Chapter VIII: Part 8

He was sure he could bring back good days to Sparta, if only he were free of the Ephors. One of these, who was on his side, went to sleep in a temple, and there had a dream that four of the chairs of the Ephors were taken away, and that he heard a voice saying, "This is best for Sparta." After this, he and Cleomenes contrived that the king should lead out an army containing most of the party against him. He took them by long marches to a great distance from home, and then left them at night with a few trusty friends, with whom he fell upon the Ephors at supper, and killed four of them, the only blood he shed in this matter. In the morning he called the people together, and showed them how the Ephors had taken too much power, and how ill they had used it, especially in the murder of Agis; and the people agreed henceforth to let him rule without them. Then all debts were given up, all estates resigned to be divided again, Cleomenes himself being the first to set the example, and the partition was made. But as one line of the Heracleid kings was extinct, Cleomenes made his brother Euclidas reign with him, and was able to bring back all the old ways of Lycurgus, the hard fare and plain living, so that those who had seen the Eastern state of the upstart Macedonian soldiers wondered at the sight of the son of Hercules, descendant of a line of thirty-one kings, showing his royalty only in the noble simplicity of his bearing.

Mantinea turned out the Achaians and invited Cleomenes back, and now it was plain that the real question was whether the Spartan kingdom or the Achaian League should lead the Peloponnesus--in truth, between Aratus and Cleomenes. Another victory was gained over the Achaians, a treaty was made, and they were going to name Cleomenes head of the League, when he fell ill. He had over-tried his strength by long marches, and chilled himself by drinking cold water; he broke a blood-vessel, and had to be carried home in a litter, causing meantime the Achaian prisoners to be set free, to show that he meant to keep the treaty.

But Aratus, in his jealousy, forgot that the great work of his youth had been to get free of Macedon, and in order to put down Sparta and Cleomenes, actually asked the help of Antigonus, king of Macedon, and brought his hated troops back into the Peloponnesus, promising to welcome them, if only Cleomenes might be put down.

The brave young king had recovered and taken Argos, and soon after Corinth drove out the Achaian garrison and gave themselves to him; but the great Macedonian force under Antigonus himself was advancing, and Corinth in terror went over to him, the other allies deserted, and Cleomenes was marching back to Sparta, when a messenger met him at Tegea with tidings of the death of his beloved wife. He listened steadily, gave orders for the defence of Tegea, and then, travelling all night, went home and gave way to an agony of grief, with his mother and two little children.

He had but 5000 Spartans, and his only hope was in getting aid from Ptolemy the Benefactor, king of Egypt. This was promised, but only on condition that he would send as hostages to Egypt his mother and babes. He was exceedingly grieved, and could not bear to tell his mother; but she saw his distress, and found out the cause from his friends. She laughed in hopes of cheering him. "Was this what you feared to tell me? Put me on board ship at once, and send this old carcase where it may be of the most use to Sparta." He escorted her, at the head of the whole army, to the promontory of Taenarus, where the temple of Neptune looks out into the sea. In the temple they parted, Cleomenes weeping in such bitter sorrow that his mother's spirit rose. "Go to, king of Sparta," she said. "Without doors, let none see us weep, nor do anything contrary to the honour and dignity of Sparta. That at least is in our own power, though, for the rest, success or failure depends on the gods." So she sailed away, and Cleomenes went back to do his part. The Achaians had not only given Antigonus the title of Head of the League, but had set up his statues, and were giving him the divine honours that had been granted to Alexander and to Demetrius the City-taker.

The only part of the Peloponnesus that still held out was Laconia. Cleomenes guarded all the passes, though the struggle was almost without hope, for little help came from Egypt, only a letter from brave old Cratesiclea, begging that whatever was best for the country might be done without regard to an old woman or a child. Cleomenes then let the slaves buy their freedom, and made 2000 soldiers from among them, and marching out with these he surprised and took the Achaian city of Megalopolis. One small party of citizens, under a brave young man named Philopoemen, fought, while the rest had time to escape to Messene. Cleomenes offered to give them back the place if they would join with Sparta, but they refused, and he had the whole town plundered and burnt as a warning to the other Peloponnesians, and the next year he ravaged Argolis, and beat down the standing corn with great wooden swords.

But Antigonus had collected a vast force to subdue the Peloponnesus, and Cleomenes prepared for his last battle at Sellasia, a place between two hills. On one named Evas he placed his brother Euclidas, on the other named Olympus he posted himself, with his cavalry in the middle. He had but 20,000 men, and Antigonus three times as many, with all the Achaians among them. Euclidas did not, as his brother had intended, charge down the hill, but was driven backwards over the precipices that lay behind him. The cavalry were beaten by Philopoemen, who fought all day, though a javelin had pierced both his legs; and Cleomenes found it quite impossible to break the Macedonian phalanx, and out of his 6000 Spartans found himself at the end of the day with only 200.

With these he rode back to Sparta, where he stopped in the market-place to tell his people that all was lost, and they had better make what terms they could. They should decide whether his life or death were best for him, and while they deliberated, he turned towards his own empty house, but he could not bear to enter it. A slave girl taken from Megalopolis ran out to bring him food and drink, but he would taste nothing, only being tired out he leant his arm sideways against a pillar and laid his head on it, and so he waited in silence till word was brought him that the citizens wished him to escape.

He quietly left Sparta and sailed for Alexandria, where the king, Ptolemy the Benefactor, at first was short and cold with him, because he would not cringe to him, but soon learned to admire him, treated him as a brother, promised him help to regain Sparta, and gave him a pension, which he spent in relieving other exiled Greeks. But the Benefactor died, and his son, Ptolemy Philopator, was a selfish wretch, who hated and dreaded the grave, stern man who was a continual rebuke to him, and who, the Alexandrians said, walked about like a lion in a sheepfold. He refused the fleet his father had promised, would not let Cleomenes go back alone to try his fortune on Antigonus' death, and at last, on some report of his meaning to attack Cyrene, had him shut up with his friends in a large room. They broke forth, and tried to fight their way to a ship, but they were hemmed in, no one came to their aid, and rather than be taken prisoners, they all fell on their own swords; and on the tidings, Ptolemy commanded all the women and children to be put to death. Cratesiclea saw her two grandsons slain before her eyes, and then crying, "Oh, children, where are ye gone?" herself held out her neck for the rope.

[Picture: Temple of Neptune]

CHAP. XXXVII. PHILOPOEMEN, THE LAST OF THE GREEKS. B.C. 236-184.

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The jealousy and rivalry of Aratus and the Achaians had made them put themselves under the power of Macedon, in order thus to overthrow Sparta. Aratus seemed to have lost all his skill and spirit, for when the robber AEtolians again made an attack on the Peloponnesus, he managed so ill as to have a great defeat; and the Achaians were forced again to call for the help of the Macedonians, whose king was now Philip, son to Antigonus.

A war went on for many years between the Macedonians, with the Achaians on the one hand and the AEtolians on the other. Aratus was a friend and adviser to Philip, but would gladly have loosened the yoke he had helped to lay on Greece. When the old Messenian town of Ithome fell into the hands of Philip, he went into the temple of Jupiter, with Aratus and another adviser called Demetrius the Pharian, to consult the sacrifices as to whether he should put a garrison into Ithome to overawe Messenia. The omens were doubtful, and Philip asked his two friends what they thought. Demetrius said, "If you have the soul of a priest, you will restore the fort to the Messenians; if you have the soul of a prince, you will hold the ox by both his horns."

The ox was, of course, the Peloponnesus, and the other horn was the Acro-Corinthus, which, with Ithome, gave Philip power over the whole peninsula. The king then asked Aratus' advice. He said, "Thieves nestle in the fastnesses of rocks. A king's best fortress is loyalty and love;" and at his words Philip turned away, and left the fort to its own people. He was at that time a youth full of good promise, but he let himself be led astray by the vices and pleasures of his court, and withdrew his favour from Aratus. Then he began to misuse the Messenians, and had their country ravaged. Aratus, who was for the seventeenth time general of the League, made a complaint, and Philip, in return, contrived that he should be slowly poisoned. He said nothing; only once, when a friend noticed his illness, he said, "This is the effect of the friendship of kings." He died in 213, and just about this time Philopoemen of Megalopolis returned from serving in the Cretan army to fight for his country. He was a thoroughly noble-hearted man, and a most excellent general, and he did much to improve the Achaian army. In the meantime Sparta had fallen under the power of another tyrant, called Nabis, a horribly cruel wretch, who had had a statue made in the likeness of his wife, with nails and daggers all over her breast. His enemies were put into her arms; she clasped them, and thus they died. He robbed the unhappy people of Sparta; and all the thieves, murderers, and outlaws of the country round were taken into his service, and parties of them sent out to collect plunder all over the Peloponnesus. At last one of his grooms ran away with some horses, and took refuge at Megalopolis, and this Nabis made a cause for attacking both that city and Messenia; but at last Philopoemen was made general of the Achaian League, and gave the wretch such a defeat as forced him to keep at home, while Philopoemen ravaged Laconia.

Philip of Macedon offered to come and drive out Nabis if the Achaians would help him, but they distrusted him, and did not choose to go to war with the Romans, whom the robber AEtolians had called from Italy to assist them. However, Philip reduced Nabis to make all sorts of promises and treaties, which, of course, he did not keep, but invited in the AEtolians to assist him. This, however, brought his punishment on him, for soon after their arrival these allies of his murdered him, and began to rob all Laconia. Philopoemen and his Achaians at once marched into the country, helped the Spartans to deliver themselves from the robbers, and persuaded them to join the League. They were so much pleased with him that they resolved to give him Nabis' palace and treasure, but he was known to hate bribes so much that nobody could at first be found to make him the offer. One man was sent to Megalopolis, but when he saw Philopoemen's plain, grave, hardy life, and heard how much he disapproved of sloth and luxury, he did not venture to say a word about the palace full of Eastern magnificence, but went back to Sparta. He was sent again, and still found no opportunity; and when, the third time, he did speak, Philopoemen thanked the Spartans, but said he advised them not to spend their riches on spoiling honest men, whose help they might have at no cost at all, but rather to use them in buying over those who made mischief among them.

Wars were going on at this time between Philip of Macedon, on the one side, and the AEtolians on the other. Philip's ally was Antiochus the Great, the Greek king of Syria; the AEtolians had called in the Romans, that great, conquering Italian nation, whose plan was always to take the part of some small nation against a more powerful one, break the strength of both, and then join them to their own empire. But the Achaians did not know this, and wished them well, while they defeated the Macedonians at the great battle of Cynocephalae, or the Dog's Head Rocks, in Thessaly. Philip was obliged to make peace, and one condition required of him was that he should give up all claims to power over Greece. Then at Corinth, at the Isthmian games, the Roman consul, Quintius Flaminius, proclaimed that the Greek states were once more free. Such a shout of joy was raised that it is said that birds flying in the air overhead dropped down with the shock, and Flaminius was almost stifled by the crowds of grateful Greeks who came round him to cover him with garlands and kiss his hands.

[Picture: Crowning the Victor in the Isthmian Games]

But, after all, the Romans meant to keep a hold on Greece, though they left the cities to themselves for a little while. The Spartans who had been banished by Nabis had not returned home, but lived a life of robbery, which was thought to be favoured by Philopoemen, and this offended those at home, some of whom plundered a town called Las. The Achaians demanded that the guilty should be given up to them for punishment, and a war began, which ended by a savage attack on Sparta, in which Philopoemen forgot all but the old enmity between Achaia and Laconia, put ninety citizens to death, pulled down the walls, besides abolishing the laws of Lycurgus, which, however, nobody had observed since the fall of Cleomenes. Many citizens were sent into banishment, and these went to Rome to complain of the Achaians. While they were gone the Messenians rose against the League, while Philopoemen was lying sick of a fever at Argos; but though he was ill, and seventy years old, he collected a small troop of young Megalopolitan horsemen, to join the main army with them. But he met the full force of the Messenians, and while fighting bravely to shelter his young followers, received a blow on the head which stunned him, so that he was made prisoner, and carried to Messene. There his enemies showed him in the theatre, but the people only recollected how noble he was, and how he had defended all Greece from Nabis. So his enemies hurried him away, and put him in an underground dungeon, where, at night, they sent an executioner to carry him a dose of poison. Philopoemen raised himself with difficulty, for he was very weak, and asked the man whether he could tell him what had become of his young Megalopolitan friends. The man replied that he thought they had most of them escaped. "You bring good news," said Philopoemen; then, swallowing the draught, he laid himself on his back, and, almost instantly died. He is called the Last of the Greeks, for there never was a great man of the old sort after him.

[Picture: Livadia, The Ancient Mideia in Argolis]

CHAP. XXXVIII.--THE FALL OF GREECE. B.C. 189-146.

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After the death of Philopoemen there was little real spirit left in the Achaians, and Callicrates, who became the leading man among them, led them to submit themselves to the senate of Rome, and do as it pleased with regard to Sparta and Messene.

Philip of Macedon was at war with Rome all his life, and his son Perseus went on with it. Marcus Paullus AEmilius, one of the best and bravest of the Romans, was sent to subdue him, and the great battle was fought in 188, at Pydna, near Mount Olympus. The night before the battle there was an eclipse of the moon, which greatly terrified the Macedonians; but the Romans had among them an officer who knew enough of the movements of the heavenly bodies to have told the soldiers of it beforehand, and its cause. The Macedonians being thus discouraged, gave way, and fled as soon as the battle seemed to be going against them; and Perseus himself galloped from the field to Pella, where he was so beside himself with despair that he stabbed two of his counsellors who tried to show him the mistakes he had made. But as AEmilius advanced, he was forced to retreat before him, even into the island of Samothrace, which was sacred soil, whence he could not be taken by force. The Romans watched all round the island, and he dreaded that the Samothracians should give him up to them; so he bargained with a Cretan shipmaster to take him and all his treasure on board his ship, and carry him off at night. The Cretan received half the treasure, and Perseus crept out at a small window, crossed a garden, and reached the wharf, where, to his horror, he found that the treacherous captain had sailed off with the treasure, and left him behind.

There was nothing for him to do but to yield to the Romans. He came into the camp in mourning, and AEmilius gave him his hand and received him kindly, but kept him a prisoner, and formed Macedon into a province under Roman government. AEmilius himself went on a journey through the most famous Greek cities, especially admiring Athens, and looking at the places made famous by historians, poets, and philosophers. He took Polybius, a learned Athenian philosopher, who wrote the history of this war, to act as tutor to his two sons, though both were young men able to fight in this campaign, and from that time forward the Romans were glad to have Greek teachers for their sons, and Greek was spoken by them as freely and easily as their own Latin; every well-educated man knew the chief Greek poets by heart, and was of some school of philosophy, either Stoic or Epicurean, but the best men were generally Stoics.

[Picture: Sappho] Perseus and his two young sons were taken to Rome, there, according to the Roman fashion, to march in the triumph of the conqueror, namely, the procession in which the general returned home with all his troops. It was a shame much feared by the conquered princes, and the cruel old rule was that they should be put to death at the close of the march. Paullus AEmilius was, however, a man of kind temper, and had promised Perseus to spare his life. The unfortunate king begged to be spared the humiliation of walking in the triumph, but AEmilius could not disappoint the Roman people, and answered that "the favour was in Perseus' own power," meaning, since he knew no better, that to die should prevent what was so much dreaded. Perseus, however, did not take the counsel, but lived in an Italian city for the rest of his life.

After Macedon was ruined the Romans resolved to put down all stirrings of resistance to them in the rest of Greece. Their friend Callicrates, therefore, accused all the Achaians who had been friendly to Perseus, or who had any brave spirit--1000 in number--of conspiring against Rome, and called on the League to sentence them to death; but as this proposal was heard with horror, they were sent to Rome to justify themselves, and the Roman senate, choosing to suppose they had been judged by the League, sentenced them never to return to Achaia. Polybius was among them, so that his home was thenceforth in the house of his pupils, the sons of AEmilius. Many times did the Achaians send entreaties that they might be set at liberty, and at last, after seventeen years, Polybius' pupils persuaded the great senator Cato to speak for them, and he did so, but in a very rough, unfeeling way. "Anyone who saw us disputing whether a set of poor old Greeks should be buried by our grave-diggers or their own would think we had nothing else to do," he said. So the Romans consented to their going home; but when they asked to have all their rank and honours restored to them, Cato said, "Polybius, you are less wise than Ulysses. You want to go back into the Cyclops' cave for the wretched rags and tatters you left behind you there." After all, Polybius either did not go home or did not stay there, for he was soon again with his beloved pupils; and in the seventeen years of exile the 1000 had so melted away that only 300 went home again.

[Picture: Lessina, The Ancient Eleusis, on the Gulf of Corinth]

But the very year after their return a fresh rising was made by the Macedonians, under a pretender who claimed to be the son of Perseus, and by the Peloponnesians, with the Achaians and Spartans at their head, while the Corinthians insulted the Roman ambassadors. A Roman general named Quintus Metellus was sent to subdue them, and routed the Macedonians at the battle of Scarphaea, but after that another general named Mummius was sent out. The Achaians had collected all their strength against him, and in the first skirmish gained a little success; and this encouraged them to risk a battle, in which they were so confident of victory that they placed their wives and children on a hill to watch them, and provided waggons to carry away the spoil. The battle was fought at Leucoptera, near the Isthmus, and all this boasting was soon turned into a miserable defeat. Diaeus, who commanded the Greeks, was put to flight, and riding off to Megalopolis in utter despair, he killed his wife and children, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy, and then poisoned himself.

The other Achaians at first retreated into Corinth, and in the course of the night scattered themselves each to his own city. In the morning Mummius marched in and gave up the unhappy city to plunder. All the men were slain, all the women and children taken for slaves, and when all the statues, pictures, and jewels had been gathered out of the temples and houses, the place was set on fire, and burnt unceasingly for several days; the walls were pulled down, and the city blotted out from Greece. There was so much metal of all kinds in the burning houses that it all became fused together, and produced a new and valuable metal called Corinthian brass. The Romans were at this time still very rude and ignorant, and did not at all understand the value and beauty of the works of art they carried off. Polybius saw two soldiers making a dice-board of one of the most famous pictures in Greece; and Mummius was much laughed at for telling the captains of the ships who took home some of the statues to exhibit in his triumph that if they lost them they should supply new ones at their own cost. The Corinthians suffered thus for having insulted the ambassadors. The other cities submitted without a blow, and were left untouched to govern themselves, but in subjection to Rome, and with Roman garrisons in their citadels. Polybius was sent round them to assure them of peace, and they had it for more than 500 years, but the freedom of Greece was gone for ever.

[Picture: Figures carrying vases]

CHAP. XXXIX.--THE GOSPEL IN GREECE. B.C. 146-A.D. 60.

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After a time Macedon and Achaia were made by the Romans into provinces, each of which had a governor who had been one year in a magistrate's office at Rome, and then was sent out to rule in a province for three or for five years.

In 146, nearly a hundred years after the ruin of Corinth, Julius Caesar built it up again in great strength and beauty, and made it the capital of Achaia. As it stood where the Isthmus was only six miles across, and had a beautiful harbour on each side, travellers who did not wish to go round the dangerous headlands of the Peloponnesus used to land on one side and embark on the other. Thus Corinth become one of the great stations for troops, and also a mart for all kinds of merchandise, and was always full of strangers, both Greeks and Jews.

The Romans, as conquerors, had rights to be tried only by their own magistrates and laws, and these laws were generally just. They were, however, very hard on subject nations; and, therefore, the best thing that could happen to a man was to be made a Roman citizen, and this was always done to persons of rank, by way of compliment--sometimes to whole cities.

[Picture: View from Corinth]

Athens had never had a great statesman or soldier in her since the time of Phocion, but her philosophers and orators still went on discoursing in the schools, and for four hundred years at least Athens was a sort of university town, where the rich young men from Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Asia Minor, and Syria came to see the grand old buildings and works of art, and to finish their education. For though the great men of Greece were all dead, their works, both in stone and in writing, still remained, and were the models of all the world, and their language was spoken all over the East. The Romans' own tongue, Latin, was used at home, of course, but every gentleman knew Greek equally well, and all the Syrians, Jews, and Egyptians who had much intercourse with them used Greek as the language sure to be known--much as French is now used all over Europe.

But there was an answer coming to all those strainings and yearnings after God and His truth which had made those old Greek writings beautiful. There is a story that one night a ship's crew, passing near a lonely island in the AEgean Sea, sacred to the gods, heard a great wailing and crying aloud of spirit voices, exclaiming, "Great Pan is dead."

Pan was the heathen god of nature, to whom sacred places were dedicated, and this strange crying was at the very night after a day when, far away in Judaea, the sun had been darkened at noon, and the rocks were rent, and One who was dying on a cross had said, "It is finished." For the victory over Satan and all his spirits was won by death.

Some fifteen years later than that day, as Paul, a Jew of Tarsus, in Asia Minor, with the right of Roman citizenship, and a Greek education, was spreading the knowledge of that victory over the East--while he slept at the new Troy built by Alexander, there stood by his bed, in a vision by night, a man of Macedon, saying, "Come over and help us."

He went, knowing that the call came from God, and the cities of Macedon gained quite new honours. Philippi, where he was first received, had a small number of Jews in it, to whom he spake by the river side, but many Greeks soon began to listen; and then it was that the evil spirits, who spake aloud to men in heathen lands, first had to own the power of Christ, who had conquered. A slave girl, who had long been possessed by one of these demons, was forced at the sight of Paul and his companion Silas to cry aloud, "These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation." She followed them about for some days doing this, until Paul, grieved in the spirit, bade the evil one, in JESUS' name, to leave her. At once the name of the Conqueror caused the demon to depart; but the owner of the slave girl, enraged at the loss of her soothsaying powers, accused the Apostle and his friend to the magistrates, and, without examination, they were thrown into prison. At night, while they sang praise in the dungeon, an earthquake shook it; the doors were open, the fetters loosed, and the jailer, thinking them fled, would have killed himself, but for Paul's call to him that all were safe. He heard the Word of life that night, and was baptised; but St. Paul would not leave the prison, either then or at the permission of the magistrates, when they found they had exceeded their powers, but insisted that they should come themselves to fetch him out, thus marking his liberty as a Roman, so that others might fear to touch him. He had founded a church at Philippi, in which he always found great comfort and joy; and when he was forced to go on to Thessalonica, he found many willing and eager hearers among the Greeks; but the Jews, enraged at his teaching these, stirred up the mob, and not only forced him to leave that city, but hunted him wherever he tried to stop in Macedon, so that he was obliged to hurry into the next province, Achaia, and wait at Athens for the companions whom he had left to go on with his work at Philippi and Thessalonica.

[Picture: Parthenon and Erectheum]

While at Athens, the multitude of altars and temples, and the devotion paid to them, stirred his spirit, so that he could not but speak out plainly, and point to the truth. It seemed a new philosophy to the talkers and inquirers, who had talked to shreds the old arguments of Plato and Epicurus, and longed for some fresh light or new interest; and he was invited to Areopagus to set forth his doctrine. There, in the face of the Parthenon and the Acropolis, with philosophers and students from all parts of the empire around, he made one of his greatest and noblest speeches--"Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are greatly religious. For as I passed through your city, and beheld how ye worship, I found an altar with this inscription--'TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.' Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship; Him declare I unto you."

Then, looking forth on the temples crowded on the rocks, he tried to open their minds to the truth that the God of all dwells in no temples made with hands, that all men alike are His children, and that, since living, breathing, thinking man has sprung from Him, it is lowering His greatness to represent Him by cold, dead, senseless stone, metal, or ivory. "He bore with the times of ignorance," said Paul; "but now He called on all men to turn to Him to prepare for the day when all should be judged, by the Man whom He had ordained for the purpose, as had been shown by His rising from the dead."

The Greeks had listened to the proclamation of one great unseen God, higher than art could represent; but when Paul spoke of rising from the dead, they burst into mockery. They had believed in spirits living, but not in bodies rising again, and the philosophers would not listen. Very few converts were made in Athens, only Dionysius, and a woman named Damaris, and a few more; and the city of learning long closed her ears against those who would have taught her what Socrates and Plato had been feeling after like men in the dark.

At the merchant city of Corinth, Paul had greater success; he stayed there nearly two years, and from thence sent letters to the Thessalonians, who were neglecting their daily duties, expecting that our Lord was about immediately to return. After Paul had left Corinth, he wrote to that city also, first to correct certain evils that had arisen in the Church there, and afterwards to encourage those who had repented, and promise another visit. This visit, as well as one to his Macedonian churches, was paid in his third journey; and when he had been arrested at Jerusalem, and was in Rome awaiting his trial before the emperor, Nero, he wrote to his friends at Philippi what is called the Epistle of Joy, so bright were his hopes of his friends there.

St. Andrew also laboured in Greece, and was put to death in Achaia, by being fastened to a cross of olive-wood, shaped like an X, where he hung exhorting the people for three days before he died. When St. Paul was released, he and the great evangelist St. John, and such of the apostles as still survived, set the Church in order, appointing bishops over their cities, and Dionysius of Athens became Bishop of Corinth, and St. Paul's pupil from Antioch, Titus, was Bishop of Crete, and received an epistle from Paul on the duties of his office. In process of time Christianity won its way, and the oracles became silent, as the demons which spoke in them fled from the Name of JESUS.

[Picture: Distant view of Parnassus]

CHAP. XL.--UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

For three hundred years Rome reigned over all the countries round the Mediterranean, with one emperor at her head, and the magistrates of his appointment to rule in all the provinces, while garrisons were placed to quell risings of the people, or to keep in order the wild tribes on any dangerous border. For a long course of years Greece was quiet, and had no need of such troops. The people of her cities were allowed to manage their own affairs enough to satisfy them and make them contented, though they had lost all but such freedom as they could have by being enrolled as citizens of Rome, and they were too near the heart of the empire to be in danger from barbarous neighbours, so that they did not often have troops among them, except those passing through Corinth to the East.

Towards the end of these three hundred years, however, Thrace and Thessaly began to be threatened by wild nations who came from the banks of the Danube, and robbed the rich villages and countries to the south. The empire was, in truth, growing weaker, and enemies began to press upon it; and this made the emperor, Diocletian, decide that it was beyond the power of any one man to rule and defend it all, and he therefore divided it with his friend Maximian, whom he made Emperor of the East, while he remained Emperor of the West. The Western empire was the Latin-speaking half, and the Eastern the Greek-speaking half, of these lands, though both still called themselves Roman.

[Picture: Plains of Philippi]

The two halves were joined together again, about the year 300, under Constantine the Great, who was the first Christian emperor. He thought he should be more in the middle of his government if he moved his capital from Rome to the old Greek city of Byzantium, which he adorned with most splendid buildings, and called after his own name, Constantinople; and this became the capital of the East, as Rome was of the West. Athens remained all this time the place of study for Christians as well as heathens, and people still talked philosophy and studied eloquence among the laurel and myrtle groves, and looked at the temples, which still stood there, though hardly anyone frequented them. One emperor, Julian, the cousin of Constantine, studied there as a youth, and became so fond of the old philosophy and learning, and so admired the noble ways of the times when men were seeking after truth, that he thought Greece and Rome would be great again if they turned back to these heathen ways, not seeing that this was going back to the dark out of which those men had been struggling.

Julian tried to bring back heathen customs, and to have the old gods worshipped again; but he was killed in an expedition against the Persians, and soon after his time the old idol-worship was quite forgotten. Every city had a Bishop and clergy, and the Bishops of each division of the empire were under a great ruling Bishop, who was called a Patriarch. Greece was under the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Greek churches were made as like the pattern of the temple at Jerusalem as they could be. The end which represented the Holy of Holies, and had the altar in it, was veiled, and enclosed within what were called the Royal Gates, and these were only opened at times of celebrating the Holy Communion. This end was raised steps, and the Holy Scriptures and sermon were spoken to the people from the front of the Royal Gates. The pavement was of rich marble, and the ceiling, which was generally vaulted, was inlaid with coloured stones, making pictures in what is called Mosaic, because thus the stones were set by Moses in the High Priest's vestment. The clergy wore robes like those of the priests, and generally had flowing hair and beards, though in front the hair was cut in a circlet, in memory of our Lord's crown of thorns.

Now that everyone had become Christian, and bad or worldly people were not afraid to belong to the Church for fear of persecution, there was often sin and evil among them. Many who grieved at this shut themselves up from the world in the most lonely places they could find--little islands, deep woods, mountain tops, or rocks, and the like. When they lived alone they were called hermits, when there were many together they were called monks, and the women who thus lived were nuns. Many such monasteries there were in Greece, especially one upon Mount Athos--that peninsula that Xerxes tried to cut off--and most of these have continued even to our own time.

The emperor Theodosius, who reigned at the end of this fourth century over both East and West, was a very good and great man, and during his reign the Greek lands were kept from the marauders. In his time, however, the Thessalonians brought a most dreadful punishment on themselves. For want of public business, or any real and noble interest, the people had come to care for nothing but games and races, and they loved these sports with a sort of passionate fury. There was a chariot-driver at Thessalonica who was a wicked man, but whose racing was so much admired that when, for some crime, Botheric, the governor, put him in prison and hindered his performance, the mob rose, when they missed him in the amphitheatre, and threw stones at the governor and his officers, so that several were killed, and Botheric among them. The news was taken to the emperor, and in great wrath he ordered that the Thessalonians should be punished. The order was given to a cruel, savage man, who hurried off at once, lest the emperor should relent and stop him. He invited the Thessalonians to meet him in the amphitheatre, and when they were there, expecting to hear some message, he had all the doors closed, and sent in his soldiers, who killed them all, innocent as well as guilty, even strangers who had only just come to the place.

Theodosius was much shocked to find how his passionate words had been obeyed, and the good Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, made him wait as a penitent, cut off from the Holy Communion, while he was thus stained with blood, until after many months his repentance could be accepted, and he could be forgiven.

[Picture: Obelisk of Theodosius, Constantinople] After Theodosius died, the Western half of the empire was overrun and conquered by tribes of German nations, but the Eastern part still remained, and emperor after emperor reigned at Constantinople, ruling over the Greek cities as before; but there were savage tribes of the Slavonian race who settled in Thrace, and spread over Thessaly. They were called Bulgarians, and used to send marauders all over the country to the south, so that they were much dreaded by the Greeks, who had long forgotten how to fight for themselves.

But though the Eastern and Western empires were broken apart, the Church was one. The Greeks, indeed, found fault with the Romans for putting three words into the Creed of Nicea which had not been decided on by the consent of the whole Church in Council, and there was a question between the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople as to which had the chief rule. At last their disputes in the eleventh century caused a schism, or ruling apart, and the Greek Church became separated from the Roman Church.

[Picture: An Amphitheatre--see page 312]

CHAP. XLI.--THE FRANK CONQUEST. 1201-1446.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

There is very little to tell about Greece for hundreds of years. It was a part of the Eastern Empire, and was for the most part in a quiet state, except when robbers came against it. The Bulgarians came from the North, but after they had become Christian they were somewhat less dangerous. From the East and South came Saracens and Moors, who had been converted to the faith of the false Arabian prophet Mahommed; and from the West came the Northmen, all the way from Norway and Denmark, to rob the very east end of the Mediterranean, so that beautiful old ornaments, evidently made in Greece, have been found in the northern homes that once belonged to these sea-kings.

The Greeks had little spirit to fight, and the emperors took some of these stout Northmen into their pay against the Bulgarians and Saracens, calling them their Varangian Guard. Another band, of northern blood, though they had been settled in Normandy for two generations, came, and after driving out the Saracens from Sicily and Southern Italy, set up two little kingdoms there. Robert Guiscard, or the Wizard, the first and cleverest of these Norman kings, had a great wish to gain Greece also, and had many fights with the troops of the Emperor of the East, Alexis Comnenus. Their quarrels with him made the Greeks angry and terrified when all the bravest men of the West wanted to come through their lands on the Crusade, or Holy War, to deliver Jerusalem from the Saracens. Then, since the schism between the Churches, the Greeks and the Latins had learnt scarcely to think of one another as Christians at all, and certainly they did not behave to one another like Christians, for the Greeks cunningly robbed, harassed, and deceived the Latins, and the Latins were harsh, rude, and violent with the Greeks.

In the northern point of the Adriatic Sea lay the city of Venice, built upon a cluster of little islands. The people had taken refuge there when Italy was overrun by the barbarians. In course of time these Venetians had grown to be a mighty and powerful people, whose merchant ships traded all over the Mediterranean, and whose counsellors were famed for wisdom. They had shaken off the power of the Greek emperor, and were governed by a senate and council, with a chosen nobleman at its head, who was called the Doge, or Duke. Just when the French, Germans, and Italians were setting off on the Fourth Crusade, in the year 1201, meaning to sail in Venetian ships, the young Alexius Angelus, son to the emperor Isaac Angelus, came to beg for help for his poor old father, who had been thrown into prison by his own brother, with his eyes put out. It was quite aside from the main work of the Crusade, but the Venetians had always had a quarrel with the Greek emperors, and they prevailed to turn the army aside to attack Constantinople. With an immense pair of shears they cut in twain the great chains which shut in the harbour of the Golden Horn, and sailed safely in, led by their Doge, Dandolo, who, though eighty years old, and blind, was as keen on the battle as the youngest man there.

The French scaled the walls, the usurper fled, and blind old Isaac was led out of his dungeon, and dressed in his robes again; his son was crowned to reign with him, and they did everything to please the Crusaders. Chiefly they made the Patriarch of Constantinople consent to give up all the differences with the Roman Catholic Church, and own the Pope as superior to him. This made the Greeks angry, and they could not bear to see their young emperor so familiar with the French knights, whom they looked on as barbarians. One day he was seen with a Frenchman's cap on his head, and his own crown lying on the ground at his feet. In great anger the people of Constantinople rose, under a man named Alexius Ducas, called "Black-brows," murdered the two emperors, and set up this new one; but he did not reign long, for the French and Venetians were close at hand. There was a second siege, and when the city was taken they plundered it throughout, stripped it of all the wealth they could collect, and set up Baldwin, Count of Flanders, to be emperor, with a Latin Patriarch; while the Venetians helped themselves to all the southern part of the empire, namely, the Peloponnesus and the Greek islands; and a French nobleman named Walter de Brienne was created Duke of Athens, under the Flemish emperor.

[Picture: Promontory of Actium]

It was then that so many of the old Greek places took the names we now see them called by in the map, and which were mostly given by the Venetian seamen. They called the Peloponnesus the Morea, or Mulberry-leaf, because it was in that shape; they called the island of Euboea, Negropont, or Black-bridge; the AEgean Sea, the Archipelago, or Great Sea; and the Euxine, the Black Sea, because it is so dangerous. The Greeks hated their new masters very much, and would not conform to the Roman Catholic Church. A new Greek empire was set up in Asia Minor, at Nicea; and after the Latin emperor Baldwin had been lost in a battle with the Bulgarians, and great troubles swept away his successors, the emperors returned to Constantinople, under Michael Palaeologus, in 1261, and drove out all the Franks, as the Greeks called the Western people, chiefly French and Italians, who had come to settle in their cities.

But the Venetians still held the cities in the greater part of the Morea, and some of the islands, and traded all over the East and West, though their Greek subjects were only kept under by main force, still held to their own Greek Church, and looked to the Roman Emperor of the East, as they called the Palaeologus at Constantinople, as their head; nor was it easy to overpower people who had so many mountain fastnesses, nor to tame monks whose convents were nests on the top of rocks, some so steep that there was no way of entering them save being drawn up in a basket. Well was it for them that they had niched themselves into such strongholds, for worse and worse days were coming upon Greece. The terrible nation of Turks were making their way out of the wild country north of Persia, and winning the old cities of Asia Minor, where they set up their Mahommedan dominion, and threatened more and more to overthrow the Greek empire altogether.

The emperor, John Palaeologus, was obliged to yield to Amurath, the Turkish Sultan, all his lands except Constantinople, Thessalonica, and that part of the Morea which still clung to the empire, and the Turks set up their capital at Adrianople, whence they spread their conquests up to the very walls of Constantinople; but the Greek mountaineers, especially those of the mountain land of Epirus, now called Albania, had something of the old spirit among them, and fought hard. The Venetians used to take troops of them into their pay, since all Christians made common cause against the Turks; and these soldiers, richly armed, with white Albanian kilts, the remnant of the old Greek tunic, were called Stradiots, from the old Greek word for a soldier, Stratiotes. The bravest of them all was George Castriotes, a young Albanian, who had been given as a hostage to the Mahommedans when nine years old. He had been kept a prisoner, and made to fight in the Turkish army, and was so brave there that the Turks called him Skanderbeg, or the Lord Alexander. However, when he thought of the horror of being a Mahommedan, and fighting against the Christian faith and his own country, he fled into Albania, raised all the Greeks, killed all the Turks in the country, and kept it safe from all the further attempts of the Sultan as long as he lived, although, at Varna, a great crusade of all the most adventurous spirits in Europe, to drive back the Turks, was wofully defeated in the year 1446.

[Picture: Mount Helicon]

CHAP. XLII.--THE TURKISH CONQUEST. 1453-1670.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

The last Emperor of the East was the best and bravest who had reigned for many years. Constantine Palaeologus did his best against the Turks, but Mahommed II., one of the greatest of the Ottoman race, was Sultan, and vowed that Constantinople should be either his throne or his tomb.

When the besieged Christians heard the Turks outside their walls chanting their prayers, they knew that the city would be assaulted the next day, and late at night Constantine called his friends together, and said, "Though my heart is full, I can speak to you no longer. There is the crown which I hold from God. I place it in your hands; I entrust it to you. I fight to deserve it still, or to die in defending it." They wept and wailed so that he had to wait to be heard again, and then he said, "Comrades, this is our fairest day;" after which they all went to the Cathedral of St. Sophia, and received the Holy Communion together. There was a crowd around as he came out, and he stood before them, begging them to pardon him for not having been able to make them happier. They answered with sobs and tears, and then he mounted his horse and rode round the defences.

[Picture: Cathedral of St. Sophia]

The Turks began the attack in the early morning, and the fight raged all day; but they were the most numerous, and kept thronging into the breach, so that, though Constantine fought like a lion at bay, he could not save the place, and the last time his voice was heard it was crying out, "Is there no Christian who will cut off my head?" The Turks pressed in on all sides, cut down the Christians, won street after street, house after house; and when at last Mahommed rode up to the palace where Roman emperors had reigned for 1100 years, he was so much struck with the desolation that he repeated a verse of Persian poetry--

"The spider hath woven her web in the palace of kings,
The owl hath sung her watch-song in the towers of Afrasiab."