Only such persons interest us, Spartans, Romans, Saracens, English, Americans, who have stood in the jaws of need, and have by their own wit and might extricated themselves, and made man victorious.
14:19. And they were read before the assembly in Jerusalem. And this is the copy of the letters that the Spartans sent.
15:23. And to all the countries: and to Lampsacus and to the Spartans, and to Delus, and Myndus, and Sicyon, and Caria, and Samus, and Pamphylia, and Lycia, and Alicarnassus, and Cos, and Side, and Aradus, and Rhodes, and Phaselis, and Gortyna, and Gnidus, and Cyprus, and Cyrene.
Thus it is. And we sacrifice ourselves for these visions, which are almost always illusions for the sacrificed, but illusions with which, after all, the whole of human certainty is mingled. We throw ourselves into these tragic affairs and become intoxicated with that which we are about to do. Who knows? We may succeed. We are few in number, we have a whole army arrayed against us; but we are defending right, the natural law, the sovereignty of each one over himself from which no abdication is possible, justice and truth, and in case of need, we die like the three hundred Spartans. We do not think of Don Quixote but of Leonidas. And we march straight before us, and once pledged, we do not draw back, and we rush onwards with head held low, cherishing as our hope an unprecedented victory, revolution completed, progress set free again, the aggrandizement of the human race, universal deliverance; and in the event of the worst, Thermopylae.
14:23. And it pleased the people to receive the men honourably, and to put a copy of their words in the public records, to be a memorial to the people of the Spartans. And we have written a copy of them to Simon, the high priest.
12:5. And this is a copy of the letters which Jonathan wrote to the Spartans:
14:20. The princes and the cities of the Spartans, to Simon, the high priest, and to the ancients, and the priests, and the rest of the people of the Jews, their brethren, greeting.
12:20. Arius, king of the Spartans, to Onias, the high priest, greeting.
12:6. Jonathan, the high priest, and the ancients of the nation, and the priests, and the rest of the people of the Jews, to the Spartans, their brethren, greeting.
12:2. And he sent letters to the Spartans, and to other places, according to the same form.
This man was composed of two very simple and two very good sentiments, comparatively; but he rendered them almost bad, by dint of exaggerating them,--respect for authority, hatred of rebellion; and in his eyes, murder, robbery, all crimes, are only forms of rebellion. He enveloped in a blind and profound faith every one who had a function in the state, from the prime minister to the rural policeman. He covered with scorn, aversion, and disgust every one who had once crossed the legal threshold of evil. He was absolute, and admitted no exceptions. On the one hand, he said, "The functionary can make no mistake; the magistrate is never the wrong." On the other hand, he said, "These men are irremediably lost. Nothing good can come from them." He fully shared the opinion of those extreme minds which attribute to human law I know not what power of making, or, if the reader will have it so, of authenticating, demons, and who place a Styx at the base of society. He was stoical, serious, austere; a melancholy dreamer, humble and haughty, like fanatics. His glance was like a gimlet, cold and piercing. His whole life hung on these two words: watchfulness and supervision. He had introduced a straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the world; he possessed the conscience of his usefulness, the religion of his functions, and he was a spy as other men are priests. Woe to the man who fell into his hands! He would have arrested his own father, if the latter had escaped from the galleys, and would have denounced his mother, if she had broken her ban. And he would have done it with that sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue. And, withal, a life of privation, isolation, abnegation, chastity, with never a diversion. It was implacable duty; the police understood, as the Spartans understood Sparta, a pitiless lying in wait, a ferocious honesty, a marble informer, Brutus in Vidocq.
Nabis,(*) Prince of the Spartans, sustained the attack of all Greece, and of a victorious Roman army, and against them he defended his country and his government; and for the overcoming of this peril it was only necessary for him to make himself secure against a few, but this would not have been sufficient had the people been hostile. And do not let any one impugn this statement with the trite proverb that "He who builds on the people, builds on the mud," for this is true when a private citizen makes a foundation there, and persuades himself that the people will free him when he is oppressed by his enemies or by the magistrates; wherein he would find himself very often deceived, as happened to the Gracchi in Rome and to Messer Giorgio Scali(+) in Florence. But granted a prince who has established himself as above, who can command, and is a man of courage, undismayed in adversity, who does not fail in other qualifications, and who, by his resolution and energy, keeps the whole people encouraged--such a one will never find himself deceived in them, and it will be shown that he has laid his foundations well.
12:21. It is found in writing concerning the Spartans, and the Jews, that they are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham.
There are, for example, the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans held Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy, nevertheless they lost them. The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them, and did not lose them. They wished to hold Greece as the Spartans held it, making it free and permitting its laws, and did not succeed. So to hold it they were compelled to dismantle many cities in the country, for in truth there is no safe way to retain them otherwise than by ruining them. And he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watchword of liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget. And whatever you may do or provide against, they never forget that name or their privileges unless they are disunited or dispersed, but at every chance they immediately rally to them, as Pisa after the hundred years she had been held in bondage by the Florentines.
EROS, in Greek mythology, the god of love. He is not mentioned in Homer; in Hesiod (_Theog._ 120) he is one of the oldest and the most beautiful of the gods, whose power neither gods nor men can resist. He also evolves order and harmony out of Chaos by uniting the separated elements. This cosmic Eros, who in Orphic cosmogony sprang from the world-egg which Chronos, or Time, laid in the bosom of Chaos, and which is the origin of all created beings, degenerated in later mythology into the capricious god of sexual passion, the son of Aphrodite and Zeus, Ares or Hermes. He is commonly represented as a mischievous boy, the tormentor of gods and men, even his own mother not being proof against his attacks. His brother is Anteros, the god of mutual love, who punishes those who do not return the love of others, without which Eros could not thrive; he is sometimes described as the opponent of Eros. The chief associates of Eros are Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire), Peitho (Persuasion), the Muses and the Graces; he himself is in constant attendance on Aphrodite. Later writers (Euripides being the first) assumed the existence of a number of Erotes (like the Roman Amores and Cupidines) with similar attributes. According to the philosophers, Eros was not only the god of sexual love, but also of the loyal and devoted friendship of men; hence the Theban "Sacred Band" was devoted to him, and the Cretans and Spartans offered sacrifice to him before going into battle (Athenaeus xiii. p. 561). In Alexandrian poetry Eros is at one time the powerful god who conquers all, at another the elfish god of love. For the Roman adaptation of Eros see Cupid, and for the later legend of Cupid and Psyche see PSYCHE. Entry: EROS
HELOTS (Gr. [Greek: heilôtes] or [Greek: heilôtai]), the serfs of the ancient Spartans. The word was derived in antiquity from the town of Helos in Laconia, but is more probably connected with [Greek: helos], a fen, or with the root of [Greek: helein], to capture. Some scholars suppose them to have been of Achaean race, but they were more probably the aborigines of Laconia who had been enslaved by the Achaeans before the Dorian conquest. After the second Messenian war (see SPARTA) the conquered Messenians were reduced to the status of helots, from which Epaminondas liberated them three centuries later after the battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.). The helots were state slaves bound to the soil--_adscripti glebae_--and assigned to individual Spartiates to till their holdings ([Greek: klêroi]); their masters could neither emancipate them nor sell them off the land, and they were under an oath not to raise the rent payable yearly in kind by the helots. In time of war they served as light-armed troops or as rowers in the fleet; from the Peloponnesian War onwards they were occasionally employed as heavy infantry ([Greek: hoplitai]), distinguished bravery being rewarded by emancipation. That the general attitude of the Spartans towards them was one of distrust and cruelty cannot be doubted. Aristotle says that the ephors of each year on entering office declared war on the helots so that they might be put to death at any time without violating religious scruple (Plutarch, _Lycurgus_ 28), and we have a well-attested record of 2000 helots being freed for service in war and then secretly assassinated (Thuc. iv. 80). But when we remember the value of the helots from a military and agricultural point of view we shall not readily believe that the _crypteia_ was really, as some authors represent it, an organized system of massacre; we shall see in it "a good police training, inculcating hardihood and vigour in the young," while at the same time getting rid of any helots who were found to be plotting against the state (see further CRYPTEIA). Entry: HELOTS
2. ARTAXERXES II., surnamed _Mnemon_, the eldest son of Darius II., whom he succeeded in the spring of 404. According to Ctesias (_Pers._ 57; Plut. _Artax._ i.) he was formerly called Arsaces or Arsikas, whereas Dinon (Plut. _Artax._ i.) calls him Oarses. This is corroborated by a Babylonian tablet with observations of the moon (Brit. Mus. Sp. ii. 749; _Zeitsch. f. Assyriologie_, vii. 223), which is dated from the 26th year of "Arshu, who is Artakshatsu," i.e. 379 B.C. (cp. Ed. Meyer, _Forschungen zur allen Geschichte_, ii. 466 ff.). When Artaxerxes II. mounted the throne, the power of Athens had been broken by Lysander, and the Greek towns in Asia were again subjects of the Persian empire. But his whole reign is a time of continuous decay; the original force of the Persians had been exhausted in luxury and intrigues, and the king, though personally brave and good-natured, was quite dependent upon his favourites and his harem, and especially upon his mother Parysatis. In the beginning of his reign falls the rebellion of his brother Cyrus, who was secretly favoured by Parysatis and by Sparta. Although Cyrus was defeated at Cunaxa, this rebellion was disastrous inasmuch as it opened to the Greeks the way into the interior of the empire, and demonstrated that no oriental force was able to withstand a band of well-trained Greek soldiers. Subsequently Greek mercenaries became indispensable not only to the king but also to the satraps, who thereby gained the means for attempting successful rebellions, into which they were provoked by the weakness of the king, and by the continuous intrigues between the Persian magnates. The reign is, therefore, a continuous succession of rebellions. Egypt soon revolted anew and could not be subdued again. When in 399 war broke out between Sparta and Persia, the Persian troops in Asia Minor were quite unable to resist the Spartan armies. The active and energetic Persian general Pharnabazus succeeded in creating a fleet by the help of Evagoras, king of Salamis in Cyprus, and the Athenian commander Conon, and destroyed the Spartan fleet at Cnidus (August 394). This victory enabled the Greek allies of Persia (Thebes, Athens, Argos, Corinth) to carry on the Corinthian war against Sparta, and the Spartans had to give up the war in Asia Minor. But it soon became evident that the only gainers by the war were the Athenians, who in 389, under Thrasybulus, tried to found their old empire anew (see DELIAN LEAGUE). At the same time Evagoras attempted to conquer the whole of Cyprus, and was soon in open rebellion. The consequence was that, when in 388 the Spartan admiral Antalcidas (q.v.) came to Susa, the king was induced to conclude a peace with Sparta by which Asia fell to him and European Greece to Sparta. After the peace, Evagoras was attacked. He lost his conquests, but had to be recognized as independent king of Salamis (380 B.C.). Two expeditions against Egypt (385-383 and 374-372) ended in complete failure. At the same period there were continuous rebellions in Asia Minor; Pisidia, Paphlagonia, Bithynia and Lycia, threw off the Persian yoke and Hecatomnus, the satrap of Caria, obtained an almost independent position. Similar wars were going on against the mountain tribes of Armenia and Iran, especially against the Cadusians on the Caspian Sea. In this war Artaxerxes is said to have distinguished himself personally (380 B.C.), but got into such difficulties in the wild country that he was glad when Tiribazus succeeded in concluding a peace with the Cadusian chieftains. Entry: 2
(2) This private connexion developed into a custom according to which a state appointed one of the citizens of a foreign state as its representative ([Greek: proxenos]) to protect any of its citizens travelling or resident in his country. Sometimes an individual came forward voluntarily to perform these duties on behalf of another state ([Greek: etheloproxenos]). The proxenus is generally compared to the modern consul or minister resident. His duties were to afford hospitality to strangers from the state whose proxenus he was, to introduce its ambassadors, to procure them admission to the assembly and seats in the theatre, and in general to look after the commercial and political interests of the state by which he had been appointed to his office. Many cases occur where such an office was hereditary; thus the family of Callias at Athens were proxeni of the Spartans. We find the office mentioned in a Corcyraean inscription dating probably from the 7th century B.C., and it continued to grow more important and frequent throughout Greek history. There is no proof that any direct emolument was ever attached to the office, while the expense and trouble entailed by it must often have been very great. Probably the honours which it brought with it were sufficient recompense. These consisted partly in the general respect and esteem paid to a proxenus, and partly in many more substantial honours conferred by special decree of the state whose representative he was, such as freedom from taxation and public burdens, the right of acquiring property in Attica, admission to the senate and popular assemblies, and perhaps even full citizenship. Public hospitium seems also to have existed among the Italian races; but the circumstances of their history prevented it from becoming so important as in Greece. Cases, however, occur of the establishment of public hospitality between two cities (Rome and Caere, Livy v. 50), and of towns entering into a position of clientship to some distinguished Roman, who then became patronus of such a town. Foreigners were frequently granted the right of public hospitality by the senate down to the end of the republic. The public hospes had a right to entertainment at the public expense, admission to sacrifices and games, the right of buying and selling on his own account, and of bringing an action at law without the intervention of a Roman patron. Entry: 2
ISYLLUS, a Greek poet, whose name was rediscovered in the course of excavations on the site of the temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus. An inscription was found engraved on stone, consisting of 72 lines of verse (trochaic tetrameters, hexameters, ionics), mainly in the Doric dialect. It is preceded by two lines of prose stating that the author was Isyllus, an Epidaurian, and that it was dedicated to Asclepius and Apollo of Malea. It contains a few political remarks, showing general sympathy with an aristocratic form of government; a self-congratulatory notice of the resolution, passed at the poet's instigation, to arrange a solemn procession in honour of the two gods; a paean (no doubt for use in the procession), chiefly occupied with the genealogical relations of Apollo and Asclepius; a poem of thanks for the assistance rendered to Sparta by Asclepius against Philip, when he led an army against Sparta to put down the monarchy. The offer of assistance was made by the god himself to the youthful poet, who had entered the Asclepieum to pray for recovery from illness, and communicated the good news to the Spartans. The Philip referred to is identified with (a) Philip II. of Macedon, who invaded Peloponnesus after the battle of Chaeronea in 338, or (b) with Philip III., who undertook a similar campaign in 218. Entry: ISYLLUS
IPHICRATES, Athenian general, son of a shoemaker, flourished in the earlier half of the 4th century B.C. He owes his fame as much to the improvements which he made in the accoutrements of the peltasts or light-armed mercenaries (so called from their small round shield, [Greek: peltê]) as to his military successes. Increasing the length of their javelins and swords, substituting linen corselets for their heavy coats-of-mail, and introducing the use of a kind of light leggings, called after him "iphicratides," he increased greatly the rapidity of their movements (Diod. Sic. xv. 44). He also paid special attention to discipline, drill and manoeuvres. With his peltasts Iphicrates seriously injured the allies of the Lacedaemonians in the Corinthian War, and in 392 (or 390) dealt the Spartans a heavy blow by almost annihilating a _mora_ (battalion of about 600 men) of their famous hoplites (Diod. Sic. xiv. 91; Plutarch, _Agesilaus_, 22). Following up his success, he took city after city for the Athenians; but in consequence of a quarrel with the Argives he was transferred from Corinth to the Hellespont, where he was equally successful. After the peace of Antalcidas (387) he assisted Seuthes, king of the Thracian Odrysae, to recover his kingdom, and fought against Cotys, with whom, however, he subsequently concluded an alliance. About 378 he was sent with a force of mercenaries to assist the Persians to reconquer Egypt; but a dispute with Pharnabazus led to the failure of the expedition (Diod. Sic. xv. 29-43). On his return to Athens he commanded an expedition in 373 for the relief of Corcyra, which was besieged by the Lacedaemonians (Xenophon, _Hellenica_, vi. 2). On the peace of 371, Iphicrates returned to Thrace, and somewhat tarnished his fame by siding with his father-in-law Cotys in a war against Athens for the possession of the entire Chersonese. The Athenians, however, soon pardoned him and gave him a joint command in the Social War. He and two of his colleagues were impeached by Chares, the fourth commander, because they had refused to give battle during a violent storm. Iphicrates was acquitted but sentenced to pay a heavy fine. He afterwards remained at Athens (according to some he retired to Thrace) till his death (about 353). Entry: IPHICRATES
Notwithstanding its defects, Froude's _History_ is a great achievement; it presents an important and powerful account of the Reformation period in England, and lays before us a picture of the past magnificently conceived, and painted in colours which will never lose their freshness and beauty. As with Froude's work generally, its literary merit is remarkable; it is a well-balanced and orderly narrative, coherent in design and symmetrical in execution. Though it is perhaps needlessly long, the thread of the story is never lost amid a crowd of details; every incident is made subordinate to the general idea, appears in its appropriate place, and contributes its share to the perfection of the whole. The excellence of its form is matched by the beauty of its style, for Froude was a master of English prose. The most notable characteristic of his style is its graceful simplicity; it is never affected or laboured; his sentences are short and easy, and follow one another naturally. He is always lucid. He was never in doubt as to his own meaning, and never at a loss for the most appropriate words in which to express it. Simple as his language is, it is dignified and worthy of its subject. Nowhere perhaps does his style appear to more advantage than in his four series of essays entitled _Short Studies on Great Subjects_ (1867-1882), for it is seen there unfettered by the obligations of narrative. Yet his narrative is admirably told. For the most part flowing easily along, it rises on fit occasions to splendour, picturesque beauty or pathos. Few more brilliant pieces of historical writing exist than his description of the coronation procession of Anne Boleyn through the streets of London, few more full of picturesque power than that in which he relates how the spire of St Paul's was struck by lightning; and to have once read is to remember for ever the touching and stately words in which he compares the monks of the London Charterhouse preparing for death with the Spartans at Thermopylae. Proofs of his power in the sustained narration of stirring events are abundant; his treatment of the Pilgrimage of Grace, of the sea fight at St Helens and the repulse of the French invasion, and of the murder of Rizzio, are among the most conspicuous examples of it. Nor is he less successful when recording pathetic events, for his stories of certain martyrdoms, and of the execution of Mary queen of Scots, are told with exquisite feeling and in language of well-restrained emotion. And his characters are alive. We may not always agree with his portraiture, but the men and women whom he saw exist for us instinct with the life with which he endows them and animated by the motives which he attributes to them. His successes must be set against his failures. At the least he wrote a great history, one which can never be disregarded by future writers on his period, be their opinions what they may; which attracts and delights a multitude of readers, and is a splendid example of literary form and grace in historical composition. Entry: FROUDE
MAGNA GRAECIA ([Greek: he megale Hellas]), the name given (first, apparently, in the 6th century B.C.) to the group of Greek cities along the coast of the "toe" of South Italy (or more strictly those only from Tarentum to Locri, along the east coast), while the people were called Italiotes ([Greek: Italiôtai]). The interior, which the Greeks never subdued, continued to be in the hands of the Bruttii, the native mountaineers, from whom the district was named in Roman times ([Greek: Brettia] also in Greek writers). The Greek colonies were established first as trading stations, which grew into independent cities. At an early time a trade in copper was carried on between Greece and Temesa (Homer, _Od._ i. 181).[1] The trade for a long time was chiefly in the hands of the Euboeans; and Cyme (Cumae) in Campania was founded in the 8th century B.C., when the Euboean Cyme was still a great city. After this the energy of Chalcis went onward to Sicily, and the states of the Corinthian Gulf carried out the colonization of Italy, Rhegium having been founded, it is true, by Chalcis, but after Messana (Zancle), and at the request of the inhabitants of the latter. Sybaris (721) and Crotona (703) were Achaean settlements; Locri Epizephyrii (about 710) was settled by Ozolian Locrians, so that, had it not been for the Dorian colony of Tarentum, the southern coast of Italy would have been entirely occupied by a group of Achaean cities. Tarentum (whether or no founded by pre-Dorian Greeks--its founders bore the unexplained name of Partheniae) became a Laconian colony at some unknown date, whence a legend grew up connecting the Partheniae with Sparta, and 707 B.C. was assigned as its traditional date. Tarentum is remarkable as the only foreign settlement made by the Spartans. It was industrial, depending largely on the purple and pottery trade. Ionian Greeks fleeing from foreign invasion founded Siris about 650 B.C., and, much later, Elea (540). Entry: MAGNA