Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/213

 GREECE 201 Oropians appealed to the Achaean league, hich, at first declining to interfere, was finally involved by the intrigues of several leading men, among whom was Diseus the strategus, in a quarrel with Sparta. The latter appealed to Rome, and in 147 two commissioners were sent to Greece, who decided that Sparta, Cor- inth, and the other cities except those of Acbaia, should be independent. This decision led to acts of violence ; and finally Metellus, march- ing into Greece, defeated Critolaus the strate- gus in Locris. Diseus succeeded him ; but other Roman force under Mummius landed the isthmus of Corinth and defeated him in battle fought near the city. Corinth was
 * en in 146 ; the city was burned ; the works

art with which it was filled were transported Rome; ten commissioners were despatched settle the condition of Greece, and the hole country became a Roman province un- the name of Achaia. The Romans at first their power with such moderation as to cite the admiration of Polybius, who was e of the 1,000 Achasans sent to Italy. The ligion and the municipal institutions of the Greeks were treated with respect. Their emi- nence in literature and the arts qualified them to be the teachers of the Romans, who sent their youth to Athens to complete their educa- tion under the instruction of the scholars and philosophers of this city, which long retained its preeminence. It was not until the Mithri- datic war that the Greeks made an attempt to throw off the Roman power. The losses sus- tained by Greece in this unhappy period were never repaired. The Cilician pirates soon after ravaged Greece ; they were destroyed by Pom- pey. The civil wars that overturned the Ro- man republic desolated Greece ; but the empire at length established peace throughout the vilized world. Greece continued to be the ool of letters and art. She was still crowded th temples and statues, the products of the 3t ages. Her schools of.philosophy and rhet- c flourished ; the forms of public life were intained, and but little change was made in municipal administrations. But the dignity influence of official position gradually sunk the public estimation under a foreign suprem-
 * y. Augustus established military colonies.

His successors generally treated Greece with respect, and some of them distinguished her by splendid imperial favors. Trajan even great- ly improved her condition by his wise and liberal administration. Hadrian and the Antonines venerated her for her past achievements, and showed their good will by the care they ex- tended to her works of art, and their patron- age of the schools. About the middle of the 8d century A. D. hordes of Goths appeared on the frontiers, and soon after covered the Helles- pont and the ^Egean. Athens was gallantly defended by Dexippus the historian. Among the influences that essentially modified the condition, intellectual and moral, of the peo- ple of Greece, was that of Christianity, which was introduced by the apostles themselves, and, from the time of St. Paul's discourse on the Areopagus, had been gaining upon the ancient paganism. The ecclesia became the church, and the liturgia passed over from the public political offices of the Athenian state to the Christian service. In 330 the seat of the Roman empire was removed to Constantinople, an event which brought Greece into closer relations with the Roman administration, though the local governments were still al- lowed to exist. The emperor Julian attempted to check the growth of Christianity, and to restore the ancient rites, but with little success. In 395 the separation of the eastern and west- ern empires took place; and as the Greeks naturally belonged to the eastern, they now exercised a more powerful influence on the government. About this time the name Hel- lenes began to be limited to the adherents of the ancient religion. In the reign of Justinian (527-565) the philosophical schools of the Greeks in which doctrines adverse to Chris- tianity were taught were closed ; but much was done for the protection of Greece from foreign invasion. The western empire fell in 476 ; but the eastern Roman empire continued, becom- ing more and more properly Byzantine. (See BYZANTINE EMPIRE.) During this period the events which exercised the most important in- fluence upon the condition of Greece were the immigrations of the Slavs and other races, commencing early in the 6th century. In the early part of the 8th century they occupied a large part of the country, and held posses- sion of the coasts, displacing to a considerable extent the Greek population. But in the course of time they retreated, and the country was mainly restored to the descendants of its an- cient inhabitants. Yet to this day the effects of these Slavic settlements are witnessed in the physical character of the people in some districts, especially of the Peloponnesus. Nu- merous traces of them are detected in Slavic names of persons and places, and in Slavic words still found in the language of the com- mon people. But the theory advanced by the German Fallmerayer, that the Greek people wholly disappeared from Greece, and that the present inhabitants are Slavs, will not stand investigation. No important change occurred from this time until the conquests by the Nor- mans. Robert Guiscard landed in Corfu in 1081. Bohemond invaded Illyria soon after. In 1146 Roger, king of Sicily, mastered Corfu, and, marching through the mainland, plundered Corinth, Thebes, and Athens. In the fourth crusade, commencing in 1203, Constantinople was taken by the Latin princes, who also di- vided Greece among them. The marquis of Montferrat became sovereign of Salonica (Thes- salonica) ; Achaia and the Morea (Pelopon- nesus) became a principality under Guillaume de Champlitte and Geoffroi Yillehardouin ; a duke- dom was established in the archipelago with Naxos as its seat ; but the most remarkable of