ners was very sudden and rapid, especially after Carthage, the haughty rival of Rome, was destroyed. It was not so with the Greeks. Nothing was more brilliant than the victories they had gained over the Persians; nothing more soothing than the glory they had acquired by their great and illustrious exploits. After so glorious a period, the Greeks still persevered for a long time in the same love of simplicity, frugality, and poverty; the same aversion to pomp and luxury; the same zeal and ardour for the defence of their liberty and the preservation of their ancient manners. It is well known how much the islands and provinces of Asia Minor, over which the Greeks so often triumphed, were abandoned to effeminate pleasures and luxury: they, however, never suffered themselves to be infected by that contagious softness, and constantly preserved themselves from the vices of the conquered people. It is true, they did not make those countries provinces, but mere intercourse and example alone might have proved very dangerous to them. The introduction of gold and silver into Sparta, from whence they had till that time been banished under severe penalties, did not happen till about four score years after the battle of Salamis, and the ancient simplicity of manners subsisted very long afterwards, notwithstanding that violation of the laws of Lycurgus. As much may be said of the rest of Greece; which did not grow weak and degenerate, but slowly and by degrees. This is what remains for us to show. THE FOURTH AGE OF GREECE. The principal cause of the weakening and declension of the Greeks was the disunion which rose up amongst themselves. The Persians, who had found them invincible on the side of arms, as long as their union subsisted, applied their whole attention and policy in sowing the seeds of discord amongst them. For that purpose they employed their gold and silver, which succeeded much better than their steel and arms had done before. The Greeks, attacked invisibly in this manner by bribes secretly conveyed into the hands of those who had the greatest share in their government, were divided by domestic jealousies, and turned against themselves those victorious arms which had rendered them superior to their enemies. Their decline of power, from these causes, enabled Philip and Alexander to subject them. Those princes, to accustom them to servitude by gentle degrees, assumed as a pretext the design of avenging them upon their ancient enemies. The Greeks fell blindly into that gross snare, which gave the mortal blow to their liberty. Their avengers be came more fatal to them than their enemies. The yoke im posed on them by the hands which had conquered the universe could never be removed; those little states were no longer in a condition to shake it off. Greece, from time te time, animated by the remembrance of its ansient glory, roused from its lethargy, and made some attempts to reinstate itself in its ancient condition; but those were the efforts of expiring liberty, ill concerted and ill sustained, and tended only to augment its slavery; because the protectors, whom it called in to its aid, soon made themselves its masters. So that all it did was to change its fetters and make them the heavier. The Romans at length totally subjected it; but it was by degrees and with abundance of artifice. As they continually pushed on their conquests from province to province, they perceived, that they should find a barrier to their ambitious projects in Macedonia, formidable by its neighbourhood, advantageous situation, reputation in arms, and very powerful in itself, and by its allies. The Romans artfully applied to the small states of Greece, from whom they had less to fear, and endeavoured to gain them by the attractive charms of liberty, which was their darling passion, and of which they knew how to awaken in them their ancient ideas, After having with great address made use of the Greeks to reduce and destroy the Macedonian power, they subjected all those states one after another, under various pretexts. Greece was thus swallowed up at last in the Roman empire, and became a province of it, under the name of Achaia. It did not lose with its power a that ardent passion for liberty, which was its peculiar character. The Romans, when they reduced it into a province, reserved to the people almost all their privileges; and Sylla, who punished them so cruelly 60 years after, for having favoured the armis of Mithridates, did not abridge those of their liberty who escaped his vengeance. In the civil wars of Italy, the Athenians were seen to espouse with warmth the party of Pompey, c who fought for the republic. Julius Cæsar revenged himself upon them no otherwise than by declaring that he pardoned them out of consideration for their ancestors. But after Cæsar was killed, their inclination for liberty made them forget his clemency. They erected statues to Brutus and Cassius near those of Harmodius and Aristogiton, the ancient deliverers of Athens, and did not take them down till solicited by Anthony, when become their friend, benefactor, and magistrate. After having been deprived of their ancient power, they still retained another sovereignty, which the Romans could not take from them, and to which themselves were obliged a Strab. 1. ix. Plut. in Sylla. c Dip. xlii. p. 191 et 1 xlvii. p. 339 to pay homage. Athens continued always the metropolis of the sciences, the school of polite arts, and the centre and standard of refined taste in all the productions of the mind. Several cities, as Byzantium, Cæsarea, Alexandria, Ephesus and Rhodes, shared that glory with Athens, and after her example opened schools which became very famous. Rome, haughty as she was, acknowledged this glorious empire. She sent her most illustrious citizens to be finished and refined in Greece. They were instructed there in all the parts of sound philosophy, the knowledge of mathematics, the science of natural philosophy, the rules of moral duties, the art of reasoning with justice and method: all the treasures of eloquence were imbibed there, and the method taught of treating the greatest subjects with propriety, force, elegance, and perspicuity. A Cicero, already the admiration of the bar, conceived he wanted something, and did not blush to become the disciple of the great masters whom Greece then produced. Pompey, in the midst of his glorious conquests, did not think it a dishonour to him, in passing through Rhodes, to hear the celebrated philosophers, who taught there with great reputation, and to make himself in some measure their disciple. " 46 " Nothing shows better the respect retained for the ancient reputation of Greece than a letter of a Pliny, the younger. He writes in this manner to Maximus, who was appointed governor of that province by Trajan: "Call to mind, my "dear Maximus, that you are going into Achaia, the true Greece, the same Greece where learning and the polite arts had their birth; where even agriculture was invented, according to the common opinion. Remember, that you are sent to govern free cities and free men, if ever any such there were; who, by their virtues, actions, alliances, treaties, and religion, have known how to preserve the liberty they received from nature. Revere the gods, their founders; respect their heroes, the ancient glory of their nation, and the sacred antiquities of their cities, the dignity, great exploits, and even fables and vanity, of that people. Remember, it is from those sources that we have derived our code of equity; that we did not impose our laws upon them, after we had conquered them, but that they gave us theirs at our request, before they were acquainted with the power of our arms. In a word, it is to Athens you are going; it is at Lacedæmon you are to command. It would be inhuman and barbarous to deprive them of that faint image, "that shadow, which they retain of their ancient liberty." Whilst the Roman empire was declining, that empire of genius, of the mind, always supported itself, without parti 66 ་་ ་ a Lib. viii. ep. 24. cipating in the revolutions of the other. Greece was resorted to for education and improvement from all parts of the world. In the fourth and fifth centuries, those great lights of the Church, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. John, Chrysostom, went to Athens, to imbibe, as at their source, all the profane sciences. The emperors themselves, who could not go to Greece, brought Greece in a manner home to them, by receiving the most celebrated philosophers into their palaces, in order to intrust them with the education of their children, and to improve themselves by their instructions. Marcus Aurelius, even whilst he was emperor, went to hear the philosophers Appollonius and Sextus, and to take lessons from them as a common disciple. By a new kind of victory, unknown before, Greece had imposed its laws on Egypt, and the whole East, from whence she had expelled barbarism, and introduced a taste for the arts and sciences in its room; obliging, by a kind of right of conquest, all those nations to receive her language and adopt her customs: a testimonial highly for the glory of a people, and which argues a much more illustrious superiority than that which is not founded on merit, but solely upon the force of arms. Plutarch observes, somewhere, that no Greek ever thought of learning Latin, and that a Roman who did not understand Greek was in no great estimation. ARTICLE III. It might be expected, that, after the subjection of Macedonia and Greece to the Romans, our history, confined for the future to two principal kingdoms, those of Egypt and Syria, should become more clear and intelligible than ever. I am, however, obliged to own that it will be more obscure and perplexed than it has been hitherto, especially in regard to the kingdom of Syria, in which several kings not only succeeded one another in a short space, but sometimes reign jointly, and at the same time to the number of three or four, which occasions a confusion difficult to unravel, and from which I find it hard to extricate myself. This induces me to prefix in this place the names, succession, and duration, of the reigns of the kings of Egypt and Syria. This short chronological abridgment may contribute to cast some light upon facts which are exceedingly complex, and serve as a clue to guide the reader in a kind of labyrinth, where the most clear-sighted will have occasion for assistance. It enlarges the work a little, but it may be passed over, or be referred to only when it is necessary to be set right: I insert it here only with that view. a Titus, Antoninus, M. Aurelius, Lucius Verus, &c. This third article contains the space of 100 years for the kingdom of Egypt, from the twentieth year of Ptolemy Philometor to the expulsion of Ptolemy Auletes from the throne; that is, from the year of the world 3845 to the year 3946. As to the kingdom of Syria, the same article contains also almost the space of 100 years, from Antiochus Eupator to Antiochus Asiaticus, under whom Syria became a province of the Roman empire; that is, from the year of the world 3840 to the year 3939. SECT. I. A chronological abridgment of the history of the kings of Egypt and Syria, who are mentioned in the third article. A. M. KINGS OF EGYPT. Ptolemy Philo metor, reigned something more than 34 years. This article contains only 14 years of his reign. Differences be tween Philometor and his brother KINGS OF SYRIA. 3824 Evergetes, Physcon. or Ptolemy Ever Antiochus Eupator, aged 19years, 3840 succeeds his father Antiochus Epiphanes. He reigns only two years. Demetrius Soter, son of Seleucus 3842 Philopator, having escaped from Rome, ascends the throne. Bala, under the name of Alexan- 3851 Demetrius is killed in a battle. Alexander Bala. He reigns al- 8854 |
