AS Epitomes
George Grote: The History Of Greece
Abstract
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Contents Updated: Wednesday, 20 February, 2008
George Grote
George Grote was born at Beckenham, 17 Nov, 1794, and educated at the Charterhouse. At the age of 16 he entered his father's bank, but he continued his studies and attained high profIciency in the classics, economics and philosophy. A philosophic radical, a keen politician and reformer, and pre-eminent among the educationists of the time, he represented the City of London in Parliament from 1832 to 1841, and took an active part in the foundation and organization of the University of London, where he founded and endowcd the chair of Philosophy of Mind and Logic. Grote ,vas the recipient of many academic honours and declined a peerage in 1869. He died June 18, 1871, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
As early as 1822, George Grote conceived the idea of writing a reliable and authoritative history of Greece, and was confirmed in his purpose by the publication of Mitford's history, a work full of anti-democratic fervour, and antagonistic to the great Greek democratic state of Athens. In some respects Grote's work is a defence of the Athenian democracy, at least as contrasted with Sparta. It appeared in twelve volumes between 1846 and 1856 and covered Greek history from the earliest times till the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander the Great. It at once occupied, and still holds the field as the classic work on the subject as a whole, though later research has modified several of Grote's conclusions. His methods were pre-eminently thorough, dispassionate and judicial, and his style is direct and forcible.
Early History
The divine myths constitute the earliest matter of Greek history. These may be divided into those which belong to the gods and to the heroes respectively, but most of them, present gods, heroes and men in juxtaposition.
Every community sought to trace its origin to some common divine, or semi-divine, progenitor, the establishment of a pedigree was a necessity, and each pedigree contains at some point figures corresponding to some actual historical character, before whom the pedigree is imaginary, but after whom, in the main, actual. The precise point where the legend fades into the mythical, or consolidates into the historical, is not usually ascertainable. The legendary period culminates in the tale of Troy, which belongs to a period prior to the Dorian conquest presented in the Herakleid legend, the tale of Troy itself remaining the common heritage of the Greek peoples, and having an actual basis in historical fact. The events, however, are of less importance than the picture of an actual historical, political and social system, corresponding, not to the supposed date of the Trojan war, but to the date of the composition of the Homeric poems.
Later ages regarded the myths themselves with a good deal of scepticism, and were often disposed to rationalise them, or to fmd for them an allegorical interpretation. The myths of other European peoples have undergone a somewhat similar treatment. Greece proper, that is, the European territory occupied by the Hellenic peoples, has a very extensive coast line, covers the islands of the Aegean and is so mountainous on the mainland that communication between one point and another is not easy. This facilitated the system which isolated communities, compelling each one to develop and perfect its own separate organization, so that Greece became, not a state, but a congeries of single separate city states—small territories centring in the city, although in some cases the village system was not centralised into the city system.
On the other hand, the Hellenes definitely recognized their common affinity, looked on themselves as a distinct aggregate, and emphatically differentiated that entire aggregate from the non-Hellenes, whom they designated “barbarians”. Of these states, the first to come into view—post-Homerically—is Sparta, the head of the Dorian communities, governed under the laws and discipline attributed to Lycurgus, with its special peculiarity of the dual kingship designed to make a pure despotism impossible.
The government lay and remained in the hands of the conquering Spartan race—as for a time with the Normans in England—which formed a close oligarchy, while within the oligarchical body the organization was democratic and communistic. For Sparta, the eighth and seventh centuries BC were characterised by the two Messenian wars, and we note that while the Hellenes generally recognized her headship, Argos claimed a titular right to that position.
From Tyrants to Persians
As a general rule, the primitive monarchical system portrayed in the Homeric poems was displaced in the Greek cities by an oligarchical government, which in turn was overthrown by an irregular despotism called tyrannis, primarily established by a professed popular leader, who maintained his supremacy by mercenary troops. One after another these usurping dynasties were again ejected in favour either of a restored oligarchy or of a democracy.
Sparta, where the power of the dual kingship was extremely limited, was the only state where the legitimate kingship survived. Corinth attained her highest power under the despot Periander, son of Cypselus.
Of the Ionian section of Greek states, the supreme type is Athens. Her early history is obscure. The kingship seems to have ended by being, so to speak, placed in commission, the royal functions being discharged by an elected body of Archons. Dissensions among the groups of citizens issued in the democratic Solonian constitution, which remained the basis of Athenian government, except during the despotism of the house of Pisistratus in the latter half of the sixth century BC.
But outside of Greece proper were the numerous Dorian and Ionian colonies, really independent cities, planted in the coast districts of Asia Minor, at Cyrene and Barka in Mediterranean Africa, in Epirus (Albania), Southern Italy, Sicily and even at Massilia in Gaul and in Thrace beyond the proper Hellenic area. These colonies brought the Greek world in touch with Lydia and its king, Croesus, with the one sea going Semitic power, the Phoenicians, with the Egyptians and, more remotely, with the wholly Oriental empires of Assyria and Babylon, as well as with the outer barbarians of Scythia.
Between 560 and 510 BC, Athens was generally under the rule of the despot Pisistratus and his son Hippias. In 510, the Pisistratidae were expelled and Athens became a pure democracy. Meanwhile, the Persian, Cyrus, had seized the Median monarchy and overthrown every other potentate in Western Asia, Egypt was added to the vast Persian dominion by his son Cambyses. A new dynasty was established by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, who organized the empire, but failed to extend it by invading European Scythia.
The revolt of the Ionic cities in Asia Minor against the governments established by the “great king” brought him in contact with the Athenians, who sent help to Ionia. Demands for “earth and water”, ie the formal recognition of Persian sovereignty, sent to the apparently insignificant Greek states were insolently rejected. Darius sent an expedition to punish Athens in particular, and the Athenians drove his army into the sea at the battle of Marathon.
Xerxes, son of Darius, organized an overwhelming force by land and sea to eat up the Greeks. The invaders were met but hardly checked at Thermopylae, where Leonidas and the immortal three hundred fell, all Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth was in their hands, including Athens. But their fleet was shattered to pieces, chiefly by the Athenians under Themistocles and Aristides at Salamis, and the destruction of their land forces was completed by the united Greeks at Plataea. A further disaster was inflicted on the same day at Mycale.
Athens
Meanwhile, the Sicilian Greeks, led by Gelo of Syracuse, successfully resisted and overthrew the aggression of Carthage, the issue being decided at the battle of Himera. The part played by Athens under the guidance of Themistocles in the repulse of Persia gave her a new position among the Greek states and an indisputable naval leadership. As the maritime head of Hellas, she was chief of the naval Delian League, now formed ostensibly to carry on the war against Persia. But the leaguers, who first contributed a quota of ships, soon began to substitute money to provide ships, which in effect swelled the Athenian navy and turned the contributors into tributaries. Thus, almost automatically, the Delian League converted itself into an Athenian empire.
In Athens itself an unparalleled personal ascendancy was acquired by Pericles, who made the form of govemment and administration more democratic than before. But this growing supremacy of Athens aroused the jealous alarm of other Greek states. Sparta saw her own titular hegemony threatened, the subject cities grew restive under the Athenian yoke. Sparta came forward professedly as champion of the liberties of Hellas. Athens refused to submit to Spartan dictation and accepted the challenge which plunged Greece into the Peloponnesian war. The Athenians concentrated on the expansion of their naval armament, left the open country undefended and gathered within the city walls, and landed forces at will on the Peloponnese. Plataea, almost their sole ally on land, held out valiantly for some time, but was forced to surrender, and Athens herself suffered frightfully from a visitation of the plague.
After the death of Pericles, Cleon became the most prominent leader of the aggressive and democratic party, Nicias, of the anti-democratic peace party. Over most of Greece in each state the oligarchic faction favoured the Peloponnesian league, the democratic, Athens. The general Demosthenes at Pylos effected the surrender of a Lacedaemonian force, which temporarily shattered Sparta's military prestige, a blow in some degree counteracted by the brilliant operations of Brasidas in the north, where, however, both he and Cleon were killed.
Meanwhile, Athens was awakening to the possibilities of a great sea empire, in consequence of her intervention having been invited in disputes among the Sicilian states. As the outcome, incited by the brilliant young Alcibiades, she resolved on the fatal Sicilian expedition. The expedition, planned on an unprecedented scale, and placed under the command of Alcibiades and Nicias, was dispatched in spite of the startling mutilation of the Hermae, a sacrilegious performance attributed to Alcibiades. It had hardly reached Sicily when he was recalled, but made his escape and spent some years in intriguing against Athens.
The siege of Syracuse was progressing favourably, when the Spartan Gylippus was allowed to enter, and put new life into the defence. Disaster followed on disaster both by sea and land, finally, the whole Athenian force was either cut to pieces or surrendered at discretion, to become the slaves of the Syracusans, both Nicias and Demosthenes being put to death.
Meanwhile, the truce between Athens and Sparta had been ended and war again declared, Sparta occupied permanently a post on Attic territory, Deceleia, with merciless effect. The Sicilian disaster moved the islanders, notably Chios, to revolt, with Spartan help, against Athens. She, however, renovated her navy with unexpected vigour. But, with her fleets away, Alcibiades inspired oligarchical in trigues in the city, a coup d'etat gave the government to the leaders of a group of 400. The navy stood by the democratic constitution, the 400 were overthrown, and an assembly, nominally of 5,000, assumed the government.
A great Athenian triumph at Arginusae was followed later by a still more overwhelming disaster at Aegos Potami. The Spartan commander Lysander blockaded Athens, starvation forced her to surrender. Lysander established the government known as that of the Thirty Tyrants, who were headed by Kritias. Lysander's ascendancy created in Sparta a party in opposition to him, in the outcome, the Spartan king Pausanias helped in the overthrow of the Thirty at Athens by Thrasybulus, and the restoration of the Athenian democracy. Throughout, the conduct of the democratic party contrasted favourably with that of the oligarchical faction.
Sparta
These eighty years were the great period of Athenian literature and art, of the Parthenon and Pheidias, of Aeschylus, the soldier of Marathon, then of Sophocles and Euripides and Aristophanes, finally, of Socrates, the inspirer of Plato and the founder of ethical science. But the triumph of Sparta had established her empire among the Greeks, she used her power with a tyranny infinitely more galling than the sway of Athens. The Spartan character had become greatly demoralised. Agesilaus, who succeeded to the kingship, set on foot ambitious projects for a Greek conquest of Asia, but Greece began to revolt against the Spartan dominion. Thebes and other cities rose, and called for help from Athens, their former foe.
In the first stages of the ensuing war, of which the most notable battle was Coronea, Sparta maintained her supremacy within the Peloponnesus, but not beyond. Athens obtained the countenance of Persia, and the counter diplomacy of Sparta produced the peace known by the name of the Spartan Antalcidas, establishing generally the autonomy of Greek cities. But this in effect meant the restoration of Spartan domination.
In course of time, however, this brought about the defiance of Spartan dictation by Thebes and the tremendous check to her power inflicted at the battle of Leuctra, by Epaminondas the Theban, whose military skill and tactical originality there overthrew the Spartan military prestige. As a consequence, half the Peloponnese itself broke away from Sparta, a force under Epaminondas aided the Arcadians and the Arcadian federation was. established.
Hellenic Sicily during these years was having a history of her own of some importance. Syracuse, after her triumph over the Athenian forces, continued the contest with her neighbours, which had been the ostensible cause of the Athenian expedition. But this was closed by the advent of fresh invaders, the Carthaginians, who renewed the attack repulsed at tIimera. Owing to the disaster to Athens, her fleets were no longer to be feared by Carthage as a protection to the Hellenic world, and for two centuries to come, her interventions in Sicily were incessant. Now, the presence of a foreign foe in Sicily gave intriguers for power at Syracuse their opportunity, of which the outcome was the subversion of the democracy and the establishment of Dionysius as despot.
His son, Dionysius II, succeeded, and was finally ejected by the Corinthian Timoleon, who, after a brilliant career of victories as Syracusan general against Carthage, acted as general liberator of Sicilian cities from despotisms, laid down his powers and was content with the position, not of despot, but of counsellor, to the great prosperity of Sicily as a whole.
Alexander
Going back to the north of Greece, the semi-Hellenic Macedon with a Hellenic dynasty was growing powerful. Philipfather of Alexander the Great-was now king, and was resolved to make himself the head of the Greek world. His great opponent is found in the person of the Athenian orator Demosthenes, who saw that Philip was aiming at ascendancy, but generally failed to persuade the Athenians to recognize the danger in which they stood. Philip gradually achieved his immediate end of being recognized as the captain-general of the Hellenes, and their leader in a new Persian war, when his life was cut short by an assassin, and he was succeeded by his youthful son Alexander.
The Greek states, awakening to their practical subjection, would have thrown off the new yoke, but the young king with swift and overwhelming energy swept down from Thrace upon Thebes, the centre of resistance, and stamped it out. He had already conceived, in part, at least, his vast schemes of Asiatic conquest, while he lived Greece had practically no distinguishable history. She is merely an appendage to Macedon. Everything is absorbed in the Macedonian conqueror. With an army incredibly small for the task before him, he entered Asia Minor and routed the Persian forces on the River Granicus. The Greek Memnon, the one able leader for the Persians, would have organized against him a destructive naval power, but death removed him.
Alexander dispersed the armies of the Persian king Darius at the Issus, captured Tyre after a remarkable siege and took easy possession of Egypt, where he founded Alexandria. Having organized the administration of the conquered territories, he marched to the Euphrates, but did not engage the enormous Persian hosts till he found and shattered them at the battle of Gaugamela, also called Arbela. Darius fled, and Alexander swept on to Babylon, to Susa, to Persepolis, assuming the functions of the “Great King”. The fugitive Darius was assassinated.
Alexander henceforth assumed a new and oriental demeanour, but he continued his conquests, crossing the Hindu Kush to Bactria and then bursting into the Punjab. But his ambitions were ended by his death, and their fulfilment, not at all according to his designs, was left to the, Diadochi, the generals among whom the conquered dominions were parted. Athens led the revolt against Macedonian supremacy, but in vain. Demosthenes, condemned by Antipater, took poison. The remainder of the history is that of the blotting out of Hellas and of Hellenism.
