FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER TO THE CONQUEST OF GREECE BY THE ROMANS.
I. A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE AT GREECE.
PROSECUTION OF DEMOSTHENES.
Turning now to the affairs of Greece, we find that, three years
after Alexander entered Asia, the Spartans made a determined
effort to throw off the Macedonian yoke. They were joined by
most of the Peloponnesian states, but Athens took no part in the
revolt. Although meeting with some successes at first, the Spartans
were finally defeated with great slaughter by Antip'ater (331 B.C.),
who had been left by Alexander in command of Greece and Macedonia.
This victory, and Alexander's successes in the East, gave rise
to active measures by the Macedonian party in Athens against
Demosthenes, who was holding two public offices, and, by his
ability and patriotism, was still doing great service to the
state. The occasion of this prosecution was as follows:
Soon after the disastrous battle of Chærone'a, Ctes'iphon, an
Athenian citizen, proposed that a golden crown [Footnote: It was
customary with the Athenians, and some other Greeks also, to
honor their most meritorious citizens with a chaplet of olive
interwoven with gold, and this was called a "golden crown."]
should be bestowed upon Demosthenes, in the public theatre, on
the occasion of the Dionysiac festival, as a reward for his
patriotism and public services. The special service for which
the reward was proposed was the rebuilding of the walls of Athens
by Demosthenes, partially at his own expense. After the Athenian
Senate had acquiesced in the measure, Æschines, the rival of
Demosthenes, brought an accusation against Ctesiphon for a
violation of the law, in that, among other things charged, it
was illegal to crown an official intrusted with the public moneys
before he had rendered an account of his office--a proceeding
which prevented the carrying of Ctesiphon's proposal to the people
for a final decision. Thus the matter slumbered during a period
of six years, when it was revived by Æschines, who thought he
saw, in the success of the Macedonian arms--on which all his
personal and political hopes were staked--a grand opportunity
to crush his great rival. He now, therefore, brought the charges
against Ctesiphon to trial. Although the latter was the nominal
defendant in the case, and Demosthenes was only his counsel,
it was well understood that the real object of attack was
Demosthenes himself, his whole policy and administration; and
a vast concourse of people flocked to Athens to hear the two
most celebrated orators in the world. A jury of not less than
five hundred, chosen from the citizens at large, was impaneled
by the archon; and before a dense and breathless audience the
pleadings began.
The Oration of Æschines against Ctesiphon.
Æschines introduces his oration with the following brief exordium:
"You see, Athenians, what forces are prepared, what numbers
gathered and arrayed, what soliciting through the assembly, by
a certain party--and all this to oppose the fair and ordinary
course of justice in the state. As to me, I stand here in firm
reliance, first on the immortal gods, next on the laws and you,
convinced that faction never can have greater weight with you
than law and justice."
After Æschines had dwelt at length, and with great ability, upon
the nature of the offence with which Ctesiphon is charged, the
laws applicable to it, and the supposed evasions of Demosthenes
in his reply, he reads the decree of the senate in favor of the
bestowment of the crown, in the following words:
"And the herald shall make proclamation in the theatre, in presence
of the Greeks, that the community of Athens hath crowned him,
on account of his virtue and magnanimity, and for his constant
and inviolable attachment to the interests of the state, through
the course of all his counsels and administration."
This gives the orator the opportunity to enter upon an extended
review of the public life and character of Demosthenes, in which
he boldly charges him with cowardice in the battle of Chæronea,
with bribery and fraud in his public administration, and declares
him to have been the prime cause of innumerable calamities that
had befallen his country. He says:
"It is my part, as the prosecutor, to satisfy you on this point,
that the praises bestowed on Demosthenes are false; that there
never was a time in which he even began as a faithful counselor,
far from persevering in any course of conduct advantageous to
the state.
"It remains that I produce some instances of his abandoned
flattery. For one whole year did Demosthenes enjoy the honor
of a senator; and yet in all that time it never appears that
he moved to grant precedency to any ministers; for the first
time--the only time--he conferred this distinction on the ministers
of Philip; he servilely attended, to accommodate them with his
cushions and his carpets; by the dawn of day he conducted them
to the theatre, and, by his indecent and abandoned adulation,
raised a universal uproar of derision. When they were on their
departure toward Thebes, he hired three teams of mules, and
conducted them in state into that city. Thus did he expose his
country to ridicule.
"And yet this abject, this enormous flatterer, when he had been
the first that received advice of Philip's death from the
emissaries of Charide'mus, pretended a divine vision, and, with
a shameless lie, declared that this intelligence had been conveyed
to him, not by Charidemus, but by Jupiter and Minerva. Thus he
dared to boast that these divinities, by whom he had sworn falsely
in the day, had descended to hold communication with him in the
night, and to inform him of futurity. Seven days had now scarcely
elapsed since the death of his daughter when this wretch, before
he had performed the usual rites of mourning--before he had duly
paid her funeral honors--crowned his head with a chaplet, put
on his white robe, made a solemn sacrifice in despite of law
and decency; and this when he had lost his child, the first,
the only child that had ever called him by the tender name of
father. I say not this to insult his misfortunes; I mean but
to display his real character. For he who hates his children,
he who is a bad parent, cannot possibly prove a good minister.
He who is insensible to that natural affection which should engage
his heart to those who are most intimate and near to him, can
never feel a greater regard to your welfare than to that of
strangers. He who acts wickedly in private life cannot prove
excellent in his public conduct; he who is base at home, can
never acquit himself with honor when sent to a strange country
in a public character. For it is not the man, but the scene that
changes.
"Is not this, our state, the common refuge of the Greeks, once
the great resort of all the ambassadors from the several cities
sent to implore our protection as their sure resource, now obliged
to contend, not for sovereign authority, but for our native land?
And to these circumstances have we been gradually reduced, from
that time when Demosthenes first assumed the administration. Well
doth the poet Hesiod refer to such men, in one part of his works,
where he points out the duty of citizens, and warns all societies
to guard effectually against evil ministers. I shall repeat his
words; for I presume we treasured up the sayings of poets in
our memory when young, that in our riper years we might apply
them to advantage.
"'When one man's crimes the wrath of Heaven provoke,
Oft hath a nation felt the fatal stroke.
Contagion's blast destroys at Jove's command,
And wasteful famine desolates the land.
Or, in the field of war, her boasted powers
Are lost, and earth receives her prostrate towers.
In vain in gorgeous state her navies ride,
Dashed, wrecked, and buried in the boist'rous tide.'
"Take away the measure of these verses, consider only the sentiment,
and you will fancy that you hear, not some part of Hesiod, but
a prophecy of the administration of Demosthenes; for true it
is, that both fleets and armies, and whole cities, have been
completely destroyed by his administration.
"Which, think ye, was the more worthy citizen--Themistocles,
who commanded your fleet when you defeated the Persian in the
sea-fight at Salamis, or this Demosthenes, who deserted from
his post? Miltiades, who conquered the barbarians at Marathon,
or this man? The chiefs who led back the people from Phy'le;
Aristides, surnamed the Just, or Demosthenes? No; by the powers
of heaven, I deem the names of these heroes too noble to be
mentioned in the same day with that of this savage! And let
Demosthenes show, when he comes to his reply, if ever decree
was made for granting a golden crown to them. Was then the state
ungrateful? No; but she thought highly of her own dignity. And
these citizens, who were not thus honored, appear to have been
truly worthy of such a state; for they imagined that they were
not to be honored by public records, but by the memories of those
they had obliged; and their honors have there remained, from
that time down to this day, in characters indelible and immortal.
There were citizens in those days who, being stationed at the
river Strymon, there patiently endured a long series of toils
and dangers, and at length gained a victory over the Medes. At
their return they petitioned the people for a reward; and a reward
was conferred upon them (then deemed of great importance) by
erecting three memorials of stone in the usual portico, on which,
however, their names were not inscribed, lest this might seem
a monument erected to the honor of the commanders, not to that
of the people. For the truth of this I appeal to the inscriptions.
That on the first statue was expressed thus:
"'Great souls! who fought near Strymon's rapid tide,
And braved the invader's arm, and quelled his pride,
Ei'on's high towers confess'd the glorious deed,
And saw dire famine waste the vanquished Mede.
Such was our vengeance on the barb'rous host,
And such the generous toils our heroes boast.'
"This was the inscription on the second:
"'This the reward which grateful Athens gives!
Here still the patriot and the hero lives!
Here let the rising age with rapture gaze,
And emulate the glorious deeds they praise.'
"On the third was the inscription:
"'Mnes'the-us hence led forth his chosen train,
And poured the war o'er hapless Ilion's plain.
'Twas his (so speaks the bard's immortal lay)
To form the embodied host in firm array.
Such were our sons! Nor yet shall Athens yield
The first bright honors of the sanguine field.
Still, nurse of heroes! still the praise is thine,
Of every glorious toil, of every art divine.'
"In these do we find the name of the general? No; but that of
the people. Fancy yourselves transported to the grand portico;
for, in this your place of assembling, the monuments of all great
actions are erected in full view. There we find a picture of
the battle of Marathon. Who was the general in this battle? To
this question you will all answer--Miltiades. And yet his name
is not inscribed. How? Did he not petition for such an honor?
He did petition; but the people refused to grant it. Instead
of inscribing his name, they consented that he should be drawn
in the foreground, encouraging his soldiers. In like manner,
in the temple of the great Mother adjoining the senate-house,
you may see the honors paid to those who brought our exiles back
from Phyle; nor were even these granted precipitately, but after
an exact previous examination by the senate into the numbers
of those who maintained their post there, when the Lacedæmonians
and the Thirty marched to attack them--not of those who fled
from their post at Chæronea on the first appearance of an enemy."
Æschines closes his very able and brilliant oration with the
following words:
"And now bear witness for me, thou Earth, thou Sun, O Virtue
and Intelligence, and thou, O Erudition, which teachest us the
just distinction between vice and goodness, that I have stood
up, that I have spoken in the cause of justice. If I have supported
my prosecution with a dignity befitting its importance, I have
spoken as my wishes dictated; if too deficiently, as my abilities
admitted. Let what hath now been offered, and what your own
thoughts must supply, be duly weighed, and pronounce such a
sentence as justice and the interests of the state demand."
--Trans. by THOMAS LELAND, D.D.
Æschines was immediately followed by Demosthenes in a reply which
has been considered "the greatest speech of the greatest orator
in the world." The historian GROTE speaks of "the encomiums which
have been pronounced upon it with one voice, both in ancient and
modern times, as the unapproachable masterpiece of Grecian
oratory." It has been styled, from the occasion on which it was
delivered,
The Oration of Demosthenes on the Crown.
The orator opens his defence against the charges brought forward
by his adversary with the following exordium, which Quintil'ian
commends for its modesty:
"I begin, men of Athens, by praying to every god and goddess
that the same good-will which I have ever cherished toward the
Commonwealth, and all of you, may be requited to me on the present
trial. I pray likewise--and this specially concerns yourselves,
your religion, and your honor--that the gods may put it in your
minds, not to take counsel of my opponent touching the manner
in which I am to be heard [Footnote: Æschines had requested that
Demosthenes should be "confined to the same method in his defence"
which he, Æschines, had pursued in his charges against him.]--that
would indeed be cruel!--but of the laws and of your oath; wherein
(besides the other obligations) it is prescribed that you shall
hear both sides alike. This means, not only that you must pass
no pre-condemnation, not only that you must extend your good-will
equally to both, but also that you must allow the parties to
adopt such order and course of defence as they severally choose
and prefer.
"Many advantages hath Æschines over me on this trial; and two
especially, men of Athens. First, our risk in the contest is
not the same. It is assuredly not the same for me to forfeit
your regard as for my adversary not to succeed in his indictment.
To me--but I will say nothing untoward at the outset of my address.
The prosecution, however, is play to him. My second disadvantage
is the natural disposition of mankind to take pleasure in hearing
invective and accusation, and to be annoyed by them who praise
themselves. To Æschines is assigned the part which gives pleasure;
that which is (I may fairly say) offensive to all, is left for me.
And if, to escape from this, I make no mention of what I have
done, I shall appear to be without defence against his charges,
without proof of my claims to honor; whereas, if I proceed to
give an account of my conduct and measures, I shall be forced
to speak frequently of myself. I will endeavor, then, to do so
with becoming modesty. What I am driven to by the necessity of
the case will be fairly chargeable to my opponent, who has
instituted such a prosecution.
"I think, men of the jury, you will all agree that I, as well
as Ctesiphon, am a party to this proceeding, and that it is a
matter of no less concern to me than to him. It is painful and
grievous to be deprived of anything, especially by the act of
one's enemy; but your good-will and affection are the heaviest
loss precisely as they are the greatest prize to gain.
"Had Æschines confined his charge to the subject of the prosecution,
I too would have proceeded at once to my justification of the
decree. [Footnote: The decree of the senate procured by Ctesiphon
in favor of Demosthenes.] But since he has wasted no fewer words
in the discussion, in most of them calumniating me, I deem it
both necessary and just, men of Athens, to begin by shortly
adverting to these points, that none of you may be induced by
extraneous arguments to shut your ears against my defence to
the indictment.
"To all his scandalous abuse about my private life observe my
plain and obvious answer. If you know me to be such as he alleged
--for I have lived nowhere else but among you--let not my voice
be heard, however transcendent my statesmanship. Rise up this
instant and condemn me. But if, in your opinion and judgment,
I am far better and of better descent than my adversary; if (to
speak without offence) I am not inferior, I or mine, to any
respectable citizens, then give no credit to him for his other
statements; it is plain they were all equally fictions; but to
me let the same good-will which you have uniformly exhibited
upon many former trials be manifested now. With all your malice,
Æschines, it was very simple to suppose that I should turn from
the discussion of measures and policy to notice your scandal.
I will do no such thing. I am not so crazed. Your lies and
calumnies about my political life I will examine forthwith. For
that loose ribaldry I shall have a word hereafter, if the jury
desire to hear it.
"If the crimes which Æschines saw me committing against the state
were as heinous as he so tragically gave out, he ought to have
enforced the penalties of the law against them at the time; if
he saw me guilty of an impeachable offence, by impeaching and
so bringing me to trial before you; if moving illegal decrees,
by indicting me for them. For surely, if he can indict Ctesiphon
on my account, he would not have forborne to indict me myself
had he thought he could convict me. In short, whatever else he
saw me doing to your prejudice, whether mentioned or not mentioned
in his catalogue of slander, there are laws for such things,
and trials, and judgments, with sharp and severe penalties, all
of which he might have enforced against me; and, had he done
so--had he thus pursued the proper method with me--his charges
would have been consistent with his conduct. But now he has
declined the straightforward and just course, avoided all proofs
of guilt at the time, and after this long interval gets up to
play his part withal--a heap of accusation, ribaldry, and scandal.
Then he arraigns me, but prosecutes the defendant. His hatred
of me he makes the prominent part of the whole contest; yet, without
having ever met me upon that ground, he openly seeks to deprive
a third party of his privileges. Now, men of Athens, besides
all the other arguments that may be urged in Ctesiphon's behalf,
this, methinks, may very fairly be alleged--that we should try
our quarrel by ourselves; not leave our private dispute and look
what third party we can damage. That, surely, were the height
of injustice."
Demosthenes now enters upon an elaborate review of the history of
Athens from the beginning of the Phocian war, his own relations
thereto, and the charges of Æschines in connection therewith,
fortifying his defence with numerous citations from public
documents, and boldly arraigning the political principles and
policy of his opponent, whom he accuses of being in frequent
communication with the emissaries of Philip--"a spy by nature,
and an enemy to his country." In the following terms he speaks
of his own public services, and reminds Æschines that the people
do not forget them:
"Many great and glorious enterprises has the Commonwealth,
Æschines, undertaken and succeeded in through me; and she did
not forget them. Here is the proof. On the election of a person
to speak the funeral oration immediately after the event, you
were proposed; but the people would not have you, notwithstanding
your fine voice; nor Dema'des, though he had just made the peace;
nor He-ge'mon, nor any other of your party--but me. And when
you and Pyth'ocles came forward in a brutal and shameful manner
(oh, merciful Heaven!) and urged the same accusations against
me which you now do, and abused me, they elected me all the more.
The reason--you are not ignorant of it, yet I will tell you.
The Athenians knew as well the loyalty and zeal with which I
conducted their affairs as the dishonesty of you and your party;
for what you denied upon oath in our prosperity you confessed
in the misfortunes of the republic. They considered, therefore,
that men who got security for their politics by the public
disasters had been their enemies long before, and were then
avowedly such. They thought it right, also, that the person who
was to speak in honor of the fallen, and celebrate their valor,
should not have sat under the same roof or at the same table
with their antagonists; that he should not revel there and sing
a pæan over the calamities of Greece in company with their
murderers, and then come here and receive distinction; that he
should not with his voice act the mourner of their fate, but that
he should lament over them with his heart. And such sincerity
they found in themselves and me, but not in any of you: therefore
they elected me, and not you. Nor, while the people felt thus,
did the fathers and brothers of the deceased, who were chosen
by the people to perform their obsequies, feel differently. For
having to order the funeral (according to custom) at the house
of the nearest relative of the deceased, they ordered it at mine
--and with reason: because, though each to his own was nearer
of kin than I was, no one was so near to them all collectively.
He that had the deepest interest in their safety and success
must surely feel the deepest sorrow at their unhappy and unmerited
misfortune. Read the epitaph inscribed upon their monument by
public authority. In this, Æschines, you will find a proof of
your absurdity, your malice, your abandoned baseness. Read!
The Epitaph.
"'These are the patriot brave who, side by side,
Stood to their arms and dashed the foeman's pride:
Firm in their valor, prodigal of life,
Hades they chose the arbiter of strife;
That Greeks might ne'er to haughty victors bow,
Nor thraldom's yoke, nor dire oppression know,
They, fought, they bled, and on their country's breast
(Such was the doom of Heaven) these warriors rest:
Gods never lack success, nor strive in vain,
But man must suffer what the Fates ordain.'
"Do you hear, Æschines, in this very inscription, that 'the gods
never lack success, nor strive in vain?' Not to the statesman
does it ascribe the power of giving victory in battle, but to
the gods. But one thing, O Athenians, surprised me more than
all--that, when Æschines mentioned the late misfortunes of the
country, he felt not as became a well-disposed and upright citizen;
he shed no tear, experienced no such emotion: with a loud voice,
exulting and straining his throat, he imagined apparently that
he was accusing me, while he was giving proof against himself
that our distresses touched him not.
"Two things, men of Athens, are characteristic of a well-disposed
citizen; so may I speak of myself and give the least offence.
In authority his constant aim should be the dignity and
pre-eminence of the Commonwealth; in all times and circumstances
his spirit should be loyal. This depends upon nature; power and
might upon other things. Such a spirit, you will find, I have
ever sincerely cherished. Only see! When my person was
demanded--when they brought Amphictyonic suits against me--when
they menaced--when they promised--when they set these miscreants
like wild beasts upon me--never in any way have I abandoned my
affection for you. From the very beginning I chose an honest
and straightforward course in politics, to support the honor,
the power, the glory of my fatherland; these to exalt, in these
to have my being. I do not walk about the market-place gay and
cheerful because the stranger has prospered, holding out my right
hand and congratulating those who I think will report it yonder,
and on any news of our own success shudder and groan and stoop
to the earth like these impious men who rail at Athens, as if
in so doing they did not rail at themselves; who look abroad,
and if the foreigner thrives by the distresses of Greece, are
thankful for it, and say we should keep him so thriving to all
time.
"Never, O ye gods, may those wishes be confirmed by you! If
possible, inspire even in these men a better sense and feeling!
But if they are indeed incurable, destroy them by themselves;
exterminate them on land and sea; and for the rest of us, grant
that we may speedily be released from our present fears, and
enjoy a lasting deliverance." [Footnote: Lord Brougham says that
"the music of this closing passage (in the original) is almost
as fine as the sense is impressive and grand, and the manner
dignified and calm," and he admits the difficulty of preserving
this in a translation. His own translation of the passage is as
follows: "Let not, O gracious God, let not such conduct receive
any measure of sanction from thee! Rather plant even in these
men a better spirit and better feelings! But if they are wholly
incurable, then pursue them, yea, themselves by themselves, to
utter and untimely perdition, by land and by sea; and to us who
are spared, vouchsafe to grant the speediest rescue from our
impending alarms, and an unshaken security."]
--Trans. by CHARLES RANN KENNEDY.
Æschines lost his case, and, not having obtained a fifth part
of the votes, became himself liable to a penalty, and soon left
the country in disgrace.
* * * * *
II. THE WARS THAT FOLLOWED ALEXANDER'S DEATH.
When the intelligence of Alexander's death reached Greece the
country was already on the eve of a revolution against Antip'ater.
Athens found little difficulty in uniting several of the states
with herself in a confederacy against him, and met with some
successes in what is known as the La'mian war. But the movement
was short-lived, as Antipater completely annihilated the
confederate army in the battle of Cran'non (322 B.C.). Athens
was directed to abolish her democratic form of government, pay
the expenses of the war, and surrender a number of her most famous
men, including Demosthenes. The latter, however, escaped from
Athens, and sought refuge in the Temple of Poseidon, in the island
of Calaure'a. Here he took poison, and expired as he was being
led from the temple by a satellite of Antipater.
The sudden death of Alexander left the government in a very
unsettled condition. As he had appointed no successor, immediately
following his death a council of his generals was held, and the
following division of his conquests was agreed upon: Ptolemy
Soter was to have Egypt and the adjacent countries; Macedonia
and Greece were divided between Antipater and Crat'erus; Antig'onus
was given Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphyl'ia; Lysim'achus was granted
Thrace; and Eume'nes was given Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. Soon
after this division Perdic'cas, then the most powerful of the
generals who retained control in the East, and had the custody
of the infant Alexander, proclaimed himself regent, and at once
set out on a career of conquest. Antigonus, Antipater, Craterus,
and Ptolemy leagued against him, however, and in 321, after an
unsuccessful campaign in Egypt, Perdiccas was murdered by his
own officers.
Antipater died in 318, and shortly after his death his son
Cassander made himself master of Greece and Macedon, and caused
the surviving members of Alexander's family to be put to death.
Antigonus had, before this time, conquered Eumenes, and overrun
Syria and Asia Minor; but his increasing power led Ptolemy,
Seleu'cus, Lysimachus, and Cassander to unite against him; and
they fought with him the famous battle of Ipsus, in Phrygia,
that ended in the death of Antigonus and the dissolution of his
empire (301 B.C.). A new partition of the country was now made
into four independent kingdoms: Ptolemy was given Egypt and Libya;
Seleucus received the countries embraced in the eastern conquests
of Alexander, and the whole region between the coast of Syria
and the river Euphrates; Lysimachus received the northern and
western portions of Asia Minor, and Cassander retained the
sovereignty of Greece and Macedon.
Of these kingdoms the most powerful were Syria and Egypt; the
former of which continued under the dynasty of the Seleucidæ,
and the latter under that of the Ptolemies, until both were
absorbed by the Roman empire. Of all the Ptolemies, Ptolemy
Philadelphus was the most eminent. He was not only a sovereign
of ability, but was also distinguished for his amiable qualities
of mind, for his encouragement of the arts and commerce, and he
was called the richest and most powerful monarch of his age. He
was born in 309 B.C. and died in 247. The Greek poet THEOCRITUS,
who lived much at his court, thus characterizes him:
What is his character? A royal spirit
To point out genius and encourage merit;
The poet's friend, humane and good and kind;
Of manners gentle, and of generous mind.
He marks his friend, but more he marks his foe;
His hand is ever ready to bestow:
Request with reason, and he'll grant the thing,
And what be gives, he gives it like a king.
The poet then sings the praises of the king, and describes the
strength, the wealth, and the magnificence of his kingdom, in
the following striking lines:
Here, too, O Ptolemy, beneath thy sway
What cities glitter to the beams of day!
Lo! with thy statelier pomp no kingdom vies,
While round thee thrice ten thousand cities rise.
Struck by the terror of thy flashing sword,
Syria bowed down, Arabia called thee Lord;
Phoenicia trembled, and the Libyan plain,
With the black Ethiop, owned thy wide domain:
E'en Lesser Asia and her isles grew pale
As o'er the billows passed thy crowd of sail.
Earth feels thy nod, and all the subject sea;
And each resounding river rolls for thee.
And while, around, thy thick battalions flash,
Thy proud steeds neighing for the warlike clash--
Through all thy marts the tide of commerce flows,
And wealth beyond a monarch's grandeur glows.
Such gold-haired Ptolemy! whose easy port
Speaks the soft polish of the mannered court;
And whose severer aspect, as he wields
The spear, dire-blazing, frowns in tented fields.
And though he guards, while other kingdoms own
His conquering arms, the hereditary throne,
Yet in vast heaps no useless treasure stored
Lies, like the riches of an emmet's hoard;
To mighty kings his bounty he extends,
To states confederate and illustrious friends.
No bard at Bacchus' festival appears,
Whose lyre has power to charm the ravished ears,
But he bright honors and rewards imparts,
Due to his merits, equal to his arts;
And poets hence, for deathless song renowned,
The generous fame of Ptolemy resound.
At what more glorious can the wealthy aim
Than thus to purchase fair and lasting fame?
-Trans. by FAWKES.
Cassander survived the establishment of his power in Greece only
four years, and as his sons quarreled over the succession;
Demetrius, son of Antigonus, seized the opportunity to interfere
in their disputes, cut off the brother who had invited his aid,
and made himself master of the throne of Macedon, which was held
by him and his posterity, except during a brief interruption
after his death, down to the time of the Roman Conquest. For
a number of years succeeding the death of Demetrius, Macedon,
Greece, and western Asia were harassed with the wars excited by
the various aspirants to power; and in this situation of affairs
a storm, unseen in the distance, but that had long been gathering,
suddenly burst upon Macedon, threatening to convert, by its ravages,
the whole Grecian peninsula into a scene of desolation.
* * * * *
III. THE CELTIC INVASION, AND THE WAR WITH PYRRHUS.
A vast horde of Celtic barbarians had for some time been collecting
around the head-waters of the Adriatic. Influenced by hopes of
plunder they now overran Macedon to the borders of Thessaly,
defeating Ptolemy Ceraunus, then King of Macedonia, in a great
battle. The walled towns alone held out until the storm had spent
its fury, when the Celts gradually withdrew from a country in
which there was but little left to tempt their cupidity. But in
the following year (279 B.C.) another band of them, estimated at
over two hundred thousand men, overran Macedonia, passed through
Thessaly, defeated the allied Grecians at Thermopylæ, and then
marched into Phocis, for the purpose of plundering the treasures
of Delphi. But their atrocities aroused against them the whole
population, and only a remnant of them gained their original
seats on the Adriatic.
The throne of Macedon now found an enemy in Pyrrhus, King of
Epirus, a connection of the royal family of Macedon, and of whose
exploits Roman history furnishes a full account. A desultory
contest was maintained for several years between Pyrrhus and
Antigonus II., the son of Demetrius, and then King of Macedon.
While Pyrrhus was engaged in this war, Cleon'ymus, of the blood
royal of Sparta, who had been excluded from the throne by the
Spartan people, to give place to A'reus, invited Pyrrhus to his
aid. Pyrrhus marched to Sparta, and, supposing that he should
not meet with any resistance, ordered his tents to be pitched,
and sat quietly down before the city. Night coming on, the Spartans
in consternation met in council, and resolved to send their women
to Crete for safety. Thereupon the women assembled and remonstrated
against it; and the queen, Archidami'a, being appointed to speak
for the rest, went into the council-hall with a sword in her
hand, and boldly upbraiding the men, told them they did their
wives great wrong if they thought them so faint-hearted as to
live after Sparta was destroyed. The women then rushed to the
defences of the city, and spent the night aiding the men in
digging trenches; and when Pyrrhus attacked on the morrow, he
was so severely repulsed that he soon abandoned the siege and
retired from Laconia. The patriotic spirit and heroism of the
Spartan women on this occasion are well characterized in the
following lines:
Queen Archidami'a.
The chiefs were met in the council-hall;
Their words were sad and few,
They were ready to fight, and ready to fall,
As the sons of heroes do.
And moored in the harbor of Gyth'e-um lay
The last of the Spartan fleet,
That should bear the Spartan women away
To the sunny shores of Crete.
Their hearts went back to the days of old;
They thought of the world-wide shock,
When the Persian hosts like an ocean rolled
To the foot of the Grecian rock;
And they turned their faces, eager and pale,
To the rising roar in the street,
As if the clank of the Spartan mail
Were the tramp of the conqueror's feet.
It was Archidamia, the Spartan queen,
Brave as her father's steel;
She stood like the silence that comes between
The flash and the thunder-peal.
She looked in the eyes of the startled crowd;
Calmly she gazed around;
Her voice was neither low nor loud,
But it rang like her sword on the ground.
"Spartans!" she said--and her woman's face
Flushed out both pride and shame--
"I ask, by the memory of your race,
Are ye worthy of the name?
"Ye have bidden us seek new hearths and graves,
Beyond the reach of the foe;
And now, by the dash of the blue sea-waves,
We swear that we will not go!
"Is the name of Pyrrhus to blanch your cheeks?
Shall he burn, and kill, and destroy?
Are ye not sons of the deathless Greeks
Who fired the gates of Troy?
"What though his feet have scathless stood
In the rush of the Punic foam?
Though his sword be red to its hilt with the blood
That has beat at the heart of Rome?
"Brothers and sons! we have reared you men:
Our walls are the ocean swell;
Our winds blew keen down the rocky glen
Where the staunch Three Hundred fell.
"Our hearts are drenched in the wild sea-flow,
In the light of the hills and the sky;
And the Spartan women, if need be so,
Will teach the men to die.
"We are brave men's mothers, and brave men's wives:
We are ready to do and dare;
We are ready to man your walls with our lives,
And string your bows with our hair.
"Let the young and brave lie down to-night,
And dream of the brave old dead,
Their broad shields bright for to-morrow's fight,
Their swords beneath their head.
"Our breasts are better than bolts and bars;
We neither wail nor weep;
We will light our torches at the stars,
And work while our warriors sleep.
"We hold not the iron in our blood
Viler than strangers' gold;
The memory of our motherhood
Is not to be bought and sold.
"Shame to the traitor heart that springs
To the faint soft arms of Peace,
If the Roman eagle shook his wings
At the very gates of Greece!
"Ask not the mothers who gave you birth
To bid you turn and flee;
When Sparta is trampled from the earth
Her women can die, and be free."
Soon after the repulse at Sparta, Pyrrhus again marched against
Antig'onus; but having attacked Argos on the way, and after having
entered within the walls, he was killed by a tile thrown by a
poor woman from a house-top. The death of Pyrrhus forms an
important epoch in Grecian history, as it put an end to the
struggle for power among Alexander's successors in the West, and
left the field clear for the final contest between the liberties
of Greece and the power of Macedon. Antigonus now made himself
master of the greater part of Peloponnesus, and then sought to
reduce Athens, the defence of which was aided by an Egyptian
fleet and a Spartan army. Athens was at length taken (262 B.C.),
and all Greece, with the exception of Sparta, seemed to lie
helpless at the feet of Antigonus, who little dreamed that the
league of a few Achæan cities was to become a formidable
adversary to him and his house.
* * * * *
IV. THE ACHÆ'AN LEAGUE.--PHILIP V, OF MACEDON.
The Achæan League at first comprised twelve towns of Acha'ia,
which were associated together for mutual safety, forming a little
federal republic. But about twenty years after the death of Pyrrhus
other cities gave in their adherence, until the confederacy
embraced nearly the whole of the Peloponnesus. Athens had been
reduced to great misery by Antigonus, and was in no condition to
aid the League, while Sparta vigorously opposed it, and finally
succeeded in inducing Corinth and Argos to withdraw from it.
Sparta subsequently made war against the Achæans, and by her
successes compelled them to call in the aid of the Macedonians,
their former enemies. Antigonus readily embraced this opportunity
to restore the influence of his family in southern Greece, and,
marching against the Lacedæmonians, he obtained a decisive victory
which placed Sparta at his mercy; but he used his victory
moderately, and granted the Spartans peace on liberal terms
(221 B.C.). Antigonus died soon after this success, and was
succeeded by his nephew and adopted son, Philip V., a youth of
only seventeen. The Æto'lians, a confederacy of rude Grecian
tribes, aided by the Spartans, now began a series of unprovoked
aggressions on some of the Peloponnesian states. The Messenians,
whose territory they had invaded by way of the western coast of
Peloponnesus, called upon the Achæans for assistance; and the
youthful Philip having been placed at the head of the Achæan
League, a general war began between the Macedonians and Achæans
on the one side, and the Ætolians and their allies on the other,
that continued with great severity and obstinacy for four years.
Philip was on the whole successful, but new and more ambitious
designs led him to put an end to the unprofitable contest. The
great struggle going on between Rome and Carthage attracted his
attention, and he thought that an alliance with the latter would
open to himself prospects of future conquest and glory. So a
treaty was concluded with the Ætolians, which left all the
parties to the war in the enjoyment of their respective
possessions (217 B.C.), and Philip prepared to enter the field
against Rome.
After the battle between Carthage and Rome at Can'næ (216 B.C.),
which seemed to have extinguished the last hopes of Rome, Philip
sent envoys to Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, and concluded
with him a treaty of strict alliance. He next sailed with a fleet
up the Adriatic, to assist Deme'trius of Pharos, who had been
driven from his Illyrian dominions by the Romans; but while
besieging Apollo'nia, a small town in Illyria, he was met and
defeated by the Roman prætor M. Vale'rius Lævi'nus, and was forced
to burn his ships and retreat overland to Macedon. Such was the
issue of his first encounter with the Romans. The latter now
turned their attention to Greece (211 B.C.), and contrived to
keep Philip busy at home by inciting a violation of the recent
treaty with the Ætolians, and by inducing Sparta and Elis to
unite in a war against Macedon. Philip was for a time supported
by the Achæans, under their renowned leader Philopoe'men; but
Athens, which Philip had besieged, called in the aid of a Roman
fleet (199 B.C.), and finally the Achæans themselves, being divided
into factions, accepted terms of peace with the Romans. Philip
continued to struggle against his increasing enemies until his
defeat in the great battle of Cynoceph'alæ (197 B.C.), by the
Roman consul Titus Flamin'ius, when he purchased peace by the
sacrifice of his navy, the payment of a tribute, and the
resignation of his supremacy over the Grecian states.
At this time there was a Grecian epigrammatic poet, ALCÆ'US,
of Messe'ne, who was an ardent partisan of the Roman consul
Flaminius, and who celebrated the defeat of Philip in some of
his epigrams. He wrote the following on the expedition of
Flaminius:
Xerxes from Persia led his mighty host,
And Titus his from fair Italia's coast.
Both warred with Greece; but here the difference see:
That brought a yoke--this gives us liberty.
He also wrote the following sarcastic epigram on the Macedonians
of Philip's army who were slain at Cynocephalæ:
Unmourned, unburied, passenger, we lie,
Three myriad sons of fruitful Thessaly,
In this wide field of monumental clay.
Ætolian Mars had marked us for his prey;
Or he who, bursting from the Ausonian fold,
In Titus' form the waves of battle rolled;
And taught Æma'thia's boastful lord to run
So swift that swiftest stags were by his speed outdone.
Philip is said to have retorted this insult by the following
inscription on a tree, in which he pretty plainly states the
chastisement Alcæus would receive were he to fall into the hands
of his enemy:
Unbarked, and leafless, passenger, you see,
Fixed in this mound Alcæus' gallows-tree.
--Trans. by J. H. MERIVALE.
* * * * *
V. GREECE CONQUERED BY ROME.
At the Isthmian games, held at Corinth the year after the downfall
of Philip, the Roman consul Flaminius, a true friend of Greece,
under the authority of the Roman Senate caused proclamation to
be made, that Rome "took off all impositions and withdrew all
garrisons from Greece, and restored liberty, and their own laws
and privileges, to the several states" (196 B.C.). The deluded
Greeks received this announcement with exultation, and the highest
honors which a grateful people could bestow were showered upon
Flaminius. [Footnote: See a more full account of the events
connected with this proclamation, in Mosaics of Roman History.]
A Roman master stands on Grecian ground,
And to the concourse of the Isthmian games
He, by his herald's voice, aloud proclaims
"The liberty of Greece!" The words rebound
Until all voices in one voice are drowned;
Glad acclamation by which the air was rent!
And birds, high flying in the element,
Dropped to the earth, astonished at the sound!
A melancholy echo of that noise
Doth sometimes hang on musing Fancy's ear.
Ah! that a conqueror's words should be so dear;
Ah! that a boon should shed such rapturous joys!
A gift of that which is not to be given
By all the blended powers of earth and heaven.
--WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
The Greeks soon realized that the freedom which Rome affected
to bestow was tendered by a power that could withdraw it at
pleasure. First, the Ætolians were reduced to poverty and deprived
of their independence, for having espoused the cause of Anti'ochus
of Syria, the enemy of Rome. At a later period Perseus, the
successor of Philip on the throne of Macedon, being driven into
a war by Roman ambition, finally lost his kingdom in the battle
of Pydna (168 B.C.); and then the Achæans were charged with having
aided Macedon in her war with Rome, and, without a shadow of
proof against them, one thousand of their worthiest citizens
were seized and sent to Rome for trial (167 B.C.). Here they
were kept seventeen years without a hearing, when three hundred
of their number, all who survived, were restored to their country.
These and other acts of cruelty aroused a spirit of vengeance
against the Romans, that soon culminated in war. But the Achæans
and their allies were defeated by the consul Mum'mius, near
Corinth (146 B.C.), and that city, then the richest in Greece,
was plundered of its treasures and consigned to the flames.
Corinth was specially distinguished for its perfection in the
arts of painting and sculpture, and the poet ANTIP'ATER, of Sidon,
thus describes the desolation of the city after its destruction
by the Romans:
Where, Corinth, are thy glories now--
Thy ancient wealth, thy castled brow,
Thy solemn fanes, thy halls of state,
Thy high-born dames, thy crowded gate?
There's not a ruin left to tell
Where Corinth stood, how Corinth fell.
The Nereids of thy double sea
Alone remain to wail for thee.
--Trans. by GOLDWIN SMITH.
The last blow to the liberties of the Hellenic race had now been
struck, and all Greece, as far as Epi'rus and Macedonia, became
a Roman province under the name of Achaia. Says THIRLWALL, "The
end of the Achæan war was the last stage of the lingering process
by which Rome enclosed her victim in the coils of her insidious
diplomacy, covered it with the slime of her sycophants and
hirelings, crushed it when it began to struggle, and then calmly
preyed upon its vitals." But although Greece had lost her
independence, and many of her cities were desolate, or had sunk
into insignificance, she still retained her renown for philosophy
and the arts, and became the instructor of her conquerors. In
the well-known words of HORACE,
When conquered Greece brought in her captive arts,
She triumphed o'er her savage conquerors' hearts.
-Bk. II. Epistle 1.
As another has said, "She still retained a sovereignty which
the Romans could not take from her, and to which they were obliged
to pay homage." In whatever quarter Rome turned her victorious
arms she encountered Greek colonies speaking the Greek language,
and enjoying the arts of civilization. All these were absorbed
by her, but they were not lost. They diffused Greek customs,
thought, speech, and art over the Latin world, and Hellas survived
in the intellectual life of a new empire.