chapter 10.

See, also, GREECE: 357-336.

ATHENS: B. C. 340. Alliance with Byzantium against Philip of Macedon.

See GREECE: B. C. 340.

{181}

ATHENS: B. C. 336-322. End of the Struggle with the Macedonians. Fall of Democracy. Death of Demosthenes. Athenian decline.

"An unexpected incident changes the whole aspect of things. Philip falls the victim of assassination; and a youth, who as yet is but little known, is his successor. Immediately Demosthenes institutes a second alliance of the Greeks; but Alexander suddenly appears before Thebes; the terrible vengeance which he here takes, instantly destroys the league; Demosthenes, Lycurgus, and several of their supporters, are required to be delivered up: but Demades is at that time able to settle the difficulty and to appease the king. His strength was therefore enfeebled as Alexander departed for Asia; he begins to raise his head once more when Sparta attempts to throw off the yoke: but under Antipater he is overpowered. Yet it was about this very time that by the most celebrated of his discourses he gained the victory over the most eloquent of his adversaries; and Æschines was forced to depart from Athens. But this seems only to have the more embittered his enemies, the leaders of the Macedonian party; and they soon found an opportunity of preparing his downfall. When Harpalus, a fugitive from the army of Alexander, came with his treasures to Athens, and the question arose, whether he could be permitted to remain there, Demosthenes was accused of having been corrupted by his money, at least to be silent. This was sufficient to procure the imposition of a fine; and as this was not paid, he was thrown into prison. From thence he succeeded in escaping; but to the man who lived only for his country, exile was no less an evil than imprisonment. He resided for the most part in Ægina and at Trœzen, from whence he looked with moist eyes toward the neighbouring Attica. Suddenly and unexpectedly a new ray of light broke through the clouds. Tidings were brought, that Alexander was dead. The moment of deliverance seemed at hand; the excitement pervaded every Grecian state; the ambassadors of the Athenians passed through the cities; Demosthenes joined himself to the number and exerted all his eloquence and power to unite them against Macedonia. In requital for such services, the people decreed his return; and years of sufferings were at last followed by a day of exalted compensation. A galley was sent to Ægina to bring back the advocate of liberty. ... It was a momentary glimpse of the sun, which still darker clouds were soon to conceal. Antipater and Craterus were victorious; and with them the Macedonian party in Athens: Demosthenes and his friends were numbered among the accused, and at the instigation of Demades were condemned to die. ... Demosthenes had escaped to the island Calauria in the vicinity of Trœzen; and took refuge in the temple of Neptune. It was to no purpose that Archias, the satellite of Antipater, urged him to surrender himself under promise of pardon. He pretended he wished to write something; bit the quill, and swallowed the poison contained in it."

_A. H. L. Heeren, Reflections on the Politics of Ancient Greece, translated by G. Bancroft, pages 278-280._

See, also, on the "Lamian War," the suppression of Democracy at Athens, and the expulsion of poor citizens, GREECE: B. C. 323-322.

"With the decline of political independence, ... the mental powers of the nation received a fatal blow. No longer knit together by a powerful esprit de corps, the Greeks lost the habit of working for the common weal; and, for the most part, gave themselves up to the petty interests of home life and their own personal troubles. Even the better disposed were too much occupied in opposing the low tone and corruption of the times, to be able to devote themselves, in their moments of relaxation, to a free and speculative consideration of things. What could be expected in such an age, but that philosophy would take a decidedly practical turn, if indeed it were studied at all? And yet such were the political antecedents of the Stoic and Epicurean systems of philosophy. ... Stoic apathy, Epicurean self-satisfaction, and Sceptic imperturbability, were the doctrines which responded to the political helplessness of the age. They were the doctrines, too, which met with the most general acceptance. The same political helplessness produced the sinking of national distinctions in the feeling of a common humanity, and the separation of morals from politics which characterise the philosophy of the Alexandrian and Roman period. The barriers between nations, together with national independence, had been swept away. East and West, Greeks and barbarians, were united in large empires, being thus thrown together, and brought into close contact on every possible point. Philosophy might teach that all men were of one blood, that all were equally citizens of one empire, that morality rested on the relation of man to his fellow men, independently of nationalities and of social ranks; but in so doing she was only explicitly stating truths which had been already realised in part, and which were in part corollaries from the existing state of society."

_E. Zeller, The Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, pages 16-18_.

"What we have said concerning the evidence of comedy about the age of the first Diadochi amounts to this: Menander and his successors--they lasted barely two generations--printed in a few stereotypes a small and very worthless society at Athens. There was no doubt a similar set of people at Corinth, at Thebes, possibly even in the city of Lycurgus. These people, idle, for the most part rich, and in good society, spent their earlier years in debauchery, and their later in sentimental reflections and regrets. They had no serious object in life, and regarded the complications of a love affair as more interesting than the rise and fall of kingdoms or the gain and loss of a nation's liberty. They were like the people of our day who spend all their time reading novels from the libraries, and who can tolerate these eternal variations in twaddle not only without disgust but with interest. They were surrounded with slaves, on the whole more intelligent and interesting, for in the first place slaves were bound to exercise their brains, and in the second they had a great object--liberty--to give them a keen pursuit in life. The relations of the sexes in this set or portion of society were bad, owing to the want of education in the women, and the want of earnestness in the men. As a natural consequence a class was found, apart from household slaves, who took advantage of these defects, and, bringing culture to fascinate unprincipled men, established those relations which brought estragements, if not ruin, into the home life of the day."

_J. P. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, pages 123-124_.

{182}

"The amount of Persian wealth poured into Greece by the accidents of the conquest, not by its own industries, must have produced a revolution in prices not since equalled except by the influx of the gold of the Aztecs and Incas into Spain. I have already pointed out how this change must have pressed upon poor people in Greece who did not share in the plunder. The price of even necessary and simple things must have often risen beyond their means. For the adventurers brought home large fortunes, and the traders and purveyors of the armies made them; and with these Eastern fortunes must have come in the taste for all the superior comforts and luxuries which they found among the Persian grandees. Not only the appointments of the table, in the way of plate and pottery, but the very tastes and flavours of Greek cookery must have profited by comparison with the knowledge of the East. So also the furniture, especially in carpets and hangings, must have copied Persian fashion, just as we still affect oriental stuffs and designs. It was not to be expected that the example of so many regal courts and so much royal ceremony should not affect those in contact with them. These influences were not only shown in the vulgar 'braggart captain,' who came to show off his sudden wealth in impudent extravagance among his old townspeople, but in the ordinary life of rich young men. So I imagine the personal appointments of Alcibiades, which were the talk of Greece in his day, would have appeared poor and mean beside those of Aratus, or of the generation which preceded him. Pictures and statues began to adorn private houses, and not temples and public buildings only--a change beginning to show itself in Demosthenes's day, but coming in like a torrent with the opening of Greece to the Eastern world. It was noticed that Phocion's house at Athens was modest in size and furniture, but even this was relieved from shabbiness by the quaint wall decoration of shining plates of bronze--a fashion dating from prehistoric times, but still admired for its very antiquity."

_J. P. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, pages 105-106._

"The modern historians of Greece are much divided on the question where a history of Hellas ought to end. Curtius stops with the battle of Chaeroncia and the prostration of Athens before the advancing power of Macedon. Grote narrates the campaigns of Alexander, but stops short at the conclusion of the Lamian War, when Greece had in vain tried to shake off the supremacy of his generals. Thirlwall brings his narrative down to the time of Mummius, the melancholy sack of Corinth and the constitution of Achaia as a Roman province. Of these divergent views we regard that of the German historian as the most correct. ... The historic sense of Grote did not exclude prejudices, and in this case he was probably led astray by political bias. At the close of his ninety-sixth chapter, after mentioning the embassies sent by the degenerate Athenians to King Ptolemy, King Lysimachus, and Antipater, he throws down his pen in disgust, 'and with sadness and humiliation brings his narrative to a close.' Athens was no longer free and no longer dignified, and so Mr. Grote will have done with Greece at the very moment when the new Comedy was at its height, when the Museum was founded at Alexandria, when the plays of Euripides were acted at Babylon and Cabul, and every Greek soldier of fortune carried a diadem in his baggage. Surely the historian of Greece ought either to have stopped when the iron hand of Philip of Macedon put an end to the liberties and the political wranglings of Hellas, or else persevered to the time when Rome and Parthia crushed Greek power between them, like a ship between two icebergs. No doubt his reply would be, that he declined to regard the triumph abroad of Macedonian arms as a continuation of the history of Hellas. ... The truth is, that the history of Greece consists of two parts, in every respect contrasted one with the other. The first recounts the stories of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, and ends with the destruction of Thebes and the subjugation of Athens and Sparta. The Hellas of which it speaks is a cluster of autonomous cities in the Peloponnesus, the Islands, and Northern Greece, together with their colonies scattered over the coasts of Italy, Sicily, Thrace, the Black Sea, Asia Minor, and Africa. These cities care only to be independent, or at most to lord it over one another. Their political institutions, their religious ceremonies, their customs, are civic and local. Language, commerce, a common Pantheon, and a common art and poetry are the ties that bind them together. In its second phase, Greek history begins with the expedition of Alexander. It reveals to us the Greek as everywhere lord of the barbarian, as foundling kingdoms and federal systems, as the instructor of all mankind in art and science, and the spreader of civil and civilized life over the known world. In the first period of her history Greece is forming herself, in her second she is educating the world. We will venture to borrow from the Germans a convenient expression, and call the history of independent Greece the history of Hellas, that of imperial Greece the history of Hellenism. ... The Athens of Pericles was dictator among the cities which had joined her alliance. Corinth, Sparta, Thebes, were each the political head of a group of towns, but none of the three admitted these latter to an equal share in their councils, or adopted their political views. Even in the Olynthian League, the city of Olynthus occupied a position quite superior to that of the other cities. But the Greek cities had not tried the experiment of an alliance on equal terms. This was now attempted by some of the leading cities of the Peloponnese, and the result was the Achaean League, whose history sheds a lustre on the last days of independent Greece, and whose generals will bear comparison with the statesmen of any Greek Republic [sec GREECE: B. C. 280-146]. ... On the field of Sellasia the glorious hopes of Cleomenes were wrecked, and the recently reformed Sparta was handed over to a succession of bloodthirsty tyrants, never again to emerge from obscurity. But to the Achaeans themselves the interference of Macedon was little less fatal. Henceforth a Macedonian garrison occupied Corinth, which had been one of the chief cities of the League; and King Antigonus Doson was the recognized arbiter in all disputes of the Peloponnesian Greeks. ... In Northern Greece a strange contrast presented itself. The historic races of the Athenians and Boeotians languished in peace, obscurity, and luxury. With them every day saw something added to the enjoyments and elegancies of life, and every day politics drifted more and more into the background. On the other hand, the rude semi-Greeks of the West, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Epirotes, to whose manhood the repulse of the Gauls was mainly due, came to the front and showed the bold spirit of Greeks divorced from the finer faculties of the race. The Acarnanians formed a league somewhat on the plan of the Achaean. {183} But they were overshadowed by their neighbors the Aetolians, whose union was of a different character. It was the first time that there had been formed in Hellas a state framed in order to prey upon its neighbours. ... In the course of the Peloponnesian War Greek religion began to lose its hold on the Greeks. This was partly the work of the sophists and philosophers, who sought more lofty and moral views of Deity than were furnished by the tales of popular mythology. Still more it resulted from growing materialism among the people, who saw more and more of their immediate and physical needs, and less and less of the underlying spiritual elements in life. But though philosophy and materialism had made the religion of Hellas paler and feebler, they had not altered its nature or expanded it. It still remained essentially national, almost tribal. When, therefore, Greeks and Macedonians suddenly found themselves masters of the nations of the East, and in close contact with a hundred forms of religion, an extraordinary and rapid change took place in their religions ideas. In religion, as in other matters, Egypt set to the world the example of prompt fusion of the ideas of Greeks and natives. ... Into Greece proper, in return for her population which flowed out, there flowed in a crowd of foreign deities. Isis was especially welcomed at Athens, where she found many votaries. In every cult the more mysterious elements were made more of, and the brighter and more materialistic side passed by. Old statues which had fallen somewhat into contempt in the days of Pheidias and Praxiteles were restored to their places and received extreme veneration, not as beautiful, but as old and strange. On the coins of the previous period the representations of deities had been always the best that the die-cutter could frame, taking as his models the finest contemporary sculpture; but henceforth we often find them strange, uncouth figures, remnants of a period of struggling early art, like the Apollo at Amyclae, or the Hera of Samos. ... In the intellectual life of Athens there was still left vitality enough to formulate the two most complete expressions of the ethical ideas of the times, the doctrines of the Stoics and the Epicureans, towards one or the other of which all educated minds from that day to this have been drawn. No doubt our knowledge of these doctrines, being largely drawn from the Latin writers and their Greek contemporaries, is somewhat coloured and unjust. With the Romans a system of philosophy was considered mainly in its bearing upon conduct, whence the ethical elements in Stoicism and Epicureanism have been by their Roman adherents so thrust into the foreground, that we have almost lost sight of the intellectual elements, which can have had little less importance in the eyes of the Greeks. Notwithstanding, the rise of the two philosophies must be held to mark a new era in the history of thought, an era when the importance of conduct was for the first time recognized by the Greeks. It is often observed that the ancient Greeks were more modern than our own ancestors of the Middle Ages. But it is less generally recognized how far more modern than the Greeks of Pericles were the Greeks of Aratus. In very many respects the age of Hellenism and our own age present remarkable similarity. In both there appears a sudden increase in the power over material nature, arising alike from the greater accessibility of all parts of the world and from the rapid development of the sciences which act upon the physical forces of the world. In both this spread of science and power acts upon religion with a dissolving and, if we may so speak, centrifugal force, driving some men to take refuge in the most conservative forms of faith, some to fly to new creeds and superstitions, some to drift into unmeasured scepticism. In both the facility of moving from place to place, and finding a distant home, tends to dissolve the closeness of civic and family life, and to make the individual rather than the family or the city the unit of social life. And in the family relations, in the character of individuals, in the state of morality, in the condition of art, we find at both periods similar results from the similar causes we have mentioned."

_P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, chapter 15._

ATHENS: B. C. 317-316. Siege by Polysperchon. Democracy restored. Execution of Phocion. Demetrius of Phaleron at the head of the government.

See GREECE: B. C. 321-312.

ATHENS: B.C. 307-197. Under Demetrius Poliorcetes and the Antigonids.

See GREECE: B. C.307-197.

ATHENS: B. C. 288-263. Twenty years of Independence. Siege and subjugation by Antigonus Gonatas.

When Demetrius Poliorcetes lost the Macedonian throne, B. C. 288, his fickle Athenian subjects and late worshippers rose against his authority, drove his garrisons from the Museum and the Piræus and abolished the priesthood they had consecrated to him. Demetrius gathered an army from some quarter and laid siege to the city, but without success. The Athenians went so far as to invite Pyrrhus, the warrior king of Epirus, to assist them against him. Pyrrhus came and Demetrius retired. The dangerous ally contented himself with a visit to the Acropolis as a worshipper, and left Athens in possession, undisturbed, of her freshly gained freedom. It was enjoyed after a fashion for twenty years, at the end of which period, B. C. 268, Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius, having regained the Macedonian crown, reasserted his claim on Athens, and the city was once more besieged. The Lacedæmonians and Ptolemy of Egypt both gave some ineffectual aid to the Athenians, and the siege, interrupted on several occasions, was prolonged until B. C. 263, when Antigonus took possession of the Acropolis, the fortified Museum and the Piræus as a master (see MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 277-244). This was sometimes called the Chremonidean War, from the name of a patriotic Athenian who took the most prominent part in the long defence of his city.

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 61._

ATHENS: B. C. 229. Liberation by the Achaian League.

See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

ATHENS: B. C. 200. Vandalism of the second Macedonian Philip.

In the year B. C. 200 the Macedonian king, Philip, made an attempt to surprise Athens and failed. "He then encamped in the outskirts, and proceeded to wreak his vengeance on the Athenians, as he had indulged it at Thermus and Pergamus. He destroyed or defaced all the monuments of religion and of art, all the sacred and pleasant places which adorned the suburbs. The Academy, the Lycenm, and Cynosarges, with their temples, schools, groves and gardens, were all wasted with fire. Not even the sepulchres were spared."

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 64._

{184}

ATHENS: B. C. 197-A. D. 138. Under Roman rule.

"Athens ... affords the disheartening picture of a commonwealth pampered by the supreme power, and financially as well us morally ruined. By rights it ought to have found itself in a flourishing condition. ... No city of antiquity elsewhere possessed a domain of its own, such as was Attica, of about 700 square miles. ... But even beyond Attica they retained what they possessed, as well after the Mithridatic War, by favour of Sulla, as after the Pharsalian battle, in which they had taken the side of Pompeius, by the favour of Cæsar;--he asked them only how often they would still ruin themselves and trust to be saved by the renown of their ancestors. To the city there still belonged not merely the territory, formerly possessed by Haliartus, in Boeotia, but also on their own coast Salamis, the old starting-point of their dominion of the sea, and in the Thracian Sea the lucrative islands Scyros, Lemnos, and Imbros, as well as Delos in the Aegean. ... Of the further grants, which they had the skill to draw by flattery from Antoninus, Augustus, against whom they had taken part, took from them certainly Aegina and Eretria in Euboea, but they were allowed to retain the smaller islands of the Thracian Sea. ... Hadrian, moreover, gave to them the best part of the great island of Cephallenia in the Ionian Sea. It was only by the Emperor Severus, who bore them no good will, that a portion of these extraneous possessions was withdrawn from them. Hadrian further granted to the Athenians the delivery of a certain quantity of grain at the expense of the empire, and by the extension of this privilege, hitherto reserved for the capital, acknowledged Athens, as it were, as another metropolis. Not less was the blissful institute of alimentary endowments, which Italy had enjoyed since Trajan's time, extended by Hadrian to Athens, and the capital requisite for this purpose certainly presented to the Athenians from his purse. ... Yet the community was in constant distress."

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _J. P. Mahaffy, The Greek World under Roman Sway._

See, also, GREECE: B. C. 146-A. D. 180.

ATHENS: B. C. 87-86. Siege and capture by Sulla. Massacre of citizens. Pillage and depopulation. Lasting injuries.

The early successes of Mithridates of Pontus, in his savage war with the Romans, included a general rising in his favor among the Greeks [see MITHRIDATIC WARS], supported by the fleets of the Pontic king and by a strong invading army. Athens and the Piræus were the strongholds of the Greek revolt, and at Athens an adventurer named Aristion, bringing from Mithridates a body-guard of 2,000 soldiers, made himself tyrant of the city. A year passed before Rome, distracted by the beginnings of civil war, could effectively interfere. Then Sulla came (B. C. 87) and laid siege to the Piræus, where the principal Pontic force was lodged, while he shut up Athens by blockade. In the following March, Athens was starved to such weakness that the Romans entered almost unopposed and killed and plundered with no mercy; but the buildings of the city suffered little harm at their hands. The siege of the Piræus was carried on for some weeks longer, until Sulla had driven the Pontic forces from every part except Munychia, and that they evacuated in no long time.

_W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 7, chapter 17._

"Athens was ... taken by assault. ... The majority of the citizens was slain; the carnage was so fearfully great as to become memorable even in that age of bloodshed; the private movable property was seized by the soldiery, and Sylla assumed some merit to himself for not committing the rifled houses to the flames. ... The fate of the Piræus, which he utterly destroyed, was more severe than that of Athens. From Sylla's campaign in Greece the commencement of the ruin and depopulation of the country is to be dated. The destruction of property caused by his ravages in Attica was so great that Athens from that time lost its commercial as well as its political importance. The race of Athenian citizens was almost extirpated, and a new population, composed of a heterogeneous mass of settlers, received the right of citizenship."

_G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 1._

ATHENS: A. D. 54 (?). The Visit of St. Paul. Planting of Christianity.

"When the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed of Paul at Berea also, they came thither likewise, stirring up and troubling the multitude. And then immediately the brethren sent forth Paul to go as far as to the sea: and Silas and Timotheus abode there still. But they that conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus that they should come to him with all speed, they departed. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him, as he beheld the city full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews, and the devout persons, and in the market place every day with them that met with him. And certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, what would this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. And they took hold of him, and brought him unto the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by thee? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.) And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said, Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are somewhat superstitious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To an Unknown God.' What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this set I forth unto you. ... Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, We will hear thee concerning this yet again. Thus Paul went out from among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them."

_Acts of the Apostles, Revised Version, chapter 17_.

{185}

"Consider the difficulties which must have beset the planting of the Church in Athens. If the burning zeal of the great Apostle ever permitted him to feel diffidence in addressing an assembly, he may well have felt it when he addressed on Mars' Hill for the first time an Athenian crowd. No doubt the Athens of his time was in her decay, inferior in opulence and grandeur to many younger cities. Yet even to a Jew, provided he had received some educational impressions beyond the fanatical shibboleths of Pharisaism, there was much in that wonderful centre of intelligence to shake his most inveterate prejudices and inspire him with unwilling respect. Shorn indeed of her political greatness, deprived even of her philosophical supremacy, she still shone with a brilliant afterglow of æsthetic and intellectual prestige. Her monuments flashed on the visitor memories recent enough to dazzle his imagination. Her schools claimed and obtained even from Emperors the homage due to her unique past. Recognising her as the true nurse of Hellenism and the chief missionary of human refinement, the best spirits of the age held her worthy of admiring love not unmixed with awe. As the seat of the most brilliant and popular university, young men of talent and position flocked to her from every quarter, studied for a time within her colonnades, and carried thence the recollection of a culture which was not always deep, not always erudite, but was always and genuinely Attic. To subject to the criticism of this people a doctrine professing to come direct from God, a religion and not a philosophy, depending not on argument but on revelation, was a task of which the difficulties might seem insuperable. When we consider what the Athenian character was, this language will not seem exaggerated. Keen, subtle, capricious, satirical, sated with ideas, eager for novelty, yet with the eagerness of amused frivolity, not of the truth-seeker: critical by instinct, exquisitely sensitive to the ridiculous or the absurd, disputatious, ready to listen, yet impatient of all that was not wit, satisfied with everything in life except its shortness, and therefore hiding all references to this unwelcome fact under a veil of complacent euphemism--where could a more uncongenial soil be found for the seed of the Gospel? ... To an Athenian the Jew was not so much an object of hatred (as to the Roman), nor even of contempt (as to the rest of mankind), as of absolute indifference. He was simply ignored. To the eclectic philosophy which now dominated the schools of Athens, Judaism alone among all human opinions was as if non-existent. That Athenians should be convinced by the philosophy of a Jew would be a proposition expressible in words but wholly destitute of meaning. On the other hand, the Jew was not altogether uninfluenced by Greek thought. Wide apart as the two minds were, the Hebraic proved not insensible to the charm of the Hellenic; witness the Epistle to the Hebrews, witness Philo, witness the intrusion of Greek methods of interpretation even into the text-books of Rabbinism. And it was Athens, as the quintessence of Hellas, Athens as represented by Socrates, and still more by Plato, which had gained this subtle power. And just as Judæa alone among all the Jewish communities retained its exclusiveness wholly unimpaired by Hellenism, so Athens, more than any Pagan capital, was likely to ignore or repel a faith coming in the garb of Judaism. And yet within less than a century we find this faith so well established there as to yield to the Church the good fruits of martyrdom in the person of its bishop, and of able defences in the person of three of its teachers. The early and the later fortunes of the Athenian Church are buried in oblivion; it comes but for a brief period before the scene of history. But the undying interest of that one dramatic moment when Paul proclaimed a bodily resurrection to the authors of the conception of a spiritual immortality, will always cause us to linger with a strange sympathy over every relic of the Christianity of Athens."

_C. T. Cruttwell, A Literary History of Early Christianity, volume 1, book 3, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, Life and Letters of St. Paul, volume 1, chapter 10._

_F. C. Baur, Paul, part 1, chapter 7 (volume l)_.

On the inscription,

See _E. de Pressensé, The Early Years of Christianity: The Apostolic Era, book 2, chapter 1._

ATHENS: A. D. 125-134. The works of Hadrian.

The Emperor Hadrian interested himself greatly in the venerable decaying capital of the Greeks, which he visited, or resided in, for considerable periods, several times, between A. D. 125 and 134. These visits were made important to the city by the great works of rebuilding which he undertook and supervised. Large parts of the city are thought to have been reconstructed by him, "in the open and luxurious style of Antioch and Ephesus." One quarter came to be called "Hadrianapolis," as though he had created it. Several new temples were erected at his command; but the greatest of the works of Hadrian at Athens was the completing of the vast national temple, the Olympieum, the beginning of which dated back to the age of Pisistratus, and which Augustus had put his hand to without finishing.

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 66._

ATHENS: A. D. 267. Capture of, by the Goths.

See GOTHS: A. D. 258-267.

ATHENS: A. D. 395. Surrender to Alaric and the Goths.

When the Goths under Alaric invaded and ravaged Greece, A. D. 395, Athens was surrendered to them, on terms which saved the city from being plundered. "The fact that the depredations of Alaric hardly exceeded the ordinary license of a rebellious general, is ... perfectly established. The public buildings and monuments of ancient splendour suffered no wanton destruction from his visit; but there can be no doubt that Alaric and his troops levied heavy contributions on the city and its inhabitants."

_G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 2, section 8._

ALSO IN: _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 30 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_.

See, also, GOTHS: A. D. 395, ALARIC'S INVASION OF GREECE.

ATHENS: A. D. 529. Suppression of the Schools by Justinian.

"The Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy maintained their superior reputation from the Peloponnesian War to the reign of Justinian. Athens, though situate in a barren soil, possessed a pure air, a free navigation, and the monuments of ancient art. That sacred retirement was seldom disturbed by the business of trade or government; and the last of the Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity of their taste and language, their social manners, and some traces, at least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their fathers. In the suburbs of the city, the Academy of the Platonists, the Lycæum of the Peripatetics, the Portico of the Stoics and the Garden of the Epicureans were planted with trees and decorated with statues; and the philosophers, instead of being immured in a cloister, delivered their instructions in spacious and pleasant walks, which, at different hours, were consecrated to the exercises of the mind and body. The genius of the founders still lived in those venerable seats. ... {186} The schools of Athens were protected by the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. ... Some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of Constantine. ... The golden chain, as it was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession, continued ... to the edict of Justinian [A. D. 529] which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools of Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of the few remaining votaries of Greek science and superstition."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 40. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

ATHENS: A. D. 1205. The founding of the Latin Dukedom.

"The portion of Greece lying to the south of the kingdom of Saloniki was divided by the Crusaders [after their conquest of Constantinople, A. D. 1204--see BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1203-1204] among several great feudatories of the Empire of Romania. ... The lords of Boudonitza, Salona, Negropont, and Athens are alone mentioned as existing to the north of the isthmus of Corinth, and the history of the petty sovereigns of Athens can alone be traced in any detail. ... Otho de la Roche, a Burgundian nobleman, who had distinguished himself during the siege of Constantinople, marched southward with the army of Boniface the king-marquis, and gained possession of Athens in 1205. Thebes and Athens had probably fallen to his share in the partition of the Empire, but it is possible that the king of Saloniki may have found means to increase his portion, in order to induce him to do homage to the crown of Saloniki for this addition. At all events, it appears that Otho de la Roche did homage to Boniface, either as his immediate superior, or as viceroy for the Emperor of Romania. ... Though the Byzantine aristocracy and dignified clergy were severe sufferers by the transference of the government into the hands of the Franks, the middle classes long enjoyed peace and security. ... The social civilization of the inhabitants, and their ample command of the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life, were in those days as much superior to the condition of the citizens of Paris and London as they are now inferior. ... The city was large and wealthy, the country thickly covered with villages, of which the ruins may still be traced in spots affording no indications of Hellenic sites. ... The trade of Athens was considerable, and the luxury of the Athenian ducal court was celebrated in all the regions of the West where chivalry flourished."

_G. Finlay, History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _C. C. Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern: 4th Course. lecture 5._

ATHENS: A. D. 1311-1456. Under the Catalans and the Florentines.

See CATALAN GRAND COMPANY.

ATHENS: A. D. 1456. The Turks in possession.

Athens was not occupied by the Turks until three years after the conquest of Constantinople (see CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1453). In the meantime the reign of the Florentine dukes of the house of Acciaioli came to a tragical close. The last of the dukes, Maurice Acciaioli died, leaving a young son and a young widow, the latter renowned for her beauty and her talents. The duchess, whom the will of her husband had made regent, married a comely Venetian named Palmerio, who was said to have poisoned his wife in order to be free to accept her hand. Thereupon a nephew of the late duke, named Franco, stirred up insurrections at Athens and fled to Constantinople to complain to the sultan, Mahomet II. "The sultan, glad of all pretexts that coloured his armed intervention in the affairs of these principalities, ordered Omar, son of Tourakhan, chief of the permanent army of the Peloponnesus, to take possession of Athens, to dethrone the duchess and to confine her sons in his prisons of the citadel of Megara." This was done; but Palmerio, the duchess's husband, made his way to the sultan and interceded in her behalf. "Mahomet, by the advice of his viziers, feigned to listen equally to the complaints of Palmerio, and to march to reestablish the legitimate sovereignty. But already Franco, entering Megara under the auspices of the Ottomans, had strangled both the duchess and her son. Mahomet, advancing in turn to punish him for his vengeance, expelled Franco from Athens on entering it, and gave him, in compensation, the inferior and dependent principality of Thebes, in Boeotia. The sultan, as lettered as he was warlike, evinced no less pride and admiration than Sylla at the sight of the monuments of Athens. 'What gratitude,' exclaimed he before the Parthenon and the temple of Theseus, 'do not religion and the Empire owe to the son of Tourakhan, who has made them a present of these spoils of the genius of the Greeks.'"

_A. Lamartine, History of Turkey, book 13, section 10-12._

ATHENS: A. D. 1466. Capture and plundering by the Venetians.

See GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479.

ATHENS: A. D. 1687. Siege, bombardment and capture by the Venetians. Destructive explosion in the Parthenon.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

ATHENS: A. D. 1821-1829. The Greek revolution and war of independence. Capture by the Turks.

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

ATHENS: End--------------

ATHERTON GAG, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.

ATHLONE, Siege of (A. D. 1691).

See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

ATHRAVAS.

See MAGIANS.

ATIMIA. The penalty of Atimia, under ancient Athenian law, was the loss of civic rights.

_G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State,