Kingdom of Greece

“ Now because the Greek communities lived in the plains, separated from each other by mountains, instead of forming one large kingdom, they formed a great many small ones. There was in ancient times no King of Greece, but Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and countless other cities had their own independent forms of government, their own rulers, their own armies, their own ships, and except that they were all Greek and were all bound together by ties of language and religion, they were quite independent of each other. ”

“ The people of the Ionian Islands were eager to be allowed to enter into one system with the kingdom of Greece. It was idle to try to amuse them by telling them they constituted an independent republic, and were actually governing themselves, ... while they saw themselves presided over by an English Lord High Commissioner who was also the Commander-in-Chief of a goodly British army garrisoned in their midst. ... It is certain that they got a great deal of material benefit from the presence of the energetic road-making British power. But they wanted to be, above all things, Greek. ”

“ It is not, therefore, surprising that false ideas of the state of Greece have prevailed, or indeed that they still continue to prevail, even among the foreigners long resident in the new Greek kingdom. The military operations of the Greeks, both at sea and on shore, were remarkable, not only for a total want of all scientific knowledge, but also for the absence of every shadow of discipline, and the first elements of order and subordination. ”

“ Unquestionably, therefore, there exists much in the condition of the Greek nation, and in the character of the people, which has been completely misunderstood by foreigners. Nor do we entertain any hope of seeing the affairs of Greece placed on a better footing, until the Greeks themselves collect and publish detailed information concerning the statistics and the administration of the kingdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Greeks were not again a free people until the nineteenth century of our era. In 1821 A.D. they rose against their Turkish masters in a glorious struggle for liberty. Eight years later the powers of Europe forced the Sultan to recognize the freedom of Greece. That country then became an independent kingdom, with its capital at Athens.
[12] See pages 39-40 and 104.
[13] In 133 B.C. there were eight provinces—Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Hither Spain, Farther Spain, Illyricum, Africa, Macedonia, and Asia. See the map facing page 184. ”

“ Greece is certainly the most daring little kingdom!
Far from being alarmed by the message sent her from the Powers, she has replied that it is impossible for her to withdraw her troops from Crete. She states that her object in sending them there was to restore peace, and as serious troubles still exist in the island, she cannot comply with the request of the Powers. ”

“ The elements of union of which we have been speaking only bound the Greeks together in common feelings and sentiments: they never produced any political union. The independent sovereignty of each city was a fundamental notion in the Greek mind. This strongly rooted feeling deserves particular notice. Careless readers of history are tempted to suppose that the territory of Greece was divided among comparatively small number of independent states, such as Attica, Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, and the like ”

“ Almost necessarily, in a country marked with such features so strongly, the Greeks became divided politically into small independent states--city-states they have been named--and those on the sea-coast became engaged very early in trade with other countries of the Mediterranean Sea. Every city of importance in Greece was entirely sovereign in the government of itself and of the surrounding territory which formed its domain. The stronger among them extended their dominion over some of the weaker or less valiant ones; but even then the subject cities kept a considerable measure of independence. ”

“ The ideas and ideals of the ancient Greeks altered the course of human history, from our own American Republic to the modern Greek state and many other nations. All those who believe in the refrain "liberty and justice for all," and who are devoted to democracy and rule of law, owe a debt of gratitude to Greece and the foundational principles that took root in the ancient city-state of Athens. ”

“ It is one of history's great ironies that Greece, the birthplace of democracy, was subject for centuries to foreign domination, culminating in almost four hundred years of political suppression by the Ottoman Empire. The Greeks' age-old love of liberty remain strong, however, and in 1821, Greece began its successful struggle for self-determination. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 little more than half a century of independence, the Hellenic spirit devotes a larger percentage of public revenue to purposes of instruction than France, Italy, England, Germany, or even the United States. Modern Greece, sixty years ago a slave and a beggar, to-day, by the confession of the most merciless statisticians, stands at the head of the list of self-educated nations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the period after the Persian war two great powers arose in Greece, which were destined to come into close and virulent conflict. These were the league of Delos, which developed into the empire of Athens, and the Peloponnesian confederacy, under the leadership of Sparta. The first of these was mainly an island empire, the second a mainland league; the first a group of democratic, the second one of aristocratic, states; the first a power with dominion over the seas, the second a power whose strength lay in its army. ”

“ Therefore, from the time when the King came of age, and for several years afterward, the English Government stood in this position in Greece with regard to its government—that we alone were anxious for the fulfilment of the engagement of the King, while all the other Powers who were represented at Athens were averse to its being made good, or at least were not equally desirous of urging it upon the King of Greece. ”

“ Nothing so impresses the visitor to Greece—not the waters of the Ægean sea, with their myriad hues; not the Acropolis, eloquent with ruins; not even the lovely site of Athens itself—as the part which little Greece has played in the instruction of the world. With an area of less than twenty-five thousand square miles, not half of which is productive, and with a population of less than two and a half millions, this diminutive nation has a history without a parallel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Government of Greece is waiting with the utmost impatience for the most zealous defender of the nation's liberty. It hopes to see you in its midst as soon as possible after your arrival at Hydra, and then to make you acquainted with the actual state of Greece, and to furnish you with all the means in its power for the achievement of the grand results proposed by your lordship. ”

“ Sparta was the only state in Greece which continued to retain the kingly form of government during the brilliant period of Grecian history. In all other parts of Greece royalty had been abolished at as early age, and various forms of republican government established in its stead. The abolition of royalty was first followed by an Oligarchy or the government of the Few. Democracy, or the government of the Many, was of later growth. ”

“ The nature of the country had ... a powerful effect on the development of Greek politics. The whole land was broken up by mountains into a number of valleys more or less isolated; there was no central point from which a powerful monarch could control it. Hence Greece was, above all other countries, the home of independence and freedom. Each valley, and even the various hamlets of a valley, felt themselves possessed of a separate life, which they were jealous to preserve. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Hardly anything is told either false or true of Greece for three hundred years after this time, and when something more like history begins we find that all Greece, small as it is, was divided into very small states, each of which had a chief city and a government of its own, and was generally shut in from its neighbours by mountains or by sea. ”

“ As a matter of fact and practice, it is true that stronger states, in Greece and in the contemporary world, did habitually tend, as they have tended throughout the course of history down to the present day, to enlarge their power at the expense of the weaker. Every territory in Greece, except Attica and Arcadia, had been seized by conquerors who dispossessed or enslaved the prior inhabitants. ”

“ But Greece, as she stands, is as near a republic as a country with a sovereign can be. Suffrage is universal; there is no aristocracy; there are no hereditary titles, no entailed estates; the liberty of the press is untrammelled; education is free. Everywhere the people are ardently patriotic; they are actively, and one may say almost dangerously, interested in everything that pertains to the political condition of their country. This interest is quickened by their acute intellects. I have never seen faces more sharply intelligent than those of the Greek men of to-day. ”

“ The history of Greek civilization may be divided into two periods. The first lasted until the days of Alexander; it included the early experiments made by Greek states in the art of governing themselves, the repulse of the Barbarian, the great days of Athens, the disastrous Peloponnesian War. Through all this period Greece was learning how to do things. She was in the making and was creating what was to live as long as men should love what was great, but she was living for herself. ”

“ The real meaning of the Truce was that Athens gave up her ambition to establish a land empire, and was henceforth to be content with supremacy on the seas. It meant further that Greece was to remain a house divided against itself; that democratic Athens must share with aristocratic Sparta the hegemony, or leadership, of the Hellenic cities. ”