1. We are now prepared to return to the year 500 B. C.—and follow events in chronological order, with a fair appreciation of their import. Just before the close of the last century, Darius Hystaspes, the king of Persia, sent an army into Europe, to the north of Greece, to chastise the Scythians, and it conquered Thrace. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor, which had been recently added to the Persian empire, became restive under foreign control, and when the Persian army returned home, 500—organized a rebellion and took and burned the city of Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia. They were assisted by the European Greeks; but the vast resources of Persia soon enabled Darius to take vengeance on them, and Miletus was besieged and destroyed. Darius summoned the Grecian states to offer their submission, but Athens and Sparta sent back a defiance. Darius thereupon gathered a large armament and prepared to invade 495—Greece, which he commenced by the conquest of Macedon. But a tempest destroyed his ships and 20,000 men, and the expedition returned to Persia. In the[84] same year the Roman plebeians obtained their first success against the patricians, by which the debts of the poor plebeians to the wealthy patricians were cancelled and Tribunes of the People appointed.
490—This year the glory of Greece broke forth. Darius having sent another and larger army into Greece, it advanced on Athens and encamped at Marathon, within twenty-two miles of the city. The Persian host was said to number from 100,000 to 200,000 men. The Athenians had but 10,000 citizens, but armed 20,000 slaves, and the city of Plat?a sent them 1,000 troops. Miltiades, the very able Athenian general, marched out and, taking a good position, offered battle. It was the 20th of September. The little army of the Greeks obtained a complete victory and the Persians returned home in confusion. The great services of Miltiades were rewarded with imprisonment, on a frivolous charge, and he died there of his wounds.
485—Darius Hystaspes, the Persian king, died while preparing a still larger armament for the invasion of Greece.
484—An insurrection in Egypt completely subdued by the Persians.
480—Xerxes, king of Persia, invaded Greece with a million soldiers. The battle at the pass of Thermopyl? was fought by a thousand Spartans under Leonidas, their king, and all but one slain. The Persian fleet was beaten the same day by Themistocles, the Athenian admiral. Xerxes soon advanced on Athens, which was abandoned by its inhabitants and burned by the Persians. Soon after, Themistocles fought the Persian navy again at Salamis and totally destroyed it. Xerxes, leaving a large army in Greece, returned to Asia.
479—The battle of Plat?a ended the Persian invasion. The allied Greek army numbered 70,000, under Pausanias, the Spartan king; the Persians 300,000. The Persians are said to have had 200,000 slain, and their army was[85] totally routed. Another victory was gained on the coast of Asia Minor the same day, and the last remnants of the Persian fleet destroyed.
478—Athens was rebuilt and surrounded with walls from the treasures of the conquered Persians. This was the age of great men in Greece. Phidias, her greatest sculptor, flourished at this time. The Persians, at the time of their first invasion, brought a piece of marble to commemorate the victory of which they were confident. The Greeks caused Phidias to produce out of it a statue of Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, and set it up on the field of Marathon.
478—Themistocles died in banishment about this time, and Aristides of old age. Both were leading statesmen and generals of Athens during the Persian war.
470—Socrates, the most eminent philosopher of all ancient times, was born this year.
” —The death of Xerxes by assassination occurred this year.
466—Cimon, son of Miltiades, was now the great man of Athens. He was soon superseded by Pericles. From 480 B. C. to 430 was the golden period of Athens. She was pre-eminent politically, conducting the war of the Grecian allies against Persian supremacy on the western shores of Asia and in the Mediterranean sea. Republican liberty was everywhere predominant. The greatest writers, painters and sculptors lived in this period or immediately after it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, philosophers; ?schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, tragic poets; Zeuxis and Apelles, painters; and Phidias in sculpture, were a few among the many great names which are found in or immediately following this period.
457—Cincinnatus was made dictator at Rome. During this period the Romans laid the foundation of their dominion over all Italy by waging successful war with the Etruscans and Samnites, the most vigorous and powerful of their opponents.
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450—The Decemvirate was appointed at Rome. They were ten magistrates empowered to produce a more perfect code. It was called the “Laws of the Twelve Tables.” The plebeians about this time succeeded in wresting important privileges from the patricians, which more equally balanced the different powers of the state.
2. Athens was the centre of civilization, and Greek culture and ideas were penetrating all the nations in her vicinity. Rome was rapidly developing and Carthage was at the summit of her glory. She had control of much of the Spanish or Iberian peninsula. Persia, after absorbing all the old monarchies of the east, was declining. The “march of empire” was distinctly defining its “westward course.”
It was about the middle of this century that Herodotus, the “Father of History,” was rising to fame, and a few years later Xenophon, the Greek general and historian, was born. Thucydides, another historian, dates from this period. The great career of history now fairly commenced.
443—Herodotus emigrated from Halicarnassus, in Asia, to Greece.
431—The Peloponnesian war, a bitter contest between Athens and Sparta, commenced. It lasted twenty-three years, and was again revived, ending in the conquest of Athens by Sparta. This war was followed, after some time, by the rise of the power of Thebes, under their famous general, Epaminondas, who broke the power of Sparta. Thebes sunk into insignificance after his death, and Philip of Macedon commenced the subjugation of all Greece. He was followed by Alexander the Great, who, in return for the loss of republican liberty, rendered Greece illustrious by conquering the Persian empire, and imbuing all the Eastern World with its philosophy and arts. For all these great events one hundred years were required.
429—The death of the illustrious Pericles occurred in this year.
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” —Plato, the disciple of Socrates, and, in some points, superior to him in mental discipline, was born.
420—About this time Alcibiades, the nephew of Pericles, became prominent in Athenian affairs. He had brilliant powers, but little principle.
406—The battle of ?gospotamos, gained by Lysander the Spartan, broke the power of Athens.
404—Athens was taken by Lysander, its walls demolished, and the government of the “Thirty Tyrants” established by the Spartans. Alcibiades, banished from Athens, was assassinated by the Persians, at the instigation of the Spartans.
401—Occurred the battle of Cunaxa, in Babylonia, between Cyrus, the brother of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, and that king. Cyrus, who had been governor, or satrap, in Asia Minor, gathered a large army including more than 10,000 Greeks. Cyrus was killed and his own army defeated, but the Greeks repelled all assaults. Their generals having been decoyed into the power of the Persians, on the plea of making terms with them, were treacherously slain. The army appointed other commanders, chief among whom was Xenophon, afterward the celebrated historian, and they made good their return to Greece. It was finely described by Xenophon, and known as the “Retreat of the Ten Thousand.”
400—Socrates taught doctrines too pure and high-toned for his countrymen to understand, and was condemned to drink poison, as a dangerous man and despiser of the gods, in the 70th year of his age. The Athenians soon repented it.
396—The capital of Veii, taken by the Romans, ended the contest with the Etruscans.
389—Rome was conquered and, except the capitol, destroyed, by the Gauls under Brennus. The barbarians soon retired and the city was rebuilt.
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384—Aristotle, the most learned of the Grecian philosophers, was born at Stagira, in Macedon. He laid the foundation of scientific study, and was the tutor of Alexander the Great.
371—Epaminondas defeated the Spartans at Leuctra, and 362—again at Mantinea, where he was killed.
360—Philip became king of Macedon, and soon began to undermine the liberties of Greece in a very artful way.
357—The “Sacred War” against the Phocians, who had plundered the temple of Apollo, at Delphi, commenced.
356—Birth of Alexander the Great. Rutilius, the first plebean dictator at Rome.
349—Death of Plato, the brightest light of Grecian philosophy. He systematized and enlarged the doctrines of Socrates.
338—Occurred the battle of Chaeronea between Philip and the allied Athenians and Thebans. The Greeks were totally defeated and their liberty lost. Demosthenes, the most celebrated orator of the Greeks, spent his whole life and his magnificent eloquence in the effort to rouse the Greeks against Philip; but Philip was too crafty and the Greeks too little accustomed to act in concert. For nearly a hundred years the states of Greece had been exhausted by wars among themselves, and they were too weary of fighting to make the necessary effort against so powerful and skillful an adversary.
336—Philip was assassinated on the eve of an expedition against Persia, as chief of the Grecian states. This popular idea consoled them for the loss of liberty. Alexander succeeded his father.
335—Thebes rebelled against Alexander, and he took and destroyed that ancient city.
334—Alexander carried out the project of his father and invaded the Persian empire. The battle of the Granicus, his first great victory, took place this year.
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333—Darius, the Persian king, was again thoroughly defeated in the battle of Issus. Damascus, in Syria, was taken and Tyre besieged by Alexander.
332—Tyre was taken and finally destroyed, and Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, founded.
331—A final battle at Arbela, in Assyria, overthrew the Persian Empire. Darius escaped, but was murdered by Bessus, one of his officers. Four years were spent by the Greeks in subduing the wild tribes on the eastern border of the Empire, and settling the government of these vast conquests.
327—Alexander invaded India and was constantly triumphant till his soldiers refused to go farther from home. They had grown tired of conquering, and Alexander reluctantly returned to Babylon to consolidate his government.
323—Alexander died of a fever, the result of excessive drinking. He left no heir, and his generals divided his empire.
322—The Samnites obtained a temporary success by surprising a Roman army in a narrow defile of the mountains called the Candine Forks, and subjected it to a humiliating capitulation. The Romans never bowed before misfortune or defeat. They prosecuted the war with invincible resolution until the Samnite power was wholly broken, a contest, in all, of about 50 years, which was soon followed by the complete subjugation of the whole peninsula.
3. In this year died the two greatest Grecians, Demosthenes, the orator, by suicide; and Aristotle, by old age. On the death of Alexander, Demosthenes aroused the Athenians to make a stand for their liberties. Few of the Grecian states joined them and they were totally defeated by Antipater, the governor appointed by Alexander. Demosthenes avoided punishment by taking poison. The Achaian League, about forty years after, maintained the liberties of Greece for fifty[90] years or more, which then fell before the invincible Romans. For many years all the eastern world was in confusion from the struggles of competitors for the Empire of Alexander. Ptolemy established himself soon and firmly in Egypt, and Seleucus, after various
312—Reverses, obtained full possession of the eastern parts of the empire, Babylonia, Assyria and Persia. This year is called the era of the Seleucid?. Asia Minor and Greece were a scene of the greatest confusion for seventy years, so far as rulers were concerned. But nearly all these were Greeks, and Greek culture and philosophy exerted a wide spread influence. In the end it became fully evident that the want of genius in the Greek mind to organize, and steadiness in Greek character to sustain, settled institutions was absolute. They had, at different times, men of the greatest ability, but when they passed away their plans and institutions perished with them. The acute and accomplished Greeks were ever children in the science of government, and the advent of Rome alone, whose special skill was in government, saved the world from irretrievable anarchy or fatal despotism.
300—The Roman plebeans completed their struggle for constitutional liberty by acquiring a share in the priestly office, which was essential to the full value of their other victories over the patricians, and the Roman constitution was complete. It was maintained very fairly for more that one hundred and fifty years, when the spoils of their conquests corrupted the virt............