Chapter IV: , VII (103)

Being appointed guardian to the Kings, as the children and
relatives of Alexander were called, he returned to Macedonia,
leading them with him. … Antipater died (Olympiad 115, 3)
shortly after his return to Macedonia. He directed that
Polysperchon, his ancient mate in arms, should succeed him in
his office, while to his son Cassander he left only the second
place. But Cassander, an ambitious youth, looked upon his
father's authority as his inheritance; and relying on the aid
of the aristocratic party in the Grecian states, of Ptolemæus,
who ruled in Egypt, and of Antigonus, the most powerful
general in Asia, he resolved to dispute it with Polysperchon.
{1600}
Under pretext of going a-hunting, he escaped out of Macedonia,
and passed over to Asia to concert matters with Antigonus.
Polysperchon, seeing war inevitable, resolved to detach
Greece, if possible, from Cassander. Knowing that the
oligarchies established in the different states by Antipater
would be likely to espouse the cause of his son, he issued a
pompous edict, in the name of the Kings, restoring the
democracies. … At Athens (Olympiad 115,4) [B. C. 317],
Nicanor, who commanded in the Munychia, finding that the
people were inclined toward Polysperchon, secretly collected
troops, and seized the Piræeus. The people sent to him
Phocion, Conon the son of Timotheüs, and Clearchus, men of
distinction, and his friends; but to no purpose. A letter also
came to him from Olympias, Alexander's mother, whom
Polysperchon had recalled from Epeirus, and given the charge
of her infant grandson, ordering him to surrender both the
Munychia and the Piræeus; but to as little effect. Finally,
Polysperchon's son Alexander entered Attica with an army, and
encamped before the Piræeus. Phocion and other chiefs of the
aristocracy went to Alexander, and advised him not to give
these places up to the people, but to hold them himself till
the contest with Cassander should be terminated. They feared,
it is evident, for their own safety, and not without reason;
for the people, ferocious with the recovery of power, soon
after held an assembly, in which they deposed all the former
magistrates, appointed the most furious democrats in their
room, and passed sentences of death, banishment, and
confiscation of goods on those who had governed under the
oligarchy. Phocion and his friends fled to Alexander, who
received them kindly, and sent them with letters in their
favor to his father, who was now in Phocis. The Athenians also
despatched an embassy, and, yielding to motives of interest,
Polysperchon sent his suppliants prisoners to Athens, to stand
a trial for their lives before the tribunal of an anarchic
mob. … The prisoners were condemned and led off to prison,
followed by the tears of their friends and the triumphant
execrations of their mean-spirited enemies. They drank the
fatal hemlock-juice, and their bodies were cast unburied
beyond the confines of Attica. Four days after the death of
Phocion, Cassander arrived at the Piræeus with 35 ships,
carrying 4,000 men, given him by Antigonus. Polysperchon
immediately entered Attica with 20,000 Macedonian foot and
4,000 of those of the allies, 1,000 horse, and 65 elephants,
which he had brought from Asia, and encamped near the Piræeus.
But as the siege was likely to be tedious, and sufficient
provisions for so large an army could not be had, he left a
force such as the country could support with his son
Alexander, and passed with the remainder into Peloponnesus, to
force the Megalopolitans to submit to the Kings; for they
alone sided with Cassander, all the rest having obeyed the
directions to put to death or banish his adherents. The whole
serviceable population of Megalopolis, slaves included,
amounted to 15,000 men; and under the directions of one Damis,
who had served in Asia under Alexander, they prepared for a
vigorous defence. Polysperchon sat down before the town, and
his miners in a short time succeeded in throwing down three
towers and a part of the wall. He attempted a storm, but was
obliged to draw off his men, after an obstinate conflict. …
The Athenians meantime saw themselves excluded from the sea,
and from all their sources of profit and enjoyment, while
little aid was to be expected from Polysperchon, who had been
forced to raise the siege of Megalopolis, and whose fleet had
just now been destroyed by Antigonus in the Hellespont. A
citizen of some consideration ventured at length to propose in
the assembly an arrangement with Cassander. The ordinary
tumult at first was raised, but the sense of interest finally
prevailed. Peace was procured, on the conditions of the
Munychia remaining in Cassander's hands till the end of the
present contest; political privileges being restricted to
those possessed of ten minas and upwards of property, and a
person appointed by Cassander being at the head of the
government. The person selected for this office was Demetrius
of Phaleron, a distinguished Athenian citizen; and under his
mild and equitable rule the people were far happier than they
could have been under a democracy, for which they had proved
themselves no longer fit. Cassander then passed over into
Peloponnesus, and laid siege to Tegea. While here, he heard
that Olympias had put to death several of his friends in
Macedonia; among the rest, Philip Aridæus and his wife
Eurydice, members of the royal family. He at once (Olympiad
116, 1) [B. C. 316] set out for Macedonia; and, as the pass of
Pylæ was occupied by the Ætolians, he embarked his troops in
Locris, and landed them in Thessaly. He besieged Olympias in
Pydna, forced her to surrender, and put her to death.
Macedonia submitted to him, and he then set forth for
Peloponnesus, where Polysperchon's son Alexander was at the
head of an army. He forced a passage through Pylæ, and coming
into Bœotia, announced his intention of restoring Thebes,
which had now lain desolate for twenty years. The scattered
Thebans were collected; the towns of Bœotia and other parts of
Greece (Athens in particular), and even of Italy and Sicily,
aided to raise the walls and to supply the wants of the
returning exiles, and Thebes was once more numbered among the
cities of Greece. As Alexander guarded the Isthmus, Cassander
passed to Megara, where he embarked his troops and elephants,
and crossed over to Epidaurus. He made Argos and Messene come
over to his side, and then returned to Macedonia. In the
conflict of interests which prevailed in this anarchic period,
Antigonus was ere long among the enemies of Cassander. He sent
one of his generals to Laconia, who, having obtained
permission from the Spartans to recruit in Peloponnesus,
raised 8,000 men. The command in Peloponnesus was given to
Polysperchon, whose son Alexander was summoned over to Asia to
accuse Cassander of treason before the assembly of the
Macedonian soldiers. Cassander was proclaimed a public enemy
unless he submitted to Antigonus; at the same time the Greeks
were declared independent, Antigonus hoping thus to gain them
over to his side. He then sent Alexander back with 500
talents; and when Ptolemæus of Egypt heard what Antigonus had
done, he also hastened to declare the independence of the
Greeks; for all the contending generals were anxious to stand
well with the people of Greece, from which country, exclusive
of other advantages, they drew their best soldiers.
{1601}
… Antigonus, to show the Greeks that he was in earnest in
his promise to restore them to independence, sent one of his
generals, named Telesphorus, with a fleet and army to
Peloponnesus, who expelled Cassander's garrisons from most of
the towns. The following year (Olympiad 117, 1) [B. C. 312] he
sent an officer, named Ptolemæus, with another fleet and army
to Greece. Ptolemæus landed in Bœotia, and being joined by
2,200 foot, and 1,300 horse of the Bœotians, he passed over to
Eubœa; where having expelled the Macedonian garrison from
Chalcis (the only town there which Cassander held), he left it
without any foreign garrison, as a proof that Antigonus meant
fairly. He then took Orôpus, and gave it to the Bœotians; he
entered Attica, and the people forced Demetrius Phalereus to
make a truce with him, and to send to Antigonus to treat of an
alliance. Ptolemæus returned to Bœotia, expelled the garrison
from the Cadmeia, and liberated Thebes."

_T. Keightley,
History of Greece,
part 3, chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 58 (volume 7)._

GREECE: B. C. 307-197.
Demetrius and the Antigonids.

In the spring of the year 307 B. C. Athens was surprised by an
expedition sent from Ephesus by Antigonus, under his
adventurous son Demetrius, surnamed Poliorcetes.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301.

The city had then been for ten years subject to Cassander, the
ruling chief in Macedonia for the time, and appears to have
been mildly governed by Cassander's lieutenant, Demetrius the
Phalerian. The coming of the other Demetrius offered nothing
to the Athenians but a change of masters, but they welcomed
him with extravagant demonstrations. Their degeneracy was
shown in proceedings of Asiatic servility. They deified
Demetrius and his father Antigonus, erected altars to them and
appointed ministering priests. After some months spent at
Athens in the enjoyment of these adulations, Demetrius
returned to Asia, to take part in the war which Antigonus was
waging with Ptolemy of Egypt and Lysimachus of Thrace, two of
his former partners in the partition of the empire of
Alexander. He was absent three years, and then returned, at
the call of the Athenians, to save them from falling again
into the hands of Cassander. He now made Athens his capital,
as it were, for something more than a year, while he acquired
control of Corinth, Argos, Sicyon, Chalcis in Eubœa and other
important places, greatly reducing the dominion of the
Macedonian, Cassander. His treatment at Athens, during this
period, was marked by the same impious and disgraceful
servility as before. He was called the guest of the goddess
Athene and lodged in the Parthenon, which he polluted with
intolerable debaucheries. But in the summer of 301 B. C. this
clever adventurer was summoned again to Asia, to aid his
father in the last great struggle, which decided the partition
of the empire of Alexander between his self-constituted heirs.
At the battle of Ipsus (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301),
Antigonus perished and Demetrius was stripped of the kingdom
he expected to inherit. He turned to Athens for consolation,
and the fickle city refused to admit him within her walls. But
after some period of wanderings and adventures the
unconquerable prince got together a force with which he
compelled the Athenians to receive him, on more definite terms
of submission on their part and of mastery on his. Moreover,
he established his rule in the greater part of Peloponnesus,
and finally, on the death of Cassander (B. C. 297), he
acquired the crown of Macedonia. Not satisfied with what
fortune had thus given him, he attempted to recover the
Asiatic kingdom of his father, and died, B. C. 283, a captive
in the hands of the Syrian monarch, Seleucus. His Macedonian
kingdom had meantime been seized by Pyrrhus of Epirus; but it
was ultimately recovered by the eldest legitimate son of
Demetrius, called Antigonus Gonatus. From that time, for a
century, until the Romans came, not only Macedonia, but Greece
at large, Athens included, was ruled or dominated by this king
and his descendants, known as the Antigonid kings.

_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapters 59-60 (volumes 7-8)._

GREECE: B. C. 297-280.
Death of Cassander.
Intrigues and murders of Ptolemy Keraunos and his strange
acquisition of the Macedonian throne.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280.

GREECE: B. C. 280-279.
Invasion by the Gauls.

See GAULS: B. C. 280-279.

GREECE: B. C. 280-275.
Campaigns of Pyrrhus in Italy and Sicily.

See ROME: B. C. 282-275.

GREECE: B. C. 3d Century.
The Hellenistic world.

As the result of the conquests of Alexander and the wars of
his successors, there were, in the third century before
Christ, three great Hellenistic kingdoms, Macedonia, Egypt,
Syria, which lasted, each under its own dynasty, till Rome
swallowed them up. The first of these, which was the poorest,
and the smallest, but historically the most important,
included the ancestral possessions of Philip and Alexander—
Macedonia, most of Thrace, 'Thessaly, the mountainous centre
of the peninsula, as well as a protectorate more or less
definite and absolute over Greece proper, the Cyclades, and
certain tracts of Caria. … Next came Egypt, including Cyrene
and Cyprus, and a general protectorate over the sea-coast
cities of Asia Minor up to the Black Sea, together with claims
often asserted with success on Syria, and on the coast lands
of Southern Asia Minor. … Thirdly came what was now called
Syria, on account of the policy of the house of Seleucus, who
built there its capital, and determined to make the Greek or
Hellenistic end of its vast dominions its political centre of
gravity. The Kingdom of Syria owned the south and south-east
of Asia Minor, Syria, and generally Palestine, Mesopotamia,
and the mountain provinces adjoining it on the East, with
vague claims further east when there was no king like
Sandracottus to hold India and the Punjaub with a strong hand.
There was still a large element of Hellenism in these remote
parts. The kingdom of Bactria was ruled by a dynasty of kings
with Greek names—Euthydemus is the chief—who coined in Greek
style, and must therefore have regarded themselves as
successors to Alexander. There are many exceptions and
limitations to this general description, and many secondary
and semi-independent kingdoms, which make the picture of
Hellenism infinitely various and complicated. There was, in
fact, a chain of independent kingdoms reaching from Media to
Sparta, all of which asserted their complete freedom, and
generally attained it by balancing the great powers one
against the other.
{1602}
Here they are in their order. Atropatene was the kingdom in
the northern and western parts of the province of Media, by
Atropates, the satrap of Alexander, who claimed descent from
the seven Persian chiefs who put Darius I. on the throne. Next
came Armenia, hardly conquered by Alexander, and now
established under a dynasty of its own. Then Cappadocia, the
land in the heart of Asia Minor, where it narrows between
Cilicia and Pontus, ruled by sovereigns also claiming royal
Persian descent. … Fourthly, Pontus, under its equally
Persian dynast Mithridates—a kingdom which makes a great
figure in Eastern history under the later Roman Republic.
There was moreover a dynast of Bithynia, set up and supported
by the robber state of the Celtic Galatians, which had just
been founded, and was a source of strength and of danger to
all its neighbours. Then Pergamum, just being founded and
strengthened by the first Attalid, Philetærus, an officer of
Lysimachus, and presently to become one of the leading
exponents of Hellenism. … Almost all these second-rate
states (and with them the free Greek cities of Heracleia,
Cyzicus, Byzantium, &c.) were fragments of the shuttered
kingdom of Lysimachus. … We have taken no account of a very
peculiar feature extending all through even the Greek
kingdoms, especially that of the Selucids—the number of large
Hellenistic cities founded as special centres of culture, or
points of defence, and organized as such with a certain local
independence. These cities, most of which we only know by
name, were the real backbone of Hellenism in the world.
Alexander had founded seventy of them, all called by his name.
Many were upon great trade lines, like the Alexandria which
still exists. Many were intended as garrison towns in the
centre of remote provinces, like Candahar—a corruption of
Iskanderieh, Iskendar being the Oriental form for Alexander.
Some were mere outposts, where Macedonian soldiers were forced
to settle, and guard the frontiers against the barbarians,
like the Alexandria on the Iaxartes. … As regards Seleucus
… we have a remarkable statement from Appian that he founded
cities through the length and breadth of his kingdom, viz.,
sixteen Antiochs called after his father, five Laodiceas after
his mother, nine Seleucias after himself, three Apameias and
one Stratoniceia after his wives. … All through Syria and
Upper Asia there are many towns bearing Greek and Macedonian
names—Berea, Edessa, Perinthos, Aclæa, Pella, &c. The number
of these, which have been enumerated in a special catalogue by
Droysen, the learned historian of Hellenism, is enormous, and
the first question which arises in our mind is this: where
were Greek-speaking people found to fill them? It is indeed
true that Greece proper about this time became depopulated,
and that it never has recovered from this decay. … Yet …
the whole population of Greece would never have sufficed for
one tithe of the cities—the great cities—founded all over
Asia by the Diadochi. We are therefore driven to the
conclusion that but a small fraction, the soldiers and
officials of the new cities, were Greeks—Macedonians, when
founded by Alexander himself—generally broken down veterans,
mutinous and discontented troops, and camp followers. To these
were associated people from the surrounding country, it being
Alexander's fixed idea to discountenance sporadic country life
in villages and encourage town communities. The towns
accordingly received considerable privileges. … The Greek
language and political habits were thus the one bond of union
among them, and the extraordinary colonizing genius of the
Greek once more proved itself."

_J. P. Mahaffy,
The Story of Alexander's Empire,
chapter 10._

See, also,
HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE.

GREECE: B. C. 280-146.
The Achaian League.
Its rise and fall.
Destruction of Sparta.
Supremacy of Rome.

The Achaian League, which bore a leading part in the affairs
of Greece during the last half of the third and first half of
the second century before Christ, was in some sense the
revival of a more ancient confederacy among the cities of
Achaia in Peloponnesus. The older League, however, was
confined to twelve cities of Achaia and had little weight,
apparently, in general Hellenic politics. The revived League
grew beyond the territorial boundaries which were indicated by
its name, and embraced the larger part of Peloponnesus. It
began about 280 B. C. by the forming of a union between the
two Achaian cities of Patrai and Dyme. One by one their
neighbors joined them, until ten cities were confederated and
acting as one. "The first years of the growth of the Achaian
League are contemporary with the invasion of Macedonia and
Greece by the Gauls and with the wars between Pyrrhos and
Antigonos Gonatas.

See MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 277-244.

Pyrrhos, for a moment, expelled Antigonos from the Macedonian
throne, which Antigonos recovered while' Pyrrhos was warring
in Peloponnesos. By the time that Pyrrhos was dead, and
Antigonos again firmly fixed in Macedonia, the League had
grown up to maturity as far as regarded the cities of the old
Achaia. … Thus far, then, circumstances had favoured the
quiet and peaceful growth of the League." It had had the
opportunity to grow firm enough and strong enough, on the
small scale, to offer some lessons to its disunited and
tyrannized neighbors and to exercise an attractive influence
upon them. One of the nearest of these neighbors was Sikyon,
which groaned under a tyranny that had been fastened upon it
by Macedonian influence. Among the exiles from Sikyon was a
remarkable young man named Aratos, or Aratus, to whom the
successful working of the small Achaian League suggested some
broader extension of the same political organism. In B. C.
251, Aratos succeeded in delivering his native city from its
tyrant and in bringing about the annexation of Sikyon to the
Achaian League. Eight years later, having meantime been
elected to the chief office of the League, Aratos accomplished
the expulsion of the Macedonians and their agents from
Corinth, Megara, Troizen and Epidauros, and persuaded those
four cities to unite themselves with the Achaians. During the
next ten years he made similar progress in Arkadia, winning
town after town to the federation, until the Arkadian federal
capital, Megalopolis, was enrolled in the list of members, and
gave to the League its greatest acquisition of energy and
brain. In 229 B. C. the skill of Aratos and the prestige of
the League, taking advantage of disturbances in Macedonia,
effected the withdrawal of the Macedonian garrisons from
Athens and the liberation of that city, which did not become
confederated with its liberators, but entered into alliance
with them. Argos was emancipated and annexed, B. C. 228, and
"the League was now the greatest power of Greece.
{1603}
A Federation of equal cities, democratically governed,
embraced the whole of old Achaia, the whole of the Argolic
peninsula, the greater part of Arkadia, together with Phlious,
Sikyon, Corinth, Megara, and the island of Aigina." The one
rival of the Achaian League in Peloponnesus was Sparta, which
looked with jealousy upon its growing power, and would not be
confederated with it. The consequences of that jealous rivalry
were fatal to the hopes for Greece which the Achaian union had
seemed to revive. Unfortunately, rather than otherwise, the
Lacedæmonian throne came to be occupied at this time by the
last of the hero-kings of the Herakleid race—Kleomenes. When
the inevitable collision of war between Sparta and the League
occurred (B. C. 227-221), the personal figure of Kleomenes
loomed so large in the conflict that it took the name of the
Kleomenic War. Aratos was the worst of generals, Kleomenes one
of the greatest, and the Achaians were steadily beaten in the
field. Driven to sore straits at last, they abandoned the
whole original purpose of their federation, by inviting the
king of Macedonia to help them crush the independence of
Sparta. To win his aid they gave up Corinth to him, and under
his leadership they achieved the shameful victory of Sellasia
(B. C. 221), where all that is worthy in Lacedæmonian history
came to an end. The League was now scarcely more than a
dependency of the Macedonian kingdom, and figured as such in
the so-called Social War with the Ætolian League, B. C.
219-217. The wars of Rome with Macedonia which followed
renewed its political importance considerably for a time.
Becoming the ally of Rome, it was able to maintain a certain
dignity and influence until the supremacy of the Roman arms
had been securely proved, and then it sank to the helpless
insignificance which all Roman alliances led to in the end. It
was in that state when, on some complaint from Rome (B. C.
167), a thousand of the chief citizens of Achaia were sent as
prisoners to Italy and detained there until less than 300
survived to return to their homes. Among them was the
historian Polybios. A little later (B. C. 146) there was a
wild revolt from the Roman yoke, in which Corinth took the
lead. A few months of war ensued, ending in a decisive battle
at Leukopetra. Then Corinth was sacked and destroyed by the
Roman army and the Achaian League disappeared from history.

_E. A. Freeman,
History of Federal Government,
chapters 5-9._

ALSO IN:
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapters 61-66 (volume 8)._

_Polybius,
History._

GREECE: B. C. 214-146.
The Roman conquest.

The series of wars in which the Romans made themselves masters
of Greece were known in their annals as the Macedonian Wars.
At the beginning, they were innocent of aggression. A young
and ambitious but unprincipled king of Macedonia—Philip, who
succeeded the able Antigonos Doson—had put himself in
alliance with the Carthaginians and assailed the Romans in the
midst of their desperate conflict with Hannibal. For the time
they were unable to do more than trouble Philip so far as to
prevent his bringing effective reinforcements to the enemy at
their doors, and this they accomplished in part by a treaty
with the Ætolians, which enlisted that unscrupulous league
upon their side. The first Macedonian war, which began B. C.
214, was terminated by the Peace of Dyrrachium, B. C. 205. The
Peace was of five years duration, and Philip employed it in
reckless undertakings against Pergamus, against Rhodes,
against Athens, everyone of which carried complaints to Rome,
the rising arbiter of the Mediterranean world, whose hostility
Philip lost no opportunity to provoke. On the Ides of March,
B. C. 200, the Roman senate declared war. In the spring of B.
C. 197 this second Macedonian War was ended at the battle of
Cynoscephalæ—so called from the name of a range of hills
known as the Dog-heads—where the Macedonian army was
annihilated by the consul T. Quinctius Flamininus. At the next
assembly of the Greeks for the Isthmian Games, a crier made
proclamation in the arena that the Roman Senate and T.
Quinctius the General, having conquered King Philip and the
Macedonians, declared all the Greeks who had been subject to
the king free and independent. Henceforth, whatever freedom
and independence the states of Greece enjoyed were according
to the will of Rome. An interval of twenty-five years, broken
by the invasion of Antiochus and his defeat by the Romans at
Thermopylæ (see SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187), was followed by a
third Macedonian War. Philip was now dead and succeeded by his
son Perseus, known to be hostile to Rome and accused of
intrigues with her enemies. The Roman Senate forestalled his
intentions by declaring war. The war which opened B. C. 171
was closed by the battle of Pydna, fought June 22, B. C. 168,
where 20,000 Macedonians were slain and 11,000 taken
prisoners, while the Romans lost scarcely 100 men. Perseus
attempted flight, but was soon driven to give himself up and
was sent to Rome. The Macedonian kingdom was then extinguished
and its territory divided between four nominal republics,
tributary to Rome. Twenty years after, there was an attempt
made by a pretender to re-establish the Macedonian throne, and
a fourth Macedonian War occurred; but it was soon finished (B.
C. 146—see above, B. C. 280-146). The four republics then
gave way, to form a Roman province of Macedonia and Epirus,
while the remainder of Greece, in turn, became the Roman
province of Achaia.

_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapters 64-66 (volume 8)._

ALSO IN:
_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
chapters 39, 43 and 45._

_E. A. Freeman,
History of Federal Government,
chapters 8-9._

_Polybius,
General History._

GREECE: B. C. 191.
War of Antiochus of Syria and the Romans.

See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187.

GREECE: B. C. 146-A. D. 180.
Under the Romans, to the reign of Marcus Aurelius.
Sufferings in the Mithridatic war and revolt,
and in the Roman civil wars.
Treatment by the emperors.
Munificence of Herodes Atticus.

"It was some time [after the Roman conquest] before the Greeks
had great reason to regret their fortune. A combination of
causes, which could hardly have entered into the calculations
of any politician, enabled them to preserve their national
institutions, and to exercise all their former social
influence, even after the annihilation of their political
existence. Their vanity was flattered by their admitted
superiority in arts and literature, and by the respect paid to
their usages and prejudices by the Romans. Their political
subjection was at first not very burdensome; and a
considerable portion of the nation was allowed to retain the
appearance of independence.
{1604}
Athens and Sparta were honoured with the title of allies of
Rome. [Athens retained this independent existence, partaking
something of the position of Hamburg in the Germanic body,
until the time of Caracalla, when its citizens were absorbed
into the Roman empire.—Footnote.] The nationality of the
Greeks was so interwoven with their municipal institutions,
that the Romans found it impossible to abolish the local
administration; and an imperfect attempt made at the time of
the conquest of Achaia was soon abandoned. … The Roman
senate was evidently not without great jealousy and some fear
of the Greeks; and great prudence was displayed in adopting a
number of measures by which they were gradually weakened, and
cautiously broken to the yoke of their conquerors. … It was
not until after the time of Augustus, when the conquest of
every portion of the Greek nation had been completed, that the
Romans began to view the Greeks in the contemptible light in
which they are represented by the writers of the capital.
Crete was not reduced into the form of a province until about
eight years after the subjection of Achaia, and its conquest
was not effected without difficulty, after a war of three
years, by the presence of a consular army. The resistance it
offered was so obstinate that it was almost depopulated ere
the Romans could complete its conquest. … The Roman
government … soon adopted measures tending to diminish the
resources of the Greek states when received as allies of the
republic. … If we could place implicit faith in the
testimony of so firm and partial an adherent of the Romans as
Polybius, we must believe that the Roman administration was at
first characterised by a love of justice, and that the Roman
magistrates were far less venal than the Greeks. … Less than
a century of irresponsible power effected a wonderful change
in the conduct of the Roman magistrates. Cicero declares that
the senate made a traffic of justice to the provincials. …
But as the government of Rome grew more oppressive, and the
amount of the taxes levied on the provinces was more severely
exacted, the increased power of the republic rendered any
rebellion of the Greeks utterly hopeless. … For sixty years
after the conquest of Achaia, the Greeks remained docile
subjects of Rome. … The number of Roman usurers increased,
and the exactions of Roman publicans in collecting the taxes
became more oppressive, so that when the army of Mithridates
invaded Greece, B. C. 86, while Rome appeared plunged in
anarchy by the civil broils of the partisans of Marius and
Sylla, the Greeks in office conceived the vain hope of
recovering their independence. …

See MITHRIDATIC WARS;
and ATHENS: B. C. 87-86.

Both parties, during the Mithridatic war, inflicted severe
injuries on Greece. … Many of the losses were never
repaired. The foundations of national prosperity were
undermined, and it henceforward became impossible to save from
the annual consumption of the inhabitants the sums necessary
to replace the accumulated capital of ages, which this short
war had annihilated."

_G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 1._

"Scarcely had the storm of Roman war passed by, when the
Cilician pirates, finding the coasts of Greece peculiarly
favorable for their marauding incursions, and tempted by the
wealth accumulated in the cities and temples, commenced their
depredations on so gigantic a scale that Rome felt obliged to
put forth all her military forces for their suppression. The
exploits of Pompey the Great, who was clothed with autocratic
power to destroy this gigantic evil, fill the brightest
chapter in the history of that celebrated but too unfortunate
commander. …

See CILICIA, PIRATES OF.

The civil wars in which the great Republic expired had the
fields of Greece for their theatre. Under the tramp of
contending armies, her fertile plains were desolated, and
Roman blood, in a cause not her own; again and again moistened
her soil.

See ROME: B. C. 48, 44-42, and 31.

But at length the civil wars have come to an end, and the
Empire introduces, for the first time in the melancholy
history of man, a state of universal peace. Greece still
maintains her pre-eminence in literature and art, and her
schools are frequented by the sons of the Roman aristocracy.
Her elder poets serve as models to the literary genius of the
Augustan age. … The historians form themselves on Attic
prototypes, and the philosophers of Rome divide themselves
among the Grecian sects, while in Athens the Platonists, the
Stoics, the Peripatetics, and the Epicureans still haunt the
scenes with which the names of their masters were inseparably
associated. … The establishment of the Empire made but
little change in the administration of Greece. Augustus,
indeed, showed no great solicitude, except to maintain the
country in subjection by his military colonies,—especially
those of Patræ and Nicopolis. He even deprived Athens of the
privileges she had enjoyed under the Republic, and broke down
the remaining power of Sparta, by declaring the independence
of her subject towns. Some of his successors treated the
country with favor, and endeavored, by a clement use of
authority, to mitigate the sufferings of its decline. Even
Nero, the amiable fiddler of Rome, was proud to display the
extent of his musical abilities in their theatres. … The
noble Trajan allowed the Greeks to retain their former local
privileges, and did much to improve their condition by his
wise and just administration. Hadrian was a passionate lover
of Greek art and literature. Athens especially received the
amplest benefits from his taste and wealth. He finished the
temple of Olympian Zeus; established a public library; built a
pantheon and a gymnasium; rebuilt the temple of Apollo at
Megara; improved the old roads of Greece and made new ones.
… Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius showed good will to Greece.
The latter rebuilt the temple at Eleusis, and improved the
Athenian schools, raising the salaries of the teachers, and in
various ways contributing to make Athens, as it had been
before, the most illustrious seat of learning in the world. It
was in the reign of this Emperor, in the second century of our
era, that one of the greatest benefactors of Athens and all
Greece lived,—Herodes Atticus, distinguished alike for
wealth, learning, and eloquence. Born at Marathon, …
educated at Athens by the best teachers his father's wealth
could procure, he became on going to Rome, in early life, the
rhetorical teacher of Marcus Aurelius himself. Antoninus Pius
bestowed on him the honor of the consulship; but he preferred
the career of a teacher at Athens to the highest political
dignities … , and he was followed thither by young men of
the most eminent Roman families, from the Emperor's down. …
{1605}
At Athens, south of the Ilissus, he built the stadium … and
the theatre of Regilla. … At Corinth he built a theatre; at
Olympia, an aqueduct; at Delphi, a race-course; and at
Thermopylæ, a hospital. Peloponnesus, Eubœa, Bœotia, and
Epeirus experienced his bounty, and even Italy was not
forgotten in the lavish distribution of his wealth. He died in
A. D. 180."

_C. C. Felton,
Greece, Ancient and Modern, 4th course,
lecture 3 (volume 2)._

On the influence which Greek genius and culture exercised upon
the Romans,

See HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE.

ALSO IN:
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome: The Provinces,
chapter 7 (volume 1)._

_J. P. Mahaffy,
The Greek World under Roman Sway._

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 197-A. D. 138.

GREECE: B. C. 48.
Cæsar's campaign against Pompeius.
Pharsalia.

See ROME: B. C. 48.

GREECE: A. D. 258-395.
Gothic invasions.

See GOTHS.

GREECE: A. D. 330.
Transference of the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium
(Constantinople).

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 330.

GREECE: A. D. 394-395.
Final division of the Roman Empire between the sons of
Theodosius.
Definite organization of the Eastern Empire under Arcadius.

See ROME: A. D. 394-395.

GREECE: A. D. 425.
Legal separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.

See Rome: A. D. 423-450.

GREECE: A. D. 446.
Devastating invasion of the Huns.

See HUNS: A. D. 441-446.

GREECE: A. D. 527-567.
The reign of Justinian at Constantinople.
His recovery of Italy and Africa.

See ROME: A. D. 527-567, and 535-553.

GREECE: 7th Century.
Slavonic occupation of the Peninsula.

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES: 6TH AND 7TH CENTURIES.

GREECE: A. D. 717-1205.
The Byzantine Empire to its fall.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 717, to 1204-1205.

GREECE: A. D. 1205-1261.
Overthrow of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders.
The Latin Empire of Romania.
The Greek Empire of Nicæa.
The dukedoms of Athens and Naxos;
The principality of Achaia.

See ROMANIA; GREEK EMPIRE OF NICÆA;
ATHENS: A. D.1205;
ACHAIA: A. D. 1205-1387;
and NAXOS.

GREECE: A. D. 1261-1453.
The restored Byzantine or Greek Empire.

See CONSTANTINOPLE; A. D. 1261-1453;
and BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1261-1453.

GREECE: A. D. 1453-1479.
The Turkish Conquest.

See TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481;
CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1453, and 1453-1481;
and ATHENS: A. D. 1456.

GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479.
War of Turks and Venetians in the Peninsula.
Siege of Corinth.
Sack of Athens.
Massacres at Negropont and Croia.

"The taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the captivity
of the Venetians settled in Pera, threatened [the power of
Venice] … in the East; and she felt no repugnance to enter
into a treaty with the enemies of her religion. After a year's
negotiation, terms were concluded [1454] between the Sultan
and Venice; by which her possessions were secured to her, and
her trade guaranteed throughout the empire. In virtue of this
treaty she continued to occupy Modon, Coron, Napoli di
Romania, Argos, and other cities on the borders of the
Peninsula, together with Eubœa (Negropont) and some of the
smaller islands. But this good understanding was interrupted
in 1463, when the Turks contrived an excuse for attacking the
Venetian territory. Under pretence of resenting the asylum
afforded to a Turkish refugee, the Pasha of the Morea besieged
and captured Argos; and the Republic felt itself compelled
immediately to resent the aggression. A re-inforcement was
sent from Venice to Napoli, and Argos was quickly recaptured.
Corinth was next besieged, and the project of fortifying the
isthmus was once more renewed. … The labour of 30,000
workmen accomplished the work in 15 days; a stone wall of more
than 12 feet high, defended by a ditch and flanked by 136
towers, was drawn across the isthmus. … But the approach
of the Turks, whose numbers were probably exaggerated by
report, threw the Venetians into distrust and consternation;
and, unwilling to confide in the strength of their rampart,
they abandoned the siege of Corinth, and retreated to Napoli,
from which the infidels were repulsed with the loss of 5,000
men. The Peloponnesus was now exposed to the predatory
retaliations of the Turks and Venetians; and the Christians
appeared anxious to rival or surpass the Mahomedans in the
refinement of their barbarous inflictions. … In the year
1465, Sigismondo Malatesta landed in the Morea with a
re-inforcement of 1,000 men; and, without effecting the
reduction of the citadel, captured and burned Misitra [near
the ruins of ancient Sparta]. In the following year, Vittore
Cappello, with the Venetian fleet, arrived in the straits of
Euripus; and landing at Aulis marched into Attica. After
making himself master of the Piræus, he laid siege to Athens;
her walls were overthrown; her inhabitants plundered; and the
Venetians retreated with the spoil to the opposite shores of
Eubœa. The victorious career of Matthias Corvinus, King of
Hungary, for a time diverted the Sultan from the war in the
Morea; but … in the beginning of the year 1470 a fleet of
108 gallies, besides a number of smaller vessels, manned by a
force 70,000 strong, issued from the harbour of
Constantinople, and sailed for the straits of Euripus. … The
army landed without molestation on the island, which they
united to the mainland by a bridge of boats, and immediately
proceeded to lay siege to the city of Negropont. … The hopes
of the besieged were now centred in the Venetian fleet, which,
under the command of Nicolo Canale, lay at anchor in the
Saronic Gulf. But that admiral, whilst he awaited a
re-inforcement, let slip the favourable opportunity of
preventing the debarcation of the enemy, or of shutting up the
Turks in the island by the destruction of their half-deserted
fleet and bridge of boats. By an unaccountable inactivity, he
suffered the city to be attacked, which, after a vigorous
resistance of nearly a month, was carried by assault [July 12,
1470]; and all the inhabitants, who did not escape into the
citadel, were put to the sword. At length that fortress was
also taken; and the barbarous conqueror, who had promised to
respect the head of the intrepid governor, deemed it no
violation of his word to saw his victim in halves. After this
decisive blow, which reduced the whole island, Mahomed led
back his conquering army to Constantinople. … This success
encouraged the Turks to attack the Venetians in their Italian
territory; and the Pasha of Bosnia invaded Istria and Friuli,
and carried fire and sword almost to the gates of Udine.
{1606}
In the following year [1474], however, the Turks were baffled
in their attempt to reduce Scutari in Albania, which had been
delivered by the gallant Scanderbeg to the guardian care of
Venice. Some abortive negotiations for peace suspended
hostilities until 1477, when the troops of Mahomed laid siege
to Croia in Albania, which they reduced to the severest
distress. But a new incursion into Friuli struck a panic into
the inhabitants of Venice, who beheld, from the tops of their
churches and towers, the raging flames which devoured the
neighbouring villages." The Turks, however, withdrew into
Albania, where the siege of Croia was terminated by its
surrender and the massacre of its inhabitants, and the Sultan,
in person, renewed the attack on Scutari. The stubborn
garrison of that stronghold, however, resisted, with fearful
slaughter, a continuous assault made upon their walls during
two days and a night. Mahomed was forced to convert the siege
into a blockade, and his troops reappeared in Friuli. "These
repeated aggressions on her territories made Venice every day
more anxious to conclude a peace with the Sultan," and a
treaty was signed in April, 1479. "It was agreed that the
islands of Negropont and Mitylene, with the cities of Croia
and Scutari in Albania, and of Tenaro in the Morea, should be
consigned to the Turk; whilst other conquests were to be
reciprocally restored to their former owners. A tribute of
10,000 ducats was imposed upon Venice, and the inhabitants of
Scutari [now reduced to 500 men and 150 women] were to be
permitted to evacuate the city."

_Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapter 31 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 5._

GREECE: A. D. 1645-1669.
The war of Candia.
Surrender of Crete to the Turks by the Venetians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1645-1669.

GREECE: A. D. 1684-1696.
Conquests by the Venetians from the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

GREECE: A. D. 1699.
Cession of part of the Morea to Venice by the Turks.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.

GREECE: A. D. 1714-1718.
The Venetians expelled again from the Morea by the Turks.
Corfu defended.

See TURKS: A. D. 1714-1718.

GREECE: A. D. 1770-1772.
Revolt against the Turkish rule.
Russian encouragement and desertion.

See TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774.

GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.
Overthrow of Turkish rule.
Intervention of Russia, England and France.
Battle of Navarino.
Establishment of national independence.