958 G R E 
polis, to be plundered by his foldiers, in the year be¬ 
fore Chrifl: 146, The walls were then razed ; and the 
city reduced to allies. Thus perilhed Corinth in the 
fame year with Carthage. 
Ten commilTioners were now fent from Rome, to re¬ 
gulate, in conjunftion with the confiil, the affairs of 
Greece in general, and of Achaia in particular ; they 
abolifhed the popular government in all the cities, and 
eftablifhed magiffrates, who were to govern each ftate 
according to their refpeflive laws, under the fuperin- 
tendency of a Roman prretor. Thus the Achaean 
league was diffolved, and all Greece reduced to a Ro¬ 
man province, called “ the province of Achaia,” be- 
caufe at the taking of Corinth, the Achaeans were the 
moft powerful people of Greece. The whole nation 
paid an annual tribute to Rome, which the praetor, who 
was fent thither every year, had the care of collecting. 
Athens continued in the fame ftate as the reft of the 
Grecian communities, until the Mithridatic war, before 
Chrift 88, when that city openly declared 'againft the 
Romans. Mithridates difpatched into Greece an army 
ot one hundred and twenty thoufand men, under the 
command of Archelaus ; who foon made himfelf mafter 
of Athens, and compelled Lacedaemon, Achaia, and 
JBoeotia, to join him alfo. He took up his abode in 
Athens. Sylla, being appointed to condiuSl the war 
againft Mithridates, entered Greece with five legions ; 
and all the cities, except Athens, immediately opened 
their gates to him. He firft attempted to force his Avay 
into the Piraeus by fcaling the walls; but, being re- 
pulfed, he had recourfe to the ordinary means of attack. 
He erefted towers; and, raifing them to the fame height 
as the battlements, got upon the fame level as the be- 
fieged, and plied them with miffile weapons. Battering 
engines all'ailed the walls, or witir galleries he under¬ 
mined them ; but the defence of the place was equally 
obilinate and vigorous; and he was obliged, after many 
fruitlefs attempts, to turn the fiege into a blockade, and 
to wait the eft'edts of famine. Accordingly Athens was 
at length brought to the laft extremity ; but Ariftion, 
the tyrant of the place, expelling no quarter for himfelf 
from tlie Romans, would not confent to capitulate. 
Sylla, therefore, know'ing the weak ftate of the befieged, 
fionned and forced the walls with great flaughter. 
Ariftion fought refuge in the citadel, but was taken and 
llain. Macedonia and Greece were foon afterwards fi¬ 
nally reduced under the power of Rome, as were allb 
l!ie Grecian provinces in Afia Minor ; and thus, from 
the year before Chrift 87, all the republics of Greece 
were obliged tamely to lubmit to the arbitrary controul 
of tlie Romans, until the eaftern empire was annihilated 
by Mahomet II. in the fifteenth century ; ever fince 
which period that highly diftinguilhed and enlightened 
people have groaned under the cpprelTive tyranny of 
tile Turkidi government. See tiie articles Rome, and 
Turkey. 
CUSTOMS, MANNERS, and exalted CHARAC¬ 
TER, OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 
Though, in the latter years of Alexander, literature, 
philofopliy, and the fine arts,' difplay ed their brighteft 
charms ; yet had the fources from wliich their beauty 
fiov;ed, gradually and imperceptibly began to fail : fo 
true it is, that in every country where the human ge¬ 
nius lias attained its liigheft degree of perfedlion, a 
principle of degeneracy fiaturally carries things in a re¬ 
trograde or contrary direflion. Tlie era of the greateft 
renown of Greece, is ftated to have been between the 
years 479 and 431 before Chrift. Not only magnani¬ 
mous and invincible in arms, it was then the peculiar 
glory of the Greeks, particularly of the Athenians, 
tliat during their career of naval and military viclories, 
they cultivated, witli a generous enthufiafm, the arts 
which adorn peace as well as war, and improved thole 
decorations of polilhed life into fucli perfection as few 
nations afterwards attempted to imitate, and none af- 
pired to fiirpafs. During the adminiftration of a lingle 
E C E. 
man, more works of elegance and fplendo.ttr, more mag¬ 
nificent temples, theatres, and porticoes, were erefled 
within the walls of Athens alone, than could be raifed 
during many centuries in Rome, though miftrefs of the 
world, by the wealth and labour of tributary provinces. 
In the fame period of time, fculpture attained a fubli- 
mity, from wliich that noble art could never afterwards 
but defeend and degenerate; and a republic hitherto 
inferior in works of invention and genius to feveral of 
her neighbours, and even of her own colonies, produced, 
in tlie fingle lifetime of Pericles, thofe ineftimable mo¬ 
dels of poetry, eloquence, and philofophy, which, in 
every fticceeding age, the enlightened portion of man¬ 
kind hath invariably regarded as the belt ftandards, not 
merely of compofition and ftyle, but of tafte and reafon. 
The progrefs which was thus made in the manners, 
charadler, and policy, of the Athenians, was the confe- 
quence of an uncommon exertion of their government, 
combined with other circumftances infeparably con- 
nedted with their domeftic and external profperity. In 
the courfe of a few years, the fuccefs of Ariftides, Ci- 
mon, and Pericles, had tripled the revenues, and in- 
creafed, in far greater proportion, the dominions of the 
republic. The Athenian gallies commanded the eaftern 
coafts of the Mediterranean; their merchantmen had 
engroffed the traffic of the adjacent countries ; tlie maga¬ 
zines of Athens abounded with excellent timber, metal, 
ebony, ivory, and all the materials of the ufeful as well 
as of the elegant arts; they imported the luxuries of 
Italy, Sicily, Cyprus, Lydia, Pontus, and Peloponne- 
fus; experience liad improved their fkill in working 
the filver mines of Mount Laurium; they had opened 
the valuable marble veins in mount Pentelicus ; the 
honey of Hymettus was more efteemed, in proportion 
as it became better known to their neighbours ; the 
culture of their olives (oil being long their ftaple com¬ 
modity, and the only produdtion of Attica which Solon 
allowed them to export) muft have improved with the 
general improvement of the country in arts and agricul¬ 
ture, efpecially under the active adminiftration of Pe¬ 
ricles, who liberally let loofe the public treafure, to en¬ 
courage every fpecies of elegant improvement and ufe¬ 
ful induftry. He alfo found it necelfary to comply with 
the extreme paffion for pleafure, which then began to 
enervate his-'countrymen. The people of Athens, fuc- 
cefsful in every enterprife againft their foreign as well 
as domeftic enemies, leemed entitled to reap the fruits 
of their dangers and victories. For the fpace of twelve 
years preceding the war of Peloponnefus, their city af¬ 
forded a perpetual feene of triumpli and feftivity. 
Their dramatic entertainments, to which they were paf- 
fionately addidted, were no longer performed in flight 
unadorned edifices, but in ftone or marble theatres, 
eredted at great expence, and embelliffied with the molt 
precious produdlions of nature and of art. The trea- 
I'ury was opened, not only to fupply the decorations of 
this favourite amufement, but to enable the poorer ci¬ 
tizens to enjoy it without incurring any private ex¬ 
pence; and thus, at the coft of the ftate, to feaft and 
delight their ears and fancy with the combined charms 
of inulic and poetry. The pleafure of the eye was pe¬ 
culiarly confulted and gratified in the architedlure of 
the theatres and other ornamental buildings; for, as 
Themiftocles had ftrengthened, fo Pericles adorned, his 
native city ; and unlels we had the concuiiing teftimony 
of antiquity, as well as the immortal remains of the Par- 
thenon, or temple of Minerva, which ftill excite the ad¬ 
miration of travellers, (fee the article Architecture, 
vol.ii. p. 74,) it would be difficult to believe that in 
the Ipace of a few years, there could have been created 
thole ineftimable wonders of art, thole innumerable 
temples, theatres, ftatues, altars, baths, gymnalia, and 
porticoes, which, in tire language of ancient panegyric, 
rendered Athens tiie eye and light of Greece. 
Pericles was indeed highly blamed for thus richly 
decking one favourite city ; but it would have been for¬ 
tunate for the Athenians if their wealth had not been 
employed 
