Mattathias

“ But as soon as he had ended his speech, there came one of the Jews into the midst of them, and sacrificed, as Antiochus had commanded. At which Mattathias had great indignation, and ran upon him violently, with his sons, who had swords with them, and slew both the man himself that sacrificed, and Apelles the king's general, who compelled them to sacrifice, with a few of his soldiers. He also overthrew the idol altar, and cried out, "If," said he," any one be zealous for the laws of his country, and for the worship of God, let him follow me." ”

“ There is no hope for our people in this alliance with those who destroy our altars. God has brought to confusion and shame and destruction those of us who have consented to worship their false gods. He saves only His true people. Our hope is in the sons of Mattathias. ”

“ Many Jews fled from their own towns and villages into the uninhabited wilderness, in order that they might have liberty to worship the God of their fathers; but a few conformed to the ordinances of Antiochus. Soon, however, open resistance to the decrees of the pagan ruler began to manifest itself among the faithful.
The first protest in the shape of active opposition was made by Mattathias, a priest living at Modin. When the servants of Antiochus came to that retired village and commanded Mattathias to do sacrifice to the heathen gods, he refused ”

“ If injustice has been done to any of the real characters involved, Antiochus Epiphanes, Mattathias and his five sons, the priest Menelaos, or the various generals commanding the hosts overthrown by the heroic patriots, the writer is prepared to make the personal amende honorable if he should ever meet them in the shades. ”

“ In their misery the Greeks appeal to their soothsayer Calchas, to divine for them the cause of the god’s displeasure. The Mantis or soothsayer, whose skill was in most cases supposed to be hereditary, accompanied a Greek force on all its expeditions; and no prudent general would risk a battle, or engage in any important enterprise, without first ascertaining from this authority the will of the gods, as shadowed out in certain appearances of the sacrifice, or some peculiarity in the flight of birds, or some phenomena of the heavens. ”

“ Mantitheus, the son of Mantias, brings an action against his half-brother Bœotus for having got himself registered as Mantitheus. Bœotus was the son of Mantias by a mistress, herself an Athenian citizen, and so capable, according to Athenian law, of transmitting citizenship to her offspring. Every citizen's child was enrolled or registered on the citizen-list at an early age, and then again subsequently on reaching manhood. ”

“ Taken collectively, the case of Mitylênê presented a revolt as inexcusable and aggravated as any revolt could be: and we have only to read the grounds of it, as set forth by the Mitylenæan speakers themselves before the Peloponnesians at Olympia, to be satisfied that such a proceeding, when looked at from the Athenian point of view, would be supposed to justify, and even to require, the very highest pitch of indignation. The Mitylenæans admit, not only that they have no ground of complaint against Athens, but that they have been well and honorably treated by her, with special privilege. ”

“ Informed of this by the Eresians and the Chian ships, which had been left with Eubulus at Methymna, and had fled upon the capture of Mitylene, and three of which he now fell in with, one having been taken by the Athenians, Astyochus did not go on to Mitylene, but raised and armed Eresus, and, sending the heavy infantry from his own ships by land under Eteonicus to Antissa and Methymna, himself proceeded alongshore thither with the ships which he had with him and with the three Chians, in the hope that the Methymnians upon seeing them would be encouraged to persevere in their revolt. ”

“ As for Zeus and his strange act in swallowing Metis when she was about to give birth to Athena, two quite distinct motives are attributed to him. First, that which we have met with before. ‘He was determined that none but himself should have the king’s rank, βασιληίδα τιμήν, over the immortals. He had heard an oracle that Metis was destined to give birth to’—one expects the motive of the Marriage of Thetis—‘a child who should be mightier than his father.’ But it is not quite so simple; for Athena was the child of Metis, and she was obviously not mightier than Zeus. ”

“ Miltiades falls into Disgrace.—The distinguished services Miltiades had rendered his country, made him the hero of the hour at Athens. Taking advantage of the public feeling in his favor, he persuaded the Athenians to put in his hands a fleet for an enterprise respecting the nature of which no one save himself was to know anything whatever. Of course it was generally supposed that he meditated an attack upon the Persians or their allies, and with full faith in the judgment as well as in the integrity of their favorite, the Athenians gave him the command he asked. ”

“ Miltiades, immediately on his return to Athens, was impeached by his democratic enemies for "tyranny" in his colony; but, having cleared his character, he was at once appointed one of the ten Athenian generals, of whom Callimachus, the polemarch, or minister of war, was another. They could not have been much more than colonels, except on the days when they held the command in rotation; an arrangement which, to our English notions, would be fatal to the success of any great enterprise. The Athenians were as fond of decimals as the Persians of the number seven. ”

“ Miltiades unhappily died. But nature slew him, not the Athenian people. And it cannot be said with greater justice of the Athenians, than of a people no less illustrious, and who are now their judges, that it was their custom “de tuer en amiral pour encourager les autres.” ”

“ There can be no doubt that the rapid transition, in the course of about one week, from Athenian terror before the battle to Athenian exultation after it, must have produced demonstrations toward Miltiades such as were never paid to any other man in the whole history of the commonwealth. ”

“ The Olympiacus (388 B.C.) is a brilliant fragment, expressing the spirit of the festival at Olympia, and exhorting Greeks to unite against their common foes. The Plea for the Constitution (403 B.C.) is interesting for the manner in which it argues that the wellbeing of Athens—now stripped of empire—is bound up with the maintenance of democratic principles. The speech For Mantitheus (392 B.C.) is a graceful and animated portrait of a young Athenian ἱππεύς, making a spirited defence of his honour against the charge of disloyalty. The defence For the Invalid is a humorous character-sketch. ”

“ Miltiades was, according to Herodotus, expelled by Scythian invaders, but was brought back by the Doloncians, and subsequently captured Lemnos and Imbros for Athens from the so-called Pelasgian inhabitants, who were Persian dependents. Having thus (probably) incurred the enmity of Darius, Miltiades fled to Athens on the approach of the Persians under Datis and Artaphernes, leaving his son Metiochus a prisoner in Persian hands, and was at once impeached unsuccessfully on the charge of tyranny in the Chersonese. ”

“ Departing, they passed through Phocis and Bœotia without being offered entertainment by any person; then entering Attica, they passed the house of Miltiades, son of Cypselus, an Athenian of the noblest extraction, being descended from the heroes Æacus and the Salaminian Ajax, whose son Philæus became an Athenian citizen, and founded the family of which we speak. Miltiades was sitting in his porch, and observing persons in a foreign dress pass by, bearing lances in their hands, a practice long disused by the Athenians, he called to them, and offered them refreshment and rest. ”

“ He had done his best to keep the ruby—and he had failed.
"Motor Matt," returned Grattan, "a heathen temple is no place for such a jewel as this. In the Honan joss house it benefits no one. When I sell it, it will benefit me a great deal, and Bunce a little."
"And me," put in Pardo. "Don't forget that I stand in on the divvy."
"And Pardo," added Grattan.
"And Tsan Ti must strangle himself with the yellow cord," said Matt.
"If that is his will, yes. I have no patience with these pagan superstitions. A heathen, who lives by them, cannot let them shuffle him out of the world too quickly. ”

“ The idea of light being closely connected with childbirth, whereby the infant is brought into the light of the world, she came to be regarded as a double of Juno, and was identified by the Greeks with Eilithyia. Matuta had a temple in Rome in the Forum Boarium, where the festival of Matralia was celebrated on the 11th of June. Only married women were admitted, and none who had been married more than once were allowed to crown her image with garlands. ”

“ It was a circumstance of great value to the Athenians that there was a man amongst them who was familiar with the Persian tactics. This was Miltiades, the son of Kimon. ... Although a Thracian prince, he had never ceased to be a citizen of Athens. Here he was impeached for having held a tyranny, but was acquitted and chosen strategus, for the democracy could not reject a man who was so admirably qualified to be at their head in the interchange of hostilities with Persia. Miltiades was conducting his own personal quarrel in undertaking the defence of Attica. ”

“ Six thousand four hundred men fell on the Persian side, and only one hundred and ninety-two on the Athenian. The Persians, though defeated, still retained their ships, and sailed toward Cape Sunium, with a view of another descent upon Attica. Miltiades, the victor in the most glorious battle ever till then fought in Greece, penetrated the designs of the Persians, and rapidly retreated to Athens on the very day of battle. Datis arrived at the port of Phalerum to discover that his plans were baffled, and that the Athenians were still ready to oppose him. ”

“ And having set out from the city of Cardia he was sailing through the gulf of Melas; and as he passed along by the shore of the Chersonese, the Phenicians fell in with his ships, and while Miltiades himself with four of his ships escaped to Imbros, the fifth of his ships was captured in the pursuit by the Phenicians. Of this ship it chanced that Metiochos the eldest of the sons of Miltiades was in command, not born of the daughter of Oloros the Thracian, but of another woman. ”

“ But so large a breadth of ground could not be occupied with a small a number of men without weakening some portion of the line. Miltiades, therefore, drew up the troops in the centre in shallow files, and resolved to rely for success upon the stronger and deeper masses of his wings. The right wing, which was the post of honour in a Grecian army, was commanded by the Polemarch Callimachus; the hoplites were arranged in the order of their tribes, so that the members of the same tribe fought by each other's side ”

“ Meantime the Athenians had marched to Marathon, and were encamped upon the mountains which surrounded the plain. They were commanded, according to the regular custom, by ten generals, one for each tribe, and by the Polemarch, or third Archon, who down to this time continued to be a colleague of the generals. Among these the most distinguished was Miltiades, who, though but lately a tyrant in the Chersonesus, had shown such energy and ability, that the Athenians had elected him one of their commanders upon the approach of the Persian fleet. ”

“ Wishing, for instance, to insist on the cruelty of Antigonus and the Macedonians and also on that of Aratus the Achaeans, he tells us that the Mantineans, when they surrendered, were exposed to terrible sufferings and that such were the misfortunes that overtook this, the most ancient and greatest city in Arcadia, as to impress deeply and move to tears all the Greeks. ”

“ We have seen that the population of Melite, the worshippers of Herakles [330] , were probably foreigners, and that at one time there [152] was a shift of these Herakles worshippers from Melite to Diomeia. Is it not possible that the two facts are connected? Plutarch leaves us in mid-air as to the time and cause of the metastasis, but be it observed the shift is from Melite, a district outside the old burgh, to Diomeia, a district, at least in part, outside the new. May it not have been felt when the new circuit-wall of Themistocles was complete that it comprised too many foreigners? ”

“ No more do all the Athenians inhabit in the boroughs or tribe Colyttus; nor the Corinthians in the street Cranium; nor yet the Lacedaemonians in the village Pytane: are those Athenians then to be counted strangers, and not inhabitants of the city, who have removed out of Melite into Diomea: considering that even there they do solemnise yet the month of their transmigration named thereupon Metageitnion ”

“ In my opinion, the Greek word metanoia concealed a most profound meaning—a meaning of prodigious compass—which bore no allusion to any ideas whatever of repentance. The meta carried with it an emphatic expression of its original idea—the idea of transfer, of translation, of transformation; or, if we prefer a Grecian to a Roman apparelling, the idea of a metamorphosis. ”

“ Matthew remained twenty-three years in Egypt and Ethiopia, and it is said that he perished in the ninetieth year of our era, under Domitian: but the manner of his death is uncertain; according to the Greek legend, he died in peace, but according to the tradition of the Western Church, he suffered martyrdom either by the sword or the spear. ”