The Historians' History of the World 04

They summoned Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, promising him the support of the Lucanians and Samnites. An account of his exploits and death has previously been given.

[272-216 B.C.]

All the natives of southern Italy who had greeted Pyrrhus as a saviour, were finally subdued to Roman rule. It was the rescue of the Greek towns which were still in existence, but they were only shadows of their former selves. Although free under the protection of Rome, they vanished obscurely from history. In the time of Strabo the name of Magna Græcia was already an ancient recollection, and the Greek language was only spoken at Naples, Rhegium, and Tarentum. For want of federal union between the autonomous cities, the Hellenic race with its brilliant civilisation had disappeared gradually from Italian soil. The Romans were about to reap its inheritance and transmit it to Gaul and Spain. They repeopled some of the former Greek colonies which had become barbarous, especially Posidonia and Hipponium, which had long been inhabited, the latter by the Campanians, the former by the Bruttians, and which had changed their Greek names for those of Pæstum and Vibo-Valentia.

The Roman peace did not restore to the Greek towns of Italy the glory which had radiated from their art and literature during the stormy period of their political independence. The innumerable painted vases which are admired in our museums, and the coins of infinite variety suffice to mark their place in the history of civilisation. Not rich Tarentum only, but towns of no importance, Terina, Velia, Metapontum, Heraclea in Lucania, made coins of inimitable perfection. The production of these works of art ceased abruptly with that communal autonomy of which the coin was the visible symbol. In 268, Rome, who, till then, had only had moulded copper coinage, for the first time made silver coins, and at the same time withdrew the right of coining from all her Italian subjects. Few laws have been more disastrous to art.

The beautiful iconic coins of King Hiero and his wife, Queen Philistis, mark the last period of Sicilian autonomy. After a victory gained over the Mamertines of Messana, Hiero was proclaimed king by the Syracusans who no longer felt capable of supporting the disturbances of freedom (269). On leaving Sicily Pyrrhus had said: “What a fine battle-field we leave the Romans and Carthaginians!” The fulfilment of this prophecy was not delayed, and the First Punic War, which broke out in 263, had Sicily for a stage. At the beginning Hiero, the ally of Carthage, was defeated by the Romans, and passed over to their side. His reign, a long and peaceful one, was a transition for the Syracusans between their stormy autonomy and the inevitable dominion of Rome.b

GREECE

Clime of the unforgotten brave!

Whose land from plain to mountain-cave

Was Freedom’s home or Glory’s grave!

Shrine of the mighty! can it be

That this is all remains of thee?

Approach, thou craven, crouching slave;

Say, is not this Thermopylæ?

These waters blue that round you lave,

O servile offspring of the free,

Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?

The gulf, the rock of Salamis!

These scenes, their story not unknown,

Arise and make again your own;

Snatch from the ashes of your sires

The embers of their former fires;

And he who in the strife expires

Will add to theirs a name of fear

That Tyranny shall quake to hear,

And leave his sons a hope, a fame,

They too will rather die than shame;

For Freedom’s battle once begun,

Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,

Though baffled oft is ever won.

Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,

Attest it, many a deathless age:

While kings, in dusty darkness hid,

Have left a nameless pyramid,

Thy heroes, though the general doom

Have swept the column from their tomb,

A mightier monument command,

The mountains of their native land!

There points thy muse to stranger’s eye

The graves of those that cannot die!

’Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,

Each step from splendour to disgrace:

Enough,—no foreign foe could quell

Thy soul, till from itself it fell;

Yes! self-abasement paved the way

To villain-bonds and despot sway.

—Byron; The Giaour.

CONCLUDING SUMMARY

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HELLENIC SPIRIT

Written Specially for the Present Work

By DR. ULRICH von WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORFF

Professor of Classical Philology in the University of Berlin, etc.