Читать книгу Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading - George Park Fisher - Страница 60

When Alexander was in the far East, the Spartan king, Agis III. (330 B.C.), headed a revolt against Antipater; but Agis was vanquished and slain. The death of Alexander kindled the hope of regaining liberty among patriotic Greeks. Athens, under Demosthenes and Hyperides, led the way. A large confederacy was formed. Leosthenes, the Greek commander, defeated Antipater, and shut him up within the walls of Lamia (in Thessaly). But the Greeks were finally beaten at Crannon. Favorable terms were granted to their cities, except Athens and Aetolia. Twenty-one thousand citizens were deported from Athens to Thrace, Italy, and other places. The nine thousand richest citizens, with Phocion at their head, the anti-democratic party, had all power left in their hands. Demosthenes, Hyperides, and other democratic leaders, were proscribed. Demosthenes took refuge in the temple of Neptune, on the little island of Calaurea. Finding himself pursued by Archias, the officer of Antipater, he took poison, which he had kept by him in a quill, and died. Thus closed the life of an intrepid statesman who had served the cause of liberty and of his country through the direst perils and trials with unfaltering constancy. The democracy again acquired power temporarily, and Phocion was condemned to death.

Cassander, excluded from the Macedonian throne by his father, Antipater, supplanted Polysperchon, the regent (316 B.C.). He placed Demetrius of Phaleron in power at Athens over a democracy with restricted prerogatives. He was driven out by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who was helped by Athens to possess himself of Macedonia and of the most of Greece, but was compelled (287 B.C.) to give up his throne, which, however, was gained by his son, Antigonus Gonatas (277 B.C.).

THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE.—In 279 B.C., there occurred an irruption of the Gauls into Greece, "one of those vast waves of migration which from time to time sweep over the world." The Macedonian king, Ptolemy Ceraunus, was defeated by them in a great battle, captured, and put to death. It was two years before these marauders were driven out, and Macedonia acquired a settled government. This episode in history favored the growth of two leagues—the Achaean League and the Aetolian League. In these leagues the several cities gave up to the central council much more power than Greek cities had been in the habit of granting in former unions. The Achaean League was at first made up of ten Achaean cities. About 240 B.C. Aratus of Sicyon, who had brought Sicyon into the league, delivered Corinth from the Macedonians. To free Greek cities from subjection to them, was long a great object of the league. Peloponnesus, except Sparta, with Athens and Aegina, joined it.

THE AETOLIAN LEAGUE: WAR OF THE LEAGUES.—The rough Aetolians north of the Corinthian Gulf, semi-barbarous in their mode of life, formed another league, and got command of Phocis, Locris, and Boeotia. A praiseworthy attempt at reform was made in Sparta by the king, Agis IV. (240 B.C.), who was opposed by the rich, and put to death. Cleomenes, his successor, who had the same spirit as Agis, engaged in conflict with the Achaean League, which then called in Macedonian help (223 B.C.). It had to give up to Macedon the Corinthian citadel. Sparta was overthrown. Soon a war between the two leagues broke out, when the Achaeans again called on the Macedonians for aid. These conflicts were followed by the interference of the Romans.

THE EVIL OF FACTION.—The bane of Greece, from the beginning to the end of its history, was the suicidal spirit of disunion. Her power was splintered at many crises, when, if united, it might have saved the land from foreign tyranny. Her resources were drained, generation after generation, by needless local contests. She owed her downfall to the desolating influence of faction.