make his mark. Antigonus wished to engage him in his service, but
Philopoemen refused, as he knew his temper would not let him serve
under others. His thirst for war took him to Crete, where he brought the
cavalry of that island to a state of perfection never before known in
Greece.
And now a new step in political progress took place in the Peloponnesus.
The cities of Achaea joined into a league for common aid and defence.
Other cities joined them, until it was hoped that all Peloponnesus would
be induced to combine into one commonwealth. There had been leagues
before in Greece, but they had all been dominated by some one powerful
city. The Achaean League was the first that was truly a federal republic
in organization, each city being an equal member of the confederacy.
Philopoemen, whose name had grown to stand highest among the soldiers
of Greece, was chosen as general of the cavalry, and at once set
himself to reform its discipline and improve its tactics. By his example
he roused a strong warlike fervor among the people, inducing them to
give up all display and exercise but those needed in war. "Nothing then
was to be seen in the shops but plate breaking up or melting down,
gilding of breastplates, and studding buckles and bits with silver;
nothing in the places of exercise but horses managing and young men
exercising their arms; nothing in the hands of the women but helmets and
crests of feathers to be dyed, and the military cloaks and riding frocks
to be embroidered.... Their arms becoming light and easy to them with
constant use, they longed for nothing more than to try them with an
enemy, and fight in earnest."
Two years afterwards, in 208 B.C., Philopoemen was elected
_strategus_, or general in-chief, of the Achaean league. The martial
ardor of the army he had organized was not long left unsatisfied. It was
with his old enemy, the Spartans, that he was first concerned.
Machanidas, the Spartan king, having attacked the city of Mantinea,
Philopoemen marched against him, and soon gave him other work to do. A
part of the Achaean army flying, Machanidas hotly pursued. Philopoemen
held back his main body until the enemy had become scattered in pursuit,
when he charged upon them with such energy that they were repulsed, and
over four thousand were killed. Machanidas returning in haste, strove to
cross a deep ditch between him and his foe; but as he was struggling up
its side, Philopoemen transfixed him with his javelin, and hurled him
back dead into the muddy ditch.
This victory greatly enhanced the fame of the Arcadian general. Some
time afterwards he and a party of his young soldiers entered the theatre
during the Nemean games, just as the actor was speaking the opening
words of the play called "The Persians:"
"Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free."
The whole audience at once turned towards Philopoemen, and clapped
their hands with delight. It seemed to them that in this valiant warrior
the ancient glory of Greece had returned, and for the time some of the
old-time spirit came back. But, despite this momentary glow, the sun of
Grecian freedom and glory was near its setting. A more dangerous enemy
than Macedonia had arisen. Rome, which Pyrrhus had gone to Italy to
seek, had its armies now in Greece itself, and the independence of that
country would soon be no more.
The next exploit of Philopoemen had to do with Messenia. Nabis, the
new Spartan king, had taken that city at a time when Philopoemen was
out of command, the generalship of the League not being permanent. He
tried to persuade Lysippus, then general of the Achaeans, to go to the
relief of Messenia, but he refused, saying that it was lost beyond hope.
Thereupon Philopoemen set out himself, followed by such of his fellow
citizens as deemed him their general by nature's commission. The very
wind of his coming won the town. Nabis, hearing that Philopoemen was
near at hand, slipped hastily out of the city by the opposite gates,
glad to get away in safety. He escaped, but Messenia was recovered. The
martial spirit of Philopoemen next took him to Crete, where fighting
was to be had to his taste. Yet he left his native city of Megalopolis
so pressed by the enemy that its people were forced to sow grain in
their very streets. However, he came back at length, met Nabis in the
field, rescued the army from a dangerous situation, and put the enemy to
flight. Soon after he made peace with Sparta, and achieved a remarkable
triumph in inducing that great and famous city to join the Achaean
League. In truth, the nobles of Sparta, glad to have so important an
ally, sent Philopoemen a valuable present. But such was his reputation
for honor that for a time no man could be found who dared offer it to
him; and when at length the offer was made he went to Sparta himself,
and advised its nobles, if they wanted any one to bribe, to let it not
be good men, but those ill citizens whose seditious voices needed to be
silenced.
In the end Sparta was destined to suffer at the hands of its
incorruptible ally, it having revolted from the League. Philopoemen
marched into Laconia, led his army unopposed to Sparta, and took
possession of that famous seat of Mars, within which no hostile foot had
hitherto been set. He razed its walls to the ground, put to death those
who had stirred the city to rebellion, and took away a great part of its
territory, which he gave to Megalopolis. Those who had been made
citizens of Sparta by tyrants he drove from the country, and three
thousand who refused to go he sold into slavery; and, as a further
insult, with the money received from their sale he built a colonnade at
Megalopolis.
Finally, as a death-blow to Spartan power, he abolished the time-honored
laws of Lycurgus, under which that city had for centuries been so great,
and forced the people to educate their children and live in the same
manner as the Achaeans. Thus ended the glory of Sparta. Some time
afterwards its citizens resumed their old laws and customs, but the city
had sunk from its high estate, and from that time forward vanished from
history.
At length, being then seventy years of age, misfortune came to this
great warrior and ended his warlike career. An enemy of his had induced
the Messenians to revolt from the Achaean League. At once the old
soldier, though lying sick with a fever at Argos, rose from his bed, and
reached Megalopolis, fifty miles away, in a day. Putting himself at the
head of an army, he marched to meet the foe. In the fight that followed
his force was driven back, and he became separated from his men in his
efforts to protect the rear. Unluckily his horse stumbled in a stony
place, and he was thrown to the ground and stunned. The enemy, who were
following closely, at once made him prisoner, and carried him, with
insult and contumely, and with loud shouts of triumph, to the city
gates, through which the very tidings of his coming had once driven a
triumphant foe.
The Messenians rapidly turned from anger to pity for their noble foe,
and would probably have in the end released him, had time been given
them. But Dinocrates, their general and his enemy, resolved that
Philopoemen should not escape from his hands. He confined him in a
close prison, and, learning that his army had returned and were
determined upon his rescue, decided that that night should be
Philopoemen's last.
The prisoner lay--not sleeping, but oppressed with grief and trouble--in
his prison cell, when a man entered bearing poison in a cup.
Philopoemen sat up, and, taking the cup, asked the man if he had heard
anything of the Achaean horsemen.
"The most of them got off safe," said the man.
"It is well," said Philopoemen, with a cheerful look, "that we have
not been in every way unfortunate."
Then, without a word more, he drank the poison and lay down again. As he
was old and weak from his fall, he was quickly dead.
The news of his death filled all Achaea with lamentation and thirst for
revenge. Messenia was ravaged with fire and sword till it submitted.
Dinocrates and all who had voted for Philopoemen's death killed
themselves to escape death by torture. All Achaea mourned at his funeral,
statues were erected to his memory, and the highest honors decreed to
him in many cities. In the words of Pausanias, a late Greek writer,
"Miltiades was the first, and Philopoemen the last, benefactor to the
whole of Greece."
_THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF GREECE._
Greece learned too late the art of combining for self-defence. In the
war against the vast power of Persia, Athens stood almost alone. What
aid she got from the rest of Greece was given grudgingly. Themistocles
had to gain the aid of the Grecian fleet at Salamis by a trick. Philip
of Macedonia conquered Greece by dividing it and fighting it piecemeal.
Only after the close of the Macedonian power and the beginning of that
of Rome did Greece begin to learn the art of unity, and then the lesson
came too late. The Achaean League, which combined the nations of the
Peloponnesus into a federal republic, was in its early days kept busy in
forcing its members to remain true to their pledge. If it had survived
for a century it would probably have brought all Greece into the League,
and have produced a nation capable of self-defence. But Rome already had
her hand on the throat of Greece, and political wisdom came to that land
too late to avail.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA, CORINTH.]
We have come, indeed, to the end of the story of Grecian liberty. Twice
Greece rose in arms against the power of Rome, but in the end she fell
hopelessly into the fetters forged for the world by that lord of
conquest. Of the celebrated cities of Greece two had already fallen.
Thebes had been swept from the face of the earth in the wind of
Alexander's wrath. Sparta had been reduced to a feeble village by the
anger of Philopoemen. Corinth, now the largest and richest city of
Greece, was to be razed to the ground for daring to defy Rome; and
Athens was to be plundered and humiliated by a conquering Roman army.
It will not take long to tell how all this came about. The story is a
short one, but full of vital consequences. Philopoemen, the great
general of the Achaean League, died of poison 183 B.C. In the same year
died in exile Hannibal, the greatest foe Rome ever knew, and Scipio, one
of its ablest generals. Rome was already master of Greece. But the Roman
senate feared trouble from the growth of the Achaean League, and, to
weaken it, took a thousand of its noblest citizens, under various
charges, and sent them as hostages to Rome. Among them was the
celebrated historian Polybius, who wrote the history of Hannibal's wars.
These exiles were not brought to trial on the weak charges made against
them, but they were detained in Italy for seventeen years. By the end of
that time many of them had died, and Rome at last did what it was not in
the habit of doing, it took pity on those who were left and let them
return home.
Roman pity in this case proved disastrous to Greece. Many of the exiles
were exasperated by their treatment, and were no sooner at home than
they began to stir up the people to revolt. Polybius held them back for
a time, but during his absence the spirit of sedition grew. It was
intensified by the action of Rome, which, to weaken Greece, resolved to
dissolve the Achaean League, or to take from it its strongest cities.
Roman ambassadors carried this edict to Corinth, the great city of the
League. When their errand become known the people rose in riot, insulted
the ambassadors, and vowed that they were not and would not be the
slaves of Rome.
If they had shown the strength and spirit to sustain their vow they
might have had some warrant for it. But the fanatics who stirred the
country to revolt against the advice of its wisest citizens proved
incapable in war. Their army was finally put to rout in the year 146
B.C. by a Roman army under the leadership of Lucius Mummius, consul of
Rome.
This Roman victory was won in the vicinity of Corinth. The routed army
did not seek to defend itself in that city, but fled past its open
gates, and left it to the mercy of the Roman general. The gates still
stood open. No defence was made. But Mummius, fearing some trick, waited
a day or two before entering. On doing so he found the city nearly
deserted. The bulk of the population had fled. The greatest and richest
city which Greece then possessed had fallen without a blow struck in its
defence.
Yet Mummius chose to consider it as a city taken by storm. All the men
who remained were put to the sword; the women and children were kept to
be sold as slaves; the town was mercilessly plundered of its wealth and
treasures of art.
But this degree of vengeance did not satisfy Rome. Her ambassadors had
been insulted,--by a mob, it is true; but in those days the law-abiding
had often to suffer for the deeds of the mob. The Achaean League, with
Corinth at its head, had dared to resist the might and majesty of Rome.
A lesson must be given that would not be easily forgotten. Corinth must
be utterly destroyed.
Such was the deliberate decision of the Roman senate; such the order
sent to Mummius. At his command the plundering of the city was
completed. It was fabulously rich in works of art. Many of these were
sent to Rome. Many of them were destroyed. The Romans were ignorant of
their value. Their leader himself was as incompetent and ignorant as any
Roman general could well be. He had but one thought, to obey the orders
of the senate. The plundered city was thereupon set on fire and burned
to the ground, its walls were pulled down, the spot where it had stood
was cursed, its territory was declared the property of the Roman people.
No more complete destruction of a city had ever taken place. A century
afterwards Corinth was rebuilt by order of Julius Caesar, but it never
became again the Corinth of old.
As for the destruction of works of priceless value, it was pitiable.
When Polybius returned and saw the ruins, he found common soldiers
playing dice on paintings of the most celebrated artists of Greece.
Mummius, who was as honest as he was dull-witted, strictly obeyed orders
in sending the choicest of the spoil to Rome, and made himself forever
famous as a marvel of stupidity by a remark to those who were charged
with the conveyance of some of the noblest of Grecian statues.
"Take good care that you do not lose these on the way," he said; "for if
you do you shall be made to replace them by others of equal value."
Rome could conquer the world, but honest Mummius had set a task which
Rome throughout its whole history was not able to perform.
Thus ended the death-struggle of Greece. The chiefs of the party of
revolt were put to death; the inhabitants of Corinth who had fled were
taken and sold as slaves. The walls of all the cities which had resisted
Rome were levelled to the ground. An annual tribute was laid on them by
the conquerors. Self-government was left to the states of Greece, but
they were deprived of their old privilege of making war.
Yet Greece might have flourished under the new conditions, for peace
heals the wounds made by war, had its states not been too much weakened
by their previous conflicts, and had not a new war arisen just when they
were beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of peace.
This war, which broke out sixty years later, had its origin in Asia.
Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, had made himself master of all
Asia Minor, where he ordered that all the Romans found should be killed.
It is said that eighty thousand were slaughtered. Then he sent an army
into Greece, under his general Archelaus, and there found the people
ready and willing to join him, in the hope of gaining their freedom by
his aid. Rome just then seemed weak, and they deemed it a good season to
rebel.
Archelaus took possession of Athens and the Piraeus, from which all the
friends of Rome were driven into exile. Meanwhile, Rome was distracted
by the struggle between the two great leaders Marius and Sulla. But
leaving Rome to take care of itself, Sulla marched an army against
Mithridates, entered Greece, and laid siege to Athens.
This was in the year 87 B.C. The siege that followed was a long one.
Archelaus lay in Piraeus, with abundance of food, and had command of the
sea. But the long walls that led to Athens had long since vanished. Food
could not be conveyed from the port to the city, as of old. Hunger came
to the aid of Rome. Resistance having almost ceased, Sulla broke into
the famous old city March 1, 86 B.C., and gave it up to rapine and
pillage by his soldiers.
Yet Athens was not destroyed as Corinth had been. Sulla had some respect
for art and antiquity, and carefully preserved the old monuments of the
city, while such of its people as had not been massacred were restored
to their civil rights as subjects of Rome. Soon the Asiatics were driven
from Greece and Roman dominion was once more restored. Thus ended the
last struggle for liberty in Greece. Nineteen hundred years were to pass
away before another blow for freedom would be struck on Grecian soil.
_ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS._
Among the most famous of the women of ancient days must be named
Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the East, and who claimed
to be descended from the kings whom the conquests of Alexander left over
Egypt, the Ptolemies, among whose descendants was included the still
more celebrated Cleopatra. Zenobia was the most lovely as well as the
most heroic of her sex, no woman of Asiatic birth ever having equalled
her in striking evidence of valor and ability, and none surpassed her in
beauty. We are told that while of a dark complexion, her smile revealed
teeth of pearly whiteness, while her large black eyes sparkled with an
uncommon brightness that was softened by the most attractive sweetness.
She possessed a strong and melodious voice, and, in short, had all the
charms of womanly beauty.
Her mind was as well stored as her body was attractive. She was familiar
with the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages, and was an adept
also in Latin, then the political language of the civilized world. She
was an earnest student of Oriental history, of which she herself drew up
an epitome, while she was fully conversant with Homer and Plato, and the
other great writers of Greece.
This lovely and accomplished woman gave her hand in marriage to
Odenathus, who from a private station had gained by his valor the empire
of the East. He made Syria his by courage and ability, and twice pursued
the Persian king to the gates of Ctesiphon. Of this hero Zenobia became
the companion and adviser. In hunting, of which he was passionately
fond, she emulated him, pursuing the lions, panthers, and other wild
beasts of the desert with an ardor equal to his own, and a fortitude and
endurance which his did not surpass. Inured to fatigue, she usually
appeared on horseback in a military habit, and at times marched on foot
at the head of the troops. Odenathus owed his success largely to the
prudence and fortitude of his incomparable wife.
In the midst of his successes in war, Odenathus was cut off in 250 A.D.
by assassination. He had punished his nephew, who killed him in return.
Zenobia at once succeeded to the vacant throne, and by her ability
governed Palmyra, Syria, and the East. In this task, in which no man
could have surpassed her in courage and judgment, she was aided by the
counsels of one of the ablest Greeks who had appeared since the days of
the famous writers of the classical age. Longinus, who had been her
preceptor in the language and literature of Greece, and who, on her
ascending the throne, became her secretary and chief counsellor in state
affairs, was a literary critic and philosopher whose lucid intellect
seemed to belong to the brightest days of Greece. He was probably a
native of Syria, born some time after 200 A.D., and had studied
literature and philosophy at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, under the
ablest teachers of the age. His learning was immense, and he is the
first man to whom was applied the expression "a living library," or, to
give it its modern form, "a walking encyclopaedia." His writings were
lively and penetrating, showing at once taste, judgment, and learning.
We have only fragments of them, except the celebrated "Treatise on the
Sublime," which is one of the most notable of ancient critical
productions.
Under the advice of this distinguished counsellor, Zenobia entered upon
a career which brought her disaster, but has also brought her fame. Her
husband Odenathus had avenged Valerian, the Roman emperor, who had been
taken prisoner and shamefully treated by the Persian king. For this
service he was confirmed in his authority by the senate of Rome. But
after his death the senate refused to grant this authority to his widow,
and called on her to deliver her dominion over to Rome. Under the advice
of Longinus the martial queen refused, defied the power of Rome, and
determined to maintain her empire in despite of the senate and army of
the proud "master of the world."
War at once broke out. A Roman army invaded Syria, but was met by
Zenobia with such warlike energy and skill that it was hurled back in
defeat, and its commanding general, having lost his army, was driven
back to Europe in disgrace. This success gave Zenobia the highest fame
and power in the world of the Orient. The states of Arabia, Armenia,
and Persia, in dread of her enmity, solicited alliance with her. To her
dominions, which extended from the Euphrates over much of Asia Minor and
to the borders of Arabia, she added the populous kingdom of Egypt, the
inheritance of her claimed ancestors. The Roman emperor Claudius
acknowledged her authority and left her unmolested. Assuming the
splendid title of Queen of the East, she established at her court the
stately power of the courts of Asia, exacted from her subjects the
adoration shown to the Persian king, and, while strict in her economy,
at times displayed the greatest liberality and magnificence.
But a new emperor came to the throne in Rome, and a new period in the
history of Zenobia began. Aurelian, a fierce and vigorous soldier,
marched at the head of the Roman legions against this valiant queen, who
had built herself up an empire of great extent, and demanded that she
should submit to the power of his arms. Asia Minor was quickly restored
to Rome, Antioch fell into the hands of Aurelian, and the Romans still
advanced, to meet the army of the Syrian queen. Meeting near Antioch, a
great battle was fought. Zabdas, who had conquered Egypt for Zenobia,
led her army, but the valiant queen animated her soldiers by her
presence, and exhorted them to the utmost exertions. Her troops, great
in number, were mainly composed of light-armed archers and of cavalry
clothed in complete steel. These Asiatic warriors proved incapable of
enduring the charge of the veteran legions of Rome. The army of Zenobia
met with defeat, and at a subsequent battle, near Emesa, met with a
second disastrous repulse.
Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. Most of the nations
under her control had submitted to the conqueror. Egypt was invaded by a
Roman army. Out of her lately great empire only her capital, Palmyra,
remained. Here she retired, made preparations for a vigorous defence,
and declared that her reign and life should only end together.
Palmyra was then one of the most splendid cities of the world. A
halting-place for the caravans which conveyed to Europe the rich
products of India and the East, it had grown into a great and opulent
city, whose former magnificence is shown by the ruins of temples,
palaces, and porticos of Grecian architecture, which now extend over a
district of several miles. In this city, surrounded with strong walls,
Zenobia had gathered the various military engines which in those days
were used in siege and defence, and, woman though she was, was prepared
to make the most vigorous resistance to the armies of Rome.