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HISTORY OF GREECE

The earliest inhabitants of Greece were the Pelasgians, of whom little or nothing is known with certainty. To them are attributed certain remains of ancient buildings, especially the so-called Cyclopean works in the Peloponnesus. The Pelasgians were succeeded by the Hellenes, or Greeks proper, who may have been simply one of the Pelasgian tribes or races. To the early period of the Hellenic occupation of Greece belong the legends of the Trojan War, of Theseus, of Jason and the Argonauts, &c. The Hellenes were divided into four chief tribes - the Æolians, occupying the northern parts of Greece (Thessaly, Boetia &c); the Dorians, occupying originally a small region hi the neighbourhood of Mount Œta; the Achaeans, occupying the greater part of the Peloponnesus; and the Ionians, occupying the northern strip of the Peloponnesus and the Attica. Of the four principal tribes the Ionians were moat influential in the development of Greece. The distribution of the Hellenic tribes was greatly altered by the Dorian migration, sometimes called 'the return of the Heracleidae' (descendants of Hercules), placed by Thucydides about eighty years after the fall of Troy, or about B.C.1104, according to the ordinary chronology.

Before the great migration several smaller ones had taken place, causing considerable disturbance; and at last the hardy Dorian inhabitants of the mountainous region about Mount Œta conquered a large part of northern Greece, and then entered and subdued the greater part of the Peloponnesus, driving out or subjugating the Achaeans, as the Achaeans had the Pelasgians.

In the legend the Dorians are represented as having entered the Peloponnesus under Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, three descendants of Heracles (Hercules), who had come to recover the territory taken from their ancestors by Eurystheus. Of the Achaean inhabitants of the Peloponnesus a large section occupied the territory formerly in possession of the Ionians, henceforward called Achaia. The Ionians driven out of the Peloponnesus found at first a refuge among their kindred in Attica, but owing to its limited territory were soon compelled to leave it and found Ionic colonies on several of the islands of the Ægean Sea and on the middle part of the coast of Asia Minor, where they built twelve cities, latterly forming an Ionic Confederacy. The principal of these were Ephesus and Miletus. About the same time another body of Greeks, from Thessaly and Boetia, are said to have founded the Æolian colonies on some of the northern Islands of the Ægean, and on the northern part of the western coast of Asia Minor. The Æolic colonies of Asia Minor also formed a confederacy of twelve cities, afterwards reduced to eleven by the accession of Smyrna to the Ionic Confederacy. The southern islands and the southern part of the west coast of Asia Minor were in like manner colonized by Dorian settlers. The six Doric towns in Asia Minor, along with the island of Rhodes, formed a confederacy similar to the Ionic and Æolic ones.

Greece has a chain of mountains running down its spine and its coastline, is cut into a jagged pattern of inlets by the sea. This is one of the reasons why Greece became a country of city-states. Settlements were made on the coasts of the Hellespont, the Propontis (Sea of Marmora), and the Black Sea, the most important being Byzantium (Constantinople), Sinope, Cerasus, and Trapezus (Trebizonde). There were also flourishing Greek colonies on the coasts of Thrace and Macedonia: for example, Abdera, Amphipolis, Olynthus, Potidæa, &c; and the Greek colonies in Lower Italy were so numerous that the inhabitants of the interior spoke Greek, and the whole region received the name of Greater Greece (Magna Græcia). The most famous of the Greek colonies in this quarter were Tarentum, Sybaris, Croton, Cumæ, and Neapolis (Naples). Sicily also came to a great extent into the hands of the Greeks, who founded on it or enlarged many towns, the largest, most powerful, and most highly cultured of the Greek colonies here being the Corinthian colony of Syracuse, founded in the eighth century B.C. Other important colonies were Cyrene on the north coast of Africa, and Massilia(Marseilles) on the south coast of Gaul. All these colonies as a rule preserved the customs and institutions of the mother city, but were quite independent.

Although Greece was split into self-governing city-states, the people always looked upon themselves as one people, and classed all other nations as Barbaroi (foreigners). There were four chief bonds of union between the Greek tribes. First and chiefly they had a common language, which, despite its dialectic peculiarities, was understood throughout all Hellas or the Greek world. Secondly, they had common religious ideas and institutions, and especially, in the oracle of Delphi, a common religious sanctuary. Thirdly, there was a general assembly of the Greeks, the Amphictyonic League, in which the whole people was represented by tribes (not by states), and the chief functions of which were to guard the Interests of the sanctuary of Delphi, and to see that the wars between the separate states of Greece were not too merciless. The fourth bond consisted in the four great national festivals or games, the Olympian, Isthmian, Nemean, and Pythian, on the first of which the whole of Greece based its calendar.

The various separate states of Greece may be divided, according to the form of their constitution, into the two great classes of aristocratic and democratic. Sparta or Lacedæmon, the chief town of Laconia and of the Doric tribe, was the leading aristocratic state; and Athens, the capital of Attica and the chief town of the Ionic tribe, was the leading democratic state; and as a rule all the Doric states, and subsequently all those under the influence of Sparta, resembled that city in their constitution; and all the Ionic states, and those under the influence of Athens, resembled it. These two tribes or races are the only ones that come into prominence during the earlier part of Greek history subsequent to the Doric migration. Sparta is said to have derived its form of government, and all its institutions, in the ninth century B.C., from Lycurgus, whose regulations developed a hardy and warlike spirit among the people, the results of which were seen in their conquests over surrounding states, especially over the Messenians in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.

The constitution of Athens appears from the legends of Theseus and Codrus to have been at first monarchical, and afterwards aristocratic, and to have first received a more or less democratic character from Solon at the beginning of the sixth century B.C. This was followed about fifty years later by a monarchical usurpation under Pisistratus, and his sons Hippias and Hipparchus, the last survivor of whom, Hippias, reigned in Athens till 510 B.C. After the expulsion of Hippias the republic was restored, under the leadership of Cleisthenes, in a more purely democratic form than at first. A brief struggle with the Spartan, whose aid was invoked by some of the nobles, now took place, and Athens emerged from it well prepared for the new danger which threatened Greece.

The Greek colonies in Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, after being conquered by Croesus, king of Lydia, fell with the fall of Croesus into the power of Cyrus, king of Persia. In B.C. 500, however, the Ionians revolted with the assistance of the Athenians and Eretrians, and pillaged and burned Sardis. The rebellion was soon crushed by Darius, who destroyed Miletus, and prepared to invade Greece. In 492 he sent an expedition against the Greeks under his son-in-law Mardonius, but the fleet which carried his army was destroyed in a storm off Mount Athos. A second army, under the command of Datis and Artaphernes, landed on Euboea, and after destroying Eretria, crossed the Euripus into Attica; but it was totally defeated in B.C. 490 on the plain of Marathon by 10,000 Athenians and 1000 Platæans. under Miltiades. In the midst of preparations for a third expedition Darius died, leaving his plan to be carried out by his son Xerxes, who, with an army of 1,700,000 men, crossed the Hellespont in 481 by means of two bridges of boats, and marched through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, while his fleet followed the line of coast. In the pass of' Thermopylæ he was held in check by Leonidas with 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians; but the small band was betrayed and annihilated (480 B.C.); and the way through Phocis and Boeotia being now open be advanced into Attica, and laid Athens in ruins. The deliverance of Greece was chiefly due to the genius and courage of Themistocles. The united fleet of the Greeks had already contended with success against that of the Persians off Artemisium, and had then sailed into the Saronic Gulf, followed by the enemy. Themistoeles succeeded in inducing the Persians to attack in the narrow strait between Attica and Salamis, and totally defeated them.

From a neighbouring height Xerxes himself witnessed the destruction of his fleet, and at once began a speedy retreat with his land army through Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, leaving behind him 300,000 men in Thessaly. In the spring of the following year (479) these advanced into Attica and compelled the citizens once more to seek refuge in Salamis; but were so completely defeated at Platæa, by the Greeks under Pausanias, that only 40,000 Persians reached the Hellespont. On the same day the remnant of the Persian fleet was defeated by the Greeks off Mount Mycale.

The brilliant part taken by the Athenians under Themistocles in repelling this invasion of Athens greatly increased her influence throughout Greece. From this date begins the period of the leadership or hegemony of Athens in Greece, which continued to the close of the Peloponnesian war, 404 B.C. The first thing which Athens exerted her influence to effect was the formation of a confederacy, including the Greek islands and maritime towns, to supply means for the continuance of the war by payments into a common treasury established on the island of Delos, and by furnishing ships. In this way Athens gradually increased her power so much that she was able to render tributary several of the islands and smaller maritime states. In 469 B.C. the series of victories won by the Athenians over the Persians was crowned by the double victory of Cimon over the Persian fleet and army on the Eurymedon, in Asia Minor, followed by the Peace of Cimon, which secured the independence of all Greek towns and islands. During the 'classical' period, Athens was the centre of the world. It was at this time that the temples of the Acropolis, which exist today as noble ruins, were built under the direction of the great leader, Pericles. The art, literature, science and philosophy of the 'classical' Greek period have had more influence on western civilisation than that of any other period in the history of man.

It was often difficult for people in one place to communicate with those in another, gradually a system grew up called democracy (a word which comes from the Greek for people', demos). Unlike modern 'democracies' the Greek city-state did not elect other people to represent them, but each freeman took a personal part in government.

The position of Athens, however, and the arrogance and severity with which she treated the states that came under her power made her many enemies. In the course of time two hostile confederacies were formed in Greece, one consisting of Athens and the democratic states of Greece; the other of Sparta and the aristocratic states. At lest, in 431, war was declared by Sparta on the complaint of Corinth that Athens had furnished assistance to Corcyra in its war against the mother city; and on that of Megara, that the Megarean ships and merchandise were excluded from all the ports and markets of Attica; and thus began the

The Peloponnesian War (481-404 BC) which for twenty-seven years devastated Greece. In the first part of the war the Spartan; who invaded Attica in 431 B.C. and three times in the five years following, had considerable successes, which were aided by the pestilence that broke out at Athens and the death of Pericles. In 425, however, Pylos was captured by the Athenian general Demosthenes, and the Spartan garrison on the island of Sphacteria was compelled to surrender to Cleon. Soon after Cythera fell into the hands of the Athenians, but they were defeated in Boeotia at Delium (424) and at Amphipolis in Thrace by Brasidas in 422, when both Cleon and Brasidas were killed. The Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.), which followed the death of Cleon, brought disaffection into the Spartan Confederacy, the Corinthians endeavouring with Argos and Elis to wrest from Sparta the hegemony of the Peloponnesus. In this design they were supported by Alcibiades; but Sparta was victorious at the battle of Mantinea in 418. Soon after this the Athenians resumed hostilities, fitting out in 415 B.C. a magnificent army and fleet, under the command of Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus, for the reduction of Syracuse. Alcibiades, however, being subsequently deprived of his command on a charge of impiety, betook himself to Sparta, and exhorted the city to renew the war with Athens. By his advice one Spartan army was despatched to Attica, where it took up such a position as prevented the Athenians from obtaining supplies from Euboea, while another was sent under Gylippus to assist their kindred in Sicily. These steps were ruinous to Athens. The Athenian army and fleet at Syracuse were completely destroyed, and though the war was maintained with spirit the prestige of Athens was seriously diminished. Many of her allies joined Sparta, and a revolution and brief change of government tended still further to weaken her. Still she made not unsuccessful efforts to regain her position, conquered the revolted towns about the Bosphorus, and defeated the Spartan admiral Callicratidas off the islands of Arginusæ in 406. Sparta, however, was now in receipt of Persian aid, and Lysander, having captured nearly the whole Athenian fleet at Ægospotamos (405), retook the towns of Asia Minor, surrounded Athens, and blocked the Piræus. In 404 B.C. the Athenians were starved into surrender, the fortifications were destroyed, and an aristocratic form of government established by Sparta, placing the supreme power in the hands of thirty individuals, commonly known as the Thirty Tyrants. Only a year later, however (403), Thrasybulus was able to reestablish the democracy.

The period which follows the fall of Athens is that of Sparta's leadership or hegemony in Greece, which lasted till the battle of Leuctra, in 371 B.C. The Spartan rule was not more liked than that of Athens, and the character of the Spartan state itself, with its increase of wealth and power, underwent great change. To escape the stigma of having ceded the cities of Asiatic Greece to Persia, Agesilaus was sent to retake them, but was defeated by the fleet of Pharnabazus under Conon the Athenian; and the states of Greece, the Spartan. included, at last, in 387, agreed to the disgraceful Peace of Antalcidas, by which the whole west coast of Asia Minor was ceded to the Persians. An act of violence committed by a Spartan general in garrisoning Thebes in 380, was the commencement of the downfall of Sparta. The Thebans revolted under Pelopidas and Epaminondas, and the Spartans on invading Boeotia were so completely defeated at Leuctra in 371 B.C. that they never fully recovered from the blow. With this victory Thebes won the leading place in Greece, which she maintained during the lifetime of Epaminondas, whose influence was paramount in the Peloponnesus. Epaminondas fell in defeating the Spartans and Arcadians near Mantinea in 362, and his death reduced once more the authority of Thebes in Greece.

Two years alter the death of Epaminondas Philip of Macedon took over the leadership of all Greece, an occasion for interference in the affairs of Greece was furnished him by the war known as the Sacred war (355 - 346), arising from the Phocians having taken possession of some of the land belonging to the sanctuary of Delphi. The Phocians were besieged by the Thebans, who called in the aid of Philip of Macedon, who was accorded the place till then held by the Phocians in the Amphictyonic League. It was not, however, till the Locrian war (339-328) that Philip acquired a firm hold in Greece. The Locrians had committed the same offence as the Phocians, and Philip, as one of the members of the league, received the charge of punishing them. The real designs of Philip soon became apparent, and the Athenians, on the advice of Demosthenes, hastily concluded an alliance with the Thebans, and sent an army to oppose him. The battle of Chæronea which ensued (338) turned out, however, disastrously for the allies, and Philip became master of Greece. He then collected a army for the invasion and conquest of the rotten empire of Persia, and got himself declared commander-in-chief by the Amphictyonic league at Corinth in 337 B.C.; but before he was able to start he was assassinated, B.C. 336.

The design of Philip was taken up and carried out by his son Alexander the Great, during whose absence Antipater was left behind as governor of Macedonia and Greece. Soon after the departure of Alexander, Agis III of Sparta headed a rising against Antipater, but was defeated at Megalopolis in 330 B.C., and no other attempt was made by the Greeks to recover their liberty for nearly a hundred years. In a series of brilliant campaigns Alexander extended the Macedonian empire and spread Greek civilisation to the frontiers of the then-known world. At the close of the wars which followed the death of Alexander, and which resulted in the division of his empire, Greece remained with Macedonia.

The last efforts of the Greeks to recover their independence proceeded from the Achæans, who though frequently mentioned by Homer as taking a prominent part in the Trojan war, had for the most part kept aloof from the quarrels of the other states, and did not even furnish assistance to repel the Persian invasion. They had taken part, though reluctantly, in the Peloponnesian war on the side of Sparta, and had shared in the defeat of Megalopolis in B.C. 330. In the course of the first half of the third century B.C. several of the Achæan towns expelled the Macedonians, and revived an ancient confederacy, which was now known as the Achæan League. Aratos of Sicyon became its leading spirit. It was joined also by Corinth, and even by Athens and Ægina. The Spartans, however, who had maintained their independence against Macedonia, naturally looked with jealousy on the efforts of Aratus, and during the reign of Cleomenes a war broke out between Sparta and the Achæan League. The league was at first worsted, and was only finally successful when Aratus sacrificed the ultimate end of the league by calling in the aid of the Macedonians. In the battle of Sellasia (222 B.C.) Cleomenes was defeated, and the Macedonians became masters of Sparta. Aratus died in 213, and his place was taken by Philopoemen, 'the last of the Greeks' who succeeded in making the league in some degree independent of Macedonia.

After the bitter struggle with Carthage in the Punic Wars which lasted, on and off, for over 100 years, the Romans, found occasion to interfere in the affairs of Greece. Philip V. of Macedon having allied himself with Hannibal, the Romans sent over Flamininus to punish him, and in this war with Philip the Romans were joined by the Achæan League. Philip was defeated at Cynoscephalæ in 197 B.C., and was obliged to recognize the independence of Greece. The Achæan league thus became supreme in Greece, having been joined by all the states of the Peloponnesus. But the league itself was in reality subject to Rome, which fond constant ground for interference until 147 B.C., when the league openly resisted the demand of the senate, that Sparta, Corinth, Argos, and other cities, separated from it. In the war which ensued, which was concluded in 146 B.C. by the capture of Corinth by the Roman consul Mummius, Greece completely lost its independence, and was subsequently formed into a Roman province.

On the division of the Roman Empire Greece fell of course to the eastern or Byzantine half. From 1204 to 1261 it formed a part of the Latin Empire of the East, and was divided into a number of feudal principalities. In the latter year it was re-annexed to the Byzantine Empire, with which it remained till it was conquered by the Turks between 1460 and 1473. In 1699 the Morea was ceded to the Venetians, but was recovered by the Turks in 1715. From 1715 till 1821 the Greeks were without intermission subject to the domination of the Turks. In 1770, and again in 1790, they made vain attempts at insurrection, but is. 1821 Ali, the pasha of Janina, revolted against the sultan Mahmoud IL, and secured the aid of the Greeks by promising them their independence. The rising of the Greeks took place on the 6th of March, under Alexander Ypsilanti, and on the 1st of January. 1822, they published a declaration of independence. In the same year Ali was assassinated by the Turks, but the Greeks, encouraged by most of the European nations, continued the struggle under various leaders, of whom the chief were Marcos Bozzaris, Cape d'Istria, Constantine Kanaris, Kolocotroni, &c. In 1825 the Turks, with the aid of Ibrahim Pasha, took Tripolitza, the capital of the Morea, and Missolonghi, and though Lord Cochrane organized the Greek fleet, and the French colonel Fabvier their army, the Turks continued to triumph everywhere. A treaty was then concluded at London (July 6, 1827) between Britain, France, and Russia, for the pacification of Greece, and when the mediation of these three powers was declined by the sultan, their united fleets, under Admiral Codrington, annihilated the Turkish fleet off Navarino, Oct. 20, 1827. In the beginning of the following year (1828) Count Capo d'Istria became president of the state, and later on in the same year Ibrahim Pasha was forced to evacuate Greece. At last, on the 3d of February, 1830, a protocol of the allied powers declared the independence of Greece's which was recognized by the Porte on the 25th April of this year. The crown was offered to Leopold, prince of Saxe-Coburg, and when he refused it, to Otho, a young prince of Bavaria, who was proclaimed king of the Hellenes at Nauplia in 1832. But his arbitrary measures, and the preponderance which he gave to Germans in the government, made him unpopular, and although after a rebellion in 1843 a constitution was drawn up, he was compelled by another rebellion in 1862 to abdicate. A provisional government was then set up at Athens, and the National Assembly offered the vacant throne in succession to Prince Alfred of England and Prince William George of Denmark The latter accepted it, and on March 30, 1863, was proclaimed as King George I. In 1864 the Ionian Islands, which had hitherto formed an independent republic under the protection of Britain, were annexed to Greece.

From the first Greece has sought an opportunity of extending its frontier northwards, so as to include the large Greek population in Thessaly and Epirus. In January 1878, after the fall of Plevna, Greek troops were moved into Thessaly and Epirus but were withdrawn on the remonstrance of Britain. The promises held out to Greece by the Berlin congress were in danger of being withdrawn, but the persistence of Greece led in 1881 to the cession to her of Thessaly and part of Epirus. The union of Eastern Roumelia with Bulgaria, in 1885, gave rise to fresh demands, and war with Turkey was only prevented by the great powers. In 1897 an insurrection in Crete led to the interference of the Greek, and to war with Turkey, the result being the speedy defeat of Greece, entailing the payment of a heavy war indemnity with some loss of territory on the Thessalian frontier.