Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/136

Rh the war of independence several of the clergy stood in the foremost rank. The inferior clergy throughout the whole time were true to their people ; but as they were to a large extent uneducated, and had to maintain themselves by some handicraft, they differed in no respect from the great body of the people, to whose industry and real worth the permanence of the nation is mainly due.

Another circumstance favourable to the Greeks was that the Ottomans allowed them to retain the communal system which had existsd in earlier times. By this system, which, however, did not prevail in all parts of Greece, and where it did exist was not carried out always to the same extent, all the males of full age in each district elected a man who was to take special charge of local affairs. These men went by various names, such as demogerontes, gerontes, archontes, proesti, and epitropi. The Ottomans found the system helpful. The proesti hid to keep on good terms with the Turks, and were indeed frequently farmers of the taxes from the Turks. They were also often exceedingly ambitious and cruel. But they were often men of intelligence and influence; and when the war of independence broke out, some of them took a prominent part. There cannot be a doubt also that the local self-government which was thus allowed to exist helped to keep up the longing for liberty and to prepare the nation for a constitutional government.

The Greeks showed their aptitude for combination and self-government also in mercantile affairs. From an early period they had taken to mercantile pursuits, and their position was in many respects advantageous for trading. Tiie Turks were not successsful in trade, and indeed did not care to pursue it. They therefore willingly left it in the hands of the Greeks, and various events and circumstances had favoured them. The Turks imposed a heavier duty on goods exported or imported by Greeks than on those possessed by Turks. The result of this regulation was that the sultan saw it to be his interest to encourage Greek rather than Turkish traders, as his revenue from the former was much greater than from the latter. Various privileges were gained by the Russians for their own traders, and the Greeks were permitted to enjoy these under the Russian fl ig. Then, during the war which France waged against all Europe, Turkey was for a long time neutral, and the subjects of Turkey could trade where no others could. Under these and similar conditions the Greek traders spread themselves over the whole of the Mediterranean, and many of them became very wealthy. In this prosperous state of matters various Greeks combined and formed large joint stock companies. Thus the association of Ampelakia, employed principally on cotton fabrics, embraced twenty-two villages. All the inhabitants of twenty-five years and upwards had a right to vote in the election of the five directors who managed the different departments of the company s activity. The profits were divided at the end of each year according to certain rules. Similar commercial communities existed in Philippopolis, Mademochoria, Calarryta, Soracos, Chios, and Cydonia. Most famous among such combinations were the unions among the sailors of Hydra, Spezzia, and Psara, by which those islands rose to great wealth and importance, and formed most powerful auxiliaries in the struggle for independence.

There were other positions of still greater eminence to which the Greeks rose. The Ottomans for a considerable time after the fall of Constantinople were characterized by a strong literary spirit and a desire for culture, but this spirit declined, and the pursuit of learning was left to the Greeks. But a European Government requires men of cul ture, if for no other purpose, at least that it may hold intercourse and enter into negotiations with the other European powers. The Ottomans felt this necessity, and accordingly in 1666 they appointed Panayiotes Nicouses dragoman or interpreter. He was succeeded in this office by Alexander Mavrocordatus, who highly distinguished himself in various political transactions of great importance. The office of dragoman became permanent; a Greek was always appointed; and thus Greeks came to have rare opportunities of influencing the sultan. Not long after the establishment of this office another was instituted, that of dragoman or interpreter to the capitan pasha or chief Turkish admiral, whose business it was to arrange all matters connected with the fleet. Still further, the Turks thought it advantageous that the northern provinces of Vallachia and Moldavia should be ruled by Greeks, and generally those who had acted as interpreters to the sultan or to the capitan pasha were appointed as waiwocles or hospodars of Wallachia. These men became practically kings of these provinces, and Greeks from all parts flocked to hold offices under them. The Greeks who received these high appointments lived, when their duties did not call them away, in the part of Constantinople called Phanarion in which the patriarchate was placed, and hence they were called "Phanariots." They increased greatly in number, and at length formed a large, powerful, and wealthy community in the city of the sultan. The character of these phanariots has not been painted in bright colours by historians, but their circumstances were strongly antagonistic to the development of a high moral tone. They had above all to gain the favour of the sultan, and to stand well with the influential Turks. They could accomplish this only through double-dealing and through extortion. They were also ambitious, and had no scruple as to the means employed in attaining the objects of their ambition. It is affirmed that the Wallachians and Moldavians detested their rule even worse than that of the Turks ; but this can be accounted for satisfactorily by the consideration that nothing could be more humiliating than to be ruled by men who had the appearance of princes but were in reality slaves, without our supposing that their rule was more than ordinarily cruel and rapacious. And much has to be said in their favour. They had the strong Greek love of culture. They sent their sons to the best universities in Europe, and in this way the phanariots became men of great refinement and intelligence. Many of them take a distinguished place in the history of their country s literature. They also established schools everywhere, and vigorously supported those they found existing. The schools or rather colleges of Bucharest and Jassy rivalled that of Jannina in the number of able men they trained to guide and animate their country in its seasons of perplexity.

It was through these and similar instruments that the Greeks were being prepared during the Turkish and Venetian rule to struggle for their independence. Some of the Greek tribes had never been perfectly subject to the Ottomans, especially the Mainotes of the Peloponnesus and the Sphakiots of Crete. Many Greeks had led an inde pendent life as pirates or as klephts. Piracy was indeed put down by the European Governments ; but the klephts or brigands remained living on plunder of Greek and Turk alike, proud of their liberty, in their hill fastnesses. There were also in Albania, Thessaly, and Greece proper bodies of Christian warriors, called armatoli, who acted as bands of armed police, but whose actions came often to be con founded with those of the klephts. In regard to the other Greeks it must be affirmed that they were broken in spirit. Finlay asserts that they never once rose against their oppressors. Paparrhegopoulos tries to show that the very opposite was the case; but all he proves is that the Greeks were ever ready to take up arms against the Turks at the instigation of any foreign power. They rose up incited by France, by Spain, by the Venetians; and in later times they were continually rising through the secret instigations of Russia. But they never once rose of their own accord. 