Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading. George Park Fisher
Syria, he saved his kingdom; but his own subjects were rebellious and disaffected. Ptolemy VI. (Philometor) (181–148 B.C.) was a boy at his accession. His guardians engaged in war with Syria, which would have conquered Egypt but for the interposition of the Romans in his behalf (170 B.C.).
II. MACEDON AND GREECE.
When Alexander was in the far East, the Spartan king, Agis III. (330 B.C.), headed a revolt against Antipater; but Agis was vanquished and slain. The death of Alexander kindled the hope of regaining liberty among patriotic Greeks. Athens, under Demosthenes and Hyperides, led the way. A large confederacy was formed. Leosthenes, the Greek commander, defeated Antipater, and shut him up within the walls of Lamia (in Thessaly). But the Greeks were finally beaten at Crannon. Favorable terms were granted to their cities, except Athens and Aetolia. Twenty-one thousand citizens were deported from Athens to Thrace, Italy, and other places. The nine thousand richest citizens, with Phocion at their head, the anti-democratic party, had all power left in their hands. Demosthenes, Hyperides, and other democratic leaders, were proscribed. Demosthenes took refuge in the temple of Neptune, on the little island of Calaurea. Finding himself pursued by Archias, the officer of Antipater, he took poison, which he had kept by him in a quill, and died. Thus closed the life of an intrepid statesman who had served the cause of liberty and of his country through the direst perils and trials with unfaltering constancy. The democracy again acquired power temporarily, and Phocion was condemned to death.
Cassander, excluded from the Macedonian throne by his father, Antipater, supplanted Polysperchon, the regent (316 B.C.). He placed Demetrius of Phaleron in power at Athens over a democracy with restricted prerogatives. He was driven out by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who was helped by Athens to possess himself of Macedonia and of the most of Greece, but was compelled (287 B.C.) to give up his throne, which, however, was gained by his son, Antigonus Gonatas (277 B.C.).
THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE.—In 279 B.C., there occurred an irruption of the Gauls into Greece, "one of those vast waves of migration which from time to time sweep over the world." The Macedonian king, Ptolemy Ceraunus, was defeated by them in a great battle, captured, and put to death. It was two years before these marauders were driven out, and Macedonia acquired a settled government. This episode in history favored the growth of two leagues—the Achaean League and the Aetolian League. In these leagues the several cities gave up to the central council much more power than Greek cities had been in the habit of granting in former unions. The Achaean League was at first made up of ten Achaean cities. About 240 B.C. Aratus of Sicyon, who had brought Sicyon into the league, delivered Corinth from the Macedonians. To free Greek cities from subjection to them, was long a great object of the league. Peloponnesus, except Sparta, with Athens and Aegina, joined it.
THE AETOLIAN LEAGUE: WAR OF THE LEAGUES.—The rough Aetolians north of the Corinthian Gulf, semi-barbarous in their mode of life, formed another league, and got command of Phocis, Locris, and Boeotia. A praiseworthy attempt at reform was made in Sparta by the king, Agis IV. (240 B.C.), who was opposed by the rich, and put to death. Cleomenes, his successor, who had the same spirit as Agis, engaged in conflict with the Achaean League, which then called in Macedonian help (223 B.C.). It had to give up to Macedon the Corinthian citadel. Sparta was overthrown. Soon a war between the two leagues broke out, when the Achaeans again called on the Macedonians for aid. These conflicts were followed by the interference of the Romans.
THE EVIL OF FACTION.—The bane of Greece, from the beginning to the end of its history, was the suicidal spirit of disunion. Her power was splintered at many crises, when, if united, it might have saved the land from foreign tyranny. Her resources were drained, generation after generation, by needless local contests. She owed her downfall to the desolating influence of faction.
III. THE SYRIAN KINGDOM.
Seleucus I. (Nicator) (312–280 B.C.) was the founder of the Syrian kingdom. From Babylon he extended his dominion to the Black Sea, to the Jaxartes, and even to the Ganges, so far as to make the Indian prince, Sandracottus, acknowledge him as suzerain. From Babylon he removed his capital to Antioch on the Orontes, which he founded—a city destined to be the rival of Alexandria among the cities of the East. The effect of this removal, however, was to loosen his hold upon the Eastern provinces of his empire. Seleucia, on the west bank of the Tigris, he likewise founded, which became a great commercial city, but was outstripped later by the Parthian city opposite, Ctesiphon. The provinces beyond the Euphrates he committed to his son, Antiochus. With him (Antiochus I.) begins the decline of the empire through the influence of Oriental luxury and vice. Under him Syria lost the eastern part of Asia Minor through the invading Gauls, who converted northern Phrygia into Galatia, while north-western Lydia became the kingdom of Pergamon. Antiochus II. (261–246 B.C.) could not hold the provinces in subjection. The Parthian and Bactrian kingdoms began under his reign. Antiochus III. (the Great) (223–1876.0.) checked the Parthians and Bactrians, and expelled the Egyptians from Asia, but prepared for the downfall of the Syrian Empire by provoking the hostility of the Romans.
BACTRIA, PARTHIA, PERGAMON, GALATIA.—Bactria, after it broke off from Syria, was under Greek princes until, having been weakened by the Parthians, it was conquered by the Scythians (134 B.C.). The Parthians issued, as marauders, from the north border of Iran (256 B.C.), under the Arsacidae. They gradually acquired civilization from contact with Greek culture, especially after they established the trading-city of Ctesiphon. About 200 B.C. the rulers of Pontus made the Greek city of Sinope their residence, and attained to a high degree of strength under Mithridates VI. (the Great). Pergamon became a flourishing state under the Greek rule of Attalus I. (241 B.C.). It was famed for its wealth and its trade. Eumenes II. (197–159 B.C.) founded the library at Pergamon. For him parchment was improved, if not invented, the Egyptians having forbidden the exportation of papyrus. Galatia was so named from the swarm of Gallic invaders (about 279 B.C.), who, after incursions in the East, which were continued for forty years, settled there, and by degrees yielded to the influences of Greek culture.
PALESTINE: THE MACCABEES: THE IDUMAEAN PRINCES.—Palestine fared comparatively well in the times when the Ptolemies had control. Not so after it fell under the permanent sway of Syria. The Jews were surrounded and invaded by Gentilism. On three sides, there were Greek cities. The perils to which their religion was exposed by the heathen without, and by a lukewarm party within, made earnest Jews, the bulk of the people, more inflexible in their adherence to their law and customs. The party of the Pharisees grew out of the intensity of the loyal and patriotic feeling which was engendered in the periods following the exile. The synagogues, centers of worship and of instruction scattered over the land, acted as a bulwark against the intrusion of heathen doctrine and heathen practices. The resistance to these dreaded evils came to a head when the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, embittered by his failures in conflict with Egypt, resolved to break down religious barriers among his subjects, and, for this end, to exterminate Jewish worship. In 168 B.C. he set up an altar to Jupiter in the temple at Jerusalem, and even compelled Jewish priests to immolate swine. Then the revolt broke out in which the family of Maccabees were the heroic leaders. Judas Maccabees recovered the temple, but fell in battle (160. B.C.). Under his brother Simon, victory was achieved, and the independence of the nation secured. The chief power remained in the hands of this family, the Asmonaean princes, until their degeneracy paved the way for Roman intervention under Pompeius. His adviser was the Idumeaean, Antipater, a Jewish proselyte, whose son Herod was made king (39 B.C.).
PHILOSOPHY: THE STOICS AND THE EPICUREANS.—In the Greek world the progress of investigation and reflection tended to produce disbelief in the old mythological system. Social confusion and degeneracy tended to undermine all religious faith. Pyrrho (about 330 B.C.) brought