The World's Greatest Books - Volume 11 Part 10

For some days after this the marching was very severe; the men had to struggle forward on very nearly empty stomachs, through blizzards, suffering terribly from frostbite and the blinding effect of the snow on their eyes, so that at times nothing short of actual threats from the officers could induce the exhausted men to toil forward; and all the time the enemy's skirmishers were hara.s.sing the troops and cutting off stragglers. These, however, were finally dispersed by a sudden onslaught of the rearguard, and after this a more populous district was reached, where food and wine abounded, and the Greeks, who were not ill-received, made some days' halt to recuperate.

Here a guide was obtained for the next stages; but on the third night he deserted, because Cheirisophus had lost his temper and struck him. This incident was the only occasion of a serious difference between Xenophon and the elder commander. On the seventh day after this the river Phasis was crossed; but two days later, on approaching a mountain pa.s.s, it was seen to be occupied in force. A council of war was held, at which some jesting pa.s.sed, Xenophon remarking on the reputation of the Lacedaemonians as adepts in thieving, a jibe which Cheirisophus retorted on the Athenians; as the business in hand was to "steal a match" on the enemy, each encouraged the other to act up to the national reputation.

In the night, a detachment of volunteers captured the ridge above the pa.s.s; the enemy facing the main body beat a hasty retreat when they found their position turned.

Another five days brought the army into the country of the Taochi, where the Greeks had to rush a somewhat dangerous position in order to capture supplies. A s.p.a.ce of some twenty yards was open to such a storm of missiles from above that it could only be pa.s.sed by drawing the enemy's fire and making a dash before fresh missiles were acc.u.mulated. When this was accomplished, however, the foe offered no practical resistance, but flung themselves over the cliffs.

Eighteen days later the Greeks reached a town called Gymnise, where they obtained a guide. Their course lay through tribes towards whom the governor was hostile, and the Greeks had no objection to gratifying him by spoiling and burning on their way. On the fifth day after leaving Gymnise, a mountain pa.s.s was reached.

When the van cleared the top of the mountain, there arose a great shouting. And when Xenophon heard it, and they of the rear-guard, they supposed that other enemies were ranged against them, for the men of the land which had been ravaged were following behind; but when the clamour grew louder and nearer, and the new arrivals doubled forward to where the shouting was, so that it became greater and greater with the added numbers, Xenophon thought this must be something of moment. Therefore, taking Lycias and the hors.e.m.e.n, he rode forward at speed to give aid; and then suddenly they were aware of the soldiers' shout, the word that rang through the lines--"The sea! the sea!" Then every man raced, rear-guard and all, urging horses and the very baggage-mules to the top of their speed, and when they came to the top, they fell on each other's necks, and the generals, and officers, too, with tears of delight. And in a moment, whoever it was that pa.s.sed the word, the men were gathering stones, and there they reared a mighty column.

And as for the lucky guide, he betook himself home laden with presents.

Of what befell between this point and the actual arrival of the army on the coast of the Black Sea at the Grecian colony of Trapezus [Trebizond]

the most curious incident was that of the soldiers lighting upon great quant.i.ties of honey, which not only made them violently ill, but had an intoxicating effect, attributed to the herbs frequented by the bees in that district. This necessitated a halt of some days. The second day's march thence brought them to Trapezus, where they made sacrificial thank-offerings to the G.o.ds, and further celebrated the occasion by holding athletic games.

_IV.--The End of the Expedition_

But Trapezus was not Greece, and the problem of transport was serious.

The men, sick of marching, were eager to accomplish the rest of their journey by sea. Cheirisophus the general, as being a personal friend of the Lacedaemonian admiral stationed at Byzantium, was commissioned to obtain s.h.i.+ps from him to take the Greeks home.

Cheirisophus departed. The army, which still numbered over ten thousand persons, was willing enough to maintain its military organisation for foraging and for self-defence; also to make such arrangements as were practicable for collecting s.h.i.+ps in case Cheirisophus should fail them; but the men flatly refused to consider any further movement except by water.

So they stayed where they were, maintaining their supplies by raids on the natives; but time pa.s.sed, and there were no tidings of Cheirisophus.

At last, they saw nothing for it but to put the sick and other non-combatants aboard of the vessels which had been secured, send them on by sea, and themselves march by the coast to Cerasus, another Greek colony. Thence they continued their westward progress, in which they met with considerable resistance from the natives, who were barbarians of a primitive type, until they came to Cotyora.

This was another settlement from Sinope; but it received the Greeks very inhospitably, so that the latter continued their practice of ravaging the neighbouring territories. It was now eight months since the expedition had started on its homeward march. Here a deputation arrived from Sinope to protest against their proceedings; but Xenophon pointed out that while they were perfectly willing to buy what they needed and behave as friends, if they were not allowed to buy, self-preservation compelled them to take by force. Ultimately, the deputation promised to send s.h.i.+ps from Sinope to convey them thither.

During the time of waiting there was some risk of the force breaking itself up, and some inclination to make attacks on the officers, including Xenophon. The formulation of charges, however, enabled him amply to justify the acts complained of, and order generally was restored. At last, however, a sufficient number of s.h.i.+ps were collected to convey the force to Sinope, where also Cheirisophus put in his long-delayed appearance.

Cheirisophus came practically without s.h.i.+ps and with nothing but vague promises from the admiral at Byzantium. At this point it occurred to the army that it would be better to have a single commander for the whole than a committee of generals each in control of his own division. Hence Xenophon was invited to accept the position. On consulting the omens he declined, recommending that, since Cheirisophus was a Lacedaemonian, it would be the proper thing to offer him the command, which was accordingly done.

The force now sailed from Sinope as far as Heraclea. Here the contingents from Arcadia and Archaea--more than half the force--insisted on requisitioning large supplies of money from Heraclea. Cheirisophus, supported by Xenophon, refused a.s.sent; the Arcadians and Achaeans consequently refused to serve under their command any more, and appointed captains for themselves. The other half of the army was also parted in two divisions, commanded by Cheirisophus and Xenophon respectively.

From Calpe the Arcadians and Archaeans made an expedition into the interior, which fared so ill that Xenophon, hearing by accident of what had happened, was obliged to march to their relief. To his satisfaction, however, it was found that the enemy had already dispersed, and the Greek column was overtaken on the way back to Calpe. The general effect of the episode was to impress upon the Arcadians and Archaeans that it was commonsense for the whole force to remain united.

The usual operations were carried on for obtaining supplies, report having arrived that Cleander, the Lacedaemonian governor of Byzantium, was coming, which he presently did, with a couple of galleys but no transports. From information received, Cleander was inclined to regard the army as little better than a band of brigands; but this idea was successfully dissipated by Xenophon. Cleander went back to Byzantium, and the Greeks marched from Calpe to Chrysopolis, which faces Byzantium.

Here the whole force was at last carried over to the opposite sh.o.r.e, and once more found itself on European soil, having received promises of pay from the admiral Anaxibius. Suspicions of his real intentions were aroused, and Xenophon had no little difficulty in preventing his soldiery from breaking loose and sacking Byzantium itself.

Ultimately, the greater part of the force took service with the Thracian king Seuthes. Seuthes, however, failed to carry out his promises as to payments and rewards. But now the Lacedaemonians were engaged in a quarrel with the western satraps, Tissaphernes and Artabazus; six thousand veterans so experienced as those who had followed this famous march into the heart of the Persian empire, had fought their way from Cunaxa to Trapezus, and had supported themselves mainly by their military prowess in getting from Trapezus to Europe, were a force by no means to be neglected, and the bulk of the troops were not unwilling to be incorporated in the Lacedaemonian armies. And so ends the story of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks.

GEORGE GROTE

History of Greece

George Grote, born at Beckenham, England, Nov. 17, 1794, entered the bank founded by his grandfather, from which he withdrew in 1843. He joined the group of "philosophic Radicals," among whom James Mill was a leader, and was a keen politician and reformer, and an ardent advocate of the ballot.

His determination to write a sound "History of Greece" was ensured, if it was not inspired, by Mitford's history, a work full of anti-democratic fervour and very antagonistic to the great Greek democratic state of Athens. In some respects his work is a defence of the Athenian democracy, at least as contrasted with Sparta; it appeared in twelve volumes between 1846 and 1856, and covered Greek history from the earliest times "till the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander the Great." It at once occupied, and still holds, the field as the cla.s.sic work on the subject as a whole, though later research has modified many of his conclusions.

His methods were pre-eminently thorough, dispa.s.sionate, and judicial; but he suffers from a lack of sympathetic imagination. He died on June 18, 1871, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

_I.--Early History_

The divine myths const.i.tute the earliest matter of Greek history. These may be divided into those which belong to the G.o.ds and to the heroes respectively; but most of them, in point of fact, present G.o.ds, heroes, and men in juxtaposition. Every community sought to trace its origin to some common divine, or semi-divine, progenitor; the establishment of a pedigree was a necessity; and each pedigree contains at some, point figures corresponding to some actual historical character, before whom the pedigree is imaginary, but after whom, in the main, actual. The precise point where the legend fades into the mythical, or consolidates into the historical, is not usually ascertainable.

The legendary period culminates in the tale of Troy, which belongs to a period prior to the Dorian conquest presented in the Herakleid legend; the tale of Troy itself remaining the common heritage of the Greek peoples, and having an actual basis in historical fact. The events, however, are of less importance than the picture of an actual historical, political, and social system, corresponding, not to the supposed date of the Trojan war, but to the date of the composition of the Homeric poems. Later ages regarded the myths themselves with a good deal of scepticism, and were often disposed to rationalise them, or to find for them an allegorical interpretation. The myths of other European peoples have undergone a somewhat similar treatment.

Greece proper, that is, the European territory occupied by the h.e.l.lenic peoples, has a very extensive coast-line, covers the islands of the aegean, and is so mountainous on the mainland that communication between one point and another is not easy. This facilitated the system which isolated communities, compelling each one to develop and perfect its own separate organisation; so that Greece became, not a state, but a congerie of single separate city states--small territories centering in the city, although in some cases the village system was not centralised into the city system. On the other hand, the h.e.l.lenes very definitely recognised their common affinity, looked on themselves as a distinct aggregate, and very emphatically differentiated that entire aggregate from the non-h.e.l.lenes, whom they designated as "barbarians."

Of these states, the first to come into view--post-Homerically--is Sparta, the head of the Dorian communities, governed under the laws and discipline attributed to Lycurgus, with its special peculiarity of the dual kings.h.i.+p designed to make a pure despotism impossible. The government lay and remained in the hands of the conquering Spartan race--as for a time with the Normans in England--which formed a close oligarchy, while within the oligarchical body the organisation was democratic and communistic. For Sparta, the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. were characterised by the two Messenian wars; and we note that while the h.e.l.lenes generally recognised her heads.h.i.+p, Argos claimed a t.i.tular right to that position. As a general rule, the primitive monarchical system portrayed in the Homeric poems was displaced in the Greek cities by an oligarchical government, which in turn was overthrown by an irregular despotism called _tyrannis_, primarily established by a professed popular leader, who maintained his supremacy by mercenary troops. One after another these usurping dynasties were again ejected in favour either of a restored oligarchy or of a democracy. Sparta, where the power of the dual kings.h.i.+p was extremely limited, was the only state where the legitimate kings.h.i.+p survived. Corinth attained her highest power Under the despot Periander, son of Cypselus. Of the Ionian section of Greek states, the supreme type is Athens. Her early history is obscure. The kings.h.i.+p seems to have ended by being, so to speak, placed in commission, the royal functions being discharged by an elected body of Archons. Dissensions among the groups of citizens issued in the democratic Solonian const.i.tution, which remained the basis of Athenian government, except during the despotism of the house of Pisistratus in the latter half of the sixth century B.C. But outside of Greece proper were the numerous Dorian and Ionian colonies, really independent cities, planted in the coast districts of Asia Minor, at Cyrene and Barka in Mediterranean Africa, in Epirus (Albania), Southern Italy, Sicily, and even at Ma.s.silia in Gaul, and in Thrace beyond the proper h.e.l.lenic area.

These colonies brought the Greek world in touch with Lydia and its king, Croesus, with the one sea-going Semitic power, the Phoenicians, with the Egyptians, and more remotely with the wholly Oriental empires of a.s.syria and Babylon, as well as with the outer barbarians of Scythia.

Between 560 and 510 B.C., Athens was generally under the rule of the despot Pisistratus and his son Hippias. In 510, the Pisistratidae were expelled, and Athens became a pure democracy. Meanwhile, the Persian Cyrus had seized the Median monarchy and overthrown every other potentate in Western Asia; Egypt was added to the vast Persian dominion by his son Cambyses. A new dynasty was established by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, who organized the empire, but failed to extend it by an incursion into European Scythia.

The revolt of the Ionic cities in Asia Minor against the governments established by the "great king" brought him in contact with the Athenians, who sent help to Ionia. Demands for "earth and water,"

_i.e.,_ the formal recognition of Persian sovereignty, sent to the apparently insignificant Greek states were insolently rejected. Darius sent an expedition to punish Athens in particular, and the Athenians drove his army into the sea at the battle of Marathon.

Xerxes, son of Darius, organised an overwhelming force by land and sea to eat up the Greeks. The invaders were met but hardly checked at Thermopylae, where Leonidas and the immortal three hundred fell; all Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth was in their hands, including Athens. But their fleet was shattered to pieces, chiefly by the Athenians under Themistocles and Aristides at Salamis, and the destruction of their land forces was completed by the united Greeks at Plataea. A further disaster was inflicted on the same day at Mycale.

_II.--The Struggles of Athens and Sparta_

Meanwhile, the Sicilian Greeks, led by Gelo of Syracuse, successfully resisted and overthrew the aggression of Carthage, the issue being decided at the battle of Himera. The part played by Athens under the guidance of Themistocles in the repulse of Persia gave her a new position among the Greek states and an indisputable naval leaders.h.i.+p. As the maritime head of h.e.l.las she was chief of the naval Delian League, now formed ostensibly to carry on the war against Persia. But the leaguers, who first contributed a quota of s.h.i.+ps, soon began to subst.i.tute money to provide s.h.i.+ps, which in effect swelled the Athenian navy, and turned the contributors into tributaries. Thus, almost automatically, the Delian League converted itself into an Athenian empire. In Athens itself an unparalleled personal ascendancy was acquired by Pericles, who made the form of government and administration more democratic than before. But this growing supremacy of Athens aroused the jealous alarm of other Greek states. Sparta saw her own t.i.tular hegemony threatened; the subject cities grew restive under the Athenian yoke. Sparta came forward professedly as champion of the liberties of h.e.l.las; Athens, guided by Pericles, refused to submit to Spartan dictation, and accepted the challenge which plunged Greece into the Peloponnesian war.

The Athenians concentrated on the expansion of their naval armaments, left the open country undefended and gathered within the city walls, and landed forces at will on the Peloponnese. Platsea, almost their sole ally on land, held out valiantly for some time, but was forced to surrender; and Athens herself suffered frightfully from a visitation of the plague. After the death of Pericles, Cleon became the most prominent leader of the aggressive and democratic party, Nicias, of the anti-democratic peace party. Over most of Greece in each state the oligarchic faction favoured the Peloponnesian league, the democratic, Athens. The general Demosthenes at Pylos effected the surrender of a Lacedaemonian force, which temporarily shattered Sparta's military prestige, a blow in some degree counteracted by the brilliant operations of Brasidas in the north, where, however, both he and Cleon were killed.

Meanwhile, Athens was awakening to the possibilities of a great sea-empire, in consequence of her intervention having been invited in disputes among the Sicilian states. As the outcome, incited by the brilliant young Alcibiades, she resolved on the fatal Sicilian expedition. The expedition, planned under command of Alcibiades and Nicias, was dispatched in spite of the startling mutilation of the Hermae, a sacrilegious performance attributed to Alcibiades. It had hardly reached Sicily when he was recalled, but made his escape and spent some years mainly in intriguing against Athens. The siege of Syracuse was progressing favourably, when the Spartan Gylippus was allowed to enter and put new life into the defence. Disaster followed on disaster both by sea and land; finally, the whole Athenian force was either cut to pieces or surrendered at discretion, to become the slaves of the Syracusans, both Nicias and Demosthenes being put to death.

Meanwhile, the truce between Athens and Sparta had been ended, and war again declared. Sparta occupied permanently a post of the Attic territory, Deceleia, with merciless effect. The Sicilian disaster moved the islanders, notably Chios, to revolt, by Spartan help, against Athens. She, however, renovated her navy with unexpected vigour. But, with her fleets away, Alcibiades inspired oligarchical intrigues in the city; a _coup d'etat_ gave the government to the leaders of a group of 400. The navy stood by the democratic const.i.tution, the 400 were overthrown, and an a.s.sembly, nominally of 5,000, a.s.sumed the government.

A great Athenian triumph at Arginusae was followed later by a still more overwhelming disaster at aegos Potami.

The Spartan commander Lysander blockaded Athens; starvation forced her to surrender. Lysander established the government known as that of the Thirty Tyrants, who were headed by Kritias. Lysander's ascendancy created in Sparta a party in opposition to him; in the outcome, the Spartan king Pausanias helped in the overthrow of the Thirty at Athens by Thrasybulus, and the restoration of the Athenian democracy.

Throughout, the conduct of the democratic party, at its best and its worst, contrasted favourably with that of the oligarchical faction.

These eighty years were the great period of Athenian literature and art: of the Parthenon and Phidias; of aeschylus, the soldier of Marathon; then Sophocles and Euripides and Aristophanes; finally, of Socrates, not himself an author, but the inspirer of Plato, and the founder of ethical science; according to popular ideas, the typical Sophist, but in fact differing from the Sophists fundamentally.

_III.--The Blotting Out of h.e.l.las_