with the best intelligence and prudence of which he could avail himself; but his code for private life was no less deserving commendation. Unlike Lycurgus, he regarded polity as subordinate to morals. Yet the reader need not be reminded, that the social condition of Greece, as compared with that of the modern ages, had little, indeed, to boast. Plato, Socrates, and other eminent philosophers and sages, not only tolerated, but were even the avowed apologists of polygamy, and its train of vices. The legislation of Solon was soon disturbed by the factious tyranny of Pisistratus, who obtained by force of arms the government of Athens. This usurpation was again succeeded by the return of Alcmæonidæ, who, aided by a Spartan army, took possession of the city in 510. This resulted in a modification of the Constitutión. Clisthenes, with a view of quenching party spirit by a new combination of the citizens, increased their elective powers. A struggle with the Spartans and the allies, who sought to reestablish monarchy in Attica, soon ensued; and yet the glorious success of the republic, in this her first effort in the cause of liberty, gave fresh impulse to the national spirit. It was that which induced Athens to unite with the Asiatic Greeks in the cause of freedom, and which provoked the vengeance of the Persians; ad yet, but for that daring encounter, Greece would probably never have achieve.. that greatness and renown which have signalized her in the history of the world. It is, perhaps, sufficient for our purpose thus to sketch the outline history of Sparta and Athens-the two most important of the Grecian States; the others being of subordinate interest. Greece derives her importance among the nations of antiquity, not only from her brilliant successes in arms, her love of art and letters, and her liberal institutions, but also from her numerous colonies. These spread along the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black seas. The history of early civilization, therefore, owes much to the efforts of Greece, for she carried her influence east and west, far and wide. This gives us the clue to the sources of her opulence, supremacy, and splendor. These colonies, numbering over a hundred, had each its own peculiar form of government,—showing a wonderful variety of political views among these people. "Of the Greek colonies, the most ancient, and in many respects the most important, were those along the western coast of Asia Minor, extending from the Hellespont to the boundary of Cilicia. Here, ever since the Trojan war, which first made these countries generally known, the Æolians, Ionians, and Dorians had planted settlements. These were the most important for trade. Here likewise, in the native country of Homer, the father of Grecian civilization, of Alcæus, and of Sappho, poesy, both epic and lyric, expanded her first and fairest blossoms; and hence, too, the Mother Country herself received the first impulse of moral and cultivated tastes."* When almost all the Grecian States and colonies submitted to the Persian yoke, Sparta and Athens alone boldly resisted it. The evermemorable battle of Marathon proved not only the superiority of Athenian heroism, but was also the preservation of Grecian liberty. After the fall of Miltiades, the history of Athens becomes that of eminent generals or demagogues: Themistocles and Aristides were the real founders of the power of the Commonwealth. The former, in successfully accomplishing what Miltiades failed to achieve, made Athens also a mighty maritime power. While the rival State was thus advancing in power, Sparta suffered from the insanity of one of her kings, Cleomenes, and the arrogance of another, Leotychides. To Themistocles belongs the glory of frustrating the second Persian invasion of Greece, under Xerxes. However weak might have been the national leagues, separately, being bound together by common interests and animated by the controlling spirit of the Grecian deliverer, they were irresistible. The great naval victory of Salamis does not reflect greater glory upon the Greeks, than did the gallant action of Leonidas with his three hundred Spartans: yet, as the plan for the conduct of these engagements originated with Themistocles, the pre-eminent merit of their success is to be alone ascribed to his Heeren's Ancient Researches. statesmanship and military skill. Further successes by the battles of Platea on the land, and of Mycale at sea, ending in the destruction of the Persian fleet, expelled forever from the shores of Greece that mighty foe. Sparta at this time acquired a temporary ascendency, yet soon the command was transferred to Athens; and not only was this the occasion of jealousy between these States, but it also had a decided influence on all the subsequent relations of Greece. Then follows about half a century of eminent prosperity to Athens: far different was it with Sparta; there rude customs and laws arrested the development of genius; there men were taught to die for their country, while in Athens they learned to live for it. The loss of Themistocles was supplied by Cimon, who protracted the war against the Persians in order to maintain the union of the States; while the death of Aristides and the banishment by ostracism of Cimon, concurred in elevating Pericles to the head of affairs, who for forty years swayed Athens, without either being archon or member of the Areopagus. His administration was evidently of the democratic character, as that of his predecessor was that of the aristocratic. The idea of a perfect equality among the Grecian States is proved to have been chimerical, since the minor independencies were swayed by the more powerful; and even between these-Sparta and Athens an almost uninterrupted strife for supremacy existed. Sparta was now doomed to be abased before the great Theban general, Epaminondas. In her distress, Sparta formed an alliance with Athens; while Thebes entered into a compact with Persia. A sanguinary struggle between Sparta and Thebes left Greece but an independence proceeding from enervation; yet at the very time of the growing power of Macedonia under Philip, she madly plunged into another devastating civil war of ten years' duration, known as the Phocian war. "The treasures of Delphi circulating in Greece, were as injurious to the country as the ravages which it underwent. A war springing out of private passions, fostered by bribes and subsidiary troops, and terminated by the interference of foreign powers, was exactly what was requisite for annihilating the scanty remains of morality and patriotism still existing in Greece."* The very first advance of Philip was a premonition of the fate of Greece, although the eloquence of Demosthenes warded it off until the second invasion. The battle of Charonea was the commencement of the Macedonian ascendency over the Grecian republics. The history of Greece, from the accession of Alexander of Macedon until the final subjection to the Roman power, it is scarcely necessary to detail. At the decease of Alexander, Sparta had been humiliated by defeat; while Athens remained the first State in Greece. Frequent revolutions, civil commotions, and State intrigues and crimes, mark her declining career. While Greece was thus passing into her decadence, Roman strategy and Roman valor were striving for the transfer of the supremacy. Rome, taking advantage of the disorder caused by the frequent factions and feuds which occurred between the Achæans and Sparta, or Messene, conquered Macedonia; and at the sack of Corinth, the light of Grecian freedont finally vanished. Of all the great nations of antiquity, none, perhaps, boasts of such a rapid and brilliant career as Greece; and her decline was as strangely sudden. It may well be asked, whence came the efflorescence of Grecian mind in the age of Pericles? What was the element of power that caused a handful of Greeks to overmaster the proud chivalry of the Persians? what the mighty spell which made the Hellenic arms the terror of the surrounding nations,—and won such brilliant triumphs at Marathon, Salamis, and Platea, as to fill all Greece with the exultant shouts of Liberty, and blazon the scroll of history with the records of heroic glory? Yet was her triumph as brief as it was brilliant. In a single generation, Grecian Liberty reached its culmination, and in another century, its overthrow. The conflicting and diversified character of Grecian society suggests a clue. Hers was a social amalgam: all the gradations of wealth and poverty, as well as liberty and oppression, were among its elements. Hence feud and faction, as well as military despotism, were among * Heoren. the disturbing causes of the public weal. It has been eloquently said, that Attic wisdom, Theban hardihood, and Spartan valor, could not combine to save her; that very army which Greece had bred and nourished, to reduce oriental pride, was turned, vulture-like, upon herself. Thus Greece, with her battlements and towers, her glorious triumphs in arts and arms, is hurled headlong from her giddy height, —a parricide,—at once the shame and pity of the world! "When Greece with Greece, Embroil'd with foul contention, fought no more The Commonwealths of Greece were generally the scenes of popular commotion, the tyranny of one part of the people over the other, or of usurping demagogues over the whole. Pericles, the noblest, perhaps, of his class the world has ever seen, was yet a demagogue. He sacrificed the last conservative institution of Athens for the advancement of his own political power, the dictatorship. "It cannot be denied that the Athenian democracy abused its absolutism, and that the Athenian State made an unjust use of its supremacy over the allies; and thus viewed, there is some truth in the assertion of Isocrates, that the dominion of the sea was the source of all the misery of Athens and Greece. But it is not fair to confine our views to the abuse: what form of government, or what State, ever effected so much in the same space of time for humanity, as Athens and its democracy, during the brief period of their meridian glory? Pericles, Phidias, Polygnotus, Sophocles, Socrates, Plato, Demosthenes, were the children of the democracy; and truly great must the public spirit of that nation have been, which could foster, encourage, and develop the genius capable of achieving their mighty deeds.” ↑ *Thomson. + Taylor's Nat. Hist. of Society. |