With Alcibiades perished the last of the great men who possessed the
power to sway the wild democracy, or, properly speaking, the mob of
Athens. From the period of his death till the subjugation of the
country, the Athenian people were at the mercy of contending factions,
and without a single settled principle of government. During this
brief period of their history, in which a kind of popular democracy
had attained the command of affairs, happened the trial and
condemnation of Socrates, an eminent teacher of morals, and a man
guiltless of every offense but that of disgracing, by his illustrious
merit, the vices and follies of his cotemporaries. On the false charge
of corrupting the morals of the pupils who listened to his admirable
expositions, and of denying the religion of his country, he was, to
the eternal disgrace of the Athenians, compelled to die by drinking
poison, a fate which he submitted to with a magnanimity which has
rendered his name for ever celebrated. This odious transaction
occurred in the year 400 B. C.
After the death of this great man, the political independence of
Athens drew to its termination――a circumstance which cannot excite the
least surprise, when we reflect on the turbulence of its citizens,
their persecution of virtue and talent, and their unhappy distrust of
any settled form of government. Their ruin was finally accomplished by
their uncontrollable thirst for war, and can create no emotions of
pity or regret in the reader of their distracted history. The
Lacedæmonians, under the command of an able officer named Lysander,
attacked and totally destroyed the Athenian fleet. By this means
having obtained the undisputed command of the sea, Lysander easily
reduced those cities on the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, and those
islands of the Ægean, which still acknowledged the supremacy of
Athens. Having thus stripped that once lordly state of all its
dependencies, he proceeded to blockade the city of Athens itself. The
Athenians made a heroic defense; but after a lengthened siege, during
which they suffered all the horrors of famine, they were obliged to
surrender on such conditions as their enemies thought fit to impose
(404 B. C.). The Spartans demanded that the fortifications of Piræus,
and the long walls which connected it with the city, should be
demolished; that the Athenians should relinquish all pretensions to
authority over their former tributaries, recall the exiled partisans
of the 400 tyrants, acknowledge the supremacy of Sparta, and follow
its commanders in time of war; and finally, that they should adopt
such a political constitution as should meet the approbation of the
Lacedæmonians.
Thus sank the power of Athens, which had so long been the leading
state of Greece, and thus terminated the Peloponnesian war, in which
the Grecian communities had been so long engaged, to little other
purpose than to waste the strength, and exhaust the resources, of
their common country.
CONDITION OF ATHENS. During the age preceding its fall, Athens, as
already mentioned, had been greatly beautified and enlarged by
Pericles. At the same time, the comparative simplicity of manners
which formerly prevailed was exchanged for luxurious habits. This
alteration has been thus described by Gillies in his ‘History of
Ancient Greece:’――‘In the course of a few years, the success of
Aristides, Cimon, and Pericles, had tripled the revenues, and
increased in a far greater proportion the dominions of the republic.
The Athenian galleys commanded the eastern coasts of the
Mediterranean; their merchantmen had engrossed the traffic of the
adjacent countries; the magazines of Athens abounded with wood, metal,
ebony, ivory, and all the materials of the useful as well as of the
agreeable arts; they imported the luxuries of Italy, Sicily, Cyprus,
Lydia, Pontus, and Peloponnesus; experience had improved their skill
in working the silver mines of Mount Laurium; they had lately opened
the valuable marble veins in Mount Pentelicus; the honey of Hymettus
became important in domestic use and foreign traffic; the culture of
their olives (oil being long their staple commodity, and the only
production of Attica which Solon allowed them to export) must have
improved with the general improvement of the country in arts and
agriculture, especially under the active administration of Pericles,
who liberally let loose the public treasure to encourage every species
of industry.
‘But if that minister promoted the love of action, he found it
necessary at least to comply with, if not to excite, the extreme
passion for pleasure which then began to distinguish his countrymen.
The people of Athens, successful in every enterprise against their
foreign as well as domestic enemies, seemed entitled to reap the
fruits of their dangers and victories. For the space of at least
twelve years preceding the war of Peloponnesus, their city afforded a
perpetual scene of triumph and festivity. Dramatic entertainments, to
which they were passionately addicted, were no longer performed in
slight, unadorned edifices, but in stone or marble theatres, erected
at great expense, and embellished with the most precious productions
of nature and of art. The treasury was opened, not only to supply the
decorations of this favorite amusement, but to enable the poorer
citizens to enjoy it, without incurring any private expense; and thus,
at the cost of the state, or rather of its tributary allies and
colonies, to feast and delight their ears and fancy with the combined
charms of music and poetry. The pleasure of the eye was peculiarly
consulted and gratified in the architecture of theatres and other
ornamental buildings; for as Themistocles had strengthened, Pericles
adorned, his native city; and unless the concurring testimony of
antiquity was illustrated in the Parthenon, or Temple of Minerva, and
other existing remains worthy to be immortal, it would be difficult to
believe that in the space of a few years there could have been created
those numerous, yet inestimable wonders of art, those temples,
theatres, statues, altars, baths, gymnasia, and porticoes, which, in
the language of ancient panegyric, rendered Athens the eye and light
of Greece.
‘Pericles was blamed for thus decking one favorite city, like a vain
voluptuous harlot, at the expense of plundered provinces; but it would
have been fortunate for the Athenians if their extorted wealth had not
been employed in more perishing, as well as more criminal, luxury. The
pomp of religious solemnities, which were twice as numerous and costly
in Athens as in any other city of Greece――the extravagance of
entertainments and banquets, which on such occasions always followed
the sacrifices――exhausted the resources, without augmenting the glory,
of the republic. Instead of the bread, herbs, and simple fare
recommended by the laws of Solon, the Athenians, soon after the
eightieth Olympiad, availed themselves of their extensive commerce to
import the delicacies of distant countries, which were prepared with
all the refinements of cookery. The wines of Cyprus were cooled with
snow in summer; in winter, the most delightful flowers adorned the
tables and persons of the wealthy Athenians. Nor was it sufficient to
be crowned with roses, unless they were likewise anointed with the
most precious perfumes. Parasites, dancers, and buffoons, were a usual
appendage of every entertainment. Among the weaker sex, the passion
for delicate birds, distinguished by their voice or plumage, was
carried to such excess, as merited the name of madness. The bodies of
such youths as were not peculiarly addicted to hunting and horses,
which began to be a prevailing taste, were corrupted by a lewd style
of living; while their minds were still more polluted by the
licentious philosophy of the sophists. It is unnecessary to crowd the
picture, since it may be observed, in one word, that the vices and
extravagances which are supposed to characterize the declining ages of
Greece and Rome, took root in Athens during the administration of
Pericles, the most splendid and most prosperous in the Grecian
annals.’
During this period flourished Æschylus and Sophocles, Euripides and
Aristophanes, dramatists; Pindar, a lyrical poet; Herodotus and
Thucydides, historians; Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, and Socrates, philosophers (reasoners upon the nature of
the human mind, and upon man’s immortal destiny). In this period also,
under the administration of Pericles (from 458 to 429 B. C.),
sculpture and architecture attained their perfection. It was then that
Phidias executed those splendid works, statues of the gods and
goddesses, which excited the admiration of the world, and which
succeeding artists have in vain endeavored to rival. While Athens had
extended its power over a great part of the coasts of the Ægean Sea,
and increased its trade and commerce by every available means, it had
also become a city of palaces and temples, whose ruins continue to be
the admiration of ages for their grandeur and beauty. It is understood
that the Greeks had acquired their knowledge of architecture from the
Egyptians; but they greatly excelled them in the elegance of their
designs, and are in a great measure entitled to the character of
inventors in the art. The beauty of the Corinthian pillar, for
example, has never been excelled either in ancient or modern times.
After the surrender of Athens to the Spartans (404 B. C.), the
democratic constitution was abolished, and the government was
intrusted to thirty persons, whose rapacious, oppressive, and bloody
administration ere long procured them the title of the Thirty Tyrants.
The ascendancy of these intruders was not, however, of long duration.
Conon, assisted privately by the Persians, who were desirous of
humiliating the Spartans, expelled the enemy, and reëstablished the
independence of his country. About seventy years later a new source of
agitation throughout Greece was caused by the warlike projects of
Alexander, king of Macedon, usually styled.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT. This intrepid and ambitious soldier was the son
of Philip, king of Macedon, a small territory adjacent to the Grecian
states, from which it had originally received a knowledge of arts and
learning. Alexander was born in the year 356 B. C., and by his father
was committed to the charge of the philosopher Aristotle to be
educated; a duty which was faithfully fulfilled. By the assassination
of Philip, Alexander was called to the throne of Macedon while yet
only twenty years of age, and immediately had an opportunity of
displaying his great warlike abilities in conducting an expedition
into Greece, which was attended with signal success, and procured for
him the honor of succeeding his father as commander-in-chief of the
Grecian states. He now carried out a design which had been formed by
Philip, to subdue Persia and other countries in Asia. In the spring of
334 B. C., he crossed over to the Asiatic coast, with an army of
30,000 foot and 5000 horse, thus commencing the most important
military enterprise which is narrated in the pages of ancient history.
Alexander marched through Asia Minor, and in successive encounters
completely conquered the armies of Persia; but the whole history of
his progress is but an account of splendid victories. During a space
of about seven or eight years, he conquered Persia, Assyria, Egypt,
Babylonia, and, in fact, became master of nearly all the
half-civilized countries in Asia and Africa. It does not appear that
Alexander had any motive for this wide-spread overthrow of ancient and
remote sovereignties, excepting that of simple ambition, or desire of
conquest, with perhaps the indefinite idea of improving the social
condition of the countries which he overran. From various
circumstances in his career, it is apparent that he never contemplated
the acquisition of wealth or of praise, except such as could be shared
with his soldiers, for whom he displayed a most paternal affection.
The extraordinary career of Alexander was suddenly cut short by death.
At Babylon, while engaged in extensive plans for the future, he became
sick, and died in a few days, 323 B. C. Such was the end of this
conqueror, in his thirty-second year, after a reign of twelve years
and eight months. He left behind him an immense empire, which,
possessing no consolidated power, and only loosely united by conquest,
became the scene of continual wars. The generals of the Macedonian
army respectively seized upon different portions of the empire, each
trusting in his sword for an independent establishment. The greedy
struggle for power finally terminated in confirming Ptolemy in the
possession of Egypt; Seleucus in Upper Asia; Cassander in Macedon and
Greece; while several of the provinces in Lower Asia fell to the share
of Lysimachus.