Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 74)

History of the Hanseatic League (Foreign Quarterly Review, January, 1831).

ALSO IN: S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, book 1, chapter 4 (volume 2).

C. Walford, Outline History of the Hanseatic League (Royal Historical Society Transactions, volume 9).

H. Zimmern, The Hansa Towns (Stories of the Nations).

J. Yeats, The Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce.

See, also, CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY; and SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1018-1397.

HANSE OF LONDON, The Flemish.

See FLANDERS: 13TH CENTURY.

HANSEATIC LEAGUE.

See HANSA TOWNS.

HAOMA.

See SOMA.

HAPSBURG, OR HABSBURG, Origin and rise of the House of.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

{1627}

HAPSBURG-LORRAINE, The House of.

See AUSTRIA; A. D. 1745 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

HARALD IV., King of Norway, A. D. 1134-1136.

Harald Blaatand, King of Denmark, 941-991.

Harald Graafield, King of Norway, 963-977.

Harald Hardrade, King of Norway, 1047-1066.

Harald Harfager, King of Norway, 863-934.

Harald Sweynson, King of Denmark, 1076-1080.

HARAN.

"From Ur, Abraham's father had migrated to Haran, in the northern part of Mesopotamia, on the high road which led from Babylonia and Assyria into Syria and Palestine. Why he should have migrated to so distant a city has been a great puzzle, and has tempted scholars to place both Ur and Haran in wrong localities; but here, again, the cuneiform inscriptions have at last furnished us with the key. As far back as the Accadian epoch, the district in which Haran was built belonged to the rulers of Babylonia; Haran was, in fact, the frontier town of the empire, commanding at once the highway into the west and the fords of the Euphrates; the name itself was an Accadian one, signifying 'the road.'"

A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 2.

The site of Haran is generally identified with that of the later city of Carrhæ.

HARD-SHELL DEMOCRATS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846.

HARDENBURG'S REFORM MEASURES IN PRUSSIA.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.

HARDICANUTE, OR HARTHACNUT, King of Denmark, A. D. 1035-1042; King of England, A. D. 1040-1042.

HARDINGE, Lord, The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

HARFLEUR. Capture by Henry V.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1415.

HARGREAVE'S SPINNING-JENNY, Invention of.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

HARII, OR ARII, The.

See LYGIANS.

HARLAW, Battle of (1411).

A very memorable battle in Scottish history, fought July 24, 1411, between the Highlanders and Lowlanders of the country. Donald, Lord of the Isles, was then practically an independent sovereign of the western Highlands of Scotland, as well as the islands opposite their shore. He claimed still larger domains and invaded the lowland districts to make his claim good. The defeat inflicted upon him, at heavy cost to the victors, was felt, says Mr. Benton in his "History of Scotland," as a more memorable deliverance even than that of Bannockburn. The independence of the Lord of the Isle was not extinguished until sixty years later. "The battle of Harlaw and its consequences were of the highest importance, since they might be said to decide the superiority of the more civilized regions of Scotland over those inhabited by the Celtic tribes, who remained almost as savage as their forefathers the Dalriads."

Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, chapter 17.

HARLEM.

See HAARLEM.

HARMAR'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.

HARMOSTS.

See SPARTA: B. C. 404-403.

HAROLD (the Dane), King of England, A. D. 1037-1040. Harold (the Saxon), King of England, 1066.

HAROUN AL RASCHID, Caliph, A. D. 786-809.

—————HARPER'S FERRY: Start————

HARPER'S FERRY: A. D. 1859. John Brown's invasion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859.

HARPER'S FERRY: A. D. 1861 (April). Arsenal destroyed and abandoned by the Federal garrison. Occupied by the Rebels.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).

HARPER'S FERRY: A. D. 1862. Capture by the Confederates.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND).

—————HARPER'S FERRY: End————

HARRISON, General Benjamin, Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1888, to 1892.

HARRISON, General William Henry: Indian campaign and battle of Tippecanoe.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1811.

In the War of 1812.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

Presidency for one month. Death.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840.

HARRISON'S LANDING, The Army of the Potomac at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA), and (JULY-AUGUST: VIRGINIA).

HARROW SCHOOL.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.-ENGLAND.

—————HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: Start————

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637. The beginnings of the city.

See CONNECTICUT; A. D. 1631; and 1634-1637.

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1650. The Treaty with the Dutch of New Netherland.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1650.

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1687. The hiding of the Charter.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687.

—————HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: End————

HARTFORD CONVENTION, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).

HARTHACNUT.

See HARDICANUTE.

HARUSPICES, The.

"The haruspices, nearly related to the augures, were of Etruscan origin. Under the [Roman] Republic they were consulted only in a few individual cases: under the emperors they gained more importance, remaining, however, inferior to the other priestly colleges. They also expounded and procured lightnings and 'prodigies,' and moreover examined the intestines of sacrificed animals. … Heart, liver and lungs were carefully examined, every anomaly being explained in a favourable or unfavourable sense."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 103.

HARVARD ANNEX.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1804-1891.

HARVARD COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1635, and 1636.

HASHEM, Caliph: A. D. 724-743.

HASMONEANS, OR ASMONEANS.

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.

HASSAN, Caliph: A. D. 661.

HASSIDIN, The.

A sect of Jewish mystics which rose during the 17th century in Podolia, Wallachia, Moldavia, Hungary and neighboring regions.

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, volume 3, book 28.

HASTATI.

See LEGION, ROMAN.

HASTENBACK, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).

{1628}

HASTING, The Northman.

See Normans: A. D. 849-860.

HASTINGS, Marquis of (Lord Moira). The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

HASTINGS, Warren: His administration in India. His impeachment and Trial.

See INDIA: A. D. 1773-1785; and 1785-1795.

HASTINGS, OR SENLAC, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (OCTOBER).

HATFIELD CHASE. A vast swamp in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 180,000 acres in extent, which was sold by the crown in the reign of Charles I. to a Hollander who drained and reclaimed it. It had been a forest in early times and was the scene of a great battle between Penda, King of Mercia, and Edwin of Northumberland.

J. C. Brown, Forests of England, part 1, chapter. 2, section 2.

HATRA.

"Hatra [in central Mesopotamia] became known as a place of importance in the early part of the second century after Christ. It successfully resisted Trajan in A. D. 116, and Severus in A. D. 198. It is then described as a large and populous city, defended by strong and extensive walls, and containing within it a temple of the Sun, celebrated for the great value of its offerings. It enjoyed its own kings at this time, who were regarded as of Arabian stock, and were among the more important of the Parthian tributary monarchs. By the year A. D. 363 Hatra had gone to ruin, and is then described as 'long since deserted.' Its flourishing period thus belongs to the space between A. D. 100 and A. D. 300." The ruins of Hatra, now called El-Hadhr, were "visited by Mr. Layard in 1846, and described at length by Mr. Ross in the ninth volume of the 'Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,' as well as by Mr. Fergusson, in his 'History of Architecture.'"

G. Rawlinson, Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 22.

HATS AND CAPS, Parties of the.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1720-1792.

HATTERAS EXPEDITION, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (AUGUST: NORTH CAROLINA).

HATUNTAQUI, Battle of.

See ECUADOR: THE ABORIGINAL KINGDOM.

HAVANA.

See CUBA: A. D.1514-1851.

HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN IN INDIA.

See INDIA: A. D. 1857-1858.

HAVRE: A. D. 1563-1564. Occupation by the English. Siege and recovery by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1564.

HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, The.

The Hawaiian or Sandwich Archipelago, in the North Pacific ocean, "consists of the seven large and inhabited volcanic islands of Oahu, Kauai, Niihau, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Hawaii, and the four bare and rocky islets of Kaula, Lehua, Kahoolawe, and Molokini, with a total area of 8,000 square miles, and a population of scarcely more than 50,000 souls. … The Kanakas, as the natives are called, are amongst the finest and most intelligent races of the Pacific, and have become thoroughly 'Europeanised,' or, perhaps rather, 'Americanised.' … The Hawaiians, like all other Polynesians, are visibly decreasing in a constantly increasing ratio."

Stanford's Compendium of Geography: Australasia, chapter 24.

"Gaetano discovered one of the Sandwich [Hawaiian] Islands in 1542; and, following him, Quiros found Tahiti and the New Hebrides. Sea voyages in the Pacific multiplied, but that sea long continued the exclusive theatre of the enterprises of the Spaniards and Portuguese. … Native traditions refer to the arrival of strangers a long time before Cook's appearance. In the seventeenth century Spanish merchantmen were crossing the Pacific, and might have refreshed at these islands. The buccaneers, too, may have found the small harbour a convenient place of concealment."

M. Hopkins, Hawaii: The Past, Present and Future of the Island Kingdom, pages 83, 87.

"It is about a century since His Majesty's ships 'Resolution' and 'Adventure,' Captains Cook and Clerke, turned back from Behring Strait after an unsuccessful attempt to discover the North-West Passage. But the adventurers were destined to light upon fairer lands than those which they had failed to find. On the 18th of January, 1778, whilst sailing through the Pacific, the look-out man reported land ahead, and in the evening they anchored on the shores of that lovely group of twelve islands, which they named in honour of the then First Lord of the Admiralty—Lord Sandwich—better known to the satirists of his day as 'Jemmy Tickler,' one of the greatest of statesmen and most abandoned of men. The natives received the strangers gladly; but on the 14th of February, 1779, in an altercation consequent on the theft of a boat, Captain Cook was killed in Kealakcakua or Karakakoa Bay, in the Island of Hawaii, or Owhyhee, from which the official name of the country—the kingdom of Hawaii—takes its name."

R. Brown, The Countries of the World, volume 4, page 22.

The several islands of the Hawaiian group were politically independent of each other and ruled by different chiefs at the time of Captain Cook's visit; but a few years later a chief named Kaméhaméha, of remarkable qualities and capabilities, succeeded to the sovereignty in the Island of Hawaii, and made himself master in time of the whole group. Dying in 1819, he left a consolidated kingdom to his son Liholiho, or Kaméhaméha II., in whose reign "tabu" and idolatry were abolished and Christian missionaries began their labors. The dynasty founded by Kaméhaméha held the throne until 1872. In 1840 a constitution was proclaimed, which created a legislative body, composed of hereditary nobles and seven representatives informally elected by the people. In 1842 the United States, by an official letter from Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, "recognized the independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and declared, 'as the sense of the government of the United States, that the government of the Sandwich Islands ought to be respected; that no power ought to take possession of the islands, either as a conquest or for the purpose of colonization; and that no power ought to seek for any undue control over the existing government, or any exclusive privileges or preferences in matters of commerce.'" The following year, France and England formally recognized "the existence in the Sandwich Islands of a government capable of providing for the regularity of its relations with foreign nations," and agreed "never to take possession, either directly or under the title of a protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed." In 1852 the constitution was revised. The legislature, formerly sitting in one body, was now divided into two houses and both enlarged. {1629} In 1864, however, King Kaméhaméha V. forced the adoption of a new constitution which reversed this bicameral arrangement and restored the single chamber. A double qualification of the suffrage, by property and by education, was also introduced. With the death of Kaméhaméha V., in 1872, his line ended. His successor, Lunalilo, was elected by the legislature, and the choice ratified by a popular vote. The reign of Lunalilo lasted but two years. His successor, David Kalakaua, was raised to the throne by election. In the year after his accession, Kalakaua visited the United States, and soon afterwards, in 1875, a treaty of reciprocity between the two countries was negotiated. This was renewed and enlarged in 1887. In 1881 the King made a tour of the world. In the fall of 1890 he came to California for his health; in January, 1891, he died at San Francisco. His sister, Liliuokulani, widow of an American resident, succeeded him.

W. D. Alexander, Brief History of the Hawaiian People.

In 1887 a new constitution had been adopted. "This new constitution was not framed by the king but by the people through their own appointed citizens and members of the courts. The legislative powers of the crown which had been abridged by the constitution of 1864 were now entirely removed and vested in the representatives of the people. By this the crown became an executive. In addition to this provision there was one making the ministry a responsible body and depriving the king of the right to nominate members of the house of nobles. … The legislature consists of a House of Nobles composed of twenty-four members, who are elected for a term of six years, and a House of Representatives consisting of from twenty-four to forty-two members elected for two years. The Houses sit in joint session. In addition to these public officers there is a cabinet composed of four ministers appointed by the sovereign holding executive power and who may be removed upon sufficient cause by the legislature. Such was the form of government in vogue up to the time of the recent revolution which has excited the interest of the American government. On the 15th of January (1893) … Queen Liliuokalani made the attempt to promulgate a new constitution, obviously for the purpose of increasing her power in the government. It has been hinted that the queen desired to benefit in a pecuniary way by granting concessions for the establishment of a lottery, and the importation of opium into the kingdom, both of which had until a year ago been prohibited. It is best, however, to adhere to fact. The queen desired more power. This new constitution, as framed by her, deprived foreigners of the right of franchise, abrogated the House of Nobles, and gave to the queen herself the power to appoint a new House. This blow aimed directly at the foreigners, who are the largest property holders in the kingdom, stirred them to prompt action. The queen's own ministry were unsuccessful in their efforts to dissuade her from the attempt to put the new constitution into effect. The resolve was not to be shaken, however, and her determination to carry out her plan incited the people, chiefly the foreigners, to oppose the measure. The outcome was a revolution in which not a single life was sacrificed."

A. A. Black, The Hawaiian Islands (Chautauquan, April, 1893, pages 54-57).

A provisional government set up by the revolutionists was immediately recognized by the United States Minister, Mr. Stevens, and commissioners were sent to Washington to apply for the annexation of the islands to the United States. On the 16th of February, 1893, the President of the United States, Mr. Harrison, sent a message to the Senate, submitting an annexation treaty and recommending its ratification. Meantime, at Honolulu, on the 9th of February, the United States Minister, acting without instructions, had established a protectorate over the Hawaiian Islands, in the name of the United States. On the 4th of March, a change in the Presidency of the United States occurred, Mr. Cleveland succeeding Mr. Harrison. One of the earliest acts of President Cleveland was to send a message to the Senate, withdrawing the annexation treaty of his predecessor. A commissioner, Mr. Blount, was then sent to the Hawaiian Islands to examine and report upon the circumstances attending the change of government. On the 18th of the following December the report of Commissioner Blount was sent to Congress, with an accompanying message from the President, in which latter paper the facts set forth by the Commissioner, and the conclusions reached and action taken by the United States Government, were summarized partly as follows: "On Saturday, January 14, 1893, the Queen of Hawaii, who had been contemplating the proclamation of a new constitution, had, in deference to the wishes and remonstrances of her Cabinet, renounced it for the present at least. Taking this relinquished purpose as a basis of action, citizens of Honolulu, numbering from fifty to one hundred, mostly resident aliens, met in a private room and selected a so-culled committee of safety composed of thirteen persons, nine of whom were foreign subjects, and composed of seven Americans, one Englishman, and one German. This committee, though its designs were not revealed, had in view nothing less than annexation to the United States, and between Saturday, the 14th, and the following Sunday, the 18th of January—though exactly what action was taken may never be revealed—they were certainly in communication with the United States Minister. On Monday morning the Queen and her Cabinet made public proclamation, with a notice which was specially served upon the representatives of all foreign governments, that any changes in the constitution would be sought only in the methods provided by that instrument. Nevertheless, at the call and under the auspices of the committee of safety, a mass meeting of citizens was held on that day to protest against the Queen's alleged illegal and unlawful proceedings and purpose. Even at this meeting the committee of safety continued to disguise their real purpose and contented themselves with procuring the passage of a resolution denouncing the Queen and empowering the committee to devise ways and means 'to secure the permanent maintenance of law and order and the protection of life, liberty, and property in Hawaii.' This meeting adjourned between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. On the same day, and immediately after such adjournment, the committee, unwilling to take further steps without the co-operation of the United States Minister, addressed him a note representing that the public safety was menaced and that lives and property were in danger, and concluded as follows: 'We are unable to protect ourselves without aid, and therefore pray for the protection of the United States forces.' {1630} Whatever may be thought of the other contents of this note, the absolute truth of this latter statement is incontestable. When the note was written and delivered, the committee, so far as it appears, had neither a man nor a gun at their command, and after its delivery they became so panic-stricken at their position that they sent some of their number to interview the Minister and request him not to land the United States forces till the next morning, but he replied the troops had been ordered and whether the committee were ready or not the landing should take place. And so it happened that on the 16th day of January, 1893, between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, a detachment of marines from the United States steamship Boston, with two pieces of artillery, landed at Honolulu. The men, upwards of one hundred and sixty in all, were supplied with double cartridge belts, filled with ammunition, and with haversacks and canteens, and were accompanied by a hospital corps with stretchers and medical supplies. This military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war, unless made either with the consent of the Government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperilled lives and property of the citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the Government of Hawaii, which at that time was undisputed, and was both the de facto and the de jure Government. In point of fact the Government, instead of requesting the presence of an armed force, protested against it. There is little basis for the pretense that such forces landed for the security of American life and property. … When these armed men were landed the city of Honolulu was in its customary orderly and peaceful condition. There was no symptom of riot or disturbance in any quarter. … Thus it appears that Hawaii was taken possession of by the United States forces without the consent or wish of the Government of the Islands, or anybody else so far as known, except the United States Minister. Therefore, the military occupation of Honolulu by the United States on the day mentioned was wholly without satisfaction, either as an occupation by consent or as an occupation necessitated by dangers threatening American life and property. It must be accounted for in some other way and on some other ground, and its real motive and purpose are neither obscure nor far to seek. The United States forces being now on the scene and favorably stationed, the committee proceeded to carry out their original scheme. They met the next morning, Tuesday, the 17th, perfected the plan of temporary government and fixed upon its principal officers, who were drawn from 13 members of the committee of safety. Between 1 and 2 o'clock, by squads and by different routes to avoid notice, and having first taken the precaution of ascertaining whether there was anyone there to oppose them, they proceeded to the Government building to proclaim the new Government. No sign of opposition was manifest, and thereupon an American citizen began to read the proclamation from the steps of the Government Building almost entirely without auditors. It is said that before the reading was finished quite a concourse of persons, variously estimated at from 50 to 100, some armed and some unarmed, gathered about the committee to give them aid and confidence. This statement is not important, since the one controlling factor in the whole affair was unquestionably the United States marines, who, drawn up under arms with artillery in readiness only 76 yards distant, dominated the situation. The Provisional Government thus proclaimed was by the terms of the proclamation 'to exist until terms of the Union with the United States had been negotiated and agreed upon.' The United States Minister, pursuant to prior agreement, recognized this Government within an hour after the reading of the proclamation, and before 5 o'clock, in answer to an inquiry on behalf of the Queen and her Cabinet, announced that he had done so. … Some hours after the recognition of the Provisional Government by the United States Minister, the barracks and the police station, with all the military resources of the country, were delivered up by the Queen upon the representation made to her that her cause would thereafter be reviewed at Washington, and while protesting that she surrendered to the superior force of the United States, whose Minister had caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the Provisional Government, and that she yielded her authority to prevent collision of armed forces and loss of life, and only until such time as the United States, upon the facts being presented to it, should undo the action of its representative and reinstate her in the authority she claimed as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands. This protest was delivered to the chief of the Provisional Government, who indorsed it in his acknowledgment of its receipt. … As I apprehend the situation, we are brought face to face with the fact that the lawful government of Hawaii was overthrown without the drawing of a sword or the firing of a shot, by a process every step of which, it may safely be asserted, is directly traceable to and dependent for its success upon the agency of the United States acting through its diplomatic and naval representatives. … Believing, therefore, that the United States could not, under the circumstances disclosed, annex the islands without justly incurring the imputation of acquiring them by unjustifiable methods, I shall not again submit the treaty of annexation to the Senate for its consideration, and in the instructions to Minister Willis, a copy of which accompanies this message, I have directed him to so inform the Provisional Government. But in the present instance our duty does not, in my opinion, end with refusing to consummate this questionable transaction. … I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality; that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one; and that even by indirection a strong power may, with impunity, despoil a weak one of its territory. … The Queen surrendered, not to the Provisional Government, but to the United States. She surrendered not absolutely and permanently, but temporarily and conditionally until such facts could be considered by the United States. … {1631} In view of the fact that both the Queen and the Provisional Government had at one time apparently acquiesced in a reference of the entire case to the United States Government, and considering the further fact that, in any event, the Provisional Government, by its own declared limitation, was only 'to exist until terms of union with the United States of America have been negotiated and agreed upon,' I hoped that after the assurance to the members of that Government that such union could not be consummated, I might compass a peaceful adjustment of the difficulty. Actuated by these desires and purposes, and not unmindful of the inherent perplexities of the situation nor limitations upon my part, I instructed Mr. Willis to advise the Queen and her supporters of my desire to aid in the restoration of the status existing before the lawless landing of the United States forces at Honolulu on the 17th of January last, if such restoration could be effected upon terms providing for clemency as well as justice to all parties concerned. The conditions suggested contemplated a general amnesty to those concerned in setting up the Provisional Government and a recognition of all the bona fide acts and obligations. In short, they require that the past should be buried, and that the restored Government should reassume its authority as if its continuity had not been interrupted. These conditions have not proved acceptable to the Queen, and though she has been informed that they will be insisted upon, and that unless acceded to the effort of the President to aid in the restoration of her Government will cease, I have not thus far learned that she is willing to yield them her acquiescence." The refusal of the Queen to consent to a general amnesty forbade further thought of her restoration; while the project of annexation to the United States was extinguished for the time by the just action of President Cleveland, sustained by the Senate. The unauthorized protectorate assumed by Minister Stevens having been withdrawn, the Provisional government remains (March, 1894) in control of the Government of the Hawaiian Islands, and a republican constitution is said to be in preparation.

HAWKINS' FIRST THREE VOYAGES.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1562-1567.

HAWKWOOD, Sir John, The Free Company of.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.

HAWLEY, Jesse, and the origin of the Erie Canal.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.

HAYES, General Rutherford B., Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876-1877, to 1881.

HAYNE AND WEBSTER DEBATE, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828-1833.

—————HAYTI: Start————

HAYTI, HAITI, OR SAN DOMINGO (Originally called Hispaniola): Its names. Its beauty.

"Columbus called the island Hispaniola, and it has also been called St. Domingo from the city of that name on its southeastern coast; but Hayti or Haiti (the mountainous country) was its original Carrib name. The French bestowed upon it the deserved name of 'la Reine des Antilles.' All descriptions of its magnificence and beauty, even those of 'Washington Irving in his history of Columbus, fall far short of the reality. It seems beyond the power of language to exaggerate its beauties, its productiveness, the loveliness of its climate, and its desirableness as an abode for man. Columbus labored hard to prove to Isabella that he had found here the original garden of Eden."

W. H. Pearson, Hayti and the Haitians (Putnam's Monthly Magazine, January, 1854).

HAYTI: A. D. 1492-1505. Discovery and occupation by Columbus.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492; 1493-1496; and 1498-1505.

HAYTI: A. D. 1499-1542. The enslavement of the natives. System of Repartimentos and Encomiendas. Introduction of negro slavery. Humane and reforming labors of Las Casas.

See SLAVERY, MODERN: OF THE INDIANS, and SLAVERY, NEGRO: ITS BEGINNINGS.

HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803. Partly possessed France and partly by Spain. Revolt of the Slaves and rise of Toussaint L'Ouverture to power. Extinction of Slavery. Treachery of the French. Independence of the island acquired.

"About 1632 the French took possession of the western shore, and increased so rapidly that the Spaniards found it impossible to drive them out; and the footing they had gained was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, when the western portion of Haiti was confirmed to France. The latter nation was fully conscious of the importance of the new acquirement, and under French rule it became of great value, supplying almost all Europe with cotton and sugar. But the larger eastern portion of the island, which still belonged to Spain, had no share in this progress, remaining much in the same condition as formerly; and thus matters stood—a sluggish community side by side with a thriving one—when the French Revolution broke out, and plunged the island into a state of ferment. In 1790 the population of the western colony consisted of half a million, of which number 38,360 were of European origin, 28,370 free people of colour, and the whole of the remainder negro slaves. The government of the island excluded the free people of colour—mostly mulattoes—from all political privileges, although they were in many cases well-educated men, and themselves the owners of large estates. … On the 15th May, 1790, the French National Assembly passed a decree declaring that people of colour, born of free parents, were entitled to all the privileges of French citizens. When this news reached the colony, it set the inhabitants in a perfect frenzy, the mulattoes manifesting an unbounded joy, whilst the whites boiled at the indignity their class had sustained. The representations of the latter caused the governor to delay the operation of the decree until the home government could be communicated with—a measure that aroused the greatest indignation amongst the mulattoes, and civil war appeared inevitable, when a third and wholly unexpected party stepped into the arena. The slaves rose in insurrection on August 23rd, 1791, marching with the body of a white infant on a spear-head as a standard, and murdering all Europeans indiscriminately. In the utmost consternation the whites conceded the required terms to the mulattoes, and, together with the help of the military, the rising was suppressed, and there seemed a prospect of peace, when the Assembly at Paris repealed the decree of the 15th May. The mulattoes now flew to arms, and for several years a terrible struggle was sustained, the horrors of which were augmented by vindictive ferocity on both sides. Commissioners sent from France could effect no settlement, for the camp of the whites was divided into two hostile sections, royalist and republican. {1632} The English and Spaniards both descended on the island, and the blacks, under able chiefs, held impregnable positions in the mountains. Apprehensive of a British invasion in force, the Commissioners, finding they could not conquer the blacks, resolved on conciliating them; and in August, 1793, universal freedom was proclaimed—a measure ratified by the National Convention early in the following year. Meanwhile the English had taken Port-au-Prince, and were besieging the French governor in Port de la Paix, when the blacks, relying on the recent proclamation, came to his assistance, under the command of Toussaint L'Ouverture, and effected his release. … François Dominique Toussaint, a negro of pure blood, a slave and the offspring of slaves, was born in 1743, and on attaining manhood was first employed as a coachman, and afterwards held a post of trust in connexion with the sugar manufactory of the estate to which he belonged. The overseer having taken a fancy to him, he was taught to read and write, and even picked up some slight knowledge of Latin and mathematics." He was slow to join the rising of the blacks; "but at length, after having secured the escape of his master and family, he joined the negro army in a medical capacity," but quickly rose to leadership. "At first the blacks fought with the Spaniards against the French;" but Toussaint came to the conclusion that they had more to hope from the French, and persuaded his followers to march to the relief of the French governor, Levaux. When the latter heard that Toussaint had won the blacks to this alliance, he exclaimed, "'Mais cet homme fait ouverture partout,' and from that day the black commander-in-chief received the surname of L'Ouverture, by which he is best known in history. Acting with wonderful energy, Toussaint effected a junction with Levaux, drove the English from their positions, took 28 Spanish batteries in four days, and finally the British abandoned the island, whilst the Spaniards [1797] gave up all claim to its western end. Toussaint L'Ouverture—now holding the position of commander-in-chief, but virtually dictator—succeeded with great skill in combining all the hostile elements of the colony. Peace was restored, commerce and agriculture revived, the whites were encouraged to reclaim their estates, and by a variety of prudent and temperate measures Toussaint showed the remarkable administrative abilities that he possessed. At this stage he assumed great state in public, being always guarded by a chosen body of 1,500 men in brilliant uniform, but in private life he was frugal and moderate. In the administration of affairs he was assisted by a council of nine, of whom eight were white planters. This body drew up a Constitution by which L'Ouverture was named president for life, and free trade established. The draft of this constitution, together with an autograph letter, he forwarded to Bonaparte; but the First Consul had no toleration for fellow-upstarts, and replied, 'He is a revolted slave whom we must punish; the honour of France is outraged.' At this time the whole island of Haiti was under Toussaint's sway. As some excuse for Bonaparte it must be acknowledged that Toussaint undoubtedly contemplated independence. … Anxious to divest his new presidency of even nominal subjection to France, he declared the independence of the island, with himself as supreme chief, in July 1801. Most unfortunately for the Haitian general, hostilities had for the moment ceased between Great Britain and France, and the First Consul was enabled to bestow his close attention on the former French colony. Determined to repossess it, Bonaparte sent out an army of 30,000 men, with 66 ships of war, under the command of his brother-in-law General Leclerc. … During Toussaint's presidency he had abolished slavery, the negroes still working the plantations, but as free men, and under the name of 'cultivators.' … Leclerc now endeavoured by proclamations to turn the cultivators against their chief, and also laboured to sow dissension in the ranks of the black army, by making the officers tempting offers, which they too often believed in and accepted. For months a bloody war raged, in which great cruelties were inflicted; but the discipline of the French was slowly telling in their favour, when Leclerc made a political blunder that destroyed the advantages he had gained. Thinking that all obstacles were overcome, he threw off the mask, and boldly declared the real object of the expedition—the re-enslavement of the negro population. This news fell like a thunderbolt amongst the blacks, who rallied round Toussaint in thousands." Alarmed at the effect, Leclerc recalled his proclamation, acknowledged it to be an error, and promised the summoning of an assembly representative of all races alike. "This specious programme won over Cristophe, Dessalines, and other negro generals; and finally, on receiving solemn assurances from Leclerc, Toussaint accepted his offers, and peace was concluded." Soon afterwards, by an act of the blackest treachery, the negro statesman and soldier was lured into the hands of his mean enemy, and sent, a prisoner, to France. Confined, without trial, or any hearing, in the dungeons of the Château Joux, in the department of Doubs, he was there allowed to pine away, without warm clothing and with insufficient food. … Finally the governor of the prison went away for four days, leaving his captive without food or drink. On his return Toussaint was dead, and the rats had gnawed his feet. It was given out that apoplexy was the cause of death. … This breach of faith on the part of the French aroused the fury and indignation of the blacks. … Under Dessalines, Cristophe, Clerveaux, and others, the fires of insurrection blazed out afresh." At the same time yellow fever raged and Leclerc was among the victims. General Rochambeau, who succeeded him, continued the war with unmeasured barbarity, but also with continued defeat and discouragement, until he was driven, in 1803, to surrender, and "the power of the French was lost on the island."

C. H. Eden, The West Indies, chapter 13.

Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography. (by J. R. Beard) and an Autobiography.

ALSO IN: H. Martineau, The Hour and the Man.

J. Brown, History of St. Domingo.

H. Adams, Historical Essays, chapter 4.

HAYTI: A. D. 1639-1700. The Buccaneers.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1639-1700.

{1633}

HAYTI: A. D. 1804-1880. Massacre of whites. The Empire of Dessalines. The kingdom of Christophe. The Republic of Pétion and Boyer. Separation of the independent Republic of San Domingo. The Empire of Soulouque. The restored Republic of Hayti.

"In the beginning of 1804 the independence of the negroes under Dessalines was sufficiently assured: but they were not satisfied until they had completed a general massacre of nearly the whole of the whites, including aged men, women and children, who remained in the island, numbering, according to the lowest estimate, 2,500 souls. Thus did Dessalines, in his own savage words, render war for war, crime for crime, and outrage for outrage, to the European cannibals who had so long preyed upon his unhappy race. The negroes declared Dessalines Emperor: and in October 1804 he was crowned at Port-au-Prince by the title of James I. Dessalines was at once a brave man and a cruel and avaricious tyrant. He acquired great influence over the negroes, who long remembered him with affectionate regret: but he was not warmly supported by the mulattoes, who were by far the most intelligent of the Haytians. He abolished the militia, and set up a standing army of 40,000 men, whom he found himself unable to pay, from the universal ruin which had overtaken the island. The plantation labourers refused to work. … Dessalines authorised the landowners to flog them. Dessalines was himself a large planter: he had 32 large plantations of his own at work, and he forced his labourers to work on them at the point of the bayonet. Both he and his successor, Christophe, like Mahomed Ali in Egypt, grew rich by being the chief merchants in their own dominions. … He failed in an expedition against St. Domingo, the Spanish part of the island, whence the French general Ferrand still threatened him: and at length some sanguinary acts of tyranny roused against him an insurrection headed by his old comrade Christophe. The insurgents marched on Port-au-Prince, and the first black Emperor was shot by an ambuscade at the Pont Rouge outside the town. The death of Dessalines delivered up Hayti once more to the horrors of civil war. The negroes and mulattoes, who had joined cordially enough to exterminate their common enemies, would no longer hold together; and ever since the death of Dessalines their jealousies and differences have been a source of weakness in the black republic. In the old times, Hayti, as the French part of the island of Española was henceforth called, had been divided into three provinces: South, East, and North. After the death of Dessalines each of these provinces became for a time a separate state. Christophe wished to maintain the unlimited imperialism which Dessalines had set up: but the Constituent Assembly, which he summoned at Port-au-Prince in 1806, had other views. They resolved upon a Republican constitution." Christophe, not contented with the offered presidency, "collected an army with the view of dispersing the Constituent Assembly: but they collected one of their own, under Pétion, and forced him to retire from the capital. Christophe maintained himself in Cap François, or, as it is now called, Cap Haytien; and here he ruled for 14 years. In 1811, despising the imperial title which Dessalines had desecrated, he took the royal style by the name of Henry I. Christophe, as a man, was nearly as great a monster as Dessalines. … Yet Christophe at his best was a man capable of great aims, and a sagacious and energetic ruler." In 1820, finding himself deserted in the face of a mulatto insurrection, he committed suicide. "In a month or two after Christophe's suicide the whole island was united under the rule of President Boyer." Boyer was the successor of Pétion, who had been elected in the North, under the republican constitution which Christophe refused submission to. Pétion, "a mulatto of the best type," educated at the military academy of Paris, and full of European ideas, had ruled the province which he controlled ably and well for eleven years. In discouragement he then took his own life, and was succeeded, in 1818, by his lieutenant, Jean Pierre Boyer, a mulatto. "On the suicide of Christophe, the army of the Northern Province, weary of the tyranny of one of their own race, declared for Boyer. The French part of the island was now once more under a single government: and Boyer turned his attention to the much larger Spanish territory, with the old capital of St. Domingo, where a Spaniard named Muñez de Caceres, with the aid of the negroes, had now followed the example in the West, and proclaimed an independent government. The Dominicans, however, were still afraid of Spain, and were glad to put themselves under the wing of Hayti: Boyer was not unwilling to take possession of the Spanish colony, and thus it happened that in 1822 he united the whole island under his Presidency. In the same year he was elected President for life under the constitution of Pétion, whose general policy he maintained: but his government, especially in his later years, was almost as despotic as that of Christophe. Boyer was the first Haytian who united the blacks and mulattoes under his rule. It was mainly through confidence in him that the government of Hayti won the recognition of the European powers. … In 1825 its independence was formally recognised by France, on a compensation of 150,000,000 of francs being guaranteed to the exiled planters and to the home government. This vast sum was afterwards reduced: but it still weighed heavily on the impoverished state, and the discontents which the necessary taxation produced led to Boyer's downfall," in 1843, when he withdrew to Jamaica, and afterwards to Paris, where he died in 1850. A singular state of affairs ensued. The eastern, or Spanish, part of the island resumed its independence (1844), under a republican constitution resembling that of Venezuela, and with Pedro Santana for its President, and has been known since that time as the Republic of San Domingo, or the Dominican Republic. In the Western, or Haytian Republic, large numbers of the negroes, "under the names of Piquets and Zinglins, now formed themselves into armed bands, and sought to obtain a general division of property under some communistic monarch of their own race. The mulatto officials now cajoled the poor negroes by bribing some old negro, whose name was well known to the mass of the people as one of the heroes of the war of liberty, to allow himself to be set up as President. The Boyerists, as the mulatto oligarchy were called, thus succeeded in re-establishing their power," and their system (for describing which the word "gerontocracy" has been invented) was carried on for some years, until it resulted, in 1847, in the election to the Presidency of General Faustin Soulouque. "Soulouque was an illiterate negro whose recommendations to power were that he was old enough to have taken part in the War of Independence, having been a lieutenant under Pétion, and that he was popular with the negroes, being devotedly attached to the strange mixture of freemasonry and fetish worship by which the Haytian blacks maintain their political organisation." {1634} The new President took his elevation more seriously than was expected, and proved to be more than a match for the mulattoes who thought to make him their puppet. He gathered the reins into his own hands, and crushed the mulattoes at Port-au-Prince by a general massacre. He then "caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor, by the title of Faustinus the First (1849)," and established a grotesque imperial court, with a fantastic nobility, in which a Duke de Lemonade figured by the side of a Prince Tape-à-l'œil. This lasted until December 1858, when Soulouque was dethroned and sent out of the country, to take refuge in Jamaica, and the republic was restored, with Fabre Nicholas Geffrard, a mulatto general, at its head. Geffrard held the Presidency for eight years, when he followed his predecessor into exile in Jamaica, and was succeeded by General Salnave, a negro, who tried to re-establish the Empire and was shot, 1869. Since that time revolutions have been frequent and nothing has been constant except the disorder and decline of the country. Meantime, the Dominican Republic has suffered scarcely less, from its own disorders and the attacks of its Haytian neighbors. In 1861 it was surrendered by a provisional government to Spain, but recovered independence three years later. Soon afterwards one of its parties sought annexation to the United States, and in 1869 the President of the latter republic, General Grant, concluded a treaty with the Dominican government for the cession of the peninsula of Samana, and for the placing of San Domingo under American protection. But the Senate of the United States refused to ratify the treaty.

E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: Sir S. St. John, Hayti, or the Black Republic, chapter 3.

—————HAYTI: End————

HEAD-CENTER, Fenian.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867.

HEARTS OF OAK BOYS. HEARTS OF STEEL BOYS.

See IRELAND: A. D.1760-1798.

HEAVENFIELD. Battle of the (635).

Defeat of the Welsh, with the death of Cadwallon, the "last great hero of the British race," by the English of Bernicia, A.D. 635. "The victory of the Heaven-field indeed is memorable as the close of the last rally which the Britons ever made against their conquerors."

J. R. Green, The Making of England, page 275.

ALSO IN: Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book 3, chapters 1-2.

HÉBERT AND THE HÉBERTISTS IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790; 1793 (MARCH-JUNE), (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER), to 1793-1794 (NOVEMBER-JUNE).

HEBREW, The Name.

See JEWS: THEIR NATIONAL NAMES.

—————HEBRIDES: Start————

HEBRIDES OR WESTERN ISLANDS, The.

"The Hebrides or Western Islands comprise all the numerous islands and islets which extend along nearly all the west coast of Scotland; and they anciently comprised also the peninsula of Cantyre, the islands of the Clyde, the isle of Rachlin, and even for some time the isle of Man."

Historical Tales of the Wars of Scotland, volume 3, page 60.

HEBRIDES: 9th-13th Centuries. The dominion of the Northmen.

See NORMANS. NORTHMEN: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES, and 10TH-13TH CENTURIES; also, SODOR AND MAN.

HEBRIDES: A. D. 1266. Cession to Scotland.

See SCOTLAND; A. D. 1266.

HEBRIDES: A. D. 1346-1504. The Lords of the Isles.

In 1346, the dominion of most of the Hebrides became consolidated under John, son of Ronald or Angus Oig, of Islay, and he assumed the title of "Lord of the Isles." The Lords of the Isles became substantially independent of the Scottish crown until the battle of Harlaw, in 1411 (see HARLAW, BATTLE OF). The lordship was extinguished in 1504 (see SCOTLAND: A. D. 1502-1504).

Historical Tales of the Wars of Scotland, pages 65-72.

—————HEBRIDES: End————

HEBRON.

In the settlement of the tribes of Israel, after the conquest of Canaan, Caleb, one of the heroes of Judah, "took possession of the territory round the famous old city of Hebron, and thereby gained for his tribe a seat held sacred from Patriarchal times. … Beginning with Hebron, he acquired for himself a considerable territory, which even in David's time was named simply Caleb, and was distinguished from the rest of Judah as a peculiar district. … Hebron remained till after David's time celebrated as the main seat and central point of the entire tribe, around which it is evident that all the rest of Judah gradually clustered in good order."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 2, section 3, A.

"Hebron was a Hittite city, the centre of an ancient civilization, which to some extent had been inherited by the tribe of Judah. It was undoubtedly the capital of Judah, a city of the highest religious character full of recollections and traditions. It could boast of fine public buildings, good water, and a vast and well-kept pool. The unification of Israel had just been accomplished there. It was only natural that Hebron should become the capital of the new kingdom [of David]. … It is not easy to say what induced David to leave a city which had such ancient and evident claims for a hamlet like Jebus [Jerusalem], which did not yet belong to him. It is probable that he found Hebron too exclusively Judahite."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 2, chapter 18.

See, also, ZOAN; and JEWS: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT.

HECANA, Kingdom of.

One of the small, short-lived kingdoms of the Angles in early England, its territory was in modern Herefordshire.

N. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 7, section 70.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

HECATOMB

"Large sacrifices, where a great number of animals were slaughtered, [among the ancient Greeks] are called hecatombs."

G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, page 60.

HECATOMBÆON, Battle of.

Fought, B. C. 224, by Cleomenes of Sparta with the forces of the Achæan League, over which he won a complete victory. The result was the calling in of Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, to become the ally of the League, and to be aided by it in crushing the last independent political life of Peloponnesian Greece.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 62.

{1635}

HECATOMPEDON, The.

See PARTHENON AT ATHENS.

HECATOMPYLOS.

The chief city of Parthia Proper, founded by Alexander the Great, and long remaining one of the capitals of the Parthian empire.

HEDGELEY MOOR, Battle of (1464)

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

HEDWIGA, Queen of Poland, A. D. 1382-1386.

HEELERS.

See BOSSISM.

HEERBAN, The.

The "heerban" was a military system instituted by Charlemagne, which gave way to the feudal system under his successors. "The basis of the heerban system was the duty of every fighting man to answer directly the call of the king to arms. The freeman, not only of the Franks, but of all the subject peoples, owed military service to the king alone. This duty is insisted upon in the laws of Charlemagne with constant repetition. The summons (heerban) was issued at the spring meeting, and sent out by the counts or missi. The soldier was obliged to present himself at the given time, fully armed and equipped with all provision for the campaign, except fire, water, and fodder for the horses."

E. Emerton, Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, chapter 14.

HEGEMONY.

"A hegemony, the political ascendancy of some one city or community over a number of subject commonwealths."

Sir H. S. Maine, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom, page 131.

HEGIRA, The.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

HEGIRA, Era of the.

See ERA, MAHOMETAN.

—————HEIDELBERG: Start————

HEIDELBERG: A. D. 1622. Capture by Tilly.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

HEIDELBERG: A. D. 1631. Burning of the Castle.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.

HEIDELBERG: A. D. 1690. Final destruction of the Castle.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.

—————HEIDELBERG: End————

HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

HEILBRONN, Union of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1632-1634.

HELAM, OR HALAMAH, Battle of.

A decisive victory won by King David over the Syrians.

II. Samuel, x. 15-19.

HELENA, Arkansas, The defense of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

HELEPOLIS, The.

See RHODES: B. C. 305-304.

HELIÆA, The.

Under Solon's constitution for the government of Athens, "a body of 6,000 citizens was every year created by lot to form a supreme court, called Heliæa, which was divided into several smaller ones, not limited to any precise number of persons. The qualifications required for this were the same with those which gave admission into the general assembly, except that the members of the former might not be under the age of thirty. It was, therefore, in fact, a select portion of the latter, in which the powers of the larger body were concentrated and exercised under a judicial form."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 11.

HELICON.

See THESSALY.

HELIGOLAND: A. D. 1814. Acquisition by Great Britain.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1813-1814.

HELIGOLAND: A. D. 1890. Cession to Germany.

See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1891.

—————HELIOPOLIS: Start————

HELIOPOLIS.

See ON.

HELIOPOLIS: Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800 (JANUARY-JUNE).

—————HELIOPOLIS: End————

HELLAS. HELLENES. GRAIKOI. GREEKS.

"To the Greek of the historical ages the idea of Hellas was not associated with any definite geographical limits. Wherever a Greek settlement existed, there for the colonists was Hellas. … Of a Hellas lying within certain specified bounds, and containing within it only Greek inhabitants, they knew nothing."

G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 1.

"Their language was, … from the beginning, the token of recognition among the Hellenes. … Where this language was spoken—in Asia, in Europe, or in Africa—there was Hellas. … A considerable number of the Greek tribes which immigrated by land [from Asia] into the European peninsula [of Greece] followed the tracks of the Italicans, and, taking a westward route through Pæonia and Macedonia, penetrated through Illyria into the western half of the Alpine country of Northern Greece, which the formation of its hill ranges and valleys renders more easily accessible from the north than Thessaly in its secluded hollow. The numerous rivers, abounding in water, which flow close by one another through long gorges into the Ionian Sea, here facilitated an advance into the south; and the rich pasture-land invited immigration; so that Epirus became the dwelling-place of a dense crowd of population, which commenced its civilized career in the fertile lowlands of the country. Among them three main tribes were marked out, of which the Chaones were regarded as the most ancient. … Farther to the south the Thesprotians had settled, and more inland, in the direction of Pindus, the Molossians. A more ancient appellation than those of this triple division is that of the Greeks (Graikoi), which the Hellenes thought the earliest designation of their ancestors. The same name of Græci (Greeks) the Italicans applied to the whole family of peoples with whom they had once dwelt together in these districts. This is the first collective name of the Hellenic tribes in Europe. … Far away from the coast, in the seclusion of the hills, where lie closely together the springs of the Thyamis, Aous, Aracthus, and Achelous, extends at the base of Tomarus the lake Ioannina, on the thickly wooded banks of which, between fields of corn and damp meadows, lay Dodona, a chosen seat of the Pelasgian Zeus, the invisible God, who announced his presence in the rustling of the oaks, whose altar was surrounded by a vast circle of tripods, for a sign that he was the first to unite the domestic hearths and civic communities into a great association centering in himself. This Dodona was the central seat of the Græci; it was a sacred centre of the whole district before the Italicans commenced their westward journey; and at the same time the place where the subsequent national name of the Greeks can be first proved to have prevailed; for the chosen of the people, who administered the worship of Zeus, were called Selli or Helli, and after them the surrounding country Hellopia or Hellas."

{1636}

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 1, chapters 1 and 4 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 2 (volume 2).

G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 4.

W. E. Gladstone, Juventus Mundi, chapter 4.

HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE. HELLENIC AND HELLENISTIC CULTURE. HELLENISM.

"It was the privilege of the Greeks to discover the sovereign efficacy of reason. They entered on the pursuit of knowledge with a sure and joyous instinct. Baffled and puzzled they might be, but they never grew weary of the quest. The speculative faculty which reached its height in Plato and Aristotle, was, when we make due allowance for time and circumstance, scarcely less eminent in the Ionian philosophers; and it was Ionia that gave birth to an idea, which was foreign to the East, but has become the starting-point of modern science,—the idea that Nature works by fixed laws. A fragment of Euripides speaks of him as 'happy who has learned to search into causes,' who 'discerns the deathless and ageless order of nature, whence it arose, the how and the why.' The early poet-philosophers of Ionia gave the impulse which has carried the human intellect forward across the line which separates empirical from scientific knowledge; and the Greek precocity of mind in this direction, unlike that of the Orientals, had in it the promise of uninterrupted advance in the future,—of great discoveries in mathematics, geometry, experimental physics, in medicine also and physiology. … By the middle of the fifth century B. C. the general conception of law in the physical world was firmly established in the mind of Greek thinkers. Even the more obscure phenomena of disease were brought within the rule. Hippocrates writing about a malady which was common among the Scythians and was thought to be preternatural says: 'As for me I think that these maladies are divine like all others, but that none is more divine or more human than another. Each has its natural principle and none exists without its natural cause.' Again, the Greeks set themselves to discover a rational basis for conduct. Rigorously they brought their actions to the test of reason, and that not only by the mouth of philosophers, but through their poets, historians, and orators. Thinking and doing—clear thought and noble action—did not stand opposed to the Greek mind. The antithesis rather marks a period when the Hellenic spirit was past its prime, and had taken a one-sided bent. The Athenians of the Periclean age—in whom we must recognise the purest embodiment of Hellenism—had in truth the peculiar power, which Thucydides claims for them, of thinking before they acted and of acting also. … To Greece … we owe the love of Science, the love of Art, the love of Freedom: not Science alone, Art alone, or Freedom alone, but these vitally correlated with one another and brought into organic union. And in this union we recognise the distinctive features of the West. The Greek genius is the European genius in its first and brightest bloom. From a vivifying contact with the Greek spirit Europe derived that new and mighty impulse which we call Progress. Strange it is to think that these Greeks, like the other members of the Indo-European family, probably had their cradle in the East; that behind Greek civilisation, Greek language, Greek mythology, there is that Eastern background to which the comparative sciences seem to point. But it is no more than a background. In spite of an resemblances, in spite of common customs, common words, common syntax, common gods, the spirit of the Greeks and of their Eastern kinsmen—the spirit of their civilisation, art, language, and mythology—remains essentially distinct. … From Greece came that first mighty impulse, whose far-off workings are felt by us to-day, and which has brought it about that progress has been accepted as the law and goal of human endeavour. Greece first took up the task of equipping man with all that fits him for civil life and promotes his secular well being; of unfolding and expanding every inborn faculty and energy, bodily and mental; of striving restlessly after the perfection of the whole, and finding in this effort after an unattainable ideal that by which man becomes like to the gods. The life of the Hellenes, like that of their Epic hero Achilles, was brief and brilliant. But they have been endowed with the gift of renewing their youth. Renan, speaking of the nations that are fitted to play a part in universal history, says 'that they must die first that the world may live through them;' that a people must choose between the prolonged life, the tranquil and obscure destiny of one who lives for himself, and the troubled stormy career of one who lives for humanity. The nation which revolves within its breast social and religious problems is always weak politically. Thus it was with the Jews, who in order to make the religious conquest of the world must needs disappear as a nation.' 'They lost a material city, they opened the reign of the spiritual Jerusalem.' So too it was with Greece. As a people she ceased to be. When her freedom was overthrown at Chaeronea, the page of her history was to all appearance closed. Yet from that moment she was to enter on a larger life and on universal empire. Already during the last days of her independence it had been possible to speak of a new Hellenism, which rested not on ties of blood but on spiritual kinship. This presentiment of Isocrates was marvellously realised. As Alexander passed conquering through Asia, he restored to the East, as garnered grain, that Greek civilisation whose seeds had long ago been received from the East. Each conqueror in turn, the Macedonian and the Roman, bowed before conquered Greece and learnt lessons at her feet. To the modern world too Greece has been the great civiliser, the oecumenical teacher, the disturber and regenerator of slumbering societies. She is the source of most of the quickening ideas which re-make nations and renovate literature and art. If we reckon up our secular possessions, the wealth and heritage of the past, the larger share may be traced back to Greece. One half of life she has made her domain,—all, or well-nigh all, that belongs to the present order of things and to the visible world."

S. H. Butcher, Some Aspects of the Greek Genius, pages 9-43.

"The part assigned to [the Greeks] in the drama of the nations was to create forms of beauty, to unfold ideas which should remain operative when the short bloom of their own existence was over, and thus to give a new impulse, a new direction, to the whole current of human life. {1637} The prediction which Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Athenian orator has been fulfilled, though not in the sense literally conveyed; 'Assuredly we shall not be without witnesses,' says Pericles; 'there are mighty documents of our power, which shall make us the wonder of this age, and of ages to come.' He was thinking of those wide-spread settlements which attested the empire of Athens. But the immortal witnesses of his race are of another kind. Like the victims of the war, whose epitaph he was pronouncing, the Hellenes have their memorial in all lands, graven, not on stone, but in the hearts of mankind. … Are we not warranted by what we know of Greek work, imperfect though our knowledge is, in saying that no people has yet appeared in the world whose faculty for art, in the largest sense of the term, has been so comprehensive? And there is a further point that may be noted. It has been said that the man of genius sometimes is such in virtue of combining the temperament distinctive of his nation with some gift of his own which is foreign to that temperament; as in Shakespeare the basis is English, and the individual gift a flexibility of spirit which is not normally English. But we cannot apply this remark to the greatest of ancient Greek writers. They present certainly a wide range of individual differences. Yet so distinctive and so potent is the Hellenic nature that, if any two of such writers be compared, however wide the individual differences may be,—as between Aristophanes and Plato, or Pindar and Demosthenes,—such individual differences are less significant than those common characteristics of the Hellenic mind which separate both the men compared from all who are not Hellenes. If it were possible to trace the process by which the Hellenic race was originally separated from their Aryan kinsfolk, the physiological basis of their qualities might perhaps be traced in the mingling of different tribal ingredients. As it is, there is no clue to these secrets of nature's alchemy: the Hellenes appear in the dawn of their history with that unique temperament already distinct: we can point only to one cause, and that a subordinate cause, which must have aided its development, namely, the geographical position of Greece. No people of the ancient world were so fortunately placed. Nowhere are the aspects of external nature more beautiful, more varied, more stimulating to the energies of body and mind. A climate which, within three parallels of latitude, nourishes the beeches of Pindus and the palms of the Cyclades; mountain barriers which at once created a framework for the growth of local federations, and encouraged a sturdy spirit of freedom; coasts abounding in natural harbors; a sea dotted with islands, and notable for the regularity of its wind-currents; ready access alike to Asia and to the western Mediterranean,—these were circumstances happily congenial to the inborn faculties of the Greek race, and admirably fitted to expand them."

R. C. Jebb, The Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry, pages 27-31.

"The sense of beauty which the Greeks possessed to a greater extent than any other people could not fail to be caught by the exceptionally beautiful natural surroundings in which they lived; and their literature, at any rate their poetry, bears abundant testimony to the fact. Small though Greece is, it contains a greater variety, both in harmony and contrast, of natural beauty than most countries, however great. Its latitude gives it a southern climate, while its mountains allow of the growth of a vegetation found in more northern climes. Within a short space occur all the degrees of transition from snow-topped hills to vine-clad fountains. And the joy with which the beauty of their country filled the Greeks may be traced through all their poetry. … The two leading facts in the physical aspect of Greece are the sea and the mountains. As Europe is the most indented and has relatively the longest coast-line of all the continents of the world, so of all the countries of Europe the land of Greece is the most interpenetrated with arms of the sea. …

'Two voices are there: one is of the Sea, One of the Mountains; each a mighty voice: In both from age to age thou didst rejoice; They were thy chosen music, Liberty!'

Both voices spoke impressively to Greece, and her literature echoes their tones. So long as Greece was free and the spirit of freedom animated the Greeks, so long their literature was creative and genius marked it. When liberty perished, literature declined. The field of Chæronea was fatal alike to the political liberty and to the literature of Greece. The love of liberty was indeed pushed even to an extreme in Greece; and this also was due to the physical configuration of the country. Mountains, it has been said, divide; seas unite. The rise and the long continuance in so small a country of so many cities, having their own laws, constitution, separate history, and independent existence, can only be explained by the fact that in their early growth they were protected, each by the mountains which surrounded it, so effectually, and the love of liberty in this time was developed to such an extent, that no single city was able to establish its dominion over the others. … Everyone of the numerous states, whose separate political existence was guaranteed by the mountains, was actually or potentially a separate centre of civilisation and of literature. In some one of these states each kind of literature could find the conditions appropriate or necessary to its development. Even a state which produced no men of literary genius itself might become the centre at which poets collected and encouraged the literature it could not produce, as was the case with Sparta, to which Greece owed the development of choral lyric. … The eastern basin of the Mediterranean has deserved well of literature, for it brought Greece into communication with her colonies on the islands and on the surrounding coasts, and enabled the numerous Greek cities to co-operate in the production of a rich and varied literature, instead of being confined each to a one-sided and incomplete development. The process of communication began in the earliest times, as is shown by the spread of epic literature. Originating in Ionia, it was taken up in Cyprus, where the epic called the Cypria was composed, and, at the beginning of the sixth century it was on the coast of Africa in the colony of Cyrene. The rapid spread of elegiac poetry is even more strikingly illustrated, for we find Solon in Athens quoting from his contemporary Mimnermus of Colophon. Choral lyric, which originated in Asia Minor, was conveyed to Sparta by Alcman, and by Simonides of Ceos all over the Greek world. But although in early times we find as much interchange and reaction in the colonies amongst themselves as between the colonies and the mother-country, with the advance of time we find the centripetal tendency becoming dominant. {1638} The mother-country becomes more and more the centre to which all literature and art gravitates. At the beginning of the sixth century Sparta attracted poets from the colonies in Asia Minor, but the only form of literature which Sparta rewarded and encouraged was choral lyric. No such narrowness characterised Athens, and when she established herself as the intellectual capital of Greece, all men of genius received a welcome there, and we find all forms of literature deserting their native homes, even their native dialects, to come to Athens. … As long as literature had many centres, there was no danger of all falling by a single stroke; but when it was centralised in Athens, and the blow delivered by Philip at Chæronea had fallen on Athens, classical Greek literature perished in a generation. It is somewhat difficult to distinguish race-qualities from the characteristics impressed on a people by the conditions under which it lives, since the latter by accumulation and transmission from generation to generation eventually become race-qualities. Thus the Spartans possessed qualities common to them and the Dorians, of whom they were a branch, and also qualities peculiar to themselves, which distinguished them from other Dorians. … The ordinary life of a Spartan citizen was that of a soldier in camp or garrison, rather than that of a member of a political community, and this system of life was highly unfavourable to literature. … Other Dorians, not hemmed in by such unfavourable conditions as the Spartans, did provide some contributions to the literature of Greece, and in the nature of their contributions we may detect the qualities of the race. The Dorians in Sicily sowed the seeds of rhetoric and carried comedy to considerable perfection. Of imagination the race seems destitute: it did not produce poets. On the other hand, the race is eminently practical as well as prosaic, and their humour was of a nature which corresponded to these qualities. … The Æolians form a contrast both to the Spartans and to the Athenians. The development of individuality is as characteristic of the Æolians as its absence is of the Spartans. But the Æolians, first of all Greeks, possessed a cavalry, and this means that they were wealthy and aristocratic. … This gives us the distinction between the Æolians and the Athenians: among the former, individuality was developed in the aristocracy alone; among the latter, in all the citizens. The Æolians added to the crown of Greek literature one of the brightest of its jewels-lyric poetry, as we understand lyric in modern times, that is, the expression of the poet's feelings, on any subject whatever, as his individual feeling. … But it was the Ionians who rendered the greatest services to Greek literature. They were a quick-witted race, full of enterprise, full of resources. In them we see reflected the character of the sea, as in the Dorians the character of the mountains. The latter partook of the narrowness and exclusiveness of their own homes, hemmed in by mountains, and by them protected from the incursion of strangers and strange innovations. The Ionians, on the other hand, were open as the sea, and had as many moods. They were eminently susceptible to beauty in all its forms, to the charm of change and to novelty. They were ever ready to put any belief or institution to the test of discussion, and were governed as much by ideas as by sentiments. Keenness of intellect, taste in all matters of literature and art, grace in expression, and measure in everything distinguished them above all Greeks. The development of epic poetry, the origin of prose, the cultivation of philosophy, are the proud distinction of the Ionian race. In Athens we have the qualities of the Ionian race in their finest flower."

F. B. Jevons, A History of Greek Literature, pages 485-490.

HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE: Hellenism and the Jews.

"The Jewish region … was, in ancient times as well as in the Graeco-Roman period, surrounded on all sides by heathen districts. Only at Jamnia and Joppa had the Jewish element advanced as far as the sea. Elsewhere, even to the west, it was not the sea, but the Gentile region of the Philistine and Phenician cities, that formed the boundary of the Jewish. These heathen lands were far more deeply penetrated by Hellenism, than the country of the Jews. No reaction like the rising of the Maccabees had here put a stop to it, besides which heathen polytheism was adapted in quite a different manner from Judaism for blending with Hellenism. While therefore the further advance of Hellenism was obstructed by religious barriers in the interior of Palestine, it had attained here, as in all other districts since its triumphant entry under Alexander the Great, its natural preponderance over Oriental culture. Hence, long before the commencement of the Roman period, the educated world, especially in the great cities in the west and east of Palestine, was, we may well say, completely Hellenized. It is only with the lower strata of the populations and the dwellers in rural districts, that this must not be equally assumed. Besides however the border lands, the Jewish districts in the interior of Palestine were occupied by Hellenism, especially Scythopolis … and the town of Samaria, where Macedonian colonists had already been planted by Alexander the Great … while the national Samaritans had their central point at Sichem. The victorious penetration of Hellenistic culture is most plainly and comprehensively shown by the religious worship. The native religions, especially in the Philistine and Phenician cities, did indeed in many respects maintain themselves in their essential character; but still in such wise, that they were transformed by and blended with Greek elements. But besides these the purely Greek worship also gained an entrance, and in many places entirely supplanted the former. Unfortunately our sources of information do not furnish us the means of separating the Greek period proper from the Roman; the best are afforded by coins, and these for the most part belong to the Roman. On the whole however the picture, which we obtain, holds good for the pre-Roman period also, nor are we entirely without direct notices of this age. … In the Jewish region proper Hellenism was in its religious aspect triumphantly repulsed by the rising of the Maccabees; it was not till after the overthrow of Jewish nationality in the wars of Vespasian and Hadrian, that an entrance for heathen rites was forcibly obtained by the Romans. In saying this however we do not assert, that the Jewish people of those early times remained altogether unaffected by Hellenism. For the latter was a civilising power, which extended itself to every department of life. {1639} It fashioned in a peculiar manner the organization of the state, legislation, the administration of justice, public arrangements, art and science, trade and industry, and the customs of daily life down to fashion and ornaments, and thus impressed upon every department of life, wherever its influence reached, the stamp of the Greek mind. It is true that Hellenistic is not identical with Hellenic culture. The importance of the former on the contrary lay in the fact, that by its reception of the available elements of all foreign cultures within its reach, it became a world-culture. But this very world-culture became in its turn a peculiar whole, in which the preponderant Greek element was the ruling keynote. Into the stream of this Hellenistic culture the Jewish people was also drawn; slowly indeed and with reluctance, but yet irresistibly, for though religious zeal was able to banish heathen worship and all connected therewith from Israel, it could not for any length of time restrain the tide of Hellenistic culture in other departments of life. Its several stages cannot indeed be any longer traced. But when we reflect that the small Jewish country was enclosed on almost every side by Hellenistic regions, with which it was compelled, even for the sake of trade, to hold continual intercourse, and when we remember, that even the rising of the Maccabees was in the main directed not against Hellenism in general, but only against the heathen religion, that the later Asmonaeans bore in every respect a Hellenistic stamp-employed foreign mercenaries, minted foreign coins, took Greek names, etc., and that some of them, e. g. Aristobulus I., were direct favourers of Hellenism,—when all this is considered, it may safely be assumed, that Hellenism had, notwithstanding the rising of the Maccabees, gained access in no inconsiderable measure into Palestine even before the commencement of the Roman period."

E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, division 2, volume 1, pages 29-30.

HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE: Hellenism and the Romans.

"In the Alexandrian age, with all its close study and imitation of the classical models, nothing is more remarkable than the absence of any promise that the Hellenic spirit which animated those masterpieces was destined to have any abiding influence in the world. … And yet it is true that the vital power of the Hellenic genius was not fully revealed, until, after suffering some temporary eclipse in the superficially Greek civilizations of Asia and Egypt, it emerged in a new quality, as a source of illumination to the literature and the art of Rome. Early Roman literature was indebted to Greece for the greater part of its material; but a more important debt was in respect to the forms and moulds of composition. The Latin language of the third century B. C. was already in full possession of the qualities which always remained distinctive of it; it was clear, strong, weighty, precise, a language made to be spoken in the imperative mood, a fitting interpreter of government and law. But it was not flexible or graceful, musical or rapid; it was not suited to express delicate shades of thought or feeling; for literary purposes, it was, in comparison with Greek, a poor and rude idiom. The development of Latin into the language of Cicero and Virgil was gradually and laboriously accomplished under the constant influence of Greece. That finish of form, known as classical, which Roman writers share with Greek, was a lesson which Greece slowly impressed upon Rome. … A close and prolonged study of the Greek models could not end in a mere discipline of form; the beauty of the best Greek models depends too much on their vital spirit. Not only was the Roman imagination enriched, but the Roman intellect, through literary intercourse with the Greek, gradually acquired a flexibility and a plastic power which had not been among its original gifts. Through Roman literature the Greek influence was transmitted to later times in a shape which obscured, indeed, much of its charm, but which was also fitted to extend its empire, and to win an entrance for it in regions which would have been less accessible to a purer form of its manifestation."

R. C. Jebb, The Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry, chapter 8.

"Italy had been subject to the influence of Greece, ever since it had a history at all. … But the Hellenism of the Romans of the present period [second century B. C.] was, in its causes as well as its consequences, something essentially new. The Romans began to feel the lack of a richer intellectual life, and to be startled as it were at their own utter want of mental culture; and, if even nations of artistic gifts, such as the English and Germans, have not disdained in the pauses of their own productiveness to avail themselves of the paltry French culture for filling up the gap, it need excite no surprise that the Italian nation now flung itself with eager zeal on the glorious treasures as well as on the vile refuse of the intellectual development of Hellas. But it was an impulse still more profound and deep-rooted which carried the Romans irresistibly into the Hellenic vortex. Hellenic civilization still assumed that name, but it was Hellenic no longer; it was, it fact, humanistic and cosmopolitan. It had solved the problem of moulding a mass of different nations into one whole completely in the field of intellect, and to a certain degree in that of politics, and, now when the same task on a wider scale devolved on Rome, she entered on the possession of Hellenism along with the rest of the inheritance of Alexander the Great. Hellenism therefore was no longer a mere stimulus, or subordinate influence; it penetrated the Italian nation to the very core. Of course, the vigorous home life of Italy strove against the foreign element. It was only after a most vehement struggle that the Italian farmer abandoned the field to the cosmopolite of the capital; and, as in Germany the French coat called forth the national Germanic frock, so the reaction against Hellenism aroused in Rome a tendency, which opposed the influence of Greece on principle in a style to which earlier centuries were altogether unaccustomed, and in doing so fell not unfrequently into downright follies and absurdities. No department of human action or thought remained unaffected by this struggle between the new fashion and the old. Even political relations were largely influenced by it. The whimsical project of emancipating the Hellenes, … the kindred, likewise Hellenic, idea of combining republics in a common opposition to kings, and the desire of propagating Hellenic polity at the expense of eastern despotism—which were the two principles that regulated, for instance, the treatment of Macedonia—were fixed ideas of the new school, just as dread of the Carthaginians was the fixed idea of the old; and, if Cato pushed the latter to a ridiculous excess, Philhellenism now and then indulged in extravagances at least as foolish. … {1640} But the real struggle between Hellenism and its national antagonists during the present period was carried on in the field of faith, of manners, and of art and literature. … If Italy still possessed—what had long been a mere antiquarian curiosity in Hellas—a national religion, it was already visibly beginning to be ossified into theology. The torpor creeping over faith is nowhere perhaps so distinctly apparent as in the alterations in the economy of divine service and of the priesthood. The public service of the gods became not only more tedious, but above all more and more costly. … An augur like Lucius Paullus, who regarded the priesthood as a science and not as a mere title, was already a rare exception; and could not but be so, when the government more and more openly and unhesitatingly employed the auspices for the accomplishment of its political designs, or, in other words, treated the national religion in accordance with the view of Polybius as a superstition useful for imposing on the public at large. Where the way was thus paved, the Hellenistic irreligious spirit found free course. In connection with the incipient taste for art the sacred images of the gods began even in Cato's time to be employed, like other furniture, to embellish the chambers of the rich. More dangerous wounds were inflicted on religion by the rising literature. … Thus the old national religion was visibly on the decline; and, as the great trees of the primeval forest were uprooted, the soil became covered with a rank growth of thorns and briars and with weeds that had never been seen before. Native superstitions and foreign impostures of the most various hues mingled, competed and conflicted with each other. … The Hellenism of that epoch, already denationalized and pervaded by Oriental mysticism, introduced not only unbelief but also superstition in its most offensive and dangerous forms to Italy; and these vagaries, moreover, had a special charm, precisely because they were foreign. … Rites of the most abominable character came to the knowledge of the Roman authorities: a secret nocturnal festival in honour of the god Bacchus had been first introduced into Etruria by a Greek priest, and spreading like a cancer, had rapidly reached Rome and propagated itself over all Italy, everywhere corrupting families and giving rise to the most heinous crimes, unparalleled unchastity, falsifying of testaments, and murdering by poison. More than 7,000 men were sentenced to punishment, most of them to death, on this account, and rigorous enactments were issued as to the future. … The ties of family life became relaxed with fearful rapidity. The evil of grisettes and boy-favourites spread like a pestilence. … Luxury prevailed more and more in dress, ornaments and furniture, in the buildings and on the tables. Especially after the expedition to Asia Minor, which took place in 564, [B. C. 190] Asiatico-Hellenic luxury, such as prevailed at Ephesus and Alexandria, transferred its empty refinement and its petty trifling, destructive alike of money, time, and pleasure, to Rome. … As a matter of course, this revolution in life and manners brought an economic revolution in its train. Residence in the capital became more and more coveted as well as more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height. Extravagant prices were paid for the new articles of luxury. … The influences which stimulated the growth of Roman literature were of a character altogether peculiar and hardly paralleled in any other nation. … By means of the Italian slaves and freedmen, a very large portion of whom were Greek or half Greek by birth, the Greek language and Greek knowledge to a certain extent reached even the lower ranks of the population, especially in the capital. The comedies of this period indicate that even the humbler classes of the capital were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be properly understood without a knowledge of Greek than Sterne's English or Wieland's German without a knowledge of French. Men of senatorial families, however, not only addressed a Greek audience in Greek, but even published their speeches. … Under the influence of such circumstances Roman education developed itself. It is a mistaken opinion, that antiquity was materially inferior to our own times in the general diffusion of elementary attainments. Even among the lower classes and slaves there was considerable knowledge of reading, writing, and counting. … Elementary instruction, as well us instruction in Greek, must have been long ere this period imparted to a very considerable extent in Rome. But the epoch now before us initiated an education, the aim of which was to communicate not merely an outward expertness, but a real mental culture. The internal decomposition of Italian nationality had already, particularly in the aristocracy, advanced so far as to render the substitution of a broader human culture for that nationality inevitable: and the craving after a more advanced civilization was already powerfully stirring men's minds. The study of the Greek language as it were spontaneously met this craving. The classical literature of Greece, the Iliad and still more the Odyssey, had all along formed the basis of instruction; the overflowing treasures of Hellenic art and science were already by this means spread before the eyes of the Italians. Without any outward revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of instruction the natural result was, that the empirical study of the language became converted into a higher study of the literature; that the general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated in increased measure to the scholars; and that these availed themselves of the knowledge thus acquired to dive into that Greek literature which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age—the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander. In a similar way greater importance came to be attached to the study of Latin. The higher society of Rome began to feel the need, if not of exchanging their mother-tongue for Greek, at least of refining it and adapting it to the changed state of culture. … But a Latin culture presupposed a literature, and no such literature existed in Rome. … The Romans desired a theatre, but the pieces were wanting. On these elements Roman literature was based; and its defective character was from the first and necessarily the result of such an origin. … Roman poetry in particular had its immediate origin not in the inward impulse of the poet, but in the outward demands of the school, which needed Latin manuals, and of the stage, which needed Latin dramas. Now both institutions—the school and the stage—were thoroughly anti-Roman and revolutionary. … The school and the theatre became the most effective levers in the hands of the new spirit of the age, and all the more so that they used the Latin tongue. {1641} Men might perhaps speak and write Greek, and yet not cease to be Romans; but in this case they were in the habit of speaking in the Roman language, while the whole inward being and life were Greek. It is one of the most pleasing, but it is one of the most remarkable and in a historical point of view most instructive, facts in this brilliant era of Roman conservatism, that during its course Hellenism struck root in the whole field of intellect not immediately political, and that the school-master and the maître de plaisir of the great public in close alliance created a Roman literature."

T. Mommsen, The History of Rome, book 3, chapter 13 (volume 2).

Panætius was the founder of "that Roman Stoicism which plays so prominent a part in the history of the Empire. He came from Rhodes, and was a pupil of Diogenes at Athens. The most important part of his life was, however, spent at Rome, in the house of Scipio Æmilianus, the centre of the Scipionic circle, where he trained up a number of Roman nobles to understand and to adopt his views. He seems to have taken the place of Polybius, and to have accompanied Scipio in his tour to the East (143 B. C.). He died as head of the Stoic school in Athens about 110 B. C. This was the man who, under the influence of the age, really modified the rigid tenets of his sect to make it the practical rule of life for statesmen, politicians, magnates, who had no time to sit all day and dispute, but who required something better than effete polytheism to give them dignity in their leisure, and steadfastness in the day of trial. … With the pupils of Panætius begins the long roll of Roman Stoics. … Here then, after all the dissolute and disintegrating influences of Hellenism,—its comœdia palliata, its parasites, its panders, its minions, its chicanery, its mendacity—had produced their terrible effect, came an antidote which, above all the human influences we know, purified and ennobled the world. It affected, unfortunately, only the higher classes at Rome; and even among them, as among any of the lower classes that speculated at all, it had as a dangerous rival that cheap and vulgar Epicureanism, which puffs up common natures with the belief that their trivial and coarse reflections have some philosophic basis, and can be defended with subtle arguments. But among the best of the Romans Hellenism produced a type seldom excelled in the world's history, a type as superior to the old Roman model as the nobleman is to the burgher in most countries—a type we see in Rutilius Rufus, as compared with the elder Cato. … It was in this way that Hellenistic philosophy made itself a home in Italy, and acquired pupils who in the next generation became masters in their way, and showed in Cicero and Lucretius no mean rivals of the contemporary Greek. … Till the poem of Lucretius and the works of Cicero, we may say nothing in Latin worth reading existed on the subject. Whoever wanted to study philosophy, therefore, down to that time (60 B. C.) studied it in Greek. Nearly the same thing may be said of the arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture. There were indeed distinctly Roman features in architecture, but they were mere matters of building, and whatever was done in the way of design, in the way of adding beauty to strength, was done wholly under the advice and direction of Greeks. The subservience to Hellenism in the way of internal household ornament was even more complete. … And with the ornaments of the house, the proper serving of the house, especially the more delicate departments—the cooking of state dinners, the attendance upon guests, the care of the great man's intimate comforts—could only be done fashionably by Greek slaves. … But of course these lower sides of Hellenism had no more potent effect in civilising Rome than the employing of French cooks and valets and the purchase of French ornaments and furniture had in improving our grandfathers. Much more serious was the acknowledged supremacy of the Greeks in literature of all kinds, and still more their insistence that this superiority depended mainly upon a careful system of intellectual education. … This is the point where Polybius, after his seventeen years' experience of Roman life, finds the capital flaw in the conduct of public affairs. In every Hellenistic state, he says, nothing engrosses the attention of legislators more than the question of education, whereas at Rome a most moral and serious government leaves the training of the young to the mistakes and hazards of private enterprise. That this was a grave blunder as regards the lower classes is probably true. … But when Rome grew from a city controlling Italy to an empire directing the world, such men as Æmilius Paullus saw plainly that they must do something more to fit their children for the splendid position they had themselves attained, and so they were obliged to keep foreign teachers of literature and art in their houses as private tutors. The highest class of these private tutors was that of the philosophers, whom we have considered, and while the State set itself against their public establishments, great men in the State openly encouraged them and kept them in their houses. … As regards literature, however, in the close of the second century B. C. a change was visible, which announced the new and marvellous results of the first. … Even in letters Roman culture began to take its place beside Greek, and the whole civilised world was divided into those who knew Greek letters and those who knew Roman only. There was no antagonism in spirit between them, for the Romans never ceased to venerate Greek letters or to prize a knowledge of that language. But of course there were great domains in the West beyond the influence of the most western Greeks, even of Massilia, where the first higher civilisation introduced was with the Roman legions and traders, and where culture assumed permanently a Latin form. In the East, though the Romans asserted themselves as conquerors, they always condescended to use Greek, and there were prætors proud to give their decisions at Roman assize courts in that language."