At the death of Alexander, the Athenians considered it a fit
opportunity to emancipate themselves from the ascendancy of Macedon;
but without success. Demosthenes, one of the most eminent patriots and
orators of Athens, on this occasion, to avoid being assassinated by
order of Antipater, the Macedonian viceroy, killed himself by
swallowing poison; and his compatriot Phocion was shortly afterwards
put to death by his own countrymen, the Athenians, in a mad outbreak
of popular fury. Greece cannot be said to have produced one great man
after Phocion; and this deficiency of wise and able leaders was
doubtless one chief cause of the insignificance into which the various
states, great and small, sunk after this epoch.
The ancient history of Greece, as an independent country, now draws to
a close. Achaia, hitherto a small, unimportant state, having begun to
make some pretensions to political consequence, excited the enmity of
Sparta, and was compelled to seek the protection of Philip, the ruling
prince of Macedon. Philip took the field against the Spartans, and
their allies the Ætolians, and was in a fair way of subjecting all
Greece, by arms and influence, when he ventured on the fatal step of
commencing hostilities against the Romans. This measure consummated
the ruin of Greece, as well as that of Macedon. The Romans warred with
Philip till the end of his life (175 B. C.), and continued the contest
with his son Perseus, whom they utterly defeated, and with whom ended
the line of the kings of Macedon. In a few years the once illustrious
and free republics of Greece were converted into a Roman province,
under the name of Achaia (146 B. C.).
Thus terminates the fourth and last period of Greek history, during
which flourished several eminent writers and philosophers, among whom
may be numbered Theocritus, a pastoral poet; Xenophon, Polybius,
Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Plutarch, and Herodian,
historians; Demosthenes, an orator; and Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and
Epicurus, philosophers; also Zeuxis, Timanthes, Pamphilus, Nicias,
Appelles, and Eupompus, painters; and Praxiteles, Polycletus,
Camachus, Naucides, and Lysippus, sculptors.
In the condition of a humble dependency of Rome, and therefore
following the fate of that empire, Greece remained for upwards of four
succeeding centuries; but although of little political importance, it
still retained its preëminence in learning. Enslaved as the land was,
it continued to be the great school of the time. As Greece had
formerly sent her knowledge and arts over the East by the arms of one
of her own kings, she now diffused them over the western world under
the protection of Rome. Athens, which was the emporium of Grecian
learning and elegance, became the resort of all who were ambitious of
excelling either in knowledge or the arts; statesmen went thither to
improve themselves in eloquence; philosophers to learn the tenets of
the sages of Greece; and artists to study models of excellence in
building, statuary, or painting; natives of Greece were also found in
all parts of the world, gaining an honorable subsistence by the
superior knowledge of their country. That country in the meantime was
less disturbed by intestine feuds than formerly, but was not exempt
from the usual fate of conquests, being subject to the continual
extortions of governors and lieutenants, who made the conquered
provinces the means of repairing fortunes which had been broken by
flattering the caprices of the populace at home.
The period of the independence of Greece, during which all those great
deeds were performed which have attracted the attention of the world,
may be reckoned from the era of the first Persian war to the conquest
of Macedon, the last independent Greek state, by the Romans. This
period, as we have seen, embraced little more than 300 years. It is
not, therefore, from the duration of the independent political power
of the Grecian states that their celebrity arises. Even the patriotism
of their soldiers, and the devoted heroism of Thermopylæ and Marathon,
have been emulated elsewhere without attracting much regard; and we
must therefore conclude that it is chiefly from the superiority of its
poets, philosophers, historians, and artists, that the importance of
the country in the eyes of modern men arises. The political squabbles
of the Athenians are forgotten; but the moral and intellectual
researches of their philosophers, and the elegant remains of their
artists, possess an undying fame.