The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897

But that was not all. No men have ever thought so profoundly, nor spoken so wisely, nor with such eloquence, as did the men in those temples and under those Greek arcades. Never have such tragedies been written as were recited there, and never has there been an entire people so fitted to comprehend and to enjoy thought so elevated, and art of such a supreme type.

The outpouring of genius in the "Age of Pericles" is one of the great mysteries in history. It sent a path of light down through centuries of darkness, and that light shines just as brightly to-day, uneclipsed and even undimmed by anything the world has done since.

Pericles drew all this radiant genius into Athens, and made it beautiful and great. But he did still more than that. Athens, which had first been a monarchy, then under the rule of a few wise men in the Areopagus, had then lost all her liberties under the "Tyrants." Pericles created a Democracy. He believed the true ideal was a government by the people. That if Athens governed Greece, then the Athenians should govern Athens. And that the power of a state should rest, not with one, nor a few, but with the many!

During a period of fifty years free Athens was the acknowledged head of the Greek states, and in those years Greece had reached the meridian of her glory. But Sparta was jealous of the dazzling splendor of her rival; and she hated this new democracy which was spreading through all the states. She believed in the good old idea of one despotic king, and a people cowed into submission by his authority.

Two parties were thus created in the Greek states, and in a dispute which occurred about 420 b.c.., the friends of the Spartans or Aristocratic ideal ranged themselves on the one side, and those of the Athenian or Democratic on the other.

From this arose the long conflict known as the Peloponnesian War, which lasted for twenty-seven years, its real cause being that Sparta was determined to lead Greece.

It was in vain that the Athenians fought with the energy of despair. Their beautiful city—the City of the Gods—was at last surrendered, and the scoffing Spartans (404 b.c.) took possession of the treasures they scorned.

Athens had fallen, but her real kingdom was indestructible. She was to be forever Queen in the empire of ideas, of literature, and of art!

The coarse, harsh rule of Sparta lasted less than a century. Then Thebes, another powerful Greek state, arose to the leadership of discontented Greece. And so Hellas, the land in which they all gloried, had become a mass of quarrelling, struggling states, until it was seized by the rough hand of a master.

In the north of Greece was the State of Macedonia. It was not composed of a multitude of free cities like the rest of Greece, but its people were diffused throughout the state, and all governed by one king.

Compared with the Athenians, these unpolished, rude Macedonians were almost barbarians.

But in the year 359 b.c. a man came to the throne of this state, who was not going to be satisfied with being merely a Greek among Greeks. He was resolved to be the head of the Greeks. This was Philip of Macedon. He bent all the energies of his strong, crafty mind toward making himself master of Greece.

Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, in a desperate effort to save his people from this man, delivered a set of orations denouncing Philip. These are the famous "Philippics," of which you will often hear.

The Philippics were in vain. Greece yielded to this dominating King Philip, and was led into a war of conquest against the Persians. But the fates intended that a stronger hand than Philip's should lead the expedition into Asia. Philip was assassinated on the eve of his departure, and his son Alexander, just twenty years old, succeeded to his father's throne and projects.

There have been three men who have been called "Masters of the World." Alexander of Macedon was the first of these (323 b.c.), Julius Cæsar the second (30 b.c.), and Charlemagne the third (800 a.d.). Napoleon Bonaparte came very near making the fourth in this brief list, but failed.

Among the stories of Alexander's boyhood is that of the "Gordian knot," which it was said could only be untied by the person who was destined to conquer Asia. After striving in vain to loosen this famous knot, it is said Alexander impatiently drew his sword and cut it—thus prefiguring what that sword was to do.

Alexander led the Greeks into Asia, and in ten years had conquered Egypt and all the Persian dominions, and decreed that Babylon should be the capital of this vast empire of his own creating. He founded Alexandria and other cities, which are still great centres of commerce. Not satisfied with this, he was pressing down into Arabia, when after a night's debauch he suddenly died (aged thirty-two years), and his vast scheme of empire perished with him.

The world is still feeling the results of those ten years of conquest. Every Greek province in the Sultan's dominions to-day is such because of Alexander of Macedon.

Four of Alexander's generals divided his empire among themselves—the kingdom of Macedonia, the kingdom of Egypt, and two Asiatic kingdoms. Egypt fell to the share of Ptolemy, who was the first of a line of kings which ended with the last Ptolemy, who married the famous and fated Cleopatra (30 b.c.).

The Greeks poured into the two Asiatic kingdoms, and Greek culture and civilization spread over the Orient (or East). But while Asia was thus Hellenized, Hellas, the source of this splendid civilizing power, was moving surely toward annihilation.

Another world-conquering power was coming into existence. Before the Christian era arrived, the Roman Republic had absorbed the four kingdoms left by Alexander, and when the Roman Empire came into being (31 b.c.) there were Greeks, but no longer any Greece, except as a geographical name.

The Roman Empire, after centuries of splendor, also expired. And in about the year 600 a.d. another great empire was being created by the Mahometan Saracens, who absorbed all the Greek provinces in the East. This empire also was to be superseded by another Asiatic race.

I have told you how the Ottoman Empire, starting from a grain of mustard-seed in the year 1250 a.d., spread with marvellous energy and rapidity. The Saracen dominions now became Turkish dominions, and the unhappy Greeks had changed masters for the last time. That proud and gifted race was doomed to spend years of servitude to the cruel Turk.

You have seen that the Turkish Empire went the way of other great empires. It reached a climax of power in 1500 a.d., and then swiftly and surely declined. But, although perishing, its fingers never relaxed their hold upon the Greek colonies, now no longer pagan, but Christian.

The old Greek love of freedom still burned in the breasts of this unhappy race. They still cherished the sacred memories of Hellas, still spoke her language, and gloried in her name.

In 1826 the spell of long captivity was broken, when the Greeks on the Peninsula—the very heart and shrine of the classic memories—freed themselves from Turkey and joined the kingdoms of Europe.

Seventy-three years have passed since then, and little has been accomplished toward the liberating of the race.

You are reading the last thrilling chapter in the history of Greece every day in the newspapers, while modern Greece, like a brave knight of old, is risking her very existence in defence of her kinsmen.

Even the names in the despatches seem like a voice from antiquity; Macedonia, where the Turkish forces are gathering; and Larissa, where Prince Constantine is intrenched. Larissa is a name older than Rome, older than the Olympic games, or even than Homer. It is the Pelasgian name for a fortified city!

Now I hope you will remember that the sufferings of the Armenians and of the Cretans should deeply move us, not alone because they are Christians, but because they are Greeks. The world owes a debt to Greece which nothing can ever repay. She has given us our civilization.

Rome was barbarian until Greece civilized her. What Greek slaves taught to their Roman masters was then transmitted by Rome to Europe.

Then when this borrowed light burned low after the ages of darkness, Constantinople relighted the world by sending abroad her stored treasures of Greek culture. And we to-day are still living in that transcendent light, and drawing upon those inexhaustible riches.

You know that the college where a man has been educated is called his Alma Mater. Never forget that Greece is the beloved Alma Mater of the civilized world. And the sorrows of her oppressed children should move us in a way quite different from those of any other race.

    Mary Platt Parmele.