GREECE 



From this time until the begin- 

 ning of the 19th century, Greece 

 was but a district under alien rule. 

 By conquest it became part of the 

 Roman empire, but except perhaps 

 at Corinth few changes were made 

 by the conquerors. For a time the 

 cities were self-governing as before, 

 subject only to the authority of the 

 Roman governor in Macedonia. 



Some of the Greeks assisted 

 Mithradates in his struggle against 

 Roma that began in 88 B.C., while 

 Greece was a battleground in the 

 civil strife in which Julius Caesar 

 was the central figure. Under 

 Augustus and the early emperors 

 conditions were more settled, and 

 this was the age in which Greek 

 thought and culture mainly exer- 

 cised its powerful influences upon 

 Rome. The province of Achaea 

 was set up to include most of 

 southern Greece, while steps were 

 taken to form some bond of union 

 between the cities. Hadrian did a 

 good deal for the country in various 

 ways. In the 3rd century Greece 

 was invaded by the Goths, but the 

 Romans drove them out. Later it 

 suffered in the same way from the 

 Visigoths. Christianity made slow 

 progress, for the cultured pagans of 

 Athens were less susceptible to it 

 than the northern barbarians. 

 Under the Eastern Empire 



When the Roman empire was 

 divided, Gre3ce fell to the eastern or 

 Byzantine portion and the lan- 

 guage and influence of Greece were 

 dominant at Constantinople. A 

 succession of invaders entered the 

 land and a number of Slavs settled 

 therein, but on the whole the 

 eastern emperors looked well to its 

 defence. The dispute about the 

 worship of images caused trouble 

 and bloodshed. In the 10th century 

 the Bulgarians invaded Greece, but 

 they were severely beaten in 995. 

 More momentous was the advent 

 of the Normans from Sicily and of 

 the Venetians. 



In 1204 the Byzantine empire 

 collapsed and Greece passed to the 

 Latin empire of Romania. That 

 only lasted until 1261, from which 

 date until the arrival of the Turks 

 the country was ruled by Frank 

 and other .foreign nobles, first 

 drawn eastward by the Crusades. 

 These rulers, called despots, divi- 

 ded between them most of the 

 country, while the Venetians had a 

 foothold on the coast and islands. 

 None of the dynasties, however, 

 succeeded in establishing them- 

 selves firmly, and in 150 years or so 

 the emperor at Byzantium was once 

 more master of Greece. He, how- 

 ever, fell before the Turks in 1453, 

 and a few years after the fall of Con- 

 stantinople the sultan conquered 

 practically the whole of the land. 



By the Turk Greece was divided, 

 apart from the islands, into six san- 

 jaks. His rule was arbitrary and at 

 times brutal, but not consistently 

 oppressive. Greece was obviously, 

 affected by the series of wars be- 

 tween the sultan and Venice. By 

 1570 the former had made his 

 mastery complete, but after Le- 

 panto the tide began to turn, and 

 in 1699 the Morea was surrendered 

 to the republic, but it was recon- 

 quered in 1715. The rise of the 

 Russian power was the next 

 external event that affected the 

 fortunes of Greece, and this led at 

 length to freedom from Turkish rule. 



A. W. Holland 



The history of Moc'em Greece 

 begins with the war of Indepen- 

 dence, one of the overflowings 

 of national sentiment caused by the 

 French Revolution. It met with 

 general sympathy hi Europe. The 

 insurgents were assisted by large 

 loans ; and the transference of the 

 chief naval and military com- 

 mands to British volunteers, Lord 

 Dundonald and Sir Richard Church, 

 helped to bring the long and fluc- 

 tuating contest to an end. But it 

 was only settled by the interven- 

 tion of the Great Powers, Britain, 

 France, and Russia, which first by 

 diplomacy and then by arms as- 

 sisted the Greeks to establish an 

 independent state. 



The Bavarian prince Otto was 

 invited to become king of the 

 Hellenes, but his despotic methods 

 and the employment of Bavarians 

 only in government offices soon 

 made him disliked. The Greek 

 politicians, kept out of office, turned 

 their energies to stirring up trouble; 

 in 1843 the king was forced to 

 grant a constitution and to dismiss 

 his Bavarian advisers. But he 

 neither grew in popularity nor was 

 he able to secure good government 

 for the country, which needed 

 above all things a period of rest. 

 Instead it was plunged into political 

 struggles, in which the Great Powers 

 took sides. 



British Intervention 



Twice British warships were sent 

 to threaten Piiaeus, the port of 

 Athens ; the first time to enforce 

 payment of interest on a loan ar- 

 ranged in London ; the second 

 time to support the doubtful 

 claims to compensation put for- 

 ward by a certain Don Pacifico, a 

 Portuguese who called himself a 

 British subject. Again, during the 

 Crimean War, when Greek sym- 

 pathies flowed towards Russia, 

 foreign warships were sent into 

 Greek waters. This so intensified 

 the unpopularity of the king that 

 a few years later he was deposed, 

 and the crown offered to the 

 duke of Edinburgh. But Britain 



GREECE 



had agreed with France and 

 Russia that neither she nor they 

 would put a prince upon the 

 throne, so the Greeks had to look 

 elsewhere. They found a (lerman- 

 Dane who in 1863 became king as 

 George I. 



At first he was warmly welcomed, 

 the more so because Britain took 

 the opportunity to please the 

 Greeks by restoring to them the 

 seven islands of the Ionian Sea 

 which had for a number of years 

 been under British influence. But 

 the strife of parties which has 

 always hindered the progress of 

 modern Greece became more and 

 more violent. The king was drawn 

 into it. He was obliged to dismiss 

 his principal adviser, a German, 

 whom he had brought with him ; 

 and to agree to changes in the con- 

 stitution which put the whole 

 power of control into the hands of a 

 single legislative chamber, and 

 went further in the direction of 

 democracy than any other state 

 at that time. 



Financial Difficulties 



There was little difference be- 

 tween the parties which, headed 

 by Triccupis and Delyannis, fol- 

 lowed one another hi and out of 

 office for many years. No great 

 principles divided them, no mea- 

 sures of capital importance were in 

 dispute. They played the political 

 game for its own sake ; not gener- 

 ally even for what they could get 

 out of it, but for the satisfaction of 

 their combative instincts and their 

 desire to exercise authority. What- 

 ever laws were passed by one side 

 were usually repealed as soon as 

 the other side regained power. 



Their frequent reversion to this 

 form of militarist fury brought 

 them into financial difficulties ; 

 they could not pay the interest on 

 their national debt, and in 1893 

 Tricoupis, worn out by incessant 

 efforts to keep his countrymen on 

 the path of economy and good 

 sense, proposed to repudiate a large 

 part of their liabilities. There was 

 an uproar in Europe ; the scheme 

 had to be withdrawn. 



Tricoupis soon resigned, and the 

 withdrawal of his restraining hand 

 was quickly seen. Agitation against 

 the Turks on account of their treat- 

 ment of Macedonians and Cretans 

 was carried on by a secret society, 

 and in 1897 war broke out. The 

 Greeks were the aggressors and 

 suffered bitterly for their folly. 



The Turkish troops were every- 

 where and at once victorious. The 

 Greek troops behaved badly, and the 

 government was obliged to beg 

 the Great Powers to mediate arid 

 save them from annihilation. The 

 one good result of the war was the 

 liberation of Crete from Turkey. 



