Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History Part 11

CHAP. x.x.xIII-PYRRHUS, KING OF EPIRUS. B.C. 287.

To the westward of Greece lay a mountainous land, bordered by the Adriatic Sea, and in old times called Epirus. The people spoke a sort of barbarous Greek, worse than that of the Macedonians; but the royal family were pure Greeks, and believed themselves to be descended from Achilles; and Alexander's mother, Olympias, had been one of them. In the wars and confusion that followed upon Alexander's death, the Epirot king, aeacides, took part, and this led to a rising against him, ending in his being killed, with all his family, except his little two-year-old son, named Pyrrhus, who was saved by some faithful servants. They fled towards the city of Megara, on the border of Macedon, but they only reached it late at night, and there was a rough and rapid river between, swelled by rains. They called to the people on the other side, and held up the little child, but the rus.h.i.+ng of the river drowned their voices, and their words were not understood. At last one of them peeled off a piece of bark from an oak tree, and scratched on it with the tongue of a buckle an account of their distress, and, fastening it to a stone, threw it over. The Megarians immediately made a sort of raft with trees, and, floating over, brought little Pyrrhus and his friends across; but finding Macedon not safe, since Ca.s.sander had been the enemy of aeacides, they went on to Illyria, where they found the king, Glaucias, sitting with his queen. Putting the child on the ground, they began to tell their story.

At first the king was unwilling to grant him shelter, being afraid of Ca.s.sander; but the little fellow, crawling about, presently came near, and, laying hold of his leg, pulled himself upon his feet, and looked up in his face. The pretty, unconscious action of a suppliant so moved Glaucias that he took him up in his arms, and gave him into those of the queen, bidding her have him bred up among their own children; and though Ca.s.sander offered 200 talents, he would not give up the boy.

When Pyrrhus was twelve years old, Glaucias sent an army to restore him to his throne, and guarded him there. He was high-spirited, brave, and gracious, but remarkable-looking, from his upper teeth being all in one, without divisions. When he was seventeen, while he was gone to Illyria to the wedding of one of Glaucias' sons, his subjects rose against him, and made one of his cousins king. He then went to Demetrius, who had married his elder sister, and fought under him at the battle of Ipsus; after which Demetrius sent him as a hostage to Alexandria, and his grace and spirit made him so great a favourite with Ptolemy that he gave him his step-daughter Berenice in marriage, and helped him to raise an army with which he recovered his kingdom of Epirus.

He had not long been settled there before the Macedonians, who had begun to hate Demetrius, heard such accounts of Pyrrhus' kindness as a man and skill as a warrior, that the next time a war broke out they all deserted Demetrius, who was forced to fly in the disguise of a common soldier, and his wife poisoned herself in despair. However, Demetrius did not lose courage, but left his son Antigonus to protect Greece, and went into Asia Minor, hoping to win back some of his father's old kingdom from Seleucus, but he could get n.o.body to join him; and after wandering about in hunger and distress in the Cilician mountains, he was forced to give himself up a prisoner to Seleucus, who kept him in captivity, but treated him kindly, and let him hunt in the royal park. His son Antigonus, however, who still held Greece, wrote to offer himself as a hostage, that his father might be set free; but before he could reach Syria, Demetrius the City-taker had died of over-eating and drinking in his captivity, and only the urn containing his ashes could be sent to his son in Greece.

Pyrrhus had not kept Macedon long, for Lysimachus attacked him, and the fickle Macedonians all went over to the Thracian, so that he was obliged to retreat into his own kingdom of Epirus; whilst Seleucus and Lysimachus began a war, in which Lysimachus was killed; and thus both Thrace and Macedon were in the hands of Seleucus, who is therefore commonly called the Conqueror. He was the last survivor of all Alexander's generals, and held all his empire except Egypt; but while taking possession of Macedonia he was murdered by a vile Egyptian Greek, whom he had befriended, named Ptolemy Keraunus. This man, in the confusion that followed, managed to make himself king of Macedon.

But just at this time the Kelts, or Gauls, the same race who used to dwell in Britain and Gaul, made one of their great inroads from the mountains. The Macedonians thought them mere savages, easy to conquer; but it turned out quite otherwise. The Kelts defeated them entirely, cut off Ptolemy Keraunus' head, and carried it about upon a pole, and overran all Thrace and Macedon. Then they advanced to the Pa.s.s of Thermopylae, found the way over Mount ta by which Xerxes had surprised the Spartans, and were about to plunder Delphi, their Bran, or chief, being reported to say that the G.o.ds did not want riches as much as men did. The Greeks, in much grief for their beloved sanctuary, a.s.sembled to fight for it, and they were aided by a terrible storm and earthquake, which dismayed the Gauls, so that the next morning they were in a dispirited state, and could not stand against the Greeks. The Bran was wounded, and finding that the battle was lost, called the other chiefs round him, advised them to kill all the wounded men, and make their retreat as best they might, and then stabbed himself to set the example. The others tried to retreat, but were set upon by the Greeks, tormented, and starved; and it is said that all who had marched to Delphi perished, and the only Gauls of all this host who survived were a party who had crossed the h.e.l.lespont, and made a settlement in the very heart of Asia Minor, where they were known by the name of Galatians, and still kept up their own language.

[Picture: Delphi and the Castalian Fount]

When they had thus cut off Keraunus, Antigonus came from Greece, and took possession of Macedon. He made a treaty with Antiochus, who had succeeded his father Seleucus in Syria, and thenceforth the family founded by Antigonus the One-eyed held Macedon. This Antigonus is called Gonatas, from the name of a guard for the knee which he wore.

Pyrrhus, in the meantime, set out on a wild expedition to help the Greek colonies in Italy against the Romans, hoping to make himself as famous in the West as Alexander had done in the East; but the story of his doings there belongs to the history of Rome, so that I will leave it. He was absent six years, and came home unsuccessful to hara.s.s Antigonus again.

For a few years the Macedonians again went over to Pyrrhus, and he tried to conquer Greece, marching against Sparta with 25,000 men, 2000 horse, and 24 elephants. He a.s.saulted the city, but Spartan bravery was still enough to beat him off twice. However, he wintered in the Peloponnesus, and in the spring attacked the city of Argos, which was watched over by Antigonus, with his army, on a hill near at hand. Pyrrhus had shown himself so skilful a general that Antigonus would not fight a battle with him, and at night some traitors invited Pyrrhus into Argos, with some of his troops; but another party admitted Antigonus' son and his forces. In the morning Pyrrhus saw how he had been caught, and sent a message to his son Helenus outside to break down part of the wall, that he might retreat; but there was some blunder in the message, and Helenus thought he was to come in to help his father, so his men going in and Pyrrhus'

going out met in the gateway and choked it. Matters were made worse by one of the elephants falling down and blocking up the street, while another went mad, and ran about trampling down the crowd and trumpeting.

Pyrrhus kept in the rear, trying to guard his men through the streets, when an Argive slightly wounded him, and as he was rus.h.i.+ng to revenge the blow, the mother of the man, who was looking down from her window above, threw down a tile, hoping to save him, and struck Pyrrhus on the back of the neck. He fell down stunned, and a soldier cut off his head, and carried it to Antigonus, who turned away in tears at the sight of this sad remnant of the ablest captain in Greece, and caused Pyrrhus' body to be honourably buried in the temple of Ceres. Pyrrhus was only forty-six years old when he was thus slain in the year 272.

There is a story of a conversation between Pyrrhus and a philosopher named Kineas, just as he was setting off for Italy. "What shall you do with these men?" asked Kineas. "Overcome Italy and Rome," said Pyrrhus.

"And what next?" "Then Sicily will be easily conquered." "Is that all?"

"Oh no; Carthage and Lybia may be subdued next." "And then?" "Then we may secure Macedon and Greece." "And then?" "Then we may eat and drink and discourse." "And pray," said Kineas, "why should we not do so at once?"

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CHAP. x.x.xIV. ARATUS AND THE ACHAIAN LEAGUE. B.C. 267.

Antigonus Gonatas was now quite the most powerful person left in Macedon or Greece, and though Sparta and Athens tried to get the help of Egypt against him, they could do nothing to shake off his power.

There were twelve little cities in the Peloponnesus, which were all united together in one league, called the Achaian, each governing itself, but all joining together against any enemy outside. In the good old times they had sent men to the wars as allies of Sparta, but they had never had a man of much mark among them. In the evil times, Sicyon, a city near Achaia, fell under the power of a tyrant, and about the time that Pyrrhus was killed, Clinias, a citizen of Sicyon, made a great attempt to free his townsmen, but he was found out, his house attacked, and he and his family all put to death, except his son Aratus, a little boy of seven years old, who ran away from the dreadful sight, and went wandering about the town, till by chance he came into the house of the tyrant's sister. She took pity on the poor boy, hid him from her brother all day, and at night sent him to Argos to some friends of his father, by whom he was brought up.

When he was only twenty he wrote to friends at Sicyon, and finding them of the same mind with himself, he climbed the walls at night and met them. The people gathered round him, and he caused it to be proclaimed with a loud voice, "Aratus, the son of Clinias, calls on Sicyon to resume her liberty." The people all began rus.h.i.+ng to the tyrant's house. He fled by an underground pa.s.sage, and his house was set on fire, but not one person on either side was killed or wounded. Aratus was resolved to keep Sicyon free, and in order to make her strong enough, he persuaded the citizens to join her to the Achaian League; and he soon became the leading man among all the Achaians, and his example made other cities come into the same band of union. He further tried to gain strength by an alliance with Egypt, and he went thither to see Ptolemy III., called Euergetes, or the Benefactor. It is said that Ptolemy's good-will was won by Aratus' love of art, and especially of pictures. Apelles, the greatest Grecian painter, was then living, and had taken a portrait of one of the tyrants of Sicyon. Aratus had destroyed all their likenesses, and he stood a long time looking at this one before he could bring himself to condemn it, but at last he made up his mind that it must not be spared. Ptolemy liked him so much that he granted him 150 talents for the city, and the Achaians were so much pleased that they twice elected him their general, and the second time he did them a great service.

[Picture: Corinth]

In the middle of the Isthmus of Corinth stood the city, and in the midst was a fort called Acro-Corinthus, perched on a high hill in the very centre of the city, so that whoever held it was master of all to the south, and old Philip of Macedon used to call it the Corinthian shackles of Greece. The king of Macedon, Antigonus III., now held it; but Aratus devised a scheme to take it. A Corinthian named Erginus had come to Sicyon on business, and there met a friend of Aratus, to whom he chanced to mention that there was a narrow path leading up to the Acro-Corinthus at a place where the wall was low. Aratus heard of this, and promised Erginus sixty talents if he would guide him to the spot; but as he had not the money, he placed all his gold and silver plate and his wife's jewels in pledge for the amount.

On the appointed night Aratus came with 400 men, carrying scaling-ladders, and placed them in the temple of Juno, outside the city, where they all sat down and took off their shoes. A heavy fog came on, and entirely hid them; and Aratus, with 100 picked men, came to the rock at the foot of the city wall, and there waited while Erginus and seven others, dressed as travellers, went to the gates and killed the sentinel and guard, without an alarm. Then the ladders were fixed, and Aratus came up with his men, and stood under the wall unseen, while four men with lights pa.s.sed by them. Three of these they killed, but the fourth escaped, and gave the alarm. The trumpets were sounded, and every street was full of lights and swarmed with men; but Aratus, meantime, was trying to climb the steep rocks, and groping for the path leading up to the citadel. Happily the fog lifted for a moment, the moon shone out, and he saw his way, and hastened up to the Acro-Corinthus, where he began to fight with the astonished garrison. The 300 men whom he had left in the temple of Juno heard the noise in the city and saw the lights, then marched in and came to the foot of the rock, but not being able to find the path, they drew up at the foot of a precipice, sheltered by an overhanging rock, and there waited in much anxiety, hearing the battle overhead, but not able to join in it. The Macedonian governor, in the meantime, had called out his men, and was going up to support the guard in the fort, blowing his trumpets, when, as he pa.s.sed these men, they dashed out on him, just as if they had been put in ambush on purpose, and so dismayed them in the confusion that they fancied the enemy five times as many, as the moon and the torches flashed on their armour, and they let themselves all be made prisoners.

[Picture: View looking across Isthmus of Corinth]

By the time morning had come Corinth was in the hands of the Achaians, and Aratus came down from the fortress to meet the people in the theatre.

His 400 men were drawn up in two lines at its entrances, and the Corinthians filled the seats, and shouted with an ecstasy of joy, for it was the first time for nearly a century that true Greeks had gained any advantage over Macedonians. Aratus was worn out by anxiety, his long march, and night of fighting, and as he stood leaning on his spear he could hardly rally strength to address them, and while giving back to them the keys of their city, which they had never had since Philip's time, he exhorted them to join the League, which they did. The Macedonians were expelled, and Aratus put an Achaian garrison into the Acro-Corinthus.

His whole care was to get Greece free from the Macedonians, and he drove them out from city after city, persuading each to join the Achaian League as it was delivered. Argos was still under a tyrant named Aristippus, and Aratus made many attempts to turn him out, by his usual fas.h.i.+on of night attacks. Once he got into the city, and fought there all day, though he was wounded with a lance in the thigh; but he was obliged to retreat at night. However, he attacked the tyrant when out on an expedition, and slew him, but still could not set Argos free, as the tyrant's son Aristomenes still held it.

However, Lysiades, the tyrant of Megalopolis, was so moved by admiration for the patriot that he resigned, and the city joined the League. In fact, Aratus was at this time quite the greatest man in Greece. He beat the aetolians, when they were on a foray into the Achaian territories, and forced them to make peace; and he tried also to win Athens and Sparta to the common cause against Macedon, but there were jealousies in the way that hindered his success, and all his enterprises were rendered more difficult by his weakly health, which always made him suffer greatly from the fatigue and excitement of a battle.

[Picture: Ruins of a Temple at Corinth]

CHAP. x.x.xV. AGIS AND THE REVIVAL OF SPARTA. B.C. 244236.

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Sparta had never been so overcome by Macedon as the states north of the Isthmus, but all the discipline of Lycurgus had been forgotten, and the Ephors and Kings had become greedy, idle, and corrupt. One of the kings, named Leonidas, had gone to Antioch, married an Eastern wife, and learned all the Syrian and Persian vanities in which King Seleucus delighted, and he brought these home to Sparta. The other king, Eudamidas, was such a miser, that on his death, in 244, his widow and his mother were said to possess more gold than all the rest of the people in the state put together; but he left a son of nineteen, named Agis, most unlike himself.

As soon as, in his childhood, Agis had heard the story of his great forefathers, he set himself to live like an ancient Spartan, giving up whatever Lycurgus had forbidden, dressing and eating as plainly as he could, and always saying that he would not be king if he did not hope to make Sparta her true self again. When he became king, he was seen in the usual dress of a Greek, uncrowned, as the first Leonidas and Agesilaus had been; while the other king, ill named Leonidas, moved about in a diadem and purple robes and jewels, like a Persian Shah.

[Picture: Greek figure] Agis was resolved to bring back all the old rule.

There were but 700 old Dorian Spartans left, and only about 100 of these still had their family estates, while the others were starving; and most of the property was in the hands of women. Therefore the young king was resolved to have all given up and divided again, and he prevailed on his mother and grandmother to throw all their wealth into the common stock, as also his mother's brother Agesilaus, who was willing, because he was so much in debt that he could hardly lose by any change. The other ladies made a great outcry, and Leonidas was very angry, but he did not dare to hinder all this, because all the high-born men, who had been so poor, were on the young king's side.

So there was a public a.s.sembly, and one of the Ephors proposed the reform, showing how ease and pleasure had brought their city low, and how hardihood and courage might yet bring back her true greatness. Leonidas spoke against the changes, but Agis argued with such fire and force that he won over all that were high-minded enough to understand him, and in especial Cleombrotus, the son-in-law of Leonidas. Agis laid down before the a.s.sembly all his father's vast h.o.a.rds, and his example was followed by many; but the other king put such difficulties in the way that the reformers found that they could do nothing unless they removed him, so they brought forward an old law, which forbade that any son of Hercules should reign who had married a foreign woman, or sojourned in a strange land.

On hearing of this, Leonidas took refuge in the temple of Athene, and as he did not appear when he was summoned before the Ephors, they deposed him, and named Cleombrotus in his stead; but when Agis found there was a plan for killing the old king, he took care to send him away in safety to Tegea, with his daughter Chilonis, who clave to him in trouble.

Agis thought his uncle Agesilaus was heartily with the change, and so had him chosen one of the Ephors; but, in truth, all Agesilaus wanted was to be free from his debts, and he persuaded the young king that the lands could not be freshly divided till all debts had been cancelled. So all the bonds were brought into the market-place and burnt, while Agesilaus cried out that he had never seen so fine a fire; but having done this, he was resolved not to part with his wealth, and delayed till the aetolians made an attack on the Peloponnesus, and Aratus called on Sparta to a.s.sist the Achaians. Agis was sent at the head of an army to the Isthmus, and there behaved like an ancient Spartan king, sharing all the toils and hards.h.i.+ps of the soldiers, and wearing nothing to distinguish him from them; but while he was away everything had gone wrong at Sparta; people had gone back to their old bad habits, and Agesilaus was using his office of Ephor so shamefully that he had been obliged to have a guard of soldiers to protect him from the people. This behaviour had made the people suspect his nephew of being dishonest in his reforms, and they had sent to recall Leonidas.

Agesilaus fled, and Agis was obliged to take sanctuary in Athene's temple, and Cleombrotus in that of Neptune, where Leonidas found him.

His wife Chilonis, with her two little children, threw herself between him and her father, pleading for his life, and promising he should leave the city; and Leonidas listened, trying to make her remain, but she clung to her husband, and went into exile with him.

Agiatis, the young wife of Agis, could not join him in the temple, being kept at home by the birth of her first babe. He never left the sanctuary, except to go to the baths, to which he was guarded by armed friends. At last two of these were bribed to betray him. One said, "Agis, I must take you to the Ephors," and the other threw a cloak over his head; while Leonidas came up with a guard of foreign soldiers and dragged him to prison, where the Ephors came to examine him. One asked him if he repented. "I can never repent of virtue," he said.

They sentenced him to die; and finding that his mother and grandmother were trying to stir up the people to demand that he should be heard in public, they sent the executioners at once to put him to death. One of them came in tears, but Agis quickly said, "Weep not, friend; I am happier than those who condemn me;" and he held out his neck for the rope which strangled him just as his grandmother and mother came in. The grandmother was strangled the next moment. The mother said, "May this be for the good of Sparta," and after laying out the limbs of her son and mother, was also put to death; and the young widow Agiatis, with her babe, was carried to the house of Leonidas. The reform of Agis had lasted only three years, and he was but twenty-two, when his plans were thus cruelly cut short.

Leonidas was thus left to reign alone, the first time such a thing had happened in Sparta. As poor Agiatis was a rich heiress, he kept her in his house, and married her to his son Cleomenes, a mere boy, much younger than herself. She was the fairest and wisest woman in Greece; and though she always was cold, grave, and stern towards the wicked old king, she loved his wife, and was gentle towards the young boy, who was blameless of his father's sin, and gave her all his heart for his whole life. He cared for nothing so much as to hear from her of Agis, his brave, self-denying ways, and n.o.ble plans; and thus did they live, after the untimely death of Agis, strengthened by the study of the Stoic philosophy, which taught that virtue was the highest good, and that no suffering, not even death, was to be shunned in pursuit of her.

When Leonidas died, in 236, Cleomenes became the only king, but he was so young that Aratus and the Achaians thought it a good time for extending the power of their league at the expense of Sparta; so, though no war was going on, Aratus sent a troop by night to seize Tegea and Orchomenus, cities in alliance with Sparta. But his designs were found out in time for Cleomenes to strengthen the garrisons in both places, and march himself to a place called the Athenaeum, which guarded one of the pa.s.ses into Laconia.

This made the attempt fail, and Cleomenes wrote to ask the cause of the night march of the Achaians. Aratus answered that it was to hinder the fortification of the Athenaeum.

"What was the use, then, of torches and scaling-ladders?" asked Cleomenes.

Aratus laughed, and asked a Spartan who was in exile what kind of youth this young king was; and the Spartan made reply, "If you have any designs against Sparta, you had better begin them before the game chicken's spurs are grown."

It was a great pity that these two free states in Laconia and Achaia were only wasting their strength against each other, instead of joining against Macedon.