FOOTNOTES:

Disputed already in the Delian Confederacy by Athens and the lesser members.

Duruy's attitude on this question.

The same kind of difficulty had occurred long before under the old dominations of Sparta, Athens, and Thebes; but I did not refer to it before, because this is the proper place to bring the problem in all its bearings before the reader. Under the Athenian supremacy many members had voluntarily entered into the Delian Confederacy; others had done so either under protest, or for some special object, such as the clearing of the Ægean from Persian occupation. Presently, when the particular object was fulfilled, and when the Athenian tax-gatherers insisted upon the tribute which was spent on public, but Athenian, objects, the separate members declared their right to secede, and revolted whenever they had the power. The Athenians argued that the peace and prosperity of the Ægean had been secured by the common effort of the Confederacy and by the zeal and self-sacrifice of Athens. They denied that each member which had so long profited by the arrangement had a right to secede, and in any case they declared that they would coerce the seceder. In Duruy's chapter on the passage of the Delian Confederacy into the Athenian empire[179:1]he shows little sympathy for the individual members and their hardships, and justifies Athens in her aggressive policy.In a mere passing note he compares the case of the North against the South in the late American Civil War. But as he has not argued out the problem, I may be of service to the reader in discussing it here.

Greek sentiment very different.

It was to this dispute that the real origin of the Peloponnesian war is to be traced. And though most people thought Athens quite justified in holding what she had obtained, and not surrendering the empire which had cost such labour and returned in exchange such great glory, yet the general feeling of the Greek world was distinctly in favour of the seceder,—in favour of the inalienable right of every city to reassert its autonomy as a separate State[180:1], not only with communal independence, but with perfect liberty to treat as it chose with neighbouring States. Whenever, therefore, this conflict between Imperialism and Particularism arose, public sympathies sided with the assertion of local independence.

Nature of the Achæan League.

§ 76. The debate in the present case was somewhat different in its details. The Achæan League, a number of small cities situated upon a coast exposed to pirates, and able to foresee from lofty posts the coming raid, united voluntarily for attack and defence, and so formed a Confederacy, whichlasted a long time before the wealth gained by its members as mercenaries and the decay of the greater Powers of Greece brought it into prominence[181:1]. These cities had a common executive and a sort of cabinet, preparing the business for the general Assembly, which met for three days twice a year, and then decisions were obtained from this Assembly and measures ratified by its votes. But as the more distant members could not attend in great numbers, the members of each city present, whether few or many, gave that city's vote, which counted as an unit in the Confederacy. The result was of course to put political power into the hands of the richer classes, who had leisure to leave their own affairs and go regularly to the Assembly at Ægion[181:2].

Statement of the new difficulty

The difficulties which now arose were these: Had any of the original twelve towns, that had voluntarily formed this Union, the right to withdraw their adhesion? In a lesser degree, had the towns that afterwards joined in consequence of the pressure of circumstances, but by a deliberate and public vote, a right to rescind that vote? And in a stillless degree, had any town which had subscribed to the Achæan constitution any right to violate its observance in one point, as by negotiating separately with another State, or was it bound to observe in all respects the terms imposed by the Union from which it was not allowed to secede?

in its clearest form never yet settled except by force.

The first of these cases is by far the most perplexing, and I am not aware that it has ever been settled by any argument better than an appeal to force. To the Greeks, at all events, it seemed that the right of autonomy—the power to manage one's own affairs—was the inalienable right of everycity; just as the Irish Nationalists may be heard daily asserting it for everynation[182:1].

Case of the American Union.

In our own youth we heard this right far more seriously urged by the seceding States of the American Union, some of which had been members of the first combination, and had voluntarily ceded certain portions of their political rights, at least their theoretical rights, in return for the protection and support of the Confederation as a whole. These States argued that if the Union began tointerfere in the domestic concerns of each,—such, for example, as the practice of permitting household slaves,—it was a breach of contract, and justified the State in formally repudiating the remainder of the contract. But even had there been no encroachment by new legislation, the Greek city claimed the right of returning to its isolated independence.

Arguments for coercion of the several members.

§ 77. On the other side, it has always been argued that though contracts for a definite period need not be renewed, there are many contracts intended by their very nature to be permanent, and which are so far-reaching in their consequences that for any one party to abandon them is a profound injustice to the remainder, whose lives have been instituted and regulated upon these contracts[183:1]. Let us take an illustration from everyday life. From the contract of marriage there arise such important consequences that a dissolution does not permit the contracting parties to resume theiroriginal life; and therefore in all higher civilizations legal divorce has been made very difficult, and secession by either party without legal sanction a grave offence.

In like manner it was argued that the several cities had grown rich and powerful under the League. The lives of its members had been sacrificed to defend every city attacked; the funds of the League had been spent on each as they were needed. Was it just that after growing and thriving upon these conditions any one of them should, for its own convenience, repudiate the bond and regard all the accruing benefits as a private property, to be disposed of to any strange Power?

Cases of doubtful or enforced adherence.

To answer this question and to adjudicate between the litigants is hard enough, and yet I have stated the simplest difficulty. For in the case of many of the additions to the Achæan League a revolution had first taken place, the existing government had been overthrown, and then the new majority had placed themselves under the protection of the Confederation. If the old rulers returned to power, were they bound by the Government which had coerced them, and which they regarded as revolutionary? Others, again, had been constrained by the presence of an armed force, and by threats of imminent danger if they did not accept the League's protection. When circumstances changed, could they not argue that they were coerced, and that an apparently freeplébiscitewas wrung from them against their better judgment?

Various internal questions.

§ 78. Such were the profoundly interesting and thoroughly modern problems which agitated the minds of men in post-Alexandrian Greece. There were moreover various internal questions,—whether new cities which joined should have equal rights with the original members; whether large cities should have a city vote only equal to the vote of the smallest; whether the general Assembly should be held in turn at each of the cities, or in the greatest and most convenient centre, or in a place specially chosen for its insignificance, so that the Assembly might be entirely free from local influences? All these questions must have agitated the minds of the founders of the Swiss Union and the American Union, for the problems remain the same, however nations may wax and wane.

Looser bond of the Ætolian League.

The Achæan and Ætolian Unions were very popular indeed, especially the latter, which required no alterations in the administration of each State, but accepted any member merely on terms of paying a general tax, and obtaining in lieu thereof military aid, and restitution of property from other members if they had carried off plunder from its territory[185:1]. The Achæan League required more. A tyrant must abdicate before his city could become a member, and in more than one case this actually took place.

The most dangerous, though passive, enemy ofthis hopeful compromise between the Separatist and the truly National spirit was, as I have said, the sullen standing aloof of the greater cities. Of course the ever active foe was the power of Macedon, which could deal easily with local tyrants, or even single cities, but was balked by the strength of the combination.

Radical monarchy of Cleomenes.

At last there arose a still more attractive alternative, which was rapidly destroying the Achæan League, when its leader, Aratus, called in the common enemy from Macedon, and enslaved his country in order to checkmate his rival. This rival was the royalty of Sparta, who offered to the cities of the Peloponnesus an Union on the old lines of a Confederation under the headship of Sparta, but of Sparta as Cleomenes had transformed it; for he had assassinated the ephors, abolished the second king, and proposed sweeping reforms in the direction of socialistic equality,—division of large properties, and protection of the poor against the oppression of aristocrats or capitalists. This kind of revolution, with the military genius of Cleomenes to give it strength and brilliancy, attracted men's minds far more than the constitutional, but somewhat torpid and plutocratic, League. Of course the fatal struggle led practically to the destruction of both schemes by the superior force and organization of Macedon.

[168:1]We may well apply to it the famous words of Tacitus at the opening of hisHistories: 'Opus adgredior opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum; principes ferro interempti, bella civilia, plura externa ac plerumque permixta . . . pollutae caeremoniae; magna adulteria; plenum exiliis mare; infecti caedibus scopuli . . . corrupti in dominos servi, in patronos liberti; et quibus deerat inimicus, per amicos oppressi.'

[170:1]This judgment seems likely to be reversed by the wonderful accession of new materials upon the Ptolemaic age, the first instalment of which I have published in a monograph upon the Petrie Papyri (with autotype plates, Williams & Norgate, 1891). We shall presently know the conditions of life in one province at all events, the Fayoum, which was peopled with Greek veterans along with Jews and Egyptians. I have now under my hand their wills, their private letters, their accounts, their official correspondence in hundreds of shreds and fragments.

[171:1]The best special work on the conflict of the Greek settlements with the Jewish population, and with the Asmonæan sovrans all along the coast of Palestine, is B. Stark'sGaza und die Philistische Küste.

[172:1]Cf. Plutarch'sLife of Cleomenes, cap. xi.

[173:1]Cf. the cases quoted in myGreek Life and Thought, pp. 394, 537, 541-543.

[173:2]Above §§ 35seqq.

[173:3]Florilegium(ed. Teubner), ii. 247-284.

[178:1]The momentary acquisition (in 190B.C.) of two unimportant towns, Pleuron and Heraclea, in northern Greece, need hardly count as a correction of this general statement. The acquisition of the island Zacynthos was prevented by the Romans.

[179:1]Hist. des Grecs, chap. xix.

[180:1]I need not pause to remind the reader that each Greek city, orpόlis, was in every constitutional sense a separate and independent State, just as much as the largest country is now. These cities severally made frequent treaties even with Rome, to which they stood in the same relations as a foreign king.

[181:1]These points were suggested for the first time in myGreek Life and Thought, pp. 7seqq.

[181:2]This voting by cities seems to me the nearest approach to representation that the Greeks ever made in politics, as distinct from religious councils, such as the Amphictyonies; for of course a city far from the place of assembly could agree with a small number of its citizens that they should attend and vote in a particular way. Every citizen, however, might go if he chose, so that this would be a mere private understanding.

[182:1]The Greekcity-polity(πόλις) was a perfectly clear and definite thing. Anation, 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 asserted, 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 (Erythræ, Chalcis), which have been found graven on stone; and argues that because they assert 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 assertion of eternal peace and union was an almost universal and perfectly unmeaning formula. If such formulæ 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 Institute at Athens, xi. 262.

The Romans in Greece.

Position of Rome towards the Leagues.

§ 79. The interference of the Romans in Greek affairs reopened many of the constitutional 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 Achæan 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.

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 theRomans 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 Hellenistic 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.

Opposition of the Ætolians.

Both these difficulties soon arose. The Ætolians, 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 Ætolian League without an appeal on their part to Rome, which could hardly fail to be successful. So then the Ætolians 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.

Probably not fairly stated by Polybius.

It was a great pity, for this League of mountaineers had shown real military vigour, and had itbeen educated into orderly and constitutional ways, would have been a strong bulwark of Hellenic 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 Ætolians any qualities save their vices. On the other hand, he has stated as favourably as possible the more interesting case of his own confederation.

Rome and the Achæans.

Mistakes of Philopœmen gave Rome excuses for interference.

§ 80. Here the second difficulty just stated was that which arose, not without the deliberate assistance of the Romans. On the one hand, the Achæans 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 bloody successes of Philopœmen, 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 toimpotent 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].

Mommsen takes the Roman side.

§ 81. The diplomatic conflict between the Achæans 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 institutions 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.

Hertzberg and Freeman on the Achæan question.

On the other hand Hertzberg, in the first volume of his excellentHistory of the Greeks under Roman Domination, and Professor Freeman, in hisFederal 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.

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.

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 waseverywhere 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.

The advocates for union with Rome.

§ 82. Greek politicians were divided into three classes. 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.

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 unconstitutional encroachments, and that no material advantages of enforced peace oroppressive protection could compensate for the paralysis which was creeping over Hellenic political life.

The tyrannous and cruel act of the Romans, who deported one thousand leading Achæans to Italy (on the charge of disloyalty to Rome in sentiments) and let most of them pine in their exile and die as meresuspects, 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.

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.

Money considerations

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 constitutional agitations or sudden war-contributions afforded the onlychance 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 classes. Roman dominion therefore meant at least peace and safety for the rich. The grinding exactions of Roman prætor 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.

Exaggerated statements on both sides.

The Separatists would not tolerate separation from themselves.

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 anddishonest 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 asserted 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 bloody 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.

Modern analogies forced upon us,

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 analogies 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 firstpublished an account of these things[196:1], I was at once attacked by several of my reviewers for daring to introduce modern analogies 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 analogies 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 analogies 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.

The history of Greece is essentially modern;

therefore modern parallels are surely admissible, if justly drawn.

I think, with Thucydides and Polybius, that the study of history is then most useful and serious when it leads us to estimate what is likely to happen by the light of what has already happened in similar cases. Mere remoteness of date or place has nothing to say to the matter. The history of Greece, as I have often said already, is intensely modern,—far more so than any mediæval or than most recent histories. Wehave to deal with a people fully developed, in its mature life; nay, even in its old age and decadence. To deny a historian the privilege and the profit of illumining his subject by the light of modern parallels, or the life of to-day by parallels from Greek history, is simply to condemn him to remain an unpractical pedant, and to abandon the strongest claim to a hearing from practical men.

Above all, let us seek the truth with open mind, and speak out our convictions; and if we are wrong, instead of blaming us for appealing to the deeper interests and stirring the warmer emotions of men, let our errors be refuted. Let us save ancient history from its dreary fate in the hands of the dry antiquarian, the narrow scholar; and while we utilize all his research and all his learning, let us make the acts and lives of older men speak across the chasm of centuries, and claim kindred with the men and the motives of to-day. For this, and this only, is to write history in the full and real sense,—this is to show that the great chain of centuries is forged of homogeneous metal, and joined with links that all bear the great Workman's unmistakeable design.

The spiritual history not closed with the Roman conquest.

§ 85. We have come to the real close of political Greek history,—at a point upon which historians have been unanimous. And yet the Greeks would hardly have been worth all this study if the sum of what they could teach us was a political lesson. They showed indeed in politics a variety andan excellence not reached by any other ancient people. But their spiritual and intellectual wealth is not bounded by these limits; and they have left us, after the close of their independence, more to think out and to understand than other nations have done in the heyday of their greatness.

On this spiritual history I shall not say more than a few words. The earlier part of it, extending to the moment when, under Trajan, Christianity came forth from its concealment, and became a social and political power, I have recently treated in a volume entitledThe Greek World under Roman Sway. The reader who cares to unfold this complicated and various picture of manners, of ideas, of social habits and moral principles, will find the Greek subjects of the Roman Empire full of interest, and will even find, in the authors of that age, merits which have long been unduly ignored. The crowded thoroughfares of Antioch and Alexandria; the great religious foundations of Comana, Stratoniceia, and Pessinus, each ruled by a priest no less important than the prince-bishops of Salzburg or Würtzburg in recent centuries; the old-world fashions of Borysthenes, of Naples, of Eubœa; the gradual rise of Syrian and of Jewish Hellenism, the fascinating rivalries of Herod and of Cleopatra for Roman favour, the Hellenism of Cicero, of Cæsar, of Claudius, and of Nero, the fluctuations of trade from Rhodes to Delos, from Delos to Puteoli and Corinth, the splendours and the dark spotsin the society which Dion, Apuleius, and Plutarch saw and described—these and many other kindred topics make up a subject most fascinating, though from its complexity difficult to set in order, and impossible to handle without the occurrence of error.

The great bequests of the Roman period.

I am sure it is below the mark to say that more than half the Greek books now extant date from the period of the Roman domination. And if it be true that in style there is nothing to equal the great poets and prose-writers from Æschylus to Demosthenes, it is equally true that in matter the later writers far exceed their predecessors. All the exacter science got from the Greeks comes from that large body of Alexandrian writings which none but the specialist can understand. The history of Diodorus, embracing an immense field and telling us a vast number of facts otherwise lost; the great geographies of Strabo, of Ptolemy, and that curious collection which can be read in Carl Müller's laboriousCorpus; the moral essays of Dion Chrysostom; the social encyclopædia of Plutarch; the vast majority of the extant inscriptions, come to us from Roman times.

But most of these are special. Is there nothing of general interest? Assuredly there is. No Greek book can compare for one moment in general importance with that collection of history and letters called the New Testament, all written in Greek, and intended to reach the civilized world through the mediation of Greek.

The Anthology, Lucian, Julian,

I will not here enter upon Christian Greek literature, but point to Plutarch, who has certainly been more read and had more influence than any other Greek writer on the literature of modern Europe. Nay, in the lighter subjects, and where the writers must trust to style to commend them to the reader, not only is there a good deal of poetry once thought classical,—such as the Anacreontics and the Anthology—which is in great part the produce of later Greek genius, but the wit of Lucian and the seriousness of Julian found in the Greek language their appropriate vehicle.

Plotinus.

The deeper philosophy of these centuries, that attempt to fuse the metaphysics of heathendom and Christendom which is called Neo-Platonism,—this too was created and circulated by Greek writers and in Greek; so that though Hellas was laid asleep, and her independence a mere tradition, her legacy to the world was still bearing interest one hundredfold.

Theological Greek studies.

The writers who have dealt with this great and various development of later Hellenism are either the historians of the Roman Empire—especially Duruy, who has kept up the thread of his Greek History in his popularHistory of Rome—or the theologians. The latter have a field so specially their own, and the literature of the subject is so enormous, that the mere historian of Greece and the Greeks must content himself with the pagan side. To touch even in a general way, as I havehitherto done, upon the many controversies that now arise concerning Greek life and thought would here be impossible.

§ 86. But there is one important point at the very outset of the new departure into Christianity upon which I would gladly save the reader from a widely diffused error.

Have the Greeks no share in our religion?

It has been long the fashion—since the writings of Ernest Renan it has been almost a commonplace, to say: that while modern Europe owes to the Greeks all manner of wisdom and of refinement, in politics, literature, philosophy, architecture, sculpture, one thing there is which they could not impart to us,—religion. This deeper side of man, his relation to one God, his duty and his responsibilities beyond this ordinary life, we owe not to the Greeks, but to the legacy of the Semitic race. To the Jews, we are told, are due all the highest, all the most serious, all the most elevating features in modern Christianity.

Or is it altogether Semitic?

Is this true? Is it the case that the Greeks were, after all, only brilliant children, playing with life, and never awaking to the real seriousness of the world's problems? There has seldom been a plausible statement circulated which is further from the truth. However capital the fact that the first great teacher and revealer of Christianity was a Jew, however carefully the dogmas of the Old Testament were worked up into the New, Christianity, as we have it historically, would have been impossible without Hellenism.

The language of the New Testament exclusively Greek.

In the first place, the documents of the New Testament were one and all composed in Greek, as thelingua francaof the East and West; and the very first author in the list, Saint Matthew, was a tax-gatherer, whose business required him to know it[202:1]. If, therefore, the vehicle of Christianity from the first was the Greek language, this is not an unimportant factor to start with; and yet it is the smallest and most superficial contribution that Greek thought has given to Christianity. When my later studies on the history of Hellenism under the Roman Empire see the light, I trust that the evidence for the following grave facts, already admitted by most critical theologians, will be brought before the lay reader.

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