King of Greece

“ When we try to explain the course of Grecian affairs, not from the circumstances of other societies, but from those of the Greeks themselves, we shall see good reason for the discontinuance as well as for the dislike of kingship. Had the Greek mind been as stationary and unimproving as that of the Orientals, the discontent with individual kings might have led to no other change than the deposition of a bad king in favor of one who promised to be better, without ever extending the views of the people to any higher conception than that of a personal government. ”

“ There arose amongst the Greeks a man of extraordinary valour, wisdom, and soldiership, who, from the petty leader of an insurrection, had become the chief of the national armies; and, having succeeded in driving the Russians from his country, was unanimously elected its king. But the independence of Greece did not satisfy the ambition of this conqueror. He knew that the military ardour of his countrymen required to be constantly exercised; and, leaving his kingdom to the wisdom of his counsellors, he led a mighty armament into the enemy’s possessions in Turkey. ”

“ It is important to show that the monarchical institutions and monarchical tendencies prevalent throughout mediæval and modern Europe have been both generated and perpetuated by causes peculiar to those societies, whilst in Hellenic societies such causes had no place,—in order that we may approach Hellenic phenomena in the proper spirit, and with an impartial estimate of the feeling universal among Greeks towards the idea of a king. ”

“ When the news of the victories of Alexander over the Persians reached Greece, great was the amazement. For centuries, the name of the Great King had stood for all that was powerful and invincible. Though he had been driven out of Greece, he was still believed to be omnipotent in Asia. The general feeling was voiced by one of the orators, speaking of what was happening in the Athenian Assembly:
What is there strange and unexpected that has not happened in our time? We have not lived the life of ordinary men, and the things we have seen will become a tale of wonder to posterity. ”

“ The influence of Greek culture had already penetrated the lands of the western Mediterranean when Alexander spread Hellenistic civilization over the near-Eastern world. The Greeks did very well with their religion and their politics as long as they lived in small city-states, but when the Macedonian king dared to expand Greece into an empire, stretching from the Adriatic to the Indus, trouble began. The art and philosophy of Greece were fully equal to the task of imperial expansion, but not so with Greek political administration or religion. ”

“ At the very time that philosophers of the most enterprising benevolence were founding in Greece those institutions which have rendered it the wonder and luminary of the world, am I required to believe that the weak and wicked king of an obscure and barbarous nation, a murderer, a traitor and a tyrant was the man after God's own heart? ”

“ Greece, after long wars, having regained not only peace, but hopes of liberty, and being able once more to keep holiday in safety. A trumpet sounded to command silence; and the crier, stepping forth amidst the spectators, made proclamation, that the Roman senate, and Titus Quintius, the proconsular general, having vanquished king Philip and the Macedonians, restored the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians, Eubœans, Achæans of Phthiotis, Magnetians, Thessalians, and Perrhæbians to their own lands, laws, and liberties ”

“ Eloquence a hundred times has turned the scale of war and peace [Pg 194] at will. The history of Greece is at one time reduced to two persons,—Philip, or the successor of Philip, on one side, and Demosthenes, a private citizen, on the other. If he has a military genius, like Belisarius, or administrative faculty, like Chatham or Bismarck, he is the king's king. If a theologian of deep convictions and strong understanding carries his country with him, like Luther, the state becomes Lutheran, in spite of the Emperor, as Thomas à Becket overpowered the English Henry. Wit has a great charter. ”

“ Finally, the boundaries of the kingdom having been more satisfactorily determined by a treaty between Turkey and the powers in 1832, the crown was conferred on Otho, a Bavarian prince, who arrived at Nauplia, the then capital of Greece, in 1833. Athens became the seat of government in 1835. Says a writer in the British Quarterly, "The Greeks neither elected their own sovereign nor chose their national polity. In a spirit of generous confidence they allowed the three protecting powers to name a king for them, and the powers rewarded them by making the worst selection they could. ”

“ Greece is a constitutional monarchy; hereditary in the male line, or, in case of its extinction, in the female. The sovereign, by decision of the conference of London (August 1863) , is styled “king of the Hellenes”; the title “king Government. of Greece” was borne by King Otho. The heir apparent is styled ὁ διάδοχος, “the successor”; the title “duke of Sparta,” which has been accorded to the crown prince, is not generally employed in Greece. The king and the heir apparent must belong to the Orthodox Greek Church; a special exception has been made for King George, who is a Lutheran. ”

“ The assault on Greece was a twofold one. The [Pg 128] first was defeated by nature, the second by man. A land expedition, led by the Persian general Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont in the year 493 B.C., proposing to march to Athens along the coast, and with orders to bring all that were left alive of its inhabitants as captives to the great king. On marched the great host, nothing doubting that Greece would fall an easy prey to their arms. And as they marched along the land, the fleet followed them along the adjoining sea, until the stormy and perilous promontory of Mount Athos was reached. ”

“ The next important changes in the affairs of Greece were wrought by warriors from the West. In 1081 the Norman, Robert Guiscard, and in 1146 Roger, King of Sicily, conquered portions of the country, including Corinth, Thebes, and Athens; and in the time of the fourth Crusade to the Holy Land (1203) , when Constantinople was captured by Latin princes (1204) , Greece became a prize for some of the most powerful crusading chieftains, under whose rule the courts of Thessaloni'ca, Athens, and the Peloponnesus attained to considerable celebrity even throughout Europe. ”

“ Royalty in Greece is decidedly democratic in its attitude. King George and his sons are frequently to be seen riding about town, much like ordinary citizens. Quite characteristic was an encounter of recent date, in which an American gentleman accosted one whom he found walking in the palace gardens with the inquiry as to what hour would be the best for seeing the royal children. ”

“ On this day, it is fitting that we reflect on the enormous contributions the Greek people have made to the modern world. The legacy of the ancient Greeks, in the fields of philosophy, literature, drama, sculpture, and architecture, continues to influence our beliefs, our values, and our concept of art. And, after more than 2,000 years, the ideology of Greece-as embodied in the concept of democracy-is still the ideal that guides us in charting our course for the future. ”

“ Speaker, more than 2,500 years ago the people of Greece began to formulate the ideas that now serve as the foundation for our system of government, science, philosophy, law, literature, and art. The gift of Greek culture to the world, and the special debt this nation owes to Greece, is priceless. The Greek tradition that began in the mists of time with Homer led to the Golden Age and later to the intellectual and aesthetic enrichment of the Roman Republic and Empire, the European Renaissance, and our own nation's founding principles. ”

“ It is the nobler Hellenic race, with its original genius, its enterprise, its stern and rugged nature, strengthened by toil, and enterprise, and war, that we are now to contemplate. It is Greece—the land of song, of art, of philosophy—the land of heroes and freemen, to which we now turn our eyes—the most interesting, and the most famous of the countries of antiquity. ”

“ The Democracy of Athens was in truth the noblest fruit of that self-developing power of the Greek mind which worked every possession of the common heritage into some new and more brilliant shape, but which learned nothing, nothing of all that formed its real life and its real glory, from the Barbarians of the outer world. Men tell us that Greece learned this or that mechanical invention from Phœnicia or Egypt or Assyria. ”

“ It was under the protection of the old gods, whose fall is about to be consummated, that the Greeks achieved marvellous deeds, nurturing the gifts of the intellect which the Almighty bestowed on their race, like faithful gardeners, and making them bring forth marvellous fruit. In the realm of thought the Greek is sovereign of the nations, and he has given to perishable matter a perfection of form which has elevated and vivified it to immortality. Nothing more beautiful has ever been imagined or executed, before or since, or by any other people, than was produced by Greece in its prime. ”

“ In the middle of the fifth century B.C., Ancient Greek civilization seemed triumphantly vigorous and secure. A generation before, it had flung back the onset of a political power which combined all the momentum of all the other contemporary civilizations in the world; and the victory had proved not merely the superiority of Greek arms—the Spartan spearman and the Athenian galley—but the superior vitality of Greek politics—the self-governing, self-sufficing city-state. ”

“ After nearly 400 years of rule by the Ottomans, Greece declared its independence on March 25, 1821. Long before that, ancient Athenians created a Greek culture that valued human liberty and dignity, and modern Greeks have demonstrated that preserving freedom is a powerful motivating force. ”

“ But the history of Greece is finished. Athens and Sparta, the two great antagonistic types of Greek society, politics, and education, have attained their full development, passed their allotted hour of trial, and touched upon their doom. The shades of night are gathering on the bright day of Hellas. The momentous work of that wonderful people is accomplished; the interest of the great intellectual and moral contest has centred in one man; the last scene of the Phædo has been enacted, and Socrates has died.
The history of Greece is written, and the character of the historian is decided. ”

“ And when, at last, a great state arose in the north of Greece, and placed a monarch upon its throne, who substituted the obedient spirit of the mercenary soldier and crouching courtier, for the independent genius of liberty and patriotism—who overawed Greece by his armies, and silenced the Council of Amphictyon by his presence—then was it found that the days of Grecian greatness had been numbered, and that the glory of these republics was destroyed forever ”

“ A foreign people, appearing just to retain some embers, as it were, some faint remainders of a common character derived to them from their ancient sires, a nation from whom it was a mere wonder that Greece should reap any benefit by word or thought, these are they who have retrieved Greece from her severest dangers and distresses, have rescued her out of the hands of insulting lords and tyrants, and reinstated her in her former liberties. ”

“ The age represents a galaxy of great men: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Socrates, Thucydides, Phidias, Ictinus, and others. Greek government reached its culmination and society had its fullest life in this age. The glory of the period extended on through the Peloponnesian war, and after the Macedonian conquest it gradually waned and the splendor gradually passed from Athens to Alexandria.
Contributions of Greece to Civilization.—It is difficult to enumerate all of the influences of Greece on modern civilization. ”

“ Not only philosophy, literature, and arts flourished as they have never done in any other age, but the political system so stamped characters with individuality that the illustrious men of Greece are types of human greatness, whose deeds and sayings will be engraven on the memory of men so long as the world lasts. If the "coming slavery" gives us such men as Pisistratus, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Lycurgus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Epaminondas, Aristides, or Pericles, we shall, I think, have no cause to complain! But how is it that Greece produced such a bevy of great men? ”

“ The course of things, the change of ideas and of men, threw him more and more out of any forward and prominent place in the affairs of Greece. But his presence in Athens was felt everywhere. There was a man who had given up everything for Greece and sought nothing in return. His blameless unselfishness, his noble elevation of character, were a warning and a rebuke to the faults which have done so much mischief to the progress of the nation; and yet every Greek in Athens knew that no one among them was more jealous of the honour of the nation or more anxious for its good. ”

“ His marvellous patience has been worthy of our utmost admiration, and those who would withhold absolute support from him at this critical juncture are certainly not the friends of Greece. That a country of such majestic tradition—a nation that has played her paramount part in the philosophy and art of the world—should be extinguished in this conflagration would not be the least of the tragedies our eyes may yet see; but the danger still exists, unless a sterner and more comprehensive attitude be taken to save Greece from herself and the ruler who is still permitted to occupy her throne. ”