Chapter X: Part 10

The training required for participants in these sacred games was severe. No one was allowed to take part unless he had trained in the gymnasium for ten months in advance. No criminal, nor person with any blood impurity, could compete, a mere pimple on the body being sufficient to rule a man out. In short, only perfect and completely trained specimens of manhood were admitted to the lists, while the fathers and relatives of a contestant were required to swear that they would use no artifice or unfair means to aid their relative to a victory. The greatest care was also taken to select judges whose character was above even the possibility of bribery.

Women were not permitted to appear at the games, and whoever disobeyed this law was to be thrown from a rock. On certain occasions, however, their presence was permitted, and there were a series of games and races in which young girls took part. In time it became the custom to diversify the games with dramas, and to exhibit the works of artists, while poets recited their latest odes, and other writers read their works. Here Herodotus read his famous history to the vast assemblage.

Victory in these contests was esteemed the highest of honors. When the victor was crowned, the heralds loudly proclaimed his name, with those of his father and his city or native land. He was also privileged to erect a statue in honor of his triumph at a particular place in the sacred Altis. This was done by many of the richer victors, while the winners in the chariot-races often had not only their own figures, but those of their chariots and horses, reproduced in bronze.

In addition to the Olympic, Greece possessed other games, which, like the former, were of great popularity, and attracted crowds from all parts of the country. The principal among these were the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games, though there were various others of less importance. Of them all, however, the Olympic games were much the oldest and most venerated, and in the laws of Solon every Athenian who won an Olympic prize was given the large reward of five hundred drachmas, while an Isthmian prize brought but one hundred drachmas.

On several occasions the Olympic games became occasions of great historical interest. One of these was the ninetieth Olympiad, of 420 B.C., which took place during the peace between Athens and Sparta,--in the Peloponnesian war Athens having been excluded from the two preceding ones. It was supposed that the impoverishment of Athens would prevent her from appearing with any splendor at this festival, but that city astonished Greece by her ample show of golden ewers, censers, etc., in the sacrifice and procession, while in the chariot-races Alcibiades far distanced all competitors. One well-equipped chariot and four usually satisfied the thirst for display of a rich Greek, but he appeared with no less than seven, while his horses were of so superior power that one of his chariots won a first, another a second, and another a fourth prize, and he had the honor of being twice crowned with olive. In the banquet with which he celebrated his triumph he surpassed the richest of his competitors by the richness and splendor of the display.

On the occasion of the one hundred and fourth Olympiad, war existing between Arcadia and Elis, a combat took place in the sacred ground itself, an unholy struggle which dishonored the sanctuary of Panhellenic brotherhood, and caused the great temple of Zeus to be turned into a fortress against the assailants. During this war the Arcadians plundered the treasures of these holy temples, as those of the temple at Delphi were plundered at a later date.

Another occasion of interest in the Olympic games occurred in the ninety-ninth Olympiad, when Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, sent his legation to the sacrifice, dressed in the richest garments, abundantly furnished with gold and silver plate, and lodged in splendid tents. Several chariots contended for him in the races, while a number of trained reciters and chorists were sent to exhibit his poetical compositions before those who would listen to them. His chariots were magnificent, his horses of the rarest excellence, the delivery of his poems eloquently performed; but among those present were many of the sufferers by his tyranny, and the display ended in the plundering of his gold and purple tent, and the disgraceful lack of success of his chariots, some of which were overturned and broken to pieces. As for the poems, they were received with a ridicule which caused the deepest humiliation and shame to their proud composer.

The people of Greece, and particularly those of Athens, did not, however, restrict their public enjoyments to athletic exercises. Abundant provision for intellectual enjoyment was afforded. They were not readers. Books were beyond the reach of the multitude. But the loss was largely made up to them by the public recitals of poetry and history, the speeches of the great orators, and in particular the dramatic performances, which were annually exhibited before all the citizens of Athens who chose to attend.

The stage on which these dramas were performed, at first a mere platform, then a wooden edifice, became finally a splendid theatre, wrought in the sloping side of the Acropolis, and presenting a vast semicircle of seats, cut into the solid rock, rising tier above tier, and capable of accommodating thirty thousand spectators. At first no charge was made for admission, and when, later, the crowd became so great that a charge had to be made, every citizen of Athens who desired to attend, and could not afford to pay, was presented from the public treasury with the price of one of the less desirable seats.

Annually, at the festivals of Dionysus, or Bacchus, and particularly at the great Dionysia, held at the of March and beginning of April, great tragic contests were held, lasting for two days, during which the immense theatre was filled with crowds of eager spectators. A play seldom lasted more than an hour and a half, but three on the same general subject, called a trilogy, were often presented in succession, and were frequently followed by a comic piece from the same poet. That the actors might be heard by the vast open-air audiences, some means of increasing the power of the voice was employed, while masks were worn to increase the apparent size of the head, and thick-soled shoes to add to the height.

The chorus was a distinctive feature of these dramas,--tragedies and comedies alike. As there were never more than three actors upon the stage, the chorus--twelve to fifteen in number--represented other characters, and often took part in the action of the play, though their duty was usually to diversify the movement of the play by hymns and dirges, appropriate dances, and the music of flutes. For centuries these dramatic representations continued at Athens, and formed the basis of those which proved so attractive to Roman audiences, and which in turn became the foundation-stones of the modern drama.

_PYRRHUS AND THE ROMANS._

Seven years after the death of Alexander, the Macedonian conqueror, there was born in Epirus, a country of Greece, a warrior who might have rivalled Alexander's fortune and fame had he, like him, fought against Persians. But he had the misfortune to fight against Romans, and his story became different. He was the greatest general of his time. Hannibal has said that he was the greatest of any age. But Rome was not Persia, and a Roman army was not to be dealt with like a Persian horde. Had Alexander marched west instead of east, he would probably not have won the title of "Great."

Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, claimed descent from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. While still an infant a rebellion broke out in Epirus. His father was absent, and the rebel chiefs sought to kill him, but he was hurried away in his nurse's arms, and his life saved. When he was ten years old, Glaucius, king of Illyria, who had brought him up among his own children, conquered Epirus and placed him on the throne. Seven years afterwards rebellion broke out again, and Pyrrhus had once more to fly for his life. He now fought in some great battles, married the daughter of the king of Egypt, returned with an army, and again became king of Epirus. He afterwards conquered all Macedonia, and, like Alexander the Great, whose fame he envied, looked about him for other worlds to conquer.

During the years over which our tales have passed a series of foreign powers had threatened Greece. First, in the days of legend, it had found a foreign enemy in Troy. Next came the great empire of Persia, with which it had for centuries to deal. Then rose Macedonia, the first conqueror of Greece. Meanwhile, in the west, a new enemy had been slowly growing in power and thirst for conquest, that of Rome, before whose mighty arm Greece was destined to fall and vanish from view as one of the powers of the earth. And the first of the Greeks to come in warlike contact with the Romans was Pyrrhus. How this came about, and what arose from it, we have now to tell.

Step by step the ambitious Romans had been extending their power over Italy. They were now at war with Tarentum, a city of Greek origin on the south Italian coast. The Tarentines, being hard pressed by their vigorous foes, sent an embassy to Greece, and asked Pyrrhus, then the most famous warrior of the Grecian race, to come to their aid against their enemy. This was in the year 281 B.C.

Pyrrhus had been for some years at peace, building himself a new capital city, which he profusely adorned with pictures and statues. But peace was not to his taste. Consumed by ambition, restless in temperament, and anxious to make himself a rival in fame of Alexander the Great, he was ready enough to accept this request, and measure his strength in battle against the most warlike nation of the West.

His wise counsellor, Cineas, asked him what he would do next, if he should overcome the Romans, who were said to be great warriors and conquerors of many peoples.

"The Romans once overcome," he said, proudly, "no city, Greek or barbarian, would dare to oppose me, and I should be master of all Italy."

"Well," said Cineas, "if you conquer Italy, what next?"

"Greater victories would follow. There are Libya and Carthage to be won."

"And then?" asked Cineas.

"Then I should be able to master all Greece."

"And then?" continued the counsellor.

"Then," said Pyrrhus, "I would live at ease, eat and drink all day, and enjoy pleasant conversation."

"And what hinders you from taking your ease now, without all this peril and bloodshed?"

Pyrrhus had no answer to this. But thirst for fame drove him on, and the days of ease never came.

In the following year Pyrrhus crossed to Italy with an army of about twenty-five thousand men, and with a number of elephants, animals which the Romans had never seen, and with which he hoped to frighten them from the battle-field. He had been promised the aid of all southern Italy, and an army of three hundred and fifty thousand infantry and twenty thousand cavalry. In this he was destined to disappointment. He found the people of Tarentum given up to frivolous pleasure, enjoying their theatres and festivals, and expecting that he would do their fighting while they spent their time in amusement.

They found, however, that they had gained a master instead of a servant. Frivolity was not the idea of war held by Pyrrhus. He at once shut up the theatre, the gymnasia, and the public walks, stopped all feasting and revelry throughout the city, closed the clubs or brotherhoods, and kept the citizens under arms all day. Some of them, in disgust at this stern discipline, left the city. Pyrrhus thereupon closed the gates, and would let none out without permission. He even went so far as to put to death some of the demagogues, and to send others into exile. By these means he succeeded in making something like soldiers of the pleasure-loving Tarentines.

Thus passed the winter. Meanwhile, the Romans had been as active as their enemies. They made the most energetic preparations for war, and with the opening of the spring were in the field. Pyrrhus, who had failed to receive the great army promised him, did not feel strong enough to meet the Roman force. He offered peace and arbitration, but his offers were scornfully rejected. He then sent spies to the Roman camp. One of these was caught and permitted to observe the whole army on parade. He was then sent back to Pyrrhus, with the message that if he wanted to see the Roman army he had better come himself in open day, instead of sending spies by night.

The two armies met at length on the banks of the river Siris, where Rome fought its first great battle with a foreign foe. The Romans were the stronger, but the Greeks had the advantage in arms and discipline. The conflict that followed was very different from the one fought by Alexander at Issus. So courageous and unyielding were the contestants that each army seven times drove back its foes.

"Beware," said an officer to Pyrrhus, as he charged at the head of his cavalry, "of that barbarian on the black horse with white feet. He has marked you for his prey."

"What is fated no man can avoid," said the king, heroically. "But neither this man nor the stoutest soldier in Italy shall encounter me for nothing."

At that instant the Italian rode at him with levelled lance and killed his horse. But his own was killed at the same instant, and while Pyrrhus was remounting his daring foe was surrounded and slain.

On this field, for the first time, the Greek spear encountered the Roman sword. The Macedonian phalanx with its long pikes was met by the Roman legion with its heavy blades. The pike of the phalanx had hitherto conquered the world. The sword of the legion was hereafter to take its place. But now neither seemed able to overcome the other. In vain the Romans sought to hew a way with their swords through the forest of pikes, and as a last resort the Roman general brought up a chosen body of cavalry, which he had held in reserve. These came on in fierce charge, but Pyrrhus met them with a more formidable reserve,--his elephants.

On beholding these strange monsters, terrible alike to horse and rider, the Roman cavalry fell back in confusion. The horses could not be brought to face their huge opponents. Their disorder broke the ranks of the infantry. Pyrrhus charged them with his Thessalian cavalry, and the Roman army was soon in total rout, leaving its camp to the mercy of its foes.

During the battle Pyrrhus, knowing that the safety of his army depended on his own life, exchanged his arms, helmet, and scarlet cloak for the armor of Megacles, one of his officers. The borrowed splendor proved fatal to Megacles. The Romans made him their mark. Every one struck at him. He was at last struck down and slain, and his helmet and cloak were carried to Lavinus, the Roman commander, who had them borne in triumph along his ranks. Pyrrhus, fearing that this mistake might prove fatal, at once threw off his helmet and rode bareheaded along his own line, to let his soldiers see that he was still alive, and that a scarlet cloak was not a king.

The battle over, Pyrrhus surveyed the field, strewn thickly with the dead of both armies, his valiant soul moved to a new respect for his foes.

"If I had such soldiers," he cried, "I could conquer the world." Then, noting the numbers of his own dead, he added, "Another such victory, and I must return to Epirus alone."

He sent Cineas, his wise counsellor, to Rome to offer terms of peace. Nearly four thousand of his army had fallen, and these largely Greeks; the weather was unfavorable for an advance; alliance with these brave foes might be wiser than war. Many of the Romans, too, thought the same; but while they were debating in the Forum there was borne into this building the famous censor Appius Claudius, once a leader in Rome, now totally blind and in extreme old age. His advent was like that of blind Timoleon to the Syracusan senate. The senators listened in deepest silence when the old man rose to speak. What he said we do not know, but his voice was for war, and the senate, moved by his impassioned appeal, voted that there should be no peace with Pyrrhus while he remained in Italy, and ordered Cineas to leave Rome, with this ultimatum, that very day.

Peace refused, Pyrrhus advanced against Rome. He marched through a territory which for years had been free from the ravages of war, and was in a state of flourishing prosperity. It was plundered by his soldiers without mercy. On he came until Rome itself lay visible to his eyes from an elevation but eighteen miles away. Another day's march would have brought him to its walls. But a strong Roman army was in his front; another army hung upon his rear; his own army was weakened by dissensions between the Greeks and Italians; he deemed it prudent to retreat with the plunder he had gained.

Another winter passed. Pyrrhus had many prisoners, whom he would not exchange or ransom unless the Romans would accept peace. But he treated them well, and even allowed them to return to Rome to enjoy the winter holiday of the Saturnalia, on their solemn promise that they would return if peace was still refused. The senate was still firm for war, and the prisoners returned after the holidays, the sturdy Romans having passed an edict that any prisoner who should linger in Rome after the day fixed for the return should suffer death.

In the following spring another battle was fought near Asculum, on the plains of Apulia. Once more the Roman sword was pitted against the Macedonian pike. The nature of the ground was such that the Romans were forced to attack their enemy in front, and they hewed in vain with their swords upon the wall of pikes, which they even grasped with their hands and tried to break. The Greeks kept their line intact, and the Romans were slaughtered without giving a wound in return. At length they gave way. Then the elephants charged, and the repulse became a rout. But this time the Romans fled only to their camp, which was close at hand. They had lost six thousand men. Pyrrhus had lost three thousand five hundred of his light-armed troops. The heavy-armed infantry was almost unharmed.

Here was another battle that proved almost as bad as a defeat. Pyrrhus had lost many of the men he had brought from Epirus. He was not in condition to take the field again, and no more soldiers could just then be had from Greece. The Romans were now willing to make a truce, and Pyrrhus crossed soon after to Sicily, to aid the Greeks of that island against their Carthaginian foes, He remained there two years, fighting with varied success and defeat. Then he returned to Tarentum, which again needed his aid against its persistent Roman enemies.

On his way there Pyrrhus passed through Locri. Here was a famous temple of Proserpine, in whose vaults was a large treasure, which had been buried for an unknown period, and on which no mortal eye was permitted to gaze. Pyrrhus took bad advice and plundered the temple of the sacred treasure, placing it on board his ships. A storm arose and wrecked the ships, and the stolen treasure was cast back on the Locrian coast. Pyrrhus now ordered it to be restored, and offered sacrifices to appease the offended goddess. She gave no signs of accepting them. He then put to death the three men who had advised the sacrilege, but his mind continued haunted with dread of divine vengeance. Proserpine, who was seemingly deeply offended, might bring upon him ruin and defeat, and the hearts of his soldiers were weakened by dread of impending evils.

Once more Pyrrhus met the Romans in the field, but no longer with success. One of his elephants was wounded, and ran wildly into his ranks, throwing them into disorder. Eight of these animals were driven into ground from which there was no escape. They were captured by the Romans. As the battle continued one wing of the Roman army was repulsed; but they assailed the elephants with such a shower of light weapons that these huge brutes turned and fled through the ranks of the phalanx, throwing it into disorder. On their heels came the Romans. The Greek line once broken, the swords of the Romans gave them a great advantage over the long spears of the enemy. Cut down in numbers, the Greeks were thrown into confusion, and were soon flying in panic, hotly pursued by their foes. How many were slain is not known, but the defeat was decisive. Retreating to Tarentum, Pyrrhus resolved to leave Italy, disgusted with his failure and with the supineness of his allies, and disappointed in his ambitious hopes. He reached Epirus again with little more than eight thousand troops, and without money enough to maintain even these. Thus ended the first meeting of Greeks and Romans in war.

The remainder of the story of Pyrrhus may be soon told. He had counted on living in ease after his wars, but ease was not for him. His remaining life was spent in war. He invaded and conquered Macedonia. He engaged in war against the Spartans, and was repulsed from their capital city. At last, in his attack on Argos, while forcing his way through its streets, he fell by a woman's hand. A tile was cast from a house on his head, which hurled him stunned from his horse, and he was killed in the street. Thus ignobly perished the greatest general of his age.

_PHILOPOEMEN AND THE FALL OF SPARTA._

The history of Greece may well seem remarkable to modern readers, since it brings us in contact with conditions which have ceased to exist anywhere upon the earth. To gain some idea of its character, we should have to imagine each of the counties of one of our American States to be an independent nation, with its separate government, finances, and history, its treaties of peace and declarations of war, and its frequent fierce conflicts with some neighboring county. Each of these counties would have its central city, surrounded by high walls, and its citizens ready at any moment to take arms against some other city and march to battle against foes of their own race and blood. In some cases a single county would have three or four cities, each hostile to the others, like the cities of Thebes, Plataea, Thespiae, and Orchomenos, in Boeotia; standing ready, like fierce dogs each in its separate kennel, to fall upon one another with teeth and claws. It may further be said that of the population of these counties five out of every six were slaves, and that these slaves were white men, most of them of Greek descent. The general custom in those days was either to slay prisoners in cold blood, or sell them to spend the remainder of their lives in slavery.

This state of affairs was not confined to Greece. It existed in Italy until Rome conquered all its small neighbor states. It existed in Asia until the great Babylonian and Persian empires conquered all the smaller communities. It was the first form of a civilized nation, that of a city surrounded by enough farming territory to supply its citizens with food, each city ready to break into war with any other, and each race of people viewing all beyond its borders as strangers and barbarians, to be dealt with almost as if they were beasts of prey instead of men and brothers.

The cities of Greece were not only thus isolated, but each had its separate manners, customs, government, and grade of civilization. Athens was famous for its intellectual cultivation; Thebes had a reputation for the heavy-headed dulness of its people; Sparta was a rigid war school, and so on with others. In short, the world has gone so far beyond the political and social conditions of that period that it is by no means easy for us to comprehend the Grecian state.

Among those cities Sparta stood in one sense alone. While the others were enclosed in strong walls, Sparta remained open and free,--its only wall being the valorous hearts and strong arms of its inhabitants. While other cities were from time to time captured and occasionally destroyed, no foeman had set foot within Sparta's streets. Not until the days of Epaminondas was Laconia invaded by a powerful foe; and even then Sparta remained free from the foeman's tread. Neither Philip of Macedon, nor his son Alexander, entered this proud city, and it was not until the troublous later times that the people of Sparta, feeling that their ancient warlike virtue was gone, built around their city a wall of defence.

But the humiliation of that proud city was at hand. It was to be entered by a foeman; the laws of Lycurgus, under which it had risen to such might, were to come to an end; and lordly Sparta was to sink into insignificance, and its glory remain but a memory to man.

About the year 252 B.C. was born Philopoemen, the last of the great generals of Greece. He was the son of Craugis, a citizen of Megalopolis, the great city which Epaminondas had built in Arcadia. Here he was thoroughly educated in philosophy and the other learning of the time; but his natural inclination was towards the life of a soldier, and he made a thorough study of the use of arms and the management of horses, while sedulously seeking the full development of his bodily powers. Epaminondas was the example he set himself, and he came little behind that great warrior in activity, sagacity, and integrity, though he differed from him in being possessed of a hot, contentious temper, which often carried him beyond the bounds of judgment.

Philopoemen was marked by plain manners and a genial disposition, in proof of which Plutarch tells an amusing story. In his later years, when he was general of a great Grecian confederation, word was brought to a lady of Megara that Philopoemen was coming to her house to await the return of her husband, who was absent. The good lady, all in a tremor, set herself hurriedly to prepare a supper worthy of her guest. While she was thus engaged a man entered dressed in a shabby cloak, and with no mark of distinction. Taking him for one of the general's train who had been sent on in advance, the housewife called on him to help her prepare for his master's visit. Nothing loath, the visitor threw off his cloak, seized the axe she offered him, and fell lustily to work in cutting up fire-wood.

While he was thus engaged, the husband returned, and at once recognized in his wife's lackey the expected visitor.

"What does this mean, Philopoemen?" he cried, in surprise.

"Nothing," replied the general, "except that I am paying the penalty of my ugly looks."

Philopoemen had abundant practice in the art of war. Between Arcadia and Laconia hostility was the normal condition, and he took part in many plundering incursions into the neighboring state. In these he always went in first and came out last. When there was no fighting to be done he would go every evening to an estate he owned several miles from town, would throw himself on the first mattress in his way and sleep like a common laborer, and rising at break of day would go to work in the vineyard or at the plough. Then returning to the town, he would employ himself in public business or in friendly intercourse during the remainder of the day.

When Philopoemen was thirty years old, Cleomenes, the Spartan king, one night attacked Megalopolis, forced the guards, broke in, and seized the market-place. The citizens sprang to arms, Philopoemen at their head, and a desperate conflict ensued in the streets. But their efforts were in vain, the enemy held their ground. Then Philopoemen set himself to aid the escape of the citizens, making head against the foe while his fellow-townsmen left the city. At last, after losing his horse and receiving several wounds, he fought his way out through the gate, being the last man to retreat. Cleomenes, finding that the citizens would not listen to his fair offers for their return, and tired of guarding empty houses, left the place after pillaging it and destroying all he readily could.

The next year Philopoemen took part in a battle between King Antigonus of Macedonia and the Spartans, in which the victory was due to his charging the enemy at the head of the cavalry against the king's orders.

"How came it," asked the king after the battle, "that the horse charged without waiting for the signal?"

"We were forced into it against our wills by a young man of Megalopolis," was the reply.

"That young man," said Antigonus, with a smile, "acted like an experienced commander."

During this battle a javelin, flung by a strong hand, passed through both his thighs, the head coming out on the other side. "There he stood awhile," says Plutarch, "as if he had been shackled, unable to move. The fastening which joined the thong to the javelin made it difficult to get it drawn out, nor would any one about him venture to do it. But the fight being now at its hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he was transported with the desire of partaking in it, and struggled and strained so violently, setting one leg forward, the other back, that at last he broke the shaft in two; and thus got the pieces pulled out. Being in this manner set at liberty, he caught up his sword, and running through the midst of those who were fighting in the first ranks, animated his men, and set them afire with emulation."

As may be imagined, a man of such indomitable courage could not fail to make his mark. Antigonus wished to engage him in his service, but Philopoemen refused, as he knew his temper would not let him serve under others. His thirst for war took him to Crete, where he brought the cavalry of that island to a state of perfection never before known in Greece.

And now a new step in political progress took place in the Peloponnesus. The cities of Achaea joined into a league for common aid and defence. Other cities joined them, until it was hoped that all Peloponnesus would be induced to combine into one commonwealth. There had been leagues before in Greece, but they had all been dominated by some one powerful city. The Achaean League was the first that was truly a federal republic in organization, each city being an equal member of the confederacy.

Philopoemen, whose name had grown to stand highest among the soldiers of Greece, was chosen as general of the cavalry, and at once set himself to reform its discipline and improve its tactics. By his example he roused a strong warlike fervor among the people, inducing them to give up all display and exercise but those needed in war. "Nothing then was to be seen in the shops but plate breaking up or melting down, gilding of breastplates, and studding buckles and bits with silver; nothing in the places of exercise but horses managing and young men exercising their arms; nothing in the hands of the women but helmets and crests of feathers to be dyed, and the military cloaks and riding frocks to be embroidered.... Their arms becoming light and easy to them with constant use, they longed for nothing more than to try them with an enemy, and fight in earnest."

Two years afterwards, in 208 B.C., Philopoemen was elected _strategus_, or general in-chief, of the Achaean league. The martial ardor of the army he had organized was not long left unsatisfied. It was with his old enemy, the Spartans, that he was first concerned. Machanidas, the Spartan king, having attacked the city of Mantinea, Philopoemen marched against him, and soon gave him other work to do. A part of the Achaean army flying, Machanidas hotly pursued. Philopoemen held back his main body until the enemy had become scattered in pursuit, when he charged upon them with such energy that they were repulsed, and over four thousand were killed. Machanidas returning in haste, strove to cross a deep ditch between him and his foe; but as he was struggling up its side, Philopoemen transfixed him with his javelin, and hurled him back dead into the muddy ditch.

This victory greatly enhanced the fame of the Arcadian general. Some time afterwards he and a party of his young soldiers entered the theatre during the Nemean games, just as the actor was speaking the opening words of the play called "The Persians:"

"Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free."

The whole audience at once turned towards Philopoemen, and clapped their hands with delight. It seemed to them that in this valiant warrior the ancient glory of Greece had returned, and for the time some of the old-time spirit came back. But, despite this momentary glow, the sun of Grecian freedom and glory was near its setting. A more dangerous enemy than Macedonia had arisen. Rome, which Pyrrhus had gone to Italy to seek, had its armies now in Greece itself, and the independence of that country would soon be no more.

The next exploit of Philopoemen had to do with Messenia. Nabis, the new Spartan king, had taken that city at a time when Philopoemen was out of command, the generalship of the League not being permanent. He tried to persuade Lysippus, then general of the Achaeans, to go to the relief of Messenia, but he refused, saying that it was lost beyond hope. Thereupon Philopoemen set out himself, followed by such of his fellow citizens as deemed him their general by nature's commission. The very wind of his coming won the town. Nabis, hearing that Philopoemen was near at hand, slipped hastily out of the city by the opposite gates, glad to get away in safety. He escaped, but Messenia was recovered. The martial spirit of Philopoemen next took him to Crete, where fighting was to be had to his taste. Yet he left his native city of Megalopolis so pressed by the enemy that its people were forced to sow grain in their very streets. However, he came back at length, met Nabis in the field, rescued the army from a dangerous situation, and put the enemy to flight. Soon after he made peace with Sparta, and achieved a remarkable triumph in inducing that great and famous city to join the Achaean League. In truth, the nobles of Sparta, glad to have so important an ally, sent Philopoemen a valuable present. But such was his reputation for honor that for a time no man could be found who dared offer it to him; and when at length the offer was made he went to Sparta himself, and advised its nobles, if they wanted any one to bribe, to let it not be good men, but those ill citizens whose seditious voices needed to be silenced.

In the end Sparta was destined to suffer at the hands of its incorruptible ally, it having revolted from the League. Philopoemen marched into Laconia, led his army unopposed to Sparta, and took possession of that famous seat of Mars, within which no hostile foot had hitherto been set. He razed its walls to the ground, put to death those who had stirred the city to rebellion, and took away a great part of its territory, which he gave to Megalopolis. Those who had been made citizens of Sparta by tyrants he drove from the country, and three thousand who refused to go he sold into slavery; and, as a further insult, with the money received from their sale he built a colonnade at Megalopolis.

Finally, as a death-blow to Spartan power, he abolished the time-honored laws of Lycurgus, under which that city had for centuries been so great, and forced the people to educate their children and live in the same manner as the Achaeans. Thus ended the glory of Sparta. Some time afterwards its citizens resumed their old laws and customs, but the city had sunk from its high estate, and from that time forward vanished from history.

At length, being then seventy years of age, misfortune came to this great warrior and ended his warlike career. An enemy of his had induced the Messenians to revolt from the Achaean League. At once the old soldier, though lying sick with a fever at Argos, rose from his bed, and reached Megalopolis, fifty miles away, in a day. Putting himself at the head of an army, he marched to meet the foe. In the fight that followed his force was driven back, and he became separated from his men in his efforts to protect the rear. Unluckily his horse stumbled in a stony place, and he was thrown to the ground and stunned. The enemy, who were following closely, at once made him prisoner, and carried him, with insult and contumely, and with loud shouts of triumph, to the city gates, through which the very tidings of his coming had once driven a triumphant foe.

The Messenians rapidly turned from anger to pity for their noble foe, and would probably have in the end released him, had time been given them. But Dinocrates, their general and his enemy, resolved that Philopoemen should not escape from his hands. He confined him in a close prison, and, learning that his army had returned and were determined upon his rescue, decided that that night should be Philopoemen's last.

The prisoner lay--not sleeping, but oppressed with grief and trouble--in his prison cell, when a man entered bearing poison in a cup. Philopoemen sat up, and, taking the cup, asked the man if he had heard anything of the Achaean horsemen.

"The most of them got off safe," said the man.

"It is well," said Philopoemen, with a cheerful look, "that we have not been in every way unfortunate."

Then, without a word more, he drank the poison and lay down again. As he was old and weak from his fall, he was quickly dead.

The news of his death filled all Achaea with lamentation and thirst for revenge. Messenia was ravaged with fire and sword till it submitted. Dinocrates and all who had voted for Philopoemen's death killed themselves to escape death by torture. All Achaea mourned at his funeral, statues were erected to his memory, and the highest honors decreed to him in many cities. In the words of Pausanias, a late Greek writer, "Miltiades was the first, and Philopoemen the last, benefactor to the whole of Greece."

_THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF GREECE._

Greece learned too late the art of combining for self-defence. In the war against the vast power of Persia, Athens stood almost alone. What aid she got from the rest of Greece was given grudgingly. Themistocles had to gain the aid of the Grecian fleet at Salamis by a trick. Philip of Macedonia conquered Greece by dividing it and fighting it piecemeal. Only after the close of the Macedonian power and the beginning of that of Rome did Greece begin to learn the art of unity, and then the lesson came too late. The Achaean League, which combined the nations of the Peloponnesus into a federal republic, was in its early days kept busy in forcing its members to remain true to their pledge. If it had survived for a century it would probably have brought all Greece into the League, and have produced a nation capable of self-defence. But Rome already had her hand on the throat of Greece, and political wisdom came to that land too late to avail.

We have come, indeed, to the end of the story of Grecian liberty. Twice Greece rose in arms against the power of Rome, but in the end she fell hopelessly into the fetters forged for the world by that lord of conquest. Of the celebrated cities of Greece two had already fallen. Thebes had been swept from the face of the earth in the wind of Alexander's wrath. Sparta had been reduced to a feeble village by the anger of Philopoemen. Corinth, now the largest and richest city of Greece, was to be razed to the ground for daring to defy Rome; and Athens was to be plundered and humiliated by a conquering Roman army.

It will not take long to tell how all this came about. The story is a short one, but full of vital consequences. Philopoemen, the great general of the Achaean League, died of poison 183 B.C. In the same year died in exile Hannibal, the greatest foe Rome ever knew, and Scipio, one of its ablest generals. Rome was already master of Greece. But the Roman senate feared trouble from the growth of the Achaean League, and, to weaken it, took a thousand of its noblest citizens, under various charges, and sent them as hostages to Rome. Among them was the celebrated historian Polybius, who wrote the history of Hannibal's wars.

These exiles were not brought to trial on the weak charges made against them, but they were detained in Italy for seventeen years. By the end of that time many of them had died, and Rome at last did what it was not in the habit of doing, it took pity on those who were left and let them return home.

Roman pity in this case proved disastrous to Greece. Many of the exiles were exasperated by their treatment, and were no sooner at home than they began to stir up the people to revolt. Polybius held them back for a time, but during his absence the spirit of sedition grew. It was intensified by the action of Rome, which, to weaken Greece, resolved to dissolve the Achaean League, or to take from it its strongest cities. Roman ambassadors carried this edict to Corinth, the great city of the League. When their errand become known the people rose in riot, insulted the ambassadors, and vowed that they were not and would not be the slaves of Rome.

If they had shown the strength and spirit to sustain their vow they might have had some warrant for it. But the fanatics who stirred the country to revolt against the advice of its wisest citizens proved incapable in war. Their army was finally put to rout in the year 146 B.C. by a Roman army under the leadership of Lucius Mummius, consul of Rome.

This Roman victory was won in the vicinity of Corinth. The routed army did not seek to defend itself in that city, but fled past its open gates, and left it to the mercy of the Roman general. The gates still stood open. No defence was made. But Mummius, fearing some trick, waited a day or two before entering. On doing so he found the city nearly deserted. The bulk of the population had fled. The greatest and richest city which Greece then possessed had fallen without a blow struck in its defence.

Yet Mummius chose to consider it as a city taken by storm. All the men who remained were put to the sword; the women and children were kept to be sold as slaves; the town was mercilessly plundered of its wealth and treasures of art.

But this degree of vengeance did not satisfy Rome. Her ambassadors had been insulted,--by a mob, it is true; but in those days the law-abiding had often to suffer for the deeds of the mob. The Achaean League, with Corinth at its head, had dared to resist the might and majesty of Rome. A lesson must be given that would not be easily forgotten. Corinth must be utterly destroyed.

Such was the deliberate decision of the Roman senate; such the order sent to Mummius. At his command the plundering of the city was completed. It was fabulously rich in works of art. Many of these were sent to Rome. Many of them were destroyed. The Romans were ignorant of their value. Their leader himself was as incompetent and ignorant as any Roman general could well be. He had but one thought, to obey the orders of the senate. The plundered city was thereupon set on fire and burned to the ground, its walls were pulled down, the spot where it had stood was cursed, its territory was declared the property of the Roman people. No more complete destruction of a city had ever taken place. A century afterwards Corinth was rebuilt by order of Julius Caesar, but it never became again the Corinth of old.

As for the destruction of works of priceless value, it was pitiable. When Polybius returned and saw the ruins, he found common soldiers playing dice on paintings of the most celebrated artists of Greece. Mummius, who was as honest as he was dull-witted, strictly obeyed orders in sending the choicest of the spoil to Rome, and made himself forever famous as a marvel of stupidity by a remark to those who were charged with the conveyance of some of the noblest of Grecian statues.

"Take good care that you do not lose these on the way," he said; "for if you do you shall be made to replace them by others of equal value."

Rome could conquer the world, but honest Mummius had set a task which Rome throughout its whole history was not able to perform.

Thus ended the death-struggle of Greece. The chiefs of the party of revolt were put to death; the inhabitants of Corinth who had fled were taken and sold as slaves. The walls of all the cities which had resisted Rome were levelled to the ground. An annual tribute was laid on them by the conquerors. Self-government was left to the states of Greece, but they were deprived of their old privilege of making war.

Yet Greece might have flourished under the new conditions, for peace heals the wounds made by war, had its states not been too much weakened by their previous conflicts, and had not a new war arisen just when they were beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of peace.

This war, which broke out sixty years later, had its origin in Asia. Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, had made himself master of all Asia Minor, where he ordered that all the Romans found should be killed. It is said that eighty thousand were slaughtered. Then he sent an army into Greece, under his general Archelaus, and there found the people ready and willing to join him, in the hope of gaining their freedom by his aid. Rome just then seemed weak, and they deemed it a good season to rebel.

Archelaus took possession of Athens and the Piraeus, from which all the friends of Rome were driven into exile. Meanwhile, Rome was distracted by the struggle between the two great leaders Marius and Sulla. But leaving Rome to take care of itself, Sulla marched an army against Mithridates, entered Greece, and laid siege to Athens.

This was in the year 87 B.C. The siege that followed was a long one. Archelaus lay in Piraeus, with abundance of food, and had command of the sea. But the long walls that led to Athens had long since vanished. Food could not be conveyed from the port to the city, as of old. Hunger came to the aid of Rome. Resistance having almost ceased, Sulla broke into the famous old city March 1, 86 B.C., and gave it up to rapine and pillage by his soldiers.

Yet Athens was not destroyed as Corinth had been. Sulla had some respect for art and antiquity, and carefully preserved the old monuments of the city, while such of its people as had not been massacred were restored to their civil rights as subjects of Rome. Soon the Asiatics were driven from Greece and Roman dominion was once more restored. Thus ended the last struggle for liberty in Greece. Nineteen hundred years were to pass away before another blow for freedom would be struck on Grecian soil.

_ZENOBIA AND LONGINUS._

Among the most famous of the women of ancient days must be named Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the East, and who claimed to be descended from the kings whom the conquests of Alexander left over Egypt, the Ptolemies, among whose descendants was included the still more celebrated Cleopatra. Zenobia was the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex, no woman of Asiatic birth ever having equalled her in striking evidence of valor and ability, and none surpassed her in beauty. We are told that while of a dark complexion, her smile revealed teeth of pearly whiteness, while her large black eyes sparkled with an uncommon brightness that was softened by the most attractive sweetness. She possessed a strong and melodious voice, and, in short, had all the charms of womanly beauty.

Her mind was as well stored as her body was attractive. She was familiar with the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages, and was an adept also in Latin, then the political language of the civilized world. She was an earnest student of Oriental history, of which she herself drew up an epitome, while she was fully conversant with Homer and Plato, and the other great writers of Greece.

This lovely and accomplished woman gave her hand in marriage to Odenathus, who from a private station had gained by his valor the empire of the East. He made Syria his by courage and ability, and twice pursued the Persian king to the gates of Ctesiphon. Of this hero Zenobia became the companion and adviser. In hunting, of which he was passionately fond, she emulated him, pursuing the lions, panthers, and other wild beasts of the desert with an ardor equal to his own, and a fortitude and endurance which his did not surpass. Inured to fatigue, she usually appeared on horseback in a military habit, and at times marched on foot at the head of the troops. Odenathus owed his success largely to the prudence and fortitude of his incomparable wife.

In the midst of his successes in war, Odenathus was cut off in 250 A.D. by assassination. He had punished his nephew, who killed him in return. Zenobia at once succeeded to the vacant throne, and by her ability governed Palmyra, Syria, and the East. In this task, in which no man could have surpassed her in courage and judgment, she was aided by the counsels of one of the ablest Greeks who had appeared since the days of the famous writers of the classical age. Longinus, who had been her preceptor in the language and literature of Greece, and who, on her ascending the throne, became her secretary and chief counsellor in state affairs, was a literary critic and philosopher whose lucid intellect seemed to belong to the brightest days of Greece. He was probably a native of Syria, born some time after 200 A.D., and had studied literature and philosophy at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, under the ablest teachers of the age. His learning was immense, and he is the first man to whom was applied the expression "a living library," or, to give it its modern form, "a walking encyclopaedia." His writings were lively and penetrating, showing at once taste, judgment, and learning. We have only fragments of them, except the celebrated "Treatise on the Sublime," which is one of the most notable of ancient critical productions.

Under the advice of this distinguished counsellor, Zenobia entered upon a career which brought her disaster, but has also brought her fame. Her husband Odenathus had avenged Valerian, the Roman emperor, who had been taken prisoner and shamefully treated by the Persian king. For this service he was confirmed in his authority by the senate of Rome. But after his death the senate refused to grant this authority to his widow, and called on her to deliver her dominion over to Rome. Under the advice of Longinus the martial queen refused, defied the power of Rome, and determined to maintain her empire in despite of the senate and army of the proud "master of the world."