which he foresaw to be inevitable; yet a period of seven years elapsed after the accession of Perseus before the mutual enmity of the two powers broke out into open hostilities. The war was waged three years without any decisive result, but was brought to a conclusion in 168 by the consul L. Æmilius Paulus, who defeated Perseus with great loss near Pydna. Perseus was carried to Rome to adorn the triumph of Paulus (167), and was permitted to spend the remainder of his life in a sort of honourable captivity at Alba. Such was the end of the Macedonian empire, which was now divided into four districts, each under the jurisdiction of an oligarchical council.

The Roman commissioners deputed to arrange the affairs of Macedonia did not confine their attention to that province, but evinced their design of bringing all Greece under the Roman sway. In these views they were assisted by various despots and traitors in different Grecian cities, and especially by Callicrates, a man of great influence among the Achæans, and who for many years lent himself as the base tool of the Romans to effect the enslavement of his country. After the fall of Macedonia, Callicrates denounced more than a thousand leading Achæans who had favoured the cause of Perseus. These, among whom was Polybius the historian, were apprehended and sent to Rome for trial. still harder fate was experienced by Etolia, Boeotia, Acarnania, and Epirus. In the last-named country, especially, no fewer than seventy of the principal towns were abandoned by Paulus to his soldiers for pillage, and 150,000 persons are said to have been sold into slavery.

A

A quarrel between the Achæans and Sparta afforded the Romans a pretence for crushing the small remains of Grecian independence by the destruction of the Achæan league.

The Spartans, feciing themselves incompetent to resist the Achæans, appealed to the Romans for assistance; and in 147 two Roman commissioners were sent to Greece to settle the disputes

between the two states. These commissioners decided that not only Sparta, but Corinth, and all the other cities, except those of Achaia, should be restored to their independence. This decision occasioned serious riots at Corinth, the most important city of the league. All the Spartans in the town were seized, and even the Roman commissioners narrowly escaped violence. On their return to Rome a fresh embassy was despatched to demand satisfaction for these outrages. But the violent and impolitic conduct of Critolaüs, then Strategus of the league, rendered all attempts at accommodation fruitless, and after the return of the ambassadors the Senate declared war against the league. The cowardice and incompetence of Critolaüs as a general were only equalled by his previous insolence. On the approach of the Romans under Metellus from Macedonia he did not even venture to make a stand at Thermopyla; and being overtaken by them near Scarphea in Locris, he was totally defeated, and never again heard of. Diæus, who succeeded him as Strategus, displayed rather more energy and courage. But a fresh Roman force under Mummius having landed on the isthmus, Diaus was overthrown in a battle near Corinth, and that city was immediately evacuated not only by the troops of the league, but also by the greater part of the inhabitants. On entering it Mummius put the few males who remained to the sword; sold the women and children as slaves; and having carried away all its treasures, consigned it to the flames (B.c. 146). Corinth was filled with masterpieces of ancient art; but Mummius was so insensible to their surpassing excellence as to stipulate with those who contracted to convey them to Italy, that, if any were lost in the passage, they should be replaced by others of equal value! Mummius then employed himself in chastising and regulating the whole of Greece; and ten commissioners were sent from Rome to settle its future condition. The whole country, to the borders of Macedonia and Epirus, was formed into a Roman province, under the name of ACHAIA, derived from that confederacy which had made the last struggle for its political existence.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

THE Greeks possessed two large collections of epic poetry. The one comprised poems relating to the great events and enterprises of the Heroic Age, and characterized by a certain poetical unity; the other included works tamer in character and more desultory in their mode of treatment, containing the genealogies of men and gods, narratives of the exploits of separate heroes, and descriptions of the ordinary pursuits of life. The poems of the former class passed under the name of Homer, while those of the latter were in the same general way ascribed to Hesiod. The former were the productions of the Ionic and Eolic minstrels in Asia Minor, among whom Homer stood pre-eminent, and eclipsed the brightness of the rest; the latter were the compositions of a school of bards in the neighbourhood of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, among whom, in like manner, Hesiod enjoyed the greatest celebrity. The poems of both schools were composed in the hexameter metre and in a similar dialect, but they differed widely in almost every other tature.

Of the Homeric poems the Iliad and the Odyssey were the most distinguished and have alone come down to us. The subject of the Iliad was the exploits of Achilles and of the other Grecian heroes before Ilium or Troy; that of the Odyssey was the wanderings and adventures of Odysseus or Ulysses after the capture of Trey on his return to his native island. Throughout the flourishing period of Greek literature these unrivalled works were uni

versally regarded as the productions of a single mind; but the e was very little agreement respecting the place of the poet's birin, the details of his life, or the times in which he lived. Seven cities laid claim to Homer's birth, and most of them had legends to tell respecting his romantic parentage, his alleged blindness, and his life of an itinerant bard acquainted with poverty and sorrow. It cannot be disputed that he was an Asiatic Greek; but this is the only fact in his life which can be regarded as certain. Several of the best writers of antiquity supposed him to have been a native of the island of Chios; but most modern scholars believe Smyrna to have been his birthplace. His most probable date is about B.C. 850.

Homer.

The mode in which these poems were preserved has occasioned great controversy in modern times. Even if they were committed to writing by the poet himself, and were handed down to posterity in this manner, it is certain that they were rarely read. We must endeavour to realize the difference between ancient Greece and our own times. During the most flourishing period of Athenian literature manuscripts were indifferently written, without division into parts, and without marks of punctuation. They were scarce and costly, could be obtained only by the wealthy, and read only by those who had had considerable literary training. Under these circumstances the Greeks could never become a reading people; and thus the great mass even of the Athenians became acquainted with the productions of the leading poets of Greece only by hearing them recited at their solemn festivals and on other public occasions. This was more strikingly the case at an earlier period. The Iliad and the Odyssey were not read by individuals in private, but were sung or recited at festivals or to assembled companies. The bard originally sung his own lays to the accompaniment of his lyre. He was succeeded by a body of professional reciters, called Rhapsodists, who rehearsed the poems of others, and who appear at early times to have had exclusive possession of the Homeric poems. But in the seventh century before the Christian era literary culture began to prevail among the Greeks, and men of education and wealth were naturally desirous of obtaining copies of the great poet of the nation. From this cause copies came to be circulated among the Greeks; but most of them contained only separate portions of the poems, or single rhapsodes, as they were called. Pisistratus, the tyrant or despot of Athens, is said to have been the first person who collected and arranged the poems in

their present form, in order that they might be recited at the great Panathenaic festival at Athens.

Three works have come down to us bearing the name of Hesiod -the "Works and Days,” the "Theogony," and a description of the "Shield of Hercules." Many ancient critics believed the "Works and Days" to be the only genuine work of Hesiod, and their opinion has been adopted by most modern scholars. We learn from this work that Hesiod was a native of Ascra, a village at the foot of Mount Helicon, to which his father had migrated from the Eolian Cyme in Asia Minor. He further tells us that he gained the prize at Chalcis in a poetical contest, and that he was robbed of a fair share of his heritage by the unrighteous decision of judges who had been bribed by his brother Perses. The latter became afterwards reduced in circumstances, and applied to his brother for relief; and it is to him that Hesiod addresses his didactic poem of the "Works and Days," in which he lays down various moral and social maxims for the regulation of his conduct and his life. It contains an interesting representation of the feelings, habits, and superstitions of the rural population of Greece in the earlier ages. Respecting the date of Hesiod nothing certain can be affirmed. Modern writers usually suppose him to have flourished two or three generations later than Homer.

The commencement of Greek lyric poetry as a cultivated species of composition dates from the middle of the seventh century before the Christian era. No important event either in the public or private life of a Greek could dispense with this accompaniment; and the lyric song was equally needed to solemnize the worship of the gods, to cheer the march of battle, or to enliven the festive board. The lyric poetry, with the exception of that of Pindar, has almost entirely perished, and all that we possess of it consists of a few songs and isolated fragments.

The great satirist ARCHILOCHUS was one of the earliest and most celebrated of all the lyric poets. He was a native of the island of Paros, and flourished about the year 700 B.C. His fame rests chiefly on his terrible satires, composed in the Iambic metre in which he gave vent to the bitterness of a disappointed man.

TYRTEUS and ALCMAN were the two great lyric poets of Sparta, though neither of them was a native of Lacedæmon. The personal history of Tyrtæus, and his warlike songs, which roused the fainting courage of the Spartans during the second Messenian war, have already been mentioned (p. 25). Aleman was originally a Lydian slave in a Spartan family, and was emancipated by his master. He lived shortly after the second Messenian war. His cems partake of the character of this period, which was one of