Greece

GREECE is aEuropean kingdom, occupying the southern portion of the most easterly of the three peninsulas which Europe projects into the Mediterranean. By its own inhabitants it is called Hellas, as it was also in antiquity, and the name Greece, by which in one form or other it is known in most European languages, was given to it by the Romans, and was not used by any Greek writer, so far as wa know, before Aristotle. Why the Romans called it so is an obscure point, but the most probable and usually accepted explanation is that they gained their first knowledge of the country from a tribe in the north-west of Greece who were called Graeci (Γραικοί), and that they accordingly gave the name of that tribe to the whole country. The name Greece or Hellas has been applied at different times to territory of widely different extent. At first Hellas denoted nothing but the spot in Thessaly where the tribe of Hellenes dwelt, and in later times, after Philip of Macedon obtained a seat at the Amphictyonie council, it meant the whole peninsula south of the Balkan mountains (Haemus) including Macedonia and Thrace; but at the period of its greatest distinction it excluded these two regions, and was restricted to the part of the peninsula to the south of the Cambunian range and the islands of the surrounding seas. Its ancient limits, however, cannot be rigidly defined, for (1) its northern frontier seems never to have been precisely settled, some writers excluding Thessaly which was generally taken in, and others including part of Epirus which was generally left out; and (2) the name Hellas expressed not so much a geographical as an ethnological unity. It was the country of the Hellenes. Wherever Greeks settled there was Hellas, and a Greek colony in Sicily or Africa wa3 thought to participate as essentially in all that constituted Hellas as either Attica or Lacedaemon. Still the name was usually applied to the land which formed the geographical centre of the race, of which the greatest length was 250 miles and the greatest breadth 180, and which had an area, exclusive of Epirus (4690 square miles) but including Euboea (1410 square miles), of 21,121 square miles. This territory comprised (1) Northern Greece, all north of the Maliac (Zeitoum) and Ambracian (Arta) Gulfs; (2) Central Greece, extending from these gulfs to the isthmus of Corinth; (3) the peninsula of the Peloponnesus (Morea) to the south of the isthmus; (4) the following islands,—Euboea (Negropont) in the east, the Ionian Islands in the Ionian Sea on the west, Crete and Cyprus in the south, and the Cyclades and Sporades across the mouth of the Aegean from the south-east headlands of Attica and Euboea. Continental Greece— i.e., all the country now specified, exclusive of the islands—consists of a series of natural cantons, hedged from one another and from the outer world by mountain ranges from 5000 to 8000 feet high, and so was almost by a physical necessity occupied in the times of its ancient political independence by seventeen separate states, none of which was larger than an ordinary English county. The whole eight states of the Peloponnesus covered less area than York and Lancaster together; and Attica, the most celebrated state of antiquity, was less than Cornwall. These states, which are noticed separately under the special headings, were—Thessaly in North Greece; Acamania, Aetolia, Locris, Doris, Phocis, Megaris, Boeotia, and Attica in Central Greece; and Corinthia, Sicyonia, Achaia, Elis, Messenia, Laconia, Argolis, and Arcadia in the Peloponnesus.

Modern Greece is of smaller extent, and its limits are strictly determined by the arrangement between Great Britain, France, Russia, and Turkey, concluded at Constantinople on the 21st [9th] July 1832, which finally settled the question of frontier between Greece and Turkey. It left to Turkey the fertile Greek-speaking province of Thessaly and part of Acarnania, and fixed the northern boundary of Greece at a line running from the Gulf of Arta (Sinus Ambracius) to the Gulf of Volo (S. Pagasaeus), keeping along the crest of the Othrys mountain range. The pass of Khlomo was to belong entirely to Greece, and the fort of Punta (Actium) at the southern head of the Gulf of Arta was to continue to belong to Turkey, though Greek vessels were required to have free entry into the gulf. The Ionian islands, consisting of Corfu (Corcyra), Paxo (Paxos), Santa Maura (Leucas), Cephalonia, Thiake (Ithaca), and Zante (Zacynthus) on the west coast of Greece, and Cerigo (Cythera) on the south, which had remained under British protectorate for 50 years, were voluntarily ceded by Britain to Greece in 1864, after the accession of king George. Modern Greece is not more than two-thirds the size of Scotland; it is 200 miles long from north to south, and 180 broad from east to west, and has an entire area of 19,353 square miles, of which 8288 square miles are in the Morea, 7558 in the northern part of continental Greece, 2500 in the islands of the Aegean, and 1007 in the Ionian Islands.

Its most obvious geographical peculiarity is its remarkable richness in mountains, bays, and islands, which give it unexampled natural defences, unusual maritime facilities, and quite a peculiar variety of climate, vegetation, and scenery. In this respect it but gathers into a smaller page and expresses in distincter type the structural peculiarities of the continent to which it belongs. In the complexity of its make and the variety of its natural features Greece excels every country of Europe, as Europe excels every continent of the world. No part of Greece is 40 miles from the sea or 10 from the hills. Though not much more than half the size of Portugal, it has a coast-line greater than that of Spain, and Portugal together, and that coastline is broken everywhere into all manner of gulfs, and bays, and inlets, affording a rich supply of good natural harbours. The country is divided by its mountain chains into a number of independent parts, the capture of one of which by an cnemy is but a single step towards possession of the whole. The small basins of arable land between these hills maintained comparatively isolated populations, on account of the difficulty of inland intercommunication, and naturally developed that individuality of character, that local patriotism, and that political independence, which marked the ancient Greek communities. And the great variety of pursuit, interest, and stimulus which the geographical features of the country created could not fail to conduce to the uncommon mental vigour, quickness, and versatility which the people exhibited. The Greeks therefore owed their greatness largely to the country it was their fortune to dwell in.

The ruling feature in the mountain system of ancient Greece—and, to a certain extent, in modern Greece also—is the great chain of Pindus, which takes its rise in the Balkans (Haemus), and runs like a backbone through the entire length of the northern half of the peninsula, throwing out various branches to the east and the west on its way. At about 40° N. lat. the Cambunians leave it and go east, forming the boundary between Macedonia (Roumelia) and Thessaly, and as they approach the coast they turn in a southerly direction at the lofty and famous Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in ancient Greece, and are continued at intervals, on the other side of the vale of Tempe, by Ossa (Kissovo), Pelion (Zagora), and the hills of Euboea. At 39° the Othrys chain (Helloro), whose chief elevation is the conical Mount Veluchi (Tymphrestus), is sent out also to the east, and forms the northern bulwark of the present kingdom. A little further south the Oeta range (Katavothra) goes in the same direction, and reaches the Gulf of Zeitoum (Maliac Gulf) at the celebrated pass of Thermopylae. The Cambunian chain intersects Pindus at Mount Lacmon (Zygo), and thence westward the chain passes under the name of Taenarus and the Ceraunian Hills (Montes Acroceraunii) till it enters the sea at the Acroceraunian promontory (Cape Linguelta). From the point of junction with the Othrys, the Pindus chain is continued southwards in a.series of separate peaks—Parnassus (Liakura), Helicon, Cithaeron, Parnes, and Hymettus, on to the promontory of Sunium (Cape Colonna) in the southeast of Attica. Parnes divides Attica from Boeotia. The mountains of the Morea have no connexion with the mountain system of Northern Greece; they do not run in chains, but rather cluster in knots. The most important of these are Ziria (Cyllene), Khelmos, Olonos, and the range of Pentedaktylon (Taygetus), which stretches from the centre of Arcadia through the length of Laconia to Cape Matapan (Taenarum), and is the most imposing of all the mountains of Greece. The hegemony of Sparta in the Peloponnesus is attributed by some to its possessing both sides of this chain. Its highest point is Mount St Elias, called, like several other Greek mountains, after the prophet Elijah. None of the mountains of Greece is within the line of perpetual snow, though the tops of several are white for some months in the year. What is peculiar to Greece is not the presence of any one hill of pre-eminent height, but the great number it possesses of considerable and nearly equal elevation. Modern Greece has no summit so high as Olympus (9754 feet), but within its narrow area it has twenty-six hills above 3000 feet, of which eight are above 7000 feet, viz., Parnassus (8068), Taygetus (7904), Tymphrestus (7610). (Eta (7071), the three summits of Cyllene in Arcadia (7788), and Corax in Aetolia. The noted fortified hills of Greece were Acrocorinthus (1686 feet) which guards the isthmus, Ithome (2631 feet) at Messene, Larissa (900 feet) at Argos, and the Acropolis (150) at Athens.

Greece has few rivers, and these small, rapid, and, as a rule, turbid, as they could not help being in a country where they rise in high mountains and have no space to grow in before they reach the sea. They are either perennial rivers or torrents, the white beds of the latter being dry in summer, and only filled with water after the autumn rains. The chief rivers (none of which are navigable) are the Hellada (Sperchius) in Phthiotis, the Aspro Potamo (Achelous) in Aetolia, and the Roufia (Alpheus) and Vasiliko (Eurotas) in the Morea. Of the famous rivers of Athens, the one, the Ilissus, is only a chain of pools all summer, and the other, the Cephissus, though never absolutely dry, does not reach the sea, but is drawn off in numerous artificial channels to irrigate the neighbouring olive groves. The waters of both are clear and delicious to the taste. A frequent peculiarity of the Greek rivers is their sudden disappearance in subterranean chasms and reappearance on the surface again, such as gave rise to the fabled course of the Alpheus under the sea, and its emergence again in the fountain of Arethusa in Syracuse. Some of these chasms—“Katavothras ”—are merely sieves with herbage and gravel in the bottom, but others are large caverns through which the course of the river may be easily followed. Floods are frequent, especially in autumn, and natural fountains abound and gush out even from the tops of the hills. Aganippe rises high up among the peaks of Helicon, and Peirene flows from the summit of Acrocorinthus. It is surprising that there are no waterfalls in Greece, the only one worth mentioning being the famous Styx in Arcadia, which has a fall of 500 feet. During part of the year it is lost in the snow, and it is at all times almost inaccessible. Lakes are numerous, but few are of any size, and many merely marshes in summer. The largest are Trichonis in Aetolia, Copais in Boeotia, and Stymphalus in Arcadia.

The valleys are generally narrow, and the plains small in extent, deep basins walled in among the hills or more free at the mouths of the rivers. The principal plains are those of Thessaly (which is not in modem Greece), Boeotia, Messenia, Argos, and Marathon. The bottom of these plains consists of an alluvial soil, the most fertile in Greece. In some of the mountainous regions, especially in the Morea, are extensive table-lands. The plain of Mantinea is 2000 feet high, and the upland district of Sciritis, between Sparta and Tegea, is in some parts 3000 feet.

Strabo said that the guiding thing in the geography of Greece was the sea, which presses in upon it at all parts with a thousand arms. From the Gulf of Arta on the one side to the Gulf of Volo on the other the coast is indented with a succession of natural bays and gulfs. The most important are the Gulfs of Aegina (Saronicus) and Lepanto (Corinthiacus), which come in between the Morea and the northern mainland of Greece,—the first from the Aegean, the second from the Ionian Sea,—and are only prevented from joining their waters by the high land of the narrow isthmus of Corinth (3⅛ miles wide). The outer portion of the Gulf of Lepanto is called the Gulf of Patras, and the inner part the Bay of Corinth, and a narrow bay on the north side of the same gulf, called the Bay of Salona, penetrates northwards into Phocis so far that it is within 24 geographical miles of the Gulf of Zeitoum on the northeast coast of Greece. The width of the entrance to the gulf of Lepanto is subject to singular changes, which are ascribed to the formation of alluvial deposits by certain marine currents, and their removal again by others. At the time of the Peloponnesian war this channel was 1200 yards broad; in the time of Strabo it was only 850; and in our own day it has again increased to 2200. On the coast of the Morea there are several large gulfs, that of Arcadia (Cyparissus) on the west, Kalamatia (Messeniacus) and Kolokythia (Laconicus) on the south, and Nauplia (Argolicus) on the east. Then between Euboea and the mainland lie the channel of Talanti (Euboicum Mare) and the channel of Egripo, which are connected by the strait of Egripo (Euripus). This strait, which is spanned by a bridge, is 120 feet wide, and is remarkable for the unexplained eccentricity of its tide, which has puzzled ancients and moderns alike. The current runs at the rate of 8 miles an hour, but continues only for a short time in one direction, changing its course, it is said, ten or twelve times in a day.

There are no volcanoes on the mainland of Greece, but everywhere traces of volcanic action and frequently visitations of earthquakes, for it lies near a centre of volcanic agency, the island of Santorin, which has been within recent years in a state of eruption. There is an extinct crater at Mount Laphystium in Boeotia. The mountain of Methane, on the coast of Argolis, was produced by a volcanic eruption in 282 b.c. An earthquake laid Thebes in ruins in 1853, another destroyed every house in Corinth in 1858, and a third filled up the Castalian spring in 1870. There are hot springs at Thermopylae and other places, which are used for sanitary purposes. Various parts of the coast exhibit indications of upheaval within historical times. On the coast of Elis four rocky inlets are new joined to the land, which were separate from it in the days of aucient Greece. There are traces of earlier seabeaches at Corinth, and on the coast of the Morea, and at the mouth of the Hellada. The land has gained so much that the pass of Thermopylae, which was extremely narrow in the time of Leonidas and his three hundred, is now wide enough for the motions of a whole army.

The whole chain of the Pindus and some of the mountains of the Morea are composed of Primitive rocks,— granite, serpentine, porphyry, mica; and other schists,—but greater part of the country consists of Secondary formations, especially of a compact grey limestone, which hardens often into the purest marble. All Parnassus and Helicon consist of this rock. In the vicinity of Athens the limestone rests on mica schist, which prevails also in other parts of Attica, and in Euboea, Laconia, and the Cyclades. Clay slate is found in some districts, and coal, equal to two-thirds of an equal weight of Newcastle coal, is found at Kumi in Euboea, and of an inferior quality at Marco-poneo in Boeotia. Greece is not rich in minerals. Gold exists, but not in sufficient quantity to cover the expense of working. Copper is abundant, and silver, lead, iron, emery, antimony, cobalt, manganese, sulphur, and salt are found. Gypsum and porphyry are quarried. Marble is abundant, the chief kinds being the white marble of Pentelicus, of which the Parthenon was made, the blue marble of Hymettus, the green and red marble of the Morea, and the green and white of Caryste. In Mount Taygetus are beds of verd-antique jasper.

The scenery of Greece excites the warmest admiration of all travellers, mainly from three causes:—(1) its unusually rich variety; (2) its exquisite sensibility to every modification of the light of the sky; and (3) the graceful and almost severely classical outline of its hills.

The vegetation of Greece may be described as belonging to four distinct zones. (1) Up to δ00 feet above the sea is a region growing corn, vines, olives, oranges, melons, pomegranates, and other fruits; (2) from 1500 feet to 3500 feet is the region of the oak; (8) from 3500 feet to 5000 feet is the region of the beech and pine, interspersed still with a few com fields; (4) above 5000 feet is a sub-alpine region yielding only a few wild plants Most travellers are struck with the comparative scarcity of wood in Greece. But though most of the ancient forests have disappeared, more of the surface still remains woodland than travellers realize. Close on 15 per cent, of it was under forest in 1860, which is only 1 per cent, less than in Spain, and is 12 per cent, more than in Britain. The most common tree is the pine, but the oak, plane, walnut, chestnut, and olive are also abundant. The beech is said to be a modern invader from the north, where it covers the whole of the Pindus range, and in some places, as on Mount Pelion, which were covered with other kinds of trees in historical times, the beech seems now to have driven them entirely out. The palm thrives in Messenia, and finds a home even in Attica. Myrtles flourish in the west, and oleanders brighten the river beds.

The wild animals still to be found occasionally in Greeee are the boar, wolf, bear, lynx, wild cat, jackal, and fox. The wild goat, which has disappeared from the rest of Europe, finds a last asylum in some of the islands of the Greek archipelago. Game is abundant,—red deer, fallow deer, roe, hares, rabbits. It is said that hares and rabbits never occupy the same island, except in the case of Andros, where the hares are found in the north and the rabbits in the south. The birds are the eagle, vulture, hawk, owl, hoopoe, egret, pelican, pheasant, bustard, partridge, woodcock, nightingale, &c. Quails come in April. The domestic animals are the horse, ox, ass, mule, sheep, goat, pig, dog, and poultry. Poisonous snakes are only found in some few places, but mosquitos and gnats are everywhere sources of annoyance.

The climate of Greece, which ancient writers praised for its equableness, presents to modern observers two peculiarities which do not possess that character. One is a greater intensity of heat in summer and of cold in winter than obtains in Spain, Italy, and other countries which lie within the same latitudes, and are even less open to the tempering influences of the sea. This peculiarity is due to the exposure of the country to the cold winds from the snow hills in close proximity to it on the north, and to the exhausting sirocco from the sands of Africa on the south. The other peculiarity is the remarkable local contrasts and rapid transitions which the climate manifests, and which are a natural effect of the diversity of the geographical configuration. The remark of Gell is often quoted, that in travelling through the Morea in March he found summer in Messenia, spring in Laconia, and winter in Arcadia, without moving beyond a radius of 50 miles. There is great diversity in the rainfall in different parts of Greece. As a rale, rain is more prevalent in the west than in the east, which accounts for the fertile look of the hills of Elis and the barren aspect of those of Argolis. Attica is the driest part of Greece, and Boeotia has still the same heavy moist atmosphere it had of old; and, what is remarkable, the old contrast between the people of those two provinces, which was proverbial when both were Greek by blood, still holds good when they are both certainly Albanian, the Atticans of the present day being still quick and lively, and the Boeotians dull and phlegmatic. According to statistics kept by Julius Schmidt, director of the observatory of Athens, and published in his Beiträge zur physikalischen Geographie von Griechenland (1864-70), there were in 1859 only twenty-five days on which enough rain fell at Athens to be measured by the rain gauge. The mean annual temperature of Greece is 64° Fahr. The coldest months of the year are January and February. Snow seldom falls in Athens. The corn is a considerable height in March, and is cut in May. Vines and olives bud in March, and almonds are then in blossom. Winters are, however, severe on the tablelands, and in some of the plains of the interior which are shaded from sun and sea by high hills. Dr Clarke was informed that the peasants at the foot of Cithaeron, in Boeotia, were confined to their houses sometimes for several weeks by snow. Kruse says the north wind blows ten months of the year, but Schmidt’s statistics show this to be an error; there are really both northerly and southerly winds every month, though now the one is more prevalent and now the other. The bird winds (so called because they bring the birds of passage) are a periodical variety of the south-west, and blow thirty days from the end of April. The Etesian winds are periodical winds from the north-east, which blow regularly about the time of the dog days, and temper the heat of that season in the whole region of the Archipelago. Columella says they begin on the 1st August and continue till the 30th; and Kruse, on the other hand, says they begin in July and blow for fifty-five days {Hellas, i. 265); but neither of these statements is borne out by Schmidt’s figures. In 1862 the only winds which blew at Athens during July and August were north-east and south-west, and out of the sixty-two days the north-east blew for thirty-four, and the south-west for twenty-eight,—the north-east blowing twenty-two days in July and twelve in August, and the south-west nine in July and nineteen in August. Malaria prevails largely from the neglect of drainage and the consequent creation of marshes in many parts, and the malaria causes fever, which is very fatal among children, and leaves debilitating effects in the adults, and altogether imposes a very serious check on the growth of the population of the country.

The modern Greeks are of very composite origin, yet are an extremely compact and homogeneous people. Out of the million and a half which constitute the present population of the country, only 67,941 speak any other language than Greek, and only 16,084 profess any other religion than the Orthodox; and all draw well together, glorying with one another in the same memories of a common deliverance, and sharing in the same ambition of a great future. There are in the narrow bounds of Greece three distinct races, speaking different languages, wearing different costumes, observing different customs, and holding little social intercourse with one another. These races are the Greek, the Albanian, and the Wallachian. All three are probably much mixed in blood, and, in fact, the descent of each of them has been a very vexed problem in ethnology. But, on the whole, the suggestion of Freeman seems the most likely account of the matter,—that, taking them all in all, these three races are the direct representatives of the three races which occupied Greek territory at the time of its conquest by the Romans. Since that time their blood has certainly been mingled with other elements, but still substantially the base of the modern Greek is the ancient Greek, the base of the modern Albanian is the ancient Illyrian, and the base of the modern Wallachian is the ancient Thracian.

Of these races the least numerous in Greece is the Wallachian or Roumanian. They are found chiefly in the mountainous regions in the northern parts of Greece, on the slopes of Othrys, in the neighbourhood of Zeitoum, on the hills of Acarnania and Aetolia, and even so far south as the banks of the Boeotian Cephissus. They pursue a nomadic shepherd life, wear black shaggy capotes made to imitate sheep-skin, and speak Roumanian,—a modified Latin, —the language of their race, and also Greek, the language of the country. They belong to the Greek Church, and sometimes marry Greek girls, but almost never give their own daughters in marriage to Greeks. In 1851 Finlay says there were 50,000 Wallachians in the modern kingdom of Greece; but they are rapidly becoming completely Hellenized, and in 1870 there were only 1217 Wallachians in Greece who did not speak Greek. Most of the brigands that used to infest Greece were Wallachians.

The Albanians, Skipetars (t.e., Highlanders), or Arnaouts, occupy at present more than a fourth of modern Greece,— all Attica and Megaris (except the capitals), most part of Boeotia and part of Locris, the southern half of Euboea, part of Aegina and Andros, the whole of the islands of Salamis, Poros, Hydra, and Spezzia, and considerable districts in Argolis, Sicyonia, Arcadia, Laconia, Messenia, and Elis. They speak a language of their own, which certainly belongs to the Aryan family, but philologists are at a loss whether to count it an independent member of the family, or merely a corruption of one of the better known branches. In districts where they exist in small bodies they are losing their own tongue and adopting Greek; but in places like Attica and Hydra, where they exist in larger numbers, they still keep it up, and if the men understand Greek the women do not. In 1851 Finlay states there were 200,000 Albanians in Greece, and in 1870 there were only 37,598 left who did not speak Greek. The Albanians who dwell in Greece all belong to the Greek Church. They are mostly agriculturists, and seem to care little for political or professional life. They wear a peculiar dress, which was adopted by them mostly from the Slavs, and was regarded as the national costume of Greece after the Revolution,— a red fez, a silk jacket embroidered with gold, a white fustanella or petticoat, and gaiters.

The rest of the population, comprising the great bulk of it, are Greeks,·—a people speaking the Greek language, practising the Greek rite, and claiming descent from the ancient Greek race. This claim, which seems to rest naturally on the obvious evidence of language and feature, was warmly contested on historical grounds by Fallmerayer, who held that during the Slavonic occupation of the country the ancient Greeks were completely extirpated, and that the present inhabitants are merely Slavonians Byzantinized. But his arguments have been conclusively confuted by Hopf, Finlay, and others, and it may be said to be now universally admitted that, while the blood of the population contains a considerable Slav admixture, its base is still that of the ancient race of Hellas.

It is curious that the two sections of the population of Greece whom Fallmerayer credited with the purest Greek descent—the Mainotes and the Tshakυnes, who inhabit the two mountain ranges of Laconia—are thought by Hopf to be the only two remnants of the Slavs that still exist. The Tshakones, whose name is commonly supposed, contrary to all etymological analogy, to be. a corruption of Lacones, speak a peculiar dialect of Greek, and still live very much by themselves. They now occupy only seven villages, and number 1500 families, The Mainotes, celebrated by Byron, live in Maina, on the western mountain chain of Laconia. They also speak a particular dialect, and are remarkable for their personal beauty and independent spirit. Their houses are fortified keeps, and they were never subdued by the Turks. They practise the vendetta, but are simple and truthful above their neighbours.

Other nationalities are represented in Greece, but so slightly as hardly to be worth mentioning. They numbered only 29,126 in all in 1870. The Jews, who were never favoured by the Greeks, are found only in the Ionian Islands, where they obtained a footing during the British protectorate, and numbered, in 1870, 2528. Important remains of the old Venetian colonist3 still exist in the Ionian and some of the other islands.

In physique, ⅛e Greeks are generally tall and well made, if perhaps rather meagre, with oval face, long and arched nose, fine teeth, and eyes full of animation. Obesity is unknown, and their form is supple, graceful in its movements, and remains erect and elastic till past the age of 70. The best physical types are to be found in the islandβ and in some parts of the Morea, and there, many travellers remark, you may meet every day in the streets or highways women and boys who might have formed the models of Phidias.

The national character of th_r Greeks is a matter upon which authorities take very contrary views, some idealizing them foolishly, and others depreciating them most unjustly. They seem to have the faults and the excellences of their famous ancestors. They have their quickness of parts and their moderation of character. They are inquisitive, full of mental activity, fond of excitement, as keen for discussion as in the days of Plato, and as eager after novelty as in those of Paul. Their thirst for knowledge is indeed quite remarkable, as well as their aptness to learn. Boys will put themselves to any discomfort in order to get to school; students at the university never missed a day from their classes during the Revolution of 1863, but regularly attended the lectures with the arms of the national guard in their hands; and domestic servants are often found in spare houre learning their letters or doing their sums. They excel in tact, in astuteness, in—what Tuckerman calls the most distinctive thing about them —finesse, which degenerates often into cunning, that weapon of the weak which could not fail to be forged under their long Turkish oppression. They are courteous and very sunny in disposition, and entirely strangers to melancholy, so that both suicide and insanity are unknown among them. They are the most temperate of Christian nations, and the chastest. Though they make a good deal of strong wine, they drink little, and they eat as sparingly as they drink. The common people live on one meal a day, and the richer on two, and an English labourer will consume at one meal what would serve a Greek family of six for the day. A little maize and vegetables steeped in oil make the st∣ple fare. Their rate of illegitimacy is lower than that of any other European country, which may perhaps be ascribed to the fact that Greece is the only country in Europe where the males outnumber the females, and that this circumstance combines with the frugal habits of living of the people to encourage early marriages. In other countries from 3 to 22 per cent, of the births are illegitimate, in Greece only 1 - 40 per cent, are so. Two striking characteristics of the Greeks are their patriotism,—their local attachment to their country, which stands out in the stronger relief because it is a quality in which their neighbours the Turks are entirely wanting,—and their love not only of liberty but specially of equality. They are in spirit the most democratic European nation. They have no nobility—as of old, to be a Greek is itself to be noble; and Mahaffy says that “every common mule-boy is a gentleman (κύριος) and fully your equal, sitting in the room at meals, and joining in the conversation at dinner;” and such is their jealousy of social superiorities that he was often told by Greeks that the only reason why they tolerated a foreign king was that they could not endure to be under one of themselves. It is the same temper as ostracized Aristides, and doubtless it springs largely from their vanity and egotism, which even the most favourable witnesses own to be among their prominent faults. They have a deep belief, which they take no pains no conceal, in their own superiority over other nations; and the point in which they conceive their superiority more especially to dwell is in their intellectual gifts. There are two other qualities in which the Greeks are strong, and which, though they are often abused, are yet main agents in human advancement,—ambition and the love of money. These have given a stimulus to their commerce, and made them thrifty and saving. The faults of which the Greeks are oftenest accused are cowardice and dishonesty, and both charges are equally unwarranted. Their bravery was proved on many a field during the War of Independence. Dishonesty is not a national vice, though it seems certainly to be characteristic of the classes of Greeks who more than the rest are thrown under the observation of foreigners, particularly the low mongrel Greeks of the Levant ports and the venal public officials of Greece, who have consequently helped to blacken the reputation of their countrymen in general.

The Greeks have few peculiar customs worth noting. Their national costume is now giving place almost universally to the less picturesque dress of the Franks. They still adhere to the unreformed calendar, and their dates are accordingly calculated according to old style. They marry early,—young women from thirteen years of age to fifteen, and young men from sixteen to twenty. The marriage is arranged by the parents of the parties, is in all cases a religious ceremony, and may be severed by legal divorce. One is allowed to marry three times, but a fourth marriage is forbidden. The bride brings a dowry —houses, furniture, or money—and many unmarried girls wear their whole dowry in pieces of money as a headdress. The prohibited degrees are those of canon law.

The population of Greece in 1879, when the last census was taken, was 1,679,775, or an average of 84 persons to the square mile. The islands are the most densely peopled portions of the kingdom, especially the Ionian Islands, which have a population of 231,174, or 229 to the square mile. In continental Greece the rate is only 59 per square mile, and in the Morea 89. Greece is more thinly peopled than any country of Europe, except Russia and Sweden. The population has doubled since 1832. It was then (exclusive of the Ionian Islands) only 612,608, and it is now (also excluding the Ionian Islands) 1,448,601. The miles outnumber the feπiales in Greece by 82,385. The only reason we have seen assigned for this is that large numbers of the women go out of the country as domestic servants, anl are not counted in the census, while sailor3, who are also at work out of the country, are counted. But this seems an inadequate explanation, for in 1870 the number of sailors not present in the country was only 5180. The disproportion between men and women appears, too, to be increasing, for there were 50,468 more men than women in Greece in 1870, when the whole population was 220,000 less than it was in 1879. The average birth-rate for the four years 1870-73 was 1 in 34; the average death-rate for the same period was 1 in 45. The largest towns in Greece are—Athens, with a population in 1870 of 59,000; Patras, with 26,000; Corfu, with 24,000; Hermopolis or Syra, 21,000; Zante, with 20,500; Chalcis, 11,000; Sparta, with 10,700; and Argos, with 10,600.

The kingdom of Greece is an hereditary constitutional monarchy, descending by primogeniture from male to male, female succession being only allowed in the event of the absolute failure of legitimate heirs male. The title of the sovereign at first (according to the convention of London, May 1832) was king of Greece, but it was altered by the conference of London, August 1863, to king of the Hellenes. The king attains his majority at eighteen years of age. Both he and the heir-apparent are required to belong to the Greek orthodox church, but a special exception is made for the present king, who is a Lutheran. The king receives an anuuιl income of £52,179, of which £40,179 come3 from the civil list, and £12,000 from personal donations of £4,000 from each of the three protecting powers. He has a palace in Athens—built by Otho at a cost of £500,000—and a summer residence at Corfu. The legislative power is shared by the king with a single chamber called the boule,—a house of representatives which is elected for four years by the people; its numbers cannot fall below 150, and amounted in 1872 to 183. The election is by universal (manhood) suffrage, protected by the ballot. The boule elects its own president, and its members are paid £9 a month during the session. The executive is vested in the king, who, however, is personally irresponsible, and rule3 by ministers chosen by himself and responsible to the legislature, in whose deliberations they also tike part They are seven in number, and their several departments of administation are—foreigu affairs, home affairs, justice, finance, education anl worship, army, and navy. A minister’s salary is £423 a year. The king appoints all public officials,— civil, naval, and military,—sanctions and proclaims laws, calls an 1 prorogues parliament, grants pardon or amnesty, coins money, and confers decorations. There are 18,860 public 0ffice3 in the patronage of the miuistry, and, as in America, a large number of them change hands with every change of administration. The effect of this in a country where politics is an open profession, and where there is a plethora of well-educated men who can find nothing to do, has been to poison political life to an unusual degree with the vice of place-hunting,—to create several active political parties in the state, which, instead of being the representatives of any policy or cause, tend too much to degenerate into mere rings of post-mongers, and conduce, by their constant strife, to an excessive frequency of ministerial crises which greatly checks the national progress of the country.

For purp03es of local government Greece is divided into 13 nomarchies, under officers called nomarche, whose duties correspond with those of the French prefects; the nomarchies are subdivided into 59 eparchies under eparchs, corresponding to French sub-prefects; and the eparchies are further subdivided into 351 demarchies, under demarche or mayors. The following is a list of the nomarchies, with their areas, populations, and capitals :— [table]

The demarche are elected by the people for four years; the nomarchs and eparchs are elected by the Government without fixed terms. The nomarchs are assisted in the administration of the province by a council elected by universal secret suffrage fur four years, which manages the police, roads, and other local business, and imposes the assessments. The local accounts must be sent once a year to Athens to be audited by a court of Government officials. The demarchies vary in size, but, in 1861, out of 280 that then existed, only 57 were under 2000 in population, and only 7 above 10,000.

Greece has an admirable legal system, which is the one good thing it has got from the Bavarians. It is based on the old Roman law, with modifications drawn from the Bavarian and French. Liberty of person and domicile is inviolate; no one can be apprehended, no house can bo entered, and no letter can be opened without a judicial warrant. Criminal and political offences and delinquencies of the press are tried by jury. The commercial code is identical with that of France. The civil law is administered by a supreme court of cassation (the Areopagus); 4 courts of appeal; 17 courts of first instance, with jurisdiction up to 500 drachmas; 191 judges of the peace, with jurisdiction up to 30 drachmas, or, with an appeal, to 300 drachmas; and 4 commercial courts (at Syra, Nauplia, Patras, and Corfu), with jurisdiction up to 800 drachmas. To be a judge, it is necessary to have graduated as doctor of laws at Athens or some other European university; a judge cannot hold any other salaried appointment at the same time except that of professor in the university. Judges are appointed by the crown, and are as yet removable. Criminal courts are held in connexion with those of the peace, of first instance, and of appeal; in the last the judicial authority is vested in a jury of twelve, with three accessory judges selected from those of the inferior courts, who apply the law in accordance with the jury’s verdict. The crown is prosecutor in all criminal cases, and punishments are by fines, imprisonment, and, in the case of capital offences, death by guillotine. The prisons are extremely defective in construction and administration, except that of Corfu; improvements are often projected but constantly put off from want of funds to carry them out. There is no Habeas Corpus Act, and an accused person may be detained indefinitely before being brought to trial. Judicial commissions and extraordinary courts of judicature cannot be established under any pretext.

The courts of law are open to the public, except when the interests of good morals or public order demand the contrary. Naval and military offences are tried by naval and military courts, and offences of ministers of the crown by special courts, in accordance with the constitution of 1864.

Crime is proportionately less common in Greece than elsewhere, for the people are more temperate, and, on the whole, more contented. The peculiar Greek crime is—or, as we may happily now say, was—brigandage, the form of jobbery which is natural to a mountainous 'and thinly-peopled country without roads. According to the latest consular reports, the country is at present completely free from brigands. But it will never be secure against their reappearance until it obtains good roads, which will operate against the brigands both by tending to increase the rural population and by affording better facilities for the capture of criminals.

The strength of the Greek army on a peace footing was, at the census in 1870, 12,400, including upwards of 2000 gendarmes; but since the Servian war with the Turks in 1876 the Government has resolved to raise it to 24,376, exclusive of 2508 mounted gendarmes. This, with the national guard and the reserves and volunteers, would make their total strength on a war footing over 150,000. The national guard is composed of all citizens capable of serving and under the age of 50; it is designed for purposes of defence only. The reserves consist of those who have served out their time in the regular army. The army is recruited by lot from all capable of serving, with the alternative, which is largely used, of providing a substitute; and the period of service is three years in the line, three years in the first reserve, and six in the second. The navy consists of two small ironclads and a few wooden gunboats and vessels for coast-guard purposes, which are manned by 2500 men, raised, as a rule, by conscription from the inhabitants of the coast, though volunteering is encouraged. The Greek flag is a white cr03s on blue ground—the Bavarian colours and the Greek cross.

The religion of the people and of the state is that of the Orthodox Greek Church. In fact, the Greek rite is not only the national religion, but perhaps the deepest and most creative factor in the nationality of Greece itself. Men of Greek blood who do not belong to the Greek Church do not identify themselves with the Greek people. The Moslems of Crete were the sternest oppressors the Greeks knew, and the Latins of Syros sided at the revolution with the Turks, yet both were of the purest Greek descent. And what makes the Greek and Skipetar and Wallach of the modern kingdom all equally Greek in their sympathies to-day is their common profession of the Greek rite. But all other religions are tolerated in Greece. There is a Moslem mosque at Chalcis; there is a Jewish synagogue at Corfu; and, whatever a man’s religion may be, it entails on him in Greece no civil disabilities of any kind. A Catholic or a Mahometan may rise to the highest offices of state; both Turks and Jews are at present members of municipal councils; and Jews and Catholics are buried in the same cemetery with the Orthodox at Athens. The Church of Greece, which became virtually independent at the time of the revolution, was organized upon the model of the Russian Church. Its supreme power is vested in a synod consisting of five members, who are appointed annually by the king, and the majority of whom must be prelates. The metropolitan (archbishop of Athens) is ex officio president; two royal commissioners attend and deliberate without voting, and the synod’s resolutions require to be confirmed by them in the king’s name. In all purely spiritual matters the synod has entire independence; but on questions having a civil side,—as marriage, divorce, excommunication of laymen, the appointment of feasts and fasts, and the religious censorship of the press and of religious pictures,—it can only act in concert with the Government. Excluding the Ionian Islands, which have five archbishops, there are eleven archbishops and thirteen bishops in Greece, who are chosen by the king out of a list of three candidates presented by the synod, and can only be deposed by common consent of king and synod, and in conformity with canon law. The clergy numbered 5102 in 1861. The immense majority of the population belongs to the Greek Church. In 1870 the number of other Christians in Greece was 12,585, most of whom were Roman Catholics; of Jews, 2582; and of all other religions, 917. There are two Roman Catholic archbishops and four bishops. The revenue from the property of the Greek Church in 1877 was £10,571. The prelates receive a salary from the state,—the bishops £145, and the archbishops £180. The inferior clergy receive none, but are entirely dependent on the fees they earn for various spiritual services and superstitious observances,— praying for the sick, exorcising the evil eye, consecrating a new house or fishing boat, or purifying one bought from a Turk. There are 1600 monks and 1500 nuns in Greece.

Popular education is widely diffused in Greece. It was the first care of the newly-liberated people, and has been jealously fostered ever since, till they have now an exceedingly complete national system of education, which is perhaps the most striking product of the new kingdom. The latest statistics we have on the subject are those of the year 1872, given in Watson’s report of that year (Reports of H.H Secretaries of Embassy and Legation, No. i. 1872). From these figures we learn that there were then 1141 primary or demotic schools, 136 grammar or Hellenic schools, 7 gymnasia, and finally, the crown of the whole, the university of Athens; besides 6 nautical schools, a polytechnic school, 4 theological seminaries of the Greek Church, and various private institutions maintained by Catholic or Protestant societies. At the primary schools, the usual elementary branches only are taught,— reading, writing, arithmetic, the catechism, grammar, history, geography, natural history, agriculture, and drawing. In the Hellenic schools instruction is given besides in the least difficult of the ancient Greek authors; and in the gymnasia, a more thorough acquaintance is made with ancient Greek, and with Latin and French, mathematics, logic, anatomy, physics, and natural history. The teachers of the primary schools are educated at a training institution in Athens; those of the Hellenic schools must be licentiates of a university; and those of the gymnasia must have the degree of Ph.D. The primary schools are maintained at the expense of the communes, with a subsidy, in certain particular cases, from the state. The total amount spent by the communes for this object comes to about one-sixth part of their income, or over £40,000 in all, and the whole Government grant for primary education in 1872 was £4171. At these schools a small fee is charged, running from Id. to 5d. a month, from all who are able to pay it. The grammar schools, the gymnasia, and the university are maintained entirely by the state, the expense in 1877 exceeding £35,000 for the two classes of secondary schools, and £18,000 for the university; at these schools and the university education is entirely gratuitous, and is furthermore encouraged by the existence of various exhibitions for meritorious pupils, won by competition. The university was erected at a cost of £10,000, raised by private subscription from Greeks all over the world, and is furnished with excellent laboratories and museums, a library of 150,000 volumes, medical hospitals, an astronomical observatory, and a botanical garden. It has 4 faculties—arts, medicine, law, and theology—52 professors, 12 fellows, and, after a curriculum of 4 years, confers the degrees of licentiate and doctor, which are indispensable for those who contemplate becoming lawyers, medical men, or teachers in the higher schools. It was opened in 1835 with 52 students; in 1854 it had 643; it now has 1400. In 1872 it had 1244,—of whom 26 were students of theology, 622 of law, 423 of medicine, 120 of arts, and 53 of pharmacy. The small number of theological students is partly accounted for by the existence of four other theological seminaries in Greece, supported by private funds,—one at Athens and three in the provinces, —and partly by the scandalous neglect of clerical education that obtains in Greece. In 1867 there were only 115 students at these four theological seminaries. A large proportion of the students at the university have always been foreign Greeks, for professional men are trained there not only for Greece itself but for the whole region of the Levant. Out Of the 1244 students who attended in 1872, 249 were Greeks from foreign parts,—124 of these being students of medicine, 66 of law, and 6 of theology. No one is admitted as a student who has not completed his education at a gymnasium. The salary of a professor hardly amounts to £200 ⅛- i year. There is no school inspection beyond that of the demarch.

Education is by law compulsory for children from seven to twelve years of age, but this law is not enforced, for it does not require to be; and the results of education in Greece are the more remarkable as being the fruits of what is practically purely voluntary attendance. Every eighteenth person in Greece is at school; in Russia only every seventy-seventh is so. In 1872 the total number of pupils was 81,197,—of whom 65,111 were males and only 16,086 females. Boys and girls are taught at separate schools; of the primary schools, 942 are for boys, with 1009 male teachers and 52,943 pupils, and only 199 for girls, with 221 female teachers and 11,035 pupils. The Hellenic schools and gymnasia are for boys only, aud in 1872 had 6055 and 1942 pupils respectively. There are, however, various private schools for girls, with an aggregate attendance of 5000. These figures show that there is a serious defect in female education, for which neither the Government of Greece nor the people have due solicitude. It ought to be mentioned, however, that there is one phase of female education in which Greece is in advance of many other European countries, for the medical school of Athens is open to female students, who numbered 42 in 1879.

We have no exact statistics as to the numbers engaged in each branch of industry severally, but Bikelas gives in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London for 1868 an estimate for the year 1861, according to which nearly half the population (49 ’ 37 per cent.) were agriculturists and shepherds, and more than a third of the remainder (or 18 ’ 66 per cent, of the whole population) in the liberal professions. 13*87 per cent, were engaged in industrial pursuits, 8 - 43 per cent, in trade, 5 ’ 40 per cent, were domestic servants, and only 4 ’ 27 per cent, were persons of independent means. Government officials and their families comprise a twelfth part of the population. There is great want of employers with considerable capital, and the amount of labour done and wages earned by the workmen is much diminished by the extraordinary number of ecclesiastical holidays they are required to observe. There are .195 fast days in Greece, and the number of working days in the year never exceeds 265. There are no paupers in Greece, no poor law or poor rate, and no religious associations for charitable purposes. Beggars are very rare, and absolute destitution may be said not to exist.

Agriculture is still in its infancy. A larger proportion of its area is uncultivated than obtains in any country in Europe except Russia; but that is explained by the unusually large part of it which is occupied by mountains. We have no exact statistics since 1860, but then only one-seventh was under cultivation. Its entire area (exclusive of the Ionian Islands, not then part of it), was 45,699,248 stremmas,—a stremma being a little over a quarter of an acre. Of these only 17,824,000 were capable of cultivation, and only 6,076,000 actually uuder it, and half of this amount is always fallow from their system of working it. By universal testimony the country might grow food for three times its present population, yet it has to import cereals every year to an amount exceeding a third of its own produce, and over £1,000,000 in value. But agriculture contends with many difficulties in Greece, most of them, like the vicious land-tax, the want of roads, and the imperfect agricultural methods, being happily remediable.

The soil is, as a rule, light and thin. In many places there is great lack of rain and running water, but the people are expert in irrigation. The chief products are corn, wine, fruit, and oil. Six different kinds of wheat are grown, producing, in a favourable season, as much as 10 or 13 returns, and after a dry spring from 3 to 5. Good crops are got of rye, b.ιrley, and maize; oats do not grow so well, and potatoes not at all. Pulse thrives everywhere, aud rice is produced in the plains of Marathon and Argos, and in marshy land elsewhere. Cotton and tobacco have been introduced in our own day, and give good returns.

Greece is still in want of one of the first requisites to agricultural prosperity,—a resident proprietary. The modern kingdom began with almost no proprietors. Under the Turks two-thirds of the land belonged to the sultan, and became at the revolution simply national property, which the Government has been selling ever since to private owners on more or less reasonable terms. The peasants are showing a passion for land, and save up to buy their crofts, and in this way a large class of small freeholders is being created, with what effect upon agriculture we have no means as yet of determining. There were 16,122 proprietors in 1861. The relation between landlord and tenant is the metayer system of taking as rent or usufruct a share of the net produce, usually a third, but in the case of Government land 15 per cent. Great part of the agricultural labourers are not Greek subjects, but arc Mahometan Albanians from Thessaly and Epirus, who come into Greece annually in harvest-time, in bands of 30 or 40 under a captain, who work at lower rates than Greeks and work longer, for they have no feasts to observe, and who contrive by frugal living to carry back three-fourths of their earnings to their families at home.

The methods of cultivation in use are still primitive. Modern implements are not employed to any great extent, though their manufacture is carried on àt Syra and the Piraeus, and though even the steam plough has been actually introduced in Elis. The Greek plough is still that of Homer, which the husbandman carries about his croft on his shoulder, and which hardly does more than scrape the surface of the ground. It is wrought by oxen, Greek horses—the old Thessalian breed—being small and unfit for farm work. There is no system of rotation of crops. Fields are cropped till they are exhausted, and then left fallow for a year or two. The farmers have no idea of manure or drainage. There are few enclosures, and even the laying out of the fields is slovenly,—a patch of this crop here, and a patch of that there. The houses of the peasantry are sheds of wood or huts of mud, without either chimney or window, but always with a picture of the Virgin inside.

With all the defects in the Greek system of cultivation, agricultural returns show gradual though slow progress. In 1846 the yield for the year of wheat, barley, and maize was estimated at 6,000,000 kilots, a kilot being nearly 7 ’ 3 gallons; in 1876, 12,000,000. In 1860 there were 2,287,645 stremmas— i.e., 565,048 acres—under cereal crops, which yielded 9,512,993 kilots of grain— i.e., 1,165,807 quarters, or 2 quarters an acre.

Vineyards are numerous, but the wine is poor, with little body, and is ruined for European use by the resin put in to preserve it. All provinces produce wine, but the best is that of Santorin, which is shipped largely to Russia. There is still a Malvoisie wine, though it is no longer that which was once so celebrated under the name of Malmsey; and the Kephissia wine of Attica and the red wine of Zante are in good repute. There has been a large increase in the number of vineyards, and a marked improvement in the manufacture of wine since the kingdom began, and Greek wines have been of some commercial importance since 1858. In 1830 there were only 25,000 stremmas under vines; there are now 700,000.

A grape peculiar to Greece is that of Corinth, which, from the place where it grows, is called the currant. It constitutes the largest export of Greece, and goes almost exclusively to England to make the national plum-pudding. Its cultivation lias been largely increased of late. In 1820 only 10,000,000 lb were raised, and in 1831, after the destruction of the vines by Ibrahim Pasha, only 5,000,000 lb, but in 1851 there were 57,000,000 lb, and in 1876 195,000,000 lb,—valued at £1,400,000. There are now 40,000 acres of ground under currants alone, and this probably cannot be much increased, for the Corinthian vine is fastidious, and grows only on the northern and western shores of the Morea, on some of the Ionian Islands, and at Mesolonghi, and nowhere else in Greece or in the world. The vines bear in their sixth year, but do not attain full perfection till their twelfth. The grapes are gathered in August, dried in the sun, and packed.

The olive and the mulberry are very important products of cultivation. The oil of Attica has still its ancient reputation. It is calculated that in Greece in 1876 there were 12,000,000 olive trees, which yielded 19,000,000 okes of oil. In 1834 there were only 2,300,000 trees, yielding 1,000,0∏0 okes. The mulberry grows best in the south of the Morea, and there the house of almost every peasant is given up in part to rearing the silk-worm, the eggs being nestled in the bosoms of the women. There were in 1833 only 300,000 mulberry trees in Greece; in 1876 there were 2,000,000.

A natural production of Greece of great importance is valonia, the husk of the acorn of the Quercus Aegilops, an oak of which considerable forests exist in Arcadia, Attica, the island Zea, and other places. Valonia is valuable on account of the amount of tannin it contains, and is much exported to England and Italy for use in dyeing and tanning. Another species of oak, the Quercus coccifera, which grows largely on Mount Taygetus, breeds the insect called kermes, which, when dried, looks like a berry, and is used in dyeing the red fez of the country. Turpentine is obtained in large quantities from the pines of Cithaeron and elsewhere.

Cotton and tobacco are the only products whose cultivation is free from taxation, the exemption being made with a view to the encouragement of their cultivation. Cotton is now grown to a considerable extent, its culture having received a great impetus during the American civil war. It is produced particularly on the marshy lands of Levadia, and Phthiotis in northern Greece. In 1862 the produce was 28,537 quintals; in 1864, 193,615 quintals. The annual yield of tobacco is 4,000,000 okes. Opium, madder, and flax are grown in the northern parts of Greece.

Greece is rich in fruits. The figs of Attica have not degenerated, and they are produced to a considerable extent in other parts also, especially Messenia. In 1834 there were but 50,000 fig-trees; in 1861, 300,000. Apricots, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and citrons grow well in the islands, and the fruit trade might be largely increased.

Though there is much excellent timber in the Greek forests, it is practically useless from want of roads, so that it is cheaper to import wood from abroad. In 1860 there were 7,000,000 stremmas of land under forest, and it is estimated that now only 5,500,000 are so.

The herds are chiefly bred on the mountain pastures, and are mainly sheep and goats. Most of the cattle are used in agricultural labour. In 1865 the total number of sheep in the country subject, to taxation was 1,778,729; of goats, 2,289,123; of cattle, 226,737— of which 168,927 were work oxen; of horses, 69,787; of mules, 29,637; of asses, 64,051; of swine, 55,776; and of camels, 72. Cows’ milk and butter are considered unwholesome in Greece (Kruse, Hellas, i. p. 368), and the butter and cheese in use are from ewes’ and goats’ milk. The honey of Greece is not equal to that of other countries; even that of Hymettus,—so famous in ancient days when honey was exceptionally prized, because men were ignorant of sugar, and which is still one of the best kinds in Greece,—could not compete with French in the English market. But over £35,000 worth of honey is produced in Greece every year, and goes chiefly to Turkey. There are extensive fisheries on some parts of the coasts.

The land tax is still the Turkish system of exacting a percentage— generally a tenth—of the gross produce of the land; and though, in the case of the vineyards, a money commutation, based on the planter’s declaration, is coming into use, the tax is, as a rule, paid in kind. This system is rendered more objectionable by the tax being farmed out to private contractors. The cultivator cannot reap his crop, though it be ripe, till the day appointed by the tax collector, and he must cut it then, though it be green. When cut, he must cany the whole crop on pack animals (there being no roads for waggons), sometimes for miles, to the particular public threshing-floor which the collector fixes upon, and he must wait with it there till the collector can find time to see it threshed and take his tithe, which is often weeks, sometimes, it is said, even as as long as three months. Proposals for the abolition of this method of taxation have often been introduced into the chamber of deputies, but the matter has always been deferred till they should have a register of lands, which, however, they seem to take no steps to make.

When Capodistria assumed the government of Greece fifty years ago, he said there were two things he meant to give the nation,— roads and education. The system of education has been very satisfactorily built up since that time, but its roads are still to make. We have no recent statistics on the subject, but Bangabe says that in 1867 nineteen roads had been made since the kingdom was established, with a total length of 380 kilometres; and Watson, writing in 1872, complains that, from want of roads at that time, it cost more to carry grain from Marathon to Athens (25 miles) than to bring it from the Black Sea, while highly fertile tracts of country, not far from seaport towns, were left entirely uncultivated because of the expense of the transit of their produce. Every man in Greece is by law obliged to give at least three days’ labour in the year, or its equivalent in money, for road-making; and a law was passed in 1876 to apply one-fifth of the proceeds from the sale of state lands to making roads.

Manufacturing industries are steadily advancing. According to a report issued in 1876 by Mansolas, director of the statistical bureau at Athens, there are in Greece 95 steam-mills and factories, with a total of 1967 horse-power; the most important of these have been established since 1869. They include 35 flour-mills, 12 for cotton-weaving, 2 for cotton-spinning, 4 for ginning, 6 for sillk-weaving, 10 oil-mills, 9 for constructing machinery, 4 for making wines and spirits, 3 tanneries, 2 metal-foundries, 1 powder-mill, and 7 others of various kinds. Shipbuilding is carried on at the seaports. The Greeks excel in tailoring, confectionery, and embroidery. As an index to the industrial progress of the nation it may be noted that in the International Exhibition of 1851 there were only 35 Greek exhibitors; in 1862, 295; and in 1878, 1000. Greece has established a series of industrial exhibitions of its own, —the new Olympic games, as they are termed, which a wealthy Greek left £3000 a year to found,—which combine literary, scientific, and athletic competitions with those of industry, and which occur, like the old Olympic games, every four years. The cotton industry is making decided progress. The annual export of raw cotton is diminishing, and its importation is increasing; and, to encourage the trade, there is no duty on native cotton, unless exported, while the import duty on raw cotton was reduced in 1875. Leather is made chiefly at Syra.

The marble quarries of Pentelicus, Caryste, and Γaros are important works. The coals of Euboea are not much used, as their heat-giving capacity is small. The only mining operations in the country are those of the Laurium Company, which, by help of improved modern appliances, extracts treasure from the waste which the ancient workers of the mines threw away, and which has been roughly guessed to contain still 120,000 tons of lead. The scoriae or refuse heaps of Laurium are dug up and carried on trucks, by a short line of rail belonging to the company, to the town of Ergasteria, near Cape Colonna, built by themselves to be their workshop and port; there these scoriae are re-smelted, and yield annually nearly 10,000 tons of lead, and a large quantity of silver. There are 3000 operatives engaged in this work at Ergasteria. The value of the export in 1875 was £150,513.

But the most conspicuous success of Greece has been in her maritime commerce, for which the situation and configuration of the country afford unusual facilities. In 1821 Greece had only 440 vessels, with a total tonnage of 61,450 tons, whereas in 1875 she had 5440 vessels, 27 of them steamers, with a tonnage in all of 262,032 tons, and employing 26,760 mem In 1830 there was hardly a harbour in all Greece worth the name, the Piraeus being then barely accessible to fishing boats; there are now 65 good ports. It had only one lighthouse in 1847; it has now 46, but more are still urgently needed.

The straits of Euripus have been cleared, deepened, and widened, and an iron bridge thrown across. There are five chambers of commerce. The chief ports are Hermopolis (Syra), Hydra, Spezzia, Corfu, Zante, Piraeus, Patras, Mesolonghi, Nauplia, Santorin, Naxos, Corinth.

The commerce of Greece is usually divided into general and special,—general including all exports and imports whatever, and special taking in only imports meant for home consumption and exports of commodities produced in the country. The special commerce amounts usually to 80 per cent, of the general. The general commerce of Greece in 1875 amounted to £8,374,198, of which £5,196,629 were imports and £3,177,569 exports. An idea of the remarkable progress of its commerce may be obtained by comparing these figures with the following :—In 1833 the total Greek commerce amounted to £671,499, and in 1840 to £1,036,374; in 1860 it was £3,147,000, and in 1870 £5,354,000. England occupies the first place among countries trading with Greece, its transactions being more than double those of any other country, and amounting in 1873 to 41 per cent., and in 1875 to 38 per cent., of the whole commerce of Greece. Taking the average of the six years ending 1874, Wyndham calculates that 60’75 per cent, of the exports of Greece go to England, and that 28 '85 per cent, of its imports come from England. Turkey and Austιia, its nearest neighbours, stand next. 25 per cent, of its imports are cereals and flour,—the cereals from Russia, Turkey, and Roumania, the flour from France; and 20 per cent, are tissues, mainly from England. Though timber is so abundant, it still is one of the largest imports, amounting to £187,778 in 1875. The other chief imports are cattle, salt meat, rice, coals, butter, iron, and paper. The principal item of export, amounting to half the whole, is currants; this in 1875 was £1,350,467, of which £1,083,482 went to England; then come oil, hides, lead, figs, valouia, wines and spirits, tobacco, cotton yarn, &c.

The Greek coasting trade is not open to foreigners. The steamers of the Hellenic Company possess a monopoly of the coastage of those waters, the object being to encourage the development of native steam navigation.

There is only one railway in Greece, if we except the private one already mentioned belonging to the Laurium Company. It is from Piraeus to Athens, is 7⅛ miles long, belongs to Government, and carries passengers only. Another railway is projected from the Piraeus to Lamia (Zeitoum) in the north (140 miles), with the view of connecting Greece with the general railway system of Europe. There were 1235 miles of telegraph in Greece in 1875, the property of Government, and worked at a considerable loss. The postal system is a Government undertaking, and has been a source of profit only since 1861, when postage stamps were introduced. In 1875 there were 131 post-offices in Greece. There are two banks,—the National, with its head office at Athens, and the Ionian, with its head office at Corfu. The National had in 1868 a paid-up capital of £540,000, with a reserve fund of £215,000.

The currency of Greece is tha of the Latin monetary league, which it joined in 1868, and which allows it to strike 26,000,000 silver francs and as much gold as it thinks proper. Under Otho, Greece had a coinage of its own, on the basis of a double standard and the decimal system, the unit being the drachma (equal to 8∣d. ), which was divided into 100 equal pai·ts called leptas. Coins of various values were struck, but only £4000 in gold pieces, and only £36,000 in silver, an amount quite inadequate for the trade of the country, and quickly disappearing altogether, so that there is probably not a single coin of them now left in Greece. It became necessary therefore to declare the gold and silver coins of other countries a legal tender in Greece; and these, with the notes of the National and Ionian Banks, became, and still remain, the practical currency of the country, so that the simplest payment may require a puzzling arithmetical calculation, for people have to pay in sovereigns ancl thalers prices stated in drachmas and leptas. Though the unit of the Latin currency is the franc, the official accounts of Greece are still reckoned in old drachmas, in distinction from which the franc is termed the new drachma. There are 28 old and 25 new drachmas in the pound sterling.

The system of weights and measures is the Turkish. Their measures of length are—the pique, which is equal to 27 inches; the royal pit, equal to 1 metre, or 3'2808 feet; the stadion, equal to 10 ’ 62 English miles. Their measures of superficial extent are—the stremma, equal to one-fourth of an English acre, and the hectare equal to 10 stremmas. Their standard of weight is the cantar or quintal, equal to 123 lb avoirdupois. It is divided into 44 okes, an oke being equal to 2’84 lb, and subdivided into 400 old and 1280 royal drams. A kilo, used for weighing corn, is half a cantar, or 22 okes. 816 kilos are equal to 100 quarters.

The financial condition of Greece is unsatisfactory. Its annual expenditure usually exceeds its income, and it is deeply in debt. The new kingdom was born in debt, and contracted to pay the expenses of the revolution that gave it being, and to that original burden it has from time to time added fresh liabilities, till it has now no longer any credit in the money markets of Europe, and is deeper in debt in proportion to its revenue than any European country except Spain. The total debt of Greece was £15,360,103, according to Mr Malet’s report in 1875, and, what with the accumulation of interest and the contraction of a fresh debt for army extension during the Servian insurrection of 1876, it must now be over £16,000,000. This debt consists of two kinds—foreign and internal. The foreign debt is of two parts. There are first the original two loans, amounting between them to £2,300,000, which were negotiated by the revolutionists in 1824 and 1825 with two English houses at 59 and 55 per cent., and whose coupons are now held mainly by Dutch speculators. On this Greece has never paid a farthing of interest. The Greek treasury, although it accepts the obligation, puts it off from year to year under the heading “Deferred Debt.” With accumulating interest at 5 per cent., it had increased to £8,084,500 in 1874. The second part of the foreign debt is a loan of £2,400,000 guaranteed by the three protecting powers on the accession of Otho in 1832, and negotiated with Rothschild at 94. On this Greece paid interest for a few years, but its payment has so fallen into arrear that in 1874 this debt had grown to £3,870,000. There is also a small debt due to the Bavarian Government, amounting now to £250,000, and there are some still smaller debts to other foreign creditors. The internal debt of the country consists partly of indemnity due to sufferers in the War of Independence, partly of loans contracted with capitalists within the kingdom after its credit abroad was. gone; it now amounts in all to £5,270,339.

The revenue for 1877, according to the estimate in the budget, was £1,401,687, and the expenditure £1,466,708. The actual receipts usually fall short of the budget estimate, for Greece permits her subjects to fall much into arrear with the payment of their taxes; and in 1867 it was calculated there was an aggregate of arrears of taxes amounting to £2,226,000. This revenue is received partly from direct taxes on land and property; partly from indirect taxes; partly from the public services, the post-office, telegraphs, and printing; partly from the rent of the public domains, mines, quarries, hot springs, salt, fisheries, fruits, olive gardens, vineyards, and currant plantations; and partly from the sale of national lands and the ecclesiastical revenues. The largest sources of revenue are the land tax, which brought in 8,500,000 drachmas in 1877; the customs, 13,400,000; and the stamps, 4,200,000. The cost of collecting the land tax is very extravagant. It takes £25 to collect £100, or ten times more than it does in France. The Greeks are not sorely taxed. Rangabe estimates that they pay 23 '43 drachmas (about 17s.) each in the year as taxes.

Of the expenditure of Greece, nearly one-fourth part goes to pay interest on its debt, another fourth to maintain its aπny and navy, and a large sum (£136,386) to pay pensions to persons who suffered in the revolution, or who possessed interests in the Ionian Islands at the time of their cession. The education and worship of the country cost £75,427, and the foreign office and diplomatic service only £40,257. The administration of justice takes £107,716, and the department of the interior, including the post-office and many other outlays, £171,526. The salaries of members of the chambers of deputies come to £16,071.

Literature.— Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland (Leipsic, 1862); Tozer, Lectures on the Geography of Greece (London, 1873); Kruse, Hellas (Leipsic, 1825-27); Julius Schmidt, Beiträge zur physikalischen Geographie von Griechenland (Leipsic, 1864-70); Finlay, History of Greece (Oxford, 1877); Maurer, Das Griechische Volk in öffentlicher zind privat-rechtlicher Beziehung (Heidelberg, 1835); About, La Grèce Contemporaine (Paris, 1854); Rangabe, Greece, her Former and Present Position (New York, 1867); Strick· land, Greece, its Condition and Resources (London, 1863); Wyse, Impressions of Greece (London, 1871); Tuckerman, The Greeks of To-day (London, 1873); Moraitinis, Im Grèce telle qu' elle est (Paris, 1877); Sergeant, New Greece (London, 1878); and the annual reports of the British secretaries of embassy and legation and of the British consuls. (J. R.)

PART II.—GREEK HISTORY.

Section I.— Greek History to the Death of Alexander the Great.

The early history of Greece is the first chapter in the political and intellectual life of Europe. In contrast with nations still in the tribal stage the Greeks have already the life of cities; in contrast with the despotic monarchies of the East they recognize the principle that no personal rule should be unlimited. From the first they appear as a people obedient to reason and to a native instinct of measure. In the political sphere this leads them to aim at a due balance of powers and tendencies in the state, at the definition of duties and the protection of rights. In the intellectual sphere it leads them to explore causes, to interpret thought in clear forms, to find graceful expression for the social feelings and sympathies. The historical interest of Greece does not begin therefore only at the point where details and dates become approximately certain, but with the first glimpses of that ordered life out of which the civilization of Europe arose. At a later stage the Greek commonwealths offer the most instructive study which the ancient world affords in the working of oligarchic and democratic institutions. Then, as the Roman power rises, culminates, and declines, Greek history assumes a new character and a new interest. From Alexander the Great dates the beginning of a modern Greek nation, one, not in blood, but in speech and manners. Two main threads link together the earlier and later history of civilized man. One passes through Rome, and is Latin; the other passes through the new Rome in the east, and is Greek.

In a sketch like the present it would be impossible to attempt a detailed narrative of facts, which, besides, fall to be considered under particular headings. The aim here will be rather to trace in outline the general course of the development, and to indicate, so far as a rapid survey permits, the leading causes and tendencies which were at work in its successive stages.

Six periods may be distinguished. I. The prehistoric period, down to the close of the great migrations. II. The early history of the leading states down to about 500 b.c. III. The Ionic revolt and the Persian wars, 502-479. IV. The period of Athenian supremacy, 478-431. V. The Peloponnesian War, 431-404, followed by the period of Spartan and then of Theban ascendency, 404-362. VI. The reigns of Philip and Alexander, 359-323 B.c.

I. The Prehistoric Period, down to the close of the great Migrations.

“Ancient Hellas,” says Aristotle, “is the country about Dodona and the Achelous, . . . . for the Selloi lived there, and the people then called the Graikoi, but now the Hellenes” (Meteor., i. 14). The name Graikoi probably meant the “old” or “honourable” folk (Curtius, Etym., 130). The Italians may have enlarged the application of this name, which they found on the eastern side of the Ionian Gulf. The modems have followed the Romans in giving it to the whole people who, from very early times, have always called themselves Hellenes.

The evidence of language tells something as to the point of civilization which had been reached by the ancestors of the Indo-European nations before the Hellenes parted from the common stock in Central Asia. They had words for “father,” “mother,” “brother,” “sister,” “son,” “daughter,” and also for certain affinities by marriage, as “father-in-law,” “brother-in-law,” “daughter-in-law.” They lived in houses; they wore clothes made of wool or skins; as arms they had the sword and the bow; they had flocks and herds, goats and dogs; they drove, if they did not ride, horses. They were a pastoral rather than an agricultural people. They knew how to work gold, silver, and copper; they could count up to a hundred; they reckoned time by the lunar month; they spoke of the sky as the Heaven-father. The first great migration from the common home was that which carried the ancestors of the Teutonic, Slavonic, and Lithuanian tribes into north-western Europe. The next was that which carried the ancestors of Greeks, Italians, and Celts into southern and south-western Europe.

Language indicates that there must have been a period during which the forefathers of Greeks and Italians, after the Celts had parted from them, lived together as one people. Again, the Greek language, unique in its characteristic development, tells that the Hellenes, after the Italians had left them, must have long remained an undivided people. But to us this primitive Hellenic unity is prehistoric. We first know the Hellenes as a race divided into two great branches, each with well-marked characteristics of its own,— Dorians and Ionians ; while those who have been less affected by the special causes which produced these divergences from an earlier common type are regarded as forming a third branch, and are called collectively Aeolians. Further, we hear of a people distinguished indeed from the Hellenes, yet apparently felt (as by Thucydides) to be not wholly alien from them,—a people represented as having been before them in Greece proper, on the coasts, and in the islands of the Aegean,—the Pelasgians. In some Homeric passages, and those among the oldest, the name Pelasgoi denotes a tribe of Achaean or Aeolian Greeks living in Thessaly (Iliad, ii. 681; xvi. 233). In other poetical texts of later date, and repeatedly in Herodotus, Pelasgoi is a general designation for people of whom the Greeks knew little definitely, except that they had preceded the Hellenic dwellers in the land. In this second and vague use, “Pelasgian” is virtually equivalent to “prehistoric.”

The highlands of Phrygia have the best claim to be regarded as the point of departure for the distinctively Hellenic migrations. In these fertile regions of northwestern Asia Minor, the Hellenes, after the Italians had left them, may have lived, first as a part of the Phrygian nation, and afterwards as a separate people. From these seats a great wave of migration seems to have carried over the Hellespont into Europe a population which diffused itself through Greece and the Peloponnesus, as well as over the coasts and islands of the archipelago. In after ages, when the kinship, though perhaps dimly suspected, was no longer recognized, the Hellenes called these earlier occupants of the land Pelasgians. It has been conjectured that in Pelasgos we have combined the roots of rdpαν and ∈ι∕tι (ηa). The name would then mean “the further-goer,” “the emigrant.” It would thus be appropriate as the name given by the Hellenes, who had remained behind in Phrygia, to the kinsmen who had passed over into Europe before them.

The second epoch of migration from the Phrygian highlands appears to have been one by which single Hellenic tribes, with special gifts and qualities, were carried forth to become the quickeners of historic life among inert masses of population, among those “Pelasgians” who had long been content to follow the calm routine of husbandmen or herdsmen. The ancestors of the Ionians went down to the coasts of Asia Minor, and became the founders of a race whose distinctive powers found scope in maritime enterprise and in commerce. The ancestors of the Dorians passed into the highlands of Northern Greece, and there developed the type of hardy mountaineer which united the robust vigour of hunter and warrior with a firm loyalty to ancestral traditions in religion and in civil government.

Of these two branches,—the Ionian and the Dorian,— the Ionian was that which most actively influenced the early development of Greece. But the Ionians themselves derived the first impulses of their progress from a foreign source. Those Canaanites or “lowlanders” of Syria, whom we call by the Greek name of Phoenicians, inhabited the long narrow strip of territory between Lebanon and the sea. Phoenicia, called “Keft” by the Egyptians, had at a remote period contributed Semitic settlers to the Delta or “Isle of Cap’itor;” and it would appear from the evidence of the Egyptian monuments that the Kefa, or Phoenicians, were a great commercial people as early as the 16th century B.c. Cyprus, visible from the heights of Lebanon, was the first stage of the Phoenician advance into the-Western waters; and to the last there was in Cyprus a Semitic element side by side with the Indo-European. From Cyprus the Phoenician navigators proceeded to the southern coasts of Asia Minor, where Phoenician colonists gradually blended with the natives, until the entire seaboard had become in a great measure subject to Phoenician influences. Thus the Solymi, settled in Lycia, were akin to the Canaanites; and the Carians, originally kinsmen of the Greeks, were strongly affected by Phoenician contact. It was at Miletus especially that the Ionian Greeks came into commercial intercourse with the Phoenicians. Unlike the dwellers on the southern seaboard of Asia Minor, they showed no tendency to merge their nationality in that of the Syrian strangers. But they learned from them much that concerned the art of navigation, as, for instance, the use of the round-built merchant vessels called γαυλoι, and probably also a system of weights and measures, as well as the rudiments of some useful arts. The Phoenicians had been first drawn to the coasts of Greece in quest of the purple-fish which was found in abundance off the coasts of the Peloponnesus and of Boeotia; other attractions were furnished by the plentiful timber for shipbuilding which the Greek forests supplied, and by veins of silver, iron, and copper ore.

Two periods of Phoenician influence on early Greece may be distinguished: first, a period during which they were brought into intercourse with the Greeks merely by traffic in occasional voyages; secondly, a period of Phoenician trading settlements in the islands or on the coasts of the Greek seas, when their influence became more penetrating and thorough. It was probably early in this second period,—perhaps about the end of the 9th century B,c.,— that the Phoenician alphabet became diffused through Greece. This alphabet was itself derived from the alphabet of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which was brought into Phoenicia by the Phoenician settlers in the Delta. It was imported into Greece, probably, by the Aramaeo-Phoenicians of the Gulf of Antioch,—not by the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon,—and seems to have superseded, in Asia Minor and the islands, a syllabary of some seventy characters, which continued to be used in Cyprus down to a late time. The direct Phoenician influence on Greece lasted to about 600 b.c. Commerce and navigation were the provinces in which the Phoenician influence, strictly so called, was most felt by the Greeks. In art and science, in everything that concerned the higher culture, the Phoenicians seem to have been little more than carriers from East to West of Egyptian, Assyrian, or Babylonian ideas.

The legends of European Greece speak clearly of foreign elements in civilization and in religious worship which came in from the East. But they do not constrain us to suppose that those who brought in these new elements were always, or as a rule, strangers to the people among whom they brought them. On the contrary the myths constantly say, or imply, that the new comers were akin to the people among whom they came; as the sons of Aegyptus are first cousins to the daughters of Danaus; as Cadmus and Pelops, though nominally of foreign origin, are thoroughly national heroes and founders. Hence it appears reasonable to conclude that the East by which European Hellas was most directly and vitally influenced was not the Semitic but the Hellenic East; that the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, after having themselves been in intercourse with Phoenicia and Egypt, were the chief agents in diffusing the new ideas among their kinsmen on the western side of the Aegean. Asiatic Greeks, who had settled among Egyptians in the Delta, or who had lived amid Phoenician colonies in Asia Minor, would easily be confounded, in popular rumour, with Egyptians or Phoenicians. The Asiatic Greeks, as pioneers of civilization in European Greece, appear sometimes under the name of Carians,—when they are little more than teachers of certain improvements in the art of war, and have a decidedly foreign character,—sometimes as Leleges, who are associated especially with Lycia, Miletus, and the Troad, and who, as compared with the “Carians,” are the representatives of a more advanced civilization. In the east the seafaring Ionians gave their name to the whole Greek people, as in the Hebrew Scriptures the Greeks are “the sons of Javan,”—the Cinim of the Egyptians, the Iauna of the Persians. It does not appear that the European Greeks of early days used “Ionian” in this way as a collective name for the Asiatic Greeks. But such names as Iasion, Iason, Iasian Argos point to a sense that the civilization which came from Asia Minor was connected with Ionia. At a later time the Greeks forgot the Ionians and Phoenicians who had brought an Eastern civilization to the western side of the Aegean. Vividly impressed by the great antiquity of this civilization itself, especially in Egypt, they preferred to suppose that they had derived it directly from the source.

The appearance of new elements in religious worship is one great mark of the period during which Greece in Europe was still being changed by influences, Greek or foreign, from the East. The worship which the fathers of the Hellenes had brought with them from the common home in Asia was the worship of the “Heaven-father,” the unseen father who dwells in aether, whose temple is the sky, and whose altar is most fitly raised on the mountain top, as the ancient shrine of the Arcadian Zeus was the grove on the summit of Mount Lycaeus. This is the “Pelasgian Zeus, dwelling afar,” to whom the Homeric Achilles prays. But as the united Hellenic race parted into tribes, so to the first simple worship of the Heaven-father was added a variety of local cults. And as mariners from other lands began to visit the coasts, they brought in their own gods with them. Thus Melcarth, the city-god of Tyre, is recognized in Melicertes as worshipped at the isthmus of Corinth. In one Greek form of the worship of Heracles, Astarte—the goddess of the Phoenician sailors—becomes Aphrodite, who springs from the sea. The myth of Adonis, the worship of the Achaean Demeter, are other examples. There are, again, other divinities who came to European Greece, not directly from the non-Hellenic East, but as deities already at home among the Ionians. Such was Poseidon, and, above all, Apollo, whose coming is everywhere a promise of light and joy.

Little precise knowledge of the earliest kingdoms and states can be extracted from the legends as they have come down to us, but some general inferences are warranted. The tradition that Minos cleared the archipelago of pirates and established a wide maritime dominion, that he was the first to sacrifice to the Charites, and that Daedalus wrought for him, may be taken at least as indicating that Crete played a prominent part in the early history of Greek culture, and that there was a time when Cretan kings were strong enough to protect commerce in the Aegean waters. Again, though Gordius and Midas have passed into the region of fable, there are reasonable grounds for the belief that the ancient kings of Phrygia once exercised dominion over Asia Minor. The Lydians, in whose origin Semitic and Aryan elements appear to have been mingled, have a twofold interest in this dawn of Hellenic history. First, they represent the earliest kingdom in Asia Minor of which anything is certainly known. Secondly, they are on land what the Phoenicians are on the sea,—carrière or mediators between the Greeks and the East. In the north-west corner of Asia Minor, a branch of the Dardani—whose ancestor is described as worshipping the Pelasgian Zeus—founded the kingdom of the Troas, the land of Troy. It has been remarked that the double names of the Trojan heroes,—Alexander, Paris,—Hector, Darius,—point to the twofold relationship of the Trojans, on the one side to Hellas, on the other to Asia. In European Greece we find the race known as the Minyae, whose early glories are linked with the story of “Jason and the Argonauts” moving southward from the shores of the Gulf of Pagasae into the valley of Like Copais, and founding the Boeotian Orchomenus. The early greatness of Thebes is associated with the name of Cadmus, the king-priest who introduces the art of writing, who builds the citadel, who founds a system of artificial irrigation. The Achaean princes, whose chivalrous spirit is expressed in the Homeric Achilles, rule in the fertile valley of the Thessalian Phthiotis. In the Peloponnesus the Pelopidae at Mycenae reign over Achaeans; and Agιmemnon is said to rule, not only “all Argos,” but “many islands.” The principle on which such legends as that of Agamemnon’s sovereignty may best be estimated has been well stated by Mi-Freeman :—

“The legend of Charlemagne, amidst infinite perversions, preserves a certain groundwork of real history; I should expect to find in the legend of Agamemnon a similar groundwork of real history. 'There is, of course, the all-important difference that we can test the one story, and that we cannot test the other, by the certain evidence of contemporary documents. This gives us certainty in one case, while we cannot get beyond high probability in the other. . . . Later Grecian history would never lead us to believe that there had been once a single dynasty reigning, if not as sovereigns, at least as suzerains, over a large portion of insular and peninsular Greece. So later mediaeval history would never lead us to believe that there had once been a Latin orTeutonic emperor, whosedominionsstretched from the Eider to the Ebro. But we know that the Carolingian legend is thus far confirmed by history; there is, therefore, no a priori objection to the analogous features of the Pelopid legend. The truth is that the idea of such an extensive dominion would not have occurred to a later romancer, unless some real history or tradition had suggested it to him. So, again, without some such groundwork of history or tradition, no one would have fixed upon Mykênê, a place utterly insignificant in later history, as the capital of this extensive empire. The romances have transferred the capital of Karl from Aachen to Paris; had it really been Paris, no one would have transferred it to Aachen. . . . Whether Agamemnon be a real man or not, the combination of internal and external evidence leads us to set down the Pelopid dynasty at Mykênê as an established fact.”

We now come to a pha3e in the development of early Greece which tradition represents as following, but at no great interval, the age in which a Pelopid dynasty ruled at Mycenae and fought against Troy. This is the period of great displacements of population within the mainland of European Greece. The first of these migrations is that of the people afterwards known as Thessalians. A fierce tribe of mounted warriors, they passed from Thesprotia in Epirus over the range of Pindus, and subdued or drove out an Aeolic population who dwelt about Arné, in the fertile lowlands of southern Thessaly. Those of the Aeolians who had not submitted to the conquerors passed southward into the land thenceforth called Boeotia, where, between Orchomenus and Thebes, they founded a new home. Their conquest of Boeotia appears to have been difficult and gradual; and even after the fall of Orchomenus and Thebe3, Plataea is said to have maintained its independence. The legend placed these events about 1124 b.c., or sixty years after the fall of Troy. About twenty years later in the mythical chronology occurs the third and more famous migration, known as the return of the Heraclidae. We need not enter here into the details of the myth. It will be enough to indicate the results to which an examination of the legend leads. The Dorians, migrating southward from the highlands of Macedonia, had established themselves at the northern foot of Parnassus, in the fertile district between that range and Oeta, which was thenceforth called Doris. In setting out from these seats to conquer the Peloponnesus the Dorians were associated with other tribes. Among these were the Hylleans, who were believed to be of Achaean origin, and who traced their descent from the hero Hyllus, son of the Tirynthiau Heracles. The Hyllean chiefs of the expedition represented themselves, accordingly, as seeking to reconquer that royal dominion of Heracles in the Peloponnesus of which his descendants had been wrongfully deprived by Eurystheus. Hence the Dorian migration itself came to be called the “Return of the Heraclidae.” The migration had two main results :—(1) the Dorians, under leaders claiming Heraclid descent, overthrew the Achaean dynasties in the Peloponnesus, and either expelled or subjugated the Achaean folk; (2) a portion of the Achaeans, retiring northward before the Dorian invaders in the south, drove the Ionians on the coast of the Corinthian Gulf out of the strip of territory which was thenceforth called Achaia; and these Ionians sought refuge with their kinsfolk in Attica. It is in the nature of the heroic myths to represent changes of this kind, which may have been the gradual work of generations, as effected by sudden blows. Some comparative mythologers have maintained with much ingenuity that the “Return of the Heraclidae” is merely one of those alternations which balance each other in the hundred forms of the solar myth. It appears more consistent with reason to believe that there was really a great southward movement of population, which resulted in the substitution of Dorian for Achaean ascendency in the Peloponnesus. We cannot pretend to fix either the exact time at which it commenced or the period which was required for its completion. One thing may, however, be affirmed with probability. It cannot have been done all at once, as the myth says that it was. The displacement of the Achaeans was accomplished only by degrees, and perhaps after the lapse of centuries.

The same remark applies to those three streams of migration from European Greece to the coasts of Asia Minor, which are represented as having ensued on the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus, and which may naturally be connected with the disturbance of populations which the southward advance of the Dorians caused. The Achaeans, driven from their old seats in the south, moved northwards; and, reinforced by Aeolic kinsmen from Boeotia and Thessaly, established themselves on the north-west coast of Asia Minor, where Lesbos and Cyme became their strongholds. By degrees their dominion spread inland, until they had become masters of Mysia and the Troad. The Aeolic migration which thus created an Asiatic Aeolis was unquestionably the slow work of generations. The immediate cause of the Ionic migration, which began later than the Aeolic, appears to have been the overcrowding of Attica by the Ionians driven out of Achaia. The Aeolic settlements had been the work of a people migrating in large masses. The Ionic colonization seems to have been effected rather by smaller numbers of warlike adventurers, sprung from the noble Ionian families of Attica and the Peloponnesus, who claimed to rule over the Ionic communities already established on the Asiatic coast. The Dorian colonists, following the southward direction of their previous conquests, settled on the southwest coast of Asia Minor. The islands of Cos and Rhodes received Dorian settlers; and, after what was probably a long struggle, the Dorians subdued Crete.

While the populations had thus been settling down into the places which they were to occupy during the historical age of Greece, a movement had been in progress on the European mainland which tended to quicken among the various tribes a sense of the unity of the race. This was the establishment of local associations among neighbouring tribes for the common worship of the same god. These associations were of a feleral character: that is, while the members of the association were independent in other matters, they were subject to a common central authority in all that concerned religious worship. Such a federal association was called an amphictyony, that is, a league of neighbours. The most important of such leagues was the Delphic amphictyony, of which the object was to conserve the worship of Apollo at Delphi. This league arose in Thessaly, where the conquerors who had come in from Epirus sought to establish themselves more firmly by embracing the cult of Apollo. It was afterwards extended through the southern districts until it included most of the tribes dwelling about (Eta and Parnassus. The members of the Delphic amphictyony gave a new meaning and value to the federal compact by applying it to enforce certain obligations of humanity in war. They took an oath that they would not raze each other’s towns, nor, during a siege, cut off the supply of water. It was in connexion with the Delphic amphictyony that the name Hellene appears to have been first distinctly recognized as the national name. The earliest collective name of the race, in Greek tradition, had been Graikoi. The members of the Delphic amphictyony chose as their federal name that of Hellenes,— a name of sacred associations, if we may connect it with that of the Selloi or Helloi, the priests of the Pelasgian Zeus at Dodona,—in the region which, according to Aristotle, was the most ancient Hellas. The circumstances which gave currency to Hellene as a common appellative have left a reminiscence in the myth that Hellen was nearly related to Amphictyon.

The Homeric poems may be regarded by the student of history a3 great pictures of political and social life, illustrating the whole variety of Greek experience down to the close of that age which saw the tides of Aeolic, Ionic, and Doric migration flow from the west to the east of the Aegean. It is a distinct question how far recoverable historical fact is embedded in their text, or how far trustworthy inferences may be drawn from them in regard to a supposed series of events. But at least the legends of the Achaean princes and warriors are there, as they came through Aeolic minstrels to the poetβ of Ionia; and, various as may be the ages and sources of the interwoven materials, the total result may betaken as a portraiture, true in its main lines, of the age from which these legends had come down. In the political life described by the Homeric poems the king rules by divine and hereditary right. But he is not, like an Eastern monarch, even practically despotic; he is bound, first, by themistes, the traditional customs of his people; next, he must consult the boule, the council of nobles and elders; and, lastly, his proposals require to be ratified by the agora, or popular assembly. The social life Î3 the counterpart of this. It is a patriarchal life, in which the head of the family stands to his dependants in a relation like that of the king to his subjects. It is, within the family pale, eminently humane; and the absence of a charity which should include all mankind is in some measure compensated by the principle and practice of hospitality. The position of free-born women is high,—higher than in the historical ages; and polygamy is unknown among Greeks. Many of the pictures of manners, especially in the Odyssey, have the refinement of a noble simplicity in thought and feeling, and of a genuine courtesy which is peculiarly Hellenic. The useful arts are still in an early stage. The use of the principal metals is known, but not, apparently, the art of smelting or soldering them. Money is not mentioned, oxen being the usual measure of value; and there is no certain allusion to the art of writing.

II. The Early History of the leading States down to about 500 B.c.

In the history of the Peloponnesus after the Dorian immigration we begin to be on firmer ground. There may still be large room fir doubt as to particular dates or Himes, but the age left permanent records in the institutions which survived it. The first thing which should be borne in mind with regard to the Dorian immigration is that its direct influence was confined to three districts of the Peloponnesus. Argolis, Lajonia, and Messenia were thoroughly Dorianized. Of the other three districts, Arcadia remained almost wholly unaffected, Elis and Achaia were affected only indirectly, through the influx of the populations which the Dorians had displaced. The first rank in the Peloponnesus was long retained by Argos. The ancient primacy of its Achaean princes was inherited by its Dorian rulers; and now, under the dynasty of the Temenidae, Argos acquired a new prestige as the head of a federative Dorian hexapolis, of which the other members were Phlius, Sicyon, Troezene, Epidaurus, and Corinth. It was only by slow degrees that the power arose which was destined to eclipse Argos. When the Dorians entered the valley of Eurotas, they found “hollow Lacedaemon” already shared among people of other tribes. Leleges, Minyans, and Achaeans had been there before them. Both Aeolian and Achaean elements remained in the land. The settlement of the Dorians was made in a strong position under Mount Taygetus, on the right or western bank of the Eurotas; and the fact that, unlike most Greek cities, it was not founded on a rocky base, but on arable soil, was expressed by the name Sparte (sown land). It was indeed less a city than a group of rude hamlets,—the camp of a military occupation. And, as a natural stronghold, defended by an alert garrison, it dispensed w ith walls. Sparta was at first only one member of a Laconian hexapolis. It was at a later stage that Sparta became the head-town of the country, and the seat of a central government. The origin of the dual kingship may probably be traced to this period. Such a dualism has no parallel elsewhere among Dorians: and, as regards one at least of the two royal lines, we know that the Agiade Cleomenes proclaimed himself an Achaean. The two royal lines of the Agiadae and Eurypontidae may have taken their beginning from a coalition or compromise between Dorian and Achaean houses. Afterwards, when it was desired to explain the dualism and to refer both lines to a common source, Agis and Eurypon were represented as descended from the twin sons of Aristodemus, Eurystheus and Procles.

The spread of Spartan power in the Peloponnesus was preceded by the building up of that political and social system which made the Spartan citizens a compact aristocracy, exclusively devoted to the exercises of war. The personality of Lycurgus is shadowy. He has even been classed with those beings who, like Prometheus, Hermes, and Phoroneus, bestow on men that gift of fire without which they could not have attained to a high civilization. But the charge of excessive credulity can scarcely be brought against those who hold, with E. Curtius, that “there really lived and worked in the first half of the 9th century b.c. a legislator of the name of Ly<5urgus, a man who, as a born Heraclide, was called to take part in public affairs.” It is another question whether he was the author of all the institutions which were afterwards ascribed to him. The example of another legislator who stands in a far clearer light of history,—the Athenian Solon,—whom the orators sometimes credit with the work of Clisthenes in addition to his own, may serve to show how loose such ascriptions often were. But at least the work of Lycurgus may be assumed to have marked an epoch in the history of the Spartan system. This system rested, first, ou a distinction of three orders. Dorians alone were Spartiatai, citizens of Sparta, as opposed to mere Lacedaemonii, and to them belonged all political power. Lycurgus, said the tradition, assigned nine thousand lots of land to as many Spartiatae; the land descended from father to eldest son, and, failing issue, reverted to the state. The older or non-Dorian population, settled chiefly on the mountain slopes around the Spartan lands, were called Perioikoi. They were free farmers, who had no share in the government, and were not required to perform military service. Lastly, the Helots cultivated the lands of the Spartans, not as slaves belonging to private masters, but as serfs of the commonwealth; hence no Spartan citizen could sell a Helot or remove him from the land. From each farm the Helots had to produce annually a certain quantity of barley, oil, and wine; if there was a surplus, they could keep it for themselves. The condition of the Helots was thus in some respects better than that of ordinary Greek slaves. But it was such as constantly to remind them that they had once been a free peasantry. It was this, as much perhaps as positive ill-usage, which made it so peculiarly galling. The hatred of the Helots was a standing menace to the Spartan commonwealth. As Aristotle says, the Spartan kingship meant practically a life-tenure of the chief military command. The government was essentially an official oligarchy, in which the power of the irresponsible ephors was not importantly modified by the gerousia, while the popular assembly played a part hardly more active than that of the Homeric agora, with its formal privilege of simple affirmation or veto. The military training, from childhood upwards, to which the whole social life of Sparta was made subservient, was at first a necessity; but it soon became thoroughly identified with the ambition and with the pride of an exclusive warrior-caste. Sparta was sharply marked off from the other Greek communities by this systematic treatment of war as the business of life. When the military prestige of Sparta began to decline in the course of the 4th century b.c., it was remarked that this was due to the increased attention which other states had begun to pay to the art of war, whereas in old days the Spartans had been like professional soldiers matched against civilians.

The mountain wall of Taygetus had set a barrier between Laconia and Messenia, which might have seemed to forbid the extension of Spartan power towards the west. If the Dorians in Messenia had fully preserved the warlike character of the race, they would probably have had little to fear. But they seem to have been in some measure enervated by the natural wealth of a country which, at the same time, excited the envy of their neighbours. Myths have grown thickly around the story of the two Messenian wars. This, at least, appears certain: the gradual conquest of Messenia by Sparta occupied not less than a hundred years (about 750-650 b.c.). The legend that, at a critical time, the stirring war-songs of the Attic Tyrtaeus raised the sinking spirit of Sparta, agrees with the tradition of a long and doubtful struggle. Nor was the strife confined to the two chief combatants. Messenia was aided by other Peloponnesian states which dreaded a like fate for themselves,—Argos, Sicyon, Arcadia. Sparta was helped by Elis and Corinth. When Messenia had been conquered and the Dorian inhabitants reduced to the state of Helots, Sparta had overcome the most difficult obstacle to her ambition. By conquests, of which the details are obscure, she won from Argolis a strip of territory on the eastern coast of the Peloponnesus, and finally carried her north-eastern border to Thyrea. In southern Arcadia alone the Spartan arms were decisively repulsed by Tegea; and the Tegeans, accepting the supremacy of Sparta, were enrolled, about 560 b,c., as honoured allies of the power which they had checked.

The repulse warned Sparta that it was better to aim at leading the Peloponnesus than at conquering it; and an opportunity was found of asserting this leadership in a manner far more effective than any military demonstration. At Olympia, in the valley through which the Alpheus passes to the western coast, there was an ancient sanctuary of the Pelasgian Zeus. An amphictyony, or league of neighbouring towns, held sacrifice and games there once in four years, the management of the festival being shared between Pisa and Elis. A dispute arose between these two states. Sparta confirmed Elis in the religious superintendence of the festival, and at the same time arrogated to herself the political headship of the sacred league. Every effort was now made by the Spartans to extend the popularity and enhance the brilliancy of the Olympic games. Sparta—already supreme in Laconia and Messenia, already the victorious rival of Argos in the east of the land—now appears at the Olympian shrine of Zeus in a character peculiarly well adapted to attract the loyalty of the western Achaeans. The general recognition of Sparta as the first state in the Peloponnesus may be said to date from the time when, under Spartan auspices, the Olympic festival acquired a new celebrity.

For political reasons Dorian Sparta had always cherished the traditions of the Achaean princes; but the monarchy of the Achaean age, if it still existed anywhere, was a rare survival. The form of government which had generally succeeded to it was oligarchy, that is, the rule of a group of noble families claiming descent from the heroes, possessing certain religious rites in which no aliens participated, and claiming to be, by a divine authority, the interpreters of the unwritten law. These noble families made up the state. The commons, who lived in or around the city as artisans, labourers, or farmers, were free men, but had no political rights. The Dorian ascendency in the Peloponnesus was peculiarly favourable to oligarchies. Sparta was, in fact, such an oligarchy, though not of the closest kind,—the Dorian citizens being the privileged class, while the Perioeci answered to the commons elsewhere. It was a fortunate circumstance for the political development of Greece that oligarchy did not, as a rule, pass directly into democracy. A period of transition was needed, during which the people, hitherto debarred from all chance of political education, should learn the meaning of membership in the state.

This was afforded, at least in some measure, by that peculiar phase in the life of the Greek commonwealths which intervenes between oligarchy and democracy,—the age of the tyrannies. A turannos meant one whose power is both superior and contrary to the laws. An absolute ruler is not a turannos if the constitution of the state gives him absolute power; nor is a ruler unauthorized by the laws less a turannos because he rules mildly. The genesis of the tyrant was different in different cases. Most often he is a member of the privileged class, who comes forward as the champion of the people against his peers, overthrows the oligarchy with the help of the people, and establishes his own rule in its stead. Such was Pisistratus at Athens. Sometimes he is himself one of the people; this was the case with Orthagoras, who (about 676 b.c. ) overthrew the Dorian oligarchy at Sicyon. The case of Cypselus at Corinth is intermediate between these two; for he belonged to a noble Dorian house, though not to the inner circle of those Bacchiadae whose rule he overthrew. Or the tyrant is one who raises himself to absolute power from the stepping-stone of some office with which the oligarchy itself had entrusted him. An example is supplied by Phalaris of Agrigentum, and by the tyrants of some Ionic cities in Asia Minor. Lastly, the tyrant might be a king who had overstepped his constitutional prerogative. Pheidon, king of Argos, is adduced by Aristotle as an instance of this rarer case. In all cases the tyrant properly so-called must be distinguished from a ruler whom a community has voluntarily placed above the law, either temporarily or for his life. Such was properly called an aisumnetes or dictator,—as Pittacus of Mitylene. The benefits conferred on the Greek commonwealths by the tyrannies were chiefly of two kinds. (1) The tyrant often instituted new religious festivals, in which the whole body of the citizens might take part. A feeling of civic unity Was thus created, which could not exist while the nobles formed a separate caste, as exclusive in their worship as in their other privileges. (2) The court of the tyrant became a centre to which poets and artists were attracted. Such a man as Periander of Corinth (625-585) might aim at resembling an Eastern despot, but his encouragement of liberal arts must still have given an impulse to the higher civilization of Corinth. Polycrates of Samos, the friend of Anacreon, welcomed all men of fine gifts to his court; Pisistratus showed a like care for poetry, and for the artistic embellishment of Athens. The root of evil in the tyranny was its unlawful origin, and its consequent reliance upon force, frequently leading the tyrant to aim at keeping the citizens in a state of helplessness and mutual mistrust. But the founder of a tyranny was usually a man with some inborn qualities for command, and the baser forms of oppression were not required until he had given place to a weaker successor.

The age of the oligarchies and tyrannies coincides wi£h the most active period of Greek colonization, which received an impulse both from redundant population and from political troubles at home. The two centuries from 750 to 550 B.C. saw most of the Greek colonies founded. Sicily received settlements from both the two great branches of the Greek race. Naxos, founded by the Chalcidians of Euboea (735 b.c.), with Leoutini and Catana, founded soon afterwards by Naxos, formed a group of Ionic communities on the eastern side of the island. Syracuse, founded by Corinth (734 b.c.), Gela, colonized by Rhodians and Cretans (690 B,c.), and Agrigentum, of which Gela was the parent city (582 B.C.), were among the chief of the Dorian commonwealths on the south-eastern and southwestern coasts. These Siceliot cities formed a fringe round the Siceli and Sicani of the interior; but, though in the presence of non-Hellenic populations, they never lost among themselves the sharp distinction between Dorian and Ionian (or “Chalcidic ”), a distinction which was long the keynote to the inner history of the Siceliots. The earliest of the Greek settlements in Italy was the Ionic Cumae, on the coast near Cape Misenum, a little to the north-west of Naples. It was founded by Chalcidians of Euboea, as early, according to the tradition, as 1050 B,c. The Dorian Tarentum,—a colony of Sparta,—and the Achaeau (Aeolic) settlements of Sybaris and Croton, dated from the latter part of the 8th century b.c. Poseidouia (Paestum) was founded by Sybaris. Locri, an Aeolic settlement near Cape Zephyrium (whence its epithet “Epizephyrian ”), and the Ionic Rhegium, founded from Chalcis, complete the series of flourishing cities which made south-western Italy appear as a new and richer land of the Hellenes, as Megale Hellas, Magna Groecia. The turning-point in its prosperity was the war between the two foremost of the Achaean cities, ending in the destruction of Sybaris by Croton (510 B,c.). By this event, just at the time when the Ionians of Asia Minor were passing under the sway of Persia, the Greeks of Italy were rendered less able to make head against the native tribes of the peninsula. The name Megale Hellas remained, but its old significance was gone; the spirit of confident progress had been quenched.

The distinctive character of Greek colonization is seen less vividly where, as in Sicily and Italy, Greek communities clustered together, than at those lonely outposts of Hellenic life where a single city stood in barbarian lands. Massalia (Marseilles) was founded by the Ionians of Phocaea about 600 b.c., and became the parent of colonies on the east coast of Spain. If Carthage had not fulfilled the purpose for which it was founded, by serving as the jealous guardian of Phoenician commerce in the western Mediterranean, Greek settlements would probably have multiplied on those shores as rapidly as elsewhere. Cyrene, on the African coast, was a Dorian colony (630 b.c. ) from Thera, itself colonized by Sparta, and became the founder of Barca. Corcyra was colonized by Corinth about 700 b.c., and joined with the mother-city in founding settlements (among others, Epidamnus) on the coast of Epirus. The northern shores of the Aegean and the Propontis were dotted with colonies, from the group of towns planted by Chalcis in the peninsula thence called Chalcidice, to Byzantium,—which, like Selymbria, was founded by Megara (657 b.c. ). Among the colonies on the western coast of Asia Minor, Miletus was especially active in creating other settlements, particularly for purposes of commerce. Naucratis, in the delta of the Nile, was a trading colony from Miletus, and flourished from 550 b.c. On the southern shores of the Propontis and the Euxine, Cyzicus and Sinope (itself the parent city of Trapezus) were daughters of Miletus. Here too were the remotest of Greek settlements,—Panticapaeum (Kertch in the Crimea), afterwards the capital of the Greek kings of the Bosporus; Olbia (or Borysthenes) on the adjacent mainland; and Istria, at the mouth of the Danube. The above enumeration, though not exhaustive, will serve to mark the wide extent of the area included by Greek colonization. As the city was the highest unit in the political conception of the Greeks, so each colony contained within itself the essentials of a complete political life. Its relation to the parent-city was one of filial piety, not of constitutional dependence. In so far as the cult of the gods and heroes whom it worshipped was localized in the mother-country, it was needful that a link should exist between the religious rites of the colony and those of its parent; and this religious continuity was symbolized by the sacred fire which the founder (οικιστές) carried with him from the public hearth to the new settlement. For the rest, Massalia and Olbia were cities of Hellas in as full sense as Athens or Sparta. It was due to the self-sufficing character (αυταpκeια) of the Hellenic city as such that Hellas was not a geographical expression.

When Attica first comes into the view of history, it already forms a single state of which Athens is the capital: the kingly period is over, and, though a close oligarchy still exists, there are signs of coming change. But the hints of poetical legend, and sometimes the surer evidênce of the ground itself, enable us to go further back, and to form at least a general conception of earlier chapters in the story of the land. Of the three plains on the northern shore of the Saronic gulf,—those of Megara, Eleusis, and Athens,— the Attic plain is that which offered the greatest advantage to settlers. It is the most spacious; it is the best watered; it holds the most central position in the district which stretches south-east from the chains of Cithaeron and Parues to the Aegean; it has the best seaboard for navigation and commerce; and it contains the best site for a city. Traces of early immigrants of various stocks survived in the names of places, in worships, and in legends. Eleusis, Piraeus, Phaleron, are Minyan names; the myths and cults tell also of Carians, Leleges, Cretans, Tyrrhenians. But the chief influence which came to Attica from beyond sea must have been that of the Phoenician settlement at Salamis (Salama, the place of peace), a name -which, as in the Cyprian worship of Zeus Salaminios (Baal-Salam), points to the Phoenician effort to establish friendly intercourse between alien races. Herodotus (viii. 44) distinguishes four periods in the early history of Attica, with each of which he connects an appellative. In the first the inhabitants were “Pelasgoi called Kranaoi,” in the second “Kekropidae,” in the third “Athenians,” in the fourth “Ionians.” The extensive series of rock-dwellings found on the south and south-west of the Acropolis are, by the ingenious and probable conjecture of E. Curtins, connected with the first of these periods. This primitive Pelasgic settlement was the Rock-town (κpavaal); its inhabitants were Kranaoi, the dwellers in the rocks. The second period was one in which the Acr0p0li3 became the seat of a small number of noble3, and of a princely family claiming descent from the earth-born Cecrops. The citadel becomes the centre of religious and political life; beneath it dwell Pela3gic bondmen, who work for the Cecropidae as the Cyclopes worked for the Perseidae at Argos. The city of the Cecropidae—no longer of the Kranaoi—becomes the head of the twelve cities among which the Attic land was divided. As the leading families are drawn towards the Cecropid city, rivalries ensue, which are mythically represented by the strife of rival gods on the Acropolis. Zens, the Pelasgic god, has priority of possession. But his houours are disputed by Poseidon, the deity of the Thracians settled on the gulf of Salamis, and of their priestly clan, the Eumolpidae. The third claimant is Athena, the divinity of a race possessing a higher culture, the giver of the olive to the land. The final victory falls to Athena. But Zeus keeps the place of honour as protector of the whole community,—Polieus; and Athena shares her sanctuary with Poseidon. The mythical Erechtheus,—representing at once the ancient Poseidon and the nursling of Athena,—is the symbol of the victory and the conciliation. This is the third period of Herodotus; “Erechtheus having succeeded to power,” the Cecropidae become Athenians. The fourth and last period is that in which Ionian settlers press forward from their earlier seat on the bay of Marathon, and establish themselves—not without opposition—on the banks of the Ilissus. The worship of the Ionian Apollo takes its place beside that of Zeus and Athena. The Ionic settlement on the Ilissus was included in an enlarged Athens, and the close of the epoch was marked by that union (συνοικία) of Attica into a single state which Attic tradition ascribed to the hero king Theseus.

The light soil of Attica had protected it from such wholesale changes of population as had passed over Thessaly, Boeotia, and the Peloponnesus. In contrast with the oedipien of those lands the Attic population claimed to be indigenous; and the claim was true in this sense that the basis of the population was an element which had been there from prehistoric times. On the other hand the maritime advantages of Attica had been sufficient to attract foreign immigrants. Thus in Attica no one type of life and character prevailed to the same extent as s the Dorian in the Peloponnesus or the Aeolian in Boeotia. The Ionian element was tempered by others older than itself. This fact is the key to that equable and harmonious development which so remarkably distinguished the Attic people alike in culture and in politics. The institutions which are found existing in Attica in the 7th century b.c. may be regarded as dating from the age which tradition called that of Theseus,—the age, namely, in which the loose cantonsystem of Attica was knit together into a single state. The inhabitants of Attica form three classes,—the Eupatridae or nobles; the Geomori, free husbandmen; and the Demiurgi, or handicraftsmen. The government was wholly in the hands of the Eupatridae, who alone were citizens in the proper sense. The Eupatrid order was divided into four tribes, called after the sons of Ion,—Geleon, Hoples, Aegicoreus, Argadeus. Each tribe contained three phra-triai or clans, and each clan thirty gene or houses. The members of each clan were united by the worship of an heroic ancestor, and all the clans were bound together by the common worship of Zeus Herkeios and Apollo Patrous.

The transition from monarchy to oligarchy was more gradual at Athens than it seems to have been elsewhere. First, the priestly office of the king was taken away; and, as the old name basileus implied religious as well as civil authority, he was henceforth called simply the ruler, archon. But the office of archon was still held for life, and was hereditary. The second step was to appoint the archon for ten years only. The third and last step was to divide the old regal power among nine archons appointed annually (683 B,c.). The first archon, called Eponymos, because his name marked the date of official documents, had a general supervision of affairs, and in particular represented the state as the guardian of orphans and minors; the second archon was high priest (basileus); the third was commander-in-chief (polemarch); the remaining six were the custodians of the laws (“thesmothetae ”). After this reform, two events are the chief landmarks of Attic history before Solon. The first is the legislation of Draco, the second is the revolution of Cylon. Hitherto the Eupatridae had been the depositaries and sole interpreters of an unwritten law. Draco, himself a Eupatrid, was now commissioned, not to frame a new code, but to write down the laws as they existed in oral tradition. To a later age the laws of Draco became a proverb of severity; but their severity wa3 that of the rude age from which they had come down, not of the man who was employed to tabulate them. By this code (620 b,c.), and by the establishment of a court of fifty-one judges (∈φ∈ται) in capital cases, the people were so far secured against abuse of the judicial office. But the existence of serious popular discontent a few years lateris shown by the attempt of Cylon (612 b.c.). Stimulated by the example of his father-in-law, Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara, he resolved to seize the supreme power at Athens. Promises of relief and of a new agrarian law gained him adherents among the distressed classes; but when he had succeeded in seizing the Acropolis, he found himself disappointed of popular support and surrounded by the troops of the archons. He escaped. His partisans surrendered, on the promise of the archon Megacles that their lives should be spared; but, when they had left the altars, they were cut down. The “Cylonian crime” was denounced by the people as having brought a pollution upon the city, and the punishment of the whole clan of the Alcmaeonidae—to which Megacles belonged—was demanded as an expiation. The Eupatridae refused to yield, until Solon, one of their order, prevailed on the Alcmaeonidae to stand a trial before three hundred of their peers. They were found guilty of sacrilege, and were banished.

Solon was now to come forward as the umpire of still graver issues. The influence of his ardent and lofty nature on the people is expressed in the legend that his recitation of his elegy, “Salamis,” fired them to strike the blow by which “the fair island” was won back from the Megarians. The part which he had taken in the Alcmaeonid affair was well fitted to make him trusted both by the nobles and by the people. His legislation had a twofold scope. In the first place he aimed at giving immediate relief to a class whose plight was desperate. As there was little money in the land, those in whose hands it was had been able to force up the rate of interest as they pleased. The small farmers (geomori) were being crushed out of existence by a load of debt, mortgaging their farms to their creditors, who, in default of land, could even sell the debtor as a slave. Solon depreciated the value of the silver drachma by 27 per cent., so that a debt of 100 old drachmas could be paid with 73; debts to the state were cancelled altogether. In a fine iambic fragment, Solon calls as witness of his work “the greatest of Olympian deities, the black earth, wherefrom I took up of yore the pillars that had been set in many a place,”—these (6poι) being the stones that marked a mortgaged homestead. Secondly, Solon aimed at establishing a permanent equilibrium between classes. He classed the citizens by their rated property as (1) Pentakosio-medimnoi, (2) Hippeis, (3) Zeugitai, (4) Thetes. The first class alone could hold the archonship; the fourth had no political privilege except that of voting in the assembly. But Solon made the assembly (eκκλησld) what it had never before been, a real power. He gave to it (1) the right of passing laws, (2) the right of calling magistrates to account, (3) the right of electing archons. At the same time he created a council of four hundred, to be elected annually by the people, through which all business should be introduced to the assembly. He strengthened the old Eupatrid Areopagus, by adding to its jurisdiction in homicide a general power of moral censorship, and provided that the archons of each year should, if found worthy, pass at the end of it into this senate. Athenians of a later age often described Solon as the founder of the democracy. This was not his own conception of his work. We have his own description of it :— “I gave the people as much strength as is enough, without taking away from their due share (τιp,ης), or adding thereto. But as for those who had power and the splendour of riches, to them also I gave counsel, even that they should not uphold violence. And I stood with my strong shield spread over both, and suffered neither to prevail by wrong.” Solon was not a champion of popular rights, but a philosophic mediator between classes.

The removal of the urgent pressure of usury, the substitution of wealth for birth as the canon of privilege, and the bestowal of strictly limited political power on the people were Solon’s achievements. It is no proof of their inadequacy that they were soon followed by the appearance of a successful demagogue. The Attic population was locally divided into three classes,—the Diacrii or the “highlanders” of the north-east district (the poorest); the Parali, the boatmen and fishermen of the coast; aud the “Pedieis,” the richer farmers of the Attic plain. Each of these classes formed a political faction, with an ambitious noble at its head. The Diacrii were led by Pisistratus, the Parali by Megacles, the Pedieis by Lycurgus. On the pretence that he had been murderously assaulted by the enemies of the people, Pisistratus obtained a guard of 50 men. It was presently increased to 400. He then seized tha Acropolis (560 b.c). After having been twice driven out by the combined factions of the Plain and the Shore, he finally established himself as tyrant in 545 b.c., and reigned till his death in 527 b.c. He did not abolish Solon’s constitution, though he reserved some of the higher offices for members of his own house. His government appears to have been mild and wise. He set the example of submission to the laws. By many new enactments he promoted good order and morality. The convenience of the citizens and the beauty of Athens were consulted by the construction of new buildings, roads, and aqueducts. There were but two things to remind Athenians that this paternal rule had been founded in force,—the presence of hired troops, and the levy of tithes on private lands. Pisistratus was succeeded by his eldest son Hippias. In 514 b.c. Hipparchus, the brother of Hippias, was murdered by Harmodius and Aristogiton, in revenge for an affront offered to the sister of Harmodius. The rule of Hippias, which had hitherto resembled that of his father, now became cruel. The Alcmaeonidae—who had been in banishment since the final return of Pisistratus in 545—had won the favour of the Delphic priesthood by an act of liberality. The temple at Delphi having been burned down, they had undertaken to rebuild it, and, instead of common limestone, which would have satisfied the contract, used Parian marble for the east side of the temple. They now exerted their influence.

Whenever Sparta or a Spartan consulted the oracle, the response always included a command to set Athens free. At last Cleomenes, king of Sparta, took the field. The children of Hippias fell into his hands, and, to save them, Hippias voluntarily withdrew from Athens (510 B.C.). The rule of the Pisistratid house was now at an end. In the phrase of the song which gave ill-merited glory to Harmodius and Aristogiton, Athens was once more under equal laws.

But there was a vehement strife of factions. The Eupatrid party, under Isagoras, wished to restore the aristocracy of pre-Solonian days. The party of popular rights was supported by the Alcmaeonidae, and led by Clisthenes, whθ3θ father, Megacles, had married the daughter of Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon. Clisthenes, in the words of Herodotus, took the people into partnership, and by his reforms became the real founder of the democracy. Abolishing the four Ionic tribes, which had included the Eupatridae, he instituted ten new tribes, which included all the free inhabitants of Attica. Each tribe was composed of several demes (townships) not adjacent to each other,— thus securing that the old clans should be thoroughly broken up among the new tribes. The number of the Council (Boule) was raised from 400 to 500,—50 members being elected from each of the ten new tribes. Further, it was arranged that each tribal contingent of 50 should take it in turn to act as a committee (τrpvτ0vet3) of the council,— a board of presidents (πρόεδροι), and the chairman of the day, being again chosen in rotation from the committee. A new office was also instituted. The command of the army was given to a board of ten Generals (strategi), one being elected by each of the tribes. In later times the strategi became ministers of foreign affairs. Jury courts of citizens were organized out of the assembly, to share the administration of justice, which had hitherto belonged to the archons and the Areopagus. As a safeguard for the state against party struggles, it was provided that, if the Council and the Ecclesia should declare the commonwealth to be in danger, each citizen might be summoned to indicate by ballot the name of any man whom he thought dangerous, and that, if the same name was written on 6000 tickets (όστρακα), the man so indicated should go into exile for ten years, without, however, losing his civic rights or his property. This was the institution of ostracism. Finally, choice by lot was substituted for voting in the election to the archonship, thus diminishing the danger of factious partisanship.

Isagoras, the leader of the party opposed to these reforms, had a zealous ally in Cleomenes, king of Sparta. Clisthenes, they alleged, was aiming at a tyranny such as that of his grandfather and namesake at Sicyon. Sparta, the leading Dorian state, was in a manner the recognized champion of aristocracy against revolution. The Spartan herald summoned the Athenians to banish the accursed Alcmaeonidae, and Clisthenes voluntarily left Attica. Cleomenes arrived at Athens with his army. Isagoras was made archon; seven hundred “democratic” families were banished; the newly constituted Council of five hundred was dissolved. But now the people rose in arms. Cleomenes and Isagoras were besieged on the Acropolis. On the third day of the siege they surrendered. Cleomenes and his troops were allowed to withdraw. Isagoras escaped, but his Athenian adherents were put to death. Clisthenes now returned to Athens. He seems, however, to have excited popular indignation by promoting a treaty with Persia, by which the supremacy of the Persian king was acknowledged. He thus lent colour to the accusation of his enemies that he was aiming at a tyranny; and he was banished. Cleomenes presently invaded Attica a second time, with the Peloponnesian allies. But the other Spartan king, Demaratus, was opposed to his designs. The Corinthians refused to follow him, and his army broke up when it had advanced no further than Eleusis. Meanwhile the Thebans and the Chalcidians of Euboea had been induced to take up arms against Athens. Freed from the danger of the Peloponnesian invasion, the Athenians marched against the Thebans. They found them on the shore of the Euripus, and routed them. Crossing the strait into Euboea, they defeated the Chalcidians on the same day. The lands of the Chalcidian knights (Hippobotae) were divided in equal lots among four thousand Athenians, who occupied them, not as colonists forming a new city, but as non-resident citizens of Athens. This was the first lcleru-chia. The Spartans, incited by Cleomenes, now made a final effort to repress the democratic strength of Athens. Hippias was invited from his retreat on the Hellespont to Lacedaemon, and a Peloponnesian congress was convened at Sparta to discuss a project for restoring him to Athens as tyrant. The representative of Corinth urged that it would be shameful if Sparta, the enemy of tyrannies, should help to set up a new one. The congress was of his mind. The scheme failed, and Hippias went back to Sigeum.

In these five years (510-505) which followed the fall of the Pisistratidae the future of Athens was decided. Athens had become a free commonwealth, in which class grievances no longer hindered the citizens from acting together with vigorous spirit. The results were soon to appear in work done by the Athenians, not for Athens only, but for all Greece.

The time was now drawing near when Greece was to sustain its first historical conflict with the barbarian world. There was not, in the modern sense, an Hellenic nation. But there were common elements of religion, manners, and culture, which together constituted an Hellenic civilization, and were the basis of a common Hellenic character. The Graikoi of Epirus, united in the worship of the Pelasgian Zeus, had become the Hellenes of Thessaly, united in the worship of Apollo. The shrine of Delphi, at first the centre of the most important amphictyony, had now become the religious centre of all Hellas. It was acknowledged as such by foreigners, by the kings of Phrygia and Lydia in the ea3t, by the Etruscan Tarquinii in the west, as afterwards by the Roman republic. In political matters also Delphi was a common centre for the Greek states, mediating or advising in feuds between factions or cities, and giving the final sanction to constitutional changes. A sense of Hellenic unity was further promoted by the great festivals. It has already been seen how Sparta lent new brilliancy to the gatherings at Olympia. The Pythian festival was revived with a fresh lustre after the first Sacred War (595-585), in which Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, and his allies destroyed Crisa, the foe of Delphi. A little later two other festivals were established, the Isthmian and the Nemean, at about the time when the tyranny of the Cypselidae was overthrown at Corinth, and that of the Orthagoridae at Sicyon. The games of Nemea and of the Isthmus were new assertions of the Dorian sentiment which was so strongly opposed to tyrannies, and they exemplify the manner in which such festivals were fitted to express and strengthen national sympathy. In the gradual growth, too, of Hellenic art,—with a stamp of its own distinct from that of Assyria, Babylon, Phoenicia, or Egypt,—the Greeks found a bond of union, and the temples were centres at which the growth of such an art was encouraged and recorded. Above all, the Homeric poetry, in which the legends of the heroic age took a form that appealed to every branch of the Greek race, was a witness to the contrast between Greek and barbarian. It was the interpretation of this contrast which made Homer so peculiarly the national poet. Still the unity of Greece had hitherto been little more than an ideal. The only great enterprise in which Greeks had made common cause against barbarians belonged to legend. The first historical event in which the unity of Greece found active expression was the struggle with Persia.

III. The Ionic Revolt and the Persian JΓars, 502-479 b.c.

The twelve Ionian cities on the western coast of Asia Minor formed a community which kept itself thoroughly distinct from the Aeolian colonists to the north and the Dorians to the south. The Pan-Ionic festivals preserved the memory of the common descent. The Ionian life and culture had a character of its own. But the Ionian cities had no political cohesion, nor had they any recognized leader. One after another they became tributary to the kings of Lydia. The process of subjugation commenced at the time when the Lydian dynasty of the Mermnadae (about 716 b.c.) began to make themselves independent of Assyria. It was completed by Croesus, to whom, about 550 b.c., all the Ionian cities had became subject. Croesus was friendly to the Greeks: he respected their religion, and enriched its shrines; he welcomed distinguished Greeks to Sardis. All that was exacted from the Ionians by Croesus was that they should acknowledge him as their suzerain, and pay a fixed tribute. The Persians, under Cyrus, defeated Croesus and conquered Lydia about 547 b.c. The whole coast-line of Asia Minor was afterwards reduced by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus. The Persians, zealous monotheists, destroyed the Greek temples. But it was not till the reign of Darius, who succeeded Cambyses in 521 B.a, that the Ionians felt the whole weight of the Persian yoke. Darius, the able organizer of the Persian empire, preferred that each Ionian city should be ruled by one man whom he could trust. He therefore gave systematic support to tyrannies.

It is characteristic of the political condition of Ionia that the revolt was not a popular movement, but was the work of two men, each of whom had private ends to serve. Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, had rendered a vital service to Darius during his Scythian expedition (510 b.c. ) by dissuading the other Greek leaders from breaking down the bridge over the Danube, which secured the retreat of the Persian army. Having been rewarded with a principality in Thrace, he presently became suspected of ambitious designs. Darius sent for him to Susa, and detained him there on the pretext that he could not live without his friend. Meanwhile Aristagoras, the son-in-law of Histiaeus, ruled at Miletus. In 502 Aristagoras undertook to restore the exiled oligarchs of Naxos, and for this purpose obtained 200 Persian ships from Artaphernes, the satrap of western Asia Minor. The enterprise miscarried. Aristagoras, dreading the anger of Artaphernes, now began to meditate revolt. He was encouraged by secret messages from Histiaeus, who hoped to escape from Susa by being sent to suppress the rising. Aristagoras laid down his tyranny, and called on the people of Miletus to throw off the Persian yoke. The other Ionian cities followed the example. They deposed their tyrants and declared themselves free. The Aeolian and Dorian settlements made common cause with them. Cyprus also joined in the revolt (500 B.C.). Aristagoras next sought aid beyond the Aegean. Sparta held aloof, but five ships were sent by the Eretrians, and twenty by the Athenians. The united Greek force surprised Sardis, and set fire to it, but was presently driven back to the coast. The Athenians then went home. Darius was deeply incensed by this outrage. The whole Persian force was brought to bear on Ionia, and Miletus was invested by land and sea. In a sea fight off Lade, an island near Miletus, the Ionians were decisively defeated by a Persian fleet of nearly twice their number, partly through the shameful desertion of the Samians and Lesbians during the battle (496 b,c.). The Persians soon afterwards took Miletus by storm (495 B.C.). The Greek cities of the Asiatic sea board and of the Thracian Chersonese successively fell before them.

But the vengeance of Darius was not yet complete. He could not forget that Greeks from beyond the sea had helped to burn Sardis, and he resolved that the punishment of Athens and Eretria should be as signal as that of his own vassals in Ionia. A Persian army, under Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont and advanced through Thrace. But the Persian fleet which accompanied it was shattered by a storm in rounding Mount Athos. The progress of Mardonius was also checked by the Thracians, and he retreated to Asia.

The ambition of Mardonius had been to bring all European Hellas under the rule of the Achaemenidae. The second Persian expedition, guided by more cautious counsel, had a narrower scope. It was directed strictly against those states which the great king had vowed to punish. The intrigues of the Pisistratidae were busy in promoting it, and Hippias was to lend his personal guidance to its leaders. But before the new force set out Persian agents were sent through Greece to demand the symbols of submission from the cities. Most of the islands feared to refuse. Aegina, now a prosperous maritime power, complied from another motive than fear. Even Persia was welcome to her as an ally against Athens. The Athenians called upon Sparta, whom they thus recognised as the head of Greece, to punish this treason to the Hellenic cause; and Cleomenes, after overcoming the opposition of his royal colleague, Demaratus, took an arbitrary revenge on the Aeginetans by depositing ten men of their chief families in the hands of the Athenians.

In 490 b.c. the second Persian expedition crossed the Aegean under the command of Datis and Artaphernes. Naxos was sacked, Eretria was betrayed. It seemed hardly doubtful that Athens too must fall. The Persians landed in the bay of Marathon, enclosed by the spurs of Brilessus (Pentelicus) and the hills of the Diacria. They thus avoided the dangers of a voyage round a rocky coast; and no part of Attica, Hippias told them, was so favourable to cavalry, The Athenians had sent for help to Sparta; but a religious scruple forbade the Spartans to march before the time of the full moon. Nine thousand Athenian citizens, with the slaves who carried their shields, went forth to meet the Persians at Marathon, On the way they were joined by a thousand Plataeans,—the whole force of that city,—who came to stand by their old protectors. Miltiades, formerly the ruler of the Chersonese, was one of the ten Athenian generals. Five of these voted for awaiting Spartan help. The other five, led by Miltiades, were for giving battle at once; and the vote of the polemarch, Callimachus, turned the scale in their favour. The Greeks charged down from the hillside upon the Persians. The Greek centre was driven in, but the Greek wings prevailed, and then closed upon the Persian centre. The Persians fled to their ships. Six thousand Persians fell. The Greek loss was about 192. Believing that traitors at Athens had signalled to the Persians to surprise the city while undefended, the army hastened back, The Persian fleet soon approached, but seeing troops on the shore, sailed away for Asia.

After the victory of Marathon Miltiades was all-powerful at Athens. He asked the people to give him a fleet, in order that he might strike another blow at Persia while the effects of Marathon were fresh. His demand was granted. But he employed the fleet in an attempt to wreak a private grudge on the island of Paros. At the end of twenty-six days he returned to Athens baffled, and suffering from a wounctin the thigh. He was indicted for having deceived the people, and was sentenced to a fine of about £12,000. Being unable to pay it, he was disfranchised as a public debtor. His wound mortified, and he died, leaving debt and dishonour to his son Cimon. Aristides was now the most influential man at Athens, as Themistocles was the ablest. Themistocles foresaw that the Persians would return, and that Athens could resist them only on the sea. He aimed therefore at creating an Athenian navy. Already (491 b.c. ) he had persuaded the Athenians to set about fortifying the peninsula of the Piraeus, which, with its three harbours commanded by the height of Munychia, offered greater advantages thaη the open roadstead of Phalerum. He now urged that the revenues from the silver mines of Laurium should be applied to building a fleet. The frequent hostilities between Athens and Aegina enforced the advice. Before 480 b.c. Athens had acquired 200 triremes. Aristides was at the head of a party who viewed this movement with alarm. Had not the naval empire of Miletus, Chios, and Samos been transient! The land-holding citizens who had fought at Marathon would give place to a mob of sailors and traders. An unstable democracy would carry the state out of the ancient ways. The strife of parties came to an issue. An ostracism was held, and Aristides was banished,—probably in 484 or 483 b.c. Themistocles remained the leader of Athens in the new path which he himself had opened. Athens was now the first maritime power of Greece.

The repulse at Marathon had probably not prevented the Persian commanders from representing their expedition as in a great measure successful. Darius resolved on the complete subjugation of Greece. But, when vast preparations had been in progress for three years, he died, leaving the throne to Xerxes, the eldest of his four sons by Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus (485 b,c.). Xerxes was not, like his father, a born ruler or a trained warrior. But he was profoundly convinced that all human beings were the natural slaves of the Persian king; and he was influenced by a strong war-party in the palace, with Atossa and Mardonius at its head. The house of Pisistratus, the ambitious Aleuadae of Thessaly, and Demaratus, the exiled king of Sparta, united in urging an invasion of Greece. It was in vain that Artabanus, the uncle of the king, argued on behalf of the moderate party at the court. Orders were given to raise such an armament as the world had never seen, a host which should display the whole resources of the empire from the Indus to the Aegean, from the Danube to the Nile. Forty-six nations were represented by the forces which wintered at Sardis in 481 b.c. A fleet of 1200 triremes, and about 3000 transports and smaller craft, assembled near Cyme and Phocaea on the Ionian coast. In the spring of 480 b.c. Xerxes led about a million of men to the Hellespont, whither the fleet went before to meet them.

Greece was probably never stronger than it was at this time. The population of the Peloponnesus may have been about two millions. Athens, according to Herodotus, had 30,000 citizens. The Boeotian towns and the islands were prosperous. The proportion of slaves to freemen varied from perhaps four to one at Athens to as much as ten to one at Corinth or Aegina. Life was still simple and vigorous. Society was not divided into rich classes enervated by luxury and poor classes enfeebled by want. The public palaestras were schools of physical training for war. But that which Greece lacked was political unity. Aristocracy and democracy were already rival forces. Everywhere the aristocrats felt that a victory over Persia must have a national character, and must so far be a victory for the people. They inclined therefore to the Persian cause; and the stand in defence of Greece was eventually made by a few states only. Sparta, as the leading city of Greece, took the first step towards the formation of a national party, by convening a congress at the isthmus of Corinth in the autumn of 481. Here Themistocles showed his statesmanship by prevailing on the Athenians to abstain from disputing the hegemony of Sparta. Most of the Peloponnesian cities were represented •at the congress. But Argos and Achaia, jealous of Sparta, held aloof. In Boeotia, Thebes,—the enemy of Athens,— favoured Persia. In Thessaly the dynasty of the Aleuadae were the active allies of the invader. Gelon of Syracuse refused to aid unless he were to lead. The Corcyreans promised sixty ships, but did not send them. Crete also failed to help. The states which fought against Persia were then these only,—Sparta with her Peloponnesian allies, Athens, Aegina, Megara, Plataea, Thespiae. This national league expressed indeed the principle of Greek unity, but Greece was far from being united. The “medizing” party was strong, and it counted some adherents in many even of the patriotic cities. Wherever democracy had enemies Persia had friends.

The first idea of the national defence was to arrest the torrent of invasion at some northerly point which could be held against great numerical odds. Tempe proving untenable, it was resolved to make a stand at Thermopylae. When Leonidas had fallen with his 300 Spartans and the 700 Thespians who shared their heroic death, the next object of the Peloponnesian allies was to guard the isthmus of Corinth. The peculiar misfortune of Athens in the war was her position between two gates, the first of which had been forced by the enemy. The Greek leaders seem to have assumed at first that it was vain to oppose the Persian land forces in an open field. Xerxes occupied Athens, and the flames which destroyed its houses and temples at last avenged the burning of Sardis. The Greek ships, which had gained some advantage over the Persian fleet at Artemisium in the northern waters of the Euboean strait, had moved to Salamis as soon as it was known that the Persians had passed Thermopylae. The homeless population of Athens had been conveyed to Salamis, Aegina, and Troezen before the arrival of Xerxes. And now the forecast of Themistocles was verified. Athens, and Greece itself, were saved chiefly by the Athenian ships,—200 in number out of a total of 366. The Peloponnesian leaders wished to withdraw the fleet to the isthmus. Themistocles saw that if it left Salamis it would disperse. He sent word to Xerxes that the Greeks meditated escape. The Persian fleet surrounded them in the night. Next day the battle of Salamis was fought. Of 1000 Persian ships, 200 were destroyed; the rest fled. It was on the same day that Gelon of Syracuse defeated the Carthaginians at Himera in Sicily (480 B.C.). Xerxes lost heart and retreated to Asia, leaving Mardonius with 300,000 men to finish the war. In the summer of 479 Athens was again occupied and destroyed by the Persians. Now at length Sparta came to the rescue. Pausanias, the guardian of the young son of Leonidas, led 110,000 of the allies into Boeotia, and utterly defeated the army of Mardonius near Plataea (479 b.c. ). On the same day the troops of the Greek fleet defeated those of the Persian fleet in a battle on the shore at Mycale near Miletus. This victory set Ionia free from Persia.

The Persian wars had revealed both the weakness and the strength of Greece. The hereditary aristocracy of Thessaly had shown that they were eager to establish the supremacy of their house with the help of Asiatic despotism. Such states as Argos and Thebes had not been ashamed to indulge jealousy and party spirit by betrayal of the common cause. Even Sparta and the Peloponnesian allies had been disposed to confine their endeavours to the defence of their own peninsula, leaving Athens and the northern cities to their fate. On the other hand the struggle had brought into strong relief the contrast between absolute monarchy and constitutional freedom. This appeared in two things: the Greek strategy was superior; and the Greek troops fought better. Athens, in particular, had shown how both the intelligence and the spirit of citizens are raised by equal laws. The mistakes of the invaders,—which, to a Greek mind, might well have seemed the work of Ate,—were such as are natural when a vast force is directed by the intemperance of a single will. Artemisia and Demaratus advised Xerxes to occupy Cythera. The Thebans advised Mardonius to sow dissension among the Greeks by means of bribes. Both counsels were judicious, and both were neglected. Time is, in war, the surest ally of superior numbers and resources; but the impatience of the Persian commanders staked everything on a few pitched battles. Again, the Persians, unlike the Lydians of old, destroyed the Greek temples. They thus conferred an immense moral advantage on their antagonist. He could no longer doubt that he was helped by his gods.

IV. The Period of Athenian Supremacy, 478-404 b.c.

In the space from the Persian to the Peloponnesian War the central interest belongs to Athens. The growth of Athenian empire, the successive phases through which it passed, and its influence on the rest of Greece, the inner development of Athenian life, political, intellectual, social,—these are the salient features in a period of about fifty years. The first care of Themistocles after the repulse of the Persian invasion was to restore the fortifications of Athens. The jealous interference of Sparta, instigated by Aegina and Corinth, was defeated by his ingenuity. A wall of larger circuit than the old one was built round Athens, and a strong wall was also carried round the Piraeus. The Persians had been driven out of Ionia, but they still held many places on the Thracian and Asiatic coasts. The Spartan Pausanias, commanding the Greek fleet, took Byzantium from the Persians in 478. He now formed the design of making himself a despot, and his adoption of the manners of a Persian grandee became so offensive to the Greek captains that they requested the Athenian commanders to assume the leadership of the fleet. Pausanias was recalled to Sparta, and his successor found that the hegemony had already changed hands. The league, of which Athens now became the head (477 b.c.), was intended to continue the national defence against Persia. Its special purpose was to guard the Aegean. Aristides was chosen to assess the rate of contribution for the members. The representatives of the several cities met at the temple of Apollo in Delos, where the common fund was also deposited. Hence the league was called the Confederacy of Delos. It was only gradually that this free confederacy, with Athens for a president, passed into an Athenian empire over tributary cities. At first each city contributed ships to the common fleet. But the practice arose of allowing some cities to contribute money instead of ships. A city which did this had no control over Athens, and no protection against attack. One after another of the discontented allies revolted from Athens, and was forcibly reduced to the condition of a subject. Naxos was the earliest example (466 b.c. ); Thasos was the next (465 B.C.); and as early as 449 b.c. only three insular allies remained free,—Samos, Lesbos, and Chios. The transfer of the common fund from Delos to Athens (about 459 b.c.) was merely the outward sign of a change in which most members of the original league had already been compelled to acquiesce. In the earlier years of the Confederacy the work for which it bad been formed was not neglected. Of the sùccesses gained against Persia the most notable was the victory of Cimon over the Persians, both by land and by sea, at the mouth of Eurymedon (466 b.c.). But, as Athens assumed more and more distinctly an imperial character, the common fund came to be regarded as a tribute which could be applied to exclusively Athenian objects. This was the grievance which made the very name of the “tribute” (φόρος) so hateful.

The years 457-455 b.c. may be taken as marking the greatest extension of the Athenian empire. It was in 457 that their victory at Oenophyta in Boeotia, following on their defeat at Tanagra, enabled the Athenians to break up for a time the oligarchical league over which Thebes presided. Democracies were established in the Boeotian towns, and Athens was virtually supreme, not only in Boeotia, but also in Phocis and Locris. In 455, after a struggle of some years, Athens conquered Aegina. But now the tide began to turn. In 453 the defeat of the Athenians at Coronea destroyed the power of Athens in Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris. Oligarchies were restored. First Euboea and then Megara revolted from Athens. The Spartans, released from a truce of five years (452-447), invaded Attica. They advanced, however, no further than the Thriasian plain; and it was believed that their leader, the king Pleistoanax, had taken Athenian bribes. Freed from this danger, Periclee was enabled to reduce Euboea. But the dream of an Athenian land-empire was over. In 445 a truce for thirty years was concluded between Athens and Sparta. Athens gave up all dependencies on the mainland of Greece. Henceforth the Athenian empire was to be maritime only.

Between the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Truce and the events which led to the Peloponnesian War the most important incidents were—first, the revolt of Samos and its reduction by Athens (440 b.c. ); next, the foundation by Athens of two settlements, Thurii, on the site of Sybaris in southern Italy, and Amphipolis, on the Strymon, in Thrace.

Meanwhile the inner political life of ^Athens had passed through great changes. Soon after the Persian wars, the fourth or poorest class of the Solonian timocracy had been made eligible to the archonship. This was done on the proposal of Aristides himself. The maritime population of the Piraeus was now large, and it had become impossible to exclude the main body of the citizens from the chief offices of the state. The development of Athenian democracy had been secured by that loyal unity of civic action and feeling which the Persian wars had produced. Themistocles, whose policy had been the source of those new impulses, did not remain to direct them; he was accused of complicity in the Persian intrigues of Pausanias, and ostracized (about 471 B.C.). Aristides died in 468. Cimon, the son of Miltiades, was now at the head of a conservative party. The other party, which was rather progressive than properly democratic, was led by Pericles, an Alcmaeonid, and Ephialtes. A blow was dealt to the influence of Cimon and his party when the Spartans insultingly dismissed an Athenian force which had marched, under Cimon, to help them in reducing the insurgent Helots on Mount Ithome (464 b,c.). Soon afterwards some important reforms were proposed and carried by Ephialtes. The powers of the Areopagus were diminished. Probably it lost its general censorial power and its veto upon legislation, retaining its jurisdiction in homicide. The archons and generals were deprived of their discretionary judicial powers. Henceforth the people was to be the final judge both in criminal and in civil causes. The juries chosen from the Heliaea were now organized as a permanent system of courts, every juror receiving a fee from the state for each day of his attendance. Cimon was ostracized; and the exasperation of the conservative party waβ shown by the assassination of Ephialtes (457 b.c. ). Ci cion was succeeded in the leadership by his kinsman Thucydides, son of Melesias; and when, in 443 b.c., Thucydides also was ostracized, there was no longer any disciplined resistance to the policy of Pericles. Athens was now strengthened and embellished by a series of public works. Already in 457-456 two long walls had been built, one from Athens to Phalerum, the other from Athens to the Piraeus; and about 445 a third or intermediate wall, parallel to the latter, was built on the proposal of Pericles. The Odeion, a theatre for musical performances, arose on the east side of the theatre of Dionysus, under the Acropolis. On the Acropolis itself the Erectheion, the shrine of Athene Polias, which had been -burned by the Persians, was rebuilt on a greater scale; and the Γartħenon, the magnificent temple of the Virgin Athene, containing the chryselephantine statue of the goddess by Phidias, was constructed under his superintendence from the plans of Ictinus and Callicrates (438 b.c. ). The Propylaea or portals, forming a colonnaded entrance to the Acropolis on the western side, were completed a few years later.

The period known as “the age of Pericles” may be roughly defined as the years from 460 to 430 b.c. The idea which pervades the whole work of Pericles is that the Athenian people, having been called upon by circumstances to rule over a wide alliance, must be trained to rule worthily. Pericles was opposed to extending the empire of Athens; but he was resolved to hold it, because he saw the danger of giving it up. And, in order that it should be held securely, he saw that the people must be educated, first, politically, by constitutional freedom, and next, intellectually and socially, by general cultivation. The theoricon, or money given to the citizen to pay for his seat at the theatre, was doubtless a party expedient, like the pay provided for the juror and for the citizen-soldier; it belonged to a plan for breaking the exclusive power of wealth. But it also fitted into the system by which Pericles sought to bring the citizens collectively under the influence of art in all its noblest forms. Painting, music, sculpture, architecture, had each its place in this scheme; but for the statesman’s object no single instrument was perhaps so potent as the drama. It was a time of contending forces, in which one chief peril was lest the generation to which a larger future was opening should lose its hold on what was best in the past. The religious tradition and the new ethical subtlety were nowhere reconciled in so lofty an ideal as by Sophocles; nor could any presentment of art rival the theatre in its power of quickening a sympathetic enthusiasm.

The “age of Pericles” would have produced better results for the political future of Athens if Pericles hhnself had bteι less great. As Thucydides says, the nominal democracy was virtually the rule of one man. The informal sovereignty of Pericles hindered the rise of those who might otherwise have been trained to succeed him. During his lifetime the need of a restraining force was not felt in the reformed institutions, for that force was supplied by a single mind. But when he was gone it was seen that the new equilibrium of the state depended on a Pericles being at its head. Probably Pericles himself believed that there-were men who could continue what he had begun; and if he was wrong, that cannot detract from the glory of what he did for his own time.

V. The Peloponnesian JVar, 431-404 b.c. The Period of Spartan and then of Theban Ascendency, 404-362 b.c.

In examining the causes which led to the breach of the· Thirty Years’ Truce, and to the Peloponnesian War which followed it, Thucydides distinguishes two alleged or immediate causes from a third cause which was not alleged, but which lay deeper than either of the others. The two alleged causes were—(1) the active help given by Athens to the Corcyraeans in their quarrel with Corinth concerning Epidamnus, a colony of Corcyra; (2) the Athenian blockade of Potidaea, a Corinthian colony which had revolted from Athens. The more essential cause was the growth of Athenian power, and the alarm which this caused to the Lacedaemonians. In truth the affair of Epidamnus and the affair of Potidaea were merely the sparks which happened to kindle the flame. That long conflict which we call the Peloponnesian War had been prepared from the time when the Athenian democracy, founded by Clisthenes, had become a power in Greece through the successful struggle against Persia. From that time there were two antagonistic principles, represented by two rival eities,—oligarchy by Sparta, democracy by Athens. The other cities grouped themselves naturally around these. All Greece was divided between these two ideas. The Peloponnesian War is the collision between them. It would be inconsistent with the limits and the scope of this sketch to enumerate the details of the war in each of its twentyseven years. Yet we must aim at indicating the periods into which it falls, the leading characteristics and tendencies which it presents.

1. The first period of the Peloponnesian War comprises the years from its commencement in 431 b.c. to the peace of Nicias in 421,—hence sometimes called the Ten Years’ War. As one of its main features was the frequent invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians, the latter called it the Attic War. The result of it was that Sparta had gained nothing, and that Athens had lost nothing except Amphipolis. By the peace of Nicias Athens kept all places which had surrendered voluntarily. Those allies of Sparta from which these places had been taken were naturally discontented. Corinth and Thebes especially were aggrieved. In spite of all the mistakes of Athens, —in spite of the desolating plague,—in spite of such reverses as the defeats at Delium and Amphipolis, and the loss of the Chalcidic towns,—Athens remained on the whole triumphant; and against what Brasidas had done for Sparta might be set the victories of Phormio and the capture of Sphacteria. On the other hand the peace of Nicias had brought disaffection into the Spartan confederacy.

2. The second period of the war extends from the peace of Nicias in 421 to the catastrophe of the Sicilian expedition in 413. The four years immediately following the peace of Nicias are the only years during which the great fundamental antithesis on which the whole war rested was temporarily obscured. Many of the allies of Sparta were discontented, and the intrigues of Alcibiades were active among them. But it was in vain that oligarchical allies were gained for the moment to the democratic cause. The normal relations were soon restored. Then came the Athenian expedition to Sicily, ending in a crushing disaster. Thucydides thinks that the mistake lay, not so much in an original miscalculation of strength, as in the failure at Athens to support the expedition after it had gone. It is indeed possible that with other guidance Athens might have conquered Syracuse. But at least it was essential that Athens should put forth its whole strength, if only for the reason that no people resembled the Athenians so closely as the Syracusans. Yet never had the Athenians fought under greater disadvantages. The Athenian forte was in attack; at Syracuse they had to act on the defensive. The bold and versatile Alcibiades wa3 made a public' enemy. Nicias, timid and in weak health, is opposed to Gylippus, who unites a Dorian energy of hatred to Athens with something like Ionian command of resource. And, when everything had been lost except a chance of saving the army, the perversity of Nicias defeated the prudence of Demosthenes. The Sicilian disaster was the turning-point of the war. Pericles had warned the Athenians against needless ventures and a policy of aggrandizement. They had incurred a needless risk of tremendous magnitude, and had lost. If they had won, Alcibiades would probably have raised a tyranny on the ruins of their democracy.

3. The third and last period of the war is from the Sicilian defeat in 413 to the taking of Athens by Lysander in 404, a few months after the battle of Aegospotami. This is the period called the Decelean War, because Decelea in Attica was occupied by the Spartans in 413, and continued to be a permanent base of their operations against Athens. As the seaboard of Asia Minor was the scene of much of the fighting, it is sometimes also called the Ionian War. In this last chapter the war takes a new character. After the Sicilian overthrow Athens was really doomed. The Decelean War is a prolonged agony of Athenian despair. Athens had now no hope but in her ships; and the leaders had to find their own supplies. The Spartan treasury was also empty. This want of money on both sides gave the mastery of the situation to Persia. And it was due to the factious treason of Alcibiades that the aid of Persia was given to Sparta. Athens was ultimately conquered, not by the Spartan confederacy, but by the disloyalty of Athenians bent on ruining political opponents. The “Revolution of the Four Hundred,” with its brief success, greatly contributed to the exhaustion of the city. Even at Aegospotami, even when Lysander was before Athens, it was the baneful influence of Athenian faction that turned the scale. When Athens had been taken and the walls destroyed, Sparta was once more the first power in Greece. When Thrasybulus and the patriotic exiles had overthrown the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, they restored the Athenian democracy, but they could not restore the old Athenian power.

Sparta itself was changed. The old Spartan institutions had taught a simple reliance on disciplined strength. In the Peloponnesian War Sparta had won the victory with Persian gold. Already the love of money had found its way into the state which had once been so carefully protected from it. Differences of degree had arisen betw een the citizens, whose equality had been the very basis of the old Spartan life. Citizens who had been impoverished by the rise of prices, and who could no longer pay their share of the public tables, were now distinguished as “inferiors” (v7ro/z€ibve?) from those who retained their full civic rights (o∕λoioi). Spartan commanders abroad were not always inaccessible to bribes. The habit of military discipline indeed remained. Spartans were still distinguished, as a rule, by gallantry in the field, by care for the dead, and by attention to the ritual of the gods. Nor had the valley of the Eurotas remained closed to the higher culture of Greece. The old type of Spartan leader—the rough soldier incapable of eloquence or of finesse—had ceased to be the only type. An Athenian might have envied the powers of persuasion and the diplomatic tact of such Spartans as Brasidas, Lysander, or Gylippus. But the qualities of the old Sparta were seldom fused into a perfect harmony with the new accomplishments. Such men as Lichas and Callicratidas were rare. The balance of political power, as it existed in the old constitution, had also been unsettled. The kings were still, as of old, the commanders-in-chief on land. But the new office of the admiral (ναύαρχος) was invested with the chief command at sea. The supreme control of the state had passed more and more into the hands of the ephors, and the ephors, chosen annually, were not always incorruptible.

Sparta had waged the Peloponnesian War in the name of freedom. The Greek cities were to be liberated from the all-absorbing tyranny of Athens. Now, however, Sparta altogether failed to redeem these pledges. On the contrary she aimed at setting up a tyranny of her own. Oligarchical governments were established, controlled in each city by a Spartan garrison under a Spartan harmost or military governor. The earliest and one of the worst cases was the tyranny of the thirty tyrants at Athens, set up by Lysander, and supported by Spartan arms until, after eight months, the Athenian exiles under Thrasybulus marched from Phyle upon Athens. The Athenian democracy was formally restored in September 403 B.c.; and the liberators used their victory with a wise moderation. Four years later Socrates was put to death, because a party blindly zealous for the old beliefs of Athens could not see that such thought as his led to the only firm basis for a new social order.

The retreat of the 10,000 Greeks under Xenophon, in 401 b.c., marks a turning-point in the relations of Greece to Persia. It was to the Greeks a striking revelation of Persian weakness, an encouragement to schemes of invasion which would before have seemed wild. Sparta now began a war against the Persians in Asia Minor—partly to escape from the reproach of having abandoned Asiatic Hellas to the barbarian. Agesilaus, on whom the lesson of the famous retreat had not been lost, was encouraged by success to plan a bolder campaign. But in 394 b.c. the Athenian Conon, commanding the fleet raised by the satrap Pharnabazus, utterly defeated the Spartan fleet at Cnidus. Soon afterwards, under his protection, the Long Walls of Athens were restored. The Spartan power in Asia Minor was at an end. The oligarchies were overthrown, and the Spartan governors expelled.

The reverses of Sparta did not end here. At the instigation of Persia an alliance was formed between Athens, Thebes, Argos, and Corinth. In the territory of the latter state the allies waged war on Sparta, to whose aid Agesilaus was recalled from Asia. When the Corinthian War had lasted six years, the peace of Antalcidas was negotiated between Sparta and Persia (387 B.C.). By it the Greek cities in Asia, with Cyprus, were given up to Persia. Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros were assigned to Athens. All other Greek cities were declared independent. The meaning of this was that they were to be independent of each other— isolated for purposes of defence—and all alike dependent on the Great King. The Corinthian War had begun from Persian intrigue; it ended with a peace dictated by Persia. But the Spartan policy had gained its own ends. The so-called “autonomy” of the Greek cities disarmed the rivals of Sparta. Now, as at the end of the Peloponnesian War, a prospect of dominion was opened to her. The Persian king, whom this disgraceful peace practically recognized as suzerain of Greece, was to be merely the guarantor of terms under which Spartan ambition might be securely pursued.

A few years later these designs met with their first serious check. In 382 B.c. the Spartans treacherously seized the Cadmea or citadel of Thebes. They held Thebes for three years. But in 379 a party of Theban exiles, under Pelopidas, surprised the Spartan garrison and recovered the city. A still greater discouragement to Sparta was the establishment of a new Athenian Confederacy—precautions being taken against the members passing, as under the Delian Confederacy, into the condition of mere tributaries. Thebes joined the new confederacy, and presently succeeded in restoring the old Boeotian league, of whLh Thebes was the head. But the rise of Thebes had excited Athenian jealousy. Peace was made in 371 between Athens and Sparta. Thebes, thus isolated, was at once attacked by the Lacedaemonians. They invaded Boeotia, but were defeated by the Thebans under Epaminondas at Leuctra, 371 b.c. This destroyed Spartan power outside of the Peloponnesus. Epaminondas next invaded the Peloponnesus itself. He resolved to set up rivals to Sparta on her own borders. He therefore united the cities of Arcadia into a league, with a new city, Megalopolis, for its capital; and he gave independence to Messenia, which for three centuries had been subject to Sparta—laying the foundations of a new capital, Messene, around the great natural citadel of Ithome. The Arcadian league did not long hold together. Mantinea led a group of Arcadian towns favourable to Sparta. In 362 b.c. a battle was fought near Mantinea between the Spartans and the Thebans. The Thebans were victorious, but Epaminondas fell. With his death the temporary supremacy of Thebes came to an end. Sparta had, however, been reduced from the rank of a leading state. Xenophon closes his Hellenica with these words :—“There was more confusion (ακρισία) and tumult in Greece after the battle than before.”

Political confusion is indeed the general characteristic of the period between the end of the Peloponnesian War and the Macedonian conquest of Greece. In the preceding century Athens and Sparta had been the vigorous representatives of two distinct principles. The oligarchic cities rallied round Sparta, the democratic round Athens. But at the end of the Peloponnesian War Athens was exhausted. Sparta, now predominant, but suffering from inner decay, exercised her power in such a manner as to estrange her natural allies. Thus both the normal groups of states were broken up. New and arbitrary combinations succeeded, seldom lasting long, since they were prompted merely by the interest or impulse of the hour. In this period of unstable politics the moment most promising, perhaps, for the future of Greece was when Athens had formed a new naval confederacy, and was also allied with the Boeotian league. But the alliance was broken by Athenian jealousy of Thebes,—not to be renewed until Greek independence was on the eve of receiving its death-blow. The work of Epaminondas in one sense died with him; the brief hegemony of Thebes passed away. But in another sense the results which he achieved were enduring. He had been for Thebes such a man as Pericles was for Athens—a ruling personal influence in a democratic commonwealth; and he had raised Theban policy to the old Athenian level. The aims of Thebans were no longer confined to the circle of Theban interests; Thebes now aspired to be what Athens had been—the champion of national freedom and greatness. The power founded by Epaminondas was transient; but this large Hellenic patriotism made itself felt in some degree as a permanent inspiration, preparing the Thebans to stand by the Athenians in the last struggle for Greek freedom.

VI. The reigns of Philip and Alexander, 359-323 b.c.

Three years after the death of Epaminondas Philip came to the throne of Macedon. His power rapidly grew. A warlike people, ruled by an able and ambitious king, was now the northern neighbour of Greece. The most obvious vice of Greek politics at this period was disunion; but the disunion itself was only the symptom of .a deeper decay. No one city of Greece any longer retained the vigour required in a leader. Had either Athens or Sparta now possessed such vital force as they showed in the Persian wars, no local or temporary feuds would have prevented the organization of national defence. Nothing marks the decay of the Greek commonwealths more significantly than the fact that they did not even recognize the urgency of the danger. Demosthenes had the old Greek spirit; but he stood almost alone. The principles on which he constantly insisted, and which give unity to his entire career, are mainly two :—first, the duty of the Athenian citizen to sacrifice personal ease and gain to the service of Athens; secondly, the duty of Athens, as the natural head of free Greece, to consult the interests of all the Greek cities. The energy of Demosthenes was not first roused by the progress of Philip. Before there was danger from the quarter of Macedon, Demosthenes had seen clearly that the decay of public spirit threatened the destruction of Hellenic life. As he said to the Athenians afterwards, if Philip had not existed they would have made another Philip for themselves. And the condition of Athens was at least not worse than that of any other city which could have aspired to lead.

A strategist so keen-sighted as Philip must early have perceived that he had little to fear from combined resistance, so long as he was careful not to attack too many separate interests at the same time. Greeks, he saw, were past fighting for each other as Greeks. This was the key-note of his policy to the last. While making aggressions on one Greek city or group of cities, he always contrived to have others on his side.

Philip’s career in relation to Greece has two periods. The end of the first period is marked by his admission to the Amphictyonie Council; the end of the second, by the battle of Chaeronea. During the first period Philip is still a foreign power threatening Greece from outside. He takes Amphipolis from the Athenians; he destroys Potidaea; he acquires towns on the Thracian and Messalian coasts; he defeats the Phocians under Onomarchus, and even advances to Thermopylae, to find the pass guarded by the Athenians; finally, he destroys Olynthus and the thirty-two towns of its confederacy. In the second period he is no longer a foreign power. Having intervened in the Sacred War and crushed the Phocians, he has taken the place of Phocis in the Amphictyonie Council, and has thereby been admitted within the circle of the Greek states. The First Philippic and the three Olynthiae speeches of Demosthenes belong to the first of these periods. The speeches On the Peace, On the Embassy, On the Chersonese, and the two later Philippics, belong to the second. In the Third Philippic, the climax of bis efforts before Chaeronea, Demosthenes reviews the progress of Philip from the Hellenic, not merely from the Athenian, point of view. Philip has destroyed Olynthus, he has ruined Phocis, he has sown dissensions in Thessaly; Thebes is afraid of him; he has gained Euboea and the Peloponnesus; he is supreme from the Adriatic to the Hellespont; and the last hope of Greece is in Athens. Demosthenes succeeded in winning back Byzantium to the Athenian alliance, and in persuading Thebans to fight by the side of Athenians; but he could not avert the catastrophe of Chaeronea.

After the victory which made him master of Greece, Philip deprived Sparta of her conquests in the Peloponnesus. The Me3senians, Arcadians, Argives, recovered their old possessions. A congress was then summoned at the isthmus of Corinth. Macedonia and the Greek states were united in a federal league. A federal council was constituted to guard the federal laws; and the Delphic Amphictyony was recognized as a tribunal to which this council should refer any breach of those laws. Philip, representing Macedonia, the most important member of the league, was acknowledged as its head or president. His position in regard to the Greek cities was thus in form much the same as that of Athens or Sparta in former days. It was nominally an hegemony, with somewhat more stringent powers, corresponding to the more systematic organization of the league; in practice it was military kingship over Greece. Yet Demosthenes had not failed. The condition of the Greek states under Philip was favourable in proportion as they had given him trouble. Thessaly had actively helped him, and had been completely subjugated. The Peloponnesian rivals of Sparta had not been active either in helping or resisting him, and they were now-more dependent on Philip than they had formerly been on Sparta. Athens alone had effectively resisted him, and Athens was treated by him with the prudent respect due to a serious antagonist.

If Greek liberty had received a fatal blow in Greece proper, there was another part of Hellas in which, almost simultaneously, it had been vindicated with splendid success. While Demosthenes was making his heroic resistance to the designs of Macedon, the enemies of Hellenic freedom in Sicily had been encountered with equal vigour and happier fortune by Timoleon. A few years after the defeat of the Athenian armament in 413, Sicily had suffered two invasions of the Carthaginians. Selinus and Himera, Agrigentum, Gela, and Camarina, had successively fallen. The first Dionysius, in consolidating his own tyranny at Syracuse, had been content to leave half the island in the hands of the foreign foe. The feeble misrule of his son, Dionysius II., produced a series of revolutions. A party at Syracuse invoked the aid of Corinth. Timoleon was sent with only 1200 men (343 B.C.). His first work was to deliver Syracuse from the contending forces of Dionysius and a rival named Hicetas, and to restore the Syracusan democracy. His next work was to drive the Carthaginians out of Sicily. He defeated them with crushing effect at the river Crimesus (340 b.c. ). The Sicilian Greeks were now free. Sicily entered on a new period of prosperity, which lasted until Agathocles became tyrant of Syracuse (317 B.C.). Thus the brightest days, perhaps, of Hellenic Sicily coincided with those in which the cities of the Hellenic mainland were learning to bear the Macedonian yoke.

The time seemed now to have come for an enterprise which, since the retreat of the Ten Thousand, had been the dream of many Greek captains, but which none had yet been in aposition to attempt. Philip, in the forty-seventh year of his age, had declared war against Persia, and was preparing to invade Asia at the head of an army gathered from all Greece, when he was assassinated by a young Macedonian noble in revenge for a private affront (336 b.c.). Alexander, Philip’s son and successor, was only twenty. Marching into Greece, he promptly repressed an insurrectionary movement, and was recognized by a new assembly at Corinth as commander-in-chief of the Greek armies. He next marched against the tribes on the northern borders of Macedonia. While he was absent on this expedition, the Thebans rose against the Macedonian garrison. Alexander returned, took Thebes, and razed it to the ground (335 B.C.). At Corinth he received the homage of the Greek states, and then returned to Macedonia.

Alexander was now free to execute the design of Philip. As captain-general of Hellas, he sets forth to invade the Persian empire, and to avenge the wrongs suffered by Greece at the hands of the first Darius and of Xerxes. The army with which he crossed the Hellespont in 334 b.c. numbered perhaps about 30,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry. It was composed of Macedonians, Greeks, and auxiliaries from the barbarian tribes on the Macedonian borders. The devotion of native Macedonians to their hereditary king was combined with the enthusiasm of soldiers for a great general. Even if the military genius of Alexander had not been of the first order, his personal authority over his Macedonian troops, and through them over the rest, would still have been greater than was ever possessed by a Greek citizen commanding fellow-citizens.

Alexander’s career of conquest has three stages, marked by his three great battles. The victory at the Granicus (334 b.c. ) gave him Asia Minor. The victory at Issus (333 b.c. ) opened his path into Syria and Egypt. The victory at Arbela (331 b.c.) made him temporary master of the whole East. In accomplishing the first two of these stages Alexander was not compelled to assume any new character. The king of Macedon, the elective captain-general of Greece, needed no other titles by which to hold the lands to which he came as a deliverer from Persia. The later history of these lands is the proof. Asia Minor was by degrees thoroughly Hellenized, and remained Greek till the Turks came in the 11th century. Syria and Egypt were not indeed Hellenized as whole countries, but their capital cities, Antioch and Alexandria, were Hellenic; and the control established by Alexander was retained by Macedonia or by Rome for centuries. At the third stage, however, Alexander’s conquests entered upon an entirely new phase, and compelled him to take up an altogether new position. Neither in his Hellenic nor in his Macedonian capacity could he put forward any effective claim to hold the Persian empire proper,—the empire stripped of its Egyptian, Phoenician, and Hellenic dependencies. He could hold Persia only as a Persian king, as the successor of those Achaemenid kings whose dynasty he had overthrown. The constitutional king of Macedonia, with limited prerogatives, the elective captain of Greece, must now assume a third and distinct character. He must be also a Persian king, a constitutional despot. The merely European influences represented by Alexander might leaven the East, but they could not lastingly possess or transform it. Hellenic cultivation, like Roman power, was not permanently introduced over any wide area east of the Euphrates. This fact is enough to illustrate the enormous difficulty of the task which Alexander had undertaken. It seems not impossible that policy may have been mingled with vanity in his exaction of divine honours. Greeks or Macedonians could never pay him the slavish homage which Persian subjects rendered to their king. But the contrast between European and Asiatic royalty would at least be less glaring if the master of Persia were also acknowledged as the son of Zeus Ammon.

The coloniee planted by Alexander in his progress through Asia make the beginning of a new period in Hellenic history. Hitherto we have had to do with a people whose Hellenic unity rests, not merely on community of language and civilization, but also upon community of blood. Now, by the side of this natural Hellenic nation, there arises an artificial Hellenic nation, with a common language and civilization, but not exclusively of Hellenic blood. The Macedonians maybe regarded as the founders of this artificial nationality. They were doubtless of a stock kindred to the Hellenic; in what degree, it is less easy to say—but (with the exception of their kings) they were generally regarded by the Greeks as standing half-way between Greeks and barbarians. Philip did much to Hellenize Macedonia; and the Macedonian colonies of Alexander became in their turn centres from which the influence of Hellenic civilization was diffused through Asia. Henceforth there are two Hellenic types: the Greek of Greece proper, who preserves in some degree the marked individuality of the old Greek character; and the Asiatic Greek, more readily affected by foreign surroundings, more pliant and less independent. The history of the modern Greek nationality dates from the days of Alexander.

The results of Alexander’s conquests were beneficent chiefly in two ways: first, by liberating the hoarded treasures of the Eastern kings, and so stimulating industry and commerce; secondly, by opening Asia to a new civilization, which helped to promote intellectual and moral progress, even in those places where its influence was limited or transient. In the process of doing this much that was valuable may have been destroyed. But it can hardly be questioned that on the whole the gain far outweighed the loss. If Alexander had not died at the age of thirty-two, leaving his work unfinished, it would perhaps have been easier to judge how far he deserves the credit of having contemplated these benefits to mankind. There is nothing to show that he intended to govern otherwise than as an absolute ruler, with a better machinery for controlling his subordinates than had been possessed by the Persian kings. Such a view is not inconsistent with the fact that his colonies enjoyed municipal freedom. Nor can it be proved that he meant his colonies to be anything more than military strongholds or commercial centres. But it may at least be said that, if his object had been to diffuse Hellenic cultivation over Asia, he could have adopted no more effectual means. It is conceivable that, in his vision of that complex empire which imposed such almost irreconcilable tasks upon its ruler, the idea of engrafting Eastern absolutism on Greek politics may have co-existed with the idea of Hellenizing Asiatic society.

In that period of Hellenic history which closes with Alexander we are tracing the gradual development of a race with special gifts of mind and body, which strongly distinguish it from all other races. The Hellenes set the Hellenic stamp on everything which they create,—first, on their language itself, then on their politics, their literature, and their manners. Every element of their life receives its mature shape from themselves, even when the germ has been borrowed; the Hellenes are an original people in the sense that they either invent or transform. At a very early time they have the political life of cities, and they never rise from the conception of the city to the higher unity of the nation. Their love of clear outline and their sense of measure shrink from every vague abstraction; the principle of order itself is by them identified with “the limit”; the indefinite is a synonym for disorder and eviL The city, an easily comprehended whole, satisfies this instinct; but there is room within its framework for the gradations of monarchy, oligarchy, democracy; for the various modes of acting and thinking which characterize Achaeans, Dorians, Ionians. As the leading commonwealths grow to maturity, two principles of government stand out in contrast,—oligarchy and democracy. Each is represented by a great city round which the lesser states are grouped. The inevitable collision comes, and the representative of democracy is at last vanquished But in the hour of victory oligarchy is discredited by the selfish ambition of its champion. A time of political confusion follows, in which no one city can keep a leading place. Separate interests prevail over principles; public spirit declines. The disunion of the cities—incurable, because arising from a deep inner decay—enables the crafty king of a half-barbarian country to make himself the military dictator of Greece. But just when the better days of Hellenic civilization seem to be over, a new career is opened to it. Men who are not of Hellenic blood help to diffuse the Hellenic language, thought, and manners over a wider field: and the life of th? modern Greek nation begins. (r. c. j.) Section II.— Post-Classical Greek History.

The later history of the Greeks, from the end of Alexander the Great’s reign to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, may be divided most naturally into five periods, viz.—I. The period of Greek subjection: from the death of Alexander to the accession of Constantine the Great as sole emperor, 323 b.c. to 323 a.d. II. The period of Greek revival: from Constantine the Great to Leo III. (the Isaurian), 323-716 a.d. III. The period of Byzantine prosperity: from Leo III. to Isaac I. (Comnenus), 716— 1057 A.D. IV. The period of Byzantine decline: from. Isaac I. to the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, 1057-1204 A.D. V. The period of Greek survival: from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins to its conquest by the Turks, 1204-1453 a.d.

In the limited space of an article like the following, it is impossible to enter into detail with reference to the events of any of these periods. It may be well therefore if we turn our attention especially to the causes which were from time to time at work, to the characteristics and tendencies of various ages, and to the changes that came over society. The history which we thus enter upon is of importance and interest in a different way from that of the classical age of Greece. That age was a unique development in respect of national life and character, of social and political institutions, and of every form of cultivation, and was marked by concentrated energy and intense vigour. The later period is important because of its wide-reaching influence on the world at large, and because it is one, and that the more continuous, of the two great chains of events, in eastern and western Europe respectively, which connect the earlier and later history of civilized man. To the younger student, who is already acquainted with the previous history of Greece and Rome, and has learnt something of the condition of the modern world through the history of England, no other period is probably so instructive and suggestive. He is led into byways of history and remote countries, which have in themselves an element of romance. He comes into contact with races from every branch of the human family in the freshness of their early vigour; and amongst many other less0n3 he learns one, which cannot be learnt too early, and which historians and students of history are disposed to overlook, that the unfortunate are not therefore to be despised. To more advanced student3 its value consists in its explaining the existing state of things in a considerable part of Europe and Asia, which cannot be explained otherwise; and still more in the illustrations it affords, both by way of similarity and contrast, to circumstances in the history of western Europe; such, for instance, as the abolition of serfdom, the relations of immigrant races to the original inhabitants, and systems of law and finance. Besides this, so much civilization filtrated from the East to the West in the course of the Middle Ages that a knowledge of Byzantine history is necessary to a proper understanding of that of western Europe. It will suggest also, if properly studied, that while battles, sieges, and other salient events may be the turning-points of history, the inhabitants of any particular country are more affected by influences which lie below the surface—by alterations of trade-routes and changes in the tenure of land, by the effects of judicious or injudicious taxation, by the administration of justice, and by the relations of different classes to one another.

It is desirable at starting to notice two misconceptions which have prevailed, and in a less degree still prevail, with regard to different portions of this period. The first of these concerns the character of the Greeks during the time of their subjection to the Romans, and in particular under the early emperors, in which age they are often supposed to have l·een a demoralized and unprincipled race. Such expressions as the “Graeculus esuriens” and “Graecia mendax” of Juvenal, and similar ones which are found in Tacitus and other writers of that time, have become proverbial, and have been taken to describe, as those authors undoubtedly intended them to describe, the people at large. There was some justification for the retort of Lucian, that the Romans spoke truth only once in their lives, and that was when they made their wills. The fact is that these descriptions represented faithfully enough the lower class of Greek adventurers who came to Rome from Alexandria and the Asiatic cities to seek their fortunes; and the Roman writers, with their usual contemptuous ignorance of everything provincial, confused these with the Greek nation. The later Greeks no doubt had degenerated from their great forefathers; but it is only fair to remember that this was to a great extent the result of their circumstances. The rapid growth of Greek culture and Greek political ideas was naturally followed by rapid decay. In sculpture the early archaic style developed in a few decades of years into the manly and perfect style of Phidias, and the change was equally rapid to the luxurious style of Praxiteles, in which the elements of decadence were already traceable. The same thing is apparent in the history of the drama. And in like manner in politics, the constitutions of the various states, which were so well suited to the development of Greek individuality, contained in themselves no element of permanence, owing to the opposing elements which were •brought face to face within so narrow an area; and in their relations to one another, all combination on a large scale was prevented by what has been aptly called the “centrifugal” character of Greek politics, so that they were destined inevitably to fall under the dominion of any great empire that should arise in their neighbourhood. Again, it must never be forgotten that the splendid products of Greek genius and Greek character sprang from the black soil of slavery, and could not have existed without it; so that here too we find an element of rottenness, which was sure in the end to produce decay. Consequently, from the time the Greeks lost their liberty, they ought in all fairness to be judged by a different standard from their predecessors, and we ought to be satisfied if we find in them such good qualities as characterize a more ordinary people—industry, respectability, intelligence, good citizenship, capacity for local self-government, and readiness to make the most of their opportunities. In all these respects the Greeks were among the best of the provincials of the Roman empire.

The other misconception relates to the Byzantine empire, which has been commonly regarded as a period of steady decline and feebleness and decrepitude. The author who is mainly responsible for the prevalence of this view is Gibbon; and it is strange that a writer who was gifted with such profound historical insight should not have perceived that the state which accomplished such great things could not have been powerless. The passage in which he expresses himself on this subject is well known. “I should have abandoned without regret,” he says, “the Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passively connected with the most splendid and important revolutions which have changed the state of the world.” Yet it was this same empire which beat back for centuries, and ultimately survived, first the Saracens and afterwards the Seljuks, both of which peoples would otherwise have overrun Europe, and which, even in its decline, kept at bay, for more than a hundred years, .the Ottomans when at the height of their power, thereby providing the Western nations with a breathing space, without which the career of Turkish conquest would certainly not have been arrested at Vienna, but might have extended to the Elbe or the Seine. During the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries its military power was the strongest in Europe, and the individual prowess of its aristocracy was unrivalled, while at the same time its long succession of able emperors and administrators is such as no other monarchical government can show. Its influence is further shown by it≡ missionary efforts, resulting in the conversion to Christianity of the south Slavonic nations and the Russians, and the consequent spread of civilization throughout the countries they inhabited; by its widely extended commerce both by land and sea; and by its art, especially its architecture, which contributed to the formation of other styles from Egypt to the north of Russia, and from India to Spain. Finally, its social and political excellence appears in the state of education, in the regularity of its administration, especially in the matter of justice, and, above all, in the legal standard of the coinage being maintained invariable from first to last, which is a rare proof of a highly organized system. When its situation in the midst of barbarous nations is considered, and the intermediate position it occupied between Asia and western EuroDe, it may safely be pronounced one of the most powerful civilizing agencies that the world has seen.

I. Period of Greek Subjection: from the Death of Alexander to the Accession of Constantine the Great as sole Emperor, 323 b,c. to 323 a,d.

The conquests of Alexander the Great differed from those of almost every other great conqueror in this that they were followed up by a scheme of civil government, the object of which was to secure the well-being and promote the civilization of all his subjects. That he was not the ambitious madman which he is often represented as being is amply proved by the forethought with which his campaigns were planned, and by his attention to the commissariat and to other details connected with the transport and maintenance of his vast armies. But his true greatness is most clearly shown by his endeavouring to introduce unity into his vast empire, not by subjecting one race to another, or crushing out the hope of further resistance by an iron rule, but by establishing in it centres of permanent institutions and common culture. These were the Greek colonies with municipal government which he founded at intervals throughout Asia. By these the subject countries, without being forced into a common mould, or organized in defiance of their feelings and prejudices and without reference to their national institutions, were gradually leavened by the system that existed among them, and obtained a certain infusion of the Hellenic character and Hellenic modes of thought. Though Alexander himself did not survive to complete his project, yet enough had been accomplished at the time of his death to leave its influence firmly imprinted, even when his empire fell to pieces and was partitioned among his generals. The consequences of this to Asia were of incalculable importance, and continued unimpaired until the tide of Mahometan conquest swept over the country; and even then it was from Greek literature and art that the Arabs obtained the culture for which they have been celebrated. But its effect was hardly less marked on the Greeks themselves. The Hellenic world was henceforth divided into two sections—the Greeks of Greece proper, and the Macedonian Greeks of Asia and Egypt. Between these there existed a common bond in similarity of education, religion, and social feelings, in the possession of a common language and literature, and in their exclusiveness, whether as a free population ruling a large slave element, or as a privileged class in the midst of less favoured races; but the differences were equally striking. The former retained more of the independent spirit of the ancient Greeks, of their moral character and patriotism; the latter were more cosmopolitan, more subservient, more ready to take the impress of those among whom they were thrown; in them the Ulysses type of Greek character, if we may so speak—its astuteness and versatility—became predominant. This distinction is all-important for the subsequent history, since, in the earlier period, it is rather the Greeks of Hellas who attract our attention, whereas after the foundation of Constantinople the Macedonian Greeks occupy the most prominent position. At the same time a change passed over the Greek language; while the ancient dialects were retained, more or less, in the provinces of Greece proper, the Attic dialect became the court language of the Macedonian monarchs, and was used almost exclusively by prose writers. Gradually Macedonian and other provincialisms crept into it, and it was modified by simpler expressions, and words in more general use, being substituted for those preferred by the classic writers of Athens; and thus was formed what was called the common or generally used dialect. The non-Greek inhabitants of the countries in which the Greeks were settled were described as “Hellenizing,” and consequently their language, such as we find it in the Septuagint and the New Testament, was called Hellenistic Greek. The literary spirit also migrated to Alexandria, which became for a time the home of the principal Greek culture, and nurtured the genius of Theocritus, the first of pastoral poets, the taste and erudition of Aratus and Apollonius Rhodius, and the research of Aristarchus and other eminent Homeric critics.

The period of somewhat less than two centuries (323-146 b.c. ) which intervened between the death of Alexander and the conquest of Greece by the Romans was a sort of twilight between liberty and subjection. The Lamian War, as the contest between a number of the Grecian states, with Athens at their head, and Antipater, one of Alexander’s immediate successors in Macedonia, was called from the siege of Lamia, which was its most prominent event, soon convinced the Greeks that it was idle for them to struggle single-handed with their great neighbour. After that the country formed a bone of contention between the neighbouring potentates in Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; and most of the states, with the exception of Sparta, were in the power sometimes of one sometimes of another of them, though the contests of their masters secured them from time to time a partial independence. At length the constant danger to which their liberties were exposed suggested the necessity of some kind of combination on the part of the separate states, and the famous Achaean league arose (280 b.c.), which revived the dying energies of the Greeks, and has thrown a lustre over their period of decline. For the origin of this federation we must go back to the early history of the district of Achaia in northern Peloponnesus, the inhabitants of which, from being isolated from other races by their position between the Arcadian mountains and the Corinthian Gulf, and occupying a succession of valleys and small plains, found a federal union to be the most natural political system by which they could be held together. Throughout the greater part of their history this people exercised little influence on the fortunes of Greece, but in her time of greatest need they came forward as her champions. The league was now revived, with a more definite organization and a wider political object, and under the leadership οi Aratus, the greatest of its early “strategi,” it wrested Sicyon from the power of its tyrant, and Corinth from the hands of the Macedonians, until at last it embraced Athens, and almost the whole of the Peloponnesus. Unfortunately Sparta held aloof. That city, which had succeeded in maintaining its independence, had fallen into the hands of a narrow oligarchy of wealthy proprietors, who rose in violent opposition to their reforming kings—men whose names would be a glory to any period—Agis and Cleomenes, and succeeded in putting the first to death, while the latter was enabled to overpower them through the influence won by his military successes. But circumstances involved Aratus in a war with Sparta, and here the old Greek spirit of discord betrays itself. When hard pressed by Cleomenes, the Achaean leader applied to the Macedonians, änd the result was that Antigonus Doson invaded the country, and at Sellasia inflicted a final and crushing blow on the Spartan power (221 b.c. ). The same spirit appears in the Social War, which occurred shortly after this between the Achaeans and the Aetolian league, a similar confederation in northern Greece, and was fomented by Philip V. of Macedon. Subsequently, when the Romans made war on Philip for assisting the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, the consul Flamininus persuaded both these powers to join in attacking him. At Cynoscephalae in Thessaly, not far from the scene of a greater battle, Pharsalia, the power of the Macedonian monarchy was broken (197 b.c.), and Philip renounced his supremacy over the Greeks, to whom Flamininus proclaimed their freedom at the ensuing Isthmian games. The final overthrow came in the time of Perseus, the son of Philip, who was defeated at Pydna (168 b.c.), and his dominions, with the adjacent parts of Greece, were reduced to the form of a Roman province. The later years of the Achaean league had been illumined by the leadership of Philopoemen, “the last of the Greeks,” as Plutarch has called him, in whose time the whole of the Peloponnesus, including even Sparta, was for a time included in the alliance. But the days of Greece were numbered, and the only question was how soon the remainder should be absorbed by the advancing tide of Roman conquest. At last a pretext for interference presented itself, and the reduction of the country to bondage was signalized by the pillage and destruction of Corinth under Mummius (146 b.c.). The entire area southward of Macedonia and Epirus was constituted the province of Achaia, the title of which thus perpetuated the name of the Achaean league. The struggles in which that and the Aetolian confederation had taken part are an evidence of the revival of a spirit of patriotism in the breasts of the Greeks, and we may well lament over the ruin of their independence; but the truth must be told that this was not the feeliug of the majority of the population at the time. The selfishness and cupidity of the Greek aristocracy, such as those whom we have already noticed at Sparta, had imposed so heavy burdens on the people that the great body of them cheerfully acquiesced in the Roman rule. Polybius has preserved to us the saying which expressed the sentiment of the time: “If we had not been quickly ruined, we should not have been saved.”

From the time of the Roman conquest the existence of Greece was merged in that of a greater political unity, so that for the next four centuries, until the commencement of the barbarian inroads, it can hardly be said to have a history of its own. But we must not on this account suppose that the Greeks occupied exactly the same position as the rest of the Roman provincials. In this respect there is a marked difference between the results of the Roman conquests in the West and the East. The inhabitants of the western portion of the empire were at the time of their subjection in a low state of civilization, and destitute of any element of strength in their social and national life. It was natural, therefore, that nations so undeveloped should easily receive the impress of Roman institutions, and should adopt the manners and ideas of their conquerors. The Romans in fact treated them for the most part as inferior beings and did not at first even regard them as absolute proprietors of the lands they cultivated. But in the East the case was different. There the Romans met with a civilization more advanced than their own, which they had already learned to respect, and an elaborate system of civil government and social usages which could not be set aside without undermining the whole fabric of society. Hence the Greeks, while subjected to the Roman administration, were allowed to retain a great part of their institutions, together with their property and private rights, and, from their superiority to the other conquered peoples, remained the dominant power in the East. Even in Asia the despotism of Rome was much modified by the municipal system of the Greek colonies and by the inflùence of Greek culture. Thus it came to pass that, while the Western nations were assimilated to Rome, in the East the Roman empire became Greek, though the Greek nation in name became Roman. The effects of thi3 are visible at every turn in the subsequent history, and to this cause must be referred many anomalies which are traceat>re at the present day in the condition of eastern Europe.

It was a part of the Roman policy, in dealing with conquered countries, to treat them at first with mildness, until they became inured to the yoke, and when this was the case, and precautionary measures had been adopted to prevent the possibility of successful revolt, to deal with them more harshly and increase their burdens. This was what happened in the case of Greece. For some time the people at large had no reason to regret the change. The fact of their subjection was not impressed too forcibly upon them, and several cities, such as Athens and Sparta, were allowed to rank a3 allied states. Their taxes were not increased, and they did not at once perceive the difference caused by the money that was levied being taken out of the country instead of being spent in it. This was, however, the most systematically ruinous part of the Roman system. The Government never paid attention to the provinces for their own sake, but regarded them as an instrument for maintaining the greatness and power of Rome. The immense sums that were drained from them never returned, but were expended in the maintenance of the Roman army, and in the public games and architectural embellishment of the metropolis. Objects of local usefulness, such as roads, ports, and aqueducts, received no attention from the central authorities, and do money was supplied towards their maintenance. Within a century also, when these evils were beginning to make themselves felt, the Roman rule became very oppressive. Though the custom duties were not unreasonable in their nominal amount, they became exorbitant through the system of farming and subletting, and as a special tribunal existed for the enforcement of the collectors’ claims, the farmers exercised a most tyrannical power over the mercantile population of the shores of the Mediterranean. In the wake of these harpies follow ed the usurers, to meet whose claims proprietors had constantly to sell their possessions. The direct weight of the public burdens was further increased by the exemptions enjoyed by Roman citizens in the provinces, and by privileges and monopolies which were granted to merchants and manufacturers; and large sums had to be paid to the Roman governors, both for the maintenance of their establishments, and to obtain exemption from the quartering of troops. But these more or less authorized exactions bore no proportion to the illegal extortions of the proconsuls, who simply pillaged the provincials. No more perfect scheme could have been devised for promoting oppression than that under which these officers were appointed. While on the one hand they superintended the financial administration, on the other they exercised the judicial power; and the only tribunal to which they were responsible was that very senate by which they were appointed, and of which they themselves were members. A governor like Verres had it in his power to ruin a province for several generations, and such instances were not rare. The treatment of Greece in this respect was no exception to the general rule.

The period, however, during which the greatest injury was inflicted on Greece was that of the Mithradatic War (86 B,c.). At the commencement of that struggle many of the leading men and states declared in favour of Mithradates, thinking that under his auspices they might regain their freedom. But the appearance of Sulla with an army soon undeceived them, and they laid down their arms, with the exception of Athens, which was only reduced after an obstinate defence. When the city was at last taken by storm, the majority of the citizens were put to the sword, their possessions seized by the soldiers, the Piraeus utterly destroyed, and Attica ravaged. In the same campaign Delphi and the other principal shrines were plundered, and an immense amount of property was ruined throughout the country. Great injury was also inflicted by the Cilician pirates. Tbe existence of these was a result of the jealousy with which the Roman Government regarded the maintenance of armed forces by the provincials, either by land or sea, lest they should be made an instrument of revolt; and since they had no interest in maintaining order, except where their own authority was threatened, the subject nations were so far from profiting by their protection that they were exposed to attack without possessing the power of defending themselves. The confined seas and numerous bays and islands of Greece have always been favourable to piracy, and at this time the evil reached such a height that the welfare of the state was threatened, and Pompey was entrusted with the office of eradicating it; but before this was accomplished many of the wealthiest cities in Greece and Asia Minor had been attacked and pillaged. With the accession of Augustus a brighter era seemed to have dawned; and under the early emperors, who desired to strengthen themselves against the senate, the interests of the provincials were more considered. Greater regularity also was introduced into the taxation, by the land and capitation taxes being regulated by a periodical census. But the old evils to a great extent remained, and these were further aggravated at a later time by the depreciation of the coinage, which proceeded with fearful rapidity, and caused widespread distress among the commercial and labouring classes.

The result of these changes is traceable in the condition and character of the Greek people. The conquests of Alexander the Great suddenly threw into circulation the accumulated treasures of the Persian empire, and a great part of these passed into the hands of the Greeks, both in Asia and Europe. The facilities thus created for obtaining wealth increased the material prosperity of the Greek race at large, so that in all probability it never was more numerous than during the period immediately preceding its subjugation by the Romans. Though all calculations respecting the numbers of the population in ancient states are necessarily hazardous, yet it seems probable that the Greeks at that time may have amounted to more than seven millions. But with Greece proper the case was different. There the increase of wealth raised the standard of living considerably above what it had been in earlier and more frugal times, so that the less moneyed class were tempted to emigrate in large numbers to seek their fortunes in the great Asiatic cities, and in the service of the Eastern monarchs, where so great openings presented themselves. The decrease of this class produced a larger accumulation of property in the hands of large owners, and greatly augmented the number of slavee. Under the Romans the wealth of the country, great as it was, was soon dissipated by fiscal exactions, by plunder in war and the private pillage of officials, and by the confiscation of the possessions of individuals, with a view to which a system of accusations was regularly promoted. The natural result of this, combined with the self-indulgent habits which had grown up among the upper classes, was a steady diminution of the population. The first of the Romans who perceived the evils arising from this state of things, and endeavoured to remedy them, was the emperor Hadrian, who had the merit of personally visiting the provinces, and whose tastes naturally led him to sympathize with the Greeks. Though much of the money which he expended in the country in the construction of temples and other splendid edifices tended to the gratification of his private fancies, yet a real improvement in the condition of the people was effected by his restoration of the roads which had fallen out of repair, and the erection of baths and aqueducts. He also lightened the taxation, and raised the Greeks to the rights of Roman citizenship, thereby anticipating the edict of Caracalla, by which that privilege was extended to all the free inhabitants of the empire (212 a.d.). The depopulation of Greece, however, continued; but while in this way the power of the nation was being weakened, and its material resources diminished by the loss of much of the capital that had been invested in the improvement of the country, the actual condition of the inhabitants was for the time improved, because the decrease in their numbers had been more rapid than the destruction of property. Possessing the necessaries of life in abundance, and having but little money to spend on anything beyond, they sank into that condition of indifference and ease in which at last the barbarian nations found them.

It has already been remarked that the character of the Greeks at this period ought not to be judged from the prejudiced statements of Roman writers, nor by reference to the standard of their great forefathers. The introduction of the wealth of Persia had undoubtedly a demoralizing effect on the nation, both in Asia and Europe; but when we consider that throughout a great part of the area that they occupied they were long the dominant class, and had hardly any check to restrain them in the indulgence of their passions, it is rather a matter for wonder that they resisted temptation so far as they did. At least they never sank to such a depth of degradation as the Romans of the imperial times, and in Europe the struggles of the Achaean league show that a value was still set on manly virtues. After this the Greeks became the educators of the Romans, whose upper classes resorted for instruction to the university of Athens; and if the rhetoric and philosophy which was taught there partook sometimes of the nature of literary trifling, and the instructors themselves were characterized by vanity and pedantry, they maintained at all events the standard of cultivation in the world at that time. The love of art still prevailed amongst them, and the quiet, studious life of the Greek cities formed in the eyes of many a favourable contrast to the violent struggles and inordinate passions of Rome. But the disbelief in the national religion which had grown up among the educated classes, notwithstanding the maintenance of the temples and their worship, tended to cause a separation between the upper and lower grades of society; and this, together with the isolation produced by the great size of the estates, which withdrew individuals from the scrutiny of their fellow citizens, weakened the force of public opinion, and thus lowered the moral standard. It can hardly be doubted that the consciousness of this, and the feeling of the need of a higher morality, was one main cause of the eagerness with which philosophy continued to be pursued by the Greeks, since in it they hoped to find the groundwork of truth and justice. Thus during a period of six centuries the European Greeks had gradually degenerated, though for the most part from causes external to themselves; they seemed to have become an insignificant and almost commonplace people. Yet the outline of the character was the same, though the colours had faded; and considering the length of the time, and the agencies at work, we may be surprised at finding that the change had not been greater. It remained to be shown that the finer qualities and more vigorous elements were only dormant; and this was brought to light in the latter half of the third century by two influences, which we must now proceed to explain.

The first of these was the invasions of the Goths. These were the earliest of the barbarians to break through the Roman frontier, and the defeat and death of the emperor Decius in Moesia (251 a.d.), and the subsequent incursions of the Goths into Thrace and Macedonia, warned the Greeks of the peril that impended’ over them. Immediately the walls of Athens were repaired, the fortifications across the isthmus of Corinth restored, and vigorous preparations made for defence. The invaders soon made their appearance both by land and sea, and one division, landing at the Piraeus, succeeded in carrying Athens by storm; but an Athenian of rank called Dexippus, afterwards the historian of these events, succeeded in assembling a sufficient force to compel them to retire. This reverse was the prelude to their total overthrow, for succours were meanwhile arriving from Italy, by which their separate bands were attacked in detail and destroyed. Some yeaτs later, after other inroads, during which many cities of Greece successfully defended themselves, the power of the Goths was broken by the emperor Claudius II. at the great battle of Naissus (269 A.D.). But it was clearly proved at this time that the spirit of the Greeks, which had had no opportunity of displaying itself since the siege of Athens by Sulla, was not extinct, and that, if they had been unwarlike in the interval, it was mainly because their masters had denied them the use of arms. It is not to be overlooked that, when the same barbarians subsequently attacked the Western empire, it went down before them, the reason being that the nations of the West had no such distinctive nationality as the Greeks, and no such municipal institutions to rally round. Anyhow the Greek character was benefited by the public spirit thus evoked, and by the activity infused into society by the feeling that every man might be called on to defend his person and property.

The other and far more important influence which regenerated the Greeks at this time was Christianity. This religion, which had long been working in secret, though in ways which it is almost impossible to trace, now began to produce a marked impression on Greek society. Its power was the greater because it had worked from below upward, and had permeated to a great extent the lower and middle classes. It improved the moral condition of the Greeks by elevating their views of life, by quickening the conscience, and by infusing earnestness into the character; and it renovated their social condition by pointing out to them their duties to one another, by encouraging corporate feeling, and in particular by purifying the domestic relations through its influence on the female sex. At the same time the habit of meeting for the administration of their communities accustomed the Christians to discussion and action in common, and the fact that they formed a powerful corporation independent of the state, which was the reason why they were persecuted by the Roman authorities, was in itself a means of political education. Such an influence, which not merely pervaded every relation of life, but penetrated also to the motives and springs of action, Î8 sufficient of itself to account for the regeneration of the Greeks, which the historian traces in its effects at the end of the 3d century.

The scene now changes, and from the land of Hellas our attention is transferred to the city of Constantinople.

II. Period of Greek Revival: from Constantine the Great to Leo I II. (the Isaurian), 323-716 a.d.

The principal events of the first half of this period, the two centuries which intervened between Constantine and Justinian, are—the foundation of Constantinople (330 a.d).; the emperor Julian’s attempted restoration of Paganism (361); the defeat of Valens by the Goths near Adrianople, and his death (378); the establishment of Christianity by Theodosius the Great as the religion of the empire (388); the partition of the Roman empire between Arcadius and Honorius (395); the publication of the Theodosian code (438); and the extinction of the empire of the West (476). The reign of Justinian (527-565) comprises the great campaigns of Belisarius and Narses, whereby the kingdom of the Vandals in Africa was overthrown, and Sicily, Italy, and southern Spain were recovered to the Roman empire, the Greek possessions in Italy being henceforth governed by an exarch, who resided at Ravenna; the building of the church of St Sophia at Constantinople; and the reformation of the Roman law. Finally, in the century and a half between Justinian’s death and the accession of Leo III., occurred the birth of Mahomet (571); the victorious expeditions of Heraclius against the Persians (622-8); and the seven years’ siege of Constantinople by the Saracens in the reign of Constantine Pogonatus (668-675).

The reforms effected by Constantine formed one of the greatest revolutions the world has ever seen, and his sagacity is shown by the completeness with which they were carried out, and by the permanence of their effects, for from them proceeded both the strength and the injuriousness of the .Byzantine system, which lasted even to the latest days of the empire. To describe them in brief,—he centralized the executive power in the emperor, and constituted a bureaucracy for the administration of public business; he consolidated the dispensation of justice throughout his dominions; he rendered the military power, which had hitherto been the terror and bane of the state, subservient to the civil power; he adopted a new religion, and established a new capital. Henceforth the world was ruled by the emperor and his household, and this administration was wholly irresponsible; and as the interests of the Government were unconnected with those of any nationality and any class of its subjects, there was sure to be a continual struggle between the rulers and those whom they governed. In order that the emperor might be regarded as a being of a different order from the people, he and his court were surrounded by lavish splendour; and in order to check the ever imminent danger of rebellion through pretenders to the throne, the offices of the court were made magnificent prizes, so that ambitious persons might feel that advancement could be obtained by a safer method than civil war. But to meet these expenses, and at the same time to maintain a powerful army, an elaborate system of taxation was necessary; taxation, in fact, came to be regarded as the first aim of government, and the inhabitants of the empire were impoverished for objects in which they had no direct concern. The principal instrument which Constantine used for enforcing this was the Roman municipal system, and this he introduced into Greece, notwithstanding the existence of a national and traditional organization. According to this, each town, with the agricultural district in its neighbourhood, was administered by an oligarchical senate called the curia, elected from among the landed proprietors; by them the municipal officers were appointed, and the land-tax collected, for the amount of which they were made responsible; while those who did not possess land, such as merchants and artisans, paid the capitation tax, and formed an inferior class. As wealth declined, the oppressiveness of this system was more and more felt, especially as the private property of members of the curia was confiscated when the required amount was not forthcoming; and hence, in order to prevent a further diminution of the revenue, an elaborate caste-system was subsequently introduced, which fixed the condition of every class, and required a son to follow the calling of his father, lest the number of persons liable to a certain kind of taxation should decrease. With the same view, the free rural population came to be tied to the soil, to prevent the ground from falling out of cultivation. Since, however, it was foreseen that such a system would produce discontent, the people everywhere were carefully disarmed, and the possession of arms was made a thing apart, the military class being separated from all others. For the same reason barbarians were much used as troops, because they could have no sympathy with the citizens. The harshness of this system caused general poverty, and deep-seated hatred of the central government, often resulting in a disposition to call in the barbarians; while its jealousy was the origin of the weakness of the empire, because the provincials, who were really stronger than their invaders, were never allowed to defend themselves. In the West it contributed greatly to the overthrow of the empire, and in the East it repressed the spirit of Hellenic life by interfering with the ancient city communities; and though the force of the Greek character, and the social condition of the countries they inhabited, saved them from destruction, yet, as we look down the long vista of succeeding ages, we may see its baneful effects producing ever-increasing misery.

Yet we must not overlook the strong points of Constantine’s system. The first of these was the regular administration of justice which he introduced. This the inhabitants of the empire felt they could not obtain elsewhere, and the possession of it reconciled them to many otherwise intolerable grievances. So conscious were succeeding emperors of this that we find strictness observed in this matter until quite a late age of the Byzantine empire. Another was the amount of ability and experience which it secured for the public service. We have called the administrators of public affairs a bureaucracy, and the household of the emperor, but they were not the less a body of most highly trained officials, thoroughly organized in their various services. Each department of the state formed a profession of itself, as completely subdivided, and requiring as special an education, as the legal profession at the present day. The perfection of this machinery accounts for the empire not having fallen to pieces in times of internal dissension, sometimes accompanied by foreign invasion; and the facilities it afforded for developing talent are seen in the long succession of able administratore which the system produced, and which came to an end at the commencement of the 11th century, when it began to be disused. And besides this, though the rigorously oppressive taxation was injudicious as well as injurious, yet it may be doubted whether any other system than the high-handed centralization which has been described could have prevented dissolution. Its force is certainly proved by its vitality, and the first great dismemberment in particular was brought about, not by internal causes, but by the power of the Saracens.

The choice of the site of New Rome—which is perhaps the finest position in the world, as it commands the meetingpoint of two great seas and two great continents, and rises in seven hills on its triangular promontory between the Propontis and its land-locked harbour the Golden Horn—is an additional proof of the penetration of Constantine; and the event justified his selection, for on numerous occasions nothing else than the impregnability of the seat of government could have saved the empire from destruction. Though the establishment of a new capital was in itself a consummate stroke of genius, yet to some extent it was forced upon the emperor by his conversion to Christianity, for this placed him in direct antagonism to Old Rome, which was still the headquarters of paganism. And whatever might be the feelings of the people, on the part of the administrators themselves the prepossessions to be overcome in deciding on such a change were less than might be supposed, for the government, absorbed a3 it was in the unceasing care of maintaining · and defending the empire, had long ceased to be Roman in its sympathies, and had become cosmopolitan. The new city at the time of its foundation was Roman: its senators were transported thither from Rome; the language of the court was Latin; and the condition of the lower classes was assimilated to that of the old capital by their being exempted from taxation and supported by distributions of grain. But from the first it was destined to become Greek; for the Greeks, who now began to call themselves Romans, an appellation which they have ever since retained, held fast to their language, manners, and prejudices, while they availed themselves to the full of their rights as Roman citizens. Hence, in Justinian’s time, we find all the highest offices in the hands of Greeks—not Hellenic Greeks, but a Graeco-Roman caste, the descendants of the Macedonian conquerors of Asia; and Greek was the prevailing language. The turning-point in this respect was the separation of the East and West in the time of Arcadius and Honorius. Still the Roman system remained permanent, especially in the community of interest created between the emperors and the populace by the largesses and the expenditure on public amusements, the money for which was drained from the provinces; and this fact explains the antagonism that remained between the provincials and the inhabitants of the capital, and the toleration which the latter showed of the tyranny of their rulers. How deeply these abuses were rooted in the city of Constantinople is shown by the circumstance that Heraclius, in despair of otherwise carrying out his schemes of retrenchment and reform, conceived the design of removing the seat of government to Carthage—a plan which he would have carried out had he not been prevented by the unanimous opposition of the Greeks.

Whether the conversion of Constantine to Christianity was due to sincere belief or to policy, or, as is perhaps most likely, to a combination of the two motives, there can be no doubt that religion had before that time obtained a great influence over the Greeks, and that the cause of the Christian Church and that of the Greek nation were already closely interwoven. Nothing could show more clearly the mastery obtained by the new faith than the subsequent failure of the emperor Julian to revive paganism. We have already seen how life and energy were restored to Greek society by this influence before the end of the 3d century; it was also the unanimity with which it was adopted by that people which inspired them to combine in self-defence, and saved them from the fate of the disunited Western empire. From that early period dates the feeling of brotherhood which pervaded the Greek Church, and the strong attachment which has always existed between the Greek clergy and their flocks, further cemented as it was at a later period by the influence which the clergy exercised in maintaining the people’s rights and defending them against aggression. Paganism, however, continued to be recognized until the time of Theodosius the Great, when Christianity was substituted for it by legislative enactments. But the orthodoxy of the Eastern Church, which came to be, and still is, its most distinctive feature, and the identification of the Orthodox Church with the Greek nation, dates from a different time, viz., from the reigns of the Arian successors of Constantine, to whose personal opinions the people were strongly opposed. The political effect of this union ultimately became very great, and resulted in the loss of important provinces to the empire. When the Orthodox had the upper hand, they soon began to clamour for the persecution of heretics, and the emperors being on the same side acceded to their demand. The natural effect of this was disaffection in those regions, such as Syria and Egypt, where the majority of the population were either Nestorians or Eutychians; and the evil was aggravated by the suspicion to which the provincial clergy were exposed, because they were not Greeks, of being heterodox. The alienation from the central government thus produced greatly facilitated the conquest of those countries by the Saracens. It should also be noted that from the time of Constantine the emperors claimed, and were acknowledged, to be supreme over the church in all civil and external matters—a power which, as we shall see, proved to be of great importance at the time of the iconoclastic controversy; and the extensive judicial and administrative authority which Theodosius conferred on the bishops was the origin of that political subserviency, and at the same time of those simoniacal practices, which have been the opprobrium of their order in the Eastern Church.

The reign of Justinian, which, from the important events •which it contained, has naturally much attracted the notice of historians, was a period of false brilliancy. The character of that emperor in many respects resembles that of Louis XIV. Both were men of moderate ability, gifted with great industry and application to business, and with a remarkable power of employing the talents of others; both were fond of splendour and foreign conquest; and both impoverished and ruined their subjects. At the time of his accession Justinian found in the exchequer a large sum of money amassed by Anastasius I., and had he employed this in lightening taxation and improving the position of his subjects, instead of wasting it in wars of his own seeking and lavish expenditure on public buildings, he would have greatly strengthened his kingdom. No doubt the conquests of his generals were splendid, and testify to the greatness of the armies of the empire at this time. No doubt also the compilation of the Pandects, Code, and Institutes was a magnificent work, which has left indelible traces on the legal systems of Europe. And it is an honour to any age to have developed the Byzantine style of architecture, a style thoroughly Greek in its unity and proportion; for, whereas the Romans had borrowed the ancient Greek style, and, adding to it the arch, had used it for wholly incongruous purposes, the Greeks in turn appropriated the arch and dome, and created a new and harmonious style. But the effects of his reign on his dominions were ruinous. He riveted tighter the fetters which Constantine had invented, but he lacked the penetration of Constantine in perceiving the needs of his time. He dissolved the provincial militia, which to some extent still existed in Greece. The population were ground down by taxation, the revenues of the free cities in Greece were seized, and at last the fortifications fell into disrepair, and a great part of the army was disbanded, so that when Zabergan, king of the Kutigur Huns, invaded the country from the north in the year 559, he was able to approach within 17 miles of Constantinople. How great the demoralization was is shown by the state of the empire under Justinian’s immediate successors. Within less than twenty years after his death the conviction of a great change impending was so widely spread that a story was rife that it was revealed to the emperor Tiberius II. in a dream that on account of his virtues the days of anarchy should not commence during his reign. The condition of things has been described as “universal political palsy.”

The 400 years which elapsed between Constantine and Leo III. were the great period of the barbarian invasions. The Goths, who, as we have seen, had overrun Greece in the latter half of the 3d century after their great defeat at Naissus (Nisch), were more or less kept in check, and became in some degree a civilized and Christian people in the country of Dacia, to the north of the Danube, which they had permanently occupied after the Roman colonies in that country were withdrawn by Aurelian. But in the reign of Valens, when the Huns were overrunning Europe, they were pressed onwards by those invaders, and occupied Moesia between the Danube and the Balkan, which province was peacefully ceded to them. It was only in consequence of treacherous treatment by the Romans that they afterwards entered the empire as enemies, and fought the campaign which ended in the defeat and death of that emperor (378). They were again checked by Theodosius, and persuaded to enlist in great numbers in the imperial service; but during the reign of his successor Arcadius, the famous Alaric roused the spirit of his countrymen, and ravaged the whole of Greece even to the Peloponnesus (395), before he turned his thoughts to the invasion of Italy For a time both Goths and Romans were the victims of Attila, who with his hordes of Huns swept over the lands south of the Danube (442-7), and was only induced to retire by an agreement on the part of Theodosius II. to pay him an annual tribute. But again, in the reign of Zeno (475), the empire was in imminent danger from the Goths under Theodoric, who, like Alaric, had lived at Constantinople, and like him also withdrew into Italy. Towards the beginning of the 6th century the Goths make way for more barbarous invader3, Bulgarians of Turanian origin, and various Slavonic tribes, for whose pastoral habits the now depopulated country was better suited than for a more civilized population. But they in turn were soon swallowed up by the Avars, whose vast monarchy occupied a great part of eastern Europe, and whose armies, in the time of Heraclius, threatened Constantinople itself. It was in order to impose a permanent check on that people that this emperor induced the Servians and Croatians to occupy the districts eastward of the Adriatic, Dalmatia and Illyricum, which were deserted, owing to their constant inroads. These Slavonic settlers paid allegiance to the empire, and as they formed agricultural communities, introduced an element of permanence into the country. The Avar power disappeared as suddenly as it had risen, and at the end of the 7 th century its place is taken by the Bulgarian kingdom, which lasted for nearly 350 years, and was the great antagonist of the Byzantine empire in its most flourishing period. At the close of this long enumeration of invasions, we cannot help being astonished at the successful resistance that was offered to them. No doubt the conformation of the European provinces of the Eastern empire, with their successive mountain barriers, was a source of strength from the ease with which they could be defended; but this could hardly have saved the Greeks, had it not been for the number of their walled cities, their superiority in the art of war, the courage of the people when called out by circumstances, and the strong position of the capital.

On the side of Asia, during the same period, a long struggle was maintained with Persia. The dynasty of the Sassanides, which arose on the ruins of the old Parthian kingdom, had raised that country to great power and prosperity. The second in order of its princes, Sapor I., had taken the emperor Valerian prisoner (257), and a century later Julian lost his life when fighting in Persia. The ill success of Justinian in his Persian wars ought fairly to be ascribed as much to the ability of his great opponent, Chosroes Nushirvan, as to his own shortcomings; but the fact remains that even Belisarius won small glory from those contests, and after a struggle of twenty years’ duration a treaty was concluded, which required the European monarch to pay an annual subsidy of thirty thousand pieces of gold. War, however, continued during the reigns of his successors Justin II. and Tiberius II., until an honourable peace was concluded by Maurice, the son-in-law of the last named emperor, at whose court Chosroes II., the rightful soveçpign, had been receivéd when he was an exile. This prince, when he was reinstated on his paternal throne, showed his gratitude to the Romans. But when Maurice was dethroned by the rebel Phocas, the Persian monarch declared war, professedly with the design of avenging his benefactor. The greater part of the Asiatic provinces were laid waste, and a Persian army was for a time encamped on the shores of the Bosphorus, so that it seemed as if the Roman empire was about to be conquered by Persia. From this it was saved by Heraclius, who was not only one of the ablest of the emperors, but one of the greatest of military leaders. He warded off the impending danger, and in seven campaigns, by a series of brilliant victories, dealt a deathblow to the Persian power. The struggle was unavoidable, and Heraclius, in entering upon it, was actuated by no vain desire of military renown; but the effects of it were disastrous to the Romans also. The period when it occurred was that of the rise of the Saracens, and the exhaustion caused by it contributed in no slight degree to the extension of their power.

We turn now to the condition of the Greeks during this period. In the interval between the first Gothic invasions and the accession of Constantine the material prosperity of Greece had increased, owing partly to the devastation of the provinces to the north of that country, the wealthy inhabitants of which were forced to take refuge in Greece, and partly to the insecurity of the Red Sea, Egypt, and Syria, which caused the commerce of Central Asia to take the route of the Black Sea, whence the trade of the Mediterranean passed once more into the hands of the Greeks. It cau hardly be said that the reforms of Constantine benefited the population, because of the severe exactions they introduced; for, as has been already mentioned, the rich were forced to supply from their own incomes any deficiency that might occur in their district, and by this means, before Justinian’s time, the class of great landed proprietors had been extinguished. But the fixed position which the clergy and the lawyers obtained under Constantine’s system was a general advantage, because this constitutional check modified the oppressiveness of the Government in its dealings with the people. In the case of the latter of these two 0rder3 the effect would have been greater, had not Latin been the language of legal business until after the time of Justinian. The period of 120 years between the death of Arcadius and that emperor’s accession was a time of improvement. During the long reigu of Theodosius II. the power was in the hands of his sister, the philanthropic Pulcheria, and of his ministers, and these seem to have ruled judiciously; and the five succeeding emperors, Marcian, Leo I., Zeno the Isaurian, Anastasius, and Justin, were all men born in the middle or lower class of society, and of provincial origin, and had come to the throne at a mature age. The sympathy which they thus had with the body of their subjects accounts for their economy, and for their endeavours to restore the resources of the empire and alleviate its burdens, and generally to introduce regular forms of procedure into public business. Far different was the case with Justinian, whose severe demands for money distressed all classes of his subjects. But it was on Athens that h'.3 hand was most heavily laid. That city was still a literary capital where Hellenic learning was cultivated; and if the Hero and Leander of Musaeus and that graceful pastoral romance, the Daphnis and Chloe of Longus, are to be assigned to so late a date as the fifth century, the spirit of the ancient literature had not long been extinct among the Greeks. The ancient buildings still existed in all their splendour; the citizens lived a life of quiet, self-complacent ease; and the paganism, of which it was now the centre, had been purified from its vices by the maxims of philosophy and the influence of Christianity. It remained for Justinian, in his merciless centralization, to close its schools and confiscate their revenues. At the same time the Olympian games were brought to an end. From this time onward the inhabitants of Hellas are but little heard of, and at the beginning of the 8th century we find them spoken of by Byzantine writers under the contemptuous title of Helladici, while the Greek nation is represented by the population of Constantinople and Asia Minor. Yet this period was not wholly disadvantageous to Greece. As the danger from the invading barbarians increased, its citizens regained the power of using arms, and revived a municipal administration to direct their efforts. It was also in Justinian’s reign that silkworms were introduced from China, and the manufacture of silk became a profitable source of revenue to Thebes and other towns.

One result of the financial legislation of this time was a change which, though the lawgivers certainly did not foresee it, was most beneficial in its effects. This wa3 the gradual extinction of slavery in the Eastern empire. The power that effected this was not Christianity, for that religion had recognized slavery as an institution, nor yet civilization, for that among the Greeks was intimately connected with the employment of slaves. It was rather produced by an alteration that was taking place in the condition of certain classes, which annihilated the distinction between the freeman and the slave. When the oppressiveness of taxation had destroyed the wealthy proprietors, and, in order to prevent the land from falling out of cultivation and thus diminishing the revenue, the cultivators of the land were tied to the soil, the poorer class of freemen began to sink down into the condition of serfs. On the other hand the slaves who were employed in agriculture became for the same reason an object of solicitude to the legislature, and their proprietors were forbidden to alienate them. They thus acquired a recognized position, not far removed from serfdom; and when all the lower class were reduced to the same state of poverty, the difference in the political statue of the two orders came to be obliterated. Many centuries elapsed before this change fully worked itself out. The slave trade was still an important branch of commerce in the Roman empire, and freemen were sold as slaves if they failed to pay their taxes; but henceforth the system was doomed to ultimate extinction. When we consider the extent to which slavery prevailed in the ancient world, and the misery which it caused, we cannot regret the circumstances which caused it to disappear, even though they were accompanied by much suffering.

It is important also to remark, now that we are approaching the period of change from ancient to modern society, that the decline of civilization in the later Reman empire was not owing to degeneration in the people themselves, or to an inevitable downward tendency in highly civilized communities. It is a mistake to attribute to decay in human character changes that are clearly traceable to the need of such external resources as are indispensable for its development. The prohibition to carry arms necessarily renders a people unwarlike. Where municipal institutions are discouraged, public opinion soon becomes powerless. When the resources which might be employed in constructing roads are withdrawn, communication ceases, and with it the interchange of ideas and other influences by which the intellect is quickened. The degradation was produced by the injustice of the Government, which pillaged its subjects, and systematically destroyed all independence among them. Whenever the iron hand was removed, they showed sign3 of renewed life and vigour, but the strength of the central power was too great to encourage any hope of resisting it successfully. They had no choice but to sit down under it, and suffer it to drain their life-blood by slow degrees.

At the commencement of the 8th century the extinction of the empire of the East appeared to be imminent. The same causes which had overthrown the Western empire were threatening it with destruction. The Saracens had overrun all its Asiatic possessions, and had attacked the capital itself, while in Europe it was threatened by the Bulgarians. The provinces were falling off: Syria, Egypt, Africa, and the conquered provinces of Spain were wholly lost, and in Italy the dominions of the exarchate were greatly circumscribed by the Lombards. At home rebellion prevailed in the army, and anarchy in the government, six emperors having been dethroned within the space of twenty-one years. It seemed as if the Greek race itself w ould be destroyed; in the countries conquered by the Saracens the Greeks were almost exterminated, and Greek civilization proscribed, while Hellas was threatened with occupation by the barbarians. But at this moment the helm of the state was seized by a man who, by his force of character and his great abilities, inaugurated a new state of things, and gave the empire a new lease of life. This man was Leo the Isaurian.

III. Period of Byzantine Prosperity: from Leo IIP to Isaac I. (Conιnenus), 716-1057 a.d.

Considerable difference of opinion has existed as to the precise time at which the Roman empire of the east may be said to have ended, and the Byzantine empire to have commenced. Gibbon remarks that “Tiberius by the Arabs, and Maurice by the Italians, are distinguished as the first of the Greek Caesars, as the founders of a new dynasty and empire.” The question turns on modifications of the old Roman system of administration, and the introduction of a new order of things, which lasted until the overthrow of the state. These commenced, no doubt, shortly after the death of Heraclius, and were closely connected with the victorious advance of the Saracens, which necessitated a reform, and at the same time concentrated the empire, and confined it more and more within the districts inhabited by Greeks. But the altered state of things did not become apparent, nor were the changes systematized, until the time of Leo III., and therefore he may most rightly be regarded as having inaugurated the Byzantine empire. The first century and a half of the present period embraces the iconoclastic controversy, while the two remaining centuries coincide with the rule of the Basilian dynasty, It was a time of great men and great achievements, both in government and war, and the events it contains amply suffice to defend the Byzantine empire from the imputation of feebleness and decrepitude; and those who delight to find in history strongly marked characters and stirring incidents will be amply rewarded here. Few personages stand out in stronger relief than the ruthless, yet ascetic, warrior Basil, the slayer of the Bulgarians; and few occurrences are more romantic than the death of Leo the Armenian, who defends himself with the crucifix in his chapel, where he was chanting the prayers in the early morning, while his successor lies in fetters in the neighbouring dungeon.

We must first notice the reforms, which caused the reign of Leo III. to be an era in the history of the empire. These extended to almost every branch of the administration. In respect of the army, he reorganized the military establishment by placing the various bodies of soldiers in the different “themes,” or departments, each with a general of its own, thereby providing for local defence, and avoiding the danger of rendering the military commanders too influential—a system which defended the empire for five centuries. The geographical arrangement in themes was introduced by Heraclius, but reorganized by Leo, and bore somewhat the same relation to the previous division into provinces that the departments in France bear to the earlier distribution of that country. In respect of finance, he brought the taxation immediately under the emperor’s cognizance, so that thenceforth the emperors were their own finance ministers. All local agencies for collecting the taxes were abolished, and their functions transferred to the imperial officers, who took census regularly. By this means he raised more money than his predecessors, but the increased prosperity of the people showed that the burden did not fall so heavily. In respect of justice, in order to obviate the difficulties which had arisen in the administration of Justinian’s elaborate laws, especially since the facilities for communication throughout the empire had decreased, he published in Greek an abridged manual called the Ecloga, and codified the military, agricultural, and maritime laws. In respect of religion, he aimed at counteracting the element of superstition which had crept into the church, and through it was corrupting the public mind. But this last point calls for separate consideration, since the worship or prohibition of images became the burning question of the age.

The history of iconoclasm is the history of Constantinople during the 8th century and the first half of the 9 th, and involved a great part of the empire in its distractions. There can be little doubt that, in his opposition to image worship, Leo represented the opinion of a large part of the enlightened laymen of his time, while the great body of the clergy, but especially the monks, together with the mass of the population, were passionately attached to the statues and pictures, as objects of reverence, not to say of adoration. But the fact that the stronghold of iconoclasm was Asia Minor, and especially that part of it which bordered on the countries occupied by the Saracens, suggests that it was in part owing to the spread of Mahometanism, the rigidly guarded spirituality of which creed was a stand ing protest against more material conceptions of religion. Nor should we overlook the deeply rooted feeling in the mind of Orientals of the opposition between spirit and matter, which would naturally cause them to be alive to such questions of controversy. The emperors of this time were those of the Isaurian, Armenian, and Amorian dynasties, all which names remind us that they came from the Asiatic provinces; whereas the great restorer of images, the empress Irene, during whose regency the second council of Nicaea in their favour was held (787 a.d.), was an Athenian. But the matter was complicated by a further issue; the question of images was closely connected in the minds of the emperors, and especially of Leo III. and his hard-handed son Constantine Copronymus, with that of their supremacy in matters of religion. They viewed with jealousy the independent power of the church, and were glad of the opportunity this controversy afforded of strengthening their control over this department, and claiming to the full those ecclesiastical rights which, from the time of Constantine the Great onward, had attached to the imperial authority. As this move was only part of a system of centralization, the monks and others who supported image worship were from one point of view the assertors of liberty against aggression, and they were recognized as such by a certain number of thinking men, who watched with anxiety the growth of despotism. As toleration was unknown to the age, persecution was carried on by both sides with equal fierceness, and the contest swayed to and fro, until it was brought to an end by the final restoration of images under Michael III., the last of the Amorian line (842). Its effects on society had been remarkable, At first its influence was bracing, as was shown by the renewed vigour which pervaded the empire; for both sides were thoroughly in earnest, and among the iconoclasts in particular an element of Puritan energy was evolved. But in its later stages, when the people at large were weary of the strife, and the struggle was felt to be in reality one between church and state, the prevalent hypocrisy generated disrespect for religion, and this was followed by general immorality. It further caused the loss to the empire of its dominions in central Italy. So great was the alienation produced by this movement in the minds of the popes Gregory II. and III. that thenceforward the holy see was for the most part either active in its opposition to the Byzantine power or lukewarm in support of it. At last, in 751, Ravenna was captured by the Lombards, and the Greek exarch retired to Naples.

The subsequent ecclesiastical affairs of this period must be briefly dismissed, though they exercised an important influence on the fortunes of the Greeks. The final separation of the Eastern and Western Churches took place in 1053, though events had long before been leading up to it. Already in the middle of the 9th century, when the pope interfered between the rival patriarchs Ignatius and Photius, a rupture was very nearly occurring; and at last, though the formal causes of division were theological, yet the assumptions of the see of Rome and political antagonisms were in reality more influential motives. The bitterness thus created culminated in the capture of Constantinople by the Latins at the time of the fourth crusade; and the subsequent refusal of aid by the Western nations to the Greeks greatly facilitated the success of the Ottomans. From this, the greatest breach in the Christian world, we turn with thankfulness to the missionary efforts of this age. In the middle of the 9th century two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, preached the gospel to the southern Slavonians, and converted them to Christianity. By Cyril the alphabet called Cyrillic was invented, which was generally adopted by the Slavonic peoples. About the same time the Bulgarians renounced their paganism, through the influence of a sister of their king, Bogoris, who had been educated as a prisoner at Constantinople, and afterwards restored to her native country. The rest of the nation had been prepared for this change by the numerous Christian slaves who had previously been carried off by them in war. A century later Christianity was introduced by Greek influence among the Russians, whose capital was now at Kieff, and who were among the most dreaded foes of the Eastern empire. If the missionary spirit is the best evidence of the vitality of a church, it is clear that that of Constantinople, however much corrupted by formalism, was still animated by the spirit of true religion.

The Persian monarchy, which for 400 years had been the rival of the Roman power in Asia, had now succumbed to the victorious arms of the Saracens; and that people again, during the next four centuries, were engaged in almost continual war with the Byzantine empire. In the reign of Constantine Pogonatus, the caliph Moawyah besieged Constantinople for seven years by land and sea, the invaders retiring to Cyzicus for the winter (672-9); but, owing in great measure to the newly invented Greek fire, he was obliged at last to desist from the attempt, and almost the whole of his force was destroyed. Notwithstanding this reverse, the attempt was renewed within a year after Leo III.’s accession by Moslemah, brother of the caliph Suleiman, with an enormous host; but the skill of the Byzantines in military defence, which was equal to that of the Romans in their best days, baffled his attempts, and a winter of extraordinary severity ensuing ruined the attacking army. The importance of this result was incalculable to Europe—far greater than that of the victory of Charles Martel at Tours, The Saracen empire was now at its height, and reached from the Indus to the Atlantic; and it was the full brunt of this power, now in full tide of conquest, which was resisted at Constantinople. Had that city fallen, there was no power that could have prevented it from overrunning Europe. After this, Asia Minor continued for ages to be the battle-ground of the two opposing empires, until it was so devastated and depopulated by successive campaigns as to be fit only for the occupation of the nomad tribes who were to succeed. In the midst of these struggles the invasions of Haroun al Rashid, the splendour of whose court obtained for him a reputation in the West which he did not enjoy among his contemporaries in the East, appear hardly more than plundering incursions. The Byzantine nobles, who were trained in this school of war, were distinguished for their military spirit and personal prowess; and the troops of which the armies were composed were so powerful and well-disciplined that the Saracens would never meet them in the field except with far superior numbers. By sea, however, the empire was less successful than by land. During the first half of the 9th century both Crete and Sicily were conquered by these enemies, and in the year 901 occurred the memorable sack of Thessalonica. A Saracen fleet appeared before that city, and, after storming the sea-wall, pillaged the whole place and butchered the citizens without respect of sex or age. The most famous successes were those of Nicephorus Phocas and his successor John Zimisces. The former of these great commanders, who before he became emperor had reconquered the island of Crete, at the end of a brilliant campaign in Syria obtained possession of Antioch (968) after it had been in the hands of the Mahometans for 328 years. Five years later Zimisces carried his victorious arms even to the banks of the Tigris. But while the disorganized state of the caliphate of Baghdad, in the early part of the 11th century, removed all fears from that quarter, a new enemy began to appear on the eastern frontier of the empire—the Seljuk Turks. Unfortunately, at this critical conjuncture, a fatal mistake was made. The safety of that frontier had long been guaranteed by the Armenian kingdom of the Bagra-tians, whose country was admirably adapted for defence, and whose population were a hardy race of Christian mountaineers. In the year 1045 the emperor Constantine IX. destroyed this kingdom, and thereby laid his dominions open to the invaders.

In Europe, at the same time, the empire was exposed to the attacks of a foe hardly less formidable, and in closer proximity—the Bulgarians. After the extinction of the Avars, this people, who had long been in subjection to them, had founded an important monarchy in the ancient Moesia at the end of the 7th century; and henceforward the Byzantines had to defend their European possessions, not as before against a succession of migratory tribes, but against the concentrated force of a single nation. In the time of Constantine Cυpronymus we find that it required all the energy and military talents of that emperor to keep them at bay, and on one occasion they carried their ravages up to the neighbourhood of the capital. In the beginning of the 9th century their king, Crumn, defeated and slew the emperor Nicephorus I., who had invaded his territory, in a night attack on his camp, and converted his skull into a drinkingcup for his table. We have already noticed how, later in that century, the nation embraced Christianity, and at the same time a tract of country on the southern side of the Balkan range was ceded to them, and received from them the name of Zagora. By this time also they had imperceptibly changed their nationality and their language, for by intermingling with the more numerous Slavonian tribes of the countries in which they settled, they lost the traces of their Hunnish origin, and became to all intents and purposes a Slavonic race. By the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and the trade between that city and the German and Scandinavian peoples which passed through their country, they became a commercial nation, and advanced in the arts of life. But the rapacity of the Greeks in imposing heavy customs on their traders involved them again in war with the empire, and when peace was re-established, the treaty between Romanus I. and their king, Simeon, was made under the very walls of Constantinople (923). In the reign of Nicephorus Phocas the Russians, who had not long before appeared on the scene of action, were invited by the Greeks to invade Bulgaria, and they so effectually crushed the Bulgarians (968) that his successor, John Zimisces, was obliged to come to their aid, in order to save his own territory from falling a prey to the new comers. It was shortly after this that the great and final struggle commenced. Under their chief, Samuel, a man of great vigour and ability, they extended their conquests over Macedonia and Thessaly, and made plundering incursions into Greece and the Peloponnesus. But finding that the plains of Bulgaria were unfavourable to him as a seat of war, on account of the superior discipline of the imperial forces, Samuel transferred his seat of government to Achrida, on the confines of Macedonia and Albania, and thence he extended his kingdom from the Adriatic to the Aegean, so that the country he ruled was as extensive as the European portion of the Byzantine empire. But these events coincided with the culminating period of Byzantine greatness, and Samuel found a worthy rival in Basil II., who from his subsequent victories obtained the title of “Slayer of the Bulgarians.” By him the Bulgarian power was brought to an end; and the whole people submitted to the dominion of the Greeks (1018).

The third people with whom the empire had to contend at this time was the Russians. In the reign of Michael III., the last of the Amorian dynasty (865), the inhabitants of Constantinople were astonished by the appearance in the neighbourhood of the city of a fleet of 200 small vessels, which passed down the Bosphorus from the Black Sea. The enemy contained in these was the Russians, who not long before had established themselves at Kieff on the Dnieper, and whose restless spirit and love of plunder prompted them to attack the strongest city in the world. Their ignorance of the art of war rendered them no formidable foe to the Byzantine forces, but their daring and cruelty produced a profound impression on the civilized and peaceful citizens. Similar attacks were made in 907 by Oleg and in 941 by Igor, but the influence of trade and the introduction of Christianity into Russia gradually promoted more peaceful relations, and the Byzantines employed the powerful tribe of the Patzinaks, who occupied the northern shores of the Black Sea, to counterbalance their opponents. But the campaign of John Zimisces on the Danube in 971, which followed on the negotiations of his predecessor for the subjugation of the Bulgarians, showed how important a military power the Russians had become, for he found in their chief, Swatoslav, an enterprising and powerful adversary, whom it required all his skill to overcome. Once more, in the time of Constantine IX. (1043), the Scandinavian Varangians, by whom the Russians were mostly represented in their marauding expeditions, appeared before Constantinople, but with no better success than before; and from this period the alliance of that people with the Byzantines was long uninterrupted, and the two nations were bound together more and more by religious sympathy. In the days of the Comneni the Varangians regularly formed the bodyguard of the emperor.

Constitutional changes were usually of slow growth in the Byzantine empire, yet at the end of this period we find considerable alterations to have been effected. Under the early iconoclastic emperors there was a tendency towards the greater concentration of power in the hands of the sovereign, but Basil I. converted the government into a pure despotism. This he effected by abolishing the legislative functions of the senate, which body, though now a shadow of its former self, had existed in one form or another all along, and exercised a certain influence in controlling the absolute power of the emperor. When this restraint was removed, and the senate reduced to an administrative council, no further check remained except the fear of revolution. Basil also tacitly introduced what, strange to say, had never existed in the Roman empire, and even now was only partially recognized—the principle of legitimacy in succession. With a view to this he established the custom that his descendants should be born in the “porphyry chamber,” so that the name Porphyrogenitus might become a title of legitimacy. In this way a partial antidote was created to that inveterate disease of the Byzantine empire which a French writer has called la maladie du trône — the ambition to be emperor at all hazards, notwithstanding the risks involved both in the attempt and the possession of the office. The growth of the idea is proved by the loyalty shown a century and a half later to the empress Zoe, an aged, profligate, and incapable woman, on account of the legitimacy of her descent. But the greatest change of all, and one that contributed greatly to the subsequent decline of the empire, was effected at the end of this period. This was the abolition of the system of training officials to conduct the various departments of the state, and the entrusting those offices to eunuchs of the imperial household. The object of this was to lessen the power of the territorial aristocracy, and to diminish the chance of rebellion, by placing the government in the hands of men who could not found a dynasty; but from this time onward the efficiency of the administration began to wane. It was the disregard of the aristocracy involved in this change that caused the conspiracy of the nobles in Asia Minor which set Isaac Comnenus on the throne. It should also be noticed that few of the emperors throughout this period were Greeks, most of them being either Armenian or Slavonian by extraction. This circumstance accounts for a certain freedom from prejudice and independence of view which may be traced in their actions, but at the same time it caused them to be wanting in sympathy with their subjects.

During a considerable part of this period, notwithstanding the desolating wars which we have described, the prosperity of the inhabitants of the empire was very great. Finlay, who is excellently qualified to judge in a matter of this kind, gives it as his opinion that under the iconoclast emperors their moral condition was superior, not only to that of all contemporary kingdoms, but to that of any equal number of the human race in any preceding period. The society of this time has been too much judged of by the murders and mutilations which were rife in consequence of the struggles for the throne; but it should be remembered that these were confined almost entirely to the court and its surroundings, and did not affect the mass of the people. And their material prosperity was equally great. The emperor Theophilus, notwithstanding lιis lavish expenditure, is recorded to have left at his death a sum equal to five million sovereigns—an amount of money which could hardly have been extorted from a people otherwise than wealthy. This was the result of the commerce of their immense mercantile marine, which had in its hands the whole of the carrying trade between Asia and western Europe. To this it should be added that, under Basil the Macedonian and his successors, care was taken to moderate the burden of taxation, a policy that accounts in great measure for the duration of his dynasty, which occupied the throne of Constantinople longer than any other. Unfortunately the riches thus obtained tended after a time to accumulate in the hands of the few, and from the reign of Basil II. the middle class, that element which society can least of all afford to dispense with, began rapidly to diminish. As a consequence of this, in the 11th century manufactures declined in the cities, while in the country the immense estates of the aristocracy were cultivated by Mahometan slaves or Slavonian serfs; and this higher class itself began to feel the lethargy of wealth, and though still unconscious of coming change, was on the eve of impending decline.

In the year 747, during the reign of Constantine Copronymus, the empire was visited by a fearful pestilence, which, both in the mortality and the demoralization of society it produced, must have rivalled, to judge by the accounts left us by the Byzantine historians, those of Florence and London, of which Boccaccio and Defoe have drawn such vivid pictures. As this calamity was the primary cause of the immigration of foreign settlers into Greece, it is intimately connected with the question of modern Greek nationality; and consequently the present appears a fitting place briefly to discuss this subject, on which great differences of opinion, turning mainly on the mediaeval history of the country, have prevailed. The controversy originated in the famou3 thesi3 of Professor Fallmerayer of Munich, that, owing to the great influx first of Slavonian and afterwards of Albanian colonists, not a single drop of Hellenic blood flows in the veins of the Greeks at the present day. The discussion of this point has enlisted much ability and learning on both sides, but the question appears now to have been pretty well set at rest by the abandonment of Fallmerayer’s hypothesis. How early barbarian settlements began to take place in Greece it is difficult to determine; but though the occupation of the Peloponnese by Avars and Slavonians at the end of the fith century, on which much stress has been laid, is doubtfully historical, yet colonies of those races probably established themselves in the northern part of Greece. But that the great change in this respect was produced by the pestilence is shown by the oblivion of Hellenic names of places which datée from that time. For, though a fair number of ancient names of seaport towns, such as Patrae,'Corinth, and Epidaurus, and some names even in a district so extensively occupied by Slavonians as Arcadia, have been preserved to the present day, yet the great majority of the modern names are now, and have been since the 8th century, either Slavonic or of later Greek origin. Not only was the country greatly depopulated by the plague, but a considerable portion of the native middle class was induced by the emperor to migrate to the capital, in order to fill up the void in the inhabitants which had been caused by its ravages. The districts which were thus left vacant were soon after occupied by Slavonian tribes, so that until the middle of the 9th century they formed a large part of the population. But in the latter part of that century the Greeks began to recover a numerical superiority, and from this period dates the process of the absorption and Hellenizing of the Slavonians, so as to form the mixed race of which the greater part of the population of Greece is now composed. In effecting this change the Greek Church played an important part. The affinity between the ancient and modern Greeks has been traced by several lines of reasoning. It has been pointed out how great is the resemblance of character between them, and that too in points presenting the sharpest contrast to the character of the Slavonic races. The survival of old beliefs and classical superstitions at the present day has been carefully observed. The language is a lineal descendant of the ancient speech, and contains next to no Slavonic element; and lest it should be thought that this language had been imported into the provinces from one or more great centres, and had not survived in the districts themselves, it is proved that numerous classical words and forms, which have been lost to the language at large, still survive in the local dialects. Thus, though the physical connexion between the modern Greeks and the ancient Hellenes, in certain districts at all events, may be slight, as seems to be implied by the difference of physiognomy, yet in all that really constitutes a people, their character, feelings, and ideas, the former are the lineal descendants of the latter.

IV. Period of Byzantine Decline: from Isaac I. to the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, 1057- 1204 A.D.

At the commencement of the preceding period there was a prevailing fear among the inhabitants of the empire that its extinction was imminent, and we have seen how this was followed by an age of unexampled prosperity. The feeling of the time on which we now enter was completely the opposite of this, and yet it was a period of decline. The long duration of the empire, notwithstanding numerous vicissitudes, its superiority to contemporary nations in power and wealth, and its apparent security from foreign enemies, inspired the people with a belief in its permanency, and blinded them to the seeds of disease that were already working. Yet before the end of the 11th century the Seljuk Turks had occupied all the inland part of Asia Minor, and had established their capital at Nicaea, in the immediate neighbourhood of Constantinople. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that, in its external relations at all events, the whole of the Comnenian period was a time of decay. On the contrary, during a considerable period it witnessed a remarkable revival; and the three great emperors of that dynasty, Alexius, John, and Manuel Comnenus, whose long reigns extend over an entire century (1081-1180), were men who would be conspicuous figures in any age. All of them were distinguished by personal courage and skill in war, by literary culture, and by sagacity in politics; but in other respects they represented very different types. The first, Alexius, was indefatigable iu business, patient in maturing his schemes, and active in carrying them out, but vainglorious, unprincipled, and fond of artifice. From this Ulyssean phase of Greek character we turn to a true Achilles, his son John, the most amiable character that ever occupied the Byzantine throne—a man irreproachable in morals, open-hearted, generous in action, prudent in council, and pious without superstition. The last of the three, Manuel, presents us with a nature spoiled by the early possession of absolute power, but gifted with most of the features admired by his contemporaries—handsome in person, tall of stature, and so powerful that, at a tournament at Antioch in which the chivalry of the West took part, he unhorsed every antagonist—but passionate in temper and ill-regulated in mind. In an age which produced men like these it may well be inquired, What were the sources of decline?

In the first place, the emperors were almost the only capable men. This was the natural effect of the centralization of the system. The neglect of the education of persons intended to be employed in the administration, and the employment of creatures of the court for offices of trust, were now bearing their fruit. Everything depended on the existing sovereign; and it only required the vices of a thoroughly profligate man like Andronicus Comnenus, the last of his dynasty, to ruin the state. As might be expected also under these circumstances, disorder soon crept into every branch of the public service. The census, which for eleven centuries had been carefully compiled, was now neglected; justice, which more than anything else had united the provinces to the empire, was more imperfectly administered; and the army became inferior to those of Western nations. This last change was produced partly by the degeneracy of the nobles in military spirit, owing to the growth of luxury, partly by the officers being appointed by favouritism, and the habit of disbanding troops at the end of a campaign, in order to save money to defray the expenses of the court. At the same time the great diminution of the middle class, owing to the extension of the large properties, lessened the number of those who were willing to defend their liberties against invaders. The privileges also, in respect of trade, which were conceded by Alexius I. to the Venetians and by Manuel to the Genoese and Pisans, to the detriment of the native merchants, commenced the decline of Greek commerce; and this was accelerated by the piracy that arose, when the money that had been contributed by the commercial communities for the maintenance of local squadrons of galleys was ordered to be remitted to Constantinople. To all this must be added the influence of the higher Greek clergy, whose subserviency to the state had increased since the separation from the Western Church, and the conservatism of whose ideas discouraged all attempts at progress on the part of the people.

The age of the Comneni is the time of the crusades. Those famous expeditions will produce a very different impression on the mind according as they are regarded from the point of view of the East or the West. From the latter point of view they may be regarded as bringing to a focus the religious and martial enthusiasm of the time, as forming a safety-valve for restlessness, as enlarging the ideas and elevating the spirit of the people. But to the great mass of the Easterns they appeared as hardly better than marauding expeditions, and as producing unmitigated evil. Though the first crusade (1095) was partly undertaken in consequence of the solicitations of Alexius for aid against the Seljuks, yet as soon as the first undisciplined bands entered the country they pillaged the natives; and when the more organized companies followed, though many of their leaders, like Godfrey and Tancred, were men of the highest character, yet it required all the address of the Byzantine monarch to transmit these armies into Asia without some irreparable injury being done to his capital. No doubt the faults were not all on one side, for the suspicion and*falsity of Alexius gave just ground of complaint to the crusaders. But he had a very difficult part to play. Had he placed himself, as was proposed, at the head of the crusade, he had no reason to expect obedience on the part of the feudal nobles, while at the same time he left his kingdom exposed to the danger of rivals at home and fresh bands from abroad. Accordingly he chose the ignoble part, and followed in their footsteps with the view of regaining what he could to his dominions. The second and third of these expeditions passed through the empire with comparatively little injury, though in the latter of the two the island of Cyprus was lost to Richard of England; but the ill-will that was manifested by the Greeks on those occasions ripened in the minds of the Westerns those seeds of hatred which at last bore fruit in the great buccaneering expedition which is commonly called the fourth crusade (1204). This event, of which a narrative has been left us from both sides, by the Greek historian Nicetas and the Frank chronicler Villehardouin, is certainly one of the most disgraceful transactions in history. A certain lustre has been shed over it by the age and blindness of the doge Dandolo, who was one of the principal leaders; but that a Christian force assembled for the purpose of fighting the infidels should turn its arms against the most important Christian city of the time is an act of unparalleled baseness; nor can anything be conceived more deliberately mean than the treaty by which the spoil of the empire was partitioned beforehand between the nations who took part in the attack. From this blow Constantinople never recovered, though it is fair to add that hardly less injury had been caused by the storm and plunder of the city during the rebellion which set Alexius Comnenus on the throne.

In Asia this period opens with a great disaster, the defeat of Romanus IV. by Alp Arslan, in the battle of Manzikert in Armenia (1071). Gibbon has eloquently described the scene, in which the Seljuk sultan, after placing his foot on the neck of the captive emperor, spares his life, and hospitably entertains him. The Seljuk race of Turks were already masters of a great part of western Asia, and in the reign of Malekshah, Alp Arslan’s successor, their dominions extended from the banks of the Jaxartes to the Mediterranean. The empire had now entered on the third great struggle of four centuries’ duration, which it maintained in the East—first with the Persians, next with the Saracens, and finally with the Turks, whether Seljuk or Ottoman. But the present contest was commenced under altered circumstances. It was soon felt how fatal was the policy which had denuded the Armenian frontier of its native defenders, and how few obstacles were presented in Asia Minor to an invading force when a large portion of the free population had disappeared. And the character of the invaders also had changed; for, whereas the Persians and Saracens had felt an interest in civilization, the Turkish hordes were composed of nomad barbarians, whose object in war was plunder, and who occupied the countries they conquered as pastoral tribes. Hence their system of warfare consisted in exterminating the agricultural population by successive inroads, until one district after another lay open for their permanent settlement. Within three years after the battle of Manzikert, the Seljuk power extended over the greater part of Asia Minor; and when, in the year 1080, Nicaea fell into their hands, that place became the capital of a separate kingdom, which was called the sultanate of Roum, that is, of Rome. From thence they were driven back by the crusaders at the time of the first crusade, and transferred their seat of government to Iconium, in a more remote position in the south-east of the country. After this they carried on a succession of wars with the Byzantine Governrħent, the most remarkable event in which was the great battle at Myriocephalus, on the borders of Phrygia, in which the emperor Manuel was signally defeated. During the distractions that prevailed at Constantinople shortly before the fourth crusade, it might have been in the power of the Seljuks to seize that city, and so to anticipate the Latins; but at this time the kingdom was divided between the ten sons of the sultan, Kilidji-Arslan II., and thenceforward the power of the Seljuks was less formidable.

Meanwhile the European dominions of the emperors had been assailed by a variety of foes, among whom the Normans were the most conspicuous. In the year 1071 Robert Guiscard succeeded in expelling the Byzantines from their remaining possessions in southern Italy, and fired by the ambition of rivalling his great compatriot, who four years and a half before this had made himself master of England, he conceived the design of conquering the Byzantine empire. With the object of carrying this into execution, he laid siege to Dyrrhachium, the most important Greek city on the Adriatic, and after defeating Alexius Comnenus, who had come to its relief, succeeded in making himself master of the place. Being forced to quit the country, he entrusted the campaign to his son Bohemund, who was defeated by the emperor, and withdrew into Italy. Fortune, however, ordained that these two chieftains should once more be brought into collision in Syria, and hence arose another Norman war, in which Bohemund was foiled by the strength of Dyrrhachium. At a later period, in the reign of Manuel, Greece was invaded by King Roger, who had received an affront from that emperor, and the cities of Thebes and Corinth were sacked in the most barbarous manner. But the most famous of these inroads was in 1185, and resulted in the siege of Thessalonica, which place was taken by the Normans, and treated with a cruelty that almost rivalled that of the Saracens in the former siege. Besides these wars, there were others with the Patzinaks, the Hungarians, the Servians, and the Venetians. But towards the end of this period the empire received a blow from the revolt of a people who on this one occasion appear prominently in history—the Wallachians. This race, who, like the Greeks, claimed the name of Romans or Roumans, were the descendants of the Roman colonists in Dacia, whom the emperor Aurelian transplanted to the southern side of the Danube. There it is probable they intermingled with the natives, but they retained the Latin tongue, from which the modern language is derived. About the 13th century, it would seem, the great body of the nation once more migrated northward to the seats they now occupy; butthose of whom we are speaking here were settled on the Balkan, where they had maintained themselves in their mountain fastnesses, owning an allegiance more or less qualified to Constantinople. In the reign of Isaac Angelus (1186), however, when they were heavily taxed, robbed of their cattle, and misused in other ways, they rose under the leadership of three brothers, Peter, Asan, and John, and having made a league with the Bulgarians, raised the standard of revolt, and established what is called the Bulgaro-Wallachian kingdom. Its successive rulers contended with varied fortune against the Byzantine Government, but succeeded in maintaining their position in Thrace and Macedonia, to which countries for a time Thessaly also was added, forming, however, an independent province, with a governor of its own. The emperor Baldwin, the first of the Latin emperors of Constantinople, was captured by them in battle, and put to death. The kingdom continued to exist until the Turks made their appearance on the scene, when, in common with the other independent sovereignties in these regions, it was finally overthrown.

The period from the end of the 9th century to the fourth crusade was to Greece a time of prosperity. Though its inhabitants were looked down upon as provincials by the people of Constantinople, and the country itself was treated with neglect (Basil II. was the only emperor who for several ages visited Athens), yet in material well-being it was one of the most flourishing parts of the empire. Though barbarian inroads were still not wholly unknown,—one of the Uzes in particular is mentioned in 1065,—yet security generally prevailed, and from the middle of the 11th century the coasts had nothing to fear from Saracen corsairs. The land produced corn in abundance, so that it even supplied the capital in a time of dearth. The silk manufactures of Thebes, Athens, and Corinth were a source of great wealth, and much of the commerce of the time was in the hands of the people of Greece. The port of Monemvasia, in eastern Laconia, which gave its name to the Malmsey wine, was especially famous as a mediaeval emporium. How far Hellenic feeling and Hellenic traditions survived among the Greeks we have no means of discovering, but the probability is that these to a great extent perished, along with the Hellenic names, at the time of the great Slavonic immigration. The whole population had become Christian, though as late as the 9th century paganism existed among the inhabitants of the mountainous regions of Laconia. But in the latter half of the 12th century decline was ready to set in. Their commerce was passing into the hands of the Western traders-; the silk manufacture was transferred by the Norman Roger to Palermo; and the profits of industry were absorbed by taxation, so that no surplus remained to be invested in works of public utility. The writings of Michael Acominatus, the noble and learned archbishop of Athens at the time of the fourth crusade, give clear evidence that in that city the decay had already commenced.

It is during the 12th century that we first meet with compositions in the popular Greek tongue, among the earliest specimens being poems by a monk called Ptochoprodromus, addressed to the emperor Manuel Comnenus. The literary language of this time was still the same which had been used throughout the Byzantine period—the “common” dialect of the Macedonian Greeks, as it had been transmitted with various modifications by the later Greek writers and the fathers of the church. The Byzantine histories and other works which were composed in it are usually stilted and pedantic in style, and conventional in their ideas and their treatment of events; but it is possible to treat them too slightingly. Some of the writers, like Michael Psellus and Eustathius of Thessalonica, were men of undoubted ability and learning; and, besides this, it was the taste for these subjects, however faulty, which maintained the high level of cultivation that distinguished the Byzantines from the people of all other contemporary states during the Middle Ages, and caused the ancient literature to be preserved. This language was also that spoken at court, so that it is not till the time of the Palaeologi that we find the highest circles and polite composition invaded by the vulgar tongue. But from the 4th century after Christ, if not earlier, there had been a divergence between the written and the spoken language, so that the two formed, so to speak, an upper and a lower stratum. Until the time of the iconoclasts, in all probability, the ancipnt speech was generally intelligible, but from the end of the 9th century it was a dead language to the great bulk of the nation. The change which the popular idiom was passing through, as might be expected, was twofold, arising, first, from the usual tendency of speech to become more analytical and of words to modify their meaning, and, secondly, from the loss of vocabulary, the mutilation of grammatical forms, and the confusion of syntax, which is produced by want of cultivation. At the same time it passed through no such violent process of disintegration as befell Latin in its change into the Romance languages, so that its historical continuity was never broken. But when it émerges to view in the compositions of the 12 th century it is already a modern language, and its forms differ little from those of the Romaic of the present century, though of course the vocabulary was as yet free from the intrusive elements—Italian, Albanian, and Turkish—which subsequently crept into it. The metre in which these poems were composed was regulated entirely by accent, and not by the quantity of the syllables, and the verse usually employed was the so-called “political,” i.e., popular verse, which corresponds to some of our longer ballad metres. The favourite subject was romances, and in the treatment of these, as well as to some extent in the stories themselves, subsequently to the Frankish occupation the influence of the French romances is clearly traceable.

V. Period of Greek Survival: from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins to its Conquest by the Turks, 1204-1453 a.d.

The empire of the East never recovered from the effects of the fourth crusade. It was then broken into a number of separate fragments, and though some of these recovered their cohesion, and the end did not arrive for two centuries and a half, yet the strength of the system was gone, and paralysis crept more and more over the enfeebled frame. In accordance with the provisions of the partition treaty, a Latin emperor was set up at Constantinople, and Baldwin, count of Flanders, was elected to the office; Latin kingdoms were established in different provinces,—one at Thessalonica, which was of short duration, another at Athens under the family of De la Roche, and a third in the Peloponnesus under Champlitte and Villehardouin, which was called the principality of Achaia or the Morea. Of the occupation of the last-named of these countries an account is given in one of the most curious of mediaeval Greek poems, The Book of the Conquest, the French original of which also exists. But even the districts which remained in the hands of the Greeks did not continue united. An independent empire was established at Trebizond on the Black Sea by a scion of the house of Comnenus. Another principality was founded in Epirus, the despot of which, after overthrowing the Latin state of Thessalonica, established at that place an empire of his own. But the headquarters of the legitimate Greek monarchy were at Nicaea, the original capital of the Seljuk sultans in Asia Minor. Theodore Lascaris, a man of no mean ability, who had bθen acknowledged as emperor before the capture of Constantinople, having taken up his abode in that place, succeeded in maintaining himself in opposition to the crusaders, the Seljuks of Iconium, and the Greeks of Trebizond; and his successors continued to reside there for nearly sixty years. When the difficulties of the Westerns in Constantinople became increasingly greater, and their downfall appeared imminent, it was for a time a question whether that city should become the prize of the emperor of Nicaea, or of the emperor of Thessalonica, or of the Bulgaro-Wallachian sovereign; and this rivalry involved many alliances and wars. The man who ultimately decided it in favour of Nicaea was Michael Palaeologus, who became the founder of the last dynasty that ruled the Greek empire (1261).

The character of Michael, which was too faithfully reflected by many of his successors, represented most of the unfavourable qualities of the Greek race. Though a brave soldier, he was intriguing, selfish, and unscrupulous, as he soon showed by the deposition and blinding of the young emperor, whose guardian and colleague he was appointed to be. He entered on the possession of a ruined capital, which the barbarism of the Western nobles had reduced to a state of poverty and filth, and his attempts to restore it were misdirected and unsuccessful. His one object, when he had established himself on the throne, was to maintain his despotism; and while he recovered part of the Peloponnesus to the empire, he ruined his subjects financially by debasing the coinage, and commercially by allowing the Genoese and Venetians to appropriate most of the carrying trade of the Greeks. But the act by which he gave the deepest offence was the reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches, which amounted to the submission of the Greek Church to the pope, to which he consented at the council of Lyons (1274), in order to persuade Gregory X. to prohibit Charles of Anjou from invading the empire. The narrowness of the theological spirit among the Greeks at this period was greater than we can well conceive, but it was a not unnatural outburst of national feeling which roused the people in opposition to this measure. The subsequent attempt in the same direction at the councils of Florence and Ferrara (1438-9), when the nation was reduced to the direst straits, met with no better reception at home. Under the successors of Michael the empire continued for 170 years, but the whole of this time was a long death sickness. The doom of the empire was forecast by the powers that came to prey on its weakness—the Catalans, who plundered those whom they had undertaken to aid; the knights of St John, who seized Rhodes, a conquest which they rendered memorable by their gallant defence of that island against the Mahometans; and the Servians, who, under Stephen Dushan, established an important empire, which lasted until it was destroyed by Sultan Amurath at the great battle of Cossova (1389). Even the emperors themselves, from the endowments and gifts which they lavishly bestowed on monasteries, especially those of Athos, seemed to be providing beforehand for a day when their possessions would pass into the hands of others.

The nation was now arriving at the maturity which was to bring this time-worn empire to an end. Shortly before the Greeks regained possession of Constantinople, the Mongols, whose vast hordes had overrun a great part of Europe and Asia and had destroyed the caliphate of Baghdad, entered Anatolia, and shattered the power of the Seljuks of Iconium. But on the ruins of this dynasty another and far more terrible dominion arose. Towards the end of the 13th century Othman, the chief of a Turkish tribe in northern Phrygia, penetrated through the passes of Mount Olympus, which the jealous policy of Michael Palaeologus had denuded of the protection of the warlike mountaineers who occupied them, and descended into the lowlands of Bithynia. By his son, Orchan, the city of Broussa was captured, which became thenceforth the capital of the Ottoman race. The extraordinarily rapid rise of this people to be one of the greatest powers that the world has seen was due in great measure to the remarkable ability of its successive rulers, but in no slight degree also to the institution of the Janissaries—an inhuman but most efficient system, by which Christian children were torn from their homes and educated as Mahometans in the household of the sultans, to whose personal service, as a bodyguard, they were for life devoted. As early as the year 1346 we find Cantacuzene, then the prime minister of John V., and afterwards himself emperor, entering into alliance with Orchan, and giving him his daughter in marriage. The first step towards a permanent settlement of the Turks in Europe was made in 1354, when Gallipoli was occupied by Orchan’s son, Suleiman. Seven years from this time Amurath I, made himself master of Adrianople, and before his death that sultan saw the Greek emperor his vassal and tributary. It seemed now as if the fall of Constantinople could not long be delayed, when, with one of those turns of the wheel of fortune which form the surprises of history, Bajazet, the most powerful of all the Ottoman rulers, was defeated and taken prisoner by Timur the Tartar at the battle of Angora (1402), and civil war setting in between his sons gave the Eastern empire a new lease of existence. But within twenty years again the capital was besieged by Amurath II., though he failed to take it, owing partly to the strength of its fortifications, and partly to a rebellion that broke out in his family. The empire was now reduced to Thessalonica, a part of the Peloponnesus, the city of Constantinople, and a few neighbouring towns.

In the midst of the gloom which hangs over this last period, it is consoling to find a ray of light that illumines its closing scene, in the heroic end of the last Constantine. The story is a sad one. The city was beleaguered by land and sea by the warlike hosts of Mahomet II.; no further succour could be expected from the West; and the emperor, who had adopted the Latin rite, was thereby estranged from the great mass of his subjects. But he had determined not to survive his empire, and he died in a manner worthy of the greatest of his predecessors. On the eve of the final assault he rode round the positions occupied by his troops, to cheer them by his presence; and then, having partaken of the eucharist in St Sophia’s after the Latin form, and having solemnly asked pardon of the members of his household for any offences, he proceeded to occupy his station at the great breach. There on the following morning, after a desperate resistance, he fell fighting amidst a heap of slain, and the young sultan passed his lifeless body as he rode into the captured city.

We have thus passed in review the fortunes of the Greeks during a period of nearly eighteen centuries. We have seen how the Roman system of government and the Greek character and social institutions, mutually influencing and modifying one another, produced the characteristic features of the Eastern empire. We have watched that empire maintaining a conflict on the one side with the invading barbarians, the Bulgarians, and the Western nations, on the other with the Persians, the Saracens, and the Turks, until to the last of these peoples it finally succumbed.

The following are the principal histories of this period :—in English, Gibbon’s Beeline and Ball of the Roman Empire, which, from its comprehensiveness and grasp of the subject, can never be superseded, and Finlay’s History of Greece, which is the chief authority on the Byzantine empire; in French, Le Beau’s Histoire du Bas-Empire ; in German, Carl Hopfs Geschichte Griechenlands vom Beginn des Mittelalters, published in Erseh and Graber’s Encyclopädie, and re-issued in vols. vi. and vii. of Brockhaus’s Griechenland (a work of great erudition, which has cleared up many disputed questions), and Hertzberg’s Geschichte Griechenlands unter der Herrschaft der Römer, and Geschichte Griechenlands seit dem Absterben des antiken Lebens bis zur Gegenwart ; in Greek, Paparrhegopoulos’s Ιστορία του Ελληνικού eθvoυs. (H. F. T.) Section III.— Recent History.

The history of Greece from the fall of Constantinople to the present day suggests a problem of profound historic interest. From the year 1453 till the end of the 18th century almost all the occasions on which the Greek people appear on the page of the historian are occasions on which we read of them that they were butchered or sold into slavery. Records tell only of their annihilation or dispersion. Yet in the commencement of the 19th century this apparently annihilated and dispersed people can summon energy enough to resist the Turks, and although in all probability they would have failed to overcome their oppressors if they had been compelled to struggle unaided, yet the courage and self-devotion which they showed in the conflict were such as to gain for them the sympathies of Europe, and they came forth triumphant. But in reading even of their war for independence we are astonished that a remnant was left. Thousands upon thousands perished, and their victory seemed only less terrible than utter defeat. Yet the spirit of life remained. The kingdom of Greece was established, and within forty year3, notwithstanding deplorable mistakes in its management, the population is doubled, and the country becomes consolidated into a constitutional realm. To trace how these events were possible and how they actually came to pass is the task of the historian of Modern Greece.

The external events in this history are necessarily few. Greece was during the most of these centuries under the sway of foreigners, and the external history of Greece is formed merely by episodes in the history of these foreigners. When Mahomet II. became master of Constantinople, he did not thereby become master of the Greek empire. The Palaeologi had held only a small portion of the territory which had constituted the Greek empire. Most of the islands of the Aegean were under the rule of Italian princes who acted as independent rulers. Rhodes was governed by the knights of St John. But especially the Venetians owned large possessions in Greece and were also powerful by sea. The external history of Greece is occupied mainly with the efforts of Mahomet II. and his successors to spread their conquests. Mahomet himself conquered the kingdoms of Trebizond, Albania, Euboea, Greece proper, and part of the Peloponnesus. He was also successful in expeditions against several of the islands of the Aegean, but he failed in his attack on Rhodes. It was not till the end of 1522 that the knights of St John capitulated to Suleiman I. after standing a siege in which they showed the greatest bravery, and in which the Ottomans, it is said, lost about 100,000 men. On the 1st of January the knights left the island, to go first to Crete and then to Malta. Cyprus and Crete remained still longer in the hands of the Westerns. In 1489 Catherine Cornara ceded the island of Cyprus to the Venetians, who retained possession of it till, in 1570, Piali and Lala Mustapha attacked it. Nikosia fell in September 1570, and Famagosta in August 1571, after a brave defence conducted by Marcantonio Bragadino. The Turks received a severe defeat at Lepanto from Don Juan d’Austria in command of the combined fleets of Spain and Italy, in which they lost 130 ships and 30,000 men. But the blow was merely temporary. The helpers of Venice were no. united among themselves. Again the Turks became the rulers of the Aegean Sea, and in 1573 Venice had to conclude a humiliating treaty in which she gave up Cyprus. In the case of Crete Venice had to pay for her own severity. That island remained for a long time undisturbed in the possession of the queen of the seas, as far as the Ottomans were concerned. But internal commotions agitated it, The Sphakiots or mountaineers of the southwest of Crete—a bold, brave, and independent race of men— rebelled against the rule of the Westerns; and the Venetians had recourse to the most shameful cruelties and atrocities on all their Greek subjects in order to crush the rebellious spirit. The result was that the Greeks hated the Venetians with the bitterest hatred,,and would have gladly welcomed a change to the rule of the Turks. The Venetians saw that they had gone too far, and sent a wise politician, Giacomo Foscarini, to bring matters to a better state. Many prudent reforms were inaugurated, the Sphakiots were reconciled, and all seemed to promise well. But Foscarini died before his reforms got firm hold of the people. The Sphakiots indeed from that day to this have never submitted to the Turkish yoke, but the rest of the people were far from willing subjects of the Venetians and favoured an invasion by the Turks. The Turks knew their opportunity, and began an effort to possess the island which, though the Venetians resisted with great perseverance and were backed by other Italians and by the French, ended in the treaty of 6th September 1669, in which they ceded Crete to the Turks. This last acquisition rendered the whole of Greece subject to the Turks with the exception of the Ionian and a few other small islands, which still remained in the hands of the Venetians. The Venetians, however, did not resign their hold on Greece without a final effort to recover possession of it. For this purpose they not only levied soldiers from their own and other Italian communities, but also hired generals and soldiers from Germany. The war began in 1689. The management of it was entrusted to one of the greatest men whom Venice produced, Francesco Morosini, who was ably assisted by a Swedish general, Konigsmark. The contest was carried on with great vigour until at length the Turks were driven from the Peloponnesus. The Venetians wished also to regain possession of Euboea, but in this they were unsuccessful. The war was brought to an end by the peace of Carlowitz, which left Venice in possession of the Peloponnesus, and the islands of Aegina and Santa Maura. One incident in this war has especially attracted the attention of the civilized world. Morosini, finding his efforts successful in the Morea, resolved to advance towards Euboea. Athens lay in his way. It was garrisoned by the Turks, who, however, on his approach quitted the lower city and, occupying the Acropolis, prepared to defend it at all hazards. They planted one of their batteries in a breach of the temple of Nike Apteros, and they placed a portion of their powder and many of their valuables in the Parthenon. The Venetians showed no respect for the most beautiful of all buildings; and one of their bombs, falling on the powder in the Parthenon, blew many of the masterpieces of art into a thousand fragments, and utterly defaced the noble building which had remained up till that time very nearly in the condition in which the original architect and sculptor had left it. The Venetians tried to introduce reforms into the Peloponnesus, and had made considerable progress when in 1715 Ali Kumurgi, at the head of a very large Ottoman army, entered the Peloponnesus. The Venetians were unprepared, and they could not easily get assistance from others. The consequence was that in a very short time Kumurgi drové them out of the whole of the peninsula. The Turks got involved at this time in war with Austria; and when peace was finally concluded at Passarowitz, Venice had to give up the Morea as well as the island of Aegina, and practically she disappears from the history of Greece except as the possessor of Santa Maura. But a great change had now begun to take place in European politics. At an early period after the capture of Constantinople the Turks came into collision with their neighbours on the north, the empires of Austria and Russia, and we find these two powers united in resisting the inroads of the Ottomans. Even so late as 1683 the Turks were so bold as to advance as far as Vienna and lay siege to it. But in the 18th century the policy of Russia attracted the attention of the rest of Europe, and caused a considerable change of attitude. Early in that century Peter the Great had declared his resolution to force his way into Constantinople, and though he was completely baulked in his aim, and had to sign an inglorious peace (1711), the desire to have the city on the Bosphorus continued to animate the Russians. It is to Count Münnich, fieldmarshal and counsellor of the Russian empress Anna, that historians attribute the suggestion that Russia should systematically stir up the Greek Christians against their Turkish masters, and from his time (1736) onward we find Russia continually scheming to rouse the Greeks to insurrection. Most famous amongst these efforts were those of the empress Catharine II. who, influenced partly by the Philhellenism of Voltaire, partly by a desire to withdraw the attention of her subjects from domestic affairs, but principally by a wish to gratify her favourite Orloff, formed the project of emancipating the Greeks from the yoke of the Turks (1769). But all the efforts made to effect this object were exceedingly inadequate. The Greeks were soon taught also that Russia, while willing to free them from the Ottoman yoke, was determined to assist none but those who would readily become Russian subjects. And the expedition to the Peloponnesus undertaken by Orloff was followed by most disastrous consequences to the Greeks. The Russians were more successful in their contests with the Turks in the north, and in 1774 compelled the sultan to accept a peace, called the peace of Kainardji, which contained several provisions bearing upon the Greeks. In some of these the sultan promised to protect the Christian religion and Christian churches, and though no special mention was made of Russia, her statesmen saw in this stipulation an opening for endless opportunities to interfere. And from this time forward Russia has claimed to be the champion of the Christians against the Turks. But the other states of Europe, especially France and England, became suspicious of the designs of Russia, and holding to the balance of power as an essential principle of European statesmanship, they determined to maintain the integrity of the Turkish empire. Austria had frequently joined with Russia in opposing the Turks and had again and again hoped to come in for a share of the spoil when Turkey should be partitioned. But towards the end of the 18th century the increasing power and influence of Russia began to alarm her, and when the Greeks rose to assert their independence, no power more tenaciously adhered to the doctrine that the integrity of the Turkish empire was demanded by the balance of power in Europe. Thus up to the time of the establishment of the Greek kingdom the affairs of the Greeks have been mixed up with those of foreigners,—Ottomans, Venetians, Austrians, Russians, and the other European powers.

The notable fact in Greek history during these ages is the disappearance and the apparent destruction of the nation. Whoever might hold the supreme power in Greece, the Greeks were sure to be the sufferers. When the Turks spread their conquests from Constantinople on to the rest of the empire, every capture of a city was followed by the slaughter of the able-bodied men and the carrying off of the women and children to the harem or slave market. And the Western Christians were not a whit more tender than the Ottomans. The Venetians were wroth with the Greeks, because they did not acknowledge the pope, and in the island of Crete perpetrated the most abominable barbarities on the innocent population. The Turks punished the Greeks because they submitted to the Venetians, and the Venetians punished them because they submitted to the Turks. Moreover, in these times the Aegean was infested by pirates who, whether Turks or Italians or Greeks, had no mercy on the peaceful inhabitants of the mainland. Human life was disregarded, and men and women were of value only in so far as they were saleable articles in the slave market, If one were to enumerate all the instances in which historians tell us of the utter destruction or transference of the Greek population, a vivid idea might be presented of how terribly hard were the sufferings of the Greek people. We have to add to this record of destruction that vast masses of the people removed to Italy or Sicily or some other place of refuge. Almost all the famous families that ruled the islands of the Aegean escaped from them when they were attacked by the Turks. The knights of St John, for instance, left Rhodes to find a final settlement in Malta. Among the number who thus left their native land were nearly all the learned men, who sought in the West a refuge from Turkish rule, and opportunities for the pursuit of learning.

Yet notwithstanding these destructive forces the Greek people survived. To understand this phenomenon we have to examine into the mode of civil administration adopted by the Ottomans. The Ottomans were pre-eminently a warlike people. Their profession was that of arms. Their two great objects in life were to conquer and enjoy their conquests. They were brave and always ready to fight, but after battle was over they wished to enjoy the luxury and repose which they had earned by arms. They were therefore utterly disinclined to meddle with civil matters. If they got their revenues, and could enjoy their harems and slaves, it was a matter of no consequence to them how the subject races procured the means of paying the taxes, or in what way they governed themselves. The same spirit showed itself in the sultans. To them all Turks as well as Greeks were practically slaves. The sultans saw in the Turks the right hand that could bring them success in war, and in the Greeks or other subject nations the means of ministering to their wealth and enjoyment. Provided they had a sufficiently numerous and brave army and ample supplies of money, they were comparatively indifferent how or by whom local affairs were managed. This freedom from bias and this singleness of purpose enabled them to continue their power for a much longer time than they could possibly have done had they been swayed by national aims or particular ambitions. They had no hesitation in selecting for their purposes the best men they could get, and consequently many of the subject races rose to places of high eminence in the Turkish army and administration. A large proportion of the viziers of the Sublime Porte have been Greeks. Many of the generals that subdued Greece were Greeks. There was thus a constant accession to the ranks of the Turks from the subject nations. Those who thus entered the Turkish service could not do so without adopting Mahometanism. It was the essential condition. But many Greeks found no difficulty in changing their faith. They saw that it was their one hope of rising to eminence. And these men reached such high positions as to arouse the jealousy of the Turks; for the sultans preferred the converts to the original Mahometans. They felt more confidence in them as instruments of their own domination. Indeed at one time there seemed a likelihood that large portions of Greece would become entirely Mahometan. They were urged to it by two opposite influences—by the high position which Mahometan converts from Greece could attain, and by the utterly wretched condition of those who remained attached to the Christian religion. We have a curious instance of the effect of the latter motive in the conduct of the Caramuratades who occupied about thirty-six villages in the valley of the Aous in Albania. The inhabitants of these villages had long been oppressed by the Mahometans, but had remained Christian until 1760. In that year matters came to a crisis.

The Caramuratades could stand their distress no longer. They argued that either Christianity was not true or it ought to put them in a better position. They resolved to give it one chance more, and to try to conciliate the Divine Being by the most rigid fasts. If He did not listen to them, then they would feel assured that He did not wish them to remain Christians. The chief priest protested against the impiety of this resolution, but the Caramuratades would not listen to him. They observed Lent with the most rigorous severity, and prayed much. No improvement followed in their lot; and accordingly, on Easter day, they told the priests to retire, accused the sacred images of being indifferent to their distress, and in one body went over to the faith of Islam. A very few indeed refused to join their brethren, but they had to retire with the priests. At an earlier period, from 1620 to 1650, the Christian population of a part of Albania fell from 350,000 to 50,000; and to the present day a portion of the Albanians have remained firmly attached to Islamism, and have been the readiest tools in the hands of the Turkish Government, while the other portion have stood by the Greeks in their struggles for independence, and have done great and valuable service to the cause. In fact, so great was the inclination of the Greeks to adopt Mahometanism through the combined motives already mentioned that the sultans were alarmed lest they should have no tribute-paying people at all, and accordingly they became kindlier in their treatment of the rayahs or subject Christians, and did much to reconcile them to their government.

Another mode in which the Greeks passed over to Islamism has been already noticed. Even before the taking of Constantinople Orkhan had ordained that the children of Christians should be taken from them, should be specially trained for military service, and should enjoy Buch privileges and immunities that they would feel themselves specially bound to the sultan. The practice was continued and extended by Mahomet II. Every fifth Christian child had to be surrendered to the service of the sultan. All connexion with his parents was cπt off, and he was set apart and trained for warfare. In this way was formed the corps of the Janissaries. The Janissaries were not at first permitted to marry. Their ranks were constantly recruited from the Christian children. History speaks in the highest terms of the discipline and courage of this body of troops while it flourished. The Janissaries forgot altogether, if they ever knew, their homes and their hearths, and they were equally savage to Turk and Christian in their devotion to the sultan. This hateful sacrifice imposed upon the Christians gradually came to be regarded as an honour. The parents knew that their children were to be removed from the degradation of Christian slavery, and were to occupy the best positions that were open to Mahometans, and the Turks themselves so much envied the honour for their children that they bargained with the Greeks to take their children and give them for Janissaries instead of their own. A change took place at length in the composition of the Janissaries. They were allowed to marry; by degrees a position in the body became hereditary; and thence is dated the falling off of the corps. The tribute children were no longer required, and in the reign of Mahomet IV. (1649-1687) the tribute ceased.

In all these instances the Greeks were practically lost to their own nation. They disappeared from the nation of Greeks and Christians and became Turks and Mahometans. At the same time we cannot help supposing that by this intermixture a new element of progress, or at any rate of restlessness, was thus introduced into the dominant race.

But the Greeks attained to positions of eminence in which they were not compelled to abandon their nationality. Between the Turks and the Greeks existed irreconcilable differences. Not only was their religion different, but they differed widely in their social customs. There was no hope of amalgamating the two races. The Turks could only convert or exterminate the Christians. They did not venture to dream that they could convert all the Greeks by persuasion, and forcible conversion after the age of twelve was forbidden by the Koran. The only other alternative was extermination, and one of the sultans came to the resolution to destroy every Christian. But the Turks saw that such a policy was ruinous to themselves. Every Christian paid a poll-tax from which every Turk was exempt. The Christians cultivated the lands for the benefit of the Turks. The Christians were the drudges of the Turks. The next best thing to extermination then was to get as much out of the Christians as possible while coming as little as possible into personal contact with them. This was the plan adopted. Immediately on the conquest of Constantinople, Mahomet spread the Turkish system of administration over the whole of Greece. The Turkish, warriors received lands during their life on condition of being ready to serve in war. These had captains who received the liferent of larger portions of land, and finally pashas acted as military and civil rulers of still larger portions. All these were ready to keep the Greeks in subjection, and crush every effort at rebellion, and they guaranteed the taxes to the sultan. Turkish courts of justice were also established. But Mahomet II. did not disturb the Greek modes of civil administration which he found in force. They merely became subject to his purposes, and appeal could always be made from a Greek to an Ottoman institution. Mahomet II. especially made use of the Greek clergy as his tools for keeping the Greek people quiet and submissive in paying taxes. The Greek emperor had perished in the sack of Constantinople, and the nobles had either fallen or fled or been butchered shortly after. But the Greek Church still remained. The Greek people were devoted to their church. Their quarrels with the pope had only strengthened their attachment to it. Here was an instrument that Mahomet thought might be of great use. Accordingly he made the patriarch of Constantinople the representative of the entire Greek people. He gave him privileges and honours, but he made him responsible for the conduct of the Greeks. The Greek clergy had long before taken an active part in the administration of justice. The bishops had the decision of all questions connected with marriages and wills. They were consulted by their people not merely in spiritual but in nearly all civil matters. The sultan had hold of this clerical influence through the patriarch. He practically appointed the patriarch, the patriarch appointed the bishops. All the great officials of the church thus held their positions under the sanction of the sultan, and could be removed by him. There is no doubt that patriarch and bishops and higher clergy, thus playing the humiliating part of keeping their fellow-countrymen in due subjection to the Porte, did not and could not display very high virtues. They soon contracted all the vices which defile men who have to play a double part; they were true neither to the sultan nor to the Greeks; and they were animated generally by a mean and selfish ambition. By degrees the patriarchate came to be bought from the sultan by higher and higher prices. The patriarch made up his losses by selling the bishoprics, and simony thus became universally prevalent. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks the maintenance of the Greek Church helped to keep the Greeks together, and when a better time came, the high positions which the clergy held enabled them to accomplish much for the spread of enlightenment and the awakening of true national feeling. Even in the darkest times patriarchs appeared who were capable of the greatest sacrifices for their church and nation, and in the war of independence several of the clergy stood in the foremost rank. The inferior clergy throughout the whole time were true to their people; but as they were to a large extent uneducated, and had to maintain themselves by some handicraft, they differed in no respect from the great body of the people, to whose industry and real worth the permanence of the nation is mainly due.

Another circumstance favourable to the Greeks was that the Ottomans allowed them to retain the communal system which had existed in earlier times. By this system, which, however, did not prevail in all parts of Greece, and where it did exist was not carried out always to the same extent, all the males of full age in each district elected a man who wa3 to take special charge of local affairs. These men went by various names, such as demogerontes, getontes, archontes, proesti, and epitropi. The Ottomans found .the system helpful. The proesti had to keep on good terms with the Turks, and were iudeed frequently farmers of the taxes from the Turks. They were also often exceedingly ambitious and cruel. But they were often men of intelligence and influence; and when the war of independence broke out, some of them took a prominent part. There cannot be a doubt also that the local self-government which was thus allowed to exist helped to keep up the longing for liberty and to prepare the nation for a constitutional government.

The Greeks showed their aptitude for combination and self-government also in mercantile affairs. From an early period they had taken to mercantile pursuits, and their position was in many respects advantageous for trading. The Turks were not successsful in trade, and indeed did not care to pursue it. They therefore willingly left it in the hands of the Greeks, and various events and circumstances had favoured them. The Turks imposed a heavier duty on goods exported or imported by Greeks than on those possessed by Turks. The result of this regulation was that the sultan saw it to be his interest to encourage Greek rather than Turkish traders, as his revenue from the former was much greater than from the latter. Various privileges were gained by the Russians for their own traders, and the Greeks were permitted to enjoy these under the Russian flιg. Then, during the war which France waged against all Europe, Turkey was for a long time neutral, and the subjects of Turkey could trade where no others could. Under these and similar conditions the Greek traders spread themselves over the whole of the Mediterranean, and many of them became very wealthy. In this prosperous state of matters various Greeks combined and formed large joint stock companies. Thus the association of Ampelakia, employed principally on cotton fabrics, embraced twenty-two villages. All the inhabitants of twenty-five years and upwards had a right to vote in the election of the five directors who managed the different departments of the company’s activity. The profits were divided at the end of each year according to certain rules. Similar commercial communities existed in Philippopolis, Mademochoria, Calarryta, Soracos, Chios, and Cydonia. Most famous among such combinations were the unions among the sailors of Hydra, Spezzia, and Psara, by which those islands rose to great wealth and importance, and formed most powerful auxiliaries in the struggle for independence.

There were other positions of still greater eminence to which the Greeks rose. The Ottomans for a considerable time after the fall of Constantinople were characterized by a strong literary spirit and a desire for culture, but this spirit declined, and the pursuit of learning was left to the Greeks. But a European Government requires men of culture, if for no other purpose, at least that it may hold intercourse and enter into negotiations with the other European powers. The Ottomans felt this necessity, and accordingly in 1666 they appointed Panayiotes Nicouses dragoman or interpreter. He was succeeded in this office by Alexander Mavrocordatus, who highly distinguished himself in various political transactions of great importance. The office of dragoman became permanent; a Greek was always appointed; and thus Greeks came to have rare opportunities of influencing the sultan. Not long after the establishment of this office another was instituted, that of dragoman or interpreter to the capitan pasha or chief Turkish admiral, whose business it was to arrange all matters connected with the fleet. Still further, the Turks thought it advantageous that the northern provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia should be ruled by Greeks, and generally those who had acted as interpreters to the sultan or to the capitan pasha were appointed as waiwodes or hospodars of Wallachia. These men became practically kings of these provinces, and Greeks from all parts flocked to hold offices under them. The Greeks who received these high appointments lived, when their duties did not call them away, in the part of Constantinople called Phanarion in which the patriarchate was placed, and hence they were called “Phanariots.” They increased greatly in number, and at length formed a large, powerful, and wealthy community in the city of the sultan. The character of these phanariots has not been painted in bright colours by historians, but their circumstances were strongly antagonistic to the development of a high moral tone. They had above all to gain the favour of the sultan, and to stand well with the influential Turks. They could accomplish this only through double-dealing and through extortion. They were also ambitious, and had no scruple as to the means employed in attaining the objects of their ambition. It is affirmed that the Wallachians and Moldavians detested their rule even worse than that of the Turks; but this can be accounted for satisfactorily by the consideration that nothing could be more humiliating than to be ruled by men who had the appearance of princes but were in reality slaves, without our supposing that their rule was more than ordinarily cruel and rapacious. And much has to be said in their favour. They had the strong Greek love of culture. They sent their sons to the best universities in Europe, and in this way the phanariots became men of great refinement and intelligence. Many of them take a distinguished place in the history of their country’s literature. They also established schools everywhere, and vigorously supported those they found existing. The schools or rather colleges of Bucharest and Jassy rivalled that of Jannina in the number of able men they trained to guide and animate their country in its seasons of perplexity.

It was through these and similar instruments that the Greeks were being prepared during the Turkish and Venetian rule to struggle for their independence. Some of the Greek tribes had never been perfectly subject to the Ottomans, especially the Mainotes of the Peloponnesus and the Sphakiots of Crete. Many Greeks had led an independent life as pirates or as klephts. Piracy was indeed put down by the European Governments; but the klephts or brigands remained living on plunder of Greek and Turk alike, proud of their liberty, in their hill fastnesses. There were also in Albania, Thessaly, and Greece proper bodies of Christian warriors, called armatoli, who acted as bands of armed police, but whose actions came often to be confounded with those of the klephts. In regard to the other Greeks it must be affirmed that they were broken in spirit. Finlay asserts that they never once rose against their oppressors. Paparrhegopoulos tries to show that the very opposite was the case; but all he proves is that the Greeks were ever ready to take up arms against the Turks at the instigation of any foreign power. They rose up incited by France, by Spain, by the Venetians; and in later times they were continually rising through the secret instigations of Russia. But they never once rose of their own accord.

The reason was that they had no means of taking combined action. The great bond of sympathy which attached the various Greeks together during the 16th and 17th centuries was their religion. But a new inspiration came with the advance of culture in the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. They began to be animated by the feeling of nationality. The French Revolution roused their minds into activity, and they were ashamed that a nation which had played such a grand part in the early civilization of mankind should be the slaves of an illiterate and barbarous horde of aliens. Circumstances favoured the movement. Especially prominent amongst these was the conduct of Ali Pasha, the tyrant of Jannina. This daring and unscrupulous despot conceived the idea of cutting his connexion with the sultan and assuming the absolute government of Albania. His effort showed how weak the Turkish empire was, and how loosely it held together. Stimulating also was the conduct of the Suliotes, who performed prodigies of valour in their resolution to defend their homes and their liberties. A secret society was formed to make ready for a rising of the people. The people were stimulated by patriotic songs, especially those of Rhigas of Velestino; and the agents of Russia were everywhere.

Accordingly in 1821 the war for independence broke out. It would be impossible in the limits of an article like this to give a proper account of the various conflicts between Greeks and Turks, of the quarrels among the Greeks themselves, and the windings of European diplomacy in its interference in the contest. The principal events may be shortly noted. The insurrection was begun by Prince Alexander Hypsilantes, a phanariot in the service of Russia, who had been elected head of the chief secret society (the φiλcκη eτaφela). He crossed the Pruth March 6, 1821, with a few followers, and was soon joined by several men of great bravery at the head of considerable troops. But the expedition was badly managed, and in June Hypsilantes fled to Austria, having entirely failed in his object. And in all the efforts to overthrow the power of the Turks' in the northern provinces the Greeks failed, though some men fought very bravely. In the Peloponnesus the insurrection broke out also in March in several places, and most prominent among the first movers was Germanos, archbishop of Patras. Everywhere the Greeks drove the Turks before them; they were so successful that in January 1822 the independence of Greece was proclaimed. But they soon began to quarrel among themselves. Several assemblies were held. Mavrocordatos, one of the phanariots, was appointed president. But the aspirants for honours and rewards were numberless, and they could not agree. Accordingly a civil war raged in 1823 and 1824, inspired by Colocotronis, a chief of klephts who attained great influence, and in 1824 another civil war of short duration, called the War of the Primatee. During this period the Greek fleet was very active, and did good service. It was ably led by Miaoulis, a man of firm character and great skill. And he was well seconded by the intrepid Canaris, whose fire ships did immense damage to the Turkish fleet, and filled the Turkish sailors with indescribable terror. For the ravages of the Greek fleet the Turks wreaked fearful vengeance on the innocent inhabitants of the lovely island of Chios (April 1822), butchering in cold blood multitudes of its peaceful inhabitants, and carrying off others to the slave market. The savage atrocities then perpetrated caused a thrill of horror throughout the civilized world. Two years after they perpetrated similar outrages on the islands of Kasos and Psara. The sultan now invoked the aid of Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, and his stepson Ibrahim landed on the Peloponnesus with a band of well-disciplined Arabs in 1824. Ibrahim carried everything before him, and the Greeks lost nearly every place that they had acquired. Some towns offered a strong resistance, and especially famous is the siege of Mesolonghi, which lasted from 27th April 1825 to 22d April 1826. Nothing could exceed the firmness and bravery displayed by Greek men and women during that siege; and their glorious deeds and sad fate attracted the attention of all Europe. The interest in the Greeks, which had been to some extent aroused by Lord Byron and other English Philhellenes in 1823, now became intense, and volunteers appeared from France and Germany as well as from England and America. Lord Cochrane was appointed admiral of the Greek fleet, and Sir Richard Church generalissimo of the land forces, but they did not prevent the capture of Athens by the Turks, 2d June 1827. Most of the European Governments had remained indifferent, or had actually discouraged the outbreak of the Greeks. Russia had disowned Hypsilantes. The monarchs of Europe w·ere afraid that the rising of the Greeks was only another eruption of democratic feeling fostered by the French Revolution, and thought that it ought to be suppressed. But the vast masses of the people were now interested, and demanded from their Governments a more liberal treatment of Greece. Canning inaugurated in 1823, and now carried out this new policy in England. An accident came to the aid of the Greeks. The fleets of England, France, and Russia were cruising about the coasts of the Peloponnesus, to prevent the Turkish fleet ravaging the Greek islands or mainland. Winter coming on, the admirals thought it more prudent to anchor in the Bay of Navarino, where the Turkish fleet lay. The Turks regarded their approach as prompted by hostile feelings and commenced firing on them, whereupon a general engagement ensued, in which the Turkish fleet was annihilated, 20th October 1827. Shortly after (18th January 1828) Capodistrias, who had been in the service of Russia, was appointed president of Greece for seven years, the French cleared the Morea of hostile Turks, and Greece was practically independent. But several years had to elapso ere affairs reached a settled condition. Capodistrias was Russian in his ideas of government, and, ruling with a high hand, gave great offence to the masses of the people; and his rule came to an untimely end by his assassination on 9th October 1831. Anarchy followed, but at length Otho of Bavaria was made king, and the protecting powers signed a convention by which the present limits were definitely assigned to the new kingdom (1832). Henceforth Greece has existed as a recognized independent kingdom. Throughout the whole of the war of independence in Greece, the people behaved with great bravery and self-sacrifice. They showed a steady adherence to the idea of liberty. They were sometimes savage in their conduct to the Turks, and barbarities occurred which stain their history. Yet on the whole the historian has much to praise and little to blame in the great mass, especially of the agricultural population. But no single man arose during the period capable of being in all respects a worthy leader. Nor can this be wondered at. All the men who took a prominent part in the movements had received their training in schools where constitutionalism was the last doctrine that was likely to be impressed on them. Several of them had been in the service of Russia, and had full faith only in arbitrary power. Many of them were phanariots, accustomed to double dealing, ambitious and avaricious. Some of them had been brought up at the court of Ali Pasha of Jannina, and had become familiar with savage acts of reckless despotism. Others had been and indeed remained during the continuance of the war chiefs of klephts, having but little respect for human life, and habituated to scenes of cruelty and plunder. Some of them also came from the Mainotes, who owed their independence to the habitual use of arms, and who were not troubled by many scruples. It could not be expected that such men would act with great mercy or prudence in dealing with Turks who had butchered or enslaved their kinsmen and kinswomen for generations. Even amongst the foreigners who volunteered to aid the Greeks, few if any were found of supreme ability, and after the kingdom was established the Greeks were unfortunate in the strangers who came to direct them. Otho had been brought up in a despotic court, and knew no other method of ruling. He brought along with him Bavarians, to whom he entrusted the entire power, and the Greeks had the mortification of knowing that, though their kingdom was independent, no Greek had a chance of being elevated to any ministerial office of importance. Accordingly a revolution broke out in 1843; the Bavarians were dismissed, and Otho agreed to rule through responsible ministers and a representative assembly. But he failed to fulfil his promise. Discontent reached its height in 1862, when another revolution broke out and Otho had to leave Greece. The great mass of the people longed for a constitutional monarchy, and gave a striking proof of this by electing Prince Alfred king of Greece. This choice was determined by universal suffrage, and out of 241,202 Greek citizens who voted 230,016 recorded their votes in favour of the English prince. The vote meant simply that the Greek people were tired of unconstitutional princes, and hoped that they would end their troubles if they had a prince accustomed to see parliamentary government respected and enforced. The three protecting powers,—England, France, and Russia,—had however bound themselves to allow no one related to their own ruling families to become king of Greece. When the Greek people received this news, they begged England to name a king, and after several refusals England found one in Prince William of Schleswig-Holstein, son of the king of Denmark. The Greek people accepted him, and in 1863 he became king with the name of George I. Britain added the Ionian islands to his kingdom. In 1875 the ministry gave great offence to the Greek people by its unconstitutional procedure, but the king persisted in standing by it. The people, however, persevered in the use of legitimate means to oust the ministry; the king at last prudently yielded; and thus a revolution was prevented. The effort of the Greeks to extend their boundaries is the last phase of their history, and is still in progress. In 1853 when the Crimean war broke out, the Greeks sided with the Russians, and in 1854 they made inroads into Thessaly and Epirus, but English and French troops landed at the Piraeus, and forcibly put an end to the Russian alliance and to Greek ideas of acquiring additional territory. In 1866 to 1869 the Cretans struggled bravely but unsuccessfully to throw off the Turkish yoke and become a part of the Greek kingdom. And recently when the Russians made war on the Turks the Greeks were eager to enter Thessaly and Epirus to aid their fellow-countrymen in asserting their freedom. But England interfered with the promise that Greece would gain more by maintaining a peaceful attitude. A clause in the Berlin Treaty affords a basis for the fulfilment of this promise; but the promise has still to be fulfilled. The Greeks themselves believe that with the extension of their boundaries there will be less occasion for intrigue, ministries will be more permanent, and the Greeks who now flock from all parts to the little kingdom of Greece for official employment will have a wider sphere and will be more contented.

The authorities for this section, some of which have been mentioned in the previous article, are very numerous. See, e.g., the ιστορία of Paparrhegopoulos, vols. v. and vi., and his French work Histoire de la civilisation Hellénique ; Finlay, vols. v. vi. and vii.; Herzberg, vols. iii. and iv.; Karl Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Geschichte Griechenlands von der Eroberung Konstantinopels durch die Türken im Jahre 1453 bis auf unsere Tage·, Sathas, 'Eλλαs Τουρκοκρατούμενη, and the Chroniclers in his Bibliotheca Groeca Medii Aevi ; ana Gervinus, Geschichte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, vols. v. and vi. For the Greek Revolution, besides the four first mentioned, there are Gordon and (in modern Greek) Trikoupis. There are many treatises on special portions, such as those of Philemon, Perrhaevos, Phrantzes, Colocotronis, Von Maurer, Prokesch-Osten, Parish, and many monographs on the history of the various islands. More recent English works are an article by Mr Gladstone, “The Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem,’’published first in the Contemporary Review, and now in his Gleanings·, Freeman’s Ottoman Power in Europe·, Sargeant’s Wew Greece·, and “Mr Gladstone and the Greek Question,” being iii. of Diplomatic Sketches by an Outsider. (J. D.)

PART III.—GREEK LANGUAGE.

The possession of a common language was always regarded by the Greeks themselves as the most significant and important of the bonds which united the scattered members of the Hellenic nationality. Wherever there was a community speaking the Greek tongue, whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa, from Olbia on the Hypanis to Cyrene in Libya, from Salamis in Cyprue to Maelaca near the Pillars of Hercules, there was a portion of the Hellenic people linked to the rest by mutual intelligibility, and sharply marked off from the jabbering and inarticulate βάρβαροι who surrounded them. The earliest written records of this speech are probably to be found in what was at the same time the most precious common possession of this great nationality, the poems that bear the name of Homer. It is possible indeed that, in the form in which they have come down to us, they are later than the fragments of the earliest elegiac and iambic poets, such as Callinus, Mimnermus, Archilochus, and Simonides of Amorgus; but it cannot be doubted that in substance they go back to an earlier date. These, however, are in a literary language,—a language which bears the most evident marks of a free combination for artistic purposes of various popular dialects, along with many reminiscences of archaic forms and usages, and not a few formations due only to false analogy. For the early history of the Greek language we are obliged to have recourse to the reconstructions of linguistic science.

Origin of the Greek Language.

Comparative philology shows us that there was a time when the ancestors of the various nations which speak what are generally known as Indo-Germanic languages lived together and had a common speech. From the extent and character of the agreement between these various languages at the time when they first become known to us from written records, it is possible to a certain extent to determine which groups remained the longest in connexion with each other, and which parted off the soonest from the common stock. Unfortunately scholars are as yet by no means at one as to the results to which this method of inquiry leads us. Schleicher, e.g., held that the agreement between the Aryan or Asiatic group of languages and the South-European (in which he includes not only Greek and Italian, but also Celtic) is closer and more significant than that between the latter and the North-European, i.e., the Teutonic and the Letto-Slavonic group. Max Müller and Joh. Schmidt maintain that the relations of the various languages are so complicated that it Î3 impossible to establish any “genealogical tree,” or to determine the order in which they separated from each other (see Schmidt’s Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der Indogermanischen Sprachen, Weimar, 1872). But the prevailing view is still that of Lottner, Curtius, Jolly, Fick, and Scherer, that we may with confidence assume the first division to have been that between the Aryan or Asiatic (Indo-Persian) and the European groups, and that there are sufficient points of agreement between all the European languages to warrant us in assuming that there was a period of some duration during which the European peoples remained united.

Of these points of agreement the most important are the following :—

1. The vowel α is found to have “split” on European soil into the three vowels e, a, ο,— that is to say, there are numerous instances in which the European languages agree in degrading a primitive a into e or o when the Asiatic tongues either retain the a or weaken it quite independently into i.

2. The Europeans agree in softening a primitive r into I, where the Asiatics have retained r.

3. There are a large number of new words, and apparently even some new roots, common to most, if not to all, the European languages, of which no trace is to be found among the Indo-Persians.

These facts cannot be set aside by instances of agreement in inflexion or syntax between Greek and Sanskrit, for example, for it is much easier to believe that at the comparatively late date at which any Teutonic language is known to us,—and much more so, at the far later date of the earliest Celtic records,—the inflexions which they presumably once had in common with Greek had become to a large extent worn away and unrecognizable and the syntactic constructions modified, than to suppose that such numerous instances of agreement were wholly fortuitous.

A similar course of argument fairly leads to the presumption of a common Graeco-Italic nationality. The agreement in vocabulary is still closer than that between the various members of the united European group: for instance, while the general terms for agriculture are shared not only by Greeks and Italians, but also by Teutons, Celts, Slavs (though not by Indo-Persians), there are many special terms which are only found on Greek and Italian soil, the most interesting among them being perhaps the words for wine and oil. Other words, again, which are used with a more indefinite meaning by the Europeans generally are specialized and differentiated in Graeco-Italic (Fick, Veτgl. worterh., ii. pp. 1-288; Curtius’s Principles, 230b, 234, 597, &c.). Whether we may also assume (as is done, e.g., by Professor E. Curtius, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 19) that there was a common Graeco-Italic law of accentuation is very doubtful, in face of the arguments advanced by Corssen in favour of a freer law of accents in the earlier times, both in Greek and in Latin. It is much more probable that the rigidity of the Latin system, and the exquisite flexibility and harmony of the Greek, were developed quite separately from a more fluid state. But undoubtedly there is a far greater similarity in the inflexional system of Greek and Latin than can be established between either of these and any other member of the group.

At the time when the common Indo-European unity was first broken up, the language had reached a stage of development which may be given with some confidence as follows. The steps assumed are those which have been established by Professor Curtius in his monograph, -Zur Chronologic der Indogermanischen Sprachforschung (2d edition, Leipsic, 1873). In spite of the criticisms to which this scheme has been subjected, by far the most important of which are those by Max Müller and Ascoli, it may fairly be said to maintain its ground, and it is reasserted with full confidence in Curtius’s admirable work on the Greek verb.

We start with the period in which roots alone were employed as words. As to the origin of these roots, philology is as yet quite unable to speak with any positiveness: all that can be said is that the imitative or onomatopoetic theory has not been proved to be capable of producing all the roots which we are compelled to postulate, while, on the other hand, no theory has been generally recognized as fit to be regarded as a serious rival. It is clear, however, that we must admit an extremely early, if not an absolutely primitive, distinction of roots into verbal and pronominal roots, i,e., (1) such combinations of sound as were significant, and carried with them a notion which was vague and general, if not philosophically abstract, and (2) such as had no meaning in themselves, but only served to denote relations.

The second stage is that of the “determination” of roots, wherein, by the addition of different phonetic elements, they acquired a differentiated meaning— e.g., when the very vague ju, “join,” became ju-g, “join together,” ju-dh, “join in battle.” (It may here, however, be open to question whether the fuller forms were developed from the shorter by additions, or the shorter abstracted from the group of similar fuller forms, as Max Müller is rather inclined to hold.)

The third stage is that of the formation of verbs, by the close combination of a verbal root with one or more pronominal roots, to denote the character of the subject of the verb. It is in the nature of this combination that we find the distinguishing feature of the Indo-Germanic stock of languages. At the same time we find (1) the “strengthening” of the vowel of the root, by the addition of the simplest vowel-sound a, to denote repeated or continuous as distinct from momentary action; (2) reduplication, originally producing the same effect, but afterwards, in a specialized form, denoting the continued result in the present of an act done in the past; (3) the augment, a particle, originally demonstrative in its nature, prefixed to a verb to denote that the action expressed by the verb took place at a time removed from the present, i.e., in the past. To the same stage (though possibly to a later part of it) belongs the further development of terminations, so as to mark an action as having a special reference to the subject; this produces what is in Greek conventionally called the middle voice, but what is really a reflexive formation. We may take as types of the words created during this stage such formsas da-ta, “give there,” i.c., he gives; da-da-ta, “he is giving;” a-da-m, “I gave;” da-da-mai, “I give with a view to myself.”

In a fourth stage we get the expansion of the root into a stem, occasioned apparently, in the first instance, by the increasing need of distinguishing the noun from the verb. The earliest method of forming a stem was by the addition of a “thematic vowel” a to the root, to convey the notion of a continuous action; thus from l>har, “carry,” came l>har-a,“ carrying.” Sometimes the vev el of the root was “strengthened” along with the addition of the thematic vowel; thus rik, “leave;” raika, “leaving.” Afterwards other similar formative elements (or pronominal roots) such as ta, na, ma, tra, &c., were added to produce nominal stems of many various kinds. There is no reason to suppose that these were at first strictly differentiated in meaning; thus par-nu- is “filled” not “filling,” but su-nu- may be taken either actively or passively, “the begetter” or “the begotten,” and tap-nu- is “the burning” fever. Subsequently the instinct of language availed itself of variations in form to distinguish various relations, especially of gender. Again, when noun-stems came to be used, as the roots had previously been used, to form verbs by the addition of the personal terminations, this modification of the stem served to distinguish mood. Thus when the vowel a was added to a root from which a verb was already formed, the inflexions of this extended root or stem denoted an action intended to be performed, and thus acquired the force of a conjunctive mood. The addition of the vowel having thus obtained this differentiating power, it was afterwards affixed with the same force to stems already provided with a, the contraction of α + a giving a; hence, just as han-ti is “he kills,” haη-a-ti, “let him kill,” so we get bhara-ti, “he is carrying,” bharä-ti, “let him be carrying.”

In a fifth stage compound verbal forms make their appearance, i.e., tense-stems are produced by the union of primary verb-stems with the roots of verbs which have become simply auxiliary. That this must have been at a later stage than the preceding processes is clear from the fact that verbs only gradually lose their full meaning, and sink into auxiliaries. The verbs so U3ed are (1) as, originally “breathe,” afterwards “be”; (2) ja, “go”; (3) dha, “do.” From the composition of the first with a verb-stem we get forms like th03e of the compound or so-called first aorist— e.g., a-dik-sat, “he pointed” ( = ∈-δ∈ικ-σ∈-τ). Here we have the union of a root (in this case acting as a noun-stem) with the auxiliary verbs in the third parson, preceded by the augment; a-dik-sa-t is to the earlier form a-da-t much as “tum dicens erat” is to “turn dans.” These formations belong to the earliest stratum of this period, inasmuch as the stem appears in its simplest form. For a like reason we must assign to the same stratum the compounds of ja with the simple stem. This auxiliary is used to denote relations which were at first somewhat indefinite but were afterwards more precisely differentiated. There is (1) the present of duration: e.g., svid-jä-mi, “I am sweating;” (2) the passive force thus derived, as in Sanskrit ja is a sign of the passive: e.g. bodh-a-ti, “he knows,” bodhja-te, “he is known;” (3) the tendency to do a thing, i.e., the optative mood: as in as-ja-m, the primitive form of siem (sim) and fιην. There is also to be noted, as belonging to this stage, the very important present of duration from the root as, i.e., as-ja-mi, which acquired for itself, and when affixed to roots or stems gave to them, the force of a future. With regard to the root dha, the widely varying force which its compounds have in the different cognate languages prevents us from determining with certainty the manner in which it was originally employed in composition (cf Curtius, Das Verbum, ii. 352). To a second stratum of the same period must be assigned those compound verbal formations in which the stem is not a pure root, but has already been developed into a stem which has the character of a noun. If we compare, e.g., bhara-jami ( = φορε-jω-μι), “I am bearing,” with svid-jä-mi, we find in the first a nominal theme employed for composition and inflexion, in the second a simple root. It is of much importance to notice that here too the verbal formation must have preceded the formation of cases. Had the accusative bhara-m been in use, it would have been impossible not to employ it in connexion with a verb-form likeyα-m', just as the Romans said venum dare, datum iri, and the like, and as Sanskrit forms the periphrastic perfect of the tenth conjugation, by uniting the auxiliary verb with the accusative— e.g., lcorαjam k'dkara, bodhajäm babhûva, &c. We are led to the same conclusion by considering forms like a-dik-sa-nt, by which the absence of plural inflexion is not less clearly indicated than the lack of case-inflexions by bhära-jämi. It has been urged, e.g., by Professor Max Müller, that this argument is a weak one, because our ancestors must have felt the need for clearly distinguishing the plural from the singular, and the nominative from the accusative, before the need for denoting the differences between the persons. To this it may be replied (1) that the argument from what must have been is one of the most dangerous that can possibly be used in philology; conclusions a priori have again and again been disproved by a more complete acquaintance with the facts of the history of language; (2) that, as a fact, incompletely developed languages do find it more easy to do without distinct marks of the cases than to dispense with personal inflexions, and that this is confirmed by languages like English and French, which have returned to an uninflected state more completely in the case of nouns than in that of verbs; (3) that in the inflexion of nouns the sign of the plural is added to the case-suffix and not vice versa (e.g., λυκους = λυκον-ς = varka-m-s), so that the use of the sign of case must have preceded that of the sign of number, although the latter might have seemed to us the more indispensable. Professor Müller’s argument that composition might have taken place in times subsequent to nominal inflexion, because the stem-forms show themselves in certain cases of declension, and therefore might have remained present in the consciousness of those using the language, breaks down upon the essential distinction between the nature of the composition of the verbal forms in primitive times and of the construction of compound verbs within the historical period. We may therefore safely follow Curtius in holding it as at least highly probable that verbs were already inflected according to person, tense, mood, and voice at a time when nouns were still in the state either of simple roots (e.g., vale) or nominal themes (bhαrα, akva, sunu,pati, and the like). The needs of language at this stage were probably helped out (as at present in uninflected languages) by the position of the words, by the stress of the voice, and by a free use of pronominal roots, which may have been already acquiring somewhat of a prepositional force. But one of the most important means of expression was undoubtedly composition. The form which the elements of compounds take, rarely (and apparently never in any early word) appearing with any case-inflexion of the first element (as in oυδεvδσωpα, δaτpε<∕>77ς, άμφορεαφόρος), but presenting themselves simply as stems (λογο-γράφο-ς, &c.), shows that at any rate the mould in which they were cast, the analogy on which later compounds were freely fashioned, was constructed at a time when nouns were not inflected. The various relations which the factors of the compounds bear to each other point to the same fact. We find in Greek, according to the very clear and careful statement of Curtius (Grammar, § 359; cf. Elucidations, pp. 172-178) three kinds of compounds: (1) determinative, in which the second factor is the principal, which, without altering its meaning, has it defined by the first; e.g., ακpοπολι<s = ακpα πόλις; (2) attributive, where the first factor defines the second, but so as to alter its meaning, the two combining to form anew idea; e.g., μακρό-χειρ = μaκpωt χfιpa<s εχων ; (3) objective, in which one of the two words is grammatically governed by the other, so that in paraphrasing one of thé two must be put in an oblique case; e.g., ήνί-οχο-ς = τα ηνιά εχωv, φιλόμουσο-ζ = b ταg Μούσας φtλωv, α⅛ι0-λoγo-ς = λόγου agιος, θεο-βλaβη<s = υττο θεού βεβλαμμένος, χεψο-ποίητο-ς = χερσί ποιητός. (Similarly Max Müller, Sanskrit Grammar, § 513, gives six classes of Tatpurusha compounds, according as the first element stands in an accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, or locative relation to the second, with numerous examples.) Curtiu3 justly calls attention to the epithet πατpοφοvηa as applied in the Odyssey to Aegistheus in relation to Orestes, “one who had slain his father.” It is evident that composition, used as freely as forms like these indicate, could have taken very largely the place of caseinflexions.

The origin of the cases, which marks a sixth stage, presents much more difficulty than the origin of verbal flexion. But one broad division may at once be made. The voca-live, nominative, and accusative are connected together much more closely than the remaining cases; they coincide in the neuter gender, and no one of them ever interchanges with or becomes equivalent to any one of the other group. On the other hand, in Sanskrit the ablative often coincides with the genitive, and the locative (in the dual) with the genitive or dative, while in Greek the instrumental is replaced by the dative, in Latin by the ablative; dative and genitive coincide in the Greek dual, dative and ablative in the Latin plural, and the locative always in Latin coincides in form with genitive, dative, or ablative. The vocative may be regarded as a relic of the preceding uninflected stage. The nominative and accusative are closely connected with theme-formation, and seem to have been but a new development of the same principle. From a root svap, “sleep,” came, as has been seen, at an early stage svap-na, “sleeping”; from kar, “make,” came kar-tα, “made.” It was only an extension of the same method when the pronominal sa and ma were added to the themes thus formed. Nominal inflexion was created as soon as it came to be recognized that the last additions were movable, and that the same stem might, according to circumstances, appear with one or the other or with neither. The fact that -m is found as the suffix of the nominative in some pronouns (e.g., Sanskrit αZtiM7i = ∈γω-v, tva-m = τννη, &c.) seems to point to a time when this was used as a determinative for nominative and accusative alike; but it soon became specialized as a characteristic of the latter. There is reason to believe that this process was facilitated, if not occasioned, by the use of the m-suffix to denote gender, or more strictly the absence of gender, in neuter nouns. It was only natural that the same suffix which distinguished the theme as a living being should be applied to mark it out as the subject or source of an action, while, conversely, that which denoted the absence of life should be used to mark the object. It is no improbable conjecture which finds in this accusative character of the sign of the neuter the explanation of the ordinary Greek idiom which constructs a neuter plural substantive with a singular verb; τα ζωα τρίχα., “the animals are running.” Further, the wide and varied usage of the accusative case in Greek appears to point to a time when it was the only oblique case. At a later period the second group of cases made its appearance; this includes at least the genitive, ablative, dative, locative, instrumental, and sociative. Whether we are also to regard the various terminations which appear in some adverbs, which cannot be referred to any one of these, as originally case-suffixes is a question not easy to determine, and one which is, after all, rather one of terminology than of any real importance. The theory of the purely local force of the cases, attractive as it is at first sight from its simplicity, and its apparent conformity with the sound theory which bids us, in dealing with language, proceed from the concrete to the abstract, and not vice versa, breaks down when we come to apply it in detail. For the genitive, at any rate, it is much safer to postulate an original adjectival force, a view borne out both by striking similarity of formation in some instances (cf., e.g., δημo-σu>, the earlier form of the Homeric δήμοιο, the Attic δήμου, and δημό-σιο-ς, “belonging to the people”) and by numerous analogies from various languages. It has even been conjectured, though perhaps on inadequate grounds, that the genitive had originally the final s, which was dropped only when the sense of its origin became obscured. In the ablative we have apparently a use of the pronominal element -ta corresponding to that of -sa in the genitive, and originally in the nominative, the a being afterwards dropped, so that vak-a-s = vocis is to vak-a-t = voce(d) as ja-s — is is to ja-t = i-d. The syntactic force of the ablative may often be represented as adjectival; and the differentiation of the two cases may well be a product pf later times. The earliest forms of the other cases, the formation of which has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained, will be pointed out below.

In the seventh period assumed by Curtius we have the petrifaction of some forms of particular themes with casesuffixes, which were no longer declined throughout, and thus gave rise to adverbs and prepositions. The adverbial force was undoubtedly the earlier, as we can see from indications in the Homeric poems; the prepositional force came later, first perhaps in connexion with verbs, and afterwards as governing cases. To the same period probably belongs the singularly interesting form of petrified cases presented by infinitives. These have long been recognized as cases of verbal nouns {nomina actionis) no longer inflected throughout. The agreement of the cognate languages in the use of this device for extending the range of language seems to be a sufficient indication that it had been introduced before the original unity broke up. At the same time the great variety of the forms actually selected by different languages as the basis of this construction is a clear proof that no well-defined system of infinitives had then been brought into use.

Such were the stages by which, according to our greatest living authority, that language grew which was destined to be the mother, not only of Greek and Latin, but of almost all the tongues in which human culture has found an utterance. It is by no means impossible to reconstruct it, at least in outline, as it must have been spoken before the original unity broke up. This task has been attempted, so far as its phonetic laws and inflexional forms are concerned, by Schleicher in his well-known Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen (3d edition, Weimar, 1871); and its vocabulary has been reconstructed by Fick in his Vergleichendes Wörterbuch already referred to. Schleicher indeed ventured to narrate a brief story in this primitive language (Kuhn’s Beiträge, vol. v. pp. 206 sqg,) y On particular points he may well have been mistaken. The tendency of modern philology is to admit within the period of the united national life a fuller development than that assumed by Schleicher. Several scholars, working along different lines of research and entirely independently, have established the great probability of a bifurcation of the gutturals; and it is by no means certain that the vowel system was not already becoming more rich and varied. We have probably to admit that dialectic differences already existed, such as could hardly have failed to arise, even before the nation broke up completely, so soon as it attained any considerable magnitude. And above all it must never be forgotten that we are dealing with the products of a period to which chronological limits cannot well be fixed, but which language gives us strong reasons to believe must have been at least as long as that to which the data of other branches of anthropology appear to point. It is impossible to be sure that all the elements which are introduced were ever strictly contemporaneous. Our review of the history of the language thus far is enough to show that one form may have begun to show traces of phonetic decay at a time when another form was not yet created. Hence M. Bréal {Melanges, p. 376) does well to warn us against the common error of philologists in endeavouring to get more out of the reconstructed “primitive speech” than the facts on which it is based will warrant. But used with discretion it affords a highly convenient means for stating the results to which the comparison of languages brings us.

For our present purpose it will be well to mark one intermediate stage between the source of the Greek language thus revealed to us and the language itself as given in its earliest records, by noting the common Graeco-Italic modifications of the primitive speech.

The original sounds of Indo-Germanic speech may be conveniently tabulated thus :— [table]

That the later surd aspirates (kh, th, ph) were developed from the sonant by the influence of the aspiration seems to have been clearly proved by the very careful researches of Curtius. The fact that while Greek has surd (χ, θ, φ') the Latin representatives of the same are initially the pure aspirate (h) or the spirant f and medially the corresponding sonants (δ, d, g) is enough to show that they had not lost their sonant character in Graeco-Italic times.

On the whole the mutes must have remained unchanged. The numerous modifications of the k found in Greek (κ, γ, 7r, τ) are not to be traced in Latin, and although p often replaces it in Oscan and Umbrian, the fact that it rarely if ever does in Latin proves that the guttural was unchanged at the time of the separation except in the way of generating a parasitic w (v) or y (y).

In the same way Latin shows no trace of the change of g to β, though it has the parasitic v which sometimes causes the loss of the g ; thus βlo<s and vivus point to a Graeco-Italic gvigva-s. It is doubtful whether the primitive language ever used b unaccompanied by the aspiration; but Greek and Latin furnish us with sufficient words agreeing in this respect—Fick quotes 25—to make it clear that this letter was so used before the separation.

If Schleicher is right in denying l to the primitive language—and this seems very doubtful in face of the facts collected by Curtius (Principles, ii. 174)—there can be no doubt that this was abundantly developed by the European unity; and there seems to be no single instance of an r retained in Latin where Greek has λ, while villus as compared with iριον is the only case of the converse. The spirants undoubtedly remained in their full vigour.

But while the Graeco-Italic consonants are on the whole the same as those of the primitive tongue, there is a highly important and significant change in the vowel-system. The original a, retained for the most part in Sanskrit, and modified in Zend only under conditione which make it plain that this is not a phenomenon of very ancient date there, has in Europe undergone a change in two directions. The very valuable paper by Curtius previously mentioned contains five tables, from which it clearly appears that a

(1) is retained in 106 Greek and Latin words;

(2) becomes e (i) in 102;

(3) becomes o (u) in 56;

(4) (a) is retained in Greek, becoming e (i) in Latin in 21; (δ) ditto, becoming o (u) in Latin in 18;

(c) remains in Latin, but becomes ε in Greek in 18; (d) ditto, becoming o in Greek in 11; while there are

(e) 19 words in which Greek ∈ (ι) answers to Latin o (u), and (f) 10 in which Greek o answers to Latin e (i).

Hence it is abundantly plain that the “thinning” of the primitive a to e and its “dulling” to o must have taken place in the great majority of instances during the Graeco-Italic period. The instances of agreement are three times as numerous as those of disagreement, and most of the latter are to be ascribed to the operation of well-known phonetic tendencies distinctive of the two stocks after their separation. It is worth noticing as to the other members of the European stock that, while there is a striking agreement in the cases of the retention of the a or of its weakening into e, this is not found with the third process, the dulling of a into o; it is therefore legitimate to assume that the first was common to the European family, while the second was specifically Graeco-Italic. Thus the numeral octo, the roots gno, “know,” mor, “die,” od, “ smell,” ok (op), “see,” and the words ovi-s, poti-s, porko-s, ovo-m, are all Graeco-Italic but not European.

The inflexion of nouns - was complete before the time of the separation of languages. We have no reason to believe that any new case-form was developed either in the European unity or in any individual nation after this date. The changes are wholly in the direction of loss. The cases which can be shown to have existed, and the terminations by which they were denoted, were as follows :— [table]

In some cases these were modified according to the termination of the stem to which they were suffixed; and the stems themselves suffered phonetic adaptation to the termination. Otherwise there was no distinction of declension, except that the fuller form of the genitive was used for the most part in the case of «-stems.

If we examine the changes which may be assumed for the Graeco-Italic period we find (1) the first instrumental case is retained only in a few Greek and (possibly) Latin adverbs, so that this may be supposed to have dropped out of ordinary flexion; (2) the ablative is retained in Latin, and hence it was a Graeco-Italic case, though it appears in historic Greek only in adverbs (καλώς, ως, <fcc.); (3) the loss of the dual in Latin makes it impossible for us to determine exactly the form of its inflexions at this period; probably they had already become worn down to something like the form in which we find them in Greek; (4) the existence of a final s in the nom. plur. of o-stems in some Italian dialects (Old Latin eguis, Oscan -os, Umbrian -as, Oscan fem. as, Umbrian -as, -ar) shows that the analogy of the pronominal declension had not yet established exclusively the -oi, -ai terminations, though these were doubtless already in use.

In the flexion of adjective pronouns there is an agreement in the nom. plur. (cf. τoι, ται, is-ti, is-toe) which may be a Graeco-Italic development, the origin of the termination being obscure.

In the declension of the personal pronouns it is to be noticed that the complete distinction of the stems used in the first and second persons plural (αμμe-ημe-, υμμe-vμe-, as compared with nos, vos) proves that the parallel forms asma-, nas, and jusma-, vas to which Sanskrit points as concurrently existing, were still used side by side.

The comparison of adjectives was made by the employment of the same stem-suffixes (jans or tara, and ta, tama, <fcc.), though a different selection became the normal one in Greek and in Latin.

The inflexion of verbs underwent far greater changes than that of nouns, after the separation, but mainly in the way of a fuller development. In Latin, however, we must assume a very extensive replacing of earlier formations by those of later origin; for of many inflexions which are shown to have been Graeco-Italic by the coincidence of Greek and Sanskrit, there are few if any traces to be found in Latin. The following principles of verbal flexion, the chief stages of whose development we have noticed above, had been established in the parent language :—

1. Stems were inflected by the use of suffixes denoting the three persons of the three numbers—singular, dual, and plural.

2. Themes variously expanded were used instead of roots for stems, e.g., bhara-ti by the side of as-ti. Greek and Latin agree essentially in the methods used for forming present themes.

3. Middle or reflexive inflexions were developed by the side of those of the active voice. In Latin this system appears to have lost its significance by the gradual wear and tear of inflexions, and to have been replaced by one based on a wholly different principle.

4. A distinction' grew up between primary inflexions, used for present and future tenses, and secondary inflexions, used for past tenses, where the increased length given to the word by the use of the augment caused the lightening of the termination, usually by the loss of the final vowel.

5. To form the conjunctive and optative moods a and ja (i) were added to the tense-stems before inflexion.

6. A past tense was formed by the use of the augment and the secondary terminations. This became differentiated afterwards in Greek into (1) past imperfect, (2) simple aorist, according as the theme was or was not used without modification for the present tense. In Latin this tense was as a rule dropped in favour of the compounded past imperfect or perfect, but Curtius has discovered some traces of it still in use.

7. A compound aorist was formed by the help of the verbal root as. This is also replaced in Latin by a tense of later creation— the perfect; but its occurrence in Sanskrit establishes it as Graeco-Italic.

8. A future was formed by the combination of the roots as and ja.

Of this, again, there are but slight traces in Latin, the ordinary future being either a later compound with the root bhu, or an optative in origin; but the agreement of Sanskrit and Greek establishes it for this period.

9. Participles or verbal adjectives were formed by the use of the suffixes ant, vant for the active and mana {mend), ta for the reflexive respectively.

10. The dative or (possibly) locative case of a neuter verbal sub stantive was used as an infinitive. It is certain that Latin in all cases adopted a substantive with the suffix as (giving -asai =ere), while Greek in some instances employed one with the suffix mam or an (giving -μeνaι, -eνaι, and perhaps in the accusative form μev)∙, it is not clear whether the more common Greek termination -eιv is closely connected with the Latin -ere (λ∈γeu'=λ∈γe(σ∙)w=legesβ-legere) as Curtius is inclined to think, or is of distinct origin.

The researches of Curtius on the Graeco-Italic vowelsystem enable us to determine with some confidence the phonetic character assumed by these inflexions. We may give as the common possession, not bharami i <fcc., but bherômi, bheresi, bhereti, bheromes, bheretes, bheronti; not akυos, &c., but ekvos, ekvorn, ekυδd, ekvois, ekvoi, ekvδi, ekve, &c.

It was at this stage of inflexional development, and with a stock of roots and words which can still be ascertained with some approach to completeness, that the Greek language started on its separate career and commenced its independent history. The shape which it has assumed when it first becomes known to us from literary and epigraphic records is due to the action of it3 characteristic laws, some purely phonetic, and some due rather to the intellectual tendencies of those who used it. Of the phonetic laws four are especially distinctive :—

1. Loss of Spirants.— This is most extensive and important in its results: j (j∕) has entirely disappeared from the written language, and its existence is only to be detected from isolated traces in Homer, and perhaps in some inscriptions where f is probably used to denote it; v {w) in the form of ∕ is found on some of the older inscriptions, and its introduction into the text of Homer is often required by the metre; but it is unknown to the ordinary written language; s remains when final, and when in immediate contact with mutes, and also when it has assimilated to itself another consonant; but before vowels it passes into the rough breathing, and between vowels it is as a rule entirely dropped. Instances of the effect of this loss of the spirants abound; as an example we may take the primitive navasja, which becomes vefoσjo, veoιo, veoo, and so véov.

2. Softening of the Gutturals by Labialism.— It has been calculated that not less than one-sixth of the roots originally containing k or g present π or β in Greek. Hence the reduplicated past tense (1st sing.) from vak, “speak,” avavakam, in Greek becomes √∈∕eπov, the Homeric eeιπov, Attic ∈fπov.

3. Lightening of the Endings.— Greek allows no consonants to end a word except j, v, and ρ, and shows a marked preference for vowel endings. Hence we often find one or more consonants dropped at the end. This gives a liquid flow to the language in which it has few rivals.

4. Rich Development of the Vowel System.— In this again Greek is almost unrivalled. While Latin shared with it the original splitting of the a, by its tendency to the loss of the diphthongs this language soon impaired the variety and expressiveness of its vocalisation, while Greek retained the full range undiminished. This was an advantage not merely for the euphony of the language, it added greatly to its expressiveness. Curtius has shown by many examples {Comparative Philology and Classical Scholarship, p. 33 ffj) how easily distinctions in meaning were given by this variety of vowels, which are expressed far more clumsily in other languages.

We may notice here also the wide influences of zetacism. This is not limited to Greek, as Schleicher showed in the essay which first set forth its importance properly; but it is more operative in Greek than in any language owing to the more complete disappearance of they, which coalesces with some other consonant, usually a d, original, modified, or parasitic, to produce it. Thus sad-ja-mai became lζcpaι, varg-ja-rni, ρεζω, &c.

While these laws act naturally, and, so to say, mechanically, we must ascribe to the intellectual character of the Greeks another marked feature of this language, the enormous development given to their verbal system. Six wholly new tenses were created after the separation from the Italian stock,—the future perfect, the compound pluperfect, two passive aorists, and two future passives. Besides, the whole system was worked out with wonderful completeness; so that while an ordinary Latin verb has 143 possible inflexions, a corresponding Greek verb has no less than 507. In some instances we can see the creative process still at work, as, e.g., in the case of the perfects in -κa, which are all but unknown to Homer, The Historic Stage of Creek.

The legend of the sons of Hellen, as we find it in Apollodorus, is of course entirely destitute of historical authority, but it serves as an indication of what the Greeks felt to be a natural division of their race; and from this point of view it is largely confirmed by language. The story runs that Hellen left his kingdom to Aeolus his eldest son, while he sent forth Dorus and Xuthus, the father of Ion, to make conquests in different lands. We see from this that the Aeolic dialect was regarded as the oldest representative of Hellenic speech, that the Dorian came next to it, and that the Ionian, out of which the Attic subsequently sprung, was regarded as belonging properly to a later period. On the whole this view is not misleading; but it requires some qualification. In the first place this division is more satisfactory for literature than for history; the names Aeolic, Doric, Ionic, and Attic cover well enough the written literature of Greece, but are hardly comprehensive enough for all the spoken dialects. These were literally innumerable, —we are told that the tiny island of Peparethus had three clearly distinct,—and they shaded off one into another by slight gradations. The influence of mixed populations is often seen to tell upon their language; and sometimes race distinctions do not tally with those of dialect; thus the Aeolians of the Peloponnesus adopted a dialect essentially Dorian, while the Dorians of Halicarnassus spoke Ionian. It is often a matter of dispute under which head a particular dialect shall be placed, and whatever division may be made, connecting links are sure to be found between members of different groups.

Aeolic. —This is usually subdivided into four chief dialects :—(1) Lesbian, (2) Thessalian and (?) Macedonian, (3) Boeotian, (4) Elean and Arcadian. It has been maintained by some high authorities, e.g., by Kirchhoff, that Lesbian alone ought to be considered Aeôlic, and that not only Elean and Arcadian, which Ahrens admits come nearer to Doric, but even Boeotian and Thessalian ought to be ranked as Doric. On the other hand, Professor E. Curtius denies to Aeolic the character of a dialect, and holds that it is rather a name for those remains, preserved in different localities, of the more ancient form of the language, and that everything which was not Doric or Ionic was called by the ancients Aeolic. We shall find, however, that some of the distinctive features of the Lesbian dialect, which has the fullest right to be called Aeolie, were certainly not primitive, but of later origin, so that we can hardly accept this view. The extent to which various dialects admit of being grouped together will be best examined after a survey of their special characteristics.

Lesbio-Aeolic. — The sources for this dialect are (1) inscriptions, and (2) the statements of grammarians, based mainly upon quotations from Alcaeus and Sappho. Of the former, there are only three of great importance,—one found at Mytilene, recording the return of some exiles in the time of Alexander the Great (Corpus Inscrip. Graec., No. 2166); another found at Pordoselena, an island close to Lesbos, of a few years later (ib., 2166c); and a third, of the same date as the first, found at Eresus and edited by Conze and Sauppe. The poets are of great value, because they appear to have written in the pure dialect of their country, and not to have framed a conventional language for themselves. The 28th and 29th idylls of Theocritus, called by the scholiast Aeolic, are naturally a more suspicious source.

The grammarians with one accord lay stress upon the tendency to barytone pronunciation as a mark of Aeolism. The word is accented on the last syllable: for σoφis, Θυμ6s, ’ Aχtλλeυs, βaρυs, and the like, the Lesbians said σ6φos, θυμos, ’ AχlxXtυs, βaρυs. This tendency has often been adduced, along with the loss of the dual, to prove a closer connexion of Aeolic than of any other Greek dialect with Latin; it is rather a striking proof of the danger of drawing such deductions from phenomena of purely independent origin (cf. Schrader in Curtius’s Studien, x. 259). The grammarians also tell us that Aeolic did not use the rough breathing. The inscriptions date from a time when the aspirate was not written; and the MSS. are not sufficiently trustworthy to give us much help. But there are instances enough in which a tenuis preceding a syllable which in ordinary Greek begins with the rough breathing appears in Aeolic as an aspirate—Ahrens quotes nine, besides the article and the demonstrative and relative—to show that aspiration was not unknown. It is to be noticed that in all these instances the rough breathing represents a primitive s or j. The same authorities assert that Aeolic was distinguished by its retention of the digamma, and hence this letter is called by Quintilian and Priscian “Aeolium digammon but inscriptions show that, though more common in Aeolic than in Ionic, it was much less faithfully retained in the former than among the Boeotians and Dorians. Before ρ it was commonly hardened into β, between vowels vocalized into υ. Of the distinctively Aeolic phonetic laws, the following deserve special notice. When in other dialects ζ has originated in δ∕, it usually appears as σδ; βρισδa= βίζα. Liquids are very frequently doubled, usually as a result of assimilation: e.g., vv = vσ or σv, as tytvvaτo, κτtvvas, μηvvos (cf mensis), <lμμι, Hpγevvos; vv=vj, as κivvos, κXivvω (so φθίρρω); vv=vf, as y6vvos = yovv6s. 2<r is retained, where primitive, while Attic often drops it: μtσσos, tσσovτaι, tσσos. ∏ assimilates a following μ instead of being assimilated by it: oππατα = oμμaτa (oπ-μaτa), yρ6ιrπaτa = •γράμματα (yρaφ-μaτa). Before <r, v generally passes into ∣, forming a diphthong with a preceding vowel: τdλαιs, Att. τdλas for τaXav-s; irais, Att. 7ras for ιravτ-s; SO ιrρeπoiσaιs = τrpeιrovτ-iav-s, σiφaιs, Att. σoφds for σοφάν -s, Xtyoισι, Att. Xtyoυσι.

Of the vowels, a is sometimes retained, when it has been “dulled” in Attic, e.g., 8τa ( = 8τe), υτr<x = υ∙∏√; but more commonly it passes into o, especially when in contact with liquids, e.g., <ττρ8τos, eφθop∙ θaι, ομνάσθην ( = avaμvησθηvai) — this may be regarded as a characteristic mark of Aeolism; o often becomes υ, e.g, tiσδos = 6ζos; so Λπυl>6μtvaι; à is retained as in Ionic, when Ionic has η, but ∙η has its proper place where it has originated in a lengthened e, e.g., μάτηρ, ταμ ιτόΧιν, στaXXav (=∙ στhXηv). For ei and ου η and ω are commonly used: συμφtρ∙ηv, χhp, κηvos, 8>ρavos, κωpos. The t of diphthongs is often omitted: ΛXdθta = aXhθtιa; Xaχ6∙ηv for Xaχoi∙ηv (cf. the popular Attic πoe<v). In contraction ao becomes a, Κρονίδα; eo cυ, βeXtυs; oo ω, avθp<iιrω. The apparent diaeresis of diphthongs is sometimes due to a retention of the uncontracted form; sometimes, as in 8ιδa in Alcaeus, &ï in inscriptions, it is real.

In noun-inflexion, besides the changes produced by these phonetic laws, we may notice the loss of the dual, and also a tendency to metaphrastic forms, especially the accusative in v from consonantal stems.

In verb-inflexion there is a 2d sing, in ∙σθa, tχtισθa, but not the Doric 1st plur. in -μts; the 3d plur. ends in -ισι (as noticed above); and contracted verbs commonly follow the earlier conjugation in -μι, φlxημι, δoκiμωμι (the grammarians add, but probably incorrectly, ydXaιμι).

The general character of Aeolic was much less hard and vigorous than that of Doric; it was distinguished by a quick tripping utterance, as contrasted with the Doric slow deliberateness; the verse of the Aeolic poet abounds in dactyls and anapaests. To the Athenians the language of Lesbos seemed somewhat outlandish, so that, though it was doubtless an exaggeration, it was not an absurd one, for Plato (Prolog., 341c) to represent Prodicus as saying of Pittacus aτe Ai<rβιos Φv και tv φωνή βaρβdρψ τtθpaμμivos.

The Thessalian dialect is known only by a few inscriptions, the most important of which were discovered by Leake and Rangabé. It forms a kind of link between Lesbian and Boeotian, doubling liquids, changing α into o, and dropping the ∣ of diphthongs with the former, but agreeing with the latter in the use of an infinitive in -μ∈v. It is also characterized by the use of oυ for ω; e.g., ’ AτrXoυv for ’ AπJλλωυ, ονάΧουμα — ανάχωμα ; cf. &irb τas τoυv rayoôv yvovμas ∖ and the genitive sing, ends in -oι (for oιo) instead of -oυ; e.g., Αvτιyevfioι Xiξavτos, AlσχυXιs "S,aτυpoι. The general character of the dialect confirms the tradition that the earlier common home of the Lesbians and the Boeotians was in Thessaly.

’ V ∖∖ e Boeotian dialect is known mainly from inscriptions. Thescanty fragments of Corinna have come down to us mixed with Ionic forms; and the specimens of the Boeotian dialect given by Aristophanes in the Acharnions and Eubulus in his Antiopa are still more corrupted by an intermixture of Attic. The Boeotians differed from the Lesbians in many not unimportant points. (1) They had no tendency to throw the accent back. (2) They liked the rough breathing. (3) They retained an earlier τ, or changed it into θ, where the Lesbians had σ. (4) A Lesbian <τδ ( = f ) appears in Boeotian as δδ. (5) The Lesbian doubling of liquids and change of vs to «s are unknown in Boeotian. (6) In inflexion Boeotian retains -ao and -αω∣>, which Lesbian contracts. (7) The Boeotian genitives are lμoυs, τeovs, tous, the Lesbian tμtθtv, σlθev, tθtv. Further, Boeotian changes « to i before vowels, υ to oυ, ∙η to eι, ∈ι to ι, and oι to υ, all which changes are unknown to Lesbian; cf., e.g., Bceot. Qd>s, κoυves, obμts, aveθtικt, τrotlτas, βaσιXlos, τυ δdμo, fυκιd, &c. As against these numerous differences there are but few points of resemblance, except such as would be shared by all the Dorian dialects. A few peculiar words shared by both are noticed by Beerman (Curt., Slud., ix. p. 85), and he lays stress upon their agreement in -μtv (1 plur.) as contrasted with the Doric -μes, on the feminine terminations -« and -ω (*Aλeξιs, 'S.aιrφω, Mavτω, &c.), and on the common use of patronymic adjectives instead of the genitive of the father’s name. But it may fairly be said that these would not have been regarded as sufficient indications of a close connexion, unless the traditional evidence in its favour had been so strong. We must assume that the Lesbian emigrants changed their language more rapidly than those who had moved less far from their earlier home.

The Elean dialect is represented by Strabo (viii. p. 333) as being also Aeolic. This tradition is decidedly rejected by Ahrens, and is very doubtful. The most recent discussion of the question (by Schrader in Curtius’s Studien, x. 267 sqq. ) advocates the theory that the Eleans separated from the rest of the Greeks at a time antecedent to the distinction between Aeolic and Doric. This practically coincides with the view of Ahrens that, while it has many points of contact with Doric, and especially with Laconian, it is really a distinct dialect, and is confirmed by the inscriptions, of which the most important are the ancient bronze plate brought back from Olympia by Sir W. Gell (C. 1. G. 11) recording a treaty between the Eleans and the Heraeans, and the recently discovered inscription of Damocrates, edited by Kirchhoff (Archoeol. Zeit., 1876). It agrees with Lesbian in the nom. sing, masc. in a, τeXtστa, and the acc. plur. masc. in oιs (-oιp) for ον -s. It resembles the northern Doric in the use of tv with the acc., in the apocope of ire pi to ιrap, and in a heteroclite dat. plur. in -oιs (hyΦvoιp), and Laconian in a complete retention of the digamma, (changed in the later inscriptions to β), in the change of final j into ρ (e.g., τoip, &XXoip, ιrpoζivoιp, βoικlaρ = poικias), and in the change of a medial s into the rough breathing (ιrohiισσaι = ιroιhσaσθaι). The last two, and also the use of β for ∕, are much less usual in the early than in the later inscriptions; and the same is the case with Laconian; hence the phenomena point rather to a later action of one dialect upon the other than to a close original connexion. Much light may be expected to be cast upon the Elean dialect by the researches at Olympia, which are bringing to light almost every week forms of great philological interest.

The Arcadian dialect rests almost wholly upon inscriptions, of which the most important is one found at Piali near Tegea in 1859, edited by Bergk, and afterwards by Michaelis, with valuable notes by Curtius. The very careful examination of this dialect by Schrader (Curtius’s Studien, x. 273-280) shows that it has more points in common with Doric than with Aeolic,—indeed that there is no single point in which it agrees with all the dialects of the latter, where it does not also agree with the former. Its agreement with Lesbian especially is only on minute points, which seem to be of independent origin. Hence its Aeolic character may be definitely given up. Among the more interesting phenomena which it presents, we may notice -aυ for the gen. sing, masc. of α-nouns, -oι as the dative (or possibly locative) sing, of o-nouns, ιv used for ∈⅛ and év, -τoι as the inflexion of the 3d sing, middle (e.g., ylvητoι, δf'ατo<)and -ημεvoς as the ending of the participle of verbs in -eω (άδικήμενος ; cf. κaδa-λημεvφ = κaτdδηλoυμεvφ in the Elean treaty; Lesb. κaλiιμεvoς, &c.).

The Cyprian dialect may be mentioned here; for the results of its examination entirely confirm the statements of Herodotus (vii. 90) and Pausanias (viii. 5, 2) that Arcadians were among the colonists of Cyprus. This was first asserted by Bergk on the strength of a few glosses; but recently the inscriptions have been deciphered by Dr Birch, followed with more complete success by Brandis, Schmidt, and Deecke and Siegismund. They are not written in Greek characters, but in an alphabet of their own, which is syllabic in its character, i.e., each sign represents a consonant followed by a vowel. Of these signs there are 56 as yet identified; there is no distinction between tenues, medials, and aspirates, nor is there any mark of rough or smooth breathing; the signs therefore stand for a, e, i, o, y, ka, ke, ki, ko, ky, pa, &c., ta, &c. , ma, &c., na, &c., ra, &c., la, &c., sa, &c., and va, &c. The number is made up by ja, je, ji (jo and jy not having yet been discovered), sse, za, and zo. If a word ends in a consonant, the sign of that consonant when followed by e is used; but an article or a preposition is often treated as coalescing with its noun. When two consonants come together, the first is denoted by the sign of that syllable which it makes either with the vowel attached to the second consonant (e.g., po-to-li-ne — πτόλιν) or with the preceding vowel (e.g., a-ra-ky-ro=aρyiρφ). A nasal is always omitted before an explosive (a-toro-po-se = άνθρωπος). Cyprian agrees with Arcadian in the genitive in -aυ, in από for άπό (sometimes followed in both by the dative), in the preposition ιv (often with acc.), and in many less important points.

Doric. —The Dorian dialect was divided by Ahrens, following the Greek grammarians, into two main groups—(1) the severer Doric, (2) the milder, the one being more closely connected with Aeolic, the other with Ionic. To the former belonged the speech of Laconia, Crete, Cyrene, and the Greek colonies in Italy; to the latter the language of Argolis, Messenia, Megara, and northern Greece, and the colonies of Asia Minor and Sicily. The basis of this distinction is the use of ω and η in the severer as against oυ and et in the milder dialect. But the division can hardly be maintained in practice, and hence it is abandoned by most modern scholars. The northern Doric, for instance, which is ascribed by Ahrens to the second division, has been shown by Merzdorf (Sprachwissensch. Abhandl. &c. Leipsic, 1874, pp. 23-42) to form a bridge between Aeolic and Doric. Again, while we find oυ in use at Thera, at Cyrene, a colony of Thera, ω is retained; hence this cannot point to a deep division. We may notice first the authorities for the particular dialects, and then the characteristics of Doric generally.

The Laconian dialect is known from few and unimportant inscriptions, from the fragments of Aleman, which, however, are in a language much modified for poetic purposes, and from the specimens in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes and in other Attic comedies. There are also a large number of Laconian glosses in Hesychius, and Thucydides (v. 77) gives a treaty in the Spartan dialect. Our knowledge is largely supplemented by the famous tables of Heraclea, a colony of Tarentum, which itself was founded by Sparta. These were found in the bed of the river Cavone in 1732 and 1735, and are now partly in the Museo Borbonico at Naples and partly in the British Museum.

From Crete there are numerous important inscriptions, chiefly treaties between various towns. It is curious that some of the most valuable of these were found in the rains of the splendid temple of Dionysus in the island of Teos; this temple enjoyed the rights of an asylum, and the inscriptions are mainly treaties acknowledging these rights on the part of various Cretan cities. They contain some highly interesting archaisms of form.

For Thera there is an important inscription containing the will of a wealthy lady Epicteta (G. I. G., 2448); for its more famous colony, Cyrene, there are only brief and fragmentary records.

The Argolic dialect appears on a very ancient helmet found at Olympia (G. I. G., 29) and on an inscription very recently dug up at the same place, as well as on several others of less importance.

From Messenia there is a long and very interesting inscription found at Andania, dealing with the cultus of certain deities; it is of comparatively late date (probably 93’b.c.) and in a much modified Doric, but it contains some striking forms.

The Corinthian dialect is learnt mainly from inscriptions at its colonies of Corcyra and Syracuse, both of which cities supply some very ancient and valuable records. In the same way the Doric of Megara is preserved most fully on Byzantine inscriptions. For this we have also the Megarian in the Acharnians of Aristophanes.

For the Locrian dialect Ahrens had but few and fragmentary inscriptions and no literary evidence; recently a bronze tablet containing a treaty between Chaleion and Oeantlieia (of the 4th century b.c. ) has been dug up at the latter place; and also a tablet containing the regulations for founding a colony at Naupactus (cf. Curt., Stud., ii. 441-449, iii. 205-279). These throw much new light on, the dialect, and enable us to set it down with confidence as a link between Doric and Aeolic.

The general character of the Doric dialect was that of a slow, deliberate, and emphatic speech; it is the speech of the warrior and the ruler, not of the orator or merchant. The πλατειασμός, which the ancient authorities ascribe to the Dorians, is not distinctive of them, but was shared by the Boeotians and other Aeolians; it is to be regarded rather as a mark of an earlier stage of the language, which was retained like many other similar characteristics by the Dorians much more extensively than by contemporary Ionians. It is quite the exception for any Doric characteristic to be of recent origin. A natural hypothesis finds in the full and broad sounds of the dialect of these “men of the mountain-forests” signs of the chest strengthened by mountain air and mountain life. To pass to details :—

In accentuation Doric showed no inclination to the barytone pronunciation of Lesbos; on the contrary, it has more oxytone forms even than Attic. In many words the Doric accent is of especial interest as bearing valuable testimony to the origin of the inflexions; we find not only άγγελοι, άνθρωποι, and τυπτόμενοι, but also ελεyov, έλυσαν, πaiδες, πτωκaς, and άμπελος (acc. plur.),—these forms all pointing back to a time when the final syllable was long, and thus demanding from philology an account of this length.

In vowels a short a is often retained where Attic has ε (ίαρός, τράφω, τpdχω)oτ o (fεικaτι = είκοσι): υ in Laconian became ου, but probably only as an indication that the earlier pronunciation of the vowel was retained, when in ordinary Greek it had sunk into w. Wherever η in Ionic has come from an earlier â, Doric retains â, but where it has originated in ε, η is retained as in Lesbio-Aeolic (πaτhp, Bceot. πaτεlp); it is also retained in augments (hpχ6μav), and as a contraction for aε (εviκη). On the other hand ao and aω contract into a (’ Ατρείδα, γελάν). The contractions of εo, εω, vary much in different dialects. The severer Doric gives y for ει and ω for ου: ⅞s for «îs, 7 ∣ μεv for εσμεv, άγωσα, Mωσa, εypηληθiωvτι = lξειληθωσι, βωλά (Lesb- βόλλά), Kωpos, &c. A noteworthy phenomenon is presented by the shortening of long final syllables, almost exclusively where the length is due to compensatory lengthening in the place of a lost consonant (δημότάς, κατά τbς νόμος, πράξάς, πόί [ = τroδ-s], λεyες, τ(κτεv, τεκεν); of all forms of the dialect the Cretan especially favoured this.

Of the consonants, the digamma was retained longer by the Doric than by any other dialect, but we find it gradually disappearing. It is used in the old Laconian, Argolic, Corinthian, and Corcyraean inscriptions, but not in the Cretan, with the exception of the proper name jdζιoι; on the Heraclean tables it is very common, but there are some strange exceptions, as οικιά, εργάζομαι, and άφέργω ; some have held that it is there wrongly inserted in Jeξ, but this is really a valuable confirmation of the labial spirant to which other languages also bear witness. The digamma is often changed to β (as in Elean), but never before p, as in Aeolic; whether it ever actually passed into y, or whether the numerous forms which give this in the place of an earlier digamma are all due to the mistakes of copyists, is a question still under discussion (Curtius’s Prine., ii. 229 ff). T is constantly retained, where the Ionians have weakened it into σ, especially in τι: φaτi=φyσ(; so τiπτovτι*=τ0πτoυσι, τlθεvτι = τεθεισι ’ , cf. πλάτιος, πλούτιος, δωτις, '2,ελιvoυvτιoι.

Three changes characteristic of Laconian came in at a comparatively late date; for they do not appear in the Heraclean tables, and consequently they must be later than the foundation of Tarentum. (1) Θ becomes σ ; this is very common in the Spartan of the Lysistrata·, &.g., σελει, σιyτ ∣ v ( = θιyε"iv), σιός (≈θε0ς); cf. τω σιω σύματος (Thue. v. 77), σεως avi ∣ p (Ar., Bth. Nie., vii. 1). (2) Final s becomes ρ ; this is still later, and does not appear in Aristophanes, but is very common in the more recent inscriptions. (3) Medial σ between vowels becomes '; this is found in Aristophanes (Μώά, πaa, &c.) and in later inscriptions (∏ooiδαvι), but not in Aleman.

The traditional change of y into δ is denied by Ahrens and Curtius, who altogether reject, with very good reason, the asserted identity of δα and yy. The appearance of ξ in the future and compound aorist of verbs in (e.g., δοκιμάζοντι, δμεpιζav, &C. in the Tabb. Heracl., μυσiζaι in Aristoph., Lysist.) has been rightly explained by Curtius (Prine., ii. 248) as a hardening of the original spirant y (j) before the σ, the only possible alternative to its complete loss, which we find in the ordinary Greek δοκιμάσω. The change of £ into σδ, ascribed by the grammarians to Doric, is more properly Lesbian, and is unknown to pure Doric; here f is as a rule retained, but in the Laconian dialect when initial it becomes δ (δωμ6s = ζωμός), when medial δδ (μυσlδδω = μυθlζω, 1roτJδδe4= ∙πρoσ6ζeι).

A double σ is retained where this is the more ancient form, changed in ordinary Greek into σ ; thus the Heraclean tables give 8<r<ros, μeσσos, eσσovτaι, &c. The σσ often found in Dorian inscriptions (and sometimes in the earlier Attic also), where there is no historical explanation of its presence, seems to be an attempt to represent the sound of the earlier sibilant san, which was retained by the side of sigma. For the earlier guttural koppa, the distinctive sign p is found in old inscriptions, almost, but not quite exclusively before o, e.g., <j>oριvθiθev, 8ρfios.

We may notice finally a free use of assimilation especially in Laconian (πoυμμa = ιrυyμη, κdppωv= κρeiσσωv,i.e., κaρτlωv, aκκ6p= ασκός), and on the other hand the retention of vs by the Argives and Cretans {τ6vs, μivσa, èvs, τιθevs, l Tipυvs, &c. ).

The characteristic Dorian inflexions are almost entirely such as are due to these phonetic laws, or to the tendency to metaphrastic or heteroclite formations, already noticed.

Ionic. —The Ionic dialect is commonly divided into three stages,— the Old Ionic or Epic dialect, the New Ionic, represented most completely by Herodotus and Hippocrates, and the Attic. This division is not satisfactory; for, in the first place, the Epic is a mixed dialect or more properly a style, and cannot be taken as a faithful representative of a spoken language; and, in the second place, Attic is not a later stage of the New Ionic, but in many respects remains faithful to forms in which even the Old Ionic has departed from the earlier usage. The three sub-dialects, however, agree on the whole much more closely than any one of them does with either Aeolic or Doric, and they may therefore be grouped together. We know from an express statement of Herodotus (i. 142) that there were many subordinate varieties of the ordinary Ionic; he mentions four within a comparatively narrow extent; but neitherjthe extant inscriptions nor the statements of grammarians enable us to distinguish these with any precision. It is probable that the differences lay rather in slight shades of pronunciation than in any extensive variations, and that, on the whole, the varieties closely resembled each other. As the general character of Doric is due, at least in a measure, to the hardy mountain life of the Dorians, so the Ionic type was determined by the easier and more effeminate life of the Ionians. All harshness is carefully avoided; the spirants, especially the £ were dropt here earlier and more completely than in any other dialect; the a is more extensively changed into e and o ; aspiration is frequently lost or transposed so as to be easier to pronounce; τ, especially before ι, regularly passes into σ ; gutturals are replaced by dentals or labials. The vowel-system is especially rich and free; sometimes an easy flow is given by the avoidance of contraction; sometimes again a full colouring is produced by the variety of the diphthongs. The varied literary activity of the Ionians in different directions gave a manifold development to their language, which makes it especially well adapted to poetry, and adds not a little of poetical charm even to their prose.

Epic Dialect.— The language of the Homeric poems is doubtless based upon the popular spoken dialect of the district in the midst of which they grew up. But as every scholar would now admit that they were constructed out of a large mass of previously existing material, however widely opinions may differ as to the person or school to which they owe their present form, and as much of this material must have dated from a great antiquity, it need not surprise us to find in the midst of a dialect, which is of a much more recent type than Aeolic or Doric, traces of archaisms, earlier in some respects than anything to be found elsewhere. It is one of the greatest services which comparative philology has done for the interpretation of these poems, that it has enabled us to recognize as relics of an older language much which had been previously set down as poetic licence, or held to be inexplicable.

One of the most interesting of these relics is the effect produced by the earlier existence of a spirant, no longer written, upon the quantity of a preceding syllable. As late as the time of I. Bekker all such cases were unhesitatingly ascribed to the digamma; and this accounts for many instances; but in others the cognate languages point to σ or j : e.g., we find not only φlκa felμaτa δύσω, oυτω δ⅛ foικovδe, and hundreds of similar cases (La Roche gives 84 Homeric words with the digamma), some of very common occurrence, but also θebs (j)%s, folκaδe (J)ι(f)eμevωv, eτι yap {σ)eχov eλκea λυypd, υieι σψ (σ)eπ0μηv, els αλα (σjaλτo, and many other instances. On the other hand, the occasional neglect of the digamma, even in words for which it is most certainly established, points, not necessarily, as some have argued, to ,a later origin of those lines in which this occurs, but to a fluctuating usage, akin to though much more extensive than our own poetic use of forms like loveth and loves, formed and form’d, my and mine. In the form in which the poems now appear, it is often of much importance to remember that they must have been transcribed at a comparatively late date from the earlier into the later Ionic alphabet (see Alphabet, vol. i. ρ. 610), and that doubtless many words were inaccurately represented. The limits of this sketch do not admit of a statement of the characteristic epic forms. They will be found given with very full references in the introduction to Le Roche’s school edition of the Iliad (Berlin, 1870), and with admirable clearness and scientific exactness in the sketch of Homeric grammar prefixed by Mr D. B. Monro to his edition of the First Book of the Iliad (Oxford, 1879).

The New Ionic dialect is found first in the writings of the iambic elegiac poets, Archilochus, Callinus, and Mimneιmus (where the digamma has already entirely disappeared), and is known more completely from Herodotus and Hippocrates. We are told that tho language of the former was varied (ποικίλη) as compared with the pure (καθαρή) Ionic of preceding logographers; this seems to refer to the occasional introduction of epic forms and expressions, which give a delightful poetic tinge to his language (cf. Quintil., ix. 4,18, Turn ipsa διdλeκτos habet eam iucunditotem, ut latentes etiam numeros complexa videatur) and not to any dialectic variations. Besides the general tendencies of Ionic mentioned above we may notice the retention of the earlier κ for π in interrogative and relative words (κo∣os, δκ6σos, &c.), the interchange of eι and oυ with the simple vowels (eipoμaι, κeιν6s, ξeιvos, but μeζωv, δe'ξω, τdχea ; and μovvos, οϋνομα, τδ obpos, voυσos), the contraction of o∙η into ω {βωσaι, eβ<iιθee, evv<i>σas), the use of ηϊ for eι (βα<rιληtη, μavτhιov), the Ionic crasis in ωvηρ, ωλλoι, &c., the entire absence of the appended v, the gen. plur. in -eωv for Homer’s -dωv, Att. -ωv, and the use of -αται, -aτo for -vτaι and -vτo wherever these are added directly to the tensestems (cf. eσκeυdδaτaι, άπίκαται, βeβλeaτaι, τιθeaτaι, ayolaτo, &c.). The dialect of Herodotus has been most fully discussed by Bredow, Quoestionum criticarum de dialecto Herod, libri duo, 1846); there are some excellent remarks upon it by Mr Woods in an introduction to his edition of Book i. pp. 40-45. The text of Hippocrates is in too unsettled a state, and the genuineness of many of the treatises ascribed to him too doubtful, to make it possible for us to build much upon his authority. From inscriptions but little can be gained. See Erman in Curtius’s Studien, vol. v. pp. 250 ff.

The Attic dialect may be regarded as on the whole a slightly modified representative of the Ionic spoken before the foundation of the Ionic colonies. It is not so much a daughter of Ionic as its mother, as Bergk justly calls it. In Ionic the tendency to soften the language which had already commenced before the separation went on its way unrestrained in the luxurious life of the Asiatic cities. In Attica, possibly owing to the free admission of non-Ionic citizens by Solon and Cleisthenes, this tendency was checked, and there are even some signs of a reaction in the direction of the earlier and more vigorous speech. There is a celebrated inscription found at Sigeum in the Troad (O'. I. G., 8), the antiquity of which, though attacked by Boeckh, has been established by Kirchhoff; this is in two parts,—the upper in Ionic dialect, the lower (which is probably a little later, but also belonging to the time of Pisistratus) in Attic, and we can already see the reaction at work. The Attic dialect thus adapted itself admirably to the character of the Athenian people, which knew better than any other Hellenic community how to unite energy and dignity with grace and refinement, to preserve the σeμv0ττ ∖ s of the Dorian without sacrificing the χdριs of the Ionian. The Attic of the inscriptions may be most conveniently divided accordingas these are written in the old alphabet of sixteen letters or in the so-called Ionic alphabet of twenty-four. The latter was introduced for public documents in the archonship of Euclides (403 b.c. ); the inscriptions written before that date have been collected and edited by Kirchhoff in the first volume of the new Berlin Corpus Inscriptionum Groecarum, and their linguistic peculiarities well commented upon by Cauer in Curtius’s Studien, vol. viii. pp. 223-301 and 399-442. The Attic of literature is divided into the Old and the New, the point of division being earlier than the archonship of Euclides, and coinciding more nearly with the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431 b.c. ). The division is, however, not strictly a chronological one, for, while Thucydides and the tragedians adhere to the older forms, contemporary comic writers adopt the later ones; in Plato both are found side by side; but in the orators the change to the new is fully established. The difference is not deeply marked, and lies for the most part in minute details. In some cases these seem to point to the adoption in literature of popular forms which had always been current, and which were really older than the forms that (probably owing to the influence of the Ionic poets and historians) had become fashionable with older writers. Thus the *ττ which in New Attic supplants <r<r cannot possibly have come from this weaker sound; they are both independent modifications of an earlier κj or tj ; and the inscriptions show clearly (cf. Cauer, p. 284 sq. ) that σσ was never used except under Ionic influence. In other cases there are undoubtedly indications of the weakening of sound which marks the ordinary course of language: e.g., συv for ξύν, pp for ρσ; the same is probable in the instances where a simple vowel represents an earlier diphthong, as in id, herds, eλda, and πoeιv, and in the tendency to allow ee (η) to sink into ei (eι), e. g., βaσιλds, κKdθρov, λυeι, etκaζov, and the duals σκeλeι, ζeυyeι for crκtλτ ∣ , ζeiγη. It is less easy to account for the change of tfv (èdv) to &v.

In the New Attic the Greek language may be said to have reached its zenith of grace, expressiveness, and symmetry; and hence this is the proper, place for a few remarks on the qualities which have confessedly made the Greek language quite unrivalled as a means for the expression of human thought.

In the first place we may notice its purity and consequent transparency. The Greeks felt themselves to be sharply marked off from the barbarians around them, and in consequence rarely allowed their language to be contaminated by foreign influences. Latin teems with borrowed words, often ill-adapted to the genius of the language; Greek has very few, and these almost invariably Hellenized in form. Hence the etymologist feels himself to have a far firmer footing in Greek than on Italian soil. Hence too the organic structure of Greek retains its regularity, and the orthography is well established and rarely fluctuating. Then there is the phonetic harmony of the language. Dissonance was everywhere avoided; there is no undue predominance of consonants, as in Latin and still more strikingly in Etruscan. The endings of the words are light, no final consonant being endured, except the liquids v and p and the spirant s. The brightest of the vowels, α, e, o, are far more common than the harder and thinner i and u, Greek here again contrasting sharply with Latin. The abundance of diphthongs—practically lost in the modern pronunciation of Greek—gives a rich variety of sound, besides supplying admirable means for the differentiation of meanings. The careful observation of accent, by the side of and quite distinct from the due marking of quantity, lent a varied modulation to the rhythm, which the rapid utterance of the Athenians especially prevented from ever becoming wearisome. The range of different forms at the disposal of poets and the freedom allowed in the order of words permitted the writer to choose the rhythmical effect most conducive to the harmony of his period. With regard again to the expressiveness of the language, the completeness of the verbal inflexion enabled various shades of meaning to be expressed with unrivalled precision and terseness. It is perhaps impossible to estimate with any approach to accuracy the extent of the vocabulary of a language known to us only from a literature which, in some of its most important branches, has come down to us in a sadly fragmentary state; but some approximation may be made from the fact that Herodian is said to have determined the accent of 60,000 words. But the free power of word-formation and composition to which this marvellous richness was largely due was no mechanical process. It sprang from the lively fancy of the most poetic of nations,—a fancy which shows itself alike in the significant individual names bome by every Greek citizen, which contrast so sharply with the obscure, trivial, and stereotyped hereditary labels of the Romans, and in the characteristic and often sportive appellations of plants and animals. Nor can we omit that which was according to Aristotle the despair of the barbarian of old, as it is of the modem schoolboy, the exquisitely exact and delicate use of the particles. Of all the qualities which make Greek really untranslatable, even into German, the only one of modern languages which approaches it in this respect, perhaps the most characteristic is the abundance of these tiny atoms of speech, not one of which can be neglected with impunity, while it is impossible to reproduce them all except at an expenditure of our means of expression which ruins the lightness and grace of the sentence. The history of the development of the period, that device in which the symmetry of form is inseparably wedded to the artistic balance of thought,—a device which is found in no language which has not derived it directly or mediately from Greece,—belongs to the region of literature rather than language. But many a construction, for which formal syntax finds it hard to discover a name and a classification, can only be understood aright if we look upon it as the utterance of a national life unrivalled in its bold and vivid freshness, delighting in variety, and shaping at its will a language still fluid and plastic.

With regard to the pronunciation of Greek, the best modern scholars are at one in regarding the modern pronunciation, advocated at the revival of learning by Reuchlin, as wholly misleading for an earlier period. On the other hand, the current pronunciation in England is hardly more correct than the conventional pronunciation of Latin; and even the Continental pronunciation, as established by Erasmus, needs to be modified on many points. The vowels and consonants present no difficulty: ä, d, ∙η, e, ί, ϊ, ω, ο were undoubtedly pronounced as the corresponding vowels are now in French, German, or Italian; ϋ and v were the French Û and it, i.e., very nearly the German ue. The consonants may be pronounced as in English, γ being however always hard, and ζ being dz, while, as noticed already, the aspirates φ, θ, χ≈p-h, t-h, c-h. It is much more difficult to determine the pronunciation of the diphthongs. Undoubtedly they were originally strictly diphthongal, t.e., the two vowels were each pronounced, but ran rapidly one into the other: c∕∙ 7rα<s and the Homeric πdl's, oιs and ill's. But at an early period the diphthongal pronunciation was lost, and in modern Greek the sound i is given alike to aι, eι, and oi. This cannot be correct for the Attic period; it probably began to creep in in the time of the Diadochi; oι at this date began to pass into u, and much later sank into i; oυ had always the force of our oo, and is used even when the syllable is short: e.g., in Boeot. κoi>ves it was pronounced as u in “put.” It is altogether erroneous to pronounce υ in diphthongs as v, as is done in modern Greek; υι was doubtless pronounced much as wee, but with more stress laid on the first element.

The dialects long continued to exist in the mouths of the common people; but the influence of extended commercial intercourse, and especially of the commanding position which Athens had gained as the centre of education and the home of science, literature, and philosophy, gave an increasing predominance to one, the Attic dialect. The Ionic was the first to disappear; there are but few traces of this after the Peloponnesian War; the Aeolic and the Doric are found, but always in diminishing extent, as late as the time of the Roman emperors. But Attic lost in purity as it gained in range; new words and constructions crept in especially from the increasing influence of the East; until at last the grammarians gave the distinctive name of p κoιvη διdλeκτos to the language popularly current. The rise of the Alexandrian school of critics gave a new stimulus to the study of literary Attic; on the other hand the vulgar speech continued its own course of free combination and assimilation from various quarters. Thus in the Roman times we have three main divisions of Greek :—(1) the revived Attic of the schools, the purity of which was jealously guarded by grammarians such as Phrynichus; (2) the common (κoιvh) literary language, employed by such writers as Polybius and Plutarch; and (3) the popular spoken language, which much more freely absorbed foreign elements than the κοινή, and which may be described as Hellenistic. This is the basis of the diction of the Septuagint and the New Testament. Of course the dividing lines cannot be sharply drawn. Of the authors belonging to this period some, like Lucian, endeavoured to approach as closely as possible to the standard of pure Attic; others, like Babrius, came nearer to the popular diction. The peculiarities of this stage of the language consist rather in new words and new inflexions than in extensive syntactical changes. The former are too numerous to state here (cf. Winer’s Grammar, part ii. pp. 69-128, ed. Moulton); of the latter we may notice—

1. A negligent use of the moods with particles: e.g., 'όταν with a past indicative, d with the conjunctive, 'Iva with the present indicative.

2. A construction of verbs with cases unknown in Attic: e.g., yei ∣ eσθaι with accusative, πρoσκυvdv and πpoσφωvdv with dative, &c.

3. The extension of the genitive of the infinitive (τoυ ∙πoιdv) beyond its original and natural limits.

4. The use of the conjunctive for the optative after past tenses, and the gradual disuse of the latter mood, which has wholly disappeared in modern Greek. CΓb., p. 38.) ,

Under the Greek empire, the language of literature was -still based upon an artificial and often a lamentably unsuccessful imitation of Attic; and an interesting parallel might be worked out in detail between the Greek and the Latin writers of this period. But, just as in the Western empire, the popular dialect went on its way, for the most part unrecognized in literature, but constantly exerting its effect upon the written language, and from time to time coming to the surface. The first writer who boldly adopted the popular dialect was Theodoras Ptochoprodromus, a monk of Constantinople who lived under the emperor Manuel Comnenus (1143-1180); his language, though with some traces of the more ancient forms, is essentially modern Greek. To the same period belongs Simon Sethos, a chronicler, the first prose writer of the modem language. In the 14th century we have the romance in verse, Bclthamdros and Chrysantza, a work highly spoken of for imaginative power and free command of the language in its new form. The poems of Gorgilas (cent, xv.), Chortakes and Kornaros (cent, xvii), and Rhegas (cent, xviii. ) suffice to show that the popular language never entirely ceased to be used as an organ of literary utterance. An epoch in the history of modem Greek is marked by the long and fruitful activity of the illustrious scholar and patriot Coraes (1748- 1833). He made it his object to purify the popular dialect, not by an artificial resuscitation of the ancient Attic, but by a strenuous endeavour to preserve and to render current all classical forms not wholly extinct, and to replace foreign and barbarous words by genuine Greek ones, often freshly coined for the purpose. Greece now can number poets, historians, scholars, and orators who bring forth from their native language no feeble echoes of the immortal notes with which its prime was made musical for every age.

Authorities.— For all that concerns the formation and history of the Greek language the writings of Professor G. Curtius of Leipsic are unrivalled in sound sobriety of judgment and full mastery of all the results of modern philological science, which owes to him some of its most important advances. The chief are Grundzüge der Griechischen Etymologie (5th edition, Leipsic, 1879, translated into English by A. S. Wilkins and E. B. England, 2 vols. 1875-6); Das Verbum der Griechischen Sprache (vol. i. 2d edition, 1877, vol. ii. 1876; English translation in one volume, 1880); a School Grammar (8th English edition, 1876) and Elucidations of the same (2d English edition, 1876). The fullest storehouse of the facts of inflexion and of syntax is Kühner’s Ausführliche Grammatik (2d edition, 187i). For the Greek dialects Ahrens’s De Groecoe Linguae Dialectis (2 vols. 1839, 1843) remains the best work; but recent discoveries have made it necessary to supplement it in many places; indispensable material for this is furnished by the series of monographs in Curtius ’ s Studien zur Griechischen und Lateinischen Grammatik (10 vols. Leipsic, 1868-78) and in many scattered programmes and dissertations. Mr Merry’s Specimens of Greek Dialects (Clarendon Press, 1875) contains admirably clear and useful introductions for junior students. Bergk’s Griechische Literaturgeschichte contains much that is useful, but needs to be used with caution. For modern Greek the standard works are Sophocles’s Glossary of Later and Byzantine Greek (Boston, 1870), and Mullach’s Grammatik der Griechischen Vulgarsprache (Berlin, 1856). (A. S. W.)

PART IV.—GREEK LITERATURE.

The history of Greek literature has had three great stages: —the Old Literature, from the earliest times to 529 a.d., when the edict of Justinian closed the schools of pagan philosophy; the Byzantine Literature, from 529 a.d. to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453; and the Modern Literature, which may be said to have begun with the satirical poetry of Theodorus Prodromus in the 12th century.

Section I.— The Old Greek Literature.

The Old Literature, to 529 a.d., falls into three periods. I. The Early Literature, to about 475 b.c. Epic, elegiac, iambic, and lyric poetry; the beginnings of literary prose. If. The Attic Literature, 475-300 b.c. Tragic and comic drama; historical, oratorical, and philosophical prose. III. The Literature of the Decadence, 300 b.c. to 529 a.d., — which may again be divided into (1) the Alexandrian period, 300-146 b.c., and (2) the Graeco-Roman period, 146 b.c. to 529 A.D.

It is not the purpose of the present article to enter into details regarding particular works or the lives of their authors. These will be found in the separate articles devoted to the principal Greek writers. The object of the following pages will be to sketch the literary development as a whole, to show how its successive periods were related to each other, and to mark the dominant characteristics of each.

I. The Early Literature.

A process of natural growth may be traced through all the best work of the Greek genius. The Greeks were not literary imitators of foreign models; the forms of poetry and prose in which they attained to such unequalled excellence were first developed by themselves. Their literature had its roots in their political and social life; it is the spontaneous expression of that life in youth, maturity, and decay; and the order in which its several fruits are produced is not the result of accident or caprice. The sériée of its seasons is as much the result of natural laws as the sequence of spring, summer, and autumn. Further, the old Greek literature has a striking completeness, due to the fact that each great branch of the Hellenic race bore a characteristic part in its development. Ionians, Aeolians, Dorians, in turn contributed their share. Each dialect corresponded to a certain aspect of Hellenic life and character. Each found its appropriate work.

The Ionians on the coast of Asia Minor—a lively and genial people, delighting in adventure, and keenly sensitive to everything bright and joyous—created artistic epic poetry out of the lays in which Aeolic minstrels sang of the old Achaean wars. And among the Ionians arose elegiac poetry, the first variation on the epic type. These found a fitting instrument in the harmonious Ionic dialect, the flexible utterance of a quick and versatile intelligence. The Aeolians of Lesbos next created the lyric of personal passion, in which the traits of their race—its chivalrous pride, its bold but sensuous fancy—found a fitting voice in the fiery strength and tenderness of Aeolic speech. The Dorians of the Peloponnesus, Sicily, and Magna Graecia then perfected the choral lyric for festivals and religious worship; and here again an earnest faith, a strong pride in Dorian usage and renown, had an apt interpreter in the massive and sonorous Doric. Finally, the Attic branch of the Ionian stock produced the drama, blending elements of all the other kinds, and developed an artistic literary prose in history, oratory, and philosophy. It is in the Attic literature that the Greek mind receives its most complete interpretation.

A natural affinity was felt to exist between each dialect and that species of composition for which it had been specially used. Hence the dialect of the Ionian epic poets would be adopted with more or less thoroughness even by epic or elegiac poets who were not Ionians. Thus the Aeolian Hesiod uses it in epos, the Dorian Theognis in elegy, though not without alloy. Similarly, the Dorian Theocritus wrote love-songs in Aeolic. The Attic Tyrtaeus used Doric forms for his marching songs. All the faculties and tones of the language were thus gradually brought out by the co-operation of the dialects. Old Greek literature has an essential unity—the unity of a living organism; and this unity comprehends a number of distinct types, each of which is complete in its own kind.

Extant Greek literature begins with the Homeric poems. These are works of art which imply a long period of antecedent poetical cultivation. Of the pre-Homeric poetry we have no remains, and very little knowledge. Such glimpses as we get of it connect it with two different stages in the religion of the prehistoric Hellenes. The first of these stages is that in which the agencies or forms of external nature were personified indeed, yet with the consciousness that the personal names were only symbols. Some very ancient Greek songs of which mention is made may have belonged to this stage—as the songs of Linus, Ialemus, and Hylas. Linus, the fair youth killed by dogs, seems to be the spring passing away before Sirius. Such songs have been aptly called “songs of the seasons.” The second stage is that in which the Hellenes have now definitively personified the powers which they worship. Apollo, Demeter, Dionysus, Cybele, have now become to them beings with clearly conceived attributes. To this second stage belong the hymns connected with the names of the legendary bards, such as Orpheus, Musams, Eumolpus, who are themselves associated with the worship of the Pierian Muses and the Attic ritual of Demeter. The seats of this early sacred poetry are not only “Thracian”— i.e., on the borders of northern Greece—but also “Phrygian” and “Cretan.” It belongs, that is, presumably to an age when the ancestors of the Hellenes had left the Indo-European home in central Asia, but had not yet taken full possession of the lands which were afterwards Hellenic. Some of their tribes were still in Asia; others were settling iu the islands of the Aegean; others were passing through the lands on its northern sea board. If there was a period when the Greeks possessed no poetry but hymns forming part of a religious ritual, it may be conjectured that it was not of long duration. Already in the Iliad a secular character belongs to the marriage hymn and to the dirge for the dead, which in ancient India were chanted by the priest. The bent of the Greeks was to claim poetry and music as public joys; they would not long have suffered them to remain sacerdotal mysteries. And among the earliest themes on which the lay artist in poetry was employed were probably war-ballads, sung by minstrels in the houses of the chiefs whese ancestors they celebrated.

Such war-ballads were the materials from which the earliest epic poetry of Greece was constructed. By an “epic” poem the Greeks meant a narrative of heroic action in hexameter verse. The term epe meant at first simply “verses”; it acquired its special meaning only when mele, lyric songs set to music, came to be distinguished from epe, verses not set to music, but merely recited. Epic poetry is the only kind of extant Greek poetry which is older than about 700 b.c. The early epos of Greece is represented by the Iliad and the Odyssey, Hesiod, and the Homeric hymns; also by some fragments of the “Cyclic” poets.

After the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus, the Aeolian emigrants who settled in the north-west of Asia Minor brought with them the warlike legends of their chiefs, the Achaean princes of old. These legends lived in the ballads of the Aeolic minstrels, and from them passed southward into Ionia, where the Ionian poets gradually shaped them into higher artistic forms. Among the seven places which claimed to be the birthplace of Homer, that which has the best title is Smyrna. Homer himself is called “son of Meles”—the stream which flowed though old Smyrna, on the border between Aeolia and Ionia. The tradition is significant in regard to the origin and character of the Iliad, for in the Iliad we have Achaean ballads worked up by Ionian art. A preponderance of evidence is in favour of the view that the Odyssey also, at least in its earliest form, was composed on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor. According to the Spartan account, Lycurgus was the first to bring to Greece a complete copy of the Homeric poems, which he had obtained from the Creophylidae, a clan or guild of poets in Samos. A better authenticated tradition connects Athens with early attempts to preserve the chief poetical treasure of the nation. Pisistratus is said to have charged some learned men with the task of collecting all “the poems of Homer”; but it is difficult to decide how much was comprehended under this last phrase, or whether^ the province of the commission went beyond the mere task of collecting. Nor can it be determined what exactly it was that Solon and Hipparchus respectively did for the Homeric poems. Solon, it has been thought, enacted that the poems should be recited from an authorized text (<⅛ υποβολής) ; Hipparchus, that they should be recited in a regular order (εξ iπoληψεως). At any rate, we know that in the 6th century b.c. a recitation of the poems of Homer was one of the established competitions at the Panathenaea, held once in four years. The reciter was called a rhapsodist, —properly one who weaves a long, smoothly-flowing chant, then an epic poet who chants his own or another’s poem. The rhapsodist did not, like the early minstrel,use the accompaniment of the harp; he gave the verses in a flowing recitative, bearing in his hand a branch of laurel, the symbol of Apollo’s inspiration. In the 5th century b.c. we find that various Greek citieβ had their own editions (at 7r0λtτικat ∈κδ0σ∈i5)of the poems, for recitation at their festivals. Among these were the editions of Massilia, of Chios, and of Argos. There were also editions bearing the name of the individual editor (at κaτ avδpa),—the best known being that which Aristotle prepared for Alexander. The recension of the poems by Aristarchus (156 b.c.) became the standard one, and is probably that on which the existing text is based. The oldest Homeric MS. extant, Venetus A of the Iliad, is of the 10th century; the first printed edition of Homer was that edited by the Byzantine Demetrius Chaicondyles (Florence, 1488). The first Aldine edition appeared twelve years later.

The ancient Greeks were almost unanimous in believing the Iliad and the Odyssey to be the work of one man, Homer, to whom they also ascribed some extant hymns, and probably much more besides. Aristotle and Aristarchus seem to have put Homer’s date about 1044 B.C., Herodotus about 850 b.c. It was not till about 170 b.c. that the grammarians Hellanicus and Xenon put forward the view that Homer was the author of the Iliad, but not of the Odyssey. Those who followed them in assigning different authors to the two poems were called the Separatere (or Chorizontes). Aristarchus combated “the paradox of Xenon,” and it does not seem to have had much acceptance in antiquity. Vico, a Neapolitan (1668-1744), seems to have been the first modern to suggest the composite authorship and oral tradition of the Homeric poems; but this was a pure conjecture in support of his theory that the names of ancient lawgivers and poets are often mere symbols. F. A. Wolf, in the Prolegomena to his edition (1795), was tho founder of a scientific scepticism. The Iliad, he said (for he recognized the comparative unity and consistency of the Odyssey), was pieced together from many small unwritten poems by various hands, and was first committed to writing in the time of Pisistratus. This view was in harmony with the tone of German criticism at the time; it was welcomed as a new testimony to the superiority of popular poetry, springing from fresh natural sources, to elaborate works of art; and it at once found enthusiastic adherents. For the course of Homeric controversy since Wolf the reader is referred to the article Homer. The general result has been, not to prove any precise theory of authorship, but rather to establish certain general propositions, and so far to limit the question. It is now generally admitted that the Iliad and the Odyssey, whatever their absolute or relative ages, must at least be regarded as belonging to the maturity of a poetical school in Ionia, which had gradually created an epic style. Next, it can no longer be doubted that the Iliad contains elements of various age and origin; the form and the matter alike show this, though we cannot with certainty point to any one group of these elements as the original nucleus around which our Iliad grew. Comparing the Odyssey with the Iliad, we perceive greater unity of design and of colouring, and indications of a somewhat later time; but not even here can we affirm that the poem, as we have it, is the work of one man.

The Ionian school of epos produced a number of poems founded on the legends of the Trojan war, and intended as introductions or continuations to the Iliad and the Odyssey. The grammarian Proclus (140 a.d.) has preserved the names and subjects of some of these; but the fragments are very scanty. The Nostoi or Homeward Voyages, by Agias of Troezen, filled up the gap of ten years between the Hiαd and the Odyssey; the Lay of Telegonus, by Eugammon of Cyrene, continued the story of the Odyssty to tbe death of Odysseus by the hand of Telegonus, the son whom Circe bore to him. Similarly the Cyprian Lays, by Stasinus of Cyprus, was introductory to the Iliad ; the Aethiopis and the Sack of Troy, by Arctinus of Miletus, and the Little Iliad, by Lesches of Mitylene, were supplementary to it. These and many other names of lost epics—some taken also from the Theban myths—serve to show how prolific was that epic school of which only two great examples remain. The name of epic cycle was properly applied to a prose compilation of abstracts from these epics, pieced together in the order of the events. The compilers were called “cyclic” writers; and the term has now been transferred to the epic poets whom they used.

The epic poetry of Ionia celebrated the great deeds of heroes in the old wars. But in Greece proper there arose another school of epos, which busied itself with religious lore and ethical precepts, especially in relation to the rural life of Boeotia. This school is represented by the name of Hesiod. The legend spoke of him as vanquishing Homer in a poetical contest at Chalcis in Eubcea; and it expresses the fact that, to the old Greek mind, these two names stood for two contrasted epic types. Nothing is certainly known of his date, except that it must have been subsequent to the maturity of Ionian epos. He is conjecturally placed about 850-800 B.c.; but some would refer him to the early part of the 7th century b.c. His home was at Ascra, a village in a valley under Helicon, whither his father had migrated from Cyme in Aeolis on the coast of Asia Minor. In Hesiod’s Works and Days we have the earliest example of a didactic poem. The seasons and the labours of the Boeotian farmer’s year are followed by a list of the days which are lucky or unlucky for work. The Theogony, or “Origin of the Gods,” describes first how the visible order of nature arose out of chaos; next, how the gods were born. Though it never possessed the character of a sacred book, it remained a standard authority on the genealogies of the gods. So far as a corrupt and confused text warrants a judgment, the poet was piecing together—not always intelligently—the fragments of a very old cosmogonic system, using for this purpose both the hymns preserved in the temples and the myths which lived in folklore. The epic lay in 480 lines called the Shield of Heracles— partly imitated from the 18th book of the Iliad— is the work of an author or authors later than Hesiod. In the Hesiodic poetry, as represented by the Works and Days and the Theogony, we. see the influence of the temple at Delphi. Hesiod recognizes the existence of daimones— spirits of the departed who haunt the earth as the invisible guardians of justice; and he connects the office of the poet with that of the prophet. The poet is one whom the gods have authorized to impress doctrine and practical duties on men. A religious purpose was essentially characteristic of the Hesiodic school. Its poets treated the old legends as relics of a sacred history, and not merely, in the Ionian manner, as subjects of idealizing art. Such titles as the Maxims of Cheiron and the Lay of Melampus, the seer—lost poems of the Hesiodic school—illustrate its ethical and its mystic tendencies.

The Homeric Hymns form a collection of thirty-three pieces, some of them very short, in hexameter verse. Their traditional title is— Hymns or Preludes of Homer and the Homeridae. The second of the alternative designations is the true one. The pieces are not “hymns” used in formal worship, but “preludes” or prefatory addresses (7rp00i∕zια) with which the rhapsodists ushered in their recitations of epic poetry. The “prelude” might be addressed to the presiding god of the festival, or to any local deity whom the reciter wished to honour. The pieces range in date perhaps from 750 to 500 b.c., and it is probable that the collection was formed in Attica, for the use of rhapsodists. The style is that of the Ionian or Homeric epos; but there are also several traces of the Hesiodic or Boeotian school. The five principal “hymns’’are those (1) to the Delian Apollo, i. 1—177; (2) to the Pythian Apollo, i. 178 to end; (3) to Hermes, ii.; (4) to Aphrodite, iii.; and (5) to Demeter, v. The hymn to the Deliau Apollo, quoted by Thucydides (iii. 104) as Homer’s, is of peculiar interest on account of the lines describing the Ionian festival at Delos. Two celebrated pieces of a sportive kind passed under Homer’s name. The Margites— a comic poem on one “who knew many things but knew them all badly ”—is regarded by Aristotle as the earliest germ of comedy, and was possibly as old as 700 b.c. Only a few lines remain. The Battle of the Frogs and Mice probably belongs to the decline of Greek literature, perhaps to the 2d century b.c. About 300 verses of it are extant.

In the Iliad and the Odyssey the personal opinions or sympathies of the poet may sometimes be conjectured, but they are not declared, or even hinted. Hesiod, indeed, sometimes gives us a glimpse of his own troubles or views. Yet Hesiod is, on the whole, essentially a prophet. The message which he delivers is not from himself; the truths which he imparts have not been discovered by his own search. He is the mouthpiece of the Delphian Apollo. Personal opinion and feeling may tinge his utterance, but they do not determine its general complexion. The egotism is a single thread; it is not the basis of the texture. Epic poetry was in Greece the foundation of all other poetry; for many centuries no other kind was generally cultivated, no other could speak to the whole people. Politically, the age was monarchical or aristocratic; intellectually, it was too simple for the analysis of thought or emotion. Kings and princes loved to hear of the great deeds of their ancestors; common men loved to hear of them too, for they had no other interest. The mind of Greece found no subject of contemplation so attractive as the warlike past of the race, or so useful as that lore which experience and tradition had bequeathed. But in the course of the 8th century b.c. the rule of hereditary princes began to disappear. Monarchy gave place to oligarchy, and this—often after the intermediate phase of a tyranny—to democracy. Such a change was necessarily favourable to the growth of reflection. The private citizen is no longer a mere cipher, the Homeric τις, a unit in the dim multitude of the king-ruled folk; he gains more power of independent action, his mental horizon is widened, his life becomes fuller and more interesting. He begins to feel the need of expressing the thoughts and feelings that are stirred in him. But as yet a prose literature does not exist; the new thoughts, like the old heroic stories, must still be told, in verse. The forms of verse created by this need were the Elegiac and the Iambic.

The elegiac metre is, in form, a simple variation on the epic metre, obtained by docking the second of two hexameters so as to make it a verse of five feet or measures. But the poetical capabilities of the elegiac couplet are of a wholly different kind from those of heroic verse. Elegos seems to be the Greek form of a name given by the Carians and Lydians to a lament for the dead. This was accompanied by the soft music of the Lydian flute, which continued to be associated with Greek elegy. The nonHellenic origin of elegy is indicated by this very fact. The flute was to the Greeks an Asiatic instrument,—string instruments were those which they made their own,·—and it would hardly have been wedded by them to a species of poetry which had arisen among themselves. The early elegiac poetry of Greece was by no means confined to mourning for the dead. War, love, politics, proverbial philosophy, were in turn its themes; it dealt, in fact, with the chief interest of the poet and his friends, whatever that might be at the time. It is the direct expression of the poet’s own thoughts, addressed to a sympathizing society. This is its first characteristic. The second is that, even when most pathetic or most spirited, it still preserves, on the whole, the tone of conversation or of narrative. Greek elegy stops short of lyric passion. English elegy, whether funereal as in Dryden and Pope, or reflective as in Gray, is usually true to the same normal type. Roman elegy is not equally true to it, but sometimes tends to trench on the lyric province. For Roman elegy is mainly amatory or sentimental; and its masters imitated, as a rule, not the early Greek elegists, not Tyrtaeus or Theognis, but the later Alexandrian elegists, such as Callimachus or Philetas. Catullus introduced the metre to Latin literature, and used it with more fidelity than his followers to its genuine Greek inspiration.

Elegy, as we have seen, was the first slight deviation from epos. But almost at the same time another species arose which had nothing in common with epos, either in form or in spirit. This was the iambic. The word iambos (fapto, to dart or shoot) was used in reference to the licensed raillery at the festivals of Demeter; it was the maiden Iambe, the myth said, who drew the first smile from the mourning goddess. The iambic metre was at first used for satire; and it was in this strain that it was chiefly employed by its earliest master of note, Archilochus of Paros (670 b.c. ). But it was adapted to the expression generally of any pointed thought. Thus it was suitable to fables. Elegiac and iambic poetry both belong to the borderland between epic and lyric. While, however, elegy stands nearer to epos, iambic stands nearer to the lyric. Iambic poetry can express the personal feeling of the poet with greater intensity than elegy does; on the other hand, it has not the lyric flexibility, self-abandonment, or glow. As we see in the case of Solon, iambic verse could serve for the expression of that deeper thought, that more inward self-tommuning, for which the elegiac form would have been inappropriate.

But these two forms of poetry, both Ionian, the elegiac and the iambic, belong essentially to the same stage of the literature. They stand between the Ionian epos and the lyric poetry of the Aeolians and Dorians. The earliest of the Greek elegists, Callinαs and Tyrtaeus, use elegy to rouse a warlike spirit in sinking hearts. Archilochus too wrote warlike elegy, but used it also in other strains, as in lament for the dead. The elegy of Mimnermus is the plaintive farewell of an ease-loving Ionian to the days of Ionian freedom. In Solon elegy takes a higher range; it becomes political and ethical. Theognis represents the maturer union of politics with a proverbial philosophy. Xenophanes gives a philosophic strain to elegy. With Simonides of Ceos it reverts, in an exquisite form, to its earliest destination, and becomes the vehicle of epitaph on those who fell in the Persian wars. Iambic verse was used by Simonides of Amorgus, as by Archilochus, for satire,—but satire directed against classes rather than persons. Solon’s iambics so far preserve the old associations of the metre that they represent the polemical or controversial side of his political poetry. Hipponax of Ephesus was another iambic satirist—using the “scazon” or “limping” verse, produced by substituting a spondee for an iambus in the last place. But it was not until the rise of the Attic drama that the full capabilities of iambic verse were seen.

The lyric poetry of early Greece may be regarded as the final form of that effort at self-expression which in the elegiac and iambic is still incomplete. The lyric expression is deeper and more impassioned. Its intimate union with music and with the rhythmical movement of the dance gives to it more of an idea] character. At the same time the continuity of the music permits pauses to the voice,—pauses necessary as reliefs after a climax. Before lyric poetry could be effective, it was necessary that some progress should have been made in the art of music. The instrument used by the Greeks to accompany the voice was the four-stringed lyre, and the first great epoch in Greek music was when Terpander of Lesbos (660 b.c. ), by adding three strings, gave the lyre the compass of the octave. Further improvements are ascribed to Olympus and Thaletas. By 500 B.c. Greek music had probably acquired all the powers of expression which the lyric poet could demand. The period of Greek lyric poetry may be roughly defined as from 670 to 440 B,c. Two different parts in its development were taken by the Aeolians and the Dorians.

The lyric poetry of the Aeolians—especially of Lesbos— was essentially the utterance of personal feeling, and was usually intended for a single voice, not for a chorus. Lesbos, in the 7th century b,c., had attained some naval and commercial importance. But the strife of oligarchy and democracy was active; the Lesbian nobles were often driven by revolution to exchange their luxurious home-life for the hardships of exile. It is such a life of contrasts and excitements, working on a sensuous and fiery temperament, that is reflected in the fragments of Alcaeus. In these glimpses of war and love, of anxiety for the storm-tossed state and of careless festivity, there is much of the cavalier spirit; if Archilochus is in certain aspects a Greek Byron, Alcaeus might be compared to Lovelace. The other great representative of the Aeolian lyric is Sappho, the only woman of Greek race who is known to have possessed poetical genius of the first order. Intensity and melody are the characteristics of the fragments that remain to us. Probably no poet ever surpassed Sappho as an interpreter of passion in exquisitely subtle harmonies of form and sound. Anacreon of Teos, in Ionia, may be classed with the Aeolian lyrists in so far as the matter and form of his work resembled theirs, though the dialect in which he wrote was mainly the Ionian. A few fragments remain from his hymns to the gods, from love-poems and festive songs. The collection of sixty short pieces which passes current under his name dates only from the 10th century. The short poems which it comprises are of various age and authorship, —all of them probably of the Christian era. They have not the pure style, the flexible grace, or the sweetness of the classical fragments; but the verses, though somewhat mechanical, are often pretty.

The Dorian lyric poetry, in contrast with the Aeolian, had more of a public than of a personal character, and was for the most part choral. Hymns or choruses for the public worship of the gods, and odes to be sung at festivals on occasions of public interest, were its characteristic forms. Its central inspiration was the pride of the Dorians in the Dorian past, in their traditions of worship, government, and social usage. The history of the Dorian lyric poetry does not present us with vivid expressions of personal character, like those of Alcaeus and Sappho, but rather with a series of artists whose names are associated with improvements of form. Thus Aleman (660 b.c.) is said to have introduced the balanced movement of strophe and antistrophe. Stesichorus, of Himera in Sicily, added the epode, sung by the chorus while stationary after these movements; Arion gave a finished form to the choral hymn (“dithyramb ”) in honour of Dionysus, and organized the “cyclic” or circular chorus which sang it at the altar.

The culmination of the lyric poetry is marked by two great names, Simonides and Pindar. Simonides was an Ionian of the island of Ceos, but his lyrics belonged by form to the choral Dorian school. Many of his subjects were taken from the events of the Persian wars: his epitaphs on those who fell at Thermopylae and Salamis were celebrated. In him the lyric art of the Dorians is interpreted by Ionian genius, and Athens—where part of his life was passed—is the point at which they meet. Simonides is the first Greek lyrist whose significance is not merely Aeolian or Dorian but Panhellenic. The same character belongs even more completely to his younger contemporary. Pindar was born in Boeotia of a Dorian stock; thus, as Ionian and Dorian elements meet in Simonides, so Dorian and Aeolian elements meet in Pindar. Simonides was perhaps the most tender and most exquisite of the lyric poets. Pindar was the boldest, the most fervid, and the most sublime. His extant fragments represent almost every branch of the lyric art. But he is known to us mainly by forty-four Epinicia, or odes of victory, for the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian festivals. The general characteristic of the treatment is that the particular victory is made the occasion of introducing heroic legends connected with the family or city of the victor, and of inculcating the moral lessons which they teach. No Greek lyric poetry can be completely appreciated apart from the music, now lost, to which it was set. Pindar’s odes were, further, essentially occasional poems; they abound in allusions of which the effect is partly or wholly lost on us; and the glories which they celebrate belong to a life which we can but imperfectly realize. Of all the great Greek poets, Pindar is perhaps the one to whom it is hardest for us to do justice; yet we can at least recognize his splendour of imagination, his strong rapidity, and his soaring flight.

II. The Attic Literature.

The Ionians of Asia Minor, the Aeolians, and the Dorians had now performed their special parts in the development of Greek literature. Epic poetry had interpreted the heroic legends of warlike deeds done by Zeus-nourished kings and chiefs. Then, as the individual life became more and more, elegiac and iambic poetry had become the social expression of that life in all its varied interests and feelings. Lastly, lyric poetry had arisen to satisfy a twofold need—to be the more intense utterance of personal emotion, or to give choral voice, at stirring moments, to the faith or fame, the triumph or the sorrow, of a city or a race. A new form of poetry was now to be created, with elements borrowed from all the rest. And this was to be achieved by the people of Attica, iu whose character and language the distinctive traits of an Ionian descent were tempered with some of the best qualities of the Dorian stock.

The drama arose from the festivals of Dionysus, the god of wine, which were held at intervals from the beginning of winter to the beginning of spring. A troop of rustic worshippers would gather around the altar of the god, and sing a hymn in his honour, telling of his victories or sufferings in his progress over the earth. “Tragedy” meant “the goat-song,” a goat being sacrificed to Dionysus before the hymn was sung. “Comedy,” “the village-song,” is the same hymn regarded as an occasion for rustic jest. Then the leader of the chorus would assume the part of a messenger from Dionysus, or eveu that of the god himself, and recite an adventure to the worshippers, who made choral response. The next step was to arrange a dialogue between the leader (coryphaeus) and one chosen member of the chorus, hence called “the answerer” (hypocrites, afterwards the ordinary word for “actor”). This last improvement is ascribed to the Attic Thespis (about 536 b.c.). The elements of drama were now ready. The choral hymn to Dionysus (the “dithyramb ”) had received an artistic form from the Dorians; dialogue, though only between the leader of the chorus and a single actor, had been introduced in Attica. Phrynichus, an Athenian, celebrated in this manner some events of the Persian wars; but in his “drama” there was still only one actor.

Aeschylus (born 525 b.c. ) became the real founder of tragedy by introducing a second actor, and thus rendering the dialogue independent of the chorus. At the same time the choral song—hitherto the principal part of the performance—became subordinate to the dialogue; and drama was mature. Aeschylus is also said to have made various improvements of detail in costume and the like; and it was early in his career that the theatre of Dionysus under the acropolis was commenced—the first permanent home of Greek drama, in place of the temporary wooden platforms which had hitherto been used. The system of the “trilogy” and the “tetralogy” is further ascribed to Aeschylus,—the “trilogy” being properly a series of three tragedies connected in subject, such as the Agamemnon, Choephori, Eumeηides, which together form the Oresteia, or Story of Orestes. The “tetralogy” is such a triad with a “satyric drama” added—that is, a drama in which “satyrs,” the grotesque woodland beings who attended on Dionysus, formed the chorus, as in the earlier dithyramb from which drama sprang. The Cyclops of Euripides is a satyric drama. In the seven tragedies which alone remain of the seventy which Aeschylus is said to have composed, the forms of kings and heroes have a grandeur which is truly Homeric; there is a spirit of Panhellenic patriotism such as the Persian wars in which he fought might well quicken in a soldier-poet; and, pervading all, there is a strain of speculative thought which seeks to reconcile the apparent conflicts between the gods of heaven and of the underworld by the doctrine that both alike, constrained by necessity, are working out the law of righteousness. Sophocles, who was born thirty years after Aeschylus (495 b.c.), is the most perfect artist of the ancient drama. No one before or after him gave to Greek tragedy so high a degree of ideal beauty, or appreciated so finely the possibilities and the limitations of its sphere. He excels especially in drawing character; his Antigone, his Ajax, his Oedipus — indeed, all the chief persons of his dramas— are typical studies in the great primary emotions of human nature. He gave a freer scope to tragic dialogue by adding a third actor; and in one of his later plays, the Oedipus at Colonus, a fourth actor is required. From the time when he won the tragic prize against Aeschylus in 468 to his death in 405 b.c. he was the favourite dramatist of Athens; and for us he is not only a great dramatist, but also the most spiritual representative of the age of Pericles. The distinctive interest of Euripides is of another kind. He was only fifteen years younger than Sophocles; but when he entered on his poetical career, the old inspirations of tragedy were already failing. Euripides marks a period of transition in the tragic art, and is, in fact, the mediator between the classical and the romantic drama. The myths and traditions with which the elder dramatists had dealt no longer commanded an unquestioning faith. Euripides himself was imbued with the new intellectual scepticism of the day; and the speculative views which were conflicting in his own mind are reflected in his plays. He had much picturesque and pathetic power; he was a master of expression; and he shows ingenuity in devising fresh resources for tragedy—especially in his management of the choral songs. Aeschylus is Panhellenic, Sophocles is Athenian, Euripides is cosmopolitan. He stands nearer to the modern world thau either of his predecessors; and though with him Attic tragedy loses its highest beauty, it acquires new elements of familiar human interest.

In Attica, as in England, a period of rather less than fifty years sufficed for the complete development of the tragic art. The two distinctive characteristics of Athenian drama are its originality and its abundance. The Greeks of Attica were not the only inventors of drama, but they were the first people who made drama a complete work of art. And the great tragic poets of Attica were remarkably prolific. Aeschylus was the reputed author of 70 tragedies, Sophocles of 113, Euripides of 92; and there were others whose productiveness was equally great.

Comedy represented the lighter side, as tragedy the graver side, of the Dionysiae worship; it was the joy of spring following the gloom of winter. The process of growth was nearly the same as in tragedy; but the Dorians, not the Ionians of Attica, were the first who added dialogue to the comic chorus. Susarion, a Dorian of Megara, exhibited about 580 b.c. pieces of the kind known as “Megarian farces.” The more artistic form of comedy seems, however, to have been developed in Attica. The greatest names before Aristophanes are those of Cratinus and Eupolis; but from about 470 b.c. there seems to have been a continuous succession of comic dramatists. Aristophanes came forward as a comic poet in 427 B.C., and retained his popularity for about forty years. He presents a perhaps unique union of bold fancy, exquisite humour, critical acumen, and lyrical power. His eleven extant comedies may be divided into three groups, according as the licence of political satire becomes more and more restricted. In the Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps, and Peace (425-421) the poet uses unrestrained freedom. In the Birds, Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusoe, and Frogs (414-405) a greater reserve may be perceived. Lastly, in the Ecclesiazusae and the Plutus (392-388) personal satire is almost wholly avoided. The same general tendency continued. The so-called “Middle Comedy” (390-320) represents the transition from the Old Comedy, or political satire, to satire of a literary or social nature. The “New Comedy” (320-250) resembled the modern “comedy of manners.” These successive periods cannot be sharply or precisely marked off. The change which gradually passed over the comic drama was simply the reflexion of the change which passed over the political and social life of Athens. The Old Comedy, as we see it in the earlier plays of Aristophanes, was probably the most powerful engine of public criticism that has ever existed in any community. Unsparing personality was its essence. The comic poet used this recognized right on an occasion at once festive and sacred, in a society where every man of any note was known by name and sight to the rest. The same thousands who heard a policy or a character denounced or lauded in the theatre might be required to pass sentence on it in the popular assembly or in the courts of law.

The development of Greek poetry had been completed before a prose literature had begun to exist. The earliest name in extant Greek prose literature is that of Herodotus; and, when he wrote, the Attic drama had already passed its prime. There had been, indeed, writers of prose before Herodotus; but there had not been, in the proper sense of the term, a prose literature. The causes of this comparatively late origin of Greek literary prose are independent of the question as to the time at which the art of writing began to be generally used for literary purposes. Epic poetry exercised for a very long period a sovereign spell over the Greek mind. In it was deposited all that the race possessed of history, theology, philosophy, oratory. Even after an age of reflexion had begun, elegiac poetry, the first offshoot of epic, was, with iambic verse, the vehicle of much which among other races would have been committed to prose. The basis of Greek culture was essentially poetical. A political cause worked in the same direction. In the Eastern monarchies the king was the centre of all, and the royal records afforded the elements of history from a remote date. The Greek nation was broken up into small states, each busied with its own affairs and its own men. It was the collision between the Greek and the barbarian world which first provided a national subject for a Greek historian. The work of Herodotus, in its relation to Greek prose, is so far analogous to the Iliad in its relation to Greek poetry, that it is the earliest work of art, and that it bears a Panhellenic stamp.

The sense and the degree in which Herodotus was original may be inferred from what is known of earlier prose-writers. For about a century before Herodotus there had been a series of writers in philosophy, mythol°gy> geography, and history. The earliest, or among the earliest, of the philosophical writers were Pherecydes of Syros (550 b.c.) and the Ionian Anaximenes and Anaximander. The Ionian writers, especially called logographi, “narrators in prose” (as distinguished from epopaii, makers of verse), were those who compiled the myths,. especially in genealogies, or who described foreign countries, their physical features, usages, and traditions. Hecataeus of Miletus (500 b.c.) is the best-known representative of the logographi in both these branches. Hellanicus of Mitylene (450 b.c. ), among whose works was a history of Attica, appears to have made a nearer approach to the character of a systematic historian.

Herodotus was born in 484 B.C.; and his history was probably not completed before the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431 b.c.). His subject is the struggle between Greece and Asia, which he deduces from the legendary rape of the Argive Io by Phoenicians, and traces down to the final victory of the Greeks over the invading host of Xerxes. His literary kinship with the historical or geographical writers who had preceded him is seen mainly in two things. First, though he draws a line between the mythological and the historical age, he still holds that myths, as such, are worthy to be reported, and that in certain cases it is part of his duty to report them. Secondly, he follows the example of such writers as Hecataeus in describing the natural and social features of countries. He seeks to combine the part of the geographer or intelligent traveller with his proper part as historian. But when we turn from these minor traits to the larger aspects of his work, Herodotus stands forth as an artist whose conception and whose method were his own. His history has an epic unity. Various as are the subordinate parts, the action narrated is one, great and complete; and the unity is due to this that Herodotus refers all events of human history to the principle of divine Nemesis. If Sophocles had told the story of (Edipus in the Oedipus Tyrannus alone, and had not added to it the (Edipus at Colonus, it would have been comparable to the story of Xerxes as told by Herodotus. Great as an artist, great too in the largeness of his historical conception, Herodotus fails chiefly by lack of insight into political cause and effect, and by a general silence in regard to the history of political institutions. Both his strength and his weakness are seen most clearly when he is contrasted with that other historian who was strictly his contemporary, and who yet seems divided from him by centuries.

Thucydides was only thirteen years younger than Herodotus; but the intellectual space between the men is so great that they seem to belong to different ages. Herodotus is the first artist in historical writing; Thucydides is the first thinker. Herodotus interweaves two threads of causation—human agency, represented by the good or bad qualities of men, and divine agency, represented by the vigilance of the gods on behalf of justice. Thucydides concentrates his attention on the human agency (without, however, denying the other), and strives to trace its exact course. The subject of Thucydides is the Peloponnesian War. In resolving to write its history, he was moved, he says, by these considerations. It was probably the greatest movement which had ever affected Hellas collectively. It was possible for him as a contem* porary to record it with approximate accuracy. And this record was likely to have a general value, over and above its particular interest as a record, seeing that the political future was likely to resemble the political past. This is what Thucydides means when he calls his work “a possession for ever.” The speeches which he ascribes to the persons of the history are, as regards form, his own essays in rhetoric of the school to which Antiphon belongs. As regards matter, they are always so far dramatic that the thoughts and sentiments are such as he conceived possible for the supposed speaker. Thucydides abstains, as a rule, from moral comment; but he tells his story as no one could have told it who did not profoundly feel its tragic force; and his general claim to the merit of impartiality is not invalidated by the possible exceptions—difficult to estimate—in the cases of Cleon and Hyperbolus.

Strong as is the contrast between Herodotus and Thucydides, their works have yet a character which distinguish both alike from the historical work of Xenophon in the Anabasis and the Hellenica. Herodotus gives us a vivid drama with the unity of an epic. Thucydides takes a great chapter of contemporary history and traces the causée which are at work throughout it, so as to give the whole a scientific unity. Xenophon has not the grasp either of the dramatist or of the philosopher. His work does not possess the higher unity either of art or of science. The true distinction of Xenophon consists in his thorough combination of the practical with the literary character. He was an accomplished soldier, who had done and seen much. He was also a good writer, who could make a story both clear and lively. But the several parts of the story are not grouped around any central idea, such as a divine Nemesis is for Herodotus, or such as Thucydides finds in the nature of political man. The seven books of the Hellenica form a supplement to the history of Thucydides, beginning in 411 and going down to 362 b.c. The chief blot on the Hellenica is the author’s partiality to Sparta, and in particular to Agesilaus. Some of the greatest achievements of Epaminondas and Pelopidas are passed over in silence. On the whole, Xenophon is perhaps seen at his best in his narrative of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand— a subject which exactly suits him. The Cyro- poedia is a romance of little historical worth, but with many good passages. The Recollections of Socrates, on the other hand, derive their principal value from being uniformly matter-of-fact. In his minor pieces on various subjects Xenophon appears as the earliest essayist. It may be noted that one of the essays erroneously ascribed to him—that On the Athenian Polity— is probably the oldest specimen in existence of literary Attic prose.

The steps by which an Attic prose style was developed, aud the principal forms which it assumed, can be traced most clearly in the Attic orators. Every Athenian citizen who aspired to take part in the affairs of the city, or even to be qualified for self-defence before a law-court, required to have some degree of skill in public speaking; and an Athenian audience looked upon public debate, whether political or forensic, as a competitive trial of proficiency in n fine art. Hence the speaker, no less than the writer, was necessarily a student of finished expression; and oratory had a more direct influence on the general structure of literary prose than has ever perhaps been the case elsewhere. A systematic rhetoric took its rise in Sicily, where Corax of Syracuse (466 b.c.) devised his Art of Words to assist those who were pleading before the law-courts; and it was brought to Athens by his disciple Tisias. The teaching of the Sophists, again, directed attention, though in a superficial and imperfect way, to the elements of grammar and logic; and Gorgias of Leontini—whose declamation, however turgid, must have been striking—gave an impulse at Athens to the taste for elaborate rhetorical brilliancy.

Antiphon represents the earliest, and what has been called the grand, style of Attic prose; its chief characteristics are a grave, dignified movement, a frequent emphasis on verbal contrasts, and a certain austere elevation. The interest of Andocides is mainly historical; but he has graphic power. Lysias, the representative of the “plain style,” breaks through the rigid mannerism of the elder school, and uses the language of daily life with an ease and grace which, though the result of study, do not betray their art. He is, in his own way, the canon of an Attic style; and his speeches, written for others, exhibit also a high degree of dramatic skill. Isocrates, whose manner may be regarded as in⅜ermediate between that of Antiphon and that of Lysias, wrote for readers rather than for hearers. The type of literary prose which he founded is distinguished by ample periods, by studied smoothness, and by the temperate use of rhetorical ornament. From the middle of the 4th century b.c. the Isocratic style of prose became general in Greek literature. From the school of Rhodes, in which it became more florid, it passed to Cicero, and through him it ha3 helped to shape the literary prose of the modern world. The speeches of Isaeus in will-cases are interesting,—apart from their bearing on Attic life,—because in them we see, as Dionysius says, “the seeds and the beginnings” of that technical mastery in rhetorical argument which Demosthenes carries to perfection. Isaeus has also, in a degree, some of the qualities of Lysias. Demosthenes excels all other masters of Greek prose not only in power but in variety; his political speeches, his orations in public or private causes, show his consummate and versatile command over all the resources of the language. In him the development of Attic prose is completed, and the best elements in each of its earlier phases are united. The modern world can more easily appreciate Demosthenes as a great natural orator than as an elaborate artist. But, in order to apprehend his place in the history of Attic prose, we must remember that the ancients felt him to be both; and that he was even reproached by detractors with excessive study of effect. Aeschines is the most theatrical of the Greek orators; he is vehement, and often brilliant, but seldom persuasive. Hyperides was, after Demosthenes, probably the most effective; he had much of the grace of Lysias, but also a wit, a fire, and a pathos which were his own. The one oration of Lycurgus which remains to us is earnest and stately, reminding us both of Antiphon and of Isocrates. Dinarchus was merely a bad imitator of Demosthenes. There seems more reason to regret that Demades is not represented by larger fragments. The decline of Attic oratory may be dated from Demetrius of Phalerum (318 b.c.), the pupil of Aristotle. Cicero names him as the first who impaired the vigour of the earlier eloquence, “preferring his own sweetness to the weight and dignity of his predecessors.”

The place of Plato in the history of Greek literature is as unique as his place in the history of Greek thought. The literary genius shown in the dialogues is many-sided: it includes dramatic power, remarkable skill in parody, a subtle faculty of satire, and, generally, a command over the finer tones of language. In passages of continuous exposition, where the argument rises into the higher regions of discussion, Plato’s prose takes a more decidedly poetical colouring —never florid or sentimental, however, but lofty and austere. In Plato’s later works—such, for instance, as the Laws, Timaeus, Critias — we can perceive that his style did not remain unaffected by the smooth literary prose which contemporary writers had developed. Aristotle’s influence on the form of Attic prose literature would probably have been considerable if his Rhetoric had been published while Attic oratory had still a vigorous life before it. But in this, as in other departments of mental effort, it was Aristotle’s lot to set in order what the Greek intellect had done in that creative period which had now come to an end. His own chief contribution to the original achievements of the race was the most fitting one that could have been made by him in whose lifetime they were closed. He bequeathed an instrument by which analysis could be carried further, he founded a science of reasoning, and left those who fol lowed him to apply it in all those provinces of knowledge which he had mapped out. Theophrastus, his pupil and his successor in the Lyceum, opens the new age of research and scientific classification with his extant works on botany, but is better known to modern readers by his lively Characters, the prototypes of such sketches in our own literature as those of Hall, Overbury, and Earle.

III. The Literature of the Decadence.

The period of decadence in Greek literature begins with the extinction of free political life in the Greek cities. So long as the Greek commonwealths were independent and vigorous, Greek life rested on the identity of the man with the citizen. The city was the highest unit of social organization; the whole training and character of the man were viewed relatively to his membership of the city. The market-place, the assembly, the theatre, were places of frequent meeting, where the sense of citizenship was quickened, where common standards of opinion or feeling were formed. Poetry, music, sculpture, literature, art, in all their forms, were matters of public interest. Every citizen had some degree of acquaintance with them, and was in some measure capable of judging them. The poet and the musician, the historian and the sculptor, did not live a life of studious seclusion or engrossing professional work. They were, as a rule, in full sympathy with the practical interests of their time. Their art, whatever its form might be, was the concentrated and ennobled expression of their political existence. Aeschylus breathed into tragedy the inspiration of one who had himself fought the great fight of national liberation. Sophocles was the colleague of Pericles in a high military command. Thucydides describes the operations of the Peloponnesian War with the practical knowledge of one who had been in charge of a fleet. Ictinus and Phidias gave shape in stone, not to mere visions of the studio, but to the more glorious, because more real and vivid, perceptions which had been quickened in them by a living communion with the Athenian spirit, by a daily contemplation of Athenian greatness, in the theatre where tragic poets idealized the legends of the past, in the ecclesia where every citizen had his vote on the policy of the state, or in that free and gracious society, full of beauty, yet exempt from vexatious constraint, which belonged to the age of Pericles. The tribunal which judged these works of literature or art was such as was best fitted to preserve the favourable conditions under which they arose. Criticism was not in the hands of a literary clique or of a social caste. The influence of jealousy or malevolence, and the more fatal influence of affectation, had little power to affect the verdict. The verdict was pronounced by the whole body of the citizens. The success or failure of a tragedy was decided, not by the minor circumstance that it gained the first or second prize, but by the collective opinion of the citizens assembled in the theatre of Dionysus. A work of architecture or sculpture was approved or condemned, not by the sentence of a few whom the multitude blindly followed, but by the general judgment of some twenty thousand persons, each of whom was in some degree qualified by education and by habit to form an independent estimate. The artist worked for all his fellowcitizens, and knew that he would be judged by all. The soul of his work was the fresh and living inspiration of nature; it was the ennobled expression of his own life; and the public opinion before which it came was free, intelligent, and sincere.

Philip of Macedon did not take away the municipal independence of the Greek cities, but he dealt a death-blow to the old political life. The Athenian poet, historian, artist, might still do good work, but he could never again have that which used to be the very mainspring of all such activity,—the daily experience and consciousness of participation in the affairs of an independent state. He could no longer breathe the invigorating air of constitutional freedom, or oi the social intercourse to which that freedom lent dignity as well as grace. Then came Alexander’s conquests; Greek civilization was diffused over Asia and the East by means of Greek colonies in which Asiatic and Greek elements were mingled. The life of such settlements, under the monarchies into which Alexander’s empire broke up, could not be animated by the spirit of the Greek commonwealths in the old days of political freedom. But the externals of Greek life were there,—the temples, the statues, the theatres, the porticos. Ceremonies and festivals were conducted in the Greek manner. In private life Greek usages prevailed. Greek was the language most used; Greek books were in demand. The mixture of races would always in some measure distinguish even the outward life of such a community from that of a pure Greek state; and the facility with which Greek civilization was adopted would vary in different places. Syria, for example, was rapidly and completely Hellenized. Judaea resisted the process to the last. In Egypt a Greek aristocracy of office, birth, and intellect existed side by side with a distinct native life. But, viewed in its broadest aspect, this new civilization may be called Hellenism. As hellenizo means “to do like a Hellene,” Hellenism means the adoption of Hellenic ways; and it is properly applied to a civilization, generally Hellenic in external things, pervading people not necessarily or exclusively Hellenic by race. What the Hellenic literature was to Hellas, that the Hellenistic literature was to Hellenism. The literature of Hellenism has the Hellenic form without the Hellenic soul. The literature of Hellas was creative; the literature of Hellenism is derivative.

1. Alexandria was the centre of Greek intellectual activity from Alexander to Augustus. Its “Museum” or college, and its library, both founded by the first Ptolemy (Soter), gave it such attractions for learned men as no other city could rival. The labours of research or arrangement are those which characterize the Alexandrian period. Even in its poetry spontaneous motive was replaced by erudite skill, as in the hymns, epigrams, and elegies of Callimachus, in the enigmatic verses of Lycophron, in the highly finished epic of Apollonius Rhodius, and in the versified lore, astronomical or medical, of Aratus and Nicander. The pastoral poetry of the age—Dorian by origin—was the most pleasing; for this, if it is to please at all, must have its spring in the contemplation of nature. Theocritus is not exempt from the artificialism of the Hellenizing literature; but his true sense of natural beauty entitles him to a place in the first rank of pastoral poets. Bion of Ionia and Moschus of Syracuse also charm by the music and often by the pathos of their bucolic verse. But it is not for its poetry of any kind that this period of Greek literature is memorable. Its true work was in erudition and science. Aristarchus (156 b.c. ), the greatest in a long line of Alexandrian critics, set the example of a more thorough method in revising and interpreting the ancient texts, and may in this sense be said to have become the founder of scientific scholarship. The critical studies of Alexandria, carried on by the followers of Aristarchus, gradually formed the basis for a science of grammar. Translation was another province of work which employed the learned of Alexandria,—where the Septuagint version of the Old Testament was begun, probably about 300-250 b.c. Chronology was treated scientifically by Eratosthenes, and was combined with history by Manetho in his chronicles of Egypt, and by Berosus in his chronicles of Chaldaea. Euclid was at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Soter. The general results of the Alexandrian period might perhaps be stated thus. Alexandria produced a few eminent men of science, some learned poets (in afewcases,of great literary merit), and manyable scholars. The preservation of the best Greek literature was due chiefly to the unremitting care of the Alexandrian critics, whose appreciation of it partly compensated for the decay of the old Greek perceptions in literature and art, and who did their utmost to hand it down in a form as free as possible from the errors of copyists. On the whole, the patronage of letters by the Ptolemies had probably as large a measure of success as was possible under the existing conditions; and it was afforded at a time when there was special danger that a true literary tradition might die out of the world.

2. The Graeco-Roman period in the literature of Hellenism may be dated from the Roman subjugation of Greece. “Greece made a captive of the rough conqueror,” but it did not follow from this intellectual conquest that Athens became once more the intellectual centre of the world. Under the empire, indeed, the university of Athens long enjoyed a pre-eminent reputation. But Rome gradually became the point to which the greatest workers in every kind were drawn. Greek literature had already made a home there before the close of the 2d century b.c. Sulla brought a Greek library from Athens to Rome. Such men as Cicero and Atticus were indefatigable collectors and readers of Greek books. The power of speaking and writing the Greek language became an indispensable accomplishment for highly educated Romans. The library planned by Julius Caesar and founded by Augustus had two principal departments, one for Latin, the other for Greek works. Tiberius, Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan contributed to enlarge the collection. Rome became more and more the rival of Alexandria, not only as possessing great libraries, but also as a seat of learning at which Greek men of letters found appreciation and encouragement. Greek poetry, especially in its higher forms, rhetoric and literary criticism,, history and philosophy, were all cultivated by Greek writers at Rome.

The first part of the Graeco-Roman period may be defined as extending from 146 b.c. to the close of the Roman republic. At its commencement stands the name of one who had more real affinity than any of his contemporaries with the great writers of old Athens, and who, at the same time, saw most clearly how the empire of the world was passing to Rome. The subject of Polybius was the history of Roman conquest from 264 to 146 b.c. His style, plain and straightforward, is free from the florid rhetoric of the time. But the distinction of Polybius is that he is the last Greek writer who in some measure retains the spirit of the old citizen-life. He chose his subject, not because it gave scope to learning or literary skill, but with a motive akin to that which prompted the history of Thucydides—namely, because, as a Greek citizen, he felt intensely the political importance of those wars which had given Rome the mastery of the world. The chief historical work which the following century produced—the Universal History of Diodorus Siculus—resembled that of Polybius in recognizing Rome as the political centre of the earth, as the point on which all earlier series of events converged. In all else Diodorus represents the new age in which the Greek historian had no longer the practical knowledge and insight of a traveller, a soldier, or a statesman, but only the diligence, and usually the dulness, of a laborious compiler.

The Greek literature of the Roman empire, from Augustus to Justinian, was enormously prolific. The area over which the Greek language was diffused—either as a medium of intercourse or as an established branch of the higher education—was co-extensive with the empire itself. An immense store of materials had now been accumulated, on which critics, commentators, compilers, imitators, were employed with incessant industry. In very many of its forms, the work of composition or adaptation had been reduced to a mechanical knack. If there is any one characteristic which broadly distinguishes the Greek literature of these five centuries, it is the absence of originality either in form or in matter. Lucian is, in his way, a rare exception; and his great popularity—he is the only Greek writer of this period, except Plutarch, who has been widely popular—illustrates the flatness of the arid level above which he stands out. The sustained abundance of literary production under the empire was partly due to the fact that there was no open political career. Never, probably, was literature so important as a resource for educated men; and the habit of reciting before friendly or obsequious audiences swelled the number of writers whose taste had been cultivated to a point just short of perceiving that they ought not to write.

In the manifold prose work of this period, four principal departments may be distinguished. (1) History, with Biography, and Geography. It would exceed the limits of the present summary to notice in detail the works which belong to this and to the other provinces; but it may be useful, for purposes of reference and classification, to give some chief names in each. History is represented by Dionysius of Halicarnassus,—also memorable for his criticisms on the orators and his effort to revive a true standard of Attic prose,—by Josephus, Arrian, Appian, and Herodian. In biography, the foremost names are Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, aυd Philostratus; in geography, Strabo and Pausanias. (2) Erudition and Science. The learned labours of the Alexandrian schools were continued in all their various fields. Under this head may be mentioned such works as the lexicon of Julius Pollux; the commentaries of Galen on Plato and on Hippocrates; the learned miscellanies of Athenaeus, Aelian, and Stobaeus; and the Stratagems of Polyaenus. (3) Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. The most popular writers on the theory of rhetoric were Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Cassius Longinus—the last the reputed author of the essay On Sublimity. Among the most renowned teachers of rhetoric—now distinctively called “Sophists,” or rhetoricians—were Dion Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, Themistius, Himerius, Libanius, and Herodes Atticus. Akin to the rhetorical exercises were various forms of ornamental or imaginative prose—dialogues, letters, essays, or novels. Lucian, in his dialogues, exhibits more of the classical style and of the classical spirit than any writer of the later age; he has also a remarkable affinity with the tone of modern satire, as in Swift or Voltaire. His Attic prose, though necessarily artificial, was at least the best that had been written for four centuries. The emperor Julian was the author both of orations and of satirical pieces. The chief of the Greek novelists are Xenophon of Ephesus and Longus, representing a purely Greek type of romance, and Heliodorus,—with his imitators Achilles Tatius and Chariton,—representing a school influenced by Oriental fiction. There were also many Christian romances in Greek, usually of a religious tendency. Alciphron’s fictitious Letters— founded largely on the Ne.w Comedy of Athens—represent the same kind of industry which produced the letters of Phalaris and many similar collections. (4) Philosophy is represented chiefly by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, in both of whom the Stoic element is the prevailing one; by the Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus; and by Proclus, of that eclectic school which arose at Athens in the 5th century λ.d.

The Greek poetry of this period presents no work of high merit. Babrius versified the Aesopic Fables; Oppian wrote didactic poems on fishing and hunting; Nonnus and Quintus Smyrnaeue made elaborate essays in epic verse; and the Orphic lore inspired some poems and hymns of a mystic character. The so-called Sibylline Oracles, in hexameter verse, range in date from about 170 b.c. to 700 A.D., and are partly the expression of the Jewish longings for the restoration of Israel, partly predictions of the triumph of Christianity. By far the most pleasing compositions in verse which have come to us from this age are some of the short poems in the Greek Anthology, which includes some pieces as early as the beginning of the 5th century b.c., and some as late as the 6th century of the Christian era.

The 4th century may be said to mark the beginning of the last stage in the decay of literary Hellenism. From that point the decline was rapid and nearly continuous. The attitude of the church towards it was no longer that which had been held by Clement of Alexandria, by Justin Martyr, or by Origen. There was now a Christian Greek literature, and a Christian Greek eloquence of extraordinary power. The laity became more and more estranged from the Greek literature—however intrinsically pure and noble—of the pagan past. At the same time the Greek language—which had maintained its purity in Italian seats—was becoming corrupted in the new Greek Rome of the East. In 529 a.d. Justinian put forth an edict by which the schools of heathen philosophy were formally closed. The act had at least a symbolical meaning. It is necessary to guard against the supposition that such assumed landmarks in political or literary history always mark a definite transition from one order of things to another. But it is practically convenient, or necessary, to use such landmarks. And, in this case, if a line is to be drawn at any one point between the Old and the Byzantine literature, it may be said that the edict of Justinian was the official record of the fact that the old literature of Greece was dead. Then came the Byzantine age, with its massive but formless erudition, its commentaries, annals, and lexicons, represented by such works as those of Eustathius, Photius, and Suidas. The golden time of the Byzantine literature was from about 850 to 1200 a.i>. Just as this was drawing to an end, a poetry—at first satirical —arose in the popular dialect, which had now decidedly diverged from the literary; and thus the link was made which connects the Byzantine period with the Greek literature of to-day. The Greek language has never died, and the continuity of Greek literature has never been broken.

See History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, by K. 0. Müller, continued by J. W. Donaldson; Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, by William Mure; Histoire de la Littérature Grecque, by Émile Burnouf (1869); Griechische Literaturgeschichte, by Theodor Bergk (1872); Grundriss der griechischen Litteratur, by G. Bernhardy (1872-1876); Griechische Literaturgeschichte, by R. Nicolai (1873-1876); Primer of Greek Literature, in Macmillan's Series, by R. C. Jebb. (R. C. J.)

Section II.— The Byzantine Literature.

The literature of the Byzantine period, from the death of Justinian to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, is singularly destitute of interest for the general reader. There is not a single work of intense human passion. Not one man appeared gifted with anything like genius. The most notable books are books of history written by those who were themselves actors in the scenes, or at the least were contemporaries or nearly contemporaries of the events recorded. There is always a sense of reality about such works, however hazy our general conception of the times may be. Of these historians a full account is given in the article Byzantine Historians. Some of these writers discussed other subjects. Remarkable amongst these is Constantine VII., Porphyrogenitus, who wrote or caused to be written a whole series of books, treating of the administration of the empire, the ceremonies of the court, war, and jurisprudence. He got up a cyclopaedia of history and politics, of agricultural science, of the veterinary art, and of medicine, and ordered the preparation of an epitome of Aristotle’s work on animals, of a collection of Greek epigrams, and a collection of the histories of saints. Constantine’s works do not give so much an insight into what he could do as into what he wished to do. Some of the historians were really men of wide culture. Nicephorus Gregoras (born 1295) received a liberal education in rhetoric, astronomy, and other subjects, and his literary activity ranged over the entire field of human knowledge. Others again combined the study of rhetoric or philosophy with that of history. Pachymeres, for instance, wrote declamations of a pedantic and frigid nature on historical subjects, blending imagination with what lie gathered from history.

The character of the Byzantine period is seen in the kind of poetry that it produced. There were some good epigram writers in the reign of Justinian, but after his time the anthology received very few additions. The first versifier of importance that we meet in the progress of time is Georgius of Pisidia, who was deacon of the church of St Sophia in the reign of the emperor Heraclius (610-641). His muse celebrates various wars in iambic verse, such as the war against the Persians, the Avarie war, and the exploits of Heraclius. He also wrote several Christian pieces. Leo VI., called the Wise, who was emperor from 886 to 912, versified astronomical and ecclesiastical subjects, and wrote some prose works besides, most of which, if not all, deserve to lie in oblivion. Theodosius, deacon in the church of St Sophia towards the end of the 10th century, used the iambic trimeter to narrate the capture of Crete, a work which derives all its value from the historical matter contained in it. Theodorus Prodromus is perhaps of all the Byzantine writers the one that comes nearest to the rank of a poet, yet even this approach is made only in some of his poems in the popular dialect, which have a strong satiric turn and a vein of humour. His more ambitious efforts have no claim to the title of poetry. The subjects are of wide range and various form—epistles, congratulatory addresses, historical and didactic poems. Some of them are in a dramatic form, such as the Catamyomachia, recently edited by Hercher in the Teubner Dibliotheca, in which besides the ordinary characters Prodromus introduces a chorus and semi-chorus, and the κηpυξ and dγγeλoς so common in ancient plays. His largest poem is a romance called τα κατά 'Ροδάνθην και ∆oσικλ∈α, consisting of nine books in iambic trimeter. It is entirely destitute of originality, and overladen with rhetorical and unpoetic passages. It is given by Hercher in his Scrif>tores Erotici. Prodromus flourished in the reign of Manuel I., Comnenus(l 143-1180). Another Byzantine, Nicetas Eugenianus, apparently of the same age, wrote a fictitious poem, τα κατά Δρόσιλλαν και Xαpικλ∈α, which bears traces on every page of a close connexion with the similar work of Prodromus. Constantine Manasses also lived during the reign of Manuel I., Comnenus, and wrote a fiction in the versus politicus, characterized by absurdity and poverty of thought and expression. Both of these romances are given in Hercher’s Scriptores Erotici. during this period used for the most prosaic purposes. Michael Psellus the younger, about 1018 a.d., employed it to give a synopsis of laws, Tzetzes to give an exposition of history. The work of Tzetzes is now called Chiliαdes, from its being divided into books of a thousand lines. It is written in the versus politicus, and is a very heterogeneous mixture of fact and fiction, but occasionally contains references to customs and incidents which are not handed down to us elsewhere. Another critic, Joannes Pediasimus, wrote iambic verses, περί γwαικδς κακής και dyaôiyç η ΤΙόθος. Such were the subjects which the Byzantine muse treated, and as we have given a rather full catalogue of the poetical works produced in the Byzantine period in the ancient language, nothing requires to be said of the sterile nature of the poets and their poetry.

Dramatic poetry was also neglected, but enough was produced to keep up the continuity in the tradition of the drama. Sathas has tried to show that dramas were acted up to the latest period of the Byzantine empire, and though the notices are not numerous nor very conclusive, be seems to us to have proved his point (K. N. 2<x0α ιστορικδv δοκiμιοv περί τον θέατρου κa'ι τής Μουσικής των Βυζαντινών, Venice, 1878). We have already seen that Prodromus composed dramas. The most voluminous writer in this department is Manuel Philes of Ephesus, who flourished from about 1280 to 1330, and who himself probably acted on the stage. His dramas are occupied with the exhibition of the great deeds of his patrons, or resemble in some respects our Moralities, making characters of the various virtues.

The Byzantine period produced a considerable number of hymn writers. Among them may be mentioned Germanus, who was patriarch of Constantinople in the reign of Leo the Isaurian; Theodorus Studites, a theologian of some mark (759-826); the emperors Constantine Porphyrogenitus and Leo the king; and Photius, patriarch of Constantinople. The hymn writers who stand highest are Cosmas, who flourished in the 8th century, and whom W. Christ calls “princeps melodorum Graecoium”; Joannes Damascenus, a contemporary of Cosmas; and Theophanes ô Γραπτός, who lived nearly a hundred years after Cosmas (see Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum adornaverunt IV. Christ et Μ. Paranikas, Leipsic, 1871).

The Byzantines occupied themselves with collections of poems, but the works of Cephalas and Planudes Maximus of this nature have already been discussed in the article Anthology.

When we pass from poetry to prose we meet with the same want of creative power. The Byzantines collect the writings of others and annotate, but they give us no original works. They performed two services to literature. They handed down the forms of literary expression, and by their indefatigable energy in excerpting and embodying in their own works the works of others, they have preserved for us many valuable documents of antiquity, or at least portions of them. During the Byzantine period there were also various phases of literary life. After the death of J ustinian literary activity became gradually less, until in the time of the Iconoclasts intellectual culture was repressed, manuscripts were destroyed, and literature fell into disrepute and neglect. A revival took place under the Macedonian dynasty, but when the Latin empire was established in Constantinople, a relapse into semi-barbarism again took place. Under the Palaeologi the literary spirit once more came to life. Amidst these changes it was impossible for a vigorous creative literature to flourish, and the bright periods are mainly characterized by efforts to destroy the effects of the previous dark era by gathering together all kinds of information. Hence arose the compilations of Porphyrogenitus that have been already mentioned, and similar attempts were made at similar periods.

Several of the Byzantines attained to high eminence in the cultivation of science, but sometimes their exertions took a fruitless direction, especially when they aimed at discovering the method of converting the baser metals into gold. It is in the study of grammar, in the production of lexicons and the annotation of the classical writers, that their best men have gained for themselves a name. The works of the writers on these subjects are of no interest to the common reader, but they furnish the scholar with many attractive problems. · Who were the authors from whom the Byzantines borrowed? How far are their works interpolated 1 How far are the original authorities mutilated? These and such like inquiries crop up in connexion with almost every one of these writings. The writers who are best known as contributing to our knowledge of the ancients are Tzetzes, Eustathius, Moschopulus, Thomas Magister, Joannes Pediasimus, and Demetrius Triclinius. Tzetzes (probably the same word as Caecius) lived in Constantinople about the year 1180. His Chiliades have been already mentioned. He wrote notes on Homer, Hesiod, and Aeschylus, but he was especially copious on Aristophanes.

Eustathius is well known to scholars for an elaborate commentary on Homer. He was brought up in Constantinople, and in 1160 became archbishop of Thessalonica and in 1174 archbishop of Myra in Lycia. Besides his labours on Homer he wrote many theological and several historical works. Manuel Moschopulus belonged to the 13th century. He wrote many works on different points of grammar, and scholia on Pindar, the Tragedians, and Theocritus. Thomas Magister of Thessalonica flourished in the reign of Andronicus II. (1283-1332), and composed articles on ancient literary history, and scholia on Aeschylus and other Greek writers. Joannes Pediasimus, who lived towards the end of the 14th century, is best known by his scholia on Hesiod; and Triclinius, who taught grammar in Constantinople at the same period, wrote scholia on Hesiod, Pindar, and the Tragedians. Nothing can exceed the stupidity of these writers and their fellow scholiasts of the Byzantine era. They misunderstand the acute remarks of their Alexandrian predecessors or bury them in verbiage. They are utterly uncritical in their discussion of historical questions; they are continually going wrong in their grammatical expositions; and they are passionately fond of nonsense. Perhaps nowhere, to take one instance, in the whole of literature could wilder etymologies be found in greater numbers than in the scholia on the Plutus of Aristophanes. Yet these men thought highly of their work, and Triclinius tells us, in regard to a trivial book which he wrote on metres, that he accomplished the task only through divine inspiration. Notwithstanding this, they have preserved for us within the quantities of rubbish many valuable facts and expositions derived from earlier writers.

Ignatius, deacon in the reign of Michael II. (820-829), Gregorius, archbishop of Corinth in the second half of the 12th century, Holobolus, in the reign of Michael VIII., and Joannes Glycas, patriarch of Constantinople in 1316, are the principal writers on grammar. Of these Gregorius is best known, for his work on the Greek dialects, though full of mistakes, has deservedly attracted the attention of scholars.

Of the writers of lexicons Suidas is the best known. He flourished in the 10th century. His work contains not only explanations of words but biographies of men. It is an undigested mass of statements which are often contradictory, but is of great value, for he has incorporated facts and expositions from early writers possessed of accurate knowledge. A full account of Suidas, anil a discussion of all the questions connected with him, are given by Bernhardy in the prolegomena to his edition of the Lexicon. The Etymologicum Magnum is another important work of the Byzantine period, having been compiled in the 11 th century. The appellation magnum or μ√γα does not belong to it originally, but was added by Musurus, its first editor, or Calliergis, its first printer. Gaisford in his edition has discussed this and other matters concerning the Etymologicum. A much smaller work by Philemon is a Technological Dictionary, written in the second half of the 12th century. Among the lexicon-writers is Photius, who was patriarch of Constantinople, and died in an Armenian convent about the year 891. Photius was a man of marked individuality, and his history is mixed up with that of his country. A more detailed account of him will therefore be found in a separate article. Porson prepared an edition of the Lexicon, which was published after his death by Dobree. The Leipsic edition contains a review by Blomfield lfEdiη. Eev., xlii., 1813) of Hermann’s edition of Photius, in which the English reader will find a full discussion of the sources and value of the Lexicon. Photius also prepared a work generally called Photii Bibliotheca, containing extracts and notices of 280 books which he read while acting as ambassador in Syria. The nature of this work awaits more minute investigation than it has yet received; but there can scarcely be a doubt that some of the articles are the productions of a dishonest man, or of a late interpolator, or of both. His Letters, recently edited by Valerias, are of great importance for a knowledge of the times.

Several scholars of the Byzantine period wrote on the music and metres of the ancients. Their works abound in errors, but they preserve fragments of earlier writers which are interesting and valuable. The work of Psellus the younger, called 2wταγp,α e⅛ τaς τεσσapas paθηpaτικa<s hrLστηpa<s, contains large fragments of Aristoxenus (Westphal, Fragmente der Rhythmiker, supplement to the first volume of his Metrilc)∙, and Manuel Bryennius (about the year 1330) wrote three books on harmonics, which contain among other things an exposition of the later Byzantine musical system (see Westphal, Metrik, vol. i. p. 319).

Of the rhetoricians only a very few deserve mention. Joannes Doxopater, who flourished in the reign of Alexius I., Comnénus (1081-1118), wrote several works of a rhetorical nature, which are to be found in Walz’s Rhetores Groeci. All that can be said of them is that they prove that he was a man of culture and refinement, and did not deserve the neglect and poverty which fell to his lot. A cluster of rhetoricians appeared in the reigns of Michael VIII. and Andronicus II., of whom the principal were Georgius of Cyprus, Nicephorus Chumnus, and Theodorus of Hyrtace. The emperor Manuel II., Palaeologus, wrote several works of the nature of essays, and a large number of letters, several of which were addressed to Demetrius Cydone3 of Thessalonica, the author of a treatise on the Contempt of Death which has attracted some attention.

The study of philosophy was, generally speaking, neglected, but there were some who acquired renown as philosophers. Foremost amongst these was Michael Psellus the younger. He was born about the year 1018, and died shortly after the year 1105, after a chequered career. He was called by the men of his own age “Chief of Philosophers.” His works range over the entire field of human learning. He wrote on the sciences, mathematical, physical, medical, on grammar and metres and music, on the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, on psychology and dialectic; and very recently Sathas has edited a work of his called Λ Century of Byzantine History, which entitles him to a place among historians, a series of his letters which throw much light on the life of the Byzantines, and various discourses, panegyric and funereal. He lost the favour of the court and was supplanted by Joannes Italus, who also succeeded to the title of “Chief of Philosophers.” Several of his scholars attained distinction as authors, or rather compilers, of commentaries on the Greek philosophers.

The theologians were to a large extent philosophers. The most famous among them was John of Damascus, who lived in the reign of Leo the Isaurian (718-741). He wrote on a great variety of subjects, theological and philosophical. The work by which he is best known is his Sacra Parallela, in which he has collected numerous passages from the writings of the fathers on such topics as repentance, faith, Ac. The work is valuable as containing fragments of works which are not now extant. Alzog calls Damascenus the last of the Greek theologians. In subsequent times few appear worthy of attention, and it may suffice here to mention Nicephorus Callistus, “the Ecclesiastical Thucydides,” who lived in the 14th century. He compiled an Ecclesiastical History from Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomenus, and the other earlier ecclesiastical historians, endeavouring at the same time to make his style more elegant than that of his predecessors.

We find almost no attempt at light literature in prose during the Byzantine period. Only one work has come down to us of this nature, The Loves of Hysmine and Hysminias, by Eustathius the Macrembolite. Hilberg, the last editor of the work, has tried to show with some success that Eustathius lived some time between 852 and 988.. The work is full of imitations, and displays no inventive power.

A very full account is given of most of the writers here mentioned, with lists of their works edited and unedited, in the later volumes of the Bibliotheca Groeca of Johannes Albertus Fabricius, edited by Harles, Hamburg, in 12 vols., 1790-1809; see also Cave, Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria·, Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ; Müller and Donaldson’s History of Greek Literature, 1858; DrR. Nicolai, Griechische Literaturgeschichte, vol. iii., 1876. Many of the works of the Byzantine writers are found only in αveκδoτα, especially those of V illoison, Boissonade, Cramer, Bekker, and Sathas, and often these editors investigate the history of the writers. Sathas has thrown much new light on the life of Psellus. (J. D.)

Section III.— Modern Greek Literature.

In narrating the history of modern Greek literature several difficulties of a peculiar nature present themselves which do not emerge in an account of the literature of previous periods. The literature is no longer homogeneous, and we have to answer for ourselves the question whether we are to record the literary efforts made by Greeks or the literary efforts made in Greek. If we adopt the first course, we have to take notice of books written in Italian, French, German, and English, as well as in Greek, for the Greeks like the Jews were, during the three centuries of Turkish domination, a dispersed people. They found refuge far away from their native land; they spoke the languages of strange peoples, and, when they published books, frequently used these languages. Few, however, forgot their native tongue, and there are consequently very few authors who, however copiously they may have written in the languages of the countries in which they settled, did not leave at least one work written in Greek. Even since the kingdom of Greece has been established, many of her most distinguished men have written some of their best works in French, German, or English, in order to obtain a wider audience than they could expect if they had used modern Greek. We have to divide even those who used Greek into two classes,—those who used the ancient language and those who used the modern, though many have used both forms. The ancient language was still the literary language at the time of the capture of Constantinople, and the u3e of it as a vehicle of literature has been handed down in unbroken tradition to the present day. This has been specially the case with ecclesiastical writers. The church service is in ancient Greek. The New Testament is still read in the original language in Greek churches. The learned priests were familiar with the ancient language, and in learned treatises felt bound by a firmly impressed tradition to use only the language which the great fathers of the church had used. Cultivated Greeks in all lands still continued to make verses in imitation of the ancients. A change took place when Greece revived in the 19 th century. All the great writers felt that it was pedantic to adopt many of the old forms of inflexion and construction,—that, in one word, the ancient language was not fitted to be the vehicle of modern civilization. They therefore resolved to adapt it, to omit what might fetter the full and free expression of modern thought, but to retain at the same time the body and substance of the language, And hence arose a form of the language which is practically identical with the ancient, but transfused with modern ideas, and fitted for the clear and rapid expression of modern literature. The influence of the ancient language on the modern is manifest in every part of it. And it could not be otherwise. Education is spread over every corner of free Greece. But in education the Greek child does not learn the grammar of the modern language but of the ancient. He often reads ancient books, and every cultivated Greek becomes as familiar with Xenophon and Plutarch as an Englishman is with Shakespeare and Milton. Before entering on the history of modern Greek literature, it is necessary to trace the modern language through its various stages. Historians of the Greek language acknowledge that alongside of the literary language there existed a conversational, which must have varied in different localities. We have the clearest traces of this language in the New Testament, as noticed under Greek Language, p. 135, and some ecclesiastical writers of a later date bsar equally unmistakable indications of it. The Pastor of Hermas is specially marked by such features, and the form of it given in the Codex Sinaiticus is as far advanced towards the modern as we find in several works of the 12th century written in the popular language. Very distinct approximations to the modern form3 are also to be found in some of the apocryphal gospels, and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, but especially in the A pοcryphal Acts and Apocalypses published by Tischendorf. All these writings tend to show that it is impossible to fix on any period when the modern language may be said to be definitely formed. It grew out of the conversational language of earlier times. Till very recently some poems of Theodorus Prodromus (often called Ptochoprodromus) were supposed to be the earliest distinct specimens of the modern language; but recent researches among the libraries have brought to light the fact that between the 10th and 15th centuries various works were produced in the modern form of the language. These researches are not yet concluded, and any results that are attained must be deemed merely provisional. The work which is now regarded as the earliest specimen of the new form is the Exploits of Basilios Digenis Acritas, written according to Legrand in the second half of the 10th century. The writer of this work unquestionably knew classical Greek well, and most of the lines would be perfectly intelligible to every scholar. But now and then words and constructions purely modern intervene. Yet there is a wide and marked difference between the language of this poem and that of the two poems of Prodromus, belonging to the 12th century, published by Corais; or the three more recently discovered by E. Miller, and published by him in his Melanges, and subsequently by Legrand. In every line of these the scholar comes upon forms which are quite strange.

The difference will be best appreciated if we quote some lines from each of the writers. We take a passage from the Digenis, which contains more than the usual number of modern peculiarities.

Καϊ γάρ δ μικpbς αδeλφbς κατ' υναρ elδe ταντα∙ Μετά σκοτιάς aγeipετaι, λiγeι το^iς aδeλφofς του· "Οραμα elδοv, άδελφοϊ, εν ταΰτη τfj έσπερο,· 'le paκlς μοι έφάνησαν επί Αευκης της πέτρας, Kαl αετδs χρυσόπτερος περιστεράν διάκων "Ασπρην καθάπερ χίονα, κ’ έσεβη ’s τδ κουβονκλιν, ’Εν ω κοιμάται ί> yaμβρbς μετά της αδελφής μας.

Here the accent of σκοτιά, τον for αvroυ, άσπρος signifying white, ’s for eîç, κουβοiκλιv from cubiculum, and μας for ημωv, are the novel peculiarities, and none of them need puzzle the scholar. As a contrast we take a few lines from one of the poems of Prodromus published by Miller.

"Ωρμησa τάχατε κaγω τδ và γεvω τζαγγάρης, M⅛ và χορτάσω τb φωαϊν τb λέγουν aφpaτiτζιv, Αλλά τb μεσοκάθαρον τδ λέγονσι της μέσης, Τ’ επιθυμούν yρaμμaτικοl καί καλοστιχοπλόκοι. Καί τέως γυρεΰων ηΰρηκα καϊ τάρταρον δκάπου, Κ’ έδωκά το κ’ Αγόρασα σουγλίν άπδ τζαγγάρην.

The lines are thus translated by Miller :—“Et moi aussi, j’ai essayé de la cordonnerie, non pas pour me rassasier de pain de gruau, mais de ce pain bis, dit de moyenne qualité, qui fait envie aux grammairiens et aux versificateurs de talent. Après maintes recherches, j’ai trouvé une menue monnaie, et je l’ai donnée pour prix d’une alêne de cordonnier.” After the fall of Constantinople some of the learned Greeks took an interest in the popular form of the language, and one of them, Sophianos, composed a grammar in the first half of the 16th century, which Legrand has published, along with a translation by the same scholar of Plutarch’s treatise On the Education of the Young, into modern Greek. This grammar proves that the popular form of Greek was by that time fully developed, and it might still be taken as a good exposition of the ordinary spoken language of illiterate Greeks. Of course there were great varieties id this popular form. Almost every small district and every island had inflexions, constructions, and words peculiar to themselves. Kavasilas wrote to Martin Crusius in the end of the 16th century that there were upwards of seventy modern dialects, of which that of the Athenians was the worst. Bat however many dialects there may have been, there is no reason to suppose that the difference was such as to prevent a Greek residing in one part of Greece from understanding a Greek residing in any other part. Since that time changes have taken place in the popular forms. Turkish words were introduced to a larger extent, but the language has remained substantially the same. There are indeed still a considerable variety of forms in the different districts, and one of the most amusing of modern Greek comedies, 'Η βαβυλωνία ή ή κατά τόπους διαφορά τής 'Ελληνικής γλώσσης, by D. Κ. Byzantios, is based upon the different dialects spoken by the Greek of Asia Minor and the Peloponnesian, the Chian, Cretan, and Cypriote, the Albanian and Heptanesian. This language is no longer the language of cultivated Greek society, of literature, or of science. When Greece was stirred with new life, no question agitated the patriotic Greeks more intensely than that of the form which the language should take. Some, led by Chrysopoulos, maintained that the popular language was really ancient, that it was a mixture of Aeolic and Doric, and that it ought therefore to be retained. Others, with Oeconomos as their champion, were for adopting the classical language with a few slight modifications which could claim the sanction of some of the best Byzantine writers. A third party, headed by Corais, were for steering a middle course, and they have ultimately triumphed. Colonel Leake has well described the present language. “This style,” he says, “may with tolerable accuracy be defined to consist in Hellenic words, arranged in the syntax of modern Europe, with a grammar partly Hellenic and partly modern. Inversions and transpositions occur with almost the same degree of frequency as in Italian, and the arrangement in general is not much more complex than that of our own language” (Researches, p. 54). We extract a specimen cf it from the sixth volume or “Epilogos” of the History of Greece by Paparrhegopoulos.

tf Oτε τφ 1790 τρε^ιs του έθνους αντιπρόσωποι καθυπεβαλοv ειs τηv μεγaληv Aικaτεp'ιvav τ⅛v atτησιv του và κaτaπεμφτ ∣ τbv εγγοvοv αυτής Κωνσταντίνον ως al>τoκρiτoρa, o! 6,vδρες obτoι δεν παρέστησαν πλέον ως ’ Pωμa7oι ή καί απλώς Χριστιανοί άλλά ώς’Έλληνες καί απόγονοι των ’Αθηναίων καϊ των Λακεδαιμονίων.

In this sentence all the words are ancient. Two of them are contracted, và for Γvα and δεv for oυδεv, and some have had their meanings modified. The remarks of Paparrhegopoulos relate to a subject which demands a brief notice. The Greeks at the time of the capture of Constantinople were proud of being 'Ρωμαίοι or Romans, and the term included all the Christians who formed the subjects of the Greek empire. Hence the term Romaic was the name given to the popular language. But during all the period of the Turkish domination the Greeks occasionally spoke of themselves as Γραικοί and "Ελληνες, and when the period of revival came, they cast off the old name of 'Ρωμαίοι and 'Ρωμαϊκή, and spoke only of "Ελληνες and 'Ελληνική. Accordingly the Greek language is now spoken of as the Hellenic tongue. When it is necessary to distinguish the modern from the ancient, the language of cultivated men is called Neo-Hellenic, νεοελληνική, and the popular form is styled απλοελληνική (see especially Dr Clyde’s Romaic and Modern Greek, Edin. 1855).

In narrating the history of this literature, we have at the earliest stage to treat separately those who used the classical language and those who used the vulgar. In both cases we cannot draw a fast line at the date of the fall of Constantinople, for, though that event is of great importance in the history of the Greeks as a people, it does not constitute a break in the literary history. It is often imagined that the dispersion of the Greeks in 1453 stood in close connexion with the revival of literature in Western Europe. But the fact is that the Greeks had come into contact with the Westerns long before, and their influence had become decided before the Turks seized the capital of the Greek empire. The crusades had brought Greeks and Latins together. The Latin empire in Constantinople had made the contact still more frequent. Greeks and Latins had entered into keen discussion on the truth of the dogmas in regard to which they differed. Some of the Greeks had become converts to Roman Catholicism, or at least desired the union of the Eastern and Western Churches. In these circumstances they often left their native land to seek preferment in the church in which they could labour with greater sympathy. Many of them also had become connected by marriage or other ties with the Italian nobles who ruled in the Aegean, and circumstances led them to settle in Italy. Of the Greeks who thus found their way to the West before the taking of Constantinople, the most prominent were Leon or Leontios Pilatos, Georgios Gemistos Plethon, Manuel and John Chrysoloras, Theodoros Gazis, Georgios Trapezuntios, and Cardinal Bessarion. Hody has given a full account of most of these men in his work De Groecis illustribus Linguae Groecoe Literarumque Humaniorum Instauratoribus (London, 1742). Pilatos was a native of Thessalonica and a pupil of Barlaam, a Calabrian monk who taught Petrarch Greek. Pilatos himself taught Boccaccio his native language, and expounded Homer in Florence. He died in 1364. Gemistos was a native of Lacedaemon. Hetaught in Constantinople, Athens, and Florence, and had in all places a large number of pupils who eagerly imbibed his Γlatonic teachings. His works were numerous, but most of them still lie hid in the great libraries of Europe unpublished. Manuel Chrysoloras was one of the pupils of Gemistos, and is famous as the translator of Homer and Plato. Both he and his brother John had many illustrious men as their pupils in Greek. Manuel taught in Milan, Venice, Padua, and Rome. He has the merit of composing the first Greek grammar that appeared in the West (ερωτήματα), published for the first time in Venice (1484). He made his first visit to Italy in 1393 in the capacity of ambassador from the Greek emperor to seek aid against the Turks, and he returned to Italy on the accomplishment of his mission that he might spread the knowledge of Greek literature. He was sent as deputy to the council of Constance, and he died in Italy in 1415. Theodoros Gazis, a native of Thessalonica, fled from his native place in 1430, and became a teacher of Greek in Ferrara, Rome, and Florence. He prepared a Greek grammar in four books (first published in Venice 1495), which continued for a long time to be a text-book in Greece and other countries. He translated many of the classical writers, and wrote on the ancient history of the Turks and on theological subjects. He died in 1478 in Calabria, where he had settled in his old age. Georgios Traρezuntios was born in Crete in 1396. He *eceived the appellation of Trapezuntios because his family had come from Trebizond. A Venetian noble took him to Venice to teach Greek in 1428. He removed to Rome in 1440, where he remained till 1450, at first highly honoured, but subsequently, through the bitterness of his temper, falling into disgrace. After that he led a wandering and miserable life, and died in 1486. He translated many of the Greek writers into Latin, and wrote a treatise in which he compared Plato with Aristotle. Cardinal Bessarion was a native of Trebizond. He received his education in Constantinople. In 1425 he went to the Peloponnesus to hear Gemistos expound the philosophy of Plato. In 1439 he removed to Italy, after he had been made archbishop of Nicaea, because the Greeks bitterly resented his attachment to the party which saw no difficulty in a union between the Western and Eastern Churches. He rose to great honour in the West, obtaining the cardinal’s hat. He died in Ravenna in 1472. He was passionately attached to the classical literature of his country, and took a profound interest in the education of his fellow-countrymen. He aided in the most liberal manner all the men of ability who came from Greece. He made a large collection of manuscripts. He translated portions of Xenophon, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and other Greek writers, and he wrote on the theological questions of the day.

The Greeks who were most prominent in spreading a knowledge of Greek in Europe after the fall of Constantinople are Joannes Argyropoulos, Demetrios Chalcocondyles, Constantine and John Lascaris, and Marcus Musuro3. Argyropoulos was a native of Constantinople, and there taught Constantine Lascaris. In the West he taught at various times in Padua (1434), Florence (1456), and Rome (1471), and had amongst his scholars Angelus Politianus and Reuchlin. He translated many of the works of Aristotle. Chalcocondyles was a native of Athens and became teacher of Greek in Florence in 1471; after some time he removed to Milan, where he died in 1511. He edited very many of the Greek authors. Constantine Lascaris, descended from a noble Bithynian family, taught Greek in various Italian cities, and finally settled in Sicily, where he died about 1500. He wrote a large number of works, most of them still unpublished. His best known work is his Grammar. He also transcribed manuscripts, and made a large collection of them. His name is well known to modern readers through the romance of Villemain (Lascaris ou les Grecs du XV me siècle). John was probably the younger brother of Constantine. He was principally employed in collecting manuscripts for the great men of the day, wrote several works, and edited several Greek books for the first time. He died at Rome in 1535.

Almost all these men were rather employed about literature than engaged in producing it. They taught Greek; several of them wrote Greek grammars; they transcribed and edited Greek classical writers; and they collected manuscripts. Bessarion laid the foundation of the library of St Mark in Venice. The collections of Constantine Lascaris formed the nucleus of the Escorial library; John Lascaris and his pupil Budaeus gathered the first stores for the national library in Paris; and Pope Nicholas V. employed the services of Bessarion, Gazis, and C. Lascaris in establishing the Vatican library. But almost none of these men accomplished much in literature strictly so-called. The question which most deeply interested them was the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Somehow or other the championship of Plato was undertaken by those Greeks who eagerly desired the union of the Greek and Latin churches, and the philosophy of Aristotle was upheld by the opposite party. Gennadios, whom Mahomet II. appointed as patriarch of Constantinople after the capture of the city, showed himself a keen partisan of the Stagirite, and hurled his thunderbolts against the Platonists. Gemistos Plethon was the chief defender of the Platonic philosophy, and received unmeasured abuse from George of Trebizond for his heterodox opinions. The works on these subjects were numerous, but beyond these theological questions (for they were theological rather than philosophical) there is not much. Scholarship continued to survive in Greece or among the Greeks for a long time after the Turks began to rule in Greece, and a considerable list might be adduced, including the names of Apostolios, whose collection of Greek Proverbs is well known to scholars, and his son Arsenius, metropolitan of Monemvasia. Among the few who still used the Greek language for literary purposes Leo Allatius is prominent. His Greek verses show skill and cleverness. Mention also should be made of Constantine Rhodocanakis, honorary physician to Charles TI. of England. He wrote verses on the return of Charles to England not without merit (see a very curious life of C. Rhodocanakis published in Athens, 1872).

We now return to the literature in the modern language, and here again we have to go back several centuries before the fall of Constantinople. We have already seen that the earliest production is the Exploits of Digenis Acritas, so called because he was the son of a Turk and a Greek, and because he spent a large portion of his time in watching the frontiers. There is reason to believe that his adventures formed the subject of poems in many parts of Greece. Some have called him a Cyprian Hercules, and believe him a kind of mythological character, while others regard him as a genuinely historical personage. The poem published by Legrand describing his adventures is imperfect. Many of the incidents are of a purely romantic nature. From the 12th to the 16th century many poems were composed in the popular language. Our knowledge of these works is still incomplete. Several of them lie hidden in the great libraries of Europe; but much is now doing to increase our knowledge. Many have been already published in the collections of Mavrophrydis, Sathas (⅛eκδoτα), Wagner (Carmina Medii Aevi), and especially Legrand. They all breathe the spirit of chivalry, and are full of romantic adventures and tales of love. M. Gidel has the special merit of drawing attention to these poems in his Etudes sur la Littérature Grecque Moderne (Paris, 1866), and he has gone further into the subject in his Nouvelles Etudes sur la Littérature Grecque Moderne (Paris, 1878). Ha has proved that the romances which delighted the knights of France and Italy found their way probably through the Genoese and Venetians and some French families into Greece, especially into the islands. The Greek minstrels took them and adapted them for their Greek audiences. He has given an analysis of the various poems and compared them with the Western forms. The most important in modern Greek are “The Old Knight” (12th century), a tale of the Round Table; “The Story of Belthander and Chrysantza” (probably 12th century); “The Loves of Lybistros and Rhodamne” (probably 12th century); “The War of Troy,” taken from the Guerre de Troie of Benoit de Sainte-More, who wrote in the second half of the 12th century (the Greek translation was made some time before the fall of Constantinople); “Flore and Blanchefleur and the “History of Imberios and Margarona.” There are various other poems belonging to this period of a different character, such as the “Oracles” of Leo the Wise, imitations of Reineke Fuchs, and “Physiologus.” The history of Alexander the Great was a favourite theme, and there is a Greek version of Apollonius of Tyre. We do not know the authors of any of these poems. But about the time of the fall of Constantinople we meet with the names of some versifiers. Papaspondylos Zoticos described the battle of Varna (1444) in verse, and from the poem we gather that he was present at it. We have three poems written by Georgilas Limenitis (1450-1500), one “On the Deeds of the great Commander of the Romans, Belisarius;” another “On the Plague in Rhodes,” which took place in 1498; and a third, “A Complaint on the Fall of Constantinople.” Some have been inclined to think that this last cannot be the work of Georgilas. From an examination of the poems of Georgilas and some other phenomena, Corais, in the prolegomena to the second volume of the Άτακτα, came to the conclusion that rhyme was unknown to Greek poems before the fall of Constantinople, and had become established as & feature of them when Georgilas wrote on the Rhodian plague. Gidel has accepted this as giving a clue to tho dates of Greek poems. A third versifier was Jacobos Trivolis of Corfu, who lived in the beginning of the 16th century. He wrote the history of Tagiapiera, a Venetian noble, and the history of the king of Scotland and the queen of England, a tale taken from Boccaccio. Almost none of these poems have poetical merit; but they are interesting as specimens of the popular language, and curious as throw ing light on the manners and thoughts of the Greeks of those days.

From the earliest times the Greeks were in the habit of putting into verse any remarkable occurrence that stirred their feelings. Crusius tells us that in his time Greeks, especially on the islands, contended with each other in repeating or extemporizing verses, and the custom has remained down to the present day. Accordingly the Greek popular poetry is ’ rich in historical subjects: we have already noticed the poems on the battle of Varna and on the taking of Constantinople. There is also a chronicle of the conquest of the Morea (given by Ellissen in his Aηalecten). There are several lamentations over the fall of Constantinople. And the klephtic ballads relate real adventures. Almost every leader in the war of independence had his song in his honour. Some have thought that the largest portion of the ballad poetry of the Greeks is recent; but Legrand’s collection lately published shows that some of them belong to very early times, being edited from a manuscript of the 16th century. There are two or three famous historical poems connected with the islands. Especially noteworthy is one on the exploits of Mercurios Boua by Coronaeos.

There are three poems belonging to the 16th and 17th centuries which have obtained wide popularity among the Greeks. The first is the Erotocritos, the epic poem of modern Greece, of about 11,400 lines. Of its author Vincenzo Cornaro, a Cretan, we know almost nothing; but it is probable that he belonged to a noble Venetian family and lived in the middle or towards the end of the 16th century. The tale is one of two lovers who, after many trials of their fidelity to each other, are at last united and blessed. There is genuine poetry in the work. Many of the scenes are charming, and, as Μ. Gidel remarks, there is not a single situation which shocks propriety nor a single sentiment which is not modest and of rare purity. The second poem is a drama called Erop>hde, and its theme is the love of Panaretos and Erophile. The author of it was Georgios Chortakis, who was brought up in Rhethymnos, a Cretan town, and lived towards the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. It was thought to be nearly the only drama of this period; but Sathas has brought to light the fact that there was a considerable number of them, and he has already published three, Zeno, Stathes, and Gyparis, in addition to the Erophile. Some of them are translations, and all of them are closely connected with Italian dramas of the same period. The Erophile has interludes to each act, dealing with an entirely different theme, and most probably written by a different author. The third poem, The Shepherdess, is a charming idyll written by Nicolaos Demetrios, a native of Apocorone in Crete, who lived in the beginning of the 17th century.

There are few prose productions of any importance belonging to the early period of modern Greek literature. Crusius mentions works written by Malaxos, Zigomalas, and Canavoutzis. Sathas has more recently brought to light a number of chroniclers, such as those in the second volume of his Bibliotheca Groeca Medii Aevi, that relate the history of Cyprus, Leontios Machaira, in the beginning of the 15th century, and Georgios Boustronios, whose narrative extends from 1456 to 1501. His sixth volume contains curious documents (the assizes of Cyprus, Cretan wills, ⅛c.), which afford insight into the forms of modern Greek prevalent among the Cypriotes and Cretans, though a considerable number of them are written in classical Greek. Miklosisch and Müller have made a similar collection of documents, Acta et Diplomata Groeca Medii Aevi. Even in the 18th century we find the classical language used much more frequently than the modern. Meletios, the man whose name stands most prominent in this period, wrote his Ecclesiastical History from the time of Christ to the year 1700 in ancient Greek, and his work had to be translated into modern Greek to give it currency among the masses. Another ecclesiastical history by Sergios Makraios, given in the collection of Satha3 (from 1750 to 1800), is written in the same language, and we find some writers like Caisarios Daponte and Meletios using sometimes the ancient and sometimes the modern form. We have almost no attempts at elegant literature in the modern Greek prose of this period. But it is possible that manuscripts containing such works may be hid among private family documents. One has recently been edited by Innocente Damaria (Turin, 1872), The Loves of Erogelos and Erasmia, by Holophilos, which was most probably written between the 12th and 15th centuries, but which might have been written by any one of the Scriptores Erotici, as the language discloses modern forms only in one or two sentences.

In the 18th century a revival of enthusiasm for education and literature took place among the Greeks. Schools were established in every important Greek city, school books and translations from Continental languages poured forth from the presses of Venice, Trieste, Vienna, and other places where the Greeks had influence. The leaders in this movement were Eugenios Bulgarie, Nikephoros Theotokis, and Adamantios Corais. The first two, both natives of Corfu, were devout adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church, warm partisans of Russia, and both became archbishops in the Russo-Greek Church. They were true but narrow patriots. They wrote much in defence of Greek orthodoxy as against Latin heresy. Bulgaris also wrote on philosophy an l Theotokis on physics, and the latter prepared or translated educational treatises on physics, mathematics, and geography. Far before these stands Adamantios Corais, who was above everything a Greek of widest aim and of the greatest culture. He was born in Smyrna in April 1748. He studied nearly every branch of learning, medicine, theology, and literature, in the universities of Italy and France, and then devoted his life to the resuscitation of his country from ignorance and servitude. He edited a very great number of the classical writers, with admirable critical notes, and generally with prolegomena, which tried to awaken the interest of his countrymen in their past glories, and strove to rouse them to emulate their ancestors. He also devoted his attention to the modern language, especially in his "Ατακτα, discussed the writings which had appeared in it, prepared a provisional dictionary of it, and determined the mode in which the popular dialect might become the basis of a literary language.

From the time of Corais we may date a new era in the history of the literature. Henceforth the works become exceedingly numerous, and efforts are made in every direction of literary activity. Perhaps no nation now produces so much literature in proportion to its numbers. The Greeks seem restless in their desire to give expression to their thoughts. They have indeed great difficulties to contend with in the way of publishing. The number of readers is necessarily small, owing to the smallness of the nation. To take an instance, one of their most important periodicals, the Α(9τ)vαιov, containing articles on archaeology and literary history, which should be known to all scholars, had not more than 150 subscribers in 1876, as we arB informed in the preface; 600 copies were published, of which 100 were sent by the university of Athens to the various libraries in Europe and America, 150 were distributed free, and only 150 were subscribed and paid for. The number of subscribers had not increased in August 1879. In these circumstances many rich Greeks have come nobly forward and published books at their own expense; and much credit is due to the Zosimades, the Ralli, and the other Greeks who have served their country in this way. Very frequently scholars produce their best works for periodicals or even newspapers; and some most valuable treatises have been published as supplements to Greek periodicals. Translations of many of the best French novels have also been given away with these periodicals, and occasionally some of our most esteemed English writers have been thus made known to the Greeks; for instance, a translation of the Eride of Lammermoor was published by the editors of the Pandora. These circumstances, while impeding the production of Greek books, also tend to prevent foreigners from knowing exactly what the Greeks have done. Another circumstance that marks this period deserves notice. Almost every literary man of eminence makes efforts in every literary direction. Theologians, scholars, physicians, are all found in the list of poets. The same persons write school-books, histories, dramas, lyrics, and novels. It would be impossible to give even a notion of this endless activity. All that can be done is to point out a few of the principal writers.

In the early part of this period two poets claim our notice, Rlιegas of Velestino in Thessaly, and Christopoulos. Rhegas was the poet of liberty, and his great war song, Δe7τe 7rαιδ∈s τωv Ελλτ)vωv, is well known to English readers through Byron’s translation. He wrote many songs or hymns calculated to rouse his fellow-countrymen, but acting rashly he was seized and shot at Belgrade in 1798 at the age of forty-four. Christopoulos was born in Macedonia in 1770, and died in 1847. He devoted himself to songs of love and wine, and many of his anacreontics are melodious, graceful, and charming. Somewhat later than Christopoulos comes Jacobos Rizos Neroulos, who was born in Constantinople in 1778, and died in 1850. Neroulos wrote lyrics, tragedies, and comedies with considerable success, but his best known book is a work published at Geneva in French in 1826— Cours de la littérature Grecque moderne — and admirably translated into modern Greek by Miss Olympia Abbot of Thessalonica. It is an interesting account of modern Greek literature up to the time at which the lectures were delivered, and is written in a bright and forcible style. It is perhaps rather too favourable to the phanariots, to whom Neroulos himself belonged, but it is an honest defence; and it has to be remembered, on the other hand, that he lashed the vices of the phanariots with great boldness in his comedies. From these writers we pass to the era of the independence of Greece. During this last period three writers have appeared who have established for themselves a permanent place in the history of mankind as men of true genius, Panagiotis Sontsos, Alexander Sontsos, and Alexander Rizos Rangabé. Panagiotis and Alexander Sontsos were brothers, and belonged to the phanariots. They were born in Constantinople in the first quarter of this century, and were educated first in Chios and then in the universities of Italy and France. They threw all their energies into the war for independence, and sang of its glories. But they conceived a determined dislike to Capodistrias. They were Stillmore bitter against Otho, and, adopting extreme opinions and always discontented, they fell out of sympathy with their fellow-countrymen. Panagiotis received high posts of honour at the end of the war of independence, and Alexander was offered great literary distinctions; but the unmitigated abuse and contempt which they both, but especially Alexander, heaped on all men in authority rendered absence from their country a necessity. Alexander died in Smyrna in a hospital in 1863, and Panagiotis died at Athens in utter obscurity in 1868. Both tried various forms of poetry, but as nearly all critics have remarked, Panagiotis was always lyrical and Alexander continually returned to satire, whatever his subject might be. Both had a rich command of musical language, were highly ideal in their conceptions, were strongly patriotic, and possessed an ardent love of liberty. Of the two the muse of Panagiotis strove more after the sublime, but was less steady, less uniformly excellent than that of Alexander. Both were deficient in giving unity to their poems, or in forming a sustained and original plot. The plays of Panagiotis remind one of such works as Bliley’s Festus, where there is a profusion of poetical conceptions but no coherent whole. Many passages in the works of both brothers bear a strong resemblance to lines which are to be found in the writings of poets whom they admired, especially Lamartine, Béranger, and Byron. The spirit of Byron pervades both. The principal works of Panagiotis are 'Οδοιπόρος (The Traveller), a drama in five nets, for which Byron’s Manfred stood as model; M∈σσiας η τα πάθη ’ ∖ ησoυ Xpurτoι> (The Messiah), also a drama in five act3; and three other plays Vlachavas, Caraiscakis, and The Unknown, in all of which there is an utter want of character and plot, and a rich store of poetry; a novel, Leandros, and many lyrics, especially Ή Kι0αpα, first published in 1835. He tried in his later days to strike out a new style in modern Greek, but his effort was unsuccessful. Alexander’s principal works are—Πανόραμα τη<s 'Ελλάδος, a collection of poems for the most part bitterly satirical, recently republished by Legrand at the end of his grammar; ‘O Πepi7rλαvωμεvoς (The Wanderer), a poem which was suggested by and contains many direct imitations of Byron’s Childe Harold ; and several comedies, The Prodigal, The Premier, The Untamed Poet, and The Constitutional School, and numerous 0de3 and lyrical pieces. He also wrote one comico-tragic novel, ’Εξόριστος του 1831, or The Banished One of 1831.

The other great poet that regenerated Greece has produced is Alexander Rizos Rangabé. He was born in Constantinople early in the century, and belonged like the Sontzos to a phanariot family. He thus describes his own career :—“A pupil of Vardalachos and Gennadios, he completed his studies at the military school and at the university of Munich. In his own country he was at first an artillery officer, then a councillor in the ministry of public instruction and also in that of the interior, professor of archaeology in the university (of Athens), minister for foreign affairs, deputy, and later on representative of his country in different foreign countries.” His works are of wide range. He has written a grammar of modern Greek, contributed to a dictionary and a cyclopaedia, composed a history of ancient Greece, and edited many school-books. He has written an able work on ancient art, and an exceedingly valuable and scholarly work on inscriptions, A ntiquites Hellenitpies. He has contributed much to the Pandora, the Archoeological Journal, and the Branistes. He has narrated the results of his travels, and discussed mathematical problems. He ha3 also composed several novels. And he has written a history of the literature of modern Greece, —bright, genial, sparkling, and full of true and sometimes trenchant criticism. It is on his poems, however, that his claime to remembrance will specially rest. In these he shows fine poetic feeling, a rare command of exquisite and harmonious language, and a singular beauty and purity of thought and sentiment. His poetical works consist of a large collection of hymns, odes, and songs; long narrative poems; ballads; four tragedies and three comedies; translations of the Antigone of Sophocles, and of three plays of Aristophanes.

Besides these three poets there is a great number of writers who have composed poetry of considerable merit, but we cau only mention the names of a few,—Valaoritis, Zalacostas, Salomos, Vlachos, Cokkinakis, Carasoutsas, Tantalides, Zampelios, Orphanides, Cleon and E. Rangabé, Euphrosyne Samartsidis, and Antoniadis. Elias Tantalides, who for a long time was blind and who died a few years ago, published an interesting collection of songs, including nursery rhymes and school songs, with music (Athens, 1876). The production of poetry was much stimulated by an nnnual poetical contest. A sum of money was set aside for prizes, poems were sent in, judges were named, and when all was ready, a speech was delivered in the university by the convener of the judges, assigning their reasons for their decision and giving criticisms of the poems. The envelope of the successful candidate was then opened, and he received the laurel wreath with a thousand drachms. From what is stated in the A thenaion of Athens for May, June, July, and August 1878, where the exposition of the contest of 1877 is given, it would seem that probably that of 1877 was to be the last. Amongst the poets of recent days special mention should be made of Chrestos A. Parmenides, who while in Manchester did much to make the works of his fellow-countrymen known to Englishmen, and the best works in recent English literature to Greece. Among other things he translated Roscoe’s Life of Lorenzo dd Medici, Byron’s Sardanapalus, Villemain’s Lascaris, and poems of Goldsmith, Bryant, Burns. Goethe, and Victor Hugo. He also wrote original poems of great merit, and a novel called Εύγααα. Two writers have distinguished themselves by poetic compositions in ancient Greek, Leukias and Philippυs-Joannes.

The drama is a form of poetry to which the Greeks feel peculiarly prone. Rangabé gives a list of ninety writers of dramas in his History of Modern Greek Literature, and the list he says is incomplete. Out of these writers we may select for notice Demetrios N. Bernardakis, whose Μαρία Δofα7τατp^, “Maria, the daughter of Doxapater,” with its prolegomena, has deservedly attracted much attention and been analysed by Gidel.

In prose there is no department of literature which is not well represented. In history the Greeks are particularly strong. Perrhaevos has described with great vigour the exploits of Suli. Tricoupis’s History of the Devolution is a masterly work. Philemon has given the Russian side of the revolutionary movements with great earnestness; and nearly every man who took a part in the movements has handed down his recollections, or, as in the case of Colocotronis, who was illiterate, has dictated them to some one who could put them into shape. The Greeks have been particularly active in investigating the history of the Byzantine empire, of the Venetian domination, and of special localities. The history of Paparrhegopoulos is especially valuable in regard to the later periods, and its style is singularly clear and flowing. Along with him should be mentioned Sakellion, Sakellarios, Sathas, Byzantios, Monstoxydes, Dragonmis, Triantaphyllis, and Paspatis. In theology (Economos stands forth as the first of preachers, occupying the place which Miniatis held as a popular orator in the 17th century. Contogonis is well known by his History of Patristic Literature down to the Fourth Century, and Bryennios by his edition of Clemens Pomanus. Braila stands first among Greek philosophers for profoundness and originality. Along with him may be mentioned Vamvas and Renieri. Greeks have also distinguished themselves in medicine, but very frequently they write their scientific books in French. They have also produced many treatises on law, political economy, and on mathematics and the physical sciences. Little has been accomplished in the way of original novel-writing. We have seen that Panagiotis and Alexander Sontsos and Rangabé wrote novels, and others have done so likewise, but with moderate success. One recent work, Ή Πάπισσα ’Ιωάννα, by Roidos, has gained considerable popularity, and is written in an attractive and vigorous style. Another novelist, Stephanos Xenos, is known to English readers by his work on the Ionian Islands called Hast and West. He is the author of a novel called the Devil in Turkey, and he wrote in Greek an interesting account of the Exhibition in London in 1851. Several ladies have distinguished themselves in the field of Greek literature. Especially deserving of mention is Dora d’Istria, wh03e work on the Women of the West, contributed to the Pandora and forming a pendant to her Women of the Hast, written in French, shows remarkable powers of research, exposition, and criticism. The Greeks, as might have been expected, have produced good editions of the classical writers. They have also done much to elucidate the archaeology of their country, though most of their works on this subject are written in foreign languages. Among these works especially deserving mention are Ancient Athens of Pittakis, in French; the Gravestones of the Ancient Greeks, by Pervanoglous, in German; the Hellenic Antiquities, by Rangabé, in French; the Sepulchral Iηscηp tions of Attica, by Coumanoudis, in modern Greek; and Dodona and its Ruins, by Carapan03, in French. The works of Lambros on numismatics arc of great value. The Greeks have also contributed much to a knowledge of the ancient Greek language. Asopios has gained a great name in this direction, and the contributions of Constantinos Contos are very valuable. They have also done much to collect materials for a knowledge of existing dialects. Investigations have been made into the dialects of the Tzaconiansby Oeconomos andNeo-LoCrian by Clιalkiopoulos, and lists of peculiar words and forms to be found in Cythera, Chios, Crete, Cyprus, Locris, and other places, have appeared in Pandora and other journals. Castorchis hae written much and well on Latin literature. The Greeks have a very large number of newspapers and journals, if we consider the number of the population; but, as might be expected, their existence is precarious, and many are short lived. Translations abound in modern Greek, especially from the French, but the Greeks have also translated classical English and German works, and novels of all kinds. The translations include those of Müller and Donaldson’s History of Greek Literature by Valettas, and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth by Bikelas.

Authorities. — A. R. Rangabé, Histoire Littéraire de la Grèce Moderne, Paris, 1877; Dr Rudolf Nicolai, Geschichte der ηeugriech~ ischen Literatur, Leipsic, 1876; Alfred Bougeault, Histoire des Littératures Étrangères, vol. iii., Paris, 1876; A. Papadopoulos Bretos, 'Neoeλληvι ∣ O) Φιλολογία, Athens, 1854-57; Constantinos Sathas, Neoeλλψακ⅛ Φιλολογία, Athens, 1868; the work of Rizos Neroulos, and the collections of Mavophrydis, Legrand, Wagner, and Sathas mentioned above; Leake, Researches in Greece, London, 1814; short sketches of the literature in J. Donaldson’s Modern Greek Grammar, Edin., 1853, in Geldart, The Modern Greek Language, 1870, and in Sargeant’s New Greece. A full account of modern Greek grammars is given in Mullach’s Grammatik der Griechischen Vulgarsprache·, Berlin, 1856, and in the prefaces by Legrand to the Grammar of Sophianos, Paris, 1874, and his own Grammaire Grecque Moderne, Paris, 1878. Dictionaries:—Kind, Modern Greek and German ; Byzantios and Dehèque, Modern Greek and French; Contopoulos, Modern Greek and English·, Sophocles, Byzantine Greek and English. Collections of Modern Greek Poetry :—Chantseris, Ne'oς 'Eλληvικl>ς Παρνασσός, Athens, 1841; Tepharikis, Παρνασσός, Athens, 1868; Antonio Manaraki, Neugriechischer Parnass, Berlin, 1879. Selections of poems:—Kind’s Neugriechische Anthologie, Leipsic, 1847; J. Donaldson, Lyra Groeca, Edin., 1854; Felton’s Selections from Modern Greek Writers in Prose and Poetry, Cambridge, U. S., 1857; Vincent and Dickson, Handbook of Modern Greek, London, 1879. Collections of ballads by Fauriel, Zampelios, Passow, Tepharikis, Legrand, and of Cretan ballads by Anton Jeannaraki. Discussion of the modern Greek language and of ballads in Professor Blackie’s Horae Hellenicoe, 1874, and of the ballads in Tozer’s Researches in the Highlands of Turkey, 1869. (J. 1>, ) [table]