The task of historical criticism in the case of the Peloponnesian War is

widely different from its task in the case of the Persian Wars. It has

to deal, not with facts as they appear in the traditions of an

imaginative race, but with facts as they appeared to a scientific

observer. Facts, indeed, are seldom in dispute. The question is rather

whether facts of importance are omitted, whether the explanation of

causes is correct, or whether the judgment of men and measures is just.

Such inaccuracies as have been brought home to Thucydides on the

strength, e.g. of epigraphic evidence, are, as a rule, trivial. His most

serious errors relate to topographical details, in cases where he was

dependent on the information of others. Sphacteria (see Pylos) (see G.

B. Grundy, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xvi., 1896, p. 1) is a case in

point. Nor have the difficulties connected with the siege of Plataea

been cleared up either by Grundy or by others (see Grundy, _Topography

of the Battle of Plataea_, &c., 1894). Where, on the contrary, he is

writing at first hand his descriptions of sites are surprisingly

correct. The most serious charge as yet brought against his authority as

to matters of fact relates to his account of the Revolution of the Four

Hundred, which appears, at first sight, to be inconsistent with the

documentary evidence supplied by Aristotle's _Constitution of Athens_

(q.v.). It may be questioned, however, whether the documents have been

correctly interpreted by Aristotle. On the whole, it is probable that

the general course of events was such as Thucydides describes (see E.

Meyer, _Forschungen_, ii. 406-436), though he failed to appreciate the

position of Theramenes and the Moderate party, and was clearly

misinformed on some important points of detail. With regard to the

omission of facts, it is unquestionable that much is omitted that would

not be omitted by a modern writer. Such omissions are generally due to

the author's conception of his task. Thus the internal history of Athens

is passed over as forming no part of the history of the war. It is only

where the course of the war is directly affected by the course of

political events (e.g. by the Revolution of the Four Hundred) that the

internal history is referred to. However much it may be regretted that

the relations of political parties are not more fully described,

especially in book v., it cannot be denied that from his standpoint

there is logical justification even for the omission of the ostracism of

Hyperbolus. There are omissions, however, which are not so easily

explained. Perhaps the most notable instance is that of the raising of

the tribute in 425 B.C. (see DELIAN LEAGUE).

Nowhere is the contrast between the historical methods of Herodotus and

Thucydides more apparent than in the treatment of the causes of events.

The distinction between the occasion and the cause is constantly present

to the mind of Thucydides, and it is his tendency to make too little

rather than too much of the personal factor. Sometimes, however, it may

be doubted whether his explanation of the causes of an event is adequate

or correct. In tracing the causes of the Peloponnesian War itself,

modern writers are disposed to allow more weight to the commercial

rivalry of Corinth; while in the case of the Sicilian expedition, they

would actually reverse his judgment (ii. 65 [Greek: ho es Sikelian plous

hos ou tosoutov gnomes hamartema en pros hous epeesan]). To us it seems

that the very idea of the expedition implied a gigantic miscalculation

of the resources of Athens and of the difficulty of the task. His

judgments of men and of measures have been criticized by writers of

different schools and from different points of view. Grote criticized

his verdict upon Cleon, while he accepted his estimate of the policy of

Pericles. More recent writers, on the other hand, have accepted his view

of Cleon, while they have selected for attack his appreciation alike of

the policy and the strategy of Pericles. He has been charged, too, with

failure to do justice to the statesmanship of Alcibiades.[29] There are

cases, undoubtedly, in which the balance of recent opinion will be

adverse to the view of Thucydides. There are many more in which the

result of criticism has been to establish his view. That he should

occasionally have been mistaken in his judgment and his views is

certainly no detraction from his claim to greatness.

On the whole, it may be said that while the criticism of Herodotus,

since Grote wrote, has tended seriously to modify our view of the

Persian Wars, as well as of the earlier history, the criticism of

Thucydides, in spite of its imposing bulk, has affected but slightly our

view of the course of the Peloponnesian War. The labours of recent

workers in this field have borne most fruit where they have been

directed to subjects neglected by Thucydides, such as the history of

political parties, or the organization of the empire (G. Gilbert's

_Innere Geschichte Athens im Zeitalter des pel. Krieges_ is a good

example of such work).

In regard to Thucydides' treatment of the period between the Persian and

Peloponnesian Wars (the so-called _Pentecontaeteris_) it should be

remembered that he does not profess to give, even in outline, the

history of this period as a whole. The period is regarded simply as a

prelude to the Peloponnesian War. There is no attempt to sketch the

history of the Greek world or of Greece proper during this period. There

is, indeed, no attempt to give a complete sketch of Athenian history.

His object is to trace the growth of the Athenian Empire, and the causes

that made the war inevitable. Much is therefore omitted not only in the

history of the other Greek states, especially the Peloponnesian, but

even in the history of Athens. Nor does Thucydides attempt an exact

chronology. He gives us a few dates (e.g. surrender of Ithome, in the

tenth year, i. 103; of Thasos, in the third year, i. 101; duration of

the Egyptian expedition six years, i. 110; interval between Tanagra and

Oenophyta 61 days, i. 108; revolt of Samos, in the sixth year after the

Thirty Years' Truce, i. 115), but from these data alone it would be

impossible to reconstruct the chronology of the period. In spite of all

that can be gleaned from our other authorities, our knowledge of this,

the true period of Athenian greatness, must remain slight and imperfect

as compared with our knowledge of the next thirty years.

Diodorus.

Plutarch.

The constitutions.

Of the secondary authorities for this period the two principal ones are

Diodorus (xi. 38 to xii. 37) and Plutarch. Diodorus is of value chiefly

in relation to Sicilian affairs, to which he devotes about a third of

this section of his work and for which he is almost our sole authority.

His source for Sicilian history is the Sicilian writer Timaeus (q.v.),

an author of the 3rd century B.C. For the history of Greece Proper

during the Pentecontaetia Diodorus contributes comparatively little of

importance. Isolated notices of particular events (e.g. the _Synoecism_

of Elis, 471 B.C., or the foundation of Amphipolis, 437 B.C.), which

appear to be derived from a chronological writer, may generally be

trusted. The greater part of his narrative is, however, derived from

Ephorus, who appears to have had before him little authentic information

for this period of Greek history other than that afforded by Thucydides'

work. Four of Plutarch's _Lives_ are concerned with this period, viz.

_Themistocles_, _Aristides_, _Cimon_ and _Pericles_. From the

_Aristides_ little can be gained. Plutarch, in this biography, appears

to be mainly dependent upon Idomeneus of Lampsacus, an excessively

untrustworthy writer of the 3rd century B.C., who is probably to be

credited with the invention of the oligarchical conspiracy at the time

of the battle of Plataea (ch. 13), and of the decree of Aristides,

rendering all four classes of citizens eligible for the archonship (ch.

22). The _Cimon_, on the other hand, contains much that is valuable;

such as, e.g. the account of the battle of the Eurymedon (chs. 12 and

13). To the _Pericles_ we owe several quotations from the Old Comedy.

Two other of the _Lives_, _Lycurgus_ and _Solon_, are amongst our most

important sources for the early history of Sparta and Athens

respectively. Of the two (besides _Pericles_) which relate to the

Peloponnesian War, _Alcibiades_ adds little to what can be gained from

Thucydides and Xenophon; the _Nicias_, on the other hand, supplements

Thucydides' narrative of the Sicilian expedition with many valuable

details, which, it may safely be assumed, are derived from the

contemporary historian, Philistus of Syracuse. Amongst the most valuable

material afforded by Plutarch are the quotations, which occur in almost

all the _Lives_, from the collection of Athenian decrees ([Greek:

psephismaton sunagoge]) formed by the Macedonian writer Craterus, in the

3rd century B.C. Two other works may be mentioned in connexion with the

history of Athens. For the history of the Athenian Constitution down to

the end of the 5th century B.C. Aristotle's _Constitution of Athens_

(q.v.) is our chief authority. The other _Constitution of Athens_,

erroneously attributed to Xenophon, a tract of singular interest both on

literary and historical grounds, throws a good deal of light on the

internal condition of Athens, and on the system of government, both of

the state and of the empire, in the age of the Peloponnesian War, during

the earlier years of which it was composed.

Inscriptions.

To the literary sources for the history of Greece, especially of Athens,

in the 5th century B.C. must be added the epigraphic. Few inscriptions

have been discovered which date back beyond the Persian Wars. For the

latter half of the 5th century they are both numerous and important. Of

especial value are the series of Quota-lists, from which can be

calculated the amount of tribute paid by the subject-allies of Athens

from the year 454 B.C. onwards. The great majority of the inscriptions

of this period are of Athenian origin. Their value is enhanced by the

fact that they relate, as a rule, to questions of organization, finance

and administration, as to which little information is to be gained from

the literary sources.

For the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars Busolt,

_Griechische Geschichte_, iii. 1, is indispensable. Hill's _Sources of

Greek History, B.C. 478-431_ (Oxford, 1897) is excellent. It gives the

most important inscriptions in a convenient form.

Xenophon.

III. _The 4th Century to the Death of Alexander._--Of the historians who

flourished in the 4th century the sole writer whose works have come down

to us is Xenophon. It is a singular accident of fortune that neither of

the two authors, who at once were most representative of their age and

did most to determine the views of Greek history current in subsequent

generations, Ephorus (q.v.) and Theopompus (q.v.), should be extant. It

was from them, rather than from Herodotus, Thucydides or Xenophon that

the Roman world obtained its knowledge of the history of Greece in the

past, and its conception of its significance. Both were pupils of

Isocrates, and both, therefore, bred up in an atmosphere of rhetoric.

Hence their popularity and their influence. The scientific spirit of

Thucydides was alien to the temper of the 4th century, and hardly more

congenial to the age of Cicero or Tacitus. To the rhetorical spirit,

which is common to both, each added defects peculiar to himself.

Theopompus is a strong partisan, a sworn foe to Athens and to Democracy.

Ephorus, though a military historian, is ignorant of the art of war. He

is also incredibly careless and uncritical. It is enough to point to his

description of the battle of the Eurymedon (Diodorus xi. 60-62), in

which, misled by an epigram, which he supposed to relate to this

engagement (it really refers to the Athenian victory off Salamis in

Cyprus, 449 B.C.), he makes the coast of Cyprus the scene of Cimon's

naval victory, and finds no difficulty in putting it on the same day as

the victory on shore on the banks of the Eurymedon, in Pamphylia. Only a

few fragments remain of either writer, but Theopompus (q.v.) was largely

used by Plutarch in several of the _Lives_, while Ephorus continues to

be the main source of Diodorus' history, as far as the outbreak of the

Sacred War (Fragments of Ephorus in Muller's _Fragmenta historicorum

Graecorum_, vol.i.; of Theopompus in _Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, cum

Theopompi et Cratippi fragmentis_, ed. B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt,

1909).

It may be at least claimed for Xenophon (q.v.) that he is free from all

taint of the rhetorical spirit. It may also be claimed for him that, as

a witness, he is both honest and well-informed. But, if there is no

justification for the charge of deliberate falsification, it cannot be

denied that he had strong political prejudices, and that his narrative

has suffered from them. His historical writings are the _Anabasis_, an

account of the expedition of the Ten Thousand, the _Hellenica_ and the

_Agesilaus_, a eulogy of the Spartan king. Of these the _Hellenica_ is

far the most important for the student of history. It consists of two

distinct parts (though there is no ground for the theory that the two

parts were separately written and published), books i. and ii., and

books iii. to vii. The first two books are intended as a continuation of

Thucydides' work. They begin, quite abruptly, in the middle of the Attic

year 411/10, and they carry the history down to the fall of the Thirty,

in 403. Books iii. to vii., the _Hellenica_ proper, cover the period

from 401 to 362, and give the histories of the Spartan and Theban

hegemonies down to the death of Epaminondas. There is thus a gap of two

years between the point at which the first part ends and that at which

the second part begins. The two parts differ widely, both in their aim

and in the arrangement of the material. In the first part Xenophon

attempts, though not with complete success, to follow the chronological

method of Thucydides, and to make each successive spring, when military

and naval operations were resumed after the winter's interruption, the

starting-point of a fresh section. The resemblance between the two

writers ends, however, with the outward form of the narrative. All that

is characteristic of Thucydides is absent in Xenophon. The latter writer

shows neither skill in portraiture, nor insight into motives. He is

deficient in the sense of proportion and of the distinction between

occasion and cause. Perhaps his worst fault is a lack of imagination. To

make a story intelligible it is necessary sometimes to put oneself in

the reader's place, and to appreciate his ignorance of circumstances and

events which would be perfectly familiar to the actors in the scene or

to contemporaries. It was not given to Xenophon, as it was to

Thucydides, to discriminate between the circumstances that are essential

and those that are not essential to the comprehension of the story. In

spite, therefore, of its wealth of detail, his narrative is frequently

obscure. It is quite clear that in the trial of the generals, e.g.,

something is omitted. It may be supplied as Diodorus has supplied it

(xiii. 101), or it may be supplied otherwise. It is probable that, when

under cross-examination before the council, the generals, or some of

them, disclosed the commission given to Theramenes and Thrasybulus. The

important point is that Xenophon himself has omitted to supply it. As it

stands his narrative is unintelligible. In the first two books, though

there are omissions (e.g. the loss of Nisaea, 409 B.C.), they are not so

serious as in the last five, nor is the bias so evident. It is true that

if the account of the rule of the Thirty given in Aristotle's

_Constitution of Athens_ be accepted, Xenophon must have deliberately

misrepresented the course of events to the prejudice of Theramenes. But

it is at least doubtful whether Aristotle's version can be sustained

against Xenophon's, though it may be admitted, not only that there are

mistakes as to details in the latter writer's narrative, but that less

than justice is done to the policy and motives of the "Buskin." The

_Hellenica_ was written, it should be remembered, at Corinth, after 362.

More than forty years had thus elapsed since the events recorded in the

first two books, and after so long an interval accuracy of detail, even

where the detail is of importance, is not always to be expected.[30] In

the second part the chronological method is abandoned. A subject once

begun is followed out to its natural ending, so that sections of the

narrative which are consecutive in order are frequently parallel in

point of date. A good example of this will be found in book iv. In

chapters 2 to 7 the history of the Corinthian war is carried down to the

end of 390, so far as the operations on land are concerned, while

chapter 8 contains an account of the naval operations from 394 to 388.

In this second part of the _Hellenica_ the author's disqualifications

for his task are more apparent than in the first two books. The more he

is acquitted of bias in his selection of events and in his omissions,

the more clearly does he stand convicted of lacking all sense of the

proportion of things. Down to Leuctra (371 B.C.) Sparta is the centre of

interest, and it is of the Spartan state alone that a complete or

continuous history is given. After Leuctra, if the point of view is no

longer exclusively Spartan, the narrative of events is hardly less

incomplete. Throughout the second part of the _Hellenica_ omissions

abound which it is difficult either to explain or justify. The formation

of the Second Athenian Confederacy of 377 B.C., the foundation of

Megalopolis and the restoration of the Messenian state are all left

unrecorded. Yet the writer who passes them over without mention thinks

it worth while to devote more than one-sixth of an entire book to a

chronicle of the unimportant feats of the citizens of the petty state of

Phlius. Nor is any attempt made to appraise the policy of the great

Theban leaders, Pelopidas and Epaminondas. The former, indeed, is

mentioned only in a single passage, relating to the embassy to Susa in

368; the latter does not appear on the scene till a year later, and

receives mention but twice before the battle of Mantinea. An author who

omits from his narrative some of the most important events of his

period, and elaborates the portraiture of an Agesilaus while not

attempting the bare outline of an Epaminondas, may be honest; he may

even write without a consciousness of bias; he certainly cannot rank

among the great writers of history.[31]

Diodorus.

For the history of the 4th century Diodorus assumes a higher degree of

importance than belongs to him in the earlier periods. This is partly to

be explained by the deficiencies of Xenophon's _Hellenica_, partly by

the fact that for the interval between the death of Epaminondas and the

accession of Alexander we have in Diodorus alone a continuous narrative

of events. Books xiv. and xv. of his history include the period covered

by the _Hellenica_. More than half of book xiv. is devoted to the

history of Sicily and the reign of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse.

For this period of Sicilian history he is, practically, our sole

authority. In the rest of the book, as well as in book xv., there is

much of value, especially in the notices of Macedonian history. Thanks

to Diodorus we are enabled to supply many of the omissions of the

_Hellenica_. Diodorus is, e.g., our sole literary authority for the

Athenian naval confederation of 377. Book xvi. must rank, with the

_Hellenica_ and Arrian's _Anabasis_, as one of the three principal

authorities for this century, so far, at least, as works of an

historical character are concerned. It is our authority for the Social

and the Sacred Wars, as well as for the reign of Philip. It is a curious

irony of fate that, for what is perhaps the most momentous epoch in the

history of Greece, we should have to turn to a writer of such inferior

capacity. For this period his material is better and his importance

greater: his intelligence is as limited as ever. Who but Diodorus would

be capable of narrating the siege and capture of Methone twice over,

once under the year 354, and again under the year 352 (xvi. 31 and 34;

cf. xii. 35 and 42; Archidamus (q.v.) dies in 434, commands

Peloponnesian army in 431); or of giving three different numbers of

years (eleven, ten and nine) in three different passages (chs. 14, 23

and 59) for the length of the Sacred War; or of asserting the

conclusion of peace between Athens and Philip in 340, after the failure

of his attack on Perinthus and Byzantium? Amongst the subjects which are

omitted is the Peace of Philocrates. For the earlier chapters, which

bring the narrative down to the outbreak of the Sacred War, Ephorus, as

in the previous book, is Diodorus' main source. His source for the rest

of the book, i.e. for the greater part of Philip's reign, cannot be

determined. It is generally agreed that it is not the _Philippica_ of

Theopompus.

Historians of Alexander's reign.

For the reign of Alexander our earliest extant authority is Diodorus,

who belongs to the age of Augustus. Of the others, Q. Curtius Rufus, who

wrote in Latin, lived in the reign of the emperor Claudius, Arrian and

Plutarch in the 2nd century A.D. Yet Alexander's reign is one of the

best known periods of ancient history. The Peloponnesian War and the

twenty years of Roman history which begin with 63 B.C. are the only two

periods which we can be said to know more fully or for which we have

more trustworthy evidence. For there is no period of ancient history

which was recorded by a larger number of contemporary writers, or for

which better or more abundant materials were available. Of the writers

actually contemporary with Alexander there were five of

importance--Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Callisthenes, Onesicritus and

Nearchus; and all of them occupied positions which afforded exceptional

opportunities of ascertaining the facts. Four of them were officers in

Alexander's service. Ptolemy, the future king of Egypt, was one of the

_somatophylaces_ (we may, perhaps, regard them as corresponding to

Napoleon's marshals); Aristobulus was also an officer of high rank (see

Arrian, _Anab._ vi. 29. 10); Nearchus was admiral of the fleet which

surveyed the Indus and the Persian Gulf, and Onesicritus was one of his

subordinates. The fifth, Callisthenes, a pupil of Aristotle, accompanied

Alexander on his march down to his death in 327 and was admitted to the

circle of his intimate friends. A sixth historian, Cleitarchus, was

possibly also a contemporary; at any rate he is not more than a

generation later. These writers had at their command a mass of official

documents, such as the [Greek: basileioi ephemerides]--the _Gazette_ and

_Court Circular_ combined--edited and published after Alexander's death

by his secretary, Eumenes of Cardia; the [Greek: stathmoi], or records

of the marches of the armies, which were carefully measured at the time;

and the official reports on the conquered provinces. That these

documents were made use of by the historians is proved by the references

to them which are to be found in Arrian, Plutarch and Strabo; e.g.

Arrian, _Anab._ vii. 25 and 26, and Plutarch, _Alexander 76_ (quotation

from the [Greek: basileioi ephemerides]); Strabo xv. 723 (reference to

the [Greek: stathmoi]), ii. 69 (reports drawn up on the various

provinces). We have, in addition, in Plutarch numerous quotations from

Alexander's correspondence with his mother, Olympias, and with his

officers. The contemporary historians may be roughly divided into two

groups. On the one hand there are Ptolemy and Aristobulus, who, except

in a single instance, are free from all suspicion of deliberate

invention. On the other hand, there are Callisthenes, Onesicritus and

Cleitarchus, whose tendency is rhetorical. Nearchus appears to have

allowed full scope to his imagination in dealing with the wonders of

India, but to have been otherwise veracious. Of the extant writers

Arrian (q.v.) is incomparably the most valuable. His merits are twofold.

As the commander of Roman legions and the author of a work on tactics,

he combined a practical with a theoretical knowledge of the military

art, while the writers whom he follows in the _Anabasis_ are the two

most worthy of credit, Ptolemy and Aristobulus. We may well hesitate to

call in question the authority of writers who exhibit an agreement which

it would be difficult to parallel elsewhere in the case of two

independent historians. It may be inferred from Arrian's references to

them that there were only eleven cases in all in which he found

discrepancies between them. The most serious drawback which can be

alleged against them is an inevitable bias in Alexander's favour. It

would be only natural that they should pass over in silence the worst

blots on their great commander's fame. Next in value to the _Anabasis_

comes Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_, the merits of which, however, are

not to be gauged by the influence which it has exercised upon

literature. The _Life_ is a valuable supplement to the _Anabasis_,

partly because Plutarch, as he is writing biography rather than history

(for his conception of the difference between the two see the famous

preface, _Life of Alexander_, ch. i.), is concerned to record all that

will throw light upon Alexander's character (e.g. his epigrammatic

sayings and quotations from his letters); partly because he tells us

much about his early life, before he became king, while Arrian tells us

nothing. It is unfortunate that Plutarch writes in an uncritical spirit;

it is hardly less unfortunate that he should have formed no clear

conception and drawn no consistent picture of Alexander's character.

Book xvii. of Diodorus and the _Historiae Alexandri_ of Curtius Rufus

are thoroughly rhetorical in spirit. It is probable that in both cases

the ultimate source is the work of Clitarchus.

The orators.

Isocrates.

It is towards the end of the 5th century that a fresh source of

information becomes available in the speeches of the orators, the

earliest of whom is Antiphon (d. 411 B.C.). Lysias is of great

importance for the history of the Thirty (see the speeches against

Eratosthenes and Agoratus), and a good deal may be gathered from

Andocides with regard to the last years of the 5th and the opening years

of the next century. At the other end of this period Lycurgus, Hyperides

and Dinarchus throw light upon the time of Philip and Alexander. The

three, however, who are of most importance to the historian are

Isocrates, Aeschines and Demosthenes. Isocrates (q.v.), whose long life

(436-338) more than spans the interval between the outbreak of the

Peloponnesian War and the triumph of Macedon at Chaeronea, is one of the

most characteristic figures in the Greek world of his day. To comprehend

that world the study of Isocrates is indispensable; for in an age

dominated by rhetoric he is the prince of rhetoricians. It is difficult

for a modern reader to do him justice, so alien is his spirit and the

spirit of his age from ours. It must be allowed that he is frequently

monotonous and prolix; at the same time it must not be forgotten that,

as the most famous representative of rhetoric, he was read from one end

of the Greek world to the other. He was the friend of Evagoras and

Archidamus, of Dionysius and Philip; he was the master of Aeschines and

Lycurgus amongst orators and of Ephorus and Theopompus amongst

historians. No other contemporary writer has left so indelible a stamp

upon the style and the sentiment of his generation. It is a commonplace

that Isocrates is the apostle of Panhellenism. It is not so generally

recognized that he is the prophet of Hellenism. A passage in the

Panegyricus (S 50 [Greek: hoste to ton Hellenon onoma meketi tou genous

alla tes dianoias dokein einai kai mallon Hellenas kaleisthai tous tes

paideuseos tes hemeteras e tous tes koines physeos metechontas]) is the

key to the history of the next three centuries. Doubtless he had no

conception of the extent to which the East was to be hellenized. He was,

however, the first to recognize that it would be hellenized by the

diffusion of Greek culture rather than of Greek blood. His Panhellenism

was the outcome of his recognition of the new forces and tendencies

which were at work in the midst of a new generation. When Greek culture

was becoming more and more international, the exaggeration of the

principle of autonomy in the Greek political system was becoming more

and more absurd. He had sufficient insight to be aware that the price

paid for this autonomy was the domination of Persia; a domination which

meant the servitude of the Greek states across the Aegean and the

demoralization of Greek political life at home. His Panhellenism led him

to a more liberal view of the distinction between what was Greek and

what was not than was possible to the intenser patriotism of a

Demosthenes. In his later orations he has the courage not only to

pronounce that the day of Athens as a first-rate power is past, but to

see in Philip the needful leader in the crusade against Persia. The

earliest and greatest of his political orations is the _Panegyricus_,

published in 380 B.C., midway between the peace of Antalcidas and

Leuctra. It is his _apologia_ for Panhellenism. To the period of the

Social War belong the _De pace_ (355 B.C.) and the _Areopagiticus_ (354

B.C.), both of great value as evidence for the internal conditions of

Athens at the beginning of the struggle with Macedon. The _Plataicus_

(373 B.C.) and the _Archidamus_ (366 B.C.) throw light upon the politics

of Boeotia and the Peloponnese respectively. The _Panathenaicus_ (339

B.C.), the child of his old age, contains little that may not be found

in the earlier orations. The _Philippus_ (346 B.C.) is of peculiar

interest, as giving the views of the Macedonian party.

Demosthenes.

Not the least remarkable feature in recent historical criticism is the

reaction against the view which was at one time almost universally

accepted of the character, statesmanship and authority of the orator

Demosthenes (q.v.). During the last quarter of a century his character

and statesmanship have been attacked, and his authority impugned, by a

series of writers of whom Holm and Beloch are the best known. With the

estimate of his character and statesmanship we are not here concerned.

With regard to his value as an authority for the history of the period,

it is to his speeches, and to those of his contemporaries, Aeschines,

Hypereides, Dinarchus and Lycurgus, that we owe our intimate knowledge,

both of the working of the constitutional and legal systems, and of the

life of the people, at this period of Athenian history. From this point

of view his value can hardly be overestimated. As a witness, however, to

matters of fact, his authority can no longer be rated as highly as it

once was, e.g. by Schaefer and by Grote. The orator's attitude towards

events, both in the past and in the present, is inevitably a different

one from the historian's. The object of a Thucydides is to ascertain a

fact, or to exhibit it in its true relations. The object of a

Demosthenes is to make a point, or to win his case. In their dealings

with the past the orators exhibit a levity which is almost inconceivable

to a modern reader. Andocides, in a passage of his speech _On the

Mysteries_ (S 107), speaks of Marathon as the crowning victory of

Xerxes' campaign; in his speech _On the Peace_ (S 3) he confuses

Miltiades with Cimon, and the Five Years' Peace with the Thirty Years'

Truce. Though the latter passage is a mass of absurdities and

confusions, it was so generally admired that it was incorporated by

Aeschines in his speech _On the Embassy_ (SS 172-176). If such was their

attitude towards the past; if, in order to make a point, they do not

hesitate to pervert history, is it likely that they would conform to a

higher standard of veracity in their statements as to the present--as to

their contemporaries, their rivals or their own actions? When we compare

different speeches of Demosthenes, separated by an interval of years, we

cannot fail to observe a marked difference in his statements. The

farther he is from the events, the bolder are his mis-statements. It is

only necessary to compare the speech _On the Crown_ with that _On the

Embassy_, and this latter speech with the _Philippics_ and _Olynthiacs_,

to find illustrations. It has come to be recognized that no statement as

to a matter of fact is to be accepted, unless it receives independent

corroboration, or unless it is admitted by both sides. The speeches of

Demosthenes may be conveniently divided into four classes according to

their dates. To the pre-Philippic period belong the speeches _On the

Symmories_ (354 B.C.), _On Megalopolis_ (352 B.C.), _Against

Aristocrates_ (351 B.C.), and, perhaps, the speech _On Rhodes_ (? 351

B.C.). These speeches betray no consciousness of the danger threatened

by Philip's ambition. The policy recommended is one based upon the

principle of the balance of power. To the succeeding period, which ends

with the peace of Philocrates (346 B.C.), belong the _First Philippic_

and the three _Olynthiacs_. To the period between the peace of

Philocrates and Chaeronea belong the speech _On the Peace_ (346 B.C.),

the _Second Philippic_ (344 B.C.), the speeches _On the Embassy_ (344

B.C.) and _On the Chersonese_ (341 B.C.), and the _Third Philippic_. The

masterpiece of his genius, the speech On the Crown, was delivered in 330

B.C., in the reign of Alexander. Of the three extant speeches of

Aeschines (q.v.) that _On the Embassy_ is of great value, as enabling us

to correct the mis-statements of Demosthenes. For the period from the

death of Alexander to the fall of Corinth (323-146 B.C.) our literary

authorities are singularly defective. For the Diadochi Diodorus (books

xviii.-xx.) is our chief source. These books form the most valuable

part of Diodorus' work. They are mainly based upon the work of

Hieronymus of Cardia, a writer who combined exceptional opportunities

for ascertaining the truth (he was in the service first of Eumenes, and

then of Antigonus) with an exceptional sense of its importance.

Hieronymus ended his history at the death of Pyrrhus (272 B.C.), but,

unfortunately, book xx. of Diodorus' work carries us no farther than 303

B.C., and of the later books we have but scanty fragments. The narrative

of Diodorus may be supplemented by the fragments of Arrian's _History of

the events after Alexander's death_ (which reach, however, only to 321

B.C.), and by Plutarch's _Lives of Eumenes_ and of _Demetrius_. For the

rest of the 3rd century and the first half of the 2nd we have his _Lives

of Pyrrhus_, of _Aratus_, of _Philopoemen_, and of _Agis and Cleomenes_.

For the period from 220 B.C. onwards Polybius (q.v.) is our chief

authority (see ROME: _Ancient History_, section "Authorities"). In a

period in which the literary sources are so scanty great weight attaches

to the epigraphic and numismatic evidence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The literature which deals with the history of Greece,

in its various periods, departments and aspects, is of so vast a bulk

that all that can be attempted here is to indicate the most important

and most accessible works.

_General Histories of Greece._--Down to the middle of the 19th century

the only histories of Greece deserving of mention were the products of

English scholarship. The two earliest of these were published about

the same date, towards the end of the 18th century, nearly

three-quarters of a century before any history of Greece, other than a

mere compendium, appeared on the Continent. John Gillies' _History of

Greece_ was published in 1786, Mitford's in 1784. Both works were

composed with a political bias and a political object. Gillies was a

Whig. In the dedication (to George III.) he expresses the view that

"the History of Greece exposes the dangerous turbulence of Democracy,

and arraigns the despotism of Tyrants, while it evinces the

inestimable benefits, resulting to Liberty itself, from the steady

operation of well-regulated monarchy." Mitford was a Tory, who thought

to demonstrate the evils of democracy from the example of the Athenian

state. His _History_, in spite of its bias, was a work of real value.

More than fifty years elapsed between Mitford's work and Thirlwall's.

Connop Thirlwall, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, afterwards

bishop of St David's, brought a sound judgment to the aid of ripe

scholarship. His _History of Greece_, published in 1835-1838 (8

vols.), is entirely free from the controversial tone of Mitford's

volumes. Ten years later (1846) George Grote published the first

volumes of his history, which was not completed (in 12 vols.) till

1856. Grote, like Mitford, was a politician--an ardent Radical, with

republican sympathies. It was in order to refute the slanders of the

Tory partisan that he was impelled to write a history of Greece, which

should do justice to the greatest democracy of the ancient world, the

Athenian state. Thus, in the case of three of these four writers, the

interest in their subject was mainly political. Incomparably the

greatest of these works is Grote's. Grote had his faults and his

limitations. His prejudices are strong, and his scholarship is weak;

he had never visited Greece, and he knew little or nothing of Greek

art; and, at the time he wrote, the importance of coins and

inscriptions was imperfectly apprehended. In spite of every defect,

however, his work is the greatest history of Greece that has yet been

written. It is not too much to say that nobody knows Greek history

till he has mastered Grote. No history of Greece has since appeared in

England on a scale at all comparable to that of Grote's work. The most

important of the more recent ones is that by J. B. Bury (1 vol.,

1900), formerly fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, afterwards Regius

Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. Mitford and Bury end with

the death of Alexander; Gillies and Grote carry on the narrative a

generation farther; while Thirlwall's work extends to the absorption

of Greece in the Roman Empire (146 B.C.).

While in France the _Histoire des Grecs_ (ending at 146 B.C.) of

Victor Duruy (new edition, 2 vols., 1883), Minister of Public

Instruction under Napoleon III., is the only one that need be

mentioned, in Germany there has been a succession of histories of

Greece since the middle of the 19th century. Kortum's _Geschichte

Griechenlands_ (3 vols., 1854), a work of little merit, was followed

by Max Duncker's _Geschichte der Griechen_ (vols. 1 and 2 published in

1856; vols. 1 and 2, Neue Folge, which bring the narrative down to the

death of Pericles, in 1884; the two former volumes form vols. 5, 6 and

7 of his _Geschichte des Altertums_), and by the _Griechische

Geschichte_ of Ernst Curtius (3 vols., 1857-1867). An English

translation of Duncker, by S. F. Alleyne, appeared in 1883 (2 vols.,

Bentley), and of Curtius, by A. W. Ward (5 vols., Bentley, 1868-1873).

Among more recent works may be mentioned the _Griechische Geschichte_

of Adolf Holm (4 vols., Berlin, 1886-1894; English translation by F.

Clarke, 4 vols., Macmillan, 1894-1898), and histories with the same

title by Julius Beloch (3 vols., Strassburg, 1893-1904) and Georg

Busolt (2nd ed., 3 vols., Gotha, 1893-1904). Holm carries on the

narrative to 30 B.C., Beloch to 217 B.C., Busolt to Chaeronea (338

B.C.).[32] Busolt's work is entirely different in character from any

other history of Greece. The writer's object is to refer in the notes

(which constitute five-sixths of the book) to the views of every

writer in any language upon every controverted question. It is

absolutely indispensable, as a work of reference, for any serious

study of Greek history. The ablest work since Grote's is Eduard

Meyer's _Geschichte des Altertums_, of which 5 vols. (Stuttgart and

Berlin, 1884-1902) have appeared, carrying the narrative down to the

death of Epaminondas (362 B.C.). Vols. 2-5 are principally concerned

with Greek history. It must be remembered that, partly owing to the

literary finds and the archaeological discoveries of the last thirty

years, and partly owing to the advance made in the study of epigraphy

and numismatics, all the histories published before those of Busolt,

Beloch, Meyer and Bury are out of date.

_Works bearing on the History of Greece._--Earlier works and editions

are omitted, except in the case of a work which has not been

superseded.

_Introductions._--C. Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in das Studium der alten

Geschichte_ (1 vol., Leipzig, 1895); E. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alten

Geschichte_ (2 parts, Halle, 1892-1899; quite indispensable); J. B.

Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_ (London, 1909).

_Constitutional History and Institutions._--G. F. Schomann,

_Griechische Altertumer_ (2 vols., Berlin, 1855-1859; vol. i., tr. by

E. G. Hardy and J. S. Mann, Rivingtons, 1880); G. Gilbert,

_Griechische Staatsaltertumer_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., Leipzig, 1893; vol.

i. tr. by E. J. Brooks and T. Nicklin, Swan Sonnenschein, 1895); K. F.

Hermann, _Lehrbuch der griechischen Antiquitaten_ (6th ed., 4 vols.,

Freiburg, 1882-1895); Iwan Muller, _Handbuch der klassischen

Altertumswissenschaft_ (9 vols., Nordlingen, 1886, in progress;

several of the volumes are concerned with Greek history); J. H.

Lipsius, _Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren_ (Leipzig, 1905, in

progress); A. H. J. Greenidge, _Handbook of Greek Constitutional

History_ (1 vol., Macmillan, 1896); Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyklopadie

der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_ (Stuttgart, 1894 foll.).

_Geography._--E. H. Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography amongst the

Greeks and Romans_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., Murray, 1883), W. M. Leake,

_Travels in the Morea_ (3 vols., 1830), and _Travels in Northern

Greece_ (4 vols., 1834); H. F. Tozer, _Lectures on the Geography of

Greece_ (1 vol., Murray, 1873), and _History of Ancient Geography_ (1

vol., Cambridge, 1897); J. P. Mahaffy, _Rambles and Studies in Greece_

(3rd ed., 1 vol., Macmillan, 1887, an admirable book); C. Bursian,

_Geographie von Griechenland_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1872); H. Berger,

_Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen_ (4 parts,

Leipzig, 1887-1893); Ernst Curtius, _Peloponnesos_ (2 vols., Gotha,

1850-1851).

_Epigraphy and Numismatics._--_Corpus inscriptionum Atticarum_

(Berlin, 1875, in progress), _Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum_ (Berlin,

1892, in progress). The following selections of Greek inscriptions may

be mentioned: E. F. Hicks and G. F. Hill, _Manual of Greek Historical

Inscriptions_ (new ed., 1 vol., Oxford, 1901): W. Dittenberger,

_Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., Berlin, 1898); C.

Michel, _Recueil d'inscriptions grecques_ (Paris, 1900). Among works

on numismatics the English reader may refer to B. V. Head, _Historia

numorum_ (1 vol., Oxford, 1887); G. F. Hill, _Handbook of Greek and

Roman Coins_ (1 vol., Macmillan, 1899), as well as to the _British

Museum Catalogue of Greek Coins_. In French the most important general

work is the _Monnaies grecques_ of F. Imhoof-Blumer (Paris, 1883).

_Chronology, Trade, War, Social Life, &c._--H. F. Clinton, _Fasti

Hellenici_ (3rd ed., 3 vols., Oxford, 1841, a work of which English

scholarship may well be proud; it is still invaluable for the study of

Greek chronology); B. Buchsenschutz, _Besitz und Erwerb im

griechischen Altertume_ (1 vol., Halle, 1869; this is still the best

book on Greek commerce); J. Beloch, _Die Bevolkerung der

griechisch-romischen Welt_ (1 vol., Leipzig, 1886); W. Rustow and H.

Kochly, _Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens_ (1 vol., Aarau,

1852); J. P. Mahaffy, _Social Life in Greece_ (2nd ed., 1 vol., 1875).

(E. M. W.)

b. _Post-Classical: 146 B.C.-A.D. 1800_

I. THE PERIOD OF ROMAN RULE.--(i.) _Greece under the Republic_ (146-27

B.C.). After the collapse of the Achaean League (q.v.) the Senate

appointed a commission to reorganize Greece as a Roman dependency.

Corinth, the chief centre of resistance, was destroyed and its

inhabitants sold into slavery. In addition to this act of exemplary

punishment, which may perhaps have been inspired in part by the desire

to crush a commercial competitor, steps were taken to obviate future

insurrections. The national and cantonal federations were dissolved,

commercial intercourse between cities was restricted, and the government

transferred from the democracies to the propertied classes, whose

interests were bound up with Roman supremacy. In other respects few

changes were made in existing institutions. Some favoured states like

Athens and Sparta retained their full sovereign rights as _civitates

liberae_, the other cities continued to enjoy local self-government.

The ownership of the land was not greatly disturbed by confiscations,

and though a tribute upon it was levied, this impost may not have been

universal. General powers of supervision were entrusted to the governor

of Macedonia, who could reserve cases of high treason for his decision,

and in case of need send troops into the country. But although Greece

was in the _provincia_ of the Macedonian proconsul, in the sense of

belonging to his sphere of command, its status was in fact more

favourable than that of other provincial dependencies.

This settlement was acquiesced in by the Greek people, who had come to

realize the hopelessness of further resistance. The internal disorder

which was arising from the numerous disputes about property rights

consequent upon the political revolutions was checked by the good

offices of the historian Polybius, whom the Senate deputed to mediate

between the litigants. The pacification of the country eventually became

so complete that the Romans withdrew the former restrictions upon

intercourse and allowed some of the leagues to revive. But its quiet was

seriously disturbed during the first Mithradatic War (88-84 B.C.), when

numerous Greek states sided with Mithradates (q.v.). The success which

the invader experienced in detaching the Greeks from Rome is partly to

be explained by the skilful way in which his agents incited the

imperialistic ambitions of prominent cities like Athens, partly perhaps

by his promises of support to the democratic parties. The result of the

war was disastrous to Greece. Apart from the confiscations and exactions

by which the Roman general L. Cornelius Sulla punished the disloyal

communities, the extensive and protracted campaigns left Central Greece

in a ruinous condition. During the last decades of the Roman republic

European Greece was scarcely affected by contemporary wars nor yet

exploited by Roman magistrates in the same systematic manner as most

other provinces. Yet oppression by officials who traversed Greece from

time to time and demanded lavish entertainments and presentations in the

guise of _viaticum_ or _aurum coronarium_ was not unknown. Still greater

was the suffering produced by the rapacity of Roman traders and

capitalists: it is recorded that Sicyon was reduced to sell its most

cherished art treasures in order to satisfy its creditors. A more

indirect but none the less far-reaching drawback to Greek prosperity was

the diversion of trade which followed upon the establishment of direct

communication between Italy and the Levant. The most lucrative source of

wealth which remained to the European Greeks was pasturage in large

domains, an industry which almost exclusively profited the richer

citizens and so tended to widen the breach between capitalists and the

poorer classes, and still further to pauperize the latter. The coast

districts and islands also suffered considerably from swarms of pirates

who, in the absence of any strong fleet in Greek waters, were able to

obtain a firm footing in Crete and freely plundered the chief trading

places and sanctuaries; the most notable of such visitations was

experienced in 69 B.C. by the island of Delos. This evil came to an end

with the general suppression of piracy in the Mediterranean by Pompey

(67 B.C.), but the depopulation which it had caused in some regions is

attested by the fact that the victorious admiral settled some of his

captives on the desolated coast strip of Achaea.

In the conflict between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Greeks provided the

latter with a large part of his excellent fleet. In 48 B.C. the decisive

campaign of the war was fought on Greek soil, and the resources of the

land were severely taxed by the requisitions of both armies. As a result

of Caesar's victory at Pharsalus, the whole country fell into his power;

the treatment which it received was on the whole lenient, though

individual cities were punished severely. After the murder of Caesar the

Greeks supported the cause of Brutus (42 B.C.), but were too weak to

render any considerable service. In 39 B.C. the Peloponnese for a short

time was made over to Sextus Pompeius. During the subsequent period

Greece remained in the hands of M. Antonius (Mark Antony), who imposed

further exactions in order to defray the cost of his wars. The extensive

levies which he made in 31 B.C. for his campaign against Octavian, and

the contributions which his gigantic army required, exhausted the

country's resources so completely that a general famine was prevented

only by Octavian's prompt action after the battle of Actium in

distributing supplies of grain and evacuating the land with all haste.

The depopulation which resulted from the civil wars was partly remedied

by the settlement of Italian colonists at Corinth and Patrae by Julius

Caesar and Octavian; on the other hand, the foundation of Nicopolis

(q.v.) by the latter merely had the effect of transferring the people

from the country to the city.

(ii.) _The Early Roman Empire_ (27 B.C.-A.D. 323).--Under the emperor

Augustus Thessaly was incorporated with Macedonia; the rest of Greece

was converted into the province of Achaea, under the control of a

senatorial proconsul resident at Corinth. Many states, including Athens

and Sparta, retained their rights as free and nominally independent

cities. The provincials were encouraged to send delegates to a communal

synod ([Greek: koinon ton Achaion]) which met at Argos to consider the

general interests of the country and to uphold national Hellenic

sentiment; the Delphic amphictyony was revived and extended so as to

represent in a similar fashion northern and central Greece.

Social conditions.

Economic conditions did not greatly improve under the empire. Although

new industries sprang up to meet the needs of Roman luxury, and Greek

marble, textiles and table delicacies were in great demand, the only

cities which regained a really flourishing trade were the Italian

communities of Corinth and Patrae. Commerce languished in general, and

the soil was mainly abandoned to pasturage. Though certain districts

retained a measure of prosperity, e.g. Thessaly, Phocis, Elis, Argos and

Laconia, huge tracts stood depopulated and many notable cities had sunk

into ruins; Aetolia, Acarnania and Epirus never recovered from the

effects of former wars and from the withdrawal of their surviving

inhabitants into Nicopolis. Such wealth as remained was amassed in the

hands of a few great landowners and capitalists; the middle class

continued to dwindle, and large numbers of the people were reduced to

earning a precarious subsistence, supplemented by frequent doles and

largesses.

The social aspect of Greek life henceforward becomes its most attractive

feature. After a long period of storm and stress, the European Hellenes

had relapsed into a quiet and resigned frame of mind which stands in

sharp contrast on the one hand with the energy and ability, and on the

other with the vulgar intriguing of their Asiatic kinsmen. Seeing no

future before them, the inhabitants were content to dwell in

contemplation amid the glories of the past. National pride was fostered

by the undisguised respect with which the leading Romans of the age

treated Hellenic culture. And although this sentiment could degenerate

into antiquarian pedantry and vanity, such as finds its climax in the

diatribes of Apollonius of Tyana against the "barbarians," it prevented

the nation from sinking into some of the worst vices of the age. A

healthy social tone repressed extravagant luxury and the ostentatious

display of wealth, and good taste long checked the spread of

gladiatorial contests beyond the Italian community of Corinth. The most

widespread abuse of that period, the adulation and adoration of

emperors, was indeed introduced into European Greece and formed an

essential feature of the proceedings at the Delphic amphictyony, but it

never absorbed the energies of the people in the same way as it did in

Asia. In order to perpetuate their old culture, the Greeks continued to

set great store by classical education, and in Athens they possessed an

academic centre which gradually became the chief university of the Roman

empire. The highest representatives of this type of old-world refinement

are to be found in Dio Chrysostom and especially in Plutarch of

Chaeroneia (q.v.).

The relations between European Greece and Rome were practically confined

to the sphere of scholarship. The Hellenes had so far lost their warlike

qualities that they supplied scarcely any recruits to the army. They

retained too much local patriotism to crowd into the official careers of

senators or imperial servants. Although in the 1st century A.D. the

astute Greek man of affairs and the _Graeculus esuriens_ of Juvenal

abounded in Rome, both these classes were mainly derived from the less

pure-blooded population beyond the Aegean.

The influx of Greek rhetoricians and professors into Italy during the

2nd and 3rd centuries was balanced by the large number of travellers who

came to Greece to frequent its sanatoria, and especially to admire its

works of art; the abundance in which these latter were preserved is

strikingly attested in the extant record of Pausanias (about A.D. 170).

Roman administration.

The experience of the Greeks under their earliest governors seems to

have been unfortunate, for in A.D. 15 they petitioned Tiberius to

transfer the administration to an imperial legate. This new arrangement

was sanctioned, but only lasted till A.D. 44, when Claudius restored the

province to the senate. The proconsuls of the later 1st and 2nd

centuries were sometimes ill qualified for their posts, but cases of

oppression are seldom recorded against them. The years 66 and 67 were

marked by a visit of the emperor Nero, who made a prolonged tour through

Greece in order to display his artistic accomplishments at the various

national festivals. In return for the flattering reception accorded to

him he bestowed freedom and exemption from tribute upon the country. But

this favour was almost neutralized by the wholesale depredations which

he committed among the chief collections of art. A scheme for cutting

through the Corinthian isthmus and so reviving the Greek carrying trade

was inaugurated in his presence, but soon abandoned.

As Nero's grant of self-government brought about a recrudescence of

misplaced ambition and party strife, Vespasian revoked the gift and

turned Achaea again into a province, at the same time burdening it with

increased taxes. In the 2nd century a succession of genuinely

phil-Hellenic emperors made serious attempts to revive the nation's

prosperity. Important material benefits were conferred by Hadrian, who

made a lengthy visit to Greece. Besides erecting useful public works in

many cities, he relieved Achaea of its arrears of tribute and exempted

it from various imposts. In order to check extravagance on the part of

the free cities, he greatly extended the practice of placing them under

the supervision of imperial functionaries known as _correctores_.

Hadrian fostered national sentiment by establishing a new pan-Hellenic

congress at Athens, while he gave recognition to the increasing

ascendancy of Hellenic culture at Rome by his institution of the

Athenaeum.

In the 3rd century the only political event of importance was the edict

of Caracalla which threw open the Roman citizenship to large numbers of

provincials. Its chief effect in Greece was to diminish the

preponderance of the wealthy classes, who formerly had used their riches

to purchase the franchise and so to secure exemption from taxation. The

chief feature of this period is the renewal of the danger from foreign

invasions. Already in 175 a tribe named Costoboci had penetrated into

central Greece, but was there broken up by the local militia. In 253 a

threatened attack was averted by the stubborn resistance of

Thessalonica. In 267-268 the province was overrun by Gothic bands, which

captured Athens and some other towns, but were finally repulsed by the

Attic levies and exterminated with the help of a Roman fleet.

(iii.) _The Late Roman Empire._--After the reorganization of the empire

by Diocletian, Achaea occupied a prominent position in the "diocese" of

Macedonia. Under Constantine I. it was included in the "prefecture" of

Illyricum. It was subdivided into the "eparchies" of Hellas,

Peloponnesus, Nicopolis and the islands, with headquarters at Thebes,

Corinth, Nicopolis and Samos. Thessaly was incorporated with Macedonia.

A complex hierarchy of imperial officials was now introduced and the

system of taxation elaborated so as to yield a steady revenue to the

central power. The levying of the land-tax was imposed upon the [Greek:

dekaprotoi] or "ten leading men," who, like the Latin _decuriones_, were

entrusted henceforth with the administration in most cities. The

tendency to reduce all constitutions to the Roman municipal pattern

became prevalent under the rulers of this period, and the greater number

of them was stereotyped by the general regulations of the Codex

Theodosianus (438). Although the elevation of Constantinople to the rank

of capital was prejudicial to Greece, which felt the competition of the

new centre of culture and learning and had to part with numerous works

of art destined to embellish its privileged neighbour, the general level

of prosperity in the 4th century was rising. Commercial stagnation was

checked by a renewed expansion of trade consequent upon the diversion of

the trade routes to the east from Egypt to the Euxine and Aegean Seas.

Agriculture remained in a depressed condition, and many small

proprietors were reduced to serfdom; but the fiscal interests of the

government called for the good treatment of this class, whose growth at

the expense of the slaves was an important step in the gradual

equalization of the entire population under the central despotism which

restored solidarity to the Greek nation.

This prosperity received a sharp set-back by a series of unusually

severe earthquakes in 375 and by the irruption of a host of Visigoths

under Alaric (395-396), whom the imperial officers allowed to overrun

the whole land unmolested and the local levies were unable to check.

Though ultimately hunted down in Arcadia and induced to leave the

province, Alaric had time to execute systematic devastations which

crippled Greece for several decades. The arrears of taxation which

accumulated in consequence were remitted by Theodosius II. in 428.

The emperors of the 4th century made several attempts to stamp out by

edict the old pagan religion, which, with its accompaniment of

festivals, oracles and mysteries, still maintained an outward appearance

of vigour, and, along with the philosophy in which the intellectual

classes found comfort, retained the affection of the Greeks. Except for

the decree of Theodosius I. by which the Olympian games were interdicted

(394), these measures had no great effect, and indeed were not

rigorously enforced. Paganism survived in Greece till about 600, but the

interchange of ideas and practices which the long-continued contact with

Christianity had effected considerably modified its character. Hence the

Christian religion, though slow in making its way, eventually gained a

sure footing among a nation which accepted it spontaneously. The hold of

the Church upon the Greeks was strengthened by the judicious manner in

which the clergy, unsupported by official patronage and often out of

sympathy with the Arian emperors, identified itself with the interests

of the people. Though in the days when the orthodox Church found favour

at court corruption spread among its higher branches, the clergy as a

whole rendered conspicuous service in opposing the arbitrary

interferences of the central government and in upholding the use of the

Hellenic tongue, together with some rudiments of Hellenic culture.

The separation of the eastern and western provinces of the empire

ultimately had an important effect in restoring the language and customs

of Greece to their predominant position in the Levant. This result,

however, was long retarded by the romanizing policy of Constantine and

his successors. The emperors of the 5th and 6th centuries had no regard

for Greek culture, and Justinian I. actively counteracted Hellenism by

propagating Roman law in Greece, by impairing the powers of the

self-governing cities, and by closing the philosophical schools at

Athens (529). In course of time the inhabitants had so far forgotten

their ancient culture that they abandoned the name of Hellenes for that

of Romans (_Rhomaioi_). For a long time Greece continued to be an

obscure and neglected province, with no interests beyond its church and

its commercial operations, and its culture declined rapidly. Its history

for some centuries dwindles into a record of barbarian invasions which,

in addition to occasional plagues and earthquakes, seem to have been the

only events found worthy of record by the contemporary chroniclers.

In the 5th century Greece was only subjected to brief raids by Vandal

pirates (466-474) and Ostrogoths (482). In Justinian's reign irruptions

by Huns and Avars took place, but led to no far-reaching results. The

emperor had endeavoured to strengthen the country's defences by

repairing the fortifications of cities and frontier posts (530), but his

policy of supplanting the local guards by imperial troops and so

rendering the natives incapable of self-defence was ill-advised;

fortunately it was never carried out with energy, and so the Greek

militias were occasionally able to render good service against invaders.

Slavonic immigrations.

Towards the end of the century mention is made for the first time of an

incursion by Slavonic tribes (581). These invaders are to be regarded as

merely the forerunners of a steady movement of immigration by which a

considerable part of Greece passed for a time into foreign hands. It is

doubtful how far the newcomers won their territory by force of arms; in

view of the desolation of many rural tracts, which had long been in

progress as a result of economic changes, it seems probable that

numerous settlements were made on unoccupied land and did not challenge

serious opposition. At any rate the effect upon the Greek population was

merely to accelerate its emigration from the interior to the coastland

and the cities. The foreigners, consisting mainly of Slovenes and Wends,

occupied the mountainous inland, where they mostly led a pastoral life;

the natives retained some strips of plain and dwelt secure in their

walled towns, among which the newly-built fortresses of Monemvasia,

Corone and Calamata soon rose to prosperity. The Slavonic element, to

judge by the geographical names in that tongue which survive in Greece,

is specially marked in N.W. Greece and Peloponnesus; central Greece

appears to have been protected against them by the fortress-square of

Chalcis, Thebes, Corinth and Athens. For a long time the two nations

dwelt side by side without either displacing the other. The Slavs were

too rude and poor, and too much distracted with cantonal feuds, to make

any further headway; the Greeks, unused to arms and engrossed in

commerce, were content to adopt a passive attitude. The central

government took no steps to dislodge the invaders, until in 783 the

empress Irene sent an expedition which reduced most of the tribes to pay

tribute. In 810 a desperate attempt by the Slavs to capture Patrae was

foiled; henceforth their power steadily decreased and their submission

to the emperor was made complete by 850. A powerful factor in their

subjugation was the Greek clergy, who by the 10th century had

christianized and largely hellenized all the foreigners save a remnant

in the peninsula of Maina.

II. THE BYZANTINE PERIOD.--In the 7th century the Greek language made

its way into the imperial army and civil service, but European Greece

continued to have little voice in the administration. The land was

divided into four "themes" under a yearly appointed civil and military

governor. Imperial troops were stationed at the chief strategic points,

while the natives contributed ships for naval defence. During the

dispute about images the Greeks were the backbone of the

image-worshipping party, and the iconoclastic edicts of Leo III. led to

a revolt in 727 which, however, was easily crushed by the imperial

fleet; a similar movement in 823, when the Greeks sent 350 ships to aid

a pretender, met with the same fate. The firm government of the Isaurian

dynasty seems to have benefited Greece, whose commerce and industry

again became flourishing. In spite of occasional set-backs due to the

depredations of pirates, notably the Arab corsairs who visited the

Aegean from the 7th century onwards, the Greeks remained the chief

carriers in the Levant until the rise of the Italian republics,

supplying all Europe with its silk fabrics.

In the 10th century Greece experienced a renewal of raids from the

Balkan tribes. The Bulgarians made incursions after 929 and sometimes

penetrated to the Isthmus; but they mostly failed to capture the cities,

and in 995 their strength was broken by a crushing defeat on the

Spercheius at the hands of the Byzantine army. Yet their devastations

greatly thinned the population of northern Greece, and after 1084

Thessaly was occupied without resistance by nomad tribes of Vlachs. In

1084 also Greece was subjected to the first attack from the new nations

of the west, when the Sicilian Normans gained a footing in the Ionian

islands. The same people made a notable raid upon the seaboard of Greece

in 1145-1146, and sacked the cities of Thebes and Corinth. The Venetians

also appear as rivals of the Greeks, and after 1122 their encroachments

in the Aegean Sea never ceased.

In spite of these attacks, the country on the whole maintained its

prosperity. The travellers Idrisi of Palermo (1153) and Benjamin of

Tudela (1161) testify to the briskness of commerce, which induced many

foreign merchants to take up their residence in Greece. But this

prosperity revived an aristocracy of wealth which used its riches and

power for purely selfish ends, and under the increasing laxity of

imperial control the _archontes_ or municipal rulers often combined with

the clergy in oppressing the poorer classes. Least of all were these

nobles prepared to become the champions of Greece against foreign

invaders at a time when they alone could have organized an effectual

resistance.

III. _The Latin Occupation and Turkish Conquest._--The capture of

Constantinople and dissolution of the Byzantine empire by the Latins

(1204) brought in its train an invasion of Greece by Frankish barons

eager for new territory. The natives, who had long forgotten the use of

arms and dreaded no worse oppression from their new masters, submitted

almost without resistance, and only the N.W. corner of Greece, where

Michael Angelus, a Byzantine prince, founded the "despotat" of Epirus,

was saved from foreign occupation. The rest of the country was divided

up between a number of Frankish barons, chief among whom were the dukes

of Achaea (or Peloponnese) and "grand signors" of Thebes and Athens, the

Venetians, who held naval stations at different points and the island of

Crete, and various Italian adventurers who mainly settled in the

Cyclades. The conquerors transplanted their own language, customs and

religion to their new possessions, and endeavoured to institute the

feudal system of land-tenure. Yet recognizing the superiority of Greek

civil institutions they allowed the natives to retain their law and

internal administration and confirmed proprietors in possession of their

land on payment of a rent; the Greek church was subordinated to the

Roman archbishops, but upheld its former control over the people. The

commerce and industry of the Greek cities was hardly affected by the

change of government.

Greek history during the Latin occupation loses its unity and has to be

followed in several threads. In the north the "despots" of Epirus

extended their rule to Thessaly and Macedonia, but eventually were

repulsed by the Asiatic Greeks of Nicaea, and after a decisive defeat at

Pelagonia (1259) reduced to a small dominion round Iannina. Thessaly

continued to change masters rapidly. Till 1308 it was governed by a

branch line of the Epirote dynasty. When this family died out it fell to

the Grand Catalan Company; in 1350 it was conquered along with Epirus by

Stephen Dushan, king of Servia. About 1397 it was annexed by the Ottoman

Turks, who after 1431 also gradually wrested Epirus from its latest

possessors, the Beneventine family of Tocco (1390-1469).

The leading power in central Greece was the Burgundian house de la

Roche, which established a mild and judicious government in Boeotia and

Attica and in 1261 was raised to ducal rank by the French king Louis IX.

A conflict with the Grand Catalan Company resulted in a disastrous

defeat of the Franks on the Boeotian Cephissus (1311) and the occupation

of central Greece by the Spanish mercenaries, who seized for themselves

the barons' fiefs and installed princes from the Sicilian house of

Aragon as "dukes of Athens and Neopatras" (Thessaly). After seventy-five

years of oppressive rule and constant wars with their neighbours the

Catalans were expelled by the Peloponnesian baron Nerio Acciaiuoli. The

new dynasty, whose peaceful government revived its subjects' industry,

became tributary to the Turks about 1415, but was deposed by Sultan

Mahommed II., who annexed central Greece in 1456.

The conquest of the Peloponnese was effected by two French knights,

William Champlitte and Geoffrey Villehardouin, the latter of whom

founded a dynasty of "princes of all Achaea." The rulers of this line

were men of ability, who controlled their barons and spiritual vassals

with a firm hand and established good order throughout their province.

The Franks of the Morea maintained as high a standard of culture as

their compatriots at home, while the natives grew rich enough from

their industry to pay considerable taxes without discontent. The climax

of the Villehardouins' power was attained under Prince William, who

subdued the last independent cities of the coast and the mountaineers of

Maina (1246-1248). In 1259, however, the same ruler was involved in the

war between the rulers of Epirus and Nicaea, and being captured at the

battle of Pelagonia, could only ransom himself by the cession of Laconia

to the restored Byzantine empire. This new dependency after 1349 was

treated with great care by the Byzantine monarchs, who sought to repress

the violence of the local aristocracies by sending their kinsmen to

govern under the title of "despots." On the other hand, with the

extinction of the Villehardouin dynasty the Frankish province fell more

and more into anarchy; at the same time the numbers of the foreigners

were constantly dwindling through war, and as they disdained to recruit

them by intermarriage, the preponderance of the native element in the

Morea eventually became complete. Thus by 1400 the Byzantines were

enabled to recover control over almost the whole peninsula and apportion

it among several "despots." But the mutual quarrels of these princes

soon proved fatal to their rule. Already in the 14th century they had

employed Albanians and the Turkish pirates who harried their coasts as

auxiliaries in their wars. The Albanians largely remained as settlers,

and the connexion with the Turks could no longer be shaken off. In spite

of attempts to fortify the Isthmus (1415) an Ottoman army penetrated

into Morea and deported many inhabitants in 1423. An invasion of central

Greece by the despot Constantine was punished by renewed raids in 1446

and 1450. In 1457 the despot Thomas withheld the tribute which he had

recently stipulated to pay, but was reduced to obedience by an

expedition under Mahommed II. (1458). A renewed revolt in 1459 was

punished by an invasion attended with executions and deportations on a

large scale, and by the annexation of the Morea to Turkey (1460).

IV. _The Turkish Dominion till 1800._--Under the Ottoman government

Greece was split up into six _sanjaks_ or military divisions: (1) Morea,

(2) Epirus, (3) Thessaly, (4) Euboea, Boeotia and Attica, (5) Aetolia

and Acarnania, (6) the rest of central Greece, with capitals at Nauplia,

Jannina, Trikkala, Negropont (Chalkis), Karlili and Lepanto; further

divisions were subsequently composed of Crete and the islands. In each

_sanjak_ a number of fiefs was apportioned to Turkish settlers, who were

bound in return to furnish some mounted men for the sultan's army, the

total force thus held in readiness being over 7000. The local government

was left in the hands of the archontes or primates in each community,

who also undertook the farming of the taxes and the policing of their

districts. Law was usually administered by the Greek clergy. The natives

were not burdened with large imposts, but the levying of the land-tithes

was effected in an inconvenient fashion, and the capitation-tax, to

which all Christians were subjected was felt as a humiliation. A further

grievance lay in the requisitions of forced labour which the pashas were

entitled to call for; but the most galling exaction was the tribute of

children for the recruiting of the Janissaries (q.v.), which was often

levied with great ruthlessness. The habitual weakness of the central

government also left the Greeks exposed to frequent oppression by the

Turkish residents and by their own magistrates and clergy. But the new

rulers met with singularly little opposition. The dangerous elements of

the population had been cleared away by Mahommed's executions; the rest

were content to absorb their energies in agriculture and commerce, which

in spite of preferential duties and capitulations to foreign powers

largely fell again into the hands of Greeks. Another important

instrument by which the people were kept down was their own clergy, whom

the Turkish rulers treated with marked favour and so induced to

acquiesce in their dominion.

In the following centuries Greece was often the theatre of war in which

the Greeks played but a passive part. Several wars with Venice (1463-79,

1498-1504) put the Turks in possession of the last Italian strongholds

on the mainland. But the issue was mainly fought out on sea; the

conflicts which had never ceased in the Aegean since the coming of the

Italians now grew fiercer than ever; Greek ships and sailors were

frequently requisitioned for the Turkish fleets, and the damage done to

the Greek seaboard by the belligerents and by fleets of adventurers and

corsairs brought about the depopulation of many islands and

coast-strips. The conquest of the Aegean by the Ottomans was completed

by 1570; but Venice retained Crete till 1669 and never lost Corfu until

its cession to France in 1797.

In 1684 the Venetians took advantage of the preoccupation of Turkey on

the Danube to attack the Morea. A small mercenary army under Francesco

Morosini captured the strong places with remarkable ease, and by 1687

had conquered almost the whole peninsula. In 1687 the invaders also

captured Athens and Lepanto; but the former town had soon to be

abandoned, and with their failure to capture Negropont (1688) the

Venetians were brought to a standstill. By the peace of Karlowitz (1699)

the Morea became a possession of Venice. The new rulers, in spite of the

commercial restrictions which they imposed in favour of their own

traders, checked the impoverishment and decrease of population (from

300,000 to 86,000) which the war had caused. By their attempts to

cooperate with the native magistrates and the mildness of their

administration they improved the spirit of their subjects. But they

failed to make their government popular, and when in 1715 the Ottomans

with a large and well-disciplined army set themselves to recover the

Morea, the Venetians were left without support from the Greeks. The

peninsula was rapidly recaptured and by the peace of Passarowitz (1718)

again became a Turkish dependency. The gaps left about this time in the

Greek population were largely made up by an immigration from Albania.

The condition of the Greeks in the 18th century showed a great

improvement which gave rise to yet greater hopes. Already in the 17th

century the personal services of the subjects had been commuted into

money contributions, and since 1676 the tribute of children fell into

abeyance. The increasing use of Greek officials in the Turkish civil

service, coupled with the privileges accorded to the Greek clergy

throughout the Balkan countries, tended to recall the consciousness of

former days of predominance in the Levant. Lastly, the education of the

Greeks, which had always remained on a comparatively high level, was

rapidly improved by the foundation of new schools and academies.

The long neglect which Greece had experienced at the hands of the

European Powers was broken in 1764, when Russian agents appeared in the

country with promises of a speedy deliverance from the Turks. A small

expedition under Feodor and Alexis Orloff actually landed in the Morea

in 1769, but failed to rouse national sentiment. Although the Russian

fleet gained a notable victory off Chesme near Chios, a heavy defeat

near Tripolitza ruined the prospects of the army. The Albanian troops in

the Turkish army subsequently ravaged the country far and wide, until in

1779 they were exterminated by a force of Turkish regulars. In 1774 a

concession, embodied in the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, by which Greek

traders were allowed to sail under the protection of the Russian flag,

marked an important step in the rehabilitation of the country as an

independent power. Greek commerce henceforth spread swiftly over the

Mediterranean, and increased intercourse developed a new sense of

Hellenic unity. Among the pioneers who fostered this movement should be

mentioned Constantine Rhigas, the "modern Tyrtaeus," and Adamantios

Coraes (q.v.), the reformer of the Greek tongue. The revived memories of

ancient Hellas and the impression created by the French revolution

combined to give the final impulse which made the Greeks strike for

freedom. By 1800 the population of Greece had increased to 1,000,000,

and although 200,000 of these were Albanians, the common aversion to the

Moslem united the two races. The military resources of the country alone

remained deficient, for the _armatoli_ or local militias, which had

never been quite disbanded since Byzantine times, were at last

suppressed by Ali Pasha of Iannina and found but a poor substitute in

the klephts who henceforth spring into prominence. But at the first sign

of weakness in the Turkish dominion the Greek nation was ready to rise,

and the actual outbreak of revolt had become merely a question of time.

AUTHORITIES.--General: G. Finlay, _History of Greece_ (ed. Tozer,

Oxford, 1877), especially vols. i., iv., v.; K. Paparrhigopoulos,

[Greek: Historia tou Hellenikou ethnous] (4th ed., Athens, 1903),

vols. ii.-v.; _Histoire de la civilisation hellenique_ (Paris, 1878);

R. v. Scala, _Das Griechentum seit Alexander dem Grossen_ (Leipzig and

Vienna, 1904); and specially W. Miller, _The Latins in the Levant_

(1908).

Special--(a) The Roman period: Strabo, bks. viii.-x.; Pausanias,

_Descriptio Graeciae_; G. F. Hertzberg, _Die Geschichte Griechenlands

unter der Herrschaft der Romer_ (Halle, 1866-1875); Sp. Lampros,

[Greek: Historia tes Hellados] (Athens, 1888 sqq.), vol. iii.; A.

Holm, _History of Greece_ (Eng. trans., London, 1894-1898). vol. iv.,

chs. 19, 24, 26, 28 seq.; Th. Mommsen, _The Provinces of the Roman

Empire_ (Eng. trans., London, 1886, ch. 7); J. P. Mahaffy, _The Greek

World under Roman Sway, from Polybius to Plutarch_ (London, 1890); W.

Miller, "The Romans in Greece" (_Westminster Review_, August 1903, pp.

186-210); L. Friedlander, "Griechenland unter den Romern" (_Deutsche

Rundschau_, 1899, pp. 251-274, 402-430). (b) The Byzantine and Latin

periods: G. F. Hertzberg, _Geschichte Griechenlands seit dem Absterben

des antiken Lebens_ (Gotha, 1876-1879), vols. i., ii.; C. Hopf,

_Geschichte Griechenlands im Mittelalter_ (Leipzig, 1868); J. A.

Buchon, _Histoire des conquetes et de l'etablissement des Francais

dans les Etats de l'ancienne Grece_ (Paris, 1846); G. Schmitt, _The

Chronicle of Morea_ (London, 1904); W. Miller, "The Princes of the

Peloponnese" (_Quarterly Review_, July 1905, pp. 109-135); D. Bikelas,

_Seven Essays on Christian Greece_ (Paisley and London, 1890); _La

Grece byzantine et moderne_ (Paris, 1893), pp. 1-193. (c) The Turkish

and Venetian periods: Hertzberg, _op. cit._, vol. iii.; K. M.

Bartholdy, _Geschichte Griechenlands von der Eroberung

Konstantinopels_ (Leipzig, 1870), bks. i. and ii., pp. 1-155; K. N.

Sathas, [Greek: Tourkokratoumene Hellas] (Athens, 1869); W. Miller,

"Greece under the Turks" (_Westminster Review_, August and September

1904, pp. 195-210, 304-320; _English Historical Review_, 1904, pp.

646-668); L. Ranke, "Die Venetianer in Morea" (_Historisch-politische

Zeitschrift_, ii. 405-502). (d) Special subjects: Religion. E. Hatch,

_The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church_

(London, 1890). Ethnology. J. P. Fallmerayer, _Geschichte der

Halbinsel Morea wahrend des Mittelalters_ (Stuttgart and Tubingen,

1830); S. Zampelios, [Greek: Peri pegon neoellenikes ethnotetos]

(Athens, 1857); A. Philippson, "Zur Ethnographie des Peloponnes"

[_Petermann's Mitteilungen_ 36 (1890), pp. 1-11, 33-41]; A. Vasiljev,

"Die Slaven in Griechenland" [_Vizantijsky Vremennik_, St Petersburg,

5 (1898), pp. 404-438, 626-670].