Again there was a time of deliverance for Greece. The Turks had had a
great defeat before Vienna, and in their weak state the Venetians made
another attack on them, and appointed Francis Morosini commander of the
fleet and army. He took the little Ionian isle of Sta Maura, and two
Albanian towns; and many brave young men, who had read of the glories of
ancient Greece in the course of their studies, came from all parts of
Europe to fight for her. The governor, or Seraskin, was obliged to
retreat, and the Mainots, as the Greeks of the Morea were called, rose
and joined him. Corinth, which was as valuable as ever as the door of
the peninsula, was taken, and nothing in the Morea remained Turkish but
the city of Malvasia. Morosini threw his men into Lepanto, Patras, and
pushed on to Athens; but there they had six days' fighting, during which
more harm was done to the beautiful old buildings and sculptures than had
befallen them in nearly two thousand years of decay. The Turks had shut
themselves up in the Acropolis, and made a powder magazine of the
Parthenon. A shell from Morosini's batteries fell into it, and blew up
the roof, which had remained perfect all these years, and much more
damage was done; but the city was won at last, and the Venetians were so
much delighted that they chose Morosini Doge, and bestowed on him the
surname of Peloponesiacus in honour of his victory. He sent home a great
many precious spoils, in the way of old sculptures, to Venice--in
especial two enormous marble lions which used to guard the gate of the
Piraeus, but which now stand on either side of the Arsenal at Venice.
Then he laid siege to Negropont, the chief city of the old isle of
Euboea; but the plague broke out in his camp, and weakened his troops so
much that they were defeated and forced to give up the attempt. Illness,
too, hindered him from taking Malvasia; his health was broken, and he
died soon after his return to Venice. Four great and bloody sea-fights
took place during the next few years, and in one the Turks had the
victory, in the others it was doubtful; but when peace was made, in the
year 1699, the Morea was yielded to the Venetians, and they put a line of
forts across the Isthmus to secure it, as in old times. But the Venetian
Republic had lost a great deal of strength and spirit, and when, in a few
years, the Sultan began to prepare to take back what he had lost, the
Doge and Senate paid little attention to his doings; so that, when
100,000 Turks, with the Grand Vizier, sailed against the Morea, besides a
fleet of 100 ships, the Venetian commander there had only 8000 men and 19
ships. The Venetians were hopeless, and yielded Corinth after only four
days' siege; and though safety had been promised to the inhabitants, they
were cruelly massacred, and the same happened in place after place till
the whole Morea was conquered, and the Venetians took ship and left the
unhappy Greeks to their fate, which was worse than ever, since they were
now treated as rebels.
[Picture: Temple of Minerva, on the Promontory of Sunium]
Several of the Ionian islands on the west side of Greece were seized by
the Turks; but Corfu, the old Corcyra, held out most bravely, the
priests, women, and all fighting most desperately as the Turks stormed
the walls of their city; stones, iron crosses, everything that came to
hand, were hurled down on the heads of the enemy; but the ramparts had
been won, and thirty standards planted on the walls, when the Saxon
general Schulenberg, who was commanding the Venetians, sallied out with
800 men, and charged the Turks in their rear, so that those on the walls
hurried back to defend their camp. At night a great storm swept away the
tents, and in the morning a Spanish fleet came to the aid of the island.
The Turks were so much disheartened that they embarked as quietly as
possible in the night; and when the besieged garrison looked forth in the
morning, in surprise at everything being so still and quiet, they found
the whole place deserted--stores of powder and food, cannon, wounded men,
and all. Corfu has thus never fallen under Turkish power, for in the
next year, 1717, a peace was made, in which, though Venice gave up all
claim to the Morea, she kept the seven Ionian islands, and they continued
under her power as long as she remained a free and independent city--that
is to say, till 1796, when she was conquered by the French, and given for
a time to Austria.
[Picture: Ancyra, Galatia]
The state of poor Greece was dreadful. The nobles lived in fortresses
upon the rocks, and the monks in their fastnesses; but the villages,
towns, and coasts were worse off than ever, for the Turks treated them as
rebels, and savagely oppressed and misused them. Nor were they united
among themselves, for the families who dwelt in the hills were often at
deadly feud with each other; the men shot each other down if they met;
and it ended in whole families of men living entirely within their castle
walls, and never going out except armed to the teeth on purpose to fight,
while all the business of life was carried on by the women, whom no one
on either side attempted to hurt. The beautiful buildings in the cities
were going to decay faster than ever, in especial the Parthenon. When it
had lost its roof it was of no further use as a storehouse, so it was
only looked on as a mine of white marble, and was broken down on all
sides. The English Earl of Elgin obtained leave from the Turkish
Government to carry away those carvings from it which are now in the
British Museum, and only one row of beautiful pillars from the portico of
the Temple has been left standing.
As the Russians had been converted to Christianity by the clergy of
Constantinople, and belonged to the same Church, the Greeks naturally
looked most there for help; but they were not well treated by the great
empire, which seemed to think the chief use of them was to harass the
Turks, and keep them from attacking Russia. Thus, in 1770, the Russians
sent 2000 men to encourage a rising of the Mainots in the Morea, but not
enough to help them to make a real resistance; and the Greeks, when they
had a little advantage, were always so horridly cruel in their revenge on
their Turkish prisoners as to disgrace the Christian name, and provoke a
return. In 1790, again, the Suliot Greeks of Albania sent to invite
Constantine, the brother of the Czar of Russia, to be king of Greece, and
arranged a rising, but only misery came of it. The Russians only sent a
little money, encouraged them to rise, and left them to their fate. The
Turkish chief, Ali Pasha, who in his little city of Yanina had almost
become a king independent of the Sultan, hunted them down; and the
Suliots, taking refuge among the rocks, fought to the death, and killed
far more than their own number. In one case the Turks surprised a
wedding-party, which retreated to a rock with a precipice behind. Here
the women waited and watched till all the men had been slain, and then
let themselves be driven over the precipice rather than be taken by the
Turks.
[Picture: Female figures]