Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/826

 790 I P H I only two arc of piiniitive growth, the active and the middle voice, the passive voice being a later specialization of the middle. There were three moods, an indicative, a subjunctive, and an optative ; the difference of the latter two from the indicative lay partly in the inflexional endings, partly in the addition of a special mood-suffix before these terminations. There was also an imperative. The distinction of numbers was the same as in declension, singular, dual, plui-ii], each of which had three persons. The tenses may be divided into three groups. The first group comprises the present and perfect, the former of which is supposed to have been used originally as a general predicative form, being neither past, present, nor future, while the perfect was used to indicate the completion of the action signified by the root. The present is rarely formed direct from the root, but more generally from a special tense- stem derived from the root by the addition of some special tense suffix or infix, or reduplication. Of the different formations of the perfect met with in the individual langu.-iges only that through reduplication of the root-syllable is believed to be of Aryan origin. The second group is that of the past tenses, the imperfect and two aorists. In all these the past sense is marked by the augment. The imperfect is regularly formed from the present stem, and the aorist either from the root simple or reduplicated (root-aorist, corresponding to the so-called second aorist in Greek), or by insert ing an s between the root and the inflexional endings (sibilant, or sigmatic aorist, the first aorist of Greek). The existence of a plu perfect derived from the perfect in a way similar to the derivation of the imperfect from the present is doubtful and not generally admitted. The last division is formed by the future, which, like the first aorist, inserts a sibilant after the root-syllable. None of the other formations of the future occurring here and there is believed to have existed in the parent-speech. Of participles there were three sets, belonging to the present, the perfect, and the aorist respectively. An infinitive had not yet been developed ; its place in Aryan was supplied by the use of verbal nouns. 0. Comparative Synfax, 1 to conclude with, is the youngest Coir.- branch of Aryan philology. Its chief object so far has been to punitive settle the original meanings and the primitive rules of use of the synh.x. different cases, moods, and tenses. Some attempts have also been recently made to fix the rules of primitive word-order. About all these questions we must ivfer the reader to the original investiga tions of the different authors who have more especially cultivated this branch of research. (E. SI.) PHILOMELA. See NIGHTINGALE, vol. xvii. p. 499. PHILOPCEMEN, &quot; the last of the Greeks &quot; as he was called by an admiring Roman, was a leading champion of the Achaean League, which preserved in Peloponnesus a last shred of Greek freedom. Sprung from an illustrious Arcadian family, he was born at Megalopolis in Arcadia in 252 B.C. His father Craugis dying in his infancy, Philo- poemen was brought up by his father s friend Cleander, an exile from Mantinea. In his youth he associated with Ecdemus and Megalophanes, who had studied the Academic philosophy under Arcesilaus, and had proved themselves friends of freedom by helping to rid Megalopolis and Sicyon of tyrants. Philopoemen soon distinguished him self in war and the chase. Hard-featured but of an iron frame, simple and hardy in his way of life, blunt and straightforward in speech and manner, 2 he was a born soldier, delighting in war and careless of whatever did not bear on it. Thus he would not practise wrestling because the athlete s finely-strung habit of body is ill-fitted to bear the strain of a soldier s life. He read books of a martial and stirring tone, like the poems of Homer, together with works on military history and tactics. Epaminondas was his pattern, but he could not school his hot temper into the unruffled patience of the Theban. Indeed we miss in this rugged soldier that union of refinement at home with daring in the field which had stamped the soldier-citizens of the best age of Greece. His leisure was devoted to the chase or to the cultivation of his farm, where he worked like one of his hinds. In 222, when Cleomenes king of Sparta made himself master of Megalopolis by a night attack, Philopoemen secured by his valour the retreat of the main body of the citizens to Messene, and encouraged them to refuse the insidious invitation of Cleomenes to return to their homes on condition of renouncing their connexion with the Achaean League. Thus baffled, Cleo menes laid the city in ruins and retired. At the battle of Sellasia (early summer 221), where Cleomenes was j defeated by the combined Achaean and Macedonian forces j under Antigonus, king of Macedonia, Philopoemen greatly | distinguished himself by charging, without orders, at the head of the Megalopolitan cavalry and thus saving from ; defeat the wing on which he fought. His conduct won ( the admiration of Antigonus, who offered him a command in the Macedonian army, but he declined it and went to the wars in Crete. Returning after some time with fresh laurels, he was at once chosen to command the Achaean cavalry, which, from an ill-mounted, raw, and cowardly 1 A list of books concerning Aryan syntax will be found in the ap pendix to Sayce s Introduction to the Science of Lanrjuarjp, vol. ii. 2 The simplicity of his manners is illustrated by a tale like that of Alfred and the cakes, Plut, Phil., 2. body he soon turned into a highly-trained and thoroughly efficient force ; at the head of it he overthrew the yEtolian and Elean horse, and slew their commander with his own hand (209). He was elected general of the Achaean League for the first time in 208. In this, the highest dignity of the confederacy, he infused greater vigour and independence into the councils of the League than had been shown by Aratus, who had leaned on Macedonia and trusted to diplomacy rather than the sword. Philopoemen entirely changed the equipment and tactics of the troops of the League, substituting complete armour, long lances and large shields for the lighter arms hitherto in use, and adopting the Macedonian phalanx as the fighting order. But he did more : by example and precept he turned a nation of dandies into a nation of soldiers, who now spent on arms and accoutrements the wealth they had before lavished on dinners and dress. With the army thus trans formed he defeated Machanidas, tyrant of Sparta, at the battle of Mantinea. The tyrant fell by Philopoemen s hand, Tegea was taken, and Laconia ravaged. A bronze statue representing Philopoemen slaying Machanidas was set up at Delphi by the Achseans. At the Nemean festival which followed the battle Philopoemen, then general for the second time, was hailed by the people as the liberator of Greece. Jealous of the degree of independence to which Philopoemen had raised the League, Philip king of Mace donia sent emissaries to murder him, but they were foiled. So great was the terror of his name that at the bare report that he was coming the Boeotians raised the siege of Megara and fled. When Nabis, successor of Machanidas in the tyranny of Sparta, seized Messene, Philopoemen, though he held no office at the time and the general of the League refused to stir, collected his fellow-townsmen and drove out the tyrant. In his third generalship (201-200) he mustered the Achaean forces with great secrecy at Tegea and, invading Laconia, defeated the troops of Nabis. The Romans were now about to cross the sea for the war with Philip of Macedonia, and Philopoemen was the means of preventing the Achseans from concluding an alliance with Philip against Rome. At the expiry of his year of office he sailed once more to Crete, where he successfully led the troops of the Gortynians, beating the Cretans with their own weapons of craft and surprise. Philopoemen did not return to Peloponnesus till after the Romans under Flamininus had conquered Philip. He found the Romans and Achaeans making war on Nabis and was again elected to the generalship (192). Nabis was besieging Gythium, which with the other towns on the Laconian coast had been wrested from him by the Romans, handed over by them to the Spartan exiles, and attached to the Achaean League. Being defeated in an attempt to relieve Gythium