Problems in Greek history Part 19

[182:1] The Greek _city-polity_ ([Greek: polis]) was a perfectly clear and definite thing. A _nation_, on the contrary, may mean anything, for it may be determined by race, religion, language, locality, or tradition. Any one or all of these may be utilized to mark out the bounds of a nation according to the convenience of the case. I have often heard it a.s.serted, and seen it printed, that in Ireland the Protestants of the North and East are quite a separate race. Such a statement, generally made to justify harsh measures against them from a Parliament of Roman Catholics, would also justify them in seceding from the rest of Ireland.

[183:1] Duruy even quotes, in connection with the earlier Athenian Confederacy (chap. xix. -- 2), the words of the actual treaties between several of the smaller towns (Erythrae, Chalcis), which have been found graven on stone; and argues that because they a.s.sert permanent union with Athens, and invoke curses on him that hereafter attempts to dissolve this union, Athens was legally as well as morally justified in coercing any seceders. It is strange so acute a thinker should not perceive that this a.s.sertion of eternal peace and union was an almost universal and perfectly unmeaning formula. If such formulae were really valid, we might find ourselves bound by our ancestors to very serious obligations. There is no case, except that of Adam, where the act of one generation bound all succeeding centuries.

[185:1] We now have recovered several inscriptions, which give us information on some of these points. Cf. _Mitth._ of the German Inst.i.tute at Athens, xi. 262.

CHAPTER X.

THE ROMANS IN GREECE.

[Sidenote: Position of Rome towards the Leagues.]

-- 79. The interference of the Romans in Greek affairs reopened many of the const.i.tutional questions upon which I have touched; for in their conflicts with Macedon they took care to win the Greeks to their side by open declarations in favour of independence, and by supporting the Leagues, which afforded the only organization that could supply them with useful auxiliaries. When the Romans had conquered came the famous declaration that all the cities which had been directly subject to Macedon should be independent, while the Achaean League could resume its political life freed from the domination of the Antigonids which Aratus had accepted for it. Now at last it might have seemed as if the peninsula would resume a peaceful and orderly development under the presidency and without the positive interference of Rome.

[Sidenote: Roman interpretation of the 'liberty of the Greeks.']

But new and fatal difficulties arose. The 'liberty of the Greeks' was still, as ever, a sort of sentimental aphorism which the Romans repeated, often from conviction, often again from policy. But the Romans were a practical people, and did not the least understand why they should free the Greeks from Macedon in order that they might join some other h.e.l.lenistic sovran against Rome. And even if this danger did not arise, the Romans felt that the liberation of Greece would have worse than no meaning if the stronger States were allowed to prey upon the weaker, if every little city were allowed to go to war with its neighbours,--if, in fact, the nominal liberty resulted in the tyranny of one section over another.

[Sidenote: Opposition of the aetolians.]

Both these difficulties soon arose. The aetolians, who had not obtained from the Romans any extension of territory or other advantages adequate to their vigorous and useful co-operation against the king of Macedon, were bitterly disappointed, for they saw clearly that Rome would rather curtail than advance their power. The cities of northern Greece which had been liberated by the Romans from Philip V. could not be coerced into the aetolian League without an appeal on their part to Rome, which could hardly fail to be successful. So then the aetolians found that they had brought upon themselves a new and steady control, which would certainly prevent the marauding chiefs from acquiring wealth by keeping up local disturbances, raids, and exactions as the normal condition of the country. They therefore openly incited king Antiochus of Syria to invade Greece, and so brought on their own destruction.

[Sidenote: Probably not fairly stated by Polybius.]

It was a great pity, for this League of mountaineers had shown real military vigour, and had it been educated into orderly and const.i.tutional ways, would have been a strong bulwark of h.e.l.lenic independence. Nor are we to forget that when we read of its turbulence and its reckless disregard of justice, we are taking the evidence of its most determined foe, the historian Polybius. He was one of the leaders of the rival League, and will hardly concede to the aetolians any qualities save their vices. On the other hand, he has stated as favourably as possible the more interesting case of his own confederation.

[Sidenote: Rome and the Achaeans.]

[Sidenote: Mistakes of Philopmen gave Rome excuses for interference.]

-- 80. Here the second difficulty just stated was that which arose, not without the deliberate a.s.sistance of the Romans. On the one hand, the Achaeans thought themselves justified in extending their Union so as if possible to comprise all Greece; and though they usually succeeded by persuasion, there were not wanting cases where they aided with material force the minority in a wavering city, and coerced a new member which showed signs of falling away. More especially the constant attempts to incorporate Sparta and Messene, which had never been friendly to the League, proved its ultimate destruction. The b.l.o.o.d.y successes of Philopmen, the first Greek who ever really captured Sparta, and who compelled it to join the League, led to complaints at Rome about violated liberties, and constant interferences of the Senate, not only to repress disorders, but to weaken any growing union in the country which Rome wished to see reduced to impotent peace; and so there came about, after half a century of mutual recrimination, of protest, of encroachment, the final conquest and reduction of Greece into a Roman province[190:1].

[Sidenote: Mommsen takes the Roman side.]

-- 81. The diplomatic conflict between the Achaeans and the Romans is of the highest interest, and we have upon it the opposing judgments of great historians; for here Roman and Greek history run into the same channel, and the conflict may be treated from either point of view.

Those who look at the debate from the Roman point of view, like Mommsen, and who are, moreover, not persuaded of the immeasurable superiority of republican inst.i.tutions over a strong central power, controlling without hesitation or debate, are convinced that all the talk about Greek independence was mere folly. They point out that these Greeks, whenever they had their full liberty, wore each other out in petty conflicts; that liberty meant license, revolutions at home and encroachments upon neighbours; and that it was the historical mission and duty of the Romans to put an end to all this sentimental sham.

[Sidenote: Hertzberg and Freeman on the Achaean question.]

On the other hand Hertzberg, in the first volume of his excellent _History of the Greeks under Roman Domination_, and Professor Freeman, in his _Federal Government_, show with great clearness that far lower motives often actuated the conquering race, that they were distinctly jealous of any power in the hands of their Greek neighbours, and that they constantly encouraged appeals and revolts on the part of individual cities in the League. So the Senate in fact produced those unhappy disturbances which resulted in the destruction of Corinth and the conquest of Greece by a Roman army in formal war.

[Sidenote: Senility of The Greeks.]

It is of course easy to see that there were faults on both sides, and that individual Romans, using their high position without authority of the Senate, often promoted quarrels in the interests of that truculent financial policy which succeeded in playing all the commerce of the world into the hands of Roman capitalists. On the other hand, it is hard to avoid the conviction that the days of independent Greece were over, that the nation had grown old and worn out, that most of its intellect and enterprise had wandered to the East, to Egypt, or to Rome, and that had the Romans maintained an absolute policy of non-intervention, the result would have been hardly less disastrous, and certainly more disgraceful to the Greeks. For a long and contemptible decadence, like that of Spain in modern Europe, is surely more disgraceful than to be embodied by force in a neighbouring empire.

[Sidenote: Decay of the mother-country.]

Greece in this and the succeeding centuries had arrived at that curious condition that her people who emigrated obtained fortune and distinction all over the world, while those who remained at home seemed unable even to till the land,--which was everywhere relapsing into waste pasture,--far less to prosecute successful trade, for want of both capital and sustained energy. One profession unfortunately flourished,--that of politics; and the amount of time and ability spent on this profession may perhaps account for the decadence of both agriculture and commerce.

[Sidenote: The advocates for union with Rome.]

-- 82. Greek politicians were divided into three cla.s.ses. There were first those who saw in Roman domination the only salvation from internal discord and insecurity. They either despaired of or despised the prospects of political independence, and saw in the iron Destiny which extended the Roman sway over the East, a definite solution of their difficulties, and possibly a means of increasing their material welfare.

They therefore either acquiesced in or actively promoted every diplomatic encroachment on the part of Rome, and made haste to secure to themselves 'friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,' as their adversaries thought, that by and by they might be the local governors, and recipients of Roman favour.

[Sidenote: The advocates of complete independence.]

Over against them were the uncompromising Nationalists,--I apologize for using the right word,--who maintained absolutely the inalienable right of the Greeks to be independent and manage not only their internal affairs, but their external differences as they pleased. They insisted that the Romans had gained their power over Greece by a system of unconst.i.tutional encroachments, and that no material advantages of enforced peace or oppressive protection could compensate for the paralysis which was creeping over h.e.l.lenic political life.

The tyrannous and cruel act of the Romans, who deported one thousand leading Achaeans to Italy (on the charge of disloyalty to Rome in sentiments) and let most of them pine in their exile and die as mere _suspects_, without ever bringing them to trial, gave this party the strongest support by the misery which it inflicted and the wide-spread indignation it excited.

[Sidenote: The party of moderate counsels.]

The third party was the party of moderate counsels and of compromise.

Sympathizing deeply with the National party, they felt at the same time that any armed resistance to Rome was absurd and ruinous. They therefore desired to delay every encroachment by diplomatic protests, by appeals to the justice of the Romans, and thus protract, if they could not prevent, the absorption of all national liberties into the great dominion of Rome. This party, undoubtedly the most reasonable and the most honest, have left us their spokesman in the historian Polybius; but we may be sure that, like every intermediate party, they commanded little sympathy or support.

[Sidenote: Money considerations]

[Sidenote: acted upon both extremes.]

-- 83. Moreover, both the extreme parties had strong pecuniary interests to stimulate them. The party which promoted complete submission to Rome were the people of property, to whom a settled state of things without const.i.tutional agitations or sudden war-contributions afforded the only chance of retaining what they possessed. Rome had never favoured the needy mob in her subject cities, but had always ruled them through the responsible and moneyed cla.s.ses. Roman dominion therefore meant at least peace and safety for the rich. The grinding exactions of Roman praetor and Roman publican were as yet unknown to them. The Nationalist party, on the other hand, consisted of the needy and discontented, who expected, if allowed to exercise their political power, to break down the monopolies of the rich, and, in any case, to make reputation and money by the practice of politics; for, as I have shown above, and as is not strange to our own day, politics had become distinctly a lucrative profession. These people's hope of gain, as well as their local importance, would vanish with full subjection to Rome; and this was a strong motive, even though in many it may have only been auxiliary to the real patriotism which burned at the thought of the extinction of national independence.

[Sidenote: Exaggerated statements on both sides.]

[Sidenote: The Separatists would not tolerate separation from themselves.]

[Sidenote: Democratic tyranny.]

The debate soon went beyond the stage of rational argument or the possibility of rational persuasion. To the Nationalist, the Romanizing aristocrat or moneyed man was a traitor, sacrificing his country's liberties for his mess of potage, grovelling and touting for Roman favour, copying Roman manners, and sending his sons to be educated in Roman ways. To the advocate of union with Rome, the so-called Nationalist was a needy and dishonest adventurer, using the cry of patriotism and of nationality to cloak personal greed, socialistic schemes, and hatred of what was orderly and respectable. If he succeeded, his so-called liberty would be used in coercing and plundering the dissentients; and, after all, such stormy petrels in politics must be quite unfit to form any stable government. If any portion of the Peloponnesus a.s.serted its right to several liberty, no politicians would have recourse to more violent coercion than these advocates of national independence. They protested against enforced union with Rome: they would be the first to promote enforced union with themselves, and carry it through in b.l.o.o.d.y earnest. This was actually what happened during the last despairing struggle. The coercion practised by the last presidents of the Leagues, the violent Nationalists who forced the nation into war, was tyrannous and cruel beyond description.

But of course the issue was certain; and with the reeking smoke of the ruins of Corinth closes the history of Greece, as most historians, even of wider views, have understood it.

[Sidenote: Modern a.n.a.logies forced upon us,]

[Sidenote: and not to be set aside.]

-- 84. There is no period of the history which deserves modern study more than that which I have here expounded in its principles. The a.n.a.logies which it presents to modern life, nay, to the very history of our times, are so striking that it is almost impossible to narrate it without falling into the phraseology of current politics. When I first published an account of these things[196:1], I was at once attacked by several of my reviewers for daring to introduce modern a.n.a.logies into ancient history. I had dragged the Muse of History into the heated atmosphere of party strife and the quarrels of our own day; I had spoiled a good book by allusions to burning questions which disturbed the reader and made him think of the next election, instead of calmly contemplating the lessons of Polybius. It would have been far more to the point had they shown that the a.n.a.logies suggested were invalid, and the comparisons misleading. This not one of them has attempted to do; nor do I hesitate to say that the objections they raised were rather because my a.n.a.logies were too just and striking than because they were far-fetched and irrelevant. If these critics had found that the facts I adduced favoured their own political views, no doubt they would have lavished their praise upon the very feature which incurred their censure.

[Sidenote: The history of Greece is essentially modern;]

[Sidenote: therefore modern parallels are surely admissible, if justly drawn.]