﻿GREECE, ANCIENT. 



GKEECE, KINGDOM OF. 



the power of the Turka on the conquest of Constantinople. Its recent 

 hiatory will be noticed in the following article. 



Latiffuage and Literature. — The Greek language forms a branch of 

 that extensive family of languages which is known by the name of 

 Indo-Germanic. It has existed as a spoken language for at least 3000 

 years, and haa been more widely diffused than any other tongue, 

 unle.'ig we except the Arabic and English. It had attained a great 

 degree of perfection in the 9th century before the Christian sera ; and 

 it was eventually spoken not only in Greece and the numerous 

 Grecian colonies, but was extended over a large part of Western Asia 

 by the conquests of Alexander. It is evident from the books of the 

 New Testament, that the lower orders iu Palestine could converse in 

 Greek as well as in their native Syriac ; and many of the books of the 

 New Testament were written in Greek by men who had received very 

 little education. In Egypt also, under the Ptolemies, Greek became 

 the language of a large proportion of the townspeople, and was used, 

 jointly with the native language, iu the business of administration. 

 The conquest of Greece by the Romans tended still further to the 

 diffusion of the Greek language ; and though the study was condemned 

 by Cato and many others of the old school, " it soon became a fashion 

 for well-educated Romans to read, to speak, to translate, and even to 

 write in this foreign language." Under the dominion of the Cajsars 

 the language and literature of Greece were not only taught at Athens 

 and Rome, but in every part of the Roman empire Greek philosophers 

 and rhetoricians were maintained by their numerous pupils. After 

 the fall of the Western empire and the extinction of learning in the 

 west, the Greek literature and philosophy were stUl cultivated in 

 Asia and at Constantinople, where Greek continued the spoken lan- 

 guage of the people till the city was taken by the Turks in the 15th 

 century. This is usually considered as the time at which it ceased to 

 be a liTing language ; but the best specimens of modem Greek, as it 

 is called, can be read without much difficulty by any person acquainted 

 with the Greek of Xenophon and Demosthenes ; and the resemblance 

 between the ancient and modem language is sufficient to justify us in 

 considering the Greek language as one which has not ceased to be 

 spoken from the time of Homer to the present day. 



The Greek language ia usually divided iuto four dialects, the .lEolic, 

 Ionic, Doric, and Attic, the peculiarities of which are noticed under 

 the articles i£oLtAXS, Doris, and Io:iia. The Bccotian, Thessalian, 

 Laconian, and Sicilian dialects are only subdivisions. The four 

 dialects may however be reduced to two, the ^Eolic or Doric, and the 

 Ionic or Attic : the latter originally spoken iu the northern part of 

 Peloponnesus and Attica, the former in the other parts of Greece. Till 

 the time of Alexander the Greeks generally wrote in that dialect in 

 which they had been brought up, and thus we have works in 

 the .£olic, Ionic, Doric, and Attic dialects. But the number and 

 superiority of the Attic writers gradually caused this dialect to be 

 adopted by Greeks who were not natives of Attica; and thus the 

 Attic dialect, somewhat modified by the peculiarities of other dialects, 

 was called the common or Hellenic dialect (^ Koirii, or 4 'EAAtjvuc^ 

 iidXexTos) ; in which almost all Greek prose writers from the time of 

 Aristotle composed their works. Writers in this common dialect are, 

 Aristotle, Theophrastus, Polybius, Diodorus, Strabo, Plutarch, Dionysiui 

 of HaUcamassus, Lucian, iElian, Dion Casaius, Appian, and many others; 

 thongh some of these writers, such as Lucian, Arrian, in his ' Ana- 

 basis,' iElian, Ac, endeavoured to write in the pure Attic dialect, and 

 to avoid every phrase which was not sanctioned by some Attic writer 

 such as Xenophon or Thucydides. Poetry however was not written 

 in this common dialect ; the peculiarities of the Homeric dialect were 

 imitated by all succeeding poets ; and the poets of the Alexandrian 

 school, such as Apollonius and Callimachus, and at a later period 

 Nicander, Oppian, and others, continued to write in the Homeric 

 dialect, or in what they considered such, which could only be tho- 

 roughly intelligible to those who had received a learned education. 

 In the countries where the Macedonians established themselves the 

 Attic dialect received many modifications ; and as Alexandria in Egypt 

 was, under the Ptolemies, the principal place where this dialect was 

 cultivated, it was called the Alexandrine or Macedonian dialect. The 

 Septuagint version of the Old Testament was written in this dialect ; 

 but it can hardly bo considered as a fair specimen of the language 

 spoken at Alexandria, since the Jewish translators have introduced 

 into the version many Hebrew phrases and constructions. The New 

 Testament was written in the same dialect, whence it haa passed with 

 some tariations into the writings of the fathers, and haa been called 

 Ecclesiastical Greek. The Greek spoken at Constantinople became 

 more corrupted, and so many foreign words were introduced into the 

 language, that a glossary is necessary for understanding the writers of 

 the EUsiem empire. 



The history of Greek literature may be divided into three periods : 

 the first extending from the earliest times to the rise of Atheniaa 

 literature ; the second comprising the flourishing period of Athenian 

 literature ; and the third comprehending all the writers from the time 

 1)1 Alexander to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. We shall 

 conclude the article with a few observations on the rise of Greek 

 literature. 



The Greek colonies of Asia Minor appear to have attained a consi- 

 derable degree of civilisation soon after their foundation, a circum- 

 stance probably owing to their intercourse with the Lydians and other 



Asi,itic natious, and to their exemptions from the political revolutions 

 to which the mother-country was exposed. It was iu the Ionian and 

 ^Eolian cities on the coast of Asia Minor that the literature of Greece 

 originated ; and to the Greeks transplauted into Asia we are indebted 

 for the earliest specimens we po3.ses3 of Greek poetry and historical 

 composition. Whether we look upon the * Iliad ' and ' Odyssey ' as 

 the work of one individual or of many bards, it must be regarded as 

 the composition of Asiatic Greeks, and is a proof of the perfection 

 which the language had attained in the 9th or 10th century before 

 our aira. Of the poets previous to Homer nothing satisfactory is 

 known. Oleu is mentioned by Pausanias (ix., 27, 2) as the most 

 ancient ; he was followed by Linus, Orpheus, Musa^us, and many 

 others. There were many poems circulated in the later ages of Greek 

 literature under the names of Liuus, Orpheus, and Musseus, some of 

 which have come down to us, but they cannot be regarded as the 

 genuine works of these ancient poets. Their poems appear to have 

 been upon religious subjects, and were entitled ' Hymns ' {Sfiroi). The 

 ' Iliad ' and ' Odyssey ' formed a part of a series of poems, which are 

 usually known by the name uf the ' Epic Cycle.' The poems known 

 under this name were arranged according to the order of events by 

 the grammarians of Alexandria, and included the works of many 

 bards, of whom the most celebrated besides Homer were Hesiod, 

 Arctinua (b.c. 775), Cinsthon (B.C. 765), Stasinus, Prodicus, Augias, 

 and Lesches (b.o. 657). Lyric poetry arose on the decline of the epos, 

 and was much cultivated from about B.c. 776 to the commencement 

 of the Persian wars. The lyric poems of this period were considered, 

 even in the most flourishing periods of Athenian poetry, as one of the 

 most valuable parts of Greek literature. Unfortunately we have 

 nothing remaining of them but a few fragments, which are hardly 

 sufficient to enable us to form an opinion upon the subject. Many of 

 the lyric poems bordered upon the epic, and contained the subjects of 

 heroic song. They were suug, accompanied by music, by bands of 

 youths and maidens ; and in course of time a performer was intro- 

 duced during pauses in the song to narrate the history or personate 

 the character of some celebrated hero ; to which the origin of Greek 

 tragedy may be ascribed. But the lyric poetry of the Greeks was 

 written for all occasions : it was employed by Archilochus, Alcteus, 

 and Hipponax, for the purpose of satire and personal invective ; by 

 Tyrtsus, Terpander, and Alcman, to rouse the martial spirit of the 

 Spartans ; and by Anacreon, Ibycus, and Mimnermus, to exalt the 

 pleasures of the senses. Many didactic poems, fables, proverbs, Ike, 

 were written in the 6th century B.C. (when jEsop is said to have lived), 

 and served to prepare tho way for prose composition. The earliest 

 historical compositions treated principally of mythological subjects, 

 and many of them were little else than the Cyclic poems turned iuto 

 prose. The earliest historical writer appears to have been Cadmus of 

 Miletus, who lived in the beginning of the 6th century B.c. : Herodotus, 

 who well deserves the title of ' Father of History,' was born B.C. 484. 



Physical philosophy began to be cultivated in Asia Minor in the 

 early part of the 6th century B.C., under Thales of Miletus. He was suc- 

 ceeded by Anaximander, Anaiimenes, Heraclitus, and others ; but 

 the reputation of the Ionian school was soon eclipsed by the Pythago- 

 rasin and Eleatic schools iu Italy. Anaxagoras introduced into 

 Athens tho philosophy of the Ionian school ; but the Athenian philo- 

 sophers were indebted to the Eleatic school for the first principles of 

 dialectic, in which they became so celebrated. The school, of which 

 Socrates was the founder, is chiefly known to us through the writings 

 of Plato and Xenophon. From this period philosophy was exten- 

 sively cultivated at Athens. The doctrines of the Academy, over 

 which Plato presided for nearly half a century, were somewhat modi- 

 fied by Arcesilaus (b.c. 296), who is considered as the founder of the 

 Middle, as distinguished from the Old Academy. The New Academy 

 was founded by Carneades, who lived about a century after Arcesilaus. 

 The Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean schools were founded respectively 

 by Aristotle, Zeno, aud Epicurus. Greek philosophy was studied, as 

 we have already remarked, by the Romans ; and in Rome, Athens, 

 Alexandria, and many other cities of the Roman empire, numerous 

 teachers of the Platonic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean sects were 

 supported by salaries from the state, or by private foes from their 

 pupils. Many of the fathers, such as Clemeut and Origen, paid great 

 attention to the Platonic philosophy as it was then taught at Alexan- 

 dria ; but the study of Greek philosophy gradually declined in conse- 

 quence of the progress of Christianity, and the schools iu which it was 

 taught were finally suppressed in the time of Justiuian. 



GREECE, KINGDOM OF, consists of three great divisions, namely. 

 Northern Greece, the Peloponnesus, and the Islands, which include 

 the Cyolades, some of the Sporades, and Eubcea. The boundaries of 

 Northern Greece, as determined by the commissioners of the three 

 allied powers, Great Britain, France, and Russia, are formed by a 

 somewhat tortuous line drawn across the continent chiefly along the 

 summit of the range of Mount Othrys from the mouth of the river 

 Surbiotico, on the Pegastean Gulf, or Gulf of Volo, about 39° 11' N. lat., 

 22° 42' E. long., on the east, to the village of Menidhi (39° 3' N. lat., 

 21° 5' E. long.), on the Ambracian Gulf, or Gulf of Arta, on the 

 west, which is about 137 miles long, aud defined by 95 landmarks 

 placed on the most important points. It lies between 36° 16' aud 

 39° 20' N. lat., 20° 42' and 26° 10' E. long. The continental portion 

 of the country is bounded N. by the Turkish pashalica of Albania 



