THE LAST YEARS OF GREECE
DECADENCE OF THE GREEK CITIES
=Rich and Poor.=--In almost all the Greek cities the domains, the
shops of trade, the merchant ships, in short, all the sources of
financial profit were in the hands of certain rich families. The other
families, that is to say, the majority of the citizens,[102] had
neither lands nor money. What, then, could a poor citizen do to gain a
livelihood? Hire himself as a farmer, an artisan, or a sailor? But the
proprietors already had their estates, their workshops, their
merchantmen manned by slaves who served them much more cheaply than
free laborers, for they fed them ill and did not pay them. Could he
work on his own account? But money was very scarce; he could not
borrow, since interest was at the rate of ten per cent. Then, too,
custom did not permit a citizen to become an artisan. "Trade," said
the philosophers, "injures the body, enfeebles the soul and leaves no
leisure to engage in public affairs." "And so," says Aristotle, "a
well-constituted city ought not to receive the artisan into
citizenship." The citizens in Greece constituted a noble class whose
only honorable functions, like the nobles of ancient France, were to
govern and go to war; working with the hands was degrading. Thus by
the competition of slaves and their exalted situation the greater part
of the citizens were reduced to extreme misery.
=Social Strife.=--The poor governed the cities and had no means of
living. The idea occurred to them to despoil the rich, and the latter,
to resist them, organized associations. Then every Greek city was
divided into two parties: the rich, called the minority, and the poor,
called the majority or the people. Rich and poor hated one another and
fought one another. When the poor got the upper hand, they exiled the
rich and confiscated their goods; often they even adopted these two
radical measures:
1. The abolition of debts;
2. A new partition of lands.
The rich, when they returned to power, exiled the poor. In many cities
they took this oath among themselves: "I swear always to be an enemy
to the people and to do them all the injury I can."
No means were found of reconciling the two parties: the rich could not
persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were
unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions
have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war,"
says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth."
They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors. "At
Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee
the city. But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them
all, they took the children of the exiles, assembled them in barns
and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reentered the
city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children
of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive."
=Democracy and Oligarchy.=--Each of the two parties--rich and
poor--had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when
the party held the city. The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which
gave the government into the hands of a few people. That of the poor
was the Democracy which gave the power to an assembly of the people.
Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar
party in the other cities. Thus were formed two leagues which divided
all the Greek cities: the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league
of the poor, or Democracy. This regime began during the Peloponnesian
War. Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic. The
cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with
Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta. Thus at Samos
when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich,
exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses.
Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with
Athens. The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the
rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force. The
city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of
Sparta.
=The Tyrants.=--At length, the poor perceived that the democratic form
of government did not give them strength enough to maintain the
contest. In most of the cities they consented to receive a chief. This
chief was called Tyrant. He governed as master without obeying any
law, condemning to death, and confiscating property at will.
Mercenaries defended him against his enemies. The following anecdote
represents the policy of the tyrants: "Periander, tyrant of Corinth,
sent one day to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, to ask what conduct he
ought to follow in order to govern with safety. Thrasybulus led the
envoy into the field end walked with him through the wheat, striking
off with his staff all heads that were higher than the others. He sent
off the envoy without further advice." The messenger took him for a
fool, but Periander understood: Thrasybulus was counselling him to
slay the principal citizens.
Everywhere the rich were killed by the tyrant and their goods
confiscated; often the wealth was distributed among the poor. This is
why the populace always sustained the tyrant.
There were tyrants in Greece from the sixth century; some, like
Pisistratus, Polycrates, and Pittacus, were respected for their
wisdom. At that time every man was called tyrant who exercised
absolute power outside the limits of the constitution; it was not a
title of reproach.
But when the tyrants made incessant warfare on the rich they became
sanguinary and so were detested. Their situation is depicted in the
famous story of Damocles. This Damocles said to Dionysius, tyrant of
Syracuse, "You are the happiest of men." "I will show you the delight
of being a tyrant," replied Dionysius. He had Damocles served with a
sumptuous feast and ordered his servants to show the guest the same
honors as to himself. During the feast Damocles raised his eyes and
perceived a sword suspended to the ceiling held only by a horse hair,
and hanging directly over his head. The comparison was a striking
one--the tyrant's life hung only by a thread. The rich, his enemies,
watched for an opportunity to cut it, for it was regarded as
praiseworthy to assassinate a tyrant. This danger irritated him and
made him suspicious and cruel. He dared not trust anybody, believed
himself secure only after the massacre of all his enemies, and
condemned the citizens to death on the slightest suspicion. Thus the
name tyrant became a synonym of injustice.
=Exhaustion of Greece.=--The civil wars between rich and poor
continued for nearly three centuries (430-150 B.C.). Many citizens
were massacred, a greater number exiled. These exiles wandered about
in poverty. Knowing no trade but that of a soldier, they entered as
mercenaries into the armies of Sparta, Athens, the Great King, the
Persian satraps--in short, of anybody who would hire them. There were
50,000 Greeks in the service of Darius against Alexander. It was
seldom that such men returned to their own country.
Thus the cities lost their people. At the same time families became
smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raise children, others
having but one or two. "Is not this," says Polybius, "the root of the
evil, that of these two children war or sickness removes one, then the
home becomes deserted and the city enfeebled?" A time came when there
were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror.
THE ROMAN CONQUEST
=The Greek Leagues.=--The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to
see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an
assembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your
eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing
something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on
that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."[103]
The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues
hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the AEtolians and Achaeans,
had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on
peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league
supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties--the
AEtolian League the democratic, the Achaean League[104] the
oligarchical.
=The Roman Allies.=--Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to
unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king
of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,[105] the king of Syria
(193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their
armies and made them surrender their fleets.
Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and
his kingdom overthrown (167).[106] The Greeks made no effort to unite
for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and
each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party
allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the
Romans.[107] While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of
Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At
Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against
Rome. Even among the Achaeans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans,
prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been
favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were
held twenty years without trial.
=The Last Fight.=--The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies.
In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon,
betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks
assembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek
peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached
Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see
his form, touch his hand; crowns and garlands were cast upon him. The
pressure upon him was so great that he was nearly suffocated.
The Romans seeing themselves in control soon wished to command. The
rich freely recognized their sovereignty; Rome served them by
shattering the party of the poor. This endured for forty years. At
last in 147, Rome being engaged with Carthage, the democratic party
gained the mastery in Greece and declared war on the Romans. A part of
the Greeks were panic-stricken; many came before the Roman soldiers
denouncing their compatriots and themselves; others betook themselves
to a safe distance from the cities; some hurled themselves into wells
or over precipices. The leaders of the opposition confiscated the
property of the rich, abolished debts, and gave arms to the slaves. It
was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achaeans reassembled an
army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The
general Dioeus shut himself in his house with his whole family and set
fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance;
the Romans entered it, massacred the men, and sold the women and
children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged
and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust,
Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice.
THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT
=Influence of Greece on Rome.=--The Romans at the time of their
conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and
merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or
philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to
imitate these, as the Assyrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as
the Persians did the Assyrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue,
and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But
thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves
in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence. Later it
was the fashion for the youth of the great Roman families to go as
students to the schools of Athens and Alexandria. Thus the arts and
science of the Greeks were gradually introduced into Rome. "Vanquished
Greece overcame her savage conqueror," says Horace, the Roman poet;
"she brought the arts to uncultured Latium."
=Architecture.=--The Romans had a national architecture. But they
borrowed the column from the Greeks and often imitated their
buildings. Many Roman temples resemble a Greek temple.
A wealthy Roman's house is composed ordinarily of two parts: the
first, the ancient Roman house; the other is only a Greek house added
to the first.
=Sculpture.=--The Greeks had thousands of statues, in temples, squares
of the city, gymnasia, and in their dwellings. The Romans regarded
themselves as the owners of everything that had belonged to the
vanquished people. Their generals, therefore, removed a great number
of statues, transporting them to the temples and the porticos of Rome.
In the triumph of AEmilius Paullus, victor over the king of Macedon
(Perseus), a notable spectacle was two hundred and fifty cars full of
statues and paintings.
Soon the Romans became accustomed to adorn with statues their
theatres, council-halls, and private villas; every great noble wished
to have some of them and gave commissions for them to Greek artists.
Thus a Roman school of sculpture was developed which continued to
imitate ancient Greek models. And so it was Greek sculpture, a little
blunted and disfigured, which was spread over all the world subject to
the Romans.
=Literature.=--The oldest Latin writer was a Greek, Livius Andronicus,
a freedman, a schoolmaster, and later an actor. The first works in
Latin were translations from the Greek. Livius Andronicus had
translated the Odyssey and several tragedies. The Roman people took
pleasure in Greek pieces and would have no others. Even the Roman
authors who wrote for the theatre did nothing but translate or arrange
Greek tragedies and comedies. Thus the celebrated works of Plautus and
of Terence are imitations of the comedies of Menander and of Diphilus,
now lost to us.
The Romans imitated also the Greek historians. For a long time it was
the fashion to write history, even Roman history, in Greek.
The only great Roman poets declare themselves pupils of the Greeks.
Lucretius writes only to expound the philosophy of Epicurus; Catullus
imitates the poets of Alexander; Vergil, Theocritus and Homer; Horace
translates the odes of the Greek lyrics.
=Epicureans and Stoics.=--The Romans had a practical and literal
spirit, very indifferent to pure science and metaphysics. They took
interest in Greek philosophy only so far as they believed it had a
bearing on morals.
Epicureans and Stoics were two sects of Greek philosophers. The
Epicureans maintained that pleasure is the supreme good, not sensual
pleasure, but the calm and reasonable pleasure of the temperate man;
happiness consists in the quiet enjoyment of a peaceful life,
surrounded with friends and without concern for imaginary goods. For
the Stoics the supreme good is virtue, which consists in conducting
one's self according to reason, with a view to the good of the whole
universe. Riches, honor, health, beauty, all the goods of earth are
nothing for the wise man; even if one torture him, he remains happy in
the possession of the true good.
The Romans took sides for one or the other philosophy, usually without
thoroughly comprehending either. Those who passed for Epicureans spent
their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to
swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected
a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life.
Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying
certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in
harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient religion and taught
that all men are equal, slaves or citizens, Greeks or barbarians.
Their Roman disciples renounced in their school certain old
superstitions, and learned to show themselves less cruel to their
slaves, less insolent toward other peoples.
The conquest of Greece by the Romans gave the arts, letters, and
morals of the Greeks currency in the west, just as the conquest of the
Persian empire by the Greeks had carried their language, customs, and
religion into the Orient.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] In almost all the Greek cities there was no middle class. In this
regard Athens with its thirteen thousand small proprietors is a
remarkable exception.
[103] Polybius, v., 104.
[104] The Achaean league had illustrious leaders. In the third century,
Aratus, who for twenty-seven years (251-224) traversed Greece, expelling
tyrants, recalling the rich and returning to them their property and the
government; in the second century Philopoemen, who fought the tyrants of
Sparta and died by poison.
[105] There were two kings of Syria by the name of Antiochus, between
193 and 169.--ED.
[106] The decisive battle (Pydna) was fought in 168. Perseus walked in
the triumph of Paullus the next year.--ED.
[107] The party policies of the Greeks of this period were hardly so
clearly drawn as the above would seem to indicate. Thus the Achaean
League allied itself with Macedon against the AEtolians and against
Sparta. The AEtolians leagued with the Romans against Macedon.--ED.