the
Thirty Tyrants, who were headed by Kritias. Lysander's ascendancy
created in Sparta a party in opposition to him; in the outcome, the
Spartan king Pausanias helped in the overthrow of the Thirty at Athens
by Thrasybulus, and the restoration of the Athenian democracy.
Throughout, the conduct of the democratic party, at its best and its
worst, contrasted favourably with that of the oligarchical faction.
These eighty years were the great period of Athenian literature and art:
of the Parthenon and Phidias; of Æschylus, the soldier of Marathon; then
Sophocles and Euripides and Aristophanes; finally, of Socrates, not
himself an author, but the inspirer of Plato, and the founder of ethical
science; according to popular ideas, the typical Sophist, but in fact
differing from the Sophists fundamentally.
_III.--The Blotting Out of Hellas_
The triumph of Sparta has established her empire among the Greeks; she
used her power with a tyranny infinitely more galling than the sway of
Athens. The Spartan character had become greatly demoralised. Agesilaus,
who succeeded to the kingship, set on foot ambitious projects for a
Greek conquest of Asia; but Greece began to revolt against the Spartan
dominion. Thebes and other cities rose, and called for help from Athens,
their former foe. In the first stages of the ensuing war, of which the
most notable battle was Coronea, Sparta maintained her supremacy within
the Peloponnesus, but not beyond. Athens obtained the countenance of
Persia, and the counter-diplomacy of Sparta produced the peace known by
the name of the Spartan Antalcidas, establishing generally the autonomy
of Greek cities. But this in effect meant the restoration of Spartan
domination.
In course of time, however, this brought about the defiance of Spartan
dictation by Thebes and the tremendous check to her power inflicted at
the battle of Leuctra, by Epaminondas the Theban, whose military skill
and tactical originality there overthrew the Spartan military prestige.
As a consequence, half the Peloponnese itself broke away from Sparta; a
force under Epaminondas aided the Arcadians, and the Arcadian federation
was established.
Hellenic Sicily during these years was having a history of her own of
some importance. Syracuse, after her triumph over the Athenian forces,
continued the contest with her neighbours, which had been the ostensible
cause of the Athenian expedition. But this was closed by the advent of
fresh invaders, the Carthaginians, who renewed the attack repulsed at
Himera. Owing to the disaster to Athens, her fleets were no longer to be
feared by Carthage as a protection to the Hellenic world; and for two
centuries to come, her interventions in Sicily were incessant. Now, the
presence of a foreign foe in Sicily gave intriguers for power at
Syracuse their opportunity, of which the outcome was the subversion of
the democracy and the establishment of Dionysius as despot.
His son, Dionysius II., succeeded, and was finally ejected by the
Corinthian Timoleon, who, after a brilliant career of victories as
Syracusan general against Carthage, acted as general liberator of
Sicilian cities from despotisms, laid down his powers, and was content
with the position, not of despot, but of counsellor, to the great
prosperity of Sicily as a whole.
Going back to the north of Greece, the semi-Hellenic Macedon with a
Hellenic dynasty was growing powerful. Philip--father of Alexander the
Great--was now king, and was resolved to make himself the head of the
Greek world. His great opponent is found in the person of the Athenian
orator Demosthenes, who saw that Philip was aiming at ascendancy, but
generally failed to persuade the Athenians to recognise the danger in
which they stood. Philip gradually achieved his immediate end of being
recognised as the captain-general of the Hellenes, and their leader in a
new Persian war, when his life was cut short by an assassin, and he was
succeeded by his youthful son Alexander.
The Greek states, awakening to their practical subjection, would have
thrown off the new yoke, but the young king with swift and overwhelming
energy swept down from Thrace upon Thebes, the centre of resistance, and
stamped it out. He had already conceived, in part at least, his vast
schemes of Asiatic conquest; while he lived, Greece had practically no
distinguishable history. She is merely an appendage to Macedon.
Everything is absorbed in the Macedon conqueror. With an army incredibly
small for the task before him, he entered Asia Minor, and routed the
Persian forces on the river Granicus. The Greek Memnon, the one able
leader for the Persians, would have organised against him a destructive
naval power; but death removed him.
Alexander dispersed the armies of the Persian king Darius at the Issus,
captured Tyre after a remarkable siege, and took easy possession of
Egypt, where he founded Alexandria. Having organised the administration
of the conquered territories, he marched to the Euphrates, but did not
engage the enormous Persian hosts till he found and shattered them at
the battle of Gaugamela, also called Arbela. Darius fled, and Alexander
swept on to Babylon, to Susa, to Persepolis, assuming the functions of
the "Great King." The fugitive Darius was assassinated. Alexander
henceforth assumed a new and oriental demeanour; but he continued his
conquests, crossing the Hindoo Koosh to Bactria, and then bursting into
the Punjab. But his ambitions were ended by his death, and their
fulfilment, not at all according to his designs, was left to the
"Diadochi," the generals among whom the conquered dominions were parted.
Athens led the revolt against Macedonian supremacy, but in vain.
Demosthenes, condemned by the conquering Antipater, took poison. The
remainder of the history is that of the blotting out of Hellas and of
Hellenism.
* * * * *
HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN
Troy and Its Remains