/^, ^ r%- > "■nM Uiu i^"il THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE STORY OF THE NATIONS I3HO, UXUSTRATED, PER VOL., $1.50 ; \i LEATHER, GILT TOP, $1.75 THE EARLIER VOLUMES ARE THE STORY OF GREECE. By Prof. J as. A. Harrison THE STORY OF ROME. By Arthur Oilman THE STORY OF THE JEWS. By Prof. Jas. K. Hosmer THE STORY OF CHALDEA. By Z. A. Ragozin THE STORY OF GERMANY. By S. Baking-Gould THE STORY OF NORWAY. By Prof. H. H. Boyesen THE STORY OF SPAIN. By E. E. and Susan Hale THE STORY OF HUNGARY. By Prof. A. VAMBfiRV THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church THE STORY OF THE SARACENS. By Arthur Gilman THE STORY OF THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By St,\nley Lane-Poole THE STORY OF THE NORMANS. By Sarah O. Jewett THE STORY OF PERSIA. By S. G. W. Benjamin THE STORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. By Geo. Rawlinson THE STORY OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. By Prof. J. P. Mahaffv THE STORY OF ASSYRIA. By Z. A. Ragozin THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Hon. Emily Lawless THE STORY OF THE GOTHS. By Henry Bradley THE STORY OF TURKEY. By Stanley Lane-Poole THE STORY OF MEDIA, BABYLON, ANB PERSIA. By Z. A. Ragozin THE STORY OF MEDIEVAL FRANCE. By Gustave Masson THE STORY OF MEXICO. By Susan Hale THE STORY OF HOLLAND. By James E. Thorold Rogers THE STORY OF PHCENICIA. By George Rawlinson THE STORY OF THE HANSA TOWNS. By Helen Zimmern THE STORY OF EARLY BRITAIN. By Prof. Alfred J. Church THE STORY OF THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. By Stanley Lane-Poole THE STORY OF RUSSIA. By W. R. Morfill THE STORY OF THE JEWS UNDER ROME. By W. D. Morrison THE STORY OF SCOTLAND. By John Mackintosh THE STORY OF SWITZERLAND. By R. Stead and Mrs. A. Hug THE STORY OF PORTUGAL. By H. Morse Stephens THE STORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. By C. W\ C. Oman THE STORY OF SICILY. By E. A. Freeman THE STORY OF THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. By Bella Duffy THE STORY OF POLAND. By W. R. Morfill THE STORY OF PARTHIA. By George Rawlinson THE S TORY OF JAPAN. By David Murray THE STORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF SPAIN. By H. E. Watts THE STORY OF AUSTRALASIA. By Greville Tregarthen THE STORY OF SOUTHERN AFRICA. By Geo. -M. Theal THE STORY OF VENICE. ByALETHEA Wiel TH E STORY OF THE CRUSADES. By T. S. Archer and C. L. Kingsford THE STORY OF VEDIC INDIA. By Z. A. Ragozin THE STORY OF BOHEMIA. By C. E. Maurice nht mox^ of Ihe flalbns THE STORY OF GREECE PROF. JAMES A. /HARRISON WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY J«EW YORK G. P. PIJJNAM'S SONS LONDON :'T. FISHER UNWIN 1896 COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by Ube Ikniclicrbocher press, mew jgocft G. P. Putnam's Sons PREFACE Two principles or rather two passages from the works of a celebrated historian and a celebrated translator have guided the author in the preparation of the following pages. Froude says, in his " Essay on the Study of History " : " Not all things are worth relating, or all historical figures worth describing; but some things and some persons deserve to be commemorated eternally. Stories like those of Thermopylae and Salamis in Herodotus ; the stories of the patriarchs ; the Gos- pel stor)', which, of all records, has cut the deepest into the hearts of mankind ; these and all other nar- ratives of admirable deeds, faithfully told by loyal and honest men, are the true jewels of history, the diamonds in the general gravel-heap. We can leave the gravel where it lies, sifting the gems from the middle of it. The base and mean may be forgotten ; the good and the beautiful alone deserve to survive. Each age will have its creeds and its philosophies, despising all that went before, and in its turn to be despised by the next. Each age will have its politi- cal panaceas for all human ills; and the ills will not be cured by them, and fresh theories will be twined to the end of time, of sun and moonshine, which ±57tl(i&? Iv PREFACE. equally will not avail. But great actions live for ever, and the wise ' remnant ' treasure up the mem- ory of them ; and in looking reverently at what men have done, gather heart and spirit for their own work." An effort has been made in this work to catch and fix the salient outlines of the History of Greece in the spirit of this quotation, and to throw them into a story form which, rid of technicality and superfluous learning, might attract the mind of younger readers and whet their appetites for the larger and more detailed histories of the scientific historians. Wherever it was possible, the great and beautiful deeds, the fine stories, the narratives of admirable actions, the stirring and illustrative anec- dotes to be found in the ancient writers, have been chosen to describe Greek life- and civilization in preference to a dry chronicle of dates and events, which would simply repel without instructing. Ac- cordingly, the author's plan has been to take a skeleton of Greek chronology, as accurate as the many controversies in which the matter is involved would allow, and, upon this substructure, build up a narrative drawn from the picturesque pages of He- rodotus, Thucydides, and Plutarch, leaving aside the commentators and confining himself to the original records handed down from remote times. In choos- ing and arranging his extracts and illustrative pas- sages, the author has been guided by the principles laid down by Prof. Jowett in his recent translation of Thucydides. " It is a commonplace, but one which cannot too PREFA CE. V often be repeated, that we must interpret an ancient writer by himself and by his own age, and not by our modern notions. We must not add on to him our mysteries and moralities, or translate his con- fused modes of thought into our more distinct ones (more distinct, at least, to us). Neither must we measure him by our standards of right and wrong. His range of view may be limited, but we cannot safely enlarge it. Nor can we argue from his incon- sistencies or omissions of details ; nor draw inferences from his precise words, because we cannot expect him to use legal accuracy. * * * " We must accept ancient historians as they are, with their limited ideas and restricted means of knowledge, with their Hellenic conceptions of mo- rality and nature. They are disappointing, like the Elgin marbles, to those who expect to find in them modern sentimentalism or a modern political philoso- phy. But, like the Elgin marbles, to those who can appreciate their simplicity, their beauty, their origi- nality, they will seem to be worth all the rest." It has seemed better to go straight to Herodotus and Thucydides, our main authorities for the history of Greece, and give everywhere their point of view, their stories and anecdotes, their poetry and super- stition, rather than prepare a narrative compounded of the conflicting speculations and controversies to be found in Grote, Cox, Thirlwall, Curtius, and Duncker. These and other modern writers have not been neglected, but as it was the plan of the author to write the Story of Greece, as far as possible, as it appeared to the Greeks themselves (through VI PREFACE. the eyes of the twin historians), the views of the speculative and philosophical schools of modern times have been held in abeyance, and the narrative ha^s been moulded in the simple and graphic lines of an earlier school, untormented as yet by theories of constitutionalism, Hellenic migrations, and the like. In all cases it is hoped that a clear and plain style has been attained, clear and plain enough at least to let the large outlines — and the outlines alone — of the Story of Greece shine through unobscured by needless verbiage. It was intended originally to bring down the narrative through the conquests of Alexander the Great, as a fitting close to the Story of (distinctly) Ancient Greece; but owing to the length of the narrative, the intention was abandoned. The reign of Alexander the Great will thus be left as a dramatic beginning to the story of Roman and By- zantine Greece, which will fill another volume of the series. Wherever it was possible, the author has endeav- ored to enhance the realism of the Story by inter- weaving with it his personal recollections of Eastern scenery and life. In conclusion, he would present his kind acknowl- edgments to Canon Rawlinson, Sir George Cox, Prof. Witt, Miss Younghusband (Prof. Witt's trans- lator), and Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. for permission to use their works, translations, and editions in the preparation of the narrative. CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. I. PAGE Where the Greeks Lived .... i-iS Mediterranean Sea, i — Its length, 2 — Its fjords, 3 — Greek settlements in Mediterranean, 4 — Influence of Greek geogra- phy on Greek life, 4 — Shape of Greece, 5 — Peninsulas, 6 — Influence of the Sea on Greek life, 6 — Mountains of Greece, 7, 8 — Meaning of Hellas, 8 — Size of Greece, 9, 10 — Height of Greek mountains, 10, 11 — Mountain scenery, 11 — Acropolis, Acrocorinthus, and Ithome ; their height, 12 — Rivers, 12, 13 — Springs and plains, 13 — Vegetation and climate, 14, 15, 16 — Sport in Greece, 15, 16 — Archipelago, meaning of, 16, 17 — Islands, 17 — Greek characteristics, 18. II. The Beginning of all Things . . 19-31 Greek worship, 19 — Aryan people, 20 — Origin of my- thology, 21, 22 — Chaos, beginning of all things, 24 — The God Uranus and the Titans, 24 — Tartarus and Cronus, 25 — Rhea and the gods Poseidon, Pluto, etc., 26 — Battle of gods and giants, 27 — The goat Amalthaea, 27 — Typhoeus, 29 — The Golden Age, 30, 31. III. A Further Peep at the Gods . , . 32-49 The great gods Zeus, Apollo, Hermes, Poseidon, Dionysus, and goddesses, Here, Athene, Artemis, Aphrodite, Deme- ter, 32 — Delian Apollo, 33 — Leto, 34 — Demeter and Perse- phone, story of, 35 — Story of Hermes, 38 ; of Dionysus, 39 — General reverence for gods, 43 — Belief in Overruling Providence, 44 — Myths of towns and cities, 45 — Story of Athene and Poseidon, 46 — How Athens got its name, 48. viii CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. IV. PAGR The Tale of Troy 50-57 The Trojan War, 50 — Homer's world, 51 — Legends of Hel- las, 51 — Herodotus and Thucydides as guides to early Greece, 51, 52 — Origin of the war, 52 — Agamemnon, 54 — Odysseus, 54 — Site of Troy, 55, 56 — Mt. Athos and Lemnos, 57. V. How Achilles, Patroclus, and Hector Fought ...... 58-68 Achaians fight nine years before Ilion, 58 — Wrath of Achilles, 58, 59 — Patroclus speaks, 59 ; and fights, 60 ; dies, 61 — The Immortal Horses of Achilles, 62 — Achilles' vow, 62, 63 — Reconciliation of Agamemnon, 64 — Death of Hector, 64 — Andromache's lament, 65 — The Palladium, 65 — Odysseus' stratagem of the wooden horse, 66 — Heroes at Troy, 66 — Who Homer was, and his birthplace, 67 — " Iliad " and " Odyssey," 63. VI. The Wanderings of Odysseus and ^Eneas, 69-76 Wanderings of the heroes after the fall of Troy, 69 — Adven- tures of Odysseus and Penelope, 69, 70 — Story of the Lotus- Eaters, 70 — Odysseus and his men set out for home, 71 — The Lotus Land, 72 — The men eat the Lotus, 73 ; and have to be dragged forcibly to the ship, 74 — Wanderings of iEneas, 76 — The Julian family at Rome, 76. VIL The Foundations of Greece . . . 77-82 The story of Greece, 77 — Period covered by it for our pur- pose, 77, 78 — The three great cities, Athens, Sparta, Thebes, 78 — General outlines only given, 78, 79 — Thucydides' account of prehistoric Hellas, 79, 80 — ^Attica in early times, 80 ; becomes an asylum for refugees, 81 — Hellen and the Pelas- gians, 8i — Homer's names for the Greeks : Danaiins, Argives, Achaians, 82 — Meaning of the word " Barbarian," 82. CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. ix VIII. PAGE The Adventures of Minos, Theseus, and Ari- adne ....... 83-91 Minos, King of Crete, possesses the first navy, 83 — Story of Androgens, his son, 84 — The tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, 84 — The Labyrinth, 85 — Mode of selecting the youths and maidens, 85 — Theseus, son of ^Egeus, King of Athens, sets out for Crete, 86 ; arrives, 87 ; is loved by Ariadne, daughter of Minos, 87 ; gets a clue with which to thread the Labyrinth, 88 ; and kills the Minotaur, 88 ; es- capes with his people, 90 ; deserts Ariadne, 90 — Death of i^geus, 90. IX. The Wonderful Story of Sparta . . 92-110 Contrast between Athens and Sparta, 92 — Meaning and site of " Sparta," 92 — Periaci and Helots, 93 — Lycurgus at Sparta, 94 ; his code, 94 ; date of his life, 95 ; travels, 95 ; establishes senate, 95 ; gets Spartans to renounce their property, 96 ; divides Laconia into lots ; introduces iron money, 97 ; wages war on luxury and seclusion, 97 ; is stoned, 9S — Public Sports of the Spartans, 98 — Rearing of children, 99 — Black broth, 99 — Girls and boys trained alike, 100 — Abhorrence of old bachelors and old maids, 100 — Ex- posure of children, 100 — Nurses, loi — Sparta the first great Kindergarten, loi — Boys taught to steal, 102 — " Quiz clubs," 102 — Meaning of laconic, 103 — Lacedaemonian style and answers, 103, 104 ; their poetry, 104 ; habits before en- gaging in battle, 105 ; their hair, 105 ; despised trade, 106 — Character of Lycurgus, 106 ; rids the Spartans of superstition, 107 ; discourages foreigners from settling in Lacedcemon, 107 — Slaves at Sparta, 108 — Lycurgus calls an extraordinary assembly, 108 ; sets out for Delphi, 109 ; makes the Spartans swear to keep his laws until his return, 109; never returns, 109, no. X. How Delphi Arose and How the Peloponne- sus Looked after the Trojan War, 111-121 CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. Return of the Hellenes from Troy, ill — Boeotian settle- ments, III — Heraclidse reconquer the Peloponnesus, iii, 112 — Athenian and Peloponnesian colonies, 112 — Amphic- tyony, meaning of, 112, 113 ; its rules and ceremonies, 113 — The " Apolline Federation," or Delphic Amphictyony, 114 — Delphi, 114; influence of the priests and priestesses, 116; dialect of their oracles, 116 ; corruption of the oracle, I17 — Agamemnon in the Peloponnesus, 1 18 — Mycenae and its cyclopcean walls, 118 — Argolic cities, 118 — Ionian colonies in Asia Minor, 119 — Miletus and Ephesus founded, 119 — yEolic colonies founded by Achaians, 120 — Dorian colonies, 120. XI. Who the PHoeNiciANS Were. — Ionians and Dorians ...... 122-128 Antiquity and character of the Phoenicians, 122 ; they build Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, 122 ; discover the purple dye- fish, 122, 123 ; and work in copper, build ships, etc., 123 — Greeks derive their alphabet from Phoenicians, 123 — Slavery, 123, 124 — Origin of the names Dorian, Ionian, and yEolian, 124 — Meaning of " Pelasgian," 124 — Asia the starting-point of Hellenic migrations, 124, 125 — Dualism of Greek life as represented by Ionians and Dorians, 125 — In- fluence of murex-hunimg on colonization, 126 — Source of our religion, 126 — Affinities of the Phoenicians, 128 ; of the Greeks, 128. XII. How THE Tyrants Ruled in Greece. — The Story of Sicyon and Agariste . 129-136 Argolis and the Amphictyony of Argos and Corinth, 129 — Story of lo, 129, 130 — Sicyon and Corinth ruled by families of aristocrats, 130 — The Alen of the Shore at Sicyon, 132 — Orthagoras and the Orthagoridae, 132 — Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, 132 — Story of Agariste, his daughter, and her suit- ors, 133 ; names of the suitors, 133 ; the Athenians please best, 134 — Hippoclides and Megacles, 134 — Hippoclides dances, 135 — Speech of Cleisthenes, 135 — Megacles the CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. X! f AGE Alcmasonid accepted, 136 — Kindred of the Alcmaeonidae, 136 — Meaning of tyrant, tyrannical, and tyrannos, 136. XIII. Legends of Corinth and Megaris : how the Oracle was Fulfilled . . . 137-150 The Bacchiadre govern Corinth — The speech of Sosicles tell- ing their story, 137, 138 — Character of a " tyranny," 138 — Story of Labda and Action, 138 — The oracles, 138, 140 — The would-be murderers visit Labda's house, 140 ; the ch.\\6. smiles in their faces, 141 — " Cypsel " and Cypselus, 141, 142 — Cypselus and the oracle, 142 — Periander of Corinth, his son, 142 ; sends to Thrasybulus for advice, 142, 143 ; de- stroys the leading citizens, and strips the women, 143 — Melissa's ghost, 143, 144 — Periander's second affliction, 144 — The story of Lycophron, his son, 144, 145 — Periander treats him cruelly, 145, 146 ; sends him to Corcyra, 147 ; invites him in his old age to return, 147, 148 — Lycophron killed by the Corcyraeans, 148 — How the oracle was fulfilled, 148 — Situation of Megaris, 148, 149 — Byzantium its colony, 149 — Influence of Megarians on Greece, 149 — Theognis and Aristophanes describe them, 150. XIV. The Olympic Games 151-162 Site of Olympia, 151 — The Olympic Amphiclyony, 151 — Date of the celebration of the games, 152 — Chronological systems of the Greeks, 152 — -The prize*at the games, 152 — Honors to the victor, 154 — The Vale of Olympia, 154 — Po- sitions of the ancient gymnasium, pry taneum, stadium, and hippodrome, 155 — The Hcllanodide, or judges, 155 — The Altis, 155 — The temple, 155, 156 — The statue of Zeus by Phidias, 156 — The ruins of the temple excavated by the Germans, 158 — Reunion of Greek society at Olympia, 159; ancient worship there, 159 — Influence of Elis, Pisa, and Sparta in founding the games, 159, 160 — Additions to the games made gradually, 160 — The pancration and the pen- tathlon, meaning of, 160 — The Sacred Truce during the xii CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. PAGE games, i6o, i6i — Greek conception of physical training, i6i — Visitors and contestants at the games, i6i, 162 — First and last victor, 161 — Olympiads, 162. XV. Attica 1 63-1 71 Approach to Attica in a yacht, 163 — Scenery of the Eastern Mediterranean, 163, 164 — Athens on its hills, 164, 165 — Soc- rates shows Alcibiades how small Attica is, 165 ; its size, 166 — Milton's description of Athens in "Paradise Regained," 166, 167 — Theseus' connection with Attica, 167, 168 — Thucydides and Plutarch on early Attic history, 168 — The days of Cecrops, 168, l6g — The " union of the communes," 169 — Story of Cecrops and his "institutions, ' 169, 170 — Codrus, the last " king " of Athens, 170 — Attica from Codrus to Solon, 170 — Athens in the Trojan War, 170 — Meaning of " cantonal sovereignty " as applied to Athens among the Attic communes, 171. XVI. The Wise Solon 172-181 Herodotus' story of Solon and his travels, 172 — Solon visits Croesus, 173 — Who is the happiest man on earth ? 173, 174 — Solon's answer, 173, 174 — The stories (i) of Tellus the Athenian and (2) of Cleobis and Bito, 173, 174, 175 — Croesus' anger, 176 — Mark the end! 176 — Solon's ancestry and relationship to Pisistratus, 177 — Story of the fishermen of Cos and the tripod, 178 — Anecdote illustrative of Solon's married life, 179 — Solon and Salamis, 179, 180 — Solon's in- fluence at Athens, 180, XVII. The Dreadful Draco and the Crime of the Alcm^onid^ 182-192 Priest, basileus, and archon, meaning of, 182 — Division of citizens into Eupatrida:, Geomoroi, and Deniiufgoi, 183 — Meaning of the word oligarchy, 183 — Unwritten laws at Athens, 184 — Draco not a legislator but a codifier, 184 — CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. XIU PAGE Character of the Draconian code, 184 — Cylon tries to make himself tyrant, 185 — The " Cylonian Pollution," 185 — The archon Megacles the Alcmaeonid violates the rights of sanctuary, and becomes with the Alcmseonid family "ac- cursed," and is expelled, 186 — Epimenides of Crete puri- fies Athens, 186, 1S7 — The Rip Van Winkle of Greece, 187 — St. Paul and the Cretans, 187 — Rise of tyrants simulta- neously in Greece, 188 ; what they did for Hellas, 188, i8g Story of Anon and the tyrant Periander, 189, igo — The ty- rants originally not bad, 191, XVIII. What Solon Did for Athens . . . 193-204 Solon finds the people plunged in debt, 193 ; repudiates a part of the indebtedness, 194 — Value of the old &XiA. the new drachmae, 194 — Solon abolishes slavery, 195 — Meaning of the " Constitution " of Solon, 195, 196 — Rights of the Ecclesia, 196 — The Committee of Four Hundred, 196 — Assemblies meet on the Pnyx, 198 ; view from the hill, 198 — Athenian characteristics, ig8, 199 — Solon divides the citizens anew, 199 — Rights and privileges of the four classes, 199, 200 — The Solonian " Constitution " based on property valuations, a Timocracy, 200 — The Seisachtheia, or " Disburdening Ordinance," 200, 201 — Property valuation of each class, 201 — Solon reforms the calendar and introduces many novel laws, 202 — The Court of the Areopagus, its functions, 202, 203 — The Greek nomothetcs, 203 — Anecdotes of Solon, 203 ; urged to become tyrant, but refuses, 204. XIX. How there Happened to be Two Kings at Sparta. — Messenia and the Legends of Aristomenes, Tegea, and the Bones of Orestes ...... 205-216 Spartan and Peloponnesian story resumed, 205 — Two kings at Sparta, 205, 206 — The twin sons of Arislodemus, 206 — Panites' suggestion how to find out the elder, 206 — Fates and fortunes of Lacedaemonian kings, 207 ; their privileges and XIV CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. prerogatives, 207 ; they have a picked body-guard of three hundred, 20S — Royal funerals, 208 — Spartans the Chinese of Greece, 209 — Spread of Spartan conquest in the Peloponne- sus, 209, 210 — Wars with Messenia, 209, 210 — Tyrtseus, the lame poet, 209 — Story of Aristodemus the Messenian, 210, 211 ; of Aristomenes in the second Messenian war, 210, 211 ; his fate, 212 — Spartans try to conquer Arcadia and Tegea, 213 — Oracle of the bones of Orestes, 213, 214 ; Lichas finds them, 214 — The " two winds " and " blow on blow," 215 — Rivalry of Sparta and Argos, 215, 216 — Sparta at beginning of true historic period, 216. XX. The Island Despots and the Ring of Polyc- RATEs 217-228 Colonies in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, 217 — Magna GrcEcia,, 217 — Carthage, 21 8, 2ig — Feelings of colonies for mother-cities, 218 — Changes of government in colonies, 220 — The magic ring of Polycrates, 220 — Description of the island Samos, 221 — Rise of the tyrant Polycrates, 221 ; a great stock-raiser, 221 ; his mercenaries, 222 — Exceeding good fortune of Polycrates, 222 ; warned by Amasis, King of Egypt, 222, 223 ; throws away his signet-ring, 223 — The fisherman and Polycrates, 223, 224 — The ring found again, 224 — Amasis breaks off his friendship, 224 — Polycrates' enemy, 225 — Mitrobates and Oroetes, 225 — Oroetes sends a message to Polycrates, 226 — The Spider and the Fly, 227— Oroetes' gold, 227 — The dream of Polycrates' daughter, 227 — Polycrates makes light of it, goes, and is murdered, 228. XXI. How THE PlSISTRATID^ PlAYED THE ATHE- NIANS A Trick and Became Tyrants OF Athens 229-240 Many different forms of government at Athens successively, 229 — Hippocrates of Athens sees a prodigy at Olympia, 229, 230 — Three famous parties then at Athens ; the Sea-Coast, led by Megacles, the Plain, led by Lycurgus, and the CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. XV PAGB Mountaineers or Highlanders, led by Pisistratus, 230 — Pisistratus' pretended assault, and body-guard, 230, 231 ; his first tyranny at Athens, 231 ; is expelled, 231 ; returnsa sec- ond time by a trick, 231, 232 — The woman Phya person- ates Athene, 232 — Pisistratus flees a second time, 233 ; returns a third time, 233, 234 ; and remains, 235 — What Pisistratus did for Athens, 235 ; he dies, 235 ; Hippias, his eldest son, succeeds him, 236 — Story of Harmodius and Aristogiton and how they freed Athens, 236, 237 — Hippar- chus, Pisistratus' second son, 236, 237 — The adventure in the Ceramicus, 238 — Hipparchus is killed, 238, Hippias driven into exile, 239 — Return of the Alcmseonidse, 239. XXII. Agariste's Son, Cleisthenes, Reforms the State 241-251 The Pisistratidse love poetry and art and procure the best text of Homer, 241 — The AlcmDeonidse bribe the priestess of Delphi, 242 — " Athens must be freed 1" 242 — Cleomenes, King of Sparta, bids the AlcmEeonidse expel Hippias, 243 — How the Alcmseonidae, according to Herodotus, became so rich, 243, 244 — Old party struggles revived by Cleisthenes and Isagoras, 244 — Cleisthenes gets the old " Ionic Tribes" abolished, 244, 245 ; Demes, 245 ; substitutes a Council of 500 for Solon's Council of 400, 245 — Clans, metics, demes, 245 — Policy of Cleisthenes, 246 ; divides the Assembly into prytaneis or working-committees, 246 — Results of the new tribal organization, 246 — The ten StraUgi, 246, 247 — Im- portant cases now tried by juries, 247 — Origin and meaning of ostracism, 247 — Casting of lots, 248 — Laceda;monians med- dle with Athenian affairs, 24S— Anti-democratic party at Athens headed by Isagoras, 24S — Cleomenes, King of Sparta, summons the Athenians to expel the "accursed" Alcmas- onidte, 249 ; is hemmed in on the Acropolis, 249 — Second attempt to invade Attica, 249 — Athenians attack and defeat Thebans and Chalcidians, 250; settle 4,000 Athenians in Chalcis — Spartans very wroth, 250 ; they summon deputies from all Peloponnesus to take part in re-establishing Hippias xvi CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. PAGE at Athens, 250 — Sosicles' speech, 250, 251 — Athens frees it- self from Spartan meddling, 251 — Persian War approaches, 251. XXIII. "As Rich as Crcesus " .... 252-267 The Wonder-land of the East and Asia Minor, 252 — Herod- otus' accounts thereof, 253 — The Greek colonies in Asia Minor, 253 — The Panionium of the Ionian colonies, 254 — Rise of the Lydian Empire, 254 — Croesus, son of Alyattes, masters the Greek cities in Asia Minor, 255 — Crcesus' further conquests, 256 ; Solon's visit to him, 256 — Vengeance comes upon Crcesus, 256 — The story of Atys, Croesus' son, and Adrastus, son of Gordias, 257 — Croesus' dream, 257 — The Mysian boar, 258 — Message of the Mysians, 258 — Conversation between Croesus and Atys, 259 — Atys departs on the hunt with Adrastus, 260 ; and is accidentally killed by him, 261 — Fulfilment of the dream, 261 — Sorrow of Croe- sus, 262 — Cyrus, son of Cambyses, King of Persia, invades and destroys Media, 262 — Crcesus sends to the oracle of Delphi and gets two strange answers, 262 ; his presents to the shrines of the gods, 262, 263 — Croesus is defeated and captured by Cyrus at Sardis, 263 — Wonderful thing happens to Croesus' deaf-and-dumb son, 263 — Croesus and the Lydians condemned to be burnt, 264 — Crcesus remembers Solon, 264 ; is providentially saved from death, 266 — Source of Crce- sus' wealth, 266, 267 — Croesus the first cause of the conflict between Asia and Greece, 267. XXIV. The Mule that Became Monarch of Media, 268-281 How Cyrus came to be a " mule," according to the oracle, 268 — Herodotus' story of Cyrus, 268, 269 — The Medes, 269 — Astyages' dream about his daughter Mandane, 269 ; he marries her to Cambyses the Persian, 269 — Astyages hands over Mandane's child to Harpagus to be slain, 270 — Har- pagus hands over the child to the herdsman Mitradates, 271 — Mitradates and his wife save the child's life, 272, 273 — Harpagus is deceived, 273 — Accident betrays Cyrus' high CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. xvil PAGE birth, 274 — Story of the boy-king and Artembares' wrath, 274 — Cyrus summoned before Astyages, 275 — The truth ex- torted from the herdsman, 276 — Vengeance of Astyages on Harpagus, who eats his own child without knowing it, 277, 278 — Astyages consults the Magi about Cyrus, 279 ; and dismisses him to Persia, to his parents, 280 — Later Cyrus and Harpagus revolt from and overthrow Astyages, 281. XXV. ** Remember the Athenians ! " . . . 282-295 Submission of Lydia and the Ionic coast-cities to Cyrus, 282 — Character of the Persians, 282, 283 — lonians emigrate to Abdera, Phocseans to Elea, 283 — Cyrus takes Babylon, with description of the city, 283, 284 — Captivity of the Jews, 284 — Adventures of Cambyses in Egypt after Cyrus' death, 284 — The false Smerdis who had no ears, 284, 285 — The story of Darius' accession to the throne of Persia, 2S5 — The seven conspirators, 285 — Darius' groom CEbares, 285, 2S6 — The neighing horse, 2S6 — What Darius did in founding ja/nT/Zfj, coining Darics, and making roads, 287 — His expedition against the Scythians of Europe, 288, 289 — How Miltiades and Histiseus behaved about the bridge, 289 — Retreat of Darius, 289, 290 — Megabazus subdues Thrace, 290 — His- tiseus rewarded twofold, 2yo — Description of Miletus, 291, 292 — Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, and his career, 292 ; revolts, 293 — The tattooed message, 293 — Revolt of the Asiatic Greek colonies, 293, 294 — Athens and Eretria send help and burn Sardis, 294 — Rage of Darius, 295 — " Remem- ber the Athenians ! " 295. ♦ XXVI. Darius Demands Earth and Water. — Mara- thon ...... 296-309 War between Persians and Greeks, and fate of Miletus. 296 — ^Vain efforts of Dionysius the Phoenician, 297 — Dates of first, second, and third Persian expeditions against Greece, 298 — Wreck of Mardonius' fleet off Mt. Athos, 298 — Darius sends heralds to demand earth and water, 299 — Datis and xviii CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. PAGB Artaphernes succeed Mardonius, 299 — Barbarian fleet sails for Delos, and then for Eretria, 300 — Athenians terrified at the approach of the Persians, 301 — Plain of Marathon, 301 — Ten generals of the Athenians, including Aristides, Milti- ades, and, possibly, Themistocles, 301 — Mission and tale of the courier Pheidippides, 302 — Barbarians, led by Hippias, land at Marathon, 303 — Hippias sneezes and loses his tooth, 303, 304 — Athenian generals disagree, 304 — Miltiades in- duces Callimachus to fight, 304, 305 — Miltiades put in com- mand, 305 — The Greeks set themselves in array, 306 — The Battle of Marathon, 306, 307, 308 — Attempt of the Barbarian fleet to surprise Athens, 308 — Number that fell on both sides, 308 — Prodigy happens to Epizelus, 308, 309 — Lacedae- monians arrive too late for the battle, 309 — Death of Hippias, 309. XXVII. The Two Foes : Themistocles and Aristi- des 310-J21 Effects of the victory of Marathon on Hellas as a whole, and influence exercised by Athens thenceforward, 310 — Period of the real demigods, 311 — War against a common foe binds Hellas together, 311 — Themistocles as a boy, 312 ; his in- terest in public aff'airs, and his ambition, 313 ; characteris- tics, 314 ; persuades the Athenians to lay by the silver ex- tracted from the mines of Laureium, 314 ; accusations of and conflicting statements about him, 315 ; procures the banish- ment of his rival Aristides, 316 ; his highest distinction ; character of his match and rival Aristides, and contrast between them, 317, 318 — Constancy and justice of Aristides, 319 ; ostracised by the people led by Themistocles, 320. XXVIII. The Dream of Xerxes. — The Lydian Million- aire. — The Oracle of the Wooden Wall 322-334 Darius' wrath waxes fierce at the news from Marathon, 322 ; his death, 322 ; his son Xerxes succeeds him, 322 — The dream of Xerxes, 323, 324 — Artabanus dressed in the king's CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. xix PAGE clothes, has the same dream, 324 — Xerxes determines to in- vade Greece with a mighty army, 324, 325 ; Mt. Athos con- verted from a peninsula into an island by his engineers, 325 Xerxes falls in with the Lydian millionaire Pythius, 325 ; their conversation and exchange of gifts, 326 — Xerxes lashes and chains the waters of the Hellespont, 327 — Eclipse of the sun interpreted by the Magi, 327, 328 — Fate of Pythius' son, 328 — Order of Xerxes' army, 328 — Xerxes weeps, 329 — Crossing the Hellespont, 329 — Number of the army, 329 — Route of Xerxes in Europe, 330 ; " lions " attack his army, 330 — The Athenians become the saviors of Greece, 331 — Me- dizing Greeks, 331 — Oracles come from Delphi, 332 — What mean the "Wooden Walls"? Themistocles' interpretation, 332 — yEginetan War indirectly saves Greece, 332 — Ambassa- dors sent by the Greeks to ask aid of Argos, 333 — Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, Corcyraeans, and Crete all practically re- fuse assistance, 333, 334. XXIX. The Spartans Comb Their Long Hair at the " Hot Gates." .... 335-345 Story of the Spartan heralds Sperthias and Bulls, 335 — Spar- tan view of liberty and slavery, 336 — Clouds grow darker over Greece, 337 — Greeks station themselves first in the defile of Tempe, 337; and then at Thermopylre, or the " Hot Gates," 338 — Description of the Pass of Thermopylae, 338 — The Greek fleet flees from Artemisium to Chalcis, 338 — March of Xerxes, 339 — Athenians bidden by oracles to ' ' pray to the winds," to " seek help from their son-in-law," 339 — Names of the Greek states represented in the battle, 340 — Leonidas, King of Sparta, commander-in-chief, 340 ; de- cides to stay and fight, 341 — Xerxes sends a spy, who sees the Spartans combing their hair, 341 — A Greek treacherously betrays the Greeks by showing the Persians a path over the mountains, 342 — All the Greeks retreat except the Spartans, Thebans, and Thespians, 342 — Advance of the Barba- rians over the mountain, 342 —The battle, and defeat of the Greeks, 343 — Epitaphs placed over Leonidas and the Spar- tans, 344, 345. XX CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. XXX. PAGE Long Live Salamis ! 346-361 Who did and who did not fight for Hellas in the Persian War, 346 — Congress at Corinth, 346 — Athens yields the command to Sparta, 346 — Adroitness of the Hellenic fleet, 347 — Euboeans bribe Themistocles and the Greeks to guard the Euripus, 347 — Destruction of Persian ships, 348 — Xerxes sends an army against Delphi, 348 ; its awful fate, 349 — Barbarians take and burn Athens, 350 — Location of the Greek fleet at Salamis, 350, 351 — Description of the scene of the battle, 351, 352 — Terror and disaffection in the Greek fleet, 352 — Names of Greek states represented in the battle, 354 — Themistocles induces the Greeks to stay and fight, 355 Impudence of Adeimantus the Corinthian, 355 — The strange marvel of the dust and the war-shout in the air over Eleusis, 356, 357 — The fleet of Xerxes anchors off Pha- lerum, 357 ; and hold a council of war, 358 — Artemisia's advice, 358 — Distress and alarm of the Greeks, 358, 359 — Themistocles sends Xerxes a message that the Greeks are about to flee, 359 — The battle, 359, 360 — Rout of Xerxes' fleet, 360. XXXI. Pausanias at Plat^ea .... 362-374 Xerxes leaves Mardonius in command and flees to Asia, 362 Xerxes' plight, 363 — Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, defeats Carthaginians in Sicily on the day of the battle of Salamis, 363 — Retreat of Xerxes' army to Orchomenus and Plataea, 364 — Boeolia, battle-ground of Greece, 364 — Lacedaemonians seek satisfaction for Leonidas, 365 — Xerxes' arrival at the Hellespont, 365 ; misfortunes to his army, 365 — Greek gen- erals vote themselves the prize of victory, 366 — The Persian fleet at Samos ; Mardonius and Alexander, 366 — Return of Mardonius to Athens, 367 — Lacedaemonians delay; Pausanias sent, 367 — Banquet given at Thebes to the Persians by Atta- ginus, 368 — Forebodings of the Persians, 368 — March of the Spartans and Peloponnesians, and death of the Persian Ma- sistius, 369 — Tegeans and Athenians dispute over their position at Platsea, 370 — Number of the Greek and the CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. xxi PAGE Barbarian forces in the battle, 370 — Site of Plataa, 370 — Story of Tisamenus, the Elean soothsayer, 370, 371 — Mar- donius' address to his generals, 372 — The battle and losses ; death of Mardonius, 372 — Lampon's advice to Pausanias, 373— The spoils, 373, 374. XXXII. So Should all Traitors Die ! . . 375-3S7 Prize of valor at Plataea adjudged the Platasans, 375 — Pau- sanias contrasts Persian with Spartan fare, 375--Artabazus retreats to Byzantium with the Persians, 376 — Naval battle off Mycale, in Asia Minor, 376 — Samian art and science, 377 — Barbarians defeated on land in Asia Minor, 378 — De- feat of Xerxes due principally to Athenians, 378, 379 — Bene- fits to Hellas from the Persian War, 379, 380 — Return of the Athenians to Athens, 380, 381 ; their love for Athens, 382 ; they build a nevir and larger wall, 382 — Themistocles and the Lacedaemonians, 382, 383 — Anecdotes of Themistocles, 383, 384 — Wall round the Piraeus, 384, 385 — Pausanias be- sieges and takes Byzantium, 385 — His pride and recall, 385, 386 — Starved to death, 386 — Fate of Themistocles, 386, 387 XXXIII. The Olympian Pericles .... 388-398 Rivalry of Sparta and Athens after the Persian War, 3S8 — The Spartan and the Athenian Leagues, their object and difference, 388, 389 — The Confederacy of Delos, 3S8, 389 — Usurpations of Athens, 389, 390 — War continues under Cimon at Eurymedon, 390, 39J -Revolt of Naxos, 391 — Party wrangles at Athens, 392 — Arislides' efforts to democra- tize Athens, 392, 393 — Cimon, son of Miltiades, favors Sparta, and loses caste, 393 — Pericles, the Alcmceonid, deprives the Areopagus of its power, and introduces paid juries, 394 — Cimon ostracised, 394 — Character of Pericles, 394 ; his parentage and education, 394, 395 ; Anaxagoras his teacher, 395 ; sides with the people, 396 ; his oratory, 397 — Rivalry of Cimon and Pericles, 398 — Pericles becomes the idol of the people, 398. xxil CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. XXXIV. PAGE How Athens Prospered and the Poets Sang UNDER Pericles .... 399-410 Growth of Athens and the Pirceus, 399 — Work and influence of Pericles, 400 — Alliance with Argos and Megara, 400, 401 — War declared by Corinth and ^gina, 401 — The Theban league, 401 — Sparta joins Thebes against Athens, 402 — Athens overthrows the Bceotian oligarchies and re- duces ^gina, 402, 403 — Building of the Long Walls, 403 — Truce with Sparta for five years, 403 — Athenians lose con- trol of their neighbors, the Boeotians, Phocians, Locrians, Euboeans, and Megarians, 404 — The Thirty Years' Truce with Sparta, 404 — Pericles elected Strategtts, 404 ; his greatness, 405 ; improvements introduced by him, 406 — The Athenian playwrights, 406 — Comedies and iragedieSy 406 — yEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides characterized, 408, 409, 410 — Architectural contrast between Sparta and Athens, 410. XXXV. How Vengeance Comes upon Athens , 411-420 Advent and character of the Peloponnesian War as de- scribed by Thucydides, 411 ; its real cause, 412 — Epidam- nus, the Corcyroeans, and the Corinthians, 412, 413 — The Corinthians join the Epidamnians, and the Athenians side with Corcyra, 413, 414 — The Congress of Sparta, 414 — The real cause of the war, jealousy between Athens and Sparta, 414, 415 — States and resources arrayed on each side, 416, 417 — Policy and advice of Pericles, 417 — Opening of hos- tilities, 418 — The Plague at Athens, 418, 419, 420 — Was it vengeance from the gods? 420. XXXVI. "The King Was in His Counting-House " 421-429 Death of Pericles, 421 ; his selfish successors, 421 — Rise of the demagogues, 422 — The Spartan king Archiddmus besieges Platsea, 423 — Doings at Naupactus, in the West, 424 ; Victory of the Athenian admiral Phormio, 424 — Re- CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. XXlll volt of Lesbos and Mytilene from Athens, 425^Rashness and success of Demosthenes near Naupactus, 426 ; beauty of this part of Greece, 426 — The war becomes fiercer, 426 — Pylus seized and Sphacteria captured by the Athenians, 427 ; Cleon, 427, 428 ; Massacre at Corcyra, 427 — Athe- nians invade Bceotia and are defeated at Delium, 428 — Success of the Spartan Brasidas and his death, 428 — The Peace of Nicias, 429. XXXVII. The Two Friends : Alcibiades and Socrates, 430-443 Rise of Alcibiades at Athens, with his lineage, 430 — Per- sonal peculiarities and boyish characteristics, 431 ; his beauty, temper, and prospects, 432 ; beloved of Socrates, 433 — Socrates, parentage and characteristics, 433 — The Sophists, 434 — Socrates' method of teaching, 434, 435 ; attacked by Aristophanes and condemned to drink hem- lock, 435, 436 ; why the Greeks loved and remembered him, 436 ; his Dccnion or Heavenly Voice, 436, 437 ; originality and conversation, 437, 438 ; philosophical schools called into existence by him, 438 — Personification of the Greek Conscience, 438 — Influence of Socrates on Alcibiades, and their contrast, 439, 440 ; comrades in arms at Potidoea and Delium, 440 — Anecdotes of Alcibiades, 442 ; his jealousy of Nicias, 443. XXXVIII. A. Happy Land ... ... 444-458 The island of Sicily and its dimensions, 444 ; approach to the island from the Levant, 444, 445 ; description of, 445, 446; colonies and cities, 446 — Syracuse, 446 — Arts and sciences flourish, 446 — Athens meddles with Sicilian affairs, and aids Egesta by Alcibiades' advice, 447 — Anxiety of the Athenians to conquer Sicily and Libya, 448 — Nicias opposes, then yields to, Alcibiades, 447, 448 — Mutilation of the Hermae, 449 — Charges brought against Alcibiades and the Corinthians, 449, 450 — The fleet sails for Sicily, 450 — Advice of I-amachus, 450 — Alcibiades recalled, but flees, xxiv CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. PACK 450, 451 ; and becomes at Sparta an active enemy of Athens, 451 — Description of Syracuse, 451, 452 — The siege begins, 452 — Lamachus killed, and Gylippus arrives from Sparta to iielp the Syracusans, 453 — Progress of the siege, 453, 454 — Nicias and Gylippus, 454 — Alcibiades at Sparta, 454, 455 — Help from Athens under Demosthenes, 456 — Eclipse of the moon, 456 — Last engagement in the harbor, 457 — Defeat and capture of Nicias and Demosthenes, 458. XXXIX. The Dying Lion ..... 459-471 Ruin caused by the failure of the Sicilian Expedition, 459 — Agis, King of Sparta, seizes Decelea in Attica, 459— Alci- biades causes the revolt of Chios, 460 — Revolt of Miletus and Mytilene, 460 — Alliance between Sparla and Persia against Athens, 460, 461 — Defeat of Spartan fleet, 461 — Alcibiades flees from Sparta and intrigues with Tissaphernes and Athens, 461 ; desires to return to Athens provided an oligarchy is established, 462 — Conduct of the Athenians in the fleet at Samos, 463 ; they despatch Pisander to over- throw the democracy at Athens, 463 — Rise of the Four Hundred Tyrants, 464 — Alcibiades abandons the oligarchy and takes the side of the democracy, 464 ; elected general of the fleet, 465 — Overthrow of the Four Hundred, 465, 466 — Revolt of Euboea, 466 — Victories of Athenians in the Helles- pont, 467 — Capture of Mindarus, the Spartan general, 467 — Spartans sue for peace, 468 — Lysander destroys the Athe- nian fleet at ^gospotami, 468, 469 — Downfall of Athens, 469 — Terms of the peace, 469 — The Thirty Tyrants, 470 — Lysander and Critias, 470 — Restoration of the democracy, 471. XL. The Rise of Thebes : Pelopidas and Epami- NONDAS. ... . . 472-485 Character of the Spartans, 472 — The four quadrants of Greek life, Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Macedon, 472 — Ly- sander places Spartan harmosts over the cities ; corrup- CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. XXV tion of Sparta, 473 — Artaxerxes, King of Persia, 473 ; re- volt and death of his brother Cyrus, 473 — Xenophon and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, 474, 475 — Sparta and Per- sia at war, 475 — Expulsion of the harmosts, and rebuilding of the Long Walls of Athens by Conon, 475 — Sparta concludes with Persia the Peace of Antalcidas, 476 — Epaminondas and Pelopidas render Thebes famous, 477 ; contrast between them, 477, 478 — Capture of the Cadmeia at Thebes by Spartans, 478 ; their expulsion by Pelopidas, 479 — New Athenian Confederacy, 479, 480 ; its main object to wage war on Sparta, 480 — The Sacred Band of Thebans, 480, 481 — The battle of Leuctra and Pelopidas' vision, 481, 482 — Defeat of the Lacedaemonians, 482 — Epaminondas and the Thebans invade the Peloponnesus, and unite the Arcadian cities against Sparta, 482 — Messenia restored, 482, 483 — Thebes supreme for a while, 483 — Pelopidas and Epa- minondas impeached at home, 484 — Battle of Mantinea and death of Epaminondas, 484 — Pelopidas wars with Alexander of Pherse, and is killed at the battle of Cynos- cephalos, 484, 485 ; his funeral honors, 485. XLL " Young Barbarians at Play " . 486-500 The Macedonians, fourth and last power to appear in Greek history, 486 — Description of Macedonia, 486, 487 — Mode of life of the Macedonians, 487 — Greeks dwell in cities, 487 ; Macedonians in the country, 488— -Philip of Macedon, 489 — The Olynthian League, Athens, and Philip 489 — The Sacred War and its causes, 490, 491 — The Athe- nians and the.Lgsean Confederacy, 491 — Demosthenes and his Philippics, 492 ; his parentage and physical defects as an orator, 492 ; his studies and efforts to overcome stammering, 493 ; his object and his reputation, 494 ; sees through Philip's designs, 494 — Philip and the Olynthian League, 495 — Philip seizes Delphi and summons the Amphictyonic Council, 496 — Philip's intrigues in the Peloponnesus op- posed by Demosthenes, 496 ; extends his conquests to Thrace, 496 — Popularity and policy of Demosthenes, 497, XXVI CLASSIFIED CONTENTS. 498 — /Eschines the orator in Philip's pay, 498 — Battle of Chaeronea and ruin of Athens and Thebes, 498 — Philip master of Greece, 499 — Gradual rise and increase of the Barbarians, 499 — Congress of Corinth, 499 — Assassination of Philip, 499 — Alexander the Great, 499-500 — The End, 500. ^ 'yjfc'iji^^Kfe^pr' ^ B^ ^^^^^^oik^^iS (fif^^^ iffli i ^ ^ ^M LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ACHILLES EATERS MARKET OF ATHENS ZEUS, OR JUPITER . APOLLO . OLIVE TREE , ABDUCTION OF HELEN FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS hector's body DRAGGED AT THE CAR OF HOMER ...... APPROACHING THE LAND OF THE LOTUS ARIADNE ..... MOUNT PARNASSUS AND DELPHI . CYCLOPEAN WALLS CITY OF CORINTH .... PLAINS OF OLYMPIA CHRYSELEPHANTINE STATUE OF ZEUS WRESTLERS HERE, OR JUNO . « .. . COINS OF ATTICA .... PALLAS ATHENE (ON THE ACROPOLIs), BY PHIDIAS, COAST OF EPIRUS .... SEPULCHRAL VASES CRCESUS ON THE FUNEREAL PILE . MOUNTS OLYMPUS AND OSSA, FROM THE THESSALY .... PLAINS OF MARATHON . PASS OF THERMOPYL^ . Frontispiece 21 PLAINS O 49 52 61 63 67 75 89 115 119 139 153 157 161 175 195 197 219 239 265 291 307 339 XXVlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. SALAMIS . . ... ATHENS FROM THE HILL OF THE MUSEUM SOUTH FRONT OF THE PARTHENON BACCHUS . . ... CITY OF THEBES ..... 353 381 407 441 483 J 3 THE STORY OF GREECE. WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. What do we see when we look at a map of Greece spread at our feet ? A great strip of shining water, on which border three continents and into which project four peninsulas. Europe, Asia, and Africa converge on the Mediterranean Sea, and enclose it with a grip of iron from which there is no escape ex- cept through the Strait of Gibraltar, at the western extremity. Here, as through the neck of a bottle, the great crystal flood is hurled in a rushing tide {tinder the inflowing Atlantic tide, however), with a current running several miles an hour. On the south lies the immense sweeping curve of the coast of Africa, with its narrow mountain rim, behind which rolls another immeasurable sea, this time not of water but of sand — the Desert of Sahara, with its oasis-islands of bright palms, snow-white villages, and refreshing waters for the camels and the caravans. On the east the peninsula of Asia Minor juts forth like the upper section of an enormous jaw, the undcr- jaw of which is formed by the land of Eg>'pt and the province of ancient Cyrenaica. Far into its throat 2 THE STORY OF GREECE. shoots the Mediterranean, till it touches the coast of Syria with its tongue of fire, and impinges on Cilicia, Pamphylia, and Lycia. Right in the jaw of the monster lies the beautiful isle of Cyprus, about to be swallowed as a dainty meal, yet too beautiful for that. And what do we find if we follow the northern coast-line of this wondrous sea, in and out of its pic torial indentations and projections ? Long's Atlas will show you a strange geographical figure that looks like one of the signs of the zodiac : a mighty mastodon whose back is squeezed in between the Black Sea and the Baltic ; whose head, formed by the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, is shot forward into the Atlantic ; whose legs are wonderfully ex- tended on the Mediterranean in the peninsulas of Italy and Greece ; and whose neck and shoulders are formed by the Republic of France and by Belgium. The body of the monster is thickly covered by the forests of Germany and Austria, and its mouth kisses Mauritania, at the extreme point of Northwestern Africa, just where the gurgling waters of the Mediter- ranean and the Atlantic are flowing in foam and fury through the Pillars of Hercules, one current super- imposed upon the other, like two trains of cars cross- ing a river bridge in opposite directions, one above the other. The Great Sea itself, of a brilliant blue and intensely salty, is 2,ioo miles in length and 500 miles wide at its widest point. On the map three spider-web lines of latitude are festooned across it, — three loops, one might well call them, hung on the rotundity of the globe from the thirtieth to the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude. WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. 3 Within these fifteen degrees Hcs the wonderful theatre of the Story of Greece. The northern coast of the Mediterranean is sliced into a series of gigantic fjords, like those that split and sunder the coast of Norway, — great slices of sea that penetrate far into the land and are sprinkled with lovely islands, once the seats and sites of ancient civilizations. The most striking of these winding waters is the one called the yEgaean Sea, which sun- ders Asia Minor from Greece on the east, and in its windings and wanderings shoots through the Dar- danelles into the Sea of Marmara, thence into the Bosphorus past Constantinople, and finally opens into the huge watery mirror of the Black Sea (which is perhaps the bhust sea in Christendom). It would be more correct, however, to say that the current flows dowmvard out of the Black Sea into the won- derfully picturesque channels of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, into the embracing yEgaean, and then into the all-embracing Mediterranean. The other great Mediterranean fjord is the one now called the Adriatic Sea, which separates Greece from Italy, and is a sort of vast inland lake, at one end of which lies Venice in its rich beauty, with Trieste still farther north, and at the other Corfu (ancient Cor- cyra), where the first sea-battle recorded in history took place. Mauritania and Spain approach each other and form almost another long-necked fjord, while in the south the Great Sea plunges far into the land and hollows out the glittering basin of the Syr- tis Major to the left of the peninsula of Cyren^, in Africa. 4 THE STORY OF GREECE. The Greek settlements ran like a line of light almost entirely round the Mediterranean Sea ; but Greece thickest and densest, Greece fundamental and essential, lay on that peninsular leg of our mon- ster which is washed east and west by the yEgaean and Ionian seas : a leg composed of almost as many joints as the leg of an animal, and terminating in the Peloponnesus with its quadruple claws outspread on the Mediterranean. It is impossible to understand Greek history or Greek story without a clear knowledge of Greek geography ; above all, the way in which sea, moun- tain, and land locked in each other, influenced the national temper, and developed fundamental differ- ences of character. A multitude of brilliant gran- ules without cohesion, a string of miniature states with no more intimate connection than a string of beads that slide up and down a necklace, constituted the " Greece " of the ancients — a name originally belonging to a single tribe on the northwestern coast, and applied by the Romans indiscriminately to the inhabitants of the whole peninsula. For, though all these people whom we call " Greeks " spoke gener- ally the same language, with unimportant differences, possessed the same gods, and had the same sharp and mobile physiognomies; though they worship- ped and fought and wrestled and built together, and were each and all characterized by the same gifts of head and heart ; though they loved and hated and wedded in common words, and had an ancestral pride that pointed back to a common ori- gin, yet, in spite of all these bonds, in spite of com- WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. 5 mon speech, common customs, common play-grounds, common ancestry, they never did and never could form a lasting confederation like our United States ; they never did and never could evolve a code or a system of legislation common to them all ; and they never did and never could, even in the presence of the most imminent perils, constitute one state. Each must be by itself ; each was a law and a world unto itself; each developed only the pronoun of the first person — I — till it rose into a gigantic and overshadow- ing selfishness, like the image in the vision of Daniel, and ended in the ruin and the desolation of Greece. And much, if not all of this difference arose from the peculiar geography of Greece. Suppose you look again at the map — this time at the admirable maps in Freeman's " Historical Ge- ography of Europe " — and fix your eye, not on the broad and beaming Mediterranean at large, but only on that part or those parts of it which are dotted and tinted with Greek settlements. First of all you will notice the singular shape of Greece : the water has eaten into it on every side, and it lies there in the sea like a skeletonized leaf, " reticulated," as the botanists say, with only ribs and remnants of lands — chiefly mountain ranges — to hold it together. It is an extreme case of the enormous development of peninsular formation, in wiiich peninsula succeeds peninsula, tier on tier : Thcssaly, Epirus, Acarna- nia, and yEtolia forming the upper tier or story; Locris, Boeotia, and Attica, the second ; Megara and Corinth, with their slender waist-like elongation, the third ; and the Peloponnesus, with its four claw-like 6 THE STORY OF GREECE, peninsulas, the fourth. It is wheel within wheel, peninsula within peninsula, hanging together now by a mere thread of land, as at the Isthmus of Corinth, or darting forward in a long tongue, as with Boeotia and Attica, or standing out in a solid mass, as with Thessaly and Epirus. And in and around and through all the Sea, that essential element of old Greek life, thrusting its lance far into the sides of the land, eating out great gulfs like the Gulf of Corinth, carving the southern Peloponnesus into three inward-stretching fjords, called the Messenian, Laconian, and Argolic gulfs, running far up round Salamis and ^gina to the foot of the throne of Xerxes in Attica, and severing the long island of Euboea from the eastern coast of Attica, Boeotia, and Locris. This was the grand play-ground of the Greeks, the royal Sea, with its winds, currents, and islands, with its superstitions, fairy lore, and poetry, with its life, health, and motion. Every thing became beautiful and alive to the Greek when he was on the sea : he watched the stars and gave them poetical names ; he was struck with the shape of the islands and revelled in the names of animals, minerals, and plants which he gave them ; he " shepherded " the winds — Ete- sian, Notus, Eurus, Zephyrus — and made them drive his agile triremes and penteconters — vessels of three banks of oars and of fifty oars, twenty-five on a side ; and he filled his islands with sanctuaries, fanes of white marble, temples gleaming white and ghost-like on the naked promontories and dedicated to the Im- mortal Gods. WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. 7 Next to the sea, in the life of the Greeks, came the Mountains, chain within chain, range on range. All Greece was a house of many rooms divided by partition walls of mountains, some high, some low, some big, some little. If you have an " Encyclope- dia Britannica " (vol. XL), take it on your lap and look at the mountain system in the map of ancient Greece. If you have an eye for a picture you will see at once that across the north of Greece the mountains lie in the shape of a vast spider with ex- tended limbs. Two of these limbs enclose Thessaly ; two shut out Macedon from Thessaly and Epirus ; and Epirus, Thesprotia, and Molossis are cut right in half or shut off by themselves by another. A long streamer from one of the mountain ranges traila southward, throwing Doris, Opuntian Locris, and Boeotia on the east side and Ozolian Locris and ^tolia on the west side, Phocis is partly on one side of the mountain trail and partly on the other, while Attica runs out into the southeast sea as if to escape the pursuing mountain. The Peloponnesus (the great southern remnant of Greece suspended on the sea by the ribbon of the Isthmus of Corinth) is as full of mountains as an &^^ is of meat ; they furrow the soil like giant plows and make deep valleys in Achaia, Argolis, Laconia, Messenia, and Elis, full of the sweetest green, the richest pastures, the coolest groves, and the most fertile fields. Many of these mountains the Greeks regarded with the most sacred veneration. Their gods, according to their belief, dwelt in and around them, just as the Hebrews believed that tJicir God appeared on Mt. 8 THE STOR V OF GREECE. Sinai, and dwelt on Mt. Sion, at Jerusalem, If the Greeks saw the evening light shining on the summit of a mountain, they thought it was Helios, the Sun- God, giving the kiss of departing day to the shadowy mountain top. If the full moon slipped, large and bright, like a mighty human face, from behind a hill, or emerged cautiously over a snowy peak, it was Se- lene, the Moon-Goddess, touching the lips of En- dymion as he lay asleep on the precipice. And so they came to associate a feeling of awe and rever- ence with these lofty heights ; they erected on them costly temples, or visited them in processions at stated times. On Mt. Olympus, which forms part of the northern boundary of Thessaly, dwelt all the great gods of Greece, including Zeus, the greatest of them all ; in the sacred mountain cleft of Delphi, in Phocis, a few miles from Athens, Apollo had his most famous temple and " oracle" ; on Parnassus lived and sung the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyn6 (Memory), who filled the heart with music, touched the lips of the poet with the wine of song, and comforted the children of men with the sweet gift of melodious words ; and at Olympia, in Western Peloponnesus, was the grandest of all the Greek sanctuaries, dedicated to Father Zeus, in a little valley looking westward over the Ionian Sea, right in the face of the island of Zante (Zacynthus), where the best currants for plum-puddings are found. Wherever the tribe called Hcllciics (the sons of Hel- len. about whom little or nothing is definitely known) or their descendants dwelt, was called Hellas. You could not put your finger on any distinct part of the WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. g map, and say: This was Hellas, or that was Hellas. Hellas meant any place, colony, or island inhabited by Greeks ; it meant a nation of people, who spoke alike, and used the same language, — not a particular country, or geographical division. Hence it is truly said that a Greek colony in Sicily or Africa had as much right to be called Hellas as either Attica or Lacedaemon. Shall I try to give you an idea how large Greece was? Hundreds and thousands of books have been written about this little country, which is only about five times the size of Connecticut (if we count by square miles), or three times the size of Massachu- setts. The Hudson River is 3Cmd miles long, and if it flowed through Greece, you would have to run out one of the claws of the Peloponnesus fifty miles farther into the Mediterranean, to make it long enough, from north to south, to hold the river. If you dropped a line from Lake Erie across the west of Pennsylvania, to the extreme southern point of that State, it would be about as long as Greece is wide at its widest point — 1 80 miles. But you must recollect that in these measurements many islands are included, such as Euboea, on the east ; the Ionian islands, on the west ; Crete and Cyprus, in the south ; and the Cyclades and Sporades, that are scattered across the mouth of the ^g.nean in a thick and striking chain, link on link, as if blown by the winds from the southeast headlands of Attica and Euboea. Just think of the whole eight states of the Peloponnesus, about which so many thousands of pages have been written, being no larger than York and Lancaster, in England, or lO THE STORY OF GREECE. about two and a half times larger than our National Yellowstone Park ! The Peloponnesus is, indeed, about the size of New Hampshire. And Attica, the most wonderful of all the Greek states, might be slipped into the pocket of Jack the Giant-killer, and be mistaken for a slice of cake ! It is about the size of Cornwall, or a good-sized county in one of our States. Still, though Greece proper is not much more than half the size of Portugal, its coast line winds and winds until it reaches a length greater than that of Portugal and Spain together. No wonder, then, that it took Ulysses ten years to get home from Troy, on the coast of Asia Minor, to Ithaca, off the coast of Epirus (in the west), as he crept from island to island, and shore to shore, here a little, there a little, stopping or stumbling over the seas in his frail barque, getting shipwrecked and storm- tossed, till his hair turned white. When he did reach home, he well deserved the name of the " Much-en- during," the " Far-travelled " man, terms which be- came linked to his name, as we speak of Edward Ironsides or Athelred Uitrcady in English history. Before we pass to the rivers, climate, and animals of Greece, suppose we measure the highest moun- tains, and make them tell us their tale. The highest of all the Greek mountains is Mt. Olympus, which is only about 3,000 feet higher than Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, or Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina ; that is, 9,754 feet. There are sil- ver mines at Zacatecas, in the Republic of Mexico, which are worked by miners even now at pretty WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. II much the same height. If you stood in the grand square of the City of Mexico, surrounded by beauti- ful churches, colonnades, and tropical flowers, you would be almost as high up in the air as the next highest summit in Greece, which is Mt. Parnassus (8,068 feet), where the Muses dwelt. Taygetus, Tym- phrestus, CEta, Cyllene, and Corax are each above 7,000 feet — about the height of Manitou Springs, in Colorado, where you start for the ascent of Pike's Peak. The Greek mountains, however, look much higher than they really are, because many of them seem to rise right out of the sea, as out of a clear mirror. They are marvellously pretty in their contours and outlines, and often assume the most fanciful shapes. The country is so bare of trees that one might call Greece a White Scotland, with the richest pale-blue air, the loveliest mountain-forms, the most silvery estuaries sinking far into the heart of the land, scenery bathed in dazzling light that makes it almost painful to look at, and a glory on land and sky such as no northern country has any conception of. You would hardly believe that no part of Greece is forty miles from the sea or ten miles from the hills; and that within its narrow limits there are twenty-six hills above 3,000 feet in height. And just as the knights on the Rhine, in old Germany, built their castles on the hills and moun- tains and made raids down in the plains from them, so in Greece the Greeks seized and settled about commanding eminences and big mounds, which afterwards became great and populous cities cele- 12 THE STORY OF GREECE. brated in art and story. Thus it was with the most famous of them all, the Acropolis or Citadel of Athens, 150 feet high, on which were clustered the most splendid architectural works of the ancient Greeks. At Corinth too there was a magnificent fortified hill, 1,686 feet high, called the Acrocorinthus, out of the top of which burst the fountain of Peirene, and from which shone afar one of the lordliest temples of Greece. So Ithome (2,631 feet) in Mes- senia and Larissa in Argos (900 feet) were chosen as sites for grand fortifications, temples, and palaces, the ruins of some of which remain to the present time. As for the rivers of Greece, there is hardly one of them large enough to fioat a paper-boat on, or which Khalif Stork might not wade through. They are plunging cataracts after a rain, and, in summer, and probably for three quarters of the year, one might as well try to "squeeze blood out of a turnip " as find a drop of water in many of them. They rush down the mountains like the water down the gutters of a roof, and bury their heads in the sea as soon as they can, as if they were ashamed of themselves. The two Athe- nian rivers are the Ilissusand the Cephisus, which are the best known of all ; but they are hardly more than the lines that run over a bright-colored carpet, ap- pearing and disappearing in the most mysterious way. The first is a chain of pools all the summer long, and the other is the source from which the Athenians get the water to irrigate their olive plantations ; a sort of town-pump whose stream of water is never allowed to reach the sea. Of the others only two are par- ticularly famous, one of them a sacred river, as the WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. 1 3 Christians regard the Jordan in the Holy Land. These are the Achelous in yEtoHa, called by Homer the " King of Rivers," and the others is the Styx in Arcadian Peloponnesus, the river by which the gods swore when they swore oaths that could not be broken. Greece is full of abundant and sparkling springs which sometimes bubbk out of the very mountain tops, like that of Aganippe among the peaks of Helicon, Castaliaon Mount Parnassus, and Peirene on the Hill of Corinth. The numerous lakes become generally marshes in summer, filled with an innumerable multi- tude of gnats and mosquitoes — buzz-buzz-buzz, all the time. One redeeming feature of Greek scenery is the number of plains like " hollow Lacedsemon," which have been scraped and hollowed out among the mountains. The great Thessalian plain is one of these and is probably a lake-bottom that has been drained off through the channel that leads through the Vale of Tempe to the sea. There is nothing comparable to this in modern times except the valley of the City of Mexico, where the lakes are being drained off in somewhat the same manner. Imagine an aqueduct tube tapping Lake Superior and con- veying all the water out of it, or the Zuydcr Zee in Holland turned into a vast plain weaving with golden grain and vegetables ! The plains of Mara- thon, Argos, Messenia, and Bceotia, are the garden spots of Greece, and are famous not only for the battles which have taken place on them, but for their olives and mulberries. 14 TRE STORY OF GREECE. Another curious feature about the Greek land is the manner in which, Hke a living being, it is growing larger and larger, wider and wider. Thus, the land has gained so much on the east, that the Pass of Thermopylae, which was extremely narrow at the time when Leonidas with his 300 Spartans fought the millions of Persians under Xerxes, is now wide enough for the motions and evolutions of a whole army. More remarkable still is the way things grow in Greece — trees and flowers and plants ; not all to- gether, but certain things at certain elevations above the sea. If you began at the sea level and walked or climbed up a mountain over 5,000 feet in height, you would find four distinct climates, zones, or stories of vegetation, arranged one above the other. As long as you were only 500 feet above the sea — about twice the height of Trinity spire. New York, — you would find yourself surrounded by vines, olives, oranges, melons, pomegranates, and other kinds of fruits, all in their season ; if you climbed on up a thou- sand or two feet higher, you would leave the melons and pomegranates behind, and reach the region where great and stately oak-trees grow, thick-leaved and centuries old, amid fields of corn ; higher still, say 3,500 to 5,000 feet above the sea, you would begin to smell the spicy resin of the pine, and see beech-trees with their silvered trunks ; above this you get into the Greek Alps, and now and then come on snow, even in summer-time. At this height every thing has an exquisite sharpness and lightness ; the atmos- phere is so transparent that you seem to see hun- WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. 1$ dreds of miles ; lakes nestle in spots and spangles of silver at your feet ; the rivers are circling threads of light in and out the land ; and here and yonder are the milk-white cities of Modern Greece clinging to their crags, crouching in their valleys, or shimmering among the plane-trees, walnuts, and chestnuts. Now and then you will trace a river-bed by the scarlet flame of the oleander blossoms that edge it in with fire ; or a group of graceful palms or a hedge of myrtle will recall the delightful tropics. All Greek travellers, too, tell us of the rare and enchanting flowers of Greece in the spring-time — the field lilies and asphodel, the splendid anemones — changing according to height above the sea level from scarlet to mauve, violet, and even deep blue; the yellow and white and brown irises, the many or- chids and air-plants, and at great heights the prim- roses and violets in watercourses ; the cyclamen, the scilla, and the crocus. These and many other beauti- ful flowers make Greece a real paradise for the lover of flowers. And so it is with the many shrubs and plants, the mastich, the wild pear, and the Judas- tree.* The hunter and sportsman find Greece in some places alive with game : bright-eyed lynxes, barking jackals, boars with white tusks, foxes, bears, wolves, and wild cats crouch or leap here and there in the thickets ; and red deer, roe, fallow deer, hares, and rabbits flash in swift flight through the woods. Greece is almost as devoid of poisonous reptiles as Ireland, though a sharp eye will detect many a bird * Dr. J. P. Maliaffy, Acad., Dec, 1884. 1 6 THE STORY OF GREECE. of prey in the air — vultures, eagles, hawks, and so on. Attica was and is famous for its owls — so famous that there ran a proverb about " carrying owls to Athens," which was equivalent to " carrying coals to Newcastle," or " doing a useless thing." The night- ingales of Ilellas have always been renowned, and egrets, pelicans, ])arlriclgcs, and pheasants abound. Two things strike an observer about the climate of Modern Greece: the intensity of the cold in winter and llu; fury of the heat in summer, the former being due to the exposure of the country to the icy winds from the snow hills on the north, and the latter to the flaming sirocco or hot wind that blows over Greece from the sands of Africa on the south. One traveller leaves it on record that in travelling through the Peloponnesus in March, he found summer in Messenia, spring in Laconia, and winter in Arcadia, without moving beyond a radius of fifty miles. Athens is generally free from snow, and in the beauti- ful Athenian May-time the fields arc full of reapers reaping the grain, March is the month when every thing is white with almond blossoms ; just after which the " Bird Winds," that bring the birds of passage, blow from the southwest for thirty days. The Etesian winds, which were mentioned before, blow down the Archipelago from tlie northeast, and con- tinue froiri thirty to fifty-five days in midsummer, when the brilliant dog-star shines red and fiery out of the scorching heavens. As the Archipelago has been referred to, shall I tell you briefly what it is? It is so immensely im- portant in the story of Greece that all who read that story should start with a clear idea of it. WHERE THE GREEKS LIVED. IJ The Archipelago is, roughly, the great sheet of water, called the ^ga^an Sea, that lies between East- ern Greece and the peninsula of Asia Minor. It is as full of islands as a melon is of seed, and these islands lie on the map in groups, like the granules in a slice of fish-roe, thickly sprinkled here and there. Just across the g'iping mouth of the Archi;xlago, on the south, lies the big island of Crete, shaped, as one can fancy, like the great scythe with which Zeus slew his father Cronus. Rhodes, Samos, Chios, Lesbos, and Lemnos run up along the Asiatic coast and stand forth among the other islands, conspicuous for their size and for their interest in our story. Euboea, on the west, throws its lofty mountain rampart right in front of Attica and Bo_^otia, while scattered on the bosom of the Archipelago north of Crete, " like orient pearls at random strung," are Andros, Tenos, Uelos, Naxos, Melos, and Thera, each and all forming lovely pictures on the sea. They are so close together that one can go about among them in an ordinary sail-boat, and so beautiful to look at both by moonlight and by sun- shine that a sail among them is like a sail in wonder- land. And more than this : they were the birthplace of many of the most celebrated men and women about whom we shall have to speak as we move along. Nearly every isle and islet thus has some- thing wonderful to say about itself, in justification of the place it occupies in Greek history : here a legend, there a great man, yonder a poet or philosopher sprang up to make one of these tiny lumps of rock illustrious forever — to light a lamp on it, ever-burn- ing, or fix a star above it, to shine forever and for- ever more. 15 THE STORY OF GREECE. For you must know that of all peoples that have ever lived the Greeks were the greatest, the keenest-witted, the most intelligent, the most artistic. There was nothing they did not seem to know, or if they did not know it they divined it. They had the noblest and most perfect language ever invented by any nation of men ; and not only that : they had more to say, and said it better, than any race of men that ever lived. Others took lumps of stone and modelled and chipped and hammered them into rude likenesses of human figures and faces ; the Greeks took the snowy marble and made it live, filled it with fieavenly grace, charged every limb with mys- terious force, and did every thing but make the marble talk. Others built great pyramids and laby- rinths and systems of artificial irrigation, or filled their land with mummies and sphinxes ; the Greeks with the wand of enchantment made their glorious shrines and dwelling-places of the gods, their porti- cos and market-places, their theatres and colonnades, rise all over their cities, and filled them with a varied throng of folk eager to inquire, to learn, to study political life, to buy and sell, to teach and to worship. And while others had rock-hieroglyphics or papyrus-sheets for their literature, the Greeks gave the world the most perfect poems and dramas, the finest histories, the most eloquent discourses that the world can ever hope to have. II. THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL THINGS. But neither children, young folks, nor grown-up people can understand the story of Greece, without, so to speak, putting on their Sunday clothes and go- ing to church with the ancient Greeks, or at least look- ing into their temples and their religious worship as they go along. The worship of the gods and goddess- es was so intimately interwoven with old Greek life, — ■ the Greeks had such a constant sense of an Overrul- ing Providence in their every-day life, — that it is abso- lutely necessary I should tell you something about their religion if you and I are to understand each other. For, notice : the Greeks did not be- lieve in one God as we do, or worship with prayer- books or catechisms or organ-music or choristers. They had gods in dozens and scores ; they believed themselves in direct contact with their deities — Zeus or Apollo or Artemis — through the ministrations ol the priests in the temples or through dreams in the night ; and they lived their lives often in craven ter- ror or in gladness and joy according as they believed or not that a god had spoken to them through an " oracle," as it was called — a voice out of the shrine often spoken by a priestess seized with a sort of madness. 20 THE STORY OF GREECE. I can make you understand their religion better, however, if I tell you how they came originally to have so many gods ; and I will tell you sub- stantially in the words of two scholars who have studied this subject profoundly and can present it to you in the clearest imaginable form. You must know, then, that many scholars believe, and believe with good reason, that the gods * of Greece and Rome, the heroes of the German " Lay of the Children of the Mist" (or Nibelungen-Lied), and the actors in the East Indian epic poems called the Vedas (or Books of Knowledge) owe their ex- istence largely to one and the same source. That source is made up of words and phrases used by the primitive "Aryan" or Persian-Indian people, from whom nearly all Europeans and white Americans are "descended, to express their thoughts about the mys- terious sights, sounds, and changes of the outward world. Did you never feel afraid of the big, round, shining moon as it rolled up the sky over the hills and looked like a great globe of fire that might set the world in flames ? Or of a black thunder-cloud which the streaked lightnings dart all over, like fiery serpents? Or the night, so black and awful and full of stars r And as you felt afraid, you shrank away or hid your self or felt like saying your prayers? Well, just so it was with this simple " Aryan " people from whom we all spring, thousands and thousands of years ago. They watched with won- der — just as little children do — the rise, progress, and * A. Sidgwick, Preface to Younghusband's "Witt's Classic My- thology." THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL THINGS, 21 setting of the sun, the dawn and the twihght, the color and play of the clouds. Then, trying — as little children will do — to explain the marvellous, they ZEUS, OR JUPITER. said that the sun must be an all-wise Being who toiled incessantly for mankind, and who, when the Day was swallowed — as they thought — by a hideous 22 THE STORY OF GREECE. monster called Night, fought that monster, as Chris- tian fought Apollyon in the "Pilgrim's Progress," over- came him, and brought back the morning light. And what they said and thought about the less striking things in nature was fully as poetical and expressive. In th^ course of time, ages on ages, and generations on generations, owing to the wide wanderings and separation of the branches of the " Aryan " family, the first meaning of these words and phrases was greatly changed and sometimes entirely lost. Little by little the names took on a substantial form — that is, were supposed to represent nvz/ crea- tures divine or human — as we, even now, speak of the sun as lie and the moon as she,- — and the phrases and words formed themselves into tales descriptive of the deeds of these creatures. You remember, for in- stance, how wonderfully Uncle Remus makes the rabbits and the foxes talk and tell their story ? So with these simple folks ; to their mind every object in nature talked, sang, or suffered, or loved or hated ; and of course all the more such magnificent crea- tures as the sun and the moon, the winds and the heavens, the sea, the fire, the daylight, the night, the earth, the clouds, and the underworld. To the earliest Greek poets, Homer and Hesiod, and to their descendants, the " personification," as it is called — the making real live persons out of things that have no life in themselves — was complete, and personal deities with grand forms and beautiful or terrible countenances seemed to them to dwell on cloud-capt Olympus, deities who rewarded or pun- ished men as they liked, loved and hated each other THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL THINGS. 23 just like human beings, and often lied, cheated, and stole in a manner far from worshipful or edifying. Some of their philosophers indeed — for there is no telling how wise the old Greeks were — suspected later on that a secret lay hid beneath this inconsist- ent faith which had grown up about them, and in which they had grown up ; for they could not under- stand any more than we how one of the great gods could cheat, and lie, and steal ; but these philos- ophers only hinted that they knew better than the poets or the common people, and winked at each other without daring or having the courage to jostle too roughly things so sacred to the people and the poets. There was danger indeed of their being made to swallow a drink of deadly hemlock if they said a word against the immortal gods, or tried to explain them away in the least degree. Learned men in our day, however, have had no such fear, and examining closely the words and names and expressions by which these gods and goddesses are called, and comparing them with the words, names, and expressions for the same things in other and related languages, they have discovered that most of them seem to point to the sun, the sea, the dawn, and the sky ; and the stories which grew up round these things they call " myths," from which comes our familiar English word '* mythology," which we sometimes define as " profane superstitions." Many of the stories of this mythology, which the Greeks believed as we do our Bible, are exceedingly curious and beautiful, and if you will listen you shall hear several of them told most charmingly by an old German professor over the seas, in Germany: 24 THE STORY OF GREECE. Long ago, in the beginning of time, there was nothing but a huge dark mass called Chaos. In this Chaos were hidden all things that now exist, the earth and the sky, light and darkness, fire and water, and every thing else ; but they were not yet severed one from another, and were so mingled and confused that nothing had a separate form of its own. After Chaos had lasted for a long time it parted asunder, and the Earth was divided from the Heaven. The Sun and the Moon and the Stars mounted up above into the sky, but the water and the stones and the trees preferred to remain below with the earth. There was a god in the sky called Uranus (or Ouranos), and on earth there was a goddess called Gaea. They became husband and wife, and had several children, of whom six were ugly and twelve were beautiful. The ugly ones had, each of them, either a hundred arms or else only one eye. Those who had a hundred arms had also fifty heads, and they were as big as mountains, and very frightful. The others had only one eye a-piece, and it was placed in the middle of their foreheads, and was as large as a cart-wheel. But the beautiful brothers and sisters were formed like men, only they were much larger and grander. Six of them were gods, and were called Titans ; there were also six goddesses, who were called Titanides (or Titanesses). The gods lived on the summit of a very high mountain, called Mount Olympus, which almost reached the sky, and Uranus was king over them all. He could not bear the sight of his hundred- armed and one-eyed children, because they were so THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL THINGS. 2$ hideous, so he thrust them into a dark pit below the earth called Tartarus, and would not let them come out of it again. But mother Gaea loved even her ugly children, and was angry with Uranus for ban- ishing them into darkness and misery. And she said to her son Cronus, who was the youngest of the beautiful gods, that if he would promise to fetch up his hundred-armed and one-eyed brethren out of Tartarus, she would help him to dethrone U ranus, and himself become king of the gods. Cronus prom- ised that he would do this, and Gaea created the bright cutting steel, and made with it a sharp sickle, which she gave to her son, and told him to kill tJranus with it when he was asleep. Cronus did as she desired him, and thus Uranus lost his kingdom and his life. Cronus now ruled over the world in his father's stead, and the other gods had to obey him. He took one of the Titanides (or Titanesses) called Rhea, to be his wife, and made her the queen. He also fetched up his ugly brothers from Tartarus, but he soon became afraid of them and drove them back into the dark pit. Mother Gaea now saw how little she had gained by her treachery to her husband, and she told Cronus that he should lose his kingly power through one of his children, just as Uranus had done. This frightened him so much that whenever Rhea had a child, he took it and swallowed it. He swallowed five of them in this way, and poor Rhea was very sad because she had no children left. Then Gaea told her, next time she had a child, to take a stone and wrap it in swaddling clothes, and give 26 THE STORY OF GREECE. it to Cronus to swallow as if it were the baby, but keep the real child in some safe place till it was grown up. Rhea did so, and Cronus swallowed the stone she gave him, thinking it was the little boy that had just been born ; but Rhea hid the child in a cave in the island of Crete, where a beautiful goat named Amalthea nourished him with her milk. And there were armed men there who, whenever the baby cried, danced about and dashed their shields and spears together as if they were treading a war-dance for their own amusement, but it was really to prevent Cronus from hearing the crying. The boy was named Zeus, and in a year he was quite grown up, and was the most beautiful and most powerful of all the gods. When Cronus was asleep, Rhea used to go to the cave and talk to him. At last the time came when Zeus was to wage war against his father, and then Gaea gave her daughter Rhea a bowl containing a sweet medicine for Cronus to drink. Rhea went to her husband and said : Mother Gaea is no longer angry with you, and she has sent you this sweet drink. Cronus took the bowl and drank it up; it tasted very nice, but after he had swallowed it he began to feel very uncomfortable, and presently he was sick. Then out came the stone and the children that he had swallowed, the young- est first and the eldest last; there were two gods and three goddesses, and they were all quite grown up ! The names of the gods were Poseidon and Pluto, and the names of the goddesses were Her^, Demeter, and Hestia. Then the young gods made war against the old THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL THINGS. 2/ ones, and they sent for the hundred-armed and one- eyed monsters out of Tartarus, that they might help them. The One-eyed were very skilful at smith's work, and they were so grateful to Zeus for setting them free that they forged for him valuable weapons, thunder and lightning. The old gods took their stand on Mount Othrys (in Thessaly), and the young ones on Mount Olympus, and between them was a far-stretching valley where they fought. When there was a battle the whole earth resounded at the tread of the gods. The Hundred-armed always threw a hundred pieces of rock at once, and Zeus hurled thunderbolt after thunderbolt, till the woods were in flames and the rivers boiled. The war lasted for ten years, but at last the young gods triumphed. They thrust their enemies into Tartarus, and set the Hundred-armed and the One-eyed to keep guard over them. Zeus was now the king of the gods, and he married his sister Here (as Abraham did Sarah) and made her the queen. He also gave an empire to each of his brothers: all the sea was made subject to Poseidon, and Pluto became the king of the Lower World, where the dead were. These gods had children who were also gods, and had each their part in the government of the universe. The good goat Amal- thea was already dead, but Zeus honored her by making one of her horns a wonder, which became famous all over the world. Whoever had it miofht wish for any thing he liked to cat or drink, and im- mediately it was there ; and for this reason it was called the Horn of Plenty, because it produced in ?8 THE STORY OF GREECE. abundance every thing that could be desired in the way of food. Mother Gaea had planned the overthrow of Cronus because he had driven back his hundred-armed and one-eyed brothers into Tartarus. But she found herself worse off than ever, for the only result of her revengfe was that now her beautiful children were imprisoned instead of the ugly ones. This made her very angry with the young gods, and she could not bear to see them powerful and happy. So she brought into the world some hideous monsters to make war against the young gods. They were called Giants, and had enormous strength and cour- age. They tore up masses of rock and dashed them up into the air till the vault of heaven rang again, but the gods only laughed at it, for the stones were powerless to hurt them by the time they had reached so great a height, and there was no mountain high enough for the Giants to climb from it to the top of Mount Olympus (which was a mile and a half high). The Giants went on this way for a long time, but they found that, do what they would, they could not inflict any injury upon the gods, and only got laughed at for their pains ; so they resolved to try another plan. They made up their minds to build a ladder by which they might climb up to the abode of the gods, and they set to work to uproot a moun- tain called Ossa (also in Thcssaly), and roll it on to the top of another mountain called Pelion. But whilst they were doing this Zeus hurled a mighty thunderbolt against Ossa, and made it fall down again, and the gods rushed down to the earth to THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL THINGS. 29 fight the Giants, shouting their war-cry. The fight lasted for a whole day, for the Giants were very strong ; but at last the gods gained the victory, and they crushed each of the Giants beneath a huge mountain, which did not kill him, but prevented his ever getting up again. One of them tried to es- cape over the Mediterranean Sea, but the Goddess Athene, who was the daughter of Zeus, tore off a great three-cornered piece of land and threw it after him. It hit him just as he was in the middle of the sea, and he fell down and was buried beneath it. After some time the land became covered with for- ests and cities, and it is now called the Island of Sicily. Every now and then the Giants turn on one side beneath their mountain, and then people say : " It is an earthquake " ; and sometimes they become quite furious with impatience, and then their fier)' breath bursts through the mountains and puffs out molten iron and stones. After the Giants were conquered, Gaea created a truly terrific being, far worse than they had been. She brought him out of a great crack that she had made in the earth, and she called him Typhoeus, and was quite pleased to see how hideous he was, for she thought that such a monstrous creature would surely be able to conquer the young gods. He could see over the tops of the highest mountains, and when he stretched out his hands they reached right round the world. He had a hundred heads, each of them with a different kind of voice, so that he could speak like a man, bellow like a bull, roar like a lion, bark like a dog, and hiss like a snake. All the other 30 THE STORY OF GREECE. gods were afraid of him and hid themselves, but Zeus armed himself with thunderbolts and went out to fight him (hke David going out to fight Goliath). Typhoeus threw large masses of rock at him, and screamed with all his hundred mouths at once, but Zeus scorched him with lightning, till at last bright flames burst out all over the giant's body. Then Typhoeus howled and dashed himself to the ground, rolling over and over to try and put out the flames, but he could not succeed in doing so, for Zeus went on hurling thunderbolts at him, and the trees all round caught fire. At last Gaea began to fear that the whole earth would melt, and so she seized Typhoeus and flung him down into Tartarus, where he died. After this Gaea gave up fighting with the young gods, for she knew that they were stronger than she was, but it was a very long time before she really made friends with them. It was during the time that Cronus was reigning over the gods that men were first created, and this was called the Golden Age. In the Golden Age it was always spring-time, and beautiful flowers blos- somed the whole year round in the woods and meadows. It was not necessary for men to labor at tilling the ground, for the earth brought forth of itself every thing they could possibly require ; apples and melons and grapes and other fruits grew wild everywhere, and in the brooks there flowed a de- licious kind of water that tasted like milk. Men, too, were good and happy, and they all lived for a long time, for three hundred years or more, and they did not THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL THINGS. 31 get old and gray, but always remained young. They had no need of houses, but lived out-of-doors, with the beautiful earth for a carpet and the sky for a roof. Neither were there any distinctions such as we have now between rich and poor, or the upper and lower classes, but all were equal and lived to- gether as friends. When they had lived for a long time and had had their fill of life, they fell into a deep sleep and never woke again : that was their death. The Golden Age came to an end at last, but those who had lived during that time became guardian spirits, who still wander unseen over the earth, and are kind to us who are now alive.* * Witt's " Myths of Hellas," trans, by Younghusband. III. A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. But it would take volume on volume if I tried to tell you all about the gods and goddesses, and espe- cially about the demi-gods and heroes (who were usually sons of a god and a mortal), so I will only pick out three or four of the greatest gods and give you their lives and doings in a few lines. The greatest of the gods after Zeus were Apollo, Hermes, Poseidon, and Dionysus, and the greatest of the goddesses after Here, Queen of Heaven, were Athene, Artemis, Aphrodite, and Demeter. There are many brilliant and charming stories about these and about the nymphs and minor gods and god- desses, but it is impossible to tell them to you ; a library would not hold my talk if I attempted to tell you all about them. There are two stories of Apollo, one of the De- lian, and the other of the Pythian Apollo, but I will only tell you one, remarking that the latter was the more famous of the two, and was worshipped at Delphi, while the former had a great and splendid shrine on the little isle of Delos, in the /Egaean Sea, south of Attica. The story * of the Pythian Apollo * Cox's " Tales of Ancient Greece," p. 3. 34 THE STORY OF GREECE. reads like a poem, and is full of pictures and inci- dents, but it is too long for repetition. From land to land the Lady Leto wandered in fear and sorrow, for no city or country would give her a home where she might abide in peace. From Crete to Athens, from Athens to ^gina, from ^gina to the heights of Pelion and Athos^ through all the islands of the wide iF!gaean Sea, Scyros, and Imbros, and Lemnos, and Chios, the fairest of all, she passed, seeking a home. But in vain she prayed each land to receive her, and promised to raise it to great glory if only there she might rest in peace. And she lifted up her voice and said : " Listen to me, O island of the dark sea. If thou wilt grant me a home, all nations shall come unto thee, and great wealth shall flow in upon thee ; for here shall Phcebus Apollo, the lord of life and light, be born, and men shall come hither to know his will and win his favor." Then answered Delos and said : " Lady, thou promisest great things ; but they say that the power of Phoe- bus Apollo will be such as nothing on the wide earth may withstand ; and mine is but a poor and stony soil, where there is little to please the eye of those who look upon me. Wherefore I fear that he will despise my hard and barren land, and go to some other country where he will build a more glorious temple, and grant richer gifts to the people who come to worship him." But Leto swore by the dark water of the Styx, and the wide heaven above, and the broad earth around her, that in Delos should be the shrine of Phcebus, and that there should the rich offerings burn on his altar the whole year round. A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 35 So Leto rested in the island of Dclos, and there was Phcebus Apollo born. And there was joy amonij the undying gods who dwell in Oh'mpus, and the earth laughed beneath the smile of heaven. There was his temple built in Delos. and men came to it from all lands to learn his will and offer rich sacrifices on his altar. Thus came into being the most beautiful of all the Greek gods, the lord of the lyre and of music and of song, who, harp in hand, goes wandering about mak- ing such sweet music as no mortal ear hath heard before. He came to Delphi in the shape of a dol- phin, over the sea, and when he reached the shore they say he went forth out of the sea like a star, and the brightness of his glorj- reached up to the high heaven. Into the shrine which men had built for him he hastened, and on the altar he kindled the fire that was never suffered to go out ; and in the temple the priestess dwelt who gave answers to men when they came to ask the gods what they should do in their sins and sorrows and perplexities and difficult undertakings. But very different from all this sunshine and beauty is the sad story of the goddess Demeter, which is full of sorrow and tears. Only a scrap of it, alas, can be given here, for the story is long, and the space at our command is short. The story * goes that : In the fields of Enna, in the happ\' island of Sicily, the fair Persephone was playing with the girls that lived there with her. She was the daughter of the lady Demeter, and every one loved them both ; * Cox, p. 26 (.ulaptcd). 2,6 THE STOEY OF GREECE. for Demeter was good and kind to all, and no one could be more gentle and merry than Persephone. She and her companions were gathering flowers from the field to make crowns for their long flowing hair. They had picked many roses and lilies and hyacinths which grew in clusters around them, when Persephone thought she saw a splendid flower far ofT ; and away she ran, as fast as she could, to get it. It was a shining narcissus, with a hundred heads springing from one stem ; and the perfume which came from its flowers gladdened the broad heaven above, and the earth and sea around it. Eagerly Persephone stretched out her hand to take this splendid prize, when the earth opened and a chariot stood before her drawn by four coal-black horses ; and in the chariot there was a man with a dark and solemn face, which looked as though he could never smile, and as though he had never been happy. In a moment he got out of his chariot, seized Persephone round the waist, and put her on the seat by his side. Then he touched the horses with his whip, and they drew the chariot down into the great gulf, and the earth closed over them again ! Presently the girls who had been playing with Persephone came up to the place where the beauti- ful narcissus was growing ; but they could not see her anywhere. And they said : " Here is the very flower which she ran to pick, and there is no place here where she can be hiding." Still for a long time they searched for her through the fields of Enna ; and when the evening was come, they went home to tell the lady Demeter that they could not tell what had become of Persephon^. A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 37 Very terrible was the sorrow of Demetcr when she was told that her child was lost. She put a dark robe on her shoulders, and took a flaming torch in her hand, and went over land and sea to look for Persephone. But no one could tell her where she was gone. When ten days were passed she met Hecate and asked her about her child, but Hecate said : " I heard her voice as she cried out when some one seized her ; but I did not see it with my own eyes, and so I know not where she is gone." Then she went to Helios (the Sun-God) and said to him : " O Helios, tell me about my child ; thou seest every thing on the earth, sitting in the bright sun." Then Helios said to Demeter: " I pity thee for thy great sorrow, and I will tell thee the truth. It is Hades who has taken away Persephone to be his wife in the dark and gloomy land which lies beneath in the earth." Bitter was the sorrow of Demeter, but at last she found Persephone through the aid of Zeus and Hermes ; for Zeus knew that all things must die unless he soothed the grief of Demeter (who was the goddess of the harvest-fields). So Hermes slyly gave Persephone some pomegranate seed to taste, and ever afterward she had the power of staying six months in the underworld with her husband Hades or Pluto (god of the underworld), and six months on earth at the side of her mother Demeter. But still, whenever the time came round for Persephone to go back to Hades, Demeter thought of the happy days when her daughter was a merry girl playing with her companions, and gathering the bright flowers in the plains of Enna. 38 THE STORY OF GREECE. But the funniest and most original of all the Gods was Hermes, who was every thing that he ought not to have been — a thief, a " story-teller," a rogue, and every thing you please in the way of rapscallion and ragamufifin. He tormented the life of the gods out of them with his tricks and rogueries. Think of his making a great jew's-harp out of a tortoise-shell with reed-canes stretched across it, and strips of ox- hide and sheep-gut to match, when he was only half a day old ! And before he was a single day old he stole the cattle of the gods from the Pierian hill, and covered up his theft by pulling them backwards (some say by the tail). Nobody, of course, could tell which way they had gone. And the next day the baby-god sliced up two of the animals and made a sacrifice of them ; and thus he came to be considered the inventor of sacrifices to the gods. The crafty rogue tried his luck against Apollo and threatened to go to the shrine of Delphi and steal the tripods and cauldrons, the iron vessels and glit- tering robes belonging to the golden-haired god. Apollo became so much afraid of the wily babe, who winked and smiled and looked such a precious inno- cent, that he dragged the little fellow up to Olym- pus, before the throne of Zeus, and accused him of stealing his cows. Zeus laughed at his tricks, but said that he must tell where he had hidden the beasts ; so he had to do so. Yet he outwitted Apollo after all, for just as the Delian God was about to seize him, Hermes touched the strings of his tortoise lyre with his bow and made such heaven- ly music come out of it that Apollo was enchanted, A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 39 and his heart was filled with a mighty longing for the plaything. Hermes gave it to him, and received in exchange a glittering scourge, with charge over all flocks and herds, first, however, being made to swear by the Styx that he would not steal the harp away from Apollo. Then he was given dominion over all living things that feed on the wide earth, and he was made the god of merchants and of secrets, and the guide to lead the souls of men, when they die, to the dark kingdom of Hades. At his ankles he had two wonderful wings, and on his helmet two, and he bore a wand in his hand as the messenger of the gods. Lately they have discovered the most beautiful statue of him buried in the sand at Olympia, in the Western Peloponnesus, which, you know, looks out on the Ionian Sea. One of the most potent and powerful of the Greek gods, however, and the one out of whose worship grew up the great and famous plays and theatrical pieces of the Greeks, was the wine-god, DionysuSo His story is so remarkable that I must tell it to you, and tell it in the words of one who is a poet and a story-teller of a high order: On the land and on the sea strange things befell Dionysus (the son of Zeus and Semele, child of Cad- mus) ; but from all dangers his own strong arm and the love of Zeus his father rescued him. Thus ever}'where men spoke of his beauty and his strength, and said that he was worthy to be the child of the maiden who had dared to look on the majesty of Zeus. At length the days of his youth were ended, and a great yearning filled his heart to wander 40 THE STORY OF GREECE. through the earth and to behold the cities and the ways of men. So from Orchomenus (in Boeotia, the land of Dionysus), Dionysus journeyed to the sea shore, and he stood on a jutting rock to gaze on the tumbling waters. The glad music of the waves fell upon his ear and filled his soul with a wild joy. His dark locks streamed gloriously over his shoulders, and his purple robe rustled in the soft summer breeze. Before him on the blue waters the ships danced merrily in the sparkling sunlight, as they hastened from shore to shore on the errands of war and peace. Presently a ship drew near to the beach. Her white sail was lowered hastily to the deck, and five of her crew leaped out and plunged through the sea-foam to the shore, near the rock on which stood Dionysus. " Come with us," they said, with rough voices, as they seized him in their brawny arms ; " it is not every day that Tyrrhenian mariners fall in with youths like thee." With rude jests they dragged him to the ships, and there made ready to bind him. "A brave youth and fair he is," they said ; " we shall not lack bidders when we put forth our goods for sale." So round his limbs they fastened stout withy bands, but they fell off from him as withered leaves fall from trees in autumn, and a careless smile played on his face as he sat down and looked calmly on the robbers who stood before him. Then on a sudden the voice of the helmsman was heard as he shouted : " Fools ! what do ye ? The wrath of Zeus is hurrying you to your doom ! This youth is not of mortal race ; and who can tell which of the undying gods has put on this beautiful form ? Send him straightway from A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 4 1 the ship in peace, if ye fear not a deadly storm as we cross the open sea." Loud laughed the crew, as their chief answered jeeringly : " Look out for the breeze, wise helmsman, and draw up the sail to the wind. That is more thy task than to busy thyself with our doings. Fear not for the boy. The withy bands were but weak ; it is no great marvel that he shook them off. He shall go with us, and before we reach Egypt or Cyprus or the land of the Hyper- boreans, doubtless he will tell us his name and the name of his father and mother. Fear not ; we have found a godsend." So the sail was drawn up to the mast, and it swelled proudly before the breeze as the ship dashed through the crested waves. And still the sun shone brightly down on the water, and the soft white clouds floated lazily in the heavens, as the mighty Dionysus began to show signs and wonders before the robbers who had seized him. Over the deck ran a stream of purple wine, and a fragrance as of a heavenly banquet filled the air. Over mast and sail-yard clambered the clustering vine, and dark masses of grapes hung glis- tening from the branches. The ivy twined in tan- gled masses round the tackling, and bright garlands shone, like jewelled crowns, on every oar-pin. Then a great terror fell on all, as they cried to the old helmsman : " Quick ! turn the ship to the shore ; there is no hope for us here." But there followed a mightier wonder still. A loud roar broke upon the air, and a tawny lion stood before them, with a grim and grisly bear by his side. Cowering like pitiful slaves, the Tyrrhenians crowded to the stern and crouched 42 THE STORY OF GREECE. round the good helmsman. Then the Hon sprang and seized the chief, and the men leaped in their agony over the ship's side. But the power of Diony- sus followed them still ; and a change came over their bodies as they heard a voice which said : " In the form of dolphins shall ye wander through the sea for many generations. No rest shall ye have by night or by day while ye fly from the ravenous sharks that shall chase you through the seas." But before the old helmsman again stood Diony- sus, the young and fair, in all the glory of undying beauty. Again his dark locks flowed gently over his shoulders, and the purple robe rustled softly in the breeze. "Fear not," he said, "good friend and true, because thou hast aided one who has sprung from the deathless race of the gods. I am Dionysus, the child of Zeus, the lord of the wine-cup and the revel. Thou hast stood by me in the hour of peril ; where- fore my power shall shield thee from the violence of evil men and soothe thee in a green old age, till thine eyes close in the sleep of death, and thou goest forth to dwell among brave heroes and good men in the asphodel meadows of Elysium." Then at the bidding of Dionysus the north wind came and wafted the ship to the land of Egypt, where Proteus was king. And so began the long wanderings of the son of Semele, through the regions of the Ethiopians and the Indians, toward the rising of the sun. Whithersoever he went, the women of the land gathered round him with wild cries and songs, and he showed them of his sweet things, punishing A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 43 grievously all who set at nought the new laws which he ordained.* But these stories are only scraps and bits of the wonderful god-lore of the Greeks, each one character- istic, to be sure, but none taking in the whole. They are given only as samples and specimens, very poeti- cal and highly colored, of wh;.t the poetical and imaginative Greeks believed. The whole world for them was hung and festooned with these beautiful stories, as the trees are with vines or the fences with spider-nets in the spring. They believed them as fully as you believe your Bible stories of Joseph and his many-colored coat, or of the child Samuel. Nearly every house had an altar where one, or perhaps half a dozen of them were worshipped, and Greece was covered from one end to the other, and from one isle to the other, with their temples, gardens, and pre- cincts. Each particular thing had its god or goddess. Ares was the god of war, Aphrodite the goddess of love and beauty, Artemis the goddess of the chase, Hephaestus the god of fire, and so on ; and any sacri- lege done to any one of them, as you will find after- wards in the story of Alcibiades and the history of the Peloponnesian War, filled all Greece with horror, and often led to great and dreadful consequences. To doubt them or to speak ill of them, or even to be thought to speak ill of them, as in the case of Socrates, was death. Most of the great Grecian families, such as the royal family of Sparta, traced their descent back to a god, just as the Anglo-Saxon kings of England traced their descent back to Odin * Adapted from Cox's " Tales," p. 39. 44 THE STORY OF GREECE. and Thor (the gods of the early German world), and would not hear to being descended from a mere man. You see at once, then, the intimate connection be- tween family life in Greece and the worship of the gods ; a man is a brute who casts doubt on his own father; a man was an atheist who laughed at the stories of the gods, their loves and hates and adven- tures, as fictions of the poets, too marvellous to be believed. The Greeks consulted their oracles and their gods in all the events of their lives, when they went to war or concluded peace ; they consulted omens and asked the priests to interpret them ; and this they often did by examining the entrails of animals or the flight of birds, or by taking note of natural phenomena, such as an earthquake, a sudden storm, or an unusual occurrence of any kind. The earth was full of signs and wonders for them, and they were seldom happy until they had sent to the shrine of Apollo in Phocis, or to the grove of Dodona in Epirus, sacred to Zeus, or to some local shrine or temple, for help and guidance ; and you will find on reading Herodotus, who reflects most perfectly of all the Greeks the credulous and superstitious and poeti- cal beliefs of his people, how by day and by night, in summer and in winter, all Hellas believed in an Overruling Providence which took direct account of the actions of men, and punished or rewarded them according as these were actions to be approved or not. Later on, to be sure, in the clearer and saner times of the clear and sane historian Thucydides, there was a good deal of scepticism, and many came to disbelieve what their grandfathers and erand- A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 45 mothers before them had bcHeved ; but Hellas never emancipated itself wholly from the faith of the fathers, and if you were to go to Greece even to-day, you would find the whole country full of stories and superstitions and beliefs just like these you have been reading, handed on down for several thousand years and still influencing the lives of the people. But to introduce you to the real story of Greece, and gradually get you out of the cloud-land of the myths, it will be necessary for me to wind up this part of the book by telling how Athens, the noblest of all the cities of Greece, got its name, and then tracing its history and the history of Sparta and Thebes (the other two most celebrated of the Hellenic state-cities), thiough the times of Homer and the Trojan War down to the wars between Persia and Greece, under Darius and Xerxes. There is a cloud- land behind each city ; then comes a period half fact and half myth, in which fact and fiction are curiously and poetically intermingled, to account for this, that, or the other occurrence in the history of Hellas ; and then last of all we get to the region of per- fect light and day, where we see all things clearly, in their true relation and connection, and without the magic-lantern colorings and distortions of the myths. Thus the history of Greece is like a series of slides in a panorama or a dissolving view : one thing melts into another ; and as fuller and fuller light is thrown on the picture, the dimness and uncertainty vanish, the details stand out clearer and clearer, and finally you can trace each figure in the picture as distinctly as if it were actually alive. 46 THE STORY OF GREECE, Suppose now I tell you the story of Poseidon and Athene ? Well, near the banks of the stream Cephisus (in Attica) Erechtheus had built a city in a rocky and thin-soiled land. He was the father of a free and brave people ; and though his city was small and humble, yet Zeus by his wisdom foresaw that one day it would become the noblest of all cities through- out the wide earth. And there was a strife between Poseidon, lord of the sea, and Athene, the virgin daughter of Zeus (a goddess who sprang full-armed from the head of her father), to see by whose name the city of Erechtheus should be called. So Zeus ap- pointed a day in which he would judge between them in the presence of the great gods who dwell on high Olympus. When the day was come, the gods sat each on his golden throne, on the banks of the stream Cephisus. High above all was the throne of Zeus, the great father of gods and men, and by his side sat Here, the queen. This day even the sons of men might gaze upon them, for Zeus had laid aside his light- nings, and all the gods had come down in peace to listen to his judgment between Poseidon and Athene. There sat Phoebus Apollo, with his harp in his hand. His face glistened for the bright- ness of his beauty ; but there was no anger in his gleaming eye, and idle by his side lay the unerring spear with which he smites all who deal falsely and speak lies. There beside him sat Artemis, his sister, whose days were spent in chasing the beasts of the earth and in sporting with the nymphs on the reedy A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 47 banks of the Eurotas. There by the side of Zeus sat Hermes, ever bright and youthful, the spokesman of the gods, with staff in hand to do the will of the great father. There sat Hephaestus, the lord of fire, and Hestia, who guards the hearth. There, too, was Ares, who delights in war, and Dionysus, who loves the banquet and the wine-cup ; and Aphrodite, the goddess who rose from the sea-foam to fill the earth with laughter and woe. Before them all stood the rivals awaiting the judgment of Zeus. High in her left hand Athene held the invincible spear; and on her a^gis (a shield), hidden from mortal sight, was the face on which no man may gaze and live. Close behind her, proud in the greatness of his power, Poseidon waited the issue of the contest. In his right hand gleamed the trident (a three-pronged spear) with which he shakes the earth and cleaves the waters of the sea. Then from his golden seat rose the spokesman Hermes, and his clear voice rang all over the great council. " Listen," he said, "to the will of Zeus, who judges now between Poseidon and Athene. The city of Erechtheus shall bear the name of that god who shall bring forth out of the earth the best gift for the sons of men. If Poseidon do this, the city shall be called Poseidonia; but if Athene bring the higher gift, it shall be called Athens ! " Then King Poseidon rose up in the greatness of his majesty, and with his trident he smote the earth where he stood. Straightway the hill was shaken to its depths, and the earth burst asunder, and forth from the chasm leaped ahorse such as never shall be seen again for strength and beauty. His body shone 48 THE STORY OF GREECE. white all over as the driven snow; his mane streamed proudly in the wind as he stamped on the ground and scoured in very wantonness over hill and valley. *' Behold my gift," said Poseidon, "and call the city after my name. Who shall give aught better than the horse to the sons of men ? " But Athene looked steadfastly at the gods with her keen gray eye, and she stooped slowly down to the ground, and planted in it a little seed which she held in her right hand. She spoke no more, but still gazed calmly on that great council. Presently they saw springing from the earth a little germ, which grew up and threw out its boughs and leaves. Higher and higher it rose, with all its thick green foliage, and put forth fruit on its clustering branches. " My gift is better, O Zeus," she said, " than that of King Poseidon. The horse which he has given shall bring war and strife and anguish to the children of men ; my olive-tree is the sign of peace and plenty, of health and strength, and the pledge of happiness and freedom. Shall not, then, the city of Erechtheus be called after my name ? " Then with one accord rose the voices of the gods in the air, as they cried out : " The gift of Athene is the best which may be given to the sons of men ; it is the token that the city of Erechtheus shall be greater in peace than in war, and nobler in its free- dom than in its power. Let the city be called Athens ! " Then Zeus, the mighty son of Cronus, bowed his head in sign of judgment that the city should be called by the name of Athene. From his head the amber-smelling locks streamed down, and the earth A FURTHER PEEP AT THE GODS. 49 trembled beneath his feet as he rose from his golden throne to return to the halls of Olympus. But still Athene stood gazing over the land which — 1^ ~ ,. was now her own ; and she stretched out her spear towards the city of Erechtheus, and said : "I have won the victory and here shall be my home. Here shall my children grow up in happiness and freedom ; and hither shall the sons of men come to learn of law and order. Here shall they see what great things may be done by mortal hands when aided by the gods who dwell in Olympus; and when the torch of free- dom has gone out at Athens, its light shall be handed on to other lands, and men shall learn that my gift is still the best, and they shall say that reverence for law and the freedom of thought and deed has come to them from the city of Erechtheus, which bears the name of ATHENE.'^ OLIVE TREE. * Cox's " Tales," p. 75 (adapted). IV. THE TALE OF TROY. Every thing in Greek history dates from the Trojan War, though nobody knows what the date of the Trojan War is. It is the 1776 of the Greeks, just as 1688 is the great and shining date for England, and 1789 the great and shining date for France. We will not plunge into the clouds and attempt to tell whether this war occurred 1,000, or whether it occurred 1,500, years before the Christian Era. That it did occur the Greeks believed firmly, what- ever the German professors or the English sceptics may believe ; and as we are telling the story not of German professors or English sceptics but of the Greeks as the Greeks seemed to themselves — as they sung and warred and lived and believed, — we shall excuse ourselves from attempting to give you the innumerable conflicting theories by which both Briton and Teuton have striven to ex- plain the Trojan War away. That most brilliant arc of Greek story rests for you and for me with one end — like a gigantic rainbow — touching the palace of Priam and the other the phalanx of Alexander the Great. It is beneath this glorious arch, wide as the heavens and yet narrow as a ribbon, that the meandering current of the story is to flow. A3 ^ H h^h ^A H ^ us > UEMN ^CYR^ \ cP 22 Z3 ANCIENT c THE TALE OF TROY. $1 And how shall I introduce to you this great, joyous, fighting, noisy, blubbering world of Homer and give you a proper idea of its men and women ? The life of Greece went up in one universal shock and shout in this tremendous conflict and sent forth an echo which has reverberated on down to our times. When you are walking through a picture-gallery you are often obliged to take a cicerone or guide to explain to you this, that, or the other picture. Following this plan we shall attach ourselves first to Thucydides and then to Herodotus as our cicerone in the great picture-gallery of Grecian story. Herodotus, you will find hereafter, is delightfully bright and chatty, full of good stories, talking as glibly as a grandfather and gathering all Greece to his knees to listen to his jolly tales. The early history of Hellas is traversed by many charming legends like bright streams that flow through a landscape, this way and that, hither and yon, so that at first you seem to be gazing at the walls of a mighty palace hung with tapestries, each tapestry alive with figures and houses, heroes and kings, all shining with gay hues and happy touches. Herodotus writes his history in this fashion : As you follow him, you walk in and out of your picture-gal- lery palace hung with countless pictures, while the old man stops and talks as simply and poetically as a child, pointing you to this or that canvas, sometimes singing a song or repeating an oracle or preaching a short sermon, but never by any possibility growing dull for a single minute. Thucydides is a little sterner : He gives you any 52 THE STORY OF GREECE. number of copper-plate engravings, exact and faith- ful, full of delicate lines and pale white light ; every thing clear, distinct, and correct. He is a judge, very impartial and strict, and you will scarcely catch him tripping or clearing his throat. You must know that in this first great war of allied Greece against a common foe, in which the Greeks sailed for Troy to recover Helen the wife of Mene- laus, who had been stolen away by the arch-rogue Paris, it is the opinion of Thucydides that Agamem- non, the principal Greek leader, led the expedition because he was the most powerful king of his time, and not because the suitors of Helen had bound themselves by oath to Tyndareus, her father. Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus were said to be descendants of the wealthy Asiatic Pelops who had settled in the Peloponnesus in very early times and gave to it his name. His posterity — the Pelop- idae — drove out the Heraclidae or descendants of Hercules (who attempted five times to recover the Peloponnesus, and succeeded the fifth time), and took possession of the throne of Mycenae. Agamemnon was the mightiest naval potentate of his time, and was followed by the other princes to Troy not from good-will but from fear. Homer tells us that he brought the largest number of ships to Troy, and he was called " the king of many islands and of all Argos." Argos, you must know, was the easternmost of the principalities of the Pelo- ponnesus, — a little rag of land jutting out into the ^Egaean Sea like a Greek Sandy Hook, but full at one time of cities and wealth ; in Homer "Argos" means nearly all the Peloponnesus. THE ABDUCTION OF HELEN. 54 THE STORY OF GREECE. Mycenae we know was a great city, and we know it from what the celebrated Dr. Schliemann has lately dug up there — wonderful objects of art, golden orna- ments, giant walls, fragments of cyclopcsan architec- ture, and the like. Agamemnon gathered nearly 1,200 ships at Aulis, in Boeotia, filled with armed men and archers, who also rowed the vessels — -a mighty armada, like that with which Philip II. of Spain started out to conquer England. These ships were thronged with heroes in glittering arms and gleaming helms, with horses, provisions, and all the paraphernalia of war. And they needed all this before they got back, and more too, for Troy held out for ten years, and the besieging army had to till the soil to raise provisions for its support. The Greeks could not, it seems, squeeze the life out of Troy as the Germans squeezed the life out of Paris in our day — by sheer starvation. If we can believe Homer, who sang the exploits of his people before Troy, the Trojan War was a scrimmage, a "grand filibustering expedition," a huge raid and " all for fun," yet im- mensely serious for all that, — full of battle and bustle, of bluster and cowardice, of brilliant deeds and revels, of single combats and complicated engage- ments. Its key-note is the wrath of a man, as the key-note of the Odyssey (in which the wanderings of Odysseus after the fall of Troy are recounted) is the love of a woman. Homer told the story with such compelling force that the Greeks afterward came to look upon his poems as a sort of Bible, and gladly looked back to the men who figured in them as their half-divine ancestors. The second oi the twenty-four THE TALE OF TROY. 55 books of his " Iliad " the Greeks regarded as a sort of " Almanach de Gotha " in which they could see what their ancestors had done, and who were present at, and who were absent from, this great war. So, it seems, the Jews constructed their genealogies in such a manner that they led or seemed to lead back to one of the twelve sons of Jacob ; and a man was a " Levite " if he could trace his grandmothers and grandfathers back to the patriarch Levi, or he was an " Ephraimite " if his line led back to the patriarch Ephraim, So a Greek was a " Heraclide " if his family line began with the patriarch-prince Heracles; he was an " Alcmaeonide " if he descended from Alcmaeon ; and so on. But before I introduce you to Achilles, the proper hero of the Trojan War, let me tell you something about the place, and give you a little sketch of some personal observations made by your story-teller as he sailed along the Archipelago one bright morning in summer not very long ago. He was in one of the great Lloyd steamers that sail from Constantinople to Athens, Messina, and Marseilles. In sailing down the blue silence of these seas one is wonderfully struck with the beauty and grace- ful outlines of the islands. It was a warm, bright day ; we had hauled up anchor when the muez- zins were chanting their evening prayer-call from the minarets of Constantinople, the mighty city faded from our sight, with all its towers, palaces, and gar- dens, far into the evening light ; and as we steamed across the silver Sea of Marmara the evening grew 56 THE STORY OF GREECE. apace, the rich Oriental twihght began to settle down on us, and far in the East shone the Bythinian Olympus high in the air, with its top burning like a lily, white with snow and sunshine. Evening sun- light resting on a snow-peak in the distance is the most beautiful thing in the world ; and as we steamed on and on the light grew lovelier on the summit of the Bythinian Olympus as the shadows, like a strange, silent, victorious army, scaled the mountain-side, crept up the slopes and gorges, put out one shining patch after another, and at last, by simultaneous assault, captured the very citadel of sunshine and snuffed out the pillared and columned glory of the extremest mountain point. The ship headed for the long, winding, and narrow channel of the Darda- nelles, which is like a silver tube or the neck of a long pipe through which the Sea of Marmara blows its pictured water out into the broad yEgaean be- low. As we emerged from this open water tunnel we found ourselves in the Thracian Sea, just entering the Archipelago — an immense shining field on which the islands lay scattered like white sheep at pasture, far as the eye could see or the imagination reach. Presently we were steaming by Tenedos, a little islet right in front of Troy : Mount Ida in the dis- tance, the plain of Troy faint in the morning light, the Sigaean promontory jutting forth into the sea like a protruding under-lip, and to the west and south island on island vanishing away into blue and purple distances, misty, ethereal, flushed with sun- shine. Here was Tenedos, opposite Troy, famous for its swarms of red partridges and wandering THE TALE OF TROY. 57 quails in the time of passage ; full of melons, almond- trees, and figs, growing a rare red wine which tastes like Burgundy, and lifting itself into a promontory from which a grandiose view of the sea and the en- vironing lands breaks upon the view. Yonder in the extreme west was Mount Athos, so high that its shadow at the time of the summer solstice crawls across the sea nearly four-score miles, and used to creep up the side of a brazen bull that stood in the market-place of the principal town of Lemnos. The crawling shadow that crept and crept until it covered up the brazen bull gave rise to an ancient proverb which was applied to all those who tried to obscure by slander the glory and reputation of others. In the middle, between Mount Athos and Tenedos, stretched the horned isle of Lemnos, with its im- mense volcano-cone piercing the skies, — an isle cele- brated for a certain red earth which cured the stings of vipers and the bites of snakes, seeming to resound still with the cries of the arrow-poisoned Philoctetes. Such is the charming theatre within which took place the War of Troy : so beautiful is the scene where men fought for Helen and bled for Agamem- non and died for Andromache. ^^=<^2^^^:^&0^m^ V. HOW ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, AND HECTOR FOUGHT. * Nine years the Achaians had fought against IHon (Troy) to avenge the wrongs and woes of Helen, and still the war went on, and only the words of Calchas, which he spoke long ago in Aulis, where the fleet had sailed against Ilion, cheered them with the hope that the day of vengeance was near at hand. For strife had arisen between King Aga- memnon and Achilles, the mighty son of Peleus, and it seemed to the men of Argos that all their toil must be for nought. In fierce anger Achilles vowed a vow, because Agamemnon had deprived him of his fair slave Briseis, that he would go forth no more to the battle, and he sat in sullen silence within his tent or wandered gloomily along the sea-shore. With fresh courage the hosts of the Trojans poured out from their walls when they knew that Achilles fought no more on the side of the Achaians, and the chief- tains sought in vain for his help when the battle went against them. Then the face of the war was changed, for the men of Ilion came forth from their city and shut up the Achaians within their camp, and fought fiercely to take the ships. Many a chief and warrior was smitten down, and still Achilles sat * Adapted from Cox's " Tales." ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, AND HECTOR. 59 within his tent, nursing his great wrath, and revihng all who came before him with gifts and prayers. But dearer than all others to Achilles, son of the sea-nymph, Thetis, was Patroclus, the son of Menoe- tius, and the heart of Achilles was touched with pity when he saw the tears stream down his face ; and he said : " Dear friend, tell me thy grief, and hide nothing from me. Hast thou evil tidings from our home in Phthia, or weepest thou for the troubles that vex us here ? " Then Patroclus spoke out boldly : " Be not angry at my words, Achilles. The strength of the Argives is wasted away, and the mightiest of their chieftains lie wounded or dead around their ships. They call thee the child of Peleus and Thetis ; but men will say that thou art sprung from the rugged rocks and the barren sea, if thou seest thy people undone and liftest not an arm to help them." Then Achilles answered : " My friend, the vow is on me, and I cannot go ; but put thou on my armor and go forth to the battle. Only take heed to my words, and go not in my chariot against the city of Ilion. Drive our enemies from the ships, and let them fight in the plain, and then do thou come back to my tent." Then the hearts of the Achaians were cheered, for next to Achilles there was not in all the hosts a warrior more brave and mighty than Patroclus. At his word the Myrmidons started up from their long rest and hastily snatched their arms to follow him to the battle. Presently Patroclus came forth. The glistening helmet of Achilles was on his head, and his armor was girt round his body. Only he had not 6o THE STORY OF GREECE. his mighty spear, for no mortal man might wield that spear in battle but Achilles. Before the tent stood the chariot, and harnessed to it were the im- mortal horses, Xanthus and Balius, who grow not old nor die. So Patroclus departed for the fight, and Achilles went into his tent, and, as he poured out the dark wine from a golden goblet, he prayed to Zeus, and said : *' O thou, who dwellest far away in Dodona, where the Sellce do thy bidding and proclaim thy will, give strength and victory to Patroclus, my friend. Let him drive the men of Ilion from the ships, and come back safe to me after the battle." But Zeus heard the prayer in part only, for the doom was that Achilles should see Patroclus alive no more. Then the hosts of the Trojans trembled as Patro- clus drew nigh on the chariot of Achilles, and none dared to go forth against him. Onward sped the undying horses, and wherever they went the ground was red with the blood of the Trojans, who were smitten down by his spear. Then Sarpedon, the great chief of the Lycians, spoke to Glaucus, and said : " O friend, I must go forth and do battle with Patroclus. The people fall beneath his sword, and it is not fit that the chieftains should be backward in the strife." But the doom of Sarpedon was sealed, and presently his body lay lifeless on the ground, while the men of Argos fought for his glittering arms. Then the doom came on Patroclus also, for Phoebus Apollo fought against him in the battle, and in the dust was rolled the helmet which no 62 THE STORY OF GREECE. enemy had touched when it rested on the head of Achilles. Before him flashed the spear of the Trojan, Hector, as he said: "The hour of thy death is come, Patroclus, and the aid of Achilles cannot reach thee now." But Patroclus said only : "It is thy time for boasting nozv ; wait yet a little while, and the sword of Achilles shall drink thy life- blood." So Patroclus died, and there was a fierce fight over his body, and many fell on both sides, until there was a great heap of dead around it. But away from the fight the horses Xanthus and Balius wept for their charioteer, and they would not stir with the chariot, but stood fixed firm as pillars on the ground, till Zeus looked down in pity on them and said : " Was it for this that I gave you to Peleus, the chieftain of Phthia, — horses who cannot grow old or die, to a mor- tal man the most wretched thing that crawls upon the earth ? But fear not ; no enemy shall lay hands on the chariot of Achilles, or on the immortal horses which bear it. Your limbs shall be filled with new strength, and ye shall fly like birds across the battle- field till ye come to the tent of your master." Then the horses wept no more, but, swift as eagles, they bore Automedon, their charioteer, through the fight, while Hector and his people strove fiercely to seize them. At last the battle was over, and, while the Achaians bore the body of Patroclus to the ships, Antilochus, the son of Nestor, went to the tent of Achilles and said: "Thy friend is slain and Hector has his armor." * * * Then Achilles vowed a vow that twelve sons of 64 THE STORY OF GREECE. the Trojans should be slain at the grave of his friend, and that Hector should die before the funeral rites were done. Then Agamemnon sent him gifts and spoke kindly words, so that the strife between them was ended, and Achilles might now go forth to fight for the Achaians. So in the armor which Hephaestus had wrought at the forge of Thetis, he mounted his chariot, and bade his horses bring him back safe from the battle-field. Then the war-cry of Achilles was heard again, and a mighty life was poured into the hearts of the Achaians as they seized their arms at the sound. Thick as withering leaves in autumn fell the Trojans beneath his unerring spear. Chief after chief was smitten down, until their hosts fled in terror within the walls of Ilion. Only Hector awaited his coming ; but the shadow of death was stealing over him, for Phcebus Apollo had forsaken the great champion of Troy because Zeus so willed it. So in the strife the strength of Hector failed, and he sank down on the earth. The foot of Achilles rested on his breast, and the spear's point was on his neck, while Hector said : " Slay me if thou wilt, but give back my body to my people." Then the life-blood of Hector reddened the ground as Achilles said : " Die, wretch ! " And he tied the body to his chariot, and dragged it furiously round the walls of Troy, till none who looked on it could say : " This was the brave and noble Hector ! " * And here is the lament of the Lady Andromache, * Adapted from Cox, p. l8l. ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, AND HECTOR. 65 the wife of Hector, when she heard of the death of her lord : Now thou beneath the depths of earth art gone, Gone to the viewless shades ; and me hast left A widow in thy house, in deepest woe, Our child an infant still, thy child and mine. Ill-fated parents both ! nor thou to l;im. Hector, shalt be a guard, nor he to thee ; For though he 'scape this tearful war with Greece, Yet nought for him remains but ceaseless woe. And strangers on his heritage shall seize. No young companions own the orphan boy. With downcast eyes, and cheeks bedewed with tears. His father's friends approaching, pinched with want. He hangs upon the skirt of one ; of one He plucks the cloak ; perchance in pity some May at their tables let him sip the cup. Moisten his lips, but scarce his palate touch ; While youths with both surviving parents blest May drive him from their feast with blows and taunts : Begone, thy father sits not at our board ! Then weeping to his widowed mother's arms He flies, that orphan boy, Astyanax ! [Lord Derby's Trans.] Troy, however, could not be taken so long as the Palladium, a statue given by Zeus to the ancestor of the Trojans, remained in the citadel. So Odysseus, the wiliest of the Greeks, disguised himself in misera- ble clothing as a beggar, slipped into the city, and stole away the sacred Palladium. Helen alone recognized him ; but she was anxious to return to Greece, and helped Odysseus in his plots to capture the city. To do this, one final stratagem was made use of. They constructed a huge hollow wooden horse, big 66 THE STORY OF GREECE. enough to hold a hundred men, and fiUing it with all the choicest of their heroes — Menelaus, Odysseus, Neoptolemus, and others, — the Grecian army burnt their tents, sailed away, and left the great wooden horse on the beach. This the foolish Trojans dragged into their city, intending to dedicate it to the gods in gratitude for the retreat of the Greeks. But at night, while the Trojans were revelling and dancing and feasting, the Greek heroes climbed out of the horse, and with the help of their returning army sacked and burned the city, and destroyed the ven- erable Priam, King of Troy. Paris had already been slain by the arrow of Philoctetes, and Achilles had been killed by Paris. Helen gladly resumed her union with Menelaus, went with him back to Sparta, lived there many years in comfort and dignity, and then passed to a happy immortality in the Elysian Fields, the Paradise of the Greeks. It would take much time and space to tell you about the many great heroes who took part in this celebrated siege — about Ajax and Diomede, Eu- rj^pylus, and the priest Laocoon ; about Memnon, with his cohort of black Ethiopians who came to help the Trojans ; about old Nestor and Penthesileia, the wonderful Queen of the Amazons, who marched from Thrace to help Priam, and was slain by Achilles. Then there were Cycnus, who was slain, and the fifty sons of Priam, and Cassandra his daughter, who always prophesied things that nobody believed but which always came true. A host of beautiful women and brave men were arrayed on both sides in this war, and the very gods of heaven took part in it. ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, AND HECTOR. 67 And who was this grand old Homer, who told the Tale of Troy, and left behind such a glorious record of the woes of Achilles and Hector, of Paris and Menelaus? Seven cities disputed for the honor of his birth, and of these Smyrna, in Asia Minor, and Chios, a city on the island of the same name, have the best claim to be considered — one or the other — the birthplace of Homer. Some of the best in- 68 THE STOR V OF GREECE. formed scholars believe that the author of the " Iliad," or, Tale of Troy, was a European Greek, who lived before the colonization of Asia Minor ; and that the claims of the Asiatic cities mean no more than that in the days of their prosperity these were the chief seats of the fame of Homer. There ran a legend that he was blind, and that he chanted or recited his poems from isle to isle, and from one great man's court to another, to earn his bread. Of this we know nothing ; nor do we know whether he " wrote" the " Odyssey" also. The " Iliad " is evi- dently a great court poem, intended to be repeated, perhaps to harp music, before audiences of kings and queens, tyrants, and great people. It represents a people marvellously civilized — in some things — for that early day, and it is written in the Ionic dialect, in a verse called Jicxamctcr. It is believed that Troy is an historical place, and that Agamemnon is an historical king ; but whether the whole is a real and true picture of a real and true war, nobody knows. Some believe that the "Iliad" was composed by many different poets, and not by one ; and that the " Odyssey " is possibly by the same author(s). VI. THE WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS AND yENEAS. And what became of all the heroes who figured at Troy (which the Greeks called Ilion, the Latins Ilium) ? Well, they wandered and wandered. Some got back to their native land, and some did not. The return of the Grecian heroes from Troy furnished matter to the ancient poets hardly less abundant than the siege itself. Moreover, the stormy voyages and forced wanderings of the heroes enabled the people in different places to believe that the origin of their towns was connected in some way with the dispersion of the prehistoric and semi-divine world of Homer. One of these heroic " Returns," that of Odysseus, or Ulysses, has been immortalized, as afore- said, by the verse of the " Odyssey." This hero, after a long series of sufferings and absence from home, inflicted on him by the anger of Poseidon, at last reaches his native island (Ithaca, in the Ionian Sea), but finds his wife Penelope beset, his young son Telemachus insulted, and his property plundered by a troop of insolent suitors, or lovers of Penelope. He is forced to appear as a wretched beggar, and nobody recognizes him but his dog Argus. Odys- seus was shamefully treated by these men, but at 70 THE STORY OF GREECE. last, by the aid of the goddess Athene, he is enabled to overwhelm his enemies, resume his place in the family, and recover his property. " The wonderful picture of the old broken-down hound recognizing his master after twenty years, and dying of joy on the dunghill, where he lay helpless with age and neglect, could never have been drawn except by men who themselves knew and loved dogs, and appreciated their intelligence." The adventures of Ulysses, or Odysseus, are more marvellous than those of Sindbad the Sailor, or Robinson Crusoe, for he even visits the land of the dead, escapes from the sweet but deadly songs of the Sirens, sails safely be- tween the boiling floods and rocks of Scylla and Charybdis, and outwits the wiles of the one-eyed giant, Cyclops. Jack the Giant-Killer never climbed as high as Odysseus did when he came to the land of the Sun. Perhaps you would like me to tell you the beautiful story of his adventures among the Lotus- Eaters? THE LOTUS-EATERS. Among the chiefs of the Achaians who fought before the walls of Ilion, there was none who gained for himself a greater glory than Odysseus, the son of Laertes. Brave he was in battle, and steadfast in danger; but most of all did the Achaians seek his aid and counsel when great things must be weighed and fixed. And so it was that in every peril, where there was need of the wise heart and the ready tongue, all hastened to Odysseus, and men felt that he did more to throw down the kingdom of Priam WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS AND yENEAS. /I than the mightiest chieftains who fought only with sword or spear. Yet, in the midst of all his toil and all his great exploits in the land of Ilion, the heart of Odysseus was far away in rock}- Ithaca, where his wife Penelope dwelt with his young son Telemachus. Many a time, as the weary years of the war rolled on, he said within himself : " Ah, when will the strife be ended, and when shall we spread our sails to the breeze and speed on our way homewards over the wine-colored sea ? " At last the doom of Paris was accomplished, and the hosts of Agamemnon gave the city of Ilion to fire and sword. Then Odysseus hastened to gather his men together that they might go to their home in Ithaca ; and they dragged their ship down to the sea from the trenches where it had so long lain idle. But before they sat down to row the ship out to the deep water, Odysseus spoke to them and said : " O friends, think now, each one of you, of his home, of his wife, and of his children. Ten times have summer and winter passed over us since we left them with cheerful hearts, thinking that in but a little time we should come back to them laden with glory and booty. Ten years have they mourned for us at home ; and we, who set out for Ilion in the vigor of our manhood, go back now with gray hairs, or bowed down with our weary labor. Yet faint not, O friends, neither be dismayed. Think how they wait and long for you still at home, and as we go from land to land in our voyage to rocky Ithaca, let not weari- ness weigh down your hearts, or things fair and beautiful lead you to seek for rest, till our ship is 72 THE STORY OF GREECE. moored in the haven which we left ten years ago." With shouts of joy they sat down to their long oars ; and when they had rowed the ship out into the open sea, they spread the white sails to the breeze and watched the Ilian land as it faded away from their sight in the far distance. For many a day they went toward the land of the setting sun, until a mighty wind from the north drove them into a strange country far out of their course to Ithaca. Fair it was, and peaceful beyond all lands which they had seen. The sun looked down out of the cloudless heaven on fruits and flowers which covered the laughing earth. Far away beyond the Lotus- plains the blue hills glimmered in a dreamy haze. The trees bowed their heads in a peaceful slumber; and the lagging waves sank lazily to sleep upon the sea-shore. The summer breeze breathed its gentle whisper through the air, and the birds sang listlessly of their loves from the waving groves. Then said the men of Odysseus to one another : " Would that our wives and our children were here ! Truly Ithaca is but a rough and barren land, and a sore grief it is to leave this happy shore to go home, and there find, it may be, that our children remember us no more." And Odysseus said within himself : " Surely some strange spell is on this fair land ; almost might I long to sit down and sleep on the shore forever; but Penelope waits for me in my home, and I cannot rest till I see her face once more ! " Then he bade three of his men go forth and ask the name of the land and of the men who WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS AND .ENEAS. 7^ lived in it. So they went slowly from the beach where the waves sang their lulling song to the sleepy flowers, and they wandered along the winding stream which came from the glimmering hills far away, till, deep down in a glen where the sun shed but half its light, they saw men with fair maidens lying on the soft grass under the shade of the pleasant palm-trees. Before them was spread a banquet of rich and rosy fruit, and some were eating and others lay asleep. Then the men of Odysseus went up to them, and sat down by their side, for they feared them not, as men are wont to fear the people of a strange land. They asked not their name, for they remembered not the bidding of Odysseus ; but they drank the dark wine and ate of the rosy fruit which the fair maidens held out to them. " Eat," they said, " O strangers, of the fruit which kills all pain ; surely ye are wear}' and your hearts are faint with sorrow, and your eyes are dim as with many tears. Eat of our fruit and forget your labors ; for all who eat of it re- member no more weary toil and strife and war." On their ears fell the echo of a dreamy music, and forms of maidens fai*- as Aphrodite, when she rose from the sea foam, passed before their eyes ; and they said to one another: " Here let us sit, and feast, and dream forever." Long time Odysseus waited on the sea-shore, and less and less he marvelled that they came not back, for he felt that over his heart the strange spell was falling ; and he said : " Ah, Penelope, dearer to me than aught else on the wide earth ; the gods envy me thy love, else would they not seek to beguile me 74 THE STORY OF GREECE. thus in this strange land of dreams and skimber. So he rose up as one rises to go forth to battle, and he went quickly on the path by which his men had gone before him. Presently he saw them in the deep dell, and the rich fruit of the lotus was in their hand. They called to Odysseus and said : " We have come to the land of the Lotus-Eaters ; sit thou down with us and eat of their fruit, and forget all thy cares forever." But Odysseus answered not ; and hastening back, he bade the others come with him, and bind the three men, and carry them to the ship. " Heed not the people of the land," he said, " nor touch their rosy fruit. It were a shame for men who have fought at Ilion to slumber here like swine fattening for the slaughter." So they hastened and bound the three men who sat at the banquet of the Lotus-Eaters; and they heeded not their words as they besought them to taste of the fruit and forget all their misery and trouble. And Odysseus hurried them back to the shore, and made them drag down the ship into the sea, and sit down to their long oars. " Hasten, friends, hasten," he said, " from this land of dreams. Hither come the Lotus-Eaters, and their soft voices will beguile our hearts if we tarry longer ; and they will tempt us to taste of their fruit, and then we shall seek no more to go back again to the land of toiling men." Then the dash of their oars broke the calm of the still air, and roused the waters from their slum- ber, as they toiled on their weary way. Farther and farther they went ; but still the echo as of ]^^ nmM» ii^n-miSiXU\i^ it A APPROACHING THE LAND OF THE LOTUS-EATERS. 76 THE STORY OF GREECE. faint and lulling music fell upon their ear, as they saw fair forms of maidens roaming listlessly along the shore. And when they had moved the ship farther out into the sea, still the drooping palm-trees seemed to beckon them back to slumber, as they bowed their heads over the flowers which slept in the shade about them. And a deeper peace rested on the Lotus-land, as the veil of evening fell gently on the plain, and the dying sun kissed the far-ofT hills.* Such is one of the many strange and poetic stories founded on the wanderings of Odysseus. On the Trojan side the most famous of the wan- derers who escaped the vengeance of the Greeks was the pious yEneas, who escaped because he sym- pathized with the Greeks, and after immense travels over sea and land at last reached Latium, and laid the humble foundations of mighty Rome and the Roman Empire. The literary Romans delighted in the thought that the Trojans were their Pilgrim Fathers, and the ship that bore ^Encas, son of Anchises and Aphrodite, from Troy, was their ances- tral Mayflower. The great Julian family of Rome recognized yEneas as their first ancestor, and Vergil has told in beautiful verse the long story of his voyagings. Thus is the story of Greece bound together with the story of Rome from the begin- ning : Greece founds Rome and Rome afterward conquers and destroys Greece. * Adapted from Cox, p. 199. VII. THE FOUNDATIONS OF GREECE. But I must tell you in the beginning that I can- not enter into the innumerable details of the history of Greece, It is the story I want to tell you, and through the story the history. Therefore I shall be obliged to omit a thousand and one things which some people regard as absolutely essential, and put in a thousand and one things which some other peo- ple regard as absolutely non-essential. Never mind ; let us fix our eyes steadfastly on a few prominent things — a few cities, a few great and moving events, a few brilliant and far-reaching achievements, and five or six figures that shine out with peculiar splendor in the story of Greece ; and perhaps in this way Hellas may not prove such a riddle after all ; perhaps in this way it will tell us its secret better than if we swam in a sea of particulars, wars, counter-wars, diplomatic negotiations, wran- glings, and recriminations. When you remember that what I have to tell you covers a period not greater than that which lies between the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Ply- mouth and the birth of the New Year of 1885 ; that the story of Greece, full, glorious, and immortal ^s it is, was (for our purpose) begun, continued, and 78 THE STORY OF GREECE. ended in a little parenthetical pause of 250 years; that Marathon, Thermopylae, Plataea, Leuctra, Man- tinaea, Chaeronea, and all the great and memorable battles which illustrated Greek life and civilization, were fought, lost, or won in a mere handful of years, briefer than those which stretch from Tennyson to Shakspere ; when you remember all this, you will also remember better the sequence and succession of each event ; you will learn to catch the quick and concentrated spirit of that life and civilization ; you will see the supreme importance of two or three of the little Greek states in all this unbounded activity ; and you will fix your eye on them as you would on mountains in the sea or light-houses on an island, guiding and directing yourself by them this way and that in the intricacies of Greek history. It is just as if you were sailing down an Archipelago, swarming with islands, and^ — if it were the Greek Archipelago — fixed your eye steadfastly on Mount Athos or Lesbos or Crete, leaving aside the countless islets that obstruct your vision and would wreck your ship if you ran continually from one to the other of them. It is thus that you must fix your attention on Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, on a part of the coast of Asia Minor, and on the islands of CORCYRA and Sicily. We shall have much to say, too, about Corinth, Sicyon, and Argos, about Eubcea, Achaia, and Macedon ; but not so much as about the greater isles and cities, which may be called the standard volumes in our library of Hellas. Nor must you expect every scrimmage and skir- mish to be conscientiously detailed. You shall have THE FOUNDATIONS OF GREECE. 79 wars and battles in plenty ; but these shall be the great wars and expeditions — the Trojan war and the tale of Troy, the Persian wars and the deeds of Croesus, Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes ; the Peloponne- sian war and the Sicilian expedition ; and finally — as the history of Greece begins with a war in Asia — the Trojan war — it shall end with a war in Asia in the wonderful campaigns of Alexander the Great. Much of Greek life began and ended in Asia. It is no easy matter to get out of the entanglements of early Greece. Wherever you look you see mist and darkness at first. But suppose we take a lamp — not the speculations of Grote or Curtius — but the lamp of the historian Thucydides, who lived in the midst of the times of our story and wrote about them with unrivalled clearness. It is useless for us to inject into the history of Greece what it did not contain — the ingenious speculations of modern historians about the rise of the Greeks, their afifinities and kin- ships, their wanderings and miseries. Each historian with his ready-made theories is only too apt to stand between us and the sun, just as Diogenes reproached Alexander for doing. " What can I do for you, Diogenes ? " — " Get out of my light," answered the cynic. Well, what do we find in Thucydides ? A very little, but that little is very precious. The country now called Hellas, says he, was not regularly settled in ancient times. The people were migratory, and readily left their homes when- ever they were overpowered by numbers. There was no commerce, and they could not readily 80 THE STORY OF GREECE. hold intercourse with one another either by land or sea. The several tribes cultivated their own soil just enough to get a maintenance from it. But they had no heaps of wealth, and did not plant the ground ; for, as their cities had no walls, they were continually afraid that an invader might come and spoil them. Living in this hap-hazard way, getting a bare mouthful to eat, they were always packed and ready to start anywhere, no matter where, so there were green fields, and fat pastures, and pleasant neighborhoods to be found ; and there were no great cities or rich resources anywhere in the land. The wealthiest settlements were most constantly chan- ging their inhabitants, — just like a Colorado town, we may add, — to-day a city, to-morrow deserted. Thus Thessaly and Boeotia, the Peloponnesus (except Arcadia), and all the best parts of Hellas were filled with migrating and wandering tribes of " tramps," darting hither and thither in search of a living. These wanderers were perpetually squabbling and fighting among themselves, attacking communities whose possessions they coveted, and ruining people weaker than themselves. Sometimes a community like Attica escaped their ravages, for the reason that rats will desert a sinking ship — there was nothing to eat, and there was danger of death. For Attica was as thin-soiled as many parts of New England are now, and could not support a roving and marauding population, a population of refugees, " jayhawkers," and " scalawags," So the lucky Athenians, like Job stripped and naked, had nothing to lose, for a long time retained their original privileges, and enjoyed THE FOUNDATIONS OF GREECE. 8 1 immunity from civil strife. Yet even in the very beginning Atliens like England became an asylum for the leading men of Hellas when they had been driven out of their own land by war or revolution ; they were admitted to rights of citizenship, and ulti- mately so greatly increased the number of inhabi- tants that Attica became incapable of holding them, and was at last obliged to send out colonies to Ionia among the isles and coast-places of Asia Minor. And these colonies, like those which England sent out, came to outgrow the mother-land in population and wealth. The new swarms of bees filled the Archi- pelago, and carried the honey of Hymettus to dis- tant realms. There was no common action in Hellas between the various cities and settlements before the Trojan War ; in fact, it is probable that the very name Hel- las was not as yet given to the entire country, and did not exist at all before the time of Hcllcn, the re- puted son of Deucalion. The different aboriginal tribes, of which the Pflasgians were the most widely spread, gave their own names to different districts. Just as the Angles and Saxons did in Britain, the Romans in Italy, and the Franks in France. But when Hellen and his sons, Dorus, .^olus, and Xuthus, became powerful in Phthiotis, their aid was invoked by other cities, and those who associated with them gradually began to be called Hellenes, though a long time elapsed before the name pre- vailed over the whole country, just as in Britain hun- dreds of years elapsed before the country came to be known as Angle-land, land of the Angles, or EnHand. 82 THE STORY OF GREECE. Homer is our best witness for this, for, although he Hved long after the Trojan War, he nowhere uses the name Hellenes collectively, but confines it to the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes. When he speaks of the entire Greek host at Troy, he calls them Danaiins, Argives, or Achaians. Nor is there any mention of Barbarians — as the Greeks came to call all who were not Greeks — in his poems, clearly because there were as yet no Hellenes opposed to them by a common dis- tinctive name. Hellenes, as opposed to Barbarians, in fact at last came to mean almost what, many years ago in this country, " white man " meant as opposed to the opprobrious epithet " nigger." While the several Hellenic tribes formed separate communities, they had a common language, and came to be called by a common name ; and when they drew together in the magnificent expedition against Troy, they did so only after they had gained considerable experience of the sea. VIII. THE ADVENTURES OF MINOS, THESEUS, AND ARIADNE. Minos, King of Crete, is the first to whom tradi- tion ascribes the possession of a navy. In very early times he made himself master of a great part of what, in the times of Thucydides, was called the Hellenic Sea. He conquered the Cyclades Islands, and was the first colonizer of them, expelling the Carians and appointing his sons to govern them ; and in order to protect them and his growing reve- nues, he sought, as far as he was able, to clear the sea of pirates. But just here let us stop a moment and hear the tale of Theseus, Minos, and Ariadne, for fear that you may become wearied over all these dull facts. It fits in well in this place, and is just such a tale as the old Greeks used to tell their children in the summer evenings, and while it may not contain much that is actual fact from our point of view, it is full of the romance and poetry which the Greeks believed to be fact, and which their poets and his- torians, who were romancers too, gravely recorded as history. I am sure the story of Charlemagne be- comes much more delightful and, I may say, truer, if we can interweave into it here and there, as with a 84 THE STORY OF GREECE. bright spot of color, one of the famous stories of his paladins and knights on their marvellous adventures. And these stories will be found truer than a dr\' almanac or a dull chronicle, because in their many- colored touches and pictures they reflect the manners and customs of the age, and help us to understand the Greek or the old French mode of thinking better than we could from mere dates and " facts. " Minos, King of Crete, had a son named Andro- geus, who had once happened to come to Athens just when there was a feast going on, and also sports in which all the young men vied with one another in feats of skill and strength, and he had taken part in the sports, and had excelled all others, and Avon the prize of honor. But the Athenians were very angry at his having beaten them, and they lay in wait for him as he was on his way home, and fell upon him and killed him. When his father. King Minos, heard of this, he swore that the Athenians should suffer for it, and he prepared his ships and sailed with a mighty army against Athens. The gods took the part of Minos, and sent a pestilence among the Athenians ; for murder was considered a most horrid deed among the ancients, and a violation of the laws of hospitality was almost worse still ; so the gods dried up the rivers of Attica, and spoiled the har- vests, and sent distress among the people. At last the Athenians were obliged to sue for peace, and ^linos granted it on condition that ever\' nine years they should give him a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. There was a wonderful house in Crete, where the MIX OS, THESEUS, AND ARIADNE. 85 youths and maidens who were sent as tribute met with a miserable death. The house was called the Labyrinth, and it was as large as a town, and had countless courts and galleries. Those who entered it without being familiar with its passages could never find their way out again, and they hurried from one to another of the numberless rooms looking for the entrance-door, but all in vain ; they only be- came more and more hopelessly lost in the bewilder- ing house, and at last a monster who lived there came and ate them up. He was called the Minotaur, and he had the form of a man, excepting his head, which was that of a bull, and he had a bull's voice. When the time for paying the tribute came round, all the youths and maidens of Athens had to assem- ble in the market-place. Then two brazen vessels were brought out, and they put a number of balls into each of them ; into one vessel they put as many balls as there were youths in the city, and into the other as many balls as there were maidens. Seven of the balls in each vessel were black, and all the rest were white. All the youths and maidens in turn had to put their hand into one of the vessels and draw out a ball without looking; and those who drew the black balls had to go on board the ship that was waiting to take them to Crete. For this sorrow- ful journey the ship always had black or crimson sails instead of white ones. It was now the third time that the Athenians had been obliged to pay the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens to the king of Crete. When Theseus, the young Prince of Athens, to whom afterward the 86 THE STORY OF GREECE. Athenians ascribed many of their best institutions, because they did not know to whom else to ascribe them, — when Theseus heard about this, heljegged his father yEgeus, King of Athens, to let him sail with them, for he hoped that he should be able to kill the monster and deliver the Athenians. The king was afraid that Theseus would never come back, not- withstanding the great deeds he had already per- formed, and he refused at first to give his consent ; but Theseus said it would be a disgrace to him if he did not go, and he persisted in his request till his father granted it. When the others had been chosen by lot, they all went on board the ship, which was ready to sail, and ^geus and many others went down to the shore to take leave of them. All were heart-broken at the parting except Theseus, but he was in very good spirits, for he hoped this would be the last time such a journey would have to be made. The old king gave him a white sail, which he begged him to hoist if he came back in safety, say- ing: " If you are alive when the ship returns, let me know it by this signal ; but if, on the contrary, you have perished, the black sail will tell me the sad news as soon as the ship comes in sight." Theseus promised to do as his father wished, and then he went on board the vessel and gave the signal to the sailors, who plied their oars and pushed off from the land. And ^geus returned home and prayed to the gods to bring his son back to him in safety. After some time the voyage came to an end, and the ship with the black sails arrived in Crete. Minos sent his soldiers to conduct the youths and maidens MINOS, THESEUS, AND ARIADNE. ^7 to a dungeon, where they were to remain till the next day, and, as they passed through the streets, many people crowded to look at them, lamenting that the young lives should be sacrificed. The pro- cession went past the palace-gate where King Minos was standing with his daughter, Ariadne, who was a very beautiful girl. When Ariadne saw Theseus, she could not help gazing at him, for she thought he looked more like a true hero than any one she had ever seen, though many heroes came to her father's court. She could not bear to think that he must perish ; and all night long, when everyone else was asleep, she lay awake on her couch, thinking how she could save him. In the morning she watched for an opportunity and went to the prison, where she had no difficulty in getting in, because she was the king's daughter. She called Theseus apart, and told him that she loved him and longed to save him, and she gave him a ball of thread, and said that he must secretly fasten one end of it to the entrance of the Labyrinth, and un^ ravel it as he went along, so that he might be able to find his way out again. She also gave him a sharp sword, which she had taken from her father's armory, that he might be armed for his struggle with the Minotaur. Theseus thanked the lovely Ariadne, and told her that he was the son of the king of Athens, and that, if he escaped in safety from the Labyrinth, he would take her home with him to be his wife. She willingly consented to this, and then left the prison, and soon afterwards the guards came to take the prisoners to the Labyrinth ; 88 THE SrORY OF GREECE. they did not see the sword and the ball of thread which Ariadne had given to Theseus, for he had hidden them in his robe. When they reached the Labyrinth, they led the prisoners a long way into it, and then left them, thinking that they would never find their way out of it, for they did not notice that Theseus had fastened his ball, or clue, at the entrance, and let the thread pass through his fingers as he went along. When the guards had turned back, the youths and maidens thought they would have to wander about hopelessly until the Minotaur came and devoured them ; but Theseus spoke to them encouragingly, and said that by the help of the gods he would slay the monster and bring them out of their trouble. About mid-day, they heard the monster bellowing in the distance ; he was still some way from them, but he scented human blood, and, as he came nearer, his bellowing grew louder and louder. The others crowded together in a corner, each wanting to be the last to meet him ; but Theseus stood forward in the middle of the room with his naked sword raised, waiting for his approach. The monster was as tall again as a man, and he had powerful fists and a huge mouth, and on his head were two great horns. He stretched out his arm to seize Theseus, and opened his mouth to bite off his head ; but Theseus sprang behind him and hewed ofT one of his legs at the knee-joint, and then the huge giant fell down and bellowed until the walls shook with the noise he made. Theseus measured with his eye to see where the heart must be, and, taking care- ful aim, stabbed him through the back at that place. 90 THE STORY OF GREECE. Great was the joy of all the youths and maidens over their escape from the jaws of the Minotaur ; and, when night came, they stole out of the Laby- rinth by means of the clue, reached their ship, and, taking Ariadne, sailed away. But alas ! Theseus was a giddy gallant, for when the ship reached the island of Naxos, which was sacred to Dionysus, the wine-god, he abandoned Ariadne by the advice of the god in a dream, and ran away and left her, weeping and wailing, to be come the wife of Dionysus, on the island. And the ship that carried away Theseus soon reached Athens, but Theseus — strange to say — was so absorbed in thoughts of Ariadne that he forgot to hoist the white sails, which were to announce his safe return. The aged ^geus had passed the greater part of the time, since his son had left him, in sitting on a high rock, from which he could see far over the sea. At last he spied the sail, but — it was a black one ! Heart-broken, he threw himself into the sea, which afterwards was called the ^G^AN Sea.* Such is a part of the tale of Minos and Theseus. In ancient times, both Hellenes and Barbarians, on the coast and in the islands, had recourse to piracy when they began to find their way to each other by sea. They were commanded by powerful chiefs, who took this means of- increasing their wealth and pro- viding for their poorer followers. The land, too, was infested with robbers, and all the Hellenes originally carried weapons, because their homes were * Condensed from Plu-tarch and Witt. MINOS, THESEUS, AND ARIADNE. 9 1 undefended and intercourse was unsafe ; like the Barbarians, they went armed in every-day life. In later times, when navigation had become gen- eral and wealth was beginning to accumulate, cities were built upon or near the sea-shore — usually a lit- tle inland — and fortified ; peninsulas were occupied and walled off for defence and for commercial pur- poses. Athens, for instance, was built four or five miles from the sea to ward off the attacks of plun- dering pirates — the vikings of the Mediterranean fjords. The island pirates were mostly Carian or Phoenician settlers. IX. THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. And this brings us to tell you the story of Sparta, the strongest of the Peloponnesian kingdoms, the most singular people of the ancient Greek world, and next to Athens the most penetrating and picturesque force at work in the eastern Mediterranean in these early times. All through the history of Hellas you will find Athens and Sparta the supreme champions of Greece, the Alpha and Omega of Greek civilization, the brethren as closely related but as differently con- stituted as Jacob and Esau ; one pulling against the other like two oarsmen trying to row a boat different ways ; for if Sparta wanted zvhitc, Athens was pretty sure to decide for black, and they never could agree for any length of time on an harmonious policy. One of those Dorian gangs of which I have spoken contrived to reach a town of the Peloponnesus called Lacedaemon. To this was given the name of Sparta^ probably from a Greek word which signifies sozvn land or cornfields. This town lay at the foot of Mount Taygetus, on a stream called the Eurotas, twenty miles up the country, and farther from the sea than Rome was from the mouth of the Tiber or Lisbon from the mouth of the Tagus. Here they fixed themselves, armed to the teeth, as a military colony THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. 93 camping in an enemy's country ; for all around were the fierce Achaians, and they could only maintain their position and increase their territory by incessant fighting. Their position in the Peloponnesus some- what resembled that of the English in Ireland to-day. The Spartans had to maintain literally a standing army, which slept neither day nor night until it had fastened its clutch firmly on the throat of the land and forced the surrounding tribes to succumb. Nor did they even spare their Dorian kinsmen, but con- quered them too, as well as the Achaians, and soon possessed the land down the Eurotas to the sea. The best garden and crop-lands they appropriated to themselves, and left the rest to the conquered people. These conquered people were divided into two distinct classes, Pcriceci and Helots. Periceci meant those who lived around Sparta — the old inhabitants who were allowed to keep their farms. The Helots were people who had been reduced to servitude, and were obliged to work their farms for the Spartans. The Periceci wxre far more gently treated than the Helots ; they retained their possessions, but they served the Spartans in war. They could not inter- marry ; there was no " miscegenation " between Spartans and Periceci, nor had they any vote in the government, but they were humanely treated. The Helots, on the contrary, were like the Russian serfs; they could not leave the land where they worked ; they were obliged to deliver so much corn and so much wine every year to the owners of the firms, retaining the residue for themselves ; they had no 94 THE STORY OF GREECE. voice in choosing their occupations, but they differed from outright slaves in that they could not be sold or removed from the land. The Helots were a very dangerous element in Spartan society; they watched continually for an opportunity to revolt, and they hated the Spartans so that it was said a Helot would gladly eat a Spartan raw if he could. They were so dangerous that a band of young Spartans was kept on hand to murder the ablest and strongest of them whenever it seemed expedient ; and the Spartans made the Helots now and then get beastly drunk in order to show the young men how hateful a thing drunkenness was. Plutarch is full of delightful stories about what the Spartans did, what they ate, how they lived, and wrestled, and exercised themselves, and how they wedded and went to war. They ascribed most of their characteristic institutions to a certain legendary Lycurgus, a great reformer who arose in the Pelo- ponnesus and instituted for the Spartans (they say) a sort of Code Lycurgus, somewhat after the fashion of the Code Napoleon of modern times. The bent of Lycurgus' mind was military, and so he converted the laws and customs of Sparta into a perpetual preparation for war. His people established a mili- tary despotism and managed, though few in number, to get possession gradually of most of the country, and keep possession of it by their warlike tactics. This they could never have done had not their rules been as hard as flint. Much doubt exists as to the time when Lycurgus lived, though it is said that he was a contemporary of THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. 95 Iphitus, jointly with whom he arranged the ordinance for the cessation of arms during the Olympic Games (b. C. 884). Like Herodotus, Plato, Solon, and Thales, Lycurgus was a great traveller, and is said to have visited Crete, where he studied the institutions of the country and adopted many of the laws for his own country. From Crete he visited Asia to ascertain which were better, the sober and temperate habits of the Cretans or the sumptuous and delicate manners of the eastern lonians. Here he became acquainted with the poems of Homer and set to work eagerly to transcribe and digest them, thinking (they say) that they would be of good use to his own people. He voyaged to Egypt, and there were stories of his voyages to Spain, Africa, India, and the land of the Naked Philosophers. When he had travelled, and thought, and compiled much, he went to the shrine of Apollo at Delphi to ask the blessing of heaven on his undertaking ; and he received an oracle, or answer, which called him "beloved of God" and "rather a god than a man," saying that his prayers were heard, that his laws should be the best, and the common- wealth which observed them the most famous, in the world. By mild and gentle means he gained the consent of the kings and people of Sparta to submit to his new and revised laws and institutions. He es- tablished a senate of twenty-eight members; the two kings were added to them, which thus made thirty in all. They met in the open air, like the Swiss moun- taineers in olden time, as Lycurgus thought if they met in a handsome hall their attention would be diverted from their business to gaze at the statues, 96 THE STORY OF GREECE. pictures, and curiously fretted roofs which usually embellished council-halls amongst the other Greeks. The people could not offer advice at their assemblies, but they either ratified or rejected by a simple aye or no what was propounded to them by the kings or the senate. His next step was to get the Spartans to renounce their property, and consent to a new division of the land ; to live altogether on an equal footing ; to re- gard merit as their only road to eminence, and the disgrace of evil and the credit of worthy acts their one measure of difference between man and man. So he divided the country of Laconia, where the Spartans lived, into many thousand equal lots, giv- ing the city of Sparta so many, the towns so many, and so on. A lot would yield, one year with an- other, about seventy bushels of grain for the master of a family, and twelve for his wife, with a suitable proportion of oil and wine. And this he thought sulificient to keep their bodies in good health and strength ; superfluities they were better without. Hence, he is reported to have said once : " Methinks all Laconia looks like one family estate just divided among a number of brothers." Lycurgus would not allow any gold or silver to circulate in the kingdom, for fear gold and silver might excite avarice. Accordingly, he coined money out of iron, a great weight and quantity of which was worth a mere trifle ; so that to lay up twenty or thirty £ sterling of it required a pretty large closet, and a yoke of oxen could hardly move it. They thought that iron money would banish many vices from THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. 97 Lacedaemon, for who would rob a man of such coin ? or who would steal or accept as a bribe a thing which it was not easy to hide, nor a credit to pos- sess ; nor, indeed, of any use even to cut to pieces ? For their plan was to heat the lumps of iron coin red hot, throw them into pots of v^inegar, and thus render the metal unfit to be worked up into any thing afterwards. Then Lycurgus waged war on all sorts of luxury, and drove out expensive or superfluous arts ; and as nobody else in Greece would take his iron money, there were no means of purchasing gew-gaws and gim-cracks, small wares and toys. Foreign mer- chants sent no ship-loads into Laconian ports ; no rhetoric-masters or itinerant fortune-tellers, no gold- or silver-smiths, no jewellers or engravers set foot in this iron-bound country. Everybody was as poor and as rich as everybody else. By this sort of "pro- tective tariff," however, the Lacedaemonians — as they had to make every thing themselves — became excel- lent artists in common, necessary things. Bedsteads, chairs, tables, and utensils of all sorts were admirably well made by them. They made famous cups, which the Greek soldiers fancied immensely, and thus they were made to show their skill in giving beauty to things of daily and indispensable use rather than to luxuries. Lycurgus was a wonderful old fellow in another matter. He broke up the seclusion, selfishness, and privacy of the rich by making all his people eat to- gether, and eat of the same bread and meat. He would not let them spend their lives at home, lolling 98 THE STORY OF GREECE. on splendid couches at costly tables groaning with delicacies, delivering themselves over body and soul to tradesmen and cooks, to fatten them in corners, like greedy brutes. This he thought would ruin both minds and manners, as would long sleep, warm bathing, freedom from work, and vicious idleness. They could not eat luncheon on the sly at home first either, and then attend the public tables ; for every one had an eye on those who did not eat and drink like the rest, and reproached them with being dainty and womanish. This so exasperated the wealthier men that Lycur- gus almost suffered the fate of the martyr Stephen — of being stoned to death in the market-place; but when they attacked him, he prudently took to his heels, and outran all his pursuers except one misera- ble young man, who knocked out one of the old man's eyes. Still, Lycurgus was so charmed to get off with no worse treatment that he built and dedi- cated a temple to the goddess Athene of the Eye. You will believe that the public repasts of the Spartans were marvellous affairs when you hear how they were conducted. No cakes and pies and rasp- berry-tarts, mugs of beer, and snow-white table linen graced these feasts. People met by companies of fifteen, more or less, and each of them stood bound to bring in monthly a bushel of meal, eight gallons of wine, five pounds of cheese, half a pound of figs, and a little money wherewithal to buy fish or flesh. They could never sup at home unless they had been a-hunting, or were sacrificing to the gods, when they sent a part of the venison they had killed to the common table. THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. gg They used to send their children to these tables as to schools of temperance. Here they were instructed in state affairs by listening to experienced statesmen ; here they learned to converse agreeably, joke and jest without insulting each other, and take hard words without ill humor. It was customary for the oldest man in the company to say to each boy as he came in (pointing to the door) : " Through //n's no words go out." Their most famous dish was the black broth, which was so much valued that the elderly men fed only upon that, leaving what flesh there was to the younger. The old man showed his marvellous good sense in many other ways. For example, he made every- body go to bed without lights, so that all might become accustomed to walking and marching boldly in the dark. The Lacedaemonian boys did not fear ghosts and " bogeys," and the dark was as familiar to them as the light. Numerous as were his laws, Lycurgus would not allow any of them to be written. They had to be imprinted on a man's memory, and be remembered in that way. Their houses were as plain as simple carpentry work with axes and saws could make them, for Ly- curgus justly foresaw that they would not care to furnish such plain and common rooms with silver- footed couches, purple coverlets, and gold and silver plate ; and that thus the insidious intrusion of for- eign tastes and habits could be kept out. It was a custom of these curious Lacedaemonians, lOO THE STORY OF GREECE. too, not to make war long or often with the sarf.> enemy, lest they should train and instruct their ene- mies in their own peculiar tactics. There was hardly any difference between the training of the boys and the training of the girls at Sparta. The girls had to exercise themselves in running, wrestling, quoit- throwing, and casting the dart ; and both young men and maidens went without clothing in the pro- cessions, danced at the solemn festivals in the same way, and were thus taught to overcome excessive bashfulness and shame. The women of Lacedaemon became so strong-bodied and strong-minded that once when a foreign lady remarked to Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, that the women of Lacedaemon were the only women in the world who could rule men, " With good reason," she answered, " for we are the only women who bring forth men." Old bachelors and old maids were abhorred in Sparta. Everybody must marry if he wanted to enjoy even common consideration and respect. If a young man refused to marry, he was stripped of every stitch of clothing and made to march around the streets singing songs to his own disgrace. The marriage ceremonies were very strange and even re- volting, but they cannot be described here for lack of space. They had a hideous custom of casting away puny or misshapen children, exposing them in a chasm of the mountains under Taygetus, thinking it neither for the good of a child itself nor for the pub- lic interest that it should be brought up, if it did not, from the very outset, appear made to be healthy and vigorous. And they dipped a new-born child in THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. lOI wine, from a notion that epileptic or diseased chil- dren faint and waste away after such a bath, while those of a strong and vigorous habit acquire the strength, temper, and pliancy of steel from the juice of the grape. The nurses were exceedingly intelli- gent, and did not swaddle the babes in entangling bands, but let them grow up free and unconstrained in limb and form, not dainty and fanciful about their food, or afraid in the dark or of being left alone, or peevish, bad-tempered, and " squalling." So cele- brated did these nurses become that they were bought up or hired by people of other countries, like the Asturian nurses of Spain. It is recorded, for example, that the nurse who suckled Alcibiades was a Spartan woman. The close-clipped, bare-foot, nearly naked little Spartan boys knew just enough of reading and writ- ing to serve their turn, their main education from the age of seven — when they were taken from their parents — being how to endure pain and privation, and to conquer in battle. Sparta was the first grand Kindergarten of which we have any knowledge ; a magnificent school for athletic sports, simple object- teaching and teaching by example, and for ascertain- ing whether a boy was a coward or a manly fellow. Their hard, dry little carcasses were almost un- acquainted with the luxurious use of baths and unguents ; their rush beds emanated from the vegeta- tion that densely covered the banks of the Eurotas, and they sprinkled them with thistle-down to make them warmer. The old men watched the younger continually, encouraged them in their contests of 102 THE STORY OF GREECE. wit, humor, and strength, and applauded them even when they stole. For you must know that when they grew to man- hood they had a captain over their several com- panies ; these sent the eldest of them to fetch wood and the weaker to gather salads and herbs ; and the salads and herbs they must either go without or steal ! They stole by creeping over garden fences and into people's fields, and then conveying their spoils, cunningly and without being seen, to their eating-houses. If they were caught in the act they were flogged unmercifully, because they had stolen so ill or so awkwardly. They stole, too, all the meat they could lay their hands on, watching their oppor- tunities when people were asleep or more careless than usual. So seriously did the Lacedaemonian lads go about their stealing, that a youth, having stolen a young fox, and hid it under his coat, suffered it to tear out his very bowels with its teeth and claws, and died on the spot, rather than let it be seen. Eye-witnesses told of having seen Lacedaemonian youths whipped to death at the foot of the altar of Diana Orthia. The suppers of the Spartan boys were often turiied into a sort of moral " quiz club," for when, after supper, one of the lads was bidden to sing a song, the Iren, or undermaster, would ask another : " Who was the best man in the city ? " or, " What he thought of such-and-such an action of such-and-such a man ?" They were thus taught to think, to pass right judgments on men and things, and to inform themselves of the abilities and defects of their countrymen. They must have their answers always THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. IO3 ready, or they were looked upon as dull or careless. But the beauty of the answers was that they must be in as few words and as comprehensive as might be — brief and pointed ; laconic, in short, for the speech of the people of Laconia became so terse, short, and full of meaning that this word was coined to charac- terize it. The children from the beginning were taught to indulge in natural and graceful raillery, to feel the value of words as men never felt it before, and to express a great deal of useful and curious meaning in a handful of syllables. They thus, by their habit of long silence and their custom of breaking it only when they had something to say really worth saying, acquired ease in giving just and sententious answers, for they knew that life was too short to be indulging in " dictionary words," or in useless chatter. Agis, King of Sparta, when the Athenians laughed at the Lacedaemonian short swords, and said that the jugglers on the stage swallowed them with ease, answered him : " We find them long enough to reach our enemies with " ; and as their swords were short and sharp, so it seems were their sayings. They reached the point and arrested the attention at once. Lycurgus himself was full of bright sayings and brilliant speeches, and he, like many other celebrated Greeks, anticipated the famous maxims of La Rochefoucauld, Pascal and other French writers almost of our time. One of the best-known an- swers attributed to him was given to some people who consulted him whether it were necessary to en- close Sparta with a wall : '^ The city is well fortified which hath a wall of men instead of bricks." 104 THE STORY OF GREECE. They hated talkativeness and loved plainness of speech and simple manliness, as we see in the speech of King Charilaus, nephew of Lycurgus, who, being asked why his uncle had made, comparatively speaking, so few laws, answered : " Men of few words require but few laws." So they said also that " He who knows Jiozv to speak, knows also Their answers sometimes flashed like a bolt of steel into the heart of a rude intruder, as when King Demaratus, being asked by a silly goose who was the best man in Lacedaemon, replied : " He, sir, that is least like you ! " And that they could be witty as well as sharp is seen from the reply of one who, being asked to go and hear a man who exactly coun- terfeited the voice of a nightingale, answered : " Sir, I have heard the nightingale itself." In short, their answers were so epigrammatic and pertinent that it was well said : intellectual much more truly than athletic exercise was the Spartan characteristic. While they loved out-door sports as much as any English school-boy, they cultivated their tongues and had minds shining bright with whetted wit and wisdom. They were not ashamed either to receive instruc- tion in music and verse, as well as in habits of grace and good-breeding in conversation. Their plain, serious, moral poetry was full of the love of father- land, the hatred of cowardice, the praise of men who died for their country, and of enthusiasm for their native institutions. At their solemn festivals there were three choirs, one of old men, the second of THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. I05 young men^ and the last of children. The old men began thus : We once were young, and brave, and strong ; the young men answered, saying : And we 're so now, come on and try ; and the children came last, and sung : But we '11 be strongest by and by. Before they went into battle the king first did sacrifice to the Muses, in order to animate his men to do deeds that should be worthy of record. At such times, too, the Lacedaemonians abated the severity of their discipline a little, and allowed men to curl and adorn their long hair, and to have costly arms and fine clothes. And, therefore, as soon as the children came to be grown, they took great care of their hair, parted and trimmed it carefully, espe- cially just before a battle, and took care to remem- ber a saying of their great law-giver, that a large head of hair added beauty to a good face and terror to an ugly one. When their army was drawn up in battle-array and the enemy was near, the king sacrificed a goat, the soldiers set garlands on their heads, and the pipers played the tune of the hymn of Castor, march- ing to battle with a paean, like piping Highlanders, or like the Normans singing the song of Roland at the battle of Hastings. It was at once a terrible and magnificent sight to see them — long-haired, fierce- Io6 THE STORY OF GREECE. eyed, and helmeted — marching on to the music of flutes and the singing of hymns. It was the pecuhar glory of a Lacedaemonian who had been victorious at the Olympic games, to be allowed to fight next the king in battle. As they despised trade and. would have nothing to do with money-getting, they had abundance of leis- ure for their exercises ; the whole city was nothing but a military camp, a barracks, a gymnasium ; and their food was provided for them by the Helots. All their time, except when they were in the field, was taken up by the choral dances and festivals, hunting and attendance on the exercise-grounds, and the places of public conversation. Hanging about the streets and market-places brought a man into discredit ; the Lacedsemonians were no " loafers," and spent their leisure hours rationally in extolling good people, censuring bad ones, and conveying lessons of advice and improvement in a light and sportive vein. Lycurgus was so far from being a grim old Blue Beard, ready to eat up everybody, that he dedicated a statue to Laughter, just as the Athenian Pisistratus dedicated a statue to Love. It is in these delicate and out-of-the-way acts that men sometimes best reveal their true characters; we should never understand the story of George Washington or Alfred the Great if we did not know the anecdotes of the " little hatchet " and the " hot cakes," which, whether true or false, grew out of men's opinions of these great heroes, and throw a flood of light on the characters of the great Ameri- can and the great Saxon. THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. lO/ Lycurgus did every thing he could to root out superstition. For example, many people are afraid to see a dead body, or they imagine that to touch one or to tread upon a grave would defile a man. The Spartan law-giver, to destroy this feeling, allowed his people to bury their dead in the town and round- about the temples, that their dead might be ever with them. He would allow nothing to go into the graves with them except a few olive leaves and the scarlet cloth that was their winding-sheet. Eleven days were all they could spend in mourning for the dead ; then they had to stop mourning and go about their business. Though a great traveller himself, going abroad to study foreign institutions, just as the English and French send commissions to America to study our institutions, or we send men to study English and French institutions, for the good of the country, yet he did not like his people, as a general rule, to travel, thinking that they might acquaint themselves with foreign customs, habits, and morals, or learn evil things from intercourse with foreign governments, and thus become discontented and rebellious. Just so many of our people go abroad and come back after a while discontented, criticising or loathing their native land. Along with this, no strangers were allowed to settle permanently in Lacedaemon, for fear they might introduce or im- port something contrary to Lacedaemonian manners. With strange people strange words would have to be admitted ; these novelties would produce novelties in thought ; and on these would follow views and feelings whose discordant character would destroy I08 THE STORY OF GREECE. the harmony of the state. He was thus as careful to save his city from the infection of foreign bad habits as men usually are to keep out small-pox, cholera, or yellow-fever nowadays. The one great blot. — which to some people seems as big as the moon — on the Spartan 'scutcheon is the atrocious slavery which existed in Lacedsemon, giving rise to the saying that in Sparta he who was free was most so, and he who was a slave there, the greatest slave in the world. Many, however, refuse to ascribe the wicked and barbarous enslavement of the Helots to Lycurgus, whose gentleness and humanity were testified to by gods and men. When he perceived that his more important insti- tutions had taken root in the minds of his country- men, that custom had rendered them familiar and easy, that his commonwealth was now full-grown and able to stand on its own legs, then Lycurgus, viewing with joy and satisfaction the greatness and beauty of his political structure, now fairly at work and in motion, conceived the thought of making it immortal too, and, as far as human forecast could reach, of delivering it down unchangeable to posterity. There- fore he called an extraordinary assembly of the people, and told them that he now thought every thing reasonably well established, both for the hap- piness and the virtue of the state ; but that there was ^;/^ thing still behind, of the greatest importance, which he thought not fit to impart until he had con- sulted the oracle ; in the meantime his desire was that they would observe the laws without any the least alteration until his return, and then he would THE WONDERFUL STORY OF SPARTA. IO9 do as the god should direct him. They all con- sented readily ; but, before he departed, he admin- istered an oath to the two kings, the senate, and the entire common people, to abide by and maintain the established form of polity until Lycurgus should come back. This done he set out for Delphi, and, having sacrificed to Apollo, asked him whether the laws he had established were good, and sufificient for a people's happiness and virtue. The oracle answered that the laws were excellent, and that the people, while it observed them, should live in the height of renown. Lycurgus took the oracle in writing and sent it over to Sparta ; but instead of going back, resolved to make the oath he had put the Spartans under perpetual by never returning. So he starved himself slowly to death, thinking it a statesman's duty to make his very death if possible an act of service to the state ; and even in the end of his life to give some example of virtue, and effect some useful pur- pose. He would on the one hand crown and con- summate (he thought) his own happiness by a death suitable to so honorable a life, and, on the other, secure to his countrymen the enjoyment of the advantages he had spent his life in obtaining for them, since they had solemnly sworn the mainte- nance of his institutions until Jus return. Nor was he deceived (it is said) in his expectations ; for the city of Lacedaemon continued the chief city of all Greece for the space of 500 years, in strict observ- ance of Lycurgus' laws ; during which there was no alteration made in them, for when the lipJiori, or Overseers, came to be added to the form of govern- no THE STORY OF GREECE. ment, to assist and watch the kings, their creation, though it was thought to be in favor of the people, really did not diminish but heightened the aristocratic character of the government. For you must know that in most of the Greek states the form of govern- ment was first kingly ; then oligarchical, in which a few rich men, called an aristocracy, or oligarchy, gov- erned the State ; then tyrannical; then last of all came the democracy, or government by the people, through the people, for the people. Thus Lycurgus passed forever out of sight into the Silent Land, like King Arthur, when the magic barge full of mystic and wonderful women floated to the shore and conveyed the slain king far out into the mysterious and wonderful sea. The Spartans worshipped and loved him as a god, and whatever was good and noble in their institutions, they traced back to him ever afterward. ^^^Pi^ W i^^^^^^ ^ ^^^fj^^lO fe i?; ■ :^y?^UE^'3SS ^tt f^^f^^^^m ig ^^^^m '^]Sk f^^^^Sv^ iS ^^e^22^^ ^H X. HOW DELPHI AROSE, AND HOW THE PELOPONNESUS LOOKED AFTER THE TROJAN WAR. After the Trojan War there was a general south- ward march of the Greeks in Greece proper ; the Boeotians descended out of Thessaly ; the Dorians occupied the Peloponnesus, and Ionian and Dorian colonies were sent forth. Hellas was still in process of ferment and settlement in the age which followed the Trojan War, and had no time for peaceful growth. The return of the Hellenes from Troy after their long absence led to many changes ; quarrels too arose in nearly every city, and those who were expelled by them went and founded other cities. Thus sixty years after the fall of Troy it is said that the Boeotians, having been expelled from Arne by the Thessalians, settled in the country formerly called Cadmeis, but afterwards Boeotia ; a portion of the tribe already dwelt there, and some of these had joined in the Trojan expedition. Eighty years after the war the Dorians, led by the expelled Heraclidae (the reputed descendants of Heracles, or Hercules, who had in the beginning possessed a part of the peninsula), reconquered the Peloponnesus. A long time elapsed before Hellas became finally set- tled : after a while, however, the agitation caused by 112 THE STORY OF GREECE the wars passed away, and she became quiet enough to send out colonies. The Athenians colonized Ionia (on the coast of Asia Minor) and most of the islands ; the Peloponnesians, the greater part of Italy and Sicily, and various places in Greece. These colonies thus were all founded after the Trojan War. So the Norwegians sent out their great colony to Iceland — an Arctic Sicily — a thousand years ago, and England even in our day has colonized Australia and New Zealand. The Greeks had a curious habit of joining together in groups and clusters of cities, six or twelve at a time, for the one common object of worship. Such a group or cluster of cities was called an AuipJiictyony or religious association — a neighborhood affair in which they all gathered about some sacred spot where there was an " oracle " or a great temple, and held their religious services together. You might compare such associations, in a general way, with our religious synods, conventions, councils, or con- ferences, in which the various church bodies meet together once a year and discuss all sorts of subjects relating to creeds, beliefs, church-funds, Sunday- schools, mission-work, and so on. Such associations in Greece were of extreme importance and great antiquity, for they occurred long before there were any alliances or treaties of peace between tribes who lived near each other and agreed to worship a par- ticular god, at a particular sacred spot where his sanctuary had been erected. One all-important rule was, that even in war, this ground should be counted holy, and all should join in defending it from harm. HOW DELPHI AROSE. 113 Such a sanctuary was then a sort of " Union Church," and brought people together in a way which afterward developed into a feature of Greek life and politics. Solemn ceremonies and festivals were held at stated times, and the tribes comprising an AmpJiictyony would send deputies to a sort of general convention, whose business it was to see that the temple and its lands were properly attended to. Accustomed thus to act together about the service of the sanctuary, they little by little came to agree- ments about other matters, to abstain from unneces- sary cruelty in war (as inculcated by our Geneva Red Cross Societies), or even to make a treaty of per- petual peace and an alliance against a common foe. The way they did, was to go before the image of the god they worshipped and swear that they would not hurt or harm each other or break the peace. So you know in a modern notary's office, when you are about to sign an important paper, or when you are about to depose as a witness in a witness-box, you either put your hand on the Bible or hold up your right hand in token that you are telling the truth. Out of these \oz-A AmpJiictyonies often grew the states, as the Crown of England grew out of its many once independent principalities. The strongest State in these unions was said to have the Jicgcjiwny, or lead- ership, of all the rest, just as Prussia now has in the new German Empire. A league of this sort being usually accompanied by religious services and mutual oaths, the same principle was observed in later times whenever a new league, alliance, or association was founded. They proceeded at once to celebrate 114 THE STORY OF GREECE. it by establishing some festival or commemorative exercise, in which all the members of the league joined. The oldest and greatest of all these leagues is one that has been called the " Apolline Federation." It existed in the north of Greece, in very early times, and consisted of twelve tribes who united to worship Apollo, at Delphi, and protect his temple there. Their deputies met twice a year, and settled all matters connected with the temple service. Delphi was to Hellas w^hat Mecca is to the Mahometans, Jerusalem to the Jews, and Rome to the Christians : it was the Eternal City of Hellas, and about it hung the most venerable superstitions of the Greeks. This union was called the Delphic Amphictyony, and while, in the end, no State grew out of it, like our United States out of the thirteen original col- onies, and while the tribes composing it often made war on each other, yet they swore to observe two things : not to destroy one another's towns when they were at war, and not to cut off running water from a town when it was besieged. Pilgrims flocked to Delphi from all parts of Hellas, just as in Chris- tian times they flocked to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, to Saint James of Campos- tella in Spain, to Assisi in Italy, or to Lourdes in the south of France in our day. Delphi became so rich and famous that the priestess of the temple might be called the "pope" or the " defender of the faith " of Hellas. From being merely a holy spot where the Amphictyonic Council met, it grew and grew till it became the HOW DELPHI AROSE. 115 most celebrated shrine of the ancient world. The Greeks called it the navel of the world, the middle spot, where the great god, Apollo, gave oracles or MOUNT PARNASSUS AND DELPHI. pretended answers to the inquiries of men. It be, came enormously influential in directing and super- intending colonies that were to be sent out, in Il6 THE SrORY OF GREECE. settling disputes between cities, states, and empires at war, in spreading ideas of justice, goodness, and prudence throughout the Greek world, and in tem- pering and controlling the flow of Greek affairs. The priests and priestesses of Delphi, in short, were wonderfully acute men and women, who made of their temple a sort of general intelligence office and bureau of information for all Hellas; they probably had agents and secret informers far and wide, who, like our modern consuls at foreign ports, furnished their employers with all sorts of information about what was going on inside and outside of Greece. In this way, when people came to consult them, or kings and tyrants sent solemn embassies with gorgeous presents to ask for a solution of their difficulties, they were able, in general, either to give extremely intelligent answers, or to word their answers in such a manner that they read either way, or were capable of two or three different interpreta- tions. Their oracles were given in the Ionic dialect of Homer, in hexameter verse ; and often the priestess, sitting on her mystic tripod over a fis- sure of the earth, burst out into these verses spon- taneously, as it were, or just as a pilgrim or an embassy passed the temple portal. Undoubtedly, they were great editors and editresses — these Del- phic priests and priestesses, — with telegraph wires, so to speak, stretching all over the world, some- what like the editors of a great modern journal. They had the histories and legends of all the great families by heart ; they knew all the prophecies, crimes, or casualties connected with the reigning HO IV DELPHI AROSE. 1 17 families of the Continent or the Ionian Orient; they had spies and reporters ev^erywhere among the com- mon people picking up gossip and tittle-tattle, and the sacred precincts of the temple became a sort of gigantic barber-shop, whither all men came to be shaved and to hear the news. It often happened, however, that the glitter of gold warped the judgment of the priestess and her attendants ; rich men at last succeeded in bribing her to answer them in the way they liked, and they were known to take sides for or against an entire people according to the presents they received. Thus the oracle little by little lost credit, and we are told that in the Persian wars, of which we are soon to hear, it covered itself with infamy by dis- heartening the Greeks and giving answers that were favorable to the Persians, their enemies. Thus it degenerated into a mere " lobby," in which, in the midst of a great deal of hypocritical hubbub, only a purely selfish struggle for existence could be dis- cerned. The seances of the priestesses were probably as genuine as the spiritual seances of the trance- mediums of modern times. They often became convulsed with physical excitement, writhed, and foamed at the mouth, or even became insensible. Women of highly nervous brain-organization seem to have been selected for the purpose, and they had trances and visions like the nuns of the Middle Ages. The most celebrated Amphictyony in Greece after that at Delphi was the one at Olympia, in the Pelo- ponnesus; but, before any thing is said about that, Il8 THE STORY OF GREECE. it is necessary to devote a few words to the general condition of things in that many-pronged peninsula. The legend ran that the Peloponnesus was once upon a time, far back in the distant past, full of great kings and cities. One mighty king and ruler looms up in all these stories beyond all the others, and that is Agamemnon, the king who led the Greek Armada to Troy. He lived at Mycenje, a town whose lion-guarded gate still exists in our day. Argolis, the province where Mycenie is situated, contains ruins of many other great cities and for- tresses besides those of Agamemnon's capital, show- ing that the eastern Peloponnesus must at one time have been densely populated. The Greeks thought that a race of giants had built the walls and founda- tions of these castles and towns, so huge are the immense blocks of stone out of which they are constructed. These giants they fancifully called Cyclopes, or Circle-Eyed, because they were fabled to have had one great, round, burning eye right in the middle of their forehead ; and the walls and struct- ures which they built were called cyclopcEan. So we commonly call an uncommonly strong man a man of herculean strength, because he resembles Hercules, the Greek demi-god, who was renowned for his brawny arms and his big muscles. The foundations of the Argolic cities, however, were far stronger than the Argolic princes, it seems; for, when the Dorians in their restless wanderings moved down from upper Greece, they overthrew the kings of the eastern Peloponnesus, and subjugated the Ionian and Achaian tribes who lived there. HO IV DELPHI AROSE. 119 Many of the lonians VL-ry wisely refused to submit to their conquerors ; so, uniting with some of their kinsmen in Attica, off they sailed eastward — this time on a peaceful expedition — to Asia Minor; and there, seizing the central part of its 750 miles of coast-line, they settled and founded one splendid city after another, among them Miletus and Ephe- fi % l,ill "' ' // 11 1 (I CYCLOPEAN WALLS. sus. Miletus became so powerful that she alone, in after times, is said to have sent out eighty colonies ; and at Ephesus were built those mighty temples of Diana of the Epheslans, one of \\hich you read of in the Acts of the Apostles, and another of which was burnt down on the night that Alexander the Great was born. Athens claimed to be the metropolis, or mother-city, of these Asian Ionic colonies, though I20 THE STORY OF GREECE. many of them are known to have started from other places. The Achaians who retired settled in the island of Lesbos, and founded colonies which were called not Achaian but yEolic colonies. Lesbos lay ofT the western coast of northern Asia Minor, where there is a little string of islands sprinkled like peas over the map. Wonderful stories came to the ears of the Dorians about the beauty and fertility of the lands beyond the sea ; so off t/uy started, abandoning the Pelo- ponnesus in numbers, and settling down in Crete and the coast of southern Asia Minor like clouds of travelling locusts. These were the Dorian Colonics, famous among which was the isle of Rhodes, where roses and serpents abounded. The Greeks having once acquired a taste for travel by their adventures at Troy, continued ever after to move and travel and extend their colonies. The Dorians broke up the ancient monarchies of the Peloponnesian Achaians described by Homer, and then, in the course of many centuries, spread themselves over the peninsula and many of the Asiatic isles. The heart of the Peloponnesus was as mountainous and rugged as Switzerland, and this — the country of Arcadia — even the Dorians could not conquer; nor did they drive out the Achaians who lived along the southern edge of the Gulf of Corinth and had twelve cities there. They called this strip of territory Achaia. In the west a tribe from northern Greece, called the yEtolians, took possession of Elis. Everywhere else the Dorians seem to have penetrated, little by little, like the fine sand of the desert — a massive and in- HO IV DELPHI AROSE. 121 vincible people, who made headway wherever they went, and eventually overthrew even the Athenians. Their policy was peculiar. At the start they were not numerous, any more than the Spaniards were, who little by little filled the Caribbean Isles, Mexico, and South America with their folk ; but they divided themselves into bands and companies, selected cer- tain spots and localities, founded their cities, and these in the course of time grew up into small inde- pendent states no bigger than the cantons of Switzer- land or the little Hessian principalities that sent over their hirelings to help conquer the United States in the Revolutionary War. They did not destroy the natives, as our ancestors unhappily did the Indians, but made them serve and wait on and support them, without giving them any share in the government. 3oo XL WHO THE PHCENICIANS WERE. — DORIANS AND lONIANS. The Phoenicians were one of the most won- derful stocks of antiquity. They were closely con- nected in blood and language with the Hebrews, and were the greatest sailors and merchants of whom we have any knowledge. They built the mighty cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, travelled round the Mediterranean like the flies round a basin of water, and settled or fished or traded wherever they could ; finally, when they had greatly multiplied and had reached the extremity of the Great Sea, marching up through Spain, under Hamilcar and Hannibal, cross- ing the Alps, and streaming down in almost over- whelming floods on Rome and Capua. In this way they completed almost the entire circuit of the Med- iterranean. These wonderful Phcenicians (the Ca- naanites of our Bible) had an alphabet — which the Greeks at that time had not — and a scale of weights and measures. They were marvellously inventive and anxious to learn, and, as we ascertain from the books of Chronicles and Esther, understood even at that early time how to dig mines and work metals. One of their curious discoveries was that a little sea- shell yielded a beautiful purple dye — each tiny creat- ure one tiny drop — very precious and brilliant, — WHO THE PHCEXICIANS WERE. 1 23 and therefore they scoured the Mediterranean up and down, right and left, trying to lay in a store of the dye for their Tyrian purple. They were famous workers too in copper, iron, and silver, and found out that the root of the Greek evergreen oak could be used in tanning and its berries for a dye. The Greeks, who were a remarkably teachable people, after a while got their alphabet from the Phoenicians, and adopted the Phoenician weights and measures ; imitated the Phoenician ships, which were often built of Greek oak, pine, and beech, and exchanged wool and timber for the goods of Tyre and Sidon. Sometimes men and women were sold into slavery between the two nations. Indeed this hideous blot — slavery — affixes itself to all the nations of antiquity and to some in more modern times. The richer the Greeks grew the more slaves — white slaves — they strove to get. The cities and market-places and streets came to be full of slaves, and the citizens came to depend more and more on slave labor. Fashionable or cultivated or aristocratic Greeks often lived in town and left their estates in the country to be cultivated by slaves. The shops and counting-houses were full of slaves too, who many of them rose to distinction. Some of the most gifted, eloquent, and accomplished men of Rome and Hellas were either slaves or sons of slaves or bondmen — men like yEsop, Epictetus, and Horace. But while they often rose to be clerks or secretaries or intimate friends of their masters, they were also liable to terrible mistreatment, torture, and cruel punishments. The most celebrated poem in the 124 THE STORY OF GREECE. world grew out of a quarrel over a white female slave captured in war and assigned to Achilles as his share of the booty in one of the wars. — Achilles and Agamemnon, in taking possession of another man's wife, were guilty of the very same crime for which they went to war with Troy ; namely, because the Trojan Paris had run away with the wife of the Greek Menelaus. It is well to add in this place that we first know the Hellenes as a race split into two great branches, each with well-marked characteristics of its own — Dorians and lonians ; and a third branch not so distinctly marked is called Aiolimi, named after Dorus and tEoIus, two sons of Hellen, and Ion, his grandson. The aborigines, or original inhabitants of the country, were the Pelasgians, distinct, as some think, though not absolutely different, from the Hellenes. " Pelasgian " might be translated " pre- historic," as we know nothing about their history. It has been conjectured that the highlands of Phrygia in Asia Minor were the starting-point of the distinctively Hellenic migrations, when the atoms of this pre-historic fabric broke up and began to move. The moving mass tumbled in some rude and mul- titudinous fashion over the Hellespont into Europe, down through Greece and the Peloponnesus, and spread all over the coasts and islands of the Archi- pelago. Then this great human volcano in Phrygia is sup- posed to have shot forth another lava-flood of homo- geneous humanity, in the shape of single Hellenic tribes, specially gifted and endowed, who swept down IV HO THE PHCENICIANS WERE. 1 25 like leaven through the dough-like " Pelasgians," and quickened them out of the stupefying lives of hus- bandmen and herdsmen into something like political organization and city life. The ancestors of the lonians (they say), went down to the coasts of Asia Minor and founded a race celebrated in after times for keen Yankee characteristics of maritime enterprise and commerce. The ancestors of the Dorians planted themselves in the Switzerland of Northern Greece and developed into bold and hardy mountaineers, hunters, warriors, conservatives, and they never got rid of their mountain uncouthness and their inborn love of money, like their kinsmen the Switzers. These two great tribes — Ionian and Dorian — rep- resented what we might call the dualism of Greek life : the one vivacious, intellectual, endowed with extraordinary poetic gifts, in the highest degree creative in art and literature, voluptuous and civil- ized ; the other tart, abrupt, laconic, personally valiant but non-creative, "Tory," conservative to the last degree, " old fogeys " in the modern sense, and clinging with tenacity to ancestral customs and tra- ditions. They were as different as the two sides of a turtle. Greece would never have developed into what it became if there had been no lonians, because the lonians were astonishingly open to impressions from without — they were panes of glass through which streamed the light and heat of contiguous civilizations. Thus, colorless as these panes were at first, they soon became richly colored when the peculiar and brilliant light of Canaanitic or Phceni- cian culture (of which I have spoken) began to shine 126 THE STORY OF GREECE. through them. If you stood on the beautiful heights of Lebanon, you could see the island of Cyprus. Thus the Phoenicians saw it and were tempted by it, sailed to and settled Cyprus, and passed on from place to place until they had crawled or clambered or rowed quite around the Mediterranean. Miletus was the special point, however, at which Greeks and Phoenicians locked commercial horns: they touched heads and hands as it were without either race giving up its individuality or merging its existence in the other ; and what they learned from each other you already know. Nobody can tell what might have been the history of the development of Greece had not the purple-fish swarmed in the gulfs of the Peloponnesus and on the coasts of Boeotia. Another little dye-creature — the cochineal — has played on land in modern times the role played in the sea by the inurcx of the Phoenicians. While these strange folk hunted purple-drops and slaughtered sea-fish, they unconsciously did something much more important — transmitted from the East to the West Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian ideas, just as emigrant ships carry to the remotest isles of the South Sea, without knowing it, the seeds of English grasses and grains, or insects and animals, which afterward come to superabound there and to overrun those countries. We got our religion from the East ; so did the Greeks in large measure. Their legends are full of Oriental beauty aud allusion, and they seem to have come not so much from the Semitic as from the Hellenic Orient, which was already richly colored with Asiatic elements. The myths of Hellas are IVHO THE PHCENJCIANS WERE. 12/ full of mention of " foreigners " — Cadmus and Pelops (from whom the Cadnuaii Thebes and the Peloponne- sus got their names), Danaus and /Eg^'ptus, though nominally aliens, settled personally or in their de- scendants in Greece among people with whom they seem to have been at home from the first. One can readily believe that the lonians had steeped — empurpled — themselves, one might say, in Asiatic ideas, beliefs, and myths, and then transmitted them to their kinsmen on the other side of the ^-Egaean. Later on the Greeks of Herodotus' time had for- gotten the lonians and Phoenicians who had brought an Eastern civilization to the western side of the ^gaean, and, profoundly impressed with the an- tiquity and splendor of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian empires, preferred to think that their own culture had germinated by direct contact with these sources. All we know, however, beyond peradventure, about these early times, is that from the very start we find the Greeks in the land which we now call Greece. How they got there or when or whence they came, we know absolutely nothing or exceedingly little about. In some strange and unaccountable way they had leaked into the land, grouped themselves in little principalities and powers (so to speak), organized small independent states as distinct in locality and arrangement as the black-and-white dominoes on a chequer-board ; and there and thus we find them at the start of our story. Historians, of course, have discovered in the last hundred years that the Hellenes were blood-kin to 128 THE STORY OF GREECE. the Italians over on the adjacent peninsula, and that they are not related to the Phoenicians, Arabians, or Chinese ; but the Greeks knew little and cared less about all this, and considered themselves, like the Israelites, a chosen people dwelling apart from any other, and specially favored by the providence of the gods. It may be well for you to know, however, that they ^vcre intimately connected in race and in national inheritance with a great race called the Indo-European, because some nations belonging to this race are found in India and many in Europe. They are supposed to have lived originally some- where between the Caspian Sea and the mountains to the west of India. Scholars have ascertained the kinship from the similarity of the words used by the Greeks, Hindoos, Persians, Germans, and Latins; as, for example, the word for father is almost exactly alike in them ; the numerals and pronouns are very much alike; and dozens and dozens of common household words, words for utensils and animals, and so on, correspond in two or three or even four of these related languages. Though we speak Eng- lish and have Anglo-Saxon blood in our veins, we are blood-kin to these ancient Greeks. The Greeks, however, had they known it, would not have claimed the relationship. XII. HOW THE TYRANTS RULED IN GREECE.- OF SICYON AND AGARISTE. -THE STORY But still one swallow does not make a summer, nor could one Sparta, rich and full as its life was, and astonishing as the energy of its people came to be, fill all the Peloponnesus or crowd out other and peculiar growths. There were other states within its circumscribed area which grew up, blossomed, and decayed, all the while dev^eloping a life and action almost as singular and highly individualized as the Spartan. Just east of Sparta lay Argolis, which was at first the strongest Dorian state in the Peloponnesus. An Amphictyony united Argos w^ith Corinth and Sicyon in the common worship of Apollo as the god of the league. Every year they lavished offerings in the temple of the god at Argos, and Argos was acknowl- edged to be the head of the league. The Argives fancifully claimed a remote connection with the Persians, and were, in early times, preeminent above all the states afterward included under the common name of Hellas. Argolis was one of the great centres of Phoenician intercourse, and there was a story that once when the princess lo, daughter of Inachus, King of Argos, went down with her women to the shore 130 THE STORY OF GREECE. to purchase goods of the Phoenician merchants, the Phcenicians rushed upon them with a shout and whisked them off to the lands beyond the sea. In revenge for this, at a later period, certain Greeks made a landing at Tyre, on the Phoenician coast, and bore off the king's daughter Europe, Then the Asiatics retaliated by carrying off Helen of Argos, which caused the Trojan War. Their ancient superi- ority over the other Greeks is acknowledged all through Homer. They were eminent for their musi- cal talent, and they often contended with Sparta in the various disputes that kept the Peloponnesus in a perpetual broil. As a matter of course Argos flew into a passion when Sparta kept on conquering the land eastwards, and became intensely jealous and hostile toward Lacedaemon. The Argives, however, were at last driven out of their southern territory, then out of the border-land called Cynuria, leaving to Sparta all the country that swept down from Mt. Taygetus to the eastern sea. Argos grew old and peevish and decrepit, and finally fell into a sort of dotage, during which she lost her supremacy over her allies and transferred to Sparta the hegemony of the Peloponnesus. The view of Argolis from the sea is very beautiful ; the rippling Argolic hills making lovely curves and swells in the distance, the great Gulf of Argos sweeping in shining lines across the horizon, and the blue and wondrous air of Southern Greece falling over all like a translucent mantle. The northeast of the Peloponnesus was occupied by two little oligarchies, named Sicyon and Corinth. One wonders how so many bright, petulant, fussy HOW TYRANTS RULED IN GREECE. I3I little states could live together in peace and quiet- ness as long as these states did, and not, as the children say, "scratch out each other's eyes," or at least knock each other on the head. Each of them had a body of Dorians living in the heart of the old Achaian population ; but they had abolished the kingly rule and established the government in the hands of a few noble families. Imagine for a moment the State of New York governed altogether by the old " Knickerbocker" families of Manhattan Island, or Massachusetts by the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, or Virginia by the posterity of Pocahontas and the cavaliers, and you will understand what is meant by an oligarchy, or government in the hands of a few. These families prided themselves on their descent from the heroes ; they were exceedingly clan- nish, and finally succeeded, except at Sparta, in putting down the government by kings. They were peculiar people, kept to themselves, worshipped their own special gods, and kept the laws to themselves or handed them down, not in writing, but by word of mouth. They seemed to think that they had a divine right to make up the entire government, keep all the fat ofifices and lucrative positions to themselves, live apart from their fellow-mortals as if they feared contamination, and often refused to acknowledge that any one outside their body had any rights at all. Just so it would be in England if the country were governed entirely by the House of Lords, who trace their descent largely back to the " heroes " of Wil- liam the Conqueror. The common folk might till their fields for them, or make their living as laborers 132 THE STORY OF GREECE. or tradesmen, but as for any thing else they were looked upon as inferior, and as unworthy of any great regard. In Sicyon, the proud Dorian noblemen lived on the slope of the hills, while the " vulgar herd " settled in the plain along the banks of the river Asopus and on the seashore at its mouth. The nobles called them Men of the Shore, and did not allow them at first to serve as soldiers or to act as citizens in any way. But, after a long time, being in great need of soldiers, they made the Men of the Shore, or ^gia- laeans, arm themselves with swords and lances, and serve as an army. The yEgialaeans soon grew rich on fishing, agriculture, and trade, while the Dorian noblemen continued to live apart, like the gods on Mt. Olympus, on their slopes ; so that about the year B.C. 676, a rich -^gialaean named Orthagoras put himself at the head of the common people, and overthrew the government of the oligarchy. Ortha- goras made himself master of the whole state, gov- erned it like a king, and handed down his power to his son after him. The descendants of Orthagoras, called the OrtJiagoridcB, ruled with justice and moderation for a hundred years. They helped the people, abolished the privileges of the Dorians, and put an end to their power. The last of their tyrants was Cleisthenes, about whom there is a quaint and delightful story to tell, which shall be told in this place, although it anticipates matters a little. Cleisthenes, Tyrant of Sicyon, raised the family of the Orthagoridae to a greater eminence among the Greeks than even that to which it had attained HOW TYRANTS RULED IN GREECE. I 33 before ; for this Cleisthenes had a daughter named Agariste, whom he wished to marry to the best hus- band that he could find in the whole of Hellas. At the Olympic games, therefore, having gained the prize in the chariot-race, he caused public proclama- tion to be made to the following effect : Whoever among the Greeks deems himself worthy to be the son-in-law of Cleisthenes, let him come, sixty days hence, or, if he will, sooner, to Sicyon ; for within a year's time, counting from the end of the sixty days, Cleisthenes will decide on the man to whom he shall contract his daughter. So all the Greeks who w'ere proud of their own merit, or of their country, flocked to Sicyon as suitors ; and Cleisthenes had a foot-course and a wrestling-ground made ready, to try their powers. Hither came Smindyrides from the luxurious Italian city of Sybaris, and Damasus from Siris. The Ionian Gulf sent Amphimnestus and Males. From the Peloponnesus came Leocedes of Argos, son of the famous and insolent Pheidon ; Amiantus of Arcadia, Laphanes of Paeus, and Onomastus of Elis. Athens sent Megacles, son of the renowned Alcmaeon who visited Crcesus, and Hippoclides, the wealthiest and handsomest of the Athenians. Lysanias came in from Euboea, Diactorides from Thessaly, and Alcon from Molossis. Such were the names of the thirteen princes, noble- men, and gentlemen who came to sue for the hand of the fair Agariste. Now, when they were all come, and the day ap- pointed had arrived, Cleisthenes first of all inquired 134 THE STORY OF GREECE. of each concerning his country and his family, after which he kept them with him a year, and made trial of their manly bearing, their temper, their accom- plishments, and their disposition, sometimes draw- ing them apart for converse, sometimes bringing them all together. Such as were still youths he took with him from time to time to the gym- nasiums ; but the greatest trial of all was at the banquet-table. During the whole period of their stay he lived with them in this manner, and further, from first to last, he entertained them sump- tuously. Somehow or other the suitors who came from Athens pleased him the best of all ; and of these, Hippoclides, Tisander's son, was especially in favor, partly on account of his manly bearing, and partly, also, because his ancestors were akin to a great Cor- inthian family whom Cleisthenes esteemed. When at length the day arrived which had been fixed for the espousals, and Cleisthenes had to speak out and declare his choice, he first of all made a sacrifice of a hundred oxen, and held a banquet whereat he entertained all the suitors, and the whole people of Sicyon. After the feast was ended the suitors vied with each other in music and in speaking on a given subject. Presently, as the drinking ad- vanced, Hippoclides, who quite dumbfoundered the rest, called aloud to the flute-pla\-er, and bade him strike up a dance, which the man did, and Hippo- clides danced to it. And he fancied that he was dancing excellently well ; but Cleisthenes, who was observing him, began to misdoubt the whole busi- ness. Then Hippoclides, after a pause, told an HOW TYRANTS RULED IN GREECE. 135 attendant to bring in a table, and when it was brought he mounted upon it and danced first of all some Laconian figures, then some Attic ones, after which he stood on his head upon the table, and began to toss his legs about. Cleisthenes, notwith- standing that he now loathed Hippoclides for a son- in-law, by reason of his dancing and his shameless- ness, still, as he wished to avoid an outbreak, had restrained himself during the first and likewise during the second dance. When, however, he saw him toss- ing his legs in the air, he could no longer contain himself, but cried out : " Son of Tisander, thou hast danced thy wife away!" "What does Hippoclides care?" was the other's answer; and hence the proverb: "What does Hippoclides care?" became a common saying in Greece. Then Cleisthenes commanded silence, and spoke thus before the assembled company : " Suitors of my daughter, well pleased am I with you all, and right willingly, if it were possible, would I content you all, and not, by making choice of one, appear to put a slight upon the rest. But as it is out of my power, seeing that I have but one daugh- ter to grant to all their wishes, I will present to each of you whom I must needs dismiss a talent of sil- ver [about a thousand dollars] for the honor that }'ou have done me in seeking to ally yourselves with my house and for your long absence from your homes. But my daughter Agariste I betroth to Megacles, the son of Alcm?eon, to be his wife according" to the usafje and wont of Athens." Then Megacles expressed his readiness and Cleis- 136 THE STORY OF GREECE. thenes had the marriage solemnized. Thus ended the affair of the suitors, and thus the Alcmaeonidae came to be famous throughout the whole of Greece.* Pericles, Alcibiades, Cleisthenes the Athenian legislator, Megacles the rival of Pisistratus, and other great and glorious men were connected with this family. Now let me tell you plainly what the meaning of the word Tyrant is, for Cleisthenes was a tyrant. You must not not think because we have a certain English word tyrant — tyrannical — derived from the Greek word, that the Greek word meant what the English word does. Far from it. Tyrannos in Greek, as applied to such men as Orthagoras and his de- scendants, meant not a ruler who governs tyrannically in our modern sense, but a ruler whose power tran- scends the laws and is contrary to the laws. Ortha- goras and Cleisthenes were " tyrants " in this sense. They governed mildly and wisely, to be sure, but their rule was not in accordance with the laws of Sicyon. * Rawlinson's " Herodotus," III., 421. XIIL LEGENDS OF CORINTH AND MEGARIS : HOW THE ORACLE WAS FULFILLED. At Corinth you will find the same succession of things as at Sicyon : first kings, then aristocracies and oligarchies, and last of all tyrants. Here a group of two hundred noble families who called themselves BaccJiiadcB governed the State when the government of the kings ceased. How the Bacchia- dai rose to such great power, and what the Corin- thians thought of a tyranny, may be gathered from the speech of Sosicles, the Corinthian, when he spoke before the allies against the establishment of a tyranny at Athens, after the ^ginetan War. The speech contains several stories and anecdotes which you will read with pleasure, and which illustrate inci- dentally important sides of Greek life and legend. Said Sosicles : " Surely the heaven will soon be below, and the earth above, and men will henceforth live in the sea and fish take their place upon the dry land, since yon, O Lacedaemonians, propose to put down free governments in the cities of Greece, and to set up ' tyrannies ' in their room [for it was chiefly by over- throwing these same ' tyrants ' in the cities of Greece that Sparta had come to obtain her superiority at 138 THE STORY OF GREECE. that day over her neighbors]. There is nothing in the whole world so unjust, nothing so bloody, as a tyranny. If, however, it seems to you a desirable thing to have the cities under despotic rule, begin by putting a tyrant over yourselves, and then estab- lish despots in the other States. While you con- tinue yourselves, as you have always been, unac- quainted with tyranny, and take such excellent care that Sparta may not suffer from it, to act as /ou are now doing is to treat your allies unworthily. If you knew what tyranny was as well as we Corinthians, you would be better advised than you now are in reerard to it. The jjovcrnment of Corinth was once an oligarchy — a single race called Bacchiada^, who intermarried only among themselves, held the man- agement of affairs. Now it happened that Amphion, one of these, had a daughter named Labda, who was lame, and whom therefore none of the Bacchiadae would consent to marry, so she was taken to wife by Action, son of Echecrates, a man of the township of Petra, who was^ however, by descent of the race of the Lapithse [the mythic antagonists of Hercules], and of the house of Caeneus. Action, as he had no child either by this wife or any other, went to Delphi to consult the oracle concerning the matter. Scarcely had he entered the temple when the Pythoness [o'" priestess] saluted him in these words : ' * No one honors thee now, Aetion, worthy of honor : — Labda shall soon be a mother, — her offspring a rock, that will one day Fall on the kingly race and right the city of Corinth.' I40 THE STORY OF GREECE. " By some chance this address of the oracle to Action came to the ears of the Bacchiadae, who till then had been unable to perceive the meaning of another earlier prophecy which likewise bore on Corinth. It was the following : " ' When 'mid rocks an eagle shall bear a flesh-eating lion Mighty and fl.erce, he shall loosen the limbs of many bejieath them. — Brood ye zvell npon this, all ye Corinthian people. Ye ivho dwell by fair Peirene and beetling Corinth! '• The Bacchiada; had possessed this oracle for some time, but they were quite at a loss to know what it meant until they heard the response given to Action [whose name resembled a word meaning eagle\ ; then, however, they at once perceived its meaning, since the two agreed so well together. Nevertheless, though the bearing of the first prophecy was now clear to them, they remained quiet, being minded to put to death the child which Action was expecting. As soon, therefore, as his wife was delivered, they sent ten of their number to Petra [which meant rock\, where Action lived, with orders to make away with the babe. So the men came to Petra and went into Action's house, and then asked if they might see the child ; and Labda, who knew nothing of their purpose, but thought their inquiries arose from a kindly feeling toward her husband, brought the child and laid him in the arms of one of them. Now they had agreed by the way that whoever first got LEGENDS OF CORINTH AND MEGARIS. I4I hold of the child should dash it against the ground. It happened, however, by a providential chance, that the babe, just as Labda put him into the man s arms, smiled in his face ! The man saw the smile and was touched with pity, so that he could not kill it ; he therefore passed it on to his next neighbor, who gave it to a third ; and so it went through all the ten without any one choosing to be the murderer. The mother received her child back, and the men went out of the house and stood near the door, and there blamed and reproached one another, chiefly, however, accusing the man who had first had the child in his arms, be- cause he had not done as had been agreed upon. At last, after much time had been thus spent, they re- solved to go into the house again and all take part in the murder. " But it was fated that evil should come upon Corinth from the progeny of Action, and so it chanced that Labda, as she stood near the door, heard all that the men said to one another, and fearful of their changing their mind, and returning to destroy her babe, she carried him off and hid him in what seemed to her the most unlikely place to be suspect- ed, viz., a ' cypsel,' or corn-bin. She knew that if they came back to look for the child they would search her whole house ; and so indeed they did, but not finding the child after looking everywhere, they thought it best to go away and declare to those by whom they had been sent that they had done their bidding. And thus they reported on their return home. "Action's son grew up, and in remembrance of the danger from which he had escaped, was named 142 THE STORY OF GREECE. Cypschis, after the corn-bin. When he reached to man's estate he went to Delphi, and on consulting the oracle received a response which read two different ways. It was the following : "' Sec, there comes to my ihvclling a man much favor d of fortune, Cypselus, son of Action, and king of the glorious Corinth, — He and his children too, but not his children s children ! " Such was the oracle ; and Cypselus put so much faith in it that he forthwith made his well-known attempt, and thereby became master of Corinth. Having thus got the tyranny, he showed himself a harsh ruler- — many of the Corinthians he drove into banishment, many he deprived of their fortunes, and a still greater number of their lives. His reign lasted thirty years, and was prosperous to its close, insomuch that he left the government to Periander, his son. " Periander, at the beginning of his reign, was of a milder temper than his father ; but after he corre- sponded by means of messengers with Thrasybiilus, tyrant of Miletus, he became even more sanguinary. On one occasion he sent a herald to ask Thrasybiilus what mode of government it was safest to set up in order to rule with honor. Thrasybiilus led the mes- senger without the city and took him into a field of corn, through which he began to walk, while he asked him again and again concerning his coming from Corinth, ever as he went breaking off and LEGENDS OF CORINTH AND MEGARIS. 1 43 throwini^ away all such cars of corn as overtoj^pcd the rest. In this way he went through the whole field, and destroyed all the best and richest part of the crop ; then, without a word, he sent the messenger back. " On the return of the man to Corinth, Periander was eager to know what the man had counselled, but the messenger reported that he had said noth- ing ; and he wondered that Periander had sent him to so strange a man, who seemed to have lost his senses, since he did nothing but destroy his own property. And upon this he told how Thrasybulus had behaved. " Periander, perceiving what the action meant, and knowing that Thras\bulus advised the destruction of all the leading citizens, treated his subjects from this time forward with the very greatest cruelty. Where Cypselus had spared many and had neither put them to death nor banished them, Periander completed what his father had left unfinished. One day he stripped all the women of Corinth stark naked for the sake of his wife Melissa. lie had sent messengers into Thresj^rc^tia to consult the oracle of the dead upon the iXcheron concerning a pledge which had been given into his charge l)y a stranger, and Melissa appeared but refused to speak or tell where the pledge was. ' She was chill,' she said, ' having no clothes ; the garments buried with her were of no manner of use, since they had not been burnt. And this should be her token to Periander that what she said was true — the oven was cold when he baked his loaves in it.' 144 THE STORY OF GREECE. " When this message was brought to him, Perian- der knew the token ; wherefore he straightway- made proclamation that all the wives of the Cor- inthians should go forth to the temple of Here (Juno). So the women apparelled themselves in their bravest, and went forth as if to a festival. Then, with the help of his guards, whom he had placed for the purpose, he stripped them one and all, making no difference between the free women and the slaves ; and, taking their clothes to a pit, he called on the name of Melissa (whom he had murdered), and burnt the whole heap. This done, he sent a second time to the oracle, and Melissa's ghost told him where he should find the stranger's pledge. " Such, O Lacedemonians ! is tyranny, and such are the deeds that spring from it." * After Periander had put Melissa to death, it chanced that on his first af^iction a second followed of a different kind. His wife had borne him two sons, and one of them had now reached the age of seventeen, the other of eighteen years, when their mother's father, Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus, asked them to his court. They went, and Procles treated them with much kindness, as was natural, considering they were his own daughter's children. At length, when the time for parting came, Procles, as he was sending them on their way, said : " Know you now, my children, who it was that caused your mother's death?" The elder son took no account of this speech, but the younger, whose name was Ly- cophron (or Wolf-heart), was sorely troubled at it — * Rawlinson's " Herodotus," III., 246. LEGENDS OF CORINTH AND MEGARIS. I45 SO much so that when he got back to Corinth, look- ing upon his father as his mother's murderer, he would neither speak to him nor answer when spoken to, nor utter a word in reply to all his questionings. So Periander at last, growing furious at such be- havior, banished him from his house. The younger son gone, he turned to the elder and asked him what it was their grandfather had said to them. Then he told in how kind and friendly a manner he had received them, but, not having taken any notice of the speech which Procles had uttered at parting, he quite forgot to mention it. Periander insisted that it was not possible this should be all — their grandfather iimst have given them some hint or other — and he went on pressing him, till at last the lad remembered the parting speech and told it. Periander, after he had turned the whole matter over in his thoughts and felt unwilling to yield at all, sent a messenger to the persons who had opened their houses to his outcast son, and forbade them to harbor him. Then the boy, when he was chased from one friend, sought refuge with another, but was driven from shelter to shelter by the threats of his father, who menaced all those who took him in, and commanded them to shut their doors againet him. Still, as fast as he was forced to leave one house he went to another, and was received by the inmates ; for his acquaintance, although in no small alarm, yet gave him shelter, as he was Periandcr's son. At last Periander made proclamation that who- ever harbored his son or even spoke to him should forfeit a certain sum of money to Apollo. On hear- 146 THE STORY OF GREECE ing this no one any longer liked to take him in, or even to hold converse with him, and he himself did not think it right to seek to do what was forbidden, so, abiding by his resolve, he made his lodging in the public porticos. When four days had passed in this way, Periander, seeing how wretched his son was, that he neither washed nor took any food, felt moved with compas- sion toward him ; wherefore, foregoing his anger, he approached him and said : "Which is better, oh ! my son, to fare as now thou farest, or to receive my crown and all the good things that I possess, on the one condition of submitting thyself to thy father? See, now, though my own child and lord of wealthy Corinth, thou hast brought thyself to a beggar's life, because thou must resist and treat with anger him whom it least behooves thee to oppose. If there has been a calamity, and thou fearest men's ill-will on that account, bethink thee that I too feel it, and am the greatest sufferer, inasmuch as it was by me that the deed was done. For thyself, now thou knowest how much better a thing it is to be envied than pitied, and how dangerous it is to indulge anger against parents and superiors, come back with me to thy home." With such words as these did Periander chide his son ; but the son made no reply except to remind his father that he owed the god the penalty for com- ing and talking with him. Then Periander knew there was no remedy for the youth's malady, nor means of overcoming it ; so he prepared a ship and sent him away out of his sight to Corcyra (a Corin- LEGENDS OF CORINTH AND MEGARIS. 1^7 thian colony, now Corfu), which island at that time belonged to him. As for Procles, Periander, regard- ing him as the true author of all his present troubles, went to war with him as soon as his son was gone, and not only made himself master of his kingdom — Epidaurus — but also took Procles himself, and carried him into captivity. As time went on and Periander came to be old, he found himself no longer equal to the oversight and management of affairs. Seeing, therefore, in his eldest son no manner of talent, but knowing him to be a dull blockhead, he sent to Corcyra and invited Lycophron to take the tyranny. Lycophron, how- ever, did not even deign to ask the bearer of this message a question. But Periander's heart was set upon the youth, so he sent again to him, this time by his own daughter, the sister of Lycophron, who would, he thought, have more power to persuade him than any other person. When she reached Corcyra, she spoke as follows to her brother : " Dost thou wish the tyranny, brother, to pass into strange hands, and our father's wealth to be made a prey, rather than thyself return and enjoy it ? Come back home with me, and cease to punish thyself. It is scant gain — this obstinacy. Why seek to cure evil by evil ? Mercy, remember, is by many set above justice. Many, too, while pushing their mother's claims, have forfeited their father's fortune. Power is a slippery thing — it has many suitors ; and he is old and stricken in years — let not thy inheritance go to another." Thus did the sister, who had been " coached '* by 148 THE STORY OF GREECE. Pcriander what to say, urge all the arguments most Hkely to have weight with her brother. He, however, made answer; "So long as I know my father to be still alive, I will never go back to Corinth ! " When the sister brought Periander this answer, he sent to his son a third time, by a herald, and said he would come himself to Corcyra, and let his son take his place at Corinth as heir of the tyranny. To these terms Lycophron agreed ; and Periander was making ready to go over to the island and his son to return to Corinth, when the Corcyreans, being in- formed of what was taking place, to keep Periander away, put the young man to death.* Such is the miserable story of Cypselus, Periander, and the murdered Lycophron, a story which illus- trates better than chapters of battles the manners and institutions of early Greece, and enables us to understand how the ancients lived and thought (B.C. 625-585). Thus you see the oracle of Delphi was fulfilled, that Action's son's son should reign over Corinth, but that then the dynasty should cease. Little Megaris lay in between Corinth and Attica, and w^as an important piece of ground because it held the key of the Peloponnesus ; it was the open door-way through which armies could stream out of Northern Greece across the Isthmus of Corinth into the dominions of Argolis, Lacedaemon, and Achaia. It is a patch of ground hardly containing more than 143 square miles, across which, from east to west, ex- * Rawlinson's " Herodotus," II., 370. LEGENDS OF CORnYTH AND MEGARIS. 149 tends the range of Mt. Geraneia, forming a barrier between Continental Greece and the Peloponnesus. The shortest road across this rans^e meanders alone the eastern side of the mountains, and the most in- accessible part is the Scironian Rocks, the mythic home of the robber Sciron. The chief town of Megaris — Megara — lay in the White Plain, and was famed as one of the most important commercial and colonizing centres of Greece when Phcenician influence was rife. The Dorians made a Dorian town of it. It grew originally out of five associated villages united politically, and from the time of their union (about B.C. 750?) it at once took a prominent position, and remained for two centuries one of the most powerful cities — as cities then went — in Hellas. The Megarians founded numerous trading stations, in rivalry with the Mi- lesians, in order to retain the traffic of the Black Sea. Think of this tiny state, bordering on one side on the Gulf of Corinth and on the other on the Saronic Gulf, having founded BVZANTIUM, which aftervvards grew and grew until it became the mighty city of Constantinople ; moreover, Chalcedon, just oppo- site Byzantium, and Astacus and Heraclea in By- thinia, not to speak of Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, went out from this small rocky motherland. Their commanding position gave the Megarians great influence in Greece, and the tyrant Theagenes increased it by making himself supreme as leader of the popular party. He built an aqueduct for the city and ruled with power and splendor. But on his expulsion in B.C. 600, Megara became a prey to revo- 150 THE STORY OF GREECE. lution in many forms for many years. If you look into the poems of the poet Theognis you will see how vivid a picture of affairs in Megara during the sixth century the poet gives us. The Megarians came to have continual broils with Athens and Corinth, and Sparta and Salamis. Megaris was a hornet's nest from which swarmed forth troubles and afflictions, first for one neighbor and then for another ; it was blockaded, starved, plundered, and maltreated, but maintained its tiny self with admirable toughness, and figures in one of the plays of Aristophanes (the Acharniani), and as a point where Euclid, the disciple of Socrates, founded a school of philosophy. M^V^ ^^ T^^^ ^^P ^^^P ^i ^^JcWSBS ^^^^ ^^^^W i^^ Skaa^^ 1^^^ fc^S^ ^^ XIV. THE OLYMPIC GAMES. But the choicest point in all the Peloponnesus for a boy's eye — the point where the most brilliant and busy life of the Greeks streamed together and met in the gayest and most gorgeous focus ; the pilgrimage point, whither ail Hellas that had poems to recite or histories to read aloud, or prizes to win at the splen- did athletic games, wandered once in five years, was Olympia, in Elis, in the western Peloponnesus — a sort of Greek San Francisco in the extreme West, with Golden Gates looking out on the sapphire Ionian Sea, and pale and beautiful Sierras lying behind it in the encompassing chains of Erymanthus and Cyllene far in the distance. The very name of Olympia was music in the ear of a Greek as it is most musical to ours. Like Delphi, it was a religious IIoXis^ or city, the kernel-seed or starting-point of an Amphictyony, and a political centre; but far more than Delphi, it had other functions which exercised extraordinary influence on the whole Hellenic system, brought men together in a wonderful way, and later on filled even the Roman world with admiration, envy, and emulation. Many things, says Pausanias, may a man 152 THE STORY OF GREECE. see in Greece, and many things may he hear that are worthy of admiration, but above them all, the doings at Eleusis (the sacred city of Demeter) and the sights at Olympia have something in them of a soul divine. Without interruption, for upwards of a thousand years, the second full moon after the summer solstice (21st June) every fifth year witnessed the celebra- tion of the Olympic Games. The first Olyuipiad, or celebration of these games, coincides with the year B.C. 776 ; the last, with A. 13. 394, or the sixteenth year of the Roman Emperor Theodosius. These games lasted for five days, and they supplied to all the in- habitants of the Hellenic soil an epoch from which to date historical events. While the succession of Priestesses of Juno, or Here, at Argos, Ephors at Sparta, and Archons at Athens, furnished to these states, respectively, the bases of their chronological systems, it was not a personage invested with a civil or sacerdotal character who gave his name to the five-year periods of the whole of Greece ; it was he who was proclaimed victor, not in the chariot-race of the Hippodrome, but as having outrun his rivals in the Stadium (a foot-race course) of Olympia. Olympia was the wrestling-ground of all Greece. The simple prize (a crown of wild olive), the immense age of the games, the sacred ceremonies with which they were connected, the glory which attached both to the victor and to his parents, friends, and country, his canonization in the Greek calendar ; the crowds and throngs from every quarter of the Greek conti- nent, peninsula, and islands, to witness the contests 154 THE STORY OF GREECE. and applaud the conqueror; the lyric songs of the. poets who sang the praises of the victor; the garlands showered upon his head by the hands of friends, strangers, and of Greece herself ; the statue erected to him in the consecrated grove, by the side of princes, heroes, and gods; the very rareness of the celebration and the glories of the season of the year at which it took place (in July), when all the charms of summer were poured upon the earth by day, and the full orb of the moon streamed upon the olive groves and the broad flood of the Alphcius by night : all these were influences which, while they seemed to raise the individual to a height more than human, produced a far more noble and useful result than this: — they maintained in the nation d, general respect for a manly and intrepid character, and supported that moral dignity and independence which so long resisted the aggressions of force from with- out, and were proof against the contagion of weak and licentious principles within. In descending the slopes which fall to the south- west of Mt. Erymanthus, we come in sight of a valley about three miles in length and one in breadth, lying from east to west below the hill on which we stand, and bounded on the south by a broad river running over a gravelly bed, and studded with small islands. Its banks are shaded with plane-trees, and rich fields of pasture and arable land are watered by its stream. The valley is Olympia, the hill is Mt. Cronius, the river the Alpheius. The eastern and western plains are bounded by two other streams, both flowing into the Alpheius. Beginning at Mt. Cronius, THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 155 and following the western of these two brooks, formerly called the Cladeus, among clusters of pines and olives, to the point where it falls into the Alpheius, and tracing our course eastward along the Alpheius for about a mile, then down a ridge east and north to Mt. Cronius, we have made the circuit or traced the limits of the ancient Altis, or sacred grove of Zeus, which was formerly the seat of the most glorious and holy objects of Olympia. Looking downwards towards the river Alpheius from the southern slopes of Mt. Cronius we have immediately on our right the positions of the ancient gymnasiiun and prytanciim. Beneath us stood the row of ten treasuries from east to west, which were raised by different Greek states, and contained stat- ues and offerings of great value and exquisite work- manship. Below them, on a basement of stone steps, were six statues of Zeus, called Zanc's, made from the fines levied upon athletes who had transgressed the laws by which the Olympic contests were regu- lated. Further to the left, in a wood of wild olives on a declivity of Mt. Cronius, and running from north to south, was the stadium (or race-course). It was ap- proached by the Hellanodicce, or judges of the race, by a secret entrance, as it was called. The starting- place, or aphesis, was at the northern extremity, near which was the tomb of Endymion. The Hippodrome (or chariot-race course) lay beyond the Stadium and the eastern limit of the Altis. Nearly in the centre of the Altis, or consecrated ground, stood the temple of the Olympian Zeus. It was erected from the spoils taken by the Eleans in their contests with 156 THE STORY OF GREECE. the inhabitants of the neighboring Pisa. It was in the Doric style, 95 feet broad, 230 long, and 68 high. There was a golden vase at both ends of the roof, a golden statue of victory in the centre of the pediments at both ends, and, later on, one-and- twenty gilded bucklers hung upon the architrave over the columns. Groups of sculpture filled the triangle at both ends of the temple ; the eastern rep- resenting the contest of Pelops and CEnomaus, by Paeonius of Thrace, and the western representing the contest of the Centaurs and Lapithae, by Alcamenes, The story of Hercules filled the metopes. But the most glorious ornament of this magnificent building was the statue of Zeus within the temple ; it was the work of Phidias and was wrought of ivory and gold. This combination, equally splendid and harmonious (says an English sculptor), in such a colossal form, produced a dazzling glory like electric fluid running over the surface of the figure, and thus gave it the appearance of an immortal vision in the eyes of the worshipper. No wonder if the common people believed that Zeus himself had lighted up the statue, and had kindled in its aspect a blaze of divinity by a flash of lightning from heaven. The ivory, with which the greater part of the figure was overlaid, had a tint of flesh, which made it look like a real living, intelligent object, while the gold and precious stones with v/hich it was encrusted, the painting of several portions of the statue, and the stupendous size of the whole work — 60 feet in height — produced a brilliant and astounding effect, which awed the beholder into the belief that he was looking THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 157 at the form and face of Zeus himself. Nor must it be forgotten that the whole work was informed by a THE CHRYSELEPHANTINE STATUE OF ZEUS. spirit breathed into it from the mouth of Homer; for it was his description of the King of Gods and 158 THE STORY OF GREECE. Men that filled the mind of Phidias when he wrought this image. The god sat on his throne wearing a crown like an olive wreath on his head, holding in one hand a completed statue of Victory, made of ivory and gold, in the other a many-metalled sceptre with an eagle perched upon its summit. Golden sandals adorned his feet, and a robe of wrought gold, embroidered with figures and lilies, flowed around him. Ebony, ivory, gold, and jewels flashed from the throne on which he sat ; victories danced on its four feet ; sphinxes and mythological imagery ornamented the front supports. Such was the appearance which the Olympian Zeus presented to the people when the purple-em- broidered veil which hung before him slipped to the ground and exhibited the Father of Gods and Men in all the glories which the greatest spirits of an- tiquity could conceive and execute.* Only yesterday, one might say, the ruins of these glorious structures were excavated by the Germans, and the sites of crumbled temples and the fragments of shivered statues were uncovered to the air. Several exquisite broken statues — the Hermes of Praxiteles and the Nike Apteros — were found, and the lines and outlines of the huge Olympian sanctuary and its dependencies were traced in the earth. Here in a picturesque and lovely spot not far off, the friend of Socrates, Agesilaus, and Cyrus, — the general, the philosopher, and the historian, — Xeno- * Condensed and adapted from Wordsworth's " Greece," p. yX),et seq. and Jebb, Encyc.-Brit., vol. XVII. THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 159 phon, an exile from his own country, spent the latter part of his days. In this, " the fairest spot of Greece," as Lysias called it, surrounded by masterpieces of art, by beautiful scenery, and by sacred associations, Greece, united once at least in five years, found a convenient and attractive place of peaceful re-union. The shivered atoms of Greek society, the divided com- munities of Hellas, were here beautifully and har- moniously blended for a few days in moonlit Olym- pia, in the exercise of religious worship and the display of the splendid physical and mental gifts natural to the race. It is supposed that in " pre-historic" times the Hellenes worshipped the "heaven-father" in this secluded valley ; but the political associations date from the time when the Achaians founded Pisa and combined the " Pelasgian " worship of the god Zeus with a local worship of Pelops, their own ancestor. Elis and Pisa were at first associated as equal states in the control of the Olympian festival ; Sparta joined the Amphictyony, and allied herself, about B.C. ']'/(y, with Elis. In the process of time Elis and Sparta made common cause and at length excluded the Pisatans from their proper share in the manage- ment of the Olympian festival. About B.C. 570 Pisa was destroyed by the combined forces of Sparta and Elis, and it came to be at Elis alone, in the gymnasium of the city, that candidates from all parts of Greece were tested before they were admitted to the ath- letic competitions at Olympia. The most valuable preparation that an athlete could go through was to l6o THE STORY OF GREECE. pass ten months of training at Elis. The Elean officials who adjudged the prizes and decided who should compete were the Hclln}iodiccB mentioned above. The celebration at Olympia soon became " Pan- hellenic " or a universal Greek fair; the Spartan exercises, which at first were intended merely to test a man's strength and endurance for war, developed into a rich and interesting programme filled with exciting contests and thrilling episodes. A magnifi- cent chariot-race with four horses abreast was added to the bold and austere Spartan outline. All the richest and most accomplished Greeks, such as Cleisthenes and Alcibiades, flocked with their superb steeds and costly chariots to the vale of Olympia, in the hope of winning the prize in this great race. Then horse-races were added and the Jiippodromc built, and the brilliant spectacular aspect of the scene was enhanced in every possible way. There were single-course foot-races, double-course foot- races, wrestling and boxing combined in the exercise called pancration ; and many Greeks showed the ex- quisite symmetry of their figures, their adroitness and training in leaping, quoit-throwing, hurling the javelin, running, and wrestling as combined in the complicated exercise called poitathlon (a five-fold contest). Olympia, under Spartan protection, became the true religious and social centre of the Peloponnesus, as, ultimatel)', of the entire Greek world. The Spartans, with their arms, guarded the sacred truce of a month which was proclaimed throughout Hellas THE OLYMPIC GAMES. i6i during the time of the games, so as to enable people to get there and then return to their homes in safety. Olympia in this way, as it has been truly said, always remained a central expression of the Greek ideas that the body of man has a glory as well THE WRESTLERS. as his intellect and spirit, that body and mind should alike be disciplined, and that it is by the harmonious discipline of both that men best please Zeus. I-ong lists of illustrious visitors and contestants filled the annals of Olympia. IMiilip of Macedon and Nero 1 62 THE STORY OF GREECE. the Roman Emperor were among them, and one of the most impassioned and gifted poets of antiquity — Pindar — sang of the games in royal strains such as have never been equalled. When 293 Olympiads had passed by, the festival of Olympia ceased to be held, and the list of the Olympic victors, which began with Coroebus of Elis in B.C. yjG, closed with the Armenian Varastad in A.D. 393-4. ^<^f3q:^'^mM>)^^ XV. ATTICA. A YACHTING voyage in the Mediterranean is one of the rarest experiences which a European traveller can have ; and if this voyage leads him through the east- ern Mediterranean — that broken, many-isled, tideless sea — and through " The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, Where burning Sappho loved and sung," — the richest memories remain to him, the brightest landscape forms, the softest sculpture of clifT and peak against an everchanging sky, the tenderest and most poetic associations culled from ancient story, as he sails along. Rounding in from Corfu and the Ionian Sea the yacht slips over a sea of silk and pres- ently enters the mimic Archipelago of the Cyclades Islands, so called because they encircle the sacred island-sanctuary of Delos, where Apollo was wor- shipped. Threading its way along the fantastic shore of the southern Peloponnesus, in and out of the deep azure-forked gulfs and bays that sink far into the land, the yacht emerges after a while into a perfect maze of islands — the island-nest woven like the web of a geometric spider, with Apollo's rock as its centre. In and out through winding chan- 164 THE STORY OF GREECE. nels the voyager touches this and that shore ; you catch ghmpses of exquisite scenery, and stand on the brink of the unchanging East ; a snow-white village that hangs like an exhalation high up against a vol- canic summit; a quaint coffee-house with arcades in front ; a fortress with a slender bell-tower shooting aloft like the stem of a lily ; a flock of sheep gleam- ing against a green field ; or a huddled city, populous and picturesque, overhanging the blue water and fill- ing it with inverted shadows ; — such are some of the pictures that fill your eyes and furnish your portfolio with delightful hints of Greek life and landscape at the present time. So we sailed one summer day, in and out, on — on — on : to the left shone the dim Argolic hills ; to the right, in the far distance, those shattered and scat- tered jewels — the Cyclades — dancing up and down in their own silken horizons. Soon the ship had en- tered the Saronic Gulf ; yonder was yEgina, mountain- high, surmounted by its ruined but glorious temple ; eastward stretched a promontory — " Sunium's marble steep," — once celebrated for another mighty sanc- tuary, which blazed over the sea white as a sheeted ghost, and directed the mariner on his way round from Euboea. A little farther in this enclosing gulf we came to Salamis, stained, one might call it, blood- red with sanguinary memories, battles, contests, wars ; and yonder, in the northeast, five miles from shore, towered in its grand isolation the Acropolis of Athens, with its wealth of immortal temples bathed in the violet light of the evening. Mt. Hymettus on the east was already sinking in a pool of hyacinthine ATTICA. 165 color; Mt. Lycabettus in the outskirts of the city glowed rich and red in the westward-stealing sun- shine ; the pale rim of Pentelicus hung faint as the silver edge of a shield on the extreme northwestern horizon ; Parnes was already asleep on a delicate couch of purple and gold ; while over from the Gulf of Corinth a soft river of glory seemed to flow, pene- trating the gorges of Mt. Cithaeron, leaping light- footed up the Scironian Rocks, touching the yellow temple of Theseus and lingering tenderly among the sculptures of the Parthenon. Here was Attica, the most famous of all the Greek states, the mouth-piece of the ancient world, which, but for it, must have been silent indeed. " Alcibiades, one day," as yElian says, " was taken by Socrates to a building in the city of Athens, in which maps of different countries were collected. Among them was a chart of the habitable world as far as it was then known to the geographers of Greece. To this the philosopher directed the atten- tion of his young friend. He did so with the inten- tion of breaking the pride in which Alcibiades indulged because he supposed himself to be in possession of so much land on Athenian soil. He asked Alcibiades to point out the position of Attica on the map. Alcibiades did so, ' Now show me there,' said Socrates, ' the situation of your own estate.* 'How is it possible?' replied Alcibiades; * can you expect that my estate should appear there, where Attica itself occupies so small a space? ' "* Small indeed was this remarkable state — not half * Adapted from Wordsworth's " Greece," p. 65. 1 66 THE STORY OF GREECE. the size of Rhode Island ; for it was only fifty miles long and thirty miles 'wide, and contained in all about 700 square miles. There are many farms in the West bigger than this. But while its size on the map would show it to be about the size of a small lamp- shade, an ink-blotter, or a table-mat, " to how many square miles or rather thousands of square miles in the social and political geography of the world does Attica extend ? " Here is what Milton says, in his " Paradise Re- gained," of the characteristics, climate, and immortal associations of Athens: — Where on the yEgean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil ; Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades. See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long ; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites To studious musing ; there Illissus rolls His whispering stream within the walls ; there view The schools of ancient sages ; his, who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next : There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit By voice or hand ; and various-measured verse, j^olian charms and Dorian lyric odes. And Ills who gave them breath, but higher sung. Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called. Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own : Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught A TTICA. 167 In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate, and chance, and change in human life, High actions and high passions best describing ; Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancients, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratic. Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne : To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear, From heaven descended to the low-roofed house Of Socrates ; see there his tenement, Whom well-inspired the oracle pronounced Wisest of men ; from whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools Of Academies old and new, with those Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect Epicurean, and the Stoic severe. It was in the midst of such wonderful sceneiy and such wonderful associations that the Greek boys and girls grew up, and became such men and women as the world had never seen before, and probably will never see again. The great crowning name that stands back of and behind all Athenian story is the name of Theseus. Most historians pass over his story as a Greek fairy ■ tale hardly worth mentioning; but it is such a singu- lar story, so full of light and shade and adventure that we cannot afford to pass it over without leaving out one of the most charming bits of Attic credulity and folk-lore. Thucydides, the gravest and most serious of historians, believed in the existence of Theseus ; consequently we may do so without ap- pearing odd and fanciful, for the stor)- of Greece for 1 68 THE STORY OF GREECE. us must be as far as possible the story such as the Greeks believed it; full of poetry, marvel, and won- der, it may be, yet full too of substantial fact and high-minded achievement. You may believe what you please, and reject the rest. Father Plutarch, in his ever-charming way, talks delightfully of Theseus, but guards us at the very threshold of his study of him by telling us that we are entering cloud-land, a land of half fable and half reality, and that therefore we must look out for out- landish things. When he has exhausted the periods which probable reasoning and real history find a footing in, he tells us that — to give a true and com- plete picture of things as Hellas saw them — he did as the geographers do who crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they know noth- ing about, adding notes in the margins to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea. So shall we. Theseus is the legen- dary hero of Athens-in-Cloud-land, yet the Atheni- ans commemorated his connection with their beauti- ful and far-famed city by two splendid festivals ; so that he became an article of their faith, and the most popular figure in Greek antiquity after Her- cules. In the days of Cecrops and the first kings, down to the reign of Theseus, says Thucydides, Attica was divided into communes or independent states, having their own town-halls and magistrates. Ex- cept in case of alarm, the whole people did not as- semble in council under their king, but administered ATTICA. 169 their own affairs, and advised together in their sev- eral townsliips. Some of them even went to war with him, as the Elcusinians under Eumolpus and Erechtheus. But when Theseus came to the throne, he, being a powerful as well as a wise ruler, among other improvements in the administration of the country, dissolved the councils and separate govern- ments, and united all the inhabitants of Attica in the city of Athens, establishing one council and town- hall. They continued to live on their own lands, but he compelled them to resort to Athens as their " metropolis" (or mother-city), and henceforth they were all inscribed in the roll of citizens. A great city thus arose, which was handed down by Theseus to his descendants, and from his day on the Atheni- ans regularly celebrated the national festival of the Syncccia, or " union of the communes," in honor of the goddess Athene.* Long before Theseus (who was believed to have lived prior to the Trojan War), Cecrops, a hero of the " Pelasgic " race, was said to have been the first " King " of Attica. In his " reign " Poseidon and Athene contended for the possession of the land, but Zeus, you remember, decided in favor of the olive- giving goddess. Cecrops is said to have founded Athens, the citadel of which took his name — Cecropia ; — afterwards, to have divided Attica into the twelve communities spoken of above, and to have introduced the first elements of civilized life; he abolished bloody sacrifices, instituted marriage, and taught his subjects how to worship the gods. The later Greek * Thucyd. (Jowett), II., 105. 170 THE STORY OF GREECE. writers described him as having been an Egyptian who led a colony of Egyptians into Attica. The last of the so-called " Kings " of Athens was Codrus, the son of Melanthus, who lived, according to Eusebius, 293 years before the first Olympiad (B.C. 776), or B.C. 1069. When the Dorians invaded Attica from the Peloponnesus (about the same date in the mythical chronology), an oracle declared that they should be victorious if the life of the Attic king was spared. Codrus thereupon resolved to sacrifice himself for the good of his country. He entered the camp of the enemy in disguise (like Alfred the Great), picked a quarrel with the soldiers, and was slain in the dispute. When the Dorians discovered the death of the Attic king they returned to their homes in the Peloponnesus. The legend was that as no one was thought worthy to succeed such a king, the kingly rank was abolished and Medon,son of Codrus, was appointed Archon for life. From the death of Codrus to the time of Solon (B.C. 600), a period of four centuries and a half, the external or outside history of Athens was almost a blank, of which there is little or nothing to be said. She had wars, no doubt, with Bceotia and Megaris ; but they must have been of small importance, and did not change the face of the three countries materially. Though she had sent fifty ships to the Trojan War, as we find in that " Domesday Book," the second song of the Iliad, Athens remained a quiet, unambitious town till about a century before the Persian wars, in which she suddenly developed astounding strength and activity, and took the lead- ATTICA. 171 ing part in repelling the Barbarians. Up to that time she seems simply to have been the centre of what has been called a " cantonal sovereignty " — to use a big word ; that is, when the twelve little com- munes composing ancient Attica were consolidated, Athens rose into the position of their capital ; though so strong was the love of the Greeks for "autonomy," or self-government, and for country life, that it is thought the rise of Athens to the headship which she ultimately obtained was far more gradual than Thucydides imagined. H^^9 ^ 1 ^M ^s^^ ^m i ^m XVI. THE WISE SOLON. The first light that we have on tlie beautiful story of Solon, about whom I must now proceed to tell you something, breaks on us from the pages of Herodotus. Telling of the conquests of Croesus and the grow- ing power of the Lydian Empire in Asia Minor, Herodotus relates that all the sages of Greece living at that time, and among them Solon the Athenian, went on a visit to Croesus at his great capital, Sardis. This was about the year B.C. 568-554. Solon, says the Father of History, was on his travels, having left Athens to be absent ten years under the pretence of wishing to see the world, but really to avoid being forced to repeal any of the laws which, at the request of the Athenians, he had made for them. Without his sanction the Athenians could not repeal them, as they had bound themselves under a heavy curse to be governed for ten years by the laws which should be imposed on them by this wise legislator. On this account, as well as to see the world, Solon act out on his travels, in the course of which he went fto Egypt to the court of Amasis, and also came on a visit to Croesus at Sardis. Croesus received him THE WISE SOLON. I/j as a guest and lodged him in the royal palace. On the third or fourth day after, he bade his servants conduct Solon over his treasuries and show him all their greatness and magnificence. When he had seen them all, and, so far as time allowed, inspected them, Croesus asked him this question : " Stranger of Athens, we have heard much of thy wisdom and of thy travels through many lands from love of knowl- edge and a wish to see the world. I am curious, therefore, to inquire of thee, whom, of all the men that thou hast seen, thou deemest the most happy." This he asked because he thought himself the happi- est of mortals ; but Solon answered him without flattery, according to his true belief : " Tellus of Athens, sire." Full of astonishment at what he heard, Croesus asked sharply : " And wherefore dost thou deem Tellus happiest ? " To which the other replied : "• First, because his country was flourishing in his days, and he himself had sons both beautiful and good, and he lived to see children born to each of them, and these chil- dren all grew up ; and further, because, after a life spent in what our people look upon as comfort, his end was surpassingly glorious. In a battle between the Athenians and their neighbors near Eleusis, he came to the help of his fellow-countrymen, routed the foe, and died upon the field most gallantly. The Athenians gave him a public funeral on the spot where he fell, and paid him the highest honors." Thus did Solon admonish Crcesus by the example of Tellus, enumerating the manifold particulars of his happiness. 174 THE STORY OF GREECE. When he had ended, Croesus inquired a second time who, after Tellus, seemed to him the happiest, expecting that at any rate he would be given the second place. " Cleobis and Bito," answered Solon ; " they were of Argive race ; their fortune was enough for their wants, and they were besides endowed with so much bodily strength that they had both gained prizes at the Games. Their story was as follows : " There was a great festival in honor of the goddess Here (Juno) at Argos, to which their mother must needs be taken in a car. Now the oxen did not come home from the field in time ; so the youths, fearful of being too late, put the yoke on their own necks and themselves drew the car in which their mother rode. Five and forty furlongs did they draw her, and stopped before the temple. This deed of theirs was witnessed by the whole assembly of wor- shippers ; and then their life closed in the best pos- sible way. Herein, too, God showed forth most evi- dently how much better a thing death is for a man than life. For the Argive men stood thick around the car and extolled the strength of the youths ; and the Argive women extolled the mother who was blessed with such a pair of sons ; and the mother herself, overjoyed at the deed and at the praises it had won, standing straight before the image, be- sought the goddess to bestow on Cleobis and Bito, the sons who had so mightily honored her, the high- est blessing to which mortals can attain. Her prayer ended, they offered sacrifice, and partook of the holy banquet, after which the two youths feK THE WISE SOLON. 1/5 asleep in the temple. They never woke any more, but so passed from earth ! The Argives, looking HER£ or JUNO. upon them as among the best of men, caused statues of them to be made, which they gave to the shrine at Delphi." 176 THE STORY OF GREECE. When Solon had thus given these youths the sec- ond place, CrcEsus broke in angrily : " What, stran- ger of Athens, is my happiness then so utterly set at nought by thee that thou dost not even put me on a level with private men ?" " O CrcEsus," replied the other, "thou askedst a question concerning the condition of man, of one who knows that the Power above us is full of jeal- ousy, and fond of troubling our lot. A long life gives one to witness much, and experience much one's self that one would not choose. Seventy years I regard as the limit of the life of man. The whole number of days contained in these years is 26,250, of which there is not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is liable to many acci- dents. For thyself, O Croesus, I see that thou art wonderfully rich, and art the lord of many nations; but as to that about which thou askest me — whether thou are not fortunate— I have no answer to give until I hear that thou hast ended thy life happily." Such was the speech which Solon made to Croesus, a speech which brought him neither largess nor honor. The king saw him depart with much indif- ference, since he thought that a man must be an arrant fool who made no account of present good, but bade men always wait and mark the end ! And after Solon had gone away a dreadful ven- geance sent of heaven came upon Croesus, to punish him probably for thinking himself the happiest of men.* But let me tell you in a few words who this wise Solon was and what he did for Athens. * Adapted from Rawlinson's " Herodotus," I., 134-8. THE WISE SOLON. 1/7 A peep into the sprightly and poetic pages of Plutarch will help us to paint him in a lifelike way, and show you what some of the ancients at least thought of him. His story is half legendary — just lifting its head out of the mist as it were, but yet full of undoubted facts that cannot possibly be passed over. Plutarch has lovingly gathered to- gether all the noble and splendid traits which the ancients ascribed to one of their wisest men, and we shall select from these such as are most suitable for our character-portrait of the great Athenian law- giver, just as we selected from him such features as were most characteristic of his rival in fame and wis- dom, the great Spartan law-giver Lycurgus. Solon's ancestry was traced back to Codrus, and he was said to be cousin to the mother of Pisistratus; the two at first being great friends, partly because they were akin, and partly because of Pisistratus' noble qualities and beauty. And they say Solon loved him, and that is the reason probably that when, afterwards, they differed about the govern- ment, their enmity never produced any hot and vio- lent passion; they remembered their old kindnesses, and retained feelings of love and alTection for each other. When Solon's father had ruined his estate in doing benefits and kind deeds to other men, though he had friends enough who were willing to come to his relief, yet the son was ashamed to be beholden to others, and applied himself to merchandise in his youth. Some say that he travelled rather to gain learning and experience than money. He was a lover of knowledge, and it is supposed that the pop- 178 THE STORY OF GREECE. ular rather than the philosophical tone about pleas- ure in his poems is due to his trading life and his extensive knowledge of the world. It is known that many great cities were built by merchants, as Marseilles, for example; that Thales and Hippocrates the mathematician traded, and that Plato defrayed the expenses of his travels by selling oil in Egypt; so that it was no disgrace if this noble poet and legislator did the same. A characteristic anecdote about him ran among the Greek story-tellers, which read to the following effect : The story went that some of the fishermen of Cos cast a net into the sea, whose produce was bought at a venture by some Milesian strangers. The net brought up a golden tripod which they say Helen at her return from Troy, upon the remembrance of an old prophecy, threw in there. Now as the strangers at first contested with the fishers about the tripod, and several cities took up arms for and against the contestants, Apollo decided the controversy by com- manding them to present it to the wisest man they could find ; so they sent it first to Thales of Miletus. But as Thales declared Bias of Priene to be wiser than himself, it was sent to him ; from him to an- other; and so, going round them all, it came to Thales a second time ; and at last it found a resting- place in the shrine of Apollo at Thebes. Solon was supposed to be one of the wise men who had sense enough to refuse the tripod. He was said to be a friend of the famous traveller Anacharsis, who, being once at the Athenian Assembly, expressed his won- der at the fact that in Greece wise men spoke and fools decided. THE WISE solon: 1/9 Another anecdote illustrative of the times is told of Solon when he met Thales. Solon wondered that Thales did not show any desire to have a wife and children. To this Thales made no answer at the time ; but a few days after he induced a stranger to pretend that he had left Athens ten days before ; and Solon inquiring what news there was, the man, according to instructions, replied : " None, except a young man's funeral which the whole city attended; for he was the son, they said, of an honorable man, the most virtuous of the citizens, who was not then at home, but had been travelling a long time." Solon replied : " What a miserable man is he ! But what was his name ? " "I have heard it," said the man, " but have forgotten it ; only there was great talk of his wisdom and justice." Thus Solon was drawn on by every answer, and his fears increased till at last, being extremely concerned, he mentioned his own name, and asked the stranger if that young man was called Solon's son. The stranger said " Yes " ; whereupon Solon began to beat his breast and go into transports of grief. But Thales took his hand and said, with a smile : " These things, Solon, keep me from marriage and from rearing children ; but do not be grieved at the report, for it is a mere fiction." When the Athenians were tired of a tedious and difficult war that they carried on against the Me- garians for the neighboring island Salamis, and made a law that it should be death for any man, by writ- ing or speaking, to assert that the city ought to try to recover it, Solon, vexed at the disgrace, and l8o THE STORY OF GREECE. perceivinj^ that thousands of the youth wished for somebody to begin, but did not dare to stir first for fear of the law, counterfeited madness and spread the report through his own family that he had lost his mind. He then secretly composed some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart that they might seem extempore, ran out into the market-place with a cap on his head, and, the people gathering about him, got upon the herald's stand and sang the elegy beginning : " I am a herald come from Salamis the Fair, My news from thence my verses shall declare ! " The poem contained a hundred elegantly written verses, and was called Salamis. When it had been sung, his friends, especially Pisistratus, commended it ; Pisistratus exhorted the citizens to obey his direction ; so that they revoked the law, renewed the war, set sail for the island, and took it. Such was the influence and commanding position of Solon among his countrymen of Athens. The Greeks were always peculiarly susceptible to fine poetry, and could be stirred to joy, grief, or madness by it. This we see in the effect produced by the poems of Tyrtaeus — that Moritz Arndt of Greece — on the people of Sparta, by the great odes of Pindar in honor of the Olympic Games, by the tragedies of ^schylus, and by the battle-hymns or paeans sung by the soldiers before entering a battle. So Solon grew in fame and power and repute for wisdom, more especially, however, when he stood up stoutly for the defence of the oracle of Delphi, when the Cirrhaeans insisted on profaning it. THE WISE SOLON. i8i Before we proceed further in the story of Solon, however, let us cast a glance at certain changes that had taken place in Attica, certain events of the highest importance, by which the history and legis- lation of the Athenians were greatly modified and transformed, and certain men of great prominence, whose deeds and crimes and sufferings produced a profound impression on the men and women of this time. XVII. THE DREADFUL DRACO AND THE CRIME OF THE ALCM/EONID/E. A FEW pages back you learned that many Greeks, in consequence of the patriotic death of the good King Codrus, beHeved that the kingly office was abolished altogether, as they did not wish an un- worthy successor to follow in the footsteps of so noble a king. Rut they did not abolish this dignity outright or all at once. At first the nobles merely took away the priestly office of the king, for the king originally had the power to act as priest and offer up public prayers and sacrifices. From basileiis—ihQ word for king and priest together — he came to be called arcJion, ruler alone ; and the archonship was held for life and became hereditary ; that is, the son succeeded the father in regular order. Still even this finally worried and annoyed the Athenians, so that they began to limit the archonship to ten years ; and at last, in B.C. 683, it was made a yearly office, and nine archons were elected instead of one, to watch each other, divide the powers of the government, and act as judges, generals, and the like. They thus refused to let any one man concentrate all the powers of the government in himself, as the Emperor of Russia does, but divided them among many, just THE DREADFUL DRACO. 1 83 as with us we have what we call the " executive," " legislative," and " judiciary " powers of the govern- ment distributed between the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court. The people of Attica were divided into three classes, called Eupatrida; (nobles), Geovioroi (farmers), and Dcmiurgoi (workmen). The Eupatrids were an aristocracy, and formed a distinct class by them- selves, though, so far as we can judge, they were not foreign conquerors like the Dorians in the Pelopon- nesus. They filled many important ofifices, more particularly as they thought themselves descended from heroes, or occasionally even from gods. For a long time they had the management of the sacred ceremonies, and kept the entire government of the State in their own hands, forming what has been called an oligarch}'. As in England, France, and Ger- many, so in Attica, there were some families more distinguished in birth and wealth than others, and these great families took the lead in State affairs. At the dawn of Greek history the common people are found destitute of any part or lot in the govern- ment ; but the ruling families or classes in the course of time were less and less thought of, and at last they lost their power and influence, when the Athe- nian citizens, like the French in the last century, gained a better and clearer idea of what a State was and how its citizens ought to act. Now it chanced that the laws of Athens were not to be found in writing, and that justice was not done, it seems, to the common people, who were en- tirely at the mercy of their judges. The nobles, just 1 84 THE STORY OF GREECE. as in Sparta and Sicyon, handed down the laws orally, by word of mouth ; and as it was impossible to remember all these laws with their conflicting decisions and contradictory principles, the people frequently suffered acutely from the avarice or vio- lence of their oppressors. So it happened finally that this state of things became unbearable ; there- fore it was agreed that a citizen named Draco should write out the Code of Laws in order that the laws might be so plain and clear that a wayfaring man, though a fool, might read them as he ran, and understand them as he read. This was about the year B.C. 624. Draco was not a law-maker or legislator himself ; he was what we should nowadays call an editor. He took what he found and wrote it out lucidly and dis- tinctly, so that everybody might understand it. It so happened, however, that the laws of Athens and Attica were exceedingly severe and bloodthirsty ; al- most, if not quite, as sharp as the old Israelitish law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Hence, when poor Draco ascertained from the judges what the laws were, and wrote them down on tablets, he came to be thought by the later Greeks to be the author of them, and it was said that he wrote his lazvs in blood. Draconian is a word derived from his name to express the height of legal cruelty and vin- dictiveness, like RJiadanianthinc, from Rhadaman- thus, one of the awful judges of the under world. As time went on in this bright and sunny Athens, there arose a certain nobleman named Cylon, who tried to make himself tyrant (B.C. 612). And as he THE DREADFUL DRACO. 1 85 expected that the common people would join him in overthrowing the Eupatrid oligarchy, what should he do but seize the Acropolis or citadel of Athens. But — heaven save the mark ! — the common people, bless you ! politely bowed their way out and declined most emphatically to have any thing to do with Master Cylon, who was left alone on his Acropolis and escaped destruction almost by the skin of his teeth. Very well for Master Cylon ; but what was to become of his poor, starved, deluded followers, surrounded as they were on their Pelasgic rock by the troops of the government? Heaven only knows, had they not taken refuge at the altars of the gods in the temples of the Acropolis. Then the haughty Mega- cles, who commanded the troops, promised them their lives if they would come away ; but when they had left the altars his soldiers butchered nearly every one of them. This was a most impious crime against the gods, and the pious Athenians believed that a curse was sure to fall on them and their children if it were not atoned for. The deed became so hateful and abhorrent that it was called the " Cylonian Pol- lution," — a deed as hateful as that by which Thomas a Becket was struck down at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral by King Henry the Second. The Archon Megacles, it seems (of that celebrated family of the Alcmaeonidae, of whom you have read in the story of Agarist6), persuaded the followers of Cylon to come out of Athene's sanctuary and submit themselves to a fair trial. And they, tying a thread to the image of the goddess, and holding one end of it, went down to the tribunal ; but when they l86 THE STORY OF GREECE. came to the temple of the Furies, the thread broke of its own accord, upon which, as if the goddess had refused them her protection, they were seized by Megacles and the other magistrates. As many as were in the temple were stoned ; those that fled for sanctuary were slaughtered at the altars, and only those escaped who made supplication to the wives of the magistrates. But they from that time were con- sidered under pollution and were regarded with hatred. Vengeance is sure to come some day or other, sooner or later; so, when the faction of Cylon grew strong and active again, they looked on the family of Megacles with wicked feelings, quarrelling continually with them. At last Solon the Wise had to interpose, and by entreaty and admonition persuaded the pol- luted to submit to a trial and the decision of three hundred noble citizens. They did so, and were found guilty ; and as many as were then alive were banished, and the bodies of the dead were dug up and thrown to the winds beyond the confines of Attica. Athens, however, was still haunted by something awful ; ghosts and apparitions were seen (they say), and things went so much awry that villanies and pollutions were believed to be still roosting in the land. Nothing remained to be done, therefore, but to send for old Epimenides of Crete, a man who was believed to be a favorite of heaven, possessed of knowledge in all the supernatural and ritual parts of religion, and held to be the son of the nymph Balt6. When Epimenides reached Athens he formed a great intimacy with Solon, served him in many ways, THE DREADFUL DRACO. 1 8/ and prepared the way for his legislation. He made the Athenians more moderate in their forms of worship, sugg-^sted that they would lessen their mourning and superstitious horror if they offered up certain sacri- fices, and abolished the severe and barbarous cere- monies which the women practised. Having purified and sanctified the city and the sacred buildings by certain propitiatory and expiatory " lustrations," and being presented with rich offers of large gifts and privileges by the Athenians, he requested but one branch of the sacred olive of the Acropolis, and, re- ceiving this, departed in peace to Crete. This was the Epimenides who was the Rip van Winkle of ancient Hellas ; for there was a legend that when he was \ boy he was sent out by his father to call the cattle home or look for the sheep, and that, seeking shelter from the heat of the mid-day sun, he went into a cave and there fell into a deep sleep, which lasted fifty-seven years. On waking and returning home, he found to his great amazement that his younger brother had meantime grown to be an old man. And he went on living until, according to one account, he reached the age of 157, according to another, of 229. The Apostle Paul (Titus, i., 12) has preserved a celebrated verse of his against the Cretans : " The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." One may easily believe that Solon was now loved, trusted, and obeyed both by the nobles and the peo- ple. He was looked upon as a great public benefac- tor, and it was thought by all that he only could 1 88 THE STORY OF GREECE. relieve the distress and bankruptcy of the people and ward off the impending establishment of a tyranny. It seems strange that these tyrants arose in a large number of Greek states almost simultaneously. It is thought that they began in the Ionic cities of Asia Minor, where men were familiar with the absolute governments of Eastern countries ; and the reason why they sprang up so much together appears to have been because in all these places alike noble families claimed and possessed all the rights in the state, and the common people possessed none. The tyrants were huge hypocrites ; they gained their power first of all by becoming demagogues — so-called leaders of the people — and espousing the cause of the people ; but being sly dogs, they soon threw off the mask, and showed themselves in their true colors. They possibly did good by breaking up the crushing oli- garchies of rich people and fine folk which ordinarily preceded them and which pushed the people aside, arrogating all the power to themselves ; and they put an end to the claims of these wealthy families to con- duct exclusively all the sacred ceremonies. It was the glory of the tyrants to organize new and gorgeous festivals in which all the people could take part ; and though noble people still clung to their own family rites and preserved them religiously, they began to take part in the popular festivals and ceremonies too; and in this many nobles and plebeians began to feel that after all they were of one flesh and blood, and could associate together without contaminating one another. The most signal service contributed to Greek life THE DREADFUL DRACO. 1 89 and culture by the tyrants was their encouragement of poetry and the fine arts. In this they closely re- sembled the magnificent princes of Italy during the Middle Ages — the Medici, the Doges of Venice, and the Dukes of Genoa ; for they gathered about them poets, sculptors, and artists from all parts of Hellas, and made them recite, carve, or paint the marvellous things with which all the past rang. Even the frac- tious Periander of Corinth, who was considered one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, had a surpassing taste and culture in these things, as may be gathered from a story told of him and his patronage of the minstrel Arion. They say, in other words, that Arion of Methymna, who, as a player on the harp was second to no man living at that time, and who was, so far as we know, the inventor of the dltliyrauib (a hymn to Dionysus, or Bacchus), reciting and singing it at Corinth, was carried to Tsenarum on the back of a dolphin. He had lived for many years at the court of Peri- ander, when a longing came upon him to sail across to Italy and Sicily. Having made rich profits in those parts, he wanted to cross the seas back again to Corinth. He therefore hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking there was no people in whom he could more safely confide ; and, going on board, he set sail from Tarentum. The sailors, however, when they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he fell on his knees, beseeching them to spare his life, and making them welcome to his money. But they re« IQO THE STORY OF GREECE. fused ; and they told him either to kill himself out- right, if he wished for a grave on the dry land, or, without loss of time, to leap overboard into the sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and there to play and sing, promising that as soon as his song was ended he would destroy himself. Delighted at the prospect of hearing the finest harper in the world, they consented, and withdrew from the stern to the middle of the vessel, while Arion dressed himself in the full costume of the minstrel, took his harp, and standing on the quarter- deck, chanted the Orthian melody. His strain ended, he flung himself in all his beautiful clothes headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dolphin (they say) took him upon his back and carried him to Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence walked in his musician's dress to Corinth, and told all that had happened to him. Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in prison, to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched and waited anxiously for the re- turn of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them before him and asked them if they could give him any tidings of Arion. They answered that he was alive and well in Italy, and that they had left him at Tarentum doing finely. Then all of a sudden Arion appeared before them just as he had jumped over- board. The men, astonished, and detected in a lie, could not deny their guilt any longer. THE DREADFUL DRACO. IQI Such is the story of the favorite poet of one of the tyrants. Greek history shows that in general the first of a line of tyrants was a good ruler, really anxious to help the people, and that his successors were men far inferior to him. So it was with Orthagoras, and at first with Cypselus ; these men at first did a grand work in overthrowing oppressive oligarchies, liberat- ing the masses, and cutting short the privileges of the nobles ; and in this way the masses at first gladly accepted their leadership. But when the tyrants left the government to their cruel or wicked children — when they tried to make it appear that they were born princes, and showed that their only desire was to increase their own selfish power at the expense of every thing and everybody else, both the nobles and the mob began to hate and plot against them. In revenge, the tyrants became more and more gloomy and vindictive in their doings and enact- ments ; they made efforts to stamp out all manhood and spirit trom among their subjects, and finally had to be overthrown in their turn by a great popular uprising. So long as they did not know what liberty and equality were, the common people did not care a straw about being ruled by despots, however ty- rannical. It was only when they came to them- selves ; it was only when they were full-grown — when their eyes, senses, and brains had developed fully — that they saw with horror and sorrow what they had been enduring ; and it was at such times that they rose in their might and snapped their chains of iron asunder as if they had been pipe-stems. 192 THE STOR V OF GREECE. Such was the form of government — the tyrant with his ensuing tyranny— ^XvdX the men and women of Athens, the " eye of Greece," now dreaded might come upon them ; and it was in such straits and difficulties that Solon came forward and tried to save them. «-5<5^^^^f^^^ XVIII. WHAT SOLON DID FOR ATHENS. A FEW simple words will suffice to tell you what Solon did for Athens when things were come to this pass. He found the people plunged in debt. The farm- ers — careless folk ! — had unhappily borrowed money at a very high rate of interest from the usurers, or from anybody that would lend it to them, giving their farms, like the foolish people they were, in pledge for the payment of the debt. At the boun- daries of every farm thus mortgaged, pillars (they say) were set up as a witness, with the amount of the debt and the name of the lender chiselled upon them. One cannot be quite sure about these dififi- cult matters ; but such seems to be the meaning of certain mysterious words and phrases which we find in the olden historians. So they have been inter- preted by skilful and learned moderns ; and such an interpretation we may put on them, while all the time we must remember that we are on very slippery ground here, and may any moment sink in the quick- sands far over our heads. These debts grew bigger and bigger every year from the heavy interest ; the farmers soon lost all hope of ever being able to pay them, and were often 194 THE STORY OF GREECE. no better than common laborers on farms which really did not belong to them at all. Those who were in debt and had no money to pay their way out of it became the slaves of their creditors. Many of them were sold abroad, others worked like horses at home or struggled with insatiate poverty. The free farmers — the once-proud Gconioroi — were in a fair way to disappear altogether. Here, fortunately, at this miserable yet thrilling juncture, Solon stepped in and saved his dearly loved Athens, but saved it by a measure which, in modern times, many of us should be disinclined to favor. Solon, in other words, saw himself obliged to become a rcpiuiiator, or to favor repudiation, in order to fish the folk out of their Slough of Despond. He ordered that the common silver coins called dracJuncs should be made of lighter weight, so that, forsooth, one hundred 7ieiv ones should be worth only seventy-three old ones ; and yet that people must take the new drachmae just as if they were equal to the old ones, in payment of debts. Just so our big silver dollar, which is now worth only about eighty odd cents, is made to pass as if it were really worth one hundred cents. If a man owed a debt of one hundred old drachmae, he could now pay it by one hundred new drachmae, which were really worth only seventy-three old ones ; and thus his debt was lessened twenty-seven drachmae for every one hundred. — -The State was very wise as well as very benevolent in releasing altogether from their indebtedness such persons as owed it sums of money ; and thus they were enabled to start afresh. WHAT SOLON DID FOR ATHENS. 195 Many who were in exile, sold as slaves in foreign lands, were joyfully brought back, liberated, and rein- stated as citizens. No wonder, therefore, that Solon became wonderfully popular, not as a repudiator or as a law-giver, not as a tyrant or a king, but as a friend of the people, who, being a friend in need, was a friend indeed. The glorious edict dates from Solon's day, that no Athenian should ever again be sold into slavery or should surrender his freedom for a debt. The poems of Solon — if they are interpreted aright, about which there is some doubt — tell us that the mortgage pillars disappeared from the fields. COINS OF ATTICA. Every Greek history that you pick up is full of the "constitution of Solon," the peculiar arrangements which he introduced, the new and revolutionary system of laws which he promulgated. You must not think of the Constitution of the United States when you hear this word applied to the legislation of Solon. Our Constitution is a great charter of rights and liberties — one of the most marvellous achievements of the human intellect. Solon's " con- stitution," so-called, had reference largely to the valuation of property as determining a man's place 196 THE STORY OF GREECE. under and in the state. Included in this were many other things too, for he was given authority to make entirely new laws for the state. As you have read in preceding pages, the nobles had hitherto monopo- lized all the rights and privileges of the government. Now it was Solon's great glory to bring this state of things to an end, and enable the mass to take part in controlling affairs without belonging to any one of these aristocratic clans. There had been an as- sembly called an ecclcsia which had existed as far back as Homer, but which Solon, for the first time, popularly utilized and made an organic part of the state. He touched it and, as if by magic, it became transformed. The election of archons, or rulers, the right of passing laws, and the right of making magis- trates responsible and calling them to account for what they had done while in ofifice, accrued to it, and gave the people, you see, practically limitless power. Any man born at Athens of poor parents, whether he belonged to a clan or not, had a right to a vote in this assembly. But Solon was no fool ; he did not intend that any and everybody should spring to his legs and propose this, that, and the other confused or contradictory law while the ecclcsia was in session. On the contrary: he carefully established that there should be a council or committee of four hundred men elected, whose duty it was to prepare the business that should come before the assembly, and nothing was to come before the assembly as business that had not been selected and agreed upon by this council or committee {boiilc). These council or com- mittee men {bouleutce) were elected annually by the people. PALLAS ATHENE (ON THE ACROPOLIS), BY PHIDIAS. 198 THE STORY OF GREECE. The earlier assemblies met in one of the loveliest spots in Athens — on the Pnyx, a semicircular hill southwest of the Areopagus, overlooking the shining temples, the crowded marts, the busy streets, the brilliant porticos of the antique city. To the right stood the Acropolis, 1 50 feet high, 1 1 50 feet long, and 500 feet broad, in later times resplendent with tem- ples, statues of bronze and marble, and various other works of art ; towering aloft, the effulgent figure of Athene, the patron goddess of Athens, the tip of whose helmet and spear, in after times, could be seen glittering by those far out at sea. In the beautiful, clear Greek air one can see great distances ; a brief climb up the side of a hill near the Pnyx brings the lustrous mirror of the Saronic Gulf in sight ; the quaint vessels of the Eastern Mediterranean can be seen darting hither and thither with their yellow sails, and the image of the Athenian city comes out sharp and shining at one's feet. The Athenians were great open-air lovers ; and here they assembled or walked or talked, promenading in the famous olive grove that grew up on one side of the city, gathering in gay and laughing groups in \X\€\r agora, or market- place, which was both boulevard and cafe to the Attic lounger, standing in the sunlit stoas or porches, or sftting in sun or shade on the snow-white marble steps of the temples. And what brilliant, sharp- tongued, excitable, gesticulating folk they were we see not only from the modern Athenians, their prob- able descendants, but from the comic plays of Aris- tophanes, the graceful sketches of Lucian, and the fragments of Menander. These Athenians were all WHAT SOLON DID FOR ATHENS. 1 99 fire and sensibility : quick, ardent, impassioned, ca- pricious, they had as many tongues as a chameleon has colors : they gibed and joked all day long, or, when there was need of it, died gloriously at Mara- thon or Salamis in defence of wife, child, and father- land. Not content with these reforms, Solon went still further and made a new division of the citizens, dis- tinct, so far as we can see, from the old clan divisions. He took property in land as the basis of this reform, and divided all the natives of Attica \v\to four divis- ions, according to the amount of land each man pos- sessed. Naturally, the greater share in the control of the government fell to the richer men, the men who had most territorial possessions ; but no doubt many poorer men thanked their stars that they were no richer, for the richer men were required to pay heavier taxes and to do more service for the state. Wealth thus brought greater responsibility. Men of the first or richest or heaviest-taxed class were alone entitled to hold the archonship, or highest ofifice of the government, and thus even Solon's con- stitution smacked of aristocracy, for of course the irrepressible Eupatrids were there with their pelf, and pushed their claims through thick and through thin. The lowest class, the enfranchised rabble, could not be members of the Council or Committee of Four Hun- dred or hold any office ; all they could do was, like the people at Sparta, to say aye or jio — to vote, in other words — in the assembly. They were blest with no taxes to pay ; and when they were " mobilized," as the expression is, — that is, called out as soldiers in 20O THE STORY OF GREECE. war, their arms had to be furnished them, whereas the other three classes had the bHss of paying taxes, furnishing their own suits of armor, or, if they were cavalry-men, of bringing their own horses along with them. Thus you see there were counterbalancing advan- tages on either side. Very well to be a grand aris- tocrat, decked out in glittering armor or prancing on a spanking gray ; but when it came to paying down in hard cash for all this finery, the common people doubtless grinned and turned away, well pleased that tJicy at least were spared the visits of the tax- man. The Solonian Constitution is known in history by the name TiMOCRACY, a name for a system based on rate-paying or taxes in proportion to wealth. Though once upon a time good blood was all-important in Attica for a man to rise to any distinction at all, this was all done away with now. The Eupatrid class, to be sure, formed a very powerful clique ; still, any Athenian who possessed moderate means or a good estate, could hope to rise to the highest offices ; and there can be no doubt that the people as a whole greatly rejoiced that their voice was at last heard in the assembly, and that they could at least elect the archons and hold them responsible for their doings. Solon himself was elected archon in B.C. 594, and it was while holding this office that he was invested with unlimited power to make his reforms. His greatest fame rests upon his celebrated disburdening ordinance, called in Greek seisaehtheia, the measure intended to shake off an intolerable burden of debt WHAT SOLON DID FOR ATHENS. 20I from the shoulders of the debtors. Next to this is the distribution of the citizens into classes based upon their incomes. If a man, for instance, had an income equal to 500 mcdimni of dry or liquid pro- duce (equivalent to a value of 500 drachmae, one mcdinuius being equal to one drachma), he took his place in the first class. If his income ranged be- tween 300 and 500 nicdiunii or drachm^E, he was a man of the second class, — a Jiippais, because he was able to keep a horse and was bound to perform mili- tary service as a cavalry-man. Class No. 3 embraced such men as had incomes ranging between 200 and 300 7ncdiinni or drachmae. These were the ZctigittB. The lowest class were called Tlictcs, and had incomes from 200 mcdimni or drachmae down. They could be only indirectly taxed. Solon seems to have been a universal genius ; for not only did he accomplish these arduous reforms, but he made laws to encourage trade and manufac- tures, to punish idleness, to forbid the exportation of all produce of the Attic soil except olive oil, and to enable childless people to dispose of their property by will. He reformed the calendar, adjudged splen- did rewards to the victors in the Olympian and Isthmian Games (the latter were celebrated near Corinth, in honor of Poseidon), made a law degrading any citizen who should remain neutral, or who de- clined to say either " yea " or " nay " on the out- break of a sedition, and enacted regulations relating to marriage. The Athenian busybodies worried him in such a way with their innumerable criticisms, suggestions, 202 THE STORY OF GREECE. and complaints about his laws that finally he shook the dust of Athens off his feet and went into volun- tary exile for ten years. It was on this occasion that he was said to have entered on his extensive travels, and to have wandered to the Oriental court of Croesus. He did not start, however, until he had drawn up many more rules and regulations than those that have been mentioned. His legislation superseded that of Draco. One of his laws was that no father should sell or pawn his own child ; and an- other, that if a father reared his child in vicious idle- ness, without an education, the child need not support the father when he became old. His final act, before his voluntary expatriation, seems to have been to pardon all those who had disgraced themselves in the Cylonian troubles, and the Alcmaeonidai returned to Athens in B.C. 594. There was a certain very ancient assemblage of no- bles at Athens which met on the hill Areopagus, be- tween the Pnyx and the Acropolis. Its special function had been to judge in cases of homicide or murder. It was a very useful and venerable court of justice — a supreme court in cases of man-slaying ; and Solon increased its authority by giving it more power and arranging that the archons as they annually went out of office should become members of this court as long as they lived. It came in this way to be a body composed of the most learned, popular, and experienced men of Athens. The way in which he enlarged its powers was this : he gave it the right to forbid any law to be passed by the ecclcsia which seemed in its judgment dangerous to the State, and WHAT SOLON DID FOR ATHENS. 203 the further right to warn or punish citizens who hved or acted in a way unbecoming Athenians or who neglected their children. It thus became a mighty influence for good ; a feared and revered monitor and censor of morals as well as a judge in criminal cases. It only indirectly touched the gov- ernment, to be sure, yet it exercised moral functions of the profoundest importance to the existence and well-being of the Attic state. Solon was the greatest of the nomothctce or law- makers, as they were called, who arose in Greece and digested, harmonized, or elaborated codes of law. Such men were the benefactors of their states, and it was only through their codes that the fickle and discontented populace could be got to live together peacefully and harmoniously. Many of the anecdotes told of Solon are well worth repeating, and the repetition of them will serve to lighten and brighten up our concluding pages about him. When he was asked on one occasion whether he had left the Athenians the best laws that could be given, he replied : " The best they could receive." Plutarch thought that the way the Athenians had of softening the badness of a thing by ingeniously giv- ing it some pretty or innocent name, calling bad women, for example, " mistresses," tributes " cus- toms," a garrison a " guard," and the jail a " cham- ber," seemed originally to have been Solon's con- trivance, for he called the cancelling or repudiation of debts a ScisacJitJieia, a " relief " or " disencumbrance." He repealed all Draco's laws except those con- 204 THE STORY OF GREECE. cerning man-killing, for death was Draco's favorite mode of punishment, not only for great crimes, but for idleness even, or for stealing an apple or a cab- bage. He said that small crimes deserved death, and that he had no severer punishment for great ones. When Solon's friends urged him to become tyrant of Athens, he replied that tyranny was a fine thing, but that there was no path leading down from it. He would not allow any one to speak evil of the dead, or of the living either if they happened to be for the moment in a temple, a court of justice, the public offices, or at the games. If a man's dog bit anybody, he had to deliver the dog up with a log four feet and a half long about his neck. There were very curious laws about brides and bride- grooms, about feasts and fasts, about how the women should dress and how they should behave at funer- als, abstaining from set wailings and from scratching and tearing themselves. They had to carry baskets of a certain size when they walked abroad, and at night could not go about except in a chariot pre- ceded by a torch-bearer. Only so-and-so-many pitcherfuls of water could be drawn out of the pub- lic wells by each person ; people who raised bees had to station their bee-hives a certain distance from a neighbor's. He inscribed his laws on wooden tables or rollers which could be turned in oblong cases. The council all jointly swore to maintain the laws, and every one of them vowed for himself at the stone in the market-place that if he broke any of the statutes he would dedicate a golden statue as big as himself, at Delphi. ^^ ^^M XIX. HOW THERE HArPENED TO BE T^YO KINGS AT SPARTA — MESSENIA AND THE LEGENDS OF ARIS- TOMENES; TEGEA, AND THE BONES OF ORESTES. Let us now take up the Peloponnesian thread oi our story and try to bring it down to a period where we can interweave it with the Athenian and other threads that blend their filaments with our woof. We shall have purple and gold and scarlet threads, but no one of them must run in streaks ; all must combine and blend in an harmonious design, in a completed though brief picture, of general Hellas. Taking up the dropped stitches of the Lacedae- monian story, we resume our narrative of what was going on in the peninsula after Lycurgus had disap- peared from the sight of men. There was one very strange institution at Sparta about which we have as yet said little. This was the institution of the /7co kings or the double royalty. In very ancient times they say the wife of a cer- tain Aristodemus, shortly after the coming of the Dorians into the Peloponnesus, gave birth to twins. Aristodemus was of noble birth, and just lived to see his children born, dying soon afterwards of a dis- ease. The Lacedaemonians of that day determined, 206 THE STORY OF GREECE. according to custom, to take for their king the elder of the two children, but they were so alike and so exactly of one size that they could not possibly tell — as Rebecca could in the case of Jacob and Esau — which of the two to choose. So, when they found themselves unable to make a choice, or haply even earlier, they went to the mother and asked her to tell them which was the elder ; whereupon she de- clared that she herself did not know the children apart, although in good truth she knew them very well, and only feigned ignorance in order that, if it were possible, both of them might be made kings of Sparta. The Lacedaemonians were now in a great strait ; so what should they do but act as every state did in these perplexities : send to Delphi and inquire of the oracle what they should do in this matter. The Pythoness replied : " Let both be taken to be kings, but let the elder have the greater honor." So the Lacedaemonians were in as great a strait as ever, and could not conceive how they were to dis- cover which was the first-born, till at length a certain Messenian, by name Panites, suggested to them to watch and see which of the two the mother washed and fed first ; if they found that she always gave one the preference, that fact would tell them all they wanted to know ; if, on the contrary, she herself varied, and sometimes took the one first, sometimes the other, it would be plain that she knew as little as they. The Lacedaemonians did according to the advice of the Messenian, and without letting her know why, TJVO KINGS AT SPARTA. 20/ kept a watch upon the mother ; by which they dis- covered that whenever she either washed or fed her children, she always gave the same child the prefer- ence. So they took the boy whom the mother hon- ored the most, and, regarding him as the first-born, brought him up in the palace ; and the name which they gave to the elder boy was Eurysthenes, while his brother they called Procles. When the brothers grew up, there was always, as long as they lived, enmity between them ; and the royal houses sprung from them continued the feud for many generations. Such was one of the legends current in early Greece about how Sparta came to hav^e two kings instead of one. Many of these kings were most wretched and unfortunate beings. Sometimes one was banished, like Leotychides, or one fled, like Cleomenes, or was put to death, like Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, or was expelled the country, like Demaratus and the second Pausanias, son of Pleisto- anax. They plotted and fought, and struggled against each other incessantly, and were often more like two angry animals than like cousins or kings. Of course, they had their privileges too ; royalty always has. Among them were many interesting and some peculiar prerogatives ; no more peculiar, however, than those of the modern grandee, who is privileged to wear sixteen hats (if he pleases) in the presence of the king or ride through West- minster Hall on horseback. They held the two priesthoods of the Lacedaemonian and the Celestial Zeus ; had the right to make war on anybody they pleased, without hindrance from other Spartans, 2oS THE STORY OF GREECE. under penalty of outlawry ; and marched first in the advance and last in the retreat of the Spartan armies. A body-guard of three hundred picked men surrounded them while they were with the army ; and they could keep for themselves the skins and chines of the animals slaughtered in sacrifice. In peace the kings had the first seats at the public sacrificial banquets, were served before everybody else, and got a double portion of every thing good to eat. At the games they occupied the seat of honor, and they appointed the citizens who were to entertain strangers. They kept all the oracles that were pronounced, and sat in the gcrousia or council of twenty-eight senators. When they died, horse- men carried the news of their death through all Laconia, while in the city the women went hither and thither drumming upon a kettle in token of their grief. At this signal two free persons, a man and a Avoman, in every house had to put on mourn- ing, or else pay a fine. These royal funerals were very noisy ; thousands of free men and women, and of Helots assembled, smote their foreheads violently, wept and wailed, and insisted that the last king was always the best. When a new king came to the throne, he was wont to forgive all the Spartans the debts which they owed either to the king or to the public treasury. The heralds, flute-players, and cooks at Sparta followed the same trades as their forefathers, just as the case was with the Egyptians. A flute-player must be the son of a flute-player, a cook of a cook, and a herald of a herald ; so that each followed his father's business. TfFO KINGS AT SPARTA. 209 The early history of the Peloponnesus is thickly overspun with the spider webs of legend. Many of these you have been told already ; others remain to be told ; and all swim in the vague light of poetry and fable. The Spartans might be called the Chinese of Greece ; they never changed any thing if they could help it ; and as a military body they lived in the land, as has been said, like William the Conqueror and his twenty thousand Normans in England. How marvellously different from the Athenians, who grew and grew, " shedding off " one form of govern- ment after another, as a snake does its skin, ever changing, ever developing, loving progress and nov- elty, and always longing to hear or to tell some new thing ! In the Peloponnesus, Sparta, like a cancer, spread and grew right and left, eating, devouring this little principality and then that, until, when the clear his- tory of Hellas dawns, at the outbreak of the Persian War, she was supreme over two fifths of the leaf- shaped peninsula. She was perpetually casting longing eyes after the flesh-pots of her neighbors : — on the west Messenia, on the north Arcadia, on the east Argos, tempted her appetite ; and she whetted her teeth and sharpened her sword in the expectation of swallowing them all up one day or another. In two wars with the Messenians she utterly ruined their country, as we gather from the elegies and poems of Tyrtaeus, an Athenian poet (some say) whom the Spartans sent for to help them in their wars with his songs. Tyrtaeus was said to be a lame 2IO THE STORY OF GREECE. schoolmaster, whose verses were any thing but lame, and who wrought the Spartans up to enthusiasm in the conquest of their foes. The Messenians told marvellous tales about their part in these wars. They said that the first war broke out in the reign of Theopompus and Alca- menes on the refusal of the Messenians to surrender Polychares, who, to avenge himself of wrongs inflicted on him by the Spartan Enaephnus, invaded and ravaged Sparta. The Messenians were so weakened at last that they sent to ask aid from the god of Delphi. When the answer came that a virgin of the house of yEpytus must die for her country, Aristodemus slew his daughter with his own hand. He lived to become king, and his story abounds in visions, prodigies, and oracular responses. A certain old blind prophet named Ophioneus had a headache, and suddenly received his sight again, which was looked upon as a portent sent from heaven to the Messenians. A statue of Artemis dropped its bra- zen shield of itself. The ghost of his murdered child clad in black appeared to Aristodemus as he was ap- proaching an altar of sacrifice, and pointing to her wounded side, stripped him of his armor, placed on his head a golden crown, and arrayed him in a robe of white — a sign of death. So he went to her tomb and slew himself. Thus it went on for twenty years, till the Messeni- ans were at last utterly defeated. In the second war another famous Messenian champion, Aristomenes, follows close on the heels of the self-slain Aristodemus, and tries to free his riVO KINGS AT SPARTA. 211 countrymen from the intolerable yoke of the Spar- tan tyranny. This war raged for nineteen years, and ended in the final subjugation of the wretched Mes- senians. As we read the accounts of this struggle, we are again in dream-land, and live in the strange and supernatural atmosphere of a dream-world like that of the Argonauts, of Troy, and of Cecrops the Dragon's Son. Aristomenes enters Sparta by night, goes straight to the temple of Athena of the Brazen House, and nails a shield up on the wall with an in- scription which declared it to be an offering by Aris- tomenes from Spartan spoil. Thus the Christian knights did when they were warring against the infidel Moors of Granada. One of his alleged vic- tories was celebrated by the Messenian maidens in songs ; and they crowned him with garlands, and sang how he had chased the fleeing Lacedaemonians this way and that. Still, he fled to the mountains in spite of his victories, where he held out eleven years longer ; but at length he was captured, and thrown into a deep pit, with fifty of his companions. They were killed, but he escaped, borne to the bottom on the outstretched wings of an eagle. He got out of the pit by following a fox ; but he was again seized by some Cretan bowmen, whereupon a maiden dreamed that wolves had brought into the city a chained and clawless lion, and that she had given him claws and set him free. The sight of Aristomenes among his captors revealed the meaning of her dream, so she made the archers drunk, gave him a dagger, and cut his bonds. Of course he slew his enemies ; and he rewarded the maiden by making her his daughter-in-law. 212 THE STORY OF GREECE. But nothing could avert the fate of Aristomenes and Messenia ; they were doomed. The priestess of Delphi had warned Aristomenes that the god could no longer defend Messene if the he-goat (Tragos) should drink the waters of the Neda. The foolish Messenians thought of beasts, and had no fear ; but a fig-tree sprung up, and, instead of spreading its branches in the air, let them droop into the stream ; and the seer Theoclus, as he looked upon it, knew that this was the deadly sign, for in the Messenian dialect the fig-tree was called Tragos. Aristomenes was suddenly surrounded, though, as he stood at bay like a wounded lion, with the women and children around him, so terrible was he that he broke through his enemies, and escaped to Arcadia. At last, however, the spirit of the heroic Messeni- ans was utterly broken. Some of them had been made Helots ; others fled the country. As for Aris- tomenes: Damagetus, King of Rhodes, had been bidden by an oracle to marry the daughter of the bravest of the Hellenes. Since he knew that none could challenge the right of Aristomenes to bear this title, he besought of him his child, and offered him a home in the beautiful island which rose up out of the sea (as Pindar says) to be the bride of the sun. To Rhodes, therefore, he went, and thus be- came the progenitor of the illustrious family of the Diagoridae.* The greedy Lacedaemonians, as they increased in numbers, increased in restlessness and in warlike spirit. In consequence of this they soon ceased to * Cox, " Hist, of Greece," pp. 35-6-7. TWO KINGS AT SPARTA. 21 3 be satisfied as stay-at-home bodies, and therefore they sent to ascertain wliethcr they could cherish any hopes of conquering; Arcadia. The Pythoness thus sang out : Gravest thou A ready ? Bold is thy eraving. I shall not eontcnt it. Many the nun that in A ready dzvell, zvhosc food is the aeorn — TJiey will never alloiv thee. It is not I that am niggard. I zvill give thee to danee in Tegea zvith noisy foot-fall, And zvith the measuring-line mete out the glorious country. When the Lacedaemonians received this reply they aband(.ined the notion of going against Arcadia, and rushed forth against the Tegeans. The battle, how- ever, went against them, and many fell into the enemies' hands. Then these crestfallen soldiers, wearing the chains they had brought for the Te- geans, and fastened together with a string, " meas- ured the Tcgean plain," as they executed their labors, just as the oracle had said. Defeat after defeat followed the Spartans in their attempts to overthrow Tegea. At last, worn out with fruitless efforts, they consulted the Pythoness again, who replied that they could never prevail unless they removed the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamem- non, to Sparta. Unable to discover where they were buried, they sent a second time, and asked the god where the 214 THE STORY OF GREECE. body of the hero had been hiid. The followifig answer was given : Level and smooth is t lie plain zvJiere Areadian Tegea stajidetJi ; TJiere two zvinds are ever, by strong necessity, blowing ; Counter-stroke anszvers eounter-stroke, and evil lies ■upon evil. There all-teeming Earth doth harbor the son of A t rides ; Bri)ig thou Jiim to thy city, and then be Tegeds master. After this reply the Lacedgemonians were no nearer discovering what they wished than they were before, though they searched dihgently for the bones of Orestes, until at last a man named Lichas found them. Lichas, partly by good luck, partly by his own wis- dom, discovered the burial-place as follows : Inter- course between the two states existing just at this time, he went to Tegea, and, happening to enter into the workshop of a smith, saw him forging some iron. As he stood marvelling at what he beheld, — for the forging of iron was a novelty at that time among the Greeks, — he was observed by the smith, who, leaving off his work, went up to him and said : "Certainly then, you Spartan stranger, you would have been wonderfully surprised if you had seen what I have, since you make a marvel even of this working in iron. I wanted to make myself a well in this room, and began to dig it, when — what think TfVO KIiVGS AT SPARTA. 21 5 you ? I came upon a coffin seven cubits long ! I had never believed that men were taller in the olden times than they are now ; so I opened the coffin : The body inside was of the same length ; Imeasured it and filled up the hole again." Such was the man's account of w^iat he had seen. The other, on turning the matter over in his mind, conjectured that this was the body of Orestes, of which the oracle had spoken. He guessed so because he ob- served that the smithy had two bellows, which he un- derstood to be the /a't'Ci'/z/c/j-, and the hammer and an- vil would do for the "stroke" and " counter-stroke," and the iron that was being wrought for the " evil lying upon evil." This he imagined might be so because iron had been discovered to the hurt of man. Full of these conjectures he sped back to Sparta and laid the whole matter before his countrymen. Lichas betook himself to Tegea and rented the room of the smith. Then he opened the grave, and, collecting the bones, returned them to Sparta. From henceforth, whenever the Spartans and the Tegeans made trial of each other's skill in arms, the Spartans always greatly had the advantage. The rivalry of Sparta and Argos also had direful consequences for one of the parties. They disputed about a long strip of land called the Thyreotis, and the dispute was settled by a duel between three hundred picked men on each side — a duel recalling that of the Roman Horatii and Curiatii, or the feuds of the Scot- tish clans. At sundown one Spartan and two Argives survived. The Argives unfortunately rushed off claiming the victory, while the Spartan, remaining be- 2l6 THE STORY OF GREECE. hind, insisted that the victory was his, as he held possession of the field of battle. So they fought again, and Sparta was victorious. Thus, at the commencement of the true historic period we find warlike Lacedaemon in possession of the " hegemony " of the Peloponnesus, however it was acquired. The legends may or may not be true the facts and results cannot be contradicted. XX. THE ISLAND DESPOTS AND THE RING OF POLY- CRATES. It was impossible that men could live altogether at home in peace and quiet as long as oligarchies and tyrannies flourished in Continental Greece and the population went on increasing. Many, therefore, taking ship, set sail for this or that part of the Mediterranean or the Black Sea, of which they had heard, and founded colonies here and there which grew up into opulent and splendid cities, richer and more splendid than the cities from which they sprang. Thus it was that a Corinthian colony settled in the large and fertile island of Corcyra (Corfu), off the coast of Western Greece, Sicily became thickly covered with Hellenic colonies, and the southern coast of Italy so swarmed with Greeks and great Greek towns, such as Sybaris, Croton, and Rhegium, that it was called Magna Grcscia, or Greater Greece. Thus the city of Massilia (Marseilles) sprang up at the mouth of the Rhone, the city of Saguntum was founded in Spain, the city of Cyrene on its mountain terrace, two thousand feet high, was built on the northern coast of Africa, opposite Greece ; Naucratis (rediscovered the other day), in Egypt, introduced Greek civilization into the land of the Pharaohs ; and 2l8 THE STORY OF GREECE. the whole coast of Asia Minor became thronged with Greek settlements very strange, mighty, and beauti- ful. These settlements crept on up the coast, along the Dardanelles, through the Bosphorus, and along the shores of the Black Sea, where Sinope and Trebizond became centres of Greek life and light. Along the western coast of Greece colonies trailed from the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf to Northern Epirus ; on the eastern coast Megara, Eretria, and Chalcis founded numerous and populous colonies on the Thracian peninsulas and around Mt. Athos ; Corinth founded Potidaea, and the isles filled up with busy trading-folk bringing corn down from the Black Sea (as they do still to this day). The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon meanwhile had established the mighty city of Carthage in Africa, opposite Sicily ; and the Carthaginians in alliance with the Etruscans of Italy prevented the Greeks from settling in the western corner of Sicily, in Corsica, and many parts of Spain. The rise of Carthage was the only obstacle which prevented the Greeks from girdling and encircling the entire Mediterranean with the bright belt of their colonies. So enormous was the growth and power of Carthage that it held the whole power of the Roman Republic at bay for ever so long a time before it could be broken and defeated. These Greek colonies were not necessarily subject to their mother cities, though they paid them certain honors and kept up a friendly feeling. They wor- shipped the same gods, took fire from their native towns to light the fire on their altars with when they THE ISLAND DESPOTS. 219 set forth on their long journeys, and looked back to their mother-land generally with love and reverence. The Greeks were such keen tradespeople, so sharp at a bargain, and so clever withal : they swarmed in such numbers, and were so adventurous and invincible that in many places they drove out the Phoenicians, (who were first cousins of the Jews) or at least con- Coast of Epirus. fined them to the extreme eastern and the extreme western Mediterranean. It was only at that monstrous ant-hill — Carthage, — where the Phoenicians were as numerous as gnats and mosquitoes, that the Greeks met their match and had to stop their march of colonization and conquest. The Carthaginians were a furious and warlike people ; they invaded Sicily 220 THE STORY OF GREECE. under Hamilcar in B.C. 480, and overran large parts of Spain. In the Greek colonies we find the same restless changes of government — from oligarchies to tyran- nies — as in the rest of Hellas ; the people were as fickle and changeable at Agrigentum and Syracuse in Sicily as at Athens or Corinth — the Greenock of Greece, where great ships were first made and the trireme was " invented." We will not follow out these changes in detail, but return to Athens and bring our story through the tyranny of the Pisistratidae and the reforms of Cleisthenes down to the Ionic Revolt and the Persian War. Yet, before we enter into these dry details of the tyranny of the Pisistratidae and the reforms of Cleis- thenes, you should hear the story of the Magic Ring of Polycrates, just to show you what strange creat- ures these Greek island despots were, what provi- dential escapes they sometimes had, how they ruled, and how suddenly they sometimes fell from their high estate. For the Greek despots were not like Humpty-Dumpty in the German fairy-tale, who fell down the stairs and yet got the princess. When tJicy fell they fell into a bottomless pit, and, far from getting a princess, got only their dues. Samos, one of the brightest and loveliest of the ^gaean islands, lies just off the coast of Asia Minor, so near that only a narrow strait runs in between. It is only twenty miles from the island of Patmos, where St. John the Divine, beloved disciple of our Lord, had his wondrous vision of the Apocalypse. At Samos was the home of Polycrates. The island THE ISLAND DESPOTS. 221 was not large, — only about eighty miles around, — yet it was filled with magnificent buildings and other works of art, and gave birth to several cele- brated painters, sculptors, engineers, and philos- ophers, among them the philosopher Pythagoras. Grapes and flowers, oaks and cypresses abounded in its fertile soil, and everywhere, even to-day, there are distinct traces in the superb ruins of the once rich and haughty luxury of the Samians. Now while Cambyses, the Persian, was carr^'ing on his war with Egypt (about which something shall be said presently), the Lacedaemonians sent a force to Samos against Polycrates, the son of yEaces, who had, by a rebellion against the Persians, made him- self master of the island. At the outset he divided the state into three parts, and shared the govern- ment with his brothers, Pantagnotus and Syloson ; but later, having killed the former and banished the latter, who was the younger of the two, Polycrates held the whole island for himself. Hereupon he made a contract of friendship with Amasis, the king of Egypt, sending him gifts and receiving from him others in return. In a little while his power so great!}' increased that the fame of it went abroad throughout Ionia and the rest of Greece. Some say that he not only built sumptuous and costly temples, but that he was a great stock-raiser, introduced Attic and Milesian breeds of sheep, Syrian and Naxian goats, Sicilian pigs, and Molossian and Laconian hounds. He attracted all the best artisans by the high wages he offered them, and increased his popularity by his habit" of lending his rich hangings and valuable 222 THE STORY OF GREECE. plate to any one who wanted them for a wedding- feast or a banquet of more than common importance. Wherever he turned his arms success waited on him. He had a fleet of a hundred pcntccontcrs (fifty-oared vessels), and bowmen to the number of a thousand, besides a large body of foreign mercenaries. With these he plundered all without distinction of friend or foe ; for he argued that a friend was better pleased if you gave him back what you had taken from him than if you spared him at first. He captured many of the islands and several towns upon the main-land. Among his other doings he overcame the Lesbians in a sea-fight, when they came with all their forces to the help of Miletus, and made a number of them prisoners. These persons, laden with fetters, dug the moat which surrounded the castle of the town of Samos. The exceeding good fortune of Polycrates did not escape the notice of Amasis, who was much disturbed thereat. So when he went on being ever so success- ful, Amasis wrote him the following letter, and sent it to Samos : "Amasis to Polycrates thus sayeth : ' It is a pleas- ure to hear of a friend and ally prospering, but thy exceeding prosperity does not cause me joy, for as much as I know that the gods are envious. My wish for myself and for those that I love is to be some- times successful and sometimes unsuccessful ; thus passing through life amid alternate good and evil, rather than with perpetual good fortune. For never yet did I hear of any one succeeding in all his undertakings, who did not meet with calamity at last THE ISLAND DESPOTS. 223 and come to utter grief. Now, therefore, give ear to my words and meet thy good hick in this way: Bethink thee which of all thy treasures thou valuest most and canst least bear to part with ; take it, whatsoever it be, and throw it away, so that it may be sure never to come any more into the sight of men. Then, if thy good fortune be not henceforth chequered with ill, save thyself from harm by again doing as I have counselled.' " When Polycrates read this letter and perceived that the advice of Amasis was good, he considered carefully with himself which of the treasures that he had in store it would give him most pain to lose. After much thought he made up his mind that it was a signet-ring which he was wont to wear, an emerald set in gold, the workmanship of Theodore, a Samian. So he determined to throw this away; and manning a penteconter, he went on board, and bade the sailors put out into the open sea. When he was now a long way from the island, he took the ring from his finger, and, in the sight of all those who were on board, flung it into the deep. This done, he returned home, and gave vent to his sorrow. Now it chanced five or six days afterwards that a fisherman caught a fish so large and beautiful that he thought it well deserved to be made a present of to the tyrant. So he took it with him to the gate of the palace and said that he wanted to see Polycrates. Then Polycrates allowed him to come in, and the fisherman gave him the fish with these words follow- ing: " Sire, when I took this prize I thought I would 224 THE STORY OF GREECE. not take it to market, though I am a poor man who live by my trade. I said to myself: ' It is worthy of Polycrates and his greatness ' ; and so I brought it here to give it to you." The speech pleased the tyrant, who spoke thus in reply : " Thou didst right well, friend, and I am deeply indebted, both for the gift and the speech. Come now and sup with me." The fisherman went home, esteeming it a high honor that he had been asked to sup with the kinr. Meanwhile the servants, on cutting open the fish, found the signet-ring of their master in its belly ! No sooner did they see it than they seized upon it, and hastening to Polycrates with great joy, restored it to him and told him in what way it had been found. The tyrant, who saw something providential in the matter, forthwith wrote a letter to Amasis, telling him all that had happened, what he had himself done, and what had been the upshot — and despatched the letter to Egypt. When Amasis had read the letter of Polycrates, he perceived that it does not belong to man to save his fellow-man from the fate which is in store for him ; likewise he felt certain that Polycrates would end ill, as he prospered in every thing, even finding what he had thrown away. So he sent a herald to Samos and dissolved the contract of friendship. This he did that when the great and heavy misfortune came, he might escape the grief which he would have felt if the sufferer had been his bond-friend. It was with this Polycrates, so fortunate in every undertaking, that the Lacedaemonians went to war. THE ISLAND DESPOTS. 225 As for his own subjects, to hinder them from betray- ing him while he was off on one of his expeditions, he shut up their wives and children in the sheds built to shelter the ships, and was ready to burn sheds and all in case of need. The Lacedaemonians besieged Samos, but had to raise the siege and return to the Peloponnesus. But with all his prosperity Polycrates had an enemy. There was a certain Oroetes, a Persian, whom Cyrus had made governor of Sardis. This man con- ceived a most unholy wish. He had never suffered any wrong or had an ill word from Polycrates; nay, he had not so much as seen him in all his life; yet, notwithstanding, he conceived the wish to seize him and put him to death. This wish, they say, arose from what happened one day as he was sitting with another Persian in the gate of the king's palace. The man's name was Mitrobates, and he was ruler of the satrapy of Dascyleium. He and Oroetes had been talking together, and from talking they fell to quarrelling and comparing their merits ; whereupon Mitrobates said to Orcetes reproachfully: "Art tJioji worthy to be called a man when, near as Samos lies to thy government, and easy as it is to conquer, thou hast omitted to bring it under the dominion of the king? Easy to conquer, said I? Why, a mere com- mon citizen, with the help of fifteen men-at-arms, mastered the island, and is still king of it ! " Oroetes, they say, took this retort greatly to heart, but instead of seeking to revenge himself on the man by whom it was uttered, he conceived the desire of destroying Polycrates, since it was on Polycrates' account that the reproach had fallen on him. 226 THE STORY OF GREECE. Another version of the story is that Oroetes sent a herald to Samos to make a request, the nature of which is not stated. Polycrates was at the time re- cHning in the apartment of the males, and Anacreon, the poet of Teos, was with him. When, therefore, the herald came forward to converse, Polycrates, either out of studied contempt for the power of Oroetes, or it may be merely by chance, was lying with his face turned away toward the wall ; and so he lay all the time that the herald spoke, and when he ended, did not vouchsafe him a word. What seems certain, however, is that Oroetes, while residing at Magnesia, on the Maeander river, sent a Lydian with a message to Polycrates at Samos, well knowing what the tyrant designed. For Polycrates entertained a design which no other Greek, so far as we know, ever formed before him — the design of gaining the empire of the sea, and aspired to rule Ionia and the islands. Knowing then that Polycrates was thus minded, Oroetes sent his message, which ran as follows : " Oroetes to Polycrates thus sayeth : ' I hear thou raisest thy thoughts high, but thy means are not equal to thy ambition. Listen, then, to my words, and learn how thou mayest at once serve thyself and preserve me. King Cambyses is bent on my destruc- tion — of this I have warning from a sure hand. Come thou, therefore, and fetch me away — me and all my wealth ; — share my wealth with me, and then, so far as money can aid, thou mayest make thyself master of the whole of Greece. But if thou doubtest of my wealth, send the trustiest of thy followers, and I will show my treasures to him.' " THE ISLAND DESPOTS. 22^ Thus said the Spider to the Fly. Polycrates, though, when he heard this message, was beside himself with joy, and straightway approved the terms ; but as money was what he chiefly desired, before stirring in the business, he sent his secretary to look into the matter. This secretary was the man who, not very long afterward, made an offering at the temple of Here (Juno) of all the furniture which had adorned the male apartments in the palace of Polycrates, an offering well worth seeing. Oroetes, learning that one was coming to view his treasures, played Polycrates the following trick : He filled eight great chests almost brimful of stones, and then cover- ing over the stones with gold, corded the chests, and so held them ready. When the secretary arrived, he was shown this as Oroetes' treasure, and having seen it, he returned to Samos, On hearing his story Polycrates, notwithstanding many warnings given him by the soothsayers, and much dissuasion of his friends, made ready to go in person. Even the dream that his daughter had, failed to check him. She had dreamed that she saw her father hanging high in air, washed by Zeus and anointed by the Sun. After this dream she used every effort to prevent her father from going ; even as he went on board his penteconter, cr>'ing after him words of evil omen. Then Polycrates threatened her that if he returned in safety, he would keep her an old maid for many years. She answered : " O that he might perform his threat ; far better for her to remain an old maid than to lose her father ! " Polycrates, however, making light of all the advice 228 THE STORY OF GREECE. offered him, set sail and went to Orcetes. Many- friends accompanied him, among them Democedes of Croton, the most skilful physician of his time. Polycrates, on his arrival at Magnesia, perished miserably in a way unworthy of his rank and his lofty schemes. For if we except the Syracusans, Gelon, Hieron, and Thrasybulus (B.C. 455-466), there had never been, up to that time, a Greek tyrant to be compared with Polycrates in magnificence. Orostes slew him in a way not fit to be described, and then hung his dead body on a cross. Then was the dream of the daughter of Polycrates fulfilled ; for Polycrates, as he hung lifeless on the cross, and rain fell on him, was washed by Zeus ; and he was anointed by the sun when his own sweat ran down over his body. And so the vast good for- tune of Polycrates, the island-despot, came at last to the end which Amasis, the king of Egypt, had prophesied in days gone by.* And so the Spider caught the silly Fly that had ventured into his parlor ; and so it is with all silly flies who venture into dangerous and unknown places, hungering and hankering ; the spider is al- ways there to catch them. * Rawlinson's " Herodotus," II. c^c5G^5^||^5|f^©J>- XXL HOW THE PISISTRATID^ PLAYED THE ATHENIANS A TRICK AND BECAME TYRANTS OF ATHENS (B.C. 560). Athens went the way of nearly all the great Greek states and cities. She could not escape falling into the hands of tyrants, after having passed from " kings " through oligarchies on her way to free consti- tutional government by the people. Perhaps it was but a natural process of evolution, from the single head of the king to the many-headed democracy, and then finally to a king again — from Codrus at one end of Attic story to King Philip and Alexander the Great at the other. In between these extremes every imaginable form of government known to the ancients — monarchy, aristocracy, despotism, re- publicanism — flourished rank and fast, one after an- other, just like the gigantic growths that spring up one after another in a cleared field. Oaks succeed the pines, and alders the oaks, and brambles and whortleberries the alders ; and at last there is nothing but stumps and stubble, fennel and James- town-weed. A prominent citizen of Athens, named Hippoc- rates, is said to have gone once upon a time to Olympia to see the games, when a wonderful prodigy 230 THE STORY OF GREECE. happened to him. As he was employed in sacri- ficing, the cauldrons, which stood near, full of water and of the flesh of the victims, began to boil without the help of fire, and continued till the water over- flowed the pot ! Chilon, the Lacedaemonian, who happened to be there and to witness the prodig}', advised Hippocrates, if he were a bachelor, never to take into his house a wife who could bear him a child ; if he already had one, to send her back to her friends ; if he had a son, to disown him. Now, Chilon's advice did not at all please Hippoc- rates, who paid no attention to it, and soon after became the father of Pisistratus. At that time there were three famous and formi- dable parties at Athens : the party of the Sea-coast, headed by Megacles the son of Alcmaeon and grand- son of the Megacles who had killed the followers of Cylon ; the party of the Plain, headed by Lycurgus ; and the party of the Mountaineers or Highlanders. Gathering a band of partisans, and giving himself out as the head of the Highlanders, Pisistratus con- trived the following stratagem to help on his cause. He wounded himself and his mules, and then drove his chariot into the market-place, pretending to have just escaped an attack of his enemies, who had at- tempted his life as he was on his way into the countr}'. He besought the people to give him a guard to protect his person, reminding them of the glory which he had gained for them when he led a certain attack against the Megarians, and performed many other exploits. The Athenians, deceived by his stor)', appointed him a band of citizens (increased TYRANTS OF ATHENS. 23 1 from fifty to four hundred) to serve him as a guard, who were to carry clubs instead of spears, and had to accompany him wherever he went. Thus strengthened, Pisistratus broke into revolt and seized the citadel. In this way he acquired the sov- ereignty of Athens, which he continued to hold without disturbing the previously existing offices or altering any of the laws. He administered the state according to the established usages, and his ar- rangements were wise and salutary' (B.C. 5^)- However, after a little while, the partisans of Mega- cles and the partisans of Lycurgus, like ever-rest- less Athenians, could not endure this state of things; so they united and resolved to drive Pisistratus out. Thus Pisistratus, having by the means described first made himself master of Athens, lost his power again before it had time to take root. No sooner, however, was Pisistratus well out of sight than the factions began to " fuss " and quarrel like a pack of old women, and at last Megacles, dis- gusted with the struggle, sent a herald to Pisistratus with an offer to reestablish him on the throne if he would marry his daughter. Pisistratus consented, and on these terms an agreement was concluded be- tween the two, after which they began to plot and intrigue about the manner of his restoration. And here the device on which they hit was the silliest (they say) in all histor)% more especially since the Greeks were from very ancient times distinguished from the barbarians by superior sagacity and freedom from dulness, — worse still if we remember that the persons on whom this trick was played were not 232 THE STORY OF GREECE. only Greeks but Athenians, who had the credit of sur- passing all other Greeks in cleverness. There was in the Paeonian district a woman named Phya, who was nearly six feet in height, and who was wonderfully fair to look upon. This woman they clothed in complete armor, and instructing her as to the bearing she was to maintain in order to play her part well, they placed her in a chariot and drove on into the city. Heralds had been sent for- ward to precede her and to make proclamation to this effect : " Citizens of Athens, receive Pisistratus again with friendly minds. The goddess Athene, who of all men honors him the most, herself con- ducts him back to her own citadel." This they proclaimed in all directions, and im- mediately the rumor spread throughout the country districts that Athene was bringing back her favorite. The city folk too, fully persuaded that the beautiful and stately woman was the goddess herself, pros- trated themselves before her, and received Pisistratus back. Pisistratus, having thus recovered the sovereignty, married the daughter of Megacles according to agreement. As he already had a family of grown-up sons, however, and the Alcmaeonidae were supposed to be under a curse, he determined that there should be no issue of this marriage. His wife at first kept the matter to herself, but after a while either her mother questioned her or perhaps she told it of her own accord. At any rate her mother found it out, and so it reached her father's ears. Megacles, indignant at receiving an affront from T YRA NTS OF A THENS. 233 such a quarter, in his fury instantly made up his differences with the opposite factions ; whereupon Pisistratus, aware of what was planning against him, took himself a second time out of the country. Arrived at a little town called Eretria, not far from Athens, he held a council with his children to decide what was to be done. The opinion of his son Hippias prevailed, and it was agreed to try again and recover the sovereignty. The first step was to obtain advances of money — for the tyrants were nearly always "impecunious " when it came to the pinch — from such states as were under obligations to him. By these means they collected large sums from several countries, especially from the neighboring Thebans, who gave them far more than any of the rest. In short, all was soon ready for their return. A band of Argive mercenaries arrived from the Peloponnesus, with a certain Lygdamis, who volun- teered his services and was zealous for the cause, supplying both men and money. In the eleventh year of their second exile the indefatigable family of Pisistratus — as unwearying as Bruce's spider — set sail from Eretria on their return home. They made the coast of Attica near Mara- thon, eighteen or twenty miles from Athens, where they pitched their tents and were joined by their partisans from the capital and by numbers from the country, who loved tyranny better than freedom. At Athens, while Pisistratus was gathering money, and even after the arch-rogue had landed at Mara- thon, nobody paid any attention to his doings. When, however, it flew all through town and country 234 THE STORY OF GREECE. that he had actually landed at Marathon and was positively marching on Athens, preparations were made for resistance, and the whole force of the state was levied, and led against the returning exiles. The army of Pisistratus meantime came marching on, and encamped near the magnificent sanctuary- temple of Athene, at Pallene. Here a certain sooth- sayer, Amphilytus by name, moved by a divine im- pulse, came into the presence of Pisistratus, and approaching him, broke into the following prophetic hexameter lines : " Now has the cast been made, the net is outspread in the water. Through the moons hiny night the tunnies zvill enter the meshes." Such was the prophecy uttered (they say) under a divine inspiration. Pisistratus, catching its meaning at once, declared that he accepted the oracle, and instantly led on his army. The Athenians from the city had just finished their mid-day meal, after which — lazy simpletons that they were — they had betaken themselves some to play dice, others to snore, when Pisistratus with his troops fell on them like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and put them to utter confusion. As soon as the flight began, Pisistratus, who was ever ready with some trick, bethought himself of a fine contrivance, through which he might induce the careless Atheni- ans to scatter and not unite in a compact body any more. He mounted his graceless sons on horses and sent them post-haste forward to overtake the flying dice-players and snorers, and exhort them to " never TYRANTS OF ATHENS. 235 mind," be of good cheer, and return each man to his home. The Athenians — wonderful to say, for they were not famous for taking anybody's advice — fol- lowed this advice, and of course Pisistratus in the twinkling of an eye (and probably with twinkling eyes too, for all we know), became for the third time tyrant of Athens. This at first seemed a pretty kettle of fish to the blundering Athenians; but they could not now help themselves ; bygones had to be bygones ; it was no use weeping and wailing over spilt milk. Pisistratus went busily to work to rivet his power firmly, employed a big band of mercenaries, and kept a treasury full oi sWvqv drachnics , supplied partly by the pockets of the Athenians, and partly by mines which he himself personally owned. In other words, he levied an income-tax and probably worked the silver mines of Laureium, near Athens. Many of the luckless folk of the " City of the Violet Crown," as Athens was called, had to hand over hostages to the tyrant. Then he pur'^^-cd the island of Delos (where one of the great snrines of Apollo was), according to the injunctions of an oracle ; that is, he dug up all the dead bodies which had been buried in sight of the temple, and removed them to another part of the isle. Thus was the tyranny of Pisistratus riveted on Athens, many of the Athenians having fallen in battle, and many others having fled the country to- gether with Megacles, son of Alcmaeon.* Pisistratus died at an advanced age (B.C. 527), * Rawlinson'i "' Herodotus," I., 150. 236 THE STORY OF GREECE. still in possession of the tyranny, and then Hippias (who was the eldest of his sons) not, as was the com- mon opinion, Hipparchus, succeeded to his power. And now again we shall see how pride runneth before destruction ; how the tyrants found that they could not walk over the heads of their subjects in a pair of seven-league boots or scamper over Athens rough-shod. Thus the Hare in the legend bolted over the Fir-tree, until the Fir-tree grew and grew, and one day became so tall and comely that the Hare could not jump over it any more. There was a beautiful and charming youth at Athens, in those times, named Harmodius, who was in the flower of his beauty and was greatly beloved by Aristogiton, a citizen of the middle class. Hip- parchus, attracted by the charm and grace of the youth, made an attempt to gain his affections, but Harmodius would not listen to him, and whispered the story in the ear of Aristogiton. The latter was naturally tormented at the idea, knowing what the love of a tyrant's son was; and, fearing that Hippar- chus, who was powerful, would use violence, at once formed such a plot as a man in his station might for the overthrow of the tyranny. On so slight a thread did the fates and fortunes of the Pisistratidae hang at this time. Meanwhile Hipparchus made another attempt to gain the love or friendship of the beautiful youth, but with no better success ; so he determined, not in- deed to take any violent step— for he was too wise for that, — but to insult Harmodius in some secret olace without his motive being suspected. To use T YRA NTS OF A THENS. 2 3 f violence would have been at variance with the gen- eral character of the Pisistratid administration, which was not unpopular or oppressive on the whole ; in no tyrants were greater merit and capacity dis- played than in the usually gentle and enlightened Pisistratidae. They levied a small tax of five per cent, on the produce of the soil, improved and adorned the city, carried on successful wars, and sac- rificed punctually in the temples. The city mean- while was allowed to retain its ancient laws, but the family of Pisistratus took good care that as far as possible some member of their own clique should always be in office. Thus, among others who held the annual archonship at Athens a little later was Pisistratus II., son of the tyrant Hippias. He was named after his grandfather, and dedicated various temples to the gods. When Hipparchus found his advances repelled by Harmodius, he carried out his intention of insulting him. There was a young sister of his whom Hip- parchus and his friends first invited to come and carry a sacred basket in a procession, and then reject- ed, declaring that she had never been invited by them at all, because she was unworthy. At this Harmodius was very angry, and Aristogiton, for his sake, more angry still. They and the other conspira- tors had already laid their plans, but were waiting for the festival of the great Panathenaea, when the citizens who took part in the procession assembled in arms ; for to wear arms on any other day would have aroused suspicion. Harmodius and Aristogiton were to begin the attack, and the rest were immedi- 238 THE STORY OF GREECE. ately to join in, and engage with the guards. The plot had been communicated to a few only, the bet- ter to avoid detection ; but they hoped that, how- ever few struck the blow, the crowd, who would be armed, would, although not in the secret, at once rise and strike for the recovery of their liberties. The day of the festival arrived, and Hippias went a short distance out of the city to a place called Ceramicus (the potters' quarter), where he marshalled his guards for the procession. Harmodius and Aris- togiton, who were ready with their daggers, stepped forward to do the deed. But seeing one of the con- spirators in familiar conversation with Hippias, who was easily accessible to all, they took alarm and imagined that they had been betrayed and were on the point of being seized. Whereupon they resolved to take their revenge on the man who had outraged them and was the cause of their desperate attempt. So they rushed, just as they w^re, within the gates. They found Hipparchus, and falling upon him with all the blind fury, one of an injured lover, the other of a man smarting under an insult, they smote and slew him. The crowd ran together, and so Aristo- giton for the present escaped the guards ; but he was afterwards taken and not very gently handled. Harmodius perished on the spot. The news flew to Hippias at the Ceramicus; he went at once not to this place, but to the armed men who were to march in the procession, and who, being at a distance, were still ignorant of what had happened. Betraying by his looks nothing of what had befallen him, he bade them leave their arms and TYRANTS OF ATHENS. 239 go to a certain spot which he pointed out. They, supposing that he had something to say to them, obeyed, and then, bidding his guards seize the armSj he at once selected those whom he thought guilty and all who were found carrying daggers ; for the custom was to march in the procession with spear and shield only. Such was the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aris- togiton, which arose from the love of a beautiful Sepulchrnl Vases. Greek youth, and miscarried on account of a sudden fright. To the people at large the tyranny, in spite of its mildness, simply became more odious, and Hippias, after his brother's death, living in great fear, slew many of the citizens ; he also began to look abroad in hope of securing himself a refuge should a revolution occur. He ruled three years longer over the Athenians. In the fourth year the Lacedaemonians and the exiled Alcmaeonidae marched in and deposed him (B.C. 510). He retired under 240 THE STORY OF GREECE. an agreement, and finally went to the court of Darius, whence, returning twenty years later with the Persian army, he took part in the expedition to Marathon, being then an old man.* * Jovvett's " Thucydides," p. 447. XXII. agariste's son, cleisthenes, reforms the STATE. Thus had the pot of the Pisistratidae boiled over and spilt itself on the ground. " Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble " it was for Athens as long as they built their owl's nests on the Acropolis, and hissed and hooted through the dark night of tyranny and injustice. To be sure, one of the great glories of this tyrant family was that its founder, Pisistratus, dearly loved poetry, attracted living poets to Athens, collected copies of the older poems from all parts of Greece, probably introduced the best and clearest text of the poems of Homer, and employed learned men to clear them from mistakes and confusions. He let the constitution of his kinsman Solon alone, and established religious festivals in which all could take part ; beautifying Athens with temples and public buildings, improving the roads (which are frightful in Greece even to-day), and bringing in water by a grand aqueduct. Water-works, poems, and temples, however, did not compensate the people for what they had suf- fered, and doubtless they welcomed the arrival of the sturdy Lacedaemonians and the " accursed " 242 THE STOR V OF GREECE. AlcmaconidjE more than they themselves were will- ing to confess. These mighty Athenian " nabobs " — the Alcmae- onida; — were both wealthy and wise ; for, wishing to clear themselves from their bad name by an act of piety, they undertook for a certain sum to rebuild the temple of Delphi, which had been burnt down ; and though the contract was that they should build it of common stone, they had the grace and genius — looking to the future — to face it with splendid snow- white marble. Of course, this pleased the priestess mightily : who, in our modern times, would not rather have a beautiful white marble church — spire, belfry, and all — than a common brick or a painted timber one ? And how many modern Alcmaeonidse there are — rich men covered, it may be, with guilt and crime — who pursue the same method of hiding up their evil doings and deceiving the public with a splendid show ! Thus these acute descendants of Alcmaeon bribed the priestess with their whited sepulchre, and pre- vailed upon her, whenever the Spartans sent to con suit the oracle, to make only this answer : *' AthcJis must be freed / " This meant, of course, freed from the Pisistratidae, after whose fine flesh-pots the Alcmaeonidse in their turn began to hanker. So the Spartans, finding that, whatever they asked, this was the only answer they got, made up their hardy minds to do as the god bade them. Forth, then, marched their armies, flutes playing and banners flying (we may suppose); and as fast as one army was defeated they sent an- CLEISTHENES. 243 other ; the second one being led by Cleomenes, one of the kings of Sparta. The children of Hippias fell into the hands of Cleomenes, and in order to recover them, Hippias agreed to leave Attica. Harmodius and Aristogiton became popular heroes, and were loved, honored, and remembered just as if they had liberated Athens from the tyranny. Herodotus meanwhile tells a funny story about how the Alcmseonidae came to be so rich. He goes on to say in his rambling, delightful way that the Alcmaeonidae, even in the days of yore, were a family of note in Athens, but from the time of Alcmaeon and Megacles they rose to special prominence. Alc- maeon, when Crcesus the Lydian sent men from Sardis to consult the Delphic oracle, gave aid gladly to his messengers, and assisted them to accomplish their task. Croesus, informed of Alcmaeon's kind- nesses by the Lydians who from time to time con- veyed his messages to the god, sent for him to Sar- dis, and when he arrived made him a present of as much gold as he should be able to carry at one time about his person. Poinding that this was ex- pected of him, Alcmaeon went to work and "got himself up " in wonderful style. He put on a loose tunic which bagged out hugely at the waist, drew on his feet the widest buskins that could be found, and thus equipped marched after his guide into the king's treasure-chamber. Here he fell tooth and nail upon a pile of gold-dust, filled his buskins till they almost burst around his legs, packed the bosom of his tunic brimful of shining gold, powdered his hair abundantly with it, and came forth from the 244 THE STORY OF GREECE. treasure-house hardly able to drag one leg after an- other, hardly looking like any thing human, with his mouth crammed full of gold-dust, and his size greatly increased by the costly load. On seeing him Croesus burst into a loud laugh, and not only let him have all he had taken, but loaded him with presents besides of fully equal value. Thus the house of the Alcmseonidae became very wealthy, and Alcnic'Eon kept a splendid stud of horses and won the prize at Olympia. Such was the great family who now returned triumphantly to Athens under the wing of the Spartan Cleomenes, after having been " accursed " and polluted from the time of Cylon. While these Alcmseonidae could not be called ex- actly busybodies or triflers, they were everlastingly meddling with the affairs of Athens and had their finger in every pie. So, when Hippias and his satel- lites had retired, and the old party struggles broke out afresh, one set, headed by Cleisthenes, the Alc- maionid, son of Megacles, the other led by Isagoras, began to strive and contend. Isagoras wanted to restore the old government of the aristocratic oli- garchy as it had been before Solon's time ; Cleis- thenes (son of that Agariste of Sicyon whose strange wedding story has been told, and the very man who had bribed the priestess of Delphi) affected the cause of the common people and pretended to be a great democrat. To accomplish one of his ends he abol- ished the ancient division of the people into four tribes, called the Ionic Tribes, because it made the common people reverence the nobles of their tribe CLEISTHENES. 245 more than he thought they should ; and instead of dividing them according to birth, he broke up the land into a large number of districts or parishes called Denies, and then organized ten new tribes by putting into a single tribe the inhabitants of several Denies at a distance from one another. Thus the people were scattered helter-skelter through one an- other, and their ancient local superstitions and cus- toms were reduced to naught. It was Cleisthenes' opinion that this arrangement would prevent the great nobles from raising parties to support them, and put an end to such destructive feuds and fac- tions as grew out of the divisions into Men of the Plain, Sea, and Mountain. You must know that in Solon's constitution the Council of Four Hundred was composed of one hun- dred members from each of the old Ionic Tribes. Cleisthenes changed all this and made a Council of Five Hundred, composed of fifty members from each of his ten new tribes. He, like Pisistratus, left Solon's division into classes according to property as it had been before, nor did he interfere with the privileges of the richer classes ; but when he made his division into Denies he very wisely included in them every man then living in Attica except slaves, no matter whether they were born of Attic parents or not. The ineties or aliens, who were tradespeople or settlers, received the right of Athenian citizen- ship, and the people at last began to feel as if they really constituted a part of the State. These clans still kept up their ancestral religious ceremonies and their clannish pride, though in a political sense they 246 THE STORY OF GREECE. no longer existed. The Demcs were now the " machine " through which all political action hence- forth took place. The policy of Cleisthenes was excessively far- reaching and was a great stride in advance of the Solonian. Thus, when he turned his attention to the Popular Assembly, he found that Solon had left serious defects in it ; for no measure could be in- troduced in the assembly that had not been sanc- tioned or prepared by the Committee of four hundred. This was very burdensome; for how in the world could four hundred men get together and talk over matters of business ? There would be ever- lasting gibble-gabble, as the Athenians were cele- brated at all times and in all places for their loquacity Five hundred men talking or quarrel- ling, or controverting one another, would be even worse, and an Athenian assembly would thus repeat the eternal cmv-cazv of crows, without ever coming to an end of their cawing or their contentions. Cleisthenes therefore bethought him of settling this matter by dividing this body into prytancis or committees, each committee being composed of men elected by one of the new tribes, so that no grandee or great nobleman could — as in some modern conven- tions — stuff a committee with his own henchmen or his own clansmen. The council and the assembly thus co-operated in a way which was soon to lead to admirable results. One important consequence flowing from the new tribal organization was that each of the ten tribes had to choose a Strate'gus or General — ten in all, — who one CLEISTHENES. 247 after the other were to hold command of the army, each for a day. One of the archons, called the Pole- marchus or War Archon, commanded the ten. These ten places proved " plums " indeed to the ambitious Athenians henceforth, and the Strategi even gradually gained control over the foreign affairs of Attica. At one time it had been the practice to try impor- tant cases before the archons or the Court of the Areopagus ; but these were now decided by a jury ot citizens, the assembly being divided into courts or juries for that purpose. Perhaps the most singular and striking of all the changes and innovations introduced by Cleisthenes was the custom called ostracism established by him. It was a species of " blackballing " somewhat like that in use at many fashionable clubs, by which the citizens might get rid of a man whom they thought likely to make himself tyrant or revolutionize the existing legislation. When once the council and the assem- bly had decided that the state was in danger from some over-ambitious or " high-flying " citizen, then the citizens were summoned to meet on a certain day, and to write each on a ticket, called an ostrakon, the name of any citizen whom they thought dangerous to the state. If the same name was written on six thousand tickets, out that unlucky wight had to go, exiled for ten years ; but he kept his property, and when the ten years had passed by, there were no ob- jections to his coming back and being reinstated in all his rights of citizenship. Our words, " ostracism," " ostracize," and the like, come from this ancient Athenian practice. 248 THE STORY OF GREECE. Athens had suffered so much from designing and dangerous men that another device was introduced about this time to prevent them from fomenting strife and raising parties in the city, as well as to give less powerful men an opportunity to rise. This device was the casting of lots ; for when the candi- dates for the archonship had given in their names, the people did not any longer vote for them, but cast lots instead. In this way an ambitious man might indeed put down his own name as a candidate; but voting being abolished, it would be impossible for him to collect " henchmen " and followers to vote him into office. The Strategi were never thus chosen by lot, probably for the reason that the lot might have fallen on an incapable, foolish, or worthless man. The Peloponnesus, it seemed, was now beginning to be too small for the ever-stirring and now swarm- ing Lacedaemonians, who, not content with overrun- ning their own peninsula, overflowed into Attica and began to meddle in a very lively way with Athenian affairs. In other words, the form of government now in vogue at Athens was virtually a democracy — a government by the people ; which was extremely distasteful to the king-loving and conservative Spar- tans. There was a strong anti-democratic party at Athens too, headed by Isagoras; and when these peo- ple saw that it was impossible to prevent the reforms of Cleisthenes and the progress of the democracy in any other way, they called in Cleomenes, King of Sparta, and made him believe that Cleisthenes was -^bout to make himself tyrant, and that he would be- CLEISTHENES. 249 come a fierce foe of the Peloponnesian Dorians, just as the other Cleisthenes, his grandfather, had been at Sicyon, What should this doughty Cleomenes do, therefore, — itching as his fingers were to get control over his rival Athens, — but summon the giddy Athe- nians to expel a second time the " accursed " clan of the Alcmseonidae, to which poor Cleisthenes be- longed ! Cleisthenes shook the dust of Athens (one of the dustiest places in the world !) off his feet and went into exile, while Master Cleomenes marched into the city with a small force and expelled no less than seven hundred families whom Isagoras had " black- balled," so to speak, or accused of favoring the de- mocracy. Then he tried to break up the Council of Five Hundred ; but the rash wretch had gone a little too far, for the people rose with a shout, over- powered him and his myrmidons, and drove them into the Acropolis. Here, penned up like pigs, they cowered a while, no doubt repenting of their rash- ness; but the generous-hearted Athenians allowed them to leave unhurt, only putting to death those who joined and helped them. Still, a foe forgiven is often a foe unshriven. King Cleomenes foamed with wrath and began to renew his efforts to make Isagoras tyrant, for he knew that then Athens would kneel to Sparta. So, summoning the Peloponnesian allies of his Dorians, he again in- vaded Attica, though without telling his precious allies what he intended to do. When they reached Eleusis, however, the allies discovered his intentions, and refused point-blank to go a step farther. So the army broke up. 250 THE STORY OF GREECE. Cleomenes had furthermore persuaded the Thebans and the Euboean Chalcidians to declare war on Athens ; consequently, when the Spartan army dis- banded at Eleusis, the Athenians had to turn on these enemies. They attacked and defeated the Thebans (who were waiting for the Chalcidians on the shore of the Euripus), and as soon as the battle was over crossed the Euripus and so completely routed the Chalcidians that the whole state of Chal- cis now lay at their mercy. They dispossessed the Chalcidians of their land and settled four thousand Athenian farmers upon it. This success of their foes and rivals naturally ren- dered the Spartans wroth in the extreme. It sud- denly dawned on them that they had been making great asses and idiots of themselves, for they now discovered that the priestess of Delphi had been bribed to make them expel Hippias. Nothing re- mained to them, therefore, but to endeavor to hum- ble Athens and restore the exiled Hippias, who, indefatigable as the Pisistratidae always were, hung about the outskirts of Hellas or danced up and down on the horizon, always, like a Greek Micawber, hoping for something new to turn up. Remembering how unfortunate they had once been before in not telling their allies plainly and frankly what their in- tentions were, they now summoned deputies from all parts of the Peloponnesus and tried to persuade them to join in restoring Hippias. It was on this occasion that the Corinthian deputy Sosicles told that strange and picturesque story of Action and Cyp- selus, which has already been narrated, and dissuade CLEISTHEiVES. 2<,\ ed the assembly, by the odious example of Perian- der, from helping to force a tyrant upon the Athe- nians. And moreover he told the Spartans in so many words that they, vjh.o professed to be on all occasions, in season and out of season, the enemies of tyrants, ought to be ashamed of themselves for trying to introduce them into a neighboring state. So it came to pass that the Athenians freed them- selves from the Lacedaemonians and gained brilliant successes over the Thebans and Chalcidians, who were in alliance with Sparta in her effort to subvert the liberties of Athens, and restore a hateful tyranny. Public spirit increased amazingly ; the common peo- ple began to see how powerful they had become, and to feel how important they were to the welfare of the land ; and from day to day grew the spirit of free discussion, of culture and enlightenment, and of opposition to arbitrary and capricious modes of gov- ernment. The time had now come indeed when Athens expected ever>' man to do his duty, and all must join in a " long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether " against the invading hosts of Persia. "^^<^J©-?i£!^K!SK>>^)v»- XXIII. AS RICH AS CRCESUS. We have reached now the most romantic and stirring part of tlie Story of Greece, the part that borders on the wonder-land of the Orient. Just over the yEgaean lay the mysterious land of the East, which our later fancies have peopled with giants and genii, enchanted castles, and tales of the Arabian Nights ; but, already in these ancient times, this marvellous land glowed with colors no less brilliant ; it abounded in strange and beautiful flowers, in great and mighty cities, in stately empires, in men and women famous for grace, beauty, and ambition ; and, over the whole, lay a golden haze of legend, like that which lies on a morning landscape, concealing much, magnifying or distorting much, yet making the entire region infinitely more interesting and lovely. The grand mountains, plains, and rivers of Asia Minor became the scene of events of world- wide importance ; the swarming populations of these unknown lands beyond the sea began to move and to struggle ; one great empire after another — Lydian, Medic, Persian — rose and fell ; and the enormous tide of immigration rolled down westward into the Greek seas, throwing the entire world of Greece into a tremor. AS RICH AS CRCESUS. 253 None of the ancient writers penetrated into tliis strange and far-away land except charming old Herodotus, who was the Marco Polo and th<: Sir John Maundeville of his times; though far moie ac- curate, so far as we know, than they. Herodotus ex- plored these regions of the Rising Sun, and returned from them laden with the spoils of legend and fact, spreading out his rich wares before us like the mer- chant in an Oriental bazaar, bidding us choose and take such as we like. In such a mass of jewelled and glittering stuff we shall find it hard indeed to choose ; gold and frankincense and myrrh are there ; silks and scimitars with blades of light ; ambergris and precious ointments; gorgeous rubbish and dainty souvenirs of long and distant travels. What shall we take? Ah, here we have it ! The beautiful stoiy of Croesus, perhaps the most beautiful that Herodotus ever wrote ; let us take it and see if we cannot, with this clue, penetrate the dim labyrinth of the East, acquaint ourselves with Eastern customs and habits, and get an insight into what the Greeks at least thought that marvellous lab}'rinth contained. Herodotus himself was a semi-Oriental, born at Hali- carnassus in Asia Minor, and his sympathies with these Eastern tales are abundant and poetic. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor encircled the extreme edge of the coast looking Greece-ward, and made no effort to conquer or penetrate far into the country. Thus, as time went on, they grew in peace and glory, untouched by the monarchs of the inland kingdoms of Phrygia and Lydia. Their lines lay in pleasant places ; they " kicked and grew fat " amid 254 THE STORY OF GREECE. verdant fields and many-templed cities, and at last they outran in growth and splendor all the cities of European Greece. The lonians had been particu- larly conspicuous in founding colonies along this fortunate coast. They had twelve independent cities, with a common religious festival called the Panioniiini, but they kept themselves, politically, as distinct from each other as they did from the Dorian and yEolian colonies, which hemmed them in on each side, and no city dared to assume the sovereignty or " hegemony " over t^^e Dthers, as Sparta did in the Peloponnesus. Thus it went on for a longtime ; these golden isles of Greece, these fortunate and affluent city-states of Ionian Asia Minor, lived like the Lotus-eaters steeped in luxury and in happy dreams, not having any ene- mies as yet to make them feel the evils of their disunion. About the year B.C. 720, however, a little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, rose and rose, and at last overspread the heavens : a new and powerful line of kings arose, as if by magic, from the darkness of the times in Lydia, and these kings looked with desire on this " happy land, far, far away," where dwelt the happy lonians, and where shone their splendid cities on the rim of the purple yEgaean. An evil war broke out ; these kings attacked the luxurious Ionic settlements one after another, and one after another they fell, till at last, in B.C. 550, King Croesus made himself master of them all. Now, Croesus was a singular being, most fortunately gifted in many respects, the richest man that ever AS RICH AS CRCESUS. 255 lived, if we can believe the legends, and yef so un- lucky that his story is full of profound pathos and instruction. The dialogue between him and Solon has shown you to what a pinnacle of prosperity he had attained ; how he had climbed onward and up- ward till, apparently, he had nothing more to desire except the approbation of the wisest man of his time. Croesus was the son of Alyattes, and succeeded his father at the age of thirty-five. Of the Greek cities, the mighty and prosperous Ephesus was the first he attacked. Afterwards, on one pretext or another, he made war, in turn, upon every Ionian and y^olian state, bringing forward, where he could, a substantial ground of complaint ; or, where such failed him, advancing some flimsy excuse. In this way he made himself master of all the Greek cities in Asia, and forced them to become his tributaries; after which he began to think of build- ing ships and attacking the islanders. Every thing had been got ready for the purpose when Bias, of Priene, or Pittacus th^ Mytilenean, put a stop to the project. The king had made inquiry of one of these persons, who had lately arrived at Sardis, his capital, if there were any news from Greece ; to which he an- swered: "Yes, Sire, the islanders are gathering 10,000 horse, designing an expedition against thee and against thy capital." Crcesus, thinking he spoke seriously, broke out : *'Ah, might the gods put such a thought into their minds as to attack the sons of the Lydians with cavalry.' " 256 THE STORY OF GREECE. " It seems, O King ! " rejoined the other, " that thou desirest earnestly to catch the islanders or> horseback on the mainland, — thou knowest well what would become of it. But what thinkest thou the islanders desire better tlian to catch //lee at sea and then revenge on thy Lydians the wrongs of their brethren on the mainland whom thou holdest in slavery ? " Croesus was charmed with the turn of the speech, and thinking there was reason in what he said, gave up his ship-building and concluded a league of amity with the lonians of the isles. Croesus afterwards, in the course of many years, brought under his sway nearly all the nations to the west of the river Halys. These were the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Paph- lagonians, Bithynians, Thracians, Carians, lonians, Dorians, Cohans, Pamphylians, and others. It was at this time, when all these conquests had added infinite distinction and felicity to the Lyd- ian empire, and Sardis was at the height of its pros- perity that all the sages of the ancient world, Solon included, went to see Croesus and became eye- witnesses of his stupendous good fortune. After Solon had gone away, however, a dreadful vengeance sent of God came upon Croesus to punish him, it is likely, for deeming himself the happiest of men. First, he had a dream in the night, which fore- shadowed him truly the evils that were about to befall him in the person of his son. For Croesus had two sons, one blasted by a natural defect, being deaf and dumb ; the other distinguished far above all his play- mates in every respect. The name of the bright AS RICH AS CRCESUS. 257 boy was Atys. It was this son concerning whom he dreamt a dream that he would die by the blow of an iron weapon. When he woke he considered ear- nestly with himself, and, greatly alarmed at his dream, instantly made his son take a wife ; and whereas in former years the youth had been wont to command the Lydian forces in the field, he now would not suffer him to accompany them. All the spears and javelins and weapons used in war he removed out of the male apartment, and laid them in heaps in the chambers of the women, fearing lest perhaps one of the weapons that hung against the wall might fall and strike him. Now it chanced that while he was making arrange- ments for the wedding, there came to Sardis a man under a misfortune, who had upon him a stain of blood. He was by race a Phrygian and belonged to the kin of the king. Presenting himself at the palace of Croesus, he prayed to be admitted to puri- fication according to the customs of the countr}-. Croesus granted his request and went through all the customary rites ; after which he asked the suppliant of his birth and country, addressing him as follows: "Who art thou, stranger, and from what part of Phrygia fleddest thou to take refuge at my hearth ? And whom, moreover, what man or what woman, hast thou slain? " "O King! ' replied the Phrygian, "I am the son of Gordias, son of Midas. My name is Adrastus. The man I unintentionally slew was my own brother. For this my father drove mc from the land, and I lost all. Then fled I here to thee." 258 THE STORY OF GREECE. "Thou art the offspring," Croesus rejoined, "of a house friendly to mine, and thou art come to friends. Thou shalt want for nothing so long as thou abidest in my dominions. Bear thy misfortune as easily as thou mayest ; so will it go best with thee." Adrastus was glad, and thenceforth abode in the palace of the king. It happened at this very time that there was in the Mysian Olympus a huge monster of a boar, which often went forth from this mountain country and wasted the cornfields of the Mysians. Many a time had the Mysians collected to hunt the beast, but instead of doing him any hurt, they always came off with some loss to themselves. At length they sent ambassadors to Croesus, who delivered their message to him in these words : " O King, a mighty monster of a boar has ap- peared in our parts and destroys the labors of our hands. We do our best to take him, but in vain. Now, therefore, we beseech thee to let thy son accompany us back with some chosen youths and hounds, that we may rid our country of the animal." Such was the tenor of their prayer. But Croesus bethought him of his dream, and Answered : " Say no more of my son going with you ; that inay not be in any wise. He is but just married, and is busy enough with that. I will grant you a picked band of Lydians and all my hunting array, and I will charge those whom I send to use all zeal in aiding you to rid your country of the brute." With this reply the Mysians were content ; but AS RICH AS CRCESUS. 259 the king's son, hearing what the prayer of the Mysians was, came suddenly in, and on the refusal of Croesus to let him go with them, thus addressed his father : " Formerly, my father, it was deemed the noblest and most suitable thing for me to frequent the wars and hunting-parties, and win myself glory in them ; but 7iow thou keepest me away from both, although thou hast never beheld in me either cow- ardice or lack of spirit. What face must I mean- while wear as I walk to the forum or return from it ? What must the citizens, what must my young bride think of me ? What sort of man will she suppose her husband to be ? Either, therefore, let me go to the chase of this boar, or give me a reason why it is best for me to do according to thy wishes." Then Croesus answered : " My son, it is not be- cause I have seen in thee cowardice or aught else that has displeased me that I keep thee back ; but because a vision which appeared to me in a dream as I slept warned me that thou wert doomed to die young, pierced by an iron weapon. It was this which first led me to hasten thy wedding, and now it hinders me from sending thee on this enterprise. Fain would I keep watch over thee, if by any means I may cheat fate of thee during my own lifetime. For thou art the one and only son that I possess ; the other, whose hearing is destroyed, I regard as if he were not." " Ah, father," returned the youth, " I blame thee not for keeping watch over me after a dream so ter- rible ; but, if thou mistakest, if thou dost not appre- hend the dream aright, 't is no blame for me to show 26o THE STORY OF GREECE. thee wherein thou errest. Now the dream, thou saidst thyself, foretold that I should die stricken by an iron weapon. But — what hands has a boar to strike with ? What iron weapon does he wield ? Yet this is what thou fearest for 7ne ! Had the dream said that I should be pierced by a tusk, then thou hadst done well to keep me away ; but it said a weapon. Now here we do not combal men, but a wild animal. I pray thee, therefore, let me go with them." " There thou hast me, my son," said Croesus, " tliy interpretation is better than mine. I yield to it, and change my mind, and consent to let thee go." Then the king sent for Adrastus the Phrygian, and said to him : " Adrastus, when thou wert smit- ten with the rod of affliction — no reproach, my friend — I purified thee, and have taken thee to live in my palace, and have been at every charge. Now, there- fore, it behooves thee to requite the good offices which thou hast received at my hands by consenting to go with my son on this hunting-party, and to watch over him, if perchance you should be attacked on the road by some band of daring robbers. Even apart from this, it were right for thee to go where thou mayest make thyself famous by noble deeds. They are the heritage of thy family, and thou too art so stalwart and strong." Adrastus answered : " Except for thy request, O king, I would rather have kept away from this hunt, for methinks it ill beseems a man under a misfortune such as mine to consort with his happier compeers, and besides, I have no heart to it. On many grounds AS RICH AS CRCESUS. 261 I had stayed behind, but as thou urgest it, and I am bound to pleasure thee (for truly it docs behoove me to requite thy good offices), I am content to do as thou wishest. For thy son whom thou givest into my charge, be sure thou shalt receive him back safe and sound, so far as depends on a guardian's care- fulness." Thus assured, Croesus let them depart, accompa- nied by a band of picked youths, and well provided with hunting-dogs. When they reached Olympus, they scattered in quest of the animal ; he was soon found ; and the hunters, drawing round him in a circle, hurled their weapons at him. Then the stranger — the man who had been purified of blood, whose name was Adrastus — he, also, hurled his spear at the boar, but missed his aim, and — struck Atys ! Thus was the son of Croesus slain by the point of an iron weapon, and the warning of the vision was fulfilled. Then one ran to Sardis to bear the tidings to the king, and he came and informed him of the combat and of the fate that had befallen his son. If it was a heavy blow to the father to learn that his child was dead, it grieved him yet more to think that the very man whom he himself had once purified had done the deed. Presently the Lydians arrived, bearing the body of the youth, and behind them followed the man-slayer. He took his stand in front of the corse, and, stretch- ing forth his hands to Croesus, delivered himself into his power with earnest entreaties that he would sac- rifice him upon the body of his son, saying that his burthen was greater than he could bear; now that 262 THE STORY OF GREECE. he had added to his former crime a second, and had brought ruin on the man that had purified him, he could not bear to Hve. Then Croesus, when he heard these words, was moved with pity towards Adrastus, notwithstanding the bitterness of his own grief ; and so he said : " Enough, my friend ; I have all the revenge that I require, since thou pronouncest sentence of death on thyself. But in truth, it is not thou that hast injured me, except so far as thou hast unwittingly dealt the blow. Some god is the author of my misfortune, and I was forewarned of it a long time ago." Croesus after this buried the body of his son with such honors as befitted the occasion. Adrastus, re- garding himself as the most unfortunate wretch that had ever lived, could not endure to live any longer, but slew himself on the tomb of the beautiful and hapless youth. Croesus, bereft of his darling son, abandoned himself for two years to his sorrow. At the end of this time strange and terrible news came : Cyrus, son of Cambyses, King of Persia, had destroyed the neighboring kingdom of Astyages the Mede, and was daily becoming more and more powerful and insolent, menacing even Croesus. Croesus therefore sent to many oracles asking what he should do, and at last got from Delphi two re- sponses — that his kingdom should last " till a mule became monarch of Media," and that he should " destroy a mighty empire." He loaded Delphi and other shrines with gifts of inestimable value — couches coated with gold and silver, golden goblets, and vestments and robes of purple, ingots, bowls of AS RICH AS CRCESUS. 263 massive gold and silver, silver casks, lustral vases, statues of gold, the necklace and girdles of his wife, spear and shield of solid gold, and so on ; following up his gifts by invading Cappadocia and pitting him- self against the victorious Cyrus, for did not the oracle mean that his " kingdom should last forever " ? How, indeed, could a "mule be monarch of Media"? But CrcEsus was defeated. Unhappily he dis- banded his army, after retreating to Sardis, never dreaming that Cyrus would follow him thither ; and while he was there a prodigy occurred : the suburbs of Sardis (they say) suddenly swarmed with snakes, on the appearance of which the horses left feeding in the pasture-grounds and flocked to the suburbs to eat them ! What did this portend ? Cyrus advanced with all haste against the capital of Croesus, and the two armies met in the plain before the city. As soon as the horses on Crcesus* side smelt the camels of the army of Cyrus, they ran away, — for horses cannot endure the smell or the sight of a camel, — and Croesus' fond hopes of defeating the Persians vanished away; for after great slaughter on both sides, the Lydians turned and fled within the walls of Sardis ; and, though Croesus gathered all the allies he could, sent to Lacedaemon, and did what was in his power, his city was doomed : the Persians besieged and stormed it. And then a wonderful thing happened to Croesus himself. He had a deaf-and-dumb son, as you know, whom he had done ever>' thing in the world to restore. When the town was taken, one of the Persians was just about to take Crcesus and kill him, not knowing who 264 THE STORY OF GREECE. he was. Crccsus saw the man coming, but his woe was so great that he did not care what happened to him, not minding whether or no he died beneath the stroke. Then this son of his, who was speechless, beholding the Persian as he was rushing towards Croesus, in the agony of his fear and grief, burst into speech, and cried : " Maji, do not kill Croesus ! " This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word in his life, but afterwards he retained the power of speech as long as he lived. Thus did Croesus fall from his high estate, like an Eastern Lucifer, and thus did he fulfil the oracle which had said that he should destroy a mighty em- pire — by destroying his own. Then the Persians who had made Croesus a pris- oner brought him to Cyrus ; and a vast pile was raised, whereon Crcesus with fourteen of the most eminent of the Lydians was placed to be burnt alive. Croesus was already on the pile when it entered his mind, in the depth of his woe, that there was a di- vine warning in the words which had come to him from the lips of Solon : " No one while he lives is happy ; he must %v ait for the end. When this thought smote him he fetched a heavy sigh, and breaking his deep silence, groaned out aloud, uttering three times : " Soloji ! Solon ! Solon I " Cyrus caught the sounds and bade the interpreters inquire of Croesus who it was he called on. They drew near and asked him, but he held his peace, and for a long time made no answer to their question- ings, until at length, forced to say something, he ex- claimed : '' One I would give much to sec converse with every monarch." 266 THE STORY OF GREECE. Not knowing what he meant by this reply, the in- terpreters begged him to explain himself ; and as they pressed for an answer and grew to be trouble- some, he told them how, a long time before, Solon, an Athenian, had come and seen all his splendor, and had made light of it ; and how, whatever he had said to him, had fallen out exactly as he fore- showed, although it was nothing that especially con- cerned Jiini, but applied to all men alike, and most to those who seemed to themselves " happy." Meanwhile, as he thus spoke, the pile was lighted, and the outer portion began to blaze. Then Cyrus, hearing from the interpreters what Croesus had said, relented, bethinking himself that he too was a man, and that it was a fellow-man, and one who had once been as blessed by fortune as himself, that he was burning alive ; -afraid, moreover, of a retribution, and full of the thought that whatever is human is insecure. So he bade them quench the blazing fire as quickly as they could, and take down Croesus and the other Lydians, which they tried to do, but the flames could not be mastered. But suddenly, with- out a breath of wind, dark clouds gathered and a storm burst out over their heads with rain of such violence that the flames were extinguished and Croesus was saved ! * Thus to be "as rich as Croesus," you see, is not al- ways to be happy or to be fortunate. Croesus' enor- mous wealth flowed, it is said, in golden streams from the river Pactolus, which ran sands of gold, and from the mines of gold which existed in the neigh- * Rawlinson's " Herodotus." AS RICH AS CRCESUS. 267 boring mountains. Many nations were subject to him ; he confiscated the estates of his political oppo- nents ; and he husbanded the national revenues — like Frederick the Great — left him by his father dur- ing a long period of peace which preceded his own accession. Within a few weeks, however, the pros- perous and puissant monarch, master of thirteen nations, ruler over untold treasures, lord of all Asia from the Halys to the yEgaean Sea, was a captive and a beggar, the miserable dependant upon the will of the despot whose anger he had provoked. It is a wonderful romance wonderfully told, but only an outline of it has been given here. Such was the great and unhappy prince who first brought East and West into conflict, and gave rise ultimately to the long-lasting wars that raged between Greece and Persia. XXIV. THE MULE THAT BECAME MONARCH OF MEDIA. Now who was this " mule that became monarch of Media," overthrowing the hapless Croesus ? Croe- sus could not imagine what such a ridiculous and in- credible oracle could mean ; so he went on his way joyfully, taking no heed of men or things. But — Cyrus was that mule ! In other words, the parents of Cyrus were of different races and of different condi- tions — his mother a Median princess, daughter of King Astyages, and his father a Persian and a sub- ject who, though so far beneath her in all respects, married his royal mistress. Thus was the oracle fumiled. Mysterious and inscrutable are the ways of Provi- dence, but in no story are its ways more strikingly revealed than in the story of Cyrus, who, as a king intimately connected in many ways with Greek his- tory, deserves a few words at our hands. Like the greedy Alcmaeon, we must go again into the treasury of our king — Herodotus — and return thence laden with as much golden spoil as we can well carry. It may be that Herodotus minded to tell us of Cyrus in a marvellous fable, which, fabulous though it be, yet contains truth mixed with its poetry. The old Halicarnassian is passionately addicted to THE MONARCH OF MEDIA. 269 dreams; pretty nearly all his personages have odd or amazing dreams when any thing memorable is about to happen ; there is a prologue in heaven to all his great events, changes of dynasties, defeats, or eleva- tions to the throne. So in the case of Cyrus. The Medes — a great Eastern nation under King Cyaxares — took Nineveh (Jonah's city), and con- quered all Assyria except the district of Babylonia. When Cyaxares died he was succeeded by his son Astyages. Now Astyagcs had a daughter who was named Mandane, concerning whom he had a droll dream ; for he dreamt that from her flowed forth such a stream of water that it filled not only his cap- ital but the whole of Asia ! This dream he laid be- fore such of the Magi, or priestly soothsayers, as had the gift of interpreting dreams ; and they ex- pounded its meaning to him in full, whereat he was seized with a monstrous panic. On this account, when his daughter was of marriageable age, he would not give her in marriage to any of the Medes who were of suitable rank, lest the dream should be ac- complished, but he married her to a Persian — named Cambyses — of good family and quiet temper, whom he looked on as much inferior to a Mede of even middle condition. Shortly after Cambyses took his bride home, Astyages saw another vision. This time he fancied that a vine grew out of his daughter and over- .shadowed the whole of Asia. Instead of rejoicing at this as a happy grandfather-to-be should, he again summoned his interpreters in solemn conclave, who sagaciously interpreted the dream to mean that 270 THE STORY OF GREECE. Mandane's expected offspring should rule over Asia instead of Grandfather Astyages. Now the old man became intensely anxious and jealous, and as soon as Cyrus was born he sent for Harpagus, a man of his own house and the most faithful of the Medes, to whom he was wont to entrust all his affairs, and addressed him thus : " Harpagus, I beseech thee not to neglect the busi- ness with which I am about to entrust thee ; neither betray thou the interests of thy lord for others' sake, lest thou bring destruction on thine own head at some future time. Take the child born of Man- dane, my daughter ; carry him with thee to thy home and slay him there ; then bury him as thou wilt." " O King ! " replied the other, " never in time past did Harpagus disoblige thee in any thing, and be sure that through all future time he will be careful in nothing to ofTend. If, therefore, it be thy will that this thing be done, it is for me to serve thee with all diligence." When Harpagus had thus answered, the child was given into his hands, clothed in the garb of death, and he hastened weeping to his home. There on his arrival he found his wife, to whom he told all that Astyages had said. " What then," said she, " is it in thy heart to do ? " " Not what Astyages requires," he answered : " No ! he may be madder and more frantic than he is now, but I will not be the man to work his will, or lend a helping hand to such a murder as this. Many things forbid my slaying him. In the first place the boy is my own kith and kin, and next, Astyages is old and THE MONARCH OF MEDIA. 2/1 has no son. If then, when he dies, the crown should go to his daughter — that daughter whose child he now wishes to slay by my hand — what remains for me but danger of the fearfullest kind ? For my own safety, indeed, the child must die, but some one be- longing to Astyages must take his life, not I or mine." So saying, he sent off to fetch a certain Mitra- dates, one of the herdsmen of Astyages, whose pasturages he knew to be fittest for his purpose, lying as they did among mountains infested with wild beasts. This man was married to one of the king's female slav^es named Spaco. The mountains on the skirts of which his cattle grazed lie to the north of Ecbatana, towards the Black Sea. On the arrival of the herdsman, who came at the hasty sum- mon, Harpagus said to him : " Astyages requires thee to take this child and expose him in the wildest part of the hills, where he will be sure to die speedily. And he bade me tell thee that if thou dost not kill the boy, but allowest him in any way to escape, he will put thee to the most painful of deaths. I myself am appointed to see that the child is exposed." The herdsman on hearing this took the child in his arms, and went back the way he had come, till he reached the cattle-folds. There, providentially, his wife, who had been expecting daily to be ill, had just been delivered of a child during the absence of her husband. She, who had been very much alarmed at Harpagus' message to her husband, seeing him return home so unexpectedly, begged to know why Harpa- gus had sent for him in such a hurry. 272 THE STORY OF GREECE. " Wife," said he, " when I got to the town I saw and heard such things as would to heaven had never happened to our masters. Every one was weeping in Harpagus' house. It quite frightened me, but I went in. The moment I stepped inside, what should I see but a habc lying on the floor panting and whim- pering, and all covered with gold, and swaddled in clothes of such beautiful colors ! Harpagus observed me, and directly ordered me to take the child in my arms and carry him off, and what was I to do with him, think you ? Why, lay him in the mountains where the wild beasts are most plentiful ! And he told me that it was the king himself that ordered it to be done, and he threatened awfully if I failed. So I took the child up in my arms, and carried him along. I thought it might be the son of one of the household slaves. I didwowditx, certainly, to see the gold and the beautiful baby-clothes, and I could not think why there was such a weeping in Harpagus' house. Well, very soon, as I came along, I got at the truth. They sent a servant with me to show me the way out of the town, and to leave the baby in my hands ; and he told me that the child's mother is the king's daughter Mandanc, and his father Cam- byses the son of Cyrus, and that the king orders him to be killed ; and look — here 's the child ! " With this the herdsman uncovered the infant and showed him to his wife, who, when she saw him and observed how fine a child he was, and how beautiful, burst into tears, and clinging to the knees of her husband besought him for heaven's sake not to ex- pose the infant ; to which he answered that it was THE MONARCH OF MEDIA. 2/3 not possible for him to do otherwise, as Harpagus would be sure to send person? to see and report to him, and he was to suffer a most cruel death if he disobeyed. Failing thus in her first attempt to per- suade her husband, the woman spoke a second time, saying : " If then there is no persuading thee, and a child must needs be scon exposed on the moun- tains, at least do thus: The child of which I have just been delivered is still-born ; take it and lay it on the hills, and let us bring up as our own the child of the daughter of Astyages. So shalt thou not be charged with unfaithfulness to thy lord, nor shall we have managed badly for ourselves. Our dead babe will have a royal funeral, and this living child will not be deprived of life." It seemed to the herdsman that this advice was the best under the circumstances. He therefore followed it without loss of time. The child which he had in- tended to put to death he gave over to his wife, and his own dead child he put in the cradle wherein he had carried the other, clothing it first in all the other's costly attire ; and taking it in his arms he laid it in the wildest place of all the mountain-range. When the child had been three days exposed, leaving one of his cattle-dogs to watch the body, he started off for the city, and going straight to Harpagus' house, declared himself ready to show the corpse of the child. Harpagus sent certain of his body-guard, on whom he had the firmest reliance, to view the body for him, and, satisfied with their seeing it, gave orders for the funeral. Thus was the herdsman's child buried, and the 274 THE STORY OF GREECE. other child, who was afterward known by the name of Cyrus the Great, was taken by the herdsman's wife and brought up under a different name. When the boy was in his tenth year an accident caused it to be discovered who he was. He was at play one day in the village where the folds of the cattle where, along with the boys of his own age, in the street. The other boys who were playing with him chose the cowherd's son, as he was called, to be their king. He then proceeded to order them about, setting some to building houses, making others play guards, appointing one to be the " king's eye," another to bear messages, and so on. All had something or other to do. Among the boys there was one, the son of Artembares, a Mede of distinc- tion, who refused to do what Cyrus had set him. Cyrus told the other boys to take him into custody, and when his orders were obeyed he flogged him severely with a whip. The son of Artembares, as soon as he was set free, full of rage at treatment so little befitting his rank, ran home to the city and complained bitterly to his father of what had been done to him by Cyrus. He did not of course say " Cyrus," by which name the boy was not yet known, but called him the son of the king's cowherd. Artembares, in the heat of his passion, went to Astyages accompanied by his son and made complaint of the gross injury which had been done him. Pointing to the boy's shoulders, he exclaimed : " Thus, O King, has thy slave, the son of a cowherd, heaped insult upon us! " At this sight and these words, Astyages, wishing to THE MONARCH OF MEDIA, 2/5 avenge the son of Artembares for his father's sake, sent for the cowherd and his boy. When they came together into his presence, fixing his eyes on Cyrus, Astyages said : '* Hast thou then, the son of so mean a fellow as tJiat, dared to behave thus rudely to the son of yonder noble, one of the first in my court ? " " My lord," replied the boy, " I only treated him as he deserved. I was chosen king in play by the boys of our village, because they thought me the best for it. He himself was one of the boys who chose me. All the others did according to my orders; but here- fused and made light of them, until at last he got his due reward. If for this I deserve to suffer punish- ment, here I am ready to submit to it ! " While the boy was yet speaking, Astyages was struck with a suspicion who he was. He thought he saw something in the character of his face like his own, and there was a nobleness about the answer he had made ; besides which his age seemed to tally with the time when his grandchild was exposed. Astonished at all this, Astyages could not speak for a while. At last, recovering himself with difificulty, and wishing to get rid of Artembares, that he might examine the herdsman alone, he said to the former: " I promise thee, Artembares, so to settle this busi- ness that neither thou nor thy son shall have any cause to complain." Artembares retired from his presence, and the at- tendants, at the bidding of the king, led Cyrus into an inner apartment. Astyages then, being left alone with the herdsman, inquired of him where he had 2/6 THE STORY OF GREECE. got the boy, and who had given him to him ; to which he made answer that the kid was his own child, begotten by himself, and that the mother who bore him was still alive, and lived with him in his house. Astyages remarked that he was very ill-advised to get himself into such great trouble, and at the same time signed to his body-guard to lay hold of him. Then the herdsman, as they were dragging him to the rack, began at the beginning and told the whole story exactly as it happened, without concealing any thing, ending with prayers and entreaties that the king would grant him forgiveness. Astyages, having got the truth of the matter from the herdsman, was very little concerned about him, but with Harpagus he was exceeding wroth. The guards were bidden to summon him into his pres- ence, and on his appearance Astyages asked him: " By what death was it, Harpagus, that thou slowest the child of my daughter whom I gave into thy hands ? " Harpagus, seeing the cowherd in the room, did not betake himself to lies, but replied as follows : " Sire, when thou gavest the child into my hands, I instantly considered with myself how I could con- trive to execute thy wishes and yet, while guiltless of any unfaithfulness toward thee, avoid imbruing my hands in blood which was in truth thy daughter's and thine own. And this is how I contrived it: I sent for this cowherd and gave the child over to him, telling him that by the king's orders it was to be put to death. And in this I told no lie, for thou hadst so commanded. Moreover, when I gave him the THE MONARCH OF MEDIA. 2/7 child I enjoined him to lay it somewhere in the dwils of the mountains, and to stay near and watch till it was dead ; and I threatened him with all manner of punishment if he failed. Afterward when he had done according to all that I commanded him, and the child had died, I sent some of the most trust- worthy of my eunuchs, who viewed the body for me, and then I had the child buried. This, Sire, is the simple truth, and this is the death by which the child died." Thus Harpagus told the whole story in a plain, straightforward way ; upon which Astyages, letting no sign escape him of the anger that he felt, began by repeating to him all that he had just heard from the cowherd, and then concluded with saying : " So the boy is alive, and it is best as it is. For the child's fate was a great sorrow to me, and the re- proaches of my daughter cut me to the heart. Truly', fortune has played me a good turn in this. Go home, then, and send thy son to be with the new- comer, and to-night, as I mean to sacrifice thank- offerings for the child's safety to the gods to whom such honor is due, I look to have thee a guest at the banquet." Harpagus, on hearing this, made obeisance and went home rejoicing to find that his disobedience had turned out so fortunately, and that instead of being punished, he was invited to a banquet given in honor of the happy occasion. The moment he reached home he called for his son, a youth of about thirteen, the only child of his parents, and bade him go to the palace and do whatever Astyages should 278 THE STORY OF GREECE. direct. Then, in the gladness of his heart, he went to his wife and told her all that had happened. Astyages, meanwhile, took the son of Harpagus and slew him, after which he cut him in pieces, and roasted some portions before the fire and boiled others ; and when all were duly prepared, he kept them ready for use. The hour for the banquet ar- rived, and Harpagus appeared, decked in festal array, and with him the other guests ; and all sat down to the feast. Astyages and the rest of the guests had joints of meat served up to them ; but on the table of Harpagus nothing was placed except the flesh of his own son. This was all put before him except the hands and feet and head, which were laid by themselves in a covered basket. When Har- pagus seemed to have eaten his fill, Astyages called out to him to know how he had enjoyed his repast. On his reply that he had enjoyed it excessively, they whose business it was brought him the basket, in which were the hands, feet, and head of his son, and bade him open it and take out what he pleased. Har- pagus accordingly uncovered the basket and saw with- in it — the remains of his son ! The sight, however, did not unnerve him or rob him of his self-possession. Being asked by Astyages whether he knew what beast's flesh it was that he had been eating, he an- swered that he knew very well, and that whatever the king did was agreeable. After this reply, he took with him such morsels of the flesh as were un- eaten, and went home, intending probably to collect the remains and bury them. Such was the mode in which Astyages punished THE MONARCH OF MEDIA. 279 Harpagus. Afterward, proceeding to consider what he should do with Cyrus, his grandchild, he sent for the Magi, who formerly interpreted his dream in the way which alarmed him so much, and asked them how they had expounded it. They answered with- out var)-nng from what they had said before, that the boy must needs be a king if he grew up, and did not die too soon. Then Astyagcs addressed them thus : " The boy has escaped, and lives ; he has been brought up in the country, and the lads of the village where he lives have made him their king. All that kings commonly do he has done. He has had his guards, and his door-keepers, and his messengers, and all the usual officers. Tell me, then, to what, think you, does all this tend ? " The Magi answered : *' If the boy survives and has ruled as a king, without any craft or contriv- ance, in that case we bid thee cheer up and feel no more alarm on his account. He will not reign a second time. For we have found even oracles sometimes fulfilled in an unimportant way ; and dreams still oftener have wondrously mean accom- plishments." " It is what I myself most incline to think," Asty- ages rejoined ; " the boy having been already king, the dream is out, and I have nothing more to fear from him. Nevertheless, take good heed and coun- sel me the best you can for the safety of my house and for your own interests." " Truly," said the Magi in reply, " it very much concerns our interests that thy kingdom be firmly established ; for if it went to this boy, it would pass 280 THE STORY OF GREECE. into foreign hands, since he is a Persian ; and then we Medes should lose our freedom, and be quite de- spised by the Persians, as being foreigners. But so long as thou, our fellow-countryman, art on the throne, all manner of honors are ours, and we are even not without some share in the government. Much reason, therefore, have we to forecast well for thee and for thy sovereignty. If, then, we saw any cause for present fear, be sure we would not keep it back from thee. As for the boy, our advice is that thou send him away to Persia, to his father and mother." Astyages heard their answer with pleasure, and calling Cyrus into his presence, he said to him : " My child, I was led to do thee a wrong by a dream which has come to nothing ; from that wrong thou wert saved by thy own good fortune. Go now with a light heart to Persia ; I will furnish thy escort. Go, and when thou gettest to thy journey's end, thou wilt behold thy father and thy mother, quite other people from Mitradates, the cowherd, and his wife." With these words Astyages dismissed his grand- child. On his arrival at the house of Cambyses, the boy-king was received by his parents, who, when they learnt who he was, embraced him heartily, ha\^- ing always been convinced that he had died almost as soon as he was born. So they asked him by what means he had chanced to escape ; and he told them how that till lately he had known nothing at all about the matter, but had been mistaken — oh ! so widely ! — and how he had learnt his history by the THE MONARCH OF MEDIA. 28 1 way as he came from Media. And as he continually spoke of Cyno- — Cyno, his foster-mother — his parents caught at the word and named him Cyrus, as if he had been providentially preserved by a dog {Cyno means bitch). '^ Afterwards, when Cyrus grew to manhood and be- came known as the bravest and most popular of his compeers, he revolted from Astyages, and in this he was assisted by Harpagus, who burnt with a desire to revenge the death of his son on the tyrant. Cyrus and Harpagus defeated and took prisoner the hoaiy Astyages after he had reigned for thirty-five years over the Medes, but Cyrus kept his grandfather with him without doing him any harm. The overthrow of Croesus led Cyrus to become master of the whole of that part of Southwestern Asia which projects into the Black and the Mediterranean Sea and into the Persian Gulf (li.C. 559). So Astyages' dream came true: the stream filled the whole of " Asia," and the vine overshadowed the heavens. * Adapted from Rawlinson's " Herodotus." ^'^^'^^^^^'^ XXV. "REMEMBER THE ATHENIANS." Naturally, when Croesus succumbed to Cyrus, the whole of Lydia submitted with him, and with it the Ionic coast-cities — those gay and brilliant towns — offered to submit to the conqueror if Cyrus would continue the privileges which the Greek-loving Croesus had granted them. Cyrus refused ; and the cities had now to decide whether they would submit to the Persians on their own terms, or fight for their lives and liberties. They determined to fight — like true and gallant men — and sent to Sparta imploring help. The selfish Lacedaemonians gave them none. It was now too late to recede, so these bright Ionian cities, after resisting as long as they could, sank one after another under the heavy yoke of Harpagus, who was at this time the right-hand man and general of Cyrus. The Persians were very different foes from the soft and effeminate Lydians. They were an inventive and warlike people, abounding in contrivances of all sorts for besieging and reducing cities, gaining victories, and crushing their enemies. They had wonderful archers and besieging machines ; their strategy was far-seeing and alert ; they surrounded the hapless Ionian towns with trenches so that nobody might REMEMBER THE ATHENIANS. 283 get out, built up mounds against the walls or under- mined these walls at their foundations. The Lydians, it is said, had spared holy places ; but the Persians, like the armies of Mohammed in Christian times, were believers in one God and hated the temples and holy places of the idolaters who worshipped many. Hence, in their wars with Hella;^, they reduced the Greeks to the last degree of exasperation by the sacrilegious burning and destruction of the dwelling- places of their gods. Unable to make headway against the overwhelming odds, many of the lonians sailed away from their lovely and once happy shores, seeking retreats in Thrace, where certain citizens of Teos founded the city of Abdera (afterwards the birthplace of Democritus, Protagoras, Anaxarchus, and other famous men) ; the Phocaeans sailed away and founded Elea in the south of Italy (the birthplace of the celebrated philosophers Parmenides and Zeno, founders of the " Eleatic " School of Philosophy) ; and so on. The subjugated Ionian cities were not treated with violence or cruelty by the victorious Persians ; but as Greeks, the most liberty-loving and independent of all people, the thought rankled in their hearts that they should be subject to any\ioAy. Harpagus, caring little for their ranklings or their wranglings, swiftly overran the whole coast of Asia Minor, caus- ing even the islands of Chios and Lesbos to submit, though at this time (B.C. 540) the Persians had no fleet. The Bible-books of Isaiah and Jeremiah tell us how, about this time, Cyrus took Babylon, the most wondrous of ancient Oriental cities, for it 284 THE STORY OF GREECE. was twelve miles square; it had burnt-brick walls two hundred cubits high and fifty thick ; two hundred and fifty towers encircled the city, and sixty enor- mous bronze gates let the people out and in. The eight-storied temple of Bel rose to a gigantic height, having a winding staircase outside and a golden statue of Bel in the uppermost story, while the Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, laid out in open terraces which were raised above one another on arches, were the wonder and the glory of the East. At this time too Ezra tells us that the Jews of the captivity, who had hung their harps on the willows and sat down by the waters of Babylon to weep, were allowed to return to Jerusalem, On the death of Cyrus in B.C. 525, Phoenicia submitted to his son Cambyses ; so that the Persians, though no sailors themselves, could now compel the two greatest sailor-peoples of antiquity — the lonians and the Phoenicians — to supply them with a fleet. The adventures of the crazy Cambyses in his con- quest of Egypt and Cyprus are too long to be related here, though they are marvellously interesting, and give Herodotus occasion to unfold his extraordinary story of the ancient and mysterious land of the Nile, of the labyrinth and pyramids of Egypt, and the customs and habits of the eccentric Egyptians. After Cambyses had gone the way of all flesh, an impostor was set up as king of Persia, who pretended that he was Smerdis, the younger son of Cyrus, a prince who had really been put to death by his brother Cambyses. The false Smerdis had had his ears cut off, and from this fact he was identified and REMEMBER THE ATHENIANS. 285 the imposture discovered by one of his wives, who had been bidden to feel of his face and see whether or not the ears were there. This she did at night when he was asleep, and lo ! the ears were gone ; whereupon certain conspirators, headed by Darius, a kinsman of Cyrus, rushed upon the scamp and slew him. There is a fantastic tale hanging about the acces- sion of Darius to the throne of Persia, interesting to tell, because — whether true or false — it reveals the chances and mischances of Eastern life, how kings and sultans were sometimes made, and how unex- pectedly fortune often turned in unforeseen directions while men were seemingly asleep. It seems then that when the earless Smerdis was overthrown, the seven conspirators — Otanes, Mega- byzus, Darius, Gobryas, Aspathines, Intaphernes, and Aspathines Hydarnes — met together and consulted about the form of government which they should set up. One was in favor of a democracy, another favored an oligarchy, a third a monarchy. The third opinion — that the government should be a monarchy — prevailed, and, to settle the matter, they resolved that they would ride out together early in the morn- ing into the outskirts of the city, and that he whose steed first neighed, after the sun was up, should have the kingdom. Now Darius had a groom, a sharp-witted knave, called CEbares. After the meeting had broken up, Darius sent for him, and said : " Q^bares, this is the way in which the king is to be chosen : we are to mount our horses, and the man whose horse first 286 THE STORY OF GREECE. neighs after the sun is up is to have the kingdom. Now, if you have any sense, contrive a \Ad.\\ by which the prize may fall to us, and not go to another." " Truly, master," answered QEbares, " if it depends on tins whether thou shalt be king or no, set thine heart at ease and fear nothing ; I have a plan which will work like a charm." " If that is really so," said Darius, " make haste and get it ready. The matter cannot be delayed, for the trial is to be to-morrow." So CEbares, when he heard this, did as follows : when night came, he took one of the mares, the chief favorite of the horse which Darius rode, and tethering it in the suburb, brought his master's horse to the place ; then, after leading him round and round the mare several times, nearer and nearer each time, he ended by letting them come together. And now when morning broke, the Persians, ac- cording to agreement, met together on horseback, and rode out to the suburb. As they went along they neared the spot where the mare was tethered the night before, whereupon the horse of Darius sprang forward and neighed ! just at the same time, though the sky was clear and bright, there was a flash of lightning, followed by a thunder-clap. It seemed as if the heavens conspired with Darius, and hereby inaugurated him king ; so the other nobles leaped with one accord from their steeds, and bowed down before him, and owned him for their king. Thus was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, appointed King of Persia, and, except Arabia, all Southwestern Asia was subject to him ; and in gratitude to the REMEMBER THE ATHENIANS. 287 circumstances by which he became king, he is said to have carved an inscription on a rock, which read as follows : Darius, son of Hystaspes, by aid of his good horse and of his good groom CE bares, got himself the king- dom of the Persians. Darius had no end of sense — he was an extremely sagacious ruler ; so much so that, finding many of the provinces of his huge empire in revolt, he went to work at once to establish a strong centralized gov- ernment. To this end he divided it into twenty provinces called Satrapies, and, like William the Con- queror in Domesday Book, had all the land in the empire measured, that he might fix the tax which each satrapy was to pay yearly. Susa in Media (as we read in the Book of Esther) became his capital, and from this city radiated roads to all parts of the empire, like the radiating threads of a spider's web. He established couriers to carry messages swiftly, coined money called Varies after himself (as we speak of Napoleons), which circulated everywhere, and governed his mighty empire from India to the isles of Greece after one system. He kept his satraps or Persian governors in all the larger provinces, often allowed the native princes of conquered provinces to rule over them under him (as the English do in India to-day), and kept the Ionian cities in subjection by placing over them a tyrant who was in his own pay. Joshua and Zerubbabel governed Judaea in this way under the satrap of Syria The Persians loved to call Darius a huckster, Cambyses a master, and Cyrus a father, nicknaming each according to his 265 THE STORY OF GREECE. personal characteristics, for Darius contrived by hook or by crook to get about eighteen million dollars of tribute and annual revenue out of the Persians. Though master of so stupendous a stretch of country, Darius was not satisfied. Like Alexander, he sighed for more worlds to conquer. So, when he had set his government in order, he made an expedi- tion against the Scythians in Europe, north of the Danube (B.C. 510). In this expedition he was ac- companied by six hundred Ionian ships, which he made the Greek tyrants contribute towards the ex- penses of the campaign. He raised a vast army, marched them to where Constantinople now stands, and crossed the Bosphorus there by a bridge of boats built by his engineer, Mandrocles the Samian. Over this the innumerable host passed like a column of tropical ants into Europe — swarming, buzzing, hum- ming, till their murmur and their multitude seemed to fill the world. They struck an oblique course northward through the trackless wildernesses of the present Turkey and Bulgaria till they reached the misty and swelling Danube. The Ionian fleet came along meantime under the command of the tyrants, and passing the Bosphorus crossed the Black Sea to the mouth of the many-mouthed Danube ; and there they built another bridge of boats placed side by side across the river some distance from its mouth. On the Persians marched, crossing this bridge too, and following the fleeing Scythians into the woods and swamps. Darius gave strict orders for the fleet to wait for him here for two months ; and in case he did not return at the end of that time, they must REMEMBER THE ATHENIANS. 289 break down the bridge and sail home. So they waited and waited, and still Darius did not come. Had the swamps swallowed them up ? Had the Scythians lured them on and on, and at last mas- sacred them all } Nobody knew. At length, however, just in the nick of time, for the lonians were preparing to sail away, news came that Darius and his army were retreating in miserable plight before the .fierce barbarians, and were doing all they could to reach the bridge of boats on the Danube, that they might cross before it was broken up. Then it was that Miltiades, after- wards so celebrated as the hero of Marathon, ruler of the Thracian Chersonesus, and an Athenian by birth, proposed to the other tyrants that they should destroy the bridge, and catch Darius and his minions in a trap, to die of starvation or butchery in the Thracian deserts. But Histiaeus, tyrant of rich and romantic Miletus (about which Bulwer has told such beautiful stories in "The Lost Tales of Miletus") reminded the other tyrants that it was the Persians after all who kept them on their thrones, and that if the Persians were starved or butchered or destroyed, they themselves would be ignominiously expelled from their cities by the people. So the tyrants re- covered their senses, and refused to break down the bridge ; and so it came about that Darius and the remnant of his army, tattered and torn and all for- lorn, escaped over the two bridges alive into Asia. Doubtless Darius thanked his stars when at last he arrived safe and sound at Sardis, leaving Megabazus, a Persian general,with eighty thousand men, to conquer 290 THE STORY OF GREECE. that part of Thrace which had not yet submitted, and to make a Persian satrapy in Europe. It was not long before Megabazus had subdued all Thrace, and had sent ambassadors to Amyntas, King of Macedonia, summoning him to acknowledge Darius as his master. Amyntas submitted ; and the Persian empire extended its vast vampire-wings till they swept all the region between the Danube and the Greek Mt. Olympus (the mountain-range that severed Thessaly from Macedonia). Histiaeus, of course, was richly rewarded for pre- serving the bridge, and received from Darius, the country of Myrcinus, in Thrace, on the river Stry- mon. This swelled the tyrant up enormously in his own conceit, and now, as he possessed luxurious Miletus, and Myrcinus into the bargain, he began to think of increasing his dominions still more by con- quest. The " frog" Histiaeus was thus anxious to swell up to the size of the " ox" Darius, but — he came to grief. Megabazus spied upon him, and found him out, and told tales to Darius, and Darius be- lieved them ; so Darius invited the would-be con- queror to come and see him on a friendly visit to Susa. There he went, and — stayed. Aristagoras, the lucky son-in-law of Histiaeus, reigned in his stead over fortunate Miletus. Miletus was a singular and picturesque city, lying at the mouth of the winding Maeander River. It had four harbors, and there was a lovely group of bright little Greek islets sprinkled about their en- trances. Sharp and rugged promontories cut out into the blue water here and there, on one of which 292 THE STORY OF GREECE. stood Old Miletus, overhanging the sea like an East- ern Genoa. Very renowned were the flocks and fleeces and woollen fabrics of Miletus, and the com- merce of this busy hive of jabbering and keen-eyed Greeks extended all through the Mediterranean, passed in a shining trail of triremes and trading- vessels through the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), and lined the shores of the Euxine with blooming colonies. Here was the birthplace of the great phi- losophers, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes ; of Aspasia, the most famous of Greek belles and blue- stockings, and wife of Pericles ; and of the histori- ans Cadmus and Hecataeus. Unfortunately for him, Aristagoras was just as ambitious as his papa-in-law ; and no sooner did he begin to feel himself firmly seated on the throne than he too saw an opportunity (as he thought) for extending his power. Thus it goes with all tyrants and heedless persons. They " see opportunities," or (which is the same thing) fancy they see them, and, like the dog in the fable, drop the bone to snap at the shadow. Thus, when the nobles of the island of Naxos had been driven out by the people, Aristagoras fancied that he might become master of the island if he helped the exiles back again into power ; but he could not dream of attacking the powerful island without the help of the Persians. He, therefore, ap- plied to Artaphernes, Satrap of that district, and wheedled him into lending aid by saying that if he did so, he should be adding not only Naxos but other islands to the Persian dominions. Artapher- nes swallowed the gilded pill greedily, and gave REMEMBER THE A THEN IAN S. 293 Aristagoras a fleet of two hundred ships. But Aris- tagoras and the Persian Captain-General of the fleet "fell out," but did not "kiss again with tears"; and the much-vaunted enterprise failed. Then, suddenly, qualms of conscience, or panic fear, began to stir in Aristagoras' breast. He had gone almost too far to recede, and he now stood in terror of the wrath of Artaphernes. Then his mind began to meditate upon a revolt ; and he was strengthened in his half-de- veloped intention by a message from Histiaeus, who sent him word to rebel at once, thinking that he himself would be sent by Darius to put down the rebels, and that thus he would regain his liberty. This message was sent in a very curious and char- acteristic way; for Histiaeus, taking the trustiest of his slaves, shaved all the hair off his head, and then pricking the words on his bald head, tattoo-fashion, waited till the hair grew out thick and soft again. And as soon as ever his hair was grown, off the mes- senger trotted to Miletus, receiving no other orders than this: "When thou art come to Miletus, bid Aristagoras shave thy head, and look thereon." This tattooed message bade Aristagoras revolt. Instantly the word passed all over the Ionian island-world and along the beautiful Greek cities like wildfire. Aristagoras assembled his people, re- signed the tyranny, and inflamed the Milesians to revolt. His words flew like instantaneous poison from one end of the .^olian, Dorian, and Ionian settle- ments to the other, and the great island of Cyprus joined the insurrection. The Greeks were at all times an intensely inflammable and combustible 294 THE STORY OF GREECE. people ; a spark would set them on fire like a flint- flash on tinder, and they would often rush from one extreme to another without forethought and without preparation. It made no difference whether or not, like Jack and Gill who climbed the hill, they " fell down and cracked their crown " immediately after ; climb they would and climb they must, whatever might be the consequences. Aristagoras having thus built the bonfire and ap- plied the match, hurried to continental Greece with wonderful vivacity and besought further help of Sparta. Sparta as usual refused ; but Athens imme- diately sent twenty ships (which were reinforced by five more from Eretria in Euboea) to the help of the Milesians. This wretched little fleet sailed over to Miletus laden with the seeds of Athenian glory and shame, of national humiliation and national renown : a handful of soldiers, a handful of ships, in whose train the most portentous consequences followed for all Hellas, now about to enter into burning and bloody conflict with the Eastern despot. These troops, united with the revolted lonians, marched suddenly on Sardis, where Artaphernes was, and set fire to the town, which burnt up like a stubble-field. But the Persian forces assembled in numbers, drove the Greeks into retreat, and thrashed them unmerci- fully as they ran panic-stricken, helter-skelter down to the coast. The Athenians skimmed over the sea like swallows and escaped to their distant homes, leaving behind nothing but wrath and a longing for immediate vengeance in the minds of the exasper- ated Persians. When Darius received tidings of the ■REMEMBER THE ATHENIANS. 295 burning of Sardis by the Athenians and lonians, and heard that the author of the whole campaign was Aristagoras the Milesian, he asked suddenly : " Who are the Athenians ? " and being informed, called for his bow, and placing an arrow on the string, shot upward into the sky, crying as he let fly the shaft : " Grant me, O Zeus, to revenge myself on those Athenians ! " After this speech he bade one of his servants every day, when his dinner was spread, repeat three times these words: " Master, remember the Athenians ! " XXVI. DARIUS DEMANDS EARTH AND WATER — MARATHON. The burning of Sardis seemed to sound the death- knell of Hellas. The insult and disgrace rang in the ears of Darius, and though he was far from being a sanguinary monster of the " fee-fo-fum " sort, he was nevertheless angry enough — if we may trust Herodotus — to drink the blood of all the isles, and Athens too. The war was long and furious. The Persians pounced on the revolted smaller cities first, besieg- ing and encircling them with fire and slaughter, but they resisted with enormous pluck and stubborn- ness. At last it came the turn of mighty Miletus to be besieged, and the Persians took four years to gather men and machines enough to accomplish their purpose. The cities which were still free de- liberated what they should do ; and as tiiey could not beat off the besieging army by land, they col- lected their ships, filled them with daring soldiers, and tried to keep the foe from surrounding and blockading Miletus by sea. They thus got together three hundred and fifty-three vessels and stationed them off Lade, a little island in front of Miletus. Then up sailed the naughty Persians with six hun- dred ships ! and when the hearts of the Greeks MARA THON. 297 " sank into their boots " at this sight, a gallant Phoenician, Dionysius by name, promised them a splendid victory if they would do as he told them. They were only too glad to do so, and from morn to eve the lonians practised their manoeuvres in prepa- ration for a battle. But the " tender-foot " lonians were not accustomed to such hardships ; they loved to lie in the golden light, to sail the blue seas, to listen to sweet music, or feast on sumptuous food ; no discipline or obedience for tJicin, thanks ! So, on the eighth day they lost their tempers and their pa- tience, left their ships, went ashore, and lounged about indolently in the shade of the trees. Mean- while the former tyrants were doing all they could to persuade the leaders of their cities to desert when the battle should be fought, under promise of pardon from Darius ; and the Persians, imagining and hoping that the tyrants had succeeded, ordered their fleet of Phoenicians to the attack. The Greeks, however, had now returned to their ships. To their everlasting disgrace, when the Greeks and Phoenicians stood glaring at each other, ready for the death-struggle, forty-nine out of the sixty Samian ships pulled up their anchors and made off ! The Lesbians and many other cowards followed, and none were left except the Milesians and Chians to strike for the life of Hellas and the death of the Barbarian. Dionysius and his gallant remnant fought like tigers, but in vain. Ionia fell with the great and prosper- ous Miletus (B.C. 495), and the Persians took con- dign vengeance for the burning of Sardis. They killed most of the Milesian men, dragged the women ^9^ THE STORY OF GREECE. and children into captivity, and burnt the temples to the ground. All the cities on the coast went down like Miletus, and so did the neighboring islands, and the settle- ments on the Thracian Chersonesus. Vengeance and wrath and murder blackened the skies, and the smoke and cries of the ruined cities went up to Zeus. The Persians now undertook the first of their three expeditions against Greece proper. The first expedition was commanded by Mardonius and took place in B.C. 493 ; the second took place three years after, in B.C. 490 ; and the last under Xerxes in B.C. 480. Mardonius put down all the despots throughout Ionia, and established democracies in their stead. Then he hastened to the Hellespont and when a vast multi- tude of ships had been brought together, and likewise a powerful land-force, he conveyed his troops across the strait by means of his vessels, and proceeded through Europe against Eretria and Athens, the aggressors in the late war and the special objects of his vengeance. But when the ships on their way down attempted to double Mount Athos, a violent north wind sprang up, against which nothing could contend ; the ships were wrecked and shattered and driven aground on Athos, so that about three hun- dred of them perished, with twenty thousand men on board. For the sea about Athos was said to abound beyond all others in monsters ; so a por- tion were seized and devoured by these animals (whatever they were), others were dashed against the rocks, some who did not know how to swim were engulfed, and others died of cold. MARA THON. 299 On land Mardonius was attacked and soundly thrashed by the Thracians, and back he went to Asia, growling and grumbling, weeping and wailing, on a disgraceful retreat to his starting-place. After this Darius resolved to prove the Greeks and try the bent of their minds, whether they were still inclined to resist him, or whether they were pre- pared to make their submission. He therefore sent out heralds in divers directions round about Greece, with orders to demand everywhere earth and water for the king. Giving earth and water was the Per- sian way of showing submission and obedience to a superior. A great many of the Greeks vilely sub- mitted, even including the ^ginetans, an island people almost within a stone's throw of Athens; in- censed at which, and for other reasons, the Athenians waged bitter warfare on their neighbors. Meantime the Persian (as Darius was called) pursued his own designs, from day to day, exhorted by his servant to " remember the Athenians," and likewise urged con- tinually by the exiled Pisistratidae, who were ever accusing their countrymen in his ear. Moreover, it pleased him well to have a pretext for carrying war into Greece, that so he might reduce all those who had refused to yield to his demand for earth and water. Darius took the command of the army away from Mardonius and gave it to Datis and Arta- pherncs (his own nephew). These men received the insolent order to carry Athens and Eretria away "captive," and bring the prisoners into his presence. Darius, with Oriental extravagance, must have thought that Datis and Artaphernes could put 300 THE STORY OF GREECE. Athens and Eretria into their pockets and fetch them to him Hke a handful of chestnuts ! The Barbarian fleet sailed for Delos, and when it left there an earthquake occurred, the first and last shock felt for a long time. And this was thought to be a prodigy whereby the gods warned men of the evils that were coming upon them. For in the three fol- lowing generations of Darius the son of Hystaspes, Xerxes the son of Darius, and Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes, more woes befell Greece than in the twenty generations preceding Darius, — woes caused in part by the Persians, but also in part arising from the contentions among the chief Greeks respecting the supreme power. Touching at various islands, the huge fleet sailed on and on, lumbering, splashing and dashing oars, throwing an innumerable multitude of sails to the winds, filled with the cries of soldiers and sailors and generals, accompanied by martial music, and thronged with a brilliant and glittering mass of men and women ; on — on against poor Eretria, till at last they arrived there. What a shame for all these men to be coming against poor little Eretria, an ancient and not popu- lous Athenian colony in Euboea on the Euripus, and against Attica, a little Greek state not much bigger than a large silk pocket-handkerchief ! The town fell, after a magnificent defence of six days, when it was betrayed into the hands of the Persians by the infamous Euphorbus and the rogue Philagrus, and burnt to the ground, with all its temples. MARATHON. 3OI The Persians, having thus brought Eretria into subjection, after waiting a few days, made sail for Attica, greatly terrifying the Athenians as they ap- proached, and threatening to deal with them as they had dealt with the people of Eretria, And because there was no place in all Attica so convenient for their horse as Marathon, and it lay, moreover, quite close to Eretria, therefore Hippias, the renegade son of Pisistratus, conducted them thither. This glorious plain of Marathon, where the Athe- nians covered themselves with immortal fame, is only twenty-two miles from Athens by one road, and twenty-six by another. It extends along the sea- shore, is about six miles in length, and from three to one and a half in breadth. Rocky hills and rugged mountains surround it on three sides. Through the centre of the plain meanders a small brook, and two marshes bound its extremity. It is a romantic and beautiful spot ; the bright and ever-glancing sea kisses the beach with its lips of foam, and the am- phitheatre of mountains, covered with sweet-smell- ing thyme and laurel and lentisc, hedges it in care- fully against unseemly intrusion. When intelligence of the coming of the foe flashed through Athens, the Athenians marched their troops to Marathon, and there stood on the defensive, hav- ing at their head ten generals, of whom one was Mil- tiades, another Aristides, and a third probably The- mistocles — three wonderful names forever glorified in the annals of Athens. Miltiades was the son of Cimon, and belonged to a wealthy and fortunate family, which had several times distinguished itself 302 THE STORY OF GREECE. by winning the great four-horse chariot-race at Olym- pia. He himself had escaped from the Cherso- nesus, and had twice nearly lost his life, being chased by the Phoenicians, who had a great desire to take him and cany him up to the king ; and when he ar- rived at Athens, being impeached before a court for his tyranny in the Chersonesus, he came off victori- ous, and was then made one of the generals of the Athenians by the free choice of the people. And first, before they left the city, the generals sent ofiF to Sparta a herald, one Pheidippides, who was by birth an Athenian, and by practice a trained runner. This man, according to the account which he gave to the Athenians on his return, when he was near Mount Parthenium, fell in with the god Pan, who called him by his name, and bade him ask the Athenians wherefore they neglected Jiim so entirely, when he was kindly disposed towards them, and had often helped them in times past, and would do so again in times to come ? The Athenians, entirely believing in the truth of the report, set up a temple to Pan under the Acropo- lis, and established in his home yearly sacrifices and a torch-race. Pheidippides travelled the 135 or 140 miles from Athens to Sparta on foot in about forty-eight hours, or at the rate of seventy English miles a day. Upon his arrival he went before the rulers and said : " Men of Lacedaemon, the Athenians beseech you to hasten to their aid, and not to allow that state which is the most ancient in all Greece to be en- slaved by the Barbarians. Eretria, look you, is al- AfARA rilON. 303 ready carried away captive, and Greece weakened by the loss of no mean city." Thus did Pheidippides deliver the message com- mitted to him. And the Spartans wished to help the Athenians, but were unable to give them any present succor, as they did not like to break their established law, which forbade their marching out of Sparta when the moon had not reached its full. So they determined to wait for the full of the moon. The Barbarians meantime were conducted to Marathon by the traitor Hippias, the son of Pisis- tratus, who the night before their arrival in the field, had seen a strange vision in his sleep. He dreamt of lying in his mother's arms, and conjectured the dream to mean that he should be restored to Athens, recover the power which he had lost, and afterwards live to a good old age in his native countr}\ Such was the sense in which lie interpreted the vision. He now proceeded to act as ciccrojic to the Persians, as if he were showing them round a great picture- galler}'. First, he landed the Eretrian captives upon a neighboring island ; then he brought the fleet to anchor off Marathon, and marshalled the bands of the Barbarians as they disembarked. As he was thus em- ployed, it chanced that he sneezed, and at the same time coughed with more violence than he was wont. Now, as he was a man advanced in years, and the greater number of his teeth were loose, it so hap- pened that when he coughed violently, one of them flew out of his mouth into the sand. Hippias took all the pains he could to find it, but the tooth was 304 THE STORY OF GREECE. nowhere to be seen ; whereupon he fetched a deep sigh, and said to the bystanders : " After all, the land is not ours, and we shall never be able to bring it under. All my share in it is the portion which has swallowed up my tooth ! " So Hippias believed that his dream was out. The Athenians were drawn up in order of battle — a small but valiant band — in a sacred close belonging to the god Heracles, where they were joined by the Plataeans, who came in full force to their aid. They were friendly to the Athenians, because the Athe- nians had helped them in a contest about a boundary which the Plataeans had had with their neighbors, the Boeotians. When it came to the fight the Athenian generals were divided in their opinions; some advised not to risk a battle, because they were too few to engage such a host as that of the Persians ; others — among them, Miltiades — were for fighting at once, then and there. Miltiades, therefore, seeing that opinions were divided, and that the pusillanimous plan of retreat was about to prevail, resolved to go to the polcmarcJi, or war-archon (who before Cleisthenes' time had had the general superintendence of military matters), and have a conference with him. The polemarch on this occasion was Callimachus. Him Miltiades addressed as follows : " With thee it rests, Callimachus, either to bring Athens to slavery or, by securing her freedom, to leave behind thee to all future generations a memory even beyond Harmodius and Aristogiton. For never since the time that the Athenians became a people MARA THON. 305 were they in so great a danger as now. If they bow their necks beneath the yoke of the Medes, the woes which they will have to suffer when given into the power of Hippias are already determined on ; if, on the other hand, they fight and overcome, Athens may rise to be the very first city in Greece. How it is that these things will happen, and how it rests upon thee to settle the matter, let me show thee. We generals are ten in number, and there is a tie ; five are for fighting, and five are against it. Now, if we do not fight, I look to see a great uproar at Athens, which will shake men's resolutions and per- haps make them submit ; but if we do fight before any hesitation shows itself in our citizens — let the gods but give us fair play, and we '11 win ! On thee, therefore, we depend in this matter, which lies wholly in thine own hand. Thou hast the casting vote, and hast only to add thy vote to my side, and thy country will be free — and not only free, but the first state in Greece ! Or, if thou preferrest to give thy vote to those who would decline the combat, then the reverse will follow." Miltiades — happily for Greece — succeeded in per- suading Callimachus ! and so the polemarch's casting vote broke the tie and solved the matter. Hereupon all the generals who had been in favoi of risking a battle gave up their right to Miltiades when their turn came to command the army. Though he accepted their offer, he preferred to wait till his own regular turn came (for they commanded in rotation), and would not fight until his own day of command arrived in due course. 306 THE STORY OF GREECE. Then, at length, when his own turn did arrive, the Athenian forces were set in array, Calhmachus com- manding the right wing, the various Athenian tribal organizations in unbroken line filling the centre, and the Plat?eans closing in the left. As they marshalled the troops upon the field of Marathon, they spread out their line thinner and longer, in order to corre- spond with the confronting Median lines, weakening the centre, but strengthening the wings with a depth of many ranks. At length, when the battle was set in array, and the sacrificial victims showed themselves favorable, the Athenians instantly charged the Barbarians at a double-quick, the distance between the armies being about eight furlongs. When the Persians saw the enemy rushing upon them at full tilt, they prepared to receive them, though they thought the Athenians had lost their senses and were bent on their own destruction ; for they saw a mere handful of men coming on at a run without either horsemen or archers. So thought the Barbarians. But the Athenians in close array fell on the wide- tunicked, mitred Persians tooth and nail, and fought in a manner wonderful to tell of. Long the two armies grappled each other on the plain of Mara- thon, all Hellas and all Persia looking on with sus- pended breath. In the mid-battle the Persians were at first victorious, and broke and ran the nimble- footed Greeks down the country ; but on the two wings the Athenians and Plataeans made their foes bite the dust and run as fast as their heels could '■> ii,fee»i*='m- nastic exercises, others combing their long hair. At this the spy greatly marvelled, but he counted their number, and when he had taken accurate note of every thing, he rode back quietly, for no one pursued him or paid any heed to his visit. So he returned and told Xerxes all that he had seen. Xerxes laughed at what the spy told him, and questioned Demaratus, the fugitive Spartan king, who followed him everywhere, why they acted so strangely. " The Lacedaemonians," said he, " O King, cojnb their hair zvhcn tJicy arc about to risk their lives ! " The Persians, scorning the absurdly small numbers of the Greeks, made an attempt to break through the pass, but were repulsed with heavy loss. During the assaults it is said that Xerxes, who was watching the battle, thrice leaped from the throne on which he sat in terror for his army. 342 THE STORY OF GREECE. But alas, a traitor was found — a Greek Judas Is- cariot, who betrayed the lords of Hellas — one Ephi- altes, whose name is handed down to everlasting infamy for this deed. Ephialtes went to the king and promised to take the Persians over the moun- tains by a circuitous road and attack the Greeks in the rear. The miserable traitor fulfilled his promise in the darkness of the night, and guided a host of Persians over the mountain to the ruin and defeat of his fellow-countrymen. The Greeks, when they became aware of the fact, hurriedly held a council, and all resolved to leave while yet they could, except Leonidas and his three hundred ; tJicy determined to stay and stand by the cause to the last. It is said that Leonidas himself — the immortal King of Sparta, whose name history will never let die, — sent away the departing troops because he was anxious for their safety, but thought it unseemly that he and his Spartans should quit the post which they had been especially sent to guard. Only the Thespians and the Thebans remained by the deserted and valiant little band — the Thebans by compulsion, the Thespians voluntarily. At sunrise Xerxes made libations to his sun-god — the Light of the World ; after which he waited until the time when the market-place was wont to fill, and then began his advance. Thus had Ephialtes in- structed him, and thus the Barbarians under Xerxes drew nigh to cooperate with those who were climb- ing the pitch-dark, oak-covered mountains to attack the Greeks from behind and grind them to pieces between the upper and the nether millstone. His AT THE HOT GATES. 343 mighty multitude moved with difficuhy, lashed and scourged on from behind by their captains ; many being pressed into the treacherous morass ; many trampled to death by their own soldiers ; no one heeding the dying any more than if they had been so many brutes. The Greeks, reckless of their own safety, and desperate, since they knew that, as the mountain had been crossed, their destruction was nigh at hand, exerted themselves with the most furious valor against the Barbarians. Soon their spears were shivered, their arms were gone, their swords that had hewn down rank on rank of Per- sians were bloody and broken, and at last Leonidas himself fell fighting like a lion, and with him all the famous Spartans. On the other side the Persians mourned the loss of two sons of Darius, brothers of Xerxes. And now rose a fierce struggle between the Persians and the Lacedaemonians over the body of Leonidas, in which the Greeks four times drove back the enemy, and at last by their great bravery succeeded in bearing off the body of the slain king. The band of Greeks defended themselves like tigers at bay to the last ; such as still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth, till the Barbarians, who, in part, had pulled down the wall and attacked them in front, in part had gone round and encircled them upon every side, like a dashing and furious sea, — shouting, cursing, ex- ecrating, gnashing on them with their teeth, glaring and glowering on them like famished beasts, — over- whelmed and buried the remnant left beneath storms of arrows, darts, and missiles. 344 THE STOR V OF GREECE. So sweet was freedom to these noble people ! So great was the number of the Barbarians that when they shot their arrows the sun was darkened by the multitude of them. " If the Medes darken the sun," said a brave Greek, "then 07ir men will fight in the shade ! " The slain were buried where they fell ; and in their honor, no less than in honor of those who had died before Leonidas sent the allies away, an in- scription was set up which said : " J/ere did four thousand men from Pe lops' land Against three hundred tnyriads bravely stand ! " This was in honor of all. Another was for the Spartans alone : " Go, stranger, and to Lacedcemon tell That here, obeying her behests, we fell I " Thus, beautiful in the dust. Spartan valor and Spartan nobility blossomed ; near by, the lovely pale-blue sea where the Greeks loved to sail, the bright mountains full of verdure and freshness, the golden atmosphere covering every thing with its man- tle of perfect beauty, and this finest of epitaphs to hand on their undying fame to the generations to come ! In dark Thermopyl?e they lie. Oh, deatli of glory, thus to die ! Their tomb an altar is, their name A mighty heritage of fame. Their dirge is triumph ; cankering rust, And time, that turneth all to dust, AT THE HOT GATES. 345 That tomb shall never waste nor hide, — The tomb of warriors true and tried. The full-voiced praise of Greece around Lies buried in this sacred mound ; Where Sparta's King, Leonidas, In death eternal glory has ! — SlMONID»!S XXX. LONG LIVE SALAMIS! Thus ended this great and famous contest at Thermopylae — a contest of three hundred Spartans, one thousand Helots, three thousand heavy-armed men from the Peloponnesian states at large, seven hundred Thespians, and a band of Locrians and Pho- cians ; in all about seven thousand men, opposed to nearly as many millions of Xerxes. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that throughout this tremen- dous conflict it was only a small part of Greece after all that had the courage and the will to resist the Persians ; the greater part of the land indeed had no share whatever in it, and the honor and glory and immortal fame which it brought belong, first of all, to violet-crowned Athens, then to the Peloponnesian league (excluding Argos and Achaia), to the little Boeotian towns of Plataea and Thespiae, and to a few other places. . ^gina joined the league, while Argos favored the Persians, and Achaia could not be got to act with Sparta. The Congress held at the Isthmus of Corinth, B.C. 481, had done what it could to unite the Greeks in the cause of a common defence, and had sent envoys to Gelon, Tyrant of Syracuse, to Crete, and to Corcyra ; but we know with what result. Athens acted in the noblest manner in sur- LONG LIVE SALAMIS. 34/ rendering the command, both by land and sea, to her rival Sparta, in order that the jealous Spartans might not secede from the Confederacy ; while all the allies took a solemn oath to resist to the utter- most, and, if they should succeed, to punish severely all the Greek states that had voluntarily submitted to Persia, and to dedicate a tithe, or tenth part, of the whole spoil to the Delphic god. The Hellenic fleet meanwhile had cooperated with the army with marvellous adroitness and skill. All through the three days of the battle of Thermopylae the Greek and Persian fleets were paying each other the most substantial compliments. It will be remem- bered how the Greeks had posted their vessels at Artemisium, to prevent the Barbarians from entering the strait of Eubcea and landing troops in the rear of Leonidas ; and how, panic-stricken at the approach of the Persians, they had sailed swiftly away down to Chalcis, where the strait is very narrow. When they heard of the mighty thunder-storm that had sunk the four hundred Persian vessels, back they sailed joyously to Artemisium. But their joy was soon turned into terror and mourning by the appearance of a second Persian armada as formidable as the first ; whereupon again they bethought themselves whether they should not take to their heels. Happily, how- ever, the Euboeans, who knew how all-important it was to keep the enemy out of the strait, bribed Themistocles with $35,000 to keep them at bay by persuading the Greeks to remain. Themistocles, ever wily and sagacious, distributed this money judiciously among the various captains, including the 348 THE STORY OF GREECE. admiral, Eurybiades, and thus got them to do fov pelf what they would not do for patriotism. The Persians, being eager to circumvent the Greeks, sent two hundred ships off to sail round Euboea, and catch the Greeks in a trap by enclosing them on the south. But the Greeks shot out like hawks on the Persian ships that remained behind, and captured thirty of them, while another splendid storm arose and entirely destroyed the two hundred ships that were sailing round Euboea ! Well might Boreas be called the son-in-law of Athens : the very stars in their courses seemed to fight for Hellas! Next day fifty more ships joined the Greeks, and they attacked the Barbarian armada again ; to be fol- lowed by a fierce assault of the Persians on the third day. But when the Greeks heard of the result of the battle of Thermopylae, they withdrew their fleet, retired southward from Artemisium down the strait, sailed round Cape Suniuni, the end of Attica, and took up their post off the island of Salamis. Xerxes, after shamefully mutilating the body of Leonidas, passed on in his triumphant march to Athens ; having previously buried nineteen thousand of the twenty thousand Persians who had fallen on the Persian side in this battle. This he did so that it might look as if he had lost only one thousand men. He split his huge column into several divisions, despatching them in various directions to ravage and reduce the country. One of these divisions took guides and proceeded toward the temple of Delphi, keeping Mt. Parnassus on their right hand ; for they intended to plunder the Delphian temple, and con- LONG LIVE SALAMIS. 349 vey to King Xerxes the riches which w^ere there laid up. Now when the Delphians heard what danger they were in, great was .the fear that fell on them. In their terror they consulted the oracle concerning the holy treasures, and inquired if they should bury them in the ground, or carry them away to some other countiy. The god, in reply, bade them leave the treasure untouched. " I am able," he said, " without help to protect my own." The people fled, or hid themselves, all except sixty men and the Prophet. When the barbarian assailants drew near and were in sight of the place, the Prophet, who was named Aceratus, beheld in front of the temple a portion of the sacred armor which it was not lawful for any mortal hand to touch, lying upon the ground, removed from the inner shrine where it was wont to hang. Other strange prodigies took place, more wonderful still to relate ; for the Barbarians had just reached in their advance the chapel of Athene Prona;a, when a storm of awful thunder burst over their heads ! At the same time two crags split off of Mt. Parnassus and rolled down headlong upon them like an avalanche, with terrific noise crushing vast numbers beneath their weight ; while from the temple of Athene, the patron-goddess of Athens, went up a strange and thrilling war-cry and shout of victory. All these things struck terror into the Barbarians, who, aghast, forthwith turned and fled. The Delphians, seeing their bewilderment, emerged from their hiding-places, rushed down, and smote them, hip and thigh, with great carnage. And it is 350 THE STORY OF GREECE. said that two armed warriors, of superhuman size, pursued the shrieking fugitives, pressing upon them from behind and slaying them. Thus did the gods protect their sanctuary from violation. Xerxes, however, took impious vengeance on Athens. Four months had now gone by since the monarch, seated on his magnificent throne of white marble, had seen his army cross the Hellespont ; three of these he had spent in fruitless attempts to get to the " eye of Greece." At last, however, his efforts were crowned with success ; the Barbarian reached Athens. The city was forsaken ; a few people only remained in the temple, either as guardians of the treasures, or as men too poor and miserable to escape. These persons, having fortified the citadel with planks and boards, thought to hold out against the enemy ; for some of them imagined that thus they were following the injunction of the oracle : " the wooden wall should never be taken." But the Persians, stationing themselves on the Aredpagus, or Mars' Hill, set the wooden defences on fire by shooting into them with arrows to which they had tied pieces of lighted tow ; and they also found their way up into the Acropolis by an un- guarded way. So in they rushed and massacred the wretched defenders ; and not only this, but, burning with the remembrance of fire-scathed Sardis, they set all the sanctuaries and holy places on fire, and ruined them as far as they could. The Greeks were not far off. In a little " pocket," it might be called — a narrow obtuse triangle of water LONG LIVE SALAMI S. 351 formed by the converging coasts of Attica and Megaris, in the centre of which stretched the islands of Salamis and ^Egfna — lay the hope of Hellas, — the Athenian fleet, packed tight, white-sailed, full of sailors and soldiers and noble spirits, a little army on the water, waiting couchant and crouching, ready to spring at the throat of Xerxes and his army as soon as they appeared. The women and children of Athens and Attica had been hastily moved to Troe- zene and the neighboring islands. Here in this little nest of silver surrounded by purple hills, occurred the greatest naval battle of these ancient times. Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run Along Morea's hills, the setting sun ; Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright. But one unclouded blaze of living light ! O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws. Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows. On old j^igina's rock and Hydra's isle The God of Gladness sheds his parting smile ; O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine, Though there his altars are no more divine. Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis ! Their azure arches, through the long expanse More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance ; And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven ; Till deeply shaded from the land and deep. Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep. As you come along the winding coast through the Pass of Daphne, and traverse the defile of Mt. ./Egaleos, which affords communication between the 352 THE STORY OF GREECE. Athenian and Elcusinian plains, a glorious prospect — the sheeted silver of the Bay of Eleusis — breaks upon your vision, — a bay so land-locked by its own rim of sweeping mountains, and by the island of Salamis, that it looks like a lake in white and azure. A little farther on you pass the strait where the battle Avas fought, the noble bend of the Attic coast following the subtle curves of the Eleusinian shore, and the whole hanging like an enchanted picture in the amphitheatre of sculptured hills around. So the '' wooden wall " turned out to be the fleet? Yes ; Themistocles had convinced the Athenians and their allies that now, in this terrible crisis of Greek affairs, there was safety in the fleet alone. The Gre- cian fleet, which had left Artemisium, lay at anchor at Salamis. The Athenians had begged them to take up this position in order that they might convey the women and children out of Attica, and further de- liberate upon the course which it now behooved them to follow. Disappointed in the hopes which they had previously entertained, they were about to hold a council concerning the present pressure of affairs. For they had looked to see the Pelopon- nesian allies drawn up in full force to resist the enemy in Boeotia, but found nothing of what they had expected ; nay, they learned that the Greeks in the south, concerning themselves only about their own safety, were building a wall across the Isthmus, and intended to guard the Peloponnesus, and let the rest of Greece take its chances. This induced the Athenians to beg the allied fleet to anchor at Sal- amis, while their own fleet clung patriotically to the .S: wart-afr-~ 'r»>iii~* Tt I 354 THE STORY OF GREECE. shores of Attica, not far off. The vessels gathered in this shining arc of Attic and Eleusinian waters were far more numerous than those which had fought at Artemisium. The Admiral — Eurybiades the Spartan — was the same who had commanded before ; but Athens had the glory of sending many more ships and soldiers than any other city. A multifarious throng made up the picturesque "crazy-quilt" pat- tern of the fleet — long-haired Lacedaemonians, agile Corinthians, Sicyonians from the land of Agariste, Epidaurians, Troezenians, and Hermionians. Then there were broad-mouthed Dorians and shaggy Mace- donians, gallant Megarians, ^Eginetan islanders, Chal- cideans, Eretrians, Ceans, Naxians, Scyreans, Cyth- nians, Melians, Seriphians, Siphnians, Crotoniates: in all, 366 shipfuls, not counting the penteconters. Such was the motley and wondrous assemblage which now crouched on the swift-keeled triremes and awaited with dauntless courage the onset of Xerxes. Blazing and smoking Athens, only five miles off, re- minded this small band of Invincibles what they had to expect — if they failed — at the hands of a ruth- less foe. At first, however, the Greeks were no little startled and alarmed at what they saw going on at Athens — the ruin, the furious flames, the butchery, and the vengeance of the insatiate despot, and many pre- pared for immediate flight. A council was held, and it was resolved that the fleet should retreat to the Isthmus and stand battle there. " What ! " cried Mnesiphilus the Athenian to The- mistocles, as he came from the council ; " if these LONG LIVE SALAMIS. 355 men shall sail away from Salamis, thou wilt have no fight at all for our common fatherland ; for they will all scatter to their homes, and neither Eurybiades nor any one else will be able to hinder them or to stop the breaking-up of the armament. Thus will Greece be brought to ruin through evil counsels. But haste thee now ; and if there be any possible way, seek to unsettle these resolves. Mayhap thou mightest persuade Eurybiades to change his mind and con- tinue here." The suggestion greatly pleased Themistocles ; so off he sped to the Spartan without saying another word. And when he found him he harangued him and the assembled captains with all the force, elo- quence, and subtlety of the most gifted Athenian. He adjured them by all they held sacred — he suppli- cated them almost with tears — not to desert Greece, not to abandon Hellas, not to retreat ignominiously before the foe, not to make common cause with the haters and oppressors and violators of their wives and children ; to stand up like men, and lead the Greeks to victory or to death. When Themistocles had thus spoken in a manner that would almost melt and move a stone, Adeiman- tus, an impudent Corinthian, bade him be silent, since he was a man without a city ; and at the same time he called on Eurybiades not to put the question to a vote at the instance of one who no longer had a country, urging that Themistocles should show of what state he was an envoy before he presumed to i^ote with the others. This reproach he made be- cause the city of Athens had fallen into the hands 356 THE STORY OF GREECE. of the Barbarians. Then Thcmistocles turned on Adeimantus with a burst of magnificent wrath, and gave him a right noble piece of his tongue ; and for proof that he did have a country, reminded the cap- tains that with two hundred ships at his command, fully manned and equipped for battle, he had both city and territory as good as any of theirs; since there was no Grecian state which could resist his men if they were to turn against it. Themistocles prevailed: Eurybiades resolved to stay and to fight. A strange marvel happened just here, a little while before the battle : An Athenian chanced to be with Demaratus, the exiled Lacedaemonian king, in the Thriasian Plain, near Athens. Suddenly, while there, he said he saw a cloud of dust advancing from the Sacred City of Eleusis such as a host of 30,000 men might make. As he and his companion were wondering who the men from whom the dust came could possibly be, a sound of voices — awful, mysterious, far-away — reached his ear, and he thought he recognized the mystic hymn to Dionysus! " O Demaratus," cried the startled Athenian, " beyond a doubt some mighty calamity is about to befall the army of the king. For it is manifest — as Attica is deserted by its inhabitants — that the sound which we have just heard is an unearthly one, and is now upon its way from Eleusis to aid the Athenians and their confederates. If it descends upon the Peloponnesus, danger will menace the king himself and his land army ; if it moves towards the ships at Salamis, 'twill go hard but the king's fleet LONG LIVE S A LAM IS. 357 there suffers destruction. Every year the Athenians celebrate this feast to the Mother and Daughter — to Demeterand Persephone : the sound thou hearest is the song of the god Dionysus, which is wont to be sung at the festival ! " " Hush ! " whispered the affrighted king, " and see thou tell no man of this matter. For if thy words come to the ear of Xerxes, thou wilt assuredly lose thy head because of them : neither I nor any living man can save thee. Hold thy peace therefore ; the gods will see to the king's army ! " Thus Demaratus counselled him ; and they looked and saw the dust flinging its silvery columns to heaven ; and from it went forth the strange and solemn sound ; and it became a cloud, and drifted and drifted until — it sailed away over Salamis, and hung like a Shekinah over the Greek fleet ! Then they knew that it was the fleet of Xerxes which should suffer destruction. Such was the tale of Dicaeus son of Theocydes on the eve of the battle of Salamis. Over the sea now came the ships of Xerxes like a flock of snowy wolves, eager, swift-sailing, thirsty for blood, longing for vengeance for their defeat at Artemisium ; and when they reached the port of Phalerum, Xerxes himself went on board, took the seat of honor between the kings of Tyre and Sidon, and assembled a grand council in order to question whether a sea-fight should be risked or no. Now there was a wise woman who accompanied Xerxes on this expedition — a wonderfully wise woman, wiser than all the Persian blockheads put together : Artemisia, Queen of Halicarnassus. 35^ THE STORY OF GREECE. When the turn came to her to speak her mind about the battle — Yea or Nay — after the question had run round the electric circle of grandees, kings, and flatterers, this doughty Artemisia said most dis- tinctly : Nay ! " This is my advice," said she : " Spare thy ships and do not risk a battle ; for these people are as much superior to thy people in seamanship as men to women. Art thou not master of Athens, for which thou didst undertake this expedition ? Is not Greece subject to thee? Let them alone therefore — let them alone ! " Artemisia would have her say, you see, and she spoke with the genius of inspiration. Xerxes was too much of a cavalier on this occasion to lose his temper and offer her insult ; on the contrary, he was delighted at her boldness and good sense, and yet — he gave word for the battle. Orders were therefore given his fleet to statid out to sea, and they swept off towards Salamis, and took up their station without let or hindrance from the enemy. The day however was too far spent for them to begin the battle then, for the night was already at hand — that beautiful, intense, dark-blue Athenian night in which heaven's vault seems to blaze with innumerable jewels, the ripple of an oar on the slumbering water makes a sheet of phos- phorescence in its shadowy depths, and the ghost- like hills sleep in dew and peace and silence, curve on curve, on the edge of the darkness. The Greeks meanwhile were in great distress and alarm, more especially the Peloponnesians, for they LONG LIVE SALAMIS. 359 were troubled that they had been kept at Salamis, to fight for the Athenians, and feared that, if they should suffer defeat, they would be pent-up and besieged in the island while their own land was defenceless. The same night the land army of the Barbarians began its march from Athens towards the Pelopon- nesus ; while the Greeks at the Isthmus toiled day and night to build a rampart across the neck of land, never imagining that any great success would be gained by the fleet. The Greeks at Salamis now became thoroughly demoralized ; they held another council, at which they determined to steal away secretly and save themselves by flight. Themistocles heard of it and outwitted them in the following manner : He sent word to Xerxes by a trusty slave that the Greek fleet was about to escape by flight, and that noiv or never he must close in around them and prevent their flight. At the same time, and by the same messen- ger, Themistocles pretended that he was a friend of Xerxes. At this juncture Aristides arrived, bringing the important tidings that the Persians had already closed in on their devoted foes. Thus then there was no escape ; the Greeks had to do or die ! In the morning, with the energy of despair, they set to work. Ameinias the Athenian dashed forth in front of the line and charged a ship of the enemy. The two vessels became entangled, and could not separate, whereupon the rest of the fleet darted to the rescue of Ameinias, opposed by the angry Persians. Soon 360 THE STORY OF GREECE. right and left the two fleets became an inextricable tangle ; the silver waters of Salamis ran red with gore ; broken spars, shattered triremes, floating corpses, tattered banners filled the sea; flaunting figures of Barbarians were locked in deadly embrace with Spartans and Athenians. Artemisia dashed helter-skelter into this or that vessel of the allied fleet. Xerxes, as he sat on his mighty throne over- looking the battle, gazed with eager Oriental eyes, saw his troops and triremes fleeing, and cried out : " My men have behaved like women, and my women like men ! " An inconceivable panic at last seized the Barbarians, sore pressed by the desperate Greeks ; vast entangled masses of them perished by drowning as they fled, in their tunics, among the shivered and splintered ships, or struggled in the hopeless waters, shouting, expiring, sinking, drowning. Another of the broth- ers of Xerxes perished. Xerxes himself, pale, ex- cited, terror-stricken on his throne at the base of the hill called ^galeos, over against Salamis, watched with anguish and humiliation the defeat of his fleet. Fearing that the Greeks might quickly sail back to the Hellespont and destroy the bridges there, he resolved, after trying to construct a mole from the mainland to Salamis as a feint, to fly as fast as he could, leaving Mardonius in command of Athens. And so he did. Intelligence of the disaster flew to Persia. Consulting Artemisia again as to what he should do : " Go home, O King, said she ; remember, also, thou goest home having gained the purpose of thy expedition ; for thou hast burnt Athens ! " LONG LIVE SALAMIS, 361 Thus did the words " Remember the Athenians ! " handed down to him from his father, Darius, ring in the ears of Xerxes ; and thus did he fulfil them, A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations : all were his ! He counted them at break of day — And when the sun set where were they ? 1 i i ^k^2^'7>^r^\ ^^m XXXI. PAUSANIAS AT PLAT^A. Thus was accomplished the vision of Dicaeus and Demaratus ; there was war in heaven : the mysteri- ous clangor of heavenly weapons, the drifting heav- enly cloud, the far-away heavenly war-shout, betok- ened life to Hellas, death to the Persian ; and the glad heart of Greece went up in universal thanksgiving for the approaching deliverance from the Barbarian. Xerxes, after charging Artemisia to convey his sons safe to Ephesus, sent for Mardonius (who was his evil genius, if ever a man was), and bade him choose for the army to be left behind such men as he wished, and see that he made his achievements answer to his promises. The Persian fleet sailed immediately for the Hellespont for fear that the bridges might be destroyed by the Greeks; but the Greeks, far from wishing to break down the bridges, thought that if they did so, it would turn out an immense calamity for them, for would they not thus be penning up the Barbarians within their own limits, and might not these, thus driven to bay, turn upon and rend them ? Such at least was the opinion of Eurybiades, opposed at first strongly by the con- tentious Themistocles. Yet Themistocles, finally changing his opinion, was mean enough to send a PAUSANIAS AT PLAT^A. 363 messenger secretly to Xerxes, saying : " Themistocles the Athenian, anxious to render thee a service, has restrained the Greeks, who were impatient to pursue thy ships, and to break up the bridges at the Helles- pont. Now, therefore, return home at thy leisure!" He wanted to curry favor with Xerxes, it seems, in anticipation of the time to come. Poor Xerxes was in a pitiable plight. Though he still had eight hundred ships, the war had become unendurable to him ; so leaving 300,000 men in Greece with Mardonius, he hurried back to Asia the way he had come. On the march back thousands upon thousands of his army perished from hunger, fatigue, misery, and despair. On the same day that the battle of Salamis was fought, another great battle was fought and won in the west by men in whose veins also flowed Greek blood. The Carthaginians, it seems, had united with Xerxes to destroy not only continental but insular Greece : a huge Carthaginian army besieged Himera in the north of Sicily. This was too much for Gelon, Tyrant of Syracuse, who, marching with fifty thousand Greeks to the relief of Himcra, flogged the Cartha- ginians so effectually that Greece had nothing more to fear from that quarter. And in this act — perhaps he foresaw that ultimately there would be a necessity for such an act — Gelon wiped out the disgrace of re- fusing to help the eastern Greeks in the war against Persia, unless he himself should wield the supreme command of the allied forces. King Xerxes and his army waited but a few days after the sea-fight, and then retreated into Bceotia 364 THE STORY OF GREECE. by the road which they had followed in their ad- vance — probably from Athens to Thebes, via the Pass of Phyle, and from Thebes to Orchomenus. It was the wish of Mardonius to escort the king a part of the way ; and as the time of the year was no longer suitable for carrying on war, he thought it best to winter in Thessaly, and await the spring be- fore he attempted the Peloponnesus. Boeotia was one of the great battle-grounds of Greece, as Virginia was one of the great battle- grounds of the War of Secession. It was a small egg-shaped territory lying just north of Attica, and contained three or four cities and villages that be- came immortal from the great contests that occurred at or near them. Such are Thebes, Plataea, Chaero- nea, Leuctra, and Coronea, not to mention Tanagra (where the beautiful y?^//r/;/rj', or dolls put in graves are found), Thespiae, and Orchomenus. The Athe- nians frequently made merry over the thick wits of these people, attributing the proverbial dulness of the Boeotians (who were a sort of Greek Hollanders) to the damp, thick atmosphere of the country. The country was extraordinarily fertile and full of lovely lakes, mountains, and lanes ; and we must never for- get that though the Boeotians, like the Dutch, might be dull as a nation, yet they produced men of marvellous genius, like Hesiod, Pindar, Plutarch, Pelopidas, and Epaminondas. Here, therefore, for a certain time, Xerxes lingered with his bands of necklaced and braceleted Persians. At the time when Mardonius was making choice of his troops, the Lacedaemonians received a message PAUSANIAS AT PLATMA. 365 from the Delphic oracle, bidding them seek satisfac- tion at the hands of Xerxes for the death of Leonidas, and take whatever he chose to give them. So the Spartans — irrepressible in their impertinence and in their absence of a sense of humor — sent a herald with all speed into Thessaly (where Xerxes then was) and spoke thus to him before the assembled Persians : — " King of the Medes, the Lacedaemonians and the Heraclides of Sparta require of thee satisfaction due for bloodshed, because thou slewest their king, who fell fighting for Greece." Xerxes (who had a keen sense of humor and was full of bons mots, if we may credit Herodotus) laughed, and for a long time spoke not a word. At last, however, he pointed to Mardonius, who was standing by, and said : " Mardonius here shall give them the satisfaction they deserve to get ! " And the herald — accepted the answer, and forth- with went his way ! In five-and-forty days Xerxes, retreating with all speed, reached the Hellespont, where he arrived with scarce a fraction of his former army. Endeavoring to cross the frozen river Strymon, the fugitives, by their huge weight, broke in the brittle ice (which the hot rays of the sun had softened), and multitudes drank the bitter waters of death. Plague, dysentery, starvation, thinned their ranks still further. A storm had shivered the bridge at Abydos, but the remnant managed to cross, and gorging themselves like wild beasts on the abundance of food which they un- 366 THE STORY OF GREECE. expectedly found there, perished in numbers from ravenous eating. Meanwhile the happy Greeks sent the first-fruits of their glorious victory to Delphi. This done, they sailed to the Isthmus, where a prize of valor was to be awarded to the man who, of all the Greeks, had shown the most merit during the war. When the chiefs were all assembled at the altar of Poseidon, and had received their ballots, each man modestly voted — for HIMSELF ! But the second votes were chiefly given to Themistocles. Envy, however, hin- dered the chiefs from coming to a settled decision, and they all sailed away to their homes without making any award. Still Themistocles was uni- versally regarded as the ablest of the Greeks, and the whole country rang with his fame. The Lace- daemonians crowned him and Eurybiades too, with a crown of olive as the prize of wisdom and dexterity, and Themistocles was presented with the most beautiful chariot that could be found in Sparta. When he left the city he was treated like a king, being royally escorted by three hundred chosen Spartans. Artabazus, the Persian, now besieged Potidaea un- successfully ; the Persian fleet mustered again at Samos, and the Greeks, roused from their inaction, proceeded with their vessels to JEgim.. Mardonius sent Alexander, the Macedonian, as a messenger to the Athenians, to entreat them to cease contending .with Xerxes, as it was, he thought, perfectly useless for them to go on with it. The Athenian bade him go about his business, nobly saying that so long as PA USANIAS A T PLA TMA. 3^7 the sun stayed in the heavens they would never join alHance with the Barbarian against their kindred. " On to Boeotia! " cried these heroes; " now is the time for us, before he enters Attica again ! The Athenians could no more be conquered than the cicadae, which covered their fields in summer, could be made to cease to sing. And well might they wear golden cicadse in their hair, not only to show that they, like the cicadae, were autocJitJionous — sprung from the very soil itself — but as curious and charming symbols of fleeting joy, of irrepressible gayety, and of short-lived mortality. Mardonius, however, when Alexander returned with the refusal of the Athenians to yield to the king, forthwith broke up from Thessaly and Mace- donia, where he had wintered, and led his army with all speed and stubbornness back to Athens. He did not, on his arrival in Attica, find the Athenians in their country — they had again withdrawn, some to their ships, but the greater part to Salamis — and he only gained possession of a deserted town. It was ten months after the taking of the city by the king that Mardonius came against it for the second time. The Athenians again appealed to the Lacedaemo- nians for aid, but the latter were again engaged in one of their everlasting religious festivals, and dilly- dallied till much precious time was lost. At last they agreed to help their neighbor, and a Spartan army set forth under the command of Pausanias, cousin of King Pleistoanax, Leonidas' son, who was yet a child too young to command. The Argives sent word to Mardonius that the Spartans were 368 THE STORY OF GREECE. coming ; and Mardonius, ravaging and burning what remained of the city, retreated from Athens a second time and fell back on Thebes, resolving to give battle on territory friendly to him, where he could, too, manoeuvre his cavalry. At Thebes Attaginus, a citizen of the town, having made great preparations, gave a banquet and invited Mardonius, together with fifty of the noblest Persians, to meet him. Fifty Thebans were invited to help entertain the guests, a Persian and a Theban being set side by side upon each couch. After the ban- quet was ended and the drinking had begun, a certain Persian addressed his neighbor in the Greek tongue, and asked him from what city he came. He replied that he was from Orchomenus ; whereupon the other said : " Since thou hast eaten with me at one table, and poured libations from one cup, I would fain leave with thee a memorial of the belief I hold — the rather that thou mayest have timely warning thyself, and so be able to provide for thy own safety. Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left encamped yonder by the river side ? Yet a little while, and of all this number thou wilt behold but a few survivors ! As he spoke, the Persian let fall a flood of tears ; whereon the Theban, who was astonished at his words, replied : " Surely thou shouldest say all this to Mardonius, and the Persians who are next him in honor ! " Dear friend," rejoined the other, " it is not pos- sible for man to avert that which God has decreed PA USA N'T AS AT PLATTE A. 3^9 shall happen. No one believes warnings, however true. Many of us Persians know our danger, but we are constrained by necessity to do as our leader bids us. Verily 't is the sorest of all human ills to abound in knowledge and yet be powerless to do any thing ! " Thus did a profound presentiment of impending destruction possess one man at least of the great and exultant host of Mardonius. On came the Spartans and other Peloponnesians, — tramp, — tramp, — tramp, — reaching the Isthmus, and (the omens being favorable) Eleusis also, in Attica, and then Erythrae, in Boeotia, where they fought and killed Masistius, the Persian general. Great were the lamentations of the Barbarians over Masistius : they shaved their heads, cut the manes from the war steeds and sumpter-beasts, and vented their grief in such loud cries that all Boeotia re- sounded with the clamor ; for they had lost the man who, next to Mardonius, was held in greatest esteem by king and people. The Greeks, however, full of enthusiasm over their victory, placed the dead body of Masistius, which was remarkable for stature and beauty, on a cart, and paraded it along the ranks of the army — a spec- tacle to men and angels. After this the Greeks conceived the happy thought of going nearer to Plataea, as the land there seemed more favorable for an encampment than that at Erythrae. Here, in marshalling the troops a fierce word-battle arose between the Tegeans and Athe- nians as to which should occupy one of the wings of 370 THE STORY OF GREECE. the army (the other being occupied by the Lacedae- monians). The Athenians very nobly here, as they had done once before, waived their rights, but the Lacedaemonians (who were umpires) cried out with one voice that this would never do, and that glorious Athens was worthier to occupy such a position than boastful Arcadia. The Greek army at Plataea numbered about i lo,- ooo men — light-armed and heavy-armed — probably the most numerous Greek army yet assembled in Hellas. The Barbarians opposed to these about 300,000 Orientals, and about 50,000 " medizing " Greeks, — renegades, rapscallions, and riff-raff, gath- ered from miscellaneous chinks and crannies of treacherous or ease-loving or panic-stricken Greece. Plataea lies on a slope of beautiful Mt. Cithaeron, at the foot of which winds, like a thread through a carpet, the river Asopus. Two hours distant lies Thebes. At present both sites are marked by ruins of fortifications and temples ; little else to show the former power, wealth, and glory of the twin cities. To show how, sometimes, the Greeks believed great and important events to be suspended on a mere gossamer thread, it may be of superstition or of self-interest, it will be well to relate the following anecdote connected with the battle of Plataea. The Grecian sacrifice, before the battle occurred, was offered by Tisamenus the Elean, who accom- panied the army as soothsayer, and had been ad- mitted to that rare privilege, the rights of citizenship in Lacedaemon. In former times Tisamenus had gone to Delphi to consult the god because of his PAUSANIAS AT PLAT^A. 37^ lack of offspring, when it was declared to him by the Pythoness that he would win five very glorious com- bats. Misunderstanding the oracle, and imagining that he was to combat in the games, Tisamenus at once applied himself to the practice of g>'mnastics. When he was successful at Olympia in every thing except the wrestling-match, the Lacedaemonians per- ceived that the combats of which the oracle spoke were not combats in the games, but battles ; so they sought to induce Tisamenus to hire out his services to them in order that they might join him with their Heraclide kings in the conduct of their wars. He agreed on condition that they would accept both his brother and himself as Spartan citizens, which they did. And the Greeks believed that he would help the Spartans to gain five very glorious combats, the first of which was this splendid battle of Plataea (the others need not be mentioned here). Tisamenus, in his capacity as soothsayer, found the victims favorable if the Greeks stood on the de- fensive, but not if they began the battle or crossed the Asopus. But it seemed — strange to say — that the Persian victims, offered up by a renegade Greek named Hegesistratus, who hated the Lacedaemonians, indicated the same things, and so for many days the armies stood and gazed and glared at each other, longing to grapple and close in and gain the victory, but not daring to disobey their soothsayers. Mardonius meanwhile became impatient, sum- moned a conference of his princes and generals, and addressed the captains of the Spartans and the lead- ers of the Greeks in his service in this wise ; 372 THE STORY OF GREECE. Did they know of any prophecy which said that the Persians were to be destroyed in Greece? All were silent, some from ignorance, others because, though they knew the prophecies full well, they did not think it safe to speak out. So Mardonius, when none answered, said : " There is an oracle which says that the Persians shall come to Greece, sack the temple at Delphi, and when they have so done, per- ish one and all. Now, we '11 neither go against this temple nor attempt to sack it ; so we sha'n't perish for that cause ! Rejoice then so far, and doubt not we shall get the better of the Greeks ! " That night Alexander the Macedonian warned the Greeks that Mardonius, eager for the fray, and find- ing it impossible to get auspicious signs, was going to attack the Greeks in defiance of heaven : let them be on their guard ! So the next day the two armies " locked horns," the Lacedaemonians having obtained favorable omens the moment Pausanias uttered a passionate prayer to the Queen of Heaven not to disappoint the hopes of the Greeks. After an intense and fluctuating con- flict, the tide of battle turning now hither and now thither, Mardonius fell fighting bravely, and the Persians wheeled round in flight. The victors pressed on, pursuing and slaying the remnant of the king's army. It is said that of 300,000 men who com- posed the flower of this great troop, only 3,000 out- lived the battle ! There was a man at Plataea among the troops of ^ginetans whose name was Lampon. Now this Lam- pon went to Pausanias arwd counselled him to do a deed PAUSANIAS AT PLAT^A. 3/3 of exceeding wickedness. " Son of Cleombrutus," said he very earnestly, " what thou hast already done is passing great and glorious. By the favor of heaven thou hast saved Greece, and gained a renown beyond all the Greeks of whom we have any knowl- edge. Now, then, so finish thy work that thine own fame may be increased thereby, and that henceforth Barbarians may fear to commit outrages on Grecians. When Leonidas was slain at Thermopylae, Xerxes and IVIardonius commanded that he should be be- headed and crucified. Do thou the like now to Mardonius, and thou wilt have glory in Sparta and likewise through the whole of Greece. For by hang- ing him upon a cross, thou wilt avenge Leonidas, who was thy father's brother." " No — no, friend ! " gently and nobly replied Pau- sanias ; " siicJi things befit barbarians, not Greeks. Maltreat the dead ! Never ! Leonidas, whom thou wouldst have me avenge, is abundantly avenged already. Surely the countless lives here taken are enough to avenge not him only, but all those who fell at Thermopj'lae. Come not thou before me again with such a speech or with such advice ; and thank thy stars and my forbearance that thou art not now punished ! " The crestfallen Lampon went away like the dog that he was, and, we may hope, hid himself. It is in the beautiful amber of the prose of Herodotus that this poisoned fly has come down to our time. Bushels and baskets and carts and couches full of gold and silver bowls ; goblets, drinking-vessels, kettles, bracelets, chains, and scimitars were gathered 374 THE STORY OF GREECE. from the bodies and tents of the slain after the great battle ; and out of them a tenth was set apart for the god at Delphi, and the metal was wrought into a brilliant golden tripod, which was supported by a column formed of three twisted bronze serpents. This, many generations after, was carried away to Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine, and placed in the great Hippodrome, where your story- teller saw it a few years ago, mutilated to be sure, but still wonderfully well preserved considering that it was nearly 2,400 years old. Thus ended the memorable year B.C. 479 ; and the tears of the Persian who wept at the banquet of Mardonius were justified. XXXII. so SHOULD ALL TRAITORS DIE ! The prize of valor in the battle of Plataea was ad- judged to the Plataeans ; they were charged with the duty of preserving the tombs of the slain ; and Pau- sanias solemnly declared the territory in which the battle had been fought to be sacred ground forever. And thus it remained for the short " forever " of fifty years. When Xerxes fled away out of Greece, he left his war-tent to Mardonius. Pausanias, seeing the tent with its adornments of gold and silver, and its hang- ings of divers colors, gave commandment to the bakers and the cooks to make him ready a banquet in such fashion as was their wont for Mardonius. Then they made ready as they were bidden, and Pau- sanias, beholding the couches of gold and silver daintily decked out with their rich coverings, and the tables of gold and silver laid, and the feast itself prepared with all magnificence, was astonished at the good things set before him, and being in pleasant mood, gave commandment to his own followers to make ready a Spartan supper. When the suppers were both served, and it was apparent how vast a difference lay between the two, Pausanias laughed and sent his servant to call to him the Greek crenerals. 376 THE STORY OF GREECE. On their coming, he pointed to the two boards, and said : " I sent for you, O Greeks, to show you the folly of this Median captain who, when he enjoyed such fare as this, must needs come here to rob us of our penury ! " When the dead were buried, the Greeks resolved to make war upon Thebes, The Thebans, however, submitted without long negotiations, and Pausanias dismissed the whole army of allies, and went back to Corinth. Artabazus and the remnant of the Persian troops that had escaped from Platjea rushed head- long through Thessaly and Macedon straight upon Thrace, following the inland route. He himself succeeded in reaching Byzantium ; but a great part of his army perished on the road — many being cut to pieces by the Thracians, and others dying from excess of hunger and toil. On the same day that the blow was struck at Pla- taea, another great defeat befell the Persians at MycaM, in Ionia, and destroyed the sway of the Barbarian among the Ionian Islands in the east, just as, on the same day on which the battle of Salamis was fought, the power of the Carthaginians, allies of Xerxes, was destroyed in the west by Gelon, Tyrant of Syracuse. Mycale was a mountain in Asia Minor that ran out sharply into the Mediterranean Sea, just north of the mouth of the Maeander River, and formed a magnifi- cent promontory on which, near Priene, rose the splen- did temple of Poseidon, which was the place of meet- ing for the Pan-Ionic festival and Amphictyony. J ust so SHOULD ALL TRAITORS DIE! Z77 at the same spot the island of Samos shoots forth a long and delicate tongue of land which almost kisses the promontory of Mycale, the two being only three quarters of a mile apart. You already know part of the story of Samos and its luckless tyrant, Polycrates, who was anointed by Helios and watered by Zeus. The island was the heart of hearts, the very core and centre of Ionian manners, energies, luxury, science, and art ; a grand intellectual light-house, throwing its light far and wide through the dark ancient world. Its schools of statuary, metal-working, architecture, and engineering were among the most celebrated in antiquity. The Samian architects, painters, sculp- tors, and philosophers rendered the island dis- tinguished far beyond its neighbors, and the beauty of its pottery no less than the spacious harbor and numerous costly buildings rivalled in distinction the fame of its literary and philosophical schools. The Greeks made a treaty with the Samians, and setting sail from Delos, where their fleet had taken shelter, moved over to Asia Minor, with a view to capturing or destroying the Persian armada at My- cale. Here were the troops which Xerxes had left behind to keep guard over Ionia while he was in Greece — an army of sixty thousand men commanded by Tigranes. The sailors on the vessels fled from them at the approach of Leotychides, the Greek admiral, and dragged their ships up on the shore, resolving to unite with the land forces, and resist an attack. The Greeks came sailing on, touched the shore, and landed their troops also. When they had finished their preparations, they began to move against the 378 THE STORY OF GREECE. Barbarians, when lo ! as they advanced a rumor flew through their ranks, from one end to the other, that the Greeks had fought and conquered the army of Mardonius in Boeotia. At the same time a herald's wand was observed lying on the beach ! Cheered and delighted with this divine signal, the Greeks rushed gayly and impetuously to battle, being before full of fear. Now, the Hellespont and the islands of Ionia were the prize for which they were about to fight. So they burst resistlessly through the wall of wicker-work shields lifted by the Persians, and threw the foe into hopeless disorder, chasing them furiously up the mountains, and cutting them down wherever they overtook them. They slaugh- tered all they could, and then set fire to the Persian ships and bulwarks, carrying off with them many caskets of money found in the Barbarian camp. Ionia, therefore, on this day, revolted a second time from the Persians. The fleeing Orientals kept on till they came to Sardis, and here they found the king who had been there ever since he lost the sea-fight at Salamis and fled from Athens to Asia. The Greeks sailed away to the Hellespont, where they meant to break down the bridges, which they supposed to be still extended across the strait. To the Athenians was awarded the palm of valor in the battle of Mycale, as in the battles of Marathon and Salamis, and it was to Athens principally that were due the defeat and humiliation of Xerxes and the rescue of Greece. The energy, enterprise, re- source, and resolution displayed by plucky little so SHOULD ALL TRAITORS DIE! Z79 Athens from the beginning to the end of this war — from Marathon to Mycale, from the burning of Sar- dis to the beating of Tigranes — were inexhaustible and worthy of all praise. To her and to Sparta, under whom acted the allied Peloponnesian states, was it due that Xerxes did not sweep the Greeks from the face of the earth, for m iny of these Greeks fought from the first with Xerxes, others submitted with easy consciences, or were bribed with money, and still others, like many of the Western Pelopon- nesians and islanders lay in absolute indifference, " tucked away " in their own delightful little corners of the Greek world, passive spectators looking on at a grand theatrical display in which they felt no par- ticular interest. Thus the clear Greek seas were swept clean of the hated Barbarian, who had been driven back howling into his native wilderness — ^wilderness at least to the civilized inhabitants of the West. It is impossible to describe fitly in words the bene- fit which the Persian War proved to be to all the Greeks in making men of them, making them firm, self-reliant, sagacious, and invincible to any outside foe, training them for peace as well as for war, giving them experience of foreign lands and for- eign armies, and filling their heads with a per- petual stream of new ideas. They seemed to acquire new senses in this superb gymnasium and battle- ground of contending forces ; they gained new intel- ligence every day that the war lasted ; their intellec- tual powers became marvellously quickened and sharpened ; the imagination of the people awoke as 380 THE STORY OF GREECE. if from a magic slumber, like Thorn-Rose at the touch of the Prince in the fairy tale, and sent forth a series of sublime works of art in poetry, sculpture, and architecture. A new era opened in Hellas : the incubus — the nightmare of the possibility of a Per- sian despotism being erected on the ruins of the Acropolis — was thrown off forever. We have a grand and joyous people released once for all from killing fear, from torturing apprehension, and left to follow the course of their own true and enlightened self-culture. For the eighty years that followed the Persian War were like the eighty years from 1800 to 1880 for the United States — an era of the richest material and literary development. Greece advanced with a rush, turning at first like a great lazy, easy- going wheel, which revolved deliberately in the be- ginning, then whirled faster and faster, and at last seemed to whirl with such swiftness that it threw off showers of brilliant sparks — poets, orators, states- men, generals, artists, philosophers thick as glow- worms in a summer night. Naturally, after the battle of Plataea, the people of Athens felt that they could return to their own homes — and so they did, — of course to find them scattered by fire, ruined and desolated. The Greeks, like the modern French, were essentially a home- loving people ; they did not travel much except among their own kindred, though they might creep from one beautiful isle to another in their black- bottomed ships for the purposes of trade. So each clung to his own village or city with the tenacity of a tender and strong affection, thinking it the village ///J'KT ^ !n1 \ 'I ■'■I... ^ i,iii 1 1 I'll *' fi ,i,'i '•^>.ii, ,„ii'i'i f ,,ij,.|i,„i'i^;|i;;i4^'- ii'i 1 it li li I'I'iil " \ J lif^^i I'lIU 382 THE STORY OF GREECE. or city in all the universe which was his, and his only ; none could ever be like it ! Thus the Athenians yearned for their precious Athens, and thus they went back to it with love stronger than death, finding it lovelier in its ashes than all the green and glorious world besides. They re-built it, and lavished on it in generations to come all the love and piety and pride of their proud, pious, and reverent hearts, beautifying it as no city had ever before been beautified, and endowing it with such enchanting architectural charms that the glory and beauty of their masterpieces have lasted on down to our times. The people, however, instead of rebuilding their old wall, were persuaded by the far-seeing Themis- tocles to build one of much greater circuit, so that, in case of war, all Attica, bag and bundle, might take refuge in it with all their goods and chattels. As soon as the neighboring states of yEgina and Corinth got wind of the vast undertakings and ambi- tions of Themistoclcs, they began to interfere, like the meddlesome gossips that they were, and rouse the jealousy of all the " old grannies " in Greece — particularly of Sparta. The Lacedemonians remon- strated, whereupon Themistoclcs went to Sparta and denied that he was rebuilding and fortifying the city of Athens, bidding them send people to Athens to see whether it were so or not. By this delay he got time for the building of the wall, and placed the Lacedaemonian ambassadors in the hands of his countrymen as hostages for himself. Though Themistoclcs was thus full of tricks, he so SHOULD ALL TRAITORS DIE! 383 was also full of true greatness of soul and of won- derful wit, and what he did for Hellas during this war seems to have been actuated by true patriotism. Thus, when the chicken-hearted Eurybiades was eager to run off with the fleet to the Isthmus, just before the battle of Salamis, Themistocles resisted with all his might, and insisted on fighting the Per- sians then and there. " They that start up at the Olympic Games before the rest," said Eurybiades, " are flogged." " And they that are left behind," said Themistocles, " are not crowned." Again, when on a certain occasion Eurybiades lifted up his staff as if about to strike : " Strike if you will, but listen! " cried Themistocles. " You are a cuttle-fish," said he to another Faint-Heart ; " you have a sword, but no heart ! " Xerxes, sitting on his throne of gold, under his golden umbrella, surrounded by a throng of secre- taries who were to write down all that was done in the fight at Salamis, was no terror to this dauntless Greek. And when he saw the waters swimming with dead bodies decked out in golden necklaces and bracelets, he said to a bystander : " You can have these things, for you are not Themistocles." And he further said of the changeable Athenians, that they did not honor or admire him, but made of him a sort of plane-tree to shelter themselves under in bad weather ; but that as soon as the weather cleared, they plucked his leaves and cropt his branches. So, too, when one of the generals boastingly compared his deeds with those of Themistocles, the latter said that once upon a time the Day after the Festival found 384 THE STORY OF GREECE. fault with the Festival : " On you there is nothing but bustle and trouble and preparation, but when / come, everybody sits down and enjoys himself." This the Festival admitted to be true ; " but, if I had not come first, you would not have come at all." " Even so," he said, " if Themistocles had not come before, where would you have been now ? " Another of his sayings was that his son was the most powerful man in Greece : " For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athe- nians, my wife commands me, and he commands my wife." And liking to be original in all things, when he had land to sell he ordered the auctioneer to give notice that there were " good neighbors " near it. Of two men who made love to his daughter he pre- ferred the man of worth to the one who had a bagful of money, saying that he would rather have a man without a money-bag than a money-bag without a man. Of such stuff was this bright-witted, epigram- matic Themistocles made who now decoyed and deceived the long-legged Lacedsemonians about the wall. Occasionally, however, he met his match, as when, sailing about the islands and collecting money for the war, he came to Andros, and told the Andrians that he had brought two goddesses with him — Persuasion and Force. Whereupon they an- swered that they too had two goddesses which pro- hibited them from giving him any money — Poverty and Impossibility ! The wall round Athens was soon completed, and a still stronger one was built round Piraeus, the port so SHOULD ALL TRAITORS DIE! 385 four miles distant ; so that Themistocles literally- kneaded town and port together, as Aristophanes said. Pausanias, meanwhile, the victor of Platsea, laid siege to Byzantium (now Constantinople), took the city, and captured some of the kinsmen of Xerxes. The battle of Mycale had liberated Ionia from the bondage of the satraps, but many places on the coast of Asia Minor and Thrace still adhered to the Persian cause or were occupied by Persian troops. The possession of Byzantium made it very difificult for the Greeks to keep their supremacy of the sea or prevent the Barbarians from again invading Greece. Hence it became a prime necessity that the doom of Persia in Europe should be signed and sealed by the downfall of this all-important city. Accordingly Pausanias went to work and captured it. Pausanias unluckily had tasted the sweets of Oriental luxury, and, misled by his appetites and misguided by his ambition, he now formed a treach- erous plan which was to dim his glory forever. Sparta and all the Greek states put together seemed to him a mere drop in the bucket as compared with the oceanic extent and splendor of the mighty Persian empire. He became bitter and discontented, and dreamed of allying himself with the great kings of the East. The best way to accomplish this appeared to be to offer himself to Xerxes as his son-in-law, promising to bring all Greece under the golden um- brella of Persia. Not content with this sublime im- pertinence and treachery, the villain furthermore began to act the fool : dressing like a Persian nin- 386 THE STORY OF GREECE. compoop, insulting the Greeks who Hved under hin^, and aping the extravagance and pomp of an Ori- ental court. And this from a man who had lived on black broth and beans all his life ! Rumors of the idiotic conduct of its general flew to Sparta ; he was summoned home, and the lonians serving in the fleet, who had been trampled upon or neglected or taunted by Pausanias, invited the Athe- nian commanders to put themselves at the head of the allied navy in place of Sparta. The Athenians did not need a second invitation, and when the suc- cessor of Pausanias arrived at Byzantium, he found that he had reckoned without his host. Nobody would obey him, and so he returned home with his finger in his mouth. When Pausanias reached Sparta, he was tried for treason, but not condemned. He went to Asia Minoi», and conspired with some of the states there. He was again summoned to Sparta, and now began — irrepressible intriguer that he was — to plot with the Helots for the overthrow of the government. At last the ephors (who were a sort of watch-dogs set to supervise and guard the kings) contrived to overhear him talking treason to one of his slaves, and what they heard convinced them that they had a " hard case " to deal with — an incurable scamp. Pausanias fled to a temple for refuge against his pursuers, and there he starved to death, B.C. 467. The fate of Pausanias resembled the fate of Themistocles in many respects ; indeed the lynx-eyed ephors discovered that the Athenian was much en- tangled in the treason of the Spartan. Themistocles so SHOULD ALL TRALTORS DLE ! 387 had become unendurable at Athens by reason of his growing arrogance and injustice ; so he was ostra- cised, and went to liv^e at Argos, that ancient ally of Persia. When he found that his share in the in- trigues of Pausanias w^as estabhshed, he took to flight, and made his way through thick and thin, over hill and dale, in peril and fear, to far-distant Susa, capital of Persia. Xerxes had been gathered to his fathers, and a new king, Artaxerxes, his son, reigned in his stead. The emigre Themistocles wrote a letter to Artaxerxes saying that though he had done more than any other man to injure Xerxes, he could do service to Persia that would counterbalance it and be equally great. The king, with the clemency characteristic of the Persian kings and the house of Darius, received him gladly and gave him immense wealth ; one city was to furnish him wine, another bread, and so on. But the traitor died before he could carry out his treach- erous schemes — died an exile and a hireling, a dis- grace to his fatherland and to himself, though once so full of love and of high devotion for Greece, And so should all traitors end — by hanging themselves, like Judas; by starvation, like Pausanias; or in exile, like Themistocles ! ^Y>J^^^SSl<^-^ XXXIII. THE OLYMPIAN PERICLES. Already during the ten or fifteen years of the Persian War the two great states of Greece — Sparta and Athens — had emerged into greater and greater prominence from the general mass of Hellenic powers, ripening, strengthening, laying foundations broad and deep for future supremacy, and gathering power and influence from the states around as from a fertile soil. During the Persian invasion, to be sure, Sparta had been acknowledged as leader of Greece by all the thirty-one cities which had engaged in the war; but henceforth, after the treachery of Pausanias at Byzantium, there were to oppose each other two great leagues : one headed by Sparta and her Peloponnesian allies ; the other headed by Athens, the islands, and many towns on the coast of Asia Minor and Thrace. The Athenian League was called the Confederacy of Delos, because its depu- ties met at the temple of Apollo in the island- sanctuary, and its treasures were placed there for safe-keeping. The object of the League was one essential to the preservation of Greece — to sweep and keep the Persians out of the vEgaean Sea. Each city contributed annually a certain number of ships with their crews, or a certain sum of money ; and THE OLYMPIAN PERICLES. 389 Aristides the Just was the man chosen to fix what each should contribute. Aristides was at that time in command of the Athenian fleet. The difference between the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian League was distinct from the begin- ning. The Lacedaemonian League was essentially a land league, and the states affiliated with it con- tributed land troops, soldiers, and munitions of war. The Athenian League was essentially a sea league, and the states, islands, and cities affiliated with it contributed ships, sailors, and sea-fighters. The fun- damental principles governing each league were also essentially different. Sparta favored and fostered oligarchy as a form of government nearest akin to her own. Athens, on the other hand, favored and fostered democracy as a form of government to which her own had from early times more and more tended. Yet it often turned out that in the same city there was a double party — one favoring de- mocracy, the other favoring aristocracy ; one favor- ing Athens, the other Sparta. It was thought a great blunder that in the Confederacy of Delos some of the confederated states were allowed to contribute money instead of ships and men, which turned out as wofully as a war would turn out in which the soldiers were not volunteers, and were allowed to hire substitutes. So it came to pass, after no great while, that the example became contagious, and other states, which had originally contributed ships, arranged to ''buy their way out" — to contribute money instead, in order to avoid the peril and an- noyance of military service. In this way, instead of 390 THE STORY OF GREECE. remaining free states, they became tributaries — tribute-payers — to Athens. If they had kept up their ships and their ship-building, they might have remained free, or at least have defended themselves, if Athens encroached upon their rights ; but when they ceased to build ships or train sailors, and pre- ferred to send money — from that moment they lost control of their own affairs and surrendered abjectly to Athenian claims. The money became the indi- vidual property of this powerful, ever-growing city- state instead of the common property of the League. Naturally, in no long time, the assembling of the deputies became a merely nominal thing; the treas- ure and the treasure-house both were removed to Attica (B.C. 459), and the Athenians — art-loving, enthusiastic, not over-scrupulous folk that they were — spent it in paying the people to attend to public affairs, and in rendering the city of the Acropolis the most beautiful city in the world. Of course such changes came in as gently as the falling of the dew — here a little, there a little — gradually, almost imperceptibly, that no suscepti- bilities might be hurt or suspicions roused ; the smaller states at first saw every thing through rose- colored spectacles ; it seemed so delightful to feel one's self free from those odious Persians — forever free ! And here was invincible, upright, wealthy Athens at the head of the League ; what more was necessary to assure perfect security and bliss? The war in the Orient continued ; one by one Persia lost all her possessions in the blue and shining Archipel- ago ; and in B.C. 466, Cimon, the Athenian general, THE OLYMPIAN PERICLES. 391 gained a double victor^'- over the Persians by land and by sea, at the mouth of the river Eurymedon, on the south coast of Asia Minor. So far so good ; all was as sweet as a marriage-bell. But Fussy little Naxos, where Dionysus found the wailing Ariadne, after she had been deserted by Theseus, jangled these sweet bells out of tune and — revolted ! The discord thrilled through the Confed- eracy, and from that time on — from the time that Naxos had to be chastised like a naughty truant and forced back into the magic circle — the Confederacy became more and more shaky. Naxos the Divine had unhappily kicked and grown too fat on its abundance of corn, wine, oil, and fruit, and for a wee island only eighteen miles long and twelve wide, ought to have known better and shown a better example to its sister-confederates. Greek-like, how- ever, it must be independent or nothing at all ; it flew off at a tangent, got well flogged for its pains, and ever afterwards w^as seldom mentioned in history. Do you remember the story in Plutarch of what took place at Athens just before the battle of Salamis ? When the whole city of Athens were going on board the ships to get out of the way of the Persians, it afforded a spectacle worthy of pity and admiration to see them send away their fathers and children before them, and unmoved by their cries and tears pass them over into the neighboring islands. But that which stirred compassion most of all was that many old men, by reason of their great age, were left behind, and many pet animals could not be seen 392 THE STORY OF GREECE. without pity, running about the town and howling, eager to be carried along with their masters that had fed them. Among them it was reported that Xan- thippus, the father of Pericles, had a dog that could not endure to be left behind, but leapt into the sea, and swam along by the vessel's side till he came to the island of Salamis, where he sank down and died! Now this same fickle people, who loved so much and hated so much, and did and endured so much — who abandoned their country, rich and poor alike, and fought sublimely on board the fleet at Salamis — this same people, as soon as the roar of the Barbarian war died away on the sea and in the hills of Thrace, began again to wrangle and quarrel, to fuss and to fume, and to split into angry and irreconcilable par- ties. The share which the poor people had in win- ning this incomparable victory made them consider that they had done fully as much for Athens as the wealthy and aristocratic folk, and that they ought no longer to be kept out of the remuneration and hon- orable state offices, as they still were by the constitu- tion of Cleisthcnes. All this was right and natural enough. So Aristides, who was heart and sinew aristocrat, the head of the rich and noble Athenians who were Tories and Conservatives, saw that a revo- lution was inevitable, and that the constitution would have to be amended if the people were to be controlled at all. He therefore proposed certain important changes himself, rather than let hasty- tempered demagogues put their fingers in the pie. From this time it became the supreme glory of Athens that her lowliest citizen mieht rise to the THE OL YMPIAN PERICLES. 393 archonship, as it is the supreme glory of the United States that her lowliest citizen may rise to be Presi- dent. Athens thus became even more democratic than before. When Aristides died in B.C. 468, there came to the front a very brilliant man who was named Cimon, the son of that great Miltiades who was the victor of Marathon. Cimon and his partisans were friendly to Sparta, and were anxious to unite the Athenian and Lacedaemonian leagues in one com- mon effort against Persia, and not against each other. Cimon and his supporters at first prevailed and held the upper hand. But about B.C. 462, there was an earthquake in Laceda^mon, and the Helots, who had been so long unjustly oppressed, revolted. Sparta felt the imminence of the peril, and applied eagerly and strenuously to Athens for help ; so Cimon, who was the friend of Sparta, persuaded his people to send liim with an army to her assistance. In a little while the Spartans, who were a cautious and suspi- r*'^us people, imagined that the Athenians were de- ceiving and beguiling them ; so they sent them away. This conduct seemed insulting to the Athenians, and they became greatly irritated. At once Cimon, the ad- mirer of Laccda^mon, lost caste and influence among his countrymen, and his power passed to Pericles, a noble of the Alcmreonid clan, who was the leader of the opposite party. This party deprived the august court of the Areopagus, in which the nobles were all powerful, of the right of forbidding the pas- sage of new laws, and of meddling with the affairs of the citizens; and they enacted a law which gave reg- 394 THE STORY OF GREECE. ular pay to the citizens for attending the Assembly (as we pay our legislators and Congressmen), and for serving on juries. The object of this was to enable poor men to give up their valuable time to the ser- vice of the state, and to bring the government more and more within their range, comprehension, and management. The alliance with Sparta came to an end ; in exchange for which a treaty with Argos,the ancient foe of Lacedaemon, was entered into. In B.C. 459, only a few years after his dashing victories on the Eurymedon, Cimon, the generous, was ban- ished by ostracism. As we have mentioned Pericles, you must hear more in detail about this, the greatest of all Athenian statesmen, a noble orator and democrat who yet be- longed to the bluest of blue Athenian blood. The period of his lifetime embraces the loftiest and noblest period of Grecian story, the period in which Athens became supremely ascendant in arts, politics, and letters, and wrought such poems and marbles, such temples and trophies of intellectual greatness, as have rendered her name forever memorable. The " Olympian " Pericles was indeed the Zeus of Athe- nian culture, oratory, and accomplishment : a lumi- nous intelligence, quiet, profound, far-reaching, well- balanced, neither too piercing nor too obtuse, the fine flower of antique Greek civilization and its highest justification. The father of Pericles was the Athenian general Xanthippus who helped to defeat the Persians at the battle of Mycal^. He married Agariste, grandchild of the sagacious Cleisthenes, who drove out the sons THE OLYMPIAN PERICLES. 395 of Pisistratus and nobly put an end to their tyranni- cal usurpation, putting in its place a model govern- ment admirably tempered and suited to harmonize parties and secure the safety of the people. When his mother was near her time she dreamed that she was delivered of a lion. When Pericles (her child) grew up he was greatly ridiculed by the comic poets because (like Wordsworth) he had a long head. He was thoroughly taught in music and elegant accom- plishments, in natural and intellectual philosophy, and in rhetoric and argumentation ; but it was the example and teaching of the great philosopher Anaxagoras, who was nicknamed " Nous " (mind, intelligence), to which he owed his extraordinary gravity and justness of mind, his powers of dis- crimination, and his mental habitudes. He learned from him to abhor the buffooneries of the Athenian " stump speakers," and to apply himself to the acquisition of solid attainments, composure of coun- tenance, dignity of demeanor, and a serenity which no interruption in the midst of his public speaking could deprive of its self-possession. He may have lacked the ease and grace and pliancy of Cimon, but those who ridiculed Pericles' gravity as the affecta- tion of a charlatan were bidden by Zeno to acquire the same " affectation," since the mere effort to counterfeit it might (he said) insensibly instil into them a real love and knowledge of those elevated qualities. Anaxagoras freed the mind of Pericles from the mists and terrors of superstition, and explained to him that many phenomena which the common 39^ THE STORY OF GREECE. people ascribed to fairies and gods and supernatural beings were due to evcry-day causes. When he was still a young man he is said to have stood in con- siderable apprehension of the people, as he was thought in face and age to be very like the tyrant Pisistratus, and the " old folks "began to comment upon the sweetness of his voice, his volubility and rapidity in speaking, his great wealth, his noble birth, and other facts in which he recalled Pisistratus. Hence for a long time he kept extremely quiet, fearing ostracism as a person dangerously rich, brilliant-minded, and ambitious. But when Aristides was dead, Themistocles in exile, and Cimon absent on distant expeditions, he came unobtrusively out of his hiding-place and took the side of the poor against the rich, though by temperament, association, and descent he was an aristocrat as delicate-fingered and thin-skinned as Cimon, the leader of the aristocracy. It was probably in opposition to Cimon and to ensure his own safety that he espoused the cause of the democracy. He abstained from lounging on the streets, which most garrulous, sunshine-loving Athe- nians were passionately fond of, kept rigidly away from suppers and drinking-bouts, did not perpetually thrust himself forward in the public assembly, and appeared there only when he had something really important to say. In this he differed immensely from the juggling and chattering demagogues who just at this time, and a little later on, began to swarm in the Attic law-courts and fill the air with their clamor. Thus it was said of him that he reserved hiipself, like the Salaminian galley, for great occa- THE OL YMPIAN PERICLES. 397 sions, and when he did come forward, made a pro- found impression. His great power in pubHc affairs, whether of war or peace, his thundering voice and flashing eyes when he harangued the people, and the thunderbolts of logic, sarcasm, and wit which his tongue unceasingly launched in his great and noble orations, got for him the name of " The Olympian." He left little behind him in the way of writings, but a few of his sayings are recorded, such as that the island of ^gina must be moved from in front of the Piraeus (the port of Athens) as a cataract must be re- moved from a man's eye. In his eulogy on those who fell in battle at Samos, he said that they had become immortal as the gods were. For, said he, we do not see the gods indeed, except through the honors we pay them, and through the benefits they do us we attribute to them immortality. Even so they are immortal who die in the service of their country. Thucydides described the rule of Pericles as an aristocratic government that went by the name of a democracy ; the rule of a single overmastering intel- lect. Others contradict this view and hold that by him the common people were first encouraged, and led on to such evils as the appropriation of subject territory, allowances for attending theatres, payments for performing public duties, and the like; and that he converted them from a sober, thrifty, and virtu- ous people, who maintamed themselves by their own labor, into lovers of extravagance, pomp, idleness, intemperance, and licentiousness. Cimon and Pericles were as inveterate in their 598 THE STORY OF GREECE. rivalry as Aristides and Themistocles. The wealth and generosity of Cimon for a long time counter- balanced all Pericles could do to win the popular favor ; but it is said that at last he undermined the influence of Cimon, and procured his ostracism as a friend of the Lacedaemonians and a foe of the people. Later, however, he procured the recall of Cimon, who became admiral of the fleet and ended his life in the island of Cyprus. At his death his kinsman, Thucydides, became his successor in the favor of the party, a man renowned as a political leader and skilled in speaking. Pericles did all he could to conceal the purple rag of his ingrained aristocratical tendencies by continually entertaining the people with solemn banquets, magnificent shows, gay pro- cessions, and unbounded hospitality. Every year he sent out sixty galleys for eight months, filled with paid citizens, who were to learn the science and art of seamanship. Many superfluous or discontented people he sent out as colonists to the Chersonese, or the island of Naxos, or to Andros, Thrace, and Italy, emptying the streets of a dangerous and idle crowd who might talk sedition or stir up strife, privy conspiracy, and rebellion. For the streets of the early Greek cities were always full of idle vagabonds with nothing to do and nothing to wear, and these " tramps " and idlers often imperilled the very exist- ence of the state by their discontent, revolutionary hankerings, and latent communism. Athens had its Belleville quarter c'xs well as Paris. XXXIV. HOW ATHENS PROSPERED AND THE POETS SANG UNDER PERICLES. Hellas woke up one morning and found that Athens, from a small, shabby inland market-town, had suddenly risen to a splendor, opulence, and influence which was felt like an electric shock from one end of Greece to the other. This was due to the Persian War — that matchless school of strategy and tactics in which the Athenians had graduated with first honors. The accidental circumstance of her follow- ing the advice of Themistocles, and laying by money to build a fleet against the ^ginetans, had not only saved Hellas when the Barbarians swooped down upon Athens like myriads of hawks, but it had transformed her eventually into a great commercial city, and pointed out to her the true source of her future greatness and prosperity. A new town and port — the PirzEus — thronged with merchants and sailors and strangers from other lands, filled with sharp tongued and sharper-fingered tradesmen, crowded with the strongest navy in the world — sprang up, and Athens became the capital city, the head-in- fluence of a league that covered the yEgaean Sea. Athens had become, as silently as a golden butterfly slips out of the cocoon-pod, the gayest, most joyous. 400 THE STORY OF GREECE. most progressive city in Greece, — the ruling city indeed, and Pericles helped it on infinitely by under- standing at once that its citizens ought to have a chance of ruling both themselves and their empire. It was his opinion that the veriest Athenian lout might become a sensible, virtuous, and public-spirited citizen by means of an education, by listening to the wonderful oratory of the speakers in the Assembly, by practice as juiyman in deciding great and im- portant cases, and by associating on terms of equality with his fellow-citizens. He distrusted the ability of a small and exclusive body of aristocrats and mil- lionaires to impress the people with a love of good order and government, and he moved continually in the direction of giving the people more and more privileges and prerogatives, emancipating them first from this restriction and then from that, and showing them how to govern themselves and take care of their own interests. He foresaw that one day war with Sparta must supervene, for Sparta was already playing the part of the fading belle, who is jealous of a youthful and charming rival; she could not bear to reflect upon all the brilliant blossoming of Athenian life, the increasing fame and beauty of the city, and the impending consequences to flow from Athens, sitting throned as a queen at the head of the Confederacy of Delos. When Athens and Sparta broke off their alliance, Athens allied herself (as you know) with Argos. She also made a treaty with her neighbor Megara, because Megara was a mountainous little state, and if she were an ally, the Athenians thought they could more ATHENS AND THE POETS. 4OI easily resist in these mountains any army that might try to invade Attica from the Peloponnesus. Hardly had these neighbors made friends, when Corinth and ^gina became very angry with Athens and declared war on her. The Athenians gained a victory on the sea, and shut yEgina up by a blockade. The wai was exceedingly mean and treacherous on the part of Corinth, for at that very moment Athens had an army in Egypt engaged in fighting the Persians for the common welfare of Hellas. This was of no con- sequence to the Corinthians, however, who in B.C. 458 invaded Megara. The boys and old men who had been left behind in Athens as too young or too old to go to Egypt, marched valiantly out against these tricky Corinthians, and gave them such a sound thrashing as made their ears tingle for years to come. The inconceivable cowardice of the Corinthi- ans may be gathered from the fact that they were trying to stab Athens in the back during a year when she was fighting in Cyprus, in Egypt, in Phoenicia, in Megara, and off the coast of vEgina and the Peloponnesus! It was well said that it was their triumph over the Persians that filled the Athe- nians with this marvellous spirit and enterprise, and that made nothing seem difficult or impossible to them — as the Corinthians and other dirty folk found to their cost. But Corinth and Sparta were not the only enemies of Athens ; a perpetual flea in her ear and thorn in her side was Thebes, over the border, in Boeotia. Thebes too was the centre of a league, an unwilling member of which, at this time, was Plataea ; who nevertheless wrested herself loose 402 THE STORY OF GREECE. from the grip of the Thebans and joined the Athe- nian alliance. This was of course wormwood and gall to Thebes, who had already swallowed many a bitter cup from Athens, and was full of queer, old- fashioned people who fav^ored oligarchies, as Sparta did, and could only maintain the league by setting up olioarchical governments in the other towns. There was a great affinity between the mental habits and political institutions of the Thebans and those of the Spartans, between whom, as a rose between thorns, was set democratic Athens. Sparta therefore when hostilities broke out sent an army into eely BcEotia to assist the Thebans (B.C. 45/), and at the same time the Spartan-lovers in Athens — the oligarchical party there — seized the opportunity to conspire with Sparta and oust the democrats. The plot was that the Spar- tan army on its way back from Boeotia should sur- prise Athens, and hand over the gov^ernment to the oligarchs — a few ambitious nobles whose fingers itched to hold the reins once more. But the Athe- nians neither slumbered nor slept — except with their eyes wide open : they discovered the conspiracy', and sent out an army to meet the advancing Spartans. A battle was fought at Tanagra, and though the Spartans gained the victory', they were afraid to enter Athens. A month or two afterwards the Athenians avenged themselves by marching into Bceotia and chastising the Thebans, when they over- threw the oligarchies in all the Boeotian towns and established popular governments, or democracies, in their place. These governments became subject to Athens, as did those in Phocis and Locris hard by, so ATHENS AXD THE POETS. 403 that she now governed from the Piraeus to Thermop- ylse. In B.C. 455 yEgina, the eye-sore of the Athe- nian mariner, the island beloved of Pindar, was reduced to subjection and made to pay a good round sum in tribute. About this time Athens was increased in strength enormously by the construction of the famous Long Walls which ran all the way from the city to the Piraeus, a distance of more than four miles. They ran like great jugular veins about two hundred yards apart from one another, and their peculiar value lay in the fact that they made it impossible for any land army to surround Athens so as to deprive it of food. A magnificent highway ran down from the Acropolis to the sea — a huge arter}' along which passed traffic and provision-cars, and streams of people and chariots, and all the brilliant stir and show of an in- creasing city ; the markets of the town overflowed with fish, fruits, meat, and vegetables as long as these walls remained intact or untaken by an enemy. The ships discharged their cargoes at the Piraeus, and their multifarious produce — gold, ivor}% and gems from the isles, marbles, comestibles, and wine — shot up the long and curving highway to *' violet-tressed, illustrious, divine Athens" as through a long and open tunnel. In B.C. 452 a truce was made with Sparta for five years, and the power of Athens, opening like a hun- dred-petalled rose, reached its height. But in B.C. 447 the aristocrats of the misty and crapulous Boeotian towns, who had been driven out by Athens, recovered their power, and defeated the Athenians at Coronea, 404 THE STORY OF GREECE. near Lake Copais, in a battle that was very memorable. Near the same spot, fifty or sixty years after, Agesi- laus. King of Sparta, defeated the aUied Greeks (B.C. 394). The Athenians, with one of those sudden changes which we so often notice in the story of Hellas — " See-saw Margery Daw ! " — now lost all control of the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians ; and Euboea and Megara seized the same opportunity to revolt. When the five years* truce came to an end Sparta increased the dramatic interest of the situation by invading Attica — Sparta sleepless as a wolf, stiff-necked and incorrigible, a nest of Greek "Bourbons" that never seemed to learn, to forgive, or to forget. Athens was in imminent peril for a while, but she was saved by the genius and activity of Pericles, who knew what singular power money always had over the Spartans, and by this means bribed them to retreat. He then turned his atten- tion to rebellious Euboea and subdued it. In B.C. 445 the well-known Thirty Years' Truce with Sparta was entered into. Athens gave up all control over Boeotia and the other continental states, contenting herself with her maritime subjects and allies, and the Persian War, which had lasted off and on nearly a hundred years, came to an end like a mighty hundred-years' lesson. From B.C. 445 to B.C. 435 Pericles held the office of Stratcgus and superintended and directed every thing at Athens. Though he might probably have made himself tyrant, and become supreme despot, like Pisistratus, he magnanimously abstained, and preferred to remain the First Citizen of Attica — a ATHENS AND THE POETS. 405 man who by his surpassing eloquence and wisdom and perfect beauty of character impressed his con- temporaries as the greatest of all the Greeks. He blundered like other men, to be sure ; which is no more than saying that he was like the rest of us ; he unfortunately introduced or at least confirmed the principle of paying the citizens to attend to their public duties, persuaded them to treat their allies as subjects, and was mistaken in believing that they had sense enough always patriotically to follow only wise and sober leaders. But one might ransack human history from one end of it to another without ever finding such greatness of soul, such equanimity of spirit, such high-mindedness, such noble devotion to one's country as Pericles the son of Xanthippus and husband of Aspasia showed. One might ran- sack English and French and German and American history without finding more than one example — our immortal Washington — who surpassed him in sagacity and success, and in the grand ambition of lifting his fellow-men to the loftiest level of intelli- gence and patriotism. In these particulars Pericles was a man of the nineteenth century after Christ, even more than he was a Greek patriot and states- man who lived 400 years before Christ. Pericles was filled with the noblest devotion to poetry, art and knowledge, and stimulated in his people the same love — a love which survived in imperishable poems, histories, statues, and sanctuaries, long after their military glory had passed and gone forever. In this way he made Athens the noblest text-book to after generations, filling it not with libraries 406 THE STORY OF GREECE. or store-houses of learning, but with beautiful objects and eloquent memorials of the cunning of Greek fingers, with bright and active life, with in- structive public amusements, and with reverend and ennobling forms of worship. Temples, porticos and colonnades sprang up and soon swarmed with the exquisite and tranquil creations of Greek chisels. Pictures in public places revealed what great things the gods had done for Athens in days of yore, and what memorable triumphs her generals and admirals had won by field and flood. A group of divinely gifted poets, beginning with ^schylus, who had fought at Marathon, and Pindar, who was the crowned poet- laureate of the Olympic and Pythian Games, awoke as if by enchantment and made the air of Greece tuneful with sweet and mighty song. The play- writers wrote series after series of unrivalled plays, which were performed, at the expense of the state, in the open-air theatre of Dionysus, under the Acropolis, before throngs upon throngs of eager listeners, like those who go now once in ten years to witness the Passion Play at Oberammergau. Many of these sparkled and rippled and roared with fun, like the comedies of Aristophanes, often taking for their theme topics of the day, foibles of the people, characters of philosophers and statesmen, or theories of the gods, to ridicule or satirize. Others took great and awful subjects and built up out of them tragedies — plays thronged with legendary or heroic figures, subjects that evoked tears, or that treated of ancient curses, or that sang in immortal iambs the sorrow of Antigone, the blindness of CEdipus, the 408 THE STORY OF GREECE. audacity of Prometheus, or the crime of Pentheus, awing and solemnizing and instructing vast multi- tudes with their exhibitions of the wrath of fate, the coming of Nemesis, the anger of the Eumenides, (avenging goddesses), the outbreak of long-deferred but silently ripening vengeance. The oldest and earliest of these poets is ^schylus, who took such subjects as Agamemnon, Prometheus, and the Persians, and treated them in a very austere, solemn, and almost Biblical way, using words of tre- mendous length and thundering sound, so that the comic poets afterwards made fun of him. He had the deepest reverence for the gods, and across his pages there march a troop of solemn figures, half human, half divine, whose lips utter, or rather mutter, myste- rious words that seem to come from another world. Sophocles, his successor, is full of exquisite grace and pathos, and is rich in incomparable choruses that spin themselves between act and act of his dramas like musical webs, and are sung by bands of captives or mariners or old men, the object of these choruses being most often to justify the ways of God to men. Only six or seven of his masterpieces have been pre- served, — such as the Antigone, Electra, Ajax, QLdi- pus, Philoctetes, and a few others ; but each is so full of beauty and tenderness that the collection has been studied with delight as a whole for ages, and will always remain our most perfect models of dramatic composition. Sophocles takes the ancient myth-stories and surcharges them with new and speaking life, so that gods and men talk with an accent of angels, and with a tenderness and majesty ATHENS AND THE POETS. 409 that have never been surpassed. He took the empty honeycombs of these tales of ancient royal families and filled them with the overflowini^ honey of his art, mak- ing each character-group or dramatic cluster develop some high theme or revolve in passionate and plead- ing circles about some towering man or woman. After him came Euripides, the " human," whose melting music and modern spirit are close akin to our drama; a Greek in trailing Ionic dress, who might be mistaken almost for a man of our time. Seventeen or eighteen of his plays survive to us, and they constitute a crowded store-house of sentiment, of situation, of episode, of discussion, that make us think Euripides anticipated our times by many hundreds of years. He has been called the " human " on account of his broad sympathies with the human race, his profound sensibility to eveiy chord in the human heart that vibrates to suffering or to emotions that rise at the sight of human experience. It would be strange if, after all this solemnity, there was not somebody to laugh ; accordingly, Aris- tophanes comes as the incarnation of Greek laughter ; a biting, bitter wit, blowing through Greek society like a northeast wind and freezing its foibles and frailties to an icicle. Aristophanes was perhaps the greatest comic poet that ever lived ; a man who hated changes and innovations, laughed at strong- minded, suffrage-hunting women, and revered the old-fashioned gods rather than the new-fangled ones whom Pericles was suspected of favoring, under the teachings of Anaxagoras the natural philosopher. He was a type of the Greek people at large, — clever. 4IO THE STORY OF GREECE. brilliant, witty, but superstitious and anxious about religious matters. These four men are the poetic pillars of this age ; representatives of what the Greeks could accomplish when they turned their genius in the direction of poem-form, as Pericles himself, Miltiades, Themis- tocles, Aristides, and Leonidas were specimens of the noble men born to Greek mothers, — of the gen- erals, statesmen, and kings of these heroic times. If you turn over the pages which describe the life at Sparta, as moulded or modelled by Lycurgus, you will be startled at the contrast between Lace- daemonian and Athenian life. Thucydides tells us that Sparta remained a big, unimportant-looking, disjointed village, without architectural beauty of any kind ; and the Lacedaemonians themselves were as plain, unpretentious, and commonplace-looking as their capital city. Athens, on the other hand, dif- fered from it as much as Florence or Venice does from a Norwegian village, and abounded in master- pieces of art of every species; while between the two kindred races there was as great a difference as between the sturdy, strong-fisted Scandinavians and the keen, dark-eyed, quick-tempered, art-loving French. The Spartans remained to the last a compact body of soldiers, a military despotism full of force and fire in certain directions, but they were not intellectual or educated or art-loving. Art and education were the life and breath of the Ionian Greek, and the beauty that he felt stirring within him he had to utter in melodious speech, in beautiful colors, in plastic forms, in oratory, and in the thousand delicate and refining accessories of daily life. E ^^^^K^3 m WmMmiiMMmm XXXV. HOW VENGEANCE COMES UPON ATHENS. We come now to the greatest event in Pan- Hellenic history after the Persian troubles : the Peloponnesian War. The greatest achievement of former times, as Thucydides said, was the Persian War ; yet even this was speedily decided in two battles by sea and two by land. But the Pelopon- nesian War — the war of Greek against Greek — was a tormenting struggle, and was attended by calamities such as only the spilling of brother's blood could call down, and such as Hellas had never known with- in a like period of time. Never were so many cities captured and depopulated, — some by Barbarians, others by Hellenes themselves, fighting like angry tigers against one another ; and several of these cities after their capture were fit dens for wild beasts or were repeopled by strangers. Never were exile and slaughter and tears more frequent, whether in the war itself or as results of civil strife. And rumors and terrible incidents, of which the like had often been current before, but rarely verified by fact, now appeared to be well grounded. For there were earthquakes unparalleled in their extent and fury, and eclipses of the sun more numer- ous than are recorded to have happened in any 412 THE STORY OF GREECE. former age of Grecian story ; there were great droughts causing famines, and last but not least the Plague^ which did immense harm and destroyed mul- titudes of people. All these calamities fell upon Hellas simultaneously with this war and just as she seemed entering on her true Golden Age: calamities beginning when the Athenians and Peloponnesians violated the Thirty Years' Truce concluded by them after the Athenian recapture of Euboea, The real though unavowed cause of this twenty-seven years' war, Thucydides tells us, was the growth of the Athenian power, which terrified the leading Pelopon- nesians — the Lacedaemonians — and forced them to resist it ; but the reasons publicly alleged on either side were as follows: There was a city called Epidamnus, which was situated on the right hand as you sail up the Ionian Gulf (opposite Italy). Near it dwelt the Taulantians, a barbarian tribe of the Illyrian race. The place was colonized by the Corcyraeans, under the leader, ship of a Corinthian, Phallus, son of Eratocleides, who was of the lineage of Heracles ; he was invited, according to ancient custom, from the mother city, and Corinthians and other Dorians joined in the colony. In process of time Epidamnus became great and populous, but there followed a long period of civil commotion, and the city is said to have been brought low in a war against the neighboring bar- barians, and to have lost her ancient power. At last, shortly before the Pcloponnesian War, the notables were overthrown and driven out by the people ; the exiles went over to the barbarians, and, VENGEANCE COMES UPON ATHENS. 413 uniting with them, plundered the remaining inhab- itants both by sea and land. These, finding them- selves hard pressed, sent an embassy to the mother city Corcyra, begging the Corcyraeans not to leave them to their fate, but to reconcile them to the exiles and put down the barbarian enemies. The ambassadors came, and, sitting as suppliants in the temple of Here, preferred their request, but the Corcyraeans would not listen to them, and they re- turned without success. The Epidamnians, finding that they had no hope of assistance from Corcyra, knew not what to do, and sending to Delphi inquired of the god whether they should deliver up the city to their original founders, the Corinthians, and en- deavor to obtain aid from them. The god replied that they should, and bade them place themselves under the leadership of the Corinthians. So the Epidamnians journeyed to Corinth, and in- forming the Corinthians of the answer which the oracle had given, delivered up the city to them. They reminded them that the original leader of the colony was a citizen of Corinth, and implored the Corinthians to come over and help them, and not leave them to their fate. The Corinthians took up their cause, partly in vindication of their own rights (for they considered that Epidamnus belonged to them quite as much as to the Corcyrseans), partly too because they hated the Corcyraeans, who were their own colony, to be sure, but had neglected and slighted them. For in their common festivals they would not allow them (the Corinthians) the custom- ary privileges of founders, and at their sacrifices de- 414 THE STORY OF GREECE. nied to a Corinthian the right of receiving first the lock of hair cut from the head of the victim — an honor usually granted by colonies to a representative of the mother-country. In fact they despised the Corinthians, for they were more than a match for them in military strength, and as rich as any State then existing in Hellas. They would often boast that on the sea they were very far superior to them, and would appropriate to themselves the naval re- nown of the Phjeacians, who were the ancient inhab- itants of the island of Corcyra (B.C. 435-34). Such feelings led them more and more to strengthen their navy, which was by no means despicable ; for they had 120 triremes when the war broke out. Irritated by these causes of offence, the Corinthi- ans were only too happy to help Epidamnus, and the two furious foes fretted and recriminated until all Greece was dragged into the net of a bloody civil war. Athens unhappily, full of hungry and ambi- tious Greeks as she was, took the side of Corcyra against Corinth ; Lacedaemon sided with Corinth ; and thus the brilliant prosperity of Hellas, as it was developing after the Persian War, was overclouded by a sanguinary conflict in which thousandsof lives were lost, cities were sacked, and Greece was rent with hideous dissensions from one end to the other. A Congress was held at Sparta ; and Corinth and other states complained of the conduct and en- croachments of Athens ; whereupon war was sol- emnly determined upon and declared. Everybody could see that the real cause of the war was as plain as the nose on his face : Sparta and her allies had of VENGEANCE COMES UPON ATHENS. 415 old been enemies of Athens, and were intensely jealous of the great power and glory which she had gained. The Persian War had in an incredible way " mobilized " Greece, as the modern phrase is : shaken her up, called out all that was Greek in the Greeks, developed their individuality, manhood, intelligence, and self-dependence, and recalled to them suddenly, that they were not children, or vassals, or slaves, but full-grown, free-born men. Hence, now, they all started into life almost magically ; this, that, and the other tiny state, island, or city lifted up its head like the down-beaten poppies in a field of yellow wheat after a heavy rain, and men heard small voices and big voices, thick throats and thin throats crying out that tJicy would help this side or that, according to the inducements. Never before indeed had such ex- citement thrilled through the land, or so great a number of states been engaged in a single under- taking. Even states that had slept through the clangor of Marathon and Thermopylae, or that had drowsed in their luxurious corners over the news from Salamis, now suddenly awoke, rubbed their eyes, and decided to join one party or the other. Sparta, the oligarchy, attracted friends of the oligarchi- cal form of government. Athens, the democracy, proved no less attractive to the lovers of popular government in Greece. Thus, war raged not only on distant waters and in distant lands, but in the very cities themselves where Lacedaemon-lovers and Athens-lovers, democrats and oligarchs, nobles and plebeians fought and strove, and agonized side by side, one might say house by house. 4l6 THE STORY OF GREECE. On the side of Sparta all the Peloponnesus except Argos and Achaia arrayed itself, while the Boeotian League under Thebes, Phocis, Locris, and other states west of these joined her, and vexed and ham- pered Athens on the north. In land-forces and on land, this alliance was immensely strong, but it had little or no fleet except what Corinth could furnish. As the war advanced Sparta was joined by the rich and powerful state of Syracuse, in the island of Sicily, in the west. On the side of Athens there was a throng of ^gaean islands and yEgaean coast towns, Corcyra in the west, several western Greek states, and Sital- ces, the barbarian king of the interior of Thrace. On the sea Athens was as strong as Sparta was on land, but her land-forces were inferior. Her treas- ure-boxes, however, were full of money, and money continued to flow in, in a golden stream from her enlightened and regular system of taxation. The Spartan League was pinched for money, and besides, the Spartans were slow, dull, and cautious, while the Athenians were as nimble as grasshoppers, full of resource and enthusiasm, and endowed with a sur- passing nervous organization that enabled them to endure almost incredible things — defeat, shame, sor- row, and misfortune. The Spai tans were greatly su- perior in one respect — in having firm and benevolent- minded allies who stuck to them like grim death, while the Athenian allies often yielded mere lip-ser- vice, and were too often mere subjects ready at any time to revolt. In many of the cities the common people were friends of Athens, while the upper classes VENGEANCE COMES UPON ATHENS. 417 hated her and wanted to throw off her yoke. The Spartans, furthermore, tried to make themselves popular by giving out that they were fighting in order to break down the " tyranny " of Athens and restore " freedom " to all the Greek states. Pericles was astute enough to see that as long as the Athenians fought their battles on the sea they were not likely to be overwhelmed or crushed by the Spartans ; accordingly he advised his people strenu- ously to avoid land battles and keep to the water, for it was thus that the Persians had been so ignominious- ly beaten at Salamis and Mycale. If the Spartans invaded Attica, all the Athenians had to do was to hurry within their long walls and hold the enemy at bay as long as they pleased. The long walls led staight down to the sea, where their fleet lay at anchor and could bring them as much food as they wanted, let the Pcloponnesians ravage and destroy the Attic fields and crops to their heart's content. The Athenians in retaliation could make descents on the coast of the Peloponnesus and keep the states there in a perpetual panic. Such were the policy and advice of Pericles ; he did not want his people to undertake difficult and dangerous enterprises on land in distant localities, but advised them earnestly to maintain their suprem- acy by sea and keep up their sovereignty over the islands. For he knew full well that Sparta would toil day and night to exhaust and deplete Athens, would ravage the country like an army of seventeen years' locusts — leaving nothing behind, — would pro- long the war until her treasury was empty, and would try to persuade her subjects to revolt. 41 8 THE STORY OF GREECE. In B.C. 431, the Spartans opened hostilities by in- vading Attica and destroying the summer crops, but no battle was fought. They invaded it again next year under their king, Archidamus, and as a vast multitude of refugees from the country were crowded within the city walls, a frightful plague broke out and carried off thousands. A similar disorder (says Thucydides) is said to have previously smitten many places, particularly the island of Lemnos, but there is no record of such a pestilence occurring elsewhere, or of so great a de- struction of human life. For a while physicians, in ignorance of the nature of the disease, sought to apply remedies ; but it was in vain, and they them- selves were among the first victims, because they oftenest came in contact with it. No human art was of any avail, and as to supplications in temples, in- quiries of oracles, and the like, they were utterly use- less, and at last men were overpowered by the calamity, and gave them all up. The disease is said to have begun south of Egj'pt, in Ethiopia ; thence it descended into Egypt and Libya, and after spreading over the greater part of the Persian Empire, suddenly fell upon Athens. It first attacked the inhabitants of the Pirneus, and it was supposed that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns, no conduits having as yet been made there. But afterward it reached the upper city, and then the mortality became much greater. If an}-- body was ill of any thing else, it passed into this pestilential disorder. Many who were in perfect health, all in a moment, and without any apparent VENGEANCE COMES UPON ATHENS. 4I9 reason, were seized with violent heats in the head, and with redness and inflammation of the eyes. Inter- nally the throat and the tongue were quickly suffused with blood, and the breath became unnatural and fetid. Sneezing and hoarseness followed, the chest became affected, the stomach was violently attacked, and the most distressing vomiting ensued. Athens swarmed with livid, ulcerated, pale, and suffering wretches who could not bear the touch even of the finest and softest linen on their feverish skins ; they ran naked or cast themselves headlong into wells of cold water. Tormented by insatiable thirst, they could not sleep ; intolerable restlessness seized upon them ; and on the seventh or ninth day they expired of internal burnings, violent ulcerations or diarrhoea. Many escaped with the loss of eyes or limbs, or sank into an oblivious state in which they knew neither themselves nor their friends. There was one circumstance in particular which distinguished this pestilence from any others : the birds and animals which feed on human flesh, although so many bodies were lying around, unburied, either fled in horror from them or expired in agonies after satisfying their horrid appetite. No remedy seemed to do any general good, for that which cured some, killed others. An appalling despondency seized on the stricken Athenians : they abandoned themselves to despair when they saw friends and relations dying like sheep, with unex- ampled swiftness ; lamentations rose to heaven ; and the misery and mortality among the suffocating crowds who, in the stifling summer heat, inhabited 420 THE STORY OF GREECE. every available foot of ground, were indescribable. The dead lay as they died, one upon another, while others hardly alive wallowed in the streets and huts or crawled about every fountain craving for water. The temples were full of corpses of those who had died in them, and such as remained in existence be- came reckless of all law, human or divine. No fear of God or man deterred the criminal classes. Such was the grievous calamity which now afflicted Athens in the second year of the Pcloponncsian War : within the walls, people dying in heaps ; without, their country being burned and ruined by their mortal enemies. Truly it looked as if vengeance had come upon them for disobeying the advice of Pericles. XXXVI. " THE KING WAS IN HIS COUNTING-HOUSE." To complete the misfortunes of the Athenians, Pericles died in B.C. 429, having survived the com- mencement of hostilities only two years and six months. After his death his foresight was ev-en better appreciated than during his life. For he had told the Athenians that if they would be patient, and would attend to their navy, and not seek to enlarge their dominions while the war was going on, nor im- peril the existence of the city, they would be vic- torious ; but they did all — perverse and crooked generation ! — that he told them not to do, and they adopted a policy which had disastrous effects to themselves and to their allies. Pericles' transparent integrity and acknowledged worth, the strength of his character, and his consciousness of a noble patriot- ism enabled him to oppose and even anger the peo- ple, to humble and awe their unseasonable elation and pride, or reanimate their fainting hearts, at his will. Thus Athens, though still in name a democ- racy, was really, as long as Pericles lived, ruled by her greatest Citizen. But his successors were unfortunately selfish men, and were ready to sacrifice the whole conduct of affairs to the whims of the rabble. Such weakness 422 THE STORY OF GREECE. in a great and imperial city led to many errors, of which the greatest was the Sicilian Expedition ; not that the Athenians miscalculated their enemy's power, but they themselves, instead of working to- gether harmoniously, were occupied in intriguing against one another for the leadership of the de- mocracy, and not only became remiss in the man- agement of the army, but got embroiled, for the first time, in civil strife. And yet after they had lost in the Sicilian Expedition the greater part of their fleet and army, and were distracted by revolution at home, still they held out three years, not only against their former enemies, but against the Sicilians who had combined with them, and against most of their own allies who had risen in revolt. Some time before his death, Pericles had suffered the indignity of being condemned to pay a fine (for a fancied embezzlement of public funds), but the Athenians soon repented of their injustice, and rein- stated him in his position at the head of the state. After his death no man like him rose to take his place, but the giant was succeeded by a race of pig- mies — a set of men called demagogues (" leaders of the people "), who were often simply sharpers or charlatans or ready speakers, able to persuade the fickle populace to do any and every thing they wished. They usually lacked all real and intimate knowledge of public affairs, and differed entirely from Pericles, who had this knowledge, who often withstood the people in their mad freaks and caprices, and who fearlessly spoke his own mind, telling them when they had done wrong. The demagogues lived and THE KING WAS IN HIS COUNTING-HOUSE. 423 breathed the breath of the people, caressed and flattered them, and tickled their itching vanity. The chiefest of this new set of men was one Cleon, a tanner — a rude, brutal, clever, and unscrupulous poli- tician, whose stentorian bray is heard all through this period of Greek history. Yet the nobles tried still to continue controlling the state by keeping up their clubs and throwing all their weight against the licen- tiousness and dishonesty of these demagogues. In the year 427 B.C., which was the third year of the war, the Spartan king, Archidamus, laid siege to Plata^a, which you remember had been proclaimed inviolable territory by Pausanias. This he did be- cause Plataea had always resisted the attempts of Thebes (ally of the Lacedaemonians) to control the Boeotian towns, and had allied itself with Athens for protection against Bceotia. The small garrison of a few hundred Plataeans and eighty Athenians made so gal- lant a defence that Archidamus at last despaired of taking the town by storm, and proceeded to girdle it with a double wall all around, and starve it out. The garrison resolved to break through the Spartans when this state of things had lasted for over a year, and provisions were growing scarce ; so one stormy night they stole out of the town gate with their lad- ders on their backs, reached the Spartan wall unpcr- ceived, set their ladders against it, mounted, and surprised the slumbering foe. The sentinels they cut to pieces, and escaped through the very midst of the Spartan army, all but one man ! The rest of the gar- rison, cheered by this heroic act, held out much longer ; but at last they, too, had nothing more to 424 THE STORY OF GREECE. eat, and there was nothing further to do except sur- render. The Spartans put them all to miserable deaths, and burnt the town down to the ground, all to pleasure the Thebans. Lively things were going on in the west of Greece almost simultaneously with these in the north. Both sides had allies in this part of the country : the Athenians at Naupactus, at the mouth of the bottle- shaped Corinthian Gulf, where they had settled a body of Messenian exiles, the bitterest enemies of Sparta, after the revolt of the Helots, in B.C. 462, and also in Acarnania ; the Spartans at Ampracia. The harbor of Naupactus was of extreme importance to the Athenians, because there they could keep a fleet which could command and sweep these inland waters, and enable their troops easily to reach the neighboring Corcyra if they so wished. The Spar- tans soon contrived an expedition against Acarnania. both by sea and land. The land attack was a failure, and Phormio, admiral of the Athenian fleet, completed their confusion by carrying off two bril- liant victories by sea over the Peloponnesians. For, in the first battle, he beat forty-seven Peloponnesian vessels with only twenty of his own ; and in the second, seventy-seven Peloponnesian vessels turned tail before twenty Athenian. The skilful tactics of the Athenians, and the rapidity with which they had been trained to wheel and manceuvre their vessels, won the victory for them, no less than the excellent generalship of Phormio, and the superior quick- wittedness of the Attic sailors (B.C. 429). The soporific Spartans were no matches on the sea for their sleepless antagonists. THE KING WAS IN HIS COUNTING-HOUSE. 425 There was a beautiful island off the Mysian coast of Asia Minor called Lesbos, — an island rich in green valleys and bright mountains, and abounding in corn, in wine, and in oil. It was the birth-place of the musician and poet Terpander, of Sappho — the most famous woman-poet that ever lived,^ — of Alcacus, whose exquisite rhythms are embedded thick in the crystal of Horace's verse, and of the dithyrambic poet, An'on. Philosophy and literature flourished alike in this yEolian home of the arts, sciences, and muses, for here lived and labored the sage and statesman Pittacus (one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece), the historians Hellanicus and Theo- phanes, the perfect literary artist Theophrastus, and others. Well, in B.C. 428, this island and its capital, Myti- lene, revolted from Athens. The Athenians hastened to blockade the town by sea and land, and succeeded in capturing it before the slow-footed Lacedaemonians arrived to its help. On the surrender of Mytilene, the infamous Cleon talked his countrymen into sending an order that every grown-up man there should be put to death. The order was sent ofT post-haste, but the next day the Athenians came to their senses, and repented of what they had done. So another messenger was dispatched to overtake the first, and he arrived just in the nick of time, when the Mytileneans were about to be butchered. Even as it was one thousand of them underwent death. There was a general of the Athenians named De- mosthenes (not the famous orator of that name). 426 THE STORY OF GREECE. who was at this time at Naupactus. Him the Mes- senians of that settlement induced to invade the territory of their enemies and neighbors — for the Greeks did not love their neighbors as themselves ! — the ^tolians. Demosthenes, whose bold heart was bigger and warmer than it should have been, lost his head, foolishly followed the wish of the Naupactians, and was soundly thrashed by the rugged moun- tain ^tolians. However, he recovered his lost laurels a little while after by terribly defeating the Ampraciots, who, with their allies the Spartans, had attacked Acarnania by land. So ruinous indeed was this defeat that it compelled the Spartans to aban- don the war in that part of the country (B.C. 426). This part of Greece is lovely beyond description, and in looking at it to-day — in viewing its grand mountains, its silver friths and gleaming waters, its fantastically beautiful coast-line, its groves of olives, and mulberries, and the far blue lines of its island- haunted horizons — one finds it hard to believe that every spot of this fair landscape has been sprinkled and fertilized with human blood, and that many a plain and mountain-height is haunted by the ghosts of slain armies and wrecked navies. Fiercer and fiercer raged the war ; the Pelopon- nesus became girdled with a wall of fire, so to speak, for everj'where hovered the greedy and merciless Athenian fleet, eager to pounce upon the unprotected cities and coasts, or seal them up hermetically with their many-oared triremes. Thus it was that De- mosthenes, urged by the Messenians, seized and fortified the promontory of Pylus on the west coast THE KING WAS IN HIS COUNTING-HOUSE. 427 of Messenia, and tried to excite the irritated Helots — that burning coal of treason ever glowing at the heart of Lacedaemon — to revolt (B.C. 425). The Spartans visited Pylus, and stationed some of their troops on an island near called Sphacteria. Here they were entrapped by a large Athenian fleet, which came to the succor of Demostl.cnes, and drove the Spartans ships ashore. Many of the noblest Spar- tans thus fell into the hands of their foes, and the fright at Sparta was so great that the ephors wanted then and there to make peace with Athens. Cleon, however, — big-mouthed, brawling, boastful, — fired them to ask unreasonable terms, which the Spartans could not but refuse ; so the wretched prisoners were carried off to Athens by Cleon him- self, who had now become general. Soon after this, Nicias, another Athenian general, conquered the island of C}'thera (near which was the fabled birth- place of Venus), off the southeast coast of the Peloponnesus, and from this place they were able to ravage the possessions of their enemies at their leisure. At Corcyra, meanwhile, a ferocious butchery had taken place. Corcyra was a democracy, and when the nobles tried to put it down and break off the alli- ance with Athens, a bloody fight took place in which, at first, the nobles killed the leaders of the people and seized the arsenal and docks, but later the peo- ple attacked and defeated them, and the streets of the city ran blood for a week. Five hundred nobles escaped and fortified a hill outside of the town. Here they were blockaded by the people, 428 THE STORY OF GREECE. who were assisted by the Athenians, and when they surrendered, on condition of being sent to Athens for trial, they were all brutally murdered. Such was the cruel hatred engendered by this internecine war. The Athenians being now puffed up beyond all measure by their unlooked-for successes, foolishly dreamed of recovering all the possessions which they had once (B.C. 457-47) owned on the mainland, and which Pericles had sagely advised them not to attempt to recover. Therefore they went to work to invade Boeotia (B.C. 424), but were completely defeated in the battle of Delium (at which the phi- losopher Socrates was present). This misfortune was completed by the Spartan General Brasidas marching into Thrace and inducing Amphipolis and other important coast towns to revolt from Athens. Brasidas had almost an Athenian quickness and intelligence ; he was full of daring and adroitness, and he had a way with his men that made them fear and love him equally. His eloquent oratory too roused the Thracian towns against Athens, and by causing them to revolt, and by overthrowing his antagonists at Delium, he turned the wheels of fortune and made the Athenians realize that matters were getting a little critical for them all of a sudden. Cleon was sent to recover Amphipolis, and in the struggle that ensued both the Lacedaemonian gen- eral and the Athenian tanner — who had been pro- moted as rapidly as one of Napoleon's marshals — were killed (B.C. 422). The chief obstacle to peace — Cleon (so unmerci- THE KING WAS IN HIS COUNTING-HOLSE. 429 fully ridiculed by Aristophanes in his Knights) — was now removed ; so in B.C. 421 both sides came to an agreement, consenting to surrender the prisoners and places captured in the war. The Athenians retained a certain advantage in being allowed to keep several places which had surrendered to them voluntarily, without having been taken by force. The Corinthi- ans and other Spartan allies were very angry at this, for these places were theirs ; so tJuy refused to acknowledge the peace. The Athenians, on the other hand, failed to get back Amphipolis ; and thus each side was at a certain disadvantage. This peace is called the Peace of Nicias, after an Athenian general who had the chief share in making it, and who afterward brought Athens to irrecover- able ruin. The Spartans, on counting over gains and losses, found little in their favor on the conclusion of hostilities, while Athens flourished luxuriantly, bar- ring the loss of Amphipolis. Would that she had only known what then belonged to her in this her day of peace ! But — " The King was in his counting-house Counting out his money ! " XXXVII. THE TWO FRIENDS — ALCIBIADES AND SOCRATES. A VERY singular man now rose into prominence at Athens, — a man no less brilliant than singular, and no less unscrupulous than brilliant. This man was Alcibiades. Alcibiades came forward when matters had reached this point as the head of the party who were op- posed to peace and who were thoughtlessly and unteachably eager to make new conquests. The career of this man was so strange and romantic that we must linger over it for a few pages, and at least tell in outline the story of the handsomest, oddest, and most eccentric man of his time, a man endowed with vast abilities if he had only put them to good use, at once a brilliant animal and a brilliant genius, fortunate, gifted, captivating, yet rotten to the core with all the immorality of the age. Alcibiades claimed to be descended from the hero Ajax on Clinias', his father's, side ; on his mother's, he was an Alcmaeonid of the Alcma^onids. Clinias fell fighting against the slippery Boeotians at Coro- nea. The beauty of Alcibiades was such that it charmed even the philosopher Socrates, and bloomed in infancy, in youth, in early manhood, and as long as he lived. He was an Athenian Adonis full of ALCIBIADES AND SOCRATES. 43 1 animal spirits and natural vigor of body. When he spoke he spoke with a charming lisp which became him well and gave a curious grace and persuasiveness to his rapid speech ; he could not pronounce an r, and when he wanted to say corax he had to say colax. His trailing robe, lisping speech, carelessly inclining head, and luxurious habits became cele- brated at Athens, and attracted attention from the very start. His conduct displayed a bundle of incon- sistencies and variations, not unnaturally, in accord- ance with the many and wonderful vicissitudes of his fortunes ; but among the strong passions of his eager Athenian nature the dominant one — as in Themis- tocles — was his ambition and his desire of superiority, which leaked out even when he was a child. For once, being hard pressed in wrestling, and fearing to be thrown, he buried his teeth in the hand of his antagonist. The other taunted him, telling him that he bit like a woman. " No," replied Alci- biades, " like a lion ! " Another time, as he was playing dice in the street, being then but a child, a loaded cart came that way just as it was his turn to throw. At first he called to the driver to stop, but the man giving him no at- tention and driving on, when the rest of the boys divided and gave way, little Alcibiades threw himself on his face before the cart, and stretching his legs out, bade the carter pass on nozv if he could ! This so startled the man that he put back his horses, while all that saw it were terrified, and crying out, ran to assist Alcibiades. Differing from some of his music-loving contem- 432 THE STORY OF GREECE. poraries, he declined positively to learn to play on the flute because it was a sordid thing (he thought), unbecoming a free citizen. Let the Theban youths pipe, said he, who do not know how to speak, but we Athenians, as our ancestors have told us, have Athene for our patroness and Apollo for our pro- tector, one of whom threw away the flute, and the other stripped the Flute-Player Marsyas of his skin ! In consequence of Alcibiades' biting ridicule it is said that flute-playing at Athens ceased henceforth to rank among the liberal accomplishments, and fell into general neglect. He was a man of violent temper and sudden im- pulse, and had the reputation among those who were hostile to him of having killed one of his own servants with a blow of his staff. Most of the well-born Athenian gentlemen who flocked about him as the moths about a candle were attracted and fascinated by his extraordinary beauty alone, for manly beauty charmed the Greeks even more than womanly. But the affection which Socrates entertained for him is a great evidence (as Plutarch says) of the natural noble qualities and good disposition of the boy, which Socra- tes indeed detected both in and under his personal charms ; and fearing that his wealth and station and the great number of strangers and Athenians who flattered and caressed him might at last corrupt him, he resolved if possible to interpose and preserve so hopeful a plant from perishing in the flower before its fruit came to perfection. For never did fortune surround a man with so many of those things which are vulgarly called goods, or so protect him from ALCIBIADES AND SOCRATES. 433 every onslaught of sceptical philosophy, as she did Alcibiades. Yet such was the happiness of his genius that he early came to love and understand Socrates, and welcomed him, while he for a long time avoided the noble and wealthy persons who perpetu- ally paid him court. Socrates acquired an amazing influence over Alcibiades, taught him to despise silly affectations and unmanly displays, to be pleased with kindness, and to revere virtue. It was a matter of general wonder when people saw them constantly as- sociated together — the ugliest and the handsomest man of his time, the greatest democrat and the greatest aristocrat — Alcibiades joining Socrates in his meals and walks, living with him in the same tent, free and open with him while he was often re- served, rough, and insolent to others. The incom- parable conversational powers of Socrates, his ge- nius, intellectual acuteness, and attainm^-uts rendered him not only the greatest of all talking and walking philosophers, but gave him a position perfectly unique at Athens. He was the son of a midwife and a statue-maker, and he himself in his youth executed a group of marble Graces which w^as preserved on the Acropolis for many generations. He had marked and striking personal characteristics — immense strength and health, entire indifference to heat, cold, or fatigue, ugliness so extreme that he resembled a satyr or a Silenus ; and he did not seem to care whether it was summer or winter, hot or cold : he always wore the same plain clothing and went bare-foot. His thick lips, goggle eyes, and upturned flat nose were as 434 THE STORY OF GREECE. familiar in Athens as the exquisite features, pliant grace, and godlike form of Alcibiades, his friend. Socrates belonged to a class of men then very common in Attica, who went about teaching and lecturing (usually for pay, though Socrates would accept nothing). They were called Sophists, or pro- fessors of wisdom, rhetoric, philosophy, and the like. Socrates voluntarily devoted all the middle and lat- ter part of his life to his self-imposed task of teach- ing, abandoning all honors and preferments, and entirely neglecting his own private fortunes. He was, perhaps, with the exception of One, the greatest teacher that ever lived, though he never opened a school nor delivered public, paid lectures, like the usual sophists. His school was the work- shop, the gymnasium, the market-place, the street, where he sought and found endless opportunities for awakening, instructing, questioning, and guiding boys, youths, and men, rousing their moral conscious- ness, quickening their consciences by his questions, and urging them to try to know themselves. He had no text-book, but the universal human mind ; the diamonds and pearls that fell from his lips when he opened his mouth did not fall into note-books or rolls of paper, to be put away carefully and never to be referred to afterward. They fell into living minds like sparks of fire or flakes of snow ; they touched, flashed, germinated, sprang into beautiful and mem- orable systems of philosophy, and revolutionized the spirit and conscience of Hellas. The object of Socrates was therefore the object of a sharp steel plough that shoots like a ray of light ALCIBIADES AND SOCRATES. 435 ♦■hrough the soil and prepares it for the seed ; he was eminently 2^ preparer. He declined to commu- nicate any form of ready-made knowledge, and was the first and fiercest foe of " cram " in all its shapes and forms. If he could make people tJiink, — if he could make them question the grounds of their knowledge and belief, if he could help them by his system of " mental midwifery " to deliver themselves of a few fully developed, original thoughts — their own and nobody else's, — he was perfectly satisfied, and walked away happy. His fight against every form of pretence, hypocrisy, cant, and conceit was unwearied, and as he attacked especially the proud and idle and pretentious, he soon became a huge bore at Athens and drew down upon himself the bitterest hatred and calumny. Everywhere his broad mouth and snub nose and bald head produced dis- may, because people knew that their appearance was the signal for a volley of questions, in season and out of season ; not idle questions either, for Socrates looked on himself as a reformer, and his ambition was to plant seeds of moral and intellectual reform everywhere, in every seed-plot of his contemporaries. Aristophanes attacked him as the representative of radicalism in the teaching of rhetoric and philos- ophy, and caused intense amusement and delight in the laughter-loving Athenians by the manner in which he caused Socrates' ugly visage and ungainly .igure to be imitated on the stage. The opposition roused against him became finally so uproarious that he was arrested, tried, condemned to death, and made to drink a poison-cup of hemlock (B.C. 399), be- 43^ THE STORY OF GREECE. cause (said his accusers) he persisted in corrupting the morals of the young men of Athens and in trying to introduce new and strange gods. With the ugHest face Socrates combined the most beautiful soul in the world — a face, as was said of him, ugly as the mortice-jug used by the apothe- caries, but which, within, was found to be full of precious drugs. One of the noblest titles which Athens has to be remembered was that she was the mother of Socrates — a man so pure and noble that in other times he might have been honored as a saint, or even worshipped as a god. The Greeks loved and remembered him for three particular things : First, for his touching poverty, cheerfulness, and self-denial, his equanimity of mind, which noth- ing could overthrow, and his public conversations, in which he strove continually to better his people, to influence young men for good, and to set a lofty ex- ample of voluntary poverty, like some of the sub- lime monks of the Middle Ages, in the midst of a luxurious and sensual generation. They remembered him, too, because he talked so beautifully about the immortality of the soul when he was about to die, and preached such a sermon (through his disciple, Plato) on the duty of obedience to the laws as men will not willingly allow to die. The second reason why Socrates became so much talked of was something very singular. It was his belief and persuasion that he had a special religious mission to the men of his time. He said that from childhood, a Divine Spirit, a Heavenly Voice, which he called his Daemon or Guardian Genius, had ac- ALCIBIADES AND SOCRATES. 437 companied him, and that this spirit, voice, or genius always interfered when he was about to do some questionable thing. It restrained him from an evil thing ; it did not incite or urge him to a good one. Thus he was continually interrupted or intercepted in what he was going to do or say by this Warning Voice, this mysterious Conscience, that spoke to him with muffled but distinct tones, and that to him was a divine sign, a prophetic or supernatural inter- ference. Everywhere he spoke of this familiar spirit ; it became a sort of " hobby," and he appeared to many a " crank," a sort of walking and talking Conscience, which was any thing but agreeable to his self-indulgent, impure, or proud-minded fellow- citizens. Then, last of all, his great intellectual originality, the novelty of his talk, the oddity of his subjects, the un usualness of his methods, his power of acting like an ever-streaming watering-pot on the dry minds of others, sprinkling, stirring, and quickening the germs of thought, belief, and reasoning, left a pro- found and lasting impression. Hellas had great poets, great historians, great statesmen. She might proudly point to the shining figures of yEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, to Herodotus and Thu- cydides, to Pericles and Lycurgus, and their numerous and splendid works, whether in poems, histories, deeds, or codes ; but none of them equalled or rivalled in influence the talking " tramp " — Socrates — who simply talked, — talked, — ever divinely talked, and left not a line behind him, any more than did Our Lord ; yet his talk shot onward like a burning 438 THE STORY OF GREECE. flame, igniting and kindling wherever it touched, call- ing into existence during the next fifty years not only the great philosophical school of Plato, with all its genius and culture, but later Euclid and the Megaric school of philosophers, Aristippus and the school of Cyrene, and Diogenes and his Cynics, All these find their germ in the ethical talks, lectures, and " conferences " of Socrates, who insisted that ethics and moral philosophy should be treated as a distinct branch of culture, distinct from physics or natural philosophy, from politics, logic, or social specula- tions. He was like a man tearing down partitions, opening roads through thickets, "blazing" this or that tree that men might find their way through after him. And his way was the way of a little child — by asking questions — one leading on to another like the links in a chain — till he arrived unexpectedly but lucidly at his conclusion. He never " laid down the law," as the modern phrase is, or dogmatized, or said : " This way, and only this way, is the right way." He was as gentle, cautious, and intelligent as a sleuth-hound following a trail and darting his nose hither and thither to find out where the scent was fresh. One might call him the Awakened Conscience of Hellas (so sorely in need of a conscience during this hateful Peloponnesian War), whose still small voice yet rang like a muezzin's voice through every grade of society, humbling, calling to the exercise of reason and virtue, bridling overweening pride, and awing men into shame and penitence for mis- deeds. Such was the man on whose breast Alcibiades ALCIBIADES AND SOCRATES. 439 leaned. Alas, that he should so wofully have betrayed his teachings ! Though Socrates had many and powerful rivals in the affections of Alcibiades, the proud Athenian youth, beautiful as an Apollo, yielded his heart to the master. The words of Socrates overcame him so much that they drew tears from his eyes and disturbed his very soul. Yet often enough he would abandon himself to flatterers when they proposed this or that temptation to him, and would run away from Socrates ; who then would pursue him as if he had been a runaway slave. Beautiful sight: the large-eyed princely Athenian radiant with health and spirits, so noble-looking that he seemed descended from a god, brilliant in feature, in form, in attire, in expectations, in fame, a model for a sculptor, a theme for the poet, exultant in youthful luxuriance and loveliness, in possession, for a time, of every talent and endowment, the idol of friends and people ; and Socrates, upon whose lips dwelt a divine music, whose words were melodious with wit and wisdom, whose eyes shone with prophetic fire, enthusiasm, and light, whose deformed and sprawling figure stood over against the figure of Alcibiades as darkness over against the light, or as a canker-eaten, blackened bronze from Herculancum stands over against a pillar of slender and shining marble. No wonder that such a quaint partnership should excite mirth and curiosity among the most curious and mirthful of mortals. Alcibiades for a time despised every one else and had no awe or reverence for any one but for him. 440 THE STORY OF GREECE. Socrates by his magic talk had gained his ear and then his love. Those who endeavored to cor- rupt Alcibiades — and they were many — took advan. tage chiefly of his vanity and ambition, and thrust him on unseasonably to undertake great enterprises, persuading him that as soon as he began to concern himself in public affairs, he would not only outshine the rest of the generals, and statesmen, but even surpass the glory of Pericles. Socrates, however, called him often back from these unruly ambitions, from luxury and pride, and made him humble and modest, showing him in how many things he was deficient, and how very far from perfection in virtue. He and Socrates were comrades in arms in the expedition to Potidaea, lodging in the same tent and standing side by side in battle. Alcibiades was wounded but was defended and protected by his friend, who persuaded the generals to award the prize of honor to Alcibiades in order that it might incite him to noble deeds in times to come. A little while after, when the Athenians were routed at the battle of Delium, Socrates with a few others was retreating on foot, when Alcibiades came along on horseback. He would not abandon the philosopher, but stayed to shelter him from danger and brought him safe off, though they were hard pressed by the enemy. Another very characteristic anecdote is told of Alcibiades, — an anecdote which reveals still another side of his many-sided nature. He had bought a dog which cost him seventy viinas — a creature of great size and beauty. The dog's principal orna- 442 THE STORY OF GREECE. ment was his tail, which Alcibiades caused to be lopped off ! At this his friends cried out and declared that all Athens was grieving over the dog. " Just what I wanted has happened then," laughed Alci- biades. " I wished the Athenians to talk about this, that they might not say something zvorse of me ! " That he was a master in the art of speaking, the comic poets bore him witness, and it was allowed by all that among his other perfections he was a most accomplished orator. He had the highest capacity for inventing, for discerning what was the right thing to be said for any purpose and on any occasion, for saying it well, and for selecting apt words and well-chosen phrases ; and if these did not come instantly he paused in the midst of his dis- course till he could recollect himself and had consid- ered what to say. His generosity and lavish expenditure became proverbial, and he was the only person, whether king or simple cavalier, who had ever sent seven chariots to the Olympic Games, carrying off the first, second, and third, or fourth prizes. The Greeks lifted him to the skies on this occasion with their magnificent presents. Ephesians, Chians, and Lesbians ' outdid each other in their emulous praises and gifts. Euripides sang of him : But my song to you. Son of Clinias, is due. Victory is noble ; how much more To do as never Greek before : T' obtain in the great chariot race The first, the second, and third place, With easy step advanced to fame, ALCIBIADES AND SOCRATES. 443 To bid the herald three times claim The olive for one victor's name. But with all his glory he was jealous — jealous of the distinction which Nicias gained both among the enemies of the Athenians and from the Athenians themselves. He exclaimed fiercely against Nicias, and accused him of many things, and little by little his enormous excesses made him unpopular, for he lived in the utmost luxury and wantonness, ate and drank to excess, trailed about Athens in long purple robes like a woman, and carried a shield which was richly gilded, and was painted with a Cupid brandishing a thunderbolt. The sight of all this gradually excited disgust, abhorrence, and derision, mingled with ap- prehension at his dissolute living and his contempt of law — things monstrous in themselves, and indicating signs of revolutionary aspirations. Said Aristopha- nes : " They love, and hate, and cannot do without him ! " The truth was that his liberalities, his public shows, his munificence to the people, which nothing could exceed, the glory of his ancestors, the force of his eloquence, the grace of his person, the strength of his body, his great courage and knowledge of military affairs, prevailed upon the Athenians to endure pa- tiently his excesses, to indulge him much, and to give the kindest names to his faults, attributing them to youth and good nature. XXXVIII. A HAl'l'V LAND. Far away in the western seas, there was a great and beautiful island whose name was SiClLY. It lay in these seas like an enormous triangle, and was separated from the coast of Italy by a narrow chan- nel, through which even now the great ships sail on their way from Athens to Naples and Marseilles. The northern and southern sides of this triangle stretch out 175 miles in length, and the eastern side ex- tends to a length of 1 1 5 miles. When your story-teller approached it some years ago, on his way from the Levant to the south of France, it was evening ; the twilight was at hand, and over the sea in the west there lay a great shining and sparkling Something, which towered to heaven, rose-colored and wonder- ful, and seemed to guard the glorious panorama be- fore us like a giant clad in crimson and gold — Mt. yETNA ! Here it lifted its huge illuminated head eleven thousand feet in the air, while its feet sank in the darkened sea, and could no longer be seen. As we approached, we saw at first only the tip of the cone of the great volcano dancing up and down on the edge of the sky, as a buoy or a cork dances on the troubled water. The evening grew stranger and softer on the sea ; as the light left the water, the A HAPPY LAND. 445 water became colorless, sombre, purplish-dusk ; while the cone of the volcano lifted itself higher and higher on the western sky, climbing the skyey edge as if it had life, and claiming larger and larger attention as a great golden and glowing object, which presently loomed colossal out of the lower hills like a mighty blossom. And from its open summit a line of everlast- ing, never-ending smoke went up and trailed like a web across the sky, now fleecy as spun gold and intensely radiant in the setting sun, now thick, dense, and slender as a coal-black serpent coiling and swim- ming down the side of the mountain. All this we saw at a great distance, and before we had reached the narrowing channel where the sea shot, in a shining current, between the island and the Italian coast, it had grown dark below. Presently, as we steamed on and on, the moon rose, and, just as we passed Messina, it flooded the strait with mag- nificent moonlight, making the angles of the Sicilian hills gleam like opals, lighting the sea with far- streaming lustre, throwing up the contours of the Italian coast into misty, solemn, and spectral relief, and softening all things with its touch of silver. This was the Sicily so mournfully sung in Grecian story, the siren-island that drew the Athenians and shattered all their hopes. The island is a magnificent heap of mountains and valleys, beneath which smokes a lake of eternal fire. The soil was so fertile, and produced such an immense quantity of wheat, that in later times it was called the granary of Rome, and it was fabled to be the favorite and sacred abode of Demeter and Persephone. Wine, saffron, honey, 44^ THE STORY OF GREECE. almonds, and all delicious fruits throve abundantly in this island-Eden, which was inhabited originally by the Sicani and Siculi, then (legend says) by the Cretans under Minos, then by a band of fugitive Trojans ; and with all these Phoenician settlers min- gled in the north and northwest parts. The first body of Greeks who landed in Sicily were Chalcidians from Euboea, and Megarians led by the Athenian Thucles (B.C. 735). Other Greek colonists followed, and founded the flourishing cities of SYRACUSE (B.C. 734), Leontini, Catana, Agrigentum (B.C. 579), etc. They spread and multiplied so fast that they became the ruling race on the island, and received the name of Siceliotes. The Carthaginians who attempted to push their way into the empire in B.C. 480, were defeated with great loss by Gelon of Syracuse, though later they became permanent masters of the west of the island. Literature, art, and science were cultivated with bright success in the Greek cities of Sicily. Sicilian contests at the Olympic Games (Olympia lay nearly opposite Sicily) were numerous and celebrated. The island was the birthplace of the philosophers Em- pedocles, Epicharmus, and Dicsearchus. Here Archi- medes, the great mathematician and engineer, was born. Here lived and flourished the physicians Herodicus and Acron ; the historians Diodorus, Antiochus, Philistus, and Timaeus ; the rhetorician Gorgias, and the poets Stesichorus and Theocritus. Theocritus was one of the sweetest of all the Greek singers, and sang of the fields and flocks and herds, of pleasant country life and piping shepherds. A HAPPY LAND. 447 The Athenians had for some time been meddHng with the affairs of the Greek cities in Sicily, and in B.C. 416 the city of Egesta applied to them for help against Syracuse. The evil genius of Alcibiades had given him such power over the pliant Athenians that he had already persuaded them to break the Peace of Nicias and enter into a new league with Argos and other Peloponnesian states which were discontented with Sparta. This was the signal for new meddling on the part of Athens, and this time she became entangled in a broil with Lacedaemon. In other words, she joined the Argives in invading Arcadia, but the Spartan king Agis met the allied armies at Mantinea and defeated them in a great battle, which broke up the Argive League and re- stored the prestige and power of Sparta. This was in B.C. 418, two years before Egesta ap- plied to Athens for help against Syracuse. It was in this same year (B.C. 418) that the Athenians ren- dered themselves more and more odious by con- quering the iEgsean island of Melos, without law or right, putting all the grown-up men to death, and selling the women and children into slavery. When the Egestans applied for aid Alcibiades was charmed at the opportunity which it seemed to afford for establishing a great Athenian empire in Sicily, and talked the Athenians into an ecstacy of desire for the new sovereignty awaiting them (as they thought) over the sea. Nicias in vain struggled and strove against such wild dreams and visions. The Athenians, indeed, even in the lifetime of Pericles had already cast a longing eye upon Sicily, 448 THE STORY OF GREECE. but did not attempt any thing till after his death. Then, under pretence of aiding their confederates, they sent succor upon all occasions to those who were oppressed by the Syracusans, preparing the way for sending over a greater force. But Alcibiades (as w^e have said) was the person who inflamed this desire of theirs to the utmost, and prevailed upon them to sail out with a great fleet and undertake at once to make themselves masters of the island, as they had already done of all the important ^gaean islands. Alcibiades dreamed in the madness of his ambition of the conquest not only of Sicily but of Carthage and Libya, and ultimately of Italy and the Peloponnesus. The young men caught fire and " spouted tall talk," and talked wonders of the lands they were going to see ; and numbers of them might be seen sitting in the wrestling grounds and public places drawing on the ground the figure and situa- tion of Carthage and Libya. Socrates and Meton the astrologer, however, never hoped for any good to the commonwealth from this war. Meton, it is said, feigned madness, caught up a burning torch, and made as if he would set his own house on fire. Urged on by an irresistible pressure, Nicias at last consented to assume the command of the expe- dition jointly with Alcibiades and Lamachus. Ni- cias was an upright, cautious, slow-footed, supersti- tious man, whose caution, it was supposed, would temper the heat, rashness, and enthusiasm of his fellow-generals. He was, since the death of Pericles, the most highly honored and esteemed man in Athens, of noble birth, very rich, and very wise and A HAPP Y LAND. 449 faithful hitherto in the performance of his duties. His justice, piety, and integrity were above re- proach, his valor and fame as a commander had been tested on many fields and in many commands, but he was hesitating and double-minded, and entirely unfit to lead so immense an armament as this. On the night before the expc,'.!tion started a hor- rible crime was committed whi^rh thrilled all Athens to the marrow, and froze the blood of the supersti- tious Athenians. It arose in the following manner : In all the streets of the city there were placed busts of the god Hermes, who was the guardian angel (we might say) of the Athenian democracy. When the people rose the morning before the fleet was to sail, they were greatly shocked to hear that all these busts had been disfigured and mutilated in the night. A panic seized everybody, for the act was not only a daring insult to the gods — a crime before high heaven, — but it was a threat against the democracy. The people seemed to lose their senses ; they brought accusation right and left, and among others, accused Alcibiades not only of this but (later) of ridiculing openly the sacred Eleusinian Mj-steries, in which the worship of Demeter was solemnized. He begged the people to settle his guilt or innocence of the charge of the mutilation, before he started ; but his enemies caused the inquiry to be postponed in orderthat they might ruin him in his absence. The mutilation of the images of Hermes was charged also against the Corinthians, for the sake of the Syracusans, who were their colony, in hopes that the Athenians by such prodigies might be in- 450 THE STORY OF GREECE. duced to delay or abandon the war. Alcibiades saw at once into the mahce of the postponement and, appearing in the assembly, represented that it was monstrous for him to be sent in command of so large an army when he lay under such accusations and calumnies ; that he deserved to die if he could not clear himself from the crimes charged against him, and that when he had fully cleared himself, he would cheerfully apply himself to the conduct of the war, free, as he should then be, of the fear of false ac- cusers. But he could not prevail on the people, who bade him sail immediately. So he sailed with the other generals, carrying an armament of loo galleys (in- creased at Corcyra by the allies), 5,100 men-at-arms, and 1,300 archers, slingers, and light-armed men. This was the ever-memorable June of the year B.C. 415. Lamachus, who was a man of impetuous nature, wished to attack Syracuse instantly, before it could prepare itself for defence, and such would undoubt- edly have been the wisest course. But the other generals preferred to sail about among the Sicilian towns and seek help here and there. This was the first grand mistake of the war. And while they were dilly-dallying in this way, Alcibiades was sent for to come home in the Salaminian Galley, and answer a new charge of sacrilege. He started with the ship, but when it touched at Thuriiin Italy, he went ashore, hid himself there, and eluded the vigilance of his pursuers. When some one asked if he durst not re- turn and trust his own native country, he replied : A HAPPY LAND. 45 I " In every thing else I should, but in a matter that touches my life I would not even trust my own mother, lest she might, by mistake, throw in the black ball instead of the white ! " And when after- ward he was told that the assembly had pronounced sentence of death against him, all he said was : " I will make them feel that I live ! " He fled to Sparta and became the bitterest enemy of Athens. The Athenians and their allies lay idle all the autumn ; their ships were " painted ships upon a painted ocean " ; and the dull-witted Nicias detained his forces in inactivity all that winter at Naxos, in Sicily. Naturally, the Syracusans took advantage of all this leisurely proceeding, fortified their town as best they could, and sent to Greece for help. Syracuse was the wealthiest and most populous town in the island, and was situated on the southern part of the eastern side of the island-triangle. It was already three hundred years old, and had been founded by a colony of Corinthians and other Dorians. Its situation was singularly striking and picturesque, the core of the town having been origi- nally the island of Ortygia, lying in the crescent- shaped harbor of Syracuse. From this beginning four other towns started into existence on the adjacent mainland, each surrounded by a wall ; so that Syracuse was a five-fold town-cluster full of temples, theatres, pleasure-grounds, and fortifica- tions, embraced, in the height of its prosperity, at a later period than this, a circumference of twenty-two English miles, and had a population of five hundred 452 THE STORY OF GREECE. thousand souls — probably ten times as many as Athens had. For when you think of Athens you must not summon up the picture of a magnificent wilder- ness of people and public buildings, such as we have in London or New York. Modern London is proba- bly eighty times larger than ancient Athens was ; and, as for New York, it would take thirty cities of the size of Athens to equal Manhattan Island in population. Syracuse was blessed with two harbors : the Great Harbor, which was a splendid bay five miles in cir- cumference, and the small harbor which, though small, was large enough to receive a large fleet of ships of war. Many of the Sicilian harbors, as, for exam- ple, those of Palermo and Messina, are exquisitely beautiful, forming superb landscape-views, within which delightful visions of gardens and plantations, tropical vegetation, and brilliant mountain-peaks strike the eye ; while the illuminated azure of the Sicilian seas, the enchanting beauty of the far-sweep- ing promontories and curves of the coast, and the voluptuous richness of the coloring on cliff and scar form a scene which, once beheld, can never be for- gotten. Meanwhile the Syracusans begged the Spartans above all things to send them a Spartan general, as they had once sent Brasidas to the Thracians, and in this request they found a ready abettor in Alcibiades, who was now a favorite at Sparta and who won the Spartans over to do as the Syracusans asked. And now began the most famous and most dis- astrous siege of ancient times. Syracuse was A HAPPY LAND. 453 SO large and so admirably situated, with high ground behind it and the sea in front, that it could not be taken in a day, or in many days. Besides, the folly and procrastination of Nicias had given the people an opportunity to fortify it strongly, and it could not be taken by assault. The only chance therefore, was to starve it into submission by cutting off all channels of communication by land and by sea. Accordingly, in the spring of B.C. 414, the Athenians began to run a double wall round the town on the land side, and worked so diligently with it that the Syracusans almost gave up all for lost. But about this time Lamachus was killed and Nicias (who was suffering from a distressing and incurable disease) was left in sole command. Then, before the wall was finished, the Spartan general Gylippus had broken his way through the Athenian fleet with three thousand men and got into the town, to the relief of the Syracusans. From this time the tables were turned. Gylippus inspired the fainting islanders with fresh hope. The Athenians, swarming like busy bees or harmless hornets on the heights around the city, spent much of their time gazing down into the town, and were soon defeated by Gylippus, who built a cross-wall in such a direction that it prevented the Athenians from encircling Syracuse with theirs. The siege came to an end. It was as much as the attackers could do to keep that part of the wall which they had already built ; their ships lay idle and rotting and worm-eaten in the animalcule-filled harbor ; the slaves who rowed them, and the allies who manned 454 THE STORY OF GREECE. them, began to fall away and desert one by one ; and the Syracusans, roused to glad enthusiasm by the sight of all this ruin to their powerful foe, were now manning ships themselves and practising for a sea- battle. The wretched Nicias, tortured by his disease, en- feebled by disappointed hopes, a h}"pochondriac even before he started, and a " croaker " and alarmist during the whole of the campaign, wrote urgently for reinforcements and begged the Athenians to accept his resignation (B.C. 414). But they persisted in keeping him in the place. In B.C. 413 Gylippus made a fierce onslaught on the Athenian fleet, but was defeated ; yet, while the fleets were furiously contending in the harbor the land army of Gylippus descended suddenly upon the hostile naval camp and stores of the Athenians on the beach, and seized them. In the second battle the Athenian army was entirely routed, and the Syra- cusans now looked exultantly forward to its total destruction. All this while Alcibiades was at Sparta, where he not only worked until he induced the Spartans to despatch Gylippus to Syracuse, but showed them how they could renew the war upon the Athenians at home, succeding in prevailing upon them to seize and fortify Decelea — on the borders of Boeotia, near the sources of the Cephissus — which, probably more than any other operation of the war, reduced and wasted the resources of the Athenians. The renown which these public services won for him at Sparta was equalled by the admiration he A HAPPY LAND. 455 attracted in private life ; for he captivated everybody by his ready conformity to Spartan habits. People who now saw him wearing his hair close-cropt, bath- ing in cold water, eating coarse meal, and dining on black broth, doubted, or rather could not believe, that he had ever had a cook in his house, or had ever seen a perfumer, or had ever worn a mantle of Milesian purple. For he had a peculiar talent and facility for gaining men's affections, embracing any mode of life, and changing his color like a chameleon. At Sparta he revelled in athletic exercises, and cultivated frugality and reserve ; in Ionia he was luxurious, gay, and insolent ; in Thrace he drank like a Thracian ; in Thessaly he lived on horseback, and was as much of a centaur as a Thessalian ; while, when he went to live with the Persian satrap Tissa- phernes, nothing could exceed the pomp and splendor of his life. Thus he was all things to all men, and he even so fascinated the gloomy and cruel Persian by his brilliant face, his eloquence and genius, his plausibility and flattery, that Tissaphernes called the most beautiful of his parks after the name of Alci- biades. Hardly had the Syracusans recovered from their delight over their great victory when their joy was dashed by seeing a new Athenian fleet sailing into their harbor! Inexhaustible seemed the resources of the ambitious little town, and as one contemplates its heroic but mistaken efforts to retrieve itself at this stage of the war, to reassert its former suprem- acy, to sustain its ancient glory, one is struck with a feeling of the pathos of the situation and the dra- 456 THE STORY OF GREECE. matic character of this last expiring burst of Athenian ambition. By an immense effort they had succeeded in rais- ing seventy-five more triremes and in sending them with a new army under Demosthenes to the succor of Nicias. Demosthenes v as an intrepid and accomplished soldier, and he saw at once that unless the cross-wall of Gylippus were broken and taken, they could never properly surround Syracuse. Attacking it in front, he failed ; and then he led his army around by night, mounted some high ground, and rushed upon the troops of Gylippus in the dark- ness. At first Demosthenes seemed about to gain a triumphant success, but the darkness unhappily rendered it impossible to distinguish friend from foe, and his soldiers were thrown into confusion. They massacred one another in the midnight fnelee and the battle ended in a ruinous defeat. This ignominious failure told Demosthenes one absolutely certain thing, namely, that Syracuse could never be taken, starved, or burned ; and so he told Nicias, urging him at the same time to retreat at once before further disasters befell him. For a long time the Athenian general-in-chief refused ; but at length he saw the necessity of the move, and appointed the day of August 27, B.C. 413, as the day for sailing. But that night, lo! the moon dark- ened and went into eclipse, and Nicias, who was profoundly religious and superstitious, thought this was an evil omen, and was induced by the sooth- sayers to commit the incredible folly of delaying a Tionth ! A HAPPY LAND. 457 The Syracusans, who were continually on the qui vivc, had discovered the intention of Nicias to retreat, and they resolved to prevent it. So they blockaded the Great Harbor in which the whole Athenian fleet lay, that the enemy might only escape, if at all, by forcing their way through the Syracusan shijDs. When all was ready and the occasion seemed opportune, the Athenian fleet advanced and began the battle. What a grand spectacle it must have been, with the whole population of populous Syracuse watching the engagement from their heights, the two fleets locked in mortal conflict, contending in the broad, far-sweeping bay, and the whole Athenian army on the opposite side of the harbor crowding to the water's edge and gazing with strained eyes and intense anxiety on the shouting, blood-streaming, furious, agonizing multitude ! It was indeed a struggle for life and death, for Athens or for Sparta. It is useless to say that the Athenians fought with desperate valor; in vain ; they were beaten, humili- ated, crushed, dri\ en back upon the shore of the har- bor. All they could now iiope to do was to escape from their perilous position by land and flee to some friendly city. Forty thousand of them started madly for the interior of the island — that rocky and tropi- cal wilderness full of towering heights and trackless forests and sulphur caverns- — abandoning the wound- ed and dying, themselves in the very lowest depths of misery. At the end of six days but a handful of this superb force, the flower of Athens and the isles, the pink of Athenian chivalry, the heart and core of 458 THE STORY OF GREECE. Athenian hope, remained to tell the horrid story of perishing by thirst, by hunger, by wounds, by insati- ate pursuers ; and this miserable remnant surren- dered to the victorious Syracusans. Nicias and Demosthenes, rather than become the jest and jibe of the mocking mob, took poison and slew themselves. All the rest of the gallant Athenian host went into the fearful quarry-pits around Syracuse as slaves, starved, degraded, forlorn, an indescribable pack of misery and suffering. Thus ended this mighty armament — wiped out, annihilated, stricken with captivity and death, fit example of that great doctrine of Nemesis which presided over the Greek conscience, fit exemplifica- tion of the punishment, swift and terrible, which came upon men for vfipi^ — the overweening arro- gance that makes men forget the gods and despise their interference with the affairs of men. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. / will repay ! XXXIX. THE DYING LION. Well has it been said that the ruin of the Sicihan Expedition was one of the greatest calamities that ever befell any nation. The single bright spot in all the ruin and humiliation was, that Sparta, swallowed up in folly, did not immediately descend upon and crush Athens utterly, as she might easily have done : the fainting courage of the Athenians kindled again and flamed forth with wonderful brightness. Sparta missed her opportunity. Athens was not yet crushed ! Dangers, however, hovered thick and menacing over the beautiful Acropolis, more beautiful and pathetic than ever, with its array of dazzling sanctu- aries and vestibules, statues and fanes. Agis, King of Sparta, had, by the advice of Alcibiades, seized (as you know) a strong place called Decelea, in the heart of Attica, and kept an unconquerable garrison there, permanently, which ate at the soul of Attica like an ulcer, ravaged the fields, prevented the sowing of grain, destroyed the cattle, allured the Attic slaves to run away, and rendered the roads impassable. The only way Athens could now get food was arti- ficially, — through that vital tube, the Long Wall, — whence supplies reached the town from Euboea, the isles, and the Black Sea. 460 THE STORY OF GREECE. Alcibiades now seemed to spread like a poison everywhere. He urged the unseamanHke Lace- daemonians to build a fleet and send it over to Asia to assist the lonians to shake off the Athenian yoke, hurrying, himself, over to Chios with a few ships in order to start the insurrection. The government of Chios was an oligarchy formed by a few nobles ; but, as they had all along hitherto been faithful allies of Athens, the Athenians had not abolished the oligarchy in favor of the democratical form of gov- ernment, which they themselves preferred. Now, however, every isle gave the dying lion a kick. Chios revolted (B.C. 413) in the critical year of the Sicilian Expedition ; and, as it was the most power- ful of the Ionian states, the revolt was a sore trial and sorrow to Athens. Miletus and Mytilene, like overgrown and petulant children, far from behaving like Cleobis and Bito, revolted in B.C. 412 ; the nobles of Samos then prepared to break loose, but the peopie favored Athens, rose against the nobles, slew two hundred of them, and banished four hun- dred more. Athens rewarded the loyalty of Samos by making Samos its free and equal ally, instead of its subject, and Samos became the convenient head- quarters of the Athenian fleet and army. Another blow to Athens was the alliance which was now made between Sparta and. the Persian satrap Tissaphernes. Tissaphernes promised to pay any Spartan troops that would come over and help to overthrow the Athenian supremacy in Ionia, which kept Ionia free from Persia. As Sparta loved even Persia better than Athens — her own THE DYING LION. 46 1 blood — she committed the unspeakable baseness of agreeing to this unhallowed and unnatural alliance; she shamefully agreed to deliver up to an abominable Persian despot all the free, glorious, liberty-loving Greek cities in Asia Minor. Sparta, however, was counting her chickens before they were hatched ; the Athenians — who at this time seemed to swarm as the herring do in the Nor- wegian seas — had manned another fleet ! They gloriously thrashed the combined Peloponnesian and Persian fleet at Miletus, and were only prevented from besieging restless Miletus itself by the arrival of a new hostile fleet from Syracuse. Now, again, just cast your eye at the tricky Alci- biades, the greatest turn-coat, time-server, and villain in Grecian story. Here he was in an " Iliad of woes" at Sparta, having boasted, openly, of cor- rupting the wife of King Agis, and being hated and envied by many jealous and powerful Spartans, So off he fled to Tissaphernes, abandoning the black broth, cold bathing, and all the other hypocrisies; and as he had once loved and then hated Athens, so now, after pretending at least to love Sparta, he now hated her, doing all he could in the gilded palaces of Tissaphernes to render her odious and contemptible to the Persians, and striving to break up the friend- ship between Persia and Sparta, in order that he might win back the lost favor of the Athenians. " Home, Sweet Home " thus rankled and stirred in his ulcerous bosom ; he began to long to return to his fatherland, and gaze once more on the beauty and pleasantness of Athens. 4^2 THE STORY OF GREECE. It was not long, therefore, before he contrived to foment a quarrel between the impecunious Lacedaemo- nians — who in spite of their iron coin passionately loved the " root of all evil " — and their Persian pay- masters about the rate of pay, and at first convinced Tissaphernes that it would be the best plan to let the Athenians and their foes wear each other out and waste away to shadows without giving help to either, then he — Tissaphernes — could step in and dictate to both sides as he pleased. Tissaphernes was a master in the art of taking such advice as this — of temporizing and dawdling, — so he let the Spartans hang about in idleness for months, always pretending that he \\2l's, going to bring up his fleet to help them, but never doing it. Alcibiades — who was the very Father of Lies — now sent a mendacious message to the generals of the Athenian army at Samos that he could induce Tissaphernes to help Athens, if — mark the price ! — the Athenians would allow //m to return from exile; but he remarked, probably in an incidental Alcibiades- like sort of way, that he could never return so long as there was a democracy there. Therefore, if they wished Tissaphernes and his tribe to help, they must change the form of government to an oligarchy ! This sublime piece of impertinence was perpetrated in the year of *' heathennesse," B.C. 412, while yet the bitter root of the Sicilian humiliation was diffus- ing gall and wormwood through the lacerated souls of the Athenians. Still, the pill was not so bitter after all ; it was THE DYING LION. 463 rather bitter-sweet, for what should the captious and fickle-minded Athenians do, ultimately, but adopt the suggestion of Alcibiades! In the army at Samos, namely, there was a band of rich men — " gold-bugs " — who were only too willing and anxious to see an oligarchy sitting on the pros- trate neck of that Giant Democracy in distant Attica, and to enjoy peace with honor with oligarchy- loving Sparta. For was it not to the everlasting shame and guilt of the democracy that it had decided on the Sicilian expedition, contrary to the advice of Nicias and other conservatives? Did not the rich folk after all have to bear the main brunt of the war and contribute heavily out of their innocent pockets? And was it not evident that the sum paid the mob to do their plain duty in attending the Assembly and sitting in jury-courts, was exhausting the very life- blood of the State ? Therefore, though the great mass of the army at Samos was deep-dyed in democratical tendencies, the rich men exerted so overwhelming an influence that they carried out the plan of Alcibiades for changing the government. They despatched an emissary of theirs, one Pisander, to Athens to " make a deal " with the aristocrats and plutocrats of the town, to "wirework" among the clubs, sound the citizens, and plan the overthrow of the popular form of government. Pisander proved an admirable " worker " : citizens known to be zealous for the con- stitution were secretly assassinated ; the town was terrorized by deeds of villany and intimidation done in the dark by an Athenian Ku-Klux-Klan ; nobody 464 THE STORY OF GREECE. knew who did and who didn't belong to the plot ; and at last the craven Assembly, paralyzed with fear, was brought to abolish the democratic form of govern- ment and all the magistracies, and hand over the state into the clutch of Four Hundred of the Nobles. Such was the origin of the famous Committee of the Four Hundred. There was professedly to be an Assembly of five thousand citizens to assist in the deliberations of public questions, but the Four Hundred had no real intention of summoning it. The blood of their enemies now flowed in streams, and they began to treat for peace with Sparta in B.C. 411. Great and lamentable was the outcry of the army at Samos when it heard of what had been done at Athens ; the cry went to heaven, and they swore with great oaths that the democracy should be preserved. Were not they the true body of Athenian citizens, since those at home had forever lost that name by abandoning the constitution ? Why should not they, far from home as they were — far away in these blue yEgaean seas, — meet together, hold a popular assem- bly, such as was their immemorial right and custom, and elect the regular magistrates of the State? And so they did. The Democracy-on-the-water was thus drawn up in deadly array against the Oligarchy-on- the-land. And now presto ! Alcibiades changes again. He is won over to their side by the democratic leaders and breaks off all connection and intercourse with the Four Hundred, doubtless thinking that a bird in the THE DYING LION. 465 hand was worth two in the bush — that a Democracy- on-the-Deep was far better than an OHgarchy-in-the- Distance ; especially as the Four Hundred had slighted him — Alcibiades. He was elected general of the democratic fleet, in spite of the remembrance that most of the fearful misfortunes of the Athenians were due to him — that Jie had urged and insisted upon the Syracusan War — that Jie had then turned traitor and urged and insisted on the Spartans send- ing Gylippus to Syracuse — that he had urged and insisted upon Agis, the Spartan king, occupying Decelea and ravaging the Attic territory — and that lie had brought about the revolt of Chios. The sol- diers were so infatuated by his incomparable genius, by his "tall talk," by his beauty, wit, and eloquence, above all by their notion that he was all-powerful with Tissaphernes, that they went blindfold and headlong into this election, forgave him his innumer- able sins against them and Athens the Beloved, and devoutly believed that now — nozv at last — he was going to turn out a totally reformed man, abandon the idol Self — to which he was wedded, and return good for all the evil he had done. At Athens meanwhile confusion worse confounded — and not the Four Hundred — ruled and reigned. This huge committee was now divided against itself: some wanted the Five Thousand to be summoned and a measure of liberty to be allowed ; others — mere desperadoes — were determined, come what might, to keep their power at any and all costs ; and these did the dastardly deed of sending a message to Sparta offering to admit the Spartan soldiers to the 466 THE STORY OF GREECE. Piraeus. The Spartans, as usual, failed to come at the right time, and thus, for the hundredth time in these lively annals, missed their opportunity. But the people were now thoroughly roused and indignant ; they could not and would not endure this nightmare of Four Hundred Tyrants any longer. They rose and overthrew them and restored the ancient constitution, except that they instituted a property qualification for voting; a citizen was re- quired to own so-and-so-much property before he could vote, and furthermore, the payment for at- tending the Assembly and the jury-courts was abol- ished. Some of the most obnoxious leaders of the Four Hundred were put to death by process of law, but only a few ; and the people acted with praise- worthy moderation considering the wrongs and in- dignities they had suffered (B.C. 411). A mortal blow, at this time, to poor expiring Athens — shivered, shattered, humiliated, heart- broken — was the revolt of Eubcea and its alliance with the Spartans. Attica seemed upon the point of suffering death by starvation, as it was impossible to grow crops thus surrounded and tormented on all sides by enemies, and no food could be expected now from this great and fruitful island. Besides, the Spartans and Eubceans were now in a position to pounce upon the Athenian food-ships and capture, sack, and sink them. One bright spot shines in all this gloom ; one sun- set ray casts its pathetic glory over the downfall of Athens. Far in the north, along the Hellespont, where the THE DYING LION. 467 beautiful clear waters of the Black Sea toss and tumble in a sparkling current through the deep cut which divides Europe from Asia, the Athenians about this sad time were gaining brilliant victories over their many foes. The Spartans had outgrown their antipathy to the sea — if they ever had it, — and had gradually developed into fearless and eager sailors ; they prepared for no less than a life-and-death struggle with the Athenian fleet off' the coast of Asia Minor. Despairing of the help of the slipper}'- tongued Tissaphernes, the Spartans moved their fleet from Ionia to the Hellespont, with a view to acting in concert with Pharnabazus, the Persian satrap of Northern Asia Minor, and to assist the towns in that part of the country which had broken loose from Athens. Mindarus, the Lacedaemonian captain- general, was anxious to seize and command the ap- proaches to the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, for thus he should be able to cut Athens off from her supplies of wheat and grain which came from the Black Sea. As soon as the Athenians saw what their enemies were after, off they shot out to sea from Samos, fol- lowing the trail of the Lacedaemonian fleet like blood- hounds, and soon two furious encounters took place in the Hellespont, in both of which the Athenians were victorious. Early in B.C. 410, the Spartan fleet besieging Cyzicus on the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) was surrounded by the skill of Alcibiades and the Athenians; Mindarus ran his ships ashore and attempted a land battle, but his army was com- pletely defeated, he himself was killed, and the fleet was annihilated. 468 THE STORY OF GREECE. Thus again did the dying hon rise up with a ma- jestic roar and shake all the surrounding territories with his furious outcries. So crushed were the Spartans momentarily that they sued for peace, but the Athenians would not grant it, not knowing the thing that appertained to their good. Alcibiades did something to retrieve himself during the next two years by reconquering the revolted towns about the Bosphorus. Things, however, were fast coming to an end : the gloom gathered darker and denser over the brightest of Hellenic cities. The king of Persia became alarmed at these Athenian successes ; so he now determined in good earnest to help the Spartans and prevent the Athenians from once more gaining an ascendancy over Ionia, which he coveted for him- self. So he sent his youngest son, Cyrus, to the coast to help the Spartans with money. And it happened, too, that Mindarus had been succeeded by a most skilful leader and manager named Lysander, whose valor and discretion were only equalled by his success. He cooperated intelligently with Cyrus, and the two became such fast friends and allies that Cyrus both paid the promised sum to the Spartan soldiers, and even increased it ; and, the treasury of Persia being apparently exhaustless, the Lace- daemonians suddenly found themselves so rich that they prosecuted the war with tenfold vigor, and soon brought matters to a crisis. Though, as the war went on, the Athenians gained more victories, yet, one day, by a master-stroke, Lysander caught their fleet unawares at a place called .^gospdtami, THE DYING LION. 469 in the Hellespont, and captured it, man and mouse, stock and stone ! (b.c. 405.) The knell of Athens, the doom of the City of Ce- crops, had now rung. Their fleet being gone, what could the Athenians do ? Not live or fight on air, surely ? Athens was all that they had left — precious, imperishable Athens, with its great memories, its noble deeds, its immortal works of art, its genius, — and its tears. The towns in Asia Minor, one after another, bowed the knee to Lysander, Samos only excepted, and in B.C. 405, the climax of terror and darkness came upon Athens when Lysander block- aded the Piraeus by sea, and Agis surrounded the city by land. Of what avail were Long Walls — or Short Walls, either, for that matter — now, when Lysander stood like a pillar of fire at their mouth and killed or plundered everybody that approached ? No food could enter the doomed city. In four months all the provisions were eaten up, the city became as lean as a grasshopper from starvation. In March, B.C. 404, Athens surrendered — proud, imperial Ath- ens that had " fulmined o'er Greece," and shot forth such flashes of light — sheeted, forked, illumin- ating, unforgetable — all through the many-isled Mediterranean, — surrendered, and cast her crown in the dust. The terms of the peace swept away her entire empire, for how could she treat with invincible Sparta, backed by the yellow glitter of Persian gold? The Long Walls and the fortifications sank in the dust; Athens became "such stuff as dreams are made of" — a dream herself, beautiful, eloquent, 470 THE STORY OF GREECE. memorable, dreamt and realized even to-day by in- numerable scholars and pilgrims who study the immortal works she has left behind her, and journey to the classic land of Hellas on purpose to refresh their souls at the inexhaustible fountain of know- ledge and beauty. A fitting epilogue to such a drama is the sharp Tyranny of the Thirty Tyrants, which now crowed and exulted over the downfall of stricken Athens and her great democracy. Lysander, namely, helped thirty of the most violent among the nobles to over- throw the last lingering remnant of popular govern- ment in Attica, and set themselves up as the repre- sentatives of the state. Critias was the ringleader of these. A frantic scene ensued paralleled only by the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution of 1789; hundreds weltered in their blood at the beck and call of these blood-thirsty monsters ; such violence, wickedness, and cruelty as had never before been known in enlightened Athens, celebrated the advent of these murderous wretches. Worse still, they were protected in their deviltries by a Spartan garri- son — a gang of hateful foreigners who gloated over the shame of the kindred of Pericles and Aristides, of Socrates and yEschylus. But, it seems, even this Gehenna had an end ; the citizens who liad been banished now gathered in a half-crazed band and, after eight months of suffering, marched upon their town. Drawn battles were fought, and at last the Spartans saw that it was utterly impossible for them to protect the Thirty. In B.C. 403, the democracy was restored and showed THE DYING LION. 471 plainly enough that whatever might have been its shortcomings in the past, it had never perpetrated such atrocities as the oligarchical governments of the Four Hundred and the Thirty. Thus the Dying Lion suddenly came to life again ! XL. THE RISE OF THEBES : PELOPIDAS AND EPAMI- NONDAS. Still, in our admiration for Athens, in our sym- pathy with her, we must not forget that the Spartans too were Greeks, — very Greeks of very Greeks : a va- hant, gifted, ancient-Hneaged race, whose intense Greek characteristics of toughness, obstinacy, and one-sidedness come out with hmiinous distinctness all along the lines of Grecian story and make a speak- ing counter-foil to Athenian pliancy and grace. Athens represents but one quadrant of Greek life; Sparta — rank, terse-tongued Lacedaemon — represents another. Thebes and Macedonia fill up the missing quadrants and make the circle complete. All the juice, sweetness, luxuriance of Greek life seemed to go into the Athenians and lonians, as in its little globular golden cells we find all the honeyed juice and luxuriance of the orange stored, as in mimic ampJiorcE. Sparta might represent the resisting integument, the tough dividing walls that hem in the podlike divisions of the orange and make them hang together. Repugnant as Sparta may be to us, we must not allow ourselves to be overmastered by the culture and craft of the Athenians in such a way as to abuse and berate the Lacedaemonians, who after THE RISE OF THEBES. 473 all were nothing more than Greeks, and Greeks full of genius too. The downfall of her foe of course left Sparta supreme over all the places that had been subject to Athens, and all that Lysander now had to do was to go through the cities and establish oligarchies in each of ten citizens favorable to Sparta, and a Spar- tan Harnwst or managing governor. These Spartan " carpet-baggers," or Jiarniosts, ruled with a leaden hand, and their oppressions soon made them odious to all the Greek states. The Spartans, from having been very poor, passed triumphantly into the possession of great wealth ; the state once established by Ly- curgus on a foundation of poverty and self-denial became thoroughly corrupt ; and a few rich and powerful citizens changed the character of the state, leaving the other citizens jealous and discontented. Just here, while all this misery and oppression were going on at home, an event occurred abroad which deserves a place among the most celebrated achievements of Greek adroitness and generalship. Artaxerxes, elder brother of the Cyrus who had defended and aided Lysander, now sat on the throne of his fathers as king of Persia. This nettled C}'rus, who resolved not to submit to it ; so, hiring a band of ten thousand Greeks, he marched into the heart of the empire, purposing to overthrow Artaxerxes. The brothers met and fought fiercely at Cynaxa, near Babylon the Great, and Cyrus — was killed ! The Greeks were now in a pitiable plight ; the king dead, what should they do ? Make their way back of course out of this howling wilderness; but how? 474 THE STORY OF GREECE. Who would guide them or keep them from being cut to pieces by the ferocious Artaxerxians ? Their fortunes seemed desperate indeed. At last they resolved like men to find their way back as best they could, chose Xenophon the historian to be their gen- eral, and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand — after Moscow, the most romantic 'etreat in history — be- gan. Long they wandered like Israelites in the trackless forests and over the rugged mountains of Persia, fatigued, fainting, but never despairing; wan- dered and wandered and wandered, till finally, one day, they mounted a high hill and — Thalatta ! TJialatta ! went up in a wild, universal shout. Thalatta! Thalatta! (the Sea! the Sea!) roared through the echoing hills as they gazed with gloating eyes on the delicious vision of the Black Sea as it lay in glorious brightness at their feet and announced to them that they were saved — yes, saved from Artaxerxes and his Persians, from wild beast and cunning foe, from starvation and despair. Never perhaps did men feel such glad tears rush to their eyes again, till, nearly eighteen centuries later Balboa stood "on a silent peak in Darien" and viewed the immeasurable Pacific before his eyes, or Cortes in his difficult and dangerous march up from the Gulf coast sighted the glorious panorama of the city of Montezuma. Thalatta ! Thalatta ! Be thou greeted, thou infinite Sea ! Be thou greeted ten thousand times With heart wild exulting, As once thou wart greeted By ten thousand Grecian spirits, THE RISE OF THEBES. 47 S Striving with misery, longing for home again, Great, world-famous Grecian true hearts. The wild waves were rolling. Were rolling and roaring ; The sunlight poured headlong upon them Its flickering rosy radiance ; The frightened, fluttering train of sea-gulls Went fluttering up, sharp screaming; ; Their horses were stamping, the shields were loud ringing. And far it re-echoed, like victor's shout : Thalatta ! Thalatta ! — Heine (Leland's Tr.). This marvellous escape showed the inherent weak- ness of the Persian Empire ; for, had it possessed any thing of an organized army, the Ten Thousand would never have been heard of more (B.C. 401). The Spartans now went to war with Persia, and attacked the satraps of Asia Minor under their King Agesilaus. But the doughty Pharnabazus raised a Phoenician fleet, and gave the command of it to an Athenian named Conon, who, encountering the Spartan fleet off Cnidus, near Rhodes, completely crushed it (B.C. 394). Athens thus indirectly re- venged herself some little on Sparta, and Sparta now lost control over the cities in Asia Minor, which, of course, all depended on a fleet. The Spartan " carpet-bagger " Jiarmosts were ignomini- ously expelled ; and Conon, sailing for Athens, re- built the Long Walls and the fortifications of the Piraeus. It was now the turn of Persia — in this endless table-turning — to stir up the other Greek states against Sparta, her former ally. Even Thebes, no- 476 THE STORY OF GREECE. torious for her hatred and abhorrence of Athens, united with her as oil with fire against the super- cilious and " bloated " Lacedaemonians. Corinth and Argos followed suit. It now became imperative that Agesilaus should return instantly from Asia Minor and defend his own fireside. Corinthian terri- tory was scathed with the contests waged upon it by the allies against Lacedaemon ; and now the Atheni- ans, who seemed to have been utterly broken, neck and heels, began to lift tJicir heads a little, sent a fleet to the Hellespont, and dreamt once more of the sovereignty of the seas. Being thus hemmed in and threatened with de- struction on all sides, Sparta concluded the disgrace- ful Peace of Antalcidas with Persia in B.C. 387, by which she bargained to give up the Asiatic Greek cities to Persia, and the Persian despot was allowed to dictate terms of peace between these cities, just as if he were their lord and master, and they his humble and loyal subjects. Thus ended temporarily the long-continued squabbles between Athens and Sparta, both of whom had covered themselves with contempt by their inconstant flirtations with Persia, and by the alternate coquetry and coyness with which they courted or recoiled from the advances of his High Mightiness, the Oriental monarch. All the Greek states agreed to this peace. The League of the Boeotian cities under Thebes (which now begins to loom into greater and greater promi- nence as the third great disturbing element in Greek society and government) was broken up, and in each of them was placed an oligarchy favorable to Sparta. THE RISE OF THEBES. A77 Some of the cities were even garrisoned by Spartan troops. Two most- noble figures appear on the stage of Grecian history just at this point, men in whose veins Theban blood coursed richly, men who forever lift Thebes out of the reproach of insignificance and unproductiveness, and place her worthily alongside of Athens and Sparta as a motherland of great men. Our triangle of Grecian story has these three illumi- nated points — Athens, Sparta, Thebes — each pointing in a different direction, each the result of differing historical conditions, each haply the product of climate and circumstance ; all Greek at the core, and all illustrating in multifarious ways the fertile genius of the Greek race. The Macedonians were not Greeks. As we have given so much attention to Athens and Lacedaemon in the course of our tale, let us now turn for a little moment to this third great exponent of Hellenic ideas and gifts, Thebes, and see if we cannot extract from her too, in the persons of her great men, something individual and characteristic. Epaminondas and Pelopidas were both Thebans, and were united by one of the most beautiful friend- ships known in history. The one — Pelopidas — shone forth no less amid his riches than the other — Epami- nondas — loomed forth from the midst of his poverty. They were both born of honorable race. Others per- mitted themselves to be obliged by Pelopidas, and thankfully made use of his liberality and kindness ; but amongst all his friends he never could persuade Epaminondas to be a sharer of his wealth. Being 478 THE STORY OF GREECE. ashamed that any one should think that he spent any- more upon his person than the meanest Theban, he abandoned his wealth, or at least courted poverty, delighting in poor attire, spare diet, unwearied en- durance of hardships, unshrinking boldness in war; in short, he was a disciple of the noble religion of " plain living and high thinking." " Money," said he, when he had ruined his estate, " is necessary to Nicodcrnus ! " pointing to a blind cripple. Both of them excelled in work of every sort, Pelopidas in athletic, Epaminondas in intellectual exercises. One spent his leisure hours in hunting or at the wrestling-ground, the other in hearing lectures or in philosophizing. In what admirable contrast Pelopidas and Epaminondas, as colleagues in the government, as kind and reverent friends, as efficient and able generals stand to other associated Greek statesmen and generals, — to Themistocles and Aristides, for example, or to Nicias and Alcibiades, or to Cimon and Pericles ! The true cause of this was their virtue, their divine desire of seeing their country made glorious by their exertions, and their mutual helpfulness. There was a party in Thebes who favored Sparta. When a Spartan army was on its way through Boeotia this party treacherously surrendered the citadel of Thebes, called the Cadmeia, into their hands (B.C. 382) at the festival of Demeter, and a garrison of fifteen hundred Lacedaemonians was stationed there. Pelopidas fled, but Epaminondas stayed quietly at home, because everybody thought THE RISE OF THEBES. 479 that he was a mere poverty-stricken dreamer and philosophizer who would never come to any good anyhow. For three years these omnipresent Lace- dcemonians roosted in the Cadmeia, until in B.C. 379 Pelopidas, aided by other Thebans, made a plot to drive out the unclean birds. Epaminondas too was not inactive, for in their exercises he secretly inflamed the Theban youth to challenge and wrestle with the Spartans, and when he saw them puffed up with victory and success, sharply told them that it was no greater shame to be outright cowards than to serve those whom in strength they so much excelled. The way being thus prepared for him, Pelopidas and his friends broke into Thebes, killed the com- manders of the garrison, and recovered the Cadmeia. Naturally this was almost a stab under the fifth rib of aspiring Lacedaemonians, and her enemies felt greatly encouraged. Pelopidas and his friends had crept into Thebes disguised as countrymen ; then, dressing themselves up in women's clothes, and putting garlands of fir and pine on their heads, they went round to the houses of the head Lacedaemonians, surprised, caught, and killed them ; and then, storming the Cadmeia, expelled the enemy from it. At this point a new Athenian Confederacy, resem- bling the former Confederacy of Delos, sprang up among seventy-four cities of the yEgaean Sea, and was joined by Thebes. The cities were to be "au- tonomous," or self-governing, and they gave in a contribution for the support of the objects of the League under a name different from that by which 480 THE STORY OF GREECE. they had called the tribute paid to the first League. This they did in order not to recall any disagreeable or troublesome recollections of the behavior of Athens to the Confederacy of Delos. One of the main objects of this Confederacy was to wage war on Sparta by sea and land. Thebes joined it because she wanted to root the " pesky " Lacedaemonian garrison out of the Boeotian cities and restore the National Boeotian League, with her- self as head. As the year B.C. 374 went on this object was accomplished — the unpatriotic, Spartan- loving oligarchies were dashed to the earth, and the Boeotian League — Boeotia for the Boeotians ! — was restored. The upshot of all which was that Athens and Thebes now became jealous of each other, and in B.C. 371 Athens made peace with Sparta and left Thebes out in the cold to do the best she could and carry on the war to suit herself. You have doubtless heard of the celebrated Na- tional Guard which did such noble service for Napoleon at Waterloo ; of the " crack " Guardsmen who are the pride and pets of the British army ; of the tall Grenadiers of Frederick the Great, and of the famous Legion of Garibaldi which did such brilliant service in the Italian campaigns ? Well, at Thebes there was something similar ; there was a certain Sacred Band of Thebans which immortalized itself by its deeds of valor in this war, and won for itself a renown that will never die. It was composed of three hundred chosen men, to whom the State allowed provision and all things necessary for exercise, and to them was given the THE RISE OF THEBES. 48 1 charge to defend the citadel — the heart of hearts — of Thebes. Others say that this band was composed of young men attached to each other by personal affec- tion, and that it was called Sacred because friendship of this kind was so rare and lovely a trait among the ancients ; Plato calling a lover a " divine friend." It is stated that it was never beaten till the battle of Chaeronea ; and when Philip, after the fight, took a view of the slain and came to the place where the Three Hundred that fought his phalanx lay dead together, he wondered, and understanding that it was the band of friends, he shed tears, and cried : " Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered any thing that was base ! " Pelopidas was captain of this noble band, and he commanded them at the battle of Leuctra, which now took place after the Lacedaemonians invaded Boeotia. Before the battle a vision appeared to him. Being asleep in the camp, he thought he saw the maiden daughters of one Scedasus, who had been ravished and slain in the plains, weeping before their tombs and cursing the Spartans, and Scedasus com- manding, if they desired the victory, to sacrifice a virgin with chestnut hair to his daughters ! Pelopidas looked upon this as a harsh and impious injunction, but rose and told it to the prophets and generals of the army. When a huge dispute arose as to what the dream meant, Pelopidas, being in mighty perplexity, suddenly saw a chestnut-colored mare colt break from the herd, rush through the camp, and stop, full of fury, mettle, and strength, right where the quarrellers stood ! 482 THE STORY OF GREECE. " O good friend ! look, the sacrifice is come ! " cried the augur ; " expect no other virgin, but use that which the gods have sent thee ! " With that they seized the colt, and leading her to the maidens' sepulchre, offered her with the usual solemnities and prayers. The report of Pclopidas' dream flew through the camp, and with it joy and gladness at its expected fulfilment. It was in this great battle that Epaminondas showed his lofty generalship, and that the Theban troops displayed a daring which at once put them in the foremost ranks of Greek warriors. The Lacedae- monians, up to that time the expertest and most prac- tised soldiers in Hellas, were attacked with such in- credible speed and fury by the Three Hundred and by the phalanx led by Epaminondas, that their courage was utterly broken, their art entirely bafifled, and such flight and slaughter ensued among the Spartans as were never before known. And so Pelopidas, though in no high ofifice, but only captain of a small band, got as much reputation by the victory as Epaminondas, who had now risen to be general and chief captain of Boeotia. Not content with administering this crushing, blow to the Spartans outside the Peloponnesus, Epami- nondas now determined to break their back-bone in the peninsula, to surround them with enemies, to unite the disconnected Arcadian cities in a powerful League against them, and to revive Messenia, after a sleep of three hundred years, into a living and inde- pendent State once again. For you remember how totally Sparta had crushed Messenia and helotized her. THE RISE OF THEBES. 483 As the greedy and ambitious Arcadian cities were too spiteful and prickly-tempered to allow any one of their own cities to lead the league, Epaminondas cut the Gordian knot by founding a new city called Megalopolis (Big Town), at which deputies from all tht! other Arcadian cities were to assemble ; and a cit> named Messene was founded in B.C. 369, to be the capital of '' Messenia." CITY OF THEBES. Thus did the great Epaminondas change the whole face of Greece, bringing down haughty Sparta, which for hundreds of years had been the leader of the greater part of Greece, and making Thebes supreme — for a little while. Some think that if we look at the actual changes which Epaminondas made, we must consider him the greatest of all Greek states- men, except Themistocles. Yet the work of Themis- tocles endured, while that of Epaminondas, shooting to heaven for a moment like a pillar of fire, expired and passed away. 484 THE STORY OF GREECE. On the march into the Peloponnesus, Epaminondas and Pelopidas advanced together as colleagues in supreme command, and gained the greater part of the nations there — Elis, Argos in Arcadia, and much of Laconia itself — from the Spartan Confederacy. On their return from their first invasion of the Peloponnesus, Epaminondas and Pelopidas were im- peached by their enemies in a capital charge of having retained their command beyond the legal term. The fact itself was true enough ; but both were honorably acquitted, Epaminondas expressing his willingness to die if the Thebans would record that he had been put to death because he had liumbled Sparta and taught his countrymen to face and to conquer her armies ! In B.C. 362 he invaded the Peloponnesus for the fourth time and gained a brilliant victory over the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea, but fell mortally wounded in the full career of victory. They told him that he would die directly the javelin was drawn from his wound ; so he waited until he knew his shield was safe, and until the victory was with the Thebans, when the javelin was drawn forth, and he expired. The gallant Pelopidas died in a war with Alex- ander of Pherse, at the battle of Cynoscephalae. None of the soldiers when they heard of his death would put off their armor, unbridle their horses, or dress their wounds, but still hot and with their arms on, ran to the corpse, and, as if he had been yet alive, and could see what they did, heaped up spoils about his body. They cut off their horses' manes and their own hair ; many kindled no fire in their THE RISE OF THEBES. 485 tents, took no supper, and silence and sadness were spread all over the army, as if they had not gained the greatest and most glorious victory, but were overcome by the tyrant and enslaved ! As soon as it was known in the cities, the magistrates, youths, children, and priests came out to meet the body, and brought trophies, crowns, and suits of golden armor ; a splendid funeral honored his remains. Having spent his life in brave and noble actions, he died at last in the chief command, for the thirteenth time, of the Boeotians, fighting bravely and in the act of slaying the tyrant, in defence of the liberty of the Thessalians. XLI. " YOUNG BARBARIANS AT PLAY." A NEW power was now about to enter on the theatre of Grecian history — new and yet not new, for it had long hung in the north Hke a black thundercloud, only waiting to gather strength and fury before it broke and sent down its torrents on Southern Greece. It was the fourth and final power that rose and ruled in Hellas — the fourth quadrant of our circle ; strong, powerful, barbarian, it flung itself with such might on exhausted and disinte- grated Greece that there was no force equal to re- sisting it, and Athens, Sparta, and Thebes — the other three supreme forces at work in this many-col- ored story — succumbed, and were overwhelmed. The Macedonians were never regarded by the Greeks as genuine Hellenes, however much they might have intermarried with Greek colonists. One unmistakable sign of this was that they spoke a barbarous " lingo," composed largely of Thracian, Illyrian, and Greek words, which no Greek could recognize as entitling its speakers to affinity of race and blood with him. The place where these semi- savage, powerful-natured people lived was in the plain of Macedonia, — a plain hemmed in on three sides by towering mountains, and intersected by YOUNG BARBARIANS AT PLAY. A^7 other mountain ranges, by rich and fertile valleys, and by various rivers. The bulk of the inhabitants were Thraciansand Illyrians, but very little is known of them till the reign of Amyntas I., who lived at the same time as Darius Hystaspes; but from this time on their history is more or less intimately inter- woven with that of Greece, till at length PlIILIP, the father of Alexander the Great (which period we have now reached), became the virtual dictator and master of Greece. The boundaries of their countr}', before the time of Philip, were Mt. Olympus and the Cam- burnian mountains on the south, the river Strymon, which separated it from Thrace, and on the north and west Illyria and Paeonia, Thessaly and Epirus were separated from it by the Camburnian mountains. In this remote breeding-ground of " young bar- barians at play," such a multitude was coming into existence almost unnoticed as was soon to change the entire texture of things in Greece, and prepare the way for the grand and multiform achievements of the heroic Alexander. These Macedonians did not live like the Greeks ; they lived generally in the country, not in cities : which was so characteristically ««-Greek that the Greek could never feel race-fellowship with the Macedonian ; for if you have learned one thing from this story more than another, it is that the Greeks were naturally and incorrigibly dzvcllcrs in cities, haunters of towns, lovers of stoa, agora, and theatre, where men gathered gregariously in social groups ; and that they regarded it as their inde- feasible ri^ht to g-ather in little states in which 488 THE STORY OF GREECE. citizens met together and managed affairs for them- selves. The Macedonians, on the other hand, Hved dispersed, scattered, and subject to a king, not to a community ; books, art, culture, poetry, did not ex- ist for them ; they were simple, rough-shod, rude farmers who stood afar off and gazed at Greek life as something alien, strange, and distant from their un- educated intelligences. The kings of Macedon how- ever were, in a certain sense, admitted to be Greeks by that Greekest of Greek tests, admission to the Olympic Games ; and they long strove and struggled to Heilenize their uncouth court— to make it re- semble a Greek court if possible, just as Indians in our day ape and imitate the manners and customs of the Western pioneers. It is even said that about B.C. 400 Archelaus, one of their kings, invited Greek artists and poets to Macedonia, built roads and cities, and tried to make his people civilized, peaceful, and prosperous. When all the Greek states had worn out their nerves and energies and purses in everlasting bickerings and con- tentions, here was this great gloomy Macedonia in the mountainous North, just in the prime of her young and giant strength, full of audacity and vigor, un- enervated, brave, and hopeful, ready to step forward after her barbarian silence of hundreds of years — like the Goths — and "say her say" about matters in a way which was soon to terrify and awe all Hellas. It chanced when Epaminondas fell mortally wounded at Mantinea and Thebes was left without a leader, that this strange Macedonia was governed by the afore-mentioned Philip, who had ten times YOUNG BARBARIANS A T FLA Y. 489 more sense and cleverness than any "Greek" of his day. In his youth Philip had spent three years of captivity as a hostage at Thebes, where he played the sharpest spy on Epaminondas, and had learnt from him how to make the best possible army. He learned too, how a country naturally weak and un- defended could be strengthened, and how an enemy could be weakened. He set himself to work to build up a standing army such as no Greek state — not even Lacedaemon^possessed, and his growing ambition incited him to extend his dominions and become leader and head of all Greece. He began with the caution and cunning of a master, playing first hide-and-seek and then catch- me-if-you-can with Athens and Olynthus. Olynthus, it seems, was a Greek city lying on a strip of sea-coast called Chalcidice, where numerous Greek colonies flourished, between Philip's eastern dominions and the sea. Olynthus had become very rich and strong, and had placed itself at the head of a League of the neighboring cities called the Olynthian Confederacy, Now this was just too much for Athens, which had once owned the im- portant city of Amphipolis near by, but had lost it in the Peloponnesian War; especially as Philip promised to recover Amphipolis for the Athe- nians, did recover it, but declined to give it up ! There were other Athenian colonies in this vicinity, so that from the very beginning Philip and the Athenians were coquetting with each other. When he angered the Athenians, however, by refusing to surrender Amphipolis, what should he do but turn 490 THE STORY OF GREECE. round and make friends with the Olynthians, by giv- ing them another city and making them his alhes, B.C. 357 ! Not content with this, he crossed the Strymon and conquered Western Thrace, where there were ex- ceedingly rich-yielding gold mines ; and there he founded a city which he c^W^d Philippi, after himself, and which is mentioned in Acts (xvi., 12). So far so good ; what next ? The so-called Sacred War, to be sure ! And what was this ? Oh, one of the by-plays of the meddle- some Philip, who had at last found an opportunity to interfere in the affairs of Greece proper, through a war connected with the temple of Delphi. It is an ugly story of greed, anger, and bloodshed, all for the love of God ! Thebes, after the battle of Leuctra, had gained possession of that wee bit of a state — Phocis ; but the Phocians, being a dauntless little body of men, would not submit, but threw off this arrogant yoke of Thebes. Thebes, however, succeeded in en- tangling the Council of the Amphictyons in the broil, and got them to condemn the Phocians to pay a heavy fine for having cultivated the plain of Crisa, which stretched out before the temple and extended on toward the sea. On this, the brave Phocians seized the Delphic temple, appropriated its rich treasures, raised therewith a large army — for what will not money raise ? — and rushed pell-mell into bitter battle with the Thebans and Locrians. "Sacred" indeed! Could any war be more sacri- legious, on one side as on the other ? Stealing, YOUNG BARBARIANS AT PLAY. 49 1 temple-plundering, battle, murder, and sudden death ! Athens and Sparta both hurried into the melcc and joined the Phocians, who were also helped by some of the Thessalian tyrants. The Thessalian nobles appealed to Philip for help ; a great battle was fought in Thessaly between Philip and the Phocians, in which Philip was victorious (B.C. 352), and the Macedonians now took easy possession of all Thes- saly. His intentions were terrible enough, for he planned and plotted to march into Phocis ; but when he got to Thermopylae — where once before the Barbarians were stopped — he found a powerful force of Athenians there ; so, thinking discretion was the better part of valor, he turned back. The Athenians, to be sure, now stood at the head of the .^gaean Confederacy, but they had become thoroughly corrupt and luxurious, loved shows and theatres and processions better than any thing else, and — losing the brave spirit of their ancestors — hired soldiers to fight their battles for them instead of going to war themselves. They had become cow- ards, spiritless, and foolish, and though they might have checked Philip if they had acted with even or- dinary sagacity and patriotism, they preferred to remain inert and inactive. In B.C. 358, Athens and her allies parted company, and a war broke out be- tween them. The allies gained the advantage, the larger cities threw off her yoke and became inde- pendent, and the smaller ones alone stood by the League. But just at this moment, as at other important and terrible crises of Athenian history, there arose a man 492 THE STORY OF GREECE. worthy of the finest days of Grecian glory, a man of piercing insight and wonderful eloquence, who in his Philippics, or speeches against Philip, lives on down to our days, and remains the most remarkable exam- ple of the ancient speaker — Demosthenes the Orator. Something must be said of this great and peculiar man whose genius illuminated Greece at a time of its darkest woe, and whose prophetic insight saw through the schemes of Philip and denounced them in accents of amazing vigor and melodiousness. Demosthenes was the son of Demosthenes, the sword-maker, who died when the boy was only seven years old, and left him in the care of several guardi- ans, who embezzled his money. He was a weak, sickly, delicate boy whom his playmates (they say) nicknamed Batalus, after a spindle-shanked flute- player. Once upon a time he happened to hear an eloquent speaker named Callistratus speak, and was so charmed with his speaking that then and there he resolved to devote himself to the study of oratory in the school of Isseus. As soon as he grew up he began to go to law with his thievish guardians and to write orations against them ; yet with all his exertions he was unable to recover even a small fraction of his patrimony. When he first began to speak he was ridiculed for his strange and uncouth style, a style which was full of long sen- tences and formal arguments ; his voice, too, was weak, his utterance confused and indistinct, his breath short, and his manner disjointed. He almost hiccupped instead of speaking, so that becoming ut- terly disheartened, he forsook the Assembly. But a YOUNG BARBARIANS AT PLAY. 493 friend, who was a distinguished actor, convinced him that he must study proper enunciation and gesture, by first getting Demosthenes to repeat some passages from the poets Euripides and Sophocles, and then to show him how to recite himself, repeating the same very beautifully for him. Demosthenes built him- self an underground room, and there he shut himself up constantly and exercised his voice, shaving one side of his head that so for shame he mia;ht not eo abroad, though he desired it ever so much. And he also studied modes of arguing for or against this, that, or the other person, correcting, transforming, and varying them in every possible way. Hence, though he was a man of great original genius, yet he owed all the power and ability he had in speaking to labor and industry. He was thus a patient and unwearied student, preparing himself carefully whenever he spoke, reserved and sustained in manner, and forbearing to speak on the sudden or upon every occasion. In this way he became so de- lightful a speaker that people listened to him in a sort of ecstacy, as an orator impossible to surpass. Think of his having overcome his inveterate and stammering pronunciation when a young man by speaking with /^/5<^/rj- in his mouth! And he disci- plined his voice by declaiming and reciting speeches or verses when he was out of breath, while running or going up steep places ; and in his house he had a big looking-glass before which he would stand and go through his exercises. Action, gesture, anima- tion, he considered all-important to success in speak- ing, and practised himself so much in graceful ges- 494 THE STORY OF GREECE. ticulation that he became wonderfully pleasing to the people. Admirable as were the composure and lofty style of the ancient orators, the orations of Demosthenes were considered, when they were read, superior to them in point of construction, and more effective. Austere as were his written speeches, his extemporaneous retorts and rejoinders were full of jokes, jests, and mockery, and he became as ready as an Irishman with his sharp sayings and humorous answers. The great and noble object which Demosthenes chose as the key-note of his life in the Athe- nian commonwealth was the defence of the Greeks against Philip, and in this he soon became so famous that he everywhere excited admiration for his daring, courage, and eloquence. All Greece ad- mired him, the king of Persia courted him, and Philip himself esteemed him above all orators. In all his orations his constant endeavor was to per- suade his fellow-citizens to pursue not that which seemed most pleasant, easy, or profitable, but, as he declared over and over again — to prefer first of all that which is just and honorable, even before their own safety and preservation. He was as bold as a lion when he harangued the people, and told them the plainest truths in the most telling language, not minc- ing matters at all. Still there were found plenty of people who accused him of lack of physical courage and said he was easily bribed — not by Philip, but by the gold which came down from the Persian Susa and Ecbatana in yellow streams. Demosthenes saw plainly that Philip meant to YOUNG BARBARIANS AT PLAY. 495 make himself master of Greece, and while many of the Athenians wanted to keep on good terms with the Macedonian, Demosthenes was perfectly certain that unless Philip was checked the liberties of Athens would be lost forever. He strove day and night, with all the might of his brilliant talents and convincing tongue, to awaken Athens to its danger; to stir up in the town the dashing spirit of the fore- fathers ; to make his people act instantly, resolutely, with concerted action, instead of folding their arms and letting the Macedonians come down and swallow them. When Philip conquered Thessaly, this roused Demosthenes to utter his first great speech against Philip, called the First Philippic (B.C. 352). Olynthus was far too choice a bit and far too im- portant a strategical point for Philip the omniscient to overlook it. Accordingly, turning his arms against the Olynthian League (which was now in alliance with Athens), he captured its cities one after another, until at length Olynthus, the last of the thirty cities composing it, sunk under his fierce attacks (B.C. 348). He destroyed these cities, sold the Olynthians into slavery, and added the whole of Chalcidice to his ever-enlarging dominions. The Sacred War, which seemed to be never-ending, was still going on. Philip was greatly irked at this ; so managing to patch up a peace with all the rest of the Grecian states, he turned on poor little Phocis, like a furious wild beast, conquered the whole country and ravaged it fearfully with fire and sword. He seized Delphi, gave the temple back to its mana- gers, and summoned the Delphic Amphictyony. 496 THE STORY OF GREECE. This council put forth a savage decree that all the Phocian towns should be razed to the ground, and that the Phocians should live in villages alone. Philip now secured for himself and Macedon the votes which had once belonged to the Phocians, and he was given the right to preside over the Pythian Games (sacred to Apollo), which were celebrated at Delphi. In this way Philip became a sort of " De- fender of the Faith " (like Henry the Eighth) or Champion of Apollo, and from now on felt that he had a right to meddle in Greek affairs, whenever he pleased or whenever he fancied that " Apollo " had been slighted (B.C. 346). In the Peloponnesus forty cauldrons were boiling: every thing was in confusion ; chaos reigned su- preme ; ever}' man's hand was turned against his neighbor. Philip saw his opportunity, manipulated first this and then that party skilfully, and gained over as many as he could to his side. He particu- larly cajoled and flattered the states which Epami- nondas had founded, for he knew they hated Sparta and could help him to injure her. Demos- thenes now came forward and tried to counteract the schemes of Philip by going with an embassy to the Peloponnesian states wliich had joined Philip and trying to loosen the Macedonian's clutch from them. His text was : " You have joined the ene- mies of Greece ! " All this was worse than useless. Greece as it had been 'mown before — free Greece, immemorial Greece, beautiful Greece as it was loved by Pericles and sung by the poets — was hurrying to i\ts destruction ; and YOUNG BARBARIANS AT PLAY. dfC^'J the End was close — very close — at hand. In his sublime orations Demosthenes struggled not for Athens alone ; it was for this beautiful, immemorial, free Greece, the ideal Greece of the ancestors, the Greece that ennobled and brightened, harmonized and illuminated the whole Eastern Mediterranean, and that knew not the Barbarian — for which he lifted up his voice, besought, and wept. There was still manhood enough at Athens for the formation of a strong Home-Rule party there, centred in and about the person of Demosthenes, the great spokesman of expiring Hellas, the swan about to sing the death-song of Grecian liberties ; and this party rallied with heroism around him. When Philip finished the Sacred War, he was not content wnth his success ; he went on extending his conquests eastward to Thrace. As yet he was on good terms with Athens; but unhappily (as it turned out) an Athenian commander on the Thracian coast roused the wrath of the Macedonian troops, Philip complained of this in a letter to Athens, and at the same time proposed an adjustment on a basis of more friendly relations. The Athenians, inflamed by Demosthenes, declined his overtures, and allied themselves with Byzantium, which Philip was now besieging, and with such success that he had to raise the siege (B.C. 341). Demosthenes for a time be- came immensely popular, and carried through laws at home which diminished the useless expenditure of the public moneys on idle festivals, and created a reserve fund for carrying on the war ; and he took measures also to force the rich burghers and hour- 498 THE STORY OF GREECE. geoisie to pay their share towards the maintenance of the fleet. Very well for them to sit at home in their fine houses, cry bravo I and clap their hands, while the poor people were being ground to death with military service and cruel taxation ; but — how could the war be carried on in this way ? Alas, Athens — all Greece in fact — was now full of Philip's hirelings and favorers. yEschines, an orator second in his remarkable eloquence only to Demos- thenes, was the chief of these Philippites, and his in- fluence was so great that, when he became Athenian deputy to the Delphic Amphictyonic Council in B.C. 338, he caused war to be declared by the Council against the neighboring town of Amphissa about a trifle, with the sole purpose that Philip the Sly might be called in to take command. Philip of course was overjoyed at this, and rapidly moved south with a large army. But — instead of moving on Amphissa — the cunning Macedonian suddenly marched against Elateia, in Eastern Phocis, a place that commanded the entrance into Boeotia and — ■ Attica! This was terrible news for Athens: Am- phissa a mere pretence, Elateia seized, Philip at any moment likely to be at the very gates of the Acropolis ! The Assembly cam^ together precipitately, but was speechless with terror and dismay, till Demos- thenes broke the silence and called on the Athenians to rally, unite with Thebes, and meet the invader without flinching. And so they did : and the meet- ing took place at Chaeron^a in Boeotia, Aug. 7th, B.C. 338 ; and the Athenians, Thebans, and all, were utterly — absolutely — crushed and overthrown 1 YOUNG BARBARIAN'S A T PLA Y. 499 Philip was the Master of Greece. Thus had the " young barbarians " "played " with the glory of Hellas : at first gathering in a small stream, unnoticed, trickle — trickle — trickle — in lake- like Macedonia ; then increasing to a deeper rivulet that gently overflowed its banks, drop — drop — drop; then widening and deepening in volume, coiling and toiling and moiling down the contiguous lands, splash — splash — splash, till swelling into a mighty river — a Mississippi of barbarians — the tide rolled overwhelmingly over sunken and miserable Greece and obliterated all the landmarks that might tell us : Once here lived men ! Summoning a congress to meet at Corinth, the Macedonian Autocrat was appointed commander of the entire Grecian forces which were to march forth in the war now declared against Persia. Hurrying back to Macedonia Philip began his preparations for the invasion of Asia — an invasion with which the Story of Greece both begins and ends ; but in the very height of his glory, when he stood like Moses on Pisgah, looking over into his Promised Land, the dagger of an assassin»struck him down ; he fell, like a ray of lightning, from his seventh heaven, and ex- pired, drenched in his own blood, at the very marriage feast of his daughter, and his crown passed into the hands of his son, Alexander the Great (b C. 336). With Alexander the New Greece begins : old things had passed away ; all things were become new. The marvellous son of a barbarian father — Alexander, who had Aristotle for his teacher and all the "wealth of Ormuzd and of Ind" for his text- 500 THE STORY OF GREECE. book — passes into the East an invincible conqueror, breaks down and builds up new and mighty empires there, founds great cities, enters Susa and Babylon, and expires of fever and drunkenness when he was only thirty-two years old. Here endeth the Story of Greece. ^^M M i!^5^'?*^>r'^ |^^^^^H| ^^^, ::).j%'^u^i^^^^w vV^'i ^C*^5^^^ClV^^^a^ ^ ^^^^m^i INDEX. Abdera, 283 Abydos, 327 Achaia, 120 Achaians, 58, 120 Acliarnians, Aristophanes' jilay of, 150 Achilles, 55-8 ; horses of, 62 ; reconciliation with Agamem- non, 64 ; vow of, 62-3 ; wrath of, 58-9 Acrocorinthus, height of, 12 Acropolis of Athens, 12, 198, 164 Adeimantus taunts Themistocles, 355 Adrastus kills Atys, Croesus' son, 257-9 Adventures of Minos, 83-gi ; of Odysseus, 67-70 Aelion, son of Echecrates, 13S ; oracle given him, 138-9 ; pro- geny of, 141 /Egsean Sea, 3 ; "^Eg. Confed." with Athens, 49 1 /Egeus, "King" of Athens, 86-go /Egialjeans, or ' ' Men of the Shore," 132 y^gina, 164, 180 .'Eginetans, 299, 314, 332 ^'Egis of Athene, 47 yEgospotami, battle of, 468-9 yEolus, son of Hellen, 81 iEolians, 124 yEolic colonies, 120 yEneas, wanderings of, 76 ^schines, the orator, Philip's champion, 498 ^schylus, the poet, 408-10 /Etolians, 120 Affinities of the Greeks, 128 Agamemnon at Troy, 52-4 • in Peloponnesus, 1 18 Agariste, story of, 133-4 Age of Pericles, 31 1 Agis, King of Sparta, 103 ; seizes Decelea in Attica, 459 Agora of Athens, 190 Alcibiades, 43; anecdotes of, 442; at Potidsea and Delium, 440 ; beauty, temper, and prospects, 432 ; beloved of Socrates, 433 ; charged with mutilation of the Hermse, 449-50 ; conduct at Sparta, 454-5 ; contrasted with Socrates, 439-40 ; elected gen- eral of the fleet at Samos, 465 ; enemy of Athens at Sparta, 451 ; flees from Sparta to Persia, 461 ; influenced by Socrates, 439-40 ; intrigues with Athens, 462 ; jealous of Nicias, 443 ; makes Chios revolt, 460 ; op- posed by Nicias, 447-8 ; pe- culiarities, 431 ; persuades Athenians to aid Egesta in Sicily, 447 ; recalled to Athens but flees, 450-1 ; rise of, at Athens, lineage, etc., 430; sides with the democracy, 464 Alcmtcon, 135 Alcmreonidas, 55, 136, 242-4 ; re- turn to Athens, 202 ; second return, 239 Alexander the Great, 499-500 Alexander and Mardonius, 366 502 THE STORY OF GREECE. Alphabet, Greek, from Phoenicia, 122 Alpheius, river, 154 Altis at Olympia, 155 Amalthsea, the Goat, 27 Amasis, King of Egypt, and Polycrates, 221-2 Amazons, their queen, 66 Ameinias begins battle of Salamis, 359 Amphictyony, meaning of, 112 ; rules and ceremonies of an, 113 Amphion, 138 Amyntas, the Macedonian, 290 Androgeus, son of Minos, 84 Andromache, 57 ; her lament, 64 Anecdotes of Alcibiades, 442 ; Solon, 203-4 ; Themistocles, 312-15^ Aphrodite, the goddess, 33, 43, 47 " Apolline Federation," 114 Apollo, the god, 33-4, 46 Arcadia, 120 Archidamus, Spartan king, 423 Archipelago, description of, 16, 17 Archons at Athens, 170, 1S2 Ardericca, 309 Areopagus, hill and court of, 202, 350 ; court deprived of its functions by Pericles, 394 Ares, god of war, 43-7 Argolic cities, 1 18 Argolis, 118, 129-30 Argos and the Argives, 52, 58, 60, 130, 333 Argus, Odysseus' dog, 69 Ariadne, her story, 84, 87, 90 An'on, the minstrel, story of, 189 Aristagoras, 292 Aristides, 301, XXVII , charac- ter, 317, 359 ; contrasted with Themistocles, 317-18; justness, 319 ; ostracised, 320 ; rival of Themistocles, 317 ; tries to democratize Athens, 392—3 Aristocracies, 137 Aristodemus, his twin sons at Sparta, 205 Aristogiton and Harmodius, 236-7 Aristomenes, the Messenian, 211- 12 Aristophanes, 409-10 Artabanus, Xerxes' uncle, 323-4 Artabazus, 376 Artaphernes, 292, 299 Artaxerxes, King of Persia, 473 Artembares, accuses Cyrus, 274-5 Artemis, the goddess, 34, 46 Artemisia, Queen, at Salamis, 358-60 Artemisium, Greek fleet at, 337 ; promontory of, 338 " Aryan " nations, 20 Asia, starting-point of Hellenic migrations, 124-5 Asia Minor, 81, 252-3 Asopus, river, 132 Aspasia, 292 Astyages, grandfather of Cyrus, 269 ; consults the Magi, 279 ; dreams, 269 ; orders Cyrus to be slain, 270 ; overthrown by Cyrus and Harpagus, 281 ; summons Cyrus, 275 ; ven- geance on Harpagus, 277-8 Astyannax, son of Hector, 65 Athene, goddess of wisdom, 29 Athenian and Peloponnesian Col- onies, 112 Athens and the ^gaean Confed- eracy, 491 Athens, alliance with Argos and Megara, 400-1 ; anxiety to con- quer Sicily and Libya, 448 ; asylum for refugees, 81 ; burnt by Xerxes, 350 ; contrasted architecturally willi Sparta, 410 -11; defeated at Chseronea, 498 ; description of, by Milton, 166 ; destroys Boeotian oligarchies, 402-3 , different forms of gov- ernment at, 229 ; downfall of, 469 ; growth of, under Pericles, 400; in the Trojan war, 170; in- fluence of, after Marathon, 310; Long Walls built at, 403 ; love, Athenian, for, 382 ; meddles with Sicilian affairs, 447 ; new INDEX. 503 ■wall built at, 382 ; parties of the Plain, Sea-coast, etc., at, 230; parly struggles at, 392 ; peace between A. and Sparta, with terms, 469 ; plague at, 41S-20 ; reduces /Egina, 402-3 ; re- turned to, by Athenians after Persian War, 3S2 ; rivalry with Sparta, 3S8 ; ruin of, caused by Sicilian expedition, 459 ; sends colony to Chalcis, 250; terrified by Persians, 301 ; tragic and comic art at, 406 ; truce with Sparta, 403 ; usurpations of, over the Confederacy of Delos, 389-90 ; wars with Corinth and ^Egina, 401 ; whence the name, 45, 48 Athos, Mt., 57, 29S ; insulated, 3-5. Attaginus feasts the Persians, 368 Attica, 163-171 ; approach to, 163 ; asylum for refugees, 81 ; from Codrus to Solon, 170 ; in early times, 80 ; invaded by Cleomenes, 249; site of Athens in, 164-5 ! size, 166 ; smallness shown by Socrates to Alcibia- des, 165 ; Theseus' connection with, 167-8 ; union of the com- munes in, 169 Atys, son of Croesus, story of, 257-8 Atitochthones, meaning of, 311, 367 Automedon, charioteer of Achil- les, 62 B Babylon, description of, 2S4 ; taken by Cyrus, 2S3 Bacchiadje of Corinth, 137 Balius and Xanthus, Achilles' horses, 60 Barathrum, pit of punishment at Athens, 318, 335 " Barbarians," meaning of, 82 Basihiis, meaning of, 182 Battle of ^gospotami, 468-9 ; Chgeronea, 498 ; Delium, 428 ; Cynoscephalae, 484-5 ; Euryme- don, 390-1 ; Leuctra, 480-r ; Mantinea, 4S4 ; Marathon, 305 -9 ; Mycale, 376 ; Naupactus, 424-6; Salamis, 359-60; Ther- mopylae, 340 Beginning of all things, 19 Belief in Overruling Providence, .44 Bias of Priene, 255 " Bird Winds," 16 ]?ito and Cleobis, story of, 174 Body, Greek cultivation of the. 161 Boeotia, battle-ground of Greece, 364 ; invaded by Athenians, 428 Boeotian settlements, 11 1 BoiiU, 186 Bouleuttz, 196 Brasidas, Spartan general, success and death of, 42S Briseis in the Trojan War, 58 Bulis and Sperthias, Spartan heralds, story of, 335—6 Bythinian Olympus, 56 Byzantium, founded by Megari- ans, 149 Cadmus, 127 Calchas the seer, 58 Callimachus, polemarch at Mara- thon, 304-8 Cambyses, King of Persia, 226, 269, 2S4 Cambyses, father of Cyrus, 262 Carthage, built by Phoenicians, 122, 218 Cassandra, Priam's daughter, 66 Casting lots at Athens, 248 Castor, hymn of, 105 Cecrops, King of Athens, 168-9 Cecropia, citadel of Athens, 169 Cephisus, river, 46 Ceramicus at Athens, 23S ; Hip- parchus killed there, 238 Chseronea, battle of, 498 5o4 THE STORY OF GREECE. Chalcis, colonies from, 218, 250, 338 Chaos described, 24 Chersonesus, 302 Chilon, the Lacedaemonian, 230 Chronological systems of Greece, 152 Cimon of Athens, 315 ; favors Sparta, 393 ; ostracised, 394 ; rivalry with Pericles, 398 ; vic- torious at Eurymedon, 390-1 Cities, the great, of Greece, 63 Classes of tax-payers under So- lon's Constitution, 199 Cleisthenes of Athens, XXII; abolishes the "Ionic Tribes," 244-5 : Council of Five Hund- red, 245 ; Demes, 245 ; divides the Assembly into ptytaueis, 246 ; juries and lot-casting es- tablished by, 247 ; ostracism, introduced by, 247 ; stmtegi, introduced by, 246-7 Cleisthenes tyrant of Sicyon, 132 ; story of the suitors of Agariste, 133 ; his speech, 135 Cleobis and Bito, Solon's story of, 174 *^leomenes. King of Sparta, 243, 248 ; aids the Alcmseonida; to return to Athens, 243 ; (first) attempt the expulsion of the Alcmceonidas, 249; (second) at- tempt to invade Attica, 249 Cleon, the demagogue, 422-8 ; his death, 428 Cloudland of myths, 45 Clue, meaning of the word, 88 Code of laws by Draco, 184 ■(.'odrus, " King " of Athens, 170; institutions and story, 170 Colonies, III-12; feeling of, for mother city, 218 ; government in, 220 Colonies in Black Sea, Italy, and Mediterranean, 217 Comedy and comic art at Athens, 406 Committee of Four Hundred, 199, 245 Communes of Attica, 169 Confederacy of Delos, 388-9 ; new Athenian, 479-80 Congress at Isthmus of Corinth, 346; at Sparta in Peloponnesian War, 414 Constitution of Solon, 195 Contestants at Olympic Games, 161-2 Contrast between Athens and Sparta, 92 Corcyra, 78, 147, 334 ; Corinthian colony, 147 ; massacre at, 427 Corfu (Corcyra), island of , 3 Corinth, 129-30; legends of, 137 Corinthians fight against Athens in Peloponnesian War, 415- 17 ; suspected of mutilating the Herrrn^, 449-50 Corcebus, first Olympic victor, 162 Council of the Five Hundred at Athens, 245 Crete, labyrinth of, 84 Cretans send no help to Athens in Persian War, 334 ; St. Paul on, 187 Critias and Lysander, 470 Croesus, 79, 255 ; conquests, 255-6 ; conversation with Atys, 259 ; defeated by Cyrus, 263 ; dreams, 257 ; meets Solon, 173, 256 ; oracles sent to, 262 ; pres- ents to shrines, 262-3 ; saved from burning, 266 ; sorrow, 226; story of, 255 ; wealth, 266 Cronus the god, 25 ; swallows his children, 26 Cronus, Mt., at Olympia, 154-5 Curse of the Alcmasonidse, 232, 249 Cyaxares, the Mede, 269 Cyclades islands, 9, 163 Cyclops, one-eyed giant, 70, 118 Cyclopaean architecture, why so called, 54, 118 Cylon, 184 ; tries to become tyrant of Athens, 185 " Cylonian Pollution," 185 Cynoscephalse, battle of, 484-5 INDEX. 505 Cynuria, 130 Cyprus, island of, 126 " Cypsel," meaning of, 141 Cypselus, tyrant of Corinth, story of, 140-2 Gyrene, city of, 217 ; peninsula of, 3 Cyrus, Artaxerxes' brother, 473 ; revolt and death, 473 Cyrus, son of Cambyses, 262 ; birth revealed by accident, 274; called a "mule," 26S ; invades and destroys Media, 262 ; saved by Mitradates the shepherd, 273 ; subjects Lydia and Ionia, 282 ; takes Baby- lon, 283-4 D Danaans, 82 Danube river, 2S8 , Daphne, pass of, 351 Dardanelles, channel of, 56 Daric Staters, 326 Darius, 285-6 ; anger after Mara- thon, 322 ; demands earth and water of Greece, 299 ; death, 322 ; expedition against Scythi- ans, 2S8-9 ; founds satrapies and coins Datics, 2S7 ; his co- conspirators, 2S5 ; groom CEbares, 2S5-6 ; horse neighs, 285 ; rage, 295 ; retreat from Europe, 289-90 ; story of his life, 285-6 Datis, nephew of Xerxes, suc- ceeds Mardonius, 299 Delian Apollo, 34 Delium, battle of, 428 Delos, birth-place of Apollo, 34 ; Confederacy of, 38S-9 ; island of, 33 Delphi, 33, 114 ; corruption of its priestesses, 117 ; dialect of the oracles, 116 ; how it arose, III ; influence of the priests and priestesses, 116 Delphic Amphictyony, 114 ; sum- moned by Philip of Macedon, 496 Delphic Oracle, II4-15 ; influ- ence of, 115 I)emagogues, rise of, 422 Denies, meaning of, 245 Demeter, 26 ; story of 35 ; wan- derings of, 37 Demigods, the real, 311 Demiurgoi, a class at Athens, 183 Democracy, meaning of, 1 10 Demosthenes, the General and Ad- miral, 426 ; arrives at Syracuse 456 ; death, 458 ; rashness and success at Naupactus, 426 Demosthenes, the Orator, 492 ; defects as orator, 492 ; object and reputation, 494; parentage, 492; Philippics, 489-96; popu- larity and policy, 497-S ; sees through Philip's designs, 494 ; stammering overcome, 493 Diana of the Ephesians, temple of, 119 Dicceus' tale about Salamis, 357 Diogenes and Alexander, 79 Dionysius, the Phoenician cap- tain, 297 Dionysus, the god of wine, 33, 39 ; story of, 39 Disputes of the islands, 217 Dithyramb, hymn, 1S9 Divisions of citizens in Attica, 199; of land in Attica, 183 Dodona, grove of, 44 Dorians, 92, 93, m, 118, 128, 125 Dorian colonies, 120 Dorus, son of Hellen, 81 Draco, 182-92 ; character of his code, 184 ; not a legislator, but a codifier, 1S4 " Draconian," meaning of the term, 184 Drachma:, 192 Dream of Xerxes, 323 Dualism of Greek life represented by Dorians and lonians, 125 E Earth and water, signs of sub- mission, 299 5o6 THE STORY OF GREECE. Earthquakes ascribed to giants, 29 Eastern tales, 253 Ecclesia, 196 Egesta in Sicily, 441 Elea in Italy, 283 " Eleatic School," 283 Eleusis, bay of, 352, 356 ; sacred city of Demeter, 152, 356 Elis, 120, 159 Elysian Fields, 66 Elysium, meads of, 43 Enna, fields of, 35 Epaminondas, 477 ; contrasted with Pelopidas, 477-8 ; death at Mantinea, 484 ; impeached, 484 ; invades the Peloponne- sus, 482 ; restores Messenia, 482-3 ; unites Arcadian cities against Sparta, 482 Ephesus, founded, 119, 255 Ephialtes, the traitor, 342 Ephors at Sparta, 109 Epidaurus, 146-7 Epimenides of Crete purifies Athens, 186 ; friend of Solon, 187 Epizelus, 309 Erechtheus, "King "of Athens, 46 Eretria, 233 ; captured, 302 Erymanthus mountains, 151 Etesian winds, 16 Ethiopians and Indians, 42 Euboea, 17, 347-8 ; revolts from Athens, 466 Euboeans bribe Themistocles, 347 Euclid, 150 Eupatrid(e, a class at Athens, 183 Euphorbus betrays Eretria, 300 Euripides, 408-10 Europe carried off, 130 Eurotas, river, 92 Eurybiades, Spartan admiral, 348, 354, 362 Eurymedon, battle of, 390-1 Eurysthenes, King of Sparta, 207 Evanaetus the Spartan, 337 " Eye of Gieece " (Athens), 350 F Five Hundred, Cleisthenes' Com- mittee, 245 Five Thousand, Committee of at Athens, 464-5 Foundations of Greece, 77 Four Hundred, Solon's Corrtmit- tee, 196 Four Hundred Tyrants at Athens, 464 ; their overthrow, 465-6 Four quadrants of Greek life, 472 Funerals at Sparta, 472 G?ea, the goddess, 24 Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, 333 ; defeats Carthaginians in Sicily, 363 ; refuses aid to Athens and Sparta, 333-4 Geomoroi, a class of citizens at Athens, 183 Geraneia, Mt., 149 Geroiisia, senate of Sparta, 208 Giants, the, 28 Golden Age, 30 Great gods, Zeus, etc., 33 Greece, origin of name, 4; shape, 5 ; size of, 9-10 ; sport in, 15- 16 Greek characteristics, 4, 18-19, 219, 293 ; climate and vegeta- tion, 14-16 ; colonies, 218, 220; colonies in Asia Minor, 253 ; game, 15-16 ; generals vote themselves prize of victory after Salamis, 366 ; geography, 4; gods, 25-7, 34; lakes, 13; mosquitoes, 13 ; mountains, 7; mountain scenery 11 ; mythol- ogy, 23 ; peninsulas, 6 ; plains, 6; rivers, 12; settlements. 4, 5 ; springs, 13 ; winds, 6 ; worship, 19, 20 Gulfs of Greece, 6 Gylippus, the Spartan, in the Peloponnesian War, 453 ; his battle with Nicias, 454 Gymnasium at Olympia, 155 INDEX. 507 H Hades, god of under world, 37 Halicarnassus, 253 Hamilcar, 220 Harmodius and Aristogiton, 236-7 Harmosts, Spartan, placed over Greek cities, 473 ; expelled by Conon, 475 Harpagus, Astyages' minister, 270-6, 278-81 ; overthrows As- tyages vv^ith Cyrus' help, 281 ; vengeance comes upon him, 277-8 Hector, story of, 62-4 Hegemony, meaning of the vv-ord, 113 Height of Greek mountains, lo- ll Helen, wife of Menelaus, story of, 52 Helios, sun-god, 37 Hellanodica:, judges at Olympia, 155 Hellas, meaning of the term, 8, 79, 81 ; in Persian War, 379- 80 Hellen and the Pelasgians, 81 Hellenes, 8, 81 Hellespont, 124 ; Athenian vic- tories at, 467 Helots, 93 Hephtiestus, god of fire, 43 Heraclidas, expelled from the Peloponnesus, 52 ; reconquer it. III " Heraclide," 54 Heralds, 336 Hercuhvati, meaning of, T18 Here, the goddess, 26, 144, 174 Hermes, 33, 38, 47, 15S Herodotus, characteristics of, 51, 253, 268 Heroes of the Trojan War, 66 ; return from Troy, iii Hesiod, 22 Hestia, the goddess, 26 Hexameter verse, 68 ; oracles given in, 116 Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, 236 ; killed by Harmodius and Aristogiton, 238 Hippeis, a class at Athens, 201 Hippias, son of Pfsistratus, 233 ; at Marathon, 303-4 ; deposed and expelled, 239-40 ; dies, 309 Hippoclides, Agariste's suitor, 134 ; proverb about, 135 Hippocrates, a citizen of Athens, 229-30 Hippodrome of Olympia, 152 HistiiEus, 289-90; behavior dur- ing Darius' Scythian expedi- tion, 289 ; rewarded by Darius, 290 Homer, 22,67 ; blind, 68 ; cities dispute over him, 67 ; his world, 51 ; names given by him to the Greeks, 82 ; poems collected by Pisistratus, 241 Horn of Plenty, 27 Horse, the wooden, at Troy, 65-6 " Hot Springs " (Thermopylae), 338 Hydarnes, Persian general, 336 Hymettus, Mt., 164 Hyperboreans, land of, 41 Ida, Mt., 56 Iliad, 55, 68 Ilion (Ilium), 58 Immortal horses of Achilles, 62 Indo-European race, 128 Influence of Greek geography on Greek life, 4 ; of murex-\\\xw\.- ing on colonization, 126 ; of sea on Greek life, 6 lo, story of, 129 Ionian colonies, 254 ; colonies in Asia Minor, 119 lonians, 1 24-5 ; characteris- tics, 125, 127 ; emigrate to Abdera, 283 Ionic dialect, 68 ; Homer's poems written in, 68 ; oracles deliv- 5o8 THE STORY OF GREECE. ered in, 112; "Tribes" at Athens, the, 244 Isagoras of Athens, 248-9 Isthmian games, 201 Isthmus of Corinth, 359 Italy, Southern, Greek colonies in, 217 Ithaca, 10, 71 Ithome, Mt., height of, 11 Jews, captivity of, 284 Julian, family trace descent from ^neas, 76 Labda, story of, 138 Labyrinth of Crete, 84-5 Lacedcemon, 92 Lacedcemonians, 94, 109, 212, 348, 309, 333 ; character, 472 ; contempt for trade, 106 ; de- ceived by Themistocles about the walls of Athens, 382-3 ; defeated at Leuctra, 482 ; fates and fortunes of the kings, 207 ; habits before engaging in battle, 105 ; hair, 105 ; meddle with Athenian affairs, 248 ; poetry, 104 ; privileges and preroga- tives of their kings, 207 ; seek satisfaction of Xerxes for the death of Leonidas, 365 ; style and answers, 103 Laconia, 96 Laconic, meaning of, 103 Laertes, father of Odysseus, 70 Lamachus, an Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War, 450 ; advice to attack Syra- cuse at once, 450 ; killed, 453 Larissa, Mt., height of, 2 Latium, connection with Troy, 7^ . Laureium, mines of, near Athens, 235. 314 Laws, unwritten, at Athens at first, 184 League, Athenian (Confederacy of Delos), 388-9 ; in Pelopon- nesian War, 416-17 ; diflerence between Atlienian and Spar- tan, 388-9 ; Spartan, 388-9, 416-17; Theban, 401 Legends of Hellas, 51 Lemnos, island of, 57 Leonidas commands at Ther- mopylae, 340-1 ; decides to stay and fight, 341 ; death and epi- taph, 344-5 Lesbos, island of, 1 20 ; revolts from Athens, 425 Leuctra, battle of, 48 1-2 Lichas finds Orestes' bones, 214 Long Walls of Athens built, 403 ; rebuilt by Conon, 475 Lotus-Eaters, story of, 70-2 Lycabettus, Mt., 165 Lycophron, son of Periander, legend of, 144-5 Lycurgus of Athens, 230-I Lycurgus of Sparta, 94 ; calls ex- traordinary assembly at Sparta, ro8 ; character, 106 ; date, 95 ; discourages foreign immigra- tion, 107 ; divides Laconia into lots, 97 ; establishes Spartan senate, 95 ; introduces iron money, 97 ; persuades Spar- tans to renounce individual property, 96 ; rids Sparta of superstition and luxury, 97, 107 ; sets out for Delphi, 109; starves himself to death, 108- 9 : travels, 95 Lydia, kingdom of, 253-4 ; rise of, 254 Lysander at Athens, 470 ; de- stroys Athenian fleet at yEgos- potami, 46S-9 M Macedonia, 486-7 Macedonians, 486 500 ; mode of life, 487 Magi, 269, 279, 324, 327-8 Magic Ring of Polycrates, story of, 220 INDEX. 509 Magna Grsecia, 217 Magnesia, town of, 226 Malic Gulf, 338 Mandane, Astyages' daughter, bears Cyrus, 269 Mandrocles the engineer, 288 Mantinea, battle of, 484 Marathon, XXVI.; battleof, 306- 8 ; effects of, on Hellas, 310; generals present at, 301 ; they disagree, 304 ; numberof slain, 30S ; Persians guided thither by Hippias, 303 ; plain of, 301 ; tumulus over the slain, 309 Mardonius commands Persians against Greece, 298 ; fleet wrecked, 298 ; relieved by Da- tis and Artaphernes, 299 ; re- turns to Athens after retreat- ing, 367 Marmara, Sea of, 3 Masistius, Persian general, killed, 369 Medes, 269 Medimnus, a measure at Athens, 201 Medizing, meaning of, 331 Mediterranean Sea, 1-2 ; Greek settlements on, 4 ; length and breadth, 2 ; shores of, 2-3 Megabazus, Persian general, 289- 90 Megacles I., marries Agariste, 135 Megacles II. heads the Party of the Sea-Coast at Athens, 230 ; violates sanctuary and becomes " accursed," 186 Megara, city of, 149 ; colonizes Byzantium, 149 Megaris, legends of, 148 Melissa, wife of Periander, 143- 4 " Men of the Shore " at Sicyon, 132 Menelaus, story of, 52 Messenia, 209 ; restored by Epaminondas, 482-3 Messenians, 210 ; their wars with Sparta, 210-11 Metics at Athens, 245 Metropolis, meaning of, 1 19 Miletus, 118, 126, 289-go, 296 ; Aristagoras tyrant of, 292 ; cap- tured by Darius, 296 ; de- scribed, 291-2 ; revolts from Athens, 460 Miltiades, conduct in Darius' ex- pedition, 2S9 ; induces Callima- chus to fight at Marathon, 304- 5 ; put in command, 305 Mindarus, Spartan general cap- tured, 467 Minos, King of Crete, 83 ; tribute of youths and maidens to, 84 Minotaur, monster killed by Theseus, 85 Mitradates, shepherd, saves Cy- rus' life, 271 Mitrobates, satrap of Dascyleium, 225 Mnesiphilus advises Themisto- cles, 354 Mound at Marathon over the slain, 309 " Mountain, Party of the " at Athens, 230 Mountains, 7 ; effects of, on Greek life 7 ; dwelling-place of the gods, 8 ; height of, 10 ; land- scape, II ; veneration of Greeks for, 7 " Mule" becomes monarch of Media, 262 Murex, 126 Mutilation of the Hermse at Athens, 449 Mycale, battle of, 376 Mycenae, city of, 54, 118 ; cyclo- pjean walls, 118 ; throne of, 54, 118 Mysian boar, 258 Mythology, origin of, 21-2 Myths of towns and cities, 45 Mytilene, revolts from Athens, 425 ; revolts again, 460 N Narcissus-flower and Persephone, 36 510 THE SrORY OF GREECE. Naupactus, events at, 424 ; De- mosthenes at, 426 Naxos, island of, 90 ; revolts from Athens, 391 Nicias, contends with Gylippus at Syracuse, 454 ; defeat and death in Sicily, 458 ; disliked by Alcibiades, 443 ; opposes the Sicilian War, but yields, 447-8 ; " Peace of," 429 Nispea, sacred steeds of, 328 NomothetiE, lawmakers of Greece, 203 O CEbares, Darius' groom, 285 ; story of, 2S5-6 Odysseus, 54, 69 ; stratagem of the wooden horse, 66 : wander- ings, 69 Odyssey, 54, 69 Oligarchical government, mean- ing of, iio, 131, 183 Olive tree of Athene, story of, 48 Olive, wild, prize at Olympic Games, 152 Olympia, 81, 151, 154 ; position of hyppodrome, staduun, gym- nasium, etc., at, 155 ; the valley, 154 Olympiad, 152, 162 Olympic Amphictyony, I17 Olympic Games, 151 ; additions made to, 160 ; date of celebra- tion, 152 ; first and last victor, 161 ; honors to the victor, 154 ; influence of Elis, Pisa, and Sparta in founding and ex- tending the games, 159-60 ; pancration and pentathloti, meaning of, 160 ; prize, 152 ; sacred truce during, 160-1 ; visitors and contestants at, 161-2 Olympus, Mt., height of, etc., 10, 24, 27 Omens, 44 One-eyed giants, 27 Oracles, 44, 112, 115, 138-40, 142, 332, 339, 352 Orestes, the bones of, 213 Origin of tlie names Dorian^ Ionian, ALolian, 124 Orceles, the Persian, deceives Polycrates, 225 Orlhagoras, tyrant of Sicyon, 132; Orthagoridse, his descend- ants, 132 Ossa, Mt., 331 Ossa and Pelion, 28 Overruling Providence, Greek be- lief in, 44 Palladium, the statue at Troy, 65 Pan, the god, appears to Pheidip- pides, 302 Pancration, contest at Olympia, 160 " Pan-Hellenic Fair" (at Olym- pia), 160 Pan-Ionium in Asia Minor, 254 Panites, the Messenian, 206 Paris, cause of Trojan War, 52 Parnassus, Mt., height of, II, 348-9 Party struggles at Athens under Cleislhenes and Isagoras, 244 Patroclus, Achilles' friend, killed, 59-61 Paul, Saint, and the Cretans, 187 Pausanias, the Spartan, XXXI. ; besieges and takes Byzantium, 385 ; commands at Plateea, 367 ; contrasts Persian with Spartan fare, 375 ; death, 386 : Lam- pon's advice to, 373 ; pride and recall from Byzantium, 3S5-6 Peace of Antalcidas, 476 ; of Nicias, 429 Peirene, fount of, 12 Pelasgians, 81, 124 Pelion, Mt., 331 PelopidK, descendants of Pelops, 52 Pelopidas, the Theban, 477 ; con- trasted with Epaminondas, mDEX. 511 477-8 ; death at Cynosceph- alae, 485 ; expels Spartans from Thebes, 479 ; funeral honors, 485 : impeached, 484 ; vision before battle of Leuctra, 481- 2 ; wars with Alexander of Pherse, 484 Peloponnesian War, 411-15 ; be- comes fierce, 426 ; causes and character, 411-12, 414-15 ; opening of hostilities, 418 ; Pericles' policy about, 417 ; plague at Athens during, 418- 20 ; states and resources on each side, 416-17 Peloponnesus, 4, 80, ill, 118 Penelope, wife of Odysseus, 69 Peninsulas of Greece, 5 Pentathlon, contest at Olympia, 160 Penteconter, a vessel, 222 Periander of Corinth, his story, 142-8 Pericles, advice and policy as to the Peloponnesian War, 417 ; character, parentage, and edu- cation, 394-5 ; death, 42T ; demagogues succeed him, 421- 2 ; deprives Areopagus of its functions, 394 ; greatness, 405 ; idolized by the people, 398 ; improvements introduced by, 406 ; introduces paid juries, 394 ; oratory, 397 ; rivalry with Cimon, 398 ; sides with the de- mocracy, 396 ; strategus, 404 ; taught by Anaxagoras, 395 Periceci at Sparta, 93 Period covered by the story of Greece, 77-8 Persian War, 346-7 ; benefits to Hellas from, 379-So Persephone, story of, 35, 357 Persians at Delos, 300 ; at Sala- mis, 359-61 ; at Samos, 366 ; character, 2S2-3 ; first expedi- tion to Greece, 29S ; fleet de- stroyed, 348 ; forebodings at Platsea, 368 ; make war on Greek colonies, 296 ; second and third expeditions against Greece, 298 ; war with Sparta. 476 Phalerum, 308, 357 Pheidippides, the courier, 302-3 Phidias' statue of Zeus at Olym. pia, 156 Philagrus, 300 Philip of Macedon, 489 ; conduct toward Olynthian League, 489 ; conquests, 496 ; intrigues in Peloponnesus opposed by De- mosthenes, 496 ; murdered, 499 ; seizes Delphi, 496 ; sum- mons Delphic Amphictyony, 496 ; victories at Chseronea, 498-9 Philoctetes, slays Paris, 66 PhocKans emigrate to Elea in Italy, 283 Phoebus Apollo, 35 I^hoenicians, 91, 122 ; affinities of, 128 ; antiquity and charac- ter of, 122 ; build Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, 122 ; connected with Hebrews, 122 ; discover purple dye-fish, 122-3; give Greece its alphabet, weights, and measures, 123 ; work in copper, etc., 123 Phormio, Athenian admiral, his victory, 424 Phrygia, 124, 253 Phya, the woman, aids the Pisis- tratidcE, 232 Physical training among the Greeks, 161 Pillars of Hercules, 292 Pindar, poet of the games, 162 Piraeus, wall of, 3S4-5 Pirates in Greek waters, 91 Pisa, 159 Pisander, overthrows democracy at Athens, 463 Pisistraticlai and their tricks, 230; encourage the arts, 241 Pisistratus, 177, 230; body-guard, 230-1 ; dies, 235 , expelled from Athens, 231 ; first tyr- anny, 231; flees again, 233; 512 THE STORY OF GREECE. pretended assault on, 230-1 ; returns to Athens, 231-4 ; stays at Athens, 235 ; succeed- ed by Hippias, 236 ; what he did for Athens, 235 "Plain, party of," 230 Platsea, battle of, 372 ; besieged by Archidamus, 423 ; site of, 370 ; spoils at, 373-4 ; Tege- ans and Athenians dispute at, 370 Platasans, at Marathon, 304, 310 ; get the prize at Platsea, 375 Plutarch, 168, 177 Pluto, the god, 26-7 Pnyx, hill at Athens, 19S Poleinarch, at Athens, 247, 304 Polycrates and his ring, 220-1 ; his daughter's dream, 227 ; his death, 228; his enemy, Oroetes, 223 ; his great good fortune, 222 ; his mercenaries, 222 ; his stock-raising, 221 ; loses the friendship of Amasis, 224 ; re- ceives a message from Oroetes, 226 ; throws his signet-ring in- to the sea, 223 ; warned by Amasis, 224 Popular Assembly (Ecclesia) at Athens, 246 Poseidon, the god, 26-7, 47 ; story of, and Athene, 46-7 Potidcca founded by Corinth, 218 Priam, 66 Priest, basileus , and archon at Athens, defined, 182 Priests and Priestesses of Delphi, II5-17 Procles, King of Sparta, 207 Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus, 144-5 Proteus, King of Egypt, 42 Prytaneis , or committees at Ath- ens, 246 Pythagoras of Samos, 221 Pythius, the Lydian millionaire, 325-8 ; fate of his son, 328 Pythoness at Delphi, 334 R Religion of the Greeks, 126 " Remember the Athenians," 361 Reverence for the gods, 43 Revolt of Asiatic colonies, 293-4 Rhsea, wife of Cronus, 25 Rhodes, isle of, 120 Royal family of Sparta, 43 Sacred Band of Thebans, 480-1 Sacred War and its causes, 490-I Salamis, 164, 348 ; battle of, 359-60 ; description, 350-1 ; Greek fleet at, 350-1 Samian art and science, 377 Samos, fleet at, 463 ; island of, 220-1 ; Polycrates, tyrant of, 220-8 Sardis, Croesus' capital, 256; set fire to by Athenians, 294-6 Saronic Gulf, 164, 198 Sarpedon, chief of Lycians, 60 Satrapy, meaning of, 287 Schliemann, Dr., excavates My- cente, 54 Scironian rocks, 149 Scythians, Darius' expedition against, 288 Sea, effects of, on Greek life, 6 " Sea-coast, Party of the," at Athens, 230 Scisachtheia, or Disburdening Ordinance of Solon, 200 Semele, story of, 39-40 Sestos, 327 Seven Conspirators in Persia, 285 Sicilian Expedition, 444-58 Sicily, approach to, 444-5 ; arts • and sciences in, 446 ; Athenian fleet sails for, 450 ; colonies and cities in, 217, 446 ; de- scription of, 445-6 ; dimen- sions, 444 ; island of, 78, 444 Sicyon, 129, 132 ; Agariste's marriage at, 133 ; Cleisthenes, tyrant of, 132 ; Megacles mar- ries Cleisthenes' daughter at. INDEX. 513 134 ; " Men of the Shore " at, 132 ; ruled by an aristocracy, 130 Sigasan promontory, 56 Sinope, town of, 218 Sirens, songs of, 70 Slaves in Greece, 123 Smerdis, the false, killed by Per- sian conspirators, 284-5 Socrates at Potid^ea and Delium, 440 ; attacked by Aristophanes and condemned, 435-6 ; char- acter and parentage, 433 ; Dcsmott, 436-7 ; influence on Alcibiades and contrast with, 439-40 ; method of teaching, 434-5 ; originality, 437-8 ; originates philosophical schools, 438 ; why loved and remem- bered, 436 Solon of Athens, 172-181 ; abol- ishes slavery, 195; ancestry and kindred, 177 ; anecdotes of, 203 ; " Constitution " of, 195- 6 ; divides the citizens anew, 199 ; establishes the Committee of the Four Hundred, 196 ; feigns madness to recover Sa- lamis, 179-80; fixes the rights of the Ecclesia, 196 ; influence at Athens, 180 ; laws for peo- ple in debt, 193 ; married life, 179 ; novel laws, 202 ; reforms the calendar, 202 ; refuses to become tyrant, 204 ; repudi- ator, 194 ; revalues the drach- ma, 194 ; rights and privilegts of his four classes, 199-200 ; seisachtheia, 200-1 ; Timocra- cy, 200 ; visits Croesus, 172 ; what he did for Athens, 193 Sophists, 434 Sophocles, 408-10 Sosicles, speech of, 137, 250 Sparta, 45 ; at the beginning of history, 216 , at war with Per- sia, 475 ; boys taught to steal at, 102 ; concludes peace of Antalcidas with Persia, 476 ; contrasted architecturally with Athens, 410-11 ; corruption of, 473 ; joins Persia against Ath- ens, 460-1 ; joins Thebes against Athens, 402 ; meaning of "Sparta," 92; "quiz clubs" at, 102; tries to conquer Arca- dia and Tegea, 213 ; two kings at, 206 Sparta and Argos, rivalry be- tween, 215 Sparta and Athens, rivalry be- tween, 388 Spartan abhorrence of celibacy, 100 ; black broth, 99 ; con- quests, 209-10 ; epitaphs at ThermopylEE, 344-5 ; exposure of weakly children, 100; fleet defeated, 461 ; girls and boys trained alike, 100 ; nurses, no; public repasts, 98 ; rearing of children, 99 ; views of liberty and slavery, 336 ; wars with Messenia, 209-10 Sphacteria, seized by Athenians, 427 Sperthias and Bulis, Spartan her- alds, 335-6 Sporades islands, 9 Stadium at Olympia, 152 Stoa, 198 Story of Agariste, 133 ; Andro- gens, 84 ; Arion and Perian- der, 1S9-90 ; Aristodemus, the Messenian, 210-11 ; Aristogi- ton and Harmodius, 236-7 ; Aristomenes, 210-11 ; Athene and Poseidon, 48 ; Atys, son of Croesus, 257 ; Bacchiadaj of Corinth, 137-8 ; Cecrops and Codrus, 169-70 ; Croesus, 252 -267 ;Cleobisand Bito, 173-5 \ Uarius, 285 ; Demeter and Persej:)hone, 34 ; Dionysus, 39 ; Fishermen of Cos, 178 ; Greece, 77 ; Harmodius and Aristogiton, 236-7; Hermes, 38; lo, 129-30; I.abda and Action, 138 ; Lotus-Eaters, 70; Periander of Corinth, 142 ; Riches of the Alcmceonidse, 5H THE STORY OF GREECE. 243-4 ; Sparta, 92 ; Spartan heralds, 335 ; Tellus, 173 ; Theseus, 86 ; Tisamenes, the soothsayer, 370-1 Strategus, 246 Suitors of Agariste, 133 Susa, Darius' capital, 287 Syracuse, 446 ; description of, 45 1-2 ; eclipse of moon at , 456 ; engagement in the harbor at, 457 ; progress of the siege of, 453-4 ; siege of, in Pelopon- nesian War, 451-2 Tartarus, 25 Tegeans, 213 Telemachus, 69 Tellus, story of, 173 Tempe, vale of, 331 ; Greeks station themselves there in Per- sian War, 337 Temple of Zeus at Olympia, 156 Tenedos, island of, 56 Thales and Solon, 179 Theban League, 401 Thebans at Thermopylae, 342 ; defeated by Athenians, 250 ; invade the Peloponnesus under Epaminondas, 482 ; Sacred Band of, 480-1 Thebes, 45, 472-486; Cadmeia, or citadel, at, captured by Spartans, 478 ; ruined by defeat at Chseronea, 497 Themistocles, 301, XXVII. ; am- bition, 313 ; anecdotes of, 383 ; boyhood, 312 ; characteristics, 313-14 ; conflicting statements about, 315 ; induces Greeks to fight at Salamis, 355 ; mter- prets " Wooden Walls," 332 ; in exile, 387 ; persuades Athenians to lay by the pro- ducts of the Laureium silver mines, 314 ; warns Xerxes at Salamis, 359 Theodore, the Samian artist, 223 Theogenes, tyrant of Megara, 149 Theognis. the poet. 150 Thermaic Gulf, 330 Thermopylae, 14, 338 ; battle of, 340 ; description of the Pass, 338 ; forces in the battle, 346 ; names of states engaged at, 340 Theseus, story of, 83-7, 167 ; kills the Minotaur, 88 Thespians, 342 Thessalian Plain, 13 Thessaly, 331 Thetes, a class at Athens, 201 Thirty Tyrants at Athens, 470 Thirty Years' Truce between Athens and Sparta, 404 Thracian Sea, 56 Thrasybiilus, tyrant of Miletus, 142-3 ; message to Periander, 142-3 Thucydides' account of prehis- toric Hellas, 79, 80 ; charac- teristics, 44, 51, 79 Tiinocracy, meaning of, 200 Tisamenes, the soothsayer, story of, 370-1 Titans and Titanesses, 24 Tragedy and tragic art at Athens, 406 Trebizond, 218 Trident of Poseidon, 47 Troezene, 351 Trojan War, 50-2 Troy, site of, 56 ; tale of, 50 Truce, Sacred, during Olympic Games, 160-1 ; Five Years', with Sparta, 403 ; Thirty Years', with Sparta, 404 Tyndareus, father of Helen, 52 Typhoeus, the giant, 29 " Tyrant," meaning of, 136 ; not bad originally, 191 ; simul- taneous rise of, in Hellas, i8S-g Tyranny, its character, 138, 188- 9, 192 Tyrants in Greece, 129, 188—9, 191 Tyrants, the Thirty, 470 Tyrian purple-dye, 123-6 Tyrrhenian mariners and Diony- sus, their story, 40 Tyrtaeus, the lame poet. iSo, 209 INDEX. 515 U Ulysses, 10 Uranus, the god, 24 Varastad, last Olympic victor, 162 W Wanderings of Odysseus, 69 Water, effects of, on Greek ge- ography, 5 Where the Greeks lived, 1-17 Wonderland of Asia Minor, 252 ; Herodotus' account of, 253 " Wooden Wall," oracle of, 332, 352 X. Xenophon, 158-9 ; retreat of the Ten Thousand, 474-5 Xerxes, 322 ; arrives at the Hel- lespont, 365 ; at Thermopylae, 341-3 ; conversation with Pythius, 326 ; converts Mt. Athos into an island, 325 ; council before attacking Greece, 323 ; crosses the Hellespont, 327, 329 ; defeat in general due to Athenians, 378-9 ; defeated at Salamis, 359-60 ; flees, 362- 3 ; fleet at Phalerum, 357 ; forces, 329-30, 338 ; lashes and chains the Hellespont, 327 ; leaves Mardonius in command, 362 ; march, 339 ; meets the millionaire Pythius, 325 ; mis- fortunes of his army in retreat, 365 ; multitudes of his host, 325 ; order of his army, 328 ; route of his army, 330 ; re- treat of the army to Orchome- nus and PJatjea, 364 ; sends an army against Delphi, 348 ; succeeds Darius, his father, 322 Xuthus, son of Hellen, 81 Yachting in the Mediterranean, 163 Zone's, meaning of, 155 Zeugita, a class at Athens, 201 Zeus, the chief of the gods, 26-7 statue and temple of, at Olym- pia, 155-8 TLbc Stor^ of tbe IRations. Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in announcing that they have in course of pubhcation, in co-operation with Mr. T. 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