116 



TIIK STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



Conservative party. They fell during th. 



of Terror, and most of them perished on the 



scaffold. 



Gladiator*, in Ancient Rome, professional 

 combatants, who fought in the arena for the 

 amusement of the people. Thev were at tir>t 

 slaves, prisoners, or convicts; but afterwards 

 freemen fought in the arena, either for hire or 

 from choice. When a gladiator was severely 

 wounded, so as to be unable to fight any longer, 

 his antagonist stood over him with his sword 

 lifted, and looked up to the assembly for its fiat. 

 majority turned their thumb** downwards. 

 that was the signal of death. The practin was 

 defended, even by Cicero, as serving to keep up 

 a martial spirit and a contempt of death among 

 the people. Constant inc prohibited gladiators' 

 fights by an edict \ D. 325 . but the practice 

 was not whollv extinct till the time of Theodoric 

 (A. D. 500). 



God's Truce, or The Truce of God. 

 A singular institution of the Middle Ages, which 

 originated in a council assembled at Limoges at 

 the end of the Tenth Century-, and in the council 

 of Orleans, 1016. It consisted in the suspension 

 for a stated time, and at stated seasons and festi- 

 vals, of that right of private feud for the redress 

 of wrongs, which, under certain conditions, was 

 recognized by mediaeval law or usage. It pre- 

 vailed chiefly in France and the German Empire ; 

 and fell gradually into disuse when the right of 

 private redress was restricted, and at last en- 

 abolished by laws. 



Cloths. A powerful German people, who 

 originally dwelt on the Prussian coast of the 

 at the mouth of the Vistula, but after- 

 wards migrated south. About the beginning of 

 the Third Century we find them separated into 

 two great divisions, the Ostrogoths or Eastern 

 Goths, and the Visigoths or Western Goths. 

 The former were settled in Moesia and Pannonia, 

 while the latter remained north of the Danube. 

 At the beginning of the Fifth Century, the Visi- 

 goths, under their King Alaric, invaded Italy, 

 and took and plundered Rome (A. D. 410). A 

 few years later they settled in the southwest of 

 Gaul, and thence invaded Spain, where they 

 founded a kingdom which lasted for more than 

 two centuries. Meantime, the Ostrogoths ex- 

 tended their dominion almost up to the gates of 

 Constantinople, and. under their King Theodoric 

 (A D. 489) obtained possession of the whole of 

 Italy. Their dominion over Italy lasted, how- 

 ever, only till ~>~>\. when it was overthrown by 

 Narses, the general of Justinian. From this 

 time, the Goths figure no longer in Western 

 Europe, except in Spain, from which they were 

 finally Driven by the Arabs. But their name 

 was perpetuated long after in Scandinavia. 

 where a Kingdom of Gothia existed till 1161, 

 when it was absorbed in that of Sweden. Of 

 Gothic literature, in the Gothic language, we 

 have the translation of the Scriptures by Ulphi- 

 las, which belongs to the Fourth Century, and 

 some other religious writings and fragments. 



Greece. Prior to the first recorded Olym- 

 piad, B. C. 776, little is certain in Greek history. 

 Long anterior to this the country had been in- 

 habited, but fact and fable are so mingled in 

 the accounts that have come down to us that it 



is impossible to distinguish the true from the 

 false. Starting, then, from the period above 

 indicated, we shall give a brief resum& of. the 

 chief historic events up to the conquest of Greece 

 by the Turks in 1456 A. D. Olympic Games 

 revived at Elis, 884 B. C.; the first Olympiad 

 nun 77<i B. C.; the Messenian Wars oc- 

 curred from 7I.'M)69; the first sea-fight on rec- 

 ord, between the Corinthians and the inhabitants 

 of Corcyra, 664; Byzantium built, 657; the 

 seven sages of Greece (Solon, Periander, Pitta- 

 cus, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, and Bias) flourished 

 about 593; Persian conquests in Ionia occurred 

 in ."> 1 1 ; Svbaris in Magna Graecia destroyed, and 

 100,000 Crotonians under Milo defeat Son. ()(>() 

 Sybarites, 508; Sardis burned by the Greeks, 

 which causes an invasion by the Persians, 504; 

 Thrace and Macedonia are conquered, 496; 

 Athens and Sparta defy the Persians, 490j the 

 Persians are defeated at Marathon, 491; Xerxes 

 invades Greece, but is repulsed at Thermopylae 

 by Leonidas, 480; battle of Salamis occurs, 480; 

 Mardonius is defeated and slain at Plataea, and 

 the Persian fleet is destroyed at Mycale, 479; 

 battle of Eurymedon, which ends the Persian 

 War, 466 ; Athens attempts to obtain an ascend- 

 ency over the rest of Greece, 459; the first 

 "sacred war" begun, 448; Corinth and Corcyra 

 involved in war, 435, which leads to the Pelopon- 

 nesian War, lasting from 431-404; the Athenian 

 expedition to Syracuse ends disastrously, 415- 

 413; the retreat of the 10,000 under Xenophon 

 occurs, 400; Socrates dies, 399; great sea-fight 

 at Cnidas, 394; the peace of Antalcidas, 387; 

 Thebes arrives at the height of its power in 

 Greece between the years 370-360; the battle 

 of Mantinea, and death of Epaminondas, 362; 

 Philip of Macedon reigns, 353; the sacred war 

 is stopped by Philip, who captures all the towns 

 of the Phocaeans, 348; battle of Chaoroneia, 338; 

 Alexander enters Greece, conquers the Atheni- 

 ans, and destroys Thebes, 335; he conquers 

 the Persian Empire, 334-331; Greece invaded 

 by the Gauls, 280; they are defeated at Delphi, 

 279; and finally expelled, 277; internal feuds 

 lead to interference by the Romans, 200; Mum- 

 mius conquers Greece, and makes it a Roman 

 province, 147-146. Urxder Augustus and Had- 

 rian Greece was prosperous, 122-133 A. D.; 

 Alaric invades Greece, 396; it is plundered and 

 ravaged by the Normans from Sicily, 1146; 

 conquered by the Latins, 1204; the Turks under 

 Mohammed II. conquer Athens and part of 

 Greece, 1456; thence, till 1822, the country was 

 a province of Turkey. The revolt of the Greeks 

 from Turkish rule took place March 6, 1821, 

 under Alexander Ypsilanti, and on January 1, 

 1822, they declared their independence. In 1825, 

 the Turks partially reoccupied the country, but 

 were finally forced to evacuate in 1828. At last, 

 on February 3, 1830, a protocol of the allied 

 powers declared the independence of Greece, 

 which was recognized by the Porte on the 25th of 

 April, of this year. The crown was offered to 

 Leopold, Prince of Saxe-Coburg, and when he re- 

 fused it, to Otho, a young prince of Bavaria, who 

 was proclaimed king of the Hellenes at Nauplia 

 in 1832. But his arbitrary measures, and the 

 preponderance which he gave to Germans in the 

 government, made him unpopular, and, although 



