Meanwhile, at Corcyra, the popular and the oligarchical parties, who favoured the Athenians and Peloponnesians respectively, had reached the stage of murderous hostility to each other. The oligarchs captured the government, and were then in turn attacked by the popular party; and there was savage faction fighting. An attempt was made by the commander of the Athenian squadron at Naupactus to act as moderator; the appearance of a Peloponnesian squadron and a confused sea-fight, somewhat in favour of the latter, brought the popular party to the verge of a compromise. But the Peloponnesians retired on the reported approach of a fresh Athenian fleet, and a democratic reign of terror followed.

"The father slew the son, and the supplicants were torn from the temples and slain near them." And thus was initiated the peculiar horror of this war—the desperate civil strife in one city after another, oligarchs hoping to triumph by Lacedaemonian and democrats by Athenian, support, and either party, when uppermost, ruling by terror. It was at this time also that the Ionian and Dorian cities of Sicily, headed by Leontini and Syracuse respectively, went to war with each other, and an Athenian squadron was first induced to participate in the struggle.

Among the operations of the next, or sixth, summer was a campaign which the Athenian commander Demosthenes conducted in AEtolia—successful at the outset, but terminating in disaster, which made the general afraid to return to Athens. He seized a chance, however, of recovering his credit by foiling a Lacedaemonian expedition against Naupactus; and in other ways he successfully established a high military reputation, so that he was no longer afraid to reappear at Athens.

Next year, the Athenians dispatched a larger fleet with Sicily for its objective. Demosthenes, however, who had a project of his own in view, was given an independent command. He was thus enabled to seize and fortify Pylos, a position on the south-west of Peloponnese, with a harbour sheltered by the isle of Sphacteria. The Spartans, in alarm, withdrew their invading force from Attica, and attempted to recover Pylos, landing over 400 of their best men on Sphacteria. The locality now became the scene of a desperate struggle, which finally resulted in the Spartans on Sphacteria being completely isolated.

So seriously did the Lacedaemonians regard this blow that they invited the Athenians to make peace virtually in terms of an equal alliance; but the Athenians were now so confident of a triumphant issue that they refused the terms—chiefly at the instigation of Cleon. Some supplies, however, were got into Sphacteria, owing to the high rewards offered by the Lacedaemonians for successful blockade-running. At this moment, Cleon, the Athenian demagogue, having rashly declared that he could easily capture Sphacteria, was taken at his word and sent to do it. He had the wit, however, to choose Demosthenes for his colleague, and to take precisely the kind of troops Demosthenes wanted; with the result that within twenty days, as he had promised, the Spartans found themselves with no other alternatives than annihilation or surrender. Their choice of the latter was an overwhelming blow to Lacedaemonian prestige.

III.—Victories of Lacedaemon

The capture of the island of Cythera in the next summer gave the Athenians a second strong station from which they could constantly menace the Peloponnese. On the other hand, in this year the Sicilians were awakening to the fact that Athens was not playing a disinterested part on behalf of the Ionian states, but was dreaming of a Sicilian empire. At a sort of peace congress, Hermocrates of Syracuse successfully urged all Sicilians to compose their quarrels on the basis of uti possidetis, and thus deprive the Athenians of any excuse for remaining. Thus for the time Athenian aspirations in that quarter were checked.

At Megara this year the dissensions of the oligarchical and popular factions almost resulted in its capture by the Athenians. The Lacedaemonian Brasidas, however—who had distinguished himself at Pylos—effected an entry, so that the oligarchical and Peloponnesian party became permanently established in power. The most important operations were now in two fields. Brasidas made a dash through Thessaly into Macedonia, in alliance with Perdiccas of Macedon, with the hope of stirring the cities of Chalcidice to throw off the Athenian yoke; and the democrats of Boeotia intrigued with Athens to assist in a general revolution. Owing partly to misunderstandings and partly to treachery, the Boeotian democrats failed to carry out their programme, the Athenians were defeated at Delium, and Delium itself was captured by the Boeotians.

Meanwhile, Brasidas succeeded in persuading Acanthus to revolt, he himself winning the highest of reputations for justice and moderation as well as for military skill. Later in the year he suddenly turned his forces against the Athenian colony of Amphipolis, which he induced to surrender by offering very favourable terms before Thucydides, who was in command of Thasos, arrived to relieve it. The further successes of Brasidas during this winter made the Athenians ready to treat for peace, and a truce was agreed upon for twelve months. Brasidas, however, continued to render aid to the subject cities which revolted from Athens—this being now the ninth year of the war—but he failed in an attempt to capture Potidaea.

The period of truce terminating without any definite peace being arrived at, the summer of the tenth year is chiefly notable for the expedition sent under Cleon to recover Amphipolis, and for a recrudescence of the old quarrel in Sicily between Leontini and Syracuse. Before Amphipolis, the incompetent Cleon was routed by the skill of Brasidas; but the victor as well as the vanquished was slain, though he lived long enough to know of the victory. Their deaths removed two of the most zealous opponents of the peace for which both sides were now anxious. Hence at the close of the tenth year a definite peace was concluded.

The Lacedaemonians, however, were almost alone in being fully satisfied by the terms, and the war was really continued by an anti-Laconian confederation of the former Peloponnesian allies, who saw in the peace a means to the excessive preponderance of Athens and Sparta. Argos was brought into the new confederacy in the hope of establishing her nominal equality with Sparta. For some years from this point the combinations of the states were constantly changing, while Athens and Sparta remained generally on terms of friendliness, the two prominent figures at Athens being the conservative Nicias and the restless and ambitious young intriguer Alcibiades.

In the fourteenth year there were active hostilities between Argos, with which by this time Athens was in alliance, and Lacedaemon, issuing in the great battle of Mantinea, where there was an Athenian contingent with the Argives. This was notable especially as completely restoring the prestige of the Lacedaemonian arms, their victory being decisive. The result was a new treaty between Sparta and Argos, and the dissolution of the Argive-Athenian alliance; but this was once more reversed in the following year, when the Argive oligarchy was attacked successfully by the popular party.

The next year is marked by the high-handed treatment of the island of Melos by the Athenians. This was one of the very few islands which had not been compelled to submit to Athens, but had endeavoured to remain neutral. Thither the Athenians now sent an expedition, absolutely without excuse, to compel their submission.

The Melians, however, refused, and gave the Athenians a good deal of trouble before they could be subdued, when the adult male population was put to death, and the women and children enslaved. At this time the Athenians resolved, under colour of an appeal for assistance from the Sicilian city of Egesta, deliberately to set about the establishment of their empire in Sicily. The aggressive policy was vehemently advocated by Alcibiades, and opposed by Nicias. Nevertheless, he, with Alcibiades and Lamachus, was appointed to command the expedition, which was prepared on a scale of unparalleled magnificence. It was on the point of starting, when the whole city was stirred to frenzy by the midnight mutilation of the sacred images called Hermae, an act laid at the door of Alcibiades, along with many other charges of profane outrages. Of set purpose, however, the enemies of Alcibiades refused to bring him to trial. The expedition sailed. The Syracusans were deaf to the warnings of Hermocrates until the great fleet had actually arrived at Rhegium.

Nicias was now anxious to find an excuse, in the evident falsity of statements made by the Egestans, for the fleet to content itself with making a demonstration and then returning home. The scheme of Alcibiades, however, was adopted for gaining over the other Sicilian states in order to crush Syracuse. But at this moment dispatches arrived requiring the return of Alcibiades to stand trial. Athens was in a panic over the Hermae affair, which was supposed to portend an attempt to reestablish the despotism which had been ended a hundred years before by the expulsion of the Pisistratidae. Alcibiades, however, made his escape, and for years pursued a life of political intrigue against the Athenian government.

Nicias and Lamachus, left in joint command, drew off the Syracusan forces by a ruse, and were thus enabled to occupy unchecked a strong position before Syracuse. Although, however, they inflicted a defeat on the returned Syracusan forces, they withdrew into winter quarters; the Syracusans were roused by Hermocrates to improve their military organisation; and both sides entered on a diplomatic contest for winning over the other states of Sicily. Alcibiades, now an avowed enemy of Athens, was received by the Lacedaemonians, whom he induced to send an able Spartan officer, Gylippus, to Syracuse, and to determine on the establishment of a military post corresponding to that of Pylos on Attic soil at Decelea.

IV.—The Disaster of Syracuse

In the spring the Athenians succeeded in establishing themselves on the heights called Epipolae, overlooking Syracuse, began raising a wall of circumvallation, and carried by a surprise the counter-stockade which the Syracusans were raising. In one of the skirmishes, while the building of the wall was in progress, Lamachus was killed; otherwise matters went well for the Athenians and ill for the Syracusans, till Gylippus was allowed to land at Himera, force his way into Syracuse, and give new life. Nicias was guilty of the blunder of allowing Gylippus to land at Himera, to aid the defence, at the moment when it was on the point of capitulation. A long contest followed, the Athenians endeavouring to complete the investing lines, the Syracusans to pierce them with counterworks. Nicias sent to Athens for reinforcements, while the Syracusans were energetically fitting out a fleet and appealing for air in the Peloponnese. Nicias, in fact, was extremely despondent and anxious to resign; the Athenians, however, answered his dispatches by preparing a great reinforcement under the command of Demosthenes, without accepting the resignation of Nicias. The Lacedaemonians, however, also sent some reinforcements; at the same time they formally declared war, and carried out the plan of occupying and fortifying Decelea, which completely commanded the Athenian territory and was the cause of untold loss and suffering.

Now, at Syracuse the besieged took the offensive both by sea and land, and were worsted on the water, but captured some of the Athenian forts, commanding the entry to the besiegers' lines—a serious disaster. By the time that Demosthenes with his reinforcements reached Sicily nearly the whole island had come over to the side of Syracuse. Before this, the Syracusans had again challenged an engagement both by sea and land, with results indecisive on the first day but distinctly in their favour on the second. At this juncture, Demosthenes arrived, and, seeing the necessity for immediate action, made a night attack on the Syracusan lines; but, his men falling into confusion after a first success, the attempt was disastrously repulsed.

Demosthenes was quick to realise that the whole situation was hopeless; but Nicias lacked nerve to accept the responsibility of retiring, and also had some idea that affairs within Syracuse were favourable. His obstinacy gave Demosthenes and his colleague Eurymedon the impression that he was guided by secret information. And now it became the primary object of Gylippus and the Syracusans to keep the Athenians from retiring. Another naval defeat reduced the Athenians to despair; they resolved that they must cut their way out.

The desperate attempt was made, but by almost hopeless men against an enemy now full of confidence. To the excited, almost agonised, watchers on shore, it seemed for a brief space that the ships might force a passage; the fight was a frenzied scuffle; but presently the terrible truth was realised—the Athenian ships were being driven ashore. The last hope of escape by sea was gone, for, though there were still ships enough, the sailors were too utterly demoralised to make the attempt.

Hermocrates and Gylippus, sure that a retreat by land would not be tried, succeeded by a trick in detaining the Athenians till they had themselves sent out detachments to hold the roads. On the third day the Athenians began their retreat in unspeakable misery, amid the lamentations of the sick and wounded, whom they were forced to leave behind. For three days they struggled on, short of food and perpetually harassed, cut off from all communications. On the third day their passage was barred in a pass, and they found themselves in a trap. On the third night they attempted to break away by a different route, but the van and the rear lost touch. Overtaken by the Syracusans, Demosthenes attempted to fight a rearguard action, but in vain, and he was forced to surrender at discretion with his whole force. Next day, Nicias with the van was overtaken, and, after a ghastly scene of confusion and slaughter, the remnants of the vanguard were forced to surrender also. Nicias and Demosthenes were put to death; great numbers were seized as private spoil by their captors, the rest of the prisoners—more than 7,000—were confined for weeks under the most noisome conditions in the quarries, and finally the survivors were sold as slaves. So pitiably ended that once magnificent enterprise in the nineteenth year of the war.

The terrific disaster filled every enemy of Athens with confident expectation of her immediate and utter ruin. Lacedaemonians anticipated an unqualified supremacy. At Athens there was a stubborn determination to prepare for a desperate stand; but half the islanders were intriguing for Lacedaemonian or Persian aid in breaking free, while Alcibiades became extremely busy.

The first Peloponnesian squadron which attempted to move was promptly driven into Piraeus by an Athenian fleet and blockaded. On the open revolt of some of the states, the Athenians for the first time brought into play their reserve fund and reserve navy—the emergency had arisen. While one after another of the subject cities revolted, the Athenians struck hard at Chios, and especially Miletus, and obtained marked successes. Meanwhile, a revolution in Samos had expelled the oligarchy and re-established the democracy, to which the Athenians accorded freedom, thereby securing an ally. In Lesbos also they recovered their challenged supremacy.

Phrynicus now came into prominence as a shrewd commander and a crafty politician, while the intricate intrigues of Alcibiades, whose great object was to recover his position at Athens, created perpetual confusion. These events took place in the twentieth year of the war, and to them must be added a Lacedaemonian treaty with Persia through the satrap Tissaphernes. All the leading men, however, were engaged in playing fast and loose, each of them having his personal ambitions in view. Of this labyrinth of plots and counter-plots, the startling outcome was the sudden abrogation of the constitution at Athens and the capture of the government by a committee of five with a council of four hundred and a supplementary assembly of five thousand—in place of the whole body of citizens as formerly. The Five and the Four Hundred in effect were the Government, and established a reign of terror.

At Athens, the administration thus formed was effective; but the army and fleet at Satnos repudiated the revolution and swore loyalty to the democracy, claiming to be the true representatives of the Athenian state. Moreover, they allied themselves with Alcibiades, expecting through him to receive Persian support; and, happily for Athens, he succeeded in restraining the fleet—which was still more than a match for all adversaries—from sailing back to the Piraeus to subvert the rule of the Four Hundred. The more patriotic of the oligarchs saw, in fact, that the best hopes for the state lay in the establishment of a limited democracy; with the result that the extreme oligarchs, who would have joined hands with the enemy, were overthrown, and the rule of the Five Thousand replaced that of the Four Hundred, providing Athens with the best administration it had ever known. A great naval victory was won by the Athenian fleet, under the command of Thrasybulus, over a slightly larger Peloponnesian fleet at Cynossema.

* * * * *



XENOPHON

Anabasis

Xenophon was born at Athens about B.C. 430, and died probably in 355. He was an Athenian gentleman who in his early-manhood was an intimate member of the Socratic circle. In 401 he joined the expedition of Cyrus, recorded in the "Anabasis," and did not again take up his residence in Athens. The "Anabasis" must be introduced by an historical note. In the year 404 B.C. the Peloponnesian war was brought to a close by a peace establishing the Lacedaemonian supremacy consequent upon the crowning disaster to the Athenians at Aegos Potami. In the same year the Persian king Darius Nothus died, and was succeeded on the throne by his son Artaxerxes. His younger son, Cyrus, determined to make a bid for the throne. He had personal knowledge of the immense superiority of the Greek soldiery and the Greek discipline over those of the Eastern nations. Accordingly, he planned to obtain the services of a large contingent of Greek mercenaries, who had become the more readily available since the internecine struggle between the two leading states of Hellas had been brought to an end. The term "Anabasis," or "going up," applies properly to the advance into the interior; the retreat, with which the work is mainly concerned, is the "Katabasis." The author writes his record in the third person. This epitome has been specially adapted for THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS from the Greek text.

I.—The Going-up of Cyrus

Cyrus, the younger brother of Artaxerxes the king, began his preparations for revolt by gradually gathering and equipping an army on the pretext of hostile relations between himself and another of the western satraps, Tissaphernes. Notably, he secretly furnished Clearchus, a Lacedaemonian, with means to equip a Greek force in Thrace; another like force was ready to move from Thessaly under Aristippus; while a Boeotian, Proxenus, and two others friends were commissioned to collect more mercenaries to aid in the war with Tissaphernes.

Next, an excuse for marching up-country, at the head of all these forces, was found in the need of suppressing the Pisidians. He advanced from Sardis into Phrygia, where his musters were completed at Celaenae. A review was held at Tyriaeum, where the Cilician queen, who had supplied funds, was badly frightened by a mock charge of the Greek contingent. When the advance had reached Tarsus, there was almost a mutiny among the Greeks, who were suspicious of the intentions of Cyrus. The diplomacy, however, of their principal general, Clearchus, the Lacedaemonian, coupled with promises of increased pay, prevailed, though it had long been obvious that Pisidia was not the objective of the expedition.

Further reinforcements were received at Issus, the eastern seaport of Cilicia; Cyrus then marched through the Cilician gate into Syria. At Myriandrus two Greek commanders, probably through jealousy of Clearchus, deserted. Cyrus won popularity by refusing to presume thereon; and the whole force now struck inland to Thapsacus, on the Euphrates.

At Thapsacus, Cyrus announced his purpose. The Greek soldiers were angry with their generals for having, as they supposed, wilfully misled them, but were mollified by promise of large rewards. One of the commanders, Menon, won the approval of Cyrus by being the first to lead his own contingent across the Euphrates on his own initiative. The advance was now conducted by forced marches through a painfully sterile country. In the course of this, the troops of Clearchus and Menon very nearly came to blows; the intervention of Proxenus only made matters worse; and order was restored by the arrival of Cyrus, who pointed out that the whole expedition must be ruined if the Greeks fell out among themselves.

By this time, Artaxerxes had realised that the repeated warnings of Tissaphernes and others were justified; and as the expedition neared Babylonia, signs of the enemy became apparent in the deliberate devastation of the country. Here Orontes, one of the principal Persian officers of Cyrus, was convicted of treason and put to death.

The army was again reviewed, the whole force amounting to some 100,000 barbarians and nearly 14,000 Greeks; the enemy were reputed to number over 1,000,000, though not so many took part in the engagement. Cyrus now advanced, expecting battle immediately at an entrenched pass; but, finding this unoccupied, he did not maintain battle order; which was hurriedly taken up on news of the approach of the royal forces. The Greeks, under Clearchus, occupied the right wing, Cyrus being in the centre, and Ariaeus on the left. The king's army was so large that its centre extended beyond the left of Cyrus.

The Greeks advanced on the royalist left, which broke and fled almost without a blow. Thinking that the Greeks might be intercepted and cut off, Cyrus charged the centre in person with his bodyguard, and routed the opposing troops; but dashing forward in the hope of capturing Artaxerxes, was himself pierced by a javelin, and fell dead on the field. So ended the career of the most brilliant Persian since Cyrus the Great had established the Persian Empire; brave, accomplished, the mirror of honour, just himself and the rewarder of justice in others, generous and most loyal to his friends.

II.—The Homeward March

When Cyrus fell, the left wing, under Ariaeus, broke and fled. The Greeks had meantime poured on in pursuit of the royalist left, while the main body of the royalists were in possession of the rebel camp, though a Greek guard, which had been left there, held the Greek quarter. Artaxerxes, however, had no mind to give battle to the returning Greek column.

It was not till next day that Clearchus and his colleagues learned by messengers from Ariaeus that Cyrus was slain, and that Ariaeus had fallen back to the last halting-place, where he proposed to wait twenty-four hours, and no more, before starting in his retreat westward. Clearchus replied, that the Greeks, for their part, had been victorious, and that if Ariaeus would rejoin them they would win the Persian crown for him, since Cyrus was dead. The next message was from Artaxerxes inviting the Greeks to give up their arms; to which they replied that he might come and take them if he could, but if he meant to treat them as friends, they would be no use to him without their arms, if as enemies, they would keep them to defend themselves.

Though no formal appointment was made, the Greeks recognised Clearchus as their leader. They fell back to join Ariaeus, who declined the proposal to seat him on the Persian throne; and it was agreed to follow a new route in retreat to Ionia, the way by which the force had advanced being now impracticable.

Now, however, Artaxerxes began to negotiate through Tissaphernes, the Greeks maintaining a bold and even contemptuous front, warranted by the king's obvious fear of risking an engagement.

Finally, an offer came to conduct the Greeks back to Grecian territory, providing them, at their own cost, with necessaries. Prolonged delays, however, aroused suspicions of treachery among the Greeks, who distrusted Tissaphernes and Ariaeus alike; but Clearchus held it better not to break openly with the Persians. The march at last began along a northerly route towards the Black Sea, the Greeks keeping rigidly apart from the Persian forces which accompanied them, in readiness for an attack.

At the crossing of the Tigris suspicion was particularly active, the conduct of Ariaeus being especially dubious; but still no overt hostilities were attempted until the river Zabatus was reached, after three weeks of marching. Here Clearchus endeavoured to end the extremely strained relations between the Greeks and the barbarian commanders by an interview with Tissaphernes. Both men carefully repudiated any idea of hostile intentions, and the Persian invited Clearchus and the Greek officers generally to attend a conference. Not all, but a considerable number—five generals, including Clearchus, Proxenus, and Menon, with twenty more officers and nearly two hundred others—attended. At a given signal all were treacherously massacred; but a fugitive reached the Greek camp, where the men sprang to arms. Ariaeus, approaching with an escort, declared that Clearchus had been proved guilty of treason, but was received with fierce indignation, and withdrew.

Of the murdered generals, Clearchus was a man of high military capacity, but a harsh disciplinarian, feared and respected, but very unpopular; Proxenus, a particular friend of Xenophon, was an amiable but not a strong man; Menon, the Thessalian, was a crafty and hypocritical time-server, of whom no good can be spoken.

The ten thousand Greeks were now in an ugly predicament; they were a thousand miles from home, while between them and the Black Sea lay the mountains of Armenia. They were surrounded by hostile hordes, and were without cavalry. They had no recognised chief, and their most trusted leaders were gone. The whole company seemed paralysed under a universal despondency. It was at this juncture that Xenophon, an Athenian gentleman-volunteer, was stirred to action by a dream. He rose and roused the officers of the contingent of Proxenus, to which he was attached. Heartened by an address, in which he pointed out that, on the one hand they had to depend on their own courage, skill, and resourcefulness, and, on the other, were released from all obligation to the Persians, they unanimously chose him their leader, and at his instigation roused the senior officers of all the other contingents to assemble for deliberation.

The council thus summoned, inspired again by the words of Xenophon, vigorously backed up by other leaders, appointed new generals, among them Xenophon himself, and set about actively to organise a retreat to the sea. The contagion of resolute determination spread through the ranks of the whole force. Cheirisophus the Lacedaemonian was given the chief command, the two youngest generals, Xenophon and Timerion, were placed in charge of the rear-guard. A troop of slingers was organised; all horses with the arroy were sequestrated to form a cavalry squadron. The army started on its march through the unknown, formed in a hollow square, which was shortly so organised that the columns could be broadened or narrowed according to the ground without creating confusion.

They soon found themselves able to repulse without difficulty even attacks in force by the troops of Tissaphernes, the enemy being entirely outmatched in hand-to-hand fighting. The slingers and archers, however, proved troublesome, and hostile forces, though keeping out of reach, were never far off. At last Tissaphernes and Ariaeus drew off altogether, and the Greek generals having as alternative courses the march east upon Susa, north upon Babylon, and west towards Ionia, decided to revert to the course northwards to the Black Sea.

III.—The Sea! The Sea!

This route led at first through the country of the Carduchi, a very warlike folk who had never been subjugated. Here there was a good deal of hard fighting, the Carduchi being adepts in hill warfare, and particularly expert archers. Such was the length and weight of their arrows that Greeks collected them, and used them as javelins. Seven days of this brought the retreating force to the river Centrites, which parts the Carduchian mountains from the province of Armenia. With a barely fordable river, troops in evidence on the other side, and the Carduchi hanging on their rear, the passage offered great difficulties, solved by the discovery of a much shallower ford. A feint at one point by the rearguard drew off the enemy on the opposite bank, while the main body crossed at the shallows, which the rearguard also managed to pass by a successful ruse which misled the Carduchi.

The Persian governor of Western Armenia, Tiribazus, offered safe passage through his province, but scouts brought information that large forces were collecting, and would dispute the passage of a defile through which the army must pass. This point, however, was reached by a forced march, and the enemy was put to rout.

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 harassing 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 pass, it was seen to be occupied in force. A council of war was held, at which some jesting passed, 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 pass; 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 space of some twenty yards was open to such a storm of missiles from above that it could only be passed by drawing the enemy's fire and making a dash before fresh missiles were accumulated. 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 pass 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 horsemen, 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 passed 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 quantities 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 gods, 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 ships 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 ships 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 passed, 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 ships 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 ships were collected to convey the force to Sinope, where also Cheirisophus put in his long-delayed appearance.

Cheirisophus came practically without ships 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 assent; 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 shore, 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 classic work on the subject as a whole, though later research has modified many of his conclusions. His methods were pre-eminently thorough, dispassionate, 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 constitute the earliest matter of Greek history. These may be divided into those which belong to the gods and to the heroes respectively; but most of them, in point of fact, present gods, 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 Hellenic 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 Hellenes very definitely recognised their common affinity, looked on themselves as a distinct aggregate, and very emphatically differentiated that entire aggregate from the non-Hellenes, 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 kingship 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 Hellenes generally recognised her headship, Argos claimed a titular 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 kingship was extremely limited, was the only state where the legitimate kingship 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 kingship 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 constitution, 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 Massilia in Gaul, and in Thrace beyond the proper Hellenic 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 Assyria 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 leadership. As the maritime head of Hellas 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 ships, soon began to substitute money to provide ships, 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 titular hegemony threatened; the subject cities grew restive under the Athenian yoke. Sparta came forward professedly as champion of the liberties of Hellas; 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 constitution, the 400 were overthrown, and an assembly, nominally of 5,000, assumed 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 Hellas

The triumph of Sparta has established her empire among the Greeks; she used her power with a tyranny infinitely more galling than the sway of Athens. The Spartan character had become greatly demoralised. Agesilaus, who succeeded to the kingship, set on foot ambitious projects for a Greek conquest of Asia; but Greece began to revolt against the Spartan dominion. Thebes and other cities rose, and called for help from Athens, their former foe. In the first stages of the ensuing war, of which the most notable battle was Coronea, Sparta maintained her supremacy within the Peloponnesus, but not beyond. Athens obtained the countenance of Persia, and the counter-diplomacy of Sparta produced the peace known by the name of the Spartan Antalcidas, establishing generally the autonomy of Greek cities. But this in effect meant the restoration of Spartan domination.

In course of time, however, this brought about the defiance of Spartan dictation by Thebes and the tremendous check to her power inflicted at the battle of Leuctra, by Epaminondas the Theban, whose military skill and tactical originality there overthrew the Spartan military prestige. As a consequence, half the Peloponnese itself broke away from Sparta; a force under Epaminondas aided the Arcadians, and the Arcadian federation was established.

Hellenic Sicily during these years was having a history of her own of some importance. Syracuse, after her triumph over the Athenian forces, continued the contest with her neighbours, which had been the ostensible cause of the Athenian expedition. But this was closed by the advent of fresh invaders, the Carthaginians, who renewed the attack repulsed at Himera. Owing to the disaster to Athens, her fleets were no longer to be feared by Carthage as a protection to the Hellenic world; and for two centuries to come, her interventions in Sicily were incessant. Now, the presence of a foreign foe in Sicily gave intriguers for power at Syracuse their opportunity, of which the outcome was the subversion of the democracy and the establishment of Dionysius as despot.

His son, Dionysius II., succeeded, and was finally ejected by the Corinthian Timoleon, who, after a brilliant career of victories as Syracusan general against Carthage, acted as general liberator of Sicilian cities from despotisms, laid down his powers, and was content with the position, not of despot, but of counsellor, to the great prosperity of Sicily as a whole.

Going back to the north of Greece, the semi-Hellenic Macedon with a Hellenic dynasty was growing powerful. Philip—father of Alexander the Great—was now king, and was resolved to make himself the head of the Greek world. His great opponent is found in the person of the Athenian orator Demosthenes, who saw that Philip was aiming at ascendancy, but generally failed to persuade the Athenians to recognise the danger in which they stood. Philip gradually achieved his immediate end of being recognised as the captain-general of the Hellenes, and their leader in a new Persian war, when his life was cut short by an assassin, and he was succeeded by his youthful son Alexander.

The Greek states, awakening to their practical subjection, would have thrown off the new yoke, but the young king with swift and overwhelming energy swept down from Thrace upon Thebes, the centre of resistance, and stamped it out. He had already conceived, in part at least, his vast schemes of Asiatic conquest; while he lived, Greece had practically no distinguishable history. She is merely an appendage to Macedon. Everything is absorbed in the Macedon conqueror. With an army incredibly small for the task before him, he entered Asia Minor, and routed the Persian forces on the river Granicus. The Greek Memnon, the one able leader for the Persians, would have organised against him a destructive naval power; but death removed him.

Alexander dispersed the armies of the Persian king Darius at the Issus, captured Tyre after a remarkable siege, and took easy possession of Egypt, where he founded Alexandria. Having organised the administration of the conquered territories, he marched to the Euphrates, but did not engage the enormous Persian hosts till he found and shattered them at the battle of Gaugamela, also called Arbela. Darius fled, and Alexander swept on to Babylon, to Susa, to Persepolis, assuming the functions of the "Great King." The fugitive Darius was assassinated. Alexander henceforth assumed a new and oriental demeanour; but he continued his conquests, crossing the Hindoo Koosh to Bactria, and then bursting into the Punjab. But his ambitions were ended by his death, and their fulfilment, not at all according to his designs, was left to the "Diadochi," the generals among whom the conquered dominions were parted. Athens led the revolt against Macedonian supremacy, but in vain. Demosthenes, condemned by the conquering Antipater, took poison. The remainder of the history is that of the blotting out of Hellas and of Hellenism.

* * * * *



HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN

Troy and Its Remains

Heinrich Schliemann was born at Kalkhorst, a village in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, on January 6, 1822, and died on December 27, 1890. During his early childhood an old scholar, who had fallen upon evil days, delighted him with stories of the great deeds of Homeric heroes. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed in a warehouse, but never lost his love for antiquity, and unceasingly prayed to God that he might yet have the happiness to learn Greek. An accident released him from his low position, and he went to Holland and found a situation in an office. He now began to study languages, suffering extraordinary denials so as to be able to afford money for his studies. In 1846 he was sent by his firm to Russia, learning Swedish and Polish, and next acquired Greek. Later, he travelled in Europe and the East, making a voyage round the world. At last he realised the dream of his life. Inaugurating a series of explorations in Greece and Asia Minor, Dr. Schliemann gained fame by his discoveries at Tiryus, Mycenae, and Troy, largely solving the problems of antiquity and archaeology associated with these localities. "Troy and Its Remains" is published here in order that, having read in the classical histories, we may see how the ancient world is reconstructed for modern readers, by the records of one of the most famous of archaeologists.

I.—Searching for the Site of Troy

Hissarlik, Plain of Troy, October 18, 1871. In my work, "Ithaca, the Peloponnesus, and Troy," published in 1869, I endeavored to prove, both by my own excavations and by the statement of the Iliad, that the Homeric Troy cannot possibly have been situated on the heights of Bunarbashi, to which place most archaeologists assign it. At the same time I endeavoured to explain that the site of Troy must necessarily be identical with the site of that town which, throughout all antiquity and down to its Complete destruction at the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century A.D., was called Ilium, and not until 1,000 years, after its disappearance—that is, in 1788 A.D.—was christened Ilium Novum by Lechevalier, who, as his work proves, can never have visited his Ilium Novum.

The site of Ilium is on a plateau 80 feet above the plain. Its north-western corner is formed by a hill about 26 feet higher still, which is about 705 feet in breadth and about 984 feet in length, and from its imposing situation and natural fortifications, this hill of Hissarlik seems specially suited to the acropolis of the town. Ever since my first visit I never doubted that I should find the Pergamus of Priam in the depths of this hill.

On October 10, 1871, I started with my wife from the Dardanelles for the Plain of Troy, a journey of eight hours, and next day commenced my excavations where I had, a year previously, made some preliminary explorations, and had found, among other things, at a depth of 16 feet, walls about 6-1/2 feet thick, which belong to a bastion of the time of Lysimachus.

Hissarlik, the Turkish name of this imposing hill at the north-western end of the site of Ilium, means "fortress," or "acropolis," and seems to prove that this is the Pergamus of Priam; that here Xerxes in 480 B.C. offered up 1,000 oxen to the Ilian Athena; that here Alexander the Great hung up his armour in the temple of the goddess, and took away in its stead some of the weapons therein dedicated, belonging to the time of the Trojan war.

I conjectured that this temple, the pride of the Ilians, must have stood on the highest point of the hill, and I therefore decided to excavate this locality down to the native soil, and I made an immense cutting on the face of the steep northern slope, about 66 feet from my last year's work. Notwithstanding the difficulties due to coming on immense blocks of stone, the work advances rapidly. My dear wife, an Athenian lady, who is an enthusiastic admirer of Homer, and knows almost the whole of the Iliad by heart, is present at the excavations from morning to night. All of my workmen are Greeks from the neighbouring village of Renkoi; only on Sunday, a day on which the Greeks do not work, I employ Turks.

Hissarlik, October 26, 1871. Since my report of the 18th I have continued the excavations with the utmost energy, with, on the average, 80 workmen, and I have to-day reached an average depth of 13 feet. I found an immense number of round articles of terra-cotta, red, yellow, grey, and black, with two holes, without inscriptions, but frequently with a kind of potter's stamp upon them. I cannot find any trace of their having been used for domestic purposes, and therefore I presume they have served as ex votos for hanging up in the temples.

I found at a depth of about five feet three marble slabs with inscriptions. One of these must, I think, from the character of the writing, be assigned to the third century, the two others to the first century B.C. A king spoken of in the third century writing must have been one of the kings of Pergamus.

The view from the hill of Hissarlik is magnificent. Before me lies the glorious Plain of Troy, traversed from the south-east to the north-west by the Scamander, which has changed its bed since ancient times.

Hissarlik, November 18, 1871. I have now reached a depth of 33 feet. During these operations I was for a time deceived by the enormous mass of stone implements which were dug up, and by the absence of any trace of metal, and supposed that I had come upon the Stone Age. But since the sixth of this month there have appeared many nails, knives, lances, and battle-axes of copper of such elegant workmanship that they can have been made only by a civilised people. I cannot even admit that I have reached the Bronze Period, for the implements and weapons which I find are too well finished.

I must, however, observe that the deeper I dig the greater are the indications of a higher civilisation. And as I thus find ever more and more traces of civilisation the deeper I dig, I am now perfectly convinced that I have not yet penetrated to the period of the Trojan war, and hence I am more hopeful than ever of finding the site of Troy by further excavations; for if ever there was a Troy—and my belief in this is firm—it can only have been here, on the site of Ilium.

II.—Trojan Life and Civilisation

Hissarlik, April 5, 1872. On the first of this month I resumed the excavations which were discontinued at the end of November.

In the ruins of houses I find, amongst other things, a great number of small idols of very fine marble, with or without the symbols of the owl's head and woman's girdle. Many Trojan articles found in the ruins have stamped on them crosses of various descriptions, which are of the highest importance to archaeology. Such symbols were already regarded, thousands of years before Christ, as religious tokens of the very greatest importance. The figure of the cross represents two pieces of wood which were laid crosswise upon one another before the sacrificial altars in order to produce holy fire. The fire was produced by the friction of one piece of wood against another.

At all depths we find a number of flat idols of very fine marble; upon many of them is the owl's face, and a female girdle with dots. I am firmly convinced that all of the helmeted owls' heads represent a goddess, and the important question now presents itself, what goddess is it who is here found so repeatedly, and is, moreover, the only one to be found upon the idols, drinking-cups, and vases? The answer is, she must necessarily be the tutelary goddess of Troy; she must be the Ilian Athena, and this indeed perfectly agrees with the statement of Homer, who continually calls her thea glaukopis Athene, "the goddess with the owl's face."

Hissarlik, June 18, 1872. I had scarcely begun to extend a third cutting into the hill when I found a block of triglyphs of Parian marble, containing a sculpture in high relief which represents Phoebus Apollo, who, in a long woman's robe with a girdle, is riding on the four immortal horses which pursue their career through the universe. Nothing is to be seen of a chariot. Above the head of the god is seen about two-thirds of the sun's disc with twenty rays. The face of the god is very expressive, and the folds of his robe are exquisitely sculptured; but my admiration is specially excited by the four horses, which, snorting and looking wildly forward, career through the universe with infinite power. Their anatomy is so masterly that I confess I have never seen so masterly a work.

It is especially remarkable to find the sun-god here, for Homer knows nothing of a temple to the sun in Troy, and later history says not a word about the existence of such a temple. However, the image of Phoebus Apollo does not prove that the sculpture must have belonged to a temple of the sun; in my opinion it may just as well have served as an ornament to any other temple.

I venture to express the opinion that the image of the sun, which I find represented here thousands and thousands of times upon the whorls of terra-cotta, must be regarded as the name or emblem of the town—that is, Ilios. In like manner, this sun-god shone in the form of a woman upon the propylaea of the temple of the Ilian Athena as a symbol of the sun-city.

This head of the sun-god appears to me to have so much of the Alexandrian style that I must adhere to history, and believe that this work of art belongs to the time of Lysimachus, who, according to Strabo, after the time of Alexander the Great, built here the new temple of the Ilian Athena, which Alexander had promised to the town of Ilium after the subjugation of the Persian Empire.

Were it not for the splendid terra-cottas which I find exclusively on the primary soil and as far as 6-1/2 feet above it, I could swear that at a depth of from 26 to 33 feet, I am among the ruins of the Homeric Troy. [The reader should bear in mind that Dr. Schliemann finally came back to this opinion.] For at this depth I have found a thousand wonderful objects; whereas I find little in the lowest stratum, the removal of which gives immense trouble. We daily find some of the whorls of very fine terra-cotta, and it is curious that those which have no decorations at all are always of the ordinary shape, and of the size of small tops, or like the craters of volcanoes, while almost all those possessing decorations are flat, and in the form of a wheel.

Metals, at least gold, silver, and copper, were known to the Trojans, for I found a copper knife highly gilded, a silver hairpin, and a number of copper nails at a depth of forty-six feet. I found many small instruments for use as pins; also a number of ivory needles, and some curious pieces of ivory, one in the form of a paper-knife, the other in the shape of an exceedingly neat dagger. We discovered one-edged or double-edged knives of white silex in the form of saws in quantities, each about two inches long; also many hand millstones of lava, and some beautiful red vases, cups, vessels, jugs, and hand plates. In these depths we likewise find many bones of animals; boars' tusks, small shells, horns of the buffalo, ram, and stag, as well as the vertebrae of the shark.

The houses and palaces in which the splendid terra-cottas were used were large and spacious, for to them belong all the mighty heaps of stone, hewn and unhewn, which cover them to the height of from 13 to 20 feet. These buildings were easily destroyed, for the stones were only joined with earth, and when the walls fell everything in the houses was crushed to pieces by the immense blocks of stone. The primitive Trojan people disappeared simultaneously with the destruction of their town. [Here, as well as in what goes before, Dr. Schliemann writes on the supposition, which he afterwards abandoned, that the remains in the lowest stratum are those of the Trojans of the Iliad.]

Upon the site of the destroyed city new settlers, of a different civilisation, manners, and customs, built a new town; but only the foundation of their houses consisted of stones joined with clay; all the house-walls were built of unburnt bricks. I must draw attention to the fact that I have found twice on fragments of pottery the curious symbol of the suastika, or crossed angles, which proves that the primitive Trojans belonged to the Aryan race. This is further proved by the symbols on the round terra-cottas. The existence of the nation which preceded the Trojans was likewise of long duration, for all the layers of debris at the depth of from 33 to 23 feet belong to it. They also were of Aryan descent, for they possessed innumerable Aryan religious symbols. Several of the symbols belonged to the time when Germans, Pelasgians, Hindoos, Persians, Celts, and Greeks still formed one nation.

I found no trace of a double cup among this people, but instead of it those curious cups which have a coronet below in place of a handle; then those brilliant, fanciful goblets, in the form of immense champagne glasses, and with two mighty handles on the sides; they are round below, so that they can only stand on their mouths. Further, all those splendid vessels of burnt earthenware, as, for instance, funeral, wine, or water urns, five feet high; likewise, all of those vessels with a beak-shaped mouth, bent back, and either short or long.

I have met with many very curious vases in the shape of animals with three feet. The mouth of the vessel is in the tail, which is upright and very thick, and is connected with the back by a handle. In these strata we also meet with an immense number of those round terra-cottas—the whorls—embellished with beautiful and ingenious symbolical signs, amongst which the sun-god always occupies the most prominent position. But the fire-machine of our primeval ancestors, the holy sacrificial altar with blazing flames, the holy soma-tree, or tree of life, and the rosa mystica, are also very frequently met with here.

This mystic rose, which occurs very often in the Byzantine sculptures, and the name of which, as is well known, is employed to designate the Holy Virgin in the Roman Catholic liturgies, is a very ancient Aryan symbol, as yet, unfortunately, unexplained. It is very ancient, because I find it at a depth of from 23 to 33 feet, in the strata of the successors to the Trojans, which must belong to a period about 1,200 years before Christ.

At a depth of 30-1/2 feet, among the yellow ashes of a house destroyed by fire, I found silver-ware ornaments and also a very pretty gold ear-ring, which has three lows of stars on both sides; then two bunches of earrings of various forms, most of which are of silver and terminate in five leaves.

I now come to the strata of debris at a depth of from 23 to 13 feet, which are evidently also the remains of a people of the Aryan race, who took possession of the town built on the ruins of Troy, and who destroyed it and extirpated the inhabitants; for in these strata of ten feet thick I find no trace of metal, and the structure of the houses is entirely different. All the house-walls consist of small stones joined with clay. In these strata—at a depth of from 23 to 13 feet—not only are all the stone implements much rougher, but all the terra-cottas are of a coarser quality. Still, they possess a certain elegance.

A new epoch in the history of Ilium commenced when the accumulation of debris on this hill had reached a height of 13 feet below its present surface; for the town was again destroyed, and the inhabitants killed or driven out by a wretched tribe, which certainly must likewise have belonged to the Aryan race, for upon the round terra-cottas I still very frequently find the tree of life, and the simple cross and double cross with the four nails. In these depths, however, the forms of the whorls degenerate. Of pottery, however, much less is found, and all of it is considerably less artistic than that which I have found in the preceding strata. With the people to whom these strata belonged—from 13 to 6-1/2 feet below the surface—the pre-Hellenic ages end, for henceforth we see many ruined walls of Greek buildings, of beautifully hewn stones laid together without cement, and the painted and unpainted terra-cottas leave no doubt that a Greek colony took possession of Ilium when the surface of this hill was much lower than it is now.

It is impossible to determine when this new colonisation took place, but it must have been much earlier than the visit of Xerxes reported by Herodotus, which took place 480 years before Christ. The event may have taken place 700 B.C.

III.—Homeric Legends Verified

Pergamus of Troy, August 4, 1872. On the south side of the hill where I made my great trench I discovered a great tower, 40 feet thick, which obstructs my path and appears to extend to a great length. I have uncovered it on the north and south sides along the whole breadth of my trench, and have convinced myself that it is built on the rock at a depth of 46-1/2 feet.

This tower is now only 20 feet high, but must have been much higher. For its preservation we have to thank the ruins of Troy, which entirely covered it as it now stands. Its situation would be most interesting and imposing, for its top would command not only a view of the whole plain of Troy, but of the sea, with the islands of Tenedos, Imbros, and Samothrace. There is not a more sublime situation in the whole area of the plain of Troy than this.

In the ashes of a house at the depth of 42-1/2 feet I found a tolerably well preserved skeleton of a woman. The colour of the bones shows that the lady, whose gold ornaments were near by, was overtaken by fire and burnt alive. With the exception of the skeleton of an infant found in a vase, this is the only skeleton of a human being I have ever met with in the pre-Hellenic remains on this hill. As we know from Homer, all corpses were burnt and the ashes placed in urns, of which I have found great numbers. The bones were always burnt to ashes.

Pergamus of Troy, August 14, 1872. In stopping the excavations for this year, and in looking back on the dangers to which we have been exposed between the gigantic layers of ruins, I cannot but fervently thank God for his great mercy, not only that no life has been lost, but that none of us has been seriously hurt.

As regards the result of my excavations, everyone must admit that I have solved a great historical problem, and that I have solved it by the discovery of a high civilisation and immense buildings upon the primary soil, in the depths of an ancient town, which throughout antiquity was called Ilium and declared itself to be the successor of Troy, the site of which was regarded as identical with the site of the Homeric Ilium by the whole world of that time. The situation of this town not only corresponds perfectly with all the statements of the Iliad, but also with all the traditions handed down to us by later authorities.

Pergamus of Troy, March 22, 1873. During this last week, with splendid weather, and with 150 men on the average, I have got through a good piece of work. On the north side of the excavation on the site of the Temple of Athena I have already reached a depth of 26 feet, and have laid bare the tower in several places.

The most remarkable of the objects found this week is a large knob of the purest and finest crystal, belonging to a stick, in the form of a beautifully wrought lion's head. It seems probable that in remote antiquity lions existed in this region. Homer could not so excellently have described them had he not had the opportunities of watching them.

Pergamus of Troy, May 10, 1873. Although the Pergamus, whose depths I have been ransacking, borders directly on the marshes formed by the Simois, in which there are always hundreds of storks, yet none of them ever settle down here. Though there are sometimes a dozen storks' nests on one roof in the neighbouring Turkish villages, yet no one will settle on mine, even though I have two comfortable nests made for them. It is probably too cold and stormy for the little storks on Ilios anemoessa.

My most recent excavations have far surpassed my expectations, for I have unearthed two large gates, standing 20 feet apart, in a splendid street which proceeds from the chief building in the Pergamus. I venture to assert that this great double gate must be the Homeric Scaean Gate. It is in an excellent state of preservation.

Here, therefore, by the side of the double gate, at Ilium's Great Tower, sat Priam, the seven elders of the city, and Helen. From this spot the company surveyed the whole plain, and saw at the foot of the Pergamus the Trojan and Achaean armies face to face about to settle their agreement to let the war be decided by a single combat between Paris and Menelaus.

I now positively retract my former opinion that Ilium was inhabited up to the ninth century after Christ, and I must distinctly maintain that its site has been desolate and uninhabited since the end of the fourth century. But Troy was not large. I am extremely disappointed at being obliged to give so small a plan of the city; nay, I had wished to be able to make it a thousand times larger, but I value truth above everything, and I rejoice that my three years' excavations have laid open the Homeric Troy, even though on a diminished scale, and that I have proved the Iliad based upon real facts.

Homer is an epic poet, and not an historian; so it is quite natural that he should have exaggerated everything with poetic licence. Moreover, the events he describes are so marvellous that many scholars have long doubted the very existence of Troy, and have considered the city to be a mere invention of the poet's fancy. I venture to hope that the civilised world will not only not be disappointed that the city of Priam has shown itself to be scarcely a twentieth part as large as was to be expected from the statements of the Iliad, but that, on the contrary, it will accept with delight and enthusiasm the certainty that Ilium did really exist, that a large portion of it has now been brought to light, and that Homer, even though he exaggerates, nevertheless sings of events that actually happened.

Homer can never have seen Ilium's Great Tower, the surrounding wall of Poseidon and Apollo, the Scaean Gate of the palace of King Priam, for all these monuments lay buried deep in heaps of rubbish, and he could have made no excavations to bring them to light. He knew of these monuments only from hearsay and tradition, for the tragic fate of ancient Troy was then still in fresh remembrance, and had already been for centuries in the mouth of all minstrels.

* * * * *



JULIUS CAESAR

Commentaries on the Gallic War

Caius Julius Caesar was born on July 12, 100 B.C., of a noble Roman family. His career was decided when he threw in his lot with the democratic section against the republican oligarchy. Marrying Cornelia, daughter of Lucius Cinna, the chief opponent of the tyrant dictator Sulla, he incurred the implacable hatred of the latter, and was obliged to quit Rome. For a season he studied rhetoric at Rhodes. Settling in Rome after Sulla's death, Caesar attached himself to the illustrious Pompey, whose policy was then democratic. In B.C. 68 he obtained a quaestorship in Spain, and on returning next year reconciled the two most powerful men in Rome, Pompey and Crassus. With them he formed what became known as the First Triumvirate. Being appointed to govern Gaul for five years, Caesar there developed his genius for war; but his brilliant success excited the fears of the senate and the envy even of Pompey. Civil war broke out. The conflict ended in the fall of Pompey, who was defeated in the fateful battle of Pharsalia, and was afterwards murdered in Egypt. Julius Caesar now possessed supreme power. He lavished vast sums on games and public buildings, won splendid victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, and was the idol of the common people. But the jealousy of many of the aristocrats led to the formation of a plot, and on March 15, 44 B.C., Caesar was assassinated in the Senate House. This summary relates to the commentaries known to be by Caesar himself, certain other books having been added by other Latin writers. It will be noticed that he writes in the third person. This epitome is prepared from the Latin text.

I.—Subduing Celtic Gaul

Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit; the Aquitani another; those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs, and laws. Among the Gauls the Helvetii surpass the rest in valour, as they constantly contend in battle with the Germans. When Messala and Piso were consuls, Orgetorix, the most distinguished of the Helvetii, formed a conspiracy among the nobility, persuading them that, since they excelled all in valour, it would be very easy to acquire the supremacy of the whole of Gaul. They made great preparations for the expedition, but suddenly Orgetorix died, nor was suspicion lacking that he committed suicide.

After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless attempted the exodus from their territories. When it was reported to Caesar that they were attempting to make their route through our province, he gathered as great a force as possible, and by forced marches arrived at Geneva.

The Helvetii now sent ambassadors to Caesar, requesting permission to pass through the province, which he refused, inasmuch as he remembered that Lucius Cassius, the consul, had been slain and his army routed, and made to pass under the yoke by the Helvetii. Disappointed in their hope, the Helvetii attempted to force a passage across the Rhone, but, being resisted by the soldier, desisted.

After the war with the Helvetii was concluded, ambassadors from almost all parts of Gaul assembled to congratulate Caesar, and to declare that his victory had happened no less to the benefit of the land of Gaul than of the Roman people, because the Helvetii had quitted their country with the design of subduing the whole of Gaul.

When the assembly was dismissed, the chiefs' of the AEdui and of the Sequani waited upon Caesar to complain that Ariovistus, the king of the Germans, had seized a third of their land, which was the best in Gaul, and was now ordering them to depart from another third part.

To ambassadors sent by Caesar, demanding an appointment of some spot for a conference, Ariovistus gave an insolent reply, which was repeated on a second overture. Hearing that the king of the Germans was threatening to seize Vesontio, the capital of the Sequani, Caesar, by a forced march, arrived there and took possession of the city. Apprised of this event, Ariovistus changed his attitude, and sent messengers intimating that he agreed to meet Caesar, as they were now nearer to each other, and could meet without danger.

The conference took place, but it led to no successful result, for Ariovistus demanded that the Romans should withdraw from Gaul and his conduct became afterwards so hostile that it led to war. A battle took place about fifty miles from the Rhine. The Germans were routed and fled to the river, across which many escaped, the rest being slain in pursuit. Caesar, having concluded two very important wars in one campaign, conducted his army into winter quarters.

II.—Taming the Rebellious Belgae

While Caesar was in winter quarters in Hither Gaul frequent reports were brought to him that all the Belgae were entering into a confederacy against the Roman people, because they feared that, after all Celtic Gaul was subdued, our army would be led against them. Caesar, alarmed, levied two new legions in Hither Gaul, and proceeded to the territory of the Belgae. As he arrived there unexpectedly, and sooner than anyone anticipated, the Remi, who are the nearest of the Belgae to Celtic Gaul, sent messages of submission and gave Caesar full information about the other Belgae.

Caesar next learned that the Nervii, a savage and very brave people, whose territories bordered those just conquered, had upbraided the rest of the Belgae who had surrendered themselves to the Roman people, and had declared that they themselves would neither send ambassadors nor accept any condition of peace. He was informed concerning them that they allowed no access of any merchants, and that they suffered no wine and other things tending to luxury to be imported, because they thought that by their use the mind is enervated and the courage impaired.

After he had made three days' march into their territory, Caesar discovered that all the Nervii had stationed themselves on the other side of the River Sambre, not more than ten miles from his camp, and that they had persuaded the Atrebates and the Veromandui to join with them, and that likewise the Aduatuci were expected by them, and were on the march. The Roman army proceeded to encamp in front of the river, on a site sloping towards it. Here they were fiercely attacked by the Nervii, the assault being so sudden that Caesar had to do all things at one time. The standard as the sign to run to arms had to be displayed, the soldiers were to be called from the works on the rampart, the order of battle was to be formed, and a great part of these arrangements was prevented by the shortness of time and the sudden charge of the enemy.

Time was lacking even for putting on helmets and uncovering shields. In such an unfavorable state of affairs, various events of fortune followed. The soldiers of the ninth and tenth legions speedily drove back the Atrebates, who were breathless with running and fatigue. Many of them were slain. In like manner the Veromandui were routed by the eighth and eleventh legions; but as part of the camp was very exposed, the Nervii hastened in a very close body, under Boduagnatus, their leader, to rush against that quarter. Our horsemen and light-armed infantry were by the first assault routed, and the enemy, rushing into our camp in great numbers, pressed hard on the legions. But Caesar, seizing a shield and encouraging the soldiers, many of whose centurions had been slain, ordering them to extend their companies that they might more freely use their swords.