The interesting precinct of Aesculapius at Epidaurus has furnished us with specimens of the style of an Athenian contemporary of Scopas, who worked with him on the Mausoleum. An inscription which records the sumsTimotheus, Bryaxis, Leochares.spent on the temple of the Physician-god, informs us that the models for the sculptures of the pediments, and one set of acroteria or roof adornments, were the work of Timotheus. Of the pedimental figures and the acroteria considerable fragments have been recovered, and we may with confidence assume that at all events the models for these were by Timotheus. It is strange that the unsatisfactory arrangement whereby a noted sculptor makes models and some local workman the figures enlarged from those models, should have been tolerated by so artistic a people as the Greeks. The subjects of the pediments appear to have been the common ones of battles between Greek and Amazon and between Lapith and Centaur. We possess fragments of some of the Amazon figures, one of which, striking downwards at the enemy, is here shown (fig. 44). Their attitudes are vigorous and alert; but the work shows no delicacy of detail. Figures of Nereids riding on horses, which were found on the same site, may very probably be roof ornaments (acroteria) of the temple. We have also several figures of Victory, which probably were acroteria on some smaller temple, perhaps that of Artemis. A base found at Athens, sculptured with figures of horsemen in relief, bears the name of Bryaxis, and was probably made by a pupil of his. Probable conjecture assigns to Leochares the originals copied in the Ganymede of the Vatican, borne aloft by an eagle (Plate I. fig. 53) and the noble statue of Alexander the Great at Munich (seeLeochares). Thus we may fairly say that we are now acquainted with the work of all the great sculptors who worked on the Mausoleum—Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheus; and are in a far more advantageous position than were the archaeologists of 1880 for determining the artistic problems connected with that noblest of ancient tombs.
Contemporary with the Athenian school of Praxiteles and Scopas was the great school of Argos and Sicyon, of which Lysippus was the most distinguished member. Lysippus continued the academic traditions of Polyclitus, but he was far bolder in his choice of subjects and more innovating in style. Gods, heroes and mortals alike found in him a sculptor who knew how to combine fine ideality with a vigorous actuality. He was at the height of his fame during Alexander’s life, and the grandiose ambition of the great Macedonian found him ample employment, especially in the frequent representation of himself and his marshals.
We have none of the actual works of Lysippus; but our best evidence for his style will be found in the statue of Agias an athlete (Plate V. fig. 74) found at Delphi, and shown by an inscription to be a marble copy of a bronze original by Lysippus. The Apoxyomenus of the Vatican (man scraping himself with a strigil) (Plate VI. fig. 79) has hitherto been regarded as a copy from Lysippus; but of this there is no evidence, and the style of that statue belongs rather to the 3rd century than the 4th.The Agias, on the other hand, is in style contemporary with the works of 4th-century sculptors.
Of the elaborate groups of combatants with which Lysippus enriched such centres as Olympia and Delphi, or of the huge bronze statues which he erected in temples and shrines, we can form no adequate notion. Perhaps among the extant heads of Alexander the one which is most likely to preserve the style of Lysippus is the head from Alexandria in the British Museum (Plate II. fig. 56), though this was executed at a later time.
Many noted extant statues may be attributed with probability to the latter part of the 4th or the earlier part of the 3rd century. We will mention a few only. The celebrated group at Florence representing Niobe and her children falling before the arrows of Apollo and Artemis is certainly a work of the pathetic school, and may be by a pupil of Praxiteles. Niobe, in an agony of grief, which is in the marble tempered and idealized, tries to protect her youngest daughter from destruction (Plate VI. fig. 78). Whether the group can have originally been fitted into the gable of a temple is a matter of dispute.
Two great works preserved in the Louvre are so noted that it is but necessary to mention them, the Aphrodite of Melos (Plate VI. fig. 77), in which archaeologists are now disposed to see the influence of Scopas, and the Victory of Samothrace (Plate III. figs. 61 and 62), an original set up by Demetrius Poliorcetes after a naval victory won at Salamis in Cyprus in 306B.C.over the fleet of Ptolemy, king of Egypt.
Nor can we pass over without notice two works so celebrated as the Apollo of the Belvidere in the Vatican (Plate II. fig. 55), and the Artemis of Versailles. The Apollo is now by most archaeologists regarded as probably a copy of a work of Leochares, to whose Ganymede it bears a superficial resemblance. The Artemis is regarded as possibly due to some artist of the same age. But it is by no means clear that we have the right to remove either of these figures from among the statues of the Hellenistic age. The old theory of Preller, which saw in them copies from a trophy set up to commemorate the repulse of the Gauls at Delphi in 278B.C., has not lost its plausibility.
This may be the most appropriate place for mentioning the remarkable find made at Sidon in 1886 of a number of sarcophagi, which once doubtless contained the remains of kings of Sidon. They are now in the museum of Constantinople,Sarcophagi of Sidon.and are admirably published by Hamdy Bey and T. Reinach (Une Nécropole royale à Sidon, 1892-1896). The sarcophagi in date cover a considerable period. The earlier are made on Egyptian models, the covers shaped roughly in the form of a human body or mummy. The later, however, are Greek in form, and are clearly the work of skilled Greek sculptors, who seem to have been employed by the grandees of Phoenicia in the adornment of their last resting-places. Four of these sarcophagi in particular claim attention, and in fact present us with examples of Greek art of the 5th and 4th centuries in several of its aspects. To the 5th century belong the tomb of the Satrap, the reliefs of which bring before us the activities and glories of some unknown king, and the Lycian sarcophagus, so called from its form, which resembles that of tombs found in Lycia, and which is also adorned with reliefs which have reference to the past deeds of the hero buried in the tomb, though these deeds are represented, not in the Oriental manner directly, but in the Greek manner, clad in mythological forms. To the 4th century belong two other sarcophagi. One of these is called the Tomb of Mourning Women. On all sides of it alike are ranged a series of beautiful female figures, separated by Ionic pillars, each in a somewhat different attitude, though all attitudes denoting grief (fig. 45). The pediments at the ends of the cover are also closely connected with the mourning for the loss of a friend and protector, which is the theme of the whole decoration of the sarcophagus. We see depicted in them the telling of the news of the death, with the results in the mournful attitude of the two seated figures. The mourning women must be taken, not as the representation of any persons in particular, but generally as the expression of the feeling of a city. Such figures are familiar to us in the art of the second Attic school; we could easily find parallels to the sarcophagus among the 4th-century sepulchral reliefs of Athens. We can scarcely be mistaken in attributing the workmanship of this beautiful sarcophagus to some sculptor trained in the school of Praxiteles. And it is a conjecture full of probability that it once contained the body of Strato, king of Sidon, who ruled about 380B.C., and who wasproxenosor public friend of the Athenians.
More celebrated is the astonishing tomb called that of Alexander, though there can be no doubt that, although it commemorates the victories and exploits of Alexander, it was made not to hold his remains, but those of some ruler of Sidon who was high in his favour. Among all the monuments of antiquity which have come down to us, none is more admirable than this, and none more characteristic of the Greek genius. We give, in two lines, the composition which adorned one of the sides of this sarcophagus. It represents a victory of Alexander, probably that of the Granicus (fig. 46). On the left we see the Macedonian king charging the Persian horse, on the right his general Parmenio, and in the midst a younger officer, perhaps Cleitus. Mingled with the chiefs are foot-soldiers, Greek and Macedonian, with whom the Persians are mingled in unequal fray. What most strikes the modern eye is the remarkable freshness and force of the action and the attitudes. Those, however, who have seen the originals have been specially impressed with the colouring, whereof, of course, our engraving gives no hint, but which is applied to the whole surface of the relief with equal skill and delicacy. There are other features in the relief on which a Greek eye would have dwelt with special pleasure—the exceedingly careful symmetry of the whole, the balancing of figure against figure, the skill with which the result of the battle is hinted rather than depicted. The composition is one in which the most careful planning and the most precise calculation are mingled with freedom of hand and expressiveness in detail. The faces in particular show more expression than would be tolerated in art of the previous century. We are unable as yet to assign an author or even a school to the sculptor of this sarcophagus; he comes to us as a new and striking phenomenon in the history of ancient art. The reliefs which adorn the other sides of the sarcophagus are almost equally interesting. On one side we see Alexander again, in the company of a Persian noble, hunting a lion. The short sides also show us scenes of fighting and hunting. In fact it can scarcely be doubted that if we had but a clue to the interpretation of the reliefs, they would be found to embody historic events of the end of the 4th century. There are but a few other works of art, such as the Bayeux tapestry and the Column of Trajan, which bring contemporary history so vividly before our eyes. The battles with the Persians represented in some of the sculpture of the Parthenon and the temple of Nike at Athens are treated conventionally and with no attempt at realism; but here the ideal and the actual are blended into a work of consummate art, which is at the same time, to those who can read the language of Greek art, a historic record. The portraits of Alexander the Great which appear on this sarcophagus are almost contemporary, and the most authentic likenesses of him which we possess. The great Macedonian exercised so strong an influence on contemporary art that a multitude of heads of the age, both of gods and men, and even the portraits of his successors, show traces of his type.
We have yet to mention what are among the most charming and the most characteristic products of the Greek chisel, thebeautiful tombs, adorned with seated or standing portraits or with reliefs, which were erected in great numbers on all the main roads of Greece. A great number of these from the Dipylon cemetery are preserved in the Central Museum at Athens, and impress all visitors by the gentle sentiment and the charm of grouping which they display (Gardner,Sculptured Tombs of Hellas).
Period IV., 300-50B.C.—There can be no question but that the period which followed the death of Alexander, commonly called the age of Hellenism, was one of great activity and expansion in architecture. The number of cities founded by himself and his immediate successors in Asia and Egypt was enormous. The remains of these cities have in a few cases (Ephesus, Pergamum, Assus, Priene, Alexandria) been partially excavated. But the adaptation of Greek architecture to the needs of the semi-Greek peoples included in the dominions of the kings of Egypt, Syria and Pergamum is too vast a subject for us to enter upon here (seeArchitecture).
Painting during this age ceased to be religious. It was no longer for temples and public stoae that artists worked, but for private persons; especially they made frescoes for the decoration of the walls of houses, and panel pictures for galleries set up by rich patrons. The names of very few painters of the Hellenistic age have come down to us. There can be no doubt that the character of the art declined, and there were no longer produced great works to be the pride of cities, or to form an embodiment for all future time of the qualities of a deity or the circumstances of scenes mythical or historic. But at the same time the mural paintings of Pompeii and other works of the Roman age, which are usually more or less nearly derived from Hellenistic models, prove that in technical matters painting continued to progress. Colouring became more varied, groups more elaborate, perspective was worked out with greater accuracy, and imagination shook itself free from many of the conventions of early art. Pompeian painting, however, must be treated of under Roman, not under Greek art. We figure a single example, to show the elaboration of painting at Alexandria and elsewhere, the wonderful Pompeian mosaic (fig. 47), which represents the victory of Alexander at Issus. This work being in stone has preserved its colouring; and it stands at a far higher level of art than ordinary Pompeian paintings, which are the work of mere house-decorators. This on the contrary is certainly copied from the work of a great master. It is instructive to compare it with the sarcophagus illustrated in Fig. 46, which it excels in perspective and in the freedom of individual figures, though the composition is much less careful and precise. Alexander charges from the left (his portrait being the least successful part of the picture), and bears down a young Persian; Darius in his chariot flees towards the right; in the foreground a young knight is trying to manage a restive horse. It will be observed how very simple is the indication of locality: a few stones and a broken tree stand for rocks and woods.
Among the original sculptural creations of the early Hellenistic age, a prominent place is claimed by the statue of Fortune, typifying the city of Antioch (Plate VI. fig. 81), a work of Eutychides, a pupil of Lysippus. Of this we possess a small copy, which is sufficient to show how worthy of admiration was the original. We have a beautiful embodiment of the personality of the city, seated on a rock, holding ears of corn, while the river Orontes, embodied in a young male figure, springs forth at her feet.
This is, so far as we know, almost the only work of the early part of the 3rd century which shows imagination. Sculptors often worked on a colossal scale, producing such monsters as the colossal Apollo at Rhodes, the work of Chares of Lindus, which was more than 100 ft. in height. But they did not show freshness or invention; and for the most part content themselves with varying the types produced in the great schools of the 4th century. The wealthy kings of Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor formed art galleries, and were lavish in their payments; but it has often been proved in the history of art that originality cannot be produced by mere expenditure.
A great artist, whose date has been disputed, but who is now assigned to the Hellenistic age, Damophon of Messene, is known to us from his actual works. He set up in the shrine of theMistress(Despoena) at Lycosura in Arcadia a great group of figures consisting of Despoena, Demeter, Artemis and the Titan Anytus. Three colossal heads found on the spot probably belong to the three last-mentioned deities. We illustrate the head of Anytus, with wild disordered hair and turbulent expression (fig. 48). Dr Dörpfeld has argued, on architectural grounds, that shrine and images alike must be given to a later time than the 4th century; and this judgment is now confirmed by inscriptional and other evidence.
In one important direction sculpture certainly made progress. Hitherto Greek sculptors had contented themselves with studying the human body whether in rest or motion, from outside. The dissection of the human body, with a consequent increase in knowledge of anatomy, became usual at Alexandria in the medical school which flourished under the Ptolemies. This improved anatomical knowledge soon reacted upon the art of sculpture. Works such as the Fighter of Agasias in the Louvre (Plate IV. fig. 69), and in a less degree the Apoxyomenus (Plate VI. fig. 79), display a remarkable internal knowledge of the human frame, such as could only come from the habit of dissection. Whether this was really productive of improvement in sculpture may be doubted. But it is impossible to withhold one’s admiration from works which show an astonishing knowledge of the body of man down to its bony framework, and a power and mastery of execution which have never since been surpassed.
With accuracy in the portrayal of men’s bodies goes of necessity a more naturalistic tendency in portraiture. As we have seen, the art of portraiture was at a high ideal level in the Pheidian age; and even in the age of Alexander the Great, notable men were rendered rather according to the idea than the fact. To a base and mechanical naturalism Greek art never at any time descended. But from 300B.C.onwards we have a marvellous series of portraits which may be termed rather characteristic than ideal, which are very minute in their execution, and delight in laying emphasis on the havoc wrought by time and life on the faces of noteworthy men. Such are the portraits of Demosthenes, of Antisthenes, of Zeno and others, which exist in our galleries. And it was no long step from these actual portraits to the invention of characteristic types to represent the great men of a past generation, such as Homer and Lycurgus, or to form generic images to represent weatherbeaten fishermen or toothless old women.
Our knowledge of the art of the later Hellenistic age has received a great accession since 1875 through the systematic labours directed by the German Archaeological Institute, which have resulted in recovering the remainsAltar of Pergamum.of Pergamum, the fortress-city which was the capital of the dynasty of the Philetaeri. Among the ancient buildings of Pergamum none was more ambitious in scale and striking in execution than the great altar used for sacrifices to Zeus, a monument supposed to be referred to in the phrase of the Apocalypse “where Satan’s throne is.” This altar, like many great sacrificial altars of later Greece, was a vast erection to which one mounted by many steps, and its outside was adorned with a frieze which represented on a gigantic scale, in the style of the 2nd centuryB.C., the battle between the gods and the giants. This enormous frieze (seePergamum) is now one of the treasures of the Royal Museums of Berlin, and it cannot fail to impress visitors by the size of the figures, the energy of the action, and the strong vein of sentiment which pervades the whole, giving it a certain air of modernity, though the subject is strange to the Christian world. In early Greek art the giants where they oppose the gods are represented as men armed in full panoply, “in shining armour, holding long spears in their hands,” to use the phrase in which Hesiod describes them. But in the Pergamene frieze the giants are strange compounds, having the heads and bodies of wild and fierce barbarians, sometimes also human legs, but sometimes in the place of legs two long serpents, the heads of which take with the giants themselves a share in the battle. Sometimes also they are winged. The gods appear in the forms which had been gradually made for them in the course of Greek history, but they are usually accompanied by the animals sacred to them in cultus, between which and the serpent-feet of the giants a weird combat goes on. We can conjecture the source whence the Pergamene artist derived the shaggy hair, the fierce expression, the huge muscles of his giants (fig. 49); probably these features came originally from the Galatians, who at the time had settled in Asia Minor, and were spreading the terror of their name and the report of their savage devastations through all Asia Minor. The victory over the giants clearly stands for the victory of Greek civilization over Gallic barbarism; and this meaning is made more emphatic because the gods are obviously inferior in physical force to their opponents, indeed, a large proportion of the divine combatants are goddesses. Yet everywhere the giants are overthrown, writhing in pain on the ground, or transfixed by the weapons of their opponents; everywhere the gods are victorious, yet in the victory retain much of their divine calm. The piecing together of the frieze at Berlin has been a labour of many years; it is now complete, and there is a special museum devoted to it. Some of the groups have become familiar to students from photographs, especially the group which represents Zeus slaying his enemies with thunderbolts, and the group wherein Athena seizes by the hair an overthrown opponent, who is winged, while Victory runs to crown her, and beneath is seen Gaia, the earth-goddess who is the mother of the giants, rising out of the ground, and mourning over her vanquished and tortured children. Another and smaller frieze which also decorated the altar-place gives us scenes from the history of Telephus, who opposed the landing of the army of Agamemnon in Asia Minor and was overthrown by Achilles. This frieze, which is quite fragmentary, is put together by Dr Schneider in theJahrbuchof the German Archaeological Institute for 1900.
Since the Renaissance Rome has continually produced a crop of works of Greek art of all periods, partly originals brought from Greece by conquering generals, partly copies, such as the group at Rome formerly known as Paetus and Arria, and the overthrown giants and barbarians which came from the elaborate trophy set up by Attalus at Athens, of which copies exist in many museums. A noted work of kindred school is the group of Laocoon and his sons (Plate I. fig. 52), signed by Rhodian sculptors of the 1st centuryB.C., which has been perhaps more discussed than any work of the Greek chisel, and served as a pegfor the aesthetic theories of Lessing and Goethe. In our days the histrionic and strained character of the group is regarded as greatly diminishing its interest, in spite of the astounding skill and knowledge of the human body shown by the artists. To the same school belong the late representations of Marsyas being flayed by the victorious Apollo (Plate II. fig. 54), a somewhat repulsive subject, chosen by the artists of this age as a means for displaying their accurate knowledge of anatomy.
On what a scale some of the artists of Asia Minor would work is shown us by the enormous group, by Apollonius and Tauriscus of Tralles, which is called the Farnese Bull (Plate I. fig. 51), and which represents how Dirce was tied to a wild bull by her stepsons Zethus and Amphion.
The extensive excavations and alterations which have taken place at Rome in recent years have been very fruitful; the results may be found partly in the palace of the Conservatori on the Capitol, partly in the new museumRome.of the Terme. Among recently found statues none excel in interest some bronzes of large size dating from the Hellenistic age. In the figure of a seated boxer (Plate V. fig. 72), in scale somewhat exceeding life, attitude and gesture are expressive. Evidently the boxer has fought already, and is awaiting a further conflict. His face is cut and swollen; on his hands are the terrible caestus, here made of leather, and not loaded with iron, like the caestus described by Virgil. The figure is of astounding force; but though the face is brutal and the expression savage, in the sweep of the limbs there is nobility, even ideal beauty. To the last the Greek artist could not set aside his admiration for physical perfection. Another bronze figure of more than life-size is that of a king of the Hellenistic age standing leaning on a spear. He is absolutely nude, like the athletes of Polyclitus. Another large bronze presents us with a Hellenistic type of Dionysus.
Besides the bronzes found in Rome we may set those recently found in the sea on the coast of Cythera, the contents of a ship sailing from Greece to Rome, and lost on the way. The date of these bronze statues has been disputed. In any case, even if executed in the Roman age, they go back to originals of the 5th and 4th centuries. The most noteworthy among them is a beautiful athlete (Plate V. fig. 73) standing with hand upraised, which reflects the style of the Attic school of the 4th century.
After 146B.C.when Corinth was destroyed and Greece became a Roman province, Greek art, though by no means extinct, worked mainly in the employ of the Roman conquerors (seeRoman Art).
IV.Select Bibliography.3—I.General works on Greek Art.—The only recent general histories of Greek art are: H. Brunn,Griechische Kunstgeschichte, bks. i. and ii., dealing with archaic art; W. Klein,Geschichte der griechischen Kunst, no illustrations; Perrot et Chipiez,Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, vols. vii. and viii. (archaic art only).Introductory are: P. Gardner,Grammar of Greek Art; J. E. Harrison,Introductory Studies in Greek Art; H. B. Walters,Art of the Greeks.Useful are also: H. Brunn,Geschichte der griechischen Künstler, (new edition, 1889); J. Overbeck,Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Griechen; untranslated passages in Latin and Greek; the Elder Pliny’sChapters on the History of Art, edited by K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers; H. S. Jones,Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture.II.Periodicals dealing with Greek Archaeology.—England:Journal of Hellenic Studies;Annual of the British School at Athens;Classical Review. France:Revue archéologique;Gazette archéologique;Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Germany:Jahrbuch des K. deutschen arch. Instituts;Mitteilungen des arch. Inst., Athenische Abteilung, Römische Abteilung;Antike Denkmäler. Austria:Jahreshefte des K. Österreich. arch. Instituts. Italy: Publications of theAccademia dei Lincei;Monumenti antichi;Not. dei scavi;Bulletino comunale di Roma. Greece:Ephemeris archaiologikè;Deltion archaiologikon;Praktikaof the Athenian Archaeological Society.III.Greek Architecture.—General: Perrot et Chipiez,Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, vol. vii.; A. Choisy,Histoire de l’architecture, vol. i.; Anderson and Spiers,Architecture of Greece and Rome; E. Boutmy,Philosophie de l’architecture en Grèce; R. Sturgis,History of Architecture, vol. i.; A. Marquand,Greek Architecture.IV.Greek Sculpture.—General: M. Collignon,Histoire de la sculpture grecque(2 vols.); E. A. Gardner,Handbook of Greek Sculpture; A. Furtwängler,Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, translated and edited by E. Sellers; Friederichs and Wolters,Bausteine zur Geschichte der griechisch-römischen Plastik(1887); von Mach,Handbook of Greek and Roman Sculpture, 500 plates; H. Bulle,Der schöne Mensch in der Kunst: Altertum, 216 plates; S. Reinach,Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, 3 vols.V.Greek Painting and Vases.—Woltmann and Woermann,History of Painting, vol. i., translated and edited by S. Colvin (1880); H. B. Walters,History of Ancient Pottery(2 vols.); Harrison and MacColl,Greek Vase-paintings(1894); O. Rayet et M. Collignon,Histoire de la céramique grecque(1888); P. Girard,La Peinture antique(1892); S. Reinach,Répertoire des vases peints grecs et étrusques(2 vols.); Furtwängler und Reichhold, “Griechische Vasenmalerei,”Wiener Vorlegeblätter für archäologische Übungen(1887-1890).VI.Special Schools and Sites.—A. Joubin,La Sculpture grecque entre les guerres médiques et l’époque de Périclès; C. Waldstein,Essays on the Art of Pheidias(1885); W. Klein,Praxiteles; G. Perrot,Praxitèle; A. S. Murray,Sculptures of the Parthenon; W. Klein,Euphronios; E. Pottier,Douris; P. Gardner,Sculptured Tombs of Hellas; E. A. Gardner,Ancient Athens; A. Bötticher,Olympia; Bernoulli,Griechische Ikonographie; P. Gardner,The Types of Greek Coins(1883); E. A. Gardner,Six Greek Sculptors.VII.Books related to the subject.—J. G. Frazer,Pausanias’s Description of Greece(6 vols.); J. Lange,Darstellung des Menschen in der älteren griechischen Kunst; E. Brücke,The Human Figure; its Beauties and Defects; A. Michaelis,Ancient Marbles in Great Britain(1882);Catalogue of Greek Sculpture in the British Museum(3 vols.);Catalogue of Greek Vases in the British Museum(4 vols.); J. B. Bury,History of Greece(illustrated edition); Baumeister,Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums(3 vols.).
IV.Select Bibliography.3—I.General works on Greek Art.—The only recent general histories of Greek art are: H. Brunn,Griechische Kunstgeschichte, bks. i. and ii., dealing with archaic art; W. Klein,Geschichte der griechischen Kunst, no illustrations; Perrot et Chipiez,Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, vols. vii. and viii. (archaic art only).
Introductory are: P. Gardner,Grammar of Greek Art; J. E. Harrison,Introductory Studies in Greek Art; H. B. Walters,Art of the Greeks.
Useful are also: H. Brunn,Geschichte der griechischen Künstler, (new edition, 1889); J. Overbeck,Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Griechen; untranslated passages in Latin and Greek; the Elder Pliny’sChapters on the History of Art, edited by K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers; H. S. Jones,Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture.
II.Periodicals dealing with Greek Archaeology.—England:Journal of Hellenic Studies;Annual of the British School at Athens;Classical Review. France:Revue archéologique;Gazette archéologique;Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Germany:Jahrbuch des K. deutschen arch. Instituts;Mitteilungen des arch. Inst., Athenische Abteilung, Römische Abteilung;Antike Denkmäler. Austria:Jahreshefte des K. Österreich. arch. Instituts. Italy: Publications of theAccademia dei Lincei;Monumenti antichi;Not. dei scavi;Bulletino comunale di Roma. Greece:Ephemeris archaiologikè;Deltion archaiologikon;Praktikaof the Athenian Archaeological Society.
III.Greek Architecture.—General: Perrot et Chipiez,Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, vol. vii.; A. Choisy,Histoire de l’architecture, vol. i.; Anderson and Spiers,Architecture of Greece and Rome; E. Boutmy,Philosophie de l’architecture en Grèce; R. Sturgis,History of Architecture, vol. i.; A. Marquand,Greek Architecture.
IV.Greek Sculpture.—General: M. Collignon,Histoire de la sculpture grecque(2 vols.); E. A. Gardner,Handbook of Greek Sculpture; A. Furtwängler,Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, translated and edited by E. Sellers; Friederichs and Wolters,Bausteine zur Geschichte der griechisch-römischen Plastik(1887); von Mach,Handbook of Greek and Roman Sculpture, 500 plates; H. Bulle,Der schöne Mensch in der Kunst: Altertum, 216 plates; S. Reinach,Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, 3 vols.
V.Greek Painting and Vases.—Woltmann and Woermann,History of Painting, vol. i., translated and edited by S. Colvin (1880); H. B. Walters,History of Ancient Pottery(2 vols.); Harrison and MacColl,Greek Vase-paintings(1894); O. Rayet et M. Collignon,Histoire de la céramique grecque(1888); P. Girard,La Peinture antique(1892); S. Reinach,Répertoire des vases peints grecs et étrusques(2 vols.); Furtwängler und Reichhold, “Griechische Vasenmalerei,”Wiener Vorlegeblätter für archäologische Übungen(1887-1890).
VI.Special Schools and Sites.—A. Joubin,La Sculpture grecque entre les guerres médiques et l’époque de Périclès; C. Waldstein,Essays on the Art of Pheidias(1885); W. Klein,Praxiteles; G. Perrot,Praxitèle; A. S. Murray,Sculptures of the Parthenon; W. Klein,Euphronios; E. Pottier,Douris; P. Gardner,Sculptured Tombs of Hellas; E. A. Gardner,Ancient Athens; A. Bötticher,Olympia; Bernoulli,Griechische Ikonographie; P. Gardner,The Types of Greek Coins(1883); E. A. Gardner,Six Greek Sculptors.
VII.Books related to the subject.—J. G. Frazer,Pausanias’s Description of Greece(6 vols.); J. Lange,Darstellung des Menschen in der älteren griechischen Kunst; E. Brücke,The Human Figure; its Beauties and Defects; A. Michaelis,Ancient Marbles in Great Britain(1882);Catalogue of Greek Sculpture in the British Museum(3 vols.);Catalogue of Greek Vases in the British Museum(4 vols.); J. B. Bury,History of Greece(illustrated edition); Baumeister,Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums(3 vols.).
(P. G.)
1Grammar of Greek Art.2It may here be pointed out that it was found impossible, with any regard for the appearance of the pages, to arrange the Plates for this article so as to preserve a chronological order in the individual figures; they are not arranged consecutively as regards the history or the period, and are only grouped for convenience in paging.—Ed.3The date is given when the work cannot be considered new.
1Grammar of Greek Art.
2It may here be pointed out that it was found impossible, with any regard for the appearance of the pages, to arrange the Plates for this article so as to preserve a chronological order in the individual figures; they are not arranged consecutively as regards the history or the period, and are only grouped for convenience in paging.—Ed.
3The date is given when the work cannot be considered new.
GREEK FIRE,the name applied to inflammable and destructive compositions used in warfare during the middle ages and particularly by the Byzantine Greeks at the sieges of Constantinople. The employment of liquid fire is represented on Assyrian bas-reliefs. At the siege of Plataea (429B.C.) the Spartans attempted to burn the town by piling up against the walls wood saturated with pitch and sulphur and setting it on fire (Thuc. ii. 77), and at the siege of Delium (424B.C.) a cauldron containing pitch, sulphur and burning charcoal, was placed against the walls and urged into flame by the aid of a bellows, the blast from which was conveyed through a hollow tree-trunk (Thuc. iv. 100). Aeneas Tacticus in the following century mentions a mixture of sulphur, pitch, charcoal, incense and tow, which was packed in wooden vessels and thrown lighted upon the decks of the enemy’s ships. Later, as in receipts given by Vegetius (c.A.D.350), naphtha or petroleum is added, and some nine centuries afterwards the same substances are found forming part of mixtures described in the later receipts (which probably date from the beginning of the 13th century) of the collection known as theLiber igniumof Marcus Graecus. In subsequent receipts saltpetre and turpentine make their appearance, and the modern “carcass composition,” containing sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpetre and crude antimony, is a representative of the same class of mixtures, which became known to the Crusaders as Greek fire but were more usually called wildfire. Greek fire, properly so-called, was, however, of a somewhat different character. It is said that in the reign of Constantine Pogonatus (648-685) an architect named Callinicus, who had fled from Heliopolis in Syria to Constantinople, prepared a wet fire which was thrown out from siphons (τὸ διὰ τῶν σιφώνων ἐκφερόμενον πῦρ ὑγρόν), and that by its aid the ships of the Saracens were set on fire at Cyzicus and their defeat assured. The art of compounding this mixture, which is also referred to asπῦρ θαλάσσιον, or sea fire, was jealously guarded at Constantinople, and the possession of the secret on several occasions proved of great advantage to the city. The nature of the compound is somewhat obscure. It has been supposed that the novelty introduced by Callinicus was saltpetre, but this view involves the difficulty that that substance was apparently not known till the 13th century, even if it were capable of accounting for the properties attributed to the wet fire. Lieut.-Colonel H. W. L. Hime, after a close examination of the available evidence, concludes that what distinguished Greek fire from the other incendiaries of the period was the presence of quicklime, which was well known to give rise to a large development of heat when brought into contact with water. The mixture, then, was composed of such materials as sulphur and naphtha withquicklime, and took fire spontaneously when wetted—whence the name of wet fire or sea fire; and portions of it were “projected and at the same time ignited by applying the hose of a water engine to the breech” of the siphon, which was a wooden tube, cased with bronze.
See Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. Hime,Gunpowder and Ammunition, their Origin and Progress(London, 1904).
See Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. Hime,Gunpowder and Ammunition, their Origin and Progress(London, 1904).
GREEK INDEPENDENCE, WAR OF, the name given to the great rising of the Greek subjects of the sultan against the Ottoman domination, which began in 1821 and ended in 1833 with the establishment of the independent kingdom of Greece. The circumstances that led to the insurrection and the general diplomatic situation by which its fortunes were from time to time affected are described elsewhere (seeGreece:History;Turkey:History). The present article is confined to a description of the general character and main events of the war itself. If we exclude the abortive invasion of the Danubian principalities by Prince Alexander Ypsilanti (March 1821), which collapsed ignominiously as soon as it was disavowed by the tsar, the theatre of the war was confined to continental Greece, the Morea, and the adjacent narrow seas. Its history may, broadly speaking, be divided into three periods: the first (1821-1824), during which the Greeks, aided by numerous volunteers from Europe, were successfully pitted against the sultan’s forces alone; the second, from 1824, when the disciplined troops of Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, turned the tide against the insurgents; the third, from the intervention of the European powers in the autumn of 1827 to the end.
When, on the 2nd of April 1821, Archbishop Germanos, head of theHetaeriain the Morea, raised the standard of the cross at Kalavryta as the signal for a general rising of the Christian population, the circumstances were highly favourable. In the Morea itself, in spite of plentiful warning, the Turks were wholly unprepared; while the bulk of the Ottoman army, under theseraskierKhurshid Pasha, was engaged in the long task of reducing the intrepid Ali, pasha of Iannina (seeAli, pasha of Iannina).
Another factor, and that the determining one, soon came to the aid of the Greeks. In warfare carried on in such a country as Greece, sea-girt and with a coast deeply indented, inland without roads and intersected with rugged mountains, victory—as Wellington was quick to observe—must rest with the side that has command of the sea. This was assured to the insurgents at the outset by the revolt of the maritime communities of the Greek archipelago. The Greeks of the islands had been accustomed from time immemorial to seafaring; their ships—some as large as frigates—were well armed, to guard against the Barbary pirates and rovers of their own kin; lastly, they had furnished the bulk of the sailors to the Ottoman navy which, now that this recruiting ground was closed, had to be manned hastily with impressed crews of dock-labourers and peasants, many of whom had never seen the sea. The Turkish fleet, “adrift in the Archipelago”—as the British seamen put it—though greatly superior in tonnage and weight of metal, could never be a match for the Greek brigs, manned as these were by trained, if not disciplined, crews.
The war was begun by the Greeks without definite plan and without any generally recognized leadership. The force with which Germanos marched from Kalavryta against Patras was composed of peasants armed with scythes,Outbreak of the insurrection.clubs and slings, among whom the “primates” exercised a somewhat honorary authority. The town itself was destroyed and those of its Mussulman inhabitants who could not escape into the citadel were massacred; but the citadel remained in the hands of the Turks till 1828. Meanwhile, in the south, leaders of another stamp had appeared: Petros, bey of the Maina (q.v.) chief of the Mavromichales, who at the head of his clan attacked Kalamata and put the Mussulman inhabitants to the sword; and Kolokotrones, a notable brigand once in the service of the Ionian government, who—fortified by a vision of the Virgin—captured Karytaena and slaughtered its infidel population. Encouraged by these successes the revolt spread rapidly; within three weeks there was not a Mussulman left in the open country, and the remnants of the once dominant class were closely besieged in the fortified towns by hosts of wild peasants and brigands. The flames of revolt now spread across the Isthmus of Corinth: early in April the Christians of Dervenokhoria rose, and the whole of Boeotia and Attica quickly followed suit; at the beginning of May the Mussulman inhabitants of Athens were blockaded in the Acropolis. In the Morea, meanwhile, a few Mussulman fortresses still held out: Coron, Modon, Navarino, Patras, Nauplia, Monemvasia, Tripolitsa. One by one they fell, and everywhere were repeated the same scenes of butchery. The horrors culminated in the capture of Tripolitsa, the capital of the vilayet. In September this was taken by storm; Kolokotrones rode in triumph to the citadel over streets carpeted with the dead; and the crowning triumph of the Cross was celebrated by a cold-blooded massacre of 2000 prisoners of all ages and both sexes. This completed the success of the insurrection in the Morea, where only Patras, Nauplia, and one or two lesser fortresses remained to the Turks.
Meanwhile, north of the Isthmus, the fortunes of war had been less one-sided. In the west Khurshid’s lieutenant, Omar Vrioni (a Mussulman Greek of the race of the Palaeologi), had inflicted a series of defeats on the insurgents, recaptured Levadia, and on the 30th of June relieved the Acropolis; but the rout of the troops which Mahommed Pasha was bringing to his aid by the Greeks in the defile of Mount Oeta, and the news of the fall of Tripolitsa, forced him to retreat, and the campaign of 1821 ended with the retirement of the Turks into Thessaly.
The month of April had witnessed the revolt of the principal Greek islands, Spetsae on the 7th, Psara on the 23rd, Hydra on the 28th and Samos on the 30th. Their fleets were divided into squadrons, of which one, under Tombazes, was deputed to watch for the entrance of the Ottomans into the archipelago, while the other under Andreas Miaoulis (q.v.) sailed to blockade Patras and watch the coasts of Epirus. At sea, as on land, the Greeks opened the campaign with hideous atrocities, almost their first exploit being the capture of a vessel carrying to Mecca the sheik-ul-Islam and his family, whom they murdered with every aggravation of outrage.
These inauspicious beginnings, indeed, set the whole tone of the war, which was frankly one of mutual extermination. On both sides the combatants were barbarians, without discipline or competent organization. At sea theGeneral character of the war.Greeks rapidly developed into mere pirates, and even Miaoulis, for all his high character and courage, was often unable to prevent his captains from sailing home at critical moments, when pay or booty failed. On land the presence of a few educated Phanariots, such as Demetrios Ypsilanti or Alexander Mavrocordato, was powerless to inspire the rude hordes with any sense of order or of humanity in warfare; while every lull in the fighting, due to a temporary check to the Turks, was the signal for internecine conflicts due to the rivalry of leaders who, with rare exceptions, thought more of their personal power and profit than of the cause of Greece.
This cause, indeed, was helped more by the impolitic reprisals of the Turks than by the heroism of the insurgents. All Europe stood aghast at the news of the execution ofTurkish reprisals.the Patriarch Gregorios of Constantinople (April 22, 1821) and the wholesale massacres that followed, culminating as these did in the extermination of the prosperous community of Scio (Chios) in March 1822. The cause of Greece was now that of Christendom, of the Catholic and Protestant West, as of the Orthodox East. European Liberalism, too, gagged and fettered under Metternich’sEurope and the rising Philhellenism.“system,” recognized in the Greeks the champions of its own cause; while even conservative statesmen, schooled in the memories of ancient Hellas, saw in the struggle a fight of civilization against barbarism. This latter belief, which was, moreover, flattering to their vanity, the Greek leaders were astute enough to foster; the propaganda of Adamantios Coraës (q.v.) had done itswork; and wily brigands, like Odysseus of Ithaka, assuming the style and trappings of antiquity, posed as the champions of classic culture against the barbarian. All Europe, then, hailed with joy the exploit of Constantine Kanaris, who on the night of June 18-19 succeeded in steering a fire-ship among the Turkish squadron off Scio, and burned the flag-ship of the capudan-pasha with 3000 souls on board.
Meanwhile Sultan Mahmud, now wide awake to the danger, had been preparing for a systematic effort to suppress the rising. The threatened breach with Russia had been avoided by Metternich’s influence on the tsar Alexander; the death of Ali of Iannina had set free the army of Khurshid Pasha, who now, asseraskierof Rumelia, was charged with the task of reducing the Morea. In the spring of 1822 two Turkish armies advanced southwards: one, under Omar Vrioni, along the coast of Western Hellas, the other, under Ali, pasha of Drama (Dramali), through Boeotia and Attica. Omar was held in check by the mudExpedition of Dramali, 1822.ramparts of Missolonghi; but Dramali, after exacting fearful vengeance for the massacre of the Turkish garrison of the Acropolis at Athens, crossed the Isthmus and with the over-confidence of a conquering barbarian advanced to the relief of the hard-pressed garrison of Nauplia. He crossed the perilous defile of Dervenaki unopposed; and at the news of his approach most of the members of the Greek government assembled at Argos fled in panic terror. Demetrios Ypsilanti, however, with a few hundred men joined the Mainote Karayanni in the castle of Larissa, which crowns the acropolis of ancient Argos. This held Dramali in check, and gave Kolokotrones time to collect an army. The Turks, in the absence of the fleet which was to have brought them supplies, were forced to retreat (August 6); the Greeks, inspired with new courage, awaited them in the pass of Dervenaki, where the undisciplined Ottoman host, thrown into confusion by an avalanche of boulders hurled upon them, was annihilated. In Western Greece the campaign had an outcome scarcely less disastrous for the Turks. The death of Ali of Iannina had been followed by the suppression of the insurgent Suliotes and the advance of Omar Vrioni southwards to Missolonghi; but the town held out gallantly, a Turkish surprise attack, on the 6th of January 1823, was beaten off, and Omar Vrioni had to abandon the siege and retire northwards over the pass of Makrynoros.
The victorious outcome of the year’s fighting had a disastrous effect upon the Greeks. Their victories had been due mainly to the guerilla tactics of the leaders of the type of Kolokotrones; Mavrocordato, whose character andCivil war among the Greeks.antecedents had marked him out as the natural head of the new Greek state, in spite of his successful defence of Missolonghi, had been discredited by failures elsewhere; and the Greeks thus learned to despise their civilized advisers and to underrate the importance of discipline. The temporary removal of the common peril, moreover, let loose all the sectional and personal jealousies, which even in face of the enemy had been with difficulty restrained, and the year 1823 witnessed the first civil war between the Greek parties. These internecine feuds might easily have proved fatal to the cause of Greece. In the Archipelago Hydriotes and Spetsiotes were at daggers drawn; the men of Psara were at open war with those of Samos; all semblance of discipline and cohesion had vanished from the Greek fleet. Had Khosrev, the new Ottoman admiral, been a man of enterprise, he might have regained the command of the sea and, with it, that of the whole situation. But the fate of his predecessor had filled him with a lively terror of Kanaris and his fire-ships; he contented himself with aCampaign of 1823.cruise round the coasts of Greece, and was happy to return to safety under the guns of the Dardanelles without having accomplished anything beyond throwing supplies and troops into Coron, Modon and Patras. On land, meanwhile, the events of the year before practically repeated themselves. In the west an army of Mussulman and Catholic Albanians, under Mustai Pasha, advanced southwards. On the night of the 21st of August occurred the celebrated exploit of Marko Botzaris and his Suliotes: a successful surprise attack on the camp of the Ottoman vanguard, in which the Suliote leader fell. The jealousy of the Aetolian militia for the Suliotes, however, prevented the victory being decisive; and Mustai advanced to the siege of Anatoliko, a little town in the lagoons near Missolonghi. Here he was detained until, on the 11th of December, he was forced to raise the siege and retire northwards. His colleague, Yussuf Pasha, in East Hellas fared no better; here, too, the Turks gained some initial successes, but in the end the harassing tactics of Kolokotrones and his guerilla bands forced them back into the plain of the Kephissos. At the end of the year the Greeks were once more free to renew their internecine feuds.
Just when these feuds were at their height, in the autumn of 1823, the most famous of the Philhellenes who sacrificed themselves for the cause of Greece, Lord Byron, arrived in Greece.
The year 1824 was destined to be a fateful one for the Greek cause. The large loans raised in Europe, the first instalment of which Byron had himself brought over, while providing the Greeks with the sinews of war, providedSecond civil war, 1824.them also with fresh material for strife. To the struggle for power was added a struggle for a share of this booty, and a second civil war broke out, Kolokotrones leading the attack on the forces of the government. Early in 1825 the government was victorious; Kolokotrones was in prison; and Odysseus, the hero of so many exploits and so many crimes, who had ended by turning traitor and selling his services to the Turks, had been captured, imprisoned in the Acropolis, and finally assassinated by his former lieutenant Gouras (July 16, 1824). But a new and more terrible danger now threatened Greece. Sultan Mahmud, despairing of suppressing the insurrection by his own power, had reluctantly summoned to his aid Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, whoseIntervention of Mehemet Ali.well-equipped fleet and disciplined army were now thrown into the scale against the Greeks. Already, in June 1823, the pasha’s son-in-law Hussein Bey had landed in Crete, and by April of the following year had reduced the insurgent islanders to submission. Crete now became the base of operations against the Greeks. On the 19th of June Hussein appeared before Kasos, a nest of pirates of evil reputation, which he captured and destroyed. The same day the Egyptian fleet, under Ibrahim Pasha, sailed from Alexandria. Khosrev, too, emboldened by this new sense of support, ventured to sea, surprised and destroyed Psara (July 2), and planned an attack on Samos, which was defeated by Miaoulis and his fire-ships (August 16, 17). On the 1st of September, however, Khosrev succeeded in effecting a junction with Ibrahim off Budrun, and two indecisive engagements followed with the united Greek fleet on the 5th and 10th. The object of Ibrahim was to reach Suda Bay with his transports, which the Greeks should at all costs have prevented. A first attempt was defeated by Miaoulis on the 16th of November, and Ibrahim was compelled to retire and anchor off Rhodes; but the Greek admiral was unable to keep his fleet together, the season was far advanced, his captains were clamouring for arrears of pay, and the Greek fleet sailed for Nauplia, leaving the sea unguarded. On the 5th of December Ibrahim again set sail, and reached Suda without striking a blow. Here he completed his preparations, and, on the 24th of February 1825, landed at Modon in the Morea with a force of 4000 regular infantry and 500 cavalry. The rest followed, without the Greeks making any effort to intercept them.
The conditions of the war were now completely changed. The Greeks, who had been squandering the money provided by the loans in every sort of senseless extravagance, affected to despise the Egyptian invaders, but theyIbrahim in the Morea.were soon undeceived. On the 21st of March Ibrahim had laid siege to Navarino, and after some delay a Greek force under Skourti, a Hydriote sea-captain, was sent to its relief. The Greeks had in all some 7000 men, Suliotes, Albanians,armatolifrom Rumelia, and some irregular Bulgarian and Vlach cavalry. On the 19th of April they were met byIbrahim at Krommydi with 2000 regular infantry, 400 cavalry and four guns. The Greek entrenchments were stormed at the point of the bayonet by Ibrahim’s fellahin at the first onset; the defenders broke and fled, leaving 600 dead on the field. The news of this disaster, and of the fall of Pylos and Navarino that followed, struck terror into the Greek government; and in answer to popular clamour Kolokotrones was taken from prison and placed at the head of the army. But the guerilla tactics of the wily klepht were powerless against Ibrahim, who marched northward, and, avoiding Nauplia for the present, seized Tripolitsa, and made this the base from which his columns marched to devastate the country far and wide.
Meanwhile from the north the Ottomans were making another supreme effort. The command of the army that was to operate in west Hellas had been given to Reshid “Kutahia,” pasha of Iannina, an able general and a man of determinedReshid “Kutahia” besieges Missolonghi.character. On the 6th of April, after bribing the Albanian clansmen to neutrality, he passed the defile of Makrynoros, which the Greeks had left undefended, and on the 7th of May opened the second siege of Missolonghi. For twelve months the population held out, repulsing the attacks of the enemy, refusing every offer of honourable capitulation. This resistance was rendered possible by the Greek command of the sea, Miaoulis from time to time entering the lagoons with supplies; it came to an end when this command was lost. In September 1825 Ibrahim, at the order of the sultan, had joined Reshid before the town; piecemeal the outlying forts and defences now fell, until the garrison, reduced by starvation and disease, determined to hazard all on a final sortie. This took place on the night of the 22nd of April 1826; but a mistaken order threw the ranks of the Greeks into disorder, and the Turks entered the town pell-mell with the retreating crowd. Only a remnant of the defenders succeeded in gaining the forests of Mount Zygos, where most of them perished.
The fall of Missolonghi, followed as this was by the submission of many of the more notable chiefs, left Reshid free to turn his attention to East Hellas, where Gouras had been ruling as a practically independent chief and in the spiritKaraiskakis.of a brigand. The peasants of the open country welcomed the Turks as deliverers, and Reshid’s conciliatory policy facilitated his march to Athens, which fell at the first assault on the 25th of August, siege being at once laid to the Acropolis, where Gouras and his troops had taken refuge. Round this the war now centred; for all recognized that its fall would involve that of the cause of Greece. In these straits the Greek government entrusted the supreme command of the troops to Karaiskakis, an old retainer of Ali of Iannina, a master of the art of guerilla war, and, above all, a man of dauntless courage and devoted patriotism. A first attempt to relieve the Acropolis, with the assistance of some disciplined troops under the French Colonel Fabvier, was defeated at Chaidari by the Turks. The garrison of the Acropolis was hard pressed, and the death of Gouras (October 13th) would have ended all, had not his heroic wife taken over the command and inspired the defenders with new courage. For months the siege dragged on, while Karaiskakis fought with varying success in the mountains, a final victory at Distomo (February 1827) over Omar Vrioni securing the restoration to the Greek cause of all continental Greece, except the towns actually held by the Turks.
It was at this juncture that the Greek government, reinforced by a fresh loan from Europe, handed over the chief command at sea to Lord Cochrane (earl of Dundonald,q.v.), and that of the land forces to General (afterwards SirCochrane and Church.Richard) Church, both Miaoulis and Karaiskakis consenting without demur to serve under them. Cochrane and Church at once concentrated their energies on the task of relieving the Acropolis. Already, on the 5th of February, General Gordon had landed and entrenched himself on the hill of Munychia, near the ancient Piraeus, and the efforts of the Turks to dislodge him had failed, mainly owing to the fire of the steamer “Karteria” commanded by Captain Hastings. When Church and Cochrane arrived, a general assault on the Ottoman camp was decided on. This was preceded, on the 25th of April, by an attack, headed by Cochrane, on the Turkish troops established near the monastery of St Spiridion, the result of which was to establish communications between the Greeks at Munychia and Phalerum and isolate Reshid’s vanguard on the promontory of the Piraeus. The monastery held out for two days longer, when the Albanian garrison surrendered on terms, but were massacred by the Greeks as they were marching away under escort. For this miserable crime Church has, by some historians, been held responsible by default; it is clear, however, from his own account that no blame rests upon him (see his MS.Narrative, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 34). The assault on the Turkish main camp was fixed for the 6th of May; but, unfortunately, a chance skirmish brought on an engagement the day before, in the course of which Karaiskakis was killed, an irreparable loss in view of his prestige with the wildarmatoli. The assault on the following day was a disastrous failure. TheGreek defeat at Athens.Greeks, advancing prematurely over broken ground and in no sort of order, were fallen upon in flank by Reshid’s horsemen, and fled in panic terror. The English officers, who in vain tried to rally them, themselves only just escaped by scrambling into their boats and putting off to the war-vessels, whose guns checked the pursuit and enabled a remnant of the fugitives to escape. Church held Munychia till the 27th, when he sent instructions for the garrison of the Acropolis to surrender. On the 5th of June the remnant of the defenders marched out with the honours of war, and continental Greece was once more in the power of the Turks. Had Reshid at once advanced over the Isthmus, the Morea also must have been subdued; but he was jealous of Ibrahim, and preferred to return to Iannina to consolidate his conquests.
The fate of Greece was now in the hands of the Powers, who after years of diplomatic wrangling had at last realized that intervention was necessary if Greece was to be saved for European civilization. The worst enemy of theRenewed anarchy.Greeks was their own incurable spirit of faction; in the very crisis of their fate, during the siege of Missolonghi, rival presidents and rival assemblies struggled for supremacy, and a third civil war had only been prevented by the arrival of Cochrane and Church. Under their influence a new National Assembly met at Troezene in March 1827 and elected as president Count Capo d’Istria (q.v.), formerly Russian minister for foreign affairs; at the same time a new constitution was promulgated which, when the very life of the insurrection seemed on the point of flickering out, set forth the full ideal of Pan-Hellenic dreams. Anarchy followed; war of Rumeliotes against Moreotes, of chief against chief; rival factions bombarded each other from the two forts at Nauplia over the stricken town, and in derision of the impotent government. Finally, after months of inaction, Ibrahim began once more his systematic devastation of the country. To put a stop to this the Powers decided to intervene by means of a joint demonstration of their fleets, in order to enforce an armistice and compel Ibrahim to evacuate the Morea (Treaty of London, July 6, 1827). The refusal of Ibrahim to obey, without special instruction from the sultan, led to the entrance of the allied British, French and Russian fleet into the harbour of Navarino and the battle of the 20th of October 1827 (seeNavarino). This, and the two campaigns of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-29, decided the issue.