Paeonians

“ They have resolved to demand the restitution of Pagasae, and have prevented his fortifying Magnesia; and I was told, they would no longer allow him to take the revenue of their harbors and markets, which they say should be applied to the public business of Thessaly, not received by Philip. Now, if he be deprived of this fund, his means will be much straitened for paying his mercenaries. And surely we must suppose, that Paeonians and Illyrians, and all such people, would rather be free and independent than under subjection; for they are unused to obedience, and the man is a tyrant. ”

“ But what remains to tell is far more awe-inspiring. And perhaps, since I have undertaken to record, as far as possible, all that you accomplished, it is not fair to break off my narrative at the point where you were at the very height of your activity. For even while you were occupied by the interests I have just described, you arranged your affairs in Europe, despatching embassies, spending money, and sending out the legions that were garrisoning Paeonia against the Scythians, all of which was with the intention of preventing that feeble old man [50] from being overpowered by the usurper. ”

“ But whatever laws are necessary for the maintenance of order, the repression of violence, of crimes against person and the State and the general material welfare of society, are found in Pagan as well as in Christian States; and the natural affections,--of paternal and filial love, friendship, patriotism, generosity, etc.,--while strengthened by Christianity, are also an inalienable part of the God-given heritage of all mankind. We see many heroic traits, many manly virtues, many domestic amenities, and many exalted sentiments in pagan Greece, even if these were not taught by priests or sages. ”

“ Even when the Roman Empire was at its greatest point of power and wealth, the actual founders of the Holy Roman Empire were at work in Rome itself, in the persons of the Christian Fathers; for, after all, it was the Church that was to rule the world once swayed by Roman legions. The men who, as representatives of Christ, were later to tame the barbarians, really laid the foundations for the future greatness of Christian Rome, amid258 the very luxury and opulence of the pagan Rome soon to pass away. ”

“ Phaeneas hardly allowed the Roman to finish his sentence before he replied: "We have not surrendered ourselves into slavery, but to your protection and good faith, and I am quite sure that it is because you do not know us that you lay upon us commands which are opposed to the usage of the Greeks." To this the consul retorted: "No, I do not trouble myself much as to what the Aetolians consider the usage of the Greeks as long as I follow the usage of the Romans and impose my commands on those who, after being vanquished by force of arms, have just surrendered by their own formal decree. ”

“ The only alternative is the policy that you have yourself pursued, I mean of doing good to all men and imitating the divine nature on earth. To show mercy even in anger, to take away their harshness from acts of vengeance, to display kindness and toleration to your fallen enemies, this was your practice, this you always commended and enjoined on others to imitate, and thus, even while the usurper still controlled Italy, you transferred Rome to Paeonia by means of the Senate and inspired the cities with zeal for undertaking public services. ”

“ Whether the cradle of the race was in India and spread from there throughout Europe, or whether the original habitat was Central Europe, the fact remains that the earliest records of the civilization of all of the races from the Indians and Aryans in Asia to the Celts, Teutons, Hellenes, Goths, and Italians indicate that they were a pastoral rather than an agricultural people and that while the family was the unit, the father was undoubtedly the supreme power that later marked the pater familias in Rome. ”

“ Nor indeed is it merely the Greek and Latin Churches which utter themselves here, but Greece and Rome in their deepest distinctions, as these existed from their earliest times. The key to the whole history, Pagan as well as Christian, of each is in these words. We can understand how the one established a dominion in the region of the mind which shall never be overthrown, the other founded an empire in the world whose visible effects shall never be done away. ”

“ The Phaeacians hold this city and land, and I am the daughter of Alcinous, great of heart, on whom all the might and force of the Phaeacians depend.' [Pg 138]
Thus she spake, and called to her maidens of the fair tresses: 'Halt, my maidens, whither flee ye at the sight of a man? Ye surely do not take him for an enemy? That mortal breathes not, and never will be born, who shall come with war to the land of the Phaeacians, for they are very dear to the gods. Far apart we live in the wash of the waves, the outermost of men, and no other mortals are conversant with us. ”

“ I began to think that logic had never been taught in Pavia, either at the university or elsewhere. I had met a porter who thought that because a man was half an Englishman he should be called a Greek, and I had met a guide who spelled his name with a Greek letter because his father had killed a man in a wine-shop. ”

“ China had its familiar sages, peaceful grandfathers who taught civic morality to working people and emperors. Greece had her philosophers, who in their shady porticos contrived harmonious systems and dialectic pitfalls. Rome had its lawgivers who recorded on bronze for the peoples and the centuries the rules of the highest justice attainable to those who command and possess. The Middle Ages had their preachers, who wore themselves out in the effort to arouse drowsy Christianity to a remembrance of the Passion and the terror of Hell. The Jewish people had the Prophets. ”

“ POLYAENUS, a Macedonian, who lived at Rome as a rhetorician and pleader in the 2nd century A.D. When the Parthian War (162–5) broke out, Polyaenus, too old to share in the campaign, dedicated to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus a work, still extant, called Strategica or Strategemata, a historical collection of stratagems and maxims of strategy written in Greek and strung together in the form of anecdotes. It is not strictly confined to warlike stratagems, but includes also examples of wisdom, courage and cunning drawn from civil and political life. ”

“ They never so much as thought of attempting Sicily, Sardinia, or Libya: and as to Europe, to speak the plain truth, they never even knew of the most warlike tribes of the West. The Roman conquest, on the other hand, was not partial. Nearly the whole inhabited world was reduced by them to obedience: and they left behind them an empire not to be paralleled in the past or rivalled in the future. Students will gain from my narrative a clearer view of the whole story, and of the numerous and important advantages which such exact record of events offers. ”

“ Faithful to this command, invulnerable as inhabitants of Hell, marked like Cain, immortal as hypocrisy and cruelty, they have survived all the empires and all the overthrows of empire. With different faces, with different garments, with different rules and pretexts, they have covered the face of the earth, stubborn and prolific, up to the present day. ”

“ Paeans were sung at the festivals of Apollo (especially the Hyacinthia) , at banquets, and later even at public funerals. In later times they were addressed not only to the gods, but to human beings. In this manner the Rhodians celebrated Ptolemy I. of Egypt, the Samians Lysander of Sparta, the Athenians Demetrius, the Delphians Craterus of Macedon. The word “paean” is now used in the sense of any song of joy or triumph.
See A. Fairbanks, “A Study of the Greek Paean.” No. ”

“ We can scarcely give the name of patriotism to the devotion of a tribe to its chief, or to the bitter hatred of one race for another; and these feelings come out predominantly in the history of the Middle Ages. The gentlemen of Aquitaine, who so largely contributed to win the battle of Poitiers, were fighting against what we should now consider France, and were certainly not fighting for England, but for an English king, who had claims upon their allegiance, and whom they renounced when his yoke proved burdensome. ”

“ The Armenians, our ancient allies, revolted, [19] and no small part of them went over to the Persians and overran and raided the country on their borders. In this crisis there seemed to be but one hope of safety, that you should take charge of affairs and plan the campaign, but at the moment this was impossible, because you were in Paeonia [32] making treaties with your brothers. Thither you went in person, and so managed that you gave them no opening for criticism. Indeed, I almost forgot to mention the very first of your achievements, the noblest of all, or at any rate equal to the noblest. ”

“ By the assistance of some rudely constructed machinery, the heavily laden basket was now carefully lowered down among the multitude; and, from the giddy pinnacle, the Romans were seen gathering confusedly round it; but owing to the vast height and the prevalence of a fog, no distinct view of their operations could be obtained.
Half an hour had already elapsed.
"We shall be too late!" sighed the Pharisee, as at the expiration of this period, he looked over into the abyss- "we shall be too late! we shall be turned out of office by the Katholim." ”

“ Each pagus had its own sacred rites, and an annual festival called Paganalia. The pagani, or inhabitants of the pagi, had their regular meetings, at which they passed resolutions. The division of the country-people into pagi continued to the latest times of the Roman empire. The term Pagani is often used in opposition to milites, and is applied to all who were not soldiers, even though they did not live in the country. ”

“ To the government of this population was brought the highly developed organisation of the later Pagan Empire, joined with an ecclesiastical system from which heresy was periodically eliminated by the imperial policy, aided by the positive intellectual inferiority of the new Greek-speaking species. There was prosperity enough for material life; and the political and religious system was such as to prevent the normal result of prosperity, culture, from developing independently. ”

“ As the revival of dialectic renewed men’s interests in abstract science, so did the revival of law broaden men’s practical interests. If in the long-run it gave weapons to Empire as well as to Papacy, the first result was to complete the equipment of the hierarchy for the business of ruling the world. While the civilian’s Empire was a theory, the canonist’s Papacy was a fact. ”

“ The rules of panegyric require that I should mention your native land no less than your ancestors. But I am at a loss what country I ought to consider peculiarly yours. For countless nations have long asserted their claim to be your country. The city [5] that rules over them all was your mother and nurse, and in an auspicious hour delivered to you the imperial sceptre, and therefore asserts her sole title to the honour, and that not merely by resorting to the plea that has prevailed under all the emperors. ”

“ A new religion in one of the least important provinces of the Roman Empire, Christianity, in three centuries, pushed its doctrines to the very end of the vast Roman domain, and even made the conquest of the imperial throne itself. ”

“ The people who acclaimed this teaching by instinct ultimately organized themselves, conquered the Pagan world, enlisted Pagan elements into their organization—Pagan spirit and Pagan order—and gradually accomplished a task which no other European values seem to have been able to do. They established one idea, one thought, one hope, in the breasts of almost all great Western peoples, from Ireland to Constantinople, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. ”

“ In evidence of this, I will only mention the regret which he expressed to me, in one of his last letters, that the Greek crisis prevented him from making his usual trip to France in 1909:
[Pg 226]
"Here where duty keeps me—nobody knows for how long—I often think of my friends at Aix, of my friends in France, whom I should so much like to see again; of that beautiful country, of our walks and talks. But life is made up of little sacrifices; they do not count, if we succeed in attaining the object which we pursue ”

“ Like all other lawmakers—even legendary ones—especially those who sought to prepare and safeguard their states for and against hostile neighbours, the first concern of the founder of Rome was a strong nation; and a strong nation meant necessarily as many adult males in good health and physical condition as possible. Soldiers were more important than other human beings; in this the supposed founder followed the spirit of his time and the standard of his age of development. ”

“ And yet such a Doctrine is now rank Heresy in the Church of Rome. But, by declaring it such, have they not overset their own System, which places Tradition upon a Level with the Canonical Books of the Scripture? |How little Tradition to
be depended upon.| Can they allege a more antient Tradition, one more universally received, or equally countenanced by Scripture, in favour of the many traditional Articles of Faith, which they have obtruded upon the World? Papias declares, he received the above-mentioned Doctrine of those who had learned it immediately of the Apostles. ”

“ The best thing of all is that the Greeks should not go to war with each other at all, but give the gods hearty thanks if by all speaking with one voice, Speech of Agelaus of Naupactus foreshadowing the Roman conquest. and joining hands like people crossing a stream, they may be able to repel the attacks of barbarians and save themselves and their cities. ”