GREECE. (REVOLUTION.) 



533 



science he gave its name), and applied philosophy to 

 several branches of knowledge ; thereby producing 

 economics, pedagogics, poetics, physiognomies. He 

 invented the philosophical syllogism, and gave philo- 

 sophy the form which it preserved for centuries. His 

 disciple, Theophrastus, followed his steps, in the in- 

 vestigation of philosophy and natural history. But 

 the more dogmatic was the philosophy of Aristotle, 

 the more caution was requisite to the philosophical 

 inquirer, and the spirit of doubt was salutary. This 

 was particularly exhibited in the system of scepti- 

 cism which originated with Pyrrho of Elis. A similar 

 spirit, at least, subsisted in the middle and new aca- 

 demies, of which Arcesilaus and Carneades were the 

 founders. The Socratic school put forth new branches 

 in the Stoic school, founded by Zeno of Citium in 

 Cyprus, and the Epicurean, of which Epicurus of 

 Gargettus in Attica was the founder. Mathematics 

 and astronomy made great progress in the schools at 

 Alexandria, Rhodes, and Pergamus. And to whom 

 are the names of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, 

 and Hipparchus unknown ? The expeditions and 

 achievements of Alexander furnished abundant mat- 

 ter to history ; but, on the whole, it gained in extent, 

 not in value, since a taste for the wonderful had now 

 become prevalent. The more gratifying, therefore, 

 is the appearance of Polybius of Megalopolis, about 

 the end of this period, who is to be regarded as the 

 author of true historical description, by which uni- 

 versal history acquired a philosophical spirit and 

 a worthy object. Geography, which Eratosthenes 

 made a science, and Hipparchus united more closely 

 with mathematics, was enriched in various ways. To 

 the knowledge of countries and nations much was 

 added by the accounts of Nearchus and Agatharch- 

 ides, and to chronology by the Parian chronicles. 

 With respect to poetry, many remarkable changes 

 occurred. TP Athens, the middle comedy gave place, 

 not without the intervention of political causes, to 

 the new, which approaches to the modern drama, as 

 it took the moral nature of man for the subject of its 

 representations. Among the thirty-two poets of this 

 class, Menander, Philemon, and Diphylus were emi- 

 nent. From the mime proceeded the idyl, in which 

 branch of poetry, after the period of Stesichorus, 

 Asclepiades, etc., Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus 

 were particularly celebrated. The other kinds of 

 poetry did not remain uncultivated; but all these 

 labours, as well as the criticisms of poetry and the 

 fine arts, point to Alexandria ; and we shall therefore 

 pass them over in this place. At the end of this pe- 

 riod, Greece ceased to be independent; and Rome, 

 the queen of empires, established her dominion over 

 it. See the continuation of this subject, under the 

 articles Alexandrian School, and Roman Literature. 



Greece, Revolution of Modern. For the history of 

 Greece under the Eastern empire, see Byzantine 

 Empire ; and for the period from the downfall of this 

 empire to the late revolution, see Turkey, and Ve- 

 nice. 



For centuries, the name of Greece possessed a 

 melancholy celebrity in the political history of 

 Europe. In the primitive seat of European civiliza- 

 tion, amid the noblest ruins of the ancient world, 

 one people has preserved its existence through the 

 wild tempests of Asiatic conquerors, and lias recently 

 contended with the enemies of Christianity and 

 civilization, like a shipwrecked mariner with the 

 waves, for life and freedom, whilst Christian Europe 

 beheld the death-struggle, for seven years, without 

 coming to any resolution which posterity will con- 

 sider as due from this age. From the year 1821, 

 Europe saw the Greeks asserting a national ex- 

 istence; but she considered this as the etfbrt of 

 despair, and, from day to day, expected to see the 



last sparks of Grecian life extinguished. She there- 

 fore withheld, for years, the assistance that was 

 prayed for. Europe did not see, in the oppres- 

 sors of this people, a powerful state, resting on firm 

 foundations, bufr rather expected every day the dis- 

 solution of this hollow mass of seraglio slaves and 

 janizaries. The jealous policy, both of the neighbour- 

 ing and distant powers, had thus far supported the 

 falling state, and therefore a contest, strange as it was 

 terrible, was prolonged before our eyes, between a 

 state and a people, both of whom stood equally near 

 destruction. The Sublime Porte appeared so little 

 in a condition to conquer the Greeks, that it called 

 from Africa the boldest and most powerful of its 

 satraps, that he might exterminate the men of Greece, 

 send their wives and children as slaves to the Nile^ 

 and spread Africans over the land of classic remi- 

 niscences. Even Frenchmen oft'ered their aid to sub- 

 jugate the Morea. Had the powerful viceroy of 

 Egypt succeeded in uniting under one government 

 the JEgean sea, the Peloponnesus, Crete, and the 

 land of the Nile, then this Egyptian dynasty, like the 

 ancient Fatimites, would have been in a situation to 

 rule the Mediterranean sea, to close the Dardanelles, 

 to give laws to the trade of the Levant, and to invade 

 Italy. Then would Greece, that venerable ruin of 

 classical antiquity, have been for ever annihilated. 

 The Porte, called the key-stone of the European arch, 

 would hardly have been the shadow of the last ca- 

 liphs of Bagdad. Europe would have numbered a 

 new Sesostris among her monarchs. God be thank- 

 ed that the result of the conflict has been more 

 auspicious ! 



The Turks and Greeks never became one nation ; 

 the relation of conquerors and conquered never ceased. 

 However abject a large part of the Greeks became by 

 their continued oppression, they never forgot that 

 they were a distinct nation ; and their patriarch at 

 Constantinople remained a visible point of union for 

 their national feelings. (See Ranke's Fursten mid 

 Volker, &c., Berlin, 1827.) The Greeks had been 

 repeatedly called upon by Russia to shake oft' the 

 Turkish yoke, as in 1769, 1786 and 1806. The last 

 revolution broke out in March, 1821. As early as 

 1809, a society had been formed at Paris for the liber 

 ation of Greece. In 1814, the Hetaireia (q. v.) was 

 formed in Vienna, but the revolution began too early 

 for their plans. Coray (q. v.) with many others, as 

 Mustoxydy, Gazy, Ducas, Cumas, Bambas, Gorgorios, 

 Oiconomos, Capetanaki, exerted themselves to en- 

 lighten their nation, and to prepare it, by a better 

 education, for a struggle for liberty. Similar views 

 had been entertained fifty years earlier, by several 

 Greeks, in different parts of the country, among 

 whom were Panagkitis, Mavrocordato, and Demetrius 

 Cantemir. In Greece itself, several attempts were 

 made to revive the study of the ancient language, 

 and with it a taste for letters, civilization and liberty. 

 This was particularly the case in the islands (see 

 Hydriots), where intercourse with France, and even 

 with the United States, contributed to hasten the 

 revival of a thirst for liberty. The works of Fe'ne'lon, 

 Beccaria, Montesquieu, and those of some German 

 scholars ; also Goldsmith's Greece and Franklin's 

 Poor Richard, were translated into modern Greek. 

 At Athens, Saloniki, Yanina, Smyrna, Cydonia 

 (Aivali), Bucharest, Jassy, Kuru-Tschesme (a village 

 on the European shore of the Bosphorus), in Scio&c. 

 schools were established. But the war has destroyed 

 all these schools, with the exception of that on 

 mount Athos. Rhigas (q. v.) animated the spirit of 

 his countrymen by lu's songs. In addition to all this, 

 the wretched state of Turkey, weak from without 

 and within ; every thing, in short, seemed favourable, 

 when the precipitancy of one or a few individuals, 



