History Of Ancient Civilization Part 16

No means were found of reconciling the two parties: the rich could not persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war,"

says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth."

They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors. "At Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee the city. But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them all, they took the children of the exiles, a.s.sembled them in barns and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reentered the city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive."

=Democracy and Oligarchy.=--Each of the two parties--rich and poor--had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when the party held the city. The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which gave the government into the hands of a few people. That of the poor was the Democracy which gave the power to an a.s.sembly of the people.

Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar party in the other cities. Thus were formed two leagues which divided all the Greek cities: the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league of the poor, or Democracy. This regime began during the Peloponnesian War. Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic. The cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta. Thus at Samos when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich, exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses.

Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with Athens. The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force. The city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of Sparta.

=The Tyrants.=--At length, the poor perceived that the democratic form of government did not give them strength enough to maintain the contest. In most of the cities they consented to receive a chief. This chief was called Tyrant. He governed as master without obeying any law, condemning to death, and confiscating property at will.

Mercenaries defended him against his enemies. The following anecdote represents the policy of the tyrants: "Periander, tyrant of Corinth, sent one day to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, to ask what conduct he ought to follow in order to govern with safety. Thrasybulus led the envoy into the field end walked with him through the wheat, striking off with his staff all heads that were higher than the others. He sent off the envoy without further advice." The messenger took him for a fool, but Periander understood: Thrasybulus was counselling him to slay the princ.i.p.al citizens.

Everywhere the rich were killed by the tyrant and their goods confiscated; often the wealth was distributed among the poor. This is why the populace always sustained the tyrant.

There were tyrants in Greece from the sixth century; some, like Pisistratus, Polycrates, and Pittacus, were respected for their wisdom. At that time every man was called tyrant who exercised absolute power outside the limits of the const.i.tution; it was not a t.i.tle of reproach.

But when the tyrants made incessant warfare on the rich they became sanguinary and so were detested. Their situation is depicted in the famous story of Damocles. This Damocles said to Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, "You are the happiest of men." "I will show you the delight of being a tyrant," replied Dionysius. He had Damocles served with a sumptuous feast and ordered his servants to show the guest the same honors as to himself. During the feast Damocles raised his eyes and perceived a sword suspended to the ceiling held only by a horse hair, and hanging directly over his head. The comparison was a striking one--the tyrant's life hung only by a thread. The rich, his enemies, watched for an opportunity to cut it, for it was regarded as praiseworthy to a.s.sa.s.sinate a tyrant. This danger irritated him and made him suspicious and cruel. He dared not trust anybody, believed himself secure only after the ma.s.sacre of all his enemies, and condemned the citizens to death on the slightest suspicion. Thus the name tyrant became a synonym of injustice.

=Exhaustion of Greece.=--The civil wars between rich and poor continued for nearly three centuries (430-150 B.C.). Many citizens were ma.s.sacred, a greater number exiled. These exiles wandered about in poverty. Knowing no trade but that of a soldier, they entered as mercenaries into the armies of Sparta, Athens, the Great King, the Persian satraps--in short, of anybody who would hire them. There were 50,000 Greeks in the service of Darius against Alexander. It was seldom that such men returned to their own country.

Thus the cities lost their people. At the same time families became smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raise children, others having but one or two. "Is not this," says Polybius, "the root of the evil, that of these two children war or sickness removes one, then the home becomes deserted and the city enfeebled?" A time came when there were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror.

THE ROMAN CONQUEST

=The Greek Leagues.=--The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an a.s.sembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."[103]

The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the aetolians and Achaeans, had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties--the aetolian League the democratic, the Achaean League[104] the oligarchical.

=The Roman Allies.=--Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,[105] the king of Syria (193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their armies and made them surrender their fleets.

Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and his kingdom overthrown (167).[106] The Greeks made no effort to unite for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the Romans.[107] While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against Rome. Even among the Achaeans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans, prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were held twenty years without trial.

=The Last Fight.=--The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies.

In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon, betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks a.s.sembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see his form, touch his hand; crowns and garlands were cast upon him. The pressure upon him was so great that he was nearly suffocated.

The Romans seeing themselves in control soon wished to command. The rich freely recognized their sovereignty; Rome served them by shattering the party of the poor. This endured for forty years. At last in 147, Rome being engaged with Carthage, the democratic party gained the mastery in Greece and declared war on the Romans. A part of the Greeks were panic-stricken; many came before the Roman soldiers denouncing their compatriots and themselves; others betook themselves to a safe distance from the cities; some hurled themselves into wells or over precipices. The leaders of the opposition confiscated the property of the rich, abolished debts, and gave arms to the slaves. It was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achaeans rea.s.sembled an army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The general Dius shut himself in his house with his whole family and set fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance; the Romans entered it, ma.s.sacred the men, and sold the women and children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust, Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice.

THE h.e.l.lENES IN THE OCCIDENT

=Influence of Greece on Rome.=--The Romans at the time of their conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to imitate these, as the a.s.syrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as the Persians did the a.s.syrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue, and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence. Later it was the fashion for the youth of the great Roman families to go as students to the schools of Athens and Alexandria. Thus the arts and science of the Greeks were gradually introduced into Rome. "Vanquished Greece overcame her savage conqueror," says Horace, the Roman poet; "she brought the arts to uncultured Latium."

=Architecture.=--The Romans had a national architecture. But they borrowed the column from the Greeks and often imitated their buildings. Many Roman temples resemble a Greek temple.

A wealthy Roman's house is composed ordinarily of two parts: the first, the ancient Roman house; the other is only a Greek house added to the first.

=Sculpture.=--The Greeks had thousands of statues, in temples, squares of the city, gymnasia, and in their dwellings. The Romans regarded themselves as the owners of everything that had belonged to the vanquished people. Their generals, therefore, removed a great number of statues, transporting them to the temples and the porticos of Rome.

In the triumph of aemilius Paullus, victor over the king of Macedon (Perseus), a notable spectacle was two hundred and fifty cars full of statues and paintings.

Soon the Romans became accustomed to adorn with statues their theatres, council-halls, and private villas; every great n.o.ble wished to have some of them and gave commissions for them to Greek artists.

Thus a Roman school of sculpture was developed which continued to imitate ancient Greek models. And so it was Greek sculpture, a little blunted and disfigured, which was spread over all the world subject to the Romans.

=Literature.=--The oldest Latin writer was a Greek, Livius Andronicus, a freedman, a schoolmaster, and later an actor. The first works in Latin were translations from the Greek. Livius Andronicus had translated the Odyssey and several tragedies. The Roman people took pleasure in Greek pieces and would have no others. Even the Roman authors who wrote for the theatre did nothing but translate or arrange Greek tragedies and comedies. Thus the celebrated works of Plautus and of Terence are imitations of the comedies of Menander and of Diphilus, now lost to us.

The Romans imitated also the Greek historians. For a long time it was the fashion to write history, even Roman history, in Greek.

The only great Roman poets declare themselves pupils of the Greeks.

Lucretius writes only to expound the philosophy of Epicurus; Catullus imitates the poets of Alexander; Vergil, Theocritus and Homer; Horace translates the odes of the Greek lyrics.

=Epicureans and Stoics.=--The Romans had a practical and literal spirit, very indifferent to pure science and metaphysics. They took interest in Greek philosophy only so far as they believed it had a bearing on morals.

Epicureans and Stoics were two sects of Greek philosophers. The Epicureans maintained that pleasure is the supreme good, not sensual pleasure, but the calm and reasonable pleasure of the temperate man; happiness consists in the quiet enjoyment of a peaceful life, surrounded with friends and without concern for imaginary goods. For the Stoics the supreme good is virtue, which consists in conducting one's self according to reason, with a view to the good of the whole universe. Riches, honor, health, beauty, all the goods of earth are nothing for the wise man; even if one torture him, he remains happy in the possession of the true good.

The Romans took sides for one or the other philosophy, usually without thoroughly comprehending either. Those who pa.s.sed for Epicureans spent their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life.

Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient religion and taught that all men are equal, slaves or citizens, Greeks or barbarians.

Their Roman disciples renounced in their school certain old superst.i.tions, and learned to show themselves less cruel to their slaves, less insolent toward other peoples.

The conquest of Greece by the Romans gave the arts, letters, and morals of the Greeks currency in the west, just as the conquest of the Persian empire by the Greeks had carried their language, customs, and religion into the Orient.

FOOTNOTES:

[102] In almost all the Greek cities there was no middle cla.s.s. In this regard Athens with its thirteen thousand small proprietors is a remarkable exception.

[103] Polybius, v., 104.

[104] The Achaean league had ill.u.s.trious leaders. In the third century, Aratus, who for twenty-seven years (251-224) traversed Greece, expelling tyrants, recalling the rich and returning to them their property and the government; in the second century Philopmen, who fought the tyrants of Sparta and died by poison.

[105] There were two kings of Syria by the name of Antiochus, between 193 and 169.--ED.

[106] The decisive battle (Pydna) was fought in 168. Perseus walked in the triumph of Paullus the next year.--ED.

[107] The party policies of the Greeks of this period were hardly so clearly drawn as the above would seem to indicate. Thus the Achaean League allied itself with Macedon against the aetolians and against Sparta. The aetolians leagued with the Romans against Macedon.--ED.

CHAPTER XVII

ROME

ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY

THE ETRUSCANS

=Etruria.=--The word Italy never signified for the ancients the same as for us: the Po Valley (Piedmont and Lombardy) was a part of Gaul.

The frontier country at the north was Tuscany. The Etruscans who dwelt there have left it their name (Tusci).